It’s business as usual at medical schemes

Since President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill on May 15, there has been a huge outcry, threats of litigation and, unfortunately, a great deal of misinformation. Lee Callakoppen, Principal Officer of Bonitas Medical Fund, the second biggest private medical aid scheme in South Africa, says the Act is a complex piece of legislation that still needs to be clarified, along with new reforms and regulations that will need to be introduced, which could take years. His advice to private healthcare members: Remain calm, it is ‘business as usual.’

‘There has been a great deal of media attention around the signing of the NHI Bill and we have received many questions regarding whether private healthcare still exists,’ says Callakoppen. ‘It very much does. There is no need to panic, at this stage members of private medical schemes are unaffected. Access to affordable, quality healthcare services remain a priority and private medical schemes are still going to be providing healthcare and benefits to members as and when they need it.

‘The Bill proposes a phased-in approach and, as mentioned, this could take decades, so it would be irresponsible to cancel private medical aid membership now.

Phasing in of NHI

As we know, the NHI Bill has been signed, it has been gazetted and is now an Act. However, ahead of the actual implementation, there are a number of complex reforms and restructuring processes required. The President has stated that the Government is open to additional engagement and collaboration with various stakeholders – including business, labour, social partners and the healthcare sector.

The Government has also reiterated that implementation will be phased in. ‘There is no element that is going to happen overnight or be managed in haste. Our legal framework also allows for amendments to be made,’ says Presidential spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya.

Collaboration is key

‘We have always been supportive of access to universal healthcare,’ says Callakoppen. ‘However, we strongly believe public and private healthcare systems have a dual responsibility to deliver this. We acknowledge the gap that exists, especially in terms of infrastructure and believe we have a role to play in supporting the enhancement of public facilities and healthcare reform in general.

‘In fact, we have supported various public healthcare initiatives over the past years in partnership with Gift of the Givers. These have included providing access to water infrastructure to supply clean, running water at various public health facilities, hospital ward refurbishments, supplying medical bursaries and sponsoring an audiology programme, to name a few.

Our concerns

There remain concerns, mainly around funding, administration and continued freedom of choice as set out in the Bill of Rights.

Funding: Detail is lacking in terms of the funding of the NHI. The most likely option is additional taxes. However, until the NHI implementation plan is finalised, it is difficult to know what the actual costs will be. A fact though, which needs to be taken into account, is that taxpayers, including private medical scheme members, already fund 75% of the public health budget. 

Administration: The administration of the proposed central system of healthcare will need rigorous governance as existing medical aids are strictly regulated. NHI too, would be a not-for-profit organisation owned by its members. Private medical schemes are under strict scrutiny and undergo public audits as they are obligated to the members of the medical aid which is, in essence, a Trust Fund.

Bill of Rights: All international concepts of universal healthcare make provision for freedom of choice and we believe citizens should be open to purchasing healthcare should they have the means to.

The role of medical schemes

Currently, the medical schemes’ role, under the fully matured NHI, is that of complementary services cover. According to the White Paper, NHI will be rolled out in priority areas first – these include healthcare at schools, childhood cancer, women’s health (including pregnancy, cervical cancer and breast cancer), disability and rehabilitation services as well as hip, knee and cataract surgery for the elderly.

‘But what about the remainder of the population?’ asks Callakoppen. ‘Medical schemes offer a number of benefits that are immediately available to members. This allows them to access the care they need when they need it. If the NHI is to be rolled out to specific target groups first, what becomes of others in need? That’s why we believe public and private healthcare can and should coexist.’

The way forward

It’s imperative that measures are put in place to allow medical schemes to work in tandem with the NHI, so that duplication of costs is prevented. 

We have always been in support of universal healthcare and believe that it is in the interests of the greater good of everyone. We need to focus on public and private enterprise working together, strong leadership, accountability and dealing with social-economic issues as an integral part of the process.

