#because of how hard they push that narrative of networking and success being the same thing

[centrally-unplanned]

I don't think Altman's tweet gives enough to properly extend charity one way or the other, so I suppose this isn't a defense of the tweet. But this stance expressed properly is pretty much fine, as the Social Network has a version of the "Fight Club Problem". Fight Club portrays the story of the protagonist's alter-ego forming a masculinity-driven, reactionary, rebel-outsider terrorist cult, and they are the 'bad guys' of the movie. But it portrays them so A: compellingly, and B: attractively as part of that narrative, that, actually, idk man I can kindof see their point? They are 'wrong' but you also hate what they are fighting as well and see the appeal of the refuge they have built.

For Fight Club, this makes its a "good movie", because its fiction. These people aren't real, you aren't going to wipe out all debts with a bomb, so really challenging the audience's understanding of what society values through the metaphor of a violent cult is very effective. Like I am trying to convince you of the value of getting punched in the face! That is a hard sell! I gotta make it sexy, make Brad Pitt the man pushing this line, and now maybe you are questioning if you have ever really felt alive, just a little bit. Its meeting the audience where they are.

The Social Network is not 'fiction' in this same way. Its not terribly accurate, sure but its portraying a very real path people have and do take in life. It aspires to a sense of reality, and as such is telling the audience to see this is as possible for them. So what is the reality that it is selling?

In The Social Network our 'protagonist' Marky Z is dumped by his girlfriend Erica for being an asshole. She shows up one or twice throughout the movie to be a killjoy. The rest of the film shows Mark genius-building a website, pulling the rug out from under some trust fund snobs, fucking chicks in a bathroom, whiz-kidding his way to rubbing palms with The Greats, dropping millions in cash on cool shit and articles from his meal ticket's name, and beating the shit out of everyone who tries to stop him. He wins, and wins again, and wins some more. Which is why when you google "The Social Network quotes" its all shit like this:

Which apparently had a dart board deciding on how to use the bold text feature, but you get it. And sure, there is the "I have no intentions of being friends" line 10 entries down, but thats...just funny? Its not some like gigantic own, its a breakup.

So you have the final scene of the movie, Mark alone in his room, having burned the bridges of all of his friends...and also being one of the richest human beings to ever live and looking like a total genius. And this is a movie about 'reality'.

First, most people would, in said reality, take that deal. You will just idk go make more friends! Friendship isn't Disney films and shounen anime, its not the be-all-end-all and its not a binary thing, they shift and change over time. The movie spent 85% of is runtime on Mark being a badass, and a few minutes here and there on him not having a girlfriend. He's a billionaire, he can go buy one, and by that I mean his social status and success and superintelligence will make him attractive to many amazing people giving him the chance to form authentic, long-lasting connections. Its a fine enough movie ending but as attempt to make the idea of being Mark look bad, it fails, completely. All it really does is give him a tragic veneer to make him kindof hot.

Second, this is a movie about 'reality'. I know, when I am watching it, that it is a biopic, that this Mark isn't real but Mark Zuckerberg is, the life he lived is real. And the actual Mark Zuckerberg...is married with three children. To his wife, who he met before he even started Facebook. Zuckerberg is actually pretty famous for being nice and sociable, none of that Cumberbatch's-Sherlock-coded aloof intensity is real. And you know this, watching it! It was a creative liberty taken to give the film more of an arc. So if you, as someone seeing Mark win and win and win some more, would love to be that in your life, but are maybe worried about the social isolation thing? You do a 1 second google and go "oh, never mind. I can have my cake and eat it too". Reality isn't just, reality balances nothing on its non-existent scales. The Social Network sells you a sexy dream and then hangs a Do Not Enter sign, listlessly, with no lock, on the door of that dream, and thinks no one will open it.

Obviously they do - and this is pretty common for media. People are (sometimes) smart, and they are self-aware, they can separate out the elements of media and use it as they see fit. I will critique The Social Network for this - if its goal was make such separation difficult for the audience to swallow, it failed utterly in that goal. I personally don't even think it was - I think those tragic elements were just the flex of the craft; the film needed more arc, more balance, so counterweights were invented. I'm not surprised audiences discarded them; they were very flimsy weights.

Silicon Valley geniuses think that The Social Network is a movie about how creating a start-up is good

[marketingseminar]

How I Unlocked the Power of Networking: From Fear to Fulfillment

Can networking really benefit me and do we really need to participate in it?

This was the question I used to ask myself when I’d have friends recommend joining LinkedIn or making professional connections. My entire life I had worked hard for my jobs and felt extremely intimidated by the notion that knowing someone could get you further than your gained skills and qualifications. However, through the journey of this marketing seminar series, my perspective has shifted, revealing the untapped potential and value of networking that I had long overlooked and avoided out of fear.

A Semester of Growth and New Understandings

Among the speakers, the one individual who stood out to me was one of our most recent speakers, Cathy McKnight. Cathy's narrative of resilience and transformation within the business realm left me with a lot to think about. She recounted her journey from navigating toxic work environments to finding fulfillment by forging her path alongside a supportive business partner.

Specifically, she discussed her experience in a hierarchical work environment in which her manager accused her of going around her back to speak with a higher-up staff. I thought this story was extremely interesting as it gave insight into the actual experiences that come from an environment like that. Although, there are likely many great corporate workplaces, being put into an environment such as what she described is a fear of mine when career hunting. I am the type of person who prefers to work closely with others and help each other grow, not treat someone as my competition. It made me feel very inspired that Cathy was able to take that as her sign to take the leap and go off on her own resulting in her feeling happier in where she is at in her career.

Ultimately, I have learned that it is never too late to pave a path for yourself. While it is very scary to go off and take the route that is the least predictable, there are so many people to turn to for advice and you are never alone. It may even lead to more fulfillment and happiness in a career than you could've ever imagined. Cathy’s stories served as a reminder that if I am unhappy in one position, it is never too late to change course and discover something new when I am building my career.

Navigating Networking and How Practice Makes Perfect

Networking was never something that came naturally to me. I am a social person, but I had the idea that networking only meant reaching out to someone with the transactional purpose of finding a job. Little did I know that it means so much more than that, it means learning from others, asking for support, and putting yourself out there.

I studied psychology in my undergrad and compared to my four business major roommates, I had no reason to be making the same connections nor did I have nearly as many ways to do so as they were given. Because of this and my work experience in the hospitality industry, I never had the desire to build a network.

When I started at George brown it was an entirely new world of business for me and I was faced with the reality that networking was essential to my success. I had a LinkedIn assignment in which I had to curate my account for professional development, pushing me completely out of my comfort zone. However, 6 months later I am extremely grateful that I did it. I have leveraged LinkedIn to build my network and be able to connect with individuals I admire and work in the same area that I hope to one day work in. That being the hospitality or fashion industry on the marketing side. I have joined digital marketing groups, messaged individuals for advice and read inspiring articles that keep me up to date with current trends, events, and job listings.

My most recent experience with networking was contacting a family friend’s partner who works in influencer marketing. While I was hoping she could connect me to an internship, she was instead able to give me valuable insight into the industry and was extremely helpful and kind throughout our communication. Because a family friend had connected us, we were able to have a much more casual point of contact. Yet I still always made sure to maintain professionalism as that is extremely important when networking within a career context. She told me about how she leveraged her experience as a content creator to completely change fields and go into influencer marketing. This point of contact gave me some key insights that I wanted to share with you now.

My Tips and Tricks for Best Practice Networking

Authenticity is the backbone of a strong connection. By approaching networking with sincerity and a genuine desire to learn from others you can build meaningful relationships that transcend transactional exchanges.

Embracing the discomfort and opening our minds past our fears is the only way to succeed and grow. We need to embrace discomfort as a catalyst for expanding our network and horizons.

Stay engaged and stay curious. Actively participate in industry events, online forums, and discussions. Stay on top of industry trends and developments, positioning yourself as a proactive and informed professional. It is what will set you apart from the rest of the crowd.

Networking has been transformed from a daunting idea in my mind to a growth exercise and key to my professional journey. I am proud to say I've cultivated a network that not only supports my career aspirations but also enriches my journey with diverse perspectives and opportunities. As I navigate the landscape of marketing, I'm empowered by the connections I have made and the lessons I have learned, which excite me as I move forward on my career journey and I hope you can learn a lesson or two from me as well!

[daforged]

the worst thing abt undergrad wasnt exams or learning stuff i know is useless bs or writing papers and giving presentations about companies destroying the world or even the group projects that legitimately made me consider dropping out. the worst part about doing a commerce degree is the way every single person in your faculty from the far right tenured prof who’s universally loathed for making attendance mandatory but spending every lecture reading powerpoint slides verbatim to the one other anticapitalist bisexual in your classes who you’re a little in love with quite frankly is that they all believe you will completely and totally fail if you don’t network regardless of anything else you do and if you can’t or don’t want to network you are a loser failure pathetic nobody who will never get a good job

oh and the CONSTANT refrain of like. u absolutely 100% must put in 2 yrs at one of the big 4 accounting firms if ur majoring in accounting or going for a cpa. literally everybody acts like u will never succeed at all as if its genuinely impossible to land a good job without networking or get ur cpa without selling 2 years of ur life to a job that will unrepentantly work you 100 hours a week while ur manager spits in ur face. if i could tell ppl in my faculty or even my younger self anything it would be like. yeah networking & putting in the time at one of the big 4 will absolutely give you an edge over not doing that. but its not actually the end of the world if u dont wanna do either of those things and its not as big of a deal as everyone in this hell pit makes it seem. if u want a hustle 5-9 grind lifestyle ceo corner office etc kinda thing then yeah u probably need to do that shit but if ur happy with a regular office job that pays ur bills with some room to spare then like. take it easy .

[ax100]

Ax’s Promare headcanons - Post-World Blaze (pt3)

Hello, I’m back again with more headcanons! I had fun writing this part because I ended up having to consult with an intellectual property lawyer in my family about how patents and royalties work lmao. What’s crazy is that this is not the first time I’ve had to consult a specialist for fic (I previously consulted with a friend of mine who has a degree in political science and another friend who’s a university professor for this same fic that these headcanons are for). The more you know!

If you are not familiar with what is happening, I’ve been writing a series of posts trying to figure out a more specific timeline / sequence of events before canon events in Promare. An expansion of the literal FIRST FIVE MINUTES of the film, if you will (check the timestamps in the movie, I’m not even kidding). This is the fourth post in the series, and you can read the others here!

Pre-World Blaze

Post-World Blaze (Years 1-10)

Post-World Blaze (Years 11-20, Loosening Grudges)

And here’s the masterpost, for easier access: Ax’s Promare Headcanons (masterpost)

This post zooms in on Promepolis and the rise of Kray Foresight into power. I have a few notes here and there on my interpretation of the character peppered throughout to help you guys understand why I wrote this part the way I did.

Do note that this is just my personal interpretation of things and I am in no way saying that this is actually what happened! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

HISTORICAL CONTEXT (POST-WORLD BLAZE: YEARS 21-PRESENT, PROMEPOLIS AND KRAY FORESIGHT)

The news of the renowned Dr. Prometh’s death shook the world. Murder. Gunshot, straight to the heart. No evidence had been left; even the CCTV footage had been wiped. To make it even worse, all the data banks of the lab had been purged too. Whatever the professor had been working on was lost to time; he’d been notoriously secretive about his work during his lifetime, and never shared his research with anyone. The culprit was never caught, but the widely-held belief was that it was Mad Burnish’s doing—who else would want the professor dead? The trail eventually went cold, and the case would remain unsolved for the decade to come.

It wasn’t long after Prometh’s death that a local news story gained traction in Promepolis, one of the numerous city-states that had cropped up after the Great World Blaze. A young man by the name of Kray Foresight had saved a young boy from a house fire, losing an arm in the process. What made the story even better was that Foresight was an undergraduate engineering student, working on anti-Burnish tech. The press ate the sweet irony up, and regurgitated the information till it was all Promepolitans could talk about. That Foresight was such a darling too, such a kind-hearted soul—when interviewed about his stance on the Burnish, he was of the opinion that, while they were dangerous, they were victims of circumstance. His research was on anti-Burnish tech, to protect humans from the threat of Burnish fire, but he wanted to find a cure for the Burnish condition too. And wasn’t that a more sustainable solution for everyone involved? The young ones his age celebrated him—this is the kind of face their movement needed (compassion over retribution)—while the older ones, those who hated the Burnish but were charmed by this promising young man, started to think a little more.

Moved by these sentiments and impressed by his research, private and public entities alike lined up to invest in his tech. Almost overnight, Kray Foresight had become a billionaire. His research grew by leaps and bounds with the new lifeblood of steady funds, more money than a college student knew what to do with. Many companies tried to recruit him into their labs; others tried to buy the research from him. But he was steadfast in his refusal. The patents would not go to a corporation; of that, he had been adamant. Instead, a year later, right after his graduation (which had been publicized), he founded the Foresight Foundation, which became the holding entity for the patents of a slew of anti-Burnish tech that would soon become standard issue in all police forces and Counter-Terrorism Units around the world. The royalties from his inventions ensured a steady and impressive flow of funds, big portions of which were generously donated to the Promepolis City Government to fund their projects, while the Foundation worked on setting up its own network of schools, clinics, and social support programs for the citizens of Promepolis. All throughout this, the press kept reminding the public of what he had done in the past—the young man who had saved a boy from a fire, losing his arm in the process, was actively making the world a better place. He was poised for great things, and all eyes were on him for what he’d do next. They didn’t need to wait long. Only a little less than two years after the Foundation’s founding, Foresight made an unprecedented statement: he was going to run as Governor in the upcoming city elections.

