#concrete court foundation

[latinx-lancaster]

Landscape Outdoor Playsets in Toronto Ideas for a sizable, contemporary backyard with concrete paving and summer landscaping.

[warnerfrancesca]

Landscape in Toronto Summertime photo of a sizable, contemporary, concrete-paved backyard.

[dinobxt]

Toronto Outdoor Playsets Summertime photo of a medium-sized, modern, concrete-paved backyard.

[wolverwhore]

Toronto Landscape

[dragoncharming]

listen he was already entirely too much of my exact type of character that i am weak for and then

he presided over a half dozen of her divorces and said sign me the fuck up for whatever is goin on here

*vibrates thru the ceiling*

[simply-ivanka]

Harris and the First Amendment

The Supreme Court rebuked her use of lawfare in California.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

We keep looking for an issue, any issue, on which Kamala Harris differs with the Democratic left, but we keep coming up empty. That includes her party’s use of lawfare against political opponents, as an episode while she was California Attorney General reminds us.

Ms. Harris made headlines a decade ago by threatening to punish nonprofit groups that refused to turn over unredacted donor information. She demanded they hand to the state their federal IRS Form 990 Schedule B in the name of discovering “self dealing” or “improper loans.” The real purpose was to learn the names of conservative donors and chill future political giving—that is, political speech.

Her bullying came amid the Internal Revenue Service’s notorious targeting of conservative nonprofits; Wisconsin’s probe of GOP donors; Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s intimidation of donors to the American Legislative Exchange Council; and a campaign of harassment against donors who supported California’s Prop 8 (which banned same-sex marriage).

Free-market nonprofits challenged the Harris dragnet, suing the AG’s office in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta in 2021, the High Court ruled 6-3 that the AG’s disclosure demand broke the law. The Court pointed out that a lower court had found not “a single, concrete instance in which pre-investigation collection of a Schedule B did anything to advance the Attorney General’s investigative, regulatory or enforcement efforts.”

The Court said California’s claim that it would protect donor information lacked credibility, since during the litigation plaintiffs discovered nearly 2,000 Schedule B forms “inadvertently posted to the Attorney General’s website.” It noted that the petitioners and donors faced “threats” and “retaliation.”

The Supreme Court said Ms. Harris’s policy posed a risk of chilling free-speech rights, and it cited its 1958 NAACP v. Alabama precedent, which protected First Amendment “associational” rights. Ms. Harris is citing her experience as state AG as a political asset, but the Bonta case is a warning to voters that she’s willing to use the law as a weapon against political opponents.

Lawfare has failed as a political strategy against Donald Trump while undermining public confidence in impartial justice. Ms. Harris’s record suggests she’ll continue down this abusive road.

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the August 5, 2024, print edition as 'Harris and the First Amendment'.

[mightyflamethrower]

In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.

With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bicoastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.

The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual leftwing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.

After getting elected through temporarily pivoting to racial ecumenicalism and pseudo-calls for unity, they reverted to form and governed by dividing the country. And then the two left the White House as soon-to-be mansion living, mega-rich elites, cashing in on the fears they had inculcated over the prior eight years.

To push through the accompanying unpopular agendas of an open border, mandatory wind and solar energy, racial essentialism, and the weaponization of the state, Obama had begun demonizing his opponents and the country in general: America was an unexceptional place. Cops were racist. “Clingers” of the Midwest were hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced. Only fundamental socialist transformation could salvage a historically oppressive, immoral, and racist nation.

The people finally rebelled at such preposterousness. Obama lost his party some 1,400 local and state offices during his tenure, along with both houses of Congress. His presidency was characterized by his own polarizing mediocrity. His one legacy was Obamacare, the veritable destruction of the entire system of a once workable health insurance, of the hallowed doctor-patient relationship, and of former easy access to competent specialists.

Yet Obama’s unfufilled ambitions set the stage for the Biden administration—staffed heavily with Obama veterans—to complete the revolutionary transformation of the Democratic Party and country.

It was ironic that while Obama was acknowledged as young and charismatic, nonetheless a cognitively challenged, past plagiarist, fabulist, and utterly corrupt Joe Biden was far more effective in ramming through a socialist woke agenda and altering the very way Americans vote and conduct their legal system.

Stranger still, Biden accomplished this subversion of traditional America while debilitated and often mentally inert—along with being mired in a bribery and influence-peddling scandal that may ultimately confirm that he easily was the most corrupt president to hold office in U.S. history.

How was all this possible?

Covid had allowed the unwell Biden to run a surrogate campaign from his basement as he outsourced his politicking to a corrupt media.

Senility proved a godsend for Biden. His cognitive disabilities masked his newfound radicalism and long-accustomed incompetence. Unlike his past failed campaigns, the lockdowns allowed Biden to be rarely seen or heard—and thus as much liked in the abstract as he had previously been disliked in the concrete.

His handlers, the Obamas, and the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren radical Democrats, saw Biden’s half-century pretense as a gladhander—good ole Joe Biden from Scranton—as the perfect delivery system to funnel their own otherwise-unpopular leftwing agendas. In sum, via the listless Biden, they sought to change the very way America used to work.

And what a revolution Biden’s puppeteers have unleashed in less than three years.

They launched a base attack on the American legal system. Supreme Court judges are libeled, their houses swarmed, and their lives threatened with impunity. The Left promised to pack the court or to ignore any decision it resents. The media runs hit pieces on any conservative justice deemed too influential. The prior Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped up a mob outside the court’s doors, and threatened two justices by name. As Schumer presciently put it, they would soon “reap the whirlwind” of what they supposedly had sowed and thus would have no idea what was about to “hit” them.

Under the pretense of Covid fears, balloting went from 70 percent participation on election day in most states to a mere 30 percent. Yet the rates of properly rejected illegal or improper ballots often dived by a magnitude of ten.

Assaults now followed on hallowed processes, laws, customs, and institutions—the Senate filibuster, the 50-state union, the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, Election Day, and voter IDs.

Under Biden, the revolution had institutionalized first-term impeachment, the trial of an ex-president while a private citizen, and the indictment of a chief political rival and ex-president on trumped up charges by local and federal prosecutors—all to destroy a political rival and alter the 2024 election cycle.

Biden destroyed the southern border—literally. Eight million entered illegally—no background checks, no green cards, no proof of vaccinations. America will be dealing with the consequences for decades. Mexico was delighted, receiving some $60 million in annual remittances, while the cartels were empowered to ship enough fentanyl to kill 100,000 Americans a year.

“Modern monetary theory,” the Leftist absurdity that printing money ensures prosperity, followed. It has nearly bankrupted the country, unleashed wild inflation, and resulted in the highest interest rates in a quarter-century. Middle-class wages fell further behind as a doddering Biden praised his disastrous “Bidenomics.”

Biden warred on fossil fuels, cancelling federal leases and pipelines, jawboning lending agencies to defund fracking, demonizing state-of-the-art, clean-burning cars, and putting vast areas of oil- and gas-rich federals lands off-limits to drilling.

When gas prices predictably doubled under Biden and the 2022 midterms approached, he tried temporarily to lease out a few new fields, to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and to beg the Saudis, and our enemies, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Russians, to pump more oil and gas that Biden himself would not. All this was a pathetic ruse to temporarily lower gas prices before the mid-term elections.

Biden abandoned Afghanistan, leaving the largest trove of military equipment behind in U.S. military history, along with thousands of loyal Afghans and pro-American contractors.

Biden insulted the parents of the 13 Marines blown up in this worst U.S. military debacle since Pearl Harbor. He lied to the parents of the dead that he too lost a son in the Iraq war, and when among them later impatiently checked his watch as he seemed bored with the commemoration of the fallen—and made no effort to hide his sense that the ceremony was tedious to him.

Vladimir Putin summed up the Afghan debacle—and Biden’s nonchalant remark that he wouldn’t react strongly to a “minor” invasion of Ukraine if it were minor—as a green light to invade Ukraine.

