Midrange Weekly July 12

Your Weekly Round Up On What’s Got The Midrange Staff’s Attention

Welcome back to Midrange Weekly. As the July temperatures have stabilized into something that resembles the before times when we weren’t required to be aware of terms like “heat dome”, we hope you’ve been enjoying your time in the sun. Summer Tristan has blossomed once again and is thriving, meanwhile Mickey ruefully awaits the autumn foliage and cooling temperatures. Jamie is always just perpetually cold so there’s no accounting for his seasonal tastes. As long as you are outside you may be emboldened to learn that Vancouver has legalized public drinking in some 20 or so parks (but not John Rodgers?? It’s right next to 33 Acres what the hell?). Of course you’re more likely to respond to the recent municipal updates by saying what the fuck does the city think we’ve been doing for the last year. Let’s dive into this week.

 

The Moral Obligation To Save Afghan Translators

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After nearly 20 years of intractable and increasingly aimless conflict, American forces are finally pulling out of Afghanistan this year, ostensibly ending the longest war in the nation’s history. Under President Biden’s orders all US armed forces (diplomatic personal will remain in a reduced capacity) are to vacate the country by September 11th. As of this publication around 90% have already left. Considering the muddled and obtuse objectives over the years, and the mercurial nature of the Taliban wavering between willingness towards détente and fierce jingoism, the departure seems well over due for many. Others will view the exit as abandoning one of our Middle Eastern allies that could further destabilize the region. Indeed the neophyte Afghan government has been beleaguered by corruption and institutional fragility since inception and the local Afghan Army has never managed secure footing against the militant and resurgent Taliban. As US forces have begun extricating themselves from the quagmire, the Taliban has blitzkrieged the nation and captured nearly a third of the Afghan Army’s installations. Critics of the decision are within their right to view this as capitulation and to argue that the Taliban will surely overthrow the local government. Conversely, it’s become painfully, fatally clear that US intervention after an entire generation was not bolstering any structural security or normalcy. The idea that America’s exit will negatively or positively impact stability in the region is specious reasoning at best. 

What’s far more assured however is the fate of those that assisted in America’s strategy, misguided as it may have been, who were not actually members of their military. This of course refers to the thousands of Afghan translators that assisted US forces for tactical, logistical, and administrative efforts during their decades long occupation of Afghanistan. With America pulling out, the local translators could possibly be left behind and would be in serious danger. Without the protection of American troops, to whom they provided absolutely vital assistance every step of the way in this war, they will be targeted and murdered by the Taliban. Part of the objective of the Taliban’s current phalanx through the country is to let native Afghans know what fate awaits them should they choose to assist the Americans or any other foreign ally. It won’t just be the Taliban sending a message, in their typically brutal and anarchistic methods; America too will be projecting a similar conceit should they resign these translators to a brutal and assured fate. If they abandon these people it will instil a distrust and cynicism towards foreign cooperation with any future coalition forces, even for humanitarian efforts.

America has a moral, even tactical obligation to evacuate these Afghan translators before the Taliban undoubtedly slaughters them. Everyone one of them deserves the opportunity to seek asylum in America and apply to become naturalized citizens. The push for this endeavour is well underway with many advocates with in the US army engendering anyone who will listen to the necessity of doing so. Beyond mere translation work, there are countless incidents documented of Afghan translators saving the lives of US army personnel during fire fights or other ad hoc conflicts. Now they are the ones who need saving. So far the DOD, State Department, and even the White House has expressed willingness to evacuate the translators, but streamlining the logistics and circumventing bureaucratic obstacles is proving difficult, prolonging an operation that has no time to spare. The Taliban is already hunting down the translators; they can’t afford to wait for this to go through the normally glacial procedural channels. 

Part of the hold up is figuring out where exactly to evacuate them to right away. One option is to evacuate them to neighbouring countries in the region such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. However doing so would require potentially complicated negotiations with foreign governments in setting up refuge camps. The esoteric and byzantine realties of such statecraft could get these translators stuck in limbo for years in a foreign nation; should the political and moral urgency to expedite their asylum to the States subside, that could be it for them. The far better option is to evacuate them to the Guam. As a US protectorate the island is technically US territory without being part of the nation’s states. Evacuating the translators here would ensure they were under direct American protection and that American personnel would be processing their asylum requests more directly, without having to redirect every step to a central Asian country. The governor of Guam has expressed openness to this idea, and there is even precedent for such a maneuverer- in the 1990s America helped evacuate Iraqi Kurds to Guam as they faced persecution and genocide at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

While nearly everyone is on board with the idea, the Department of Homeland Security is frustratingly complicating the processes with their own objections to the idea. The DHS states that it is unsafe to have so many “unvetted” foreign nationals in a pipeline to naturalization; who knows what kind of potentially nefarious person might sneak in, they argue. This cynical and reductive view completely ignores that these translators were already thoroughly vetted by the US Army before they could even work for them. These people have been cleared. Furthermore, the Taliban doesn’t care what kind of moral character or background a person has in this regard. If they spent even a day working with the US military the Taliban will kill them and their families. America has made so, so many horrible mistakes in the Middle East over several lifetimes. As it finally begins to rethink its hubristic colonial presence in the region, they have the opportunity to finally do something right. To fail to do so now will only confirm the antagonistic propaganda those they clashed with there have always said about them. -Tristan

 

Work And Happiness

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I must confess, and I believe I’m not alone in thinking this, but one of the few silver linings (there haven’t been many) of this past year has been how it has affected our view of work. For those who didn’t lose their jobs, working from home brought with it a new life experience. Less travel and commutes. More time with family and children. And a renewed sense of having precious moments with oneself. 

