#the agents and their problematic third /j

[ghostatrandom]

Stupid dynamic idea I had during the day

Are looker and Anabel retired in my timeskip? Honestly idk cause my theory and headcanon right now is that PLZA takes place 13 years after the events of xy (which makes Emma 28 in my AU) sooo can you retire at like, your 40's???? Idk but they go to less missions at least, that's my excuse

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By Danny HakimAlan Feuer and Maggie Haberman

A memo circulating among at least half a dozen advisers to former President Donald J. Trump recommends that if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump who was influential in its development, according to the three people.

It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office.

But it would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Mr. Trump’s presidency, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Epshteyn himself.

The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Mr. Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said. Once Mr. Trump took the oath, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said.

Asked about the proposal, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, responded with an attack on Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she and Democrats “have weaponized the Department of Justice to attack President Trump and his supporters” and that Mr. Trump would use “the full powers of the presidency” to build his administration starting on Inauguration Day.

A number of Mr. Trump’s advisers — and the former president himself — have long viewed background checks for security clearances with deep suspicion.

They believe that the process is designed to make challenges to outcomes difficult, and that personal pieces of information submitted during the vetting can be disseminated later for damaging results. Mr. Trump has long railed about the F.B.I. being part of a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine him.

It is not clear what positions the altered system would cover, but the people familiar with the proposal said it appeared to apply to a large number of potential Trump appointees in a second administration.

Mr. Epshteyn, who was indicted earlier this year in Arizona in connection with a so-called fake electors scheme to upend Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss and has two prior arrests in that state, speaks with Mr. Trump multiple times a day and is one of his most influential aides. He is a lawyer and consultant who has helped recruit and manage the legal team that has been defending Mr. Trump in the four criminal cases filed against him since he left office.

It is not clear whether Mr. Epshteyn would like to go into government, but his name is on at least one list compiled outside the official transition process as a possible White House counsel, or a top lawyer overseeing them, according to two people briefed on the matter. That list was prepared with Mr. Epshteyn’s input, according to a third person briefed on the matter.

Traditional federal background investigations for security clearances carry risks for potential appointees.

Lying on official application materials could lead to a criminal charge for making a false statement. Seeking a clearance also invites scrutiny that could turn up some other cause to open a criminal investigation. Potential Trump appointees would reduce or avoid those risks under the proposal, in which the privately assembled dossiers would apparently be seen only by the White House.

Security clearances have been a critical part of the government’s system for protecting national security secrets, which dates back to World War II and the early Cold War. Background investigations for clearances are intended to turn up hidden foreign conflicts or personal problems that could reveal that applicants are a security risk because they could be susceptible to blackmail by foreign spies or are otherwise untrustworthy.

The process is grounded in executive orders and memorandums — not federal statutes enacted by Congress — and the Supreme Court has said that presidents have ultimate authority over decisions about sharing and restricting national security information as part of their constitutional role as commander in chief of the armed forces.

Under the traditional system, when officials or contractors need access to classified information to do their jobs, they are considered for security clearances that would entrust them with access to secrets of various levels of sensitivity, from confidential to top secret. The rigor of the scrutiny increases based on how high the clearance’s level would be.

Many agencies investigate their own nominees, and sometimes basic vetting, including for employees of contractors, has been outsourced to private firms which then provide dossiers to the sponsoring agencies. But under a memorandum of understanding between the White House and the F.B.I., the bureau conducts background investigations for people named to the White House staff.

Starting with information provided by applicants in their clearance application forms, agents check law enforcement databases and interview people who know them in search of red flags. They look at any criminal conduct; psychological conditions and personal behavior; alcohol or substance abuse; foreign contacts; personal finances and similar matters.

If initial checks uncover no problems, people can be granted interim clearances to begin working with classified information while the investigation continues, though they can face greater restrictions on access to more sensitive data — especially more restricted forms of top secret information — until they receive permanent clearances.

Across the government, the findings of background checks are shared with the sponsoring agency, which makes the final decision. And when a background check uncovers evidence of a potential crime, it can lead to a criminal referral for further investigation.

But presidents subjecting their appointees to the FB.I. vetting process is a norm, not a legal requirement. As a matter of constitutional law, there is nothing to stop a president from cutting out the F.B.I. and granting a clearance to access classified information to anyone, based on his or her own discretion.

Like many other aspects of Mr. Trump’s first term and plans for a second term, the proposed move to do so for his appointees would exploit the gap between legal limits and traditional norms of presidential self-restraint.

A number of Mr. Trump’s appointees faced delays and roadblocks in getting clearances in his administration.

In addition to Mr. Epshteyn, who failed to get a clearance during a brief White House stint in 2017 before leaving the post, many aides worked with temporary security clearances for more than a year because they could not get permanent clearances approved. Others eventually left the government, too. (The Trump campaign said earlier this year that Mr. Epshteyn’s clearance issue, which was never clarified, was “resolved,” but provided no further details).

Mr. Kushner, who played a variety of roles including as an envoy to the Middle East brokering deals to get Arab states to recognize Israel, went through months of questions over his background check for reasons that were never publicly disclosed. Finally, in 2018, Mr. Trump overrode the normal process and ordered the government to grant him a clearance.

In 2019, a manager in the White House’s Personnel Security Office told a House committee that senior Trump administration officials granted security clearances to at least 25 officials and contractors whose applications had been denied by career employees for “disqualifying issues” that could put national security at risk. One of them appeared to be Mr. Kushner.

Mr. Kushner’s allies have claimed that the process was an attempt to damage Mr. Trump by extension. 

There are other aides who have been investigated along with Mr. Trump over the past four years who might struggle under the current process if Mr. Trump wants to bring them into the government.

Among them are Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s personal aide, who was his co-defendant in the since-dismissed classified documents case, and Peter Navarro, who was Mr. Trump’s trade adviser and recently finished a federal prison sentence stemming from obstructing a congressional subpoena.

Another former White House adviser who is close to Mr. Trump, Stephen K. Bannon, is set to be released from prison in the coming days. He was also imprisoned after being convicted of contempt of Congress.

Mr. Kushner has said he does not plan to return to government. But if he changes his mind, the career officials handling security clearances inside the U.S. intelligence community under the current system would have to contend with the implications of the nearly $3 billion he raised for his investment firm from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Other supporters of Mr. Trump have proposed overhauling the system for vetting security clearances.

One came from the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership,” a policy program developed by a consortium of conservative think tanks to offer Mr. Trump ideas should he win the presidency.

The project proposed that the White House’s National Security Council — run by the president’s national security adviser — should be authorized to adjudicate internally whether its own staff receive security clearances, with investigators who “work directly for the N.S.C. and whose sole task is to clear N.S.C. officials.” (The Trump campaign has disavowed Project 2025, and a top Trump transition official said that its authors would not be involved in any transition.)

In December, the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank run by Mr. Trump’s former head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, published a policy paper calling for giving the president and his top appointees direct control over granting security clearances.

The paper said that it must be made “crystal clear that agency heads may grant, suspend or revoke security clearances — notwithstanding the recommendations of subordinates.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/politics/trump-security-clearances-fbi.html

[tcm]

Harry Belafonte’s Production of THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL by Raquel Stecher

By 1957, Harry Belafonte was ready to take on a new venture. Frustrated with the quality of film roles he was being offered, Belafonte started HarBel Productions, a film producing unit, the first ever to be started by an African-American working directly with Hollywood. Its purpose was to make bold movies that provided better representation for his community while offering stories that could be enjoyed beyond color barriers. Belafonte knew the power that movies had to reach a wide audience, and this was a great opportunity for him to take his activism to the next level.

Almost immediately, Belafonte’s fledgling company got an offer from Sol C. Siegel, a producer at MGM, to make THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL (’59). Loosely inspired by M.P. Shiel’s novel The Purple Cloud, this post-apocalyptic story follows Ralph Burton (Harry Belafonte), a miner who surfaces days after being trapped underground to discover that the world has been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. He eventually meets two survivors above ground, Sarah Crandall (Inger Stevens) and Ben Thacker (Mel Ferrer). Belafonte called the script “an eerily apt setting and story for a time of peak Cold War paranoia.” The rights to Shiel’s novel had bounced around from studio to studio but had yet to be adapted. Siegel saw an opportunity to take Shiel’s last-man tale and add a layer of racial tension to make the story relevant to contemporary audiences. Screenwriter turned director Ranald MacDougall was hired to direct and to adapt the script alongside Ferdinand Reyher.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL would be HarBel’s first production and joining forces with a major studio seemed like a prodigious start. Belafonte had the entrepreneurial spirit but lacked the business know-how, and while his contract with Siegel gave him a percentage of profits, it did not provide an exit clause nor did it give Belafonte any say in the script which would prove problematic later on.

Production began in New York City where the story takes place. Siegel coordinated with the Department of Transportation to film in the early morning hours. Traffic lights were turned off and city blocks were cleared of cars and people. Belafonte noted in his memoir, “what was always a mystery to me was the deal he cut with the pigeons. Not one bird ever flew past our lens.” Cinematographer Harold J. Marzorati and his crew filmed breathtaking shots of a seemingly abandoned New York City. The ever eloquent Belafonte wrote, “long before the coming of technical special effects, the movie did a great job of evoking a post-nuclear New York in an almost poetic fashion, not by what it put into the picture but what it left out; all signs of life.”

Interior shots were filmed on the MGM lot and for the most part the production went on swimmingly. Then everything came to a grinding halt. Shooting was suspended for what was referred to as “a few minor script changes,” but really Siegel and the powers that be at MGM got nervous. Belafonte had been filming with his co-star Inger Stevens and their characters Ralph and Sarah develop a romance. Miscegenation was still outlawed in some states and Hollywood wasn’t quite ready yet to show a black man being intimate with a white woman. Belafonte experienced something similar with the film ISLAND IN THE SUN (‘57) in which his character has a romance with Joan Fontaine. Siegel and his team contemplated the outcome of three possible endings and decided that there was a financial risk angering certain segments of the population, whether they be pro-segregationists or African-American activists. Mel Ferrer’s character Ben becomes the third in an odd love triangle and the film leaves it up to the audience to imagine who Inger Stevens’ character Sarah will end up with.

Belafonte was furious and rightly so. He proclaimed that “they’d taken out the truth that would have made the film really admirable.” He stormed off set and threatened to leave the picture. His agent Jay Kantor and his friend, fellow actor Marlon Brando, convinced him that breaking his contract with MGM would be bad for business and his career. Begrudgingly, Belafonte returned to set and the shoot wrapped up in August 1958. THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL premiered in May 1959 to mixed reviews and a modest box-office return. Critics noted the drastic shift in the plot with the third character, the disappearance of all other life forms (where were the bodies?!) and the open ending.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL was a victim of its time and lacked the audacity Belafonte wanted in a HarBel production. He went on to make one other film for his production company, the gripping film noir ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (‘59). Directed by Robert Wise, the film stars Belafonte and Robert Ryan as two bank robbers who must team together for a heist despite their racial differences. It would be the last film for the short lived HarBel Productions and Belafonte decided to take a break from the silver screen for several years before returning in the 1970s.

Regarding THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, film historian Donald Bogle in his TCM and Running Press book Hollywood Black wrote, “[it] promised to deal frankly and provocatively with the theme of interracial love. But in the end, the filmmakers lost their nerve. In the Eisenhower era, interracial love was a topic the movies were both fascinated by and frightened of.”

[antoine-roquentin]

