#York Regional Police

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A York Regional Police officer who fatally shot a 25-year-old man at a Vaughan banquet hall last October did not see him in possession of a gun when he fired at him, according to the province’s police watchdog. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) also found that the subject officer (SO) ignored direction from his superior not to interact with the man in the moments leading up to the Oct. 9, 2022, shooting at Universal EventSpace. Despite that, SIU Director Joseph Martino concluded the investigation without laying charges against the officer. “On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the SO committed a criminal offence in connection with the complainant’s death,” Martino said in his findings released Tuesday. The 25-year-old man is referred to as the complainant in the report. Using video footage from the banquet hall, eyewitness accounts and materials obtained from police, the SIU provided a detailed account of what happened that evening at the facility. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[bcb-and-b-368-lindsay-road-40]

This question screams GOTCHA... sigh. Fortunately, WikiVoyage is a thing.

Shop local? Don't be an obnoxious tourist in yer own backyard. Heh.

Daily writing promptWhat place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?View all responses As a white, European middle-aged man I scream privilege — and I just have to deal with it. If I wanted, I can visit any part of the world if I spend the money and get onto a armoured tour bus (with the right people & agencies paid off). So, I won’t travel abroad. It just doesn’t interest me. Now…

[ppcbug]

Insanity!!!

@officialyrp

@yorkregionalpolice

[writers-potion]

heyo got any tips on writing gangs?

Writing Gangsters

Organized Crime vs. Gangs

Although the terms are used interchangeably, there's a difference between organized criminal networks and gangs.

Organized crimes have focuses on material gain and therefore has a more hierarchical leadership structure.

The activities of gangs are usually more fragmented, opportunistic and based on individual contacts, more entangled with the personal lives of its members.

Of course, if a street gang become powerful enough, large enough and resourceful enough, it comes a full-blown criminal organization.

Background: Time, Place, Economic Condition

Research into the characteristics of the time and place where your gang is.

Oftentimes, gangs form when the economic conditions of a country/region is down. People, especially those who are marginalized, are disillusioned which can lead them to make desperate choices.

It's important to note that many gangs are formed initally to serve as the "police" in a neighborhood where no police would enter because (for some reason) they feel as if there's nothing they can do.

Gangs may start with a "good" reason, but it just so happens that eventually they become the very thing they sought to get rid of.

Compelling Character Motivation

With the socio-geographical context as backdrop, give your characters a clear reason why they would join and stay in a gang.

A young teen may join a gang out of pure whim, maybe for money, but eventually it's going to have to be more than that.

Idolization - an older sibling is in the gang

Inclusion - connection with others is so wanted due to a lack of it in a dysfunctional family

Stability - feeling secure in a neighborhood where gangs seems like a viable option; if a gang is already terrorizing the area, joining it may seem like a way to protect one's family

Financial security - jobs may seem out of reach; it si high risk and high rewards but your character may be that desperate

Ambition/thirst for power/revenge

+ Yes, someone may join the gang because they don't want to work a regular job and want quick money, but I wouldn't say they are lazy. From what I understand, gangs require work...

A developmental Model of Gang Membership (use for character arc):

Research:

National Gang Center FAQ: https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/about/faq#0-0

Gang Life Insider Article: https://amuedge.com/the-various-dangers-of-gang-life-an-insiders-perspective/

NY Gang Slag: https://nypost.com/2012/10/28/a-to-z-deadly-slang-by-gangs-of-new-york/

Gangster Short Stories you can Read Online

‘Johnny Mnemonic’ by William Gibson

‘Vice Grip’ by Matthew A. Goodwin

‘Dolan’s Cadillac’ by Stephen King

[iww-gnv]

Amazon was accused of violating federal law multiple times to obstruct unionization efforts at a warehouse near Albany, New York, last year, according to a new complaint filed by a regional director at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), first reported by Bloomberg. The complaint, filed yesterday (Aug. 21), reportedly accuses the retail giant of illegally firing an organizer prior to a union ballot last year, calling the police on employees, barring discussion of unions at the workplace, and seeking to limit employee interaction at the warehouse before and after hours to thwart organizing.

