#and what leads people to crime in the first place and the way upwards mobility is stifled by the rich and powerful and-

[lautakwah]

wait but. huh? what about heroic bloodshed?? also triad film is a genre (TO ME) but again what about heroic bloodshed?????

[comic-the-adventurer]

There was nothing.

“Nothing.”

What did “nothing” imply?

What did “nothing” mean?

What did it mean to say there was nothing?

For him to say that he was nowhere, with nothing around him, he had to know what that truly meant. He couldn’t misidentify his surroundings yet again. Not now. Not after he finally might have time to stitch together his disjointed thoughts. His heart jumped at the thought of falling short. Before something changed again, the answer needed to be found.

When you think of “nothing,” what's the first thing that comes to mind? A black void? An empty room? Void is something. Emptiness is something. What’s nothing? If you’d define “nothing” as simply, absolutely nothing -- no sound, no entity, no visual, no existence -- to the point where if Mist-Jun begged you to believe he was nowhere with nothing, that alone would prove it to be yet one more devious lie. (No. He wouldn’t perform another elaborate lie. Out of everything that gets entangled in his tattered thoughts, he will forever be haunted by what banished him “here.” It’s the one thing he can remember)

He realized: He couldn’t be in an area with nothing inherently. No matter how empty it felt at times, no matter how hollow his heart felt, if looking upwards, there was always that rarely-spinning cot mobile. The mobile that always remained in the same place no matter how far he thought he strayed; as long as he looked above himself, it was always there. Even if the rest of the forever looping “room” was empty, there was always the golden cot mobile -- he was never certainly with nothing.

Although, maybe “cot mobile” doesn’t quite describe it well. In a mobile, pendants are connected to a base that spins slowly. This one had neither. He’d argue it’s more like an endless, lightless chandelier that began who-knows-where. There is no ceiling; just where the chandelier faded away -- No visible start to the mobile, just an end.

The chandelier was barely visible from shadow when he first awoke here. Originally, it appeared as a small, golden dot from his perspective. With how far it rested from the "floor," he barely noticed it at that time. The more time passes, the longer it grows, he'd realized at one point.

Until then, he was convinced time stood still where he was, all while earth continued to live on as suffered. The thought likely came from how long those mysterious voices revealed he was punished to spend in this looping, blank world a few...years?...ago.

The chandelier, he was certain, was the lock keeping him in this ominous realm.

Just like everything else here, the patterns on the cot mobile periodically changes, it seems. Never when he's looking, though; always when he turns his back.

It's never unusual or unnerving for him to recognize the patterns in the chandelier; familiarity always gave him a feeling of safety.

...

Not always.

Sometimes, he views the patterns with fear.

The patterns came in lines; one set of symbols repeated themselves until the line was over. The farther down on the chandelier, the shorter the line. It occurred to him, one day, if that meant the mobile would inevitably be forced to stop growing.

He wondered what would happen then.

The more he studied the symbols on the mobile, the more he realized some shapes were recurrent: Nearly always, there was a silhouette of him and a woman dancing. He smiles when seeing this symbol, knowing it was fortunate this was a common pattern; had it not been for this, he might have forgotten about them by now. Completely and entirely, he means. That encrypted, dance partner on the chandelier reminded him of who? It's not the first time he's thought about them. He knows their name, even if it must’ve been buried into the back of his head unknowingly. He promised never to forget them. Who was it? Don’t forget them, Mist.

Don’t forget them.

Don’t forget them.

Don’t forget them.

It was strange.

When he’d first awoke in this endless chamber of immeasurable darkness, he was only reminded of what led him there by those ghastly voices that were kind enough to warn him of his crimes. Otherwise, he’d be forever wandering these tainted halls without a clue of what banished him here.

This shadow-shrouded dungeon has become a prison to him. A special prison, just for him. With the years he’s spent here, he’s given up hope of escaping from this blighted chamber or finding himself released if he remains patient. With the years he’s spent here, he’s given up hope of getting answers to what the red handcuffs encircling his wrists represent or what the green shackles entangling his ankles mean.

With the years he’s spent here, he’s given up hope of trying to get answers for anything anymore.

They’ve likely forgotten him.

Not them, the voices, he means.

He’s been abandoned with no one coming back.

He hasn’t heard those voices respond to him since day one. Not just voices -- he needed to specify. Those voices. The voices that explained why he was imprisoned here when he’d first awaken, that’s who he was yearning to hear. The only other voices he’s heard in here are rather unsettling whispers that, though uncommon, seem to come from merging and shifting walls…

...And…

...of course…

...that familiar lullaby that rarely sings from the cot mobile.

It comes in waves.

Day-and-night cycles are far from identifiable to him (Here in this domain, he could identify one, and only one, cycle: "safe stage" and "danger stage.") but, over time, it grew increasingly obvious the faint melody was periodic, performing in random order. He would never know when it would start. Nor why - despite his relentless search for answers, he will forever be rooted in a world filled with simply empty non-existence.

Chills swept over him.

He couldn’t help but feel embarrassed he hadn’t recognized the person who whispered that song sooner.

Although, even then, the first time he was struck by this gentle song, he could recognize the medieval folktale hidden beneath the soft-spoken lyrics easily. This song was about one of their traditional acts, he noticed. Upon the first time he heard the lyrics, it was about the ancient belief that, if you scribbled your deepest desire on a scrap of paper, slipping it into a glass bottle and watch it safely sail past the ocean horizon, one day, you’ll find your wish has become a reality.

…

There’s a strange connection he felt resonate between the lullaby and him.

Down to the singer.

The lyrics.

The melody.

The--

...

Focus, Mist-Jun.

Should the time come he gather the strength to search through the fogged memories of his tragic past well enough, his recollections had told him that...he...used to cast wishes into the sea himself;

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Could not.

It couldn’t be a coincidence how--

--something clicked not too long ago when he realized the lyrics always alter slightly with each performance. Though the pure melody was always the same, the “final” lyrics are always delayed more each listening with new words added to the ending, steadily building another verse. While he always heard it begin all the same and, ignoring it at first, he was unaware that the strangely familiar lullaby had been rewritten.

Because his heart ached from hearing it.

With even the beginning of the lullaby intertwined with an aching story he had promised himself he would forget, how could anyone have the strength to resist shielding themself from the nightmare? Despite grimacing at the thought, It wasn't until after the song's length doubled that he thought to rehear its healing lyrics as he had staggered steadily to his feet.

…

He shouldn’t have waited. He knew that now.

Although he feared the way his broken instincts insisted the true nature of the song would have been better left a mystery, he had known the fragments of his spirit wouldn’t stop bleeding until he understood the song’s true strings to his heart.

He’d been right.

With the sadly-sung lyrics, the singer reminisced a tale of a maiden crowned as a reigning royal, and as such, grows accustomed to receiving anything and everything she would desire at the drop of a hat. As time passed living her best life and sharing her throne with her best friend, she had grown caring not of the disgusting way the foolish peasants outside her castle were forced to live, nor how greatly the townspeople hated her greed.

(The peasants weren’t being fair, he deemed. He knew they weren’t.)

The verse rambled on about her narcissistic orders as ruler…

...and…

...the penalty that came with it.

Once the public heard word of how their queen grinned happily with malice as she carried out wickedly inhuman deeds that provoked nothing but grief and misery for the common people such as enflaming the sacred forest and slaughtering the cherished lover of another princess from a faraway country, the masses arose to overthrow the ruling tyrant, leading the reign-sharing best friend to--...

…

...to…

...

The song never specified.

Still, he knew exactly what happened.

He promised them he would never forget.

It was a memory that ate away at him, a memory that tormented him, yet he would sacrifice everything and anything to hold on to this one, certain sin.

Repeating the same bloody scene again and again.

He smiles.

He couldn’t tell you what it is, of course.

It was a secret.

That he held on to.

Even after death.

[smokeybrandreviews]

A Gentleman’s Deception

Arsene Lupin is literature’s greatest thief. He’s effectively the opposite of Sherlock Holmes. The character was created by French writer, Maurice Leblanc, at the turn of the century. That Eighteen to Nineteen hundred one, not the Nineteen to the Aughts one. It’s super weird to me that i have to make that stipulation. I’m old... Anyway, Lupin committed his very first gentleman man caper halfway through the first decade of the Twentieth century and has been stealing his way across literary history ever since. The character and his many klepto crusades have been adapted hundreds of times over the years, just like Holmes. If you’ve rad that name, and you like anime, there’s a damn good chance you are pretty familiar with on of these adaptions; Lupin III.

Arsene is a pretty popular character around the world but he never really took root here in the States, like Holmes eventually would. For a long time, Lupin III was the only version of Arsene with which i was familiar. If you couldn’t tell by the content in this blog, I'm a big of a weeb and the man adventures Monkey Punch has created with his oft, Red blazer emblazoned, sex crazed, Deadpool-esque, pervert thief, are required viewing. Lupin III is an excellent franchise with many, many, spin-offs and is worth the watch. The second most familiar version of Arsene comes from the most recent Persona title. The titular hero, the leader of the Phantom Thieves, initial Persona is, in fact, Arsene; a Fool based upon the character. Arsene has a great design but, being the first Persona you get, is kind of whack. I prefer Alice, Satanael, Mother Harlot, or Thanatos, but if you’re diligent, you can build a pretty hardbody Arsene. I mention these iterations because the French have created an updated, re-imagined, version of the Arsene narrative that was recently released on Netflix title simply, Lupin.

There’s been a bit of a resurgence in US interest with the classic Who Dunnit characters. A reboot of Murder on the Orient Express dropped a few years ago, followed by the absolutely excellent Knives Out. With the recent announcement of A Death on the Nile, it’s absolutely the right time to re-acclimate the international audience with Arsene and the French have done just that. This new take stars Omar Sy as Senegalese immigrant, Assane Diop. While not Lupin, himself, Diop has lived the Gentlemen thief life since he was a teenager, because of reasons. Expensive sh*t gets stolen, prisons are broken out of, people are killed, plot occurs; It’s really a pretty grand epic when you get right down to it. The show is available to watch right now on Netflix if you live in the US. I’m not entirely sure of the international releases available but, you know VPNs. That or go fly the Jolly Roger. You might want to hold off on that though. The juice maybe isn’t worth the squeeze...

I watched this whole series last night. It’s only five episode, most of which are around a half-hour long. The fifth is forty-five minutes long. It’s a brisk little commitment but it’s kind of a slog. The performances are pretty decent, lead by an incredibly strong showing from Sy, but the characters and  the content is rather pedestrian. The show is gorgeous but that’s more because it’s filmed on location in France and France is a beautiful city. That opening car chase at the Louvre? Simply exquisite. That’s about all i really enjoyed about this show. When you hear Arsene Lupin, you think glitz, panache, class, and spectacle. That was his trademark when out there committing his crimes. Diop does not have that flair. The way his capers are framed, feels more Ocean’s than Arsene’s, and it’s actually petty underwhelming. Considering this is the oft invoked “modern re-imagining”, the reduction opted to drain the whimsy in an effort to ground it in some sort of reality but reality is boring. That’s why we read books about a Gentlemen Thief in the first place. That’s why the character of Arsene Lupin has endured for a hundred years. That’s why Assane Diop will not.

The way this thing was presented, the way it was framed, i thought i was getting a crime Luthor. That was not what was delivered. There is a huge critical consensus that this is Netflix’s first international hit of the year but, like, nah? Sweet Home is better than this and that’s from Korea. I think the push for this show stems from all of the diversity on display. There is a great deal of it. Diop is African and shares a kid with a white woman. Progressive! Brace! Token-y! That type of sh*t gets critics going but, outside of one other Senegalese Diop uses for a job, there are no other black folks in this thing. Well, that’s not quite true. Diop’s dad is effectively the driving force of the narrative but he kills himself early on. There was this other black dude that Diop had to switch places with to get information out of his Pop’s cellmate but he was a drug dealer. You see what i mean about token-y? How genuine is your diversity when the only colored characters in your show are thieves, criminals, and cowards? Oh, that female  Senegalese I mentioned earlier? Yeah, she was the janitor. Lead janitor, mind you, so, you know, upward mobility. Ma is shattering that glass ceiling!

Overall, it’s not a bad show. It gets you to where you need to be in a relatively short amount of time but the journey there is kind of forgettable. I never really cared bout any one character in this show and expected much more from what i know about the lore. I notice that, with most french film, there is this almost indifference to how they create their work. It feels a little pretentious but that make for a lousy watch. This weird detachment came across when i watched that ridiculous Cuties last year, too. Interestingly enough, that problematic ass content had more diversity that this how. Ultimately, i thing Lupin is going to be an acquired taste for the US market. I can’t imagine this thing entertaining your common man here in the States but I'm sure the more political of us will tout this thing as some grand exercise in activism or whatever. It’s not that. Lupin is a pretty average revenge narrative with the occasional caper. It’s a rather hollow viewing experience and I'm really not interested in seeing where the plot goes next.

[imagine-loki]

Caught in his web, Chapter 46

TITLE: Caught in his web CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 46 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki is a crime lord, a very dangerous man in the city. He is owed money, but the man is unable to pay Loki back, so Loki takes his daughter as payment instead.  RATING: M

Chloe was curled up on Loki’s lap while they watched TV. It was mid-afternoon, but Loki was working from home that day and decided to finish early. Cause he could.

They’d tired Bear out previously, so he was sound asleep in his bed next to the sofa. Giving them some peace and quiet for an hour or two, if they were lucky. He was going through his mad phase.

Loki was absentmindedly stroking Chloe’s hair, she was revelling in the affection. While she enjoyed the sex and orgasms that Loki could give her, she really enjoyed moments like this. Where he was just cuddling her and being affectionate. It made her heart happy.

‘Are you meeting Georgie and Amanda this weekend?’ Loki asked quietly during the adverts.

Chloe shook her head. ‘Nah, no plans to. I think Georgie has family from Australia coming over for a few weeks so I might not see much of her out-with college… Why? Are you wanting rid of me?’ Chloe tilted her head right back to look at him.

Loki chuckled and gave her knee a squeeze. ‘Of course not, doll. Ben and David are coming over tomorrow, they’re staying for dinner and I wanted to make sure you were going to be around to join us.’ He smiled.

‘You’re not gonna be talking business all night though, are you?’ She grumbled.

‘No business talk.’ He grinned, rubbing her back.

‘Sounds good then.’ She snuggled back in against him.

‘I’m glad you think so.’ He purred, the hand on her knee slid upwards, underneath her skirt. She squirmed on his lap as he tickled up her inner thigh. ‘Spread your legs for me, doll.’

Chloe trembled at his tone and did as he asked. She almost melted into a puddle as his hand dove down into her knickers and he started playing with her softly. Relaxing into him, she closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure.

‘I could do this all night.’ Loki purred, nuzzling her cheek. He grinned when she whimpered and blushed. ‘Does that sound appealing to you, doll?’

She clutched at his shirt tightly and bit her lip. ‘Pleaseeee don’t torture me tonight.’ She whined.

Loki chuckled. ‘Aww, why not? That is my most favourite thing to do.’ He hummed, slowing his circling of her clit down with his thumb as two fingers slowly slid into her, rubbing against her g spot in a torturous manner.

‘Lokiiiii!’ She tried pushing down more on his fingers, but he didn’t go any faster. It was a delicious kind of torture that was slowly building. He knew how to do her so well, hitting all the right places. And he knew when she was close to cumming, so he slowed down even more and dragged it out further.

‘Please, Loki. Please.’ She begged.

‘Hmmm. I suppose since you do beg so prettily you should be rewarded.’ He squeezed her side as he picked up the pace with his fingers, going to town on her g spot and clit.

Chloe cried out as Loki made her cum. Her toes curled as she clenched her thighs together, trapping his hand, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to stimulate her through her orgasm. He slowed his movements down as her entire body shook in pleasure.

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he kept stroking her softly. She whimpered and buried her face into his chest.

‘Do you want me to stop?’

‘No!’ She gasped, it felt far too good. It wasn’t too rough or fast, he was stroking her nicely. It felt so good.

Loki grinned and granted her wish. He kept it up for a while, slowly working up to another orgasm. And again, and again. But he never pushed her too hard by making her orgasm straight after another, he gave her time to come down from the high. He kept the stimulation at just the right tempo, nice and gentle.

Chloe felt like she was flying high, like the pleasure was deep down inside her, even in her bones. Part of her never wanted it to end.

Loki was quite enjoying himself. He enjoyed the way she was squirming in his lap, softly moaning and whimpering, it ramped up whenever he made her cum. The way her face was flushed red, forehead sweaty. But what he also loved, was how wet she was. And more was still flowing out of her, the longer her toyed with her.

When he slowed down and eventually stopped, she was so sensitive and still feeling extremely horny. He removed his hand from down her knickers and sucked his fingers clean, grinning wickedly at her as she blushed.

‘You taste delicious.’ He purred.

-

The following day, Chloe offered to make her carbonara for dinner. Loki jumped at the offer and sent Tania home early.

Loki circled his arms around Chloe and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘As a thank you for cooking dinner, I will personally see to it that you get plenty of orgasms at bed time tonight.’ He grinned.

‘Oh, you’ll personally see to it, will you? Who else would do it anyway?’ She grinned back up at him.

Loki opened his mouth, but then realised he hadn’t expected a back chat like that so for once didn’t know what to say. Chloe laughed and pulled away from his hold, checking they had everything in the cupboards for making the carbonara.

But Loki followed and kept trying to hold her, she managed to get her way round the kitchen and mentally took note of everything she needed. Even with Loki kissing her neck, she managed to stay focused.

‘Well, if you’re wanting carbonara you’re going to need to let me go to the shop. We don’t have the main ingredient, chicken!’ She giggled and tried escaping him again as his kissing became sloppy on her neck. But he grabbed her wrist and hauled her back into him.

‘There’s plenty of time. I’m sure we could get a quick one in first.’ He suggested, but then his mobile rang. He growled in annoyance, but had to take it.

Chloe patted his chest. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘Take Nelson if you want.’ Loki said quickly before answering.

‘It’s a nice day, I’ll walk and take Bear.’ Chloe called to him over her shoulder as she headed out.

Luckily their local shop was just a fifteen-minute walk away and it allowed well behaved dogs in. So Chloe called on Bear, clipped on his lead and headed out.

She was just at the end of the path when a car pulled up and David got out.

‘Hello, darling.’ He greeted and made his way over to her.

‘Hey, you’re nice and early.’ She said as David crouched down to pet an excitable Bear first.

‘Loki wanted to discuss a few things, told me that you said business is strictly off during dinner.’ David chuckled and stood up, giving Chloe a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

‘Nice that you greet the dog first.’ She teased.

