#approximately october 2019. that was when it looked okay

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The feminine urge to give yourself a fuck ass bob

[tapas-and-stuff-productions]

The Deities Project: Part 6

An early notion for the Keys & Kingdoms universe was to divide its world into sections ruled by three pantheons, and those would be the historical pantheons of Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology! As it turned out, the 3rd Edition D&D supplement “Deities & Demigods” included stats for those exact three pantheons, and I carefully studied that for guidance on how to reinterpret those legendary pantheons for use in a fantasy world.

And so began this project: drawing all 53 historical deities depicted in that book. Casey Gosselin drew their symbols and Stacy Lord drew the characters themselves. Neither saw the illustrations in the D&D book, but we stuck to what the book claimed as their symbol, their sacred weapon, and very general appearance. The big project lasted from October 2019 to August 2020. Since then, we’ve been putting more research into the real myths and other gods, but these will still form the foundation for the core members of the pantheons and what they’ll look like when the K&K universe begins.

This is an 11-part series presenting all the art anew and talking about the ideas behind it! Presented in the order in which they were done, which is approximately in the order of strongest to weakest according to their rankings in the D&D book. Don’t forget to check out Stacy and Casey’s own pages:

The son of Baldur looks, eh, more like his dad than some other gods do. Both Casey and Stacy counted this design among their favorites and it’s easy to see why. Casey did a great design for his head - yes, for whatever reason, his symbol is nothing more than his own face - and Stacy got to build off of not only the very cool hairdo Casey gave him, but also one of my more interesting ideas for an outfit.

The symbol just needs a few modifications for world consistency - firstly, Forseti is the god of justice and balance, and so his symbol should be wearing a very neutral, symmetrical expression, not the smirk she gave him. And then there’s the general fact that Casey’s art style is more gritty and real than Stacy’s, so… his symbol is more realistic than his actual face. That’ll need some fixin’ in the actual world, hehe.

Thoth, also of the primordial Ogdoad pantheon - while Ptah is the most ancient and powerful of them, it’s Thoth who is implied to have once been the leader of the Ogdoad, having invented writing and mathematics - this fact enabling people to somewhat place him in history, as his presence is itself missing from the historical record. While Ptah and Bes married into the pantheon, Thoth just kinda showed up.

That’s all story ideas derived from the D&D interpretation of Thoth. Further ideas of mine alone include the notion that he never speaks… that seems appropriate for his mystique. And since it’s hard to be emotive with that long ibis beak… well, I originally figured his final model wouldn’t include those expressive eyebrows Stacy gave him, but, no, reckon we ought to keep those! So he can be expressive. Yup. And, as I mentioned with Set, I figure his neck will be a bit less human in his final model. Oh, and, yes, I made him a white guy. Because I figured every pantheon should represent people on a global scale, and that meant, yes, turning a handful of the Egyptian gods white as well. I guess I found the one instance where that would be the fair thing to do.

Stacy listed this one among her least favorites. From what she said, I think it’s mostly an issue of construction, she’s thinking the proportions are weird and that his lively dancing doesn’t look lively enough - the actual design, I hope she’s okay with, because I think it’s really good. The leopard print is a nice standout bit of detail we don’t see much in the collection, and I’m rather proud of my color choices on his staff, the thyrsus; after Casey drew it as all silver, I found I liked that idea for his symbol but that the real thing ought to have a splash of color on it, with a wood handle and a real pinecone and, yeah, went with purple for the ribbon - quite appropriate to his personality.

He’s got a pretty good story to him I think is worth examining in the K&K universe with some modifications appropriate to the world itself. And as in some writings in the myths, Dionysus will sometimes take over Hestia’s seat on the council of the twelve Olympians.

Sister to Osiris, Isis, and Set, but well below them in current power and influence according to the D&D book. Apparently a far more important death god than her son Anubis - heck, you’d never know that from how much attention Anubis gets in modern interpretations…

This is one of my favorite designs, for being probably the most blatantly erotic character in the collection, the amazingly detailed wings, and just all the haunting mystery she exudes. She’s a central figure in the story of the birth of Sobek and Anubis - not just for being the person who happened to give birth to them both, but also having a proactive role in the events surrounding it. Nice to see a mom in ancient myth having some drive! I came to really admire and sympathize with the character from skimming those events, and thinking hard about how to tell a good story surrounding them.

I’m… not entirely sure what this dude’s deal is, haven’t seen him in many Norse myth writings outside the D&D book. Seems he’s a Jotun, and he and his wife generally stay out of the gods’ business, just living in their undersea mead hall where the gods are welcome to visit if they don’t talk shop too much.

Had some fun with this design. I like that he has bear claws, I had the idea that in the future his club could be very distinctly made of some driftwood, since he has a deep-sea theme. And here’s where I said to Stacy, eh, how about we try a different Black skin tone this time? That felt well-timed, good that it happened exactly when it did. And then his crazy hair, the mustache, the huge beard-braid, the insane eyebrows… ultimately ought to stick to my rule of Black characters having Black hair textures, but hopefully won’t end up too different from what we have here!

Casey counted his symbol among her faves - that is indeed a very impressive cresting wave. And, yes, it’s Aegir and Set who are the two gods who don’t actually display their symbol anywhere. Just couldn’t find a good way.

[a-nice-and-interpretive-fanzine]

[ID: A cream-colored banner that says "A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: essays and art about the meanings we've found in Good Omens." There is a photo of a book page with a key on it behind the banner text. The photo source is rosy_photo on Pixabay. /end ID]

A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: Information Masterpost

Welcome!

This is a zine for those of us who love the subtle, complex work that is Good Omens, and who’ve enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the fandom as people interpret how the many moving pieces of the story come together, creating a slightly different meaning for each of us.

To put it simply, it’s a book full of the fandom’s own analysis and commentary about the Good Omens TV show, enhanced with illustrations from our brilliant artists.

This zine is analytical in the sense that all the writers are expressing their own nonfiction thoughts and feelings about the show, rather than writing fanfic, but it is not meant to be heavily academic. Anybody who likes to pick apart the series and discuss it should be able to enjoy it.

The zine will contain essays by fans who are passionate about analyzing and interpreting different parts of Good Omens - the characters, the plot, the writing techniques for the book and script, the cinematography of the TV show, the popular content of the fandom itself. Accompanying these essays will be black and white illustrations from our artists.

How are you organizing this process?

May 1-May 15: Everyone submits their application to do writing or art through a Google form. Behind the scenes, I’ll be setting up a separate email and Discord.

May 16-20: Applicants will be screened during this time.

May 20: I’ll email everyone to let them know the outcomes of their applications. The final participants will get a link to the Discord server for the zine (totally optional, of course).

May 21: If there’s any clarification or solidifying of ideas that needs to happen, I’ll contact you and discuss with you by this point. This is also when artists will be matched up with essays.

May 22 to August 14: This will be a period of just working on our essays and art. The Discord chat and Tumblr will be there for support and for exchanging ideas!

August 15: Participants need to email their full works to the zine’s email address by this date. No special formatting is needed; I’ll do that in InDesign.

August 15 to August 31: I’ll be putting the zine together in InDesign.

September 1: Preorders will open.

September 30: Preorders will close.

October 1: The zine order will be placed!

October 15: Assuming all goes well with printing and shipping, the zines will be shipped out in waves starting on this date. If the printing or shipping from the manufacturer is delayed, then shipping will just start ASAP.

Writer Application HERE Artist Application HERE Asked and Answered Questions on Tumblr The Fanzine's Page on Twitter

Read below for more detailed information about the zine in a Q and A format!

What are the specifications for the zine contributions?

For writers, I’m starting with 3k words or fewer per essay (approximately 10 pages at the size of this book). This depends heavily on how many participants we actually get, so it may change!

For artists, I’d be looking at black and white works, 300 DPI, 5.5 x 8.5 inches or smaller. If your art is supposed to fill up the entire page (i.e. no white space), please make it a total of 5.75 x 8.75 inches with nothing too important around the edges to account for bleed during the printing process.

Can I submit an essay to this zine if I’ve already posted it on Tumblr?

Not as you’ve already posted it. We don’t want to just copy/paste the exact thing that hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people have already read.

However, it IS fine and maybe even a good idea to take the same thought from your post and refine it, preserving your same thesis. For example, a lot of Tumblr posts are just us fans jotting down 5 or 6 paragraphs of random thoughts at 2 AM, but some of them are really cool thoughts! Expanding them and turning them into a bona-fide Essay would make those posts into excellent zine chapters. And you can copy small pieces of your own language as long as the whole thing isn’t just pasted word-for-word.

How long do essays have to be? Is there a limit?

With the number of writers we have, I've calculated that each person should ideally keep their essay to about 6000 words. There is wiggle room.

There’s no real minimum for your contribution; some analytical ideas are really good but can be expressed concisely, so it’s okay if your essays only come out to a few pages typed. For reference, with our book size, a page is about 300 words.

What happens if the zine sells a lot and you end up not only breaking even, but turning a profit?

It’ll go to charity. While I’ll ask the participants what they want to do for certain if we do make enough money, my suggestion will be donating it to Alzheimer’s Research UK in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett.

I’m not really comfortable calling this a “charity zine” up front since I simply don’t know if it will raise a significant amount. For the most part, I just want the thing to physically exist, which means breaking even, and don’t want to make it more expensive for buyers than it needs to be to afford the printing costs.

What kinds of essays are you talking about? What could be included?

In short, any analytical thoughts about the Good Omens TV show - and possibly even the fandom as it interacts with the show - are possible inclusions for the zine.

To expand a bit, think about the meta posts you see floating around Tumblr. Often these involve analyzing characters, or picking up on patterns in the plot. Sometimes fans use their own background knowledge to write posts about the significance of certain costume choices or the way music plays into each individual scene. Some posts examine the ways the series approaches gender, while others might discuss ways that the characters present as neurodivergent. That’s how diverse the pool of possibilities is for subjects in this zine.

How does art come into this?

Images will be black and white, to match the bookish mood of the project overall. Images can range in size from a half page to a full page.

I’m planning to talk to the artists and authors and loosely pair artists with essays that appeal to their personal interests.

I know how to illustrate a story, but how do I illustrate an essay?

There are infinite answers to this! I’ve seen some beautiful symbolic artwork in the fandom already (e.g. a number of takes on Aziraphale munching on an apple with Crowley in snake form curving around him), and there are tons of symbolic motifs to draw from, but these are not the only options. An artist illustrating an essay about cinematography, for example, could draw a well-known scene from an alternative angle. An essay about Heaven as a capitalist corporation could be illustrated with a cartoon of Gabriel giving some sort of excruciating PowerPoint presentation. A character analysis could be accompanied by a simple portrait. And on and on. I’m not interested in limiting the possibilities by trying to make a list, but just know that there are many and you don’t have to make it complicated if you don’t want to.

If the writers can reuse their essay ideas, can artists reuse their drawings?

Similarly to the writers, if you already have an interpretive drawing that you’re in love with, artists can use the same ideas and the same fundamental composition that is present in their own existing work. However, it has to be redone in some significant way. Whether it’s taking something you drew in 2019 and redrawing it using an updated style, taking a sketch and turning it into a lined and shaded piece, or redoing a full-color drawing so it presents more strikingly in black and white, it shouldn’t be identical to the thing you’ve already posted.

So how are you choosing participants here?

It’ll be based on what people are interested in writing about (or illustrating). I’ll be looking for people who are passionate about their essays, but I’ll also be looking for variety. It all depends on what people want to offer, so I won’t know for sure what it will look like put together until everyone’s application is in.

For artists, I’ll be trying to figure out whose style looks like it would adapt well to illustrations in black and white, and also who demonstrates an interest in the same subjects as the writers.

If we don’t get a lot of applicants, I’d love to simply include everyone, but I can’t commit to that without knowing for sure how many people are involved.

Do I have to use a formal writing style to participate?

No. You should use a style that makes your thoughts and ideas as clear as possible, but as long as it’s understandable, you can also get a little artistic with it. You can “write like you speak,” though perhaps in a more organized way. You definitely don’t need to worry about stylistic rules like not using the first person. This is not academia.

Is this zine going to center only on Crowley and Aziraphale?

That remains to be seen! It depends on what ideas show up in the applications. There will be a lot of the ineffable partners for sure, but whether the whole zine will center on them or whether there’s plentiful stuff about other characters will depend on what the participants suggest.

Do we have to agree with all your personal interpretations of Good Omens to be in the zine?

No! In fact, I’m assuming that a number of essays will contradict each other, too, and that’s perfectly okay. The zine is a sampler of fan interpretations meant to inspire, not instruct. It’s not “Here’s a fan-made guide on how to understand this TV show,” it’s “Look at all these moving parts and how many meanings we can find in them. What does it mean to you?”

However, there are some basic rules and assumptions by which I’m working here.

I don’t personally have the energy to include essays that are highly critical (“negative”) in this zine. It’s analytical but also meant to be fun.

I’m pretty focused on the TV adaptation. This isn’t “no book analysis allowed” but just that the essays will end up being weighted toward subjects that apply to either the TV show or both the book and the show.

Each writer should focus on making their own points over disproving other fan interpretations. If you’re writing in an expository style, it’s normal for the essay to contain rebuttals to opposing ideas, but these should be minor supporting points, not the heart and soul of your essay. For reference, I’d say the majority of meta I see floating around on tumblr would follow this rule just fine.

Essay ideas that seem to contain bigoted or exclusionary sentiments will not be accepted (no TERFy stuff, for example).

What kinds of editing will go into the zine? Are you going to argue with us about the contents of our writing?

While I might ask you to elaborate on certain points in your writing or clarify your thoughts about your subject, I’m absolutely not here to ask you to change the thesis, opinions, or headcanons on which your writing is based. If I really have a problem with your initial idea, I’ll tell you that up front and politely decline the contribution.

