#Forming A Corporation In New York

[windsorcorporateservice]

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[thevalleyisjolly]

Society if instead of tying MCU Spider-Man to the Avengers, they had him connect with the Defenders instead.

[hurtspideyparker]

Thinking about restless spirit Tony Stark who just can't move on to the after life.

The first thing he does once he realizes he's an apparition is check on Pepper and Morgan. True to their word, they're okay. He watches them for a bit but feels this deep unrest pulling him away from the quaint home he yearns for.

There's a deep wrongness within him, some unfinished business that draws him back to New York.

He fears for a moment that it's Peter- but no, it can't be him. He'll be in Massachusetts right now, attending MIT as a freshman. There isn't a doubt in Tony's mind that his little genius is already making his mark.

Still, he follows the pull of his spirit to some dingy Queens' apartment he's never been to before.

It's deep in the night yet the apartment is empty. He looks around a bit, his body phasing through anything he attempts to touch.

It's small and dirty. There's old coffee cups on the desk, alongside a couple GED manuals. Great, the universe thinks he has unfinished business with some broke high school dropout.

He's pondering how he must have screwed up this kid's life; was it the Avengers, Stark Industries? Maybe his old playboy lifestyle is finally coming to bite him in the ass.

His contemplation is cut short by the sound of the window cracking open.

It strikes Tony for a moment that maybe he's stuck on Earth to be a guardian angel, Iron Man living on as some invisible protector against whatever creep is sneaking into people's windows. It doesn't make much sense considering the whole non-corporeal thing, but he still stiffens like he's ready for a fight.

He sees a man- no, a thing? A creature maybe, or an alien. Even in death Tony can't escape being one of Earth's mightiest heroes.

The creature is shrouded in darkness, something slick and bald crawling inside the room with terrifying grace and silence. It shuts the window with a soft kssssh as the seal is formed.

And then it pulls off its mask.

There, with the click of a table lamp, glows the face of Peter Parker.

He's definitely older now; sturdier shoulders, a rugged set of his jaw, hair tamed to something semi-professional. Still present, though, are those gentle brown eyes.

Nothing makes sense right now. Why is his kid here, in this apartment? Surely May wouldn't allow this. How many tenant laws does this place break? Where are his little sidekick friends? And on what planet would Peter Parker ever need a GED?

Tony's getting angry now, watching Peter move around the tiny space. He changes out of his costume and into pajamas. That spider suit isn't Tony's suit, it looks like cheap craft store fabric.

The kid opens a small freezer and pulls out the singular bag of peas that reside in there, pressing it against his ribs while he goes to pop some bread into a toaster.

Tony takes note of every glimpse he gains into Peter's life. Empty cabinets when he reaches for a jar of peanut butter. A fridge housing nothing but condiments and energy drinks when he goes to grab jam. A drawer with two spoons, no forks, and a paring knife which he pulls out and sticks into the strawberry jam jar just as the toast pops.

This is all so wrong.

Tony's outrage is coming to a rolling boil. Peter deserves the world- he was gonna give him the world. He couldn't wait to send Peter to MIT and show him off as his protégé. Tony was gonna fund his projects, tease him about pretty girls, maybe even see him step back from Spider-Man and act like a normal college kid. He wanted to see him flourish and grow up. It was all he could think about when Peter turned to dust between his fingers; he should be goofing off with his friends at a mathletes meeting, or building Legos, not fighting an intergalactic war.

Tony couldn't even conceive how much went wrong to end up here.

Alone. Broke. No school. He didn't even have his Stark suit to protect him. Everything that made him him has been stripped, leaving him in this shallow box with scuffed paint and hollow cabinets.

Tony can feel the violent rage burn deep in his spirit as he thinks about it.

This is why he's here. He can't let his boy live like this, wasting his potential to be some villain's punching bag. Where is everyone? Does no one care enough to stop this? The fury that builds in Tony is dangerous, wondering why a dead man is the only one who cares about the teen's life right now.

Without thinking Tony's hand reaches for the GED textbook, a mocking piece of work that laughs in his face, and throws it at the stupid little kitchenette that's mere feet from the bed.

It sails across the room with surprising speed before it's met with a thunk against Peter's palm, hand reaching out to catch it from the air before it collided with the toaster.

Oh.

Peter sets the book down and immediately picks up his web shooters, eyes darting furiously to every corner of the tiny apartment.

"Who's there?"

Tony steps a little closer but Peter's eyes just look right past him.

"C'mon Pete, c'mon. I'm here, I'm right here."

Tony looks for something else to grab. He swats at a hopefully empty coffee cup on the wooden desk, but his hand just passes right through it.

"Shit," the hope Tony felt waivers slightly and he tries again.

Nothing.

Peter is searching his apartment now, making sure the window is secure and feeling around every crevice, bookshelves, under the bed, in the top corners of the room. Searching for something nefarious, tech maybe.

Tony hits the cup, again and again, frustration building up and up and up till-

The cup flies across the room, Tony and Peter's eyes track its movements as it bounces against the ground and rolls to a stop.

"Shit," Peter breathes out.

Tony walks up to Peter now, standing before him.

"Figure it out. Think kid, you've met aliens, gods, magicians, surely ghosts aren't too far fetched."

Peter closes his eyes. His posture straightens, Tony watches him take a deep breath in as the hairs on his bare arms stand on end.

Peter's eyes blink open, and they're looking directly at Tony.

Tony smirks, "that's it."

Peter turns around and picks the cup off the ground, running to his desk with it and ripping a piece of lined paper out of a notebook and scribbling furiously on it.

Tony walks over as Peter places the cup in the center of the paper.

On the left is the word YES in bold print, NO on the right.

"Okay, okay okay. So, move the cup if, if you wanna talk. Um, is there someone in the room right now?"

Tony reaches for the cup, an intense glare as his fingertips graze it gently. It shifts minutely towards the YES.

"Shit! Shit. Sorry, whew. Okay. Are you friendly?"

Tony moves it to YES again.

"Are you a, um. Person? Like not an alien?"

YES.

"Are you wearing tech, invisibility suit or your molecules are uncalibrated or maybe it's a portal thing like, multiverse shit is happening again, a mirror universe! Oh, maybe a..."

Tony let's a frustrated sign. The kid is too practical, logical. He needs to think like a non-genius.

"... could be. Or, or maybe you're just a ghost-"

Tony perks up and immediately swats the cup, causing it to fly off the desk towards the YES.

"Oh. Oh that's... kinda normal. Or maybe really weird? I mean... I certainly have some ghosts in my past."

Peter picks the cup up and puts it back on the desk.

"Do I know you?"

YES.

"You said you were friendly, and I'm not getting any danger tingles from you. I'm gonna start with people I know are dead, cuz I just really hope you're not a... new ghost. Um. M-May?"

The boy's voice cracks on the word and Tony freezes. May is dead? Tony starts to fear that things are a lot more wrong than he previously thought.

Peter's breath catches and Tony realizes he's waiting, dying for an answer, and quickly pokes the cup towards NO.

Peter's shoulders sag.

"Uncle Ben?"

NO.

"T- Mr. Stark?"

Tony grins, "now we're getting somewhere!"

YES.

Tony is going to have his work cut out for him, but being here with Peter just feels right.

Peter breaks out into a matching smile.

"Wow, okay. I think I'm gonna need more paper," he says as the boy gets to work making a more complex system than YES and NO.

Tony watches on proudly, reminiscing about all the great Peter was and all the great he still is, despite his situation. Whatever this is, they'll figure it out.

Together.

[neworkimprov]

LONG FORM IMPROV - Advanced Improvisation with Ilan Kaplan Sundays 11:30am January /February Times Square NYC

LONG FORM IMPROV – Advanced Improvisation with Ilan Kaplan Sundays 11:30am January /February Times Square NYC

Register on Eventbrite 11:30 am Sundays January 8, 15, 22, 29, February 5, 12, 19, 26 Class Showcase 2/26 2pm Teacher Ilan Kaplan Tuition $300 LONG FORM IMPROV – Advanced Improvisation with Ilan Kaplan Sundays 11:30am January /February Times Square NYC This class is for students who are familiar with the basics of improv and have taken classes and workshops in the past, but are now ready…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There’s no such thing as “shareholder supremacy”

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Here's a cheap trick: claim that your opponents' goals are so squishy and qualitative that no one will ever be able to say whether they've been succeeded or failed, and then declare that your goals can be evaluated using crisp, objective criteria.

