#and other similarly alarming queries

[denimbex1986]

The atemporal, in-between state of gay life has rarely been so keenly or poignantly dramatized on screen as it is in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. Many of the greatest cinematic interpretations of queer experience—the melancholic twilight childhood of Terence Davies’s The Long Day Closes, the blank-walled rooms and anonymous truck stops of Chantal Akerman’s Je tu il elle, the vacant apartments of Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive l’amour and the autoerotic trashscape of João Pedro Rodrigues’s O Fantasma—make desire inextricable from loneliness and isolation. To this lineage, Haigh contributes his own strong central visual conceit: a nearly vacant new high-rise on the outskirts of London, inhabited solely by two men on different floors. Adam (Andrew Scott), a screenwriter who lives alone and appears to subsist on fridge leftovers, is increasingly cut off from acquaintances and friends, who have all begun to move to suburban enclaves to raise families. His only companions appear to be his laptop, with its teasing white Word documents (EXT. SUBURBAN HOUSE – 1987), and his TV, blaring music videos of eighties Britpop bands. One night during a fire-alarm test, Adam stands outside and looks up at the dark tower, only one other apartment illuminated, a silhouetted figure bathed in blue light looking back down at him. This building mate turns out to be another gay man, Harry (Paul Mescal); unlike Adam, he’s impish and charmingly forward, but, as he appears at Adam’s door with a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand, similarly solitary. His first, half-soused words to Adam: “How do you cope?”

It’s a question that will hover over Haigh’s film, which gradually, and through a series of metaphysical twists, reveals itself as an inquiry into what creates that loneliness, how one survives (or doesn’t) while feeling out of step with the forward march of time, and the various forces, social and personal, that leave lasting wounds. Those constantly and tiresomely peeling their eyes for images of queer positivity might read all this as a kind of wallow in gay trauma, yet Haigh has made a film about deeply internalized shame that’s imaginative, poignant, and sexy. All of Us Strangers parallels Adam and Harry’s burgeoning romance with a second narrative thread. Adam begins taking trains out to a neighborhood in South London (Haigh shot these scenes in a suburban neighborhood outside Croydon) and wandering its environs. Cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay’s subtle, barely perceptible zooms and Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s eerie-alluring score begin to impose an otherworldly quality on these sequences, which are heightened by the appearance of yet another handsome stranger, a mustachioed butch played by Jamie Bell who locks eyes with Adam in the park and invites him back to his house. Though it initially seems the two men are cruising one another—and the film certainly, provocatively teases at this—we learn that Bell is Adam’s father and that Adam has been beckoned back to his childhood home, where he is also welcomed into the open arms of his mother (Claire Foy). That Bell and Foy appear to be significantly younger than Scott (indeed, the two actors are in their thirties, while Scott is in his mid-forties) is the first indication that we’ve left reality behind. It’s only in a subsequent scene that we learn just how much: Adam tells Harry that his parents were killed in a car accident before he turned twelve.

The ease with which Haigh negotiates his central supernatural conceit increasingly makes moot a viewer’s potential queries: Is this literally happening or is the journey back home just a tidy metaphor for healing open wounds? Or is it to be read as a visualization of this screenwriter’s creative process? Is Adam time-traveling or interacting with ghosts? Or are they visions in his head? Loosely adapting Strangers, a 1987 Japanese novel by Taichi Yamada, Haigh puts his story’s metaphysical devices and daydream ambiguities in the service of something quite concrete and personal, a meditation on gayness as both intrinsic personal trait and social construct. Meeting his parents for the first time since his pre-teenage years, Adam finds he is able to confront them about his sexuality in ways he was never able to; he’s not just going through the coming-out process he was cruelly denied as a child, which left him in a state of suspended animation, he’s also able to meet his parents eye to eye as an adult. Scott’s performance throughout, but especially in his scenes with Foy and Bell, in which he’s at once timid child and worldly grownup, is a wonder of constant emotional negotiation, one moment accommodating, the next recalcitrant, and always searching for release, redemption, or some form of closure that might prove impossible to someone whose life has been so defined by psychological wreckage and a loneliness equally, inextricably formed by the loss of his parents and the realization of his sexuality.

Adam’s paranormal ability to talk to his parents, who are stuck in a 1987 idea of the world, about his life as a gay man in the third decade of the twenty-first century facilitates complicated dialogues about the unsettled condition of contemporary queerness. These delicately written conversations are among the most authentic and heartbreaking of Haigh’s career thus far, allowing him to expound upon the tricky social situation of gay people whose day-to-day feelings of estrangement might not square with the widely held narrative of acceptance and assimilation. Revealing his gayness to his mother over tea in his childhood kitchen, Scott’s initial matter-of-fact boldness is subsequently replaced by something more challenged and discursive after a clearly disappointed Foy responds with that old “sympathetic” chestnut, “What parent wants to think that about their child?” But things are different now, Adam insists. Gay people are accepted by society—at least to their faces, he adds. “Are you lonely?” his mother asks. Adam’s hesitant response: “If I am it’s not because I’m gay. Not really.” “Not really…” she echoes, unconvinced.

Haigh might have directed his actors in a detached, externally ghostly fashion, yet by instead erring on the side of naturalism, something more surprising—and more disturbing—occurs over the course of the film, which is that Adam’s parents are granted the grace to register as much more than just his subjective visions. A tearful scene between Adam and his father, in which the former haltingly takes the latter to task for foisting upon him standards of masculinity and for never coming into his room when he heard him crying, might have come across as a kind of gay man’s wish-fulfillment, yet the flood of sentiment the conversation engenders between Scott and Bell goes far beyond emotional retribution. Adam’s casual revelation to his father that he still cannot cross his legs without thinking about his father’s admonishments about his perceived femininity will surely provoke shudders of recognition in many viewers, but Haigh is ultimately composing a deliberation between equals, grown men stunted by the same tragedy, experienced differently. In one the film’s most emotionally brutal moments, Adam reassures his mother that she died quickly in the accident (she didn’t). These are beings with their own unresolved issues, both with Adam and their lost selves.

As he explains to Harry later in the film, the terror of being eternally alone following his parents’ deaths got tied up with his attitude toward being gay, resulting in the feeling that “the future doesn’t matter.” All of Us Strangers doesn’t respond to this articulation of hopelessness with any kind of bromidic antidote; in fact, Haigh’s film, with its constellation of ghosts floating in some undefined netherworld, disconnected from any standardized forward motion, feels as in tune with queer theories around temporal futility as any film I’ve seen. In his book No Future, Lee Edelman spoke of the “appropriately perverse refusal that characterizes queer theory—of every substantialization of identity, which is always oppositionally defined and, by extension, of history as linear narrative in which meaning succeeds in revealing itself—as itself—through time.” At one point, Adam, a grown man inexplicably dressed in his infantilizing childhood pajamas, gets into bed to sleep between his parents, his face nearly pressed against his mother’s in a moment as comforting for Adam as it provokes Freudian discomfort for the viewer (and echoes the implicitly sexualized first reunion between Adam and his father). A grown man untethered from time, floating in an unreal past, expecting no future, Adam is a figure of both agonizing sentimentality and provocative nihilism.

Haigh’s film seesaws between Andrew’s confused attempts at absolution with his parents and his tentative steps into love with Harry, each a potential journey to self-knowledge with an unknown outcome. Haigh occasionally cross-pollinates these discretely cordoned worlds, heightening the ambiguity of their “realness” through dreams and extended musical cues; this is most effectively realized in a montage sequence set to Blur’s lurching “Death of a Party,” which begins with Adam and Harry going out dancing, threads through images of their growing domestication, and culminates in a disorienting, feverish nightmare that leads directly back to Adam’s childhood bedroom, an adroit description of the character’s perpetually transitional existence. The conditional nature of Adam’s familial relationship finds an analogy in his new, uncertain romance. Harry, who is about two decades Adam’s junior, represents another pole of experience to which the forty-something feels estranged. Explaining his fear of fucking to Harry, Adam reminds us that he was raised in the AIDS era, when it was constantly impressed upon gay men that sex equals death. Harry, younger, less afraid of intimacy, and more at ease with the term “queer” than Adam, is nevertheless hardly as a paragon of emotional stability, a reminder that the oppressive forces of the dominant culture are still very much alive and baring teeth. Adam and Harry’s latent traumas make it all the more poignant that Haigh, Scott, and Mescal portray their lovemaking with such rare tenderness and eroticism.

The premise of Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers is so powerful, so primal, that it’s remarkable another queer filmmaker hadn’t happened upon it yet. Though its story comes with a high-concept leap of faith, it feels entirely instinctual, a heady film straight from the gut. Its broadly sketched themes—of life and death, sex and love, trauma and regeneration, time and stasis—certainly have the potential to connect with audiences of all identities, yet it’s a film that feels marvelously keyed into the experience of a specific generation of gay men, a work of great psychological authenticity. It’s a narrative of clear-cut boundaries and simple symmetries, but within them it contains galaxies of emotion; Haigh has found the precise outlines in which to color in a meditation on the strange, liminal experience of gay male existence.

The operative sensation of All of Us Strangers is catharsis, and Haigh and his extraordinary cast go about their project of purgation with honesty. A gay film this drained of irony, which refuses to shy away from big emotional wallops, could be difficult to swallow for some, yet the earnestness that All of Us Strangers traffics in feels cleansing. Haigh dares to go places other gay films don’t, perhaps for fear of being too maudlin; yet the writer-director finds just the right, precarious balance between what’s left unspoken and what’s given direct voice, leading to a final note of emotional maximalism that ascends the film to a kind of cosmic rapture. There’s even a baked-in thesis of sorts that justifies or at least explicates its unabashed musicality. Adam ensconces himself in the pop music of his past, queer or queer-adjacent Brit synth pop bands; in addition to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the film luxuriates in Erasure, Blur, the Housemartins, and, in a family Christmas tableau of brilliant incongruity, Pet Shop Boys. Adam uses music to fill the dead spaces, a reminder of how gay men have long used pop cultural detritus to form cultural identities and communities. At the end of the film, Harry, no stranger to loneliness himself, closes his eyes and, in Adam’s embrace, implores, “I never could stand the quiet. Could you put a record on?” Adam does and, despite the sadness we’ve born witness to, sends the movie into the heavens.'

[modern-decadence]

being a writer is looking up how to tend to a gun wound one second and how to cook scrambled eggs the next

[leviathangourmet]

(Archive Link)

Does educating people about white privilege—the idea that for white people, their race is a boon, but for black people, a drawback, at least in certain social situations—make them more empathetic? A fascinating new study suggests that the kind of racism awareness training taught in many university classrooms is not only useless but may actually be detrimental.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in April. Researchers provided participants with some academic literature explaining the concept of white privilege and then asked them to gauge their reactions to hearing a story about an unfortunate man. For some participants, the man was described as black, for others, he was described as white. Researchers also ran a separate experiment in which the participants were not told about white privilege before reacting to the story. They also queried both sets of participants about their political beliefs.