While formatting the zine, I’ll make minor edits if I think I see a typo or misspelling, something small and obviously unintentional. As with any other zine, your content won’t be changed without consulting you.

Is this a SFW zine?

Yes. If people want to discuss sexuality in a theoretical way, like erotic subtext, that would be allowed. There are canon references like Newt and Anathema’s moment under the bed that might come up, too. But there will be nothing explicit, and since these are essays instead of stories, there will be no “action” going on between characters. Let’s just say sex isn’t a forbidden topic, but it will be like discussing it in English class.

As for other topics that could make the zine NSFW, like gore or extreme language, I don’t think they will be an issue. Some dark topics, like abuse by Heaven and Hell, may be discussed, but they will be warned for, and these are not stories, so you aren’t going to see violent actions playing out.

Will there be any “extras” like charms or stickers?

I’m not sure yet. I’m most inclined to keep it simple, because of the nature of the zine, but would be open to including some bonus items if there’s an artist who’s really passionate about it.

With that said, I am pretty committed to making a hardcover edition of the book available, in addition to the standard softcover version.

You’re doing this with only one mod?!

Yes. I personally find it easiest. While I’ve worked on multi-mod projects in other domains and adore all of my co-mods, it’s a little bit different when it’s a project with this many moving pieces that includes real-life components like printing and shipping. Though there are a lot of individual things to be done, I am experienced with all of them, so it’s less overwhelming to just take on the whole project. That way, I know exactly what needs to be done and when, and there are no issues with assigning tasks.

What qualifies you to run this zine?

The résumé answer: in fandom, I successfully solo-modded a large not-for-profit zine in the past, the @soulmakazine2018, and while I can’t speak for the whole fandom, it definitely seemed to be well-received. <3 In real life, I’m a case manager and this involves coordinating and communicating with a lot of different people including my 100-person caseload, budgeting services, and filling out all kinds of paperwork on the fly, all skills that can be imported into zine work.

The practical answer: well, I’m the one who decided to start this project, so if you like the sound of it, you're stuck with me. I say with encouragement and enthusiasm that if you’d like to do a different take on a commentary zine, you should absolutely do it.

[brilapse]

Man some people are actually just like the worst though

Okay, so I am a Human Resources Representative for a Fortune 500 Company. The company outsources their HR programs like pension, benefits, payroll, etc to us.

I am a pension and payroll Advisor.

Last year in october to December 2019, the company offered what is called an early pension option (pension buyout) to employees. Usually you cant take the pension until age 60 when you retire, and it's a company provided monthly annuity, but with this epo we were offering former employees vested in the pension the chance to start their pension early at a reduction or to take it in a lump sum and give up your monthly annuity at age 60. (It was equal to approximately 5 years worth of pension payments) The lump sum option is what most people took.

Anyways, that's the backstory.

This guy calls in today about his year end 1099 tax form. Its basically pension version of a W2 or in Canada a T4. He was like hi, my tax form is wrong. It shows my lump sum is fully taxable but it shouldn't be, I rolled it over to a traditional IRA. (If you roll the funds over to a traditional IRA then the funds aren't taxed until you withdraw it from the IRA.

This guy did not elect to roll it over to a traditional, he elected to roll it over to a Roth IRA. if you do that, you are responsible for paying the taxes in the year of distribution.

This guy was like no, I rolled the funds over to a traditional IRA and I was like, well you elected Roth, I am looking at your elections and signature on the form right now.

Since you checked Roth, we sent the funds to you in a check that was labeled for a Roth, and then made your tax form accordingly, of your Financial Advisor input funds that were labeled for a Roth into a traditional IRA, that is not our fault. The onus is on them to work with the IRS to proof the funds werent put in a roth but in a traditional.

Anyway, he FLIPPED out. At one point he was like "STOP SAYING I ELECTED A ROTH WHEN I DIDN'T IF YOU SAY THAT AGAIN I WILL" and then stopped.

I was like "I'm so sorry sir, you cut off there, could you please repeat that?" :')

Well, he lost it even more when I said that lmao, he screamed so loud that I nearly went deaf. I was like "sir, if you continue to be irate and swear, I will disconnect this call. Please can we take this to a professional level"

And HE WAS LIKE YOU BITCH MILLENIAL, YOU'RE ALL THE WORST AND SO RUDE

I was like "ok boomer I am disconnecting the call now"

Anyways, I noted his file irate and reported him to corporate, in case he tries to call in and escalate and get Corporate to do his bidding.

moral of the story is BOOMERS ARE THE WORST, ESPECIALLY AMERICAN BOOMERS

Oh that reminds me, at one point he asked where we were located out of and I said Canada and he was like "well then you dont know anything about our tax laws, you could be wrong" ???????? Like ok I just got this job without any training whatsoever

In fact, I often have people call in with their tax advisers and they are CLUELESS and know NOTHING. I often have to quote IRS publications to them (especially basis recovery) and educate them on them.......like wtf u guys have a DEGREE in this, I did a 4 week crash course and know way more than you.....its actually insane

And then today I also had to deal with a guy, telling him we froze his pension payments until his divorce proceedings are over because we received a letter from his ex wife's lawyer saying she does not give consent and that a QDRO is being made up and she's worried he is going to try to start his pension payments and withdraw his funds in the 401k before the QDRO is done up. Legal in Corporate asked me to do the callback and let's just say that was fucking fun.

ANYWAYS RANT OVER I JUST NEEDED TO VENT ABOUT MY SHIT DAY

[kaceflxv325]

7 Practical  Methods To Turn Okay Gay Into A Sales  Equipment

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Pornography Is A $12 Billion Industry, But Revenues Leave The Valley

In 2019, Overwatch was one of the most searched for video game, with an 8% boost over the previous year. Fortnite was among the top searches in 2018, although it's appeal decreased by -17% in 2019 it still continued to be the 2nd most searched computer game. In October, Fortnite's gameplay servers shut-down which created a rise in Fortnite searches on Pornhub. Kim Kardashian remained the 2nd most preferred star search, although her search matter went down to 18.8 million from a high of 26.3 million in 2018.

Genuinely absolutely nothing to discount, it seems that everyone gathered to Pornhub on October 21st, Kim K's birthday, to reveal her some love. Even though mobile phones continue to compose most of Pornhub's traffic, we did still locate some adjustments taking place amongst visitors that were using computer.

Take The Next Step Fund The Fight Against Large Porn.

The typical age of site visitors from the USA matured by 1 year from 38 to 39, as did the UK as well as Canada. India still has the largest proportion of millennials composing 85% of the nation's web traffic, while Spain has one of the most fully grown site visitors with an ordinary age of 41 as well as 61% moring than the age of 35. 2019 saw the percentage of female site visitors expand to 32%, an increase of 3 percentage factors over 2018. Amongst Pornhub's leading 20 website gays tubes traffic countries, the Philippines and Brazil continue to have the highest women proportions at 39%, followed by 36% in Mexico and Argentina.

You can see more of those results and also the year's top costume searches in our 2019 Halloween Insights. Saint Patrick's Day created a -16% decrease in Irish website traffic but additionally lead to a massive increase in related searches as described in our Saint Patrick's Day Insights post. To see full protection, be sure check out our Ladies's World Mug Insights where we reveal what search terms likewise raised on the day of the last.

This year's Champions League Final between Liverpool and Tottenham was likewise featured in a comprehensive Insights blog post. The FIFA Female's Globe Cup took place in France on July 7th with the USA facing off versus the Netherlands. Web traffic in the United States dropped approximately -5% throughout the suit as they enjoyed their group win, while web traffic in the Netherlands visited -6%. No person likes seeing tape-recorded sporting activities video games and also having to avoid the unavoidable looters.

Some nations have much bigger shares of mobile traffic consisting of the United States where 88% of visitors are utilizing either a mobile phone or a tablet, in addition to 96% of visitors from the Philippines, 91% from India and 90% from Mexico. Visitors aged 45 to 54 were 127% extra right into the 'Solo Female' group in 2019 than they were in 2018, while the 'Huge Tits' category likewise expanded by 49%. When contrasted to other ages, those 45 to 54 years old were 39% a lot more right into 'Mature' video clips and also 28% a lot more right into 'Smoking'.

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Australia, Poland as well as Sweden all saw traffic from females grow by 5 percent points in 2019. 4 of the leading 10 pornstars looked more often by females are strictly gay male entertainers. That's no surprise to our statisticians as an earlier Insights study discovered that 37% of gay male porn was really being seen by women on Pornhub. In 2019, Zilv Gudel competed to the top of gay pornstar searches, with a considerable lead over in 2014's preferred William Seed.

Whether face to face, or in front of a display with close friends, the only means to delight in sporting activities is to view them as they are occurring. It's because of that that live sporting occasions trigger some of Pornhub's largest temporary traffic variations.

Windows traffic decreased by 3% while MacOS systems expanded by 7% to currently comprise 16.7% of desktop web traffic. Chrome OS just comprises 1.7% of Pornhub's desktop computer traffic yet it's share grew by 24% contrasted to 2018.

The match was cleared up in October 2010, with terms that remain confidential.

Pornography 2.0 sites such as these are seen as positioning noteworthy competitors for paid x-rated internet sites and standard magazine as well as DVD-based pornography.

The celebrations agreed that the website drivers would carry out digital fingerprint filtering on their websites.

One award show that caused a web traffic boost in 2019 was the Second Annual Pornhub Awards which happened in Los Angeles as well as streamed survive on Pornhub. You can watch the Pornhub Honors show, musical acts and highlights reel by going here. The popularity of Nintendo's Zelda grew 138% in 2019 to 5.6 million searches and also our leading video game personality, adhered to by Burial place Raider's Lara Croft. Va, Mercy, Mei and Ashe from Overwatch in advance of Fortnite's Tragedy and Brite Bombing Plane.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

halloween special 2019

(Or, Halloween Special 2027, because this is set immediately after Turnabout Academy but contains no reference to it besides the fact that Juniper exists.)

A Fae AU side story. A classic meme of the autumnal season gets a cannibal joke twist, and the real horror story is the friends we made along the way. Written with the profoundest apologies to the professor from whom I took an entire semester course on Edgar Allan Poe. 

----

It still feels like the crack of dawn, after the week they’ve had, but dawn is admittedly later in late October, and the sun is already risen, so it’s not early at all. It’s no one’s problem but Phoenix’s own that his brain is still zombified. Trucy woke him up, flinging her things all around the apartment to get ready to head out: Juniper has joined her trick-or-treating group that already consisted of Trucy, Vera, Jinxie, Athena, and Pearl, and Pearl still doesn’t have a costume, and now neither does Juniper, and Vera hasn’t finished making hers, and it’s T-minus two days until Halloween.

So he scrambled some eggs for his daughter and ushered her out the door after making her promise to say hi to all of the other girls for him, and then he crawled back into bed. Barely three minutes after, his phone rang. That was marginally better than his phone ringing once he had fallen back asleep, but this deprives him of the chance of going back to sleep at all, probably, and actually it’s not better. Phoenix doesn’t know why he thought that. He squints at the tiny screen on his phone to see that an impossible amount of symbols, including what looks like some Japanese characters, a pentagram, and a simplified pixel art hand making a middle finger. 

“Hello, Maya.”

“Niiick! I need you to settle a dispute!”

Phoenix groans. “Between who?”

“Hello.” Iris’ voice comes through as clear as Maya’s, clearer than humans ever are on phone calls. Magical speakerphone. Phoenix drops his face into his pillow. 

“Iris says that the only one of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories to involve cannibalism was his one weird-ass novel that he never finished. But he’s gotta have had more than that right? He strikes me as a cannibalism kinda dude.”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix mumbles into his pillow, and then, resigned to his fate, he lifts his head and repeats clearly, “I don’t know. I’m not the literature guy.” He knows Shakespeare, and what he knows about Shakespeare is that he needs to keep Maya away from it, else she might decide that Puck is a role model. “Iris would have more of an idea than me.”

“Nick! You can’t take your ex’s side over me!”

Iris giggles in the background. “This is an argument about objective facts, Maya,” Phoenix says. “I’m not ‘taking sides’ personally.”

“Okay, but, Montressor was definitely saving Fortunado down there to chill him to a good eating temperature and then have him as a snack with the Amontillado. Like that’s gotta be why he killed him that way.”

That’s one of the few Poe stories Phoenix knows. He can answer this one. “There was no Amontillado,” he says wearily. “That was the whole point of the story, Maya. He lied about having the fancy wine to get Fortunado down to the catacombs because that was the best place to kill him quietly. There wasn’t any cask of Amontillado.”

Maya gasps. “What?” She sounds so betrayed that Phoenix almost laughs and almost feels bad. “He lied? He can’t lie!”

Now Phoenix does laugh. “What, did you think he was fae because elaborately killing someone for some unmentioned slights is a fae thing to do?” She sounds more scandalized at the lie part that the murder part, which, for anyone even slightly versed in fae culture, does make sense. 

“Well—” Maya sputters. “Yeah!” She heaves an exaggeratedly loud sigh. “I guess The Cask of Amontillado really isn’t a story that implies cannibalism.”

“There was other wine in the wine cellar where he walled up Fortunado,” Iris says. “Perhaps one of those would pair with him just as well for Montressor’s meal as you imagine the Amontillado would.”

“You don’t need to patronize me,” Maya says, sounding less irritable than Phoenix expects. “But, oh, Nick, other question! Why would the narrator, obviously possessing greater strength and no morals, not simply eat the old man so as to get rid of his creepy staring eye and better muffle the treacherous tattletale heart?”

“Telltale,” Iris says. Maya groans at the correction.

“Bitch-ass snitch,” Phoenix says.

“No,” Iris says. “Definitely not. Now, to return to the heart of your question, Mystic—”

Maya and Phoenix both snicker. What follows is not a long silence, but it is a loaded one, and then Iris resumes speaking, her clipped tone betraying her annoyance with the inadvertent pun. “The heartbeat was not a real sound,” she explains, “but rather the psychological manifestation of his guilt at committing the murder.”