We also believe that a citizen-centric, multi-funder, multi-provider system is the best way forward for universal healthcare to succeed in South Africa.

In conclusion Callakoppen says that Bonitas, as with other medical aid schemes, will continue to look at ways of providing members with access to affordable, quality healthcare as they have done for the past 40+ years.

Bonitas is a proud National Partner of the NSBC

Unlocking growth: How BMW Financial Services Corporate Credit empowers your business

Article provided by BMW Financial Services

In today’s dynamic business landscape, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the lifeblood of South Africa’s economic success. They’re the innovation hubs, the job creators, and the driving force behind national prosperity. But even the most brilliant ideas can stall without the fuel they need to thrive – access to capital for essential vehicle purchases.

BMW Financial Services has been a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes. We understand the unique challenges faced by SMEs, especially when it comes to accessing financing for essential vehicles needed to run their businesses. Unlike traditional Financial Service Providers (FSPs) with one-size-fits-all solutions, BMW Financial Services Corporate Credit offers a tailored financing program designed specifically for SMEs.

Securing financing for crucial vehicle purchases, whether for a growing delivery fleet or specialised equipment, can be a significant challenge for SMEs. Traditional FSPs often have strict application processes and limited financing options that do not cater to the specific needs of smaller businesses. As a result, SMEs may find themselves with limited access to capital for essential vehicle purchases, restricted to inflexible solutions that don’t align with specific cash flow cycles, and spend valuable time that could be dedicated to core business activities on managing complex loan applications.

The concept of Corporate Credit arose from a fundamental belief: SMEs deserve access to financing solutions that empower their growth through vehicle acquisition. We recognised that traditional financing options often fall short of meeting the specific needs of smaller businesses. We envisioned a financing solution that was flexible and adaptable to the specific vehicle financing needs of each SME, accessible with a streamlined application process with fast turnaround times, with personalised guidance from a dedicated BMW Financial Services advisor.

BMW Financial Services is committed to your business’s success. As an SME owner, you have access to a dedicated team of experts who can guide you through the Corporate Credit Facility application. Visit the BMW Financial Services Corporate Credit website today at BMW Financial Services Corporate Credit to learn more about our products and find the best-suited one for your unique SME.

URL: https://www.bmw.co.za/en/topics/offers-and-services/bmw-financial-services/corporate.html

BMW Financial Services is a proud Partner of the NSBC

Dazzling European Ski Chalets, A ‘Wicked’ Hotel Suite And More Travel News

Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Linkedin5 Extraordinary European Ski Chalets
When billionaires go skiing in Europe, they typically rent a chalet for a week (or three) in some of the poshest resorts in the Alps. The best are often winter palaces with glass walls, expansive decks, indoor swimming pools, and plenty of other luxurious amenities—including a screening room a wine cellar, and a mudroom with lockers and boot heaters. Here are five extraordinary European chalets for ski season.

Ritz-Carlton Announces 2025 Yacht Itineraries.ritz-carlton yachts
With two luxury yachts already cruising the globe, the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection recently announced that its third vessel, Luminara, will set sail in July 2025. There will be 14 different Mediterranean itineraries, including voyages to Italy, Spain, Greece, and the Canary Islands. The 794-foot Luminara, the largest of the three Ritz-Carlton yachts, has 226 suites (accommodating up to 452 guests) and most voyages are 7 or 8 nights.

This is the published version of Forbes’ Passport newsletter, which offers a first-class guide to luxury travel. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday.
Inside A ‘Wicked’ Hotel Suite.hilton
The New York Hilton Midtown recently unveiled its new Wicked hotel suite with decor that celebrates the movie version of the famed Broadway musical, which hits theaters on November 22. The Wicked suite is available between November 21 and January 5, 2025 and is inspired by the show’s two iconic characters—with a “pink wonderland” on one side for Glinda and a “moody, green forest theme” on the other for Elphaba. Guests will also enjoy some Wicked-themed amenities during their stay—including special makeup products and tickets to the movie.

