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Application Update: Dominion University Post UTME Screening Form 2022/2023 Is Out - Apply Now

Application Update: Dominion University Post UTME Screening Form 2022/2023 Is Out – Apply Now

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This is why I hate it when MRAs whine about the courts “favoring” the mothers

How the 'junk science' of parental alienation infiltrated American family courts and allowed accused child abusers to win custody of their kids.

This story was reported in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations.

In the summer of 2020, when he was 12, the boy told his therapist something he'd never told anyone else.

For years, Robert claimed, his stepdad had sexually abused him.

The therapist alerted the San Diego County child welfare agency, which launched an investigation. The county sheriff opened an inquiry, too. Thomas Winenger, the only father figure Robert had ever known, began assaulting him when he was only 7, Robert told a forensic social worker in October 2020. Winenger would pin him down, cover his mouth, and force him into acts he found "disgusting," he said. Sometimes, he said, Winenger recited Bible verses during the attacks, claiming the devil was in Robert's heart.

Robert, whom Insider is identifying by only his middle name, said that as he struggled to breathe, he fought back by hitting, punching, and kneeing his stepfather. But he said Winenger overpowered him.

By the time Robert came forward, Winenger had been named his legal father and was divorced from Robert's mother, Jill Montes, with whom he also shared two young daughters. Robert confronted Winenger with the allegations that November, and within weeks Winenger denied the claims in family court. "This NEVER HAPPENED," he asserted in a filing.

He offered an alternative explanation for Robert's disturbing claims, one that shifted the blame to Robert's mother.

Montes, Winenger contended, had engaged in a pattern of manipulation known as "parental alienation." Robert's accusations weren't evidence that he'd abused the boy, Winenger claimed. They were evidence that Montes had poisoned the children against him. The delayed timing of Robert's allegations, Winenger argued, only made them more suspicious. Montes was causing the children such grave psychological harm, he claimed in the filing, that the children should be transferred to his custody right away.

That December, Child Welfare Services substantiated Robert's allegations, calling them "credible, clear, and concise." But the family-court judge, Commissioner Patti Ratekin, withheld judgment until the following October, when the psychologist she'd appointed as a custody evaluator submitted his own report.

That report, which has been sealed by the court, appears to have convinced Ratekin that Winenger was correct.

“Ma'am, you didn't show very well in the report. You are toxic. You're poisonous. You're an alienator," Ratekin told Montes at a hearing on October 28, 2021. "I don't believe for a second" that Robert's father molested him. "Not for a second," she repeated. "I think you've put it in his head."

Ratekin acted swiftly, granting Winenger's bid for custody and ordering him to enroll Robert and his sisters in Family Bridges, a program that claims to help "alienated" children reconnect with a parent they've rejected. She barred Montes, a stay-at-home mom and home schooler, from all contact with her children for at least 90 days, a standard prerequisite for admission to the program.

"I just wanted to crumble," Montes said.

Rejected as a psychiatric disorder

Parental alienation is a fairly recent idea, conceived in the 1980s by a psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Gardner, who argued that divorcing mothers, desperate to win custody suits, were brainwashing children against their fathers. In "severe" cases, Gardner wrote, children with "parental alienation syndrome" must be removed from their mothers, transferred to the care of their fathers, and reeducated through what he called "threat therapy."

Alienation has never been accepted as a psychiatric disorder by the medical establishment. Yet today, mental-health practitioners across the United States assess and treat it, particularly those who specialize in custody cases. Many of them collaborate closely, attending the same conferences, following the same protocols, and citing the same papers. Some run reunification programs like Family Bridges; others offer family therapy or produce custody evaluations for family courts.

Influenced by these experts, many judges have given the unproven concept the force of law.

Though most custody cases settle out of court, in a small fraction parents don't come to terms. In some of these contested cases, one parent accuses the other of alienating the children. The most intense disputes arise in cases where one parent alleges spousal or child abuse and the other responds with a claim of alienation.

But alienation claims are highly gendered. Men level the accusation against women nearly six times as often as women level it against men, one study suggests. That landmark study, published in 2020, found that in cases when mothers alleged abuse and fathers responded by claiming alienation, the mothers stood a startlingly high chance of losing custody.

Occasionally, parents accused of alienation are cut off from their children altogether. Since 2000, judges have sent at least 600 children to reunification programs that recommend the temporary exile of the trusted parent, a collaborative investigation by Insider and Type Investigations revealed. While the programs suggest a "no-contact period" of 90 days, this term is routinely extended and may last years, according to an analysis of tens of thousands of pages of court papers and program records.

The treatment typically starts with a four-day workshop for children and the parent they've rejected; aftercare can add months or years. Children may be seized for the workshop by force, with no opportunity for goodbyes.

Former participants at Family Bridges and a similar program, Turning Points for Families, said they were taught that their memories were unreliable, the parent they preferred was harmful, and the parent they'd rejected was loving and safe. In some cases, participants who resisted these lessons said they were verbally threatened; at Family Bridges, a few were threatened with institutionalization. Some participants said they ended up depressed and suicidal.

Program officials say they are helping children. Lynn Steinberg, a therapist who runs a program called One Family at a Time, said in an interview that virtually all the kids she's enrolled have falsely accused a parent of abuse and that she does not accept children into her program whose abuse claims have been substantiated. Without treatment, she said, alienated children would risk being plagued by guilt, and the relationship they wrongly spurned might never heal.

In Steinberg's view, the only child abusers in the families she sees are the "alienators," who have "annihilated" a devoted parent from their children's lives.

Recently, alienation theory has faced rising criticism. Efforts to legitimize the diagnosis have been rebuffed by the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. And the reunification programs burst into public view last fall, when a video documented two terrified children in Santa Cruz, California, being seized for One Family at a Time. In the clip, which went viral on TikTok, a 15-year-old girl named Maya pleads and shrieks as she's picked up by the arms and legs and forced into a black SUV.

Since then, bills that would restrict reunification programs have been introduced in Sacramento and four other state capitols.

An idea takes off

When a law professor named Joan Meier founded a nonprofit to help victims of domestic violence two decades ago, she didn't expect to focus on custody disputes. But day after day, she heard from mothers with similar, troubling stories. They'd finally escaped their abusive marriages, but their exes had fought them for custody — and won. The mothers had been accused of something Meier knew little about: parental alienation.

Meier, who taught at George Washington University, ordered a stack of books by the child psychiatrist who coined the term.

Richard Gardner began writing about children of divorce in the 1970s, when a dramatic transformation was underway in family court. Under the "tender years presumption," judges had long favored women in divorce cases, typically assigning children to their mother's sole custody. But as more women entered the workforce, more men participated in child-rearing, and more couples divorced, a nascent "fathers' rights" movement emerged, demanding gender neutrality in custody proceedings. The idea appealed to many feminists, too. By the 1980s, most states had recognized joint custody in their statutes.

This left judges in a quandary when couples failed to settle. Now, aside from a vague mandate to advance the "best interest" of children, courts lacked a clear paradigm for resolving disputes. Overwhelmed, judges turned to mental-health professionals, asking them to assess each parent's fitness and recommend an optimal arrangement. Gardner, then an associate clinical professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University, was an early custody evaluator, and in 1982 he published a how-to manual.

By 1985, Gardner was arguing that some mothers, seeking to regain their advantage in court, were inducing a mental illness in their children, a condition he dubbed parental alienation syndrome. Children afflicted with the syndrome, he said, could be identified by the "campaign of denigration" they waged against their fathers, which was accompanied by "weak, frivolous, or absurd" rationalizations and a disquieting "lack of ambivalence."

Some "fanatic" mothers even manipulated children into claiming their fathers had sexually abused them, Gardner contended. When other maneuvers against a father fail, he wrote, "the sex-abuse accusation emerges as a final attempt to remove him entirely from the children's lives." Child sexual-abuse claims made during custody disputes, he claimed, "have a high likelihood of being false." To prove children are suggestible, he often invoked the wave of 1980s cases in which preschool teachers were charged with sexual abuse but later exonerated.

Gardner's theory sidestepped what Joan Meier saw as a glaring truth: Many children accused their fathers of abuse because their fathers were actually abusive. In fact, by the early 2000s a large-scale study had found that contrary to Gardner's writings, neither children nor mothers were likely to fabricate claims during custody disputes.

The remedies Gardner proposed for parental alienation syndrome were harsh. "Insight, tenderness, sympathy, empathy have no place in the treatment of PAS," he said in a 1998 address. "Here you need a therapist who is hard-nosed, who is comfortable with authoritarian, dictatorial procedures."

In a 2001 documentary, Gardner told a journalist how a mother might respond to a child reporting sexual abuse: "I don't believe you. I'm going to beat you for saying it. Don't you ever talk that way again about your father."

Juvenile detention could cure children who refused to visit their fathers, Gardner said. But the main remedy he advanced in severe cases was "the removal of the children from the mother's home and placement in the home of the father, the allegedly-hated parent." This would break what he called a "sick psychological bond."

After introducing his theory, Gardner began using it in expert testimony and promoting it to other evaluators and fathers'-rights activists. By the early 2000s, family-court judges were regularly citing parental alienation.

To address this, Meier said, she undertook a series of academic articles examining the scholarship on parental alienation. She found that the theory was based on circular reasoning and anchored almost entirely in anecdotal data.

"I still believed in that day that if you did careful, thoughtful analytic scholarship, people would read it and be persuaded by it," she said.

The scarlet 'A'

Jill Montes had always wanted a big family. In 2008, she already had a 5-year-old daughter, Paige, with a man she'd divorced, and she was finding regular work as an actor in Los Angeles. She decided to adopt an infant son, Robert.

The next year, she met Thomas Winenger, who had master's degrees in engineering and business, on eHarmony. "He wanted to talk a lot about faith and God, and that wooed me," she said. She also welcomed his interest in Robert, whom she was insecure about raising alone.

In 2011, the couple married and settled near San Diego, and Montes quit acting. Soon, she later said in a court filing, Winenger was shoving, insulting, and threatening her, often in front of the kids. He promised to change, and she hoped he could. In 2012, their first child, Claire, was born, and Eden followed in 2015. Insider is identifying Montes' children by only their middle names.

Later that year, Montes accused Winenger of dragging Paige across a room. Montes sought a restraining order, which was ultimately denied, and kicked him out. He rented a room in a house nearby, where he regularly hosted the three younger kids. Sometimes, Robert went there by himself.

Montes filed for divorce in February 2018. Under an informal agreement, the kids continued spending time at Winenger's place. But at a hearing that fall, a 10-year-old Robert testified that during an argument over his math homework, Winenger had repeatedly grabbed, shoved, and spanked him.

Montes filed a petition for a domestic-violence restraining order, which Winenger fought, saying he hadn't mistreated Robert. In the end, Ratekin, the judge presiding over the divorce, signed a "stay away" order prohibiting Winenger from contact with Robert. But it didn't address the allegation of violence. Weeks later, Winenger asked Ratekin to name him Robert's legal father, arguing that he'd helped raise the boy from toddlerhood. Ratekin ruled in his favor and ordered the custody evaluation.

In court papers he filed on July 19, 2019, the day after the evaluator was appointed, Winenger accused Montes of parental alienation.

Often, according to Meier, the dynamic of a custody case shifts radically once alienation is raised. "It's like the table turns 180 degrees and now the only bad parent in the room is the alleged alienator," she said. An abuse allegation "fades out of view," she said, and any attempts by the mother to limit the father's access are seen as suspicious. It's almost as if, like Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter," she's been branded with a flaming red "A," Meier said.

Indeed, Montes soon lost ground in court.

In January 2020, Ratekin ordered Robert into the care of a therapist, Mitra Sarkhosh, who has since provided aftercare for at least one reunification program. Sarkhosh saw Robert and his father together about 20 times, charging $200 an hour. But by summer, she had halted the sessions, saying Robert's anger was "not improving."

In a report filed in court, Sarkhosh appeared to blame Montes. Living with her, Robert was "saturated with negativity about his father," she wrote. There may be a need for "new interventions." (Citing patient-confidentiality laws, Sarkhosh declined an interview request.)

Robert was relieved to be finished with Sarkhosh, Montes said. He started seeing a new therapist, and, during the first session, he told the therapist he'd been sexually abused.