‘Of course. Bear is too cute to resist.’ He winked at her and gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Where you off to?’

‘Nipping to the shop for a few things for dinner tonight. I won’t be too long, so you best get the business chat over with!’ Chloe said as she continued on.

‘I’ll make sure we’re all finished for your return.’ David laughed.

Chloe enjoyed her walk to the shop, it was a nice day and she just felt so at peace and happy with everything right now. She hadn’t been bothered by her father in a while, Stones was not a bother anymore. College was going well. Yep, she was in a pretty good place.

Even though she didn’t need much, she took a trolley anyway so Bear could lie in it while she did her shop. It wasn’t really allowed, but the shop owner adored Bear so made the exception for her. It was good socialisation for him too, as many people wanted to stop and speak to him.

She was queuing at the till when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around to find Ben smiling down at her. ‘I thought that was you! The puppy in the trolley kind of gave it away, too.’ Ben chuckled.

‘Hi, Ben. Yeah, is a bit of a giveaway.’ She laughed.

‘How are you, love?’ Ben put his arm around her and kissed her cheek.

‘Good thanks, you?’

‘I’m very well. Excited to finally get to taste this chicken carbonara of yours.’ He grinned.

‘That’s exactly why I’m here. Needed ingredients.’

It was Chloe’s turn at the till, but Ben took the divider from her things and his away. ‘Allow me to get this for you.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘It would be my pleasure.’ He insisted.

‘Thank you… Loki pays for it anyway.’ She shrugged, laughing.

Ben laughed too. ‘Well, this one is on me anyway.’

Ben even took her shopping bags for her, like the perfect gentleman.

‘Hop in.’ He said as he walked over to his car.

‘I don’t mind walking.’

‘Ah come on. I insist. Besides, there’s a lot of bags here. And it would be silly since we’re both going to yours.’ He said as he put all the bags into the boot and then opened the passenger door for her.

‘True.’ She agreed and got in with Bear on her lap.

-

‘Hmm, I think we could likely help him out. We are due another shipment of girls in soon.’ Loki said as he and David were in his office, discussing business.

‘He is willing to pay big for good quality. And I mean big. We’re talking well into the thousands, just for one girl. Seems rather desperate, actually. He seems to have a thing for having twenty-four-hour slave girls, apparently the current one has grown too old at twenty-two.’ David said, cringing.

‘So, he might become a regular then.’ Loki chuckled.

‘Possibly.’ David nodded.

‘Alright, let’s see if he’s interested in going into business with us.’ Loki agreed, then turned to his laptop to type out an email to the man in question.

The two men went through to the kitchen and grabbed a drink. Loki checked his watch. ‘Hmm. Chloe should’ve been back by now, she was biting at the bit to get cooking.’ He frowned, it was after five.

‘I’m surprised Ben isn’t here yet either, you know what like. Never late that guy. What time did you tell him?’ David asked, sitting down on the stool at the island in the kitchen.

‘I said five.’ Loki hummed.

[mci-writing]

Aftermath (Overhaul's Daughter Pt. 2)

Warnings: Child abuse mention, Child abuse, Mental Abuse, Self blame, Child Witness to Violence, Child Violence, Mention Child Witness to Death, Gore's in here somewhere (it's just a mention tho), Crappy formatting bc I hate transferring things from Docs on mobile

Sequel to this

You hold on to your father's pants leg for dear life, stumbling on your small legs to keep up with him as he sped walk down the hall. You didn't know exactly where he was leading you, nor did you understand the look in his eyes each time he'd gaze to make sure your smaller form was where he last saw you. You feel him begin to pick up speed, leading to your tiny hand letting go of his leg as you tumble to the ground. The impact hurt, leaving a small scrape on your knee. He freezes once he notices you're not there anymore, turning to see you hold back tears from the pain. There's a hesitancy to lift you and once he does, the hold almost feels distantly held out.

"You'll have to bond with your child eventually, Kai" He's quick to pass you over to the boss, nervously patting your back with a quivered reassurance before swapping his gloves out for another pair. His shoulders relax their tension, the goosebumps that were forming easing down and his eyes sending the innocent youth a small glare before rolling themselves in disregard for you altogether.

"I'm not too concerned with that, if I'm being honest" You watch as he walks ahead of the two of you. At the ripe age of 4, you get your first dose of reminder that your father didn't even really want you around, "I've already had to kill one of our best people because they're alive… And I'm not risking another one"

~~~~~~~

You peak around the corner of the building as the smoke of the battle’s aftermath clears. You’re almost tempted to run out and help the younger girl you’ve spent a majority of your lifetime envying, maybe end your lives together on one last good deed that you owed her after sitting through and letting her take the crap your father dealt to her, but your unable to move your feet as her quirk continues to threaten the boy’s life. You turn your head out of pity as flashback after painful flashback reminds you of just how deathly her quirk actually is.

Another man manages to disappoint your father, another lowlife thinking he can just take the drugs as he pleases. The outcome was an obvious, bloody stain on the wall that you’d seen and even helped the others clean many-a-times “to help build character”. You’d stop shivering each time a man was one-shotted somewhere around useless casualty number fifty. The next part, where Eri came in, always kept you up at night where you wondered when you’d finally been used up to your full potential so they could be rid of you in a similar manner. Overhaul always remarked the second part was punishment for forcing him to get his hands dirty.

You still feel the tight grips Chrono would leave on your shoulder when he believed there was something you should see, even after they faded within a few years per your father’s request. You could still never quite describe what happened when Eri’s quirk was forcefully activated, but the painful screaming is something you can never seem to shake from even some of your fondest memories.

It was always in the deep crevice of your mind that you could easily suffer the same fate some day. Overhaul could always make up some excuse along the way that reminded you of how you were conceived, punishment for your mother's fate of having you, and no one would stop him. The only man that would was currently on his deathbed in position where you couldn't help him, no matter how much you wanted to.

"Hate to do this to the old man, but he was getting in the way" You never exactly knew if he was talking to you as he worked on setting the boss up, but you still listened closely as he instructed before. You knew to never get close, using your telekinetic quirk to pass him the supplies he asks for.

"Does that mean we're helping him?" You know this is wrong and against everything Shie Hassaikai stood for, but speaking up against it would more than likely put you in a similar situation

"We're helping the Shie Hassaikai, no matter what it takes. You feeling sorry for this sets you as a threat as well, understand?"

"Yes, father, I understand…" You didn't understand at all.

A small warmth seems to hit your body as two fairly different hands grip each of your shoulders, a nice set of happy fangs meeting your upwards glance. You struggle to remember either of their names, mainly due to those around you constantly asserting that their involvement with you and the plan were completely irrelevant. The two converse among themselves as they lead you away from the scene, acting almost as if you weren’t truly among them, even after the entirely awkward tumble that even led you to be with them in the first place. You’re positive you don’t want to recall how clumsily they grabbed you during their escape, either.

You instead let your mind wander to your father and Chrono. There’s a small sliver of concern for Kurono- Chrono, seeing as you were completely unable to get even a slimmer of a glimpse of him after the split up. Part of you is hopeful he escapes with the drug and serum, gets it somewhere safe, but another piece of you knows better and no matter how unfair you may believe it is, it’s happened and all you can hope to do is… move on.

Overhaul… your father, was a different story as you watched his final performance from the sidelines. Every ideal and lesson over your lifespan seemed to come full circle with that one fight, the passion and drive over the past few years seeming to lead up to such a climactic event that you’re sure the old man even would’ve enjoyed if he weren’t on his deathbed. Your father-

No, Overhaul. Overhaul deserves this defeat for all the shit he put everyone else through. Even if it was his greater good.

You suck in a deep breath, slowly releasing it to calm yourself of the suddenly defiant and ignorantly emotionally charged thoughts running through your head. What he did was right, this... was just a small detour to his ideal society.

~~~~

You’re unable to distract yourself from the weird tension in the air as you're forced to sit on the wobbly wooden stool under you. Shigaraki Tomura, the man that, in exact detail, told you how he assisted your father in making his dream come true by robbing him of his arms, sits across from you in an old leather chair. The fake leather peels from the arms and middle of the thing, but Shigaraki and his associates ignore the downside. A weird musky scent fills the bar that’s known to them as their ‘hideout’ (which was either disgraceful to the word or was just an extreme exaggeration for such a… dingy, abandoned clubhouse). It makes being ignored by your father in the comfort of the Shie Hassaikai hideout seem like the sweet life as a small dose of misplaced pity lands somewhere in your being for the League and their low funds.

"You're the last thing standing in my way now, you know? You're the last of that dreadful Yakuza group and I could simply remove you from this level right here if I wanted, kid, but-"

"It smells like ass in here, I'm going home-" You move to stand, only stopping once a knife is pressed to her neck. A soft giggle sounds from the owner, the teenage girl from before that led you away from the rubble of the crime scene with that other guy is standing to your side, her hand pressing the cold blade to your neck. She's bubbly as she threatens you with it, so much so that you almost miss the scarred hand from your other side gripping your shoulder that presses you back in your seat.

You spare the man a glance, his face equally as scarred and stapled. He gives you a small grin of his own back, his hand giving your shoulder a threatening squeeze, "Don't move, kid. I'd hate to burn you to a corpse when you're just so useful"

You stare for moment before slowly turning forward towards a smirking Shigaraki. You hold back a frustrated huff as you come to the realization that you're going to be stuck with the League for awhile and there's a creeping in the back of your mind that reminds you that you'll have no place to go after all of this. There's no reason as to why, seeing as you were one of the most irrelevant pieces of the group. All of their threats were gone, imprisoned by the heroes. Your father had no arms because of this crusty man. And yet, they held you here, wasting their own time for some kid that was nothing but an accident from a highschool hook-up.

You knew deep down exactly what they would put you through, all the threats and torture you'd face for answer on the bullets and the serum. Answers on things you knew very little about-

"Overhaul never cared enough to even glance my way. How would I even be the next threat to your empire?"

Makes prison suddenly seem like a better alternative...

[four-loose-screws]

FE4 Suzuki Novelization Translation - Chapter 8 Part 3

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations - Ko-fi

———————————

Chapter 8 - The Birth of the Second Generation

Part 3

That night, Sigurd’s army held a strategy meeting at Sailane Castle - though it was more a discussion of the details of Oifey’s plans than a proper strategy meeting.

“We need to claim a decisive victory as quickly as possible, as it’s likely that the Zaxonian Army is also marching towards us right now. They also may have Grannvalian reinforcements bolstering their numbers. At least, that’s what I would arrange if I was their tactician. Those factors will make them a tough fight for the Silessian defense unit. We’ll need to conquer Torve as soon as possible to be able to support Silesse.

“To do so, we should first, of course, leave here and intercept the Torvian Army. I predict we will clash with them in the forest around the village northeast of here. Erinys reported that she only saw mages, but they may deploy pegasus knights in the morning as well. They can fly over water, so I think they may attack the castle directly, meaning we’ll need to leave a solid defense unit here.”

Everyone agreed to his plan, and after they decided who would be in the offense unit and who would be in the defense unit, the meeting was adjourned.

The next day, after breakfast, the offense unit left the castle and marched northeast.

They reached the forest just before noon, and saw a pillar of smoke in the distance.

“They’re pillaging one of the villages! Let’s hurry, everyone!”

At Sigurd’s order, the cavalry unit galloped through the forest at full speed towards the village.

But the wind mages were hiding throughout the trees.

Horses had terrible mobility in forests, so they had to stay put and fight close range.

The enemies’ wind magic was powerful, but Claud’s healing magic covered a wide area, so they were able to fight safely.

Sigurd saw that they weren’t utilizing any effective battle formations, and ordered, “Don’t fight one-on-one! Fight in groups of two or three!”

That strategy proved effective, and they were able to pick off the mages one at a time.

When there were a only a few mages left, the pegasus knights arrived.

And leading them was Deetvar, one of the four pegasus knights.

Maios had ordered her to cause chaos among Sigurd’s army. The goal had been to utilize the pegasus’ advantage of flight, and fly above the sea to assault Sigurd’s army from the rear.

But Sigurd’s army had advanced further than they’d predicted, and when Deetvar saw how much her allies were struggling, she decided to join the fight head-on. “Everyone! Attack the enemies below us!”

At Deetvar’s orders, the pegasus knights began to divebomb Sigurd’s army.

But against Sigurd’s army, who’d infantry unit had caught up to the cavalry at this point, the pegasus knights were like pebbles falling on their heads, and Deetvar’s unit suffered total defeat. Jamke and Brigid contributed the most to their victory, as arrows were particularly lethal against pegasus knights.

The pegasus knights slowly began to drop out of the air.

Deetvar turned towards Sigurd’s archers, and charged towards them. “Die!” She screamed, but her sword just barely missed its mark. Her pegasus tried to fly upwards, but couldn’t make it in time, and took a direct hit from one of Jamke’s arrows.

“Move, everyone! Full speed towards Torve Castle!!” Sigurd yelled.

The cavalry made it through the forest, and traveled quickly down a wide town road.

The enemies they faced along the way proved to be no challenge, and they stopped when they knew they could make it to Torve Castle by afternoon the next day. However, the bridge above the Torve River was raised.

They had no chance but to camp in front of the river.

-

Dew caught up to them that night.

Dew approached Noish and asked, “What’s the matter? It’s still light out! How can ya be done fightin’ already?”

“Take a good look at the bridge. We’re stuck here.”

“Whoa, it is out! But we ain’t stuck. It’s just been raised!”

“Whatever! It’s all the same to us. We can’t get across either way.”

“Yeah, ya can!! You can operate this kinda drawbridge from both sides!”

“Are you telling me you can lower it?”

“Yeah, ‘proly!”

“Alright then, let’s go talk to Lord Sigurd.”

Sigurd listened to Dew’s explanation, then gathered the cavalry unit in front of the bridge.

“Dismount from your horses, everyone! Don’t line up! We don’t want to send any signs of battle to our enemies! Then scatter your horses, so they all point in different directions!”

Dew walked up to the bridge, looked for the lever, and found a box on one of the support posts. It was locked, but opening the lock was easy work for him. Inside, he found the lever he was looking for.

He turned around and waved his arms in the air to signal to Sigurd.

Sigurd gave him the signal to lower the bridge, then turned to face the cavalry unit. “Now, everyone! Mount your horses, and charge!”

Once they were all ready to cross, Dew yanked on the lever.

With a loud creak, the bridge started to lower.

The moment it was down, Sigurd led the charge, with the cavalier unit right behind him.

The enemy had been so careless, that they hadn’t even lowered the castle gate.

Sigurd broke through the vanguard and rushed into the castle.

Maios had only just gotten on his armor and run out to the courtyard when Sigurd attacked and killed him with one swing of his silver sword.

Later, the village elder learned of what happened and approached Sigurd to thank him.

The elder explained that Maios had increased taxes considerably to maintain and strengthen his army.

“The villagers are so happy to hear he’s gone! We’re sorry to ask for more from you, but would you consider redistributing the tax money to the people who paid it?”

“I understand what you’re asking, but we’re from a foreign country, so we don’t have the right to decide how your tax money is used. For now, return the tax rate to what it was originally. I’ll discuss the issue with Queen Rahna next time I see her. She should be able to reach a conclusion for you.”

“Thank you! We trust that Queen Rahna would never be anything like Maios was! She’s the only person the citizens of Silesse could ever trust!”

“Really? Then it’s settled. I’ll leave this town entirely in your care until Queen Rahna orders otherwise.”

“Understood. We cannot thank you enough for your service. At the very least, we’d like to have a welcome party for you tonight.”

“We are very happy to accept your offer, but we must leave early in the morning, so please make sure no one drinks too much.”

The next morning, Sigurd left a defense unit, comprised mostly of archers, to guard the village, then left Torve Castle.

ー

Maios and Dakkar had agreed to both attack at the same time.

However, Dakkar held off his attack on purpose. He knew how strong Sigurd’s army was, and decided to base his movements on the results of Sigurd’s battle with the Torvian Army.

When his reconnaissance pegasus knight informed him that Torve Castle had fallen, he knew it was time to strike.

‘If I attack Silesse Castle now, reinforcements from Sigurd’s army won’t arrive in time. Once I conquer the castle, I’ll fight together with the Grannvalian Army to destroy Sigurd’s army, then all of Silesse will be mine!’

Dakkar ordered another of the Four Angelic Knights, Pamela's, unit to deploy, and join the rear guard of the Grannvalian arch knights, who had just arrived.

Leading the arch knights was Duke Ring's son, Andorey.

The moment he'd been informed of Prince Kurt's assasination, he'd immediately begged Reptor to spare his life. Greedy and cowardly, Andorey's personality was the complete opposite of Duke Ring's.

Reptor looked at Andorey, trembling in fear that he might be treated guilty of the same crime as his father, and thought of a way to use him. 'He may not be strong, but at the very least, he'll probably do whatever I say.'

In exchange for being allowed to inherit the title of Duke of Jungby, Andorey swore his undying loyalty to Reptor.

Reptor's first order for Andorey was to go to Zackson Castle and aid Dakkar in conquering Silesse Castle.

The moment Dakkar saw Andorey's unit, he was rather impressed.

"Amazing, simply amazing… so this is the power of Jungby's arch knights."

Andorey beamed at the praise.

"So long as the Beige Ritter is mine, even the Silessian pegasus knights will fear me! Or at the very least, I have no reason to fear them." He said, feeling as though the arch knights were his very own power. The thought made him feel much better about his situation.

-

When Mahnya and received the news that the that pegasus knights from Zackson were coming, she went to Queen Rahna, and announced that she planned to leave to fight them straight away.

“So Duke Dakkar is finally showing his true colors, is he? Pamela is a force to be reckoned with. Please fight carefully.”

“Yes, she certainly should not be underestimated. But I am also one of Silesse’s Four Angelic Knights. I will fight honorably.”

“I’m sorry, Mahnya. I know how you feel… yet I…” Rahna had thought countless times about what if Lewyn and Mahnya married. She started to bring it up, but felt that it was not the time and place to do so, and kept silent about it.

“Queen Rahna, the only way of life I know is that of a knight. ...Try not to worry about that. Now… please excuse me.”

When Pamela saw Mahnya’s unit headed for hers, she gave the signal for her soldiers to lower their altitude. While it was more advantageous for pegasus knights to fight high in the skies, her plan was to bait Mahnya’s unit into the arch knights’ range.

‘What a fool! She knew full well that she would die if she came before me, yet she’s still keeping her loyalty to the queen. Well then, I’ll kill her and take her spot at the top of the Four Angelic Knights! Don’t have any hard feelings about it, Mahnya!’