There were concerns on Foresight’s intentions to run as Governor—one, he hadn’t served in public office previously, though he did have experience running a large foundation with a wide reach, which had also worked with the City Government closely in the past; and two, he was so damn young. His platform came heavily tinged with wide-eyed idealism, reflective of the new wave of thinking characteristic of the younger generation—“We in Promepolis protect our own, Burnish and human alike. The world has moved past the need for grudges; we must let go of the past and think of the future. At this point, we must strive, more than ever, to maintain peace,” he’d said in a campaign rally. No Promepolitan left behind was his battle cry; Burnish needed help, not anymore punishment, and he promised the establishment of a Burnish rehabilitation program, the first of the world would ever see. To all the Burnish in Promepolis, he’d promised, don’t worry, we’ll make sure you never hurt anyone ever again. And of Mad Burnish, which had largely lost its influence but still remained a thorn in everyone’s side, he promised that they would see their end during his term as Governor.

It made international news when Kray Foresight won as Governor of Promepolis by a landslide; even other city-states had a stake in it, after all. Promepolis was the first to establish a Burnish rehabilitation program in partnership with the Foresight Foundation, with many of the forward-thinking city-states investing huge amounts of money into the program as well. If proven to be a success, if the Foundation could really find a way to rid the world of the Burnish problem once and for all, they were all too happy to throw their money into the project.

(As viewers, ofc we all know this is a front. If Kray had the Parnassus Project in mind since the start, I don’t believe it would have been in his best interest to drive all the Burnish out of the city. So he pushed for a narrative that yes, the Burnish condition does make you violent and a threat to those around you, but we in Promepolis protect our own. We will help you, we will cure you. Many people voluntarily entered themselves or their family members into the program, even though Foresight said it could take years before they would be able to be released. This was fine, as long as they didn’t hurt anyone again. Many of them died, the lucky ones were busted out by Mad Burnish.)

(Any Burnish caught not submitting themselves to the rehabilitation program would be arrested on grounds of being a threat to public safety, and immediately put into the program. Those found complicit in the act of hiding the Burnish would also be arrested and subjected to appropriate jail time or conscripted community service.)

(The money that was being invested in the rehabilitation program was being used to fund the Parnassus, alongside the crazy big money the Foresight Foundation was making off the patents for anti-Burnish tech. The Financial Director of the Foresight Foundation was also the Administrator of the Department of Commerce, Industry, and Trade at the time—more on this in another post)

Kray Foresight was a firebrand of a politician. Promepolis’ Governors before him had largely been passive, but Foresight was a visionary. Though they had been few, being the darling of Promepolis and all, Foresight had shut the naysayers up quite swiftly. He not only proved to be competent in the role, but extraordinary, open to change and innovation in a way the previous Governors had not. With him and his appointed Council of Administrators, Promepolis began to change, developing in a way it could only hope to achieve previously. People attributed it to his age—maybe injecting youth into the politics of this city had been the right decision after all—and he proved to be popular with his constituents again and again, across all demographics. He would remain in his position for the better part of a decade, winning another term before his fall from grace. At his prime, he was seen as benevolent and compassionate, but capable of making hard decisions all the same.

(By the Second Great World Blaze, Kray would have been Governor of Promepolis for 7-8 years already.)

I personally headcanon Kray as someone who pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. Competent people who are also nice enjoy an almost privileged position in with the general public, and I think he would have capitalized on that. Which means that, in a world where the Burnish are demonized, he would have used it to his advantage by playing the nice guy. Even to the people funding the Parnassus Project, I think he would have kept up that front-- “It is unfortunate, but we have no choice but to do this,” even if inwardly he was just. Really fuckin racist haha. A saint till the end, that Kray Foresight. Or so he would have wanted people to believe. (Support for this: it is apparently so far removed from his public image that he would do bad things to the Burnish that Galo’s immediate reaction to Lio telling him the truth was, “That’s a lie, the Governor would never do that.”)

Anyway, thanks for reading until the end of this post!

(Btw, I have an AO3 account! All these headcanons are going to be put to good use, eventually, in a fic, but I hope you check out what I have so far!)

NEXT UP: ???

[moviemunchies]

One day a man named Ben Mezrich pitched a book called The Accidental Billionaires about the founding of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg. Before he even got started the publisher sold the movie rights for the book, and Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing fame was attached to compose the screenplay. He did so, and the resulting film, directed by David Fincher The Social Network. Because the movie was written at the same time as the book it’s supposedly based on, and because this is Hollywood we’re talking about, this isn’t an accurate depiction of events or the people involved.

Kind of makes you wonder about the “Best Adapted Screenplay” Oscar it got, doesn’t it?

The Social Network tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Einsenberg), a Harvard student that, after a bad breakup with his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara), decides to make a website that compares female students’ hotness by hacking into different on-campus clubs’ webpages. This grabs attention, and a group of entrepreneurs (the Winklevoss twins and their friend Divya Narendra, played by Armie Hammer and Max Minghella) come to Zuckerberg with an idea for an exclusive Harvard website. After that meeting, Zuckerberg comes up with the idea of Facebook, and goes to his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to help start the business. And things get more heated when Zuckerberg meets Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who goes against Eduardo’s business advice, but seems to be good at making the website successful.

Basically: how Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook, and all the people he alienated and screwed over along the way.

Like I said, this is a work of fiction. I’ve seen people cite this movie to make some accusation or another about Mark Zuckerberg or social media, but this movie isn’t a very accurate depiction of what happened. And it’s not meant to be; Aaron Sorkin’s been pretty up front that he wasn’t trying to make a documentary or tell the truth; he just wanted to tell a good story.

And it is a good story. One critic even claimed that it’s our generation’s Citizen Kane, though as someone who has seen Citizen Kane too many times I think that’s an exaggeration. It’s a good movie though because it manages to capture so much of the era it’s about, and the way people treat and mistreat each other.

The movie’s framing device, which is not obvious from the very beginning, is that Zuckerberg is being sued by both Saverin and the Winklevoss twins, and as the story goes on we see how those relationships deteriorate while seeing where they end up. This gives the story a hefty weight, a sense of dramatic irony, because we know where the story’s going to end up while the characters in the narrative don’t. It feels almost like the modern-day take on the concept of fate in a story, where the characters make their destinies happen through bad decisions that they had no way of knowing the consequences of.

There are a few things Sorkin is famous for, but his dialogue is undoubtedly what sets him apart from other screenwriters. Fast and frantic dialogue populates this film, especially with characters like Mark who can have hard-to-follow trains of thought that they spit out as they think of them. And with good dialogue you need a talented cast to deliver it in a way that imparts the emotions of characters, and thankfully this film has one. Watch any scene from this film for just the dialogue and delivery, if you cannot watch the whole thing--you’ll be rewarded.

There are a couple of issues I had watching this film, that weren’t just odd feelings on the Winklevoss twins both being played by the same actor (supposedly Fincher couldn’t find actor twins that matched the physique of the two Olympic-level rowers). The first is a case of white-washing: Divya Narendra is an Indian-American man, and his actor is white with a deep tan. And he does a good job, but the fact is that it’s a clear example of a white actor playing an Indian character, one who is based off of a real-life person who is alive and active today. I don’t blame Max Minghella as much as Fincher and the producers of the movie; after all, would it really have been that hard to find an Indian actor for the role? It’s not even that Minghella looks that much like Narendra. It feels odd and in a movie made in 2010 I am baffled by this casting decision. Like I said, this isn’t a diss on Minghella, who does a good job in this movie, but he should not have been in the position of playing an Indian man.

Secondly: this film heavily implies (about as heavily as possible without outright saying it) that the reason Zuckerberg went through any of this was because he never got over Erica dumping him. I have mixed feelings about this. It almost pushes Zuckerberg into completely unlikable territory, as a man obsessed with a woman who made it clear that she wants nothing to do with him. I get that it fits into the theme of all of his achievements being built out of loneliness, but… really? It sometimes feels like it pigeonholes the character into something she clearly doesn’t want to be: an object.

This movie’s also a bit funny because of its depiction of Facebook. When The Social Network premiered in 2010, Facebook was the hip social media website. This film depicts Facebook in its earliest days as a college party gone online, the new scene for young people to find themselves and others. There are multiple conversations about how Zuckerberg doesn’t want to put ads on the site because that would ruin the experience.

And nowadays… Facebook is loaded with ads. And to be fair it had ads on the sidebar when this movie premiered in 2010, but now it’s full to the brim, with ads popping up on your News Feed unprompted to shove something down your throat, or popping up in videos without little warning, and will pause if you switch tabs. And the whole idea of Facebook being for cool college kids? Yeah, nowadays Facebook is known for being where all of your middle-aged and elderly relatives hang out online, and it’s less a party scene and more a place where people share links (of sometimes less-than-reputable news sources) and meme images. This isn’t a criticism of the movie, but it does feel like a time capsule in a way, a look back at a time that wasn’t more innocent, exactly, but a lot more optimistic about the future of social media.

The Social Network may not be Citizen Kane, but it is an excellent film worth seeing. It’s well-acted, well-written, well-directed and well-made. Aside from a couple of hiccups, it’s one of the finest films of the past decade.

[realtalkingpoints]

Opinion:  How social media and the Obama administration lead to the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

Placed historically, the real explosion in social media use occurred during the Obama administration. Advances in technology were allowing developers to create new platforms and new versions of old platforms faster and faster, each time learning from previous builds.  Big data was coming into it's prime, learning more about user habits than ever before. For the first time in history, millions and millions of people had not just cell phones in their pocket, but smart phones that could access the internet.  And cell phone services, along with internet capabilities were expanding to handle the new demand.  The Obama administration created subsidy programs offering low cost or no cost smart phones and service providers to low income households that qualify.  And apps for phones were developed, to be small versions of popular websites, to run fast, efficient, and anywhere people wanted to pull out their phones and surf them.  The stage was set for a social media explosion.

All different kinds of platforms were introduced.  We know the most popular ones, because they've gone viral and turned into the worlds most powerful platforms, and some are still growing.  Perhaps startups today, will topple the giants in tomorrows media fad. But what we know now, is that people love to chat with each other, and interact with each other in real time, at the speed of the internet, across continents.  People want to share stories and photos, promote businesses, and discuss the news of the day.  The people of the world have never had an exchange of information that was this fast, this easy, and this accessible to literally billions of people.  It was only a matter of time before news and politics moved at the pace of social media, and not the other way around.

Having not done or even read any case studies, and cannot conclusively say, but it seems obvious to me that younger generations were the first to adopt the internet, and social media.  If you have seniors in your life, it's no secret, that they struggle at times with internet technology.  The internet didn't even exist for most of their life, and now suddenly in twenty or thirty years its users have gone from thousands of college geeks and researchers, to billions of excited people trying to find one another.  Our youngest generations don't know a world without the internet, some don't know a world without smartphones, google or twitter.  And when a new platform idea comes along, even one with a seemingly silly name like 'Twitter', there's plenty of young people comfortable enough with internet and smart phone technology, to give it a try.  They don't fear the unknowns, the hacking and 'spying' and data collection that has the older generations so apprehensive. To the younger crowd, the worst that can happen is they don't like it and they delete the app.  But the good ones don't get deleted.  The ones that are effective at capturing people's attention with reality tv type stimulation and peer to peer interaction, grow exponentially into massive social media networks. According to my theory, the first massive waves of users were younger.

These days, younger means more progressive, more liberal in political leaning.  Their comfort level with the internet means they look there first to answer any question they might have, or for things the want to purchase.  They have developed a sense of enlightenment, confident that they can find instantly, the answer to any of life’s mysteries.  While waiting for a latte, while sitting on a bus, beach, or the couch at home, they can satisfying their deepest curiosities, and perhaps too often, accepting the veracity of the information delivered to them without question.  

It doesn't take a genius to see the gold mine of opportunity that influencers of all types saw in social media platforms.  Millions upon millions of young impressionable minds, looking for answers and perspective from their peers.  Advertisers and retailers have embraced the social media craze, inventing creative new strategies to reaching new customers, specially those willing to try something new.  It has literally created new industries because someone tried something, told their friends, and now everyone is selling it.  For example, what is 'goat yoga'?  Don't know, just google it.  Its a thing, it's out there, and it owes it's success to social media.  It's a revolution in the exchange of information like never before in history.  Before long, social media would also be recognized as an essential tool in the fight over politics.

How better to potentially reach millions and millions of people with your political message than to put it on social media, and allow people to share that idea just by clicking a button.  It's too easy.  In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama harnessed the networking power of social media for the first time in a Presidential election.  Using still developing platforms like Twitter and Facebook, he connected with millions of young, progressive thinking voters, most of whom were willing to share his message with their peers. It was a major advantage to his campaign, since supporters of his opponent, John McCain were much older on average, and therefor much less likely to even be on social media.  It gave a free soapbox to Obama that was heard by millions and millions of progressive Americans, and it was virtually all his.  The voices of opposition just weren't there.  The hoards of young impressionable minds thought that everyone agreed with the exciting ideas they were hearing from an enthusiastic Barack Obama.  They had accidentally created their own media bubble of like minded, similarly motived, ideologues, all enjoying a strong confirmation bias.  Slowly, the older more conservative Americans did adopt social media platforms, but they had a lot of catching up to do.  When re-election came around, Obama's opponent in 2012, Mitt Romney made a modest effort to connect with supporters on social media.  Reporting at the time was something like $8 million by Romney vs $45 million spent by the Obama campaign on social media advertising.  It was clear, that the social media advantage was still firmly in the hands of the progressives, and the number of users was growing rapidly.

