#I am getting salvos of emails though

[yhrite]

I've been in my new job almost two weeks and I haven't once had to answer a phone. The key to happiness really is not having to deal with the general public huh

[curious-minx]

Heat Lamp vol. [i]

A how-to guide on harnessing the very best light for your under-lit overly priced hovel! In Style!

“Lighting is everything, you goon!” spits Magda Marlene, and, of course, she’s absolutely correct.

“Don’t call me a goon, Magda! I’m trying my best. Have you ever tried shopping around for the best possible lights? Of course not. The challenge of conceiving of wattage and luminosity in the abstract blue light tech etching our basic human retinas will never compete with the likes of you. “ Elroy wipes away the trail of verbiage slipping down his prominent jawline. He attempts to grab at Magda to make her take him seriously, but it was impossible, because after all she is enshrouded in light. She is the kind of bruising overwhelming beauty that is perpetually well lit. Magda has endured a panorama of over stuffed suits of testosterone tossing off a clip of one-liners about her “lighting up a room,” because she had already brightened her entire surrounding vicinity. Light seeping out as far as several stories above and below whatever apartment is lucky enough to grace her presence. You had to alert your local neighboring Vampire’s of someone like Magda coming around. To forget would be akin to a hate crime.��

“I do take pity on you sallow beef man. You are close, so close I can nearly taste your success, but this lack of suitable lighting! This will  be your ruin. That’s what all the Entertainment and Arts are all about-,”

“Yes, the lighting! The wonderful bright, but not too bright lighting. I know Magda. Ugh! I much prefer if we go back to when you would stick to sending me laymen articles on the anatomy of human eyeballs and the latest breakthroughs in light-based therapy, but now all I hear is your dogmatic barking.” 

“You sure do talk a lot for a layman. Why did you want to touch me? Don’t tell me you’re starved for human contact!” 

“Of course not! Don’t be foolish! You know I’m not attracted to you. It’s the only reason why you even bother gracing me with your infernal light. Why won’t you sell some of your light source already?”

“Oh no no no, not this this again. I will have no further discussion about the selling off of my light.” 

“You won’t share your light, you won’t sell your light, but all I ever hear you go on and on about is the importance of light! Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish?” Elroy tries sizing Magda up and all around with his big soulful hazel  brown dopey puppy dog eyes. 

“What is this, ‘on and on’ slander? That’s a complete and total falsity! I barely even talk to you! You asked me to come over and help you pick out a new light. Yet here you stand insulting me and everything I represent. I knew all men were trash! I really wanted a reciprocal  easy going friendship receptacle. Like the ones you see on flashy American sitcoms, but no! Instead you reek of man boy desperation. You are not Easy Elroy, nor are you sleazy enough to warrant a pass. Good day!” And with that Magda leaves Elroy in his room. A room that is painted a banana baby sick off-scrambled eggs shade of yellow that made Elroy think of himself as a “warmed over Simpson” whenever he looks at himself with his overhead lights on. Magda leaves him behind so that she can go attend a life devoid of preening men devoid of any elevated levels of cognitive stimulus. Magda had a strong feeling deep inside that being eaten out by Elroy would feel either like the confectionary sugar clinging to a beater or a cow pondering the universe with a cud.  Magda has bigger prospects to attend such as the purchasing of a new Ultrasonic Television, a television for people too interesting to own a regular television. Now this is a process more grueling than picking out some sort of pathetic LED lights set out to emphasize poor life choices. 

Magda’s candles burn ferociously for the scented perfume wick of her occasional beaux Hillary. Oh sweet sister Hillary.  Magda flips a dizzy spell as she gets behind the wheel of her space craft. In the driver’s seat she grabs and teases pinching caresses onto her sides, hands running underneath her shirt and imagines Hillary’s hazy visage.  Magda turns on The Quick’s Mondo Deco, the album is lodged into the fourth track already, “Hillary.” The porto-phrenetic ASMR zipper crunch! The perfect symmetry of a song making sense for the right woman in the right space and time. Magda wishes she could be some special somebody’s Kim Fowley. She knew she has the making of a Valkyrie companion. Mostly a bottom, but occasionally there’s a switch…a candy striped hypnosis stick being cradled in Magda’s hand turns her space craft into autopilot. The space craft assumes a sensible soaring speed, sharing the sky with all the other avians and sky ships. Magda lands onto the fetid grassless knoll where she finds the manor of Scent Maven Monique. A west coast equivalent of a Hobbit Hole in the Hills. Except instead of a 5,7” English gentleman it is a 5,7” Black American bohemian scientist woman. Magda lights up one of Monique’s Pixie Stix a jolt of nicotine, THC, estrogen, nootropicals, and most importantly caffeine. Cigarettes that don’t make you smell like cigarettes, that don’t make you smell like anything, but a hint, a wink, a whisper, and a prayer of exotic bubblegum. 

A Vaping Assassin is prowling on her rooftop. Antonia, The Daycrawler, of course. A woman so intimidating in strength and beauty that all law officers around the country worship at her talon toes. Lines of swat teams, cops, and military official personally see fit the they get their asses beaten by Antonia’s hand each and every year at The National Cop Christmas Party. Monique is constantly alienating, offending and inspiring everyone she works with, but they usually only send soft assassins like Soy Hands Flannigan or the Detangler. Magda believes that this must be the opening salvo of a new killer regime. 

“Quit your daydreaming Magda Marlene! Are you really about to let me red rover your special number one gal? I am dropping through the ceiling now! Catch ya later!” Antonia is always narrating her actions to her blind brother Donovan who makes glass sculptures for an assassin’s memento. Some assassins keep locks of hair, some assassins keep emails, some assassins bond and indulge their impotent’s brother pop art. The giant blocky neon green rotary telephone with each notch designed with a mysterious suggestion of a dreary person. A lot of guilt trips about being sent to  mental institutions and the occasional rainbow clamshell birth control pill case. All glass blown by the Daycrawler’s blind and naive brother. Monique doesn’t stand a chance! 

“Oh no,” mouths Magda. She’s going to be vaporized by that tall Nordic pillar of mayhem. Quentin Tarantino might as well be hanging himself up here on Monique’s roof turning himself into the human satellite, beaming this impeding cyclone of beautiful woman on beautiful woman violence for all of his cronies to see. “Not today,” mouths Magda. With a flick of her wrist, bracelets of light begin forming and overlapping. Discs of light coursing up and down Magda’s forearm. Magda then hides her arms underneath her long and flowing cherry blossom trench coat. Magda’s light does not instantly light up the rest of Monique’s abode. Antonia is hiding her frustration and she looks around Monique’s mostly spacious and poorly lit living quarters. Seeing only a completely stainless steel coated mini-kitchen and a chest level table top. No chairs. No other furniture or trace of personality. Magda hopes that this cat and mouse game will grow less cheesy and the Daycrawler will soon leave irate and hungry. 

“Aha! You got me good Light Bright. Of course you knew she wasn’t here and distracted me. For such good work I will personally see to killing you myself. I haven’t murdered anyone in over twelve hours. Do you know how rusty an assassin can get in that time? First, I must take a shower. Surely this lab rat has some sort of hose or bucket and pulley system to wash herself?”Antonia begins sizing up the space, trying to squint a bathroom into existence. 

“I believe her bathroom is right next the front door. You must have accidentally passed in when you were getting yourself worked up into this bloodlust.” Magda suddenly feels completely at ease. Yes, she could easily blind and frankly obliterate this toned and blonde killing machine. Doesn’t matter though, because Magda realizes that she has this whole ordeal in her pocket and it’s only a matter of Antonia getting into that shower. Magda goes to raise her fist in conquest but then meets resistance. Antonia’s silent rope snakes! They are giving Magda the world’s most cold blooded group hug. Magda knows she must submit to the plan. She grimaces feeling the ridges of her teeth and wait to unleash her light show. 

////

Antonia has been in the shower for over and hour and half. Magda is only now starting to bruise because the rope snakes have grown lethargic and weak ever since the water started. The rope snakes are clinging on to Magda out of obligation and lethargy. The water stops and a shrill elongated sigh is heard from the bathroom. Antonia, the Daycrawler, emerges from heavy plump clouds of perfumed steam. Magda thinks she can detect a hint of Ceylon Cinnamon and gun smoke, but you can never tell with Monique and her smells. Antonia is a lot drier than you would expect for someone who has ostensibly been bathing for the past two hours and she is wearing an oversized clumsy kimono with her hair wrapped up in a towel. 

“Alright, where is she?” Antonia asks in a voice that is almost saccharine and faint. 

“She’s clearly not here. Let’s revisit the fact that you were going to behead me as a house warming gift. How about instead you rob me of one of my kidneys? They are oozing with glow-stick fluid, but they never stop glowing! Please don’t kill me!” Magda says fully aware that Antonia is not going to kill, at least not while she’s so fresh out of the shower. 

“That’s what I need to talk to her about. I suddenly no longer have my urge to kill! Not you, you, or anyone else ever again!”says Antonia breathless like she is hearing her voice for the first time.

“I thought you were killing out of profession?”

Antonia crouches down and is almost blushing as she asks, “Why are you still on the floor like that? Can’t you not fry us up some rope snake snacks? Or wait! Are you like me and need the sunlight to fully operate?” Antonia begins opening up every window and even trying to create new windows in Monique’s house to let the light in. 

“Fine! I’ll do it! You made me do it!” Magda unleashes her light that sets off as a retina unfriendly supernova. The light charged specifically around her arms were even still lit up and racing to be shot off as blades of light into the nearest surface. 

“See? That’s wasn’t so bad! Why do you get so…so conservative about using your light whenever you’re around me?”

“I don’t want to end up blinding or hurting anyone.” Magda says still on the ground facing onto Monique’s steel plated sterile floors. 

“Even someone who was moments ago trying to kill your friend and you for the thrill of murder?”

“Your an easy target Daycrawler,” Magda gathers herself back up into a standing stance,” You are exactly the type that would change your mind if given half a chance. I still feel like you could plunge your famous ribbon blade into my personal generator… ” Magda trails off realizing that Antonia is no longer listening to her. She is still running her reformed(?) killer’s hands through her honey flaxen unwieldy tower of hair that only a towering murderess could support. 

