Mistakes happen. But on the iPhone, they can be undone very easily.
While the Mac has Command-Z, the iPhone has its own unique way of fixing mistakes: Shake to Undo. Shaking your device to go back or undo a mistake has been around since 2009 and iOS 3 (called iPhone OS back then). And it’s one of the most overlooked features on iOS.
Rather than a system-wide button or symbol for undo on iOS, you just shake your phone. For most iPhone users it’s a forgotten feature, but writer John Gruber recently gave it newfound attention with a thoughtful analysis and the revelation that it was actually originally conceived as a joke.
In any case, it’s a useful reminder that the feature exists: When you want to undo something on your iPhone, just shake the darn thing.
Shake to Undo is turned on by default. You can turn it off under Settings>General>Accessibility, but be warned: There is no other undo function for iOS. Select apps may have an undo button (usually with a counterclockwise-pointing arrow), but the line stops there.
In iOS 11 on the iPad, Apple introduced undo and redo arrows for the keyboard but didn’t take it farther or expand it to the iPhone. Last year’s software update also brought native drag and drop, and since then I’ve been using this feature even more.
With Shake to Undo turned on, iOS users can quickly fix mistakes. Amongst my friends, I have my own unique language that swaps out understandability for laugh-ability. One particularly horrific autocorrect was when iOS changed necklace to “neck ass” — luckily, Shake to Undo was there to fix it.
While I do use Shake to Undo quite a bit, there is always the question of whether I should, as it’s just to easy to slam on the backspace key. You might be someone who gets the undo pop-up by accident on a frequent basis, and that can be a nuisance.
I am a frequent user of Shake to Undo on my iPhone, whether it be for texts, accidentally deleting an email, or moving a photo to the wrong spot. It is a universal way to fix something, something that Windows Phone didn’t have, and Android still doesn’t have.
So if you forget, just give your iPhone or iPad a shake. It just might make you fall in love with this aging gesture.
J.R.R. Tolkien rivaled entire civilizations as a maker of myths. With his obsessive, decades-long iteration on his own expansive work, the author essentially mimicked the passing and reshaping of legends from generation to generation. The Fall of Gondolin was the first story in the Middle-Earth mythos Tolkien penned, and this new volume documenting the evolution of the cornerstone of his world-building is a fitting final project for his son, Christopher, now 93. In the style of Beren and Lúthien, the previous Great Tale published as a standalone book in 2017, this edition of Gondolin is an essential historical reference for Tolkien devotees.
In this account, Tuor, fated hero of men, journeys to deliver hope to the hidden elven stronghold of Gondolin at the behest of Ulmo, Lord of Waters. It’s a load-bearing pillar in the grander narrative that eventually came to encompass better-known works. Tolkien explicitly expressed his wish later in life that the three Great Tales of Middle-earth’s early days — The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin — along with The Lord of the Rings and other writings, should be considered as “one long Saga of the Jewels and the Rings.” Within this broader Silmarillion scheme, the importance of Tuor, and particularly of his son Eärendel (or Eärendil), cannot be overstated.
The characters and imagery of the earliest complete Gondolin text — elven champion Glorfindel battling a Balrog on a perilous precipice, iron dragons laying siege to a pristine city, eagles descending from their mountaintop aeries to aid an orc-embattled caravan — are already compelling. But when Gondolin was first conceived in 1916 as the kernel of a new legendarium, the ties that bound it to the canon of what would later become the First Age of Middle-earth were not yet fully developed.
This edition also presents a number of subsequent versions, most notably those from the Sketch of the Mythology (1926)and the Quenta Noldorinwa (1930), as well asa heartbreakingly unfinished, highly detailed last iteration from 1951. These retellings offer shorter accounts of Gondolin’s doom, but emphasize links that enrich the sprawling world. For enthusiasts, these glimpses into the burgeoning interconnectedness of Tolkien’s fiction are fascinating. By the Sketch, for example, Tolkien had altered Tuor’s parentage to establish a kinship between him and his dragon-slaying cousin, Túrin Turambar, and in the last version, the two Great Tale heroes actually briefly cross paths.
A chapter toward the end of this volume titled “The Evolution of the Story” grants deeper insight into the workings of Tolkien’s mind throughout the development of his mythology. At times, it seems he was overcome, against his will, by his desire to create a complete and coherent universe, even as he strove to write The Lord of the Rings as a more accessible, standalone text.
