#and then reading that post made me go through my recent work and see epithets and then made me think ''wait actually im a shitty author''

[appalachianapologies]

every time i use an epithet i think of a tumblr post i read like 2 years ago about someone with Pro Writing Advice™️ who said that using even a single epithet ruins an entire piece and only bad writers do that and Real Authors™️ know better than to do that and also if you can’t figure out a way to get around an epithet maybe you shouldn’t even be writing in the first place

the weird things stick with me

[professoruber]

Epithet Erased Role Swap AU FanFic: A swapped place in Sweet Jazz City Prologue

Hi, This is just a quick Fanfiction I've written up based on the amazing Role Swap AU made by @spliinkles. I actually did have a somewhat similar idea before (which was what if some epithet related event caused characters to switch ages) but I really love the ideas of this AU and wanted to write about it.

Sorry first of all if there are any errors. I wrote this up kind of quickly and if I do find errors I will be willing to fix them if  I get around to it.

Am posting this fanfiction here because the Epithet Erased fandom seems biggest on Tumblr and also that's where this AU is from.

Prologue: You're reading it

Chapter 1: https://professoruber.tumblr.com/post/189841325568/a-swapped-place-in-sweet-jazz-city-chapter-1

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Giovanni Potage was what some might call a variety of unflattering yet undeniably accurate descriptors. Such things included ‘problem child’ and ‘wannabe delinquent’, both titles he wore with pride.

With the exception of the ‘wannabe’ part of course, if you were to ask him, he would insist he was the most feared delinquent in his school’s history and most definitely not an adorable little soup child.

His reign of delinquency was joined by his friends, his ‘boys’ as he called them. Two of these aforementioned boys were now accompanying him on the most boring field trip ever.

“-and that’s when I smash that ball right into the principle’s office, and everyone cheered” Giovanni finishes accounting his latest most definitely truthful anecdote about his misadventures as a dangerous criminal delinquent.  His squeaky twelve-year-old vocal cords pushed to their deepest potential level in order to attempt to put on a wave of coolness on top of what he considers his amazing storytelling ability.

 “WOW GIOVANNI. YOU’RE SO AMAZING! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH” Screams one of his friends, known most often as Crusher for rather self-explanatory reasons. The high volume of his sudden outburst eliciting a glare from one of the museum guides who were currently giving a tour to their class.

The young guide turns away from the crowd of youths briefly to pop another pain pill before taking a deep breath and snapping back towards the kids with a forced smile.

“As I was saying before I was… interrupted…” she began, briefly pausing to once again glare at Crusher, who blessed with embarrassment and hid behind the protection of Giovanni as she continues “Epithets are rare and amazing powers gifted to just a one in five of the population. Wow, so cool. Anyway, moving on…” she begins to keep walking before being lightly nudged by her older bearded co-guide.

“Come now my apprentice Mera. It is important to show enthusiasm for this thing. It’s important to always do your best in every situation” the man says the last sentence with such sheer power that he flexes for emphasis, prompting a array of awed stares bystanders at his muscular build.

Mera even admires it for a moment before turning back to the children and sighing “You’re right Indus… I’ll try to spice up the tour a bit” she gives a somewhat more genuine smile this time, as Indus pats her on the back.

“Now that’s the spirit! Why don’t we tell them about the Arsene Amulet, that will certainly spice things up” Indus suggests with large genuine smile aimed at his young apprentice.

Mera goes wide eyed at the mention of the amulet before whispering to Indus “Uh… Indus I’m not sure if telling these kids about the amulet is a good idea”

Indus looks thoughtful but nevertheless was still in proud teacher mode “Do not worry apprentice Mera. No harm should come from granting these children some of the wonder of this museum”

Mera eventually relents and soon launches into a somewhat less half-hearted explanation of the amulet as well as other cool and interesting exhibits, Indus sometimes dropping in to suggest topics, such as the Dinosaur exhibition which he insists is amazing.

However, these were quickly drowned out Giovanni’s criminal mind as it’s focus settled firmly on the fact a mysterious cool amulet was hidden within these halls. An awesomely evil formed from the dark confines of his self-proclaimed delinquent mind.

“Car Crash, Crusher, come with me” he whispers in his best covert voice before snatching his pair of friends away from the tour. The former blushed at the close contact to his crush while the latter looked annoyed.

“Hey, my name’s Fred. All I did was crash Ben’s go-kart five times and now everyone just won’t let it go!” He complains and throws up his hands in annoyance.

“Shush, will you? Whatever. I have an awesome plan to show the whole entire world my awesome criminal skills so no one will deny that Giovanni Potage is the most awesome supervillain of all time!” He exclaims quietly with clenched fist.

Crusher loved every moment of It and even ‘Fred’ was captivated by the intensity if nothing else.  

“I will sneak inside the museum; spray paint my name on the exhibits. And then for the finale I will steal that amulet thingy and leave a pool of boiling lava and… uh… acid! In its place. These history nerds will never no one hit them” he gives a smug smile, proud of himself for having come up with such a villainous plan.

Crusher fell to the floor as he clenches his heart, overwhelmed by the sheer continued amazingness of Giovanni. Fred meanwhile was somewhat confused on What Giovanni’s plan was.

“So, you want to get an amulet which steals Epithets?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

Giovanni looks confused for a moment before putting two and two together “oh is that what that thing does? Nah that’s totally lame. What I want is the street cred. If I pull this off then all the greatest criminal gangs will be begging to have me join them. Maybe I might be able to join the Bushido Blasters… or even the Banzai Blasters!” He exclaims with enthusiasm.

As Crusher continued to be amazed, Fred scratched the back of his head “I don’t know man, this seems kind of dangerous even compared to what we usually get up to. And me and ‘Crusher’ can’t be out after dark, so you’ll be alone for this”

Crusher cries manly boy tears at the thought of having to abandon Giovanni. But Giovanni simply dramatically holds his hand to his chest and begins to reassure them.

“Don’t worry my boys! I have the greatest- hey what’s that over there!” He suddenly shouts pointing to the left, and grinning as Crusher and Fred look to in that direction. While his friends are distracting, Giovanni quickly dashes behind them and yells “Teleports behind!”, startling both boys.

“As you can see my stealth skills and unmatched. And after tonight no one will able to deny the supervillainy of Giovanni Potage!”

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Across the city in the backroom of a family owned toy store sat a young barely adult woman wearing a dark green dress and a yellow apron and boots, her dark brown hair tied up to prevent it getting in her face.

The woman was working stoically on toys which would be sold in the Blyndeff Toy Emporium, her family’s store.

“Police are still baffled at the recent theft of expensive several statues from a local art gallery, all of which were replaced by teddy bears. Despite the absurdity of this case police have still found no leads on the criminals responsible, although reports suggest Banzai Blasters may have been involved- “ the noise drowns out in the woman’s mind as her lips slip into an evil grin as she recalls the recent caper which led to her promotion from Blaster to Captain in the Banzai ranks.

In the monotonous world of manufacturing and retail she was glad to have an outlet to cut loose when she could, keeping up appearances in front of customers and not hitting the many who deserved it was tiring, and she’s been doing this for around a decade at this point.

Taking a deep breath, she got back to work, turning off the news livestream playing on her phone just had it had begun talking about how a Detective Ashling had been assigned to the case. She had bigger things to concern herself with right now.

Namely that of her first heist as a Banzai Captain. Her crew of minions were ready and a location had been mapped out. Now all she needed to do was complete the final workings of her special criminal helper toys, as well as the toys which need to be sold.

“Molly! Mum wants to know if the new toys are ready yet!” The bratty voice of the woman’s little sister comes through the door of the workshop as the young girl in question walks into take a look herself.

Molly feels like grimacing but instead effortlessly donned a smile as hollow as her soul.

“Almost done Lorelai. Tell mum I’ll have these out on the shelves soon” she said with a mask of cheerfulness, to which Lorelai simply rolled her eyes at and gave a quick “Whatever” before leaving back to the rest of the building, shutting the door behind her.

Molly got back to work, only stopping at one point to take out a small picture of the Sweet Jazz Museum, causing her to gain a much more genuine, and evil smile “tonight” she simply says, as she returns to work.

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Later in the dead of night, Giovanni’s head raises up above from a bin. He leaps out and whisper shouts “Teleports inside!” to himself as he looks around.

He proceeds to run carelessly around the now empty halls of the museum, slipping and knocking some stuff over a few times before arriving in the entrance.

“Uh hu! This shall be a great place to begin the reign of terror of Giovanni Potage” the twelve year out super-criminal announces as he walks up to the desk.

“I should call my boys, to let them know I got it, not that they would be surprised of course” He picks up the phone and dials Car Crash’s number, only for it to fail to go through. Confused, Giovanni looks at the phone only to find an explanation of its true nature.

“Internal and emergency calls only? Pfft, lame” he comments as he slams down the receiver. He then proceeds to duck down under the desk and take out some items from his bag. First a whoopy cushion which he fashions to the chair and then a canister of spray paint.

He begins spray painting a message about how lame their phone system is. Meanwhile as the young delinquent writes, a hole in the roof is silently made and a group of Banzai Blaster begin slowly coming in from above, going unheard from anyone who might be within earshot thanks to their leader’s Epithet.

The last to go down is their new Captain, Bear Trap, who under the silence of her Epithet begins handing out instructions to her minions.

“There all done” Giovanni says proudly as he finishes his villainous vandalism, popping back up from behind the desk her suddenly comes eye to eye with Bear Trap.

All parties present simply fall back, startled due to not expecting to encounter anyone else. For a few moments silence reigns even without the assistance of Bear Trap’s Epithet.

The silence isn’t broken until the shock face of Giovanni suddenly shifts into one of wonder and excitement.

“Wow criminals! Awesome!”

[seven-oomen]

Hi, Ben!  I hope your day is going well so far!  Are you still getting snow, or has the storm calmed a bit?  We’re supposed to be getting a potentially severe ice storm over the course of today.  There’s already a thin layer this morning, we’ll see how the rest of the day goes.  And temperatures are supposed to stay in about the -4 to -6C range the rest of the week.  I’m very glad that I’m off the next couple of days, and managed to get by the grocery last night after work.

I saw your post about writing and writing styles!  It was helpful because I’ve not really seen the different styles written out and explained before.  I’m still not 100% which I am, but probably either an intuitive plotter or a methodological pantser.  Usually there’s a scene or a line or two that I’m like “this needs to happen in this story” and everything else is fairly free-form.  I did try actually writing down an outline for IYWTD, but even then it’s more a list of beats/tropes and the order I want to include them in.  (And I’ve only just made it past halfway through, although a couple may need to be altered a bit, oh god, how did this get so long…)

It’s also always kinda of amusing to me how many of those writing advice lists are like “Don’t do this”, “Stop doing this”, “Never do that”, and then they’ll encourage you to find your own voice and style.  Like, bitch, you just told me not to ever do half the shit that makes up my style.  Which am I supposed to do?  Damn.  XD  (You will seriously pry adverbs and similar descriptors from my cold, dead, grasping hands.  Also the occasional epithet.  No, I’m not using a character’s name nine times in one paragraph, sorry, and pronouns don’t always help if the characters are the same gender.  The reader can deal. ;D )

And I feel ya on the tall, skinny, blue-eyed boys thing.  It doesn’t have to be just a white boy, but if he’s taller than me, slender, and has a pretty pair of baby blues, my higher brain functions tend to go into insta-lag.  I ain’t particularly proud, but I’ve long accepted this about myself (there are many reasons Luke became my forever BAE.)  That’s not to say a lack of any of those is a deal-breaker in the slightest, but it’s definitely going to immediately get my attention.

Speaking (vaguely) of Luke, I had a thought the other day of him and Din being off on some planet together (Grogu is staying with Aunt Leia and Uncle Han for a few days), and there’s a noise in the middle of the night, and Din refuses to accept Luke’s assurance that there’s nothing out there, and in true himbo fashion insists on going out to investigate having grabbed only the darksaber and his helmet to cover his face -but nothing else.  Luke just finds it a combo of hysterical and adorable (and kinda hot.)