Mahnya watched Pamela’s unit dive lower in the sky, and decided it was a golden opportunity. She signaled with her right hand to attack, and led her unit in descending.

She attacked a passing enemy pegasus knight along the way. One of the pegasus' wings flapped wildly, then both mount and rider plummeted towards the ground.

'She… was once one of my friends…' She thought, but only for a moment.

Mahnya's unit was still much higher in the air, so the fight was in their favor.

However, it only lasted for a moment. Andorey and the Beige Ritter arrived soon after. They aimed for Mahnya's unit, and shot arrows one after the other into the sky.

Mahnya's unit had their full attention on fighting the pegasus knights, leaving them no chance to dodge the arrows.

Andorey watched the pegasus knights fall out of the sky, and laughed in amusement. "Gah ha ha ha! Oh, how they fall! It's like catching bugs!"

Mahnya searched through the skies for Pamela.

Now that her unit's numbers were at the disadvantage, Mahnya thought to decide things one-on-one. However, when she turned to face Pamela, her pegasus' neck snapped backwards, and shook in the air. Mahnya gasped and pulled the reins, but felt herself begin to fall only a moment later.

'Dammit, was I hit from below?' 

Her life flashed before her eyes.

'Ah… Prince Lewyn… please take care… of Erinys…' 

The view of the ground beneath her got larger and larger at a terrifying speed.

[seabunnii]

i am curious about Koi :3c so-- 2, 5, 16, 28, 33, 42, 78, 84, and 94 LMAO THATS A LOT HAVE FUN

HI AND SORRY THIS IS SO LONG wrote a hecking essay for last question :,D will put under a readmore later when i am home sorry for now y’all have to suffer bc i am on mobile :,))

2. What is their voice like?

She has some serious vocal fry, and her voice isn’t deep deep, but it is fairly low. She usually raises the pitch of her voice slightly though, so her natural speaking voice doesn’t come out too often. It’s another way for her to “change” her appearance.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

Surprisingly given her uh, life, she doesn’t like pain and her response is not a stay and fight/grin and bear it type approach, she is pretty likely to turn tail and run upon injury (or at least, get out of the way from harm…even if it means someone else is more likely to get hurt). However, out of danger she is the type to play up injuries especially if it gets her attention from cute healer girls (AS IN THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN GAME LMAO).

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

(Oh you mean all the time? Be paranoia isn’t kind to her and also, this is a painful question from who she is based on 8) ) But, she’s good at at least pretending she’s had enough sleep even when she hasn’t. But she is a little jumpy, granted, she writes it off as being a rogue like it’s her job to look for traps/surprises. She’s one to watch the shadows and keep herself alert at all times.

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

…… :))))))))) Not even the slightest. She is pretending really well!! She plays the part of the carefree rogue who likes gold and jewels and pretty girls, but underneath it she’s dealing with a lot of guilt for what she’s done and also has not really ever sat down to process the trauma of what she’s gone through, she’d rather ignore it and try to move on and it’ll probably be a while before she realizes she won’t be able to move on and be the better person she wants to be until she does.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

YES this is actually built into her character sheet because i rolled for a trinket when making her and got “a diary with 7 missing pages”, and from there built it out a bit. This diary isn’t hers, it belongs to someone from her past (i know who but i am kind of keeping it ~secret~ but the two options are the friend she had a falling out with or the friend whose death she is responsible for :))) ), and she guards it VERY FIERCELY. She doesn’t let people know she has it let alone see it. Also it is not necessarily a positive personal importance.

42. Do they have any bad habits?

YEP. Starting off benign, gambling and lock picking. Granted for gambling it is usually her as the dealer and the games are maybe not that fair. (Also built into character sheet got to choose a gambling item of dice or cards and to customize a bit went with a deck of hanafuda cards so she can challenge people to Koi-Koi (hehe) ;3 ) As for lock picking it’s such a habit she practices it in her downtime and fidgets with lock picks. Supported by HOW GOOD SHE ROLLS IN GAME you really cannot keep her out of any place.Less benign, she is a compulsive liar. I mean, she faked her own death. She created a new identity (Koi is not her real name). She is essentially lying all the time even when it’s not necessary :)))

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

Ok two ways i am gonna answer this and the first is, like mentioned she is basically always /pretending/ to be happy and this comes across as always being particularly cheerful, loud, and optimistic. It’s definitely a showy kind of happiness, like you think she’s happy because of the smiles, the cheer in her voice, etc.When she is actually happy it is a lot more subdued. The smiles aren’t as wide, aren’t as obvious, and it’s more like she’s relaxed. When Koi is happy it is when she isn’t pretending, when she is just herself, and nothing else.84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?(because of who she is based on gonna get real selfish/vain here LMAO) She likes long dark hair, high cheekbones, pretty eyes, and nice legs (also partial to NICE BUTTS)

94. Outlook on life?

BUCKLE IN IT IS GONNA BE A BIT LONG FRIENDO. For starters, as a child she very much had a kind of Robin Hood view the rich/privileged have it so much better than us that us orphans committing crimes is completely fair in the grand scheme of things and deserved. This hasn’t changed and she also feels very strongly about protecting kids from the evils of the world. However, as she got older she started taking it a bit further and began to become more and more okay with hurting anyone in the desire for more upward mobility in the world, for wealth and just for power. It didn’t matter because she got pretty spoiled thinking if she can do something, if she’s capable of it through her own skill/means, why doesn’t she deserve it? Why doesn’t she deserve whatever she wants? This is what started the schism between her and her closest friend, and as her friend had a lot of charisma and people naturally followed them instead of Koi, Koi’s desire for power, for authority, for control just grew. She was pretty heartless for a while. She did get a following of her own but it wasn’t (surprise) good people. This all reached a breaking point eventually leading to the events that would cause her to fake her own death and run, because even wanting to change, she couldn’t yet face her consequences and it is in her nature to run away from bad situations. Which brings me to what her “ideal” is on her character sheet. “Redemption: there’s a spark of good in everyone.” She believes this out of necessity. She has to believe it, because otherwise, why is she alive? Why is it fair she got to live? So she’s trying to do better with, mixed results. For some more insight, i would also say important to her philosophy is how big appearance is to her - how important playing a role is. For her right now she’s stuck trying to /look/ like a good person, versus actually /being/ a good person so again she’s working on it. She doesn’t believe people show their true faces, that everyone is pretending and well, “All the world’s a stage”, also like, very much like some of the things the Player from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead goes on about, she “never takes off her costume”. (Haha also something to be said about how dying, that’s what “actors do best” with her). To circle back to gambling too, i think some of her views on gambling/chance play into how she approaches life too and i am straight up just gonna drop a quote in from a book i just finished reading (Pachinko by Min Jin Lee it is VERY GOOD highly recommend) “…life was like this game when the player could adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn’t control. He understood why his customers wanted to play something that looked fixed but which also left room for randomness and hope.” …i think this would be more part of how she starts to see life moving forward, and i mentioned she fixed games a bit but i think also sometimes (and starting to be more often) she doesn’t, she leaves things up to chance a little more, to test her luck, to test /hope/, and sees how it goes. Anyways. I have MANY FEELINGS IF YOU CANNOT TELL LMAO.

[smokeybrand]

A Gentleman’s Deception

Arsene Lupin is literature’s greatest thief. He’s effectively the opposite of Sherlock Holmes. The character was created by French writer, Maurice Leblanc, at the turn of the century. That Eighteen to Nineteen hundred one, not the Nineteen to the Aughts one. It’s super weird to me that i have to make that stipulation. I’m old... Anyway, Lupin committed his very first gentleman man caper halfway through the first decade of the Twentieth century and has been stealing his way across literary history ever since. The character and his many klepto crusades have been adapted hundreds of times over the years, just like Holmes. If you’ve rad that name, and you like anime, there’s a damn good chance you are pretty familiar with on of these adaptions; Lupin III.

Arsene is a pretty popular character around the world but he never really took root here in the States, like Holmes eventually would. For a long time, Lupin III was the only version of Arsene with which i was familiar. If you couldn’t tell by the content in this blog, I'm a big of a weeb and the man adventures Monkey Punch has created with his oft, Red blazer emblazoned, sex crazed, Deadpool-esque, pervert thief, are required viewing. Lupin III is an excellent franchise with many, many, spin-offs and is worth the watch. The second most familiar version of Arsene comes from the most recent Persona title. The titular hero, the leader of the Phantom Thieves, initial Persona is, in fact, Arsene; a Fool based upon the character. Arsene has a great design but, being the first Persona you get, is kind of whack. I prefer Alice, Satanael, Mother Harlot, or Thanatos, but if you’re diligent, you can build a pretty hardbody Arsene. I mention these iterations because the French have created an updated, re-imagined, version of the Arsene narrative that was recently released on Netflix title simply, Lupin.

There’s been a bit of a resurgence in US interest with the classic Who Dunnit characters. A reboot of Murder on the Orient Express dropped a few years ago, followed by the absolutely excellent Knives Out. With the recent announcement of A Death on the Nile, it’s absolutely the right time to re-acclimate the international audience with Arsene and the French have done just that. This new take stars Omar Sy as Senegalese immigrant, Assane Diop. While not Lupin, himself, Diop has lived the Gentlemen thief life since he was a teenager, because of reasons. Expensive sh*t gets stolen, prisons are broken out of, people are killed, plot occurs; It’s really a pretty grand epic when you get right down to it. The show is available to watch right now on Netflix if you live in the US. I’m not entirely sure of the international releases available but, you know VPNs. That or go fly the Jolly Roger. You might want to hold off on that though. The juice maybe isn’t worth the squeeze...

I watched this whole series last night. It’s only five episode, most of which are around a half-hour long. The fifth is forty-five minutes long. It’s a brisk little commitment but it’s kind of a slog. The performances are pretty decent, lead by an incredibly strong showing from Sy, but the characters and  the content is rather pedestrian. The show is gorgeous but that’s more because it’s filmed on location in France and France is a beautiful city. That opening car chase at the Louvre? Simply exquisite. That’s about all i really enjoyed about this show. When you hear Arsene Lupin, you think glitz, panache, class, and spectacle. That was his trademark when out there committing his crimes. Diop does not have that flair. The way his capers are framed, feels more Ocean’s than Arsene’s, and it’s actually petty underwhelming. Considering this is the oft invoked “modern re-imagining”, the reduction opted to drain the whimsy in an effort to ground it in some sort of reality but reality is boring. That’s why we read books about a Gentlemen Thief in the first place. That’s why the character of Arsene Lupin has endured for a hundred years. That’s why Assane Diop will not.

The way this thing was presented, the way it was framed, i thought i was getting a crime Luthor. That was not what was delivered. There is a huge critical consensus that this is Netflix’s first international hit of the year but, like, nah? Sweet Home is better than this and that’s from Korea. I think the push for this show stems from all of the diversity on display. There is a great deal of it. Diop is African and shares a kid with a white woman. Progressive! Brace! Token-y! That type of sh*t gets critics going but, outside of one other Senegalese Diop uses for a job, there are no other black folks in this thing. Well, that’s not quite true. Diop’s dad is effectively the driving force of the narrative but he kills himself early on. There was this other black dude that Diop had to switch places with to get information out of his Pop’s cellmate but he was a drug dealer. You see what i mean about token-y? How genuine is your diversity when the only colored characters in your show are thieves, criminals, and cowards? Oh, that female  Senegalese I mentioned earlier? Yeah, she was the janitor. Lead janitor, mind you, so, you know, upward mobility. Ma is shattering that glass ceiling!

Overall, it’s not a bad show. It gets you to where you need to be in a relatively short amount of time but the journey there is kind of forgettable. I never really cared bout any one character in this show and expected much more from what i know about the lore. I notice that, with most french film, there is this almost indifference to how they create their work. It feels a little pretentious but that make for a lousy watch. This weird detachment came across when i watched that ridiculous Cuties last year, too. Interestingly enough, that problematic ass content had more diversity that this how. Ultimately, i thing Lupin is going to be an acquired taste for the US market. I can’t imagine this thing entertaining your common man here in the States but I'm sure the more political of us will tout this thing as some grand exercise in activism or whatever. It’s not that. Lupin is a pretty average revenge narrative with the occasional caper. It’s a rather hollow viewing experience and I'm really not interested in seeing where the plot goes next.

[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 18/1/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Saturday January 18th, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Satuday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS).

PARENTS FED UP WITH SCHOOL WOES – Another day, another school closure, and parents say more disruption for their lives. And yesterday some parents at Luther Thorne Memorial Primary School joined those of Lawrence T. Gay Memorial, who complained Thursday night, in expressing their frustration at the school closures. The parents are fed up that environmental problems keep closing schools across Barbadoos, and they have to leave their jobs to collect their children, in so doing endangering their continued employment. They are vex, too, that when the school is closed over a prolonged period, as has been the case of the 496 students attending Lawrence T. Gay since Wednesday, they have to stay home from work or find someone to look after their children, and this can cost them money. Besides the problems they face, the parents are concerned that their children’s education is being placed in jeopardy with these closures and want the situation to stop. (SS)

AIRPORT OPPORTUNITIES FOR ORDINARY BAJANS – A number of small business operators will soon be able to set up shop at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA). Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds said the move was designed to give entrepreneurs an opportunity to expand their revenue-earning potential. “They have been invited to put in their proposals and the airport is going through all of that process now so that we can start for the first time ever to have Barbadians selling products – their own creations and expressing their creativity – in the airport in their country,” Symmonds told Barbados TODAY in a recent interview. The first six small business operators have now been selected and could be setting up their operations there in a matter of weeks. “There must be commercial shopping space in the airport so that there can be revenue opportunities not only for the big players in Barbados, but also for the ordinary people. Within a couple of weeks from now, we will launch at the airport, the introduction of six or seven new kiosks which really are for ordinary Barbadians who have a business idea,” said Symmonds. He explained that this formed part of Government’s wider plan for the development of the airport. Officials are currently in the process of selecting investors for a private/public sector partnership to develop and operate the facility. Under a 30-year concession plan, the investor will pump between $260-$300 million into its expansion and development. “We all grew up in a Barbados where the airport was for big business people and the small business people just pass through, and that can’t work. So the transformation of the whole thing is what is critical,” said Symmonds. He also promised that a wider range of dining options would be introduced, pointing out that the current options were “limited and we have to expand that”. “In addition to that there has to be better administrative space to do the business that the airport must do, and comfortably accommodate port health and immigration and all the other people who have to be there, but are now not sufficiently well accommodated,” he said. “It is really about bringing Grantley Adams into the 21st century,” he added. (BT)

TEN MORE TAP INTO FUND – By next Friday, ten more former Transport Board workers are expected to receive cheques from FundAccess to start their self-employment through the Transportation Augmentation Programme (TAP) project. General manager of the fund, Esther Lord-Graham, said this would bring the count to 19 out of the 38 former employees who are members of the newly formed United Transport Co-operative (UTC) and have received funding. They are expected to provide the board with solutions for the travelling public with two units already operating. One is owned by Wayne Watson, plying the northern routes that include Shorey Village, St Andrew’s Church, District “D”, Connell Town and Boscobel. The other is owned by Michael Carrington, who yesterday received his cheques that will cover the Ministry of Transport & Works and insurance fees to operate any routes leaving the Fairchild Bus Terminal. Speaking at the official start of TAP at the Warrens Office Complex, Warrens, St Michael, yesterday, consultant to the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and UTC, Sir Roy Trotman expressed mixed sentiments. (SS)

ALWAYS ON . . . FLOW PROMISES TO TAKE ITS CUSTOMERS ‘EVERYWHERE’ FOR 2020 – In keeping with its promise to surprise and delight its customers, Flow has announced the introduction of yet another innovative bundle. This week, the company launched its latest instalment of commercial bundled products called the ‘Everywhere’ bundle offering, for the first time, a bundle that combines both fixed and mobile services allowing customers access to cutting-edge connectivity and entertainment both in the home and on-the-go. “Last year, we made a commitment to our customers to deliver plans that were simple, transparent and designed to proactively anticipate their needs and this bundle does just that,” said Jenson Sylvester, Country Manager, Flow Barbados. “We’re offering customers an opportunity to take their connectivity and entertainment everywhere with a bundle that provides great internet speeds at home including Wi-Fi connectivity in every room, a mobile plan with unlimited calls to any network in Barbados along with mobile data and access to premium content on HBO Go using your mobile device, computer or smart TV.” Pointing to a clear shift in the way local consumers manage their personal connections and television content, Barbados’ leading telecommunications provider is confident that this new ‘Everywhere’ bundle will resonate with customers who are comfortable with the new digital habit of continuously streaming content both at home and on-the-go. “The introduction of the Onward and Upward bundles was nothing short of ground-breaking for our customers with over 20,000 persons signing up to our bundles last year. We believe, for 2020, the Everywhere bundle will resonate with just as many of our customers, bringing them more value for money for their connectivity needs both at home and on their mobile device,” said Sylvester. The new Everywhere bundle offers customers an internet connection of 200 Mbps complete with in-home assessment and a free Wi-Fi extender for qualifying homes, along with a mobile plan offering unlimited local calls to any local network, 100 minutes to the USA, Canada, UK landlines, Flow Caribbean numbers, 3GB of mobile data and access to streaming premium entertainment content with HBO GO – all for a low monthly charge of $180 with no term contract requirement. The company has also gone one step further giving customers the added convenience of having access to an online self-service portal where interested customers can sign-up for this bundle and even indicate when they would like to visit the retail location of their choice to complete the mobile part of the transaction. “Connectivity plays a fundamental role in our daily lives and we intend to keep our customers connected to the important moments that move them forward, be it at home or on-the-go,” added Sylvester. (BT)