“Oh,” Maya says. “So it’s like when you want to get coffee you have to have a barista make it and hand you the cup because if you tried to serve yourself from a machine it always explodes back in your face. It’s not the machine that hates you, it’s you who hates you, and the machine is the expression of it!”

“That is…” Iris trails off, clicking her tongue in thought. “Actually, yes, similar, though no one but the narrator could hear the sound of the heart.”

“So he wasn’t fae either,” Maya says. “Otherwise the whole house would’ve been, ba-dum! That they all felt it! And then probably it would explode.”

“Y’know, if he had eaten the old man,” Phoenix says, because sometimes it is fun, a flex of creative muscles he doesn’t usually get to stretch, to play along with Maya when she has her inane musings, “he still would’ve heard the heart beating, right, because it was just in his head. But instead of yelling at the cops that it was under the floorboards—”

Maya knows where he’s going with it immediately; either he knows the way she thinks too well, or she knows him. “—dude woulda been yelling about hearing it in his own stomach. Man, can you imagine? You’re just some beat cop coming in to investigate and then the guy starts shrieking about killing a dude but instead of starting to tear up the floorboards to show you the body he starts trying to claw open his own stomach?”

Phoenix considers that. He decides that yeah, it would be pretty far over on the scale of fucked-up things he’s seen as a lawyer. Sort of like Matt Engarde tearing up his own face in despair and fury, but also way worse because it would involve definite cannibalism and possible disembowelment, depending on how far the narrator got in his attempts. “Yep,” he says. “That’d be fucked up.”

“You could write it,” Iris says. “Poe is public domain, is he not, and you an adult man who could get away with it under the name of ‘literary reimagining’ rather than it being called ‘fanfiction’.”

“No thanks,” Phoenix says. “I’m not gonna be the man who messes with the classics.” He’d pitch the idea to Larry if Larry made his name on literally anything other than wholesome life-affirming picture books. Actually, he still wouldn’t, because Larry is an artist as well as a writer and there’d be a chance that he’d turn it into painting rather than prose and that is a level of horror Phoenix doesn’t want to go to. Better just to stay on the level of Maya reading cannibalism into every horror story that crosses her path. 

(Would Athena call that projection? He is not going to think about that any longer.)

“Glad anyway you could help with our dispute,” Maya says. “Cuz” - she’s never settled on one nickname for Iris, but cousin or a derivation usually means she’s not angry with her - “was getting wistful when Pearly went off to talk shop with all your daughters, so she wanted to get in the holiday spirit and it spiraled. I made it spiral.”

As tends to happen around there. As Maya is wont to do. Phoenix isn’t surprised. He also decides to ignore the “daughters” remark. It’s not worth arguing that Trucy is his only daughter, and okay maybe Vera half counts, but on the other end of the spectrum, he’s known Juniper for not even a week. 

So instead he voices the matter that is bothering him. He’s afraid to speak it into the world lest she hadn’t thought about it, but he also needs to be prepared. “So, Maya,” he begins warily, “you planning on venturing out for Halloween?” 

He’s dreaded this holiday ever since that first year, when she figured out what trick-or-treat meant and decided that this was the most fae of holidays, what with one being allowed to threaten and extort strangers for goodies. It’s more blatant than the fae usually are, even. That first year, he had to keep her entertained and distracted all night, with candy and other sugary sweets and campy movies, so she couldn’t go and fulfill her suggestion of egging Edgeworth’s car as revenge for him being “a huge douchebag to us in court”. She had gotten the eggs ahead of time and stashed them in his fridge so at eleven they made a run to the corner store for other ingredients to teach her how to make omelets. 

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m staying right here. Pearly can have her fun. But you and I are totally on for our post-Halloween bargain bin on-sale candy shopping spree. You’re buying! It’s tradition.”

“Huh?” It happening three years in a row, and then not for the next seven years, does not a tradition make. “Objection!”

“Nope!” She sounds positively gleeful; he can picture exactly what her smile looks like, how wide and toothy. “Ignored! What’s it that judges say again - overruled! You are overruled! And your penalty is reading Poe for a refresher so we can talk about it more! We need to talk about the one with the cat because I can’t decide if the cat is fae! Or even if it’s one cat! I want everyone’s input!”

His phone display shows a pixel jack-o-lantern with a grin in a probable approximation of Maya’s. He drops his head back onto his pillow. “Goodbye, Maya.” 

The second Halloween, they carved pumpkins in the office; Pearl demanded they not have scary faces, Maya ate half of the seeds even before they roasted them, and Phoenix tried not to think about how last year at that time Edgeworth was around that they could consider the prospect of egging his car. When they dropped pumpkin guts on the floor, Mia flung it right back at them to get it stuck in their hair. The third year, they brought Pearl along for candy shopping, too, and she sat in the cart atop a throne of bagged sweets and pointed out clearance decorations she wanted for next year. They’re boxed up somewhere. He should find them for her and the other girls. For next year, or seven years later, it’s not that much of a difference, is it?

“And,” he adds, “I’ll see you in November.” Start anew. “Tradition, right?”

[glassc0ffin]

Spreading

frankie has a haunted tattoo its pretty neat. another transcript fic

pairing: oc (frankie james)/jonathan sims

words: 2049

warnings: yearning

[CLICK]

FRANKIE JAMES:

Oh, I've missed that tape recorder. I still haven't got one, y'know.

ARCHIVIST:

There are some spares around somewhere, I could try and get one for you. I-If you wanted.

JAMES:

You'd do that? ...What if you get in trouble?

ARCHIVIST:

With what's going on around here, I doubt anyone would notice one missing tape recorder. But, I digress. What are you doing back here? I thought the voices had stopped.

JAMES:

Well… They did, after a while. Thanks for looking into that, by the way. I was a nervous wreck for a good while, there.

ARCHIVIST:

It was no problem. I'm glad you're doing at least a bit better.

[PAUSE]

You are doing better?

JAMES:

I mean, I thought I was. Up until –

ARCHIVIST:

Wait, I-I should –

JAMES:

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

ARCHIVIST:

Statement of Frankie James, radio DJ at Tranzishon Rock, London, regarding?

JAMES:

A tattoo I got recently.

ARCHIVIST:

Recorded direct from subject by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of The Magnus Institute, 5th of October, 2019. Statement begins.

[PAUSE]

A tattoo? Would you mind showing me?

JAMES:

I - Okay, it's a little… Complicated. A couple of days after I saw you the first time, I decided to treat myself, seeing as I felt like shit – Don't worry, I'll show you in a little bit, I just need to explain something first – and I texted my tattooist, Sarah, if she had any appointments soon. She said no, that she was booked up until Christmas, but that she had an apprentice in who could do something quick for me. And I thought, well, I trust Sarah, she wouldn't let some newbie who's never held a tattoo gun before into her studio. That, and I kind of wanted to be a learning experience. There's something about being a living canvas for someone that's a little appealing. 

ARCHIVIST:

[SIGHS] I'm not quite sure I relate, but go on.

JAMES:

She books me in for a session a couple of days later. I had my heart set on a space sleeve, with stars and planets and stuff, and a supernova exploding on my elbow. I had come into a little bit of money recently so instead of doing the responsible thing, like paying my rent, I wanted to spend a ridiculous amount of money on myself. I commissioned a friend to design the sleeve and went to Sarah's with it. 

ARCHIVIST:

It sounds beautiful.

JAMES:

[QUIETLY] I can think of something more beautiful.

ARCHIVIST:

Hmm?

JAMES:

I-Er, nothing, don't worry. [WHISPERED] Shit.

[PAUSE] So, yeah, the tattoo. The newbie, I learned his name was Jimmy, transferred it onto my arm and started work. Funnily enough, we got off on the same foot as you and I.

ARCHIVIST:

Really? How so?

JAMES:

Y'know how I was obsessing over your tape recorder because of how cute and vintage it is? He had an antique tattoo gun he was using on me, paddle-operated and everything, it was really cool! He was as enthusiastic about it as I was, he said that he got it from a fancy vintage place. I can't remember what it was called but he said the bloke running it was called...Salesa? I think? 

ARCHIVIST:

...I see.

JAMES:

Anyway, it hurt a lot more than I was expecting. I just put it down to the gun being old and that was just what people used to have to deal with. I remember thinking I hope that gun's passed some safety checks. I mean, it wasn't rusty or anything, but I didn't want it to just fall apart while it was still stabbing me and fuck up my tattoo. Wait, am I allowed to swear?

ARCHIVIST:

I-It's not against regulations, as such. I'm not going to tell you off, anyway.

JAMES:

Aw, thank you. I'm not really a bleeder when I get tattoos, I have enough now to know what to expect, but with this one, i-it was like I had anemia or something. Every half hour we had to stop so I could eat something or I'd feel like passing out. Eventually, after 3 hours, I hit my limit. I was getting light headed and kind of annoyed, so I told Jimmy I'd be back in a week or so to finish it off. It was only from my elbow and down to my wrist, he hadn't even started on my upper arm yet. 

After that, I went straight back home - I had moved back there since the voices had stopped by then, don't know why they did but I'm thankful anyway - and collapsed onto my bed clutching my arm. It was already hot and swollen, trying to heal already. There was some cling film put over it and bandages. I soaked right through them overnight and onto my bedsheets. The next morning I could barely extend my arm. It was twice the size of the other and just oozing yucky stuff. It probably wasn't the best idea for an open wound, but like everyone does when they have an open wound, I stuck it under the cold tap. It was only then, in the harsh light of my bathroom, that I saw my tattoo properly that morning. 

There was a planet in the blackness of inked space that wasn't there before. I'm sure of it. It's not even in the original design. It was ringed, like Saturn. I even tried rubbing it off my skin but that just made it bleed more. It was way too early in the morning for me to deal with that shit, so I just wrapped it in some new bandages and went out to get food. It was aching the whole time I was out, and when I rolled up my jacket sleeves I saw I had leaked through the bandage again, and through my shirt.

It hurt. It hurt so much. More than any of my other tattoos healing. But again, I just thought it was that old tattoo gun, and because I hadn't protested when Jimmy brought it out, it was my own fault. My own stupid fault that I'd probably have to get my arm amputated because I caught fucking gangrene off an antique tattoo gun. 

I just resigned myself to cleaning it again when I got home. In fact, I ran a bath. And as I took my shirt off I looked in the mirror, and the tattoo had gotten bigger. I swear. We had stopped at the elbow, I promise, but it was at least an inch higher than that before, all the way around my arm. In fact, the new area was sore to touch, as if it had just been tattooed on, where the area at my wrist had already started to scab.

And as another day passed, the tattoo grew, and I cleaned it. And another day. And another. And now I'm here. Again.

ARCHIVIST:

Statement ends. Will you show me? The tattoo I mean?

JAMES:

Ah, sure. [CLOTHES RUSTLING] There. Careful, that part only appeared this morning.

ARCHIVIST:

[GASPS] I-I see what you mean… Frankie, I-I don't think you - uh - needed to take your whole shirt off...Wait a minute.

JAMES:

What? What is it?

ARCHIVIST:

It's on your back as well, here…

JAMES:

[SHARP BREATH INTAKE]

ARCHIVIST:

Sorry! I didn't mean to poke you.

JAMES:

No - you didn't hurt me, it's just - your hands are so cold! [LAUGHS, NERVOUS]

ARCHIVIST:

Jesus...I-It's moving!

JAMES:

WHAT?

ARCHIVIST:

The - That planet is spinning! The stars, they're twinkling as well! 

JAMES:

FUCK, dude, WHAT?

ARCHIVIST:

Frankie, you can't go home like this. Your skin is raw, I don't know how you're dealing with this…

JAMES:

I'm not. Painkillers, mostly. I…try not to think about it. 

ARCHIVIST:

We have some medics here who can help you, we can keep an eye on you, on that tattoo. And track down the man who sold your friend that gun.

JAMES:

I, er, need some stuff from my flat.

ARCHIVIST:

[SOFTLY] If you'd like, I can come with you to help. I doubt you'd be able to lift much with your arm in that state. 

JAMES:

Thank you… Why are you doing this?

ARCHIVIST:

What do you mean?

JAMES:

Well, don't you have assistants and stuff to deal with this crap? You don't do this with every person who gives a statement, right?

ARCHIVIST:

You're right. I don't. [PAUSES] You're different.

JAMES:

I-I am?

ARCHIVIST:

Yes...You're the first person I've ever met who is evidence of their statement, living, breathing, evidence that you weren't lying. And if I'm being honest, it's fascinating. 

JAMES:

[NERVOUS LAUGHTER] Thanks, I think… Can I put my shirt back on now? 

ARCHIVIST:

Oh, yes, o-of course. I can turn around if you want.

JAMES:

What's the point? You've just seen my boobs, seeing them covered isn't really going to make a difference.

ARCHIVIST:

[UNDER HIS BREATH] Good lord. [COUGHS] Yes, quite. Oh, er, recording ends.

[CLICK]

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST:

Are you feeling any better today?

JAMES:

Not really. Still hurts. Thanks for asking, though.

ARCHIVIST:

I’ll see about getting you some painkillers. Would you mind showing me how far it’s progressed? I need to get it recorded.

JAMES:

Yeah, just… Gimme a second. It’s a little hard to move my arm now.

ARCHIVIST:

I can help. I-If you want.

JAMES:

...Yeah. Yeah, okay. [CLOTHES RUSTLING] Ow!

ARCHIVIST:

Sorry! Sorry. Was that part new?

JAMES:

I think so. It’s all a bit sore.

ARCHIVIST:

Yes, I can see. Your skin is red around the edges of the thing. Hold on, let me put some gloves on. [STRETCHY ELASTIC NOISES]

JAMES:

So you want me to bend over and cough, doc?

