#More Australians leaving Hong Kong

[adimouze]

For u oomfie hand in rotten hand (it keeps growing I want more soft maxiel I will write it for all our needs)

--

He doesn't take the jet there. He thought about it. Doesn't want people - his people even, to know. To think they can stop him. He doesn't even text Daniel.

They talked before his flight, although Daniel doesn't know Max was leaving. Was landing. Max remembers saying something about sim work, words about the race half swallowed in embarrassment, in excitement. He remembers the soft smile - indulgent even, that Daniel kept throughout. You’ll win, he said and Max doesn't want to correct him.

He would. Could have. Still can – but Max does not want to. Or rather, he thinks – he wants, for himself, for the first time.

He wonders if Daniel has found peace now. Does it have Max’s name on it? Does it make a place for him? Max rubs sweaty palms into his jeans. Refuses the offer from the stewardess to have more to drink. Screws the cap on further against his brow just in case someone recognises him even when they boarded at 2am.

The gin doesn't taste as nice as in his own jet. He sweats more. Sleeps through a guy snoring even with the space between them in first class. He sleeps an hour, two. There are eighteen more to go.

Max watches the plane travel across the world on the screen instead. His heart doesn't stutter when it glances near Abu Dhabi. It flutters when they cross Hong Kong, aches as they cross the ocean and the Australian coast appears in the corner like the DVD logo of Max's childhood.

Words spill behind his tongue. Daniel’s name too. He rehearses what he wants to say. Mimes the words as the figure plane follows the dotted line. It doesn't get easier.

He turns airplane mode off when they land. It blows up with notifications. GP, Rupert – Christian emailed a schedule. He starts the sim session tomorrow. Today, in fact.

Max may already be late. He scrolls past them. Marks them muted. Crosses into Australian land and hot tarmac. It doesn't quite smell like the Melbourne track.

Daniel sent him memes in the last few hours. Before he started feeding the animals. Max has learnt and memorised their names. Even Maximilian the calf. It still makes Daniel snort when he says it - says the baby cow stares at him as much as Max does. Hence the name, Maxy.

Asks Max ten times if he gets the joke - Max, Max Emilian, Maximilian. Max nods, laughs anyway, as it makes Daniel laugh harder. Tells him his joke is silly, and Daniel replies he spent an hour thinking of the name thank you Max. Rambles about how he thought about it as baby cow not Max was being licked by his mother, calf hair sticking up everywhere just like my Max after a race.

Daniel doesn’t say anything when Max chokes on his water, when he breathes too loud. Chokes on Daniel’s name. Tries to find a joke about his hair and the baby calf. Doesn’t come up with one. Daniel smiles, pleased thing Max screenshots with clumsy fingers. It’s blurry. Max sets it as Daniel’s profile picture everywhere. Sends it to Victoria unprompted and gets a heart and a thumbs up from her.

Sends it to team redline. Mutes Luke’s dms for an hour or two after.

Max thinks he stares morethan Maximillian the baby calf anyway. Loves Daniel more than the baby cow. Wants the way Daniel smiles softly at it, the cooing in his voice making Max’s stomach tighten with need. The baby cow doesn't realise how lucky it is, to get Daniel’s affection so freely. Max will be there soon.

Max wants to beg Daniel to give it to him too.

Two more memes. He likes them all, even if Lando sent them to him two weeks ago, when they first appeared on TikTok. It’s cute. Max can't wait to watch them and hear Daniel laugh as he does so - always.

Daniel also keeps sending this guy - burly, hairy - working on a farm. Max always gnaws at his lips so he doesn't ask Daniel if he would like Max that way. Would Daniel be ok if Max burns under the sun instead, that his hair is blonde everywhere and will not be as dark as the TikTok man’s. He can get burly, he thinks — but Daniel will need to let him race with the team online, in exchange.

He knows there is a spare room, in Daniel's farmhouse. Max thinks he can fix his set up there. Can buy a new one. He already knows the ridiculous shipping fees, and has it on back order anyway. Can get Daniel to play with him maybe. He knows Daniel will say yes. Even if Daniel sucks at FIFA. Max tells him whenever he can.

--

My oomfie here writes the best fics btw!!!! This healed me!!!!!

[goldeneyedgirl]

Ficmas22: Day 12: Korean Alice WIP

Hi guys.

This fic wasn't the plan tonight but in the space of twenty-four hours I have acquired a second-degree sunburn (everything they say about the Australian sun in summer is true, and it was a really dumb mistake) and a sprained ankle. So we've got some Korean Alice tonight!

It takes less than a day for Jasper to bring him the information Alice has requested. She cloisters herself in Esme’s studio, on the make-shift bed they’ve arranged. She makes herself a sandwich and washes her clothing, but other than that, appears to sleep. 

“The survivors of the Busan attack,” Carlisle tells her, in front of the family as everyone is curious about her, “have relocated to Hong Kong under the protection of Huang Gao.”

If anything, the girl gets paler, and Jasper is as far away from her as he can get. 

Alice nods. “Any word of the survivors?” 

“I’m afraid not but I’m sure we can pass on a message?” Carlisle offers, wishing this girl would give them something to work with. 

“No, you’ve done more than I hoped.” Her voice is dull, and she seems to make up her mind. “And I will ask you for one more favour so I might leave you in peace - I need to return to Busan. I have a Korean passport but no money.”

“Who is Hala?” Edward interrupts, and Jasper straightens up. 

“A friend I hope survived the attack. She will find me in Busan, if she is still alive,” Alice says.

“Hala of the Pravat coven?” Jasper asks, and Carlisle is vaguely relieved at this clue of her identity. 

“Yes.”

“How do you know them?”

“I worked for Ratana.”

//

“You say you’ve never met me, Jasper Hale.” She switches from English to Korean. “And it seems we’re both acquainted with Hala.”

The dawning realisation on Jasper’s face is both funny and terrible as his eldest son stares at their guest.

“She didn’t - only for the transport,” Jasper manages, but he looks sick. “That was the agreement I consented to.”

Alice said nothing.

“When did we meet?” Jasper asked, and the family is looking between them, like a tennis match. 

“Some time ago. I don’t really keep track of these things,” Alice seems very distant. “You were… a good friend to me, Jasper. I protected you as best as I could, but Hala answers to higher authorities than I. I would not have disturbed you and your family if I was not in dire need.”

//

She gets back to Busan much faster than she left it, in only a day and a half. The Cullens have given her enough cash to travel, supplied her with a suitcase of clothing that she doesn’t even bother to claim from baggage.

Her apartment is in a skinny building overlooking a narrow street with a jumble of businesses - some cafes, a shoe-repairer, a pawn shop, an overflowing grocery store, and a laundromat. All wide, grimy windows for twelve floors. Some residents are brave enough to hang their laundry between the buildings. She’s not. 

She wasn’t the last person in her apartment, she realises when she walks in. The door has been fixed, but was recently broken - she can see the seam of repairs. It’s one of those rare times where she’s pleased that she - well, Ratana - pays her rent months ahead of time, because she still has a place to live. 

The floor is filthy, the bed has been torn apart, and the emergency phone has been smashed. They’ve even cut into her armchair, shoved her few cups and plates to the floor. Her lamp and her ancient television are gone, probably stolen. The clothing she left behind is crumpled on the floor. 

The whole place is trashed. 

—

It takes her a week to put her life back into order - the Cullens’ travel money covers a replacement mattress, and she raids the pawn shop and the thrift store for a new armchair, new clothes and bedding, new dishes. And another ancient television that doesn’t always play in colour. 

She gets a job cleaning at the cafe across the street, and the owner treats her with suspicion but pays her in cash at the end of each shift. If it’s been a good day, he gives her food to take home. It’s not the best food, been sitting under a heat lamp all day, but she takes it gratefully and sometimes even eats it. 

She doesn’t throw away the phone that the Cullens gave her. Two messages come through, from Dr Cullen checking that she arrived safely and then one expressing concern for the lack of response. 

It takes her sixty eight days to steel herself enough to send back a polite thank you and reassure him she made it back to Korea. Then she turns it off. 

—

Winter folds into spring, and that just means scraping together money for clothing and shoes. She hasn’t exactly looked for her coven, or anyone, but no one has come looking for her and she doesn’t know how long she’s going to be alone. And that means that her money has to stretch to rent and food and clothing. The allowance Ratana had given her had not been generous, but that was only because Ratana paid her rent directly to the landlord. 

So, she cleans. And sometimes she hangs around the laundromat, getting paid to wash and dry other peoples’ clothing whilst they go off and do something more important. The owner chases her off, some days, and she only earns enough to cover a day’s food on a good day but it fills in the time. 

That’s mostly what she’s doing right now. Filling in time. She has her routine down to the minute - wake up, make tea, get changed, tidy up, go to the laundromat for a few hours, go to work, come home, shower, eat something, and sleep. 

Rinse and repeat. 

There’s a hollowness in her chest that seems to get bigger 

—

He bought her the beads when he proposed - the Markets of 1968. The only place open to buy a ring was the Markets, and neither of them wanted to buy one there. He swore that when they got to America, he’d get her the most beautiful ring ever seen. But until then, a string of black and gold beads around her neck would have to do. 

—

The first Market back is two years after the attack. She’s impressed Ratana is that efficient, but the woman is a one-person army. Except, it’s different now. Ratana works under the protection of Huang Gao now - for how long, nobody knows. Ratana is insistent that she remain a secret, swears that none of the Chinese coven know about her existence. 

She’s really not expecting him to attend, honestly. She sinks herself into market-work, into making sure the girls are comfortable, into packing stock and pricing and dealing with customers. She darts between stalls at Amita’s request, filling in for sellers when they need to take a break. 

“No one from the Hale or Cullen coven came,” Hala says kindly, at the end of the night. She’s sweeping up the mess of blood and sawdust and dirt that covers the floors, and not in the mood to speak. 

“No,” she says, as one of the other workers tosses another bucket of water onto the mess on the floor. She’s accepted that her shoes are done for tonight, she’ll have to throw them in the burn pile. She doesn’t bother to point out the singular guest from the Hale-Cullen coven was Jasper. And he’s never missed a Market before. 

“Are you…?” Hala begins, and she shrugs. 

“There was a ‘before’, so I expected there to be an ‘after’,” she manages, making a face when she thinks she spots a clump of hair. Whichever fucker decided to feed on the floor deserved to be banned for life.

Hala nods and lets her keep cleaning, maybe recognising that this isn’t the time for such a conversation; that they might be close, but they aren’t the sort of close where either of them cry on each other’s shoulders. Where either of them know a single thing about the other outside of the business. 

That none of them have really been okay since the Volturi’s recruitment. They are all stretched thin, taunt and worried. Worried about Aro of Italy, worried about Ratana’s alliance with Huang Gao, worried about the future. 

“You can go.” Ratana’s hand is firm on her shoulder, as she takes the broom from her, and slips some folded notes into her hand. “Get some sleep and some food, yes?”

She nods, and Ratana summons some new recruit with the snap of her fingers to continue to wash away the blood. 

Hala guides her back to the streets, and she makes her way home as the sun peaks over the horizon. None of the vendors she eats at are still open, most of them packing up. The streets are nearly empty; this isn’t a face of the city she normally sees. It feels very strange. 

She wonders how long it takes to fall out of love with someone. 

—

Jasper brings the whole family to the second market, and just seeing him on the floor is enough to make her feel sick and ashamed, so when Biyu tells her Ratana wants her working in the backroom, she agrees quickly. 

Mrs Cullen definitely spots her, but doesn’t say anything. She just looks curious. 

If she watches them from one of the windows, it’s only because doing the books for Ratana is inherently dull work, even with the runners bringing the invoices and receipts every hour. She watches them roam the floor, watches what they choose for themselves.

Watches the scene they cause when they come upon the flesh sellers, and she idly wonders if they realise those girls are here for both fucking and feeding, buyer’s choice. She can’t pick which one they would be more upset over. But Ratana does her best, and every single body for sale is a dead girl walking. Disease, drugs, poverty, or good old-fashioned gang warfare - none of them has a life anymore, and this is an easy way to make life-changing amounts of money for their parents or siblings or children or friends.