TravelWise.getty
More than 300,000 American passports are lost or stolen every year, according to the U.S. State Department, which is why it’s vital to protect it—and hide it—while traveling. Plenty of suitcases and carry-on bags come with hidden pockets for a passport, currency and other valuables. And of course plenty of people wear a money belt. But for those who like to leave a passport in a hotel safe—not always safe, by the way—it’s a good idea to take a photograph of your passport and carry it on your phone. Not only will a photograph of passport information often work for a VAT refund, but it also serves another important purpose—a photo of your passport often makes it easier to apply for replacement should be it, well, lost or stolen.

Germany’s Newest Travel Influencer Is…Unreal.German National Tourist Board
Meet Emma, Germany’s newest tourism ambassador. She’s a beautiful, young polyglot, who speaks 20 languages, including English (in a posh British accent). She’s on Instagram, of course, and she really loves to travel around her homeland and share her pictures and information about her latest journeys. If she seems a little too perfect for today’s Influencer Age, that’s because she isn’t real—Emma is actually an AI chatbot. But as Forbes’ veteran travel reporter Suzanne Rowan Kelleher asks, “The 60,000 euro question is: Will this strategy work? Can a fake woman get travelers to spend real money in Germany?”

Chelsea Rare Book Fair Opens Today

The 32nd annual Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association’s Chelsea Rare Book Fair opens today at Chelsea Old Town Hall on London’s King’s Road with a selection of rare books, maps, manuscripts, and ephemera from a wide range of 80 international exhibitors. Running today 2pm – 7pm (tickets £10) and November 2 from 11am until 5pm (free entry all day), events include: * A History of Book Collecting (November 1, 4pm) with Andrea Mazzocchi from Bernard Quaritch focusing on print history from medieval manuscripts to modern first editions, and looking at trends and fashions in book collecting* Book Collecting: Where to begin (November 1, 5pm) with Rebekah Cron of Fold the Corner Books aiming to guide first-time and younger collectors in particular, including the basics of collecting rare books and building collections. Rebekah will visit several exhibitors to discuss how to spot first editions, take care of books post-purchase and the benefits of building relationships with ABA and PBFA dealers.* Modern First Editions: Highlights of Chelsea Book Fair (November 2, 2pm) with Les Ashton of Ashton Rare Books explaining what really makes a book a ‘highlight’ with an emphasis on the importance of dust jackets, signatures, associations, fashion, and scarcity in making a title and a particular copy special. * Books and Their Bindings: From the mundane to the beautiful (November 2, 3pm) led by Tom Lintern-Mole of Antiquates who will wander around the fair, commenting on books entirely by their covers and binding typesThe ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is presented by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) in collaboration with the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB).

Science explains one of Jesus Christ’s greatest miracles may have actually been real

According to a team of scientists, one (or perhaps two) of Jesus Christ’s miracles might actually have been true.Whether or not you think he was the son of God, and also God himself, historians tend to be pretty convinced that he was an actual guy.It helps to live during a period of history where people write things down; you might wonder what the Romans have ever done for us, but they did write quite a lot of things down, and their historians also mention Jesus long before the Roman Empire converted to Christianity.So yes, he was almost certainly a real guy, but as for some of the things he did, there’s more a matter of debate about how he did it.However, when it comes to the story of the ‘miraculous catch of fish’ and the miracle Jesus performed, there a scientific explanation is possible.”Trusteth me brethren. I said you would catch fish on the right side.” (Getty Stock Photo) There’s actually two stories in the Bible of this miracle, though the pertinent details of Jesus and his apostles trying to fish on the Sea of Galilee and having a bit of a mare remain the same.In each story, they’re about to give up when Jesus tells them to have another go at it, and then, after throwing out the fishing net again, they catch loads of fish.Luke (of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) wrote that this happened early on in the career of Mr Christ, whereas, according to John, it happens after the J-man came back from the dead for our right to eat chocolate eggs in Spring, and they specifically caught 153 fish.This guy apparently knew the Sea of Galilee had a layer of oxygen deprived water. (Getty Stock Photo)Not to burst the ecumenical bubble here, but this is where a potential scientific explanation for catching loads of fish on the Sea of Galilee comes in.Researchers from Kinneret Limnological Laboratory have been studying the Sea of Galilee and found a layer of colder water that is depleted in oxygen.Wind and waves can cause this deeper layer of water to rise, and fish can’t get out of it, and this oxygen-depleted water also kills them.If this happens, then you can get lots of dead fish very quickly, and they’d be incredibly easy to scoop up in a net in the event that your pal Jesus suggests you have one last attempt to catch something.Researchers found that these ‘fish-kill events’ happen around the same spot on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus performed his two aforementioned miracles, which could help explain why him and the apostles were suddenly able to make a great catch.