What they found was that conservatives who had learned about white privilege were no more sympathetic to the poor black man than conservatives who had not learned about white privilege. For liberals, the results were alarming: Liberals who read the educational materials about white privilege were similarly unsympathetic to the poor black man as the liberals in the second experiment, but they were even more unsympathetic to the poor white man.

"What we found startling was that white privilege lessons didn't increase liberals' sympathy for poor Black people," writes Erin Cooley, one of the study's authors and an assistant professor of psychology at Colgate University, in an explanatory post for Vice. "Instead, these lessons decreased liberals' sympathy for poor white people, which led them to blame white people more for their own poverty. They seemed to think that if a person is poor despite all the privileges of being white, there must really be something wrong with them."

In other words, learning about white privilege did not make conservatives more empathetic, and it made some liberals less empathetic, overall.

Reflecting on this finding for Quillette, Zaid Jilani proposes a possible explanation:

What accounts for this? One possibility is that social liberals are internalizing white-privilege lessons in a way that flattens the image of whites, portraying all of them as inherently privileged. So if a white person is poor, it must be his or her own fault. After all, they've had all sorts of advantages in life that others haven't.

This would mean that the sort of social justice training programs offered by numerous universities could be having an undesirable effect, give that most students who enroll in these classes are liberals. To take just one example, the University of Colorado at Denver offers a class called "Problematizing Whiteness: Educating for Racial Justice," in which students are required to look "beyond feel-good momentary White racial awareness" and realize that "whites are complicit." In researching my book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, I found numerous similar examples of academic exercises that blurred the line between anti-racism and anti-whiteness, and between scholarship and activism. It would hardly be surprising if these classes, rather than changing liberal students' feelings toward disadvantaged black people, merely galvanized them against whites.

Reached for comment, Cooley told me that she thought such a course "could amplify the effects as you suggest," but "if the course tackled many different forms of hierarchy (class, ability, gender, sexual orientation), I would hope that students would leave with a more nuanced view of inequality and, thus, perhaps not show the effects we see in our study."

[southeastasianists]

Over the 20 years since Indonesia’s transition to democracy, commentators have sounded the alarm about the incursion of Islam into public life. Bolstering their case was the 2017 gubernatorial race in Jakarta, which swept Anies Baswedan to power following a campaign that unabashedly stoked religious sectarianism for political gain. Skeptics say these concerns are overhyped, however. Islamist parties—PKS, PPP and PBB—have championed socially conservative policies like prohibition and the mandating of religious dress. Yet they have never garnered more than 20% of votes in Indonesia-wide contests.

So far, this debate has mostly centred on national and provincial politics. But Indonesia is a decentralised polity in which local governments wield vast authority. Few deny that high concentrations of Islamist voters exist in numerous pockets across the Indonesian archipelago. There, hardline religious politicians have often gone on to capture local power.

Does Islamist rule in these lower branches of government affect relations between religious groups? In a new paper, we evaluate what happens when Islamist political parties win power locally. Does the election of Islamist legislators boost incidents of religious violence, while increasing expressions of intolerance toward religious minorities?

Our focus is on partisan representation in district legislatures (DPRD-II) over two election cycles: 2004–9 and 2009–14. We gathered and digitised the raw electoral returns for all district-level local contests—data which we have also made publicly available for the first time. We then combined this data with reports of local-level violence, as well as survey data measuring citizens’ self-reported attitudes toward minority groups.

Measuring the effect of electing Islamist legislators on citizens’ attitudes and behaviours is inherently difficult. We can’t simply compare violence and attitudes in areas where Islamists pick up more or fewer votes, because any two areas differ along a host of other dimensions. Problematically, any one of these dimensions might directly impact the phenomena we are interested in.

Instead, we look at a special subset of elections: those where an Islamist candidate squared off against a secular nationalist candidate in a very close race for the last seat  in a DPRD-II constituency. Owing to Indonesia’s electoral rules, these races are decided by strikingly narrow margins—often fewer than 20 votes. We argue that the outcome of these tight races is essentially a matter of blind luck: the product of chance factors like election-day weather. If true, comparing average levels of violence and intolerance in places where Islamists narrowly won with places where they narrowly lost gives us a reliable test of the impact of Islamist rule.

What did we find? The first thing to note is that religious violence was quite rare in Indonesia across both election cycles. Relatively few constituencies saw such violence during this period. We did detect some signs that having an additional Islamist win local office contributed to an increase in violence. But the effect was small in magnitude and inconsistent, varying depending on the dataset we examined (for example, the newspaper or village census).

The findings on people’s attitudes were similarly slight. People in surveys were asked several questions about how they would feel if someone of a different religion moved into the village or neighborhood, rented a room in their house, built a place of worship in their community, or asked to marry their child or close relative. Electing an Islamist candidate increased the share of respondents offering the most intolerant answer to at least one of these queries, yet there was little change in responses to individual questions.

Interestingly, the presence of an extra Islamist in local office made respondents more likely to offer an intolerant response when a bystander was present during their interview. This finding suggests the possibility that local Islamists might exacerbate religious tension by making it more socially acceptable to express intolerant opinions about minorities.

Overall, electing Islamist legislators likely has adverse but substantively small effects on local relations between Indonesia’s religious groups. The representation of Islamist legislators in local governments may pose some danger to Indonesia’s historically pluralist social contract, though not on a level that detractors commonly claim. We should highlight though that our statistical results were mixed, and the timeframe of our study limited. More research is needed to build a fuller picture of how parties professing hardline religious ideologies mould society in young democracies.

The original paper is published in the British Journal of Political Science and is available here (gated) and here (ungated)

[the-house-of-the-nine]

In Mind of Misery: Manipulation, Part 9

[ And so the journey begins.  Three Separate stories to tell here all happening Simultaneously.  Attacking from three fronts, is this the beginning of the end for The Nine?  Please Like, Share, and Follow us!   We are hoping to get new people coming our way, and could use the love! Thank you everyone!!!!! ]

Cast:

[ L.K ] -  Lazarius Kashebahl, Marseille, Raelyndia Duskhollow

[ P.K ] - Kretus Dark

[ V.D ] - Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin

[ J ] - Jursol, Jimba, Mawa

[ T ] - Talisin aka The Boy

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[ L. K ]   The group of females were now sealed in a room that was much darker than the last; there was even less natural light due to the fact that they were deeper into the crypt now.  

The floor was still thick with a pool of blood that remained constant no matter where they would be going; and despite the sense of calmness that may have come over them due to the drumming beat of the hearts and the locust swarms coming to an end; they were far from safe.

Suddenly toward the back of the room they were standing in; a pair of torches would ignite in a red blaze of energy about halfway up from bottom of the wall.  The torch sconces were on either side of a hall that led them deeper into the darkness.  

But as they stepped closer toward the opening, another brilliant set of torches just several feet from the last would ignite similarly to the last.  This would progress further and further as the lead person began walking down the chamber.

From the depths of the long red lighted corridor that again was only about 10 feet in height and 12 in length, there was a muffled sound that came across as sounding human.  It echoed from the walls and seemed to surround them as they continued into the lighted hall.

The further they got, the more clear it became.  It was the sound of chanting, a deepened baritone which was being spoken in a language that none of them could understand.  

The closest thing they could make out is that it was a repeatable chant.  The first and third line were matching and the second and fourth were different.

"sanguis autem infirma...."

Their chant would beckon them all closer, deeper into the nightmare that was being presented to them.  The select few that were still alive had no choice but to press on.  With Lazarius and Marseille both gone, it was clear to the group that they would have to end this; or die trying.  There was no going back.

"omne cælum os eius..."

When they reached the end of the very long hall, the final torches would ignite on the exit which led out into an absolutely massive chamber. The burst of light would then begin to ignite the torches all the way around the perimeter of the room, a rhythmic beat to their glow as they encompassed the entire room with their eerie red glow.

"sanguis autem infirma...."

The room was filled with figures; all of which were hooded, cloaked and standing in a gathered group scattered in no real rhyme or reason. There had to be nearly fifty strong of these chanting cultists that all seemed to be facing the opposite wall that the group had come from, with their backs to them.

"et congregans omnes vos..."

[ V . D ]   Pame had begun carefully removing the cold hard steel of her swords from her hips in preparation, her eyes glaring into the darkness without as much as a flinch-- Though to be fair the grip om her swords could have been enough to strangle a full grown human man.

It wasn't a matter of if she was nervous or not, but how long her mask of calm would last. So far it was strong and impervious, even as the suspiciously timed igniting of torches occurred.

Though it had made Pame hesitate from walking deeper, her eyes moving to inspect those remaining before facing forward once more.

"Not suspicious at all,"

Pame murmurs, then reaches to pluck a torch off the wall.

"Stay close. Wade carefully."

With these remarks lingering in the air has the kaldorei pressed forward, calmly and gracefully gliding her legs through the blood, gliding forward with minimal splash or loud waves from the tremor vibrations of her walking.

"What do you think that thing was? A grotesque mutation of Raelyndias experiments?"

Verzatea wondered aloud toward both women, her grip constantly readjusting to better hold the boy in her arms, her eyes often switching between lowering to inspect if he was well and looking back toward the path that lays ahead,

"I hope it wasnt an actual man... Ive seen that before. A test subject whos soul was twisted, broken and deformed then placed into the body of a lab created beast. T'was an awful sight.. He didn't suffer long, thankfully. Soul was too battered."

Until the chanting began... In which Verzatea's original state of shock and horror disappeared, replaced with some rising bubble of passion within. She was plain pissed. Irritated. Wounded. She'd not allow herself to be so weak as to fail those who remained, like she failed Marseille.

Right now she focused solely on the well being of all three individuals surrounding her, and as the highest ranking officer alive among them, it wouldn't look well if she started sobbing like a lost child looking for someone else to fix the problem.

Besides... Tea had beef with Raelyndia, for all evidence of her corruptible touch and what history has shown Tea of the infamous Mistress of the Nine. Tea wouldn't fall victim, and she damned sure would prevent more of her own falling victim.

And if that meant more fighting, surely she could find a good place to rest the boy before unveiling her swords and wreaking her own havoc, relieving all that pent up energy and excitement. But for now she trudged along quietly and observed, her alertness high whilst watching as the scene changed.

Even as the chanters came into vision, Tea and Pame held steadfast, watching them all closely whilst backing in to their group to ensure the four of them were close-- Safety in numbers, sure... But when the safe numbers were out numbered, alas Tea was confident in their abilities... Few in number, but not few in strength.

[ L. K ]   Though it would soon become clear that they were not only expected, but welcomed.  The chanters continued to repeat what they were saying over and over again, it was their mantra that caused the hearts of the intruders to feel unwelcome and unwanted.