“That shampoo it’s, it’s going to help a lot of people. I’m waiting to see the catch. Like with her cancer-free candy cigarettes they’re too good to be true, right?”Antonia takes in another long inhalation of her own hair and takes one lock and flecks her tongue only at the tip of the follicle. The one blank wall inside Monique’s apartment spins around revealing Monique on the other side who steps up and says without missing a beat:

“They’re called Pixie Stix!” Monique fully emerges from her illusion wall hiding the hint of a laboratory.  She lights up a Pixie stick of her own which begins flooding the spartan space. Who needs furniture when you bask in a smell this sweet? Magda lets her guard down and lights up the rest of the space turning the formerly drab and empty hovel into a chic and spacious boutique. “Lighting!” Continues Monique, “With the right lights and an overwhelming pungent odor reveals the path to an enveloping inner peace. No matter how small or unfashionable your home or hovel happens to be there could possibly be an outlet for a chosen few people that the three of us could use to build our own society or something?” Monique turns on music by malodorous mall core cyborg nu metal pop band called Neon Betty Degenerates. Antonia goes over to Monique and gently forces Monique’s bangled and gloved clammy hand into a boisterous hand shake. A Kashmir blossom shaped pin attached to Monique’s vegan leather newsboy cap opens up and contracts. The blossom is spraying out a mist invisible to the human eyes, directed into Antonia’s face. Antonia then immediately releases Monique and she turns away from the gangly scientist, she unravels the towel from her hair and starts sprinting outside of Monique’s house. Antonia begins climbing up the lone ancient hundreds of feet tall redwood tree watching over Monique’s property. Antonia climbs up to the tree in record time, she is nothing but a blur of momentum and rustling branches. Antonia, the Daycrawler, jumps out into the sky with the grace of a flying squirrel leaving her nest, and she’s reached enough height so that she can use the heel of her shoe to write, “I’m sorry! <3 I will work on respecting your personal space” in a cloud-based font. 

Magda turns to Monique who has completely flipped open her furtive laboratory, revealing the glow of scent analysis technology calling out to Magda begging her to crank up the wattage. Before submerging back into her lab, Monique turns to Magda and tells her, “Antonia is seemingly the only person my Perfumed Personality is working on. Do you think that will be enough?” Monique directs this question more to the ether than to anyone in particular. 

“Looks like it’s really working on her though. Oh right, before you leave. I am going through this really tough crush on someone and was hoping that you’d have some-“ Magda stops talking. Monique enters her lab leaving Magda behind in the empty kitchen and the lingering vapors of the ethical strawberry and lavender pacifist shampoo. Magda knows that she probably won’t see Monique emerge back out from her work for another two weeks at the latest. Magda shivers and steps outside and all of her pent up light energy continues bursting forth from her navel, banners of light shooting from her forehead, spotlights dancing out of each of her fingertips. Magda’s light even causes the clouds that Antonia used as calligraphy to break into a sweat. The extreme daylight and the small patch of rain causes a family of foxes to burst forth from out of the ground and carry on a quick and sweet wedding. Magda climbs on top of a dune and watches the wedding ceremony from afar. She remembers Hillary and groans, a sticky and somber sound. Magda has her revery broken by the sound of a voice calling from below the dune.

“cOuld yOu pleeze take Our picha, lamp lady? Da lurvely cOupa wOuld be sO grateful!!” The source of the voice is coming from an approaching silver fox who has a slight wobble in his gait. Magda looks at the silver fox further and notices that he also has two plastic and springy legs. Magda not wanting to seem judgmental, sighs and takes the fox’s hefty Kodiak bridge cam and without even taking time to focus the lens takes the picture. The newly wedded couple and the silver fox open up the camera’s finder and look at the results and start panting in approval. They have never seen themselves look so well lit before. 

“Daddy! You must pay this kind lady Beacon mucho ancient coins! I’ve never looked this good!” Magda smiles and shakes her head and puts her hands into her pockets, leaving the foxes behind. She readjusts her trench coat and puts on a large wide-brimmed blackout hat she keeps in a box shaped fanny pack. Even while wearing her light suppression accessories each and every passing streetlamp emits a powerful sphere of light that dims with each of Magda’s passing step. Most of the houses in Magda’s neighborhood are heavily tranquilized and sleeping in deprivation tanks so the dramatic light fluctuations don’t bother most. One overhead apartment pulls back its drapes and an angry shirtless and chiseled man has taken out a mirror and trying to reflect the light back down at the street. The power of the light’s heat creates another pothole into the road, which causes the man to start swearing and yelling incoherently. Magda kneels down onto the empty sidewalk and rubs her palms together causing the street lights to dim back down to their normal level. Magda’s face looks pale and she begins moving at a slower pace.

“Damn…I’m so close. Being mindful of so many people really sucks. I think I’m going to lie down in this pile of moss and maybe I’ll wake up back in my bed.” Magda hums a lullaby to herself and begins folding herself into a ball of fading light. Magda is blacking out.

///

She opens up her eyes as soon as she registers motion. Magda is being carried in somebody’s arms! Magda almost cranks up her internal light furnace but then she smells the tangy coconut cologne of Elroy. 

“What did I tell you about picking up tramps?” Asks Magda with a yawn. “Put me down you goon!” Elroy immediately does so and gives Magda her space.

“Of course, I’m sorry Magda. I was out scouting shoot locations for a new headshot this week and saw your abandoned space craft on the side of road. Knowing you as well as I do I had a feeling that you were probably enjoying one of your unnecessary sojourns. Thankfully you left it in one of the bougiest possible neighborhoods so I think you’ll be fine with picking it up tomorrow. I’ll leave you be. Clearly you are wanting some time alone.” Elroy brushes off a twig out of Magda’s hair and starts walking back into his own shabbier Electric Hover Desert Rabbit.  

“Any luck with your lamp search?”asks Magda causing Elroy to stop in his tracks and turn around revealing an excitable grin.

“I found this Ponce de Leon Torchier that promises to age and de-age me based on what kind of bulb I put into it. There’s  this audition for a movie about a man breastfeeding his own child I got. The role comprises of both the child and the father, it’s a student film but the kid directing is supposed to have a real stash of connections.” Chatters Elroy, clearly trying to regain a sense of joviality between him and Magda. 

“I have actually never really bothered playing with light in that way before. How are you so good at online shopping? And here I was about to actually consider giving you a droplet of my very own light” sneers Magda as she enters through the lamp shaded gate of her parent’s compound. 

“What?! Really! Wait Magda I’ll gladly take some of your light off of your hands! Come on, come back!” Magda leaves Elroy behind once again and a roving street sweeper pushes him up the current of streaming sidewalk leading deeper into the Energy District. He calls out to Magda yelling her name as he’s being street swept away. Magda turns copper green with regret with even toying around with the idea of sharing any amount of light. Especially with a total goon like Elroy! The family leopard spotted moth, Sapphire, comes whooshing up to Magda giving her a silky kiss. Magda grins and brushes the silk away from her face and picks up a floating torch, lights it with her finger and tosses it as far as she can throw, which due to the pent up hormonal surging emotional cycle Hillary has gotten Mega into, turns out to be quite far. Sapphire flap flap flaps her wings into a column of speed and chases after the floating torch. The outside ladder leading to her room has been rolled up. 

“Because of course!” Sighs Magda as she slips off her cycling light up shoes, the tongue of her shoes light up with a balloon showcasing the amount of miles Magda has walked from Monique’s house, nearly fourteen, if only Elroy hadn’t gotten in the way. Inside both of her parents are stationary as always. Wires running from the back of both of their heads so that when they glance over at the door in unison you can see the pulses of light traveling at the same speed from both of their skulls. Magda parents disgust her and she really tries getting up stairs into her room as fast as possible. 

“Magpie! Get your cute little grown ass over here and tell me about this nice young man you’re considering giving up your light to!”

“Journey,” Magda says addressing her mom by her proper name which causes her mom to feign a twinge,”Why must you two always insist on watching the security feed whenever I am coming home. Every. Single. Time. Do you two expect me to be still be living here until either one of you finally burn out? Just so you can always have a little show of someone else’s lives to watch? You’re almost as much as a goon as that ‘boy’ you are referring to. You know him already, that’s Elroy, we’re just friends.”

“See Enterprise? What did I say?” Journey says peering directly into her husband Enterprise’s vacant light producing sockets. 

“Aw dawlin looks like I owe you thirty pulses! I knew I should have betted on our Magpie giving her light away to some respectable enterprising lesbian. You’re donating your light to science right Magpie? That’s why you left today?”

“I am not donating my light to anyone! I am not anyone’s generator ready to be milked and sapped away for all of my worth.”

“Magda you know your light is strong enough that you could be a really successful crime fighter, or you could even be just another lamp builder like your lil brother and sister.” Coos Magda’s father, Enterprise.

“Or, she can be nothing too! Fine by me! Keep on going missy, I can see how much you are burning to get back into your precious room. All I ask is that at some point tonight please help your siblings make some kind of dinner. Your dad and I are going to be all tied up for the rest of the night running double concurrent shifts. Those damn strikers! We don’t need em! Ow ow ugh I’ve got to be quiet and focus.” Journey rubs her temple which emits a spark. 

“Relax my love. This is just a rough patch. Once there is a serum manufactured we’ll be able to import more workers and we can recharge for the next decade. Maybe even more.” Enterprise says this to Journey and they hold each other’s hands not even minding that they are becoming entangled within one another’s connecting wires. Magda hears the quiet scrape scraping of her younger brother and sister’s lamp and neon shop that takes up most of the second floor. Magda ascends up one more floor and reaches her bedroom at the end of a hallway adorned with family portraits. Mainly of her siblings Gidget and Chester selling lamps around the world. See Gidget and Chester in Bali with a lamp made from resurrected coral reefs. There’s a picture of Gidget, Chester and both of her parents soft shoeing on the grave of Thomas Edison. See Gidget defile the Tesla’s tomb. Chester burning an effigy of Musk. There’s one picture of Magda and Sapphire, Magda is only visible as a beam of light. Magda opens up her bedroom and finds Antonia, the Daycrawler waiting for her, suspending herself from the ceiling. Rotating around like a monk’s slimy finger circling around the lip of a singing wine bowl. 

