#but its also kind of like how i still struggle to draw al after 10 yrs bc there's a lack of irl ref OR stylized ref to use for him

[skunkes]

um spare any genevieve drawings pretty please? 🥺🤲

saved dis to try to make some new art of her but unfortunately i still dk what i want her to look like and i normally dont have the Develop New Oc drive....ill keep pointing u guys to the only existing image of her in the meantime

[edwardelricsrightarm]

"A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own...you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart." - Edward Elric

In honor of disability month and the FMA 20 year anniversary I wanted to address some Thoughts™️ about the series.

It's not often you see a disabled protagonist in media where their disability is integral to the story without taking up their entire character, even more so with anime. Yet, Fullmetal Alchemist has not just one disabled Protagonist, but two. The Elric Brothers are an exemplary representation of disability in media that I find myself reflecting on often as a disabled person myself. If you haven't completed the manga or Brotherhood, skip this as it will be brimming with spoilers.

(Mangahood will be my point of reference because while 03 is good on its own merits it's not as fresh within my immediate memory, and I am far less familiar with it. Keep this in mind, I've watched FMAB 10 and a half times whereas I've finished 03 only once years ago.)

The story highlights their disabilities immediately, Edward being a double amputee and Alphonse being without his ENTIRE body, only having the senses of proprioception, sight, and hearing left. Yet, despite this being key to the story and an integral part of their characterization, it is only one facet of their motivations and doesn't take center in the narrative, which is refreshing. It's not inherently negative to make a narrative centered on the characters' disabilities, but often this model of a story goes very wrong very fast and starts to feel hollow (no pun intended). FMA avoids this by making their disabilities a clear part of the plot and their motivations without allowing it to consume the entire story, so the Elric Brothers don't suffer the "my disability is all of my character" problem that many disabled characters are relegated to in a vast portion of media, all while being strong and competent.

Recap:

The brothers wished to revive their mother, but their good intentions cannot change the atrocity of their mistake, Truth makes this abundantly clear from the start. Edward loses his leg first, a punishment for "stepping" into God's shoes and transgressing the place of humans in their world. Alphonse loses his entire body, unable to feel any warmth or simple comforts like food and rest, when all he wanted was to feel the warmth and comfort of his mother's embrace again. At first, Alphonse's entire being is consumed by the gate, but Edward acts immediately, refusing to lose his little brother and refusing to allow his arrogance in this plan to cause his brother's death for only following his lead. Edward gives his right arm to have the gate give back Alphonse's soul, and stated clearly in his panic that he'd give his entire self to save Alphonse if that's what it would take, but Truth took his dominant arm only, showing something akin to mercy, although the character of Truth is capriciously strict and hard to describe as "merciful".

Through giving up his right arm, Edward regains his Right Hand Man, his little brother and best friend. His only remaining family, who he feels responsible for protecting in the absence of their parents. He felt immediately that he'd made a grave mistake, instantly full of regret as he realized the gate had taken his brother. In that moment he was willing to give anything to take it back and undo the suffering his arrogance caused his brother, yet Alphonse was still to suffer more to come. Ed tied Alphonse's disembodied soul to one of Hohenheim's collected suits of armor, managing to at least keep his brother alive in some way. One could say that Alphonse's punishment functioned as a secondary punishment for Edward, showing him how easily his hubris could have cost him what he has left in his obsession with regaining what they'd lost, their mother. A very clear symbolic reminder of the weight of his actions and how he'd misled his brother in his own naive ignorance. Even in giving another limb away to drag his brother's soul back out of the gate, he couldn't offer enough to bring him back intact. Thus is the law of equivalent exchange.

Now that we've reviewed some of that basic symbolism and the motifs the story draws upon with limbs and body parts in relation to characters, let's move on to each individual brother and break it down, shall we?

Edward Elric is a very realistic protagonist, this is one thing a majority of us familiar with this series can agree upon. He feels like a believable teen boy, with layers of complexity to his character while also showing arrogance and immaturity that is unsurprising at his age. He expresses unwillingness to kill and avoidance of unjust violence from the beginning, and has a strong moral code after the ordeal of committing the taboo.

In some characters his cocky personality would typically become grating, yet the story explains in itself why he is this way, then builds upon this to develop him into an incredibly mature character who is willing to admit when he's absolutely wrong and adapts to new information and context for the crisis unfolding around him as it comes, even if he remains crass. This arrogance is shown from the start to be a manifestation of insecurity, self loathing, and repressed guilt. Edward is a logic driven person, he has a very unique thought process, which is where my interpretation of him as autistic comes in. Edward's awkward social demeanor, somewhat abrasive and cold approach to some, and his trouble coping with nonsensical societal structures all stand out in this way. Furthermore he clearly shows hyperfixation, hyperactivity, special interest, and infodumping behaviors that are all too familiar. He's picky with food (*cough* the milk thing), has very little filter and speaks his mind bluntly even if this can warrant conflicting responses, yet at the same time struggles with vulnerable emotions, and he is frustrated when his own routine or itinerary are interrupted by forces beyond his control. All of these things Scream autism with comorbid ADHD. Many traits are shared between the brothers, and I'm quite certain they're both on the autism spectrum based on behavioral patterns. Neurodivergence aside, Edward's physical disabilities are undeniable.

Despite his bratty persona, Edward is fundamentally kind and uncharacteristically gentle and soft around the edges for a shonen protagonist in many ways. He cries openly on many occasions even if he struggles talking about his trauma and burdens in words at times, he feels pain, grief, and compassion so intensely it throws him into action on a regular basis in the narrative. In this way he's also a fantastic example of non-toxic masculinity (though in other ways he has displayed more toxic traits, he's just a kid). He acts on his heart, even if he's led by his mind and logic in most things. His humanity, value for life, and care for others will always win over his logic, and he shows a sense of personal responsibility for doing the right thing even if it harms him in the process. Ed is clearly shown having ghost pains in his lost limbs which is honestly an interesting detail to include, I don't think I've ever seen that aspect of amputation shown in media aside from FMA. It's also shown that when Ed's automail arm breaks this is a HUGE problem for him, but he's also shown to be very good at working around this in difficult circumstances. He doesn't become completely helpless, even if majorly weakened.

Alphonse is an extremely lovable and compassionate boy, brimming with altruism and care for others. Even in his noncorporeal state he pursues a better future and he's not helpless by any stretch. Edward clearly states Alphonse is the superior fighter for example, and it's not just because of his armor body being so large. He's *talented*, that's a fact. Al is every bit as clever and capable as Ed, moreso in some ways, and I love that about his character *because* he's so clearly disabled. He has no sense of pain, he is completely incapable of sleeping, he can't eat, can't relax or find comfort, he can only exist and think. This causes him to overthink in all his time alone, this is debilitating. He clearly is absolutely sick of the loneliness this causes, and he often feels helpless though he's not. He has doubts and fears that consume him in relation to his armor body, he questions his own personhood, even. Yet, Edward is stubborn and staunch in affirming that no matter what he's dealing with, he is fundamentally still a human being that is loved and irreplaceable. Alphonse is powerful and his body gives him some advantages, but it also sets him back, and the brothers know this even when others claim Alphonse's state is somehow a good thing. I have hEDS, a disability that comes with advantages as well as the major downsides, so I can understand and relate to Alphonse here. I too am told my disability is a boon because of flexibility and because I'm less likely to fracture bones, but I'm twice as likely to injure my ligaments and joints, which people ignore.

The brothers are both disabled, both flawed, both show weaknesses, but they are competent, determined, and strong in their own right. They are rounded characters that exist for more than to be pitied or condescended to by able bodied characters around them. They put their entire being in everything that they do no matter what that is, and they don't know the meaning of giving up. These traits that they're made of truly make them a shining example of disability in protagonists for others to look to for reference when writing their own disabled characters.

Even though by the end Edward has regained one limb and Al has regained his body, this also doesn't just deus ex machina reverse their disability or make it go away. It's clear that Alphonse's body is weak and has to be rehabilitated upon recovery, and Edward is still missing his leg and bears the scars and pieces of the port from his automail arm. They weren't suddenly made able bodied upon recovering these things, they reclaimed what was lost through struggle and grit, but the narrative didn't give the impression that their disability in itself was something to be fixed, which is important. They wanted to recover their bodies, but this doesn't erase the effects of their disability.

It was about Edward atoning for leading Alphonse into their mistake and saving his brother from suffering further, it was about them proving they can keep moving forward no matter what, not about getting rid of their disability in itself or putting themselves down because of the disabilities. This, to me, as a mentally and physically disabled viewer, is so important. They achieve their goal, but this doesn't in any way erase or undo the effects of their initial losses, they find ways to adapt and move on but they're still affected and still disabled. They always will be. That can be so important to see in comfort characters, and as a disabled individual who's had both brothers as comfort characters since I was a child, their impact on my own journey is surprisingly tangible for fiction.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 28

3 by Miyazaki:

✳️✳️✳️ Never-Ending Man: Another wonderful NHK documentary about Old Man Hayao Miyazaki after his 2013 retirement, and as he slowly comes around to create one more animation, the short ‘Boro The Caterpillar’. It follows him unobtrusively for a couple of years, walking from his simple house to his office at the studio, drawing drawing, struggling with self doubt and old age, and yes - driving a bit in his old Citroën 2CV.

It’s such a privilege to be so close to a legendary artist and watch him at close range - 8/10.

✳️✳️✳️ Kiki's Delivery Service, one of my most favorite Ghibli masterpieces, about a 13 year old witch, who flies on a broom to a new city in order to build her independence. With a magical score by Joe Hisaishi. 

- Best film of the week!

✳️✳️✳️ Castle in the sky, Miyazaki’s 3rd feature from 1986, an cyberpunk adventure fantasy which contains many of the elements and characters which will show up fully formed in his later films: Sheeta looks like Kiki, Dola behaves like Yubaba, Pazu as a stand in for Haku, etc. I prefer his quieter, more personal, smaller stories.

✴️

Exit Plan (“Suicide Tourist”) is a Danish film about a quiet man with a terminal brain tumor who signs up for an upscale Norwegian hotel specializing in assisted end-of-life fantasies. Starts as a dark existential tale, ends with a kind of ambiguous mystery.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is the guy.

✴️

The Aerial  (”La Antena”) is an innovative Argentinian silent film from 2007,  about a city that had lost its voice, and its only savior, a boy without eyes who is crucified on a Star of David. It’s a surreal allegory in German expressionism style, a weird black & white fantasy about mind control. In short, a unique and inaccessible fairy tale.

“Mommy, are you there?...”

(Photo Above)

✴️

For comparison, I revisited ‘Un Chien Andalou’, Bunuel & Dalí disturbing, groundbreaking masterpiece. Even though every outrageous frame of it is part of history now, the raw imagery is still shocking - Pure id. I can’t imagine being in the room in 1929, and watching it for the first time. No wonder the two surrealists were disappointed at the audience's positive reception.

✴️

2 from French director Mia Hansen-Løve:

✳️✳️✳️ The Future / “Things to come“ from 2016. Isabelle Huppert is a resilient middle-aged philosophy professor whose life suddenly suffers multiple setbacks.

It only has 6 scenes with background music, each punctures the quiet delivery of the story at an emotional peak: A Schubert lieder, a Woodie Guthrie song on the radio, a lullaby...

I loved it!

✳️✳️✳️ Goodbye First Love tells about a romance between a 15 year old and a boy who leaves her, and then comes back 8 years later, after she settles down.

Unhurried, sensitive story-telling, reminisces of Eric Rohmer, with careful use of music and language. It also has a couple of scenes shot here at the Kastrup Sea Baths and on the grounds of Louisiana museum.

Loved it! I’m looking forward to see her new ‘’Bergman Island’.

✴️

Love in the afternoon, the last of Eric Rohmer’s ‘6 Moral Tales’. Exploration of sexual and spiritual virtues in 1972 Paris, by a traditional married man who carries on a platonic love affair with an old flame.

✴️

The White Ribbon - Austrian Michael Haneke’s dark, multi-layered tragedy. In 1913, a series of upsetting events occur in a small German village. A horse trips on a wire and injures its rider; a woman falls to her death through rotted planks; the local baron's son is hung upside down in a mill; parents bully their children; a man torments his long-suffering lover; another sexually abuses his daughter. People disappear.

Relentless inquiry into abuse, cruelty and despair. Shot in gorgeous Bergmansk black & white.

(This is an Italian speaking copy). 8/10

✴️

2 more from 1973:

✳️✳️✳️ First watch - Soylent Green, a pessimistic science fiction story happening in 2022. Very prescient in its dystopian prediction of global warming, over population, resource depletion and income equality.

The 2 minutes opening montage was paced brilliantly. 7/10

✳️✳️✳️ In Scarecrow, Gene Hackman and Al Pacino are two drifters who becomes friends as they hitchhike from California to Pittsburgh. 6/10

✴️

In Pig, Nicholas Cage is a reclusive mountain man, living out in the woods outside Portland, OR, gathering truffles with a female pig, who is his only friend. One night, some tweakers attack him and kidnap the pig. His journey to bring her back takes him on a surprising and completely unexpected places. 

Very un-American!

✴️

“… and Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln”

6 episodes of the 1982 TV series Police Squad!,  a spoof of police procedurals - shorter and funnier than the Naked Gun movies which it later spawned. Zucker-Abrams-Zucker production.

“Who are you? And how did you get in here?

- "I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith”

✴️

“Ever fired your gun in the air and yelled, 'Aaaaaaah?'”

Every time I watch Hot Fuzz, it gets better. "Not just one of the best comedies of all time, it’s one of the best movies of all time", for sure.

Editor Tony Zhou, of ‘Every Frame A Painting’, shot an excellent video essay ‘How to do visual comedy’ about Edgar Wright.

Jim Broadbent as Inspector Frank Butterman: “He had one thing you haven't got... A great, big, bushy beard! “

✴️

Re-watch: Wag the Dog, blackest of black comedies, utterly cynical, nihilistic view of politics. Americans can always be distracted, can always be manipulated, and can always be led to believe anything the powers-to-be needs them to. You can fool all of the people all of the time. 

“Look, look, look. He's fine as long as he gets his medications...”

Amazingly, it premiered one month BEFORE the Lewinsky scandal!

✴️

The Invisible Guest, a forgettable and predictable Spanish murder-mystery thriller from 2016. Best part was the soft, minimalist European style score (or am I just going deaf?)

✴️

How to Become a Tyrant, a new docu-series narrated by Peter Dinklage. 6 short episodes about Hitler, Stalin, Gaddafi, Kim Il-sung, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. (Mao is referred to, but doesn’t get his own chapter).

And it doesn’t mention trump, even as a Wanna be Dictator - probably because he didn’t succeed in his (first) attempt.

✴️

Seaspiracy, the most depressing documentary I’ve ever seen. Ali Tabrizi starts investigating plastic pollution in the ocean, and quickly realizes that it is commercial fishing that is the bane of our existence. Basically all fishing must be banned, as there will be no more live fish in the seas in 2048. There were some ‘controversies’ about the claims the movie makes, but they came from mainstream entities, who support incremental change.

Utterly disgusting: We deserve all that befall us.

✴️

A colorful and dramatic Vatican drama, The Two Popes, with excellent ‘Odd Couple’ performances by Anthony Hopkins as the first Pope in 700 years to step down and by Jonathan Pryce who doesn’t want to succeed him. Re-watch.

- - - - -

Throw-back to the art project:

Salvador Dali Adora.

Kiki Delivery Service Adora.

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

[rwmhunt]

Leviticus, Chapter 22

1. Lo, for That I cannot prosecute my thoughts; I needst here cultivate caution- Then put a hold unto my options, That I cannot challenge him. Any source of information, That be of an admixture truth, And of an admixture untruth, is of a danger, Did you know that? Humbly needst I move toward diamonds and gold's Otherwise-useless demarkation on worth; My face must stay its specter in clay, For it is my career; That I can say: It is mine.

2. Thus, to Aaron, gold and diamonds Bringeth ignominy and unwarranted power; Strewth, they are only much use for The rings of your finger; So let alone the past, Which you mark As a messed up place, How then, is this the valid Strategy for the future? Lo, let us divide and game.

3. Increase the paywall; Holy things are ringing in changes; You are the visitor here- I'd like to take the time To consciously consider you so, for We have reached besmircher's cutoff. It's me, mark it; and Either I am a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And you are a little golden bull, Or you are a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And I am a little golden bull;

4. But know that I shall not give you the word For the thought-track down which You might draw the line Of asymetry, such, That you wouldst know How to rend a perfect opposition To go between. And whosoever soweth dead seeds Among young female researchers Hath faileth the épreuve- It shalln’t do for thy running issue, Moreover, those women who are of Quite senior position and are doing it Unto the coercive nature of such a power's New destruction of ability to focus, As unto the camp's commander, With how Peleg begat Reu; Well, it might be enough to get you pregnant, But wait, where am I going with this?

5. Worm touchers, Creepy pressers, Come, come, observers, Keep from that strange creature; Don't be giving unto me None of thy screaming abdabs; I think on you, Pig dressed as a clown, Eructing unto, then drawing forth A near-entire white, plastic fork; And know you not how this came to me- Lo, it came up with a sequence of items that appeared Not unlike balls of meat, Furred, wistfully, in a grey cowl of reactionary mucus; A kind of veil, a barrier, in effect, Penetratable, at any point, But equally real as a barrier, Gainst our otherwise passive environs, Such as be the diffusion of inert thoughts, or spores, murky, and maintaining of a human resource, I liked to thrill it- The direct and immediate livid relationship Between a font of funding and a media event, O, harmless dalliance of the stationary cupboard- You are knowingly walking, As against your will, A wrong into the carpet, Within the tent of meaning.

6. Looking up to see God's face in the moon, Or whatever it was That can't be drawn, And I won't be drawn; His hands he filled with moisture and His own was sent for ablution Into the improvised basin. So denieth all such allegation Through the washing of thy soule, Clean off; so sloughed away, Away with the diminishing liquid.

7. Sundown with the unseen Woman's leverage on the situation- if you should find a way to redress balance, So she gaineth a bit more power in some manner, Then so what? it was no loss. A new deal, And the bill shall embolden survivors.

