Galloping Gargoyles! Is Harry Potter Losing His (Earning) Power?

Galloping Gargoyles! Is Harry Potter Losing His (Earning) Power? (EPA/Johannes Eisele AAP)

By the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter in 2017, over 400 million Harry Potter books had been sold worldwide and translated into 68 languages. In spite of J. K. Rowling’s rejection by a dozen publishers before her success with Bloomsbury, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone became one of the best selling books of all time.

The film franchise of the books grossed US$8.5 billion, book sales totalled US$7.7 billion, US$7.3 billion has been made from toys and merchandise, and US$2 billion from DVD sales. The Harry Potter “empire” has an estimated total worth of US$25 billion.

With bars, theme parks, fan conventions, mugs, costumes and knitting patterns going gangbusters, it seemed the little wizard could do no wrong. Words like “muggle”, “quidditch” and “Hogwarts” have become part of our vocabulary. But more than a decade since the last Harry Potter book was published, it appears the lucrative spell is wearing off.

For the wool wizards. (Booktopia)

 Page to screen to stage

Since the end of the beloved series (the last book in 2007 and film in 2011), there have been two spin-off stories: the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and the play Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, both released in 2016. The film’s sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was released in 2018.

The first Fantastic Beasts film performed reasonably well at the box office, grossing US$814 million worldwide, which is within the earnings range of the first eight Harry Potter films.

However, the Fantastic Beasts sequel resulted in less box office revenue than the first, at US$654 million globally, the lowest grossing of all the “Harry-verse” films.

Subsequent questions have been raised about how the third planned film will perform, let alone the rest of the five-film series that had previously been mooted.

The Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play is broadly considered a West End and Broadway success and has toured internationally. Despite the huge amount of money invested and the creative approach taken in promoting the production, ticket sales have seen a considerable drop in the past year (50% since their peak).

Harry Potter franchise revenue streams. (Statista, CC BY)

A turning point

In and of itself the play was always going to be a challenge: it is a two-part production which means theatre goers have to buy two tickets and attend twice. The producers say it is intended to be seen “in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings”.

This makes cost a problematic factor. It’s also a big time commitment. The play has a rather daunting running time of around two hours and 40 minutes each time, making a total duration of just over five hours. That’s likely to be too much for many young fans.

It’s hard to imagine anyone but Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson playing the central roles onstage. (IMDB)

And about those “young fans”. When the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie debuted in 2002, 60% of the audience was under the age of 15. This cohort are now in their 30s and this age group is considered as “non-theatre goers”. In the UK the average theatre audience member is 52. The average age of the Broadway theatregoer is 42 years old. Australian audiences at musicals and operas were last estimated to be predominantly between 55 and 74 years of age in 2014.

Another huge part of the appeal with the books and the films is the incredible fantasy world presented. Though audience members were encouraged to #keepthesecrets, transferring the magic of film CGI to the stage is an obvious challenge.

Another issue could be the recasting of Harry, Hermione and Ron. Not only are the famous three played by completely new people, but they’re no longer the young mischievous kids who captured our hearts.

The play, also published as a book, is set 20 years on from the last film, and Harry and the gang are all grown up. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have become so cemented as their characters, it is a stretch for audiences to accept anyone else in these roles.

Losing momentum

As well as challenges with the play, there are reports that ticket sales for theme parks and book sales are also slowing. Perhaps this is to be expected, given the nature of marketing “momentum”.

Marketers build momentum through exposure of their brand, product or service and through generating excitement. But eventually, when a product has been in the market for a certain period of time, momentum inevitably slows. Demand subsequently drops and may fall away completely.

For some Harry Potter fans ‘it will never end’. (EPA/Justin Lane)

Product campaigns – and Harry Potter is indeed a product – need certain elements to be successful. It all starts with marketing the right product, promoted with the right message to the right audience at the right time. Marketers add momentum into this mix and voila - you have marketing gold. The Harry Potter franchise ticked these boxes in a way that few brands have ever done, providing wonder and delight to audiences worldwide and riches to its creator.

Over 20 years later, the highly successful book and movie franchise, and all its various spin-offs, may finally be losing momentum.

