#Still a problem

[gaesnek]

Okay originally i was meh about the Palestinian genocide by israel (though i didn't call it that at the time) saying that both sides were kinda shitty because one side is a terrorist organization and the other is a recognized terrorist organization but hearing about the gaza internet/communications blackout and actually seeing pictures of the bombings i'd like to remind everyone that if I see you show even the slightest complacency or support for israel I will be coming to your house and hitting you over the head with a metal bat

[thenuclearmallard]

One Man's Fight Against Slavs-Only Apartment Rentals in Moscow

"You have to solve this problem. Otherwise, I will sue, no matter how much it costs me."

By Evan Gershkovich

Feb. 27, 2018

Alexander Ryumin / TASS

The threat was typed in a fit of rage, an emotional outburst that spilled forth after weeks of frustration.

"You have to solve this problem," Emil Allakhverdiev demanded in a viral Facebook post last month. "Otherwise, I will sue, no matter how much it costs me."

Allakhverdiev, 26, was directing his public frustration at Yandex, Avito and the Center for Real Estate Information and Analytics (CIAN), among other Russian apartment rental companies. Hunting online for an apartment in his native Moscow, the English teacher of Azerbaijani descent had run into a ubiquitous fixture: disclaimers that apartments will be rented to ethnic Slavs only. 

The practice, aimed squarely at Central Asian immigrants, is one that Russian human rights advocates say has been prevalent in the capital for as long as they can remember. And because it is so entrenched, even Allakhverdiev’s singular Facebook post, they say, represents a step in the right direction.

"It feels like a new moment," Alexander Verkhovsky, the director of the Moscow-based SOVA Center, which tracks nationalism and xenophobia in Russia, told The Moscow Times. "Battling against discrimination requires citizens to be active and lawyers who will litigate strategically and attract media attention."

Although Allakhverdiev has yet to follow through on his threat to sue, he has forced the issue under Russia’s media spotlight. Before speaking to The Moscow Times, he shuttled between appearances on the state-run Moskva 24 channel and the independent Dozhd TV network.

"My primary aim is to bring attention to this problem," he explained in a central Moscow cafe one recent evening.

Emil Allakhverdiev

Facebook

Before setting out on his apartment search three months earlier, Allakhverdiev lived with his mother and rented from a friend. Previously, he hadn’t encountered much racism in Moscow, but the search, he said, had shown him how common it really is.

"It’s not just the disclaimers that you see in one out of every three ads," Allakhverdiev said. "It’s also the real estate agents who, after hearing your last name, just hang up the phone."

In a phone interview, Roman Babichev, who heads the leasing department of the Moscow-based Azbuka Zhilya real estate agency, defended the practice. The goal, he said, is less about keeping apartments in the hands of ethnic Slavs than it is preventing migrant workers from Central Asia and southern Russian republics from turning apartments into "hostels."

"It’s not discrimination," Babichev argued. "People who come from Central Asia, from the Caucasus, from Chechnya and Dagestan" — two predominantly Muslim Russian republics — "will say they will only have three people living in the apartment, but soon 10, 12 people have moved in."

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"This is based on years of experience," he added.

Migrant workers from struggling former Soviet republics have long flocked to Russia in search of better wages to send back home. More than a third of Tajikistan’s GDP in 2015, for instance, was earned by workers abroad, 90 percent of which came from Russia. In 2017, authorities estimated that there were about 10 million foreign laborers in the country.

Last spring, Russian researchers at the Robustory data journalism blog found that roughly 16 percent of the ads on CIAN discriminated on the basis of ethnicity or nationality. In their report, the researchers laid out the ads with disclaimers in map form, showing users where it would be easiest to find an apartment.

"This discrimination is not a secret to anyone who lives in Moscow," Vladimir Avetyan, one of Robustory’s researchers, said in a phone interview. "What we wanted to do was to visualize it so that the phenomenon would not just be discussed anecdotally."

Eva Mizrabekyan, 46, was born in Azerbaijan and moved to Moscow in the late ’90s when her Armenian husband found work at a restaurant. In a phone interview, she said she dreaded when the time would come for the couple to find a new apartment.

“My husband is light-skinned, so sometimes we wouldn’t have any problems right away if he went to see the apartment alone,” Mizrabekyan said. “But when it was time to sign the agreement the landlord would find out our name and start cursing and would either try to raise the price or back out altogether.”

“Thank God we found a nice landlord, and for the past seven years we haven’t had to move,” she added.

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In a statement to Dozhd TV regarding Allakhverdiev’s complaint, CIAN defended the disclaimers on its website.

"Such ads do indeed exist just as, for example, there are disclaimers on ads that say the apartment is ‘only for married couples’ or for those ‘without children’ or ‘without animals,’" the company said. "These disclaimers save our users time."

The company also pointed to Russian law, noting that, while it is clear on employment discrimination, for example, it does not "restrict renters in how they want to manage their private property."

Pavel Chikov, director of the Agora human rights organization, says that the practice is illegal. "The Russian constitution says that you cannot discriminate against people because of their race or ethnicity," he said. 