ARCHIVIST:

[SNORTS] Stop, I need to be delicate. I can’t do that if you’re giving me the giggles. Oh, let me - [COUGHS] Supplement of Statement #421904, recorded on the 6th of October, 2019, examining the tattoo of Frankie James, given to him from a gun sold by Mikaele Salesa. Statement begins.

JAMES:

Your hands are still deathly cold.

ARCHIVIST:

Sorry about that. Tattoo originally started at the wrist of the subject, and ended at the elbow. Today, approximately one week after the initial application, it has extended over the subjects hand, up his arm, and is currently spilling onto his chest and back. The tattoo is of a galaxy, with a number of planets and stars dotted about. On the subject’s elbow is a supernova exploding.

JAMES:

That part hurt the most.

ARCHIVIST:

I can imagine. Originally, the tattoo only had four planets and six stars, all located on the forearm, but as of today, the number has increased to eight planets and [COUNTING UNDER HIS BREATH] fifteen stars. It also appears to...move...at times, the stars seem to twinkle, and the planets spin on their axis. [BREATHES OUT] Very unusual.

JAMES:

That’s an understatement.

ARCHIVIST:

I’m just going to take some photos, if that’s alright?

JAMES:

Yeah, just get my good side.

ARCHIVIST:

[LAUGHS] You don’t have a bad side. [PAUSE] [CAMERA SHUTTERS 5 TIMES] There. That should be all I need for now. You can pop your shirt back on.

JAMES:

Can I just leave it off? It really hurts and having to peel it off again later to clean it will just hurt even more.

ARCHIVIST:

A-Alright. I’ll see you in a bit, Frankie.

JAMES:

Jon, wait.

ARCHIVIST:

Hmm? What’s wrong?

JAMES:

Nothing, I just… Thanks for helping me bring some stuff over here. You didn’t have to do that.

ARCHIVIST:

I wanted to help. Frankie, when you came in, you looked terrified. I was...very worried for you.

JAMES:

[NERVOUS LAUGHTER] Shit, I thought I was hiding it better. Okay, but, surely everyone that comes in to give a statement is going to be bricking it?

ARCHIVIST:

Well, like I said before, you’re fascinating. [PAUSE] It! It’s fascinating, your tattoo, it’s -

JAMES:

[SNORTS]

ARCHIVIST:

Not to say that you’re not fascinating, I-I- [SIGHS] I should leave, before I make an even bigger fool of myself.

JAMES:

Bye, Jon. You’re not too bad, yourself.

ARCHIVIST:

R-Right. Thanks. Goodbye.

JAMES:

Jon, wait! [PAUSE] And there he goes. I guess I’ll end this myself, then. Shit, I hope I don’t break it somehow. Erm, statement ends?

[freehawaii]

MAUNA KEA - MANA VERSUS MONEY

Indian Country Today - October 6, 2019 - By Anne Keala Kelly

The protest blocking the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea is now in its 11th week. Hawaii’s state and county officials still claim they can find “a way to move forward,” though there is little evidence such a path exists. 

Hawaii Island Mayor Harry Kim, whom Governor David Ige put in charge of the crisis in August, released a proposal that calls for the inclusion of “Native Hawaiian leaders” in future management decisions for the summit. But Kim’s plan fails to address the current situation, and, given that he has no jurisdiction over the summit, his plan is the legal equivalent of fairy dust.

The ku kia‘i mauna, or guardians of the mountain, for their part, have remained steadfast in opposition to the telescope. 

After word spread of a possible sweep by law enforcement three weeks ago, the ku kia‘i mauna numbers grew to some 1,500 almost overnight. That had been the (approximate) daily average by week three of the protest, when a tropical storm slimmed the crew to about 300. Now, there are between 250 and 300 people camped out 24-7 in an area that stretches about a quarter of a mile in both directions of the pu‘uhonua, or refuge, at the base of Pu‘u Huluhulu. That’s where the main camp operations are set up with a makeshift kitchen and other facilities, such as a Mauna Medic tent where they treat minor injuries. Although the camp is relatively quiet, another word to describe the atmosphere is prepared.

Rumors swirl almost daily about a possible middle of the night police raid -- and so everyone is on guard.

There is a protocol in place in the event that law enforcement deploys teargas. Each kupuna, or elder, has a kit that includes goggles and a respirator. Aunty Keala is being fitted for one, too. She is wheelchair bound, and one of the 28 kupuna who were arrested on July 17th.

One thing has become abundantly clear. The only way to move the telescope’s construction forward will be by force. It isn’t just that the parties involved are not on the same page, they aren’t even in the same book. 

There are two completely different paradigms standing toe to toe on the Mauna Kea access road. One emerges from a culture that measures political and social power as being imbued with what Hawaiians call mana, meaning something spiritual or divine in nature. The other is from a culture that views power, particularly in a settler-colonial place like Hawaii, as monetized, material force.

Money remains the dominant factor in the state’s decision to support the telescope. Constantly referenced in local and national press is the $1.4 to $2 billion price tag for the thirty-meter telescope and disbelief, sometimes bordering on condescension, at Native Hawaiian opposition. Although reasoning for the telescope is cloaked in western notions of science, recently, a deeper incentive for the University of Hawaii, which controls subleases for the summit, has also become clearer.

In an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, UH Vice President for research and innovation, Vassilis Syrmos, expressed concern over National Science Foundation dollars that will go elsewhere without the telescope. According to Syrmos, the university is “expected to be positioned to receive billions for TMT related astronomy research and instrumentation development.” 

Kealoha Pisciotta, whose organization Mauna Kea Anaina Hou has stopped every telescope project proposed over the past two decades with legal challenges, is a former telescope operator for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. In some ways for her, the thirty meter telescope is deja vu. “When we challenged NASA’s 2003 plan to expand the Keck footprint on the summit with 10 more telescopes, Ed Stone was the executive director of Keck at that time,” she said. “Now, he’s the executive director of the TMT International Observatory.” (The W.M. Keck Observatory, informally known as Keck, is named for William Keck, the founder of Superior Oil.)

Pisciotta’s knowledge of how the astronomy industry functions is almost as extensive as her cultural knowledge.

“My family has been star people since time immemorial,” Pisciotta said. While hanging a map of the summit in her tent, she explained some of Mauna Kea’s alignments in relation to the solstices, equinoxes and other sacred places.

Like many Hawaiians, Pisciotta has genealogical ties to the mountain that involve religious and cultural practices that include traditional astronomy. Indigenous knowledge of the stars is what enabled Pacific Islanders to navigate the largest ocean in the world without any western instruments for millennia.

“They want to build the TMT in the middle of the ring of shrines,” she said, referring to an area where practitioners have always viewed the heavens, and placed their family ahu, or altars, and ho‘okupu or offerings. The “ring” as archeologists call it, demarcates the sacred precinct of what Hawaiians say is “The realm of the gods” and “The holy of holies.” In fact, the state designated the summit as a conservation district largely because of its cultural significance to Hawaiians. But the state giveth and taketh at will, when it comes to how “ceded land” is leased out. 

“Mauna Kea is part of the so-called ceded lands,” Pisciotta said. “That means it’s the crown and government land of the Hawaiian Kingdom. That land was never legally transferred to the U.S. They just took it over and called it ceded. It’s supposed to be leased at fair market rate. State and federal law require those lands be used ‘for the betterment of the condition of Native Hawaiians and the general public,’” she said, quoting the Hawaii State Admissions Act. “Well, giving our mauna away for $13 a year is hardly benefiting anyone, except the people profiting from it.”  

Native Hawaiians are “legally” entitled to 20 percent of all income generated from those lands. That means the astronomy industry pays a total of $2.60 per year to do business on the Hawaiian people’s most sacred site.

“The state, the university, the pro-TMT people keep talking about TMT money. Stopping this telescope has never been about money for us,” Pisciotta said. “But, okay, let’s talk about money, starting with the billions that people have already made on the mauna since 1968. Does even one-percent of it benefit the people of this island?”

When asked how much money is generated on Mauna Kea, she said, “Just to give you a sense, when I was working up there in 2001, telescope time on the Keck for one day was $120,000.”

It adds up quickly. Mauna Kea’s skies offer an almost 365 day viewing year. A conservative estimate suggests that hundreds of millions is spent annually on the mountain. Even if the Keck hasn’t raised its rate since 2001, which is unlikely, $120K per day applied to, let’s say a 350-day schedule, would be close to a billion dollars over the course of 20 years.

And that money stays in the industry, moving between research institutions, foreign and domestic governments and corporations linked to the various enterprises associated with gazing up at the universe. If there is a trickle down from transactions happening at 14,000 feet, it’s miniscule compared to what observatories are charging.

Pisciotta said, “The Hawaiian people and Hawaii’s taxpayers are subsidizing the astronomy industry. People go on about how the TMT will donate a million dollars a year for education. So what? When was the last time anyone got to pay rent based on what they want to pay? Never, that’s when.”

In a place where housing costs are among the highest in the U.S., her commentary is even more relevant when considering the high levels of poverty among Native Hawaiians. While they make up about 20 percent of the population, Hawaiians represent more than 50 percent of the homeless.

But how much astronomers pay to do research on Mauna Kea is only half of the economic picture. The other side is money that doesn’t show up in the public ledger. It’s what Pisciotta calls “the real business of astronomy.” The secondary use of astronomy has other applications, one of which is military. But not in the way people might imagine.

To further clarify, Pisciotta said, “There are military applications to telescopes on the mauna, but you have to understand that for them, it isn’t just about what they’re observing, it’s about how they observe. Military generals don’t go to astronomy conferences to learn about the stars, they go to look at all the component parts of technology. Each piece is patentable. And each piece is sold to the highest bidder.”

That’s what Syrmos meant when he referenced “research and instrumentation development.” Pisciotta said, “He’s talking about potential billions in that secondary use of astronomy’s technology. That’s how far apart we are. To them, it’s about money. For us, Mauna Kea, or the aina, or the land, in general, is where we Hawaiians go to restore our spirit, our wellbeing. Mauna Kea has enabled us, given us the ability to reclaim and practice that spirituality, that truth.”

[dresupi]

glow up

Darcy Lewis Crack Challenge 2019 Day 6: Must Include Glow Sticks

Ship: Darcy Lewis/Pietro Maximoff  |  Rating: M |  Other Tags: Swearing, Fade to Black, Crack, Prank War, Friends to Lovers, Snark, Making Out, Groping, Table Sex |  Prompt: Day 6: Must include glow sticks |  Word Count: 3170

Summary:  

She had it coming, and she had it coming hard.

Darcy was actually wishing she hadn't escalated this little slight into the full-on prank war that it had now become.

She had it coming, and she had it coming hard.

Darcy was actually wishing she hadn't escalated this little slight into the full-on prank war that it had now become. Really, Pietro hadn't done anything that bad. He'd just figured out how to change FRIDAY's wakeup call from the soft piano music she'd chosen to 'All I Do Is Win' by DJ Khalid.

It hadn't even scared her. Just jarred her awake in the worst kind of way. It would have been easier, and likely more productive, to just forget it had happened. She could have just calmed her ass down, gotten ready for work, and acted like Pietro hadn't set her heart pounding with his dumb workout mix.

He set her heart pounding just by existing, so she could have just played it cool.

But the speedster's stupidly pretty face was practically taunting her. And he was so smug. He deserved for someone to hit back at some point, right?

That was why she'd unscrewed the salt shaker lid in the kitchen and made sure Pietro was the one who dumped salt all over his soup.

Which had prompted him to bribe everyone, save Jane, to call her 'Darby' all day long. He hadn't even brought it up to Jane, which was funny. Because Jane totally would have called her 'Darby', given the correct bribe.

But that was neither here nor there because none of those things was as large scale as her latest endeavor.

The main problem was, Darcy was pretty sure she'd gone one too far this time. And it was all Wanda's fault. Definitely not hers. Okay, it was a little bit her fault.

Wanda had just let slip that Pietro had glow sticks. Glow sticks that he used when he ran at night. Bright blue and enhanced like he was so they didn't get too shook up on their Mach 2 runs around the outdoor track. They lasted longer than the normal glow sticks one could get at any discount store. These were special. And Tony made them by the gross. So Pietro had a rather large box of the things in his hall closet.

Darcy had enlisted Wanda's help and stolen them. Apparently, Pietro had been pranking his sister for their entire lives, so she was only too happy to help Darcy. Wanda had let her into his apartment. Darcy had done the rest.

And the rest consisted of cracking each of the glow sticks before hiding them all over his apartment. All while he was out on a mission because only while His Speediness was out of the country could she be certain of not being caught in the act.

Anyway, she'd done the thing. Hidden one hundred forty-four electric blue glow sticks and tossed the opened box into his trash can so he'd know how many there were… hiding out there.

Then, she'd waited.

He found them approximately forty-five seconds after arriving home. Or he found some of them.  Eight, to be exact. There were still one hundred thirty-six to go.

He'd zipped out to the common area kitchen with them clenched in his fist. He tossed them down on the tiled countertop in front of her without uttering a single word.

Darcy had picked one up, dangling it from between her fingertips. "You going to a rave later, Piet?"

"I will have revenge," he vowed. "Soon. But when you'll least expect it, Lewis."

"Which is it? Soon, or when I'll least expect it?"

He'd simply narrowed his eyes and left. The eight blue sticks still on the counter.

And that's when Darcy realized she was probably in trouble.

The revenge actually came six weeks later, after her Halloween slasher film binge with Jane and Thor. It wasn't anywhere near Halloween, but Jane had been busy in October, so they put it off until the following spring. Anyway, Thor was here to protect them. Supposedly. He didn't lift a finger to help when said revenge act happened, so Darcy was on the fence.

Needless to say, she was already jumpy from the movies, so Pietro had actually picked a great time to scare the shit out of her. Great time for him, a horrible time for her.

Not that she was actually frightened past the initial jump-scare, but that didn't matter.

