#document management 77

[rhyzzzzzz]

Doc lost his case and was sentenced to post it note :(

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 77: How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting

Singapore is a small city-state nation with four official languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. Most Singaporeans can also speak a local hybrid variety known as Singlish, which arose from this highly multilingual environment to create something unique to the island. An important part of growing up in Singapore is learning which of your language skills to use in which situation.

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about how kids learn language in Singapore with Woon Fei Ting, who’s a Research Associate and the Lab Manager at the Brain, Language & Intersensory Perception Lab at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. We talk about how the rich multilingual environment in Singapore led Fei Ting and the lab to do language documentation while trying to figure out how kids learn to talk in Singapore, creating a dictionary of Red Dot Baby Talk (named after how Singapore looks like a red dot on the world map). We also talk about Singlish more generally, some words that Gretchen has learned on her trip, doing research with kids and parents via Zoom, and the role of a lab manager and other lab members in doing linguistic research.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements: Our liveshow is in just a few days!! Gretchen will be chatting to Dr Kirby Conrod (from our episode about the grammar of singular they) about language and gender on February 18th (Canada) slash 19th (Australia)! You can find out what time that is for you here. This liveshow is for Lingthusiam patrons and will take place on the Lingthusiasm Discord server. Become a patron before the event to ask us questions in advance or live-react in the text chat. This episode will also be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: ask us questions about gender or tell us about your favourite examples of gender in various languages and we might include them in the show!

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about what we've been up to in 2022 and what's coming up for 2023. We also talk about our favourite linguistics paper that we read in 2022 slash possibly ever: okay, yes, academic papers don’t typically do this, but this paper has spoilers, so we STRONGLY recommend reading it yourself here before listening to this episode, or check out the sample paragraph on the Patreon post. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds, and get access to this weekends liveshow!

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Woon Fei Ting on Twitter

Lingthusiasm episode ‘What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles’, the prof whose lab Fei Ting works in

BLIP lab at NTU on Facebook

‘Creating a Corpus of Multilingual Parent-Child Speech Remotely: Lessons Learned in a Large-Scale Onscreen Picturebook Sharing Task’ by Woon Fei Ting et al

BLIP lab’s transcription protocol and FAQ

‘Little Orangutan: What a Scary Storm!’ Wordless picture book by Suzy Styles

‘Spiaking Singlish: A Companion to how Singaporeans communicate’ by Gwee Li Sui

Lingthusiasm episode ‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Theory of Mind’

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[fashionbooksmilano]

Stitch your Brain

Monika Auch

Jap Sam Books, Prinsenbeek 2023, 256 pages, softcover, 17x24cm, ISBN 978-94-92852-77-9

euro 30,00

Stitch Your Brain is a long-term study into the intelligence of the hand by artist and former medical doctor Monika Auch. The book reflects the results of the empirical study Auch worked on for the past decade about the importance of creating with your hands in our digital age and the effects of slow creation on neuro cognitive learning, health, and well-being.

The detailed images of a collection of 100+ stitched brains created by participants and their personal comments illustrate the influence of medical image making on body-identity and brain awareness. The creations are in fact a tactile, textile multitude of intimate self-portraits. At the same time, they are a dynamic documentation of changing visions and concerns on global issues throughout the past 10 years.

The data analysis and interpretation by Monika Auch provides insights in the relationship between creativity, stress management, age, well-being, and skill learning. Experts in art history, art, science interactions, and neuroscience who were involved early on in the project comment on the research and place it in a broader context. Contributions by Prof. R. Zwijnenberg, Dr. Marieke Hendriksen, Charlotte Steels (director of the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection), and Mané van Veldhuizen. The texts include topics such as the importance of coexistence of art and science and why they need each other, ethical and esthetical changes of self-perception due to modern brain research, the history of medical imagery of the brain and brain imagery using art and textile design in the past and present, among others.

16/02/24

[tsuyoshikentsu]

gonzalez v. trevino, and why you should care.

SCOTUS has ruled on Gonzalez v. Trevino in an 8-1 vote. Per the ruling, when suing the police for retaliation, the person suing does not need to provide precise instances when others were not arrested on the same charge. General evidence that they would not be likely to be arrested is enough.

The story behind this case is wild, and this ruling is pretty important. Hit Keep Reading for both.

Gonzalez in this case is Sylvia Gonzalez, a 77-year old woman who, it must be said, was the first Latina elected to the city council of Castle Hills, TX (pop. ~4,000). Edward Trevino is the mayor of Castle Hills. If this is starting to raise alarm bells for those of you involved in local politics, you're absolutely right.

Gonzalez was a local resident who ran for office because she and many, many others felt that the city manager, Ryan Rapelye, sucked at his job. She ran on the promise of getting rid of him. Well, she got elected. Then the city attorney and the rest of the city council tried to claim that, since the sheriff who swore her in wasn't technically qualified to do so, her votes didn't count. A judge threw that out. Then Gonzalez got started on circulating a non-binding citizens' petition to get rid of Rapelye.

Here's what happened next: after Gonzalez submitted the signed petition (at which point it became a government document), at the end of a meeting it was sitting among some documents on top of a podium. Gonzalez put all the documents in her binder.

Now, before we all get excited here: a key point in Gonzalez's case which this decision does not cover is whether she did this intentionally or not. There are questions about whether all the signatures are legit; some residents have said she coerced them. On the other hand, that could just be the council's faction talking. That part is going back to trial, so no answer here.

HOWEVER. What's clear is what happened next: weeks later, Gonzalez was arrested on the charge of tampering with a government document. She was thrown in jail overnight, and her mugshot was released. The charge was almost immediately dropped, but she wound up paying I think over $10,000 in legal fees and her reputation was hurt. Because of this, Gonzalez then sued the police, claiming retribution.

What's retribution? What it sounds like: if you engage in protected First Amendment activity, and the police arrest you, that's retribution if you can prove that they didn't have probable cause. In that case, you can sue them.

Wait a second. Sue the police for arresting people? That's right, darlings, this is a qualified immunity case!

