#guardian articles that are actually good

[cassowariess]

Absolutely losing it at this Guardian review of the upcoming film Cocaine Bear's trailer:

[inkskinned]

you have to be sexy but you have to be sexy in a way that's kind of bloody. you learn this early because you are wearing a ruffled skirt and the snow around your ankles kicks little sand particles against your calves. baby's first catcall. welcome to sexiness! welcome to the eyesore of your own body!

you have to be sexy like high heels. like sculpted eyebrows. like lean stomach and highly treated hair. you have to be sexy like youth is sexy, which means you have to be sexy like boxtox and plastic. a 30 year old can be sexy but she's not going to be bloody, and they like the bloodiness of it. a 30 year old is sexy when she is a whiskey glass and a wooden desk.

but you need to be sexy like an open mouth. you need to be sexy like a bitten apple. like plucked skin and white-knuckling the waxing kit.

so sex is a performance, not an enjoyment. for a while, you just assumed everyone else was also in on the joke - nobody actually likes sex that much, right? like, some men probably do, but why would you? it is like a gender - your gender is sexy. your gender is the performance of sex. you are thigh highs and garter belts. which, to be fair, do make you feel sexy.

part of what does make sex good is that you can tell that other people want you, which means the performance of sexiness is both bloody and wanted, which is good, which means you are winning at having a body. being wanted is the prize. being wanted is the thing you are searching for, not hope. you think you are looking for a soft grave in easy loam, but that is bloody but not sexy. to be sexy you must be bloody like a red open sign. bloody like a handprint. this will make you wanted.

any wanted or unwanted body is subject to supply and demand, which is to say that the more demand, the better you are valued. you must be highly demanded to be valued. this is stated in matter-of-fact by some men. sometimes it is a priest that says it, and sometimes it is a podcaster, and sometimes it is the 45th president of the united states of america.

(if you do not have any experience with being told your value, i want you to grab the nearest bird to you and i want you to crush it into a thin paste in your hand. spit into the center, and then hold your fingers closed tight around it for days and days, long after the rot has set in. feel bones itch inside of your fist. this is only a fraction of what it actually feels like, but it will suffice for a moment.)

good sex feels like you have earned their desperation. you have earned your own value. for a while you operated under the understanding that everyone knew about the power structure, even him. that their desire to take you - the violence of it - means that you must desire to be caught. little prince, guardian fox - you would rather have cut your own arm off. you liked the secret, cunning little voice you keep tucked into a box. you think you are fucking me. i am not even here right now. you are fucking what i conned you into perceiving. this is a painting, not a person. dominion over the body before all things.

so you bend your body like a wheat shaft and learn the steps so perfectly that it almost seems graceful. (if you do not have experience faking your own connection to your body and sexuality, cut each of your articles of clothing just a little bit incorrectly. pour fishbones into each of your meals. this way, you will experience the average noon on a tuesday.)

you have to be sexy like light spilled over a desk, but not desperate. not a noose. you can't be sexy like an electric guitar, you are the acoustic. you have to be on top of the bull but you can't have control over the animal.

okay, okay. the little rabbit of your heart went to sleep so long ago that winter has ravaged your concept of the human soul. there's something very-bad inside you, something that has taken over, a little fetid and rabid animal, angry and hurting and willing to bite first.

oh but even that's a pain that's sexy. open your mouth. be careful not to let the canines show.

[queerly-autistic]

I've seen a lot of OFMD fans pointing at other fan campaigns recently, especially the failed campaign to save Anne with an E, and getting disheartened by what they see, and I think something that's missing in those discussions (particularly after the weirdly negative slant at the end of that Guardian article) is that not all fan campaigns are the same.

The campaigns to save shows that started out on Netflix (Warrior Nun, Sense8, Anne with an E, Shadow and Bone, etc.) are very different to what we are facing with OFMD, because Netflix is much more protective of its IP - and yes, they even hold the IP of shows that they've cancelled tightly to their chests and very rarely let them go. Some have been able to make the jump to different platforms, but not many, and it's actually pretty hard to do so (“For most shows, shopping away from Netflix is reportedly very difficult when Netflix owns the underlying IP”).

Because of this, fans of shows cancelled by Netflix are often campaigning directly for Netflix to reverse that decision, rather than campaigning to get it picked up elsewhere. Warrior Nun (I saw people panicking at the length of effort and the numbers they had to put in before they got their success) and Sense8 were both granted final films by Netflix to wrap up their stories after long-running successful fan campaigns - they were not saved by a different platform, and likely couldn't have been because of Netflix's strict grip on its IP. So comparing ourselves to fan campaigns for shows cancelled by Netflix isn't accurate or fair to us or to those other campaigns.

