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Time of India
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Naruto: Did Obito Uchiha truly deserve a redemption arc?
The legacy of one of Naruto's most controversial characters continues to divide fans even today. In reality, was Obito Uchiha truly deserving of such a golden redemption or was it poor storytelling at best? Forgiveness and redemption may be the most potent themes present in the world of Naruto. The anime has resurrected a number of baddies from the brink of evil's abyss, restoring them to life — and glory. From Sasuke Uchiha to even Orochimaru, most characters stride the precarious tightrope between hero and villain. Of all of them, though, none deserved to surprise fans with how black his heart had gone as Obito Uchiha. Once a dreamy, lovesick ninja, his turn as a villain saw Obito become one of the most formidable antagonists in the whole Naruto saga. His crimes alienated him from the ninja community, as he became Nico's only nemesis, with his awful deeds sending ripples across the ninja world. Yet, in the dying minutes of Naruto: In Shippuden, the series provided him with a real redemption arc — leaving viewers to argue on whether or not Obito's turnaround was deserved or if it was too sudden. The dark legacy of Obito Uchiha Obito wasn't simply a cruel villain — he orchestrated many of Naruto's most devastating tragedies. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Вот что поза во сне говорит о вашем характере! Удивительные Новости Undo After opening the series as Tobi, he manipulated the strongest ninjas ever, puppeteered entire nations, and sparked the world-destroying Fourth Great Ninja War. Here are just some of his many unpardonable sins. Activating the Akatsuki's Reign of Terror: Traumatic events in Obito's life completely twisted his perspective. He transformed Nagato and the Akatsuki into weapons of mass destruction, and by utilizing pain and trauma he was able to control others. To allow him more leeway, he psychologically manipulated the Fourth Mizukage into submitting, reducing the village to a culture of violence through fear and death. Catalyzing the Uchiha Massacre As mentioned with Itachi, Obito was instrumental in ordering the Uchiha Clan's extermination. Upon the city of Konoha, he set loose the Nine-Tails which resulted in the death of Naruto's parents and thousands of others. Cultural Heritage and War Crimes He pretty much unilaterally launched the Fourth Great Ninja War, killing thousands in the process, enslaving the tailed beasts, and attempting to cast an infinite illusion over the entire world. These aren't minor errors — they're monumental blunders that reshaped the world we live in today. Unlike typical villains, Obito's crimes were mass and calculated. Obito's final redemption: Too late or just in time? Yet in spite of all the turmoil he unleashed, Obito's end gives him a vastly different interpretation. Though he is initially consumed by hopelessness, after fighting Naruto and coming to recognize a younger version of himself in him, Obito starts to have doubts about his decisions. In Union military affairs, when he defects to the other side, his actions tip the balance of war: Sacrificing Himself literally, as Obito dies saving Naruto and the rest of the ninja alliance from Kaguya's lethal assaults. He extracts the tailed beasts' chakra from Madara, rescuing Naruto when he was about to die. Forming an Alliance to Destroy the Rinnegan Obito, realizing everything, told Sakura to destroy his last Rinnegan to prevent Madara from using them, showing that he had truly redeemed himself. As far as fans are concerned, his redemption arc is too little, too late. Was Obito controlled by Madara? The truth behind the curse tag Yet somehow the biggest detail overlooked in Obito's story is the cursed tag that Madara farcically made sure to stick to Obito. This seal made it so Obito had no choice but to follow specific orders, so what he did wasn't necessarily done of free will. Though he did indeed operate with free choice for the majority of his offenses, the curse of Midas indicates there was ever the sense that he was being forced — and forever monitored. Is Trauma a valid excuse for Obito's actions? Obito's transformation into an agent of evil started when he had to watch the dying breath of Rin, the young woman he loved. Crushed by grief and then later on manipulated by Madara, he lost faith in the world. Can the personal experience of trauma really justify this type of state-orchestrated mass murder and global epic war? Naruto sometimes largely addresses the questions of how pain brings people into the darkness, the narrative argues that individuals need to be held accountable for their choices even if they have been harmed. Obito's posthumous effort to make amends is admirable. It never atones for the tragic destruction and trauma he inflicted during his lifetime. Does Obito Uchiha deserve forgiveness? Obito's story is among the most tragic and complicated tales in the whole of Naruto. He was a beloved hometown hero, became a supervillain, then unsuccessfully attempted to return to heroism. His redemption arc may have seemed premature to many, his ultimate sacrifices weren't without purpose. Does that make all that enough to forgive the blood on his hands? Whether or not they get moved to action by it, that's really a question only each viewer can answer.