8. Positions of power shall have of a hard time In recognizing the coercive nature of that power Within an unbridled relationship; Things that die 'Of themselves', Or are yet rent by nature's horn, Are defiled; while I, a malign influence, lie with my soul distracted; Oh lord, but I've been swallowed by narrative, And tried to keep it communal, Inside and outside; As you are.

9. Pit stop- The horror is the fact; The horror it unfolds Through legions of would-bes Without a meter, like me, Who have applied, Will apply, in perpetuity; Just do it, Or die; if then, As I am still.

10. The individual is always Hedging toward A private business model. Attention-seeking shalln't be of sin, no! Tis sensible, keep with a forward optioning- That's why i tell you, Soujerners and servents, Who art sent to the concession to collect me my messages- My tutu is a Fendi, And my codpiece is a Bosch. We live unto a roaring attention economy. But you're not up to it. I've given them a tomato one, And also I gave them a spaghetti- We struggle to attune to where I'm compelled- Ourselves, as groups, who feel of themselves As blunted against their lack in deserved attention, Because it is a powerful, a dangerous feeling.

11. So eat souls As paid for with a priest's money, On escrow, attention Has always been currency Though rendered unimaginable Since the falling-away of the gold-standard, As was borne unto the tent of meaning, Where every page has a piece carved out, To house an advert's grab For égards; No space is secure, For security hath put an advert thither.

12. Jade lock, To knock the donald offline, So unto a stranger, Gone off to scavenge, The framers that frame themselves As refuges for free-expression Shall be rent at the fringes, forcing A redirection, away from my personal kingdom.

13. But should she go prodigal, Whosoever you are, Howeverso you might express thyself, You may now have a crack at a global audience, With incentives and disproportionate benefits Offered unto the most shameless, The demand of each to pay what scarce attention Might be rendered unto others, To get some fraction of this nominally limited resource, As unto yourself alone. Such are these poor weapons, An oversharing, That, essayed to the personal, Stretcheth my nancy stories To breaking.

O Marigold, I was bad At that, in the territories of fandom, As forced to return Unto the track over and again- Such was my leaky comprehension; Only apparent to me in the afterward, And now, I cannot say I am better.

14. Whence, Enroute from the concession Shouldst be eaten of the item Without, thence, So anguished in the relish, Thou giveth a fifth Of the holy thing; So that the leg shall grow A starfish, whole . Then let us bend our dark tubers towards, And look the knot, as in at an eye-

15. What's gold and glitter, But to mock a toom, And maketh of myself A symbolic same, Wrought as an aesthetic echt; Where diplomacy is weak, The aesthetic be yet The sole portal unto The conveyance of meaning; Verily, here, that I keep within The aesthetic of thought Whereby action is always y, You are i, and The antagonist be markated x; Where holy might only Fall down to one's discretion, You should've known That I wouldst be so solid.

16. Or suffer them to bear the enquiry of trespass, Felt as an information glut, Whilst eating of their holy orders, Found relishing within the anguish, And those who want it, Want it as much as they can get it, And  there is more access than can be vaunted, For, in an attention economy, one is never not on. Yes, me. O the guilt.

17. Attention is akin to the spirit; That it be vital but conventionally invisible, And thus, think not very much upon it, But unto whom, being unable to share A simple encounter with it, Wouldst soon become an artifice of torture.

18. Tell Aaron et al ensundry, To take up of stock with sarcastic markets, Sarcastic markets and I, impunity; The sacrifice of your own will I hand you freely; or no; T'was never yours to oblate, But sacrifice thy quasi-will, As will thee, Which is mine, against The short hedge, Thus maketh me of a currency exchange.

19. And an haut stud dost thou, unto me, weasels? By your whimsically free-will sacrificing? How charmingly lame. I sense Actors at play, in a very long game Of grooming the disaffected- Call me my boys in- then Send a lie to the long deceiver, To use the ruse, in turn, like poison, For to wish you that which upon may be Enabling unto the benefit of thine enemy.

20. It's no hambone, No hobbling billy- If he tells or interferes I'll fill the well in; its Prophets in stocks and neck-irons time, Else tolerate such increasingly radical agendas Of such gleefully uninhibited platforms as Where followers might laugh At biblical memes and opine such as- 'I'd rather do drama than a play, where, You can't say, really, What you want to say.' Go long, my cowhands, go long.

21. And peace is a sacrifice Of the streaming platform, while Attention has always been currency, Same. Our abilities to pay heed are limited; Not so our abilities to theoretically receive of it; No need to adequately substantiate If you can bamboozle With all the time in the world, Ka-pow-ka, ching-ching, da-da, Badoo-daboo-baday; Trust-modesty, yay, verily. Humility is hard to sustain In an attention economy. I only see me accelerating.

22. Blind, broken, maimed; Cankered, scurvied, wan with the wen, Thus, by my lights, The fault shall be displaced, Be it cleaned or weeping, Tis a no-no, get me another. Such was The schism that fractured the donald, Sent out to extend a tortured metaphor, Became too much of a liability To be held in high office- But if the stranger doesn't come, After all the things I’ve done for him,

23. Well, it's alright for a free-will offering Which you feel compelled to go along with, But it's not good enough for a vow offering As be brought unto online-influencer culture, And it might be enough to get you pregnant But it shan't be enough to stir my interest- I require an extreme case of humility, Whereby a person giveth his all to a presence so completely selfish As to serveth no other purpose. It's me.

24. But the reality is far less complicated than Moses, Hiding his damage behind a veil of linked-up back-channels, Recoiling at what his fellow hardcore moderators attempt to oblate; Too engrossed within the tents to consider anything outwith While hoping the whole doesn’t spin out of control.

25. Corruption is in them, strangers, Bethinks, flooding an affiliated image board So thoroughly that it becometh abomination. Here increaseth the shamelessness of wanton Allegation,  terror co-option of a social platform, which struck with the rise of a reality magik-vision, Alike as came unto a mid-80s index of abundance, Shewn running away whilst attempting to make focus On the ever-deterioratingly indistinct Object of the distancing, that It’s only when, at stopping to think about it, That the understand can be ascertained as to quite how rife it is.

26. Here, he left a passing message for Those who might collectively commandeer: Abide by life; that, if, then, I wouldn't be here.

27. Debates about amplification And attention-hijacking form a Siege mentality Of the corrupted Federal Apparatus- For seven days beneath the dam, As then a fire spiralled further Toward a more outlandish means Of unconstitutional civic theatre,

28. Whereby a calfling must be made to last The night and know it's mother As having died before slaughter; So the community Moved in after it went dark, Enjoining, then modulating, then killing off, And now Your complexes are all cooked in, Deeply infringing upon the weirds of others.

29. So must you make sacrifice To your very free will, As to common patriotic causes, Or else be sieged Within the corrupt Federal Apparatus.

30. The fundamental thing is: You cant escape my attention economy; Eat everything now, For nothing shall be saved, And this same day shall be Until tomorrow; when again, it's me.

31. Lo, and you must; it's me, remember? But by now all this blood and all this law Was affecting them, as had long been within their dream, Where they have their own rules, quirks and cultures, Which they ignore at your peril; Where environments play out upon a knife-edge, And attention might simply be a lens Through which to read the events of the moment While running away.

32. Herein, power shall not be trusted To recognize affiliated abuses of power; Yet, check, however, before Redirecting such missives from my personal kingdom, For lo, there shall be nonesuch insubordination, As might mitigate against, for I shall be hallowed; Me me me me, So you;

33. Thus, I lay my notional claim Unto my servant-leadership- as bang, That brought you out of the land, Didn't it? Akhenaten to me. So Leviticus stood at The simply-inflated Size of Capitalism, To whom, hereto, On a bench they'd built Between themselves, Be here, thisway, is addressing- 'Imagine; You have been wrong For a long long time now.'

[lilpee-pee]

Hilda is even more obscure than I initially thought; a mythological masterpiece!

I’m not sure how many other people have noticed this, but here’s the list I’ve made from lots of research! This post will consist of no specific spoiler. But if you don’t want to know about anything yet, DO NOT READ THIS!!!

So after re watching the entire show, I noticed something rather interesting. Each episode features a creature or culture derived from ancient mythology. 

Episode 1;

The Elves: At first, I assumed this was about fairies. The tiny civilizations they must have. But after looking at the landscaping of the backgrounds, it hit me. These are based off of Iceland’s Huldufolk. This translates directly to hidden people. Said to be protectors of their good fortune, the government of Iceland made completely illegal any construction or interference with what is supposedly land that belongs to these small, invisible elves, who live in miniature houses called alfhols. Wait. Alf? Alfur? Coincidence? I think not. 

Episode 2;

Giants: The giants of Hilda are solely based off of Norse mythology. Legend tells of a tribe of beautiful giants, who once lived between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. There were hundreds of species, living in hundreds of habitats. The Great Spirit, however, grew tired of their aloof and mighty behaviors toward each other, so he allowed their enemies to conquer them; the humans. Only two giants survived: Paiute and his wife. Sounds about right. 

The Woodman: This monotone cryptic of Hilda’s assorted friends took me quite a bit of research to track down the origins to. But finally, I found him. Based on Greek culture, he’s actually a dryad, or “oak nymph”. These walking, wooden creatures exist to look after the oak tree they were forged from. So let’s suspend some disbelief and assume Hilda’s ancestor used the Woodman’s tree in order to build the cabin Hilda lives in. Why else would he have stuck around, since he’s always minorly annoyed and yet indubitably shows up in many of Hilda’s childhood crayon drawings? Just a thought.

Episode 3;

Thunderbird: These birds originate from Native American beliefs. By flapping its gigantic wings, it creates thunder and lightning, controlling the storm season and bringing excellent harvest. With storms, come rain, so the arrival of the thunderbird was always a promising sign. Present in their dances, tattoos, and carvings, he protected them from the great horned serpent and it’s destructive tendencies, bringing whoever favored him good luck and prosperity. Slides right in with Trolberg’s annual parade, don’t you think? And it brings a whole new connotation to the city’s “statue”, when the Great Raven explains how he had sat on top of it; his symbol was always present at the very top of a totem pole. 

Episode 4;

Vittra: These stinky little onions are more than they seem to be. From Northern Sweden, these underground dwelling nature spirits are very aggressive, territorial, and hated humans. They’re also known to have invisible cattle, which they milk for food and commonly steal from mortals who have wronged them. Really explains the cows, huh? They’re known to make humans’ lives miserable, especially when they meddle with their tunnels, lifestyle, or even cross their borders. Even in modern day, people have moved their homes away from any nearby “vittraställe”, or vittra way, just in case. 

Episode 5;

Trolls: Another Icelandic folktale, trolls are said to have been dim witted, man eating creatures that turned to stone upon contact with sunlight. Even in Lord of the Rings, they used these concepts. So why wouldn’t Hilda? If you visit the beaches of Iceland, it is said that the huge boulders scattered about the shores, and in the water, were once trolls. They were caught by the dawn as they attempted to crush the ships returning to their homes, carrying fishermen finding food for their families. These “troll rocks” are their bodies, reaching out to the sea, now forever entrapped in stone. 

Episode 6; 

Marra: Originally known as mare, which eventually attributes to the word “nightmare”, the Hungarian marra are malicious entities that possess humans with certain amounts of negative energy. Teenagers with depression, mostly, which also helped create the possessed, creepy kid trope in horror movies. While you sleep, they perch on your chest, and expose your mind to its deepest fear. Eventually, the marra evolved into the legend of the boogey man, so in retrospect, they never actually disappeared. 

Episode 7;

The Bragga: These outcasted group of elves, who made a failed contract with the Aldric family over “No Elf’s Land”, aren’t just coincidentally donning beard braids and helmets, obsessed with fighting physically, drinking ale, spitting, and riding rabbits like they’re jousting horses. They’re based off of Nordic Vikings, their separation from Scandinavia, and the culture that they eventually developed. Their tendencies to favor combat over reason is made evident, too, however stereotypical it may be. This is pretty much the only example the show has used so far to allude to a historical period of time. 

Episode 8;

Tide Mice: Taken from Mapuche mythology, these voodoo rodents are actually supposed to be colo colos. Evil, rat-like creatures, they hide in your house to feed on your saliva while you sleep, eventually bringing about comatose states and long term memory loss. Once all of your life juice has been depleted, your soul is completely sucked from your body and the colo colo consumes it in order to go on living. Despite their complete irrelevance with wicca, the way the show manages to assimilate the two is genius. 

Episode 9;

Ghosts: I feel like this speaks for itself. They’re very commonly used, but the show does a good, unique job of connecting a ghostly presence not with a negative haunting that needs to be handled or else everyone will die, but with a helpful spirit, just hanging around a house because it’s linked to a specific item or object. 

Episode 10;

Wind Spirits: The wind spirits, which were based off of Roman Anemoi, minor wind gods that each represented a cardinal direction, are shown in Hilda as debaters who couldn’t come to a conclusion. Their fighting is what makes gigantic natural disasters. This is mocking a bit of fun of Roman philosophers, who were known to sit around in their forums, arguing until the entire town couldn’t stand it. The irritated citizens would call these prolonged discussions, “storms of the intellect”. 

Episode 11;

Cursed Cottage: I have no clue where this myth derives from, and I couldn’t find much else except Into the Woods songs, but this is basically adopting the enchanted cottage trope. The gingerbread house that actually houses a wicked witch, the lone hut that holds everything Goldilocks longs for except for its occupants; so many fairy tales center their setting around a manipulative house that tries to snatch you up and never let you go. So this one is probably just a primal usage of that timeless idea, combined with a cool twist of inter dimensional neurotics. Pretty cool!

Episode 11;

Nisse: Also fondly known as house brownies, nisse are Norweigian dwarves, living inside of your home. Sometimes known to mischievously steal your things, like socks, car keys, old toys, jewelry, etc, they make nests in your walls or your abandoned, most frequently forgotten to check spots. If you are kind to them, leave them food, and treat them well, they will go out of their way to do good things for you, like wash your dishes, dust your desk, or, yknow, purge evil energies from your body. But if you anger them, they can be quite a hassle; breaking things is a usual reaction. Either way, if you ever catch them, you have the right to forcefully evict them from your home. 

Episode 12;

Black Hounds: Black hounds, throughout the history of mythology, are always seen as a dark, ominous omen, warning you of potential suffering, struggle, pain, turmoil, chaos and death. So pretty darn bad. Seeing a black hound, or even owning one, is still a superstition, today. They’re literally called the “accumulation of everything that is evil on this plane of existence.” But, if you haven’t already watched Hilda, keep Sirius Black in mind, and his patronus, which reminds us, “don’t read a book by it’s cover.” 

That’s all I’ve got to say, gamers! There are some that I skipped, like the lindworm, water spirits, stuff like that. But all in all, Hilda is a mythological masterpiece. Watch it whenever you can if you appreciate lore in any way, because it’s not just a beautiful, naturally diversified show about a socially anxious girl assimilating into a new culture. It’s taking incredibly interesting and obscure pieces of mythological history and braiding it into a perfectly constructed storyline. Whether or not it’s educational is up to you. Not even including here how breath takingly gorgeous the animation, use of color, and backgrounds are. Just... please. Don’t sleep on it! 

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of May 29th, 2019

Best of this Week: Doomsday Clock #10 - Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson and Rob Leigh

And yet another wrinkle is added to the DC Universe.

Or should I say, “Metaverse” now? Yes, after I think three months since the last issue, Doomsday Clock returns with yet another strong issue that expands upon the mythos of the DC Universe and just how Doctor Manhattan viewed and affected things at the many different positions of time that he has been able to inhabit.

The issue is framed around an actor by the name of Carver Colman, a very huge star in DCs 1954, who has been referenced or used in previous issues. This gives some kind of continuity in the context of the story as Johnny Thunder was seen watching his movie in the retirement home al the way back in issue two or three. Colman, unfortunately, has a secret that gets him killed soon after wrapping up the filming of his biggest hit, The Adjournment and as we make it through the issue and the back and forth of his life, we find the biggest change to Doctor Manhattan’s character and how he has to bend to the rules of this new universe.

Doctor Manhattan actually meets Colman in 1938 when he was a struggling actor who had just lost his job delivering mail to a movie studio after an unfortunate accident and things he saw. Manhattan takes Colman out for some food, attempting to use him as a rod to focus on to look towards the future as he can’t seem to do so on his own after arriving. He does so and is able to see a year into the future, then four and so on. His abilities work again, but then he hears something strange.

A radio report of a man lifting a car into the air. The first appearance of Superman on April 13th, 1938. Suddenly, it was gone, the crowds of people were gone as if they never existed. He follows the path where Superman existed in 1938 and finds the Justice Society, having formed and waiting for Superman to answer their summons. Jay Garrick “Flash”, “Green Lantern” Alan Scott, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and others, waiting for the Man of Steel to join their ranks and suddenly, they too have never heard of him.

Manhattan follows the many arrivals of Superman, from 1956, to 1986 and sees his arrival change again and again, noting the many deaths of Ma and Pa Kent and how this “Universe” seems to use Superman as a focal point, even going to a thousand years from now when Superman was briefly part of the Legion of Superheroes. So to test how things revolve around Superman, he changes the past by moving the Lantern away from Alan Scott, killing him, and drastically changes the future, creating the New 52 Timeline.

Everything is recontextualized as Manhattan sees that this action changes this universe and that it’s constant state of flux affects the wider multiverse. From the parallel worlds, to the anti-matter, to the Dark Multiverse, Earth Prime is a “Metaverse” in his words. The others change to match whatever is going on in the Prime World and once it realizes what he’s done, it begins to fight back. Manhattan sees Wally West trying to fight his way back to the Universe. This one action causes a chain reaction that will lead to his inevitable confrontation with Superman where Superman either kills him or he kills the Metaverse.

Cutting back to 1954, Manhattan is at Carver Colman’s home on the night that he’s murdered. He doesn’t do anything to stop it.

