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woeisme-iamwoe · 3 years

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an absolutely massive Haikyuu!! fic rec pt. 2

IwaOi this time around. My favorite ship. The world’s favorite ship...there’s so many

Undecipherable, by ioo (4k. G. canonverse)

I’m pretty sure the author meant ‘indecipherable’, nevertheless! I am appalled that this work doesnt have more hits. Y'all are sleeping on it and that's not okay.

The sound of the door slamming against the wall has Hajime startling back to the present. He looks at the source of the disturbance and finds himself face to face with Oikawa, red in the face with breathlessness and a leather-bound notebook tightly clutched in both of this hands. When he spots Hajime, he makes a beeline for the bench and slaps it down right next to him.

"Koi no yokan," he says. "The sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love."

primavera, by tothemoon (8k. T. canonverse)

All of tothemoon’s works read so beautifully

They say it takes twenty-six years, for certain breeds to fully bloom.

Learning to Walk (So That We Can Run), by ricekrispyjoints (27k. M. canon-divergence)

I've read this work so many times. Like, so many times and I’ve never tired from it. Gorgeous. The shift from friendship to romance felt so natural, love it.

"I'm not healing like I should be."

In his second year of university, physical therapy just isn't cutting it. Oikawa's knee is getting worse, and he can't hide it anymore.

Or: the light angst, project-your-own-life-experiences-on-Oikawa knee surgery fic you didn't know you wanted.

Priorities, by weirdmilk (2k. T. canonverse)

Kissy, kissy.

‘I just -’ Oikawa begins, ‘it might be difficult to get married, sometimes, I think.’ He chews on his lip.

Iwaizumi makes a questioning noise.

‘Ah,’ Oikawa says, and then, in a rush, ‘if I didn't want a wife at all - what then? If I said that to you. If I told you I can’t see it. Like - the wedding dress. The bride. I just can’t see it.’

Iwaizumi swallows again, his heart beating much faster than the conversation warrants. He wonders whether Oikawa can hear it. ‘You’re eighteen. You aren’t supposed to see it yet.’ He snorts. ‘I mean - if we’re sharing shit, I’ve never even kissed a girl.’ He doesn’t mind admitting it. It’s not something that bothers him - he’s never prioritised girls very highly, and despite Oikawa’s largely undeserved status as Miyagi’s most eligible teenage bachelor, he doesn’t think Oikawa has ever wanted a serious relationship with any of his fan club, either.

Oikawa and Iwaizumi can't sleep before their first practice match with Karasuno.

Before Midnight, by fathomfive (2k. G. canonverse)

Reads like a fairytale.

The sky turns, the seasons turn over, and Iwaizumi and Oikawa track the movements of the stars. Nothing is ever quite constant, but it's close enough.

The grass is stiff with frost. They walk in silence past the raked-over vegetable garden and up the back hill, footsteps crackling, and stand side-by-side at the top of an incline that used to seem much bigger. Iwaizumi glances over but Oikawa’s already gone, eyes searching the sky with no hint of hurry, just a kind of reverent patience.

make a bet, keep a promise, by raewrites (13k. M. canonverse)

Bet still on.

Sometimes, in still moments, Iwaizumi wonders why out of all the people on earth he ended up with Oikawa Tooru. Why it’s his face that lingers on his fading conscious in the last moments before he falls asleep, in the first blurry seconds upon waking up again. Why when he looks to his side, he expects Oikawa to be there in the same way he expects to see five fingers on both hands, a natural extension of himself, ever present.

Why he can’t imagine a future without Oikawa in it.

It begins with a bet made between the two boys in the mid-summer of their eighth year. It starts with volleyball, but like with most things involving Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime, things are never quite that simple.

our hearts still beat the same, by knightswatch

two birds, by thelittlebirdthattoldyou (5k. T. canonverse)

Of heartbreaking letters and paper crane wishes.

Five months into the term, two months after he’s stopped replying to Oikawa’s texts, the first package arrives. A small square box, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and Hajime almost trips over it on the way to his dorm.

There’s a letter attached.

Oikawa doesn’t know how many times he’ll have to put his feelings down on paper before Iwaizumi believes them.

Through My Eyes, by anchoringsouls (2k. G. canonverse)

Okay! Okay, we were doing great with the soft, happy love up until the last part! That's great, just great!

“I think if you ever saw yourself through my eyes, you would fall in love with yourself the same way the way I did with you.”

in time it could be ours, by deusreks (3k. T. canonverse)

Anyone wanna go back in time and make a time capsule with me only to dig it up years later and we’re actually in love?

Set post Seijou's match with Karasuno. There's a moderate amount of rolling in the dirt. No pajamas were hurt in the writing of this fic.

There, in their joint backyard, was Oikawa Tooru, clad in his silly luminescent space pajamas, digging a hole near a cherry tree.

“What the hell, Oikawa.”

Tooru stubbornly continued digging. He looked pitiful in that moment; everything that was grand about him in daylight was meaningless in the darkness. He was only a boy with a shovel whose broken heart mirrored Hajime’s own.

we can do better than that, by spaceburgers (16k. M. canonverse)

Of course, of course, the IwaOi road trip fic. AnD thErE wAs ONly OnE bED!

Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

They Say it Rains Diamonds on Jupiter, by exsao (35k. T. canonverse)

I don't know, just gorgeous. Hajime’s so in love.

"You're in love with him."

Hajime considers denying it. He considers deliberately choking on his drink to express surprise, to create a distraction by spitting onto the man in front of him's pristine white shirt and causing a commotion. Instead, he swallows his mouthful of soda and heaves a small sigh once his mouth is free.

"Yeah," he says instead.

He's never been good at lying, anyway.

Midnight boys/sunset town, by carafin (10k words. T. Housemates AU):

The author says they played off of the fact that Oikawa oftentimes forgoes his sleep in order to work, and wrote it so that he doesn't sleep at all. This was so cute, kinda sad, mostly not. Love how Iwaizumi just goes along with whatever crazy stilch Oikawa is on.

In which Iwaizumi Hajime grows a few chili plants, participates in an eating contest, breaks into a park, and falls in love with a man who doesn't ever sleep - not exactly in that order.

5 Reasons Why Iwaizumi Hajime's Flatmate Is A Complete Weirdo (An Incomplete List)

1. He's obsessed with that stupid bucket list of his.

2. He's the proud owner of seven truly ugly, criminally hideous movie posters with aliens on them, which he insists on pasting all over the damn living room.

3. He's always stealing Hajime's sweatshirts.

4. Sometimes, he wakes Hajime up for breakfast. At 5AM. On Saturday mornings.

5. He literally never, ever sleeps.

The Best I Ever Had, by FindingSchmomo (62k words. T. Canon-divergent):

You’ve read it, your mum’s read it, your dog has probably read it (you really need to take facial recognition for him off your phone, he’s got some weird nighttime habits). So basically this fic caused me physical pain and then pumped me full of morphine and now I’m good! Beautiful read, hated Oikawa for a while, Iwaizumi is the only boy I would ever feel safe alone with.

A story of separation and time lost. Oikawa and Iwaizumi lose contact, and life goes on. Now, a decade later and back in Japan, Oikawa wonders if he can pick the pieces back together, despite knowing Iwaizumi has moved on. A story of their past, present and future, pieced together by shaky hands.

darlin', your head's not on right, by aruariandance (13k words. T. canonverse)

Again, I’m pretty sure anybody who's anybody has read this fic and for good reason! Super sweet realizing you're in love fic. Makes me reconsider wanting to get married.

'“Our wedding,” Oikawa says by way of explanation, tapping his finger against his magazine more emphatically. “What colors should we use? Color scheme is important, apparently.”

Iwaizumi feels his lifespan shortening.

“I was thinking our Aoba johsai colors to go for more, you know, softer tones? Besides, I’ve always looked great in that sea foam green color. Oh, and I guess you look decent in it, too.” He grins, saccharine sweet, and Iwaizumi has never been so tempted to knock one of his perfect pearly white teeth right out of his stupid mouth."

or,

Oikawa teases Iwaizumi about a childhood promise he made to marry him when they were older, except suddenly it's not really a joke at all.

the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle, by kittebasu (66k. T. canon divergent)

Is this one of the most famous Iwaoi fic? I don’t know. Looks like it, I know it's my personal favorite. Where Oikawa studies bugs for a living and can’t seem to come to terms with his feelings. Very angsty, love that in a fic.

Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

Terrarium, by sausaged (11k. T. Post-canon)

Honestly, I’m so surprised this fic doesnt have more hits! It’s so good! Made me ache! I love the memories and character growth shown through the growing of the terrarium, absolutely adore that kind of symbolism. So beautiful, give it some love because it's one of my absolute favorites.

He's practically a professional at being proactive (lies, lies, and lies when it comes to Iwaizumi).

At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

Can he really tag his Instagram photos with #YOLO if he doesn't actually put that phrase into practice?

A story about Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, plants, and rocks.

Lips like sugar, by ohhotlamb (8k. T. canonverse)

Why did my childhood best friend never offer to help me practice kissing only for us to realize we were only interested in each other? I had a fake high school experience.

Hajime is offered to learn the art of kissing from a true professional, one Oikawa Tooru. It's not as bad as he thought it would be.

Falling Slowly, by bravely (commovente) (3k. T. canonverse)

So special, imagine loving one person, and one person only like this for the entirety of your life. This is getting too sappy, I want off of this ride.

over the years, some things change; but over the years, some things stay mostly the same.

(alternatively, mornings with oikawa and iwaizumi over the years).

No sleep in the city, by loveclouds (7k. T. canonverse)

Mass/volume = Iwaizumi, apparently. (Please. If anyone gets this absolutely horrific joke, lets elope).

Along their journey to find Tokyo's best ramen, Iwaizumi finds himself asked again and again why Oikawa is still single.

Time, by surveycorpsjean (5k. E. canonverse)

Growing older together.

When they're twenty-three, their story only begins.

Everything With You, by Ellessey (14k. E. canonverse)

Came damn near to crying, you can just feel Iwaizumi’s pain. Fight scene was probably the most emotion evoking one I’ve read in a long while.

‘Hajime still loves Oikawa, but he understands now. Oikawa can't look at him and see someone he could potentially date.

And that makes it easier to not focus on the little things that used to drive him crazy—Oikawa's long legs, the way he's always hanging off of Hajime, how his whole face changes when he gets ready for a jump serve, and he looks like he could take on the entire world and win.

This new arrangement though, this living together situation, is presenting a new set of variables that must be adjusted to, and the nakedness is one of them.’

For years, being Oikawa’s best friend has worked out fine. Hajime is hopelessly in love with him, but it’s enough. Then Oikawa—who, by all accounts, has never been anything but determinedly, assuredly straight—gets a boyfriend. Or a boy friend-with-benefits. Hajime doesn’t know, and he doesn’t give a shit about the definition.

What he knows is that remaining best friends is starting to seem a bit too painful (way too painful) to be considered a solid option.

The Best Best, by rikke (12k. T. canonverse/future fic)

Takeru is a whole mood. Don’t want kids, but I do want domesticity and this fic feeds me well.

“Congratulations, Iwa-chan! You’re a dad!” Iwaizumi hears as soon as the door opens. He’s dealt with Oikawa for all of his twenty-one years of age now, but this declaration is still sufficiently disturbing enough that he turns from his place on the couch and braces himself for whatever Oikawa has done this time.

Or the one where Iwaizumi and Oikawa babysit Takeru for a week.

cheek kisses, by ohhotlamb (G. 3k. Future fic)

Sooo cute!!

“Every time,” Hajime murmurs, “every time I see you again I remember how fuckin’ crazy I am about you.”

Routine, by snoqualmie (2k. T. canonverse)

Again, anyone wanna be my childhood best friend so we can put face masks on each other and fall in love? I died, truly.

Iwaizumi is fourteen years old, horny too often and angry all the time, and he’s just starting to notice that Tooru’s legs are really long, that his lips are kinda soft looking, and his fingers feel good pressed under his jaw.

Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, by sunsmasher (19k. G. canon divergence)

Be wary, I would give this fic an upper rating to probably Teen and the follow-up fic is Explicit. But, Oikawa on the Japanese national team is just a dream as is, but add in a rekindling friendship and an angsty make out sesh? Mwah, delizioso.

It’s July 10th, 2024, and Oikawa Tooru is an Olympian. His smiling face airs on an NHK promo every 45 seconds. He’s captain of the national men’s volleyball team, reigning star of the professional leagues, and he hasn't spoken to Iwaizumi Hajime in two years.

He has, however, sent Iwaizumi tickets for the 2024 Los Angeles Summer Games.

“So go,” says Matsukawa's voice. “It’s only a few weeks. You’ve got a whole city to hide in if it gets awkward, and if it doesn’t get awkward, well…”

It’s like watching the future reconfigure, like being in high school again, watching team after team fall to Oikawa’s faultless planning and shameless charm.

“I’ll get to watch a whole lot of volleyball,” Hajime says, and resigns himself to fate and/or Oikawa Tooru.

“Hey, when you get there, can you bag a gymnast for me?” Hanamaki asks, and Matsukawa squawks.

Chasing Paper Suns, by carafin (10k. T. Future fic)

Again with the growing up and coming back together, this time with more angst than the last. Lovely, really lovely read.

Post-high school, Oikawa makes it to the national volleyball team but Iwaizumi doesn't. The next three years become an exercise in growing up without growing apart.

Some days Hajime likes to think of himself as Oikawa’s counterpart—the two of them blending into a single devastating unit, the invincible setter and his unyielding ace, the bond between them unbreakable and true. Other days he feels like he is chasing after a rising sun, always running and running with his eyes fixed on the distance, trying to cross a chasm that stretches on without end, caught in an endless and exhausting pursuit.

the yellow room, by ohhotlamb (14k. T. canonverse/future fic)

Makki and Mattsun see bullshit and call you out on your bullshit.

“I told you, we broke up like six months ago. We’re not dating anymore.”

Hanamaki eyes him suspiciously. “You live together.”

“Yeah, so?”

“There are pictures of you two kissing stuck to your refrigerator.”

Hajime shrugs. “That wasn’t my idea. Anyways, they’re good pictures. Good lighting.”

the river runs, by tothemoon (11k. T. post-breakup)

My heart ACHES. Happy ending, promise! Just read it.

One year since their breakup, Oikawa Tooru starts a list of daily reminders, tips, and tricks called HOW TO FORGET ABOUT IWAIZUMI HAJIME, and he’s determined to make it stick.

—

This is a firsthand account of how to deal (and rather spectacularly, at that).

I sure hope that guy gets fired, by Xov (29k. T. canonverse/time loop au)

The only thing better than one confession, is MULTIPLE confessions. Oikawa trusts Iwaizumi unshakably, and that's beautiful.

It was the fourth time experiencing the exact same day that Iwaizumi Hajime reluctantly admitted to himself that something was very wrong.

my only friend was the man in the moon (until i met you), by ohhotlamb (7k. T. canonverse)

Just so innocent and sweet. Oikawa said ‘effort’.

In which Oikawa has a life-altering revelation, and Hajime is starting to think it involves him.

Bet On It, by originalblue (13k. E. canonverse)

Tooru being nice for a week? That can only end one way… with a d*ck in Hajime’s mouth.

Hajime knows exactly how shitty Oikawa's personality is, and has no scruples whatsover about betting Oikawa six thousand yen that he can't be nice for an entire week.

especially for tender ones like us, by viverella (17k. T. canonverse/post break-up)

Gods! See? See what I mean? How could I forget about a work as heart wrenchingly beautiful as this? Give it some love, actually, all of the love.

The worst part of it all, Tooru thinks to himself sometimes, is that even as they fought and kicked and screamed and tore each other to shreds, it was never that Tooru stopped loving Iwaizumi any less. The worst part of it all, he thinks, is that loving Iwaizumi turned out to not be enough.