[Read the rest]

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

An armed drone hit a school in Eilat. Seven kids had to be taken to a hospital. We still don't officially know who sent the attack drone, or how it wasn't intercepted. The options are that it was either sent from Yemen (less likely), from the ISIS terrorists in Sinai (Egypt) or from Jordan. Just a reminder: Eilat has a population of 51,000 and it has absorbed at least 60,000 of the evacuated Israelis who had survived Hamas' massacre.

In an independent terrorist attack, Palestinians fired at an Israeli car, wounding two adults (one severely and one moderately), but thankfully missing the baby who was also in the vehicle.

The Mossad (the Israeli equivalent of the CIA) helped authorities in Brazil prevent a Hezbollah terrorist attack against Jews there. In 1994, Hezbollah successfully carried out a terrorist attack against a Jewish community center in Argentina, killing 85 people and injuring over 300. Hezbollah is currently still attacking Jewish communities in Israel's north with rockets and drones.

Yesterday, for the first time in decades, Jews prayed in the ancient, 1,500 years old synagogue in Gaza (yes, older than the Arab colonization of the Land of Israel). Here's a delegation of archeologists examining the mosaic floor of the synagogue:

The mosaic includes the image of the Jewish King David, playing a lyre, with his name appearing in Hebrew letters.

The IDF has explicitly put out the message for Gazans today, that if Hamas is stopping them from evacuating, they can turn to the Israeli army for help.

Hamas' second in command in Gaza, Khalil al-Haja, told the New York Times, that the purpose of the massacre wasn't to bring prosperity to Gaza, it's to create a permanent state of war for Israel on all of its borders (meaning by facilitating a regional war, forcing other Middle Eastern elements to join the war against Israel).

HonestReporting is an NGO that was established in 2000 to combat the anti-Israel bias in many news outlets (it happened because a pic of an Israeli policeman saving a Jewish American tourist from Arabs attacking him, was published by the New York Times as the pic of an Israeli policeman attacking a Palestinian).

Now, HonestReporting has published a report on Gazan journalists, who provided materials for Reuters, AP, CNN and the New York Times, and were there for Hamas' massacre, on the border of Israel, early in the morning on Saturday (Israel's day of rest). HR is posing the question of how did these journalists know to be present there, at that time. HR is also pointing out that they entered Israel together with Hamas' terrorists, raising ethical questions about their presence and inaction at the scene of these horrors as they were happening. Following the report, HR was also sent a pic of one of these journalists been kissed on the cheek by Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza.

I find it so touching when people from backgrounds hostile to Israel, still manage to look beyond that, and see us as people. This is the bridge to the peace that I personally still wanna believe we'll have in this region one day:

Israeli police is putting together a case against the Hamas terrorists who executed the massacre, and who were caught alive. So far, over 700 testimonies of survivors have been collected, as well as tens of thousands of digital files. The terrorists' interrogations will also be included. Some of these have been published. One thing that they recounted is that they were given religious permission to murder women, children and babies. They also said that the purpose of the rapes and beheadings was to terrify the Israeli public. Lastly, they admitted that the plan was to make it from southern Israel to the central region, too (where Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are).

This is Avihu Mori, he was recognized as a mental health patient, due to severe PTSD. Every time Palestinian rockets were fired into Israel, his family said he would start falling apart, and acting illogically. During the current war, it happened again, he ran away, crossed the border into Gaza and was killed there.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[newsfrom-theworld]

1/05/2024

Today's breaking news:

Two young men were injured after Isr@eli forces opened fire at them, stripped them of their clothes, and tortured them while they were attempting to escape from Gaza City to the southern part of the strip.

