#I am. the only one on my committee who works FT in person but even if I was hybrid or remote… I have to work?

[ephemeral-winter]

I’m on this committee at my synagogue to run some combatting antisemitism workshops in the local community which is important work that I’m happy to do but we’re affiliated with a national organization (you may be able to guess which one) that does educational webinars for us the facilitators and they’re all scheduled at like 3pm on a Thursday and it’s literally like some of us have jobs

[flying-nightwing]

The Incredible Coincidence of One High School Reunion

As promised, the awaited enemies to lovers x fake dating i’ve promised today! (ft. my love for super long titles) 

Thank you to everyone supporting me!

PS: if your name is Monica I am truly sorry, please forgive me.

Masterlist

Pairing: Dick Grayson x reader

Word count: 4916

Warnings: none beside extreme cheesiness

Out of everyone you thought would show up to the Gotham Academy 10 years alumni reunion, Dick Grayson was definitely not one of them. He was the golden boy, the Wayne kid that probably had a long list of better things to do than entertain than his old cohort of high school graduates. Alas, there he was in all of his glory, and it pissed you off.

You and Dick had, to say the least, a difficult relation. You had been friends, for a little while after he started at the academy. You had a lot of classes together and more often than not ended up working together. You helped him get acclimated to the new school and environment, introduced him to all your friends and invited him to your extracurricular activities. But then, ever so slowly, everything became a competition. Who got the best grades, who got involved in most committees, and even who the teachers liked most. Naturally, he bested you in everything and made a point to shove it back in your face. He became your nemesis, and this adversity dealt one hell of a blow to your social standing. People liked Dick better, of course they did, so they stopped hanging out with you.

Good riddance, you told yourself. They outed themselves as fake friends anyway, so the loss hadn’t been catastrophic. Still, for a teenage girl, it had hurt. You had been doomed as the loner, all because you had befriended the wrong person in the first place. The saddest part was that you genuinely missed your friendship with Dick, but you just couldn’t go back to him. It would have made you look pathetic and desperate, and you were not about to stoop so low. Sure you had a few other acquaintances you ate lunch with and did teamwork, but it wasn’t the same.

He was mingling with the people, talking and laughing in his probably expensive suit. You rolled your eyes at the sight and downed your glass of champagne, then made your way back to the refreshment table. On the way you bumped into an old colleague from the recycling committee and entertained small talk, then you made it there without another obstacle. You stopped in front of the already filled glasses of wine and hesitated. The red wine smelled horrible, the white seemed watered down, but the rosé looked like a good choice. You reached for the last glass when your hand collided with another. you looked up to apologize, but as you caught a glimpse of the other person, your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance and retracted your hand like it touched fire. 

“Grayson” You said through clipped lips.

“(Y/L/N)”

“Still trying to steal my only joy left, I see” You scoffed, nodding at the still unclaimed rosé glass.

“And you’re still baselessly accusing everyone but yourself for undermining you” He rolled his eyes. “Nothing has changed”

“What do you want?” You sighed, crossing your arms against your chest and glaring up at him. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Well, I was just trying to get a drink” He lifted his hands up in surrender, but in a sarcastic way that just irritated you, and he knew it all to well. “You were the one who got all pissy about it”

“Yeah whatever, I guess I should have bowed and offered you the glass on a silver platter” You huffed. “So his Highness wouldn’t have been inconvenienced”

“Are you kidding me?” His eyebrows raised. “Why are you like this? I’ve never--”

He stopped talking, his eyes fixated on something behind you for a second. Then, he made himself surprisingly small and glanced away. You frowned in confusion for a second, before you looked over your shoulder and blanched, understanding the reaction all too well. You shared a look of panic, simultaneously putting away the animosity between each other to brace yourself for the horror that was to come.

And that horror was named Monica.

She confidently walked toward you, graceful in her high heels and frustratingly stunning in her knee length dark blue dress. She was your ex supposed best friend, and the first one to ditch you for Dick when the rivalry began. She then proceeded to make a point of showing off her pinning for him, trying desperately to make her and him a “thing”. It never worked, but she kept going, so much it became borderline stalking. The whole school knew, it fueled everyone’s gossip.

Without missing a beat, she extended in arm in between you and Dick to grab the last glass of rosé, leaning not so subtly more in his space than she needed to. She sipped the alcohol almost seductively, gazing at Dick with practiced innocence. It was becoming uncomfortable real quick.

“Hi Richard” She gave him her best smile, then shot you a smug glance as if saying watch this. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been good” He replied without much interest, refusing to meet her eyes. “How about you?”

“Amazing! I’ve been working on totally rebranding my father’s hotel company” She chatted excitedly. You sighed inwardly and grabbed a glass of white wine, taking a long sip. “If you want to, I can show you the new rooms design. We could test the mattresses…”

You choked on your wine while Dick’s eyes considerably widened. Monica was waiting for an answer.

“I uh-- Actually I can’t…” He sputtered, trying to come up with an excuse to reject her. Oh, that would be interesting alright. He knew how persuasive she could be, so he had to find something solid. He looked around in a panic, then his eyes settled on you. “... Because (Y/N) and I are together”

His words didn’t quite register in your head as he threw an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to his side with a wide forced smile. His fingers giving a small pleading tug to your dress snapped you out of your stupor, and you plastered a matching grin on your lips. You hated the idea of bailing Dick out of an embarrassing situation, but the opportunity of taunting Monica was just too good to pass, so you decided to play along.

“What?” Monica blinked in confusion, then frowned. “I didn’t know that”

“That’s because we’ve been keeping it very private” He replied smoothly. “I wanted to keep her away from the paps, they’re such vultures sometimes”

“Oh” She simply said, before smiling sweetly. It was too sweet. You didn’t like it one bit. “So how did it happen?”

“Well, we bumped into each other again last year, totally by accident” You took over Dick’s hesitation. “And uh, we cleared things up and it kinda just… Happened”

You made a point of giving him heart eyes as you finally returned his awkward embrace. His muscles untensed a bit when he saw you wouldn’t sabotage him. Something shifted in Monica’s eyes, they became just a bit more somber without her losing the smile. It made her look just a bit insane.

“I see” Her tone turned hostile. “I guess you won’t mind if I share the good news, won’t you?” 

“... Yeah, we don’t mind” He scratched the back of his neck while your stomach dropped. You hadn’t thought about this. The smugness returned as she turned around, flipping her hair in the process. You watched her walk away before sending a thundering glare at Dick, who had his lips pressed in a thin line.

“Really?” 

“What was I supposed to do?” He quietly bit back.

“You owe me a solid one for this” You said through your teeth. “You better start thinking of something good, golden boy”

“As far as I’m concerned, you have as much interest as me to keep this charade up” He scoffed, grabbing a glass of red wine. “So don’t act like you’re doing this out of selflessness”

“Yeah whatever” 

“Ooooohhhh mi gosh guuuuys”

You both flinched at the very high pitched voice coming to your right. You saw a girl in a violet dress almost running toward you with a wide grin on her face. You didn’t remember her name, but you knew she was a nice girl despite her tendency to get in everyone’s business. 

“Why didn’t you say you were together?” She squealed as her boyfriend trailed along, an apologetic expression on his face. “This is so amaaaazing!”

“Ah, yes” You replied awkwardly. “We just wanted to keep it private, you know?”

“Yeah I understand totally” She nodded quickly, the point of your words soaring right over her head. “I’ve always known you guys were going to end up together. You’re so meant for each other”

You wanted to cringe. That surely wasn’t the discourse anyone was holding while you were still in high school, and she surely only said that because she thought you were actually together. What do they know, anyway. 

“Uh, thanks” Dick smiled politely to hide his discomfort. “I guess it took some time, but we finally figured it out, haha”

“Oh, I forgot” She gasped, turning to her boyfriend. “Mike, this is Dick and (Y/N). They were like, THE rivals back in the days. We basically only talked about them for like, an entire school year. It’s so sad (Y/N) pushed everyone away though”

You looked away as she kept babbling to her boyfriend. You knew she didn’t mean it in a harsh or mocking way, but it still stung. You wanted to tell her it hadn’t been by choice, that people deserted you and forced you into a corner, but you found yourself unable to do so. Beside, you couldn’t just let them know how much it affected you or they would prey on it all the same than in actual high school. You were so busy tuning her out that you missed the concerned glance sent in your direction. 

“Hey, it was nice to see you again” Dick shook hands with the couple, snapping you out of your head. You forced a smile and did the same. “I think we’ll go around a bit, but uh, see ya?”

“S-sure”

You gladly took this exit and walked away from the refreshment table with Dick. You could feel his questioning stare shifting on you every few seconds, but you refused to look in his direction. He didn’t have the right to be concerned, and you didn’t owe him any explanations. You lifted your head upright and followed him over to the next group of person. Naturally, by this point, everyone had gotten the word from Monica. People were either friendlier than ever with you, or gave you attitude about it, none of which you enjoyed. You mostly nodded and smiled, barely paying attention to the words that were being exchanged. It was more often than not anecdotes that concerned Dick, or happened after you broke things off with most of your friends.

“It so strange to see you together” Some guy you didn’t quite remember began with a cruel smirk. “I didn’t see you as the type to hang out with losers”

You bit your cheek so hard it almost bled. You were certain that this would be the last nail to your coffin, that you’d receive the humiliation of your life. However, your fake boyfriend had another idea. 

“Still I hung out with you” The comeback came so fast it almost gave you a whiplash. Silence settled over the group, their baffled stares directed to a very self satisfied Dick Grayson. “Hey, remember when you hung upside down from the climbing ropes in gym class and threw up all over yourself from up there?”

Your hand involuntarily flew to your mouth to hide the drop of your jaw. 

A wave of uncomfortable laughs made its way around the circle, as nobody had enough guts to confront Dick about it. And you had a feeling he knew that; he knew they would still try to suck up to him even ten years later and fully abused this privilege.

For you.

Without waiting any longer, you were gently dragged away from the group. You were still processing what had just happened and didn’t realize you were talked to. You shook your head slightly to get out of your daze and frowned.

“Uh?”

“I asked you if you were okay” He repeated softly.

“Y-yeah” You stuttered. “I guess I’m the one who owe you one now”

“Don’t mention it” He tried a small smile. “Those people need some reality checks sometimes”

“I don’t know why I even came to this stupid reunion” You mumbled, glancing back at where the group had stood earlier. Most of the people had gone away by now, only remaining the guy Dick had all but obliterated and some girl seemingly comforting him. “It was a bad idea”

He didn’t speak right away, he instead did a visual sweep of the room, then at the back door of the gymnasium and at the crown again. “Hey, have you ever gotten on the roof of the academy?”

“... No” Your eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Come on” He hooked his arm through yours and pulled you with him to the back door. You ended up in a staircase you didn’t know existed and began climbing up. You didn’t know how, but Dick easily bypassed the lock without the key, opening the door to the roof. You stepped out a took a deep breath, glad you could escape the crowd of people you didn’t like downstairs. The sky was clouded and it smelled like rain was coming.

“So” You began as you turned to face him. “How did you out of all people found out about this secret passage? This isn’t very much golden-y of you”

“Oh, if only you knew” He chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I found the staircase by accident in senior year one time I was trying to hide away from Monica and her gang of demons”

You snorted.

“I don’t know how you did it” He hummed, looking up at the sky.

“Did what?”

“Kept yourself together while I was being, well, a total dick” He precised.

“Ah” You gave him a sad smile. “The first social rule you learn when you’re born rich, is that you rarely ever make real friends. You mostly only keep people around temporarily for your own gain, then they’re gone. It was hard, but I had expected it”

“Still, you handled it way better than I did” His eyes trailed down the roof and stopped on you. “I wasn’t prepared for everything that came with hanging with rich kids”

“It’s an art, isn’t it?” You teased. “Fake friends are hard to manage, especially the kind that comes here. If you’re not careful they’ll eat you alive”

“Yeah, I understood that pretty quickly” He sighed. You nodded slowly, warming up your arms with your hand. The night air was cold, and the wind didn’t make it better. 

“If it could make you feel better” You paused, regretting your words as soon as they came but unable to stop them. “I think you’ve been my only true friend in high school, for the time it lasted”

You weren’t looking to astound him, but you surely did. His whole posture changed, and his expression shifted into something you couldn’t put your finger on. You had the time to reconsider your words and ask yourself if you should leave before he gave you any reaction.

“Sorry” You mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said that”

“N-no, wait” He scurried his thoughts. “You really meant that?”

You nodded.

“I truly screwed up didn’t I?” He muttered, flinching. 

“No, I did” You sighed. “I should have just swallowed my pride and stopped caring so much about trying to be better than you” 

“But I kept pushing you” His head hung low. “I was trying so hard to get attention and validation that lost the one person that might have made high school not so terrible”

“Didn’t you get enough validation from Monica?” You raised an eyebrow playfully. “She seemed so keen on praising your every move”

“Ha” He shook his head, a small smile dancing on the corner of his lips. “I think she was praising the name Wayne more than anything”

“High school was terrible” You said as you glanced up at a bird flying higher over your head. When you looked back down, Dick had his arm outstretched and was handing you his suit jacket. You mumbled a thanks and put it on, welcoming its warmth.

