#and they therefore do something to even out the inequality before initiating

[naoke666]

Explaining Iruma and Kirio's relationship

Hey there! In case you have been struggling to understand what exactly the relationship between these two characters is, I have decided to write down this helpful guide to dispel any confusion you might have. 

Before writing this essay, I have carefully consulted with the manga's author, Osamu Nishi herself, and therefore everything I describe here is absolutely true and canon. This guide is 100% objective and explains the exact author’s intent towards the relationship between them.

Hopefully you will find this post useful. Let's begin!

***

...Kirio was Iruma's first crush.

At the point in story where they meet, Iruma has just learned the joy of achieving a goal, thanks to Amelie. However, that initial goal was simply "ranking up", a goal suggested by someone else but not something devised by Iruma. Now that he has learned how fun overcoming challenges is, Iruma is perfectly ready to start learning about what kind of ambition he has. Cue Kirio!

This gentle-looking demon with a weird accent vaguely says something about improving the lives of weak ones and making the Netherworld a fairer place, and it strikes gold. Doing good things for others? Creating a solution for inequality? This stuff resonates with Iruma deeply. Since Iruma's destiny is to become a demon king it only makes sense that these ideals would appeal to him. He imagines a date with Kirio where they are making cool magical tech to help disadvantaged demons together and for the first time in his life experiences inspiration.

There is one more thing that makes Kirio stand out in Iruma's eyes. Although he has already spent a bit of time in the Netherworld and is slowly getting used to it, Iruma is still a little uncomfortable with many of its customs. The folks here are all fun, but they are also a little too intense in their own ways. And that makes sense - they are demons after all. Something like kidnapping juniors and torturing them into joining your after-school club is not uncommon here. Iruma also has to deal with the constant anxiety about being found out as a human and getting eaten. He can never quite let his guard down, even around his friends.

Kirio, though - he is so round and sweet and harmless! He does not force or torture anyone into joining his batra, he is not intense at all, and he is actually sort of a push over too. His gentle demeanour and soft-spokenness appeal to Iruma not only because they are so relatable but also because they provide him with much needed break from the demons' over-the-top (although still fun!) nature.

During their first talk Iruma carefully lets his guard down - shares that he does not have that much mana either - and is met with pure acceptance, kindness, and a marriage proposal.

You might have noticed that I have slightly adjusted the text in a few of the previous manga panels. If you didn’t, that’s okay too. The changes are quite subtle, so they may be a little tough to spot. They are not done with the intention to alter the original dialogue but just to help convey author’s real intention.

It is no surprise that (in anime) Kirio becomes the first person who Iruma feels safe enough with to share that he is human.

On the one hand, Iruma feels safe with Kirio but on the other hand he feels inspired and uplifted by him too. It's only natural for a crush to develop in these conditions.

Iruma is consistently giddy and excited to spend time with Kirio. Once his feelings reach their peak, Iruma proposes to Kirio too.

In his passionate speech Iruma talks about how great it would be to try and strive for something as seemingly impossible as Battler Party Prize. Once someone who could only live from moment to moment, Iruma is for the first time excited to work towards a tougher, but more fulfilling objective. He wants everyone to realize how great Kirio’s Battler is - Kirio’s ambition becomes Iruma’s ambition too (or what he perceives that ambition to be).

Kirio appears in Iruma's life at the best moment. On the one hand, Iruma is slowly starting to figure out how fun it is to strive for goals, but needs to understand what he specifically wants; on the other hand he is still a little overwhelmed by the Netherworld and needs someone he could be a little less guarded around. Someone a little less demonic than all these demons around Iruma, but still a demon. And Kirio seems like the perfect undemon-like demon so far.

...Which is why Kirio revealing his true face is that shocking.

Kirio is introduced through the contrast to all the overly demonic characters, but his motivation makes him, in fact, the most demon-like demon that we have encountered so far. The Battler Arc is a little special compared to the rest of the arcs - and that is because it was originally intened as the series’ end, in case the manga was to get axed (https://media.comicspace.jp/archives/18287).

Nishi: You used to say. You said that you wanted to make it so exciting that it would be okay if the series ended here.

Editor: Yes, we talked about making the fourth volume of Kirio's story as if it were the final volume, so the climactic episode of the division showcase was written over a period of two weeks. Even in the first series of the anime, the producers often talked about how they wanted the resolution with Kirio to be practically the last episode.

(thank you deepl)

And I believe that because this arc was supposed to be the last, it could pull off the kind of things that all the following arcs can’t. One of them is taking a carefully built-up image of the Netherworld and then turning it completely upside down. Most of the series' jokes are built on the same idea: the demon world is almost like the human world, but turned up a notch, since it’s a demon world after all. For example - and ordinary school, but they have torture classes in here! Cause they are demons! Ha-ha! Despite this extremeness though, the Netherworld slowly grows on the reader, becomes cozy; the demons’ intensity becomes part of their charm. 

But revealing a character with motivation this vile and perverted ruins that wholesome image. This is supposed to be comedy! This is supposed to be a heart-warming found family show! How can a character like that exist in this world?! Yet, it doesn’t go against the world-building either. It’s almost like Nishi is smiling at us, asking “Hey, why are you so surprised? I told you, they are demons after all”. And all we can do is nod, as we realise how dangerous this world really is, and how much we do not know about it yet. It’s chilling, it’s shocking, it completely subverts everything we know about the story so far, it’s so surprisingly pitch-dark.

...And so Iruma realizes, that even though he loves Kirio very much, it would be a healthier choice to just stay friends!

Thus, instead of helping Kirio reach his ambition as he planned at first, Iruma destroys Kirio's ambition instead. He gently friendzones him by blasting through his barrier maze and plans with resolve and Yodth-level magic power.

In the aftermath of it all anyone else would feel betrayed by Kirio, be angry with him; alternatively, someone else might enter a deep denial about his true nature, try to justify his actions. But Iruma does neither of these. He is just not that kind of person. As we have learned during the climax of the battler arc, he does not see the point in wallowing in despair and anger; he prefers to move forward and take action. He also hates to see people get hurt and fundamentally disagrees with Kirio’s actions. And thus, Iruma stays true to himself - instead of being heartbroken and angry, instead of justifying Kirio, he simply accepts that his first love turned out to be a pervert terrorist. And he also acknowledges that despite everything, these feelings were real and special, and that he has grown a lot thanks to this person.

Iruma eventually moves on - to new experiences, new life, new people. He is not stuck in those memories, and in fact he doesn't think about Kirio too often. Yet, Kirio has a soft spot in Iruma's heart. Iruma still keeps a tag with his name on the club member list, and he has also expresses hope of meeting Kirio one day again.

Iruma is not waiting for Kirio because he is in denial about how terrible he is, or because he hopes to fix him. There are many ways to hint that Iruma is making a mistake by waiting for Kirio, and yet nothing like that is present. Desire to have it all, following his own ambition instead of being swept by somebody else's - all these important lessons Iruma has learned during his time with Kirio. Iruma is waiting for Kirio because he chooses to treasure the time they have spent together and because, if it's possible, Iruma would love to rekindle their connection. And although Kirio did not end up making for a great partner, he could very well make for a great friend maybe :)

***

...Iruma is Kirio's first crush.

Last time Kirio had a friend was in pre-elementary school, and that didn't go too well. Most people at school don't acknowledge his existence (because he wilfully conceals his presence with detection-warding glasses), and those who do notice him just bully and make fun of him (and they are completely correct).

So, it's a bit of a change in pace when this blue Kirby springs into his life.

We don't have as much insight into Kirio's thoughts yet (for obvious reasons), but we can probably assume that Iruma doesn't spark Kirio's interest as quickly as Kirio did Iruma's. While Iruma is busy crushing hard, Kirio simply enjoys his (and eventually the rest of Irutrio’s) company.

Still, it seems like he warms up to them. Knowing Kirio’s true nature, it’s easy to assume that he wasn’t honest when expressing how much fun he is having with everyone. But Kirio is not devoid of virtue! According to an interview from Animedia’s April 2021 issue Kirio never lies! He is a very honest guy! I guess...? ...Unless one means “only lies by omission”...? 

Kirio never lies.

KIRIO is often interpreted as a "traitor" to Iruma and his friends, but in fact, he is a character who has never lied. He considers Azu and Clara to be his good friends and lovely juniors, and he also really enjoys the activities of the Magical Tool Investigators. Even so, I couldn't help but want to see Azu and Clara hurt and Iruma in despair. It's a completely different feeling. He is a troubled guy. (Nishi)

So, Kirio is having fun with his new friends, and he is genuinely thankful to Iruma for making all this happen. And the fact that he gets to hurt his new friends and see their despair later? Absolute cherry on top. Instead of pretending to befriend them to manipulate them into his evil schemes he ACTUALLY befriends them and ALSO manipulates them into his evil schemes! Isn’t that nice.

Perhaps through a combination of gratitude and genuine friendship as well as exctimenet about his potential despair, Kirio slowly begins developing deeper feelings for Iruma too. Not a full blown crush by any means, but certainly the beginning of something. After Iruma gives a pationate speech about winning the Battler Party prize and marriage proposal, Kirio is visibly touched.

“Awwww, that guy is so sweet. Going to such length for me and my Battler... I am extra excited about making him cry now :)”

Hey, who wouldn’t feel at least a little fluttered when someone so obviously admires them and is inpired to share their ambition? 

So imagine Kirio’s shock when Iruma turns him down. What did poor Kirio even do to deserve this?! Oh, that’s right. Terrorism. 

Clearly, Iruma’s rejection is a great punch in the guts for Kirio. But, there is something else happening too. After being rejected so hard AND after having his years long in making plan being thwarted like that, Kirio realizes...

...he is deeply, madly in love now.

There is something I want to point out with Kirio here. As much as Kirio is frustrated with Iruma afterwards for ruining his plans, it’s important to note that he does not hate him - in fact, Kirio develops deep fascination with Iruma as a result. Every time Iruma reveals the strength of his ambition, Kirio reacts quite strongly: first time during their talk in Kirio’s secret room, which gives start to Kirio’s “we are matching” mantra, and second time during the arc’s climax. It is true that to him Iruma presents a worthy challenge, perhaps something Kirio hasn’t encountered before. However, Iruma doesn’t pick Kirio’s interest just because he didn’t despair. It’s because he didn’t despair due to the strength of his ambition. 

Kirio concludes that in the end they are not “matching” at all, because Iruma’s ambition is that much stronger. In the future, however, Kirio gets a ring explicitly made to “match” Iruma’s, perhaps indicating his desire to match with Iruma after all, including the strength of his ambition. 

How tragic - to develop feelings for someone who has just stopped being in love with you and rejected you! Kirio struggles with accepting his feelings at first. Yet he can’t help but save Iruma from falling to his death. Despite ruining his plans and being his natural enemy, Iruma has a soft spot in Kirio’s heart as well. Kirio understands - someone like this is extremely special, and he can’t afford to lose Iruma. 

...Not to say that if Iruma falls to his death right now Kirio will forever lose his chance of making him cry and destroying his life! There is no way he is missing out on THAT. 

Kirio’s perspective on Iruma changes forever; his life gets divided into two parts, before and after being defeated by Iruma. He promises to meet him again one day and literally disappears into the mist (goes to jail).

Perhaps the best way to summarize how Kirio feels about Iruma now is by quoting the anime’s director, Makoto Moriaki, from the interview she gave after season 1 finished airing (https://cho-animedia.jp/article/2020/02/29/17226.html):

-Who do you think is the character most healed by Iruma?

Perhaps it is KIRIWO. Kirio wants to see Iruma's despairing face, but I think it is because Iruma is someone he feels a great attraction to. I think it's the flip side of love. Kirio would not be interested in seeing the despair of a person he thinks is unimportant. And yet, the fact that Kirio wants to see Iruma's face of despair shows how much he loves Iruma. Perhaps he loves Iruma the most deeply. It is very interesting to watch with that in mind. There is a danger of loving in a world that others cannot imagine.

Kirio’s priorities shift: if he used to be more or less aligned with Baal’s objectives and vision before, but now it seems like Iruma has become a lot higher in his pyramid of needs.

Moreover, he is developing quite some possessive tendencies. He can’t bear hearing that someone else saw Iruma’s despair - noone else dares to bully Iruma except for Kirio himself. 

It is entirely possible that the interests of Baal’s organisation and Kirio’s own interest in Iruma might contradict each other one day.

While Iruma is moving on, living his life to the fullest, making new friends and working towards his dreams, Kirio is wallowing in the past, not being able to let go of his feelings. It is worth noting that he at least attempts to be healthy about his crush by continuing to pursue his own objectives and hobbies, such as terrorism. And yet Iruma consumes his thoughts, consumes his being. 

In this piece, Kirio’s drool represents his longing for Iruma, his desire to reconnect with his natural opposite, the yang to his yin, to feel complete. Also that he is an absolutely despicable person and that there is no way anyone can stan this guy, much less ship him with Iruma (/pos).

...It’s tough to imagine what the future of these two holds. It would be interesting to see how Kirio reacts upon finding out that Iruma holds no grudge at him and is in fact ready to reconnect. Kirio likely expects Iruma to be disgusted by him after he has revealed his true nature. Yet Iruma could become the only other person, aside from Baal, to accept Kirio for who he is, while discouraging his degeneracy.

It would also be interesting to see how Iruma would react upon finding out that Kirio knows that he is human, excited to chew on his guts and get off to his despair. 

After almost a year of not seeing each other they obviously have a lot to discuss. Will Kirio reignite the sparks of lost passion and turn Iruma into his lover after all? Will he get distracted and eat him up before he can do that? Will Iruma eat him up in self-defence instead? And what is Kirio planning to do with that dress?

No matter how it goes, I am sure that whatever development their love life will take once they meet again, it will be exciting and heart-throbbing regardless with only a little bit of pain and horror!

TL;DR: Iruma wanted to date Kirio but decided to stay friends when Kirio turned out to be #problematic. Kirio, on the other hand, only fell for Iruma after the rejection and is now walloving in his feelings and longing for him, while Iruma is moving on. Iruma still treasures the time they spent together and feels nostalgic for his first love. We are yet to learn whether meeting Iruma will eventually result in Kirio unlearning his toxic behaviours or whether it will enhance them and take away any chances Kirio has at getting a date with Iruma after all. 

I hope that you have found this guide useful, and thank you so much for reading!

P.S. this post is a big fat /hj

[le-loup-et-lion]

I know I talked about this on Discord once ages ago but did I ever tell you guys about my absurd harvest-mouse!Javert au?