Public distrust of the CWP [Communist Workers Party] mobilized sympathy for the white power gunmen. Furthermore, CWP members repeatedly undermined their chance at what justice the court could offer. Several of the women widowed on November 3 confounded the Greensboro community when, instead of weeping or grieving, they stood with their fists raised and declared to the television cameras that they would seek communist revolution.61 Days after the shooting, an article appeared in the Greensboro Record that was titled “Slain CWP Man Talked of Martyrdom” and implied that the CWP had foreknowledge of the shooting and that some planned to die for the cause. This damaged what little public sympathy remained. In language typical of mainstream coverage, the story described the CWP as “far-out zealots infiltrat[ing] a peaceful neighborhood.” Even two years later, when the widows visited the Greensboro cemetery and found their husbands’ headstone vandalized with red paint meant to symbolize blood, they would not be able to effectively mobilize public sympathy.62 Community wariness of the CWP’s militant stance only increased after the CWP held a public funeral for their fallen comrades and marched through town with rifles and shotguns. The fact that the weapons were not loaded hardly mattered: photographs of the widows holding weapons at the ready appeared in local and national newspapers. In the public imagination, these images inverted the real events of November 3, when a heavily armed white power paramilitary squad confronted a minimally armed group of protestors. The defendants, depicted as respectable men wearing suits in front of the Vietnam War memorial, stood in stark contrast to the gun-toting widows.63 National and local CWP members took up a campaign of hostile protest of the trial itself. The day before testimony began, the CWP burned a large swastika into the lawn of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms director, and hung an effigy on his property with a red dot meant to convey a bullet wound. In the trial itself, CWP members refused to testify, even to identify the bodies of their fallen comrades. CWP widows who shouted that the trial was “a sham” and emptied a vial of skunk oil in the courtroom were held in contempt of court. Although the actions of the widows may have “shocked the court and freaked out the judge,” as the CWP newspaper Workers Viewpoint proudly reported, the widows’ “bravery” didn’t translate as such to the Greensboro community.64 Even those who may have sympathized with the CWP after seeing the graphic footage of the shooting soon found that feeling complicated by the group’s contempt for the justice system, however problematic that system was. With the CWP widows refusing to tell their stories, attorneys for the defendants built a self-defense case by deploying two widely used white power narratives: one of honorable and wronged Vietnam veterans, and the other of the defense of white womanhood. The defense depended on the claim that CWP members carrying sticks had threatened Renee Hartsoe, the seventeen-year-old wife of Klansman Terry Hartsoe, as she rode in a car near the front of the caravan. Terry Hartsoe testified that he could see the communist protestors throwing rocks at the car and trying to open the door. Such a statement can be seen as alluding to the threat of rape of white women by nonwhite men, a constant theme throughout the various iterations of the Klan since the end of the Civil War.65 White supremacy has long deployed violence by claiming to protect vulnerable white women.... After many years of ineffective, smaller prosecutions, the Fort Smith trial marked the first serious attempt by the federal government to recognize the unification of seemingly disparate Klan, neo-Nazi, and white separatist groups in a cohesive white power movement, and to prosecute the movement’s leaders in light of this understanding. Affidavits documented nearly a decade of control by Beam, Butler, and Miles, and also named Miles’s home as the command center for the Order.66 “They preached war, prayed for war and dreamed of war,” said Justice Department prosecutor Martin Carlson. “And when war came, they willingly accepted war.”67 The indictments presented a serious enough threat to white power leaders that Beam decided to flee the country, setting off a series of events that would shape the outcome of the trial. Before Beam fled he married a woman whose martyrdom would later rally the movement and appeal to the mainstream. After the fishermen’s dispute, Louis Beam had led a chaotic personal life. He separated from his third wife in 1981, and an ugly custody battle followed the split. Beam took his young daughter to Costa Rica for two years. After his return to Texas in late 1984, he moved permanently to the Aryan Nations compound. He didn’t break his Texas ties, however, and took long trips there frequently.68 Sheila Toohey was a pretty, blond twenty-year-old Sunday school teacher at the Gospel Temple, a Christian Identity congregation in Pasadena, Texas. Beam’s young daughter was one of her students. Perhaps Beam met the Toohey family during the fishermen’s dispute: his Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had run a bookstore in Pasadena. Toohey came from a family that lived in a trailer in nearby Santa Fe, Texas—the site of the Klan rally where Beam had burned a boat painted “U.S.S. Viet Cong” during the fishermen conflict in 1981.69 “Louis fell in love with Sheila immediately,” wrote J. B. Campbell, a white power movement activist who also claimed mercenary service in Rhodesia.70 Campbell’s laudatory essay later appeared on Beam’s personal website under the heading “Love” and framed with images of roses: [Beam had] been visiting her father, talking politics, and couldn’t believe his friend could have such a beautiful, sweet and unaffected daughter as Sheila, who lived at home with her parents and brothers in Santa Fe, Texas. Sheila taught Sunday school. She’d had to wear a back brace from a recent car accident and was in constant pain, although she would never burden anyone by mentioning it. In the following weeks Sheila noticed that Louis was coming over for dinner quite frequently and that he was talking with her more than with her father. He actually likes me, she realized. Within a few months Louis asked Sheila to marry him.71 The passage focused on Toohey as a vulnerable white woman—in constant pain but never mentioning it—and subservient to the man who “actually like[d]” her. Her position as a Sunday school teacher confirmed her innocence, presumed virginity, fitness for motherhood, and, since she taught children at a Christian Identity church, subscription to a white power political theology. That she lived surrounded, and presumably cared for, by her father and brothers emphasized her movement from one set of male guardians to another. It also highlighted the twenty-year age difference of the newlyweds. Toohey was Beam’s fourth wife; the first three had each been around sixteen years old when they married and around twenty years old when they divorced.72 Beam and Toohey married at a Christian Identity church in Pennsylvania in April 1987.73 After the wedding, with seditious conspiracy charges issued, Louis and Sheila Beam traveled to Mexico to avoid trial, taking his seven-year-old daughter with them, though without the proper documents. They settled in Chapala, near Guadalajara, in a community of white American expatriates. Beam spent four months on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before authorities caught up with him in November 1987.74 One night the Beams returned home after grocery shopping. While the couple was unloading the food from the car and his daughter was still sitting in the vehicle, authorities apprehended Louis Beam. Sheila Beam “glanced out the kitchen window down at the car and was appalled to see Louis bent over the hood with a gun to his head,” according to Campbell’s narrative. Sheila Beam would later say that the officers never identified themselves as policemen and she assumed the attack was a robbery or kidnapping. Purportedly defending herself, she grabbed her husband’s weapon and shot a Mexican federal officer three times, wounding him. Authorities detained her in Mexico for ten days while they extradited Louis Beam to the United States, where he spent the next five months in prison during the sedition trial. A Mexican judge found Sheila Beam not guilty for reasons of self-defense in November 1987, and she was released and deported back to the United States. The officer she shot in the chest and abdomen remained hospitalized.75 To white power activists, this story was about endangered white women, but it was also about government betrayal. Rumors flew that federal agents had used phony drug charges as a pretense for the arrest, in order to extradite Louis Beam to the United States. This narrative placed innocent Sheila Beam in the crosshairs of a renegade state.76 However, Beam would most likely have been subject to extradition in any case, with or without drug charges.77 In an affidavit, Beam presented herself as an innocent white woman in need of the protection of white men. She said that she sustained an abdominal injury when the arresting officers threw her over a chair, and was then taken to jail and kept handcuffed for five days. She also said that the chief of police threatened her with torture, and that she was forced to sign documents in Spanish that she couldn’t read. She testified: While I was in the Guadalajara jail, I was physically and psychologically mistreated. I was kept with my wrists handcuffed behind my back for five days; my wrists were so swollen that my hands were turning colors and my watch was cutting off the circulation. I was hand-fed by a little Mexican boy with his dirty fingers. Officers would come into my cell and leer at me and caress their weapons. I was chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress, and when I would try to sleep, they would kick the bed to jar me awake and keep me from sleeping. I was refused water for extended periods and medication for my back injury or my back brace. I was denied medical attention for my abdominal injuries and suffered from vaginal bleeding for several days afterward.78 Her testimony positioned her as endangered. It placed her in peril and in the presence of male racial others—the “Mexican boy” feeding her with “his dirty fingers,” and the officers. It presented men of color “caress[ing] their weapons” as they “leer[ed]” at her, invoking masturbation.79 It also placed her in a violated bedroom space, “chained to the bed, which had a filthy, rotten mattress.” Within the broader frame of pro-natalism, this language positioned Sheila Beam’s body as vulnerable to attack by men of color, and emphasized it as a site of combat where battles might be won or lost through the birth or absence of white children. The vaginal bleeding she said she suffered after her imprisonment hinted at both rape and miscarriage of a white child, and would have signified a double martyrdom. Jailed at the moment when the state had finally turned to the prosecution of the white power movement, Sheila Beam acted the martyr in a way that further united activists and appealed to people beyond the movement. Her wounded body served as a constant symbolic reminder of state failure and betrayal. Metzger lobbied for her release; Kirk Lyons, who represented Beam in the sedition trial and would become the go-to attorney of the white power movement over the next decade, sent an associate, Dave Holloway, to help the Toohey family advocate for her return. Back home, the Tooheys answered the phone with the entreaty, “Save Our Sheila.”80 After her release Lyons told one reporter, “It made a Christian out of me again. Her being freed was a miracle to me.”81 In the mainstream press, too, Sheila Beam became a sympathetic figure in local newspapers and major publications alike. A series of articles in the Galveston Daily News focused on her injuries, stating as fact that she had been “severely beaten” and raising the possibility that she “may have been sexually assaulted.” The same reporter uncritically repeated white power claims that FBI agents had refused to arrange her release to the United States, and described “physical and psychological coercion” during her ten-day imprisonment.82 Other articles linked her faith in God to her hopes for the acquittal of all the trial’s defendants,83 and mentioned her pain and injuries with no mention of the reasons for Louis Beam’s arrest or Sheila Beam’s actions in shooting and wounding the officer.84 The Houston Chronicle reported that she returned to the United States sobbing and limping, escorted by her father and an associate of Lyons, and was met by her mother and three brothers at the airport. The article emphasized that Sheila Beam had a swollen abdomen and walked with such a pronounced limp that two people had to support her.85 A photograph of Sheila’s return in the Miami News featured a flattering photograph of her leaning against her brother’s chest, holding flowers and flanked by a pretty, smiling, female friend. The caption referred to her “break[ing] out in tears” upon her return, and to her being “charged with shooting a Mexican federal police officer during the arrest of her husband at their … home.” It elided any reference to Christian Identity or participation in the white power movement, either by Sheila Beam or by her husband. It didn’t even name Louis Beam, much less discuss his pending seditious conspiracy charges or his stint on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Nevertheless, it made clear that Sheila Beam shot the officer at her home, emphasizing domestic defense beneath a photograph that portrayed her as vulnerable, small, and feminine.86 For her own part, Sheila Beam delivered a political performance of martyrdom both in comments to the press and in her actions. After her release, she flew directly to Fort Smith, where Louis Beam had been transferred to a federal prison hospital following a weeklong hunger strike. White power leaders praised her selfless devotion. “Despite her severe internal injuries and equally severe psychological damage,” Campbell wrote, “Sheila postponed her required emergency surgery and flew to Ft. Smith to reassure her husband.”87 Sheila Beam went to her husband’s side despite her severe pain, the story had it, illustrating the sacrifice of the white female body to the needs of the movement. During the trial, the presence of Sheila Beam’s wounded and wronged body entered the official record in several ways. Lyons invoked her injuries regularly, interrupting testimony about her arrest to ask the pursuing FBI agent what had happened to her back brace and conspicuously leaving court to pick her up at the airport. Sheila Beam continued to speak about her injuries and abuse to the press, and claimed her husband’s innocence with the simple position that since he had quit the Klan in 1981, he couldn’t now be guilty of sedition. In truth, he had quit the Klan to join Aryan Nations and lead the white power movement on a larger scale. She also reminded newspapers that her husband held the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Air Medal for Heroism, staking out his moral authority as a hero of the Vietnam War.88 It is difficult to gauge the impact of such performative acts on the outcome of a jury trial, but Sheila Beam’s symbolic work toward acquittal should not be discounted. Even in the pages of academic accounts that have argued that white power paramilitarism partially or wholly excluded them, women nevertheless appear as historical actors who impact events. In Rafael Ezekiel’s widely cited ethnographic study, for instance, which includes his observation of the Fort Smith trial, he notes that “a sister appears for a young fellow who is already serving a long term for involvement in The Order’s robbery of an armored car … entering the court, she touched her brother’s arm, quietly, as she passed him.”89 With these actions, the “sister”—no name given, as she did not qualify as an activist in this study, but perhaps it was Brenna or Laura Beth Tate, sisters of David Tate—conferred humanity upon her brother, appealed to the jury, and neutralized the racism of the movement.90 Similarly, Ezekiel recounts the presence of Louis Beam’s “young new wife,” Sheila Beam, although she isn’t named in his account.91 Ezekiel describes how the couple make frequent eye contact across the room. She had been the Sunday school teacher of Beam’s daughter. A reporter ungraciously described her to me as “a Yahweh freak.” Here in court she wears a frilled white blouse; during Beam’s arrest in Mexico, she shot an armed Federale who had failed to identify himself.92 In other words, Sheila Beam played her part as a movement activist by creating and embodying a particular narrative of her innocence, the arrest, the justified shooting of the Mexican officer, and her husband’s wrongful detention—one persuasive enough to be accepted uncritically by journalists and academic observers.93

Katherine Belew, Bring the War Home

[mia-cooper]

Fanfiction Questions

from here

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Involved as in ‘frantically read every book I could get my hands on, daydreamed about being part of that universe and wrote stories/made art inspired by the books, if not actual fanfiction’? Mm, probably The Chronicles of Narnia when I was six or seven. The next great obsession was The Silver Brumby when I went through my horse stage around age 12, and then Sweet Valley High when I was 15. Hahaha.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Marvel! I’m not into comics and I’m definitely not interested in consuming every last bit of canon material or memorising the variations of every universe, but I love (most of) the movies and Agents of SHIELD is pretty cool.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Star Trek Voyager. No contest. I venture to suggest that the older fandoms, the ones that are all about defunct shows, are a hell of a lot more chilled. Maybe because we’ve come to terms with our shitty canon endings and learned that liking the ship you hate doesn’t make someone problematic, unlike some newer fandoms I could name (Yes I’m talking about you, Game of Thrones fans. What the fuck.)

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

I’ve dipped a toe into one or two fandoms for shows or books I’ve really enjoyed and backed the fuck out when the vibe gets weird (oh hey, it’s GoT again), but nope. No regrets.

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

All the Star Treks except TOS, and a Trek/MCU crossover. I’d like to write more for MCU someday. Plus I’ve written longhand entire notebooks full of teen romance shit that bore an uncanny similarity to SVH, and my first short story was a fantasy fic that featured a girl whose guardian was a wise talking lion who led her into mystical secret worlds, which is kind of familiar.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Wow. I’m going to define ‘involved in’ as ‘cared enough about to have an OTP’, but I’m guaranteed to forget a ton. In no particular order:

Voyager: Janeway x anyone who can get her off

Discovery: Lorca x Cornwell or Pike x Tyler x Burnham (or any combination of)

DS9: Kira x Jadzia Dax

TNG: Picard x Vash, I guess? I don’t really have any TNG ships

ENT: T’Pol x Trip x Hoshi (or any variation therein)

MCU: Cap x Widow

AoS: Coulson x Skye... no May... no Skye... I don’t know

CAOS: Madam Satan x Zelda

Timeless: Garcy

The Good Place: Eleanor x Tahani

The 100 (shut up): toss up between Clarke x Bellamy and Kane x Abby

Veronica Mars: Veronica x Leo (first run), Veronica x Logan (s4)

Orphan Black: Cosima x Delphine

BSG: Apollo x Starbuck

SG1: Sam x Jack

Arrow: Olicity (so over the show now though)

This Life: Milly x Egg

Yeah you know what... I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any other shows where I’ve been invested in The Romance that much.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’m too tired to do every fandom, and besides, I can come around to almost any ship if the headcanons (or fics) are convincing enough. I do have a few hard no-gos, but they might be someone else’s OTP so I’ll shut up about them.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Reluctantly. The MCU movies are not something I ever thought I’d enjoy beyond a dull evening’s entertainment. I never expected to get attached to the characters. And yet.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Voyager is my forever fandom and the only one where I’ve really interacted with other fans. The best things about it? In general, everyone is just cool, accepting, open and basically awesome. And talented. I love my Party Bus people.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Sure. The 100, Veronica Mars and Agents of SHIELD are the ones I’d dip into more frequently. I really enjoy crossovers between Trek and BSG or the Stargate variants, too.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Janeway x Chakotay.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Janeway x Chakotay x Paris.

13. Any NoTPs?

A few.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Janeway & Tuvok! Also Torres & Chakotay, and I’d have killed for more Janeway & Torres in canon. (If they kissed sometimes that would be okay too)

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Yeah. Paris x Seven. There are like two fics in existence, and yet ... the potential! (Sorry, B’Elanna)

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Nope.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Janeway x Paris. And they’re still way up there, but not quite at the top.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

84% of my fics feature Janeway x Chakotay as either the primary or secondary pairing... holy shit.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Paris x Torres. I mean, I feel them. I just don’t generally feel the need to write about them.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Chakotay x Seven. In another universe, it could’ve been beautiful.

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Actual story that was clearly fanfic? A farcical drunken romp told in the 24th century equivalent of email format called PADDemonium (see what I did there?)

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Lol, a few things that should probably have never seen the light of day for various reasons, some of them leola related. But I’ve only deleted two fics that I can recall.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Relieved. It’s a 30k AU Chakotay moral dilemma backstory that brings in DS9 characters, Section 31 and his longstanding history with AU Janeway. I did so much research for it (way back in the days before memory alpha and chakoteya.net) and I’m really proud of how I wound in canon stuff across series but changed a few key bits and pieces. Only problem is, it’s a sequel to ...