A skillful politician, Obama quickly learned how to generate large swells of social media activity to support his various agenda items.  I'm sure they had lots of data, certainly from intelligence agencies, about the habits of trending topics on social media.  Being the first American presidential administration to preside over a social media crazed nation, there must have been moments of epiphany with regards to the reaction(s) of social media communities on various policy decisions and press releases.  As Facebook has acknowledged, social media cause the Arab spring.  How much the Obama administration had to do with that is still up for debate.  Ideas were ready to go viral in their respective communities, they just needed to be put out there at the right time, by the right influential people.  

Just as politicians saw the obvious advantages to social media messaging, so did the press and news media.  Journalists would use their own social media accounts to post their news stories and build followings that would supplement their print or tv audiences.  I would assume the same principles apply, that younger more progressive journalists migrated toward the platforms first, giving them a jump on their older more conservative counterparts.  Furthermore, the fact that these platforms are presumed to be populated first with predominantly young progressives, the approval rate and popularity of ideas and stories reported by early journalists on social media is likely skewed towards liberalism.  Many of these young progressive reporters and the networks employing them rode the social media bubble to prominence and challenged their older more conservative colleagues on the national stage in popularity ratings, often successfully.  The result of this effect was a national news media that favored a  more progressive, liberal narrative.  An unfortunate side effect of this, was the reality that popularity of news stories among social media followers, not accuracy or factual reporting, was driving viewership ratings.  As news outlets realized that their new social media followers enjoyed stories about successful progressive policies and praise for the Obama administration, they began to build their staff and organizations around a strategy to deliver just that.  Seemingly out of no where, Obama became the darling of the liberal press and social media.  

The endless stream of positive feedback from the press and social media had it's effect on the Obama administration.  They soon realized that blunders and mistakes could get washed up in a circular round of praise and applause on other topics of the day, while the bad news went completely ignored by a majority of the news media.  Their audience simply didn't want to hear the bad news, so they just didn't report it.  Knowing their misdeeds would go largely forgiven by a lapdog media, the Obama administration began to push the norms of public approval with their progressive policies.  The highly controversial Affordable Care Act, was signed into law despite zero Republican votes for the package.  Republicans were waiving their hands in the isles of congress, shouting as loudly as they could that the math didn't work, and that millions of hard working middle class Americans were going to carry the burden of this bloated package.  But they didn't have the social media push or news media support to get their message out, and those Republicans were labeled as one of many hateful stereotypes by the social media mob. Other Obama moves like the targeting of conservative non-profit groups by the IRS during the 2012 presidential election, and the dreadful Iran deal, which should have received much media scrutiny, all got passing grades from news reporters and their social media echo chambers.

It was probably during Obama's second term, conservatives woke up to realize that social media was where the real conversation is.  Not that they hadn't been participating thus far, but as a whole, the conservatives had been sluggish to migrate toward social media platforms.  But watching liberalism taking over news media, and frightened for the future of their nation, conservatives began to challenge progressive liberals on social media in numbers large enough to cause a stir among their ranks.  And many of them reacted poorly.  Platforms that had long been safe spaces for liberal rants and conservative defamation were suddenly being challenged by patriotic Americans who showed up and said, 'I disagree, here's why, and here's the evidence'.  The young, progressive ideologues who had populated social media en masse had never needed evidence to back up their opinions, nor encountered such opposition to their group think, and began to lash out at their new critics.  Twitter battles flared, and for the first time, young progressive social media users were forced to examine their hardened ideals in the light of contradicting evidence.  But many of them had taken very public, emphatic positions based on liberal policies and news reporting that they had taken as gospel.  For many liberal ideologues, backing down from their stated positions was more injury than they could conceivably sustain, and instead would band together with their news media heroes to defend their proclaimed moral high ground at all costs.

Enter Donald Trump.  No stranger to the media spot light, real estate developer and reality tv star Donald Trump was a natural at using news media to reach the American public.  He saw the trends and recognized how to maximize his influence.  He grew his Twitter audience with constant engagement and used even bad press coverage to get his message out.  Much like Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump used social media to achieve victory in the 2016 presidential election, this time by appealing to the millions of new, perhaps more conservative minded social media users, who felt alienated and bullied by the entrenched liberal social media mob.  The liberal reaction was swift and often unruly.  Think Women's March, Antifa, and Russia Collusion.  Unable to manifest their desired reality through social media and news stories, the liberals resorted to real world activism in an all out effort to undo an election result that they could not fathom.  They looked to their hero Obama and his collection of bureaucrats installed in the nation's intelligence community to dig for evidence that he had cheated the election.  We know now, that multiple efforts (likely underhanded in nature) to sabotage his election were underway.  The social media mob and their news media cohorts pushed relentlessly to add credibility to claims of Russian Collusion by the Trump campaign and worked 24/7 to drive incriminating headlines into the homes and minds of Americans.  Biased, partisan investigations lead to a special counsel investigation that progressives hoped would finally get the goods and rid them of the surprise President that had popped their media bubble paradise.  But this time, the social media push was from the right, and verifiable evidence of corruption and bias of investigators was plastered on social media for everyone to see.  Conservative news media had finally landed a foothold on social media platforms and began to tell its side of the story to an American public eager to hear some truth.  

Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation ended with no hard evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to cheat the 2016 election, delivering yet another heavy blow to liberal America, who had spent many years under Obama, assuming that their positions would always be supported by bureaucrats and news reports.  Trump blamed 'the deep state' for the internal attempts to sabotage his presidency.  He asked the DOJ inspector general to investigate the investigations that had targeted individuals from is campaign, and the IG report has confirmed, that many inside the FBI and DOJ were willing to bend or break the rules to obtain surveillance approvals on Trump campaign members.  This provided conservatives with yet another huge victory over their liberal activist counterparts, who still can't believe what is happening.  Many of the young progressives who had driven the political agenda through social media activity had never experienced a news cycle that they couldn't control with their activism.  And many liberal politicians and deep staters who relied on the media mob for support and cover for their potential misdeeds had never considered what they would do if suddenly all the negative news stories actually got printed.  Claims of political favoritism, liberal election rigging, and big money foreign policy peddling are now a daily occurrence, and both the politicians and the media mob are in a panic.

So that brings us to our current situation.  The liberal's last stronghold of power in American government resides in Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives.  They have engaged in partisan investigation after investigation, hoping to find something to re-ignite their liberal base, that would warrant the removal of Trump from office.  Impeachment.  Special counsel and IG investigations delivered reports that devastated the credibility of the liberal news media, along with politicians and intel personalities that still claim Trump is the one lying.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a whistleblower report lands on the desk of discredited intel committee chair Adam Schiff, that President Trump has been bribing the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 presidential election by investigating Joe Biden.  Unable to stunt the flow of news and information the way they once had, media mob liberals are as aware as there rest of us, that the origins of said whistleblower complaint are highly questionable, and that there are credible allegations of Biden's mis-dealings in Ukraine.  Indeed, congressional impeachment hearings produced a parade of witness testimonies that stated, one after another, they had heard from others, sometimes others who had heard from others, that the president had done something wrong.  Literally no one was able to testify that they had been instructed to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens.  American news polls show Americans are tiring of the endless investigations of Trump and the push for impeachment. Once again, the liberal news media and the progressive social media ideologues had been unable to sway the news cycle in a decidedly favorable direction.  But they pushed hard.  So hard in fact, that Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are moving forward with the impeachment of the president of the United States of America.  

It appears that they will have the votes in the House to impeach the president.  Democrat house members appear to be unaffected by the lack of hard evidence against Trump, or the mounting pile of evidence that this was a setup to oust Trump and protect a swamp of corruption from being exposed by impending DOJ criminal investigations.  Instead, a Trump re-election is what they fear the most.  Most Democrats in Washington see impeachment as their most destructive tool in the fight against Donald Trump.  Impeachment is their destructive response to a power vacuum they never saw coming.  Having become complacent with years of favorable media coverage, and friendly social media audiences, the liberals and Democrats let their corruptions run unchecked.  They did not predict the storm that is Donald Trump, or the urgency with which the conservatives would take to social media to defend truth in news reporting and accountability in government.  The Democrats have lost control of the narrative and they know it.  They now see no other option but the Hail Mary impeachment of Donald Trump.  Polls suggest it still won't prevent his re-election, but they are out of ideas, and out of time.  Considerations that this impeachment on flimsy evidence will lead to many unfounded future impeachments are not in their calculation.  This is purely desperation.  I for one, hope that the news media, social media and the American public will punish the Democrats for decades over this irresponsible abuse of their constitutional authority.  

[intransigent-boy]

My Top Ten Films of The Decade.

10. Her

Okay, so whether you like it or not, this movie is about the present. This movie tells a very powerful story with an embarrasingly personal narrative. You feel sorry for the main character, it makes you so uncomfortable. And the reason is, because we are all in some sense are like this guy, Theodore. We have better relationships online, and with our advices, than with real people. It’s a really bizarre conception, but we should face it, and ask ourselves: Where is the limit?  The script is just brilliant, but also has very controversial scenes. Joaquin Phoenix is simply the perfect choice for a lonely man, like Theodore. Melancholy everywhere, and great visuals. Arcade Fire made the music for this, and it was pure melancholy. Very interesting film.

9. The Place Beyond The Pines

Derek Cianfrance is an exceptional director. He can wonderfully create an atmosphere with great lighting techiques, unique musics, and of course with talented actors. This movie has a linear, but quite unusual story-structure. The main theme haunts you after you watched this. Legacy! 

8. Nightcrawler

Louis Bloom is something of a loner who is unemployed and ekes out a living stealing and then reselling copper wire, fencing and most anything else he can get his hands on. When late one night he comes across an accident being filmed by independent news photographer Joe Loder, he thinks he may have found something he would be good at. He acquires an inexpensive video camera and a police scanner and is soon spending his nights racing to accidents, robberies and fire scenes. He develops a working relationship with Nina Romina, news director for a local LA TV station. As the quality of his video footage improves so does his remuneration and he hires Rick, young and unemployed, to work with him. The more successful he becomes however, the more apparent it becomes that Louis will do anything - anything - to get visuals from crime scenes. The conception is just brilliant, and screams to your face, what kind of society are we living in. I think Psychopathy is going to be one of the biggest issue in our generation asides with mental illneses. And this movie reflects perfectly. You understand the character, which is geniusly performed by Jake Gyllenhaal. 

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers' exquisitely sad and funny new comedy is set in a world of music that somehow combines childlike innocence with an aged and exhausted acceptance of the world. It is a beguilingly studied period piece from America's early-60s Greenwich Village folk scene. Every frame looks like a classic album cover, or at the very least a great inner gatefold – these are screen images that look as if they should have lyrics and sleeve notes superimposed. This film was notably passed over for Oscar nominations. Perhaps there's something in its unfashionable melancholy that didn't hook the attention of Academy award voters. But it is as pungent and powerfully distinctive as a cup of hot black coffee. This movie is about sacrificing everything for your art, directionlessness  (is there such a word?) , and finding the right path. Existential theme, with surpisingly good acting from Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and Justin Timberlake. This is an Odyssey-story from the 1960′s America. What more you could ask for? 

6. Dunkirk

Reinventing a genre is quite exceptional. And Nolan did it. The best war movies of the last 20 years, including Saving Private Ryan and Hacksaw Ridge, have also placed viewers in the centre of battle. Nolan has not reinvented that immersive approach, but he comes close to perfecting it. The story structure is-again- brilliant. There’s no main character in the movie-just like in a war-but only  scared people. They want to go home. But they can’t. We’re with them with their struggle, and fears. We’re in the air, land, or water, it’s just a haunting terror.  And the soundtrack from Hans Zimmer is really remarkable. You hear it, and you recognize the movie. That’s what I call a score. Reflects perfectly, and holds the attention throughout the whole movie.

5. Hell or High Water

Another genre-twister masterpiece. This Neo-Western is just pure art.��Hell or High Water is a film about a criminal  who commits the ultimate offence of putting his gorgeous and much nicer brother in a ski mask for several minutes of this film. Okay actually it’s about a career criminal brother and his he-wasn’t-but-he-is-now criminal brother who team up to commit a series of small-scale bank robberies across Texas, with the aim, finally – after several generations – of lifting the family out of seemingly inescapable grinding poverty. The part of Texas they live in is dying on its feet so career criminal is pretty much the only career left open that doesn’t involve serving in a diner or herding the few remaining cattle. It would’ve been easy for Hell or High Water to to turn out a cliche-ridden double bromance as there are quite a few movie tropes in this love story / revenge thriller, so it’s a tribute to director David Mackenzie that it’s actually a very touching, at times funny, at times quite brutal story. With a bit of grudge-bearing thrown in at the end to stop it being too redemptive. Memorable scenes, great acting, and a deromanticized western-feeling. After this film, you want to live in Texas, where everything’s slower, but sometimes you can chase criminals. It’s nice, isn’t it? 