It's also worth pointing out that Anne with an E was a joint venture between Netflix and CBC, and that relationship appears to have fallen apart, which may have been a factor in its cancellation (see more at this tweet). This is also likely a contributing factor as to why, despite the campaign to save it being huge, it didn't get the reprieve from Netflix that other shows have received. That is baggage that OFMD simply doesn't have.

OFMD is in a very different position to many of the shows that were cancelled by Netflix and then went on to have fan campaigns around them, in that we have confirmation from HBO Max that they are happy for it to be shopped around. HBO Max is not holding a firm grip on the IP the way that Netflix does. We are able to try to find OFMD a new home. And that's a very different sort of campaign and trajectory than trying to convince the platform that cancelled us to reverse/amend their decision (I'd also argue it's slightly easier - nothing is certain, nothing is easy, but I think we have a better chance being allowed to look for someone else to pick us up rather than relying on the company that cancelled us to show us mercy).

Yes, some fan campaigns have had many more petition signatures than us (don't sniff at 80,000 signatures in two weeks, that's huge and fast), but that is only one part of the story. Petition signatures alone won't be the thing that clinches it. There are fan campaigns with hundreds of thousands of signatures that have failed, but there are also fan campaigns with way less signatures than us that have seen their show saved. There's so many elements at play, and every single one is unique. It's very tempting to play 'like for like' with these sorts of campaigns, but it's simply not a truthful reflection of the situation.

Every show is different. Every fan campaign is different.

We have every reason to be hopeful, and every reason to keep fighting. OFMD's numbers are good, it's already incredibly marketable to other streamers, and then ON TOP of that the fan reaction has been loud enough for a lot of people to take notice.

Yes, we're in a dip right now because that's what happens - every campaign has peaks and troughs because nothing sustains at the same level forever, and, again, it's only been just over two weeks and look at what we've done - but the impact we had, and the noise we made, happened at exactly the right time and kept happening for long enough to make an impression. A lot of things will be happening behind the scenes right now that we don't know about, and there's so many factors at play that we have no control over. It's a long game.

So don't look at other fan campaigns and be disheartened by what you see. Because what you see on the surface is nowhere near close to the full picture.

Even if we don't get our S3, lets celebrate the fact that we have made a huge impression, kicked up a huge stink, and been the thorn in the side of some people who absolutely fucking needed a couple of thorns in their side. And I think that's the best legacy that our rebellious little gay pirate show could possibly have.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

I see your vampire!Bruce Wayne AU and I raise you this:

Normal human Bruce Wayne raising his horde of vampire/dhamphir children, but because Bruce is Bruce no suspects any of the Batkids are, well ... bat kids.

Even the Batkids are confused at first when they first meet Bruce. Batman shows up and they're like:

"Oh, shit it's Batman! The very scary, very territorial Vampire Lord who's completely taken over Gotham and has managed to strike fear into the heart of all the most notorious vampire leaders! And he wants to adopt me into his coven? Sounds sketchy, but aight."

Only for them to wake up the next day and realize that not only is Batman in fact NOT a vampire, but he's also the most pitiful and pathetic human they've ever laid their eyes on and there's no fucking way they can leave him now.

Humans are already super fragile and easy to kill as is. And their new guardian is risking his life every night masquerading as an all powerful Vampire Lord!!!!

It's honestly a miracle that Bruce hasn't been killed yet and there's no way they're going to let their clueless human guardian wander off by himself. Especially after they realize he keeps forgetting that humans aren't supposed to be awake for 72 hours straight and his skin is paler than the giant hoards of case file documents he tries to sift through while barely touching his own food.

This poor idiot human is so committed to pretending to be a vampire that he's actually convinced himself he has night vision and spends more time hanging out in a literal Batcave than he does in his own fucking house!

Meanwhile, Bruce is thoroughly convinced he's got a complete handle on the whole raising vampire/dhampir children thing. After all, it's not like he's had to change much about his own personal life to that of a parent taking care of a horde of supernatural children.

He already spends more time awake at night anyway and while the kids don't mind human food absolutely love Alfred's cooking, it's not difficult to get a hold of any blood when they actually need to feed on something more substantial. Considering he's the biggest contributor to Gotham's blood donation centers, it's not like anyone's gonna tell him no.