“Hiya there Miss Shiney! I brought you a present!” Antonia says this in her persistently chippier and bubblier voice that has not  subsided since taking her shower with Monique’s personality shifting scented shampoo. Monique raises her right eyelid causing  one of her dimmest overhead lights to come on. The light reveals reveals the sight of a  tied up woman sporting a bouncy pompadour sprawling out across Magda’s bed. Soy Hands Flannigan! 

“What am I supposed to do with an assassin? All I want to do is curl up and shop. God I sound pathetic.” Magda says attempting to hide the  anxiety spiking through the roof of her dome  coursing down to her toes. 

“She knows how you can find Hillary!”

That’s all it took. All Magda needed to hear was her name. The utterance of Magda’s one and only Hillary causes each and every one of Magda’s three hundred and eighty five lights adorning her bedroom to flare out bright beams of all encompassing light. The kind of light that only glows for a woman once thought lost and dead to the world soon to be rediscovered. Maybe, thinks Magda, having a reformed violent and dangerous assassin as a companion wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

[malina-wolf]

I read this passage last weekend at the Round Table Salon of the Starz, and wanted to share it here. This is the opening from a new project that I’m working on, and I’m really excited about it:

Dublin - June

I almost did a remarkably stupid thing the other night.

Life-ruiningly stupid. Catastrophic.

I was supposed to be drying out. We had already been out the night before, celebrating a major professional award in a north side pub called the Gin Palace. It was so nice to have something good to drink about for a change.

I woke up in the morning with a raging hangover. Applied water, tea, painkillers, and sausage roll, in that order. Vowed to stay sober until I got home. Or at least until Paris. But Michelle wanted to get dinner, just the two of us. Like old times.

In my defence, the rosé was phenomenal; an adorable restaurant, tucked under the train tracks in the shadow of the Aviva stadium. And then we had to go to Michelle’s favourite pub. She hadn’t been in a couple years, not since she stopped traveling and then took over as General Manager. It used to be our spot in Dublin, one of the only things in the world she loves unironically, and it’s my job to support her in seeking out the things she loves. If this year has been hard on me, she’s been Orpheus, returned to the overworld without Eurydice. She deserves things that ease the pain.

We turn to Dionysus for help.

We were out, a couple of drinks in, feeling loose and happy.

And then I met a guy.

It’s been years since anyone from that end of the gender spectrum has disrupted things. Not that they’re nice to look at, or think about in an abstract, home-alone-on- Saturday-afternoon-and-I-have-nowhere-to-be-for-a-couple-of-hours kind of way. But that’s pretty much where the appeal ends. For all intents and purposes, I’ve opted out of men as a genre and never looked back. I was entirely unprepared for a real, live human male to interrupt my carefully scheduled life.

A linguist, fresh off a flight from Sicily for a family birthday party. He was very pretty, very young.

Chaos in Converse.

“D’you know you have a lisp?” His opening salvo. It was unexpected. Most people don’t listen that well, or maybe they’re just polite enough not to remark on it.

“Wow! In thirty-five years, I’d never notithed.”

“No, it’s really endearing!” He rushed to assure me. He didn’t seem like an asshole. It was enough to make my guard drop, if only slightly. 

“You know what’s funny though, is that I don’t have it when I’m speaking another language or singing. Only in English.”

“What, really? What languages do you speak? ”

Michelle chimed in, claiming that I speak “all the languages.” A blatant falsehood.

“I only speak French and Portuguese reliably enough to count them. Some Nuyorican Spanglish, and when I get drunk enough, un pochissimo d’italiano.” I tick-tocked my empty glass from side to side.

“Alors, dites-moi quelque chose en français,” he encouraged me. “I want to hear this magical disappearing lisp.”

“Ah, que vous le parlez aussi! Mais pourquoi alors?”

“Oh, that’s fascinating! Your lisp isn’t the same in French, it’s that kind of charming, natural affectation that fluent speakers have.” His voice is smooth, lilting, the alcohol rounding the edges of his words. “Your accent is perfect, but your smile gives you away, entirely American,” he grinned. It went right to my head, along with the beer.

We wove between languages, as a couple of nerds are wont to do. He asked why and where I learned to speak them; I’m sure I gave answers. I was already very drunk, delighted at finding a kindred spirit, eager to keep the party going. The hours slipped by. Upon learning that his new favourite singer was Maria Rita, we slung our arms around each other, launched into the chorus from Cara Valente. The neighbours upstairs must have been thrilled.

It bears mentioning that I am, at times, an idiot. I don’t walk into a situation expecting to be flirted with, so when those rare occasions happen, someone usually points it out to me after the fact. Usually, that someone is Belle, and she delivers the news with a smug, “my wife’s still got it!” amusement at my cluelessness. Yes, her name is Belle. Yes, I’m married to a Disney princess.

Besides, he was there with his family! I was there with my boss! He was just “new friend!” As far as I knew, it was a fabulously fun evening talking to someone who had no right walking into that bar and assaulting me with knowledge of my favourite artists, no right to match me, album for album, song for song.

Cam didn’t give a shit about my job. He wanted to hear about me. The singer, the thinker, the human in the world, not the sender of emails and parser of international data. If I had been single, the fact that he hung on my every word as I told him how Elis Regina died might have been enough, but then he wanted to hear my impromptu lecture on the Brazilian military dictatorship and Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso’s exile in London on top of that.

Elis died in 1982, by the way. OD on a combination of cocaine and alcohol.

More hours. More beer. There was dancing?

Eventually, it was time to leave. He hugged me close, leaned his head against mine. His beard scratched my face. He was warm, solid, the smell of his body sweet and tangy with alcohol and cigarettes, his breath tickling my ear. “I really want to kiss you, but you’re married. I respect that. I respect you.” I think he said it twice.

He wanted me to be the one to make the decision; to cast the first sin so that he would simply be along for the ride. I don’t know how I kept my head on. This is the kind of thing that breathless romance novels are made of: a beautiful, drunken stranger who wants to hear you ramble on about something you’re passionate about, who asks to kiss you late at night in a foreign city? Who smiles with regret when you decline?

I realise in hindsight that it was likely the move of someone who was already on the pull and was very good at this kind of thing. We just happened to have a lot to talk about while the alcohol did its work.

I wondered if I could kiss him. I’ve never kissed anyone with a beard before - could I do it just to find out how it feels? Would I be able to stop myself? He was still so close, our bodies nearly touching from shoulder to hip, that I’m fairly certain an alternate universe sprang into being right then. An alternate universe in which I gave in to my baser instincts, pressed him up against the brick wall, brought him back to my Airbnb a few breathless minutes later.

Somehow, through the grace of whatever gods might have been watching over me, I managed to stay in this reality, managed to remember that I have a wife who I love more than my own life. I would never forgive myself if I did anything to hurt her. I’m still nursing the mingled guilt-relief hangover, weeks later.

He said something about wanting to talk more about the Brazilian artists I had mentioned, though if it was awkward now, he understood. But if I didn’t mind, he would be around tomorrow. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk about music; his question hit the ache I didn’t even realise still existed. Saved his number in my phone. We made plans to meet the next day. There would be more drinks, more people. We hugged. Clung, really. He lifted me into the air, spinning me around. Somehow, I landed on my feet. I touched his face as we said goodbye.

I woke in the morning, full of the Fear. Deleted his messages without responding.

[shirlleycoyle]

It’s Time for the Eternal September to End

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

For nearly 30 years, the internet’s culture has been defined by a corporation’s move that seemed to, without any care about what was left behind, ensure that a sense of order would never again drive the growth of this series of tubes.

This phenomenon is, in many ways, the central tension on which the modern internet is built. And it’s a tension that most people aren’t aware of, even though it is an undercurrent secretly framing our online interactions.

I am, of course, discussing the Eternal September, a 1993 move by AOL to allow its users into the free-for-all that is Usenet. In the decades since, the conflict that move created, although long forgotten today, lingers in the way that technical users and not-so-technical users interact.

And, in too many ways, it is the basis for digital conflicts that have nothing to do with back then and everything to do with right now.

It’s time to retire the Eternal September. Twenty-seven years is long enough.

“September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September that never ended.”

— Dave Fischer, a Usenet user, discussing the start of the Eternal September in 1993, the point at which the chaos created by mainstream interest in the internet began to overwhelm the early discussion forums that originally attracted technical users to computer labs on college campuses and pokey modem connections at homes.

At its root, perhaps we can blame AOL for all of this. Image: sarahe/Flickr

How the Eternal September set the stage for decades of online conflict

For decades, internet culture has struggled with the n00bs. For generations, as new people entered the digital gates, there was an inevitable sneer that awaited them as they hit the onramp.

If you’re not in the know, what do you know?

The internet is, of course, not alone in owning this dynamic. It plays out in all sorts of areas that traditionally have nothing to do with technology: High school, internships, sports teams, organized crime syndicates. The little guy knows nothing and has to work their way up. Most don’t. You get the idea.

But on the internet, we all technically should be on equal ground. After all, knowledge is at our fingertips at all times.

Yet tribalism has long defined the internet. We are built around subcultures upon subcultures, and these subcultures have only hardened over time, creating shells of insularity that have proven impenetrable.

And perhaps its most notable form came about in the mid-1990s, when the “Eternal September,” a concept involving the n00bs taking over Usenet, took hold. For those who don’t date back to this era, here’s the general gist: Each school year, thousands of new students would flock to Usenet groups for the first time, hoping to find community or learn from the folks already there. The problem was that they were green and didn’t really know much of anything, so they faced rejection until they got the gist.

In September of 1993, AOL added Usenet access, turning a controlled situation of steady ongoing community growth into something of a flood of never-ending n00bs. Suddenly, the social norms that the Usenet community was built around were broken at the seams, never to be repaired.

This was a major communal shift, and one that put early online users on the defensive. To put it simply, people were dismissive of their fellow users based on nothing other than the domain attached to their email address. It was an easy signifier; if you had an AOL.com email address, you were a dork, or beyond saving.

An essay on the commercialization of the internet, written in 1995 by MIT student Christopher R. Vincent, put the situation like this:

As accessing the Internet continues to grow easier for the novice user, it is inevitable that many of these social guidelines will fall to the wayside. This is not to say that new users should be denied access to Internet resources. It has been the first reflex in many newsgroups to flame any user who posted from an online service provider. Some of the larger providers, such as America Online have not received a very warm welcome to the network (note the formation of the alt.aol-sucks newsgroup). This reaction does not necessarily stem from elitism, but from a genuine fear that as more and more users appear, Usenet will fall apart. Indeed, this is a valid concern. The current system is not designed for the commercial-oriented direction the Internet is now taking.