(OR: on finding the right person at the wrong time and learning how to pick up the pieces)

sunset town, by skiecas (33k. T. canon-divergent)

Another work that I just CANNOT understand why it doesn't have more hits. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I almost cried.

In the summer of 2020, Oikawa Tooru returns home from his first successful stint as captain of Japan’s national volleyball team. In one hand, he holds the undisputed weight of an Olympic medal, and in the other, his unresolved feelings for a childhood best friend.

Two years down the road, reconciling his lifelong dream with his lifelong love proves to be the greatest challenge.

of odd numbers and intimate regrets, by bravely (commovente) (5k. T. post-canon/one night stand au)

Basically, Tooru and Hajime sleep together after not speaking for seven years and of course there’s feelings and angst and a belated chance at happiness and a life together.

Tooru’s spent the last seven years of his life in a carefully constructed schedule that is, he realises now, as much a habit as it was a way to forget about the person in front of him.

[or, the one night stand AU between two people more than friends but not quite lovers, measuring the passage of time in distance and long-gone memories, the expansion and contraction of the spaces between their fingers each time.]

cross my heart, open wide, by acchikocchi (7k. T. canonverse)

Super cute, super short. Realizing you're on a date with the wrong person one-shot.

For a minute Hajime doesn't know what to say. Everything and nothing crowds his mind, leaving no room to think. That he's never tried this. That volleyball's over. That he's graduating in five months. That it would be really nice, at least once, to go on a date with a good-looking guy.

Hajime goes on a date. It's not with Oikawa.

Fernweh, by oikawashoyo (19k. G. canonverse/post time skip)

A mature(ish) Tooru?? I love works that show Tooru growing and living happily in Argentina and this one is just beautiful. (Plus! Plus, Skai did a piece on it as well and I love ALL their work so you can visualize everything). Love it.

Argentina is stretching out before him, an opportunity, a challenge. He is reminded of his losses, his insecurities, his disappointments; sees them form a tall, tall wall blocking his path to success. He takes a deep breath and knows he is going to shatter it.

In which Oikawa's whole life is spent longing for the horizon — in the form of a dream, a home, and a boy.

i breathe easily in your arms, by orphan_account (2k. M. canonverse)

Soft, soft sex

When, after completing their high school graduation ceremony and heading home to enjoy their freedom, Oikawa had pulled him into his room and pressed his lips hesitantly against Iwaizumi’s own, it seemed an inevitable development in the unfolding narrative of their shared existence.

Despite years of having a bed to himself, the sensation of another body taking up space in his sheets, curling against his chest, creating warmth, feels natural in much the same way.

old and new, by Mysecretfanmoments (5k. T. canon divergence)

Finally a fic where they don't freak out on confession and it's sweet.

“You seem—sad.” Was that the right word? Others sprang to mind: desperate, lonely, anxious.

Tooru looked away. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

Tooru folded his arms, sighed. “I missed you, of course.”

Hajime swallowed.

“No need to look that way. I told you, I’m not one of your macho man buddies. I’m allowed to say stuff like that without being embarrassed—”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Hajime complained. “No need to be so defensive. I’ve missed you too.”

“Oh?” Tooru seemed to get a little of his own back, leaning forward on his elbows. “What about me did you miss?”

((Going to separate universities, Hajime and Tooru learn the true meaning of "distance makes the heart grow fonder"))

all i wanted was you, by spaceburgers (6k. E. college/fwb au)

This was more emotional than I thought a 6k friends with benefits fic could be, okay? Okay.

Wherein Hajime and Tooru are fuck buddies, Hajime curses his treacherous heart, and Tooru is bad with feelings.

we shine like diamonds, by whitemiists (26k. T. canon divergence)

I couldn't not include this work. It deals with internalized homophobia so well and I really resonate with it.

In all seriousness, I’m very lucky to live in a country where my sexuality is widely accepted and my heart goes out the LGBTQIA+ peoples who are forced to hide themselves. You are loved and your sexuality and gender-identity are not wrong and never will be.

Oikawa is nine when he first hears the word. The boys on the playground whisper it like it's dirty, like the way they daringly mutter the word fuck and then look over their shoulders to check their parents hadn't heard.

"You know Abe-kun from class?" they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they're passing along a filthy secret. "I hear his older brother is... gay."

Look For Him, by Leryline (18k. E. canonverse)

A collection of kisses. I love Hajime’s grandmother.

She laughs gently. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so heartbroken before, Hajime.”

Iwaizumi sighs and prods at the mackerel with a chopstick. “Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just different, you know? Like Oikawa pissed me off so much that now he’s not here I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“But you weren’t always annoyed with him, were you?” his grandmother smiles serenely and takes a sip of her tea. “My, my, Hajime, old women see everything. I saw you out there with my finches, when you were kissing Tooru’s nose. Your mother and father used to do the very same thing, you know, when they were younger. And look how long they’ve lasted. I hope you and Tooru last, Hajime. He’s very good for you.”

Oikawa has kissed Iwaizumi more times than either of them can count; it’s a constant thing, their lips never really leaving the other’s skin. There are, however, times when they’ve kissed that are burned into their memories. Eight of them, to be precise.

film reel life, arsenicjay (8k. T. canon divergence)

Such a unique and creative idea! Reading from the eyes of a camera, so beautiful!

The only person Iwaizumi is lying to is himself, when he insists: I am not in love with Oikawa Tooru.

how to let your planets align, by tether (tothemoon) (15k. T. end of the world au)

This is the only remotely non-happy ending fic I will be including on here, and it's purely because it's a gorgeous read. And yes, I ached. Your lips, my lips, apocalypse.

It is the last day on earth, December 2nd, 1985, when you realize you're in love with him.

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fic #haikyuu fic rec #iwaoi #iwaizumi x oikawa #Iwaizumi Hajime #oikawa tooru

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sayedhusaini · 3 years

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Democrats and Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer Its Power to Censor

by Moderator

📷(Stock Catalog / Flickr)By Glenn Greenwald / SubstackMuch is revealed by who is bestowed hero status by the corporate media. This week's anointed avatar of stunning courage is Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager being widely hailed as a "whistleblower” for providing internal corporate documents to the Wall Street Journal relating to the various harms which Facebook and its other platforms (Instagram and WhatsApp) are allegedly causing.The social media giant hurts America and the world, this narrative maintains, by permitting misinformation to spread (presumably more so than cable outlets and mainstream newspapers do virtually every week); fostering body image neurosis in young girls through Instagram (presumably more so than fashion magazines, Hollywood and the music industry do with their glorification of young and perfectly-sculpted bodies); promoting polarizing political content in order to keep the citizenry enraged, balkanized and resentful and therefore more eager to stay engaged (presumably in contrast to corporate media outlets, which would never do such a thing); and, worst of all, by failing to sufficiently censor political content that contradicts liberal orthodoxies and diverges from decreed liberal Truth. On Tuesday, Haugen's star turn took her to Washington, where she spent the day testifying before the Senate about Facebook's dangerous refusal to censor even more content and ban even more users than they already do.There is no doubt, at least to me, that Facebook and Google are both grave menaces. Through consolidation, mergers and purchases of any potential competitors, their power far exceeds what is compatible with a healthy democracy. A bipartisan consensus has emerged on the House Antitrust Committee that these two corporate giants — along with Amazon and Apple — are all classic monopolies in violation of long-standing but rarely enforced antitrust laws. Their control over multiple huge platforms that they purchased enables them to punish and even destroy competitors, as we saw when Apple, Google and Amazon united to remove Parler from the internet forty-eight hours after leading Democrats demanded that action, right as Parler became the most-downloaded app in the country, or as Google suppresses Rumble videos in its dominant search feature as punishment for competing with Google's YouTube platform. Facebook and Twitter both suppressed reporting on the authentic documents about Joe Biden's business activities reported by The New York Post just weeks before the 2020 election. These social media giants also united to effectively remove the sitting elected President of the United States from the internet, prompting grave warnings from leaders across the democratic world about how anti-democratic their consolidated censorship power has become.But none of the swooning over this new Facebook heroine nor any of the other media assaults on Facebook have anything remotely to do with a concern over those genuine dangers. Congress has taken no steps to curb the influence of these Silicon Valley giants because Facebook and Google drown the establishment wings of both parties with enormous amounts of cash and pay well-connected lobbyists who are friends and former colleagues of key lawmakers to use their D.C. influence to block reform. With the exception of a few stalwarts, neither party's ruling wing really has any objection to this monopolistic power as long as it is exercised to advance their own interests.And that is Facebook's only real political problem: not that they are too powerful but that they are not using that power to censor enough content from the internet that offends the sensibilities and beliefs of Democratic Party leaders and their liberal followers, who now control the White House, the entire executive branch and both houses of Congress. Haugen herself, now guided by long-time Obama operative Bill Burton, has made explicitly clear that her grievance with her former employer is its refusal to censor more of what she regards as “hate, violence and misinformation.” In a 60 Minutes

interview on Sunday night, Haugen summarized her complaint about CEO Mark Zuckerberg this way: he “has allowed choices to be made where the side effects of those choices are that hateful and polarizing content gets more distribution and more reach." Haugen, gushed The New York Times’ censorship-desperate tech unit as she testified on Tuesday, is “calling for regulation of the technology and business model that amplifies hate and she’s not shy about comparing Facebook to tobacco.”Agitating for more online censorship has been a leading priority for the Democratic Party ever since they blamed social media platforms (along with WikiLeaks, Russia, Jill Stein, James Comey, The New York Times, and Bernie Bros) for the 2016 defeat of the rightful heir to the White House throne, Hillary Clinton. And this craving for censorship has been elevated into an even more urgent priority for their corporate media allies, due to the same belief that Facebook helped elect Trump but also because free speech on social media prevents them from maintaining a stranglehold on the flow of information by allowing ordinary, uncredentialed serfs to challenge, question and dispute their decrees or build a large audience that they cannot control. Destroying alternatives to their failing platforms is thus a means of self-preservation: realizing that they cannot convince audiences to trust their work or pay attention to it, they seek instead to create captive audiences by destroying or at least controlling any competitors to their pieties.As I have been reporting for more than a year, Democrats do not make any secret of their intent to co-opt Silicon Valley power to police political discourse and silence their enemies. Congressional Democrats have summoned the CEO's of Google, Facebook and Twitter four times in the last year to demand they censor more political speech. At the last Congressional inquisition in March, one Democrat after the next explicitly threatened the companies with legal and regulatory reprisals if they did not immediately start censoring more.A Pew survey from August shows that Democrats now overwhelmingly support internet censorship not only by tech giants but also by the government which their party now controls. In the name of "restricting misinformation,” more than 3/4 of Democrats want tech companies "to restrict false info online, even if it limits freedom of information,” and just under 2/3 of Democrats want the U.S. Government to control that flow of information over the internet:

The prevailing pro-censorship mindset of the Democratic Party is reflected not only by that definitive polling data but also by the increasingly brash and explicit statements of their leaders. At the end of 2020, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), newly elected after young leftist activists worked tirelessly on his behalf to fend off a primary challenge from the more centrist Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA), told Facebook's Zuckerberg exactly what the Democratic Party wanted. In sum, they demand more censorship:

This, and this alone, is the sole reason why there is so much adoration being constructed around the cult of this new disgruntled Facebook employee. What she provides, above all else, is a telegenic and seemingly informed “insider” face to tell Americans that Facebook is destroying their country and their world by allowing too much content to go uncensored, by permitting too many conversations among ordinary people that are, in the immortal worlds of the NYT's tech reporter Taylor Lorenz, “unfettered.”When Facebook, Google, Twitter and other Silicon Valley social media companies were created, they did not set out to become the nation's discourse police. Indeed, they affirmatively wanted not to do that. Their desire to avoid that role was due in part to the prevailing libertarian ideology of a free internet in that sub-culture. But it was also due to self-interest: the last thing social media companies wanted to be doing is looking for ways to remove and block people from using their product and, worse, inserting themselves into the middle of inflammatory political controversies. Corporations seek to avoid angering potential customers and users over political stances, not courting that anger.This censorship role was not one they so much sought as one that was foisted on them. It was not really until the 2016 election, when Democrats were obsessed with blaming social media giants (and pretty much everyone else except themselves) for their humiliating defeat, that pressure began escalating on these executives to start deleting content liberals deemed dangerous or false and banning their adversaries from using the platforms at all. As it always does, the censorship began by targeting widely disliked figures — Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones and others deemed “dangerous” — so that few complained (and those who did could be vilified as sympathizers of the early offenders). Once entrenched, the censorship net then predictably and rapidly spread inward (as it invariably does) to encompass all sorts of anti-establishment dissidents on the right, the left, and everything in between. And no matter how much it widens, the complaints that it is not enough intensify. For those with the mentality of a censor, there can never be enough repression of dissent. And this plot to escalate censorship pressures found the perfect vessel in this stunningly brave and noble Facebook heretic who emerged this week from the shadows into the glaring spotlight. She became a cudgel that Washington politicians and their media allies could use to beat Facebook into submission to their censorship demands.In this dynamic we find what the tech and culture writer Curtis Yarvin calls "power leak.” This is a crucial concept for understanding how power is exercised in American oligarchy, and Yarvin's brilliant essay illuminates this reality as well as it can be described. Hyperbolically arguing that "Mark Zuckerberg has no power at all,” Yarvin points out that it may appear that the billionaire Facebook CEO is powerful because he can decide what will and will not be heard on the largest information distribution platform in the world. But in reality, Zuckerberg is no more powerful than the low-paid content moderators whom Facebook employs to hit the "delete” or "ban” button, since it is neither the Facebook moderators nor Zuckerberg himself who is truly making these decisions. They are just censoring as they are told, in obedience to rules handed down from on high. It is the corporate press and powerful Washington elites who are coercing Facebook and Google to censor in accordance with their wishes and ideology upon pain of punishment in the form of shame, stigma and even official legal and regulatory retaliation. Yarvin puts it this way:However, if Zuck is subject to some kind of oligarchic power, he is in exactly the same position as his own moderators. He exercises power, but it is not his power, because it is not his will. The power does not flow from him; it flows through him. This is why we can say honestly and seriously that he has no power. It is not his,

but someone else’s. . . .Zuck doesn’t want to do any of this. Nor do his users particularly want it. Rather, he is doing it because he is under pressure from the press. Duh. He cannot even admit that he is under duress—or his Vietcong guards might just snap, and shoot him like the Western running-dog capitalist he is….And what grants the press this terrifying power? The pure and beautiful power of the logos? What distinguishes a well-written poast, like this one, from an equally well-written Times op-ed? Nothing at all but prestige. In normal times, every sane CEO will comply unhesitatingly with the slightest whim of the legitimate press, just as they will comply unhesitatingly with a court order. That’s just how it is. To not call this power government is—just playing with words.As I have written before, this problem — whereby the government coerces private actors to censor for them — is not one that Yarvin was the first to recognize. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, since at least 1963, that the First Amendment's "free speech” clause is violated when state officials issue enough threats and other forms of pressure that essentially leave the private actor with no real choice but to censor in accordance with the demands of state officials. Whether we are legally at the point where that constitutional line has been crossed by the increasingly blunt bullying tactics of Democratic lawmakers and executive branch officials is a question likely to be resolved in the courts. But whatever else is true, this pressure is very real and stark and reveals that the real goal of Democrats is not to weaken Facebook but to capture its vast power for their own nefarious ends.There is another issue raised by this week's events that requires ample caution as well. The canonized Facebook whistleblower and her journalist supporters are claiming that what Facebook fears most is repeal or reform of Section 230, the legislative provision that provides immunity to social media companies for defamatory or other harmful material published by their users. That section means that if a Facebook user or YouTube host publishes legally actionable content, the social media companies themselves cannot be held liable. There may be ways to reform Section 230 that can reduce the incentive to impose censorship, such as denying that valuable protection to any platform that censors, instead making it available only to those who truly allow an unmoderated platform to thrive. But such a proposal has little support in Washington. What is far more likely is that Section 230 will be "modified” to impose greater content moderation obligations on all social media companies.Far from threatening Facebook and Google, such a legal change could be the greatest gift one can give them, which is why their executives are often seen calling on Congress to regulate the social media industry. Any legal scheme that requires every post and comment to be moderated would demand enormous resources — gigantic teams of paid experts and consultants to assess "misinformation” and "hate speech” and veritable armies of employees to carry out their decrees. Only the established giants such as Facebook and Google would be able to comply with such a regimen, while other competitors — including large but still-smaller ones such as Twitter — would drown in those requirements. And still-smaller challengers to the hegemony of Facebook and Google, such as Substack and Rumble, could never survive. In other words, any attempt by Congress to impose greater content moderation obligations — which is exactly what they are threatening — would destroy whatever possibility remains for competitors to arise and would, in particular, destroy any platforms seeking to protect free discourse. That would be the consequence by design, which is why one should be very wary of any attempt to pretend that Facebook and Google fear such legislative adjustments.There are real dangers posed by allowing companies such as Facebook and Google to amass the power they have now consolidated. But very little of the activism and

anger from the media and Washington toward these companies is designed to fracture or limit that power. It is designed, instead, to transfer that power to other authorities who can then wield it for their own interests. The only thing more alarming than Facebook and Google controlling and policing our political discourse is allowing elites from one of the political parties in Washington and their corporate media outlets to assume the role of overseer, as they are absolutely committed to doing. Far from being some noble whistleblower, Frances Haugen is just their latest tool to exploit for their scheme to use the power of social media giants to control political discourse in accordance with their own views and interests.