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

... Pressure, which I can’t even read without cringing. My characterisation of Janeway, even Angry Maquis AU Janeway, is way over the top and there are moments that verge on Mills and Boon and give me first, second and third hand embarrassment. God, I’d love to rewrite it. Actually, that’s a lie. I want someone else to rewrite it so I can read it without covering my eyes and moaning.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Desperate Measures, by about 70,000 light years, lol. Although Fragile Things beats it on bookmarks.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

You know what? A fair percentage of the time, I think of the title first and come up with a plot second. Aside from that, I prefer shorter, punchier titles that clearly tie into the story (Flight Risk, Speechless), though sometimes it’s song lyrics (Burn Our Horizons, your body like a searchlight) or a literary quote (Required to Bear, All the Devils are Here) or a turn of phrase from the story itself (The Prisons You Inhabit). Hey that was fun. Thanks for letting me pimp the shit out of my stories.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Ugh, it depends on the day. Summaries are harder, I think. I never want to give away too much of the plot, but there has to be enough there for people to know whether they’ll bother clicking. Funny story: I actually ran the stats on this a few months back. Here they are for your edification:

Fics with a one line plot summary = 54%

With two or three line plot summary = 18%

With a short snippet directly from the fic = 16%

With a snippet + a one line explanation = 3%

With a one line plot summary plus a line to date the fic (eg "set in season 3", “episode tag to Worst Case Scenario") or the fic prompt = 7%

And finally, a quote from something other than the fic = 2% (that's only 3 fics).

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Ooh. I’ll say the final scene in Explosive.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I used to regularly ask @jhelenoftrek​ and @littleobsessions90 to beta for me, and both of them are brilliant at it. Lately I’ve been posting without sending my stuff off for editing. This is partly because I’m impatient to get stuff out there, partly because I don’t have as much time to write/edit, and partly because I’m a little less focused on improving my writing and more on enjoying it for its own sake.

30. What inspires you to write?

Little bits of episode dialogue I haven’t noticed before, other people’s fanfiction, stray conversations, fic prompts, song lyrics, random headcanons, fever dreams, dares ...

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I’ve been really lucky with comments on my fic. The least helpful comment I’ve ever received was on one of my early 30k fics and all it said was “Did you have to take the name of the lord in vain?” Which is kind of funny. The nicest thing anyone’s ever said? I’m very partial to the feedback that starts “I don’t even like this pairing/genre/trope/show but you made me love it”, and particularly “I’ll read anything you write, I don’t care what it’s about.” But all comments are gold. The little heart button is cool too.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I’m not someone who can tune out music I love, or leave it in the background to inspire me. If it’s on, I’m fully invested in it. I’m that annoying person in the car who flips radio stations every three seconds until I find something I like and then it’s on 11 and I’m singing along to it. I’m also really picky but extremely eclectic, although there are genres I can’t stand (anything with autotune makes me stabby). That said, sometimes I find a song that I can’t stop listening to for weeks and often that perfect combination of music and lyrics will inspire me to write a fic. For example, I just plotted out an entire J/C story because of this song.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above. Although I’m not sure if my longest epic is huuuuuge or just huuuge.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

101,467.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I have two drabble collections. One is all J/C, full of responses to random prompts and I add to it sporadically. The other is episode additions set on Kathryn Janeway’s birthday (May 20) and added to annually.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

Angst, definitely. Sometimes it’s smutty angst or fluffy angst or hurt/comfort angst, but often it’s just fucking unrelenting angst. And I’m okay with that.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

I did the stats on this once, too, haha. Pretty sure I came out fairly even on first and third person with a smattering of second person in there. I’m probably even-ish on present vs past tense, too. I make it a point to mix it up to avoid my writing getting stale or same-y. And sometimes a fic doesn’t really click for me until I try it in a different POV or tense or from a different character’s perspective.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I mostly write for canon characters - the fun is in all the different ways you can interpret and imagine them - but I’ve been known to throw in the odd OC, or focus on a character who only got a brief cameo appearance, or write about someone who only appears in beta canon, or who only rates a mention on screen.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. I guess the thing I value most about my own writing is my willingness to try different styles, characters, pairings and so on. The thing I strive for most is characterisation that feels true, and I really love it when I get comments on that. Exploring a character in a way that rings true with a reader is the best thing ever.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Overly long sentences and adverb abuse, haha. No, truthfully, there comes a point in most of my fics, particularly the longer ones, when I really just want to scrap it because in my heart I know it’s dreadful. Usually that passes once I slog through the ‘I don’t wanna’ stage because I’m a bloody-minded bitch, but sometimes fics do get left in the dust half-written. Honestly, though, they’re the ones that probably should stay there.

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

This is hilarious because I was just talking on discord about my problematic ‘to read’ pile. My unread AO3 subscription emails currently number 29 and my phone browser has 71 tabs open. So here are 5 random picks from that list of exactly 100 fics I should be reading:

Sex on the Beach (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by @traccigaryn​

The Ruby Ring (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Tighe) by @trinfinity2001​

Earth is But an Idea (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Carter/O’Neill) by @caladeniablue​

Home (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by Cassatt

Wise Up (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by KimJ

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Only five? Shit. Okay. In no particular order, these are five of the writers I keep coming back to:

quantumsilver (also here)

northernexposure

LittleObsessions

Helen8462

Cheshire

But there are so many others. My chosen fandom is chock full of amazing talent.

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

All of the authors above for various reasons, but also august because her writing is so spare and delicate and devastating, and runawaymetaphor because she writes the most delicious Janeway/Paris, and @seperis​ because I read In the Space of Seven Days literally 20 years ago and I still haven’t recovered, and I could be here all night raving on this topic but there are still many questions to get through.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Janeway x Paris. I’m so happy there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in J/P fics lately. Thanks, @curator-on-ao3​, you’re doing the lord’s work.

I’ll also take Janeway x Johnson content any day of the week.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

What the hell? I can’t pick just one! Ugh!

... but okay, here’s the first one that came to mind when I tried to think about this: if you came this way by tree. I’m not sure I’d call it my favourite, but it’s one I revisit often. Ugh, there are so many other fics I’m thinking of now that I really want to list.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, that’s hard. I should probably pick an angsty smutty J/C because that’s a fair proportion of what I write and it’s good to let a new reader know what they can expect. But honestly, I think the best fic I’ve written is The Uncharted Sea. (It’s safe for work. Maybe not for makeup.)

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

The Archive, of course. Where else can I find ad-free hosting on a stunningly user-friendly interface with absolutely no moralising content restrictions and the world’s best tagging system? That Hugo award is well deserved.

Tumblr is good for headcanons and meta and gifsets and a few other formats that I’m less likely to post on AO3 because I’d feel like I was pissing off people who subscribe to me by giving them some random garbage.

I also have my own website, but I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I post fic there that doesn’t make it to tumblr or AO3.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

I try to. Honestly I do. I love it when I get reviews, so I figure paying it forward is the least I can do. I’m less scrupulous about leaving comments when I’m busy or reading on my phone.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I mean, I love it when people reblog, but I certainly don’t expect it. @arcadia1995​ is amazing for reblogging stuff *blows kisses*

Nobody owes fanfic writers shit, but I feel like there’s a tacit agreement that if you like what you just read for free and you’re on a platform that makes it easy to do so, you leave a review or at least a kudos, because I’m not gonna lie, posting a fic you’ve worked super hard on and seeing it get very few kudos or comments is a bit deflating. I’m sure a lot of us have been there.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

During Voyager’s original run I was trawling the internet for Endgame spoilers (I don’t know why; I usually love surprises) and I guess I googled (or whatever the 2001 equivalent of googling was) something like “how does voyager get home” and somehow I stumbled across Revisionist History. At first I had no idea what I was reading - was this a lost story pitch that somehow got leaked? A professional novella commissioned by the showrunners?

Then I started following links and discovered yahoo groups and webrings and Trekiverse and fanfiction.net and all sorts of incredible things I’d never guessed at, including the now defunct ‘archipelago of angst’, a collection of Voyager writers who focused mainly on a darker Janeway than most of the other fic writers I was encountering, and I was hooked. So I wrote a few of my own pieces, and then I lost interest for 15 years. I’m still not sure how I got dragged back in.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Honestly, in what other way can I indulge my obsessions, hone my skills and talk about it endlessly with like-minded people? Where else can I instantly find a plethora of fiction about the exact topic I feel like reading about on my mobile device and for free? Fanfiction is fucking amazing and I’m so glad it exists in my life.

[holyfourthofjulyweenieroast]

Notes on Season 14- Part 1 (contains spoilers, are mostly complaints about Torres and Quinn, and are my personal opinions, don’t @ me)

Since Season 14 started rerunning in Australia on 9 October, I’ve decided to write down things I forgot or would like to emphasise upon:

Rogue

Torres being as cocky, smarmy, and insufferable as ever from the very first scene

Fornell staying at Gibbs’ house was the best part of the episode- his scenes are always awesome

Quinn being an asshole for many reasons, including the fact that she pretended like she didn’t remember Bishop from FLETC just to mess with her, and saying that there were good kinds of sociopaths

Torres willingly going off the grid and voluntarily entering into a fake, emotionally-manipulative relationship with a girl when it wasn’t the only option

Torres being incredibly rude to Vance and Gibbs, and complaining about consequences of being a federal agent when he knew full well what they would be

Quinn being a pushy dickhead, talking over people and interrupting them because she wanted to be the best

Quinn taking advantage of Fornell’s state and using poker to take all his money

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Being Bad

Torres’ picture of himself was the most self-obsessed thing ever, and refusing to put on his team jacket to accompany the team on a Friday case, when he wasn’t even meant to start until Monday so he had no reason to complain about doing something he didn’t want to do was annoying as

Jimmy’s reaction to meeting Torres and Quinn was adorable

Abby’s skull-and-rose-adorned bullhorn was the most Abby thing ever

Quinn being nosy about McGee’s private life and making him uncomfortable with her questions about him proposing to Delilah just made me hate her more

Torres automatically sitting down in a chair without even bothering to offer it to Gibbs, and Gibbs having to give him a look before he caught on was such a dick move

Jimmy accidentally saying he spent a night in jail in high school and awkwardly changing the subject was Peak Palmer

Bishop talking about being voted prom queen as a joke was so sad, and so was Gibbs talking about how he loved to paint but life got in the way

Quinn coming up with an idea for more work to figure out the killer, then complaining about having to do the work was so hypocritical and lazy

McGee directly addressing that Quinn disrupted their work environment, and her being proud instead of saying sorry or having the decency to look ashamed

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Privileged Information

Torres being misogynistic right off the bat, objectifying ‘yoga ladies’ and leering at them

Quinn rudely interrupting conversations as per usual

I really love the little gap between Dr. Grace’s front teeth; she just wouldn’t look right without it

Quinn pointing out the blatantly obvious like she was the first one to think of it

Torres being insensitive about Bishop’s divorce and rudely dodging her questions when she was just trying to be nice

Torres leaving Bishop to do all the work after persisting the maintenance guy in the building to let him look at an apartment for himself, instead of doing it in his own time

Fornell making dinner for Gibbs was great

Abby birdsitting Kyle’s rescued parrot Juan was such an Abby thing to do, and Jimmy talking to him was so cute

Dr. Grace calling Fornell ‘J. Edgar’ was awesome

Quinn being chipper, happy and upbeat when insensitively talking about a vic that died just a few hours before

Juan the parrot talking when he wasn’t supposed to be with Abby anymore and Gibbs saying he sounded like Palmer was classic

The team should know by now that witnesses/suspects etc. that’re too eager to help with the case usually did it

Juan flying into the bullpen was great, and Bishop telling Dr. Grace about Rule #17 was too, especially when McGee broke it

Gibbs and Dr. Grace going to the basement and leaving Fornell upstairs was so funny

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Love Boat

McGee talking about proposing to Delilah was the most adorable thing ever

Quinn showing off her experience and then complaining about it was so obnoxious and ungrateful

“Eleanor Bishop, can you please be my Frodo?” was the best

Jimmy calling Quinn a ‘very handsome woman’ was a definitely something I hadn’t heard before

McGee being super-awkward around Delilah was adorkable

Quinn making an insensitive joke about medication when there are people with actual mental health problems was really problematic

Torres complaining about being told to do a simple job that a kid could do was pathetic

Quinn angrily pointing out a problem that she was the cause of was peak hypocrisy

Arresting someone in front of their kid is a delicate situation, and Gibbs handled it really well

The elevator proposal was just as perfect as the original plan

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Philly

McGee roasting Bishop so effortlessly was amazing

Quinn was such a dick to Francis, the poor guy

Torres was so misogynistic in saying that all women want to settle down, and wanting McGee to bail him out (and McGee shutting him down was great)

I love Reeves, his accent, and the way he talks (I just love everything about him, rip)

Quinn talking back to Gibbs and being insubordinate was just so rude

Bishop and Reeves’ greeting and hug was the cutest thing ever

Gibbs shutting down Torres’ complaining was great

Quinn using work time for personal time was so rude, and so was her dodging Bishop’s concerned questions

Bishop sitting especially close to Reeves and getting him a cheesesteak was super sweet, and the way they smiled at each other was so adorable

Reeves has a double-shoulder gun-holster like Tony’s

McGee pulling a Ziva and holding a gun in each hand was such a power move

Abby further shutting down Torres’ misogynistic attitude was even better

Bishop and Reeves were standing so close together, this was only the fourth time they spent time together and they were already so comfortable with each other

Torres not listening to McGee and Abby about the printers was plain rude

Quinn drinking on the job was so unprofessional and neglectful

Quinn is just so rude and unpleasant to everyone, I don’t know how the team was able to stand her for as long as they did

I loved how Bishop instantly backed Reeves up without hesitation or question

Quinn’s story about her old partner was sad, but it really was her fault due to her indulging in something personal until waiting until the job was over

Reeves is such a gentleman, and he and Bishop always worked so well together

The ‘you’re not my mate, she is’ was so sad and sweet at the same time

Torres giving Abby McGee’s printer instead of a new one was such a dick move, especially after she was so nice to him

Even from a purely objective standpoint, I still can’t believe the writers didn’t try to make Rishop a thing after this episode

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Shell Game

Torres was being such a dick not wearing his vest Abby made for him, even just briefly

Quinn should’ve cut Francis loose the very first time they parted ways, instead of still stringing him along

That TSA agent is way too peppy

Torres is just so gross and over-sharing

Frank the dog kinda looks like Tony the dog from S2- I loved that episode

I love how Abby always goes all out for Halloween

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Home Of The Brave

Abby, Bishop and McGee all trying to get Tony’s apartment was great

Bishop and McGee’s dreams about Gibbs were funny, but Quinn’s dream about Gibbs was the grossest, creepiest thing ever

Ducky quoting Hamlet was a very Ducky thing to do, and so was his rules about using his hat for nonsense

Bishop getting Medina to join her in terrible singing was awesome

McGee talking about Delilah was adorable

The veteran-deportation subplot was so important

Torres was such an asshole putting himself in the draw to get Tony’s apartment- he didn’t even know him

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Pay to Play (technically Ep. 9, but the two episodes originally aired in the wrong order with continuity errors for some reason)

Reeves getting Bishop her favourite chips was the sweetest thing ever- how could the writers consistently put things like that in the script and not make Rishop a thing- I don’t get why they added Qasim into the mix, then have him die, then have Bishop and Torres become a thing

The congresswoman’s gun-control opinion was actually really interesting

The Torres/driving instructor “You okay, sir?” “I stare death in the face every day.” exchange was great

Quinn was being so nosy, invading Reeves’ privacy and spying on a classified file of his

The highlighting of how important a base is to a small town was really good

Torres’ attempts throughout the episode to one-up Reeves were stupid and juvenile, and just stemmed from his own jealousy and insecurity

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Enemy Combatant (technically Ep. 8, but the two episodes originally aired in the wrong order with continuity errors for some reason)

Bishop’s brothers are the absolute best, ‘we just want to make sure he’s not a deranged serial killer or a vegan’ was hilarious and so was them taking over her desk and interacting with the team

Jimmy attempting to deep-fry a turkey and getting in an accident was Very Jimmy

Of course Torres was insensitive about faiths and religions

Even Torres thought Bishop and Reeves were together (and complimented his jawline in the process), and so did Quinn (and of course she was an asshole about it)

The way Reeves looked at Bishop, COME ON, and ‘that brain of yours is brilliant’ COME ON!!