“Cheers to that” 

“Oh yeah” You chuckled. “Cheers to people screwing up good things and explaining a decade later”

“(Y/N), I officially apologize for being an asshole” He declared, and you held back a grin. “Will you forgive me?”

“I officially forgive you, Dick Grayson” You replied. “Will you forgive me for being a stuck up bitch?”

“I officially forgive you, (Y/N)” He repeated with a mock solemn expression.

You held eye contact for a second before you burst with laughter. All of this anger and resentment you had carried for years was suddenly just gone. You had no idea it would be that easy to put it all behind you and find back your friend you had missed so much. You had forgotten how easy it was to laugh and kid around with him. 

“Come here” He opened his arms for a hug. As you were about to walk into his embrace, raindrops began falling. You paused for a second, just enough for the sky to open up and pour water over you.

You yelped and ran for cover back inside. Dick slammed the door behind you and put back the lock on again, then with a mischievous glint in his eyes, grabbed your wrist and pulled you with him down the stairs.

“Slow down!” You squealed, trying not to fall over in your heals. “Where are we going?”

“Take a wild guess”

He pushed open the door of the first floor, giving out on the hallways you knew too well. Most senior classrooms were around here, and on the walls, the graduating classes hung in big, golden frames. 

“The senior hall? Really?” You raised an eyebrow, but he wasn’t fazed. 

“Come on, let’s find our year” He ignored your comment as he walked further down the corridor, checking the dates on every frame. You followed him until he finally stopped on the right one. “Aw, look at our baby faces!”

You squinted your eyes at the pictures to find him. “I’m sorry to tell you, you practically look the same” 

He gasped in offense. “I believe I lost my baby cheeks since. I mean, look at my jaw”

You looked in between the picture and him a couple of times, pretending not to see it. Obviously, his face had gotten insanely handsome since you had last seen him, and that was just his face. You didn’t broach the topic of the broad shoulders and seemingly toned body. The rain had gotten through his white shirt a bit, and you prefered not to let your gaze linger there for too long,

“Mhhh” You shrugged teasingly. “I guess your hair has improved a bit”

“This is what you latched on? My hair?” He scoffed playfully before he snapped his head in your direction. “Wait, a bit?”

You laughed. “Alright alright, Grayson. I might be a bitch but I’m not a liar, you do score considerably higher overall on the looks now”

“Thank you” He smiled proudly. “You’re not too bad yourself” 

“Oh, you don’t need to flatter me” You smirked as you stepped around him to go further down the hallway. “I’m fully secure in my glow up from then to now”

“Alright, no need to get cocky” He snorted, but it wasn't mean like it used to be. It felt like the friendship you were meant to have. 

You stopped in front of the glass case displaying various achievement by seniors, the valedictorians of each years and the famous golden book, which contained the signature of every graduate of Gotham Academy since 1957. It laid open, showing the pages of the last class to leave. You felt nostalgic as you read the comments and signatures, suddenly wishing you were one of the kids who got to give and receive nice comments and share inside jokes only a select group of people would understand. Instead, you knew your name was forever scribbled in a corner ten pages back, perhaps overlapped by some bigger, flashier signature from the more popular crowd. 

“Forever the... Salt water chugging gang?” Dick read from an entry, furrowing his brows together. “I wonder what events lead to that name”

“Yikes” You grimaced. “Were we that stupid?”

“More, I think” He grinned. “Let’s find out”

Before you could ask what he meant, he got to work to disable the student proof lock and opened the glass. He did it so easily, so flawlessly, you had trouble thinking of how he learned to do all that.

“How do you know so much about picking locks?” You asked as he carefully flipped back the pages to your year. First the door to the roof, now that?

“Stick around and maybe I’ll tell you” He winked, then returned his eyes on the book. They widened. “Oh what the hell”

“What?” You peeked from around him.

“Monica really… Really left me her-her” He choked with laughter, tears brimming his eyes. “Her my--myspace handle-”

You joined him in a quiet laughter, then it grew louder as his became hysteric. He barely finished his sentence, he couldn’t even say it, and you understood why. It was positively hilarious. She really did leave her myspace handle for Dick, under his name with a little heart and her signature.

Dick sighed, his hand on his chest as he tried to catch his breath back. He then wiped his tears and shook his head. “That was good”

“One for the books, for sure” You agreed. “If she could see that, the embarrassment” 

“Come on, let’s add something for old time’s sake” He said as he pulled out a pen from his pockets. Before you could stop him, he leaned forward and began writing in a tiny free space. He then backed up, letting you read his little addition.

‘Let’s pretend I wrote that when we were seniors. To our lost and found friendship, sincerely, your favourite asshole’

Your smile widened at the message, a warm feeling sneaking up in your chest. You snatched the pen from his hand and scribbled another message in another blank space, the blue ink contrasting with the black of the markers on the page. 

‘Because it took us a decade to find out we have more in common than different after all. To you with love, your stuck up bitch’

It was your turn to step back, satisfied, and let him read your message. He chuckled as you handed him back the pen, and quietly flipped back the pages to the last class.

“Thanks” You spoke up.

“For what?”

“For giving me the chance to write something nice that I meant in there” You explained, pushing back a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Despite what I might say, it’s nice to leave a mark somewhere”

“In that case, you’re very welcome” He smiled warmly. You felt your heart skip a beat when you noticed how close from you he had gotten. From close on, you could see the different pigments in the blue of his eyes, or just how sharp his facial features actually were. It was definitive, Dick Grayson was a really handsome man.

You kind of understood now why Monica was so obsessed with him.

Suddenly, Dick perked up, his eyes set on the corner of the corridor. Quicker than you could register, he shut the glass display close and spun you against him, backing himself up into the wall. You were confused and flustered with your hands flat on his chest, but you realized soon enough the purpose of his actions. Seconds after, your old math teacher rounded up the corner. She paused at the sight of you, a frown on her face, until she recognized Dick. Her whole expression then changed.

“Mr. Grayson” She smiled politely, ignoring the position you were in. So, he had staged it up to seem like you were doing something else than vandalizing the golden book. “I believe the party is in the gymnasium”

“Sorry Ms Hess” He apologized sheepishly. “We wanted to take a little trip down memory lane”

She gave you a knowing look, but didn’t argue much. She only kept going her way like she didn't even see you. You were baffled for a second at exactly what extent people went to suck up to the Wayne name, then you remembered the position you were in. The heat crept back up in your neck, and it only became worse when Dick seemed to have no intention to move. You were too aware of his arms circling your waist and his casual leaning on the wall.

“Nice save” You breathed, your eyes going back to his. Bad idea. He had this innocent look that actually was anything but, and it made you nervous. He was the one against the wall, but it still felt like you were the one trapped. “I still have no idea how you managed that too”

“Let’s add it to the list of mysteries, shall we?”

You could have sworn his voice got deeper there. He slowly tilted his head to the side, his gaze flickering under hooded eyelids in between your eyes and your lips. He was nearly irresistible like that, practically inviting you to steal a taste, so you decided just not to resist. Tentatively, you leaned closer and slowly pressed your lips to his. They were soft and warm as they began gently moving against yours, making you feel all weird inside. On one hand, this was the man you disliked with worked passion no earlier than two hours before. But on the other hand, it felt so right.

You felt like a teenager all over again, but living the right experiences this time around. 

He pulled away, ending the kiss but still staying close. You blinked hazily, trying to chase the daze away. You could feel his hot breath on your lips, and while you were sure your thoughts should be spinning a hundred miles per hour, your head was surprisingly clear and calm. All nervousness was gone and dissipated in thin air. 

“I…” You trailed off, trying to find your tongue. “I don’t know what to say”

“Hmmm, how about...” He hummed as if he was thinking it through. “Wow Grayson, you’re so amazing and I can’t believe we did not make out sooner”

You rolled your eyes at the high pitched voice he used, then lightly slapped him on the chest. “Way to ruin the moment”

“That’s the good thing about moments though” He said, sliding a hand up your back and on your neck. “We can make more of ‘em”

He pulled you in for another kiss, which did not last as long, but definitely felt as good as the first. Perhaps that girl in the violet dress was onto something after all. 

“Smooth, Grayson” A small smile stretched on your lips when you separated. “Very smooth”

“Smooth’s my middle name”

“Uh huh” You chuckled, your eyebrows raised. “Sure”

He shook his head, a playful grin on his lips. His hand trailed from your neck down your arm and his fingers laced with yours. You glanced down at your joint hands, then up to his face. His smile was still there, but it was somewhat more toned down, more fond than its previous playful.

“Are we doing this?” He asked in a whisper. “Or should we stop before I start thinking about it too much?”

You took a deep breath at his question, not expecting it just yet. Dick was someone passionate and emotional, so it shouldn’t surprise you he was already thinking of a potential romantic relation. Everything was moving so fast, but you didn’t want to lie to yourself and say you didn’t feel anything there. Something definitely happened in between the moment he awkwardly threw his arm around you to dodge Monica and the moment he spun you against his chest. And well, one thing you clearly learned tonight was that spontaneous and not thought through decisions could pay off in a way you couldn’t even imagine. 

“I’m willing to try if you are” You finally spoke up. “I guess we’ve got nothing to lose in giving this a shot”

Relief swept across his eyes and his famous million dollars smile returned. He gave your fingers a little squeeze, seeming as happy as a child on christmas morning. 

“This is gonna be great” He muttered excitedly. “I won’t let you down again, I swear”

“You better not” You teased.

“Ohhhhhh mi goooosh!”

Both of your attention snapped at the shrilling voice interrupting you. There was the same girl from earlier, with a crowd around her that obviously contained a very pissed off Monica. You and Dick shared yet another look of incomprehension and slight panic at what she would say this time. And well, it was well justified because nothing could prepare you for her next words. 

“They’re getting engaaaaaaaaged!”

Ah hell, what did you both get into?

[softwonjunnie]

strike three  ⚾ chapter one

“sometimes, you find love where you’d least expect it.” 

☽ baseball team captain!jinhyuck x softball team captain!reader

☽ college!au    

☽ ft. up10tion’s jinhyuck, uniq’s seungyoun, up10tion’s wooseok and most likely other produce x 101 contestants aswell

☽ also kim jiyeon, cho sojung and kim hyunjung of wjsn just to have a face to those names, but if you want to imagine your own people go ahead because this is mainly a produce x 101 fic

☽ fluff and bits of angst, possibly more mature content but only following a warning

☽ second person view, female reader who goes by your name (y/n) 

☽ word count  : 1.4k 

☽ finished at 2019-07-15, 1:00 am 

☽ a/n : sorry for writing it as jinhyuCK instead of jinhyuK... consider this my fight back against the weird romanization of the korean language! but hey here’s the first chapter, i hope you enjoy!

Masterlist l Chapter one l Chapter two l Chapter three l Chapter four l Chapter five

↬ You were not someone who longed for love. You could watch couples in the campus café and you think that you were happy for them - nothing more. It wasn’t something that you thought about daily, the need to fall in love or get a partner, unlike some of your other friends. You would always joke that your best friend Sojung was a hallway major, always strolling around the hallways talking to boys instead of actually being in the classrooms and listening to the teachers. You, however, studied as a real student would; but after school hours, all your time was spent working out or practicing. 

You were the greatest pitcher in your softball team, and that hadn’t exactly come easily. You had put down a great amount of practice in your younger years to get a scholarship in this college, which was the best one in all of Korea when it came to softball and baseball. But that wasn’t the final goal, only a pit stop on the way. You wanted to become one of the very best and play in the biggest leagues, and this education really helped you on your way. But in order to not lose your scholarship and get sent back to your hometown, you also needed to stay focused in class. Your coaches and teachers had made it very clear to you that they would not keep anyone in school who was failing the classes. Somewhere along the way, you had also become the team captain, thanks to your happy and positive nature that dragged your teammates forwards at every game against other schools. As a team captain, you have a great responsibility and can not slack around to expect everyone else to do hard work, just because you radiate good vibes - you need to be the one who practices the hardest and the most often, and motivates everyone else to do the same. 

So even if you had been wishing for love, there wouldn’t be time. You had to stay focused every minute in school so that you wouldn’t need to study overtime, and as soon as classes ended you made it to practice. And the little free time you had? It was needed to recover and rest your body so you could continue improving and grow even stronger. 

You had many friends who understood your situation. A lot of the girls in your team had similar positions, being on scholarships and needing to focus both in class and on field, but they were all very well aware that you were overworking yourself. Even the boys in the baseball team weren’t working as hard as you. But maybe they weren’t aiming as high as you either. 

There was one boy though who was very similar to you in terms of hard work. His name was Lee Jinhyuck; the baseball team’s captain and also their strongest batter. He was known to be one of the most popular boys on campus, as talent often brought fame - along with something else he had a lot of; good looks. 

Though this was something that might be changing in the future. Not his good looks, that is, but his fame and his status in the team. At least according to your friend Seungyoun, who was a baseman in the baseball team. 

The two of you were chatting a bit as you had just finished your practice, and he was about to begin his. “Well, he’s losing his status. You know Wooseok, right?” he asked and leaned his arm on the wall next to him in the corridor you two were currently talking in. You nodded at him and he continued talking. “He’s dating the coach’s daughter...” 

You couldn’t help but let your mouth hang agape. “Really? That’s insane...” 