Isr@eli forces confiscate cars belonging to Palestinians in occupied Hebron

Police use tear gas and rubber bullets on student protesters at the University of South Florida.

Isr@eli fighter jets strike the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

NYPD violently assaulted students and detained a number of them at Colombia University.

Isr@eli occupation forces destroy a residential house in the Palestinian village of Maghar in the Galilee region

Isr@elis attack humanitarian aid trucks headed to Gaza.

Dozens of pro-Isr@el counter-protestors have started tearing down the UCLA's Gaza Solidarity Encampment while screaming "Second Nakba!", referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948.

Isr@eli fighter jets launch an airstrike targeting a location in the central Gaza Strip.

Isr@el is establishing a complex system of checkpoints that will prevent men of “military age” from escaping Rafah

Mohammed Samour, a Palestinian child, has suffered critical injuries due to an explosion caused by planted explosives left by the Isr@eli occupation forces in his family home in Zanah, east of Khan Yunis.

Issa Jabbarin (41 years old) from Ramallah reunites with his family after 22 years of imprisonment by Isr@eli authorities

Isr@el kills Mohammed Hamdi Dib, a player for Gaza's handball team, along with his wife and three children, in a strike on their home in Gaza.

NBC reports that nearly 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia University and City College of New York last night.

Isr@eli authorities release the deputy in the legislative council, Ahmad Attoun, who has been detained under administrative detention for a yea

Injuries amongst pro Palestine protesters at the UCLA university encampment after violent Zionist counter protestors attacked the camp during the night.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Michael Goodwin

It’s bad enough that the presidents tolerated takeovers of university properties, harassment of students and nonstop noise leading to canceled classes and threats to disrupt graduations.

Many school leaders also foolishly offered concessions during negotiations even though most protests included violations of rules and criminal laws.

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Some presidents essentially capitulated, with Brown agreeing to vote on the antisemitic divest demand.

Northwestern agreed to a quota system by setting aside five scholarships for Palestinian students each year and giving Muslim groups special spaces on campus for “community building.”

Columbia, the epicenter of the outbreak, is a textbook case of a weak leader allowing her campus to be held hostage for more than two weeks as she negotiated with ringleaders.

The Ivy League school’s president, Minouche Shafik, also twice called in the NYPD to arrest resisters who occupied university property and refused to leave.

The first time was on April 18, when New York’s Finest rousted people who set up a tent camp in the middle of the campus.

Police later said just 38 of those arrested were students, CNN reported.

During the second crackdown, 80 students were arrested, along with 32 outsiders, including James Carlson.

Combined, that means just 118 students were allegedly committing violations serious enough to be arrested in the two raids.

It’s a drop in the Columbia bucket.

Across its undergraduate and graduate programs, the university enrolls nearly 37,000 students.

Coddling troublemakers

Even if the scope is limited to the undergraduate programs at Columbia and Barnard colleges, the total number of enrolled students is about 10,000.

And just 118 of them were arrested.

Of course, more students than that participated in some demonstrations and no doubt others supported the demands or just their friends.

But the small number of hardcore disruptors illustrates how badly Shafik and Columbia’s board bungled the responses.

Had they firmly enforced existing policies against disturbances from the outset, they might have been able to stop the harassment and threats before they metastasized into full-fledged disasters.

By coddling the troublemakers, administrators encouraged them and turned them into campus leaders.

The result was a lost spring semester for serious students and more turbulence for the institution, which will suffer serious reputational damage.

Civil rights probes by Congress and the Department of Education, combined with class-action lawsuits over threats to Jewish students, promise expensive problems for years.

Alumni donations already are falling.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The province's police watchdog has decided not to charge a police officer in connection with the fatal shooting of a 35-year-old man in Markham last year despite some unanswered questions about the circumstances surrounding the incident, including what prompted the officer to engage with the man in the first place.