“It has bubbled up, infiltrated, and probably spoiled everything…which I have tried to write since,” Tolkien wrote of The Silmarillion to the chairman of publisher Allen and Unwin in 1950. “Its shadow was deep on the later parts of The Hobbit. It has captured The Lord of the Rings so that that has become simply its continuation and completion, requiring The Silmarillion to be fully intelligible.”
Tolkien’s melancholy regarding the state of his life’s work and the practical and financial barriers to its publication in the early 1950s may have been what caused him to abandon the last version of Gondolin just as Tuor reached the fields of Tumladen and glimpsed the white city beyond. The near unmanageable breadth of his writings, however, is precisely what has allowed Tolkien’s legends to flourish now for over a century.
Casual Lord of the Rings readers may struggle to comprehend much of Gondolin beyond the striking illustrations from longtime Middle-earth artist Alan Lee, as the book assumes significant prior knowledge of other sources. Particularly heavily referenced is last year’s Beren and Lúthien, which Christopher believed at the time would be his final venture into his father’s opus. This supposition of a pre-existing understanding of Tolkien scholarship serves as The Fall of Gondolin’s primary weakness when viewed as a self-contained read, but the inscrutability is also something of a strength. Patient and dedicated readers will find among the references to other books and their many footnotes and appendices a poignant sense of completion and finality to the life’s pursuit of a father and son. Deep delvers of Middle-earth lore will be rewarded with a thorough understanding of one of modern fantasy’s seminal works. A-
The manager of an Iowa dairy farm that employed the man suspected of killing 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts says the suspect was a good employee who worked there for four years under a fake name. (Aug. 22) AP
Dane Lang, a co-owner of Yarrabee Farms outside of Brooklyn, Iowa, stood outside his family farm this week and lamented that he had employed the undocumented immigrant charged in the murder of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts.
Then he was asked if any other non-U.S. citizens were among the 10 employees on the dairy farm.
That vague answer highlights the worst-kept secret in the agriculture business: roughly half of the nation’s 1.4 million field workers (47 percent, or 685,000 workers) are undocumented immigrants. And that estimate, from the Labor Department, is a conservative one with labor experts citing far higher percentages.
While presidents have approached undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. in vastly different ways, Republicans and Democratic administrations — under heavy lobbying from the agricultural industry — have always treated undocumented farm workers differently.
While the federal government was herding more than 100,000 Japanese immigrants into internment camps during World War II, it was also administering the Bracero Program, which allowed millions of Mexicans to enter the U.S. to work on farms.
When President Ronald Reagan signed a landmark immigration law in 1986 that granted amnesty to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants, those who worked on farms were given the easiest path to U.S. citizenship.
A bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate (but not the House) in 2013 would have created a special “blue card” just for agricultural workers and their immediate families that granted them legal status and the chance to become U.S. citizens.
And now, many Republicans are citing Tibbetts’ death as a reason to pass a bill requiring all U.S. companies to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of all job applicants. But even that bill — the Legal Workforce Act filed by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas — gives farmers 2.5 years before they must start vetting their field workers, the only such exception.
Chris Chmielenski, deputy director of NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said that history reflects both the power of the agricultural industry, and the willingness of politicians to help them out.
He says the easiest solution would be to require that all U.S. business use E-Verify, which allows employers to check the immigration status of job applicants using a government website. The Iowa farm that employed Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who is charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death, initially said they used that program to screen Rivera, but later backtracked and conceded that they had used a different system not designed to flag immigration violations.
“That would have a pretty big impact on future flows of illegal immigration,” Chmielenski said.
But farmers, ranchers, and other business owners who rely on undocumented immigrants say passing an E-Verify bill would cripple their industries. Already struggling to recruit enough Americans to do the back-breaking field work, and operating under the constant threat of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they say implementing E-Verify with no other changes to the immigration system would put untold numbers of companies out of business.
That’s why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that it would only support mandatory electronic worker verification if it’s coupled with an overhaul, and expansion, of the country’s guest worker programs. The American Farm Bureau Federation goes a step further, arguing that passing E-Verify alone would cause production to drop by $60 billion and food prices to increase by 5 to 6 percent.
“Farmers and ranchers get that we have immigration laws in our country, and they want nothing more than to be able to attain their workers legally,” said John-Walt Boatright, the national affairs coordinator for the Florida Farm Bureau. “But we cannot have E-Verify without a workable, functioning, accessible guest work program in place.”
Farmers across the country saw exactly what would happen if the government took an enforcement-only approach after Arizona passed an anti-immigration bill in 2010, leading a half-dozen states to follow suit. The laws, which included the requirement that all businesses use the E-Verify system, sent undocumented immigrants out of those states in droves.