Torres being surprised Bishop could speak another language, seriously?

Ugh, Qasim’s so cute, poor thing didn’t deserve to die (and especially the way he did), rip

‘Big, big fan of your sister’ AWWW

John shutting down the elevator (how’d he know how to do that?) and Rob translating British slang for the others was great

The ‘fake terrorist’ plotline is so important, and it really isn’t exaggerated at all- things like that happen every day

Bishop and Qasim were such a power couple at Gitmo, and him retelling his story was so touching and powerful

Reeves flipping the gun out of the yogi guy’s hands and pointing it at him was seriously cool

‘I broke rule 12’ and Gibbs supporting it was awesome

‘Thank God, we thought it was Gibbs’ was amazing

To reiterate one of my original points- I still don’t get why the writers made Qasim Bishop’s boyfriend, only to kill him off a few episodes later, especially because they’d already written multiple instances of her and Reeves being more than friends and could’ve just continued to explore that instead? Don’t get me wrong- Bishop and Qasim (Qishop? Basim?) were an adorable couple, but their relationship was a weird, unnecessary addition to the plot

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

The Tie That Binds

Emily continues to be one of the best characters ever, and Fornell continues to have some of the best reactions ever

Of course Quinn was being annoying about Gibbs’ rules

One thing NCIS always does well is casting, especially with actors playing younger versions of their older counterparts

Reeves talking smack is one of the best things ever

The word ‘twonk’ is rife with joke potential in the late 2010s

POW!-Nog sounds disgusting, no offence to Abby

Will Torres ever not be insensitive about dead people

The conversation between old and young Ducky was hilarious

Ducky and Mr. Rin were so cute

Emily’s termite plan was pretty ingenious and worked perfectly, and the scene between her and Fornell was adorable

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Willoughby

Qishop/Basim were so cute ‘just wanted to walk Ellie to her desk’ AWW

The ‘exploding plane’ gag was a little cliche, but it did work pretty well

‘the one that looks like a sculpture’ was a pretty great description of Reeves, and Qasim saying he put Bishop as his emergency contact was SO CUTE

Bishop being worried about Reeves was so sweet

Quinn and Torres on a stakeout is a terrible idea, and so are the two of them

Torres taking extra donuts was such a dick move, and so was Quinn complaining about the window when it was her idea in the first place

‘thanks for the non-marinated steak’ was a great casual, Vance-esque burn

Reeves talking about his past and Bishop was so sad- I was nearly crying

I remember watching this scene and being so frustrated that Bishop didn’t pull Qasim to the ground with her, but the grip on each other’s hands was pretty light, plus the fact that he had bullets pushing him in the opposite direction meant that there wasn’t really any other outcome

Poor Bishop- just when she thought she’d found happiness

The scene with Bishop and Reeves was so sad

Again, I still don’t get why the writers made Bishop and Qasim a thing if they were just going to kill him off and have more-than-friends moments with Bishop and Reeves

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

Off the Grid

Torres trying to mooch off Quinn’s gift was such a dick move, but what else would you expect from him

Poor Bishop, her past year-and-a-bit has been terrible in terms of relationships

Quinn trying to talk to Bishop when she clearly wanted to be left in peace and quiet, seriously?

Quinn breaking Kelly’s plate, then roping in Abby to try and cover it up and thinking Gibbs wouldn’t notice was so naive and insensitive

McGee and Torres’ little setup was pretty slick, ngl

It’s amazing what facial hair can do to someone’s appearance

Gibbs believes in Abby with all his heart, aww

WHY COULDN’T REEVES HAVE BEEN THE THIRD AGENT SO TORRES AND QUINN WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED AND CBS WOULD’VE SAVED HEAPS OF MONEY HIRING ONE MAIN CHARACTER THAT AUDIENCES ALREADY KNEW AND LOVED INSTEAD OF TWO NEW ANNOYING ONES

[rlg233h1]

Watch the Official EAT PRAY LOVE Trailer in HD

Eat, Pray, Consume

Originally published in 2006, the non fiction book, and later film adaptation, of Eat, Pray, Love share the story of Elizabeth Gilbert, a woman on a quest for self-realization in three remote locations: Italy, India, and Indonesia. While the book and movie alike have gathered a large following of women who cite Gilbert’s memoir as a source of empowerment, others critique the work for popularizing “orientalism”. By justifying spending as a means of achieving health and wellness Eat, Pray, Love  is able to promote an individual sense of false empowerment while instigating a form of new colonialism.

Original book cover

Gilbert’s journey begins from a sudden realization: her whole life has been centered around men. Therefore, in claiming her freedom through individual travel, Gilbert is able to directly oppose the patriarchy that has influenced the lives of countless women. This makes Eat, Pray, Love a relatable story for any woman. Although many people point to Eat, Pray, Love as a force of female empowerment, many critique the way in which this is presented, citing the book and film as a form of “spiritual materialism” (Williams, 2011, p.618). Problematically, the protagonist is a wealthy white women which promotes a sort of empowerment that can only be shared with women in of equal financial means. Williams argues this allows the book to “support an ideological system that makes it seem as if empowerment is only available to those with the power to buy” (Williams, 2011, p.619). Thus the working class black mother appears less likely to experience the the luxury of a spiritual awakening. Furthermore, by centering the journey as the site of enlightenment, Gilbert is only distancing the audience from agency by promoting materialism and dependency. The neoliberal subject is defined as “a concept of human subject as autonomous, individualized, self-directing decision-making agent who becomes an entrepreneur of one self; a human capital” (Turken, Nafstad, Blakar & Roen, 2015, p.1). In this way, the working class mother who is inspired must submit to capitalism in order to receive funds making them more reliant on the state. Moreover, if the woman is not able to achieve the success necessary for travel it is deemed her fault. This blame game only furthers women’s positions as subordinate by encouraging women to not only attach their happiness to a male dominated capitalist market, but, as Williams argues, “moves women further away from an awareness of the social factors that may contribute to their personal unhappiness” (Williams, 2011, 620). By discouraging women from asking questions regarding oppression, they are not able to improve their own situation. As for the few women who can afford the luxury of travel, they are discouraged from acknowledging their own privilege. Despite her apparent wealth, Gilbert presents herself as a victim which becomes increasingly problematic when situating herself within an Eastern context.   

Visual representation of the consequences of neoliberalism

With the immense popularity of Gilbert’s memoir and subsequent film it is of no surprise that the tourism industry has cultivated it as a marketing tool. The Eat, Pray, Love brand has been associated with a range of commodities such as “perfume, tea, yoga gear, prayer beads, and jewelry to EPL -themed travel tours that include spa treatments, visits to temples, and copious amounts of yoga and meditation” (Williams, 2011, 613). For those who cannot afford to travel, the associated products offer a “consumption-based shortcut” to the empowerment and enlightenment described by Gilbert. On the other hand, the Eat, Pray, Love marketing “downplays the consumerist core at the heart of tourism by ignoring the impact the industry has on a country's development” (Williams, 2011, p.617). Therefore, the female neoliberal spiritual subject who travels runs a risk of reducing foreign locations and native populations to nothing more than tools for her own advancement. In this way, the Eat, Pray, Love brand represents a “new colonialism” which is characterized through “white people discovering themselves in brown places” (Sandip, 2010). By situating health and wellness as the reason for travel, the neoliberal woman is encouraged to view their consumption as pure and purposeful. While this has aforementioned consequences of linking a woman’s self worth to capitalism, it further creates a divide between consumption and production. Rowley cites this separation as “integral to the pleasure of consumption is that we not see the laboring or ailing bodies that make consumption possible’’ (Rowley, 2011, p.88). On the subject of Eat, Pray, Love, the traveler is looking to consume culture and must ignore the oppressed bodies around them in order to acquire an authentic experience similar to Gilbert’s. While scenes in the novel demonstrate Gilbert’s reflection on the poverty she witnesses in India, they are all formatted as a way to inspire her to reconsider her own position instead of reflect on the native peoples. Gilbert wonders how a woman busting up rocks can “be so happy doing rough work under such terrible conditions” (Gilbert, 2006, p.160) instead of questioning the conditions of the societies that lead them to their respective positions.

Gilbert choosing consumption over potential religious experiences

One scene in the film seems to highlight Gilbert’s privilege above all else. While in Indonesia, Gilbert meets a medicine woman who fled an abusive relationship with her daughter. The interactions she shares with the woman offer a platform for Gilbert to engage in a critical analysis of the effects of the tourism industry in Bali, yet, Gilbert takes another route to feed her white guilt and instead buys the family a new home. While on the surface this may seem like a selfless gesture, in fact Gilbert simply consumes the  it reduces the family to a product for consumption by placing value solely on the material. Moreover, in order to afford this new home, Gilbert reaches out to friends for financial aid. It is in her email that Gilbert perpetuates “orientalism” by advancing the Eastern victim narrative. It is “the result of cultural hegemony at work, that gives Orientalism the durability and the strength” to overpower any advancements Eastern civilizations may make for themselves (Said, p.2). In this way, Gilbert is enforcing financial and cultural domination.

Film representation of the family Gilbert “helped”

This is not the first time consumerism has been used as a way to foster a sense of spirituality in popular culture. Meditation apps have taken on the same role as Gilbert’s memoir; the role of providing the individual with an authentic spiritual experience. Whereas the $6.99 for Buddhify and the $129.99 yearly subscription for Headspace are of significantly less cost than a year long international trip, they operate on the same premise. While seeking to feed the busy Westerner’s spiritual craving, Eat, Pray, Love and mindfulness apps alike “become a virtual orientalism” by “poaching from Asian sources” (Grieve, 2017, p.209).

However popular the Eat, Pray, Love works have become, it is impossible to separate them from the capitalistic and colonialistic histories that have made it’s creation possible. Although Gilbert’s memoir does not engage in a critical analysis, it offers a space for the analytical reader to reflect on the West’s appropriation and commodification of the East.

Bibliography:

Gilbert, E. (2006). Eat, Pray, Love. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Mahan, J. H., & Forbes, B. D. (2017). Religion and popular culture in america, third edition.University Of California Press

Rowley, Michelle. ‘‘Where the Streets Have No Name: Getting Development Out to the (RED)’’ Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances. 2nd ed.Eds. Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan. London: Routledge, 2011. 76–96.

Roy, Sandip. ‘‘The new colonialism of ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’’’ Salon. Salon, 13 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.

Türken, S., Nafstad, H. E., Blakar, R. M., & Roen, K. (2015). Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development.Globalizations, 13(1), 32-46. doi:10.1080/14747731.2015.1033247

Williams, R. (2011). Eat, Pray, Love: Producing the Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject. The Journal of Popular Culture, 47(3), 613-633. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00870.x

[mariebenz]

Cleaning Products May Raise Risk of Wheezing and Asthma in Young Children

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jaclyn Parks, B.Sc. Health Sciences M.Sc. Health Sciences Candidate | Faculty of Health Sciences Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Childhood asthma is a major public health concern, and many researchers are interested in determining environmental and modifiable exposures in early life so that we can recommend preventative measures. The findings of our study add to the understanding of which exposures in early life may be important to the development of childhood asthma and allergies and allows us to identify specific areas of intervention for parents and other stakeholders involved in protecting children’s health. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?  Response: The main findings of this study were that children who grew up in a home with a higher frequency of cleaning product use in early life* had a higher likelihood of recurrent wheeze (35%), asthma (37%), and a combination of recurrent wheeze with atopy (49%) (aka. allergic sensitization) at 3 years of age. We also saw that this relationship may be stronger in girls than boys, but this requires further investigation. When comparing those who used a particular product more vs. less frequently, we saw some increased risk associated with more frequent use of sprayed products, deodorizers, disinfectants (incl. hand sanitizer), and oven cleaners *Early life was determined as 3 months of age for this study. Results are based on an interquartile range increase (from 25th to 75th percentile) in the Frequency of Cleaning Product Use score (FUS). MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Response: All parents are striving to maintain a healthy home for their children. We want parents to question the socially accepted norm that a home needs to smell like chemical-based cleaning products in order to be ‘clean’. Instead, we propose that the smell of a healthy home is no smell at all. In the pursuit of obtaining a clean and healthy home (ie. low-allergen, mould-free, and with good air quality), it is important that parents read labels and be informed about the risks associated with the use of cleaning products.     General rules of thumb to reduce your exposure to household cleaning products are; Avoid or find alternatives to sprayed and aerosolized cleaners, disinfectants, and corrosive cleaners, Use products with a shorter ingredient list, Avoid using multiple products at the same time and/or rinse the surface cleaned with water after product use to avoid persistent exposure and the potential for generating secondary pollutants*, and Ventilate and/or avoid the home following the use of these products**. *Secondary pollutants are created when an interaction occurs between 2 or more used primary pollutants. In addition to pollutants associated with the use of each individual product, the combined use of products allows to the generation of additional pollutants that would not have been created if products were used in isolation of another or others. **Concentrations of indoor pollutants characteristic of cleaning products stay at elevated levels during and for hours after a cleaning event, so you may want to schedule your day so that you leave the home for a few hours after cleaning with products. MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? Response: Based on the findings from this study, we have identified a number of areas for future research. Some questions may include; More studies like ours to validate and add consensus in a North-American context. Studying how the onset of childhood asthma affects household cleaning behaviours A specific analysis of the disclosed ingredients in these common cleaning products Evaluating whether homemade cleaning products are significantly better for your health and to what extent. The phenomena of ‘green-washing’ in the cleaning product industry is problematic and needs further investigation.  MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add? Response: Canada (and other Nations) need to develop a program similar to the REACH program currently in place in Europe. The REACH program requires that all consumer products be diligently tested for adverse health effects before entering the market. Not only do we lack that level of regulation here, we also don’t have enough regulations around the labelling of what exactly is in the products we can purchase. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main limitations of this study and why?  Response: The CHILD Cohort Study has a lot of information that allows researchers to ask and answer these sorts of questions, but there are always limits to how much you can ask of these families to devote to the study. The CHILD Cohort Study follows nearly 3,500 children from gestation through to 8 years of age (and beyond, dependent on funding), collecting data through questionnaire, bio-samples and clinical assessments. This present study doesn’t look at how cleaning behaviours may have changed over time with the onset of health symptoms. If you found out your child has asthma or allergies, would you clean more or less frequently? We did consider cleaning product use during pregnancy and found the Frequency of Use Score assigned to the household then, was significantly correlated with the score assigned when the child was 3 months old, suggesting that cleaning product use may not change much over this time frame. We also don’t yet know if there are particular ‘windows’ of development when a child is most susceptible to these types of exposures (e.g. Is it worse to be exposed in-utero, at 3 months, or at 1 year?). Other research suggests early life exposures, beginning in gestation and extending through the first 1-2 years of life are most important. One other limitation is that we used questionnaire responses on specific product types to develop this score of overall cleaning product use frequency. While this approach is vulnerable to reporting bias, we chose to ask about use of specific products rather than asking ‘how often do you clean your home’ to minimize bias and be more specific to the exposure agents of interest for this study. We did verify that the products were present in the home, but we did not record the exact brands and ingredient lists of each product used in each CHILD participants home, and not every “spray air freshener” is exactly the same. It should be possible to examine this detail using barcodes on products, though manufactures still often hide ingredients by listing “fragrance” and they are not required to report ingredients that are less than 2% of product. We assumed that each child was exposed to the products being used for cleaning, although we do not have data on the child’s location during the cleaning, whether the cleaned areas were rinsed or ventilated afterwards, and other factors that would influence persistent exposure. Cleaners persist in the air causing exposure both to direct users and those who are secondarily exposed over time. For example, a single use of a kitchen degreaser can affect indoor aerosolized concentrations of irritant chemicals for several days (Schwarz et al., 2017) No conflicts of interest or financial disclosures to report. Citation: Association of use of cleaning products with respiratory health in a Canadian birth cohort Jaclyn Parks, Lawrence McCandless, Christoffer Dharma, Jeffrey Brook, Stuart E. Turvey, Piush Mandhane, Allan B. Becker, Anita L. Kozyrskyj, Meghan B. Azad, Theo J. Moraes, Diana L. Lefebvre, Malcolm R. Sears, Padmaja Subbarao, James Scott and Tim K. Takaro CMAJ February 18, 2020 192 (7) E154-E161; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.190819   The information on MedicalResearch.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website.   Read the full article