There’s a saying that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” In the Watchmen Universe, Doctor Manhattan was allowed to do or not do as he pleased because that world was a little bit more grounded or at worst cynical. Though, one might say that because he refused or didn’t care to use his power at a larger scale, Ozymandias’ “evil” won. Though Ozymandias thought what he did was the right thing, this series proved it it be disastrous in the wake of Rorschach’s journal being published, but initially Veidt’s plan did succeed. Doctor Manhattan escaping to the DC Universe put him into direct conflict with the Metaverse and its Hope. Its innate desire to have the good triumph over evil won’t let Doctor Manhattan get away with inaction and in his words, “To this universe of hope… I have become the villain.”

Words can’t describe how hype I was for this. With each and every issue, a new layer is added and brings us closer and closer to the epic conclusion that only Geoff Johns and Gary Frank can realize. I also love how they’ve expanded on the importance of Earth Prime, seeing as how it has indeed gone through many changes. It’s good to finally have an explanation that implies that even through the many reboots and retcons that if DC wanted to, they could tap into those timelines as main universes at any time. Everyone’s favorite time period matters or will matter again soon.

---------------------------------------------------

"One last adventure together…"

Runner Up: Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 - Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia and Tom Napolitano

Joker's words to describe his and Batman's last run together in the hell that is the world after some unexplained event killed numerous heroes, villains and just about anything else. It also describes what MAY be the last time we see Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo do a big Batman story together and I already feel like we're in for a BIG one.

After a curious case of large scale chalk drawings,  showing a dead Batman, leads the Dark Knight to the Crime Alley he inadvertently sets off a trap laid by an unknown assailant using the decomposing body of a ten year old child. He later wakes up in Arkham Asylum, apparently having been there since KILLING HIS FAMILY in Crime Alley all those years ago. Capullo does a great job of setting atmosphere and making things unsettling as even a small fly buzzing around and "Dr. Redd Hudd" looming over a straight jacketed Bruce Wayne looks creepy.

Arkham appears to be just a regular Asylum with Alfred showing up and trying to convince Bruce that Batman was all in his head, showing him a mock costume they made to keep him calm with a cowl stitched to a straight jacket. Bruce sees through it all and fights his way through Arkham until Alfred reveals the truth. He only wanted to keep his boy safe because half of Gotham was just gone. Years had passed and Batman has no idea what happened.

He later wakes up in a desert and coincidentally finds the head of The Joker. He wakes and immediately begins cracking jokes as Batman takes him and they begin to walk to Coast City. I don't know how much of this is real and that adds to the mystique of the story. We're never given an explanation as to how he got there from Arkham or how Joker is surviving.

They arrive at Coast City and the decayed corpse of Mogo looms over a giant crater and ruins. Joker says that all of the Lanterns fell and rings are just there for the taking. Suddenly the duo are attacked by projections of babies before being saved by Vixen and Poison Ivy. Ivy then knocks Bruce out just in case and he wakes up surrounded by the new Amazons; Vixen, Donna Troy, Poison Ivy, Supergirl and Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman explains that one day, Luthor just… convinced most that they should just take what they deserve. He told them that goodness was a lie and they just ate it up. It echoed the future that Luthor saw back in Justice League/Legion of Doom #5, but given that this is a Black Label book, one wouldn't be wrong if they didn't want to think of this as the explanation of that timeline because they're not in the same canon.

Wonder Woman also tells Batman that the one wielding the Anti-Life Equation may be one of the Boys and pleads with him to join the Amazons in Hades.

But Batman is Batman and he decides that he's going to put a stop to this.

Last Knight on Earth reads like an alternative ending for Scott Snyder's Justice League epic. Even though that story is far from over, not even close, there's this unsettling feeling that, if Scott didn't have to have the heroes win in the end, this should be the absolute endgame. A world, no UNIVERSE possibly, under siege by someone wielding the Anti-Life Equation, hope dead and dying and the ever creeping feeling of dread knowing that somehow life and death have lost enough meaning that Joker as a decapitated head still lives… this story is terrifying.

Honestly, this might be some of Capullos best art to date. With Glapion and Plascencia's help, this book feels so atmospheric and dark. Glapion accentuates Capullos lines and shading well with dark-dark inks, making Batman appear to be shrouded in it even in the sun. It's haunting, especially in the Arkham scenes where things are absolutely not as they seem and dark secrets hide behind and within the walls. Plascencia, on the other hand, can make even light and vibrant colors threatening. The red sand on Jokers jar is intense  and the Green Lantern babies are deadly. Hell, Coast City, Hall Jordan's crown jewel, looks unbelievably desolate, colored like a wasteland. Capullo pulls all of this together with as much detail as he possibly can and his work shows.

Faces are expressive, from Batmans fear, to Alfreds regret to Jokers madness. Body language is utilized greatly as Batman fights like a caged animal. He's taken aback by Jokers head, but still finds his resolve. Wonder Woman is still fierce, but even her edge has dulled with the sheer lack of hope that running away and going underground has given her.

This story is terrifying and I absolutely love it. From the creepy visuals of Capullos art, to the expression of thought because of the mature liberties Black Label books can take, it's all beautiful. This one is absolutely going to match my love for Batman: Damned and every one should go and read this. High recommend!

[thesportssoundoff]

“I suppose not every show is going to be UFC 231, right?” UFC Fight Night In Canada Preview

Joey

April 28th, 2019

The UFC returns to Canada for its standard run of 3-4 shows in the market and our first show is....something. In many ways I actually think it looks like your standard non-PPV Canada card; there's no Canadian worthy of headlining so you roll out a few relevant names at the top of the bill, try to protect a few Canadian fighters you like on the undercard and then roll through the roster, see who has the flag next to their name and then give them a guy and see what happens. The main card is fine enough; a great main event, a great featherweight fight, a heavyweight fight, arguably the "best" Canadian they have in Elias Thorodoru and then two intriguing Canadian born prospects trying to make good at home vs two proven UFC fighters. The undercard is a pretty bland mixture of debuting Canadians on short notice vs other Canadians and the occasional prospect vs proven name fight. It's not a great card but ESPN+ seems to have a good idea of how to give us these shows in formats that don't make us mad we watched them from start to finish. I guess what I'm saying is this show isn't good on paper but it'll probably be quick, violent and inoffensive. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday, am I right?

Fights: 12

Debuts: Kyle Prepolec, Cole Smith, Marc-André Barriault, Sergey Spivak

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Leah Letson OUT, Macy Chiasson IN vs Sarah Moras/Brian Kelleher OUT, Cole Smith IN vs Mitch Gagnon/Alexey Olynek OUT, Sergey Spivak IN vs Walt Harris/Siyar Bahadurzada OUT, Kyle Prepolec IN vs Nordine Taleb)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Donald Cerrone, Al Iaquinta, Derek Brunson, Cub Swanson, Macy Chiasson, Mitch Gagnon)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Elias Theodorou, Sarah Moras, Nordine Taleb, Mitch Gagnon, Cub Swanson, Derek Brunson)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 5 (Brad Katona, Walt Harris, Donald Cerrone, Elias Theodoru, Macy Chiasson)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 25-19

Al Iaquinta- 2-1 Donald Cerrone- 3-4 Derek Brunson- 2-3 Elias Theodorou- 4-1 Cub Swanson- 1-3 Shane Burgos- 3-1 Brad Katona- 2-0 Merab Dvalishvili- 1-2 Walt Harris- 4-2 Sergey Spivek- 0-0 Andrew Sanchez- 1-2 Marc Andre-Berriault- 0-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight- 3 (23) Featherweight-  2(20) Heavyweight- 2 (15) Middleweight- 2 (14) Lightweight-  1 (27) Women’s Bantamweight- 1 (3) Welterweight- 1 (27)

Women’s Strawweight- (11) Light Heavyweight- (16) Women’s Flyweight-  (13) Flyweight- (7)

2019’s Records We Keepin’ Track Of:

Debuting Fighters (10-27):  Kyle Prepolec, Cole Smith, Marc-André Barriault, Sergey Spivak

Short Notice Fighters (11-13): Sergey Spivak, Macy Chiasson, Cole Smith, Kyle Prepolec

Second Fight (29-6): Juan Adams, Vince Morales, Matt Sayles, Kyle Nelson

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (10-16): Mitch Gagnon, Aiemann Zahabi

Undefeated Fighters (14-19): Juan Adams, Cole Smith, Macy Chiasson, Sergey Spivak, Brad Katona

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (6-5): Mitch Gagnon

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (14-8): Kyle Nelson

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Two distinctly different main events in back to back weeks with similar-ish undercurrents at play.  Jacare vs Jack Hermansson was a case where one guy was trying to help out the organization, risking it all in the process to be the company guy of sorts. It backfired and now Jacare may retire as one of the greatest fighters to never get a UFC title fight. Donald Cerrone looked to be on the verge of getting a fight ABOVE a title fight; the one on one clash with Conor McGregor that would've/could've created generational wealth for the new dad. It seemed like that was the plan before McGregor decided to get in more trouble and sideswipe Cerrone entirely. As such instead of making sitting out and staying busy while waiting for Conor McGregor, Cerrone is back at it with a fight that he doesn't have to take against Al Iaquinta. Why? Well perhaps he figures the McGregor fight is gone or perhaps he's just the company guy who remains a company guy. Even so you'd assume there were more entertaining names and fights out there for him above Iaquinta. Maybe that's just me overvaluing the risk and undervaluing whatever sort of name/hype Iaquinta has now.

2- Cerrone in the past has struggled with guys like Iaquinta; the sort of guys who can box him up straight down the pike with uppercuts to be mixed it at will. Cerrone has the ability to beat Iaquinta up from distance but if they get into boxing range and if Al is able to keep his punches down the center of Cerrone, I think there's a great chance that he can hurt Donald. I know we're all in love with this new Dad Cerrone mythos we have and how he might be mentally locked in BUT styles exist and history matters. We're talking about years worth of both about how to beat a guy like Cerrone. Iaquinta has more than enough of those to be a realistic threat.

3- Why is Elias Theodorou vs Derek Brunson a co-main event? Over Shane Burgos vs Cub Swanson especially?

4- Cub Swanson is riding a pretty gnarly losing streak right now but let's be fair here; we're talking losses to Frankie Edgar, Brian Ortega and Renato Moicano. It's fair to say that Shane Burgos does not exist in that same vein of those guys as of right now. The last time Cub was tasked with taking on a tremendous yet unproven prospect (Not counting Moicano because I think we all knew he was the goods by that fight); he dispatched Doo Ho Choi in one of the wildest fights in UFC history. These are the sort of fights Swanson more often than not gets up for, the kind of "tests" he finds a way to rise up to the occasion for. At the same time, you get the feeling Cub is almost aware of his own fighting mortality now. He's almost become more and more of a guy who seems to do his fighting outside of the cage with/against the UFC if that makes any sense. He's also the sort of guy who seems to ride between that perilous line of "too durable for his own good" and "simply not durable enough anymore" on a fight to fight basis. Burgos is in a weird space having gotten finished by Calvin Kattar to start 2018 before ending 2018 by finishing Kurt Holobaugh after getting dropped early on in the first round. This feels like a pick 'em primarily because I have no idea which version of each guy I'm getting.

5- At the risk of being a flim flam man, I have to admit I'm turning the corner on Brad Katona. He's fighting in MMA's deepest weight class at a seemingly imploding SBG but he's starting to look more and more like a solid bantamweight. His hands are coming together, he can grapple really well (although I think the more he tries to do this as he goes up the ranks, the less likely it is that'll be the case) and he's one of these guys who fights with great composure. I struggle to grasp whether or not he has one defining trait I'd feel comfortable betting on and I don't know how he'll take to pressure fighters BUT we're going to get a GREAT shot of that come Saturday! Merab Dvalishvili does nothing but come forward, throw with power and force clinches. He'll be outathlete'd by some guys and his love of rock 'em sock 'em robots will lead to some bad decisions and some close fights. This is a good fair test for Katona.

6- I wonder if Cerrone breaks out more BJJ with Iaquinta who can get reckless and has a few sub losses on his resume basically due to how excited he can get in those wild scramble exchanges.

7- Walt Harris went from Oleksiy Olenik in Russia to Olenik in Ottawa to fighting an undefeated HW making his debut on short notice in Ottawa named Sergey Spivak. Rough go of it.

8- The undercard is pretty much carried by a trio of prospect vs proven veteran type fights. Macy Chiasson fighting at 135 lbs still has me VERY nervous but good lord she ran through Gina Mazany in her debut at the weight class. I'm pretty curious to see how she handles a) the short notice call and b) Moras' weird Maia' esque ability to throw fists early on to get people snookered into her grappling exchanges. This might be a bit much too soon. Aiemann Zahabi had a GREAT fight with Ricardo Ramos and then disappeared off the face of the Earth after a spinning back fist loss in the third round. He's back and he draws a solid lower level 135 lb-er in Vince Morales who has losses to Domingo Pilarte and Song Yadong.  Lastly you have big and athletic but raw Juan Adams on the prelims drawing Arjan Bhullar in a fight that almost feels like a fight designed to expose/really test Juan Adams. Bhullar can wrestle and smother dudes, creating the kinda boring snoozy fights you regret seeing live and forget immediately after.

9- Marc-Andre Barriault is a really interesting middleweight prospect who has been cutting his teeth at TKO in Montreal. He's been basically beating up on local dudes although he handled former UFC signee Adam Hunter. He gets Andrew Sanchez who is basically a big slow grinder type who has some success when he does decide to let his hands go.

10- Mitch Gagnon has fought seven times in the UFC dating back to 2012. Thiago Santos fought EIGHT times just in 2017 and 2018 alone.

11- It's a shame it won't count on the second fight stats but Matt Sayles' return bout against Kyle Nelson is a really intriguing one. Sayles had a rough go of it vs Sheymon Moraes (harmed in part by some wild eye pokes) but he's a really solid meat and potatoes style fighter who should be able to carve out a nice niche at 145 lbs.

12- Did I mention Elias Theodorou vs Derek Brunson is the co-main?

[douxreviews]

Charmed - Season Five Review

"My sister, the demon magnet."

A clear departure from the dark, mature tone of the previous two years, Season Five is where Charmed starts to go downhill. Following some network meddling to avoid the apparent doom and gloom of the previous season, there's a massive shift towards a lighter, and subsequently more banal form of writing. I do feel like I have to defend the first half the season to many, which features a few of Charmed's better hours, but the second half...not so much. Spoilers and, unfortunately, leprechaun discussion ahead.

You can kind of get why there would be an attempt to back track to the light-hearted tone of the early episodes of the series. Season Four was by all rights a bitter pill to swallow. With Prue's untimely death, and the Halliwells’ hard battle to rid themselves of The Source for good, things got pretty dark. Why not change tack and have a bit more fun? Sadly, for Brad Kern et. al, more fun means squeezing Alyssa Milano into the skimpiest costumes possible, and breaking the record for the highest number of irritating magical creatures in a single episode of television. Ugh.

Initially, the dress-up games aren't all that terrible. Sure, the Mermaid fiasco in the two-part premiere was questionable, but the decision to tie it back to Phoebe's pain and desire to escape the toxicity of her relationship with Cole was oddly affecting. Even the fairy tale absurdity of 'Happily Ever After' feels rooted in similar personal struggles. By episode 5, though, we get our first taste of the tackless dreck that will become signature in the series' later seasons. The results are a mixed bag, to say the least. 'Witches in Tights' is a great title for an hour that serves very little purpose other than to get the girls in a "theme of the week" get-up to liven up the WB promos. This tastelessness carries through to the end of the season with Rose McGowan's pain coming through in spades during 'Nymphs Just Wanna Have Fun', where she spends two thirds of the episode prancing around in rags like some brainless dodo. The costume party even runs into the season finale, where a potentially great idea is squandered by a need to ham up every single angle of the girls' transformation into Greek Goddesses.

The first half of the season does shine in a lot of ways. Julian McMahon's presence is still welcome, though Cole's return feels little redundant in light of the rather conclusive ending his vanquish gave us in Season Four's 'Long Live the Queen'. Regardless, we get some great character beats throughout the first 12 episodes before Cole's humanity is eventually lost and he has to be vanquished for the final time in the 100th episode 'Centennial Charmed'. Despite an unnecessarily extended arc, Cole was still an integral part of the show's growth and maturity and Julian McMahon will be remembered fondly.

There are some clear high-points elsewhere, too. A great guest spot from Melinda Clarke in 'Siren Song' helps to buoy yet another episode dedicated to the never-ending push and pull of Phoebe and Cole's now defunct marriage. 'A Witch in Time' is one of my personal favorites. With a fun time-travel element at its core, and one hell of a twist mid-way through the hour, it’s one of the rare examples of how smart the writing team could still be this late in the game. The 100th episode toys with the idea of an alternate reality without Paige around to save the Power of Three. It's played well for the most part, and effectively ties a nice bow around Julian McMahon's time of the series. 'Sense and Sense Ability' is also a bright spot in the otherwise depressing haze of nymphs and leprechauns in the second half of the season. Its full of fun gags and is home to a clever idea that ties neatly back to the strength of The Power of Three, an element that's oddly rare at this point.

For the most part, though, Season Five is a big disappointment with some really low lows. 'Lucky Charmed' is one the worst hours of the series, drawing on cliched leprechaun tropes, and tired demon drama. 'The Importance of Being phoebe' is a tacky mess, and is one of those episodes where you question how good the girls are at spotting when there's something clearly wrong with each other. What's so sad about episodes like these is that you have to endure them knowing there's material that’s just as heinous coming up later in the series.

In the face of some dreadful episodic content, you would usually be able to turn to the sibling dynamics that were almost always well crafted. Unfortunately, Season Five marks a point in the show where the writers begin to favor a more segregated approach to the girls' individual arcs, with lifeless love interests and silly new jobs taking precedent over genuinely effecting drama. Phoebe's time is spent floating from guy to guy and building her career as the city's biggest advice columnist, a career development that makes Prue's quick hire at 415 Magazine seem like a completely feasible move. It's great to see her mature, though. Paige makes a rather questionable choice to leave her job as a social worker, one that causes her to drift for most of the season with very little purpose. Piper's role is probably the better one this season, with her pregnancy, and the subsequent birth of her first child Wyatt, taking up most of her screen time. Unfortunately, her journey this year ends with one of the biggest mistakes the show ever made; the dissolution of her marriage to Leo.