“She’s a freshman, aswell...” You chuckled. That meant she was three years younger than you, as you were in your last year in school, a senior. “Word has it that he’s only doing it because he thinks the coach will see him as the best batter. And you know who’s got that position right now...” 

“Jinhyuck.” You were friends with a couple of the boys in the team, including Jinhyuck, though you weren’t really close to any of them except for Seungyoun. But he enjoyed gossiping, so you were aware of almost all the small in intrigues and things going on in the team. It felt almost like you were in fact friends with them, as you knew everything from what their personalities were like and what things they’ve said about their girlfriends. 

“Apparently it’s a cool thing to have a girlfriend, and it’s a cool thing to be picked by the coach. And, well, Jinhyuck hasn’t had a girlfriend ever since Siyeon...” Seungyoun muttered, really stressing the name of Jinhyuck’s latest girlfriend as they didn’t exactly end... well. You nodded and he checked his watch. “Oh, two minutes until I need to go. Let’s talk quicker.” 

You chuckled again. “I don’t really see the problem though. Why doesn’t he just get another girlfriend? Is that so hard?” 

“Well spoken from a person who hasn’t had a real lover in like... ever?” You stuck out your tongue at him. “But honestly though, don’t you know what she said about him? She thought he was too lazy and never wanted to spend any time doing anything other than like, cuddle. So he apparently isn’t really boyfriend material.” 

“Oh, is that so?” He nodded and you thought about it for a moment. From what you had noticed of Jinhyuck, he wasn’t someone who struck you as a lazy type. And he wasn’t someone who struck you as the do-not-date-type either. Nor the not-boyfriend-material-type. He was handsome, had a sweet personality, was fit and was really talented, so you didn’t really understand the fuzz. But again, you hadn’t been in a serious relationship that lasted for more than a few weeks since... You couldn’t even remember when. Did you lack that part that made you understand the dateability of boys since you hadn’t been interested, and since it hadn’t been one of your priorities? 

“Hey,” Seungyoun interrupted your thoughts. “aren’t you going to sign up for prom queen? Apparently the prom committee needs the applicants pretty early so that they can prepare for the voting.” 

You sighed. Becoming prom queen had been one of your biggest wishes, non-sport wishes, ever since you had been really young - well, isn’t it everyone’s? Standing on the stage in front of all your schoolmates, all the people who have voted for you, and accepting the crown, looking over at the person who’s just been crowned king- and right. There’s that problem again. The king. “Well, this year, they changed the rules. You’re only allowed to compete as couples. So first of all, I would need a partner-” 

“Already screwed.” You huffed and acted mad, pushing his shoulder lightly. “Okay, okay, go on.” 

“And second of all, you’d need to be a popular couple in order for people to actually vote for you. So we’ll see how it goes.” 

“I believe in you! You’ll just have to-” 

“Cho Seungyoun! Get your ass on field right this instant, you’re already late!” his coach yelled at him, and he quickly put on his helmet and waved goodbye to you before running away towards the field. You laughed at him as you could see his face redden up as he got scolded by the coach in front of all his teammates. 

You stood in your place for a while, leaning against the wall and thinking about all you had discussed with Seungyoun. Wooseok dating the coach’s daughter just to get an advantage while playing; your failed hopes at becoming prom queen in my last year of college; and Jinhyuck, who apparently is falling in the boys’ hierarchy. 

As you were standing there, lost in thought, suddenly Jinhyuck came off the court and into the hallway you were standing in. He waved at you and gave you a sweet smile, which you answered with a quick “hi”, before heading straight into the dressing room. 

And that’s when it hit you. You came up with a plan. A plan that could help both of you. 

[ajaymehta77-blog]

THROUGH THE EYES OF JITO ( 2013 – 2019 )

 VIJAY B BHANDARI

B2B COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN , JITO PUNE CHAPTER ( 2013-2015 ) CHAIRMAN JITO PUNE CHAPTER ( 2015-2018 ) VICE PRESIDENT JITO APEX ( 2018-2020 )

 Three Key words what I learn from Vijay bhai while working with him in JITO since 2013

“Preparation, Execution and Review”.

He is the first leader I saw in Social arena who won’t be afraid to find flaws in events where he was In charge as B2B Chairman. Even for those events which used to be big success from people points of view. That Practice not only helped B2B committee to do more better next time, but it changed the perspective for members like us on how to operate in social arena. That’s when my learning started in Social space. Those were days when we used to be part of his B2B team for the tenure of 2013-2015. Most of our Preparation, Execution and Review Meeting would take place at Jayshree Hotel, Marketyard, Pune.

 I would call Vijay Bhai “Dronacharya”, If I split this name – Drone and Acharya. Drone as we all know an flying object which can have instant view from top for geo locations, similarly Vijay bhai has clear visibility not only from Social projects but for all aspects of life may it is family or business. Acharya means teacher and he has been guiding & teaching to many like us in all above areas mentioned. I am the one who got benefited in most aspects by interacting with him on various occasion’s during this last 5 years since 2013. So for me he is indeed an Donacharya for my Social life.

 Qualities we learn from Vijay Bhai and kind of thoughts he implemented in last 5 years. He has always tried and succeeded to bring more people in JITO who can add value and also crafted leaders within JITO who can be future. Vijay bhai was of mind-set where he would never settle for small, for him “Big is new Small “ and that’s when we saw a JITO Triple Event happening under his leadership, we started with a thought what we would do in Triple Event , compared few past triple event, but his philosophy of Big is New Small, the Jito Pune Triple Event turned out of the one of the largest in terms of area it used, in terms of programs it hosted and most importantly in terms of foot fall it received. April 2016, JITO Triple Event is Historic and has foot print on mind of every JITOian from India and word.

 Another thought always inspired which is combination of all the qualities of Vijay bhai, that he always wanted to make sure there is some take away for people from the programs we would run. So to achieve that he used the basic policy “ What Gets Measured Gets Done “ and the outcome to that policy JITO Pune Chapter in 2018 gave two measure long term projects to community / JITO members – JITO Nagar a budget home for underprivileged in society at almost 30% cost of market value and JITO Business Bay of 3.2 Lac Square feet where all the biggies of community would occupy space to house their corporate offices. JITO Business Bay also set an new record for JITO Pune Chapter as it would own an office of 27000 Sq ft, which will be largest JITO office in world.

 Vijay bhai Now your Journey starts at JITO Apex as National JITO Leader with responsibilities  as Vice President and with Dynamic Apex President Shri Ganpat ji Chaudhary, I am very sure the new JITO Apex will grow 10x in all aspects.

 Once again thanks to my Drone – Aacharya  Shri Vijay Ji Bhandari to not only Shape JITO Pune Chapter but also Shape me personally from an ordinary committee member under you to an Chief Secretary of JITO Pune Chapter for 2018-2020.

 Love and Regards

Ajay Mehta

Chief Secretary , JITO Pune Chapter ( 2018-2020 ) Former Apex Director ( 2014-2018 ) Chairman IT, PR & Media JITO Apex ( 2018-2020 )

[kurniaindri]

Safety Issues in a Medical Laboratory

Clinical Laboratories where bodily fluids are tested can be hazardous to the technicians who carry out the procedures.

Many people have entered laboratories to give urine, blood, stool or other bodily fluid specimens. Not so many people have actually neogen indonesia been in the room where they do autopsies on those who died from many different causes - the morgue.

Most laboratories have a room designated as the morgue. If family members want to know why their loved one died, an autopsy can be person. This is usually done by a Pathologist. If there is a questionable death, or suspicion of foul play, a medical examiner may be called in to do the autopsy.

Morgues can be like a dirty toilet bowel. Filthy conditions can result from the transient traffic of decomposing bodies, together with potentially dangerous chemicals, lack of adequate ventilation and crowded quarters. I imagine in days gone by, morgues lived up to their horror story scenarios. They looked like something between a medieval torture chamber and a meat locker.

Back when I was a diener it was not that bad, but it was quite crowded and only one body could fit in there at a time, except for perhaps a small baby or two kept in the refrigerator (sorry, I do not mean to offend - that is how it was). I think there were not too many safeguards in place in the 70s, but now there are many regulations for those who work in a laboratory or morgue.

You may have watched Dr. G. Medical Examiner on television (one of my favorites), and seen her performing autopsies. I have noticed that she does not wear much protective clothing or cover thermogravimetric analyzer tga on her face or hair. Maybe it is all staged, which would explain it. They mostly like do not want to cover her pretty face and hair.

Morgue Basic Requirements

* Hot/cold running water

* Restrooms

* Electricity

* HVAC

* Drainage

* Parking

* Communications

* Secure

* 5000-8000 square ft

In recent years, walk-in refrigerators with double storage space for bodies are being put in the morgues, so twice as many autopsies can be completed at one time. With the potential for disasters, and other situations where increased body storage is needed, morgues will be more able to handle them.

One of the most marked changes lately in some morgues is an observation room, that allows police or students to view an autopsy. Prior to that, the person performing the autopsy was often disrupted by observers asking questions, or by students fainting from the odors.

Improved air systems have been designed to control the spread of infectious diseases and odors in morgues and clinical laboratories.

Most laboratories appoint an employee to be the laboratory safety officer. A safety committee and incident review committee are formed which analyze accidents and maintain procedures. They have mandatory ongoing safety training for laboratory staff. They also post signs in prominent places so all are aware of the potential dangers.

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the United States is the governmental body that regulates laboratory safety. Other areas of the government that cooperate with OSHA including EPA, RRCA, NRC, DOT, US Postal Service, CDC, NIOSH, NIH and DHS. Amazing how many are involved, and I am sure there are even more.

[ramrodd]

Where were you on May 4, 1970?

On 4 May 1970, I wanted to get out of the Georgia sun and into some air conditioning before the starch in my summer khaki uniform wilted completely.

COMMENTARY:

I assume that you mean, where were you when you heard about Kent State?

My first visual memory that comes up is walking just south of the Post PX/Commisary cluster at Ft. Benning with the packet of my orders to Vietnam in my hand as I was clearing off post going to some office I had to present a copy of the orders to. The US Army has always depended heavily on personal initiative from the Seven Years War, going forward. It is still pretty much the frontier society it was the day George Custer dropped a letter to his wife off at the Quartermaster and trotted cheerfully off to glory. As a result of MacNamara, the Army community was beginning to lose some of this capacity that showed up for me on C-SPAN in the run-up to Desert Storm: the community was very sluggish. The Army noticed and began to fix that in 1994 just in time for the continuing decades of high cycle deployment the applied stupidity of Richard “Dick” Cheney and the neo-cons created with their historic and totally unnecessary diplomatic blunder compounded by their cosmic incompetence when they got us into Iraq and realized that the planning for occupation based on chocolates and flowers suffered from the basic operational assumptions inherent in “The Art of the Deal” and Duck Ass Don’s government shut down and tarriff wars.

But on 4 May, 1970, I was done with spring training as a Boy Soldier and the next step was the Big Leagues. I mean, you don’t go to Ranger School to run a Wall Street bucket shop and Vietnam was where the series was being played that year.

Kent State was not a surprise to me: it was an accident waiting to happen. The Nation Guard had been gunning down black folks since 1963 in places like Watts, Detroit and DC: the only difference this time is that it was white kids getting shot down and the reaction of the mostly white anti-war mob was, from my perspective, virtually the same as Roger Stone’s complaints about being arrested like your average black male who happens to be in the room when the FBI breaks down the door with the right address on the warrant but the wrong address afor the perp. I mean, they let him pull on some pants and polo shirt for his perp walk and he got about the same kind of coverage the times George Clooney got arrested for DUI or something. I mean, come on. But I digress.

I was in ROTC at Indiana University from the beginning of the drafts in 1965 until I graduated in the lull between Nixon’s election and Kent State. On my way to report to Infantry Hall, I picked up a couple going to the Atlanta Pop Festival on the 4th of July and I took them there and stayed unti almost dark and listened to a lot of music I didn’t recognize and drove to Atlanta for a shower and a little clubbing. The Atlanta Pop Festival was the first in a series of concerts leading to Woodstock. I was going through the Patrolling Committee training of Officer’s Basic that weekend and I didn’t really get the scope of the gathering, but it was like a migration celebrating what they believed was the end of the war because the Selective Service was shutting down and the All Volunteer Military coming on line. And, all in all, I think Woodstock is probably the one thing that has prevented assholes like Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich from finally blowing up America like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. If you were there and you remember the underlying moral statement being made by everybody being there (I think first of Joan Baez’s cover of Joe Hill soaring across the crowd and, today, I can see AOC guiding a generation of Secular Humanists into the tabula rasa of the 19th Amendment), I went to Vietnam for exactly those values.

I know why I went to Vietnam and I haven’t changed my mind. AOC validates my expectations and, before her, Barack Hussein Obama. On 4 May 1970, I was on my way to do my bit to make sure Obama got elected President. I wasn’t surprised about Kent State except in the timing, because I was surprised by the sheer brilliance of the Cambodian Incursion, after the fact, and by the sheer chutzpah of Nixon launching the operation at all.

As I say, I am an Army brat and I was raised around major headquarters all my life until I actually reported for duty. I knew about the Tet Offensive Christmas before the Tet Offensive. Ft. Monroe knew about the godless commie cocksuckers were going to spring something and it was clear to everyone that the holiday of Tet was the first pitch. My Professor of Military Science at IU didn’t know it was coming during the last class of the semester. I may have asked the question, how did he, a Major with at least two tours at the company level behind him, measure progress in Vietnam and his answer was the party line coming out of Saigon at the time, but it wasn’t informed of Saigon’s expectations in the next three weeks.