I hope your novel is going well (whatever stage you happen to be at), and I’m always up for hearing whatever you feel like sharing about it.

I hope you’re still doing well with the whole eating and hydrating regularly thing (it’s also totally okay if you aren’t!), and I’m super proud of you for sticking to it as much as you can anyway.  That shit is hard.  (Also, ignore the 1500 calories thing, I swear that shit is designed for 130lb women trying to shed a few pounds, not people who need to safely and steadily lose larger amounts of weight.  But then I’ve also never fully understood making someone lose weight before surgery, either.  “We need you to get rid of some excess weight before we’ll okay this surgery to *checks notes* get rid of some excess weight."  Like, weird flex, but okay.)

Anyway, I’m rambling again, and should really eat some breakfast and try to write a little myself today, maybe.  Hope you’re feeling okay, and that things are going well overall.  I hope Mo is doing well, and enjoying his best cuddle buddy life.  Take care!  *Hugs!*

Okay, gonna try this this way so that I can refer back to the links on my phone if need be.  I couldn’t quite see the full entries for the physical descriptions, and when I tried clicking on them it kept asking for a login, but I think I saw enough to get the gist.  I’m not sure exactly what sort of feedback you’re interested in, if any, so this will mainly be my usual sort of rambling stream-of-consciousness type thoughts and questions.  Hope that’s okay.  Feel free to ignore if it’s not what you’re after right now!  :D

I think one of the first questions that popped to mind was where is/what happened to Ellie’s mom, and is that something that’s going to cause problems later in some way?  (I.e.- was she killed on a hunt, are they divorced, was it bitter or amicable [would she come after her daughter if she heard about his relationship?])  I guess technically similar questions could also apply to Nate (late husband, ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, one night stand, sperm donor?) it was just more noticeable with Ellie being so young still.  Although that could also be part of why he’s ended up in Wyoming, which was another question I had, although there I assume it’s hunt-related.

I also anticipate quite a bit of tension of all kinds when he and Nate first meet, because Faron strikes me from his descriptions as someone rather used to being able to get his own way either through the influence of who he is, or through his size (not necessarily in any kind of intentional or aggressive way, more in an unconscious privilege kind of way, if that makes sense?), and I don’t think Nate sounds like the type to give two shits about either of those things, and it would probably drive Faron up the proverbial wall that Nate isn’t intimidated by him in the slightest.  (I could be entirely wrong about all this, this is just the impression I get so far. :D )  And I think Nate being noticeably older than him would just make it that much more irritating at first, too.  Now, how long these impressions last will just depend on how quickly they get to know each other, and whether Bachelor #3 is helping or hindering things.  XD  The potential for just sitting back and watching the fireworks as “laid-back dad jokes with a quick temper” clashes with “quiet, reserved, and possibly takes themselves slightly too seriously” might prove too much for our last contestant for a while, depending on where his personality falls.  ;D  (Especially since Faron coming in and starting shit will likely come off as a direct threat to people and places Nate considers under his protection.)

Also, are any of these three going to have met before?  Will Nate already have some sort of relationship with the werewolf (Does he already know about the supernatural at all?)  Did he and Faron encounter each other on the trip to Europe you mentioned in the Life Highlights?  If he and the wolf already know each other, how does he get along with Cas, or Nate’s pets?  Is the werewolf also going to be native to the region?  Does he know anything about Faron’s family?  Does Faron already know he’s a werewolf, or is that going to be a bit of a crisis for him later?  A test of how well he’s learned not to judge?  If Nate doesn’t already know, how will he deal with both their secrets?  Do you plan for full-shift only wolves, partial-shift only wolves, or a mix of the two like TW?  Are there other supes in the area?

I think you mentioned maybe having him be of Native American descent?  I think that could be very interesting, but would require a LOT of research into which tribes are active in the Yellowstone area, and what their individual mythologies say about things like shapeshifters, and LGTBQ+ issues, etc., because there can be a fair amount of variance, I’m sure.  Also, I’m just overall curious how he’ll fit in with the other two size wise (get your mind out of the gutter, you know what I mean.  XD )  Also curious if any o them are going to have the slightest clue on the feelings front, or are they all going to be just absolute disasters?  Will the kids figure it out before they do?  Will the kids get along?  (Will BachelorWolf have any kids of his own, or just Nate and Faron?)  Will Nate’s coworkers have any clue about either the supernatural, or what’s going on with those three?  Because I suspect at least some of them will be way more obvious than they think they’re being.  XD

Uh… I think that was all that’s occured to me right now?…  I’m sorry you’re having a yucky day overall, and I hope tomorrow’s a bit better!  The ice storm has finally moved in here, and I can feel the temperature drop radiating off of the front door and windows.  It went from rain to freezing rain/hail and I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to last.  Hopefully only a little while.  Also, sorry your book was terrible.  I haven’t seen too many recent recommendations from friends, and I’ve been mostly reading “cozy” mysteries (Agatha Christie, Elizabeth Peters, etc) as my comfort reading myself, lately, so I can’t really suggest anything in particular, unfortunately.  At least, nothing I think you wouldn’t already know.  Anyway, hope you’re getting some decent rest, and hope you have a better day tomorrow!  Take care!  *Hugs!*

Alright since this is going to be like a very long one, I’m break it down into a few things.

First full physical descriptions, cause I didn’t know Milanote would be a bitch about it.

Nate:

164 cm (5'4), 75 kg (166 lbs), Short slightly overweight trans man in his middle age. Nearly always the shortest man in the room, only standing around 5'4 and weighing in around 166 lbs. With kind moss green eyes that have permanent crow's feet in their corners and a polite but reserved smile always on his face. 

A face that's framed by faint freckles that are only visible in the sunlight. A neatly trimmed beard spices up his features and frames his pink lips. His thick but short eyebrows frame his eyes and create a short arc to his slim nose. 

A high forehead separates his brows from his wavy dark blond hair that's always tucked behind his ears. 

He generally wears the Superintendents' Park Ranger uniform while on duty. When he's not he wears comfortable jeans and t-shirts, usually a mono color like green, white, or black, plaid flannel shirts, socks with the weirdest patterns and colors, and hiking boots. He wears a steel ring on his right index finger and has a little steel Mjolnir on a necklace around his neck.

He's missing two fingers (his ring and little finger) on his left hand due to a childhood accident.

Faron:

185 cm (6'1 ft), 93 kg (205 lbs), Faron is a tall man with plenty of muscle from his time hunting. He can seem daunting and intimidating when you first meet him but there is a kinder, softer side to him. He has a warm light brown skin color, blue eyes, and black natural tight curly hair that he keeps very short. His full dark beard decorates his cheeks and chin, connects to his upper lip, and all the way up to his sideburns.

  He tends to wear dark clothing, leather jackets, no jewelry that could identify him, jeans, henley shirts, or V-neck shirts, and black, brown, or red jackets. He usually wears black combat boots or dark brown hiking boots. He's got knives and other weapons hidden all over his body and pockets and it might take him a good few minutes to unload every single knife from his body when he was to disarm.

There are also scars all over his body, including some scars on his neck that are visible from day to day life. He had the bad luck of being struck down by a vicious Wendigo but managed to escape. He survived thanks to his sister's quick thinking and first aid.

He covers some of those scars up with tattoos; he has one tattoo of a dragon laying down on his shoulder, with its head on his chest and its body curling over his shoulder and ending just below his shoulder blades. And one tattoo covers up some scars on his lower arm, it's a tattoo of a wolf's head that covers up a bite mark.

Dichali:

He’s 37 and has 4 siblings, and two children, Kajika & Kaniya (Jika & Niya, identical twins, but one of them identifies as male, he’s trans. Kajika is his chosen/reassigned name. They are 10.) Dichali grew up in Riverton, WY, which is the largest town of 10,000 in the largest Native Reservation in Wyoming. He’s also a dear friend to our Nate (who is also his boss technically) and has slowly been falling in love with him for the last few years. (Although he still hasn’t realized that he loves his friend.) 

Yena, his coworker and friend, who’s much younger at 25 has been watching her coworker and her boss joke and dance around each other. She has a betting pool with her girlfriend on who snaps first.

Not sure how I’ll connect him to Faron if it’s more fun/better to have him find out later or to already know him and keep it quiet. 

I’m still working on him, so I don’t have much of personality and other things written down yet. But I have made his physical description:

At 178 cm (5'8) and 83 kilos (182 lbs) Dichali probably isn't the tallest man you've met, he's also not the shortest. And while he's got some good muscle on him from working as a Park Ranger, and being a werewolf, he also has some softer sides. All the better to cuddle with. He has long straight brown hair that falls to his mid-back and deep brown eyes and a long nose that ends prominently. His eyebrows are thin and he has a high forehead. His skin is a light Tawny color, there's a hint of an orange brown with a cool undertone.

His skin is also relatively clear and youthful looking because of his lycanthropy.

He tends to wear pants and jackets made by native designers and always incorporates native fashion into his outfits. He has jackets of mostly gray, blue, brown, and black colors made of denim, cotton, wool, or brass that are lined with more traditional cloths and patterns like the designer brand Ginew. Usually he pairs them with dark jeans, either black, gray, or dark blue. He pairs it with white, blue, red, black, or printed band t-shirts (Metallica, Green Day, Marianas Trench). 

For shoes he has brown hiking boots that are part of the Ranger uniform, more western styled boots like black cowboy boots, and a pair of sneakers.He also wears a copper bracelet with lighting bolts etched into it.

-

Now this whole story got started because I had the question what if we had a DILF romance going on while/because the following happened?

What if a YouTube video that accidentally got uploaded shows the existence of a werewolf in Yellowstone park? Threatening to expose the entire supernatural world.

The werewolves right now are a mix, so half shift is like the classical half shift of a wolf head on a man’s body, but the full shift is more like a larger wolf. Almost the size of a black bear. Though I might change those ideas as the story progresses.

But that is how the Cryptid of Yellowstone is brought into the world. And that brings problems. Big problems.

Wendigos, vampires, djins, I plan to create a world where a lot of supernatural creates exist. From all sorts of cultures. I’m also toying with the idea of Kelpies and Griffins. That kind of stuff.

The supernatural world is hidden from ours, hidden in plain sight if you will. Most encounters are written off as really strange, sometimes a picture pops up, but with the coming of the internet, things have gotten more complicated. Also with deforestation and competition with regular wildlife has made some bigger supernatural creatures either extinct or thought to be extinct. They’re not sure what still lives in Australia, though.

Nate or his son don’t know about the supernatural world. Neither does Yena. Or much of the world. Dichali, his children (to some extent), Faron, and Faron’s family do know about this world.

-

Alright, as for your other post XD

Right now it’s no longer storming but due to the freezing temperatures the snow’s not going away and all public transport and delivery services are still not driving/delivering/running. So that’s neat. Not. 

I swear we get some snow and the country is just down. Upside, ain’t nobody going outside and this helps with lockdown.

I hope your snowstorm won’t be too bad and everything thaws down soon. Snow’s fun for a day but after that...

Make sure you stay warm alright? And bundle up.

Yes dad... alright XD

Honestly, I’m glad to hear you liked my advice too. I’m getting quite a bit of positive feedback on it and that just makes me really happy ^^. I’m definitely writing more writing advice from everything I’ve learned so far.

There’s honestly so many contradicting ones out there, it’s a matter of picking and choosing which ones work best for you and applying those. And that’s the real trick of advice.

Fun fact, a lot of famous writers are also pantsers. Steven King, Neil Gaiman, George RR Martin are examples of famous pantsers or gardeners as they are also called. 

John Grisham, JK Rowling, RL Stein fall into the plotter or architect category. 

Writers like Hank Green seem to fall in the in-between category of plantser (somewhere between a plotter and a pantser. Or the Intuitive plotter.)

Okay but the DinLuke things is really really kinda hot and cute and adorable and has me smiling <3

And I can’t remember what else I wanted to say since it is like 2 am and my meds are seriously kicking in now.

But I hope you’re doing alright and that the snowstorm isn’t too bad where you’re at.