As they got closer into the open room, the cultists soon began to turn.  Their horrors bestowed upon the three women. First and foremost each one of them was lacking a head.  The blood soaked stump of the jagged cut was clear that they were decapitated in the most painful of ways; multiple hacks.  

The blood that seemed to be filling this place was in no short supply from these headless monsters.  As they turned to welcome the intruders not only was the fact that their drawn hoods stayed aloft without heads but their bodies were exposed on the front.  The robes were open completely.  Each man, and woman was horribly mutilated.  

Some of the men lacked genitalia, only a blood soaked stain was left.  Some of the women too had been carved; their breasts taken.  Many had missing chest cavities and organs that had been removed, all of them were bloodied and horrific to look at.  Their flesh open and rotting; fetid to the stale air around them yet their chanting never left the hall. 

“Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin, Jursol of the Zandalari....”

The feminine voice would return and shadow them like they were all expected.

“You have come, kneel and take your place within the Order of Nine.  Join those who have come before you.  Only then will you be free...only then will this end.”

At the furthest end of the room there was a large altar, and behind the altar was a massive glass tank structure holding a coagulated blood substance.  The glass was several inches thick; no breaking it.  It seemed to be resonating the sounds they were hearing.

“Do not resist, only through your assimilation will you be forgiven...”

[ V . D ]   "Forgiven?"

Verzatea laughs dryly,

"From the look of things it isn't us who've done wrong,"

With this the Confessor begins to slacken her hold on the boy to lower him to the floor at her feet. A sudden wash of uncertainty befell her, a sort of sensation which had her instincts in overdrive and extra sensitive to the situation.

Perhaps it was nerves, given the high tension and Raelyndia's home advantage. But the three genuine members of the Nine were high alert, they stood a fighting chance. As Tea looked about the room her voice projected forth a query with every ounce of confidence she could muster,

"Forgiven for what?"

Though she played dumb, Tea had an idea what their sins were. Rejecting the Old Gods and abandoning the Black Empire surely didn't bode well for Nzoth and his followers, she could only imagine what they had waiting for the group if they were to reject repentance.

Thus her hands move toward her wrist, hesitating here in preparation to whip free her sword-bracelet-- But first she'd linger and listen. Pame was equally focused, her eyes moving back toward Jursol and her raptors, then to Tea and the boy whom had been sat on the floor in the blood and slumped over his own lap, his spine managing to keep him upright without aid. Pame quickly steps back, taking position to join Tea in circling the child, protecting the weakest in their circle.

[ J ]   Jursol had remained on high alert, focused, silent. She followed the others from behind as they moved further down into this mess. The torches seemed odd to be lit. Something was clearly wrong here. Her eyes scanned their surroundings as they moved further in.

The sound of chanting cause her and the raptors to glance at each other. Something about it caused them alarm. Brushing it they continued onward with the others. This had to end. As they entered into a new room, her eyes cast daggers at the cultist. Grabbing her weapon as she waved a hand to the raptors.

Each one moved into a new position as they circled the group.  As they got a better look at the mangled ripped bodies of the cultists, Jursol was in disbelief.

“By da Loa......not even death be sparring dem.”

Her head turned to face the body of a female. The voice seemingly coming from no where out her on edge. It was worse since they seemed to be expected.

“Who da.....”

Jursol stooped short as she listened to the female, a snort coming from her at the idea of forgiveness. She gave a sharp whistle as one of the raptors moved to surround the boy. The other two remained by her side. Jursol snarled like an animal as she glared at the female.

“We be doing no such thing. Dis be where it ends!”

Looking to the others as she readied herself.

“Dey be dead already, der must be a way ta finish dem off.”

Her gaze was on Tea, as she perhaps was the best one to know how to finished off something that is already dead.

[ L. K ]  After they spoke, a chilling pause resonated before the voice responded.

“You do not understand your sins....but I shall make you see...you will bend; or shatter beneath all that I have built.”

The voice taunted them; the vial at the head of the chamber began to bubble and hiss.  As the voice spoke so too did the vial.  It was clear that whatever was in the massive jar was speaking to them now.

“There is nothing more you can do.  You have all forsaken the Nine.  A curse upon your hearts for I shall be reborn.  And I shall restore that which has been blasphemously ruined in your ignorance.”

A flash of light then burst toward them as a red cosmic hand slowly tore from the ceiling; it’s dripping bloodied fingers curled around a subject.  It was lowered onto the elevated platform and placed standing up.  As the cosmic energy reformed and took its place as a chain noose around the neck of the figure, it became clear to them.

“Behold....”

The man was covered in blood, near death and being secured by a red energy chain that fed back to the large tank of blood substance.  It was Marseille.  His right arm was completely torn off, and his body had multiple teeth wounds across his legs, chest and neck.  He was alive.

“At this moment I have already systematically begun reclaiming all that is mine.”.

The voice said as the chain was jerked back and Marseille stirred to life.

“You will all suffer.  Scattered to the wind by my doing...torn from the place you claim and infest with your hideous stench.  But... as you have left it defenseless, I am curious how many more will be decimated before I reach my goal....I sense one of you has left something very....very important in my home....”

The voice said in a sinister tone.

“Pity....”.

In case it was not obvious that was a dig at Verza, she did leave something very important at home.  Something that was not easily replaced. And then the sound of laughter filled the air with her tone echoing over the chanting of the corpses around them.

[ T ]   As the laughter echoed around the chamber, a new scream was heard. This one was coming from the boy, who has just been finally jerked awake from nightmare after nightmare from merely entering the damned place.

Lazarius’ absence might have also played a part in allowing him to wake. As he woke shrieking, he curled up, only to go silent in his terror as he found himself sitting ankle-deep in blood.

[ J ]   Jursol looked around the room as she tried to think of something. Anything they could do at this time was better then nothing. However a plan was needed before acting. A raptor remained near the boy as he woke up. It purred as it tried to nudge him.

[ V . D ]   After all was said... For a moment... There was silence. To Tea, the shock of witnessing Marseille fall into display for the women and child was but a hazy flash of blurred images.

The cry Pame let forth was a distant noise to the sindorei, even as the kaldorei was standing just a little in front of Verza. The hollering of the boy, the noise from the raptors, the chanting. The threat. The laughter. It all came full circle and caught Verza's attention, the warnings resonating in the back of her mind, its many euphemisms unraveling into dozens of possibilities.

There were many things important that Tea has left behind in places that Raelyndia could have deemed home. But only one really stood out, something so undeniably invaluable... A powerful little girl of the void, a gift from the Gods themselves.

Verza's assumption led to a stiffened posture, her face flushing with blind rage whilst stepping forward as if she would charge the tank, a growl of hatred in her throat as she snarled out with the ferocity of a scorned mother.

"If one death was not enough to put you in your place, a second time will!"

Tea growls, her claw designed nails digging into the armor of Pames extended arm, her passionate spiel continuing as she spits out,

"If I must cross the realms and enter death to deal with you myself, then I swear upon the Duskflame name your reign of terror will cease as swiftly as it began!"

Vehemently she tore and dug her words at the disembodied figure, her excitement and fear pairing boiling to a point of being full of chaotic rage.

"You will once more be forgotten, made insignificant, I will personally wipe every shred of evidence of your existence from this world!"

Before Verzatea could risk herself, and the others by abandoning the group, Pame reaches an arm out to catch the ferocious little elf. Pulling her backwards the kaldorei whispers to calm the woman.

Tea had her arms pinned to her chest by Pames single arm, the sindoreis frazzled appearance indication of just how quickly the idea of her daughter in danger could rile her.

All the while Tea squeezed her eyes shut and took deep breaths, looking as though she were fighting to regain her composure-- Though really she was projecting her thoughts as loudly as she could in hopes Lazarius may hear.

Brinys was possibly in danger. The Bastille was possibly in danger. Their friends, their family, and their students... Everyone was at risk now. The kaldorei then focused in on Marsielle before hissing, testing out the waters to determine if this was another trap that would set them in a hostile situation.

"Marseille?"

She was guided by pure hope that it was real. That he was still alive and capable of retrieval as she then begins to inspect the chain around his neck.

@frompage112​

@siidaraykashebahl​

@zandalaridruidofgonk​

@pyravari-kashebahl​

@whatadarkbitch​

@thebladeitself​

@miss-irascible​

To be continued in “In Mind of Misery, Manipulation, Part 10″

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[reece-c-parker-blog]

Gay Culture; A Blight Upon Itself

How this ethical quagmire has metastasised across the lives of our lost boys struggling to find their place as men.

Originally posted on Medium

I hate being gay. Statistically speaking there would have to be a few of us. The numbers, I’m sure you’ve noticed, are kept conspicuously quiet. No, there isn’t a vast conspiracy. It simply doesn’t fit narrative.

My pubescent years fell as the millennium turned, amidst the rise of the gay normalisation movement. This time saw the rise of Will & Grace, Queer As Folk, and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. It was a great time to feel included. Just not for me. These programs were an entry-level concept of what it means to be gay for the metropolitan audiences of the east and west coasts of the United States. The AIDS crisis had drawn the eyes of mainstream western audiences to the existence of the gay community. There was no better time to finally address what could no longer be ignored.

I had tried to engage, during these years, with the material that was expected of me. They were telling my stories, after all. Painting the canvas of life with the experiences I should experience, and feelings I should feel. Expect they didn’t. They proselytized with tired stereotypes and the bigotry of low expectation. I soon found homosexuality a talking point in my social circles — as nothing more than a kitsch cliché pulled in for reference, then reshelved until needed. Gay men weren’t making the punchlines. They were the punchline.

This was a moment of the first of many disconnects. Where I, through failures of character and assimilation, couldn’t bond with my peers. As the industry grew, and the prevalence of gay characters onscreen continued to impress focus groups, so grew my dejection. But as the list gorged itself with new examples of progressivism, and the insertions became further tokenistic, the rise of groupthink assured this lens had become a prerequisite entry point to what it meant to be gay. Suddenly, so vanished the hardships of the few — gay culture was at the mercy of almighty corporate.

Now here we are; Expected to worship towards the cultural meccas of preselected gay figures championed not for their contributions to the realms of medicine, literature, or technology, but instead to their servile attitudes in representing the hedonism that bore their fame. Gay conversation has fast adopted an adaptation of Godwin’s Law, where as a conversation increases in duration, the probability one of the conversationalists mentioning RuPaul’s Drag Race approaches 1. Though, it’s more than this. It’s the exclusivity of language attached to those cultural expectations. While language has long been in flux, flitting to the verbal needs of its speakers, allowing our language to be shaped by corporate interests masquerading as representatives borders on Orwellian. Shade, Read, Sickening, Tea, Fish, Clock, and a series of disjointed ramblings have become the core exchanges of the gay communiqué. The expectation of this adherence, a cruel hand to play for young men seeking freedom from the limitations clasped to them during their formative years. To escape the shackles of their prison, to fall into the loving embrace of a new turnkey. Oh, but this time it’s different. This isn’t some hallway bully. This one wants you. But only if you be what it wants you to be. Only if you buy its products. Only if you wear its styles. Only if you speak with its voice. And only if you, in the innocence of your youth, surrender in your entirety.