This is the whole project of "economism," the idea that politics, with its emphasis on "fairness" and other intangibles, should be replaced with a mathematical form of economics, where every policy question can be reduced to an equation…and then "solved":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/28/imagine-a-horse/#perfectly-spherical-cows-of-uniform-density-on-a-frictionless-plane

Before the rise of economism, it was common to speak of its subjects as "political economy" or even "moral philosophy" (Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, considered himself a "moral philosopher"). "Political economy" implicitly recognizes that every policy has squishy, subjective, qualitative dimensions that don't readily boil down to math.

For example, if you're asking about whether people should have the "freedom" to enter into contracts, it might be useful to ask yourself how desperate your "free" subject might be, and whether the entity on the other side of that contract is very powerful. Otherwise you'll get "free contracts" like "I'll sell you my kidneys if you promise to evacuate my kid from the path of this wildfire."

The problem is that power is hard to represent faithfully in quantitative models. This may seem like a good reason to you to be skeptical of modeling, but for economism, it's a reason to pretend that the qualitative doesn't exist. The method is to incinerate those qualitative factors to produce a dubious quantitative residue and do math on that:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

Hence the famous Ely Devons quote: "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

The neoliberal revolution was a triumph for economism. Neoliberal theorists like Milton Friedman replaced "political economy" with "law and economics," the idea that we should turn every one of our complicated, nuanced, contingent qualitative goals into a crispy defined "objective" criteria. Friedman and his merry band of Chicago School economists replaced traditional antitrust (which sought to curtail the corrupting power of large corporations) with a theory called "consumer welfare" that used mathematics to decide which monopolies were "efficient" and therefore good (spoiler: monopolists who paid Friedman's pals to do this mathematical analysis always turned out to be running "efficient" monopolies):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

One of Friedman's signal achievements was the theory of "shareholder supremacy." In 1970, the New York Times published Friedman's editorial "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits":

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html

In it, Friedman argued that corporate managers had exactly one job: to increase profits for shareholders. All other considerations – improving the community, making workers' lives better, donating to worthy causes or sponsoring a little league team – were out of bounds. Managers who wanted to improve the world should fund their causes out of their paychecks, not the corporate treasury.

Friedman cloaked his hymn to sociopathic greed in the mantle of objectivism. For capitalism to work, corporations have to solve the "principal-agent" problem, the notoriously thorny dilemma created when one person (the principal) asks another person (the agent) to act on their behalf, given the fact that the agent might find a way to line their own pockets at the principal's expense (for example, a restaurant server might get a bigger tip by offering to discount diners' meals).

Any company that is owned by stockholders and managed by a CEO and other top brass has a huge principal-agent problem, and yet, the limited liability, joint-stock company had produced untold riches, and was considered the ideal organization for "capital formation" by Friedman et al. In true economismist form, Friedman treated all the qualitative questions about the duty of a company as noise and edited them out of the equation, leaving behind a single, elegant formulation: "a manager is doing their job if they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders."

Friedman's formulation was a hit. The business community ran wild with it. Investors mistook an editorial in the New York Times for an SEC rulemaking and sued corporate managers on the theory that they had a "fiduciary duty" to "maximize shareholder value" – and what's more, the courts bought it. Slowly and piecemeal at first, but bit by bit, the idea that rapacious greed was a legal obligation turned into an edifice of legal precedent. Business schools taught it, movies were made about it, and even critics absorbed the message, insisting that we needed to "repeal the law" that said that corporations had to elevate profit over all other consideration (not realizing that no such law existed).

It's easy to see why shareholder supremacy was so attractive for investors and their C-suite Renfields: it created a kind of moral crumple-zone. Whenever people got angry at you for being a greedy asshole, you could shrug and say, "My hands are tied: the law requires me to run the business this way – if you don't believe me, just ask my critics, who insist that we must get rid of this law!"

In a long feature for The American Prospect, Adam M Lowenstein tells the story of how shareholder supremacy eventually came into such wide disrepute that the business lobby felt that it had to do something about it:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-17-ponzi-scheme-of-promises/

It starts in 2018, when Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett decried the short-term, quarterly thinking in corporate management as bad for business's long-term health. When Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote a column agreeing with them and arguing that even moreso, businesses should think about equities other than shareholder returns, Jamie Dimon lost his shit and called Pearlstein to call it "the stupidest fucking column I’ve ever read":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/07/will-ending-quarterly-earnings-guidance-free-ceos-to-think-long-term/

But the dam had broken. In the months and years that followed, the Business Roundtable would adopt a series of statements that repudiated shareholder supremacy, though of course they didn't admit it. Rather, they insisted that they were clarifying that they'd always thought that sometimes not being a greedy asshole could be good for business, too. Though these statements were nonbinding, and though the CEOs who signed them did so in their personal capacity and not on behalf of their companies, capitalism's most rabid stans treated this as an existential crisis.

Lowenstein identifies this as the forerunner to today's panic over "woke corporations" and "DEI," and – just as with "woke capitalism" – the whole thing amounted to a a PR exercise. Lowenstein links to several studies that found that the CEOs who signed onto statements endorsing "stakeholder capitalism" were "more likely to lay off employees during COVID-19, were less inclined to contribute to pandemic relief efforts, had 'higher rates of environmental and labor-related compliance violations,”' emitted more carbon into the atmosphere, and spent more money on dividends and buybacks."

One researcher concluded that "signing this statement had zero positive effect":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/companies-stand-solidarity-are-licensing-themselves-discriminate/614947

So shareholder supremacy isn't a legal obligation, and statements repudiating shareholder supremacy don't make companies act any better.

But there's an even more fundamental flaw in the argument for the shareholder supremacy rule: it's impossible to know if the rule has been broken.

The shareholder supremacy rule is an unfalsifiable proposition. A CEO can cut wages and lay off workers and claim that it's good for profits because the retained earnings can be paid as a dividend. A CEO can raise wages and hire more people and claim it's good for profits because it will stop important employees from defecting and attract the talent needed to win market share and spin up new products.

A CEO can spend less on marketing and claim it's a cost-savings. A CEO can spend more on marketing and claim it's an investment. A CEO can eliminate products and call it a savings. A CEO can add products and claim they're expansions into new segments. A CEO can settle a lawsuit and claim they're saving money on court fees. A CEO can fight a lawsuit through to the final appeal and claim that they're doing it to scare vexatious litigants away by demonstrating their mettle.

CEOs can use cheaper, inferior materials and claim it's a savings. They can use premium materials and claim it's a competitive advantage that will produce new profits. Everything a company does can be colorably claimed as an attempt to save or make money, from sponsoring the local little league softball team to treating effluent to handing ownership of corporate landholdings to perpetual trusts that designate them as wildlife sanctuaries.

Bribes, campaign contributions, onshoring, offshoring, criminal conspiracies and conference sponsorships – there's a business case for all of these being in line with shareholder supremacy.

Take Boeing: when the company smashed its unions and relocated key production to scab plants in red states, when it forced out whistleblowers and senior engineers who cared about quality, when it outsourced design and production to shops around the world, it realized a savings. Today, between strikes, fines, lawsuits, and a mountain of self-inflicted reputational harm, the company is on the brink of ruin. Was Boeing good to its shareholders? Well, sure – the shareholders who cashed out before all the shit hit the fan made out well. Shareholders with a buy-and-hold posture (like the index funds that can't sell their Boeing holdings so long as the company is in the S&P500) got screwed.

Right wing economists criticize the left for caring too much about "how big a slice of the pie they're getting" rather than focusing on "growing the pie." But that's exactly what Boeing management did – while claiming to be slaves to Friedman's shareholder supremacy. They focused on getting a bigger slice of the pie, screwing their workers, suppliers and customers in the process, and, in so doing, they made the pie so much smaller that it's in danger of disappearing altogether.

Here's the principal-agent problem in action: Boeing management earned bonuses by engaging in corporate autophagia, devouring the company from within. Now, long-term shareholders are paying the price. Far from solving the principal-agent problem with a clean, bright-line rule about how managers should behave, shareholder supremacy is a charter for doing whatever the fuck a CEO feels like doing. It's the squishiest rule imaginable: if someone calls you cruel, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. If someone calls you feckless, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. It's an excuse for every season.

The idea that you can reduce complex political questions – like whether workers should get a raise or whether shareholders should get a dividend – to a mathematical rule is a cheap sleight of hand. The trick is an obvious one: the stuff I want to do is empirically justified, while the things you want are based in impossible-to-pin-down appeals to emotion and its handmaiden, ethics. Facts don't care about your feelings, man.

But it's feelings all the way down. Milton Friedman's idol-worshiping cult of shareholder supremacy was never about empiricism and objectivity. It's merely a gimmick to make greed seem scientifically optimal.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/#figleaves-not-rubrics/a>

[halflifebutawesome]

BEHOLD! FOR THE SECOND TIME, THE GBVRAI LINEUP! now with another weird old dude!

waves my hands around vaguely I wanted to make a nicer looking lineup and more coherent post actually explaining the au. I've now made 2 gbvrai lineups but never a plain old hlvrai lineup. Whatever.