Alabama’s immigration law pushed up to 80,000 workers out of the state, according to a study conducted by the University of Alabama.
Georgia’s immigration law led to more than $140 million in unharvested crops in 2011 because so many workers fled the state, according to a report commissioned by the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
The fleeing workers in Arizona resulted in an average 2 percent drop in the state’s gross domestic product every year through 2015, according to an analysis conducted by The Wall Street Journal.
Finding American workers to make up for the shortfall was just as difficult. In Georgia, Gov. Republican Nathan Deal turned to people on probation in 2011, but most walked off the jobs almost immediately.
That same year in North Carolina, as 489,000 people were unemployed statewide, the North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs, but just 268 North Carolinians applied, 163 showed up for work, and only seven finished the season, according to a study by the Partnership for a New American Economy.
The solution, according to farmers, is a nationwide guest worker program that improves on the current H2A visa program that has been a headache for farmers for decades.
Those visas are designed for temporary, seasonal workers, and have been used more frequently in recent years. The number of H2A visas approved has increased from 74,192 in 2013 to 161,583 in 2017, according to State Department data.
“That doesn’t mean it’s a great program,” he said. “It just means it’s the only program.”
Boatright said the H2A program is too rigid to accommodate the unpredictable timing of harvests. He said it’s overloaded with too many regulations that often requires farms to have immigration attorneys on staff just to fill out paperwork. And because the visas cannot be used for year-round workers, Boatright said it makes dairies, nurseries, and livestock ranches ineligible.
Chmielenski said his organization, which can successfully pressure Washington by activating its network of thousands of supporters to flood congressional offices with calls, emails, and Tweets, is willing to consider a tandem bill that includes mandatory E-Verify with improvements to the agricultural guest worker program. And that, in the end, may be the only way to get a bill through Congress.
“We acknowledge the fact that H2A could be cleaned up,” he said. “We’re willing to work with them on that and to give them a pool of foreign workers they can tap into when there’s not an American worker willing to do that for a decent wage.”
USA TODAY Sports’ Steve DiMeglio previews the upcoming tournament at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey. USA TODAY
Tiger Woods’ return to the FedExCup Playoffs didn’t go according to plan.
After shooting two even par 71’s on Thursday and Friday at The Northern Trust, the first event in golf’s FedExCup Playoffs, Tiger barely made the weekend cut. The last time Tiger participated in the FedExCup Playoffs was in 2013.
Dustin Johnson entered the week atop the FedExCup standings, followed closely by Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka. Justin Rose and Bubba Watson round out the top five.
Tiger tees off at 7:50 a.m. ET alongside Ian Poulter. Follow his Saturday round with shot-by-shot analysis.
Hole 15 – Par 3
Tiger goes pin-seeking here and comes to rest 8-feet below the cup. His birdie putt catches the right edge and lips out. Another par. 2-under thru 15 (2-under for the tournament).
Hole 14 – Par 4
3-wood here for Tiger and it’s not great. He leaves this one left and it just stays in the fairway. Could be worse. From there he finds the green, leaving it 20 feet short of the cup. He sinks the putt and drops to 2-under thru 14 (2-under for the tournament).
Hole 13 – Par 5
Tiger’s driver misses right. Way right. He’s forced to stand in a bunker with the ball above his feet, and he lays up with an iron. His wedge from the fairway finishes around 10 feet beyond the cup and to the left. He never gave this one a chance. He played it left and it barely moved. Another frustrating two-putt par and a missed opportunity to score. 1-under thru 13 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 12 – Par 4
3-wood for Tiger here on the 275-yard driveable par 4. This comes up short and finds the left greenside bunker. It shouldn’t be too tough to get in for at least par, maybe even birdie, from there. His out rolls within six feet, leaving a birdie putt that’ll have some movement. Much like yesterday, his birdie putt never really had a chance and he two-putts for par. 1-under thru 12 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 11 – Par 3
Tiger’s tee shot on No. 11 finds the rough to the left of the green. He just about holes this one out. It even hit the cup! Just a tap-in par. 1-under thru 11 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 10 – Par 4
This is a driver that Tiger looks at for a while, but it is just fine. This finds the left side of the fairway. Tiger was looking at it because it was heading toward a left fairway bunker, but it came up 10 yards short of the bunker in the fairway. Tiger hates it. He drops the club in disgust on the follow through. This one from 218 yards was poor, but the ball ends up just in front of the green on the left. That’s in the fairway, and the pin is back-right. That should be a pretty simple 20-yard chip.