Now, in 2019 SCOTUS added a second way to prove retribution. Instead of showing they didn't have probable cause, you can sue the cops if you can prove that someone doing the same thing without the message you were stating wouldn't have been arrested. For example--and this is the example SCOTUS used when it was argued--if you shout "FUCK THE POLICE!" and then jaywalk, and you get arrested and jailed for jaywalking, you have a pretty fucking good case for retribution.

Tampering with a government document is, basically, a ridiculous charge in this case. Gonzalez showed that at trial by citing stats saying no one has been arrested for picking up a petition ever. The trial court agreed, but an appeals court ruled that no, she had to cite specific examples of people picking up petitions and not getting arrested. Thus, SCOTUS.

So… what the hell happened?

This ruling is a per curium ruling. There are a number of things that can mean, but in this particular case it means that no Justice's opinion got the five votes necessary to be the majority opinion. Thus, this is another case where we have a bunch of concurring opinions.

Alito's concurrence actually gives some reasons for why they ruled what they did. They're technical, but they amount to, basically, saying that you can't decide whether evidence counts for this exception at the same time you're trying to figure out if there's enough of it. Kavanaugh's is the--technical term here--weakest shit ever, literally saying that this ruling is fine because it "does no harm." Jackson's concurrence (Sotomayer joining) says you should allow all kinds of evidence for this!

And the lone dissenter? That's right, iiiiiiiiiiiiit's Thomas! His dissenting opinion says that this exception shouldn't exist at all and you should always have to show probable cause, likely because he's a bitter old man who hates goodness and joy.

Okay, why does this matter?

One, because it protects free speech from retribution and makes it easier to fight back if that happens. Two, because this is a (very, very) small chink in the armor of qualified immunity, which should die in a fire. (For those who don't know: qualified immunity is what makes it so you can't sue cops.) Those two together make this a big deal to me, narrow as the ruling is. It's a good day for protesters and objectors everywhere.

It's also interesting just how much this fractured the court, especially given how often that seems to be happening. The conservative supermajority we've all been fearing is--ever so slowly, bit by minuscule bit--weakening. I'm still extremely worried about many upcoming decisions, but this has given me some hope.

[determinate-negation]

Iaşi– town in Moldavia (northeastern Romania) on the Bahlui River; an important trading center with links to Bucovina, Bessarabia, Ukraine, and Russia; capital of the former principality of Moldavia (1565–1862). The largest and most important Jewish community of Moldavia lived in Iaşi. The presence of Jews was first documented in the late sixteenth century when Sephardic Jews arrived accompanying the new rulers appointed by the Turkish sultan. The oldest tomb inscription in the local cemetery probably dates to 1610.

[...]

The number of Jews in Iaşi increased in the second half of the nineteenth century, reaching 39,441 (50.8% of the town’s population) in 1899. This growth was due both to natural increase and to the arrival of Jews who had been expelled from surrounding villages. In the early twentieth century, the number of Jews fell as a result of economic crisis, discriminatory laws, and emigration. In 1910, there were about 35,000 Jews living in Iaşi.

In the late nineteenth century, Jews were active in small industry and crafts, local and international trade, finance, and liberal and intellectual professions (they were doctors, teachers, writers, journalists, bookshop keepers, editors, public servants, and musicians). They also contributed to the setting up of steam mills and mechanical workshops, as well as to organizing freight. In 1890–1892, there were 3,048 Jewish artisans and 3,404 Jewish merchants. By 1909, Jews accounted for 77 percent of the craftsmen in Iaşi.

Most rabbis in Iaşi in 1859 to 1919 were Hasidim. They included Shemu’el Shmelke Taubes (in Iaşi 1852–1865); his son, Uri Shraga Feivel Taubes; Yeshayahu (Isaia) Shor, an adept of strict Orthodoxy (1854–1879); Dov Ber Rabinovici, also called the Folticener Rebbe (d. 1865); Ḥayim Landau (d. 1908), rabbi of the town, an adept of strict orthodoxy; Yisra’el Gutman (1820–1894), and his son, Shalom Gutman. In 1865, the banker Jacob of Neuschatz established the moderate reform temple that carried his name, Bet Ya‘akov. The preachers in this temple included Antoine Levy of Alsace and eventually Matityahu Simḥah Rabener. Later (from 1897), this position was filled by Iacob Isac Niemirower, who subsequently became the chief rabbi of Romania. Another modern rabbi in Iaşi (in 1915) was Meyer Thenen. A Jewish secondary school was also set up in the early twentieth century.

In 1872, Matityahu Simḥah Rabener published the Hebrew literary–cultural review Zimrat ha-arets. Although only two issues were published, it managed to bring together Hebrew writers from Iaşi with others, especially from Bucovina and Galicia. In 1878, a group of maskilim in Iaşi established the cultural association Ohale Shem, whose purpose was to develop the Hebrew language and spread Jewish culture. Hebrew writers involved in the association included Beniamin Schwarzfeld (1822–1897), Naḥman Fraenkel, Menaḥem Mendel Braunstein (1858–1944, known as Mibashan), and the physician Karpel Lippe (1830–1915). The journalist Eli‘ezer Rokeaḥ (1854–1914) lived for a while in Iaşi, where he published the Hebrew newspaper Yisra’el in 1881, as did the poet Naftali Herz Imber (1856–1909), author of “Hatikvah,” which eventually became the anthem of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.