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh’s fiercely written, stabbingly pleasurable tragicomedy stars a magnificent Frances McDormand; watching it is like having your funny bone struck repeatedly, expertly and very much too hard by a karate super-black-belt capable of bringing a rhino to its knees with a single punch behind the ear. He’s a scriptwriter genius, it was shocking, how perfectly the dialouges and the actions were constructed. It is a film about vengeance, violence and the acceptance of death, combining subtlety and unsubtlety, and moreover wrongfooting you as to what and whom it is centrally about. The drama happens in a town with an insidiously pessimistic name – Ebbing, Missouri, a remote and fictional community in the southern United States, where the joy of life does seem to be receding. There is a recurrent keynote of elegiac sadness established by the Irish ballad The Last Rose of Summer and Townes Van Zandt’s country hit Buckskin Stallion Blues, a musical combination which bridges the Ireland which McDonagh has written about before and the America he conjures up here, an America which has something of the Coen Brothers. The resemblance is not simply down to McDormand, though she does give her best performance since her starring role as the pregnant Minnesota police chief in the Coens’ Fargo in 1996. It was brutal, controversial, and violent. 

3. Midnight in Paris

The definitive poem in English on the subject of cultural nostalgia may be a short verse by Robert Browning called “Memorabilia.” The past seems so much more vivid, more substantial, than the present, and then it evaporates with the cold touch of reality. The good old days are so alluring because we were not around, however much we wish we were. “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen’s charming film, imagines what would happen if that wish came true. It is marvelously romantic, even though — or precisely because — it acknowledges the disappointment that shadows every genuine expression of romanticism. The film has the inspired silliness of some of Mr. Allen’s classic comic sketches (most obviously, “A Twenties Memory,” in which the narrator’s nose is repeatedly broken by Ernest Hemingway), spiked with the rueful fatalism that has characterized so much of his later work. Nothing here is exactly new, but why would you expect otherwise in a film so pointedly suspicious of novelty? Very little is stale, either, and Mr. Allen has gracefully evaded the trap built by his grouchy admirers and unkind critics — I’m not alone in fitting both descriptions — who complain when he repeats himself and also when he experiments. Not for the first time, but for the first time in a while, he has found a credible blend of whimsy and wisdom.

2. Beautiful Boy 

This supersensitive and tasteful movie is all but insufferable, suppressing a sob at the tragedy of drug addiction afflicting someone so young and “beautiful”. It is based on what is effectively a matching set of memoirs: Beautiful Boy, by author and journalist David Sheff, his harrowing account of trying to help his son Nic battle crystal meth addiction, and Tweak – by Nic Sheff himself, about these same experiences, the author now, thankfully, eight years clean. Steve Carell does an honest, well-meaning job in the role of David and the egregiously beautiful Timothée Chalamet is earnest in the part of Nic, David’s son from his first marriage. This is like a modern-day Basketball Diaries. Honest, and Raw. Most underrated movie of the 2010′s, with an unquestionably important topic. 

1. The Social Network

Before Sorkin wrote the screenplay, Ben Mezrich wrote the book based on Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook titled: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. It was published in July 2009, and most of the information came from Facebook “co-founder” Eduardo Saverin, who in the film is played by Andrew Garfield. The screenplay that Sorkin wrote was blazing, he wrote the characters like they were in a William Shakespeare play, with a story full of lies, jealousy, and betrayal. I especially love how Sorkin balanced the story between 2003, 2004, and then 2010. It goes back and forth between the past when Facebook was just an idea for Mark, and in the current day when he is being sued by Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss for, in their minds, having stolen their original idea, and by his former best friend Eduardo for having him pushed out of the company. In fact, some of the very best dialogue (and the film is full of great quotes) happens during the deposition scenes. Well-recognizable, rapid-fire dialouges, wonderful directing, with Trent Reznor’s greatest soundtrack. The movie’s probably going to outlive the Facebook itself, and that’s just great. 

[transamorousnetwork]

Letters@The Transamorous Network

Editor’s note: In this series, we’ll highlight conversations with our readers/viewers. We think folks will benefit from these conversations. All names are made up to protect everyone’s privacy. This particular exchange we are sharing because we strongly believe the narrative expressed by the writer has value for trans-attracted men, as well as transgender women who are capable of being compassionate towards women impacted by men struggling with their trans attraction. Trans attraction is serious business and is NOT A FETISH. It has long-term impacts for everyone involved. We at The Transamorous Network understand this and have compassion not only for the men, but for the women (both trans and cis) impacted by their short- and long-term decisions.

SECOND WARNING: This exchange contains material that may be highly offensive and triggering for transgender people. We strongly suggest that if you are triggered by content that may be perceived by you as invalidating or erasure, you should NOT read the following.

"My wife never measured up because she couldn’t. She wasn’t trans."

How fucking sad this statement is. Do you have any idea how much this destroys the woman who tries to measure up? To the man dressed as a woman and her husband who cannot admit his sexuality.

Forgive me, but I resent these men who want to call themselves women. Maybe my resentment is displaced for my husband whose attraction to these men dressed as women has utterly destroyed my self-esteem.

I’m not sure where to place my anger – for these men who are GAY and dress/transform into women so they can be with men OR for these men who are GAY who enjoy being with men who dress/transform as women but are confused by their sexuality and attempt to live a “straight” life.

My husband and his denial have utterly ruined my self-esteem as a woman and wasted a good amount of my life to be in a genuine relationship. I am angry, hurt and frankly bitter towards the porn industry that introduced him to these men. My life is destroyed and my heart is broken.

Meena

Hi Meena

I understand your resentment, your anger and frustration. I also understand your unacceptance of the people for whom your husband is attracted to.

How did you come to this website? What were you searching for? If you’ve looked around our content, you’ll notice something (although this may be extremely hard to hear from where you currently are): your self-esteem isn’t ruined, although I know to you it feels that way. At the same time, since you believe that it is, it is true for you: your self-esteem is ruined.

But it’s also not.

Just because you believe it is ruined doesn’t mean that truth is objectively real, like separate from your thoughts. You can have a quite-intact self esteem AND, believe it or not, still love your husband, even though you two may no longer be together.

I get though how that feels so out of reach right now.

There’s another reality in which you both have gone on your individual way, and along those paths both of you are happy. No resentment, no bitterness. Everyone happy.

Someday that will be your truth. But I get that right now, it’s not.

TTN

Dear TTN

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Forgive me but I think it is easy for you to respond in this way because you are living on the other side of the coin. While you talk about your wife in this article, do you really know how deeply this affected her?

Is it easier to brush it away as incompatibility or just both parties are happy now. I really think this is a delusion to help men (like you and my husband) to feel ok about the choice you have made. After nearly 20 years of marriage, I am devastated. I truly believe that my entire marriage has been a sham and that i must not be pretty enough, feminine enough or good enough. Your response makes you feel better for the choices you have made. I believe my husband is a COWARD who destroyed my life and self-esteem in order to live a facade of a life he thought he should.

So, I’m supposed to be ok because now he has found himself and can be in an authentic relationship. I think this is what you guys tell yourselves to make yourselves feel better for the TRUE women that you destroy. We are left in your aftermath to pick up the pieces and try to put our lives back together and find some sense of worth again.

I found your site after searching up the issue in a desperate attempt to find understanding and comfort at the sham of my last 20 years.

My only response to both you and my husband is I hope it was worth it. I hope denying your attraction at the expense of another human being and destroying that person so you could be with your transsexual [SIC] was worth it. I hope it was worth it that i became suicidal. I hope it was worth it that are children now live in a broken home. I hope it was worth it that I now require anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications in order to function. God, I hope my peace of mind and life were worth it.

Meena

Hi again Meena,

Rather than replying at length here, I would like to offer this: let’s talk on the phone or via Skype or Zoom where we can see one another or at least hear one another. I know that were we to talk in real time, you might find enormous relief from these feelings you’re experiencing and the actual physically real experiences you’re having.

It’s not an attempt to silence you here in the comments section. As you see, I’ve posted your comments verbatim, immediately and unedited. It’s more that, despite what you’re claiming here, I really do understand what’s happening with you and with my ex-wife and with your former husband. And, it could be helpful for you if we shared that knowledge together in real time.

This is a fee offer Meena. And I’m willing to talk with you as long as or as many times as needed.

Perry

Hi Perry,

Thank you for responding to my comment and the offer to talk with me via phone/skype/etc. I apologize for posting my comments on your site and appreciate your thoughtful and compassionate responses.

I don't wish to talk with you at this time as I am under the care of an AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) and am currently working on keeping myself safe. I am fearful that talking with you may push me further towards my self-destructive behaviors. At this time, I am working under a contract with her so I don't need to be hospitalized for my suicidal ideation. Please forgive me, but I believe talking to you would only further my desire to find quiet and peace in my mind.

My husband's lies and betrayal have frankly devestated me and sense of safety and security. I may find forgiveness for him eventually but right now I am simply working on surviving for myself and my children each day. I fear talking to you about this issue will only validate my feelings of worthlessness - as you are like my husband and have given up your marriage for someone you found better and more attractive.

I don't see where you could bring me any comfort. I wish you and your dating network all the best and hope you find success - hopefully not at the expense of other human beings.

Meena

Hi Meena,

I think you’re presuming what my intentions are, and that’s ok. I only know that I could help you find peace and calm, mental and emotional clarity and then empowerment pretty much immediately. That’s why I was offering. Conversing with me wouldn’t “push you towards more destructive behaviors”, instead, it could quite quickly reconnect you with your feelings of empowerment, security and knowing; the exact opposite of what you have expressed as a fear.

But I understand where you are, not because I’m trans-attracted and divorced, but because I understand other things you and I (and everyone else) shares.

Just so you know, I didn’t leave my wife because I found a trans woman. My wife divorced me because she found other men she preferred. It was a great move on her part and I don’t blame her or vilify her for her choices. And no, I currently am not with a trans woman. I prefer to focus on my growing enterprises.

Hopefully this provides the clarity it was meant to offer. The offer I made earlier still stands should you ever choose to act on it.

As for your comments on The Transamorous Network, you don’t have to apologize at all because your comments, as painful as they may have been to share, will help more people than you know as they seek their own understanding and freedom in the new reality we all find ourselves in.

Be well Meena.

Perry

Dear Perry,

Thank you for your kind and compassionate response. I feel that you are a very caring and empathetic person who is trying to help me.

I'm not sure I am in a place to find empowerment.  I have an 18 year marriage that is a sham.  I have been married to a man who was sexually attracted to something other than what I can offer.  We have struggled with sex for 18 years  - he always claimed a lower libido that me - and I am so stupid that I tried for so long to try to be what he said he wanted and liked.  I discovered his transattraction early in our marriage and I allowed him to convince me that it was just a fetish and that his primary attraction was to cis-gender women.  After all this time and recently discovering some sexting activity on his part (while recovering from breast cancer none the less - but who needs real breasts when your husband prefers the implants attached to a body with a penis), I realize I have been in denial because I love him and he is the father of my children. He wants to be with a tranny - though he says he never has had sex with one - but at different times in his life he has met ones he found attractive.  

Never the less, as a cisgender woman, I can tell you that transsexual women maintain a certain masculinity that is extremely obvious to real women (because they are NOT real women) - no matter how much surgery or hormones they have had.  As a result of being married to a man who is transattracted, I have begun to worry as a CISGENDER FEMALE - are my features masculine?  Do I look like a tranny? Is that why he was attracted to me?  Do other people think I look like a man dressed as a woman? I have lost all sense of self-confidence and esteem as a woman as well as my sense of safety and security.

I think it is easy for you to chalk this up to well, both parties can now be happy.  He can be with a transsexual and I can be - I don't know - because I can't imagine that another human being would want to be with me - (i must look like a tranny and my husband of 18 years is attracted to MEN  - albeit dressed like women with breast implants and a shit ton of make-up).  Right now, I see no happy solution to this.  I am so glad you can find the sunshine and rainbows in this.  I'm sorry but after 18 years of marriage, this is destruction of another human being because he is too macho to admit to himself, his friends or family that he likes men who dress as women!  I found your site in a desparate attempt to understand and frankly, reassure me that he actually does just have a fetish and truly is into REAL women.  Your site only confirmed my worst nightmare. I am lost and devastated.  

You can keep your site going and kid yourself that all will be well for men who are into trannies and destroy their marriages in order to indulge in this sexual fetish.  And frankly, it will - despite all the women it destroys and leaves in the aftermath.    How could you really make a difference?  Save two lives? You should focus your efforts on younger men who are struggling to understand themselves - before they enter into a heterosexual relationship - and help them enter into relationships for their TRUE nature.  This would save so much destruction and possibly some lives.  You see, the only people who come out on top in this scenario are the men you help to find their TRUE authentic nature and marry, date or have sex with trannies all the while destroying those women who have committed to them and thought they had a husband who loved them.  

I apologize for my hostility and anger - I am still searching for peace and answers - and your site has provided me with a horrible ugly truth that is very hard for me to accept.  I kept searching for answers that lead down a different path - one that confirmed my marriage, confirmed that I hadn't married a man who preferred to be with MEN, confirmed that I am an attractive, desirable and worth while woman deserving of a relationship and not some pathetic hideous woman who can serve as as a facade/sham for a man who truly is into MEN.

I thank you again for your compassionate response to me - as I know my thoughts and ideas are very attacking of your entire endeavor.  

