Grants meet the culture war

The document makes clear what sorts of things might be considered administration priorities and national interest—and they’re largely a war on woke. For example, the Trump administration canceled PEPFAR, a program meant to limit the spread of HIV in Africa; it’s a step that is estimated to lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. But to the OMB, that’s a good thing, because the alternative was woke: “Far-left activists hijacked the critical work done by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was established to respond to the AIDS crisis in Africa. Due to wasteful spending, PEPFAR became a left-wing foreign aid entitlement that attempted to promote abortion and gender ideology.”

(Its cited source for that is an editorial from the Heritage Foundation, a far-right-wing think tank.)

While it demands “viewpoint neutral” behavior from everyone receiving money, it has no issues with engaging in viewpoint discrimination itself. For example, it outright bans any funding for “theories of disparate-impact liability,” the idea that apparently race-neutral rules might have impacts that differ based on the race of the people involved. Also banned: any attempts to compensate for the historic discrimination that has kept women and minorities from having equal opportunities in society. That’s considered DEI, and thus forbidden.

Also out: funding for what it terms “gender ideology,” which it defines as an effort to “deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans.” Apparently, studying human chromosomal disorders, which can result in unusual combinations of X and Y chromosomes, is no longer welcome in the US. “Ending government-sponsored promotion of divisive gender ideology is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, and trust in government,” the OMB asserts, based on no evidence whatsoever.

There’s also a political litmus test for funding that harkens back to the McCarthy era, when those with “un-American” ideas were ostracized. “OMB proposes a new provision that agencies may consider an applicant’s affiliations with organizations engaged in activities that violate Federal law, undermine public safety or national security, or advocate for the overthrow of the United States Government,” the document notes.

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The difficulty balancing could use some work as well. The lowest setting, “Can I Play, Daddy” is laughably easy for anyone with modern FPS experience, with lots of item pickups and enemies that are extremely slow to attack and who inflict barely any damage when they do manage to get a shot off. The default “Bring ‘em On!” difficulty, on the other hand, feels borderline unfair at points, with enemies that can take out half of your health with just a few stray shots.

While a few new enemies are slowly introduced once you work past the shareware levels, I can’t say any of them were all that interesting. And after playing through dozens of levels, I’ll say I was really jonesing for a new weapon that didn’t just amount to “the old weapon but with an increased rate of fire.”

Then there are the overarching design decisions that are perplexing from a modern perspective. Like many arcade games that were still popular at the time, Wolfenstein 3D keeps track of a numerical score throughout each playthrough. The game also gives you a limited number of lives to play with, removing your weapons with each death (accumulating enough points even grants bonus lives).

But the game also lets you save at any time, making these features practically irrelevant for anyone who wants to save-scum through the most difficult fights. And while Wolfenstein 3D retains any damage you’ve built up between levels, it requires you to start a completely new game when you complete a full episode, with no explicit links between them.

Look ma, one hand

The most intriguing discovery I made on my fresh replay of Wolfenstein 3D was how well-suited the game is to mouse controls. Back in 1992, I probably barely knew how to use a mouse, much less how to effectively aim a virtual gun with one. This time around, I was delighted to find that the entire game can be effectively played one-handed, without touching the keyboard at all.

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A Chinese puppetry practitioner and a traditional Indian dance artist are among six recipients of the inaugural Outstanding Youth in Intangible Cultural Heritage Award. The honour, which comes with development grants of up to S$20,000, is to support young Singaporeans dedicated to preserving cultural traditions. Recipients like Adrian Ong and Banupriya Ponnarasu are adapting their art forms to engage younger audiences, while balancing multiple roles. The initiative aims to strengthen multicultural understanding and sustain heritage practices for future generations. Chloe Teo reports.

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