There's a complete AU explanation and individual character profiles (?) under the cut! check it out! ASK ME ABOUT IT !!! SMILES!!!!!

The basic gist of this au is that the science team, are a group of ghost hunting paranormal researchers. The Ghostbusters. You mightve heard of them. This isn't a 1 for 1 au where certain characters take the role of others, it's more just. What if the science team existed in the Ghostbusters universe. They're just the Ghostbusters now.

On a particularly odd case, they bust a ghost that seems... off. It's sentient, it's talking back, and it's psychokinetic energy is off the charts.

Thinking nothing of it, they return to the firehouse and prep the trap for containment disposal. Gordon's the new guy, so he's the unlucky dude who's been assigned the job of disposing of the traps. All the while the ghost will NOT shut up. It's weirdly powerful and seems mostly unbothered. It's name is Benry, and he's a little freak.

the ghost containment unit has been unstable for a while, overfilled with ghosts, but they have to dispose of Benry somehow, so they go ahead with it.

In this AU I'm kind of combining the Resonance Cascade with the Manhattan Crossrip (the Manhattan crossrip is the big scary ghost event that happens at the end of GB1). Basically what happens is that Benrys weirdly powerful ghostly energy, combined with an unstable ghost containment unit, tears a big rip in the fabric between the ghost realm and ours, letting all sorts of ghouls and specters free.

Imagine the Resonance Cascade, with all the aliens getting out and ravaging Black Mesa, but it's a bunch of ghosts getting out and ravaging New York. Gordon and the rest of the team have to fight their way through the ghost filled streets of NYC, and close the crossrip.

Heres some closeups and more individual info/thoughts for the gang!!

GORDON FREEMAN! The new guy. Again, this is less a direct 1 for 1 swap au kind of deal, and more just putting these guys in situations. Gordon's HEV suit, tho, I wanna talk about.

In Ghostbusters canon, they DO have a weird fucked up hazard suit. It first appears in the TRGB episode "Xmas Marks The Spot", where Egon uses it to travel into the ghost realm. I know it makes another appearance in the comics, in a way that's more HEV-esque, but I never finished the comics so idk. It's real tho.

I imagine here that the ghost containment unit is more like the reactor in half life, where it's hazardous to be around for too long, probably bcos of like. I don't know. Concentrated psychokinetic energy. Sure. In any case he needs to wear the HEV to use the containment unit.

My design here is taking the chest piece, helmet, gloves and belts and modifying them to look a little more HEV-esque.

Bennyyyy. Benrey benry beny. He's a ghost, as far as they can tell. It would be more appropriate to call him an entity of sorts.

He's not a ghost simply for the fact that he wasn't ever human. He wasn't ever a living person that died. He's some pure, really powerful, concentrate entity/being that leaked through from the ghost realm. He looks like. A guy, for the most part, but he's a mimic. Something pretending to be human. He's been around for a while, and has settled into this form. He's mostly corporeal, but can phase in and out as he pleases (noclipping) Switching from corporeal/incorporeal when it's funny.

He met Tommy when they were both a lot younger, Benry being fresh out of the ghost realm, and have been bestfriends ever since. ☝️ my au my weirdly specific tommybenny dynamic. Dw about it

TOMMY & SUNKIST!!!! Tommy has grown up around ghosts his whole life, and is pretty in-tune with them. This is proven with his bond to Sunkist, who's decidedly not a real dog, and his longtime friendship with Benry.

I gave him the goggles cos. Tommy's my fave and Ray's my fave and I think they're fun. Also cos if it WAS a 1 to 1 swap I would def have Tommy as Ray. Anyway. He's been a part of the Ghostbusters since he was little, like I said he grew up with them and around them. He's really knowledgeable about ghost types and physics. He knows all the ghost rules.

Sunkist isn't like. His dead childhood dog cos that seems. Kind of sad. Instead she's kind of a church Grimm or hell hound. An entity taking the form of a big huge dog that Tommy befriended when he was a kid, and has now kind of bonded to him. She's pretty corporeal as far as ghosts go, and can interact w the physical environment pretty well.

DARNOLD ^^ my friend darnold. Darnolds not usually super involved in the actual ghostbusting, and prefers to stay behind. He's more of the research and tech kind of guy, he studies the readings and takes measurements.

He's interested in psychokinetic energy and ghost residue and all sorts of like. Ghost sciences. Why some people stay behind, why some people just seem to die and disappear, the properties of the ghost realm and the ghosts themselves. Corporeality and degradation of personhood the longer someone's been a ghost.

When the Resonance Crossrip happens, he opts to stay behind and observe the effects of the insane amounts of ghost energy on the corporeal world.

Hes also a transfer over from the ghost engineers! That's a fun thing for me. I love the ghost engineers idc frozen empire gave me everything I wanted

FORZEN. Forzen is... the same thing as Benry. A mimic, something taking the form of a normal ghost to blend in or hide in plain sight.

He came through with the Resonance Crossrip, but obviously like. He knew Benry before (we WERE bestfriends..). He's not as powerful, which is why he wasn't able to sneak through when Benry did. He's also not super corporeal. He can only interact with the physical world if he's exerting a LOT of energy. Prone to flickering in and out of vision.

Upon coming thru the Crossrip, he kind of just. Decided to hang around the firehouse. Didn't wanna go much further, for fear of being ghostbusted and sent back into the containment unit. The source is the last place they'd look for him!

Darnold, who's holed up in the firehouse, is more than delighted to meet a ghost who's sentient and willing to cooperate to do some tests and experimentation to get never before documented results. They bond and they're cutesit. ☝️ DARZEN WIN. hi splash 👋

Dr Coomer and Dr Bubby are two of the three original founders of the Ghostbusters! They've been around for a looooong time. They're also married obviously but that's like a given.

They helped found the Ghostbusters, having met in college while both were studying parapsychology. I imagine their like. Parapsychology -> Ghostbusters pipeline was very in line with how GB1 starts, where they used to work in an academic environment before getting kicked out and founding the GB.

They're also both. Psychic. Because frozen empire has once again given me everything. Coomers got some like. Idk something that lines up with his self awareness in HLVRAI, maybe prophecy? Vauge visions of the future? Bubby has pyrokinesis. Duh.

and... Mr. Coolatta..... Tommy's dad...he was one of the founders along w Coomer and Bubby and at some point he. Died. And is now a reeeally really powerful ghost. maybe from the exposure to ghost energy or smth?

Now hes got gman powers and just kinda hangs around. Pretty corporeal and solid and. Present. For lack of a better word. But he IS a dead guy. Used to be human.

This is why Tommy kind of grew up around ghosts and knows alot about them :) Mr Coolatta is pretty benevolent, and mostly just kind of spooky and fucked up.

And that's. About it? I believe?? PLEAAASE ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS I have so many thoughts. I've been working on this for like 2 months now. Lol.

[tearueful]

Play With Fire ( Homelander x Reader)

18+ for language, female (plus size♥) reader | You walk into an elevator with Homelander...💋 [AO3 Link] Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, AO3 Link

You can only stare at Ashley’s cold dismissal. Not Ashley Barrett, of course. You’re not high up enough to get personally fired by the CEO. Her assistant is the one doing it, also Ashley. 

There were too many fucking Ashleys in this office.

Your head is buzzing and you can’t exactly focus on the words that spill out of her mouth. She has such a pleasant smile plastered on her lips. A fake, corporate smile as she tells you that as of today? You no longer work at Vought International. A job you had scraped and clawed for. Survived an unpaid internship in fucking New York City for, moonlighting as a waitress in a diner where patrons had sticky hands even for one such as you.

You stare at her, having no idea what words her placid smile makes. Something about turning your badge in at the front desk on your way out. That they’ve packed everything up at your desk already and it will show up to your house in two to four business days. An easier transition, she says. How kind.

Neatly packaging your existence away and shipping it off in the post as if it didn’t fucking matter. You blink and you’re already stalking out of the office. The dismissal had been clear. They had saved it for when you normally would be packing up for the day. Less drama. Always better to fire someone on a Friday afternoon. Not many witnesses. At least you can slink out with some scraps of your dignity. Before you realize it, you’re fast walking through the hallway to the elevator lobby. All your mind can focus on is getting in that elevator and escaping this fucked up place. That is your one goal as your insides churn with bitter anger and your brain buzzes.