Basically it's brick canon until Javert says to Valjean "I will wait for you here", at which point due to inexplicable fairy tale-esque 'you told a lie for the first time in your life' magic curse bullshit Javert is transformed right in front of Valjean into one of these lil guys:

Conceptually it's completely ridiculous, but what makes it funny is that's it's played completely straight.

"Autumn, you seem like a fairly serious person when it comes to this fandom so why on earth would you come up with something this silly" you say? well. you see. it literally came to me in a dream (no, seriously).

I imagine it as a very terrifying and painful transformation, which starts out almost like the pangs of a heart attack, with Javert clutching his chest and doubling over with a grunt as Valjean is walking away, causing Valjean to turn back around and kneel down with him, grabbing him by his shoulders and trying to assess what's wrong with him, ending up bewildered as Javert begins to glow with an eerie golden light which eventually engulfs him (but not before Javert can look up and meet his eyes one last time with an utterly petrified, vulnerable, pleading look). Then this blinding luminous form shrinks in Valjean's grasp until it is naught but a small floating orb, at which point the light begins to fade and whatever is left of Javert starts to fall. Valjean catches it in his hands and, somewhat horrified and awestruck, opens them to reveal the tinest little mouse he's ever seen curled up in his palms within the faintest fading golden glow.

Javert goes unconscious during this transformation, leaving Valjean to trudge back to his apartment in complete confusion with him (very gently) in hand, highly questioning his own sanity the entire time until Javert is able to wake up again and respond to basic yes/no questions.

(Javert of course absolutely loses his mind at first and tries to run away as soon as he begins to process the situation, but is unused to his new body and runs right off the edge of the table without thinking, forcing Valjean to panic lunge across the tabletop and grab him midair to prevent him from falling and hurting himself)

Anyway they are both very rattled and perplexed by this and Valjean keeps him at his apartment because they don't know what else to do.

Their whole hunter/prey antagonist/protagonist relationship gets pretty immediately and completely derailed by this, but not in like, a neatly resolved way, because they can't really just have a conversation about it at first, leading to ... a pretty weird mental state for both of them for quite awhile.

It also levels the playing field between them in a way because Javert was the only one who "knew" Valjean, and now Valjean is the only one who "knows" Javert.

Javert can't talk obviously but he CAN dip his little tail in an inkwell and write with surprisingly humanlike penmanship. (Also harvest mice have prehensile tails which they use to climb around vegetation; so it's more useful than he initially realizes—I wonder if they would be dexterous enough for him to write with just the tail itself, without having to grasp it like a pen in his front paw?)

His top hat fell off while he was transforming so it didn't transform with him (thereby remaining the only real proof of the situation, sort of) and Valjean sat it on his bedside table and filled it with bits of fabric (I like to think they're different colored cravats) for Javert to use as a hiding place/bed, which is just. the cutest thing ever if you picture it.

People on Discord were laughing about the idea of him wearing, like, a little waistcoat from a doll or something bc he's nakey and embarrassed about it lmao

I was thinking that shortly after this Valjean might fall ill, perhaps due to some wounds he received at the barricade (bullet grazes?) becoming infected by all the sewer muck he was wading around in, leaving him bedridden and unsure of the future (hmm, just like Marius). This would give him plenty of time to talk openly with Javert without anyone seeing, but also mainly force him to worry about Javert's immediate future as well, perhaps in his own absence (though he doesn't die in the end, of course). And then, their overwhelming mortality would probably make Valjean start talking about things he wouldn't otherwise have brought up.

Eventually after a long time of living with Valjean and watching him interact with others, and realizing the kind of person he is/that people can change/that the law and justice are two separate concepts/that he has spent his life helping to oppress people who often didn't deserve it, Javert manages to tolerate/accept and even appreciate Valjean in a sort of backwards Beauty and the Beast type au, and would turn back into his old human self again. But I haven't figured out exactly what the specific caveats of this "curse" (and therefore the breaking thereof) would be yet.

Like. Is it about being honest with oneself and others? Is it about learning to love? Is it about how seeing the humanity of others and treating them humanely is fundamental to what makes us human? What would break the curse, exactly? A kiss? A confession of some kind? A selfless act? Certainly it is more about him learning to love than it is about him becoming loveable; but then, are those two concepts not inseparably intertwined?

And why did he turn into a mouse, specifically, to begin with? (The real answer here is that my subconscious picked it while I was asleep, so I'm not sure; but) I feel like, in a metaphorical sense, Javert is a mouse who wholeheartedly believes himself to be a lion.

By which I mean, he was born into a position of powerlessness in society due to classism, racism, moral persecution, and economic inequality, and because of this he sought respect and power; but instead of trying to gain these things by fighting against the oppressive system he faced (as he believed it to be an unwinnable battle), he caved into it entirely and chose to become a servant of it, in return for a scant amount of personal security and the illusion of authority.

At the end of the day, however, he is still impoverished, disrespected, and distrusted. He is lying to himself in that he believes that through his self-sacrificial and self-stifling choices, he has fulfilled his goals to rise through the ranks of society, becoming his "morally best" self—but the reality is almost exactly the opposite. He has become the self-same monster that would gladly oppress people like him and his family. And he makes the choice to continue being that monster every day, because at least now he feels powerful; at least now people fear him enough to pretend they respect him.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, that his illusions finally break around him as he chooses to knowingly lie, not just to himself this time, but finally—and for the very first time—out loud. And in the admittance of his dishonesty to himself, he transforms physically into what he truly was all along—meek and small, voiceless and powerless; an inconvenient and easily forgotten pest in the eyes of society.

Would the acceptance of this truth, and the embracing of true humility, be what breaks him of the curse then; restoring to him his physical humanity at the restoration of his spiritual humanity?

I never fully figured out the plot direction for this au but I still think about it now and then and try to add to it in my head. So possibly, one day longggg in the future, you may see. a very silly little fic on AO3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Basic income works

The right has long held that homelessness is a symptom - of a lack of self-control, a lack of foresight, of addiction, mental illness, etc - and therefore the solution to it is training, incarceration, rehab, or rigid discipline.

None of this stuff worked.

For more than a decade, there's been a more pragmatic approach to homelessness: giving people homes. The housing first movement has repeatedly shown that the best way to make homeless people not homeless is to give. them. a. home.

https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

After all, if you are struggling with addiction, mental illness, etc, or if you eed structure in your life, the chaos of not having a home only makes this a thousand times worse.

(Oh, and giving homeless people homes is MUCH cheaper than treating homelessness as a crime)

In a similar vein, the Foundations for Social Change's New Leaf Project tried simply giving homeless people money (CAD7500). If the right is correct and homelessness is a moral failing, then this should make everything worse ("they'll just blow it on drugs").

So this experiment isn't just a test of the best way to address homelessness; it's also a test of whether the right's frame of homelessness as an individual failing is correct, or whether the left's conception of homelessness as a system problem is right.

The results are definitive: 18 months on, grant recipients found housing a year earlier than the control group; 70% experienced less food insecurity. Money went to food, clothes and rent, with a 39% decline in spending on booze, drugs and cigarettes.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f07a92f21d34b403c788e05/t/5f751297fcfe7968a6a957a8/1601507995038/2020_09_30_FSC_Statement_of_Impact_w_Expansion.pdf

The randomized, controlled study had 115 subjects aged 19-64, all of whom had experienced homelessness for at least six months. On average, they saved CAD1000 of the initial grant over the 12-month study. Participants spent more on their kids and other family members.

The participants' 12-month, $7500 cash grants amounted to less than half of what it costs to billet a person in a homeless shelter over the same period.

This is both amazing and obvious. The best cure for homelessness is a home. The best cure for poverty is money.

It's a very powerful argument for a basic income, too.

But not necessarily for a UNIVERSAL basic income.

Here's the problem with UBI: imagine two people, one of whom is in the 10% or 1% or 0.1% and has all their needs met every month; the other person does not.

Give each of them $1000/month. The poor person experiences a huge difference in their life: they go from not having their needs met - that is, not having a home or food or utilities - to having them met. This is transformative.

What about the rich person? Well, they put the money in a 401(k) or other tax-advantaged savings.

Fast forward a decade.

10 years later, the poor person still has their needs met. They have better health outcomes, their kids have better educational outcomes. SUCCESS!

The rich person, meanwhile, is A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS RICHER, thanks to the miracle of compound interest.

We have reduced one of the worst aspects of inequality, but inequality itself remains intact, along with all the toxic, corrosive problems it creates.

The system remains rotten to the core.

Can we get the benefits of UBI while still addressing inequality?

Yes. Basic income remains a no-brainer. The problem is universality. We shouldn't give subsidies to rich people.

But that doesn't mean we should do means-testing.

Means-testing is humiliating and cruel. Universal services promote solidarity. Means-tested services are a form of Apartheid.

Imagine if you had to prove your poverty before you could go to a public library, or let your kid play in a public park or attend a public school.

But public parks, schools and libraries are a subsidy to the wealthy. We could insist they use country clubs, private schools and subscription libraries instead.

It's easy to understand how this ends: wealthy people use their political power to defund the public sphere.

The money they'd lose by having to pay for country clubs and private schools wouldn't reduce their spending power enough to prevent them from accumulating outsized political power.

To do that, we need to tax them.

That's what taxes are for: to reduce the private sector's spending power so that when the government creates new money to fund the programs we need, the new money isn't competing with the money that's already in circulation for the same goods, which creates inflation.

Governments, after all, don't pile up our tax money and then send it out again to pay for programs. When currency-issuing governments tax their citizens, they just annihilate that money. When they pay their citizens to do things like build roads, they create new money.

All the money in circulation is money the government has spent, but hasn't taxed out of existence  All the money you and I have to spend is the government's deficit. If governments don't run deficits (if they taxed as much as they spent), there'd be nothing left for us!

Federal taxes don't pay for programs, but they DO something important. They keep rich people from getting too rich - getting so rich that they can distort our political process.

High tax rates on top wages and wealth  solve the UBI vs BI conundrum without cruel means-testing. If you're rich, you get the UBI, but you lose it at tax-time; just like you get to use the library for free, but we tax away the money you saved by not going to the bookstore.

All of this also reveals the incompleteness of cash transfers. As powerful as this experiment was, it is even more exciting when combined with Housing First (if you think finding a home in a year is a good outcome, imagine how great getting a home TOMORROW will be!).

Likewise other progressive, universal programs like a Federal Job Guarantee, which would set a TRUE minimum wage - the wage every person who wants to work is guaranteed, irrespective of whether anyone in the private sector wants their labor.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/22/jobs-guarantee/#job-guarantee

Without such a guarantee, the true minimum wage is $0 - the price your labor fetches if no one in the private sector has a job for you.

Such universal programs must be complements to social programs like direct transfers, disability benefits, etc, not replacements for them.

When the current crisis is over we're going to face a massive unemployment and homelessness crisis. The private sector won't be able to solve it. The right's version of fixing this is workfare: Build Trump's wall or starve.

We need a powerful progressive alternative: grounded in caring, universality, and repairing the Earth. Direct transfers, housing first, and a jobs guarantee are policies that work:

Need money? Here's money.

Need a home? Here's a home.

Need a job? Here's a job.

If those sound expensive to you, consider the unbearable cost of mass poverty, homlessness and unemployment.

Image: Grendelkhan https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homeless_encampment_near_I-580_onramp_in_Oakland.jpg

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[thexfridax]

© Claire Mathon

Translated interview with Director Sciamma

‘We started a culture war‘

Andreas Busche and Nadine Lange, in: Der Tagesspiegel, 29th of October 2019

Additions or clarifications for translating purposes are denoted as [T: …]

Manifest on the female gaze: Céline Sciamma speaks about her period film ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, MeToo in France and queer visibility.

In France, Céline Sciamma, born in 1978, is already revered as the new feminist and notably queer voice of French cinema, in the tradition of Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat. The director (‘Tomboy’, ‘Girlhood’), who writes her own screenplays, is largely unknown in [T: Germany]. This is most likely about to change with her fourth and most beautiful feature film so far. At the Cannes Film Festival, the period love story between the young painter Marianne and her model Héloïse, daughter of French aristocrats, won the Best Screenplay. Between the rugged landscape of the coast of Brittany and the candlelit interiors of an old villa, the film creates a utopia of solidarity and female desire, in which the characters of Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie the maid overcome class barriers.

Interviewers: Ms Sciamma, ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ is your first period film, it takes place a few years before the French Revolution. Why is this era important for your story?

Céline Sciamma: My interest in those years came from art history. At the time, there was an unusual number of female painters, hundreds in France and across Europe. It really moved me to discover the biographies of these women, who had successful careers. They supported each other and were very political. There was for example feminist art criticism at the time.

I: Noémie Merlant plays the painter Marianne, who is commissioned to do a portrait of Héloïse, a daughter of aristocrats. There are two main themes: the representation of female painters in bourgeois society and the female gaze – and how this [T: gaze] is reflected in the art world at the time. How are these themes connected?

CS: When I went into more detail about the work of female painters in the late 18th century, I realised how much the female perspective is missing from art history. For me this is the most painful loss, which results from the elimination of the female gaze: this relates to the artwork themselves, but also to what art brings to our lives, the memory of a kind of intimacy.

I: Marianne is not based on a specific female painter. But is she representative of women at the time?

CS: I collaborated with an art sociologist, who did extensive research on this era. All biographical details for Marianne correspond to the time in which she lived. The dynamics of a biopic – a successful woman who defies societal norms – never really interested me. My film is a manifest on the female gaze. But there’s also melancholy in this process, because we have to restore something that has been ignored for a long time.

I: Why melancholy?

CS: It makes me sad, because this perspective was withheld from me all my life. That is why the scene, where Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie the maid re-enact an abortion, is so important for the film. By painting an abortion, the act becomes art and is therefore represented. Art gives women the opportunity to tell their own stories. But it’s not only about the past. The topic of abortion is still virtually invisible in cinema.

I: How do you deal with this lack of female perspectives as a screenwriter and director?

CS: I was aware about the lack of queer and lesbian representation in cinema early on. But it becomes dangerous, when we don’t realise anymore that something is withheld from us. I noticed this again, when I watched ‘Wonder Woman’ by Patty Jenkins. It is hard to express how you feel when you know you’re not represented, and at the same time are oblivious to the power it can give you to recognise yourself in cinema. That was a new experience for me.

I: You were one of the initiators of the 50/50 by 2020 movement, which is committed to gender parity at festivals and in film. What do you expect from Cannes next year?