Special Investigations Unit (SIU) Director Joseph Martino said in a report released Wednesday that he did not find reasonable grounds to lay charges against the York Regional Police (YRP) officer who shot and killed Moses Erhirhie in a shopping plaza parking lot at Fairburn Drive and Highway 7 on the evening of Jan. 21, 2022.

In his analysis, Martino admitted that "there is much about this incident that remains unknown," including why the officer interacted with Erhirhie in the first place. The SIU said the officer, referred to in the report as the subject officer (SO), declined to be interviewed for the investigation and did not provide notes as his legal right.

Martino also posed several questions about the circumstances surrounding the officer's actions, such as why he tried to arrest Erhirhie, who is referred to in the report as the complainant.

"The answers to these questions are important. If the SO had no lawful reason to arrest or detain the Complainant, then the Complainant was entitled to resist that process. In the absence of any evidence to this effect, however, and in circumstances suggesting a plausible scenario in which the officer was in the legitimate discharge of his duties, the investigation does not give rise to a reasonably grounded belief that the SO was acting outside the scope of his lawful authority," Martino wrote. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[workingclasshistory]

On this day. 26 May 1936 around 6000 workers at six Remington Rand typewriter factories walked out on strike. Workers at plants in New York state, Middletown, Connecticut and Ohio walked out on strike against a plan to relocate production from Syracuse, NY, to Ilion, NY. They also demanded a 20% pay increase and the rehiring of 17 workers who had recently been fired. The employer implemented aggressive tactics to fight against the workers, which became the lasting legacy of the strike. Remington Rand president, James H Rand Jr, devised the strategy of breaking the strike and the workers' organisation which became known as the "Mohawk Valley formula", named after the region in which the Ilion plant was based. The plan included: labelling union activists as "agitators"; organising business owners into a "Citizen's Committee" to try to break the strike; using violent vigilantes to attack the workers, and using that violence to advocate a police crackdown on the strikers; propagating anti-union propaganda; issuing threats to close plants; and calling for the "right to work" and police protection for strikebreaking replacement workers. Remington Rand fired all of the strikers, and instead hired replacement scab workers, and used security guards armed with bricks and clubs to escort the scabs into plants. They also harassed strikers by sending fake religious missionaries to strikers' homes, and set up a fake company union. Despite all of this the workers held out, and in 1937 the National Labor Relations Board issued a damaging report detailing all the ways Remington Rand had broken federal labour laws, and ordered strikers to be rehired. The strike lasted until April 1937, but was not fully settled until 1940, when the company rehired all of the fired workers, disbanded their company union and recognised the American Federation of Labor-affiliated union. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7919/remington-rand-strike Pictured: pickets and police during the strike https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=633075795532306&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[vague-humanoid]

@meanmisscharles @russianspacegeckosexparty @midians-world

It seemed like criticisms of sagging were everywhere: at school, on the news, at church, and in the conversations of adult relatives and family friends. In fact, one of my core memories growing up in the church was a moment like this. It was the summer of 2005 or 2006, when I spent a week at Vacation Bible School, huddling around a white plastic table with a group of 10-year-olds in the church's basement. I don't remember why sagging even came up, but I've never forgotten how the VBS teacher asked our group to spell the word "saggin'" backwards. N-I-G-G-A-S. "Exactly," she told us knowingly, as if this bit of respectable, preacher-esque wordplay had come straight from the New York Times—or at least The Crisis. The teacher warned us that sagging had started in prison, where men used it to signal their sexual availability to other men.

In many cases, fashion critiques within rap have drawn directly from the rhetoric of Black nationalism and Afrocentrism—which have historically been invested in a strong, refined, respectable Black masculinity that's always under threat from mainstream pop culture. In her 1991 book The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, Afrocentric psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing argued that queer Black masculinity was a product of the white supremacist imaginary, and that the ongoing "emasculation" of Black men would hold back their communities from effectively challenging racial genocide. 