Study: All jobs are tech jobs

Technology jobs will contribute to significant job growth in the coming years across the U.S., and recent research from online learning provider Pearson finds that high-tech skills will infiltrate many professions in the future.

Pearson recently released its Skills Map—United States, a report that examines trends in job growth and skills demand to uncover how technology is changing existing roles and creating new opportunities. The current employment landscape and near-future outlook are altering the definition of a tech job. And three factors are also driving change across the U.S. job market, Pearson says, pointing to automation, AI, and an aging population.

“The key message is that technology is transforming jobs at a faster pace than ever before. Every job, from nursing to manufacturing, is becoming more tech-focused, increasing the demand for workers who can blend technical expertise with industry-specific skills,” said Dave Treat, chief technology officer at Pearson, in a statement. “As technology evolves, it’s opening new opportunities across all sectors, helping businesses tackle real-world challenges more effectively.”

The 10 Best Books on Climate Justice

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring warned that the birds were dying from DDT, so many canaries in America’s figurative coalmines. Since then, more portentous, unacknowledged canaries have died. Climate change, the biggest existential threat to our collective humanity, has already, and will continue to, disproportionately affect the poor, the marginalized and oppressed. But every year, emissions increase. Free market capitalism enables carbon output. Indigenous people are stripped of their land stewardship. There are toxins in environments that people cannot leave, that have devastating effects on their lives. Changing weather displaces them.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
As our policymakers fail to combat it, where else can we look? The following books take disparate, but deeply researched and thoughtful, angles on climate justice, through indigenous wisdom, scientific innovation, grassroots activism, anthropology, and botany. Perhaps, most unlikely, a rare mushroom might reveal a way forward. Stronger than independence is interdependence.
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Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, 2015Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
In The New York Times Book Review, Rob Nixon wrote that This Changes Everything was “the most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring.” Naomi Klein, award-winning author of acclaimed international bestsellers, equates the belief that technology might save us, or that incremental divestment from fossil fuels is enough, with its own kind of denial. Klein “superbly dramatizes the seemingly intractable ways that global capitalism is locked into a carbon death spiral,” contending, simply, that the same institutions that got us here are not going to save us (Rolling Stone). The book is not just a polemic because it thoroughly describes solutions; in fact, in many ways the book is optimistic.
“There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming,” she writes, “but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which is surely the best argument there has ever been for changing those rules.” Bill McKibben, award-winning environmentalist, author and journalist, calls it “the best book about climate change in a very long time…because…it sets the most important crisis in human history in the context of our other ongoing traumas, reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one.” This Changes Everything was included on The New York Times’ list of 100 notable books for 2014 and was adapted into a documentary by the same name.
NYT Bestseller • 2014 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction • 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing • Finalist for the 2015 PEN Literary Awards in Nonfiction