Over time, the close association between AOL and lamers subsided, in part because our online access points evolved toward providers decided by local area, rather than consumer-oriented services.

So many flame wars fought over digital turf. Image: Anthony Cantin/Unsplash

But this dynamic of conflict and savvy emerged in other ways. When web-based communication alternatives emerged to replace Usenet, new types of turf wars appeared: Apple vs. Microsoft; open source vs. proprietary; Something Awful vs. Fark; Digg vs. Reddit; liberal bloggers vs. conservative bloggers; early adopters vs. technical laggards; iPhone vs. Android. You get the idea.

In many ways, these ideological battles of the digital age only found gasoline with the advent of social mediums, which helped to better connect people, but failed to account for the side effects that came with all that.

But the internet, early on, played into this tribalism in ways that allowed it to evolve into something dangerous.

“The newbies could not be forced to accept what we now understand as a central tenet of cyberlibertarianism: that cyberspace, too, was a place, separate from the world, and thus free. For it all to work, all the visionaries needed was for everyone to recognize a small set of self-evident truths.”

— Bradley Fidler, a researcher with the UCLA Computer Science Department, discussing in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing the rise of what he calls the Eternal October—the understanding that “it is no longer possible to pretend (no matter one’s privilege) that cyberspace can circumvent the politics of civilization.” At the time he wrote this, it was October 2016, ahead of a U.S. election that helped bring some scary forces into the world. I can only imagine how Fidler must feel in October of 2020.

The calendar never stops. Image: Eric Rothermel/Unsplash

Why, in many ways, the Eternal September is still going strong

Look, I’m not going to tell you that we have a constant influx of newbies hitting the internet at all times. That certainly is not what I mean when I describe the Eternal September as an ongoing thing.

But I do think that the spirit that led to the Eternal September becoming a landmark in the first place is still very much there. It has simply taken new forms.

There’s a modern term for what this is called, in fact: Gatekeeping. The idea that, because of your identity or lack of experience, you shouldn’t have access to an online community.

Now, to be clear, there are lots of kinds of gatekeeping in terms of the internet—for example, the technical barriers created by large companies to shape the broader network, whether internet service providers like Comcast or Verizon, or major tech firms like Google or Facebook. Those figures deservedly need their callouts.

But in this case, I’d like to focus on a particular cultural kind of gatekeeping, the kind that leaves people out for reasons of elitism, fear, or simple “othering.”

Earlier this month, a great example of this type of gatekeeping emerged on Twitter when a user claimed that they assumed anyone who used a mouse to program was a junior programmer. That user (rightly) got criticized over it—though I’ll pass on linking the viral tweet, because who needs to add to that kind of drama? But examples that don’t get called out in quite that way abound online, and they represent the way that users tend to focus on their own tribes.

Back in 2017, before our world became even more divided, CBC News columnist Ramona Pringle wrote a piece about how digital tribalism has proven a nasty side effect of highly amplified online echo chambers:

In and of themselves, tribes aren’t inherently bad. We all long to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and tribes fulfill that need. But where we get into trouble is when we introduce borders, which separate my land from your land, and by extension, my tribe from your tribe. When borders are violated, we fight. This, in broad strokes is the root of all war.

The Eternal September, in many ways, was the opening salvo in decades of division on the internet. And in the years since, it has only gotten worse.

In many ways, we understand the people around us even less than we did a few years ago. We aim for the jugular instead of the handshake. And by the time the word “compromise” is thrown around, it’s already too late. It’s a sign of weakness.

It is perhaps sad to think about, considering the early internet was built around utopian dreams. But it’s where we are. I’ll let you draw the through line between ’90s programmer/IT elitism and some of the internet’s modern day problems, because ultimately all those programmers helped lay the foundation for today’s tech infrastructure.

I’m still idealistic that some of that utopian spirit is out there, if you know where to look. But I wonder if, in the big fight for protecting netiquette, the early internet set a bad example for all the people that came after, who jumped in not looking for help, but looking for a fight. The initial separation between the normal and the technical that the Eternal September fostered underlined the tribalism that other internet users follow without even thinking about it. It discourages people from taking part in communities—especially those underrepresented in STEM fields—and sows the kinds of division that attract users to misinformation.

And I wonder if the same types of users who criticized the n00bs way back when are the same folks who can help get us back—by setting an open-arms example that other communities can follow.

At a time when Godwin’s law is less an observation and more a genuine worry, perhaps there are bigger fish to fry than whether or not someone asked a technical question the right way … and those technical users might need to shift their plan of attack accordingly.

“We need to make sure that Rust is prepared to welcome people who are just learning about Rust today. We don’t want anyone to feel like they’re late to the party.”

— Tim McNamara, a software developer and writer who focuses on the Rust programming language, making a case for leaning into the Eternal September, as far as the Rust community goes. It’s a refreshing take from someone in a technical community, and an approach that others should follow.

So, you might be wondering: Why write about this topic, and why now?

Honestly, what got me thinking about it was one specific reaction to a recent piece I wrote about the mainstream demise of FTP. I aimed really broad with that piece, because honestly, that’s usually who I write for—someone who knows something about technology, but who doesn’t know everything and is curious about learning more.

Functionally, the point of my piece was that plain vanilla FTP is on its way out, a vestige of the past for the vast majority of people, thanks to its forthcoming removal from major web browsers. But there are people in narrow spaces who likely will never stop using it—or, who choose not to stop.

While I can get technical, I generally write for regular people who know a thing or two about technology but who, perhaps, aren’t engineers.

And well, this user was a technical user in a highly technical role. And they decided to mock it for not covering specific technical cases where it might persist, rather than spending five seconds considering that they may not be the target audience for this piece. Cockroaches are everywhere—you don’t have to tell me.

I’ve seen this with other things we’ve written as well. Last year, I ran a piece about OS/2’s continued use on the NYC subway system, and I spotted a reader who got upset because we focused on the obvious novelty of a vintage operating system being used in a high-profile way, rather than focusing on the low-level technical aspects that may appeal to that specific user but may go over everyone else’s heads.

I get it. You might get upset if you dive into this with the expectation that we’re going to talk about code or infrastructure on here, and that’s not what you get.

But the reason that technology content is often written more broadly is because, well, writers often want to open up the gates and encourage people to take a deeper look into tech. As much fun as it is to do a deep technical dive into the nuances of how a system is designed, there is a deep threat of losing people if you go too deep without explaining why they should care.

Tying back to our discussion of the Eternal September in this piece, I would also like to make a broader point: We have to figure out a way to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical users online. To pretend that there isn’t room to offer a helping hand, or that we can just focus on our own tiny bubble, just isn’t working anymore.

In September of 1993, well-established users who felt their territory was being encroached on by people who didn’t earn their place in the digital culture reacted by being inhospitable to those users.

It’s nearly three decades later, and in the years since, tech has very much won. Our world has been redefined by it, in ways large and small. And while technical corners can and should exist, we should no longer pretend that technical users have a monopoly on these stories.

And, honestly, given the way that technology has negatively affected the lives of so many, we need to do a better job explaining it to the average person, so they have a chance to grab a hold of the ways that algorithms define what we see online, or how automation might reshape our lives and careers, in ways good and bad.

The Eternal September is over. We’re well into October now. We need to open up the gates.

It’s Time for the Eternal September to End syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[placetobenation]

RIP Rocky Johnson

Sad news this week as former WWE legend Rocky Johnson passed away at age 75. I remember watching Rocky and Tony Atlas, The Soul Patrol, win the then WWF Tag Team Championships and defend those titles in Providence and Boston as a kid. They were the first African-American champions in the company’s history defeating the Wild Samoans in 1983. Who could ever forget that misplaced chair shot by Captain Lou Albano! Plus, who could forget his memorable feuds with The Magnificent Don Muraco, Greg Valentine among others. And of course, he’s the father of The Rock, Dwayne Johnson. Through it all, Johnson did it with class in the ring and out. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends and fans.

R.I.P. to @WWE Hall of Famer, 'Soul Man' Rocky Johnson. pic.twitter.com/yUDBKKU5DF

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) January 18, 2020

Before we got to RAW, NXT UK took over Blackpool a second time and in a surprise ending, The Undisputed Era jumped WALTER after his title defense against Joe Coffey. It’ll be fun to see TUE and Imperium clash again come Worlds Collide on Royal Rumble Weekend.

NXT UK: TakeOver Blackpool II

Eddie Dennis defeated Trent Seven

NXT UK Women’s Title Match: Kay Lee Ray defeated Piper Niven & Toni Storm to retain title

Tyler Bate defeated Jordan Devlin

NXT UK Tag Team Title Ladder Match: Gallus defeated Imperium, South Wales Subculture, & The Grizzled Young Veterans to retain titles

NXT UK Title Match: WALTER defeated Joe Coffey (Submission) to retain title

Star of the Week:

The @WWEUsos penitentiary LOCKED DOWN on @WWE Friday Night #SmackDown! pic.twitter.com/TJj21wZuCM

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) January 18, 2020

The Usos – Jimmy and Jey started the week late-night on WWE Backstage, entertaining us all with some insights with Renee Young and pals. Then, after a win over The Revival with an awe-inspiring top rope splash from Jimmy, The Usos save cousin Roman Reigns’ bacon against Robert Roode. They’re everywhere this week.

RAW

RESULTS

Triple Threat Match: Drew McIntyre defeated Randy Orton & AJ Styles

Ricochet defeated Mojo Rawley

Charlotte Flair defeated Sarah Logan

Mojo Rawley defeated 24/7 Champion R-Truth to win title after Brock Lesnar beatdown

Bobby Lashley defeated Rusev

Raw Tag Team Title Match: The Viking Raiders defeated The Singhs to retain titles

Aleister Black defeated Buddy Murphy

Erick Rowan defeated unnamed local wrestler

Fist Fight Match: Seth Rollins & The AOP defeated Big Show, Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe

What we loved:

Yup…….@RonKillings really DID interrupt the #WWEChampion @BrockLesnar & @HeymanHustle on #RAW! pic.twitter.com/dRSLLTPn5a

— WWE (@WWE) January 14, 2020

Brock has a personality – It’s true. WWE Champion Brock Lesnar can speak and can actually have a laugh or two. All it took was a boisterous Kentucky crowd and R-Truth to do it! And of course, after a few laughs, Lesnar got to business by beating down R-Truth, allowing a lucky Mojo Rawley to pick up the scraps and the 24/7 Championship.