My only hope is that my pain might help save someone from this horrible experience and ultimately save their life.

Meena

We offered Meena a free live engagement to help her. To date, she has not responded.

This exchange shows how serious this is for everyone involved. If you're trans attracted and feel shame and embarrassment about this natural part of you, we encourage you to consider this: the sooner you come into owning who you are, the better off everyone will be.

That being said, stories people tell create their reality. Often "stories people tell" blind them to their own intuition, which is always accurate. As you can see in Meena's experience, several times her intuition led her to evidence in response to her questions, which came in the form of suspicion. Instead of listening to her knowing, she told stories which caused her to ignore her knowing.

Everyone is a match to the partner they are with. In other words, it always takes two.

Whenever a person ignores answers they receive, and everyone always receives answers they seek, such answers will get bigger – more intense, harder to ignore – until the person "gets it". By then, a lot of cleaning up may be required.

It's possible to avoid all this. If you're in a long-term relationship or marriage, or you're contemplating marrying a cis-woman, but you are trans attracted, we urge you to consider the significance of your choices.

And, at the same time, it takes two. Meena's struggle reflects her husband's struggle as both create one another through stories they tell.

Find out more. We are available to everyone.

[thinking-through-some-things]

sure is interesting how many people will talk about propaganda and being a careful consumer and then just. turn around and act like disney is somehow above political and economical problems.

it's astounding how many people say "disney should just own everything! then we wouldn't have to worry about who owns the characters! think of the crossovers!" and honestly don't see a problem with that. even people who understand, to some degree, 1) corporations aren't your friend, and/or 2) monopolies are bad.

so many of us just look at Disney through the rose-colored glasses of childhood nostalgia, and because of that, we can't conceive of disney as being yet another corporation that values profit over art and people. except it is.

we're so blinded by the endless franchises disney pumps out, and the innocence we associate the company with because of the content that it produces/has produced, that time and time again we'll ignore shady business practices, poorly done films/shows, complaints and strikes of disney employees, etc., all because we cannot picture disney as yet another company that prioritizes profit above all else.

but it is.

i don't blame you if you like disney movies — so do i! but disney is not perfect, and it is not infallible.

disney's animation is not inherently better than other companies. on a technical level they may be able to achieve more, but 1) they have significantly more money than any other animation company so this should be expected, and 2) all this has resulted in a homogenous style that doesn't take artistic risks — because it's safer, profit-wise, to stick with a reliable art style that has proven to sell well.

disney movies are not intently better written than other films. sometimes it's just that disney has a solid corner of the market in popular but niche genres. sometimes it's that they can afford to hire better (or just. more) writers, or out-bid other studios for strong scripts.

disney movies are not better movies simply because they are disney. sometimes it's just that you've forgotten their bad films and only remember the ones you like. and sometimes you like bad films because they're disney and you expect them to be good.

it's time we started looking much more critically at disney. it's time we started expecting more from them.

"they can't include gay characters because they have to worry about conservatives/international markets." bullshit. disney can afford to include gay characters. they can afford to have a film that underperforms. they just care more about money than representation.

"the animation is so advanced! it just looks the same because that's what's in style." disney could be producing some really unique and unusual stuff. they can afford experimental styles and plot choices. they just won't try that because they won't risk losing money.

i can't tell you how many times i've seen people say "i don't like that disney does xyz, but i'm still going to see this film because it's disney." i get it. i've been there. but when are we going to stop letting disney dictate our entire media experience?

honestly, disney is killing so many creative industries and genres.

remember how disney decided to scrap their 2d department because it wasn't making as much as 3d animation? and nearly the entire animation industry followed their lead? and now we have an endless supply of subpar 3d animation, because few studios have the resources disney has? most us animation studios just poorly imitate disney's style, which is why the most interesting and innovative animated films today come from outside the us.

why does competition matter? look at animated tv shows vs films. since disney dominates the animated film industry, other studios have struggled to break free of their control. but in television, cartoon network and nickelodeon have maintained just enough of a share of the market to encourage a variety of animated styles — and netflix's growing list of animated shows, including many international options, have resulted in a boom of really good animated shows in the past few years.

i'm not saying these other companies are better than disney, only pointing out that, by forcing disney to share the stage with a serious competitor, these companies are forcing disney to take more chances and be more creative.

and. touching on marvel and star wars. part of the reason disney has been successful with these films is yes, they knew how to cater to the right audience at the start. but now they're just relying on brand/franchise/star power, flashy effects they can afford, predictably successful plot points, and pure nostalgia to get people's attention (and money).

marvel movies don't even have to be good anymore. regardless of what you think of the movies, you're going to go see the next one. because as long as you liked one character, as long as you're invested in one story, you have to see every. other. marvel. film. to have any idea what's happening in the next film with that one character. it's gotten to the point that there's really no point in watching new films if you haven't already watched previous ones because they don't explain basic information if it was mentioned in another marvel movie.

also. because disney's marvel films are the most popular and recognizable superhero films, most viewers expect all superhero films to look and feel like marvel films — especially since there are so many that it feels like that's just. how superhero movies look. so instead of seeing a wide variety of superhero films trying different storytelling tactics, visual effects, narrative justifications, etc., we see, again, poor imitations that lack disney's budget and really different films that get rejected because they don't match our expectations.

the live action remakes really are the epitome of this problem (and before anyone says anything, no, the live action films are not about copyright law. that's not how copyright works).

first of all, disney could be taking daring risks and really challenging these films. they could have, for example, given middle eastern or indian directors, costume/set designers, writers, etc. crew members the chance to take a film that, while loved by many, has been criticized by others for being orientalist, and turn the film into something that reflected and appreciated their culture(s) from a personal perspective; and disney, in turn, could have helped those people move up in a competitive and hard-to-break-into field.

but they didn't do that.

or beauty and the beast. disney could have gone in a completely different direction, telling a brand new story and challenging ideas of social convention and love. or really pushed the aesthetics of the film.

but they didn't.

except for a few minor changes and an overblown "first gay disney character!!!" campaign (that amounted to almost worse than nothing), the live action was practically a carbon copy of the animated one. they played it safe and used the same predictably popular elements, and the few "feminist" jabs they added in were so uncontroversial that no one in 2017 would complain about them except laughably misogynistic people who hated how preachy those moments felt. in other words, even the "politics" they added in were safe.

ironically enough, my favorite disney live action film has been cinderella. i though it was visually interesting and different, and the changes to the script/plot focused on personal freedom and survival and retaining your sense of empathy despite abuse. but it didn't do as well monetarily for disney, it is, categorically, a failure. so we're likely to see disney rely more on close retellings than changed stories.

i don't think all disney films are bad, nor do i think you're a bad person for liking disney/pixar/marvel/star wars films. but if you think disney is the only company that does x well, or that they really should just own y company, or who cares if they do z, then you need to take a step back and re-evaluate.

we need to stop excusing disney. we need to stop thinking the company is cute. as a corporation, their goal is not to coddle you or make the world safer and nicer. their goal is to make money. full stop.

if you want to see a disney movie, fine. go see it. but don't watch it just because it's disney. make them earn your business by. actually. making good movies.

(sorry this is really disorganized and definitely missing points. it should probably be like. five separate essays. oops.)

[abigailnussbaum]

The Handmaid’s Tale 3x13, “Mayday”

Boy, the Holocaust references are strong with this one.  From the opening scene with June and other recently-captured women being herded, screaming, through a gauntlet of Gilead’s processing facilities (I don’t think there’s any question where those Down’s Syndrome and disabled women were being taken, incidentally) to the final scenes in the woods, with that crowd of children cowering just out of view of the Guardians’ spotlights.  The show’s deliberately anachronistic look even intensifies the reference - it’s easy to look at June and the Marthas ferrying a bunch of children away from a rape-dystopia in the near future and see a group of nuns trying to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis.  The clothes are, after all, basically the same.

It’s a reference that is earned, and overall the episode is a successful one - as ridiculous and implausible as it was, none of us actually wanted June’s plan to fail, and the scenes in which the plane arrives in Canada and the characters there realize the scope of June’s accomplishment (including Luke’s forlorn hope that his wife or daughter might, despite appearances, be on board as well) were genuinely moving.  

But it’s also a reference that undercuts a lot of the more complex, morally ambivalent stuff the episode tries to do with June.  The opening voiceover talks about the necessity of “ruthlessness” in a place like Gilead.  The obvious contrast the episode draws between the show’s earliest scenes and the concluding ones of this season, and between June’s helplessness, and her still-lingering belief in Gilead’s capacity for human decency then and her refusal to give any of its functionaries mercy or quarter now, are clearly making a point about the state of mind one needs to survive, and help others survive and escape, the hell-world that Gilead is.  The problem is, the show clearly wants me to see those choices as a negative, something that makes June a compromised person, maybe someone who is unfit to live a normal life.  And I just don’t see it.

For instance, threatening to kill Maggie, the Martha who not only endangers the Mayday plan but threatens to spill the beans on it to her mistress?  100% the right thing to do.  Quite frankly, if Maggie didn’t realize that she was signing her own death warrant the moment she decided to leave the Lawrence house, she was too stupid to survive in Gilead for much longer anyway.  And while June could have given the Guardian who’d shot her mercy, why should she?  In the long run, the more of those people who die, the better the world, and particularly the innocents still trapped in Gilead, will be.  If you’re going to bring up the Holocaust in your visuals, don’t act like there’s any real question about the morality of killing Nazis, or even silencing relative innocents whose actions might send children back into the Nazi death-machine’s grasp.

As I’ve said in the past, I would love for The Handmaid’s Tale to be a show about the psychological toll that Gilead exerts on its victims, especially when they rise up to resist it.  In fact, we’ve already gotten a bit of this, with Moira and Emily confessing the murders they’ve committed to one another, and the fact that they’re not sorry for them.  But when it comes to June, what we get instead is facile moral essentialism.  Threatening to kill Maggie is a perfectly rational course of action.  Turning a gun on Rebecca, the little girl June had been bonding with minutes earlier, is a completely irrational one, and the show simply doesn’t give us the connective tissue between the two choices.  The idea that June is so hardened and task-oriented that she might threaten a child for crying hasn’t been earned (and meanwhile, June’s actual acts of sadism, such as her abuse of Natalie, are folded into her heroic narrative - Natalie is now, like Eleanor, just another one of the sacrifices she’s made in trying to bring the Mayday plan to fruition).

I really don’t get a sense that the show understands who June is at this stage, which is striking in a series that is otherwise so good at balancing its characters on a knife’s edge of ambivalence.  It’s not afraid to let Moira and Emily do and say ugly things while still expecting us to sympathize with them, and it repeatedly showcases Serena’s humanity and her very real pain and yearning (more than she deserves, if you ask me).  But with June, it keeps seesawing unsteadily between saint and monster, hero and antihero, with only Elisabeth Moss’s performance to keep the whole thing grounded.

Going into season 4, I’d be happy if the show delved more into hard-headed June (I’m assuming she isn’t going to die, even though the episode gives the character what could have been a perfect send-off), who has no patience for the delusions of anyone around her, but who also succeeds, in part, because of her ability to empathize and engage with even the most depraved, irredeemable people, and who is a bit afraid to go back to her family for fear of what they might see when they look at her.  I’m a lot less interested in Saint June, rescuer of small children through the sheer power of her awesomeness (and of the network of hardworking Marthas who make everything happen for her).  And I have zero interest in Sadist June, who torments weak women because it makes her feel good and then never admits to it.  I’m not sure which one the show will serve up, because I’m not sure it realizes which one it has been depicting.

(Speaking of storylines that could have worked but for their execution, the resolution of the Serena storyline is stilted and doesn’t really come off.  There’s an interesting story to be told about how Gilead’s crimes are perceived in the outside world, and how guilt is assigned to people within it.  That both Fred and Serena could claim to have been forced into victimizing June - and that Serena, in particular, could hide behind her gender in making that claim - is an interesting wrinkle that deserved more space and consideration.  And by the same token, the idea that Serena pushing Nick and June into a relationship constitutes rape - while obviously not entirely wrong - is the sort of reevaluation of the show’s past that deserved more time to sink in for the audience, not to mention some input from the two alleged victims.  It’s a shame that the whole thing is brought up and then done away with in the space of a few scenes over three episodes.  It should have been the business of most of the season, and would obviously have been a better use of Serena than her abortive redemption arc.)

[cypher-punk-joe]

History books of the 2120′s

Think for a while about how tribal our grandsons will consider us to be. 

This is the first time I write, so try to be kind when criticizing. We imagine people from 1920 to be very humble, honest, hard-working, superstitious. Very limited by the sheer lack of resources and freedom, and some, like the philosophers, scientists, and engineers, to be real genius.

Now, what about us? Are we insane workaholics and warmongers? Are we lazy and ever-revolted teenagers? Will the name of now millions of scientists be of any recognition and applause? Or will just our almost-retarded leaders and uber-greedy bankers and corporate billionaires select what they will read about us? 

We are billions of people enjoying more comfort than the emperors of that decade, with almost unlimited access to intellectual material, and struggling to get more everyday. All the simplicity and fragility of the land folk is gone and we find ourselves more depressed and lost, like the oligarchy tales of revolted teenagers that had everything a land worker would never have. 

Information is ubiquitous, it’s almost like they are written in the clouds and streamed in rivers, sucked by roots and trees. Just by watching videos and asking the right questions over the networks, today anyone could buy materials and build anything that, at those times, were wonders of technology mastered by a few.

