Saudi Arabia once seemed like a place where you'd be hard-pressed to find a patch of grass. Now, there are pitches of it all over the place. It's part of the country's effort to become a soccer capital—and bring in a lot of soccer capital— as the Saudis look to a future when oil revenue alone won't be enough. Massive patches of grass drenched with desalinated sea water aren't the only surprises in Saudi Arabia these days. There are also the cranes. A lot of them. "The first impression you get upon arriving in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, is not of heat, but of cranes. The city is forested with them, as if a sketch artist has roughed out a skyline and everyone else is now tasked with filling it in. The tinnitus hum of construction is everywhere. You can’t seem to drive three blocks without encountering signage teasing some new development—an impossibly tall skyscraper, a new entertainment district, an upscale housing complex illustrated with 3D mock-ups of smiling, uncovered people of all races and genders living in harmony." GQ's Oliver Franklin-Wallis: Can Saudi Arabia Buy Soccer? (And what else comes with that if they do?) "Critics have called its sports investment sportswashing: an attempt to use sports’ mass appeal to distract from the regime’s human rights abuses. MBS has dismissed those claims, saying, 'If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1 percent, then I will continue doing sportswashing.' Either way, soccer, with its unmatched global audience, is seen as the Saudis’ greatest prize. And so the regime has set out to transform the Pro League from a competitive backwater into a rival for England’s Premier League or Spain’s La Liga as one of the best in the world." 2Throwing Shade"When they feel the effects of heat illness coming on, they have the right to cool down in the shade. Sunripe Certified Brands, the company that owns the farm, must provide clean water, shaded rest areas and nearby bathrooms for all of its workers." Water, shade, rest. These would seem to be miniumum requirements for farmworkers toiling in an increasingly warm world. But don't bet the farm on that. These are unique, hard won worker rights. WaPo (Gift Article): These farmworkers created America’s strongest workplace heat rules. "Every year, the organization sends auditors to participating farms, where they interview at least half the workers about labor conditions. So far, organizers say they’ve done more than 30,000 interviews. Auditors also check companies’ payroll records for evidence of wage theft. That’s more oversight than most government regulators can manage." 3Knowing the Half of It"On Monday, just three days after her husband’s death, Yulia Navalnaya rebranded herself as a political force, vowing to pick up where her husband left off. 'I don’t have the right to surrender,' she said in an eight-minute video posted to her dead husband’s social media channels. 'I ask you to share with me in rage.'" The courageous Yulia Navalnaya is raising hopes for a renewed Russian opposition. She will face huge challenges. 4UnfitFor me, there are no five words that stir up middle school PTSD like The Presidential Physical Fitness Test. Those of a certain age remember it. We all had to do it. I was particularly bad at it. At my school, you could either do pull-ups or the flex hang. My flex hang was so brief that my PE teacher said, "I'll just put down half a pull-up, that will probably be worth more." I would have responded with a request to be placed in the fitness protection program, but my arms were too tired to pun. NYT (Gift Article): Could You Pass the Presidential Physical Fitness Test Today? (Of course, these days Presidential Fitness has a whole different connotation.) 5Extra, ExtraFairfax and Figures: "The Fairfax County School Board overhauled the Thomas Jefferson admissions process in 2020, scrapping a standardized test. The new policy gives weight in favor of applicants who are economically disadvantaged or still learning English, but it does not take race into account." The Supreme Court leaves in place the admissions plan at an elite Virginia public high school. 6Bottom of the News"The largely bipartisan-supported bill on celebratory gunfire represents a rare effort to regulate guns in a state with some of the most expansive laws on firearm ownership." Missouri House votes to ban celebratory gunfire. They finally place a limit on gun use in America and it's to prevent them being used joyfully.
|
See the post that he shared. Facebook 📄 Liaqat Ali Ali shared Waheed Zaman 's post. 26 April at 12:09 View This message was sent to ludomallam@idiot.cloudns.cc . If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe . Facebook, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025 To help keep your account secure, please don't forward this email. Learn more
Comments
Post a Comment