DONVILLE’S VERDICT WILL NOT SINK DLP – The money-laundering conviction of former Minister of Commerce and stalwart of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Donville Inniss is not the death knell for the party, assures one of the elders of the political institution founded by Sir Errol Walton Barrow. This morning 98-year-old DLP veteran, Astor B Watts, told Barbados TODAY that he has seen the party go through its share of low points. He argued that the party would bounce back from the stain of Inniss’ conviction for crimes perpetrated while serving on the Freundel Stuart Cabinet. “The party did not do anything. There is no denying that Inniss was a very strong member of the party, but we have to remember also that the case is not quite over because he still plans to appeal the ruling. It is still too early to say how this is going to impact the party, so we have to wait and see, but I believe that it is going to work out,” said Watts. It took a 12-member jury in the Eastern District Federal Court in New York one hour and 52 minutes of deliberations, to find Inniss guilty of laundering $16,536.73 on April 17, 2015 and $20,000 on April 18, 2016, through a US company Crystal Dental Lab. He was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering. In a statement issued promptly after the verdict by president of the DLP, Verla De Peiza, the guilty verdict was described as a cautionary tale for Barbados. “It is also a cautionary tale for all politicians, persons in public life, and corporate entities. We all now need to learn the lesson of this bleak day and ensure that it never ever happens again,” she said. When asked this morning how her party would fare after this latest blow, which comes on the heels of an overwhelming rebuke from the public in the May 2018 polls, De Peiza made it clear that she had nothing further to add to the subject However, Watts, after whom the party’s signature lunch time lecture series is named, made it clear that now was not the time for the party to hang its head in shame but instead to pick up the pace as it relates to rubbing shoulders and galvanizing support for the party. “I believe that we will weather this. The morale of the party is still strong. In fact, we are going to start back the lunch time lecture on Fridays and we are going to start in earnest, going around to various branch meetings and giving them the assurance that we are still as good as we used to be,” said Watts. He contended that contrary to what may be floating around in the public domain regarding the inertia of the party, Watts told Barbados TODAY that the DLP was merely stepping back to push forward with more momentum. However, he believes that the party may have held back a little longer than it needed to. “We should have come out sooner, we should have gone to people sooner and not wait so long. We have to plan and let the people know the plans that you have for them in their districts. This is a party with a strong legacy of serving Barbados and we need to let the people know how we intend to look after their interests,” he stressed. (BT)

SCANDAL A STAIN ON BARBADOS – This country’s reputation will take a big hit from yesterday’s conviction of Donville Inniss on money laundering charges. That is the view of chairman of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) New York Sam Clarke who said it is possible that the US Government’s success in convicting Inniss may result in Barbados losing future financial investments. A 12-member jury in the Eastern District Federal Court in New York on Thursday found Inniss, the former Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, guilty of laundering $16 536.73 on April 17, 2015 and $20 000 on April 18, 2016, through a US company Crystal Dental Lab, as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering. Inniss is expected to be sentenced in mid-February. However, in an interview with Barbados TODAY, Clarke said the negative fallout for Barbados might be felt for a long time. “This has put a stain on Barbados’ reputation as a country of rule and law and on the international banking and financial industry in Barbados. The EU [European Union], the US and the Canadian governments have been putting pressure on the various offshore entities, in terms of money laundering and so forth. “Is this the first one? I don’t know. How did it happen? I don’t know, but it is telling that the person who has been accused of this crime is not a regular business person. It is a former minister of Government and that in itself does not bode well for the integrity of any government anywhere in the world,” Clarke said. “This is going to take Barbados a long time to recover. If Barbados wants to recover from this quickly, Barbados has to be seen as doing what they are supposed to be doing in terms of conducting vigorous investigations, bringing the necessary laws in and really cleaning up its act. This is a real wake up call for Barbados.” The chairman said it was important that the Barbados Government reassure the international business community by implementing measures to address the recent development. He suggested that the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL), which was at the centre of the bribery allegations, should be banned from doing business in Barbados. As part of its case, the US Government named ICBL’s former chief executive officer Ingrid Inness and former senior vice-president Alex Tasker as having had a role in the scandal. Clarke, who attended the three-day trial in Brooklyn, New York, maintained that a strong message had to be sent that Barbados was not accommodating corruption. “I don’t think for one minute that this is a one-off situation. It is now incumbent on the necessary authorities in Barbados to do their due diligence and do what they have to do now because this is the first domino to drop. “I don’t know if ICBL is still in the business and doing work in Barbados, but in any other law abiding country that corporation would not be allowed to do business with the Government or with anyone else in the country because the corporation’s structure is tainted. This is really a sad day in Barbados,” Clarke said. (BT)

JAIL NOT A MUST – It is possible that Donville Inniss may not do jail time on his money laundering conviction, says a leading Caribbean-born attorney in New York. Frank Wharton explained that Federal District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto would use United States federal sentencing guidelines to determine the extent of punishment for the former minister in the Freundel Stuart administration.That is expected after the federal probation department submits its report to the court about his background, accomplishments as a prominent elected public official in Barbados, the fact that he has a spotless criminal record, and the crime involved a relatively small amount of money – US$36 000. “We are talking about a conviction that didn’t involve much money. The funds in question couldn’t even buy a decent used (second-hand) car in Barbados,” added Wharton who practises law in state, city and federal courts in New York. Wharton said the imposition of punishment during the sentencing phase would signal the end of the trial. (SS)

JAMAICAN DRUG TRAFFICKER MAY SUE – A local attorney is demanding answers from a regional carrier and the Barbados Immigration Department about why one of her clients was detained for almost a week at the Grantley Adams International Airport. The situation has also left the client’s family contemplating bringing a lawsuit against the government for unlawful detention. Asante Brathwaite told Barbados TODAY that her client, Jamaican Kivesi Andrae Macpherson who was convicted of importing $20,000 worth of cannabis on December 30 had been convicted last Thursday and paid a fine of $8,000, before receiving a deportation order. On Friday his family sent the money and he was declared a free man, but as is customary, he was taken into the custody of immigration officials at the airport pending his return flight to Jamaica. At the time, Macpherson was informed that Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson would have to sign off on his deportation, which would result in him spending the weekend. However, another five days passed with the client being kept in a room at the GAIA with restricted access to his communication devices and limited clothing as he had hoped to board one of the daily Caribbean Airlines flights to Kingston. She explained: “Tuesday came and he was not on the flight and they indicated to me that the pilot who was flying the plane did not want him on the flight unless he had an escort.  Immigration indicated to me that they told the pilot he is not a wanted man, clearly he is not a fugitive, neither was he sentenced to prison. He just paid a fine. Why can’t he get on the flight? So it seemed we would have to wait until a different pilot was flying the plane for him to get home.” Immigration Officer Terry Simmons who reportedly dealt with the matter said he could not comment and efforts to reach Chief Immigration Officer Wayne Marshall were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Minister Hinkson told Barbados TODAY he was unaware of the case. Efforts to reach local Caribbean Airlines officials were also unsuccessful. On Wednesday, Brathwaite was informed that Caribbean Airlines had given “the okay” to travel. However, when it was time for the flight to leave, they were told there had been no confirmation from the airline although her client had paid for adjustments to his tickets. “He was up at the airport… he was traumatised and he just wanted to go home so he could have saved his job. But he lost his job,” the lawyer revealed. She argued: “Yes, I know he committed an illegal act, but we don’t need to punish him twice. He already paid his debt to Barbados but was still being detained and nobody could tell me when he could go home. He was here depressed with no change of clothes. Immigration was assuring me that he was being given three meals everyday, but he was telling me that he had to purchase three meals daily. I am not saying that immigration is telling lies but the two stories are completely different.” She added that Macpherson’s experience at Her Majesty’s Prison also reportedly included some inhumane treatment. “In prison I had to make a complaint to the Superintendent as well in regard to the treatment that he was given by the officers including the fact that his cell was awash with faeces and urine and he had to sleep in that overnight before it was cleared out. I complained to the superintendent about that along with some very horrible comments made to him by the prison officers,” Brathwaite added. Repeated calls to Superintendent of Prisons Lieutenant Colonel John Nurse went unanswered. Thankfully, on Thursday morning, Macpherson was able to board a flight bound for Kingston, but according to his lawyer his family is considering pursuing the matter further. “The family has been threatening to file a claim because the man was being held unlawfully, because he was a freed man, but still not free,” she indicated. (BT)

CONVICT GIVEN SIX MONTHS TO PAY MAN HE ATTACKED WITH A WEAPON – A 64-year-old convict who maimed his neighbour in a cutlass attack asked for more time to pay the $25 000 in compensation imposed on him today. But Madam Justice Pamela Beckles made it absolutely clear to convicted man Anderson Alvere Phillips, of 2nd Avenue Ince Cape Terrace, St Philip, that she would not grant more than the six months imposed given that the victim, Winfield Alleyne, had been waiting for justice for over a decade. “I seriously wrestled with this one and I know $25,000 is a lot of money but the incident happened since 2007. The complainant has had to wait 12 years and I think to give a long period of time will not do justice at all. This is a punishment. “You are going to make ever effort . . . to try to pay this money in that period of time. I don’t think it would be just if I were to extend that any further in light of the fact the complainant has had to already wait 12 years. “The jury found you guilty in 2018. He has had to wait a further two years before we could even reach to this point of sentencing. So this is the order of the court,” she told Phillips who was represented by attorney-at-law Arthur Holder. The victim Alleyne was present in court. Phillips had been charged with unlawfully wounding Alleyne on March 15, 2007 with intent to do maim, disfigure or disable him or to do serious bodily harm to him as well as with unlawfully and maliciously inflicting serious bodily harm on Alleyne. He went on trial and the jury found him guilty on the first charge in 2018. During the trial prosecuted by Crown Counsel Neville Watson, evidence showed that Alleyne and Phillips lived in the same area. On the morning on March 15, 2007 around 10 a.m., Alleyne burnt some stuff behind his residence. After completing the task he ventured to a nearby shop passing Phillips in his garage on his way. But on returning home he saw Phillips walking in his direction with an object in his hand. They passed each other but when he looked back he saw Phillips running towards him and he ran. While running he felt an object strike him on his right leg causing him to fall. Alleyne said Phillips caught up with him and he noticed him unwrapping the object which he realised was a cutlass. Phillips started to chop at him and he sustained cuts and numerous injuries about his body. His shouts for help got another man’s attention, prompting Phillips to ran home.  Alleyne was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital were he was treated and detained for five days. As a result of the incident his right index figure was severed and his middle finger has limited mobility. Taking into consideration the facts Justice Beckles pointed to the aggravating features stating that a dangerous weapon was used with sever force.  She said Phillips knew the complainant and the incident took place within close proximity of their homes. “[It’s] a constant reminder to the complainant,” she added saying that the effect of the injuries on the complainant was not only physical but emotional and financial Also aggravating according to the judge was the fact that the act was “premeditated and deliberate, in that you armed yourself with a cutlass . . . and inflicted the injuries in broad day light while the complainant was returning home. Your actions clearly showed that this was no spontaneous act on your part. You ran after the complainant and inflicted a number of injuries to his body which resulted in him losing a finger and limited mobility to another”. Justice Beckles said the court could find no mitigating factors relative to the offence but there were some to Phillips the offender.  For the crime she imposed a starting sentence of four years but reduced it by a year given his “excellent pre sentencing report, his otherwise unblemished record, the fact that the incident occurred some 12 years ago as well as the fact that both parties had expressed a desire for a compensation.” She sentenced Phillips to three years in prison which was suspended for three years. Justice Beckles stated: “Both parties had expressed a desire for a compensation order [and] the court has been reluctantly persuaded to make a compensation order. The court considers that the amount in the sum of $25,000 will be just and reasonable in the circumstances having regard to the evidence before the court.” If Phillips does not pay the amount within six months it will attract interest rate of six percent per annum. (BT)

COP: ACCUSED SHOT AT ME – A police sergeant told the High Court today that accused Tevin Ramon Skeete put him in “some serious fear” as he gave evidence on the second day of trail in the No. 3 Supreme Court. Skeete, of Crab Hill, St Lucy is facing nine jurors for unlawfully and maliciously engaging in conduct when he allegedly shot at officer Ewin Norville on January 14, 2011, placing him in danger of death or serious bodily harm. He is also accused of using a firearm on that same date. Taking the stand today Norville under questioning by Senior Crown Counsel Olivia Davis revealed he was at Half Moon Fort around midnight dressed in plain clothes and standing at the old fish market. In his estimation there were some 175 persons in the area that night. He said he was not on duty at the time. Persons were patronising St Elmo’s Sports Bar also known as MoonTown or Kellman’s Place when he heard a commotion coming from the entrance/exit of the bar. He told the jury presided over by Justice Carlisle Greaves he had an unobstructed view of the area and observed another officer telling three men to desist from fighting as they were “scuffling”. Two other men, he said, were also involved in “this ruckus” which became “a big fight”. “At this time I saw the accused reach into the front of his pants and took up a gun from down in his groin area, a big gun, and held it in the air and jumping and getting on bad. He held the gun in the air pointing it towards the sea, towards the fish market and in the direction of where I was standing . . . and discharge a shot. “I heard a loud explosion and I also heard something hit the top of the fish market. He kept getting on and cursing and getting on aggressive. This caused persons to scatter as they run and scamper for safety,” Norville recalled. He disclosed that there was also bottle throwing. “I heard the accused say ‘I gine kill somebody down here tonight  r*******. You think I easy, I gine kill one of these Checker Hall men’.” During that time he called operations control and reported the matter and then walked towards an officer from the marine unit who was also at the location and had a conversation with him.  That officer, he said, was armed with a glock pistol and ammunition. “I asked him to hand it over to me as the senior person there,” Sergeant Norville said adding that it was his intention to “deal with the accused” and make the area safe for the other persons there and have the accused arrested. But according to him the accused and men ran off. Norville said he and another officer pursued the accused and his friends . During a point in the chase he said, the accused “turned around and shoot at me”. “The instant reaction, I had to duck and then I had to use controlling fire which is to fire a number of shots at him,” said Norville who explained that the men again ran off before getting into a car and fleeing. Under cross examination by Skeete’s lead attorney Arthur Holder, the officer admitted that he saw two other men with firearms. He said he did not give that evidence today although he had done so in the magistrates’ court. However he was admant : “I saw him Tevin Skeete discharge a firearm . . . and when he ran down the road he shoot at  me with the firearm.” From the gun he was holding he discharged “about 12 [rounds]. I can’t remmebr the exact number but somehwere up there.” The case continues on Wednesday January 22. (BT)

SHOOTING VICTIM DIES – Owen Allister Mottley, who was shot in both legs last month, died on Wednesday. The 64-year-old Sherbourne #2, St John, resident received the injuries while outside of his house on December 4, 2019. He was treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital up until December 24, 2019, when he was discharged. Police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem to determine the cause of Mottley's death. (SS)

ELDERLY WOMAN DIES IN HOUSE FIRE – An 81-year-old St George woman was killed in a house fire early this morning. Lawmen said Inez Mabel Fields of Newbury, St George was the lone occupant of the two-bedroom wooden house when the blaze engulfed it this around 2:20 a.m. The body of the elderly Fields was discovered in the bedroom doorway after the fire was extinguished. Her son identified her. Police said that while the house had electricity the elderly woman was reportedly in the habit of using a kerosene oil lamp. Police Public Relations Officer Inspector (ag) Rodney Inniss said that officers from the Boarded Hall police station and two fire tenders; one from Bridgetown and the other from Four Roads, St John with eight firefighters under the command of Divisional Officer Vaughn responded to the report. Investigations are continuing. (SS)

There are 349 days left in the year Shalom!  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

[corycebulla-blog]

Week 3 Blog

There have been protests over the last several weeks in Hong Kong that intensified over the weekend leading to upwards of 60 arrests by people demanding more freedoms be given to the people of Hong Kong (CBS News, 2019). It appears that social media played a large part in organizing the protests and coordinating the people to the same location at the same time. Individual protesters in Hong Kong would have used mobile technologies such as cell phones and social media apps to communicate and unite. The action is part of a larger movement or agenda but it is still fairly small compared to more recent protests in the United States such as Occupy Wall Street and the protests in Charlottesville, Virgina. At the present time, the agenda has not been affected. The collective action was reported via several news platforms including CBS News, BBC, and social media site such as Twitter and Facebook. The information shared via mass media was basically the same with the tone differing depending on the author. The facts remained the same. Social media accounts offered a more personal account of the protests. Priante, Ehenhard, and van den Broek (2018) note that Twitter allows users to quickly and easily reach other users. Twitter also offers a way to promote fundraisers, social events, raise awareness, and share advocacy campaigns (Priante, Ehenhard, and van den Broek, 2018). Further, Letcher (2018) notes that social media platforms allow for information and meeting sharing as a relevant tool for collective action. 

I personally get my news from television and online newspapers or magazines. As I have mentioned before, I do not have social media. After I read about something online or hear about something on the news, I will conduct additional research on the matter for more information. I do not think that the way one person consumes news affects how the news is interpreted. I do not think there is a difference between reading about something in the newspaper or reading about it on an online news site. What has been lost in the shift away from old media, such as newspapers, is the lack of editing. It blows my mind when I read an online article with spelling and obvious grammatical errors. What has been gained is an almost instant notification of news. Which may very well be why the lack of editing happens. News programs want to be the first to break the news which often results in sloppy and inaccurate reporting. Mobile technology has affected my consumption of news in the same instant manner. It seems that mobile technology is almost always at my fingertips and the news alerts or notifications happen all day long. One of the news stations from where I live sends a breaking news alert every time there is a house fire in the area. 

There is definitely a need to get away from mobile technology but it is almost impossible. Even putting my phone in airplane mode doesn’t work anymore because most places such as hotels and restaurants have public wifi.

Hong Kong protest violence ramps up with China arresting 60 and blasting "violent crimes" in rare news conference in Beijing today-CBS News(2019). Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hong-kong-protest-china-arrests-60-blasts-west-over-violent-crimes-in-rare-news-conference-today-2019-07-29/?

Letcher, D. (2018). Online political participation, collective action events, and meaningful citizen engagement: Social media use during mass protests. Geopolitics, History, and International Relations, 10(2), . doi:10.2238/GHIR10220189

Priante, A., Ehrenhard, M. L., & van den Broek, T. (2018). Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research. New Media & Society, 20(7), 2647-2669. doi:10.1177/146144817744783

[shaledirectory]

“Environmental justice” activists exploit vulnerable communities they claim to help

For years, anti-industry activists have invoked “environmental justice” in an attempt to pit vulnerable communities against the oil and gas industry. They arguethat there is an injurious and, it is implied, even a targeted effort on the part of the industry and government officials – including environmentalist California Governor Jerry Brown – to explore for energy in low-income communities and communities of color.

The National Resource Defense Council(NRDC) reported that oil and gas wells were disproportionately placed near minority communities in California’s Kern County four years ago, and activist-driven reports have cropped up all around the country suggesting that similar “bias” occurs in Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) recentlyjoined the echo chamber of disingenuous rhetoric to lambast Gov. Brown for approving oil and gas leases in these communities.

While absurd on its face to anyone with a passing understanding of either geology or economics, this implication of bias has nonetheless taken hold in the fringe, reflexively anti-industry, reaches of the environmental movement. Thought this movement originally advocated for a fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, it has since abandoned any pretense of recognizing the benefits that oil and gas development, particularly in California, provide to the communities in which it occurs, many of which are far from marginalized.