Your rage is impotent, with no outlet. What could you even do? Nothing against Vought. Not with their airtight security. You knew how Vought paid everyone and anyone off to make undesirables vanish. How they mopped up the ‘accidents’ of their precious supe products. How your firing was another one of those casualties, dismissed at a whim of the Seven. You knew specifically who. That star-spangled blonde bastard. One typo led to one tantrum from the supe and you had to suffer for it.

Rage pushes your feet to move a little quicker as you spot the open elevator doors. Someone must have just exited, you see the retreating forms of a handful of people down the opposite end of the hall. Perfect, except those doors are closing and you’re too impatient to wait in the lobby a moment longer.

At the sight of the closing elevator doors, your feet pick up their pace. You can’t stay in this building a moment long, not in this hallway with the chance of spotting anyone you know who may recognize the set of your face as something amiss.. Some of them know you well enough to know that would mean something’s wrong, or they knew the bad news before you. That gives you the motivation to snap a hand out to stop those closing doors, praying it’s empty so you can take a breath alone. You need it.You deserve it. It’s the least the universe can do for you at this moment. The universe is not kind today.

The doors stop at the presence of your hand while you slip through the opening. Your regret is almost instantaneous as you step into the re-opening doors because there stood Homelander.

Fucking Homelander in his stupid suit, looking all the world like Uncle Sam shat out the perfect Boyscout. Except, you know far better. There was a monster in that human suit.

He looks ever the caged predator within the confines of the enclosed metal space, wholly uninterested in you. There’s only the briefest of glances your way before his attention is back on the elevator’s LED number display. Oh, but you hate him. Stuffed up supe, high on his own importance.

You’d seen him about the office, from a distance. A wolf among doting sheep, bleating for his attention. How did anyone dare to get close when he flashed those canines? You should flee, but the elevator doors click behind you with a finality. No, fuck it. Fuck him. You don’t care. All you care about is getting out of this shit hole and this elevator ride will be your last here. One way or another. The white hot rage is back to roiling in your gut and you feel as if you’d choke on it.

Homelander’s cold blue gaze flickers over you once more as you stew, taking you all in within an instant. Your badge and your name. Another useless Vought employee, a wriggling worm at his feet. The Hero Management Department by the logo on your badge, but he’s never noticed you. No wonder. You’re too short. Someone who could get lost in a crowd. His lips turn up in a cruel sneer. Fat, too. A pudgy, little grub. At least you’re dressed well. You need to be if you work here. Almost demure in that dress that must have cost half your pathetic paycheck. He wants to be disgusted by you, but you meet his eyes. People rarely did that. There’s fire burning in those wide eyes. A defiance he’s not used to seeing often. Especially not from something as breakable as you. It gives Homelander pause. He’s puzzled. That sort of volatile hatred was usually reserved for dear William, but you? It was almost comical seeing such a delicate thing like you sparking with it. You looked like a little firecracker about to go off and Homelander wonders what sorts of sparks you’d show.

Your expression was utterly, almost eerily calm yet he could feel the rage rolling off of you, it was a palpable taste on his tongue. An almost bitter tang that made Homelander reflexively lick his lips. That gets your attention. Previously, you’d let your eyes dart around the elevator in your unrest. Now your eyes fixate on the flick of Homelander’s tongue while the wheels within your brain begin to whirl. What is the stupidest thing you could do on your last day at Vought? Something reckless and impulsive. Suicidal even.

He watches you with interest now that you’re daring to meet his gaze, scrutinizing this little mortal confined in the elevator with him with anger steaming off your body. Normally, Vought employees fawned over him while reeking of fear. They cowered and all but tried to tongue his taint in their need to appease him and soothe Homelander’s volatile moods. Yet here you were, looking as much like a caged animal within the confines of the elevator as he felt most of the time. 

Homelander senses the shift in you, from anger to something else. He can’t pinpoint it, not yet. Not with how the adrenaline pumps through your veins as you fix your eyes on his face, a heady perfume if there ever was one. It’s a little like prey backed into a corner, finally deciding fight over flight. Homelander doesn’t fear you or any possible outburst you could throw his way. How could he? He’s a god and you’re an ant. Still, he’s curious as to what you’ll do. Homelander can see the tension in your body, how your muscles coil before a pounce.

You weren’t quick, by any means. Homelander could have deflected you with his pinky finger, but the determination in your eyes kept him still. What were you even planning to do to him, of all people? Seeing you unleashing your anger on him would amuse the supe. Give him a valid reason to crush your fragile skull in his fist with a satisfying wet crunch. Yet, you surprised him. All that anger and vitriol boiling over shifted into something else entirely, but it still burns.  It burns so much that you need to let it out. Which you do, by pressing your lips against Homelander’s. It’s pure impulse and oh so reckless. He’s killed people for lesser slights but you don’t care. Not in that moment. You want this, maybe even need it. Need to vent out all your frustration on the man who caused all this in the first place.

So you dig your nails into the leather fabric of Homelander’s suit, having to get up on your toes to press your lips against his own. 

They’re surprisingly soft, Homelander’s lips. You hadn’t expected it. A contrast to the lack of give against his body because leaning into Homelander is like leaning into a brick wall. Unmovable. The only give is from his lips and you suspect that’s because you took the supe by surprise.

The audacity of this little bug!

Homelander’s eyes are wide, shocked even at your brazen act. Staring down at this impertinent little human daring to touch him.There’s a desperation in your act, in how your face is still twisted up in rage and confusion but softening as you stubbornly keep your lips moving against his own.

Still so curious. 

He lets you kiss him, even goes as far to settle into the kiss himself. He can’t help it. Softness was a rare thing for him to feel and you really are oh so soft against him. Pliable and willing now that you’ve settled into properly kissing him. You’re not bad at this either, knowing exactly what sort of coaxing pressure to give him while teasing Homelander into giving back more.

So he does.

Homelander hooks you in the steel grip of one hand, fingers digging into your waist and he finds you yielding. Soft and giving as your lips. He should have expected that given your size, but he finds that he likes it. He can dig his fingers in a little deeper with no fear of snapping ribs with the slightest of pressure.

Homelander is kissing you back. Fucking Homelander! You half expected to get thrown across the elevator shaft for your action, but he was almost holding you gently. Almost. This close you can feel the restrained power of him that all but hums through the supe’s body. It should frighten you, but it’s thrilling having a monster yield so readily to you of all people.

You need something to ground yourself because this can't be real! You grab for Homelander's hair, sliding your fingers through it. Idly, you muse at the softness. It wasn't gelled and hard to the touch as you expected. Leave-in conditioner, that must be it. The thought makes you smile into the kiss, tightening your hold on Homelander's hair with a playful tug to coax his mouth closer.

You don’t expect the needy moan Homelander releases against your lips at the gentle tug. Would have never expected such a sound from a man like him. You greedily swallow it up, using it to your advantage to slide your tongue over his lips. They part under the pressure and then you’re kissing Homelander deeper. This is far from an innocent, impulsive act now. He’s meeting your fire, consumed by the flames as much as you are. More so because now Homelander seems intent on devouring you as he fits his lips to yours, bruising them while his tongue slides slick over your own within your mouth. He growls. Homelander fucking growls into the kiss and you feel that tremor down to your toes, arousal a white hot flash through your system. Thus it really can’t be helped when you mold your curves into the hard lines of his body, fingernails scraping at Homelander’s scalp while you try to taste every corner of his mouth. His free hand even comes up to take an ample handful of your ass as he pulls you flush against him properly, and is that- Holy fuck.

The chime of the elevator hitting the ground floor snaps you both out of the moment. You jerk apart and even in his surprise, Homelander’s grip is loose enough for you to step away safely. You stare up at him a beat, taking in Homelander’s flushed features and how he pants.

You did that. You did that to the most powerful supe of the Seven, possibly the most powerful supe in the world. Smug satisfaction settles on your shoulders for a moment.

You can see the rage building in his eyes, disgust twisting up Homelander’s features and there’s even the glaring threat of red sparking in his gaze. Holy shit. Your heart squeezes as the smugness shifts to the instinct to survive. It’s time to flee or die.

Homelander sneers at you and you know he’s about to say something scathing to put you in your place before he obliterates you. Instead of cowering, you flash him a thousand watt smile. The sort you’ve employed on dates with hapless men to get them giving dopey grins right back to you. It works well enough.

He blinks, the red glare vanishing from his eyes. People in this tower never smile at Homelander like that. Another surprise. You exit stage left before he recovers, almost running into someone on your way out of the elevator. It’s Ashley. CEO Ashley this time, with tablet in hand.