When Biden did awaken, his first reaction was an offer to fly the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the country as soon as possible. What has followed proved the greatest European killing ground since the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge, albeit one that has now fossilized into a Verdun-like quagmire that is draining American military supply stocks and killing a half-million Ukrainians and Russians.

Suddenly, there are three genders, not two. Women’s sports have been wrecked by biological men competing as women, destroying a half-century of female athletic achievement. Young girls in locker rooms, co-eds in sororities, and women in prison must dress and shower with biological men transitioning to women by assertion.

There is no longer a commitment to free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is a woke, intolerant group trying to ban free expression under the pretense of fighting “hate” speech and “disinformation.”

The Left has revived McCarthyite loyal oaths straight out of the 1950s, forcing professors, job applicants, and students applying for college to pledge their commitment to “diversity” as a requisite for hiring, admittance, or promotion. Diversity is our era’s version of the Jacobins’ “Cult of Reason.”

Race relations hit a 50-year nadir. Joe Biden has a long history of racist insults and putdowns. And now as apparent penance, he has reinvented himself as a reverse racial provocateur, spouting nonsense about white supremacy, exploiting shootings or hyping racial tensions to ensure that an increasingly disgusted black electorate does not leave the new Democratic Party.

The military has adopted wokeism, oblivious that it has eroded meritocracy in the ranks and slashed military recruitment. It is underfunded, wracked by internal suspicion, loss of morale and ginned up racial and gender animosity. Its supply stocks are drained. Arms productions is snail-like, and generalship is seen as a revolving door to corporate defense contractor board riches.

Big-city Democratic district attorneys subverted the criminal justice system, destroyed law enforcement deterrence, and unleashed a record crime wave. Did they wish to create anarchy as protest against the normal, or were they Jokerist nihilists who delighted in sowing ruin for ruin’s sake?

Radical racial activists, with Democrat endorsement, demand polarizing racial reparations. The louder the demands, the quieter they remain about smash-and-grab looting, carjacking, and the swarming of malls by disproportionally black teens—even as black-on-black urban murders reach record proportions.

In response, Biden tried to exploit the growing tensions by spouting lies that “white supremacy” and “white privilege” fuel such racial unrest—even as his ill-gotten gains, past record of racist demagoguery and resulting lucre and mansions appear the epitome of his own so-called white privilege.

This litany of disasters could be vastly expanded, but more interesting is the why of it all?

What we are witnessing seems to be utter nihilism. The border is not porous but nonexistent. Mass looting and carjackings are not poorly punished, but simply exempt from all and any consequences. Our downtowns are reduced to a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” where the strong dictate to the weak and the latter adjust as they must. The streets of our major cities in just a few years have become precivilizational—there are more human feces on the sidewalks of San Francisco than were in the gutters of Medieval London.

The FBI and DOJ are not simply wayward and weaponized, but corrupt and renegade. Apparently the perquisite now for an FBI director is the ability either to lie while under oath or better to mask such lying by claiming amnesia or ignorance.

Immigration is akin to the vast unchecked influxes of the late Roman Empire across the Danube and Rhine that helped to finish off a millennium-old civilization that had lost all confidence in its culture and thus had no need for borders.

In other words, the revolution is not so much political as anarchist. Nothing escapes it—not ceiling fans, not natural gas cooktops, not parents at school board meetings, not Christian bakeries, not champion female swimmers, not dutiful policemen, not hard-working oil drillers, not privates and corporals in the armed forces, not teens applying on their merits to college, not anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The operating principle is either to allow or to engineer things to become so atrocious in everyday American life—the inability to afford food and fuel, the inability to walk safely in daylight in our major cities, the inability to afford to drive as one pleases, the inability to obtain or pay back a high interest loan—that the government can absorb the private sector and begin regimenting the masses along elite dictates. The more the people tire of the leftist agenda, the more its architects furiously seek to implement it, hoping that their institutional and cultural control can do what  ballots cannot.

We could variously characterize their efforts as destroying the nation to save it, or burning it down to start over, or fundamentally transforming America into something never envisioned by the Founders.

Will their upheaval  succeed? All the levers of the power and money are on the side of the revolutionaries. The people are not. And they are starting to wake to the notion if they do not stop the madness in their midst they very soon won’t have a country.

A perfect metaphor for what the progressives have done to America.

[zapreportsblog]

Hello. I saw that you wrote for other fandoms. Do you write for the Foundation? If so, can you write for yandere Brother Day (Cleon xiii) and female reader? Brother Day wants to make your reader his legal wife and Queen. Moreover, he wants to have children with the reader.

❝you are mine for eternity❞

✭ pairing : brother day cleon xii x reader

✭ fandom : foundation

✭ summary : brother day have always had his eyes on (y/n), she was the fairest of them all and no other person deserved her love as much as he did.

✭ authors note : lol I have no clue who this man is and im literally reading everything off the web right now on him so sorry if it’s not all that good :)

In the heart of a sprawling, futuristic city stood the grand institution known as the Sanctum. Its towering spires reached toward the heavens, symbolizing the pinnacle of human achievement in science, knowledge, and martial prowess. Within the hallowed walls of the Sanctum, young minds were honed to become the guardians of humanity, known as the Sentinels. Among them, Brother Day was a rising star, the embodiment of dedication, and the epitome of a warrior.

But beneath his disciplined exterior, there was a secret, an obsession that had quietly taken root in his heart since childhood. That obsession had a name, and it was (Y/N).

The story of Brother Day and (Y/N) began in the innocence of youth, when they were nothing more than wide-eyed children. Growing up within the walls of the Sanctum, they had been inseparable. Brother Day, in particular, had always found himself drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. It had started as a simple crush, a puppy love that had made his heart race and his palms sweat.

Back then, when he wasn't busy with the rigorous training that would one day make him a Sentinel, he would often find himself sneaking away from his duties to watch (Y/N) in secret. She had a talent for making flower crowns, a skill she had developed from the vibrant gardens that thrived in the heart of the Sanctum. He would hide among the blossoms, his eyes fixated on her delicate hands as they wove together petals and leaves into intricate garlands.

As the years passed, Brother Day's affection for (Y/N) deepened. He had vowed to himself that he would make her his, not just as a lover, but as a queen. In the stillness of the night, when the Sanctum slept, he would lie awake, his thoughts consumed by her. He knew that he was destined for greatness, that he would ascend to the highest ranks of the Sentinels, and he would do it all for her.

For in his eyes, no one but him deserved her love. He had watched her grow, seen her beauty blossom like a rare flower in the midst of a concrete jungle. Her laughter was the sweetest melody, her presence a beacon of light in a world consumed by darkness. And he, Brother Day, would be the one to protect her from that darkness, to stand at her side as her unwavering protector.

But his secret obsession remained hidden, locked away in the depths of his heart. For now, he would continue his training, striving to become the greatest Sentinel the Sanctum had ever known, all in the name of the one he loved, the one he would make his queen.

As the years passed, Brother Day's dedication to the Sanctum bore fruit, and he rose in power and influence. He became known as Cleon XII, a name that resonated with authority and respect. His martial prowess was unmatched, and his strategic brilliance was lauded by all. But amidst the clamor of his accomplishments, his secret obsession with (Y/N) remained a driving force.

One evening, while Cleon XII was on the balcony of his lavish quarters overlooking the Sanctum, he overheard the maids who attended to his needs conversing in hushed tones. They spoke of his rising prominence and speculated about when he would take a wife, as was expected of a man of his stature.

Their words echoed in his mind, and Cleon XII knew that the time had come. It was the perfect moment to begin courting (Y/N), to make his intentions clear. He couldn't let anyone else claim her heart. She would be his queen, and he would ensure her safety and happiness for the rest of their days.

With newfound determination, Cleon XII set out to find (Y/N). He knew her routines well and had learned that she often went shopping at the marketplace in the evenings. He tracked her there, his heart pounding with anticipation.