Ratana lets her leave sometime around two, letting her slip out ahead of the Cullens. For some incomprehensible reason, Ratana presses a bag of hot food into her hands as she turns to go and she nods her thanks. 

In the street, she walks only a few meters down the road before she sits down in the gutter, and opens up whatever Ratana has decided to give her. It’s still warm, and she eats it absently, still contemplating the walk home. She’ll have two days off, now - to sleep and clean and fill her time, so that she’s nowhere nearby when Huang Gao’s representative comes to collect his money. 

Immortality is so very dull and lonely. 

“Hello.”

She looks up to see the Cullens standing over her, and she hates that. She’s no stranger to casual racism, to overt racism. How many times throughout the years have white people grabbed at her, told her she’s ‘pretty for one of them’? Have assumed she’s a sex worker, that she’ll do anything they ask for American or British currency?

And now she’s sitting in the gutter, at their feet. 

“Good evening.” Her voice is steady, and she rises easily, tucking her food into her bag. “I didn’t expect to see you all here.”

“Safer to travel as a family these days,” Mrs Cullen smiles at her, and she wonders if the woman feels bad for how their family treated her when she first arrived looking for help. 

“I’ve heard that.” And she has. But she doesn’t have anyone to travel with. Maybe that’s why she’s stuck in Busan.

“We didn’t mean to interrupt your meal,” Edward Cullen is quick to interject and she waves it off. Jasper is hovering behind them, with most of the family. It’s only the Dr and Mrs Cullen, and Edward who have come over to her. 

“If it was a true interruption, I would still be eating,” she says absently. “I need to make my way home. Enjoy your time in Busan.” 

She turns and wanders away then, and she’s pleased that she doesn’t look back and she didn’t look at Jasper anymore than to determine where he was. He hadn’t approached her at all. Her detour to Forks had clearly changed everything, and that was not unexpected. But if Jasper had no interest in her, then she has little interest in befriending his family. They were clients of Ratana’s, nothing more. 

By the time she’s home, the rest of her food is cold and congealing, and she throws it away, and curls up in her chair to watch television until she falls asleep. 

[allovertheworldblog]

Sweden to ...???

Back in Stockholm I was trying to figure out where I’d go to next.

Finland was first in my mind.

Ferries to Finland were either incredibly early in the morning or late at night with the requirement that you take a cabin, making them pretty expensive for the relatively short distance.

I looked at another option, Denmark, the home of the Danish pastries and butter cookies, and the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen.

I can’t think of anything else that Denmark is known for.

A train ticket from Stockholm to Copenhagen was incredibly reasonable at 320 Swedish Krona so I decided on Denmark.

The people in the hostel had all changed since I was there the week previously.

I was back in the same 12 bed dorm, but this time it seemed to be full of Australians.

There were what seemed like 15 hip skinny snow crazed kids who were skiiers and snow board addicts, they’d been all over over Europe.

Everything good with them was ‘sick’, the breakfast in such and such a hostel that they were recommending to someone was 'sick’; such and such a hostel was also 'sick’.

There was also an older Australian woman in the dorm who wasn’t travelling with them.

She was colour of an orange from all the sun she’d soaked up on the slopes.

In the kitchen there were two English bikers talking to a Germany-based skinhead American Army lieutenant who was of Swedish heritage and spoke fluent Swedish.

The English guys were complaining that Britain should never have handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese.

I thought about telling them that the market for opium isn’t what it was but think better of it.

I have to move dorm after a night or two because it’s all booked up, a welcome break from the 'sick’ Australians.

In the new dorm there’s a different Australian guy who’s travelling on his own.

His Hungarian-born father went to a conference in Austria in the time of Communism in Hungary, claimed asylum, for which was tried and convicted in his absence in Hungary.

He then moved to Australia to start a new life.

You hear some great stories from people that you meet, some of them are embellished but some are just the stories of life.

Before I leave Stockholm for the second time I find some more free things to do.

I visit the Storkyrkan church which is in effect the cathedral for the city and see the 15th century statue of St. George Slaying The Dragon,

which includes a figure which is weirdly similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The church charges entrance fee in Summer but not in Winter.

Then I visit the (free on Monday’s) Royal Coin Cabinet, which has way too many similar coins.

It’s a big collection of old coins from Sweden and all sorts of banknotes from around the world.

They have some notes that I’ve used on my travels.

They have notes that are a thing of the past, just like the countries that printed them.

They even have Concentration Camp banknotes, a concept I find hard to believe.

The following day I get going to Denmark.

The train sets off for Malmo.

The land is pretty flat.

The closer we get to Malmo the more there are brick built houses, farm buildings and buildings associated with the train, stations etc. This is farming country.

[qnewsau]

Gay footballer Zander Murray to retire

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/gay-footballer-zander-murray-to-retire/

Gay footballer Zander Murray to retire

One of the few out gay male footballers, Zander Murray, has announced his impending retirement. 

Scottish footballer (or soccer player to some) Zander Murray will retire at the end of this season.

Zander made headlines across the world when he came out as gay in 2022.

Following his coming out, he signed for Bonnyrigg Rose in January to fulfil his dream of playing in the Scottish Professional Football League.

However, since then he has returned to his original club Gala Fairydean Rovers where he will see out the rest of his career.

He told the BBC that he is happy to finish his career in a club that was so supportive of him coming out.

“I could just be myself. Not just on the pitch, but in the dressing room. I could just be myself and it was good that all my sort of initial fears about being in the dressing room again, how that was going to be scary, it was nothing,” he said.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Zander Murray (@zandermurrayofficial)

It’s been a big year since his announcement. He has taken part in a BBC Scotland documentary, was an ambassador for the Gay Games in Hong Kong and worked with the charity Stonewall.

He told the BBC his highlight though was leading the march at Edinburgh Pride.

“It was overwhelming to be able to lead something so amazing. It was monumental and something I’d been so afraid of for years,” he said.

“I had struggled for years not knowing where I fitted in, especially playing football. I never knew where I stood with people. So I just felt seeing all those happy, smiling faces that it’s beautiful to feel you are part of something.”

For Zander, his future is yet to be determined but he has an interest in coaching as well as further charity and advocacy work.

“Fifteen months ago I was scared. Now I am excited. I can see a path. There’s a space for me in this area. I always wanted to play football and I worried about what I would find in life that would give me that same buzz but I have found it,” he said.

Remaining out players

His retirement leaves only five male openly gay athletes at the professional or semi-professional level.

Australian Josh Cavallo plays for A-League side Adelaide United while Andy Brennan is with Victorian league side South Melbourne FC.

Elsewhere, Jake Daniels is with Blackpool FC in the UK, Czech Jakub Jankto plays for Italian Serie A side Cagliari and American Collin Martin plays for North Carolina FC.

Read more: Josh Cavallo names and shames trolls sending him abuse

For the latest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) news in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[atlanticcanada]

How an ex-Mountie accused of conspiracy became China's 'hired gun' in a campaign Canada once tacitly supported

As an RCMP officer, William Majcher, 60, used fake identities to infiltrate organized crime groups to investigate money laundering. He even went undercover to help the FBI to build a case against a Colombian drug cartel, knowing that if he was outed, a bounty would be put on his head.

After leaving the national police force in 2007, Majcher moved to Hong Kong, where he helped create a firm called Evaluate Monitor Investigate Deter Recover (EMIDR) in 2016. The company’s raison d’etre was to help China and its corporations recover assets it alleged were stolen, Majcher said in previous interviews.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Company in 2019, Majcher admitted to being an “economic mercenary.”

“As long as the claim is valid and we’re doing everything lawful and properly - I’m a hired gun to help either large corporations or governments get back what's rightfully theirs,” Majcher told ABC.

OPERATION FOX HUNT

Three security experts told CTV National News it’s likely Majcher was part of China’s notorious Operation Fox Hunt, an anti-corruption campaign under the regime of President Xi Jinping.

CTV News asked RCMP Insp. David Beaudoin, head of the Montreal Integrated National Security Enforcement Team that is leading the investigation if Majcher was involved in Fox Hunt. Beaudoin declined to provide more details in order “to respect the work of the courts.”

CTV News has reached out to Majcher's lawyer, and this article will be updated when a response is received.

Created in 2014, Fox Hunt and its later iteration, Sky Net, targeted Chinese nationals living abroad. Under the program, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would recruit police officers, private investigators and lawyers in foreign countries to help track down fugitives suspected of financial crimes and bring them back to China to face prosecution.

The CCP’s latest statistics from October 2022 show that more than 12,000 Chinese Nationals have been “involuntarily returned” to China under Operation Fox Hunt and Sky Net. According to Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish non-government organization, alleged fugitives were repatriated using extradition as well as covert methods such as threats and kidnapping. Safeguard says targets can also be lured to another country with an extradition treaty with China and arrested there.

And not all of those forced to return home are suspected criminals. Human rights groups say fighting corruption was also a guise used by the CCP to find and silence its critics. 

When asked for comment, the Chinese embassy told CTV News in an email, "China always adheres to the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs and strictly abides by international law."

A RARE CHARGE

The RCMP, Majcher’s former employer, has charged him under the rarely used Security of Information Act with preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity and conspiracy.  Majcher is accused of foreign interference-related activities for using his knowledge and extensive network of contacts to allegedly help the Chinese government “identify and intimidate” an individual in Canada.

Scott McGregor, a former military intelligence officer who has researched Operation Fox Hunt, says the charges likely stem from Majcher’s work tracking down alleged criminals for the Chinese government.

“It's likely the information that was gleaned was used by the Chinese to ascertain where these people are. What measures were used to get them back or get back their assets, we’ll find out from court.”

But McGregor points out that prosecuting Majcher under these charges will be complicated because Canada once tacitly supported China’s international efforts to fight corruption.

“It’s a grey zone because there are international laws where this is allowed,” said McGregor. 

SHARING STOLEN ASSETS

In September 2016, nearly a year after he became prime minister, Justin Trudeau welcomed former premier Li Keqiang to Canada.

During that visit, Keqiang, China’s second-in-command, sealed a historic agreement to work together to recover and share in the return of stolen assets. According to Chinese state media, Canada was the first country to enter into such a treaty with China since it launched its anti-corruption campaign in 2014.

 The CCP estimated that as many as 25 per cent of its most wanted financial fugitives had fled to Canada. Under the agreement, Canada and China would co-operate in investigations and split the proceeds of crime once they were recovered. But where the individual faced prosecution would have to be negotiated, because Canada doesn’t have an extradition treaty with China. 

During Keqiang’s visit, where removing trade barriers was also discussed, Trudeau expressed in a speech his excitement about developing “a real partnership that will benefit all our people for generations to come.”

But five years later, the government began striking a different tone. In February 2021,Public Safety Canada issued a warning about Operation Fox Hunt stating that China’s anti-corruption efforts weren’t just used to bring criminals to justice, but its tactics could also be used to “silence dissent, pressure political opponents and instill a general fear of state power on Canadian soil.”

Later that year in the autumn of 2021, the RCMP would begin investigating Majcher. 

MORE CANADIANS TARGETED

Police have not released the name of the victim that Majcher is alleged to have targeted, but other Canadian cases related to Operation Fox Hunt have been made public.

Safeguard Defenders claimed in a March 2022 report that Zhang Yan from Canada was warned by Chinese police to return because they had placed his father under arrest. The human rights organization also revealed the presence of a global network of illegal Chinese police stations, including at least five in Canada.

Earlier this year, CTV National News reported on the case of Edward Gong, a Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur and former Toronto mayoral candidate who is suing the Ontario Securities Commission. Gong alleges the OSC endangered his life by co-operating with Chinese police in a fraud investigation.

EROSION OF TRUST

Katherine Leung, a policy advisor for advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, says the arrest of Majcher could also erode the diaspora’s trust in law enforcement.

“They’re told to go to the police when things like this happen,” says Leung. “Knowing that  there's someone who could be in the RCMP today and be on China's side tomorrow tells us that  there needs to be a better way for these diaspora groups to report foreign interference and intimidation.”

Leung wants to see a dedicated phone line to report foreign interference, staffed with workers who can communicate in Cantonese and Mandarin. 