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Connect to Microsoft sequence

In this video we are going to see on how to connect to Microsoft sequence, our database using node.js, while there are many ways to connect to sequel server. The top two most frequently used. Node packages are ms node SQL directly from microsoft and ms SQL. So let us take a quick look at both of these two from NPM J's point of view. So let me go to NPM J's calm and let us see the first package that is ms node SQL. So this is one of the packages which can be used to directly connect to Microsoft, sequel server database. So let us search for that. One and first of all, you can see it is it directly. It is directly from Microsoft, so which means as long as you have this one. 

You should not be having any kind of problems. So let us open this, and the prerequisites are something very much problematic in order to have all of those particular features. So, for example, of course, we need to have no Jazz, no matter what, and there are couple more other things which are essential in order to have this particular package to be running on your machine. So you need to have node jib and Python C and some others. So if you actually install all of these, then certainly we can say that is going to be Windows based development, so which means this ms node SQL will be working. If, and only if, you deploy your node.js application on Windows environment, so that is some kind of a drawback whenever you would like to use this one. However, if you would like to have the fullest potential of sequel server to be used, then this is the way to go. 

There is one more package which is frequently used rather than this Microsoft, one which is M. This is from a third-party developer, so you can see this is an easy-to-use ms SQL database connector for node.js. So the moment I open it, so you can see just last day itself. There are thousand downloads, and you know there have been quite a few number of downloads every month or every week so looks like you know. This is going to be much more stable version in order to use sequence. Our database connectivity apart from Microsoft, whatever whatever it has published. So it has got several samples here on how to work on how to connect the sequel server using various ways and, at the same time, how to use requests, connections, transactions and everything, including how to call stored rocks all that stuff is already available in the form Of documentation, so we are not going to cover all of those in this session. 

However, we are just going to see on how to connect to the sequel, server and get a table of information, and there is one more important thing this ms SQL behind-the-scenes can use. Other drivers, in order to connect a sequel server, which includes tedious, microsoft, driver itself and no tedious if nothing is configured behind the scenes. Eg use tedious as the main sequel server driver in order to connect to sequence our database. But let us close this and start working on the things before you connect a sequel server. There are a couple of configuration things we need to ensure that those are in place. The first thing is that the database should be always running. 

Obviously, so let us quickly check the services that MSC, so this is the instance I am going to connect to. That. Is that okay, let me order by name. So this is the instance I am going to connect to in this session. So you can see sequel server and the instance name is SQL to k14 and make sure that this is started. So you can see this is running at the moment, so you can stop or restart or whatever you would like to do, and at the same time this should also be on sequel server. Browser should be running its equals, our 2k14 should be running and it is better to have sequel server agent to be running as well. So after making sure that all of these three are running we'll, we should also ensure the adder the tcp/ip settings are in place. 

So you can go to sequel, server, 2014 configuration manager, and once you open this, make sure that in the protocols for the instance you are using, you need to ensure that tcp/ip is always enabled. And of course all of these services are running here. 

So in this case, we do not use integration services, but it is better to have this service to be always running apart from that, these two are must so on top of that, we should always have what I say, the client protocols and everything else to be Always running so in this case the server the client may not be necessary until and unless you go for Microsoft, sequel supporting, but the protocols for the server itself should have DCPI be enabled. If, for some reason this is disabled and if you make it enabled you have to restart your services, so if you change from disabled to enabled it will not be taking players immediately, so those settings will be taking place if and only if again, you restart all 

Of your sequel, server services here so make sure that you just right click here and restart and right click here and restart if you happen to modify tcp/ip from disabled to enabled status. So that is pretty much whatever you might be really worrying about when it connecting to sequel server, ensure that tcp/ip is enabled and ensure that the services are always on. So in this case, in order to makes things simple, I am actually working with sample DB. So I just created a new database in this SQL 2k1, for instance. 

This is a very simple database which will have only two tables and out of that, the EMP table essentially will have four columns and six rows. So this is the table. We are trying to retrieve using node.js application itself now that everything is available in place, so let us start with Visual Studio and start creating a new application from the scratch. So a new project make sure that a Java Script nodejs and blank node.js console application. So in this case, I would like to say a sample sequel connection application, whatever you would like to call it as so. I just press. 

Ok, ok, so we have this console dot log. So we don't need this stuff. So the first thing, as I mentioned, I would like to use ms SQL package instead of using ms node SQL, so right-click your NPM and say install new packages and in this ms SQL, is the one I would like to use. So you can see. I select this install package make sure that it is packaged it is adding to package store Jason. I install it. Ok that one got installed, click close and you should be able to see ms sqm right there so now that we have everything in place now. The first thing is that we need to have that particular module of the package to be imported, so using ms SQL, so I require it and this particular package, whatever you are imported, is going to be made available as part of SQL now and in order to Connect to sequel server, we need to have certain kind of connection related parameters to be defined, for example, to which server you would like to connect to which database you would like to connect using what username password code number and all of that stuff. 

So I would like to have all of those in an Java Script object, so I would like to call the Java Script object as DB config and as part of that DB config. I would like to say the first thing is that server to which server? I would like to connect to so in this case I would like to say localhost SQL 2k14, so you can also provide any kind of IP address here, like 127 dot, 0 dot, 0 dot 1, which is nothing but the local system. But if your sequel server is installed somewhere else, you can provide the IP address of that particular server, and this is the instance name. So I gave double slash here as because that is the escaping for the single slash. So, in order to escape the single slash, I need to provide two slashes. 

So after providing the server, we need to provide the database to which you would like to connect to. In this case the database name is sample DB. So I go in here and I am going to say a sample DB, so once I have these two, I need to provide a username under which I would like to connect, though so in this case, as it is my local machine. Yes, he is my username and the password in this case is SQL 2, 0, 1 4, and on top of that, the port number also, you can provide, say 1, 4, 3 3, which is nothing but the default port number I may have so. This is pretty much similar to connection string, which will be usually made available as part of asp.net or any other application in general, but usually even from node.js perspective. These are supposed to be read from some config or settings or something which we are going to cover in next session. But for now let us hard code all of those details and our goal is to get connected to sequel server as soon as possible. And now I would like to have a function called get EMP, so this is the function I would like to execute and this function. 

Responsibility is to connect to the sequel, server, execute a select statement, get all the results and display on the console at the server itself. I am NOT consuming this nodejs application at the moment. This is the application right now connects to sequel server, which is the information and shows everything directly on to the console itself. So, in order to execute this, all I am going to say is get the MP at the end. So now we need to have our sequence, our connection to be made. So the first thing is that we need to have the connection object to be created and, as you know, all our mssql related package related instance is made available as part of sequin, and I am going to use the same and there exists a class called connection 

And it will be accepting a particular configuration, and in this case our configuration is made available as part of DB config. So I can make use of that one and at the same time, if you would like to have any kind of call back after connection has been made or if you are having any errors or something of that sort, then you know we can also provide the Callback here so for now, I do not want to provide anything, so the connection object is running in so once the connection object is ready. I need to have the request object again. As I mentioned, this is just creating an instance of a connection button. Pr not connected to the sequel server yet so you are, you have not connected yet in order to connect, you need to use connect method which we are going to use in a bit. But for now this particular statement - whatever you are going to see here, is not really connecting to this equals our database. It is just creating an instance in order to connect later on, so for now it is not connecting now similar to connection object. I would like to have a request object to be created so which will also be available as part of SQL and using the same connection. 

So the quest object, -- takes the connection, object into the account and it will try to request based on whatever the options we will be providing now once we have connection instance and requested instance created now, I can say, connection dot Connect. So now you can see. I have that particular method which essentially tries to connect to the database right now. So in this case, if I have any kind of error, it is going to be made available as part of error object, if not whatever the statements available here are going to be executed, not if not, but this function is going to be executed regardless, so, which Means whether the connection has been failed or the connection is successful so regardless it is going to be executing this particular function. So I can just say: if error then, I can just simply say something like console dot log error and I can say return. 

So if I have, if I come across any kind of connection related errors, you know it is just going to check if the error object is already in place, if so just display that error and return without really requesting anything else. But if it is not error, which means how successfully connected to the sequel server, then I am going to use my request object in order to execute a sequel statement, so the simplest way is requested quality and, as part of the query, the first thing is that I need to provide a select statement, so in this case I am going to use select start from EMP. So, as you can see right from here, I have select and all the columns from the EMP table, so that is the EMP table. So I am going to use the same thing here and now this is going to give us a call back, as you can see, and this callback will have two parameters, error and record set. 

So as far as this one, if you are having any problems with this statement or for some reason, sequencer is unable to execute this statement. You are going to have a error, object made available to you. So if there is no error - and if this select statement is successful, it is going to return all the rows into this particular variable, so it could be called as data or record set or whatever you would like to call. But for now I just wanted to call to Ezra courtside. So again, if there is any problem. All I would like to say is that display that error to the console, and else I need to actually display the result back to the console itself. So I would like to say, console dot log and display everything whatever I get through record set. So once I have what I would like to say connection goes, so this is pretty important, so you open the connection. 

The moment you say connect and you need to close the connection whenever you are done with your request. So in this case, if you have an error, it is going to display the error and, at the same time you are still closing the connection. If there is no error, you are still getting the record set and at the same time you are closing the connection. So this is pretty important. So if you don't close the connection every time, you open the connection and it will always be open until and unless someone closes it and you will be running out of now you're running out of the concurrent connections. So this is pretty important. You need to close it once you are done with your particular request, so this is just the function and at the same plane the same function is going to be executed as part of this one. So I just save everything, and hopefully this gets connected to our server and gives us the result and there we go. 

So we have all the information right in place. So we have one two three four five six rows and those are nothing but the six rows available right here. So if I would like to modify any of those roles, for example I go in here and the first one I make des 10,000 and I close this node application and I execute it and you can say I got 10,000 right here. Okay, so let me get back to my thing and make sure that it is switched back to my previous value switch, which three for three thousand four hundred okay. So now, let us check if errors are anything are working? Fine. So let us, let me, give you a MP two to two which is not available, so let me try. 

This is what you find, so I execute it and you can see there was an error and it says invalid object, name EMP, two, two two and it gives all the necessary information there, and that is how I can have the error to be defined and shown Right in front of the console itself, and as I mentioned whether or not you receive the error or the data, you are always closing the connection, but imagine the connection itself is unable to connect. So, for example, I provide something like ei, so this instance is not available. So just let us try to connect with that instance, and there you can see port for this. One is not found on that particular server, so we got all that message. So this is pretty much on how you can connect to sequel server, but at the same time you can also do the same whatever you did here in a promise oriental manner. So, which means when connection is successful, then to something when quarry is done, then do something if there is a problem, use a catch so, instead of using this method, I can also have another way to accomplish the same. So let us use another way, so I am going to say please connect first and if connection is successful or unsuccessful, then sorry then, is always successful. 

So you can see it returns, a promise object. Then I can say something like this, so which means, if connection is successful, then execute this particular function. If it is not successful, then I can use catch which essentially gives me the error. So in this case, I can have an error in this fashion, so I can handle the error right here. So let us do this in separate lines so that we can easily understand and how the things are working. Okay. Now you can see. I have connection that connector. So if the connection is successful, then this then part will be executed, which means this callback function gets executed. If the connection is successful, this callback gets executed if the connection is unsuccessful, so if it is unsuccessful, all I would like to use is consulted log and just throw the error back to the user. 

So if the connection is successful, then I would like to have the request to be utilized, so I would like to have my request object, which was created earlier. I just wanted to create it right there and then I would like to use request, dot quarry and, I can say, select star from EMP, and even this can also be used with the promise object, like I can say then so, which means if it has been Successfully executing that particular query then executes my particular function. If not, then again I can have a catch which gives an error object right there. So I can use a boat, so let me again make this in it available fashion. So now, what I'm saying is that if this query select start from EMP successful then execute this function. If this is not successful, then execute this function again as part of the error, all I would like to say is that just throw this one out and once everything is done in this case,

I, as I caught the result, I need to have that particular connection That resulted to be shown to the user, so in either case once that particular query has been successfully executed and shown to the user and in the data we still need to close the connection. So that needs to be done right here and also right here, make sure that you cannot use it here as because this is asynchronous. So this whole execution is asynchronous, which means it might take two seconds in order to get it executed. So while it may take two minutes or two seconds to execute, this will not wait, it will be going simply equal to the next statement, which essentially tries to close the connection. So you cannot do that so now that we have another way, let us test. If this is working, fine okay record set is not defined as because it throws the record set right here. 

Okay, so let me check it, and now we have all the rows right there. So imagine now I am providing something and just press that, and you can see it is giving EMP a is not available. And similarly, if I provide something like a year here for the username for which it will not be able to connect to the database and now you can see connection error and it says, login failed for that particular username. I provided so we have everything in place. So you can use in either of these two approaches, so you can use the promise visitor programming methodology or you can directly use the existing asynchronous way of how it is providing. So you can be just using the callback methods only without really depending on the promise object. But if you are working the promise object, then you have the flexibility like then, and catch sorry then, and catch and send let then and catch. So this is pretty much on how you can connect to sequel server using mssql package as part of node.js. In my next video, we are going to see on how to have rest based operations using node.js that is pure node.js and all those rest operations will be working again, a sequence, our database itself,

[topmixtrends]

[A]s strongly as I reject reproductive futurity, I nonetheless refuse to give up on concepts such as politics, hope, and a future that is not kid stuff.