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, 2015Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
The Mushroom at the End of the World has a double meaning. “The mushroom is at the end of the known world because it’s hard to find,” but also it represents, “the end of the world as we know it, given our instinct for extracting as much from the earth as we can” (Hua Hsu, The New Yorker). Anthropologist Anna Tsing uses the matsutake mushroom as both metaphor and teacher. It is no coincidence that the mushroom she chooses for this exploration was reportedly the first living thing to grow from the soil in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb.
The book “brilliantly turns the commerce and ecology of this most rare mushroom into a modern parable of post-industrial survival and environmental renewal” (The Guardian). Though environmental justice is not purported as the book’s main endeavor, Tsing lands at environmental justice from the inside out; The matsutake serves as focal point but, “not for one instant does” the book “lose from view its purpose of tracking the new nature of capitalism and exploring the possibility of living among its ruins” (MIT Press).
2016 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing (Society for Humanistic Anthropology) • 2016 Gregory Bateson Book Prize (Society for Cultural Anthropology) • Times Higher Education Book of the Year

Mary Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future, 2018Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
Climate Justice must be situated in the career of its author. Mary Robinson was the President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, she served as the UN’s High Commissioner of Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. And then, in 2014, she served as the UN Special Envoy on Climate Change. In 2010, she founded The Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice. The book is powerful because Robinson writes “climate justice issues from a narrative perspective,” giving voice to grassroots activists worldwide, and her insights have led to direct action through her humanitarian work. It’s compelling that with a career such as hers, the issue she is dedicated the rest of her life to is climate change. “Those least responsible for climate change are suffering from its most detrimental effects,” the book makes clear that “climate change, human rights, equality and individual empowerment are all inextricably linked” (The Guardian).

Dina Gilio-Whitaker, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock, 2019
Dina Gilio-Whitaker is an Indigenous researcher, university lecturer of American Indian Studies, and consultant and educator in environmental justice policy planning. As Long as Grass Grows “is a primer on the Native environmental movement, and a long chronicle of fighting back against government and corporate power with varying degrees of success” (Los Angeles Review of Books). “To be a person of direct Indigenous descent in the US today is to have survived a genocide of cataclysmic proportions,” Gilio-Whitaker writes.
“Extractive industries, commercial agriculture, grazing, dam-building, track-laying, and road construction”—things many Americans consider progress—all contributed to that genocide (LARB). Because of this, Indigenous people have always been at the forefront of environmental justice, “from Standing Rock’s stand against a damaging pipeline to antinuclear and climate change activism” (Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth). And As Long as Grass Grows delineates new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy. The New York Public Library and BuzzFeed News both suggested the book as recommended reading for the 2020 United States elections on the subject of climate change.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, 2015
Indigenous botanist and MacArthur “genius,” Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass became an unlikely National Bestseller. At the time, she was not a well-known writer and her publisher had only a small marketing campaign. In this case, the book’s commercial success speaks directly to its success as a text, directly to the desire readers have for wisdom outside of the mainstream channels. Kimmerer told the New York Times that she thinks her message is resonating, because “when we’re looking at things we cherish falling apart, when inequities and injustices are so apparent, people are looking for another way that we can be living. We need interdependence rather than independence, and Indigenous knowledge has a message of valuing connection, especially to the humble.”
Braiding Sweetgrass speaks to the helplessness we feel at ecological devastation, “by weaving descriptions of indigenous tradition with the environmental sciences in order to show what survival has looked like over the course of many millennia” (Lit Hub). “I give daily thanks for Robin Wall Kimmerer,” Richard Powers author of The Overstory writes, “for being a font of endless knowledge, both mental and spiritual,” she “opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate” (Krista Tippett, host of On Being).
#1 New York Times Bestseller • Washington Post and LA Times Bestseller • New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Readers Pick • A LitHub Best Essay Collection of the Decade