India Today
10-06-2025
- Science
- India Today
Ampere, the Paris professor who turned a needle's twitch into a new science
It was a quiet September afternoon in Paris, 1820, when news from Denmark's Copenhagen reached Andre-Marie Ampere in Paris where he was teaching at cole Polytechnique. Hans Christian Orsted, a Danish physicist, had made a strange observation during a lecture back in April: a magnetic needle shifted direction when placed near a wire carrying electric of just being impressed, Ampere lit up. He rushed back to his laboratory at the College de France, repeated the experiment with his own voltaic pile, and took note of deeper implicationsadvertisementWithin days, he was in front of the French Academy of Sciences, not only confirming Orsted's effect but showing something even bigger: electric currents could create not just magnetic fields, but movement. They could generate motion, forces, patterns -- an entirely new branch of physics. That lightning-rod moment became the heart of electrodynamics -- what we now call it wasn't a fluke. Ampere had spent years quietly battling personal loss, grief, isolation, and the aftermath of the French Revolution. The language of physics and mathematics had become his lifelines. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) A LIFE SHAPED BY LOSS AND LEARNINGBorn on January 20, 1775, in Lyon, France, Ampere grew up in a home full of books. His father, a devout follower of philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, allowed him to learn was solving calculus problems in Latin by age 13. But tragedy shaped him -- his father was guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and later in life, he lost his wife losses haunted him. Yet, instead of folding inwards, he turned to science and faith for FORMAL SCHOOLING, BUT AN INSATIABLE MINDAmpere never attended a formal university as a student. He was largely self-taught, devouring mathematics, Latin, philosophy, and natural sciences from books in his father's library. (figures from the Memoirs on Electromagnetism and Electrodynamics) (Photos: Wikimedia Commons) Eventually, he secured a teaching post at the Collge de France and later became a professor at the cole Polytechnique in Paris, which is where he had his revolutionary BIG IDEA: CURRENTS CREATE FORCESIn 1820, building on Orsted's experiment, Ampere proposed that two parallel wires carrying electric currents attract or repel each other, depending on the direction of idea, now known as Ampere's force law, gave the world the first mathematical description of how electricity and magnetism are related. He didn't stop there. Ampere laid out an entire theory of electromagnetism, introducing concepts like the electric current loop and how it produces a magnetic field, which became the basis for modern electromagnet HE'S CALLED THE FATHER OF ELECTROMAGNETISMAmpere gave the science a structure. He even coined the term electrodynamics. His careful mathematical work paved the way for later scientists like James Clerk Maxwell to create a unified theory of his honour, the unit of electric current -- the Ampere -- bears his name. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) AMPERE'S PERSONAL LIFEDespite his scientific genius, Andr-Marie Ampre's life outside the lab was marked by hardship and quiet resilience. Ampere married Julie Carron in 1799, and they had a son, Jean-Jacques just four years into their marriage, Julie died of tuberculosis in 1803, leaving Ampere death deeply affected him, and those close to him said he never fully recovered. Much like what happened when his father died, he turned inward, pouring himself into his research while raising their son modest man, Ampre avoided the spotlight and lived simply, even as his ideas lit up Europe's scientific community. He remained deeply religious all his life, often turning to faith during moments of grief and uncertainty. Ampere and his son are buried in Paris His son, Jean-Jacques, grew up to become a respected historian and literary scholar, and eventually became a member of the prestigious Acadmie Franaise, carrying forward the Ampere name in the world of letters, while his father had already immortalised it in DEATH AND LEGACYAndre-Marie Ampere died on June 10, 1836, in Marseille, France, while on a scientific inspection tour. He was he is buried in Paris's Montmartre Cemetery. His legacy? Every time an electric current flows -- from your phone charger to a massive power grid -- Ampere's equations are at work.
Newsweek
04-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Trump's Right. There Is a Judicial Coup—But It's a Counter-Coup
President Donald Trump and his minions continue to rage and blow as they lose one court case after another. In a case of Trumpian projection, the White House declared the recent decision at the U.S. Court of International Trade striking down most of his tariffs a "judicial coup." It was classic Trump. He always accuses his adversaries of committing whatever wrong he is trying to get away with—"lying," Hillary Clinton—"crooked" Joe Biden. But actually, Trump keeps losing in court because he is trying to overthrow law and order, and the courts are trying to stop him. With a steady and deadly stream of executive orders, Trump is mounting a coup against the checks and balances that have sustained democracy in America for over 200 years. The courts are the counter-coup—seeking to restore the established constitutional order. President Donald Trump answers reporters' questions after he posthumously awarded the new Medals of Sacrifice to fallen officers during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on May 19, 2025, in Washington,... President Donald Trump answers reporters' questions after he posthumously awarded the new Medals of Sacrifice to fallen officers during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on May 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C. MoreIn the case of the tariffs, the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs on goods entering the country. Yes, Congress passed a law allowing the president to impose tariffs targeted at emergencies, but Trump capriciously slapped them on the whole world without rhyme or reason. The tariff tsunami, like other Trump power grabs, was justified by a claim of an "emergency," but, wisely, the court would have none of it. The sham trade "emergency" wasn't as flashy as the "invasion" emergency Trump declared regarding the Tren de Aragua drug gang. But it was just as bogus. Courts correctly discerned that the United States wasn't being invaded. More importantly, they recognized that even enemy aliens in time of war have the right to challenge their arrests in court. Trump halting hearings and threatening habeas corpus is revolutionary stuff. It's the beginning of a road reminiscent of France's Reign of Terror where its glorious Declaration of the Rights of Man was pushed aside by men who confused their own impulses with righteousness. Trump can complain all he wants, but he is the insurgent, not the judges. The principal feature of the Trump coup is his attempt to use executive orders to seize Congress' law-making function. Trump and his people simply ignore that presidents don't announce laws, they carry them out as written by Congress. That's why presidents swear to "faithfully execute" the laws. In the case of the tariffs, the law limits Trump's power. It is no coup for courts to say Trump must obey these limits. In the case of his cuts to federal spending on everything from foreign aid to FEMA, the governing law is the budget passed by Congress. It says what the president must spend on, and the president doesn't have the option to rewrite the law so he can spend—or not spend—as he likes. Yet Trump has undone innumerable congressional spending decisions. Consider also Trump's attacks on major law firms and universities. His executive orders punishing people because he doesn't like who or what they stand for don't just seek to cancel acts of Congress, they seek to cancel the constitutional First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association. Was it judicial insurrection for the courts to say that Trump can't cancel the First Amendment? And is it mutiny for the courts to say that Trump can't use his office to punish his personal enemies like former FBI director Robert Mueller? The constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law requires official action to be aimed at legitimate government purposes—not personal ones. Likewise, is it a revolt for the courts to insist on the "due process" of law guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments? This promise means that before the government deports people or bans lawyers from federal buildings, it must give them a chance to defend themselves. No. The courts aren't in revolt. What's revolting is the hubris that has inspired Trump to ignore the law as declared by Congress and the courts and associate law instead with his own personal will. The courts have no physical force to deploy against Trump's coup. To sustain the judicial counter-coup, the courts have only the moral force of memory that our nation became mighty, that it became the envy of the world, because it was founded on a government of laws, not men. Let's hope it's enough. Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the new book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Boston Globe
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Carême' brings ‘yes, chef' energy to 19th-century France
Indeed, non-Francophiles may need a second to orient themselves to this particular slice of history; the series caters more toward those already steeped in France's political evolution than those who need a beginner's guide. The fast-paced, handsomely shot show is set a few years after the French Revolution, where Carême's namesake Marie Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI, were guillotined and Napoleon Bonaparte (a little-seen Franck Molinaro) took charge as First Consul of the newly formed French Republic. It's ostensibly a time of peace, although lingering royalists and revolutionaries often clash with Bonaparte's supporters, and everyday Parisians are worried they've traded one totalitarian regime for another. In other words, things are tense for just about everyone, including the show's pulled-from-the-history-books political players. Fresh off butchering dissenters during the Reign of Terror, officious chief of police Joseph Fouché (Micha Lescot doing his best Javert) is quick to crush any threat of rebellion in Paris. Napoleon's wife, Joséphine (Maud Wyler), meanwhile, is focused on the kind of soft-power and glad-handing her husband detests, even as she worries this whole Republic experiment may collapse if she can't produce an heir. Advertisement And working from the shadows is nobleman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (Jérémie Renier), a savvy statesman who's happy to change up his stances, allies, and tactics in order to hold France together — and elevate his own position in the process. (The history books now remember 'Talleyrand' as a nickname for crafty, ever-shifting diplomacy.) Into that political hotbed comes Carême, a culinary savant everyone wants to use as their political pawn — ostensibly because chefs have easy access to the elite, but mostly because he's too sexy to resist. Lanky, tousled, and playfully flirtatious, Voisin reads like a cross between Jeremy Allen White and Timothée Chalamet; both brashly demanding and boyishly charming. It's a seductive central performance, and his modernized costuming only adds to the idea that Carême is the bad boy of French cooking. (While everyone else is vaguely period appropriate, he's styled like a pirate prince wearing Primark's fall coat collection.) Introduced, uh, experimenting with whipped cream with his paramour Henriette (Lyna Khoudri), Carême has an ambitious desire to elevate French cooking to new heights by bringing architectural elements to his work. (Think elaborate cakes styled as Egyptian pyramids, sugar sculptures made to look like ships, and a new dish called vol-au-vent.) Though he's no Napoleon fan, he's more interested in petit fours than France's political woes. Advertisement But when his adoptive father/patisserie mentor Sylvain Bailly (Vincent Schmitt) is arrested by Fouché on trumped up charges, Carême reluctantly agrees to work for Talleyrand in exchange for help freeing him — taking up a role as both head chef and unofficial spy. That makes Talleyrand half mentor introducing Carême to high society and half crime boss demanding his protégé do his bidding. While the real-life Carême really did work for Talleyrand on important diplomatic meals, the series heightens that idea into a full-on espionage thriller. Though 'Carême' is based on a biography by British writer-actor Ian Kelly, who serves as co-creator along with Italian writer Davide Serino, the show plays pretty fast and loose with history. It frequently embraces a ' It's a bit of a goofy premise that also gives the show a welcome episodic structure. Each week features a new high-stakes meal in which Carême must pull off some kind of mission for Talleyrand. In one episode, he delivers a booze-soaked buffet as part of an entrapment scheme. In another, he uses the cover of a luncheon to search for a hidden piece of evidence. At one point, he's shipped off to Warsaw to cook a meal so good it will convince Louis's exiled brother to renounce the throne. When food fails, Carême often turns to sex to get what he needs instead. (Though he doesn't sleep with the exiled king, he does suggest it.) The tone of it all sits somewhere between knowingly ridiculous and emotionally committed. Advertisement "Carême" combines food and political intrigue. Apple TV+ Of course, given that the real Carême is most famous for his massive impact on French cooking, it's a little weird that the show foregrounds the spy stuff so much. When it comes to the food, the series relies more on montage than exposition to explore what made Carême's cooking so influential — simple but innovative ingredients, elaborately detailed presentations, and a focus on streamlining the process of working in a kitchen. (Get ready for perhaps the first 'yes chef' in culinary history.) The scenes where Carême and his kitchen staff pull together a meal or invent a new dish are exhilarating in their own right. And one of the show's most electric relationships is between Carême and his talented sous-chef Agathe (Alice Da Luz), which plays like an even more sexually charged riff on the dynamic between Still, though it's odd that there are more double crosses than double creams in a show about a famed pastry chef, the French history riffs are at least zippily delivered. The series is also gorgeous to look at, with great production design for its bustling kitchens and opulent banquets. And Carême's complicated relationship with Talleyrand is a strong central anchor, particularly as the season goes on. (This is clearly a show that's gunning for a second season.) While 'Carême' never reaches the refinement of fine dining, it delivers a historical smorgasbord with a little something for every palate. Advertisement CARÊME Starring Benjamin Voisin, Jérémie Renier, Micha Lescot, Alice Da Luz. On Apple TV+
Russia Today
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Opposition to ‘Eurofascism' driving rapprochement with US
The US and Russia are natural allies against 'Eurofascism' and the tyrannical tendencies prevalent in Western European countries, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. The spy agency published a text on its website on Wednesday titled 'Eurofascism, just as 80 years ago, is the common enemy for Moscow and Washington.' The SVR argued that Europe has a 'historical predisposition' to 'various forms of totalitarianism that periodically produce devastating, global-scale conflicts.' It cited the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the 'bloody actions' of Napoleon as examples. It also referenced the Charlemagne Division of the SS, made up of volunteers from Nazi-occupied France. The agency credited French author Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, who collaborated with Nazi Germany, with introducing 'the concept of Eurofascism... and its ideology.' According to the SVR, la Rochelle believed that 'Eurofascism … [is] inherent not only to the Germans but to other European 'societies' as well.' The agency cited unnamed experts as saying that the current rift between the US and the EU facilitates a 'situational rapprochement of Washington and Moscow.' 'The United States is free due to the willingness of the ancestors of modern Americans to confront such dictatorships as the British Monarchy or the Jacobin Revolution,' it said. The SVR claimed that 'conservative expert circles in the USA believe that the British elite … is very much inclined to commit the gravest crimes against humanity.' 'America felt the effect of similar inclinations of the British back in August of 1814, when the British troops occupied Washington, burned the Capitol and the White House,' the SVR claimed. The agency said that 'foreign expert circles' are hopeful that Russia and the US will work together to prevent 'a new global conflict' and confront 'possible provocations both from Ukraine and from the 'maddened Europeans' traditionally urged on by Great Britain.' The statement was released as the US is attempting to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russian officials said that, unlike the Biden administration, President Donald Trump and his team have shown a readiness to listen to Moscow's positions and understand the root causes of the conflict.