Almost everyone carries a plethora of bureau equipment like pen, paper, mail boxes, cameras, microphones, all-in-one handheld device. In 1948 Orwell wrote about a surveillance state, in which bureau-centered lives fueled the patriotic machine. In 1988 Stasi had bugs in every home of East Germany and communist state enemies vanished or were found dead. Similar information guerrilla and cultural cleansing was conducted all over south america, powered by the USA. In 2018 the Big Data market surpasses the oil market and multiple scandals culminate in the Cambridge Analytica shutdown. Anti-democratic propaganda, engineered to create desinformation and distrust between any consensus group is spread all over telecommunications world-wide. The oligarchy that used patriotic excuses now seeks borderless control, while the dim minded working class now seeks patriotic culture and bigoted values, like it would save them, culture that is dissolving now in the information era.

Due to social inequalities and the growing number of very rich individuals, the number of Private Military Companies skyrocketed last years, and paired with the corporate para-military, comes the corporate intelligence agency: the scaling cyber-sec or info-sec companies protecting against individuals or institutions breaching and accessing each other’s private data over the wires - or so called cyberspace. 

The tendency of a Gibson’s Neuromancer tale become half-truth is alarmingly high, as world of mega corporations, sock-puppet democratic representation, ubiquitous inequality, A.I. automated factories, and war are present in an years-long economic crisis of post-capitalism.

War, massacres, and it’s machinery are far from over and have now permeated every part of the modern life. From 1920 to now, even by ignoring the atrocities  of the Great Wars, different ethnic groups were systematically murdered and persecuted, by state forces, para-military forces, and simple but hard to eradicate cultural bias - a socially accepted guerrilla warfare consisting in maintaining certain social groups ill-prepared, under equipped and socially rejected, unable to achieve even mediocre success. 

All over the continental america and possibly almost all around the world, schools are, for most, war zones of competitors, allies and enemies, drug abuse, bigotry, and, more recently and unfortunately, mass shootings. After surviving it’s horrors at home and in the field, the young realizes later that it was just the drills, a real war-like struggle for all kinds of resources begins. Despite the overall abundance, being an minimally successful person, one needs a lot of success, exponentially more than in 1020. War on drugs extrapolates the violence and number of deaths of many wars combined, while the same utterly unscientific policies are again and again enforced by leaders, pouring more money into domestic and off-shore manslaughter, with not a single win or, more problematic, the investment on drug user’s social care and damage control.

Although religions are in decline world-wide, religious fanaticism in it’s most harmful form is growing around the globe, more and more new religious forks of know doctrines are being created to bring a new face to an ancient known devil. Interestingly enough, religious activities are tax-free and scandals regarding the presumed social services masking child abuse and pornography, human and arms trafficking, and, specially in the third-world, more of that harming ethnic cultural bias including mistreat, incarceration and forced work in allegedly spiritual retires and camps for people in situation of poverty. 

To wrap it up, I think that despite of the overall growth towards eradication of famine, fatal diseases, childhood mortality, energy, and illiteracy - like expressed in Diamandis’s Abundance and which should not be taken for granted - it is fair that our grandchildren should paint us with colors as bleak as of the 1920′s, but with greater amount of genius, for the good and the evil. 

Our generation was forced to believe in super heroes that single-handedly won battles against much powerful enemies and did it with a smile. But even now the heroes narrative has changed in the current media, because the old ethos is as harmful as fake news. Now that a larger chunk of the world population has the basics, we need sanity - mental health to be able be kind, empathetic, to understand our real enemies and challenges, and to cast light on their shadows.

As a cyber-warrior, fight for transparency in every layer, no more spies that need their names to be protected, no more lies and deception, this is the enemy strategy, and ours is to bluntly uncover the lies and carefully planted misdirections. Institutions must be shaped by the current attendants not authoritarian boards and directors. The future generation needs governments and institutions that are radically more accessible and therefore less corrupt, that they can contribute from their youth. 

Fight to push decentralization to the maximum, we can provide a future shaped by human values and leave the utilitarian part of society for machines. I hope the industrial era ends soon and the next generation does not need to fight a war to buy a pretty house and fill it with stuff they don’t really need to live a fulfilling and healthy life.

For the future, believe in society, community, sorority. Like Barbara Sher beautifully said in her Ted Talk: Isolation is the dream killer, not you attitude.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Seed Money: Black Entrepreneurs Hope Pandemic Gardening Boom Will Grow Healthier Eating

DENVER — Ietef Vita had planned to spend most of 2020 on the road, promoting “Biomimicz,” the album the rapper had released on his #plantbasedrecords label in January. Vita, known to his fans as “DJ Cavem Moetavation” and “Chef Ietef,” had those plans unexpectedly cut short.

This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free.

“We were in Berkeley, California, on Feb. 29, playing there and literally got out of town right before they shut the whole country down,” recalled Vita, 34, who has performed for the Obamas and is widely considered the father of what’s known as eco-hip-hop. “It was scary.”

Suddenly sidelined at his metro Denver home with his wife, Alkemia Earth, a plant-based-lifestyle coach, and three daughters, Vita struggled to pivot. Eventually, he accepted that he would need to stay put and, as the saying goes, bloom where he was planted.

With his wife’s help, he launched an impromptu campaign: mailing out thousands of the more than 42,000 packets of kale, beet and arugula seeds he’d planned to sell at his shows, all emblazoned with his likeness and the QR code to hear his digital album. With the help of a crowdfunding campaign, he sent them at no cost to urban farmers anywhere and everywhere the couple could think of — Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, New York City, several parts of California and his hometown of Denver. He hoped the seeds might help alleviate the food shortages and long lines at grocery stores and food banks in economically disadvantaged communities hit hard during the pandemic.

His effort of putting out beets with his beats was a success. And, more than a year later, his seed business is still growing. Vita is among an expanding list of Black gardening enthusiasts-turned-entrepreneurs across the country. They run seed businesses that have benefited from the pandemic-inspired global gardening boom that seed providers, still overwhelmed with orders, hope won’t subside anytime soon.

Gods Garden Girl, Coco and Seed, Urban Farms Garden Shop and I Grow Shit are all Black-owned companies that share in Vita’s mission of drawing more diverse people into gardening and also illuminating it as an active, pandemic-safe pastime that facilitates healthy eating.

It also provides an escape from stress, including racial stress, which has simmered and exploded at times after George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

Research has found that exposure to plants and green spaces while gardening is beneficial to mental and physical health. In fact, a 2018 article in Clinical Medicine noted that merely viewing plants can reduce stress and diminish feelings of fear, anger or sadness by reducing blood pressure and pulse rate and also relieving muscle tension. The same report urged health professionals to encourage their patients to spend time in green spaces and to work in gardens.

Leah Penniman, a farmer and food activist in New York, wrote in her book “Farming While Black” that Black America’s connection to seeds dates to the days of enslavement, when some Africans braided seeds into their hair when they were shipped away from home. It was, as Penniman wrote, “insurance for an uncertain future.”

But many Black people in the U.S. have intentionally disconnected from farming since then because of its association with the painful legacy of slavery, said Natalie Baszile, author of a recently published anthology on African American farmers and the “Queen Sugar” novel that inspired the Oprah Winfrey Network TV drama centered on a Black family’s Louisiana farm.

“Part of our cultural narrative has been to move away from the land, because moving away from the land represents progress,” Baszile said. “The farther away you are from the land, the more successful you are. You go away to school, you get your education, you get another degree, you get a job in a field where you don’t have your hands in the soil.”

But Baszile, too, hopes the seed and gardening trend will inspire more Black people to see the health benefits of gardening.

“There is a therapeutic element to being outside planting, even if it’s just a flower garden,” she said. “There is something absolutely essential and healthy and meditative about getting outside doing something physical; you’re moving your body, you are getting exercise, you’re breathing clean air, you’re connecting to the Earth.”

And she said connecting to the soil empowers people, whether they are growing their own food or selling seeds as an entrepreneur.

The owner of Melanated Organic Seeds, Devona Stevenson, agrees. She said she initially took up gardening for relaxation in 2018 after a bout of depression. She then launched her seed business last June at the height of the pandemic, because she saw a need, even dating to her days growing up near Miami.

“All I saw around me was fast food and people eating junk food from the corner store,” said Stevenson, who is relocating from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to nearly 2 acres in Fayetteville, Georgia. “I believe that representation matters. So, basically, I saw a need and decided to fill it. For me, it’s also about reaching an untapped market, a group of people that have not really been marketed to, in terms of gardening and farming.”

Her efforts are not going unnoticed. Stevenson said her list of Instagram followers has swelled from 7,000 to more than 20,000 since she began posting gardening tips last July. She said she believes many Black seed business owners like her are driven by the need for education and economic empowerment.

“My business is for all people — we’re all human — but I happen to be a Black woman and a business owner, and if someone out there wants to support a Black-owned business, a Black gardening business, we provide them with that opportunity,” she said.

Vita’s entrepreneurial endeavor — “pushing seeds,” as he calls it — seems to be having an impact, too. Online site Thrillist named him one of its “Heroes of 2020” and Oscar-winning actor Natalie Portman included his “Sprout That Life” line, which runs about $19 for three packs of 55 to 100 seeds each, in her 2020 Top Gift Picks list in the December issue of People magazine. Actor Mark Ruffalo followed by publicly donating money to Vita’s GoFundMe campaign that supported his seed distribution effort, prompting social media shoutouts from rapper Cardi B and comedian Cedric the Entertainer.

Vita said he sees the fruits of his efforts in the photos people send to him of the food grown from his seeds. He could not be prouder of how he is reaching communities of color, especially Black communities, who he said disproportionately live in food deserts and are plagued by health disparities. “I wanted to change the way that they’re eating, let alone change the economic approach,” he said.

To date, with crowdfunding support, he has distributed more than 20,000 of his seed packets free of charge. He said he hopes the effort, along with his online vegan cooking and gardening demonstrations, will help inspire more Black people to try a plant-based diet and spark, well, a growing movement.

“If we can flood our community with unhealthy food and drugs, I believe we can also flood it with seeds and love,” he said. “We can flood it with positivity and urban farming and juice bars; without gentrification, without the urban renewal replacement.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Seed Money: Black Entrepreneurs Hope Pandemic Gardening Boom Will Grow Healthier Eating published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[fromtheringapron]

WWF Royal Rumble 1988

Date: January 24, 1988.

Location: Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Attendance: 18,000.

Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura.

Results:

1. Ricky Steamboat defeated Rick Rude via disqualification. 

2. Two-out-of-Three Falls Match for the WWF Women’s Tag Team Championship: The Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno & Itzuki Yamazaki) defeated The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin & Leilani Kai) (champions) (with Jimmy Hart) to win the titles. 

3. Royal Rumble Match: Jim Duggan won the match by lastly eliminating One Man Gang. Other participants included (in order of appearance): Bret Hart, Tito Santana, Butch Reed, Jim Neidhart, Jake Roberts, Harley Race, Jim Brunzell, Sam Houston, Danny Davis, Boris Zhukov, Don Muraco, Nikolai Volkoff, Ron Bass, B. Brian Blair, Hillbilly Jim, Dino Bravo, The Ultimate Warrior, and Junkyard Dog. 

4. Two-out-of-Three Falls Match: The Islanders (Haku & Tama) defeated The Young Stallions (Paul Roma & Jim Powers). 

My Review 

The first ever Royal Rumble event is a far cry from the much-hyped first stop on the Road to WrestleMania as we know it today. While the Rumble match was the creative genius of Pat Patterson, the event itself was largely birthed out of Vince McMahon’s cutthroat political maneuvering in the late ‘80s. The story is pretty well-documented now: With rival Jim Crockett Promotions set to air its new pay-per-view Bunkhouse Stampede on January 24, 1988, McMahon decided to launch a special of his own, dubbed the Royal Rumble, on the same night in direct competition, this time on free TV. A typical dick move from McMahon, but the plan worked. Royal Rumble scored huge TV ratings while Bunkhouse Stampede was critical and commercial bust, and the rest was history.

Royal Rumble ’88 can’t help but feel like the WWF testing the waters for their next big pay-per-view event. The Rumble match alone could tell you that. As the only one to feature 20, not 30, men, it’s a comparatively paltry affair with much lower stakes. The winner, Jim Duggan, gets nothing more than bragging rights and a nifty little accomplishment to add to his resume. One thing that particularly stands out is how the “no friends” angle of the match isn’t put over at all, instead sticking to a strict heel vs. face divide. I’d say this is to the match’s detriment, but the crowd doesn’t give a damn. They’re absolutely sucked into the entire thing. It’s not hard at all to see why the WWF decided to build an annual pay-per-view around it.

But, of course, they couldn’t just treat 18,000 people in the Copps Coliseum to only one match. There was an entire show to fill out, and that explains why we’re also treated to a mixed bag of matches and segments that put the show on a weird pace. Arguably just as big a draw, if not more so, as the Rumble match is the contract signing between Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant for their historic rematch on The Main Event. In an age where contract singings are a monthly occurrence on Raw, the segment seems like nothing special, but it was huge frickin’ deal in 1988, especially considering the rematch is still the most-watched wrestling match on cable TV. Much less of a frickin’ deal is a torturous Dino Bravo weightlifting segment, which seemingly lasts for three decennia and exists solely as a vessel for cheap heat.