Perhaps another fictional character will take his place. There are no doubt authors sending their pitches to a dozen publishers right now and hoping this will be the case. Or maybe Harry Potter was a once-in-a-lifetime wizard.

About Today's Contributors:

Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania; Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology, and Martin Grimmer, Professor of Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Related Stories:

• Warner Bros. To Open First Ever Harry Potter Flagship Store In New York
• "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" Celebrates Global Expansion With The Biggest Times Square Takeover On Record
• More Magic Awaits … Be the First to Unlock It With Wizarding World Gold
• Wizarding World Digital Introduces The Official Harry Potter Fan Club And New Mobile Hogwarts Sorting Ceremony [Trailer Included]

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Demo Now Available

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PRNewsfoto / Square Enix)

Square Enix has announced that PlayStation owners worldwide can now download a playable demo of the role-playing hit Final Fantasy VII Remake to be released on April 10 , 2020 . 

The demo from the PlayStation Store allows all PlayStation Plus subscribers to experience the game's first mission and the events that occur during the Mako Reactor 1 attack up close. 

• Anyone who downloads the demo by May 11, 2020 will receive an exclusive PlayStation 4 design for the release of the complete game.

Final Fantasy VII Remake (screengrab)

Final Fantasy VII Remake takes players into a world in which the opaque Shinra Corporation controls the life force of the planet. Cloud Strife, a former member of the SOLDIER elite unit and now a mercenary, is helping a resistance group called Avalanche. 

The first game of the project takes place in the city of Midgar and presents a completely independent gaming experience for role players who want unforgettable characters, a captivating story and the opportunity to determine their own playing style with a combat system that real-time action with strategic, command-based Fight connects.

The Trailer:

• Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released on April 10 , 2020 for PlayStation 4. 
• The demo of Final Fantasy VII Remake is now available for download on PlayStation 4. 

For more information see: www.ffvii-remake.com

SOURCE: Square Enix

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Bernie Sanders: Making Socialism Cool Again

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign event in Spartanburg, S.C., on Feb. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Love him or hate him, Bernie Sanders has emerged as the indisputable front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders has inspired a massive, energetic, hardworking and fiercely loyal following, determined to carry him to victory at the Democratic National Convention in July.

To the great agitation of his rivals and critics, Sanders has demonstrated a stunning popularity among a diverse cross-section of voters, including women, Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, union members and especially young people.

The oft-repeated trope of the white “Bernie bro” has proven to be more myth than reality. Sanders’ rapid and dramatic rise to front-runner status has sent his critics in the Democratic Party into a full-blown panic, revealing their inability to understand the current historical moment and the rhetorical power of the Sanders campaign.

Women, including young women of colour, are among those who have been energized by Sanders. Supporters are seen here in South Carolina. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

How, they wonder, has Sanders risen to the top of the field? What exactly is his appeal? 

Why are young people, including young women of colour, going for the old white guy?

Perhaps most importantly, why are so many Democratic voters warming to socialism, long regarded as antithetical to the American way of life?

As he did in 2016, Sanders has exposed a deep rift in the Democratic Party between its centrist and progressive wings.

The Third Way

This rift is not so much an intra-family dispute as a longstanding rivalry between two distinct political traditions. The first of these traditions is the so-called Third Way, first described by British sociologist Anthony Giddens in the early 1990s.

The Third Way was conceived after the end of the Cold War as an alternative to the left and the right. Also known as the “radical centre,” the Third Way rejects both the robust government interventionism championed by the left and the intolerance and bigotry congenital to the right.

It pursues incremental change while vigorously upholding a capitalist order. Bill Clinton was the first American president to put Third Way politics into practice. The Third Way has since become the reigning orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. Even Barack Obama, who campaigned on the lofty rhetoric of “hope and change,” governed as a resolute and unapologetic centrist, much to the disappointment of his progressive base.

Elizabeth Warren is also at odds with the Third Way. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

 With the exception of Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the rest of the Democratic field falls squarely within the tradition of the Third Way.