Bruce also read somewhere that while vampires in the modern age don't actually need to hunt humans to feed anymore (considering the above mentioned donation centers), their hunting instincts haven't gone away, either. So while he was initially against the idea of letting his kids getting involved in his vigilante lifestyle, it was probably a good thing in the end that they had an alternative outlet for their growing vampiric urges. Like Alfred, he would have preferred it if they had gotten into competitive sports or something similar instead, but all his children had proven themselves to be just as stubborn as he is so he made do with what he could.

Especially considering the fact that a parenting article he read mentioned how extremely sensitive young vampires/dhampirs are towards the well-being of those who make up their coven. Dick, ALONE, had proved how absolutely futile his attempts to separate his night time and day time activities truly were. Apparently, it was detrimental to young vampires to be separated from their parents/guardians for too long. Better he trained them and supervised them himself versus having to re-experience Dick, Tim and Cass stalking him like the supernatural predators they were while doing his nightly patrols.

And if any of his children leaned a bit more into their feral nature whenever Bruce happened to get hurt on patrol, that was just kids' instincts reacting to the head of their coven being threatened. It's taken years of training, grounding and long late night discussions to convince his children to try holding back their supernatural strength and bloody acts of retribution. He still finds himself lecturing them from time to time even if he's fully aware they're all humoring him.

He still has the small collection of baby fangs that Dick had somehow roped all his younger siblings into contributing to over the years. For the life of him, he can't begin to fathom why anyone would want to collect teeth or why his children are so adamant that he holds onto theirs. But ever since he jokingly mentioned the Tooth Fairy to a horrified and offended younger Dick when his first set of baby fangs finally started coming in, it seems his children are determined to make sure no one can even attempt to think about exchanging their fangs for mere quarters.

And for the record (and despite what his children and friends keep on insisting), he never set out to actually pretend to be a "Vampire Lord." He just honestly thought designing his costume around one of his deepest fears would be a good way for him to use that fear against the criminals of Gotham.

He also won't admit that he completely forgot about the obvious association people make between bats and vampires.

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

Yes, there are gay characters in Tolkien’s books

There seems to be an entrenched view among Tolkien fans that Tolkien did not write any gay characters, and that by interpreting any of his characters as gay you are going against what he would have wanted. Homophobes obviously believe this very strongly, and have always been hostile towards queer fans and queer interpretations of Tolkien’s works. Many members of the LGBTQ community also believe that they’re contradicting canon when they interpret Tolkien’s characters as gay—the only difference is they don’t mind doing so.

But is it so against canon to interpret any of Tolkien’s characters as gay? The assumption that Tolkien did not write gay characters hinges on his Catholicism, but I’m going to explain why this is flimsy reasoning.

First, it should be noted that Tolkien didn’t leave any writings expressing his views on homosexuality, so there is no evidence one way or another. But it seems relevant that Tolkien was good friends with W.H. Auden and corresponded with him over multiple decades. They first met when Auden listened to one of Tolkien’s lectures at Oxford and was inspired to learn Anglo-Saxon. Auden loved Tolkien’s poetry and prose and defended LOTR from critics at a time when it was seen as an unserious work in an unserious genre. Did Tolkien know Auden was gay? We don’t know for sure. But there’s at least a chance that he did: the secret of Auden’s homosexuality is one he “loosely kept”, according to an article in the Guardian.

So, Tolkien was friends with a gay man whom he may or may not have known was gay. But are there gay characters in Tolkien’s books? Unfortunately for the homophobes, even if you believe that Tolkien opposed homosexuality on principle, that still doesn’t mean no one in Middle-earth is gay. Actually, no one in Middle-earth is Catholic. I mean that literally, in the sense that Catholicism does not exist in the time period Tolkien wrote about, but I also mean it in the sense that Tolkien’s characters need not adhere to the tenets of his religion, even if it’s not named. Why would they?

It shouldn’t be controversial or surprising to point out that writers can, and often do, write characters that live very different lives from their own. Needless to say, Tolkien didn’t condone the actions of the antagonists of his work, but what about the protagonists? Are we to believe that all of them act in an unfailingly Catholic way at all times? In Laws and Customs of the Eldar, it is strongly implied that (especially in their younger years) Elves do have sex for pleasure and not just to beget children, something that is discouraged by Catholicism. That’s just one example.

(Please note that I’m not arguing that Tolkien’s Catholicism had no influence on his writings, because he explicitly said that it did. I’m saying that Tolkien’s characters themselves are not Catholic and do not necessarily behave like Catholics. So even if you think that all Catholics believe homosexuality is wrong, it has no bearing on Tolkien’s stories.)