Tiger takes putter and that was a good idea. He lags this beautifully to about 2-3 feet below the cup. Should be a par. Tiger rolls that right in. Easy par. 1-under thru 10 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 9 – Par 4
Tiger finally misses with the driver. This is a good deal right and finishes in the rough. Should be harmless in terms of a look at the green, just depends on the lie. A pretty good lie and Tiger is able to fashion a very nice one here. This ball lands a little short and right of the cup and rolls about 18 feet right of the cup. A great shot from over there.
That one starts right of the cup and sharply bends left well below the hole. This one missed low by a lot, a good 18 inches. Just terrible. He does two-putt for par, though. 1-under thru 9 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 8 – Par 4
Another driver in the fairway. This is a beauty down the left side of the fairway. A nice solid, shot here from TW that finishes 12-15 feet left of the cup. A third straight good birdie look. This is starting to feel familiar to yesterday, Tiger getting good birdie looks. Now will it be exactly the same – failing to take advantage of most? We’ll see. This could be an important putt. That’s just weird. He started this at least a ball left of the cup and it didn’t break an inch. As we said, just odd. Good speed, but terrible line. This finishes inches left of the cup and is a two-putt par. 1-under thru 8 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 7 – Par 4
A driver, and Tiger smokes this down the middle. Amazing how good he’s with this club this week after being totally lost in recent weeks. That’s a little tugged, but that turns out just fine. This ball lands 15-20 feet left of the cup but starts curling right down a slope. This ball finishes about 10-12 feet left and beyond the cup. A good chance at back-to-back birdies.
That was a fast one and Tiger got aggressive, but that one misses left and runs about 4 feet past the cup. He does roll in the comebacker, though. 1-under thru 7 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 6 – Par 3
Tiger fires this one right over the flag, and this is a nice one that finishes about 12 feet beyond the cup. That will be a speedy, swinging putt but a decent birdie look. BOOM! That actually wasn’t a big swinger like we thought. Tiger started that about left-edge it looked like and it held its line well as it barely moves right and drops in the center. That’s the birdie he needed. 1-under thru 6 (1-under for the tournament).
Hole 5 – Par 4
Tiger takes driver and this is launched down the right-center of the fairway. He has figured it out with that club. Of course the rest of his game has regressed this week, but that’s how golf goes. That one is just OK, this approach from 167 yards comes up 30-40 feet short and a bit left of the pin. It leaves a birdie putt and another probable two-putt par, but he hoped for better here. Oh that was a good putt, but that swinging left-to-righter is just a tad too high. This putt curls around the left edge and trickles a foot by. A touch less speed and that falls in the left side for a birdie. A great stroke, though, and a simple par. Even thru 5 (Even for the tournament).
Hole 4 – Par 4
Tiger takes fairway wood, which actually seems unwise considering he’s hitting the driver more accurately, and wow it shows. He hates that swing, dropping the club on the follow through. This one is well left and goes a good 10-15 yards into the rough. Just a bad shot. If he gets an OK lie, though, he can get away with it.
That lie was not very good, but Tiger muscles this one from about 170 yards just short of the green in the fairway. That’ll leave a 20-ish yard chip in front of the green. Not a hard up and down. By the way, Tiger’s drive was just yards from reaching a lateral (non-water hazard). That tells you more about how rough his drive was. Tiger made that look pretty easy. He plays a fairly simply chip that lands about 15 feet short of the cup and runs out to about 2 feet. Pretty much a formality here for par. Yep, par. An OK start in Round 3 but nothing that will push him anywhere close to contention. Even thru 4 (Even for the tournament).
Hole 3 – Par 5
Tiger finds the left side of the fairway here with driver. That big stick continues to work well, and he’ll have a chance to go at this in two with a second shot from 275+ yards. Tiger takes out a fairway wood, and that was average at best. This one falls off to the right and a decent deal short of the green. That may have got to the right rough and will leave him about a lengthy pitch. If he’s in the right fairway over there, this is very doable. If he’s in the rough, it depends on the lie.
Actually, that ball was on line and short. It came up 20 yards short of the hole and left Woods a pitch from the fairway over a knob to the hole. He played a low spinner that actually scared the hole but scurried about 8 feet by before stopping. Not bad, but far from stone dead. Still, a good early birdie look. Seriously don’t know what he’s doing with the putter. That one was left of the hole the second it came off the putter face. That not only missed the hole left, it was a good couple balls left of the cup. Just brutal to watch. This runs 2 feet by and he does make par, though. Even thru 3 (Even for the tournament).