While the Third Way proved to be a politically salient politics during the 1990s, it has since calcified into rigid and obstinate dogma. The longstanding habit of ignoring the poor, siding with the rich and powerful and pursuing only incremental change has run up against a brick wall of brute reality: Gilded Age-levels of income inequality, skyrocketing medical debt, US$1.5 trillion in student loan debt, a racist criminal justice system and impending ecological collapse.

‘Massive failure’

Set against this stark empirical reality, incrementalism appears to far too many voters to be a massive failure. And the apologetic habit of dressing it up in the robes of pragmatic necessity has become a kind of secular theology: it demands faith in a better future that it can never deliver, a future lacking precise detail because it lacks a definable goal.

In the logic of the Third Way, incremental change becomes an end in itself: change for its own sake.

The problem with this delicate high-wire act — preaching incremental change in the face of exponentially worsening social and environmental crises — is that it has become impossible to pull off convincingly. Talk of incremental change doesn’t sound very promising or encouraging when the planet is on fire and climate scientists have given us a very short window to act.

By contrast, Sanders has been a lifelong advocate of democratic socialism, a tradition whose core principle is that democracy should be expanded from politics into the workplace — the sphere of life in which we spend the bulk of our waking lives.

Democratic socialism goes beyond mere social democracy — beyond programs like universal health care and public pensions — by calling for a fundamental change in the relationship between executives and workers.

It holds that workers should also have decision-making power, including over how revenue is distributed and how they get paid.

Deep, structural change

Democratic socialists want the workplace to be structured democratically, not like little North Koreas, in which CEOs rule like tyrants. Socialists see capitalist exploitation of people and the planet as the root of injustice. Hence, they advocate not incremental, but deep, structural change.

The reason Sanders has been so politically appealing to a diverse coalition of voters is because he offers a powerful explanatory key for making sense of America’s crisis moment.

He indicts not just specific people, like Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos, but the system: The political economic structure in which the super-rich have amassed extraordinary sums of wealth at the expense of everyone else, and our shared planet.

Bernie Sanders is seen speaking to an overflow crowd at a Super Bowl watch party campaign event on Feb. 2, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sanders’s rhetorical genius is to have linked different types of injustice, like income inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality, and environmental breakdown, through a single frame: corporate greed.

This enables voters to see injustice in big-picture terms. Sanders has equipped his base with a revolutionary political vocabulary for expressing their sense of injustice, as well as a language of shared struggle against a structure that thrives on exploitation. Solidarity, it turns out, is incredibly empowering.

Rise of a new politics

Third Way Democrats have scrambled to understand the Sanders revolution.

They’ve dismissed him as an old man yelling at the clouds and a snake-oil salesman offering the false promise of “free stuff.” Worse, they have been forced to perform the awkward dance of claiming the mantle of progressivism while disavowing popular progressive proposals and “revolution politics.”

This has inspired rhetorical gimmicks like cowboy talk and meaningless platitudes, that have been mercilessly satirized online. The desperate turn to disavowal and gimmickry strongly suggests the collapse of the Third Way and the rise of a new politics for the Democratic Party.

Democratic socialism might just be about to have its moment in America.

About Today's Contributor:

Jason Hannan, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communications, University of Winnipeg

• Jason Hannan is the author of Ethics Under Capital: MacIntyre, Communication, and the Culture Wars (Bloomsbury, 2020). Read the prologue here.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Related Stories:

• How Socialism Became Un-American Through The Ad Council’s Propaganda Campaigns
• Citizens Regeneration Lobby - Group Representing U.S. Consumers, Farmers & Ranchers - Endorses Bernie Sanders

How Socialism Became Un-American Through The Ad Council’s Propaganda Campaigns

Bernie Sanders was asked at a CNN-sponsored town hall about socialism. (CNN screenshot)

Bernie Sanders has emerged as the Democratic front-runner in the race for the presidential nomination.

Yet even some left-leaning pundits and publications are concerned about what they see as Sanders’ potential lack of electability.

Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. And the label “socialist” is a political liability in American culture. According to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 11, 2020, only 45% of Americans would vote for a socialist.