In Thor and Jane's defense, Pietro had been apparently hiding in her kitchenette cupboards since before they'd arrived, so they likely didn't know that was where he set up spook camp. Or even that he was planning anything at all.

The apartments didn't have a full kitchen. Just a mini-fridge and a sink area. The sink area had a large-ish cabinet underneath, and that was where he was hiding. Crouched down and just waiting to pop out. The bastard.

Darcy went out there to grab a bottle of water and noticed the cabinet was open. So she closed it.

It creaked back open--which was weird, but she just kicked it closed with her foot.

And then it slowly did it again.

Darcy was about mid-sip in her water, which she didn't bother setting down.  A mistake, she realized later, but hindsight was twenty-twenty, right? She nudged the door closed once more, only for it to fly open and Pietro to speed out and skid to a halt in front of her. "Boo," he whispered.

"FUCK YOU!" she shrieked, swatting his arms as hard as she could, spilling her water all over both of them in the process. It was cold, but he didn't seem to care. Didn't seem to care that she was hitting him either. Her arms probably felt like limp noodles to someone with his enhancement, but that didn't stop her from exacting justice.

He was laughing and doing very little to dodge her hits and swats. "Fuck you," she repeated. "Fuck you very much for sneaking into my apartment!"

"You snuck into mine," he rebuffed, still smiling.

"That was different! I didn't hide for hours in your cabinets!"

"You hid glow sticks in all my drinking glasses. And in my couch cushions. Zipped up inside. That makes fifty-two I've found, counting the stash folded into all my towels."

"Ninety-two to go…." Darcy drawled, grinning widely.

"No need to look so pleased with yourself, I got you back." He looked as smug as he possibly could, so she played her only remaining card.

"Fine. Get out."

His face fell, bottom lip poking out. "But it's movie night!"

"Only for people who don't jump-scare me in my own house, asshole!" She pointed to the door. "Get out!"

He rolled his eyes and zipped out.

"Awww, why didn't you ask him to stay?" Jane teased from the couch.

"Fuck him, is why!" Darcy got another bottle of water and rejoined them on the sofa.

"Seems as if that's the way you two do business…" Thor mused, almost muttering under his breath.

"Didn't see you jumping to my defense there, big guy!" Darcy exclaimed.

He pulled a face. "You were never in any danger. The fast one would no sooner hurt you than he'd slow down for any of the rest of us. He likes you. With good reason. He has excellent taste."

"He has a funny way of showing it," Darcy muttered under her breath.

"He's only escalating the prank war you called if I'm not mistaken…" Jane said.

"Enough out of you. You're supposed to be my friend."

"I can be your friend and tell you when you're being an ass. And I love you, Darce. You're my best friend. But you're kind of being an ass."

"Pietro's an ass!" Darcy spat.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. You're two of a kind," Jane replied. "But I was the one who had to sit there while you planned to break into his home and hide all his special glow sticks. So like… I don't want to hear it. You reap what you sow."

Darcy exhaled. She probably should go apologize to him. Besides, she wasn't actually mad about him being here. Quite the contrary, actually. She kind of liked having him here. Even if she was screaming at and hitting him. She was just mad he'd bested her. And there was no way she could top this prank.

Not that she wasn't going to try, though. Because Jane was right. Darcy was an ass. And she was going to get him back if it was the last thing she did.

She smirked slightly and Jane smiled too, reaching over to pat her shoulder. "You think of a way to get him back yet?"

"Nah, but I will."

"That's my girl. Just make sure one of these days, you ask him out. Because you'd have to be blind not to see it the way you guys flirt with one another."

Darcy reached for the movie. "Time to stop the talkie-talkie, Janey."

Her friend snorted.

Darcy actually didn't have time to find Pietro to apologize, because it just so happened that Jane had this humongous breakthrough and they were on a two-day science bender to make sure she didn't lose her hunch.

Jane didn't lose it, but she was still there in the lab, going through equations while Tony and Bruce had taken over for Darcy, begging the astrophysicist to sleep while her overworked assistant went home to take her own advice.

She ran into Pietro in the big common room, on the way back to her apartment.

He waved at her, seeming uncharacteristically tentative, probably in case she was still angry.

She gave him a tired grin. "Dude, I'm not mad. And I'm sorry for yelling at you last time."

Pietro shrugged, rolling the words off his back like water off a duck. "It was kind of a dirty trick," he admitted.

"Yeah, it was. But I'm over it. Promise." She wasn't. Not really. But she hadn't figured out how to get him back yet, but a false sense of security didn't seem like it would be remiss.

He had a great smile. Especially when he was laughing. He looked down and ran his hand over the back of his neck. "Somehow, I don't believe you."

She chuckled, "Why do you say that?"

"Because I still haven't found all the glow sticks. They're everywhere. Just when I think there can't possibly be any more, there they are."

"Oh yeah? Well, I can't even sleep since you scared me, so…" She wasn't serious in the slightest, and her voice was dripping with sarcasm, but his face fell, his eyebrows knitting as he held out a hand towards her, reaching for and grasping hers.

"Darcy? Truly, I never meant to frighten you… I only did it because… it felt like the next step down that path we were on. Truly… I am sorry. I never meant for it to cause you any negative… Really. I'm sorry.  And call me anytime. I mean it. If you need anything."

His sudden change of heart was touching, and she felt herself jumping to reassure him that everything was fine. This time, actually meaning it. Except she caught the twinkle in his eye. The curl in his smile. The way his teeth bit down on his bottom lip to keep from bursting into laughter. The slightest touch of sarcasm that made her realized. He was kidding.

And she was super tired. So it would be plausible to believe him in her extremely sleepy state. A new prank was formulating as she stood there, her hand still clasped in his. She'd ask him for anything, alright. He was offering, wasn't he?

She schooled her features, better than he did at any rate, before nodding. "I promise I'm fine, Piet. Just joking around. I got off a two-day science bender with Janey. I'm not losing any sleep because you were in my kitchen. But, I might still take you up on that offer."

"What offer?"

"To call you? Anytime? If I need anything?"

His blue eyes narrowed infinitesimally, if she hadn't been staring into them, she wouldn't have noticed. "Yes, call me. I'll come to scare off the boogeyman for you."

"I certainly hope so."

She ended up chickening out. Mostly because she didn't know what to ask him if she called him. The plan was to gradually bother him until he couldn't think about her without being annoyed. And now her mind was blanking. Badly.

Damn.

She slept after her two-day lab stint, but the sleep didn't help her in the slightest. There wasn't any good reason to ask him over. Everything sounded too flimsy. Too fake. Like if she tried anything without a solid idea, he'd see through her ruse in a second.

It was three days later that a good enough idea came to her. In the form of a takeout menu that promised some of the best goddamn orange chicken in the world.

It was even plausible. Tony didn't let delivery people onto the complex, so if you ordered takeout, you had to ride out in a company golf cart and collect it from the security building at the front gate. It was after seven, and she was in her pajamas because of reasons. Reasons pertaining to her laziness, but give her a break, okay?

Plus, this idea would hopefully give her the courage to come up with even more ridiculous tasks to send her very own Hercules on.  She had no Cerberus to tame, but maybe she'd find a spider in her bathroom or something?

See? Good ideas come in groups!

She ordered her food, and quickly texted Pietro, asking him to go pick it up at the front gate for her.

"Gladly," he texted back.

He brought it up mere seconds after it arrived, leading her to believe things might be just a little shaken from his run, but he was so prompt, she almost felt bad for even asking. True, he'd been joking when he'd offered, but he seemed well and truly serious now, holding out the bag of food at her front door.

Maybe she was going soft.

Or Jane's words had gotten to her. That their little games were just flirting and wouldn't the pursuit of that be infinitely more fun than this prank war? Also, the reason she couldn't come up with a way to bother him was maybe more telling than simply a brain fart. She didn't want him to be annoyed with her. Much the opposite, actually. So maybe that was why she didn't know what to do. Her heart wasn't in pranking him, because she wanted to kiss him. And do other non-pranky things with him. Her endgame had shifted.

About one thing, she was certain. She wanted him to stay.

"Piet…" she took the bag and held the door open. She hadn't ordered nearly enough food to keep him satiated, but maybe he'd be open for a snack? "You can stay to eat if you want…"

His eyebrows went up. "I can?"

"... Yeah?"

"Okay… I'd love to stay, but let me cook you something…" He took the bag from her hand and zipped it over to the dining table. "Don't eat that. It's got more salt and hot sauce than you were expecting." He smirked and reached into the bag, pulling out her little container of egg rolls. Which was faintly glowing blue. "And some rapidly fading glowsticks I found in my dishwasher."

"You absolute douche!" she exclaimed, reaching for him and grasping a handful of his shirt.

She froze, gazing down at the blue fabric in her hand, he did too, and their eyes met on the way back up. He placed the container on the table beside the bag, licking his lips, his eyes boring holes into hers. Oh, she'd been played.

Not by Pietro, but by her very own self.

Yeah, she'd been aware of the attraction, but this? This was her real goal all along. Her endgame hadn't shifted at all. This had been it all along.

"This had the opposite effect…" she murmured, in response to the entirety of the prank war, but he misunderstood, thinking more in the here and now

"Are you sure about that?" Pietro countered, glancing down at her hand. "Feels like something very definite."

She shook her head. "No. I'm not sure." Her arms wound around his shoulders and tugged him down. He went more than willingly and when his lips touched hers, she whimpered, his arms slipping tightly around her waist, holding her close.

The kiss felt electric. Like it shot through her entire body. Like she had nerves in her fingertips and toes connected to where his lips were touching hers. "I've been wanting to do that for so long," he admitted, smiling when she tugged him back to her little kitchen table. He swept the food onto the floor, laying her across it and reaching for his back pocket to empty it of his phone, his keys, his wallet.

"Shit…" he cursed under his breath. "I forgot condoms…" He zipped off before she could blink.

"Oh, wait…" she began. "I have some…"

But he was already gone, so she just huffed out a sigh, sitting up on the table before sprinting back to the bathroom to grab her box from the drawer.

When she returned, he was standing there, dropping a handful of glow sticks on the table. "Really? Lewis? With my condoms?"

She shrugged. "I put all of those in the next drawer down, I didn't steal them."

"I know. I found them. He dropped a few from his other hand. "And you have some too? Looks like we'll be good to go until tomorrow at least." He grinned widely, the cocky bastard.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked, obviously teasing him.

"You," he replied as if it were obvious. "We're about to do this. Also, you looked for my condoms, so you've been thinking about this for longer than just tonight."

She rolled her eyes. "Wasn't much looking involved, you had them practically out in the open. So like… a bit off topic, but have you found them all?" She gestured to the glow sticks.

"Only up to one hundred forty…  there aren't going to be any in your bra, are there?" His tone was teasing, just the right kind as his gaze dipped down to her chest and back up again.

"Why don't you check and see?"

"I'll enjoy looking, but if I find any… " He trailed off and licked his lips, the 'warning' perfectly clear.

It was almost disappointing that she didn't have any glow sticks stashed in there.

Pietro moved in, crowding her back so far she had to hop back up on the table. She wrapped her legs around his hips, resting her left leg in the dip of his lower back. On the shelf his ass made. One hand rucked up the hem of her shirt, warm fingers searching.

Almost being the operative word.

[tapas-and-stuff-productions]

The Deities Project: Part 5

An early notion for the Keys & Kingdoms universe was to divide its world into sections ruled by three pantheons, and those would be the historical pantheons of Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology! As it turned out, the 3rd Edition D&D supplement “Deities & Demigods” included stats for those exact three pantheons, and I carefully studied that for guidance on how to reinterpret those legendary pantheons for use in a fantasy world.

And so began this project: drawing all 53 historical deities depicted in that book. Casey Gosselin drew their symbols and Stacy Lord drew the characters themselves. Neither saw the illustrations in the D&D book, but we stuck to what the book claimed as their symbol, their sacred weapon, and very general appearance. The big project lasted from October 2019 to August 2020. Since then, we’ve been putting more research into the real myths and other gods, but these will still form the foundation for the core members of the pantheons and what they’ll look like when the K&K universe begins.

This is an 11-part series presenting all the art anew and talking about the ideas behind it! Presented in the order in which they were done, which is approximately in the order of strongest to weakest according to their rankings in the D&D book. Don’t forget to check out Stacy and Casey’s own pages:

The last of the “rank 15” deities. This design is Stacy’s least-favorite, and… I get that. It’s a bit derpy. Not terrible, though. I do intend to stick with that body type and… general attire for him. His helmet ought to be more helmety, and… well, I don’t really know what to think about his staff. Stacy mounted a caduceus atop an actual staff. And… you know, I’m kind of okay with that. How do you handle a staff with two snakes wrapped around it? Just needs some slight modifications, I reckon.

Lord of the frost giants. Er… not much to say about his design, he just looks like a pretty swell frost giant. But I reckon the Jotnar play a pretty big role in the story!

Lord of the fire giants. A favorite of Stacy’s: the flame effect she created for his mustache and eyebrows became her standard manner of creating flame, and the red-hot glow on his equipment was a nice touch as well. I like it, I feel he’s not broad enough, I reckon he needs a broader sword and a broader body, I picture him looking a bit like a Samoan wrestler - because, again, these pantheons have to represent everybody.

Er… surprisingly little to say about Baldur. One of three, along with Re-Horakhti and Hela, whose name I changed the spelling of from the D&D book, which went with “Balder”. Equally valid, but it just looks like we’re calling him “more bald” - Baldur looks more fittingly godly. Neither is more accurate because it was originally “Baldr” - the Old Norse thought “r” was a syllable. It’s ugly-looking, and in all Norse names featured in the series, I’ll replace the syllable “r” with “ur”. Yeah: while I didn’t mess with names much of the gods featured in the book, I will be modifying some other mythical character names, generally just those that look or sound really awkward to modern eyes.