Another line of reasoning goes that homosexuality is too taboo for Tolkien—but I have to wonder if people who believe this have read his books at all. The Silmarillion is full of taboo subjects. Túrin and Niënor marry, not knowing they are brother and sister; they find out the truth, and that she is pregnant, and they both commit suicide. Eöl’s relationship with Aredhel is one that, even if it didn’t start out as controlling and abusive—although I suspect it did—it clearly ended up that way, and depending on your interpretation of the text, he may have raped her. Celegorm attempts to force Lúthien to marry him, which would also involve rape, and there is a passage that implies that Morgoth also intends to rape Lúthien. Neither incest, rape or abuse are too taboo for Tolkien—neither are suicide, torture or mass murder, as the rest of the Silmarillion shows.

I don’t want anyone to take this in bad faith: I’m not saying that being gay is comparable to incest, rape or abuse, and I’m part of the LGBTQ community myself. What I am saying is that Tolkien clearly did not shy away from certain subjects, including sexual taboos, simply because they’re taboo. If you’re going to argue that none of Tolkien’s characters are queer because it wasn’t accepted at the time, that’s very unconvincing given the other subject matter in his books.

There is another reason why I think there are gay characters in Middle-earth, and it has to do with Tolkien’s inspirations. It’s well understood by Tolkien fans that you can see echoes of other mythologies in Tolkien’s works. But which ones? When Lúthien brings Beren back from the Halls of Mandos, there are obvious parallels with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—though the genders are reversed, and Lúthien succeeds where Orpheus did not. There are parallels between Túrin and Kullervo. There are numerous examples of this kind of thing throughout the Silmarillion and LOTR. Even the name Middle-earth clearly has its roots in the Norse name Midgard. There are some influences that Tolkien explicitly acknowledged, like the Kalevala and the Völuspá, and some that Tolkien scholars have only theorized about. While there are some scholarly articles on Tolkien and the Aeneid, one thing I have never seen anyone discuss is the parallel between Beleg’s death and the story of Nisus and Euryalus.

In the Aeneid, Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends and lovers who are fighting for Aeneas in Latium. Nisus, the older of the two men, is said to be a skilled javelin-thrower and archer. Nisus proposes a night raid on an enemy camp, and Euryalus insists on going with him. During the raid they kill many men in their sleep, collecting some of their armor as loot, as was customary. But when they leave the camp, the glint of light on a helmet taken by Euryalus is seen by a group of enemy horsemen, who capture and kill him before Nisus can stop them. Nisus is distraught and kills many of them in retaliation, ultimately dying beside his lover’s body. (In some versions, it’s a stolen belt, not a helm—but the constant motif is the glint of light that reveals Euryalus to the enemy.)

There are so many similarities with Beleg and Túrin that it cannot be a coincidence. Beleg and Túrin also fight side by side, first on the marches of Doriath and later when Túrin is an outlaw. They are very loyal to each other, and clearly love each other. Like Nisus, Beleg is known to be a great archer. Meanwhile, although it does not feature in Beleg’s death scene, Túrin is associated with a particularly significant helm. There are differences too: Túrin’s captivity is the reason for Beleg’s raid on the Orc-camp, whereas Euryalus is captured after the raid; both Nisus and Euryalus are slain one after the other, whereas only Beleg dies in the raid on the Orc-camp. But there is still the overarching parallel of the night raid, in which the enemy guards are killed silently in their sleep; the raid’s connection with an attempted rescue; the chance moment that leads to the tragic death; the imagery of the flash of light; and the distraught reaction of Nisus and Túrin when they see that Euryalus and Beleg are dead. Tolkien read the Aeneid as a student and so would have been familiar with its contents.

There is also the fact that in some versions of the story Túrin kisses Beleg on the mouth in this scene. Although kissing someone on the mouth has not always been a romantic gesture in all cultures and time periods, the clear parallels to the scene in the Aeneid lead me to think that it is in this case. Whether you see the relationship between Túrin and Beleg as romantic is up to you—all that I’m trying to do is show that it’s a legitimate interpretation.

Ultimately, like I wrote here, I don’t think you need permission from anyone in order to interpret Tolkien’s stories the way you want to. If you want to interpret one of his characters as gay, you don’t need to cite obscure plotlines from the Aeneid to justify it. But I do take issue with the idea—which is so pervasive in the fandom—that Tolkien’s stories must not have gay, or bisexual, or trans people in them, and that any interpretations to that effect are against canon. At the end of the day, Middle-earth is supposed to be our world, and guess what? Queer people exist.