I was surprised by Cambodia because I was no longer hooked into that command level except when I was home. It was now literally above my pay grade. At the time, my first response was that it was a very gutsy move on Nixon’s part because the memo the Woodstock Nation was circulating. This was before the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam solidified around the mythology Ken Burns presents in Vietnam because it was still happening, but the first complaint about the incursion was that Nixon was widening the war and that establishes the boundaries of the emerging mythology. The common wisdom of the Woodstock Nation is that we invaded Vietnam in 1961 and 1961 in order to prop up French Colonialism. Noam Chomsky riffs of several versions of what happened in Vietnam in 1962 and he’s full of shit, lingusitically speaking.

Anyway, Nixon stole the march on the NVA in Cambodia and Laos and on the expectaions of the MSM and the Woodstock Nation and landed the sucker punch on the godless commie cocksuckers that let Nixon keep his promise to turn the war over to Saigon and to pull the troops out of the country without reprising either Dien Bien Phu or Dunkirk. The NVA was a world class military and Hanoi fanatical about siezing Saigon as a property of the People, etc, but the US military kicked ass and took names and kicked what was left to the curb and, when I got there in July, just after everybody got back from their road trip, there were 525,000 American soldiers in Vietnam and when I left in May 1971, there was less than 165,000. The Army knew what it was doing and Nixon let them do it. The Cambodian Incursion probably avoided 30,000 US casualties as a low ball estimate and the only cost the Woodstock Nation tallys is 4 dead in Ohio. They don’t even count Jackson State, because, after all, it’s a black university and the National Guard had been gunning down black folks in places like Watts and Detroit and DC since 1963 and they weren’t white boys and girls.

Do you see how I could turn this into a sermon about #BlackLivesMatter and why it was important for me to to go Vietnam to make sure Obama got elected? I mean, if I was wrong in 2008, I’ve been wrong since 4 May 1970. And, if I was wrong in 1970, I might as well pony up for a MAGA hat and go kiss Nick Sandman’s ass at half-time in the Super Bowl for ever suggesting his MAGA hat was hate speech.

So, anyway, my first real response, walking across post in the sub-tropical George sun at high noon, was not surprise that it happened but that it took so long for it to happen if it happened at all. After all, the only thing about the Chicago Police Riots in 68 that prevented it becoming a lethal blood bath like something out of the Russian Revolution or Ghadi’s peaceful resistance movement. I’ve had a chance to review what happened and I think the troops just wanted to frighten the crowd by putting some live rounds over their heads: the sizzle of volley fire can discourage a heavy investment in a “fuck you” attitude facing troops with fixed bayonets. And a couple of them didn’t fire quite high enough.

And here’s why I believe it was an accident: I could put myself in the place of that company commander. I wouldn’t have issued live ammo in the first place. If even weekend warriors can’t handle a crowd, defensively, with fixed bayonets, they need to transfer to the Air Force. That’s the first thing. They had secured the public property and why anybody felt a need to clear the meadow is a bit hazy to me. It’s like a high-speed car chase: you don’t really want to catch him so much as pen him in: let time work for you.

I wasn’t there. I don’t know, but from what I do know, that’s what I would have planned to do. The Kent State protests were not really structure but spontaneous, kids on their way to class up for a little heckling of the National Guard. There were professors there, talking the crowd down and outrage was going to drain away, nation wide, as the military operation completed its mission and returned from the thrust, no harm, no foul. And then these kids get shot and it mobilizes everything, all over again.

But it was an accident. If I had been the CO and determined that lethal force was the necessary action, I would have killed everything going up that hill side and anybody trying to get away at the top. Not 4 dead. 400.

In the numerology of the Bible, 4 is what’s left after the Finger of God touches down. There were 67 rounds fired up that hill at Kent State and, in my application of the numerology of the Bible, 67 reduces, first, to 13 and 13 is an ideogram that symbolizes the triune crown of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, with a lightening bolt above Her crown, the Finger of God. And, then, 13 devolves to 4.

From a military point of view, Kent State was an accident waiting to happen, but, as a Secular Humanist and Christian heretic, I have come to see divine purpose in the event.

But on 4 May 1970, I really just wanted to get out of the sun and into some air conditioning before the starch in my summer khaki uniform wilted completely.

And that’s the truth.

[kerahlekung]

Civil forfeiture - UMNO is in a “catch-22” situation...

Civil forfeiture - UMNO is in a “catch-22” situation....

Attacking The Uniform Of Anti-Corruption Chief Shows Corrupt UMNO Is Incredibly Desperate And Panic...

What is so terrified about Latheefa Koya, the first woman chief of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), so much so that the supporters of UMNO had to attack the “uniform” she was wearing? The answer is simple – Latheefa is the latest badass in town who appears to be enjoying her job combating and fighting corruptions. The final straw that broke the camel’s back happened about a week ago when the MACC filed a civil forfeiture against 41 entities comprising individuals, companies and political parties – aiming to recover RM270 million – the biggest forfeiture by the anti-graft body. The civil action was filed under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLA). As it turned out, UMNO was the biggest recipient constituting close to 80% of the total dubious money, with RM212 million going into the accounts of several state liaison committees, divisions and leaders. Apparently, the money given to those 41 recipients came from former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank account, which in turn was allegedly stolen from 1MDB funds. The MACC later hinted that there are more entities – other than the 41 disclosed – involved in its civil forfeiture move to recover monies allegedly stolen from 1Malay­sia Development Bhd (1MDB). It is safe to presume all the 191 UMNO division chiefs had taken the dirty money, one way or another. And the anti-corruption commission is testing the water to see who would play ball and return the money received. Taking a page from the U.S. Department of Justice, the change in strategy of using civil forfeitures is a clever plan. In the case of Najib Razak, a similar civil forfeiture suit last month against him and families has successfully frozen properties, jewellery, designer handbags, watches and sunglasses valued at RM680 million from being returned to the crook due to a limitation in criminal charges.

MACC  Logo 

In the case of the committees, divisions and leaders linked to UMNO, they have to return the money even though they claimed the funds gifted by their former boss Najib had been spent. It makes sense because otherwise drug traffickers or criminals can always send their ill-gotten money to associates, friends or proxies who would in turn claim innocence when get caught. Like it or not, UMNO will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the RM212 million did not come from 1MDB, if the political party decides to challenge the government in the courts. That could, however, reveal more skeletons in the closet. Hence, it may be easier to return the money than to go to court. Unlike criminal prosecutions, the prosecutors do not have to prove anything in civil cases. However, if UMNO were to return the money, it will prove they had indeed taken money stolen from 1MDB. And that would make Najib’s life more difficult. How could the former PM argue the money given to UMNO did not originate from 1MDB when some of the UMNO entities decide to return the money? You don’t return money that’s rightfully yours, do you? What makes the entire civil forfeiture both excited and entertaining is the fact that there’s no guarantee the MACC under the leadership of Latheefa will not start criminal charges anyway, even after the crooks return the money. So, UMNO is in a “catch-22” situation. Damned if they return the money, damned if they don’t return the money. It appears UMNO has a new enemy far worse than Attorney General Tommy Thomas. The UMNO-Malay cannot attack Latheefa Koya using race or religion cards, the same way they did to Thomas. But UMNO top brain, Lokman Noor Adam, had a fantastic idea. The man with the “IQ of a carrot” attacked the MACC chief’s uniform, questioning the bling-bling on her.

Mr.Lobakman

Mr. Lokman claimed Latheefa received “many awards and medals” despite serving in the post for less than a month, suggesting that either the newly-appointed MACC chief was wearing fake medals or she had put on honorary titles that did not belong to her. Lokman should stop trying to prove that he deserves the “IQ of a carrot” title bestowed by his own colleague, Khairy Jamaluddin. Lokman Noor Adam – Najib’s strongest supporter and loudest cheerleader – has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s the dumbest leader in UMNO for not being able to differentiate between rank insignias and honorary titles. Similarly, UMNO secretary-general Annuar Musa also ridiculed Latheefa’s bling-bling uniform. Perhaps the MACC chief should wear pyjamas to work. Going by the logic of Lokman and UMNO supporters, the newly-appointed Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador must have had bought more medals than Latheefa from Lazada or Amazon as well based on the police chief’s uniform. Yes, the “Lobak Man (carrot man)” was so stupid he could not tell tampon and french fries apart. Amused, Latheefa lectured the opposition that she was not wearing medals or any other decoration as alleged, but the very service ribbon in line with the Standing Order of the MACC Chief.  The Standing Order of Chapter-A (Policy) No 1 of 2012 dictates that a Chief Commissioner wears a certain number of ribbon bars by virtue of the position. Latheefa said – “The bar ribbons must not be confused with medals or honorary titles awarded from the palaces, whether at the Federal nor State levels. The other details on my uniform are the ‘rank badges’ which I must wear as Chief Commissioner, and based upon the standing order. I frankly admit I am only now learning about rank badges, bar ribbons and uniforms.”

MACC Chief Commissioner - Latheefa Beebi Koya 

Appointed as the new MACC chief from June 1 on a 2-year contract basis, the badass Latheefa told her critics – “My immediate priority since taking office has been about several grave corruption cases, and not the details of my uniform.” Clearly UMNO, in hot soup over past corruption practises, has been burning the midnight oil to divert the graft buster’s attention. Pro-UMNO cybertroopers, propagandists and bloggers, meanwhile, screamed until foaming at the mouth that the new anti-corruption chief isn’t combating corruption, but rather combating the enemies of the new ruling Pakatan Harapan government. Well, too bad that the old Barisan Nasional government led by UMNO has too many cans of worms collected over the last 61 years. The opposition tries to create a perception that under the new leadership of Latheefa, the anti-corruption body is being used to specifically target UMNO. In truth, the MACC has been targeting the ruling government too. For example, the same Lokman had lodged a report against Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali for receiving bribes from construction company UEM. Upon investigations, the MACC has cleared Mr. Azmin of any wrongdoing over allegation that UEM had transferred US$741,440 (RM3 million) into a Malayan Banking Berhad account belonging to Azmin on December 19, 2017. It was found that not only the bank account did not belong to UEM, the account number of the Maybank account was an invalid one – did not exist! Perhaps UMNO, especially Lokman, should learn a thing or two from whistleblower Rafizi Ramli. Instead of shooting blanks and making a fool of himself, the “Lobak Man” should stop being lazy and put in some effort to ensure whatever so-called documents or proof he possessed are genuine and not fake. Crying wolf too often would affect whatever integrity left of him, or UMNO for that matter. Instead of being petty and childish, UMNO should make full use of whatever time left to rebuild and revitalise itself to be relevant. Already. playing racial and religious issues to win Malay support may not prove to be the key to securing votes in the next general election. Therefore, playing a silly issue like the uniform wore by the MACC chief proves that the desperate opposition runs out of relevant issue. - FT

Conversation With Dr.M...

Sekapal belayar di lautan...

1. Walaupun ‘Duit Itu Raja’ atau ‘Cash Is King’ namun segala-galanya ditentulan oleh Dia Yang Maha Adil dan Berkuasa. 2. Najib dan penjilat – penjilatnya sebelum ini begitu yakin tiada siapa yang boleh mengalahkan mereka. 3. Ketika berkuasa mereka buta sejarah yang Allah telah dedahkan dalam Al-Quran bagaimana hebatnya Firaun, Namrud dan sebagainya, dan sekaya-kayanya Qarun pun akhirnya tersungkur juga. 4. Dengan bantuan ALLAH SWT dan atas rayuan rakyat yang menyokong, termasuk pemimpin – pemimpin pembangkang ketika itu, Tun pada usia 93 tahun akhirnya bersetuju mengepalai sebuah kapal yang akan menempuh badai di lautan yang bergelora. 5. Segala – galanya terjawab apabila pada Rabu 9hb Mei 2018 majoriti rakyat telah mengambil keputusan bersejarah. 6. UMNO yang satu ketika dahulu didokong oleh 12 parti yang lain, kini balik ke asal semula; ia tak ubah seperti parti PERIKATAN di zaman Tunku Abdul Rahman dahulu, iatu hanya dianggotai UMNO, MCA dan MIC. 7. Akan tercatit dalam sejarah, Najib Tun Razak selaku Presiden UMNO dan Pengerusi Barisan Nasional ( BN )bertanggungjawab terhadap kekalahan parti tersebut. 8. Jika dahulu Tun Abdul Razak, Perdana Menteri ke 2 dan Presiden UMNO dan Pengerusi PERIKATAN bersusah payah menubuhkan BN, kini atas sebab tamak dan hawa nafsu, anaknya telah menghancurkan segala harapan murni ayahnya itu. 9. Buat pertama kali seorang Perdana Menteri negara ini, isteri dan Timbalannya diheret ke Mahkamah atas tuduhan rasuah dan berbagai kesalahan yang lain.