Rather than accuse the industry and staunch environmentalists like Gov. Brown of malign intent or political malpractice, groups like CBD and NRDC should realize that greater success for California’s energy industry means greater the economic benefits for communities these groups falsely claim are harmed by it. It is a shame that these groups have hijacked a once coherent cause in the name of their ultimate goal: banning all fossil fuel development.

Black gold, for everyone

The California oil and gas industry has been on of the leading producers of energy in the United States for more than a century. Oil productionin California began in the late 19th century and, by the 20th century, California’s oil industry was the state’s number one GDP export. By 2012, California was the nation’s third largest oil-producing state, behind only Texas and North Dakota. With such energy development came wealth and prosperity to local communities and governments. Forbesput it best in 2013 when characterizing oil development in the simplest of terms: “Oil is wealth. Not just wealth for producers, but wealth for everyone who uses it.”

Cheap, abundant energy lifts nations out of poverty just as failure to secure energy supplies can spell doom. To put things in perspective, California is the fifth largest economy in the world, outranking Canada and France, and the energy industry was a catalyst in that achievement. Not only that, the industry continues to be a force of equity, social mobilization and economic betterment. Pitting the industry against communities of color under the guise of “environmental justice” does nothing to spread these benefits even more widely.

Upward mobility for disadvantaged communities

The energy industry provides economic opportunities for disadvantaged communities otherwise depressed by lack of access to tools of social mobilization such as livable income, higher education, or by tools of systemic oppression such as prior incarceration or racial prejudice.

In California, such barriers are tackled head on as the industry proudly employs individuals from all walks of life. In 2013, the Los Angeles County Economic Development County (LAEDC) published a study titled ‘The Oil and Gas Industry in California: It’s Economic Contribution and workforce.’ The report offered a statistical snapshot of the oil and gas workforce in the Golden State and found that 61.5 percent of employees have less than an Associates degree, which includes workers who did not graduate high school.

Moreover, the data show that a disproportionate number of jobs are held by nonwhite, Hispanic workers. In places like Kern County, where the population is half Hispanic or Latino, the energy industry presents an incredible opportunity to overcome social and educational boundaries with rewarding and challenging jobs with good pay and benefits unavailable in other industries.

Last Fall, the California State Assembly held a hearing on the economic impact of energy policy, inviting energy industry professionals of all walks of life to share their stories with lawmakers and personalize the work that they do. One witness, Jerry Flores, an employee of E&B Natural resources emphatically described the impact that the industry has had on his life. The father of three told lawmakers that the energy industry gave him a career, not a just a job – even after his incarceration.

“They do give opportunities to men and women. You just got to give an honest day and the main priority out there is our safety.”

Flores was joined by another E&B Natural resources worker, Phillip Larea, who grew up in the foster care system and testified that his job was a “second chance.” At the time of the hearing, Larea had reached heights in his career that he previously couldn’t imagine – supervising more than 30 people.

Other workers with similar testimonies shared their stories in hopes of conveying just how vital the industry was to their communities and families — often times giving individuals a window of opportunity after society had shut the door in their face one too many times.  Social and structural barriers for low-income communities and communities of color real and prevalent across the country. However, the oil and gas industry help to break down those barriers.

Jobs and revenue for all Californians

 California’s oil and gas industry continues to be a significant driver of the state economy, supporting 456,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs with $38 billion in overall labor income, and accounting for 3.4 percent of the state GDP, according to the LAEDC. Vulnerable communities within ‘close proximity’ to newly approved energy development are benefitting from this growth. For example, in California’s poorest county, Trinity County, one of the highest paying industries for employment is oil and gas extraction. This means that opportunity – not exploitation – is the benefit brought along with industry development.

Taxes collected from the industry fund vital programs and public services that aid the very communities that activists claim are being “targeted”. In 2013, the industry brought a total of $34 billion dollars in tax revenues to the state. Without the industry, and industries like it including the renewables industry, there would be less money for the state to support economic development initiatives and the burden on public services would be significantly increased due to a lack of tax revenue and disappearing economic opportunities that lifted people out of poverty in the first place. Economic contributions by the oil and gas industry touch every sector in California – including health, education, entertainment, transportation and manufacturing. Innovations in the natural gas and oil industry are increasing production, creating high-paying jobs and injecting billions more into state and local budgets for federal officials to use for the betterment of their constituents. With a population soon to reach 40 million, demand for energy in California will go up, not down, in the coming years, and it is far better to produce moreof that energy at home, under the strictest environmental protections in the nation.

The real injustice

Oil and gas is essential to keeping all of California humming – from the wealthier hubs of technological industry like the Bay area to economically struggling areas of the Central Valley. However, Fresno residents on average consume two times more electricity than San Francisco residents and spend 87 percent moreon energy because inland areas experience hotter summers and colder winters, despite the fact that the average salary after tax in Fresno is less than half than the average salary in San Francisco.

California energy prices are already high and nearly one million California households live in energy poverty, spending more than 10 percent of their income on energy, excluding gasoline and other transportation-related costs. While environmental activists are demanding justice for a “crime” that has not been committed, they’ve failed to realize that the communities they’re supposedly fighting for have very real problems that are not being addressed and will only worsen if these groups get their way and impose further regulatory burden on the oil and gas industry. More domestic production of oil and gas and proximity to development is the panacea for this issue that vulnerable communities are facing, and it is one that environmental activists are not only ignoring but fighting.

Paying someone else for what’s under our feet

California is famous for its progressive energy policies and is known as the “clean energy” capitol with cap-and-trade, the nation’s largest number of alternative fuel vehiclesand unmatched efficiency laws. Regulations that are already extremely stringent, for both exploration and oil production (including hydraulic fracturing) have pushed many oil companies awayand stagnated economic development in the industry. Accordingly, California has dropped from the nation’s third largest oil producer to sixth in an alarmingly short period of time – the wrong direction to be going. Coupled with California’s high energy demand, this means that the state is in a chronic energy deficit, forcing it to become even more dependent on foreign sources like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela that don’t share the Golden State’s stringent safety, labor, human rights and environmental standards.

Vulnerable communities need energy, not condescension 

California has vast oil, natural gas and renewable resources that can make it more self-sufficient and secure, and it has the workforce and technology to develop those resources safely and responsibly for decades to come. The only things standing in the way of the state using these resources, and disproportionately benefitting vulnerable communities, are policymakers who propose unwise and overzealous regulations and activists who claim to be advocating for low-income communities of color but fail to realize that’s who they’re ultimately hurting.

If organizations like the Center for Biological Diversity want to advocate on behalf of “environmental justice,” they should consider supporting California’s working families – and, in oil country, disproportionately families of color — by pushing for locally produced energy under the very strict regulations that they claim to support (until they are enacted, that is). The approval of new oil wells is not an act of racial and social inequity but rather, an act of conservation to bring forth economic prosperity, lower utility bills and increased job growth for those who desperately need it, all while helping reduce global carbon emissions.

They won’t, of course. Instead, activists can be counted on to continue weaponizing the vulnerability of communities they pretend to speak for in order to advocate for policies that will ultimately harm those communities. That’s not justice by any definition.

   https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/environmental-justice-activists-exploit-vulnerable-communities-they-claim-to-help/

[vitalmindandbody]

Two American Nightmares: how a dumbed-down society failed batch of a great opinion

As Clinton and Trump prepare to debate next week , noble principles are devastated in a culture where most Americans do not know what is real anymore and the dream of equal rights is just a fantasy

Every child had a pretty good shot

To get at least as far as their old man got

But something happened on the best way of that place

They threw an American pennant in our face.

Billy Joel, Allentown

Its one of the greatest fabrications of all time, and just like it says on the dollar bill novus ordo seclorum it developed an entirely new prescribe in human things. After millennia of pharaohs, lords, emperors, rulers, sultans, caesars and czars, with all their attendant gentries and locked-down social system, countries around the world was founded where birth and pedigree didnt subject so much, where by application of your flairs, vigor, labour and willingness to play by the rules, you could improve your fabric lot in living and achieve a measure of financial protection for yourself and your family. Peasants and proles could aspire to more than mere existence. Progressive!

We know it today as the American Dream. The now-obscure historian James Truslow Adams coined the period in his book The Epic of America, characterizing the American dreaming as TAGEND

a dream of a social order in which each man and each wife shall be able to attain to the fullest prominence of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Adams was writing in 1931, but the daydream was there from the beginning, in Jeffersons pursuit of happiness formulation in the Declaration of Independence, happiness residing in its 18 th-century sense of succes, grow, wellbeing.

Nobody ever came to America with a starry-eyed dream of working for starvation wages. Slew of that offered in the old country, and thats precisely why we left, escaping serfdom, peonage, tenancy, indenture all different iterations of what was essentially a rigged plan, to employ it in current political verbiage that channeled the profits of our proletariat upstream to the Man. We came to America to do better, to self-assured for ourselves the liberation that economic security makes, and for millions principally white males at first, and then slowly, sputteringly, women and people of color thats the acces it worked out , nothing less than a change in the human condition.

Upward mobility is indispensable to the American Dream, the notion that people can rise from working to middle class, and middle to upper and even higher on the simulate of a( imaginary) Horatio Alger or an( actual) Andrew Carnegie. Upward mobility across castes peaked in the US in the late 19 th century. Most of the benefits of the 20 th century were achieved en masse; it wasnt so much a phenomenon of great numbers of people emerge from one class to the next as it was standards of living rising crisply for all first-class. You didnt “ve got to be” exceptional to rise. Opportunity was sufficiently broad that hard work and steadiness would do, along with implicit buy-in to the social contract, allegiance to the system continuing on the assumption that the system was basically fair.

The biggest amplifications occurred in the post-second world war period of the GI Bill, cheap higher education, strong labor unions, and a progressive imposition system. Between the late 1940 s and early 1970 s, median household income in the US redoubled. Income inequality reached historic lows. The median CEO salary was approximately 30 periods that of the lowest-paid employee, compared against todays gold-plated multiple of 370. The top tariff bracket wandered in the neighborhood of 70% to 90%. Awarded, there were far fewer billionaires in those dates. Somehow the commonwealth survived.

America is a dream of greater justice and the possibilities for the average “mens and”, if we are not able procure it, all our other achievements amount to nothing. So wrote Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated column of 6 January 1941, an apt lead-in to her husbands State of the Union address eventually that day in which he enumerated the four impunities essential to American republic, among them freedom from want. In his District of the Union address three years later, FDR expanded on this concept of freedom from want with its own proposal for a Second Bill of Privilege, an economic statute of rights to offset what he viewed as the growing autocracy of the modern economic tell TAGEND

This Republic had at its beginning, and grew to its present forte, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights among them the right of free speech, free press, free love As our society has grown in size and prominence, nonetheless as our industrial economy has expanded these political rights have proved inadequate to assure us equality. We have come to a clearly defined realization of the fact that true personal freedoms cannot exist without economic its safety and independence.

Political claims notwithstanding, impunity doughnuts exceptionally hollow when youre going nickel-and-dimed to death in your everyday life. The Roosevelts recognized that compensation peonage, or any plan that inclines toward subsistence level, is simply inconsistent with self-determination. Subsistence is, by definition, a confined, hopeless commonwealth; ones horizon is necessarily limited to the present epoch, to getting enough of what their own bodies must be free to make it to the next. These daylights a minimum wage employee in New York City clocking 40 hours per week( at$ 9 per hour) makes $18,720 a year, well for the purposes of the Federal Poverty Line of $21,775. Thats a scrambling, uneasy live, narrowly bounded. Close to impossible to decently feed, robe, and shelter yourself on a wage like that, much less their own families; much less buy health insurance, or save for your minors college, or are represented in any of those other good American occasions. Down at peon rank, the endeavours of joy sounds like a bad pun. Its “ve called the” American nightmare, George Carlin cracked, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Necessitous husbands are not free humanities, said FDR in that 1944 State of the Union speech. Beings who are hungry and out of a enterprise are the stuff of which tyrannies are stir. A dire word, demonstrably genuine, and specially unsettling in 2016, a point in time when the American Dream seems most viable as nostalgia than a lived phenomenon. Income inequality, abundance distribution, mortality rates: by all the necessary measures, the average individual that Eleanor Roosevelt celebrated is subsiding. Extraordinary people continue to rise, but overall mobility is stagnant at best. If youre born poverty-stricken in Ferguson or Appalachia, chances are youre stay around that method. Ditto if your early storages include the swimming pool at the Houston Country Club or ski lessons at Deer Valley, youre likely going to keep your perch at the top of the heap.

Income inequality, gross the gaps in capital: were told daily, endlessly, that these are the necessary the effects of a free market, as if world markets was a personnel of sort on the order of weather or tides, and not the alone manmade erect that it is. In daylight of recent history, blind following of this sort of financials would seem to require a firm commitment to stupidity, but lets presume for the moment that its true, that the free market exists as a universe unto itself, as immutable in its workings as the regulations of physics. Does that universe include some ironclad regulate who are in need of inequality of opportunity? Ive yet to discover the occurrence for that, though doubtless some intrepid thinktanker could invent one out of this same free-market financials, along with aromas of genetic determinism as it relates to calibers of subject and reputation. And “it wouldve been” bogus, that case. And more than that, sinful. That we should allow for wildly divergent opportunities due to accidents of birth “ve just got to” ten-strike us as international crimes equal in savagery to child abuse or molestation.

Franklin Roosevelt:[ F] reedom is no half-and-half affair. If the ordinary citizen is ensure equal rights in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place. The proposition runs deeper than sentimentality, deeper than policy, deeper even than adherence to equality and the pursuit of pleasure that are set out in the Declaration. It cuts all the way to the nature of republic, and to the prospects for its continued existence in America. We may have democracy in its own country, wrote supreme court of the united states justice Louis Brandeis, or we may have enormous abundance concentrated in the mitts of a few, but we cant have both. Those few, in Brandeiss judgment, would inevitably use their supremacy to subvert the free will of the majority; the super-rich as a class plainly couldnt be trusted to do otherwise, a thesis thats being starkly acted out in the present period of Citizens United, Super Pacs, and truckloads of dark money.

But the lawsuit for financial equality goes beyond even equations of supremacy politics. Democracys premise remains on the idea that the collective profundity of the majority will testify right more often than its wrong. That have enough opening in the endeavours of joy, your population will develop its abilities, its intellect, its better judgment; that over duration its capacity for discernment and self-correction will be broadened. Life will improve. The pattern of your uniting will be more perfect, to acquire a word. But if a critical mass of your population is kept in peonage? All its sparkle spent in the trenches of day-to-day survival, with scant opportunity to develop the full range of its faculties? Then how much poorer future prospects for your republic will be.

Economic equality can no more be divorced from the smooth functioning of republic than the ballot. Jefferson, Brandeis, the Roosevelts all recognized this home truth. The American Dream has to be the lived world of the country, not just a moderately tale we tell ourselves.

I have always gotten much more advertisement than anybody else.

Donald Trump

Then theres that other American nightmare, the numbed-out, dumbed-down, make-believe world where much of the national consciousness resides, the sum concoction of our mighty Fantasy Industrial Complex: movies, TV, internet, texts, tweets, ad saturation, celebrity preoccupation, athletics infatuation, Amazonian sewers of porn and political bullshit, the entire invasion of media and messaging that is endeavouring to separate us from our intelligences. September 11, 2001 detonation us out of that daydream for about two minutes, but the dream is so elastic, so all-encompassing, that 9/11 was immediately absorbed into the the matrix of FIC. This exceedingly complex episode horribly direct in the result, but a swamp when it is necessary to interpretations was stripped down and binaried into a dependable fantasy narration of us against them, good versus villainy, Christian against Muslim. The week after 9/11, Susan Sontag was practically executed for pointing out that a few shreds of historical awareness might help us is how we came to this quality. For this modest suggestion , no small number of her fellow Americans bid her dead. But if wed followed her result if united done the hard work of delving down to the roots of the whole frightful happening perhaps we wouldnt still be fighting al-Qaida and its offspring 15 years later.

An 11 -year-old girl wears Trump socks at awareness-raising campaigns happening for the Republican nominee at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. Photo: Mike Segar/ Reuters

Heres a hypothesis, ugly, uncharitable, but returned our recent record it begs ask: the majority of cases most Americans dont just knowing that real any more. How else to interpret Trump, a billionaire on an ego trip capturing a major partys nomination for chairwoman? Another blunt-speaking billionaire tried twice for the conference of presidents in the 1990 s and went out in flames, but he made the mistake of flowing as himself, a recognizably flesh-and-blood human being, whereas Trump comes to us as the eventual animal, and indisputable maestro, of the Fantasy Industrial Complex. For much of his occupation until 2004, to be exact he harboured status in “peoples lives” as a more or less normal fame. Bigger than life, rest assured, cartoonishly grandiose, shamelessly self-promoting, and reliably objectionable, but Trump didnt become Trump until The Apprentice debuted in January 2004. The first occurrence depicted 20.7 million viewers. By likenes, Ross Perot received 19,742, 000 referendums in the 1992 general elections yes, Im likening referendum totals with Nielsen ratings but Trump retained attracting that robust 20 million week after week. The season climax that year contacted 28 million viewers, and over the coming decade, for 13 more seasons, this was how America came to know him, in that weirdly intimate behavior Tv has of delivering personality into the very middle of our lives.

It was this same Trump that 24 million viewers a record, of course tuned in to watch at the first Republican debate last year, the glowering, blustering, swaggering boardroom action flesh who established every hope of shredding the pols. One speculates if Trump would have ever been Trump if there hadnt been a JR Ewing to pave the way, to show just how dear and real a dealmaking Tv rascal could be to our centers. Trumps performance on that night did not sadden , nor through all the debates in the long marching that followed, and if his regard for the truth has proved more erratic even than that of professional politicians, we should expect as much. In the realm of the Fantasy Industrial Complex, actuality happens on a slipping scale. The truism is just another possibility.

I speak the password primeval.

I would give the signal of democracy ;P TAGEND

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

In nine days Trump and Hillary will take the stage for their first face-to-face conversation. There is likely to be blood. The bayonets are going to be out, and the ratings are bound to be, need it be said, yuge. The American Dream will no doubt be invoked from both podiums, for what true-blue patriot was ever against the American Dream? And hitherto for the past 30 years the Democratic campaigner has worked comfortably within “states parties ” foundation thats battered the working and middle classes down to the bone. The brand-new Democrat of the Clinton era are always strong for political rights, as long as they dont disturbed corporate Americas bottom line. Strong for racial and gender equality, strong for LGBT privileges( though that took season ). Meanwhile this same Democratic establishment connected with the GOP to push a market- and finance-driven economic ordering that enriches the already rich and leaves the rest of us sucking wind.