But starting in the mid-2000s, city councils and state legislatures across the country began proposing anti-sagging laws in an effort to stomp out the trend for good. Some of the first attempts came to Virginia and Louisiana's state legislatures in 2004, where  "[both] proposals failed after being met with freedom-of-expression claims." Rather than slowing down, these efforts exploded, finding more success on the local level. Although anti-sagging proposals popped up in every region, most of them were concentrated in the South, especially in smaller towns. 

[tomorrowusa]

What Russia can't win on the battlefield it will try to accomplish with disinformation, propaganda, and plain old bribery.

A Russian cabal operated a propaganda site masquerading as a news site called the Voice of Europe. In addition to publishing items designed to undermine confidence in various European governments, it outright made payoffs to various EU politicians.

Investigators claimed it used the popular Voice of Europe website as a vehicle to pay politicians. The Czech Republic and Poland said the network aimed to influence European politics. Voice of Europe did not respond to the BBC's request for comment. Czech media, citing intelligence sources, reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were paid by Voice of Europe in order to influence upcoming elections for the European Parliament. The German newspaper Der Spiegel said the money was either handed over in cash in covert meetings in Prague or through cryptocurrency exchanges. Pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk is alleged by the Czech Republic to be behind the network. Mr Medvedchuk was arrested in Ukraine soon after the Russian invasion, but later transferred to Russia with about 50 prisoners of war in exchange for 215 Ukrainians. ' Czech authorities also named Artyom Marchevsky, alleging he managed the day-to-day business of the website. Both men were sanctioned by Czech authorities. Poland's intelligence agency said it had conducted searches in the Warsaw and Tychy regions and seized €48,500 (£41,500) and $36,000 (£28,500).

"Money from Moscow has been used to pay some political actors who spread Russian propaganda," BIS said in a statement. It added that the sums amounted to "millions" of Czech crowns (tens of thousands of pounds).

I went looking for the Voice of Europe site but it is now missing (Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site). So I held my nose and visited their Twitter account and nothing new has been posted since the scandal broke.

We need to be careful when looking at news online. Recently a series of fake sites pretending to be legit US news sources was uncovered.

Russia-Backed ‘Fake News Organizations’ Revealed Across the U.S. in Bombshell New York Times Report

The fake news sites have names that sound like they are legit but aren't. Examples: D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle, and the Miami Chronicle. There is a legit New York Daily News – note the different word order from the fake. There once was a newspaper called the Chicago Chronicle but it folded during the Theodore Roosevelt administration.

Google News searches spew a lot of crap. In a lot of cases the "news" sources on Google are just the proverbial guy in his underwear in his mom's basement posting bullshit. They may not be Russian but they are often dubious.

It's best to create a bookmark folder of known legit news sources. There are still numerous good sources not behind paywalls. And many countries have public broadcasters who post news in English. Just a few: NPR, BBC, DW, CBC, ABC (Australia), RFI, YLE, Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio, NHK-World, and even EER in Estonia.

When running across a news story which sounds peculiar, check to see if it's being reported in known legit media before posting or sharing it.

There are national elections this year in a number of countries including India, the US, and (probably) the UK. Don't inadvertently assist Putin's effort to spread disinformation and sow chaos.

[atomicwinnerdreamland]

I was watching all of Ben's videos related to the states' haunts because it's Halloween, and here are my favs from "Table Regions: Northeast Haunts":

(my thoughts are in parenthesis)

1.) Mass staring somewhere everytime he appeared, looking like he's about to say, "They fr thought THAT was haunted?"

2.) Jersey: You can try and find the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens.. before it finds you ☺️

3.) Delaware: You can try to collect all 4 ghosts at the Governor's mansion in Dover. (We're collecting ghosts? Sign me up)

4.) PA: Stay in Hotel Bethlehem, ask for room 932, and say Hi to Francis for me. (I'm awful with directions so I appreciate how direct this was :D)

5.) Connecticut: If you go to Bruce Museum, you can see a couple of ghosts in love. (aww <3)

6.) New Hampshire: You can check out the New Hampshire Asylum for the insane... or the New Hampshire State Hospital. Whatever they're calling it. (are they nursing the dead in this hospital too? that's cool)

7.) New York: I would say you should visit the Amityville House, but I really don't want you to. (aww, is NY caring about us?)