As he approached her, Cleon XII couldn't resist the urge to tease her a bit. He came up behind her, causing her to startle as she turned around. Her initial surprise quickly melted into a warm smile when she saw who it was.

"Cleon XII, don't sneak up behind me," she chided, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

He grinned, unable to contain his amusement. "Can I not surprise my childhood friend?" he retorted, his tone playful.

They walked together through the bustling marketplace, their conversation flowing effortlessly as they caught up on each other's lives. (Y/N) told him about her pursuits and interests, and Cleon XII listened attentively, genuinely fascinated by her every word.

But in the recesses of his mind, he was already plotting. He envisioned all the different ways he could court her, how he would make her his queen, and how their life together would be. She wouldn't need to concern herself with menial tasks like shopping; they would have maids to handle such matters. She would be safe at home, resting, perhaps with their young, their heirs to the throne.

As they strolled through the market, Cleon XII couldn't help but steal glances at (Y/N). She was even more radiant than he remembered, and he was determined to make her his, to share with her the grandeur and power that life as Cleon XII could offer.

The sun dipped low in the sky as Cleon XII's grueling training session at the Sanctum came to an end. He was weary but exhilarated, his muscles honed to perfection. However, today, his thoughts were not solely consumed by combat and strategy; they were filled with (Y/N) and the delicate flower crowns she had woven the night before.

Unable to resist the pull of his newfound infatuation, he followed the trail of petals to find her in a secluded garden, much like the one they had played in as children. She sat there, her nimble fingers working wonders with the blossoms, just as she had done when they were young.

Approaching her, Cleon XII couldn't help but smile as he watched her in silent admiration. She was a vision of grace and beauty, her dedication to the art of creating flower crowns both captivating and endearing.

Without a word, he approached her and asked, "May I join you?"

(Y/N) looked up, her eyes widening in surprise as she registered his presence. A flush of warmth colored her cheeks. "Of course, Cleon XII," she replied, her voice gentle and inviting.

Cleon XII took a seat beside her, a touch of uncertainty in his expression. "I admit, I have never done this before," he confessed, his gaze locked on her delicate hands as they deftly worked the flowers.

Her laughter was like music, a sweet melody that danced through the air. "It's quite simple, really," she said, her fingers guiding his in the delicate process of weaving the blooms together. "You just need patience and a gentle touch."

As she showed him how to create the intricate patterns of a flower crown, Cleon XII found himself utterly entranced by her. He watched her with blissful awe, every stolen glance revealing the depth of his affection.

And then, in a moment of boldness, he blurted out, "Do you wish to go on a date with me?"

The question hung in the air, unexpected and unscripted. (Y/N) blinked in surprise, her cheeks tinted with a becoming shade of pink. She paused for a heartbeat, considering his request, and then a smile bloomed on her lips.

"I would love to," she replied, her eyes meeting his with a newfound warmth that sent a rush of happiness surging through Cleon XII's heart. In that simple moment, amidst the petals and the delicate art of flower crowns, their courtship had begun, destined to blossom into something far greater.

Good step one was now in place..

[tarotfairy0919]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟMinor Arcana in tarot*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

Hello, everyone! Your tarot fairy here🧚‍♀️!

©tarotfairy0919 🧚‍♀️ all rights reserved

Please like and reblog if you find this information useful! 🌸🎀💕

//don’t claim it as your own and/or repost it on other platforms//

When interpreting the Minor Arcana cards in a Tarot reading, it is important to consider the suit, number, and imagery on each card. Pay attention to the emotions, actions, and challenges depicted in the cards, as they provide valuable insights into our daily lives and the steps we need to take to navigate through them.

The Minor Arcana serves as a practical guide to help us understand and navigate the complexities of our everyday lives, guiding us towards personal growth and self-awareness.

Each suit contains cards numbered from Ace to 10, as well as Court cards - Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

These cards represent different stages of development and maturity in each suit.

The Minor Arcana cards represent everyday events, emotions, and challenges that we encounter on a regular basis. They provide guidance and insight into our day-to-day lives and can offer practical advice on how to navigate through obstacles or make decisions.

Ϟ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)⋆ Ϟ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)⋆ Ϟ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)⋆ Ϟ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)⋆

The Minor Arcana is divided into four suits – Swords, Cups, Wands, and Pentacles – each representing different aspects of our lives such as thoughts and communication, emotions and relationships, creativity and passion, and material wealth and stability.

While the Major Arcana cards may provide more overarching themes and spiritual lessons, the Minor Arcana cards offer specific details and concrete actions to take in our lives. They can represent small victories or challenges, moments of joy or sorrow, and opportunities for growth and development.

Some common themes that the Minor Arcana cards address include love, relationships, work, challenges, decisions, and personal growth. Each suit (Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles) represents a different aspect of life and can shed light on various areas of your life that may need attention or improvement.

Whether you're facing challenges or seeking guidance, the Minor Arcana can provide clarity and direction to help you navigate life's ups and downs with confidence and resilience.

Each suit represents a different aspect of life:

Wands represent creativity, inspiration, and passion.

Cups represent emotions, relationships, and intuition.

Swords represent thoughts, communication, and challenges.

Pentacles represent material aspects such as money, work, and resources.

The numbered cards in each suit typically represent different stages or experiences related to that aspect of life, while the court cards represent different personalities or roles that may come into play. The court cards can also be seen as representing different aspects of ourselves or individuals in our lives.

‎ ٩(⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)و̣̩⋆̩ ‎٩(⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)و̣̩⋆̩ ‎٩(⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)و̣̩⋆̩ ‎٩(⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)و̣̩⋆̩

While the suits of the Minor Arcana help show you which area of your life needs attention, exactly what energy is coming your way is determined by the number on the card. The numbers one through ten, plus the court cards, each carry a general energy that can help you better understand the messages of the Minor Arcana:

The number one represents new beginnings, creativity, and initiation. It signifies the start of a journey or project.

The number two represents balance, partnership, and choices. It often indicates a need to make decisions or find harmony in a situation.

The number three represents growth, expansion, and collaboration. It suggests a period of development and working together with others.

The number four represents stability, structure, and security. It indicates a solid foundation and a need to maintain or build upon it.

The number five represents change, conflict, and challenges. It signifies a time of upheaval and the need to adapt or overcome obstacles.

The number six represents harmony, cooperation, and balance. It indicates a period of peace and unity with others.

The number seven represents introspection, analysis, and spirituality. It suggests a need for inner reflection and seeking deeper meaning.

The number eight represents power, success, and accomplishment. It indicates a time of achievement and taking control of a situation.

The number nine represents fulfillment, completion, and attainment. It signifies reaching a goal or receiving a reward for your efforts.

The number ten represents completion, transition, and endings. It indicates the end of a cycle and the start of a new phase in your life.

Court Cards: The court cards (Page, Knight, Queen, King) represent different aspects of personality or situational energies. They can also indicate specific people in your life or qualities you need to embody. Pages represent new beginnings and learning, Knights represent action and movement, Queens represent nurturing and intuition, and Kings represent authority and leadership.

[foxufortunes]

So like, I was gonna add this onto my post about the Raven's win percentage and how that compared to lacrosse with NCAA Exy and NCAA Lacrosse being about the same age, but I figured I'd put it here so everyone can see, because this is what I mean about the exy timeline being complicated and why zero losses makes sense over 30 years.

And yes, I know AFTG is not aiming for hyper realism grounded in reality, but I like figuring out a cohesive timeline for things like fics it's TRC all over again. Also I just like to think way too deep about this things, and if I'm descending into madness over these things you're coming with me.

That said, the timeline of exy and Evermore as much as I can make sense of it:

So, the exy/Evermore timeline in kind of a mess and a great example of how adding more makes something make less sense. What we're going to do is take the books at their most concrete fact and say that Tetsuji and Kayleigh invented exy 30 years pre-canon, and for ease of timeline we'll call it exactly 30years. So, here we go:

So our base line in 1976 (for the record NCAA Lacrosse was formed 1971, this is what I mean when I say they're roughly the same age). Tetsuji and Kayleigh were in university and in Japan, but it's not clear at what point in their studies they were and how long they had left to go at university.