Her gaze flicks up from the screen as she gives a little start before suspicion tinges her features. “Weren’t you fired?�� She whispers the words under her breath, brushing past you before stiffening up at the sight of the supe still within the elevator. “Homelander! There you are!” She chirps out with faux cheerfulness and a dead smile. “I’ve got fantastic news on your latest numbers!” That gives you enough time to slip away, with Ashley crowding up to Homelander eagerly to stroke his ego so he’s kept calm for another day and no one dies. You certainly didn’t die. Personally, you think the supe’s mind will be occupied by other things today. You turn your badge in at security’s front desk with a self satisfied smirk.

For his part, Homelander silently steps out of the elevator with eyes fixed on your retreating frame. He doesn’t register Ashley’s yammering as she tries to tell him the good news about a ten point boost. No, Homelander’s mind is too busy contemplating what he will do to you. Little bugs like you can’t get away with taunting gods.

A wide, shark-like grin spreads Homelander's lips now that he has revenge on his mind. He snaps his attention to Ashley, voice sharp as Homelander lifts a finger in her face for silence “Ashley. That woman. Give me her name, now.”

[palms-upturned]

For US unions like the UAW — which has thousands of members in weapons factories making the bombs, missiles, and aircraft used by Israel, as well in university departments doing research linked to the Israeli military — the Palestinian trade union call to action is particularly relevant. When the UAW’s national leadership came out in support of a cease-fire on December 1, they also voted to establish a “Divestment and Just Transition Working Group.” The stated purpose of the working group is to study the UAW’s own economic ties to Israel and explore ways to convert war-related industries to production for peaceful purposes while ensuring a just transition for weapons workers.

Members of UAW Labor for Palestine say they have started making visits to a Colt factory in Connecticut, which holds a contract to supply rifles to the Israeli military, to talk with their fellow union members about Palestine, a cease-fire, and a just transition. They want to see the union’s leadership support such organizing activity.

“If UAW leaders decided to, they could, tomorrow, form a national organizing campaign to educate and mobilize rank-and-file towards the UAW’s own ceasefire and just transition call,” UAW Labor for Palestine members said in a statement. “They could hold weapons shop town halls in every region; they could connect their small cadre of volunteer organizers — like us — to the people we are so keen to organize with; they could even send some of their staff to help with this work.”

On January 21, the membership of UAW Local 551, which represents 4,600 autoworkers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant (who were part of last year’s historic stand-up strike) endorsed the Palestinian trade unions’ call to not cooperate in the production and transportation of arms for Israel. Ten days later, UAW Locals 2865 and 5810, representing around forty-seven thousand academic workers at the University of California, passed a measure urging the union’s national leaders to ensure that the envisioned Divestment and Just Transition Working Group “has the needed resources to execute its mission, and that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim workers whose communities are disproportionately affected by U.S.-backed wars are well-represented on the committee.”

Members of UAW Locals 2865 and 5810 at UC Santa Cruz’s Astronomy Department have pledged to withhold any labor that supports militarism and to refuse research collaboration with military institutions and arms companies. In December, unionized academic workers from multiple universities formed Researchers Against War (RAW) to expose and cut ties between their research and warfare, and to organize in their labs and departments for more transparency about where the funding for their work comes from and more control over what their labor is used for. RAW, which was formed after a series of discussions by union members first convened by US Labor Against Racism and War last fall, hosted a national teach-in and planning meeting on February 12.

Meanwhile, public sector workers in New York City have begun their own campaign to divest their pension money from Israel. On January 25, rank-and-file members of AFSCME District Council (DC) 37 launched a petition calling on the New York City Employees’ Retirement System to divest the $115 million it holds in Israeli securities. The investments include $30 million in bonds that directly fund the Israeli military and its activities. “As rank-and-file members of DC 37 who contribute to and benefit from the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and care about the lives of working people everywhere, we refuse to support the Israeli government and the corporations that extract profit from the killing of innocent civilians,” the petition states.

In an election year when President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates will depend heavily on organized labor for donations and especially get-out-the-vote efforts, rank and filers are also trying to push their unions to exert leverage on the president by getting him to firmly stand against the ongoing massacre in Gaza. NEA members with Educators for Palestine are calling on their union’s leaders to withdraw their support for Biden’s reelection campaign until he stops “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel,” marching from AFT headquarters to NEA headquarters in Washington, DC on February 10 to assert their demand. Similarly, after the UAW International Executive Board endorsed Biden last month — a decision that sparked intense division within the union — UAW Labor for Palestine is demanding the endorsement be revoked “until [Biden] calls for a permanent ceasefire and stops sending weapons to Israel.”

[markruffalo]

It's time to hold these fossil fuel corporations and chemical companies accountable for their plastic pollution. Visit the link below and make 2 simple phone calls to Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie and Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins to demand they pass The Packaging Reduction & Recycling Act, which would cut all packaging waste by 50% and remove toxic chemicals including PFAS. We need to ensure that our New York State legislative leaders pass this critical bill before June 9! https://actionnetwork.org/forms/urge-leg-leaders-pass-prria?clear_id=true&source=direct_link

[visit-new-york]

Empire State Building Location: New York City, New York, United States 20 W 34th St., New York, NY 10001

What was the Empire State Building built for? The Empire State Building was officially constructed to serve as a hub for corporate business offices. Unofficially, it was also designed with the intention of claiming the title of the world's tallest building. Constructed in 1931, it faced competition from other iconic New York City skyscrapers of the time, including the Bank of Manhattan Building and the Chrysler Building.

Where is the Empire State Building located? Situated in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, the Empire State Building stands proudly on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street. Prior to its construction, this location was occupied by the original Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Fifth Avenue.

How did the Empire State Building get its name? The Empire State Building earned its name from a colloquial term for the state of New York. Although the exact origin of the nickname "Empire State" is uncertain, one of its earliest documented references dates back to a letter written by George Washington in 1785. In the letter, he commends New York's resilience during the American Revolution and designates it as "the Seat of the Empire."

Why do the Empire State Building lights change? The Empire State Building's lighting system undergoes color changes to commemorate major holidays and celebrations throughout the year. This tradition, initiated in 1976 with the installation of the building's first lighting system, has continued with the introduction of a new LED lighting system in 2012. This technological upgrade allows the skyscraper to showcase a myriad of colors, enhancing its visual impact.

The Empire State Building, a towering 102-story steel-framed skyscraper, was completed in New York City in 1931, reigning as the world's tallest building until 1971. Situated in Midtown Manhattan on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, it stands as an enduring symbol and exemplar of Modernist Art Deco design, holding a prominent place among the most iconic structures in the United States.

During its construction, an intense rivalry unfolded for the coveted title of the world's tallest building. The Chrysler Building briefly secured this distinction in 1929, only to be surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931, reaching a height of 1,250 feet (381 meters), accentuated by its distinctive spire initially intended as a mooring station for airships. In 1950, a 222-foot (68-meter) antenna was added, elevating the building's total height to 1,472 feet (449 meters). However, a subsequent replacement of the antenna in 1985 resulted in a reduction to 1,454 feet (443 meters). Meanwhile, One World Trade Center, inaugurated in 1972, had claimed the title of the world's tallest building.

The driving forces behind the Empire State Building's construction were John J. Raskob and Al Smith. Raskob, a self-made business magnate and former chairman of the General Motors Corporation finance committee, formed an unlikely partnership with Smith, a former Democratic governor of New York. Despite their contrasting backgrounds, their enduring friendship likely stemmed from shared experiences as children of struggling immigrant Roman Catholic families. Before embarking on the Empire State Building project in 1929, Smith enlisted Raskob as chairman for the Democratic National Committee and as campaign manager for his unsuccessful 1928 presidential bid against Herbert Hoover. This defeat underscored the public's reluctance to jeopardize the economic prosperity of the 1920s by electing a Democrat and signaled an unwillingness to choose a Roman Catholic candidate who might challenge prevailing Protestant values.

After losing the 1928 election and relinquishing his governorship to pursue the presidency, Smith found himself unemployed. Whether the initial idea to construct a skyscraper on the former site of the original Waldorf Astoria Hotel originated from Raskob or Smith remains uncertain. However, they mutually agreed that it would be a sensible and attention-grabbing joint venture at the midpoint of their lives. Raskob, a crucial financier responsible for securing other investors, and Smith, a personable public figure, assumed the role of heading the project. The Empire State Building Corporation was established, and Smith, as its president, unveiled plans for the groundbreaking building on August 29, 1929, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates to exceed 100 stories.

Construction commenced 200 days later on March 17, 1930, amid the backdrop of the stock market crash in October 1929, marking the onset of the Great Depression. Despite these challenges, construction persevered, providing essential employment opportunities in New York City. The formal opening of the Empire State Building took place on May 1, 1931, astonishingly concluding in just 410 days. Despite the building's extensive publicity, the concurrent Great Depression significantly impacted its inauguration; much of the office space remained unoccupied, leading to the nickname "The Empty State Building." It took nearly two decades for the structure to become financially viable.