I am a scholar of American culture with an interest in the relationship between political ideologies and popular culture. In my research, I have found that this antipathy toward socialism may not be an accident: American identity today is strongly tied to an image of capitalism crafted and advertised by the Ad Council and American corporate interests over decades, often with the support of the U.S. government.

A screenshot from one of the corporate Cold War-era cartoons linking the Bill of Rights to free-enterprise ideology. (Internet Archive, Prelinger Collection)

Business and government solidarity

In 1942, a group of advertising and industry executives created the War Advertising Council, to promote the war effort. The government compensated the companies that created or donated ads by allowing them to deduct some of their costs from their taxable incomes.

Renamed the Ad Council in 1943, the organization applied the same wartime persuasive techniques of advertising and psychological manipulation during the Cold War years, the post-war period when the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S., the USSR and their respective allies raged. One of their goals: promoting the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise in America while simultaneously demonizing the alternative – socialism – which was often conflated with communism.

Government propaganda at home portrayed the communist USSR as godless, tyrannical and antithetical to individual freedoms. As a counterpoint, America became everything the Soviet Union was not.

This link between capitalism and American national identity was advertised through a sophisticated, corporate effort as efficient and ubiquitous as state-driven propaganda behind the Iron Curtain.

The campaigns used the ideological divisions of the Cold War to emphasize the relevance of their message. In a 1948 report, the Ad Council explained its goal to the public: “The world today is engaged in a colossal struggle to determine whether freedom or statism will dominate.”

Extolling capitalism’s virtues

The campaigns started as a public-private partnership. At the end of World War II, the government worried about the spread of communism at home. Business interests worried about government regulations and about the rising popularity of unions. The Cold War provided both parties with a shared enemy.

In 1947, President Truman asked the Ad Council to organize the Freedom Train Campaign, focusing on the history of America’s political freedoms. Paramount Pictures, U.S. Steel, DuPont, General Electric and Standard Oil provided financial support. For two years the train crisscrossed the nation, carrying original documents that included the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

One of the Ad Council’s messages about capitalism in America. (Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives, Duke University Libraries)

The following year, the Ad Council launched a business-led campaign, called “The Miracle of America,” intended to foster support for the American model of capitalism, as distinct from its Western European version, which was more friendly to government intervention. It urged increased productivity by U.S. workers, linked economic and political freedom and, paradoxically, asserted capitalism’s collaborative nature.

“Sure, America is going ahead if we all pull together,” read a brochure. Another flyer, “Comes the Revolution!,” cast its support of American capitalism in the language of global struggle: “If we continue to make that system work…then other nations will follow us. If we don’t, then they’ll probably go communist or fascist.”

In its first two years, the Miracle of America message reached American audiences via 250 radio and television stations and 7,000 outdoor billboards. Newspapers printed 13 million lines of free advertising. The Ad Council boasted that the campaign made over 1 billion “radio listener impressions.”

American factory workers received about half of the 1.84 million copies of the free pamphlet “The Miracle of America.” One-quarter were distributed free of charge to schools, and 76 universities ordered the booklet.

This pro-business propaganda, expressed in the language of Cold War patriotism, had reached roughly 70% of the American population by the end of the campaign.

How Ad Council campaigns after WWII helped make socialism un-American.

Cartoon capitalism

The efforts produced more than just print and billboard messages.

In 1946, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded by the former head of General Motors, paid the evangelical Harding College to produce “Fun and Facts about American Business,” a series of educational cartoon videos about capitalism, produced by a former Disney employee.

Between 1949 and 1952, Metro Goldwyn Mayer distributed them in theaters, schools, colleges, churches and workplaces.

The films promoted the same messages as the Ad Council campaigns, although they were not part of the project. They continued a decade-long effort by the Sloan Foundation to start, in the words of its executive director, “a bombardment of the American mind with elementary economic principles through partnering with educational institutions.”

To both Sloan and the movement’s backers, business interests were synonymous with the national interest. The free-enterprise system was a shorthand for freedom, democracy and patriotism. Unlike in Europe, the videos suggested, class struggle – of the kind that required unions – did not exist in the U.S.