Nora's EC says that Tetsuji was reaching out to the NCAA before he graduated. During his last semester he was reaching out promising funding and himself as a coach. So this is, at most a few years after exy was created unless Tetsuji had the slowest university career ever.

The next fall semester NCAA Exy officially starts with Ravens vs Trojans at Castle Evermore. So, as I've said before, the Big 3 were in on the ground floor. This is why they're so dominant, but that they started with the Ravens means they should be more competitive. The Raven's won the first match 13-12 and if it's that close at the start, the idea that the Raven's undefeated 20year+ streak is because they've been around longer loses all ground.

Evermore was the first stadium completed, followed by the Golden Court for the Trojans and Pride Court for Penn State Lions (which is such a cute name, I want a book on them please Nora). Pride Court was delayed but Penn State kept up training, while USC and EAU had their courts built at impossible speed. For reference, building a sports stadium, from first plans to completion is at speed roughly an 18month endeavour, if everything goes right, but depending on how you read the point above this could be just a few months. Either way, it's very fast. Other universities had pop up stadiums or played at the bigger stadiums of the Big 3 or local stadiums until theirs were complete. Ironically, given his apparent treatment of his female players, a lot of Tetsuji's funding came from getting women on board, promoting how co-ed the sport was.

The first pro teams were formed around the first graduates from the NCAA league. So 5 years after Evermore and we get a professional league.

And the US Court 2 years after. So 7 years from the start of the NCAA competition and we get a national team.

Then exy is in the Olympics the next year. So 8 years from the first NCAA game for exy to be Olympic recognised (a generous estimate makes that 1988, 1992 at a push, 14-18 years pre-canon and roughly a decade pre-foundation of the Foxes).

The problem with all this, of course, being that the book in only chapter 2 of TFC says that Kevin (born in 1986) and Riko were around with Tetsuji when Evemore was still in the blueprint stage.

Now, there's a couple of way I can think to maybe square this all. Firstly, obviously the 30years is a rough but that should mean closer to 30 than anything else, but to be generous either way, we're looking at between '71 (35years pre-canon) and '81 (25years pre-canon) and the later timeline can square a little better. It's also possible our Castle Evermore is a new stadium and the first Castle Evermore is an old one they've knocked down and replaced at the new one is the one Kevin and Riko were around for. It's also possible to be more generous with Tetsuji's university career: say he was in his first year in 1976, did a longer/postgrad course and stayed for say 7 years giving us 1983 for his graduation, then be generous and say "next fall semester" actually means '84 (which is still fast for a stadium) for Evermore's completion and the NCAA starting, which gives us the '92 Olympics.

So, let's work backwards instead. For Evermore to be being built while Kevin and Riko "already had custom racquets" we'll be generous and lowball age 2? So, we'll work with Evermore opening around '88. Even working with the most generous estimate of when exy was invented (1981, 25years rather than 30) that means, assuming Tetsuji spent his freshman year in Japan, he was in university for 6 or 7 years (depending on how you read next fall). Putting us at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and making NCAA exy 20ish years old.

[todaysdocument]

The Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional on June 26, 2013. 

In U.S. v Windsor, SCOTUS held that the federal government could not discriminate against same-sex couples. 

Record Group 267: Records of the Supreme Court of the United States Series: Appellate Jurisdiction Case Files

Transcription: 

[Stamped: " FILE COPY "]

(Bench Opinion)                 OCTOBER TERM, 2012            1  [Handwritten and circled " 1"  in upper right-hand corner]

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR, EXECUTOR OF THE

ESTATE OF SPYER, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE SECOND CIRCUIT

No. 12-307.  Argued March 27, 2013---Decided June 26, 2013

The State of New York recognizes the marriage of New York residents

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, who wed in Ontario, Canada, in

2007. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her entire estate to Windsor.

Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviv-

ing spouses, but was barred from doing so by §3 of the federal Defense

of Marriage Act (DOMA), which amended the Dictionary Act---a

law providing rules of construction for over 1,000 federal laws and

the whole realm of federal regulations-to define "marriage" and

"spouse" as excluding same-sex partners. Windsor paid $363,053 in

estate taxes and sought a refund, which the Internal Revenue Service

denied. Windsor brought this refund suit, contending that DOMA vi-

olates the principles of equal protection incorporated in the Fifth

Amendment. While the suit was pending, the Attorney General notified

the Speaker of the House of Representatives that the Department

of Justice would no longer defend §3's constitutionality. In re-

sponse, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) of the House of

Representatives voted to intervene in the litigation to defend §3's

constitutionality. The District Court permitted the intervention. On

the merits, the court ruled against the United States, finding §3 un-

constitutional and ordering the Treasury to refund Windsor's tax

with interest. The Second Circuit affirmed. The United States has

not complied with the judgment.

Held:

1. This Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case.

This case clearly presented a concrete disagreement between oppos-

ing parties that was suitable for judicial resolution in the District

Court, but the Executive's decision not to defend §3's constitutionali-

[page 2]

2                  UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR

Syllabus

ty in court while continuing to deny refunds and assess deficiencies

introduces a complication. Given the Government's concession, ami-

cus contends, once the District Court ordered the refund, the case

should have ended and the appeal been dismissed. But this argu-

ment elides the distinction between Article Ill's jurisdictional re-

quirements and the prudential limits on its exercise, which are "es-

sentially matters of judicial self-governance." Warth v. Seldin, 422

U. S. 490, 500. Here, the United States retains a stake sufficient to

support Article III jurisdiction on appeal and in this Court. The re-

fund it was ordered to pay Windsor is "a real and immediate econom-

ic injury," Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 551 U. S.

587, 599, even if the Executive disagrees with §3 of DOMA. Wind-

sor's ongoing claim for funds that the United States refuses to pay

thus establishes a controversy sufficient for Article III jurisdiction.

Cf. INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919.

Prudential considerations, however, demand that there be "con-

crete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon

which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult consti-

tutional questions." Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204. Unlike Article

III requirements---which must be satisfied by the parties before judi-

cial consideration is appropriate---prudential factors that counsel

against hearing this case are subject to "countervailing considera-

tions [that] may outweigh the concerns underlying the usual reluc-

tance to exert judicial power." Warth, supra, at 500-501. One such

consideration is the extent to which adversarial presentation of the

issues is ensured by the participation of amici curiae prepared to de-

fend with vigor the legislative act's constitutionality. See Chadha,

supra, at 940. Here, BLAG's substantial adversarial argument for

§3's constitutionality satisfies prudential concerns that otherwise

might counsel against hearing an appeal from a decision with which

the principal parties agree. This conclusion does not mean that it is

appropriate for the Executive as a routine exercise to challenge stat-

utes in court instead of making the case to Congress for amendment

or repeal. But this case is not routine, and BLAG's capable defense

ensures that the prudential issues do not cloud the merits question,

which is of immediate importance to the Federal Government and to

hundreds of thousands of persons. Pp. 5-13.

2. DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of

persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 13--26.

(a) By history and tradition the definition and regulation of mar-

riage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the

separate States. Congress has enacted discrete statutes to regulate

the meaning of marriage in order to further federal policy, but

DOMA, with a directive applicable to over 1,000 federal statues and

[NEW PAGE]

Cite as: 570 U.S._ (2013)           3

Syllabus

the whole realm of federal regulations, has a far greater reach. Its

operation is also directed to a class of persons that the laws of New

York, and of 11 other States, have sought to protect. Assessing the

validity of that intervention requires discussing the historical and

traditional extent of state power and authority over marriage.

Subject to certain constitutional guarantees, see, e.g., Loving v.

Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, "regulation of domestic relations" is "an area

that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the

States," Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 404. The significance of state

responsibilities for the definition and regulation of marriage dates to

the Nation's beginning; for "when the Constitution was adopted the

common understanding was that the domestic relations of husband

and wife and parent and child were matters reserved to the States,"

Ohio ex rel. Popovici v. Agler, 280 U. S. 379, 383-384. Marriage laws

may vary from State to State, but they are consistent within each

State.