Hole 2 – Par 3
This one is just OK. The ball finishes about 30 feet left and beyond the pin. A solid shot, but this does continue the issue of Tiger having trouble with getting his approaches close. He comes close on that putt but it misses by inches. A simple two-putt par here. Even thru 2 (Even for the tournament).
Hole 1 – Par 4
A 3-wood off the opening tee and this comes out a bit left. This trundles into the left rough. This continues an odd trend: Tiger having trouble hitting woods in the fairway but the driver is finding the short grass. Didn’t get a real good look at that lie, but Tiger comes up a little short on the approach. This ball finishes about 25 feet short of the hole in the fairway in front of the green. Should be a simple chip from there. Not very good at all. This one comes up a good 5-6 feet short. That leaves him with a testy par putt to start. His work around the greens has been a bit mediocre at times this week. Good. Tiger drains that par putt. A sloppy start but he does avoid a bogey. If he wants to hold onto the dream of contending, he’s really got to avoid those at all costs. Even thru 1 (Even for the tournament).
Sunday’s race is live on 5 live and the BBC sport website
Lewis Hamilton beat title rival Sebastian Vettel to a sensational pole position in a thrillingly chaotic Belgian Grand Prix qualifying in the rain.
A rain shower as the cars began to prepare the first flying laps in the top 10 shoot-out caused havoc but Hamilton came out on top by 0.726 seconds with his final lap.
The Force Indias of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez locked out the second row after timing the conditions right – just days after the team were rescued from going out of business.
Red Bull and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen lost out in the pits at the key moment.
Ocon will start in third: and achievement by a man without a drive next year, for a team that nearly didn’t exist a few weeks ago
Hamilton shines when the sun doesn’t
Ferrari had looked narrow favourites for pole in the dry but the late rain threw form up in the air and, as so often, Hamilton fared best in the treacherous conditions.
The world champion created anxiety at his Mercedes team with an error, running wide at Fagnes with less than three minutes to go when on a fast lap.
But he put it all together on his crucial final lap to take pole by a very impressive margin.
Vettel heads into the race 24 points adrift of Hamilton and for the sake of his title hopes needs to beat him and take advantage of a weekend when the Ferrari looks the faster car, something he has failed to do in the last two races in Germany and Hungary.
Fairytale for Force India
In the early moments, the Force Indias stayed out on slicks, hoping to get in a quick lap before conditions worsened too much.
But it is was too wet – and Perez did well to save a huge moment as he lost the car over the brow at Raidillon, part of the famous Eau Rouge section.
The decision to stay out seemed set to cost the team, which went into administration over the last race weekend in Hungary in July but was saved by a consortium of businessmen led by Lawrence Stroll, the father of Williams driver Lance.
But, as the rain eased, both men drove well to take the team’s best qualifying position for years.
Spa’s imposing 195mph Eau Rouge corner is one of the toughest tests of a driver’s skill in the sport
Some big losers
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was the early pace-setter in the rain, turning the car around quickly while Mercedes and Ferrari took longer to prepare.
But after setting fastest time briefly, Verstappen pitted and dropped down to seventh as others improved at the end of the session. The implication is they did not have enough fuel in the car to finish the session.
Raikkonen will also be disappointed. He has been the form man all weekend and pipped Verstappen, only to pit. His demeanour – shaking his head as he stood by the car – betrayed his frustration
Mick Schumacher – My dad is my idol
Ferrari said he came back in for fresh tyres and a splash of fuel, but they were too marginal on time to go back out.
Behind the Force Indias, Haas’ Romain Grosjean starts fifth on the mixed-up grid, with Verstappen’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and the second Haas of Kevin Magnussen.
Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas was 10th, not setting a time in Q3, but will start from the back after engine penalties.
Bottas had illustrated the madness of the opening minutes of qualifying with a spin at Blanchimont on his warm-up lap as the rain came down with the drivers on unthreaded slick tyres.
Hamilton also nearly lost his car just afterwards at the Bus Stop chicane, and all piled into the pits for intermediate tyres.
Helpfully for this pair, the Belgian Grand Prix takes place in the Ardennes forestRain always brings out the drama, and ponchos, in F1
More McLaren woe
In the dry conditions early in qualifying, McLaren were desperately slow.
Fernando Alonso, who is retiring from Formula 1 at the end of the year, was only 17th and team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne slowest of all, the two split by the Williams cars.
