Should the cinematic taboo be Suspended?

sex scenes of any kind between men in mainstream films – let alone sexually frank ones –  are still pretty rare. While progress has been made when it comes to representation, showing "two guys going at it" is still somewhat of a cinematic taboo.
 

The Truth of the Matter

The idiom 'truth of the matter' is often used to introduce an important fact that is not widely known, for example, because it's a secret.

In this ambitious series of medium-length and episodic documentaries, we will tell stories that start big conversations and go in-depth, while instilling a vivid intellectual curiosity in the viewers. With a high production value, empowered by thorough, original research, these films tell stories with substance and intrigue, which reach the core of a specific topic.

 

Boris Johnson, the man ousted as UK prime minister by his own government just three months ago, has emerged as an early front-runner to be the next prime minister.

His replacement Liz Truss crashed and burned after 45 days in the job, announcing her resignation after being forced to ditch most of her policy programme after it spooked the financial markets.

Mr Johnson won the 2019 general election - and under the British constitution the party in power can change leader without another election.

Ms Truss was elected by Conservative Party members, who may get the final say in this latest contest, if two contenders remain after MPs have voted.

A second Johnson premiership would be an extraordinary turnaround even for a politician who has made miraculous comebacks before.

The last time (WHEN) anyone returned to the office of prime minister after losing the leadership was 140-years-go when William Gladstone returned to lead the Liberal Party.

One of the most fundamental books on the problem was written by Louis-Jean Calvet. Still, his understanding of the nature of the vehicular language has a strong taste of political bias rather than linguistics.

 

In the Shona language, zimbabwe translates approximately to "stone house", and because of the site's size and scope, it became known as Great Zimbabwe. Moreover, it was not the only such "Zimbabwe": there are remains of approximately 200 smaller settlements or trading posts spread across the region, from the Kalahari Desert in Namibia to Mozambique. 

According to Munyaradzi Manyanga, a professor of archaeology and cultural heritage at Great Zimbabwe University, the position of Great Zimbabwe among these settlements has been widely debated. Some people have speculated that it was a capital city of a very large state, but to Manyanga, that seems unlikely. "Such a state would have been too large. One wouldn't have been able to manage that kind of extent and size. So most of the interpretations talk of these as having been influenced by Great Zimbabwe." He added that the Kingdom of Zimbabwe is considered to be made up of Great Zimbabwe and the smaller settlements located closer to it.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220925-the-ancient-remains-of-great-zimbabwe

"Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!" That is the slogan the Ukrainian military officially began using at the country's Independence Day parade on Friday, replacing the soviet-era "Wish you health, comrade!"
The phrase dates back to World War I, when military units from the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic were fighting alongside German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers against Russia. However it was in the 1930s when it really took hold, becoming a rallying cry for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), explained Oleksandr Zaitsev, a historian from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

"There are records showing that during the court hearings against OUN's leader Stepan Bandera in 1936, his supporters were accompanying the slogan 'Glory to Ukraine' with a hand-throwing fascist-style salute," he told DW
https://www.dw.com/en/new-glory-to-ukraine-army-chant-invokes-nationalist-past/a-45215538

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck" – suggests that something can be identified by its habitual characteristics.

She has softened her image and resents being linked to Italy's fascist past, but she still embraces an old slogan adopted by the fascists - "God, fatherland and family"

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-63025985

Learn why the Dutch don't like to say sorry: 
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0d1dqv3/why-the-dutch-don-t-say-sorry

The theory of politeness for the English discourse turned out to be disputed not only by the Germans, the French and the Dutch, but even by the such insiders of the English discourse as Robert Lane Greene and Henry Hitchings.

Still, the war for politeness is raging on.. 

In 2019, Hanover became the first state capital to mandate the use of gender-neutral language in all official communication, from emails to brochures and posters. It deployed what's known as the "gender star," an asterisk placed within a noun to indicate it refers to men, women and nonbinary people alike. For instance, the word for all citizens became Bürger*innen.

"Women are being called persons with a menstruation background," Baer says incredulously. "Of course, one can do this sort of thing, but that's more cabaret than anything else."­­

Hock, Andreas. Bin ich den der Einzigste hier, wo Deutsch kann? – München: Riva Verlag, 2017. – 186 S.

This curious and delightful book shares a pessimistic view on the development of the language: the history of German is shown as a process of decline of the language: with every stage of its development it is getting less and less clear. 

The book is challenging in many aspects starting with the absurd use of the Superlative in its title and organized by paragraphs in the form of the subordinate clause of reason, so that it takes some time to decode them against the backdrop of the subtitle: "Über den Niedergang unserer Sprache".