On November 18, 2020, at the direction of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, Robert called Winenger to try to elicit a confession. When that failed, the department paused its investigation, but the child welfare inquiry proceeded. On December 1, the California Health and Welfare Agency issued a report substantiating Robert's claims.

"The Agency is worried that if given the opportunity, Tom Winenger will sexually abuse [Robert] again," the report says.

Neither Winenger nor his divorce attorney, Tamatha Clemens, responded to requests for interviews or to a list of detailed questions. In a motion for custody he filed on December 8, 2020, Winenger argued that Robert's allegations had been "orchestrated" by Montes and that her alienation "will not stop until she is restrained by the court."

The welfare agency sent Ratekin its report on January 4, 2021, according to a cover sheet reviewed by Insider. But Ratekin was still awaiting the custody evaluation, which she'd assigned to a psychologist, Miguel Alvarez. In 2009, Alvarez coauthored a handbook for parents in custody disputes. While the manual spells out in detail how to prove an alienation claim, it offers no specific guidance on how to prove a claim of abuse.

According to the report, part of which Insider reviewed at a San Diego County courthouse, a personality test Alvarez administered suggested that Montes suffered from "extreme hyper-vigilance" and "persecutory fears." People with these traits, Alvarez wrote, "are often quick to anger and overreact to perceived or imagined threats."

Winenger's scores on the same test were "normal," Alvarez wrote, and his performance on psychosexual and polygraph tests was "inconsistent" with Robert's allegations of sexual abuse.

The 136-page evaluation cost Robert's parents more than $90,000, according to bills reviewed by Insider. Alvarez didn't respond to requests for comment.

Ratekin reviewed the evaluation just before the October 28, 2021 hearing. Alvarez's findings were "exactly" what she'd expected, she said. In her view, the situation called for immediate action.

She put Claire, 8, and Eden, 6, in their father's custody that day, and she sent Robert, 13, to stay with his football coach. That was for Winenger's protection, she said. Until Robert was "detoxified," she said, he'd be prone to false claims of abuse.

Ratekin suggested Family Bridges as a solution. She'd had "really good success" with the program in another case, she said, and she thought it would ease Robert's transition. Without it, the boy wouldn't "get better," she said, and his sisters stood to benefit, too.

Winenger agreed. Under an order Ratekin signed on January 3, 2022, the children would attend a Family Bridges workshop with their father from January 11 to 14 and then return to his home. Montes was barred from contact with the children for at least 90 more days. Ratekin also prohibited the children from communicating with their older sister, their maternal grandmother, and anyone else who might "interfere" with their healing.

Contact would resume at Ratekin's discretion, depending upon how well everyone was cooperating.

Insider and Type reviewed 35 cases from the past two decades in which judges removed children from their preferred parent and sent them to a reunification program. In most of these cases, the children had resisted court-ordered visits with their fathers, and judges had held mothers responsible. Many of the judges framed the no-contact period as salutary: Children would be freed from the overbearing influence of their mothers, and their mothers would be motivated to change.

A case from New Castle County, Delaware is typical.

In 2016, Judge Janell Ostroski transferred two brothers to their father's custody and ordered them into treatment at Turning Points for Families, a program in upstate New York run by a social worker, Linda Gottlieb. Both boys had told Ostroski that their father, Michael D., yelled at them frequently, court records show, though neither had alleged physical abuse. The 9-year-old, O., told Ostroski he felt unsafe at his dad's house. Ashton, 14, was refusing to go there. Insider is not using the family's full last name in order to protect O.'s identity.

Michael had pleaded guilty several years earlier to public intoxication and indecent exposure for an incident in a public park with Ashton. A court-ordered psychological evaluation found that he had alcohol dependence and narcissistic personality disorder "with antisocial features." In 2013, the state's child welfare agency found that he'd emotionally abused Ashton, then 10 years old. The report, including any denials Michael presented, is sealed. This history was all cited in court three years later, in a custody dispute between Michael and his ex-wife, Kelly D.

During that dispute, Michael accused Kelly of alienation, and a custody evaluator backed him up. The evaluator, a psychologist, determined that Michael had become "a more positively functional person" and that Kelly, a preschool teacher, was the problematic parent. Kelly "distorts the reality of events" and "conveys to others an inaccurate and menacing perception of Mr. [D.]," the psychologist wrote in a May 2016 report. (Michael did not respond to detailed requests for comment. Neither did the psychologist.)

In written rulings that barred Kelly from contact with both children, Ostroski said the boys were "well cared for" in Kelly's home but blamed her for Ashton's refusal to see Michael. "Mother has done nothing in the past year to promote the Father/son relationship," Ostroski wrote, adding, "the court is hopeful that, with the appropriate interventions, Mother can recognize her role in helping the children have a healthy relationship with their Father."

Insider and Type sent questions about parental alienation and its remedies to Ostroski, Ratekin, and 19 other judges who've ordered the programs. Only Ratekin responded, and she declined to speak about the Winenger case because it is still pending. Nor would she answer general questions. "I am definitely not an expert in this area," she wrote, "nor do I feel qualified to answer questions about the issue or programs." 

'A moratorium on the past'

In her January 2022 ruling, Ratekin authorized Winenger to hire a transport company to drive Robert and his sisters to the Family Bridges workshop, which would take place at a hotel a few hours outside San Diego. There, the children and Winenger met Randy Rand, who founded Family Bridges in the early 2000s, and a woman the children knew only as "Chris."

In 2009, Rand deactivated his psychology license after the California Board of Psychology found he'd committed professional violations including "dishonesty," "repeated negligent acts," and "gross negligence." Since then, he's accompanied at workshops by at least one other clinician. Rand isn't the only alienation expert to face sanctions from a state licensing board. Two other psychologists who've led Family Bridges workshops, Jane Shatz of California and Joann Murphey of Texas, have been sanctioned — Shatz after an allegation of negligence and Murphey after a finding that she failed to respond promptly to a subpoena. Both Alvarez, the custody evaluator in Robert's case, and Steinberg, who runs the program where a judge sent the girl in the viral TikTok, have been cited by California regulators for improper recordkeeping. Steinberg said her citation was the result of a series of meritless complaints by an "alienating parent."

Family Bridges workshops are held at hotels around the country and tend to cost parents more than $25,000, receipts show. In 2016, for example, one family from Seattle paid more than $27,000 to Family Bridges and another $3,500 to spend three nights at a Sheraton in Southern California. Since the children had opposed the intervention, a company was hired to transport them for an additional $8,300.

Once they arrive at Family Bridges, children quickly learn the rules, program documents show, including a policy called "a moratorium on the past." As Murphey, the Texas psychologist, testified in 2018, "There's no talking about 'You did this back when.'" Instead, she explained, "this is a new family, this is a new paradigm, we are starting off in a healthy way."

Ally Toyos was a 16-year-old in Kansas when she was taken from her mother five years ago. In an interview, she said she and her then 14-year-old sister tried defying the Family Bridges moratorium, telling Rand and his colleagues that their dad had abused them. (Toyos' mother said a court order prevented her from speaking with the press; Toyos' father didn't reply to interview requests.) Threats ensued, Toyos said. The girls were told that if they didn't comply, they could be separated, sent to wilderness camps, committed to psychiatric facilities, and cut off from their mom for the rest of their childhoods, according to Toyos.

Much of the Family Bridges workshop involves watching and discussing videos, program documents show. One of them, "Welcome Back, Pluto," tells the fictional story of a petulant teen who scorns her father. "If you're alienated, like Emily, you might get mad when others don't take your complaints seriously," a female narrator says. In time, however, Emily "learned to see things more clearly." She realized her complaints were "exaggerated," the narrator explains, and "sounded just like her mother's."

According to the video, which was scripted by Richard Warshak, a psychologist who helped develop Family Bridges, some children who steadfastly reject a parent "suffer for the rest of their lives."

Other materials warn children against trusting their memories. Toyos, whose workshop took place at the C'mon Inn in Bozeman, Montana, said she was shown a 2013 TED Talk by Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who developed the idea that memory is malleable and who has served as a defense witness in high-profile trials, including Harvey Weinstein's. Memories are often contaminated by outside influences, Loftus warns in the talk, which leads to false accusations that can ruin lives.

Insider and Type spoke with or reviewed statements by 17 youths ordered into Family Bridges, Turning Points, or other reunification programs. Their accounts of the workshops were broadly similar. Hannah Rodriguez, then a 16-year-old living in Tampa, Florida, said her workshop, in 2016, was held at Linda Gottlieb's home in New York's Hudson Valley. Gottlieb, the author of a book on parental alienation syndrome, had founded Turning Points about two years earlier. Rodriguez said Gottlieb's office was right off the living room, where her husband spent his time in a recliner. Every day, Rodriguez could see him and hear his TV shows, she said.

Rodriguez, Toyos, and several other former participants said the workshops plunged them into depression.

In spring 2022, one 13-year-old girl got so distressed during a session with Gottlieb at a hotel that she banged on a wall and screamed for help, court papers show. Someone called the police, who brought her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. "I just want my mom," the girl said, according to hospital records, but under the court order she couldn't call her. She was held at the hospital for three days.

In a written statement that Montes said he later dictated to her, Robert said he became suicidal. "The only thing that stopped me from throwing myself off the balcony was the 24/7 surveillance," the statement reads. "I never thought so many people would be that horrible, controlling, and manipulative towards little kids."

At the end of the workshop, Robert went home with Winenger and had "horrible, weird depressive anxiety episodes," according to the statement. In early February, he was admitted to the psychiatric ward of a children's hospital, according to court records.

Repeated emails to Rand were met with an auto-response saying he was "on sabbatical." The psychologist managing Family Bridges in his absence, Yvonne Parnell, declined interview requests, as did Gottlieb. Gottlieb forwarded Insider's queries to a lawyer, Brian Ludmer, but Ludmer said he couldn't speak for her. Neither Parnell nor Gottlieb replied to detailed written questions.

Lynn Steinberg said her program One Family at a Time, based in Los Angeles, has treated some 50 families over the past eight years. A family therapist, she's the author of "You're Not Crazy: Overcoming Parent/Child Alienation." She was the only program director who agreed to talk.

She said she begins each workshop by listening to the children and taking down every accusation they make; she then works to achieve "an agreement between parent and child." After those conversations, she said, the children are dramatically transformed. They apologize and cry, she said; they kiss and embrace the parent they'd rejected, even sitting in the parent's lap. They're eager to make up for lost time, she said, and can't wait to see long-lost kin.

Daniel Barrozo, of Chino, California, said Steinberg's workshop was a "tremendous help" to him and his daughter in 2021. Steinberg successfully challenged his daughter's misperceptions about him, he said. When Steinberg asked her what he'd done wrong and what she hated about him, his daughter simply looked down and cried, he said. "The whole time, she had nothing to say, because Mom was the one speaking for her," he said. Now, he said, his relationship with his daughter is stronger than ever.

Steinberg said her own mother alienated her from her father, a realization she reached only after his death. She called her ex-husband an alienator, too, saying her adult daughters reject her to this day. She regrets that they didn't get help from a program like hers.

Left untreated, alienated children "fail at relationships" and risk developing eating disorders, drug addiction, depression, gender dysphoria, and other ills, Steinberg said, citing her clinical experience.

But an increasing number of scholars are criticizing the programs. Jean Mercer, an emeritus professor of psychology at Stockton University, is the author of recent papers on parental alienation. One examined six reunification programs, including Family Bridges and Turning Points, and found that the research evidence supporting the effectiveness of the programs "has few strengths and many weaknesses." For another paper, Mercer reviewed the scholarship on the programs and statements from five youths who'd attended them. She found that the programs "may contain elements of psychological abuse."

Another study, by Michael Saini of the University of Toronto, examined 58 empirical papers on alienation and its treatments and found the body of research "methodologically weak." While some divorcing parents exhibited "alienating behaviors" and some children rejected a parent, the nexus between those phenomena hadn't been proved, Saini found. Moreover, he found the studies hadn't shown that interventions worked.

Following the workshop, the programs commonly assign children to a specially trained aftercare therapist. Meanwhile, the exiled parent undergoes reeducation.