8.) Vermont: The Vermont Police Academy in Pittsford is haunted by a ghost named Mary.. there's a lot of ghosts names Mary, huh?

9.) Rhode Island: You could visit the ghost dog at Forth Wetherhill in Jamestown. (Flo and Loui would attempt to pet it, and so would I)

10.) and lastly:

[the-monkey-ruler]

Monkey King Reloaded (2017) 小悟空

Director: Ye Weiqing / Wang Yili Screenwriter: Aaron Mendelsohn Genre: Comedy / Animation / Adventure Country/Region of Production: Mainland China/Hong Kong, China Language: Mandarin Chinese Date: 2018-07-14 (Mainland China) Duration: 85 minutes Also known as: Wukong 3D / King Kong Adventure in New York / New York Pilgrim / 小金刚纽约大冒险 / 小悟空 3D / 纽约行者 Type: Reimanging

Summary:

Omori was originally a golden monkey in the zoo. He dreamed that one day he could become the Monkey King, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Omori had a deep friendship with the administrator Guan Guan. One day, a mysterious monster kidnapped Guan Guan and took him to New York. The reason behind this was actually closely related to the master Sun Wukong's conquest of demons thousands of years ago. Omori rushed to New York to rescue Guan Guan and discovered that the evil force controlling Guan Guan was Sun Wukong's defeated general, the Bull Demon King. How to defeat the extremely powerful Bull Demon King became a problem for Omori, Master Bajie, and police officer Amo. A very difficult test is waiting for Omori. Will Omori succeed?

Source: https://en.hkcinema.ru/film/30732

Link: https://m.imehua.com/mv/18887/online/556686_1.html

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

tbh it's not just insinuation of you doing some class discrimination that is gross, other things listed by them as accusations towards you are at least equaly as disgusting, if not more. "ableism, classism, racism" i'm sorry, i didn't know swift is disabled, poor or non-white, oh wait, she is neither of these. yes, grammar policing can be used to discriminate, but when it's used to punch down people, who actually belong to these categories.

also there are literal college courses focused solely on swift's writing, but you as someone with english lit degree can't do some grammar analysis on your private blog? is other anon as offended about these courses and sending them emails about how discriminatory it is to pick apart someone's writing? of course not, because the only people, who would spend money an that type of a course are rich ts fandom cultists, who wouldn't say anything, that might be actually critical about swift. also anon doesn't actually care about picking apart someone's writing, they only care about swift's writing being put under some criticism, because otherwise they would be sending offended emails to every school or critic for the crime of literary analysis.

it's almost as if swift trained these people with her never ending victimhood and copying, to look in her name for any struggle to steal whenever she is being criticized. not an ounce of critical thinking or just common sense to look at it for a second and realize that these don't apply to swift. "so yeah not a good look" yeah, but not on crumblinggothicarchitecture

Sorry, this took a minute for me to get to <3. I appreciate this perspective. I didn't even mention that in the ask, but it's so weird to accuse someone of being racist, ableist, classicist just because I analyzed Taylor Swift’s poor grammar. Swift is the one who calls herself a writer and claims she one of the best writers on the planet right now. So, it stands to reason that I would use my English Degree to analyze her grammar if, for any reason, I felt she actually wasn't a good writer.

If I say that someone isn't a good writer. I'm not going to just state that and leave it there. Obviously, it's on me to effectively argue my point. I do, however, have ways to argue my point. So, naturally, I will get into some linguistic or literary criticism of Swift.

I'm not sure that Grammar-Anon really understands what I am trying to do here. Besides, I think you're right about them not knowing that linguistics is an actual academic discipline. Are the people who dedicate their whole lives to studying and teaching grammar also being racist, ableist, and classicist? LOL.