Leung says Majcher’s case also illustrates the need to create a foreign agent registry. If the registry existed, Majcher would be legally required to identify himself as someone who worked for the Chinese government instead of allegedly operating in the shadows.

In the meantime, Leung is watching the case to see who else could be implicated. The Mounties say they’re looking into more than 100 cases of foreign interference. Majcher is currently in custody will appear in court again on Tuesday.  The RCMP say more arrests and or charges connected to the former Mountie are possible.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/TOlnDKf

[sparrowsabre7]

Arrow 10th Anniversary Rewatch 2 of 10: S02E15 The Promise

So, I love this episode. I think pretty much any episode of any show where there’s two enemies who hate each others guts or know secrets about each other that the other doesn’t know having to play nice for the sake of appearances is great, and this episode is no exception. The entire episode is laced with double entendres and veiled threats and both Manu Bennett and Stephen Amell sell the hell out of it. 

Brief aside to talk about the intro as this is the first episode in my rewatch which has had one: I love it. I love the S1 and 2 ones specifically as Amell’s delivery of “My name is Oliver Queen” gets unnecessarily upbeat in later seasons, but the monologue narration works so well and has become iconic. I especially love the low thrum of the strings as the intro starts. 

Back to the episode, the present day narrative is actually my favourite part of the episode, even though the flashback gets more action. Slade playing games with Oliver, the tired but good cliché of the toast to friendship between enemies, bringing the same rum they drank on the island, so many little digs at Oliver that only he would pick up on. (Side note: Is Australian Rum any good? I feel like rum rarely gets talked about vis a vis countries the same way that whiskey and wine do). Amell is often characterised as a wooden actor, but he does a lot of subtle work here.

In the flashback we have a fun training course montage, with the proto-salmon ladder and some nice archery action. We then have Sara and Oliver discussing what to do with the remaining Mirakuru. It’s interesting to note at this point that - though we don’t learn it til later - Slade has already betrayed their trust by keeping the Mirakuru instead of burning it. While he may not have known Oliver was involved in Shado’s death, he’s already been corrupted by the Mirakuru and not just in rage.  

I enjoy the scene between Oliver and Sara telling each other what they want their families to be told, the idea that the island has forged Oliver into a better man while Sara has been damaged by her time on the Amazo, it’s a nice touch, but also hints at Oliver’s later, much darker trajectory during his time in Hong Kong. We also get a Shado hallucination, indicating his hauntings began as far back as the island before they became an almost annual tradition.

We get one step closer to Deathstroke and Green Arrow in this episode too, with Oliver wearing the hood over a brown shirt, reminiscent of some of his classic costumes in the comics while Slade dons his ASIS mask for the first time in the series, another indicator that he’s gone dark; wearing the same mask as the man who tortured Oliver. This makes for a fun visual, only thing missing is Sara having some kind of proto-Canary outfit, but wouldn’t really make sense in context.

We learn Ivo’s motivation is to cure his wife’s illness, presumably some form of dementia, but it’s a bit late in the day to try and make him seem in any way empathetic or understandable, he’s hardly Victor Fries. 

Although it’s a little on the nose, Slade commenting about them first trying to leave the island as strangers and now as brothers does feel earned and to see their friendship shatter this episode is hard to watch. 

Back in the present Slade for some reason lies about having two children, though this could well be an editor oversight or a retcon. He mentioned Joe Wilson briefly in S1 I think, and then even the writers seemed to forget about Joe until season 6, especially given that the son of Deathstroke we see in “Legends of Tomorrow” is Grant Wilson. It’s also pretty fortuitous that Slade comes at a weak moment in Moira and Oliver’s relationship, allowing him to more easily insert himself into the middle of their family drama and have Moira be unwilling to listen to Oliver. 

It’s also entirely in character for the second Moira’s out of the room for Oliver to go for Slade with the ice pick in a really nice piece of camera work that has him close the distance in the brief seconds he’s offscreen. Naturally Slade overpowers Oliver immediately but it’s the thought that counts and cements the idea that it’s not a given Oliver will spare Slade’s life despite his new no-kill rule.

It’s interesting that Oliver deliberately calls Felicity and not Diggle, given that surely he’d want the fastest option and actively swipes to show off the brand new product placement for the episode. If Felicity was known to be at the bunker and Dig not it would make sense but they are both right next to each other. Helps build in the idea that Oliver has a special connection with Felcity even this early on. Sara reacting to Slade’s voice is a great moment and immediately she kicks into gear: grabs a knife, gets Dig to grab the biggest gun, A+ character work. 

In the flashbacks Hendrick’s a real dick. I don’t really have anything more to say than I hate him. The missionary Flynn is a nice dude though, even though it’s all a bit Green Mile with the mouse. Not quite sure why the boat is exploding constantly, I went back to check if they mention Slade putting charges in the engine room or something but given the freighter was meant to be for escaping that would make no sense even if they indicated that was the plan. I assume it’s prisoners causing chaos and stray bullets but honestly there’s no reason for the boat to be exploding as much as it is. 

Slade yanking Oliver back onto the boat is a great “He can DO that!?” moment and is a bit of an unexpected development, it means we’re able to get a lot of moments between Slade and Oliver for the next few episodes though so it’s a smart move. 

Back in the present we have Dig lining up his shot, with green scope no less, ho ho! Putting those Green Lantern seeds early on or just a neat coincidence/because he’s using the Green Arrow’s armoury? 

I really like this action shot of Roy walking into the mansion like it’s a heist or break-in movie. The Queen mansion is a character in itself and it’s a shame it’s basically gone from s3 onwards. 

Slade is visibly disarmed by Sara’s appearance in more “people reacting subtly to things” that I love in this episode. Oliver’s delivery of “What would you like to do now” is great. It’s not super corny and threatening like it could have been, but has just enough bite to hit right.

Someone hits Diggle before he can take his shot and having paused it I am pretty sure it’s Ravager (Isabel Rochev). It’s a pretty neat thing to add in especially given that they could have just had Diggle clocked by a gloved hand and shown no more given how brief it is, but it hints at Slade having a wider influence than just Brother Blood. We also get the epomumous promise which becomes Slade’s arc catchphrase for several seasons going forward: That Oliver will not die until he suffers as Slade suffered. As bad guy promises go, it’s pretty good and also gives carte blanche for the “why won’t you kill me” thing, because arguably there’s always room for a little more suffering. 

The episode caps off with a classic piece “I’m having a go at you because I don’t know why you’re being all weird due to your secret identity” drama and the reveal that Slade’s goal was to put a bunch of cameras in the Queen mansion, which, on principle, classic bad guy stuff, but given that Oliver does most of his Arrowing out of the Arrowcave, seems a bit pointless in the grand scheme of things beyond Slade’s own obsession. I suppose it’s more to watch his downward spiral. Nonetheless, this episode cements Slade as a very real threat in the present and after 6 episodes since his reveal as being alive in the present, it was a welcome treat to see them finally meet again. 

[themovieblogonline]

Documentaries at the 53rd Nashville Film Festival

Nuisance Bear I signed on to see the “New Yorker” documentary at The Nashville Film Festival about a polar bear who was known as the “Nuisance Bear.” Thousands of people flock to Churchill, Manitoba, to watch bears wandering around at certain times of the year. The star of this film was a big white polar bear who could be seen banging on a metal fence, hanging around garbage pails, running from vehicles, and, ultimately, being shot with tranquilizers so it could be airlifted via helicopter in a net to some far-flung more suitable location. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a male or female bear. Regardless of what gender the bear was, it was going to wake up wondering, “What happened?” (I’m sure many of you have been there.) The Panola Project This documentary at the Nashville Film Festival from Rachel Decruz and Jeremy S. Levine made me think of my daughter’s temporary job during the pandemic, helping distribute the Covid-19 vaccine for the state of Tennessee. At the time, she was on hiatus from her normal job as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines and also helped conduct the census. In this short documentary Dorothy Oliver of Panola, Alabama, is working hard to get 40 people from the Panola community of only 350 people to agree to come to be vaccinated so that the state team would come out. Apparently, the minimum number for which they would agree to bring the vaccine to the patients was 40. Dorothy said, “It’s in my heart to do what I need to do to help people,” making me think of another Nashville Film Festival feature film, “Jacir,” where a Syrian refugee living in Memphis had the same sort of good heart (and suffered for it). It was 39 miles to get the patients to the vaccine and, as Dorothy remarked, many of them did not have cars. Original music and dancing by Jermaine “Mainframe” Fletcher. Freedom Swimmer Between 1950 and 1980 during the Cultural Revolution, more than 2 million Chinese residents attempted to swim from China to Hong Kong. The narrator of this animated film said, “Every young person in China wanted to leave.” He cited the greater freedom that was associated with Hong Kong in those days, which is now abating because of the prospect of mainland China cracking down on these freedoms. The narrator said he had been trying to make it to Hong Kong for 15 years and started trying to emigrate at age 14. If a Chinese citizen was caught trying to escape he (or she) was branded a “capitalist” and would be jailed. He was unemployable in China thereafter and the narrator said he had been jailed 3 times. He talked about the 3 routes that one might take: East had sharks. The central route was by train. The Southwest route was by water, but it was heavily guarded. Plus, our storyteller had to build a raft to allow him to take his small daughter with him. They set off on Chinse New Year when the water was freezing, convinced that the authorities would not think any sane person would seek to travel at such a terrible time. They had a live chicken and gifts with them as their cover story (visiting relatives), no real food to eat except scraps, and it took 13 hours just to reach the beach. The journey, itself, took 8 hours. When his small daughter, now grown, asked him if he was frightened at the prospect of the trip, he said, “There is no fear when there is no hope.” The Australian documentary screened at the Nashville Film Festival went on to say that, upon arriving in Hong Kong, the husband and his wife were given free clothing. He chose bell bottoms (then in style) and she took 3 free sweaters. The father worked 3 jobs, sometimes working 20 hours a day, trying to give his family a headstart in their new country. Haulout This film by Maxim and Eugenia Arbugaeva followed marine biologist Maxim Chakelev in Chukotka in the Siberian Arctic as the walrus population gathered. Unfortunately, because of global warming, the ice floes that the walruses normally rest and feed on as they sweep into Chakelev, have largely melted and the walruses arrived exhausted and hungry. Then, they were overly crowded on the beach and it Is a scene that will linger in my mind for many moons, as an estimated 96,000 walruses crowded together on land, with another 6,000 in the water. Panics and stampedes happened several times a day and the biologist is seen counting the dead corpses of 600 walruses that did not make it and died on the beach, the most ever, in 2020. This one had images that remain in your mind for a long time after viewing them. And many of them can be viewed for free if you go out to IMDB.com. The Sentence of Michael Thompson Michael Thompson was, by all accounts, a pretty good guy with a relatively good job with General Motors and a family. However, in May of 1996, he was caught trying to sell 3 lbs. of pot in Michigan and, in a particularly rigid bit of sentencing, was given a sentence of 40 to 60 years for this non-violent crime. One of the mitigating factors was that he had access to a firearm, although the gun was not with him when he was dealing with the pot, but was at home in a different location. Still, Michael went to jail and spent 25 years behind bars for what is now legal in many states. In that respect, he represents 40,000 other prisoners in jail for pot offenses. The film was directed by Kylie Thrash and Haley Elizabeth Anderson and it drags quite a bit, despite only being 25 minutes long. You pretty much know where this is going from the outset and it seems like it took way too long to get there.             Read the full article

[postplus-protest]

POST PLUS PROTEST PHASE 2 : 48 Hour Edition

Here we are back again for a 48 hour log off protest of the current version of Post+.

WHEN?

October 2, 2021

12 am Eastern Daylight Time/Atlantic Standard Time

1 am Chile Standard Time/Brazil Time/Argentina Time

4 am UTC

5 am BST/London/West Africa Time/West European Summer Time

6 am Central Europe Time/Central Africa Time

7 am Moscow Standard Time/East Africa Time/Eastern European Summer Time/Arabian Standard Time

8 am Gulf Standard Time

9:30 am Indian Standard Time

11 am Indochina Time

12 pm (Noon) Hong Kong Time/Australian Western Standard Time

1 pm Japan Standard Time/Korean Standard Time

1:30 pm Australian Central Time

2 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time

5 pm New Zealand Daylight Time

October 1, 2021

11 pm Central Time

10 pm Mountain Time

9 pm Pacific Time

8 Alaska Daylight Time

6 pm Hawaii Standard Time

If you don’t see your time zone, or unsure which to use, click HERE for the checker!