It was @WWE_Murphy who joined @WWERollins & #AOP in the #FistFight on #RAW! pic.twitter.com/hmbmIrNyRa

— WWE (@WWE) January 14, 2020

Buddy Murphy vs. Aleister Black III – How good was that! The trilogy delivers in spades and gets a great TV spot in the final hour of RAW. And with Black’s win, it didn’t take long for Murphy to get back on the winning side, joining sides with Seth Rollins and the Authors of Pain to take Big Show down in the main event. We can only hope that Black will now join sides with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe as well to even things up.

What we didn’t love:

Visual representation of parkour, courtesy of @FightOwensFight. #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/GXPyhD7uz1

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) January 18, 2020

Fist Fight Match Huh? – How does a fist fight match not end in someone actually going down by way of a fist? Seriously?! WTF. We get the match ending by way of the referee’s discretion. Not sure I fully understand the rationale behind that one. Now, having said that, the Kevin Owens skate park-like flip off the titan tron was damn cool!

Back to squashes – The Viking Raiders took less than a minute to take out the Singhs. Two minutes for Charlotte Flair to dismiss Sarah Logan. And of course, about 90 seconds for Erick Rowan to squash a nobody. Sometimes, quantity doesn’t over quality.

NXT

RESULTS

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic 1st Round: Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne defeated Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic 1st Round: Grizzled Young Veterans defeated Time Splitters (Alex Shelley & Kushida)

For a Shot at The NXT Cruiserweight Title at World’s Collide: Isaiah Scott defeated Lio Rush & Tyler Breeze

NXT Women’s Championship Number One Contender’s Battle Royal: Bianca Belair (last two: Belair and Io Sherai)

What we loved:

Even @AngelGarzaWwe is impressed by THIS. WOW. #WWENXT @itsLioRush @itsLioRush pic.twitter.com/zsDWUh56Bw

— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) January 16, 2020

Triple Threat Trifecta – I’ll admit, I wasn’t a fan of Lio Rush on RAW, but in NXT, he’s been awesome! Tyler Breeze is a treat taking on the new stars of Full Sail. And how about Isaiah “Swerve” Scott coming up with the swerve and the victory with the JML driver for a shot at NXT Cruiserweight Champion Angel Garza. With all due respect to TNA, this was complete total non-stop action from start to finish!

SHE DID IT!!! The #ESTofNXT @BiancaBelairWWE has WON the No. 1 Contender's #BattleRoyal! #WWENXT pic.twitter.com/YMRL7hTCb8

— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) January 16, 2020

The Battle Royale – Usually battle royals disappoint, but this one did not. We got debuts in the form of Mercedes Martinez and Shotzi Blackheart. We got surprising returns in the form of Kacy Catanzaro. We got a surprise entrant in Shayna Baszler. And finally, we got a surprise winner with Bianca Belair getting a shot at Rhea Ripley’s NXT Women’s Championship.

The Undisputed Era vs. everyone – Whether it was trying to take out WALTER at NXT TakeOver or trying to take out Keith Lee on NXT’s opening salvo or later on tackling Tommaso Ciampa, TUE was all about the domination this week. Although, this car flip from Keith Lee’s gotta leave a mark!

"WITHIN ME, The PROPHECY ENDS NEXT WEEK!" – @RealKeithLee #WWENXT pic.twitter.com/mP1A8uVwhE

— WWE (@WWE) January 16, 2020

DIY Reunion – Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa are back together! Sure, it’s only for one match at World Collide against Moustache Mountain after Gargano helped saved Ciampa against TUE, but we’ll take it.  

The upset – Sure, didn’t we all expect The Time Splitters to win their Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic first round match? I mean, who expected Alex Shelley and Kushida to lose in their first match back in NXT together? Kudos to the Grizzled Young Veterans for the upset.

SMACKDOWN

RESULTS

John Morrison defeated Big E

The Usos defeated The Revival

Non-title match: Lacey Evans defeated Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley

Alexa Bliss defeated Sonya Deville

What we loved:

Slo-mo JoMo. @TheRealMorrison #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/RoB1n9PUB3

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) January 18, 2020

The return of the super slo-mo – How could you not enjoy a super slo-mo entrance from the returning John Morrison and The Miz in Morrison’s first WWE match since 2011? Plus, a win to boot. Nice week for the M&M boys. I see a tag-team title match in their immediate future.

Team Hell No – Kane comes back to help Daniel Bryan surprise The Fiend in a quick reunion of Team Hell No! Short, sweet and to the point to move the story forward. Now, if they can just get rid of that damn red lighting for The Fiend. It does nothing for me (or anyone else)!.

Meh:

Comeuppance #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/ysAEFOYzLd

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) January 18, 2020

More Corbin vs. Reigns – It seems like these two have been feuding longer than Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes back in the NWA/WCW days. Maybe it’ll finally end at the Royal Rumble as the two tangle in a match, thanks to Reigns beating Robert Roode Friday night on Smackdown. Reigns picked an obvious falls count anywhere match. I would’ve gone for the dog-collar match that would’ve fit the feud and dog food spotlight a bit better. Probably a bit too violent for the family folks at WWE though. The Usos were pretty fly though taking out Dolph Ziggler and helping Reigns get the win in the tables match.

Parting shots:

Freddie Prinze Jr. on WWE Backstage was pretty entertaining. The dude, as he should, cut a pretty decent promo against Xavier Woods.

I so would’ve marked out if Brock Lesnar had pinned R-Truth for the 24/7 Title! It would’ve been great to see how sneaky and underhanded the WWE Superstars could be in trying to outsmart Lesnar for a quick 1-2-3 count for a title many levels beneath the coveted WWE Championship. It could’ve made for some entertaining television for a few weeks.

Yes or no – do you want to see CM Punk be a surprise entrant for the Royal Rumble next week in Houston? Something tells me we’ll get Booker T in his hometown. You just know there’s going to be some cheating references in their that night with the MLB/Houston Astros scandal fresh in everyone’s minds.

Thanks for letting us share our thoughts! Shoot me an email at jcrowe567@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions! You can also check out my blog, The Crowe’s Nest as we delve into more pro wrestling, sports entertainment and the World of Sports. My apologies ahead of time – I AM a Patriots and Red Sox fan! If you’re not down with that, I’ve got TWO WORDS for you… NEW ENGLAND!

[thisdaynews]

Trump fuels outsize expectations that Russia investigators will face prison time

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trump-fuels-outsize-expectations-that-russia-investigators-will-face-prison-time/

Trump fuels outsize expectations that Russia investigators will face prison time

President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

White House

We’ve heard the hype before, and the reality has yet to match it.

To hear President Donald Trump and his allies tell it, the federal investigators who spent the past two years investigating the president are about to go down.

On Twitter, on conservative cable TV and in countless interviews, they’ve claimed the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are on the verge of being exposed for planting spies, falsifying evidence and forging testimony. They’ve relished in the possibility that a federal prosecutor on the case could file criminal charges. And they’ve predicted jail time for top Obama-era leaders who they say were behind a “deep state” plot to take down Trump.

Story Continued Below

They’re expecting all of this to come from a spate of Justice Department probes reviewing the full scope of the Trump-Russia investigation, which culminated earlier this year with special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“This was treason. This was high crimes,” Trump said during a recent Fox News interview with Sean Hannity. “This was everything as bad a definition as you want to come up with. This should never be allowed to happen to our country again.”

These hyperbolic expectations have legal experts, even some who are often sympathetic to the president, skeptical that the final product can equal the Trump-fueled rhetoric.

“What I think is going to happen is nobody is going to be charged with any criminal activity,” said Jon Sale, a former assistant U.S. attorney from Miami and longtime friend of Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to the president.

Sale expects the probes will instead offer much less dramatic procedural reforms, likely focused on potential future investigations of presidential candidates.

“I think that’s where this is all leading,” he said.

Such outsize expectation setting has become de rigueur in the Trump era, with the long-running Trump-Russia probe particularly prone to embellished predictions. And each overheated messaging campaign has served a political purpose. For Democrats, it has helped highlight Trump’s norm-busting behavior. For Republicans, it has helped counteract negative narratives about the president as he faces the possibility of impeachment.

During Mueller’s investigation, some Democrats and outside activists predicted grand criminal takedowns of Trump’s family members. That didn’t happen. Then, attention turned to the special counsel’s report, with expectations that it would include damning details to spark Trump’s impeachment. Not yet. After that, Mueller’s congressional hearings were hyped as a potential game-changer. No dice.

Republicans are at least equally guilty of making sensationalized promises, too. Remember Devin Nunes’ hotly anticipated memo on supposed illicit Obama-era spying? In early 2018, the California congressman, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time, claimed he had proof that senior FBI officials secretly surveilled the Trump campaign. His allies trumpeted the upcoming findings.

“I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there are people who will go to jail,” Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz said during a “Hannity” appearance that January.

Yet the final product failed to produce much of a ripple.

Now, with the Mueller investigation wrapped and fading into the rearview mirror, conservatives have placed their hopes in a pair of intertwining DOJ probes examining the Russia investigation itself.

One is led by Inspector General Michael Horowitz. He’s already examined a number of issues tied to the 2016 presidential election, including a report released last summer that found no indication that political bias influenced the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State. A second probe is helmed by U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut. Attorney General William Barr tapped Durham earlier this year to pursue any criminal prosecutions that spill out out of the IG’s efforts.

Neither investigation has a deadline, though Horowitz told lawmakers in June that his investigative work was “nearing completion.” He was referring to a look at the FBI’s use of some information provided by former British spy Christopher Steele to help procure surveillance warrants during the presidential campaign on Carter Page, a onetime Trump policy adviser. Horowitz explained that his team had examined more than 1 million records, interviewed more than 100 witnesses and had been writing its report on the warrants “for some time.”

It’s unclear how much of that work the public will see — Horowitz told lawmakers that “virtually all of the information we have obtained” has a classified stamp on it.