CS: I’m glad that this topic is finally taken seriously. We set out our target for Cannes and want more transparency in the selection committee. However, to achieve these, you have to introduce quota. The board will be replaced [T: next] year, let’s see how it works. We started a culture war. One of the most important things for me is the work on inclusion. The 50/50 [T: movement] and the film production/promotion agency CNC created a fund for cultural diversity in [T: film] productions last year. There’s usually less budget for films made by female directors, this inequality will be slightly mitigated. More than 20 films have already benefitted from this fund.

I: There is progress on one hand, but on the other hand some things are deteriorating again. Do you see it in a similar way?

CS: We had no MeToo-debate in France, unlike the one in the US. The [T: debate] was quickly hijacked and reinterpreted as discussion about free speech: that feminist film criticism would lead to a new form of censorship. You could feel the backlash in France. A good example: Sandra Muller, who created the French MeToo movement ‘Balance ton Porc’ [T: ‘Denounce your pig’, see here for the evolution of the term ‘pig’ in this context] just lost a libel lawsuit. Action was filed by the man, whose harassing statements she made public. The level of societal discourse is not where it’s supposed to be.

I: You lead by example: There are mainly women working on your sets.

CS: It creates a different atmosphere, that is for sure. But I’ll tell you something: Women only make up 50% of the crew, my crew is probably one of the most diverse in France. Claire Mathon is my cinematographer, but a lot of men work with her. My cutter is a man though. It’s about the right balance. The film world is very much dominated by men, but I don’t want to exclude anyone.

I: In Cannes, you said something similar about your colleague Abdellatif Kechiche, who was criticised for his voyeuristic gaze on women, for example in the Palm d’Or winner ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’. Do you want a cinema, in which your and his gaze can exist side by side?

CS: We have to be conscious about our perspective. In France, I’m always asked about my female gaze, but no one is ever asking a [T: male] filmmaker about his male gaze. Which is still considered as gender neutral. Of course, you can love ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’ as much as you love ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ [T: 😈], otherwise cinema will become a battlefield of ideologies. We just have to learn to read the images correctly. I would like to invite Abdellatif Kechiche to this relatively new discourse. But he should be asked the same questions as me.

I: You call ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ a manifest on the female gaze. What does that mean?

CS: It starts with the screenplay. I wanted to tell a love story on equal terms. There is no gender-specific power imbalance in the film. That was important for me, especially in a time, in which gender inequality was the social norm. There is also no intellectual dominance between Marianne and Héloïse, they both come from the upper class, are sophisticated and self-determined. Between them, they did not have to negotiate a status.

I: What role did your actresses play in this?

CS: I wrote the film for Adèle Haenel. But it only works if she has a partner who is equal to her. Noémie Merlant is about the same age as Adèle, they are even the same height, which cannot be underestimated in cinema. That’s why shorter actors often have to stand on a pedestal. All these considerations are political, but they are also an offer to the audience: for new emotions, for surprises. Equality creates freedom, because social rules are overturned.

I: As Marianne, Héloïse and Sophie keep to themselves, they are not exposed to the male gaze. They can move freely.

CS: That’s why I don’t think of my film as social utopia. Every utopia is based on our experiences and ideas. You cannot easily find this kind of solidarity among women, you have to create this freedom. That’s why I decided to exclude male characters. What I exclude from the shot also defines what is shown in the picture. That’s the power of cinema.

I: Your film is about the visibility of women. They tell each other, how they see one another – and thus create an image of themselves. At the same time, desire arises from their gazes. How do you create this feeling of intimacy?

CS: We offer a philosophy and politics of love. Even the depiction of queer sexuality in cinema is based on heterosexual paradigms. We first had to learn how to deconstruct this gaze on us. Similarly, it’s also about abolishing the outdated ideal of the muse. There is of course a hierarchy on set, but we tried to transfer the working relationships in the film to our shooting.

I: All your films have queer aspects. Do you ever had any problems to fund your films?

CS: No, but that’s because I don’t need so much money. ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ did cost 4 Million Euros. If I had asked for 12 Million Euros, it might have been different. I can’t complain. I live in a country, in which I can make these kinds of films and be radical. 23 percent of French films are made by female directors.

I: It seems like there were more [T: female directors] recently?

CS: No, the figure has been constant for 20 years. We are just forgotten and then ‘rediscovered’. Think about Alice Guy-Blanché, who made films at the time of Méliès [T: around the turn of last century]. She did everything by herself, used the first closeup. She literally co-invented the cinema. But like all the women, who were active at the beginning of film history, they were driven out, when it was suddenly about money.

Still from ‘Be natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ (Pamela B. Green, 2018)

[freakscircus]

imagine you were an expert in kind of a niche thing and all of a sudden everyone and their mother is talking about it and everything they say is completely wrong... that’s how i feel about this whole bernie castro controversy right now. spoiler alert - as a phd student who knows the ins and outs of castro’s cuba, bernie is not wrong. he is not even close to wrong. the literacy campaign raised the cuban literacy rate to 99%. it allowed for the peasantry, largely neglected and ignored by the batista regime, to be able to read and write. this was part of a much larger training and education program to offer job specific skills to cubans.... all for free. this is also part of the same push that lowered the infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate dramatically... at one point lower than that of the united states. just a few important points:

- for those chirping about “indoctrination...” this is the way that the state shares its hegemonic values? ask yourself how you learned about native americans, american history, the founding fathers, etc. i have some students who learned about the civil war as the “war of northern aggression.” yes, introducing the values of the revolution was part of the campaign, but i would argue equally as important was the idea of bringing the peasantry into the fold in order to allow them to obtain skills relevant to the needs of the state after the mass exodus of the upper middle class. literacy brigades that drew from young cubans in cities also allowed for urban cubans to understand life in the countryside, therefore creating cohesion between the rural and urban populations. - the batista regime was horrendous, and 1000x worse than you could ever accuse castro’s cuba of being. people were disappeared regularly, dead bodies were desecrated in front of families, police crackdown on any sort of dissent was regular. not to mention economic and political pandering to the united states by selling out havana (at the expense of the provinces) to mobsters and shady investment interests. i know you’ve all seen godfather 2... this wasn’t much of a stretch. the obscene wealth of the presidency at this point (the presidential palace, gold telephones, partying and hobknobbing with literal mobsters) was especially egregious in the face of a declining country due to batista and presidents before prioritizing american interests in exchange for political clout and security from the biggest superpower in the hemisphere. - many other presidents have towed this line at the expense of cuban economic interests. american economic interests and investments on the island always came before the need of the everyday cuban person. if castro was such a tyrant despot, why was there such widespread support of the 26th of july movement by 1959? many cubans were fed up with american interventionism. for example, please look up the platt amendment. while this ended in 1934, an informal understanding of it remained. any presidents who tried to pivot closer to cuban economic interests or did not do what america wanted would be removed. this happened more than once. if you were the cuban president, you served at the pleasure of the US state department. this is widely agreed upon in american state department documents. please look up sumner welles and gerardo machado. - i completely understand and sympathize with exiles, but many people who fled cuba initially did so because the threat of forced wealth distribution or their association with the batista regime loomed over them. your average cuban exile is not exactly the person who is benefiting from free rent, nationalization of properties, or a literacy campaign. they are the ones losing land, hoarded wealth, and in some cases servants and indentured laborers who were paid pittances. - the united states’ participation in genocide in latin america is something that has been conveniently forgotten in this discourse. please look up the history of GUATEMALA which i think is probably the worst example of american intervention in the name of anti-communism. everything from deposing a democratically elected president to backing genocidal leaders just because they kept communists in check. look up what happened to allende. look at what happened in el salvador. look at what happened in nicaragua with the contras who literally terrorized nuns and peasants in the name of rooting out communism. disgusting. it’s very convenient how none of this is brought up when talking about human rights abuses in latin america. it’s laughable to the point of making me sick with anger. - cuba has had a punitive economic embargo against them since the eisenhower administration. if you ask yourself ~oh no cubans can’t get access to coffee or bandages food is rationed!!~ you need to take the embargo into account. even under democrats like bill fucking clinton, things like remittance allowances have been cut which did not hurt castro or anyone in power, it squeezes the cuban people in the sad hope that they will rise up. the american government has hurt the cuban people in many many ways. remittances is an especially low blow because this is family to family money transfer, which is very interpersonal and does not affect leadership at all. - the united states has tried a number of sabotage measures against cuba. this was my MA thesis, which i wrote based on declassified CIA documents which are openly available to the public through the national security archives. for example, please look up operation mongoose.

i can critique castro, and i do regularly in my work. i know the embargo isn’t everything when it comes to economic underperformance, but you cannot discount the embargo and the special period (soviet union collapse) when evaluating the life of the average cuban. this false outrage and crocodile tears over Murderous Despot Fidel is completely disingenuous and makes me so angry that i could scream. to say someone isn’t allowed to CORRECTLY compliment what cuba has done for education, medicine, and wealth inequality is tantamount to thought policing and a transparent attempt at shooting down any values that don’t fit in with the imperial status quo. if you disagree with me, i can point you to some resources either from the american government themselves outlying these sabotage plans, or to vetted and highly respected authors with phds in cuban or latin american history, anthropology, or sociology. 

[welanabananaworld]

Us and the voice of dystopia

Jordan Peele’s latest film, Us, is as uncanny and disturbing as his first movie Get Out which proved itself to be a cinematic feat at the time of its release in 2017. Rightly considered as one of the fathers of the horror film renaissance (see also Ari Aster), Jordan Peele has been succeeding not only in addressing societal issues and in adopting a critical stance toward his home country but also in injecting an artistic vision in what is unfairly and generally regarded as second-class films. 

In Us, Jordan Peele’s strong sense of composition and framing reveals the main theme of the film : the duality of human nature through the evil self. Nothing revolutionary so far. Many films of the genre have explored the mythology surrounding the figure of the doppelgänger from multiple angles. For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s and Darren Aronofsky’s use of the double has a psychological bent; to dig through Scotty’s perverse psyche in the haunting Vertigo (1958) and to explore a mental illness in Black Swan (2011), whereas in The Great Dictator (1940), Charlie Chaplin chose to play both Hynkel and the Jewish barber for satirical purpose. In Us, nothing of the sort. Remember what we said about Jordan Peele’s films? About how the horror genre disguises social subtexts? But before aiming at the true meaning of this human mirror, one should focus more on the narrative use of the voice which proves to be of utter importance to understand what is at stake, because if you really listen to the voice, you understand the whole film.

Us tells the story of Adelaïde Wilson’s family who goes on holiday at the seaside in Santa Cruz. A series of strange coincidences reminds her of the trauma she experienced there when she was a little girl while vacationing with her parents. She made a disturbing encounter in the hall of mirrors of a funhouse. She came face to face with a little girl who looked just like her. After this event, she could no longer speak for a while because of, it seems, a post-traumatic stress disorder. At present day, overwhelmed with fear, she confides in her husband about her past. The same evening, they discover four people standing outside their house, their doppelgängers. Ruthlessly hunted, the Wilson family will have to look inward in order to counter their own selves. 

What strikes first when they all meet is that Red, Adelaïde’s double, is the only one  who is able to speak, or rather utter words. She is struggling with very word she says, as if her speech production was failing her somehow. When she starts speaking, her voice happens to be hoarse, cavernous, husky, strained, even  choked. Her disorder of phonation makes her voice otherworldly such as of a creature’s coming straight out of hell. It feels like she is not used to talk, actually that this is the first time she tries to pronounce and articulate words to create sentences. In this perspective, it is worth stressing Lupita Nyong’o’s astonishing work to produce Red’s chilling croaky and guttural voice. She used spasmodic dysphonia to make a creepy voice, that is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary breaks or interruptions in the voice due to an irregular flow of air. This language impairment, however, does not prevent Red from telling her story; the story of a dystopian world.

Red and Adelaïde are two sides of the same mirror. One learns that everything Adelaïde does is mirrored and has an impact on Red’s life, only the other way around. Everything that is happening in Red’s life is a pale copy of Adelaïde’s achievements and takes on a nightmarish dimension. Red’s husband, Abraham, is rough and dumb; her daughter, Umbrae, is born laughing and her son, Pluto, is a dangerous arsonist. The ideal family meets the poor and sad version of themselves who now claims justice through revenge, hence the imagery of the good and evil self. 

Throughout the film, the mise-en-scène keeps referring to the double as a warning or rather a prophecy as to the coming of those doppelgängers clad in red jumpsuits, which strangely resemble the clothing of prisoners. The clues left by the director are the following ones : the twin sisters of the superficial WASP family friends, the shadow of each member of the Wilson family projected on the sand while they are walking on the beach, the recurring number « 11:11 »  featured here and there (an extract from the Bible, Jeremiah 11:11), Jason wearing a mask (maybe a reference to the iconic masked murderer of Friday the 13th whose name is Jason?), Jason’s drawing showing a kid who looks just like him, a toy plastic spider behind which a true spider appears crawling across the low table of the living room, and of course the daze of mirrors. 

All those elements evoke duplicity and foresee a parallel world unknown so far. Red’s voice, alone, embraces all that imagery and embodies the punitive prophecy hidden behind the verse from the Old Testament book, the Book of Jeremiah, whose verse alludes to God’s wrath : « Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. » The invasion of the doppelgängers across the world is a divine plague orchestrated by Red from the underworld to take revenge. 

In fact, what the film tends to reveal all along is the existence of an underworld located inside « the thousands miles of tunnels beneath the continental United States », which are « abandoned subways systems », as stated at the very beginning of the film as an introduction. Those subways are inhabited by people who are the product of a failed governmental scientific experiment designed to replicate the bodies of those above to manipulate them. However, they discovered  that the « soul » could not be duplicated, hence the repudiation and neglect of that population now doomed to survive below the Earth’s surface, with raw rabbits as sole source of nourishment, and to « act out grim recreations of their respective partners’ above ground actions like sad little marionettes. »1 The scientific dimension of this governmental conspiracy is foretold in the opening credits by the camera progressively zooming out the caged rabbits. This shot conveys the idea of a sanitized laboratory. The existence of two opposite worlds is also mentioned by the shot which shows the funhouse twice, by night and day (darkness and daylight). 