Correction, Oct. 5, 2021, 5:59 pm ET: This article was edited to reflect that just under 2/3 of Democrats favor U.S. Government censorship of the internet in the name of fighting misinformation, not just over.

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bdgthinks · 4 years

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The Two Sides of “The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider”, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider

https://medium.com/@bdgthinksShort pre-amble: Just as how the original Rice article is just the opinion of one writer, what I’m writing below is likewise, just the opinion of mine alone. Also, my opinions are based on my experience working with Deliveroo while Yusuf worked for Grab Food so there may be some differences between the pay structure, zone distances and other company-specific policies.

I was clicking past Instagram stories yesterday afternoon, about to take a nap, when I saw a friend share this recently posted Rice Media article. Part photo journal, part commentary on the gig economy, Singapore’s class divide, and how income inequality is growing more apparent as we adapt to the ever-evolving Covid-19 situation? Sign me the hell up.

All images courtesy of Ricemedia.co, Yusuf Abdol Hamid, or myself

20 minutes, a few raised eyebrows, and many heated texts later – I reluctantly abandoned my plans to nap because I read some many things in this article (which I highly recommend you read first before reading on!) that I disagree with profoundly.

Before I start, I want to offer my appreciation to Yusuf (the narrator), Boon Ping (the editor/author), and Rice Media for publishing this piece that will help many understand the oft-overlooked issue of social/income inequality in an engaging and accessible manner. My misgivings towards some of Yusuf’s opinions notwithstanding, the general sentiment towards this article is extremely positive and has done what I believe every great article should do, provoke thought and inspire critical thinking towards the status quo!

A smattering of positive feedback to the original article

What I appreciated most about the article is encapsulated by joce_zhang’s comment, that it’s an important reminder to be kinder to people – regardless.

However, I couldn’t help but find it slightly troubling that Yusuf and Boon Ping (the editor) seemed to have oversimplified these issues and reduced the stakeholders to caricatures: the rich as the Monopoly Man; and the tireless ‘seen by many as a dead-end job’ delivery couriers as a Dickensian orphan, counting pennies and agonizing over whether they ‘deserve’ a Zinger.

I worry that one unintended consequence of this article is that some ways social inequality is highlighted may lead to reinforcement of the divide rather than dissolution.

During my Summer holidays in 2018, I became attracted to the idea of working part-time as a food courier cyclist as in my mind I saw it as being paid to just cycle and listen to podcasts. Since then, I’ve been an on-off Deliveroo cyclist during the shorter holidays or whenever I needed a little bit of extra pocket money.

In past the two years, I’ve earned exactly $4081.63 from making deliveries (inclusive of bonuses) and dividing it by a conservative $15/h rate, I’ve worked for around 272 hours or about 700 deliveries. split about 60/40 between private properties and HDB flats.

And I guess it’s also partly because of my different experience working in food couriering the past two years that made me feel so much discontent while reading Yusuf’s article. In these 400-odd deliveries to private residences (or heck, in any of my deliveries), I don’t recall having once been treated unnecessarily rudely, aggressively or dismissively by any of the stakeholders I interact with in the job – restaurant servers and managers, condo security management and customers alike.

What I have experienced actually are customers that have tipped me for my efforts - especially ones who live in fairly inaccessible areas, and (during this circuit breaker period) offered me a snack or a cold drink to drop off their deliveries; security guards who ask me how my day was and if I’ve had my lunch or dinner; and restaurant staff who invite me to have a seat in the restaurant while I wait for my order.

Some treats from kind customers

Even when I had made a mess of the customer’s order from their order roiling around during a bumpy 15-minute bike ride (entirely my fault of course!), I’ve never heard anything more than an entirely deserved ‘tsk’ at the disappointment of having half of their pho soup ending up in the plastic bag instead of the bowl – and even then these tsk’s are far and few between!

And it is (again, solely from my own personal experience) where I felt that Yusuf could have been cherry-picking the worst examples from his own experience to make a point. While service industry personnel are no doubt severely underappreciated and that should be improved as a whole, I feel that such blatant incidents are the exception rather than the rule.

My point is: the world isn’t binary. Heck, even up to a year ago I was still echoing Yusuf’s entire argument and ranting rather colorfully about the injustice and discrimination of it all. Who are YOU to tell me which lift I can and cannot use?

In the pursuit of delivering a commentary on some really important social issues, I feel that it fell short by over-emphasizing the ludicrousness of the elite and failing to consider the many other factors that contributes to this problem.

For one, I thought that the annoyance projected to security guards seeing themselves as ‘a barrier between the riff-raff and their diamond-encrusted residents’ was a bit uncalled for – painting a picture of the fearsome guard – in employ of the up-in-the-air bourgeois hiding in their ivory tower, assailing an innocent courier who had the audacity to think that he had the right to take the same elevator as the residents?

But then… when we consider that most lift lobbies are a good distance from the security guard posts where the guards are stationed, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable for a guard to have to raise his voice to get his point across, right?

Being fortunate enough to live in a condo myself, I’ve sometimes felt unease in the duality that security guards experience every single day: faithful bastions in keeping residents safe, spending their days patrolling the lush, landscaped gardens and expansive feature infinity pools, but never once stepping foot into the houses they loyally guard.

And at the end of the day, clocking out to return home to an environment I assume is much less luxurious.

So why then, do Yusuf and Boon Ping deign to foster an us vs them divide, arbitrarily placing one occupation on one side of the line and another on the opposite?

How about the incredulousness towards the guy who orders a stupid $11 Dal.komm latte every day, or the Grange Road resident who only orders a single scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice cream?

Like I said, caricatures that highlight and reinforce the rich-poor divide.

Cherry-picking prevents the reader from seeing the single cups of coffee that I’ve delivered from Common Man Coffee Roasters to Tenteram Peak, the eight egg tarts from Whampoa Hawker Center to Toa Payoh. Or my dad, who lives a one-minute walk from the hawker center but still chooses to order through Grabfood because he paid for a subscription service that offers 50 free deliveries for just $10?

All these customers lived in HDB units.

As a courier, there’s nothing I appreciate more than collecting an order to find out I’m being paid $5 to cycle one block away, or reaching the restaurant to find out that a customer only ordered an easy-to-transport wrap instead of say, twelve packets of chicken rice – I’m getting paid the same amount anyway.

So yes, they’re paying our salary, so thank you.

Juxtaposition is also good and all for making a point, but is it truly accurate and representative?

The word exclusive is used a lot by Yusuf - but are those who live in a smelly HDB with the pee smell in the corridor exclusively nice, and the expat who lives in the Ardmore Park condo with the super high ceiling exclusively mean? Is it wrong to live (or aspire to live) in an exclusive private property? These are questions to be stimulated, not answers to be given.

There’s so much to pick apart, but my goal isn’t to say: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, it’s just that say that There Are Two Sides to Everything.

A brief aside on ‘fulfillment’

While I love my part-time job – paying me upwards of $20 an hour to keep fit and listen to podcasts, I’m entirely cognizant that while I’m privileged that it’s a side-hustle, a side-gig, a part-time job to me; it’s also a livelihood to tens of thousands of hardworking people out there.

Where I could turn off the app and head home when I decided I’ve earned enough in the week to eat at a new restaurant I’ve been eyeing or if it was too hot in the afternoon, most other people working my job can’t – if not, the lights may not turn on the next day.

In a comment to an earlier draft of this piece, a friend shared that it’s a privilege to be able to separate your social identities. I think it’s also a privilege to have the choice of perspective. We exercise when we’re healthy, as a hobby, or a passion. Deliverymen don’t see it that way. There is no ‘good to do’, there is only ‘must do’.

At the end of the day when the world starts to recover from Covid-19, you’re going to start getting photo and videography gigs and transition back to the white-collar world.

As for the security guard and domestic helper at Ardmore Park, the server at the Grange Road Haagen-Dazs, and the tens of thousands of for-hire drivers and delivery couriers? There’s no ‘back to normal’ – this is their normal.

In a discussion post on Yusuf’s article, a redditor referenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In the blue-collar normal, where every day is a struggle to meet the needs of financial safety and security, maybe fulfilment isn’t really an aspiration for most. In an article calling for empathy, I feel the quality slightly lacking in my reading.

A few months back I began my education into inequality in Singapore with Teo You Yenn’s seminal This Is What Inequality Looks Like. In it, the title of one of her essays especially stood out to me: Dignity Is Like Clean Air. She describes, like Yusuf does, that many blue-collar workers in the service industry always feel invisible, that people don’t respect them, that it makes them feel small. I’d like to add on to** Dignity Is Like Clean Air** with the caveat: Segregation Is Not Necessarily Dirty.

Going back to the ‘fucked up service lifts at the back for the smelly people, the non-residents and stuff’, how about we just call a spade a spade?

In restaurants, servers and chefs who have their meals there usually sit at tables near the kitchen (or even in the kitchen itself).

In airplanes, consumers have the choice to pay a much higher premium for more leg room and a more gourmet selection of food. In fancy hotels, bellboys and concierge staff have to wear stiff suits – there’s usually a dress code for guests to enter certain areas.

So, is it really that unfair, for someone who’s had the means to pay for the privilege of living in luxury, to not really want to share a lift with someone who might smell unpleasant from having spent hours cycling under the hot sun?

The service lift provides the same functionality – no one’s saying that couriers are ‘lesser people’, we’re not being asked to walk up the stairs while the ‘masters’ take the magic moving box. It wasn’t created to separate the ‘undesirables’ from the ‘desirables’ like a pre-Rosa Parks bus, and it’ll be unhealthy to think of it as such – even worse to let it fester.

To package my views into a neatly categorized box – When I’m Brandon the Deliveryman, it’s perfectly fine for a guard to request for me to take the service lift, but when I’m Brandon the Guest attending a dinner party at the same condo, no one is stopping me from taking the resident lift right?

Different day, Different fit, Same me

I still think that it’s incredibly fucked up that some employers make their helpers take a separate lift though.

But in delivering the core message – is it more helpful to frame your reflection as ‘why do some people treat their subordinates with such contempt and how can we as society hope to change it’, or to just resent the fact that ‘rich people like that la’ – and laugh and pretend we’re friends.

I guess what I’m most frustrated with about the article is that it had the potential to be so much more. It occasionally flirts with the possibility of going deeper into one issue or the other but ultimately ends up being a reflection of one privileged dude’s brief foray into an industry that many of us often take for granted.

And because there are so many issues at play, people often fall into the trap of distilling extremely complicated issues into dangerous sweeping statements, which eventually does very little for the problem in question.

Another frustration I often have towards the discourse towards social issues is that they often fail to carry a call-to-action. Okay, I’ve checked my privilege, I’ve understood that my successes in life is partly a byproduct of the wealthy family I was fortunate to being born into – now what?

A good rule of thumb that I’ve been trying to implement into my life recently is to think about the net positive or net negative an action has onto society. And hence:

To the fortunate: While it is important to understand your privilege and not take things for granted, you also don’t have to be ashamed of it. Every dollar you spend goes into the economy and is earned by someone else. So, what can you do to influence a net positive?

Be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone.

If you can, have the moral courage to call out undesirable behavior – especially if it’s someone close to you. But if you can’t – it’s okay too. Start with yourself. The world could do with less ‘you should do more’ and more ‘thank you for what you did’.

This is not exclusive to tipping service staff or offering couriers a cold drink (although it is always really welcome!). Offer a kind word to anyone you interact with. Ask the office or school janitor if they’ve had their meal yet, wish your security guard a good morning/good evening when you pass them by, clear your tray when you’re at a fast food restaurant and smile and thank the servers if you pass them by.

I promise you - these little acts of kindness will go a much longer way received than it takes you to give them.

To our everyday heroes: Your intrinsic self worth is by no means defined by how an asshole treats you. You are so, so, so much more important.

You are somebody, you are somebody, you are somebody.

In this essay, my intention is to extend the net positive that Yusuf and Rice has already generated while minimizing the net negatives it may unintentionally create by framing the issue as ‘us vs them’.

I hope that it will be seen as an addendum to Yusuf’s original piece instead of a correction. To build up on the important issues that **each and every one of us **should acknowledge and then go one step further to see how we can resolve them. I hope that reading this has provoked more questions than it gives answers. I hope that we don’t see the world as black-and-white but how things can move to a more palatable shade of grey.

Of course, my thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions here could be (and probably are) wildly ignorant and myopic, and I still have so much more to learn. So please confront me, dispute me and tell me where I’m wrong and what I don’t know.

If I have to leave you with just one takeaway, I hope everyone remembers to be kinder to people – regardless.

(You can also find me at https://medium.com/@bdgthinks!)

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hwhelldayum-blog-blog · 6 years

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I Figured It Out (A Gummi Phone Rant)

So I loved Kingdom Hearts 3. It answered a lot of questions I had, reunited the sea salt and the Wayfinder trios, and validated why I spent so much time on my phone playing a mobile game people kept telling me to quit because it would never be part of the whole story. However, something about the story left me unsatisfied. I’ll probably do a post about my feelings on the game as a whole, but there is one specific thing I want to discuss (three guesses based on the title.)

Yes I am talking about the Gummi Phone. Spoiler/not really spoiler Chip and Dale send Sora the Gummi Phone so he can keep in contact with them and Ienzo because plot purposes. Also installed on the phone is Jimimy’s journal, a secret emblem count, treasure count, play games, take selfies and a few other things. But plot-wise this phone is used to contact Mickey/Riku, Chip/Dale and Ienzo throughout cutscenes.

Now being a girl who picks up her phone in the morning before she picks up her glasses I can happily tell you that one of the best features of the phone is the ability to communicate to others knowing that the message would get to the recipient when they had time to read it. Thus time constraints are a second thought when you can text something you just thought of or even life events you cannot wait to share with others. It is why instagram, snapchat, youtube, facebook and tumblr are so prevalent in modern day life.

Speaking of which during the game all of the transitions from place to place have a psuedo-instagram posts. They feature the worlds Sora goes to, Ienzo and Riku being deep, and Mickey trying to humanize his uber-strict teacher. I mention this because when they first showed up I got so excited, but then they just cycled through the same fifteen posts and I was disappointed. I bring up these posts because I feel thy could have helped with communication in another way.