In 1876, the first performance of the Yiddish theater, established by Avrom Goldfadn, was given in Iaşi. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iaşi became a center of Yiddish literature. In 1896, the socialist weekly Der veker (edited by Max Wexler [1870–1917], Litman Ghelerter [1873–1945], and Leon Gheler) was issued in Iaşi; it was published again in 1916, edited by Isac Moscovici. In 1899, the Zionist weekly in Yiddish (with a German title) Die Jüdische Zukunft was published in Iaşi; it was a cultural and general Jewish-interest magazine. Between December 1914 and September 1915, the first literary review in Yiddish in Romania, Likht, was issued in Iaşi; it was edited by a group called by the same name, with Efraim Waldman as editor, and Iacob Botoshanski (1892–1964), Iacob Groper, Lascar Şaraga (Lazar Samson; 1892–1968), Moti Rabinovici, and Arn Matisyahu Friedman as contributors. Several Jewish periodicals in Romanian were also issued in Iaşi. One of them, Vocea apărătorului (The Voice of the Defender; 1872–1873), was edited by Marcu Feldman and Marcu Rosenfeld, and advocated Jewish emancipation and tried to fight against the anti-Jewish attacks in the local Romanian press. The Revista Israelită (The Israelite Magazine), edited by Elias Schwarzfeld, was issued in 1874. Other periodicals issued in Romanian in Iaşi before World War I included Lumina (The Light, 1887) a socialist weekly, edited by Ştefan Stâncă; Propăşirea (The Thriving, 1889–1891), edited by Max Caufman; and Răsăritul (The Sunrise, 1899–1901).

In Iaşi, Jewish writers and journalists writing in Romanian before World War I included Adolf-Avram Steuerman-Rodion (1872–1918), Horia Carp, Enric Furtună, A. Axelrod, the brothers Joseph and Marco Brociner (the former an essayist and historian, the latter a novelist in Romanian and German), the epigrammatist Bernard Goldner (Giordano), the poet Adrian Verea, the journalists Jean Hefter, Alfred Hefter, Carol Schoenfeld (C. Săteanu), Clement Blumenfeld-Scrutator, and A. Glicksman (“Dr. Y”).

Jewish musicians in Iaşi played an important role as preservers of Yiddish folklore, as performers and composers. The most prominent musicians were the Lemes family, Avram Bughici, Berl Segal, and Haim Israel Bernstein. In 1906, a group of maskilim, including Niemirower, Iacob Nacht, Abraham Leib Zissu, Iacob Groper, Iacob Botoşanski and others, founded the Toynbee Hall Association, which was a sort of Jewish popular athenaeum, and organized public lectures on Jewish and general topics in Romanian and Yiddish. Among the lecturers who appeared in Iaşi were Sholem Aleichem, Bernard Lazare, Franz Oppenheimer, and Naḥum Sokolow. The first local committee of the Yishuv Erets Yisra’el organization was elected in February 1882; Karpel Lippe became its president. He eventually participated in the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Hello! ^^

I read that you are trying to go from 120.000 words to 80.000 in the revision of your current wip (congratulations!)

I am curious about the process, can you share anything about this revision? Do you focus on cutting scenes, excessive description or dialogue? Any tips on how to work on a second draft?

P.S. I will answer your question soon :)

Hi! Thanks for the ask!

I finished my second draft about two weeks ago. I managed to cut it down from 112 572 words to 77 049 words.

Most of what I cut was over-writing: outright explaining every inch of an idea instead of letting the reader think about the implications, stating the same thing several different ways because I wasn't sure if I was clear enough, or going off on tangents that were not relevant anymore.

There were some bits of backstory and exposition that never came up again so I cut those too. There were also a bunch of moments where I felt scenes were dragging because I was describing every mundane action.

Really, I just read over my whole draft and asked myself after every sentence if that sentence was adding to the story or if cutting it might make it stronger.

One thing I should mention though is that I don't edit my first drafts. If you are someone that edits as you do, you will probably not need to cut as many words as I did.

My tips for doing major cuts would be:

Don't do your revisions in your first draft document. Open a new document and copy and paste your first draft into it, one manageable section at a time. This way you will still have a document (your first draft) with all the stuff you cut in it. It makes killing your darlings hurt less and means you can change things back if you need to.

Keep any darlings you cut but were particularly fond of. Some people keep them in a separate document. I put mine in the comments on my second draft so I could easily find them if I found a new place for them.

Be ruthless. You can always add stuff back in later.

Every time a thought goes on longer than a short sentence, ask yourself if there is a shorter way you can get it across. Sometimes there isn't.

Focus less on cutting things that don't advance the plot and more on cutting things that are repetitive, dull, or cringeworthy to read.

If you find yourself getting impatient or muttering get to the point at your own writing, cut something.

A section or line can be well-written and still make the story drag if it is not adding anything to the plot, themes, character development, or emotional beats (lows and highs). You have the choice to cut the line or try to make it serve a second purpose.

Trust the process. Every word cut adds up over time.

[jack-daww]

Fanfic writing asks!

2, 4, 7, 10, 29, 35, 49, and 77?

Ooh, thank you for the ask! Let's see...

2: Where do you get your fic ideas?

Hard to say. I get inspired by just about anything. Stuff I read, conversations I have, situations I've either been in or heard about, you get the gist. When something catches my interest, my brain will start screaming ideas at me until it either leaks oit of my ears or I start writing it down and throw it into the ideas folder. I'm almost constantly spewing ideas, but not all of them are good, so sometimes it just gets put in my notes app on my phone and deleted later for lack of detail.

4: How do you choose which fic to write?

Well, I have a folder on my laptop in which every fic idea gets noted down as its own document. When I finish a WIP, I look through that folder and choose whichever I have the clearest picture of. I usually keep every idea in mind and only need a small reminder of what I had planned for it, so it really comes down to where my mind goes. Sometimes I'll also have a plot for one of those ideas in mind, so I don't need to spend time choosing at all.

7: Post a snippet from a WIP

Well, it might take a little while for me to post this WIP, but have something from my latest oneshot:

"There are shelves upon shelves of books and other nick-knack, making the room look bigger and more cramped at the same time. The walls are full of paintings of all kind and there is a single lamp hanging in the middle of the room."

This story is about a tea shop (vaguely based on a shop I have been to irl) and its weird regulars, as seen by an outsider. I haven't managed to work on it since I got sick, but it's about 1/5 done, I think?

10: Do you work on multiple WIPs or stick to one fic at a time?

Uhm, I do work on multiple fics, but I try to keep it to two at most, a longer one and a oneshot. I mostly write oneshots, so yeah. Sometimes I also work on three (when counting my very long-time project) but more than that gets overwhelming and ends up with me not writing anything.