I’ll be alright, my diet hasn’t been going so well the last few days and I can’t really exercise, but I did mostly get healthy groceries that will be delivered friday so there’s that. 

Fingers crossed I can pick it back up.

Okay I’m heading to bed XD 

I’ll talk to you later, B <3 

Hugs from me and Mo <3

[okimargarvez]

ABYSS- the Supreme sacrifice - Chapter 1

Original title: Abisso- il supremo sacrificio.

Prompt: mother’s love, kidnapping, distress, tragedy.

Warnings: mention of Character’ Death and rape, O.C..

Genre: angst, drama, action, romantic, family, friendship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, Derek Morgan, Savannah Hayes, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez, Morcia.

Note: multichapter.

Legend: 😘👓🔦🎈⚰.

Song mentioned: none.

Abyss- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

Note: this is my real first Garvez (but even Morcia) fanfic. The song Slipped away by Avril Lavigne inspired me for the plot and the final. It’s a hard story, I talked about weighty topics, it’s not fluffy at all. If you think it’s better if I don’t post it here, please, tell me.

Chapter 1

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. (Honoré de Balzac)

1- The germ

Every fiber of her body vibrates to that tenuous thought, but the woman is expert in pushing it away.

-Someone is very thoughtful tonight.- a voice says behind her, that causes a slight jolt.

-Ha ha, very funny.- she turns to him and smiles. It still seems impossible to think that only a few months before (well, a year now) she couldn’t even look at him in the face, because the calienti Latin traits were replaced by equally fascinating features, but much more painful. Too many similarities, if one was busy to see them. Both were handsome men, for whom all women dizzy and immediately stopped doing what occupied them at the time of the apparition, regardless of the importance of it. Both had something exotic and tasty.

And both (but this she can’t know) are attracted to her, an attraction that must be understood in the absolute sense of the term: an interest that, for someone, can lead to a deeper bond.

Something very similar is passing into the mind of the special agent Luke Alvez as he examines every detail of the woman in front of him. Blonde hair, slightly wavy, glasses that cover those spheres that are a direct mirror of her soul.

Derek is what he can read, printed in indelible characters. Derek Morgan, still present as a shadow that oppresses him, hides him. And he feels exactly like the second wife told by Hitchcock in Rebecca, so crushed by the first that she can’t even afford her own name, nor own personality. It wasn’t the first time he had to replace someone, indeed. Since he was a child he had been used to constant change, to the impossibility of making real friends, knowing full well that it would not last. Yet this had allowed him to have an elastic character, had developed in him an innate ability to forge relationships with people, at first glance, without too many turns of words and this had returned very useful in his work. So he had drawn the best from an unfavorable circumstance, which very often created children, then boys and then adults, unable to forge ties, to the constant search for a fixed point, which at the time when they lost it went into crisis and could become (also) serial killers like those who had to chase.

All this explained perfectly his attitude when, a year ago, he had been easily received by the whole team, consisting of a mix of different members, a super smart young boy, a blonde and a brunette (both not bad) that knows what they’re doing in more senses, a veteran and writer, a man with a severe appearance (it still hurts to think of him, although he has hardly had time to become attached to the big boss) which was then added an old acquaintance, a brunette also  interesting… in short, a beautiful variety that seemed to work as a Swiss mechanism, each had own place and made available their qualities and skills for the success of the mission, everyone seemed aware of the value of each other… yet despite having just lost a gear, they hadn’t shown particular anxiety in welcoming a new member. Everybody but one, the one that had immediately been more apart (although later, soon enough, he would have discovered that it was not a typical attitude of the girl in question): a shapely blonde in all the right places, quite eccentric in the way of dressing and also to furnish her own den. The computer technician Penelope Garcia. When he showed up she had barely looked at him and he, slightly aware of his charm, was disappointed. Even the other blonde, JJ, who wears wedding ring and as he would have learned later was busy, didn’t miss the opportunity to give him a look not really friendly, even if Luke had appeared more like a kind of verification to admission. Penelope had shaken his hand with difficulty and then had run out; during the discussion of the cases she did everything (in a way too obvious) to avoid being near him and when she was sending information while they were outside, never called his number.

If she had seemed a shy girl, he might have thought the opposite of what had been ruminating for months, or rather that the tech had a crush to the new guy. But he was not so stupid and then he had seen her with the others, even if almost practically hidden and the attitude was quite different from what she had with him. She laughed, joked, always smiled, made fun of them by calling them with affectionate nicknames and others that probably only they knew. Even Hotch didn’t seem to be immune to the rite and was called “boss” with militaristic meaning. In addition, avoid him didn’t consist in keeping her eyes down when they crossed mistakenly in the corridor together, indeed, the few times that their eyes met, Penelope was never the one who lowered gaze first, but her expression suggested a kind of hate, what hate couldn’t be because this feeling takes time to bloom like love, rather we could talk about unjustified antipathy.

Or at least it remained until he had decided to ask the remaining members of the profiler section of the BAU. Unexpectedly, it was the last arrival, Emily, to put an end to his “sufferings”, explaining that she wasn’t angry with him, that he could also be the pope, the president of the United States or even David Bowie (he would have understood those things only later), in any case Penelope hated his role or rather the fact that he had taken that role, that place, or that which was until recently of Derek Morgan. From here she had begun to tell a series of memories, interspersed with anecdotes of others, who in the meantime had added since there were no cases to examine. Fortunately, Agent Garcia was home sick. From the various fragments, Luke had painstakingly made a global picture and finally understood everything. Agent Morgan had been “the hero” par excellence, especially for Penelope. He had climbed into an ambulance and risked blow up to save the lives of many people, including his colleagues; he was able to overcome a personal trauma not unimportant (but what kind they hadn’t absolutely wanted to tell him) and derive the strength to continue his work. But above all, he had always worried about his “baby girl” (epithet that first made him turn up his nose), he had tried to protect from the evils that they fought together. At this point it had seemed obvious to him asking how long they had been together and everyone had looked at him with shocked faces, before bursting out laughing. -Never.- JJ had finally answered, and then she had added more quietly -at least not officially.- he had thus come to know the epilogue of the idyll: Morgan had found a woman who had put an end to his being a playboy, a wife and he had settled down, creating a new life, then his wife had been kidnapped and he had decided that his family would no more be been put at risk by his job. End.

From that moment it was him who had stopped try to have a friendly relationship with Penelope, because now that he knew, he had absolutely no idea how to exploit the information in his possession. In other words, the thought that she had avoided him through no fault of his own, but because she was obsessed with the idea of ​​someone who was no longer, it was something too difficult to overcome. The Fate, however, was put in the middle and so, to make it short, they had found themselves in a situation where there was no way to avoid each other and in the end, after spending an hour exchanging secret and challenging looks, Luke had exploded and told her that he had never intended to replace her marvelous Derek Morgan, so he had headed for the exit, contravening Prentiss’s orders, which became after the death of Hotch the new chief of the unit, since Rossi had refused and JJ or Spencer didn’t seem suitable. Penelope had taken a little too many seconds to get out of the catalepsy she had fallen into, but then, just in time, she had managed to come back to life to stop him. And she had simply apologized for behaving so unjustly with him. She hadn’t cried, nor begged him. In a calm voice, she limited himself to explaining the situation to him (unaware that he already knew the plot) and then she had kept silent, probably waiting for him to let off steam, telling her who knows what. Instead, Luke gave her a quiet smile and gently touched her shoulder in a friendly gesture, and then said, -Let’s do what we came here to do.-

From that time there were no more real problems between them. Their relationship had grown to the point of turning in mutual trust, even though she always seemed distant when they met out of work context, as if she were afraid of going too far … without either of them really knowing where they wanted to go. Every now and then, Luke had the impression that Penelope didn’t see him but his predecessor because it was painting on her face a strange expression of joyous melancholy, where the sad component eventually prevailed. And he couldn’t help but wait for her to return to the real world.

As in this exact moment.

-Penelope… are you there ?- he doesn’t call her with any particular appellation, even if sometimes he would like to. He’s afraid of what might happen, although they’ve known each other for over a year, and she once told him she’d talked to Derek, about his life in Chicago, his baby, apparently as if she had overcome her “problem”. But the reality is very different, and Luke knows it.

-Sorry…. I was thinking of something that I dreamed the other night…- seeing a strange nuance in the expression of him, she hastens to specify -not of that kind, maniac!- and she lets away a laugh that only some time ago she would never have had the courage to do, as if Derek had taken away from her the right to be happy without him. -It’s a fairly recurring dream, but nothing classic, like falling to infinity… it’s about- and as soon as Luke catches her expression he understands that she’s about to tell him something important, so he becomes more careful and involuntarily even closer. -A sudden awakening, I’m anguished, I feel that there is something wrong, but without knowing what it’s, then a sudden idea illuminates me. Where are my parents? Inside of me I know the answer and yet pass a few but still very long minutes before I can remember that it’s useless to get excited and wait for them, because they are… dead, when I was eighteen… I told you that already, or not?- he, who was absorbed and completely absorbed by her evocative ability, emerges from the water and shakes his head. -Ah…- moment of embarrassment. -There often happens to me to have… this nightmare, the worst thing are those seconds when I haven’t yet realized the truth, because combined with the anxiety of expectation, there is indissolubly a damn and useless hope… sorry, sorry if I have harassed you with this story… you’ll be tired, you just came back from an intense case … – he is about to reply that she has been engaged in it, but then he lets it go.

-Don’t apologize. I’m interested.- he would say I’m interested in you, but for now he only allowed himself to look at her closely, but not too much. Foreshortening.

The acute shrill breaks the apparent quiet of the evening.

-Love, could you go?- what at first glance would seem a classic and quiet phrase, conceals hidden subtests, which only a trained ear can grasp. The man snorts and, knowing he isn’t seen, unleashes his frustration on the cards he was previously filling out, throwing them into the air, while aware that he’ll have to fix everything on his return. But the momentary euphoria in doing a wrong act repays the further future effort. When he reaches the object of the call, it’s visible only a warm smile on his face.

-Hello, little one, Daddy’s love, how are you?- that little creature so defenseless is also his merit, but is still hard to convincing himself. Another cry, this time female, destroys the atmosphere of mild tranquility that had been created. He snorts again, then tries to pretend nothing is happened, but it seems that tonight nothing wants to give him respite.

-Derek! It’s your phone, could you come and pick up the phone?- he goes quickly towards the voice, throwing a last glance at the bundle wrapped in blankets. He doesn’t even imagine that a ghost of the past (yet still so present, although he has tried in vain to deny it) is going to make it shake forcefully. He takes the device from his wife’s hands and responds in his classic way.

-Morgan.- there is a moment of silence before he hears someone speak from the other end of the line.

-Derek, I… I hope not to bother you…- he is about to interrupt her. Emily. It’s not like her call so late, without a reason… And he immediately realizes everything. Even before the woman can pronounce what he fears. -I… I would not ask you if it wasn’t really necessary. You should… be able to come here… to Quantico.-

-Why?- he finally manages to ask.

-Garcia… Penelope was kidnapped.-

Here, exactly what I feared. How did I know it was about her? It’s… it’s been months since I can’t think about how strange it’s not to see her every morning, don’t joke with her on the phone. It’s more than a year that someone doesn’t call me chocolate thunder. I would have needed her so much, few months ago, since… it’s too hard to think about it. She would have helped me, she would have been able to say the right words… He doesn’t need Prentiss to talk to remember everything suddenly. Penelope has been kidnapped. My baby girl is in danger, right now she could be… I can’t even say it in my head. I have to… I have to pack, pack a bag, I have to tell Savannah… Savannah. -I’ll get there as fast as I can.- and put down the phone. The brunette woman stops doing what she was doing and turns to him.

-Derek, where you are going?-

-Savannah, Emily called me… Garcia has been kidnapped and they need me to go to Quantico.- he tries to use a tone as quiet as possible, while the wheels of his brain go to a thousand per hour, thinking about  where it’s going to go.

-But you’re no longer part of the team, you’re not longer a federal. What do you have to do? - already feels the frustration make its way in the body of the woman he should most want.