For reasons that stem from lazy writing more than anything else, Piper and Leo are pulled apart in the finale in order to allow Leo to take up a bigger role "up there" with the Elders, and to make room for the time-travelling Chris, who pops up in the season finale and will continue to plague the series next season. It's a move that's just as frustrating as it is contrived, and almost appropriately messy as we enter Charmed's problematic sixth season. There were some attempts to shoe-horn in some martial discord before the finale, notably in clip-show episode 'Cat House', but those small scenes do little to shake the feeling that the writers are now driven more by major story beats, and are far less concerned with the characters that were so well drawn when we started this journey five seasons earlier.

Potions and Notions

Sam makes his first re-appears here since season two, and it marks the first time he comes face-to-face with his daughter, Paige.

There was a lot of build up to Wyatt's birth. The moment itself is actually rather sweet, but the show doesn't really use his abilities to their fullest extent right away.

Phoebe's premonitions start to become more vivid this season, which basically means they're less blurry.

Spells and Chants

Cole: "What happened to us, Phoebe? How'd we get here? We used to be so in love! Even without your sisters, it's not working... Why?" Phoebe: "I don't know... Maybe it just wasn't meant to be."

Piper: "Even if he can handle the demons, he must sense the tension, which means at the very best we end up with a neurotic infant." Leo: "Look on the bright side. Growing up with your sisters, he was bound to be neurotic anyway."

Best Episode: A Witch in Time.

Honorable Mentions: Siren Song, The Eyes Have It, Sympathy for the Demon, Centennial Charmed, Sense and Sense Ability.

Worst Episode: Lucky Charmed.

There are some admittedly strong elements this season, but it's mostly a disappointing year that feels like a disservice to the well written drama that came before it.

5 out of 10 leprechauns.

Panda

[backstorywithdanalewis]

Marathon War/ Afghanistan podcast audio link:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8376339

Sec. State Blinken: (00:00) The fact is this, uh, we went to Afghanistan 20 years ago and we went because we were attacked on nine 11. And we went to take on those who had attacked us on nine 11. Uh, and to make sure that Afghanistan would not again, become a Haven for terrorism directed at the United States or any of our allies and partners. And, uh, we achieved the objectives that we set out to achieve. Uh, Al Qaeda has been significantly degraded its capacity to conduct an attack against the United States. Now from Afghanistan is not there. Uh, and of course, Osama bin Laden was brought to justice 10 years ago. So the president felt that as we're looking at the world, now we have to look at it through the prism of 2021, not 2001. Dana Lewis - Host : (00:44) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. That was us secretary of state Blinken, justifying a decision to pull out the last us troops from Afghanistan. And he's putting a good face on what may be a very bad decision. There are not many people I can see as a TV correspondent. I flew with them in a black Hawk helicopter across the mountains of Afghanistan to forward operating bases where American soldiers fought to capture or kill and  major general Jeffrey Schloesser was the commanding general in charge of the 101st  airborne in Eastern Afghanistan. And during our journey through a war zone, I think he was thoughtful, sincere, and completely Frank about combating a surge in  violence and the U S strategy. that was in 2008 and now in 2021, the year when Administration ends the American troop presence in Afghanistan general Schloesser has written a book in which he predicts abandoning Afghanistan. Now, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (01:45) it won't end well for Afghans or for Americans, but he says the war, despite everything in the end was worth it. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (01:59) Jeff Schloesser is a retired major general who commanded the a hundred and first airborne, 15 months of that command was in Afghanistan and he is the author of a new book called marathon war. And he joins me now. Hi Jeff. (02:13) Hi Dana. How are you today? I'm very well. And thanks for talking to us about this. It's a great book. The curtain is closing on that war and you wrote it was worth it. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (02:23) really great question. And I know it's one that I think we're going to continue to, you know, grapple with over the next decade. Um, you know, we went in there to do a very specific thing in the first, first year, which was really to bring justice on those that attacked our country on nine 11. And what we found out is that as we pushed out, Al-Qaida neither captured or killed them or gave them a chance to reconcile that what we found there was a land that was a potential, not only was it a failed state, but it was a safe Haven. And so we had to stay longer. And the question of it is, is now as we withdraw, did we stay enough? Dana Lewis - Host : (03:00) You ended with a warning. If we let that country go back to those who would destroy us in our way of life, it will not be long, certainly not a generation before they come looking for us again. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (03:14) Yes. In marathon more I say, basically that, you know, we can turn them our back. We can forget Afghanistan, but Afghanistan will not forget us. And I truly still believe that, um, the area there is so important to our national interests. Uh, but it's also, as I said, it's, uh, it's now going to I in my mind be a failed state. And if that actually happens, they'll come to see us again. Dana Lewis - Host : (03:38) You think it's going to crumble that the Afghan army will not hold that the Afghan government will not stick like glue. Not that it has anyway, but you, you feel pretty dire about how this is going to unfold. Once us forces and NATO forces and other contributing countries are out of there. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (04:02) I think that, you know, the United States and NATO are allies there, as well as all the other countries that have participated over the last 20 years have been the backbone for Afghanistan. It is still a country that does not, it's not used to having a centralized government. It's a tribal country. Uh, the economy is still after literally trillions of years. It is not unified. And, uh, and there's a level of corruption there that is just incredibly difficult for most Westerners to understand the answer is, yes, I do believe that that, uh, there'll be a civil war. It may not be tomorrow or the next year or two years from now, before the country begins, uh, in a sense to crumble, as you said, but I believe within five years time, we will find ourselves with a completely failed state and a safe Haven. Again, for those that want to attack us Dana Lewis - Host : (04:55) Truly tragic. I mean, I'm kind of jumping ahead in the book a little bit, but I know you refer to some of these little school girls who were sprayed with acid, uh, when you were in command they're in and they, that took place in Kandahar. I think some of them blinded, some of them couldn't go back to school. And that was the intention of the attackers. Uh, I just said it kind of breaks my heart, that, I mean, along with the fight, American soldiers really struggled in those patrols that we were on to go into towns and villages and open schools and open roads and try to get healthcare clinics rolling. And part of that, the good news where kids flying kites, excuse my romanticism, but kids flying kites, which were abandoned of the Taliban kids being allowed to go to school, girls being educated, starting to take a part in that society and all of that now, potentially rules-based Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (05:53) I, uh, I am deeply concerned about the human rights that I think we were going to see over the next several years. And you're absolutely right. Dana, you know, when, when we first went to that country, very few children actually went to school. It's less than a million as we left it. It's more, uh, I think it's four times that now with, uh, more than half of them being women, uh, or females that potentially is all going to be lost. And, uh, you know, I had the last photo of that book. Uh, I specifically chose to be the last photo and it's a young soldier, uh, from C JTF one Oh one, one of our, uh, Al uh, one of our, um, assigned troops. But anyway, he is actually giving some food to some young children and they're laughing and it was some stage. This was totally caught on camera, uh, in the middle of a combat zone. And it's all about the children. And, uh, I am deeply worried about the children of Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (06:48) You, you talk about, you know, the goals of the strategic plan for the war on terrorism and you know, something about that, because you wrote in the book that you were, you were a part of the group to publish the, the nation's first operational strategic plan for the war on terrorism, and that you actually briefed president Bush on the plan. W what was the goal? What was the headline? Well, first Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (07:14) Was obviously to, you know, secure Afghanistan, so it will never attack us again. The rest of the story though, was, is to actually do that in those days. What we thought would be necessary is that you had to secure not only against the enemy, but you or the insurgents or the terrorist, but you had to secure the people, make them feel like they could actually get up in the morning work, uh, for a decent wage and send their kids to school. And then also to link them to their, um, uh, their government. So really three broad goals, security, basically economic development that, uh, uh, led to jobs, uh, and then education and medical, uh, improvements. And then finally Lincoln, all that back to a government that the Afghans could trust. Dana Lewis - Host : (07:58) That didn't go well, that last part definitely. But look, you draw some interesting parallels with Vietnam as well. And your father, uh, he served in Vietnam, he served three tours in Vietnam, and he never, you said in the book, never forgave politicians for walking away. Do you forgive politicians walking away today? You mentioned that the generals will be ultimately blamed, so you better have big, big shoulders. And you also talked about the fact that, you know, they, they made the mistake of trying to hold everything rather than what was achievable in Vietnam. Did we just do the same in Afghanistan? Sorry. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (08:34) That's a great question, Dana. And I think it's going to be explored over the next couple of years, but I, I, I think that if you look into the horizon, that's what it looks like. You know, I mean, in a sense, the parallels between, uh, Afghanistan and Vietnam are, are really, uh, um, close. I mean, in some cases, you know, there was a government that was fairly corrupt, um, unclear how much, you know, it had been elected how much it was supported by the people. Uh, there was a very strong insurgent group that was, you know, Pat or pushing them. And then you had, you know, the United States and our, our allies. We forget that we fought with many allies in Vietnam and when we left and then finally two to three years later, two years later, when we dropped all basically budget support of financial support, it was no longer possible for that South Vietnamese government to basically survive. And essentially what I hope does not happen, but it could. And unfortunately, I'm, I'm almost predicting that it might over, you know, five years, time is the same thing in Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (09:34) You were told in deployment, you had to succeed in two theaters of operations. I've got to Stan and Pakistan. The letter was very gray. Was it not? I mean, there were, were there clear, you know, orders to go forward into Pakistan, or you kind of had to flirt along the border with Pakistan sometimes carry out a drone strike in hot pursuit. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (09:56) Absolutely. A gray area. You know, the guidance that we received was, was fairly clear from my boss at the time, uh, general McKiernan and yet most of the U S structure did not exist. Uh, you know, I, I make a point in marathon war that I went to Pakistan with the, you know, my staff several times. And, uh, over a period of time, we started with a terrible relationship. You know, they were basically supporting a insurgent attacks across our border, and we had a very bad relationship military to military with them. I think over 15 months, as I write about marathon war, I felt at the end of it, that we had made huge progress. Obviously, you know, it was not enough. Dana Lewis - Host : (10:35) And you blame the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency is playing a double game. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (10:40) I absolutely do not. In fact, I mean, I often think that many of the senior military officers that I dealt with from Pakistan actually didn't know the level that this ISI directorate was playing within their own country, as well as within Afghanistan. So I can't point my finger to them, but it's very clearly it had support at the very highest levels of pocket. Dana Lewis - Host : (10:58) Yeah. And you make an interesting point in there because we often kind of say, Pakistan does this, or Pakistan didn't do this, or Pakistan is playing a double game, but in fact, you made the case that it was pretty tough on the military, probably on the front lines of the border in Pakistan, because they weren't quite sure, you know, who had their back-end and who had a knife in their back. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (11:19) Absolutely. I mean, you know, I think it's easy for us in the West and America to forget that this was actually a frontier, you know, Winston Churchill. I mentioned in a marathon war that one of my favorite books was the mouse can field force by Winston Churchill, you know, Lieutenant Linstedt, Winston Churchill who served in that area back in those days, it was just this as much a frontier, uh, in the Northwestern portions of Pakistan then as it is today, basically. And so they did not have all control as far as the U S or the Pakistani military, for sure. It was a, uh, there was several double games being played in that area. I dare say it so same right now. Dana Lewis - Host : (11:56) I was, you know, in Afghanistan a dozen different times, and I always used to hear it. And it became cliche to some extent that, you know, the spring comes the bad guys come over the mountains from Pakistan, the Taliban, they carry out their attacks. Winter comes the number of attacks go down again, and they retreat back into the frontier lands of Pakistan. But I remember flying in a helicopter with you over Afghanistan. And you said, you know, what's not quite clear to me that it quite operates that way. It's more complex than that. They smuggle weapons through the winter. They stock weapons ready for the spring. Some of them melt back into the local populations. And that is probably a much more realistic take on what was happening. And then you talk a lot, a lot about what happened in and forgive me for the pronunciation. Whatnot. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (12:42) Yes. Yeah. So for an example, one day on a first of all, I, you know, I treasure those times flying there with you. I mean, that was actually, it was, if you recall, it's a stunningly beautiful day and, uh, what a great way to see it by helicopter, you know, Afghanistan is in a contrast beautiful. And yet, uh, in many ways, it's, it can be horribly difficult to be able to survive in that country. Well, I tell you, you know, I mean, when you go, let's go to whatnot for an example, you know, uh, I mean, there are several lessons learned still one of the most, uh, studied stories, uh, in the U S military, for sure. You know, the lessons that most of us learned there is, is that, uh, that whether it was the winter, whether it was the late spring and the snows and stuff like that, but the enemy gets a vote and the, and they can fight well as well. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (13:26) And then they can figure out ways to get around. Most of the things that we regard as military advantages in the West or in the U S army. And, uh, they did so in that fight, I mean, and, uh, you know, I, I, every day I'll wake up and think about those soldiers that were killed and those that were horribly wounded, uh, they fought with a great honor, uh, but the enemy fought fairly well too. And it was just a, uh, it's just an example of, uh, how good that that unit was that they actually the U S uh, and, uh, uh, in the, the Afghans and the, um, few Marines that were over there, that they actually, uh, were able to fight that back in and, and, uh, overall hold that day, Dana Lewis - Host : (14:06) What makes that battle different? And this is July, 2008, nine us soldiers die in an attack by roughly a hundred Taliban. There are a couple of dozen more, I think, about 20 more us soldiers wounded. And you write it is, it is, there are few battles as bloody and heroic. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (14:24) Yeah. So, well, I mean, for Afghanistan, you know, I think that the 20 years of drudgery going out and patrolling, coming on back, getting on a rocket attack, maybe somebody else being hurt, uh, via that way, that can just lead to this idea that, uh, there was no great hair wasn't him in Afghanistan. I, in fact, there were several battles. This was the one most notable, uh, where, you know, these soldiers fought and fought and fought against almost all odds and certainly against, uh, you know, they were definitely outnumbered. And, uh, that's what makes that one, I think a little bit special. I mean, there's no doubt about it that, uh, you know, the amount of wards metals and things that came out of that for heroism is absolutely incredible for the 20 years of Afghanistan that we've seen. Dana Lewis - Host : (15:07) This was well-planned. And that the enemy was probably well entrenched in that village and that the village worked with them and assisted them. Um, th this wasn't just the case of insurgents coming across the mouth. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (15:21) That's correct. Yeah. I mean, and that's where we got it wrong. I mean, there's no doubt that we made the wrong decisions about what we thought work was possible in that village. We actually thought we were going to insert fallen counter-insurgency, um, doctrine at the time, get right inside the villagers and, uh, and help them, uh, do those three things. I mean, help secure them, help link them to the government and, and then help, uh, you know, economically, gosh, did we get wrong? Um, you know, and that caused me to Dana to take a hard look at everything else we were doing for the remainder of the 12 months that we stayed there. And Afghanistan looked very most of what they jaded view, uh, into every village and every site that we had to just be, see, didn't make any sense for us to be there Dana Lewis - Host : (16:06) Vietnam. And maybe this was the bellwether attack where kind of that coin approach, where you go in, you spend some money, you help the locals, you try to win hearts and minds, and eventually they'll turn and push the Taliban out. I mean, increasingly that wasn't the first village that became like that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (16:29) No, I mean, in fact, I mean, it's, as you said, it, maybe I in the bellwether, maybe on one of the first, but it happened several times thereafter over the, you know, the following really the following 10 years up until now. And, uh, I think, you know, sometimes we can be accused and in fact, I talk about it in the marathon more about, did we fight this war one year at a time? You know, in other words, a unit would come in and spend 12 to 15 months there and then shift out and then you'd have to relearn everything and including the relationships with the locals, which, you know, sometimes could be very unclear. Um, I still wonder about that. I, you know, I, when I left there and when I wrote the book, I did not think that was the case. I think we tried very hard to study and learn from our predecessors, but you know, the more I think about it and the more I, you know, look at some of the errors that we made in the war of this nature, that could still be one of the things that are out there. Dana Lewis - Host : (17:23) You spoke to the enemy, running rat lines. Can you tell me what were rat lines through that area and why didn't you stay because as a commander, uh, and I know you've been asked this before, but I'll ask you again. I mean, in the end you closed down that base and you withdrew didn't that send the wrong message. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (17:37) Yeah, well, yes, absolutely. And, you know, I think I mentioned in marathon war, it was a strategic decision at the time. I thought it was the right thing to do. But what I did do is I, obviously I gave a, a media plan of strategic media, went into the Taliban and, or to the, Dana Lewis - Host : (17:54) And you knew, you knew that they were going to fire that you knew that they were going to Trump at that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (17:59) I absolutely did. And, uh, and I think that, you know, over time I made that was not the decision I should have made. I mean, uh, you know, I mean, I, I think over time that it makes sense to stay in that village. No, that it makes sense to try to help those villagers who had basically, uh, you know, they left, gave that village on over to the insurgents and only later did they re uh, come back, didn't make any sense to me to be able to try to work on the, you know, our counter-terrorism strategy or a counter-insurgency, because I didn't think it would win. But when you make a choice of that nature, when you make a strategic choice, you really have got away, you know, what are the options? And then think, you know, a year in the future, think about two years in the future. And I, and I think, you know, it's funny when I was at Harvard, uh, you know, I took a course called thinking in time, great book out there, by the way, I probably didn't learn the lesson of thinking in time. I should've thought two to three years later and thought about how that would impact our strategic stance inside of Afghanistan. Dana Lewis - Host : (18:59) You think it was a mistake to leave? Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (19:01) It was a mistake. Yeah. I made a mistake there and, you know, it's probably one, you know, just in life, Dana, you learn things and, uh, you know, for three or four years, you think you made the right choice. A decade later, when you look at it, sometimes you make some choices that are almost strategic in your life, and this one was strategic. And you know, that, you know, stands for the United States and our allies and ganas Stan. Dana Lewis - Host : (19:23) Well, Jeff, you know what I mean? You're right. It'll be debated for years. And there's probably 50% class of commanders that would say, get the hell out, because it wasn't defendable. And given limited resources, you should have left and you made the right decision. And maybe, maybe there would have been another nine soldiers killed in another attack there. And then there are those that will take that longer view and say, well, we don't want to be seen to be giving up ground, but, you know, I like your book because you speak. And I like you more after reading it because you speak about heroism, which we always hear about soldiers holding ground and charging the Hill. And, and, and, and I don't mean to in any way, uh, underestimate those great acts of Valor, but you also speak of character and how important character is as a leader. Dana Lewis - Host : (20:09) And I think for any leader, this is a great book to read. Just, you know, whether you're a soldier or you're just any kind of a leader, even in corporate business about character. Um, but in the end, I didn't realize until I got to the end of your book, and it made me a bit sad today that you decided to leave the army, uh, over that attack at the end, because others were held responsible and you felt in the end, you were at the top of the chain of command and you should bear ultimate responsibility for what happened there. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (20:39) Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, you know, um, you know, one I met when I left and even went today, I wake up in the morning and I missed being a soldier and I missed, you know, leading soldiers. And I think I say in marathon more there that, uh, it was, you know, the remorse, most rewarding part of my entire professional career. I definitely felt though that as when I came back from Afghanistan and found out that, uh, you know, three subordinate commanders who were actually one of them was awarded a silver star for heroism that day, the company commander, but they were being held for dereliction of duty. And I felt that that was absolutely wrong. And, uh, I am a big believer in taking total responsibility, especially as a commander in combat, uh, for everything that happens below me, whether it's good, bad, or whatever, uh, you know, the good, I try to help, uh, make people feel good about themselves, push that to them, but the bad has to come to the commander. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (21:36) And I, I made that point so well different times to, uh, my, the senior leaders in the United States army, uh, as well as in, uh, at, uh, central command, uh, at the end of the day, I felt like as that pursued on, I had to actually make a statement. And the only way to really do that is, was to, was to choose to retire. And, uh, I still do not regret that decision at all. I do believe at the end of the day, that the most important part of being a leader is actually character. And, uh, and I felt I had to show some, uh, by doing that Dana Lewis - Host : (22:08) Well, you showed a lot. And, uh, I think it's important to know that you were cleared by those investigations and you would have probably gone on to be promoted and maybe be commanding in Europe, us forces. So, um, you didn't, you didn't talk character, you, you, you backed it up and showed it with, with ultimate decisions, but I wanted to ask you about general McKiernan who lost support of Washington and was replaced at one point. Do you think that it was fair that General's, again, we come back to this, the generals were blamed for the fight when there were, you know, they were constantly saying they were under-resourced and underfunded. Um, and then I'll, I'll ask you about that because a lot of people will debate that. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (22:50) Yeah. Well, so what I will say is that in my belief, and is, is that, you know, generals will be held responsible when almost every, uh, war or every kind of, um, incident like war even less for conflict and for, right. So rightly so this is our profession. And, uh, these are things that, uh, that we spend years and years, uh, learning about. We must though, you, you must always understand. I, I think that, you know, at, at very high levels, uh, it is politicians, uh, and our Congress that decides whether you're going to actually support a, a, uh, endeavor of this nature, whether it's war or whether it's a minor conflict and stuff like that. And so we go hand in hand and, uh, um, should generals be blind? Absolutely. Do I take responsibility for my portion? Absolutely. I sure do. Um, but just, as we see now, this is a political decision for us withdraw our troops. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (23:46) Um, and at the time when we serve, there was a political decision to under fund as far as resources, Afghanistan, so that the Iraq and the Iraqi surge could be supported. You know, it was my responsibility to call that out. And eventually I had to do it publicly. If you recall. I mean, I, I told you what I was saying as we would fly, you know, that, that I was going public as far as a need for more resources. And, uh, um, that takes also a little bit of character. It takes a little bit of moral court courage, which I talk about America marathon warts. It was not always popular to ask for more, uh, when your area is not regarded as the number one priority, Dana Lewis - Host : (24:27) The briefing, you just were talking to reporters. I mean, you were briefing a young Senator named Barack Obama, and then you were also briefing the president at the time, president Bush. And you write about that in the book, but, you know, in the end when you read, I, I went back and read it because sometimes Iraq and Afghanistan kind of melds together on some of these numbers, but 800 billion in us spent in Afghanistan at one point more than a hundred thousand troops deployed, is that really under-resourced Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (24:56) At the time when we were there, there weren't that many troops. And, uh, I will say that, and nor were the financial resources there over time, we did put that in, and then I think it's, it's it's right for American people and people that are interested in national security to say, well, at what point was that enough enough? Um, and, uh, I think somewhere along the line, there, there must have been enough troops. I think the biggest issue for that is if you look back in time is, is that we, we chose to make a different choice within about two years time. And we started to withdraw troops to a fairly significant level. We still continue to support, but financially for a very long time Afghanistan. And there's literally been now trillions put into Afghanistan. I think it's a really great question to sit there and look and say, when is enough enough in a conflict like this, where it's not our number one, uh, nation's priority, especially now. Uh, and yet it's still as important. It's a national security interest, you know, and, and what do you need, uh, to, Dana Lewis - Host : (25:56) And do you need to be at war and do you need to withdraw? And are those the two, the only choices that you have in your spectrum because general Patraeus, for instance, will tell you that, uh, you know, any place you leave a gap or a vacuum right now in the war of terror, it will be field filled by extremism, uh, and you will dangerously harvest the result of that down the road. So we keep troops in North Africa, we keep special forces all over the world. Why wouldn't we keep a minimal force in Afghanistan? There's only 2,500 soldiers there right now. So it's not like this big force contingent, nothing like what you commanded at the time, why wouldn't we keep 2,500 soldiers on the ground training, Afghan forces forward air controllers, you know, helping them at some point, carry out airstrikes if they have to defend the government. Well, I think that, that, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (26:44) You know, a lot of people are asking that question right now, especially those that, uh, you know, have worked or been in Afghanistan and report in Afghanistan. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, look, uh, you know, for national security interest, we still have troops in Germany and Japan and Korea, uh, and in places that love much lesser truths, but in places that are still important to us, JTF Bravos in Honduras, how many Americans know that we have a couple thousand troops down there and have had for decades, we do this around the world when our national interests are actually considered important in that area of the world. I, you know, I, I would also say Danny, you know, people ought to take a hard look at Afghanistan and try to find it on a map. You know, uh, if, if China's a priority to us, what country do we have troops in right now that actually butts up to China on a land bank? It's Afghanistan, you know, I mean, uh, what country is located in between Iran, which is a national security priority for us. And then of course, you know, our pending or, uh, coming allies in India and a nuclear powered States like Afghanistan or Pakistan and India, it's Afghanistan, you know, I mean, uh, it is, it is a strategically important place and, uh, much less the counter-terrorism issues Dana Lewis - Host : (28:00) In the Iraq draw a parallel with Iraq because we left Iraq and then suddenly ISIS moved in, took over the North, took over Mosul where you were based earlier in your career in Iraq, established the caliphate. Um, and in the end, us forces are back and NATO forces had to go back in there and the, the, the British, the French bombing missions. And, uh, I mean, this may be very short term, this bringing American troops home from Afghanistan, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (28:29) We'll see, you know, I mean, racks one example of what happens, you know, the attack on the second largest city. Mozel one that we know and it's, that is, you know, thousands and thousands of years old, um, or is the example. And we chose to come back in because of the nature of that, or could it be like Vietnam, where we just, you know, we, we basically shake our hands and said, uh, at the end of Vietnam, we said, okay, we're done. And, uh, you know, and two years later it was absolutely, uh, you know, it was invaded by a North Vietnamese, uh, conventional divisions. I don't know which parallel to fall. I don't know which example is going to happen. I do know though it's going to be important for America, Dana Lewis - Host : (29:07) Jeff, last word to you in Afghanistan. And you're in your book. I mean, I've, I've tried to lead you through it a little bit and, uh, it's, it's a good read. And, and I think you begin to understand, uh, as a reader, that conflict and how tricky it was. And I was moved by a lot of the moments in there such as ramp ceremonies, where your book is peppered with these, these moments where American soldiers, uh, are loaded, who have been killed in battle, or are honored at a ramp ceremony on an aircraft before flowing home with the American and with soldiers who served along with them, by the way, we were not allowed to cover those ramps ceremonies under the Bush administration, because they didn't want us to show American losses. And in the end, I think we showed a Canadian ramp ceremony because we, we had to talk about losses, but, um, you know, there was always this PR effort that was going on, uh, you know, are we winning? Are we losing and over-simplistic views on, on how the Afghan war was, was being fought in what was victory? And I think in the end, you know, it was going to be a 20 year counterinsurgency fight. And a lot of people knew that certainly in the military, I don't know if the politicians ever did, but last word to you. Sorry. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (30:22) You know, it's funny about the ramp ceremony is, is that those were some of the most memorable times in my life. And yet the most challenging to get through. I mean, we lost 180 soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen. And while we were there, including also some civilians from our intelligence agencies and, uh, almost each and every day or night, we would have a ramp ceremony, uh, for those, uh, to honor them. And people would come out from all over with, most of them were at bogger Merrifield. They would come out and, uh, whether it was two o'clock in the morning, they'd lined the streets as a Humvee with a cough and would go by to take it to the ceremony itself. And, um, you know, war is not a bloodless effort, or if it's important enough for people to put their true national treasure on it, you're going to have some losses, but you have to honor the people that served there just like right now, as we, um, as we get ready to leave Afghanistan, let's not, uh, you know, leave all those people that actually gave their, uh, their time, their selfless service. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:22) In some cases, they gave the last full measure of their life. Let's not forget them. Dana Lewis - Host : (31:27) And there was not another attack on America while U S forces were on the ground. There, Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:32) There's not, there's about them. Just Dana Lewis - Host : (31:34) Flow, serve, retired major general commended, the a hundred and first airborne read the book, marathon war, and Jeff, thank you so much for your time. Ret. Major Gen. Jeff Schloesser: (31:42) And then thanks for the time this morning. Dana Lewis - Host : (31:44) That's our backstory on Afghanistan. What a complex puzzle American commanders faced fighting and surgeons and corruption in the Afghan government and challenges of a drug trade linked to terrorist networks Dana Lewis - Host : (31:57) That hit and then ran Dana Lewis - Host : (31:58) And struck again, killing civilians and soldiers with no regard for lives lost. The Taliban carried out those attacks and Dana Lewis - Host : (32:06) Dana Lewis - Host : (32:06) alqaeda and ISIS t Dana Lewis - Host : (32:09) Were Lords all bide for power, but we're reluctant to disarm and work together in United Afghan government, stirring, Iran and Pakistan and others. And it's no wonder the war lasted 20 years. And as us and allied Western countries pull out the wheel, won't stop. The Taliban will try to dominate and rule the country as the Mujahideen did after the Russians left Afghanistan in 1989, chaos followed the Russian pull-up and I wish I was wrong, but it's sure to follow this American one, too. Thanks for listening to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis and I'll talk to you again soon. 

[xtremedespair3d]

HajiKo Anime: Winter-Spring 2020 + Summer First Impressions

I wasn’t willing to return to Tumblr to keep making these posts about my anime reviews which they’re the only thing I make because I was burned out on making them and I wanted to commit on writing my novel but I ended up abandoning it now because I was frustrated with everything about it, from harsh criticism I didn’t ask for to not figuring out the story well enough.

Then I tried to keep my reviews going by making threads on Twitter, but later I wasn’t satisfied with how they turned out nor like writing them because I was feeling limited, and I was even debating on whether to keep the Twitter thread format going, returning to Tumblr or just simply tweet my tiers of every anime I watch, so what better way to keep this review series going? It’s to return to Tumblr because I really like reviewing anime and Tumblr has been the most comfortable space to make my reviews and giving it a new name, HajiKo Anime, as in my name I go on Twitter as Hajime Komaeda.

So, kept you waiting, huh?

I had a lot of stuff to do in my life to the point that it drives me totally insane to the point of questioning my will to live, and then there’s also the pandemic which everything gets delayed and cancelled, even upcoming anime!

The biggest problem with making my reviews is sometimes I have to force myself on commenting on other shows I don't have much thought on, only like few I have tons of feelings I want to express, so I really hope things will be any better once I’m back on Tumblr to make these reviews I liked doing.

By continuing to make these reviews by including my new tiers, let me remind how do I interpret the ranking tiers:

S: 10-9

A: 8

B: 7

C: 6-4

D: 3-1

E: 0

Let’s keep in mind that I wouldn’t give full reviews on literally everything I watch because sometimes I don’t have much thought on so I’ll just skip them, I make lengthy reviews on some shows because I genuinely have feelings on these shows, that was one of my struggles with my other reviews, some of them were forced but I promise I will only do lengthy reviews to some shows I have lots of thoughts to talk about.

First off with Winter which is looking qutie strong even for the beginning of the decade:

Winter 2020

(Higher resolution)

Ishuzoku Reviewers: Perhaps one of the best ecchi series I've ever watched in years to the point where the ecchi really gets near-hentai level... so much so it caused controversy for Funimation and Japanese television alike, with Funimation removing the license and cancelled the English dub due to its content, and the series being removed on Tokyo MX. Though I might say that I wouldn't go that far to consider this as the best ecchi series of all time because there are a couple of things I really hated about the show, it can be a little too biased on some fetishes, includes fetishes I’m not a fan of, etc. But still, I admire the show for taking risks by going beyond the limits of Japanese television.

ID: INVADED: This is the most surprising show I've ever seen this season, it may also happen to be somewhat underrated. How can a dying studio like NAZ produce something really well-animated for once? All thanks to Ei Aoiki. I'm not really much of an animation expert but I really hope there might be someone who will make an article saying "How Ei Aoki saved Studio NAZ with ID: INVADED."

BanG Dream season 3: This third season of Bandori is THE BEST Bandori season ever, this made me like RAS (RAISE A SUILEN) even more.

Eizouken: This was an interesting series about making anime that may or may not compete with SHIROBAKO, though even if they have the same theme of making anime, they're completely different in terms of setting. The animation, even from what I've seen with Masaaki Yuasa and Science Saru with Devilman Crybaby, surprisingly looks like the series was actually fully hand-drawn instead of Adobe Flash, though Adobe Flash is still present in the opening.

Isekai Quartet 2: This second season of Isekai Quartet was a huge letdown compared to its predecessor, my biggest deal breaker is how they wasted the Shield Hero characters into minor roles, they straight-up overhyped them. The last few episodes seemed like they were slowly redeeming themselves on making the Shield Hero characters have some more screentime. Now that the series got a third season, let’s see how they will handle the Shield Hero characters this time if they’ll truly become main character status to be shown on the OP and ED, or they continue to be minor characters on the classroom where most of the supporting and minor characters from the main isekai properties attend to. Also, at one episode there was this cameo of these two characters from a series called Cautious Hero, if they end up becoming actual main characters or something, I’m not even gonna bother binging the series just like I did with Shield Hero.

Nekopara: I was skeptical about this series, but upon watching the first episode alone, this is a very comfy series, but its existence and inclusion of original characters will always baffle me.

Honorable mentions:

Azur Lane The Animation: As of July 2020, I think I might have accepted the fact that a lot of people (At least the Western side of the AL fanbase) hate the anime and they say it sucks, I’m really spoiled about it and it sucks to feel that way. I’ve always been hype as hell when I was watching the series from the very beginning, it had all kinds of easter eggs and references I couldn’t stop pointing them out since I’m an avid Azur Lane player (JP version only), and the best part is that at one episode, it had a bath scene where in the Blu-Ray version, the whole scene happens to feature official animated nipples! Official Azur Lane nipples in official media! I wish this could happen very often, even official artists would occasionally draw their characters in full R-18, such as Sirius and Ark Royal. (NSFW, CLICK WITH CAUTION)

Sure, sometimes the series had some quality, especially at the end of episode 4, but that doesn’t make the series automatically garbage or anything. The Azur Lane anime is NOT GARBAGE, PERIOD. Got that?

If I had the time, I’d seriously love to rewatch the series (Using the BD rips of course) to prove everyone wrong.

In terms of the future of Azur Lane anime, as much as I’d love to see this get more seasons and even movies to beat Kancolle to the punch, we’re now getting an anime adaptation of the Twitter 4komas, well, at least that’s certainly something cool. With that being said, I bet people are gonna be like “This is way better than the main anime” which I won’t condone it like hell. Let me say it again, the main Azur Lane anime is not garbage.

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia: Long after watching the series when it was on the air, I’ve been thinking that this was probably okay, Babylonia is not my most favorite singularity throughout FGO because the previous ones deserve some respect and I’m biased to the Shinjuku singularity for obvious reasons. I do wish they would adapt pretty much every singularity but they’re tediously long that they need to make hundreds of anime of each, so they just happen to skip all that and decided to make a Babylonia series and the upcoming Camelot movies because they’re the most favorite. I don’t really buy it on why are they the most favorite, but okay.

My Hero Academia season 4 and My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising: Heroes Rising was probably the last movie I’ve seen going to the theater before the pandemic happened.

Castlevania season 3: For some reason I didn’t like this season as much as the first two (Unpopular opinion).

Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle: I was very skeptical throughout the first half of the season, but this second half was making me in high spirits, although I would still prefer the original PSO2 anime over this.

Moving on to Spring:

Spring 2020

(Higher resolution)

Fruits Basket: Fruits Basket continues to be an excellent series, balancing comedy and drama the way I like with the comedy always making me laugh and the drama always making me tense. (I don't wanna see or talk about EP9 ever again.)

Shin Sakura Wars The Animation: Sanzigen continues to deliver quite a lot even after BanG Dream! season 3, not only we get one but TWO shows this season. My main problem with Shin Sakura Wars The Animation is that they really must have abused the hand drawn parts so much, and this was a really frustrating problem that this should be A tier instead, but it was still quite good regardless, I love Sanzigen to death.

Watanuki-san Chi To: This was a neat second season and this makes me strongly believe that the Watanuki-san Chi series are the future of VTuber anime, or dorama as what the series is, and I’m still mad that there are still no subtitles for this, neither official subs nor fan subs.

My few complaints for Watanuki-san Chi To is that Ikuko's role that kinda takes Futaba's place a little too much since Futaba was working at a karaoke bar most of the time and Ikuko and Futaba had interacted on-screen like twice (or three if that ending from episode 3 counts) on episodes 5 and 12 (the final one). I'm hoping that we'll get more of the Watanuki sisters and Ikuko interacting together on-screen some more but I think things will be the same with Futaba continuing to work on the karaoke bar.

Then there’s episode 12 which was the episode where Ikuko leaves the Watanuki house after finding her real parents, the episode was kind of predictable as Ikuko returned and decided to stay with the Watanuki sisters afterwards. This is one of the few, if not, the first time that something definitely made me say and feel something was actually predictable, but not that I would hate on it or anything.

Another complaint I have for this entire season is that it lacked the crowd laughs the first season had, the first season felt like it was true a comedy and having no laughs this season gave an entirely different atmosphere and I wasn't very comfortable with it.

Despite the flaws, I give huge thumbs ups for what they did with the world and the characters, they finally happen to bring the characters from the audio drama played by various other VTubers, and we finally happen to explore outside of the world for a little bit between shots of the streets where Ikuko walked through at the beginning of the series and the karaoke bar, not just sticking to the Watanuki house over and over.

The best part of introducing the newer characters is that they finally showed male characters for once, one of which was Futaba's boyfriend, Kenji, who's sort of a recurring background character frequently mentioned in the first season, he happened to finally have his body revealed, but still no face reveal. And there was also this other male guest character in episode 3, he was interesting to say the least. Finally, something to make the series not sexist.

I wouldn't really consider myself as the most dedicated Western Watanuki-san Chi fan. As much as I'd like to call myself that, I don't really speak Japanese to understand the series some more and I would have to be a badass to actually make fansubs, some events happened in Japan, which I don't live in Japan, and I don't buy the merch, let alone the Blu-Rays and the audio dramas. The worst part about the audio dramas is they're purchasable on Pixiv Booth, which Pixiv doesn't really let me use my debit card (or might if I were to use my Wallet app or something). I for one wouldn't really consider myself as the ONLY person who watches the Watanuki-san Chi, I wouldn't be watching the series if it wasn't for the people who have been uploading torrents of every episode on Nyaa, there's a very niche amount of people who do watch the series.

(I probably shouldn’t talk too much about piracy related things and sites like Nyaa, and I try to make my review posts as formal as possible to stay away from such things, but I’m just an independent reviewer who makes these posts as a hobby, I’m not a big anime news site or anything and I can say whatever the fuck I want, so who cares?)

BanG Dream! Garupa Pico Ohmori and Welcome to the Japari Park season 2: These ones are definitely the absolute surprise and looks like things are definitely gonna get absolutely better. They both premiered between late April to early May, so they're kind of a special case.

Kaguya-sama season 2: I didn't get the first season as much, but this second season is finally making me feel better about the series. (Probably because when I binged the first season, I multitasked and get occasionally distracted, that's why I didn't get it at first)

Argonavis from BanG Dream: This one's quite an interesting series. Not as good as the mainline female-centric series, but as a self-contained universe, it's pretty good on its own. It even handles topics that the base series won't even do, like music industry and money. Although Chuchu is probably the closest thing we experience when she's a music producer character of sorts but she's more entitled to her own band, money is a far more important issue the series doesn't want ot tackle, and Argonavis does it right.

The only thing that almost ruined the series is the unnecessarily dark final episode where the entire episode was basically Banri passing out after doing their debut performance in Destiny Rock Festival and Argonavis were having a hard time about what to do if something were to happen with Banri and they made a song dedicated to him afterwards. Episode 12 should have been the final episode, we didn’t need to see a rollercoaster episode, this should be played out more as an OVA, but I digress. This isn’t the weakest or the worst finale but it’s seriously unnecessary.

Now I just hope the second season makes the other bands teased in the last few episodes become regulars, just like how the first season of the female Bandori where they teased a lot of the other bands, and then from season 2 onwards, the other bands have become regulars. I just really hope they'll make the other bands from Argonavis be full CG because they were all hand drawn for some reason,  and I also need season 4 of main female Bandori series so bad so they can introduce Morfonica which in anime format they're introduced in the Garupa Pico Ohmori series.

Brand New Animal: It partially is because BNA starts with B, but he main reason is that I thought it was alright, and as a Netflix series that I can binge in one run, it's easily forgettable. Not the weakest of TRIGGER, but I feel rather indifferent with this.

Princess Connect ReDive: This was my absolute least favorite of Spring, I couldn't stress enough on how much of a Konosuba wannabe this is, it's such a poor imitation and I wish the actual game wasn't this ridiculously bad. From the over-the-top wacky tone to goofier background character designs and a very retarded MC. I don't know why but I thought this would be a simple way to get into Princess Connect without getting into the game because I see fan arts a lot, and Japan apparently seems to like this, as evidence with the fan arts and as much as I would like to like this more because of it, it just didn’t work for me, the animation is alright, though. At least this is way better than the NOT Shadowverse anime.

I got a comment from someone saying that the Konosuba influence comes from the director of the Puriconne series and this series serves to introduce the game as an original story for non-Puriconne players without touching any major plot points.

And finally let’s talk about my first impressions to all the shows I’m watching this Summer season:

Fire Force season 2: I was hoping this season can be a little bit better animated than the first, but upon the first episode of this season alone the terrible pacing is still there, but then the second episode, things get really interesting. The story is the main thing that will keep me intrigued for the rest of the series.

Dokyuu Hentai HxEros: The first time I heard about this series was when I retweeted and saving a Suketto Sanjou-related picture by artist Rakko where he hid a reply where someone posted a link to the Amazon page of the upcoming volume of the manga of HxEros (which the manga is not by Rakko and this is totally unrelated, what the hell was the guy who made the reply thinking?), that was a little while before I heard that this was getting animated.

At first I was 50/50 on watching it or not, but I saw the news that there’ll be this “H Energy Unleashed” version, which is the “uncensored” version and that sold me, but I continue to be unsure on watching it, that is until the day of the premiere where I was randomly seeing screenshots of the episode on my timeline, particularly scenes where the girl Kirara was completely naked, and I was absolutely sold on it and decided to watch it, and after doing so, I kinda dig it.

However, I dislike Kirara because of how she is. It makes me feel bad for how she used to be when she was a kid during some flashbacks where she was a dirty minded girl to present day where she’s a hardcore tsundere hiding her horniness, the way she is, it really makes me hard to empathize with her. She’s pretty cute and hot too.

Re:Zero season 2: It feels weird having a second season of Re:Zero considering it’s been 4 years since the first season came out, and after watching the first episode, now I just feel unprepared.

Oregairu season 3: While I was watching the episode, I was randomly reminiscing some memories and characters I remember from the first two seasons and who do I like, which I kinda like most characters, but Komachi is my least favorite because she constantly says “gross” to poor Hachiman, geez.

Uzaki-chan: This was a pretty solid series and this is definitely being AOTS. However, recently I found something very hilarious that I’m dying to talk about.

Remember the time when there was a controversy from an SJW where they criticized the Uzaki-chan Japanese Red Cross poster because of her big boobs? Well, that’s a separate story, but things with Uzaki-chan gets more laughable, as I stumbled upon this tweet a few days ago and...

Anime News Network gave the first episode a 1.5 star review?!

Holy jesus... What is that?! What the fuck is that?!

Yikes, Anime News Network are a bunch of clowns!

I’m really glad ANN is getting the hate it deserves, I just don’t like ANN when they do reviews, I never liked them since their discussion post on Netsuzou Trap and then episode 0 of Saekano season 2.

All that aside, this series is going to be quite a fun ride.

This Summer season could have been strong if only Akudama Drive and Danmachi season 3 weren’t delayed, but that’s for the better as Fall 2020 is looking like it’s the strongest season of the year, and you’ll find out why in September.

And that’s it for all my reviews! I really hope you enjoyed my biased reviews and I can’t wait to continue to make these reviews just like I used to. Also, let me address that I don’t make money from making these reviews, I only write these posts for fun.

Anyways, see you in Fall 2020 for my review for this Summer season and what am I gonna watch in Fall!

Check out my Carrd.

[daylflay]

The Fashion Show

The Runway

As I’ve progressed through Twitter’s cold, violent, and virtual theater of war amidst the rhetorical conflict that is 2020, which is not (figuratively) dissimilar to the frozen and bloody tundra of Russia circa 1941-1944, what I’ve realized is that this struggle is one of aesthetics rather than principle. Individuals with considerable online followings aren’t concerned with much beyond the consolidation of their brands, and that means walking a certain walk. In Feminist sexualities, race and the internet: an investigation of suicidegirls.com, Shoshana Magnet “argues that the capitalist market serves to depoliticize queer activist movements and assimilate their members – drawing ‘social movements focused on winning rights’ into ‘market-based tactics and objectives”. The individuals I’m following, some of whom are queer and most of whom are “activists” of some sort, are selling something, and they strut that something while walking the virtual runway.  

The Models

Rick Wilson is the only white person I’m tracking, and his Twitter feed is unsurprisingly devoid of anything related to people of color; he really doesn’t even try to broach issues related to minority communities, which isn’t shocking for a former GOP strategist (he clearly hasn’t shed ALL of their values). The only people-of-color related visibility on his Twitter are the occasional photos/gifs he posts in a comedic context, seemingly as a way to address the whiteness of his online presence. Wilson comes off as the anti-Trump/GOP persona for white people that still aren’t particularly comfortable with people of color. In a selfie Wilson tweeted out on February 17th, he’s featured in a large, idyllic looking backyard enjoying his morning coffee (or so I assume that’s what it is) and flanked by two dogs running around in the background; the text accompanying the photo reads, “morning. I have had two days off the road from the book tour and I’m starting to feel human again”. I believe Wilson’s aforementioned tweet symbolizes his brand perfectly: He’s the embodiment of classic Americana, but with a neo-conservative twist (he’s staunchly anti-Trump, as his most recent book’s title, Running Against The Devil: A Plot To Save America From Trump – And Democrats From Themselves, suggests) that serves to draw (some) conservatives, centrists, and (some) liberals into his following.

Mehdi Hasan, as a liberal journalist, man of Indian descent, and a self-professed Muslim, is very active in addressing and criticizing the oppression of various minority groups on Twitter; most of his recent tweets target some issue pertaining to minorities, such as this one condemning Mike Bloomberg for unethically surveilling/targeting Muslims in New York: [2/27/20] “Finally, finally!, Bloomberg gets asked about his spying on Muslims in New York and his answer is... to double down and defend it as the right thing to do. (He also brazenly lies about what it involved.)” Having said all of that, Mehdi is not very conservative/traditional regarding his religion, at least not in terms of sartorial choices, in fact he dresses very white, but that’s most likely due to the (probably negative) attention such a cultural performance could engender for someone with as large a following as himself. In New Media, Old Racisms: Twitter, Miss America, and Cultural Logics of Race, J. David Cisneros & Thomas K. Nakayama address the prevalent issue of racism online (specifically on Twitter) and connect the issue to Nina Davuluri, who is a woman of Indian descent (like Hasan) and the 2014 winner of the Miss America title; here’s a tweet they point out directed at Davuluri: “How the fuck does a foreigner win miss America? She is a Arab!#idiots...congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you”. This is likely the kind of attention Hasan is trying to avoid by presenting himself and his brand the way he does. In a selfie Hasan uploaded on 2/10/20, he’s wearing a suit in front of a Starbucks with fellow, blue-checkmarked-Twitter-user (not to mention, white man) Andy Lassner; this is about as safe and culturally innocuous as one can play it on Twitter.  

Patti Harrison, as a trans woman of color and the dual-minority category that places her in, puts less focus on ethnic minorities like herself (I could only find a single instance of Asian advocacy on her Twitter from months ago, but the person she was advocating for was also trans), but more of a focus on trans-related issues (maybe because that garners more attention on Twitter?). I’m not entirely sure what counts as Vietnamese sartorial chic, but she doesn’t represent it, instead vying for outfits that looks as if they came out of Carrie Bradshaw’s (of Sex and the City fame) closet, as evidenced by a selfie she tweeted out on 1/24/20. In general, she doesn’t seem to put a huge spotlight on neither trans nor Asian matters on Twitter, and I believe it’s because she represents the 2 aforementioned cultural minorities and as such she would engender double the amount of potential negativity; she’s not dissimilar to Mehdi Hasan in this case with his Indian and Muslim identity. It comes off as rather tragic to me that one would have to choose between which minority identity one performs.  

In Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on “Black Twitter”, Sarah Florini talks about a concept known as “signifyin’”: “Black users often perform their identities through displays of cultural competence and knowledge. The linguistic practice of ‘signifyin’,’ which deploys figurative language, indirectness, doubleness, and wordplay as a means of conveying multiple layers of meaning, serves as a powerful resource for the performance of Black cultural identity on Twitter... Signifyin’ is often...derived from Black Vernacular English and phonetic spellings that convey specific pronunciations. Often, this is a relatively minor modification like ‘wit’ (with), ‘tryna’ (trying to), or ‘you’ instead of ‘your.’”  In other words, signifyin’ abbreviates online language to more accurately portray offline language/pronunciation, which subsequently consolidates Black culture online. The two Black women who I follow don’t engage in signifyin’ very much on Twitter, but for different reasons: Kashana Cauley does well with bringing issues regarding people of color to the forefront of her Twitter, but she is very careful with diction, probably due to her occupation as a writer (which causes me to ponder that particular industry and its whiteness). There are minor instances of Cauley signifyin’, though, such as in this tweet from February 16th: “Kinda wild how the most far-left, extremist, militant position you can take on health care is that people should have it”; the “kinda” was a very minor example of her signifyin’, but it’s something, and besides that she also performs Black culture via her publicly displayed hairstyle (the image in question is her current profile pic), which she wears in its natural fashion. Cauley ultimately is willing to perform Black culture on Twitter much more-so than the other Black woman on Twitter that I’ve been paying attention to.

Candace Owens (the aforementioned other Black woman that I’m following) has no problem invoking Blacks on Twitter, and in fact makes many Black-centric arguments, but framed through a conservative (and thus white, due to the demographics of the conservative ideology) lens. Owens makes it a point to deliberately style her tweets without the use of signifyin’, i.e., she tweets like a white person because she’s appealing to her conservative brand; the pinned tweet on her account exemplifies this as well as demonstrating her intent on selling more copies of her book (not unlike fellow conservative Rick Wilson): [8/6/19] “LET’S GO AMERICA!...After 2 years of fighting and challenging the status quo— I finally wrote it. The book Democrats don’t want Minorities to read. BLACKOUT: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape From The Democrat Plantation. Available for pre-order on Amazon today!” In addition, many of Owens’ tweeted selfies are of her dressed like a white woman (with always-straightened hair, in contrast to Kashana Cauley’s display of her natural hairstyle) while appearing on (the veritably conservative) Fox News; she seemed to take particular pride in a pic of her with President Donald J. Trump (Fox News’ favorite person) tweeted out on January 21st. Owens’ brand is as translucent as the skin-color of the majority of her followers.

Vladimir Lenin, when he was walking the political runway, once said: “Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.” Lenin was a man of strong principles, and he was memorialized by his country via the former name of one its most well-known cities (formerly Leningrad, currently St. Petersburg). Leningrad during the second world war was the site of a 2+ year siege (9/8/1941-1/8/1944), but Russia persevered and were critical to fighting off the threat of Nazi Germany; the Russian people who fought and died during said siege were, ostensibly, like Lenin, men and women of principle. These individuals I’m tracking on Twitter, with their potential access to people numbering in the millions, are capable of engaging in the “serious politics” Lenin referred to, but are they people of principle? If they can be bought and seduced by capitalism and its associated power, an ideology despised by Lenin, and are fearful of repercussion from those with views antithetical to their principles, then I’d argue that they do not share the aforementioned strength of principle, and considering the theoretical power they possess, that should worry us all.  

[bountyofbeads]

In Iraq, Where Beauty Was Long Suppressed, Art Flowers Amid Protests https://nyti.ms/2RR5PSs

This is a wonderful story that shows the healing power of art 🎨 and the human spirit's need to express itself. Please take time to read and view the photojournalism.

In Iraq, Where Beauty Was Long Suppressed, Art Flowers Amid Protests

Painters, sculptors and musicians are rallying to Baghdad’s protests, and the capital is overflowing with political art.

By Alissa J. Rubin | Published Feb. 3, 2020 Updated 10:09 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 3, 2020 |

BAGHDAD — Hollow-cheeked and shivering slightly in jeans he had outgrown, Abdullah stood in an unfinished parking garage, transfixed in front of a mural whose meaning he was eager to decode for a visitor.

“See, the man in the middle, he is asking the security forces, ‘Please don’t shoot us, we have nothing, nothing.’” Abdullah said the final word twice for emphasis as he earnestly studied the black-and-white image on the wall.

Drawn in charcoal in a socialist realist style, the mural, more than 12 feet long, showed a group of men walking forward and carrying their fallen friends in their arms. The men depicted were unmistakably Everyman laborers, with rough clothes and strained faces.

Abdullah, 18 — a former cleaner in a hospital who asked that his surname not be used because he feared retribution for his involvement in anti-government protests — is now an unofficial art guide to one of the most unlikely galleries imaginable: a 15-story shell of a structure, known locally by all as the Turkish Restaurant building, that looks over the Tigris River. It is the self-declared stronghold of Iraqis who oppose the country’s current leadership.

Covered on all sides by banners with messages to the government, to the security forces and to the world, the building looks like a ship about to set sail, with the slogans written on white cloth ballooning in the wind.

The first five floors have become one of the half-dozen major art venues that have sprung up in Baghdad around the protests as painters — trained and untrained — have turned walls, stairwells and littered parks into a vast canvas.

Where did all this art come from? How is it that a city where beauty and color have been largely suppressed for decades by poverty, and by the oppression or indifference of successive governments, suddenly came to be so alive?

“You know, we have many thoughts about Iraq, but no one from the government ever asked us,” said Riad Rahim, 45, an art teacher.

The city’s creative hub is Tahrir Square. Art covers the underpasses that run below it, the green space behind it, and the streets leading into it.

The paintings, sculptures, photographs and shrines to killed protesters are political art of a kind rarely seen in Iraq, where art has been made for at least 10,000 years. It is as if an entire society is awakening to the sound of its own voice, and to the shape, size and sway of its creative force.

“In the beginning this was an uprising, but now it is a revolution,” said Bassim al-Shadhir, an Iraqi-German who goes back and forth between the two countries and has participated in the protests. “There is art, there is theater, people are giving lectures and distributing books — giving them away for free.”

Mr. al-Shadhir, an abstract artist with a degree in biology, painted his contribution to the scene on a wall on Sadoun Street, one of the capital’s broadest thoroughfares. It shows a man shot by the security forces, the blood pouring out of his heart in a vast pool, too large to be hidden or washed away by the masked military man standing behind him.

Nearby a mural begs the United Nations to rescue Iraqis. Another shows a map of Iraq inside a heart and says, “Oh my country, don’t feel pain.” There are two or three murals depicting lions, a symbol of Iraq dating from the Assyrian period and one that protesters have adopted.

There has been little if any new anti-American messages in the paintings in recent days, even though there is more anti-American feeling in Baghdad since the United States last month assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds force who was visiting Iraq.

One reason may be that there are already several murals that have anti-American and anti-Israeli messages. Another is that by now, there are so many walls covered with art, that it is hard to find empty space to add anything new.

The artistic subjects and styles on view show how much a younger generation of Iraqis has been influenced by the internet, discovering there images that resonate with them and then drawing them with Iraqi touches.

Rosie the Riveter has an Iraqi flag on her cheek; Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” has the Turkish Restaurant building in place of a cypress tree. Some paintings feature comic book characters, but wrapped in the Iraqi flag, the uniform of the protesters.

There are echoes of 1960s Pop Art in a painting of the Turkish Restaurant building with a red tuk tuk flying out of the roof. The tuk tuk is the protesters’ mascot, a diesel-fueled, three-wheeled vehicle that requires no license to drive and has become the unofficial front line ambulance, bearing the wounded to the first aid tents.

More than 500 protesters have been killed and thousands more have been injured.

Trees are another common subject, with painters in different locations in the Turkish Restaurant building drawing images of falling leaves.

“This tree is Iraq and I am going to write on each leaf the name of one of those martyred by the security forces,” said Diana al-Qaisi, 32, who trained as an information systems engineer but now works in public relations.

“Its leaves are dropping because it is autumn and those who are trying to kill the tree are trying to kill the revolution,” she said. “Even if they try, some leaves stay in the tree waiting to be born.”

Zainab Abdul Karim, 22, and her sister Zahra, 15, had a darker vision. Their tree is a black silhouette standing in a cemetery, each grave representing one of the protesters killed by the security forces.

More individualized portraits of those killed are also a common subject.

The small park behind Tahrir Square has been divided by tents, one of which has become a steadily expanding portrait gallery with photographs of those who have been killed by the security forces. People walk along the memorial quietly, looking at each of the faces, occasionally tears welling up when they see one they recognize.

The country is witnessing an expressive flowering in more than the visual arts.

More than a dozen songs have been written for the protests and circulate nonstop on social media. Luminaries of the Iraqi arts — actors and actresses, as well as musicians, painters and sculptors — came together to record a tribute to the fallen protesters.

Recently, Mr. Rahim, the art teacher, was working with his friend, Hussein Shenshul, 41, who runs a clothing store, on a low-budget, high-concept sculpture project. They were painstakingly carving archaeologically accurate maquettes of six famous Iraqi sites, three ancient and three modern.

They had finished three — the Al Hadba minaret in Mosul, which was destroyed in the fight with the Islamic State; the ziggurat of Samarra; and the Turkish Restaurant building. They were working now on the Ishtar Gate, which once stood in ancient Babylon.

Their tools were foam, toothpicks, box cutters and spray paint for the background color, paintbrushes for the calligraphy.

“We want to express what the Iraqi civilization means,” Mr. Rahim said. “We want to send a message to the world that this is our culture, we are educated, we are painters and poets, musicians and sculptors, this is what it means to be Iraqi.”

“Everyone thinks Iraq is all wars and fighting,” he added.

Outside the still unfinished Turkish Restaurant building — so named because some 25 years ago it housed a Turkish restaurant on the ground floor — Hussein Abdul Mufsin, 25, was finishing a mural on Sadoun Street. He had already painted four others — a far cry from his usual work as a house painter.

Two murals depicted silhouettes of protesters trying to scale the barriers that divide them from the security forces. But today his primary painting goal was not art, but life. He was painting the lines that delineate the street’s edges to keep cars from veering onto the curb.

“I brought my reflecting paint today from home because at night the government turns off all the electricity and the tuk tuks carrying the injured cannot see the edge of the road and could crash,” he said.

Why was he doing this? Shouldn’t it be the city’s responsibility?

“You could call it self-financing,” he said, looking down shyly. “Or maybe this is patriotism.”

______

Falih Hassan contributed reporting.

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Home at Last From China: A Foreign Exchange Student’s Travel Ordeal

A tense nighttime drive along deserted roads to an empty airport, then a scramble to join the rush of passengers leaving China amid the coronavirus scare.

By Miriam Jordan | Published Feb. 3, 2020 Updated 11:32 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 3, 2020 |

LOS ANGELES — When Jaden Taylor, 17, pulled a mask off his face at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday morning and smiled at the customs officer, who gave him a thumbs up, it was much more than the end of a 12-hour flight from Shanghai.

He was taking the final step in a weekslong scramble to get out of China, where he had been an exchange student caught in an outbreak of coronavirus, which was rapidly spreading and causing fatalities.

“Oddly enough, the officer didn’t ask me a single question,” said Jaden, after exiting the airport. “I feel lucky, I thought I was definitely going to be quarantined but it was so fast.”

His struggle, involving canceled flights, frantic negotiations across two continents and a series of checkpoints where the authorities checked his temperature, was playing out for countless travelers trying to leave China as the world tries to seal itself off from the fast-moving virus.

Jaden, a former high school student from Portland, Ore., may have been among the last Americans to get out of China and clear security with ease. By Monday morning, American air travelers who had been to China in the last 14 days were being routed through one of 11 airports to undergo enhanced health screenings, with the possibility that they could be quarantined.

Each year, thousands of Americans and other foreigners travel to China on student exchange programs. Since last month, these students have been among those caught up in the widening health crisis. Because of the nature of their studies, often embedded with families across China, some of them are hundreds of miles from a consulate or embassy. Many students have had to find their own way from far-flung cities to major airports for the return home.

American Field Service sent more than 300 students from all over the world to China, including about two dozen Americans, during the current school year. Jaden was the only American student placed in Anhui province, which borders Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The nonprofit organization canceled all programs in China on Jan. 31.

‘IT SEEMED LIKE A FUN ADVENTURE’

Bored with high school in Portland, Jaden had hatched a plan to learn Mandarin and graduate early so that he could spend a year in China before college.

“It seemed like a fun adventure to a place that was completely foreign to me,” he said. “I would not know what to expect.”

He made the move in August, becoming the third generation in his family to go abroad as an exchange student.

In the city of Wuhu, he settled in with a host family and started school, planning to remain until June. He made Chinese friends and tried new foods, like turtle and cow stomach. As trade tensions between the United States and China escalated, he took it in stride when taxi drivers turned him away because he was an American.

It was early January when he first heard that the coronavirus had struck. Emails streamed in from his Chinese teachers informing him about an illness spreading in Wuhan, the capital of the adjoining province.

Around Jan. 15, the local coordinator for American Field Service and Jaden’s host family ordered him to remain inside at all times. “I was reminded almost everyday not to go outside,” he recalled.

By Jan. 20, the virus had crossed international borders. China had reported hundreds of infections, and the death toll jumped from three to 17 in a matter of days.

Two days later, Jaden’s grandmother, Christine Berardo, sent him a WhatsApp message saying that she had been reading about the virus and felt sorry that it might affect his travel plans for the Lunar New Year.

“The virus has been found in my city so everyone is wearing face masks,” he told her.

‘HAVE SOME GRIT,’ HIS MOTHER SAID

On Jan. 23, Wuhan, home to about 11 million people, was placed under quarantine and Chinese authorities closed off the city. “I was seeing images of borders shutting down and people not being able to leave Wuhan,” Jaden recalled. He began to worry.

So did his mother, Karin Berardo, 51, an investment manager in Washington, D.C. But she did not want to let on.

In a WhatsApp exchange, Ms. Berardo told her adventurous child, “to suck it up. Have some grit,” she recalled. “He had always been eager to conquer the world.”

Wuhu, about 300 miles northeast of Wuhan, was not officially quarantined but it might as well have been. Instead of celebrating the Lunar New Year with fireworks and festivities, people locked themselves indoors.

Except for those trying to stock up on food and masks, the streets were deserted; store shelves were almost bare. People glared at anyone who coughed, Jaden said. The images of a city in fear began to haunt him at night, and he had trouble sleeping. “I became very paranoid and anxious,” he said.

Friends from Portland, Berkeley, Baltimore and Abu Dhabi, places where Jaden had lived, were reaching out on Snapchat and WhatsApp to express concern about the risk of staying in China.

With ample time on his hands, Jaden scanned news reports on Reddit and waited for emails from the State Department. Chinese friends shared information they were gleaning from Chinese media. The news was getting worse with each passing day, it seemed.

Back in Washington, his mother contacted American Field Service to get their assessment of the situation.

“They said they were in close contact with A.F.S. Beijing and were advising the students to just stay inside,” Ms. Berardo recalled.

On Jan. 26, after learning that 56 million people were under quarantine in China, Ms. Berardo contacted a program representative in New York to request that her son be returned to the United States as soon as possible.

TRYING TO FIND A WAY OUT

The next day, program representatives had a tentative plan to get Jaden out. It involved flying out of Shanghai, about 215 miles away. But there was no one on the ground to escort him there, Ms. Berardo was told. “They said they could put him on a train, but he would have to figure out how to get to the airport in Shanghai,” she said.

Ms. Berardo feared that her son might end up stranded in the one of the world’s largest cities, where many cases of the virus had been reported.

Still, in a conversation, mother and son agreed to give it a try. Ultimately, program officials found someone to drive Jaden to Nanjing, about 60 miles from Wuhu, where he would catch a flight to Shanghai.

Jaden was booked on an American Airlines flight that was to leave on Sunday. But on Friday afternoon, the carrier announced that it had canceled the flight, as a spate of airlines began suspending their operations in China. He was rebooked on China Eastern Airlines leaving the same day.

“We calmed down for a minute,” Ms. Berardo recalled.

Jaden sneaked out of the apartment to say goodbye to Chinese friends and to take his last pictures of an empty Wuhu. His bags had been packed for two days.

He was scheduled for a 3 a.m. pickup but his host brother knocked on his door shortly after 11 p.m. A car was there to take him.

The only car on the road

His escort was concerned about potential delays if they encountered road closures along the way. Indeed, some portions were blocked, and the driver had to divert to side roads.

“I’m stressed and worried,” Jaden jotted down in a diary that he had decided to start to record his last hours in China. It was about 11:30 p.m. Saturday night.

“It’s pretty much pitch black everywhere and we’re the only car on the road,” he wrote. “I took my mask off for five seconds and the driver turned his head yelling.”

At multiple checkpoints, police officers pulled over the car and checked whether they were wearing their masks. Jaden’s temperature was taken with an infrared temperature gun every time.

Shortly after 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, as they approached the Nanjing airport, the police stopped the car. People in hazmat suits instructed Jaden to get out. They checked his temperature once, twice, three times. Every time, they said, his temperature was too high.

Jaden was not sure what was happening. He felt fine.

“I didn’t know what I would do if they didn’t let me go to the airport,” he said.

Finally, one of the health workers retrieved a different thermometer from their supply kits. This time, they said, Jaden’s temperature was acceptable.

Arriving at a deserted airport

Four hours after they had left, they completed the 60-mile journey and arrived at a deserted airport. It was just after 2 a.m.

When he checked in for his flight to Shanghai, three hours later, the agent told him that she could not check his bags all the way to Los Angeles because his flight might be canceled. Did he still want to go to Shanghai, the agent wanted to know.

Jaden figured there was no looking back at this point.

Once on the plane to Los Angeles, he tried to sleep, but it was hard: He kept thinking about the five months his program had been cut short, the lost opportunities.

At Los Angeles International Airport, he joined the swarms of people converging in the passport-control area after landing from all corners of the globe.

He entered the line for American citizens, pulled off his mask and waited his turn. In his pocket, he carried a booklet of the United States Constitution, in case he got pulled out of line by the authorities and had to reference his rights.

But when he got to the counter, the officer scanned his passport and returned it to him without asking a single question.

“At all the other kiosks,” he said, “anyone with a mask or who had traveled to China was being asked where they went and why. But not me.”

On the other side of security, his mother swooped all 6 feet 3 inches of her son into her arms. “Hi, Mom,” he said. “I’m tired.”

He strapped on his mask again briefly as they left the airport — before realizing that he was no longer in the middle of a virus emergency. He removed it, and they headed to a Chipotle, where he dug into two bean-and-cheese burritos. “This is heaven,” he said.

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Turkey Launches Deadly Airstrikes Against Syrian Forces

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that as many as 35 Syrian government troops had been killed, and he warned Russia against trying to prevent his country’s actions.

By Carlotta Gall | Published Feb. 3, 2020 Updated 10:08 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 3, 2020 |

ISTANBUL — Turkey deployed F-16 fighter jets against government forces in northwestern Syria on Monday, a sharp escalation of the conflict there after six Turkish soldiers were killed by artillery strikes.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said that as many as 35 Syrian troops had been “neutralized.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said the number of military personnel killed was at least 13, while state news media in Syria made no mention of any deaths. There were also reports on social media of at least eight civilian deaths when a minibus was struck.

Mr. Erdogan warned Russia, which backs the Syrian government and which controls the airspace in western Syria, not to prevent Turkey from retaliating.

“It should be out of discussion to block us,” Mr. Erdogan said, before leaving for a trip to Ukraine. Describing the dead Turkish soldiers as martyrs, he added that, “It is not possible for us to keep silent” as long as his country’s troops were being targeted.

Mr. Erdogan has frequently met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss Syria, and in particular, the thorny problem of Idlib Province, which Moscow wants to bring under Syrian government control to declare victory in the war.

In a sign of the fragility of the relationship and of the high stakes, Mr. Erdogan adopted a sober demeanor as he announced the Turkish casualties, despite a dispute with Russia over whether the Turkish military’s moves had been coordinated with their Russian counterparts. Turkish reporters noted that Mr. Erdogan’s understated tone and remarks were free of the vitriolic rhetoric he often uses for opponents.

Syrian government forces have recently intensified their offensive in Idlib, in western Syria, the last rebel-held province. Turkey deployed several hundred troops to observation posts there in 2018, as part of an agreement with Russia to create a de-escalation zone in the area.

But Russian and Syrian forces have been conducting an offensive on the major highway through the province, prompting hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee north toward the border with Turkey.

Turkey has already taken in nearly four million people trying to escape the war, which started nearly nine years ago, and is concerned that the Syrian push into the area will create a fresh surge of refugees. It has closed its border with Syria to prevent more refugees from entering.

Nearly 700,000 people have been displaced since the Russian-led offensive began in Idlib last year — 140,000 in January alone. Many are camping in the open in increasingly desperate conditions.

The deployment of air power came after the Turkish Defense Ministry said that a supply convoy bringing reinforcements into the observation posts on Monday had come under fire, leaving six Turkish soldiers dead and several others wounded.

The movement of the convoy had been coordinated beforehand, the statement said, and Turkish forces retaliated immediately. “Those who test Turkey’s determination with such heinous attacks will understand they have made a huge mistake,’’ Mr. Erdogan said.

Moscow, however, disputed Turkey’s account about coordinating with other forces in the province, saying that the Russian Defense Ministry had not been told about the troop movements.

Syrian forces were trying to hit militants linked with Al Qaeda, the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to The Associated Press, and the Turkish forces were struck because they were in the area. (To justify their attacks, including ones that have killed many civilians, Russia and the Syrian government have consistently argued they must go on the offensive to eradicate terrorists.)

Turkey has always supported the opposition forces fighting against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, including some radical Islamists, and has sought to delay the Russian-Syrian advance to take Idlib.

Mr. Erdogan has highlighted his good relationship with Mr. Putin and attempted to strengthen ties by  purchasing the Russian S-400 missile defense system against the wishes of the United States and other NATO allies. But those links do not appear to have won him any lasting concessions from Moscow over Idlib.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said that it was maintaining suppressive fire on Syrian targets for self-defense to evacuate the dead and wounded. “The perpetrators of this hateful attack will be brought to account and our right to self-defense will be exercised in the most robust way,” the ministry said.

The suffering continued for the civilians caught in the fighting. At least eight people, most of them women and children, were said to have been killed on Monday when their minibus came under fire on a rural road. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that nine people had died in that attack, including four children.

Ahmad Aslan, who fled with his family from the town of Maaret al-Numan, said in a video message that he would have preferred death to abandoning his home. “We prayed many times to die from rockets or from barrel bombs there but it didn’t happen,” he said.

“After the regime advanced, we were forced to leave,” he added. “We have been living under the rain and cold, we lack shelter and food.”

Video distributed on social media showed people setting fire to their homes before fleeing the town of Saraqeb, ahead of the advancing Syrian forces. “We don’t want to leave anything behind for the thugs,” a voice in the background says.

Abdul Kareem Thalji, from Iss, a few miles from Saraqeb, said, “The regime is advancing and I’m racing with time to find a car and house to stay in.” He added that he was being displaced for the seventh time. “If you ask me about hope, I will tell you my entire ambition for life has collapsed, people here have lost hope.”

_______

Hwaida Saad and Vivian Yee contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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[mastcomm]

Capital in Trump Mideast Plan Makes ‘a Joke’ of Palestinian Aspirations

ABU DIS, West Bank — Like a monument to dashed hopes, an unfinished Palestinian parliament building stands derelict on a ridge in Abu Dis, an unimposing West Bank suburb of Jerusalem that the Trump administration has proposed as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

A symbol of the possibilities of sovereignty when it was begun in the mid-1990s, the parliament was supposed to have a clear line of sight to the glimmering domes of the revered Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, barely two-and-a-half miles away as the crow flies. Today it backs onto a hulking, razor wire-topped concrete wall, a section of Israel’s security barrier that went up in 2005, isolating wingless creatures in Abu Dis from Jerusalem and its holy sites.