29: What's something about your writing that you're proud of?

Probably how I write emotions. I'm an angst writer, so you can imagine that a lot of situations I write tend to get messy. But I've been told my characterizations are realistic, as well as how I write emotions, so I'm pretty proud of that.

35: What's your favourite fic that you've posted?

This is hard. Uh, let me take a look at what I've posted. (I am opening multiple tabs to look through my fics for this question and the next one)

This one is probably it? I really like how I wrote magic here and while it's not my typical style (normally I'm not quite this poetic) it was fun to write! I like most of my fics, so this was a hard choice, but I feel like this is a s close to a favourite as it gets.

49: What fic of yours would you say introduction to you as a writer?

This is hard too, damn. Hm, I would say my first fic, but I don't think that would be accurate to who I am as a writer today? My writing has improved over the last two years after all.

I have two different main writing styles and different dynamics depending on what fandom I write for, so I can't really tell which one it should be. I hope naming two isn't cheating, lol.

I think these are pretty good examples of my typical writing style and they're rather recent too, so they don't have as many mistakes as my old fics might have.

The first one shows a group dynamic I enjoy and the second one is pretty good too, though from a different fandom and with a different focus. Both fics are mainly about interpersonal relationships, which is what I mostly write about, and the level of angst my fics reach on average. I was tempted to pick one of my mcd fics for this, but that wouldn't be very representative of my writing.

77: Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

Well, I enjoy writing because I like creating scenarios and trying to get people to feel stuff. But if the question is why I enjoy writing fanfiction specifically, hm. Probably because I like exploring how characters react or playing around with character dynamics? Sometimes I want to portrait a specific dynamic/scenario/emotion and I can do that easier when the characters already exist. Also, the community is nice.

[mr-oscarwilde]

@sagewhisper It would be a massive pain to try to reply to you in the comments of our post, so we’ve just put our response in one single thing. 

It is bold of you to assume that we have not read De Profundis. It was one of the first things we read when we started having an interest in Oscar. Kindly refer to our post; we never said that it was not a valid piece of evidence. It is evidence of a lot of things—chiefly Oscar’s state of mind whilst he was in prison. But it is not objective fact. You mustn't take our word alone for it, though:

Oscar’s feelings towards Bosie at this time were complicated. Contrary to what it might at first seem, De Profundis is not a break-up letter. Oscar still, very much, wanted to be with him. […] Wilde brings up the ‘Oxford Mishap’ again and again in De Profundis. He emphasises this to show that Bosie was already ‘corrupted’ before they became intimate. Wilde also highlights the times he thought about ending the relationship and depicts a dynamic in which Bosie is constantly in pursuit, and he is constantly trying to escape. The explanations and justifications of his actions, and the anger and recriminations, make up such a large part of the letter that the ‘record of bitter moments’ overwhelms the more loving parts. Had he written the story of his friendship with Bosie at another time, he might have focused on the moments of joy rather than pain. (Indeed, there was such a record once, before Bosie burned his love letters.) In prison, he could produce only a story of suffering. [...] In the context of the prison document, nothing Bosie does is good enough. (Laura Lee, Oscar’s Ghost, ch. 17)

Douglas Murray also points out the distortion of Oscar’s recollections in his biography of Bosie (pages 77 and 101-102 are particularly relevant here). Interestingly enough, this entire topic is the source of increasing scholarly debate:

If one of them was exploiting the other, it’s not entirely clear who was the predator and who was the victim. The extent to which Bosie was responsible for Wilde’s downfall has been debated, while the source of Wilde’s foolish decision to sue the Marquis (arrogance? blind love for Bosie? deliberate martyrdom for a cause?) has likewise come under scrutiny. (Jean Roberta, ‘What Wilde Left Out of De Profundis’, The Gay & Lesbian Review)

Why shouldn’t we discuss this beyond the same old narrative that has been pushed for the past 100 years? That’s the thing with history; we have the incredible benefit of hindsight to objectively look at all the evidence, and should be able to posit views informed by research without being accused of ‘fetishizing’ or thinking their relationship was ‘some cutesy aesthetic’. Obviously. I’m pretty sure everyone knows they weren’t exactly an unproblematic couple. But you cannot conclusively state that Bosie was “a horrible excuse for a man and partner”, any more than you should act like Oscar was without flaws. He wasn’t. How did so many, after his death, recall him fondly? He was incredibly complex and possessed both good and bad traits, some of which appeared at different stages of his life. And if you cared to read more about Bosie—whilst not making his actions excusable (in particular reference to many of his actions that really were bad in the 1900s and 1910s)—he later recognised many of the mistakes he had made. He had masses said for Robbie, years after his death. He managed to converse with Vyvyan, at a ball in the late 1930s. He strongly rejected his earlier condemnation of Oscar, and Oscar Wilde and Myself. Oscar himself ends De Profundis by requesting that Bosie should tell him about his life, and his article in the Mercure de France, and the dedication of his poems: 'I have no doubt that there will be beauty in it.' He then goes on to explicitly express his belief that Bosie could learn from him; if he was so awful, would Oscar still display such faith in him, or demonstrate such an interest in him and their future reunion?

In pointing this out, we are not ignoring Bosie's bad sides. Shake your head all you want. We are not ‘Bosie apologists/defenders’; we are fully capable of acknowledging wrongdoing where wrongdoing was done. But these things can and should be discussed without the lens of De Profundis blurring Oscar’s entire relationship with Bosie. Do you think we have not read more about Bosie? We’ve read two biographies dedicated to him, alongside works focusing on Oscar.

This response can end on one of Bosie’s recollections, of words spoken by Oscar, ‘to the following effect’:

Surely you are not bringing up against me what I wrote in prison when I was starving and half mad. You must know that I didn’t really mean a word of what I said.

Considering Oscar rather happily returned to Bosie after his release, this bears some consideration, no?