We’ll be running countdown posts leading up to the main event!

We’re logging off for 48 hours! So, for example, if you log out on October 2, 2021 at 1pm JST you’ll log back on October 4, 2021 at 1 pm JST!

Also! Our Australian friends, take note that daylight savings/summer time ends in certain territories on October 3rd!

WHY?

Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, F, G

Tumblr recently announced a new feature called Post+ meant to help content creators make money while keeping a cut to help maintain the site. Not a bad idea, right?

The problem is that tumblr actively encouraged the use of Post+ in conjunction with fan works. Which is, despite the way they continue to side step it, highly illegal. Not enough people are aware of that fact.

Our mission is to force tumblr to either rebrand the Post+ feature as something for original content ONLY and/or offer a means to help the site survive outside of monetizing fan work. We want the see tumblr thrive but Post+ has the potential for ruining everything. Give us a better option, @staff ! In fact, HERE are some options!

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

Optional avatar and banner to use!

[Image description : a square shaped color gradient image going from purple to blue to cyan to green. A large red prohibition sign overlaid on the words tumblr post+. /End image description]

[Image Description : a tumblr header color gradient image going from purple to blue to cyan to green. On the left side is a red prohibition sign overlaid on the words tumblr Post+. Underneath is the words log off protest in bold letters. On the right side is the words I am logging off for 48 hours. /End image description]

Banner credit to @adairctedgibbgirl ! Thank you!

If the banner doesn’t size correctly, this this post HERE!

You can also spread the word on ALL social media (Twitter/TikTok/Facebook/Reddit etc) and reblog this post. You can also look at this post HERE for more ideas. Another option, if you’re using the mobile app, is to leave an honest review (be polite, be concise, don’t spam) on the App Store of your choice! The best and easiest way to protest is DON’T USE POST+!

WILL THIS WORK?

We got tumblr to temporarily hide the original Post+ posts and possibly made wip a thing. So who knows?

ANYTHING ELSE?

Keep checking @postplus-protest for updates and further info, especially updates to this post! Thank you, all of you, for participating or boosting!

Remember to reblog, use the hashtags #postplusprotest and #tumblrlogoff2021, and SPREAD THE WORD TO OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA!

[apoostrotea]

About / F.A.Q.

How do you rate your teas?:

I use a five star system to rate each tea I try. This is more for me to look at than for you. The different ratings mean:

5 stars: want to buy a full cake of.

4 stars: want to buy more of but perhaps not spend too much.

3 stars: I enjoyed it but probably won’t repurchase.

2 stars: not really my vibe.

1 star: :(

Who are you…?

I’m an artist and Taoist who drinks a lot of tea. My art blog is @apoostrophe ! I can be found under that username in other spots online. Aged traditional sheng puerh is my favorite tea.

How do you brew your tea?

Mostly gongfu style which you can find a tutorial of online if you google it. I might make my own tutorial soon. Rest of the time I brew grandpa style and try not to eat too many leaves while doing it.

Where do get your tea? (I will update this list)

Teas shipping from America:

- yunnansourcing.us (massive catalogue, good beginner teaware, can be a bit overwhelming at first).

- liquidproust.com (great selection of stuff that’s hard to find).

- puerhjunky.com

- softerdrink.ca (Canadian supplier of Kuura).

- mandalatea.com (I recommend their oolongs).

- crimsonlotustea.com (some of their stock ships from China).

Teas shipping from China:

- yunnansourcing.com (big selection of everything).

- yeeonteaco.com (very traditional Hong Kong storage).

- white2tea.com

- bitterleafteas.com

- kingteamall.com

- farmer-leaf.com

Other:

- teaswelike.com (Taiwan, good raw puerh).

- kuura.co (Australian, good smaller selection very curated).

Any beginner advice?

If you haven’t already - switching to loose leaf tea is a big deal. Once you quit the bagged stuff the whole world opens up to you. Watch a lot of tutorials on YouTube and don’t drop a heck ton of money right away on tea you’re unsure about. Buy a ton of samples and build up your palette before you buy anything serious. Make sure to write down your tasting notes somewhere! If you want to get into gongfu, don’t worry so much about teaware. A simple cheap porcelain gaiwan is all you need; good teaware won’t make your cheap tea taste better, but good tea always tastes good. My DMs are always open.

Thanks for reading!

[nehswritesstuffs]

Clara is on her period and is miserable and 12 although awkward with these things tries to be a good boyfriend/husband and help her relax.

1518 words; I’d expect Twelve is less awkward with these things than some of the Doctor’s other incarnations, but that’s neither here nor there; don’t read if you’re squeamish about periods, I guess, although there’s not a lot of graphic stuff, just more like what you’d experience if someone in your house was menstruating

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was summer, and summers meant more Clara Time, so it was decidedly Tuesday from the Earthen London perspective. The Doctor was tinkering underneath the TARDIS’s flight console while Clara read a book on the upper level, one leg swung over the arm rest while the other dangled down to tap her toe against the floor. Things were peaceful, quiet, ready for the next adventure to begin at a moment’s notice. Clara looked up from the book, snapped it shut, and audibly groaned.

“Leave the dryer on again?” he asked idly.

“No,” she grumbled. “I started.”

He poked his head out from the console. “Started what?”

“My period—menstruating—you know…” She stood and made her way down towards the door to the corridors. “Let’s hope I find the bathroom before I bleed through the liner I have on.”

“How can you tell?” He was fully divested from the console and on the way to his feet now.

“Sometimes, I just can,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. You either can or you can’t.”

“This time I can. With as many women as you’ve traveled with, I’m surprised no one else has done so and let you know about it.”

“Many of them were decidedly uncomfortable talking about it; different social morays and all.” The Doctor watched as she rolled her eyes and disappeared into the corridor, which left him scratching his head.

Oh well—at least Clara’s period never got in the way before.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Doctor woke up the following morning with Clara in his arms, though she was curled up into a ball so tightly that only his arms and a small part of his chest touched her body. He wrenched his arms from her and let her be, finding a robe to throw over his shoulders before he padded out of the room, headed straight for the kitchen. It was time for a good omelette, he decided, and began to gather together the appropriate fixings. He had finished the omelettes, as well as some tea with toast and jam, and placed them on the table when he noticed one crucial thing: Clara wasn’t there yet. Nodding, he piled everything onto a tray and carried it down to the bedroom, where the Human in question was still laying in a tight ball.

“Clara, it’s time for breakfast,” he stated, placing the tray down on the mattress as he sat. “We can get in a whole day yet if we hurry, where we can ponce about the Andromeda System, have afternoon tea in pre-colonial Hong Kong, and even possibly even figure out the mystery of why one of my past traveling companions knew an ancient Aboriginal Australian dialect despite not being of the time period, and all her great-grandparents were from Europe.” He picked up his plate and began to eat, using the side of his fork to slice off bits of omelette.

Chew, chew, chew, swallow… she remained in the same position.

“Clara…?” He placed his plate down and gently shook her shoulder. She rolled over and glared at him. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel like shit,” she grumbled. “Andromeda and Hong Kong and ancient dialects will have to wait.” She saw the food and it seemed to take a moment to register that it was even real, let alone for her. Taking the mug of tea first, she sipped at it experimentally.

“What is it?” he asked. He could smell hormones flooding off of her, and it was difficult to even catch a whiff of the aromatic omelettes and tea without having them directly under his nose.

“My period.” Clara grimaced as she placed down the cuppa and began to eat the omelette. “I’m not nauseous this time, thank goodness, but I’ve got bad cramps anyhow and I’m sore in other spots. It’s not usually this bad, but when it is, it’s bad.”

“Then adventures can wait until you’re not feeling like you’re run over by a bus and about to regenerate,” the Doctor nodded. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you’ve only been a bloke so far.”

“We were all given instruction in the Academy on the varying differences in gendered physiology and what that might entail… or not entail, for if or when we might need the knowledge post-regeneration,” he nodded. “We were all subjected to a false jolt of pain that was meant to represent a mild menstruation cramp and… well… let’s just say it made more than one lad regenerate.” He rested his fork on his plate long enough to free his hand to drink his own tea. “There’s lots of things about Gallifreyans and Humans that are disturbingly similar, and reproductive health lines up like many of the other topics, and it’s helped out on more than one occasion.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you’ve had to buy Time Lord pads?”

“More than that,” he shrugged vaguely. He finished off his omelette and slathered some jam on a wedge of toast. “I’ll make sure this passes with as little fuss as possible.”

“…and then adventure…?”

“All the stars and yum cha you can handle,” he grinned. He took his plate out of the room with him as he continued to munch on the toast.

It was going to end up being a very different sort of day, but that he didn’t mind.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

When Clara had fallen back asleep, she had half her omelette and the dregs of her cuppa sitting next to her on the tray in the bed. She wasn’t a particularly active sleeper, so when she woke up to find that they were not there, it did concern her a bit.

Taking a quick look around the room, she saw that there was no one else there, meaning it was at least possible for the Doctor to have taken the tray while she was asleep. Instead of investigating, Clara went to the bathroom, changed her pad, and took some of the painkillers that were set out on the counter. She had nearly shuffled herself back to the bed when she saw the Doctor unloading the contents of another tray onto the bedside table.

“What are you doing…?” she asked.

“I took note of the sort of things that you tend to favor during times like these and found a bunch of them,” he explained. “We’re out of Cadbury Milk, for whatever reason, so I got you De Heer…? I don’t know… it’s shaped like a C… though there was a whole alphabet to choose from in there...”

“It’s fine, Doctor,” she assured, popping up on her toes so she could peck a kiss on his cheek. She climbed back into bed and examined her newly-gathered supplies. There was the aforementioned chocolate, as well as some crisps, tea in the stay-hot-pot that the Doctor had fiddled into inventing during the school year while waiting for Wednesday to come about, and a wee shot glass filled with what smelled like an energy drink. A moment later and he had an electric-powered heating pad, and a moment after that he had a television on a wheely cart that he positioned on her side of the bed.

“You really must want to talk dialects over dim sum,” she chuckled. She watched as he fussed over the state of her bedding before he grabbed the remote and joined her, positioning himself snugly along her back. He draped an arm over her, holding not only her close, but the heating pad in place. After tucking her head under his chin, he used the shaky hold he hand on the remote to turn the television on.

“I’d say there’s anything you could possibly want to stream on it, but it’s not streaming—I just have an impressive digital collection.”

“What is copyright law to someone who existed before the author was born and a hundred years after they were gone?” She watched as he scrolled through some of the offerings before chuckling weakly. “I thought that they stopped the Dark Universal Cinematic Universe after that wee nit crashed the Mummy reboot.”

“I might have some extra-dimensional versions of certain films thanks to the nature of the TARDIS,” he shrugged. He put on Creature From the Black Lagoon and settled in, allowing the opening credits to roll over panoramic shots of the Amazon rainforest.

“I guess I’ll get to see whether or not I prefer this or Shape of Water.”

“The mam from Paddington is still in this, so I don’t know.”

“You are the worst.”

A capybara was dragged underwater by an unseen force.

“No I’m not.”

A local child finds remains of the animal and alerts the other members of the community. Via subtitles, they marvel at the state of the bones—no animal is able to pick a capybara clean and precise as this did—and put the rest of the people on high alert. The child glances towards the water, only to catch the last of something quickly ducking beneath the surface.

He does not think anything of it.

“Okay, yeah. You’re not… at least not on-purpose.”

[southeastasianhistories]

Southeast Asia’s role in World War I is all but lost to history. There was no major invasion of the region by a hostile power, like Japan in World War II. None of the Central Powers – an alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire – had colonial territory in the region, except on the periphery. German New Guinea quickly fell to the Allies after the outbreak of war in July 1914.