In the cartoon “Meet the King,” Joe, the archetypal American worker, realizes he is not an exploited proletarian. Instead, he’s a king, “because he can buy more with his wages than any other worker on the globe.”

Conversely, government regulations of, or interventions in, the economy were described in the cartoons as socialist tendencies, bound to lead to communism and tyranny.

“Make Mine Freedom,” and “It’s Everybody’s Business” presented the state as a perpetual threat. A money-sucking tax monster, the government reduces everyone’s profits, crushes private enterprise and takes away individual freedoms: “No more private property, no more you.”

According to an estimate from Fortune magazine, by 1952, American businesses spent US$100 million each year, independent from any Ad Council campaigns, promoting free enterprise.

‘Peanuts’ pushes freedom

In the early 1970s, business responded to rising negativity about corporate power with a new campaign coordinated by the Ad Council.

“The American Economic System … and Your Part in It” was launched alongside the bicentennial national celebrations. It was the largest centralized pro-business public relations project thus far, but only one of many independently run by corporations.

Part of a page from the 1970s booklet that used Charles Schultz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. (Amazon)

The media industry donated $40 million in free space and air time in the first year of the campaign. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor contributed about half a million dollars toward the production costs for a 20-page booklet.

That booklet used data provided by the departments of Commerce and Labor and Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts’ comic strips to explain the benefits of America’s economic system. The system was again presented as a foundational freedom protected by a Constitution whose goal was to “maintain a climate in which people could work, invest, and prosper.”

By 1979, 13 million copies had been distributed to schools, universities, libraries, civic organizations and workplaces.

Echoes now?

For four decades, the Cold War provided a simple good-vs.-evil axis that consolidated the association between freedom, American-ness and free-enterprise capitalism.

The business community, independently and through the Ad Council, funded massive top-down economic education programs which shaped American perceptions of business and government and of capitalism and socialism.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago, but its cultural structures and divisions endure – perhaps, even, in the responses of some Americans to Bernie Sanders’ socialism.

About Today's Contributor:

Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, Associate Teaching Professor of American Studies, Miami University

Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. 

"Shadow Arena" Now Available for Global Beta Test

Shadow Arena Now Available for Global Beta Test

Pearl Abyss announced that its upcoming title, Shadow Arena, is now available for a global beta test. Available on Steam, the beta will run until March 8 with support in 14 languages.

Shadow Arena is an action battle royale that pits 40 players against each other in a ruthless fight to become the sole survivor. Players can choose from nine Heroes, each with their own unique fighting styles. While battling fiercely against opponents, players must also slay monsters to collect loot in order to upgrade their gear and gain buffs to become the winner. 

After successful Beta tests in Korea and Russia, Shadow Arena now features a number of new systems and content to offer an improved gameplay experience.

Badal the Golden is the latest Hero to join the roster of Heroes and offers a new combat style that players can enjoy. He is a fierce melee fighter with the ability to throw lightning-fast combos at his opponents. This new Hero is recommended for those looking to defeat their opponents with stylish, bare-fist combat and powerful combos.

In addition, the global beta offers "Team Mode" where players can team up in pairs and combine their skills to gain a tactical edge in combat. "Practice Mode" allows players to learn the basics of the game and test out new tactics. "Private Matches" can also be hosted with select groups of people for a customized gaming experience.

• Matchmaking has also been introduced in this beta, which is a purely skills-based system that advances players to higher tiers based on their performance. 
• Item sealing is also available, allowing players who obtain items from a previous match to seal one kind of item and bring it into the next match. 
• Defeating monsters can also grant players special buffs that can be activated at the Ancient Altar to give them a further advantage on the battlefield. 

Shadow Arena Now Available for Global Beta Test (image via Steam)

Shadow Arena will offer a game experience that draws from the MOBA, Battle Royale, and MMO genres. Players can explore a range of distinctive skills and abundant features that the game is offering during the beta period. 

Shadow Arena Now Available for Global Beta Test (image via Steam)

Shadow Arena will be released on PC during the first half of 2020 and is expected to launch on console at a later date.