One of my biggest gripes with this still fantastic game is the lack of communication between the main #1 trio of the entire series: The Destiny Trio. When the trailers came out I was so excited to see Sora, Riku, and Kairi rekindle their friendship after being stuck doing things high school students should not have to. Instead they isolate all three from each other and then try to crunch their communication to 2 at a time per character for about an hour and a half of cutscene time. And this is for a game that has about 12 hours worth of cutscenes. Now I believe they could have done an easier way to make sure these cinnamon rolls could have been in constant communication throughout the whole game and it all starts with this gosh darned gummi phone.

Now lets say that there was another button to select on the gummi phone menu. Lets call it... Snapstagram. After some important cutscenes or after completing worlds, you can log into Snapstagram and BAM! Look who is posting. It’s Kairi sending a selfie with Lea about her training and Riku being #plaidbrothers with King MIckey. Finished with Corona? Well guess what? Kairi successfully beat up Lea in a sparring match. Meanwhile Riku revisted radiant garden and reunited with Leon and Cloud for a selfie. But most importantly you have the option of commenting one thing for each post by your two besties. Not only is this a way to keep these three paopu-fruitnuts in constant contact but also lets the players follow Riku and Kairi on their progress with their missions.

Now I know what you are thinking: But wouldn’t that be a lot of programming for the Kingdom hearts team? First off, they had 13 years to work out the details of this game. Secondly THEY HAD 13 YEARS TO WORK OUT THE DETAILS OF THIS GAME. But most importantly they have done something similar to this concept in an earlier game. FFXV.

Check it. Spoiler/You’ve had plenty of time to play this game not spoiler: Noctis and Luna are arranged to marry but since they live in rival areas their only means of communication has been this journal sent back and forth by Luna’s magical dog Umbra. Every time Luna sent Noctis a letter about how she is excited to be reunited with him, Noctis has the option to give one reply to her. Now in FFXV, so far we have only seen Luna and Noctis communicate when they were children in flashbacks, the heartbreaking death scene, and the fully completed are they in heaven post credits scene. If the player has not watched Kingsglaive of FFXV Brotherhood, they do not see Luna for more than 30 minutes of the entire game. But this constant communication between the two lovers give those players enough information to get “Yeah they are a long distance relationship and I should care about the girl my character feels this strongly about.

A common trend I see in the Kingdom hearts thread is the lack of communication with Kairi in particular with Sora and then Nomura kind of hoping the players assume they don’t need communication, but that is my problem. The main theme of the whole kingdom hearts games since number one is that Sora’s friends are his power. I realize that quite a few people believe this means his friendship with Donald and Goofy (And don’t get me wrong if anything happened to either of my disney brothers I would kill all 13 darknesses, 7 lights and then myself in an instant) but the journey started because Sora was separated from both Riku and Kairi.

Now people believe that Riku has so much communication with Sora but I need to remind you that Riku popped up in brief moments of Sora’s life in KH1 while Kairi was a litteral resident in Sora’s heart most of the game. COM Riku’s route only happened after Sora went beddy-bye. No Kairi communication but no real Riku connection either. KH2 Riku and Kairi slipped between Sora’s fingers most of the game until Endgame. So equal communication. DDD No Kairi but Riku also didn’t truly communicate with Sora except for before and after the Mark of Mastery exam. But he was Sora’s dream eater so it makes up for the time Kairi was literally in sora’s heart. So Lack of Communication is pretty equal between all three hot messes.

Now if they were able to have something to keep in touch to make sure the other two were safe that would satisfy the small part of me that turned sour when the other two trios were reunited and the main group got the shaft. The Wayfinder Trio during BBS had constant scenes between them and constantly verbally worried about each other the whole game. The sea salt trio had mostly scenes between duos but they were spread evenly during their game so each character had their own grievances about their breakup. Sora, Kairi, and Riku got the opposite. Equal amount of time in the past games, but this game when it was supposed to be the ultimate reunion story they had nothing until endgame.

With Snapstagram, not only does it give us background on mission progression for the non-player friends, it tells the players who did not play 1 or 2 enough information to go “These are my best friends I would die for them”. When I came to this conclusion a few hours ago I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I love KH3 and I kept wondering why I was so unsatisfied. If they game had utilized the gummi phone to be more like a regular phone, I think it would have been an easy was to solve some of the story issues that players had with the game.

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giannisbct-blog · 6 years

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A wild ride

Right so I am finally getting round to do this as I have been putting it off for a few weeks so if it doesn’t make sense or I miss things, oh bother. So far this semester we have had a new idea each week. We get tot the end of the week and then we hate it and want a new one. Since my last blog our idea moved to looking into something that used the location of instagram photos to show how the originality of photography (particularly travel photography) has started to die due to social media. We thought of maybe a camera that when you take a photo it actually gives you a photo someone else has taken in a similar area or an average of images taken in the same area. Another idea was to do an installation that did something with heat maps or geolocations on maps or just something of the likes but that went downhill. To develop this I wrote some code in Python (which was a very steep learning curve) to essentially map the locations of photos onto a google maps map. The issue is that Instagram didn’t want to give us access to any public data that wasn’t published by ourselves or by them so we were not going to be able to get the data that we wanted and all we had to go off was the instagram supplied geolocations. So I turned to twitter as I knew that with their API they would be able to give us access to the data we need, unfortunately they literally got back to me today granting me access and I applied for it 3 weeks ago so I am glad we have moved on.

Our next idea (which we have decided that regardless if we like it or hate it we have to roll with it because we are far to deep in the semester to change again) revolves still around social media but how the Bystander affect is amplified through social media. The Bystander Stander effect was first coined by Bibb Latane and John Darley after the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York City in which it was reported in the New York Times that there were 38 witness and not a single one called the police or tried to intervene. The concept is that people are less likely to help someone or intervene in a situation if there are other around who are as capable as they are, so it acts as a diffusion of responsibility. They also went on to mention that individuals monitor the behaviour of those around them to determine how to act. So in the situation where no one is helping then someone is less likely going to help but as soon as someone helps, everyone else becomes more willing. This has been referred to as the ‘Helper Effect’ by Ken Brown in his TED talk, where he explains that the bystander effect can be a negative but as soon as it becomes the helper effect it becomes a positive.

In the age of social media, the bystander effect shows up in different forms. Firstly, there are the people who film events or situations instead of helping out or intervening. The classic example is when United Airlines dragged the passenger off the plane because they had over-booked it. In the videos posted online, there is a woman that can be heard screaming and telling them to stop but not a single person gets up and tries to intervene. These people want to capture these situation and then post them online in order to gain popularity and likes and don’t appear to care if the person is helped or not. On the other side is the people who watch these videos and don’t do anything except “like” and keep scrolling. By extension you are part of the bystander effect as you haven’t intervened but you have witnessed it. It is the same sort of thing as people who post things to “bring awareness to a problem”, you aren’t soling it or fixing the issue and chances are the people who see your content won’t either so you are all just sitting idly by watching. The same sort of thing I notice in the BCT, a lot of projects aim to “raise awareness” but how many set out to actually try and fix the issue. Ironic because that is sort of what our project is too. Back to social media though, the most common form of the bystander effect is posts that have the picture of a sick child and then it says ‘100,000 likes to save his life’. People like it and feel they are doing good but at the end of the day the person who posted the image isn’t waiting for that number to tick on over from 99,999 likes so he can get to work. There is even an entire website set up specifically for viewing horrible things like this called Live Leak and people will literally post videos of people getting killed and others will watch it

So what are we going to do? Well we initially thought of setting up a scene that people can look into and in the middle there is someone who has injured themselves or maybe even are dying. The audience would be able to view the situation but not be able to interact with it at all except that they can “like” it. We would then have a leaderboard that they could see who has liked it the most and therefore “sent more prayers and thoughts” or raised more awareness or helped more, but in reality the situation hasn’t changed. The idea that this is the only way they can interact reflects how removed we are from situations like this due to social media. Since then though I thought about the idea of making it an AR installation, so to have maybe only our project description of the floor and when someone views it through their camera the scene appears, so taking the physical completely out of it and only having the digital. I have looked into how to do it and even have some trials done, just need to run it by the team and get into it.

References:

Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. Journal of personality and social psychology, 8(4p1), 377.

Ken Brown (2015) TEDxUIowa: The bystander effect is complicated – here’s why | Ken Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufs8cKyzLvg

Badalge, K. N. (2017) Our phones make us feel like social-media activists, but they’re actually turning us into bystanders [Article]. Retrieved from https://qz.com/991167/our-phones-make-us-feel-like-social-media-activists-but-theyre-actually-turning-us-into-bystanders

M.Heene, M.Wicher, M. Kainbacher, P.Fischer, J.I.Krueger, T.Greitemeyer, C.Vogrincic, A.Kastenmuller, D.Frey (2011) American Psychological Association: The Bystander-Effect: A Meta-Analytic Review on Bystander Intervention in Dangerous and Non-Dangerous Emergencies https://www.uni muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/sommersemester2012/schluesselstudiendersozialpsychologiea/fischerkruegergreitem_bystandermetaana_psybull2011.pdf

#ctec608

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valeriemperez · 6 years

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I haven't been online much recently because of a problem with my computer, but now that it's fixed I am trying to catch up on flash news. I have a question though. I have seen something about WA getting a house (which I assume at this point is speculation) by the end of the season. Where is this coming from? Also, could this be the house that is supposed to be so bitchin'?

It is speculation, you are correct. And it comes from this post Candice made that showed moving boxes, except we know Candice was filming that day and her apartment doesn’t look like that.

That same day, Grant posted an instastory in which he was coming out of a house during filming. And Kate posted a story of her and Candice in what looked like a backyard.

So from all of that, we extrapolated that Grant and Candice were filming a scene of Barry and Iris moving into their new house, and that Dawn would show up and tell them it’s bitchin’ lol.

@minute42 said:

Tati, what do you want for Barry’s journey, in S5 and beyond? And how do you think they’ll recentre Barry after all the Ralph stupidity?

It is kind of hard to think of how they’ll recenter Barry, but I think I would enjoy a parallel story of Barry needing to restore his reputation as a CSI after the trial but also Flash’s reputation as a hero after all the havoc Devoe wreaks. That would give us more of a chance to incorporate CCPD and Iris’ journalism, not to mention the literal people of Central City.

I also think that Dawn/Nora being Iris and Barry’s daughter will automatically give him some focus back, especially if she has a mission she needs her parents’ help with.

Have you heard anything about a sex scene coming up between Cisco/Cynthia in 4x20? I love the two of them together, but if they get a sex scene and Barry and Iris never get one, I will be VERY upset.

Nope. I know some people interpreted Natalie’s spoiler to mean sex, but I didn’t at all. I took it to mean Cisco and Cynthia will literally discuss one of them moving. If they do get a ~racy scene, it won’t be anything more than WA got in 3.04 or 3.10 or even what CC got in 4.02.

I’m not surprised that special exists. AJK clearly thought Ralph would be the future of the show and of course the network would back that. They already had Hartley signed on so they might as well do their best to make it work. Whether that leads to him being a regular in season 5 is anyone’s guess.

Yeah, I hope that they decide his story’s played out after a season. I’m not going to pretend everyone hates him, because he has plenty of fans on instagram, reddit and facebook. I just hope the writers align with my preferences instead lol.

I feel like mystery girl will have purple lightning like Iris. They keep throwing these misdirects so they can pretend mystery girl being their daughter was a surprise all along. It’s similar to when Jay said he’s training a female flash or joceile having a daughter. It’s meant to have us think those are clue for mystery girl. So yeah I totally think mystery girl will have purple lightning like her mom

Interesting point about making the lightning a misdirect on purpose. The writers do like to troll a bit, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

#the flash #toolezbionic #minute42 #anonymous #tatiana's thoughts #more asks under the cut #long post for ts #the flash spoilers

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kelleah-meah · 3 years

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INFJ Decor vs. My Home's Decor

If you haven't noticed, I tend to post a lot of memes from Instagram geared toward MBTI and Astrology topics. Specifically for me, INFJ/INFP and Pisces/Aquarius memes.

(I'm an INFJ, but sometimes the INFP resonates more in meme form. Also, I'm a Pisces sun and moon, but an Aquarius rising and Mars, so sometimes Aqua memes resonate more.)

I saw one meme come up in the @MBTI_as_Things account on IG that I really liked because I'm also a nerd for home decor and artistic expression as well.

If you go to the post on IG (I think it was posted in mid-June 2021), you can see the decor memes for other MBTI types. Some are really nice and interesting.

Anyway, since the one for INFJs resonated with me the most, I thought I'd share how my flat compares to the meme. Keep in mind this is all just for fun, and yeah, I know my bookshelves are dusty.

Here we go ...

Here's how my flat stands up :

Abstract and/or bold art --

I painted this piece above. It was for a special class series at a local arts center in my hometown where we learned to copy the specific style of a famous artist. I took the Jackson Pollock class because I figured he would be easier to mimic than Kandinsky or O'Keeffe. I think it turned out pretty well.

Not completely abstract, but just as colorful. This piece is called The Kiss by Felicia van Os.

Art supplies --

Just a small sample. Most of my art is with the written word, so I don't have a lot of supplies like these. I paint mainly as a form of art therapy.

Books, books and more books --

Ignore the fingerprints in the dust on the shelf, but note the small work of art gifted to me by Jesse Wright beside the books. I don't like to take my books all the way across the shelf because I like adding little ephemera and tchotchkes to the shelves as well.

I occasionally buy more than one book if I have one of them signed by the author (Bohemian Manifesto) or there's a problem with one of them (The Myth of Sisyphus -- the one without the bookmark has its pages in the wrong order).

Reading Nook --

It's simple, but it's mine. :-)

Memories --

I have a small, orange, glass memory jar that I add little notes to each month with cool things that I did or experienced written on them. I try to add at least 3 memories each month. Then, on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day (after a full year has passed), I pull them out of the jar one-by-one and read through them. After that, I tape them into my personal journal for posterity. I started doing this a few years ago, and it's one of my favorite customs now.

Now, similar to the meme illustration, I do have photos clothes-pinned to twine set-up like an art piece on my wall. Except mine isn't set-up for memories. Instead, mine is set-up for my vision board.

Tasteful, obscure decor --

I like to think of my home's decor as esoteric, not obscure, but since they kind of mean the same thing, I guess I'm just being picky. But yeah, tasteful I think is a fair description.

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truthbeetoldmedia · 6 years

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The Bold Type 2x08 "Plan B" Review

Hello friends, and welcome to another week of me reviewing The Bold Type. Let’s dive right into it by starting with Jane.

Plan? I Don’t Even Have a “Pla”

As you can guess by the title, Jane and Ben suffer a “mishap” while having sex. Jane postmates Plan B (yes, you can do that) and all's well that ends well, right? For Jane, however, a visit to her doctor about some side effects of the pill spark a much deeper conversation.

We learned in Season 1 that Jane’s mother died of breast cancer when she was very young. We also learned that Jane is positive for the BRCA1 gene. Long story short, this means that she has a much higher risk for developing breast or ovarian cancer than someone who doesn’t possess the gene mutation. A positive result doesn’t mean that cancer is inevitable for Jane, but it does mean that she has to take pretty drastic preventative measures that most people don’t have to worry about.

Because of this, Jane’s doctor tells her she needs to think about her fertility options right away. One part of Jane’s preventative options, and a common one, is a total removal of her ovaries. Jane is faced with a very serious and time sensitive issue. She could commit to not having children, freezing her eggs, or having them right away, either with Ben or a sperm donor.

Jane struggles a great deal throughout the episode with this dilemma, something that 25-year-olds don’t usually have to worry about. Luckily the nature of her job at Scarlet is asking people questions about things she wants to know, so she pitches an article about how being a mom affects 20-somethings in the modern age. Instead of helping Jane make a decision this actually complicated the issue, forcing Jane to consider things she wouldn’t have before.