Insider obtained audio of a call last year between Gottlieb and the mother of a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy in Turning Points. "I think what you did is criminal," says Gottlieb, who, like Steinberg, has publicly stated that her own mother alienated her from her father. There was "no reason" the children shouldn't have a relationship with their father, Gottlieb says in the recording, and "you have failed miserably to require it."

"That's alienation," she says. "That is what you are guilty of, and it's child abuse." For the children's sake, the woman must "make amends," Gottlieb says. Otherwise, "I will recommend extending the no-contact period until they're 18."

Insider and Type interviewed 12 mothers whose children were sent to Turning Points, many of whom said Gottlieb rebuked them over the phone and in emails. Most said they were required to write letters to the kids praising their fathers and submit them to Gottlieb for approval.

In early November 2016, Gottlieb told Kelly D. — Ashton and O.'s mother — that her letters contained superfluous details and secret messages and needed to be redone. In the end, Kelly submitted several drafts for each of her sons, all of which Gottlieb rejected.

"She sets a bar," Kelly said. "You try to reach the bar. She sets the bar higher."

Judge Ostroski had ordered Kelly to find a therapist "acceptable to Ms. Gottlieb" who would help her support Michael's relationship with the children. From a list provided by the Delaware Family Court, Kelly chose a psychologist, William Northey. But Gottlieb warned in an email, "I cannot approve him before I speak with him about his specialized knowledge of alienation."

The conversation went poorly. Gottlieb considered Northey unacceptable, she later testified, and Northey found fault with Gottlieb, too. He sent her a letter, reviewed by Insider, criticizing her for calling Kelly a "sociopath" and for using the phrase "parental alienation syndrome," which, he wrote, "is not a recognized diagnostic term."

Meanwhile, Gottlieb was making demands of Ashton and O. Shortly after they returned from New York, according to an email to both parents obtained by Insider, Gottlieb determined that they needed to transfer schools immediately, as their current schools had "actively undermined" their relationship with their dad.

She sought custody of O., too. But in September 2020, Ostroski found that Kelly still hadn't been properly treated for her alienating tendencies and denied her petition.

For now, even visits were too risky, Ostroski concluded.

"Ashton's behavior of running away from Father and refusing to now see Father supports Gottlieb's prediction that, if the children are returned to Mother before she addresses her alienating behavior, they will revert to their prior behaviors when they were refusing to see Father and all of the work that has been done over the past 4 years will be wasted," Ostroski wrote in the ruling.

'Junk science'

In June 2010, more than a thousand mental-health practitioners, lawyers, and judges gathered at the Sheraton in downtown Denver for the annual conference of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, which unites players in the child-custody field from around the world. The theme that year was "Traversing the Trail of Alienation," and over four days the condition was discussed in more than 30 sessions. Participants could learn how to spot an alienating parent, when it was best to defy a child's wishes, and what might help an alienated child heal.

The event signified a remarkable embrace of an idea whose author had been consumed by scandal and tragedy just a short time earlier.

In the late 1990s, critics of Gardner's dealt a powerful blow to his credibility by unearthing writings in which he'd defended pedophilia.

"Sexual activities between an adult and a child are an ancient tradition," he wrote in a 1992 book.

As a product of Western culture, he viewed pedophilia as reprehensible, he wrote, but it may not be "psychologically detrimental" in other cultures. The following year, in a journal article, Gardner argued that from an evolutionary standpoint, children benefited from being "drawn into sexual encounters," since these experiences steered them toward early reproduction. "The Draconian punishments meted out to pedophilics go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime," he wrote in 1991 in "Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited."

In May 2003, at age 72, Gardner dosed himself with painkillers and stabbed himself to death. His son told reporters he was driven to suicide by chronic pain that had recently worsened.

In the assessments of his life that followed, Gardner's work was lambasted by prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. Paul Fink, a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. "This is junk science," Fink told Newsday in July 2003. "He invented a concept and talked about it as if it were proven science. It's not."

The theory could have died with Gardner. Instead, it gained ground.

In 2001, Richard Warshak, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, published "Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent/Child Bond From a Vindictive Ex." The book, released by HarperCollins, brought parental alienation theory to a wider audience — and made it more palatable. Unlike Gardner, Warshak spoke of alienation in gender-neutral terms, saying many fathers were programmers, too, and he likened the no-contact period between children and their preferred parent to study abroad.

Warshak started leading workshops for Family Bridges around 2005 and eventually became its unofficial spokesman, a role in which he excelled. In 2010, he appeared in "Welcome Back, Pluto" and published an influential article about Family Bridges in the AFCC journal.

In that study, Warshak reported on outcomes for the 23 children he'd worked with in the program so far. During the four-day workshop, 22 of them recovered a "positive relationship" with their rejected parent, he observed, including recalcitrant teens.

After the workshop, however, four children regressed, Warshak wrote, following what he called "premature" contact with their preferred parent. The program worked best, he said, when this contact was blocked "for an extended period of time." Warshak didn't respond to interview requests.

Meanwhile, another Gardner successor, Dr. William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, was working to push alienation theory forward. He submitted a proposal to the American Psychiatric Association to include "parental alienation disorder" in the next version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, and authored a scholarly article making the case for inclusion. He submitted a similar application to the World Health Organization, which was revising its International Classification of Diseases.

Bernet declined a request for an interview. But in a 2010 book, he wrote that since alienation scholarship had advanced in the wake of Gardner's death, "there is no need now to dwell on the details of what Richard Gardner did or said or wrote."

At the AFCC's conference in Denver in June 2010, Warshak was given a platform to discuss his Family Bridges paper, as was Bernet, to describe his DSM bid. Other presenters staked out a more moderate stance, arguing that while alienation was a pervasive problem, there was insufficient research to support construing it as a mental illness or ordering extreme interventions.

A few alienation opponents presented, including Joan Meier. But she said she flew home to Washington in tears.

"Everywhere I turned, alienation was the coin of the realm," she said.

She set out to design a study that would document how women who alleged abuse were treated in family courts nationwide — especially when alienation was raised. The Justice Department supported the project with a grant of $500,000.

In 2013, the new edition of the DSM was released with no mention of parental alienation. And in 2020, the World Health Organization ruled that parental alienation was "not a health care term" and lacked "evidence-based" treatments.

Bernet and his colleagues simply regrouped. In court, they started calling alienation a "dynamic" or a "phenomenon" rather than an illness, which appeared to satisfy some judges. And Bernet incorporated the nonprofit Parental Alienation Study Group, a coalition of parents, lawyers, and therapists who collaborated on cases and research. Rand, Gottlieb, and Steinberg joined, along with hundreds of other mental-health practitioners involved in custody work. Many, like Steinberg and Gottlieb, claimed to have experienced alienation themselves.

Meier assembled her own research team, comprising a statistician, three social scientists, and two assistants, to conduct her large-scale study. In January 2020, just weeks before the WHO decision, the results were published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law.

The stark findings shocked even her.

Most trial-court rulings in custody cases are unpublished, but Meier's team identified 15,000 rulings involving abuse or alienation that were published electronically from 2005 to 2014. After winnowing that dataset to cases in which the only parties were two warring parents — not, for example, a child welfare agency — the team was left with 4,300 rulings. There were nearly 2,200 cases in which a mother had accused her ex of spousal or child abuse, and in 10% of these, the father had fought back with an alienation claim.

In general, judges were hesitant to credit mothers' abuse claims. When alienation wasn't raised, judges credited these claims 41% of the time, Meier found, and 26% of the time, mothers lost primary custody.

For the 222 mothers whose spouses accused them of alienation, the picture was even grimmer. Women who alleged abuse and whose husbands accused them of alienation lost custody half the time — twice as often as women who weren't accused of alienation.

To Meier, one of the study's most staggering findings was how rarely mothers branded with the scarlet "A" were believed. In cases where mothers alleged child physical abuse and fathers cross-claimed alienation, judges credited mothers a mere 18% of the time, she found. And in the 51 cases where mothers alleged child sexual abuse and fathers claimed alienation, all but one mother was disbelieved.

For a father accused of child molestation, Meier concluded, "alienation is a complete trump card."

'The whole world is watching'

In January 2022, three months after losing her children, Montes chanced upon a sickening discovery.

In a cloud storage account she'd once shared with Winenger, she said, she found thousands of his photos and videos, including explicit images of their three shared children. She loaded them onto a thumb drive for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, whose investigation into Winenger had never closed.

Within days, Winenger was arrested. He was soon charged with 19 felonies, including possession of child pornography and 14 counts of committing forcible lewd acts against a child, Robert.

He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail, his access to the children suspended. Because of the no-contact order he'd previously obtained against Montes, the children landed in a county shelter. Winenger's defense attorney, Patrick Clancy, declined to comment on Winenger's behalf, saying he doesn't try his cases in the press.

Suddenly, the custody dispute was transferred to juvenile dependency court, which meant Ratekin was no longer presiding. The new judge ordered the kids into their mother's care while the case was pending. On February 18, they came home.

At first, Montes said, the two youngest children were so scared of being taken again that they couldn't sleep in their rooms. She set up a big mattress on her bedroom floor.

Meanwhile, Joan Meier was using her research to make inroads with policymakers.

She'd worked with colleagues to draft a federal law that would incentivize states to protect children from abusers during custody disputes. They named the bill Kayden's Law, after a girl in Pennsylvania whose father murdered her during a court-ordered visit. During negotiations over reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the child's congressional representative, Brian Fitzpatrick, got Kayden's Law in.

The legislation, signed into law on March 15, 2022, sets aside up to $5 million a year for grants to states if, among other measures, they mandate training for custody judges on abuse and trauma and prohibit them from ordering treatments that cut children off from a parent to whom they are attached. If enough states comply, the law could spell the end of the reunification programs.

Last summer, California was the first state to consider such a bill. It was introduced by state Sen. Susan Rubio of Los Angeles County, a survivor of domestic violence herself, after she heard from mothers who'd been accused of alienation and children who'd been sent to reunification programs.

Rubio's bill set off a battle that has since spread to statehouses around the country. Steinberg, the alienation therapist from Los Angeles, was a vocal opponent, arguing that men would be rendered powerless against false accusations. She was joined by fathers' rights groups and by the Parental Alienation Study Group, which was simultaneously pushing hard to discredit Meier's study. (Two prominent members of the group authored a studyconcluding that her findings could not be replicated, which Meier then rebutted.) After Rubio's bill passed the assembly unanimously last August, she was forced to withdraw it in the face of intense opposition from state judges over the training mandate.

Then, last October, the momentum shifted. That's when Maya, the 15-year-old from Santa Cruz, told a custody judge that her mother had abused her and her brother. The judge, Rebecca Connolly, didn't believe her and ordered the children into Steinberg's program, cutting off contact with their father. The graphic video of the children being seized on October 20 was quickly viewed millions of times.

In response to an interview request, an officer of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court said Connolly could not speak about pending cases. Maya's mother has denied the abuse claims in court. Her lawyer, Heidi Simonson, declined an interview, citing court orders pertaining to "privacy and confidentiality."

On the heels of the viral video, a coalition of activists — many of them mothers accused of alienation — organized protests around the country. The first took place October 28 outside the courthouse where Maya had just testified. Standing on concrete risers and facing the building, a pack of Maya's friends demanded her return. "The whole world is watching!" they shouted. Protests also erupted in Michigan, Kansas, and Utah.

Rubio introduced a new bill, with modified judicial training requirements, in February. A similar bill passed both chambers of the Colorado legislature in April. One in Montana died in committee; its sponsor, Sen. Theresa Manzella, said she was up against a "deliberate distribution of misinformation" by opponents, including attorneys who use parental alienation as a legal tactic.

Montes said she's "cautiously optimistic" about Winenger's criminal trial, set to begin in June, and she hopes for an imminent victory in her custody case. Five years of legal bills have left her in debt and on food stamps, she said, but she considers herself lucky all the same. Almost every day, she talks to mothers who remain severed from their children.

Mothers like Kelly D., whose children were sent to Linda Gottlieb's reunification program in New York.

Kelly last saw her younger son, O., early on a Monday morning. It was a warm, sunny day, and she dropped him off at his best friend's house so they could shoot baskets before school. She hugged him, told him she loved him, and said she'd pick him up in the afternoon. Then she drove to court for a hearing.