Thats the very real feeling Trump is speaking to , no fantasy there. Bernie as well; small-scale wonder their constituencies overlapped, though Trumps claimed devotion to the common man stumbles over even the simplest proofs. On whether to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Trumps moral compass has invented from an shown no( wages are already too high ), to imply yes( wages are too low ), to weasel word( leave it up to the states ), to yes and no in the same sigh( I would leave it and conjure it somewhat ), and, eventually, when pressed by Bill OReilly in July, to yes-but( promote it to $10, but its still best left to the states ). All this from presidential candidates whos firmly in favor of abolishing the estate tax, to the great benefit of heirs of multimillionaires and nothing at all to the vast majority of us.

Meanwhile, the Fantasy Industrial Complex is doing just fine such elections season, thank you. Communicating at a Morgan Stanley investors seminar in March, one of the commanders of the FIC, Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS and a person whose 2015 compensation totaled $56.8 m, had this to say about the Trump campaign. It may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS. The coin rolling in and this is fun this[ is] going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. Its a cruel stuff to say. But delivering it on, Donald. Keep going.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Two American Nightmares: how a dumbed-down society failed batch of a great opinion appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2D9rL5K via IFTTT

[drippeddaily]

Album of the Year #25: Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

Album of the Year #25: Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Artist: Open Mike Eagle

Album: Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

Listen:

Youtube

Spotify

Apple Music

Album Background:

Open Mike Eagle, born in the South Side of Chicgao, 37 years old, and member of Project Blowed has become a staple in the underground hip hop scene and started making waves with his poignant and concise projects starting in 2010 with his first full length release Unapologetic Art Rap.

You may have heard of Mike outside of his music by his features in Vice videos such as Why rappers love Grey Poupon or Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time. If not those, maybe you’ve seen him on Eric Andre’s show in Rapper Warrior Ninja. And, again, if not that then maybe you know him as a friend of famous comedian and Bill Cosby exposer Hannibal Buress.

Before becoming a rapper, Michael W. Eagle II went to Whitney M. Young High School which is a selective enrollment public school in the Near West Side of Chicago. After high school, Mike went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale as a psychology major where he met his now good friend Hannibal Buress. He graduated and moved on to do one year of grad school before moving to Los Angeles where he worked a few different jobs such as Americorps, a non-profit halfway home, and as a third and fourth grade special education teacher. At this time, he only rapped as a hobby until he found Project Blowed, where he became affiliated with now long time collaborators Busdriver, Dumbfoundead, and Pyschosiz.

Open Mike Eagle’s 5th full length LP Brick Body Kids Still Daydream was released on September 15, 2017 under one of my favorite labels Mello Music Group. Mike grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago which was a series of project housings that is now demolished. They were erected in the early 1960s, and demolished over the course of nine years from 1998 to 2007. Here is a picture of the last standing building via Wikipedia. These buildings were designed to hold up to 11,000 residents, and in actuality housed up to 27,000 people at its peak. The complex was riddled with gang violence and crime throughout its entire existence.

The source of inspiration for this album is made clear by the title, the album cover, and Mike’s upbringing which leads to this album being a tell all of Mike’s feelings about the Robert Taylor Homes, and subsequently he touches on the problems in America in a way that is very personal to him.

Review:

Mike’s style of rap is soft and inviting, like he is telling a story out of a book by your bedside. With the opening track Legendary Iron Hood, he invites you into his dream world at the Robert Taylor Homes. He sets up with references to a superhero in the X-Men with lines like “I keep my head down, pushing like I’m walking to school, yeah / I hold em tight like Infinity Gems” and “Got a brother named Charles that be on that bullshit / I protect my neck with some magical jewels.” While Mike’s rapping is smooth and harmless, it’s exciting like he really wants you to listen to his story. His childish daydreams tells you just enough to make you interested to hear more about his life growing up, and see how he solves the problems he establishes in this first track.

Mike keeps you on your toes as one emotion that’s being conveyed never lasts very long. This album in the 40 minutes run time takes you from happy and comfortable, to a dark and depressed place, and this can quickly change from track to track. One track that shows this dichotomy is Happy Wasteland Day, where Mike gives us his take on the political landscape of 2017 while never mentioning the name of the largest contributor to the current state of affairs. The beat most prominently features a looped string instrument, backed by simple drums and bass supporting it. Mike’s lyricism in this track varies from on the nose to more abstract questions in simple lines. “When the king is a garbage person / I might wanna lay down and die” he repeats quite often as he wonders what he’s supposed to do. He poses a problem and offers a solution to himself within two lines, “Zombie sheriffs is tryna lynch us / Guess I’ll call up my congressman.” Mike makes a grim joke saying that the police force are like zombies out for their next meal, and what can he do about it but call his congressman? Mike knows it’s ultimately a futile act, and this sort of change is much bigger than one person.

The climax of the album can not go without mention, and that is Brick Body Complex. The rebellious and hyped up track explains the title of the album. Mike’s ultimate comparison is that a black child in the hood is literally a building. That kid, because of a system designed to keep him down, has no upward mobility or anyway to move away from his current situation much like the building that he lives in. However, Mike tries to fight back this notion by saying that he is giant, he’s a superhero, and and that he’ll never fit their descriptions. They, in this case, being those who generalize an entire group of people because of their skin color and living situation. It’s a fantastic concept that Mike fully realizes on this song with his passionate, fast, and angry rapping about this state of affairs. This song truly showcases Mike’s talent as a musician, storyteller, artist, and this track is something that sets him apart from other rappers. It is a fleshed out idea, told in a personal way that makes comments on the truths of America, and delivered in a 4 minute showcase of lyrical wit and storytelling.

The final track that deserves its own paragraph also happens to be the final track of the album. My Auntie’s Building is perhaps the dreariest song on the entire album, and despite the fighting back like Mike showed in Brick Body Complex, this is the beaten down side of him. “I’ll fight you all, I’m willing / Just show me who’s that villain / I don’t see no one, I don’t see no one / I can’t find nobody,” Mike says as he ultimately realizes this battle is one that can’t be one. There is no one single person to fight as this is a systematic problem. “They say America fights fair / But they won’t demolish your timeshare” are two simple bars that summarize the issue of gentrification. The beat is slow, with Mike rapping fast and he is pissed off. The album ends with him repeating “That’s the sound of them tearing my body down to the ground.” Mike one last time before his “death” reiterates that there is no hope or choice for him or kids like him, and that the system is too strong for one hero to beat alone.

While the above tracks are worthy of their own paragraphs the others are just as good and are certainly not wasted space. Every track on this album is just as important as the ones surrounding it, and something that should be mentioned and something that Mike is known for is his humor. Mike still manages to keep his signature wit and humor despite the foreboding message. Like on No Selling (Uncle Butch Pretends It Don’t Hurt) he mentions how he had an asthma attack in the last bar, or on TLDR (Smithing) how he’s been woke for so long he needs a nap. He even seems to call this out on (How Could Anybody) Feel At Home where he says he’s told some goofy shit that sounds like a poem, and reading through Mike’s bars there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Mike often feels like he’s reading to you, and his personality is full of wit and funny bars, and while this album is more serious in tone Mike does not give up what he’s known for to deliver his message.

The beats on this album are also worthy of praise as Mike decided to take in ten producers over the course of twelve tracks. Exile (Legendary Iron Hood & Happy Wasteland Day) and Illingsworth (Daydreaming In The Projects & TLDR (Smithing)) both produced two tracks. Mike’s lengthy list of producers each bring their own flavor to each track, and shows how Mike is unafraid of going up against some experimental or different beats. Legendary Iron Hood features a beautiful and serene piano and guitar which is completely different from No Selling which makes uses of a simple low synth and vocal samples. And both of these tracks are completely different from something like 95 Radios which is the poppiest track on the album, and has a more prominent yet simple drum beat and bells. Every track is distinct and stands on its own, but is all brought together by Mike’s confidence over them. Mike knows exactly what to bring to each track to complement the beat and most importantly deliver his message and see his vision.

Something that I picked up on throughout this record is that Mike mentions some form of motion whether it is him being still or being in perpetual motion, and a reference to this can be found on almost every track on the album. In the beginning of the album he talks about moving a lot like on Legendary Iron Hood he talks about how he can't be stopped and nothing will stop him, or on (How Could Anybody) Feel At Home he “spun around in circles on the globe.” But as the album progresses he is tired and in pain. The entirety of No Selling is about working too hard, and is a direct reference to “selling” in wrestling meaning that a wrestler is selling to the audience how hurt he is. In this case, Mike is “no selling” or trying to pretend like he’s not hurt, but truly all of this work is tiring him out. In the later points of the album there is emphasis on standing still or being in the same place, and this goes hand in hand with Mike making the comparison of a black kid to a building. Buildings are constant. They never move, even when it rains, or in the wind, or in the snow, and they will always be right where they were intended to be. Black kids living in the hood think they will move, get out of the hood, and live better lives, but throughout this album Mike is telling us that this is just a daydream, that it will never happen and that is by design. The final track My Auntie’s Building continues to hammer this point home. “And they hit that shit with a wrecking ball so hard / Thought the whole earth broke / All them people dispersed though / Federal to commercial.” The people of the Robert Taylor Homes were forced out, nowhere to go, and ultimately ended up lining the pockets of the wealthy by having to live in for profit housing.

This record is a fantastic, and beautiful commentary on Mike’s upbringing and the climate of 2017. This record is as much of a commentary on Trump as it is on Mike’s home in Chicago, and has become one of my favorite records of the year and by far my favorite record that feels like it is a response to the election of Donald Trump. I truly loved this album, and as I continued to relisten to write this review I only fell more in love with it. Open Mike Eagle did an incredible job with this record, and I’m excited to see where he goes next, but I’d also be content if he takes his time with the next one because I’ll be playing this for a long time.

Favorite Lyrics:

1.

My big dumb brain’s an electrical ocean

Started walking now my legs in perpetual motion

2.

Don’t call me nigga or rapper

My name is motherfucking Michael Eagle, I’m sovereign

I come from a line of ghetto superheroes

3.

Between shrooms and touring I'm sure to take a bunch of trips

And fuck that one guy who’s screen name was "thunderlips"

Pelt him with a bag full of mesquite flavored Kruncher chips

4. (Bars from feature guest, Sammus)

On my Apple updating my E-Shops

Eat a apple a day, take a brief pause

Take a nap, lie awake in-between sobs

Then I rap and I pray and the grief stops

5.

The old me would drink a 40

And eat bologna, shinobi

On NBA Live, I play with Kobe

Discussion Questions:

I’ve seen a lot of debate on whether or not this is better than Dark Comedy? Thoughts?

As far as “reactions to Trump” go, how do you feel about this album compared to others who did the same?

Do you find any validity in my claims about Mike’s use of motion in this album?

Do you think Open Mike Eagle’s use of several different producers was a benefit, or would you have preferred he stuck with only a few. Would you like to see other rappers take this sort of approach?

Merry Christmas, y'all!Artist: Open Mike EagleAlbum: Brick Body Kids Still DaydreamListen:YoutubeSpotifyApple MusicAlbum Background:Open Mike Eagle, born in the South Side of Chicgao, 37 years old, and member of Project Blowed has become a staple in the underground hip hop scene and started making waves with his poignant and concise projects starting in 2010 with his first full length release Unapologetic Art Rap.You may have heard of Mike outside of his music by his features in Vice videos such as Why rappers love Grey Poupon or Rapping, deconstructed: The best rhymers of all time. If not those, maybe you’ve seen him on Eric Andre’s show in Rapper Warrior Ninja. And, again, if not that then maybe you know him as a friend of famous comedian and Bill Cosby exposer Hannibal Buress.Before becoming a rapper, Michael W. Eagle II went to Whitney M. Young High School which is a selective enrollment public school in the Near West Side of Chicago. After high school, Mike went to Southern Illinois University Carbondale as a psychology major where he met his now good friend Hannibal Buress. He graduated and moved on to do one year of grad school before moving to Los Angeles where he worked a few different jobs such as Americorps, a non-profit halfway home, and as a third and fourth grade special education teacher. At this time, he only rapped as a hobby until he found Project Blowed, where he became affiliated with now long time collaborators Busdriver, Dumbfoundead, and Pyschosiz.Open Mike Eagle’s 5th full length LP Brick Body Kids Still Daydream was released on September 15, 2017 under one of my favorite labels Mello Music Group. Mike grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago which was a series of project housings that is now demolished. They were erected in the early 1960s, and demolished over the course of nine years from 1998 to 2007. Here is a picture of the last standing building via Wikipedia. These buildings were designed to hold up to 11,000 residents, and in actuality housed up to 27,000 people at its peak. The complex was riddled with gang violence and crime throughout its entire existence.The source of inspiration for this album is made clear by the title, the album cover, and Mike’s upbringing which leads to this album being a tell all of Mike’s feelings about the Robert Taylor Homes, and subsequently he touches on the problems in America in a way that is very personal to him.Review:Mike’s style of rap is soft and inviting, like he is telling a story out of a book by your bedside. With the opening track Legendary Iron Hood, he invites you into his dream world at the Robert Taylor Homes. He sets up with references to a superhero in the X-Men with lines like “I keep my head down, pushing like I’m walking to school, yeah / I hold em tight like Infinity Gems” and “Got a brother named Charles that be on that bullshit / I protect my neck with some magical jewels.” While Mike’s rapping is smooth and harmless, it’s exciting like he really wants you to listen to his story. His childish daydreams tells you just enough to make you interested to hear more about his life growing up, and see how he solves the problems he establishes in this first track.Mike keeps you on your toes as one emotion that’s being conveyed never lasts very long. This album in the 40 minutes run time takes you from happy and comfortable, to a dark and depressed place, and this can quickly change from track to track. One track that shows this dichotomy is Happy Wasteland Day, where Mike gives us his take on the political landscape of 2017 while never mentioning the name of the largest contributor to the current state of affairs. The beat most prominently features a looped string instrument, backed by simple drums and bass supporting it. Mike’s lyricism in this track varies from on the nose to more abstract questions in simple lines. “When the king is a garbage person / I might wanna lay down and die” he repeats quite often as he wonders what he’s supposed to do. He poses a problem and offers a solution to himself within two lines, “Zombie sheriffs is tryna lynch us / Guess I’ll call up my congressman.” Mike makes a grim joke saying that the police force are like zombies out for their next meal, and what can he do about it but call his congressman? Mike knows it’s ultimately a futile act, and this sort of change is much bigger than one person.The climax of the album can not go without mention, and that is Brick Body Complex. The rebellious and hyped up track explains the title of the album. Mike’s ultimate comparison is that a black child in the hood is literally a building. That kid, because of a system designed to keep him down, has no upward mobility or anyway to move away from his current situation much like the building that he lives in. However, Mike tries to fight back this notion by saying that he is giant, he’s a superhero, and and that he’ll never fit their descriptions. They, in this case, being those who generalize an entire group of people because of their skin color and living situation. It’s a fantastic concept that Mike fully realizes on this song with his passionate, fast, and angry rapping about this state of affairs. This song truly showcases Mike’s talent as a musician, storyteller, artist, and this track is something that sets him apart from other rappers. It is a fleshed out idea, told in a personal way that makes comments on the truths of America, and delivered in a 4 minute showcase of lyrical wit and storytelling.The final track that deserves its own paragraph also happens to be the final track of the album. My Auntie’s Building is perhaps the dreariest song on the entire album, and despite the fighting back like Mike showed in Brick Body Complex, this is the beaten down side of him. “I’ll fight you all, I’m willing / Just show me who’s that villain / I don’t see no one, I don’t see no one / I can’t find nobody,” Mike says as he ultimately realizes this battle is one that can’t be one. There is no one single person to fight as this is a systematic problem. “They say America fights fair / But they won’t demolish your timeshare” are two simple bars that summarize the issue of gentrification. The beat is slow, with Mike rapping fast and he is pissed off. The album ends with him repeating “That’s the sound of them tearing my body down to the ground.” Mike one last time before his “death” reiterates that there is no hope or choice for him or kids like him, and that the system is too strong for one hero to beat alone.While the above tracks are worthy of their own paragraphs the others are just as good and are certainly not wasted space. Every track on this album is just as important as the ones surrounding it, and something that should be mentioned and something that Mike is known for is his humor. Mike still manages to keep his signature wit and humor despite the foreboding message. Like on No Selling (Uncle Butch Pretends It Don’t Hurt) he mentions how he had an asthma attack in the last bar, or on TLDR (Smithing) how he’s been woke for so long he needs a nap. He even seems to call this out on (How Could Anybody) Feel At Home where he says he’s told some goofy shit that sounds like a poem, and reading through Mike’s bars there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Mike often feels like he’s reading to you, and his personality is full of wit and funny bars, and while this album is more serious in tone Mike does not give up what he’s known for to deliver his message.The beats on this album are also worthy of praise as Mike decided to take in ten producers over the course of twelve tracks. Exile (Legendary Iron Hood & Happy Wasteland Day) and Illingsworth (Daydreaming In The Projects & TLDR (Smithing)) both produced two tracks. Mike’s lengthy list of producers each bring their own flavor to each track, and shows how Mike is unafraid of going up against some experimental or different beats. Legendary Iron Hood features a beautiful and serene piano and guitar which is completely different from No Selling which makes uses of a simple low synth and vocal samples. And both of these tracks are completely different from something like 95 Radios which is the poppiest track on the album, and has a more prominent yet simple drum beat and bells. Every track is distinct and stands on its own, but is all brought together by Mike’s confidence over them. Mike knows exactly what to bring to each track to complement the beat and most importantly deliver his message and see his vision.Something that I picked up on throughout this record is that Mike mentions some form of motion whether it is him being still or being in perpetual motion, and a reference to this can be found on almost every track on the album. In the beginning of the album he talks about moving a lot like on Legendary Iron Hood he talks about how he can't be stopped and nothing will stop him, or on (How Could Anybody) Feel At Home he “spun around in circles on the globe.” But as the album progresses he is tired and in pain. The entirety of No Selling is about working too hard, and is a direct reference to “selling” in wrestling meaning that a wrestler is selling to the audience how hurt he is. In this case, Mike is “no selling” or trying to pretend like he’s not hurt, but truly all of this work is tiring him out. In the later points of the album there is emphasis on standing still or being in the same place, and this goes hand in hand with Mike making the comparison of a black kid to a building. Buildings are constant. They never move, even when it rains, or in the wind, or in the snow, and they will always be right where they were intended to be. Black kids living in the hood think they will move, get out of the hood, and live better lives, but throughout this album Mike is telling us that this is just a daydream, that it will never happen and that is by design. The final track My Auntie’s Building continues to hammer this point home. “And they hit that shit with a wrecking ball so hard / Thought the whole earth broke / All them people dispersed though / Federal to commercial.” The people of the Robert Taylor Homes were forced out, nowhere to go, and ultimately ended up lining the pockets of the wealthy by having to live in for profit housing.This record is a fantastic, and beautiful commentary on Mike’s upbringing and the climate of 2017. This record is as much of a commentary on Trump as it is on Mike’s home in Chicago, and has become one of my favorite records of the year and by far my favorite record that feels like it is a response to the election of Donald Trump. I truly loved this album, and as I continued to relisten to write this review I only fell more in love with it. Open Mike Eagle did an incredible job with this record, and I’m excited to see where he goes next, but I’d also be content if he takes his time with the next one because I’ll be playing this for a long time.Favorite Lyrics:1.My big dumb brain’s an electrical oceanStarted walking now my legs in perpetual motion2.Don’t call me nigga or rapperMy name is motherfucking Michael Eagle, I’m sovereignI come from a line of ghetto superheroes3.Between shrooms and touring I'm sure to take a bunch of tripsAnd fuck that one guy who’s screen name was "thunderlips"Pelt him with a bag full of mesquite flavored Kruncher chips4. (Bars from feature guest, Sammus)On my Apple updating my E-ShopsEat a apple a day, take a brief pauseTake a nap, lie awake in-between sobsThen I rap and I pray and the grief stops5.The old me would drink a 40And eat bologna, shinobiOn NBA Live, I play with KobeDiscussion Questions:I’ve seen a lot of debate on whether or not this is better than Dark Comedy? Thoughts?As far as “reactions to Trump” go, how do you feel about this album compared to others who did the same?Do you find any validity in my claims about Mike’s use of motion in this album?Do you think Open Mike Eagle’s use of several different producers was a benefit, or would you have preferred he stuck with only a few. Would you like to see other rappers take this sort of approach?