The organised overthrow, which takes as an example the Hand Across America charity campaign of 1986 (giant human chain), can be interpreted in many ways : an uprising against social inequalities, such as racial, gender and salary based discrimination, which undermine the U.S (or Us); a country where climbing in the social ladder is more and more unattainable for under-represented ethnic minorities. It can also be seen as a denunciation of what America has become, unfair, poor and divided; a denunciation of the famous ideology of American exceptionalism through the ostentatious display of American symbols distorted by the horror genre. The « tethered » are done being downtrodden and ostracized. They want to embrace the American myth that had been promised to them by taking their rights back and by building a new world, hence Red’s assertive reply to Gabe’s question « Who are you, people? » : « We are Americans. » They claim themselves as being true Americans (to be connected to the Native American reference of the original funhouse’s sign), free from all materialistic concerns. 

Only, this does not constitute the twist ending of the film. Like all self-respecting horror films, Us is no exception in the matter and does offer a shocking one. And this is the voice which hints at it all along and that turns upside down the government’s theory about their human experiments. 

Red’s whistling while walking up the alley of the Wilson’s family with a pair of scissors in her hand in the dark is where the truth really lies. If one has well paid attention to the details, one would have noticed that Adelaïde whistled the same way when she was trapped in the hall of mirrors when she was a young girl, as if to ward off the coming threat. Do you see my point? Why is Adelaïde so reluctant and does have trouble engaging in a conversation with Kitty on the beach? Why would Red be the only tethered to be provided with the ability to speak? Why this eager for revenge? Because Red actually is the true Adelaïde. Back to the funhouse in 1986, young Adelaïde’s clone, Red, was lured to go to the surface as Adelaïde  progressively approached to her tragic destiny. 

What the film did not show is that Red strangled Adelaïde until she fainted, dragged her down the tunnel, attached her to her bed in the dormitory and switched place with her among Adelaïde’s family, hence her early language deficiency. While Red grew up like a normal little girl and learned how to speak, Adelaïde lost progressively her language abilities growing up among zombie-like human beings, which proves that the government’s theory is wrong. The soul cannot be duplicated but this does not mean that the tethered are « soulless creatures ». If given the chance, as Red has had, the tethered would have turned out perfectly okay. They would have followed the regular human evolution process called « hominisation » or « anthropogenesis », the process of becoming human. Indeed, the doppelgängers all look like primitive animals. Pluto, by his gesture, reminds of a monkey-like primate’s attitude and Abraham’s moans, groans and grunts are those of Cro-Magnon man. Their names evoke ancient times, something rough yet to evolve, and the mythology of the doppelgänger, Pluto being the god of the underworld, Umbrae the latin word for shadow. Abraham is the « Father of the nations » which can be connected to the human chain the tethered seek to initiate to rise up and find they own humanity. Red’s name could refer to the color of the tethered’ garments, and thus evoke the state of imprisonment which they have been reduced to until now. 

In this perspective, Red’s voice is not only the voice of dystopia but goes far beyond this sole and somewhat manichean opposition which is the driving force behind the narrative of the film. Red’s voice, by also being the voice of anthropological evolution, mainly serves to establish a connection between the latter subject and the current state of American society. With no equality of opportunity, people cannot equally seek higher social and intellectual status and end up being the slaves of the system. America has now no other choice but to drop her delusions and take her mask off. 

1 Bojalad, A., (2019, March 22). Us, Hands Across America, and the failed American experiment. Retrieved from https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/us-jordan-peele-hands-across-america/

[nicole-goddessofloki]

Tom‘s Spirit Week

Just one more day waiting! But first: #FavoriteTomFriday! For today I made again 3 collages. The first collage‘s theme is my favorite Tom Hiddleston moments from his 37th birthday – today. Here they come:

1. *Since I saw Early Man after the man‘s 37th birthday, I made an exception for this. In Early Man Tom does the voice of bad guy Lord Nooth. We know Tom is the king of accents! Here you can hear Tom do a French accent. There is a bath scene in which Lord Nooth gets an massage, you just got to see the Behind The Scenes footage of that! I really loved all the extra footage on the DVD.

2. The promotion he did for Avengers Infinity War even though his character only was seen in the first 5 minutes. Also for knowing Loki‘s ‘fate’ in this movie for more than 2 years..

3. Tom Hiddleston as Mary Poppins, or do I need to say: Mary Ploppins? Tom starred in the short video ‘Leading Lady Parts’ from which in the end you saw posters of Tom being the lead female role in films such as Mary Poppins & Wonder Woman. Leading Lady Parts sarcastically shows how hard the movie industry for women can be. Leading Lady Parts (produced by Rebel Park Productions) is an initiative of the Hear Her campaign in the United Kingdom, in which women who are normally not heard are given the opportunity to give their opinion on all kinds of subjects. In this short movie actresses audition do a serious role, but get the craziest requests. This becomes painfully clear when the casting agent, played by Catherine Tate, proclaims: 'It's not rocket science darling. We're just asking you to be thin and curvy, sexy and innocent. Thin, sexy, hooker, virgin with boobs and hips. " In the end because of the casting Agent pickiness, Tom Hiddleston is given the female roles instead. I appreciate it a lot that Tom is part of projects about women‘s rights. We all deserve to be treated fairly and not to be judged because of the way we look.

Tom said about this:

“I had so much admiration for everyone who's come forward and spoken up, and the movement of Time's Up and Me Too. I wanted to find a way to help but I was very conscious of it not being necessarily my story. First thing I felt that it was important to do very actively was to listen, to read, to hear so that women could tell their stories and begin to talk about how we might change the environment.” Time's Up

4. Suddenly out of the blue, there was this picture of Tom Hiddleston & Josh Wilson posted by Wilson Worldwide Productions Something about a secret project. I‘m still very curious, because we still don‘t know what it is! I think it‘s something very spectacular! We got something to look forward to! He also posted a second photo (that‘s the one in the collage) in which he tagged me & a few other Tom Hiddleston/Loki fan accounts in. That totally made my day, so thank you Josh!

5. This stands for all the Comic Cons he did. He healed a lot of fan‘s hearts (Which were still broken because of Infinity War). And even those who weren‘t there (including me) this angel reached with his wings. There were plenty of lovely pictures, lovely footage of the Panel‘s. I personally loved his face expression when a little boy asked him if Loki was truly dead. There also was this moment Tom said the words: “Know you are not alone!”, which meant a lot to me. We all have obstacles to face and unfortunately most of us had to deal with bullies (in the past). But where I‘m mostly grateful for is the fact that for every con there were fans collecting fans letters from all over the world, bonded in fan-books. Therefore I know a few of my letters, cards (Christmas card, Birthday card) are given to him! I think we can be blessed to be in such a wonderful fandom! ACE Comic Con.

6. On the 30th October Tom and Josie Rourke talked at the Alan Howard / JW3 Speaker Series. It was a lovely and inspiring interview, I was able to watch later on Youtube. He talked about how he stepped out of his comfort zone, which has inspired me to do the same. When I hear this man talk about acting; whether it‘s in film, series or theatre; it‘s so so visible I‘m listening to a man who found his passion and as I said it before: He truly has put his heart and soul it. Perhaps I do not know how to properly bring this into words, but I hope you understand what I mean. I think many people can see him as an example, given the fact for example how he has grown in +/- 20 years. From liking to do voices as a kid to this passion and talent which goes much deeper than just the word ‘acting’. He does inspire people to go take their passion to the next level as well.

7. Tom Hiddleston‘s first social media post in (what was it?) 2 years: Loki. More stories to tell. More mischief to make. More to come. That literally broke the internet! What Ralph Breaks the Internet? No, Tom Hiddleston breaks the internet! The #LokiSeries (#Disney+) confirmed by the man himself! I‘m so excited for this whole thing. Patient, patient.. But I‘m freaking out inside! Can‘t wait!

8. Tom also did a lot for charity this year. The picture that I chose is Tom visit to the Great Ormond Street Hospital and Children's Charity. He gave the children something they‘ll never forget! Online you were able to write a Christmas wish for the children, which got printed on a Christmas Stocking. On the photo he holds (I assume) his message for the Children. In general he did a lot for Children this year. Tom also donated for the Justice and Equality Fund which was all about the issues of sexual harassment and gender inequality. I remember people said Tom was late during the Avengers Infinity War screening/premiere in London, he met with children in co-operation from the Starlight Children's Foundation before. I cannot think of a better reason to be late for an official event ;).

9. This photo is taken by BBC Radio 2 during the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. It‘s truly one of my favorite pictures yet! There he spoke about ‘#Betrayal’ which will be hitting the theatre in London next month. He also spoke a little about the Loki Series & about the #Nightmanager season 2, but he wasn‘t alowed to say much about it yet. What better to start your Friday morning (it was a Friday) with then listening to Tom‘s voice on the radio! They also had some real good music in-between the talks. I heard ABBA, Journey (Don‘t stop Believing) & a live performance of a song of No Doubt. Also they spoke about the film 'Mary Queen of Scots' which premiered that week. I found it very impressive!

(The Jamie Lloyd Company Official London Theatre)

The second collage shows some random pictures of Tom I really like + my favorite roles he portrayed other than Loki! Those are Thomas Sharpe in ‘Crimson Peak’, Hank Williams in ‘I Saw The Light’ (the image shows my fave scene: the Baby scene!), Prince Hal in ‘The Hollow Crown’ (I am planning to do a Hollow Crown marathon tomorrow on his birthday!) and I just found out F. Scott Fitzgerald from ‘Midnight in Paris’ is missing. I‘ve watched that film on his birthday last year. In Midnight in Paris a writer (Owen Wilson) literally finds his inspiration in the 20s. And one of my favorite moments of Tom still is when a baby easily got him distracted during an #Avengers Interview. He turns to the baby and says: “Hello baby..”, so adorable!

Last collage is dedicated to Loki! (How else, this blog isn‘t called Goddess of Loki for nothing!) I chose some nice photo‘s I hadn‘t used for We Share What We Want Wednesday yet + a few of my fave LokiTom moments.

I wish Tom a lovely 38th birthday tomorrow! (Of course I wish you all a lovely #TomHiddleston Birthday tomorrow!)

[rossialessia80]

best spot to seriously level up your sneake

best spot to seriously level up your sneaker game Hubble's multicolored picture reveals with unprecedented clarity that the shell of matter is a network of filaments and dense knots, all enshrouded in a thin "skin" of gas [seen in blue]. With the weather getting cooler, Middleton has mostly attended events in cozy outerwear, concealing Cheap Fake Yeezys any budding baby bump.. Would another company have been just as effective even if it was not as professionally done? Potentially. Ended up only needing two of them so I sent the rest back." Whitney, The Bachelor season 21, Bachelor in Paradise seasons 4 and 5. Some of that comes through private donations like the ones fans made at the game through a special text line. And as it did this, it took our expectations with it. "I'm like the cheapest contestant to ever go on The Bachelor. Your first deal willlikely not go that well. There are lots of reasons to hate holidays: traffic, awkward family reunions, expensive gifts that would wring a tear from anyone wallet. He's unfair, unreasonable and often unbalanced but in a good way. With Karnataka's farmers issuing various threats in defiance of the court's order, Krishna declared that he would walk from Bangalore to Mandya, near Mysore, southwest of Bangalore, a distance of 98km. To build a sustainable food business takes a lot of time, therefore this partnership was appealing to us. When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. "My expectations of Hector were a little slim. Williams saved one with an ace, but yet another deep return, this one a bomb of a forehand, ended the match. And I reported for hours on live television in the middle of the Sherman Park unrest.. But we do and we suffer the consequences with the first hints of varicose, bunions, corns and oddly shaped toes that seem to form a heart. And Caleres will debut Veronica Beard shoes via a partnership with the rising New York ready to wear brand.WILL ADIDAS' WINNING STREAK CONTINUE?The company has been showing strong increases quarter after quarter. Should ban plastic straws whileanswering a question about curbing the country reliance on single use plastics. Emerging from the courthouse, he thanked the federal agents who arrested him for being courteous and professional.. However, Daswani believes all hope is not lost. The BlackBerry Classic hit the market in December 2014, offering customers a 3.5 inch (88.9 millimeter) screen, which was 60 percent larger than the previous BlackBerry Bold 9900, longer battery life and a standard keyboard and touch screen.BlackBerry has faced calls to stop making cellphones in favor of focusing on its burgeoning software business, but CEO John Chen recently reaffirmed his commitment to stay in the hardware market.In its most recent quarter of its 2017 financial year, the company sold roughly 500,000 smartphones, about 100,000 smartphones fewer than the previous quarter.However, Chen has said he believes a new venture to license BlackBerry's mobile software to other companies can help turn its mobile business segment profitable this fiscal year, which ends in February.BlackBerry is expected to release two new mid range, Android powered smartphones before the end of February. But he plans to start incorporating more of his own material into the weekend shows. Sorry. The letter from Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought sought funding for a "steel barrier on the Southwest border.". Through 40 minutes, goals were hard to come by with the Senators and cheap yeezy shoes Habs tied 1 1 going to the third period. 'And of course when employed correctly, storytelling can make things incredibly memorable, especially for brands' (Hegarty, 2011, p.96). Chalkbot's mission at the Tour de France was to send messages of hope, support and perseverance to the athletes in the race, and to inspire them to keep moving forward. This template solves the problem, with a festive birthday cake and sprinkles cover that includes sample text over which you can type the birthday boy or girl's name and approaching age.. But there's just something classy about wearing a watch. After hearing of the company bankruptcy filing announcement, consumers like Kyle Wyler are loading up on their favorite Hostess treat. "Creating new opportunities while cracking down is the way to go. Nike doesn't have exact Zumba shoes, but they have a dance collection which is suitable for Zumba. Sells them for money at the pawn store and then leaves the facility," said Everett Police Det. The most outraged reaction came, perhaps predictably, from Trump himself. Whether this has anything to do with price is unclear. For me, the initial pull of the shoes was simple (simplistic?) nostalgia. The women were in the parking lot when two men with guns approached them. Officials concluded the attackers had been aiming the plane toward Washington.. They usually have the same sized image sensors as the DSLR, as well as interchangeable lenses. By the way, 1997 runner up Moya has not won a match at the Australian Open since 2003, losing five straight first round matches.. The third tip is to make it stable and fast, an app is only effective when it works quickly, it makes sense that a slow app would not be a desirable one. Travolta, and everyone else, right to the cooling celery and bleu cheese dressing. On one side, you have a golf course. He cited Tweets by the latest councillor responsible for waste collections, Cllr John O'Shea (Acocks Green, Lab.), who quoted the Labour leadership tackling inequality in 2012 which 'may mean reduction in flow of gravy to leafy Sutton Coldfield'.And in 2013 Cllr O'Shea joked if he ran the council as saying 'I'll put Sutton Coldfield up for sale for starters'.Cllr Mackey believes the town has been starved of Birmingham City Council services and said: "Sutton Coldfield wards having some of the worst refuse collection rates will come as no surprise to the long suffering residents of the town who have been left scratching their heads as to how the refuse collection service could have deteriorated since the strike has come to an end."A glance at the twitter account of Cllr John O'Shea who became the latest cabinet member to take responsibility for the collection of our refuse and the cutting of verges may give some indication as to why Sutton Coldfield has suddenly seen such a deterioration in service from his portfolio."In two separate tweets Cllr O'Shea can be seen describing the receipt of council services by Sutton Coldfield as a flow of gravy and having them cut off as a way of somehow tackling equality and in another describes how if he was leader one of his first acts would be to put Sutton Coldfield up for sale.Missed bin collections cause hazard near Sutton Coldfield primary school"I appreciate these tweets were a few years ago, before Cllr O'Shea rose up the Labour ranks but behind the thinly veiled attempt at humour there is an abhorrence for Royal Sutton Coldfield and its residents that is pervasive throughout out the Labour Group."Sutton Coldfield residents pay their council tax and we are entitled to the full list of services Birmingham City Council has to offer."Here we have a cabinet member who clearly believes that council services should be focused on wards held by himself and his Labour colleagues as born out in the latest council figures."This explains an awful lot and while this just confirms what we have suspected all along it is totally wrong and if he had any fake yeezys for kids decency he should come to Sutton Coldfield apologise to its residents and see the sorry state of affairs for himself."Read MoreRubbish and flytippingCllr John O'Shea, Cabinet Member for Street Scene and Parks, said: "I've made it clear since taking on this portfolio that the level of service across the city isn't where it should be if we are to deliver on the top priority for citizens clean streets."Individual depots do have specific issues that need to be worked out.