Yet the First World War, which ended 100 years ago this month, proved a decisive event for Southeast Asia. For the first time, it severely tested the relationship between the colonial authorities of Britain, France and the Netherlands (neutral in the war) and their colonial subjects in Southeast Asia, for whom sacrifice in the conflict was to be a rallying cry for more civil rights. The burgeoning nationalist movements throughout the region swelled with veterans returning home from democratic and industrial nations, while others, with considerable consequences in later decades, brought home interests in the radical politics at the time, not least communism.

Arguably, the most interesting response to the declaration of war was made by Siam, as Thailand was then known. As the only Southeast Asian nation not colonised by a European power, Siam, under the absolute monarch King Vajiravudh, decided to go to war against the Central Powers in 1917, sending its own troops to fight in Europe. The Siamese Expeditionary Force of more than 1,000 troops arrived in the French port of Marseilles in July 1918. It was led by Major-General Phraya Phya Bhijai Janriddhi, who had received military training in France before the war. At first, the Thai troops were employed by the Allies as rear-guard labour detachments, taking part in the Second Battle of the Marne in August that year. The following month, they saw their first frontline action. They took part in several offences, including the occupation of the German Rhineland. In the end, 19 Thais had lost their lives – none from battle.

King Vajiravudh’s decision to go to war was calculated. Gambling on Allied victory, he believed Siam’s participation would earn it the respect of Britain and France. He was correct. Although it was independent, neighbouring colonisers (the British in Burma and the French in Cambodia) had slowly whittled away Siam’s territory in the preceding decades, with large tracts of land returned to Cambodia in the late 19th century. After WWI, though, Siam’s territory didn’t budge. Equally important, Siam took part in the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference and was a founding member of the League of Nations, a clear indication that Western powers now saw it as a legitimate force on the international stage and in Southeast Asia.

The rulers of independent Siam might have wanted respect and power, but the thoughts of ordinary people from the rest of colonised Southeast Asia are little known. Few first-hand accounts exist for historians. Quite probably, however, many did not want to be thrust unquestionably into the greatest fratricide the world had yet seen, and some no doubt hoped the colonial empires would be destroyed by the whole endeavour. Yet some nationalists, especially those of higher rank who weren’t expected to fight, saw the war effort as a means of gaining more political rights for themselves under the colonial system.

The war, for example, provided the Vietnamese with “an unexpected opportunity to test France’s ability to live up to vaunted self-representations of invincibility”, as Philippe Peycam wrote in 2012’s The Birth of Vietnamese Political Journalism: Saigon, 1916-1930. The prominent Vietnamese nationalist Phan Chu Trinh, who had spent years in jail before the war for his activism and was imprisoned for six months in 1914 on wrongful charges of colluding with the Germans, played a considerable role in recruiting Vietnamese men for the war. Another noted nationalist, Duong Van Giao, published a history of the Vietnamese war effort, 1925’s L’Indochine pendant la guerre de 1914–1918. Because of Vietnam’s sacrifice, he called on the French colonials to adopt a “native policy”: not quite outright independence but radical reform of civil rights for the Vietnamese. It was a similar sentiment as expressed in Claims of the Annamite People, an influential tract cowritten in France in 1919 by a young activist who later became known as Ho Chi Minh, who had spent most of the war working in a London hotel under the famous chef Auguste Escoffier.

As a French colony, Vietnam was expected to provide troops for the war effort, but there were differing views among colonial officers as to what role they should play. Lieutenant-Colonel Théophile Pennequin was a hardliner but also a keen reformer. Before the outbreak of war, Pennequin requested that he be allowed to form a competent military unit that was termed by some as an armée jaune (yellow army), similar to the force noire (black force) popularised by General Charles Mangin in France’s West African colonies. For Pennequin, a national native army would allow Vietnamese to gain “positions of command and provide the French with loyal partners with whom they could build a new and, eventually, independent Indochinese state,” wrote historian Christopher Goscha in 2017’s The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam.

But Pennequin’s designs were rejected by Paris and, instead, most Vietnamese recruits were sent to Europe to work in factories or as supply hands. Yet some did fight. One estimate contends that out of 100,000 Vietnamese conscripts sent to the war in Europe, roughly 12,000 lost their lives. A battalion of Tonkinese Rifles, an elite corps formed in the 1880s, saw action on the Western Front near Verdun. Do Huu Vi, a celebrated pilot from an elite family, became a national hero after his plane was shot down over France.

Despite overt racism by some French nationals and trade unions’ concerns that they were bringing down wages, many of the Vietnamese put to work in munitions factories found it a revelatory experience. Some started relationships with Frenchwomen, unsurprising since other workers in wartime factories were mostly women. Others joined social clubs and reading groups. After the war, wrote Goscha, “a hundred thousand Vietnamese veterans returned to Indochina hoping to start a new life. Some wanted French citizenship; most expected good jobs and upward social mobility. Several hoped to modernise Vietnam along Western lines, despite the barbarity they had just witnessed in Europe.”

It was a similar story for the Philippines, then a United States colony. It declared war on Germany in April 1917, the same time Washington did. At first, the colonial government requested the drafting of 15,000 Filipinos for service, but more than 25,000 enlisted. These troops formed the Philippine National Guard, a militia that was later absorbed into the American military. Most of the recruits, though, would not leave the Philippines during the war. Those who did travelled as part of the American Expeditionary Forces. In June 1918, the first Filipino died in action at the Battle of Château-Thierry, in France: Tomas Mateo Claudio, a former contract labourer on a sugar plantation in Hawaii who had enlisted in the US.

It is not known exactly how many Southeast Asians died during the First World War. Of those active in the European theatre, the number is estimated to be more than 20,000, mostly conscripts from the French colonies. It was a small figure compared to the number of Southeast Asians who perished during the Second World War. And, unlike in that war, there wasn’t a great arena of warfare in Southeast Asia during the First since none of the Central Powers nations had any imperial control in the region.

But Germany did have influence in China and possessed leased territory in Kiautschou Bay, near present-day Jiaozhou. It was invaded by Japanese forces after 1915, and China would later declare war on Germany in August 1917. But in October 1914, the German East Asia Squadron still had its base in the concession – it was from there that a lone light cruiser, the SMS Emden, slipped into Penang Harbour, part of what was then British Malaya. Disguised as a British vessel, the German cruiser launched a surprise attack on a Russian ship and then sank a French destroyer that had given chase. The sole attack on Malaya during the war killed 100 and wounded thousands more.

After the attack, the Emden is thought to have docked in a port in the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia, raising British suspicions that the Dutch weren’t as neutral as they had claimed. Neutrality, moreover, didn’t mean the colony went unscathed. The Dutch East Indies was home to a sizeable German population that worked to “coordinate and finance covert operations designed to undermine British colonial rule and economic interests in Southeast Asia,” as historian Heather Streets-Salter wrote in 2017’s World War One in Southeast Asia: Colonialism and Anticolonialism in an Era of Global Conflict.

The Emden was finally stopped by an Australian cruiser that ran it ashore in Singapore. The surviving crew of the German vessel were interned there, then a part of British Malaya. Also stationed in Singapore was the Indian Army’s Fifth Light Infantry, which unsuccessfully mutinied in January 1915 after they learned they might be sent to fight in Turkey against fellow Muslims (though they were eventually sent to Hong Kong instead). The 309 interned Germans from the Emden joined in the mutiny, which left dead eight British and three Malay soldiers, as well as a dozen Singapore civilians.

A much forgotten history of World War I was a Turco-German plot to promote jihad (holy war) in parts of the Muslim world colonised by the Allies, including Malaya. Using the Dutch East Indies as a base, supporters of the Central Powers produced “pan-Islamic, anti-British propaganda” that was sent to Muslim-majority British Malaya, and also to India. One of the architects of this plan, Max von Oppenheim, wrote in a position paper in 1914: “In the battle against England… Islam will become one of our most important weapons.” The Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed V, issued a fatwa against the Allies in November of that year. In British Malaya, the authorities doubled down on censorship by closing many Malay-language newspapers, some of which were considered supportive of the Ottoman Empire.

Pan-Islamic propaganda agitating for independence of Malaya was just as attractive to the Muslim-majority subjects of the Dutch East Indies where it was produced. In the preceding decades, these subjects had been demanding more freedoms, even independence, for themselves. This was a serious cause of concern for the Dutch colonialists, but ultimately the real impact of the war on the Dutch East Indies was economic. The Allies’ blockade of European waters, as well as control of Asian waters, made it difficult for Dutch ships to reach the colony for trade purposes.

“The Netherlands Indies was effectively cordoned off by the British Navy,” wrote Kees Van Dijk in 2008’s The Netherlands Indies and the Great War, 1914-1918. As a result, the war caused price increases and severe food shortages in the Dutch East Indies. By the end of 1916, the export industry was practically destroyed. Around that time, social unrest had gained momentum. Rural protesters burned reserve crops, eventually leading to famine in some parts of the colony. Nationalists and a small contingent of socialists began advocating for revolution. By 1918, unrest was so dire that the governor general called a meeting of the nationalist leaders where he made the so-called “November promises” of more political representation and freedom, but these were empty promises.

Economic problems were a constant throughout the region. To help pay for the war effort, the French and British were reduced to raising taxes in their Southeast Asian colonies. The burden fell mainly on the poor. Small wonder it resulted in unprecedented protests. A failed uprising took place in Kelantan, British Malaya, in April 1915. In Cambodia, the so-called 1916 Affair saw tens of thousands of peasants march into Phnom Penh demanding the king reduce taxes. None of these were exact appeals of “no taxation without representation”, but rather the germinal expressions of self-independence that were to become more forceful across the region in the 1930s, and decisive after World War II. Brian Farrell, a professor of military history at the National University of Singapore, has described the impact of the First World War on Southeast Asia as significant yet delayed.

By the close of the war, many of the colonies returned to some form of pre-war normalcy. Yet the colonial governments, indebted and weakened from the conflict, knew that reforms had to be made in Southeast Asia. In Laos, the French-run administration thought the county “secure enough” in October 1920 to introduce the first of a series of political reforms aimed at decentralising power through local appointees, wrote Martin Stuart-Fox in A History of Laos. The British authorities in Malaya also experimented with decentralisation in the 1920s, which involved placing more power in the hands of the provincial sultans. In 1916, the Jones Act was passed in Washington to begin the process of granting the Philippines a “more autonomous government”, including a parliament, which was built upon until full independence in 1946.

War also transformed the role of local elites, who took on more autonomy and power. In Vietnam, the years after 1919 saw the creation of reformist newspapers, written in the increasingly popular Vietnamese script instead of the Roman alphabet, which the French had imposed. In Cambodia and Laos, such forceful nationalism did not arise until the 1930s. Other reformists in the region grew interested in ideologies brought back from the West. The South Seas Communist Party, a pan-Southeast Asian party, was formed in Burma in 1925 before splitting along national lines in 1930. Ho Chi Minh, who spent the war in London, helped create the Communist Party of Indochina that year. Tan Malaka, who had actually tried enlisting to fight with the German army – without success – became an integral part of the communist movement in the Dutch East Indies, later becoming known as something of a father of the independent Republic of Indonesia.

World War I laid bare the unequal “social contract” that colonial authorities had forced their colonial subjects in Southeast Asia to sign. The contract would only become more obviously threadbare by the 1920s, yet it took the next global conflict, which had a far greater impact on the region than the first, for these anti-colonial movements to grab real political power.

[nomanwalksalone]

ALTERNATIVE STYLE ICON: JIMMY WANG YU IN THE MAN FROM HONG KONG

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

There are things we always want to reclaim from our past, even from its most confused, bittersweet moments. In my case, the thoughtful moments driving home late at night down Santa Monica Boulevard decades ago from an essay-writing extension class at UCLA. With the top down on my coincidentally Australian-built convertible (a deathtrap, a future girlfriend would call it, and refuse to get in), those summer evenings seemed flower-scented, ripe with potential that would go wasted, still and quiet and beautiful in a city that was not mine.

I was taking this after-work class after feeling like I was losing my marbles, wanting to find a way to collect myself after college. College had beaten any confidence in my ability to write for personal expression out of me. I would not rediscover that in that class, in fact not for decades until blogs like No Man Walks Alone reached out to me and I could process and piece back together parts of myself, those disjointed, uncalm, uncollected pieces of myself. At the time, I was young and unmoored, and the station at the lower end of the dial I’d listen to on those drives back reflected that feeling of unreality and detachment. It played everything, ironically or not, everything from the Laverne and Shirley theme to what would have at the time been cutting-edge electronica. And one-hit wonder Jigsaw’s strange “Sky High”, whose refrain “You’ve blown it all sky high” was sung altogether too casually for someone to be expressing the upheaval of their entire life.