— José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

¤

Frames

THE CHILD is a kind of archive. Like an archive, it anticipates the future from a moment in the present. It is the archive of past and present that we send into the future as a guarantor of our continuity, of our immortality, of our extension into a time we cannot foresee. But where the archive implies a time that is always already past, the child enfolds futurity even as it incorporates us as the past. We invest in the child the way we would invest in an archive, sending it into the future just as we do our collections of ourselves. But the child is no dead letter — it will continue to write us anew, to renew us, even as it promises the continuity of the same.

Rebekah Sheldon’s The Child to Come is a brilliant meditation on the figure of the child as both the promise of the future and the focus of our anxiety regarding that future. The Child to Come examines the concept of “reproductive futurism,” the investment of all our hopes for the future in our children. At first it may seem counterintuitive, or downright perverse, to question the long-standing association of children with futurity, with the extension of the human in time, with “life-itself.” After all, as Michael Jackson put it in 1985, “[w]e are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day.” By refusing such a seductive promise, Sheldon extends the radical challenge to heterosexual genealogy of Lee Edelman’s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004). Broadly, both Edelman and Sheldon effect a queer repositioning by refusing to take for granted the function of the child — as framed by reproductive necessity — to carry on the name of the Father. While Edelman’s No Future is less interested in the specificities of history, The Child to Come focuses specifically on American culture from the 1960s to the present.

Here is an ineluctable third frame, then, which we can name (however problematically) the Anthropocene; inevitably, in our own radically threatened present, The Child to Come is framed by the current eco-crisis. As Sheldon notes, “[f]rom the vantage of eco-catastrophe […] the child stands in the place of the species and coordinates its transit into the future.” She is particularly interested in how the child has been mobilized in response to “the burgeoning of forms-of-life made apprehensible in this period.” For one thing, the current threats to human survival resulting from the voracious technological drives of neoliberal capitalism — read as threats to “life-itself” — have made all too apparent a “liveliness” in the world that has nothing to do with the human. From this perspective, The Child to Come draws on contemporary theoretical positions such as New Materialism that seek to account for the liveliness of an object-world demonstrating the kind of agency we have conventionally associated only with the human. Think, for example, of the disastrous energies of floods, fires, and hurricanes. As Sheldon affirms, however, “those vibrant agents […] are our co-constituents in the real.”

The Child to Come mounts a cogent critique of our conception of the future solely in terms of heterosexual reproduction. That paradigm also entails, of course, the co-optation of the reproductive (woman’s) body and all the regulatory features of what Hannah Arendt, following Rudolf Kjellén, termed “biopolitics,” and which Sheldon reads as “the management of life-itself.” As she argues, both “the child” and “life-itself,” where the former is most often deployed as a figure for the latter, are metaphysical concepts underpinning ideological positions that have become thoroughly naturalized. Biopolitics, as developed after Arendt by Foucault, deploys the metaphysics of the child as one of the many ways governmentality in the broadest sense regulates populations. As Foucault notes in “Right of Death and Power over Life” (from his History of Sexuality, Vol. 1), biopolitics is a kind of power “that exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations.” This includes, crucially, the integration of the body “into systems of efficient and economic controls” that are tied, for both Foucault and Sheldon, “to the expansion of the productive forces and the differential allocation of profit.” Not for nothing is Sheldon’s preferred term for the biopolitics of reproduction “somatic capitalism.” The problem is, of course, that nonhuman agencies in this time of climate catastrophe threaten humanity’s transit into the future in ways that escape the control of all human governance.

  Texts

Not surprisingly, many of the texts that Sheldon reads in the course of her study are examples of science fiction, apocalyptic fiction, and post-apocalyptic fiction. Her opening chapter, “Introduction: Face,” sets the scene through a discussion of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), in which clone-children — representatives of nothing so much as Giorgio Agamben’s “bare life” — are raised as organ surrogates for, we assume, a more “natural” humanity. For Sheldon, this novel “elegizes the vulnerable child and stages in exemplary fashion the new mutation with which this book will be concerned: the slide from the child in need of saving to the child who saves.” While Sheldon aims to examine the child in contemporary, mostly apocalyptic, scenarios in fiction, film, advertising, and even political campaigns, she first inserts the child-as-figure into history during the 19th century by drawing on Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw (1898), a text that famously struggles to ascertain the “truth” of childhood.

Following “Introduction: Face” — with its implied politics of (non)recognition — Sheldon’s chapters include “Future,” “Life,” “Planet,” “Birth,” “Labor,” and “Conclusion: Child.” “Future” touches on texts such as J. G. Ballard’s allegorical “The Garden of Time” (1962) to extend Edelman’s critique of “a heteronormative futurity in thrall to reproduction,” one that desperately attempts to control the future in order to reproduce the same. The child here functions as a symbol of that self-similarity: “[i]n the name of the future, we must be protected from the future.” This future threatens us with unstable, indeterminate difference, at the same time as it promises “the movements of life from out of which coalesce new relationships.” The predictable future is no longer predictable in the context of climate disaster, if it was ever predictable, and the child can no longer stand between us and that unknowable future, if it ever could.

“Life” opens up the politics of reproduction through a reading of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover Landfall (1972), a novel that deploys human reproduction to guarantee the survival of a castaway colony; it then turns to Joanna Russ’s repudiation of the reproductive futurism that drives Bradley’s novel in her own We Who Are About To… (1977). Russ’s novel exposes the deeply gendered nature of the discourse that surrounds the child-as-future: We Who Are About To… refuses both the entrapment of the reproductive body and the projection of the female child into that same reproductive futurity. Turning to the masculinist imaginary of fathers and sons, “Planet” undertakes a sustained reading of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) as an anxious narrative commitment to the idea of “the Sacred Child.” Here the endangered child-figure is the fragile promise of “life-itself” in the face of the novel’s apocalyptic swerve into a radically transformed world that is no longer the world-for-us.

Sheldon’s chapters “Birth” and “Labor” examine “the status of fertility under conditions of somatic capitalism.” Her claim here is an important one:

reproductive futurism in the neoliberal present is a response to the threat of nonhuman profusion that harnesses the associations of the child with the future to reconsolidate liveliness back into [the] human, at the same time that material practices in the life sciences make this sovereign fantasy harder and harder to maintain.

To further that examination, Sheldon looks closely at a series of “sterility apocalypses,” including Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (2004–2013), Alfonso Cuarón’s film version of P. D. James’s Children of Men (2006), and the TV remake of Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009).

Each of Sheldon’s chapters brims with important ideas elegantly presented and developed. The Child to Come more than deserves its honorary mention for the 2017 Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Program book award, which is presented annually at the University of California, Riverside. While there are dense passages in the text, Sheldon is not trying to be easy; it is productive to slow down one’s readerly pace and attend carefully to what she has to say: “the child serves as a shard of the future. I am already your future, the child says. I am already in the future. Save me from the future. Make this a different future.” In other words, control the swerve in the future that is the Anthropocene; ensure us a future the same as the now. But that future looks less and less likely to be the future that actually unfolds. The cry for difference here is, in fact, the cry for the same. The child is at once the figure most at risk from a future that threatens to escape our control and, at the same time, the fragile figure that stands between us and apocalypse, our shield against a future swerve that seems increasingly assured.

Sheldon’s project, finally, can be framed by the work of a host of contemporary thinkers, including Jacques Derrida, Fredric Jameson, Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, and Timothy Morton, who write within their own terms on behalf of futures of difference and against the futures of sameness that the child, once it has been properly domesticated, promises us:

Complex systems […] always contain catastrophe as their necessary corollary. The question, then, is not how to live in catastrophe as if it were a landscape awaiting us in the future but how to live with catastrophic causalities without attempting to reseal them behind the containment walls of management systems and predictive models — how to live, in other words, without the demand for safety and the pleading face of the child as its warrant.

  Replicants

I just saw Blade Runner 2049 and I’m gobsmacked by its passionate investment in the idea of natural reproduction. Having read The Child to Come, however, I’m not surprised.

¤

Veronica Hollinger is emerita professor of Cultural Studies at Trent University in Ontario, and a long-time co-editor of Science Fiction Studies.

The post Make This a Different Future: Reproductive Futurism and Its (Dis)contents appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2DYzNi3

[micaramel]

Artist: Tom Burr

Venue: Bortolami, New Haven (Artist/City)

Exhibition Title: Phase 1: Pre-existing Conditions

Date: July 9 – November 13, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, New York

Press Release:

Bortolami is pleased to announce the opening of Tom Burr/New Haven, alternatively titled BODY / BUILDING, the third project of the gallery’s Artist/City programming initiative. Over the next six months, Burr will occupy and activate the first floor of the Marcel Breuer-designed office building previously occupied by the Armstrong Rubber Company and the Pirelli Tire Company, now owned by IKEA. Open by appointment only, this Brutalist masterpiece will serve as the site of an evolving exhibition, the first phase of which Burr has titled Pre-Existing Conditions. Through a consideration of the building as a body, and conversely, thinking of bodies (including his own) as a building or construction, Burr is collapsing one into the other. Located in the artist’s hometown, the Breuer-designed building constitutes a cipher for the various social and political concerns central to Burr’s work, not to mention the artist’s own autobiography. As he explains, “I was born there a handful of years before the Pirelli Building was built, so it was always in my mind while I was growing up.” Armstrong Rubber commissioned the building in 1968 for its factory and executive offices and it became an iconic emblem as the entrance to the city off Interstate 95, particularly at a time when the city was gaining attention for its urban renewal and restructuring. The building was envisioned and constructed as a symbol of utopian urban strategy but, like many examples of Brutalism, became a representation of the failure of Modernism’s idealistic aspirations.

IKEA purchased the building in the early 2000s, at which time the two-level extension that contained the warehouse and Armstrong’s research and development departments was removed to make way for IKEA’s use. Since IKEA initially granted Burr the opportunity to use the building, “complications of access and how to adhere to local codes—fire codes, capacity issues—became problematic and therefore a real part of the project and part of how I think about what I’m creating there,” Burr explains. The resulting works that comprise Pre-Existing Conditions serve as elements of code-compliance, while at the same time grappling with issues of the body, identity, and site-specificity.

After extensive demolition and remediation to the lobby’s original interiors, local codes required new railings. Burr produced and engraved new stainless steel railings with the complete text of Jean Genet’s May Day Speech delivered at Yale on the occasion of the 1970 May Day Rally (shortly after the construction of the building) in support of the Black Panthers, and their recently imprisoned founder, Bobby Seale.

Local code also deemed that several sections of remaining floor tile—footprints of former restrooms—were tripping hazards, and required that they be enclosed with additional railings. In Burr’s imagination, these zones form Brechtian stages, rooms without walls, spaces for the construction of identity as well as privacy. They also form a rejoinder to his 1994 photographic series and text, “Unearthing The Public Restroom,” a group of eight images that documented public restrooms in Manhattan at the time of their imminent destruction surrounding the AIDS crisis. Burr has made new sculptural compositions inside these railings that reference cultural figures strongly associated with New Haven in popular culture and his own personal history: Anni Albers, Jean Genet, J. Edgar Hoover, and Jim Morrison.

Burr’s sculptural composition entitled Women Who Work, consists of a group of IKEA chairs facing away from a printed aluminum panel featuring a textile design by Albers. Burr positioned a book called “Women’s Work: Textile Art from the Bauhaus” open on one of the empty chairs, suggesting an absent audience. In another composition, Bae Genet / Grey Genet, a portrait of Genet as a young man is positioned next to another portrait of him as an old man, a urinal partition original to the building separates the two. Works against the west wall of the building feature a sequence of images of The Doors’s Jim Morrison performing at the New Haven Arena in 1969, just as a local policeman was arresting him for obscenity and incitement to riot, before dragging the rockstar offstage. Next to two bathroom doors, one labeled “Gentlemen” and the other without any label, Burr positioned a portrait of J. Edgar Hoover brandishing a gun. As the presiding FBI Director in 1970, Hoover ordered his agents to disrupt and discredit radical groups, like the Black Panthers who were on trial in New Haven at the time.

Burr also created a series of sculptural objects that toe the line between classical figuration and abstraction. Mounted on plywood pedestals, metallic coat stands display clothing and other personal effects, serving as “actors” that populate the exhibition space, conjuring absent bodies and former uses of the working environment.

Surrounding the original bay of elevators, Burr built a plywood and plexiglas structure that both prevents access to an open elevator shaft and exposed electrical equipment while allowing viewers to see the original granite details of the architecture. This structure will support several convex security mirrors, frequently used in parking garages, hospitals, office buildings, among other institutional spaces. These mirrors will “catch” viewers both from above and below as they pass by the structure and peer into its interior.

Burr will also address the site of the building’s renovation. As per the artist’s description, “The far-end wall of the demolished warehouse was brought in to cover the redeveloped northern end of the building, suturing the concrete skin onto the remaining portion of the gaping hole with few visible scars.” The artist plans to draw attention to these the part of the building with a narrow white banner stretching across the length of the sutured wall like a long, unfurled bandage, a gesture that mirrors the building facade’s current function as an advertising surface for IKEA’s products and local community events.

As the project continues over the coming months, Burr plans on presenting further activations of the space including performance, film, and a coda to the limited edition artist book that he published this past December featuring various source materials and inspiration for this project, also titled BODY / BUILDING. In addition, Burr will make a new suite of bulletin boards that will be exhibited at Bortolami Gallery this summer. These works use BODY / BUILDING as their source material and form a dialogue with Burr’s Brutalist Bulletin Board series (2002) that featured images of Brutalist architecture from New Haven in juxtaposition with images of Jim Morrison.

Tom Burr (b. 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut) lives and works in New York. He has shown extensively throughout Europe and the United States. His work was recently featured in “Questioning the Wall Itself” at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Upcoming projects include a solo exhibition entitled Surplus of Myself at the Westfälischer Kunstverein concurrent with his participation in Skulptur Projekte Münster opening in June, and an upcoming installation at Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, CT. Burr’s work has been collected by major museums internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland; MOCA, Los Angeles, CA; MuMOK, Vienna, Austria; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Sammlung Grasslin, Germany; Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Austria; Ludwig Museum, Koln, Germany; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; FRAC, Champagne Ardenne, France; FRAC, Nord-Pas de Calais, France; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel. Burr attended the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York.

Special thanks to IKEA, dBr / ARCHITECTS, and the City of New Haven

Note: Tom Burr, Andrea Zittel at Bortolami

Link: Tom Burr at Bortolami

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2zzaSvn

[nancyedimick]

Justice Gorsuch’s first opinions reveal a confident textualist

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch is seen during an official group portrait at the Supreme Court building in Washington on June 1. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has now written three opinions — a majority, a partial concurrence and a dissent. All three show the Supreme Court’s newest justice to be a confident, committed textualist with a distinctive writing style — and a justice who is not afraid to challenge his new colleagues.

First came Gorsuch’s opinion for a unanimous court in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA. In this brief opinion — notable for its lack of section breaks — Gorsuch held that a company may seek to collect acquired debts without qualifying as a “debt collector” under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Focusing on the plain language of the statute, Gorsuch concluded that debt collectors under the FDCPA are third-party collection agents, not those who seek to collect debts they are owed themselves.