That was six years, six months, and 24 days ago.

The reporting for this story is part of a forthcoming documentary from Insider, Retro Report, and Type Investigations.

If you are experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Read the original article on Insider

[theoutcastrogue]

the internet is rotting, as Jonathan Zittrain noted in an important (but paywalled) 2021 Atlantic article. A huge percentage of the links on the internet are broken, and there is no single authoritative, accessible universal repository that keeps track of everything. It is frighteningly easy for crucial information to slip away. ...

The practice of making changes to an article without noting that you’ve made them is called “stealth editing,” and even the New York Times does it. ... The existence of stealth editing means that it’s difficult to trust that the version of an article you click on at any given moment is the article as it was originally published. ...

I also, to my alarm, realized just how dependent we are on private publications themselves to give us access to records of their own work. Often, they keep it payawalled behind locked gates and charge you admission if you want to have a look. There are lots of sources in the Chomsky book to which you have to subscribe if you want to verify, such as this 1999 story in the Los Angeles Times about NATO’s bombing of a bus in Yugoslavia. This is a story of national importance, far too overlooked at the time, but if you don’t subscribe to the LA Times, you need research library access or a workaround if you want to read it.

Thank God for the Internet Archive, whose Wayback Machine preserves as much of the internet as they can and is invaluable for researchers trying to figure out what was once housed at now-dead links. But the Internet Archive has its limits. Social media posts, YouTube videos, paywalled Substack posts, PDFs—all can be very difficult to track down after they disappear. If a politician tweets something embarrassing, for instance, and then deletes it, it might be preserved in a screenshot. But we know screenshots are easy to fake. So where do you turn to prove satisfactorily that something was in fact said? ...

it’s very easy to lose pieces of information that seem permanent. E-books, for instance, can be changed by their publisher without the changes even being noted. You might read a book on your Amazon Kindle one day and open it up the next day to look for a quote only to find that the quote has disappeared without a trace. The Guardian, for twenty years, hosted a copy of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people,” an important historical document. After the letter went viral on TikTok, the Guardian removed it from the site entirely. The New Republic did the same after an article of theirs about Pete Buttigieg caused controversy. The documents in question can still be found, but only by digging through the Internet Archive. If that ever goes down, researchers will find that trying to piece together the online past is like trying to learn about a lost civilization from excavated fragments. ...

I think that in an age where people (rightly) don’t trust the information they’re getting to be true, it needs to be as easy as possible to do research. Instead, while we have better technology than ever for sifting through information, it’s still the case that the truth is paywalled and the lies are free. If you want to “do your own research” to check on the veracity of claims, you will run headlong into a maze of broken links, paywalls, and pop-ups. How can anyone hope to find the truth when it’s so elusive, trapped behind so many toll gates? 

[cookies-and-music]

Ghost. - part 2: What I knew. Part 1 here - part 3 here PAIRING: TVA!LokixOC WARNINGS: none SUMMARY: Loki meets sombody at the TVA he once knew. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to remember him. NOTE: that was supposted to be a one-shot, but I felt like writing a second part.

Time at the TVA flows differently. It's the first thing you learn arriving there. For instance, the alternation between day and night wasn't clear because there was no sun.

Loki didn't know how much time had passed since their conversation. Nor did he know how much time had passed since he sat in front of her at the desk, under the pretense of wanting company while analyzing documents. Nor did he know how much time had passed since he had stopped working to stare at her.

"If you want to ask me something, just do it. You're unsettling."

Apparently, too much time.

The truth was he had no questions.

"I was just wondering what you were working on" Loki said.

Lydia glanced up at him before returning her gaze to the documents. "The same thing as you, more or less. Dangerous variant on the run." After all, they were in the same department, so they obviously worked on the same things.

"And do you like it?"

Midgard, 2012.

"I see you wavering more and more every day" she said with a mocking smile.

"My goals have never been so clear" Loki spat.

"Oh, if you say so, great and mighty god," Lydia taunted, taking a candy from the bag she held. Loki stared, wondering what it was and where she got it.

Lydia followed his gaze, offering him a candy. "Want one?"

Loki took it and sniffed it under her amused gaze before putting it in his mouth and immediately spitting it out, making her laugh.

"But it's disgusting, I've never eaten anything so sweet and sticky."

"I bet you wouldn't want to destroy the Earth anymore if you could enjoy the pleasures it has to offer," Lydia said with a laugh, putting another candy in her mouth. "Why do you want to destroy it anyway?"

"I don't intend to destroy it, I intend to rule it," Loki narrowed his eyes.

"And what will you do with a realm you don't even like?"

Loki straightened up, looking away, but didn't respond.

Something clicked in Lydia's mind. "Ohh," she turned to him, a little too close for the god's taste, "it's your plan B."

Loki ignored her, walking toward the room where they conducted experiments on the Tesseract, but she caught up.

"It was Asgard, the one you wanted to rule. A realm of gods, full of wealth and abundance. But without candies and where everyone hates you," Lydia acidly smiled, and Loki quickened his pace. "It seems fair, everyone should have a plan B." Lydia grabbed another candy.

Loki turned to her. "And what's yours, Miss Princhett?" he said challengingly.

Lydia looked ahead, toward the end of the hallway. "This. SHIELD is plan B."

Loki turned to her, confused by the admission. "And plan A?"

"Doctor, maybe. My mother would have liked that for sure. Or a history teacher, like my other mom."

Loki stared at her for a moment, and she returned the gaze. They were polar opposites. He fiercely desired something and would do anything to get it. She, on the other hand, settled. This difference became clear to both of them in that moment. Probably, they both believed they were right and simultaneously envied each other's capacity.

"Your mouth is covered in sugar," Loki said before walking away.

TVA, 2021.

"And do you like it?"

"What a strange question," Lydia tilted her head, wrinkling her nose. "It's my job. I do what I have to."

"But isn't there anything else you'd like to do?"

Lydia opened her mouth a couple of times, then looked down before speaking. "I would have liked to be a teacher, maybe a history teacher. I've always loved the subject" she replied sadly.

"Well, I suppose this gets you close," Loki gave her an encouraging smile.

"I suppose so," she looked up at him. "And you, Loki Prince of Asgard? What do you wanna be?"

"King, of course," he spread his arms theatrically.

"Of course," she repeated with an amused air, rolling her eyes. "And what will be your first royal decree?"

"Hiring a very well-informed history teacher at court," Loki approached her, leaning on the desk as if about to confess a secret, and Lydia mimicked him, finding herself face to face with his deep blue eyes. "And I already have someone in mind," he winked.

Lydia blushed, grabbed a folder, and rolled it up before using it to hit Loki on the head.

"Ouch," he complained, rubbing his head. "That hurt."

"Oh, don't be a baby," she straightened up in her chair. "Let's get back to work before our analysts come to scold us."

Loki smiled before returning his gaze to the papers.

----

Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave a heart, a note or to reblog, this really helps a lot. Part 3 in a couple of days.

[tinydeskwriter]

Traitor

EXTRA ONE; PARTE TWO; EXTRA TWO; PART THREE

singer!reader

summary: he took everything from you, so you are taking something from him. or, Harry is your ex, who left you for another woman after eight years of dating, your feeling revengeful and it's the Grammy’s night 2021.

word count: 3567

warning: angsty

A/n: THIS IS MY FIRST TIME WRITING HARRY. Niall make’s a appearance, Zayn is mentioned, let’s remember that this is fiction and it doesn’t reflect my personal opinions, but, like in every cheating story, we need villains… reader is in no way perfect, she is revengeful, she’s not meek, I decided to write her because I am tired of the nice, understanding, good girl, forgiving and moving on trope, I want someone who will be revengeful and mean and make him pay and regret for her broken heart…even if she still loves him. English is not my first language, so please be kind.

TRAITOR

Grammy Night- 2021, March 14

Her skin is glowing and she is more beautiful than ever.

Her hair shines under the lights, loose in waves to her hips with a diamond star tiara adorning it borrowed from Fred Leighton. Her dress is entirely hidden under a cloak embroidered in silver threads and small crystals, which she has no intention of taking off before her performance.

It's the first time the pop icon has been seen in public since the end of her more than eight-year long relationship was announced by her ex's representatives back in December.

Her team had remained silent, even when they were approached by members of the press for comment after Harry was photographed with his new love less than a month later. Her only comment to the whole debacle was a post on Twitter: {I guess I won our ‘I love you more’ game}, that fans took as a admission that Harry had left her for his director.

For all intents and purposes, Y/n seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Earth after their break-up.

Emails went unanswered, messages went unread and calls ignored. No one had found her in their London home, the penthouse in Tribecca, the mansion in Los Angeles or the Villa in Italy that the couple had acquired together during their years of relationship,— another thing they had to sort out— despite never having married, they had acquired assets together, properties, cars, works of art, Harry's lawyers were already starting to lose patience with Y/n's team not knowing the singer's whereabouts. He wanted to solve everything as quickly as possible to start the new chapter of his life.

Y/n posed for some photos on the red carpet—she looked more beautiful than ever, yes, but fans would comment on the photos afterwards, she didn't look radiant as usual, her smile was small and forced, and her eyes lacked the usual sparkle— she refused to do interviews or answer questions, soon being escorted by her manager into the event.

The singer had seven nominations, and after the critical success that her album had been, it was certain that at least some of the awards she would take home— to join the twelve she already had from her previous albums—, after her dramatic four-month disappearance, her performance was also highly anticipated, as was the reunion between her and Harry—after all, he had also received nominations and was expected to perform that night—.

Y/n walked around the event hall being escorted to her table at the front of the stage, stopping from moment to moment to be greeted and congratulated on the nominations, one person or another regretted the end of the relationship, 'you two made such a beautiful couple' she listened more than once that night.

Their table was between Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa’s table, and she had a perfect view of Harry’s a little further back. He was the opening performance, so she wouldn't see him for a while.

Y/n would only perform in the middle of the show, she was the artist who had received the most stage time— long enough to sing a three-song medley, never heard before music that would be released on EP that night—, it was her way of correcting the narrative and to let people know her side of the story. For far too long she allowed his team to control the narrative, control the damage to his image.

After all, TPWK is kind of hypocritical when you cheat on your girlfriend of almost a decade and leave her for another woman.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” her manager and friend questioned when they were both sitting away from the hearing field of the people around them. “You can keep the cloak on during the performance…”

“But then it wouldn't be revenge...” Y/n said back. “He took everything from me, I want him to suffer a little, I want to make it difficult, I want him to see wha I am taking from him...”

They were supposed to be planning a wedding.

The beginning of the rest of their lives together.

They had been together since she was sixteen years old, she had practically 'grown up' with him, H was as much a part of her identity as she was his. They knew each other better than anyone, all the secrets, the personality traits. They were one of those couples that didn't even need words to communicate, that was the level that they knew each other.

He took her happiness away from her.

And why? Because he was lonely? Because he couldn’t be by himself for two months?

They usually planned their schedules around each other so they could be together, the longest period they had away was when he was still in the band, and Y/n embarked on her first solo tour. But now they were getting into acting, and Covid got in the way of filming schedules, her movie was pushed, and then they are filming at the same time in two different countries.

There was also some sourness over the fact that she got the role in the Elvis biopic and he didn’t.

The ceremony began. Y/n barely paid attention until Harry walked onto the stage, handsome in a black leather suit, shirtless and with a green boa. She smiled slightly, knowing there would be cameras on her, and held back the urge to cry—in vain, as her eyes were watering, and by the end of the performance when she gracefully clapped, tears had run down her face—.

How could she not cry when he was on stage, singing a song about her, as if it didn’t affected him after he'd broken her heart?

She had already won Video of the Year at the premiere ceremony, beating Beyonce, Harry and Drake, and lost Best Duo to Ariana and Lady Gaga.

Y/n was ushered backstage to prepare for her performance just as Harry took the stage to receive his first-ever Grammy—her second loss that night—.

As she walked, an assistant helped her remove her tiara and replace it with a more over the top headdress, a large halo with flowers and a delicate red veil that fell over her eyes.

The singer dropped the cape, showing off the dress she would wear in the performance.

A masterpiece in fabric. Sheer so you could see her skin through the fabric, the delicate tattoos accumulated over the years, the delicate crystal flowery embroidery covering all the necessary parts, and the colorful embroidery of a bleeding red heart between her breasts.