I was pleased to rediscover the song playing as the main theme to 1975’s The Man From Hong Kong, whose star Jimmy Wang Yu is today’s Alternative Style Icon. The song’s strangely flip attitude towards destruction works perfectly in this bizarre, bizarrely interesting movie, which ends on the climax of Wang Yu blowing former James Bond George Lazenby and an entire floor of Lazenby’s apartment building to kingdom come. After setting Lazenby (yes, Lazenby himself, in a practical effect that actually did leave him with burns) on fire by kicking him into his open-plan 1970s fireplace…

Lazenby had blown his own career sky high by walking away from a multi-picture Bond film deal to instead star in 1971’s Universal Soldier, a confounding mashup of Easy Rider and The Dogs of War whose chief point of interest is that feminist writer Germaine Greer plays a minor role. Lazenby claims that his friend Bruce Lee was set to star with him in The Man From Hong Kong until Bruce met his mysterious end at the hands of either a Dim Mak death touch or a medication allergy. Jimmy Wang Yu stepped into the role and Lee’s vacant shoes and acquits himself well in all respects except the unfair and unwinnable one of being in the shadow of a deceased legend, deceased so very much larger than life.

The Man From Hong Kong showed how exploitation films could be strangely liberating, indeed subversive. It was a so-called Ozploitation film by dint of its Australian production, going so far as to have its first scene a fight atop sacred landmark Ayers Rock, where a future Mad Max actor actually beats legendary martial artist and fight choreographer Sammo Hung. It also exploited many other period trends:  the Kung Fu, international thriller, and loose cannon cop fads, with Wang Yu a polished Hong Kong police inspector able to charm very white Australian beauties out of their hang-gliding pants and bikinis. Nearly a half century later, moviemaking still is rightfully criticized for emasculating Asian men, yet in this 1970s exploitation film an Asian man got to carry out the old seduction tropes of the regressive, lily-white British spy movie, even if (as Alice Caldwell-Kelly has observed) the characters do engage in racist banter about it.

This is very much a Jimmy Wang Yu showcase. It’s certainly not Lazenby’s fits that stand out in this movie. As my friend Matt Spaiser of The Suits of James Bond has pointed out, Lazenby has to dress the part of a playboy bigwig villain, and wears old playboy clichés like gold-buttoned blazers with draggy 1970s long collars and fat ties, all in combination with the long sideburns and Zapata ‘stache that make him look like a more butch Peter Wyngarde. Wang Yu, instead, makes a deep blue his theme color, first in a rollneck with light salt-and-pepper tweed jacket in his suave arrival scenes in Australia, then as the color of the jumpsuit he wears in a viciously violent car chase and final fight where, as agent of the most chaotic good, he smashes through the windows of Laz’s penthouse apartment. That jumpsuit could have been iconic, were it not eclipsed by the yellow jumpsuit that would turn up in Bruce’s boss fights in Game of Death, released infamously long after Lee had died. In the shadow of the legend, shadows of legend. In contrast, Wang Yu’s dark green corduroy suit that he wears for his first confrontation with Lazenby is iconic and uneclipsed. Despite its 1970s exaggerations of style and details, its material, color and dash are very much contemporary, corduroy being one of the casual materials in which suit designers are trying to lure us out, even if might wear a bit warm for hot girl summer or whatever the current name of this current uncertain, tentative summer is. Perhaps hang gliding should make a comeback, although not in Sydney airspace.

Uncertain and tentative, you do what you can to collect yourself, invest at the time in what you can of yourself, and decades later maybe, maybe, you get somewhere, even if you can never stop looking back.

[newstfionline]

Monday, September 20, 2021

Biden’s Entire Presidential Agenda Rests on Expansive Spending Bill (NYT) Biden’s entire presidential agenda is riding on the reconciliation bill being crafted in Congress right now. No president has ever packed as much of his agenda, domestic and foreign, into a single piece of legislation as President Biden has with the $3.5 trillion spending plan that Democrats are trying to wrangle through Congress over the next six weeks,” Tankersley writes. “It is almost as if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had stuffed his entire New Deal into one piece of legislation, or if President Lyndon B. Johnson had done the same with his Great Society, instead of pushing through individual components over several years. If he succeeds, Biden’s far-reaching attempt could result in a presidency-defining victory that delivers on a decades-long campaign by Democrats to expand the federal government to combat social problems and spread the gains of a growing economy to workers. If he fails, he could end up with nothing. As Democrats are increasingly seeing, the sheer weight of Mr. Biden’s progressive push could cause it to collapse, leaving the party empty-handed, with the president’s top priorities going unfulfilled. … If Mr. Biden’s party cannot find consensus on those issues and the bill dies, the president will have little immediate recourse to advance almost any of those priorities.

Child care in the US is a ‘broken market,’ Treasury report finds (Yahoo Money) A Treasury Department report this week characterized the U.S. child care system as “unworkable” as Democrats push reform that experts say is an “overdue and critical investment.” The average American family with at least one child under age 5 uses 13% of their income to pay for child care, according to the report, nearly double the 7% that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers affordable. Additionally, less than 20% of the children eligible for the Child Care and Development Fund—a federal assistance program for low-income families—are getting that funding. “Child care is a textbook example of a broken market, and one reason is that when you pay for it, the price does not account for all the positive things it confers on our society,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement on Wednesday. “When we underinvest in child care, we forgo that; we give up a happier, healthier, more prosperous labor force in the future.”

Inspiration4 Astronauts Beam After Return From 3-Day Journey to Orbit (NYT) After three days in orbit, a physician assistant, a community college professor, a data engineer and the billionaire who financed their trip arrived back on Earth, heralding a new era of space travel with a dramatic and successful Saturday evening landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission, which is known as Inspiration4, splashed down off the Florida coast at 7:06 p.m. on Saturday. Each step of the return unfolded on schedule, without problems. Within an hour, all four crew members walked out of the spacecraft, one at a time, each beaming with excitement as recovery crews assisted them.

Haitians on Texas border undeterred by US plan to expel them (AP) Haitian migrants seeking to escape poverty, hunger and a feeling of hopelessness in their home country said they will not be deterred by U.S. plans to speedily send them back, as thousands of people remained encamped on the Texas border Saturday after crossing from Mexico. Scores of people waded back and forth across the Rio Grande on Saturday afternoon, re-entering Mexico to purchase water, food and diapers in Ciudad Acuña before returning to the Texas encampment under and near a bridge in the border city of Del Rio. Junior Jean, a 32-year-old man from Haiti, watched as people cautiously carried cases of water or bags of food through the knee-high river water. Jean said he lived on the streets in Chile the past four years, resigned to searching for food in garbage cans. “We are all looking for a better life,” he said.

Three Weeks After Hurricane Ida, Parts of Southeast Louisiana Are Still Dark (NYT) For Tiffany Brown, the drive home from New Orleans begins as usual: She can see the lights on in the city’s central business district and people gathering in bars and restaurants. But as she drives west along Interstate 10, signs of Hurricane Ida’s destruction emerge. Trees with missing limbs fill the swamp on either side of the highway. With each passing mile, more blue tarps appear on rooftops, and more electric poles lay fallen by the road, some snapped in half. By the time Ms. Brown gets to her exit in Destrehan 30 minutes later, the lights illuminating the highway have disappeared, and another night of total darkness has fallen on her suburban subdivision. For Ms. Brown, who works as an office manager at a pediatric clinic, life at work can feel nearly normal. But at home, with no electricity, it is anything but. “I keep hoping every day that I’m going to go home and it’ll be on,” she said. Three weeks have passed since Hurricane Ida knocked down electric wires, poles and transmission towers serving more than one million people in southeast Louisiana. In New Orleans, power was almost entirely restored by Sept. 10, and businesses and schools have reopened. But outside the city, more than 100,000 customers were without lights through Sept. 13. As of Friday evening there were still about 38,000 customers without power, and many people remained displaced from damaged homes.

Favela centennial shows Brazil communities’ endurance (AP) Dozens of children lined up at a community center in Sao Paulo for a slice of creamy, blue cake. None was celebrating a birthday; their poor neighborhood, the favela of Paraisopolis, was commemorating 100 years of existence. “People started coming (to the city) for construction jobs and settled in,” community leader Gilson Rodrigues said. “There was no planning, not even streets. People started growing crops. It was all disorganized. Authorities didn’t do much, so we learned to organize ourselves.” The favela’s centennial, which was marked on Thursday, underscores the permanence of its roots and of other communities like it, even as Brazilians in wealthier parts of town often view them as temporary and precarious. Favelas struggle to shed that stigma as they defy simple definition, not least because they evolved over decades. Paraisopolis is Sao Paulo’s second-biggest favela, home to 43,000 people, according to the most-recent census, in 2010. Recent, unofficial counts put its population around 100,000.

The barbecue king: British royals praise Philip’s deft touch (AP) When Prince Philip died nearly six months ago at 99, the tributes poured in from far and wide, praising him for his supportive role at the side of Queen Elizabeth II over her near 70-year reign. Now, it has emerged that Philip had another crucial role within the royal family. He was the family’s barbecue king—perhaps testament to his Greek heritage. “He adored barbecuing and he turned that into an interesting art form,” his oldest son Prince Charles said in a BBC tribute program that will be broadcast on Wednesday. “And if I ever tried to do it he ... I could never get the fire to light or something ghastly, so (he’d say): ‘Go away!’” In excerpts of ‘Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers’ released late Saturday, members of the royal family spoke admiringly of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s barbecuing skills. “Every barbecue that I’ve ever been on, the Duke of Edinburgh has been there cooking,” said Prince William, Philip’s oldest grandson. “He’s definitely a dab hand at the barbecue ... I can safely say there’s never been a case of food poisoning in the family that’s attributed to the Duke of Edinburgh.” The program, which was filmed before and after Philip’s death on April 9, was originally conceived to mark his 100th birthday in June.

Relations between France and the U.S. have sunk to their lowest level in decades. (NYT) The U.S. and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling a defense contract worth at least $60 billion. President Emmanuel Macron of France was so enraged that he recalled the country’s ambassadors to both nations. Australia approached the new administration soon after President Biden’s inauguration. The conventionally powered French subs, the Australians feared, would be obsolete by the time they were delivered. The Biden administration, bent on containing China, saw the deal as a way to cement ties with a Pacific ally. But the unlikely winner is Britain, who played an early role in brokering the alliance. For its prime minister, Boris Johnson, who will meet this coming week with Biden at the White House and speak at the U.N., it is his first tangible victory in a campaign to make post-Brexit Britain a player on the global stage.

Hong Kong’s first ‘patriots-only’ election kicks off (Reuters) Fewer than 5,000 Hong Kong people from mostly pro-establishment circles began voting on Sunday for candidates to an election committee, vetted as loyal to Beijing, who will pick the city’s next China-backed leader and some of its legislature. Pro-democracy candidates are nearly absent from Hong Kong’s first election since Beijing overhauled the city’s electoral system to ensure that “only patriots” rule China’s freest city. The election committee will select 40 seats in the revamped Legislative Council in December, and choose a chief executive in March. Changes to the political system are the latest in a string of moves—including a national security law that punishes anything Beijing deems as subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces—that have placed the international financial hub on an authoritarian path. Most prominent democratic activists and politicians are now in jail or have fled abroad.

The Remote-Control Killing Machine (Politico/NYT) For 14 years, Israel wanted to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist. Then they came up with a way to do it while using a trained sniper who was more than 1,000 miles away—and fired remotely. It was also the debut test of a high-tech, computerized sharpshooter kitted out with artificial intelligence and multiple-camera eyes, operated via satellite and capable of firing 600 rounds a minute. The souped-up, remote-controlled machine gun now joins the combat drone in the arsenal of high-tech weapons for remote targeted killing. But unlike a drone, the robotic machine gun draws no attention in the sky, where a drone could be shot down, and can be situated anywhere, qualities likely to reshape the worlds of security and espionage.