Even an article like this risks defilement through the accusation of homophobia; for calling out the failures of a community through its inactivity of service and protection of all its members. For the suggestion we have a culture of ceaseless pandering to those most visible and easily pigeonholed would net me a gay excommunication. It simply cannot be said. It’s an inconvenience too burdensome to address, and so instead we commit to the monotonous busywork of feigning outrage by the perceived slights issued by positions of power. As if, by the consternation of the gay masses, the notion things aren’t too bad is too hefty a price to concede. Understandably so. Without a rallying struggle against the alabaster crowned, black suited boogeymen, all that would be left for the LGBT community would be to accept responsibility for the establishment of reasonable behavioural boundaries and the regulation of its members. A price too high, indeed.

In many ways it reminds me of the Arcadian Pan, whose submission to lust-filled tawdriness is emulated to a design by metropolitan hook-up culture. A youth swept away by the propagandistic idiom of ‘It Gets Better’, without the nuanced discussion of whether or not this is even true. After all, Grindr recently ranked top on the unhappiness scale, with a 77% respondents rate of user depression post usage. No surprises why. In the constricting nativity of my youth, I had dabbled, seeking conversation, which at the time was perceived to be a remedy to my loneliness, from the most populated aggregate. Within one working day I had been labelled as a faggot, by a member of my own community — for simply failing to supply him with what he wanted. The entitlement. As if I were nothing but a monkey tasked to perform by an organ grinder. Words carefully chosen, as his organ was the recipient of my expected performance. It is in this shadowy field where the ego is unleashed, freed from the shackles of civility. Where an otherwise unremarkable citizen may scale a hierarchy sheathed from the view of their heterosexual peers. Where the 1% isn’t measured by economic prosperity, but instead by the congregation of required physical traits and social capital to be granted worth. Note, ‘granted worth’. As worth within this community is not an immutable characteristic inherent to the individual, rather a bestowed upon status via the idolatry of its membership. But remember. It gets better. As if the exchange of the verbal assaults of your schooling for this is somehow, by definition, superior. Of course, it is. This time it’s a choice. An opt in.

But is it? Every year when the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras sweeps Sydney’s city streets, I can’t help feel it serves as a charming veneer — an underbelly surviving on the laundering scheme of ‘good intentions’. How respectful we are, in recognising the hard work and good character of our Australian Servicemen and women. And so we should be, their contributions are worthy of recognition. Though for some, and in numbers enough to escape the descriptor of a powerless minority, the parade and those in it are merely puppets. A necessary encumbrance to be endured before the night blooms, and the incubi feast. And feast they shall — while failing to recognise such a diet consisting of thin amoral gruel could provide anything other than little sustenance. This is not to say the Mardi Gras fails in its purpose. A brotherhood, and sisterhood, or similarly disenfranchised individuals finding solace amongst the mutual understandings of their peers is an integral cornerstone of any counter-cultural community. My query remains, why does the LGBT community repeatedly allow this message to be bastardised and accessorised by the overtly sexual?

And it is the same, hollow-toned degeneracy which snakes its way through all visual and auditory signposts, toxifying the channels of expression. The invention of preventative HIV measures has garnered responses from activist campaigns such as ‘You can fuck raw, PrEP works, no more HIV’. A delicately phrased example for a youth burgeoning into manhood. A wretched expectation of what is to come for both themselves, and their future. The normalisation of pharmaceutical dependence to enable sexual deviancy — have gay men fallen so low, they would prefer the assistance of big pharma to maintain their deviancy, rather than changing their behaviours? But of course, that is an opinion unheld. Unstated. Should that question be uttered, the tested formulaic response had already been embossed across social media. We get enough hatred from outside the community, we don’t need any hatred from within it. An interesting deflection. One that disarms all criticism. Even if it is legitimate.

One-night hook-up culture is leaving an alarming amount of young men feeling trapped. Yet, little in the way of option is offered for an alternative. Prudism is projected onto those non-participatory figures more inclined to other forms of connection. To the point, albeit most likely a problem on my behalf, I have felt rejected purely for my unwillingness to participate. The larger point is; no one should have to. The trading of bodies in a conceptualised marketplace as currency may serve the purposes of immediate pleasure, but the model itself has only been in operation for just over a decade. A time barely long enough to map the cognitive changes amongst habitual users. I often hear the espousal ‘It’s just a bit of fun’, when I vocalise even my least controversial concerns. A dismissal that I have oft found confusing. As if detachment and promiscuity held no hidden consequences. Though the citation of psychology holds little sway in this field, as it lacks the grounded and well secured architecture of reasonable discourse — instead, it’s an emotional beast. These members, with the impetus of their own desire, have decided it is fun. Thus, fun it is. Though I would argue, it takes a certain type of man to revel in such a state of emotional displacement, and not one I would imagine, many would go out of their way to willingly associate with.

For the first three years of my adulthood, bambi-like and with the same naive idealism consistent with those of that age, I was blessed with a boyfriend. Three years, you may have noted, came with an expiry date. When we, still growing, reshaped ourselves into markedly dissimilar people from who we were at the commencement of our relationship. Still, I have found these years to be the fondest of my life, and resultantly the greatest limitations to my understanding of the gay community. To be succinct for the first time in this passage — I loved him. And though this love found a place to rest, the memory of its impact remains too profound to sully with the pursuit of anything less.

But this anecdote has painted me with the status of a malcontent. One, whose bitterness and internalised homophobia, governs my actions and sews hatred and salt into the faultless fields of the LGBT. A community which celebrates the union of an autistic child and a boastful killer while they bond in front of a portrait two letters shorts of spelling rohypnol. A community who cannot stand accountable without proclaiming their victimhood — ensuring the aberrant social victimisation perpetrated within their community is kept out of public sight. Should you ever have believed racism were a plague long extricated from your neighbourhood, feel free to log into your gay phone app to source the mantra, ‘No spice or rice’. I’m sorry Mr. Rogers, It isn’t a beautiful day in those neighbourhoods, nor is it a beautiful day for those neighbours.

What is to be done? A start, perhaps, is a discussion free of the tedious pejoratives usually held in reserve for ‘The Other’. For too long the gay community has projected bad intent onto its naysayers. Understandable. But know this, a concession isn’t a loss. It’s a sign of maturity. So in the invocation of this request, I wonder — will the change prove too arduous, or my brethren too stubborn?

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Under the Deep Blue Sky Chapter 1

Wind blew softly through the trees, the sound of the leaves rustling pairing with the soft sounds of hooves against the well worn dirt road. A smiling young man called from his place near the front of the travelers.

“There’s such good weather today, isn’t there, Royal Brother?” He chirped cheerfully.

“I suppose.” The man next to him agreed with a little grumble.

“Cheer up!” The younger man urged him, “It’s not every day we get to travel out here.”

“I’d rather not.” The other man replied, a little sulk playing on his lips, though he knew better than to let it show.

“Leave him be, Luhan.” A third man rode his horse up between the two brothers, “He’s just being cranky because Father made him come.”

“I have no interest in diplomatic relationships with the Han people.” The grumpy young man replied with a soft huff.

“Don’t let Father hear you say that, Zhang Yixing.” The third man warned, “You are the crown prince, so you’d better act like one.” A soft pout settled onto Yixing’s lips, though he straightened his back as their father, the khan, turned to look at his sons briefly. Yixing glared at the man next to him.

“You know why I don’t want to go, Yifan.” He said with a frown. Yifan reached out and gently patted his younger brother on the shoulder.

“I know.” He said softly, “But there’s little choice when it comes to politics and diplomacy, Yixing. You know that.” Yixing sighed deeply. He was crown prince of the Mongols, one of the best generals in the army, and yet he didn’t have the ability to refuse one trip to Ming territory. Going there, seeing the people there, reminded him too much of her. But at the same time, he knew Yifan was right.

I just hope this is over soon.

________________________________________________________________

Ming Palace

In a place further away from the journeying Mongols, a young woman was feeling the same sentiments as the Mongol prince. Pink lips pouted in a light sulk, long fingers playing with an ink brush. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she looked out the window.

“Why do I have to dance at the welcome banquet?” She muttered.

“Because you are the best at dancing amongst all of us.” An older woman replied from her seat behind the sulking woman, her nimble fingers moving her needle skillfully through a swath of light green cloth. The younger woman scoffed.

“Yeah right.” She replied, “Father probably just wants to find me a husband. I hear the Mongol khan is bringing some of his sons with him.”

“Who are all very talented young men.” The older woman added, “Perhaps you’ll like them, Feiyan.” Feiyan’s pout deepened and she tossed her ink brush unceremoniously into the jar holding the rest.

“I will not be the victim of a political marriage.” She said firmly, “I’m going to marry who I want, Feiying, just like you and your husband.”

“I was also arranged to start with.” Feying reminded her calmly, “Besides, it is our duty to help keep the country in peace. The Mongols must be placated. Our dynasty just overthrew them not long ago after all. This is what you were trained for, Feiyan.” Feiyan huffed and stood from her seat.

“Father better not try to marry me off.” She declared, “Or else, I’m running away!”  Feiying laughed softly.

“I’d like to see you try.” She replied. Feiyan sighed, knowing that her words were just all talk. She’d never be able to escape a political marriage if her father, the Emperor, decided on it. Her only hope was that none of the Khan’s sons caught her father’s eye.

________________________________________________________________

Ming Dynasty, Yixing

Yixing stifled a yawn as music and the sound of chatter filled his ears.

“Would you like some more wine, Crown Prince?” Yixing turned at the query to look at the Ming prince sitting next to him.

“That would be lovely.” He replied, plastering a smile onto his face even though he couldn’t care less either way. As he sipped absently at his wine, his gaze traveled slowly around the banquet hall. As much as he hated to admit it, the architecture was indeed impressive, as Luhan had been happy to point out as soon as they had arrived. The walls were decorated tastefully, not so overly done that it became gaudy. Dragons snaked down the sides of the columns holding up the room, their golden bodies frozen in majestic splendor. Yixing sighed as he looked at his brothers. Yifan was deeply engrossed in conversation with another prince across the room, while Luhan was happily watching the dance performance.

Well, at least some of us are enjoying themselves.

Yixing closed his eyes for a moment, and he could almost hear the echo of her voice in his ear, as if she was sitting right next to him.

“Oh Yixing, it’s so beautiful! I thought I’d never get a chance to see the royal palace!”