DOMA rejects this long-established precept. The State's decision

to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a

dignity and status of immense import. But the Federal Government

uses the state-defined class for the opposite purpose---to impose re-

strictions and disabilities. The question is whether the resulting injury

and indignity is a deprivation of an essential part of the liberty

protected by the Fifth Amendment, since what New York treats as

alike the federal law deems unlike by a law designed to injure the

same class the State seeks to protect. New York's actions were a

proper exercise of its sovereign authority. They reflect both the

community's considered perspective on the historical roots of the in-

stitution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning

of equality. Pp. 13--20.

(b) By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect,

DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles ap-

plicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution's guarantee of

equality "must at the very least mean that a bare congressional de-

sire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot" justify disparate

treatment of that group. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413

U. S. 528, 534-535. DOMA cannot survive under these principles.

Its unusual deviation from the tradition of recognizing and accepting

state definitions of marriage operates to deprive same-sex couples of

the benefits and responsibilities that come with federal recognition of

their marriages. This is strong evidence of a law having the purpose

and effect of disapproval of a class recognized and protected by state

law. DOMA's avowed purpose and practical effect are to impose a

disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter

into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority

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4           UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR

Syllabus

of the States.

DOMA's history of enactment and its own text demonstrate that

interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, conferred

by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than

an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence. BLAG's

arguments are just as candid about the congressional purpose.

DOMA's operation in practice confirms this purpose. It frustrates

New York's objective of eliminating inequality by writing inequality

into the entire United States Code.

DOMA's principal effect is to identify and make unequal a subset of

state-sanctioned marriages. It contrives to deprive some couples

married under the laws of their State, but not others, of both rights

and responsibilities, creating two contradictory marriage regimes

within the same State. It also forces same-sex couples to live as mar-

ried for the purpose of state law but unmarried for the purpose of

federal law, thus diminishing the stability and predictability of basic

personal relations the State has found it proper to acknowledge and

protect. Pp. 20-26.

699 F. 3d 169, affirmed.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG,

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a

dissenting opinion. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which

THOMAS, J., joined, and in which ROBERTS, C. J., joined as to Part I.

ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined as to

Parts II and III.

[NEW PAGE]

Cite as: 570 U. S. _ (2013)          1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,

D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 12-307

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. EDITH SCHLAIN

WINDSOR, IN HER CAPACITY AS EXECUTOR OF THE

ESTATE OF THEA CLARA SPYER, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

[June 26, 2013]

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.

Two women then resident in New York were married

in a lawful ceremony in Ontario, Canada, in 2007. Edith

Windsor and Thea Spyer returned to their home in New

York City. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her entire

estate to Windsor. Windsor sought to claim the estate tax

exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from

doing so, however, by a federal law, the Defense of Mar-

riage Act, which excludes a same-sex partner from the

definition of "spouse" as that term is used in federal stat-

utes. Windsor paid the taxes but filed suit to challenge

the constitutionality of this provision. The United States

District Court and the Court of Appeals ruled that this

portion of the statute is unconstitutional and ordered the

United States to pay Windsor a refund. This Court granted

certiorari and now affirms the judgment in Windsor's

favor.

I

In 1996, as some States were beginning to consider the

concept of same-sex marriage, see, e.g., Baehr v. Lewin, 74

[kassandras-one-braincell]

I believe I promised some word vomit about an AU that has been rotting in my brain for about a year. It yearns to be free. Yes, it predictably revolves around the knight-princess concept. And while I genuinely have too many thoughts to conceivably put onto a page, I want to share it with you, because it makes me happy

The concept: an ancient oath that binds a knight's undying protection to a person of royal status, on fear of death

The reader in this is a princess, and while I won't give them a concrete personality, the AU does have some foundations in the princess' role to the kingdom. They're successful, philanthropic and dignified. (I aspire to be these things in a much better version of myself, and this is a bit of a comfort au lmao)

The backstory is obscenely elaborate in my head but the gist is, you are the heir to the throne. Your father passed before you were of age to ascend to the throne, and your mother remarried to the current king regent because she wanted you to be genuinely ready to rule by the time of your coronation. His reign is a fixed term spanning a decade or two because he’s a consort and there’s some old law dictating this. I can never decide on the actual duration.

His reign is nearing its end. The court and the public are optimistic about your coronation. You’re a believer in progress and innovation, and have pledged vast, accessible education to the children of the kingdom on top of the schools you’ve already built. A generation of well-educated kids will be a boon to the economy in future years, so the court is mostly all for it. There are a few who feel threatened by the idea, of course, and the investment in the future means less money padding their pockets, which they’re not fond of either.

The King however has adult children from his previous marriage whom he envisions as his successors, despite the terms of his reign forbidding it, unless you were to die. Knowing there are a few very willing co-conspirators amongst the court nobles, and that you vehemently refuse marriage and having children (self-projection, sorry), he sees a clear avenue in securing the line of ascension for his offspring. Plus, he'd no longer be legally obligated to abdicate.

In the same big legal book that lays out the terms surrounding an acting monarch, there is an oath that is seldom undertaken, rooted in ye olde tradition. With a witness present, a single person may pledge undying allegiance to a member of the royal family. They would be entrusted with their life, and expected to lay down their own if it ensured the royal’s survival. The Oathsworn is regarded as an elite ranking within the royal guard, and expected to undertake additional martial duties alongside being personally responsible for the safety of the royal in question, who must give consent alongside the witness to the pledge. Breaking the Oath is high treason. The royal’s untimely death counts as a breaking of the vows, so the Oathsworn scene is pretty stagnant.

Kassandra, Soma and Eivor all have their own trajectories based on this.

Soma's is...big. I suffer from chronic undying-love-for-unromancable-npc-itis. Kassandra's is comparatively undercooked. Eivor's is a work in progress, put generously. I do love Eivor, really, it's just whenever I try to build something for her in this universe, she quickly becomes Soma. See diagnosis. But I'm going to build on them, even if the ideas aren't as long or thoroughly explored, because it's fun :)

[sadderbutwisergirrl]

Jim Hightower is an old pro at populist grass roots mobilization. We need to listen to this political elder!

“We’re collecting actions that grassroots people can take, and are collaborating with longtime friends and allies to light a fire under the butts of Democratic Party leaders. We’ll keep you updated on those efforts, but to start, here are two groups to join up with.

Demand Justice has been advocating for the Judiciary Act, which would expand the court by four seats. They’re asking people to call their representatives, and to join their rapid response team. https://demandjustice.org/

We’ve long been a fan of Lisa Graves (you can watch our 2022 Chat ‘n’ Chew episode with her here), and she’s teamed up with the folks at Court Accountability for a new round of intense actions called Justice Can’t Wait.

They’ve shared with us a list of things you can do:

Share the Justice Can’t Wait updated website. https://justicecantwait.org/#

Raise awareness of the seeds being planted by Trump and his allies to deny the results of the 2024 election if it doesn’t go their way. Trump has refused to commit to accepting legitimate election results if he does not win, and his allies are laying the groundwork for election denial through lawsuits and false claims about election fraud.

Urge Congress to pass reforms clarifying the Insurrection Act, which Trump plans to invoke to deploy the military against the American people, on his first day in office. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trumps-insurrection-act-threat

Share Stand Up America’s Supreme Court Voter website, which aims to educate and mobilize voters on the impact the next president will have on the future of the U.S. Supreme Court. https://www.courtvoter.com/

Educate Americans on the economic threats that the extremist Project 2025 poses. Economic concerns “consistently rank as top issues among likely voters,” and people need to understand the likely consequences and chaos for our economy and American families if Project 2025 affiliates are able to carry out their dangerous agenda. (The NYT article was behind a paywall so I replaced it with this link) https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025-and-why-is-it-alarming/

Join United for Democracy in calling on Congress to rein in the out-of-control Supreme Court. https://unitedfordemocracy.us/get-involved/

Drive home that this is Trump’s Supreme Court. Trump installed the corporatist majority that has taken away women’s fundamental freedoms and stripped away protections for Americans’ health and safety. Even after Trump led an insurrection, the Court that Trump built is now tipping the scales to help him win again in November and protect him from accountability for his actions.