Verkhovsky of the SOVA Center, however, disagrees. Discrimination according to Russian law, he said, is the barring of someone from their rights. "Nowhere in our law," he explained, "does it say that it’s a person’s right to be rented an apartment from another person." 

Regardless, to fight the issue, he continued, will require people like Allakhverdiev to demand that discrimination be more thoroughly considered in the courts.

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Several days after the interview at the cafe, Allakhverdiev told The Moscow Times that his Facebook post had been removed for containing "open aggression against people on racial, national and religious grounds as well as ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability." 

The social media platform’s algorithm that removes posts had been hijacked by Russian nationalists sending in complaints, Allakhverdiev suggested. Facebook did not respond to The Moscow Times' requests for comment.

Allakhverdiev also shared screenshots of comments on his original post and messages in his inbox from Russians urging him to leave the country. All of it had made him "want to throw my hands up in the air."

But it wasn't all negative. Others had reached out, too, including some offering him their apartments, and a human rights lawyer who suggested Allakhverdiev file a formal complaint to the Moscow’s prosecutor’s office as an intermediary step before suing. And going to court, Allakhverdiev said, remained an option.

Still, the stream of hate seemed to have taken its toll. 

"I am a Russian citizen and Moscow is my home," he said. "Now it doesn’t feel like it so much anymore."

[donnieisaprettyboy]

can we stop pretending like it’s so super easy for trans men to pass. “oh just put on a baggy shirt and cut your hair-“ it literally doesn’t work like that and I refuse to believe you actually think it’s that easy

[chodzacaparodia]

It's frustrating that you can come up with the plot of an entire fic in just a few seconds, but writing it all down can take anywhere from never to forever.

[typhii]

that biweekly 4am cry cause i hate myself so much 🤙🏻

[shittygothbitch]

It's nice to have a mundane problem for once.

[july-19th-club]

seriously have been thinking about this all night long. call me autistic but the fact that 90% of workplaces the point is not to get your work done and then be done doing it but to instead perform an elaborate social dance in which you find something to do even when you're done doing everything you need to do in order to show your fellow workers that you, too, are Working . because you are at Work . disgusting why cant we all agree that if there is no work immediately to be done. we just dont do anything

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

not "i ship these characters" or "i want them to bond platonically" but a secret 3rd thing (I want them to be forced to interact by the Narrative bc they would HATE that)

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael Afton knows the FNAF Mimic’s secret..

[identitty-dickruption]

someone tell the tumblerinas that you can raise an issue without deliberately guilt-tripping everyone about it

[rystiel]

i keep seeing people say the doctor shouldn’t have feelings for rogue because he’s married to river…? river song… who has also married multiple people… one of the most polyamorous characters in the show…?

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[ode-to-fury]

This might be a very controversial take but Sybil being fat with no hair and Adora being weird about golems and Granny being old and a virgin and Magrat being ugly and Agnes being fat and Nanny being Nanny and Cheery existing does more for feminism than 90% of intentionally "feminist" media produced in the past 5-10 years actually

[fading-event-608]

Hi, hello, it's me again on your dash begging for donations for Falastin's campaign to save her 24 family members from death in Gaza.

I don't have any good news for you. I would absolutely love to -- but lately it's hard to stay positive or even 'neutral'. Here are some words from Falastin on the current situation:

"The situation worsens daily, and they need almost everything -- medicine, surgeries, water, food, clothes, shelter, and even hygiene products for women and children. It's hard to put into words just how desperate things have become, and with prices skyrocketing, even when essentials are available, they're nearly impossible to afford.

What really weighs on me is that communication has become nearly impossible since the latest wave of displacement. There's no internet or electricity like before. Before, they could call every two days, but now my brother/sister has to walk a long distance just to send a message.. My last contact with them was through one of those rare messages. I understand it's not safe to walk that far, and they should be focusing on finding a safer place for themselves and their children.

Half of them are sleeping in tents, while the rest are sleeping outside it. They urgently need better shelter before winter arrives. If the airstrikes don't get them, the lack of medicine and food might and if not, the harsh winter cold will be the next danger."

What can I add to this? Do you want news on recent massacres? Names of recently kidnapped Palestinians by iof? How occupiers storm hospitals and threaten to kill Palestinians? How much do I need to stress the urgency and despair of the situation in occupied Palestine?

Palestine will be free. Please help her people to see that future.

10$ = 103 SEK

25$ = 259 SEK

50$ = 518 SEK

100$ = 1,037 SEK

Verified by 90-ghost, number 282 on The Vetted Gaza Evacuation List, Falastin's account, commissions for donations.

[odinsblog]

The crew of a massive container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday warned of power issues before the collision, which caused the bridge to collapse into the frigid Patapsco River, officials said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the warning from the ship’s crew likely saved lives.

“We’re thankful that between the mayday and the collapse, that we had officials who were able to begin to stop the flow of traffic so more cars were not on the bridge,” Moore said. He called those officials heroes.

Moore noted that the bridge was up to code at the time of the collapse. He said the collapse was a “shocking and heartbreaking” event for the people of Maryland who have used the bridge for 47 years.

(continue reading)