Conversely, Durham has been silent about his work. In a CBS interview in May, Barr said the longtime federal prosecutor was well-positioned to take up any criminal referrals from Horowitz, while also fulfilling a wider mandate to examine the underlying origins of the FBI’s Russia probe.

But Barr declined to offer specifics about what he hoped Durham would uncover. “Things are just not jiving,” the attorney general said.

Trump and his allies have filled the information void by repeatedly suggesting serious wrongdoing is just on the verge of being uncovered.

Speaking to reporters after the Mueller report became public, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway insisted that a probe of former DOJ leaders involved in the Russia investigation would show they’d been leaking information to the media.

“Let’s put them under oath. Let’s investigate the investigators. Why not? Anybody who objects to that is just being partisan and having amnesia about how much we all love transparency,” she said.

In mid-May, reacting to the news of Barr’s decision to appoint Durham, Joe diGenova, an informal Trump legal adviser, said on Fox News that several Obama-era government leaders were now facing serious legal jeopardy. He singled out former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, who he argued would get their comeuppance for leading a scheme from the highest levels of government to set up Trump.

“The bottom line is this: This is now big time. This is where Brennan needs five lawyers. Comey needs five lawyers,” said diGenova, former federal prosecutor who nearly signed on to be the president’s outside counsel in the spring of 2018.

Conservative media outlets have fueled the drumbeat about the possible outcomes from the Horowitz and Durham probes. Hannity has made the topic a central theme on his shows. Last week, he told his 3 million viewers his sources were telling him the Justice Department was at work on “explosive” findings about intelligence gathering techniques that go to the origins of the Mueller investigation.

A similar salvo played out recently when John Solomon, a conservative opinion writer for The Hill, published a column with a headline declaring Comey’s “next reckoning is imminent” because of the probe. It was a stark contrast to how The New York Times and other mainstream outlets portrayed the story — they all led with the fact that the DOJ investigators had decided not to press charges against Comey.

Among Trump supporters, hopes are still high that the Justice Department’s investigators will peel back the curtain on misdeeds across the federal government, from Mueller’s team to the intelligence agencies.

“None of the culpable parties should be sleeping well because, from my perspective, we finally have people who take their job seriously in the Justice Department,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser who was questioned by the special counsel’s office.

Caputo said he had confidence that the probes would reap results for several reasons, including remarks that Trump made to him during a 45-minute Oval Office meeting this spring.

“We talked about the Russia hoax, the investigation of the investigators and the dozens of families who were crushed by the hoax,” Caputo said. “The president shares my expectation for justice.”

Caputo also said his expectations went up based on Barr’s history as a “man of law and order” and by his own contacts with Durham’s investigators. He said they’d accepted about 140 pages of information he offered about Henry Greenberg, a Russian expatriate who Caputo claims was one of at least three FBI informants who approached him during the 2016 presidential campaign offering to sell the Trump campaign dirt on the Democratic nominee, Clinton. That reception stands in contrast to Horowitz, who Caputo said did not respond when he offered him the same materials.

Some former Trump aides who were pulled into the Russia probe said they want the investigations into the investigators to keep expanding.

J.D. Gordon, a Trump 2016 campaign national security adviser, recently sent his own letter to Durham urging a broader look at Mueller and his team of investigators, whom he accused of illegal leaks and violations of both privacy and defamation laws.

“I am hopeful that between the DOJ-IG report and U.S. Attorney John Durham investigation, we will get a comprehensive look into the origins of Trump-Russia as well as the conduct of the special counsel investigation,” Gordon said in an interview.

Still, some Trump allies are trying to lower the temperature over the prospect of new prosecutions. Page, the former 2016 campaign adviser at the center of the Horowitz-led probe into FBI surveillance, said structural reforms would be a welcome outcome from the reviews.

“I’m only primarily concerned about getting to the truth,” he said. “In the grand scheme of things, having a clean historical record of what actually happened in that dark period of recent history is infinitely more important.”

All of the hype can have political implications.

Texas GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe, a close Trump ally, has even signaled that the impeachment battle could be settled by the probes’ findings. Once DOJ shows Obama’s national security leaders overreached, he argued, “you can pretty much put a pin in any impeachment balloon.”

Meanwhile, Tom Fitton, head of the conservative Judicial Watch, predicted Trump supporters would be outraged if the investigations into the investigators fall short of indictments against the likes of former officials, such as Comey.

“I think people are going to have a hard time coming to terms with a scandal that’s in many ways worse than Watergate: the hijacking of several executive branch agencies, intelligence, law enforcement, State [Department], Defense [Department], to spy on and target a candidate and then abusing powers once he’s in office to try to overthrow the president.

“The notion that there’d be no prosecutions of anyone involved in that, that would be further confirmation of the strength of the deep state,” Fitton added.

Caputo said he’s bracing for such an outcome.

“I know at any moment the establishment could thwart this entire thing,” he said, adding that he has his doubts mainstream news organizations would “carry the truth of this.”

But others see cynical purposes behind Trump and his allies’ messaging campaign.

“I think most of [the probes] could be closed but the attorney general won’t let them be closed. That’s an acknowledgment that there’s no there there,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan R Street Institute and a former senior counsel to Clinton-era independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

“The value in them,” he added, “is their existence and the president and Sean Hannity gets to tout them as evidence that where there’s smoke there must be fire.”

Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

Read More

[rolandfontana]

The US-China Trade War: Next Week’s Shanghai Meeting is a Tiny Glimmer of Hope

Since the beginning of US-China trade negotiations, this blog has been relentlessly negative on US-China relations, which we usually describe as being in a “straight line decline.” In October, 2018, in China, the United States and the New Normal, we started calling the bad relations between China and the United States the “New Normal” and in that same month, we titled a post Would the Last Company Manufacturing in China Please Turn Off the Lights that mentioned how “it does sometimes feel as though within three years nobody will be making widgets in China anymore.”

In April of this year, the Wall Street Journal quoted Dan Harris from this blog (and my law firm) in a cover story, Trade Deal Alone Won’t Fix Strained U.S.-China Business Relations, saying the following:

“There is no way any deal between China and the U.S. will cause everyone on both sides to say, ‘We were just kidding,’” said Dan Harris, managing partner at Harris Bricken, a law firm that specializes in investment with China. “The tariffs and the arrests and the threats and the heightened risk have impacted companies and that will not go away.”

Then on May 4, 2019, (one day before President Trump’s May 5 tariff tweet that changed everything) we wrote The US-China Trade War: Winter is Coming on how no matter what happens in the US-China trade war, things will NOT revert back to the way they had been for foreign companies:

The above is but an introduction to what we see as China’s diminished future for foreign companies. Since pretty much the inception of the US-China trade war we have been saying that we do not see its end because we have always seen it as more than a trade war. At first, we saw the US tariffs as an effort by the United States to get China to “open up” and “act right” on things like the internet and IP. But because we did not see China changing on these things, we did not see the trade war ending. Vice-President Pence’s speech on China earlier this week has only reinforced for me that the trade war between China and the US will not be ending any time soon, if ever. The New York Times has called that speech the Portent of a New Cold War between the United States and China and China’s own Global Times wrote an article entitled, Pence speech shows Washington’s tougher policy on China. Don’t blame us. We are just the messengers. Things are getting very tough between China and the United States right now and the trade war is just a symptom of that, not the disease.

The United States is aggressively and unabashedly doing what it can to isolate China and to remove it from the world of international trade. The new free trade agreement between the United States and Canada is further proof of this as it essentially blocks Canada and Mexico from engaging in free trade with China. See What Trump’s new trade pact signals about China. Word is that shutting out China is going to become a regular thing in all new U.S. trade agreements. See US Commerce’s Ross eyes anti-China ‘poison pill’ for new trade deals. Will the EU and Japan and Latin America play ball on this? I predict that most if not all of them will.

So yes, the above is why we will continue to write about what North American and Latin American and European and Australian businesses should be doing to deal with the new normal regarding China. We are writing these things because we value our credibility and because we presume our readers value our no-holds barred advice — threatening emails or not.

We have been writing about China’s diminished future for foreign companies since pretty much the inception of the US-China trade war because we have always seen it as more than a trade war. At first, we saw the US tariffs as an effort by the United States to get China to “open up” and “act right” on things like the internet and IP. But because we did not (and do not) see China changing on these things, we did not (and do not) see the trade war ending.

But the above posts and nearly all of the other posts on China trade and China relations with the West and on everything Huawei (See The Huawei Indictments are the New Normal) were written by either Dan Harris or Steve Dickinson, both of whom are international lawyers and part of what we in my law firm call “The International Law Team.”

The above is my long introduction to this post (which is also long) because I am writing this from a different perspective than Dan and Steve because the bulk of my work is in International Trade. I am an international trade lawyer and a part of my law firm’s international trade law team.  I therefore necessarily see the U.S.-China tiff from more of a trade law perspective and less of a political perspective than Dan and Steve and that is my slant of this post on the eve of renewed trade negotiations between the United States and China.

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin are heading to Shanghai next week for trade talks with China. The choice of Shanghai is interesting. One analyst suggested China chose Shanghai as the venue to send the message that “trade should be trade, and politics should be politics”. Even Mnuchin invoked the spirit of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, which paved the way for rapprochement between the U.S. and China — and ironically the current trade mess in which the two countries find themselves. Perhaps the hosts are thinking of a different kind of optics. There is arguably no image more associated worldwide with China’s economic miracle than Shanghai’s Lujiazui skyline. Just look up “china economic miracle” on Google Images for confirmation. It is hard to reconcile the portrait of China as an economic villain with the Pearl of the Orient’s vibrancy.

Before delving into the prospects for the upcoming talks, it is worth taking a step back and remembering how we got to this point. As mentioned above, the Shanghai Communiqué Mnuchin celebrated set in motion a process that would over time entangle the Chinese economy with those of the United States and other nations in an unprecedented way. Though Cold War realities were initially foremost in America’s thinking, China policy soon became undergirded with the idea that increased engagement with the United States and  it democratic, free-market allies would inexorably lead China down their same path.