Israeli army arrests last 2 of 6 Palestinian prison escapees (AP) Israeli forces on Sunday arrested the last two of six Palestinian prisoners who escaped a maximum-security Israeli prison two weeks ago, closing an intense, embarrassing episode that exposed deep security flaws in Israel and turned the fugitives into Palestinian heroes. The Israeli military said the two men surrendered in Jenin, their hometown in the occupied West Bank, after they were surrounded at a hideout that had been located with the help of “accurate intelligence.” The prisoners all managed to tunnel out of a maximum-security prison in northern Israel on Sept. 6. The bold escape dominated newscasts for days and sparked heavy criticism of Israel’s prison service. According to various reports, the men dug a hole in the floor of their shared cell undetected over several months and managed to slip past a sleeping prison guard after emerging through a hole outside the facility. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have celebrated the escape and held demonstrations in support of the prisoners. Taking part in attacks against the Israeli military or even civilians is a source of pride for many Palestinians, who view it as legitimate resistance to military occupation.

Jaw-dropping moments in WSJ's bombshell Facebook investigation (CNN Business) This week the Wall Street Journal released a series of scathing articles about Facebook, citing leaked internal documents that detail in remarkably frank terms how the company is not only well aware of its platforms’ negative effects on users but also how it has repeatedly failed to address them. Here are some of the more jaw-dropping moments from the Journal’s series. In the Journal’s report on Instagram’s impact on teens, it cites Facebook’s own researchers’ slide deck, stating the app harms mental health. “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, according to the WSJ. Another reads: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression ... This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.” In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a change in Facebook’s algorithm was intended to improve interactions among friends and family and reduce the amount of professionally produced content in their feeds. But according to the documents published by the Journal, staffers warned the change was having the opposite effect: Facebook was becoming an angrier place. A team of data scientists put it bluntly: “Misinformation, toxicity and violent content are inordinately prevalent among reshares,” they said, according to the Journal’s report.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump’s Travel “Ban”on China Had Too Many “Holes” in It to Be Very Effective in Stopping the Spread of COVID-19

Trump has repeatedly bragged about his “ban” on travel from China as being evidence that he acted early about the virus and saved many lives as a result.

Although it was good that Trump banned some travel from China, according to this ARTICLE by David Leonhardt Trump’s travel ban was inadequate to contain the spread of COVID-19 (especially when compared to the travel bans imposed by other nations).

A travel policy that fell short

In retrospect, one of Mr. Trump’s first policy responses to the virus appears to have been one of his most promising.

On Jan. 31, his administration announced that it was restricting entry to the United States from China: Many foreign nationals — be they citizens of China or other countries — would not be allowed into the United States if they had been to China in the previous two weeks.

It was still early in the spread of the virus. The first cases in Wuhan, China, had been diagnosed about a month before, and the first announced case in the United States had come on Jan. 21. In announcing the new travel policy, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, declared that the virus posed “a public health emergency.” Mr. Trump described the policy as his “China ban.”

After the Trump administration acted, several other countries quickly announced their own restrictions on travel from China, including Japan, Vietnam and Australia.

But it quickly became clear that the United States’ policy was full of holes. It did not apply to immediate family members of American citizens and permanent residents returning from China, for example. In the two months after the policy went into place, almost 40,000 people arrived in the United States on direct flights from China.

Even more important, the policy failed to take into account that the virus had spread well beyond China by early February. Later data would show that many infected people arriving in the United States came from Europe. (The Trump administration did not restrict travel from Europe until March and exempted Britain from that ban despite a high infection rate there.)

The administration’s policy also did little to create quarantines for people who entered the United States and may have had the virus.

Authorities in some other places took a far more rigorous approach to travel restrictions.

South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan largely restricted entry to residents returning home. Those residents then had to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, with the government keeping close tabs to ensure they did not leave their home or hotel. South Korea and Hong Kong also tested for the virus at the airport and transferred anyone who was positive to a government facility.

[See more under the cut.]

Australia offers a telling comparison. Like the United States, it is separated from China by an ocean and is run by a conservative leader — Scott Morrison, the prime minister. Unlike the United States, it put travel restrictions at the center of its virus response.

Australian officials noticed in March that the travel restrictions they had announced on Feb. 1 were not preventing the virus from spreading. So they went further.

On March 27, Mr. Morrison announced that Australia would no longer trust travelers to isolate themselves voluntarily. The country would instead mandate that everyone arriving from overseas, including Australian citizens, spend two weeks quarantined in a hotel.

The protocols were strict. As people arrived at an airport, the authorities transported them directly to hotels nearby. People were not even allowed to leave their hotel to exercise. The Australian military helped enforce the rules.

Around the same time, several Australian states with minor outbreaks shut their own borders to keep out Australians from regions with higher rates of infection. That hardening of internal boundaries had not happened since the 1918 flu pandemic, said Ian Mackay, a virologist in Queensland, one of the first states to block entry from other areas.

The United States, by comparison, imposed few travel restrictions, either for foreigners or American citizens. Individual states did little to enforce the rules they did impose.

“People need a bit more than a suggestion to look after their own health,” said Dr. Mackay, who has been working with Australian officials on their pandemic response. “They need guidelines, they need rules — and they need to be enforced.”

Travel restrictions and quarantines were central to the success in controlling the virus in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, as well as New Zealand, many epidemiologists believe. In Australia, the number of new cases per day fell more than 90 percent in April. It remained near zero through May and early June, even as the virus surged across much of the United States.

In the past six weeks, Australia has begun to have a resurgence — which itself points to the importance of travel rules. The latest outbreak stems in large part from problems with the quarantine in the city of Melbourne. Compared with other parts of Australia, Melbourne relied more on private security contractors who employed temporary workers — some of whom lacked training and failed to follow guidelines — to enforce quarantines at local hotels. Officials have responded by banning out-of-state travel again and imposing new lockdowns.

Still, the tolls in Australia and the United States remain vastly different. Fewer than 300 Australians have died of complications from Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus. If the United States had the same per capita death rate, about 3,300 Americans would have died, rather than 158,000.

Enacting tough travel restrictions in the United States would not have been easy. It is more integrated into the global economy than Australia is, has a tradition of local policy decisions and borders two other large countries. But there is a good chance that a different version of Mr. Trump’s restrictions — one with fewer holes and stronger quarantines — would have meaningfully slowed the virus’s spread.

Traditionally, public health experts had not seen travel restrictions as central to fighting a pandemic, given their economic costs and the availability of other options, like testing, quarantining and contact tracing, Dr. Baeten, the University of Washington epidemiologist, said. But he added that travel restrictions had been successful enough in fighting the coronavirus around the world that those views may need to be revisited.

“Travel,” he said, “is the hallmark of the spread of this virus around the world.”  

 [emphasis added]

[chibi-chaos]

If someone were to ask me where I’d say Sydney Shatterdome is...

Knowing the area I do - there’s a lot of nature and heritage lots that would be ruled out, protection laws would make it a fair bit of a ringer if they’re trying to make Shatterdome’s as quickly as humanly possible.

Thus there’s one area that I particularly like to be involved (even if it’s in part) cause location and poeticness.

-

That location being Glebe Island

[Image Descriptor: Map of the coast of Sydney, New South Wales. Glebe Island has an orange tag, found on the left before a green one marking the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and a black tag marking Jessie Street Gardens. Which is a rough location where Mutavore appears.

North and a fair bit away from Glebe Island is, in fact, the Garigal National Park - aka that place Scissure was finally taken down.]

(note information of where Mutavore and Striker would have fought can be found here )

-

Glebe Island is tucked being the Sydney Harbour Bridge which nods to this little ol’ picture nicely.

So a bit about Glebe Island...

Glebe Island holds an active port, however the Island itself has a lot of space that remains unused.

Originally it was a place to off load imported vehicles, and dry bulk goods - these would be put in silos on the Island. Currently the latter still occurs, focus having been moved to Glebe Island in privatising Port Botany or Port Kembla in 2012/2013/2014.

Considering events in 2013 and Scissure happening 2014 I imagine the Government would have big regrets on that one, but also East coast ports become a little more of an iffy thing to have. The damage of Sydney probably would make them focus back on importing to Botany and Kembla.

Thus leaving Glebe Island a viable spot for a Shatterdome, especially with the nearby residential areas probably seeming less appealing too.

[image descriptors: images of Glebe Island from above, the first one including labeling of the bays around it]

The bonus of this location is both that port, deep water wharves, the major road near it and how close it is to the CBD (city business district).

Also if some of you like the idea of being able to see the New Years Fireworks from the Shatterdome - it potentially would be possible for a multistory Shatterdome to have easy dibs on those.

The PPDC forming in late 2014 and work on the Hong Kong Shatterdome finishing November, 25 2015, means the Australian Gov could have looked at sites for it’s own in 2014/2015 to be built by May 25, 2017.

-

The Poetic Reason

Striker Eureka in the movie is labeled as an ‘ANZAC’ (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Jaeger

[Image Descriptor: Screenshot of a scene from Pacific Rim involving a news coverage recap’ing the events of Mutavore breaching the Wall of Life including the words “arise immediate about the decommission of Striker Eureka, the last active Jaeger in Anzac..”]

I’ve used this A LOT to bring up my New Zealander OCs but there’s poeticness in the jaegers being known as ANZAC’s at that is because behind Glebe Island is the Anzac Bridge.

The Anzac Bridge on either side has an Anzac Soldier ‘guarding’ each end (one side is Australian the other is New Zealander).

[Image Descriptor: Statue of an ANZAC Soldier, believed to be the Australian, with Glebe Island’s silos in the background.]

There’s something poetic about while the Shatterdome would be facing out towards the harbour preparing for the fight, behind them is a homage to the identity they’ve embraced once more.

The red circle on this is where I think the statue of the soldier would be roughly.

[watchtheworldargue]

egg magazine, april 1990. interview with Michael Hutchence

transcription below :)

Michael Hutchence on Lower Broadway

By Hal Rubenstein \ Photography by Steven Meisel

Globe-hopping is hell on a wardrobe and hard on the feet. Sometimes you have to get out of the limo to spend your money.

Michael Hutchence rarely comes to New York without luggage monogrammed INXS or Max Q, so one would think that on a visit without portfolio, the last thing he'd want to do is add on more baggage. But given a free day, a book of tickets, and our offer to go anywhere to do anything, Hutchence got into the limo with an agenda we could hardly call a new sensation. What kept us from sulking was that he hadn't left the devil outside.

Michael: You think we can load this car up with Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, and Armani by 6?

Hal: Driver, step on it. Down to Grand and make a left.

[The car turns onto Union Square West.]

Isn't there a club on the corner here?

The Underground.

That's the one that keeps surviving regardless of how many people get shot there. How many are they up to?

No one's quite sure.

Where are we now? I don't recognise this.

This strip of lower Broadway didn't exist last time you were here. Now it's like a mall-less town's Main Street.

And Tower Records is City Hall. Not bad. It's wild to see this much activity because people around the world now talk about New York in terms of decay, how New York is such a rude place, and we keep telling them, No, New Yorkers are quite friendly, we like it there. New Yorkers are just very honest. They don't have time to bullshit. I like New York because people are linked to each other. L.A. Is fun, but segregated. Here there is a metro, and a different philosophy of getting around so there's rich upon poor upon rich. The only thing I don't remember is how many homeless are asleep on Park Avenue and everywhere else. Or is it my imagination?

No, it's real. How come you choose to live in Hong Kong instead of Australia?

For about three years, I thought it didn't matter where I lived. But I kept passing through it again. I grew up there, from when I was four until twelve. My dad still lives there. It has great energy, like New York. And it's ten hours closer to the world than Australia is. If you travel a lot, it adds up.

[We enter the Yohji Yamamoto store.]

So austere. Do they go wild if you hand back anything wrinkled? Those clothes over there are good acid-house colors. Has acid house caught on here?

Not like in England.

That's 'cause New York has bad radio. Are these dogs always here? They must sleep in the shoes. Ooh, look at these here. Not very me, but very Star Trek. $500 for a T-shirt. I see. I'll buy six. No, twelve. Now, here is something very stagy. Ultraflouncy. I like that, but the general consensus might kill my career.