Yixing let out a deep sigh and was about to call a maid over to refill his cup when a soft hush descended over the room, and the dancers cleared from the middle of the banquet hall. Some of the candles were blown out to dim the lighting, and Yixing looked over curiously as a single female dancer walked into the room. She wore a dress made from sea green fabric, paired with a similarly colored cloth over her face and a red silk ribbon to hold back her long hair. Her sleeves were long enough to cover her hands, and they reached elegantly towards the ground as the dancer raised one arm and tilted her body towards the floor.

Who is that?

A single musical note was struck by the musicians sitting nearby, and the girl slowly turned her head, one arm moving up in a circle. Her body moved to follow the slow rhythm of the music, and despite his reservations, Yixing couldn’t help but be entranced. The soft flow of her dress, the elegant twirls her body made...it brought an old memory to the surface of Yixing’s mind, a memory he had long buried in an attempt to forget everything.

The light twirls and leaps the girl executed on the grassland drew Yixing’s attention, and he came over to join her, their bodies moving in tandem. The girl laughed as he pulled her into his arms as they danced.

“Xing gege!” She chirped happily, leaning against his chest while looking up at him with wide, trusting eyes.

Green silk slipped through Yixing’s hands, and with a start, he found himself staring into a pair of shocked dark brown eyes. Startled, he realized that he had somehow risen from his seat and joined the dancer at the middle of the dance floor.

What am I doing?

________________________________________________________________

Feiyan

What is he doing?

Feiyan froze as one of the visiting Mongol guests suddenly rose from his seat to join her at the center of the banquet hall. Judging from his expression, he didn’t quite know the answer to that question either. Feiyan bit her lip as she felt all eyes staring at the two of them. Even the musicians had stopped, unsure of what to do. Feiyan swallowed hard. If anything, she knew one thing for sure.

I can’t stop now.

She reached out and pulled the mysterious man to her, turning him into a part of her dance. She had danced playfully with her brothers before, but never officially like this. But somehow, this man didn’t seem unfamiliar with dancing either. His body moved fluidly along to the beats of the music, and he seemed to sense what she intended to do next before she had barely even moved.

Who is this man?

The music faded away, and Feiyan let out her breath slowly as she found herself uncomfortably close to the Mongolian man. She cleared her throat and stepped away, her heart pounding her chest.

What just happened?

The sound of clapping broke through her thoughts, and she looked up to see the Mongol Khan clapping, a broad smile on his face. The Emperor was smiling too, and looked down at Feiyan.

“Feiyan, say your greetings.” He said. Feiyan folded her hands together, placed them at her left hip, and dipped in a curtsey.

“Greetings, Great Khan.” She said demurely, “I am Xu Feiyan, second princess of the Great Ming.”

“You are a very talented woman, Princess Feiyan.” The Khan replied, and Feiyan ducked her head humbly.

“You are exaggerating, Great Khan.” She replied, “It is all thanks to my father’s grace and favor.” The Khan laughed and looked at Feiyan’s father.

“My son has also enjoyed dancing our traditional Mongolian dances since he was a child.” He said, “But it has been five years since I have seen him dance. I am both pleased and surprised that the princess could bring out the desire in him to dance today.” Feiyan peeked curiously over at the man standing next to her, who was looking more uncomfortable by the second. So he was a prince? The prince bowed, one arm pressed over his chest so that his hand touched the opposing shoulder.

“Greetings, Your Majesty.” He said, his voice rumbling softly from the bottom of his throat. The Khan clapped his hands together, and Feiyan was starting to feel wary of the way his eyes had lit up.

“Emperor of Ming, this is my crown prince, Yixing. He is 18 years old, but he has yet to take a wife. It seems that he and your daughter are a very good match to each other.” He began, and Feiyan looked up in alarm before catching her father’s warning gaze.

“Yes, indeed it does seem that they are a good match.” The Emperor replied, “In fact, I was thinking of creating a bond between our nations through marriage. I think Feiyan would make the perfect wife for the Crown Prince. She is already 16 years old.” Feiyan heard Yixing suck in his breath next to her, and peeked over to see that his expression was one of barely controlled outrage.

At least I’m not the only one, Feiyan thought.

“Wonderful!” The Khan laughed, and Feiyan closed her eyes as reality sunk in. Her worst nightmare had come true.

[thenewsguru]

Democrats' Turn To Socialism Is Ominous Sign For The Party

Big Left Turn: Are socialists becoming the new Democratic Party mainstream? After candidates endorsed by the socialist party won nomination battles for state legislative seats in Pennsylvania and far-left progressives triumphed over moderates elsewhere, the answer seems to be yes. Four — count 'em, four — candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America won spots on the ballot during this week's primary elections in the Keystone State. Two of them won't even be opposed by a Republican in the general election. Some are writing it off as a fluke, a local aberration, but it isn't. Increasingly, the national Democratic Party is being California-ized — pushed to the far left on issues ranging from single-payer health care, an open border and tax hikes to hostility toward Israel,  opposition to the Second Amendment, and a loathing of the U.S. military. As for those who say local elections often have kookier, more extreme candidates, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has this rejoinder: "One could just as easily ask why Democrats couldn't find successful candidates that hewed closer to Tim Ryan than Bernie Sanders for those seats." Morrisey notes that other states similarly had political upsets of moderate Democrats by far-left candidates, including Idaho, Nebraska, and Oregon. So it's not just a narrow regional phenomenon. Speaking of socialist Bernie Sanders, his campaign in 2016 seems to have opened the way for the mainstreaming of socialism in the Democratic Party. That's quite a change, given that just 10 years ago Democrats insisted on their moderate bona fides and recoiled from being called "liberal." But this has been happening for some time. As has been well chronicled, America's public schools and universities have been turned far-left in their curriculum and teaching, with extreme political correctness and the enraged shaming of conservatives as the only real behavioral guidelines remaining. Sadly, a mere 28 years after the collapse of communism, a new generation of youth not then born or too young to understand it see that epochal event as ancient history, irrelevant to their new understanding of the world. They do not understand that the topping of communism wasn't merely a repudiation of the gerontocratic rulers of communism, but of the very idea of socialism.

Socialism  Goes Mainstream

Unfortunately, the acceptance of socialism now permeates all strata of society, according to a 2017 survey of adults by The American Culture and Faith Institute (ACFI). The basic findings weren't too surprising: 48% described themselves as politically moderate, while 25% said they conservative and 17% liberal. Those who called themselves both socially and fiscally conservative made up just 6% of the population. But here's the bombshell: Of those queried, four out of 10 adults said they preferred socialism to capitalism. That's 40%. This is what an irrational hatred of Donald Trump has wrought. "It ought to set off alarm bells among more traditionally-oriented leaders across the nation," said ACFI Executive Director George Barna. It seems even among adults, the lessons of the Cold War and of more than 100 years of tragic socialist history have been entirely lost. Let's start with these two stark facts: First, there has never been a successful socialist government in history. None. Everywhere socialist precepts are put in place, poverty, loss of freedom and rights, and societal decline inevitably follow. Collapse is a frequent result. Second, socialist governments are murderous. According to the "Black Book of Communism," written by French former Marxist Stephane Courtois, socialist regimes killed over 100 million people during the 20th century. No other ideology or "ism" came close to that blood-soaked record. Whether it's the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, former East Germany, North Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Venezuela or any of the other failed experiments in socialism, it's never worked anywhere. It's led only to misery, deprivation, government control and a loss of basic human rights. Socialist regimes always start off with high ideals, promising "free" this, and "free" that — education, health care, whatever. But as their ideas fail, they inevitably resort to compulsion, and eventually torture, political "re-education," imprisonment, exile, and murder for those who disagree. What's perhaps most surprising is that we have today yet another very clear example of the failure of socialism taking place in our own hemisphere: Venezuela. The Washington Post, to its credit, toted up what has happened in Venezuela since socialism was imposed on the country with the world's largest oil reserves and a once-thriving middle class.

Venezuela's Bitter Lesson

"Since Maduro took over from Hugo Chávez — his mentor, who died in 2013 — Venezuela's crisis has steadily intensified as a result of lower oil prices, corruption and a socialist system plagued with mismanagement. But as Maduro has sought to further consolidate power in the past 12 months, the economy, public services, security and healthcare have all but collapsed. "Armed gangs and Colombian guerrilla groups are operating unchecked on Venezuela's borders. Pro-government militias are terrorizing urban areas, while police stand accused of extrajudicial killings. Four of the 10 most dangerous cities in the world are now in Venezuela, according to a 2017 study by the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian think tank that studies violence. "Hundreds if not thousands of members of the armed forces are deserting, in part because of meager rations, according to military analysts. Power and water grids and the transportation systems are breaking down. In just the first three months of the year, Venezuela suffered 7,778 blackouts." You might want to read the whole thing. It's just the latest try at socialism that ended in misery, soaring crime rates, unnecessary deaths from routine illnesses, the dissolution of civil society, and the collapse of national institutions. We call that Socialist Realism. We wonder why those celebrities and politicians who in the past gave fawning and obsequious love to Venezuela's hated socialist leaders — including Sean Penn, Michael Moore and, yes, the clueless socialist Bernie Sanders — have suddenly gone mute? Today, more than anything, the ideals of socialism are splitting this country apart. They're also splitting the Democratic Party apart, and damaging civil reasoned discourse in our society. It's a shame, on a par with the hateful and bitter debate the presaged our Civil War. It is a great, self-evident truth that socialism doesn't stack up against free-market capitalism when it comes to guaranteeing the universal and inborn rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As for those in America who think socialism is the answer, they are correct. But only if the question is: What one thing would end our precious experiment in democracy and republican government, leading to mass misery, impoverishment, and even death? Read the full article

[awesomechrisharry]

Global Mid-infrared Lasers Market Growth Set to Surge Significantly during 2021 – 2027

"

Scope of the Global Mid-infrared Lasers Market A recent research report on the Global Mid-infrared Lasers Market is a comprehensive analysis of industry size, share, and dynamics, as well as an in-depth analysis of market trends. Leading companies, as well as competitive situations pertaining to market volume and promotion, are included in the Mid-infrared Lasers company report. The whole market is protected by in-depth research of revenue growth and profit analysis. Predictive analysis, SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, and real-time analytics are some of the geometric surveys employed. This is a new paper that examines science's current worldwide commercial consequences. The research study examines quickly shifting market conditions as well as primary and future effect assessments. Similarly, several graphs are specifically utilized to give the data structure for the exact study of facts and statistics.

Download Sample for This Research Report @https://axelreports.com/request-sample/106633

Major Key Players : Pool Patrol Poolguard Techko Sensor Espio Aquaguard Safety Turtle SmartPool Blue Wave

Covid-19 Impact on Global Mid-infrared Lasers Market

The total shipment of diverse items has fallen due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. A supply of raw materials for target products was also available, which is an important component in the worldwide Mid-infrared Lasers industry's development. This research study contains an in-depth examination of market shipping performance throughout the forecasted period, as well as an analysis of key trends, noticed over time.