From the Hightower staff: And let’s not forget how the Supremes view actual bribery: as nothing more than a tip or a token of thanks for a job well done. They’re basically creating loopholes to legalize their own corruption!

Stay tuned for more, and let us know what other concrete actions and organizations you’re hearing about—the comments on this post are open to all subscribers. Let’s do this!”

[messier-47]

I have an idea

And I need to write fast cause the call of sleep urges me

Naruto fanfic, Founders Era, Izuna Lives, Tobirama-centric

Instead of Tobirama being half Hatake, he's half Kaguya

And he does have the bone kekkai genkai

Always love to play with the AU of Tobirama being an extremely overworked workaholic that's trying his best to hold Konoha together and no one seems to notice. Tobi locking himself at his desk, endlessly pouring over admit istration work, project reports, damn near everything in their little fledgingly village of Konoha cause Hashirama isn't exactly helping.

Have tobi work so much that most of Konoha is built with his blood, sweat, and tears (figuratively)

Have it not be enough. Let the coffers run dry and resources suddenly skyrocket in price. Tobirama foresees the ruination of his brother's village before it even begun, a half built city destined for abandonment

So Tobi provides the resource needed to finish off construction. No one knows where the Senju Heir managed to get incredibly fine "white concrete" powder to mix with the chakra resistant foundational concrete blocks but whatever it is, it's quality stuff.

Tobi provide more "white concrete" powder, all the while his skin turns sallow as he continues laboring over administration. He turns guant, his terrible eating habits finally catching up to him as he "mysteriously" starts being excessive calories.

People who work down in the basement with him grow more and more worried but they're nobodies. Hokage-sama isn't going to listen to the concerns of errand runners and Tobirama doesn't seem to have any friends.

Where's the rest of the gang?

Madara has been given the task of securing Konoha's immediate future by earning the approval of the Daimyo to build a village and have several civilian noble lords invest in a shinobi village as a tax write off. He's been gone for years. He comes back home victorious from the warfront of the Courts to receive a warm welcome from his best friend and Izuna.

Hashirama is super eager to give Madara a tour of their childhood dream. Look at all the buildings! The public parks! The fountains! The academy! It's all coming together so well!

And Madara does look around. Sees the roads so carefully laid, the proper communities, the wealth of diversity and people thriving. He turns to Hashirama:

"Who built this village? This is more than the work or either you or I."

It comes out rather easily that Tobirama has been slaving away keeping the bare bones of this village together and...

Well Tobirama's 'unwellness' grew gradually over time so while Hashi knows his little brother is sick, it's just from too much caffeine don't worry!

Except Madara's last memories of the pale Senju were of one healthy, and hale. He knows immediately that something is desperately wrong and speedruns figuring out why.

It will later be revealed:

Tobirama did more than hold together the bare bones of their fledgling village.

His literal bones were used to make the village.

[raisindave]

[Chapter 26] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

What you assumed to be a small, quaint basement under an innocent office supplies store turned out to be anything but. Pushing past a swinging door with a significant amount of locks, you couldn't help but gasp as a vast underground garage came into view. It could easily hold a basketball court, a small stadium of raw concrete with low-hanging lights swinging on wires. The expansive garage was a broad, open room with two vehicles tucked into the nearest corner. Stepping beside the open door for a better view, you gathered information on your location. One of the vehicles was a tan military Humvee, the kind you've seen hundreds of times before, while the other was one of those white windowless vans your parents tell you to beware of. 

Walking toward the vehicles, you were hit with the overwhelming smell of rubber, a consequence of a scarcely ventilated underground bunker. As soon as you started wondering how the hell they'd get two vehicles down those metal stairs, you saw the shipping elevator come into view. Pipes and pistons are ready to elevate a grated platform into a hatch door near the ceiling. Once you'd approached the white van, she cranked the handle latch on the door, hauling it open to reveal a small desk and a bench-style car seat. Humour washed over your mind as you had once again been stowed into an impossibly small broom closet of a bedroom. 

"This will be your space, and you can find dictionaries and linguistic textbooks inside. They should have everything you'll need to learn the language." Laswell's voice was stern but kind, like she understood the absurdity. 

"Yes, ma'am."

She seemed to read your silent studying of the tight quarters as a reason to clarify your sleeping space, resting a palm on her hip. From the corner of your eye, you felt her staring at you as she fiddled with a paperclip on her stack of papers between her thumb and forefinger.

"There are only five bedrooms." she breathed.

"It's no problem, really," your voice came out as a polite laugh. 

Stepping up onto the elevated cabin of the van, you ducked your head to avoid thumping it on the dwarfish roof. Fingertips ran over a waist-high stack of glossy textbooks and sleek printed manuals, resting your aching thighs from crouching to sitting on your knees before the towering stack. Laswell seemed to have taken this as a sign of approval, and you heard clicking footsteps recede out of earshot. Flicking on the overhead light, how little it illuminated was almost humorous. There you sat, half a world away from where you were less than 24 hours ago, about to embark on a 10-day study spree to frantically learn an entire language. The gravity of the situation in the form of faint lightheadedness struck you, threatening to cripple your confidence. Sure, you had a solid head start by having Russian as a foundation, but that still left a staggering amount of knowledge to cram in under two weeks. A crunch that would put the toughest university class to shame.

So now it begins. Cracking open the starchy covers of brand-new textbooks, you stood- as tall as you could- and tried to map out your strategy from a bird's eye view. Clicking to attention one of the bundles of ballpoint pens, you scrawled 10 squares, signifying 10 days to work. For the first two days, you'll work on familiarizing yourself with shared words and grammar styles between Ukrainian and Russian. Days three to five will be the intensive study days, taking advantage of the tidy stack of blank flash cards that were conveniently tucked under the calculator, whose purpose you struggled to grasp. From days six to eight, it's all about practicing pronunciation and running tight language drills on yourself to ensure you're emphasizing the right syllables when you vocalize your practice. That leaves the last two days for running final tests on areas you deemed yourself weak on and a single day as a grace period in case things go sideways. Confident with the scheme, the plan was set in stone. It didn't take long before the rhythm of the study habits enraptured you for the day, an aching stomach alerting you to the fact that it must be time to eat. And this time, you refused to let your priority on work coax your body into rapid weight loss from near starvation.

Days came and went, blurring together thanks to the lack of a day-night cycle from the rising and setting sun. On one of your trips to the restroom, along with an excuse to stretch your tense legs, you met the boys after just coming in from a run or some sort of workout session. Considering the mud on their boots, they must have gone into those piney woods you saw when you landed. You made the mistake of bleating about how much you would've enjoyed seeing the sunlight, a testament which would have consequences later on. At some point, after another handful of hours spent in the spine of a textbook, you looked up. Smiling and shaking your head, you set your eyes on a poorly drawn picture of a tree and cartooney sunshine taped to the small window on the door of the van. Someone's sick joke to make fun of your whinging about missing fresh air. It was fitting, though. It was just the morale boost you needed to remind you to swallow that creeping feeling of despondency and get back to wrapping your head around this foreign language. 

Right when you begin to think you understand the lexicographic way to pronounce the word with those swirling Latin letters, your confidence is dashed as you speak it aloud. Step by step, brick by brick, you suffer agonizingly rereading the same basic sentences until the syllables roll off your tongue according to the textbook's insistence. The problem with learning a language based on a textbook is that it leaves you blindly trusting the assertions of a textbook that could have been written decades ago. Although Laswell kindly got you the most recent editions of these laminated texts, you knew all too well how slow linguistic innovations can be. 