Richard Powers, The Overstory, 2019
Richard Powers’ Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Overstory is a “sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world.” As a writer, Powers has continuously eschewed traditional character-centric narrative in favor of larger-scale ideas, histories and sciences that, told in this way, reflect back the humans driving these phenomena. As such, “it was only a matter of time before he took on the greatest existential crisis human civilization faces: the destruction of the natural conditions necessary for our own survival” (The Atlantic). There are characters, nine in fact, that the book follows, but the book deftly focuses on trees.
As the Pulitzer Prize committee put it, the book is “an ingeniously structured narrative that branches and canopies like the trees at the core of the story whose wonder and connectivity echo those of the humans living amongst them.” On top of that, “Powers suggests that the solution to Earth’s environmental woes might lie with this other consciousness,” that consciousness being of life on this earth on a grander scale, “rather than with humans alone—if only we could learn to empathize with trees in the same way we’re able to empathize with other humans” (The Kenyon Review). “This ambitious novel soars up through the canopy of American literature and remakes the landscape of environmental fiction” (The Washington Post). One might ask how the book does all that, but as with most truly great novels, it seems, you just have to read it.
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction • Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal • Shortlisted for the Booker Prize • Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List • One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times Book Review • New York Times Notable Book • A Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

Dorceta Taylor, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility, 2014
Dorceta Taylor is a distinguished scholar, environmental sociologist and Professor of Environmental Justice at Yale School of the Environment. Toxic Communities is hailed as a “standard-bearer” for environmental justice scholarship, “chronicl[ing] the contamination of minority and low income communities in the US.” Though an academic and “intellectually weighty book,” Toxic Communities also “elevates the discussion of environmental justice,” bringing “nuance and accountability… to the discussion” (Art Journal, Choice).
“Rather than simply demonstrating the fact that people of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards and accepting simple explanations for this phenomenon, Taylor goes to the heart of the matter and explores why and how environmental racism remains an enduring wound on the American social landscape” (David Naguib Pellow, co-author of The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden).

Jake Bittle, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, 2024
Jake Bittle is a journalist who covers climate change and energy. “The Great Displacement compassionately tells the stories of those who are already experiencing life on the move, while detailing just how radically climate change will transform our lives—erasing historic towns and villages, pushing people toward new areas, and reshaping the geography of the United States.” The Great Displacement is not only telling a story of future survival, but survival that is urgently occurring, for many people across our country, right now, for those on the front lines of early-stage climate displacement. It is “a bracing, vivid tour of the new human geography just coming into view and warning us of what’s to come” (David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth).
Bittle’s book is “an exemplary representative of a specific genre of climate non-fiction, one in which the author (usually a journalist) acts as a meandering tour guide through the brave new world of climatic instability and environmental change” (Cleveland Review of Books). The Great Displacement poses the urgent question: “when we are forced to leave the places that have long defined us, what will we encounter on the other side?” (Elizabeth Rush, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore)
Shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire, 2020 
How to Blow Up a Pipeline contains no actual instructions for blowing anything up—instead the book powerfully addresses Andreas Malm’s “frustration with movement orthodoxy…as he inveighs against what he calls ‘the demise of revolutionary politics,’” against an issue that deserves the attention of revolution (Los Angeles Review of Books). Malm is a Swedish author and associate Professor of Human Ecology at Lund University. He “advocates powerfully against despair and powerlessness,” “brutally dispatch[ing] with ‘climate fatalists’…who argue that we should all just give up” (The New York Times). For Malm, giving up would be morally equivalent to being a passive bystander to a loved one’s death.
As Wen Stephenson writes in the Los Angeles Review of Books, “Malms’ new book will no doubt be dismissed by a lot of very serious people, including climate activists and policy advocates, as fringe and even dangerous. That would be a very serious mistake. Nothing could be more dangerous at this moment in human history than a blind faith in politics—or activism—as usual.” Malm’s approach is “erudite and, above all, morally serious.” How to Blow Up a Pipeline should not be dismissed.