[politicalemail]

The Freedom of the City from info@martinomalley.com

Blue State Digital Mailing Template       : When I was elected Mayor in 1999, my city, Baltimore, had become the most violent, addicted, and abandoned city in America. At one of our first community meetings in a hard hit neighborhood of East Baltimore, citizens assembled with me, their new Mayor, to talk about crime and public safety. About justice and racial injustice. There was tension in the air. A fear about what might be. A little girl came up to the microphone. “Mr. Mayor,” she said, “my name is Amber, and I am 12 years old. And because of all the addicted people and drug dealers in my neighborhood, there are people in the newspaper who call my neighborhood, ‘Zombie Land.’ And I want to know if you know they call my neighborhood Zombie Land. And I want to know if you’re doing anything about it?” Her two questions are the two essential questions: Do you know? Are you doing something about it? Read this week's blog here or below.   Yours truly, Martin   The Freedom of the City One of the happier facts I brought home from an otherwise very frustrating run for President was this: most Americans feel a lot better about how their cities, towns, and local counties are governed today than they did just fifteen years ago. There is a new and better way of governing emerging from our cities and local governments: Performance management Customer service technology like 311 Collaborative circles of caring people making decisions based on evidence rather than on a hunch Getting things done. Bringing people together. The great promise of effective governance in the Information Age is not so much that the data allows us to manage the masses but rather allows us — if we care — to recognize the needs and dignity of every individual person. If a lack of trust is the greatest political challenge we face as a nation, perhaps City leadership provides the way forward in these politically challenging times. These times: when a majority of our people — for the first time — now live in cities. These times: when the clustering of intellectual assets, creativity, economic opportunity, and innovation in cities gives rise to tremendous new possibilities for the future of America’s cities. These times: when wealth is hyper-concentrated in the hands of the very few, when job opportunities continue to decline for our citizens without skills or college degrees, and when the fires of despair and deep political divisions threaten to tear us apart as a people. As Richard Florida writes in his new book The New Urban Crisis: “the very same clustering force that generates economic and social progress [in cities] also divides us… as more and more middle class neighborhoods fade, our cities, suburbs, and nation as a whole are splintered into a patchwork of concentrated advantage and concentrated disadvantage.”  No American City can separate itself from this reality, but take heart and be not afraid. During the Berlin crisis in July of 1961, when the world awoke to see the Soviet Union erecting a wall of mortar and barbed wire across the City of Berlin, President Kennedy addressed our nation by radio and television. (His thoughtful, clear, and well-written remarks were longer than 140 characters.) He called upon us as Americans and simultaneously spoke to the people of the world. To the people of Berlin. To the Russian Soviet regime. And perhaps to all of us living through perilous times today, when he said: “The freedom of the city is non-negotiable. We cannot negotiate with those who say, ‘what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable’.” There Will Come a Time All things in this life are temporary — especially in politics. Politics is never static. It is always dynamic. Every Administration passes, changes and is no more. Looking at the electoral map of the most recent Presidential election, it is easy at first glance to see a continent of red punctuated by dots of blue. But when that map is adjusted by where the greatest numbers of Americans actually live, what emerges is a map of blue bubbles with deep red spaces in between. In the days ahead, the blue bubbles of our nation’s metro economies will grow larger. Urbanization, like climate change, is very real, and there will come a time when progressive and inclusive leadership returns to the White House. One day there will be a new urban agenda for our country. A national cities agenda to harness and invest in the enormous possibilities our cities hold to advance our common good as a country. To uplift the dignity of every person and the dignity of work. To make real the promise of greater opportunity for all. This agenda will include investments in the talents and skills of our people. Investments in transportation and affordable housing. Investments that connect our people more closely to each other and connect our children to the opportunities of the future. But that time is not these times. In the days ahead, cities — together — must withstand several direct political threats to the freedom, well-being, and progress of their citizens’ quality of life. We see this political threat to the progress of cities manifest on several fronts. Among them: State preemption of the freedom of cities to shape the nature of their metro economies. The nationalization of local public safety functions and the criminalization of new American immigrants. The undermining of the sustainability imperative that holds such promise for city residents, city living, and life on this planet. First: Freedom from Want Many years ago, President Woodrow Wilson said: “Economic freedom also means freedom from monopolies.” Today, we might add that economic freedom also means freedom from “low wage fundamentalism” — the sort of trickle-down economics that has led to a shrinking middle class, reduced consumer demand, and stagnant wages. The “corporate bottom-line economics” that would have all of us pretend that consumer spending doesn’t matter when in fact it is the driver of American capitalism. State Preemption: the recent efforts by some states and, likely soon, the federal government — to place limits on the freedom of cities to enact wage and labor policies that promote upward economic mobility — is bad for our country and bad for our cities. Author Richard Schraeger in City Power notes that many city leaders across America have raised the minimum wage, expanded social services, put conditions of inclusion on incoming development, and otherwise engaged in policies designed to lift people out of poverty and grow a more upwardly mobile and inclusive middle class. Cities are showing they have more power and more latitude in this regard than previously thought. There is a powerful American truth at the core of this movement and it is this: Our economy isn’t money, it’s people, all of our people. The more our people learn, the more they earn. The more they earn, the more they can spend. The more they spend, the more our economy and shared quality of life expand. Cities that have taken local action to raise wages have not suffered from capital flight. On the contrary, they are accelerating their own economic renaissance. Second: Freedom from Fear One of the greatest governing success stories of modern American history, is the degree to which so many cities have figured out how to improve public safety. Cities, for the most part, are safer and better governed today than ever before. There are exceptions to the rule. Some cities haven’t yet figured it out. Sadly, my own hometown of Baltimore chose to forget a lot of hard-earned lessons learned about crime reduction. But all across the country, cities large and small are making themselves safer. Comstat, or “goal oriented community policing”, has saved thousands of American lives in cities all across our nation. In some places, the improvement in policing continues as more and more lives are saved. New York and Los Angeles in particular have figured out how to improve public safety while, at the same time, improving public trust — the basis of all security for any free people. This life-saving progress is being threatened now by the Trump clampdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” by their unconstitutional efforts to nationalize local police and jail functions and turn them into agents of an unprecedented national immigrant roundup. Mayors must stand together and push back with every legal and political means at their disposal. Cities can win this argument not only in courts on Constitutional grounds supported by the Tenth Amendment, but also win this argument with the American people on the basis of what works to improve public safety. The truth is public safety declines when people are afraid to call or work with the police. Public safety breaks down when we create an underclass of people within our society — whether by race, religion, geography, or their limbo status in a broken immigration system. Today’s new American immigrant families cannot get in a line because for them there is no line. Mayors understand better than most elected officials the energy, optimism, and love of country that our new American immigrant neighbors bring to work every day. Mayors understand that our diversity is a creative asset, an economic asset, and — when embraced — a security asset. Mayors are very often the most credible political voices in every metropolitan area especially where public safety and homeland security are concerned. Mayors need to use their leadership credibility to stand up for the truer, more compassionate, and more generous country that we carry in hearts. Third: Freedom to Care Climate change is the transformation that changes everything. In the absence of Congressional consensus, states and cities are leading the way on addressing the reality of climate change and seizing the job creation opportunity of transitioning to a clean energy future. Green building codes The move to carbon neutrality Solar gardens Energy efficiency Electric vehicle stations Smart meters Net metering Renewable portfolio standards Decoupling policies Greenhouse gas reduction goals Clean cars Higher mileage standards Tighter emissions standards on power plants All of these things are prodded forward by states supported by the people of America’s cities. There are more jobs in a nascent solar industry today than there are in coal. More jobs in solar than in oil and natural gas extraction. In the swing state of Iowa, 35% of their energy now comes from wind and increasingly more of the big parts for that domestic industry are manufactured in the Midwest as well. The advances happening in our built environment with net-zero homes, and living buildings hold tremendous potential for job creation, health, prosperity, and productivity. With gag orders being issued to our nation’s scientists and environmental administrators prohibiting them from even using the phrase “climate change”, cities and more enlightened states must lead the way. The future of cities and this planet are now joined in one urgent movement of human development. The future we seek is not a future of less, but a future of more. Not a future doomed by a willful disregard of physics but a future led by living cities. Cities that are re-imagining and redesigning the way we coexist with — not at the expense of — the other living systems of this earth upon which all our lives depend. A Native American proverb holds:  “How we treat the earth affects all people. And how we treat one another is reflected in how we treat the earth.” We have lost White House leadership on climate change for a time, but that doesn’t mean we have lost the leadership of Americans. A big part of the answer to climate ignorance in the White House, is climate action by our cities, states, and individual citizens at the local level. Trust When I was elected Mayor in 1999, my city, Baltimore, had become the most violent, addicted, and abandoned city in America. At one of our first community meetings in a hard hit neighborhood of East Baltimore, citizens assembled with me, their new Mayor, to talk about crime and public safety. About justice and racial injustice. There was tension in the air. A fear about what might be. A little girl came up to the microphone. “Mr. Mayor,” she said, “my name is Amber, and I am 12 years old. And because of all the addicted people and drug dealers in my neighborhood, there are people in the newspaper who call my neighborhood, ‘Zombie Land.’ And I want to know if you know they call my neighborhood Zombie Land. And I want to know if you’re doing anything about it?” Her two questions are the two essential questions: Do you know? Are you doing something about it? There is a relationship, a symmetry, between how well we govern ourselves and how much trust we one another. An inseparable relationship between the two. They can reinforce each other, build each other up, or drag each other down. Mayors understand: Progress, is a collaborative enterprise. Collaborative leaders bring people together in common cause. That cause is American progress. And I am betting, America’s cities will paint a brighter future for all against the dark canvas of today’s national politics. “The freedom of the city is not negotiable.” ____________________ Martin O’Malley is the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School for the spring 2017 semester. He is teaching a class on Leadership and Data Driven Government, while also participating in several panel discussions as part of the Rappaport Distinguished Public Policy Series. Every Monday he is publishing his thoughts in a series titled, “Letters from Boston.”     Donate                   PAID FOR BY O'SAY CAN YOU SEE PAC NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE'S COMMITTEE 421 M St NW Washington, DC 20001Unsubscribe  

[vitalmindandbody]

Two American Dreamings: how a dumbed-down nation lost slew of a great idea

As Clinton and Trump prepare to debate next week , royal principles are overwhelmed in a culture where most Americans do not know what is real anymore and the dream of equal opportunity is just a fantasy

Every child had a pretty good shot

To get at least as far as their old man got

But something happened on the best way of that place

They shed an American flag in our face.

Billy Joel, Allentown

Its one of the greatest inventions of all time, and just like it says on the dollar bill novus ordo seclorum it caused a totally new guild in human liaisons. After millennia of pharaohs, emperors, emperors, princess, sultans, caesars and czars, with all their helper elites and locked-down social structures, countries around the world was founded where delivery and ancestry didnt affair so much better, where by application of your expertises, energy, labour and willingness to play by the rules, you could improve your substance mint in life and achieve a measure of economic defence for yourself and their own families. Peasants and proles could aspire to more than merely survival. Radical!

We know it today as the American Dream. The now-obscure historian James Truslow Adams coined the word in his volume The Epic of America, defining the American fantasy as TAGEND

a dream of a social order in which each man and each girl shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous all cases of delivery or position.

Adams was writing in 1931, but the fantasy was there from the start, in Jeffersons pursuit of happiness formulation in the Declaration of Independence, pleasure residing in its 18 th-century sense of boom, thriving, wellbeing.

Nobody ever came to America with a starry-eyed dream of working for starvation compensations. Batch of that offered in the old country, and thats precisely why we left, escaping serfdom, peonage, tenancy, indenture all different iterations of what was essentially a rigged system, to throw it in current political verbiage that channeled the profits of our proletariat upstream to the Man. We came to America to do better, to assure for ourselves the liberation that financial defence draws, and for millions principally white males at first, and then slowly, sputteringly, women and people of color thats the lane it used to work , nothing less than a revolution in the human condition.

Upward mobility is indispensable to the American Dream, the idea that people are able to rise from implemented in order to middle class, and middle to upper and even higher on the modeling of a( imaginary) Horatio Alger or an( actual) Andrew Carnegie. Upward mobility across classes peaked in the US in the late 19 th century. Most of the gains of the 20 th century were achieved en masse; it wasnt so much better a phenomenon of great numbers of people rising from one class to the next as it was standards of living rising sharply for all first-class. You didnt “ve got to be” extraordinary to rise. Opportunity was sufficiently broad that hard work and steadiness would do, along with implicit buy-in to the social contract, devotion to the system proceeding on the assumption that the system was basically fair.

The biggest gains happened in the post-second world war era of the GI Bill, affordable higher education, strong labor unions, and a progressive taxation system. Between the late 1940 s and early 1970 s, median household income in the US doubled. Income inequality reached historic lows. The median CEO salary was approximately 30 meters that of the lowest-paid employee, compared against todays gold-plated multiple of 370. The top tax bracket strayed in the neighborhood of 70% to 90%. Granted, there used to be far fewer billionaires in those dates. Somehow the society survived.

America is a dream of greater justice and the possibilities for the average “mens and”, if we can not find it, all our other accomplishments amount to good-for-nothing. So wrote Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated column of 6 January 1941, an apt lead-in to her husbands State of the Union address subsequently that day in which he listed the four impunities essential to American democracy, among other issues freedom from want. In his Commonwealth of the Union address three years later, FDR expanded on this notion of freedom from want with its own proposal for a Second Bill of Right, an economic bill of rights to antagonize what he viewed as the growing totalitarianism of the modern economic ordering TAGEND

This Republic had at its embarking, and ripened to its present forte, under the protection of certain inalienable political claims among them the right of free speech, free press, free sacred As our commonwealth has grown in sizing and prominence, however as our industrial economy has expanded these political claims have proved inadequate to assure us equality. We have come to a clearly defined realization of the fact that true-life personal freedoms cannot prevail without economic security and independence.

Political rights notwithstanding, discretion reverberates dreadfully hollow when youre going nickel-and-dimed to death in your everyday life. The Roosevelts recognized that compensation peonage, or any system that inclines toward subsistence level, is plainly inconsistent with self-determination. Survival is, by definition, a held, frantic nation; ones horizon is necessarily limited to the present era, to getting enough of what the body needs to make it to the next. These daylights a minimum wage laborer in New York City clocking 40 hours a week( at$ 9 per hour) gives $18,720 a year, well for the purposes of the Federal Poverty Line of $21,775. Thats a scrambling, anxious existence, narrowly bounded. Close to impossible to decently feed, clothe, and shelter yourself on a compensation like that, much less a family; much less buy health insurance, or save for your teenagers college, or participate in any of those other good American circumstances. Down at peon grade, the pursuit of gaiety sounds like a bad gag. Its “ve called the” American fantasy, George Carlin cracked, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Necessitous gentlemen are not free people, said FDR in that 1944 State of the Union speech. Parties who are hungry and out of a responsibility are the stuff of which totalitarianisms are acquire. A dreadful explanation, demonstrably genuine, and especially unsettling in 2016, a point in time when the American Dream seems most viable as nostalgia than a lived phenomenon. Income inequality, abundance dispensation, mortality rates: by all the necessary measures, the average individual that Eleanor Roosevelt celebrated is sinking. Remarkable people continue to rise, but overall mobility is sluggish at best. If youre born poor in Ferguson or Appalachia, chances are youre going to stay that lane. Ditto if your early recalls include the swimming pool at the Houston Country Club or ski readings at Deer Valley, youre likely going to keep your roost at the upper part of the heap.

Income inequality, gross the gaps in wealth: were to say daily, continuously, that these are the necessary consequences of a free market, as if world markets was a action of quality on the order of weather or tides, and not the wholly manmade create that it is. In light-footed of recent history, blind following of those kinds of financials would seem to require a firm commitment to folly, but makes acquire for the moment that its genuine, that the free market exists as a universe unto itself, as immutable in its workings as the laws of physics. Does that universe include some ironclad regulation that requires inequality of opportunity? Ive yet to hear the action for that, though doubtless some enterprising thinktanker could construct one out of this same free-market financials, together with stenches of genetic determinism as it pertains to characters of penalty and persona. And “it wouldve been” bogus, that case. And more than that, dishonest. That we should allow for wildly divergent opportunities due to accidents of birth ought to impres us as a crime equal in violence to child abuse or molestation.

Franklin Roosevelt:[ F] reedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is ensure equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal rights in markets. The overture goes deeper than feeling, deeper than programme, deeper even than adherence to equality and the endeavours of happiness that are set out in the Declaration. It cuts all the way to the nature of democracy, and to the prospects for its very existence in America. We may have democracy in its own country, wrote supreme court justice Louis Brandeis, or we may have enormous affluence concentrated in the handwritings of a few, but we cant have both. Those few, in Brandeiss judgment, would inevitably use their supremacy to subvert the free will of the majority; the super-rich as a class plainly couldnt be trusted to do otherwise, a thesis thats being starkly played out in the present age of Citizens United, Super Pacs, and truckloads of dark money.