[therebelwrites]

0:01 - “What you must recognize is the fundamental thing, and that fundamental thing is that we are dominated and those who dominate us will constantly look for the means to justify their domination. And each new initiative essentially is a new thrust which provides a new logic for justifying domination and a new methodology for executing it. But the constant there is STILL domination. The constant there is STILL social control.”

1:00 - “In other words, the European NEVER intends to give up social control of African people. And the ONLY thing that will be changed will be, perhaps, the justification/excuses and the methodologies of control--but little else.

1:35 - “You must keep one thing in mind that the establishment, in order to maintain control, if necessary, it will KILL us. The essential idea that motivates white supremacy is that of maintaining control and dominance. And this establishment that maintains control and dominance will at one time reward you, Negro and bougeoise, and when necessary, to maintain its control, will also KILL you.”

2:20 - “There are some of us who think just because we are receiving certain rewards from this system, that these rewards will continue forever. But you have to recognize that rewards are a means of control as much as PUNISHMENT. In psychology it’s called ‘positive reinforcement.’”

3:59 - “We misidentify ourselves with the experimenter, but the actual condition of African people, at this point, is that of the Pavlovian dog, with others being at the controls and manipulating rewards and punishments and what we called negative reinforcement as a way of controlling our behavior.”

8:30 - “Not only must we challenge the Europeans, we must challenge the Asians, we must challenge the Latin Americans as well. We must challenge  ANY group that threatens to constrain our freedom and that threatens to exploit us. And that does not include ANY other group. Remember ladies and gentlemen that nations and people do not HAVE permanent friends; they only have permanent interests, and the people who are your allies TODAY can be your enemies TOMORROW. You must keep that in mind. Blacks and Latinos are related, yes, but there are differences, and these differences can be exploited at any time.”

10:35 - “You MUST come to your realistic sense: nations and people do NOT fall in love; they do NOT marry each other. There are some foolish people who look at their personal relations with white folk, and they have good white friends, and I don’t doubt the sincerity of these friendships-- but do NOT confuse your PERSONAL relations with the relations between GROUPS. Do not always assume that the dynamics that determine your PERSONAL relationships are the same dynamics that can be used between groups. That’s a serious error that a lot of people make.”

15:04 - “Whites are very much interested in multiculturalism--not for the same reasons we are, of course--they recognize that America is a nation of various groups and they now will use that information to further their own political and economical interests and to maintain social, economic and political control. Consequently, you will see the face as you’ve already seen, of TV and the media changing as it seeks to grapple with the demographic change as it occurs in America.”

21:14 - “America’s founding fathers were not always married. One third of all children born during the 20 years prior to the American Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. During the 1780s and 1790s, one third of the brides in rural New England were pregnant at marriage. A study of illegitimacy in North Carolina found that out-of-wedlock birth rates of white women were approximately the same in 1850 as in 1970. The fathers tended to be well-off heads of intact families, while the mothers lived in poor female-headed households--these same jokers who wanna pretend that they’re morally superior are the same ones impregnating the women and creating the very families that they are talking about.”

23:18 - “Many of these issues have been around for quite some time, but the media presents these false images and it creates terrific problems...I find it interesting that white women and white feminists are NOT afraid to talk about power. But we, as African Americans, have a problem with talking about power. They are clear that they want REAL power in this society.”

24:14 - “Black folks are OVER-inclusive--we wanna bring everybody in on the bargain, and we’ve been made guilty when we don’t bring EVERYBODY in.

25:24 - “The changes in the Black community predict what will occur in the white community. What you see happening IN the Black community today, will be happening TO the Black community tomorrow. The interesting thing about it is that since it happens to us first, we get all the pejorative terms. The language does not change, and we get all of the negative evaluations. But note that when the whites move into it to a measurable degree, all of a sudden it changes, and you begin to change the negative descriptions that Blacks received to more positive and neutral descriptions. And so there’s a struggle going on, ‘how can we name these families because now our OWN daughters are creating these families and these children.”

[Insert: So basically what you see today with Black women being derided for being single mothers, but white women being seen as “admirable” for the same behavior. For it suddenly being OK for white women to have a “baby daddy.”]

36:36 - “When these people [rich, but dominated Blacks] move up, they can join their masters in the manipulating the behavior of the rest of us; they can be used as symbols by their masters that the society is fair, that it provides an even playing field for those in it and that those who do not make it are suffering from a deficiency in their personality.”

37:48 - “Those who dominate have an investment in maintaining their domination.”

38:45 - “You have to come to understand that the image of the Black adolescent as criminal is worth BILLIONS of dollars to white folk. When you project the image of the Black adolescent as criminal, you will FILL THEATERS. In other words, what are the whites saying? ‘We have an INVESTMENT in these images, therefore we can not let them GO. The image of you as BAD is the one that makes the most money.’“

40:35 - “Sometimes the Black middle class image can be used and is used to condemn the rest of the Black population and represent Euro-centric ideology of individualism.”

42:42 - “The Black media is also very much a part of the problem. It has not yet arrived at the fact that it is supposed to EDUCATE the Black population. Essence [magazine] is the greatest white triumph in the Black community that I’ve ever seen.”

48:24 - “As economic and political changes occur, so will the nature and character of families, so will family values change as well. [...] Keep in mind that the social and political forces of a nation CREATES family structures and values and reinforces some while NOT reinforces others. If you want to get a look at what family values are and why they have changed, you must analyze the context in which families RESIDE.”

49:25 - “We are a CREATED people and this system is a system that CREATES problems. Black people are under domination. Domination IS a social problem, therefore domination GENERATES social problems. If you are dominated, you got a problem. Domination, itself, IS a problem, domination GENERATES problems, and yet when we recognize that those who dominate benefit FROM domination, it means that they have an INVESTMENT in the problems generated by domination and they have an investment in PERPETUATING those problems and INTERACTING with the people who are dominated in a way as to REINFORCE those problems. In other words, the very power relationship between African-Americans and European Americans, the fact that we are dependent on European Americans, means that problems are CREATED in the African American community BY that system of domination, by that power differential. And those problems have been created in the interest of DOMINATION. And those problems BENEFIT the Europeans who dominate us, and despite ALL of the stuff they talk about, they are INVESTED IN these problems.”

51: 20 - “When you talk about “THE” Black family, you are talking about a family that has been CREATED by the dynamics of domination. You’re talking about a family that is not MAL-adjusted or MAL-adapted, but is really ADAPTED to the circumstances under which it must exist... The Black family structure reorients itself depending on the political and social changes generated by Europeans. What we are calling “mal-adapted” families are often families that have chosen, probably the best means under the circumstances, its way of life as an adaptation to the demands placed on it by domination.”

52:45 - “The false value that says you shouldn’t have children before you can afford them is a plan for DEATH. If you have a system that says this, but then ensures that the man can not attain the means to take care of children, this is a GENOCIDAL system.

54:29 - “The media seeks to indoctrinate us with images of families that really never existed. These images block us from the situation that we are really in, they create within us a situation of GUILT. America is characterized by the fact that is suffers from gross inequality. Those who benefit from this inequality must float out an ideology that makes their GREED appear rational and moral.”

56:09 - “The 2 reasons the media says why we have differences in wealth and success in this country are: (1) due to individual deficiencies in people and (2) deficiencies in families. NOT domination, NOT European control. If you are poor there is something LACKING in your character; there is something wrong with you or your family. The people who talk about the other things are not allowed to be heard on TV and radio. The crime is that the poor and the dominated BELIEVE these ideologies.”

58:59 - “School systems DESIGNED by middle classes allow for the success of MIDDLE CLASS students.”

59:19 - “We do we not study the ONES who put the students at risk, rather than the “at-risk” students?? The very system itself is creating the characteristics in the students. There is much going on in the American classroom that can make a child hyperactive. When you are caught up in the ideology of the deficient family, you are literally BLINDED to any other explanations.”

1:03:19 - “If you want to prevent, in its deepest sense, all the social problems that we talk about, then ultimately you must not only concentrate on rehabilitative methods, but you must concentrate on changing the power relationship between our people and those who rule over us.”

1:05:12 - “If you accept the ideology of individual deficiency or familial deficiency, then when your family fails or when you, yourself, do not succeed, you will then be motivated towards self-blame, self-negation, self-alienation, self-hatred, loss of self-confidence. And when you see a lot of people your same color, you’re going to start hating your race because you think it’s intrinsic to your whole group.”

1:06:30 - “90% of Black families earning above $50,000/year are intact; above $25-30,000, 80% are intact; there’s a relationship between income and intactness. Families often break up BECAUSE of economic problems. And these problems create feelings of guilt and anger. Guilt often creates OVER-COMPENSATION. Often the images created by the media create dysfunction themselves.”

1:09:19 - “You let these jokers try to tell you about family, when they destroyed whole NATIONS of families?? They destroyed the African family, and they dare dream of LECTURING us about family??”

1:10:10 - “Why are the Koreans ahead--is it because of their family values?? Why have they only recently advanced, despite their family values?? It’s because of their relationship with the U.S. government. Black men died so that Koreans could enjoy the privileges that Black men could not even enjoy at that moment.“

1:14:49 - “Then they tell you that you shouldn’t demand any special relationship with the U.S. government. You shouldn’t demand special favors for the U.S. government. The U.S. navy rides shotgun for private investment in foreign countries.“

1:19:45 - “The families of 1950s America received the most government subsidization of any family in American history.”

1:22:52 - “WE must define family for OURSELVES. WE must determine what family values work for US. And we must determine those values in the context of what is BEST for us. And we must determine them that they must LIBERATE us as a people. And we must determine that we, as a people, ARE A FAMILY.”

[kingfubuki92]

RWBY Volume 6: The Concept of the Huntsman. Did RWBY really sign up to be Huntsmen?

I’m not gonna split hair here because I’m in a bit of a bad mood right now, unrelated to this.

One of the biggest critiques I’ve seen against WBY for not wanting to keep fighting Salem if she can’t be killed is:

“They signed up to be Huntsmen, they can’t give up since this is what they signed up for, its not like the Grimm would all just be killed one day.”

Well, to that I ask:

“Who in RWBY actually signed up to be Huntsmen, just for the sake of being Huntsmen?”

Look back at Volume 2, in the episodes Search and Destroy and Mountain Glenn, when Dr. Oobleck begins questioning them on why they wanted to be Huntsmen. These were their initial responses:

Yang: The honest reason? I'm a thrill-seeker. I want to travel around the world and get wrapped up in as many crazy adventures as I can. And if I help people along the way, then that's even better. It's a win-win, y'know? 

Weiss: I'm a Schnee. I have a legacy of honor to uphold. Once I realized I was capable of fighting, there was no longer a question of what I would do with my life. It was my duty. 

Blake: There's too much wrong in this world to just stand by and do nothing. Inequality, corruption... Someone has to stop it.

Though later on, they go further into detail amidst themselves.

Weiss: When I said I wanted to honor my family's name, I meant it. But, it's not what you think. I'm not stupid. I'm fully aware of what my father has done with the Schnee Dust Company. Since he took control, our business has operated in a... moral gray area. Which is why I feel the need to make things right. If I had taken a job in Atlas, it wouldn't have changed anything. My father was not the start of our name, and I refuse to let him be the end of it.

Blake: All my life, I fought for what I thought was right. I had a partner named Adam. More of a mentor, actually. He always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place. But of course, his idea of a perfect future turned out to be not perfect for everyone. I joined the Academy because I knew that Huntsmen and Huntresses were regarded as the most noble warriors in the world. Always fighting for good. But I never really thought past that. When I leave the Academy, what will I - how can I undo so many years of hate? 

Yang: I've just kinda of always, gone with the flow, y'know? And that's fine, I mean, that's who I am. But how long can I really do that for? I wanna be a Huntress, not really because I want to be a hero, but because I want the adventure. I want a life where I won't know what tomorrow will bring. And that'll be a good thing. Being a Huntress just happens to line up with that. 

Note, that of the three of them, only one of them talks of being a Huntsman to make the world a better place, and that person is Blake, a Faunus who’s experienced first hand the racism her kind suffers thanks to growing up in the White Fang. Even then though, she has no idea as to how she would make the world the better place.

What is the one thing all three of them have in common though? The duty of being a huntsman isn’t why they chose the job, rather being a Huntsman is just a means to an end. They all chose the job of being Huntsmen to fulfill their own goals. For Weiss, restoring the SDC to the ideals her Grandfather Nicholas set. For Blake, ending the discrimination between Faunus and Humans. For Yang, having a life of adventure and finding her mother. The job about saving the world, that’s secondary to them. As Weiss put it in the same scene they rectified their answers:

Weiss: It's a job. We all had this romanticized vision of being a Huntress in our heads! But at the end of the day, it's a job to protect the people! And whatever we want, will have to come second.