Many commentators noted the alliteration in the opinion’s opening passage:

Disruptive dinnertime calls, downright deceit, and more besides drew Congress’s eye to the debt collection industry. From that scrutiny emerged the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a statute that authorizes private lawsuits and weighty fines designed to deter wayward collection practices. So perhaps it comes as little surprise that we now face a question about who exactly qualifies as a “debt collector” subject to the Act’s rigors. Everyone agrees that the term embraces the repo man—someone hired by a creditor to collect an outstanding debt. But what if you purchase a debt and then try to collect it for yourself— does that make you a “debt collector” too? That’s the nub of the dispute now before us.

Later on, Gorsuch stressed that it is not for the courts to override or extend statutory text to conform with legislative purpose.

while it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Congress has written, it is never our job to rewrite a constitutionally valid statutory text under the banner of speculation about what Congress might have done had it faced a question that, on everyone’s account, it never faced… . Legislation is, after all, the art of compromise, the limitations expressed in statutory terms often the price of passage, and no statute yet known “pursues its [stated] purpose[ ] at all costs.” … For these reasons and more besides we will not presume with petitioners that any result consistent with their account of the statute’s overarching goal must be the law but will presume more modestly instead “that [the] legislature says … what it means and means … what it says.”

The opinion concludes:

In the end, reasonable people can disagree with how Congress balanced the various social costs and benefits in this area. We have no difficulty imagining, for example, a statute that applies the Act’s demands to anyone collecting any debts, anyone collecting debts originated by another, or to some other class of persons still. Neither do we doubt that the evolution of the debt collection business might invite reasonable disagreements on whether Congress should reenter the field and alter the judgments it made in the past. After all, it’s hardly unknown for new business models to emerge in response to regulation, and for regulation in turn to address new business models. Constant competition between constable and quarry, regulator and regulated, can come as no surprise in our changing world. But neither should the proper role of the judiciary in that process—to apply, not amend, the work of the People’s representatives.

Yesterday, the court issued Maslenjak v. United States. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the court, and Gorsuch wrote an opinion concurring-in-part and concurring-in-the-judgment, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Here Gorsuch argued that the text of the statute in question called for a more limited holding than that adopted by the court.

The Court holds that the plain text and structure of the statute before us require the Government to prove causation as an element of conviction: The defendant’s illegal conduct must, in some manner, cause her naturalization. I agree with this much and concur in Part II–A of the Court’s opinion to the extent it so holds. And because the jury wasn’t instructed at all about causation, I agree too that reversal is required.

But, respectfully, there I would stop. In an effort to “operational[ize]” the statute’s causation requirement, the Court says a great deal more, offering, for example, two newly announced tests, the second with two more subparts, and a new affirmative defense—all while indicating that some of these new tests and defenses may apply only in some but not all cases… . The work here is surely thoughtful and may prove entirely sound. But the question presented and the briefing before us focused primarily on whether the statute contains a materiality element, not on the contours of a causation requirement. So the parties have not had the chance to join issue fully on the matters now decided… .

Respectfully, it seems to me at least reasonably possible that the crucible of adversarial testing on which we usually depend, along with the experience of our thoughtful colleagues on the district and circuit benches, could yield insights (or reveal pitfalls) we cannot muster guided only by our own lights. … For my part, I believe it is work enough for the day to recognize that the statute requires some proof of causation, that the jury instructions here did not, and to allow the parties and courts of appeals to take it from there as they usually do. This Court often speaks most wisely when it speaks last.

Today, the court decided Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board. The case concerned a technical issue only lawyers could love: Whether the proper forum of MSPB dismissals of mixed cases on jurisdictional grounds is a federal district court or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for a seven-justice majority. Gorsuch dissented, joined by Thomas. Here again, Gorsuch focused on the text.

Gorsuch’s dissenting opinion in Perry is very conversational. It begins:

Anthony Perry asks us to tweak a congressional statute—just a little—so that it might (he says) work a bit more efficiently. No doubt his invitation is well meaning. But it’s one we should decline all the same. Not only is the business of enacting statutory fixes one that belongs to Congress and not this Court, but taking up Mr. Perry’s invitation also seems sure to spell trouble. Look no further than the lower court decisions that have already ventured where Mr. Perry says we should follow. For every statutory “fix” they have offered, more problems have emerged, problems that have only led to more “fixes” still. New challenges come up just as fast as the old ones can be gaveled down. Respectfully, I would decline Mr. Perry’s invitation and would instead just follow the words of the statute as written

Later on, Gorsuch explains why courts should confine themselves to the text, even if this may produce a potentially problematic result.

Mr. Perry’s is an invitation I would run from fast. If a statute needs repair, there’s a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It’s called legislation. To be sure, the demands of bicameralism and presentment are real and the process can be protracted. But the difficulty of making new laws isn’t some bug in the constitutional design: it’s the point of the design, the better to preserve liberty. Besides, the law of unintended consequences being what it is, judicial tinkering with legislation is sure only to invite trouble. Just consider the line of lower court authority Mr. Perry asks us to begin replicating now in the U. S. Reports. Having said that district courts should sometimes adjudicate civil service disputes, these courts have quickly and necessarily faced questions about how and when they should do so. And without any guidance from Congress on these subjects, the lower courts’ solutions have only wound up departing further and further from statutory text—and invited yet more and more questions still. A sort of rolling, case-by-case process of legislative amendment.

His opinion concludes:

At the end of a long day, I just cannot find anything preventing us from applying the statute as written—or heard any good reason for deviating from its terms. Indeed, it’s not even clear how overhauling the statute as Mr. Perry wishes would advance the efficiency rationale he touts. The only thing that seems sure to follow from accepting his invitation is all the time and money litigants will spend, and all the ink courts will spill, as they work their way to a wholly remodeled statutory regime. Respectfully, Congress already wrote a perfectly good law. I would follow it.

And that’s how the opinion ends.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/23/justice-gorsuchs-first-opinions-reveal-a-confident-textualist/

[rlg233h1]

Eat, Pray, Consume

Watch the Official EAT PRAY LOVE Trailer in HD:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjay5vgIwt4

Originally published in 2006, the non fiction book, and later film adaptation, of Eat, Pray, Love share the story of Elizabeth Gilbert, a woman on a quest for self-realization in three remote locations: Italy, India, and Indonesia. While the book and movie alike have gathered a large following of women who cite Gilbert’s memoir as a source of empowerment, others critique the work for popularizing “orientalism”. By justifying spending as a means of achieving health and wellness Eat, Pray, Love  is able to promote an individual sense of false empowerment while instigating a form of new colonialism.

Original book cover

Gilbert’s journey begins from a sudden realization: her whole life has been centered around men. Therefore, in claiming her freedom through individual travel, Gilbert is able to directly oppose the patriarchy that has influenced the lives of countless women. This makes Eat, Pray, Love a relatable story for any woman. Although many people point to Eat, Pray, Love as a force of female empowerment, many critique the way in which this is presented, citing the book and film as a form of “spiritual materialism” (Williams, 2011, p.618). Problematically, the protagonist is a wealthy white women which promotes a sort of empowerment that can only be shared with women in of equal financial means. Williams argues this allows the book to “support an ideological system that makes it seem as if empowerment is only available to those with the power to buy” (Williams, 2011, p.619). Thus the working class black mother appears less likely to experience the the luxury of a spiritual awakening. Furthermore, by centering the journey as the site of enlightenment, Gilbert is only distancing the audience from agency by promoting materialism and dependency. The neoliberal subject is defined as “a concept of human subject as autonomous, individualized, self-directing decision-making agent who becomes an entrepreneur of one self; a human capital” (Turken, Nafstad, Blakar & Roen, 2015, p.1). In this way, the working class mother who is inspired must submit to capitalism in order to receive funds making them more reliant on the state. Moreover, if the woman is not able to achieve the success necessary for travel it is deemed her fault. This blame game only furthers women’s positions as subordinate by encouraging women to not only attach their happiness to a male dominated capitalist market, but, as Williams argues, “moves women further away from an awareness of the social factors that may contribute to their personal unhappiness” (Williams, 2011, 620). By discouraging women from asking questions regarding oppression, they are not able to improve their own situation. As for the few women who can afford the luxury of travel, they are discouraged from acknowledging their own privilege. Despite her apparent wealth, Gilbert presents herself as a victim which becomes increasingly problematic when situating herself within an Eastern context.  

Visual representation of the consequences of neoliberalism

With the immense popularity of Gilbert’s memoir and subsequent film it is of no surprise that the tourism industry has cultivated it as a marketing tool. The Eat, Pray, Love brand has been associated with a range of commodities such as “perfume, tea, yoga gear, prayer beads, and jewelry to EPL -themed travel tours that include spa treatments, visits to temples, and copious amounts of yoga and meditation” (Williams, 2011, 613). For those who cannot afford to travel, the associated products offer a “consumption-based shortcut” to the empowerment and enlightenment described by Gilbert. On the other hand, the Eat, Pray, Love marketing “downplays the consumerist core at the heart of tourism by ignoring the impact the industry has on a country's development” (Williams, 2011, p.617). Therefore, the female neoliberal spiritual subject who travels runs a risk of reducing foreign locations and native populations to nothing more than tools for her own advancement. In this way, the Eat, Pray, Love brand represents a “new colonialism” which is characterized through “white people discovering themselves in brown places” (Sandip, 2010). By situating health and wellness as the reason for travel, the neoliberal woman is encouraged to view their consumption as pure and purposeful. While this has aforementioned consequences of linking a woman’s self worth to capitalism, it further creates a divide between consumption and production. Rowley cites this separation as “integral to the pleasure of consumption is that we not see the laboring or ailing bodies that make consumption possible’’ (Rowley, 2011, p.88). On the subject of Eat, Pray, Love, the traveler is looking to consume culture and must ignore the oppressed bodies around them in order to acquire an authentic experience similar to Gilbert’s. While scenes in the novel demonstrate Gilbert’s reflection on the poverty she witnesses in India, they are all formatted as a way to inspire her to reconsider her own position instead of reflect on the native peoples. Gilbert wonders how a woman busting up rocks can “be so happy doing rough work under such terrible conditions” (Gilbert, 2006, p.160) instead of questioning the conditions of the societies that lead them to their respective positions.

Gilbert choosing consumption over potential religious experiences

One scene in the film seems to highlight Gilbert’s privilege above all else. While in Indonesia, Gilbert meets a medicine woman who fled an abusive relationship with her daughter. The interactions she shares with the woman offer a platform for Gilbert to engage in a critical analysis of the effects of the tourism industry in Bali, yet, Gilbert takes another route to feed her white guilt and instead buys the family a new home. While on the surface this may seem like a selfless gesture, in fact Gilbert simply consumes the  it reduces the family to a product for consumption by placing value solely on the material. Moreover, in order to afford this new home, Gilbert reaches out to friends for financial aid. It is in her email that Gilbert perpetuates “orientalism” by advancing the Eastern victim narrative. It is “the result of cultural hegemony at work, that gives Orientalism the durability and the strength” to overpower any advancements Eastern civilizations may make for themselves (Said, p.2). In this way, Gilbert is enforcing financial and cultural domination.

Film representation of the family Gilbert “helped”

This is not the first time consumerism has been used as a way to foster a sense of spirituality in popular culture. Meditation apps have taken on the same role as Gilbert’s memoir; the role of providing the individual with an authentic spiritual experience. Whereas the $6.99 for Buddhify and the $129.99 yearly subscription for Headspace are of significantly less cost than a year long international trip, they operate on the same premise. While seeking to feed the busy Westerner’s spiritual craving, Eat, Pray, Love and mindfulness apps alike “become a virtual orientalism” by “poaching from Asian sources” (Grieve, 2017, p.209).

However popular the Eat, Pray, Love works have become, it is impossible to separate them from the capitalistic and colonialistic histories that have made it’s creation possible. Although Gilbert’s memoir does not engage in a critical analysis, it offers a space for the analytical reader to reflect on the West’s appropriation and commodification of the East.

Bibliography:

Gilbert, E. (2006). Eat, Pray, Love. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Mahan, J. H., & Forbes, B. D. (2017). Religion and popular culture in america, third edition.University Of California Press

Rowley, Michelle. ‘‘Where the Streets Have No Name: Getting Development Out to the (RED)’’ Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances. 2nd ed.Eds. Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan. London: Routledge, 2011. 76–96.

Roy, Sandip. ‘‘The new colonialism of ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’’’ Salon. Salon, 13 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.

Said, E. (1982). Orientalism. The Antioch Review, 40(1). doi:10.2307/4638536

Türken, S., Nafstad, H. E., Blakar, R. M., & Roen, K. (2015). Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development.Globalizations, 13(1), 32-46. doi:10.1080/14747731.2015.1033247

Williams, R. (2011). Eat, Pray, Love: Producing the Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject. The Journal of Popular Culture, 47(3), 613-633. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00870.x

[wolfandpravato]

Justice Gorsuch’s first opinions reveal a confident textualist

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch is seen during an official group portrait at the Supreme Court building in Washington on June 1. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has now written three opinions — a majority, a partial concurrence and a dissent. All three show the Supreme Court’s newest justice to be a confident, committed textualist with a distinctive writing style — and a justice who is not afraid to challenge his new colleagues.

First came Gorsuch’s opinion for a unanimous court in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA. In this brief opinion — notable for its lack of section breaks — Gorsuch held that a company may seek to collect acquired debts without qualifying as a “debt collector” under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Focusing on the plain language of the statute, Gorsuch concluded that debt collectors under the FDCPA are third-party collection agents, not those who seek to collect debts they are owed themselves.

Many commentators noted the alliteration in the opinion’s opening passage:

Disruptive dinnertime calls, downright deceit, and more besides drew Congress’s eye to the debt collection industry. From that scrutiny emerged the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a statute that authorizes private lawsuits and weighty fines designed to deter wayward collection practices. So perhaps it comes as little surprise that we now face a question about who exactly qualifies as a “debt collector” subject to the Act’s rigors. Everyone agrees that the term embraces the repo man—someone hired by a creditor to collect an outstanding debt. But what if you purchase a debt and then try to collect it for yourself— does that make you a “debt collector” too? That’s the nub of the dispute now before us.

Later on, Gorsuch stressed that it is not for the courts to override or extend statutory text to conform with legislative purpose.

while it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Congress has written, it is never our job to rewrite a constitutionally valid statutory text under the banner of speculation about what Congress might have done had it faced a question that, on everyone’s account, it never faced. . . . Legislation is, after all, the art of compromise, the limitations expressed in statutory terms often the price of passage, and no statute yet known “pursues its [stated] purpose[ ] at all costs.” . . . For these reasons and more besides we will not presume with petitioners that any result consistent with their account of the statute’s overarching goal must be the law but will presume more modestly instead “that [the] legislature says . . . what it means and means . . . what it says.”