[beardedmrbean]

WAUKESHA, Wis. — A man accused of killing six people and injuring dozens more when he allegedly drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin last year managed to delay the start of his trial Monday by becoming so disruptive the judge had to take multiple breaks before forcing him to watch the proceedings via video from another room.

Prosecutors allege Darrell Brooks drove his vehicle into the Nov. 21 parade in downtown Waukesha despite police warnings to stop and officers opening fire on him. He faces 77 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of reckless endangerment. Each homicide charge carries a mandatory life sentence.

Brooks’ trial was scheduled to begin Monday morning with jury selection. He initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease, a move that could have resulted in him being sentenced to a mental institution rather than prison. But he withdrew that plea in September and last week persuaded Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow to let him represent himself.

Before prospective jurors were led into the courtroom Monday morning, Brooks repeatedly interrupted Dorow, saying he didn’t recognize the state of Wisconsin or Dorow as a judge. Dorow called a recess and sent Brooks back to his cell.

It went on like that throughout the morning, with Dorow calling Brooks back into court only for him to again become disruptive. He repeatedly asked Dorow to state her name and questioned the court’s jurisdiction.

Dorow warned Brooks that if he continues to be disruptive she could appoint an attorney to the case. She ultimately called 10 recesses before ordering him to participate via video from another room. He was unmuted and allowed to ask questions of a jail administrator about when he received discovery documents after Dorow allowed him to act as his own attorney.

Dorow said in court documents that she anticipates calling 340 prospective jurors. The selection process could last three or four days, she said, before 16 jurors are finally selected. Twelve will decide the case; the other four will serve as alternates.

[rhyzzzzzz]

Docm77 (featuring Emotional Support Bdub)

[mariacallous]

In January 2022, Valeria Shashenok uploaded a TikTok video of herself playing tourist in Paris: red beret, fresh croissants, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. A month later, her videos took on a much different character: Touring the bombed-out buildings of her town, Chernihiv, Ukraine; racing for cover as the air raid sirens sounded; reviewing the military rations served in her local bomb shelter.

Through the next year, Shashenok’s social media documented her life in the early days of the war, before seeking refuge in Western Europe—and then returning to Ukraine. In October, Shashenok uploaded a video promising to show her followers “how people live without electricity in Ukraine.” More than 3 million people watched the tour of her darkened city, all set to George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago tomorrow, it has worked feverishly to stop Ukrainians like Shashenok from broadcasting to the world. Yet, even with the power out, Shashenok continued streaming to the world. The enormous work that has gone on behind the scenes to make that possible is a story of resiliency, planning, and batteries.

In the early days of the war, Russian airstrikes hit cell towers, hackers targeted Ukrainian internet service providers, and soldiers cut fiber optic cables. In the areas that Russian forces managed to occupy, internet traffic was rerouted through Russia’s heavily censored and aggressively monitored version of the internet. As the war raged on—and Moscow’s territorial ambitions were rebuffed by fierce Ukrainian resistance—Moscow resorted to even more desperate tactics, like shelling energy infrastructure, plunging Ukrainians like Shashenok into the dark.

“One thing that was demonstrated by the war is how important communication is for us,” Yurii Shchyhol, the head of Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, said in a media briefing last month. “When it’s up and running, everyone thinks that everything is normal—and this is how things should be. But when the communication disappears, we realize that we cannot get in touch with our loved ones, with our relatives.”

From the first month of Russia’s full-scale invasion, SpaceX’s Starlink service helped keep Ukraine online, even as the country’s communication infrastructure was being knocked offline. “We cannot ignore the fact that Starlink has been the signal of life for Ukraine,” Olha Stefanishyna, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, told journalists late last year. “Our government has been able to be operational because I had Starlink over my head.”

While Starlink has been a critical stopgap, Kyiv has turned its attention to getting its regular infrastructure back up and running—thanks in no small part to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s hot-and-cold routine with Ukraine. Just this month, SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said the company cut off Ukraine from using Starlink to connect its fleet of drones.

“Given this huge range of instability in the position of the SpaceX CEO—from the willingness and then unwillingness to continue financial support—we’re doing contingency planning for ourselves,” Stefanishyna said.

That’s where Shchyhol’s ministry comes in. Working with private industry, his agency has laid or repaired 3,200 kilometers of fiber optic cable and built or rebuilt 1,500 mobile base stations—another name for cell towers—since the war began. That work has returned Ukraine’s mobile communications to about 77 percent of its pre-war capacity. The biggest problems are in the areas along the front lines, such as Zaporizhzhya and Odessa, and towns occupied by the Russians in Luhansk and Donetsk regions. 

Kherson, which was liberated in November, has had a particularly hard time getting back online. “When the occupiers leave the occupied areas of Ukraine, they destroy the base stations, they destroy the fiber optic cables. So in the south of the country, we rebuilt the internet from scratch,” Shchyhol said during the press conference, adding that they have managed to repair about 20 percent of Kherson’s infrastructure. That’s only one part of the challenge, Shchyhol said. There’s still “the issue of electric power supply.”

Mobile base stations are normally hooked up to the power grid, using that electricity to amplify the cell signal to the broader area. During a power outage, an on-site battery kicks in to keep the tower running. If the outage persists, a crew could arrive with a diesel generator to keep powering the tower. That means Shashenok can keep uploading TikToks by candlelight in her neighborhood restaurant.

But Ukraine hasn’t just experienced a few short outages. Since October, it has faced an onslaught of attacks against its power grid, causing long periods of darkness. Ukraine responded by outfitting around 5,000 base stations with better generators. But those generators, and the diesel they rely on, are increasingly scarce, expensive, and in high demand everywhere in Ukraine. But they’ve been necessary, as the old lead batteries attached to its base stations only run for two or three hours, if that.

So Kyiv has turned to a simple solution: better batteries.

High-capacity lithium-ion batteries mean the base stations, Shchyhol said, “should have reserve power sources for at least three days.” And they can recharge themselves when the power comes back online.