-I still have some knowledge, I know some things that can help…- he sees anger rise to her eyes and finally explode.

-You don’t really know anything! You are no longer a profiler. Morgan, listen to me. If you go there I…- he has no more time to waste and certainly has no patience to gently convince his half of the need for his intervention. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t have the courage to say what he really feels, and he knows that she is aware, but he is convinced that until it’s pronounced aloud, that reality can’t be materialized.

-Do not say it.- he comes out more like a threat than the supplication he originally intended to express. -Savannah, I have to go.- a significant pause -I love you.- he lays a very quick kiss on her cheek. He feels a pain in his chest as he looks at her, but it’s not because he told a lie. Love is much more complicated than what one would like to believe. Much more stratified and complex.

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[obsessivelollipoplalala]

LollipopCop’s Fic Rec List

Hey, friends. Some of you said you’d like to see a rec list from me, so here we go. 

Note: I haven’t read many recent stories because I’ve been busy with my own stuff, and I’m intentionally trying to put some stories on here that I haven’t seen on other lists. If you want more fic recs from a specific genre, like a rec list of fluffly fics, or AUs, let me know :) 

Anyway, here’s the list in no particular order:

1. Fifth Time’s the Charm (words: 7,842) by Eligh: Yes, this is a ff.net fic, and there are some epithets but listen! I love it! The premise is that Sherlock and John have sex while drunk, but of course, Mr. S1 Not-Gay John freaks out, and tells Sherlock to delete it. But, Sherlock is completely in love with him. They wind up having sex four more times in one way or another, and yes, there’s a happy ending. It’s classic Pining, Head-Over-Heels Sherlock, and l think this 2011 fic was really ahead of its time in terms of characterization. 

2. Peach (words: 3,206) by DancingGrimm: Boy, listen, this is just a hot little fic about John rimming the hell out of Sherlock while he’s drunk during the early stages of their relationship lol. 10/10

3. He Will Remember (words: 5,136) by Ironic Narwhal: Another ff.net fic because I couldn’t find it on AO3, but it’s a post-Reichenbach fic that goes through the last time they have sex before Sherlock jumps, remembered by a grieving John. I always really liked this one, and I’m not really a reader of post-Reichenbach fics (btw, this is the same author of Never Ending Cycle, for those of you who know that excellent story)

4. The Case of the Naked Consulting Detective (words: 4,055) by ellie.hell: Last ff.net fic. This is a silly little one-shot, established relationship, where John comes home from work only to find Sherlock naked, lying on his back in bed, and blowing bubbles. He then has to deduce how Sherlock got there. It’s always made me smile.

5. Bitter and So Sweet (words: 5,369) by julieta: While this fic has a really high amount of kudos, I think a lot of newer fans haven’t read this gem since it was written in 2012. Sherlock and John are in the kind of friends-with-benefits stage of their relationship, only having rough sex like twice, but after a client slaps Sherlock across the face, John has tender sex with him. That’s it, but that’s all you need <3 A classic emotional Sherlock being taken care of by John scenario.

6. Love Is (words: 21,508) by SilentAuror: I’m sure a lot of you have seen this one before, but I really adore it and had to include it. Post-s3 Sherlock is desperately in love with John, and confesses, and is completely rejected. John not only thinks Sherlock’s confused about his feelings, but that he has no idea what love is, which is extra salt in the wound. It has a happy ending, thankfully, but Sherlock’s misery is tangible. 

7. Waking You Up (words: 12,458) by brbsoulnomming: This is another 2011 fic which I haven’t seen mentioned. I won’t spoil this story for you (although you can probably guess the twist), but John is killed on a case, and Sherlock can’t seem to cope. He dreams of John often, and believes he’s still alive. I think it’s an interesting one-shot that always entertains me every time I open it up.

8. Paper Hearts (words: 4,156) by testosterone_tea: This is an adorable teenlock fic in which our socially awkward Sherlock crushes over John from afar, and begins getting paper hearts with love notes written on them in his locker. WHO IS SENDING THE HEARTS???? IT’S A MYSTEERRRYYYYY that ends in a very sweet kiss

9. Flesh and Blood and Bone and Heart (chapters: 3; words: 59,990) by SilentAuror: I know SilentAuror is recommended a lot lol but I usually don’t see this particular post-TAB story, in which Sherlock and John get together but agree he has to stay married to Mary while they figure shit out with her and Moriarty and all. But, what stands out to me is that Mary tries to kill John in subtle (or not so subtle?) ways a few times throughout the story, which I think is soooo in-character, and it really kept me on the edge of my seat.

10. Downward Momentum (words: 4,504) by moonblossom: This is a nice, fluffy one-shot where Sherlock and John are in a relationship, go ice-skating when a case finishes up early, Sherlock falls on his ass, and when they go back to the hotel room, John kisses it ;) A bit sexy, but mainly established-relationship cuteness <3

11. A Sofa With a View (words: 1,855) by nondeducible: Gaaaah I’ve always loved this one. It’s a short little one-shot from Lestrade’s third person POV. He stays over the flat one night, and when he wakes up, catches a glimpse of good ol’ johnlock domestic fluff. I have a soft spot for Lestrade fics

12. How Do You Know? (words: 8,697) by LaurieRoar: I’m surprised to see how many kudos this has simply because I’ve never seen it on a rec list lol, but basically Sherlock is like, “I don’t like sex” and John is like “Well how do you know if you never had it???” so they have sex. It’s a Process. But very good sexy times 10/10

13. Changes (words: 7,078) by WhimsicalEthnographies: This fic is about how Sherlock and John’s lives have changed in sometimes more subtle, and then more serious ways since starting a relationship. It’s like a domestic, slice of life fic and I really like the relaxed tone it sets, if that makes sense? It makes my heart happy.

That’s all for now! :) I love maaaaaaaaaaany more fics, and this is in no way a comprehensive list, but I’ve seen a lot of my bookmarked fics on lists already, and like I said, if you want me to make a more specific list, let me know!

[catholiccom-blog]

Be Honest: Are You Afraid to Evangelize?

In my experience, when Catholics are confronted with the idea of evangelizing, the first reaction is fear—plain, unadulterated fear. You know how they say people most fear public speaking and death? Well, most Catholics would rather give a speech from their grave than evangelize.

That fear usually takes one of two forms (or even a double whammy of both). First, the Catholic fears that he doesn't know enough about his faith to evangelize. He might even fear that his ignorance is so bad he could turn people away from the Faith. The second fear is social rejection. What if my family or friends or co-workers think I'm crazy? Or offensive? I don't want to be the religious freak with no friends.

Many Catholics have rationalized their fears in order to refrain from evangelizing: If I offend Elizabeth it’ll harm our relationship and then I won't be able to be a good witness to her.

Or, I don't think Will is ready to hear that yet. He’ll think I’m judging him and it'll just turn him away from the Church if I talk about it now.

And my personal favorite: St. Francis said we only have to preach the gospel through our actions, so I don't really need to bring up my faith with others. My actions will convert them.

This widespread fear of evangelization has consequences; most importantly, many souls have not heard the gospel proclaimed in all its beauty and fullness. While evangelicals, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are hitting the streets, Catholics are sitting at home with their mouths shut. The departure of so many people from the Church over the past few decades isn't unrelated to our lack of evangelization. So it's vital that we overcome these fears and work to spread the Faith. Let's look at the two main fears of evangelization and see if we can't make them a little less daunting.

“I don't know enough theology”

Okay, you're not Scott Hahn or Bishop Barron. You can't remember the difference between Transubstantiation and the Transfiguration. So how are you going to spread the Catholic faith? What if a Protestant starts slinging out Bible verses like the cafeteria lady on mashed potato day? Or a heterodox Catholic regales you with stories of women priests in the first century? What should you do?

First of all, such situations will rarely occur. Unless you’re going to Bob Jones University or are a faculty member at Georgetown, you won't typically encounter these types. It’s likely that the person you're talking to will be far more ignorant of Catholicism than you are. Just by being a practicing Catholic you have picked up more information than you realize. Don't be afraid to use it.

What matters most in evangelization is that you are able to tell your story—how Christ impacted your life and why you love being Catholic. (You do love being Catholic, right?) This is the foundation of all good evangelization. You see it with the great evangelist St. Paul: he never tires of telling the story of how Jesus changed him from a Christian-hating Pharisee to the Apostle to the Gentiles. Your story may not be as dramatic as St. Paul's, but it will have a great impact on those around you. If you are living as a Catholic, then you are living counter-culturally, and that will make people curious to know why. What better time to tell them the reason for your joy?

Also, there is nothing wrong with the answer, “I don't know—I'll get back to you on that.” That's why God created Google. When I was first involved in Catholic evangelization in the early 1990's, finding answers to tough questions involved hours at the library or sending away for a set of Catholic Answers tracts (raise your hand if you remember the old pastel-colored CA pamphlets). Today you can go to catholic.com or some other solid site (or book) to find the answer. So if you’re stumped, there’s no excuse to be stumped for long. Find the answer and then get back to your friend.

“I'm afraid of being rejected”

Let's be honest: this is the real fear most people have, and it's also the one most people will deny having. After reading stories of countless martyrs who suffered and died for the Faith, no one wants to admit he’s afraid of not being invited to the next neighborhood barbecue.

Social rejection is a real and legitimate fear. Unless you’re an antisocial freak, no one wants to be rejected by his peers—we all want to be liked. And the risk of being rejected for our Catholic beliefs increases each passing day. Recently, I was on the social network Reddit (which mostly consists of immature and aggressive atheist young men posting memes). Someone posted a story of a state legislature trying to pass a pro-life law. I posted the simple comment that I hoped they were successful. Almost immediately, I was attacked by brigands of pro-abortion advocates downvoting and vilifying me, often with profane language. All for simply saying I hoped a pro-life law passed. Honestly, it made me hesitant to speak up again. And that is the point: anti-Catholics don't have logic behind them, so they look to impose their views by force, often by simply shouting down and verbally attacking any who oppose them.

However, Christ commanded that we evangelize, and he didn't make exceptions for coworkers, neighbors, or Reddit attack brigades. All of the great evangelizers suffered. St. Paul's writings are filled with references to his suffering, and he thanks God for being able to suffer for the sake of Christ. He connects his suffering directly with his evangelization efforts, writing, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24).

We will likely face far less suffering than St. Paul, but if we evangelize we will face rejection. Yet we must be willing to tell others about Christ and his Church like Paul did. If we don’t tell our loved ones about Christ, who will?

Overcoming the fear

I’ve often found that our fears are far worse than the reality. When I first organized a door-to-door campaign for my parish I was terrified, and I could tell just about all the other volunteers were as well. We imagined slammed doors, hurled epithets, and growling pit bulls being set loose. But none of that happened. We mostly encountered indifference, but we also met people who were genuinely happy to talk with us. After the campaign was over, all those who participated were energized to continue to evangelize: the fears of our imagination gave way to the grace of sharing our faith with others.

We’ll never completely get rid of our fears. What is needed more than anything among Catholics today, then, is courage. As the saying goes, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something is more important than fear.” And what is more important than the salvation of souls? As Catholics, we must pray for the virtue of courage so that we might overcome our fears and boldly spread the faith to those around us, even if we feel inadequate. Even if we feel we'll be rejected.

Eric Sammons is the author of the new book “The Old Evangelization: How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did” from Catholic Answers Press. You can buy the book now at Shop.Catholic.com and listen to his recent guest appearance on Catholic Answers Live.

[oddchalk]

Do I really need to worry about cultural appropriation?

Social Media has brought me some really great things this year and I credit the devolution of my sense of humour to misspelled memes and terribly edited videos. It’s also been a major platform for people around the globe to discuss very specific issues faced in society. Basically, I’m subtly introducing ‘Social Justice Warriors’; people who deliberate the ramifications of the acts of certain individuals and companies. These vary from feminist issues, ableism, sexuality and gender, and race among others.