What they said
“That was one of the toughest qualifying sessions I can remember,” Hamilton said. “It seems to get harder and harder all year. I don’t know if they definitely had it. It looked like (the gap was) 0.05secs and I was hopeful I could make it up.
“Then the rain came, I can’t even express how difficult it was. I went wide in Turn One, the track looks dry even though it’s wet. It was so hard. I went off twice but I am so glad it came together on that last lap.”
Vettel said: “I don’t think we timed it quite right. I think we had the pace for pole but we will never find out. The gap was quite big so Lewis deserves pole but I think we have good pace for the race so I am confident. We have strong pace so anything can happen.
“I didn’t feel I got everything out and it was a bit of a scrappy session. But we saw others not putting enough fuel into until the end so it could have been a lot worse.”
ISIL has taken a group of at least 27 people hostage in the sparsely populated Sweida desert in southern Syria, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Among those kidnapped, who are mostly of members of the minority Druze community, are at least 16 children aged between seven and 15, the human rights group said on Saturday, citing witnesses and relatives.
Local residents told HRW that ISIL (also known as ISIS) is planning to use the hostages as leverage in negotiations with the Syrian government and Russia, one of Syria’s closest allies.
“For a month now, families of the kidnapped Sweida have been calling for the release of their loved ones,” Lama Fakih, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, said in a statement.
“Civilian lives should not be used as bargaining chips, and ISIS should release all the hostages immediately.”
The children were taken during attacks in late July on several villages in the eastern parts of Sweida, HRW said.
Several witnesses told the human rights group that 57 people were killed in the attack, after which 27 were taken by members of ISIL.
Following the attacks, the armed group released videos showing kidnapped women, with one stating that they would be killed if the Syrian government did not stop its assault on Yarmouk, a besieged Palestinian refugee camp held by ISIL in the south of Damascus.
In the weeks following the attacks, local media reported the beheading of 19-year-old Muhannad Abu Ammar at the hands of his ISIL kidnappers.
A woman named Zaya, also taken hostage by ISIL, died of unknown causes several days later.
Sweida province has largely been spared most of the violence that Syrian cities have witnessed in the years since the conflict started in 2011.
In less than a month, Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have been able to seize control of most of southwestern Deraa province, including the provincial capital of the same name.
Alongside the military offensive, the government has also struck “reconciliation” deals, essentially a negotiated capitulation of a number of villages that have been in rebel hands for years, to restore government control there.
It’s fascinating to watch conspiracy theories die — their diehard captains still clinging to shards of evidence as the ship of belief cracks and sinks all around them.
We’re watching that happen in two areas of the culture this week. There are the QAnon crazies, whose bizarre pro-Trump theory is taking on water after lawyer Michael Cohen turned on his former boss. Moderators in the Q forums have started banning mentions of Cohen’s name.
Alas, much this same reality-denying dynamic is at work in parts of Star Wars fandom.
The parentage of Rey (Daisy Ridley) was revealed in The Last Jedi way back in December: her parents were drunken nobodies. Still, all these months later, some true believers in discredited theories hold out hope that this plot point will be reversed by J.J. Abrams in the upcoming Episode IX — and some websites are all too ready to attract eyeballs by stoking that belief.
But that’s just not how stories work. That’s not how any of this works.
Let’s back up, all the way back to Abrams’ first Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. Rey was introduced as a junkyard orphan on the planet Jakku, selling scraps of old Imperial war equipment in exchange for a pittance paid in self-raising bread. She passes the time by telling herself that her parents are coming back for her.
In the course of her adventures, Rey meets Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o), an ancient and wise woman who is able to tell a lot about a person’s history by looking in their eyes. Here’s what Maz tells Rey, plain as day: “You already know the truth. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.”
Still, elaborate parental theories sprung up in the wake of the movie: Rey must be a Skywalker, because Anakin and Luke’s lightsaber gave her a vision! No wait, she must be a Solo, because she’s so good at piloting the Millennium Falcon! Or maybe she’s a descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi, because … reasons!
And then there was the fourth option, the one many of us preferred post-Force Awakens: she’s a nobody. Because Force powers can spring up in anyone, even a Jakku orphan. Because if she is related to any of our heroes, that instantly turns them into assholes for abandoning her. But most of all, because Maz basically said it already, right there in Abrams’ film.
Then writer and director Rian Johnson confirmed the “nobody” theory in The Last Jedi. “You know the truth,” Kylo Ren tells Rey, literally echoing Maz. “They were filthy junk traders; sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.”
To underline the fact that the villain of the piece isn’t lying, it is Rey herself who delivers the crucial piece of dialogue in between those two quotes above: “They were nobody,” she admits.