Two of the biggest telecommunications firms in Ukraine have, between them, already sourced and installed 22,000 new high-capacity batteries. Shchyhol said his ministry has identified another 8,000 base stations that need to become “energy independent.” With demand for those batteries only increasing as Russia mounts a more serious offensive to break a stalemate in eastern Ukraine, there is a scramble to source more. And not every cell company is about to source tens of thousands of those batteries on their own.

“The main reason why we can still talk and have access to the internet, first of all, is because we have a very diverse market of internet providers,” says Vitaliy Moroz, a Kyiv-based outreach and support consultant for cybersecurity firm eQualitie. “This is quite a good situation for the customers because they can switch from one ISP to another.”

The Montreal-based firm has stood up an array of tools to help Ukrainians defend themselves against Russian cyberattacks and connect Ukrainians living under occupation to uncensored news and information, creating peer-to-peer connections that aren’t reliant on local internet access.

Late last year, eQualitie began crowdfunding to source batteries for some smaller ISPs in Ukraine. The money they raised helped them buy 172 batteries from Poland—the shipment weighed about 6.5 tons. Some of those batteries went to a small ISP in Chernihiv, which services hundreds of large residential buildings in the north-central Ukrainian city. ”With just five batteries, which they received within this donation, it means that tens of thousands of residents of Chernihiv remain connected,” Moroz says—residents like Valeria Shashenok.

“The issue of connectivity is not very clear for everyone,” Moroz says the morning after another wave of airstrikes on the country’s energy grid. “Ukrainians have, for example, apps or websites where they can follow all the air alarms, which may happen almost every day.”

Internet and mobile service in Ukraine is surprisingly good, even by American standards. Moroz points out that for about $8 per month, Ukrainians can get download speeds of around 100 megabytes per second. “People now need immediate information. They want to know, right now, what's happening,” he says. “So access to internet … means security for people, it means being connected with their families and friends.”

Staying connected also means staying hopeful.

When the Ukrainian Army liberated Izium, which is near the border of Dontesk, they also liberated the residents from Russian propaganda—the only source of news for many in the city. “They believed Kharkiv was also surrounded by Russians. And it was under Russian control, which is not true,” Moroz says. 

“So all this, the combined efforts to keep Ukraine connected, is because everyone understands that the ultimate goal of Russia is to demoralize civilians—because if civilians are demoralized, the government will lose support,” Moroz says. “Instead, it’s the opposite: Civilians realize they might have some hardship in their lives, but still they manage to build their lives around all these difficulties.”

eQualitie is still raising money to purchase a new shipment of batteries to Ukraine. Shchyhol, meanwhile, is bullish that he could get Ukraine’s mobile networks back to 100 percent.

But, like many aspects of this war, Ukraine continues preparing for the worst. Late last year, after waves of brutal assaults on Ukraine’s cities and critical infrastructure, president Volodmyr Zelensky announced the creation of thousands of Points of Invincibility across the country—in government buildings, pharmacies, gas stations, and banks.

“All basic services will be there, including electricity, mobile communications and the Internet, heat, water, and a first-aid kit,” Zelensky posted on Telegram. “Absolutely free and 24/7.” The sites will be powered by generators and connected to the world via Starlink.

“This is what the Russian flag means—complete desolation,” Zelensky said in another address in November. “There is no electricity, no communication, no internet, no television. The occupiers destroyed everything themselves—on purpose.”

[more-than-a-princess]

@transcendentxchronicles asked: [Togami - Post Despair] “I have a reason to work for my freedom. I thought you did, too.”

Crescent City sentence starters - still accepting!

Seated at the other side of his desk, only one thing crossed through Sonia's mind. Well, perhaps more accurately, two: One, was he being facetious? And two, she was far too sober for this thrice weekly torture described, all too keenly by Makoto Naegi, as rehabilitation, therapy, for the former Class 77-B. The former Remnants of Despair. Former everything...none of them had a place in the world anymore, not really.

Something that Byakuya Togami was keen to correct. Sonia folded her arms across her chest, her mouth fixed in its usual expression: something between unamused and irritated. She supposed, in a warped sense, the man was fortunate: he didn't really know what it was to fail, and still had a staggering number of employees and resources at his disposal. One that, to her chagrin, also included her: in a necessary measure to keep Sonia away from the Hotel Mirai kitchens and anything to do with cleaning products, housekeeping, or repairs, the Future Foundation and former Remnants alike had agreed she'd be put to best use doing secretarial duties: filing papers, managing shipments of goods to the island, and perhaps most importantly, translating any documents, calls, or recorded video from one language to another. A necessity to keep tabs on worldwide restoration efforts, and a task that she only needed a dictionary once in awhile to check the specific interpretation of a word or phrase.

The most recent translation assignment had been placed neatly on one side of Togami's desk, three days ahead of her assigned due date. Now, Sonia had half a mind to turn the lot of it into confetti, alongside the folded newspapers that had been sent over from Europe detailing the latest in parliament and public opinion regarding Novoselic's disgraced queen. Overall, it was not a favorable assessment. She was tempted, in her dissatisfaction with both her current sobriety and her current predicament that afternoon, shut away in Byakuya Togami's office with only the man for company, to tear the publications into a pile of confetti as well. Sprinkle in some choice words she had for the entire plan his organization had for her, and slam the door so hard in her wake that it would nearly come off its hinges.

Instead she exhaled, already feeling the headache coming on. Therapy was supposed to be, well, therapeutic: instead, she usually left Togami's thrice weekly sessions with her feeling worse than before. Annoyed or frustrated, but mostly the feeling of emptiness, that her entire life had amounted to nothing besides pain and suffering and regret. That couldn't be fixed, there was no bringing back all the lives she'd taken with her own hands.

"Freedom," She repeated, her voice low and quiet as her hands gripped the folds of her linen skirt. The fabric would crumple and wrinkle within her fists, ruining any attempt of appearing neat and tidy. Not that it mattered: the dark circles beneath her blue eyes were proof enough of that. "What freedom is that, exactly? The Future Foundation has made it perfectly clear that, sooner rather than later, I'm to be extradited off this island to be returned to Novoselic, where I'm either to be shut away in a Castle like some fairytale character or be put to death like disgraced queens of the past."