[moodyseal]

I got too deep into the Schema Theory while writing the paper for one of my exams and it got me thinking about Apollo's coping mechanisms yk

Basically the gist of this theory is that, in the eventuality that their primary needs are not satisfied during their formative years, a child might develop a bunch of different behavioural schemes in their adult life (which are too many to be listed here oh my god) that are a direct reflection of how the parent failed them during childhood

For example, one of these schemes is emotional deprivation, which is a person's tendency to emotionally distance themselves from other people due to the fact that they believe they won't be able to comfort them, and it's a scheme that's formed due to the guardian not satisfying the child's emotional needs. Basically it's formed through a "If my parent couldn't do it, then how could others?" sort of mentality

Another one, which I believe is very relevant here, is the sense of failure, which originates due to the guardian's immensely overbearing nature and the continuous dissatisfaction with the child's efforts. As an adult, the child in question believes that they're inept at everything, even if evidence points to the contrary, because of the fundamental belief that they hold that they're a failure

(Does it remind you of anyone?)

Now, these schemes tend to go hand in hand with modes, which are essentially coping mechanisms that the person uses to deal with whatever life throws at them and whatever negative emotion these schemes bring on. One of these modes is the *squints* scheme overcompensation? Anyway what it says on the article I got the info from is that basically people who use this coping mechanism tend to do the opposite of what their behavioural scheme tells them to do. If they're ashamed, they put down others. If they feel like a failure, they boast. (Again. Who does this sound like.)

AT FIRST it seems like a good coping mechanism but it's actually not, because the overcompensation leads to this vicious cycle where the more a person overcompensates, the more the scheme worsens. In Apollo's case, the scheme we're examining here is his sense of failure; in his overcompensation mode, to avoid feeling incompetent he tries to constantly put himself in the spotlight, drawing attention to his talents. However, he does it in such a ridiculous way (perhaps actually in some form of self-sabotage?) that the people around him insult those talents, call him a failure, and thus worsen his feeling of worthlessness.

(This might be tied to the punitive scheme as well, maybe? Considering how keen Zeus was on punishment, Apollo might've developed this scheme as a result, though over the centuries it could've shifted its focus from everyone to just him idk. The change between "I'm punishing everything and everyone for being so stupid, even my own son + this Ptolemaic god who breathed wrong in my direction" to "Actually I'm chill" seems pretty suspicious to me tbh)

ANYWAY all of this is to say that everything he does is so intrinsically tied to the damage Zeus did to him that it hurts. All his behaviours all his coping mechanisms. Everything

The arrogance is not just a façade he built over the years to hide his feeling of unhappiness and guilt!! It's quite literally an abuse response!!!!

And yeah maybe Leto was the one who spent the most time with him and Artemis and who took the most care of them so technically she should be considered his figure of attachment instead of Zeus but then again. How much time did Apollo spend beside her compared to the time he spent at Zeus' side, after the twins became Olympians? What do a few moments with her in a year do against entire centuries with him?

Leto's influence never really mattered. He was doomed since the beginning

[fuckyeahasexual]

Hi, about the post on Project 2025 - with all due respect, please consider deleting the reblog or add further information. This post contains misinformation and it's dangerous. It's making already vulnerable people panic.

It is NOT a Republican Party manifesto. It's an extreme right-wing group called the Heritage Project's. They're asking conservatives to take it on board. Which sucks but they've always been out there.

If you read articles about it, (pbs) (guardian) you'll find professional journalist specifically say that it's the Heritage Project, it's the Republican Party manifesto.

It's disgusting, and I actually don't think anyone should be encouraged to read hatespeech about themselves when it's from a radical think tank, and not their government.

I'm saying this with love and respect to you because I do think you mean good with all of your heart but first off the American government is not to be trusted. But since you also were unclear what some reblog got wrong I can't really agree or disagree with you so here's just more info in general about Project 2025

And if you don't want a random leftist youtuber here is MSNBC

So respectfully again, because I don't believe we are on the same page. The Heritage Project plus dozens of right wing orgs are organized and moneyed part of the Republican Party. Fascism is here. It's absolutely not just the some extreme right-wing fringe group.. If you spotted something that was untrue to some other post, please reply to the post in question. Or at least let me know what post because you ask is in conflict with itself.

I also don't think anyone should have to read hatespeech about themselves period. Full stop. But the idea that it is a radical think tank, and not their government is wrong. The Heritage Foundation has been directly influencing the government since 1973. I'm not going to debate this either, so the only comment I have left to say is in this video:

[fairuzfan]

I’m looking for sources that can prove Israel is bombing safe routes and blocking Palestinian refugees from escaping to show to my parents (perhaps they won’t listen, but I have to live with them, and I’d like to try). Do you have any links or anything that could be used? Search results were not very helpful for me, linked to mostly Pro-Israeli propaganda about “Hamas actually is blocking them” I found one article by The Guardian and another from Al-Jazeera, if there’s any others out there they were buried under the Zionist search results.