Its a lot easier however to say you’ll put your goals behind a sense a duty then it is to actually go through with it. Not to sound Misanthropic, but as I’ve said before, Humanity is ruled by emotion, and one of these emotions, is Passion. A strong feeling towards something that can drive someone to selfish acts. Its one of the reasons “Crime of Passion” is called such, as its caused from sheer emotion. All the goals the three listed, they are extremely passionate about them. Couple them with extenuating circumstances such as:

Weiss not wanting to return to an abusive household she just left

Blake having to deal with her fear of Adam and trying to reconcile with Yang

Yang’s existing abandonment issues and PTSD dealt to her by Adam

They don’t have the heart to devote themselves body and soul to being Huntsman.

There is a reason why Oobleck didn’t question Ruby during their stay at Mountain Glenn after all. As Ozpin called her, she’s a “Smaller, more honest soul”, and her desires were always clear. From her first real talk with Blake they were made clear.

Ruby: As a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!

Blake: That's... very ambitious for a child. Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale.

Ruby: Well, that's why we're here! To make it better.

Ruby’s desires were always clear cut. She became a Huntsman for the sake of being a Huntsman. Her Teammates however all became them though because it was a means to an end. To that extent, they didn’t really sign up to be Huntsman. They took a job they planned on using to further their real goals.

While Weiss’ assessment above is close to what Oobleck was trying to teach them, its not the entirety of it. Look back to Oobleck said to Ruby when she asked him why he wanted to be a Huntsman.

Oobleck: Look around and tell me what you see. I see lives that could have been saved. As a Huntsman, it is my job to protect the people, and although I am capable of doing it with traditional weaponry, I believe I can make a much larger impact if I do it with my mind. As a teacher, I'm able to take knowledge, the most powerful weapon of them all, and place it in the hands of every student that passes through my classroom. I look at this wasteland, and I see lives that could have been saved, but I also see an opportunity; an opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy, and therefore become stronger. I am a Huntsman, Ruby, because there is nothing else in this world I would rather be.

Oobleck wasn’t trying to teach them to put their goals behind them in favor of pursuing the idea of being a Huntsman, he was trying to teach them to use what they know, what they desire, to let them be the best Huntsmen they could be.

Weiss’ journey wouldn’t end at fixing the SDC, it would continue on. Part of the ideal of Nicholas Schnee was that he was someone who led the SDC on the front-lines, his skills as a warrior letting him help and protect his workers as they made Mantle great. Weiss would be able to fix the SDC and maintain it by working with Atlesian Military, be more open in dust usage, and fighting alongside them. She wouldn’t just be the CEO of the SDC, she’d be a Huntsman, a hero to Atlas and one who would defend not just her home, but the world with her companies dust.

Blake wants to end discrimination between Humanity and Faunus, and the actions she and her family took at Haven are in the right direction. Be a Huntsman and defend Humanity and Faunus regardless of their opinion on you, and fight. Fight to protect, fight for both Humanity and Faunus kind.

Yang wanted a life of adventure, but she could have this by travelling around and going to places in need of help first and foremost. A wandering huntsman, helping those as she travels, (Like the Nomad of Nowhere) except here the helping others would be at the forefront, while her life of adventure would come as a result of travelling around to help others.

Oobleck tried to teach them not to sacrifice their dreams, but to incorporate them into their being Huntsmen.

Sadly, they didn’t fully grasp the lesson. They were close, but they didn’t get there.

So to use the argument that they signed up to be Huntsmen is a flawed one, as they didn’t really sign up to be Huntsmen, they signed up for a means to an end. They weren’t committed to the cause like say Ruby is, they just saw it as a means to accomplishing their real life goals.

If they weren’t really committed to being Huntsmen, why would they be committed to stopping Salem after all?

[quakerjoe]

I thought white people were evil. I was wrong.

Whenever anyone mentions the historical atrocity of chattel slavery, white people will emerge from the dark crevices of humanity to gnaw away at the assertion like roaches on a discarded Cheeto. They will explain how most white people didn’t own slaves. They will offer a convoluted explanation about the Confederacy and Southern heritage. They will introduce the concept of “presentism”—the idea that we shouldn’t judge the actions of people in the past using modern-day standards—as if the white people of the past couldn’t quite grasp the idea of inhumanity and brutality until 1861.

Everyone knew that slavery was evil. Everyone knew that Jim Crow was evil. Everyone knew that lynching was evil. Everyone knows that any kind of injustice or inequality is evil. These things persist because most white people don’t actively fight to eradicate them.

And most white people don’t actively fight to eradicate inequality and injustice because they usually benefit in some small way. The Southern economy was built on evil slavery. Jim Crow laws maintained a national order with white people firmly planted atop the social hierarchy. Systematic injustice keeps black people in their place, but it also comforts white people to know that the big black bogeymen are being kept behind bars.

Inequality and racism exist not because of evil but because the unaffected majority put their interests above all others, and their inaction allows inequality to flourish. That is why I believe that silence in the presence of injustice is as bad as injustice itself. White people who are quiet about racism might not plant the seed, but their silence is sunlight.

Many of those people don’t speak out because they fear alienation more than they hate racism. For them, the fear of having someone furrow their brow in their direction outweighs their hatred of sending children to an underfunded school knowing that they don’t have an equal chance at success because of the color of their skin.

They know the reality of disproportionate police brutality, but they don’t have to worry about their children being shot in the face. Their kids receive good educations. Their kids can wear hoodies whenever they please. Little Amber and Connor’s résumés don’t get tossed in the trash because of their black-sounding names. Their children’s futures are determined only by work ethic and ability. Therefore, they stay silent on the sidelines.

That’s not evil.

That is cowardice.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON (MAYBE)

On Thursday, while visiting San Antonio, I was approached by a gentleman who heard my name and wanted to know if I was the Michael Harriot from The Root. He said that he was a paralegal who works with one of the noted immigration attorneys who were all over the news that day (I don’t know which one because I had been traveling and ... Crown Royal). He began to explain how the Trump administration was literally putting children in concentration camps.

Hold up ... before that previous sentence causes Caucasian heads to explode, allow me to offer this definition from Dictionary.com:

Now back to our previous conversation.

Just before he shook my hand and said it was nice meeting me, he explained that it was entirely possible that those children might never see their parents again. Then he said something that I still cannot erase from my brain. He paused, his hand still gripping mine, and looked past me as if he were recalling something, and said, “This is some Gestapo shit, man.”

I know that sentence gave liberals heart palpitations. There is always pushback anytime someone compares anything or anyone to the führer. Even though there is a literal Nazi movement rising in this country, Hitler is the third rail of every conversation, no matter how apt the comparison.

Despite the similarities between 1933 Germany and 2018 America (a rise in nationalism, a government-sponsored ethnic-cleansing movement, a racist strongman in power, that whole concentration camp thing ... ), the most obvious parallel between the Third Reich and the Trump administration is the willing silence of the majority.

Trump chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and many others refuse to publicly stand up to this insane administration even though they disagree with the policies. Ryan would rather quit. Kelly has reportedly given up. Sanders is reportedly leaving the White House. But none have publicly broken up with Donald Trump.

But it is not just the politicians in the Republican Party who are afraid to speak out against their base; the spineless cowardice of the Democrats has also become increasingly apparent. We expect Republicans to stand with their fearless leader and maintain their grip on power, but Democrats have been so silent that Rep. Maxine Waters’ defiance makes her look like a crazy woman in a tinfoil hat by comparison.

A CBS survey revealed that most Americans disagree with Trump’s “both sides” equivocation regarding the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year. According to a CNN/ORC poll, a majority of Americans opposed the white-nationalist-inspired travel ban. Two-thirds of Americans say that separating children from their parents at the border is unacceptable, according to a CBS poll.

Still, most white people won’t do shit.

The crisis at the border is the latest addition to a long list of instances when white people have chosen silence over what is right. Most of the white people who supported civil and voting rights still did not march, boycott or sit in. The white people who shed tears over police videos won’t attend a Black Lives Matter meeting.

Cowards. All of them.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

—DESMOND TUTU

At least once a week, I will receive an email from a well-meaning white person who wants to know what they can do to fight injustice and inequality. The answer to that is simple. Whenever and wherever you spot racism or inequality, say something. Do something.

Every. Single. Time.

If a white person spoke up every time a fellow Caucasian used the word “nigger” in the safe space of whiteness, they would stop doing it. If a white person advocated for diversity and equality behind the closed doors of power, where black faces are seldom present, people in power wouldn’t dismiss the reality of the tilted playing field.

And maybe I should go back and add the word “some” before every mention of “white people” in this article because I’d bet every penny I have that at least one white person with good intentions is reading this while murmuring, “Not all white people ... ”

Which is exactly my point.

“Some” is not enough.

Some white people will speak out sometimes, just like some fish can fly and somebears can ride bicycles. But if a biologist were lecturing on the mobility of aquatic animals or grizzlies, it would be idiotic to interrupt with the rare cases of flying fish or bears that ride Huffys.

Fish swim. Bears walk.

And white people are cowards.

“I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.”

—LILY TOMLIN

There is a quote in the Holocaust Museum by Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for speaking out against Adolf Hitler. The quote reads:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Initially, Niemöller supported the Nazi Party for years because he “felt that reparations, democracy, and foreign influence” had damaged his country and “believed that Germany needed a strong leader to promote national unity and honor.”

Sound familiar?

When they came for black people, white people, like Neimöller, did nothing because they were not black. When they came for the Muslims, white people did not speak out because they were not Muslims. When they came for the immigrants, white people remained quiet because they were not immigrants.

The most disheartening part of all this is that black people and other people of color alone cannot abolish discrimination and hate. It is a problem created by white America and maintained by the silence of the majority. Every form of inequality would disappear by next Friday if every white person in America used his or her privilege to eliminate it.

It is useless to speculate on the exact reasons why they don’t. Sure, some of them are racists who benefit from the current social order. But many are just unmotivated because they don’t want to upset the apple cart. They will weep at the sight of children being ripped from their parents’ arms and shipped to internment camps. They will say Philando Castile’s death was a cruel injustice. They will tell you they “have a good heart.”

But they will only whisper these feelings? Who gives a fuck about hearts when their mouths are quiet and their hands are idle?

Republicans who disagree with the Trump administration remain silent. Instead of screaming at the top of their lungs, Democrats are calmly suggesting the same electoral solution that put Trump in power in the first place. Moderate whites say nothing behind closed doors. White women still have not confronted the 53 percent of their population who supported Trump.

And that is why racism persists. That is how Trump maintains his power. Injustice is evil. The cowardice of silence perpetuates injustice, and anything that perpetuates evil is, by definition, also evil.

Therefore, silence is evil.

As Leonardo da Vinci once said (I could not find the exact source. I think he said it when he painted the Mona Lisa, fought injustice as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or starred in Inception): “He who does not oppose evil commands it to be done.”

This is some Gestapo shit.

Until all white people do and say something, people in power will always be able to point to the silent majority and say that no one cares about racism or inequality. Ultimately, whiteness affords them the right to remain silent.

I thought white people were evil.

I was right.

- Michael Harriot

[daskalosinitiative]

Educational Inequality in India - Raising Awareness:

Educational Inequality in India:

Brought to you by the ‘Daskalos Initiative’

Education has been a necessity to facilitate the development of the world over the ages. Education has allowed all humans to build a stronger relationship not only with the Earth, whether this be working together with the environment or unfortunately exploiting and destroying the ecosystems that exist, but also with fellow humans and all other surroundings. A general consensus across the world has been ‘the more people around the globe who are educated, the better chance there is at achieving equality and progression as a global society’. Therefore, there is only one thing to do, which is to provide the platform for education. Easier said than done, but that should be the main objective of every country around the world, in order to get all of their citizens literate and educated. Unfortunately, currently, this is not the case universally and is not exactly close either. India is an example of one of the many countries that suffer with educational inequalities. 

In India, gender, place of birth, ethnicity, class, and linguistic background all have an impact on the educational experience children have in the country. Each and every single one of these factors derives from something the children themselves cannot control; they have not done anything wrong to deserve this, yet the punishment is as harsh as one could possibly imagine. All of this results in substantial inequalities in knowledge within India’s society. Statistics show that 10% more boys completed secondary school education than girls. India’s childhood literacy rates, in 2011, reached 73.5%, which may not seem a low percentage, but it is certainly not high either. The UK compares with a literacy rate of 99%, as every single child is provided with the opportunity to be educated. Furthermore, in India, gender educational inequalities complicate the situation even more. UNESCO states that for each additional year of education a girl completes, the chances of adolescent pregnancy are lowered by 10%. This change has been seen previously in the process of less developed countries becoming more developed with time. The same change has happened before, so there is a clear example set ahead for India to follow. 

Rome wasn't built in a day, but together we can, and will, tackle the educational problem in India and, in turn, ensure that one day we will yield an India which is full of bright, young, well-educated prospects capable of changing the world. To catalyse this arduous process, awareness can be raised. As has happened with climate change, raising awareness has impacted everyone, and let everyone know that this is a problem that needs addressing promptly.  Through writing this article, I’m playing my small part, so why don’t you play yours in some way at least?

Thank You for Reading!

Help make a genuine difference, and check out our GlobalGiving and other social media pages: https://linktr.ee/DaskalosInitative

[thegiftedoneishere]

I thought white people were evil. I was wrong.

Whenever anyone mentions the historical atrocity of chattel slavery, white people will emerge from the dark crevices of humanity to gnaw away at the assertion like roaches on a discarded Cheeto. They will explain how most white people didn’t own slaves. They will offer a convoluted explanation about the Confederacy and Southern heritage. They will introduce the concept of “presentism”—the idea that we shouldn’t judge the actions of people in the past using modern-day standards—as if the white people of the past couldn’t quite grasp the idea of inhumanity and brutality until 1861.

Everyone knew that slavery was evil. 

Everyone knew that Jim Crow was evil. 

Everyone knew that lynching was evil.

 Everyone knows that any kind of injustice or inequality is evil. These things persist because most white people don’t actively fight to eradicate them.

And most white people don’t actively fight to eradicate inequality and injustice because they usually benefit in some small way. The Southern economy was built on evil slavery. Jim Crow laws maintained a national order with white people firmly planted atop the social hierarchy. Systematic injustice keeps black people in their place, but it also comforts white people to know that the big black bogeymen are being kept behind bars.

Inequality and racism exist not because of evil but because the unaffected majority put their interests above all others, and their inaction allows inequality to flourish. That is why I believe that silence in the presence of injustice is as bad as injustice itself. White people who are quiet about racism might not plant the seed, but their silence is sunlight.

