#I changed my new milestone from 15 to 25 in response

[dogstomp]

Dogstomp #3037 - April 25th

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[evanonearth]

Why it’s okay to not have your life together in your 20′s

A blog piece I recently wrote for The Juice Academy

It’s August 2018 and I’m sat in my bedroom surrounded by my suitcase, hand luggage and a duffle bag still covered in tape with the FedEx customs label wrapped around the handles. What I’m supposed to be doing is unpacking and settling in back at home after landing in the UK 48 hours ago from New York. What I’ve actually been doing for the last hour is scrolling through my phone, revisiting the endless photos and videos that I’ll end up viewing multiple times again and again, over the following year.

I’ve spent the last 12 weeks at a summer camp in America, photographing camp activities 5 days a week before spending the weekend visiting the Lake, our favourite diners, or during one memorable weekend - zip lining over Niagara Falls. When camp finished, I spent the next 4 weeks travelling across America. Feeding crocodiles in the swamps of Louisiana, spending Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and road tripping up the coast of California. I learnt how to line dance at Honky Tonks in Nashville and lived my Elle Woods fantasy in Boston. I’d had the best experience of my life, but all it took was a 9-hour flight to bring me crashing back down to reality.

I was 22, freshly graduated from university and not a clue what I wanted to do with my career. All I knew was that I missed the care-free days of camp life. In fact, I’d had such a great experience that I pressed ‘pause’ on my life and knew that I had to go back for a second summer 10 months later.

It was an easy decision to make because it came from the heart. It was simple; I was choosing what made me happy. But then my brain caught up with the idea and all of a sudden, I was filled with a sense of panic, guilt and all-round helplessness. Why was I spending 10 months of my life working in a supermarket, just to save enough money to go back for 3 months to something I’d already done? How was any of this contributing towards a career? Why wasn’t I doing anything with the degree that took me 4 years to get? Surely, I should be saving for a house? That’s what everyone else was doing, right?

In the lead up to my second summer in the States, these were constant worries. Comparison is a killer, and I was questioning everything, feeling completely out of the loop with my friends who had gone straight from uni into graduate jobs. But I knew that I’d probably never get the opportunity again to travel for this length of time without any attachments.

Fast forward to present day, and I’m so grateful that I made that decision to return for a second summer. Without sounding cliché, it changed my whole perspective on life. I met people who were older than me and just starting uni, people who were in their early 30’s and had taken a career break, and people who - like me, just simply weren’t ready to settle. By the time I got home, all of my friends seemed to have stepped into the ‘real’ world. The world of careers, and serious relationships and finally moving out of your parent’s house.

But this time round, it didn’t bother me. I was creating my own timeline and choosing my own path. I was nearly 24, with no idea what was next, but I was happy with the unknown because I knew that whatever was meant to be, would be. By choosing to change my expected path, I’d opened up a whole new chapter of my life where I was content with doing things at my own pace. After camp, I’d planned to go travelling around Asia with some of the friends I’d made over the last two summers. We didn’t have a plan, just a rough idea of locations and the idea that we’d stay out there until we only had enough money left to buy a plane ticket home. Of course, due to the pandemic hitting, this never happened. Instead, I used lockdown as a chance to think about what I really wanted from the next few years. I realised that travelling and having a career don’t need to be independent books but can be part of multiple chapters in my life. So, I brushed up my CV and got excited about beginning a career in the creative industry, because this time round I felt ready for it.

Society has conditioned us to believe that we have to be constantly hitting these specific milestones at certain ages, and if not then we’re somehow failing at life. We should be going to university, or getting on the property ladder, having children by 30 and choosing one career to stick to until retirement at 60.

But guess what? There is no time limit on any of these things! Only a socially constructed ‘ideal’. And there is more to life than ticking boxes.

It starts when we’re little and we get asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and then it’s “What A-Level options are you picking?” How are we supposed to know at 15, what’s going to make us happy at 25? At 50? I’m not even the same person I was a year ago, let alone 10. Even more so as women, we get told that our lives won’t be ‘fulfilled’ until we have children (which, by the way, has to be by a certain time because you don’t want to be an old Mum right?), or that the only reason we’re single is because we ‘just haven’t met the right person yet’ rather than by actual choice.

People talk about using your 20’s to ‘find yourself’, but that’s not really how it works. You’re not lost, you don’t need finding. Your true self is right there, it’s just buried under pressure from society, what you’ve been told is the right thing to do, and other people’s opinions of what you should be doing.

This isn’t to belittle those people who have taken the expected path, because for those people that might be their dream. Some people want to settle down with a family by the time they’re 30, or go straight from university into a job; the same way that I knew it was exactly what I didn't want to do. For them, that’s their own happiness. No one else but you is responsible for your own happiness and deciding what your definition of that is. Your timeline is yours to create, it doesn’t matter what other people your age are doing, focus on building your own happiness and everything else will come in time.

Creating your own path in life isn’t easy. Especially if it feels like you’re somehow not at the same point in life as all of your friends are, it’s hard to break away from the flow and realise that you can do something different. Breaking the ‘rules’ and doing your own thing can feel scary but deciding to live life on your own terms is ultimately the best reward.

A close friend of mine said to me recently “What is meant for you won’t pass you by and what passes you by wasn’t meant for you”.

Trust yourself and trust the universe. You never know where life will take you, and that can be a wonderful thing.

[niamaggie]

100 - Julie and the Phantoms Prompts

In honor of my favorite holiday and one of my more recent obsessions, I have been posting fic prompts over on the Julie and the Phantoms Discord server (https://discord.gg/2WC6GD23UT). Today I reached a milestone of 100 prompts and decided to masterpost them here. 

Some of these are fluffy, but many are angsty/whumpy, but they’re all ones that have popped off in my brain in the last month or so. Many are of the guys and Julie, but they’re are prompts for pretty much every character. I’ve done my best to put triggers before the actual prompt, but if I’m missing any, please let me know.

These are free to use, however, I do ask that you tag me or send me a message if you decide to fill one since I would love to read it and add it to this list. <3 

Prompt 1: *Triggers - Body Horror* The Phantoms feed off of Julie’s energy to stay corporeal. The more energy, the longer they can stay visible and the easier they can interact with everyone. At first, it’s really great. The guys get to meet everyone officially and things are looking up. But, Julie is having a harder time staying awake and keeping it together. She feels guilty since she loves how the guys are able to enjoy themselves. She doesn’t want to end that for them. Eventually, she can’t keep up anymore and tells them what’s going on. Queue cuddle time to recharge and talk it all out. They decide to slowly build up Julie’s abilities. Bonus: ALL THE CUDDLES

Prompt 2: What if Julie knew Caleb outside of the guys (maybe history with her mom)? What if she considered him family and didn’t realize he was the one causing issues with the guys? They run into each other when Caleb comes after the Orpheum performance expecting the band to take his deal. Julie: “Uncle Caleb?” “Julie?!”

 Prompt 3: *Triggers - Nightmare* Julie has a night terror after the Orpheum performance, thinking the guys are gone. She runs into the studio and the guys are all there sleeping/napping. She breaks down, and just grabs onto them and won’t let go. They all cuddle her to calm her down, telling her they are still there. They all fall asleep on the couch.

 Prompt 4: *Triggers - Child Neglect, Child Mental Abuse, & Anxiety* There’s more to Alex’s story with his family than what Luke said. They don’t just disapprove of him; they outright pretend he doesn’t exist. It gets to a point where he completely breaks down in the studio after having a bad practice day (the kind of day where nothing is going right). Being a ghost, is like what his family did to him, but on a much bigger scale. It’s much harder to deal with... Just want the band to comfort him, please?

Prompt 5: *Triggers - Mental Health* Reggie really, really wants to be able to interact with Julie’s family. Now that they can touch her, he shyly asks if they can officially meet them. “If that’s ok?” “It’s just they..” She beams and says, “ Of course.” Reggie just hugs her super tight with watery eyes.

 Prompt 6: *Triggers - Murder* The hotdog’s weren’t rancid; they were poisoned. Why did someone want Sunset Curve dead? (Not Bobby/Trevor)

 Prompt 7: With all the new found fame for “Julie and the Phantoms”, the band starts amassing quite a fan following. One particular “fan” thinks Julie doesn’t deserve/is good enough to be playing with them. They’re determined that she needs to go. #ProtectiveGhosts.

 Prompt 8: Hanging out with the boys has some perks (especially since they can now touch). With practice, the guys can do a lot more than just poof away. So, they decide to use more ghostly tricks on Julie in their set/show. Julie phasing through the boys like in Bright, teleporting her to different areas of the stage, helping her with magical costume changes?

 Prompt 9: Ray decides he needs to meet the boys, especially after that performance. If nothing else, he just wants to thank them for saving his daughter and his family. When he does meet them (and catches the little things they say about their families), he decides to officially/unofficially adopt them into the family. There is no way he can let any child (let alone these ones) think that no adult is in their corner.

 Prompt 10: The boys being involved with Julie’s family. Simple things like helping set up the dinner table (spots for all of them and Julie’s mom) and talking about their day. Cue, Tia Victoria showing up and being condescending/rude to the family. So, the boys decide a little payback is in order. Meanwhile, the Molinas just sit there and are like “What are you talking about? We didn’t see/hear anything?”.. #TheBoysDon’tPutUpWithThat

 Prompt 11: *Triggers - Physical Abuse* - Julie notices things are off with “Nick”. She can’t explain it, but she knows something isn’t right with him. He’s asking all sorts of questions about the Phantoms, asking who are they, how did you meet, how does it work, etc. Julie tries to brush him off with short answers, but, “Nick” is persistent and he wants what he wants. “Nick” eventually gets fed up with playing nice and grabs Julie’s arms hard enough to leave bruises. Julie gets away after a few moves (there’s no way that girl doesn’t have some killer martial arts moves). She shows up to practice with angry tears. The guys ask what’s wrong, but tells them it’s nothing and tries to start practice. Luke holds her arm and she hisses while taking a half step back. The guys are shocked when Luke pulls up her sleeve and they see the finger-shaped bruises. #ProtectiveGhosts #PissedOffGhosts

Prompt 12: *Triggers - Bullying* What if people did notice Julie talking to thin air? She’s shunned/bullied by everyone at school including Flynn (Julie never gets to sing “Flying Solo” to her). It gets so bad that she runs away after an exceptionally bad day. The boys try to convince her to go home, but she refuses. Feeling guilty, they decide to watch out for her. So, her new life a mix of epic shows at night with the guys, but the reality is she’s still homeless on the streets of LA. Eventually her dad and brother find her (and with some words from the boys about their own regrets), they all take her home.

 Prompt 13: *Triggers - Bullying* One of Carrie’s dancers decides to pick on Julie about her mom, thinking it will put them in better standing with Carrie. Unfortunately for them, that type of “attack” on Julie was the one thing that Carrie won’t stand for. Because even if Carrie and Julie aren’t friends any more, they have a mutual/silent agreement that their moms are off limits. Carrie apologizes to Julie for the attack and says she knows better. They don’t magically end up best friends again, but they’re no longer enemies.

 Prompt 14: *Triggers - Murder* The line in “fit to kill” from “You Got Nothing To Lose” stirs up some ideas because what if Caleb was responsible for the boys deaths? After all, he does seem fixated on them... Maybe he just wants them as more ghosts for his club or as a part of his house band? Maybe it’s more their potential? Either way, the boys ruined his plans by not showing up for 25 years… Good thing he had Willie keep an eye out for them… But then again, he did bargain with Willie for his freedom in exchange for theirs.

 Prompt 15: *Triggers - Child Neglect & Abuse* What if Julie’s family were the opposite from cannon because they blame her for her mother’s death? … If only, Julie hadn’t needed a ride from voice lessons and a reckless driver was actually paying attention… Julie connects with the boys on another level since none of them have good families. They become each other’s found family instead.

 Prompt 16: There are consequences for using the likenesses of the deceased. What happens when Julie and the Phantoms get CEASE & DESIST notices from the boys’ families? What do they do since they can’t play/preform?

 Prompt 17: Julie and Flynn think it’s time that the boys got some new clothes and personal items. Queue ghostly shenanigans at the mall/stores with all three of them.

 Prompt 18: Actual Witch Julie! She meant to summon her mom (also a witch), but accidently summoned the guys. Oops. She tries again using part of “Wake Up” lyrics to talk to her mom, but it doesn’t go anywhere… Julie’s best gift is her voice, good thing she’s working on her enchanting skills.

 Prompt 19: *Triggers - Injury* Concussion – Julie has an accident and has some retrograde amnesia of the last few months, meaning she doesn’t remember meeting the guys. How do you explain to someone that you’re ghosts, but only you can see them unless you’re preforming together? “Like how?! That doesn’t make any sense?!” Just want the guys trying a couple of different ways to convince her, but Julie is being stubborn. Think first scene of them together, but more denial and more of “Stop talking to them. They’re not real. There’s no such thing as cute ghosts.”

 Prompt 20: Comic Con?! Julie and the Phantoms go to Comic Con (either as guests or maybe as performers?). They’re all super excited, but Reggie can’t contain himself. How can he with all the costumes, the artists, and the actors. Hello?! “There’s so much to see!” Plus, how much mischief can they get into? 😉

 Prompt 21: Rules/Boundaries – You know how Julie keeps mentioning boundaries and the guys keep breaking them? She decides to come up with a list to keep in the studio… Honestly, I would just like to see little moments where the guys keep breaking Julie’s rules. Could be a 5+1 fic, where most of them are comedic, but the last one is gut-wrenching?

 Prompt 22: What if Julie was more physically connected to the guys? Like when she���s sick, they’re sick, etc. And what if they start showing signs of aging like their hair getting longer as months go by? What does that mean?

 Prompt 23: Julie starts experiencing shooting chest pains. At first, she brushes it off, but they’re getting worse. During practice, she gets another one, only this time she can’t take in a breath. Can the boys help her?

 Prompt 24: When the guys are “preforming” at Caleb’s club, Julie goes looking for them. When she finds them, she can tell they’re in trouble and decides to crash the party. She helps free the guys and everyone else from Caleb’s clutches with a musical number of her own. Without the other ghosts feeding his abilities, Caleb fades away into nothing.

 Prompt 25: Birthdays – Would love to see everyone else’s birthday moments, but with Julie and the Molina family? Maybe a little angst since I don’t think Reggie or Alex’s family really celebrated theirs and here are the Molinas stepping up for some boys who are eternally 17?

 Prompt 26: *Triggers - Body Horror, Human Remains, Murder* The guys are feeling pain again, but it’s all over, and it feels - different and wrong. It takes a few days to find out why. On the news, are their photos. They’re bodies are being exhumed as their deaths have been reopened as possible homicides.

 Prompt 27: Band Life – Just a little cut scene where everyone is doing warm-ups. But, I really want to see the guys helping Alex stretch before (since apparently drummers can get terrible muscle aches/cramps).

 Prompt 28: Holidays – Just imagine the guys’ first holidays with Julie’s family. All the usual cheesiness, but must include a trip to the mountains and a snowball fight.

 Prompt 29: Sleepover – It’s late and the band decides to have a sleepover in the studio. After a bit, it turns very deep and emotional. It becomes a really eye-opening experience for Julie as she learns more about her bandmates and they her.

 Prompt 30: *Triggers - Allergic Reaction* Food - The boys are very protective of what the Molina family eats. I’m talking they will throw out, reheat, overcook food if the food is at all questionable. One day, they throw out Julie’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich “because the jam looked off”. So, they make her a peanut butter and fluff one, too bad that they didn’t know Julie’s allergic to corn (which can also be used to make marshmallows).

 Prompt 31: *Triggers - Cheating* The guys ask Julie what the situation is with Carrie and why she’s seems to be out to get her? Julie explains that they used to be best friends before Carrie’s mother cheated on her dad and Carrie caught her in the act. “After that, Carrie was gone from school one week and it was like her personality changed overnight into this plastic I’m-better-than-you robot. I tried talking to her, but she ignored me for months. Anytime I tried, she pretty much just harassed me to go away. Then my mom got sick and then she died. I just didn’t have the energy to keep trying.”

 Prompt 32: Julie singing in Spanish and the guys being in awe.

 Prompt 33: *Triggers - Death of a Parent & Grief* Rose’s death… How did she die? What were the Molinas like in the first year after her death?

 Prompt 34: Something where the Julie is being interviewed and has to describe the guys and they her?

Luke – Contagious, Sensitive, Intense

Reggie – Lovable, Goofball, Questionable

Alex – Loyal, Emotional, Careful

Julie – Gifted, Fiery, Thoughtful  

 Prompt 35: Luke singing “Unsaid Emily” acoustically for a show (Julie did reach out to the Pattersons beforehand).

 Prompt 36: *Triggers - Illness* Julie having to perform while she is seriously sick. The guys try to convince her to postpone, but she’s being stubborn. She continues the show until she literally collapses at the end of it. The guys are worried and take her home afterwards to recuperate.

 Prompt 37: I really want a protective Flynn fic where she doesn’t trust the boys after they ditch Julie and her at the dance. She makes them work hard to make it up to them.

 Prompt 38: *Triggers - Character Death* What if Rose was the one who found the guys after the rancid hotdogs and called 9-1-1?

 Prompt 39: *Triggers - Injury* The jolts happen to Julie instead of the guys. Despite the guys being the ones cursed, every jolt is felt by Julie instead and she gets weaker and weaker. What better blackmail and incentive to the guys need to join Caleb’s club?

 Prompt 40: *Triggers - Possession & Stalking* The guys notice possessed Nick stalking Julie at school and eventually her house/studio. #PhantomBodyguards

 Prompt 41: *Triggers - Bullying* What if Carrie witnessed Flynn and Julie being bullied by another student? Something in her snaps and she rips the bully a new one before helping Flynn and Julie.

 Prompt 42: With Julie’s help, Luke is able to track down Reggie’s and Alex’s families as a surprise/gift. He wants to give them the same closure that Julie gave to him.

 Prompt 43: Role reversal – After a performance, Julie is the one to poof out.

 Prompt 44: What if Julie was a medium (since birth) and was trying to talk to her mom, but can’t? Instead, she got the guys?

 Prompt 45: *Triggers - Physical Child Abuse, Child Emotional Abuse, Child Mental Abuse, Child Neglect* The boys’ lives are a lot darker than canon. Reggies’s are physically abusive, Alex’s are emotionally/mentally abusive, Luke’s are neglectful/never around. 3+1 (Molina family being awesome).

 Prompt 46: *Triggers - Suicidal Thoughts & Ideation* Reggie was suicidal before having found a family with Luke and Alex (and then Julie and her family). He looks back on where he was and where he is now. “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” And “All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are.”– both Robin Williams

 Prompt 47: Julie is the new student at school, but the guys are still ghosts. How would it play out if no one knew Julie before “Bright”?

 Prompt 48: JATP are being interviewed (virtually) and the interviewer starts asking inappropriate questions about Julie and the guys’ relationship. Julie is clearly upset (as are the guys). It gets so bad, the guys decide to disconnect and refuse to continue. Afterwards, they cuddle Julie and talk about it.

 Prompt 49: A lifer from Caleb’s club sees a JATP performance and are not happy to be paying for an exclusive ghost experience only to find it available for free. As time goes on, more and more lifers are refusing to go to Caleb’s club until it’s an actual “ghost town”.

 Prompt 50: Bobby/Trevor is a lifer at Caleb’s club.

 Prompt 51: *Triggers - Murder* Bobby/Trevor made a deal with a ghost in 1995. Help him become famous now and in return, he will join his ghost club after his death. Too bad Bobby/Trevor didn’t read the fine print. He didn’t just sell his soul.

 Prompt 52: Battle of Wills – Julie goes to Caleb’s club and tricks him into letting the boys and Willie, by intimidating him with her “powers”. Something like, “If I can do this now as a lifer, I wonder what else could I do?” Caleb would then threaten her life and Julie would reply that she would just come back as an even more powerful ghost and make his afterlife a nightmare. Instead of his nightly parties, it’ll be nightly riots. Caleb eventually agrees to let the boys go in exchange that they (and Julie) never enter his club again. After being freed, they meet up back at the studio and the guys are in shock. They can’t believe she did that. Julie responds saying, she couldn’t just leave them behind. They’re her band, her family. Plus, it’s not like she has any actual powers that could take on Caleb… Or does she? #BADASSJULIE

 Prompt 53: *Triggers - Murder & Body Horror* What if Caleb took more than souls? Turns out he drains the life of the living to run his club, and then takes your soul as part of his deal. The drain isn’t a part of the deal, but rather a consequence of going to the club itself. The more often you go to get answers about the other side, the closer you are to joining it.

 Prompt 54: *Triggers - Murder* What if Julie was also a ghost? A terrified ghost who doesn’t remember how she died. Her mom is still alive and her family still lives in their house, but they’re more zombies than people. Julie can’t interact at all with them unless she’s playing with the guys. The guys try to help her remember as her family grieves. As time passes, Julie gets flashes of memory of her death or rather, her murder. She was killed in the studio by Bobby/Trevor after discovering he stole Sunset Curve’s songs. It isn’t the first time he’s killed…

 Prompt 55: *Triggers - Death of a Parent & Grief* Before Julie played their CD and the guys appeared, changing her life forever, she was just a girl grieving for her mom. One day, something sparks her to laugh. A laugh that makes her feel so light, that’s she’s floating only to crash down to earth when she realizes her mom won’t ever laugh like that again… Julie refuses to laugh if her mother can’t… Just want something where someone tells Julie that it’s ok to laugh again.

 Prompt 56: How did Alex and Luke find out about Jar Jar? 😉

 Prompt 57: *Triggers - Bullying* Carrie’s getting harassed by someone and breaks down after a Dirty Candi number. Julie sees it (or maybe Alex spots it and tells her) and puts a stop to it and defends Carrie and her performance. It leads to Carrie sticking up for Julie a couple of days/weeks later, and it slowly leads back to a road of friendship.

 Prompt 58: *Triggers - Possible Injury* (Before 1x9) In his excitement to catch ghosts, Carlos sets up a trap for the guys, but Julie gets caught in the crosshairs. Option A: She’s more annoyed then injured. Sibling hijinks ensues. Option B: She gets hurt and Carlos has to help her. Either way, the guys apologize for making her life harder and antagonizing Carlos.

 Prompt 59: *Triggers - Injury* Julie gets a concussion at school (I’m thinking gym class). She’s extremely confused, which the nurse warns is normal but also gives her a list of protocols to follow. Julie gets home and can’t see the guys, but she can hear them. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and gets very frustrated with them and herself. As she starts to cry, she asks for her mom.

 Prompt 60: *Triggers - Possession* You know how Flynn yells at demon and Carrie responds? What if Carrie was actually a demon? Think Buzzfeed Unsolved (fandom) head canon with Shane, a demon posing as a human, and Ryan, as the unsuspecting human.