Days after the rollout of the long-awaited Trump plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which strongly favored Israel and disregarded most Palestinian claims, there was little sense of gathering majesty or of Palestinian control here in Abu Dis.

American administrations have tried repeatedly over decades to mediate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on far more evenhanded terms than the current proposal. But nothing epitomizes the asymmetry more than how it addresses a Palestinian capital.

Palestinians have long aspired to an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, but the proposal does away with the long-held notion that the two sides would negotiate the city’s future.

Instead, it gives all the desirable parts of Jerusalem to Israel and proposes a group of obscure, outlying areas of the city as the closest thing to a capital in Jerusalem that the Palestinians should ever get. It offers Palestinians the tiny, crowded Abu Dis, along with troubled faraway neighborhoods technically in East Jerusalem, but also on the other side of the security barrier.

In broad terms, the Trump administration plan would give Israel overall military control from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It would allow Israel to annex about 30 percent of the West Bank along with all the Jewish settlements in the territory, though most of the world considers those settlements a violation of international law.

While Israel had long been expected to hold on to some large settlement blocs in the West Bank in return for land swaps, there was also an expectation it would dismantle more isolated settlements in territory designated for a Palestinian state.

And rather than Israel annexing the strategic Jordan Valley in its entirety, previous peace proposals envisaged a special security arrangement, possibly involving third party forces, along the border with Jordan.

In return for the concessions to Israel, the Trump plan makes the Palestinians a heavily conditional offer that stands little chance of being accepted: an entity that they could call a state made up of the Gaza Strip and several enclaves in the West Bank — pockmarked with settlements and surrounded by Israeli territory — that would be linked by roads or other transportation.

While Israel hailed the plan, the Palestinians angrily rejected it out of hand.

One of the neighborhoods designated for the capital, the Shuafat refugee camp, is a gang-ridden slum where the Palestinian police have no jurisdiction and the Israeli police fear to tread. Another, Kufr Aqab, became a Wild West of unregulated and unsafe construction when Israeli policies and sky-high housing prices drove middle-class Arabs to seek homes beyond the security barrier but still inside the Jerusalem municipality.

And then there is Abu Dis, the hilly home of Al-Quds University, which opened in the 1980s when the village was just a 10-minute drive from Damascus Gate — one of the portals leading into Jerusalem’s Old City. Most of Abu Dis was never inside the Jerusalem city limits.

“How can this be a capital?” asked Ahmed Bader, 25, incredulously. He had come in a small truck to collect garbage from a patch of wasteland behind the parliament building. Children rode horses bareback in an adjacent alley.

“Jerusalem has the Aqsa mosque, the churches, business, places to work,” he continued. “What do we have here, in our little town? If I stop my little Vespa in the main street to speak on the phone, cars pile up behind and can’t get past me!”

When the Palestinians say they want Jerusalem as their capital, they do not mean suburbs like Abu Dis, or areas like Shuafat and Kufr Aqab.

Shuafat and Kufr Aqab are part of territory that the Israelis annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, in the heady days after their victory in the Six-Day War.

“Jerusalem is the old walled city. The rest is not Jerusalem,” said Nazmi Jubeh, an archaeologist and historian who runs the Birzeit University Museum in the West Bank. “We mean by Jerusalem — and I think everybody around the world means — the holy sites. This game of playing with words has no meaning at all.”

In myriad ways, the Trump plan seemed to reward the Israelis and punish the Palestinians for what each has considered the other’s bad behavior.

The Israelis relentlessly created facts on the ground, like settlements in the heart of the West Bank aimed at preventing a Palestinian state from coming together. The Palestinians repeatedly resorted to violence, even after Israeli withdrawals, which led Israel to expand its security presence at the Palestinians’ expense and to insist on never uprooting its people again.

In its conceptual map of a Palestinian state, the Trump plan did not even mark the location of a capital, though the document did suggest calling it Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

It did mark Jerusalem — in Israeli territory.

The Americans determined that Israel should remain sovereign over all parts of Jerusalem, including the ancient holy sites that are inside the security barrier built in the early 2000s after a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings.

At least 120,000 Palestinians live beyond the barrier but still inside the Jerusalem city limits so they can cling to their Jerusalem residency cards, which allow them to work and travel inside Israel. Under the American plan, they would find themselves living in Palestine.

(Inside the barrier, the plan says, the approximately 200,000 Palestinians would get the choice of becoming citizens of Palestine or of Israel, or of maintaining the in-between residency status that most of them have today.)

As a purely geographical matter, the Palestinian capital would be fragmented across several neighborhoods that are miles apart from each other, separated by Israeli communities and major roads, and share little in common. It is not unlike cobbling together a new city from parts of Teaneck, N.J., Queens, and the South Bronx.

The Trump plan promises to manage the feat with new roads, tunnels or bridges.

“If you know these areas, you know they’re just making a joke of you and your national aspiration,” said Mr. Jubeh. “A capital is a symbol,” he added. “These areas are not a symbol for anybody.”

Indeed, the Palestinians are denied even a symbolic toehold in or near the ancient heart of the city. But Israel gets rid of its only refugee camp, and of the violent outland it has become.

In carving off Shuafat, the Trump plan completes what the Israelis first tried to do when they built the security barrier, said Danny Seidemann, an expert on the geography and political history of Jerusalem who is a harsh critic of the Trump plan. It would correct what he said was a mistake in hastily drawing the city boundaries in 1967.

The refugee camp had been a hot spot of violence for years, he said. So the decision was made to build the security wall inside the city “in order to cut them out,” Mr. Seidemann said.

In the Shuafat camp on Thursday, residents laughed at the idea of making their neighborhood a Palestinian showpiece. Water and sewer services in the camp are unreliable at best; the streets contain potholes big enough to lose much of a car.

“It’s a ghost city, not a capital,” said Muhammad Inbawi, 30. “It’s chaos here. At night, we’re ruled by the gangsters. What kind of capital is that? Is Trump sane?”

The place is not so safe by day, either: As Mr. Inbawi spoke, a fog was billowing down the street. It was tear gas fired by Israeli security forces. Crowds of children in school uniforms broke into a run to get away.

Seeing a girl struggling to withstand the effects of the acrid cloud, Mr. Inbawi shouted at no one in particular, “You don’t throw stones when school is letting out!”

Abu Dis, which started out as a sleepy village, now has about 13,000 residents in less than two square miles. It consists of a single main street and higgledy-piggledy alleys shooting off at strange angles.

“We love it,” said Safia, 35, an English teacher who would only provide her first name for fear of repercussions from the authorities. But she added, “Like all Palestinians, I refuse what we call the American-Israeli agreement to take Jerusalem.”

She last visited Jerusalem three years ago to pray during the holy month of Ramadan, a visit that required a special permit from the Israeli authorities.

Tareq Bader, 22, who works in a car accessory store, was last in Jerusalem about 10 years ago. “It’s so close,” he said, “but difficult to get to.”

But he hasn’t lost faith.

“Trump promised Jerusalem to the Jews,” he said. “God promised it to us, and God is greater than Trump.”

Mohammed Najib contributed reporting.

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How a stronger anti-war movement rallied to stop a march to war with Iran

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How a stronger anti-war movement rallied to stop a march to war with Iran

Within hours, via press releases, media hits and coordination with other groups, they had made their point: President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Qassem Soleimani was a mistake, and the U.S. needed to de-escalate the tensions.

“It was a heavy and anxiety-filled moment but also an exhilarating one,” said Jessica Rosenblum, the institute’s communications director. “We looked at each other – virtually speaking – nodded agreement, and put our heads right back into the work.”

The Quincy Institute, which formally launched in December, is not without controversy. But its mere existence is emblematic of how much faster, more organized and more popular the anti-war – or “war-skeptic” – movement is today compared to the early 2000s, especially as the U.S. prepared to invade Iraq.

Nearly two decades of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq have soured many Americans, including military veterans, on wars that grind along consuming lives and resources but never seem to end. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the mounting costs of the wars have also bred public skepticism, skepticism deepened by Trump’s own credibility problem, with observers quick to question his administration’s claims of an “imminent threat” from Soleimani. And Democrats who once feared being painted by Republicans as unpatriotic if they criticized a president’s national security moves now feel emboldened to speak up.

This changed political environment is surely not the only, or even the primary, reason why Trump has sought to calm things down after Iran struck back with a barrage of missiles. And some GOP lawmakers certainly haven’t hesitated to portray Democrats as practically in league with terrorists.

Yet the rise of organizations and networks like Quincy raises questions not only about whether that kind of scorched-earth rhetoric still works in American politics, but also whether it augurs a United States newly constrained in world affairs by the weight of its own experience.

“It’s sometimes incorrectly called war fatigue, but it’s also wisdom,” Stephen Miles, executive director of the group Win Without War, said of the country’s present mood.

Grassroots on fire

Miles’ group itself is an example of how things have changed.

Win Without War was launched by a coalition of civic and religious leaders in late 2002, as then-President George W. Bush’s administration was arguing the case for invading Iraq. At the time, it was called “Keep America Safe: Win Without War.”

Its founders called themselves “patriotic Americans who share the belief that Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction,” but who feared a U.S. invasion would “increase human suffering, arouse animosity toward our country, increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks, damage the economy and undermine our moral standing in the world.”

For most of its history, Win Without War had two to three staffers. Today, the group boasts 10 full-time staffers with plans to add more; in the last four years, its email list has grown from around 50,000 to half a million. Much of that growth has coincided with Trump’s rise.

Win Without War, along with allied progressive groups such as MoveOn, helped organize more than 370 “no war with Iran” events and actions nationwide on Jan. 9, a week after Soleimani was killed and days after Iran retaliated by firing missiles at bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.

Although the situations aren’t perfectly analogous, in the early 2000s, it took months for the anti-war movement to gain steam. That was in part because then-President George W. Bush and his team took time to make their case to invade Iraq after already going into Afghanistan. Major protests against an Iraq invasion were held in October 2002 and February 2003.

But it’s also because public opinion moved more slowly back then. Rahna Epting, the executive director of MoveOn, pointed to advances in technology, including the growth of social media, as a key reason groups like hers can organize more effectively than two decades ago.

Within 24 hours of the U.S. strike on Soleimani, who was visiting Baghdad at the time, MoveOn had galvanized thousands of its supporters to call members of Congress and urge them to “rein Trump in” and de-escalate, Epting said.

At the time “we were hoping the Iranian regime was reasonable, which I can’t imagine what day of my life that seems like a good position to be in,” said Epting, who is of black and Iranian descent.

The heavy weight of 9/11

There are other reasons war skeptics are finding more resonance today.

Above all, there’s the U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. The fact that there has been so much blood shed and money spent in those countries, with only patchy progress to show for it, weighs heavy on Americans’ minds.

Surveys by the Pew Research Center in 2019 found that majorities of U.S. military veterans as well as the general public had come to believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not worth the fight.

The untrue assertions that Iraq’s dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction, as well as new revelations that U.S. officials misled the public about Afghanistan, have further raised skepticism among Americans about going to war.

There’s also the fact that, unlike in 2001, there’s been no direct attack on the U.S. homeland. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, prompted widespread support for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the base for the attack’s al Qaeda masterminds. The attacks also made it harder for anti-war activists at the time, many of whom had engaged in similar activism during the Vietnam War, to gain mainstream traction and prevent the U.S. from invading Iraq.

The 2001 attacks also affected the political calculations of Republicans and Democrats. Democrats were nearly all on board for the war in Afghanistan, but the fear of being called out as soft on terrorism led many to tangle themselves in knots over whether to support Bush’s push to invade Iraq.

This past week, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden found himself struggling to explain his October 2002 Senate vote to authorize military action in the face of thundering criticism from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Even in 2004, as the situation in Iraq spiraled out of control and Democrats self-consciously nominated a decorated war hero in John Kerry, Republicans managed to use the national security argument in their favor to keep the presidency.

It wasn’t until a few years later, with U.S. troop deaths in Iraq nearing 4,000 and Afghanistan increasingly going sideways, that Democrat Barack Obama was able to successfully campaign for the White House by promising to avoid “dumb wars” and bring American forces home. Obama, though, couldn’t deliver on all his promises.

He pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq only to send thousands back to help combat the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group. He ordered a surge in U.S. forces in Afghanistan, only to reduce their numbers with little gains to show against the Taliban. He stayed out of the fight against Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, but helped overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi, largely through airstrikes.

Historian Michael Koncewicz said anti-war activists often point to Obama as an example of how politicians capitalize on their movement’s energy but, once in office, water down their positions and fail to live up to their promises.

That being said, anti-war activists are far more inclined to take electoral politics seriously today than 20 years ago, he said. Many see Sanders’ success in the Democratic presidential primary race so far as evidence that their message has resonance.

At the same time, there are growing efforts to further define what it really means to be “anti-war” and who counts as part of the movement. For instance, do libertarians, whose views are often more isolationist than many anti-war activists, fit under the umbrella?

“Trump, as a figure, is forcing a lot of people to rethink those coalitions and think about what are the boundaries of anti-war activism,” Koncewicz said.

Trump’s own history of fudging facts about matters large and small is also playing into anti-war activists’ hands. Already, the president and his team are drawing fire for conflicting claims on why they decided to kill Soleimani — raising immediate parallels to the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, which wasn’t as widely challenged, or as quickly, at the time.

Today, even some Republicans in Congress want to see more restraint in the use of U.S. military force, and they’ve joined Democrats in supporting legislative measures to restrict the president’s ability to wage war.

In one sign that the political atmosphere has changed over the past two decades, GOP Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia accused Democrats of being “in love with terrorists” in an interview with the Fox Business Network, only to apologize two days later on Twitter.

The reaction to how Trump has handled the conflict with Iran, like so much else, falls largely along partisan lines, but some polls show that even Trump’s supporters are worried about where he’s leading them.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll this month found 73 percent of Americans are somewhat or very concerned about the possibility of a full-scale war with Iran. A separate survey conducted by POLITICO/Morning Consult found around 85 percent of Republican voters backed the decision to kill Soleimani, but that 58 percent of them also believe it makes war with Iran more likely.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a leading voice in Congress arguing against war with Iran, said there’s simply more voters across the board questioning whether engaging militarily in the Middle East is worth it.

“Do I think you’re still going to have some people go on and say, ‘The Democrats are weak on terrorism, they’re rooting for Iran’?” he said. “Sure, you’re always going to have blowhards, but the resonance of that attack has lost its value.”

Quincy’s ‘long campaign’

The Quincy Institute’s founders say they want to end lethargic thinking in the Washington foreign policy establishment – especially the type of thinking that reflexively prioritizes military force, derides engagement with adversaries and assumes the U.S. always has a role to play.

Obama adviser Ben Rhodes has labeled such group-think as the “blob.” “There’s this reflex in Washington foreign policy circles often to say ‘There’s a problem, we have to solve it, and the way to solve it is using our military, especially in the Middle East,’” he told CBS News. “I saw that we weren’t learning lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq. We were at risk of just repeating the same mistake over and over again.”

Quincy calls itself “trans-partisan,” meaning it’s not wedded to a political party and that it taps expertise from across the political spectrum. That its funders include both Soros and Koch is just one sign of its unusual nature. Both men gave Quincy money through their foundations; Koch gave $485,000, while Soros gave $525,000. The institute’s other major funders include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ploughshares Fund.

The institute also avoids labels like “isolationism,” “pacifism” and “anti-war.” Instead, its founders say they want smarter U.S. engagement overseas, one that is less militaristic and much more invested in diplomacy – “realism and restraint,” as one associate put it.

“We have not had a healthy marketplace of ideas in the foreign policy space,” said Will Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. “There should be no opprobrium given to people’s desire to find a diplomatic arrangement to avoid or end conflict.”

One of the institute’s main programs is labeled “Ending Endless War.” Others focus on the Middle East, East Asia, and “Democratizing Foreign Policy.” The latter appears to revolve around the notion that “experts” — not all of whom are genuine academic scholars — should pay more attention to activists, ordinary Americans and marginalized voices.

Quincy, whose physical headquarters are in D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, also is promoting its own online publication, “Responsible Statecraft.” The platform features opinion, analysis and reported pieces that often challenge mainstream foreign policy thinking.

One recent piece described how much more quickly the Iranian state has moved in recent years to snuff out popular protests. “Iran 2019 is not the Soviet Union in 1989, nor Libya 2011. The nature of [Islamic Republic of Iran] rule, an ideological state lacking a singular ‘Dear Leader’ in the manner of a Saddam, Qaddafi, or Assad, makes it a poor candidate for the type of rapid collapse associated with so-called sultanistic regimes,” academic Shervin Malekzadeh warned.

The institute has 14 staffers and more than 40 non-resident scholars, many of whom, by design, are based outside Washington and its think tank bubble.

Some of its staffers and affiliates are lightning rods due to their past commentary, including executive vice president Trita Parsi, an Iran specialist who has supported engaging the regime in Tehran, and John Mearsheimer, co-author of the explosive 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”

The Quincy Institute has drawn a slew of attacks, some of them pre-dating its launch.

Bill Kristol, the neo-conservative commentator who supported the Iraq invasion but is a Trump critic, accused the institute of wanting to “go back to the 1920’s and 30’s!” – implying it was isolationist.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who has pushed Trump to take a hard line on Iran, more recently labeled Quincy anti-Semitic in a floor speech; the institute decried his claim as “blatantly false.”

Quincy’s founders say they are realistic about what they can achieve given how new they are and the forces they are up against in Washington. They add that although the institute has a set of core principles, it’s not demanding uniform thinking from its staffers and fellows.

“Not for a second do I believe that a handful of interviews or op-eds or essays in Foreign Affairs in and of itself is going to make a difference,” said Andrew Bacevich, a historian and retired Army colonel who serves as Quincy’s president.

It’s “a long campaign to change the way people in Washington think about America’s role in the world.”

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