Anyway, Baldur is… serviceable. He’s the god of beauty, and I’d say he’s pretty beautiful here, and dressed beautifully, and he’s got a neat-o bejeweled goblet which he ought to carry around. Everyone loves him, to the point where his mother went out of his way to make him invincible. Didn’t do that for any of her other kids, now did she? Now, in an RPG-based universe, nobody can be invincible. Bad balance. But, of course, it was only temporary. Thanks, Loki.

A favorite of mine… in that podcast episode, I may have failed to discuss my favorites non-lecherously. Everyone’s ideal beauty is a little bit different, but I think the design here successfully made Aphrodite look divinely beautiful - her eyes are an exotic purple and her hair not merely blonde but actually gold, so that’s a good start, a neat shorthand for her being more beautiful than any human. From there, her mascara and nail polish are elegant and understated, she’s always smiling and laughing, and… she doesn’t cover up. Stacy pointed out to me that boobs look better when they’re propped up, and that’s very true, but I figure Aphrodite is of the opinion that one doesn’t cover perfection. Apart from her thong-like loincloth, she wears only some jewelry and seashells. Again, we’ll mix it up - these gods will, well, not change their clothes every day, as no K&K character will do that, but they will change their clothes every story arc, and in the backstory of the gods, a lot of time passes, so we will see quite a few outfits.

[orbemnews]

From building the wall to bringing back coal: Some of Trump's more notable broken promises To be sure, Trump delivered on a number of initial campaign promises. He cut regulations, lowered taxes, withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership, pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement and appointed hundreds of conservative justices. But in many cases, the reality behind the talking points and slogans fell short of what was actually promised. Here’s a look back at how some of the most notable promises Trump made during his campaigns and throughout his time in office stack up against reality. Throughout his presidency, Trump acted as if this was one accomplishment he had successfully crossed off the list, continuing to tout the hundreds of miles of wall his administration had built. But the figures he threw out, as recently as in his recorded farewell video, were misleading and didn’t live up to what he initially promised. As of January 8, 2021, 453 miles of border barriers were built under the Trump administration, just 47 of which were erected where no barriers had existed before. Of the other 406 miles: 22 miles replaced previously existing dilapidated or outdated secondary barriers, 33 miles were new secondary barriers where there had previously been only primary barriers and 351 miles replaced previously existing primary barriers that the government considered dilapidated or outdated. While these replacement barriers are not insignificant, it’s worth noting that Trump did not build a new wall. Furthermore, during the campaign, Trump insisted that Americans would not pay for the wall or any new barriers his administration constructed. According to Trump, Mexico would pay for the wall, but both the former and current Mexican president have refused to do so (the former President was more explicit while the current President, who has been less critical of Trump and has just avoided the topic). In the end, the US government spent billions in federal funds on the wall. Since January 2017, approximately $15 billion has been allocated to construct both new and replacement structures for the border wall through a combination of Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense funding combined with the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, according to a January 2021 report from Customs and Border Protection. Vaccines As the coronavirus pandemic dominated the final year of Trump’s presidency, he made a series of promises regarding a vaccine. Trump repeatedly stated the US would have a vaccine by the end of 2020. While experts were skeptical, the Trump administration’s accelerated vaccine development initiative, Operation Warp Speed, did result in a vaccine approved for distribution before the end of the year. The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization to Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine in mid-December and to Moderna’s vaccine about a week later. But while Trump exceeded expectations in terms of the vaccine production timeline, his administration struggled to fulfill his promises regarding vaccine distribution. In October, Trump promised 100 million doses of the vaccine delivered before the end of the year. Though Trump administration officials later reduced the goal to 20 million Americans vaccinated against coronavirus by the end of December 2020, neither promise was ultimately fulfilled. Several states have blamed the federal government for the failure to meet the vaccination goals, complaining that the Trump administration initially provided fewer doses than previously promised. And with no federal mandate for how to administer the vaccines, eligibility for receiving the vaccine varied from state to state, likely causing an uneven distribution. As of December 31, 2020, fewer than 13 million vaccines had been distributed. Pre-existing conditions In countless rallies and other speeches, Trump claimed he and his administration would always protect people with pre-existing conditions. This is one promise CNN was able to fact check even before the end of Trump’s presidency, as the Trump administration and Republicans repeatedly put forward bills and filed lawsuits that would weaken Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Trump also never issued a plan to protect those with pre-existing conditions, despite repeatedly promising to do so. Obamacare During his first campaign, Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, a health care law often referred to as Obamacare. After the passage of the 2017 Republican tax bill which addressed a provision of the law, Trump began to claim victory. But despite his insistence to the contrary, Obamacare did not end under Trump’s administration, essentially or otherwise. In the 2017 tax bill, Republicans effectively eliminated the individual mandate, a key part of Obamacare, by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to $0. But other provisions of the law remained. The bill did not eliminate Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people, the federal and state marketplaces that allow people to shop for coverage, or the consumer subsidies that help many of them make the purchases. While Trump continued to take other steps to weaken Obamacare, much of it still exists. Debt Trump initially pledged to eliminate the US debt in eight years. He later scaled down the promise to just reducing a portion of the then-$19 trillion dollar debt. Though he didn’t specify the extent of the new goal, under Trump the debt and deficit only got worse. According to the latest report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal debt was at $26.9 trillion as of September 30, 2020. The GAO attributed the increase between 2019 and 2020 to the federal government’s Covid-19 pandemic response, but the national debt was rising even before the pandemic. By the end of 2019, the federal debt was at $22.7 trillion, more than three trillion more than right before Trump took office. Manufacturing One of Trump’s flagship campaign promises was to revive US manufacturing and in his final State of the Union address, he claimed to have succeeded in “restoring our Nation’s manufacturing.” Manufacturing employment did increase during the first three years of Trump’s presidency, but ultimately, any gains were gone by the end of his presidency, leaving the status of US manufacturing no better than when he took office. Between January 2017 and the end of 2020, there was a net decrease in manufacturing employment. While some of the decrease could likely be attributed to the pandemic, America’s manufacturing sector was in a downturn even before that, as CNN reported in August 2019 that the sector shrunk for the first time since September 2009. 4% GDP growth During his first presidential campaign, Trump set a goal of “4% economic growth” nationally, despite skepticism from economists. While Trump heavily leaned on his economic accomplishments throughout his time in office, annual GDP growth since 2017 never reached 4%, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The quarterly GDP growth rate did hit 4% once, in the 4th quarter of 2020, though economists say that wasn’t enough to make up for the year’s historically awful second quarter. 2020 also marked the first year US GDP declined since 2009. Average GDP growth did increase slightly under Trump, to 2.5% during his first three years. That’s well below the 4% Trump had promised but a bit better than the 2.4% average growth rate during the last three years of Obama’s time in office. But as of the 3rd quarter of his fourth year in office, the GDP growth under Trump was less than under the last five presidents before him at the same time in their presidencies, due in large part to the Covid-19 pandemic. Trade deficits As a candidate, Trump pledged to narrow America’s trade deficit, especially with China. Although progress was made, Trump wasn’t entirely successful. In 2019, the goods trade deficit with China fell to its lowest level since 2014. The overall US trade deficit also shrank in 2019, but it remained higher than when Trump took office. The gap was further exacerbated by the pandemic, with the trade deficit increasing nearly every month between April and August 2020. In November 2020, the trade deficit reached its highest level since 2006. Coal At different times throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump said he was going to “bring back” coal and “put the miners back to work.” In 2016, the US produced more than 728 million tons of coal, according to the annual report from the Energy Information Administration. While the Trump administration made some policy moves to try to help the coal industry, production levels have not increased under the Trump administration. The most recent available report indicates the US produced 706 million tons of coal in 2019, its lowest level since 1978, when there was a major strike. According to a 2019 report from the International Energy Agency, the decrease in US coal production is in part the result of a shift toward cleaner renewables and cheaper natural gas. “Cheap and abundant natural gas combined with the climate policies of many states will continue to squeeze coal out of the electricity market,” the report claims. A November 2020 report from S&P Global Market Intelligence also shows a decrease in coal jobs since the start of the Trump administration. Furthermore, the 3rd quarter of 2020 marked a new low in average coal mine employment according to the S&P analysis. Guns At a 2016 campaign rally, Trump said, “My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There’s no more gun-free zones.” He later doubled-down on the promise, telling the media he was going to do something to end gun free zones. Not only did he not sign any legislation banning gun-free zones on his first day in office, but this was never accomplished. Though House Republicans proposed bills to repeal the Crime Control Act of 1990 which made it a crime to possess a gun within school grounds, these efforts were unsuccessful. Lobbying In 2016, Trump called for enacting a five-year ban “on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for five years after they leave government service.” Within his first week, Trump signed the “Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees” executive order. While on the surface that may have seemed like a promise kept, the order contained a loophole. The order only required appointees to pledge that they will not “engage in lobbying activities with respect” to the executive agency they were appointed to serve, language which could theoretically have permitted officials to lobby on other issues not directly related to their role less than five years after they stopped working for the federal government. Additionally, days before his presidency came to an end, Trump revoked the rule, ostensibly allowing his former administration officials to begin lobbying when they left government if they so choose. Leaving the White House In 2015, shortly after announcing his run for President, Trump said if elected he would “rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” He also criticized Obama for “all of the time [he] spent on the golf course, often flying to Hawaii in a big, fully loaded 747, to play.” And yet, Trump left the White House repeatedly while he was president, often to spend time at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida or at his golf courses across the nation. In 2019 alone he spent 1 in 5 days at a golf club, per CNN’s count. CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story oversimplified what Republicans did to the individual mandate in 2017. They effectively eliminated it by reducing the penalty for not having insurance to zero. Source link Orbem News #Bringing #broken #Building #coal #Frombuildingthewalltobringingbackcoal:SomeofTrump'smorenotablebrokenpromises-CNNPolitics #notable #Politics #Promises #Trumps #Wall

[skerbango-blog]

The Next Great Existential Threat

A few days ago in the Opening Bell across the street, Clyde linked to an article in the Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/everything-is-not-going-to-be-okay-how-to-live-with-constant-reminders-that-the-earth-is-in-trouble/2019/01/24/9dd9d6e6-1e53-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1af59ee1fc69.  The tenor of the article is that we as a planet are facing an existential crisis with Climate Change and no one seems to give a shit because we are too wrapped up in our own lives.  This article got me to thinking about existential threats from a historical perspective, and naturally led to the question: why is this one (climate change) any different from previous crises? 

            A few caveats to begin. This is NOT a post about the validity of Climate Change, or whether its causes are anthropogenic.  It is not intended to be a discussion on the severity of Climate Change (“We only have 12 years”) or a cost/benefit analysis of proposed solutions.  My interest was simply piqued by comparative historical examples and so I chose to write about it. 

            A United Nations panel issued a report in October that the planet has approximately twelve years to drastically reduce carbon emissions.  Failure to do so, according to the report, could result in cataclysmic consequences.  This report, and most especially the twelve year time frame, have been amplified on social media, particularly by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  In short, if the UN reports prove true, we are facing an existential crisis and could be looking at the beginning of end times for our species. 

            But, is this necessarily the case? Is the cause and effect of Climate Change linear that will automatically result in the worst case scenarios, or will the planet adapt? In my own lifetime, I can recall previous existential threats that were going to end the war, including: 

Communism and the Cold War: Post World War II, the United States intervened in any number of Asian and Latin American countries under the belief that communism was an existential threat that if left unchecked would result in the Reds marching down Main Street, USA forever changing our way of life.  The almost 60,000 dead soldiers in Vietnam as well as coupe d’etats in Latin America would suggest that the solution was more costly than the threat;

Nuclear Proliferation and Mutually Assured Destruction: There was a time in the 1980s when the world was convinced that the planet would be destroyed by a big mushroom cloud. At the height of the Cold War, the US and USSR had approximately 21,000 combined nuclear war heads.  Ultimately, economic instability in the USSR together with treaties such as SALT I, SALT II and the partial test ban lessened the perceived severity of this crisis;

Pandemics: The Black Plague of the 1300s killed anywhere between 175-200 million people which comprised upwards of 60% of the European population at the time.  The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed 50-100 million people.

Comets and Asteroids: A leading theory on the extinction of dinosaurs is that they were done in by a comet or asteroid, and Stephen Hawking in his last book indicated that this was the most likely way that the Earth could be destroyed;

Artificial Intelligence: Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at Oxford has proposed that once human-level machine intelligence is developed, a superintelligent system that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest would follow surprisingly quickly, possibly even instantaneously. Such a superintelligence would be difficult to control or restrain, and could ultimately result in the end of the human species.

          All of these scenarios were thought at one time to be the catalyst for the end of times.  Yet the species or the planet adapted.  I guess recency bias would suggest that this new latest and greatest existential threat is the worst ever and that this is the one that will result in the end of civilization.  That may be true.  But viewed from the broader historical perspective it may prove to be just another in a long line of existential threats to which the planet and the species will adapt.

 Looks like we have twelve years to fine out. 

As always – thoughts are appreciated in the comments.

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

I appreciate everyone explaining the terminology of expression I have when using the word "whore"

I never use it towards a street girl. Or a young girl experimenting in sexual activity.

Some boys used to kill prostitutes and called them whores. But i was all y'all are wrong for so many reasons. First prostitutes get paid and whores don't they just want to. They get sll clingy and snakey for your wallet after sex and saying nothing of repayment before. A prostitute tells you "wallet first" so y'all are killing the wrong people.

So while whore is a general and broad term to cover women of sexual activity, i find a prostitute to be of a higher class than a who're

I think a prostitute is much more honest and considerate of others and better at sex than a whore.

A whore is typically a young girl looking to escape a childhood home often abusive but mostly neglectful by using sex as a ticket or way out or someone that's a cross between a boring house wife and a prostitute which has zig zags to explain clearly.

They did great explainations I've used before so i don't want to do too much repeating.