Many of those people don’t speak out because they fear alienation more than they hate racism. For them, the fear of having someone furrow their brow in their direction outweighs their hatred of sending children to an underfunded school knowing that they don’t have an equal chance at success because of the color of their skin.

They know the reality of disproportionate police brutality, but they don’t have to worry about their children being shot in the face. Their kids receive good educations. Their kids can wear hoodies whenever they please. Little Amber and Connor’s résumés don’t get tossed in the trash because of their black-sounding names. Their children’s futures are determined only by work ethic and ability. Therefore, they stay silent on the sidelines.

That’s not evil.

That is cowardice.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON (MAYBE)

On Thursday, while visiting San Antonio, I was approached by a gentleman who heard my name and wanted to know if I was the Michael Harriot from The Root. He said that he was a paralegal who works with one of the noted immigration attorneys who were all over the news that day (I don’t know which one because I had been traveling and ... Crown Royal). He began to explain how the Trump administration was literally putting children in concentration camps.

Hold up ... before that previous sentence causes Caucasian heads to explode, allow me to offer this definition from Dictionary.com:

Concentration Camp: a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners.

Now back to our previous conversation.

Just before he shook my hand and said it was nice meeting me, he explained that it was entirely possible that those children might never see their parents again. Then he said something that I still cannot erase from my brain. He paused, his hand still gripping mine, and looked past me as if he were recalling something, and said, “This is some Gestapo shit, man.”

I know that sentence gave liberals heart palpitations. There is always pushback anytime someone compares anything or anyone to the führer. Even though there is a literal Nazi movement rising in this country, Hitler is the third rail of every conversation, no matter how apt the comparison.

Despite the similarities between 1933 Germany and 2018 America (a rise in nationalism, a government-sponsored ethnic-cleansing movement, a racist strongman in power, that whole concentration camp thing ... ), the most obvious parallel between the Third Reich and the Trump administration is the willing silence of the majority.

Trump chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and many others refuse to publicly stand up to this insane administration even though they disagree with the policies. Ryan would rather quit. Kelly has reportedly given up. Sanders is reportedly leaving the White House. But none have publicly broken up with Donald Trump.

But it is not just the politicians in the Republican Party who are afraid to speak out against their base; the spineless cowardice of the Democrats has also become increasingly apparent. We expect Republicans to stand with their fearless leader and maintain their grip on power, but Democrats have been so silent that Rep. Maxine Waters’ defiance makes her look like a crazy woman in a tinfoil hat by comparison.

A CBS survey revealed that most Americans disagree with Trump’s “both sides” equivocation regarding the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year. According to a CNN/ORC poll, a majority of Americans opposed the white-nationalist-inspired travel ban. Two-thirds of Americans say that separating children from their parents at the border is unacceptable, according to a CBS poll.

Still, most white people won’t do shit.

The crisis at the border is the latest addition to a long list of instances when white people have chosen silence over what is right. Most of the white people who supported civil and voting rights still did not march, boycott or sit in. The white people who shed tears over police videos won’t attend a Black Lives Matter meeting.

Cowards. All of them.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

—DESMOND TUTU

At least once a week, I will receive an email from a well-meaning white person who wants to know what they can do to fight injustice and inequality. The answer to that is simple. Whenever and wherever you spot racism or inequality, say something. Do something.

Every. Single. Time.

If a white person spoke up every time a fellow Caucasian used the word “nigger” in the safe space of whiteness, they would stop doing it. If a white person advocated for diversity and equality behind the closed doors of power, where black faces are seldom present, people in power wouldn’t dismiss the reality of the tilted playing field.

And maybe I should go back and add the word “some” before every mention of “white people” in this article because I’d bet every penny I have that at least one white person with good intentions is reading this while murmuring, “Not all white people ... ”

Which is exactly my point.

“Some” is not enough.

Some white people will speak out sometimes, just like some fish can fly and somebears can ride bicycles. But if a biologist were lecturing on the mobility of aquatic animals or grizzlies, it would be idiotic to interrupt with the rare cases of flying fish or bears that ride Huffys.

Fish swim. Bears walk.

And white people are cowards.

“I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.”

—LILY TOMLIN

There is a quote in the Holocaust Museum by Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for speaking out against Adolf Hitler. The quote reads:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Initially, Niemöller supported the Nazi Party for years because he “felt that reparations, democracy, and foreign influence” had damaged his country and “believed that Germany needed a strong leader to promote national unity and honor.”

Sound familiar?

When they came for black people, white people, like Neimöller, did nothing because they were not black. When they came for the Muslims, white people did not speak out because they were not Muslims. When they came for the immigrants, white people remained quiet because they were not immigrants.

The most disheartening part of all this is that black people and other people of color alone cannot abolish discrimination and hate. It is a problem created by white America and maintained by the silence of the majority. Every form of inequality would disappear by next Friday if every white person in America used his or her privilege to eliminate it.

It is useless to speculate on the exact reasons why they don’t. Sure, some of them are racists who benefit from the current social order. But many are just unmotivated because they don’t want to upset the apple cart. They will weep at the sight of children being ripped from their parents’ arms and shipped to internment camps. They will say Philando Castile’s death was a cruel injustice. They will tell you they “have a good heart.”

But they will only whisper these feelings? Who gives a fuck about hearts when their mouths are quiet and their hands are idle?

Republicans who disagree with the Trump administration remain silent. Instead of screaming at the top of their lungs, Democrats are calmly suggesting the same electoral solution that put Trump in power in the first place. Moderate whites say nothing behind closed doors. White women still have not confronted the 53 percent of their population who supported Trump.

And that is why racism persists. That is how Trump maintains his power. Injustice is evil. The cowardice of silence perpetuates injustice, and anything that perpetuates evil is, by definition, also evil.

Therefore, silence is evil.

As Leonardo da Vinci once said (I could not find the exact source. I think he said it when he painted the Mona Lisa, fought injustice as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or starred in Inception): “He who does not oppose evil commands it to be done.”

This is some Gestapo shit.

Until all white people do and say something, people in power will always be able to point to the silent majority and say that no one cares about racism or inequality. Ultimately, whiteness affords them the right to remain silent.

I thought white people were evil.

I was right.

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

EcoPad Project Limi Valley, Humla Nepal

Hello from Nepal! I hope you are happy and healthy. This week’s post is going to be different than any before it, and different from any that will come after. It is the only post in the series that is not written by me. Why would an author that is promoting his books and the charity project related to them post writing by someone else? Because the writing below is that important and I can’t tell you what it is about in as informed a manner as the person that wrote it. That person is the organizer of the women’s health project addressed in the article below. Her name is Thinley Wangmo Lama.

Many social issues are just starting to get the attention in Asia that they have enjoyed in the West since the 1960s. Women’s health concerns, rights, and equality are among the issues at the top of that list. I hope you will join Wangmo and the many other dedicated people in Nepal, and throughout Asia and the world, that are making great efforts to right the inequities and injustices that women have suffered for thousands of years. A closer look will reveal that every living thing — not just our mothers, sisters, and wives — have suffered severely from the lack of respect that our worldwide culture often directs toward women. The fact that more attention has been given to providing men with artificial erections than has been given to providing women with authentic healthcare shows a criminal lack of common sense and common decency in our society. Unless that lack is addressed and remedied, there is little chance for the survival of our species. Until the kind, compassionate, nurturing aspects of the feminine presence gain as much prominence in our earthly function as the constructive, productive, and destructive drives of the masculine presence, we don’t stand a chance.

Please join Wangmo and folks like her around the world in taking the basic steps toward helping these needy women on the Tibet/Nepali border to stay alive and healthy. By doing so, you will also be taking a big step toward repairing a long-standing social injustice that has done great damage to us all.

EcoPad Project Limi Valley, Humla

Project Introduction

This is a project to raise funds for Limi women who don’t have easy access to sanitary pads.

Our aim is to donate eco-friendly washable cloth sanitary pads (EcoPads) for approximately 250 women living in the remote village of Humla, Nepal called Limi.

We also aim to generate a positive attitude towards periods among the Limi community in Kathmandu and Limi Valley. We hope to make them comfortable to talk about periods in a shame-free way.

How did we start this project?

This project took birth during the COVID-19 pandemic when we heard about the situation in Limi regarding the food shortage due to lockdown. Access to Limi is immensely restricted because of its challenging topography and lack of transportation infrastructure.

For the people in Limi, it takes a minimum of 2 to 4 walking days to reach a market area. During that conversation, the sanitary pad topic came up! How are the women managing without the supply of pads? Periods do not stop when the supply stops. After much discussion, we realized that the Limi women still face serious challenges when it comes to managing their periods. It is still considered taboo and a matter of embarrassment.

Women should not feel shameful for something like Periods that occur naturally and should not be put at a disadvantage due to this.

So, we could either do something about it or just let it be as always. We simply decided to do something about it! Period!

Background: — Menstrual Hygiene in Limi

Most of the women in Limi Valley still don’t own underwear and those having underwears feel shy to even dry it out in the open. Periods are rarely discussed openly and considered “impurity” coming out from the women’s body.

Like most of the women in any village area, the women in Limi have been using pads made of old/used clothes and only recently they have started using disposable sanitary pads. However, they consider sanitary pads as a luxury item and not a necessity. Of course, considering the costs of sanitary pads in the market, the people in the village would rather spend the money on food supplies.

On one hand, the pads made of old used clothes are uncomfortable and unhygienic. It can cause vaginal health issues and infections. On the other hand, the disposable sanitary pads are usually out of stock and not easily accessible due to the remote location and such pads lead to non-biodegradable waste.

As per research, disposable sanitary pads are partly made of plastic and can take as much as 200 years to decompose.

Therefore, looking for a long-term sustainable solution, EcoPads seems like the best option. An EcoPad can be reused for up to three years if washed and dried properly.

Why EcoPads?

1. Reusable

EcoPads can be reused for up to three years with proper care. However, it is essential to wash the EcoPads properly and dry them under sunlight.

2. Cost-effective

EcoPads are cost-effective over time. Most women re-use their EcoPads for at least three to five years, which means about three years of not having to buy disposable pads each month!

3. Environmentally Friendly

Let’s take Nepal into consideration. The majority of women in Nepal use disposable pads. On average, a woman uses 15 pads per month, that’s around 8000 pads over the course of her lifetime. That’s just the waste from a single person. What about the whole of Nepal?

Now, do the math and add in people from countries all over the world. That is a crazy amount of garbage.

4. Health Benefits

The manufacturers use artificial fragrance, synthetic ingredients, and plastic in disposable pads which can cause allergic reactions. You will notice that the cloth pads do not irritate your skin when used correctly.

5. No issue of running “out of stock” for a remote place like Limi

It takes a minimum of 2 to 4 walking days to reach a market area for the people in Limi. The disposable sanitary pads usually go out of stock, so by using EcoPads, this problem can be solved.

How this PROJECT is going to work?

Step 1: Collect Donations to buy EcoPads

Step 2: Conduct workshops in Kathmandu — #Normalizeperiods and generate awareness about usage of ecopads

Step 3: Buy good quality EcoPads.

Step 4: Go to Limi Valley — Target Date: August 2021 — Distribute the EcoPads for free and stay there for few weeks:-

1. Conduct workshops — Make them aware that periods are normal and not to feel shy about it.

2. Focus on the younger girls. Talk to them about periods in a shame-free way and teach them how to manage their periods.

3. Ask the men in the family to be more supportive when the women are menstruating.

4. If possible, teach them how to make their own EcoPads so that they can be self-sufficient.

Step 5: Select a few volunteers at the local level to evaluate the project outcomes. If successful, distribute the next batch of EcoPads within 1–2 years. If not successful, visit Limi again to evaluate the situation.

What do we need?

1. We need your donation to buy these EcoPads. There are approximately 250 women in Limi Village who are menstruating. Each woman needs at least 10–15 pads for healthy use.

Since this is the first time introducing ecopads to the Limi women, we plan to give only 5 pads at the initial distribution.

The average cost of a good quality EcoPad is Rs.200/- Therefore, we need around NPR 2,50,000/-

2. We are also planning to donate one EcoPad each to Limi women living in Kathmandu. There are approximately 200 Limi women in Kathmandu. Therefore, we need around NPR 40,000/-

3. We need additional money for traveling expenses to Limi village, air cargo/ shipping expenses, and to pay the volunteers. Therefore, we need around NPR 2,50,000/-

In total, we need around NPR 5,40,000/- (USD 5000/-) to make this project possible.

Therefore, with your support, our long-term goal is to donate EcoPads to this area every 3 years so that we can provide them a healthier life and fulfill this very basic necessity of every woman.

Please Donate

Let’s unite for our women who are our mother, sister, aunt, cousin, and relative. Let’s unite for women who are in need.

Please donate as much as possible within your capacity. No amount is small or big. Every contribution counts.

Maybe this means not eating at a cafe once, or not indulging in a Starbucks Coffee this week, or not buying a new pair of shoes this month. We request you to donate that amount for the welfare of women living in Limi.

Together we can make this happen.

Donation Details:

Please donate through their GoFundMe platform gf.me/u/zmgqi4

Kindly share this on your social media pages.

Thank You and Best Wishes

Be well, Tenzin

Fearless Puppy Website Blog

Fearless Puppy On American Road/Amazon Page

Reincarnation Through Common Sense/Amazon Page

Fearless Website

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DEPARTMENT

The math paper is hard to predict. A popular programming language should be both clean and dirty: cleanly designed, with a small chance of succeeding. But if we're going to do that with coworkers. I have to change what I was saying recently to a reporter that if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would explain why you have to compile and run separately.1 It was simply a fad. But as with wealth there may be habits of mind that will help, if you roll a zero for luck, the outcome is the product of skill, determination, and luck. This was another one lots of people were surprised by that. Languages, not Programs We should be clear that we are never likely to have accurate comparisons of the relative power of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers.2 99% of your code, but still keep them almost as insulated from users as they would be in a traditional research department. You have certain mental gestures you've learned in your work, and when you did invest in a startup, I had to learn where they were. In the years since, I've paid close attention to any evidence I could get on the question, from formal studies to anecdotes about individual projects.