Her belly of almost six months of pregnancy delicately accentuated and proudly showing for the word to see.

Y/n truly looked half a goddess.

The woman smiled when she saw her longtime friend waiting for her near the stage stairs, guitar in hand.

“Thank you for agreeing to this.” She greeted him with kisses on the cheeks as the stagehands prepared her.

“And miss my chance to perform at the Grammys?” Niall joked with a smile, then got serious. “He's my friend but you're a sister to me, and he hurt you, of course I'll stand by your side.” Y/n never had a big family, her whole life had been her and her mother, and her mother had passed away in 2019 after two years of battling cancer. When Harry left her, she lost the last family she had left. Hearing Niall call her sister made her emotional, no matter how many times she heard it.

She didn't know what would become of her if it wasn't for Niall and Zayn in the last few months. Zayn, Gigi and Khai had been her support system when everything seemed to fall apart. It was Zayn who called Niall, who dropped everything to be with her.

Niall and Zayn had helped her write her heartbroken songs, her version of the breakup that still generated tabloid gossip. The songs were more acoustic than her usual, and normally she would play the guitar herself, but her belly wouldn't allow it, so she asked Niall, who knew the compositions as well as she did. She needed the emotional support of his presence to keep from falling apart—other than that she knew the internet would go crazy seeing her accompanied by another member of her ex's former band—.

“Thank you so much Ni.” She thanked him with a sincere smile, squeezing his hand. “You and Z, I don't know what I would do without you two.”

He gave her an understanding smile and helped her onto the stage.

Y/n's stage was simpler than Taylor's cabin in the woods had been, but her intention was to keep things simple and delicate so as not to distract from the songs.

The stage was covered in flowers, a garden of wilted sunflowers, there was a high stool for Niall to sit on, and a white grand piano, the backing singers and her band were already in place. Niall sat in his place, while Y/n positioned herself behind the door she would enter through.

She heard Noah Trevor announce her performance on the main stage, and the voice in the earpiece cued the band to start playing the chords of I Burned LA Down.

Y/n opened the door just before singing, the spotlight focused on her, she walked through the stage in between the flowers as the background changed to the Positano summer sunset.

The same sunset under which Harry had proposed her in 2019.

She hooked the microphone to the stand, eyes closed as she sang to try to contain the emotion, one hand on her stomach where the only good things left of their relationship was kicking her hard on the ribs.

You can’t make a God of somebody, 

Who isn’t even half of a half decent man

Her band started to transition to Traitor, she took a deep breath, knowing she probably wouldn't be able to hold back the tears now, the next two songs in the medley are deeply emotional ones to her.

Green guilty eyes and little white lies Yeah, 

I played dumb but I always knew 

That you'd talk to her, maybe did even worse 

I kept quiet so I could keep you

She was accusing him in every way except calling out his name, everyone knew who she meant, and she imagined everyone's shock.

There was no need for a guessing game as in the songs of so many other singers.

Y/n had only dated Harry since she was 16, he had green eyes, the timeline of his new relationship was already suspicious to many fans, but so far Y/n hadn't spoken about it and everyone accepted the version given by the team of the new couple.

The dancers entered through the same door that she had entered, during the chorus, they danced among themselves and around the singer, interacting with her at one time or another as she could not properly dance.

The background was slowly changing to the starry sky of Palm Springs, the same beautiful winter night sky from the day that he broke up with her—because he was starting to grow feelings for the director ten years older than he was, and he wanted to explore those feelings—.

It took you two days 

To go off and date her 

Guess you didn't cheat 

But you're still a traitor

Y/n didn't even realize when she started crying.

Her voice expressed all the pain and suffering she felt at that moment, and there, present and at home watching, thousands of hearts broke alongside with hers.

The more observant would notice that she still had her engagement ring on her finger, as well as Harry's 'S' ring —which he had given her a few years ago, representing the fact that he intended to one day make her his wife— and she played with the rings over her bulging belly.

When she's sleeping in the bed we made 

Don't you dare forget about the way 

You betrayed me 

'Cause I know that you'll never feel sorry 

For the way I hurt, yeah

Dramatically, Y/n intended to return the rings to him during the ceremony, the famous 17-carats engagement ring and his gold ‘S’ ring would be delivered to his table as soon as she was called on stage to receive an award—because everyone knew she would receive it— her latest album had broken all records, and she was the female artist with the longest-running song on the Billboard 100 for 78 weeks, the same song that had won Video of the Year for.

The lights dimmed as the song transitioned to Enough for You, the dancers left the stage, followed by the background singers and part of the band. Under the spotlight were just Y/n, Niall and Jay, her guitarist.

I knew from the start this is exactly how you'd leave 

You found someone more exciting 

The next second, you were gone 

And you left me there cryin', wonderin' what I did wrong

Y/n looked off into nothing while singing, it wasn't like there was an audience, the only people watching was Taylor Swift, who had performed shortly before and was returning to the main stage, and Dua Lipa, who would perform later, and was on the way to her stage.

She had learned of the closeness between Harry and Olivia through Glenne Azoff back in November, but chose to believe Harry when he visited her in Australia and said there was nothing between them. How foolish she was. The next time she saw him, she was excited to inform him about the possibility pregnancy they'd been dreaming of, but before she could say anything, he broke up with her.

He said all his reasons. And Y/n had never felt so worthless before, so not good enough.

And maybe I'm just not as interesting 

As the girls you had before 

But God, you couldn't have cared less 

About someone who loved you more 

I'd say you broke my heart 

But you broke much more than that 

Now I don't want your sympathy 

I just want myself back

She'd given herself 100% in a relationship for nearly nine years, she'd loved him with every bit of her broken heart, only for him to dump her for a woman he'd met in two months.

Don't you think I loved you too much to be used and discarded? 

Don't you think I loved you too much to think I deserve nothing?

Her voice failed amidst the tears, though she kept singing the song until the end, it was safe to say there weren't many dry eyes.

You say I'm never satisfied 

But that's not me, it's you 

'Cause all I ever wanted was to be enough 

But I don't think anything could ever be enough 

For you, enough for you, oh-oh 

No, nothing's enough for you

The stage lights dimmed with the last chords played by Niall, and the camera turned to Noah Travor, as stagehands approached to help the singer with the equipment strapped to the back of her dress. Niall dropped the guitar leaning it against the bench he had been sitting on, and approached his friend hugging her while she finished crying in his arms.

“You were fantastic.” Niall praised her stroking her back. “Breathtaking, I don't think I've ever seen such an emotional performance.”

“I'll never be able to thank you enough for everything...” She said against his shoulder.

They were interrupted by Y/n's assistant warning her that she had to change clothes and get back to her table, she only had twenty minutes until the next category she was nominated for was announced. She said goodbye to Niall with kisses on the cheek, promising to see him later at the after party in her house.

The assistant helped her change her hair ornaments on the way to the dressing room, her dress zip was already halfway down when she reached the door, and her support staff made quick work of helping her get dressed. Her second dress was worthy of a movie star, with crystal embroidery, and fringe, tight, again showing off the shapes that Y/n had gained with pregnancy —she was one of those lucky women who had only grown in her belly, from the back she didn't even look pregnant—. She glowed under the artificial lights, the crystals shimmering rainbow colors whenever she moved.

“Y/n...” Lisa, Y/n's assistant for over five years called her. The singer turned, her eyes quickly falling on the jewelry box the older woman had in her hand. The young woman sighed, taking one last look at the rings she had worn more than any other piece of jewelry in her life, she had put them on for the first time in months that night, and it was as if she had never taken them off. She slipped them through her fingers for the last time, depositing them inside the box offered by Lisa. “I'll deliver it myself, as soon as you're on stage.”

The singer just nodded, following the stage assistant back to her table. She was greeted by Taylor Swift on the way back, who praised her performance, the two briefly took off their masks to speak, and Y/n was sure there would be photos online of the moment "Harry Styles' two famous exes hug at the Grammys. After Y/n Y/l/n debut songs about the breakup with the British singer."

Y/n had barely sat down when the night's second General Category was announced. The video with the Song of the Year nominees played on the screen, and then Noah opened the envelope with the winner's name.

“Wow, this is tense...” He said into the microphone, holding up the open envelope. “And the Grammy Award Winner for Song of the Year is... Boys Will Be Boys* by Y/n Y/l/n.”

Y/n stood up to the applause, hugging her manager, and walking to the stage in calm steps concentrating on not falling off her high heels, her music playing in the background as Noah offered her his hand on the steps.

“Thank you.” She thanked him before going to the microphone, and taking the award in her hands, feeling the weight in both hands. She looked at the people seated and smiled. “Golly, I honestly didn't prepare a speech, my manager, I love you Lia, said and I quote: You're against Queen Bey, Billie, HER, TS, Dua and Julia...don't even bother...” Y/n waited for the affectionate laughter to subside before continuing. “I would like to dedicate this award to all of my fantastic team, to the fans, without you I wouldn't be here today, to my fellow nominees, just being nominated alongside you would have already been an immense honor, I would also like to dedicate this award to all the artists who wrote and released spectacular songs in the year gone by and weren't nominated tonight, an award, a nomination, doesn't diminish your worth. Thank you.”

Y/n was hugged by Lia and Lisa as soon as she left the stage.

“He looked like a kicked puppy when I handed him de box.” Lisa commented in the singer's ear when the two hugged. “He's completely stunned, and Jeff looked stressed.”

Knowing Jeff as she did, he was probably thinking of ways to reverse the negative publicity they were getting.

Lia showed the cell phone to the singer.

By all estimates, Y/n's EP could break the record for most streams in the first 24 hours held by Taylor Swift's 'Foklore', while 'Traitor' and 'Good Enough' were competing against each other for the song with the most number of streams in the first 24 hrs. People were listening and commenting, sharing their reactions on Tik Tok and Instagram.

It was all trending on Twitter, the Harries were disappointed in their idol, and Y/n's fans had even started a boycott campaign on Twitter canceling Holivia and their movie. If until now things were contained with their blurry narrative, after the release of the EP and the singer's performance at the Grammys, it had turned into a truly shit show. Her pregnancy had also blindsided the world, most agreed that the baby was Harry’s, with only a few questioning the paternity.

She gave Lisa her phone back.

They went back to their table, Y/n still had three more nominations.

“Jeffrey texted me.” Lia commented, already typing a reply. “They want a meeting.” The older woman didn’t take her eyes off her cell phone, typing furiously on the device. They knew lawyers would be included in the meeting, Lia was used to Jeff's more aggressive MO.

Y/n had never had to deal with any of that, because until that moment she had been Harry's ‘Lovie’, and they were in same team, now she would be on the opposite side of the table.

“We’re ready.” Y/n said without taking her eyes off the stage, clapping at the right moments. “The lawyers have already prepared all the documents.”

Y/n intended to make him pay for her broken heart.

She glanced quickly at Lia. “Just make sure the meeting is after the interview airs.” Her manager just nodded.

The singer ended the night with three more awards, beating Harry’s Fine Line for Best Vocal Pop Album, and taking the other two awards in the General category, being the biggest winner of the night.

[rissa067]

dating bucky barnes would include...

pairing: fatws!bucky barnes x fem!reader

word count: 0.2k+

synopsis: little thoughts of what dating james barnes would be like

an: i wrote this in 2021 when i was still in high school and it is currently about to be 2024 in six weeks so i have no idea why i'm posting this but here i am

you’re his anchor

he turns into a soft, cuddly teddy bear when you’re around

at first he’s worried you wouldn’t love him because of his past, but he realized just how much you love him when you were there for him through every nightmare and hard time

he love love loves when you play with, style, and braid his hair (and usually falls asleep while doing so)

when the team first met you they immediately loved you and how much Bucky was himself because of you and were so happy that he finally got his happiness

saying “I love you” to each other randomly and multiple times a day is a must at this point

you have playlists made with all kinds of music to dance to (most songs are from his time, and yes, he does teach you how to dance)

sometimes you two just have quiet days in bed with the only words spoken being soft admissions and reassurances of love

when you two get alpine it’s a constant battle between you and the little furball for his attention

you help him learn to love himself

he didn’t propose conventionally. he gave you his dog tags with an engagement ring on them one day while you two were at home together (you wear the chain with immense pride and he swears that his heart could burst every day)

Sam loves you and treats you just like Sarah

he smiles the most when he’s around you

during times where you both are off from a mission you two love to act like the average couple and go out on cute dates

he’s completely open with you and trusts you with absolutely everything

he likes when you read to him, especially when it’s a book that you both love

[mariacallous]

If Donald Trump returns to the White House, close allies want to dramatically change the government's interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color.