There are only three other matches booked on the card, two of them being two-out-of-three falls tag matches. The first of these is the excellent WWF Women’s Tag Team Championship match, one of the few shining moments for women’s wrestling in ‘80s WWF. There’s always been this narrative that women’s wrestling wasn’t successful in the U.S. because “fans didn’t care about it” when, in reality, it was more because the bookers didn’t care about it. When given time and development, fans certainly did care, and let this match and its showcase for The Jumping Bomb Angels serves as proof. The other tag match is a completely unnecessary bout between The Islanders and The Young Stallions. Not only is it unnecessary, but it actually ends the show! This is largely due to the WWF’s practice of front-loading their TV specials at the time, but you’d be forgiven if you turned the show off after the Rumble.

While Royal Rumble 1988 isn’t exactly a must-see, it makes for interesting viewing as a blueprint. Just a year later, the show would air on pay-per-view and begin to resemble the event we recognize. There were still kinks to be ironed out following the 1989 show but if nothing else, at least they learned to never air a weightlifting segment ever again.

My Random Notes

When exactly did they start acknowledging this show as canon? I seem to remember the ’89 Rumble being acknowledged as the first Rumble for many years and then it suddenly changed. Also, since it was never released on VHS, this was something of a “lost” show for me and I didn’t get to view it in full in the DVD Anthology came out.

Vince not being able to tell the Jumping Bomb Angels apart gives me secondhand embarrassment, and then he refers to Noriyo Tateno as “Norino” for good measure.

Some noticeable absences here: Randy Savage, then-current IC champ The Honkytonk Man, and Rick Martel, which is particularly odd given his tag partner Tito Santana made it to the Copps Coliseum that night just fine.

So many guys have their one-time only appearance in the Rumble here, which makes this one more of a novelty. The names include: Sam Houston, Danny Davis, Butch Reed, Don Muraco, Hillbilly Jim, The Killer Bees, Boris Zhukov, Harley Race, and JYD (who you just know is winding down his WWF career here given how he’s dumped out unceremoniously and doesn’t have a care in the world).

Jesse still manages to put over Bret Hart on commentary. He always went out of his way to tell us that Bret is awesome and it’s something that always sticks out when I watch anything from this period.

My god, the dubbed Rick Rude theme on the WWE Network is terrible. Why can’t they get his original theme music, anyway? Does it have anything to do with the killer sax?

If you needed any further proof that Islanders vs. The Young Stallions was a complete afterthought, they actually air Ted DiBiase segment between falls while both guys have to awkwardly linger around the ring. Paul Roma could never catch a break.

So was Nikolai Volkoff running out to the ring before his number a botch or genuinely planned? It’s a hilarious bit either way.

On Dino Bravo: Why did they push this dude so much? I get that he was a huge star in Montreal, and that was a completely different world all to itself, but I just don’t see how it could’ve translated into a role as a top heel in a major national promotion. Compared to the embarrassment of riches they had in colorful heels at the time, his generic anti-American act seems dull and kinda outdated even for the time period.

One final note: I wish that fan who brought their own megaphone to the Copps Coliseum a particularly unpleasant evening, wherever they may be now.

[patriotsrising1]

The Power of Soft Power

The Power of Soft Power

What I have tried to do in these writings is to encourage “soft power”. What is soft power? Well, a look at our enemies will tell us. Antifa and BLM burning down cities and attacking people is hard power. The media covering up their crimes is an example of soft power. The fear Antifa and BLM generate in people to control them is also soft power. Saul Alinsky's “Rules for Radicals”  is a manual on how to weaponize soft power. Let's go through them and see what we can learn. Remember “soft power” is still power!

“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

This rule shows the power of organization. The militia will never have as much money as the Wall Street vampires, the DNC, or the corrupt GOP politicians. This lack of money can be countered by organization. The North Vietnamese communists were super-organized, it was the only way they could fight the super-wealthy United States. Even now, they are far more organized that we are, I personally feel too many conservatives are “waiting to be saved” from the evil of the DNC. My response has been the same from the beginning. Get off your ass.

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

What he is saying is stick with what you know. The limitation of this is lower level people in Antifa and BLM don't really know much at all, they just how to be violent. The leadership of Antifa and BLM, admittedly trained Marxists, know how to use these useful idiots. To counter the enemy, every militia member needs to be trained and encouraged to think for themselves. They need to know who, what, when, why, and how of what they are doing. This is the “Ethical Indoctrination” I mentioned earlier that was used by Evans Carlson's Marine Raiders in WW2.We need our people to be of better quality than their people. Therefore, the training must be intense and thorough so as make them as comfortable and secure in whatever challenges they face. Ethical Indoctrination has be coupled with competent training!

3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

Every group has a weakness that can be exploited. In the Vietnam War, the US Marines were far superior in training and firepower than the North Vietnamese Army, but the US Marines (by law) could not fight the North Vietnamese in American universities where Marxism held sway and they could not fight them in the communists propaganda outlets of CBS, NBC, ABC, The NY Times, etc. These places were “outside” the expertise of the Marine Corps, which is why the communists put so much effort into taking over them. On a positive note, while lefties are experts on establishing narratives, their thinking has almost nothing to do with reality. We are experts on the real world and that is where we should be the most active. However, we are in a total and desperate fight to save this republic, but we are being beaten by the left because they are good organizers.

4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.

For an example of using an evil Lefty institution's rules against them, watch this video. It is full of legal terms and concepts, but it shows that even a big corporation that screws over Conservatives on a regular basis, Patreon, can be damaged or destroyed by using their rules. WATCH THIS VIDEO DESPITE ITS HOW DENSE IT IS WITH LEGAL JARGON. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaFSHBTDj5Y

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

I would add that we can add false accusations of being a Nazi, homophobe, bigot, etc. etc. have also been effective in the past. It let's them justify their evil while maintaining the illusion that they are virtuous. However, their weakness is that they are totalitarians and do not have since of humor. This is why funny memes are an effective tactic to use against them, and why many Big Tech companies are censoring memes so as to protect them. Make and spread funny memes people, they are powerful soft weapons!

6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.

This, I think is self-explanatory, but let's look inside the twisted mind of Lefties. In general, Lefties are, as individuals, pathetic. Because of this, they like to form mobs, both online and in the streets. Belonging to a mob gives them a sense of power that they would not otherwise have. All the virtue signaling they do is nothing more than white-wash on their internal tombs full of corruption and feelings of inadequacy. This is the basis of their being. We are not dealing with the great and the good, but pathetic individuals who can't wait to shout, “Witch! Witch!” (or “Nazi! Nazi!) and then see good people burned at the stake just to feel the rush of power. I said previously that we are better at reality and the reality is, these individuals are weak people and that fact should be exploited.

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.

Again, this is self-explanatory. We can see how the term “racist” is being so overused and has been for so long that it no longer has much sting.

8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.

I mentioned in the main body of this thread that we need to be creative. Here we see why. The more you hit someone and from different angles, the harder it is for them to respond. This works at both the tactical level and the strategic level, while using Hard Power and using Soft Power. Again we can look to the Vietnam War to see how operations on the battlefield where coupled with disinformation campaigns and subversion of the Universities and the media.

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

Thanks to their dystopian fantasies and their weak personalities, lefties are particularly prone to fear. The two major components of a lefty hive-minded insect is fear and hate. Use it against them. Every time the overreact with fear, use their excesses to show their evil to the world.

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.

What they mean by “reactions from the opposition” are really overreactions, or reasonable reactions that can be twisted into overreactions when Brian Stelter or Rachel Maddow talk about them on the news. This is a warning to us, always be on guard, always be the first to state your narrative and make sure you repeat incessantly to counter the propaganda machine of the Lefties.

11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.

This rule explains why CNN and the rest were defending the riots as legitimate expressions of anger at the cops. That is why they pushed the “Defund the Police!” nonsense. The thing here, is that we don't really need to promote any negatives. However, things like Gun Control can be pushed back against.

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.

This is important, it means you have to know how to fix something. You can't just burn something down, you need to have a plan to replace it.

13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

Again, self-explanatory, but you see this tactic being done everyday, especially online where there is no risk to Leftists since the Big Tech companies allow them free reign on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

[torixus]

How Reading Positively Affects Your Brain, Mood, and Relationships

  If you love reading, then you'll know how incredible it is to get lost in a work of fiction. Once you're in the zone, it's as if you're transported into a dreamlike state where you can touch, taste, and feel the surroundings and characters that are being described. You can breeze through a good book, unaware even that you're reading words or turning page after page. A good story can affect you and stay with you, long after you've closed the cover. I had just finished reading Calypso by David Sedaris when I realized that the book hadn't just helped me pass some time during lockdown, but it had brought me joy, laughter, and a sense of calm amongst the storm of this new normal.

Does reading bring more than a little escapism? Is it, in fact, a mindfulness tool for those who find meditation too frustrating for a mind that's forever wandering? I called on five experts to reveal exactly what is happening to our brains, mood, mental health, and more when we read a good book.

What Reading Does to Our Brains

Reading plays such a crucial part in learning when we are young—surely, those benefits don't go away once we're older? According to the University of Rochester, our brains are fully formed by age 25, but can reading as adults help keep our brains fit and healthy? In a word, yes. "The benefits of reading on our cognition are well-documented and are associated with increased cognitive function, working memory and higher-order thinking such as creative problem-solving," says learning expert and founder of tassomai.com, Murray Morrison. "Put simply, the sustained, gentle effort of building images in your head as you read keeps your brain fitter than more passive forms of entertainment, like film or TV."

And where a film is often over in 90 minutes, a novel may take days or weeks to complete. "his exercises the memory and gives us time to unconsciously speculate on the directions the plot may take, stimulating the imagination," Morrison explains.

Put simply, the sustained, gentle effort of building images in your head as you read keeps your brain fitter than more passive forms of entertainment, like film or TV.

In fact, reading goes beyond just stimulating your imagination. Natalia Ramsden, the founder of brain optimization clinic SOFOS Associates in London, explains that "when we read certain things, the part of our brain that is activated is the same part as if we were doing those things. Fiction acts as a sort of simulator and this has numerous implications for the way we ‘exercise’ parts of the brain, form new synapses, and strengthen existing ones." This helps to explain why a sad story can leave us feeling emotionally fraught, whereas a thriller could have us on the edge of our seat.

Reading is something that is worth factoring into your daily routine, just as you would brushing your teeth or doing yoga. "Reading is an activity which can keep the brain young—with every page turned or chapter devoured, the brain is working to decipher, store and retain more information," notes Dr. Emer MacSweeney, consultant neuroradiologist at Re:Cognition Health. "Reading provides mental exercise, which is very important in helping to protect the brain against cognitive decline in diseases such as Alzheimer’s. [It] heightens brain function and can help parts of the brain connect. Your brain is a learning machine and it needs to keep learning to optimize performance and improve your memory and thinking ability."

"Reading is more neurobiologically challenging than other methods of gathering information, such as speech or listening," adds MacSweeney. "It helps the brain process information more effectively both verbally and visually."

Not only is reading a good exercise for your brain, but it also helps help you relax and the act of it reduces stress in your body and mind, which can lead to improved mental and physical health. MacSweeney says that reading before bed is a good idea to help you unwind and prepare your body for sleep—just be mindful of reading good old fashioned hard copies instead of e-books, since the light from them can prevent your brain from entering relaxation mode.

 7 Ways Lack of Sleep Can Seriously Mess With Your Life (and Health)

What Reading Does to Our Mood and Mental Health

"As an avid reader, I am surely biased when I say there is nothing more delicious, indulgent, or satisfying than becoming lost in a good book," says Ramsden. "Page after page, soaking up spectacular writing bringing to life worlds unknown and characters misunderstood...much more is happening for us than sheer entertainment." She explains that getting lost in a good book provides a form of escapism for many and in doing that, the act of losing yourself in a book can help to lower cortisol levels—the primary stress hormone that can wreaks havoc on our bodies when spiked.

Morrison agrees, saying that reading must be celebrated for its positive mental health impact. "Where so much of our free time is spent at the mercy of dopamine-inducing technology products and cliff-hanger reality TV, the opportunity to sit quietly, comfortably, and lose oneself in a book is a valuable mental balm," he says. "Our brains are simply exhausted by 2020s life. Developing the habit of reading—and reading well—can not only be enlightening, transporting, and inspiring, but can genuinely make our lives happier, more balanced, and more worth living."

It's during times of crisis that reading can be the quiet support we all need. Dr. Maite Ferrin, Consultant Psychiatrist at Re:Cognition Health makes the point that "in crisis, we all need some reassurance and something to hold on to—this is for our personal mental well-being."

Ferrin suggests that now is a good time to take a walk down memory lane. "Reading books from childhood serves as a reminder that things will get back to “normal” or the way we used to like them," he says.

What Reading Does for Relationships

Reading may be a solitary hobby, but it's one that can reap rewards when it comes to our relationships. "Reading fiction develops us emotionally," says Ramsden. "According to Keith Oatley at the University of Toronto, reading makes us think and feel in different ways. As we bond with the fictional characters, we are learning to better understand people both on the pages and off."

She references a team of researches led by Chun-Ting Hsu at the Free University of Berlin, who coined the term "fiction feeling hypothesis," describing how narratives with emotional content actually encourage readers to feel empathy, "activating a special neural network located in the anterior insula and mid-cingulate cortex regions of the brain."