Global Mid-infrared Lasers Market Segmentation

Major Product Types : Fence/Wall Mounted Pool Alarms Pool Mounted Infrared Detectors Major Applications are : Commercial Pool Residential Pool

The global Mid-infrared Lasers market study provides vital information based on market segmentation. The market is divided into numerous areas in this analysis, including form, technology, application, and geography. Other information included in the research includes product usage, manufacturing capacity, production statistics, and a supply and demand market analysis. The company's total revenue (financial), sales and revenue produced, pricing, industry share, manufacturing sites and services, and product launch are all included in the Global Market segmentation section. This analysis contains market sales, market share, and market revenue for the estimated period.

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The market study examines and evaluates each regional market segment in reference to the market's key geographic spectrum of reach. Import, export, demand, production, and consumption are just a few of the main insights included in the research. Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia), Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Russia, and Italy), North America (United States, Canada, and Mexico), South America (Brazil, Argentina) and the Middle East and Africa (UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa) are some of the economies involved in this research study.

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The report provided a quick summary of the top industry players and contributors in order to respond to various questions from customers and readers. Customers are also provided crucial indications in this study that have a large influence on the global Mid-infrared Lasers market's growth in terms of the supplier environment and their current competitive strength. With a comprehensive examination of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and traders, the research aims to help key players in numerous business choices and primary investment targets. Secondary and validated primary sources are used to research prominent companies and their product information, percentage splits, market shares, product industry breakdowns, and growth rates.

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To Identify, describes, and study the sales volume, value, market competitive landscape, market share, SWOT analysis, and growth strategies for the top Mid-infrared Lasers manufacturers in the next years.

It emphasizes the most recent product releases and market advancements, as well as their influence on market growth.

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Axel Reports is committed to being the key player in your company, offering you detailed information on products, market trends, competitors and customers. We offer premium progressive statistical surveys, market research reports, analysis and forecast data for industries and governments around the world. By allowing you to make well-informed choices, Axel Reports will help you develop a great successful marketing project.

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Akansha G (Knowledge Partner)

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"

[severecollectioncreation]

How to protect consumers using BIN number?

BIN is otherwise called The Bank Identification Number, is a numeric code that is used to appoint a couple of kinds of trades with banks and other financial associations. This numerical ID is a critical segment in the endorsement and certification of trades by the concerned monetary associations. These numeric codes are applied with banks, recognize associations similarly as venture assets and credit affiliations. It is a critical segment in the trades of online shops, vendor account owners, portion processors that cooperate through charge cards. By utilizing the binfinder, you can check your BIN number online.

Online credit card transactions

Nowadays, the world has become paperless. People like to do swiping a card for most transactions such as shopping, make a purchase with a card and have their money safe in their financial institutions rather than having it in their wallet. But it is not necessary that your money will be safe in your financial institutes. Many online thieves are finding a chance to steal money from bank accounts during transactions. When you make online transactions there are so many possibilities that you could become a witness of online credit card fraud.

Bank Identification Number(BINs) helps us to prevent any fraudulent activity within your credit card transaction.

In case you're running a business and need to prevent the chance of credit card fraud, at that point you will need to have a bank recognizable proof number data set working for your potential benefit. The bank recognizable proof, or BIN, number is generally the initial six- digits of a credit or check card and is used to distinguish the monetary data of the client and his bank. Without a BIN number data set on your side, you leave yourself open to persuading fakes and imitations. 

While there are various BIN databases out there that indicate to deal with your necessities, just a few have the state-of-the-art numbers and very quick comfort and usability that you need to work with genuine feelings of serenity in your corner. Before you join with one, ensure they have your wellbeing on a fundamental level. Whenever you've picked the correct help for you, you'll start to perceive any reason why it is fundamental to have a BIN numbers data set working for you. 

Insurance against failures

Most administrations of any standing will remain by their item. Should the framework neglect to tackle its work appropriately, try not to be the one considered answerable for the disappointment. Verify that you manage those, who have sufficient trust in their item to say, without question, this is the most exceptional data that you can discover. 

Protection and genuine feelings of serenity for your clients 

On the off chance that there are any financial cautions set up for a client, who may have encountered data fraud, your BIN number information base will help you get it, in this manner preventing the spread of credit card fraud. Your clients will value that about you, and you can rest simpler realizing that you are getting things done fair and square. 

Prevents you from losing cash 

With an obsolete information base, you could risk going through an exchange that will possibly get ricocheted back when the monetary foundation discovers that you didn't approach legitimate cautions. Basically, by ensuring your client in this new century of business, you are securing yourself.

With such countless various stores, so a wide range of charge cards, thus various cheats hoping to exploit, it is no big surprise that numerous buyers live with fear and doubt each time. While you can't force a purchaser to settle on savvy choices with how they bargain out their own data, you can do your part to make your business a protected spot to shop and teach them. 

Using credit card bin numbers, you can give them the security and the data they need to know to ensure that every exchange is an effective one. 

Information bases secure the client and reinforce your business 

By utilizing a modern Mastercard numbers canister data set, you can secure purchasers, who have had their personality lost or taken. At whatever point there is an alarm on a card, you can stop the exchange in that general area, contact the monetary foundation and guarantee a through and through secure future for the genuine proprietor of the card. In this manner, you shield the client from hurt, however you do your business an extraordinary assistance by appearing to the world that you pay special attention to individuals, who make you fruitful. The probability of customers showing their appreciation therefore is ever more prominent. 

Instruct customers on the assurances set up and how they work 

By sharing the way that you are an ensured business utilizing Visa container number query administrations to check data, you alert the buyer to the chance of having their characters taken and accordingly empower more dependable conduct with their own data. You can even elude them to your site, where they can shop safely and read up additional on the insurances that are set up and what they ought to do themselves to keep misrepresentation from assuming control over their lives. Clients value any exertion that you as an entrepreneur can advance in paying special attention to their wellbeing. Karma is genuine in the business world, as you will discover. 

Query highlights and update administrations permit you to attempt before you purchase 

Knowing the item you are utilizing works before you put it out there for public utilization is the most ideal method of securing your clients since it guarantees that your business is following through on every one of the guarantees that it makes to deal with the client. 

Figure out how you can get a solid and precise Bank BIN Database and improve the wellbeing convention of your eCommerce business. Discover how a far reaching and productive bin code checker can assist you with improving the nature of your support of your esteemed customers.

[bloggerjoedoe]

With yesterday’s releases of iOS 14.1 and HomePod Software Version 14.1, which could really use a catchier name, Apple has introduced several new features announced last week at its iPhone 12 and HomePod mini event. Most readers are probably already familiar with what’s in the updates based on our iPhone 12 and HomePod mini overviews, so I thought I’d update my HomePods and devices to provide some hands-on thoughts about the changes.

Most of the new features are related to the HomePod. Although proximity-based features are exclusive to the HomePod mini, which features Apple’s U1 Ultra Wideband chip, some of the other functionality revealed last week is available on all HomePod models.

Intercom

Until the HomePod mini ships, Intercom is limited to the original HomePod.

At last week’s Apple event, the company introduced Intercom, a new feature that allows you to broadcast announcements using the Home app or Siri. After you update to HomePod Software Version 14.1 using iOS or iPadOS 14.1, you can broadcast to a HomePod in a specific room or zone of your home or all of your HomePods at once. Apple says the feature will work with the Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad too, but as I’ll detail below, that’s not working yet, at least for me.

If you’re running 14.1 on an iPhone or iPad, you can open the Home app, long press on a HomePod, and tap on the gear icon to access its settings where you can update the HomePod to version 14.1. After your HomePod is running 14.1, you’ll see a new option in the HomePod’s settings called Intercom. Tap through to make sure the feature is turned on for your HomePods.

Once set up, you can use commands like “Hey Siri, tell everyone it’s time for dinner” using one HomePod, and your message will be broadcast to any other HomePods you have. You can also say things like “Hey Siri, Intercom Living Room,” and in my example, Siri will prompt you to record a message that will be sent to only the HomePod called “Living Room.’

After a day of testing Intercom between HomePods located in my office and our living room, the feature has worked as advertised. However, the utility of Intercom is directly proportional to the number of HomePods you have. I have two, and if I know someone is in the living room as I work in my office, the feature is a handy way to send a message. I could accomplish the same thing by dictating a text message, but they might not have their iPhone handy, or I may not know which of my family members is in the living room, making Intercom a better option.

With iOS 14.2, other devices will join in the Intercom messaging fun.

What I’m really looking forward to, though, is adding a HomePod mini or two to the Intercom mix along with other devices. Right now, if you ask Siri to send a message via Intercom using any device other than a HomePod, you’ll get a response that the feature only works with HomePods, which is potentially confusing to anyone who watched last week’s Apple event.

The Home app’s iPadOS 14.2 onboarding process.

However, if you’re running the iOS or iPadOS 14.2 beta, you’ll find additional Intercom UI in the Home app. With iPadOS 14.2 installed, I was greeted by a set of onboarding popups that explained Intercom, asked me to choose between never using the feature with my iPad, using it only when I’m home, or using it anywhere. Finally, I was prompted to pick who among the family members I’d previously added to the Home app could use Intercom.

On iPadOS 14.2, there’s a new button in the Home UI for sending Intercom messages.

Sending an Intercom message from the Home app.

iOS and iPadOS 14.2 add a new button in the Home app UI that looks like an audio waveform for sending Intercom messages. The button only appears in rooms that include a HomePod. Tap it, and you should be able to send an Intercom message to the HomePod in that room, though it didn’t work in my tests. I suspect the missing piece of the puzzle is an update to the HomePod’s software that I expect will be released along with iOS and iPadOS 14.2, at which point you’ll be able to use the feature with all supported devices.

The Home app’s new Discover tab on iPhones running iOS 14.1.

While I’m on the subject of the Home app, it’s worth noting that the new Discover tab appears in iOS 14.1 but not on iPadOS. From Discover, you can learn more about HomeKit devices and access links to products sold through the Apple Store app in a format that is reminiscent of the App Store’s editorial content.

Alarms

The HomePod alarms UI in iOS 14 (left) and iOS 14.1 (right).

HomePod alarms can now be set to play music when they go off. Alarms support any song, playlist, or radio station available in Apple Music. To set one, long-press on a HomePod inside the Home app. Previously, setting up an alarm only allowed you to name an alarm, pick the time it would go off, and designate whether it was a repeating alarm.

After you update your HomePod and iOS device to 14.1, adding an alarm or editing an existing one will look different. First, the tumbler-style time picker has been updated to the new iOS 14 time picker. Second, there’s a new Alarm Sound section that lets you pick between playing the HomePod’s default tone or media, which reveals additional settings when selected.

