Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IT’S THE LAND of the free and Americans don’t like Nazi insignia laid over the stars and stripes. Nor do they want to sit on it.
A furious backlash has prompted Amazon to pull ads for a television show that featured the Nazi German eagle and Imperial Japan’s rising sun on the New York subway.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority allowed the company to colour seats on the Times Square shuttle with the symbols laid over the US flag to promote The Man in the High Castle.
The show, which premiered last month, is set in the 1960s as if America had lost World War II — occupied by Nazi Germany in the east and the Empire of Japan in the west.
Based on the novel by Philip Dick, it portrays an America in which slavery is legal and Jews hide under assumed names.
An official told AFP that the ads — which had been originally scheduled to run until next month — were being pulled.
Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mayor Bill de Blasio led calls for the ads to be removed, saying they were offensive to World War II and Holocaust survivors, as well as to countless others.
New York is one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in the world, and after Tel Aviv is home to the world’s second largest Jewish population by city.
“Seeing the American flag paired with a Nazi symbol is viscerally offensive, because there is no context as to what it means,” said the Anti-Defamation League.
We’re not saying that people don’t have a right to express themselves. We’re just saying that it has a level of insensitivity.
New York state assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who is Jewish, slammed what he called “vulgar and offensive advertising”.
“The MTA could have allowed this show to be advertised without using such offensive insignias. As a Jew I am offended, and as a New Yorker I am embarrassed,” he said.
Dinowitz demanded that the ads be pulled immediately and that the MTA issue a public apology.
“The MTA should be ashamed of themselves and this ignorant advertising campaign, as it is offensive not just to the Jewish community, but to all Americans,” he said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
also , I don’t think it should be called ” bettering ” their exams results , it’s questioning their results to make sure they were graded properly .
Suzie, of course people are appealing to better their result. If they thought that the examiner had been generous to them do you really think they’d appeal in order for the exam to be “graded properly”?
sloop ,yes to better their result because the students believe they did better than the results they were given so therefore appeal , but if it had been graded properly in the first place then they wouldn’t have to appeal .
But its not called bettering?
Agreed Suzie, but, not wishing to sound pedantic, the article is about the results of the appeals not why the students had to appeal. Having said that, the fact that there were so many appeals raises serious questions which need to be answered
so nearly a fifth of results appealed were wrong? that’s quite startling
Over 25% of Biology was upgraded. What a poor marking performance. And let’s not forget those marking Biology were the ones teaching it too…. scary.
25% of appealed results were upgraded, appealed results are not an accurate sample of exam papers, it is in fact a very small percentage of total papers.
25% of Biology was upgraded ? – where are you getting that figure from ? 245 out of 25,596 is not 25%……..
Now if you said 25% of those appealed, that would be different………..
well they don’t generally upgrade non appealed papers now do they. Think about it for a while…. 25% of all appealed Biology papers were upgraded. They are a representation of both the standard of marking a teaching.
I understand that S ReiIIy, but I think some thought should be put into reviewing a broader sample of appealed and unappealed papers to investigate what the actual % is, given that the percentage of appealed is so high.
How can so many results be wrong? Will the teacher that gave these wrong results be marking next year?
Course they will. You can’t punish anyone in this country
Except non public or state and semi state workers. we’re fair game.
2000 wrong out of almost 390,000 is a pretty good result. Don’t forget that for many exams what is right and what is wrong can be a matter of opinion.
1,822 upgraded yet only 3 downgraded, I somehow find it hard to believe that so many were marked mistakenly in one direction only.
There’s always going to be more upgrades as you would generally only appeal a result if you think you should have been marked higher after viewing the script yourself, and often with a teacher. If you thought you were lucky to get what you got surely you’d leave well enough alone and not appeal it?
I never knew there was an exam on One Direction Pat? If there was I’m sure a lot of teenagers scored well on it !!!
Lot of good it does for students who may have missed out on a college place due to erroneously marked papers when the term started 6 weeks ago for most colleges. Shocking number of papers marked incorrectly too it seems.
Is 1 in 200 really “shocking”? Bear in mind that many papers have a lot of wiggle room for answers to be “right” or “wrong”. Take Economics for example, one I got checked. For one question on the advantages of Foreign Direct Investment one could say:
Increases Employment
Increases State Revenue through Taxtion
Decreases Social Welfare Spend
Increases Consumer Spending
Decreases State Healthcare costs.
You could get anywhere between 5 and 30 on that answer, depending on the corrector and marking scheme. Some will come along and consider them all separate valid points, another could say that they are all spins on the same answer.
@David Hanlon. I agree that the results have come out too late. However, if you look you will see that the highest number of exams that were marked wrongly apply to Ag Science and that was 1.8%. The total on average is 0.47%. That means that 99.53% of all papers were deemed to have been marked correctly. These figures refer to the overall number of exams corrected and not to the appeals.
6 weeks is far too long to have to wait for the appeal results.
All college places have to be postponed till next year now.
It’s very important for students waiting for appeals to accept a relevant course this year so that it might count for the original course they wanted eg taking science while your hoping for medicine
Them percentages are all wrong
Did my leaving this year and failed business was shocked when I seen this so decided to view my papers , when I seen I got 38% I walked out of the room, it was the most frustrating thing ever since I did 9 months of grinds for 6th year luckily enough I got a course I’m enjoying but 2% off a pass is horrible to see
what about the junior cert appeals when can we get the statistics on those?!
have your say