Reading makes us think and feel in different ways. As we bond with the fictional characters, we are learning to better understand people both on the pages and off.

What Different Genres and Types of Books Do to the Brain

Getting lost in a book can have a powerful effect on us. "Reading can be a virtual experience for the brain, so the genre of books we choose to read can have a serious impact on our mood and emotions, giving different virtual experiences," says Dr. Dimitrios Paschos, consultant psychiatrist at Re:Cognition Health. "A book can evoke various emotions, such as happiness, relief, anger, and sadness." 

Below, Paschos reveals how different genres and types of books can affect us—plus, we share some of our favorite book recommendations for each genre.

Thrillers

"Reading thrillers adds excitement and can help us step away from our own problems, making us realize that there are people in worse situations than ourselves."

Already hooked, right?

Literary Classics

"Literary books stimulate different parts of our brain and give them an intense workout."

Happy Stories

"Happy books can be highly beneficial to mood and can be a good distraction when you're struggling with the complexities of life, giving hope and assurance that a 'happy ever after' can exist."

"Reading nostalgic books, such as those we read and enjoyed as young adults or teens can take us back to a happier period of our life. Because the book has already been read, there is an element of comfort, safety, and reassurance; you are familiar with the characters, the contents, and, of course, the ending, so uncertainty is eliminated. 

For people struggling emotionally throughout this pandemic, reading books about nostalgia can be highly beneficial (and the smell of an old book is just wonderful!)"

Biographies and Autobiographies

"This genre can be hugely beneficial to the intellect as well as emotions. They are history lessons as told through the lives of extraordinary people, teaching us life lessons—the highs, lows, and failures. They can give us validation of our own successes and challenges, strength to face our failures, and the confidence to make self-improvements."

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[buttonholedlife]

Techno is actually technocracy

This year noted the 400th wedding anniversary of the transatlantic servant field as well as the arrival of 20-30 West Africans to the United States materials. In August, The Nyc Times Publication, led through staff media reporter as well as investigatory journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, posted the very first version of The 1619 Job, an assortment of essays, poems, myth as well as digital photography that re-examines and also starts the slow process of revising American background with correctives on instances of structurally- and also socially-ordained civil and financial fascism of black people. This change in ethnicity talk definitely blew over right into the global digital songs scene, as direct and also understandable pointers of the extraction and also erasure of black lifestyle with callouts and also social networks retaliation.

The music market has actually regularly done not have subtlety in regard to social level of sensitivity and also acknowledgement. In 2019 the demand for a collective understanding of the relevance of portrayal and liability showed up to be actually extra openly necessary. As the massive historic problem of United States's perplexed past times is actually put into situation through, typically, black scholastics as well as thinkers via a social company, the definition and worth of United States culture as well as assets were also brought into question.

The phrase "techno" was coined by futurist and also business owner Alvin Toffler in his 1980 manual The 3rd Surge, which explains "cultivated" countries, like The United States, as well as their financial transitions from commercial development to data-driven effort. Techno, as black songs and technique, is coded along with industrial economic terms and engagement with market circulation. Its own importance on beat patternization gives itself to become interlaced with various other keep tracks of-- a great allegory for United States amazing futurism, in addition to operating as a literal social line, certainly not too unlike the dark folk-tradition of narration.

Toffler's use techno was actually directly in recommendation to technocracy, or even a governing system led by a best class of technical pros who create platforms of production for a lesson of mainly skill-less customers. Toffler cautioned technocracy possessed the potential to destabilize training class mobility and also social communities via a "technocratic divide" which prefers the "updated" opinions of specialized professionals over a marginalized, and most likely undependable, general public. When factoring in the uniqueness of African-Americans' 400-year-long past history of injustice using a solely white colored International colonial regulating physical body, the understanding of technocracy appears a great deal more ominous.

Juan Atkins, that emerged the techno noise in the team Cybotron, initial come across Toffler's creating in a high institution course called Future Studies. In the midst of Detroit's failing auto market and the upshot of the race troubles of the 1970s, Cybotron's songs mirrored the commercial boom and also decline of the urban area which was actually suggested to be actually an example of an American capitalist dreamland. Detroit's failure into dystopia caused white colored people to take off to the hinterlands, taking jobs and information with all of them. The futurist excellents of Toffler's works, along with his thought of the "techno rebel" who would certainly not really feel limited or determined by modern technology, influenced Cybotron's songs as they used readily available modern technology to promote impressive outcomes. In 1981, Juan Atkins created Cybotron's 'Cosmic Automobiles' with the intention of it being actually a "unique and also adventurous item of synthesizer rut, much more harmonic with Germany than the remainder of Afro-american America." That exact same year in 1981, Paul Lesley as well as Sterling Jones' An Amount of Names discharged 'Sharevari' which is often considered an early example of techno.

Each Cybotron as well as An Amount of Labels's popular music had their keep tracks of broadcast on WGPR, 107.5 FM's Electrifying Mojo, a broadcast show along with a predominantly dark viewers and contemporary playlists including songs through Royal prince, the B-52s as well as Kraftwerk that determined considerably of the Detroit noise. A year later on, while on a check out to New york city, Atkins heard Afrika Bambaataa's 'World Rock' and also viewed it as a much better example of his sonic eyesight. In 1988, Derrick May, a recognized trendsetter of techno as well as ex-Northern Heart DJ and Kool Kat Records supervisor, Neil Rushton, assembled an album of early Detroit tracks phoned Techno! The New Dance Noise of Detroit for Virgin Records UK imprint 10 Records, which would certainly place the condition "techno" right into flow one of music-buyers as well as journalists.

In July of this particular year, Mixmag operated a cover tale titled, "Exactly how Richie Hawtin transformed electronic songs time and again and also once more". The British striking magazine, which discharged its debut problem in 1983 with American dark disco team Shalamar on the cover, allegedly formalized techno for international consumption, according to a 2015 retrospective in The Independent; techno as well as acid house were certainly not imported right into the UK until 1988, a year after Phuture's 'Acid Rails' was released. Much of digital songs record favors the job of Hawtin as the absolute most important Detroit DJ and also manufacturer as well as decades after the "innovation" of techno in Detroit, Mixmag staged Richie Hawtin as the criterion wherefore an electronic music symbol could possibly seem like.

The account, composed by long time popular music reporter and also previous SIMPLE FACT contributor Joe Muggs, defines Canada-native Hawtin's technological know-how and also exactly how he "hoped for launching on Derrick Might's Transmat or Juan Atkins's Metroplex but [was actually] not able to acquire the interest of [his] idols" and as an alternative started his personal label, Plus 8, in 1990.

Five years after the label's inception, James Stinson of Drexciya asked a necessary as well as an unanswered inquiry while being actually spoken with through Tune Creator: "Why perform Richie as well as his Plus 8 loved ones boil down listed here and throw events in downtown Detroit? ... [He] brings in all these youngsters from the residential areas and also coming from Canada which reveals a disrespect. I've been actually to every one of those events and also I've certainly never heard a Below ground Resistance report, a Cybotron document, a Style five hundred report or even an Eddie Fowlkes file. It is actually a complete disrespect and it's come to restrain."

Fast-forward to October 2019. Cold DJ/producer Nina Kraviz articles a photo of herself on Twitter putting on cornrows, motivating notable review. When faced, Kraviz answered: "Facts examining [sic] For those who didn't recognize. I am certainly not white european [sic] Braids is actually [sic] a part of many societies. Heres [sic] is a point of view coming from a record educator." The "viewpoint" was delivered using a screengrab coming from Quora, a user-edited question-and-answer internet site. Pigtails as well as cornrows are actually known conventional African hairstyles that ended up being operational during the course of the transatlantic slave labor and also were actually inevitably used as a mode of secret communication between servants with styles that could possibly replicate charts to cost-free places in United States. Kraviz is actually not the 1st to receive retaliation for appropriating hair-braiding-- one Kardashian or yet another has been actually trumpeted for introducing unique knotted styles throughout the many years-- nor is she the very first to refuse recommendation of the hurt in the callouts that observe, opting to acknowledge the retaliation an instance of reverse-racism. [Ed. keep in mind: There is no such trait as reverse-racism.]

Pair of months eventually Mixmag recognized Kraviz by placing her in the no. 6 place on its Top 10 DJs of the Year checklist. Her admittance, which has because been modified, checked out: "She withstands. The Ice-cold DJ may have caused a slight tweetstorm with her ill-judged response to criticism of her hairdo, however she remains the singular greatest festivity employ the planet and really impressive, psychological and also reminiscent DJ of single vision as well as success. Still Techno's brightest celebrity."

A sincere correction of techno's record would certainly comply with a path of themes like white colored extractive industrialism, white colored trip as well as re-urbanization as well as the economics of cultural fraud. Technocracy depends on the withholding and holding on to of details and also information to promote criteria established through a managing a typically unethical elite training class. A thing or a take in is given market value by certain specifications within a technocracy and also by decentralizing present narratives as well as allowing for creators to tell their personal stories, there is actually option for an extra also as well as reliable cultural swap across the unlucky scenario of an economic market developed through intense as well as willfully ignorant white International colonial ideology. Proceeding in to 2020, a few noticeable vocals of a brand new generation of Black Techno allotment their encounters and also wish for a decolonized dancing popular music society.

Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson It's regularly thought that a task of mine to become capable to drive [the dark] history [of techno] and push black artists. I had actually been actually considering doing an occasion such as this for a number of years but it is actually hard to just do this occasion without any kind of area backing or even structural backing. Having actually dealt with thus a lot of dark musicians considering that moving to Brooklyn and today as booker at Bossa Nova Civic Nightclub, it simply thought that a piece of cake. Occupant was actually also such an easy occasion to manage yet we certainly need much more black people in making a reservation for placements at nightclubs. There's a frustrating large number of white bookers everywhere in NYC which most definitely has an effect on opportunities for black artists. I presume there is actually been actually a standard favorable shift in areas seeking to manual much more diversely. There actually is actually no reason.

Akua This was an essential year for the Dark Techno community. Within my prompt cycle in Brooklyn, I have actually found my peers as well as I bloom by means of our unapologetic strategy to restoring and revitalizing the often-ignored dark story of the category. Our interaction along with techno has actually straight directed the underground, political attitude in its own rawest form to permeate the uniform scene as well as take apart white colored patriarchal framework that has outlined the category for technique too long. As a black female in a setting where I am strongly apparent, however unnoticeable at the exact same opportunity, it is actually been very motivating to see that the contributions my peers and I have made to bolster modification on a residential and also international scale.Being capable to travel worldwide this year has actually helped me enhance as well as reevaluate the objectives responsible for my engagement along with techno. While I have actually possessed the opportunity to dip into places that are actually observed as crucial techno sites like Berghain's Saüle in Berlin, I've concerned understand my duty as certainly not simply a rabble-rouser of improvement, but additionally one of a physician and teacher. To become capable to participate in the music of black musicians I value a lot, like vets Robert Armani and Mike Dearborn, in the site's context, it really felt extra strong, given the complex past history between Berlin and also the US as it refers to techno. Knowledge like these have actually provided me the possibility to take additional attention to the black, POC and queer elderlies and also ascendants who risked the structure for me to perform what I am actually carrying out at the moment. To me, there is actually something exclusive regarding digging with the repositories to retell the stories of my elderlies in order to cure the severed origins of the style as well as to provoke people to decolonize their thoughts when it relates to their assumption of techno.

"Representation matters, our phrases concern, our songs concern, and our lives matter. Individuals need to have to know that whether they like it or even certainly not."-- Ash Lauryn

MoMA Ready Some of points that have been inspiring me the most are the unwearied DJs of Brooklyn's current nightlife areas, particularly the POC as well as QTPOC communities. Our team've all been interacting to produce rooms for ourselves in global dancing popular music. My reason for releasing a lot popular music this year is actually a bit even more private. It stems even more coming from my wish to preserve freedom over my fine art and also the narratives neighboring my art. Each release is actually various as well as is released for a various objectives, despite the outcome. Getting the popular music to the folks without a stream is something that encourages me. More of my colleagues is actually launching music to become included to the canon of dark techno and also dancing music. I believe that we all would like to observe more positive improvements for POC in dancing popular music globally. What much better to carry out that than by making the popular music that begins brand-new discussions? Techno origins can not be actually refuted. There is actually a new creation of black DJs as well as producers that right now know those roots as well as prefer to add to the legacy of dark dance popular music in North America.

Ash Lauryn Although residence and also techno songs has found somewhat of a comeback of black and brown young people since late, there is actually still an awesome quantity of work to be actually done. I am grateful to become an aspect of the act at an opportunity where many are actually carried out being actually soundless on troubles that matter to our company. There are actually a great deal of excellent individuals carrying out terrific points done in hopes of protecting the abundant black roots of dance songs, and also I consider on my own to become among all of them. By means of my system Underground & & Afro-american, my goal is to lift and also motivate the future productions of dark dancing popular music, and I can most submissively say I am doing only that. Portrayal concerns, our phrases matter, our songs issue, as well as our lifestyles issue. Folks require to know that whether they like it or otherwise.

DeForrest Brown, Jr. is actually a New York-based philosopher, writer and curator. He produces electronic audio and also extended media as Sound speaker Songs and also is actually a representative of the Make Techno Black Again initiative. His recent creating can be actually found in Afropunk, Artforum and also Hyperallergic.

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