So the issue is, not many reporting sources will state that it's Israel that is blocking them. I'd avoid most Western sources, they're probably never going to explicitly state that.

The sources I get are mostly from on the ground reportings of individuals who have directly stated that they're unable to move because of bombardment. Check the instagrams of a couple people/orgs here:

Bisan: https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/

Plestia: https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/

Motaz: https://www.instagram.com/motaz_azaiza/

Anat International (Not on the ground but her parents are there): https://www.instagram.com/anat.international/

Eye on Palestine: https://www.instagram.com/eye.on.palestine/

Here are some news agencies that I check:

Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/

Electric Intifada: https://electronicintifada.net/

Mondoweiss: https://mondoweiss.net/

I would search within the news agencies themselves. Middle east eye has a week to week blog where they document the major news of each day.

I would also say, if your family is unwilling to accept these results, to try and alter their way of thinking if possible. Rather than following the logic of "Hamas isn't letting them leave" ask why Israel is willingly bombing civilians populated areas? Even if they are trying to target Hamas, the areas are being bombed without concern for civilian life. Is it not on Israel, that claims to value human life, to try and prioritize minimal loss of life?

Essentially, try and reframe the issue at its core: Israel willingly attacking highly dense civilian populations, which they admit to, so how can we blame it on Hamas when Israel is the one dropping the bombs?

From there, I would slowly show a different perspective. This above argument isn't one I totally agree with because it still places some blame on Palestinians for their own massacre, but as an introductory argument it might be useful.

Good luck, and thank you for sending this in.

If someone has specific articles, please feel free to add to this.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This weekend, I watched a hacker jailbreak a John Deere tractor live on stage

Last Saturday, I sat in a crowded ballroom at Caesar’s Forum in Las Vegas and watched Sickcodes jailbreak a John Deere tractor’s control unit live, before an audience of cheering Defcon 30 attendees (and, possibly, a few undercover Deere execs, who often attend Sickcodes’s talks).

The presentation was significant because Deere — along with Apple — are the vanguard of the war on repair, a company that has made wild and outlandish claims about the reason that farmers must pay the company hundreds of dollars every time they fix their own tractors, and then wait for days for an authorized technician to come to their farm and type an unlock code.

Deere’s claims have included the astounding statement that the farmers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tractors don’t actually own those tractors, because the software that animates them is only licensed, not sold:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/04/22/john-deere-just-told-the-copyright-office-that-only-corporations-can-own-property-humans-can-only-license-it/

They’ve also claimed that locking farmers out of their tractors is for their own good, because otherwise hackers could take over those tractors and endanger the food supply. While it’s true that the John Deere tractor monopoly means that defects in the company’s products could affect farms all around the world, it’s also true that John Deere is very, very bad at information security:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

The company’s insistence that they are guardians of farmers and the agricultural sector is a paper-thin cover for monopolistic practices and rent-seeking. Monopolizing the repair and reconfiguration of Deere products gives the company all kinds of little gifts — for example, they can refuse to fix the tractors of dissatisfied customers unless they agree to gag-orders:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

And because so few of us understand information security, or monopoly, or agribusiness (let alone all three!) they can spin their dangerous, grossly unfair practices as features, not bugs. Remember when they trumpeted the fact that they’d remotely bricked some Ukrainian Deere products that had been looted by Russian soldiers?

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

What they didn’t say — and what almost no one pointed out — was that this meant that anyone who could hack John Deere’s system could brick any tractor — including, say, the Russian military’s hacking squads. They also didn’t say that Ukrainian farmers had long chafed under Deere’s corporate control, and had developed illegal third-party tractor firmware that farmers all over the world had covertly installed:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware

And that means that the Russian looters who supposedly were foiled by Deere’s corporate remote killswitches can re-activate their tractors, by using the Ukrainian software developed in response to the company’s monopolistic practices.