Why it matters: Trump's Justice Department would push to eliminate or upend programs in government and corporate America that are designed to counter racism that has favored whites.

Targets would range from decades-old policies aimed at giving minorities economic opportunities, to more recent programs that began in response to the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Axios: "As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to Biden's un-American policy will be immediately terminated."

Driving the news: Longtime aides and allies preparing for a potential second Trump administration have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints — some of which have been successful.

A central vehicle for the effort has been America First Legal, founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, who has called the group conservatives' "long-awaited answer to the ACLU."

America First cited the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in February in a lawsuit against CBS and Paramount Global for what the group argued was discrimination against a white, straight man who was a writer for the show "Seal Team" in 2017.

In February, the group filed a civil rights complaint against the NFL over its "Rooney Rule."

The rule — named for Dan Rooney, late owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers — was instituted in 2003 and expanded in 2022. It requires NFL teams to interview at least two minority candidates for vacant general manager, head coach and coordinator positions.

American First argued that "given the limited time frame to hire executives and coaches after the season, this results in fewer opportunities for similarly situated, well-qualified candidates who are not minorities."

In 2021, Miller's group successfully sued to block the implementation of a $29 billion pandemic-era program for women- and minority-owned restaurants, saying it discriminated against white-owned businesses.

"This ruling is the first, but crucial, step towards ending government-sponsored racial discrimination," Miller said then.

Zoom in: Other Trump-aligned groups are preparing for a future Trump Justice Department to implement — or challenge — policies on a broader scale.

The Heritage Foundation's well-funded "Project 2025" envisions a second Trump administration ending what it calls "affirmative discrimination."

Part of the plan, written by former Trump Justice Department official Gene Hamilton, argues that "advancing the interests of certain segments of American society ... comes at the expense of other Americans — and in nearly all cases violates longstanding federal law."

Hamilton is America First Legal's general counsel.

Such groups have gained momentum with the Supreme Court's turn to the right — most notably its recent rejection of affirmative action in college admissions. The court ruled that programs designed to benefit people of color and address past injustices discriminate against white and Asian Americans.

In 2021, a federal judge blocked a $4 billion program to help Black farmers.

Earlier this month, another federal judge ruled that the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Agency was discriminating against white people and that the program had to be open to everyone.

What they're saying: The Trump campaign directed Axios to the candidate's already stated positions bashing Biden's policies promoting equity.

"Every institution in America is under attack from this Marxist concept of 'equity,' " Trump said in 2023. "I will get this extremism out of the White House, out of the military, out of the Justice Department, and out of our government."

The Trump campaign's Steven Cheung added: "President Trump is committed to weeding out discriminatory programs and racist ideology across the federal government."

The NFL and Miller declined to comment. CBS didn't respond to a request for comment.

Between the lines: A CBS poll last November found that 58% of Trump voters believe that people of color were advantaged over white people — just 9% of Biden voters said the same.

Polls also show, however, that Trump is gaining support among Black and Latino voters.

Zoom out: Trump has portrayed himself as the victim of racism amid his legal troubles.

He repeatedly has said Black women prosecutors in Georgia and New York are "racist."

His political career really began in 2011 as the chief Birther-agitator, questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to be president.

When Trump jumped into the presidential race in 2015, he accused Mexico of dumping criminals and rapists into the U.S.

[blueiskewl]

2000-Year-Old Ancient Greek ‘Graduate School Yearbook’ Carved in Stone Found

Historians have discovered that an ancient Greek inscription on a marble slab in the collection of the National Museums of Scotland is a rare, previously unknown “graduate school yearbook” type list of names.

The carved letters on this marble are a list of ephebic friends, and close friends, who passed through the ephebate in Athens, a year of rigorous military and civil training during the reign of Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54).

An ephebus was a youth in ancient Greece who had reached the age of puberty. Ephebi (the plural of “ephebus”) aged 18 or 19 were at one time required to undergo two years of stringent military training, but the requirement became less compulsory and the training less rigorous and militaristic over time. The youthfulness of the ephebi inspired the adjective “ephebic”.

Ephebic training became a requirement for all young males eligible for admission as Attic citizens in the 4th century B.C. If they were 18 years old of Attic parentage on both sides, the youths would be de jure citizens, but to actually exercise those rights (vote, be a party to a lawsuit, attend the assembly), first, they had to sign up for two years of military studies. The requirement was ultimately dropped, and by the 2nd century B.C., ephebic training was open to foreigners and the study of literature and philosophy was added to the curriculum. From roughly 39 A.D., everyone who had completed an ephebic training was considered an Attic citizen.

It lists a group of 31 friends who went through the Athenian ephebate together during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54) and was intended to commemorate the close relationships they had formed.

When they read heard about it, experts assumed it was a replica of a similar list in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, but when they examined it, they realized that was not the case.

Because inscriptions from this time period are uncommon, scholars say it’s even more remarkable that the newly discovered ephebic list dates from the same year and cohort as the Ashmolean’s inscription.

Dr. Peter Liddel, professor of Greek history and epigraphy at the University of Manchester, who led the discovery, said: “Because of lockdown we were not able to travel to the museum until July 2021, and on seeing it we realized that this was not a copy of an already known inscription but it was a completely unique new discovery which had been in the storerooms of the NMS for a very long time, since the 1880s, and it listed a group of young men who called themselves co-ephebes or co-cadets and friends.

“It turned out to be a list of the cadets for one particular year during the period 41-54 AD, the reign of Claudius, and it gives us new names, names we’d never come across before in ancient Greek, and it also gives us among the earliest evidence for non-citizens taking part in the ephebate in this period.

The top of the plaque is peaked and a worn relief believed to depict a small oil amphora of the type ephebes would have used in the school gymnasium. It is not known where the list was displayed but it is thought it could have been put up somewhere such as the gymnasium where the young men trained.

In the archonship of Metrodoros, when the superintendent was Dionysodoros (son of Dionysodoros) of Phlya, Attikos son of Philippos, having inscribed his own fellow ephebes (and) friends, dedicated (this).

The 31 names are inscribed in two columns under the dedication. Attikos’ select bros in the ephebate were Aiolion, Dionysas, Anthos, Herakon, Theogas, Charopeinos, Tryphon, Dorion, Phidias, Symmachos, Athenion, Antipas, Euodos, Metrobios, Hypsigonos, Apollonides, Hermas, Theophas, (H?)elis, Atlas, Zopyros, Euthiktos, Mousais, Aneiketos, Sekoundos, Zosimos,  Primos, Dionys, Eisigenes, Sotas and Androneikos.

By Leman Altuntaş.

[beardedmrbean]

A government agency created five decades ago to boost the fortunes of minority-owned businesses discriminated against whites and must now serve all business owners, regardless of race, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday.

Siding with white business owners who sued the Minority Business Development Agency for discrimination, Judge Mark T. Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas said the agency’s mission to help disadvantaged businesses owned by Blacks, Hispanics and other racial and ethnic groups gain access to capital and contracts violates the rights of all Americans to receive equal protection under the constitution.

“If courts mean what they say when they ascribe supreme importance to constitutional rights, the federal government may not flagrantly violate such rights with impunity. The MBDA has done so for years. Time’s up,” Pittman, who was named to the federal bench by President Trump, wrote in a 93-page decision.

Pittman directed the Nixon-era agency to overhaul its programs in a potential blow to other government efforts that cater to historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups.

The ruling marks a major development in the broader legal skirmish over diversity, equity and inclusion that is likely to fuel a re-energized conservative movement intent on abolishing affirmative action in the public and private sectors. 

Last summer’s Supreme Court decision on race-conscious college admissions has increased scrutiny of government programs that operate based on a presumption of social or economic disadvantage.

Conservative activists have peppered organizations with lawsuits claiming that programs to help Black Americans and other marginalized groups discriminate against white people. 

In a statement proclaiming “DEI’s days are numbered,” Dan Lennington, an attorney with Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the public interest law firm that sued MBDA, hailed the decision as a “historic victory for equality in America.”

“No longer can a federal agency cater only to certain races and not others,” Lennington said. “The MBDA is now open to all Americans.”

The MBDA, which is part of the Commerce Department, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Justice Department lawyers who represented the agency declined to comment. They argued in court filings that the agency’s services are available to any socially or economically disadvantaged business owner. They also pointed to decades of evidence showing that certain groups suffered – and continue to suffer – social and economic disadvantages that stunt “their ability to participate in America’s free enterprise system.”

Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, said the court’s decision acknowledged this disadvantage.

"Despite this recognition, the court somehow argues that a program created to remedy this discrimination must be dismantled. That makes no sense,” David said in a statement. 

What’s more, David said the ruling is limited to one federal agency.

“We can expect right-wing activists to conflate the issue and confuse people into thinking it applies to any public or private program that fights discrimination, but that is not the case," he said.

Established in 1969 by President Richard Nixon to address discrimination in the business world, the MBDA runs centers across the country to help minority owned businesses secure funding and government contracts. The Biden administration made the agency permanent in 2021. 

Three small business owners sued MBDA in March, alleging they were turned away because of their race. “The American dream should be afforded to all Americans regardless of skin color or cultural background. But what we have is a federal government picking winners and losers based on wokeism – enough is enough,” one of the plaintiffs, Matthew Piper, said at the time.

National Urban League president Marc Morial urged the federal government to appeal the decision.

"The work of the MBDA to concentrate on the growth of businesses that remain substantially locked out of the mainstream of the American economy is needed and necessary," Morial said.

[omegaremix]

Boy Harsher + Twin Tribes @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg; April 3rd, 2022.

October 2021 would have been one of the busiest months of going to shows ever. The problem was that Ministry postponed their “Industrial” Strength Tour for the third time, and I was too late in getting tickets for Boy Harsher’s Halloween show. It only left me with the Uniform show at Saint Vitus with Body Void and Portrayal Of Guilt on the ticket. It took me six years to cross off seeing Uniform in full off my most-wanted list. Shortly after, Boy Harsher announced new dates to coincide with the release of their new short film The Runner featuring everyone’s favorite Kris Esfandiari (King Woman, Sugar High, NGHTCRWLR, Miserable). Time for redemption.

I snatched up tickets right away and feverishly waited for January 29th. Then a slight hitch in plans: the omicron strain took over and infections went wild once again causing Boy Harsher to move their dates up to April 3rd. That’s too bad. The January date was the sweet spot to have a wintry day out in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the preferred weather to enjoy darkwave and synthwave as it was always intended to be. But I’ll take a postponement over a cancellation any day. It’s better to have an experience than none at all.

I learned that it would be a two-hour train ride home from Penn Station to Deer Park. I wouldn’t have the time as I had work early the next day, so instead, I drove to the Babylon station as the train home would make it’s final stop with no transfer. One hour later of cloudy grayscale skies and nothing-special transit later, I arrive at Penn Station. From there, I took the 1 / 2 / 3 Express and finally transferred to the L line to Wythe Av. and North 7th Street. A few blocks away and here I am at The Music Hall Of Williamsburg, my first-ever visit there.

The venue’s site said “doors open at 7PM” but their app- said “8PM”. Fearing arriving late, I hoped for eight. I did get there at 7:30PM and asked the strongarm at the door checking i.d. when they did open. “Doors opened at 7PM but you came just in time. Just in time” as he said with confidence. Judging by his relaxed demeanor, I took his word for it and he was right. Once I walked in, there were a few spots right at the front rail ready for the taking, and I did. Mid-right in front of the speakers. The night was already off to an adrenaline-pumping start. Who is that?! Andi Harriman was dee-jaying on the wheels of steel spinning all sorts of seriously intense and exhilarent synthwave. I never heard anything like it. She’s reached far for some synthwave sounds I never heard of; further than I’ve reached so far because I’m somewhat freshly new to it. I was hooked on what she played and wanted to find what her setlist was, if any.