But because Agent Orange did go off killing whores as he called them, i called him a whore amongst the other reasons mentioned.

Its just like when Some one says nigger. I call them a white nigger. I don't bleep the word. People know what it is and they hear it. So im not going to justify the fact it shouldn't be said by not repeating it. I feel being clear in the exact word is more helpful to know exactly what word is offensive.

I rarely say nigga and if i know racists are around i ask it not be used as to not confuse an idiot. Ask Snoop, i tell him all the time dont say that around me.

So again I have fine lines that are blurry without the correct description.

A ho is what a whore wishes to be. Gets shit done. But isn't a professional or doesn't want the professional title of a prostitute or hooker.

I don't like the word ho as it is confused with whore. Whore is any time any place and ho is for a reason that suits her. Shes a dignified whore. I feel the term ho is most degrading of all the terms.

I feel they are disrespected more because they're teased or made fun of with Santa's ho ho ho and hoe. But if you look at how you're dissing you'll realize you called them a rare gift that is essential to garden. Which is not an insult but a sweet calling. However ita often used to torment people by bullies

Also I've spent too much time with people who kill prostitutes which i found very disheartening and they were very much so bullies.

They killed 104 before we got them to stop as a group.

Jesse did continue as did Matt. But i turned them in and they became another team's problem.

But they would use me to help break down in a bust to stop them because i could sweet talk myself into a room with the dead bodies. For exact proof.

Then they would arrest Jesse and Matt.

Total 875 went missing because they did it all over the world and were hard to follow and find.

Their goal was 1800 then kill entire escort service then 2500 and repeat and so on.

I've found about 200 missing victims (197), drug girls or prostitutes, that were murdered by them. And turned that in last October 2019.

This way families could get closure and so on but then things changed rapidly to resurrection so we have special things planned for them the Tree will handle.

But this is one reason why i requested prostitutes return home first. I know they are safe. But I know also they know it's dangerous. And knowing they were only doing it for food, i wanted them to know it's okay now and they're saved. And it's not necessary.

I guess I have always wanted desperately to save working girls of the street and was always limited in being able to do so. And this time i can full throttle.

And i wanted to do it immediately since I could.

No one was or is less important but this was just very close to my heart -- to be able to rescue prostitutes and make all their dreams come true.

And their working conditions and living conditions, i know, from experience are unsafe. However i know the girls are smart to stay safe and the level of danger there in South America is next to none.

I just couldn't help but put them first. I had to. I have to. Its just me and what i have experienced.

I believe you're all equal -- it's just nearly 30 years of going crazy with worry. Finally i could help a whole country return home from that life

700,000 have returned home approximately. Beyond prostitutes. Complete families, moms dads and children. Office workers. Store owners even.

And i have to say to you girls who didn't want to change professions: it's okay. I don't judge that harshly. I understand. Sex is good and now you'll make more money now that there's less girls to go around. So I'm not disappointed in you at all. Its a fun and exciting lifestyle when you're not doing it to merely eat. So i hope your pay increases and you enjoy your work even more and you remain safer and feel more comfortable than you have before.

I wanted the ones that didn't want to to not have to.

And those that dont want to return home you also don't have to. Just as a reminder

Home is where the Heart is.

I just also wanted to express my terminology. Life ie difficult enough as it is. To add misery with an unintentional insult isn't something i like to do. I like to insult on purpose. ;)

I love y'all and my heart breaks for the world

Sabrina Leigh

[donnadacresny]

Savannah, GA – Bicycle Accident with Injuries on Montgomery St

Savannah, GA (October 28, 2019) – Savannah Police investigated a hit-and-run bicycle accident at 3100 Montgomery Street in Savannah that led to injuries in one party.

The accident took place around 8 p.m. last night, causing minor injuries to the 57-year-old male bicyclist involved. The man had been riding his bicycle south in the northbound lane of traffic while a Nissan Sentra was traveling south in the southbound lane.

The Nissan started to pass the bike when the cyclist suddenly entered the southbound lane. The bicycle ran into the driver’s door.

The driver of the passenger vehicle did not remain at the scene. However, officers quickly located the vehicle and charged the driver with fleeing the scene of an accident.

The bicyclist was transported to the Memorial Medical Center. He is expected to be okay.

Our thoughts are with the injured victim and their family in hopes of a full recovery.

Bicycle Accidents in Georgia 

In Georgia in just 2009, approximately 549 individuals were hospitalized in bicycle accidents. In the past decade, we have actually witnessed a decrease in the number of bicycle accidents that occur on Georgia roadways. Bicyclists have few protections from harm, which means that they are more prone to harm against passenger vehicle drivers. If you have been harmed in one of these accidents at the hands of a negligent party, you should get in contact with a personal injury attorney in Georgia.

Our attorneys at Kenneth S. Nugent, PC have helped many victims obtain full and fair compensation for their damages after a life-altering collision. If you have faced medical bills, lost wages, and other damages as a result of your accident, you have rights and protections under the law. Please contact our skilled attorneys at (888) 579-1790 for help understanding your legal options.

Note: We have constructed this post using outside sources, including news bulletins and first-hand accounts from outside sources. The details concerning this accident have not been independently verified and so, if you have identified false information, please inform us immediately. We will adjust the post to reflect accurate content.

Disclaimer: At Kenneth S. Nugent, PC Attorneys at Law, we are always looking to improve the quality and safety of our state and have been saddened by the outcome of many accidents across Georgia. We hope to inform those in our community about these accidents in the hopes that they will work to avoid serious Georgia accidents in the future. These posts are not to be taken as a solicitation for business. The information within should never be misconstrued as medical or legal advice. We hope that all involved in these accidents will receive a speedy recovery. The photos depicted in these posts are not representative of the actual accident scene.

The post Savannah, GA – Bicycle Accident with Injuries on Montgomery St appeared first on Georgia Accident Attorney Ken Nugent - Atlanta Personal Injury Law Firm.

source https://www.attorneykennugent.com/savannah-ga-bicycle-accident-with-injuries-on-montgomery-st/ from Kenneth S. Nugent, P.C. https://attorneykennugent1.blogspot.com/2019/10/savannah-ga-bicycle-accident-with.html

[bountyofbeads]

https://time.com/5701364/david-shulkin-donald-trump/

"I Ran the VA Under President Trump Until He Fired Me. Our First Trump Tower Meeting Was a Job Interview Unlike Any Other"- TIME

I Ran the VA Under President Trump Until He Fired Me. Our First Trump Tower Meeting Was a Job Interview Unlike Any Other

BY DAVID SHULKIN | Published October 16, 9:36 AM EDT | Time | Posted October 16, 2019 12:55 PM ET |

IDEAS

Dr. David Shulkin served as Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Trump and is the author of It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Serve Your Country.

David Shulkin, a physician and former healthcare executive, was an under secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama and the Secretary of the VA under President Trump. In March 2018, he was abruptly fired amid charges of improperly accepting gifts and misusing taxpayer funds for personal travel. Shulkin has consistently denied wrongdoing and says he was pushed out by political insiders trying to privatize the VA. In his forthcoming book, It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country, Shulkin traces his thirteen tumultuous months in the Trump Administration. As he notes in the book, all direct quotes are reconstructed to the best of his memory and corroborated by his wife Merle Bari’s contemporaneous daily diary, which reflected what Shulkin told her on a regular basis during his time in Washington. This excerpt has been edited for length and clarity.

********

Around 11 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2017, I received a call telling me I was expected at Trump Tower in New York at 2 p.m. that afternoon. After about an hour of sustained panic driving with my wife Merle on snow-covered roads from Philadelphia, my cell phone rang. It was Reince Priebus.

“Sorry not to have called sooner, but we’re all set. You’ll be meeting with the president-elect on Monday at 2:00 p.m.” Monday, not today.

We found the nearest exit, turned around and headed back home.

Later that afternoon, Priebus called again, this time with some questions for me — mainly, it seemed, to help him figure out how I had gotten on his call list. He wanted to know how I knew Trump. I told him I didn’t. He seemed perplexed that I had no connection to the Trump campaign. He also wanted to know how I became under secretary for Obama. Without commenting on any of my answers, Priebus asked me to meet with him for lunch on Monday prior to my meeting with the president-elect.

On Sunday, still mystified but intrigued, I took a train to New York. Clarifying some final details, they asked me if I wanted to enter Trump Tower through the main lobby or use a private entrance to avoid being seen. A year and a half into my service in Washington, I still didn’t quite understand optics and the strategy behind these kinds of decisions. I saw no reason to hide a meeting with the president-elect. “I’ll go through the front door,” I said.

The next day, I headed over to Trump Tower, around which the NYPD had set up a security corridor in all directions. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but even if this meeting was nothing more than an exit interview, I wanted the chance to tell the president-elect where progress was being made at the VA and what direction his new administration should take.

********

In 2014, when Obama administration officials first approached me about coming to the VA, many of my colleagues expressed concern that the job was a no-win situation. They felt it was a sure fire way to ruin my career leading large hospital systems — a career that had been marked by distinction. They warned that the VA was simply too big and complex to change. Others pointed out that it did not make sense to accept a dramatic pay cut in return for such enormous headaches. But I took the job because I felt a sense of responsibility to our nation’s veterans.

There are more than 20 million American veterans, about a quarter of them living in rural areas, and many of them need VA benefits just to get by. More than nine million of our veterans rely on VA health care, a system that is spread across the entire country, with approximately 1,300 facilities and more than 340,000 employees. It’s the largest health care system in the U.S. and one of the most complicated organizations in the government. Dealing with the size and scope, budget realities, capital deficits and political pressure surrounding the VA is nearly impossible under the best of circumstances.

I arrived in 2015 as Under Secretary of the Veterans Health Administration amidst chilling reports of excessive wait times for VA medical care in many parts of the country. There was also an unacceptable breakdown in delivery of mental health and addiction care, which left veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to fend for themselves during epidemics of traumatic brain injuries and posttraumatic stress — neglect that led to myriad suicides and overdoses. The VA health care system was all but publicly declared to be on life support.

But after 17 months of work and a great deal of progress on many fronts, I felt optimistic, energized and even more responsible than ever, which is why, when presented with the chaotic swirl of events that were my introduction to Donald Trump and his team, I went in head first.

********

Just inside Trump Tower, I was met by several Republican National Committee staffers, who escorted me to the lobby restaurant. As Priebus and I shook hands, he told me that he no longer had time for lunch. I said I understood, but knowing that he was from Green Bay, I added, “By the way, congratulations on the Packers’ win this weekend.”

He smiled and said, “You know, maybe I do have time for a quick bite.”

Making our way through the small restaurant, we were stopped by swarms of diners who all seemed to want their picture taken with Priebus, so I became the amateur photographer as table after table stood up to pose with him. We took a back table, ordered chicken Caesar salad and spent most of our time casually discussing our families and nonpolitical interests. I gleaned nothing of substance and no explanation for why I was summoned to New York. After lunch, he escorted me upstairs.

As we approached the inner sanctum, Steve Bannon came out to greet us and escort me into Trump’s office, familiar to millions as the set of The Apprentice. Against a wall of glass, the president-elect sat at a huge desk covered with copies of Time magazine with his picture on the cover as Person of the Year. A part of me wondered where the secret cameras were hidden.

As we shook hands, Trump announced to his staff in the room, “He’s a good-looking guy.” He then quickly repeated, “He’s a good-looking guy, isn’t he?”

Taken aback, I could think of nothing better to say than, “Nice to meet you, Mr. President-Elect.”

Glancing around the room, I noticed that the one non-glass interior wall was filled with awards and plaques from events honoring Trump. I sat down in the only chair facing him, across the desk.

It seemed by now that most of Trump’s inner circle were milling about in the room behind me — Jared Kushner, Kellyanne Conway, Michael Cohen, Bannon and Priebus.

Kushner and Conway were having a side conversation, which they took outside. Then Trump turned to me and asked, “So what’s the best hospital in the city?”

“Well, Mr. Trump, I think it depends on—”

“You know, I used to think well of this one place, but I know a guy who went in there feeling okay, and they just chopped his thing right off! They chopped it off! I wouldn’t go there for anything now.”

Once again, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Yes. Well . . . no hospital is good at treating every condition,” I managed.

“So if you were sick, where would you go?”

Before I could answer, he looked over at Cohen. “So, Michael, what do you think of this guy?” Cohen and I met each other years earlier when I had been serving as the chief executive officer of New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center.

“Donald, he’s the best in his field.”

“You really think so, huh?” Looking back at me, Trump asked, “So what do you think of McDonald?” Bob McDonald, the current VA secretary and my boss, had been appointed by President Obama to replace General Eric Shinseki, the VA secretary forced to resign in the midst of the wait-time crisis.

“I think he’s one of the best leaders in the country,” I answered truthfully. “He’s been making really good progress, and I think he should stay.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard good things, but there is no way we can keep him, just not possible. What do you think we need to do?”

Then, answering his own question, Trump said, “I’ll tell you what we need to do: we need to make sure our veterans aren’t waiting for care.”

“Mr. Trump, you’re absolutely right.”

“We have to fix this thing. It’s a mess. Do you think we can fix it?”

“We’ve been making big improvements on the wait times. We’ve developed same-day access, and we’re getting more veterans —” He cut me off again.

“I want our veterans to get the best.” Then he repeated, “They really created a mess here. Can we fix it?”

Once again, I assured him that I was committed to doing just that.
 Trump ruffled through a few papers on his desk and then looked up. “The VA’s an important place, but there are some good ones and some bad ones. But I’ll tell you what’s messed up. They come back with PTSD. You know what’s really bad? They come back and their wives or girlfriends didn’t wait for them.”

I swallowed.

Trump paused for a moment and then looked up as if actually seeing me for the first time. “You know, you don’t really fit the bill. The generals . . . now they fit the bill. But can they fix health care?”