Harriet A Washington, A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and its Assault on the American Mind, 2019
A Terrible Thing to Waste takes an even deeper look into how environmental crises affect mostly poor people of color. “Washington argues that IQ, while a flawed metric, is a useful tool to gauge cognitive damage brought on by environmental hazards” (NPR). Harriet A. Washington is an American writer and medical ethicist who wrote the acclaimed book Medical Apartheid. In A Terrible Thing to Waste, Washington “methodically indicts environmental racism and its catastrophic effects, particularly on the cognitive abilities of America’s children… The news she brings is grim, but she leaves the reader feeling not paralyzed by despair but determined to act” (Randy Cohen, original author of New York Times Magazine’s The Ethicist column).
As the “loss of certain species of small animals seemed less important before the publication of [Silent Spring], a few IQ points might seem insignificant to most Americans now. That shortsightedness will change after they’ve read [A Terrible Thing to Waste].” Harriet Washington has written “a fact-based analysis with conclusions that should absolutely animate us all” (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Five lesser-known Godzilla films to watch before the king of monsters turns 70

Japan’s greatest monster, Godzilla, turns 70 on November 3 2024, the anniversary of the first movie to feature the character. Godzilla (1945) was a stark exercise in processing the trauma of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings, but its success inspired the longest-running film franchise in history, with 37 sequels.

The many Godzilla movies made by Toho, one of Japan’s biggest film studios, reflect the country’s complex history as victims of the only nuclear bombings and as a rapidly developing economy in the 20th century.

The two most recent live-action films, Shin Godzilla (2016) and Godzilla Minus One (2023), updated these themes for this century. They respectively criticised the response to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima meltdown. The films nostalgically captured a resurgent Japanese nationalism.

Of all 38 movies, I believe these five are the best lesser-known Godzilla films to watch for a mega-monster-marathon.

1. King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

Godzilla first met his American counterpoint, King Kong, long before their recent showdowns in the two American Godzilla vs. Kong movies.

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) began life as King Kong vs. Frankenstein. The brainchild of American special effects luminary Willis O’Brien, it found its way to Japan when Hollywood studios passed on it. In changing Frankenstein to Godzilla, the film became a criticism of the 1960 security treaty between the US and Japan. But it developed into a scathing criticism of rampant consumerism in modernising Japan, focusing on a big pharmaceutical company’s effort to exploit Kong for ratings.

A scene from King Kong vs. Godzilla.

The result is a widescreen spectacular that mashes together popular trends from 1960s Japan, puroresu (pro-wrestling) and its sensational stars. It set the tone for the rest of the 1960s Godzilla movies but is not unproblematic, as it features Japanese actors in brownface as Polynesian islanders.

2. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

This Godzilla film is one of the most idiosyncratic. Part animated with psychedelic nightclub scenes, it was the only film directed by Yoshimitsu Banno, who was later instrumental in bringing Godzilla to Hollywood in the 2010s.

A tiny tadpole falls to Earth and grows huge feeding on polluted oceans. Hedorah, taking is name from the Japanese word for slime, launches gruesome acid rain attacks on people and animals. Step forward environmental protector Godzilla, now far from a metaphor for the atomic bomb, to fight off the smog monster.

A scene from Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

Non-existent environmental policies in Japan made it one of the world’s most polluted nations by the late 1960s. Abandoning traditional spiritual respect for the land, the country’s pursuit of economic progress inspired the growing environmental awareness of Godzilla movies. But it is also directly critical of a hypocritical young generation who preached respect for the environment but ended up totally incapable of protecting it.

3. Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

Godzilla vs. Biollante was developed from a dentist’s entry to a story competition that aimed to reignite the series after the lukewarm reception of Godzilla in 1984. It was partly inspired by The Little Shop of Horrors (1986).

After the monster’s Tokyo rampage, Japanese scientists and predatory American biotech companies fight over Godzilla’s cells to develop either genetically modified crops or weapons. But, after his daughter is killed in a terrorist attack, one of the researchers secretly merges a rose he believes houses her soul with some of the “G-cells”. It becomes Biollante, a giant mutated plant.