The discussion of race has never been a comfortable one for me, as a 22 year old black female living in the UK. As someone who does try to keep up with world news; however, the difference between being Black British and African American seems to be rather extreme. Having visited New York and seeing how Americans interact on the internet; it seems as though race is much more at the forefront of peoples mentalities. Race has become a very topical debate with people pushing the conversation through despite the prickly sensation we all feel; afraid to say the wrong things and quickly labelled with unappealing and ugly terms. However, the debate has become unavoidable and we’re all being asked to cast our opinions on the matter, otherwise we have the lone commenter now speaking out for an entire race. I don’t usually engage in the online foray of opinions; even less when the majority of comments begin with ‘Well, as a black/white/Asian/purple person, I think that…’ However, cultural appropriation has been one that has caught my eye as a problem I had never been as acutely aware of before encountering the wasteland photography of high-waisted jeans, messy buns and Starbucks that Instagram is.

So what is cultural appropriation? Type that into Google and you get: ‘cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture’. This is also followed by a picture of a minstrel show with the use of black face. Automatically, my brain is tuned to ‘bad’. Cultural appropriation is to be avoided at all costs. Yet, the explanation seems harmless enough. I like a thing from another culture, and I want to incorporate it into my life. What’s the harm in sharing? Isn’t that sort of devisive, schismatic attitude to people and culture perpetuating a harmful and ultimately less enjoyable way of life? After several discussions and a lot of research; I’ve figured cultural appropriation isn’t so much sharing a form of culture as much as it is poaching it.

The problem with cultural appropriation isn’t really about whether sharing cultures is good or bad but, in actuality, how heavily you value context. The ornately feathered headdress itself isn’t the problem Native Americans have with its adoption into music festival culture. It’s the fact that many Native Americans believe its history and ideology are inextricably linked to it; where as other cultures may see it only at face value. A pretty headdress that’s different and quirky which you couldn’t really wear to work or school or any other occasion. The problem is that if you know and appreciate the rich heritage of Native Americans, you wouldn’t want to wear them; it’s distasteful.

Most people have now conceded that yes, wearing a Native American headdress for fun is inconsiderate and inappropriate towards Native Americans. However, the context here is much more black and white than others. The most recent hotly debated topic has been ‘boxer braids’ as being an appropriation of African culture. The context associated with the braids isn’t as much historical as it is emotional. Braids themselves have been used by many different cultures and ethnicities. ‘Boxer braids’, however, have become hotly discussed because of their eerily close appearance to the much better established ‘cornrows’ known to the black community.

This evoked a flashback moment from me of being in primary school. The girls from my class would come back from their trips to the tropics with cornrows with beads very similar to my own. We would gently tug on each other’s hair and flick the hanging beads, loving that we had this thing in common. They must look back to those photos and absolutely hate them. Not because the braids were a form of cultural appropriation, but because they looked ridiculous and dated. They were aware that they were wearing a black hairstyle and simply thought it was fun and pretty. That’s okay! That’s not cultural appropriation. In fact, anyone could get that hairstyle; though I wouldn’t say it suits other ethnicities quite as much; if the hairstyle is embraced as being cornrows and a typically black hairstyle, it’s sharing. However, when the name of it is changed and then the style is put out as being trendy and cool, it becomes problematic. The fact is, people object to the hairstyle as being called cornrows, because of the negative connotations that it immediately implies. The hairstyle is often (and wrongly, in my opinion) considered to be quite ugly and most often used by low income families. Ghetto, thuggish and ratchet are some rude epithets that spring to mind. People didn’t want to wear cornrows when they went to work, or embrace the natural styles of black hair.

Well, now cornrows are considered acceptable, under the guise of boxer braids, surely this is a reason to celebrate another hairstyle acceptable for everyone? The unfortunate answer is no. Black people have a long and sad history of being uncredited and a literally stolen culture and peoples. The truth is, black people, in particular African Americans, are no longer going to stand being uncredited and overlooked for fear of the past. Which, in a sense, is fair with all things considered. Again, how you view context will affect your judgement on the situation. Some people may suggest that cornrows are off limits to white people entirely because of their treatment from white people in the past. I personally see this as even more problematic. It is important to share and enjoy the rich and beautiful intricacies in each other’s cultures. I used to wear Henna all the time as a kid; my close friend at the time was Indian and her mother would sometimes stop by the school and do it for any one that wanted it in the class. Reading some of the posts on Tumblr, for instance,  I was grossly appropriating Asian culture. This, I believe, having looked in to the history of henna and mehndi, is simply untrue. Cultural appropriation would involve someone taking the henna and simply calling it ‘100 % natural tattoos ’ as I have seen on a couple of YouTube videos, and not acknowledging the fact that Mehndi is often used in celebrations in India and can be dated back several thousands of years.

In some ways, it’s really easy to introduce other cultures into your life. In my mind, it only really takes acknowledgement and understanding. Anyone with decent common sense should be able to see what is appropriate to incorporate into your own culture and what may be considered offensive. Alternatively, I can see why it could be pretty hard. It’s not possible to scrutinise and scour the internet about everything that you wear, eat, buy and even think. The post I mentioned above continued to say that some people should ‘understand that somethings aren’t meant for everyone’. Whilst I agree; we live in a pretty entitled culture and the idea that somethings are exclusive for some and not for others is abjectly sad but ultimately true. At the same time; we as people should try not to make things that are only for specific people. In the past; things weren’t intentionally made for specific cultures; cultures just weren’t able to interact with each other in the way they are now. People forget how recent globalisation really is, and sometimes it seems difficult to imagine a world which could be so closed off to each other, and we still haven’t even cracked North Korea. So whilst cultural appropriation might seem like a big problem right now; it’s really just working out the kinks of living in a new, open society. But again, that’s context.

[bestmovies0]

The Teen Taking Back Practical Jokes From YouTubes Bros

In a YouTube landscape dominated by entitled teen boys, problematic dorks, Instagram simulates trading on sex appeal, and vloggers who will literally stage fake acid onslaughts for beliefs, talented young inventors are often overlooked.

But Elle Mills, a 19 -year-old from Ottawa, Canada, is quickly making a epithet for herself as one of YouTube’s most hilarious young stars.

Her stunt comedy has led her to do things like hurl herself a procession, stage a funeral, steal her brother’s identity, disguise in his closet overnight, astonish her mommy with tattoos, and more. Her videos have garnered over 75 million views and she lately excelled 1 million customers on YouTube.

But one thing Mills imagines a lot about as she scales her channel is the ethics of prank culture.

When developing an audience on YouTube there’s a natural tension between what the fuck is get you raw views and what content will grow your brand responsibly, and Mills said she often toes that line.

” Where you draw the line is something that’s been on my psyche a lot for the past month or two ,” Mills said.” The thing about prank culture on YouTube is that it’s so driven by numbers and beliefs. It’s something where you can understand why people do stuff that gets them in hassle .”

Mills said she has wanted to become a famous YouTuber since before she can remember.

Growing up in Canada, she chased her family around with a video camera, made webcam skits with her friends, and eventually get her own first camera and a laptop with video editing software. She worshipped early YouTube superstars like Grace Helbig and Kian Lawley.

Mills spent hours teaching herself to hit and cut videos, but it wasn’t until soon after she graduated high school in 2016 that she decided to try to do it full time.

At the time, she didn’t threw herself on camera much. Instead, she spliced together Tv prove and movie trailers into short comedic remixes. Her first viral hit came in the fall of 2016 when she recut the Stranger Things trailer to look like a romantic slapstick. The video raked in hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and Twitter.

The hit was enough to convince Mills that she could pursue YouTube full day. She fell out of college at the end of that semester in order to start a regular vlogging schedule.

She said the decision was tough. Her household had expected her to be used to her father’s footsteps and pursue a career in business. But Mills said she knew that it merely wasn’t a fit.

Eventually, her mothers got on board with her decision and only a couple months ago, in March of 2017, she had her first video go viral. It featured her interviewing her friend’s Tinder dates.

Nearly a year later, she has become a top YouTuber in her category, developed a network of famous influencer friends, come out as bisexual in a headline-making video, and lives a hectic life full of weekly adventures. In June 2017 Mills signed with Fullscreen, a social-first entertainment network for digital influencers and rising talent.

As Mills has grown, she’s tried to steer clear of the type of dangerous and offensive pranks vloggers have become known for. She said she aspires to set a more positive instance for her fans–while still having fun.

” With pranks you always have to think bigger, better, what’s not been done ,” Mills said.

But unlike many of her peers, including Loganand Jake Paul, she still lives at home with her momma and an legion of friends who look out for her best interests.

” I find that sometimes I feel like I almost intersected the line for positions. I come up with suggestions like,’ This is insane! No one has in the past done this before !’ But I’m lucky to have family and friends who say,’ Hey, that intersects the line. You shouldn’t do that ,'” she said.

” The people you find on the news, they don’t have people in their lives telling them what’s up .”

Still, Mills said there are definitely pranks on her channel she wouldn’t do again.

Her biggest sadnes was flying to Vegas and legally marriage her sister’s boyfriend for a vlog. She’s still technically married to him. Dealing with the fallout has been challenging.

” I’m trying to get onto cancelled ,” she said,” but it’s a lot harder than it seems. I did it for a joke. I’ve always been the person in my friend group where it was like,’ Oh, Elle will be the last to get married ,’ so the gag was like, haha I’m gonna be first.

” But divorce sucks. It’s a lot of money ,” she said.” My sister is still dating him. I was envisioning, I need to top myself, I need to top everything I’ve ever done. But I’m dealing with repercussions .”

Mills said she’s also held to different standards than boys on YouTube. She said it can be easier for young men to succeed in slapstick on YouTube because a lot of the audience is comprised of teen daughters, who idolize their teen vlogger crushes, and young teen sons, who want to emulate them.

Mills said she hopes to follow in the footsteps of other successful female creators like Liza Koshy, Lilly Singh, and Colleen Ballinger, who the hell is judged more on their comedic ability than appearing.

” These are people who don’t do the beauty guru thing but have great online existence and are doing wonderful things ,” Mills said.” I’m seeing more and more wives YouTubers rising and it’s sick. It’s nice to see a progression from how “its been” five to 10 years ago .”

While YouTube is Mills’ dreaming occupation, like many other vloggers, it wasn’t long before she realized that current realities of being a YouTube star is far from rainbows and sunshine.

Mills maintains a penalize schedule in order to put out her weekly videos, and often merely takes off one day or less per week.

From Tuesday through Sunday she frantically draws together video notions, acquires props, stages her plan, and shoots.

” Saturday and Sunday I spend editing like a crazy mad person, doing voice overs and material. Monday, I post ,” she said.

Despite the intimacy of the platform, Mills said it can be lonely sometimes and her profession has no doubt taken a toll on her mental health.

In a recent video titled” Dear Viewer ,” Mills revealed that she struggles behind the scenes.

” My family life is very complicated. The reality that my daddy and my oldest sister aren’t in my videos because we don’t get along ,” she said stimulates her sad.” The reality that every video causes me an unhealthy amount of stress. The reality that I put so much pressure on myself that I unplug. The reality that I envision everything I construct isn’t good enough and the fact that I scream every week because it’s a never-ending cycle.

” The best lane I can describe what I’m going through ,” Mills said,” is like having to go through kindergarten through college in one nighttime and being expected to get straight As and not let anyone down .”

Mills took three weeks off last month and has already seen changes. During her hour away, she visited several other well-known vlogger friends in Los Angeles and find the trip restorative.

” I ultimately realized that not everything I attain “re gonna be all” perfect, and that’s OK ,” she said.

Mills said she eventually hopes to move to Los Angeles herself, but is still working out the logistics.

” It’s kind of hard because a lot of my content is organized around my family and friends in Ottawa ,” she said.

Mills is undoubtedly living a movie star life, even in Ottawa. She still gets a rush when she’s recognized at the local mall.

” I haven’t been in it for long, but this is what I’ve learned so far ,” she said in a video named” If My Life Was a Movie .”

” Brands pay lane too much fund. Like, a ludicrous amount. It’s no joke when someone says this, but every YouTuber has slept with every YouTuber, and you know those YouTube conventions? That’s where they do it. There’s so much drama that it constructs you think you’re in high school again and YouTubers love to party more than they love to promote merch .”