• For more information on Shadow Arena, visit the official website.

SOURCE: Pearl Abyss

"When the Earth Moves" to Premiere at the EarthX Film Festival and the Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit

"When the Earth Moves" (Outrider Foundation/Generous Films)

The timely short film When the Earth Moves is set to premiere via back-to-back screenings at the EarthX Film Festival on April 22nd and the Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit on April 25th and will then immediately be available on YouTube and at outrider.org. 

When the Earth Moves reclaims the authentic story and original vision of Earth Day as a bipartisan and socially just environmental movement and highlights the need for people across generations and on both sides of the political aisle to play an active part. The premiere coincides with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day – an event that is expected to activate over a billion people worldwide around environmental and climate action.

The film features archival footage of the original 1970 Earth Day and its founder, Wisconsin Senator and Governor Gaylord Nelson, as well as leading voices from the modern Earth Day movement, including Nelson's daughter and Outrider Foundation Managing Director Tia Nelson, former South Carolina Congressman and RepublicEn founder Bob Inglis, and youth activist and Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash.

"I feel especially compelled to tell my father's story at this unique moment in history," says Tia Nelson. "He worked tirelessly his whole life to build an inclusive Earth Day movement, and today, 50 years later, the job is not yet done. It's imperative that we come together as a nation to protect our environment and renew our commitment to building a brighter future for all Americans."

"When the Earth Moves demonstrates that when it comes to environmental issues like climate change, we're literally in this together – all of us, the whole nation and world," says Bob Inglis. "In solving them, we have the opportunity to model a way out of divisiveness, a way out of destruction, a way of respect and love. This is a huge challenge and an incredible calling."

"Building on the momentum generated by the millions of students who took to the streets on Earth Day 1970, we are the climate generation today," says Varshini Prakash. "We are promoting a new kind of environmentalism that is rooted in racial and economic justice, and waking and shaking millions more people to action."

When the Earth Moves - Trailer:

The film is produced by Outrider Foundation, in partnership with Generous Films.

Outrider Foundation believes in the power of an informed, engaged public. It uses digital media to help enhance public understanding of global threats such as climate change and nuclear war, and to inspire action. 

Outrider's content – including films, interactive features, and in-depth articles – help audiences learn what's at stake and how they can be a part of the solution. 

• For more information, visit: outrider.org

Generous Films is an independent production company focused on socially and politically relevant campaigns that spark change. 

Generous' work includes the renowned short film series Let Science Speak, which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca TV Festival and aired on The Weather Channel. 

• For more information, visit: generousfilms.com

EarthX Film Festival features films and emerging media that explore conservation, climate change, and the environment while honoring the heroes working to protect our planet. 

The goal is to turn awareness into action, through art and motion picture media including documentaries, film shorts, and virtual reality, and to partner with environmental, film and entertainment organizations across the globe. 

EarthX Film Festival will run April 22-26, 2020 in Dallas, Texas. 

• For more information, visit: earthx.org/

Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit showcases stories of both small and large-scale actions that frame the conversation and demonstrate that success is possible. 

The event reaches millions around the world who can learn, adapt, and scale success for greater impact. 

The Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit will run April 23-25th in Washington, DC. 

• For more information, visit: earthoptimism.si.edu/

SOURCE: Outrider Foundation

Are We Finally Taking Our Cars to the Sky? Flying Car, PAL-V Liberty, Started Road Admission and Can Be Seen at GIMS 2020 [Video Included]

World’s First Commercial Flying Car, the PAL-V Liberty, started its road admission tests and has reached the final stage of air certification. Are we finally going to take our cars to the sky? According to Robert Dingemanse, CEO of PAL-V, the PAL-V Liberty will be delivered in 2021 to its already pre-registered customers.

The flying car era starts. Many companies are showing their vision of future mobility. Can you imagine taking your car into the sky? Will we fly through highways in the sky? One thing is certain, mobility will change and PAL-V is recognized as one of the key players.