But the case for financial equality goes beyond even equations of strength politics. Democracys premise remains on the idea that the collective gumption of the majority will testify right more frequently than its incorrect. That given sufficient possibility in the endeavours of merriment, your population will develop its flairs, its intellect, its best judgement; that over season the national capacity for discernment and self-correction will be broadened. Life will improve. The species of your league will be more perfect, to acquire a word. But if a critical mass of your population is kept in peonage? All its verve spent in the furrows of day-to-day survival, with scant opportunity to develop the full range of its modules? Then how much poorer future prospects for your republic will be.

Economic equality can no more be divorced from the smooth functioning of republic than the ballot. Jefferson, Brandeis, the Roosevelts all distinguished this home truth. The American Dream has to be the lived actuality of the two countries, not just a pretty tale we tell ourselves.

I have always gotten much more publicity than anybody else.

Donald Trump

Then theres that other American reverie, the numbed-out, dumbed-down, make-believe nature where much of “the member states national” consciousness resides, the sum product of our mighty Fantasy Industrial Complex: movies, Tv, internet, texts, tweets, ad saturation, luminary preoccupation, plays preoccupation, Amazonian sewers of porn and political bullshit, the entire invasion of media and messaging that strives to separate us from our brains. September 11, 2001 exploded us out of that nightmare for about two minutes, but the dreaming is so elastic, so all-encompassing, that 9/11 was speedily absorbed into the the matrix of FIC. This exceedingly complex affair horribly direct in research results, but a swamp when it is necessary to reasons was stripped down and binaried into a dependable fantasy narrative of us against them, good versus misery, Christian against Muslim. The week after 9/11, Susan Sontag was virtually executed for pointing out that a few shreds of historic awareness might help us understand how we came to this moment. For this modest proposal , no small number of her fellow Americans bid her dead. But if united followed her guide if wed done the hard work of excavating down to the roots of the whole nasty circumstance perhaps we wouldnt still be fighting al-Qaida and its offspring 15 years later.

An 11 -year-old girl wears Trump socks at a campaign affair for the Republican campaigner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. Image: Mike Segar/ Reuters

Heres a hypothesis, ugly, uncharitable, but leaved our recent record it begs research: the majority of cases most Americans dont just knowing that real any more. How else to clarify Trump, a billionaire on an ego trip capturing a major partys nomination for chairman? Another blunt-speaking billionaire tried twice for the presidency in the 1990 s and went out in flames, but he made the mistake of running as himself, a recognizably flesh-and-blood human being, whereas Trump comes to us as the ultimate creature, and irrefutable maestro, of the Fantasy Industrial Complex. For much of his job until 2004, to be exact he deemed status in our lives as a more or less normal personality. Larger than life, to be sure, cartoonishly grandiose, shamelessly self-promoting, and reliably objectionable, but Trump didnt become Trump until The Apprentice debuted in January 2004. The first episode gleaned 20.7 million viewers. By likenes, Ross Perot received 19,742, 000 polls in the 1992 presidential election yes, Im equating referendum totals with Nielsen ratings but Trump kept describing that robust 20 million week after week. The season finale that time reached 28 million viewers, and over the coming decade, for 13 more seasons, this was how America came to know him, in that weirdly intimate direction TV has of extraditing fame into the very core of our lives.

It was this same Trump that 24 million viewers a record, of course tuned in to watch at the first Republican debate last year, the glowering, blustering, swaggering boardroom action flesh who demonstrated every hope of shredding the pols. One ponders if Trump would have ever been Trump if there hadnt been a JR Ewing to pave the way, to show just how dear and real a dealmaking Tv swindler could be to our natures. Trumps performance on that night did not dishearten , nor through all the debates in the long advance that followed, and if his consider for the truth has proved more erratic even than that of professional legislators, we should expect just as much. In the realm of the Fantasy Industrial Complex, world happens on a sliding scale. The reality is just another possibility.

I is talking about password primeval.

I would give the signed of republic ;P TAGEND

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

In nine dates Trump and Hillary will take the stage for their first face-to-face dispute. There is likely to be blood. The bayonets are going to be out, and the ratings are bound to be, need it be said, yuge. The American Dream will no doubt be invoked from both pulpits, for what true-blue patriot was ever against the American Dream? And yet for the past 30 years the Democratic nominee has worked comfortably within a party constitution thats battered the working and middle classes down to the bone. The new Democrats of the Clinton era are always strong for political privileges, as long as they dont disturbed corporate Americas bottom line. Strong for racial and gender equality, strong for LGBT privileges( though that took hour ). Meanwhile this same Democratic establishment assembled with the GOP to push a market- and finance-driven economic order that fertilizes the already rich and leaves the rest of us sucking wind.

Thats the very real indignation Trump to talk to , no fantasy there. Bernie as well; tiny meditate their constituencies overlapped, though Trumps claimed devotion to the common man stumbles over even the most basic proofs. On whether to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Trumps moral compass has spun from an suggested no( wages are already too high ), to suggest yes( wages are too low ), to weasel word( left open up to the states ), to yes and no in the same sigh( I would leave it and cause it reasonably ), and, lastly, when pressed by Bill OReilly in July, to yes-but( cause it to $10, but its still best left to the states ). All this from the candidate whos securely in favor of abolishing the estate tax, to the great benefit of heirs of multimillionaires and nothing at all to the vast majority of us.

Meanwhile, the Fantasy Industrial Complex is doing just fine such elections season, thank you. Addressing at a Morgan Stanley investors discussion in March, one of the leaders of the FIC, Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS and a boy whose 2015 compensation totaled $56.8 m, had this to say about the Trump campaign. It may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS. The moneys rolling in and this is fun this[ is] going to be a very good time for us. Sorry. Its a horrid concept to say. But creating it on, Donald. Keep going.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Two American Dreamings: how a dumbed-down nation lost slew of a great idea appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2hV7W5e via IFTTT

[vitalmindandbody]

Two American Reveries: how a dumbed-down society lost spate of a great impression

As Clinton and Trump prepare to debate next week , princely models are overwhelmed in a culture where most Americans do not know what is real anymore and the dream of equal opportunity is just a fantasy

Every child had a pretty good shot

To get at least as far as their old boy got

But something happened on the way to that place

They hurled an American flag in our face.

Billy Joel, Allentown

Its one of the greatest fabrications of all time, and just like it says on the dollar bill novus ordo seclorum it established an entirely new tell in human affairs. After millennia of pharaohs, lords, lords, kings, sultans, caesars and czars, with all their attendant gentries and locked-down social structure, a country was founded where birth and lineage didnt topic so much, where by application of your genius, force, labor and willingness to play by the rules, you could improve your information spate in life and achieve a measure of financial insurance for yourself and your family. Peasants and proles could aspire to more than mere survival. Progressive!

We know it today as the American Dream. The now-obscure historian James Truslow Adams coined the expression in his book The Epic of America, characterizing the American reverie as TAGEND

a dream of a social order in which each man and each girl shall be able to attain to the fullest prominence of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of delivery or position.

Adams was writing in 1931, but the dreaming was there from the beginning, in Jeffersons pursuit of happiness formulation in the Declaration of Independence, joy residing in its 18 th-century appreciation of succes, thrive, wellbeing.

Nobody ever came to America with a starry-eyed dream of working for famine compensations. Spate of that offered in the old country, and thats precise why we left, escaping serfdom, peonage, tenancy, indenture all different iterations of what was essentially a rigged organisation, to set it in current political verbiage that channeled the profits of our proletariat upstream to the Man. We came to America to do better, to secure for ourselves the liberation that financial defence accompanieds, and for millions largely lily-white males at first, and then slowly, sputteringly, women and people of color thats the direction it used to work , nothing less than a revolution in the human condition.

Upward mobility is indispensable to the American Dream, the notion that people can rise from working to middle class, and middle to upper and even higher on the prototype of a( imaginary) Horatio Alger or an( actual) Andrew Carnegie. Upward mobility across classes peaked in the US in the late 19 th century. Most of the benefits of the 20 th century were achieved en masse; it wasnt so much a phenomenon of great numbers of people emerge from one class to the next as it was standards of living rising sharply for all world-class. You didnt “ve got to be” exceptional to rise. Opportunity was sufficiently broad that hard work and steadiness would do, along with implicit buy-in to the social contract, allegiance to the system proceeding on the assumption that the system was mostly fair.

The biggest additions occurred in the post-second world war epoch of the GI Bill, cheap higher education, strong labor unions, and a progressive taxation code. Between the late 1940 s and early 1970 s, median household income in the US redoubled. Income inequality contacted historic lows. The median CEO salary was approximately 30 durations that of the lowest-paid hire, compared against todays gold-plated multiple of 370. The top tax bracket strayed in the neighborhood of 70% to 90%. Conceded, there used to be far less billionaires in those daylights. Somehow the society survived.

America is a dream of greater justice and the possibilities for the average “mens and”, if we are not able acquire it, all our other accomplishments amount to nothing. So wrote Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated pillar of 6 January 1941, an apt lead-in to her husbands State of the Union address eventually that day in which he enumerated the four exemptions necessary to American republic, among other issues freedom from want. In his Government of the Union address 3 years later, FDR expanded on this concept of freedom from want with his proposal for a Second Bill of Privilege, an economic statute of rights to antagonize what he viewed as the growing tyranny of the modern economic tell TAGEND

This Republic had at its beginning, and originated to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political claims among other issues the right of free speech, free press, free hero-worship As our person has grown in length and stature, however as our industrial economy has expanded these political claims have proved inadequate to assure us equality. We have come to a clear understanding of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic its safety and independence.

Political claims notwithstanding, liberty doughnuts excessively hollow when youre going nickel-and-dimed to extinction in your everyday life. The Roosevelts recognized that compensation peonage, or any organization that inclines toward subsistence level, is plainly incompatible with self-determination. Survival is, by definition, a constrained, desperate position; ones horizon is necessarily limited to the present daylight, to getting enough of what the body needs to make it to the next. These daylights a minimum wage laborer in New York City clocking 40 hours a week( at$ 9 per hour) earns $18,720 a year, well for the purposes of the Federal Poverty Line of $21,775. Thats a scrambling, anxious world, narrowly bounded. Close to impossible to decently feed, robe, and shelter yourself on a compensation like that, much less a family; much less buy health insurance, or save for your kids college, or are represented in any of those other good American concepts. Down at peon stage, the pursuit of prosperity sounds like a bad gag. Its “ve called the” American nightmare, George Carlin cracked, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Necessitous mortals are not free males, said FDR in that 1944 State of the Union speech. Beings who are ravenous and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are stimulate. A dreadful proclamation, demonstrably genuine, and especially unsettling in 2016, a point in time when the American Dream seems more viable as nostalgia than a lived phenomenon. Income inequality, asset distribution, mortality rates: by every measure, the average individual that Eleanor Roosevelt celebrated is sinking. Exceptional people continue to rise, but overall mobility is stagnant at best. If youre born poverty-stricken in Ferguson or Appalachia, chances are youre stay around that road. Ditto if your early retentions include the wading pool at the Houston Country Club or ski exercises at Deer Valley, youre likely going to keep your perch at the top of the heap.

Income inequality, gross disparities in opulence: were to say daily, perpetually, that these are the necessary the effects of a free market, as if the market was a force-out of quality on the order of weather or tides, and not the altogether manmade construct that it is. In flare of recent biography, blind credence of this sort of financials would seem to require a firm commitment to folly, but makes accept for the moment that its genuine, that the free market exists as a universe unto itself, as immutable in its workings as the regulations of physics. Does that universe include some ironclad convention who are in need of inequality of opportunity? Ive yet to sounds the suit for that, though doubtless some resourceful thinktanker could produce one out of this same free-market economics, together with stenches of genetic determinism as it relates to calibers of self-discipline and reputation. And it would be bogus, that case. And more than that, vile. That we should allow for wildly disparate possibilities due to accidents of birth ought to impres us as a crime equal in violence to child abuse or molestation.

Franklin Roosevelt:[ F] reedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is ensure equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place. The proposition leads deeper than sentimentality, deeper than programme, deeper even than adherence to equality and the pursuit of gaiety that are set out in the Declaration. It cuts all the way to the nature of democracy, and to the prospects for its very existence in America. We may have democracy in its own country, wrote state supreme court right Louis Brandeis, or we may have great capital concentrated in the sides of a few, but we cant have both. Those few, in Brandeiss judgment, would inevitably use their capability to subvert the free will of the majority; the super-rich as a class simply couldnt be trusted to do otherwise, a thesis thats being starkly acted out in the present period of Citizens United, Super Pacs, and truckloads of dark money.

But the occasion for economic equality goes beyond even equations of influence politics. Democracys premise rests on the idea that the collective wisdom of the majority will demonstrate right more frequently than its incorrect. That have enough opening in the pursuit of happy, your population will develop its genius, its ability, its better judgment; that over time the national capacity for discernment and self-correction will be magnified. Life will improve. The way of your uniting will be more perfect, to borrow a phrase. But if a critical mass of your population maintained in peonage? All its vigor spent in the cuts of day-to-day existence, with insufficient opportunity to develop the full range of its faculties? Then how much poorer the prospects for your democracy will be.

Economic equality can no more be divorced from the smooth functioning of republic than the ballot. Jefferson, Brandeis, the Roosevelts all realise this home truth. The American Dream has to be the lived world of the two countries, not just a moderately tale we tell ourselves.

I have always go much more advertisement than anybody else.

Donald Trump

Then theres that other American dreaming, the numbed-out, dumbed-down, make-believe macrocosm where much of the national consciousness resides, the sum concoction of our mighty Fantasy Industrial Complex: movies, Tv, internet, texts, tweets, ad saturation, celebrity infatuation, athletics infatuation, Amazonian sewers of porn and political bullshit, the entire foray of media and messaging that is endeavouring to separate us from our brains. September 11, 2001 detonation us out of that daydream for about two minutes, but the dream is so elastic, so all-encompassing, that 9/11 was soon absorbed into the the matrix of FIC. This exceedingly complex incident horribly direct in the result, but a swamp when it is necessary to reasons was stripped down and binaried into a reliable fantasy narration of us against them, good versus sin, Christian against Muslim. The week after 9/11, Susan Sontag was virtually executed for pointing out that a few smidgens of historical awareness might help us understand how we came to this part. For this modest overture , no small number of her fellow Americans bid her dead. But if wed followed her induce if united done the hard work of digging down to the roots of the whole nasty thought perhaps we wouldnt still be fighting al-Qaida and its offspring 15 years later.

An 11 -year-old girl wears Trump socks at awareness-raising campaigns event for the Republican nominee at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. Image: Mike Segar/ Reuters

Heres a hypothesis, ugly, uncharitable, but opened our recent biography it begs probe: the majority of cases most Americans dont know whats real any more. How else to justify Trump, a billionaire on an ego trip capturing a major partys nomination for chairman? Another blunt-speaking billionaire tried twice for the presidency in the 1990 s and used to go in flames, but he made the error of operating as himself, a recognizably flesh-and-blood human being, whereas Trump comes to us as the ultimate individual, and indisputable maestro, of the Fantasy Industrial Complex. For much of his profession until 2004, to be exact he braced status in our lives as a more or less ordinary personality. Large than life, rest assured, cartoonishly extravagant, shamelessly self-promoting, and reliably hateful, but Trump didnt become Trump until The Apprentice debuted in January 2004. The first episode depicted 20.7 million viewers. By analogy, Ross Perot received 19,742, 000 polls in the 1992 general elections yes, Im equating referendum totals with Nielsen ratings but Trump stopped gleaning that robust 20 million week after week. The season climax that year reached 28 million viewers, and over the coming decade, for 13 more seasons, this was how America came to know him, in that weirdly intimate mode Tv has of giving luminary into the exceedingly middle of our lives.

It was this same Trump that 24 million viewers a record, of course tuned in to watch at the first Republican debate last year, the glowering, blustering, swaggering boardroom act representation who devoted every hope of shredding the pols. One amazes if Trump would have ever been Trump if there hadnt been a JR Ewing to pave the way, to show just how dear and real a dealmaking TV swindler could be to our middles. Trumps performance on that night did not dishearten , nor through all the debates in the long progress that followed, and if his consider for the truth has proved more erratic even than that of professional legislators, we should expect just as much. In the realm of the Fantasy Industrial Complex, actuality happens on a slipping proportion. The fact is just another possibility.

I speak the password primeval.

I would give the signaling of democracy ;P TAGEND

By God! I will accept good-for-nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

In nine epoches Trump and Hillary will take the stage for their first face-to-face conversation. There will be blood. The bayonets are going to be out, and the ratings are bound to be, need it be said, yuge. The American Dream will no doubt be invoked from both pulpits, for what true-blue patriot was ever against the American Dream? And yet for the past 30 times the Democratic nominee has worked comfortably within “states parties ” establishment thats battered the working and middle classes down to the bone. The brand-new Democrat of the Clinton era are always strong for political privileges, as long as they dont disturbed corporate Americas bottom line. Strong for racial and gender equality, strong for LGBT privileges( though that took occasion ). Meanwhile this same Democratic establishment met with the GOP to push a market- and finance-driven economic prescribe that ameliorates the already rich and leaves the rest of us sucking wind.

Thats the very real feeling Trump to talk to , no fiction there. Bernie as well; small-minded think their constituencies overlapped, though Trumps admitted devotion to the common man stumbles over even the simplest proof. On whether to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Trumps moral compass has spun from an connoted no( wages are already too high ), to connote yes( wages are too low ), to weasel words( left open up to the states ), to yes and no in the same sigh( I would leave it and grow it rather ), and, ultimately, when pressed by Bill OReilly in July, to yes-but( raise it to $10, but its still good left to the states ). All this from the candidate whos securely in favor of abolishing the estate tax, to the great benefit of heirs of multimillionaires and none at all to the vast majority of us.

Meanwhile, the Fantasy Industrial Complex is doing just fine this election season, thank you. Communicating at a Morgan Stanley investors meeting in March, one of the commanders of the FIC, Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS and a husband whose 2015 compensation totaled $56.8 m, had this to say about the Trump campaign. It may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS. The fund rolling in and this is fun this[ is] about to become a very good time for us. Sorry. Its a terrible thought to say. But bring it on, Donald. Keep going.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Two American Reveries: how a dumbed-down society lost spate of a great impression appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2yeTrzz via IFTTT