Which brings me back to Sickcodes and his awesome presentation at Defcon 30 this weekend. I watched from the front row, sitting next to the repair champion Kyle Wiens, founder of Ifixit, who turned his notes into an excellent Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/kwiens/status/1558688970799648769

As Kyle points out, Deere has repeatedly told state and federal lawmakers and regulators that farmers can’t be trusted to repair or modify their own tractors. This is obviously nonsense: indeed, for decades, Deere product development consisted of sending engineers out to document the improvements farmers had made to their tractors so the company could copy them:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

Writing for Wired, Lily Hay Newman provides some great technical details on the hack, including how Sickcodes acquired (and accidentally broke!) several 2630 and 4240 touchscreen control units, eventually demounting the main controller and soldering it into a new board that he used to probe the system:

https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-tractor-jailbreak-defcon-2022/

He discovered that the system was designed to send an extraordinary amount of data to John Deere — his control unit tried to exfiltrate 1.5GB worth of data once he brought it online. He also discovered that as soon as he was able to conjure up a terminal, he had root access to the system.

This was great news for Sickcodes, but it raises serious questions about Deere’s information security practices. As Kyle points out, this entire system ran on deprecated, unpatched, elderly GNU/Linux software and Windows CE, an operating system that was end-of-lifed in 2018, and which was so bad that people forced to use it typically called it “Wince.”

Sickcodes discovered all kinds of security worst-practices in John Deere’s security — even in the parts of its security that were intended to secure the company’s profits from its own customers’ best interests. For example, at one point Sickcodes put the control unit into maintenance mode by repeatedly rebooting it, so that it refused to allow him to do anything until he brought it to a dealer. He discovered that all it took to convince the computer that he was a dealer was to create an empty text file on its hard-drive whose filename was something like “IAmADealer.txt” (I didn’t write down the exact filename, alas, but that’s not far off!).

Another revelation from Sickcodes: the company made extensive use of free/open source software but seems to be gravely out-of-compliance with the license terms (I’m told that organizations that do legal enforcement of free/open licenses are now aware of this).

So to recap: the company says it has to block farmers from having the final say over their own tractors because they could create security risks and also threaten Deere’s copyrights (the company even claims that locking down tractors is necessary to preventing music infringement, as though a farmer would spend $600k on a tractor so they could streamrip Spotify tracks).

But in reality, the company itself is a dumpster-fire of information security worst practices, whose unpatched, badly configured, out-of-date tractors are a bonanza of vulnerabilities and unforced errors. What’s more, the company — which claims to be staunch defenders of copyright — use their copyright locks to hide the fact that they are committing serious breaches of software copyright.

In serious information security circles, it’s widely understood that “there is no security in obscurity” — that is, hiding how a system works doesn’t make it secure. Usually, this is understood to be grounded in the fact that if you hide your work, you might make mistakes that others would spot and point out to you:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

But there’s another problem with security through obscurity: when you don’t have to show your work to others, you can be sloppy. Whereas, if your work is open to inspection, your own aversion to being seen as slapdash will impose a rigor on your process, which will make the whole thing better:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46

With Deere’s security through obscurity, we see both pathologies on display. The company uses its opacity to commit sloppy security bugs, and also to cover up its violations of copyright law — and then, of course, it accuses its critics of being guilty of those two exact sins. Takes one to know one:

https://doctorow.medium.com/takes-one-to-know-one-104d7d749408

Sickcodes closed out by saying that while his hack required a lot of fiddling with the hardware, he was already scheming to build a little tool that could access and jailbreak a tractor without ripping chips off a board or doing a lot of soldering.

And then he played a custom, farm-themed version of Doom on his jailbroken tractor controller.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A vintage John Deere tractor whose wheel hubs have been replaced with HAL 9000 eyes, matted over a background of the cyber-waterfall image from The Matrix.]

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so who had the government violating human rights law because they hate poor people on their 2023 tory bingo?

yeah so this piece by robert booth just got published in the guardian and it begins as such:

which is not at all surprising because yeah the government really hates poor people here. like as in one of the "solutions" to rising in homelessness in cities is to just,, buy unhoused people a one way train ticket to somewhere else.

its good to know that weve officially reached the level of violating international law. and by good, i dont know what i mean either.

anyway, booth goes on to say:

he is, of course, incredibly correct, and im highkey obsessed with him calling the welfare state "a leaking bucket".

obviously, the government gave a response of:

but did also go on to say this:

which doesnt really strengthen their argument. if anything, it actively hampers it.

it is also incredibly funny that the government's response to being accused of human rights violations due to the poverty in their country by the guy whose job involves being the go-to expert on human rights and poverty is akin to a child saying they didnt steal the chocolate that is staining their clothes and their hands and also they are still eating it.

please join me in pointing and laughing. at least, we have that.

de schutter actually offers solutions of his own within the article:

these, of course, famously being loved by tories. loved so much that they just forgot to do any of it during the last 13 years.

yeah, its been 13 fucking years.

if you dont use your vote to vote them out at the next general election, i will break your kneecaps with a rounders bat.

anyway, robert booth finishes the article off with:

and wheres the fucking lie? it hits the nail on the head so accurately, its honestly as impressing as it is depressing.

obviously, this isnt the entire article and i would implore you to read all of it.

i dont exactly have my hopes up for the government actually doing anything to effectively address poverty, but hey, you never know.