It was true: her time was running out. She'd negotiated with Naegi upon her initial awakening and release from the Jabberwock Island Hospital that she'd refuse to budge from the island's shores until she knew all of her comatose friends were revived. And after many weeks of trial and error, of the five who had survived the Neo World Program to find a way to feed and shelter themselves while deciphering the vast array of codes and machines to safely extract their former classmates from their pods, they'd finally achieved it. The last of the group to awaken were now convalescing in hospital beds before being moved into their own cabins, to continue their therapy. To find their place in the world.

They were fortunate, Sonia thought: a lack of home and responsibility gave most of her friends a choice. She, and the likes of Fuyuhiko (and Peko by extension), were not so fortunate. They had countries, businesses, perhaps even family still alive and needing the former Remnants to answer for their crimes, to begin the rest of their lives attempting to make amends to their people. She supposed, then, that was why out of the lot of them, it had been Togami assigned to apprehend them as Remnants and to aid in their rehabilitation. As if all offspring from wealthy and influential families had reason to understand one another and bond due to giant bank accounts and an impressive family tree.

"So I'll ask you again, Togami," Sonia exhaled, releasing her grip on her skirt. How many more minutes would she be subjected to Togami's interpretation of Naegi's tirades about hope? The leader of the whole operation was grating enough on her nerves: the last thing she wanted to contend with was someone who had never manage to fuck up as badly as she did. Who still brought honor and glory to his family name despite the state of the world. He'd never been brainwashed by the likes of Junko Enoshima, and it seemed as if he wouldn't allow her to forget it. "What freedom of mine am I fighting for? Because how I see it, Jabberwock Island is the closest I'm ever going to get to freedom. It's the only place on Earth that no one gives a shit that I'm a queen. My friends...my family, they care about me. Novoselic...well, you can see it in black and white: they want me returned either to imprison me or kill me. There's no freedom in that. There's barely any honor in that."

She paused, sighing: it was a challenge not to resent the neat stack of papers on his desk. "If you were going to spend this therapy hour giving me a lecture, I would not have completed your translation requests so efficiently. If this is what's given as a reward in return." And hand the entire bag of European coffee beans she'd received in her last shipment from home off to Teruteru to do as he liked with it, or throw it right back into the sea. She had no use for it, but it was one of the few brands left that made exquisite coffee, sent with the purpose that she share it with her friends. Considering how repulsive the usual coffee was, coming from a jar that used to be sold in convenience stores for a couple hundred yen at most, Sonia imagined Togami could barely stand the current offerings.

[dramamath]

My son, Atticus, died as the result of a drug overdose, including lethal amounts of meth and fentanyl, on November 3, 2022. Much of my life, I have been a voracious reader. After his death, I have struggled to read books. What follows is my attempt to document my reading struggles, in the hopes that it helps me overcome then.

February 14, 2023: For the third time this year, I have picked up a book from my local library to read. I have not completed any book this year. Some, I don’t even get past the first few pages. This book I picked is a collection of short stores by Neil Gaiman, entitled Trigger Warning. I decided that if I knew the stories were short, it may help. Tonight, I read the first three pages of the 27-page introduction. To you, this seems trivial. To me, it’s a good first step, because I want to read more. Most of the books I have attempted, I realized I was forcing myself to continue. This time, I want to continue. However, I’m tired and it’s time for sleep.

February 15, 2023: I easily read the remaining 24 pages of the introduction. Much of it was a description of each story. I am going to let it take up residence in the back of my mind and, hopefully, begin the first story tomorrow.

February 20, 2023: After a few days to focus on school stuff, I started reading the stories today. I made it through three stories and 32 pages. I started the fourth story, but quickly lost focus, so I set it aside. Tomorrow will be a busy, mentally taxing day, so maybe on Wednesday, I’ll get to that next story.

February 22, 2023: Three stories and 19 pages today. I skipped a story that was 30 pages. I’m too tired to get into that tonight.

February 23, 2023: Only one story tonight, but it was the 30 page story I skipped, so I’m feeling good about that.

February 25, 2023: BREAKTHROUGH! Seven stories and 87 pages today!

February 26,2023: I made it through a total of six stories and 63 pages. I think the next day that I can devote an evening to reading will be the day that I finish this book.

February 27, 2023: The last four stories and the last 77 pages, the book is complete. It took me two weeks, which is about 10 days longer than it would have taken in normal circumstances. And now that I have managed to complete the book, I feel content.

For making it this far into this mini-journal of my attempt to push back at the dark, you have my thanks. Am I "cured"? No, the journey is only beginning. Some days will be better than others.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

For the Writing Asks, 2, 4, 10, 14, 15, 24, 33, 48, 51, 71, 76, and 77 (sorry if this is too many!)

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

Usually just from What Iffing canon, I think, but that's a good question. A surprising number of my longfics are historical AUs or dystopian AUs, so I think probably What Iffing the world in which the story takes place, and asking how it would affect the characters -- I always want my characters to be in-character/canonesque even in an AU. I HATE OOC AUs. What's the fucking point then?? And I'm never interested in straight-up Modern No Powers AUs for any fandom. (Which makes it weird that I wrote so much boy band fic in my life, who are, really, just modern boys without any powers except the power of Charisma and Homoerotic Beauty.)

4. How do you choose which fics to write?

Ooh, I feel like it's not a conscious choice. There are WIPs in my folder that I really love! And I want to finish them! But the stars are not right. I want to finish my TOG/The Good Place AU so badly! I want to finish In Screaming Color! But no. Steve/Joyce, apparently.

10. Do you work on multiple wips or stick to one fic at a time?

Almost always multiple until I get close to a hard deadline (for a big bang or an exchange, etc.) and then I go, "Shit, I need to focus on the one thing," and then I do. But I generally always have 4 WIP documents open at a time -- daily drabbles that I should get back to soon, another themed drabble set of some kind, a shortish one-shot, and a longfic.