Still, Mills feels like it’s all been worth it.

” I’ve been a YouTube fan for so long ,” she said,” it’s just chill hanging out with people I look up to, and even cooler when they make you feel like you belong .”

Read more: https :// www.thedailybeast.com/ the-teen-taking-back-practical-jokes-from-youtubes-bros

from https://bestmovies.fun/2018/02/03/the-teen-taking-back-practical-jokes-from-youtubes-bros/

[vitalmindandbody]

Josh Groban: how the pa awarenes became Broadway’s leading man

The singer with 20 m album marketings to his identify has recognized a fantasy by making his Broadway debut starring in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

Last year might have been an annus horribilis for most, but for Josh Groban, 2016 couldnt going to go significantly greater. The multiplatinum-selling singer-songwriter, who filmed to fame as a adolescent, prepared the transition to Broadway star after preparing his debut in the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

A musical adaptation of 70pages of Tolstoys War and Peace, affectionately shortened to The Great Comet, caught Grobans attention when it was in residency at a custom-built supper club in downtown Manhattan. Hed been looking for a brand-new musical job and contacted individual producers to express his interest in working on the show.Fast-forward many months and Groban is starring on Broadway, singing( blithely) and dancing( reluctantly) in eight executions a few weeks of a depict with almost wall-to-wall rave reviews.

The Great Comet is his Broadway debut, but Groban is no stranger to the stage. When he was a child in Los Angeles, his parents took him to the theater, and he was accepted into Carnegie Mellon Universitys musical theater program but lowered out of his freshman time after being offered a recording deal by Warner Brothers. Seven albums and more than 20 m sales subsequently, Broadway was still on his subconsciou, which was apparentwhen he starred in two concert yields of the musical Chess and then released Stages, an book of musical theater favourites that includes Bring Him Home from Les Misrables and Old Devil Moon from Finians Rainbow.

But none of the chants from Stages resemble melodies from The Great Comet, an electro-pop opera that boasts merely one text of spoken dialogue in its two-and-a-half-hour creation. Composed by Dave Malloy, the score which follows the naive Natasha who, while her fiance, Andrey, “re at war”, is swept into the fast-paced life in Moscow and falls into an circumstance with the rascal Anatole is a fusion of Russian kinfolk, classical constitutions, indie rock-and-roll and punk music.

Josh Groban in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 Photograph: Chad Batka/ AP

Despite all that, Groban says it was the restlessness and discomfortof Pierre that described him to the character and the project.

He simultaneously kind of shuns and blames the vapidness and narcissisms of civilization, and at the same time so badly wants to be a part of it, he replied. I thought that was so much more interesting as a reference than any of the step-out-in-the-spotlight leading man kind of roles.

Rather than a flying affection ballad, that big-hearted amount for Groban is a song called Dust and Ashes, in which Pierre reflects on the wasted opportunities of his own life and expresses his libido for meaning.

You do have your epiphany and do have the detection of true love and exultation and the comet and all the things that Pierre eventually discovers, Groban persisted. I think it hands that so much more heavines and sense when youre bumbling and balk and locked in your hole.

While Grobans playing and singing have been praised by commentators, he is quickly and bluntly self-deprecating about his dancing. Another conclude Pierre appealed to Groban was the character did not dance.

The choreographer, one day at rehearsal, he told: Uh, Josh Groban, can you come out in the hallway please? I made, Oh, God, am I in trouble? Groban recalled, chuckling. He drew me out and announced, Youre going to hate me, but theres a scene in Gypsy Lovers where I envision Pierres going to have to dance. So we came up with this five-second twirl that he does, and I can say that I have been a triple threat on Broadway not well, but I have done it. And the neat occasion about Pierres dancing ability is hes is expected to be drunk and supposed to be a bull in a china shop.

Accessing Pierres despair, Groban enunciated, came from his own experiences, both personal and aesthetic, battling self-doubt and self-criticism and to fight a lack of purpose or organize.

Ive never gone through anything to the extreme that Pierre has gone through. Fortunately, I feel most of us have not are going through that, he spoke. But at the same time, we all know what it is hopelessness feels like. We all know what it is a lack of purpose, what a lack of vitality feels like. I think we all know what it feels like to break through that and be stronger from it.

Groban has weathered a few onstage mishaps, including information that actually territory him offstage. Caught up in a few moments of conflict with another persona, Groban embossed his hoof so hard that he fell forwardinto the orchestra pit.

Every time I pronounced[ the line] I prevented stomping and stepping forwards and I didnt realise where my paws were, he recalled. Often Im a little furthest back. I missed because the strobe light are so disorienting. I mentioned, You bully! You scoundrel! It was like a vaudevillian slapstick routine. I fell smack-dab right on to the drum defined.

I had fat padding on so I didnt detect a event. But my pride was bruised, he continued. At least it was when Pierre is drunk and stumbling. At least it wasnt, like, during the final song. Complete chaos. I gate-crashed into the crater. It was almost a rim hit. The snare ten-strike, the cymbal departed operating. Everyone in the shoot was like: Well, youve done 50 depicts now, but this was your official initiation.

Stunt-casting a reveal, with a glittery luminary epithet taking on a rather limited run, is nothing new to Broadway, and something Groban is aware of. But the sun is speedy to emphasize the community of the Comet cast and sing my honourable colleagues adorations. If anything, finally performing on Broadway, which was his reverie since he was a teen, reaches the self-proclaimed dork who acknowledges to difficulty loosening and celebrating his accomplishments feel like one of the cool children.

When James Corden played my clip of Tevye at the Tonys, I was humiliated, he replied, recollecting a video of himself as a boy singing If I Were a Rich Guy in a school production processes Fiddler on the Roof. But chiefly I was like, Search at that girl who couldnt get a appointment, who had to put on a bogus whisker, whose genuinely being onstage as Tevye was the most cathartic happening for me going through a difficult high school event. To see that being aired on the Tonys I so rarely do it, but sometimes I sacrifice myself a high five.

Recently, hes had a lot to celebrate.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Josh Groban: how the pa awarenes became Broadway’s leading man appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

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[benrleeusa]

[Eugene Volokh] Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.

[nancyedimick]

Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/19/court-order-bans-memes-that-use-photo-of-local-community-activist/

[wolfandpravato]

Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/19/court-order-bans-memes-that-use-photo-of-local-community-activist/

[bestmovies0]

Modeling Agencies Enabled Sexual Predators For Years, Former Agent Says

In October 2017, Carolyn Kramer received a disturbing phone call. The former simulate agent listened intently as a model she used to represent told her that a famous French photographer, who are continuing shoots for top publications, raped her when she was 16. Shortly after gratifying “the mens” at a eatery in 1983, the simulate said she blacked out after drinking one glass of champagne, then woke up in his couch the next morning with a sore and bruised vagina.

The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed this story with HuffPost, but did not want to name the photographer for anxiety of legal repercussions.

“He was one of the photographers that agents and clients and young girls basically knew was lecherous, ” Kramer said, claiming that she and other agents mailed their frameworks to him in the ’8 0s anyway. “[ But] what I didn’t recognize[ at the time] is that he was raping girls.”

Kramer said she broke down weeping after the woman relayed her story of assault. “In that instant I felt that I let down the frameworks who I represented over such courses of 20 years, ” she said. “It built me feel like, here it is in front of my face now and I didn’t do anything to change[ it .] ”

It’s been 14 times since Kramer left the fashion business. But throughout the two decades she spent running as a simulate agent in New York City in the 1980 s, ’9 0s and early 2000 s, Kramer said she knew about rampant sexual misconduct in her industry — and didn’t safeguard her modelings from the egregious behavior.

Now, amid the domino-like autumn of so many high-profile alleged sexual offenders, the 58 -year-old can’t stop thinking about how she and other agents sent girls, some as young as 13, to modeling gigs with photographers who were rumored to be sex predators. So in October, the former agent decided to speak out.

“Many of these girls who are assaulted[ as models] aren’t older than 15 years old, ” she wrote in a Facebook post. “And I stand here to say how ashamed I am of myself for not having had the tools or the resources or guts to stop it.”

Kramer’s peers queued up in the post’s statements section to corroborate her story. One of her former colleagues, ex-model Kristen Noel, said her organization, Elite Model Management, sent her to Paris in the early ’8 0s to stay with an agent who repeatedly fondled and forcibly kissed her. She used 16. “Elite safeguarded him and unplugged from their responsibility to me, ” Noel told HuffPost.

Another commenter, hair and makeup artist Dawn Jacobson, said she saw agencies regularly endanger simulates when she worked in Milan in the ’8 0s. According to her, companies sent young women living a life in mansions — one of which was reportedly known as “Clitoride, ” Italian for “clitoris” — “where theyre” preyed on by wealthy Italian humankinds. “I belief relevant agencies have massive culpability because they don’t inevitably care about anything other than who gets the booking, ” the 59 -year-old, who are continuing works in fashion, told HuffPost. “It becomes a little bit of a human trafficking various kinds of thing.”

Kramer’s post, her first public denouncement of the sexual harassment and insult she’d witnessed and heard about in the fashion industry, clearly struck a nerve. As the #MeToo revolution continues to triggered a national talk on sexual misconduct, the former agent wants to uncover exactly how the very modeling organizations she worked for enabled predators, a disturbing reality that she believes still exists today.

Carolyn Kramer div>

A photo of Carolyn Kramer in 1986, five years into her job. As a closeted gay adolescent she was obsessed with androgynous simulates. After get hired by Elite in 1983, she came out, chopped off her long mane and began wearing a leather coat.

“A Culture Of Compliance”

Kramer, a New Jersey native, doesn’t seem like the different types to remain silent. She has a self-described “big personality” and speaks bluntly with a slight New York accent. In a recent Facebook profile photo, she’s wearing a shirt that reads “Fuck Trump” and raising her middle finger. But since she retired from the way world in 2004, Kramer said she felt like nobody — principally, the media — was interested in what she had to say.

Only recently, the former agent noted, have news outlets begun systematically covering the kinds of abuse accusations she wants to condemn. It’s true-life that sexual assault accusations made against manner photographer Terry Richardson date back to 2001, and that he was only officially declined by certain top publications and brands in October 2017.( Richardson has long denied any nonconsensual behavior .) And while at least 18 current and former male models recently accused famed photographer Bruce Weber of sexual harassment( Weber has denied these assertions ), one of whom has filed a lawsuit, industry insiders claim there is a long list of predators who still thrive in a largely unregulated profession that integrates young simulates, big male egos and drugs.

Kramer’s story dates back to 1983, when she was hired by the industry’s top agency, Elite Model Management, as an aide booking agent in New York. Her previous fashion industry jobs had been horrible. Kramer once worked with a photographer who she said cornered her in his office and tried to forcibly kiss her. And she worked for Foster-Fell Model Management, which she called a “slimy, horrible” bureau.

“The frameworks were basically prostitutes, ” she said. ”[ The proprietor] would have parties I would be at with licentious business men who were only there to fuck the models.”

( Jeremy Foster-Fell, who co-founded the now-defunct organization in 1970, denied these claims to HuffPost. “To say there was an arrangement of financial exchange and sexual favors would be completely out of whack, ” he said, adding, however, that “if you’re looking after a whole bunch of good-looking dames who are running around Manhattan, you’re going to be running into difficulty here and there sometimes.”)

But at 24, Kramer observed herself employed by the modeling world’s gold standard, an bureau that represented Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista, where she didn’t expect to encounter abusive humankinds. Her transition to Elite was “like going from community college to Harvard, ” she said.

Sadly, Kramer’s optimism was rapidly dashed.

At Elite New York, her occupation often involved booking modelings on “go-sees, ” the epithet for appointments during which photographers or decorators scout new faces for upcoming kills. In these meetings, vulnerable young women’s success often depends on impressing( mostly) powerful men.