Motherhood for Jane is complicated. To put it simply, it's just too early for Jane to know what she could possibly want. There’s also the worry that if she decides to have kids now, she’ll lose out on parts of her life. That’s not to say that moms don’t have full lives, but having a child is a monumental life change that requires time and energy. Her life wouldn't just be about journalism and friendships. At a time when she just got her job back at Scarlet and is starting to fully grow into her career, having children wouldn’t necessarily be ideal.

Jane’s situation is also complicated because of her own mother. Because her mother died young, Jane doesn’t have any real memories of her that don’t take place in a hospital. She never really got to see her mom being a mom, so motherhood is especially foreign to her. She also doesn’t have her mother around to be a source of advice or help, something that almost all of the moms she interviewed mentioned as being their saving grace.

Jane, Sutton and Kat have a conversation about motherhood while at a playground, after Jane had interviewed some of the moms. This conversation is one of my favorite parts of the episode. It definitely sounds like a conversation I’ve had with my own friends, and it was refreshing to see a show portray a typical millennial conversation so accurately. Kat doesn’t feel the need to have kids; there are enough people in the world as it is, resources are drained, and everything generally sucks. I have to agree with her here, and when she says she doesn’t feel the allure of “being a human kleenex,” it was like she read my mind. Kids are great and all, but I’d love to be able to give them back when they get antsy.

Sutton, on the other hand, is a little more open to having kids than Kat. Like Jane, if kids are in the picture, she always assumed it wouldn’t be for a while. The Bold Type has already established Sutton as career driven first and foremost, so this definitely fits. She’s also not shy in naming her mother as a reason she might want kids. As briefly discussed in last week’s episode, Sutton basically served as a parent to her alcoholic, hard partying mom. It’s very common for people from situations like this to want kids just so they can do better than their parents did.

Later on in the episode Jane tells Ben what’s been going on, both about her BRCA status and the complex decision she’s facing about having or not having children. This is the first sign of Ben being a little less than perfect: he’s way too much of a doctor about Jane’s BRCA gene and not enough of a boyfriend. He immediately starts asking medical questions involving the type of cancer Jane’s mom had, which is definitely not the best (or most comforting) response. They end the episode on a strained note, the future definitely not looking bright for these two.

#GIRLBOSS

Ah, Sutton. Everyone seems to be having a time of it this episode, and she is no exception. Oliver is in Paris for fashion week, so Sutton serves as his replacement in a Scarlet budget meeting. They’re cutting every department budget to allocate some funds, and Sutton took Oliver’s advice to “smile and nod” as permission to authorize a 10% cut to the fashion department. I really doubt that Sutton would be given power over the fashion department budget, but hey, it’s a plot device so I’ll let it go.

In a story that they’ve given Sutton about a million times, she faces a dilemma at her job that could possibly be career threatening, tries to fix it the traditional way, and ends the episode excelling at resolving the problem in a method that’s usually a little out of left field. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see Sutton kicking ass left and right, but at this point in the season I would expect something a little more substantial for her. Sure, her relationship with Richard was a plot point for a while, but as for now that’s been pushed to the back burner.

The most we’ve learned about Sutton was actually in last week’s episode, “Betsy,” when we learn more about her childhood in rural Pennsylvania and where her need for control comes from. We also know that Sutton grew up poor. She had to be extremely resourceful, sewing all her own clothes and retreating to the pages of fashion magazines when things got tough.

Despite how small of a view we’ve gotten into what makes Sutton tick, her backstory is actually one of my favorite parts of the show. Aside from her affinity for guns (you guys know how I feel about that), I’m super impressed with just how perfectly her life before and during Scarlet fits together. It makes sense: her love of fashion and her ability to be creative and resourceful with almost nothing make her a perfect fit for her job, bringing skills to the table that people who simply went to fashion school wouldn’t have. I’m so glad that this episode provides her with some much needed traction: she’s going to Paris for fashion week! This is obviously a huge step in her career, and something that indicates real change for her. I can’t wait to see what she excels at next.

Make America Black and Queer Again

Kat, meanwhile, is facing her own dilemma. She’s approached by Cleo, the newest board member at Scarlet’s parent company, Safford. Ah, Cleo. Love to hate you. See, with Cleo, I enjoy her time on the show because it’s usually accompanied by Jacqueline putting her in her place. It’s pretty satisfying to watch, and this episode doesn’t disappoint in that regard.

Cleo has been in talks with a skin care company called Whole Spa, and they want Kat to be the face of their new campaign. At first Kat is flattered, and at her meeting with their brand rep it all sounds great: the company aims to be all inclusive, the packaging is eco-friendly, and they want to work with Kat because of her unique story. She is, after all, a queer black woman who happens to be the first person of color department head at Scarlet. Who better to represent your company, right?

Turns out, Whole Spa chose Kat very, very carefully. In a casual run in with Pinstripe in the lobby at Safford (he’s freelancing for a garden magazine now: hemp is the new corn!), he notices the Whole Spa products that Kat is carrying and asks about them, so she tells him about the sponsorship. Unfortunately for Kat, Pinstripe has a reporter friend that is in the middle of a story about Whole Spa’s CEO donating to some prolific hate groups, specifically anti-black and anti-LGBTQ.

Now Kat realizes why Whole Spa wanted her in the first place: to be their “one black friend” when this news hits the public. As Sutton puts it, they want her to be their “black, bi bandaid.” She’s stuck now, since she already signed the contract and would almost definitely be sued if she didn’t follow through with the terms of it. Saying positive things about a company that disagrees with your very existence is not something that Kat’s comfortable with, so in typical Kat fashion she finds a way to speak her mind.

She does everything she’s contractually obligated to: she tries the products, posts about them on Instagram, and lists three things she likes about them. She also just so happens to sneak in a bit at the end of one particular Instagram story that the Whole Spa CEO is corrupt and using her to cover up their bigotry, but hey, no problem right?

Wrong. Actually, the only ones mad about it are Cleo and Whole Spa themselves. Cleo drags Kat to a private meeting with Jacqueline, playing Kat’s instastory for her and waiting for Jacqueline to enact some kind of fury on Kat.

Sorry, Cleo!

Jacqueline staunchly defends Kat and ridicules Cleo for rushing into this partnership without doing her full research. Jacqueline isn’t upset about the possibility of bad press or a reaction from Whole Spa. Instead she’s angry that Cleo would compromise the integrity of both Kat and Scarlet. Cleo isn’t as phased by Whole Spa’s bigotry, saying that there are members of Safford that have been known to sport MAGA hats on the weekends.

Jacqueline then calmly informs Cleo that maybe next time, she should choose one of them to be a brand rep for Whole Spa.

YAS, JACQUELINE!

For me, Jacqueline is the true highlight of this episode. We don’t get enough of her in most episodes, so her constant support of both Jane and Kat this week was great to watch.

From the beginning of the show, Jacqueline served to be the polar opposite of Miranda Priestly a la The Devil Wears Prada. She’s kind and supportive of her staff, destroying the domineering and intimidating female boss trope.

While Jane is struggling with her article, Jacqueline is understanding. She recognizes that this might not be one of those times that Jane needs to be pushed, so instead she gives her support. After the incident with Whole Spa, she also encourages Kat to seek out progressive companies that she would feel good about supporting. She easily could have banned all future sponsorships or endorsements, but didn’t let this particular debacle ruin anything. Also, getting her eyebrows threaded in her office? Goals.

This was a fantastic, solid episode. I’m truly excited to see how this season wraps up Jane, Sutton and Kat’s journeys. The Season 1 finale was so great that I cried, so I’m looking forward for the last few episodes of this season to really pack a punch. With Kat struggling with her relationship with Adena, Jane dealing with her medical dilemma, and Sutton visiting her hometown next episode, I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

The Bold Type airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Freeform.

Alyssa’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

#The Bold Type #Plan B #Parenthood

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kroabot · 3 years

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pt 93 medical journaling

You should stop participating in extortion and kidnapping, Ricardo Coca. If you don't want your family's extortion and kidnapping victims to threaten to kill your family members. You should stop them from crime Ricardo. Not help them.

Sleepover at suicide slumber party is over, Star. Time to return to your one remaining sane law abiding parent.

I don't even think that is Star Monique Gonnerman, who posts and removes pictures from her instagram account. It's probably her mother Elizabeth Monica Coca posting and removing old photos, so you don't know that Star is locked away safely like a piece of capital. Star's instagram account doesn't interest me at all. Because everything Elizabeth Monica Coca do online is a distraction. So you don't suspect what is really happening. Those are old photos, of rare social events from the previous year.

Vulture over the custody auction human trafficking situation. See if anyone dies of covid19 family emergency. Ratero family of delincuentes lost a loved ratero to covid19. Can i have my daughter Star Monique Gonnerman back now? I'm her father Kurt Gonnerman.

Nick the prick Boyd, the dead Boyd lawyer he's been awfully quiet. Full of lead Boyd.

Kind of exposed that Joseph Taylor learned professional cyber stalking skills on his bribe jobs of bribing warlords in Afghanistan. Being cyberstalked by Moroccan isis al qaeda human traffickers. Or being stalked by Joseph Taylor for custody papers. Or being stalked by military Lieutenants trained by the KGB by Maduro in Caracas, and feeling like whatsapp is Red October. I start to have counterintuitive skills. And i know a lot about American cyber stalkers. But you don't know about KGB trained pirate gangs of Caracas, who include lieutenants. Their narcotraffickers, not like the DEA. They are deported prison gangs like the DEA, but the DEA is not trained by the KGB nor does it have screaming military lieutenants taking over hotels, and filling Hostal Bolegnesi up witb pregnant young women.

What happened in June 2018, is that Elizabeth Monica Coca finally accepted her deportation which was announced to her at immigrations when she returned from dropping me (Kurt Gonnerman) off in Perú, she got her deportation notice in June 2013. Joseph Taylor thought that he could use Mormon bullying to get custody papers from me. As if Lima, Perú, population 10 million is the same as Salt Lake City, Utah. And the large Mormon family can routinely visit your home in a large group, and demand custody papers. But you couldn't do that in Lima, Perú, could you Joseph Taylor?

--------------------++++++

It has been narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. 'Umar that the Messenger of Allah said:

I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that (la ilaha illallah) there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, and they establish prayer, and pay Zakat and if they do it, their blood and property are guaranteed protection on my behalf except when justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah.

Sahih Muslim 22 Book 1, Hadith 36

------_-----+++++

...which is funny. Because like Charro (Rosaria Rodriguez), or Gladis and Michael Tahan. Or Raquel and Dave Jensen or whatever your name is. Carlos and Pocha Coca Cabra, Julia Coca Cabra. You have your American homes. No one cares about your mortgage debt or property taxes. Sell it all and go back to Perú then. Your children file out of the big show-off home and begin a life of their own. You ever hear of that? A life of their own? Your big expensive house is empty and always in need of repair.

They need Islam. They need the Word of salvation, La ilaha illallah, that there is no God but Allah swt. Look how lost and meaningless the lives of Mormons. Doing the ancestry of ancestors so you can baptise their dead?! Focus on your own repentance and salvation, filthy fools! Turn to your One Creator, Word of salvation, la ilaha illallah, 5 salat prayers at specific time frames of the day. Save yourself from the Hellfire, stop this materialistic Mormon or Christian madness! You are criminal psychopaths you will murder out of jealousy and competition over other people's children! Sick filthy fool! May Allah guide you away from the shirk and the sihr, the polytheism and black magic and turn your heart to Allah Alone, seeking His Face in actions words and intentions, in Islam, leave Morgen Mormon basura behind no more Christianity now is Islam, Ameen.

Why don't you go take your V2K DEW gun to a mountain and drink mountain dew?

At the last week of March 2021, Jose Felix of the department of child welfare services in San Diego, told me Kurt Gonnerman, that Star Monique Gonnerman had attempted suicide with a belt in the home of Tamara Bangerter Coca and Enrique Coca. And he only told me this for his own sick control and manipulation game. And to record incriminating evidence against me, while i was furious of the neglect being reported about my daughter Star, and seeing this spic who should build his professional reputation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, not San Diego. Was only going to send Star back to Tamara and the extended family member kidnapping ring. And the house of belts with the BYI Idaho lynch squad. Which he did, and there was no rescuing Star from extended family member kidnappers. Because Jose Felix is a baby peddler. He confiscates babies for international Mormon CPS adoption crime networks. Not sixteen year old problem child who is showing signs of neglect and delinquency. That's not worth money to San Diego child welfare services crime ring adoption agency baby peddlers.

Ratero familia de delincuentes lose a loved one to the delta covid19 variant yet? Bismillahir rahmanir rahim. I'm nesting for Star and Alina at the Havasu City Perú / México transaction kiosk. We've got some phenomenal coin operated cyber machinery set up, for crypto wallet online phishing for transaction fee games.

Coca Cabra Taylor Tahan Link, "morally incapable."

...when Kurt Gonnerman got dropped off in Lima, Perú in June 2013.

The Coca Cabra family has American citizenship. But they still need to divorce their spouses and enslave many children to pretend to prosper as Americans. Like they are still in Peru where child slavery and exploitation is normal.

You arranged for Joe to abuse Star so that Star would be depressed.to.give your mom her SSI check becaise your mom can't afford to live in USA even with the rent money of illegal Mexiicans who live in her basement. And collecting rent from her home in Lima. She still needs to drive a grandchild to depression for SSI checks.

Everything you own is a burden which will need to be sold when you die. Do you think anyone wants to inherit your property taxes and home mortgage debt fees? You didn't even try to leave something positive for your future generations. You're like Joe Gonnerman, you worked all your life and can't even give your son a penny now.

Star has to be a child slave of your Coca Cabra Tahan Taylor family instead of having a normal life with consistent friends. Because your stupid brothers and sisters can't afford the USA. Everything you own is a burden which will need to be sold when you die. Do you think anyone wants to inherit your property taxes and home mortgage debt fees? You Mormon Epsteins didn't even try to leave something positive for your future generations.

No child should be a slave to the Coca Cabra Taylor Tahan crime ring of her aunts and uncles and deported mother Elizabeth Monica Coca. Star Monique Gonnerman should not have to serve this crime ring as leverage for Star's uncles and aunts to be able to afford living in the United States. They should all.go back to San Juan de Miraflores and Churacan where they came from. Not enslave and kidnap family members, hide and harbour them around so Star Monique Gonnerman can visit you in Tijuana and serve her grandmother her SSI disability check for home improvements Julia Coca Cabra even though Julia collects rent from illegal alien Mexicans in her basement and really you are a family Coca Cabra Taylor Tahan low life scum bag crime ring.

Okay well, all your worthless family go back to Perú. Star Monique Gonnermam and Kurt Gonnerman don't need you.

...okay well your brothers and sisters should all go back to Peru and live in the house in San Juan de Miraflores. Instead of hiding the child Star Monique Gonnerman of their deported family member Elizabeth Monica Coca who the aunts and uncles are hiding Star in the USA when they have no legal rights to do this. So Star has to move from house to house, and becomes depressed and suicidal. Because Coca Cabra Tahan Taylor family crime ring is hiding Star, and abusing her and neglecting so Jose Felix calls me from San Diego department of child welfare services to say Star did a suicide attempt with a belt in Tamara Coca's house in Chula Vista. BYU Lynch squad Tamara didn't try to hang Star or anything.

Okay well Ricardo, Enrique, Tamara Carlos Pocha Gladis Michael, Dave and Raquel, Milagros and Charro Rosaria Rodriguez can all go to prison. Because they are hiding someone else's child they have no legal rights to. And Elizabeth Monica Coca has been deported, but her and her husband Joseph Taylor can still go to prison too. Amin.

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stephenmccull · 3 years

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Masks at the Campfire: Summer Camps for Kids With Medical Needs Adapt to Covid

Olivia Klassen’s face lights up when she talks about summer camp. She loves to do the scavenger hunt with her camp friends. She also loves paddleboarding, swimming in the lake and “kitchen raids.” But what she loves most is being surrounded by kids who, just like her, have Type 1 diabetes — which allows her to focus on having fun instead of being different.

This story also ran on The Washington Post. It can be republished for free.

“Camp is a top priority for me,” Klassen, 13, said of Camp Ho Mita Koda. “I don’t really feel the same without camp. That’s my second family, my home away from home. Being there makes me feel like a normal kid, because everyone is doing the same things I do.”

Camp Ho Mita Koda, in Newbury Township, Ohio, is one of about 300 American summer camps focused on people with special health concerns, including developmental disabilities or dietary and medical needs, said Colette Marquardt, executive director of the American Camp Association’s Illinois office. It is one of the few overnight special needs camps that remained in-person last year, and it will welcome campers again this year even though it could be months more before kids younger than 12 can be vaccinated against covid-19.

While mitigating the risk of covid infections at any of the country’s approximately 15,000 camps is a priority, it is an imperative for camps hosting people who might be at higher risk of serious illness, Marquardt said. Last summer, many medical camps developed “virtual camps” — often with care packages containing supplies for art projects and other camp activities — after organizers were unable to overcome logistical, equipment and staffing needs to operate in person safely.

Some medical camps will remain virtual this summer, while others are easing back into in-person activities with shortened overnight camps, day camps and family camps. Camp Ho Mita Koda, building off last summer, will offer weeklong overnight camps again this year with multiple layers of protocols in place.

The camp will again have fewer campers each session and will require physical distancing, covid testing and quarantining by staff members — most, if not all, of whom will have been vaccinated. Campers, who will be organized into small cabin cohorts that will stay together for the duration of the camp, will be required to wear masks when engaging with anyone outside their cohort. Masks will not be required while sleeping, eating, swimming or showering.

“Families and kids want and need camp,” said Ian Roberts, director at Camp Ho Mita Koda. “It is pretty evident with the number of registrations we see each week.”

Special needs camps commonly offer traditional activities such as swimming, zip lining, horseback riding and archery, but they also fill a powerful role for campers and their families, said Marquardt. A camper may be the only kid in their school who has diabetes or a food allergy or uses a wheelchair — which can feel isolating. But at camp, they are surrounded by people with the same or similar challenges. They also get a chance to experience independence and take part in activities they may have thought were off-limits before.

“It’s a place where the people who go to camp get to do the things they see other kids doing that they didn’t think they could do,” said Arbie Hemberger. Her 46-year-old daughter, Cindy, who has mild cerebral palsy, has attended an Easterseals camp in Nebraska since she was 6.

Because special needs camps have medical staffers on-site, they often provide a respite for parents who lack other caregivers for their kids. Hemberger, who lives in Nebraska, said she didn’t have anyone with whom she could easily leave her daughter when Cindy was young. So camp became the one week each year she and her husband could relax and take some time for themselves.

“You don’t have to worry about her because you know she’s with people who know what to do and are going to take good care of her,” she said.

While many of the traditional summer camps that offered in-person sessions last year operated safely by following guidelines from the American Camp Association, as well as rules from local and state health departments, there were exceptions.

For example, at a Wisconsin overnight camp for high school students, 76% of students and staffers tested positive for covid after one camper developed symptoms. The camp had required negative tests prior to arrival. While staffers were required to wear masks, campers were not, and physical distancing was not observed in sleeping cabins.

“While there were definitely stories of camps that had outbreaks, most did not,” said Marquardt. With a year of experience, she said, camps are in an even better position to operate safely this year.

However, for some special needs camps, the risk remains too great — at least for this summer.

The American Diabetes Association’s 23 overnight and 20 day camps will remain virtual this year, with organizers hoping to return to in-person events next year. Michelle Foster, program director, said it was just too risky to operate so many camps across the country while navigating local coronavirus regulations and case rates, as well as securing enough equipment and personnel. Diabetes can be a complicating factor for covid.

Foster said she thinks the ADA will continue to offer at least some virtual camp options well into the future because they reach more people throughout the country — and abroad — who may not otherwise be able to attend.

This summer, Easterseals Nebraska will offer its virtual camp, but it also has developed a variety of in-person programs this year, including an overnight campout at the Omaha zoo, and “sampler camps” with two hours of activities, such as fishing or crafts.

Cindy Hemberger and her mom began registering her as soon as they got word she could attend a three-day day camp, in which campers will meet at a different location, like a zoo or state park, each day.

“It was fun to do it in virtual, but I wanted to do it in person,” Cindy said. “It’s important.”

Jami Biodrowski, the camp’s director, agreed. The camp has served people ranging in age from 5 to 86. Attendees include people of all abilities, including those who require wheelchairs or have autism or mental health challenges. In the past, some younger campers didn’t have special needs but were the siblings of campers, or their parents wanted them to spend time with people who have different needs.

Biodrowski said the isolation and lack of connection so many people have felt during the pandemic is what life is regularly like for many of her campers. And for them, the pandemic just exacerbated those issues.

“We knew we were important before, but man, now we really know,” she said.

In Ohio, Roberts was determined last summer to bring kids back to the now 92-year-old Ho Mita Koda, which he described as “a world-class camp that just happens to do diabetes very well.” Like other directors of special needs camps, he hears from parents and campers — past and present — that the sense of independence and the friendships made with others who experience life the same way helps inspire the kids to more confidently embrace a future with diabetes.

Olivia Klassen, who lives in the western suburbs of Cleveland, first attended camp in 2019, shortly after she was diagnosed. She and her family were a bit in shock, and she was embarrassed to answer questions about the bag of medical supplies she had to keep with her at all times. Her parents said that, when they picked her up on the last day of camp, she was joyful and determined. She organized a diabetes awareness day at her school a few months later, and now runs Instagram and YouTube accounts dedicated to talking about life with diabetes.

“I do not think Olivia would be where she is today with her diagnosis had it not been for camp,” said Sandi Klassen, her mom. “That was just a huge catalyst in showing her that, first off, you are not alone and that, second, you are capable of doing more than you think you are. It’s life-changing.”

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

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shepaintsred · 3 years

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One Circle

I gripped my steering wheel, as the slope took me down the winter hill to the river bottom and then up again, more momentum on the icy roads than I wanted. I did not dare to tap the brakes. I pulled into the parking space, that over years, became mine, and felt tension in my neck subside. Pushing against the door, I felt release, and headed down toward the pond. My feet are still cold, here, writing, and I am a part of the complexities of the circle, even as I have left the urban pond, sandwiched between what is now called Stoney Trail and Bishop O’Byrne High School in SW Calgary. (see fig. 1)

A murmuration of black Eastern Starlings created strong contrast against the primarily frozen landscape. The water, the circle that remained open, was of the deepest shade of Phthalo blue, and Buffleheads, both male and female, landed in great numbers as I made my way to the bush at the pond’s edge, its translucent yellow leaves, frozen. Enjoying the visit, I was reminded of how distinctly my perceptions evolved through a period of years, walking a circle at this specific place each day from 22 Sept. 2011 until 26 Jul. 2016. Kathleen Stewart, in her 2013 essay from the series, Studying Unformed Objects, addresses, in very specific ways, these experiences of place.

Fig.1. Southwest Ring Road Construction began 2016. Black dotted line to indicate one circle. Single black dot to indicate bush. Screenshot from the cityonline.calgary.ca/GISMap/MainMap.

The social-material world as a composition is a world made of entities that are not simply present and knowable but prismatic, flickering, and gathered into lines, angles of light or motion, for people who are attuned to them, or identified with them, or hostile to their existence, or tired of them, or excited to see their outline on the horizon, or sharply excluded from them (Stewart 2010).

Digging deep into personal documentation; blog, journals, photographs, and poetry, I will begin my recollections of circling one pond in 2012. By that time, my mother was suffering the end stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I met her every evening, on Skype, at five o’clock, and took one screenshot some time during every conversation. These visits took place every day, without exception, for five years. I purchased my camera the summer of 2011, before my drive to visit my parents in Belleville, Ontario. While there, I took daily photographs of my mother’s hands.

Returned to Calgary, I explored the pond, as unformed object (Stewart), and thought that the act of walking this circle daily began with walking my dog, Max, a ‘prismatic’ (Stewart 2010) relationship and experience unto itself. Now I realize that, along with Max, the act of ritualistic and daily documentation of my mother’s hands over the course of two months, was leading to a transformative investigation. Something about this place provided an exploration of memory, ritual, and an almost obsessive compulsion to document.

The shape of this documentation included, daily, one poem and one photograph (see fig. 2) posted to my blog, sometimes, alongside a piece of music. In Sun Dazzle, written on 30 Jan. 2012 and in third person, initial sensory relationships are made.

Romp! Run! Go! Laughing woman and smiling dog, up to their knees, racing! Crunching through the snow’s skin, wind blown and captured in waves; the weatherman’s story from yesterday.

Muskrat, perching on pond’s edge, dark form instantly sliding into water at the burst of their movement. Energy is joy exploding!

Blue sky stretches canvas on a white sea of ice. Yellow-gold grasses etching a circle around the pond. The dog following, explores hidden places.

Sparkle. Dazzle. Squinting, tears roll down her cheeks, light echoes on everything. She cries for the beauty of it all. [1]

Fig. 2: Moors 30 Jan. 2012, Accessed 22 Oct. 2020

Rituals of walking began with very general observations of my natural surroundings, but from the beginning, I felt that this was somehow magical or just-for-me. I rarely, at this point, noticed anyone else. I noticed birds as a general category. At that time, I did not make distinctions between different species. Later, I saw sparrows, ducks and geese, a progression after months of seeing birds.

Patterns of documentation began to emerge, particularly on themes of light and atmosphere, water reflections and wind. I captured a series of photographs of clouds reflected in pond water and created my first slide show, watching with great enthusiasm, back home, at my desk, while the series scrolled past, again and again.

Years later, I would discover, not only an interest in documentation and recording, but also, the collection and creation of objects in series, series of journals, green glass vases, photo books, porcelain hotel creamers and photograph archives. Just as Kyo Maclear, in her book, Birds Art Life, refers to spark birds (113), I received new revelations (sparks) on a very regular basis while walking one circle.

The habit of writing and posting poetry, images and music was not sustained, but became intermittent. This practice saw me transition from wide-eyed observer to steward. By February of 2012, I knew the difference between a Ruddy Duck and a Red Necked Grebe. My language around bird and plant species was becoming more specific. I poured over new birding books in the evenings. Instead of capturing vistas, I was zooming in and trying to focus and make-clear the subjects of my photographs. I was capturing strings of video and I was noticing my evolving knowledge around the camera. It became a treasured object, not merely functional.

Fig. 3 Moors, Findings: 20 Tim Horton’s drink cups, with plastic lids, 14 plastic bags of various sizes, 15 pieces of industrial insulation of the foam variety (likely blown from the construction area, an extension of the sports center), a large sized plastic bucket from the same site, burned book pages, fast-food containers and hamburger wraps, two bags of dog poop and a large purple plastic hoop. 28 Feb. 2020, Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.

What became evident through the camera lens was the fact that this was not a pristine environment. I took a photograph of a red-eyed, Black-Crowned Night Heron and arrived home to find, visible on my computer screen, the wondrous bird standing on rounded stones and a Tim Horton’s cup. I became hostile (Stewart 2010) when I noticed the human impact on my self-constructed and utopic experience. Like my growing knowledge about birds, I was noticing this negative relationship. (see fig. 3) It seemed insurmountable and a feeling of helplessness came with one circle. I decided to fill a large bag with litter while walking daily, to write about it, and archive possible shifts in the aesthetic of the place. I had conversations with people, those teaching classes in outdoor education, City of Calgary Parks Management teams, politicians, seniors participating in outdoor exercise, homeless people and business owners in big-box and fast-food outlets. I became more a citizen than a tourist. Interactions through phone calls, electronic mail and even business meetings, stretched the unformed object (Stewart), one circle, and it became both political and social, as well as spiritual in its being.

While human connection and communications were sometimes disappointing, many were incredibly positive. I met a man who was sleeping under the stars through warm weather. Frank had plans to move to Vancouver for winter. He overlooked the flats, daily, and drank six beer while watching me pick. At the end of each circle, we exchanged pleasantries and then he passed me, each day, his six cans knotted up in a plastic bag. He always expressed his gratitude. Over time and together, we named the location, Frank’s Flats and soon, people in public positions began to refer to this location as Frank’s Flats. I was interested in how access to human connection contributed to an act of naming.

One other noteworthy human connection involved the manifestation of a constructed relationship. This construction surfaced out of the next series of investigations while circling the pond.

On 8 Oct. 2015, I began to capture an Instagram photograph of one bush, the same bush, every day. It is situated at the edge of the pond. (see figs. 1 and 4) Weather, time of day and atmosphere were impacting the appearance of the bush and so, I logged these conditions as a brief caption on my posts. Published to Instagram and then, Facebook, the bush became a familiar character until the final day, July 26, 2016. Friends ‘liked’ the bush/image and wrote comments over almost 300 days. An artist-friend in one of these forums, after some months, named the bush, Bianca. Toward the end of 2015, I noticed a young man slept on cardboard and under an evergreen tree and two sleeping bags. A shopping cart contained his possessions. We never spoke, but he was aware of me and I, him. Moving into December, I decorated the bush, adding ribbon first, then ornaments and finally, solar-powered Christmas lights. The young man would be able to see the bush from above the flats. I filled his cart with gifts, warm socks, hoodie, scarf and thick work mitts, chocolate, and candy canes. That Christmas I felt connected in a new way to this place, through sentiment. The ornaments remained, lighting up the landscape until Epiphany that year.

Fig. 4 Moors, Merry Christmas beautiful light the hawk is perched in the evergreen tree. Instagram Bush, 25 Dec. 2015 Accessed from Desktop Photo Archive 25 Oct. 2020.

My last Instagram photograph was snapped the day before my mother’s birthday and minutes before I headed for the Trans Canada highway. My mother died in May of 2013. I did not want to circle the pond on July 27, 2016 nor did I wish to archive the bush. I wanted to be in the van and driving toward my father.

Returned to Calgary, that autumn I hired a videographer to archive Max and I through the seasons. While filming, I struggled with the destruction of surrounding ecosystems and the impact of the Southwest Calgary Ring Road development and so, the following spring, I left this circle for another on the edge of the Bow River. I used references from the pond to create paintings in my studio and these art works continue to this day, recently taking a new direction, in the world of pandemic.

In series, I am layering reverse transfers of the Instagram bush images onto panels, in chronological order, beginning with the practice on 8 Oct., five years after the first Instagram photo was taken. These images are placed one on top of another and create a container for memory. An Instagram account has been opened (see fig. 5) to record this progress.

Fig. 5 Moors. Instabush_bianca. 25 Oct. 2020

The pond, Frank’s Flats, the bush, all remain forms, but they have also become vivid constructs, numerous material objects that push up against my imagination and likely, always will. Christopher Witmore, in his essay, Archaeology of the New Materialisms (221), quotes Rosemary Joyce in What Eludes Speech.

Then describe and describe some more—all this descriptive detail one can unpack later, if there is time, in a space where hesitation is possible. Dozens of hours of ambient video walks along routes of transhumance, along paths, streets, walls, or through museums; video diaries of those confounding moments of contact with weird stuff will pay off later. Still, anything we do in documentation is always a translation. We can only manifest something of the style of things; much will always remain beyond reach. There is always a trade-off. There are always gains and losses. And there is always more to be said and done (Joyce 2011).

Works Cited

Joyce, R. 2011. “‘What Eludes Speech’: A Dialogue with Webb Keane.” Journal of Social Archaeology 11(2): 158–170. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605311403836

Maclear, Kyo. Birds, Art, Life. Toronto, Doubleday Books, 2017.

shepaintsred.com. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.