The original Japanese trailer for Godzilla vs. Biollante.

While it is still concerned with nuclear energy – the 1986 Chernobyl disaster took place during its development – the film is more focused on biotechnology and the global race for domination.

Japanese industry was changing in the 1980s, away from polluting manufacturing. Deregulation led to a massive growth in pharmaceuticals, but behind this were continued tensions between the US and Japan.

4. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

This film is a fan favourite and a radical writing of the monster’s origins, reuniting Godzilla with two of his main adversaries, the goddess Mothra and the three-headed alien dragon King Ghidorah. This is one of the few times these giant creatures are imagined as more traditional kami, protective spirits who typically inhabit places and influence nature.

The original Japanese trailer for Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack.

Japanese researchers, such as Yomota Inuhiko, have interpreted Godzilla in this film as a vision of the wartime dead and the guilt carried by those who survived and enjoyed post-war prosperity.

Japan has long struggled to reflect on the events of the second world war, and this is also controversially reflected in Godzilla Minus One. In the film, former soldiers are given a second chance to fight off an aggressive invader, after their defeat by the US the first time round.

5. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

This 50th anniversary celebration, directed by cult auteur Ryuhei Kitamura, is a mash up of all of Tōhō’s kaijū (the Japanese term meaning “strange beasts” that is usually used to describe these giant creatures). It’s great fun to see the real Japanese Godzilla smash Hollywood’s reviled attempt at the monster into the Sydney Opera House. Nevertheless, the film was a box office flop and Tōhō didn’t make another Godzilla film for 12 years.

Japan’s Godzilla fights his Hollywood counterpart.

Godzilla’s history has repeatedly reflected the changing preoccupations of this century and the last. As the biggest film star in the world graces our screens once more in Godzilla x Kong 3: Age of Titans (2025), the septuagenarian icon’s filmography will only grow more diverse. Go! Go! Godzilla!

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NFIB Jobs Report: Small Business Employment Remains Stable in October

Unfilled job openings increase as labor market remains tight
AUSTIN (Oct. 31, 2024) – NFIB’s October jobs report found that 35% (seasonally adjusted) of small business owners reported job openings they could not fill in October, up one point from September’s lowest reading since January 2021. The percent of small business owners reporting labor quality as their top operating problem rose three points from September to 20%.
“On Main Street, the job market remains challenging,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “Although the labor market appears to be softening overall, small business owners reported little success filling their plentiful vacancies in October.”
Though state-specific data is unavailable, NFIB State Director Jeff Burdett said:
“Small business owners are still struggling to find qualified applicants, which only exacerbates their uncertainty. The challenging labor market, along with inflation, continues to make it difficult for Main Street to plan for the future. The expiration of the small business tax deduction next year represents a massive tax hike on more than 30 million small businesses, which is why Congress must save the 20% Small Business Deduction.”
Overall, 53% of small business owners reported hiring or trying to hire in October, down six points from September. Forty-six percent (87% of those hiring or trying to hire) of owners reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill. Twenty-five percent of owners reported few qualified applicants for their open positions and 21% reported none.
Thirty-one percent have openings for skilled workers (up one point) and 14% have openings for unskilled labor (unchanged).
Job openings were the highest in the construction, transportation, and wholesale sectors, and the lowest in the agriculture and finance sectors. However, job openings in construction were down four points from last month with 49% having an open position they can’t fill.
A seasonally adjusted net 15% of owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months, unchanged from September.
Labor costs reported as the single most important problem for business owners fell one point to 8%, five points below the highest reading of 13% reached in December 2021.
Seasonally adjusted, a net 31% of small business owners reported raising compensation in October, down one point from September and the lowest reading since April 2021. A net 23% (seasonally adjusted) plan to raise compensation in the next three months, unchanged from September.
CLICK HERE to view the entire NFIB Jobs Report.