The English language is such a beautiful medium for expression. It's one of my favorite languages, among many, to read poetry in because it has such an amazing breadth of vocabulary words with which to express emotion. In most linguistic study, it is the mechanism of language itself that scholars pull into study. Fascinating stuff- and people study it all. There are scholars whose life's work revolves around understanding AAVE dialects, or understanding Louisiana Cajun dialects, or understanding mid-Atlantic dialects, or Jewish-New York regionalisms. This is just a short list of regionalist dialects I've personally read about in the last few months- however, the list is expansive and covers much more than just the American continent. For instance, there is a whole subset of academic study centered on the post-colonialist use of English Language in India. Scholarship in this field often takes into account feminist theory, Marxist theory, or Post Colonialist theory. (Again, I just listed my favorites, but there are many more theoretical lenses through which people study the impact of grammatical praxis).

This is something people make into their whole life's work- it's not somehow offensive to participate in low-stakes grammatical analysis of Taylor Swift.

You're right, some people just can't handle the idea of putting her work under the microscope because it would impact their narrow-world view if someone said actually Swift is a bad, unoriginal writer. Imagine the meltdown if twitter Swifties found me :O

I've been giving Swift a pass for years, mostly because I would dismiss her music as simple pop-music. It's meant to be fun. I would listen to it, because it was an easy break from the dense, challenging stuff I would read for classes. However, now I'm going to tear apart Swifts work. It's the principle of the matter now because she seems to think she's the greatest American poet to ever live. I am both bored, as summer approaches and I have nothing else to work on, and frustrated that she's pretending to be a poet.

She's not a tortured genius. She's a trust fund baby who got as far as she did on mediocrity because of her parents' money. We "wouldn't last an hour in the asylum" where they raised her- Ha. She wouldn't last a second working a part-time job after school to pay rent. I get upset when people accuse me of some type of classist's attitude purely because I use my education when they know nothing about my story. I got a lucky break.

Education is my road out of abject poverty. Nothing else was going to save me. I did it all on my own, with the help of a bunch of scholarships, lucky breaks, and really wonderful teachers. Now, in my real life, I am the teacher now. I want to root for people. I critique for the sake of wanting people to improve their skills.

Taylor Swift's arrogant attitude and unwillingness to face criticism just gets under my skin. So, what do I do? I'm not fond of ad hominem attacks. Instead, I will make some good arguments about her bad writing and have some fun in the process. :)

So yeah- I guess it's not a good look.

[leeenuu]

Emergency workers arrive at a residential area hit during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, December 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna)

A volunteer dressed as Saint Nicholas prepare to distribute Christmas gifts to soldiers in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, December 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Libkos)

People take shelter inside a metro station during massive Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, December 29, 2022. (REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko)

Ukrainian army medics Eugenia and Oleksander embrace after their wedding ceremony in Lyman, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, December 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Libkos)

Ukrainian servicemen from 127 brigade prepare a telescopic tower with a remote camera installed on a Soviet car "Volga" that was recast to observe and correct fire on the front line near Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, December 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A man reacts next to the body of his wife, killed during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, December 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna)

A Ukrainian soldier watches a drone feed from an underground command center in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, December 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Libkos)

Families watching a movie in a parking garage on Saturday, December 24, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Laura Boushnak/The New York Times)

Ukrainian servicemen with the Dnipro-1 Special Tasks Patrol Police regiment Raphael Karapitian, 45, walks with with weapons beside a decorated Christmas tree in the trenches on the front line on Christmas Eve in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Saturday, December 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne)

Ukrainian soldier Vasyl Khomko, 42, carries flowers as he waits for his wife and daughter at the train station in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, December 31, 2022. Khomko's wife and daughter have been living in Slovakia due to the war but returned to Kyiv to spend New Year's Eve together. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna)