#founder of the Delegation of the 2000

[girlrandomstuff]

“The great Bail Organa. He carries a certain weight. He's seen as a voice of reason”

[cmanateesto]

Dissecting the Civil War: Part 1

Public schools will oversimplify a complicated issue in American history. Is it to simplify the information for younger students? Or is there something malevolent in the reduction? My thesis is that the Civil War was not a war of abolition. What does this mean?

Slavery has been an issue within the United States since its foundation. The Southern States does everything they can to preserve the institution of slavery. The Southern States would exploit their slave populations in a delegated method. The Electoral College is an institution designed to "correct" the popular vote, I.E: Bush vs. Gore in 2000. This institution counts the representation of states via population. Only liberated men counted as a vote, in other words: white men. 

In the 3/5ths Compromise, the Southern States advocated for slave representation. They did so to garner more votes in the Electoral College. They advocated for this despite a majority of their population's inability to vote. In essence, get representation without actually representing the population. Many saw through the absurdity, but reactionary voices are like toddlers. When told no, they just screech louder until somebody concedes.

 The Founders and Slavery: Little Ventured, Little Gained, p. 427, [ of representation."

The 3/5ths Compromise was a concession to stop the incessant screeching. Getting votes without representing the constituents seems to be prevalent throughout American history. What would stoke abolitionist sentiment? First, abolition is the idea of abolishing slavery. Some believed in gradual abolition as they transition from one system to another. Some believed in immediate abolition and this one struck fear. These immediate abolitionists would be the source of a Southern Planter's fear. Popular Abolitionist sentiment wouldn’t rise until the 1830s. The sentiment only went as far as saying they hated slavery, but there was no real plan. What's today's equivalent? Internet Marxists say they despise Capitalism without a plan to transition.

This untreated sentiment wouldn't last forever. In 1853, Anthony Burns was a slave that ran from his slavers in Virginia. He was in Boston for one month before US Marshals captured him. The Marshals were Federal Law Enforcement whose jurisdiction was the entire country. So yes, Federal Law Enforcement worked in favor of slavery despite the grandstanding. The Marshals arrested Burns thanks to the Slave Fugitive Act of 1850. The problem of runaway slaves was so prevalent that Congress passed a law for it. Or we could prohibit slavery, that's an option. Or you know, keep wasting tax dollars on preserving slavery. 

They were preparing Burns for deportation back to Virginia. Many Bostonians took an exception to this. Many saw it as a Southern aristocrat enforcing their archaic ways on Northerners. As far as they're concerned, Burns was a part of their community. The Committee of Vigilance was a group founded to counter the Slave Fugitive Act. Their purpose was to make life hard for those attempting to enforce the Slave Fugitive Act. This committee consisted of intellectuals, white allies, and working-class people. It was a union to stick a middle finger against slavery. But hey, counterculture was only a thing of the 60s and 70s. Nixon and Reagan would be proud of these patriots...

The Committee debated between two courses of action. 

A: break into the courthouse and remove Burns in a daring rescue. Without Burns, the trial couldn't go through. 

B: create a barrier of people so that authorities couldn't get through. 

But remember, disturbing law enforcement is only a thing troublemakers and hippies do. This isn't a pastime that's prevalent throughout American history. No, not at all...

 Now, most of the committee vied for option B because it was a safer option. Safer for both the committee and Burns. They didn't want to risk Burns' life in an adventurist rescue. That didn't stop everyone though.

Half of the committee vied for the peaceful option while the other half got to work. At night they would march to the courthouse armed with revolvers and axes. They would use these axes to chop at the doors of the courthouse, but these were thick ass doors. So what could be an answer for thick ass doors? Grab a wooden construction beam and use it as a battering ram. Yes, a group of Bostonians grabbed a wooden construction beam and larped as crusaders. 

The committee broke in, prompting a fight between them and Court Security. During this Medieval Larp, a member of Court Security died. You know what you gotta do when somebody dies? Yes, they called the police. It's debated whether these abolitionists would have been successful in their escape attempt. Even if they made it to Anthony's cell, it was reinforced with iron. Because you know…Slavers don’t like losing their property. 

 It got so bad that the United States sent the Marines to keep Boston in order while the trial proceeded. Boston got so wild that the Marines had to get involved.

Semper Fi, don't make the slavers cry. 

The mayor was responsible for keeping order in the city while the trials proceeded. The crowds attempted to convince the Mayor to pardon Anthony and not allow the trial to go through. The mayor was almost convinced. Even in the 1850s, the police were dicks. The Mayor said that a company of Marines should be enough to keep Boston in order. The Marshals disagreed. They were right, it would take the entire U.S. Department of Defense to keep Boston in line. Even then, I look at the U.S. Military's track record of peacekeeping. Anyway, they sent a Brigade of Marines instead of a Company, a much larger number. 

Some friends of Burns then played the economic game. So if the problem was that the Planter lost a slave, they could compensate the slaver. They have attempted to gather money to buy Burns' freedom. But no matter the offer, the Planter turned it down. Something tells me it wasn't an economic issue as much as it was a social issue. And if you're expecting nuance toward slavers, you won't find it here. Slavery is a bastard profession and all slavers are bastards. All Pro-Slavery advocates are bastards. Their parents are failures and if their kids endorse slavery, they're little Cuntsylvanians. The nuance ends with slavery. Go fuck yourself. 

If that didn't turn you away, we can continue. Because the old prick wouldn't accept financial compensation the deal was final. Burns is to be deported. Although, many Bostonians would say not without a fight. As the Marshals and Marines escorted Burns, crowds met them in the streets. They held up signs and coffins. They burned the coffins as a funeral for Burns' freedom. 

Just imagine being Burns for a moment. All you wanted to do was live life like a normal human being. To live life without being under somebody's thumb. But because you decided to assert your humanity, Boston riles in your defense. The city of Boston is in civil strife with the United States because you exercised your human rights.

 The convoy escorting Burns would run into an unexpected barrier of civilians. The civilians weren’t allowing them to cross, so the Marines would charge at the crowd with Bayonets. That’s right. The Federal Government charged civilians with bayonets. The United States was willing to gut civilians to preserve slavery in 1853. Ultimately Burns was deported back to Virginia. In retaliation, Massachusetts passed a law barring any enforcement of slavery. No law enforcement, including Marshals, could come into Massachusetts to collect fugitive slaves. If a slave entered Massachusetts, they were free. No amount of Southern screeching could change that. Fuck your feelings. 

 The other fucked part…Burns’ trial was not held by a jury. As a result of that fuckery, Massachusetts placed another concession. Any trial of a slave held is to be judged by a jury of their peers. You know, that right that American citizens are supposed to have in the first place. Something, something 6th Amendment. 

 Tremain, Mary (1892). Slavery in the District of Columbia; the policy of Congress and the struggle for abolition. University of Nebraska Department of History and Economics Papers. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns. Fetridge and Company. 1854. p. 5. Retrieved April 26, 2013.

Stevens, Charles (1856). Anthony Burns: A History. Boston, Massachusetts: John P. Jewett and Company. Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "The (Fugitive Slave) Trials of Anthony Burns: An Account". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "Orders of President Franklin Pierce in the Anthony Burns Affair (1854)". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22. 

Abolitionists weren’t the only ones inflicting violence. Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an abolitionist editor of a newspaper in Illinois. A wild band of inbreds murdered Lovejoy. So reactionaries are murdering abolitionists to preserve the institution of slavery. Why would you need to murder? Why not just debate the virtues of slavery in the free market of ideas? Why would you need to use violence to advance your position? 

Oh and on top of that, the abolitionists had to hide Lovejoy's grave. Because the Pro-Slaver mobs can't be burdened with decency. They have to defile the graves of those they murdered. They have to show society how shitty they are about their ideas. If you oppose their ideas, they murder and desecrate your grave. These are the rules. Which is odd considering some people's positions on certain monuments. 

 But desecrating a man's grave they murdered wasn't enough. They also had to go to a warehouse to destroy this man's editing equipment. Yes, because Lovejoy held the one press to print them all. They must destroy the press before he inflicts his abolitionist magic upon the lands. Destroy the press, Frodo!

But some people had decency. A group gathered at the warehouse to defy the inbred coalition. A fight broke out between the two groups. The local sheriffs would charge the mob with "unlawful defense." Hmmm...let me check my notes...

Second Amendment: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

First Amendment: the freedom of religion, press, and assembly. I believe those are covered grounds. And they're trying to say unlawful defense? 

Upon trial, the judge declared that neither party was guilty. Even though the Pro-Slavery mob attempted arson and successfully committed murder. So why was the mob forgiven for its crimes? The judge of the case was a member of the Pro-Slavery mob. He did a poor attempt at hiding it as he was wounded from the incident. So a judge was able to conduct a trial of a crime he was a part of? This is an example of next-level fuckery and many people grew tired of it. 

Enter John Brown. A man who had described his fight against slavery as a mission sent by God himself. He described himself as an instrument of God.

Bleeding Kansas is an example of how far John Brown goes. When he moved there, he knew what he was getting into. When states were going westward, they had a choice either to become free or slave states. Many Pro-Slavery mobs used intimidation and violence to drive out Abolitionists. However, they don't fare too well against those that fight back. After burning down Brown's estate, once was enough for him to gather a militia.

Kansas was a stronghold against Confederate sentiment thanks to John Brown's efforts. Any Confederate attempt of occupation faced Abolitionist Guerilla warfare. Bleeding Kansas was a Wild West epic for the ages that involved two groups of posse in shootouts. The open assassination of politicians. While the Civil War may have officially begun in South Carolina. The war's real beginning was Bleeding Kansas. Pro-Slavers would assassinate abolitionist politicians out in the open. Abolitionists would assassinate Pro-Slaver politicians out in the open. None of the Pro-Slaver murders were in self-defense. It was cases like Lovejoy where they would simply kill a man for disagreeing. So for those that want me to say John Brown was a terrorist, the Slavers instigated the fight. They're just mad because Brown finished it. Just like they were mad about Santa Anna slaughtering Pro-Slavers at the Alamo. Freedom my ass, y'all just wanted to keep your slaves. Freedom for me, but none for thee.

Biblical tales motivated Brown's convictions. He had a vision of freeing the slaves from Southern plantations as Moses had for Hebrews in Egypt. When he planned for Harper's Ferry, he hoped the liberation would inspire others to revolt. 

 "A few men in the right, and knowing that they are right, can overturn a mighty king. Fifty men, twenty men, in the Alleghenies would break slavery to pieces in two years" - John Brown

He would try to convince Frederick Douglass, but Douglass thought it to be a suicidal mission. Douglass's assessment wasn't wrong. Some wealthier abolitionists provided funding for Brown's activities. He used this funding to enact the help of a British mercenary. The mercenary wrote a tactical book. Brown's militias studied this book in anticipation of Harper's Ferry, including Brown's sons.  The raid started smoothly. They captured the armory in Harper's ferry. They cut off the telegram, so no instant communication. There was only one watchman versus Brown’s militia. He had captured some hostages who were owners of the plantation. Brown had ordered the slaves to be informed of their liberation. A train went by the town. Brown held up the train but later released them. 

This proved to be the beginning of the end of Brown's raid. The passengers of the train, frightened reported Brown's militia. The next town over had telegram access to nearby sheriffs. This is when things would go South, pun intended.

A wave of deputies and militia came at Brown's militia, pinning them inside a firehouse. Two of his sons died during the firefight. Brown had sent one of his sons to approach the militia with a white flag of surrender... Reactionaries are beyond reason. They gunned him down despite being unarmed and waving a white flag. Two of his other sons did escape, but the militia captured and hanged them. Then the US Army gets involved, allowing Brown to surrender. Your sons are dead, the slaves are still in chains and now the Army was descending on you and the men you led. He wanted to die during the battle, but during the Army's intervention, they captured him alive. 

While in jail, a friend of his got arrested on purpose for drunken brawling. He offered to break John Brown out of jail, but Brown was determined not to do so. He declined the opportunity and wrote a letter to his wife and remaining children. He vouched to be a martyr for the Abolitionist cause. The U.S. would hang Brown and some of his militia cohorts for their violent actions.

 Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Lovejoy, Elijah Parish" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. pp. 34–35. "Dimmock Funeral To-day". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. November 20, 1909. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2021.

St. Louis Marriage Index, 1804-76. St. Louis, Missouri: St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1999 Van Ravenswaay, Charles (1991). St. Louis: An Informal History of the City and Its People, 1764-1865. Missouri History Museum. pp. 276–277, 279–280. 

Finkelman, Paul (Spring 2011). "A Look Back at John Brown". Prologue Magazine. Vol. 43, no. 1. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2021.

Hinton, Richard J. (1894). John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. Boston: Funk & Wagnalls. Archived from the original on May 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021. "John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid". West Virginia Archives and History. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2008., wvculture.org; accessed August 29, 2015.

Brown, John (December 10, 1859) [November 8, 1859]. "Brown's letter to his wife". United States Police Gazette. Vol. 2, no. 82. p. 2.

War was a fickle thing in the 19th Century. Today, many Western nations vie for a Professional Army. Back in that day, the war would mean the conscription of every able-bodied man. This is when Black men were considered people on paper, but not enough to be treated as such. No need to fear, in the United States there was a way out of being conscripted.

Either A. you find a replacement. 

or B. $300 to support the war effort. Doesn't sound too bad until you apply inflation. $300 in the 1860s would be $10,000 today. Yeah, because we all have $10k lying around, right? 

Despite this blatant attempt to kill off the poor, the Union didn't have the numbers to continue the war. That is until they noticed a bunch of Irish immigrants trying to escape Britain. So that was another group of immigrants they could pull from. The recruiters go as far as to recruit Irish immigrants fresh off the boat. Cartoonish I know.

The Union would use the Irish brigades of recruits as cannon fodder, taking a bulk of the casualties. Irish families would hear of this back in their respective Northern states. The families were becoming aware of the cannon fodder mentality that Union had for the Irish. Either Britain was trying to starve them out or the U.S. sent them into a meat grinder. When the U.S. had the nerve to conscript more Irish, many riots broke out across the North. Unfortunately, the U.S. was able to deflect this riot. 

Many newspapers published articles blaming Black Americans for the Civil War. The Civil War started over the Southern issue of preserving slavery. However, the newspapers wouldn't stop publishing defamatory articles about Black Americans. They also wouldn't stop publishing how Blacks are stealing jobs from the Irish. That if the Civil War were to end, many Black Americans would move North to steal jobs from them. This isn't like today where you could verify or research the subject matter. The only sort of media you were able to consume was within your local area. So if your news press was printing out racist garbage, that's all you consumed. And for those that only consume vitriolic garbage, I'll present you with this example. 

So if you're consuming nothing but articles that instigate hatred that will happen. The media was free to publish articles condemning interracial marriage. Like media is free to label LGBTQ+ functions as pedophilic today. Despite the atrocious nature of these incidents today, those were all isolated incidents.

 The Irish riots on a larger scale. Many businesses were burned to the ground. Some people were lynched or beaten to the ground with clubs and bricks. When you published nothing but vitriol against a group of people, are you surprised? Some people feign surprise, but these people know the power of the media. This is why they continue falsely branding the LGBTQ+ as pedophile-friendly. This is despite politicians like a Matt Gaetz investigation involving human trafficking. Or despite figures like Matt Walsh who emphasizes a girl's fertility at 16. Expressing frustration at the current age of consent. These are the kind of people that instigate violence against minority groups. 

The Irish Draft Riots are the kind of violence that these bastards are aiming for. It worked in favor of the Union because they were able to continue the Civil War for another two years. Because of this riot, Landlords evicted their black tenants fearing violence. So Landlords had sent black people to be brutalized by a mob to cover their asses... This riot was also used as a justification to keep white and black populations separate. Again, the media had perpetrated this violence, but it was used as a justification.

Li, D. K. (2022, September 14). Michigan man who killed his wife went down a 'rabbit hole' of conspiracy theories after Trump's 2020 loss, daughter says. NBCNews.com. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michigan-man-killed-wife-went-rabbit-hole-conspiracy-theories-trumps-2-rcna47701 

Hasanabi. (2022, October 5). Shocked that Matt Walsh is interested in impregnating 16 year olds. pic.twitter.com/q8s66ebyvq. Twitter. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1577716649116852224 

 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/the-irish-brigade 

Harris, Leslie M. (2003). In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press. pp. 279–88. ISBN 0226317757.

At the end of the Civil War, the United States had no choice but to capitulate, right? The war was over slavery, so slavery would finally be abolished, right? As per usual, Congress had somehow sidestepped the real problem. By side-stepping the real problem, it paved a way for more problems. Here's what the death of 1 Million Americans and 2 Million Traitors brought us.

15th Amendment: Passed by Congress on February 26, 1869, and ratified on February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote. 

14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

13th Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

So in the end…the Union didn’t fight to abolish slavery. It fought to monopolize it. I wish this was a joke... It would be nice if we were just on a long-running episode of Punk'd.

The Founders and Slavery: Little Ventured, Little Gained, p. 427, [ of representation."

Tremain, Mary (1892). Slavery in the District of Columbia; the policy of Congress and the struggle for abolition.

University of Nebraska Department of History and Economics Papers. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns.

Fetridge and Company. 1854. p. 5. Retrieved April 26, 2013. Stevens, Charles (1856). Anthony Burns: A History. Boston, Massachusetts: John P. Jewett and Company.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "The (Fugitive Slave) Trials of Anthony Burns: An Account". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "Orders of President Franklin Pierce in the Anthony Burns Affair (1854)". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22. 

Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Lovejoy, Elijah Parish" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. pp. 34–35. "Dimmock Funeral To-day". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. November 20, 1909. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2021. St. Louis Marriage Index, 1804-76. St. Louis, Missouri: St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1999

Van Ravenswaay, Charles (1991). St. Louis: An Informal History of the City and Its People, 1764-1865. Missouri History Museum. pp. 276–277, 279–280. 

Finkelman, Paul (Spring 2011). "A Look Back at John Brown". Prologue Magazine. Vol. 43, no. 1. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2021.

Hinton, Richard J. (1894). John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. Boston: Funk & Wagnalls. Archived from the original on May 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021. 

"John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid". West Virginia Archives and History. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2008., wvculture.org; accessed August 29, 2015.

Brown, John (December 10, 1859) [November 8, 1859]. "Brown's letter to his wife". United States Police Gazette. Vol. 2, no. 82. p. 2. 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/the-irish-brigade 

Harris, Leslie M. (2003). In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press. pp. 279–88. ISBN 0226317757.

[yayaeklarinha]

Jack Dorsey

ck Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976 is an American Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairperson of Block, Inc., which is the developer of the Square financial services platform. He is also a co-founder of Bluesky, PBLLC, where he currently sits on the board of directors, with Jay Graber serving as CEO.

Early life[edit]

Dorsey was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. His father is Tim Dorsey and his mother is Marcia (née Smith) Dorsey. Jack Dorsey is partly of Italian descent on his mother's side. His father worked for a company that developed mass spectrometers and his mother was a homemaker. He was raised Catholic, and his uncle is a Catholic priest in Cincinnati.

Dorsey attended Bishop DuBourg High School. In his younger days, he worked occasionally as a fashion model.  By age 14, he had become interested in dispatch routing. Dorsey enrolled at the University of Missouri–Rolla in 1995 and attended for two-plus years before transferring to New York University in 1997, but he dropped out two years later, one semester short of graduating. He came up with the idea that eventually became Twitter while studying at New York University.

While working on dispatching as a programmer, Dorsey moved to California. In 2000, Dorsey started his company in Oakland to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the Web. His other projects and ideas at this time included networks of medical devices and a "frictionless service market". In July 2000, building on dispatching and inspired in part by LiveJournal and by AOL Instant Messenger, he had the idea for a Web-based realtime status/short message communication service.

When he first saw implementations of instant messaging, Dorsey wondered whether the software's user status output could be shared easily among friends. He approached Odeo, which at the time happened to be interested in text messaging. Dorsey and Biz Stone decided that SMS text suited the status-message idea, and built a prototype of Twitter in about two weeks. The idea attracted many users at Odeo and investment from Evan Williams, a co-founder of that firm in 2005 who had left Google after selling Pyra Labs and Blogger.

Career[edit]

Twitter[edit]

Main article: TwitterDorsey in 2008

Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone co-founded Odeo, later renamed Obvious Corporation, which then spun off Twitter, Inc. Dorsey became Twitter's Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As CEO, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of funding by venture capitalists. He reportedly lost his position for leaving work early to enjoy other pursuits, such as yoga and fashion design.

As the service began to grow in popularity, Dorsey chose the improvement of uptime as top priority, even over creating revenue—which, as of 2008, Twitter was not designed to earn. Dorsey described the commercial use of Twitter and its API as two things that could lead to paid features. His three guiding principles, which he says the company shares, are simplicity, constraint, and craftsmanship.

On October 16, 2008, Williams took over as CEO, while Dorsey became chairman of the board. During his time as chairman, Dorsey joined several State Department delegations, including a trip to Iraq in April 2009, led by Jared Cohen. In November, when Iranians took to the streets in the Green Revolution, Twitter was scheduled to conduct maintenance of its site, which would entail temporarily shutting down Twitter's servers. Dorsey responded to a request from Cohen to delay the maintenance so that it would not affect the revolution in Iran, because Iranians were using Twitter to communicate and coordinate. Since President Obama had announced that there would be no meddling in Iran, the move sparked controversy. In February 2010, Dorsey was part of another State Department delegation, this time to Russia. On March 28, 2011, he returned to Twitter as executive chairman after Dick Costolo replaced Williams as CEO. On June 10, 2015, Costolo announced his resignation as CEO, effective July 1, 2015. Dorsey assumed the post of interim CEO upon Costolo's departure. He was named permanent CEO on October 5, 2015. Dorsey and President Barack Obama at Twitter Town Hall in July 2011

In May 2016, Dorsey announced that Twitter would not count photos and links in the 140-character limit to free up more space for text. This was an attempt to entice new users, since the number of tweets per day had dropped from about 500 million in September 2013 and its peak of 661 million in August 2014 to about 300 million in January 2016.

On November 22, 2016, Dorsey was briefly suspended from his own Twitter account with 3.9 million followers. After restoring the account, Dorsey tweeted that the suspension was due to an "internal mistake".

In February 2017, Dorsey and Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani matched a $530,000 donation to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) raised by Twitter staffers. Their match brought the total donation to $1.59 million.[47]

In March 2018, Dorsey announced that an improved version of the verification system would be coming to Twitter. The purpose of redesigning verification was to let people verify more facts about themselves, emphasizing proof of identity. bjs as garotas do blog!

[hollyoxleylevel5]

Approaching time management differently - Research

Through my experiments and initial research I have noticed that I have looked at why time management is important for creative people and how it helps. However, I have not looked at how time management methods work and why this then helps us. I have decided to explore this because I think it will help me to make my outcome more focused on solving my problem.

The two key approaches to time management are reducing your workload and working effectively. (Jay, 2001, p.6). This is seen in most of the methods I have looked at in my research. Reducing your work load consists of dumping unnecessary work, delegating work if appropriate, getting it right the first time and communicating effectively. (Jay, 2001, pp. 7) However, this is not always possible for a creative project as you are usually working alone. Getting it right first time is not always a possibility because creative projects rely on experiments and learning from your failures.

Jay (2001, pp. 7-8) suggests that working effectively prevents work from being wasted. To work effectively you need to:

plan schedules in advance,

Assess tasks when projects start

Organising your work and space

being more proactive

Focusing on one task at a time

Understanding what time you work best

preventing disruptions

Most importantly stopping procrastination.

In general this seems reasonable and something that may work successfully. However, some of the suggestions are not always easy to follow as being proactive is something that needs to be learned and preventing disruptions may not be possible in a university environment.

Allcott points out that "Time management is dead" (2016, p.4). Older time management methods are not suitable for 21st century life because we are constantly bombarded by emails, voicemails, social media and other distractions. This means that we lose time in the day to complete the tasks on our to do lists. (Alcott, 2016, pp.4-5). This can be seen in my research where I have tested out the methods. I found that the methods did not always fit my working style or did not work when I was getting bombarded by emails, conversations and things I needed to do.

However, Team Leverage Edu (2023) states that students need Time management because it:

Increases productivity

Keeps their work organised

improves health

Gives them extra time for hobbies

Reduces stress

Prevents having to try and complete full projects in a short space of time.

Similarly, Ho (2023), the CEO and founder of Lifehack, also points out that good time management can Help people:

Work effectively

Improve decision making by preventing them from being overwhelmed

Increase opportunities

Create a better work - life balance

Improve your reputation

Therefore, time management is required to successful complete projects efficiently. However, old methods are not suitable for modern day life.

Forster (2000, p.52) points out that all time management books they have read have the same key features and advice, which may be the cause of peoples ongoing time management problems because that method does not work for them.

I agree with this statement because I have found all the methods I have used have the same features. This means that I am constantly having the same struggles and concerns when using them. To try and solve this I will look at other methods to see if there are any which work better.

In his book, Jay (2001, p.78)includes a glossary of terminology he uses when talking about time management methods. One term that has caught my attention is Activity log - Writing down how long it takes to do each task in your working day.

I am interested in this concept because this will allow me to keep track of what tasks take me longer than others. This may be able to help me change how I plan my days and weeks so that the tasks that take longer or are harder, are completed first with smaller tasks near the end of the day. This will allow me to use my time more effectively since I have found myself more tired near the end of the day.

Another method I would like to explore is the Cord productivity model written in Allcotts (2014, pp.137-142) productivity guide. This method uses 4 habits (capture and collect, Organise, review and do) to help manage your workflow and structure your days.

Allcott (2014, pp.137-139) defines the habbits as:

Capture and collect - Gathering your information. This can be your ideas, actions through conversations, paperwork, voicemails, social media notifications and emails.

Organise - creating peace of mine by focusing on tasks and making decisions quickly.

Review - Using checklists to make sure you are focused on the right tasks to work efficiently.

Do - Completing the tasks.

This method uses similar features to the methods I have looked at before. Therefore I am cautious whether this method will be more successful. However, I like how the method focuses on introducing you to new habits as this is more likely to stick then just using a technique/method.

When organising tasks Allcott (2016, pp. 184-185) recommends that you make them specific and detailed. This will make plans clearer and easier to understand when looking back on it. I will try to use this method to see if it will help me to plan the rest of my project as it seems to be suited for more long term plans then day to day management.

Allcott, G. (2016). How to be a productivity Ninja. 6th Edition. London: Icon books.

Foster, M. (2000) Get everything done - and still have time to play. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Jay, R. (2001). Time Management. Oxford: Capstone Express

Ho, L. (2023). The Importance of Time Management: 6 Ways It Matters. [Online]. Available from: https://www.lifehack.org/692542/the-importance-of-time-management/. [Accessed 16 May 2023]

Team Leverage Edu. (2023). Importance of Time Management for Students. [Online]. Available from: https://leverageedu.com/blog/time-management-for-students/. [Accessed 16 May 2023]

[skywaytour1]

Skyway International Travels

Owner name: S.Mahalingaiah (Manu)

Address: Tourism House, #8, Papanna Lane St. Marks Road Bangalore, Karnataka 560 001, India.

Phone: +91-9845118222

Business Email: info@skywaytour.com

Website URL: https://www.skywaytour.com

Keywords: best travel agency in india, tourism company in india, best tour operators in india, travel agency in india, top travel agency india, honeymoon packages in india, international honeymoon packages, bali tour packages, maldives tour package, dubai holiday packages, singapore tour packages, thailand tour packages, kerala tour packages, jungle resorts in karnataka, luxury resorts in karnataka

Description: We are in travel business for last 25 years having management with travel trade experience for 28 years. IATA Accredited, Active Member of Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), Travel Agent Federation of India (TAFI) & Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

It is part of our policy to offer customers only the very best, no matter which part of the world they arrive from. Skyway currently serves FIT’s, Families and small groups from UK, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and USA.

Managed by a set of professionals, supported by perfectly maintained fleet, quality drivers, well- mannered staff, best office infrastructure, round the clock support and that extra urge to ensure a hassle-free holiday to make our guests feel comfortable and at home while holidaying.

We are specialized in tour packages that include Historical, Archaeological & Pilgrim, Preserved Forest & Wildlife, Spectacular Mountains & Beautiful Sceneries, Sun, Sand & Sea, Landscapes filed with Flaura, Fauna & birds, Adventurous, Ayurveda, Angling, Golf etc., as the list goes on. Specialists in tailor-made holidays to India, Skyway has grown to become one of the leading and most respected tour operators in India.

Skyway represent as GSA:

The Golden Chariot, the First Luxury Train in South India from Karnataka Jungle Lodges & Resorts, pioneers in managing Eco friendly lodges in Karnataka

S.Mahalingaiah (Manu) - Founder Director

Master of Commerce Degree holder from Mysore University.   Started Skyway International Travels during1994 after gaining 10 years’ experience in Tourism and Hospitality Industry.

Served Rotary Mysore in many capacities including President during 2004-05.    Instrumental in raising funds to start Rotary Mysore Chandrakala Blood Bank in Mysore.

Served as Chairman of the Blood Bank for 6 years.   Served Ideal Jawa Rotary School with 2000 plus children  as Chairman for 3 years in Mysore.

Instrumental in getting 5 years MTA (Master of Tourism Administration ) Courses in 5 Universities in Karnataka to help industry to get more than 300 MTA students  to our industry annually.

 Served as   Member of Board of studies in Tourism Administration of Mysore University for 2 years to introduce Tourism Degree and Master Degree courses from 2006-2008

Mysore Guide authored and first edition published during 2005  is popular guide book among tourists visiting Mysore.  Re-published 3 times and totally  more than 40000 guide books are sold so far.

Chairman IATO Karnataka Chapter from 2010.   Member of Karnataka Tourism Vision Group under previous Govt.  Instrumental in bringing in many mega events to Karnataka including IATO Convection during 2008-09 and PATA  Travel Mark  during 2015.

Founder member of Karnataka Tourism Society, serving as Secretary. KITE 2019 (Karnataka International Travel Expo 2019) was successfully organised where in 100+ International buyers and 240 Indian buyers were invited to attend exclusive B2B event in Bangalore, Karnataka during August 2019.  Organised 5 Mega FAM tours to 220 delegates as Chairman of FAM Tour committee.

Secretary – Skyway Tourism Education Trust.   A trust formed with main objective of providing education, training to front office staff, drivers, guides in Karnataka apart from other activities to promote tourism in India.

Member – Indian Chamber of Commerce Tourism Expert Committee 2020-22

Member - Tourism Task Force, CII Southern Region 2021-22.

Year Found: 1994

Number of Employee: 51-200

Operation Hours: Mon-Sat, 10 am to 7 pm, Sunday: closed

Youtube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5q8L2kasr0

Social Media Links: https://www.facebook.com/Skywayindia/ https://www.instagram.com/skywayinternationaltravels/ https://twitter.com/Skywaytour https://www.linkedin.com/company/skywayindia https://in.pinterest.com/skywayindia/

[lunarr-rrose]

Property Management with Jason Marcordes - Fernando Angelucci

https://u109893.h.reiblackbook.com/generic11/the-storage-stud/property-management-with-jason-marcordes-fernando-angelucci/

On this episode of What is the Deal, the real estate podcast that gives answers, we’ll be covering what is the deal with property managers. The job title is self-explanatory, but there is more to know. Joining me to open the doors on property management is our good friend and colleague, Jason Marcordes.

Jason Marcordes, Founder, Managing Broker, Property Manager of Landmark Property Management of Chicago is a full service real estate brokerage dedicated to going above and beyond for our clients.

We handle everything real estate related – including buying/selling, leasing, property management, rehabbing, construction, development, real estate investments, and receivership.

We offer services such as finding and placing a resident, coordinating maintenance, rent collection, resident renewals, managing vendor relationships, ensuring compliance with local regulations, and more…

In this episode:

Who are you and what do you do?

What does a day in the life of a property manager look like?

What are the requirements in Illinois to become a property manager?

Why should a real estate investor use a property manager?

What are the decisions someone will be faced when choosing a property manager?

How would you advise someone to choose the right property manager?

What is the most common mistake you see real estate investors make when it comes to property managers?

On the flip side, what is the most common mistake you see property managers make?

What advice would you give a real estate investor looking to buy their first rental property?

What advice would you give someone considering starting a property management company?

Fernando O. Angelucci is Founder and President of Titan Wealth Group. He also leads the firm’s finance and acquisitions departments. Fernando Angelucci and Steven Wear founded Titan Wealth Group in 2015, and under his leadership, the firm’s revenue has grown over 100% year over year. Today,

Find out more at

https://www.TheStorageStud.com

https://titanwealthgroup.com/

Listen to our Podcast:

https://thestoragestud.podbean.com/e/property-management-with-jason-marcordes-fernando-angelucci/

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

Fernando Angelucci (00:02): Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of What's The Deal, real estate podcast that gives answers. Today we'll be covering what's the deal with property managers. The job title is somewhat self-explanatory, but there is more to know. So joining me today to open the doors on Property Management is my good friend and colleague Jason, Marcordes, hey Jason.

Jason Marcordes (00:37): Fernando. Doing great, thanks for having me.

Fernando Angelucci (00:42): Yeah. So thanks for coming up. Let's jump right into it. So who are you? And what do you do? Give us a little history on yourself.

Jason Marcordes (00:50): Absolutely. Like you said, Jason Marcordes I'm with Landmark Property Management. We are a company that specializes in residential property management in the Chicago land area.

Fernando Angelucci (01:03): Okay. how did you get into that? How'd you get into real estate?

Jason Marcordes (01:07): Yeah, absolutely. I actually got into it by accident, went to school to be a teacher. While I was in school, I went to work for my uncle's Property Management company and I fell in love with real estate. So, that's how I got my start. I've been in Property Management for about 12 years now, worked for a couple of different companies and then just decided that you know, wanted to start my own company

Fernando Angelucci (01:32): Now, Property Management, isn't the only real estate activity you do. What else do you do in the real estate world?

Jason Marcordes (01:39): What else do we do? In addition to Property Management, I've done some flips, some buying holds wholesaling as well as, you know.

Fernando Angelucci (01:50): You had some Airbnb's as well, didn't you?

Jason Marcordes (01:52): I did, Yeah. That's tunny, had a handful of Airbnb's, so short-term rentals, that was interesting.

Fernando Angelucci (02:00): And then you also, didn't you do some management for self storage at one point too?

Jason Marcordes (02:04): Yeah. So that's how I got my start as commercial Property Management. So did some distressed real commercial real estate, did some self storage, did some receivership, I've done just about everything in property management, So.

Fernando Angelucci (02:21): What is a receivership?

Jason Marcordes (02:23): Receivership is typically when the bank is going to foreclose on a particular property, that process takes a long time. So the bank it asks the court to appoint a receiver and basically that receiver steps in and appoints a property manager to take care of that asset. So when the bank actually takes it back, whether it be a year or two later, it still has value.

Fernando Angelucci (02:55): Okay, It's interesting what exact

Jason Marcordes (02:57): Yeah. they do you know, they oversee the property management, the maintenance, all that stuff. And then they report back to the court throughout the proceedings, just to make sure that, that particular borrower isn't kind of running that property into the ground.

Fernando Angelucci (03:15): Right. Great, So I know when you first started the Property Management Company, it was all you. But just like our companies, you have started implementing traction and building up your company, delegating and then elevating. So I have a, kind of a two-part question for you here when you first started off, what did a day in the life of a property manager look like originally? And then once you implemented traction started hiring and delegating, what does your days look like now?

Jason Marcordes (03:47): That's a fantastic question. Two totally different answers, a day in a life of a property manager as like a solo property manager. It's usually number one your weeks or seven days a week. and you work way too much. You're doing pretty much everything or Jack of all trades. You're doing the accounting, the advertising, the rent collection, tenant communication, any type of legal work as far as evictions. You're doing a little bit of everything and it obviously depends on the time of the month and the season. Most of our rentals happen in the summer. Obviously the rent collection happens toward the beginning of the month, but as like you said, we did implement EOS. It has been a complete game changer. So as you start to grow, as you start to delegate, you can kind of divvy up those responsibilities and delegate. So right now for my company, I'm primarily the sales guy. So I talked to all the potential clients and then I also am the COO. So I basically make sure that everything's kind of running in the, running smooth and headed in the right direction.

Fernando Angelucci (05:00): So you look over the departmental heads make sure they're getting their stuff done, and the reporting back to you.

Jason Marcordes (05:04): Yep, absolutely.

Fernando Angelucci (05:04): You're kind of in charge of big relationships, bringing new clients in big vendors things like that nature, right?

Jason Marcordes (05:14): Yeah, that's right. And it's a small company, so we, I basically, I hold a couple of seats the two biggest is like the visionary and the integrator. And I'm kind of, I got a foot in each. so as we grow, I will step out of that integrator role and just be the visionary for the company.

Fernando Angelucci (05:36): So speaking of your trajectory through Property Management, I know it certain times in your life, you had a lot of doors under management on a more of a commercial scale. And then now you kind of, when you went back and started your own company, you started with a few doors and then started leveling up again. So tell me, where were you at your peak as far as the amount of doors you were managing and then where are you now and where do you see yourself going over the next 12 to 24 months?

Jason Marcordes (06:05): Yeah when I was working for other companies, I was kinda in the corporate world and I had about 2000 doors underneath me. I had a full team of course different departments, all that good stuff. With my own company, we've been, I want to say three 25ish, maybe 350 at one point, we had a big fund out of California, that we ended up parting ways with. So we're actually smaller now, but again, just part of the journey realizing that, quantity or top-line thinking is not always the best.

Fernando Angelucci (06:42): Right. I know we've had some conversations offline about firing clients, the ones that the 20% that take up 80% of your time and how keeping those types of people around is a counter-intuitive when you're trying to grow a large company. So that kind of brings me to my next question, which is you know, in Illinois, which, where we're located right now, no Joe Blow off the street can just become a property manager. Right? So what are the requirements? What are the training required to get that designation to become a property manager in Illinois?

Jason Marcordes (07:18): That's correct, Yeah. So in other States it may not be necessarily the same, but in Illinois, if you're going to manage other people's property, you do need to go and get your broker's license. There are some activities in Property Management that you don't actually needed to do, but should be very limited. So as a rule of thumb, if anybody's looking for a property manager, they're gonna want to make sure that they are licensed they're a licensed broker in Illinois.

Fernando Angelucci (07:46): Okay. That makes sense. When, so the way that we met was because I had a couple of properties that were in rougher parts of town, or I need somebody with expertise. Even though I am a broker myself, I know you had the expertise, so you took over those properties and did really well with those. We actually just sold off the, I think the last couple that we had at a pretty significant profit. So that was great. And thank you very much for helping me out with that. I always, I really loved working with you because, I was able to trust you. I just gave you a spending limit. And then I said, I don't want to hear from you, Jason, just get it done, which worked out really well for me. I think it worked out well for you too. I don't think I was too much of an overbearing client, right?

Jason Marcordes (08:30): No, it was perfect. And honestly, that's how we prefer it to be. And about 90% of our clients are out of state or out of country. So we try to do that. We have a spending threshold, and we just, you know, we don't call you every time the sink starts to leak or, you know, some small repair like that.

Fernando Angelucci (08:51): Yeah. So that brings me to my next question, which is, you know, why should a real estate investor consider getting a property manager or maybe look at that question a different way who should consider being, getting a property manager and who should not?

Jason Marcordes (09:07): That is a great question. I guess it depends on your investing philosophy, kind of where you're at in life. If you have the time and you have the temperament, then by all means, you know, you can manage the property yourself, if you are, let's just say you're a working professional, accountant, attorney, whatever, software engineer and you are picking up your first property. But you have a full-time job, then I highly suggest getting a property manager. So it just depends on you and your availability and kind of, I guess your experience as well, dealing with tenants or rentals,

Fernando Angelucci (09:48): Let's touch on some of those. So the first one you mentioned is time requirements. Let's just use, let's say not your super beginner investor, but let's say somebody like me when I originally came to you a couple of years ago, and I had something like, I think nine doors in Illinois, total, let's actually, let's reduce it down. Let's say somebody with three doors, three single family homes, what type of time is required for managing, let's say three single family homes in a let's call it a C maybe C plus area.

Jason Marcordes (10:25): That's gonna, that's a tough question to answer. And it's going to depend on a lot of different variables. I mean, that's one of the reasons you hire a property manager is just because, you know, from an ROI standpoint, it makes sense. So although it's more expensive than doing it yourself, when you factor in your time, it's going to be a lot more expensive. So us as property managers, you know, we can leverage our team, we can leverage our experience, our software, so we can do what you're going to have to do in a fraction of that time.

Fernando Angelucci (10:58): And then you also touched on temperament. So what do you mean by that? Can you expand upon it?

Jason Marcordes (11:04): Yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day it's a people business, you know, we, as property managers have to talk to our clients, which are the owners. We also have to talk to the tenants you know, and the tenants you know, sometimes they run into issues and you have to be ready to deal with that. You have to have empathy. You need to, you know, understand where they're coming from and what's happening. And at the end of the day, you need to take care of business and, and take care of your tenants.

Fernando Angelucci (11:38): Yeah. What, how does that time or temperament requirement change based off of the asset grade or class? Like, for example, I know you manage a lot of properties on the Northside of Chicago and really nice neighborhoods, very high rents. But then you also manage some properties and more working class neighborhoods, lower rents, lower purchase prices. Give me kind of the dichotomy here between the two types of assets.

Jason Marcordes (12:03): Yeah, it's tough to make, it's not a hundred percent, but we definitely do see the lower the rent. It's usually the higher, the I guess higher the amount of hours that you have to put into the property on a monthly basis. So you know, that may be for a couple reasons, if the property is not renting for a lot, it may not be the nicest property. So you're going to have a lot more repairs, a lot more things to take care of. And then, you know, we also see, you know, correlation between credit scores. If you're not paying your bills, if in your credit is not great. Then there's a higher likelihood of us having to chase that rent, work out payment plans, do stuff like that.

Fernando Angelucci (12:57): So with the credit score, and I guess this is kind of a broader question, what type of screening requirements do you prefer to have for tenants? And I know that some investors will actually overlay their own requirements, either stricter or less strict on top of what you require, but let's say it's your own property that you're managing? What are you usually looking for from a tenant?

Jason Marcordes (13:22): It depends on the property. Every property is going to be different because every property is in a particular area. It's going to demand a different tenant and different criteria. So kind of like you were saying Northside versus Southside, you know, we see different credit scores. You know, it's tough in some of these neighborhoods to get a 700 credit score, but on in other neighborhoods, that's actually fairly common. So that's on a, on a per property basis. I mean, if you're talking real estate that I own, I want to see 650 plus three times the rent amount in income. No evictions, no collections.

Fernando Angelucci (14:06): Okay. And when you say three times income versus rent, is that gross income?

Jason Marcordes (14:13): Ideally it's a net.Yeah

Fernando Angelucci (14:14): Net.

Jason Marcordes (14:14): Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci (14:16): Okay. So I remember when I was going through the process of finding property managers, I actually called and interviewed close to 25 property managers. I remember when I first called you.

Jason Marcordes (14:30): Not surprised me.

Fernando Angelucci (14:31): Yeah. When I first called you. I think I asked you, I told you upfront. I was like, Hey, Jason, I think I'm going to need an hour of your time today. I'm surprised he didn't hang up the phone on me. There was a lot of people that did hang up the phone on me when I told them that. So I appreciate you sticking with me. With that being said, what are some of the decisions an investor would be faced when choosing a Property Manager? What are the types of questions they should be asking?

Jason Marcordes (14:57): So there's a, there's a ton. I mean, we can dive into this. Do you, you know, do you want a big company or a small company? you know, what are the pros and cons of each that's something that you have to decide? I mean, I we are a smaller company. I prefer smaller companies, but you know, at some point it seems like it's really tough for property managers to scale and to, to keep the same level of customer service. So I see that in some Property Management companies around a thousand units some less or some more that are really good understand, you know, how to scale and how to still provide a quality service. So do you want the big or small company? Do you want to be hands-off or hands-on as a landlord?

Jason Marcordes (15:46): And then the biggest one, in my opinion, is are you shopping on quality or are you shopping on price? Are you just looking for the cheapest company out there, or you looking for the highest quality company may not be the cheapest, but in the long run, if they give you the highest quality, they may be able to save you some substantial money over the long-term. If they can just prevent, you know, one busted pipe, over the long haul, or just rent your unit one month quicker than the cheaper property management company, it really could save you thousands over, you know, over the term of the agreement.

Fernando Angelucci (16:27): Yeah. And that's one of the things that I always tell new buy and hold investors is, you know, what really kills your profit is vacancy and turnover. So let's use an example of a $2,000 a month rental, if all of a sudden that rental goes vacant and it takes three months for you to re-rent it, let's say it's in the middle of winter and a harsh like polar vortex, you know, and you have to do say $4,000 in turnover, costs, paint and carpet, and maybe a couple of repairs. And that's 10 grand potential that you just lost on an investment that you're, you know, you're bringing in 2000 bucks a month that could meet close to two to three years worth of profit that you've lost because of those vacancies and those turnover costs. So I definitely hear what you're saying. I know I've, I've gone through the gambit before we found you. I had a, one of those low fee property managers, and it ended up costing me probably close to $25,000 over the long run until we finally switched over to you so that I completely understand and agree with what you're saying, as far as you get what you pay for. Do you want high quality, or do you want just to nickel and dime on fees and end up losing money in the long run? Right. Penny wise, pound foolish, I believe. Is that the phrase? So I, man, you're hitting home with that.

Jason Marcordes (17:53): Yeah. And I mean, it's the same, like with any other important profession, like, are you going to choose the cheapest doctor? You know, if you have to have surgery or dentist or attorney, like you want the best representation, this is a rental property. I mean, for most people, it's a huge chunk of their investment portfolio. You know, a lot of people, this is their retirement.

Fernando Angelucci (18:16): Right.

Jason Marcordes (18:16): So do you want to trust that with anybody the guy who's willing to do it for next to nothing? Or do you want a reputable company to, you know, to look after that for you?

Fernando Angelucci (18:27): Yeah. Speaking of, you know, reputable companies and what you're looking for, I know you've dealt with tons of investors. You've also dealt with tons of property managers. I see all the time when we talk, you know, offline, how you're getting clients from other property managers that were not doing their job well. So this is kind of a two-part question. Number one, what is the most common mistakes that you see real estate investors make when they choose property managers? And then the second part is what are the most common mistakes you see when someone is finally actually chose a property manager and starts that relationship that day to day or that month to month communication?

Jason Marcordes (19:07): Okay. So the first part what are the mistakes you see when selecting a property manager, that is going to be a lack of due diligence. So they're not doing the due diligence they need to, they're not Googling it. They're not reading the reviews. They're not looking at BiggerPockets, they're not asking the right questions. So I'm huge on that, I even tell the people that are calling us, I say, Hey, you know, go look at our reviews, read them go on BiggerPockets, ask around you know, that's important. Don't just go with the first person you come across. On the the second question once you start that relationship, the, one of the, you know, the biggest mistakes that Property Management companies make. I see a couple, you know, number one, lack of communication and transparency.

Jason Marcordes (20:10): So, you know, we hear all the time from potential clients. You know, the reason they're coming to us is they, you know, they emailed their property manager, you know, three times over the last two weeks and they still haven't heard back, lack of transparency that they don't know what's going on at the property. They can't get answers. The second thing is just the inability to take care of maintenance items. A lot of times when we take over the property, tenants will say, Hey, I've been trying to get this done for two, three, four weeks, and you know, they, the Property Management company just never responded to it never took care of business. And then the last thing see quite often is, just the inability to rent units and bring down that vacancy. You know, we've talked to, clients, that are coming from Property Management companies that tried to rent their unit for two, three, four, five, sometimes six months, and no activity. And then you pull up, you know, you pull up the listing and there's like one picture or no pictures, you know, it looks like crap, you know, there's no description, stuff like that.

Fernando Angelucci (21:20): Uh-huh. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. When, you know, half of the work is finding the property manager, but then the other half is actually buying the right property. So what advice would you give to a real estate investor looking to buy their first rental property?

Jason Marcordes (21:38): So my, you know, I got a ton of advice, I love to advise new investors. First thing is get your finances right. So pay off your debt, credit card debt, automobile debt, whatever it is, pay it off, start saving some money. Once you get your finances right, you know, develop your game plan. What do you want to do? Do you want to do flips? Do you want to do buy and hold? Do you want to do short-term rentals? So figure out the game plan. Doesn't have to be anything extravagant. Write little one-page business plan, write out your goals. And then the next thing is build the team. You're going to need a good broker, good property manager, good contractor, good attorney you know, people like that.

Fernando Angelucci (22:23): A good wholesaler.

Jason Marcordes (22:24): A great wholesaler, absolutely, that's one of the most important. So build that team, and then the last thing is really execute like you, I mean, we've all been on BP. We've all, you know, we've all listened to podcasts like everybody and their brother wants to be a real estate investor and you could research it for years. I mean, you can never run out of stuff, content to take in, but at the end of the day, you gotta pull the trigger sometime. And for me, you know, I am on the Jesus, I'm drawing a blank. I'm on the.

Fernando Angelucci (22:57): Analysis paralysis side?

Jason Marcordes (23:00): The House Hacker Bandwagon.

Fernando Angelucci (23:02): Okay.

Jason Marcordes (23:02): I love it. I mean, it just makes sense. If you can buy a property for three and a half percent down, a fixed rate, 30 year mortgage like that is that's money. So for your first deal to minimize your risk, you might as well do you know, do the house hack.

Fernando Angelucci (23:20): And you've done a few house hacks now. Right? Tell us about those.

Jason Marcordes (23:24): Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's a no brainer. I mean, especially if you're a broker. That's like another hack in itself. So if you hear if you're a broker, you get a two and a half percent commission for buying that property. So you go FHA, you have to put three and a half percent down, you get your two and a half a percent commission. You're down 1%. You know, from there you can, you know, you could do different things. You can ask for a closing credit, you can ask for a higher, tax probation. You can actually get paid to purchase that property.

Fernando Angelucci (24:03): And you've done this now, I think what two or three times, right? I mean, you're on your, the multi-family that you own now is this your third house hack?

Jason Marcordes (24:12): So as far as house hack, this is my second.

Fernando Angelucci (24:15): Second. Okay.

Jason Marcordes (24:16): Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci (24:17): Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the deal that you're in right now. I believe it's what a four or five flat something like. that?

Jason Marcordes (24:23): Yeah, it's a four flat. So with the house hack it's gotta be one to four, you know, anything five pluses is a commercial, so different loan product. But yeah, I mean, I did this one exactly like you're talking about, or we're talking about, I guess, you know, three and a half percent down, I got a two and a half percent commission. I got a 3% closing credit and I jacked up the tax probations, my lender, actually, he, you know, we had issues with the loan because we couldn't, we were actually getting paid to buy the property. And with FHA, they don't really appreciate that. So we actually had to take some of that extra money and pay down our mortgage, rate or interest rates. So, you know, I locked in a 2.99 when it was, you know, that was a hell of a deal. Now, you know, when you didn't think rates could go much lower, they did lower them. So you're seeing that pretty regularly, but man, 30 year fixed rate at 2.99, like it's incredible.

Fernando Angelucci (25:25): Right. Well, that's good. So kind of switching gears here now this is teacher competition, but what advice would you give someone considering maybe starting their own Property Management Company?

Jason Marcordes (25:46): Don't do it? No. what advice would I give people that are starting their own company? Number one, be very selective of your clients, or the properties you're taking on. You know.

Fernando Angelucci (26:01): What do you mean by that?

Jason Marcordes (26:02): Well, what I did, which is very common in any industry, you know, when you first start your business, any business is good business. Property Management is not like a singular transaction. It's really a relationship. So, you are going to be married to that person, whether it be, you know, six months, a year, 10 years, whatever. So you want to make sure that you vet that person and that is somebody you feel comfortable with, you know, working with over the long haul for the next couple of years, same thing with properties. You want to make sure that you feel comfortable going in that neighborhood, dealing with that property. It's not like a problem property, always going to be you're always going to get maintenance calls or you can't rent it to, you know, a qualified tenant. So.

Fernando Angelucci (26:49): Uh-huh.

Jason Marcordes (26:49): That's my number one thing is like, be selective. It's your company, you have to design it the way you see, you know, your goals, kind of fitting that issue. So the other thing is, you know, charge what you're worth again. Ua common thing for new businesses is to give discounts, with Property Management, it's not a single transaction. So you make that discount on the front end, you're going to be dealing with that for a long time, going forward. And Property Management is not high margin business, although every one of our clients apparently thinks that way, but it's, it's not, it's not a high margin business, so it's easy to break even, or even lose money if you start giving out discounts. So.

Fernando Angelucci (27:38): Yeah.

Jason Marcordes (27:38): You know, if you're a high quality property manager, you should charge like it.

Fernando Angelucci (27:45): I like that, charge what you're worth, I mean.

Jason Marcordes (27:47): Yeah.

Fernando Angelucci (27:47): In the last few companies that we started in the very beginning, we were kind of hit with that as well, charging them a little bit less, just trying to gain the business. And just like you said, what you find out is not all business is good business.

Jason Marcordes (28:00): Yep.

Fernando Angelucci (28:00): Especially once it becomes a longer-term relationship. You want somebody to, you know, really appreciate what you do and see the value. You know, we always talk about leading with value and coming from an abundance mindset perspective. And it, once you start doing those things, it takes a while to kind of unwind the damage that you did from, you know, giving out discounts and taking losses on certain things, just because you thought that the top line growth was worth it at the sacrifice of the bottom line. So totally makes a lot of sense.

Jason Marcordes (28:39): Absolutely. I had a major shift last year from top line and bottom line thinking. And man, it has had an incredible change in our business at really in my life, my level of stress. I mean I highly suggest you know, getting into that mindset.

Fernando Angelucci (28:58): Well, so how can people reach you? And is there anything that they should know before they try and contact you?

Jason Marcordes (29:06): Not really. I'm an open book, so I love to help people. You know, if you have any questions, need help with anything, need a referral. I have tons of referrals, lenders, contractors, whatever you need. You know, feel free to shoot me a text and we can set up a time to talk.

Fernando Angelucci (29:23): What's your what's your website address?

Jason Marcordes (29:27): You can go to www.ChicagosPropertyManagement.com, that's Chicago with an S. www.ChicagosPropertyManagement.com. You could also reach out there, there's a contact us form.

Fernando Angelucci (29:37): Cool. Well, Jason, I really appreciate you coming on. It's always good to see you, my friend.

Jason Marcordes (29:42): Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Fernando Angelucci (29:44): Talk to you soon.

Jason Marcordes (29:46): All right. Take care.

[asamstudiesintro]

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On April 26, 1968, as an architecture student at the University of Pennsylvania, Kiyoshi Kuromiya and some friends held a demonstration against the use of napalm in Vietnam by announcing that a dog would be burned alive with napalm in front of the university library. Thousands turned up to protest, only to be handed a leaflet reading: “Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam.” . . Born in the Heart Mountain, WY concentration camp in 1943, Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a lifelong activist advocating for civil rights, gay liberation, and proper HIV/AIDS treatment and resources, and against the Vietnam War. . . . Kuromiya spent the spring and summer of 1965 in the South fighting for civil rights, and became friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When King was assassinated, Kuromiya helped take care of the King children. . . Kuromiya participated with the Gay Pioneers in the first organized gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations, “the Annual Reminders,” held at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969. He was one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front-Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther Convention that endorsed the gay liberation struggle. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Kuromiya became a self-taught expert on the disease, operating under the mantra “information is power.” He founded the Critical Path Project, which provided resources to people living with HIV and AIDS, including a newsletter, a library, and a 24-hour phone line. . . . Learn more about Kuromiya in this remembrance video by friend Alfredo Sosa at https://vimeo.com/12474786

[creepingsharia]

Brother of Dead Bin Laden Follower Moves Within Dem Party Circles

   Political photo ops and more for CAIR operative Ahmed Bedier.  

   It is no secret that the Democratic Party has benefitted from a Muslim community that has felt alienated by the GOP. Adopting this community, though, comes with a hitch. Much of this constituency’s leadership is associated with overseas terror. One case in particular is that of Ahmed Bedier, a Florida delegate of the Democratic Party who has been a representative for Hamas-linked groups, the spokesman for a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, and the brother of a follower of Osama bin Laden. He has photos with Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, the late John Lewis and more. Why would a political party embrace such a dangerous individual?

   Ahmed Mustafa Bedier arrived in the US from Egypt with his family, when he was eight years old, spending his youth in both Illinois and Oregon. When his parents relocated back to Egypt, he elected to remain, as he had gotten used to secular American society. In time, he made his way to Florida, where he became somewhat of a financial success, purchasing real estate, shopping at upscale stores, and driving a fancy BMW. In 2000, Bedier went through a dramatic change, becoming an observant Muslim and attending a radical mosque, the Islamic Society of Pinellas County (ISPC), soon taking on the position as the mosque’s Outreach Director.

   In November 2002, Bedier became the Communications Director for the Florida office of CAIR. CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was established, in June 1994, as a key part of the US Palestine Committee, a terrorist umbrella group led by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was cited by the US government as a co-conspirator (unindicted) in two separate federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas via a US charity, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). Bedier founded CAIR’s Tampa chapter and later would take on the role of Executive Director of CAIR-Florida.

   As Bedier began his involvement with CAIR, he as well got involved in the well-publicized case of soon-to-be convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian, becoming al-Arian’s unofficial spokesman in the media. Al-Arian created a Tampa, Florida network for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an entity responsible for the deaths of over 100 innocent people, including Americans. In December 2005, during an interview for TV, when asked if he believed al-Arian’s involvement with PIJ was immoral, Bedier infamously stated, “To a certain degree. Now, before 1995, there was nothing immoral about it.” Prior to 1995, PIJ took credit for five terrorist attacks and eight murders.

   In addition to CAIR, Bedier has served as the Florida Events Coordinator for Islamic Relief (IR), a group that has been banned by a number of nations. They include: Israel, which has labeled IR a front for Hamas, United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has designated IR a terrorist group, and Bangladesh. In 1999, Islamic Relief was reported to have shipped more than $6 million to Chechen rebels with ties to Al-Qaeda. In 2014, Britain’s HSBC bank cut ties with IR over worries about “terrorist financing.”

   In February 2011, Bedier found himself, along with hundreds of thousands of others, in Cairo, Egypt’s Tahrir Square to witness the speech of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the US-banned spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who had just returned to Egypt from exile after the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The following month, Bedier stated, on a Tampa radio show that he co-hosts, “I went to Egypt for the revolution…”

   Bedier’s younger brother, Amir, was also in Egypt for the revolution. In December 2012, after Amir was shot and wounded in the face outside the presidential palace, where many clashes between police and rioters had transpired, Ahmed took to social media to praise him. He said Amir was there “not to protest, but to help the injured.” He said Amir “represents the good people of Egypt, the heroes.” Ahmed’s kind words seemed to be little more than cover to protect his brother, because the sentiment expressed could not be further from the truth.

   Amir was no hero. Indeed, he was a follower of al-Qaeda. Evidence of this was revealed on his then-Facebook page, when, in May 2013, Amir, under the name “Amir MB” – MB meaning Muslim Brotherhood – changed his Facebook profile picture to that of Osama bin Laden. He soon followed that up by changing the picture to that of Abdullah Azzam, the deceased mentor of bin Laden and co-founder of al-Qaeda, who is known as the father of global jihad.

   On August 14, 2013, Amir was shot and killed by Egyptian police at Nasr City’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. Ahmed, who went to check on the dead body with his parents, said that Amir, for 12 hours, had been left on the street to die.                                                  

   At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Ahmed Bedier, then-delegate to the convention, assisted fellow CAIR operative, Ali Kurnaz, in holding up a Palestinian flag on the convention floor, claiming it was in protest to the Democratic Party’s refusal to condemn Israel. Bedier’s behavior was a contemptuous propaganda ploy aimed at exploiting the convention’s media coverage to get attention for the terror-driven “Palestinian cause,” which he actively aids and abets. The fact that he was not censured for attempting to hijack the event shows that the Democratic Party had given their tacit approval for his actions.

   Bedier used the party for nefarious purposes then, and he is continuing to use the party now. His social media is littered with photographs of him with Democratic leaders, deceptively making him appear to be a ‘mover and shaker’ within the party. One photo, which Bedier posted on Facebook this past June, depicts him discussing a book with a smiling US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. And while the Pelosi photo might look completely innocuous, having a radical Muslim with al-Qaeda family gain access to the highest levels of our nation’s government should be deeply concerning.

   As the Democratic Party moves to embrace and pander to the Muslim community, it needs to understand that at least some within that community have ill intentions for our nation and the party, itself. That is the case with Ahmed Bedier and others like him. Given the dangers that they pose, it would be wise for the party to distance itself from these individuals, who mean us all harm.

[larakeklik-work]

Timeline of child rights

1924

The League of Nations adopts the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child, drafted by Eglantyne Jebb, founder of the Save the Children Fund. The Declaration articulates that all people owe children the right to: means for their development; special help in times of need; priority for relief; economic freedom and protection from exploitation; and an upbringing that instils social consciousness and duty.

1946

The United Nations General Assembly establishes the International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, with an emphasis on children throughout the world.

1948

The United Nations General Assembly passes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which Article 25 entitles mothers and children to ‘special care and assistance’ and ‘social protection’.

1959

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which recognizes, among other rights, children’s rights to education, play, a supportive environment and health care.

1966

With the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, United Nations Member States promise to uphold equal rights – including education and protection – for all children.

1968

The International Conference on Human Rights is convened to evaluate the progress made by countries in the 20 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An agenda for future work is drafted and national commitments to upholding human rights are bolstered.

1973

The International Labour Organization adopts Convention 138, which sets 18 as the minimum age for undertaking work that might be hazardous to a person’s health, safety or morals.

1974

Concerned about the vulnerability of women and children in emergency and conflict situations, the General Assembly calls on Member States to observe the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict. The Declaration prohibits attacks against or imprisonment of civilian women and children, and upholds the sanctity of the rights of women and children during armed conflict.

1978

The Commission on Human Rights puts forth a draft of a Convention on the Rights of the Child for consideration by a working group of Member States, agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.

1979

To mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the United Nations General Assembly declares 1979 as the International Year of the Child, in which UNICEF plays a leading role.

1985

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice detail the principles of a justice system that promotes the best interests of the child, including education and social services and proportional treatment for child detainees.

1989

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and widely acclaimed as a landmark achievement for human rights, recognizing the roles of children as social, economic, political, civil and cultural actors. The Convention guarantees and sets minimum standards for protecting the rights of children in all capacities. UNICEF, which helped draft the Convention, is named in the document as a source of expertise.

1990

The World Summit for Children is held in New York. The Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency outline strategies for preventing criminality and protecting young people at high social risk.

1991

Experts from UNICEF, Save the Children, Defence for Children International and other organizations meet to discuss data gathered from the reporting process of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The meeting leads to the formal establishment of the Child Rights International Network (CRIN) in 1995.

1999

The International Labour Organization (ILO) adopts the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, calling for the immediate prohibition and elimination of any form of work that is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children. UNICEF has been working with the ILO since 1996 to promote the ratification of international labour standards and policies concerning child labour.

2000

The United Nations General Assembly adopts two Optional Protocols to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, obligating State Parties to take key actions to prevent children from partaking in hostilities during armed conflict and to end the sale, sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

2002

At the United Nations Special Session on Children, child delegates address the General Assembly for the first time. The World Fit for Children agenda was adopted outlining specific goals for improving the prospects of children over the next decade.

2006

UNICEF co-publishes the Manual for the Measurement of Juvenile Justice Indicators with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The Manual enables governments to assess the condition of their juvenile justice systems and make reforms as necessary.

2010

The United Nations Secretary-General issues the Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

2011

A new Optional Protocol to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child is adopted. Under this Optional Protocol on a communications procedure, the Committee on the Rights of the Child can field complaints of child rights violations and undertake investigations.

2015

Somalia and South Sudan ratify the Convention. The Convention is the most widely ratified international instrument with 196 States. Only the United States has not ratified to date.

[thedadadon]

History of BMW

The official founding date of the German motor vehicle manufacturer BMW is 7 March 1916, when an aircraft engine manufacturer called Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG was formed. This company was renamed to Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) in 1922. However the name BMW dates back to 1913, when the original company used the name BMW (which in German appears as Rapp Motorenwerke). BMW's first product was a straight-six aircraft engine called the BMW IIIa. Following the end of World War I, BMW remained in business by producing motorcycle engines, farm equipment, household items and railway brakes. The company produced its first motorcycle, the BMW R 32 in 1923.

BMW became an automobile manufacturer in 1928 when it purchased Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach, which, at the time, built Austin Sevens under licence under the Dixi marque.[1] The first car sold as a BMW was a rebadged Dixi called the BMW 3/15. Throughout the 1930s, BMW expanded its range into sports cars and larger luxury cars.

Aircraft engines, motorcycles, and automobiles would be BMW's main products until World War II. During the war, against the wishes of its director Franz Josef Popp, BMW concentrated on aircraft engine production, with motorcycles as a side line and automobile manufacture stopped altogether. BMW's factories were heavily bombed during the war and its remaining West German facilities were banned from producing motor vehicles or aircraft after the war. Again, the company survived by making pots, pans, and bicycles. In 1948, BMW restarted motorcycle production. BMW resumed car production in Bavaria in 1952 with the BMW 501 luxury saloon. The range of cars was expanded in 1955, through the production of the cheaper Isetta microcar under licence. Slow sales of luxury cars and small profit margins from microcars meant BMW was in serious financial trouble and in 1959 the company was nearly taken over by rival Daimler-Benz. A large investment in BMW by Herbert Quandt and Harald Quandt resulted in the company surviving as a separate entity. The BMW 700 was successful and assisted in the company's recovery.

The 1962 introduction of the BMW New Class compact sedans was the beginning of BMW's reputation as a leading manufacturer of sport-oriented cars. Throughout the 1960s, BMW expanded its range by adding coupe and luxury sedan models. The BMW 5 Series mid-size sedan range was introduced in 1972, followed by the BMW 3 Series compact sedans in 1975, the BMW 6 Series luxury coupes in 1976 and the BMW 7 Series large luxury sedans in 1978.

The BMW M division released its first road car, a mid-engine supercar, in 1978. This was followed by the BMW M5 in 1984 and the BMW M3 in 1986. Also in 1986, BMW introduced its first V12 engine in the 750i luxury sedan.

The company purchased the Rover Group in 1994, however the takeover was not successful and was causing BMW large financial losses. In 2000, BMW sold off most of the Rover brands, retaining only Mini and Rolls Royce.

The 1995 BMW Z3 expanded the line-up to include a mass-production two-seat roadster and the 1999 BMW X5 was the company's entry into the SUV market.

The first mass-produced turbocharged petrol engine was introduced in 2006, with most engines switching over to turbocharging over the following decade. The first hybrid BMW was the 2010 BMW ActiveHybrid 7, and BMW's first electric car was the BMW i3 city car, which was released in 2013. After many years of establishing a reputation for sporting rear-wheel drive cars, BMW's first front-wheel drive car was the 2014 BMW 2 Series Active Tourer multi-purpose vehicle (MPV).

Aircraft and industrial engines[edit]

1913–1918: World War I[

edit

]

1917

BMW IIIa

aircraft engine

1916 advertisement for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke

BMW's origins can be traced back to three separate German companies: Rapp Motorenwerke, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke and Automobilwerk Eisenach.

The history of the name itself begins with Rapp Motorenwerke, an aircraft engine manufacturer which was established in 1913 by Karl Rapp. A site near the Oberwiesenfeld was chosen because it was close to Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (then called Otto Flugmaschinenfabrik), with whom he had contracts to supply his four-cylinder aircraft engines.[2][2] Rapp was also sub-contracted by Austro-Daimler to manufacture their V12 aircraft engines, under the supervision of Franz Josef Popp who was delegated to Munich from Vienna.[2] Popp did not restrict himself to the role of observer, becoming actively involved in the overall management of the company.[3]

In April 1917, following founder Karl Rapp's departure, Rapp Motorenwerke was renamed Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW).[4](p11) BMW's first product was the BMW IIIa aircraft engine. The IIIa engine was known for good fuel economy and high-altitude performance.[5] The resulting orders for IIIa engines from the German military caused rapid expansion for BMW. The large orders received from the Reichswehr for the BMW IIIa engine were overwhelming for the small company, however government officials in the relevant ministries were able to give BMW extensive practical support for the rapid expansion[6] and funding to build a new factory near BMW's existing workshops. The German Empire did not, however, wish to go on supporting BMW with loans and guarantees, and therefore urged the flotation of a public limited company.[7]

The name-change to Bayerische Motoren Werke compelled management to devise a new logo for the company, therefore the famous BMW trademark is designed and patented at this time. However, they remained true to the imagery of the previous Rapp Motorenwerke emblem.[8] Thus, both the old and the new logo were built up in the same way: the company name was placed in a black circle, which was once again given a pictorial form by placing a symbol within it. By analogy with this, the blue and white panels of the Bavarian national flag were placed at the center of the BMW logo. Not until the late 1920s was the logo lent a new interpretation as representing a rotating propeller.[9]

[blackkudos]

Léon-Gontran Damas

Léon-Gontran Damas (March 28, 1912 – January 22, 1978) was a French poet and politician. He was one of the founders of the Négritude movement. He also used the pseudonym Lionel Georges André Cabassou.

Biography

Léon Damas was born in Cayenne, French Guiana, to Ernest Damas, a mulatto of European and African descent, and Bathilde Damas, a Métisse of Native American and African ancestry. In 1924, Damas was sent to Martinique to attend the Lycée Victor Schoelcher (a secondary school), where he would meet his lifelong friend and collaborator Aimé Césaire.

In 1929, Damas moved to Paris to continue his studies. There, he reunited with Césaire and was introduced to Leopold Senghor. In 1935, the three young men published the first issue of the literary review L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student), which provided the foundation for what is now known as the Négritude Movement, a literary and ideological movement of French-speaking black intellectuals that rejects the political, social and moral domination of the West.

In 1937, Damas published his first volume of poetry, Pigments. He enlisted in the French Army during World War II, and later was elected to the French National Assembly (1948–51) as a deputy from Guiana. In the following years, Damas traveled and lectured widely in Africa, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. He also served as the contributing editor of Présence Africaine, one of the most respected journals of Black studies, and as senior adviser and UNESCO delegate for the Society of African Culture.

In 1970 Damas and his Brazilian-born wife Marietta, moved to Washington, D.C., to take a summer teaching job at Georgetown University. During the last years of his life, he taught at Howard University in Washington and served as acting director of the school’s African Studies program. He died on January 22, 1978, in Washington and was buried in Guyana. Although the political aspect of his poetry held less appeal in the later years of the twentieth century, Damas’s reputation was on the rise. His poems, which sometimes experimented with typography and with the sheer sound of words, were astonishingly modern for their time, and they seemed to foresee the black poetry, both English and French, of a much later timeframe.

Works

Books

Herdeck, Donald, ed., Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical-Critical Encyclopedia, Three Continents Press, 1979.

Racine, Daniel L., ed., Léon-Gontran Damas, 1912-1978: founder of Negritude, A Memorial Casebook, University Press of America, 1979.

Tucker, Martin, ed., Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century, Greenwood, 1991.

Warner, Keith Q., comp. and éd., Critical Perspectives on Léon-Gontran Damas, Three Continents Press, 1988.

Wordworks, Manitou, ed., Modern Black Writers, St. James, 2000.

Poetry

Pigments. Paris: Guy Lévis Mano (1937). Paris: Présence Africaine (1962).

Poèmes nègres sur des airs Africains. Paris: Guy Lévis Mano (1948).

Graffiti. Paris: Seghers (1952).

Black-Label. Paris: Gallimard (1956).

Névralgies. Paris: Présence Africaine (1966).

Mine de Rien. Collection of 36 poems. Washington, DC (1977), quoted in Christian Filostrat, Negritude Agonistes, Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9818939-2-1

La Poésie de Léon G. Damas.

Essays

Retour de Guyane. Paris: José Corti (1938).

Poètes d’expression française. Paris: Seuil (1947).

Poèmes Nègres sur des airs africains. Paris: G.L.M. Éditeurs (1948).

Stories

Veillées noires, Contes Nègres de Guyane. Paris: Stock, 1943. Montréal: Leméac (1972).

Recordings

Poésie de la Negritude: Léon Damas Reads Selected Poems from Pigments, Graffiti, Black Label, and Nevralgies (Folkways Records, 1967)

[delux2222]

On April 26, 1968, as an architecture student at the University of Pennsylvania, Kiyoshi Kuromiya and some friends held a demonstration against the use of napalm in Vietnam by announcing that a dog would be burned alive with napalm in front of the university library. Thousands turned up to protest, only to be handed a leaflet reading:

Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam.

Born in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, internment camp in 1943, Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a lifelong activist participating in several movements including civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War, LGBT rights, and AIDS/HIV advocacy. Kuromiya spent the spring and summer of 1965 in the South fighting for civil rights, and became friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When King was assassinated, Kuromiya helped take care of the King children. Kuromiya participated with the Gay Pioneers in the first organized gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations, “the Annual Reminders,” held at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969. He was one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front-Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther Convention that endorsed the gay liberation struggle. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Kuromiya became a self-taught expert on the disease, operating under the mantra “information is power.” He founded the Critical Path Project, which provided resources to people living with HIV and AIDS, including a newsletter, a library and a 24-hour phone line. [Zinn]

[gozel]

***

Faşistler Sol Kanat Öfkesini Nasıl Operasyonelleştirdiler

https://hummusforthought.com/2018/03/16/the-multipolar-spin-how-fascists-operationalize-left-wing-resentment/

-

Hummus For Thought

by joey ayoub

The Multipolar Spin: How Fascists Operationalize Left-wing Resentment

Hummus For Thought

Syria

,

Syria and the Left

11 Comments

This article was originally published by Alexander Reid Ross, author of the book ‘Against The Fascist Creep‘. Republished here for education purposes. It was originally published on the SPLC which took it down, but you can still read the archived link

During his recent tour of Europe, disgraced former Trump strategist Steve Bannon declared “Italy is in the lead.” Amid the historic resurgence of the Italian far right that returned right-wing populist Silvio Berlusconi to prominence, Bannon fantasized about “the ultimate dream” of unifying the anti-establishment Five Star Movement with the far-right League (formerly the Northern League) through a populist movement. Bannon’s international vision of nationalist populist movements is locked into the Kremlin’s geopolitical ideology of a “multipolar world.”

The League is tied through a cooperation pact to Putin’s Russia, and its deputy in charge of relations with foreign parties, Claudio D’Amico, explicitly called for a “multipolar world” in Katehon, a think tank created by fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Following the ideological line Dugin put forward in his text, Foundations of Geopolitics, Katehon calls for uniting a “Eurasian” bloc in constant struggle against “Atlanticist” countries. For Dugin, the “21st century gamble” is to create a “multipolar” confederation of “Traditionalist” regional empires united under Russian sovereignty that will overthrow the “unipolar” empire of “postmodern” democracies.

Shortly after Putin’s election in 2000, the Kremlin released a set of foreign policy guidelines calling for a “multipolar world order” against the “strengthening tendency towards the formation of a unipolar world under financial and military domination by the United States.” Escalating with the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004, the Kremlin’s production of soft-powernetworks throughout Europe and the United States involves- think tanks, loans, forums, propagandaoutlets and cooperation agreements with far-right parties like the Austrian Freedom Party and the League. From Russia to Iran to Western Europe and the U.S., this international movement uses conspiracy theories and “gray material” to warp the political spectrum into a populist referendum along “geopolitical” terms set by fascist engagées.

Red and brown polarities

As a recent major report on syncretic networks exposed, the modern fascist movement’s obsession with geopolitics emerged in force amid the post-Cold War antiglobalization movement. In 2002, a front group formed out of the U.S.-based Workers’ World Party known as the International Action Center joined forces with the Assisi-based “Campo Antimperialista.” As Duginists infiltrated the Campo, opening a journal called Eurasia that garnered the influential involvement of Campo participant Costanza Preve, the International Action Center continued their cooperation.

Soon, a similar Russian group called the Anti-Globalist Resistance began to repost the Campo’s dispatches. Sharing support for Milosevic with the Campoand the International Action Center, the Anti-Globalist Resistance emerged simultaneously with the same tendency to fight globalization by linking far-right to hard-left. In 2008, they brought the Campo to Moscow for the third “All-Russia Anti-Globalist Forum,” introduced by long-time U.S. fascist Lyndon LaRouche. The next year’s conference included Duginist leaders like Leonid Savin and retired General Leonid Ivashov, along with LaRouche and Holocaust denier Israel Shamir.

As their work continued, the Campo and Anti-Globalist Resistance drew more anti-globalization activists into their syncretic orbit. In 2012, a group came together at a Campo Antimperialista event in Assisi and developed what would become the Syria Solidarity Movement. The movement’s steering committee came to include top figures from groups from the U.S. hard left, including the Workers World Party, its affiliate, ANSWER and a spinoff of the latter group called the Party of Socialism and Liberation.

After changing their name to the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, the group drew people from the Syria Solidarity Movement’s network to a conference called the “Right of Peoples to Self-Determination and Building a Multipolar World” in 2014. A delegate from the International Action Center attended, along with delegates from another Workers World Party front group called United Anti-War Coalition, including an editor with the Black Agenda Report named Margaret Kimberly. Among the conference’s other attendees were Michael Hill of the neo-Confederate League of the South and the Texas Nationalist Movement, as well as the far-right Republika of Srpska and National Bolshevik Italian Communitarian Party.

The following year, the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia met with a purported Cherokee Nation elder named “Mashu White Feather” and a representative of the Uhuru Movement, also connected to the Black Agenda Report. They then organized a state-funded conference that drew members of the fascist Italian group Millenium, Mutti’s associate Antonio Grego, and a leading member of the far-right Rodina party, as well as representatives of separatist groups like the Texas Nationalist Movement and the Catalan Solidarity for Independence party. The now-notorious troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, would later invite the Texas Nationalist Movement to join an armed, Islamophobic protest launched by the fake “Heart of Texas,” while also inciting counter-protestors.

The Syria connection

The Syria Solidarity Movement lists on its steering committee a host of syncretic figures like Duginist, Navid Nasr and an Australian representative of the fascist-modeled Syrian Social Nationalist Party affiliate, Mussalaha. Before a report revealed her associations with Global Research, Ron Paul and the right-wing British Constitution Party, conspiracy theorist Vanessa Beeley held a position on the steering committee as well.

As an editor at the alt-right-associated conspiracy theory site, 21stCenturyWire, Beeley’s repeated conspiracy articles attempting to link the White Helmets to al Qaeda and George Soros earned her a visit with Assad in Damascus and senior Russian officials in Moscow; however, they have beenthoroughly debunked. A defender of right-wing Hungarian president Viktor Orban, Beeley promotes antisemites like Gilad Atzmon and Dieudonné, even speaking at a conference hosted by the latter in partnership with notorious Holocaust denier Laurent Louis. Regardless, the Syrian Solidarity Movement and the associated Hands Off Syria Coalition recommend Beeley’s work.

Along with members of the Syria Solidarity Movement, delegates who attended the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia’s “Multipolar World” conference sit on the Hands off Syria Coalition’s steering committee. Showing its commitments and affinities, in January 2016, the Hands Off Syria Coalition published a “Multipolar World Against War” statement signed by the leader of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, Alexander Ionov.

Similarly, the Hands Off Syria Coalition website publicizes self-described Marxist, Tim Anderson, who has an interesting record of attending far-right conferences. In 2015, Anderson attended the far-right Brandherd Syrien Congress, and the next year he was at Defend Our Heritage’s Leura Forum, chaired by a leader of far-right party Alternative for Germany. Following that, Anderson’s pet project, Center of Counter Hegemonic Studies, convened a conference that brought in Paul Antonopoulos, an editor for the Duginist website Fort Russ.

The Hands Off Syria Coalition advertises Anderson’s book, The Dirty War on Syria, which is published by syncretic conspiracist site Global Research. Multiple “Research Associates” of Global Research sit on the “scientific committee” of the Campo-linked Duginist journal Geopolitica, and the site lists as its “partner media group” the Voltaire Network. Publishing LaRouchite and Duginist articles, the Voltaire Network boasts the Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs as its Vice President. One of the Voltaire Network’s leading contributors is Mikhail Leontyev, an associate of Dugin who has moved from prominent media personality to the role of spokesman for Russian state oil company, Rosneft. The Syria Solidarity Movement publishes Voltaire Network articles by founder Thierry Meyssan, a contributor to Campo-linked journal Eurasia who associates with Holocaust deniers and open fascists, among others.

Hands Off Syria Coalition steering committee member Issa Chaer joined Meyssan on a panel at the Second New Horizons conference in Iran in 2012. Conference speakers that year included World Workers Party member Caleb Maupin, Alt Right journalist Tim Pool,

Holocaust denier Kevin Barrett, and Duginists like Voltaire Network associate Mateusz Piskorski, German editor Manuel Ochsenreiter, Leonid Savin, and Claudio Mutti the leading fascist infiltrator of the Campo Antimperialista. The banner image for last year’s New Horizon features Aleksandr Dugin.

Multipolar propaganda

According to the metrics search engine BuzzSumo, most of the leading articles with the terms “multipolar world” and “multi-polar world” in the title come from an interconnected network of sites, including Global Research, The Duran and Sign of the Times. With an estimated six million unique daily views per month, the biggest and most influential in this network is the Russian state-run media site Sputnik News.

Billing itself as pointing “the way to a multipolar world that respects every country’s national interests, culture, history and traditions,” Sputnik frequently publishes Piskorski, Ochsenreiter, Mutti’s fellow Campo infiltrator Tiberio Graziani, commentator Andrew Korybko and Fort Russ editor Joaquin Flores. Furthermore, Sputnik has joined RT in consistently usingdubious sources affiliated with the Syria Solidarity Network to attack the White Helmets and throw doubt on the Assad regime’s war crimes, for instance its use of chemical weapons.

A syncretic hub on Sputnik, anti-imperialist John Wight’s podcast, “Hard Facts,” promotes the same figures associated with the pro-Assad network in the West, including Beeley, Anderson, and Nasr. Perhaps most interestingly, Wight also hosted trans-national far-right figure, Edward Lozansky during the 2016 election and again early the next year.

With more than 30 years of involvement in the U.S. and Russian far right, Lozansky is perhaps most known as the creator of the American University in Moscow. Boasting a number of Fellows involved in pro-Kremlin media outlets like The Duran, RT and Russia Insider, the American University in Moscow appears to be an ideological center in the concerted social media campaign associated with the Internet Research Agency to boost anti-Clinton, pro-Kremlin propaganda in the U.S. Lozansky also hosts conferences with knownfascist ideologues and an annual “Russia Forum” featuring far-right politicians and left-wing media operators from Russia and the U.S.

During both of his pro-Putin, pro-Trump interviews with Lozansky on “Hard Facts,” Wight advocated “a multipolar alternative to the unipolar world,” insisting, “we’re talking about a struggle for a multipolar world to replace the unipolarity that has wreaked so much havoc since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.”

The most important anti-imperialist hub on Sputnik, however, is hosted by Brian Becker, whose fellow party member and brother sits on the steering committee for the Syria Solidarity Movement. The leader of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Becker regularly hosts Fellows of the American University in Moscow on his Sputnik podcast, “Loud & Clear.”

“Loud & Clear”’s Lozansky-affiliated guests include far-right PR man Jim Jatras, Mark Sleboda of the Dugin-founded Center for Conservative Studies, the Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams and Alexander Mercouris of the syncretic conspiracist site, The Duran. The program also provides a platform to a variety of explicitly far-right guests, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, antisemite Alberto Garcia Watson, alt-right figure Cassandra Fairbanks and militia movement leader Larry Pratt.

Aside from marginal guests, Loud & Clear can bring on some heavy hitters. During his two appearances on “Loud & Clear” in late 2017, bestselling author Max Blumenthal called the red-brown radio show “the finest public affairs programming” and declared, “I am increasingly turning to RT America for sanity.” No stranger to Sputnik, Blumenthal also went on “Hard Facts” that August, claiming that notorious ISIS militant Mohammed Emwazi was ushered into the Syria conflict by the CIA via a “rat line” from Saudi Arabia.

Highway to the Grayzone

Around the same time he went on “Loud & Clear,” Blumenthal appeared on Tucker Carlson’s FOX News show to defend RT — his second time on the far-right show that year. Blumenthal’s RT appearances have been praised by white nationalists like Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., who murdered three people outside of a Jewish Community Center in 2014, so his courting of the right on FOX drew considerable backlash.

Two months later, Blumenthal offered up a staunch defense of “Russia’s position in the world” to author Robert Wright in an interview on bloggingheads. Admitting that Putin’s Russia remains far from left-wing, Blumenthal justified support for the country’s authoritarian conservative government as “part of the multipolar world.”

“If you believe in a multipolar world,” Blumenthal told Wright, “you believe in détente, you believe in diplomacy.” He specifically mentioned Becker’s Party for Socialism and Liberation and groups like it, arguing that they “tend to get all the major issues right regardless of their ideology or agenda.”

Blumenthal was not as clear of a spokesperson for Kremlin geopolitics before he appeared at the same RT gala as disgraced former National Security advisor Michael Flynn and the Green Party’s Jill Stein in December 2015. During that occasion, he joined a panel called “Infowar: Will there be a winner” alongside Alt Right anti-Semite Charles Bausman of Russia Insider. A month later, Blumenthal’s pro-Kremlin position crystalized with the founding of the Grayzone Project.

Grayzone is a collaborative project also featuring journalist Benjamin Norton, who cosigned the Hands Off Syria Coalition’s points of unity statement along with Beeley and others. After going on “Loud & Clear” with Duginist Mark Sleboda and Infowars regular, Ray McGovern, Norton plugged the Party for Socialism and Liberation on a podcast episode titled “Hands off Syria.” With other Grayzone contributors, Norton has been criticized for downplaying warcrimes and helping publicize false theories about rebels contaminating Damascus’s water supply.

When reached for comment by email, Norton retorted, “I know your goal is to outlandishly smear anyone who opposes US imperialism and is to the left of the Clintons as a ‘crypto-fascist,’ while NATO supports actual fascists whom you care little about.”

Grayzone is perhaps best known for Blumenthal’s controversial two-part article attacking the White Helmets, which brought accusations of plagiarism from Beeley. Grayzone contributor Rania Khalek had, Beeley insisted, “pumped me for information on the [White Helmets] and then Max wrote the article.”

While Blumenthal may have repeated some of Beeley’s theories, Beeley cannot be seen as a credible source. Regardless, Khalek has since used a questionable interview sourced from Beeley as evidence that the White Helmets “were deeply embedded in al Qaeda.”

Grayzone recently announced their move from independent news site AlterNet to The Real News Network, a left-wing site with a penchant for 9/11 truther inquiries. Neither Blumenthal nor Khalek responded to efforts to reach them for comment.

Right uses left

Through its amplification of an interlinked, multi-centered network organized around institutions like Lozansky’s American University in Moscow and the Voltaire Network and conferences like Moscow’s “Multi-Polar World” and Tehran’s “New Horizons,” syncretic networks associated with Dugin’s Eurasianist ideology have combined distortions and ambiguities into a geopolitical narrative meant to confuse audiences and promote authoritarian populist opposition to liberalism.

The “gray measures” used to deny the Kremlin’s influence operations may seem dubious when delivered through channels like Sputnik that are, themselves, political technologies of far-right political influence. When cycled through “narrative laundering” of secondary and tertiary networks enhanced by trolls and coordinated influence operations, however, propaganda is “graywashed” of its dubious sources and presented as cutting-edge journalism.

As shown with Figure 3, think tanks like Katehon and connected Russian Institute for Strategic Studies develop strategies for media spin and online promotion through influence groups and botnets. These think tanks engage in feedback loops with Russian state media channels and linked syncretic news sites, amplified through social media with the help of botnets, and eventually reaching more legitimate sources often freed of their dubious sourcing. The results are explored by a recent study from Data and Society called Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online: “Online communities are increasingly turning to conspiracy-driven news sources, whose sensationalist claims are then covered by the mainstream media, which exposes more of the public to these ideas, and so on.”

The problem with multipolarism, aside from assuming polarity as a useful prescription, may be that it supports not the emergence of Russia as a world power but the rise of the Kremlin’s authoritarian conservative political ideology. In this, multipolarists tend to support other authoritarian regimes and movements from Iran to Syria to Italy. Although anti-imperialists may believe that these measures land them on the right side of history, taking stock of the fascist movement suggests that the strategy of opposing a liberal order through red-brown populist collaboration makes the left a willing accomplice.

Alexander Reid Ross is a Lecturer in Geography at Portland State University. The Portland Mercury listed his latest book Against the Fascist Creep as one of the top books of 2017.

The author would like to thank Professor Wayne Wakeland of Portland State University for his assistance with the development of Figure 3.

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[dontcallmecarrie]

Ben hero-worships his grandfather. No, not that one, his real grandfather: Bail Organa, one of the co-founders of the Rebel Alliance and part of the Delegation of 2000. Ben had grown up looking up everything he could about the man, and Alderaan, thanks to his mom’s stories whenever she had the time— about his fortitude, strong sense of justice, and his efforts to bring peace, and if Ben hadn’t been using him for a role model before, he sure was now. 

Even— no, especially after he fled for his life, betrayed by his own family, Ben’s respect for the man never faded. 

Even when he’s running on three hours of sleep and only a quarter of a charge left in his blasters, he clung to his ideals. Even when he’s on the run from not just the First Order but the Resistance as well, Ben still goes out of his way to help however he can: if that means picking a fight with men twice his size, or helping a lost child find their way home, or even just giving a spare credit to whoever needs it, so be it. 

No doubt the other spacers and bounty hunters think he’s a fool, think he’s soft-hearted; and sure, maybe he is. Ben knows for a fact he tends to undercharge on his jobs, but...he doesn’t regret a thing. The First Order’s taken so, so much from him— he refuses to let them have the last laugh, refuses to give up his principles after he’s lost almost everything else. 

.

The most famous rumors about Darth Calamity are of the destruction he wreaks, the misfortune that happens to whoever gets in his way. The official communiques of the First Order never fail to forget the revolts, while the Resistance has a rare recording of the man who organized a spaceport well enough to fight off an invasion force. Comparatively, the other rumors are mere whispers— the grateful family that got reunited with their child, the waitress who’d been harassed before the barfight started, the young crew who’d been attacked by vicious pirates and survived.

Maybe, in another life, Ben’s new name would have struck fear into people’s hearts. Here, however, when they hear, “Darth Calamity,” all that comes to mind is—hope. 

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Bo Hi Pak has died

Korea Times    2019-01-14    By Dong Sun-hwa

Pak Bo-hi, the "No. 2 man" of the Unification Church / Family Federation for World Peace, died from chronic disease at 89 on Saturday. He had been in Cheongshim International Medical Center in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, since 2018. Born in 1930, Pak fought in the Korean War in 1950. He rose to be the right-hand man of Unification Church founder, Moon Sun-myung in the 1970s, helping Moon with English translation when the church was spreading its influence abroad. Pak's daughter, Hoon-sook, had a "ghost marriage" with Moon's second son, who had been killed in a car accident. 

Pak was the founding president and chairman of the Washington Times board, and president of the Segye Times newspaper. He was also involved in business with North Korea. When former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung died in 1994, Pak went to North Korea to offer condolences.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/01/121_261980.html

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

Bo Hi Pak at the wedding of his daughter. He is holding a photograph of the groom, Heung Jin Moon, who had died some time earlier.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Hi_Pak

Bo Hi Pak (August 18, 1930 – January 12, 2019 in Korea. Korean: 박보희 / 朴普熙) was a prominent member of the Unification Church. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a major leader in the church movement, leading projects such as newspapers (notably the Washington Times), schools, performing arts projects, political projects such as the anti-communist organization CAUSA International, and was president of the Unification Church International 1977–1991.[1] He was also the president of Little Angels Children's Folk Ballet of Korea.[2]

He was a lieutenant colonel in the South Korean military when he joined the church in the 1950s. Serving church founder Sun Myung Moon as his main English interpreter during speaking tours in the United States, he was referred to in the media as Moon's "right-hand man"[3] (or similarly), such as "Moon's top deputy".[4]

He was the central figure in Moon's publishing businesses, including founding President and Publisher, the News World (later renamed New York City Tribune); founding President and Chairman of the Board, the Washington Times Corporation; and President, World Media Association.[1]

In 1977/1978, Pak testified before the Fraser Committee in its investigation of the Unification Church, commenting: "I am a proud Korean – a proud Moonie – and a dedicated anti-Communist and I intend to remain so the rest of my life."[5] In response to the adversarial investigation, Pak wrote Truth is My Sword. ...

In 1984 Pak was kidnapped in New York City and held for ransom. The FBI arrested the kidnappers, who claimed that the crime was an attempt to change Unification Church policy.[7]

In 1987 at a church gathering, a Zimbabwean Unification Church member who was thought by Moon to be the continuous "channel" on earth for his deceased son Heung Jin Moon, "beat Bo Hi Pak so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital."[8] The Washington Post reported that "Later, Pak underwent surgery in South Korea to repair a blood vessel in his skull, according to Times executives."[9]

In 1994, Pak visited North Korea to attend the funeral of President Kim Il Sung, risking legal trouble by the South Korean government in doing so. In 1998 he visited again, leading a trade delegation representing Unification Church interests with the blessing of the South Korean government.[10]

On July 20, 2004 the Eastern Seoul District Prosecutor imprisoned Dr. Pak and charged him with financial fraud because he was unable to repay his debts to Korean businessmen.[11] In 2006, Pak was released on probation after serving 2 years and 3 ½ months. On November 6, 2006, he sent a letter to be distributed by Unification Church publications worldwide to give an account of his experiences in prison. In the letter he wrote:

Being able to live to the age of 76 was already a great blessing, but in my physical condition, I could not conceive how I would be able to serve time in prison until I became 81. I thought of John the Baptist 2000 years ago. He came with the mission to bear witness about Jesus but ended up dying in prison. I, Bo Hi, have lived with the conviction that I was born with the mission of John the Baptist for the time of the Second Advent. If it was my mission and destiny to die in prison in order to indemnify the failure of the first John the Baptist, then I was resolutely determined to solemnly receive my fate.[12]

Bo Hi Pak was one of the 36 couples

Black Heung Jin Moon – Violence in the FFWPU

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

FBI and other reports on Sun Myung Moon

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Politics and religion interwoven

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in South America

Actividades de la Secta Moon en países de habla hispana

[lj-writes]

Finn’s Parentage Theories: Legends Edition

Clockwise from upper-middle-right.

Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian

Luke and Lando raise a child together, either adopted or through a surrogate. When Kylo destroys the temple, Luke and Lando are devastated when they think their child is killed in the fire. However, all children are brainwashed and recruited by the First Order.

Pros: Uses a fan-favorite ship from Legends, largely thanks to the Marvel Comics. Would give Luke and Lando both a temporary happy ending and a good reason to resign to depression for a while. The timeline would add up and it would give potentially sweet scenes for Finn, Lando, and Luke in Episode IX.

Cons: Would be really depressing. Unlikely for Disney to have an onscreen gay relationship not played for laughs or cheap diversity credit. Would cause some people to view it as Skywalker=naturally good, even though Finn wouldn’t be his biological son.

Nick Rostu

A Force-sensitive warrior from Haruun Kal, Nick Rostu was young at the end of the Clone Wars, but seemed to be about Luke’s age when they met. Regardless, in this universe, Knights of Ren took children while posing as Jedi Knights. Rostu, remembering his friends Mace and Depa, let them, believing their lies that it was for medical purposes. The adults were knocked out, and the Force-sensitive children were stolen to make an elite squad of stormtroopers.

Pros: Allows a Star Wars culture only seen in books to join the screens. Would allow Finn to have a big, loving community to return to as well. Nick’s fighting style is also unique, being a sniper trickster.

Cons: Would come out of nowhere for fans outside of the EU. The timeline wouldn’t add up well. A white director could easily default on stereotypes when designing a culture of jungle-dwellers.

Qu Rahn

Qu Rahn was a young survivor of Order 66, and lived into the early years of the New Republic. With a bit of time displacement, we could change his noble end to be at the hand of Snoke, and his defense of Finn is similar to his defense of Kyle Katarn.

Pros: Would fit with Finn being based off from Kyle Katarn. Adds a connection to one of the most popular EU stories. Would be a way for Finn to get his own lightsaber.

Cons: Could anger Dark Forces fans. Wouldn’t allow closure for Finn’s arc.

Giddean Danu

As one of the signers of the Delegation of 2000, and a founder of the Rebellion, perhaps the Senator of Kuat was imprisoned in a secret Imperial jail, along with his family. His son and his son’s wife had a child after the death of the Emperor, but the Imperial Remnant led by Rae Sloane kept them in captivity and took all Rebellion children to be First Order grunts.

Pros: Reference to the prequels. Allows a new surge of Resistance allies. Some resemblance between Christopher Kirby and John Boyega. Has ties to the Space-Prince Finn theory.

Cons: Would be a bit of a surprise. It’s unlikely Palpatine would take prisoners from the delegation instead of killing them.

Novoc Vevut

In Legends, Novoc adopted and raised the boy who would go on to marry Boba Fett’s grandfather. This version would be biological father to one of the stolen Mandalorian children that he and the new Mandalore Boba Fett have been seeking. Novoc would also have his adopted son Ghes Orade, who would act like a big brother for Finn.

Pros: Similarity to both Mandalorian Finn theory and LJ-writes-verse Sequel Trilogy. Provide a plot-based excuse to bring in Mandalorians and Boba Fett. Would be suitably epic without contradicting previous material.

Cons: Always have to deal with the “Boba should be dead” crowd. Morrison and Logan are both a bit too young to play old Boba (but makeup would fix that). Would raise the question of “where were these guys in the last two movies?”

Barney

One of Luke’s earliest Jedi apprentices, despite not having any real demonstrable Force powers, Barney is a humble, kind man from Marvel comics. He lived on Belderone, a world where AT-AT’s were built, making it a target for First Order raiders. After his home was raided, he has been working any job to pursue any lead as to where his son might be.

Pros: Barney is both sweet and determined, and would be a likable addition. Would also be poor enough to explain a lack of Galactic presence in previous films. Also provide a cute moment for Rey and Finn when she talks about living in an AT-AT, and Finn’s dad makes an instant connection.

Cons: Is named Barney, which is reminiscent of a certain purple dinosaur. Might not reasonably find Finn on his own power. Likable but potentially devoid of conflict once he reunites with his son.

Akanah Norand Goss Pell

Akanah was an ex of Luke’s, and a member of the Fallanassi, a religious organization that thought of the Force as a river known as the White Current, flowing and rippling. Akanah was absorbed into the entity Abeloth, aka Mother of Mortis, and died. However, what if when Abeloth was defeated, she and her avatars transferred to a different timeline rather than a different time period? Akanah, revived, and driven mad by the process, is unable to keep her newborn son in safety.

Pros: Bridge the old and new timelines. Provide a set-up for a potentially grand tenth movie. Add some mystery to an otherwise straightforward saga.

Cons: Somewhat depressing. Akanah would be a bit too old to have a child (but it is sci-fi). Would derail the main conflict of the sequel trilogy.

Katya M’buele

Katya was a friend of Han’s before the Battle of Yavin. In Legends, she died helping Luke fight demons in Marvel’s comics, but this version could live past the battle and become a Rebel Hero like Kes and Shara. She would be in the Resistance, as a slightly older woman, running smuggling and transport operations, always looking for her son that went missing at a young age.

Pros: Ties to the Resistance strengthened. Could appear as a young woman in a Solo sequel. Would not derail the conflict.

Cons: Underwhelming reveal. Ultimately too serendipitous to happen naturally (but there is the Force.) Not a very popular character.

Those are just some theories to rebut the idea that nobody’s thinking of some potential parentages for Finn! I might do a canon one, if this goes over well. My favorite is Luke/Lando, but I think Novoc would make for the best story. (Moth)