10. Berkemungkinan besar Najib, Rosmah, Zahid Hamidi dan ramai lagi akan disumbatkan ke dalam penjara. 11. Segala kerinduan pungguk yang merindu bulan kini mulai terjawab. 12. Dari segi kemajuan ekonomi negara dan rakyat, pelaksanaan janji – janji Pilihanraya dan pembersihan negara dari segala amalan rasuah , sedang di usahakan oleh Tun secara berperingkat dan dengan amat teliti . 13. Jika dahulu rakyat terlalu berhati – hati menyuarakan pandangan, kini kerajaan mengalu – alukan rakyat bersuara TANPA khuatir, asalkan ia tidak merosakkan Perlembagaan yang telah dipersetujui. 14. Perlantikan Latheefa Koya, seorang peguam yang terlalu bencikan rasuah dan salah guna kuasa sebagai Ketua Pesuruhjaya SPRM yang baru adalah satu lagi bukti ketegasan Tun Dr. Mahathir bagi membersihkan negara ini dari perbuatan keji itu. 15. Namun Latheefa perlu berwaspada terhadap beberapa pegawai di bawahnya. 16. Pesananan orang – orang lama harus diberi pandangan dan diambil kira. 17. Semoga ingatan itu akan membantu beliau lebih berwaspada bagi melaksanakan segala usaha murninya. 18. Latheefa perlu berhati-hati dengan kelicikan dan kepura-puraan beberapa orang pegawainya yang tak ubah seperti: “Harapkan Pegar, Pegar Makan Padi” “Musuh Dalam Selimut” atau “Gunting Dalam Lipatan” ” Pepat Di Luar, Runcing Di Dalam”. 19. Tatkala berbagai tindakan diambil seperti yang dilakukan baru-baru ini, namun beliau harus berani bertindak tegas terhadap anai-anai yang akhirnya akan menghancurkan institusi tersebut.

20. Beliau tidak perlu melayani lalat-lalat dan langau-langau yang kotor itu; beri tumpuan yang jitu dan bukti terhadap tanggungjawab yang telah diamanahkan dengan ikhlas dan bersungguh-bersungguh. 21. Selain rakyat kini merasa geli dan muak dengan telatah dan kenyataan-kenyataan bodoh beberapa pemimpin PH; masing-masing berlumba-lumba mencari publisiti murah. 22. Semoga semua pihak dalam Pakatan Harapan atau PH HENTIKAN percakaran sesama sendiri MULAI saat ini. 23. JANGANLAH SEKAPAL BELAYAR DI LAUTAN , TAPI TIDAK SEPERAHU KE PELABUHAN. 24. Jika tidak mahu membantu Perdana Menteri, sekurang-kurangnya JANGANLAH berusaha menikam beliau dari belakang. 25. ‘Don’t Kill The Goose That Lays The Golden Egg’ atau ‘Jangan Membunuh Angsa Yang Bertelur Emas’. 26. JANGAN MENCURAH AIR DI TEMPAYAN SEMATA-MATA MENDENGAR GURUH DI LANGIT. 27. BERSATU KITA TEGUH, BERCERAI KITA ROBOH. - Tamrin Tun Ghafar

😂😂😂

cheers.

Sumber asal: Civil forfeiture - UMNO is in a “catch-22” situation... Baca selebihnya di Civil forfeiture - UMNO is in a “catch-22” situation...

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Presidents Club: Scandal-hit charity dinner organiser quits post

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionFinancial Times journalist Madison Marriage: “I was groped several times”

A man who helped organise a men-only charity dinner, where hostesses were allegedly groped, has quit the Department for Education board.

David Meller quit his non-executive role after claims about the event by an undercover FT reporter.

Charities are refusing donations from the Presidents Club Charity Dinner, at London’s Dorchester Hotel.

Event compere David Walliams said he was “appalled” by the claims but had not witnessed anything.

The comedian and author tweeted that he was there in a “strictly professional capacity” and not as a guest.

Skip Twitter post by @davidwalliams

2) I left immediately after I had finished my presenting on stage at 11.30pm. I did not witness any of the kind of behaviour that allegedly occurred and am absolutely appalled by the reports.

— David Walliams (@davidwalliams) January 24, 2018

End of Twitter post by @davidwalliams

The Presidents Club said it would investigate, while the Dorchester said it was “deeply concerned” and was also looking into the claims.

Great Ormond Street Hospital and Evelina London Children’s Hospital have said they will return previous donations from the organisers following the allegations.

The only women at last Thursday’s event, attended by senior figures in business and finance, were hired hostesses.

What happened at the charity dinner?

Madison Marriage, the Financial Times reporter who worked at the event, said she and “numerous other hostesses” were groped at the event.

She said the 130 hostesses were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels and also that they could drink alcohol while working.

They were asked to sign a five-page non-disclosure agreement about the event upon arrival at the hotel, Ms Marriage said, and were not warned they might be sexually harassed.

She told BBC Newsnight she was groped “several times” and said: “It’s a hands up skirts, hands on bums but also hands on hips, hands on stomachs, arms going round your waist unexpectedly.”

“This isn’t, I suppose, a high-level groping, but one of the strangest things was you could be talking to a man and he’d suddenly start holding your hand.”

She said there were other women there “who had absolutely no idea that was the kind of event it would be”.

“I had one woman tell me that she was shocked,” she said. “She was asked if she was a prostitute on the night.”

What have charities said?

Over more than 30 years, the annual dinner has raised £20m for children’s charities, including Great Ormond Street Hospital and Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Great Ormond Street said it was “shocked” and a spokeswoman for Evelina London Children’s Hospital said it was “alarmed” by the allegations.

The hospitals have said they will return previous donations from the organisers of the dinner following the reports.

The Charity Commission said it was investigating the claims “as a matter of urgency”.

Who attended?

Former Department for Education non-executive board member David Meller, new education minister Nadhim Zahawi and retail tycoon Sir Philip Green were among the men who attended.

Responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons, education minister Anne Milton told MPs that Mr Meller had quit his role following the allegations.

She said Mr Meller, founder of the Meller Educational Trust, was “absolutely clear” that stepping down was the “right thing to do”.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionLabour MP Jess Philips: ‘Lads’ culture has no place in country’

Ms Milton said allegations of this type of behaviour were “completely unacceptable” and that board members were required to follow a code of conduct.

“It is quite extraordinary to me that, in the 21st Century, allegations of this kind are still emerging,” she said.

“Women have the right to feel safe wherever they work.”

Mr Meller has also resigned as a trustee of the Mayor’s Fund for London.

A Downing Street spokesman said Mr Zahawi had “attended briefly and felt uncomfortable at what had begun to happen.”

Mr Zahawi told Newsnight: “I didn’t stay long enough to really comment on the occasion.”

He later tweeted: “I do unequivocally condemn this behaviour. The report is truly shocking. I will never attend a men only function ever.”

The Department for Education said Mr Meller and Mr Zahawi had both attended in a personal capacity.

What do the organisers say?

In a statement, the Presidents Club said: “The organisers are appalled by the allegations of bad behaviour at the event asserted by the Financial Times reporters. Such behaviour is totally unacceptable.

“The allegations will be investigated fully and promptly and appropriate action taken.”

A spokesman for the Artista agency, which recruited the hostesses, said: “I was not aware of any claims of sexual harassment but the kind of behaviour alleged is completely unacceptable.

“I am checking with the staff and any complaints will be dealt with promptly and fairly.”

How have businesses reacted?

WPP, the world’s biggest advertising agency, which had sponsored a table at the dinner, said it was withdrawing its future support.

Boss Sir Martin Sorrell, who did not attend, told BBC Radio 4’s Today his guests did not see such behaviour and said: “We won’t support the charity in future, which is regrettable because it is a charity that supports numerous children’s charities and has done a lot of good work.”

Real estate investment business Frogmore said the guests at its table were “unaware of any of the described events but in no way condone this behaviour” and it will now end its association with the event.

Part of the event included a charity auction, with one of the prizes being the chance to have tea with Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

However, a Bank of England spokesman said it was not aware of the dinner and “did not approve any prize”.

He said it was understood a prize donated by the Bank to the Lord Mayor’s Appeal charity auction had been re-gifted by the winner to the Presidents Club event.

“The unauthorised re-auctioning of the prize at the Presidents Club dinner was clearly against the spirit of the original donation,” he said.

“The Bank has therefore made clear that it has been withdrawn.”

Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI director-general, said: “If even half of what’s been written about this event is true, it is deplorable and confirms how far we have still to go to stamp out sexual harassment.”

What do politicians say?

Downing Street said the prime minister was “uncomfortable” at the reports about the dinner and a spokesman added that it was “an event she wouldn’t be invited to”.

Another auction prize included lunch with Boris Johnson, but Ms Milton said the foreign secretary knew nothing of his inclusion and in no way endorsed the event.

Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities select committee, told the BBC the report gave “cause for concern” and brought into question whether laws in the area were strong enough.

Jess Phillips MP, who chairs the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, told the BBC it was “totally unacceptable that women should be hired in as a herd to entertain a group of entitled rich men”.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “This is brave reporting from the FT, exposing behaviour that is outrageous and unacceptable.”

Skip Twitter post by @NicolaSturgeon

On a day when I am having to respond to the media at its worst, here’s an example of it at its very best. This is brave reporting from @FT, exposing behaviour that is outrageous and unacceptable. So depressing to think that this still happens in 2018. https://t.co/V9kgGGZYnL

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 24, 2018

End of Twitter post by @NicolaSturgeon

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson said the allegations were “deeply disturbing”.

What do women’s groups say?

Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights, said: “Sexual harassment, but all in a good cause? This is completely outrageous and proves why we need sexual harassment by clients or customers to be covered by law.

“At the moment, these women are unable to hold their employer to account for putting them in that situation.”

Have you ever worked as a hostess at an event like this? Please share your experiences with us by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

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The post Presidents Club: Scandal-hit charity dinner organiser quits post appeared first on dailygate.

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The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

Exclusive: study suggests that 26.8% of the population qualify as food insecure based on risk factors such as missing meals or relying on food banks

Karla Peralta is surrounded by food. As a line cook in Facebooks cafeteria, she spends her days preparing free meals for the tech firms staff. Shes worked in kitchens for most of her 30 years in the US, building a life in Silicon Valley as a single mother raising two daughters.

But at home, food is a different story. The regions soaring rents and high cost-of-living means that even with a full-time job, putting food on the table hasnt been simple. Over the years she has struggled to afford groceries at one point feeding her family of three with food stamps that amounted to $75 a week, about half what the government describes as a thrifty food budget. I was thinking, when am I going to get through this? she said.

outside in america

In a region famed for its foodie culture, where the well-heeled can dine on gold-flecked steaks, $500 tasting menus and $29 loaves of bread, hunger is alarmingly widespread, according to a new study shared exclusively with the Guardian.

One in four people in Silicon Valley are at risk of hunger, researchers at the Second Harvest food bank have found. Using hundreds of community interviews and data modeling, a new study suggests that 26.8% of the population almost 720,000 people qualify as food insecure based on risk factors such as missing meals, relying on food banks or food stamps, borrowing money for food, or neglecting bills and rent in order to buy groceries. Nearly a quarter are families with children.

We call it the Silicon Valley paradox, says Steve Brennan, the food banks marketing director. As the economy gets better we seem to be serving more people. Since the recession, Second Harvest has seen demand spike by 46%.

data

The bank is at the center of the Silicon Valley boom both literally and figuratively. It sits just half a mile from Ciscos headquarters and counts Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg among its major donors. But the need it serves is exacerbated by this industrys wealth; as high-paying tech firms move in, the cost of living rises for everyone else.

Food insecurity often accompanies other poverty indicators, such as homelessness. San Jose, Silicon Valleys largest city, had a homeless population of more than 4,000 people during a recent count. They are hungry, too: research conducted by the Health Trust, a local not-for-profit, found food resources available to them are scattered and inadequate.

These days Peralta earns too much to qualify for food stamps, but not enough not to worry. She pays $2,000 a month or three-quarters of her paycheck to rent the small apartment she shares with her youngest daughter. Even just the two of us, its still a struggle. So once a month, she picks up supplies at the food bank to supplement what she buys at the store.

She isnt one to complain, but acknowledges the vast gulf between the needs of Facebook employees and contract workers such as herself. The first thing they do [for Facebook employees] is buy you an iPhone and an Apple computer, and all these other benefits, she laughs. Its like, wow.

The scale of the problem becomes apparent on a visit to Second Harvest, the only food bank serving Silicon Valley and one of the largest in the country. In any given month it provides meals for 257,000 people 66m pounds of food last year. Inside its cavernous, 75,000 sq ft main warehouse space, boxes of produce stretched to the ceiling. Strip lights illuminated crates of cucumbers and pallets of sweet potatoes with a chilly glow. Volunteers in PayPal T-shirts packed cabbages and apples that arrived in boxes as big as paddling pools, while in the walk-in freezer turkeys waited to defrost.

Inside a warehouse belonging to Second Harvest food bank in San Jose, California, where PayPal staff volunteered for the day. Photography: Talia Herman

Because poverty is often shrouded in shame, their clients situations can come as a surprise. Often we think of somebody visibly hungry, the traditional homeless person, Brennan said. But this study is putting light on the non-traditional homeless: people living in their car or a garage, working people who have to choose between rent and food, people without access to a kitchen.

He added, Youre not thinking when you pick up your shirts from dry cleaning, or getting your landscaping done, or going to a restaurant, or getting your child cared for, is that person hungry? Its very easy to assume they are fine.