Despite its gradual start and eventual loss of the world record it aimed to achieve, the Empire State Building has evolved into a lasting symbol of New York City for both its residents and the world. Observatories are situated on the 86th and 102nd floors, with a small viewing platform sometimes referred to as the 103rd floor. These observatories attract millions of visitors annually. Since 1994, a yearly contest has granted couples the chance to win an exclusive wedding ceremony on Valentine's Day at the 86th-floor observatory.

The Empire State Building, prominently featured in some of the most romantic films of the 20th century, may have been the catalyst for the inception of the contest. Notably showcased in Love Affair (1939) and its later remake An Affair to Remember (1957), these films immortalize star-crossed lovers making plans to reunite at the summit of the Empire State Building after a prolonged separation. Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a beloved romantic comedy, directly references An Affair to Remember, with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks's characters finally meeting on the observatory deck of the Empire State Building. Beyond its romantic associations, the iconic skyscraper has made notable appearances across various cultural mediums, notably in the 1933 film King Kong, shortly after its inauguration. An exhibit within the Empire State Building pays tribute to its widespread influence in popular culture, featuring a montage of its appearances in films, video games, comics, and more.

Additionally, the Empire State Building has earned acclaim for its commitment to green architecture initiatives. In 2020, the skyscraper completed a decade-long retrofitting project that significantly reduced its energy consumption, slashed emissions by approximately 40 percent, and enhanced overall efficiency.

[lonestarflight]

Apollo Program: Lunar Module (LM) production and names

The Grumman Aerospace Corporation was awarded the contract on November 7, 1962. Originally designated Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), NASA ordered 25 lunar modules (10 test articles and 15 production models) for testing and landing on the moon. This was to go with the 15 Saturn Vs and Apollo CSMs. They were assembled in Grumman's factory in Bethpage, New York.

"There were initially four major subcontractors: Bell Aerosystems (ascent engine), Hamilton Standard (environmental control systems), Marquardt (reaction control system) and Rocketdyne (descent engine).

The Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System (PGNCS) was developed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory; the Apollo Guidance Computer was manufactured by Raytheon (a similar guidance system was used in the command module). A backup navigation tool, the Abort Guidance System (AGS), was developed by TRW."

-Information from Wikipedia: link

After the Gemini 3 spacecraft was dubbed Molly Brown by Gus Grissom, NASA forbade naming spacecraft. For Apollo 9, this changed due to mission controllers in Houston needing a way to differentiate between the two spacecraft.

Between 1969 and 1972, Grumman produced a series of insignias for their Lunar Modules which were distributed in limited quantities to their employees in the form of decals and prints.

Apollo 5 (LM-1): none

Apollo 3 (and later 2) (LM-2): Never used, intended for a mission similar to Apollo 5. The success of LM-1 led to the cancellation.

Apollo 9 (LM-3): Spider

Apollo 10 (LM-4): Snoopy. The LM ascent stage in heliocentric orbit and is the only known one to have survived intact

Apollo 11 (LM-5): Eagle (originally named haystack)

Apollo 12 (LM-6): Intrepid

Apollo 13 (LM-7): Aquarius

Humorously, Grumman sent North American (the manufacturer of the Apollo Command and Service Module) a tow bill sometime after the crew returned. North American retorted back saying they've never sent them a tow bill for the previous missions.

Apollo 14 (LM-8): Antares.

Apollo 15 (originally) (LM-9): never used, on display the Kennedy Space Center.

Intended for Apollo 15 and was the last H-type mission. When Apollo 18 was cancelled, it was decided to make Apollo 15 the first J-type mission.

Apollo 15 (LM-10): Falcon, originally intended for Apollo 16. First of the extended stay series.

Apollo 16 (LM-11): Orion, originally intended for Apollo 17

Apollo 17 (LM-12): Challenger, originally intended for Apollo 18.

Note: this name was reused for the second operational Space Shuttle Orbiter. After the Challenger Disaster, NASA officially retired the name.

Apollo 18 (LM-13): never used, originally intended for 19. It was partially completed when Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled. Later restored by Grumman workers and is on display at the Cradle of Aviation History and Education Center.

Apollo 19 (LM-14): never used, originally intended for Apollo 20. It was partially completed when Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled. What was completed, was later scrapped.

Apollo 20 (LM-15): never used, partially completed, scrapped. When Apollo 20 was cancelled, it was intended for modification into the Apollo Telescope Mount. Later the Telescope Mount was integrated into Skylab and this dedicated mission was cancelled.

source, source, source, source, source

NASA ID: MSFC-69-MS-G-1300-27, S67-50927, AS09-21-3183, AS10-34-5087, AS11-40-5946, AS12-46-6726, AS13-59-8566, AS14-66-9306, AS15-88-11866, AS16-113-18339, AS17-140-21370

[windsorcorporateservice]

Every entrepreneur’s journey is unique, so we’ve designed this guide to cater to your needs. Whether you’re a first-time business owner or a seasoned entrepreneur, our guide will provide valuable insights into the legal and financial aspects of forming a corporation in New York. So, buckle up and prepare to embark on this exciting journey with us. We’ll cover everything from selecting a business name to filing your Articles of Incorporation to obtaining necessary licenses and permits. 

Know More: https://windsorcorporateservices.com/from-idea-to-incorporation-an-ultimate-guide-to-forming-a-corporation-in-new-york/

[almostarts]

Gaetano Pesce (8 November 1939 – 3 April 2024)

Moving against the stream of rational, functional modernism in the 1960s and early 70s, Mr. Pesce experimented with materials and production methods to create furniture pieces imbued with political or religious meaning for brands from Cassina to B&B Italia.

Many would go on to become icons of Italian design including the Up5 chair – an innovative vacuum-packed chair designed to resemble a female prisoner – which he designed for B&B Italia precursor C&B.

Pesce moved to New York in 1983 and began to move away from mass production to create "standardised series" in everyday materials like resin, adapting conventional production techniques to create varied and imperfect outcomes.

The result are pieces such as the 1884 Pratt chair, which toe the line between functional design and decorative art, helping to create a new category that would later become collectible design.

Mr. Pesce was born in the Italian city of La Spezia in November 1939, only two months after the start of world war two.

As was common at the time, he trained in both architecture and design, studying first at the University of Venice and later at the Venice Institute of Industrial Design.

Among his architecture projects is the Organic Building in Osaka from 1993, with its plant-covered facade made of orange fiberglass that served as a precursor to today's vegetation-covered green walls.

But Mr. Pesce's most pioneering and well-known work happened in the world of design. In the late 1960s, he became one of the leaders of Italy's Radical Design movement, rejecting modernism's rigid focus on forms dictated by function.

Instead, Pesce focused on the idea that functional objects, much like art, could carry a deeper message.

One of the most famous examples is the controversial Up5 chair from 1969, which manufacturer B&B Italia describes as "the first product of Italian design with a political meaning".

Rest In Power !

"Up 5 & 6" Dressed Up Chair & Ottoman, 1969 – 2014, Polyurethane foam, fabric, Height: 40.5 in (102.87 cm)Width: 47 in (119.38 cm)Depth: 51 in (129.54 cm)Seat Height: 16 in (40.64 cm),

“Square Airport Lamp” (1986/1994). Photography by Elizabeth Carababas/The Future Perfect. Light sculpture consisting of a flexible rubber membrane studded with small light bulbs. Although made from a mold, no two lamps are alike, due to the imperfections that arise from the hand-mixing and pouring of colored urethane. H 92 - W 65 Cm,

"Feltri" Armchair for Cassina, 1980 -1989, Felt, Fabric, Resin, Width: 156 cm, Depth: 80 cm, Height: 129 cm, Seat height:42 cm, Courtesy: Oldera,

"Pratt Chair #7," 1984 2018 (purple), 2018, Transparent polyurethane, :93 x 53 x 53 cm. (36.6 x 20.9 x 20.9 in.),

"The Cabinet of The Tired Man," 2018, Photo: Courtesy of Salon 94 Design and Gaetano Pesce,

"Tramonto a New York" three-door screen, for Cassina, Made of coloured resin, hinges and feet in burnished brass, Width: 221, Height: 199,

"Organic" Building, Osaka, Japan, Completed in 1993 to embody the corporate ideal of Oguraya Yamamoto Co., Ltd,

"La In-Portante" Modular Bookshelf from the "Abbraccio" Series, 2010. Comprising 57 adjustable polyurethane resin shelves. Produced by Le Fablier, Italy. Polyurethane resin, painted wood, lacquered metal, 86½ x 118¾ x 16⅞ in. (219.7 x 301.6 x 42.6 cm) Courtesy of Sotheby's,

La Michetta Modular Sofa,Compostion of 8 by Meritalia, Structure in Lacquered Wood Seat with Elastic Belts, Flexible Polyurethane & Fiberfill Padding, Dimensions: W370 x D245cm,

Unique 'Ireland' table, Made of polyurethane and metal. The table was made and exhibited in 1996 by Gallery Mourmans, Knokke-Zoute, Belgium. It was part of a series of 'EU tables', where all 15 member countries were represented as a table, in this case Ireland. The top of the table has the shape of the outlines of the country and it stands on legs in the shape of question marks. W.80.71 in;H.28.74 in;D.57.09 in; (W.205 cm;H.73 cm;D.145 cm), Courtesy: Incollect.