Kramer said she and other Elite agents would send frameworks, who in many cases were under 16 and had never been to New York City, on appointments with nothing more than subway fare and a map. According to Kramer, the girls largely ran alone, because at the time there were no statutes necessitating guardians to accompany underage modelings on hits. New York passed a bill in 2013 that , among other things, requires modelings under 16 to have chaperones. But before that, a 2012 investigate by Model Alliance, an organization that advocates for labor rights in fashion, found that 52 percent of models are rarely or never is complemented by guardians to a shoot, despite the fact that the majority of simulates start working between age 13 and 16.

Kramer promptly learned about the perils of go-sees and photo shoots. Though the former agent says that the simulates she represented at the time didn’t keep telling her immediately about being sexually harassed or assaulted by photographers — likely, she said, since they are scared of losing job opportunities — Kramer soon heard through industry rumor with colleagues who the predators were.

“I wouldn’t have even called it trade secrets, ” she said. “It was just sort of common hearsay that this list of photographers were pigs…I had to induce the appointed with[ these men ]. It would build me gag, but I had to do my job or I’d be fired.”

Another Elite employee, Marie Anderson Boyd, who was an agent and vice president at the company’s Chicago office between 1985 and 1990, said simulates would regularly tell her about the sex misconduct they experienced on go-sees. ”[ Some photographers] will think nothing of walk-to over to some teen daughter who’s brand new to the business, taking her top off, unbuttoning her bra and saying something like,’ I want you to look at me and think of … giving me oral sex, ’” she said. “And a lot of daughters have never even done that[ before ], so they don’t even know what the[ photographers] mean.”

Anderson Boyd said she never told her administrators at Elite about the models’ abusive tales, in part because executives like John Casablancas and Gerald Marie also allegedly shall include participation in misconduct. “They established a culture of compliance with sexually predatory behaviour, ” she said. “That ran down into everything everybody did.”

Time LIFE Picture Collection/ Getty Images

John Casablancas, who died in 2013, was rumored to have slept with countless young woman he represented, including a 14 -year-old.( At 51, he marriage a 17 -year-old model .) Here he is pictured with a group of his agency’s modelings at an unspecified event in 1984.

“Statutory Rape Is In Front Of My Face”

Indeed, during Kramer’s first time at Elite, the agency’s late founder, the then-4 1-year-old Casablancas, was having a public affair with an underage modeling named Stephanie Seymour. Kramer was frightened that Casablancas, with his movie-star good looks and “intoxicating” charisma, was committing statutory rape.

“As a young little upstart, I was very in awe of him, ” she said. “But at the same day I’m thinking to myself, Stephanie’s supposed to be at a Vogue shooting at 9 a. m. and she’s still in bed with John. I thought it was wrong and I candidly couldn’t believe it went on. It made me sick.”

Other alleged abuses at Elite unfurled from there. Gerald Marie, the head of Elite Paris, was in his 30 s where reference is allegedly raped a 17 -year-old model named Carre Otis on multiple occasions, which she detailed in her 2011 memoir. At the time, Otis was temporarily staying with him while she was modeling abroad in the mid-’8 0s. She didn’t feel as though she could tell the agency about the abuse.

“When[ Elite] New York said goodbye to me and throw me in Gerald’s apartment, he was like my new owner, ” Otis told HuffPost. “There was no one in New York who made a connection with me and said,’ Hey, here’s the lane it should go, and if it doesn’t run this lane, here’s a number to call.’ It was just really a hand-off.”

“There was a below-the-radar recognizing also that the[ executives] of Elite[ Casablancas and Marie] were sleeping with young women, ” Kramer said. “I’m working at an organization where statutory rape is in front of my face and yet I can’t do anything.”

Kramer said at 24 she herself was groped by a high-profile agent who went on to become an Elite executive. “I was sitting on his lap and his hands were all over me, coming around[ my waist] and trying to grab my breast, ” she said. “I didn’t react because I was so accustomed to recognizing photographers be touchy-feely with models.”

Kramer did not tell anyone at Elite about the misconduct, because she said it never passed to her that such commonplace behavior was merit reporting, never mind addressing. And those who tried to call out problematic behavior didn’t get very far. In 2000, Anderson Boyd told New York Magazine that she remembered watching two female executives plead with Marie and Casablancas to stop sleeping with underage females. Anderson Boyd says Marie’s response was, “We are humankinds. We have our needs.”

“I was grossed out by what was happening, ” the 59 -year-old told HuffPost. “And that’s why I quit.”

Ron Galella via Getty Images

Elite Model Management represented frameworks such as Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington.

“The Culture Was: You Did What You Were Told”

Ultimately, Anderson Boyd and Kramer agreed that Elite never developed agents to speak with frameworks about sex misconduct. Both females say they and other agents they knew did not prepare frameworks for how to deal with predatory behaviour.

“It was not managed like a traditional corporation where you’re handed a sexual harassment handbook, ” Anderson Boyd said. “I did not know how to help[ the models’] working conditions.”

Their account matches the experiences of women at other agencies at the time. For example, when former model Lesa Amoore was 17, she said her agent at the now-defunct Riccardo Gay Model Management company warned her that a photographer she was about to shoot with in Milan could “be a little weird.” Amoore “re just saying that” during the subsequent kill, when she was wearing merely a bra and underwear, the photographer unzipped his gasps, drew out his penis and asked whether he could masturbate. According to the former simulate , now 48, she put on her clothes and ran out of the room.

Amoore said that when she informed her agent about the photographer’s behaviour, he responded, “I’m so sorry, that happens sometimes with him.”

Sara Ziff, who began modeling at age 14 in the late ’9 0s and later founded Model Alliance, told The New York Times last year that she too was regularly asked to provide photographers to get naked or topless without prior admonish and, in at the least one instance, was told to sit on her male booker’s lap.

“When I first started simulate, I did not seem protection of my agency[ Next Management ], ” she told HuffPost. “In some suits, I felt like they were facilitating meetings[ with powerful people] that were not clearly work opportunities — they seemed more like being set up on a date.”

Though the simulate industry is now more regulated than it was in decades past, mistreat is reportedly still frequent. A whopping 87 percentage of models say they’ve been asked to get naked without prior admonishing, while 30 percent have experienced “inappropriate touching” on the job and 28 percent ought to have pressured to have sex at work, according to Model Alliance.

Model Cameron Russell’s Instagram is fitted with her own colleagues’ stories of being preyed on at go-sees and shoots. A 22 -year-old model wrote about how a male photographer pulled down her bra and started kissing her breasts six months ago. Another woman recalled how, as a 14 -year-old model, a photographer attained her change in front of him, rubbed oil on her legs, and, after asking if she was a virgin, said, “You make me want to go to jail.”

The collection of fright stories portrays male photographers masturbating in front of young models, asking for sexual favors, and, in one case, penetrating a 15 -year-old with his thumb to make the photos “look more sensual.”

Ziff “re just saying that” beyond adhering to the 2013 bill, even the best-intentioned bureaux still don’t have firm policies in place to protect their simulates from sexual misconduct.

“They tell the girls that if they are in a situation that seems uncomfortable:’ Use the bathroom and walk out, ’’ Feel free to bellow me, ’ and’ You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, ’” the 35 -year-old explained. “[ They should] take a preventative approach that doesn’t allow those situations to happen in the first place. It’s much easier said than done to walk out of a shoot, specially if you’re young, perhaps English isn’t your first language, and you’re working with someone who could make-up or violate your career.”

In fact, Model Alliance found that 70 percent of modelings surveyed didn’t feeling they could report sexual misconduct to their agencies. Of those who did, two-thirds said their agents didn’t consider the behavior problematic, and, in a few instances, even encouraged frameworks to sleep with predators to advance their careers.

Model Jason Boyce, who filed a lawsuit against Bruce Weber for sexual misconduct last year, is also suing his agency, Soul Artist Management. According to the court filing, Boyce claimed the agency know exactly why Weber’s predatory behavior and alleged that his agent told him to “nail” his hit with the famous photographer.

“The culture was: You did what you were told. That was how they sold it, ” he said in an interview with The Business of Fashion. “If you do what I tell you, you’ll make it . … My agent told me that all the time.”

Paul Zimmerman via Getty Images

Terry Richardson was declined by certain top publications and brands in October 2017, after decades-old sexual misconduct accusations were finally taken seriously.

“I’m Sick To My Stomach That I Was Part Of This Poison”

Jilian Gotlib, a manager and booking agent who worked for Elite in the ’8 0s and re-joined the company in 2005, spoke to HuffPost on behalf of the organization. She quarrelled Kramer’s assertion that agents knowingly sent frameworks to photographers who were rumored to be sexual predators, is recommended that Kramer “goes overboard, perhaps, with blaming the industry.”

“We would ever be careful, check out[ the photographer] and tell our frameworks,’ If[ the photographers] ask you to do anything that we didn’t tell you was going to happen, let us know, ’” she explained. “Some daughters would just go ahead anyway, but we would ever warn people:’ Call me if anything seems untoward.’ I think we would try not to work with a lot of those photographers if we heard problems.”

Trudi Tapscott, who worked as an agent and director at Elite from the early ’8 0s until the early ’9 0s, reiterated Gotlib’s point, explaining that she told young women about potentially creepy photographers ahead of hour. “I’ve had very honest dialogues[ about] what to do when[ photographers] do this and “what were doing” when[ photographers] do that, ” she told HuffPost.

However, Tapscott added: “At this level I hold[ those dialogues] complicit. But then I imagined I was helping them survive, which voices so stupid now.”

As for alleged in-house predators such as Marie, Gotlib said, “I knew nothing about anything that might have been going on there.”

Throughout her career Kramer worked at four other agencies — the now-defunct Name Management and Company Management, as well as Next Management and the Marilyn Model Agency — where she said she also regularly witnessed young girls being preyed on at dinner parties and fraternities. She said agencies organized events at hot spots such as New York’s Indochine or the Ritz in Paris, where simulates mingled in clouds of cigarette smoke with important editors and photographers who could “make or violate careers.”

“I understood 14 – and 15 -year-olds sitting on the laps of these photographers, ” she said. “These guys would simply have their hands all over these girls.”

Ultimately, Kramer said she didn’t believe she could call out the complicit behavior without losing her job. “Working for Elite[ and the other agencies] manipulated me into thinking it was OK, ” she said. “I’m not trying to squiggle out of this, by the way. I’m sick to my stomach that I was part of this poison. It sickens me.”

Representatives for Next Management and the Marilyn Model Agency did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Kramer left the industry in 2004 when she was working at the Marilyn Model Agency, saying she was disgusted by how young the modelings had become. But the former agent said she didn’t process the sexual misconduct — or her role in enabling it — until the subsequent year, when she planned towrite a volume about her career.

“I actually started becoming more in contact with,’ Holy shit, what did I do? What did I appreciate? What did I seem? What did I know? ’” she said.

Kramer never wrote the book, but since her October Facebook post, simulates have contacted her with more and more tales recollecting sexual harassment and assault in the manner world.

Even before posting on social media, Kramer had started working with Ziff at Model Alliance to publicize industry insult. The organization lately proposed a program to address sex misconduct in the manner, entertainment and media industries that would , among other things, have a third party provide sexual harassment training and enforce proper complaint procedures.

But Kramer says agents still working in the business aren’t embracing her efforts. “A lot of people aren’t talking to me anymore because they know I’m on top of this, ” she said. “They are afraid of “losing ones” stand with these photographers and editors.”

There are still many “Terry Richardsons” in the industry, Kramer said, men whose predatory behavior the way world ignores. “We all knew Terry Richardson was sexually abusing these girls and yet we still kept mailing them on go-sees and to the bookings themselves, ” she said. “If you’ve got a $20 million Revlon contract weighing in the balance … yet you know Terry is mistreating these girls, what do we do? Do we say no to Terry? No,[ we] don’t.”

Moving forward, Kramer believes that if executives at top agencies spoke out about malpractice, they could genuinely force industrywide change. Kramer also thinks bureaux need to stop accepting frameworks under 16, but at the very least, she urges them to better protect young women against possible predators.