Matt Sciamanna is the sort of person you would assume is fine. Hes young, clever, and a recent graduate from San Jose State University. Yet here on campus, he says, food insecurity is a daily problem. Students, and even part-time professors, have been known to sleep in their cars or couch surf to save money. Sciamanna, who works on the Student Hunger Committee, says a survey of more than 4,000 students found about half have skipped meals due to the cost.

His investment in the issue is informed by his own experience. With his parents unable to finance all his living costs, Sciamanna worked in a restaurant while studying full time. But at 20 he was hit with a life-changing diagnosis: multiple sclerosis, a disease that left his grandmother bedridden. Unable to keep up with the pressures of restaurant work, he took a job on campus that paid just $400 a month.

Matt Sciamanna studying. Photo: Jeromy Cesea

My weekly food budget, after other expenses, was $25-$30, he says. Trips to the grocery store became a game of numbers: a bag of apples and bananas cost less than $5 and would last a week. A bag of frozen vegetables, another $5. Sometimes I would see a ripe peach, and I would want it, but then Id think, damn, theyre $1.50 each. Its not like Im asking for a car. Im just talking about a peach. That feeling leaves a scar.

While Sciamanna says his food situation has improved, another fear looms: healthcare costs. His father, a garbage man in San Francisco, has already postponed retirement so that his son can stay on the familys insurance. Without it, Sciamanna says he could face out-of-pocket costs of thousands of dollars a month for his medication. In that scenario, obtaining food would become even more difficult. His parents live in Clear Lake, three hours outside San Francisco, meaning a six-hour daily commute for his father. You feel like youre this dead weight, youre trying to advance yourself but you dont have the money. Its a shitty feeling.

Hunger and the housing crisis go hand-in-hand. In Santa Clara County, the median price of a family home has reached a new high of $1.125m, while the supply of homes continues to shrink. A family of four earning less than $85,000 is now considered low income. These realities mean food insecurity cuts across lines of race, age and employment status.

On a cold, bright afternoon at an elementary school in Menlo Park, kids trickled out of their classrooms and onto the playground. A food distribution was being arranged in the school gymnasium, and adults lined up outside with strollers and shopping carts, waiting for the doors to open. Most were women, many of them mothers whose children attend the school. Once inside they moved slowly and quietly around tables filled with bags of fresh produce, milk and bread, canned goods and beans.

A food distribution taking place at an elementary school in Menlo Park. Bottom right, Vicky Avila-Medrano, a food connection specialist with Second Harvest. Photography: Talia Herman

The Latino community is passing through a hard time, says Vicky Avila-Medrano, a food connection specialist. She runs a program that sends current and former food bank users out into the community, which has been disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

Here in Silicon Valley, we have a big problem. This is a beautiful place to live for people in the tech industry, but we are not working in that industry.

Even people who have full-time jobs can find themselves with no way to put food on the table. Outside the gym, Martina Rivera, a 52-year-old mental health nurse, explained that her troubles began when her entire building was evicted last year. (Mass evictions have swept the area as landlords seek higher-paying tenants). Issues in her personal life, which she preferred not to detail, left her separated from her two children and their father. She thought about moving in with family, but worried about the burden. My brother was recovering from a stroke, and my mother is old, she says. I couldnt put more struggle on them. So what I found was my car.

Martina Rivera, 52, originally from Peru, lived in her car for six months while working as a nurse.

She told herself it was only temporary. I work night shifts at a veterans hospital, so I would go to my moms house to shower, and wait until it was time to work. I waited and waited for the storm to pass. Eventually she found a room without a private bathroom or kitchen. She shopped for food at 99 cent stores, ate mainly canned food, and cooked in a microwave. It took a toll on her health, she says; she gained weight.

I was having panic attacks. My body was like the walking dead. But I thought, I need to keep strong. And I never quit my job.

Rivera says that for many working people, pride is a barrier to admitting need. People dont have money to buy food, but they are shy to ask. But there is no reason to feel ashamed.

The day before Thanksgiving, Karla Peralta invited me to her home. She loves to cook, and prides herself on pulling together a healthy meal even when resources are scarce. I have to cook with what I have. Even if I only have a piece of chicken, a little bit of this and that, I am a cook. I make it work.

Karla Peralta, who works in the cafeteria at Facebook, demonstrates in her kitchen how she cooks with ingredients she picks up from the food bank. Photography: Charlotte Simmonds

That evening she worked with ingredients from the food bank: potatoes and chicken, cans of beans, corn and tomatoes. Dignified and good humored, Peralta says her current job is one of the best shes ever had, even though she still needs help.

As we sat down at her kitchen table to share a meal, we talk about her plans for tomorrows holiday meal. Shell be making ham with pineapples, her daughters favorite. There will be turkey and mashed potatoes, and her niece is bringing bread. And we got some rice from the food bank, she said. Ill probably make that, too.

Do you have an experience of homelessness to share with the Guardian? Get in touch

Sign up to Chronicling Homelessness, our monthly Outside in America newsletter

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Weekend Reads: El Capitan, Everest, and Peak Performance

It has been an epic week. And I don’t use that adjective lightly.

At 31 years of age, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free-solo” to the top of El Capitan, the 3,000-foot-tall granite wall in Yosemite National Park.

Just so we are clear: He did so without ropes or safety gear, just a small bag of chalk. And he made it to the top in under four hours. To further put it into perspective, in January 2015, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell became the first to free-climb the Dawn Wall, one of the routes up the face of El Capitan. It took them 19 days. And unlike Honnold, they used harnesses and ropes for safety.

The day after Honnold’s remarkable feat, more than 21,000 runners took to the road for the annual Comrades Marathon, a grueling 86.73-kilometer race between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. It is the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon race. Runner’s World describes it as: “Fifty-five brutal miles. Five torturous climbs. A ruthless clock.”

On Monday, four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain — took the extraordinary step of severing diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar, a US military partner.

The following day (6 June) marked the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. John Authers of the Financial Times writes that it was “one of the bloodiest and most important days of warfare in human history.” Here’s a look at a remarkable set of colorized photos of the D-Day landings.

All of this was before former FBI Director James Comey’s riveting testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the general election in the United Kingdom, which saw campaigning suspended over the weekend due to the London Bridge terrorist attacks.

If I were to pick a theme or two for this week, it might well be endurance and resilience.

Here are some good reads and one TED Talk in case you missed them:

I recently had the opportunity to watch Meru, which documents the efforts of three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — to conquer the “Shark’s Fin” route on “Meru, a 21,000-foot-plus mountain in the Garhwal Himalayas in northern India.” The Shark’s Fin is a 1,500-foot vertical rock wall at the very top that is regarded as one of the toughest climbs in the world. Meru won the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award. It is a remarkable feat of camerawork and a tale of resilience and human endurance. To undertake climbing Meru, “You can’t just be a good ice climber,” says Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author of Into Thin Air, “You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest, you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.” As David Ferry explains, Chin filmed much of the climb while tacked to the Shark’s Fin rock wall, the final section of the 21,850-foot Meru Peak. If you’re curious about what drives people to scale seemingly insurmountable peaks, and the mental and physical strength needed to survive the conditions and setbacks, this one is for you. (NPR, Outside)

Meru made me think of Kilian Jornet Burgada, the Spanish ultra runner-turned-alpinist who summited Mount Everest twice in one week without oxygen or fixed ropes. He was the subject of a 2013 profile I included once before and am doing again: “Becoming the All-Terrain Human.” According to Jay Bouchard, “Burgada set a new record for the fastest known alpine ascent of the world’s highest peak in the early hours of Monday morning, having climbed 11,429 feet to the top of Everest in a mere 26 hours.” Outside profiled him in 2014. “You need to be humble. This sport is about improving, not winning,” he told the magazine. “You never learn from victory.” (Kilian Jornet, The New York Times, Outside, Himalayan Times )

It is easy to get bogged down in negativity these days, which is why I appreciated a recent The Science of Work article suggesting the best self-help advice may be to focus not on self-esteem but on “other-esteem.”  It was a good reminder to ask: “How can I start seeing more of the good in people, more often?” (Fast Company)

Brad Stulberg, a columnist for Outside magazine and co-author of the new book Peak Performance, writes that so much of performance focuses on the individual but that that only tells half  the story: “What sets the best apart from the rest isn’t cutting-edge technology, or ritzy facilities, or even great individual athletes or coaches,” he says. “It’s the supportive community and culture; when the athletes and coaches are all dedicated to getting better and supporting each other in doing so. This kind of culture makes doing the hard thing just a little easier, whether the ‘hard thing’ is a specific task, keeping a positive attitude amongst a string of setbacks, or gritting out a tedious stretch of work.” While a positive environment and great leaders can have a positive effect on a group, negativity may be a more powerful force. He cites a 2010 study of US Air Force Academy cadets in which psychologists from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) tracked a cohort of cadets over four years: “Even though all the squadrons trained and recovered in exactly the same manner, some squadrons showed vast increases in fitness over four years whereas others did not. It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.” If you’re feeling demotivated, ask yourself: Who is in my squadron? Whose motivation is rubbing off on me? (The Mission)

Stulberg’s article reminded me of a recent tweet by Stanford University professor Bob Sutton: “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” Sutton is the author of a book with the mildly obscene title: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. He wrote an article explaining why he had used “such a bold (and to some, offensive) title.” (Harvard Business Review )

Speaking of leadership, the late Warren Bennis was “an eminent scholar and author who advised presidents and business executives on his academic specialty, the essence of successful leadership — a commodity he found in short supply in recent decades.” When he died in 2014, his obituary noted that Bennis “believed in the adage that great leaders are not born but made, insisting that ‘the process of becoming a leader is similar, if not identical, to becoming a fully integrated human being.’ . . . Both, he said, were grounded in self-discovery.” His daughter, Kate Bennis, recently wrote about what her father might have made of this moment in history. (The New York Times, Kate Bennis Coaching)

I love walking and really enjoyed this wonderful essay on the relationship between walking, thinking, and writing. (The New Yorker)

From walking, my thinking leads me to driving, or more specifically, not driving, and what a future with driverless or self-driving cars looks like. RethinkX, an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts the speed and scale of technology-driven disruption and its implications across society, released a report, “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030,” and notes “we are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history.”

Does .999 . . . = 1? Mathematician Steven Strogratz describes the blog post,”0.999 . . . It Just Keeps On Going” as “a careful discussion, both mathematically and psychologically, of why .999 . . . = 1 and why many people don’t believe it.” (Shiny Pebbles and Other Stuff)

If you’re an arachnophobe, this next article probably isn’t for you. “The Thoughts of a Spiderweb“ is a fascinating exploration of spiders apparently offloading cognitive tasks to their webs. (Quanta Magazine)

Morgan Housel recently penned a thoughtful post on the difference between expiring knowledge and long-term knowledge and why it’s important to shift the balance to the latter: “Expiring knowledge tells you what happened; long-term knowledge tells you why something happened and is likely to happen again. That ‘why’ can translate and interact with stuff you know about other topics, which is where the compounding comes in.” (The Collaborative Fund)

This echoes a recent column by Andrew Hill about the real return on reading novels, or “brain food.” (Financial Times)

And finally, architecture critic Justin Davidson recently made his TED debut with a wonderful talk on “Why Glass Towers are Bad for City Life — and What We Need Instead.” (TED)

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

Image credit: ©Getty Images/Ray Kachatorian

Lauren Foster

Lauren Foster is managing editor of Enterprising Investor and co-lead of CFA Institute’s Women in Investment Management initiative. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer for Barron’s and the Financial Times. Prior to her freelance work, Foster spent nearly a decade on staff at the FT as a reporter and editor based in the New York bureau. Foster holds a BA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MS in journalism from Columbia University.

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source http://capitalisthq.com/weekend-reads-el-capitan-everest-and-peak-performance/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/weekend-reads-el-capitan-everest-and.html

[everettwilkinson]

Weekend Reads: El Capitan, Everest, and Peak Performance

It has been an epic week. And I don’t use that adjective lightly.

At 31 years of age, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free-solo” to the top of El Capitan, the 3,000-foot-tall granite wall in Yosemite National Park.

Just so we are clear: He did so without ropes or safety gear, just a small bag of chalk. And he made it to the top in under four hours. To further put it into perspective, in January 2015, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell became the first to free-climb the Dawn Wall, one of the routes up the face of El Capitan. It took them 19 days. And unlike Honnold, they used harnesses and ropes for safety.

The day after Honnold’s remarkable feat, more than 21,000 runners took to the road for the annual Comrades Marathon, a grueling 86.73-kilometer race between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. It is the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon race. Runner’s World describes it as: “Fifty-five brutal miles. Five torturous climbs. A ruthless clock.”

On Monday, four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain — took the extraordinary step of severing diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar, a US military partner.

The following day (6 June) marked the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. John Authers of the Financial Times writes that it was “one of the bloodiest and most important days of warfare in human history.” Here’s a look at a remarkable set of colorized photos of the D-Day landings.

All of this was before former FBI Director James Comey’s riveting testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the general election in the United Kingdom, which saw campaigning suspended over the weekend due to the London Bridge terrorist attacks.

If I were to pick a theme or two for this week, it might well be endurance and resilience.