Not waiting for my response, he continued. “Who do you think would make a good secretary?”

“Well, Mr. Trump, Bob McDonald is doing a great — ”

Trump cut me off to ask about a certain African American candidate from the navy. He asked if I thought he could fix health care. I said I did not know anything about the gentleman.

“What about this CEO of Exxon Mobil?”
 Before I could answer, he moved on to, “What are you . . . like, the number-two or number-three guy at VA?”

“I’m number three, sir.”

Kushner and Conway came back in, still engrossed in their own private conversation, passing a piece of paper back and forth. Soon Priebus and Bannon were drawn in, and the volume of their sidebar escalated.

After a moment, Priebus interrupted. “Mr. Trump, we need your approval on this press release. It’s about Jared’s role in the administration.”

Trump glanced at the paper for a split second and then, without reading it, handed it back. “Just tell me what it says!”

“I don’t think we should release it just now,” Conway said.

“Well, I do,” Kushner countered.

Having seen all of these people parodied relentlessly over the past several weeks on Saturday Night Live, I couldn’t help thinking that I’d stepped into a skit with Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon. As the tension increased, Priebus leaned over to me and whispered, “Dr. Shulkin, we need to resolve this. Would you mind stepping out for 10 minutes?”
 I rose from my chair, but Trump swatted me back down.

“David can hear this. Stay.”
 I sat back down.

The debate continued, with Trump sitting quietly, until the group seemed to reach some kind of resolution. Then Trump turned back to me. “So why is it so broken? The VA.”

“Well, there are many reasons, starting with — ”

“I think we need to let the veterans go wherever they want.”

“Well, there needs to be a coordinated effort — ”

“I’ll tell you what: we’re going to fix this thing. If you were in charge, what would you do first?”

“I would make sure that we had — ”

“Do you think we can fix this thing?”

“Yes, Mr. President-Elect, I do.”

We went on like this for another 30 minutes or so while the others wandered in and out. Finally, Trump turned to Priebus, Bannon and Cohen and asked, “So what do you guys think?”

Heads nodded in approval.

Then the president-elect turned to Cohen and said, “Next time you see him, you can call him Mr. Secretary.”

Confused, I stood, shook Trump’s hand and left the office.

I took the long elevator ride down to the Trump Tower lobby, where I was met by a barrage of camera flashes and bright lights from TV crews. Reporters shouted, “Dr. Shulkin! Did you meet with Donald Trump? Dr. Shulkin, who’ll run the VA?”

I had no idea, mostly because I had no idea what had just happened.

I smiled and waved shyly but said nothing. Then I made my way quickly into the crowds on Fifth Avenue, where I was once again unrecognizable.

********

On January 11, 2017, when Trump announced that he had selected me as VA secretary, I was as surprised as anyone. Little about my interactions with Trump’s inner circle had made clear that I was the top pick. But I was pleased, as it meant I got to keep serving veterans, which is what I wanted to do all along. I could use the experience I had gained in the Obama administration with the freedom I was given in the Trump administration.

We broke new ground after Trump’s inauguration by publishing our wait times and quality data, expanding benefits for mental health services and adding benefits for those with other-than-honorable discharges. We dramatically increased our technological sophistication through greater reliance on telehealth and by moving toward a new electronic health record system that would connect seamlessly with the Department of Defense. We made real advances in timely access to care, and we implemented important changes that resulted in veterans having more choice in where they received their care. In large part, we found a formula for moving away from the status quo and getting the system back on track.

Part of that formula involved working more closely with the private sector and making the VA more competitive with industry practices. This was essentially a middle ground between a fully government-run organization and privatization. With Americans polarized over almost every issue, I hoped that caring for veterans wouldn’t get entangled in the usual D.C. gamesmanship. The longer I was in the capital, the more I was sorely disappointed.

Much of my tenure involved various factions pushing me to simply close the VA or at least large parts of it that weren’t working well. But I didn’t see how shutting down a system specifically designed to care for veterans could be in the veterans’ best interests. My strong belief was that my job was to find solutions, no matter how many problems plagued the VA, in order to make the existing system work better.

We made real progress during my time at the VA. The morale of the workforce was growing. We were passing new legislation. We were working more closely with our community partners, and we were making the structural changes to ensure sustainable improvements. I had found a way to get things done despite the turmoil within the Trump administration, and things seemed to be running smoothly.

Until they weren’t.

To be clear, I did not set out to tell the story of how much the VA accomplished in three years and how I was fired by a Trump tweet on the eve of passing the most important bill in the history of veterans’ medical care because I wanted anyone to feel sorry for me. I am telling my story because, in my opinion, the VA is still in grave danger. Its doctors, its administrators and most importantly our veterans are at risk as never before.

Maintaining a strong VA is also an essential piece of the puzzle that is the United States national security system: we cannot expect our sons and daughters to risk their lives and fight for our freedom unless we keep our promise to care for them if and when they return home broken, injured or traumatized. There is no excuse for not holding up our end of the bargain. The mission set forth by President Abraham Lincoln to care for those who have “borne the battle” is a sacred duty.

One year after I became the secretary of Veterans Affairs, the environment in Washington had grown so toxic, chaotic and subversive that it became impossible for me to accomplish the important work that our veterans need and deserve. When I left, I promised to continue to speak out against those seeking to harm the VA by putting their personal agendas ahead of the care of our veterans.

I am also worried about the future of public service generally, which appears increasingly bleak as important positions remain unfilled and while cabinet secretaries are hired, fired and publicly humiliated as if our national government were a reality television show. After I was fired, I told my wife — and then repeated the thought in an op-ed I wrote for the New York Times — “It should not be this hard to serve your country.”

The time I spent in government changed me, and my family, forever — but it also gave me a renewed sense of purpose, as well as a belief that systems in government can be improved. It’s not hopeless, but it is a long road without any quick or easy solutions. It also reaffirmed my belief that as long as we have the need for a military to defend our country, the VA must continue as a strong and effective system, willing and able to serve those injured during their service. It is important that Americans understand what the VA system is, how it works and why it exists. If we are willing to commit to our veterans as they have to us, we can all work together to build a safer, healthier and prouder country.

From the book It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country by David Shulkin. Copyright © 2019 by David Shulkin. Reprinted by permission of PublicAffairs, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

[hn-english-blog]

REVIVAL OF SANYAS SAMPRADAYA (MONASTIC ORDER) ON THE PLANET

Aruṇagiri Yogishwara is Paramasiva Himself who graced the physical plane a few thousand years ago in human form. He retained His human form for a few hundred years and taught the science of Enlightenment to His chosen disciples. He is worshipped as Arunācaleśvara, the presiding deity of the Arunācaleśvara Temple. His jeeva samadhi (final resting place) lies inside the Arunācaleśvara Temple in Tiruvannamalai, South India, the birthplace of The Avatar.

Arunagiri Yogishwara assumed the form of a young ascetic and befriended His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam, The young Avatar, when He was around 10 years of age for a period of nine months (approximately April 1988 to January 1989), creating the sweetest Guru-Disciple relationship in the annals of History for humanity to cherish and imbibe.

The nine-month relationship culminated in the profound experience of Advaita or Oneness. The nine-month period holds the most intimate and powerful happenings between Arunagiri Yogishwara and The Avatar. Merely listening to them can straight away impact the cognitions and Consciousness of the listener. In His own words, The Avatar reveals the Happening of receiving the Sanyas initiation from Arunagiri Yogishwara:

AN INVITATION TO HIS HOME!

“One day I told him, “Please come to My house.” 

He laughed and said, “You come to the house, the place where I am staying; the house where I am staying.” The 

moment he said it, I knew: ‘wow, it is such an opportunity!’ I said, “Come on, take Me.”

HE LED ME BY THE HAND - INTO ANOTHER PLANE!

He said, “Come on, let’s go.” Bending, he entered that cave. I remember that he just held My hand and pressed it. Please understand: now I want to put this on record… for the first time when he pressed My hand, I lost body consciousness. So from this moment onwards, whatever I am describing, I do not know whether physically I was part of that scene or I was taken out of My body and this experience happened. I am not able to clearly tell, because the moment he pressed My hand to pull Me inside the cave along with him, I lost body consciousness, and even the scenes I remember after that were not like this world.

WE ENTERED THE CAVE; I SAW THE BANYAN TREE

He just walked into the cave and I also walked with him. Suddenly the cave opened and we came out and I saw a huge banyan tree, a little bigger than our Bidadi banyan tree. The place itself can be seen by the eyes but your body cannot enter it. It is a metaphysical plane. Physically the eyes can see but body cannot enter into that place. 

That time I entered along with Aruṇagiri Yogīśvara. Even now I can enter, but I have to leave this body behind and enter - not using this body. Still the banyan tree can be seen. It is seen even in Google Earth.

UNDER THE BANYAN HE SITS, AS DAKSHINAMURTI

It was on Arunācala hill that much I can very clearly say - the huge banyan tree, and maybe some twenty or thirty Sādhus were sitting around the seat of the Guru. The seat of the Guru was empty. They were all sitting down meditating. The moment he walked in, all of them stood up and did namaskar. The way they bowed down, I understood he was the Guru of that group.

The way he went and sat, literally he sat like Dakshinamurti. 

I RECEIVED THE SAFFRON ROBE FROM HIM

Maybe after some time, their attention turned to Me. One person said, “Who is this person? He is the o nly person without kavi (saffron robes) here, who is not a swami, not a Sanyāsi.” When I heard what he said, immediately My kundalini stood up! I said, “I may not be wearing kavi but I am also a Sanyāsi only.” And I saw Aruṇagiri Yogīśvara laugh. Then he asked, “Why are you not wearing kavi?” I told him, “You give me; you give me kavi.” He laughed and he looked towards someone. Immediately I saw one Sādhu bring kavi cloth! I did not even have a second thought to remove and throw My dress. I just removed My entire dress. Naked, I walked near him without even having a second thought. And he himself tied that kavi cloth around My waist like a dhoti. He himself tied it. And I still remember; he just tied the cloth and hugged Me. He gave energy darśan by putting his hand on My head. Naturally, the experience was just out of the world! And I came and sat in the group. Now I felt one with that group and the group also felt one with Me. They did not feel then that I was an outsider.

One good thing: I still have the cloth given by him! Because the cloth is there, I feel that the experience has either happened in the physical plane or a metaphysical plane which can get converted to the physical plane. There are some metaphysical experiences which disappear when the conversion into the physical plane happens. But there are some solid metaphysical experiences that become physicality when they come down to the physical plane.

Sri Ramakrishna once had an experience of (Lord) Rama giving him a pot full of porridge, a mud pot full of porridge. When he came down from that experience, he had the pot in his hand! The pot was there. It did not disappear. Only Rama’s form disappeared. So I can say that this experience was in the metaphysical plane, but the items given remained when it settled down into the physical plane. That is why I feel the experience has become a physical bio-memory in Me. It remains as a physical bio-energy.

HE TOOK ME BACK TO THE TEMPLE, I REGAIN BODY CONSCIOUSNESS.

Once it became a little dark, late evening, he said, “Come on, let’s go back to the temple.” I said, “Okay.” He brought Me back. When we entered the cave again, he was holding My hand. When we came out of the cave to the exact place where we entered, only there he left My hand. I saw that only when he left My hand I came to physical awareness.

All these references to this banyan tree under which this young Guru taught older disciples, as Arunagiri Yogiswara or Dakshinamurthy, are to Shambhala, the abode of the Saptarishis (seven sages), the cosmic energy center.

You can reach Shambhala from Tapovan, which is over 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas, beyond Gangotri and Gomukh. With the Guru’s help you can reach Shambhala from anywhere. Guru can act as an airstrip to take you to that space at any time. The banyan tree that Ramana Maharshi refers to and the banyan tree at Bidadi are like airstrips or helipads. These are locations to take off and reach the spiritual plane where Aruṇagiri Yogīśvara resides in pure consciousness as Dakshinamurthy, Shiva Himself. 

He left Me in the temple, saying, “You can go now,” and he went away inside his cave.”

His Divine Holiness cognized Himself as a Sanyasi (monk) from the beginning. He defines a Sanyasi as one who has realized that enlightenment is the only goal in life and dedicates his life towards enriching people for it 24x7.

Sanyas is one of the five pillars of “Kailaasa”, the enlightenment ecosystem of ancient India that His Divine Holiness is reviving on the Planet. He has initiated and is continuing to initiate hundreds of disciples into the path of Sanyas. In the Vedic age of ancient India, the child was left with the Guru by age 7. Thereon He grew under the enlightened guidance of the Guru until physical maturity after which the Guru on observing his flow of energy would decide whether the child would continue on the path of Sanyas or move to the path of a grihastha (married householder).

His Divine Holiness has been commemorated with several awards and recognitions for His contributions in reviving Hinduism through the various pillars. On 11 October 2015, President of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad, India, Sri Mahant Swami Narendragiriji, delivered a letter of recognition applauding His Divine Holiness for His divine austerities spiritual penance, strength and His contribution to Sanātana Hindu Dharma (Hinduism) and to humanity.

The Akhila Bharatiya Akhada Parishad. Akhada Parishad is the governing body of all the 13 akhadas in the Hindu Sanyas Sampradaya (Monastic Tradition). It organizes the Kumbh Mela, which is the world’s largest gathering of humanity on the planet.

The pictures portray 1) The jeeva samadhi (final resting place) of Arunagiri Yogishwara, 2) Digital painting portrait of Arunagiri Yogishwara and Swamiji 3) The saffron robe given by Arunagiri Yogishwara 4) His Divine Holiness adorning the saffron robe given to Him by Arunagiri Yogishwara 5) Revival of the Sanyas tradition by His Divine Holiness 6) The letter given by Narendragiri ji

https://hinduismnownithyananda.blogspot.com/2019/08/revival-of-sanyas-sampradaya-monastic_14.html

http://programs.nithyananda.org/paramashivoham