 Prompt 61:  *Triggers - Medical Condition* Julie arrives home after school with a migraine that’s been building all day. Everything boils over when she steps into the kitchen and Ray’s cooking dinner. She heads right for him and seeks comfort. The guys are a bit lost, but are quiet as Ray whispers to Julie.

 Prompt 62: *Triggers - Character Death & Missing Characters* What if the guys don’t actually know how they died? And what if, their bodies were never found and that they’re still considered “missing”? How would that change things?

 Prompt 63: I can see this falling under Witch!Julie, but it doesn’t have to? Julie marked the boys by gifting them Dahlia pins (which they wear with pride) before they visit Caleb’s club. He goes to mark them on the night of the dance, but the stamp doesn’t “stick” and his other powers don’t work on them. He makes up some excuse, but he decides to investigate. He goes to the house and confronts Julie. He tries to pull on his usual bag of tricks, but they don’t work on her either. Caleb threatens her, “I’ll get them one way or another.” “I wouldn’t bet on it.” “Haven’t you heard, all bets on me?” “Yeah, the odds aren’t in your favor.” “Who do you think you are?!” “Julie Molina, from Julie and the Phantoms. You... obviously don’t get out much.” #FlusteredCaleb

 Prompt 64: After a couple of weeks of constant late-night rehearsals, gigs, and studying for finals, Julie can’t keep her head up during band practice. She keeps nodding off at the piano, blinking rapidly, and shaking herself to try to stay awake. The guys stop playing after the nth time Julie slows down or misses a cue. They decide that it’s time for her to go to bed. They drag her to her room and with strict instructions to change, go to bed, and that she has to sleep in tomorrow until noon.

 Prompt 65: Slang Exchange – Flynn and Julie teach the guys 2020’s slang while the guys teach them early 90’s slang. They each keep explaining more obscure and crazy words/phrases until it turns into a friendly competition of each era’s craziest terms.

 Prompt 66: In Julie’s dance class, they’re given their mid-term or final exam where each person must preform 3 different styles of dance with a partner. Julie asks if the dances can be performed with people outside the class or even multiple someone’s and the teacher agrees as long as the person or persons are there on the day of the exam. Julie asks the guys to help her since they have such distinct body moves/styles. Examples: Hip-Hop, Rumba, Salsa, Waltz, Cha-Cha, Swing, Tap, Foxtrot, Jive, Tango, etc.

 Prompt 67: *Triggers - Physical Child Abuse & Scarring* Julie walks into the studio after school and sees that only Reggie is there and he’s changing his shirt. It’s not an usual sight to have Luke or even Alex change shirts in front of her, but Reggie had always been a little shyer. When she sees his back, she now knows why. There are a lot of thick old scars near his spine. When she drops her bag in shock, Reggie gets spooked and poofs out. Julie then spends the next few hours anxiously waiting for him to come back. When Luke and Alex later poof in and see her distress, she explains what she saw. Luke and Alex exchange looks and Alex tells Luke to go talk to him while he explains things to Julie.

 Prompt 68: Ever notice the amount of jewelry the guys have? I would just like to see the stories behind how they got them, particularly their necklaces? My head cannon is that the necklaces are gifts from each other over the years.

 Prompt 69: *Triggers - Mental Health* Five times Julie can’t touch the boys when they needed comfort and the one time (and more), she can after the Orpheum show.

 Prompt 70: *Triggers - Mental Health* After Julie can touch the guys and after Ray and Carlos know about them, the Molina family decides to surprise them with their first family meal. The guys are super happy, but a little worried. The last two times they ate, things didn’t end well (the hotdogs and Caleb’s club). The idea of being able to food or being able to eat, feels… tarnished?... #FamilyComfort

 Prompt 71: JatP debuts a new song and they decide to switch things up, literally. One second everyone is in their normal position, the next everyone is playing a different instrument and killing it. For example, Alex on guitar, Julie on bass, Reggie on piano, Luke on drums.

 Prompt 72: *Triggers - Death of a Spouse* Can we have a Ray and Rose moment like Amelia and Dr. Harvey from Casper (the scene with the red dress)? One where they tell each other how much they love and miss each other?

 Prompt 73: *Triggers - Mental Health* During the day while Julie is at school, Luke is in Julie’s room. He knows he shouldn’t, but he’s been feeling off and being in her room makes him feel better. But, the more he looks over her pictures and reads through the writing on her desk (he learned his lesson about breaking her trust with looking in her dream box), the more he feels guilty when he can see all the good memories in them. He feels so guilty because it feels like everything wrong or that has gone wrong lately is his fault – running out on his parents, having the idea to eat the hotdogs, making Julie’s life difficult by making her lie to her family, needing to get revenge against Bobby/Trevor, which led them to Caleb and missing the dance, which breaks Julie’s trust, almost not making it to the Orpheum show… He just keeps spiraling until Alex and Reggie come looking for him.

 Prompt 74: After that magic hug, Julie takes note of the guys Orpheum outfits.

 Prompt 75: *Triggers - Mental Health* Empath!Julie. She feels things on a deeper level and can sense what other people are feeling. She channels her emotions through her music and it’s why it feels so alive. It’s why her family has been so worried about her not playing music for nearly a year. She was so shut down, they feared they would lose her too… When the guys show up, she isn’t ready to open herself up emotionally to them. It’s also why she can’t touch them. As time goes on and she opens a bit and she tries to touch them, it doesn’t work because she’s not strong enough yet. It’s only after “Stand Tall” that she allows herself to be vulnerable/strong enough at the same time that she can touch them.

 Prompt 76: During “Perfect Harmony”, when Luke says, “Step into my world”, Julie actually steps into the ghost world. After that, she can see more than just the guys and now sees ghosts everywhere.

 Prompt 77: *Triggers - Food Hoarding & Child Neglect* The guys were food starved before the hotdogs. Reggie’s family was poor and couldn’t afford enough good food at home. Luke didn’t have much money for food after running away from home nearly six months before he died. Alex wasn’t welcome at home, let alone the dinner table.

 Prompt 78: *Triggers - Graphic Murder, Possession, Medical Condition, Possible Medical Disability* This one is gruesome and it’s based on a nightmare… Caleb possesses Nick a little earlier than cannon. He still goes over to the Molina’s with flowers and rings the doorbell. When Julie opens the door, he slashes her throat and then stabs her. He runs as Julie staggers with her hands on her throat and torso. Ray hears her struggles and rushes over, yelling for Carlos to call 9-1-1. The guys try to keep Julie calm and in the present. They follow the Molina’s to the hospital, where Julie is placed in a coma. She’ll live, but her ability to talk, let alone sing is unknown. Meanwhile, the police think it was a crazy fan because of the dropped flowers.

 Prompt 79: *Triggers - Body Horror* What if Caleb’s stamp only caused the guys pain if they’re playing their instruments or preforming outside of his club? Being unable to perform is excruciating, but spending their afterlives as Caleb’s puppets isn’t enough/real either. Which leads to Luke’s words, “No music is worth making Julie, if we’re not making it with you.”

 Prompt 80: *Triggers - Body Horror & Nightmares* Caleb haunts Julie’s nightmares and causes her to sleepwalk into danger. Think the nightmare scene in “Anastasia” where Anya nearly jumps off the ship thinking she’s jumping into a lake to see her family. Who/what does Julie see? Who/what wakes her?

 Prompt 81: Halloween special! The Molina family are a bunch of werewolves. Can you imagine the craziness when the guys realize what they are? The questions they might ask (particularly with Alex’s “softer touch”)?

 Prompt 82: *Triggers - Mental Health* Reggie’s biggest fear is being alone and the absolute worst thing you can do is ignore him. His parents used to do it all the time to punish him. So much that, he felt like a ghost long before he died. The only thing that kept him afloat were the guys, and now Julie with her family… After a bad day of flashbacks of his old life, all he wants is to be with his new family.

 Prompt 83: *Triggers - Child Neglect, Child Mental Abuse, Child Emotional Abuse, Mental Health, & Anxiety* The feeling of not being enough, let alone good enough is something that haunts Alex constantly. He was a good kid, who had good grades, never talked back or caused trouble. He helped out around the house and did everything his parents asked of him… So, why wasn’t he enough for them?

 Prompt 84: *Triggers - Mental Health* Julie comes home upset and runs into Alex. He stops her and talks to her. Over time, he calms her down enough to explain what happened. She does and he hugs her as he tells her that she can always come to him. After all, a big brother always looks after their little sister.

 Prompt 85: *Triggers - Body Injury/Horror* Some thing a little different? What if the guys didn’t know how they died (or anything about their past really)? What if they only knew their music/instruments, their friendship, their first names, and not much else? It’s pretty much a foggy mist when they push too hard. Julie has to play detective to figure out who the guys were and what happened to them. She still loves music, but she’s not ready to play/sing quite yet. I just imagine Julie in the studio trying to piece together bits and pieces of information to dig into the mystery of who the guys were/are.

 Prompt 86: Artist!Julie. She’s obviously a creative soul and I can just see her drawing the guys in their element. And also sketching them how she sees them in normal everyday activities in their afterlives.

 Prompt 87: Julie walks in on the guys hanging out with her family. She realizes that the guys are more than family to just her. Her family is their family too and she loves them all the more for it. Later, she gives the guys extra hugs/cuddles.

 Prompt 88: *Triggers - Stalking* After a gig, Julie is harassed outside by a creep. The guys poof to her wondering what the hold up is. They end up scaring the creep off by becoming visible and corporeal. The creep is terrified.

 Prompt 89: Willie teaching Alex the choreography to “The Other Side of Hollywood”. As Alex opens up and allows himself to relax, he teaches Willie some dance moves.

 Prompt 90: The guys help Julie and Flynn study for finals. Luke – English and Music Theory, Reggie – Calculus and Chemistry, Alex – Social Studies and History

 Prompt 91: *Triggers - Mental Health* Reggie overhears Julie talking to Flynn on the phone about being a waste and thinks they’re talking about him… He’s obviously very upset and decides to leave, but not before leaving goodbye notes/gifts for everyone. It takes over a day for Luke and Alex to track him down and bring him home.

 Prompt 92: *Triggers - Illness & Mental Health* Burnt Out!Julie. Suffering dehydration, exhaustion, and just feeling overwhelmed, Julie isn’t sure how much more she can take. The guys step up and force her to take a break. They may be ghosts (sorta), but she’s still human and she needs to rest.

 Prompt 93: During a Molina family dinner, the guys are curious to what they’re having and Julie replies it’s ____, her mom’s favorite dish. The conversation stalls, and the guys offer up some of their favorite dishes (and least favorite) to help ease the tension.

 Prompt 94: *Triggers - Racism/Sexism & Mental Health* Someone says something bad or gives a backhanded compliment to Julie about her looks, but compliments the guys. The guys are horrified/disgusted with that person.

 Prompt 95: Family Game Night – The Molina family, Flynn, and 3 ghosts play classic board games (think Twister, Monopoly, Payday, Clue, Uno, Pictionary, Apples to Apples, Taboo, Jenga). I just keep imagining Alex with his “let someone with a softer touch” and being the most competitive one.

 Prompt 96: *Triggers - Mental Health* Julie writes a song about missed opportunities in honor of the guys. The first time she plays it for them, the guys just break down. After that, they decide it needs to be part of their set list with an acoustic version.

 Prompt 97: For a school project, Julie has to take a play and then write a song about it, however, they’re not allowed to say which play it is or name any characters. After the songs are presented, the class gets to guess what play it is for extra credit. She’s given Romeo and Juliet… And she knows exactly what to write about.

 Prompt 98: Alex being introduced to Adam Lambert. That’s it, that’s the prompt.

 Prompt 99: *Triggers - Mental Health* When Julie calls Luke out for only thinking about himself before walking away, her words hit a lot harder than in cannon. Luke poofs away and breaks down because he knows she’s right… Because all he can think about right now is how much he misses his parents… Just want more expansion from Luke’s POV.

 Prompt 100: *Triggers - Possession & Injury* When Nick starts acting weird, Julie grabs his arm to get his attentions. She let’s go immediately because her hand feels like it’s on fire as Nick screams in pain. Something is not right… She realizes it’s not Nick and forces Caleb to release him. Julie and Caleb both feel the burning pain, but Caleb gives up first. He’s forgotten what actual pain felt like and vacates Nick’s body.

[isslibrary]

New additions to the Indian Springs School Library May thru August 2020

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

152.4 O

Owens, Lama Rod, 1979- author. Love and rage : the path of liberation through anger. "Reconsidering the power of anger as a positive and necessary tool for achieving spiritual liberation and social change"--.

200.973 M

Manseau, Peter. One nation, under gods : a new American history. First edition.

304.8 K

Keneally, Thomas. The great shame : and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese, 1999.

305.5 V

Vance, J. D., author. Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. First Harper paperback edition. "Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance's grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country." -- Publisher's description.

305.8 D

DiAngelo, Robin J., author. White fragility : why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism.

305.800973 D

Dyson, Michael Eric, author. Tears we cannot stop : a sermon to white America. First edition. I. Call to worship -- II. Hymns of praise -- III. Invocation -- IV. Scripture reading -- V. Sermon -- Repenting of whiteness -- Inventing whiteness -- The five stages of white grief -- The plague of white innocence -- Being Black in America -- Nigger -- Our own worst enemy? -- Coptopia -- VI. Benediction -- VII. Offering plate -- VIII. Prelude to service -- IX. Closing prayer. "In the wake of yet another set of police killings of black men, Michael Eric Dyson wrote a tell-it-straight, no holds barred piece for the NYT on Sunday July 7: Death in Black and White (It was updated within a day to acknowledge the killing of police officers in Dallas). The response has been overwhelming. Beyoncé and Isabel Wilkerson tweeted it, JJ Abrams, among many other prominent people, wrote him a long fan letter. The NYT closed the comments section after 2,500 responses, and Dyson has been on NPR, BBC, and CNN non-stop since then. Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a white woman who asked what she could do for the cause: Nothing. Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted. As Dyson writes: At birth you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead...The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know...You think we have been handed everything because we fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it--all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace--should be yours first and foremost, and if there's anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully"--Provided by publisher.

305.800973 G

Begin again : James Baldwin's America and its urgent lessons for our own. New York, NY : Crown; an imprint of Random House, 2020.

305.800973 O

Oluo, Ijeoma, author. So you want to talk about race. First trade paperback edition.

320.9 B

Bass, Jack. The transformation of southern politics : social change and political consequence since 1945. New York : Basic Books, c1976.

323.1196 L

Lowery, Lynda Blackmon, 1950- author. Turning 15 on the road to freedom : my story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March. Growing up strong and determined -- In the movement -- Jailbirds -- In the sweatbox -- Bloody Sunday -- Headed for Montgomery -- Turning 15 -- Weary and wet -- Montgomery at last -- Why voting rights? -- Discussion guide. As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

364.973 U.S.

U.S. national debate topic, 2020-2021.

420 M

McCrum, Robert. The story of English. 1st American ed. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1986.

488.2421 A

Balme, M. G., author. Athenaze : an introduction to ancient Greek. Revised Third edition. Book I -- Book II.

510 C

Clegg, Brian. Are numbers real? : the uncanny relationship of mathematics and the physical world.

530.092 F

F©œlsing, Albrecht, 1940-. Albert Einstein : a biography. New York : Viking Penguin: a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc, 1997. Family -- School -- A "child prodigy" -- "Vagabond and loner" : student days in Zurich -- Looking for a job -- Expert III class -- "Herr Doktor Einstein" and the reality of atoms -- The "very revolutionary" light quanta -- Relative movement : "my life for seven years" -- The theory of relativity : "a modification of the theory of space and time" -- Acceptance, opposition, tributes -- Expert II class -- From "bad joke" to "Herr Professor" -- Professor in Zurich -- Full professor in Prague, but not for long -- Toward the general theory of relativity -- From Zurich to Berlin -- "In a madhouse" : a pacifist in Prussia -- "The greatest satisfaction of my life" : the completion of the general theory of relativity -- Wartime in Berlin -- Postwar chaos and revolution -- Confirmation and the deflection of light : "the suddenly famous Dr. Einstein" -- Relativity under the spotlight -- "Traveler in relativity" -- Jewry, Zionism, and a trip to America -- More hustle, long journeys, a lot of politics, and a little physics -- Einstein receives the Nobel Prize and in consequence becomes a Prussian -- "The marble smile of implacable nature" : the search for the unified field theory -- The problems of quantum theory -- Critique of quantum mechanics -- Politics, patents, sickness, and a "wonderful egg" -- Public and private affairs -- Farewell to Berlin -- Exile in liberation -- Princeton -- Physical reality and a paradox, relativity and unified theory -- War, a letter, and the bomb -- Between bomb and equations -- "An old debt. Albert Einstein's achievements are not just milestones in the history of science; decades ago they became an integral part of the twentieth-century world in which we live. Like no other modern physicist he altered and expanded our understanding of nature. Like few other scholars, he stood fully in the public eye. In a world changing with dramatic rapidity, he embodied the role of the scientist by personal example. Albrecht Folsing, relying on previously unknown sources. And letters, brings Einstein's "genius" into focus. Whereas former biographies, written in the tradition of the history of science, seem to describe a heroic Einstein who fell to earth from heaven, Folsing attempts to reconstruct Einstein's thought in the context of the state of research at the turn of the century. Thus, perhaps for the first time, Einstein's surroundings come to light.

530.092 G

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. 1st ed. New York : Pantheon Books, c2003.

539.7 B

Lise Meitner : Discoverer of Nuclear Fission. Greensboro, NC : Morgan Reynolds, Inc, 2000. A biography of the Austrian scientist whose discoveries in nuclear physics played a major part in developing atomic energy.

598.07 T

Watching birds : reflections on the wing. United States : Ragged Mountain Press, 2000.

811 D

Dabydeen, David. Turner : new and selected poems. 2010. Leeds : Peepal Tree Press, Ltd, 12010.

811.54 J

Jones, Ashley M., 1990- author. Dark // thing. Slurret -- //Side A: 3rd grade birthday party -- //Side B: roebuck is the ghetto -- Harriette Winslow and Aunt Rachel clean -- Collard greens on prime time television -- My grandfather returns as oil -- Elegy for Willie Lee "Murr"Lipscomb -- Proof at the Red Sea -- Sunken place sestina -- Hair -- Antiquing -- The book of Tubman -- Harriet Tubman crosses the Mason Dixon for the first time -- Avian Abecedarian -- Harriet Tubman, beauty queen or ain't I a woman? -- Broken sonnet in which Harriet is the gun -- Recitation -- What flew out of Aunt Hester's scream -- Election year 2016: the motto -- Uncle Remus syrup commemorative lynching postcard #25 -- To the black man popping a wheelie on -- Interstate 59 North on 4th of July weekend -- Red dirt suite -- Love/luv/ -- Summerstina -- Ode to Dwayne Waye, or, I want to be Whitley -- Gilbert when I grow up -- I am not selected for jury duty the week bill -- Cosby's jury selection is underway -- A small, disturbing fact -- Water -- Today, I saw a black man open his arms to the wind -- Xylography -- I see a smear of animal on the road and mistake it for philando castile -- There is a beel at morehouse college -- Dark water -- Who will survive in America? or 2017: a horror film -- In-flight entertainment -- Imitation of life -- Broken sonnet for the decorative cotton for sale at Whole Foods -- Racists in space -- When you tell me I'd be prettier with straight hair -- (Black) hair -- Kindergarten villandelle -- Song of my muhammad -- Ode to Al Jolson -- Hoghead cheese haiku -- Aunties -- Thing of a marvelous thing / It's the same as having wings. A multi-faceted work that explores the darkness/otherness by which the world sees Black people. Ashley M. Jones stares directly into the face of the racism that allows people to be seen as dark things, as objects that can be killed/enslaved/oppressed/devalued. This work, full as it is of slashes of all kinds, ultimately separates darkness from thingness, affirming and celebrating humanity.

814.6 G

Gay, Roxane, author. Bad feminist : essays. First edition. A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

822.3 T

the tragical history of Doctor Faustus : The Elizabethan Play. Annotated & Edited by John D. Harris, 2018. Wabasha, MN : Hungry Point Press, 2018.

822.33 Shakespeare

Major literary characters : Hamlet. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, c. 1990.

822.8 W

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. An ideal husband. Mineola, N.Y. : Dover Publications, 2000.

823.914

Vincenzi, Penny, author. Windfall. 1st U.S. ed. Sensible Cassia Fallon has been married to her doctor husband for seven years when her godmother leaves her a huge fortune. For the first time in her life, she is able to do exactly as she likes, and she starts to question her marriage, her past, her present, and her future. But where did her inheritance really come from and why? Too soon the windfall has become a corrupting force, one that Cassia cannot resist.

843.8 F

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880. Three tales. Oxford ; : Oxford University Press, 2009. A simple heart -- The legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller -- Herodias.

909 S

Sachs, Jeffrey, author. The ages of globalization : geography, technology, and institutions. "Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale, and this history deeply informs the present. In this book, Jeffrey D. Sachs, renowned economist and expert on sustainable development, turns to world history to shed light on how we can meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Sachs takes readers through a series of six distinct waves of technological and ideological change, starting with the very beginnings of our species and ending with reflections on present-day globalization. Along the way, he considers how the interplay of geography, technology, and institutions influenced the Neolithic revolution; the spread of land-based empires; the opening of sea routes from Europe to Asia and the Americas; and the industrial age. The dynamics of these past waves, Sachs contends, give us new perspective on the ongoing processes taking place in our own time-and how we should work to guide the change we need. In light of this new understanding of globalization, Sachs emphasizes the need for new methods of international governance and cooperation to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives aligned with sustainable development. The Ages of Globalization is a vital book for all readers aiming to make sense of our rapidly changing world"--.

937.002 B

Bing, Stanley. Rome, inc. : the rise and fall of the first multinational corporation. 1st. ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

937.63 L

Laurence, Ray, 1963-. Ancient Rome as it was : exploring the city of Rome in AD 300.

940.3 B

Brooks, Max. The Harlem Hellfighters. First edition. "From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters. The Harlem Hellfighters is a fictionalized account of the 369th Infantry Regiment--the first African American regiment mustered to fight in World War I. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, bestselling author Max Brooks tells the thrilling story of the heroic journey that these soldiers undertook for a chance to fight for America. Despite extraordinary struggles and discrimination, the 369th became one of the most successful--and least celebrated--regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat and displayed extraordinary valor on the battlefield. Based on true events and featuring artwork from acclaimed illustrator Caanan White, these pages deliver an action-packed and powerful story of courage, honor, and heart"--. "This is a graphic novel about the first African-American regiment to fight in World War One"--.