Here are some good reads and one TED Talk in case you missed them:

I recently had the opportunity to watch Meru, which documents the efforts of three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — to conquer the “Shark’s Fin” route on “Meru, a 21,000-foot-plus mountain in the Garhwal Himalayas in northern India.” The Shark’s Fin is a 1,500-foot vertical rock wall at the very top that is regarded as one of the toughest climbs in the world. Meru won the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award. It is a remarkable feat of camerawork and a tale of resilience and human endurance. To undertake climbing Meru, “You can’t just be a good ice climber,” says Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author of Into Thin Air, “You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest, you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.” As David Ferry explains, Chin filmed much of the climb while tacked to the Shark’s Fin rock wall, the final section of the 21,850-foot Meru Peak. If you’re curious about what drives people to scale seemingly insurmountable peaks, and the mental and physical strength needed to survive the conditions and setbacks, this one is for you. (NPR, Outside)

Meru made me think of Kilian Jornet Burgada, the Spanish ultra runner-turned-alpinist who summited Mount Everest twice in one week without oxygen or fixed ropes. He was the subject of a 2013 profile I included once before and am doing again: “Becoming the All-Terrain Human.” According to Jay Bouchard, “Burgada set a new record for the fastest known alpine ascent of the world’s highest peak in the early hours of Monday morning, having climbed 11,429 feet to the top of Everest in a mere 26 hours.” Outside profiled him in 2014. “You need to be humble. This sport is about improving, not winning,” he told the magazine. “You never learn from victory.” (Kilian Jornet, The New York Times, Outside, Himalayan Times )

It is easy to get bogged down in negativity these days, which is why I appreciated a recent The Science of Work article suggesting the best self-help advice may be to focus not on self-esteem but on “other-esteem.”  It was a good reminder to ask: “How can I start seeing more of the good in people, more often?” (Fast Company)

Brad Stulberg, a columnist for Outside magazine and co-author of the new book Peak Performance, writes that so much of performance focuses on the individual but that that only tells half  the story: “What sets the best apart from the rest isn’t cutting-edge technology, or ritzy facilities, or even great individual athletes or coaches,” he says. “It’s the supportive community and culture; when the athletes and coaches are all dedicated to getting better and supporting each other in doing so. This kind of culture makes doing the hard thing just a little easier, whether the ‘hard thing’ is a specific task, keeping a positive attitude amongst a string of setbacks, or gritting out a tedious stretch of work.” While a positive environment and great leaders can have a positive effect on a group, negativity may be a more powerful force. He cites a 2010 study of US Air Force Academy cadets in which psychologists from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) tracked a cohort of cadets over four years: “Even though all the squadrons trained and recovered in exactly the same manner, some squadrons showed vast increases in fitness over four years whereas others did not. It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.” If you’re feeling demotivated, ask yourself: Who is in my squadron? Whose motivation is rubbing off on me? (The Mission)

Stulberg’s article reminded me of a recent tweet by Stanford University professor Bob Sutton: “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” Sutton is the author of a book with the mildly obscene title: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. He wrote an article explaining why he had used “such a bold (and to some, offensive) title.” (Harvard Business Review )

Speaking of leadership, the late Warren Bennis was “an eminent scholar and author who advised presidents and business executives on his academic specialty, the essence of successful leadership — a commodity he found in short supply in recent decades.” When he died in 2014, his obituary noted that Bennis “believed in the adage that great leaders are not born but made, insisting that ‘the process of becoming a leader is similar, if not identical, to becoming a fully integrated human being.’ . . . Both, he said, were grounded in self-discovery.” His daughter, Kate Bennis, recently wrote about what her father might have made of this moment in history. (The New York Times, Kate Bennis Coaching)

I love walking and really enjoyed this wonderful essay on the relationship between walking, thinking, and writing. (The New Yorker)

From walking, my thinking leads me to driving, or more specifically, not driving, and what a future with driverless or self-driving cars looks like. RethinkX, an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts the speed and scale of technology-driven disruption and its implications across society, released a report, “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030,” and notes “we are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history.”

Does .999 . . . = 1? Mathematician Steven Strogratz describes the blog post,”0.999 . . . It Just Keeps On Going” as “a careful discussion, both mathematically and psychologically, of why .999 . . . = 1 and why many people don’t believe it.” (Shiny Pebbles and Other Stuff)

If you’re an arachnophobe, this next article probably isn’t for you. “The Thoughts of a Spiderweb“ is a fascinating exploration of spiders apparently offloading cognitive tasks to their webs. (Quanta Magazine)

Morgan Housel recently penned a thoughtful post on the difference between expiring knowledge and long-term knowledge and why it’s important to shift the balance to the latter: “Expiring knowledge tells you what happened; long-term knowledge tells you why something happened and is likely to happen again. That ‘why’ can translate and interact with stuff you know about other topics, which is where the compounding comes in.” (The Collaborative Fund)

This echoes a recent column by Andrew Hill about the real return on reading novels, or “brain food.” (Financial Times)

And finally, architecture critic Justin Davidson recently made his TED debut with a wonderful talk on “Why Glass Towers are Bad for City Life — and What We Need Instead.” (TED)

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

Image credit: ©Getty Images/Ray Kachatorian

Lauren Foster

Lauren Foster is managing editor of Enterprising Investor and co-lead of CFA Institute’s Women in Investment Management initiative. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer for Barron’s and the Financial Times. Prior to her freelance work, Foster spent nearly a decade on staff at the FT as a reporter and editor based in the New York bureau. Foster holds a BA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MS in journalism from Columbia University.

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from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/weekend-reads-el-capitan-everest-and-peak-performance/

[viralhottopics]

Scraping by on six figures? Tech workers feel poor in Silicon Valley’s wealth bubble

Big tech companies pay some of the countrys best salaries. But workers claim the high cost of living in the Bay Area has them feeling financially strained

I didnt become a software engineer to be trying to make ends meet, said a Twitter employee in his early 40s who earns a base salary of $160,000. It is, he added, a pretty bad income for raising a family in the Bay Area.

The biggest cost is his $3,000 rent which he said was ultra cheap for the area for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and two kids. Hed like a slightly bigger property, but finds himself competing with groups of twentysomethings happy to share accommodation while paying up to $2,000 for a single room.

Families are priced out of the market, he said, adding that family-friendly cafes and restaurants have slowly been replaced by hip coffee shops.

Silicon Valleys latest tech boom, combined with a housing shortage, has caused rents to soar over the last five years. The citys rents, by one measure, are now the highest in the world.

The prohibitive costs have displaced teachers, city workers, firefighters and other members of the middle class, not to mention low-income residents.

Now techies, many of whom are among the highest 1% of earners, are complaining that they, too, are being priced out.

The Twitter employee said he hit a low point in early 2014 when the company changed its payroll schedule, leaving him with a hole in his budget. I had to borrow money to make it through the month.

He was one of several tech workers, earning between $100,000 and $700,000 a year, who vented to the Guardian about their financial situation. Almost all of them spoke only on the condition of anonymity, or agreed only to give their first names, fearing retribution by their employers for speaking publicly about their predicament.

The American dream is not working out here

Complaints from well-compensated tech workers will sound like chutzpah to many of the other 99% who are struggling to get by on a fraction of their income. But there appears to be a growing frustration among tech workers who say that they are struggling to get by.

Facebook engineers last year even raised the issue with founder Mark Zuckerberg, asking whether the company could subsidize their rents to make their living situation more affordable, according to an executive at the company who has since departed.

The cost of housing is a common complaint among Bay Area techies. Engineers can expect, according to one analysis, to pay between 40% and 50% of their salary renting an apartment near work.

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

One Apple employee was recently living in a Santa Cruz garage, using a compost bucket as a toilet. Another tech worker, enrolled in a coding bootcamp, described how he lived with 12 other engineers in a two-bedroom apartment rented via Airbnb. It was $1,100 for a fucking bunk bed and five people in the same room. One guy was living in a closet, paying $1,400 for a private room.

We make over $1m between us, but we cant afford a house, said a woman in her 50s who works in digital marketing for a major telecoms corporation, while her partner works as an engineer at a digital media company. This is part of where the American dream is not working out here.

The prospect of losing her job and not having health insurance is a particular concern, given that she had cancer a couple of years ago. If Obamacare goes away and I lose my job I am deeply screwed, she said.

Michelle, a 28-year-old tech worker who earns a six-figure salary at a data science startup said her only chance of buying a home would be if she combined income with a partner. For all the feminist movement of you can do it all, the concept of home ownership is really truly out of reach, she said. For me thats disheartening.

Another tech worker feeling excluded from the real estate market was 41-year-old Michael, who works at a networking firm in Silicon Valley and last year earned $700,000. Sick of his 22-mile commute to work, which can sometimes take up to two and half hours, he explored buying a property nearer work.

We went to an open house in Los Gatos that would shorten my commute by eight miles. It was 1,700 sq ft and listed at $1.4m. It sold in 24 hours for $1.7m, he said.

Although he said his salary means he can afford to live a decent life, he finds the cost of living, combined with the terrible commute, unpalatable. Hes had enough, and has accepted a 50% pay cut to relocate to San Diego.

We will be unequivocally better off than we are now. He said he wont miss some of the more mundane day-to-day costs, like spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice.

Michael isnt the only tech worker considering leaving Silicon Valley in search of a better life. A Canadian IT specialist in his late 40s, earning more than $200,000, has a similar plan. When I came to the Bay Area the amount of money they were going to pay me seemed absurd, he said. However, the cost of rent and childcare, which cost more than I paid for my university education in Canada, has been hard to swallow.

Sam, 40, lives with his wife and three kids in San Jose, earning around $120,000 a year at a multinational software company. I get paid a very good wage, but I have three kids, childcare is ridiculously expensive so my wife mostly takes care of them, he said.

He feels pressure being the sole breadwinner. Ive got no safety net, he said. I have credit cards, but this is not sustainable. If something bad happened Id be out of the house in a month.

Glaring inequality

Fred Sherburn Zimmer from San Franciscos Housing Rights Committee agreed that housing is too expensive in the Bay Area, but points out that there are much graver consequences for people not working in tech.

For a senior whose healthcare is down the street, moving might be a death sentence, she said. For an immigrant family with two kids, moving out of a sanctuary city like San Francisco means you could get deported. She described a building in San Francisco where there are 28 people living in studio-like closets in a basement, including a senior and families with children.

For their part, many well-paid tech workers complaining about their own predicament say they also sympathize with the plight of people on more ordinary incomes.

We think a lot about how people with normal jobs afford to live here, said the Canadian IT specialist. The answer is: they dont. They commute from farther and farther afield.

The digital marketer added: During the first dotcom boom we had secretaries commuting three hours into work Its happening again. It was absurd then and its absurd now, she said, adding that she and her husband both know what its like to be poor.

A man walks by a homeless woman sleeping on the sidewalk San Franciscos Tenderloin district. Photograph: Gabrielle Lurie for the Guardian

Sam, who works at the software company, isnt optimistic about the future. The only solution I see is a huge reset and weve already done that once in the last decade. It was really painful for a lot of people, including myself, he said, referring to the dotcom crash in the early 2000s.

Some tech workers expressed a sense of guilt about their complaints when so many people are worse off, including San Franciscos desperate homeless population.

You are literally stepping over people to get to your job to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, said Michael. How do you go about your daily life as if it doesnt matter?

He suggested venture capitalists should stop investing in stupid applications and funnel some money into solving real societal problems like homelessness.

You are caught in this really uncomfortable position. You feel very guilty seeing such poverty and helplessness, added Michelle, the 28-year-old on a six-figure wage. But what are you supposed to do? Not make a lot of money? Not advocate for yourself and then not afford to live here?

Sam agreed. The whiny millennial snowflake type would say youre a terrible person making things worse for us. The truth is, if I gave up, what would I do? Should I knit sweaters and trade them?

Read more: http://bit.ly/2lVq4i4

from Scraping by on six figures? Tech workers feel poor in Silicon Valley’s wealth bubble

[newstfionline]

Tech workers feel poor in Silicon Valley’s wealth bubble

Olivia Solon, The Guardian, 27 February 2017

“I didn’t become a software engineer to be trying to make ends meet,” said a Twitter employee in his early 40s who earns a base salary of $160,000. It is, he added, a “pretty bad” income for raising a family in the Bay Area.

The biggest cost is his $3,000 rent--which he said was “ultra cheap” for the area--for a two-bedroom house in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and two kids. He’d like a slightly bigger property, but finds himself competing with groups of twentysomethings happy to share accommodation while paying up to $2,000 for a single room.

“Families are priced out of the market,” he said, adding that family-friendly cafes and restaurants have slowly been replaced by “hip coffee shops”.

Silicon Valley’s latest tech boom has caused rents to soar over the last five years. The city’s rents, by one measure, are now the highest in the world.

The prohibitive costs have displaced teachers, city workers, firefighters and other members of the middle class, not to mention low-income residents, who have been virtually erased from the city.

Now techies, many of whom are among the highest 1% of earners, are complaining that they, too, are being priced out.

The Twitter employee said he hit a low point in early 2014 when the company changed its payroll schedule, leaving him with a hole in his budget. “I had to borrow money to make it through the month.”

He was one of several tech workers, earning between $100,000 and $700,000 a year, who vented to the Guardian about their financial situation. Almost all of them spoke only on the condition of anonymity, or agreed only to give their first names, fearing retribution by their employers for speaking publicly about their predicament.