[manorpunk]

3️⃣

History only makes sense in retrospect. 

Take, for example, the decade-long period of the French Revolution, or the decades between World War I and World War II. A decade is like a blip to the casual historian, a mere moment, so short it was nearly one-dimensional, like a line separating the before from the after. Those who lived through it, however, must have spent years wondering each morning whether their current government and/or life would still exist by lunchtime, and even when the dust finally settles, that’s not really a feeling that one can easily forget. People can only draw neat, dispassionate little lines around such events when they no longer live in its shadow, and the shadow of the Polycrisis still loomed menacingly over the American League.

There were some who were eager to move on, who would say that progress is always disruptive - the old must be dismantled to make way for the new. Others would say that it was one thing to have a controlled demolition, and an entirely separate thing to wake up one day to find that your electricity and plumbing were no longer working, and the government was not going to help you because its existence was tenuous at best, and all of the sub-contracted third-party subsidiaries who actually did the work of repairing power grids refused to take responsibility with your piddly little suburb because they were too busy trying to keep the lights on in places that ‘actually mattered.’ 

The causes of the Polycrisis were many and varied, hence the name, but a certain pattern had emerged in retrospect - climate change caused natural disasters, natural disasters destroyed infrastructure, destroyed infrastructure caused economic collapse, economic collapse caused political collapse. Casual historians might note how that pattern echoed the fall of most empires going back to the fall of Rome. But it was never supposed to happen to America. The blessed antipodes were not supposed to be like everywhere else. They were supposed to be where the lights always stayed on. Always.

Well, sometimes.

As the US federal government shrank, retreated, and finally collapsed, new states sprang up soon after. New England, Tidewater, and the Free Imperial New York drew their lines along the east coast; Cascadia created itself and formed a personal union with the Californian Commonwealth on the west coast after the Jefferson Rebellion was put down; and the Texaplex Megapole asserted its authority over Texas and neighboring states promising protection against Norteño incursions. The Great Lakes Republic formed shortly and reluctantly afterwards, becoming a sprawling Germany-esque collection of mid-sized cities jockeying against one another.

The rest of America, its vast and abandoned plains, its hollowed-out mountains and sinking coasts, became ‘the manors,’ places where power had devolved down to the newest class of rural gentry: fast food franchisees, car dealerships, beverage distributors, and the like. They were small-business tyrants and petite-bourgeoise corporate middlemen who had spent their lives wishing for the government to hurry up and collapse already so that they could live out their fantasies of being petty kings, bandit chiefs, and lords of the manor (hence the name). They would not give up their fantasies without a bitter and bloody fight.

Also, Orlando had become the microstate of Disneystadt, the Founderist equivalent of Vatican City.

Also, the western side of Appalachia was now a khaganate.

Perhaps one day people would see it as something like the French Revolution or interwar period, as a goofy but brief period of liminal turmoil wedged between two separate worlds. Here is how some of her contemporaries saw it:

“They elected fucking Spongebob president,” said Cornelius Mammon, the pale and wraithlike governor of New England, seated at one end of a long semicircular table, lined with chairs along its curve, all facing a gigantic wall-mounted screen on the far end of the room. ‘Old money’ seemed inadequate to describe the austere and sunken appearance of Cornelius; he was more like undead money. 

On the one hand, New England was populous, urbanized, relatively geographically sensible, united by a distinct and storied culture, and had been poised to shrug off the Polycrisis and carry on as normal. On the other hand, Boston and Philadelphia.

“Here I thought things were going to get back to normal,” Cornelius continued hoarily, “and now she’s going to rename the White House to ‘the Fun Zone.’ This is why democracy was a mistake.”

“Normal?” Young Oldman, governor of the Tidewater region, scoffed. He had a calculated plain appearance, revealing little about himself. Even his skin was a beige ‘off-white’ color that made people guess whether he was biracial or Middle Eastern or just a white guy with a tan. Ruling over the former head of the imperial American government and its intelligence apparatus, Young had learned to play it so close to the vest you’d need a seam ripper to get any answers out of him. He always kept his mouth shut.

Well, sometimes.

“Would that Sunny were some unwelcome intrusion of oddness into an otherwise august body. Have you seen the other nut bars we’ve been packed in here with?” Young jabbed a thumb at his neighbor, Vinny Vidivici, mayor of Free Imperial New York, who looked like a clogged shower drain that had gained sentience and put on a suit.

“You folks ever been to New York? We exchange money for goods and services there. Greatest fuckin city in the world baby,” Vinny said.

Young nodded and silently daydreamed about hunting him for sport.

“Personally, I think Sunny is just some GLN cabalist with a voice modulator,” said Johann van Gekkehuis, the pasty, gravelly-voiced, flannel-wearing governor of the Great Lakes Republic, with a bushy copper beard and a receding hairline, “have you ever seen her and Harold in the same room?”

“Yes,” said Young. Just because he played it close to the vest didn’t mean he couldn’t mess with people, and Johann was easy to mess with.

Johann had made his bones as a podcaster and had a natural talent for disguising all manner of conspiracy theories and ostensibly playful bigotry as good old-fashioned hard-nosed socialism. But being a conspiracy theorist wasn’t fun anymore. There was no point. The globalist puppet-masters didn’t hide in shadowy backrooms. They had HR departments, they had newsletters, they sent spam emails demonstrating the ways they controlled and surveilled every moment of your life, and that was so much more demoralizing than keeping it secret.

Behind Johann paced a meticulously handsome black man in a crisp navy blue suit, his eyes hidden behind a large pair of shades. He nodded to himself as he walked and talked into his headset. He was Michael McCoy, governor of the Piedmont region. Piedmont, encompassing the eastern half of Georgia and the Carolinas, was one of the newer states, and its constituents had carried the extra burden of rebuilding and reorienting themselves after the race war. They finished what the Northerners had started and then abandoned, two hundred years ago almost exactly, Northerners who decided they would let millions of black people linger as third-class citizens rather than hang even a few openly seditious gentlemen. But not Michael McCoy. Enough with being respectable, enough with being nonviolent, enough with taking the high road. Michael McCoy wanted blood.

That was a lie - Michael McCoy was an agricultural manager who rose to prominence shortly after the bloodshed had ended thanks to a series of excellent ad campaigns and his public image as a squeaky-clean family man. He simply enjoyed a victory lap as much as the next guy. And maybe wanted a little blood.

“Listen,” Michael said into his headpiece, “I’m not saying we need the change to be permanent. I just want it to be called ‘N[redacted]land’ for like a couple hours, then it can go back to being Piedmont. We don’t even have to tell anyone else about it.”

(Certain words have been redacted in the interest of not saying them. If you wish to see racial slurs, they can be unlocked by submitting proof of relevant ancestry to your local department of reclamation).

He listened through his earpiece, then scowled. “Why? I’ll tell you why - because then Sunny would have to say it on camera, and that would be fucking hilarious. See? You laughed, you get it. You want to know what would happen. It’s - listen, just - yeah - no - if - alright, alright, fine,” he sighed, “no name change. It’s staying as Piedmont. Y’all pussies.”

The atmosphere of general grumbling was interrupted by a choir of air horns blaring the opening bars to the Star Spangled Banner. The massive screen at the far end of the room turned itself on, revealing a towering Sunny Roosevelt with a long red dress and a thin, fuming smile.

“Hi! Wow. I heard all of that,” she said.

Michael McCoy took off his headset and looked up. “Miss Roosevelt, I have an urgent request-“

“No. Let’s get a few things straight here-” Sunny began.

“No, let’s you get something straight,” Cornelius fumed, jabbing a bony finger at her and half-standing up, “you have no power over us. You’re a fucking mascot, and we are the directors of-”

“Michael, slap him,” Sunny said.