Since 2008, PAL-V has been developing a flying car. In 2012, it had its first breakthrough: fly-and drive-testing the PAL-V One. PAL-V has set major steps since, it has now realized its production facility in which it built its first product, the PAL-V Liberty. The order book is growing and last week the PAL-V started the European Road Admission, a major milestone towards the start of delivery. The air certification has reached the final stage as well, compliance demonstration.

World’s First Commercial Flying Car, the PAL-V Liberty, started its road admission tests and has reached the final stage of air certification. (screengrab)

Robert Dingemanse, CEO of PAL-V: "The term flying cars is used for two different applications. The first flying cars, fly and drive, and are used like cars for personal mobility going from door-to-door between towns and cities. Imagine living in Geneva and driving your flying car from your garage to go to an appointment in Cannes (South-France). Driving 10 minutes to the nearest (grass) airstrip, take-off and be on your way to Cannes. After 2 hours you land near Cannes and in minutes you convert your aircraft back to car-mode. Another 10-minute drive and you arrive at your appointment in the city. A journey that normally takes 5.5 hours will now take only 2.5 hours. On top, you enjoyed the birds-eye view of the Alps, the French countryside, and the freedom of flying. A dream comes true."

According to Dingemanse, certification, safety, ease of use, performance, and compactness on the road are critical design factors in developing flying cars. "No one wants to fly a car that isn't certified, hard to fly or that doesn't fit a standard parking spot," says Dingemanse.

The other application is flying cars designed to only fly and to be used in urban environment. 

Mike Stekelenburg, CTO of PAL-V: "We expect that flying above cities will start 8-12 years from now. These vehicles are called urban air-taxies or eVTOLs (electrical Vertical Take-Off and Landing). They are designed for use as public transportation, flying from platform-to-platform and not going from door-to-door. They're an alternative to helicopters, metros, and buses." PAL-V has also filed patents for a competitive solution for this market. It recently teamed up with the Netherlands Aerospace Centre, Stekelenburg; "While the PAL-V Liberty is designed for going from door-to-door, this eVTOL is useful for Urban Air Mobility."

The Video:

According to Dingemanse, we will take our cars to the sky in 2021 and the PAL-V Liberty can be seen on the roads in the upcoming months. However, before we see air-taxies in urban environment we still have to wait another 10 years, because of the many challenges like regulations, infrastructure, technology, noise, safety, city turbulence, and social acceptance.

SOURCE: PAL-V International B.V.

"The Way of the Rain - Hope For Earth" to World Premiere at Earthx2020

The Way of the Rain – Hope For Earth is a multidisciplinary environmental performance created and directed by Sibylle Szaggars Redford, in collaboration with Music Composer Tim Janis, Performance Film Artist Floyd Thomas McBee, with a special narration – spoken word by Robert Redford. It interprets nature’s powerful beauty while calling attention to the Earth’s vulnerability brought on by climate change.

EarthX will host The Way of the Rain – Hope For Earth, a multidisciplinary environmental performance created and directed by Sibylle Szaggars Redford, in collaboration with Music Composer Tim Janis, Performance Film Artist Floyd Thomas McBee, with a special narration – spoken word by Robert Redford. The performance will be held on April 25 at Music Hall, Fair Park in Dallas for Earthx2020. Capping off the week of events, the performance interprets nature's powerful beauty while calling attention to the Earth's vulnerability brought on by climate change.

"We were struck by the beauty of Sibylle Szaggars Redford's powerful piece and knew that we had to include this in our 50th Celebration of Earth Day Week festivities," said EarthX Founder Trammell S. Crow.

"We are honored The Way of the Rain - Hope for Earth was chosen to premiere in Dallas and to be a part of the important celebration for our Planet this coming April at EarthX," said Sibylle Szaggars Redford, Founder, President & Artistic Director of The Way of the Rain. "The future of Earth and our well-being lies in our hands, only together - like raindrops - will we be able to nourish the river of life! Let's raise our voices together in these crucial times for Earth - the Mother of All!"

The Way of the Rain - Hope for Earth tells the artistic story about the formation of the Universe, the evolution of all galaxies, and eventually the birth of our unique and beautiful Planet Earth with all its elements. 