Case closed, right? There was foreshadowing in the first movie. A major fan theory got it right. The point that both movies were making about the democratic nature of the Force is clear. Johnson even cautioned us in advance not to make too much of the Rey’s parents thing. All should be right in Star Wars world.
But of course it wasn’t. Skywalker, Solo and Kenobi theory purists lost their minds. This was all Rian Johnson’s fault, they said. Abrams will reverse it in the next film, they said. Drunk on fan theories, a number of movie and science fiction websites garnered clicks by holding out that hope.
Actor and Abrams friend Simon Pegg added fuel to the fire in a podcast in April. Pegg said that way back before The Force Awakens there was “some talk” being “chucked around” about “a kind of relevant lineage for her.” Which is quite possible, given how many ideas Abrams and writer Lawrence Kasdan threw around in their year-long journey of writing the script. Revealingly, Pegg added: “Honestly, I don’t know.”
Do you think the internet cared about that nuance? It did not. Controversy-seeking articles and (especially) YouTube videos made hay with Pegg’s quote. They played telephone with it to the point where the revelation came from Abrams himself. Surely, they assumed, he must be mad at Rian Johnson! Surely he’ll reverse course in Episode IX, giving Rey the famous parents she was always meant to have!
To save you a click, I’ll point out that the question mark is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
But even if you ignore the fact that the pair of directors have had dozens of meetings about the two movies thus far, and even if you believe that J.J. Abrams is quietly seething and desperate to give Rey some famous parents, let us say it clearly again: that’s not how stories work.
This isn’t a game of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Abrams and Johnson aren’t improv antagonists trying to score points by screwing each others’ content. They are collectively creating a trilogy of films that will hang together as one complete story, in collaboration with the many fine storytelling minds of Lucasfilm.
Abrams isn’t going to go out of his way to make his film say “nu uh.” His job is to bring the trilogy’s story to a satisfying conclusion using logic and emotional beats. That’s it.
Ask yourself this, true believers: How satisfying would it have been in 1983 if Return of the Jedi had simply said: “Never mind! Darth Vader was lying! Luke’s not his son after all!”
And yet, as a 10-year-old kid at the time, that was absolutely the answer I wanted. After Empire Strikes Back, my friends and I simply couldn’t handle the fact that our hero and the galaxy’s most evil man were related. There had to be some other explanation, right?
Four decades later, I’m relieved that George Lucas stuck to the plot development that was best for the story as a whole. I’m glad he didn’t listen to the world’s 10-year-olds. One day, fans of Rey Skywalker and Rey Solo and Rey Kenobi, you too will feel the same.
I’m not holding out that much hope for the QAnon folks, however.
Each week, Julie Chen will answer a few questions about the latest events in the Big Brother house.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Julie, what is going on here? Faysal nominates someone in his own alliance and then lets him walk out the door. How much of this was game-related in terms of him mistakenly believing Scottie didn’t vote to keep Rockstar, and how much was Faysal just wanting to get rid of another guy who paid a lot of attention to Haleigh? JULIE CHEN: All of the above. It was kick started by Faysal not believing Scottie — for whatever ridiculous reason — that Scottie didn’t vote out Rockstar and decided to believe Brett over his Scottie. The Haleigh part of it was just the nail in the coffin.
Scottie seemed genuinely remorseful about his attempts to save himself by throwing Haleigh and Sam under the bus. What was his fatal flaw in this game? His fatal flaw was not protesting enough that he didn’t vote out Rockstar last week. He needed to tell Faysal something like he swears on let’s say his mother’s life — or whoever is the most important person in his life — that he didn’t vote out Rockstar. He just let it slide. Sitting back this week on that one point cost him this game.
Tyler talked about having final 2 deals with almost everyone in the house. Is that smart, or is he going to end up enraging jilted jury members like Paul did last year? The only difference is I think Tyler’s personality is just so laid back and likable that he might just get away with it! If he makes it to final 2, then it all depends on how he does in his final speech to the jury and how he handles their tough questions. Paul’s problem last year was that he choked during those portions. He showed no remorse, wasn’t charming, was too defensive, and rolled his eyes and made faces while Josh was making his case. It was an unlikable moment for someone who was so likable and truly beloved by his teammates throughout the game.
Finally, as the Chenbot, what did you think of the Zingbot this year and who do you think got the harshest zing? Three way tie between Brett being called a douche, Faysal being called a moron, and Sam being called crazy. The crazy comment about Sam was only bad because of the reaction of the others hiding, which means they all think it and were scared/embarrassed for her. Plus, Sam’s reaction showed how hurtful it was cause she looked like she was going to cry cause she feels it’s kind of true.