Adding music as an alarm.

The first button, ‘Select Media,’ offers options to pick music from the Listen Now, Browse, Radio, and Library sections of the Music app. Picking any of the four options opens a view within the Home app that is identical to that section of the Music app, but with the Home app’s toolbar buttons at the top. Also, in a very nice touch, you can choose between the current volume of the HomePod for your alarm or a custom volume, which will undoubtedly save many people from having to be pulled off the ceiling when they wake up after listening to loud music the night before. Once you’ve picked what you want the alarm to play, the alarm details display the artwork for your selection.

I’ve been considering putting a HomePod mini in my bedroom, and even before I’ve tried the mini, I can guarantee that I’d rather wake up to a song or playlist than the HomePod’s default alarm. The change is a small, but I expect it will increase my use of HomePod alarms dramatically.

Other Siri Updates

Location and web-based queries fielded by your HomePod are sent to your iPhone as Siri Suggestions.

Siri has been updated on the HomePod too. If you ask about a location, Siri suggestions will appear in the Maps app on your iOS devices. Sure enough, when I asked my HomePod for directions to Del Rhea’s Chicken Basket, I got a Siri suggestion in Maps on my iPhone within seconds.

Similarly, Siri can send web searches to your iPhone. Everyone wants to know the difference between seals and sea lions, so I asked Siri, which helpfully sent two websites and a YouTube video to my iPhone.

Siri works better across multiple HomePods now too. You can stop alarms, timers, and media playback on any HomePod from another one. Voice recognition, which already works to distinguish members of your household for things like Calendar events and tasks in Reminders, now works with the Podcasts app, too, allowing individualized experiences for everyone in your household.

I’m excited for the full roll-out of Intercom. Once other devices and HomePod minis are online, the feature should be a quick and easy way to communicate with family members spread around your house. With a teenager who spends a lot of time in his bedroom with the door closed and headphones on, this could end my days of shouting up the stairs at dinnertime. The location-based Siri suggestions are another touch I know I’ll use a lot as I get ready to go somewhere and want directions sent to my iPhone without having to dig it out. As Federico and I recently discussed on AppStories, Apple seems to be making a renewed push with HomeKit, Siri, and the HomePod that should be interesting to watch over the next year and beyond.

Support MacStories Directly

Club MacStories offers exclusive access to extra MacStories content, delivered every week; it’s also a way to support us directly.

Club MacStories will help you discover the best apps for your devices and get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Plus, it’s made in Italy.

Join Now Source: Mac Stories

[pixelproductions]

Tech Tools to Help Personalize Marketing Campaigns

80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from companies that personalized marketing campaigns for their customers.

80%… if you remember nothing else from this post, remember that.

As competition grows in every industry, the need to create an elevated consumer experience becomes even greater. These days, average isn’t good enough when it comes to marketing. Companies have to find unique and interesting ways to spark the interest of their target audience in order to drive growth. In efforts to accomplish this, many companies have invested time and energy into personalizing their marketing campaigns to specific customers or a subset of customers in order to elevate the consumer experience. Learning how to personalize marketing campaigns will allow you to reduce ad spend, increase ROI and improve customer satisfaction.

Personalized marketing campaigns are continually proving themselves to be a powerful trend in marketing and thankfully, there are a number of tools and technologies that help any company create the best customer experience possible.

Customer Data Segmentation

The most important component to any marketing campaign is data. It would be impossible to successfully market to customers without some idea of who they are, their age, where they live, their contact information, etc. These simple demographics and information help companies determine what products or services to create and how to best market them to potential buyers. But with so much customer data, you may be wondering how you can possibly streamline your efforts to market to every customer within your target audience. An easy way to do this is by adopting a customer data segmentation software.

Customer segmentation allows you to create characteristic-specific customer queries. This helps to divide your entire customer base into related subsections based on their interests or demographics. With this information, you can then create targeted campaigns that speak to each customer’s desires. While many use this method, the apparel, beauty, media, and automotive industries have been known to find plenty of success in its use. For example, with car sales, it’s important for salesmen to make a strong connection with each client because it is such a large purchase that may take some convincing. Knowing a little about the customer’s background and purchase history may help the company to market vehicles that may be similar in price and features to some of their previous vehicle purchases. While this is just one example, you, as a customer, may even be able to think of examples when you received a very personalized ad from one of these types of companies.

Artificial intelligence

While customer segmentation proves its benefits for a number of industries, artificial intelligence (AI) takes the concepts of segmentation a step farther. Instead of generating your own queries to personalize marketing campaigns, AI uses machine learning to do it for you. The more data AI receives, the more the technology’s knowledge expands and evolves to understand customer behavior and personalize each customer’s experience accordingly.

The largest example we see of the use of AI technology in eCommerce and retail is Amazon’s recommendation feature. This feature has reportedly driven about 35% of Amazon’s sales and that’s because of AI technology. The recommendation feature creates personalization by suggesting items similar to your purchase history, purchasing price, current cart content, and site behavior. However, it also drives the businesses’ sales given that a customer is much more likely to purchase an item that is relevant to them as opposed to a general product that is being marketed to everyone on the site.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) continues to make an impact within the field of marketing. With its roots in the world of gaming and entertainment, it has evolved into a technology with seemingly no limits. Essentially, the technology creates an interactive experience by overlaying a computer-generated simulation onto our current reality. While using an application or software that includes AR technology, you are able to view the simulation on the live view taken from your smartphone or laptop. In recent years, AR has been a huge contributor to elevated and personalized user experiences within businesses as well.

For example, in 2019, the apparel company, Gucci, put the technology to good use by rolling out an AR feature within their app. The feature allowed customers to try on Gucci footwear, virtually. Similarly, this “try on” feature has been used in the beauty industry, home decor, and vehicle sales. This feature helps to personalize customer experience without necessarily using customer data segmentation. Instead, the basic characteristics of the technology allow the user to create their own personal experience from the store, home, or wherever else they may be. This personalization has also shown its benefits because bout 40% of customers say they would be willing to pay more for products sold using AR technology.

Remarketing Apps and Software

As the online world continually expands, more and more industries are transitioning into eCommerce. The internet’s vast connectivity makes it easier for companies to connect to several other channels of communication with their customers. Companies use email services, social media, and chat services to stay connected and market to their customers. As discussed, segmentation is helpful in personalizing these types of marketing, however, there is also great opportunity in remarketing.

Remarketing is the technique of marketing two or more times to the same customer based on their previous site behavior, cart content, and purchase history. Or, in other words, the technology provides a personalized marketing campaign to customers who have visited your site without making a purchase. You can imagine that this would be difficult to keep track of in a physical location however, it is a great way to bring back customers to your website. Examples of this include, abandoned cart email notifications, sending product ads related to the pages the customer was viewing, etc. All of these things provide customers with their own personal advertisements separate from those sent to the masses. Also, instead of waiting for the customer to return to the site, you can market again using the information you have gathered from them already. In fact, some basic retargeting statistics from 99 firms suggest that waiting for the customer to return to your site to market to them may not be effective. According to the article, 98% of people will leave your website without buying anything. Unfortunately, about 75% of those people will never come back. While these statistics are alarming, they are certainly a major area for opportunity in remarketing. Thankfully, there is a wide selection of remarketing tools and software that companies can implement into their current marketing strategies.

Personalizing your marketing campaigns is no easy task. The more your customer base grows, the more it diversifies which in return, makes it harder to market to every type of customer. However, there are a number of technologies in today’s market that make personalization in marketing simpler and much more effective. With the use of these tools and tactics, your business will be on its way to reaching Amazon-level marketing success!

[myalnina-blog]

Banking has to place feeling Into client expertise

Customer expertise in banking has been relegated to a subservient position, liable for 'ease of use' and measured by questionable client satisfaction scores. Lost within the translation is that the emotional ties customers have with their cash and the way banking will facilitate with wants.

There is additional to a positive shopper expertise in banking than the time it takes to try to to a dealings or the planning of a mobile app. in a very rush to initiate and improve channel delivery, most banks and credit unions have forgotten to require the time to consider however cash and feelings square measure entwined.

At what purpose did the industry forget that individuals have sturdy emotions concerning their money? nowadays, customers will feel this obtrusive oversight at each level of their interaction with establishments that build merchandise with no insight, or maybe thought, on however the merchandise showing emotion resonates with customers.

Unlike alternative shopper product industries, most monetary establishments don’t have groups of activity psychologists gushing over slides of human expressions around the services offered. The business forgets concerning the approach individuals react to completely different monetary things.

 Lit up eyes associated with an open mouth? This should be the expression of somebody United Nations agency came into a sudden financial windfall. They’re elated, with queries around what they must do next. Narrowed eyes, a staunch frown associated clinched jaws? This should be the anxiety around a sudden bill, defaulting on a loan or wanting to borrow from an associate aging parent.

 Not solely square measure these groups non-existent at the most monetary organizations, however, this kind quite thinking is missing all told however a get few progressive establishments internationally.

Feelings square measure alarming, Numbers square measure Safe

Maybe the industry is just too busy with alternative priorities to rely on shopper emotions. Between the essential‘numbers of banking’, compliance, competition, innovation and therefore the sudden surprise of the day, the business is just too busy.

 We regulate APRs, we tend to invest many millions, we tend to count our shoppers (sometimes we tend to try this twice), we tend to agonize over the most recent regulation and that we scrutinize any of the four magic quadrants for answers which will offer marketplace success.

 And whereas the business invests important amounts of cash on shopper satisfaction ratings, somewhere at the bottom we all know they aren’t happy. The expectations in the banking square measure set rather low within the consumer’s mind, therefore ‘satisfaction’ may very well mean ‘non-dramatically-dissatisfied.’ And since few pay time finding the positive correlation between real positive feeling and dollar signs, we tend to aren’t too positive we tend to care concerning the excellence.

Fintech companies Fill The Emotional Void

“We’re committed to serving to faculty students achieve their educational journey. which means we tend to can’t depart with merchandise CIOs like to purchase … we want to make merchandise students like to use,” expressed Jon Kolko from flat solid. whereas maybe a completely different business, his statement summarizes, however, his company came across the understanding that the tip shopper matters deeply from the associate emotional purpose of reading.

 There square measure monetary companies that have committed to ‘Emotional Banking’ and have succeeded within the marketplace. Meniga has won varied awards for his or her user expertise that goes on the far side clicks and graphs. a comparatively new start-up, Hip Pocket, has designed their entire answer round the shopper challenges of borrowing. and straightforward was established by non-bankers annoyed by the approach monetary establishments treated customers and have known that wondering however the user ‘feels’ pays off.