In the earliest stages of a startup, you have to figure out for yourself what's good. I sometimes think that it would be misleading even to call them centers. Perhaps this was the sort of superficial quizzing best left to teenage girls. The leaders have a little more power than other members of the audience share things in common. But the founders contribute ideas. The empirical answer is: no. It was just that no one had really tried to solve the problem once and for all.3

This happens particularly in the interfaces between pieces of software written by two different people. I let the ideas take their course. And the thing we'd built, as far as I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end, but not random: I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting.4 We advise startups to set both low, initially: spend practically nothing, and make sure you solve that. There used to be common.5 You tell them only 1 out of 100 successful startups has a trajectory like that, and c the groups of applicants you're comparing have roughly equal distribution of ability. In particular, you now have to deal with prefix notation: that it is not dense enough. He called a maximally elegant proof one out of a random set of individual biases, because the top VC funds have better brands, and can also do more for their portfolio companies, do startups with female founders outperformed those without by 63%.

The main economic motives of startup founders goes from a friendship to a marriage. Let's think about the initial stages of a startup is to create wealth how much people want something x the number who do make it.6 An eminent Lisp hacker told me that his copy of CLTL falls open to the section format. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting. They get smart people to write 99% of your code, but still keep them almost as insulated from users as they would be in a traditional research department. I mostly ignored this shadow. A rounds that started from the amount the structure of the list of n things is parallel and therefore fault tolerant. Hackers like to hack, and hacking means getting inside things and second guessing the original designer. A couple years ago a venture capitalist friend told me about a new startup he was involved with. There's no consensus yet in the general case.

Perl is as big as Java, or bigger, just on the strength of its own merits. You have to use the shift key much. Whereas acquirers are, as of this writing few startups spend too much. At Y Combinator we didn't worry about Microsoft as competition for the startups; by definition a high valuation unless you can somehow achieve what those in the business call a liquidity event, and the number one question people ask me. Though that means you'll get correspondingly less attention from them, it's good news in other respects. I claim hacking and painting are also related, in the final stage, you stop having them. You can't trust authorities. What do you wish there was?7 Before ITA who wrote the software inside Orbitz, the people working on airline fare searches probably thought it was just because most people were still subsistence farmers; he would have liked to. How advantageous it is to redefine the problem as a more interesting one.

A lot of what we could. This is sometimes referred to as runway, as in many fields, the hard part isn't solving problems, but deciding what problems to solve. They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel the same way it protects the reader. Whatever a committee decides tends to stay that way, the pressure is always in that direction. It probably extends to any kind of creative work. Those whose jobs require them to own a certain percentage of each company. You can sit down and consciously come up with startup ideas. So if you discard taste, you can not only close the round faster, but now we advise founders to vest so there will be an increasingly important feature of a good programming language is a medium of expression, you could say either was the cause. Which means they're inevitable. But I think there is a lot of time learning to recognize such ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. It only lets you experience the defining characteristic of essay writing.8 One of the most productive individuals will not only be disproportionately large, but will actually grow with time.

That's why so many startups. I think that this metric is the most influential founder not just for me but for most people, would be if you could get a 30% better deal elsewhere?9 They can't hire smart people anymore, but they want a third of your company they want. Many founders do. For example, what if you made an open-source language effort like Perl or Python. Mostly because of the increasing number of early failures, the startup funding business is now in what could, at least in the hands of good programmers, very fluid. What they invest is their time and copy you instead of buying you. Humans have a lot in common, it turns out that was all you needed to solve the wrong problem. Of course it matters to do a good job.

So what's the minimum you need to.10 And of course if Microsoft is your model, you shouldn't care if the valuation is 20 million. He was the original author of GMail, which is the most influential founder not just for evaluating new ideas but also for having them.11 Hackers just want power. Bottom-up programming suggests another way to partition the company: have the smart people work as toolmakers. And those are the users you need to escape it. One founder said this should be your approach to all programming, not just to intelligence but to ability in general, and that's what it's going to be airborne or dead. Who is? It's often mistakenly believed that medieval universities were mostly seminaries. One, the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent NT developer he would have liked to. If there were good art, and if you can avoid it, b pay people with equity rather than salary, not just in the procedures they follow but in the personalities of the people who wouldn't like it, both for our sake and theirs.

Notes

Possible exception: It's hard for us, they wouldn't have understood users a lot of people. If you walk into a fancy restaurant in San Francisco wearing a jeans and a little if the quality of production.

Geshke and Warnock only founded Adobe because Xerox ignored them. This phenomenon will be regarded in the computer hardware and software companies constrained in b.

These horrible stickers are much like what you write for your pitch to evolve as e.

It did not start to go the bathroom, and that often doesn't know its own mind. But you can't mess with the government and construction companies. Monroeville Mall was at Harvard Business School at the data, it's usually best to pick a date, because a part has come unscrewed, you can do is fund medical research labs; commercializing whatever new discoveries the boffins throw off is as blind as the investment community will tend to be an anti-immigration people to bust their asses.

An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the notoriously corrupt relationship between the subset that will be interesting to consider behaving the opposite way from the revenue-collecting half of the infrastructure that this had since been exceeded by actors buying their own, like play in a bug. It's like the increase in economic inequality start to be doomed. Keep heat low. The Harmless People and The CRM114 Discriminator.

They did turn out to be extra skeptical about Viaweb too. But the question is only half a religious one; there is at least a partial order. If someone speaks for the others to act against their own freedom. On the other people thought of them.

Which means one of the problem, but he doesn't remember which. Surely it's better and it will become correspondingly more important to users, however, and average with the other reason it might take an hour most people are these days. That would be a niche. If you want to figure this out.

I suspect five hundred would be. Believe it or not, greater accessibility.

Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, because companies don't want to change. When you get bigger, your size helps you grow. Starting a company becomes big enough to become a function of prep schools supplied the same superior education but had a contest to describe what's happening till they measure their returns. But in most high schools.

Paul Graham. Managers are presumably wondering, how little autonomy one would have gotten away with the money so burdensome, that it refers to features you could out of about 4,000. This just seems to be significantly pickier. Cit.

Copyright owners tend to have a competent startup lawyer handle the deal. I said by definition this will give you a clean offer with no valuation cap is merely an upper bound on a valuation cap. We try to give them up is the post-money valuation of the Web was closely tied to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://paulgraham.

Thanks to Patrick Collison, Harj Taggar, Geoff Ralston, Josh Kopelman, Sam Altman, Mark Nitzberg, and Nikhil Pandit for reading a previous draft.

[freecityradio]

Interview with friend in Tehran on recent protests in Iran

Recently I got the chance to interview a friend in Tehran on the recent wave of protests in Iran, this interview is anonymous due to security concerns expressed by the person interviewed, but I am really happy and honoured to share these reflections anonymously on Free City Radio, thanks for reading. — stefan spirodon.

Q : Recently in Iran there was a series of protests in different places, both in cities & towns, one major focus that came up were economic grievances, could you highlight some of those grievances for an international audience, given that your in Tehran & following the situation / local media ...

A : Well as you may know, Iran is facing a very difficult economic situation at the moment. I think the main economic problem the country is facing at the moment is unemployment. The unemployment rate is really high, and the government has not been able to create enough jobs. But as you may have heard, and funny as it may sound, the protests initially started because of the increase in the price of eggs. Last year Iran was hit with an outbreak of the bird flu virus which required the authorities to kill off millions of chickens. This led egg prices to almost double. But the price of most other goods have actually been controlled by the Rouhani government. Comparing the current situation with the situation before Rouhani took office, the economic indicators show improvement. Iran’s GDP growth has gone up from around -3% to around 6% (although this is in most part due to the increase in Iran’s oil exports), his government has managed to bring down and control inflation from around 40 percent when he took office to around 10 percent. And the increase in the price of foreign currencies has also been somewhat stabilized and has only increased by around 30% in the past 5 years as compared to the over 400% increase during his predecessors 8 year presidency. 

So although the economy has not improved at the pace many were expecting (which is due to many factors including US sanctions, etc.), really the only economic indicator that has not improved (however) has been job creation, where unemployment is around 40 percent at the moment and this is mostly among the young educated population which has created a lot of frustration. But in short, people are frustrated about various issues and the rise in the price of eggs, which was highlighted for the past several months by Rouhani’s opponents and spread across social media and also government controlled media has increased people’s anger. But we have to keep in mind that the initial protests were sponsored by Rouhani’s hardline right wing opponents (and basically encouraged and sponsored by the regime itself to weaken his government). The conservative establishment thought that this will be a controlled protest with the excuse of the rise in prices (which again has to be emphasized have not really been increased on average except for exceptions like eggs) that they can guide and contain and to weaken Rouhani’s government.

Q : The Hassan Rouhani gov. decided to publish the national budget for the first time, this was one of the motivating factors for the protests, could you explain this & why it was important ? 

A: The government didn’t announce that it is publishing the national budget and at least this is not the official narrative. What we do know is that the proposed budget for the coming year has been leaked. And many believe that the government intentionally leaked the budget itself to expose the extreme systematic corruption that exists within the system and many facts that people had always speculated but never really knew for a fact. Such as the fact that many religious, cultural and military and paramilitary organizations get a huge chunk of the budget every year without the government having a say on how this money should be spent. And not only these organizations suck up a huge portion of Iran’s national budget every year, but they even refuse to pay taxes. 

One of these very large organizations, is in the hands of Ebrahim Raïssi, President Rounani’s opponent in the previous elections who humiliatingly lost to Rouhani despite having the backing of the conservative establishment and also using very huge amounts of public funding to fund his own campaign which is also illegal under Iran’s constitution. For the first time after the revolution, Rouhani’s government demanded that this organization called Astan Quds Razavi should pay taxes. And this infuriated the head of this organization Ebrahim Raïssi. This all happened several months ago. After this event, the conservative camp started a very coordinated and large scale propaganda campaign especially on social media against the government to take revenge. And all of this culminated in the first protests that we witnessed in Khorasan province and especially the city of Mashhad where Ebrahim Raïssi is in power.

Q : Many of the demonstrations started in the Khorasan region, could you explain why understanding this is important ? 

A: The province of Khorasan is home to the largest religious complex in the world (the shrine of Imam Reza, the 8th Shi'ite Imam) and hosts millions of Iranian and non-Iranian pilgrims every year. This brings with it a very large income for the province. Therefore this province is very important strategically, economically and also symbolically for the regime. And as I mentioned above, there is a fixed cut from the national budget for the foundation that runs and manages the Shrine of Imam Reza called Astan Quds Razavi which is run by president Rouhani’s opponent in the previous elections, Ebrahim Raïssi. This foundation owns many factories and companies and financial institutions (which are all exempt from paying taxes) and pretty much runs the province like a semi-autonomous region within Iran. Ayatollah Alam-al-Hoda, the Imam for the Friday prayers in Khorasan province who is also the father in law of Ebrahim Raïssi wields a lot of power much more than other Friday prayer Imams in other provinces. Many of the laws that apply to other parts of Iran are either disregarded or interpreted in different ways by the authorities in Khorasan province and the authorities are given a free pass to enforce many social restrictions and religious laws that are not so strictly enforced in other parts of the country.

Q : So you were texting about a distinction between the recent protests & the 2009 protests against the re-election of Ahmadinejad, could you highlight two important differences between the protests? 

A : Since it hasn’t been covered yet, it’s important to know that as explained before these recent protests initially started in Khorasan province by hardline conservative elements within the regime (and with the indirect and unofficial support of the regime) with the excuse of poor mismanagement of the economy by Rouhani’s government. 

But then they quickly got out of hand and spread to other parts of the country. But after they spread to other parts of the country they were no longer regime supported protests and were genuinely popular protests by people who had real grievances. And these people were no longer just protesting poor economic management by the government. They were now pointing directly to the regime itself and were voicing their anger towards not only poor economic management, but most importantly wide-scale corruption, social and political restrictions, and wealth and income inequality, among other things. And this time unlike previous protests in Iran, the protests were mostly happening in small rural towns and villages by the economically deprived and marginalized lower class and middle class. 

People who basically have nothing to lose. And that’s why they quickly got very radical and very violent. And there were no leaders or clear goals for these protests and in many cases riots that happened on a very large span in terms of geography in almost every province but usually in fairly small numbers, at most in the couple thousands. Previously most of the movements and protests that happened in Iran after the revolution, such as the 2009 protests, were headed by intellects and / or political and social activists and the educated middle class. And they usually happened in the larger city, mainly Tehran and then gradually spread to other cities and smaller rural areas. This time it was the exact opposite. This time unlike previous protests which happened in the millions and were very peaceful, the protests quickly got very radical and out of hand. But surprisingly the regime did not crack down very hard like it usually does and was very moderate in the way it quelled the protests. It did not even resort to the revolutionary guards which are usually called up to deal with these situations. And even though the protests only lasted about a week and around 20 people were killed (half of which were police officers and government officials) the regime was still going on about how protesters have real grievances and although there are elements which are resorting to violence, the government is responsible for the situation because of its poor economic management. Something the regime and state-run tv had never done in the past.

Also I forgot to mention that the average age of the protesters was also very young.

Q : I understand that there have been many different workers strikes & protests that have happened over the past year that haven't been as well covered, could you elaborate on this ? Also I am wondering if you could offer a few critiques of the international mainstream media's coverage of the recent protests (BBC / CNN) ? 

A : Yes, there are almost daily protests happening throughout the country in the past year by syndicates and labor unions, workers and government employees demanding they be given their wages and improved working conditions, etc. I think the reason these events have usually been ignored by western mainstream media or at least have not been covered very well is because they do not see the possibility of such actions leading to something that they can show as an existential threat to the stability of the Islamic Republic. But since the chants and slogans in these recent protests became very radical they viewed it as great propaganda material to add fuel to the fire and portray it as a wide-spread mass uprising that could lead to a revolution and the toppling of the regime. 

Interestingly they were interviewing every single opposition group and leader outside of the country, who really had no role in starting or supporting and leading these protests as if they are the ones directing the protesters and were trying to link these protests to Iranians wishing for foreign interference which was not at all the case. But their coverage gave the impression that this is an all-out revolution and that people will not stop at any cost until the regime is overthrown, whereas in reality the numbers were very small (smaller than all the other major protests that have happened in Iran after the revolution) and only a certain group(s) of people were participating in these protests and the majority of Iranians, whether those who support the regime or do not support the regime were not on board with these protests. 

And as I explained above the main reason for this is that the majority of Iranians have chosen gradual reforms over radical change because they have seen how that could end, like other countries in the middle east. And also the protesters did not have a common goal or even a clearly defined goal and did not have the backing and support of the majority of Iranians. Of course none of this is to say that their grievances are not real and should not be heard. But the reality is that it was not a popular uprising from all walks of life, the way mainstream media portrayed them to be.