My brother-in-law swears he hopes to never return to office work. Staying at home, he says, “has been the best thing that’s ever happened to my career.” 

Sadly, however, not all of us have been so lucky. Many have struggled. Thousands lost their jobs. The divide between those who profited from this pandemic and those who lost out increased significantly. The industry I work in, hospitality, took a major hit. It will take several years to fully recover. And yet, for those who enjoyed the perks of working from home and those who had no other option, one constant remained equal amongst both groups.

Time. 

Time was aplenty and with it came a myriad of possibilities. 

I was no stranger to this new reality. On two separate occasions this past year I found myself out of work for long stretches. In both instances, I was never once bored. What these free moments brought to mine and so many others lives was a renewed sense of life without work. When the pressure of not having to do so is gone, your worldview changes. The word relax actually begins to take shape in your psyche. You sleep better. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Simple pleasures start to dot your daily routine. You’re essentially Julia Roberts at the beginning of Eat Pray Love when she comes to her senses and realizes how unhappy she is. How unfulfilled her life really is. Life is better when you have the time to enjoy it. Unfortunately, so many of us never get that satisfaction. 

I get why. It’s understandable to a degree.

Work is vital to our world and way of life. It gives us purpose and a sense of direction. For some, the work they get to do is incredibly rewarding. Life altering. However, for others, dismally, it isn’t that at all. The world is a cruel and unjust place, where those who are deemed essential and paid the least are the one’s needed the most for the system to continue spinning. 

Nonetheless, in reality, whichever side of the coin you land on, I can almost guarantee, you still work too much. We all do to some degree, unless we’ve been forced not too. Hello pandemic. 

From the CBC:

People who work fewer hours per week are not only happier, but also more productive at their jobs according to a large-scale pilot program in Iceland.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Reykjavík City Council and Icelandic federal government teamed up with trade unions to test the pros and cons of a four-day workweek.

About 2,500 workers — more than one per cent of the country’s workforce — worked between 35 and 36 hours a week, as opposed to the standard 40, with no reduction in pay.

“The results are hugely positive. Workers from all sorts of areas of the public sector are incredibly happy with their work-life balance, spending more time with their families, doing more kind of extracurricular activities — things like cycling, taking up new hobbies, and so on,” researcher Will Stronge told As It Happens guest host Duncan McCue.

“It’s been an overwhelming success, as you might imagine … from the workers’ perspective, but also one from the employers too.”

This excerpt comes from a report the CBC published on July 5th, titled: Why Iceland’s 4-day workweek pilot was an ‘overwhelming success’

The logic behind such a study shouldn’t be too novel or out of the box for you to grasp. Working a few less hours per week gave workers more time to pursue more personal endeavours. Happier workers = happier and more productive employees. This isn’t the first study to have been done on this topic and nor will it be the last. But if the pandemic has shown anything, it’s that time for oneself is not only vital for longer lasting happiness, it’s essential. This study just gives more evidence based proof to this actuality. 

The pandemic provided and gave a glimpse for us all, in different variations mind you, of what our possible future work/life balance might become. More at home. Less hours. Higher productivity. Increased happiness. Less stress. 

It won’t be perfect and not everyone will benefit, but this silver lining shouldn’t be ignored. For eight straight months I worked only three shifts a week. I made 30–40% less than I did prior, but, unsurprisingly, I wasn’t any less happy, safe for the annoyance of pandemic protocols. Adjustments to spending were made and my life carried on. I had more free time and an increased rate of productivity for my job. Not an ideal scenario longterm, but not far off. A 4-day workweek sounds idyllic. Let’s make it a reality. - Jamie

 

Things From The Internet We Liked

 

The Hood Internet Throws Seinfeld into a 90s Blender.

How do you make something as iconically 90s as Seinfeld even more so? By remixing it’s theme song with some of the biggest hits of that decade. That’s exactly what mash up and extremely online duo The Hood Internet did to celebrate Seinfeld’s 32 anniversary and it’s glorious. Unless you’re a zoomer in which case some of this may go over your head. Sorry!

 

Maybe The Best/Weirdest Story You’ll Hear All Week

In what pushes the notion of stream of thought to its boundary shattering limits, this anecdote about going to a bar from LA comedian Chris Fleming absolutely goes places. It may be a twisted knot of non sequential tangents, but after you surrender to the madness of it all, it’s oddly compelling.

 

The Trailer For HBO’s Woodstock 99’ Documentary is Out And It Looks Crazy

Woodstock 99’ was memorable for all the wrong reasons. High prices. Insane heat. Fire. Fighting and ugh…Limp Bizkit. What a dumb idea. It was stupid then and it’s even more comical now.

This poorly organized revival of a semi successful original crashed and burned in a blaze of glory. Check out the trailer, which dropped this past week to see why. Trust me, you’ll be amazed at what you see.

 

Blaire Erskine Works For Amazon Now

One more from one of our favourite funny people on Twitter. Blaire Erskine fills in for Amazon PR doing their best to spin Richard Branson beating Jeff Bezos into space. They may try and sue her but that will only make her more famous.

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MIDRANGE WEEKLYdavid mcleod ringuetteAfghanistan, Translators, Hood Internet, Seinfeld, Chris Fleming, Amazon, Blaire ErskineComment