The opinion concludes:

In the end, reasonable people can disagree with how Congress balanced the various social costs and benefits in this area. We have no difficulty imagining, for example, a statute that applies the Act’s demands to anyone collecting any debts, anyone collecting debts originated by another, or to some other class of persons still. Neither do we doubt that the evolution of the debt collection business might invite reasonable disagreements on whether Congress should reenter the field and alter the judgments it made in the past. After all, it’s hardly unknown for new business models to emerge in response to regulation, and for regulation in turn to address new business models. Constant competition between constable and quarry, regulator and regulated, can come as no surprise in our changing world. But neither should the proper role of the judiciary in that process—to apply, not amend, the work of the People’s representatives.

Yesterday, the court issued Maslenjak v. United States. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the court, and Gorsuch wrote an opinion concurring-in-part and concurring-in-the-judgment, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Here Gorsuch argued that the text of the statute in question called for a more limited holding than that adopted by the court.

The Court holds that the plain text and structure of the statute before us require the Government to prove causation as an element of conviction: The defendant’s illegal conduct must, in some manner, cause her naturalization. I agree with this much and concur in Part II–A of the Court’s opinion to the extent it so holds. And because the jury wasn’t instructed at all about causation, I agree too that reversal is required.

But, respectfully, there I would stop. In an effort to “operational[ize]” the statute’s causation requirement, the Court says a great deal more, offering, for example, two newly announced tests, the second with two more subparts, and a new affirmative defense—all while indicating that some of these new tests and defenses may apply only in some but not all cases. . . . The work here is surely thoughtful and may prove entirely sound. But the question presented and the briefing before us focused primarily on whether the statute contains a materiality element, not on the contours of a causation requirement. So the parties have not had the chance to join issue fully on the matters now decided. . . .

Respectfully, it seems to me at least reasonably possible that the crucible of adversarial testing on which we usually depend, along with the experience of our thoughtful colleagues on the district and circuit benches, could yield insights (or reveal pitfalls) we cannot muster guided only by our own lights. . . . For my part, I believe it is work enough for the day to recognize that the statute requires some proof of causation, that the jury instructions here did not, and to allow the parties and courts of appeals to take it from there as they usually do. This Court often speaks most wisely when it speaks last.

Today, the court decided Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board. The case concerned a technical issue only lawyers could love: Whether the proper forum of MSPB dismissals of mixed cases on jurisdictional grounds is a federal district court or the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for a seven-justice majority. Gorsuch dissented, joined by Thomas. Here again, Gorsuch focused on the text.

Gorsuch’s dissenting opinion in Perry is very conversational. It begins:

Anthony Perry asks us to tweak a congressional statute—just a little—so that it might (he says) work a bit more efficiently. No doubt his invitation is well meaning. But it’s one we should decline all the same. Not only is the business of enacting statutory fixes one that belongs to Congress and not this Court, but taking up Mr. Perry’s invitation also seems sure to spell trouble. Look no further than the lower court decisions that have already ventured where Mr. Perry says we should follow. For every statutory “fix” they have offered, more problems have emerged, problems that have only led to more “fixes” still. New challenges come up just as fast as the old ones can be gaveled down. Respectfully, I would decline Mr. Perry’s invitation and would instead just follow the words of the statute as written

Later on, Gorsuch explains why courts should confine themselves to the text, even if this may produce a potentially problematic result.

Mr. Perry’s is an invitation I would run from fast. If a statute needs repair, there’s a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It’s called legislation. To be sure, the demands of bicameralism and presentment are real and the process can be protracted. But the difficulty of making new laws isn’t some bug in the constitutional design: it’s the point of the design, the better to preserve liberty. Besides, the law of unintended consequences being what it is, judicial tinkering with legislation is sure only to invite trouble. Just consider the line of lower court authority Mr. Perry asks us to begin replicating now in the U. S. Reports. Having said that district courts should sometimes adjudicate civil service disputes, these courts have quickly and necessarily faced questions about how and when they should do so. And without any guidance from Congress on these subjects, the lower courts’ solutions have only wound up departing further and further from statutory text—and invited yet more and more questions still. A sort of rolling, case-by-case process of legislative amendment.

His opinion concludes:

At the end of a long day, I just cannot find anything preventing us from applying the statute as written—or heard any good reason for deviating from its terms. Indeed, it’s not even clear how overhauling the statute as Mr. Perry wishes would advance the efficiency rationale he touts. The only thing that seems sure to follow from accepting his invitation is all the time and money litigants will spend, and all the ink courts will spill, as they work their way to a wholly remodeled statutory regime. Respectfully, Congress already wrote a perfectly good law. I would follow it.

And that’s how the opinion ends.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/23/justice-gorsuchs-first-opinions-reveal-a-confident-textualist/

[allsaintsbanquethallrental]

Dividend stocks are a future banquet for the yield-hungry

Look-back through you’ll and background observe that returns make a share of the inventory up market’s greater than a third is –ed by complete return through the years, based on amp & Regular; Poor’s.

But as traders pursuit produce from – blue-chip for several years – they’ve created these shares costly businesses which have elevated their returns continuously, says Witcher of Investment Management of Calgary. Witcher is cause supervisor of the Mawer Fund.

Your Individual Investor Jackson with points to consider in case companies change. BNN Movie

Movie

Movie: how to proceed whenever your economic consultant modifications companies

Which businesses may sometime join them in producing yields that are constant, large? Listed here are eight selects for aristocrats into the future from three experts that are leading.

From Witcher of Mawer.

Ansys Inc. (Nasdaq-ANSS); bield: 0: Ansys styles simulator application for businesses in a variety of sectors. This application enables companies to determine how fresh item styles may execute within the real life and never have to create a bodily design that is operating. This saves period and cash Witcher claims. “Even swimming goggles have already been simulated utilizing Ansys’s software.”

A lot of the income that is company’s is repeating from application permits, meaning a far company that is more foreseeable, he provides. “We think Ansys is among the worldwide business leaders in simulations and it has the largest portfolios of simulator capabilities.” Ansys must gain and Within The decade, the transmission of simulator application must proceed to improve.

Verisk Stats Inc. (Nasdaq-VRSK); yield: 0: Verisk gathers amazing and public-data, aggregates it after which writes study and stats centered on it. Its company that is unique was within the insurance business: a big number of insurance providers started Verisk to greatly help them.

A competitive benefit has been generated by Verisk with these businesses through its associations. Its chest of information from their store could be excessively problematic for a brand new entrant. As must their high client maintenance rates” of 98 percent “This distinctive resource must enable safeguard the balance of the income for several years Witcher provides.

From Rob Mo, guide profile director of the Canada Account.

Stella-Johnson Inc. (TSX-SJ); produce: 0.87 percent: Montreal-centered Stella-Johnson is Northern America’s top lumber-managing organization, production train scarves, power posts and climate-resistant lumber. The across Europe and The United States isn’t big, but “Stella- by advantage of its dimension includes a lasting competitive benefit of size , Mo claims and Johnson may be the biggest participant.

This enables the organization to reinvest to improve market-share, primarily through purchases and also to generate a higher return on money. Its CEO, Brian McManus, has performed an order technique during the last 15 years with “amazing” outcomes, but he’s likewise targeted to boost the company’s dividend payment percentage to 80 percent or more when the “acquisition driveway operates out,” Mr. Mo claims. “We anticipate Stella Jones is a constant, developing dividend payer for all years.”

First Nationwide Financial Corp. (TSX-FN); produce: 5.72 percent: First Nationwide Economic is Canada’s top Non Bank mortgage company. It’s prominent among mortgage agents, which about one third of Canadians utilize Mo claims. The organization has near to A – 20-per cent marketshare there.

First Nationwide indicates powerful dividend development and great money increases. Organization that is “The is a strong, under-the- executor of the company technique that is easy: get to be the effective and most-trusted owner within the mortgage agent channel. “The mortgage business in Europe is continuing to grow in a several percent points above GDP development, and we anticipate that First Nationwide may preserve and maybe improve its market-share within the next three years and beyond.”

From John Gardner, a profile and partner director at Method Expenditure Management in Toronto. Listed here are three businesses that Gardner needs to prosper within even 50 years or the 30.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC); yield: 1.92 percent: Even Though bank field is generally criticized, it’s significantly better nowadays than at every other amount of time in the real history of the monetary areas, Mr. Gardner claims. Because of money restrictions technical interruption from rivals, along with a highly-regulated atmosphere is likely to be minimum, he provides. “There is likely to be millions allocated to engineering by all banks to maintain disruptors away.”

The general public may need rules and conformity to safeguard belongings that are society’s, he claims. “So ultimately banks will have to be Bank of America may be the biggest deposit owner within the Usa. It gives only 25 percent of its profits in returns out. Since it has space to develop the financial institution may proceed to improve its dividend payment Gardner predicts.

Canadian National Railway Co. (TSX: CNR); yield: 1.80 percent: There’s no further effective method to transportation mass products than by train,” Mr. Gardner claims. The planet will be much more connected, and cumbersome things” that is “big need to proceed to B from factors A. “The types who possess the train lines may have the ability to move, particularly since culture doesn’t appear to wish to accept pipelines. “Food, gas products and substances are section of our lives that are everyday. It’ll continue he claims. “CNR it is among the greatest and has got the train lines -work railways of continuously increasing returns may proceed out background, also, he provides. Its payment percentage is just a traditional 35 percent.

Brown & Brown (NYSE: JNJ); yield: 2.71 percent: Brown & Johnson’s pharmaceutical and retail items assist energy and generate the company’s dividend plan, Mr. Gardner claims. “Its free income energy and its own actually-growing selection of powerful consumer-products can help it keep its top placement like a dividend aristocrat for that next 30 years.” Its varied collection of items enables it to endure recessionary or deflationary developments that may affect the customer room, he claims. As-well, “being #1 or 2 in many of the worldwide areas produces a powerful hurdle to entry.” T&J’s collection of medicines has some aspects of patent safety, and its own AAA credit score – among only two businesses ranked therefore extremely by Regular & Poor’s within the Usa – strengthens the company’s potential within the long haul.

Statement Typo/Mistake

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[aion-rsa]

In The Wild Storm, Warren Ellis Takes Hold of a Universe

This article contains spoilers for “The Wild Storm” #1, in stores now.

Wildstorm has gone through some ups and downs in the 25 years since its debut as artist Jim Lee’s corner of the upstart publisher Image Comics, and for most of the last decade or more, the needle has largely pointed southward. Now a part of the DC Comics family (with Lee a DC co-publisher), the heroes of “WildC.A.T.S.” and “Stormwatch” have, in recent years, struggled to find an audience. Even “The Authority,” launched to acclaim by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch before Mark Millar took over for another successful run, has failed to catch on in its last few series. With “The Wild Storm,” DC turns once again to Warren Ellis to harness the esoteric quality that has been essential to the WildStorm universe’s greatest successes: innovation, and doing the unexpected.

One can view DC’s previous missteps with WildStorm as a misunderstanding of what makes these comics connect with readers. In the early days, it was the art, with Lee’s “WildC.A.T.S.” and J. Scott Campbell’s “Gen13” being clear standouts. Beginning in the late ’90s with “The Authority” and “Wildcats Version 3.0,” it was a strong concept, expertly executed. It’s never been primarily about the characters. There are certainly Zealot zealots out there, but moving characters like Grifter and Deathblow to the prime DC universe largely neuters their effect by making them one among many rather than characters with a particular role to play. Even Midnighter, perhaps Wildstorm’s most popular character, failed to find his footing until writer Steve Orlando recently carved out a unique place for him within the DCU.

What Ellis understands about the WildStorm universe is that it is best used to explore contemporary fears, hopes, and anxieties. At the turn of the millennium, he gave us Jenny Sparks; now he’s giving us something else.

Zealot comes out of a difficult interview

Ellis and artist Jon Davis-Hunt’s first issue of “The Wild Storm” re-introduces several major players and places them in their new context. Zealot, also known as Lucy Blaze, is an intelligence agent who’s just completed an “interview [that] went badly;” in other words, she had to kill her target, a fellow gene-hacking his own body. Priscilla Kitaen is launching an album and insists on targeting a specific set of NYC billboards, due to the area’s mythic and UFO significance; she is also known as Voodoo, which another character calls out as problematic. Angela Spica emerges as a damaged researcher able to manifest full-body armor. But the prime conflict appears to be between International Operations, more commonly known as IO and led by Miles Craven, and Jacob Marlowe’s HALO Corp. Two tech giants molding culture, each harboring deep secrets. Marlowe, who so far appears benevolent, is a centuries-old alien being of immense power, while Craven employs superpowered assassins to remove his rivals.

There are affinities to the old continuity, clearly — is Marlowe the Kherubim Lord Emp? Will Michael Cray, who collapses at the end of the issue, become Deathblow to right his wrongs before a brain tumor claims his life? Is an alien race called the Daemonites operating somewhere below the surface of society? After the first issue, none of this is clear; but more importantly, it’s beside the point. Ellis is picking and choosing the elements that will best help to re-establish a WildStorm universe that can effectively interrogate our own world. Angie’s Engineer, far from the sleek heroine whose body is fluidly enveloped in liquid metal, instead undergoes a brutal, mechanical transformation, acknowledging that the beauty and wonder of technological progress has given way to skepticism and horror at its costs; even as Angie pleads for funding to continue her research, the reader can see the immense toll her devotion has taken on her mental state. A researcher for IO, she saves the life of her boss’s rival. And as the world at large wonders about the sudden appearance of the metal woman, Miles Craven has already identified her by making efficient use of surveillance culture. Our modern paranoia is both more subtle and more desperate; we know about the secret forces running the world, we can name them, and we play the game anyway.

The Engineer and Marlowe

This underlying tone makes Davis-Hunt an excellent choice for series artist. His art is stylish without being overly stylized, and the muted palette of colorist Ivan Plascencia grounds this story in the real world. The modified six- and nine-panel grids create an even, natural, almost leisurely pace for the first third of the book, such that when tiers split for Angie’s transformation it’s almost an act of violence.

A creator of Ellis’ caliber does not necessarily ensure the success of a new WildStorm. After all, the imprint has seen some of comics’ best writers tackle these heroes, going back to the Image Comics days; James Robinson wrote “WildC.A.T.S.,” as did Alan Moore, but DC barely bothers to keep the “Watchmen” author’s WildStorm omnibus in print. But Ellis, a creator who is perhaps only second to Jim Lee in his association with the line, has shown an affinity for using this universe; he sees how the pieces fit together, and crafts new pieces only to suit his needs. He brings the thrill of the unexpected; his run on “Stormwatch” ended with the death of most of the original line-up in an inter-company crossover. And from those ashes he created “The Authority,” full of archetypal characters playing their parts in a widescreen drama embodying the era. That’s why Ellis writing “The Wild Storm” and overseeing the relaunch is exciting; that’s why he is primed to succeed in a way that even Grant Morrison, whose “Authority” and “WildC.A.T.S.” reboots crashed out of the gate, was not.

“The Wild Storm” #1 is certainly what you’d want from Warren Ellis remodeling a universe. It’s witty, it’s intelligent, it has folks getting pushed out windows. There is, already, a sense of grand strategy and design, and it’s hard not to sympathize with the heroes about to get swept up into it. But we’re ready to be swept up, as well.

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