Instabush_bianca. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.

Stewart, Kathleen. 2010. “Afterword: Worlding Refrains”. In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 339–53. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Stewart, Kathleen. 2013. “Studying Unformed Objects: The Provocation of a Compositional Mode”. Member Voices, Fieldsights, June 30. culanth.org/fieldsights/studying-unformed-objects-the-provocation-of-a-compositional-mode

Witmore, Christopher. 2014. Archaeology and the New Materialisms. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. 1. 203-246. 10.1558/jca.v1i2.16661. DOI: 10.1558/jca.v1i2.16661

[1] See shepaintsred.com, 30 Jan. 2012 et al.

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birthingtreefl · 3 years

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This was shared with permission from a beautiful Birthing Tree family! Warning: This post contains mentions of birthing a chil...

This was shared with permission from a beautiful Birthing Tree family! Warning: This post contains mentions of birthing a child, medical interventions, and strong emotions. This post is likely going to be long winded, but it’s just some journaling I feel like I need to do. I will likely never share my full birth story online as 1) I don’t feel social media is the place to do that, and 2) It was an insanely intimate experience between my husband, my son, my care team, and myself….. All caveats aside, let me begin: My mother-in-law has been here all week waiting with us for baby Harrison to make his appearance. While listening (see eavesdropping) in on her teaching her 3rd grade class I was reminded of the importance of a good thesis statement. In honor of Mrs. Joachim’s excellent ability to teach, I have formulated a thesis statement for this post: If you are pregnant and plan to birth the baby, hire a doula. I don’t care what your birth plan is. I don’t care if you are planning on getting an epidural or going natural. I don’t care if you’re birthing your first child or your 10th. I don’t care if you have the best doctors around. Hire. A. Doula. Let me tell you why by going through the thought process that led Cam and I to choosing to hire a doula, the regrets and fears I felt during the decision and after, and how, despite nothing going the way I had planned, I credit my doula for saving my birthing journey. Once we moved to Florida, Cam and I talked about what we wanted for this pregnancy. I wanted to try and give birth naturally and began looking into hiring a doula to help support me in that goal. We met with the birth designer at the hospital and were so excited to use their new rooms and have supportive staff who cared about our birth plan and didn’t want to push any interventions during birth. At 30 weeks I began investing 2 hours a day learning hypnosis to prepare for birthing our baby and was excited to find a doula to really tie it all together. Cam and I interviewed four doulas. If this person was going to be staring at my Yoni and watching me shit myself, I needed someone I clicked with and I was hoping the interview process would give me that reassurance. I also wanted someone who Cam clicked with as I felt he would need some support through all of this as well. I narrowed down my search to two and I will be honest. There was one I really clicked with, but the price scared me, and one that was okay, but the price was half what the other charged. Cam immediately said go with who you gel with, the money will all be worth it. I wasn’t so sure. My birth was going to be easy. I had my hypnosis training, I was stronger now that I was when I gave birth before, and it was only one day. I opened my email to write the ½ price doula only to find she had emailed me 5 min before saying she had just booked my date. Cam spent the next few hours convincing me that that was a sign to say, “screw the money” and go with what I felt. That night, I reluctantly e-mailed saying we were so excited to proceed in using Holly Heller at Birthing Tree, LLC for our birth experience. I’ll be honest, “so excited” was more like super apprehensive for me at the moment. But once the decision was made, we signed a contract, and we were in it. We did our two prenatal appointments, went over what interventions I wanted and didn’t want, what I wanted to have happen if things had to change, and going over what the expectations were for the hypnosis portion of birth. I left feeling like I had someone educated in her field and that I liked as a person, but I was still worried if the juice was worth the squeeze. 5 days after his due date, Harrison decided it was time. I reached out to the doula as we were in triage and she told me to let her know when I was in active labor. We found out I couldn’t use the low intervention suites (apparently due to being overdue), I wasn’t progressing, and I couldn’t get into hypnosis. I was contracting every 3 minutes and I couldn’t get on top of it. I made the decision to get an epidural. The night progressed. I, however, did not. I stalled at 3cm. Then suddenly, within 15 min, I was 9cm. I asked if that meant I should call my doula and have her come to which the nurse responded “if you want her to be here when you give birth….. then yeah.” So, I reached out and my doula was on her way. The perceived immanence of my baby’s arrival should have had me elated and in a way it did. However, I also felt, I don’t know, cheated maybe? I hired this doula for all this money to help me through hours of a natural active labor and here I was with an epidural and my baby coming what sounded like it would be within minutes of her arrival. I felt regret. I was so mad I let Cam talk me into spending all that money for nothing. My doula arrived and I was checked; still 9cm. An hour went by, still 9cm. More and more hours went by. No progress. We tried repositioning multiple times all while my doula addressed my swollen legs, the amniotic fluid-soaked socks on my feet, and relieved the extreme pain in my ribs from my baby pressing against them. 6 hours I stalled. The nurse came in with Pitocin and said they were going to start it. Having my doula there gave me the courage to ask for time to talk to my husband about that decision instead of just rolling with it. That was the first time all night I really felt empowered. Then things went haywire. Again, this is not a post about my birth story, so I’ll spare the details. I will say, I was terrified, and I felt like the only person who knew what was going on AND was on my team, was my doula. My husband was on my team but was as scared and lost as I was. The doctors and nurses knew what was going on but weren’t there to be on my team. My doula was in it. She helped the nurses with positioning and monitoring mine and my baby’s vitals. She balanced my needs with the medical team with such finesse, it was like a well perfected dance. Even with all of this, it looked like a c-section was imminent. I don’t remember who asked if I could try and push anyway but I do remember the hospital staff saying I could, but no one seemed hopeful it would work, except my doula. She told me I was going to have to push like hell, but that I could do it. When it seemed no one else believed in me, she did, and that was all I needed. After three sets of three pushes, coached by her while she also held one of my legs, my wonderful baby boy came into this world, without a c-section. When I went in to making a birth plan, I started at A: I’m pregnant and having this baby, had all these plans in between (natural birth, hypnosis, etc), and ended at Z: having a happy healthy baby. All that B through Y in between didn’t go as planned for me. However, that end result of a happy healthy baby and a happy healthy me are due in large part to having a doula there. I truly believe having a doula there saved me from narcotics that would have been transferred to my baby, possibly saved my baby with how quickly things changed and how busy everyone was, and kept me from a c-section. That, to me, was undoubtedly worth every last dollar we spent in hiring her. So, let me finish by saying this: I don’t care what your plan is for giving birth. Every birth story is different and sometimes everything goes according to plan, and other times nothing goes as planned. Either way, the benefits of having a doula on your team when you are birthing at home, in the hospital, a birth center, wherever else you may be, are priceless.

(Feed generated with FetchRSS) from Birthing Tree (FB Instagram GMB) https://www.facebook.com/162245747262628/posts/1882575441896308/

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blogsun · 4 years

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MC7019_Week9

Because this book is not my research subject and I do not know much about black culture on social media, I could not understand a large portion of the book. I wrote some thoughts like below.

First, Do people really dismiss creativity by black as cleverness? Except for Facebook and Instagram, many anonymous users are on many social media platforms without disclosing their race. Whenever people read a posting, many people do not care about a poster's race. Without personal pictures or bio info on social media, it is hard to guess race. Instead, social media users focus on content themselves if a poster is an ordinary person. Content quality such as usefulness, timeliness, and entertaining factors are much important.

Second, Most Americans still respect a person based on individuals' morals, characteristics, and abilities. President Obama that I admire a lot is also respected as a successful former president and even re-elected while President Trump failed. On the internet, the thing is not so much different. Am I naive?

Third, Brock (2020) presented five categories for Black technocultural matrix: blackness, intersectionality, America, invention/style, modernity, and the future. He also said, "Black people must constantly confront context collapse in nearly every setting in Western racial ideology" (p. 230). My question is why black people try to be against context collapse? How about enjoying context collapse? The U.S., the immigrant country, is praised as cultural silos. The convergence of different cultures and ideas through immigrants has created excellent American culture that people in other countries admire. Of course, cultural diversity is important. But I hope that some races do not emphasize too much their original identity and cultures. There is old saying, too much is as bad as too little.

The author also argues that technological studies from social science undermine black people. For example, the book author said that many studies using surveys do not sample enough black people. But, the gold standard of the survey is a representative sample by random sampling from population. Many surveys try to generalize the results to the population. Thus, artificial sampling adjustment is not appropriate for most surveys. The criticism is not much persuasive. Among all American population (N = 328,239,523) in 2019, the proportion of black people is 13% (n = 44 millions) and that of white people 76.3%. The population composition ratio has been naturally reflected in many survey studies. Asians are more terrible in terms of sample size in a study. A few studies conducted in the U.S. context tend not to include Asian race value in their modeling. A race variable is usually black (or non-white) and white binary variable. FYI, the Asian population percentage in the U.S. is 5.9%, followed by American native Indian (1.3%).

In addition, the excessive discourse about black may cause backlash and reverse discrimination. Black-centered discrimination issues make other races such as Hispanics and Asians, marginalized in the U.S. society further. From the agenda-setting perspective, the focus on black people may ignore agenda about other races from media coverage, academic studies, and social media contents. From my personal experience, compared to other races, studies about black are prevalent in at least social science journals published in the U.S. Journalism and Mass Communication & Quarterly now call for "The Role of Social Media in the Black Lives Matter Movement." It is common in social science. As a result, black studies are broad and various compared to other races.

Lastly, all human beings should be equally treated regardless of race. In this sense, All Human Live Matters (AHLM) are worth getting attention along with BLM.

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vroenis · 4 years

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2020 Music In Review

When this was a draft, it opened with a bit about me not writing, but then I started playing board games again and wrote two bits on board games. In the trashfire that 2020 was (add “trashfire” to dictionary, no I did not mean “trash fire”), and 2021 continues to be, somehow I ended up getting back into board games. Actually there are good and logical reasons I returned to them and if you’re interested in that, I go into some of it in those journals, but more interesting is just playing the games so you should totally HMU if you’re local, sorry I don’t do virtual/digital, I like handling physical pieces and sharing food.

The most natural way for me to wrap a year for me is in music and since Melbourne locked down in March, I spent a lot of time working from home and listening on my own gear which I can’t express enough the joy at being able to do - firstly at having good reference transducers and secondly not having to listen to trash radio.

Writing about art is always a bit weird but it’s good fun so we do it anyway so let’s write some words about art. There are three main ways I engage with music in no particular order - more or less however I happen to notice them;

Music and musicianship - tonal and rhythmic composition

Technical production - recording, editing/manipulionation, processing/production, mixing and balance, and mastering

Song-writing/lyrics - should there be any - excludes vocal performance as this is covered under the first one.

To get weirder about it, I tend to have both emotional and also pragmatic responses to those three things separately so that means there’s a wackadoo matrix of 6 criteria I seem to be assessing every piece of music I encounter against and yep, that’s a thing I do, all the time, every time. The better a piece of music is, tho, the more the line between the emotional and pragmatic blurs as the overall quality of the work is established. I might begin with an initial pragmatic appreciation of an excellent mix and balance, and technical execution of a recording and production, then come to get a feel for how emotional a work is - and vice-versa. Sometimes on rare occasions, it all happens at the same time - an album is just a smashing work of excellence in every way and I just love every aspect of it more over time.

It’s worth mentioning I don’t really have any great axe to grind with pop music - there has always been and continues to be great pop, and good pop isn’t by any means easy music to create. For me at least, and likely many people, what destroys pop as a listening experience is repetition which usually isn’t under the listener’s control, but an unfortunate side-effect of the underlying culture that sustains pop as an industry. I still appreciate and admire so much about pop-music and always keep a little in my collection from each decade. No matter what, always remind yourself that the kids are OK and that there’s always great pop-music around - stay in touch with it. Some of it is truly awesome, and I use the superlative with sincerity.

Albums Of The Year

A few things happened on the way to me actually getting to write this journal, including some surgery (I’m fine), but also I ended up nominating no less than 4 Albums Of The Year. I think they deserve their own lengthier write-ups, in a weirdly me thing to do, I feel like I want to talk less about them and you should just go and listen to them but they have been getting a lot of air-time on my channels - in any case, here’s a lazylink to the instagram post I did for them. They’re all great and they feature in the lists coming in this entry so give them a listen, they’re outstanding.

Personal Charts

When I set out to write a musical summary of the year, I went to my last.fm page to see what I’d listened to by number of plays polled. As mentioned, given the Covid lockdown and working from home so much, I’ve actually gotten to register a lot more of my listening on the site whereas in general so much of my listening happens offline, so to speak, be it in the car or on my mp3 player. This year has also seen a serious shift in my buying habits shift entirely to Bandcamp for a few reasons; Google shut down their Play store in favour of streaming because naturally it favours them and not artists - it also just makes sense for them from infrastructure and administrative perspectives, but also I just did more and more research and naturally found more and more artists and Bandcamp just made sense. I want to write a digest as to why you should do the same but I feel like people need to find their own way there or approach me directly so the motivation comes from them. Streaming is bad for artists and while I and indeed artists don’t want you to close your premium accounts just yet because closing any revenue streams to artists in any way is bad, I encourage you to do some research into just how much revenue there is in streaming, and what your expectations are for how you think the artists you love so much are supposed to make a living. I guess if your engagement level is fairly low, or the culture you’re into is pop-music, then this is the end of the discussion and that’s OK, we don’t need to take it any further. If you’re in any way curious about what this issue is, this video by Benn Jordan is a great place to start.

There are two charts I’d like to share - one is my top 10 albums I’ve chosen, the other is the same albums by number of plays as per my last.fm polling. These aren’t the top 10 albums I polled, mind-you. Sometimes I listen to an album a whole bunch just because I’m into it or because it slaps, but it isn’t one I’d nominate as an album that encapsulates the year.

You’ll immediately notice not every album was released in 2020, however my conditions are that they either had to have been released close enough to 2020 that I’d have done heavy listening in the year, or I had to have purchased them in 2020 so they were new to me in the year.

Here are the 10 albums I chose;

And here they are by number of plays polled in 2020 - bear in mind I probably played one or two favourite tracks a few times more, so they don’t neatly divide by number of tracks listed on the album;

A few immediate things to note;

- Dreams Are Not Enough is significantly underrepresented because I don’t listen to it at my PC while I work. In general, I definitely listen to this far more in environments offline, but also it’s not exactly an all occasions album given its tone and atmosphere, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t - give it a listen and find out.

- La Favière on the other hand is more or less a bit of a party so I play it a lot… yet when it comes to my personal rankings, it’s not that I like it less per se, it’s just that I love the other albums more - tons of respect to Iversen. It still made 10th on a list of hundreds of albums and netted 161 plays out of thousands of files I have.

- Had I done this kind of list in 2019 and known about Reid Willis, I suspect The Longing Device would have been an Album Of The Year then. It was a dead ringer for an Album Of The Year for me this year except then he released Mother Of and that is an absolute killer, so he outdid himself and I selected that instead. Reid Willis is a genius.

- There’s a long story as to why I only bought Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack for To The Wonder in 2020 but at least I was delayed long enough to not produce any more plastic, given my original intention once upon a time was to get it on CD. In any case, I had to buy it on iTunes and was bedstricken from illness for days after. iTunes is cursed.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough (October 2019)

In 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv released their album Immolate Yourself and then Charles Cooper died. I didn’t actually find out about his death until after I’d heard the album a few times over, but the album stayed with me for the 10 years to the new album as a landmark like no other. In part for the mourning of Charles, but simultaneously and separately as something that stood apart as some sound for my life that no other music could touch. Maybe The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation, maybe Darkside’s Psychic, but each of those in different ways.