There's just this one thing that keeps nagging at you. Tugging on your mind like a snagged thread. The more time you spend with the language, the more of a grasp you get on the way Ukrainian grammar focuses on relationship and social rank, and the more it dawns on you. This plan, dropping information leaflets from an overhead plane, could never work. It doesn't make sense for the language. It doesn't make sense for the people reading the pamphlets. Linguistics 101 says that the method of delivery gives valuable context to the message, and everything about this message screams that this is a foreign intervention. Fingertips trailed around every groove of the steel fuselage of the box you had spent the past four days in, seeing lingering phantoms of bleached paper when you closed your eyes.

Day after day, sleeping in the cramped pullout seat that formed a makeshift couch, you spent every ounce of time between alertness and slumber thinking about the plan. This language's distinct cultural and societal weight makes it unique from others. The words mean more than sounds from your throat or shapes on paper. The inflections and eye contact from the speaking deliver just as much information as a carefully constructed sentence or paragraph. More time spent studying only solidified your resolve, as you recently passed the halfway mark of your allotted study time. Be it from genuine conviction or a touch of stir craziness, you jotted your thoughts onto one of your sprawling loose papers and prepared for an offensive. This cannot work. This message just can't be communicated authentically with this method. Especially since the Elders are already skeptical of the allegiances of the local military base, they'll be entirely dismissive of any attempts to infiltrate their ranks from a military approach. They have no way of knowing if the nearby base flying their flags is secretly held hostage by Russian occupation. If you went forward with the original plan, you'll just be delivering a bonus shipment of toilet paper to these Elders. 

Raising to your feet caused a waterfall of pinpoint prickling to surge down your legs as you adjusted to a standing position. Like a trial by fire, you stride forward, leaping off the bumper of the truck to hit the ground with an explosive reaction from your stiff muscles. Taking advantage of a surge of confidence, you made your way to the basement's main room. You pushed open the door and met three pairs of eyes, along with Soap who was doing pull-ups on the doorframe, who dropped down to meet you. The way you pushed the door open must have made your urgency clear, as they all looked at you with shock and bewilderment. 

"I'd like to talk about the plan."

"Okay sergeant," Price spoke for the group, tilting his head to the other three to bring them to gather in the seats in front of the whiteboard. 

"The PsyOp plan won't work. It couldn't, no matter how much evidence we have. We have to do something different." You barely even gave them time to fully find their seating before you started exclaiming your rambling thoughts.

"What?" Soap blurted, baffled. 

"We need to think about it from their perspective. This group of people has been here for generations, and they're dealing with an enemy that puts kids in chains. These people are stubborn, loyal, and aggressively resistant to foreign intervention in their politics. This is their territory, and they'll fight tooth and nail for every pebble."

The group was stern and grave. Four pairs of eyes boring into your soul from a seated position, as if any sudden movement you might make could cause them to lunge at you like a startled animal. Betrayed by their lounging positions in the metal chairs, you recognized those cold faces as anything but casual. All four of them were waiting on your next word with bated breath, making you will your voice not crack under the rising pressure as you continued. 

"Do you think it'd be beyond the cartel's repertoire to lie about the hostages so they can infiltrate their barricade and wipe them out from the inside?" You point at the whiteboard with the projected map, taking turns to retain cold eye contact with each of them, "A bunch of grizzled, jaded leaders are going to be a lot more skeptical of CIA, NATO, or SAS intervention- even if they don't know it's us. They will not listen to anyone unless they're one of their own."

"Well, what's your plan then?" Price spoke for the group, gruff and cutting. 

"I go in and talk to them face to face."

"Absolutely not," Price started, waving his hand dismissively. "It's like you said, we're dealing with an enemy that puts kids in chains. The Elders would do far worse to you if they think you're backed by the Russians."

"I know," You stopped your passive rocking, solidifying your ironclad conviction. "That's why I want to bring in one of the 'hostages' with me."

A wave of expressions washed over the crowd, all a variation of outrage and dismissal. The energy in the room crackled with doubt, frustration, and hesitation. Price shook his head in frustrated disbelief, Soap holding your stare with a prying gaze. You came into their territory, their field of expertise, and told them how to do their jobs. You might be the same rank as half of them, but you were nowhere near a tactical strategist's position, and yet your certainness remained static. 

It was Gaz and Ghost whose faces stayed grave and unwavering like they were taking their time to roll your proposition between their fangs. The silence continued for what felt like minutes, turning to hours as the four worked over the strategy through simulations mapped out behind cold stares. 

"Alright," Gaz rose to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest, "let's say we do it. How do you get the 'hostage'?"

Like you promised to yourself on the mountaintop, jaded and desolate, you vowed to be done with half-baked plans. Lucky for your suspicious audience, you had thought that out as well.

"Laswell has profiles on all the hostages the Cartel claims to have. When she showed me the images, I saw that she had gathered intel on each of those faces. I know they're storing the wives and children of the Elders in a guarded housing center southeast of here. Since the mission has been going on for so long, they let the adult women leave the secure facility to go to work and buy groceries."

"Okay, what then?" Price spoke, as he too stood up. He was still skeptically holding your gaze with piercing blue eyes, but was now walking toward the whiteboard to erase the notes about the PsyOp plan with his fist. 

"In a few days, I'll be fluent in Ukrainian. In the meantime, Laswell gets intel on the movements of an adult target, and I meet them undercover when they leave the facility and bring them to the Elders' barricade. From there, I can convince them from the inside and speak to them in a way that will actually resonate."

"We'll need to hold a tight overwatch then," Soap finally contributed to the conversation, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. "We have to be right up their asses in case things go sideways," catching agreeing nods from Price, who started jotting notes with the squeaking dry-erase marker. 

"Your Ukrainian better be immaculate, then." Ghost added coldly, his unsettlingly calm expression unwavering, brown eyes boring into yours. 

"Then can I get back to studying?"

Captain Price dismissed you by tilting his chin toward the door to the garage you came from, as you knew that further assertions into their realm of expertise would be far from welcome. Turning on your heels like a dutiful soldier, you marched back to your workspace. A beaming grin pulled at your cheeks, borderline euphoric as cascading tension diffused through your system. You did it. Your chest felt charged with triumph, and a pang of anxiety promised to undo your vivacity as you realized you had just inserted yourself onto the front line of this violent conflict. Swinging yourself back into the windowless van, you settled into your cocoon, ecstatic electricity emitting from your bones radiating off the thin metal walls. Your mind spun to gather yourself after successfully telling these supersoldiers, these titans, how to do their job. Best of all, you proved to yourself that you can trust your own judgement again and made that masked fucker eat his words. 

Your cramped office felt less like a cardboard box, and more like a grand throne as the riveted metal and chevron-patterned couch unit bowed to greet you. A new sense of optimism made the self-heating meals whichever of your teammates placed outside your sliding door taste better and more fulfilling, fueling you to continue studying. Staring at the ceiling of the tin coffin, you smiled with satisfaction, feeling genuine progress in your studies, permitting your mind to wander off-topic for a few minutes before you sleep. Thoughts danced over memories, pleasant and satisfying, until they reached that one memory. That one spotty memory of that dark alley in that tight silk skirt. Your stomach tightened, and you willed your mind to redirect. Just as you shifted your posture in the musty bench-style bed, you heard something out your door. Blood froze. It sounded like a footstep. Your lungs seared in your chest as your breath held, trying to hone in to ingest all sounds and vibrations. Nothing. Spinning with heightened nerves, you knew exactly what you heard. A single, scuffing footstep just outside the door of the van that has been your living space. Too exhausted to care, you gave in to the benefit of the doubt that it's probably just cabin fever and submitted to your heavy eyelids. 

It took Price lecturing you to get up and stretch for you to realize how antisocial you'd been, making you vow to speak to the group at least once daily. After a snorting laugh, you agreed to abide by his terms. On one of your daily excursions, you caught the gaggle of troopers discussing their locations on the quickly approaching engagement date. A crude drawing of a cricket, more like an oval with some legs, denoted your location when you enter the compound. Swiping on the laptop changed the slide, showing a street view of a small grocery store just around the corner from your current location. They had these streets memorized, down to every grey brick on each street corner, dusted with a thin layer of snow. You'll squeeze all that vital information into your memory if it's manageable. 