Complaints from well-compensated tech workers will sound like chutzpah to many of the other 99% who are struggling to get by on a fraction of their income. But there appears to be a growing frustration among tech workers who say that they are struggling to get by.

Facebook engineers last year even raised the issue with founder Mark Zuckerberg, asking whether the company could subsidize their rents to make their living situation more affordable, according to an executive at the company who has since departed.

The cost of housing is a common complaint among Bay Area techies. Engineers can expect, according to one analysis, to pay between 40% and 50% of their salary renting an apartment near work.

One Apple employee was recently living in a Santa Cruz garage, using a compost bucket as a toilet. Another tech worker, enrolled in a coding bootcamp, described how he lived with 12 other engineers in a two-bedroom apartment rented via Airbnb. “It was $1,100 for a bunk bed and five people in the same room. One guy was living in a closet, paying $1,400 for a ‘private room’.”

“We make over $1m between us, but we can’t afford a house,” said a woman in her 50s who works in digital marketing for a major telecoms corporation, while her partner works as an engineer at a digital media company. “This is part of where the American dream is not working out here.”

The prospect of losing her job and not having health insurance is a particular concern, given that she had cancer a couple of years ago. “If Obamacare goes away and I lose my job I am deeply screwed,” she said.

Michelle, a 28-year-old tech worker who earns a six-figure salary at a data science startup said her only chance of buying a home would be if she combined income with a partner. “For all the feminist movement of ‘you can do it all’, the concept of home ownership is really truly out of reach,” she said. “For me that’s disheartening.”

Another tech worker feeling excluded from the real estate market was 41-year-old Michael, who works at a networking firm in Silicon Valley and last year earned $700,000. Sick of his 22-mile commute to work, which can sometimes take up to two and half hours, he explored buying a property nearer work.

“We went to an open house in Los Gatos that would shorten my commute by eight miles. It was 1,700 sq ft and listed at $1.4m. It sold in 24 hours for $1.7m,” he said.

Although he said his salary means he can afford to live a decent life, he finds the cost of living, combined with the terrible commute, unpalatable. He’s had enough, and has accepted a 50% pay cut to relocate to San Diego.

“We will be unequivocally better off than we are now.” He said he won’t miss some of the more mundane day-to-day costs, like spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice.

Michael isn’t the only tech worker considering leaving Silicon Valley in search of a better life. A Canadian IT specialist in his late 40s, earning more than $200,000, has a similar plan. “When I came to the Bay Area the amount of money they were going to pay me seemed absurd,” he said. However, the cost of rent and childcare, which cost “more than I paid for my university education in Canada”, has been hard to swallow.

Sam, 40, lives with his wife and three kids in San Jose, earning around $120,000 a year at a multinational software company. “I get paid a very good wage, but I have three kids, childcare is ridiculously expensive so my wife mostly takes care of them,” he said.

He feels pressure being the sole breadwinner. “I’ve got no safety net,” he said. “I have credit cards, but this is not sustainable. If something bad happened I’d be out of the house in a month.”

Fred Sherburn Zimmer from San Francisco’s Housing Rights Committee agreed that housing is too expensive in the Bay Area, but points out that there are much graver consequences for people not working in tech.

“For a senior whose healthcare is down the street, moving might be a death sentence,” she said. “For an immigrant family with two kids, moving out of a sanctuary city like San Francisco means you could get deported.” She described a building in San Francisco where there are 28 people living in “studio-like closets” in a basement, including a senior and families with children.

For their part, many well-paid tech workers complaining about their own predicament say they also sympathize with the plight of people on more ordinary incomes.

“We think a lot about how people with normal jobs afford to live here,” said the Canadian IT specialist. “The answer is: they don’t. They commute from farther and farther afield.”

The digital marketer added: “During the first dotcom boom we had secretaries commuting three hours into work … It’s happening again. It was absurd then and it’s absurd now,” she said, adding that she and her husband both “know what it’s like to be poor”.

Sam, who works at the software company, isn’t optimistic about the future. “The only solution I see is a huge reset and we’ve already done that once in the last decade. It was really painful for a lot of people, including myself,” he said, referring to the dotcom crash in the early 2000s.

Some tech workers expressed a sense of guilt about their complaints when so many people are worse off, including San Francisco’s desperate homeless population.

“You are literally stepping over people to get to your job to make hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Michael. “How do you go about your daily life as if it doesn’t matter?”

He suggested venture capitalists should stop investing in “stupid applications” and funnel some money into solving real societal problems like homelessness.

“You are caught in this really uncomfortable position. You feel very guilty seeing such poverty and helplessness,” added Michelle, the 28-year-old on a six-figure wage. “But what are you supposed to do? Not make a lot of money? Not advocate for yourself and then not afford to live here?”

Sam agreed. “The whiny millennial snowflake type would say ‘you’re a terrible person making things worse for us’. The truth is, if I gave up, what would I do? Should I knit sweaters and trade them?”

[trendingnewsb]

The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

Exclusive: study suggests that 26.8% of the population qualify as food insecure based on risk factors such as missing meals or relying on food banks

Karla Peralta is surrounded by food. As a line cook in Facebooks cafeteria, she spends her days preparing free meals for the tech firms staff. Shes worked in kitchens for most of her 30 years in the US, building a life in Silicon Valley as a single mother raising two daughters.

But at home, food is a different story. The regions soaring rents and high cost-of-living means that even with a full-time job, putting food on the table hasnt been simple. Over the years she has struggled to afford groceries at one point feeding her family of three with food stamps that amounted to $75 a week, about half what the government describes as a thrifty food budget. I was thinking, when am I going to get through this? she said.

outside in america

In a region famed for its foodie culture, where the well-heeled can dine on gold-flecked steaks, $500 tasting menus and $29 loaves of bread, hunger is alarmingly widespread, according to a new study shared exclusively with the Guardian.

One in four people in Silicon Valley are at risk of hunger, researchers at the Second Harvest food bank have found. Using hundreds of community interviews and data modeling, a new study suggests that 26.8% of the population almost 720,000 people qualify as food insecure based on risk factors such as missing meals, relying on food banks or food stamps, borrowing money for food, or neglecting bills and rent in order to buy groceries. Nearly a quarter are families with children.

We call it the Silicon Valley paradox, says Steve Brennan, the food banks marketing director. As the economy gets better we seem to be serving more people. Since the recession, Second Harvest has seen demand spike by 46%.

data

The bank is at the center of the Silicon Valley boom both literally and figuratively. It sits just half a mile from Ciscos headquarters and counts Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg among its major donors. But the need it serves is exacerbated by this industrys wealth; as high-paying tech firms move in, the cost of living rises for everyone else.

Food insecurity often accompanies other poverty indicators, such as homelessness. San Jose, Silicon Valleys largest city, had a homeless population of more than 4,000 people during a recent count. They are hungry, too: research conducted by the Health Trust, a local not-for-profit, found food resources available to them are scattered and inadequate.

These days Peralta earns too much to qualify for food stamps, but not enough not to worry. She pays $2,000 a month or three-quarters of her paycheck to rent the small apartment she shares with her youngest daughter. Even just the two of us, its still a struggle. So once a month, she picks up supplies at the food bank to supplement what she buys at the store.

She isnt one to complain, but acknowledges the vast gulf between the needs of Facebook employees and contract workers such as herself. The first thing they do [for Facebook employees] is buy you an iPhone and an Apple computer, and all these other benefits, she laughs. Its like, wow.

The scale of the problem becomes apparent on a visit to Second Harvest, the only food bank serving Silicon Valley and one of the largest in the country. In any given month it provides meals for 257,000 people 66m pounds of food last year. Inside its cavernous, 75,000 sq ft main warehouse space, boxes of produce stretched to the ceiling. Strip lights illuminated crates of cucumbers and pallets of sweet potatoes with a chilly glow. Volunteers in PayPal T-shirts packed cabbages and apples that arrived in boxes as big as paddling pools, while in the walk-in freezer turkeys waited to defrost.

Inside a warehouse belonging to Second Harvest food bank in San Jose, California, where PayPal staff volunteered for the day. Photography: Talia Herman

Because poverty is often shrouded in shame, their clients situations can come as a surprise. Often we think of somebody visibly hungry, the traditional homeless person, Brennan said. But this study is putting light on the non-traditional homeless: people living in their car or a garage, working people who have to choose between rent and food, people without access to a kitchen.

He added, Youre not thinking when you pick up your shirts from dry cleaning, or getting your landscaping done, or going to a restaurant, or getting your child cared for, is that person hungry? Its very easy to assume they are fine.

Matt Sciamanna is the sort of person you would assume is fine. Hes young, clever, and a recent graduate from San Jose State University. Yet here on campus, he says, food insecurity is a daily problem. Students, and even part-time professors, have been known to sleep in their cars or couch surf to save money. Sciamanna, who works on the Student Hunger Committee, says a survey of more than 4,000 students found about half have skipped meals due to the cost.

His investment in the issue is informed by his own experience. With his parents unable to finance all his living costs, Sciamanna worked in a restaurant while studying full time. But at 20 he was hit with a life-changing diagnosis: multiple sclerosis, a disease that left his grandmother bedridden. Unable to keep up with the pressures of restaurant work, he took a job on campus that paid just $400 a month.

Matt Sciamanna studying. Photo: Jeromy Cesea

My weekly food budget, after other expenses, was $25-$30, he says. Trips to the grocery store became a game of numbers: a bag of apples and bananas cost less than $5 and would last a week. A bag of frozen vegetables, another $5. Sometimes I would see a ripe peach, and I would want it, but then Id think, damn, theyre $1.50 each. Its not like Im asking for a car. Im just talking about a peach. That feeling leaves a scar.

While Sciamanna says his food situation has improved, another fear looms: healthcare costs. His father, a garbage man in San Francisco, has already postponed retirement so that his son can stay on the familys insurance. Without it, Sciamanna says he could face out-of-pocket costs of thousands of dollars a month for his medication. In that scenario, obtaining food would become even more difficult. His parents live in Clear Lake, three hours outside San Francisco, meaning a six-hour daily commute for his father. You feel like youre this dead weight, youre trying to advance yourself but you dont have the money. Its a shitty feeling.

Hunger and the housing crisis go hand-in-hand. In Santa Clara County, the median price of a family home has reached a new high of $1.125m, while the supply of homes continues to shrink. A family of four earning less than $85,000 is now considered low income. These realities mean food insecurity cuts across lines of race, age and employment status.

On a cold, bright afternoon at an elementary school in Menlo Park, kids trickled out of their classrooms and onto the playground. A food distribution was being arranged in the school gymnasium, and adults lined up outside with strollers and shopping carts, waiting for the doors to open. Most were women, many of them mothers whose children attend the school. Once inside they moved slowly and quietly around tables filled with bags of fresh produce, milk and bread, canned goods and beans.

A food distribution taking place at an elementary school in Menlo Park. Bottom right, Vicky Avila-Medrano, a food connection specialist with Second Harvest. Photography: Talia Herman

The Latino community is passing through a hard time, says Vicky Avila-Medrano, a food connection specialist. She runs a program that sends current and former food bank users out into the community, which has been disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

Here in Silicon Valley, we have a big problem. This is a beautiful place to live for people in the tech industry, but we are not working in that industry.

Even people who have full-time jobs can find themselves with no way to put food on the table. Outside the gym, Martina Rivera, a 52-year-old mental health nurse, explained that her troubles began when her entire building was evicted last year. (Mass evictions have swept the area as landlords seek higher-paying tenants). Issues in her personal life, which she preferred not to detail, left her separated from her two children and their father. She thought about moving in with family, but worried about the burden. My brother was recovering from a stroke, and my mother is old, she says. I couldnt put more struggle on them. So what I found was my car.

Martina Rivera, 52, originally from Peru, lived in her car for six months while working as a nurse.

She told herself it was only temporary. I work night shifts at a veterans hospital, so I would go to my moms house to shower, and wait until it was time to work. I waited and waited for the storm to pass. Eventually she found a room without a private bathroom or kitchen. She shopped for food at 99 cent stores, ate mainly canned food, and cooked in a microwave. It took a toll on her health, she says; she gained weight.

I was having panic attacks. My body was like the walking dead. But I thought, I need to keep strong. And I never quit my job.

Rivera says that for many working people, pride is a barrier to admitting need. People dont have money to buy food, but they are shy to ask. But there is no reason to feel ashamed.

The day before Thanksgiving, Karla Peralta invited me to her home. She loves to cook, and prides herself on pulling together a healthy meal even when resources are scarce. I have to cook with what I have. Even if I only have a piece of chicken, a little bit of this and that, I am a cook. I make it work.

Karla Peralta, who works in the cafeteria at Facebook, demonstrates in her kitchen how she cooks with ingredients she picks up from the food bank. Photography: Charlotte Simmonds

That evening she worked with ingredients from the food bank: potatoes and chicken, cans of beans, corn and tomatoes. Dignified and good humored, Peralta says her current job is one of the best shes ever had, even though she still needs help.

As we sat down at her kitchen table to share a meal, we talk about her plans for tomorrows holiday meal. Shell be making ham with pineapples, her daughters favorite. There will be turkey and mashed potatoes, and her niece is bringing bread. And we got some rice from the food bank, she said. Ill probably make that, too.

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