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in?

I can ONLY write at my desk these days. I try to write in coffee shops sometimes but I get very !!!! about Other People Seeing, even though it's not like I'm ashamed of anything I write? I did manage to write a bit on my vacation with @soundssimpleright back in October, which was nice. But I legit once went to a week-long writing retreat out in the middle of the Vermont woods with a bunch of National Book Award finalists and fancy people, and I just played Nancy Drew the whole time because my brain wouldn't let me write at Not My Desk. It was so bad. It was so bad. I mean I loved the retreat, 10/10 would go again, but I got nothing done.

15. What’s your favorite time to write?

I get the most done either first thing in the morning (4-5AM until work) or late at night (2-3AM until I fall asleep). These days I mostly write early in the morning before work.

24. How do you choose whose POV to write in?

I feel like it's not a conscious choice, which probably means that I'm making the easy choice and not challenging myself. I mean, do we not all write from Our Blorbo's POV? I think maybe the writerly answer is that I write from the POV of the character who will undergo the greatest metamorphosis in the story, but again, that's usually just Blorbo. I know though that in my original work, I generally always write the first draft in completely the wrong POV and then someone much smarter than me reads it and goes, "V, you did the thing again where you went out of your way NOT to have to write any conflict by having it in this POV," and I go, "Shit," and then I never finish it because I hate writing conflict.

33. Is there a specific word count that you hold yourself to/enjoy writing the most?

LMAO we all know that I love a 100-word drabble. For non-drabble stuff, I still like Round Numbers. 1,000 words, 5,000 words, 10,000 words. I like Round Counts even though it doesn't make any rational sense.

48. Who is your favorite character to write for?  Has this changed since you’ve started writing for that fandom?

Currently, my favorite character to write is Steve Rogers, but that's pretty emblematic of my Favorite Character To Write For Fanfiction in general -- I like the Noble Hero Guy who puts duty ahead of himself to the point of self-destruction and doesn't realize that the people who love him want him to survive the fight more than they want him to win the fight. Your Steves. Your Poe Damerons. Your Percy Jacksons. I also like a good Tortured Resilient Angry Woman, like your Yelenas and Natashas and Wandas and Quynhs and Rachel Elizabeth Dares. In non-fanfiction stuff, I only write women. So.

51. Does what you like to write differ from what you like to read?

I definitely read more smut than I write, but otherwise it's not that different. I still hate a no-powers Modern AU generally speaking, and I 99% read canon-adjacent stuff. The only AU I really ever read is A/B/O that still takes place in the canon universe (like Marvel is still Marvel, the genitals are just different, or whatever). I read more angsty stuff than I write, too, I think, but having just said that, my THG stuff is all dark as fuck and that's the fandom where I read the darkest angst, so maybe not.

71. Do you spend more time reading or writing?

I go through phases with reading a lot of fic for a month and then reading none for a month? So writing, for sure, I do a lot more consistently and spend more hours per day on. I'm currently in a reading-actual-books phase so I'm not reading much fic outside of a few WIPs that I'm subscribed to, but I know that will change and I'll be in a fic-only reading phase soon enough. But I try to spend at least two hours a day writing. Try. I don't always succeed.

76. How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

HA! I just cry. The biggest pressure that I get on my writing other than internal is my dad being super angry all the time that I haven't published original fiction yet, so. I cry.

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

Ooh, that's a big question. I think the shortest, most immediate answer that came to mind is that it's the natural extension of how I interact with media, just naturally -- I can never consume anything and NOT wonder what happens next, or what came before, or what if X had happened to [Character] instead of Y. Fanfiction is the way to explore answers to those questions. I truly cannot fathom consuming A Media and NOT wondering those things upon finishing. Like, it boggles my mind when people can consume A Media and then just be like, "That was enjoyable, I'm gonna go not think about it ever again." WHAT?!?

[darkmaga-retard]

The Ministry of Health in Gaza released a shocking 649-page document on 16 September, providing the name, age, gender, and ID number of tens of thousands of people killed by Israel during 11 months of its genocide of Palestinians.

In the chaos of war, the ministry has managed to document the personal details of over 34,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, out of a total of at least 42,206 killed as of 31 August.

The New Arab notes that names of just the babies killed under the age of one fill the first 14 pages of the document.

The final 11 pages contain the names of people aged 77 to 101, all of whom were born before the State of Israel was established on stolen Palestinian land in 1948.

The ministry reported that two-thirds of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war were women, children, and elderly people.

The statistics show that 11,355 children have been killed so far, a third of the total deaths.

It also states that 13,737 men have been killed, around 40 percent of the total death toll, the majority of them aged between 18 and 30.

[internationalliteracyday]

How can literacy be better promoted for fostering mutual understanding and peace in multilingual contexts, based on human rights principles and a lifelong learning perspective?

First, it is important to ensure that literacy is addressed appropriately in policy documents, such as national development strategies and policies regarding education, lifelong learning, and adult learning and education (ALE). The relevance of such policy frameworks can be improved by ensuring that they: (1) adopt a lifelong learning approach to literacy, perceiving literacy as a continuum of proficiency in reading, writing and numeracy; (2) are managed through inclusive and multistakeholder governance systems; (3) are backed up by political will, legal frameworks, appropriate systems and adequate financial resources; and (4) are translated into concrete strategies, programmes and practices responsive to leaners’ needs. Some countries have improved their policies, plans, systems and governance for literacy.

Some countries have improved their policies, plans, systems and governance for literacy focusing on literacy as well as vocational and basic skills. Up to 77% had developed and implemented policies on literacy and basic skills

A total of 60% of the 154 countries participating in the 2022 Global Report on Adult Learning and Education survey (GRALE 5) reported having improved their adult learning and education (ALE) policies, giving a strongand education (e.g. El Salvador and Malawi) as well as sector-wide and cross-sectoral frameworks and reforms (e.g. Uganda).

focus to literacy as well as vocational and basic skills.16 Up to 77% had developed and implemented policies on literacy and basic skills