This version of The Way of the Rain is a creation for Symphony, Choir, Film, Art and Spoken Word. This iteration of the performance will feature a performance by a youth choir comprised of students from several high schools in the Dallas area and a Dallas/Fort Worth local combined symphony, that will also include a number of student musicians.

• Performance Film: Mother Earth
• Storyline and Direction: Sibylle Szaggars Redford
• Content Research and Film Editing: Floyd Thomas McBee
• Music composed by: Tim Janis
• Spoken Word: Written by Robert Redford and Sibylle Szaggars Redford - with narration by Robert Redford
• Produced by: TCG Entertainment, EarthX and EarthxFilm

Tickets will be available on Ticketmaster on Friday, February 28.

• Registration is available online at www.EarthX.org.

About The Way of the Rain

The Way of the Rain was inspired by the annual monsoon rains that sustain life on the fragile landscape of the high - desert plateaus of the Southwest. This live multidisciplinary performance invites the audience to remember their physical and spiritual connection to our planet's beauty and plight through paintings, music, dance, film, light, and spoken word. Conceived by environmental artist Sibylle Szaggars Redford to explore the issue of climate change resulting in rapidly changing weather patterns, Szaggars Redford collaborates with world-renowned artists to create a piece that illustrates crucial environmental dilemmas through performance art.

• For more information about The Way of the Rain please click here

SOURCE: EarthX

Let's Make China Free The Uyghurs!

Let's Make China Free The Uyghurs! (image via Avaaz.org)

Dear friends,

Coronavirus put China in the spotlight, but there's another crisis it wants to hide from the world: 1 million Uyghurs have been brutally detained and brainwashed by Chinese authorities!

Women raped and tortured, children stolen from their parents.

It's too horrific to believe this is happening in 2020 and most of our governments aren't brave enough to speak up. But we won't remain silent! In days, the UN could discuss this nightmare, and insiders say that a global call to bravery can get key countries to finally challenge China. If everyone reading signs now, we can deliver 1 million signatures into the meeting -- 1 for every Uyghur who has been detained!

Then, we'll take survivors' voices to parliaments across the world and pressure global companies to end their engagement in this cultural genocide -- showing China and the world that we won't let go until the Uyghurs are free.

Click here to sign the urgent call to free the Uyghurs!

Beijing has felt threatened by the Uyghur community for decades -- but it's steadily gone from caution to control, to repression, and now mass incarceration and indoctrination. The sheer scale of the repression requires huge tech infrastructure -- facial recognition, surveillance on homes and public spaces, and massive DNA databases.

Global brands offer capital and tech, while China offers up forced labor and huge returns on investment in Chinese surveillance technologies -- it’s an unholy alliance! But if the UN, governments, companies, and investors speak out, impose sanctions on those responsible, and throttle funding streams coming into China, Beijing could shift course… and we could make it happen!

Recently, a Holocaust survivor offered an 11th Commandment for humanity: “Thou shalt not be indifferent.” This is a matter of conscience for all of us.

Let’s start by compelling our governments to call on Beijing to protect the human rights of the Uyghur people. Then, we'll urge global investors and CEOs to break their silence and stop business as usual with China! 

Sign now and share with all of your friends.
Click here to sign the urgent call to free the Uyghurs!

Time and again our community has stood with brave minority groups fighting for their right to exist. From the Indigenous in the Amazon to the Maasai people in Kenya, we have amplified their voices for the world to hear. Now, let's amplify the voices of the Uyghurs suffering in mass brainwashing camps in China, and do all we can to help them walk free. Join now!

With hope and determination,

Loup Dargent

On behalf of Meetali, Diego, Luis, Huiting, Nataliya, Will, Wissam and the rest of the Avaaz team

More information:

• Watched, Judged, Detained (CNN)
• In China’s Crackdown on Muslims, Children Have Not Been Spared (New York Times)
• US Universities And Retirees Are Funding The Technology Behind China’s Surveillance State (BuzzFeed News)
• Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals For Mass Internment And Arrest By Algorithm (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)
• US Lawmakers Want An Examination Of The US Money Funding Surveillance Tech In China (BuzzFeed News)