“If I could get the owners to say to themselves,’ Perhaps we shouldn’t mail 14 -year-olds out on go-sees, ’ and,’ Maybe we should make sure these photographers that are on the blacklist are never alone with a framework, ’ I would feel my own disgrace and guilt for not having done more when I was an agent[ somewhat dissipate ], ” she said. “[ Then] maybe I’d be able to let myself off the hook a little bit.”

Do you have a tale about harassment or discrimination that you’d was ready to share? Email: angelina.chapin @huffpost. com . em>

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[benrleeusa]

[Eugene Volokh] Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.

[benrleeusa]

[Eugene Volokh] Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.

[benrleeusa]

[Eugene Volokh] Court order bans ‘memes’ that use photo of local community activist

Clarence Moriwaki is a community activist. Over the past 30 years, he has been a city councilman, a candidate for the Washington State Senate, a press secretary for the lieutenant governor and the governor-elect, a director of a congressman’s local office, a finalist for county commissioner, a member of the ACLU of Washington Board of Directors and campaign manager for an ACLU of Washington anti-death-penalty campaign. His day job is doing public relations for a wide range of organizations, many with a political bent. And since 2001, he has been the founder, president and now board member of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association, “a private non-profit organization building a National Historic Site to commemorate the first [World War II Japanese-American internment center].”

Richard Rynearson is also interested in policy and civil liberties. He has not been politically active, perhaps because he was until recently a major in the Air Force. (He retired last year, after 20 years of service.) But he is a vocal critic of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision that allows long-term detention of certain terrorism suspects (for more on the NDAA debate, see here and here). And he is also something of a Fourth Amendment activist: He sued several years ago to challenge what he believed was an unconstitutional half-hour-long detention at a near-border checkpoint, and the case went up to the 5th Circuit, where he lost 2-1.

When Rynearson moved to Washington after returning to civilian life, he was apparently impressed by Moriwaki’s work on the Memorial. But Rynearson eventually came to view that Moriwaki’s support for the Obama administration was hypocritical, given that (in Rynearson’s opinion) the 2012 NDAA would authorize military detention that was similar to the internment of the Japanese. As a result, he started to sharply criticize Moriwaki.

And when Moriwaki responded by seeking a protective order, a Washington state judge entered one. The order, as usual for such orders, required Rynearson to stay some distance away from Moriwaki. It barred him “from knowingly appearing at any public events [Moriwaki] appears at,” which would cover political and policy events. But beyond that, it also stated:

”[Rynearson] is prohibited from creating or maintaining Internet websites, Facebook pages, blogs, forums, or other online entities that use the name of personal identifying information of [Moriwaki] in the title or domain name.”

”[Rynearson] may not use the photograph of [Moriwaki] to create memes, posters, or other online uses.”

This, I think, violates the First Amendment, which is why I’m helping represent Rynearson, pro bono, in challenging the order. The order is not limited to constitutionally unprotected speech, such as defamation or threats. Nor is it based on any findings of past defamation or threats. The court expressly found that Rynearson “has no criminal history and has not made any threats implying physical violence towards Mr. Moriwaki” and that it “cannot find any incidents of threats or violence in his past,” and the court didn’t make any findings that Rynearson’s past statements were false and defamatory.

The order applies to non-misleading statements, such as calling a site “Stop Clarence Moriwaki” or some such. (Rynearson had before labeled a Facebook page “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” though the contents of the page made clear that it was a gripe page, not ostensibly Moriwaki’s own views; and in any event, he soon changed it to “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island,” and the order would cover such clearly critical titles as well.) The order includes political criticism — indeed, the whole basis for the restraining order was Rynearson’s past political criticism.

To be sure, the order (unlike some other anti-“harassment” orders) doesn’t ban all criticism by Rynearson of Moriwaki. But the particular content that it bars is fully protected by the First Amendment and is quite common in public debate. “Companynamesucks.com” domains, for instance, are standard ways to criticize companies, and courts have held that they are protected free speech; similar criticism of particular people is just as constitutionally protected. And of course criticizing people using their photographs is a normal staple of debate about politics and policy: There is no right to stop people from using your photograph outside commercial advertising, and newspapers and TV stations as well as activists routinely rely on this principle.

The past speech by Rynearson about Moriwaki strikes me as likewise fully protected. As I mentioned, the court found it wasn’t threatening, and the court made no findings suggesting that it was libelous. One statement mentioned, “I’m outside on the street, in Clarence’s analogy, after Clarence put his hand over my mouth and threw me out. So I’m out on the public street now in front of his house talking to some of his guests (our mutual neighbors) as they leave his house, some of which appreciated my comments.” But that appeared to be a reference to a figurative street and house, not to a real one: “Clarence’s analogy” was Moriwaki’s earlier statement that, “my Facebook page is like me hosting a party. Friends are welcome to comment, but as the host I have a responsibility to all my guests to try to keep it civil, and if someone at the party keeps butting in, trying to monopolize conversations, I as the host have the right to ask them please cease and desist.” That’s likely why the court, as I noted, expressly held that there were no threats of violence in Rynearson’s posts — and in any event, the injunction doesn’t ban threats, but bans certain uses of Moriwaki’s name and photograph.

As best I can tell, Rynearson’s page contained no vulgarities or epithets (though those would have been constitutionally protected, too). It started out with comments about the NDAA on Moriwaki’s Facebook page (Rynearson had been Facebook friends with Moriwaki) and went on to complaints on that page about Moriwaki’s request that those comments stop; but the cure for that was Moriwaki’s blocking Rynearson from the Facebook page, as Moriwaki ultimately did. There was also apparently one direct text message to Moriwaki following the banning. There was a comment posted on mutual Facebook friends’ pages, criticizing Moriwaki’s blocking of Rynearson. There were many comments criticizing Moriwaki on Rynearson’s own page about Moriwaki (the one that started being called “Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island” and was then renamed “Not Clarence Moriwaki of Bainbridge Island”), including memes that used Moriwaki’s photograph: “One has [Moriwaki’s] photo with barbed wire and a message that Moriwaki supports ‘politicians who made indefinite detention without charge or trial ‘legal.’ ” Rynearson also apparently “paid for advertising of the site and those ads for the site appeared in feeds of people who did not sign up to see it.”

This is core First-Amendment-protected criticism, related to political issues. It was repeated; but people have a right to speak a lot, and not just a little. It might well be lacking in a sense of proportion, and thus more alienating than persuasive; but it’s not for government officials to judge that, whether as to speech by ordinary citizens, campaigns by crusading newspaper columnists or any other speech.

The speech criticized a particular person; but people have a right to criticize people, and not just ideas. Thus, for instance, in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971), activists who disapproved of a real estate agent’s (apparently lawful) behavior repeatedly leafleted near where the agent lived and went to church, demanding that he change his practices. Indeed, “[t]wo of the leaflets requested recipients to call respondent at his home phone number and urge him to sign the ‘no solicitation’ agreement.” Yet the court struck down an injunction against such leafleting, reasoning,

No prior decisions support the claim that the interest of an individual in being free from public criticism of his business practices in pamphlets or leaflets warrants use of the injunctive power of a court. Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.

Likewise, in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the organizers of a boycott of white-owned stores demanded that black customers stop shopping at those stores. The organizers stationed “store watchers” outside the stores to take down the names of black shoppers who were not complying with the boycott. Those names were then read aloud in local churches and printed in leaflets that were distributed to other black residents. Some of the non-complying shoppers were physically attacked for refusing to go along with the boycott.

Yet the court held that these activities were protected by the First Amendment, despite the backdrop of violence and the attempt to use social ostracism to pressure black shoppers to forgo their legal rights to shop at white-owned stores. Though “[p]etitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the ‘threat’ of social ostracism,” the court held, “[s]peech does not lose its protected character … simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” Even financial liability for such speech was unconstitutional, the court concluded; and it held the same analysis invalidated the injunction against the speech as well.

Similarly, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell (1988) upheld Hustler Magazine’s right to criticize Jerry Falwell, even in a harsh and vulgar way; and though Falwell was a public figure, Snyder v. Phelps (2011) made clear that Hustler applies to all speech on matters of public concern, even if that speech mentions wholly private figures. (The trial court in this case held that Moriwaki wasn’t a public figure, apparently because his government service was in the past and his current activity isn’t high-profile enough; but Keefe and the shoppers in Claiborne weren’t public figures, either.) And Washington appellate courts have likewise struck down “antiharassment” orders that went beyond unprotected speech, such as libel or threats, even when the speech was much further removed from political debates than the speech in this case. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Suggs (Wash. 2004); In re Marriage of Guthrie (Wash. App. 2015); In re Marriage of Meredith (Wash. Ct. App. 2009). An order that bars speech about a person but “is not specifically crafted to prohibit only unprotected speech” “is an unconstitutional prior restraint.”

The trial court’s contrary analysis, I think, is unpersuasive. The court reasoned that “The Government has a compelling interest in preventing· Harassment and Stalking” and that “Prohibitions against harassing and stalking behavior do not infringe on First Amendment free speech rights.” But Keefe, Claiborne and other cases make clear that critical speech can’t be punished simply by labeling it “invasion of privacy” or “coercion” — or, as here, “harassment” and “stalking.” “Stalking” in the sense of physically following someone may be unprotected. Certain forms of behavior often labeled “harassment,” such as true threats (which many harassment statutes expressly cover) or unwanted telephone calls to the target (rather than speech about the target), may be punishable. But criticism, even repeated criticism, is constitutionally protected. As then-Judge Alito said in a case involving “hostile environment harassment,” “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The court also found that the speech had “no lawful or free speech purpose” but was “done with the intent to harass, [embarrass], intimidate, torment, and retaliate after being limited and blocked from Morikawi’s personal Facebook page. The acts were also done to cause damage to Moriwaki’s reputation.” But the First Amendment protects the right to try to “embarrass” people — especially, though not only, political activists — who you think have done things that should be embarrassing. It protects the right to damage people’s reputation through truthful statements and expressions of opinion. That is itself a “free speech purpose,” again as shown by Keefe, Claiborne, and other cases.

And that’s so even if the target (to quote the court) “experience[s] extreme stress, anxiety, and fear that Lee will damage his reputation and continue to stalk him,” if “stalk” means “repeatedly sharply criticize.” This is so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local newspaper; and it’s equally so when someone is fearful that his reputation will be injured by continued criticisms by a local activist. Doubtless Keefe and some of the non-boycotting black citizens of Claiborne County felt stress because they feared that their critics would damage their reputation and continue their criticisms — but that didn’t strip the speech of First Amendment protection.

Finally, the court stated in its findings of fact that Rynearson “has a car that is outfitted with bullet proof windows, armoring, electrified door handles, a smoke screen, cameras, flashing strobes, sirens and a public address system,” “has a documented history of angry, inappropriate, name-calling, aggressive online comments to the point he has been banned from multiple online discussion forums,” and “has a history of retaliating against those forum owners who have banned his participation through angry comments, personal attacks, and creating memes to taunt them.” But the court didn’t expressly rely on that in its conclusions of law (and expressly held that this wasn’t sufficient to justify including a firearms restriction in the restraining order).

And indeed such behavior, which is perfectly legal, can’t justify a restraining order or any other speech restriction. In particular, it’s not for judges to decide that speech is unprotected because it’s “inappropriate” or unduly “angry” or “taunt[ing]” (setting aside the existing narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as “fighting words,” which aren’t implicated here). And that a private forum owner exercises his right to ban participants for speech that the forum owner finds inappropriate — a right that I have long supported — doesn’t authorize the government to further suppress the participants’ future speech.

So the injunction strikes me as unjustified both because it restricts future constitutionally protected speech and because it is based on past constitutionally protected speech. I’ve long criticized such overbroad injunctions (and overbroad “criminal harassment” or “cyberstalking” statutes), both in blog posts and in a 2013 Northwestern University Law Review article. This case, I think, well illustrates the danger that such restrictions pose, not just to everyday speech about breakups, cheating and similar matters (though even that speech is constitutionally protected) but also to political debate that includes criticism of particular activists.

And yet it also illustrates how trial courts are indeed imposing such restrictions. The Supreme Court caselaw is solidly on the side of First Amendment protection here — but trial courts are often missing that.