 Anyone who’s ever been to a Finovate event, wherever new Fintech companies show their merchandise, has felt the sorcerous moment once the whole audience connects with one thing they see on stage that produces them feel showing emotion positively. These companies and alternative new start-ups do the required legwork to make merchandise and services that resonate with the emotional a part of banking. Does square measure inherit dance establishments ready to suppose underneath these terms?

The Rise Of The sympathetic Banker

There square measure multiple theories excusing the lapse higher than. they vary from the frenzy to make physical and digital services to the fact that banking historically feels mandated to ascertain themselves as to blame of numbers and safety, or guardians of undisputed trust as opposition builders of trust.

 One factor is evident – bankers ought to do a far higher job wondering themselves as a shopper. Bankers peremptorily ought to analyze however they feel themselves, and translate those feelings to a need for creating by removal into others’ relationship with their cash similarly.

 As an associate business, we want to roll up our sleeves – we want to speak concerning the patron attachment to savings, investments, day-after-day cash, and the way to maneuver towards Invisible Banking. we've got to rely on however cash impacts anxiety, joy, and goals.

 How {do we tend to|can we|will we} encourage customers to embrace smart cash habits and obtain them out of dangerous ones? however, will we create consumer’s lives richer and additional connections to the United States of America … emotionally? however, will we delight them, answer their emotional cash wants and, most significantly, however, will we tend to become invisible empowerers of cash Moments ™?

 Emotional expertise (EX) is that the next step when wife. whereas the emotional association ought to have a logically outdated wife, this can be not therefore in banking. Understanding, and responding to, the consumer’s EX ought to precede the building and delivering of merchandise, the event of client service units and even the building of our core systems. however, it's not too late.

 It is time to become additional sympathetic associated dig deep into our customer’s hierarchy of wants and build Emotional expertise which will be an individual within the marketplace. it'll facilitate the United States of America vie against new entrants (who square measure building merchandise with EX because the foundation) and can guide future business initiatives.

  We should get excited concerning the journey ahead, discovering a way to create EX larger than all the opposite acronyms banking has been meaninglessly throwing at customers. If we tend to were to succeed, having the consumers’ feelings concerning cash valid can translate into additional tangible results on the lowest line for the sure-fire organizations than something we've got exhausted banking over the past many years.

[coolstarorg]

How Apple could replace iOS jailbreaking features without compromising too much on security

With the difficulty of jailbreaking iOS increasing to the point where iOS vulnerabilities are extremely valuable, many have been posting ideas on how Apple could replace jailbreaking. I thought I’d give my view on it, as someone who has a general idea of how iOS’s internals work (on a userland level).

The order of items in this list starts with those that impact security the least (and are most likely for Apple to accept if they were listening to user suggestions) to those that could impact security to a certain level (although I explain how the security concerns may be mitigated)

These ideas build on existing iOS functionality (such as sandboxing, XPC and Remote Views) as well as on existing UNIX functionality (chroot) to show how iOS may be expanded with its existing security features.

Small iOS feature enhancements

External Storage support in Files app (iOS 11+) and 3rd party apps

The Files app (on iOS 11+) and Document picker should allow access to external storage (either SD cards or USB flash drives/hard drives) that are plugged into the device via the Camera Connection Kits. This would greatly improve the iPad’s versatility.

More App Extensions

Lock Screen Replacements

Lock Screen replacements are a fairly popular category of tweaks. Being able to replace the lock screen will allow a vast amount of customization, considering the lock screen is the first thing a user sees when the device is turned on/woken up from sleep. Based on how Apple implemented some other extension categories in iOS 8, it is a no-brainer how this may be implemented.

SpringBoard can load a remote view controller so the lock screen runs out of process, loading in a view from a plugin provided by an app. This would allow the plugin to be sandboxed, and would prevent it from leaking information on notifications to another app or to a remote server.

Notifications and alarm information can be delivered to the plugin via XPC, allowing it to display them in its custom view without having to load any code into SpringBoard.

APIs should also be added for the plugin to be able to query basic information (should the plugin hide the status bar), such as carrier name, cell signal strength, and wifi signal strength. (APIs already exist for querying bluetooth status and battery percentage)

Weather information, etc. may be accessed by these plugins via read-only access to its parent app. The parent app may refresh weather information (using Background App Refresh introduced on iOS 7) and provide it to the plugin, although the plugin may not send any information back to the app.

Multitasking switcher and control center replacements

The multitasking switcher and control center may both load remote views from app plugins similar to how the custom lock screen implementation would work. These plugins would be sandboxed so they can't write out information to their parent app or connect to external servers. These would only run when the app switcher or control center are open and on screen.

The control center plugins would get APIs to toggle settings, as well as the ability to launch apps and get a list of apps installed.

The multitasking switcher plugins would get APIs to query a list of display items (either an app or 2 split viewed apps) open, the list of apps installed, screenshots of the display items, and have the ability to switch to display items, or quit out of display items.

As these plugins would be sandboxed, they can't leak any of this information out or change settings when requested to by a remote server.

System-wide accessible shared app files

An app, should it decide to, should be able to share a folder system-wide with other plugins or apps. This would work similarly to document storage providers introduced with iOS 8, but would have special properties.

This folder may be written to only by the app that is sharing the files

Other apps and plugins will only be able to read from this folder

The parent app may also set a property that will indicate to whether they should or shouldn’t display the files in a docoument picker (if they’re meant for internal use in a plugin only)

LaunchServices icon providers (Theming Engines)

Apps should be able to register a plugin with LaunchServices as an “icon provider”. This would allow a plugin to provide icons to LaunchServices to replace app icons on the home screen, document providers, settings app, etc. (Basically enabling theming engines). When enabled, the plugin will receive a dictionary of app bundle ID’s and the app’s icons (and alternate icons). The plugin can then go through the dictionary and either run render stages or simply replace the icons outright, and return the dictionary to launchservices when its done. Plugins may be stacked in this way to allow multiple themes. Icons will then be cached on disk so they don’t need to be rendered again unless either an app is installed (where just that app icon will be rendered) or another icon provider is installed (where icons will be re-rendered).

Icon provider plugins will only have read access to their parent app, thus preventing them from possibly leaking information about the apps installed on the device.

Developer features that can be accessible to everyone

XCode for iPad

Apple has been touting the iPad (especially the iPad Pro) as a device that can replace a laptop. However, to be able to replace laptops for everyone, the iPad needs to be able to build apps for iPhone and itself. When paired with either a bluetooth or smart keyboard, split view, and Apple pencil, XCode should be a good experience on the iPad.

Terminal w/ chroot

A terminal with a bash shell may be provided for iOS devices so traditional UNIX tools may run on iOS devices, especially iPads, to go alongside XCode. This shell may run inside a chroot that is distributed via the app store (similar to how Windows Subsystem for Linux gets its chroot). Code-signing rules may be relaxed within this chroot, as executables running inside the chroot can’t access anything outside it (thus not compromising the rest of the device’s security). However, sandbox may be used on top of the chroot to prevent direct hardware access within the chroot. This chroot, however, may be browsed as a folder from the Files app. Should anything go wrong with the chroot, the entire chroot may be deleted and redownloaded without affecting any apps running on the device.

Changes to iOS to facilitate tweak security

Before I go into how tweaks can be implemented on iOS, here’s some aspects of iOS that can be hardened to enhance security.

App Transport Security

App Transport Security was introduced in iOS 9 where apps should specify which domains they require access to, and whether they need just HTTPS access or if they really need HTTP access.

The App Store should check apps going through it and enforce that apps specify domains rather than allowing access to all domains (unless there is a very, very specific reason to allow all domains)

Sandbox SpringBoard

SpringBoard may be sandboxed so it may not access the network, and that it may not access app sandboxes (except read-only access to the folders designated by apps as accessible system-wide)

Tweak Store/Unsigned code Toggle

The following ideas will probably never be accepted by Apple, but we can dream right?

Tweak Store

A setting may be enabled to allow access to a special section of the App Store called the “Tweak Store”

Unlike regular apps or plugins, these will come with no guarantee from Apple of working, and the user will install them following an agreement to a disclaimer and a device wipe + reactivation. When tweaks are enabled on the device, a warning screen with text should be displayed on boot.

This warning screen screen on boot will either time out in 10 seconds, where the device beeps and then boots, or the user may press both volume buttons immediately to acknowledge the warning and boot (similar to Chrome OS’s verified boot). The device will then boot with a differently colored apple logo (not white, black or red – red is reserved for the next mode).

However, the root filesystem will still be read-only, and secure boot, KPP/memprot, code-signing and sandbox are still in effect, and the root filesystem may not be browsed from the Files app. Data protection will still be provided by the SEP.

Also, should the phone have any issues, these tweaks may be the first thing disabled or removed by Apple Support.

Load dylibs into processes

Dylibs may be loaded into SpringBoard (which is now sandboxed), or App Processes (which should be protected by App Transport Security). Sandboxing and App Transport security is in effect, so these dylibs will only get read access to the folder that was made accessible system-wide by their parent app.

A filter plist may be provided alongside these dylibs (similar to Cydia Substrate) to specify which processes these dylibs should be loaded into.

These dylibs may swizzle Objective-C methods, use Swift reflections, or may interpose C functions to modify SpringBoard’s or App processes. However, they may not leak any information out, as they will be prevented from writing to their parent app from processes other than their parent app, and will be domain restricted from accessing the dylib’s author’s servers from most apps (including SpringBoard).

These dylibs are still signed, however, and must pass approval through Apple before being allowed to install (unless a 7-day free cert or 1 year dev cert is used for the specific device, like normal app signing).

Almost all functionality missing, if any, from the plugins mentioned previously may be implemented using these dylibs.

Root Access + Code Signing Disable + Relaxed Sandbox

Should the above not be enough, a 2nd toggle may be accessible to enable full access. Similar to enabling the tweak store, this will require an agreement to a disclaimer acknowledging no warranty will be provided on the software, followed by a device wipe + reactivation.

Similar to the tweak store being enabled, this mode also displays a warning screen on boot, however the auto-boot timeout should be increased to 30 seconds, and the Apple logo on boot should be red. If a device in this mode is taken in to Apple Support, the device should be wiped and reset back to stock iOS before service.

Secure boot, KPP/memprot and sandboxing are still in effect. Code signing is still in effect, but any signature should be allowed, regardless of executable location on the filesystem. The root filesystem will be mounted as read/write, and the Files app will display and be able to read/write to the root filesystem. (Although the kernel and bootloader may not be changed or the device will stop booting outright).

Sandboxing rules, however, will be relaxed slightly, to allow XPC services to be hosted from SpringBoard, and a special folder will be created on the filesystem which any app or plugin may read and write to.

Also, in this mode, tweaks may hook any process, and terminal may access the root filesystem rather than a chroot.

This mode is basically the equivalent of a jailbroken device, and will satisfy any jailbreaking needs.