Is what you wear onstage the same as you wear off?

I sort of smush them all together. My favorite piece of clothing is a leather jacket I had made for me that says “Hutch” in chain mail on the back.

Did Michael Schmidt make it for you?

Yeah – how'd you know? He's great. He sort of looks like a beautiful snake. He loves all the Hollywood stuff, but he's so sincere when he talks about it. Almost makes me like it. Is there somewhere funkier we can go, like Yankel's House of Pile? I saw that on the way down.

If you want old clothes, we should go to Cheap Jack's.

[We head back up to Broadway and 13th Street. Several young ladies on the corner stare at Hutchence as he enters Cheap Jack's.]

Do you enjoy recognition?

Depends on where I am.

Like when you're out on your own. Shopping, for instance.

Shopping, yeah, 'cause I get discounts. And there is a definite bonus to recognition when I'm onstage.

It makes the night go faster. But I'm not an institution yet. Sometimes I think about how hard it must be for someone like Bob Hope to go for a stroll. I don't really get hassled. I can stand in the middle of a street in London, or even New York, and usually nothing happens. I don't think I have that distinctive of a face. I got recognized in Tangier once, going by in a taxi, very fast … from a distance … in a fog … during monsoon season. Just kidding. It's odd how once you are conscious of being watched, you stop being so self-conscious because you realize there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, nobody in Hong Kong gives a shit who I am.

Aren't people there freaking about the city's eventual realignment with China?

Thousands are leaving a year, but they're the ones who can afford to leave, to give Australia half a million to let them in, though a lot more are going to Vancouver or New Zealand instead because they've heard, and it's fairly true, about Australia's racism.

It's actually more like unconscious racism. There's a naivete to it that you might call charming if it wasn't so sick. See, most foreigners don't realize – because we refuse to believe it ourselves – that Australia is southern Asia. Australia is linked to England in everyone's minds.

Yet most Australians don't have the faintest idea why the Japanese tried to invade us during the Second World War, and can't understand why they might not have wanted any foreigners on the biggest island in the Asian paradise. If we had lost, my home would be covered in rice paddies by now. Australia would have been Japan's Great Plains, their grain barrel.

I've never met one Australian who knows that. We have it so easy in Australia. It's very easy to live there. Tougher than it was before, but that's because five years ago it was ridiculous. I used to live in a three-story, five-bedroom house. It cost me $20 a week.

Did you make that much playing music?

Nah, but so what, we were all on the dole. Everyone went on it. That's one of the reasons you have so many bands in Australia. It's cheap to live and collect, so all the bands go on it. You wouldn't even have to go pick up your employment check; they'd mail it to you or transfer it to your account. Ready cash. I guess because there is such an anti-authoritarian vibe in Australia that people are quite happy to accept government checks. “Aw, screw 'em” - that's the attitude. Lots of people accept four and five checks or even have jobs. It's very lax. That's why we're stuck with the tall-poppy syndrome.

Translation?

Don't be successful, don't rise above your mates, or you'll get chopped. It's weird. It's the don't-leave-the-pub way of life. I think people in America are generally happy for someone's good fortune; they know how to let themselves go. In Australia, they go, “Good, mate,” and don't ask a single question. There are no celebrations for a job well done. I'm still shocked at how Americans cheer you on when they like you. I know you don't fancy it anymore, but I like phrases like “dress for success.”

And that's why you're shopping here?

I love hideous ties. Girls love 'em. Dunno why. Its like red socks. Are the playing Richard Hell? I haven't heard this song in 20 years. God, you must hear better music in clothing stores than you do anywhere else in New York. All these baseball jackets are so cheap. You know what they pay for these in Australia? I should buy the whole lot, take them back. I'd never have to tour again. I could get 150 to 200 bucks just for the ratty ones. I think this is the first clothing store I've been in that wasn't playing videos.

Are videos big in Australia?

We've actually been involved in music video a whole lot longer than in America. Because we are so far away, the only way we've had to understand all this music flying around the world is through video. Since the '50s, even when it was only 10 minutes a week, Aussie tv has been showing music videos.

And we don't censor the way you guys do. The “Way of the World” single is a very serious song, but MTV is quite shy of the video, you should note – I say this diplomatically. They censor here for all the wrong reasons. Like it's okay to stare at Cher's crotch for four minutes, but it's hard to say something truthful about the state of the world.

Could it be because with a group that's become as wildly successful as INXS has, it's inevitable that favorable reaction always turns?

I don't think INXS has reached that point yet. Give us four more years. We've only recently become hip in England. At the beginning, they hated our guts.

Why?

'Cause we are Australians writing pop music, why else? They don't make much in England, apart from nice jumpers and Jaguars, and one of the few things they can claim some turf on is pop music. So, they're not happy when someone else does it. It's a standard trait of island people; they're very territorial.

But you guys are island people too.

Yeah, but we got a bigger island. Now, if we can just get rid of some competition from the expatriate colonies.

Isn't it enough already with this rivalry between Australia and England? L.A. And New York have settled their feud.

England still treats Australia like we're descendants of convicts. Well, I guess we are, aren't we? We're trying to get rid of them, but unfortunately, they're coming back with money and buying up half the country. Don't you resent the Japanese buying Rockefeller Center?

I resent the Rockefellers more.

[Having tried on everything and bought nothing, Hutchence decides against old clothes. We head down to If boutique.]

Armand Basi. Nice stuff. That Claude Montana is fabulous, but God, this stuff is expensive. We don't know anyone here for a discount, do we? My father used to design clothes for a shop in Hong Kong called Dynasty. Glitzy evening wear for too much money. One year, when we did our first tour, we bough ta lot of Sprouse, real colorful stuff, and we spent a fortune, especially when you consider it's disposable fashion. All it had to do was last a month. All the buttons fell off, it shrunk, seams opened up. We would have been more upset, but it made us homesick for the mother country. Disposable fashion is very English. The nice thing about it when it comes from there, however, is that even though the stuff falls apart, it's cheap.

Ah, I like this. Very sexy, very smart. Basi, right? I found the best underwear. I think it's called Nikos. Someone gave it to me last night. Well, that's a plug. No names, please. These pants might go with the Basi shirt. [Like Navy pants, they have over a dozen buttons instead of a fly.] Not good clubwear. Certainly not quick enough to please me.

Your choice of underwear would have to be very discreet.

And always clean. Maybe these pants come with a catheter. Should I ask the shopgirl? [He raises his arm to call her and, wincing, puts it down.]

Just realized a colostomy bag wouldn't hurt?

No. I think I have a cracked rib, from too much fun the other night at Inflation, this super club in Melbourne. Melbourne has some of the best clubs in the world. Great people. Amazing clubs. Sydney has nothing. Boring as hell. Nice place if you're a surfer. Really pretty, like L.A. But very corrupt, Sydney. Everyone is always paying everyone off. That's why you can't afford to do a club there. It's like, in order to get a club license, all the other nightclub owners have to agree to your having a license. And four people control the voting on that. Melbourne now has a club called Razor that is so exciting. It used to an automobile club, especially popular during the '50s, where people used to talk about their cars, you know, with photos of Mini-Minors making hairpin turns around corners. Like a racing club, I guess, except for slower cars. Razor gets the best people.

[He picks up a pair of huge, get-lost-in-the-rain-forest-and-survive black shoes and delights.]

Many people have shoe fetishes. I guess it's around the world actually, not just with Imelda. I think people are probably just jealous of her because they secretly wanted so many pair. But these are big, like size big. Are Americans getting larger feet, or do they just want more room? I always notice shoes when I'm here.

There's almost like a $100 tax on shoes in Australia. Like a pair that will cost you $50 here will cost you almost $200 in Australia. A pair of Levi's cost $100. I never buy furniture in Australia, either, and I have an obsession with furniture the way Americans love shoes. It's a shame I don't have an obsession with homes, too, since I have no place to put all the furniture. I have it stored all over the world.

Let me get the Basi shirt, and then I want to buy records. I would get them later, but I just remembered I have a friend coming in tonight for only one night. He and his father are trying to get down to Nicaragua. They're helping Ortega keep the Contras back. Good luck. What's so weird about their going is that these guys are publishing magnates in England. Entrepreneurs. They should be serious Thatcherites, but they just hate Thatcher. Real lefties.

If everyone is so vocal of their dislike of her, how come she's so strong?

The British love her because they love to be miserable; they love to complain. Thatcher's become irrepressible. She's finally showing signs of faltering, except she's winning by default, because no one wants to put Kinnock in, either. It's like your Dan Quayle. What an alternative.

Are Australians political?

It's compulsory to vote, if you want to call that political. Frankly, nobody particularly gives a fuck. That doesn't mean Australians are not aware people. I think they know more about what's going on in the rest of the world than the average American, but that's because they have to compensate for being in the middle of nowhere. They're more concerned about international politics, about the environment. Every time the Americans come into Sydney harbor with their nuclear ships and submarines, there's always 5,000 people telling them to fuck off.

But the hell with domestic politics?

Do you know anything about our system? It's built on a bickering sort of war. The front page is always about politicos throwing shit at each other, spending more time insulting each other than governing.

Mind you, they are really very good at it. It's a fine Australian tradition of political insult. Listening to parliament is hilarious - “Shut up, you bastard!” - and that's our prime minister, Bob Hawke. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having drunk a yard of beer in record time. He is actually a brilliant leader, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and he has done a bloody good job, considering the apathy he's up against. What he should be real pleased about its restoring pride in being Australian, particularly after all that nonsense when the governor general dismissed Prime Minister Whitlam in 1975.

How was that possible without the consent of the Australian parliament?

We're still a colony. I think a lot of us were cynical after that. They felt like puppets. Probably had something to do with the CIA. The good old CIA. I'm in their files, I found out. That they should waste their time on me. I'm listed as subversive, for my lyrics to “Guns in the Sky” and because I once threw condoms out to the audience in Northern Australia.

How is that subversive?

The more north you get in Australia, the more it is like the South in America. The man who ran Queensland, one of the biggest states in Australia, was this guy, Joh Peterson, who was in power for over 20 years. Peterson was this sort of South African leftover who arrived in Australia, and he made things illegal, like sex education, abortion, condoms to minors – you couldn't have the vending machines in clubs. [You can now.] Well, I slandered him, and so I got taken to court, where he was thrown out of office from the corruption uncovered during the proceedings.

Did that make you a hero down there?

Say what, mate? This is Australia, remember. Our heroes are bushrangers, outlaws, and sporting stars. If you're an athlete, you can get away with anything.

[Hutchence purchases the Basi shirts, and then we head to Tower Records at the corner. A street person approaches us.]

is this the official mugging committee?

Street person: “Ooh, ooh, here they come in their limo, straight from Saks Fifth Avenue. Board of directors, how you doing, moneys, you big-time decision makers. Uh-oh, who's you? You must be a rock man. Stand aside for the rock man.”

They always pick on me.

“I want to give you something, man. Some humility. But there's only enough for one.”

I don't care for some, but humility is something we can spread around.

“Hey man, this is for seriously. You will love this humility. No side effects, no speed. Say yes, and I can be back in an hour.”

[We go through the revolving door and right to the rock section; within three minutes, Max Q is playing on the system.]

That's good, somebody knows it's out.

[Hutchence buys albums by Ciccone Youth, Camper Van Beethoven, Soul II Soul, Grace Jones, Shakespear's Sister, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Suicidal Tendencies. As he is paying for them, he spots a postcard stand that features a picture of him.]

Holy shit. When did they take this thing? What a bizarre likeness. I hardly know this guy. This is not an approved photo. [He gets the attention of a young lady behind the counter.] Excuse me, please, this is not an approved photo. It's a pirate. Do you know where you get these from?

Salesgirl: “No idea.”

Can you find out?

“Why, do you want to buy a lot of them?”

See, I told you no one recognizes me.

[We walk outside and the street person comes up to him again.]

Street person: “I know who you are.”

Who am I?

“You are someone who's gonna give me a lot of money.”

How much you want?

“Just give me one of those bills, thank you. Now I'm officially your biggest fan. Just tell me what you want to buy.”

I must be dressed for success.