Twin Tribes opened up for this short Sunday night roster. Had my original date’s tickets transferred to the Friday show, I would’ve ended up seeing Aurat open instead. How amazing would that have been?! But Twin Tribes was an act I wasn’t familiar with but their sound was. I had some experience listening to goth rock in the vein of Adrenochrome, Otzi, and Kurraka, but the Twin Tribes duo took the route of Eighties goth rock built on melodic guitars, hot synthesizers, frighteningly-good vocals and tense upbeat energy. They were a great compliment on a bill that catered to the all-things-industrial and goth subculture, which to me was the culture in Greenpoint.

After Twin Tribes departed for the night, we were once again treated to Andi Harriman’s so-fucking-good dee-jay set. By then the crowd started to pack in tightly on all sides, the balcony, and in general admission. I was still up front and there wasn’t much open space for me to look around to see who was wearing what. I will say that one of the Music Hall crew sported an Aphex Twin hoodie and another one repped Soundgarden, which were great. I look to my left and someone was proudly wearing his FKA Twigs tee. I came in wearing my Rough Trade NYC shirt with my beige hoodie being it was in the nippy high 40’s. That’s your obligatory Ω+ live-show fashion round-up as always.

Twenty minutes of painful waiting, Augustus Muller finally takes the stage. His other half Jae Matthews joins him and Boy Harsher is all ready to go for their set. The fanfare all around the music hall were loud and going wild. Here’s a synthwave duo that’s been currently heralded as one of the flagship outfits of the genre with almost no detractors to be found. They opened up their set with “The Ride Home” and segued into “Give Me A Reason”, a leading track from their new album and motion picture soundtrack The Runner that’s been heavily exposed. They had plenty of cards up their sleeve and reached back to their Yr Body Is Nothing era with “Morphine”. I was still only mere inches from The Music Hall’s- system so I could hear every note thump, vibration, and punch through the speakers as any synthwave / EBM artist should. Right after they finished their cover of Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game” did they unleash the highly-exhilarating and manic “Come Closer” and made the audience get into a seriously rabid frenzy.

Muller and Matthews controlled the show when they brought it down to a suspenseful mood with The Runner‘s opening track “Tower” and continued on with more wavy, lucid sounds in “Escape” and “Country Girl”. The duo kept going into their Carefularsenal with “Tears” and “LA”; the former which delivered such elasticity and one of the main reasons why Boy Harsher’s fanfare has always been on fire, as they always found and utilized classic synthpop and synthwave elements to everyone’s liking. All the while Jae Matthews exuded a constant sensuality with not only her on-stage presence but also her sultry vocals that paired with their always-sweltering sounds. Augustus Muller always kept to himself behind the keyboards and hitting the beats new-wave style. Forty-five minutes later, Boy Harsher called it night. Or did they?

The Music Hall didn’t switch on their overheads when they both left the stage. That was an easy tell for at least an encore and they delivered on that. “Autonomy” was the final track from The Runner they played and they brought out guest vocalist Cooper B. Handy for it. It was the first album of theirs to feature guest vocalists entirely other than Jae Matthews (the other “Machina” featured BOAN and Mariana Saldana but they weren’t present). There’s always a sense of love and this cute little admiration of their fellow artists and friends when they feature them on-stage, in their videos, projects, and even on their social media posts, as if they’re the special highlight of the day. After “Autonomy was over, Cooper waves good-bye to the crowd. Boy Harsher retires the night and the show’s over. Or was it?

Boy Harsher walked off and hid backstage like they did before. The overheads once again didn’t turn on. You could hear the audience now begging for that one song. That one song. The one that put the duo on the map and won them their recognition. Five more minutes later, they returned on-stage and gave them what the audience so badly wanted: “Pain”. It was the only way to cap off a three-night stay in The Music Hall- and we wouldn’t have let them leave New York City without playing it. No fucking way.

The overheads finally turned on and we all exited out. I brought a Benjamin with me in the event that Jae and Augustus manned the merch- tables. They didn’t. I took a small glimpse of what tapes and shirts they were selling, but time was tight in catching the train back home. I didn’t want to chance it and let it be, but not before I saw a short, pale, curly-haired dominatrix-type making her way to the bar in leather gloves, boots, fish nets, and a tight shiny PVC unitard that hiked up her ass and disappeared. Comes with the industrial / synthwave territory.

It was an astonishing night and I expected it to turn out that way. Boy Harsher and Twin Tribes put on an amazing show and was worth the wait. I left The Music Hall Of Williamsburg with my quotient up and completed a must-do rite of passage. I scrambled through the quiet well-lit streets long enough to get lost (as expected) and took the L and 1 / 2 / 3 line back to Penn Station where I missed the 12:15AM train by three minutes. The painstaking one-hour wait for the 1:15AM Babylon ride was spent getting a four-dollar Toblerone and dodging the panhandlers who scoped out the slightest eye-contact. I finally hop on heading east, arriving at Jamaica to transfer to the line home on a double-decker car, pondering how I would deal with only six hours of sleep before the next day’s shift at work.

[rohanabb]

ell-hs on tumblr / © stills / unknown textbook (post) / sir gawain and the green knight, tr. simon armitage

YOU ARE ORGANIC / PLUM-HEARTED / OYSTER-THROATED

> root access granted

SKELETON / DOSSIER (ATTACHED) / PINTEREST / PLOTS

> task directory: arrival. introduction. first impressions.

BASICS.

𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄. Rohan Ibrahim Abbasi, PhD 𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒. Ro 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌. Riz Ahmed

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐒. medium height, lean build; cropped hair; short, trimmed beard; casual posture, typically leaning against counters, walls, or doorways with arms crossed; kind eyes. 𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐒 / 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. none.

𝐀𝐆𝐄 / 𝐃.𝐎.𝐁. 38 / 30 Sept. 1985 𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂. Libra

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍. Mississauga, ON, Canada 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘. • Muhammad Erhan Abbasi. Father, b. 1949 • Mariyam Abbasi. Mother, b. 1953 • Samaya Hijazi. Sister, b. 1981. Married, two children (17f, 12m). • Naima Abbasi Ito . Sister, b. 1982. Married, three children. (11f, 5m, 5f) • Hanif Muhammad Abbasi. Brother, b. 1987. Married, one child (2m).

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 / 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒. trans man / he & him 𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. bisexual 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒. single, formerly engaged

𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒. charismatic, focused, creative, enthusiastic, tenacious 𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒. stubborn, arrogant, dismissive, self-righteous, overzealous 𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒. nail & cuticle biting; interrupting; leaving personal projects unfinished; double texting 𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐈𝐄𝐒. long distance running; a moderator on r/askbiology and frequent contributor to r/askscience; occasional tutoring high school students & undergrads

𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒 (𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄). none.

THE FOUNDATION.

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄. Staff Researcher

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍(𝐒). • May 2018 – Dec 2018. Research Assistant at Site-17, Talbot Lab • Jan 2018 – Apr 2020. Postdoctoral Researcher at Site-17, Talbot Lab • Apr 2020 – Nov 2021. Postdoctoral Researcher at Site-17, Keir Research Group

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓. (November 2021 – Present) Site-169 Anomalous Entity Engagement Division, Schaffer Research Group. Investigating class-B amnestic-facilitated disruption of the hive mind. Tested on colonies with lineages from samples of SCP-1166, SCP-4589, and SCP-171. Experiment ended in failure, requiring fumigation of lab vivariums.

𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒 / 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒

academic. BSc in Biochemistry with a minor in Physiology (following a drop from the pre-med track) from McGill, MSc in Pharmacology from McGill, PhD in Neuroscience from University of Toronto extracurricular. tbd

EXTRAS.

𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘.

Dr. Rohan Abbasi first came to the Foundation’s attention shortly following the defense and subsequent publication of his master’s thesis, entitled “Correlation between the potency of hallucinogens in the mouse head-twitch response assay and their behavioral and subjective effects in other species.” (Neuropharmacology 2014). An auspicious start for someone who was, of his own admission, little more than a glorified lab grunt prior to the manuscript’s completion. The Foundation’s growing interest in Dr. Abbasi swiftly followed with his continuing doctoral research into the treatment of complex-PTSD and psychopathies with medical-grade psychedelics and hallucinogens.  Records indicate this culmination of Dr. Abbasi’s academic focus to be some combination of chance — with a Research Assistantship in Professor Szymanski’s research group at the University of Toronto open, and Rohan Abbasi in need of additional funding — and a longer trend of interest in and unorthodox approaches to pharmacology and medicine. It was with this in mind that a small but robustly funded lab at site-17 solicited a freshly minted Dr. Abbasi to interview for an opening postdoctoral research position within the group.  In the seven years since his tenure at the Foundation began, Dr. Rohan Abbasi’s reputation and portfolio tell vastly different stories of the same man. Colleagues and close personal acquaintances of Dr. Abbasi consistently praise the discipline, energy, and creativity he brings to research settings. Indeed, much of Dr. Abbasi’s early career at the Foundation is categorized by a nearly unending stream of proposals submitted, findings published, journal clubs established, and special interest committees formed. It became, however, the concern of his hiring supervisor that such enthusiasm and, frankly, naivete would outstrip the professional demands of this particular role. Following agreement from all parties, Dr. Abbasi’s fellowship continued under the supervision of the Keir group.  Thus, a pattern began to emerge. Dr. Abbasi filled his new position with what former colleagues would now consider characteristic effusiveness and vigor. Rohan himself jumped between several projects, submitting additional proposals for each with or without final approval from his new supervisor, nearly all of which were, unsurprisingly, summarily rejected. This had seemingly little effect on Dr. Abbasi’s commitment to proposing outlandish, unorthodox, unrealistic, and in more than a few cases downright insulting avenues of research or applications of novel (often as-yet-unreplicated) findings.   Neither Dr. Abbasi nor his new team were under any illusions, then, on the circumstances and stakes surrounding the assumption of his third post, now in the Anomalous Entity Engagement Division. Indeed, it seems he has finally understood the precarious situation he has continuously engaged in, and has pivoted to bolstering his professional reputation alongside his personal. It’s with this mutual agreement that Dr. Abbasi has been encouraged to continue his work on class B amnestics.

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒. dm for skeleton-specific details.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 / 𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒. tbd.

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒. Palamades Sextus ( The Locked Tomb ); The Biologist ( Annihilation ); Cosima Niehaus ( Orphan Black ); Dr. Allison Cameron ( House ); Rose Franklin ( The Themis Files ); Hank McCoy/Beast ( X-Men ); definitely others

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒. tbd.

[usafphantom2]

Could Turkey buy Gripens from Sweden if the Eurofighters are denied?

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 05/01/2024 - 19:32in Military

Turkey has repeatedly stated that it has other options for fighters if Germany does not raise its opposition to a proposed agreement for 40 newly built Eurofighter Typhoon fighters.

Is it conceivable that Turkey will consider resorting to Sweden for its capable Saab JAS39 Gripen after Ankara approves Stockholm's admission to NATO?

November reports revealed that Turkey has started negotiations with Great Britain and France for the more advanced version of the Eurofighter.

Since then, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that his country has “many other doors to knock on” for the combat jets if Germany persists with its opposition.

As a member of the Eurofighter consortium, Berlin has the right of effective veto over which countries Great Britain, Spain and Italy can export the game. He blocked the British sale of 48 additional Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia, which is probably the reason why Riyadh is now discussing the purchase of Dassault Rafales from France.

Turkey is also waiting for the approval of 40 new F-16s from the United States. He expects the U.S. Congress to approve the sale, proposed for the first time in October 2021, in exchange for Turkey raising its objections to Sweden's accession to NATO. At the end of December, the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish parliament voted for the ratification of Sweden's accession, awaiting final ratification and approval by the general assembly.

Sweden's admission to NATO would remove some obstacles to Turkey's acquisition of F-16, although it is not clear whether this would influence Germany. It is unlikely that Turkey will resort to France in search of Rafales for a number of reasons, and the purchase of Russian fighters increases the undesirable prospect of additional American sanctions. Turkey has already suffered sanctions for the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense missiles and has also been expelled from the F-35 program.

As described above, Turkey may still look for Eurofighters if the F-16 agreement is approved. However, if the Eurofighters were denied, then a comparable fighter would be needed, and the Gripen undoubtedly fits the profile as a suitable alternative to many of the functions that Ankara imagines the Eurofighter to fulfill.