As for Brett, the fact that no one laughed and he looked really embarrassed and hurt made it so hard to watch. Even if you think he’s a douche, it was mean. I felt bad for him. Come to think of it, Faysal’s wasn’t so bad after all. He didn’t seem to care so much about being called a moron. He laughed it off.
USA TODAY Sports’ Paul Myerberg gives his biggest surprises and takeaways from the top 25 ranked teams in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll. USA TODAY Sports
Sports are supposed to provide an escape from the everyday grind. Unfortunately, the real world has been all too prevalent in the issues that have dominated the news cycle in college football of late.
It should come as some relief, then, that there are actual games to watch this weekend. There aren’t any marquee contests on the week 0 slate, but hopefully a couple of the televised offerings can remind us why this game is fun.
Hawaii at Colorado State, 7:30 p.m. ET, CBSSN
The season’s first clash of FBS opponents has the added value of being a conference game. Neither team is expected to claim the Mountain West title, but an opening win could prove extremely important to both teams’ bowl aspirations.
Each programs have dealt with non-football related distractions in the days leading up to kickoff. The visiting Warriors arrived on the mainland with Hurricane Lane bearing down on the islands. The Rams’ concerns were for coach Mike Bobo, who was able to rejoin the team after a hospital stay as he was treated for peripheral neuropathy.
On the field, both squads will be installing a lot of new pieces. Warriors coach Nick Rolovich would like to restore the high-flying attack that gave Hawaii its identity, but he’ll be asking a first-time starter at QB to run it. The choice will most likely be sophomore Cole McDonald, but freshman Chevan Cordeiro could also see the field. The Rams boasted the league’s most productive offense in 2017, but most of its top producers are gone. Washington transfer K.J. Carta-Samuels will take over at QB. He might not be as prolific through the air as predecessor Nick Stevens, but his footwork will make him hard to contain.
Wyoming at New Mexico State, 10 p.m. ET, ESPN2
The Aggies begin life as a football independent upon separation from the geographically inconvenience Sun Belt. On the plus side, NMSU is coming off a bowl appearance, the program’s first since 1960, and hopes to maintain some of that momentum. Now the bad news — the offense that was the key to the team’s success last year must be almost completely rebuilt. The job will be particularly difficult for new starting QB Matt Romero as he faces a Cowboys’ defense that returns eight starters, including potential all-America safety Andrew Wingard. The Wyoming offense in 2017 was something of a puzzle, struggling through the air despite the presence of highly drafted QB Josh Allen. Redshirt freshman Tyler Vander Waal was named the new starter by coach Craig Bohl, and he’ll be backed up by fifth-year senior Nick Smith.
The Week 0 schedule also includes a couple of FBS post-season long shots seeking strong starts against FCS competition.
Rice, with new coach Mike Bloomgren, plays host to Prairie View A&M. The Owls are looking to change the program’s fortunes after just nine wins in three seasons that were preceded by three consecutive bowl berths under David Bailiff. Rice won a 65-44 shootout two years ago in the only prior meeting between these teams, so there’s definitely some fun potential.
Massachusetts hosts Duquesne in what would be a conference clash if indoors and on hardwood. The two Atlantic-10 basketball members will meet on the gridiron for the first time. The Minutemen have steadily improvement since joining the Bowl Subdivision in 2012. Last year, they posted a program-best four wins since the move. All of them came in the last half of the season, including defeats of Appalachian State and Brigham Young. There were also close losses at Tennessee and Mississippi State that demonstrated their competitiveness. QB Andrew Ford is poised for a big year and has the potential to be drafted by the NFL.
Two separate shootings outside high school football games left two people dead and three injured Friday.
In Florida, one person was killed and two injured when a single shooter opened fire following a game between Jacksonville schools Lee and Raines.
“It is shocking. I was actually here, at the game,” Superintendent Diana Greene told the Florida Times Union. “It was a great game and for it to end in violence like this is just unfortunate, and quite frankly, we should all be saying unacceptable.”
In California, two people were arrested after a shooting that left one injured and one dead outside Armijo High in Fairfield. The shooting occurred during the junior varsity game on campus. That game was canceled, as was the varsity game that was scheduled to begin later.
Hundreds of students and parents were moved from the football field to the Armijo gym, and one of the suspects followed them. The suspect was taken into custody in the gym without incident, police said. A second suspect was arrested nearby.
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