There was certainly much change, but mostly only to the extent that it allowed China to become an export powerhouse. One can imagine the thrill felt by foreign executives as they saw the first cases of Coke cross the Shenzhen River into Mainland China in 1979, representing a symbolic first step towards the final realization of the long-standing Western dream of opening up China. Yet 30 years later, in some fundamental ways little has changed for foreign business. Sure, it has been a relatively smooth ride for the KFCs, Colgates and Nikes of the world, who contribute mightily to China’s state coffers. But for many foreign businesses, their China experience has been mostly a negative one, especially in the last year or so. As a longtime China expat, I heard so many tales of foreign business woe that I became jaded. Business partners colluding with local authorities to edge out foreign investors. Rampant counterfeiting and infringement of foreign brands. Continued restrictions on market access. Capricious immigration policies. China nightmares remain unabated despite repeated Chinese government assurances of coming improvements. Mr. China remains as much of a cautionary tale today.

Ultimately, the Chinese leadership viewed and continues to view Reform and Opening as a transactional mechanism. Reform and Opening were never China’s objectives; continuity of Party rule has always been. This is why China continues to pick and choose when it comes to reform, in a way that has led to a collision with the United States and the EU.  By the time the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign got underway, it was clear to most  that China would not follow the path of South Korea and Taiwan towards democracy, negating the one hope that secured for China so much patience over the years. In this environment, Donald Trump decided it was time to bring China’s bad behavior to the forefront.

The current trade war’s first salvo was fired in March 2018, when President Trump directed the USTR to propose a list of products to be subjected to tariffs, in response to the findings of the USTR Section 301 investigation launched in August 2017. Ultimately 1,300 types of products were listed.

China retaliated with tariffs on 128 U.S. products and asked the WTO for consultations on the U.S. tariffs. After a visit to Washington by Vice Premier Liu He, China’s point man on trade, the two countries announced there “was a consensus on taking effective measures to substantially reduce the United States trade deficit in goods with China.” This led Secretary Mnuchin to declare the trade war was “on hold.” However, and perhaps reflecting disagreements within the Trump team, shortly thereafter 25% tariffs on $50 billion worth of imports were announced. These tariffs went into effect on June 6 ($34 billion) and August 8 ($16 billion).  China retaliated in kind.

In September 2018, the U.S. announced 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products, which were raised to 25% on May 5, 2019. China’s expected retaliation came on June 1, in the form on tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. imports.

Presidents Trump and Xi met during the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan and announced a truce. The upcoming talks in Shanghai are the first high-level encounter since that Osaka meeting.

The smart money is on keeping expectations low. As an analyst quoted by the SCMP noted that the “talks will only result in a small step.” Still, even a small step would be a welcome respite from the spiral of escalation we have seen over the past year. The key question is, what exactly might that small step be?

A rollback in tariffs is one option. China has previously demanded all tariffs be eliminated before a deal can be reached. This is surely a no-starter for the Trump team, which in fact would like to keep some tariffs in place even after a deal is made. However, having slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, the U.S. side has plenty of room to maneuver, allowing it to simultaneously reduce the tariff burden considerably, while still leaving meaningful tariffs in place.

On the issue of Huawei, the introduction of a bipartisan bill in Congress that would lock the Shenzhen-based telco into the Commerce Department’s blacklist complicates matters. Paradoxically, however, the Democrats jump onto the Huawei bandwagon could help the Trump negotiators in two ways. First, it moves the goalposts in a way that allows the administration to do a lot without accomplishing anything when it comes to Huawei. Second, Lighthizer and Mnuchin can now point to concrete evidence that a Democratic victory in 2020 will not give China any respite from American wrath. Better the devil you know….

As for China’s side of the bargain, hopes of placating the U.S. with purchases of agricultural goods seems to have faded, as China now seems to realize that no amount of sorghum will get the U.S. to ease up on its core demands. It is critical to remember that the Section 301 investigation that provided the legal basis for the tariffs concerned Chinese government practices “related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation”. In the absence of meaningful Chinese concessions on these areas, it is hard to see the U.S. budging on either tariffs or Huawei.

The Section 301 investigation report provides a clear picture of what the U.S. would like to see happen regarding these critical areas. Last month, China announced it will open up new sectors to foreign investment and it may offer further liberalization.

As difficult as it may be for some Dragon Slayers to accept, not every single line of Chinese jurisprudence has been drafted with a nefarious, China-first agenda in mind. For instance, when Article 43(1) of China’s Joint Venture Regulations call for “fair and reasonable” fees for the use of technology, it is reflecting the basic principle that, “In civil activities, the principles of voluntariness, fairness, making compensation for equal value, honesty and credibility shall be observed” (Art. 4, General Principles of Civil Law). Meanwhile, “Vaguely worded provisions and uncertainty about the applicable rules” are a hallmark of Chinese legislation, and serve as powerful levers with implications that go far beyond foreign direct investment (FDI).

One intriguing, if unlikely, possibility would be the introduction of more specific investment terms into a bilateral treaty (such as the income tax treaty or the consular convention). This could include language that puts Chinese investment into the U.S. under additional scrutiny. It could also provide for special procedures to allow companies like Huawei to obtain technology while providing certain safeguards. This approach would allow the Chinese to save face as far as its own legislation is concerned, while pleasing the Americans (who, given the current tenor in Washington, are unlikely to care too much about protestations from Brussels or Ottawa regarding this side deal).

Speaking of unconventional wisdom, the possibility of non-trade elements playing a role in a deal cannot be discarded. In the lead-up to the talks, Secretary Pompeo called China’s treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang “the stain of the century,” while Vice President Pence tweeted a condemnation of China’s record on religious freedom. And there is always Hong Kong. This simultaneous push on trade and human rights is consistent with the “whole of government” approach against China called for in the—ironically-named—John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. Admittedly, it is hard to see where China can budge, especially in the kind of public way the Trump team needs to be able to claim some kind of victory. That said, if it gives him some oxygen on tariffs and Huawei, President Xi might be willing to pull something out of his hat on North Korea or even the South China Sea.

So though must of my law firm’s international lawyers are beset with a severe case of what they hae taken to calling “China promise fatigue syndrome,” I am marginally more optimistic about the US and China at least reaching some sort of deal to stop the decline in trade relations. Not so optimistic that I am not also telling our clients to — if at all possible — move their manufacturing out of China, but optimistic enough to believe that both China and the U.S. might get caught up in the Shanghai spirit just enough next week to keep things moving forward. But not enough not to advocate that if your products are subject to U.S. tariffs you should get going on your China tariff exclusion requests now.

The US-China Trade War: Next Week’s Shanghai Meeting is a Tiny Glimmer of Hope syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[gossipzombie]

1. That declutter lifeeee

I decluttered my wardrobe again, I was determined to have minimal items for minimal cleanup and fuss. My goal is to eventually get down to 30 items that I just rotate like a capsule wardrobe.. If you don’t know what a capsule wardrobe is there is a fantastic blog post about it here.

I am such a sentimental person and I hold onto things and items just because there is a memory associated with these objects. In that case, what I do is put them in a separate bag and back into my closet on the shelf. In a months time if I haven’t reached for it to take an item I MUST donate/discard the items. This system has worked very well for me in decluttering and provided me with clarity and a sureness when letting go of these material objects.

It also helps to ask guiding questions such as, “Is this broken or damaged in any way?” “Does this item still fit me in a flattering manner?” “Is this still my style?” “Do I feel good when wearing this/using this?”

The guilt and regret will creep in too, that’s normal when moving on from anything in life. Thoughts like, “wasted dreams, wasted opportunities, wasted time, and wasted money (my favourite)” will start to pop up. It’s important to recognise that voice and kindly ask it to shut the fuck up. In total, I discarded two full bags of clothes and donated them to the Salvos. I would like to slowly but surely work my way down to a wardrobe where I don’t feel fatigued with what to wear questions and easily pick out items I love. It’s the little things that make life great.

  2. Making time to do projects

This has been a tremendous weight upon my shoulders throughout the years. The excuse of, “I don’t have time for that.” As well as a mixture of self-doubt, victimisation, self-sabotage and imposter syndrome making the perfect cocktail I kept sipping from even though the aftertaste was bitter.

I made a decision to stop drinking from that cocktail, even if it was a tiny sip here and there. In October it needed to stop. Bad habits need to be quit cold turkey. I forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and attend events such as Integrity20 in Brisbane where I worked in a newsroom. I forced myself to start university papers early in Tri2 so that the procrastination demon didn’t possess my soul and the panic monster awaken three days before they are due.

I use the word “force” because what I really mean is scheduling time with yourself. Making appointments with yourself and showing up for those appointments.

If you’re an intense procrastinator this will be a huge challenge in itself. I can write all the to-do lists and schedule all the things in my diary but that doesn’t mean I will do any of them. (Lol lets just go on YouTube and binge watch videos completely irrelevant to my life). It seems so simple but it’s so difficult. You must remove distractions. I have a Tomato timer (Pomodoro method) in my Google Chrome bar and this blocks all social network sites for 25minutes while working and then allows you a 5minute break. This is one of the only things that has helped me to stay focused when working on a creative project. Leaving my phone downstairs, or furthermore, turning it off completely. Investing in an alarm clock instead of using my phone, having no electronic devices in the bedroom and turning off all notifications so I’m not constantly distracted. These are simple but life-changing things to take back wasted time.

3. Daily cleaning

Again, this seems so simple but it’s something that doesn’t happen when you’re a professional procrastinator with a PhD in bad habits. Little tasks like making my bed in the morning, cleaning all the dishes before I go to bed and do a quick vacuum of the kitchen after cleaning up the daily dinner mess, making sure I put away all my paperwork, books and pens when I’m finished in the office. These small things are overlooked but are essential to a cleaner and clearer way of life. Of course, less stuff means less cleaning too, which is great because cleaning sucks.

  4.  Buying a slow cooker

My birthday was at the start of October, and when you become an adult you are excited by simple adult things. A slow cooker is one of these adult things. All you do is chuck ingredients in and leave it all day and then when you come home from work you’re dinner is ready like magic. It’s magical. Being organised is magical.

5. Digital declutter 

Unfollowing people on Instagram who do nothing but stir negative feelings of comparison inside me. Unsubscribing from YouTube channels because I’m no longer a 17-year-old girl interested in “beauty duty” of fashion and make-up. Deleting old accounts and apps I no longer use, unsubscribing from emails I never read, deleting old folders and files on my computer. Honestly, the list goes on. For me, digital decluttering is more frustrating than physical because with digital we usually send it to this foreign place and never think about it again, and then it just sits there for decades forgotten about. It’s all too hard and we just create new accounts and buy new digital items without even thinking about the old ones we have taking up space in our homes, in our ‘clouds.’ It’s also a HUGE and daunting task that nobody wants to do. I set a timer for 20 minutes and go forth each week. Once that timer is up, I’m done for the day. 20 minutes is nothing but over time 20 minutes because an hour and an hour becomes two and then suddenly everything is clear and clutter free and I have organised folders on my desktop.