940.53 B

Browning, Christopher R., author. Ordinary men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. Revised edition. One morning in Józefów -- The order police -- The order police and the Final solution : Russia 1941 -- The order police and the Final solution : deportation -- Reserve Police Battalion 101 -- Arrival in Poland -- Initiation to mass muder : the Józefów massacre -- Reflections on a massacre -- Łomazy : the descent of Second Company -- The August deportations to Treblinka -- Late-September shootings -- The deportations resume -- The strange health of Captain Hoffmann -- The "Jew hunt" -- The last massacres : "Harvest festival" -- Aftermath -- Germans, Poles, and Jews -- Ordinary men. In the early hours of July 13, 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police, entered the Polish Village of Jozefow. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks before, most of them recently drafted family men too old for combat service--workers, artisans, salesmen, and clerks. By nightfall, they had rounded up Jozefow's 1,800 Jews, selected several hundred men as "work Jews," and shot the rest--that is, some 1,500 women, children, and old people. Most of these overage, rear-echelon reserve policemen had grown to maturity in the port city of Hamburg in pre-Hitler Germany and were neither committed Nazis nor racial fanatics. Nevertheless, in the sixteen months from the Jozefow massacre to the brutal Erntefest ("harvest festival") slaughter of November 1943, these average men participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka's gas chambers of 45,000 more--a total body count of 83,000 for a unit of less than 500 men. Drawing on postwar interrogations of 210 former members of the battalion, Christopher Browning lets them speak for themselves about their contribution to the Final Solution--what they did, what they thought, how they rationalized their behavior (one man would shoot only infants and children, to "release" them from their misery). In a sobering conclusion, Browning suggests that these good Germans were acting less out of deference to authority or fear of punishment than from motives as insidious as they are common: careerism and peer pressure. With its unflinching reconstruction of the battalion's murderous record and its painstaking attention to the social background and actions of individual men, this unique account offers some of the most powerful and disturbing evidence to date of the ordinary human capacity for extraordinary inhumanity.

940.54 S

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands : Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York : Basic Books, c2010. Hitler and Stalin -- The Soviet famines -- Class terror -- National terror -- Molotov-Ribbentrop Europe -- The economics of apocalypse -- Final solution -- Holocaust and revenge -- The Nazi death factories -- Resistance and incineration -- Ethnic cleansings -- Stalinist antisemitism -- Humanity.

951.03 S

The search for modern China : a documentary collection. Third edition.

973 M

Meacham, Jon, author. The soul of America : the battle for our better angels. First edition. Introduction : To hope rather than to fear -- The confidence of the whole people : visions of the Presidency, the ideas of progress and prosperity, and "We, the people" -- The long shadow of Appomattox : the Lost Cause, the Ku Klux Klan, and Reconstruction -- With soul of flame and temper of steel : "the melting pot," TR and his "bully pulpit," and the Progressive promise -- A new and good thing in the world : the triumph of women's suffrage, the Red Scare, and a new Klan -- The crisis of the old order : the Great Depression, Huey Long, the New Deal, and America First -- Have you no sense of decency? : "making everyone middle class," the GI Bill, McCarthyism, and modern media -- What the hell is the presidency for? : "segregation forever," King's crusade, and LBJ in the crucible -- Conclusion : The first duty of an American citizen. "We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, ... author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature' have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life has been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear--a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"--as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail."--Dust jacket.

976.1 S

Smith, Petric J., 1940-. Long time coming : an insider's story of the Birmingham church bombing that rocked the world. 1st ed. Birmingham, Ala. : Crane Hill, 1994.

F Bir

Birch, Anna, author. I kissed Alice. First. "Fan Girl meets Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda in this #ownvoices LGBTQ romance about two rivals who fall in love online"--.

F Bra

Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012, author. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition, 60th anniversary edition. Introduction / by Neil Gaiman -- Fahrenheit 451. The hearth and the salamander ; The sieve and the sand ; Burning bright. History, context, and criticism / edited by Jonathan R. Eller. pt. 1. The story of Fahrenheit 451. The story of Fahrenheit 451 / by Jonathan R. Eller ; From The day after tomorrow: why science fiction? (1953) / by Ray Bradbury ; Listening library audio introduction (1976) / by Ray Bradbury ; Investing dimes: Fahrenheit 451 (1982, 1989) / by Ray Bradbury ; Coda (1979) / by Ray Bradbury -- pt. 2. Other voices. The novel. From a letter to Stanley Kauffmann / by Nelson Algren ; Books of the times / by Orville Prescott ; From New wine, old bottles / by Gilbert Highet ; New novels / by Idris Parry ; New fiction / by Sir John Betjeman ; 1984 and all that / by Adrian Mitchell ; From New maps of hell / by Sir Kingsley Amis ; Introduction to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 / by Harold Bloom ; Fahrenheit 451 / by Margaret Atwood ; The motion picture. Shades of Orwell / by Arthur Knight ; From The journal of Fahrenheit 451 / by Fran©ʹois Truffaut. In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear ... This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman ; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Nelson Algren, Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others; rare manuscript pages and sketches from Ray Bradbury's personal archive; and much more ... --- From back cover.

F DeL

White noise. 2009; with an introduction by Richard Powers. New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2009.

F Gri

Grisham, John, author. Camino Island. First edition. Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable's circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much.--Adapted from book jacket.

F Hem

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, author. The sun also rises. The Hemingway library edition. The novel -- Appendix I: Pamplona, July 1923 -- Appendix II: Early drafts -- Appendix III: The discarded first chapters -- Appendix IV: List of possible titles. A profile of the Lost Generation captures life among the expatriates on Paris' Left Bank during the 1920s, the brutality of bullfighting in Spain, and the moral and spiritual dissolution of a generation.

F Hur

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their eyes were watching god. 1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed. New York : Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Foreword / Edwidge Danticat -- Their eyes were watching God -- Afterword / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Selected bibliography -- Chronology. A novel about black Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her three marriages.

F Kid

Kidd, Sue Monk. The invention of wings. The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid, and follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), the author allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined. -- Provided by publisher. "Hetty 'Handful' Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke's daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. The novel is set in motion on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other's destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women's rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, the author goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful's cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This novel looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. -- Publisher's description.

F Nab

Vladimir Nabokov. Glory. United States : McGraw-Hill International, Inc, 1971.

F Orw

Orwell, George, 1903-1950. 1984. Signet Classics. New York, NY : Berkley: an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC, c. 1977. "Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity in this satire of totalitarian barbarism."--ARBookFind.

F Sal

Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010. Nine stories. 1st Back Bay pbk. ed. Boston : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, 2001, c1991. A perfect day for bananafish -- Uncle wiggily in Connecticut -- Just before the war with the Eskimos -- The laughing man -- Down at the dinghy -- For Esme--with love and squalor -- Pretty mouth and green my eyes -- De Daumier-Smith's blue period -- Teddy. Salinger's classic collection of short stories is now available in trade paperback.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. The hate u give. First edition. "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life"--.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. On the come up. First edition. Sixteen-year-old Bri hopes to become a great rapper, and after her first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, must decide whether to sell out or face eviction with her widowed mother.

F Tol

The Hobbit : or There and Back Again. First U.S. edition; Illus. by Jemima Catlin, 2013. New York, NY : HarperCollins Publishers, 2013.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Classics. Trans. by Geo. M. Towle. Lexington, KY, : October 29. 2019.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Illustrated First Edition. Translated by Geo. M. Towle. Orinda, CA : SeaWolf Press, 2018.

F. Gri

Belfry Holdings, Inc. (Charlottesville, Virginia), author. Camino winds : a novel. Hardcover. "#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham returns to Camino Island in this irresistible page-turner that's as refreshing as an island breeze. In Camino Winds, mystery and intrigue once again catch up with novelist Mercer Mann, proving that the suspense never rests-even in paradise"--.

SC A

Alomar, Osama, 1968- author, translator. The teeth of the comb & other stories.

SC Mac

Machado, Carmen Maria, author. Her body and other parties : stories. Contains short stories about the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. "In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella 'Especially Heinous,' Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction." -- Publisher's description.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #236

Mon May 04 2020 [08:31 PM] Wack'd: IT'S A MILESTONE!

[08:32 PM] maxwellelvis: A triple-sized issue, eh? [08:33 PM] Wack'd: All your favorite Fantastic Four characters are here! Wyatt! Norrin! Agatha! Franklin! Namor! Willie! Impy! T'Challa! And, uh. I guess some other folks? [08:33 PM] maxwellelvis: I'm going to guess that's a double-sized Byrne story and then a regular-sized one by Stan and Jack. [08:33 PM] Bocaj: Ah yes captain america and reed richards in one place at one time in a time and place that isn't the ill received special avengers 300 roster [08:33 PM] maxwellelvis: That's the rest of the Marvel Universe heroes here to party. [08:33 PM] Wack'd: Yes. [08:33 PM] Wack'd: Why isn't Alicia on this cover. [08:34 PM] Wack'd: Or, like, any number of Fantastic Four repository players. [08:34 PM] maxwellelvis: Had to make room for Stan Lee. [08:34 PM] Wack'd: Also who's that guy in the suit? Is that...Collins, maybe? [08:35 PM] maxwellelvis: I just told you. [08:35 PM] Wack'd: Oh [08:35 PM] Wack'd: ...where's Jack? [08:35 PM] maxwellelvis: Either he's on the back or John Byrne knows which side his bread is buttered on. [08:36 PM] Bocaj: maybe he's behind the special triple sized sticker [08:36 PM] Bocaj: Like he got Mike Wachowski'd [08:36 PM] Wack'd:

Clint: I can't believe it... Wanda: Oh, Clint, I'm so sorry... Clint: I'M ON THE COVER OF *FANTASTIC FOUR*!

[08:36 PM] maxwellelvis: 🤣 [08:37 PM] Wack'd: Can't believe Bocaj beat me to essentially this same joke [08:37 PM] Bocaj: My secret is that I didn't bother putting in extra effort [08:39 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, let's start our first story, shall we? [08:39 PM] maxwellelvis: Indeed. [08:40 PM] Wack'd: Oh good, we're doin this

[08:40 PM] Wack'd: I think this is our first real, proper origin retelling. We got one in the late 70s but it was less a retcon and more "this is a recap issue, please don't kill us if we fudged some details" [08:40 PM] Umbramatic: welp [08:42 PM] Wack'd: I guess instead of "first to the moon" it was "make it further into space than anyone else"

[08:42 PM] Bocaj: Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future [08:42 PM] Umbramatic: what is time [08:42 PM] Bocaj: I know that the Slott FF has the idea instead that the rocket was FTL and they were trying to get to a specific planet, which turns out to be full of assholes [08:44 PM] Wack'd: So here's egg on my face [08:44 PM] Wack'd: The dialogue from this scene is taken note-for-not from #1 [08:44 PM] Wack'd: This isn't actually retconning anything at all, except for that one narrative caption [08:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh, and the addition of some jargon

[08:47 PM] Umbramatic: CAPTAIN SPACE ICEBERG AHEAD [08:47 PM] Wack'd:

[08:49 PM] Umbramatic: this is intense [08:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Both version are pretty intense. [08:49 PM] maxwellelvis: I'm noticing the dialogue's been slightly rewritten on the new version. [08:50 PM] Wack'd: Very slightly, mostly just to add technical terms you'd expect a rocket crew to be using [08:50 PM] Umbramatic: aha [08:50 PM] Wack'd: All of the original lines are still there, though [08:50 PM] maxwellelvis: And to keep Ben's manner of speech more consistent [08:51 PM] Wack'd: Punctuation is a bit different [08:52 PM] Wack'd: OH SHIT, WE'RE DOIN' THIS

[08:53 PM] Umbramatic: oh. OH [08:55 PM] Wack'd: In this reality, Reed's a college professor, Sue's a housewife, and Ben and Alicia are married and running a tavern. All in a little town creatively named Liddleville. [08:55 PM] Bocaj: Our Town Founders made a decision there [08:55 PM] Wack'd: Our Town Founder is Josiah Liddle [08:56 PM] Bocaj: Lets cut the head off his statue [08:56 PM] Bocaj: Like in the Jetsons [08:56 PM] Wack'd: Oh, also, Alicia can see in this reality. Alicia offhandedly mentioning she saw something makes Ben real happy and he has no idea why [08:57 PM] Bocaj: Hmm. [08:57 PM] Wack'd: But I do! It's this creepy fucker

[08:57 PM] Umbramatic: oh boy! oh BOY! [08:58 PM] maxwellelvis: We're actually doing the "Perchance to Dream" thing, aren't we? [08:58 PM] maxwellelvis: Is THIS where B:TAS got that idea from? [08:59 PM] Wack'd: Pretty sure they stole it from For the Man Who Has Everything [08:59 PM] Wack'd: Which incidentally won't exist for another three or four years [08:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Wild how time works [09:00 PM] Wack'd: Another dream sequence, this time for Sue! And with much more dramatic changes [09:01 PM] Wack'd: This time, Ben's complaints about safety concerns are much more substantial, and Sue's accusation that Ben is a coward is more to do with time and money running out to do this experiment and less to do with, uh [09:01 PM] Wack'd: Commies [09:03 PM] Umbramatic: "I'm going to the one place free from capitalism... SPACE" [09:03 PM] Wack'd: Also this happens

[09:03 PM] Umbramatic: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH [09:04 PM] maxwellelvis: It's a nice touch that in those first two panels, the Thing is more leathery, like he was in the early comics, and it's only when Reed starts stretching that he looks more rock-like [09:04 PM] Wack'd: Yeah, I liked that too [09:05 PM] Umbramatic: oooh [09:05 PM] Wack'd: So Reed, Johnny, and Ben meet up at Ben's tavern to discuss these dreams, and whaddayknow, they've all been having them [09:06 PM] Wack'd: Tragically, Ben's dreams give him super-strength, but no rock skin. Dream!Ben is scared to ask Alicia to marry him--but he doesn't know why. [09:08 PM] Wack'd: Reed then goes to work, where he's having problems with his dickhead boss.

[09:09 PM] Wack'd: Reed decides to try and work out what's up with these dreams, dozes off, bonks his head, and realizes when he wakes up that he is actually a superhero, and the Puppet Master is responsible for all this. [09:10 PM] Umbramatic: wha [09:11 PM] Wack'd: Reed, trying to figure out why he doesn't have stretching powers, makes the very smart and scientifically motivated decision to stab himself in a vein and bleed out in his office. [09:12 PM] Umbramatic: oh [09:12 PM] Umbramatic: i diagnose you with dead [09:13 PM] Wack'd: It's okay though! Turns out he's a robot and the blood is all fake. So are the bodies of Ben, Sue, Johnny, Alicia and Franklin. [09:13 PM] Umbramatic: ...IS DOOM IN ON THIS TOO?! [09:13 PM] Wack'd: It takes Reed no time at all to convince his friends and family of this and go confront Phillip. [09:14 PM] Wack'd: Wow, uh, you're ahead of me here, Umbra [09:14 PM] maxwellelvis: Lucky guess [09:14 PM] Umbramatic: damn this is the second thing i've predicted tonight [09:14 PM] Wack'd: Phillip apparently just wanted to give Alicia the life he thought she wanted, but Reed points out he doesn't have the tech to do this all on his own. [09:15 PM] Wack'd: Phillip, it turns out, has made the very smart and not-at-all-suicidal decision to mind control Doctor Doom [09:15 PM] Umbramatic: oh this is gonna be goooooooooooooooooooooood [09:15 PM] Bocaj: Oh geeeeeeeeeeeez [09:16 PM] maxwellelvis: This should be good. [09:17 PM] Wack'd: Of course this is Doom we're talking about. He doesn't make mistakes, he just lets people figure things out for stupid ego reasons.

[09:18 PM] Wack'd: God, the fact that this isn't an illusion, the Four, Franklin and Alicia are trapped in tiny robots, is a lovely extra layer of bonkers. [09:18 PM] Bocaj: Amazing [09:19 PM] Wack'd: ALSO "LIDDLEVILLE" ISN'T A SMALL TOWN JOKE, IT'S LITERALLY LITTLE [09:19 PM] Wack'd: INCREDIBLE [09:20 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, Reed asks Doom what his next move is, and Doom...doesn't have one [09:20 PM] Wack'd: He's just gonna leave them like this [09:20 PM] Wack'd: Forever [09:21 PM] Umbramatic: DOOM: "I don't know, I never thought I'd get this far.” [09:21 PM] maxwellelvis: The fact that he's resisted the urge to play Godzilla now that they know he's the one who orchestrated this shows he has way more willpower than I [09:22 PM] maxwellelvis: Assuming the shock of dying in robot bodies wouldn't wake them up. [09:23 PM] Wack'd: They do have one ace in the hole--Phillip! After all, Phillip's in this mess because he mind-controlled Doom, but he's not an idiot, surely he has an escape hatch. [09:23 PM] Wack'd: Well turns out he did. Doom turned it off. [09:23 PM] Umbramatic: oh [09:23 PM] maxwellelvis: Womp womp [09:23 PM] Wack'd: Reed examines it through and tries to see if he can get it to work anyway. [09:24 PM] Wack'd: Ben, meanwhile, is taking all this really hard. [09:25 PM] Umbramatic: aw... [09:26 PM] Wack'd: He's also decided to stay in Liddleville. The world has other superheroes now, and he's earned a normal, idyllic life. [09:26 PM] Wack'd: (The fact that Doom turned off all the fake villagers does not seem to be something he's noticed.) [09:27 PM] Umbramatic: Ben: The Last Man On Fake Earth [09:28 PM] Wack'd: So! Here's the plan. Turns out Doom built a real miniature particle accelerator at Reed's fake miniature college because Reed would spot a fake. [09:28 PM] Wack'd: So all they have to do is get it to spit out some cosmic rays. Easy. [09:28 PM] Umbramatic: excuse me what [09:29 PM] Wack'd: To which part? [09:29 PM] Umbramatic: the first bit mainly [09:29 PM] Wack'd: Yeah uh [09:30 PM] Wack'd: Doom wanted to taunt Reed with some cool science he couldn't play with to make Reed miserable [09:30 PM] Umbramatic: omg [09:30 PM] Wack'd: But he also knew Reed would know if it was a fake cool science [09:30 PM] Umbramatic: that's deliciously petty [09:30 PM] Wack'd: It issssssss [09:30 PM] Wack'd: So, as they're debating who gets a power up first, Ben has a change of heart and demands to go first. [09:31 PM] Umbramatic: Ben: This is insane. ...I’m in. [09:33 PM] Bocaj: Hahah [09:33 PM] Wack'd:

Alicia: ben you dingus i literally sculpt real people with pinpoint accuracy, you've seen my work, and also we've touched each other...a lot... Ben: Yeah I know but I got that danged body dysmorphia

[09:33 PM] Bocaj: Aww [09:34 PM] Umbramatic: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww [09:34 PM] Wack'd: I joke because I love [09:35 PM] Wack'd: Ben/Alicia 4ever [09:35 PM] Umbramatic: ye [09:35 PM] Umbramatic: (though i felt the body dysmorphia part) [09:37 PM] Wack'd: With their powers restored, all they have to do is fight a bunch of miniature robots, scale the walls of their fake city, climb up to Doom's workstation... [09:37 PM] Wack'd: Aaaaaaand he took the battery out. [09:37 PM] Wack'd: Now the workstation can only turn left 😛 [09:38 PM] Umbramatic: -gasp- [09:39 PM] Wack'd: So! New plan. Use the Liddleville river to flood Doom's office, stick some live electrical wires in there, and hope the alarm goes off. [09:39 PM] Wack'd: No dice. [09:39 PM] Wack'd: They're gonna have to find Doom and bring him to them. [09:40 PM] Wack'd: And since Reed and Ben have fairly limited top speeds, and Johnny's flame can run out without rest, this task falls to Sue. [09:41 PM] Wack'd:

Reed: No! I can't permit you to go against Doom alone! Sue: Please, Reed! Must we go through this every time a dangerous task falls to me? I've proven time and time again that I can handle myself in an emergency situation. I'm the only one who can go. And you know it.

[09:42 PM] Wack'd: Sue puts up a good fight against Doom, pelting him with force fields, but she's still as big as a fingernail, and all he really has to do is put a cup on her like she's a bug he's found. [09:43 PM] Wack'd: But the goal is accomplished. Doom is going to check and make sure the other three aren't making any trouble. [09:43 PM] Wack'd: Just like they wanted. [09:43 PM] Bocaj: Good job Sue [09:43 PM] maxwellelvis: Was this inspired by the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon intro?  [09:45 PM] Wack'd: ...hahahaha it coulda been! [09:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey, that's where this meme comes from

[09:46 PM] Umbramatic: this was a meme? [09:49 PM] Wack'd: 106k notes on Tumblr [09:51 PM] Wack'd: AND SO! Doom does not blindly stride into this childish trap, and then electrocute himself. [09:51 PM] Wack'd: He angerly fires some energy beams at the childish trap because he feels insulted. [09:51 PM] Wack'd: And then Reed, Johnny, and Ben use their powers to trip him into the childish trap. Which electrocutes him. [09:52 PM] Bocaj: Wow [09:52 PM] Bocaj: bad show doom, good show reed, ben, johnny [09:52 PM] Wack'd: This somehow instantaneously shunts everyone back into their real bodies. [09:53 PM] Umbramatic: welp [09:54 PM] Wack'd: Also, Doom is now in a stasis coma in his suit. [09:54 PM] Wack'd: To ensure he stays that way, the Four decide, well... [09:55 PM] Wack'd:

[09:57 PM] maxwellelvis: I must admit I am curious to see how he gets out of this one eventually [09:59 PM] Bocaj: If you die in Liddletown you die in real life [09:59 PM] Wack'd: Anyway, the quote-unquote "brand new story by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby" is a rejected script for the 1978 animated series, adapting Doctor Doom's first appearance. [09:59 PM] Wack'd: It is also not available here. So I am going to write it off as no big loss and move on. [10:02 PM] Wack'd: I did like this story, though! I think it coulda stood to spend a little less time on the mechanics and a little more time on how everyone felt about this situation, but overall it's really good.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: How COVID-19 Will Shape the Class of 2020 For the Rest of Their Lives

They call it commencement because it’s supposed to be a new beginning.

College graduation is one of life’s last clean transitions, a final passage from adolescence to adulthood that is predictable in ways other transitions rarely are. Relationships end with breakups or death, jobs often end with quitting or firing, but college is one of the only things in life that ends with a fresh start. Except when it doesn’t.

One morning in March, Clavey Robertson took a study break and climbed onto the roof of his dorm at the University of California, Berkeley. He had spent the past year working on his senior thesis on the erosion of the social-safety net since the Great Depression, and he needed to clear his head. In the distance, Robertson could see a tiny white speck: the Diamond Princess cruise ship, carrying crew members infected with COVID-19, lingering in the San Francisco Bay.

Photograph by Hannah Beier for TIME

Hannah Beier, a photography major in the Drexel University Class of 2020, has been virtually photographing her classmates in quarantine. She directed this series of portraits over FaceTime.

Two months later, Robertson’s transition to adulthood is in limbo. He skipped his online commencement and he’s living in his childhood bedroom, which had been converted to a guest room. His parents have lost their travel agency work, and his own job prospects have dried up. “No longer am I just a student writing about the Great Depression,” he says. “Now there’s a depression.”

College graduation is often marked by an adjustment period, as students leave the comforts of campus to find their way in the raw wilderness of the job market. But this year’s graduates are staggering into a world that is in some ways unrecognizable. More than 90,000 Americans have died; tens of millions are out of work; entire industries have crumbled. The virus and the economic shock waves it unleashed have hammered Americans of all ages. But graduating in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic will have enduring implications on the Class of 2020: for their memories, their earning power, and their view of what it means to have a functional society. For these young adults, the pandemic represents not just a national crisis but also a defining moment.

Hannah BeierJoshua McCaw, Drexel University Class of 2020, in his childhood bedroom in Brooklyn

Even before COVID-19, the Class of 2020 came of age at a time of fear and uncertainty. Born largely in 1997 and 1998—among the oldest of Gen Z—the Class of 2020 were in day care and pre-kindergarten on 9/11. Their childhoods have been punctuated by school -shootings and catastrophic climate change. Their freshman year at college began with President Donald Trump’s election; their senior year ended with a paralyzing global health crisis. “We stepped into the world as it was starting to fall apart,” says Simone Williams, who graduated from Florida A&M University in an online commencement May 9. “It’s caused my generation to have a vastly different perspective than the people just a few years ahead of us or behind us.”

Researchers have found that the major events voters experience in early adulthood—-roughly between the ages of 14 and 24—tend to define their political attitudes for the rest of their lives. And the Class of 2020’s generation was -already disaffected. Only 8% of -Americans -between 18 and 29 believe the government is working as it should be, and fewer than 1 in 5 consider themselves “very patriotic,” according to the 2020 Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics survey of young Americans. They are at once widely skeptical of U.S. institutions and insistent on more government solutions; they’re disappointed in the current system, but hold out hope for a better one.

Hannah BeierBrooke Yarsinsky, Drexel University Class of 2020, celebrating her birthday in her family’s kitchen in Marlton, N.J.

For the Class of 2020, COVID-19’s lasting impact may be determined by what happens next. If the rising cohort of young workers are left to fend for themselves, mass youth unemployment could lead to permanent disillusionment or widespread despair. A forceful, effective response that invests in the rising generation of American talent could restore their faith in the system.

It’s not clear to the Class of 2020 how the pandemic will play out. They just know it will change their lives. “Everything” is at stake, says Yale history major Adrian Rivera. “It’s this pivotal moment where we’ll never forget what’s done,” he says. “Or what isn’t done.”

School is often a refuge from the gusts of history. But the events that rupture the classroom routine, from President Kennedy’s assassination to 9/11, tend to be the ones that stick with students forever.

The coronavirus disrupted more class time, for more students, than almost any other event in U.S. history. It started with a scramble: The University of Washington announced on March 6 that it was cancelling in-person classes for its 57,000 students. Then Stanford University followed suit. Over the next few days, campuses from Harvard to the University of Michigan announced they’d be transitioning to online learning. Soon, hundreds of other colleges and universities followed.

Hannah BeierBen Scofield, Drexel University Class of 2020, on his bed in his new apartment in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn

By Friday, March 13, an eerie silence fell on campuses across the nation. “Something about that day was really weird, because every time my friends and I would say ‘See you later’ or ‘Catch you after break,’ I just had this sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to see them,” says Vincent Valeriano, a member of Iowa State University’s Class of 2020. “Saying goodbye felt like it carried a lot more weight than it used to.” He ended up watching his online -graduation -ceremony at home, in his pajamas.

For underclassmen, the shortened semester was an irritating disruption. For seniors, it was a total upheaval. “There’s no way for there to be closure,” says Sam Nelson, who recently graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. “I know in real life, closure doesn’t exist, but this is one of the last moments for young people to say goodbye to young adulthood and move into the next phase of their lives.”

The Class of 2020 hugged their closest friends and mourned their lost semester, but scattered back home without so much as a goodbye to many people they’d lived with for years. Acquaintances who laughed in hallways or shared inside jokes in seminars simply disappeared. Fraternities and sororities canceled their formals and philanthropy events, attempting Zoom happy hours that didn’t come close to the real thing. For some couples, casual hookups quickly escalated into long-distance relationships. Others quietly packed up their feelings for college crushes and left without saying a word.

Hannah Beier for TIMESarah Pruitt, Drexel University Class of 2020, at home with her mom in Colchester, Conn.

The loss of a milestone like an in–person commencement had a special sting for some families. Arianny Pujols, the first natural-born U.S. citizen in her family and the first to graduate from college, still did her hair and makeup as if she were walking across the stage at Missouri State University. She and her family held a small ceremony in her grandfather’s backyard, and then she stood on the sidewalk in her cap and gown waving at cars with a sign that said “Honk, I did it!” Brenda Sanchez, 22, whose parents are immigrants from Mexico, says they will miss both her graduation from Humboldt State University in California and her sister’s college graduation the next day. “My parents didn’t go to school. They didn’t graduate,” says Sanchez, who is herself an immigrant and is protected from deportation by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. “Your heart breaks a little. You did work hard, you did earn this degree, but you’re not going to see yourself walk across that stage.”

Instead of graduating into their future lives, many Class of 2020 seniors feel like they’ve gone backward. “We were ready to be in the world as young adults—not good adults, maybe clumsy adults, but some kind of adult,” says Ilana Goldberg, who recently graduated from Tufts University in an online ceremony. “We’re not in the system anymore, but we’re not far enough out of it to have our footing in the world.”

Hannah BeierLauren, Parsons School of Design Class of 2017, and Dylan, Marist College Class of 2017, quarantining in Lauren’s family home in Woodstock, VT

Eric Kolarik, who was supposed to be sitting at his University of Michigan commencement ceremony in early May, is instead back home in Traverse City, Mich., raking leaves, helping his mom with the dishes, doing the same chores he did in high school. “I’m 22 but I’ve assumed the life of 15-year-old Eric again,” he says. “You feel like a failure to launch.”

If only they knew that a stolen senior spring is the least of their problems. The Class of 2020 is falling through a massive hole in the U.S. social-safety net, into a financial downturn that could define their lives for decades to come. Graduating seniors have lost on–campus jobs that got them through school. Many haven’t been working for long enough to qualify for full unemployment. If they’ve been listed as dependents on their parents’ taxes, they don’t get a stimulus check. They haven’t had time to build up significant savings.

Hannah Beier for TIMEDestiny, Drexel University Class of 2019, at home in Palmyra, PA

“I’m not sure they’ve fully processed what 25% unemployment, disproportionately affecting younger Americans, will actually mean,” says John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. He recalls that during the last recession, the Class of 2009 scrambled to scoop up opportunities, “like a game of- -musical chairs.” The Class of 2020, by contrast, is essentially frozen in place by a pandemic that has trapped much of the nation inside their homes. “There almost are no opportunities in any sector,” Della Volpe says. “It’s like suspended animation.”

More than 1 in 5 employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers in April said they were rescinding their summer internship offers. The overall number of postings on the online jobs platform ZipRecruiter have fallen by nearly half since mid-February, while new postings for entry-level positions have plummeted more than 75%, according to ZipRecruiter labor economist Julia Pollak. A year ago, less experienced job seekers were enjoying brisk wage growth and rosy job prospects. Now, Pollak says, “it’s particularly hard for new graduates.

Sanchez, who worked two jobs and started her own eyelash-extension business to help pay for school, has applied for more than 70 jobs in recent weeks without success. Williams, who dreams of working in the entertainment industry, had no luck with at least 15 jobs and struck out with fellowships that are no longer taking applicants; now she’s cobbling together gig work. Robertson had planned to try to get a job in labor activism; these days, he’s considering graduate school instead.

Hannah BeierJillian Yagoda with her boyfriend Benjamin Halperin, both in the University of Maryland Class of 2020, in the apartment they share in College Park, Md.

It’s not just dream jobs that have disappeared. Historically, many young people take positions in the retail or restaurant industries as they find their path. According to Pew, of the roughly 19 million 16-to-24-year-olds in the labor force, more than 9 million were employed in the service sector. Suddenly, a significant chunk of those jobs have evaporated. In April alone, the leisure and hospitality industry lost 47% of its total workforce, with 7.7 million workers newly unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Which means the economic crisis has hit the youngest harder than any other age group. More than half of Americans under 30 say someone in their household has lost a job or taken a pay cut because of the corona-virus crisis, according to Pew, and the youngest workers are more likely than older generations to say that the pandemic has hurt their finances more than other people.

Graduating into a bad economy can affect everything from future earnings to long-term health and happiness. Researchers have found that beginning a career in the teeth of a recession can depress earnings for 10 years, and trigger broader impacts for decades. One study from UCLA and Northwestern found that the young people who came of age -during the early 1980s recession had higher mortality, and were more likely to get divorced, and less likely to have children. Till von Wachter, a UCLA labor economist who has spent years studying this issue, has a name for these young people who enter the labor force at the worst possible moment: “unlucky graduates.”

Hannah BeierSisters Camilla Nappa, Drexel University Class of 2020, and Sophia Nappa, NYU Class of 2022, isolating at their father’s home in St. Louis

Rather than brave a job market battered by COVID-19, some in the Class of 2020 are seeking refuge in graduate school. But that presents its own conundrum. As of 2019, nearly 7 in 10 college students graduated with student loans, with an average tab of nearly $30,000. Going to graduate school can mean –taking on even more debt. “I’m having to take out grad loans, but I can’t work to pay them off,” says Sean Lange, who plans to enroll in a master’s program in public policy after graduating from New York’s Stony Brook University in an online ceremony in May. He’s not even sure he’ll get his money’s worth for the $18,000 annual tuition. Especially if his classes end up being taught online.

All of this—the forgone memories, the abrupt goodbyes, the lost opportunities—will stay with the Class of 2020 forever. “The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest cultural event since World War II,” says Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author of iGen, who studies millennials and Gen Z. “It’s going to have a huge impact on -everyone, but young adults in particular.”

Hannah BeierMagda, Drexel University Class of 2022, with her family in Lynbrook, NY

Even before COVID-19, much of Gen Z was disappointed in the government response to the issues facing their generation. These are the students who joined the March for Our Lives gun-safety movement amid near weekly school shootings, and went on strike over inaction on climate change. They were too young to be swept up in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, but old enough to gravitate toward Bernie Sanders’ message of progressive revolution in the 2016 primary. Those who were old enough to vote overwhelmingly opposed President Trump in that year’s general election. They favor student debt reform and universal health care. They are the most -racially diverse generation in U.S. history.

Their skepticism of public institutions is largely fueled by a sense that the government is doing too little, not too much. A study last year by Pew Research Center found that 7 in 10 wanted the government to “do more to solve problems.” The divide is generational, not political: more than half of Gen Z Republicans say they want the government to do more. (Less than a third of older Republicans agree.)

Near mandatory use of social media has already contributed to sky-high levels of depression and anxiety among Gen Z, according to Twenge. She analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and found that the number of young adults reporting symptoms of major depression had increased 63% between 2009 and 2017, with a marked turning point around 2012, when smartphone use first became widespread. The pandemic has likely only made them more anxious and disillusioned. Pew found that Americans between 18 and 29 are more likely than older ones to feel depressed during the pandemic, and less hopeful about the future than the senior citizens who are far more vulnerable to the disease caused by the virus.

Hannah Beier for TIMEKathryn Murashige, Drexel University Class of 2020, in the sunroom of her childhood home in Kennett Square, Pa.

Which helps explain why young activists view this as a now-or-never moment for their cohort. They know that the pandemic will shape their futures, even if it’s not yet clear exactly how. “Either we will end up with a generation that is far more resilient than earlier generations,” says Varshini Prakash, a leader of the Gen Z–powered Sunrise Movement, “or it could be a generation that is far more nihilistic, and far less likely to engage in our politics because they’ve seen the institutions fail them at the times they really needed it.” The youngest cohort of Americans “could be traumatized for life,” says Robert Reich, a former U.S. Labor Secretary who is now a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley. “They could turn economically and socially inward. They could lose faith in all institutions, and they are trending in that direction anyway.”

In other countries, like Egypt, Tunisia and Spain, widespread unemployment among educated young people has led to social unrest or radicalization, mostly because of a sense of betrayal. They think, “we thought there was some kind of bargain, a social contract, that if we play by the rules we get a job at the end of all of this,” says Heath Prince, a research scientist at University of Texas at Austin. So far youth unemployment in the U.S. is mostly correlated with drug addiction and right-wing extremism, Prince says, and hasn’t tipped into the realm of mass uprisings. Then again, -unemployment hasn’t been this high in nearly 80 years.

“My generation isn’t feeling like they’re being spoken to or listened to, and at the same time, a lot of us are becoming economically disenfranchised,” says Robertson, the University of California, Berkeley, graduate who studied the New Deal. “I definitely think a lot of us have lost confidence in the government.”

The only way to address an unemployment rate reminiscent of the 1930s, according to some scholars, students and activists, is a federal government response that echoes the scale of 1930s reforms. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal included major initiatives to get young Americans back to work. Six days after he took office in 1933, Roosevelt proposed the Civilian Conservation Corps: within four months, the federal government had hired 300,000 young men to plant trees and maintain parks and trails. Three million young people were ultimately employed as part of the program. In 1935, Roosevelt created the National Youth Administration (NYA) as part of the Works Progress Administration, designed to give young Americans work-study and job training. (A young Lyndon B. Johnson got an early political break as an administrator of the NYA program in Texas.) The Americans employed by these New Deal programs grew into the selfless, patriotic army that fought World War II, now known as the “Greatest Generation.”

Some Democrats say the COVID-19 pandemic calls for a similar approach. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has called for a “Coronavirus Containment Corps,” to expand the public-health workforce and employ an army of contact-tracers to help fight the spread of the virus. (Warren, an admirer of the New Deal, noted the CCC acronym is no coincidence.) Senator Chris Coons (D., Del.) joined with Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.) to champion a national service bill that would expand Americorps and fund 750,000 jobs to help train new health care workers to fight COVID-19. And proponents of a Green New Deal, like Prakash and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are working to shape the environmental policy of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Given Republicans’ skepticism of big government programs, none of these ideas are likely to make it through Mitch McConnell’s Senate or onto President Trump’s desk. But the political landscape has already shifted the universe of the possible, with Republicans agreeing to recovery measures—such as sending $1,200 stimulus checks to eligible working Americans—that would have been unthinkable only months ago. And if Democrats reclaim the Senate and the White House, broader reform could be closer than it looks. Young people who are skeptical of government’s ability to solve big problems say their faith can be restored. “I have no faith in this Administration and this government,” explains Lange, the Stony Brook public-policy student. “But I believe in Big Government.”

Eric Kolarik spent his last semester at the University of Michigan working on a paper about the 1918 flu pandemic. Now, with classes canceled and his job search on ice, his copy of The Great Influenza is on his childhood bookshelf, alongside his old high school copies of The Crucible and Of Mice and Men. “There will be a sort of unity that the Class of 2020 has with each other, and it’s not fond memories,” he says. “People will say, ‘You’re the Class of 2020,’ and everyone will know what that meant.”

The pandemic has marked the end of one phase for this unlucky cohort. The recovery could mark the beginning of another.

Cover photograph in collaboration with Melissa Nesta

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[thewritewolf]

Inseparable Chapter 15: Animal Tendencies

Adrien struggles with his newfound knowledge.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

@ladynoirjuly2019

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Marinette - Ladybug - had asked him what he wanted to watch. Somehow, Adrien agreed to a movie. He has no memory of doing so, but since they were laying side by side in her bed, laptop on her lap as the light from the movie illuminated them in the dark, it clearly had to have happened. He risked a glance to the side, aiming to get another look at the incriminating T-shirt.

There were probably other explanations. She was a personal friend of Jagged Stone. Maybe he sent the shirt to her, or maybe she got it because she was such a big fan of his. Adrien had found a way to get it early - it was possible she managed it as well.

Then his eyes traveled up to her face and he felt his heart flip as she laughed at a joke from the movie. Logic flew out the window. There was only one girl who could make him feel this way, even if he had been steadfastly ignoring how he felt around Marinette. A flicker of a smile came to his face when he realized he’d been denying that crush out of a sense of loyalty to her alter ego.

The smile quickly passed as the gravity of the situation crushed him, doubts hounding his every thought.

There was nothing he wanted more than to stay here like this forever. Close together, the space between them practically nothing. His hand was itching to grab hers, so maddeningly close… but he couldn’t do it. Not yet. He felt lost - confused. There were too many unanswered questions right now for him to make any kind of move. Which just left him beside her, yearning to reach out but paralyzed by uncertainty. One movie ended, another began. Just when he had nearly built up the courage to say anything, a knock on the door jolted him back into reality. The world suddenly became more than just him and her.

“Adrien,” Tom’s voice called through the wood of the trapdoor, “A, um, very large, silent man is standing outside the bakery. We think he is your… bodyguard?”

Relief poured down his spine like cold water even as a part of him was sad to leave. He was galvanized into moving for the first time in hours.

“I, uh… I had fun today…” Marinette fidgeted with her hands as he was halfway down the ladder. Even in his turmoil he stopped to smile softly at her shyness. “Maybe we can…” She waved her hand at the laptop, “...again, sometime?”

A long moment passed before he registered that he needed to respond. “Oh! Y-yeah, I’d like that.” Another pause as they watched each other, words hanging unsaid in the air between them. “I’d better get going.”

“R-right, of course.”

“The Gorilla is waiting…”

“Mmhm, yup.”

“...But I’ll see you at school. Later.”

“Yes! Later is good.”

“And probably after school. Since we, uh, we have a project to do.” He hated that he was rambling but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t stay either.

“Lots of work to do on that project.”

“So… bye?”

“Y-yeah. Night good!” She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “Good night,” she repeated, slowly.

He nodded and shut his mouth. He awkwardly climbed down her ladder in silence and left the bakery after a few words of thanks to her parents. The Gorilla was characteristically silent as he drove Adrien to the Agreste estate before leaving for home himself. There was no one to greet him when he got home, so he shambled off to his room in silence.

At least, until they reached the privacy of his room and Plagg emerged from Adrien’s bag.

“Well, well, well,” Plagg said while rubbing his paws together with a nearly malicious glee. “Looks like lover boy has made a discovery.”

Adrien sat down on the side of his bed. “Marinette is Ladybug.” Somehow, saying it out loud made it feel all the more real.

“Marinette is Ladybug,” Plagg nodded.

“I’m in love with Ladybug.”

His kwami sighed. “You’ve made that abundantly clear, kid.”

“...I’m in love with Marinette.”

“Because she is Ladybug? Or was there something there before?” When Adrien opened his mouth to speak, Plagg hushed him. “And be honest!”

Rubbing the back of his head, Adrien struggled to find a response. “Well, I… now that I think about it I guess you could say that I… but…”

Plagg rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, kid. Out with it! This isn’t that difficult.”

“I… love her.” He let out a wistful sigh. “I guess I always did.”

“Great. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how are you going to break the news to Pigtails?”

“I don’t know, Plagg… This changes everything!”

“Okay kid now you’ve lost me again. Didn’t we just cover that you definitely like this girl? What does this change?”

Adrien began pacing, nervously adjusting his ring as he did so. “Well, Ladybug was always kind of a long shot. She’s just so confident and courageous and beautiful. But I love her and I was hoping she’d be willing to give me a chance.” He stopped and looked at Plagg with a look of anguish. “But Marinette? She is definitely out of my league.”

“What.” Plagg stared at him incredulously.

“Marinette is kind, caring, creative. She could impress my father and Chloe’s mother with her work. There are lifelong designers that couldn’t do that! I can't impress my father! She’s personal friends with Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale. Everyone loves her - including me, apparently. And apparently she is Ladybug on top of it all. How can I possibly measure up to that?”

Plagg tried his best to face palm with his paws. “You’re a model? And the son of her favorite designer? And you’re Chat Noir?! Does none of this ring a bell to you?”

“I didn’t choose to be a model, or who my parents were. Besides, Marinette isn’t shallow - that’s not the sort of thing she would be interested in. And clearly being Chat Noir doesn’t matter since she… doesn’t…” His eyes widened with sudden realization. “She doesn’t love Chat Noir.” He crumbled onto the bed, hands buried in his hair.

“Woah, woah, kid.” Plagg landed on his shoulder. “Don’t sell yourself short - you’ve got plenty to offer.” Adrien sniffled and looked up. “You’re a sweet kid, and we both know that counts a lot to Pigtails. And you know Ladybug was turning Chat down for someone else - maybe that someone else was you all along?”

Adrien looked to the side, away from his kwami, as he felt the sting of tears. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I mean, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” Plagg zoomed in front of Adrien. “Listen, kid. You can go ahead and keep this to yourself for now, if you want. But you’ve got a patrol with her tonight, don’t you? You’ve got to decide what you’re gonna do when you see her.”

He brushed aside his tears and laid down on his bed. “I don’t know,” he whispered into the vast emptiness of the room. “Nothing, for now. I won’t let her be disappointed in me just because of how I’m feeling. She deserves that much while I get my act together.”

“Kid, I can tell you that I’m sure everything will work out fine. Go ahead and take some you time. I’ll be over here, with uncomplicated cheese and no heartache.”

“Thanks, Plagg.”

------------------------

Marinette landed on a rooftop wholly unremarkable except for the view of the moonlit Seine. The patrol wasn’t going great. Sure, they were covering ground like never before, but only because Chat Noir was being uncharacteristically bashful and quiet. Everytime he caught her staring concernedly at him, he’d blush and look away. It was a far cry from the sly alley cat she’d come to know. The stark difference had almost made her think that there was some akuma nonsense at work.

Now, she was fairly sure she was just dealing with a sad kitten. While that raised questions all on its own, it was at least something that she knew just how to handle.

“Okay, Chat,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “this looks like as good a spot as any.”

Hesitantly, he shot her a curious glance. “Good spot for what?”

“Training, of course.”

“Ah.” He settled back into his glumness, but took a defensive position.

Instead of taking out her yoyo like he no doubt expected, she kept her hands behind her back and took a few steps towards him. His confusion grew until she entered his personal space and he put both hands on his baton and leaned back, his face a red, flustered mess. She smiled and poke his nose.

“Tag. You’re it.”

And just like that, she had run away. Without looking behind her, she could feel Chat chasing her. It had been too long since they had fun on their patrols, and she knew that he could use the distraction. Besides, he wasn’t the only one who can stand to get things off their mind for a little while. She replayed her time with Adrien earlier that day over and over - whether it was in the comfort of her own head, or dissecting everything with Tikki, she felt like it was an important milestone with them. They might not have made much progress with their school project, but she’d never felt closer to Adrien.

Stolen glances confirmed that her plan was working. Worry had melted from his face, leaving only the joy of the hunt. It was just like when they had first taken up the mantle of superheroes, still exploring the boundaries of their powers. Not that there still wasn’t things they didn’t know - these recent… hiccups with their abilities proved that. But now Marinette felt the weight of her responsibilities on her shoulders, a weight she had only managed to bear this long with Chat’s silliness to keep her sane. If he needed a little of that now, then she was happy to help.

The chase lasted long enough that even her superhuman endurance was running thin. She landed and held up her hands in surrender.

“Okay, kitty, you got me. Can we take a break now? My legs feel like jelly.”

He flashed her a warm smile, her reward for a long run. “Heh. Same here.”

He sat down, leaning against a chimney. She found a spot next to him and before long, mutual exhaustion and the cold had them leaning against each other. She snuggled against him, resting her head against his shoulder. It worried her that he froze for a moment afterward, but soon his head was resting on hers and he’d snaked an arm around her waist. They’d grown close during their long war against Hawkmoth. Personal space had been thrown out the window ages ago, a casualty of cold winter patrols and the close calls of a fight.

Her eyelids became heavy as she got lost in her partner’s warmth. What jolted her awake was a strange rumbling coming from inside her chest. Instantly, she pulled away from her partner, who she noticed was gawking at her in disbelief.

That shock faded quickly, replaced by a wide grin. “Did you just… purr?”

“N-nope!” She lied, unconvincingly.

“That was adorable!” He scrambled closer to her, eyes sparkling. “Do it again!”

“I don’t want to,” she complained. Their little side effects of having their miraculous had been floating freely between them, but she thanked her lucky stars that it hadn’t swapped their powers again. She still needed to speak with Master Fu, but unless she found some time to speak with him outside their schedules, she wouldn’t be seeing him until next week. In the meantime, she’d just have to deal with it.

“C’mon, please? Just one more? You make me do it all the time.”

“Once. I had you purr on command once and you complained the whole time since you found it so embarrassing.”

“Yeah, so that means you owe me one, right?”

Rolling her eyes, Marinette took out her yo-yo. “Good night, chaton.”

“I don’t think I will now.” He crossed his arms and looked away, but Marinette could see his tail sweeping back and forth contently. He was feeling happier, at least. That was all she could really hope for.

“Oh? Is that what you want your last words to me tonight to be?”

There was a pause. He sighed and looked back at her, pouting. “Good night, m’lady.”

“There’s a good kitty. See you later!”

She was too far away to hear Chat Noir sigh under his breath. “Sooner than you think…”

[lodelss]

“All Hell Broke Loose.”

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down.   “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said.   McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived.   On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars.   But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away.   “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.”   It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

Kishon McDonald, 39, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

In the days following George Floyd’s murder, President Trump had focused his attention on the relatively small number of people who had damaged property, threatening to use the “unlimited power of our military” and tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” What the protesters gathered in Lafayette Square that day didn’t know was that he was planning to stage a photo opportunity at a nearby church that evening.   Unbeknownst to McDonald, as he and the others chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies were just out of sight, donning riot gear and checking the weapons they would shortly use against the crowd to pave the way for the president’s walk to the church.   At 6:30 p.m. — half an hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — dozens of battle-clad officers rushed the protest, hurling stun grenades and firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and pepper balls into the crowd. McDonald says there were no warnings, just an onslaught of violence.   “All hell broke loose,” he said.   As the deafening explosions from the stun grenades gave way to thick clouds of tear gas, terrified protesters began to run from the batons and riot shields that police were using to force them out of the square.   “It was just straight fear. Everybody was scared and running for their lives,” he said.   McDonald tried to plead for instructions from the advancing officers, asking them what they wanted people to do. Instead, one threw a stun grenade at him.   “As it exploded, hot shrapnel hit my leg,” he said. “It felt like somebody put a cast iron skillet on my leg, it was just so hot. I started jumping up and down trying to get away from it, but shrapnel was going everywhere.”   Suffocating tear gas enveloped him and the other protesters, making them gasp and cough as they ran down the street.   “I saw a young boy, he must have been about 15, and he was choking a lot. Somebody put a shirt over his face and kind of ran him out,” he recalled.   McDonald had seen enough. Bruised from being hit with riot shields and with his vision still blurred from the tear gas, he walked home. In a phone interview with the ACLU, he said that the experience had made him more wary of attending protests, but it also illustrated why he’d gone there to begin with.   “It seems like everything is getting to be a military type thing in our society, and we were protesting to calm that down,” he said. “And the message we got is, ‘No, we aren’t calming down.’” “I hope someone gets held accountable,” he added.

****

Law enforcement officers clearing protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020.

Derek Baker

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans poured into the streets to voice their condemnation of police brutality against Black people. The weeks that followed were a milestone in American history, with protests and displays of solidarity reaching towns as small as Cadillac, Michigan, and cities as large as Atlanta. As months of a painful COVID-19 lockdown gave way to incandescent fury over the killing of Floyd and the violent response of the Minneapolis Police Department towards the initial protests, a few people went as far as burning police precincts or destroying upscale shopping districts.   The vast majority of protests, however, were almost entirely peaceful.   Still, police departments across the country deployed staggering levels of violence against protesters. On social media, the world watched a near-instantaneous live feed of police in dozens of cities firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and other projectiles into protests, using pepper spray against protesters and journalists alike, and beating people with batons.   This widespread and indiscriminate deployment of what are often called “less-lethal” weapons – LLWs – injured countless people, some severely.   In Austin, Texas, 20-year-old college student Justin Howell suffered a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a “beanbag round” filled with lead pellets. Linda Tirado, a journalist and photographer, lost her left eye to a “rubber bullet” fired by police in Minneapolis. In Seattle, 26-year-old Aubreanna Inda nearly died after a stun grenade exploded next to her chest. According to Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality who focuses on police practices, this widespread and violent use of LLWs during the George Floyd uprising was an attack on the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech.   “There’s just no justification under the existing Fourth Amendment framework for the use of these weapons,” he said. “And it’s happening over and over again, with patterns that are so similar across the different cities.”   For years these weapons were referred to as “non-lethal.” But in practice, they have a long history of causing serious injuries and deaths.   A 2016 report by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations analyzed 25 years of available data on the use of LLWs by law enforcement across the world. It found that between 1990 and 2015, “kinetic impact projectiles” — a category that includes rubber bullets and beanbag rounds — caused at least 1,925 injuries, including 53 deaths and 294 instances of permanent disability.   Tear gas, which is banned for use in warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, injured at least 9,261 people over the same time period, including two deaths and 70 permanent disabilities.   The report also found that LLWs are most commonly used to stamp out political protests and shut down aggressive demands for greater rights.   According to Takei, even the term “less lethal” downplays the damage they can inflict.   “Beating somebody with a baseball bat, as long as you’re not hitting them in the head or other sensitive areas of the body is ‘less lethal,’ but it’s still incredibly violent,” he said. During the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, police used tear gas and other LLWs extensively to disrupt and disperse protests. But after three federal commissions found that abuse of those weapons provoked aggressive responses by protesters and contributed to a cycle of violence, they fell out of favor with U.S. law enforcement as a method of controlling crowds. According to the Marshall Project, in subsequent decades, some police departments adopted a “negotiated management” approach to protests, working with organizers in advance to establish ground rules meant to prevent violence. But any movement toward de-escalation evaporated in the wake of large anti-globalization protests that took place during a 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, in an event that would come to be called the “Battle for Seattle.” In a prelude to how many police departments would later approach the George Floyd uprising, Seattle police attacked the mostly non-violent protesters with LLWs, provoking a handful to respond aggressively in kind.   “The response of a lot of police departments after that was, well if some people won’t act as predicted, we should have a hyper-aggressive response for everybody,” said Takei. “But when police adopt this type of response to Black-led protests against police violence, they are repeating a pattern of brutality that goes back to the origins of American policing in Southern slave patrols.”   Now, as outcry over the indiscriminate use of LLWs against Black Lives Matter protesters mounts, some municipalities are weighing restrictions on the weapons. After the ACLU sued the Seattle Police Department in early June for its violent response to protests in the city, a judge ordered police there to cease using the weapons against peaceful demonstrators, saying they had “chilled speech.”   Days later, Seattle’s city council voted unanimously to prohibit their use against protesters. Legislators in Atlanta and other cities have also proposed similar bans.   The ACLU spoke to a number of people who were attacked with LLWs by police during demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in recent weeks. This is how they described their experiences.

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Gabe Schlough at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Jimena Peck for the ACLU

Gabe Schlough wasn’t surprised that the Minneapolis Police Department had killed another one of its Black residents. He lives in Denver now, but he’d gone to college years earlier in Minneapolis. Just before he graduated, he’d been shot in the back with a stun gun by police who entered his home and tried to arrest him in a case of mistaken identity.   Schlough had been invited to a protest at downtown Denver’s Capitol Building that night, but instead he decided to drive his motorcycle up into the mountains with a friend.   “In one of the areas where people were hiking and snowboarding and skiing down I saw three Black people, and I was just fucking happy,” he said. “I was like, thank God not every Black person thinks they need to be at the Capitol right now.”   But when he got back home later that night and saw images of the Denver Police Department’s response to the protest, he felt his blood start to boil.   “We can’t even give doctors and nurses facemasks, but we can give our police access to militarized weapons that are exceedingly more expensive and hard to create than the protective mechanisms we need for health care workers,” he recalled thinking.   Schlough has a degree in public health anthropology, and he’d worked in health care across the world, including a stint in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. He had medical training and had participated in protests before, so he decided to defy the curfew along with a few friends to see if he could offer help in case anyone got hurt. Donning his face mask along with sunglasses to protect his eyes, Schlough set off towards the Capitol Building.   When he arrived, he saw a crowd of two or three hundred people facing down a line of police.   “They were standing just a little bit more than shoulder to shoulder apart with full riot gear, with their face shields and full protective armor on,” he recalled.   Schlough moved up toward the front of the crowd. Behind him, somebody set a pile of garbage on fire. That was all the police needed to begin their advance. As they moved forward, they shot canisters of tear gas into the crowd and tossed stun grenades.   “I was going around and telling people who didn’t have eye coverings to watch their eyes and protect their face,” he said. “Just running up and down the line and getting people educated, like this is happening and this is what you need to know.”   As a canister of tear gas landed next to him, Schlough bent down to try and cover it with a traffic cone so the gas wouldn’t spread. Suddenly, he felt sharp blows to his face and chest.   “A shock hit me and my head popped up,” he said. “I felt like somebody had punched me in the chest.”   Schlough had been shot with rubber bullets, although he didn’t know it yet. As he fell back further into the crowd of protestors, someone told him he was bleeding.   “You need to go to a hospital,” they said. “Your face is falling off.”   Another bystander pulled out his phone and showed Schlough his injury. The bullet had left a gaping wound on his chin, and blood was pouring down onto the front of his shirt. In retrospect, Schlough says he thinks he was specifically targeted, and that police knew exactly where they were aiming when they shot him.   He and a friend left and started walking toward a nearby hospital where he did volunteer shifts. But when they arrived, Denver police were also there.   “There were cop cars there and more pulling up, and I understood that it was not a safe place for me to get treated because of the amount of police presence there,” he said.   Instead, Schlough had to drive outside Denver to be treated at a different facility. Doctors cleaned his wound and gave him 20 stitches. More than a week later, part of his chin is still numb. He worries that he may have suffered nerve damage.   Last Christmas, while visiting his mother in Wisconsin, he says one of her friends asked him what the most dangerous place he’d ever been was.   “I told her that I’m the most scared when I’m in the U.S. and around a police officer,” he said. “Because I know that no matter who I am or what I’ve done in my life, I can be shot and killed, and nothing will matter.”

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Toni Sanders, 36, poses for a portrait at her home in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

Toni Sanders arrived at Lafayette Square along with her wife and 9-year-old stepson in the late afternoon of June 1 – the same day that Kishon McDonald was there. Their son — identified in court papers as J.N.C. — had been watching the news over the preceding days, and the family had been having difficult conversations about George Floyd and why there was unrest rocking the country.   “We spoke about Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice, and people right here in D.C. who had been killed by Metropolitan Police — Raphael Briscoe, Terrence Sterling, Marqueese Alston, and explained to him that was why people were protesting,” Sanders said.   He said that he’d like to accompany Sanders and his mother to Lafayette Square.   “I assured him that it would be safe because it was a peaceful protest and that we would leave before the curfew started,” she said.   At first, she was glad that she’d agreed to bring him to what felt like a “community environment.” People in the square were passing out snacks, chanting, and kneeling in solidarity with George Floyd.   “Everything started out wonderful, it was a great experience,” she recalled. “We even took a picture when we first got down there just to remember the date we all stood together.”   Then, the attack began.   “I just heard the loud bah bah bah bah, and smoke started to fill the area.”   Sanders was immediately terrified for her young stepson.   “I just started screaming to my family, run, run, run,” she said. The three sprinted away from the sound of detonating stun grenades and the shrieks of injured protesters. After making it a few blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath and check in with one another.   “He said, ‘I can’t believe I just survived my first near-death experience.’ And it literally broke my heart because there’s honestly nothing I could say to him. I couldn’t tell him this wasn’t a near-death experience.”   Sanders was furious that police hadn’t warned protesters to disperse before violently clearing the park. If they had, she said, she would have quickly brought her stepson to safety.   “If we had been asked to either move back or leave, we would have. We would not have protested that because we have a child that we must look out for,” she said.   After the attack, Sanders’ son expressed anger and hurt over how police had treated them. Sanders had refused to allow the experience to scare her away from attending protests, but now when she left the house he would ask her to promise that she wouldn’t die.   “I wanted to show him that even though you’re afraid, if someone is trying to take your rights and do you wrong, you have to stand up for who you are and what you believe in,” she said.   The couple decided to put him into therapy to work out how that day affected him. Sanders says he told his therapist that he thinks that it’s the end of the world now, and that the government is at war with Black people.   “Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations with him about systemic racism, overt racism, covert racism,” she said. “And it’s horrible to have to take that innocence from him.”   Along with Kishon McDonald, Sanders is one of two plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit over the attack on Lafayette Square protesters that day. Over the phone, she recites the poem ‘If We Must Die’ by Claude McKay.   We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!   “We’re here to show you that we’re still citizens, and we’re going to exercise our rights, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

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Alexandra Chen, a law student at Seattle University and a plaintiff in the lawsuit Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County v. City of Seattle, poses for a portrait in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 2020.

David Ryder for the ACLU.

On May 30, first-year law student Alexandra Chen marched to a police precinct in downtown Seattle along with a few hundred other demonstrators. It was the second protest she’d attended, the first being the day before. When they arrived at the precinct, there were police in riot gear out in front, with others standing in the windows and watching the crowd from above.   “People were clearly agitated, but I didn’t see anyone really try to push the ticket,” she said. “Folks were just crowding around and leading chants.”   A few scattered water bottles along with a road flare were thrown at the precinct, but aside from that, Chen said nobody in the crowd was signaling that violence was coming.   “I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, this would be a great opportunity for someone to come out with a megaphone and make a statement about how you understand why we’re so angry and you want to work with us on how to fix this,’” she said.   Instead, just like in Washington, D.C., Denver, and dozens of other cities, the Seattle Police Department began to throw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd.   “There was no warning at all,” she said. “It was just absolute chaos.”   When the first stun grenade detonated near her, she felt a “deep percussive feeling” in her chest. People began to scream and run as tear gas filled the street. As she and her friend tried to move away from the precinct, she noticed another young woman desperately trying to find fresh air.   “There was a gap in a wall that was about six to eight inches between buildings, and she was trying to escape the gas. It looked like she was trying to crawl into that space, and you could hear her retching,” she said.   Tear gas is by its nature indiscriminate. It can’t be controlled or targeted to incapacitate specific people. As soon as a canister or grenade is launched, it becomes the property of the wind. Young and old alike are subject to its effects, which Chen says go from “uncomfortable to intolerable in a short amount of time.”   Chen says that when the group first arrived at the precinct, nearly everyone was wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But after the tear gas was fired, people began to rip them off as they choked, coughed, and gasped for air.   “First, you think to yourself, “Okay, I can tolerate this,’” she said. “You don’t really expect that it’s going to get worse, but it does. It moves deeper into your face and once it gets into your sinuses, everything it touches burns.”   All around her, people were calling out for their friends and loved ones through the thick smoke.   “It was hard to tell which direction to run because when they threw the canisters, they rolled down the hills spewing tear gas the whole way. So effectively, you had not just the immediate area in front of the police station gassed, you had the whole block, and when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t tell where it ends,” she recalled.   After Chen and her friend emerged from the cloud, a medic nearby helped flush her eyes out with water, and the two walked back to her apartment. She is now a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit brought against the Seattle Police Department over its use of tear gas and other LLWs.   “I don’t care what they want to say about how people are violent,” she said. “What I saw was peaceful protesters met with an immediate and overwhelming show of force to get us to disperse.”

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Jared Goyette stands in front of the remains of the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct.

Brandon Bell for the ACLU

Jared Goyette moved to Minneapolis five years ago to be close to his daughter. As a journalist, he’d covered protests over police brutality before — first at the Mall of America during the Ferguson uprising, and then later after the killing of Philando Castile.   Over the years, he’d developed ties to the city’s activist community, and in the hours after the video of George Floyd’s murder was released, his phone began to buzz.   “I started getting texts from different Black activists in the Twin Cities,” he said. Goyette could tell that Floyd’s killing would lead to unrest, and before long national news outlets began reaching out to ask for his help covering the story.   On May 27th, two days after Floyd’s death, Goyette heard the sound of helicopters buzzing over the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The Precinct had already become a flash point for demonstrations, and Goyette decided to head to the area to see what was happening.   “When I started surveying the scene, it was entirely different from anything I’d seen in my previous years of covering protests against police violence in Minnesota,” he said.   Several hundred people had surrounded the precinct, and officers in riot gear were standing on the roof firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Goyette had his camera and notepad with him and, along with other journalists there, was visibly covering the standoff in his role as a reporter.   He saw that a young man had been shot in the head with a ballistic projectile, and moved towards him to try and see if he could do anything to help.   “He was just writhing on the ground in clear, severe pain,” he said. “People were screaming, ‘Call 911.’”   Goyette noticed that his ten-year-old daughter had texted him to ask where he was, so he moved off to the side to text a response. Suddenly, he was on the ground.   “There was a searing pain in my eye,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like I was hit and then I fell, it was like I’m standing and then wait, I’m not standing and everything is black.”   Goyette had been shot in the head with a rubber bullet. His nose was bleeding and his eye was swollen and black. People moved towards him to help, but tear gas began to flood the area.

Policing the Press: A Journalist on the Frontlines

Journalists covering protests against police brutality across the country are facing an influx of violence, suppression efforts, and arrests by police…

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He managed to woozily make his way to safety, and after gathering his composure for a few minutes, found his car and drove home. Initially, he didn’t think he needed medical attention, but his girlfriend told him he had to visit a community clinic. Health workers there said that if he’d waited longer for treatment, he might have lost sight in that eye.   He says he thinks it’s unlikely that officers didn’t know he was a journalist when they shot him.   “I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chanting,” he said. “Protesters aren’t normally dressed in a dress shirt and slacks.”   Goyette wasn’t the only journalist who was targeted by Minneapolis police that week. Many documented being pepper sprayed despite clearly identifying themselves as reporters. Others were arrested, gassed, threatened, or ⁠— like Goyette ⁠— shot with rubber bullets. In a clip that went viral, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television, despite the fact that he was accompanied by a full news crew with cameras and sound equipment.   “I worry that the sort of ‘fake news’ doctrine is leading to journalists being targeted,” said Goyette. “And this is the first time that I think we saw that at a systematic scale.”   On June 3rd, the ACLU filed suit against the City of Minneapolis over the attacks on journalists that were carried out by MPD officers. Goyette is the lead plaintiff in the case.   “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I feel angry, and a little bit afraid,” he said. “The Police Chief made an apology to journalists who were fired upon, but there wasn’t anything behind that apology. No promise to investigate and hold people accountable, nothing other than a sentimental gesture. And I fear that people are just going to move on.”

Published June 23, 2020 at 11:42PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3eu2a5Y

[nancydhooper]

“All Hell Broke Loose.”

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down.   “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said.   McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived.   On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars.   But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away.   “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.”   It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

Kishon McDonald, 39, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

In the days following George Floyd’s murder, President Trump had focused his attention on the relatively small number of people who had damaged property, threatening to use the “unlimited power of our military” and tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” What the protesters gathered in Lafayette Square that day didn’t know was that he was planning to stage a photo opportunity at a nearby church that evening.   Unbeknownst to McDonald, as he and the others chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies were just out of sight, donning riot gear and checking the weapons they would shortly use against the crowd to pave the way for the president’s walk to the church.   At 6:30 p.m. — half an hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — dozens of battle-clad officers rushed the protest, hurling stun grenades and firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and pepper balls into the crowd. McDonald says there were no warnings, just an onslaught of violence.   “All hell broke loose,” he said.   As the deafening explosions from the stun grenades gave way to thick clouds of tear gas, terrified protesters began to run from the batons and riot shields that police were using to force them out of the square.   “It was just straight fear. Everybody was scared and running for their lives,” he said.   McDonald tried to plead for instructions from the advancing officers, asking them what they wanted people to do. Instead, one threw a stun grenade at him.   “As it exploded, hot shrapnel hit my leg,” he said. “It felt like somebody put a cast iron skillet on my leg, it was just so hot. I started jumping up and down trying to get away from it, but shrapnel was going everywhere.”   Suffocating tear gas enveloped him and the other protesters, making them gasp and cough as they ran down the street.   “I saw a young boy, he must have been about 15, and he was choking a lot. Somebody put a shirt over his face and kind of ran him out,” he recalled.   McDonald had seen enough. Bruised from being hit with riot shields and with his vision still blurred from the tear gas, he walked home. In a phone interview with the ACLU, he said that the experience had made him more wary of attending protests, but it also illustrated why he’d gone there to begin with.   “It seems like everything is getting to be a military type thing in our society, and we were protesting to calm that down,” he said. “And the message we got is, ‘No, we aren’t calming down.’” “I hope someone gets held accountable,” he added.

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Law enforcement officers clearing protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020.

Derek Baker

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans poured into the streets to voice their condemnation of police brutality against Black people. The weeks that followed were a milestone in American history, with protests and displays of solidarity reaching towns as small as Cadillac, Michigan, and cities as large as Atlanta. As months of a painful COVID-19 lockdown gave way to incandescent fury over the killing of Floyd and the violent response of the Minneapolis Police Department towards the initial protests, a few people went as far as burning police precincts or destroying upscale shopping districts.   The vast majority of protests, however, were almost entirely peaceful.   Still, police departments across the country deployed staggering levels of violence against protesters. On social media, the world watched a near-instantaneous live feed of police in dozens of cities firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and other projectiles into protests, using pepper spray against protesters and journalists alike, and beating people with batons.   This widespread and indiscriminate deployment of what are often called “less-lethal” weapons – LLWs – injured countless people, some severely.   In Austin, Texas, 20-year-old college student Justin Howell suffered a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a “beanbag round” filled with lead pellets. Linda Tirado, a journalist and photographer, lost her left eye to a “rubber bullet” fired by police in Minneapolis. In Seattle, 26-year-old Aubreanna Inda nearly died after a stun grenade exploded next to her chest. According to Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality who focuses on police practices, this widespread and violent use of LLWs during the George Floyd uprising was an attack on the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech.   “There’s just no justification under the existing Fourth Amendment framework for the use of these weapons,” he said. “And it’s happening over and over again, with patterns that are so similar across the different cities.”   For years these weapons were referred to as “non-lethal.” But in practice, they have a long history of causing serious injuries and deaths.   A 2016 report by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations analyzed 25 years of available data on the use of LLWs by law enforcement across the world. It found that between 1990 and 2015, “kinetic impact projectiles” — a category that includes rubber bullets and beanbag rounds — caused at least 1,925 injuries, including 53 deaths and 294 instances of permanent disability.   Tear gas, which is banned for use in warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, injured at least 9,261 people over the same time period, including two deaths and 70 permanent disabilities.   The report also found that LLWs are most commonly used to stamp out political protests and shut down aggressive demands for greater rights.   According to Takei, even the term “less lethal” downplays the damage they can inflict.   “Beating somebody with a baseball bat, as long as you’re not hitting them in the head or other sensitive areas of the body is ‘less lethal,’ but it’s still incredibly violent,” he said. During the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, police used tear gas and other LLWs extensively to disrupt and disperse protests. But after three federal commissions found that abuse of those weapons provoked aggressive responses by protesters and contributed to a cycle of violence, they fell out of favor with U.S. law enforcement as a method of controlling crowds. According to the Marshall Project, in subsequent decades, some police departments adopted a “negotiated management” approach to protests, working with organizers in advance to establish ground rules meant to prevent violence. But any movement toward de-escalation evaporated in the wake of large anti-globalization protests that took place during a 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, in an event that would come to be called the “Battle for Seattle.” In a prelude to how many police departments would later approach the George Floyd uprising, Seattle police attacked the mostly non-violent protesters with LLWs, provoking a handful to respond aggressively in kind.   “The response of a lot of police departments after that was, well if some people won’t act as predicted, we should have a hyper-aggressive response for everybody,” said Takei. “But when police adopt this type of response to Black-led protests against police violence, they are repeating a pattern of brutality that goes back to the origins of American policing in Southern slave patrols.”   Now, as outcry over the indiscriminate use of LLWs against Black Lives Matter protesters mounts, some municipalities are weighing restrictions on the weapons. After the ACLU sued the Seattle Police Department in early June for its violent response to protests in the city, a judge ordered police there to cease using the weapons against peaceful demonstrators, saying they had “chilled speech.”   Days later, Seattle’s city council voted unanimously to prohibit their use against protesters. Legislators in Atlanta and other cities have also proposed similar bans.   The ACLU spoke to a number of people who were attacked with LLWs by police during demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in recent weeks. This is how they described their experiences.

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Gabe Schlough at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Jimena Peck for the ACLU

Gabe Schlough wasn’t surprised that the Minneapolis Police Department had killed another one of its Black residents. He lives in Denver now, but he’d gone to college years earlier in Minneapolis. Just before he graduated, he’d been shot in the back with a stun gun by police who entered his home and tried to arrest him in a case of mistaken identity.   Schlough had been invited to a protest at downtown Denver’s Capitol Building that night, but instead he decided to drive his motorcycle up into the mountains with a friend.   “In one of the areas where people were hiking and snowboarding and skiing down I saw three Black people, and I was just fucking happy,” he said. “I was like, thank God not every Black person thinks they need to be at the Capitol right now.”   But when he got back home later that night and saw images of the Denver Police Department’s response to the protest, he felt his blood start to boil.   “We can’t even give doctors and nurses facemasks, but we can give our police access to militarized weapons that are exceedingly more expensive and hard to create than the protective mechanisms we need for health care workers,” he recalled thinking.   Schlough has a degree in public health anthropology, and he’d worked in health care across the world, including a stint in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. He had medical training and had participated in protests before, so he decided to defy the curfew along with a few friends to see if he could offer help in case anyone got hurt. Donning his face mask along with sunglasses to protect his eyes, Schlough set off towards the Capitol Building.   When he arrived, he saw a crowd of two or three hundred people facing down a line of police.   “They were standing just a little bit more than shoulder to shoulder apart with full riot gear, with their face shields and full protective armor on,” he recalled.   Schlough moved up toward the front of the crowd. Behind him, somebody set a pile of garbage on fire. That was all the police needed to begin their advance. As they moved forward, they shot canisters of tear gas into the crowd and tossed stun grenades.   “I was going around and telling people who didn’t have eye coverings to watch their eyes and protect their face,” he said. “Just running up and down the line and getting people educated, like this is happening and this is what you need to know.”   As a canister of tear gas landed next to him, Schlough bent down to try and cover it with a traffic cone so the gas wouldn’t spread. Suddenly, he felt sharp blows to his face and chest.   “A shock hit me and my head popped up,” he said. “I felt like somebody had punched me in the chest.”   Schlough had been shot with rubber bullets, although he didn’t know it yet. As he fell back further into the crowd of protestors, someone told him he was bleeding.   “You need to go to a hospital,” they said. “Your face is falling off.”   Another bystander pulled out his phone and showed Schlough his injury. The bullet had left a gaping wound on his chin, and blood was pouring down onto the front of his shirt. In retrospect, Schlough says he thinks he was specifically targeted, and that police knew exactly where they were aiming when they shot him.   He and a friend left and started walking toward a nearby hospital where he did volunteer shifts. But when they arrived, Denver police were also there.   “There were cop cars there and more pulling up, and I understood that it was not a safe place for me to get treated because of the amount of police presence there,” he said.   Instead, Schlough had to drive outside Denver to be treated at a different facility. Doctors cleaned his wound and gave him 20 stitches. More than a week later, part of his chin is still numb. He worries that he may have suffered nerve damage.   Last Christmas, while visiting his mother in Wisconsin, he says one of her friends asked him what the most dangerous place he’d ever been was.   “I told her that I’m the most scared when I’m in the U.S. and around a police officer,” he said. “Because I know that no matter who I am or what I’ve done in my life, I can be shot and killed, and nothing will matter.”

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Toni Sanders, 36, poses for a portrait at her home in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

Toni Sanders arrived at Lafayette Square along with her wife and 9-year-old stepson in the late afternoon of June 1 – the same day that Kishon McDonald was there. Their son — identified in court papers as J.N.C. — had been watching the news over the preceding days, and the family had been having difficult conversations about George Floyd and why there was unrest rocking the country.   “We spoke about Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice, and people right here in D.C. who had been killed by Metropolitan Police — Raphael Briscoe, Terrence Sterling, Marqueese Alston, and explained to him that was why people were protesting,” Sanders said.   He said that he’d like to accompany Sanders and his mother to Lafayette Square.   “I assured him that it would be safe because it was a peaceful protest and that we would leave before the curfew started,” she said.   At first, she was glad that she’d agreed to bring him to what felt like a “community environment.” People in the square were passing out snacks, chanting, and kneeling in solidarity with George Floyd.   “Everything started out wonderful, it was a great experience,” she recalled. “We even took a picture when we first got down there just to remember the date we all stood together.”   Then, the attack began.   “I just heard the loud bah bah bah bah, and smoke started to fill the area.”   Sanders was immediately terrified for her young stepson.   “I just started screaming to my family, run, run, run,” she said. The three sprinted away from the sound of detonating stun grenades and the shrieks of injured protesters. After making it a few blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath and check in with one another.   “He said, ‘I can’t believe I just survived my first near-death experience.’ And it literally broke my heart because there’s honestly nothing I could say to him. I couldn’t tell him this wasn’t a near-death experience.”   Sanders was furious that police hadn’t warned protesters to disperse before violently clearing the park. If they had, she said, she would have quickly brought her stepson to safety.   “If we had been asked to either move back or leave, we would have. We would not have protested that because we have a child that we must look out for,” she said.   After the attack, Sanders’ son expressed anger and hurt over how police had treated them. Sanders had refused to allow the experience to scare her away from attending protests, but now when she left the house he would ask her to promise that she wouldn’t die.   “I wanted to show him that even though you’re afraid, if someone is trying to take your rights and do you wrong, you have to stand up for who you are and what you believe in,” she said.   The couple decided to put him into therapy to work out how that day affected him. Sanders says he told his therapist that he thinks that it’s the end of the world now, and that the government is at war with Black people.   “Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations with him about systemic racism, overt racism, covert racism,” she said. “And it’s horrible to have to take that innocence from him.”   Along with Kishon McDonald, Sanders is one of two plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit over the attack on Lafayette Square protesters that day. Over the phone, she recites the poem ‘If We Must Die’ by Claude McKay.   We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!   “We’re here to show you that we’re still citizens, and we’re going to exercise our rights, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

****

Alexandra Chen, a law student at Seattle University and a plaintiff in the lawsuit Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County v. City of Seattle, poses for a portrait in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 2020.

David Ryder for the ACLU.

On May 30, first-year law student Alexandra Chen marched to a police precinct in downtown Seattle along with a few hundred other demonstrators. It was the second protest she’d attended, the first being the day before. When they arrived at the precinct, there were police in riot gear out in front, with others standing in the windows and watching the crowd from above.   “People were clearly agitated, but I didn’t see anyone really try to push the ticket,” she said. “Folks were just crowding around and leading chants.”   A few scattered water bottles along with a road flare were thrown at the precinct, but aside from that, Chen said nobody in the crowd was signaling that violence was coming.   “I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, this would be a great opportunity for someone to come out with a megaphone and make a statement about how you understand why we’re so angry and you want to work with us on how to fix this,’” she said.   Instead, just like in Washington, D.C., Denver, and dozens of other cities, the Seattle Police Department began to throw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd.   “There was no warning at all,” she said. “It was just absolute chaos.”   When the first stun grenade detonated near her, she felt a “deep percussive feeling” in her chest. People began to scream and run as tear gas filled the street. As she and her friend tried to move away from the precinct, she noticed another young woman desperately trying to find fresh air.   “There was a gap in a wall that was about six to eight inches between buildings, and she was trying to escape the gas. It looked like she was trying to crawl into that space, and you could hear her retching,” she said.   Tear gas is by its nature indiscriminate. It can’t be controlled or targeted to incapacitate specific people. As soon as a canister or grenade is launched, it becomes the property of the wind. Young and old alike are subject to its effects, which Chen says go from “uncomfortable to intolerable in a short amount of time.”   Chen says that when the group first arrived at the precinct, nearly everyone was wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But after the tear gas was fired, people began to rip them off as they choked, coughed, and gasped for air.   “First, you think to yourself, “Okay, I can tolerate this,’” she said. “You don’t really expect that it’s going to get worse, but it does. It moves deeper into your face and once it gets into your sinuses, everything it touches burns.”   All around her, people were calling out for their friends and loved ones through the thick smoke.   “It was hard to tell which direction to run because when they threw the canisters, they rolled down the hills spewing tear gas the whole way. So effectively, you had not just the immediate area in front of the police station gassed, you had the whole block, and when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t tell where it ends,” she recalled.   After Chen and her friend emerged from the cloud, a medic nearby helped flush her eyes out with water, and the two walked back to her apartment. She is now a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit brought against the Seattle Police Department over its use of tear gas and other LLWs.   “I don’t care what they want to say about how people are violent,” she said. “What I saw was peaceful protesters met with an immediate and overwhelming show of force to get us to disperse.”

****

Jared Goyette stands in front of the remains of the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct.

Brandon Bell for the ACLU

Jared Goyette moved to Minneapolis five years ago to be close to his daughter. As a journalist, he’d covered protests over police brutality before — first at the Mall of America during the Ferguson uprising, and then later after the killing of Philando Castile.   Over the years, he’d developed ties to the city’s activist community, and in the hours after the video of George Floyd’s murder was released, his phone began to buzz.   “I started getting texts from different Black activists in the Twin Cities,” he said. Goyette could tell that Floyd’s killing would lead to unrest, and before long national news outlets began reaching out to ask for his help covering the story.   On May 27th, two days after Floyd’s death, Goyette heard the sound of helicopters buzzing over the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The Precinct had already become a flash point for demonstrations, and Goyette decided to head to the area to see what was happening.   “When I started surveying the scene, it was entirely different from anything I’d seen in my previous years of covering protests against police violence in Minnesota,” he said.   Several hundred people had surrounded the precinct, and officers in riot gear were standing on the roof firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Goyette had his camera and notepad with him and, along with other journalists there, was visibly covering the standoff in his role as a reporter.   He saw that a young man had been shot in the head with a ballistic projectile, and moved towards him to try and see if he could do anything to help.   “He was just writhing on the ground in clear, severe pain,” he said. “People were screaming, ‘Call 911.’”   Goyette noticed that his ten-year-old daughter had texted him to ask where he was, so he moved off to the side to text a response. Suddenly, he was on the ground.   “There was a searing pain in my eye,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like I was hit and then I fell, it was like I’m standing and then wait, I’m not standing and everything is black.”   Goyette had been shot in the head with a rubber bullet. His nose was bleeding and his eye was swollen and black. People moved towards him to help, but tear gas began to flood the area.

Policing the Press: A Journalist on the Frontlines

Journalists covering protests against police brutality across the country are facing an influx of violence, suppression efforts, and arrests by police…

Listen to this episode

He managed to woozily make his way to safety, and after gathering his composure for a few minutes, found his car and drove home. Initially, he didn’t think he needed medical attention, but his girlfriend told him he had to visit a community clinic. Health workers there said that if he’d waited longer for treatment, he might have lost sight in that eye.   He says he thinks it’s unlikely that officers didn’t know he was a journalist when they shot him.   “I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chanting,” he said. “Protesters aren’t normally dressed in a dress shirt and slacks.”   Goyette wasn’t the only journalist who was targeted by Minneapolis police that week. Many documented being pepper sprayed despite clearly identifying themselves as reporters. Others were arrested, gassed, threatened, or ⁠— like Goyette ⁠— shot with rubber bullets. In a clip that went viral, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television, despite the fact that he was accompanied by a full news crew with cameras and sound equipment.   “I worry that the sort of ‘fake news’ doctrine is leading to journalists being targeted,” said Goyette. “And this is the first time that I think we saw that at a systematic scale.”   On June 3rd, the ACLU filed suit against the City of Minneapolis over the attacks on journalists that were carried out by MPD officers. Goyette is the lead plaintiff in the case.   “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I feel angry, and a little bit afraid,” he said. “The Police Chief made an apology to journalists who were fired upon, but there wasn’t anything behind that apology. No promise to investigate and hold people accountable, nothing other than a sentimental gesture. And I fear that people are just going to move on.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/all-hell-broke-loose via http://www.rssmix.com/

[gethealthy18-blog]

How to Keep Kids Active With Adventure Points

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/how-to-keep-kids-active-with-adventure-points/

How to Keep Kids Active With Adventure Points

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]

Imagine a world where kids happily keep themselves busy and learning while doing activities that they love and learning math at the same time. A place where kids compete in a friendly way by doing athletic activities, creative games, and reading books.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

I’ve always heard that necessity is the mother of invention and this is certainly true of this Adventure Points idea. Ever had one of those motherhood moments where every child needed something at the same time, one had just spilled a smoothie everywhere and the baby needed a diaper change?

I had one of those moments and realized that for the sake of my sanity and the kids’ activity levels I needed to have a plan for summer that didn’t involve them watching TV every day.

We reinstitute the system every summer or over breaks. It puts my kids’ natural creative and competitive sides to work for the good of all!

What Are Adventure Points?

We already have the “Mom I’m Bored Jar” which works really well but is more of a help when they are already bored. I wanted to find a way to encourage them to find activities without getting bored in the first place.

In short, this is a simple system of points for doing creative or athletic activities that encourages movement and creative play over TV watching. It also has surprisingly reduced the bickering and fighting in our house.

The idea for the name “Adventure Points” came from my kids’ hiking boots, which they call “Adventure Boots” since they wear them for hiking, fort building, and other outdoor adventures.

How Adventure Points Work

I sat down with a piece of paper and thought of activities I wanted my kids to do this summer and assigned a point value to each. The kids helped me brainstorm and we came up with a big list of activities that they enjoy (that don’t involve a screen or a snack). Things like:

Riding bikes (30 mins) = 10 points

Pull-ups = 2 points each

Push-ups = 1 point each

Swimming = (30 mins) = 10 points

Drawing (30 mins) = 5 points

Preparing a meal for the family = 20 points

Reading a book = 5 points

Reading a chapter book = 20 points

Fort-building = 20 points per hour

Folding origami (30 mins) = 10 points (Great tutorials in this book)

Make paper airplanes (30 mins) = 10 points (They love this book for ideas)

Draw with sidewalk chalk (30 mins) = 10 points

Read to a sibling (30 mins) = 25 points each

Climb a tree = 5 points per tree

Do a chore (not on regular chore list) = 10 points

Play Monopoly = 15 points

Play Scrabble = 15 points

Play Battleship = 10 points

Play Chess = 10 points

Play Uno = 5 points

Play War (card game) = 10 points

Play Apples to Apples = 10 points

Play hopscotch = 2 points

Jump rope = 3 points

Weed garden (30 mins) = 10 points

Play a game of wiffle ball = 15 points

Water the plants = 5 points

Run around the yard 5 times = 10 points

Jump on the trampoline for 10 minutes = 3 points

Do a puzzle = 20 points

Do 25 cartwheels = 10 points

Write and mail a letter to friends or family = 10 points

Create a scavenger hunt for siblings = 10 points

Play Legos (30 mins) = 10 points

Get caught doing something unexpected and kind = 50 points bonus

Rollerblade outside (30 mins) = 10 points

Listen to a history podcast = 10 points

Watch a TED talk (from this list) = 10 points

Watch/do a lesson from Udemy or Great Courses = 15 points

I thought of about 50 activities that were worth points and assigned values to each. Then, I made a list of fun family activities that would be good goals for milestone points. 100 points would earn a healthy dessert after dinner one night while 1000 points would earn a larger reward like a special activity, new art supplies, or a contribution toward something they’ve been wanting. (Tip: Use things you plan on doing anyway! This is just a fun way for the kids to earn them).

I’ve also found that the kids are excited to be helpful around the house when I offer “bonus points” for doing thing above and beyond their normal responsibilities.

After a few days of using the system, I decided to create two separate lists for older kids (5+) and younger ones (4 and under) to match their skill levels since the younger kids were being left behind by older kids (who could do many more pull-ups!).

How to Implement Adventure Points

If you’d like to try this system (and I’d highly recommend it!), here are a few tips for getting started:

1. Decide on Activities That Work in Your Home/Yard

Make a list of activities you’d like your kids to do and break it down by age group if needed. Figure out how much each activity is worth in the point system you’d like to use and assign a point value to each. Feel free to use my list as a start!

2. Decide on Rewards

Chances are that while points are a great motivator, your kids won’t be thrilled with just earning points that don’t mean anything. Decide on what the points will allow the kids to do or earn and create a list of this for the kids. We try to focus on activities and experiences rather than stuff so our rewards were activities, but physical rewards can be great too especially if they will help kids be active or build a life skill.

Some ideas of material rewards that encourage learning:

3. Track the Points

I realized that the system wouldn’t encourage the independent creative time I was hoping for if the kids had to check in with me every time they did an activity to get the points. I decided to use the honor system (which has worked really well so far) and get each kid a small spiral notebook to track points. This way, the kids track their points each day and I just tally once a day to keep the running totals.

I also created a chart to help track the points for each activity. You can download a copy for yourself here.

4. Enjoy Watching Your Kids Learn and Play!

I was really hoping that creating “Adventure Points” would free up some of my time by stopping the refrains of  “I’m bored” and “Can we watch a movie.” It certainly has and I’m definitely grateful for that.

I’ve found that even more than the free time, I’ve enjoyed watching my kids creativity soar and the older kids play with the younger ones more easily since they have more structure and ideas for activities (and because there is a goal in mind). Also, keeping track of points has been a fun and unexpected math boost for the little kids as I keep hearing questions like “Does 243 plus 15 equal 258?!” 🙂

Your turn! What are some fun ways you encourage creativity and activity during free time at home?

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/120815/adventure-points/

[jayceearr]

I learned some things at 25

J'ai vingt-six ans . 

I have to admit. I thought it would be cool to write twenty six in french. Turns out it’d be really corny. I had a pretty eventful day today. Today (well not when you’re reading this but when I wrote this) is the last day being twenty-five. I have seen a lot, grown, and learned a lot about myself and the man I’m going to become. 

I’m pretty sure I said the same thing when I turned 21 but to be frank I didn’t know jack shit. Does anyone at that age? Anyways I went to work, got some things done, drove to Philly for a job interview then back home. Tried to make time for the gym but being behind the wheel for so long drains you. I’ve commuted waaaayyy too much for someone my age. I know my way just about everywhere. A walking atlas is what I call myself but I haven’t really walked anywhere since getting a car and now another one.

Okay. Let’s get to the meat of this. I don’t really know how to express my feelings right now so bear with me. 

Jesus.

It’s something about that name huh? In my twenty fifth year on this planet I have accomplished so so so so much. I got my degree. Well two of them. Finally. a four year journey took me double the time. I used to hear old folks say as long as it gets done it doesn’t matter. I didn’t agree with that at 17 because I was a B student-athlete and thought shit came easy. Anything worth having is met with resistance. At least that’s what I tell myself every time someone tells me “No.” I guess that’s going to be my next goal and milestone, learning how to say no.

One night last summer I spent with a couple old coworkers, a to-be trump supporter, and my coworker’s father drinking spiced rum, bourbon, smoking cigars and playing cards on his porch. Gorgeous day. Mr. Polk (my friends father) shook my hand and didn’t let go upon meeting me. My friend Charles introduced us and said to his dad “This is the guy I was telling you about.” To that point I had been a little rude to Charles because he was new there and got the job I had applied for. My boss then asked me to train him and I told him in front of Charles I wouldn’t because if you didn’t think I was qualified for the position why would you expect that of me (I did relay to Chuck that there were no hard feelings. He was simply a guy that applied for a job and got it. Why would I hold a grudge with him? We’ve been tight ever since).

After a couple of hands and drinks in fellowship his father stopped the game for about a half hour. Chuck took it as him ranting but I think I understood something in his drunken speech. At that point I took about a year off from my site www.WhatsTheMovement.net and all my music industry ventures. I promised my mom I would graduate first. She told me that if I hadn’t poured all my energy into that I’d finish school faster. After that I’d have all the time in the world to hustle. She was right. Reluctantly I went with her plan. Anyways his Dad said something to be about the word no. I was having an emotional week but kept it all inside. His father kept saying to me during the Texas hold em game “This guy has a real twinkle in his eye. It’s fire there.” The other players took it as bluffing or game tactic especially because I had shades on but he knew.

He stopped the game, I took off my shades and it’s what he said to be that has stuck for a little more than the last year of my life. It’s almost my daily devotional aside from John 15:7.

"You got all the tools already, but when you wake up and been told no a million times WHAT IS YOUR RESOLVE?" 

Damn. Right? That’s what I felt then and still now. What are you going to do when you know you’re the right person for every opportunity and they choose someone else? Are you going to quit? Or are you going to meet resistance with some resistance of your own? Funny enough I’ve only seen him twice since then but Charles always tells me his father asked about me. I’ve been trying to get that fire back. Not that the flame extinguished but it’s been put on hold for school and the promises I made my parents. 

That’s another thing I did well at twenty five. I made them a promise and I kept it. Not just one but all of them. I became a better man which made me a better son. I realized this year they are just as good at being parents as I am at being a son considering we’ve done it for the exact same time. They are human just like me. I got tired of letting them down and pointing the finger. My mother said my dad told her that me graduating is like a weight lifted off his shoulders. This was so much bigger than me. I knew it but I didn’t really understand. I’m not the first college student in my family. In fact my parents met in college and are in black greek organizations. Life happened to them in college and neither of them got to finish. Well in my college years life happened to me too. 

I wasn’t sure if I was gonna finish. I didn’t even want to finish anymore. I hated school. I almost flunked out. I ran out of money. My relationships failed. My best friend died. I started losing faith in myself. I felt like God was listening but had better things to do no matter how much I preached about his glory to everyone. I believed but I was in a dark place and I buried my feelings in the bottom of liquor bottles. I wanted to be numb. The therapist I was seeing wasn’t helping. 

One day I remember waking up and just sat there on a day off with no intentions except let’s go grab a redd’s wicked ale without eating and be buzzed before lunch. So I’d sit in my friends bedroom watch him play 2K while I got numb and listen to some Goldlink or Childish Gambino or whoever else at the time for the sake of my music blog (at least that was my excuse to be wavy). When I sobered up at 3PM and went home with nothing to do it hit me. All the opportunities in the world. All of that potential. Was I going to keep saying tomorrow I’ll get it together or was I going to start the first day of tomorrow?

Tomorrow is here. Tomorrow was yesterday. My friend who was playing 2K had flunked out of school himself. I got super inspired and went back to his bedroom and told him something that resonated and I tell people all the time.

“We are in a hole. whether we dug it ourselves or someone else did, are we gonna sit in the hole and complain about everyone else or are we going to be the catalyst for the next thing that happens in our lives? No more being victims.”

That inspiration got me out of the hole. I made a promise to him too that we’d get out and we’d do it together. Long story short I’d travel this road alone. Another life lesson I learned at 25. My friend (whose name I won’t mention for sake of respect) got back into school but wouldn’t enroll for whatever reason. I went back to school alone and embarrassed because the peers I went in with were already finished and making their lives happen. It’s about reaching your own level though not someone else’s right (That’s from Love Jones)? His life went left, he got engaged, had a couple daughters, called off the engagement, lost a couple jobs and is struggling but he’s staying encouraged. I don’t say this to shit on him even if I told him to stick with our plan. He didn’t and now tells me how lucky I am to have my degrees and the people around me instead of congratulating me on my hard work that no matter what no one can take away from me. My cousin six years younger than I is now enrolled at that same institution. I hope I’ve made her proud and inspire her. She said something to my girl at my graduation.

“He looks really happy. You really helped him a lot.”

“Nah, he did that on his own. We are all just here to witness.” she replied.

That’s what I try to explain to my friend and now you guys. Happiness is an active emotion. It’s a job. You have to always actively try to make yourself happy because you alone are responsible with your own happiness. Period.

I said all of that to say this. No matter who you are. What your situation is. God is bigger than that and I don’t mean to sound cliche but it’s for real. This is part of my testimony. I just needed to share that with someone who’s been in as dark a place as I. Tears roll down my face as I type about how much I’ve learned. I spent the last couple hours of my first quarter century alone with the lord in thanks for all he’s done for me. I’ve been broke. I’ve been suicidal. I’ve been alone. All of that sucks especially when you’ve been the opposite and lost all of it. You can either curse God and wallow in it or you can do what you need to do. Be like Job. He lost everything and praised the lord and got tenfold. He was proactive about exiting the season of his life he was in. He sowed what he reaped and that was everything God offered him and according to John 15:7 that’s EVERYTHING you ask for in prayer. Be proactive about changing your life and hopefully throughout 26 and the rest of my life I’ll follow my own advice. I’m just excited to see what lessons I learn next and how I can implement them into my life. 

We’re only getting better from here. Hopefully this touched someone that needed it as much as I wish someone could tell me back then. Yall don’t understand I really really did not want to live anymore. I am just so thankful because at any moment I could have ended it all but I stuck through, trusted the process and was strong in the last moments I wanted to throw my car off the bridge. The place I am at is not the destination or end of this journey. It’s only just begun.

Thank you Jesus. 

In the words of my fellow Scorpio Brother....More Life.

[oh-my-genetics]

92 Statements Tag

@universeastudies thank you for tagging me, you are such a sweetheart!^^

LAST:

1. Drink: sweet coffee with milk^^ 2. Phone call: with my Dad^^ 3. Text message: To my boyfriend (”yay!”) 4. Song you listened to: The Future - Itchy (Poopzkid)  5. Time you cried: Oo... a long time a go in a far far galaxy... I have no idea xD

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: Yupp... 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Nope... 8. Been cheated on: Yupp.. a long time ago (in a far far galaxy) 9. Lost someone special: Thankfully not 10. Been depressed: I forbid myself to be depressed, it doesn’t bring me anywhere 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: as I am allergic against alcohol - no

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14: white, mint, violet

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: Yupp 16. Fallen out of love: Nope 17. Laughed until you cried: Always when my brother laughs until he cries xD 18. Found out someone was talking about you: Maybe, I don’t care =D 19. Met someone who changed you: Maybe

20. Found out who your friends are: I always knew  it xD

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: ... my boyfriend?

GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Almost all of them 23. Do you have any pets: 2 leopard geckos - Cleo and Neffi^^ 24. Do you want to change your name: Noo, it’s funny to be the only one with my name around^^

25. What did you do for your last birthday?: Since I’d been in Vienna only for 2 months and my friends couldn’t come I spent my birthday with the person I love - I watched Rogue One with my boyfriend and then we ate a traditional sacher in some cute café nearby in Vienna. And it was snowing^^ Very peaceful birthday^^  26. What time did you wake up: 9 a.m. which is very late for me =D  27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Waiting for my boyfriend to come home and I was drawing @hillanguages xD 28. Name something you can’t wait for: Yesss, my brother will come over this Friday! So excited to see him again =D 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: Middle of May, on her birthday. But I’ll visit her next month again!^^ (Another thing I can’t wait for!) 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: I don’t wish any changes, I am adaptive, I conform to changes^^  31. What are you listening to right now: I enjoy the silence - not so often when you’re living next to a kindergarten =D btw, why it’s quiet over there -it can’t just end well, is it? 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Sure! Until he moved out to Norway -.- 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: My boyfriend from time to time and he is doing it with purpose!  When I’m planning something and it just goes the way it shouldn’t. It happens quiet often though 34. Most visited websites: My university’s websites, biology forums of my uni, facebook because of student groups there, Amazon, Pinterest and Tumblr ^^

35. Mole/s: I have a spot of the white skin on the left leg which can be seen when I get tanned skin (so like almost never), and a mole on the right arm, and a couple years ago I’ve got 6 moles on the inner side of the elbow which look like Ursa Minor (or Little Bear) =D

36. Mark/s: stretch marks, chickenpox scars all over the back.. 37. Childhood dream: Doing something with animals! I wanted to become a vet but I read a book where a vet describes his work in the village and surgeries and animals he couldn’t help and I was very overwhelmed and decided that I couldn’t bear so much responsibility (I was 11) After this I decided to become ethologist or zoologist or a photographer. Until I discovered microbiology^^

38. Hair color: original one? dark brown with 4-10 grey hairs xD 39. Long or short hair: Middle 40. Do you have a crush on someone: yupp... my tall, blond, blue-eyed Danish boyfriend xD

41. What do you like about yourself: nothing my personality ;) 42. Piercings: none 43. Blood type: Type 0+ as positive as me ;D 44. Nickname: Ray, Raia 45. Relationship status: in some strange relationship I guess it will be “married” next year 46. Zodiac: Capricorn ^^ 47. Pronouns: she/her 48. Favorite TV Show: Doctor Who

49. Tattoos: None

50. Right or left hand: Right 51. Surgery: wisdom teeth.. nothing special 52. Hair dyed in different color: sometimes red, sometimes violet, right now in chocolate brown, violet will be added soon ;) 53. Sport: I boxed back in the high school time and definitely should start jogging again but I am so lazy... 55. Vacation: I definitely see my study situation as a good vacation =D Last time.. was it a fishing trip in France or was it a weekend journey to Swiss?... Can’t remember xD 56. Pair of trainers: A tons of Adidas, Converse and Asics

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: I am a sweet tooth... But I also cook a lot of healthy food when I have time^^ And I can do a very good lasagne =D 58. Drinking: a lot of water, a lot of coffee, a lot of juices...  59. I’m about to: Study for “Structure and functions of plants” 61. Waiting for: a craftsman to repair the fan in my bathroom... 62. Want: to become a good geneticist ;) 63. Get married: next year ;) 64. Career: Researcher in some medical/bio field. I even have some interesting idea which my prof said I should test later and it could be a milestone for curing cancer some day =)

WHICH IS BETTER

65. Hugs or kisses: Cuddle! 66. Lips or eyes: both 67. Shorter or taller: Taller 68. Older or younger: Older 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: nice stomach includes nice arms?.. Arms should I say... 71. Sensitive or loud: is it about ideal partner? loud is funnier to be with ;) 72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: aand troublemaker is funnier to be with ;)

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a Stranger: No Oo 75. Drank hard liquor: Yeah, got to know I am allergic against it after drinking xD 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: at least once a week =D 77. Turned someone down: yupp... 78. Sex on the first date: No 79. Broken someone’s heart: Perhaps... they don’t call or text me to tell that I did =D 80. Had your heart broken: yupp 81. Been arrested: No 82. Cried when someone died: No 83. Fallen for a friend: yepp

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: always ;)

85. Miracles: Hard to define what a miracle is but I think anything could happen 86. Love at first sight: A crush, an attraction, but love is much deeper than just see someone and fall in love. Love is chemistry, it doesn’t work this way ;)

87. Santa Claus: Of course!!! Joulupukki lives in Finland and every Christmas night he brings presents to childish people like me! And if you were nasty, Austrian Krampus will come and eat you ;P 88. Kiss on the first date: Yupp, feels wonderful^^

OTHER:

90. Current best friend name: Nici 91. Eye color: greenish brown 92. Favorite movie: I should write down this perfect movie I really love which should represent my personality but I can’t recall it because I love too many movies xD

I would like to tag @sophiesstudyworld @bibi-loves-books @fiona-studies @hillanguages and @whereloveneverends but only if you want/have some time ;) 

[welcometohellfilm]

Is it kinda cool kinda weird how much W2H has stuck with people? Like people keep doing art n stuff or are even now just joining the fanbase, for your cartoon from years ago now! That's so inspiring? Like, what does it feel like?

It’s pretty much exactly what you just described; kinda weird, but cool!  It’s hard to elaborate on exactly what it feels like, because it’s sort of changed over the last couple years.  I remember when it first started gaining traction, in the weeks after I graduated, and just being so excited to wake up every morning and check the tumblr tags to see what new fanart there was.  I remember seeing little milestones: the first fanart of Mephistopheles, the first AMV, the first cosplay attempts.  Maybe someone shared it on another website and I got a little more traffic on the video… it wasn’t even on Youtube yet, it was just on Vimeo, with all my other animation assignments. People started to realize that I like interacting with fans, so I’d get all kinds of questions.  I’d spend so much time typing, just elaborating on the ideas I had for the story, the characters, or how the universe would work.  What powers do demons have?  What are angels like?  I’d really sit there and think about my responses… I wanted to give people intriguing explanations that would maybe help give them some ideas, for their fan works, you know?  I gave so little with the actual film, but it felt like people were into it because they could sense that maybe there was a larger world planned, a bigger idea behind it.  I certainly wasn’t producing much in the way of a continuation, so that seemed to be a good compromise.  I tried to reblog everything I could, and after awhile there was just SO much… I would sit down once maybe every couple weeks and just go through the tags and try to catch up with it.  I didn’t realize you could queue stuff, so immediately after I’d get a bunch of messages from people telling me how excited they were for my, like… bi-weekly stream of reblogs… just W2H flooding their dash or whatever, haha.  I got so behind, after awhile, and I’m only just recently trying to get back into it and get better about it.  There’s been some weirdness to come of it too, for sure.  There’ve been a couple fans who were just, like… reeeeaaaallly crossing over some personal boundaries.  And I was as respectful as I could’ve possibly been with them, for as long as I could’ve possibly been, but at a point I just had to start ignoring some people.  I try to be helpful, but at a point, it’s like… I’m an animator, I’m not a therapist.  There were really only a couple pointedly inappropriate cases, but there was definitely a point where it felt like I just needed to take a break from it.  Some people kind of take interactivity for granted, and the boundary between creator and fan gets a little harder for them to see.  I don’t feel this is an issue any more, but it’s definitely been a little overwhelming a couple times.  There’s good weirdness and there’s bad weirdness, haha.  It’s generally good weirdness, which I’m thankful for!There’s so many funny little things too, like... once or twice I’ve seen people who were pretty young when they first watched W2H say things like “Oh man, I can’t believe I liked this, I was so young back then...”  BACK THEN!  Of course it’s “back then” to a 15-year-old who was really into something when they were 12, and now they’re embarrassed by it!  Haha... but to me it’s like... idk, I made it when I was 24-25 and now I’m 28.  Like not only is the concept of “back then” totally different to me, but it’s also really funny to see a younger person looking at something I made, as an adult, and go “oh, I’m an adult and this is childish now”... haha.  It’s been interesting to see the fandom develop over the years, people coming and going... it’s really somethin’!  I could talk about the kinda cool/kinda weird all day long, so I’ll just leave it at this!  Haha.  Thanks for the good question.  Lots of memories, for sure.

[lodelss]

“All Hell Broke Loose.”

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down.   “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said.   McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived.   On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars.   But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away.   “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.”   It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

Kishon McDonald, 39, originally of Cleveland, Ohio, poses for a portrait in his neighborhood in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

In the days following George Floyd’s murder, President Trump had focused his attention on the relatively small number of people who had damaged property, threatening to use the “unlimited power of our military” and tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” What the protesters gathered in Lafayette Square that day didn’t know was that he was planning to stage a photo opportunity at a nearby church that evening.   Unbeknownst to McDonald, as he and the others chanted “hands up, don’t shoot,” the U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agencies were just out of sight, donning riot gear and checking the weapons they would shortly use against the crowd to pave the way for the president’s walk to the church.   At 6:30 p.m. — half an hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — dozens of battle-clad officers rushed the protest, hurling stun grenades and firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and pepper balls into the crowd. McDonald says there were no warnings, just an onslaught of violence.   “All hell broke loose,” he said.   As the deafening explosions from the stun grenades gave way to thick clouds of tear gas, terrified protesters began to run from the batons and riot shields that police were using to force them out of the square.   “It was just straight fear. Everybody was scared and running for their lives,” he said.   McDonald tried to plead for instructions from the advancing officers, asking them what they wanted people to do. Instead, one threw a stun grenade at him.   “As it exploded, hot shrapnel hit my leg,” he said. “It felt like somebody put a cast iron skillet on my leg, it was just so hot. I started jumping up and down trying to get away from it, but shrapnel was going everywhere.”   Suffocating tear gas enveloped him and the other protesters, making them gasp and cough as they ran down the street.   “I saw a young boy, he must have been about 15, and he was choking a lot. Somebody put a shirt over his face and kind of ran him out,” he recalled.   McDonald had seen enough. Bruised from being hit with riot shields and with his vision still blurred from the tear gas, he walked home. In a phone interview with the ACLU, he said that the experience had made him more wary of attending protests, but it also illustrated why he’d gone there to begin with.   “It seems like everything is getting to be a military type thing in our society, and we were protesting to calm that down,” he said. “And the message we got is, ‘No, we aren’t calming down.’” “I hope someone gets held accountable,” he added.

****

Law enforcement officers clearing protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2020.

Derek Baker

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans poured into the streets to voice their condemnation of police brutality against Black people. The weeks that followed were a milestone in American history, with protests and displays of solidarity reaching towns as small as Cadillac, Michigan, and cities as large as Atlanta. As months of a painful COVID-19 lockdown gave way to incandescent fury over the killing of Floyd and the violent response of the Minneapolis Police Department towards the initial protests, a few people went as far as burning police precincts or destroying upscale shopping districts.   The vast majority of protests, however, were almost entirely peaceful.   Still, police departments across the country deployed staggering levels of violence against protesters. On social media, the world watched a near-instantaneous live feed of police in dozens of cities firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and other projectiles into protests, using pepper spray against protesters and journalists alike, and beating people with batons.   This widespread and indiscriminate deployment of what are often called “less-lethal” weapons – LLWs – injured countless people, some severely.   In Austin, Texas, 20-year-old college student Justin Howell suffered a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a “beanbag round” filled with lead pellets. Linda Tirado, a journalist and photographer, lost her left eye to a “rubber bullet” fired by police in Minneapolis. In Seattle, 26-year-old Aubreanna Inda nearly died after a stun grenade exploded next to her chest. According to Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality who focuses on police practices, this widespread and violent use of LLWs during the George Floyd uprising was an attack on the protesters’ constitutional right to free speech.   “There’s just no justification under the existing Fourth Amendment framework for the use of these weapons,” he said. “And it’s happening over and over again, with patterns that are so similar across the different cities.”   For years these weapons were referred to as “non-lethal.” But in practice, they have a long history of causing serious injuries and deaths.   A 2016 report by the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations analyzed 25 years of available data on the use of LLWs by law enforcement across the world. It found that between 1990 and 2015, “kinetic impact projectiles” — a category that includes rubber bullets and beanbag rounds — caused at least 1,925 injuries, including 53 deaths and 294 instances of permanent disability.   Tear gas, which is banned for use in warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, injured at least 9,261 people over the same time period, including two deaths and 70 permanent disabilities.   The report also found that LLWs are most commonly used to stamp out political protests and shut down aggressive demands for greater rights.   According to Takei, even the term “less lethal” downplays the damage they can inflict.   “Beating somebody with a baseball bat, as long as you’re not hitting them in the head or other sensitive areas of the body is ‘less lethal,’ but it’s still incredibly violent,” he said. During the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, police used tear gas and other LLWs extensively to disrupt and disperse protests. But after three federal commissions found that abuse of those weapons provoked aggressive responses by protesters and contributed to a cycle of violence, they fell out of favor with U.S. law enforcement as a method of controlling crowds. According to the Marshall Project, in subsequent decades, some police departments adopted a “negotiated management” approach to protests, working with organizers in advance to establish ground rules meant to prevent violence. But any movement toward de-escalation evaporated in the wake of large anti-globalization protests that took place during a 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, in an event that would come to be called the “Battle for Seattle.” In a prelude to how many police departments would later approach the George Floyd uprising, Seattle police attacked the mostly non-violent protesters with LLWs, provoking a handful to respond aggressively in kind.   “The response of a lot of police departments after that was, well if some people won’t act as predicted, we should have a hyper-aggressive response for everybody,” said Takei. “But when police adopt this type of response to Black-led protests against police violence, they are repeating a pattern of brutality that goes back to the origins of American policing in Southern slave patrols.”   Now, as outcry over the indiscriminate use of LLWs against Black Lives Matter protesters mounts, some municipalities are weighing restrictions on the weapons. After the ACLU sued the Seattle Police Department in early June for its violent response to protests in the city, a judge ordered police there to cease using the weapons against peaceful demonstrators, saying they had “chilled speech.”   Days later, Seattle’s city council voted unanimously to prohibit their use against protesters. Legislators in Atlanta and other cities have also proposed similar bans.   The ACLU spoke to a number of people who were attacked with LLWs by police during demonstrations over George Floyd’s murder in recent weeks. This is how they described their experiences.

****

Gabe Schlough at his home in Denver, Colorado.

Jimena Peck for the ACLU

Gabe Schlough wasn’t surprised that the Minneapolis Police Department had killed another one of its Black residents. He lives in Denver now, but he’d gone to college years earlier in Minneapolis. Just before he graduated, he’d been shot in the back with a stun gun by police who entered his home and tried to arrest him in a case of mistaken identity.   Schlough had been invited to a protest at downtown Denver’s Capitol Building that night, but instead he decided to drive his motorcycle up into the mountains with a friend.   “In one of the areas where people were hiking and snowboarding and skiing down I saw three Black people, and I was just fucking happy,” he said. “I was like, thank God not every Black person thinks they need to be at the Capitol right now.”   But when he got back home later that night and saw images of the Denver Police Department’s response to the protest, he felt his blood start to boil.   “We can’t even give doctors and nurses facemasks, but we can give our police access to militarized weapons that are exceedingly more expensive and hard to create than the protective mechanisms we need for health care workers,” he recalled thinking.   Schlough has a degree in public health anthropology, and he’d worked in health care across the world, including a stint in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone. He had medical training and had participated in protests before, so he decided to defy the curfew along with a few friends to see if he could offer help in case anyone got hurt. Donning his face mask along with sunglasses to protect his eyes, Schlough set off towards the Capitol Building.   When he arrived, he saw a crowd of two or three hundred people facing down a line of police.   “They were standing just a little bit more than shoulder to shoulder apart with full riot gear, with their face shields and full protective armor on,” he recalled.   Schlough moved up toward the front of the crowd. Behind him, somebody set a pile of garbage on fire. That was all the police needed to begin their advance. As they moved forward, they shot canisters of tear gas into the crowd and tossed stun grenades.   “I was going around and telling people who didn’t have eye coverings to watch their eyes and protect their face,” he said. “Just running up and down the line and getting people educated, like this is happening and this is what you need to know.”   As a canister of tear gas landed next to him, Schlough bent down to try and cover it with a traffic cone so the gas wouldn’t spread. Suddenly, he felt sharp blows to his face and chest.   “A shock hit me and my head popped up,” he said. “I felt like somebody had punched me in the chest.”   Schlough had been shot with rubber bullets, although he didn’t know it yet. As he fell back further into the crowd of protestors, someone told him he was bleeding.   “You need to go to a hospital,” they said. “Your face is falling off.”   Another bystander pulled out his phone and showed Schlough his injury. The bullet had left a gaping wound on his chin, and blood was pouring down onto the front of his shirt. In retrospect, Schlough says he thinks he was specifically targeted, and that police knew exactly where they were aiming when they shot him.   He and a friend left and started walking toward a nearby hospital where he did volunteer shifts. But when they arrived, Denver police were also there.   “There were cop cars there and more pulling up, and I understood that it was not a safe place for me to get treated because of the amount of police presence there,” he said.   Instead, Schlough had to drive outside Denver to be treated at a different facility. Doctors cleaned his wound and gave him 20 stitches. More than a week later, part of his chin is still numb. He worries that he may have suffered nerve damage.   Last Christmas, while visiting his mother in Wisconsin, he says one of her friends asked him what the most dangerous place he’d ever been was.   “I told her that I’m the most scared when I’m in the U.S. and around a police officer,” he said. “Because I know that no matter who I am or what I’ve done in my life, I can be shot and killed, and nothing will matter.”

****

Toni Sanders, 36, poses for a portrait at her home in Washington, D.C., June 13, 2020.

Allison Shelley for the ACLU

Toni Sanders arrived at Lafayette Square along with her wife and 9-year-old stepson in the late afternoon of June 1 – the same day that Kishon McDonald was there. Their son — identified in court papers as J.N.C. — had been watching the news over the preceding days, and the family had been having difficult conversations about George Floyd and why there was unrest rocking the country.   “We spoke about Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Tamir Rice, and people right here in D.C. who had been killed by Metropolitan Police — Raphael Briscoe, Terrence Sterling, Marqueese Alston, and explained to him that was why people were protesting,” Sanders said.   He said that he’d like to accompany Sanders and his mother to Lafayette Square.   “I assured him that it would be safe because it was a peaceful protest and that we would leave before the curfew started,” she said.   At first, she was glad that she’d agreed to bring him to what felt like a “community environment.” People in the square were passing out snacks, chanting, and kneeling in solidarity with George Floyd.   “Everything started out wonderful, it was a great experience,” she recalled. “We even took a picture when we first got down there just to remember the date we all stood together.”   Then, the attack began.   “I just heard the loud bah bah bah bah, and smoke started to fill the area.”   Sanders was immediately terrified for her young stepson.   “I just started screaming to my family, run, run, run,” she said. The three sprinted away from the sound of detonating stun grenades and the shrieks of injured protesters. After making it a few blocks away, they stopped to catch their breath and check in with one another.   “He said, ‘I can’t believe I just survived my first near-death experience.’ And it literally broke my heart because there’s honestly nothing I could say to him. I couldn’t tell him this wasn’t a near-death experience.”   Sanders was furious that police hadn’t warned protesters to disperse before violently clearing the park. If they had, she said, she would have quickly brought her stepson to safety.   “If we had been asked to either move back or leave, we would have. We would not have protested that because we have a child that we must look out for,” she said.   After the attack, Sanders’ son expressed anger and hurt over how police had treated them. Sanders had refused to allow the experience to scare her away from attending protests, but now when she left the house he would ask her to promise that she wouldn’t die.   “I wanted to show him that even though you’re afraid, if someone is trying to take your rights and do you wrong, you have to stand up for who you are and what you believe in,” she said.   The couple decided to put him into therapy to work out how that day affected him. Sanders says he told his therapist that he thinks that it’s the end of the world now, and that the government is at war with Black people.   “Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations with him about systemic racism, overt racism, covert racism,” she said. “And it’s horrible to have to take that innocence from him.”   Along with Kishon McDonald, Sanders is one of two plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit over the attack on Lafayette Square protesters that day. Over the phone, she recites the poem ‘If We Must Die’ by Claude McKay.   We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!   “We’re here to show you that we’re still citizens, and we’re going to exercise our rights, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

****

Alexandra Chen, a law student at Seattle University and a plaintiff in the lawsuit Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County v. City of Seattle, poses for a portrait in Seattle, Washington on June 15, 2020.

David Ryder for the ACLU.

On May 30, first-year law student Alexandra Chen marched to a police precinct in downtown Seattle along with a few hundred other demonstrators. It was the second protest she’d attended, the first being the day before. When they arrived at the precinct, there were police in riot gear out in front, with others standing in the windows and watching the crowd from above.   “People were clearly agitated, but I didn’t see anyone really try to push the ticket,” she said. “Folks were just crowding around and leading chants.”   A few scattered water bottles along with a road flare were thrown at the precinct, but aside from that, Chen said nobody in the crowd was signaling that violence was coming.   “I remember thinking to myself, ‘You know, this would be a great opportunity for someone to come out with a megaphone and make a statement about how you understand why we’re so angry and you want to work with us on how to fix this,’” she said.   Instead, just like in Washington, D.C., Denver, and dozens of other cities, the Seattle Police Department began to throw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd.   “There was no warning at all,” she said. “It was just absolute chaos.”   When the first stun grenade detonated near her, she felt a “deep percussive feeling” in her chest. People began to scream and run as tear gas filled the street. As she and her friend tried to move away from the precinct, she noticed another young woman desperately trying to find fresh air.   “There was a gap in a wall that was about six to eight inches between buildings, and she was trying to escape the gas. It looked like she was trying to crawl into that space, and you could hear her retching,” she said.   Tear gas is by its nature indiscriminate. It can’t be controlled or targeted to incapacitate specific people. As soon as a canister or grenade is launched, it becomes the property of the wind. Young and old alike are subject to its effects, which Chen says go from “uncomfortable to intolerable in a short amount of time.”   Chen says that when the group first arrived at the precinct, nearly everyone was wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But after the tear gas was fired, people began to rip them off as they choked, coughed, and gasped for air.   “First, you think to yourself, “Okay, I can tolerate this,’” she said. “You don’t really expect that it’s going to get worse, but it does. It moves deeper into your face and once it gets into your sinuses, everything it touches burns.”   All around her, people were calling out for their friends and loved ones through the thick smoke.   “It was hard to tell which direction to run because when they threw the canisters, they rolled down the hills spewing tear gas the whole way. So effectively, you had not just the immediate area in front of the police station gassed, you had the whole block, and when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t tell where it ends,” she recalled.   After Chen and her friend emerged from the cloud, a medic nearby helped flush her eyes out with water, and the two walked back to her apartment. She is now a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit brought against the Seattle Police Department over its use of tear gas and other LLWs.   “I don’t care what they want to say about how people are violent,” she said. “What I saw was peaceful protesters met with an immediate and overwhelming show of force to get us to disperse.”

****

Jared Goyette stands in front of the remains of the Minnesota Police Department’s Third Precinct.

Brandon Bell for the ACLU

Jared Goyette moved to Minneapolis five years ago to be close to his daughter. As a journalist, he’d covered protests over police brutality before — first at the Mall of America during the Ferguson uprising, and then later after the killing of Philando Castile.   Over the years, he’d developed ties to the city’s activist community, and in the hours after the video of George Floyd’s murder was released, his phone began to buzz.   “I started getting texts from different Black activists in the Twin Cities,” he said. Goyette could tell that Floyd’s killing would lead to unrest, and before long national news outlets began reaching out to ask for his help covering the story.   On May 27th, two days after Floyd’s death, Goyette heard the sound of helicopters buzzing over the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct. The Precinct had already become a flash point for demonstrations, and Goyette decided to head to the area to see what was happening.   “When I started surveying the scene, it was entirely different from anything I’d seen in my previous years of covering protests against police violence in Minnesota,” he said.   Several hundred people had surrounded the precinct, and officers in riot gear were standing on the roof firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Goyette had his camera and notepad with him and, along with other journalists there, was visibly covering the standoff in his role as a reporter.   He saw that a young man had been shot in the head with a ballistic projectile, and moved towards him to try and see if he could do anything to help.   “He was just writhing on the ground in clear, severe pain,” he said. “People were screaming, ‘Call 911.’”   Goyette noticed that his ten-year-old daughter had texted him to ask where he was, so he moved off to the side to text a response. Suddenly, he was on the ground.   “There was a searing pain in my eye,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like I was hit and then I fell, it was like I’m standing and then wait, I’m not standing and everything is black.”   Goyette had been shot in the head with a rubber bullet. His nose was bleeding and his eye was swollen and black. People moved towards him to help, but tear gas began to flood the area.   He managed to woozily make his way to safety, and after gathering his composure for a few minutes, found his car and drove home. Initially, he didn’t think he needed medical attention, but his girlfriend told him he had to visit a community clinic. Health workers there said that if he’d waited longer for treatment, he might have lost sight in that eye.   He says he thinks it’s unlikely that officers didn’t know he was a journalist when they shot him.   “I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chanting,” he said. “Protesters aren’t normally dressed in a dress shirt and slacks.”   Goyette wasn’t the only journalist who was targeted by Minneapolis police that week. Many documented being pepper sprayed despite clearly identifying themselves as reporters. Others were arrested, gassed, threatened, or ⁠— like Goyette ⁠— shot with rubber bullets. In a clip that went viral, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television, despite the fact that he was accompanied by a full news crew with cameras and sound equipment.   “I worry that the sort of ‘fake news’ doctrine is leading to journalists being targeted,” said Goyette. “And this is the first time that I think we saw that at a systematic scale.”   On June 3rd, the ACLU filed suit against the City of Minneapolis over the attacks on journalists that were carried out by MPD officers. Goyette is the lead plaintiff in the case.   “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I feel angry, and a little bit afraid,” he said. “The Police Chief made an apology to journalists who were fired upon, but there wasn’t anything behind that apology. No promise to investigate and hold people accountable, nothing other than a sentimental gesture. And I fear that people are just going to move on.”

Published June 23, 2020 at 07:12PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3eu2a5Y

[thiscitylife]

11 Milestones that will Shape Vancouver’s Future

What are the significant events, activities and decisions in 2016 that will shape Vancouver’s future?

Earlier this fall, the Vancouver City Planning Commission put together a preliminary list of 2016 planning milestones that was reviewed by planners, architects, landscape architects, developers, urban historians and engaged urbanists. The list was put to a vote and the final results were presented and debated at an event last week. It included panelists such as the former Mayor of Vancouver and Premier of BC, Mike Harcourt, and Carla Guerrera, a leader in real estate development and urban planning. 

Here is the list published by the VCPC, in order of significance. I agree that all of the items on the list will have a significant impact on Vancouver’s future (except maybe the launch of bike-sharing - do we have statistics on the success of the program since its launch?). It is worth noting that many of these milestones are “good news” planning goodies. What is not mentioned are the negative trends affecting them, such as the city’s homeless count, which was the highest ever recorded in 2016, and the benchmark price of a home in Greater Vancouver, which rose by 31.4 per cent to $933,100 in one year.

What do you think were the most important planning milestones of 2016? Is anything missing?

Design Concept for Evergreen Line station (Photo: BC Ministry of Transportation)

1. SkyTrain Expansion Connects Port Moody, Coquitlam to Vancouver

TransLink’s Millennium Line Evergreen extension opened on December 2, 2016, connecting the Tri-Cities region of Metro Vancouver to the rapid-transit network that runs into downtown Vancouver (my retired and super keen urban planner Dad rode it three times on opening day!). Expansion of the TransLink network is expected to start a new urban era for the region. The rapid-transit connection will bring more affordable housing and allow quiet bedroom municipalities outside Vancouver to become more urban. TransLink anticipates daily ridership of 70,000 within five years. 

2. City Steps Aggressively into Housing

The crisis of limited affordable housing forced Vancouver to accept greater responsibility for housing despite limited financial resources. City Council prodded senior levels of government to contribute to housing construction by offering four City-owned sites for specific projects. The municipal housing agency also sparked interest in modular housing that can be manufactured off-site, stacked, relocated and reconfigured. 

Vancouver Mayor, Gregor Robertson, speaking about affordable housing in the Downtown Eastside (Photo: Mark Van Manen)

3. City buys Arbutus Corridor

The City of Vancouver paid $55-million to buy the Canadian Pacific Railway Limited rail line that ran between Kitsilano and the Fraser River for redevelopment as greenway, including cycling and pedestrian paths. The land is also to be preserved for a potential light-rail corridor. Renamed the Arbutus Greenway, the green space may spark some densification in close proximity to the corridor. 

4. Tax on Foreign Nationals Buying Metro Vancouver Real Estate

In June 2016, the B.C. government announced a 15 percent property transfer tax on foreign nationals buying real estate in Metro Vancouver.  The tax was introduced to dampen prices in Vancouver’s hot real estate market, where the average price for detached properties peaked in January 2016 at $1.83-million. By November, the average price had decreased to $1.61-million and bidding above asking price was rare.

Resident Beaver in Vancouver’s Olympic Village (Photo: CBC)

5. Vancouver Park Board Approves Biodiversity Plan

A comprehensive Biodiversity Strategy, approved by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation on February 1, 2016, is intended to increase the size and quality of Vancouver’s forests, wetlands, streams, shorelines and meadows. The Park Board stepped beyond its traditional role as custodian of green space to set the goal of restoring or enhancing 25 hectares of natural areas by 2020. Habitat is to be expanded for pollinators, birds, salmon, herring, beavers and otters. 

6. Strata Rules Eased

The provincial government changed the B.C. Strata Property Act on July 29, 2016, to allow a strata corporation to be terminated with the support of only 80 per cent of the owners. Previously 100 per cent support was required. This action is expected to lead to the sale and demolition of many three- and four-storey walk-ups built in the 1970s and earlier, uprooting long-time residents and leading to increased density. 

2013′s Truth and Reconciliation Walk in Vancouver (Photo: Murray Bush)

7. City Moves Forward on Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action

Vancouver City Council approved 41 actions outlined by the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Vancouver Park Board also approved 28 actions. These include the long-term goals of strengthening local First Nations and urban aboriginal relations, promoting aboriginal peoples arts, culture, awareness, and understanding and incorporating the perspectives of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, and the urban aboriginal community in development and delivery of city services.

8. Empty Homes Tax Introduced by City

In a hot real estate market where homes are purchased and flipped like stocks, Vancouver City Council became the first municipality in Canada to approve a one percent tax on empty homes. It is intended as a disincentive to property investors, who are believed to be holding around 10,000 houses and condos off the market, at a time when the vacancy rate in Vancouver is below one per cent. Staff project the one percent tax could turn up to 4,200 empty units into occupied homes, while revenue from the tax will enable the City to recoup its administration expenses and net revenues will be reinvested into affordable housing initiatives.

Preliminary design concepts for Robson Square

9. 800-block Robson Street Permanently Closed to Traffic

On April 20, 2016, City Council approved the permanent closure of the 800-block of Robson Street to all vehicular traffic, turning the roadway into a public plaza.   The decision allows for the revival of the original architectural and social goals for a three-block site: to create the largest public space in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

10. Vancouver Starts Up a Bike-Sharing Program

On July 20, 2016, the City of Vancouver launched a bike-sharing program named “Mobi,” which is expected to lead to expanded options for mobility, encourages a healthy lifestyle, increased use of new bike lanes in the city, reduced pressure on transit, and less vehicular traffic. By the beginning of December, around 5,000 people signed up for monthly or annual bike-share memberships and an additional 5,000 bought daily passes.

Grandview-Woodlands Citizens Assembly

11. Grandview-Woodlands Citizens Assembly Sets a New Direction for Community

A group of 48 community members worked collaboratively as a Citizens Assembly to develop recommendations for a community plan for the Grandview Woodlands neighbourhood. For the first time in Canada, a Citizens’ Assembly put local residents at the centre of the planning process to grapple with contentious issues dividing an iconic community of the City. In an unprecedented initiative in citizen engagement, local residents led roundtable discussions, planning workshops and walking tours to come up with directions, policies and the recommendations.  City Council approved the plan, with some controversial changes, on July 27, 2016.

[brwngrlswagger]

I’M 30, Y’ALL!

I’m thrilled to be ALIVE! I’m excited for and anxious about what my 30’s will bring!

Here are some of the things I’ve learned on this very bumpy road to 30!

(Gotta preface this by saying these are some of the lessons I have learned. None of these are generalizable. I have not figured it all out but I’m proud of my growth and every inch I’ve crawled and fought toward progress. There is no formula. This is not advice - I am no expert. This list isn’t exhaustive - just a bunch of random things I managed to remember and journal about over the years. If it resonates, great - read on. If it doesn’t, cool. Let’s leave it at that, k? Love you!) 1. Jesus is LORD! I don’t know who I would be without Jesus. 

2. Make room to fail! Failure is a part of the journey. You won’t make every shot and that is OK (I don’t know the proper basketball metaphor but y’all know what I mean lol).

3. Give yourself grace. Forgive yourself where you fall short. 

4. “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again…” This isn’t just an old urban adage or chorus from the best R&B song dropped in ’01 – it is an important life practice I took way too long to apply to my own life.

I did not know I could fail (I’m Haitian – success and achievement were drilled into my head from childhood) and I set incredibly harsh and high standards for myself. I was fine as long as I was meeting my goals bu I became a perfectionist and eventually lost myself chasing after things with the wrong perspective.

Life also got real – doors kept closing, faith did not come as easily, I lost my motivation and ferocious determination/will – and I did not handle it well. I perceived every temporary setback as a failure I could not overcome. I was not equipped to process or cope with what was happening so I stayed stagnant as a form of self-preservation.

Dusting myself off and trying again took years. It was not easy. It took constantly duking it out with God, surrendering and taking it back. It took therapy, holding thoughts captive, confronting a LOT of my issues. It took the renewing of my mind and the grace of God. I choose hope every single day. It’s weird. Still figuring it out but by God’s grace, I plan on always moving forward in the face of difficulty. Which leads to the next lesson–

5. “We are not left to fate. We are called to faith.” - Aunty Beth Moore 

For the past few weeks, I have been doing a TON of self-inventory (using this incredible resource: http://laracasey.com/2017/01/04/tips-how-to-get-started-on-2017-goals/). I have God-given gifts, talents, dreams and vision that I sat on for years because of fear of getting ahead of God or somehow usurping his position in my life. 

I don’t know what life will bring this year but I am finding the courage to aim my arrow audaciously and trust God for the provision of future victory. I’m excited to live purposefully and trust the lord with my life AND commit every corner of my heart and life to him. So thankful nothing is wasted!

6. Cultivate your relationships with people. God is relational and we are called to love others and dwell in community. The beauty is we don’t do it perfectly, and hopefully we ain’t out here damaging folks, but grace abounds here, too – thank God!

7. Not everything deserves a response. There’s sooo much dignity on the high road. Walk away, log off, deescalate.

8. Study the word of God for yourself.

9. Question everything. I really hate group-think and a lack of intellectual curiosity. It’s incredibly Orwellian. So I find myself always pushing back and challenging positions, not to get a rise out of folks or live in woeful rebellion lol, but to determine the source of convictions. I sometimes don’t even know why I believe something until I am challenged on it. It forces me to take a step back and really think critically for myself.

10. Personal grooming and presentation are important. 

11. Read BOOKS! Lots of them! Never stop learning, Tam!

12. Not everyone will like you but not everyone is hater. Pay attention to perceptions or critiques. These might be legitimate areas of development.

13. Forgive. Unforgiveness is a complex, multi-layered thing but it’s also an incredible burden. I am not qualified to speak on it but I think this is a good start: https://www.gotquestions.org/unforgiveness.html

14. Do not fear emotions. This was a huge lesson for me. Life is hard and it sometimes hurts. Until maybe 4 months ago, I either did not know what to do with negative emotions, internalized them, and developed unhealthy coping mechanisms. I would also spiritualize them away with out-of-context scriptures and weird faith declarations that did not necessarily change or erase the source of pain/trauma/anger and minimized my active participation in growth.

I have chosen to acknowledge my feelings, particularly negative emotions/thoughts; identify its cause or source and triggers, understand why I feel that way, deal honestly and graciously with myself; and  whatever I’ve experienced or situations I am presently in, process it and bring it to the lord. Jesus cares soooo much about our emotional wellness and emotional maturity and healing is such a process. 

I just want to cultivate the habit of doing the hard, dirty work of digging a little deeper in order to uproot unpleasant things and the things they come with, and allow Jesus to heal me. 

15. Grasp personal finance/financial literacy. 

16. Family is a treasure. Don’t know a group of people who get on my nerves more but where would I be without my loud, crazy, ratchet clan?

17. Date. Interact with the opposite sex. Forgive my shade but please do not let the Heather Lindsey’s of the world shame you for desiring marriage and being intentional about it. Remember, they get to go home to a warm, muscular body and a combined income every night. Oh, maybe avoid those “EYE’M MARRIED TO JEZUS WAITING FOR MY BOAZ” types. I do not understand this…

18. Traveling is cool but you can stay local, too. I love living in NYC for that reason. LOOK HOW AWESOME: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/idnyc/benefits/museums-and-cultural-institutions.page

19. Invest in a very good leather bag. 

20. Indulge/splurge a little. 

21. Support and collaborate with your friends.  Solicit their services. Pay full price. Attend their events. Celebrate milestones! Share. Repeat.

22. Rest.

23. Aloneness. I’m a classic extrovert but I’ve grown to really love being alone, too.

24. Be reliable. Let your yes be yes, and no be no. I’m a chronic flake though. 

25. Self-care is the best care. Whatever this means to you.

26. Health is wealth. 

27. Try new things. 

28. Ask for what you want. SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. Leave little room for assumptions. Ask for a minute to step away and gather your thoughts and not react from anger or confusion but return and finish. DON’T BE PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE. People aren’t mind readers. COMMUNICATION IS KEY.

29. Build strategy around your goals. Take the time to pray, develop, invest in ideas and turn them into strategic, actionable plans.

30. Discipleship/Mentorship! I was a rough, rowdy, unruly girl when I first got saved (shoot, I still am lol). Incredible, patient, beautiful people have played a huge role in helping me along this journey. I feel so blessed.

K, done. Let me know if you have questions. Forgive me if this is a hot mess, all over the place, too frank, or contradictory – if that ain’t me I don’t know what is.

I am so ready for this new decade! Goodbye, Turbulent 20s. Hellllooooo, Flirty 30s! Pray for me! ::twirls::