During your two-minute shower, the realization hit you that you had less than two days remaining to master the language. A twang of panic surged through your cold blood, and the frigid bottled water on your skin had an adverse effect on your hissing nerves. You practically jogged back to your van, catching the tracking eyes of your teammates in your peripheral. You must look crazed, but at this point, you just might be. Failure was not an option for you. Not just so the Russian Cartel could take hold of a vital military base or even to service your country; you needed to succeed to prove to yourself that you could. With enough willpower and a touch of vitamin D deprivation, you can do anything- and do it right.

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Master List

[sneezest]

Dear UWM students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the greater community,

Today is the fourteenth day of the encampment started on Mitchell Hall lawn by the UWM Popular University for Palestine Coalition. This encampment was launched to urge UW-Milwaukee to end its complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation of Gaza and Palestine. Additionally, we sought to spread awareness and educate our campus about the horrific oppression and violence Israel has inflicted on Palestinians for over 75 years.

Our university encampment, “Falasteen Lawn”, has been a vital tool in pressuring UWM to cut any and all ties with the occupying, oppressive, settler-colonial regime of Israel. Over the past year, student organizations have made numerous attempts to have these demands addressed through traditional and diplomatic avenues. The UWM administration was unable to provide any concrete action and maintained a stance that there was nothing more they could do.

We are proud to announce that today, Sunday May 12th, as a result of our willingness to stand up for the human rights of the innocent people of Gaza and our determination to challenge any complicity with Israel’s occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide, we have come to an agreement with the university regarding our demands. We want to emphasize that, despite efforts by individuals and groups inside and outside the university to denigrate us and to silence our voices, we stood firm. We have felt empowered by the brave people of Gaza, by national student movements across the United States and the world and by the support of our community.

Throughout our meetings and negotiations with the UWM administration, we remained committed to our demands that were not meant for our personal benefit, but for the suffering people of Gaza. We engaged in countless email communications and lengthy meetings with the administration, always emphasizing the reasonableness and importance of accepting our demands in their entirety.

After hard fought edits and careful consideration by the coalition, we determined that we had obtained all possible benefits from our encampment. This does not mean that we have ended our struggle. In fact, we now call on all our allies and community members to join us in our ongoing efforts of negotiating with the UWM administration and the UWM Foundation. For the benefit of the people of Gaza and Palestine, we strongly believe in the need to divest from the Israeli regime, and we believe that many of our efforts will be directed at the UWM Foundation. We will not stop applying pressure and we refuse to back down until we are granted complete disclosure and divestment.

Below is a breakdown of the agreement reached with the university:

1. UWM, in an official and public statement, will not only call for a ceasefire, but will explicitly call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Additionally, UWM will condemn the scholasticide, specifically Israel’s military assault on Gaza, the deliberate targeting of students, teachers, professors, educational facilities, libraries, mosques, churches, and more. UWM will cite the International Criminal Court in their findings of plausible genocide in Gaza.

2. The Water Council, in which Chancellor Mone sits on as Treasurer, has officially ceased relationships and cut all ties with both Mekorot and Israel Innovation Authority, two Israeli-government-owned water companies. UWM will acknowledge that both companies are accused by international aid organizations, including Amnesty International, of cutting off access to drinking water for thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, exacerbating water scarcity. Additionally, despite past relationships, both companies have been removed from the Water Council website.

3. UWM has repeatedly separated itself from the UWM Foundation, which is the entity responsible for disclosure and divestment. It should be noted that the Foundation operates solely for the benefit of the UWM and its staff and students. UWM has agreed to support students in expressing their requests for disclosure and divestment to the UWM Foundation. The university administration’s first step in this support is to facilitate a meeting between student representatives and the UWM Foundation within a 48 hour window of the agreement, which has been confirmed for Tuesday, May 14. We recognize that divestment is not an overnight process; however, our coalition will now turn its attention and focus to the Foundation in pursuit of divestment. We expect to come out of this first meeting with an agreed upon timeline for disclosure. Updates will be provided and appropriate action will be taken by the coalition and with support of the community.

4. We have confirmed that UWM does not have any active study abroad programs in Israel, and no contract with any Israeli university has been utilized since 2018. After sharing a plethora of evidence with the university about discriminatory and racist policies of Israel and after providing credible and flagrant examples of discriminatory Israeli policies, UWM will begin a thorough review of its Discriminatory Conduct Policy for all study abroad programs before moving forward with future trips. We are confident that this review process will effectively end all future study abroad trips to the apartheid state of Israel.

5. With regards to cutting ties with companies that do business with Israel, the university has invoked Wisconsin Statue Section 20.931, an unconstitutional law enacted by the pro-Israel community with the sole purpose of protecting the extremist Israeli regime. The law was passed in the State of Wisconsin during the tenure of Governor Scott Walker. We are focused on exploring all avenues of legislative and judicial pressure or litigation to change this law and revisit this issue. When this law is changed either through legislation or by the court system due to its unconstitutionality, our focus will immediately turn back to UWM.

6. UWM has repeatedly stated that this encampment is in violation of state law as well as the student code of conduct. While threatening disciplinary action multiple times throughout this process, the Chancellor and the Provost have agreed to forgo relevant citations and conduct violations for the students involved in the encampment since the purpose of the encampment was related to student protest of Israel’s genocide.

The Popular UWM university encampment, Falasteen Lawn, has been a phenomenal and historic step in the movement for ending complicity with an occupying and genocidal regime and working for a free Palestine. The encampment included student, anti-war, labor, and national liberation movements converging for a common cause. Our struggles are connected, and the Popular University for Palestine was the manifestation of this fact. The encampment was the first phase in our efforts. We will continue to communicate and negotiate with the university administration, with the UWM-Foundation and other stakeholders. We are determined to make sure UWM, our university, thrives educationally and financially based on moral and ethical programs, policies and investments.

To close, we want to acknowledge that Falasteen Lawn was a student protest, an emotional outlet for our grief and a labor of love. Throughout its existence, Israel has always sought to violently silence and censor the people of Gaza and the Palestinian people in general. Our goal was to be the voice of the people of Gaza and the conscience of our campus community. We wanted to be a voice for the over fifteen thousand Palestinian children who have been slaughtered by Israel. We wanted to be a voice for the thousands of murdered university students, professors, researchers and instructors. We wanted to be a voice standing up for humanity and human decency. The trauma that Israel and the local supporters of its genocidal war have inflicted on many of our students and their families is beyond comprehension.

We believe that our encampment was successful due to the coordinated efforts of an entire community composed of many religions, races and ethnicities. We are eternally grateful to the various community organizations, community members and local businesses that helped us maintain our encampment for two weeks. We thank our committed security team for keeping our encampment safe from outside extremists 24/7. We thank our supplies team for coordinating donations to keep our encampers warm and well-fed. We thank our community members who provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every single day for two weeks, without a single penny spent by students. We thank our logistics team for organizing programming for each day of our encampment. Our programming was amazing. Befitting a university setting, many of our programs were teach-ins about Gaza, Palestine and other parts of the world; about politics and race; about our diverse religious traditions, including Islam and Judaism; and so much more. We also want to thank our media and communications team for developing flyers, social media posts, and press releases.

This movement began with a few tents and ended as a robust family of people of many backgrounds and traditions united in the belief that we are all equal before God, that any regime based on ethno-religious supremacy and violence must not be supported or enabled, and that our schools and institutions must reflect moral and ethical values that recognize the humanity of all.

The Popular University for Palestine encampment was a space created by the community, for the community. Falasteen Lawn shows that we can all make a difference. We will continue to fight until the people of Gaza are free and all oppressed people are free. Peace be upon the people of Gaza. Peace be upon the martyrs. Peace be upon the people of Palestine.