  Haley x

5 decisions that made October easier. 1. That declutter lifeeee I decluttered my wardrobe again, I was determined to have minimal items for minimal cleanup and fuss.

[thegloober]

​We're killing off passwords. But are we ready for what will replace them?

Tech security people hate passwords because resetting forgotten passwords is the most tedious job in the world, and also they know everybody else is terrible at password security anyway.

The rest of us don’t like passwords much either, mainly because the security people won’t let us use our old favourites like 1234 or pa55w0rd. And we don’t like having to remember complicated passwords, so we write them down on a piece of paper, and then lose it. And then we have to go and ask nicely for tech to reset the password. Again.

Nobody likes passwords. Apart from the hackers who find them, steal them or crack them with ease, that is. That’s because passwords are still the keys to the kingdom in many cases; once a crook has them, there is often little else to stop them doing what they want.

Insecure, annoying, expensive — passwords would have been got rid of long ago except that the fundamental concept is easy to implement and easy to understand. But the end of the password is finally coming into view.

Most applications now offer some kind of two-factor authentication. The idea is to use something you know, like a password, plus something you have, like a code generated by an authentication app on your smartphone (or, less securely, from a text message sent by an app) is better than a password alone. That’s a positive step which should help reduce the most basic (though highly effective) security breaches which often start with people being tricked out of their passwords by phishing emails.

So what about the next step? Here smartphones are well ahead of the PC world, by using biometrics — fingerprints and facial recognition — as the standard way to log on. Something you have is replaced with something you are.

Tapping a digit on a fingerprint reader is much quicker than typing in a passcode, and raising a phone to your face to look at the screen, which also unlocks the device, is a totally natural motion. Expect this to be the way you access you PC and other devices in future, too.

Microsoft has already outlined how it plans to kill off passwords in Windows 10 using a combination of multi-factor authentication and biometrics via Windows Hello, a service it says is being used by more than 47 million people.

Earlier this year one UK bank said it was planning to trial allowing customers to access their accounts using their face or fingerprints using Windows Hello, and just this month the National Cyber Security Center, the UK’s cyber security agency, updated its guidance to say that government organisations should use Windows Hello for Business as part of their Windows 10 deployments.

All of this is good from a security point of view no doubt, and the use of the technology has been sensible, with biometrics being stored securely and locally. Fears about biometrics being stolen are probably a bit overhyped but there is a genuine risk that large databases of biometrics could pose a serious security risk.

But I’m also wondering whether there will a backlash at some point from users who are uncomfortable with making their physical bodies part of the authentication process.

I already feel a little nervous staring at my smartphone and hoping that it will recognise my face. Perhaps that’s because I’m not sure what it means if my phone decides I am not me, and the slightly queasy doubt it surfaces: who gets to choose who I am?

There is also a danger that we risk making biometrics like our face or our fingerprints a standard form of identity without thinking about the consequences. Currently, few would be willing to see face or fingerprint become the standard way of accessing government services, for example. And those aren’t the only biometrics we could use; what about your iris or your heart beat or your voice or your DNA? What does it mean to swap something private like a passport for something public, like your face? Where do we draw these lines? Who gets to choose what is used and when? Before we make the move to biometrics and wave passwords goodbye we need to have some good answers to these tough questions.

Increasing security is good, but understanding the consequences is important, too.

ZDNet’s Monday Morning Opener

The Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. Since we run a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8:00am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6:00pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet’s global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.

Previously on Monday Morning Opener:

Source: https://bloghyped.com/were-killing-off-passwords-but-are-we-ready-for-what-will-replace-them/

[furynewsnetwork]

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By Kevin Daley

Judge Neil Gorsuch will appear before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary beginning Monday, as the panel mulls whether to recommend his nomination to the full Senate.

Thus far, Gorsuch has glided through the nomination process. His glittering resume, which now bears the “well-qualified” imprimatur of the American Bar Association, has foreclosed several lines of attack for Senate Democrats, who have spent weeks fumbling for a strategy to block a confirmation that looks increasingly certain.

It’s difficult to overstate the aimlessness that has characterized the Senate Democratic caucus with respect to the Gorsuch nomination. As recently as last Wednesday, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee, told The Huffington Post she wasn’t sure what topics she planned to press Gorsuch on during the hearings. The chamber’s number two Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, brought the caucus’ unfocused improvisation into sharp relief when he told reporters the caucus had elected to wait until the hearings to formulate a unified position with respect to the nomination.

Though it seems unlikely this week will present the bruising ideological confrontations of confirmations past — given the general Democratic malaise — expect the following issues to feature prominently in the hearings.

Corporations and Campaign Finance 

Democratic messaging on the Gorsuch nomination began to emerge just last week. Senate leadership launched something of a salvo during events on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Capitol, characterizing Gorsuch as a callous jurist who consistently aligns himself with powerful constituencies.

“Obviously, the social issues are always looming out there with any justice,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “But where [Gorsuch is] particularly vulnerable is in this anti-worker, pro-corporate record.

Democrats have flagged three cases in particular as dispositive of a harsh judge unsympathetic to needy plaintiffs. In one case, Gorsuch voted against a truck driver for abandoning his vehicle during inclement weather. He has also written or joined opinions ruling against a family seeking federal compensation for costs accrued educating their disabled child, and a professor who lost her job after taking medical leave to recover from cancer.

Two of these three rulings were unanimous decisions joined by Democratic appointees. The third, which concerns the truck driver, implicated the supposed vagueness of the word “operate” in a statute relevant to the case. The facts particular to this litigation inspire sympathy for the truck driver, but as Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman explains, there’s little about Gorsuch’s conclusion which isn’t legally defensible.

In this vein, the mobilization of outside groups in support of Gorsuch’s confirmation is also likely to solicit questions about corporate political activity and campaign finance laws generally. The largest of these efforts is coordinated by the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group that put $10 million behind a national campaign to get Gorsuch confirmed. A recent New York Times profile shows that the group’s financiers are largely unknown.

“We can use these hearings to put the spotlight on big special interests,” said Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “The test for Gorsuch is: is he willing to disassociate himself from them? In my view, the burden is on him to persuade us of that fact, particularly given that big special interests are spending tens of millions in dark money to try to help him get on the court.”

Life and Religious Liberty

Gorsuch’s record on the bench is scant on abortion-rights cases. His Oxford doctoral dissertation, however, which later became his book “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” offers some hints as to his view of life issues. Expect Democrats to quote liberally from the text, much of which was written under the supervision of Oxford professor John Finnis, the cerebral champion of natural law theorists.

In the book, Gorsuch explicitly states that the taking of a human life by a private person is always wrong. Though this is surely enough for Democrats to make trouble, as Reason’s Damon Root points out, he also evinces skepticism of the idea the courts should rely on the 14th Amendment’s due process clause to defend rights not specifically announced in the Constitution. This position, if it is in fact his, could implicate a broad range of rights the courts have identified.

Many conservative and libertarian jurists and scholars approach this question, called unenumerated rights, from complex perspectives which do not easily lend themselves to polar categorizations. In fact, the extent to which this issue divides conservatives and libertarians among themselves is not widely understood in media. Still, it’s an appealing line of attack for Democrats, as it suggests a skepticism of rights to medical privacy or same-sex marriage.

And its an approach to the nomination that seems most accurately calibrated to the current political environment, where a furious identity-leftism generates most of the energy in the Democratic party. If energizing these voters is a priority for Democrats scrutiny of Gorsuch’s robust defenses of religious liberty seems sensible.

As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick writes, Gorsuch takes a capacious view of religious liberty, even as compared to his would-be predecessor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Take the following example: Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion in the 10th Circuit’s review of Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius, which asked the court to decide if the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows a closely held for-profit company to deny its employees contraceptive coverage based on religious objections. The case was later heard by the Supreme Court.

His concurring opinion tracked the problem of complicity, and argued the lower court had given insufficient (and statutorily required) credence to the fact the company’s owners felt any sort of participation in a contraception regime violated their religious beliefs. Gorsuch argued the courts should accommodate a religious adherent’s sincere assertion that a certain act implicates them in immorality, and that the empirical or scientific accuracy of their claims was not the proper subject of judicial inquiry.

“It is simply not a defense of religious liberty to accept, without question, a religious adherent’s beliefs as if they are judicially determined facts, especially if those beliefs contradict empirical fact and even more so when they create tangible suffering for others,” Lithwick writes. This is the sort of argument that seems far more potent given current political realities. But it’s also a dangerous argument, as it largely validates the fears of conservative religious adherents, who rallied around Trump in hopes of saving the courts from thorough-going secularist judges disinterested in their conscientious objections. Still, expect it to get some attention from committee Democrats.

Gitmo

Gorsuch briefly served in the U.S. Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration, where he was involved in shaping legal guidance supplementing the government’s national security policies. In this capacity, he advised the administration on the detention of enemy combatants at the U.S. naval facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Several documents produced by the Justice Department in connection with the nomination are sure to elicit questions, particularly from Feinstein, who is intensely interested in detention issues and was a leading critic of Bush-era detention policies at Gitmo.

In one letter he wrote to the base’s commander, Gen. Jay Hood, after visiting Guantanamo Bay, Gorsuch said that he was “extraordinarily impressed” with the standards and professionalism of the installation and its servicemen.

In another internal email, he suggested the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit would be more sympathetic to the Justice Department in detention cases if the administration invited them to visit Gitmo.

“If the DC judges could see what we saw, I believe they would be more sympathetic to our litigating positions,” he wrote.

“A visit, or even just the offer of a visit, might help dispel myths and build confidence in our representations to the Court about conditions and detainee treatment,” he added.

Schedule

The confirmation hearing will begin on Monday on Capitol Hill at 11:00 am. In addition to Gorsuch’s testimony, five panels of expert witnesses will offer remarks over the course of the next week.

The committee will vote on Gorsuch’s nomination at the conclusion of these hearings, following a vote of the full Senate.

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