10 years later and Joshua Eustis continues his long journey and releases Dreams Are Not Enough in the Telefon Tel Aviv name. After my first listen, I tweeted to him that I felt like deleting the rest of my music collection which we had a laugh about (he’s a very sociable person, by the way, if you’re not an asshole - he’s also someone you can learn a lot about the industry from). The thing is - I want to have these kinds of exaggerated reactions to the art I engage with - I want them to be world-destroying. Sure, not every piece of art has to be immense and euphoric and devastating, but it can’t all be run-of-the-mill either.

It’s difficult for me to describe Dreams Are Not Enough in practical terms, it is still a Telefon album, it is also Telefon without Charles, it’s also mourning him, is it moving on in his absence? It is definitely its own art for you to engage with as a unique work, to you the individual. It’s uniquely Telefon Tel Aviv in a way that no other electronic artist does the same way - it feels a specific way and there are times when no other music will do. One of my running jokes is that Porpentine’s Howling Dogs and Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero will be my Game(s) Of The Year every year forever and Dreams Are Not Enough now with Immolate Yourself are going to last 10, 20 years - longer - as Albums Of The Year forever too because there’s just never anything else like them.

Reid Willis - The Longing Device (January 2019)

The good thing about having made my choices earlier in 2020 is that Reid WIllis’ Mother Of wasn’t out when I wrote-up the list, so I get to talk about The Longing Device.

Reid Willis was an absolutely random find on Bandcamp. Occasionally I like to dive into subgenres and just go hunting. You can imagine that 9 times out of 10 this is a fruitless endeavour and might think this is frustrating but I really enjoy doing it as an exercise in critical listening. By whatever turn of divine Bandcamp listing, I came across the first chronological album he has up, Crude Healing (2016) and from memory listened to four tracks before instant-buying his entire discography available. I did go hunting on the Google Play store before it was shuttered and buy the most recent album from 2013, The Sunken Half listed from his older works before he jumped over to Bandcamp for all his newer albums and it’s definitely a transitional work to what he does now and well worth having. While Crude Healing initially blew me away, The Longing Device is a more mature album that has been more carefully shaped, skills having been honed and focussed into a less raw and yet more powerful sound. Very rarely am I ever an “I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff” kind of person, in general I tend to go with an artist when they evolve and grow unless on occasion they go in a completely different direction in which case hey - I respect it but sometimes it’s just not something I feel.

Here Willis’ orchestrations are careful, beautiful and languished in the right moments - cut with beats and edits, and the beats and edits likewise deftly cut with orchestrations. This is such a stunning exhibition of creativity, it’s one of the more esoteric examples of my music collection and also in some ways perhaps one of the more approachable works. Then in November Willis released Mother Of where he just takes everything to the next level.

Mat Zo - Illusion Of Depth (October 2020)

In July of 2020, Above & Beyond released their ongoing regular compilation Anjunabeats volume 15 and finished the first disc with a bangin’ Mat Zo track called Problems, an instant favourite of mine as soon as I heard it. It’s a tough year for DJs and musos all round not being able to tour, Josh Eustice and many others have been doing year-round commentary about irresponsible alleged “underground” gigs have nothing to do with the old-school spirit of underground at all and have turned into superspreader events, and how publishers and labels haven’t supported artists through Covid. Leading up to October, Anjuna and Mat Zo promote his forthcoming album and I have to admit, I’m pretty hyped and then it drops.

Holy shit.

In a year of such terrible events, this felt like such a timely dose of positivity that arrived at just the right time. I wrote a whole damn entry for this on instragram, and it’s one of my Albums Of The Year, but far out the digest of this album. On one hand, it’s a hugely technically accomplished work - it’s a diverse exhibition of styles, musicianship, stellar production, and absolutely pristine mix and balance - on the other hand, it’s just an absolute fucken banger-riot-party of an album. The album stands up to a clinical listening on reference transducers, it’s such a delight to audition and examine in every way, but you can set all of that aside and just enjoy the experience, front to back through the tracks in order and as an album, that’s becoming quite rare. There are levels of production discipline on display in this album, especially for electronic music in difficult mixing environments with potentially cluttered frequency ranges that a lot of artists need to learn from, yet Maz Zo executes with ease. This has a lot to give no matter who you are, whether you want to sit down and listen, dance all night or go for a drive - a word of warning, it might make you want to drive fast!

It’s also worth noting that Mat toured this album virtually in Minecraft in order to be Covid-safe and that is absolutely freaken amazing.

Hanan Townshend - To The Wonder (April 2013)

Not the best choice of cover-art, but to be fair, no-one likes Terrence Malick films so it doesn’t really matter. Like most things, getting into music tends to be multifaceted. To The Wonder is my favourite Malick film and yes, I love many of them (you can check the Film Notes page), probably because it’s the most intimate and grounded of his narratives. I still like the more grand and abstract stories he tells, they’re very much my bag, too, but To The Wonder really is a simple story about people told from a closeness that is for some perhaps uncomfortable, but I love that closeness. There’s a dream-like quality to Malick’s filmmaking and indeed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography that is both surreal and organic that makes the film feel very real and then like recollection once it’s done. Hanan Townshend’s music perfectly matches it, and then like all good soundtracks transcends the purpose for which it was written and can be applied to life outside of its matching media. There is a certain framing I have in my mind and at times, with the way I quite literally see, that makes me cue this soundtrack. Very few other soundtracks have this kind of power - Kenji Kawaii’s work for Ghost In The Shell (inclusive of Innocence), Hajime Mizogughi’s Jin-Roh and Cliff Martinez’ Solaris would be some of the others.

Daniel McCagh - Altered States (April 2020)

Another semi-random Bandcamp find, I was chuffed to learn that Daniel McCagh is from Albury, NSW, Australia. It’s always amazing to find local artists who are this astonishingly talented. I tend to associate Australian musicians at the not-quite-there-yet level of art and still do. That’s not a criticism of the artists themselves, it’s a criticism of our government and their backwards attitude towards arts funding and economics in this country. We are a developed country in the age of the internet where information and culture is shared instantly but we deny our people opportunities in so many ways - in education, facilities, commerce and economic infrastructure - the state of internet services in this country for a start is appalling and has been behind global standards forever. It will take us so much time, funds, resources and coordination to catch-up and of-course the longer we wait, the greater the cost and each successive government makes their excuses as to why we can never quite afford to do things right.

Props to individuals who can make it stick, tho, and Daniel McCagh is one of them. It’s probably shockingly unfair to hold someone up on a pedestal every time they do well but I can’t help it - Altered States is on par with Reid Willis’ and other dark ambient/electronic works or whatever genre you want to put them into. On Bandcamp these darker synth and drone-centric artists are a dime a dozen and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good but finding works that truly stand out in excellence can be difficult. The low play-count is due to having only found and bought the album quite late, but it goes into rotation fairly often and it’s a growing genre in my collection.

The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form (May 2020)

The closest thing to pop music to hit this list, NOACF was going to appear at some point - just getting pipped at the finish-line by Reid Willis, all told. I listened to this in the car quite a bit when I was still in rotation in the office before full lockdown.

Writing about The 1975 will be a Thing - either you’ll know something about them or nothing at all. For me, I guess I engage with them entirely differently from superfans - I’m in my late 30s so it won’t surprise you that I don’t have a TikTok account nor do I op a Spotify account and I’m not active at all on Facebook altho neither are gen Z. That said, I’m not entirely sure who their core fanbase will be - they don’t strike me as chart-topping, TikTok everpresent pop-culture icons. Their lead singer certainly has the awareness of pop-culture to communicate with their fan-base to keep up, but they don’t seem to engage at the same level of the lists you see on say, Todd in the Shadows - but I’ve not watched enough of him to know if he’s ever mentioned them.

Anyway I’m enough of a musician (read: snob) to dig their lofty musical stuff - it’s the perfect follow-up and follow-on from ABIIOR and I Like It When You Sleep... before that. Their sound stays uniquely theirs while slowly evolving with contemporary sounds, all the while the production stays top-notch and I’m always pleased with what I hear from a mixing and balance perspective. It also sort of launched with one of the most exciting singles I’ve heard in a while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) which has to be one of the absolute best recreations of the quintessential 90’s sound yet with contemporary production discipline I’ve ever heard. Many have tried yet most have failed. I always have so much respect when an artist can nail this kind of thing because it’s immensely difficult to do and I’m so proud of The 1975 for pulling this off. All of their genre homages and tilts on this album - actually on all of their albums since I Like It When You Sleep… have been stellar and I continue to be impressed.

I’m also completely onboard with their performative behaviour - they remind me of the angsty political U2 et al of old, but with the necessary contemporary tilt we need. Matty as a front-person is grounded, sensible, vulnerable, flawed - been thru some shit and talks openly about it. I don’t care how much of it is genuine, it reads and plays genuinely. I’m not a superfan so I don’t have posters of him on my wall nor hang on every word he says, but if I was 16 or 23 and did, I think he’s saying the right things. Setting that aside because it doesn’t matter, as a late 30’s adult, this album is fucking great and the band is aging, whether the fanbase likes it or not. There is so much creativity in it and I feel like while they play like they don’t care whether anyone comes along with them or not, they actually really sincerely hope we all do - and I also hope we all really do come along with them because I am coming along with them. None of this “play Antichrist” bullshit - leave the past in the past. Play Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied. They just cancelled their 2021 tour plans due to Covid which was a really good move, and confirmed a new album in the works, and I can’t wait to hear what they have coming.

The Midnight - Monsters (July 2020)

One of the most exciting releases last year, I was amped for the drop and was anticipating another solid, top-notch contemporary synthwave album from who I regard to be one of the very best in the genre. They’d released America Online some months prior which I really loved but it didn’t really indicate what the album was going to be like. Monsters ended up being waaaaay better than I expected - and I expected it to be really great. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision by the band that perhaps the synthwave space was perhaps wearing out the 80’s a little bit - even pop-music was starting to take nibbles at the genre albeit pretty poorly by comparison, not that radio-punters would know it. With the new album tho, we’re taken into this wonderful in-between of not fully 90’s but not wholly 80’s either and even some contemporary r’n’b thrown in there but always stellar production and it’s just a massive album. It’s like a film you watch that ends up being an instant favourite you wish you could watch again for the first time because that first experience was so great. EVERYTHING lands perfectly in this album… with perhaps the exception of the lyric

“friends become lovers under covers”

in the song Prom Night because celebrating teens being sexually active is probably not something I cherish too much but hey, whaddayagonnado some things are just facts LET’S TURN THIS INTO A TEACHING OPPORTUNITY ABOUT CONSENT let’s not at least not right now.

Jeremy Blake - Object Permanence (December 2019)

Jeremy Blake is also known as Red Means Recording and he is a Synthlord. He has a YouTube channel and I am a superfan of his, so much so that I wrote a feature about him right here in this journal. I have a lot of his albums and Object Permanence is one of my favourites.

Jeremy is the definition of good faith. Everything he does is done with the intention of creating goodness in this world, in whatever way it can, somehow. Whether it’s just by listening to something that you might find pleasing, or whether it’s watching a video intended to help you create music on a piece of hardware or learn about software or licensing or platforms, distribution or business in some way. I happen to really dig the kinds of music styles he’s into as we seem to have had similar roots when it comes to some of the rock and electronic music we grew up on and have been into in our music lives, so the music he makes now really gels well with me. It was super difficult to choose between the album he released before this called Soft Music To Do Nothing To and Object Permanence but ultimately I think this is the right choice as far as an exhibition of his talent goes. Soft Music is still great, it’s more of a long jam he performed with only three pieces of gear which is pretty amazing and I listen to it all the time, but Object Permanence has some distinct tracks in varying styles I really get into.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s YouTube channel as an entry-point into his style, but if you’re a synth-head and like beats, breaks and groovy bleeps and bloops, you definitely won’t go astray by dropping into any one of his albums on Bandcamp.

The Paper Kites - On The Corner Where You Live (September 2018)

File The Paper Kites under “holy shit another Australian artist that isn’t rubbish” and from Melbourne, my hometown at that. In 2018, they split their new tracks effectively into two albums which works really well. The first is called On The Train Ride Home which is wholly downtempo and almost entirely acoustic with no drums, the second is this album and is a more energetic. I don’t actually prefer one over the other and have just made myself a playlist with contributions from other artists that only includes songs from On The Train Ride Home, but for this list I chose the second album for its exhibition of the band’s overall breadth of song-writing, performance and production. I guess I associate this sound with bands like Rogue Valley and other north and Pacific Northwest bands in the US but to be fair, I don’t really go hunting for this kind of sound - Nashville?? I don’t associate this very cooled-down acoustic-electric sound with Nashville, it’s not very Country (I have some Country in my collection which probably doesn’t surprise you), it’s almost like ultra-chilled mid-90’s ballad in a sense. Someone will have to tell me what it really is and where to find more but only of this calibre because I’m picky about quality. Google says they’re “folk music, folk rock, indie rock, alternative/indie” and that’s useless so throw that in the bin where it belongs.

This sound is definitely a mood. I hunted thru my entire collection including the aforementioned Rogue Valley and started a first playlist of just this kind of thing. I have the acoustic list done and will do an electric counterpart that will include more material from this album, as well as the one song I bought from Night Traveler called Don’t Forget Me as long as it’s not too energetic, it all depends on what makes it to the final list. This music speaks of drives thru rural landscapes, late nights in the city, time alone or with just one other person, closeness, loneliness, introspection, of long journeys and separation.

Iversen - La Favière (August 2018)

The story of how I got this album is hilarious - one of my gaming friends who buys stuff on Humble Bundle and itch.io and god knows what else tweets me this link and says “hey there’s this synthwave bundle for like $2 you should get it it’s $2 it has all this music in” and as someone who won’t buy bad music for even $2, I go investigating and you can listen to some samples and lo-and-behold, most of it is pretty great. I paid a lot more than $2 as that only got you 4 albums and for another $5 or something, you got another 4 albums plus I always pay more because I want more revenue to go to the contributing artists. I ended up not liking about half of the music on offer but in the bundle I discovered Lost Outrider, Morgan Willis and Iversen, all of which I’ve gone on to buy more music from on Bandcamp. As for La Favière, I bought it again on Bandcamp because I love the album so much and wanted to support the artist - it’s really excellent. Oddly tho, two of the best tracks from it were bonuses that only came with the bundle version and not the Bandcamp version, called Sunset Rider and Visions of Blue, so if you want those, I’m not entirely sure how you can get a hold of them - I’m sure if you contact Josh Iverson and tell him you want to pay for them, he’ll try to sort you out unless there are labels involved in which case, not his fault. Regardless, you still get one of the best chilled synth tracks of all time In Dreams which is worth the price of admission all on its own, it is absolutely epic and you should give it a listen.

Goodbye 2020

Time of writing is Sunday 16th January and what a ride it’s been already, hey. I might still write up my actual Albums Of The Year given two of them didn’t get mentioned - Reid Willis - Mother Of and Gidge - New Light, so I cheated a bit, but they’re my nominations, awards and lists so I can do whatever I like. I’m always excited about music, both listening with a critical ear and also emotionally engaging with it. There’s never a shortage of good new music or discovering material I hadn’t from years past. Sometimes it feels like wading thru endless fields of dross to find the gold but it’s always there and getting to it is a true delight.

There were honourable mentions and I couldn’t quite get the list to 10 - there are 8. I might write them up but for the moment, here they are in vague order of vagueness. Importance? Order of purchase? I got into Lapalux and Enter Shikari very late in the year. Apparat’s - LP5 is a very special album to me, almost Dreams Are Not Enough special. I do want to talk about how Jacob Collier’s album is both very very good and also not good enough.

The majority of the music listed here can be purchased on Bandcamp. There are links to most of it on my Bandcamp profile if you want to go hunting - I might add lazylinks later-on if I get the time.

Here is my last.fm full listing for 2020 if you’re curious about that kind of thing. Stats are great.

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