Michael turned, grinned, and dutifully slapped Cornelius across the face in one smooth unhesitating motion. Cornelius was stunned into silence, looking between the two of them, not sure who to fume at. Young bit back a smile. Sunny pounced on the momentary silence.

“Okay, thing one - people actually like mascots. They do not like a bunch of rich old ghouls who are three minutes away from eating each other alive. Thing two - I’m so much more than a mascot. I’m a widely-beloved celebrity with millions of psycho-sexually obsessed followers hanging on my every word. So, what do you think that means for the next person who pisses me off?”

Nobody said a word, but as they pondered the threat of a weaponized legion of John Hinckleys, there was the sound of several sphincters involuntarily clenching (for the curious, it sounded a little like jumping on a rubber mat).

“That’s what I thought. You see this?” Sunny pointed at her own face, “this is Angry Sunny. You get Angry Sunny because you weren’t niceys to me. If you are niceys to me, you get Happy Sunny, and you want Happy Sunny. Happy Sunny will get you re-elected. Angry Sunny will kill you. Am I understood?”

There was a nervous, shifting silence as the east coast branch of Neo-Congress began to digest their new situation, except for Michael, who was hoping he would get to slap someone again.

“Am I understood?” she barked.

There were guilty, mumbled agreements. That would have to do for now. Sunny snapped her fingers. Her red dress became shorter and frillier. A blue collar lined with white stars appeared on her shoulders. Even the lines of her face became softer and more youthful. Happy Sunny clasped her hands together and smiled radiantly.

“That’s great! I’m so glad we got that little whoopsie-doodle figured out, and I’m sure it won’t happen again. I’m looking forward to working with all of you towards our common goal of making America… well, extant again.” 

[joltning]

@fishfingersalad it’s almost 2am but i can’t sleep and ts probably only going to be seen by like 5 people anyway so let it rip

this au started out as a self indulgent pocket sized au that I ignore as all my aus do…..then I couldn’t sleep and started imagining things im good at that. it started as an au I could do ship focus on and well I love lore I guess. despite all this the main story still focuses on my blorbos. maybe I will make a storyline for the main cast, if I can imagine things again

one day, all across (abridged) America (this is why I made that carolina/puerto rico/dc post btw), 50 children, each for 1 state, pop up at the same time, with varying ages, mostly tween years but with some variation up and down. while some are humanoid creatures, others are completely monstrous and lack sentience. however, they all share one common factor: a tag identifying what state they came from. The majority of the sentient ones assume this is their name, and that’s why they run with it.

conspiracy theorists and cryptid fans nationwide take notice of a bunch of shit happening overnight and develop “The 50” list. depending on if it’s commonly agreed upon what monster you are and if it’s commonly agreed upon what state you’re from, you’ll be ranked higher or lower on the list, with, of course, the highest ranking being the most sought after and hidden. Most of the higher tiered creatures are humanoid; it’s easier to blend in if you don’t look out of place

i forgot to mention Btw it’s like. myths and legends and shit too. i mentioned york being the pied Piper I also think the implication that the pied Piper is a monster is funny. also only one monster per person and

ofc my blorbos…….Everyone run now!!!! Ohio has just moved to a new city yay go girl But her coworkers are fucked up!!! There’s this bitch Sherry that she may or may not have a crush on and like her two little friends who absolutely know that. but Watch out there’s a freaky green man It’s Georgia her old friend Georgia. they were their first freelancer friends but geo Loves making deals for souls slash servitude slash their power slash take over the world slash he doesn’t know what souls are and neither do I. but they gotta be normal and not fight in the office.!!! And fight outside of a Walmart at 2 instead. he’s kinda bad at it though which is why only Ohio cares.

anywya Sherry keeps running into Ohio and Georgia fighting and you know Ohio’s kind of like. well if you see her when she’s not masking you’ll probably go insane huh. so Ohio has to keep wiping her memories and Sherry’s getting CRAZY deja vu.

this is so stressful Good thing Ohio’s got her trusty friends Iowa and Idaho!!! They’re causing chaos somewhere else but she’s always texting them and video chatting. hopefully they can meet up again soon!!

Utah is a paranormal investigator and currently georgia’s only the only person who’s currently made a deal with him. he’s made past deals but Ohio scared them off by ‘Do Not Be Afraid’ing them. it’s either that or they have to get killed lest the green fuck get too powerful and Ohio would rather not do that thanks. utah doesn’t even get anything in return he just wants to know wtf is going on tbh. Georgia stays at his apartment because he’s a squatter I guess

well That’s too bad I guess I can’t share any more because they’re just plotpoints. hey do you wanna know what the other freelancers are

Ohio: Angel (duh. So low because when she spawned she was literally in the middle of a bunch of people and blinded them with her corporeal form)

Georgia: Demon (the devil but literally this time. manages to be a little higher due to being able to teleport short distances. Stayed a little too close to home base, though.)

Iowa: Harpy (kept flying in the air like a dumbass everyone fucking saw him. denialists claim it to be a big bird. and they’re right.)

Idaho: Werewolf (he didn’t know until a full moon came out. oops.)

Carolina: Siren (keeps the bad singing voice.)

York: pied piper….

Wash: Shapeshifter

Florida: Alien (when he came on the fated day he rode in on a meteor instead of plopping in, breaking off the state from the rest of the US. its highly debated on whether or not the meteor itself was the creature.)

Maine: Bigfoot (but he shaves his whole body every day so he just looks like a big guy)

Connie: Kitsune

Wyoming: Fairy (despite being obvious, no one fuckinh lives in wyoming so he just flew far away immediately. fucks up the rankings of others by being spotted far away from his state.)

North: The Sandman (Both spawned across from eachother at the 2 state’s borders. They immediately declared eachother twins.)

South: Mare/Dream Eater (Their high ranking is very dependent on the confusion on which twin is which, since they work together to sleep and then feast.)

Tex: Ghost

you may see here I did not include Utah Did I forget No No No (kinda) I have an idea for what he is but i don’t intent to reveal it ever really. idk how id incorporate that. jsut know I searched really hard to find a creature that wasn’t a ghost that disrupted electromagnetic fields so that every time he went ghost hunting the machines would go off causing him to assert there was a ghost there. but no alas I did not find that

ok tahts it I think. for now. maybe. if you have any ideas for this background fucks wise or rnbs wise I would like them. for meThanks goodnight im gonna pass blout Out Out

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:

Tax filings obtained by the Guardian show how the rightwing dark money impresario Leonard Leo helped fuel the Bud Light boycott in response to ads featuring the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, an effort that generated threats against Mulvaney, violence against consumers and layoffs by Anheuser-Busch. Uncovered by the watchdog group Accountable.US, the filings for 2022 show the Concord Fund, a group linked to Leo, gave $350,000 to Consumers Defense, an arm of Consumers’ Research, not long before that group played a central role in the Bud Light boycott. Leo is a Catholic conservative activist widely known as the force behind the Federalist Society, which has helped transform the US courts system, ultimately through the installation of three hardline justices on the supreme court that has handed down epochal rulings on abortion rights, presidential immunity and more.

But Leo’s fundraising work ranges wider. Consumers’ Research was formed in 1929 to champion consumers’ rights, but went largely dormant before being revived as a rightwing watchdog. It now claims to lead “the fight against ESG”, or environmental, social and governance policies, in corporate America. It issues “woke alerts” concerning companies it deems to be “putting progressive activists and their dangerous agendas ahead of customers”. Links between Leo and Consumers’ Research are known but have not been directly confirmed. In 2021, Marble Freedom Trust, a non-profit controlled by Leo, received a record $1.6bn donation from Barre Seid, a Chicago billionaire.

That year and in 2022, Consumers’ Research enjoyed huge funding boosts when it received nearly $15m from Donors Trust. That group, linked to Leo, calls itself a “principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors”. It has also been called the “dark-money ATM of the right”. The New York Times and Bloomberg previously linked Leo to the sudden funding influx to Consumers’ Research. Leo did not comment.

Consumers’ Research is also known to be a client of CRC Advisors, Leo’s for-profit firm. The tax filings obtained by the Guardian show another direct link.

[...] In spring 2023, Anheuser-Busch paid such a price. It began with a video featuring Mulvaney, a trans influencer. “Happy March Madness!!” she wrote. “Just found out this had to do with sports and not just saying it’s a crazy month! In celebration of this sports thing @budlight is giving you the chance to win $15,000! Share a video with #EasyCarryContest for a chance to win!! Good luck! #budlightpartner.” It seemed innocuous, but rightwing anger, primed by culture-wars battles over trans imagery in business and education, fueled calls for a boycott.

The Guardian has a report out that right-wing dark money influencer Leonard Leo helped fuel funding for the Bud Light boycott.