The sale of Gripens to Ankara would also mark the first export of these jets to the Middle East. Even though it is a very reputable fighter, the export history of the Gripen is quite gloomy compared to the Eurofighter and the Rafale. A successful sale to Turkey could pave the way for more sales.

France fought for years to export the Rafale. The sale of Rafale in 2015 to Egypt gradually opened the way for multiple sales, the most profitable being undoubtedly the $19 billion agreement with the United Arab Emirates in December 2021 for 80 jets.

Suleyman Ozeren, a professor at the American University and a senior member of the Orion Policy Institute, believes that Turkey's prolonged blockade of Sweden's accession to NATO will make any potential agreement with Gripen unlikely.

“Although Ankara has guaranteed some concessions from Stockholm, such as the lifting of the ban on the export of military equipment to Turkey, the point is that Turkey has exaggerated Sweden's candidacy for NATO membership,” Ozeren told me.

“It took too long for Ankara to complete the process without presenting convincing arguments and practical excuses, other than trying to pressure Stockholm to give up more concessions,” he said. “This dragged approach frustrated Sweden so much that it seemed that Ankara hijacked the NATO membership candidacy.”

Ozeren believes that Turkey will probably continue to explore its options for other fighters, including the Gripens, if Congress continues to postpone the F-16 agreement.

"However, given the current situation, Ankara may have to do more than ask Stockholm for the Gripens to normalize their relationship," he said. "Therefore, Ankara's best bet is still the offer of the F-16, which also includes a modernization component for the existing F-16s."

Ozeren also believes that Turkey will still be able to "purse its interest" in the Eurofighters if the F-16 agreement is approved in order to diversify its air force. But neither the F-16 Block 70, the latest Tranche Eurofighter, nor the Gripen are long-term replacements for fifth-generation stealth aircraft.

“Even if the Eurofighter may have formidable capabilities, it will not replace what the F-35s can offer, which also means what Ankara lost when buying the S-400s from Russia,” Ozeren said.

"As for the Gripens, considering all the circumstances, the possibility of acquiring them is a distant enterprise for Ankara."

Source: Forbes

Tags: Military AviationEurofighter TyphoonJAS39 GripensaabTAF - Turkish Air Force / Turkish Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[wiltingdecay]

this lesbian visibility week, help an autistic lesbian attend school again!

hi! if you don't know me, i'm fern; when the mental illness allows it, i'm an artist and writer. back in the academic year of 2021 and 2022, i managed to get into my dream college, but unfortunately i suffered majorly with extreme bouts of anxiety and depression that i just couldn't cope with. this eventually forced me to drop out due to low grades and poor attendance. which sucks, but that's life.

thankfully, i'm a lot better now and trying to figure out what to do with my life. it was a childhood dream of mine to become a writer, and it's a hobby i got back into while i've been recovering this past year. i love it more than ever and would love to be able to grow my skills so that writing professionally is something i could realistically pursue. i recently came across a college course in my local community that is all about creative writing and it's absolutely perfect for me.

unfortunately, the admission fee is 300 euro, and due to some sudden and unavoidable expenses recently, i can no longer afford to pay for it out of pocket. i have until august to apply, but it would make my life a lot easier for me if i could have my place secured by june; that would mean i can apply for a student grant to be able to pay my way through the course (cost of transportation, food, etc).

for this reason, i am opening some quick little chibi icon commissions to help me out while i work on assembling a full commission sheet! i absolutely love working on these icons, they're quick and easy to do and so so fun. if you'd be interested in commissioning one, send me an ask or a dm! reblogs are very appreciated 🥰

rules:

payment through ko-fi only, at the moment nothing else is viable for me.

the base price for a single icon is €21, or 7 kofis. if that's out of your price range, i can also offer a flat colours only version for €15, or 5 kofis. a more complicated design might raise the price slightly, but not necessarily.

i do not accept payment upfront, only after the sketch has been approved by the commissioner.

currently accepting humans and humanoids only; this means no furries, scalies, mecha, etc. sorry!

if you'd like to just donate a lesser amount of money without commissioning - as appreciated as that would be, i'd feel terrible accepting money for nothing, so please drop some contact information so that i can draw you a little something in return!

[heathers-letters]

May 27, 2024

The White House hosted a three-day state visit for President William Ruto and First Lady Rachel Ruto of Kenya beginning on May 23, 2024. The visit marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Kenya and is the first state visit for an African leader since President John Kufuor of Ghana visited in 2008.

...

...in the year since her trip to Africa, Vice President Harris has focused on digital inclusion in Africa, recognizing that the spread of digital technology has the potential to promote economic opportunity and gender equality and to create jobs, as well as open new markets for U.S. exports. Last week, she announced that the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard have launched the Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy Alliance (MADE), which is working with public and private investors to provide digital access for 100 million individuals and businesses in Africa over the next ten years, focusing first on agriculture and women. 

...

As part of his reach for global leadership, Ruto has put Kenya at the front of an initiative backed by the United Nations for a multinational security intervention in Haiti, where officials have asked for help restoring order against about 200 armed gangs in the country, coalitions of which control about 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 exacerbated political instability in Haiti by creating a power vacuum, while weapons flowing into the country, primarily from straw purchases in the U.S., fed violence. Last year, then–prime minister Ariel Henry had pleaded with the United Nations Security Council to bolster Haitian security forces and combat the gangs.

The U.S. declined to lead the effort or to provide troops, although it, along with Canada and France, is funding the mission. On Thursday, Biden explained that “for the United States to deploy forces in the hemisphere just raises all kinds of questions that can be easily misrepresented about what we’re trying to do…. So we set out to find…a partner or partners who would lead the effort that we would participate in.”

—

Highlights from Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American. Full newsletter under the cut.

The White House hosted a three-day state visit for President William Ruto and First Lady Rachel Ruto of Kenya beginning on May 23, 2024. The visit marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Kenya and is the first state visit for an African leader since President John Kufuor of Ghana visited in 2008.

The Biden administration has worked to develop ties to African nations, whose people are leery of the United States not only because of what Biden called the “original sin” of colonists importing enslaved Africans to North American shores, but also because while the Soviet Union tended to support the movements when African nations began to throw off colonial rule, the U.S. tended to support right-wing reaction. More recently, during the Trump years the United States withdrew from engagement with what the former president allegedly called “sh*thole countries.”

In contrast, officials from the Biden administration have noted the importance of the people of Africa to the future of the global community. Currently, the median age on the continent is 19, and experts estimate that by 2050, one in four people on Earth will live on the African continent. 

Saying that Africans must have control over their own countries and their own future, U.S. officials backed the admission of the African Union to the Group of 20 (G-20), welcoming the organization’s 55 member states to the intergovernmental forum that focuses on global issues, and pledged more than $55 billion to the continent to aid security, support democratic institutions, and advance civil rights and the rule of law. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, First Lady Jill Biden, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have all visited the continent, where they have emphasized partnership with African countries for economic development rather than a competition with China and Russia for resource extraction. 

In March 2023, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia to emphasize the connections between Africa and North America, focus on the importance of democracy as Russian disinformation in Africa is driving pro-Russian and anti-U.S. sentiment, and announce U.S. investment in the continent as well as calling for more. 

But in July 2023, those efforts appeared to take a step back when a military coup in Niger deposed elected president Mohamed Bazoum. A few months later, the ruling junta asked the forces of former colonial power France to leave the country and turned to Russia’s Wagner group for security. In March, U.S. diplomats and military officials expressed concern about the increasing presence of Russia in Niger, and a few days later, officials told close to 1,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country to leave as well. Russian troops moved into a military base the U.S. has been using. 

The U.S. says its troops will leave by mid-September and has pledged to continue negotiations. Niger was a key ally in the U.S. antiterrorism efforts against armed forces allied with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Neighboring Chad has also asked the 100 U.S. troops in the country to leave.

Meanwhile, in the year since her trip to Africa, Vice President Harris has focused on digital inclusion in Africa, recognizing that the spread of digital technology has the potential to promote economic opportunity and gender equality and to create jobs, as well as open new markets for U.S. exports. Last week, she announced that the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard have launched the Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy Alliance (MADE), which is working with public and private investors to provide digital access for 100 million individuals and businesses in Africa over the next ten years, focusing first on agriculture and women. 

Kenya’s President Ruto won election in 2022, promising voters that he would champion the “hustlers,” the young workers piecing together an income informally. U.S. ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman, former chief executive officer of eBay and Hewlett-Packard and unsuccessful 2010 Republican candidate for governor of California, has supported this idea of economic development. Focusing on “commercial diplomacy,” she has worked with Ruto to encourage business investment in Kenya.  

At a state luncheon with President Ruto last week, Harris reiterated her belief “that African ideas and innovations will have a significant impact on the future of the entire world—a belief driven in part by the extraordinary creativity, dynamism, and energy of young African leaders” and by the continent’s young demographic. She reiterated the need to “revise and upgrade the U.S.-Africa narrative, which is long overdue; and to bring fresh focus to the innovation and ingenuity that is so prevalent across the continent of Africa.” She warned: “Any leader that ignores the continent of Africa is doing so at their own peril.” 

While Kenya’s main economic sectors are agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism, it is also a technology hub, and Harris called out its “Silicon Savannah,” a technology ecosystem that produced the cellphone-based money transfer system M-PESA, as well as startups making biodegradable plastics, creating drinking water from humidity, and so on. 

Ruto thanked Harris and Biden “for helping us reshape, reengineer, and write a new narrative for our continent.” Africans “are going to write our own story,” Ruto said, adding that the narrative of “this continent of conflict, trouble, disease, poverty” is “not the story of Africa.” “Africa is a continent of tremendous opportunity,” he said, “the largest reserves of energy—renewable energy resources; 60 percent of the world’s arable, uncultivated land; 30 percent of…global mineral wealth, including those that are necessary for energy transition; the youngest continent, which will produce 40 percent of the world’s…workforce by 2050 and where a quarter of the world’s population will be living, providing the world’s biggest single market. In short,” he said, “Africa is a rich continent and a continent of opportunity.”  

In a conversation with Vice President Harris and Ambassador Whitman, President Ruto said that the young population of Africa is “tech hungry” and that technology “is the instrument that we can use to leapfrog Africa from where we are to…catch up with the rest of the world.” The digital space, he said, is the space that will create the greatest output from young people and women. To that end, he said, Kenya is investing 30% of its annual budget in education, training, knowledge, and skills. 

As part of his reach for global leadership, Ruto has put Kenya at the front of an initiative backed by the United Nations for a multinational security intervention in Haiti, where officials have asked for help restoring order against about 200 armed gangs in the country, coalitions of which control about 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 exacerbated political instability in Haiti by creating a power vacuum, while weapons flowing into the country, primarily from straw purchases in the U.S., fed violence. Last year, then–prime minister Ariel Henry had pleaded with the United Nations Security Council to bolster Haitian security forces and combat the gangs.

The U.S. declined to lead the effort or to provide troops, although it, along with Canada and France, is funding the mission. On Thursday, Biden explained that “for the United States to deploy forces in the hemisphere just raises all kinds of questions that can be easily misrepresented about what we’re trying to do…. So we set out to find…a partner or partners who would lead the effort that we would participate in.” Kenya stepped up, although Kenyan opposition leaders, lawyers, and human rights groups are fiercely opposed to deploying Kenyans to the Caribbean nation. 

The Haitian gangs oppose the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), which is supposed to consist of 2,500 troops, 1,000 of whom are Kenyans. The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Chad, and Jamaica have officially notified the United Nations secretary-general of their intent to send personnel to the mission. Other nations have said they will support the mission, but as of May 20 had not yet sent official notifications. The MSS was supposed to arrive by May 23, but a base for it in Port-au-Prince is not yet fully equipped. Experts also told Caitlin Hu of CNN that Haitian authorities have not done enough to explain to local people how the mission will work, and Haitian police say what is most necessary is more support for local police.  

Kenyan news reported that the advance team of Kenyan police officers who went to Haiti to assess conditions for their deployment there will recommend a delay in deployment.

—

Notes and Citations available by subscribing to Letters from an American: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/