[crowleysgirl56]

So my Facebook memories today reminded me that on this day 8 years ago I posted a link to a Guardian article about the confirmation of Neil Gaiman adapting Good Omens for the screen. My original post had the comment “OMG! HEART ATTACK! HEART ATTACK!” attached to it.

Oh you sweet summer child! If only you knew how 8 years later you would become SO OBSESSED that you’ve consumed about five times more Fanfiction than actual canon content, been opened to the world of erotic smut through said Fanfiction and fan art, and can think of nothing else BUT Good Omens on a daily basis.

Here’s to three more years of waiting for the next season.

Also here’s the original article too!

[qqueenofhades]

You’re the second person I’ve seen reference the music of Swan Lake when talking about the potential fighting between Wagner and the Russian military proper. What is that about?

I encourage your effort to inform yourself, which is why I'll note that this is a question easily answered with a 10-second Google search. For example, if you search "swan lake russia coup" on Google right now, this is what pops up:

This first result is yesterday's article from Business Insider, explaining the significance of "Swan Lake" being played on Russian state TV during moments of domestic political turmoil (the last time being during the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991). Note that Swan Lake is not actually being played on TV during the attempted coup of 2023, as far as we know, but that is what this is referencing.

If you're then interested in learning more about what the last Russian coup attempt involved, you could go to Wikipedia:

And hey! Now you're on your way.

This also goes for the people reblogging my initial post (from last night) with some variant of "there's no evidence for this!!!" or "I hope this is true but I don't think/know if it is." First of all, I literally said in my post that the only evidence for it at the time was what Prigozhin was saying. As I went to bed, the first videos were starting to appear, but there wasn't much confirmation or external verification.

Now there is much more photo and video evidence, providing an independently verifiable route for the Wagner mercenaries from Rostov, to Voronezh, to Lipetsk, to (evidently) Moscow. We don't know exactly what's going on or how it will end, and it's always a good idea to question everything that comes out of Russia, as their official government channels/power structure lies about everything all the time. However, if you're interested in reviewing the evidence for yourself or making a determination as to what has been verified, there are options! For example, here is the Guardian's liveblog:

Basically: not everything is a "gotcha" where Superior Internet Users need to find some way to prove that I'm actively lying to them, and you don't need to fall back on "learned helplessness" when hearing things on social media and wanting to find some way to externally verify them through other news sites. Obviously it can be tricky, and I stress again, nobody knows for sure what's going on. But something definitely is going on, this has now been confirmed by a number of external video/photo/government/other entities both outside and inside Russia, and we will have to wait like everyone else to see what happens next.

[jalwyn21]

Being seen with a woman would give the media an excuse to ignore his work and talk about ts and his private life ... again! - So TH fan here again. Almost every mention of Tom post 2016 came with a tag somewhere in the article that he had once dated TS. Even when he was interviewed about his play for the NYT they managed to get it in there by mentioning he had requested no questions about it. It only really started to end when TS and Joe broke up. And it’s not like dating her is the only noteworthy thing he had done so as a fan, seeing it every fucking time was infuriating. I hate to be a Debbie downer, but I think it may be in Joe’s future too. I hope for not as long but a mention of TS brings clicks so it’s a possibility.

Oh, I know. I didn't mean that the media won't mention her or call him her ex. But there is a huge difference between her being mentioned in a paragraph and the hugely disrespectful, humiliating articles like that vanityfair one. Joe Alwyn Has Emerged This is insulting.

I don't want them to have an excuse to write entire articles about him being her ex. This is what I meant by forcing the media to talk about his work. Last week was good. They had to talk about him being in Yorgos Lanthimos' upcoming film. Yeah, they still mentioned that he is her ex but they had to talk about his work for a change..

And The Guardian grew a spine and wrote a good article too. Considering the British media failed to support Tom H when he was globally humiliated because of her, it was nice seeing a British paper actually doing the right thing and supporting Joe. Hopefully they will do a better job for Joe than they did for Tom.

[real-life-senshi]

We have another Keiko Interview related to Sailor Moon, posted on June 30, 2023 JST!!! There's both a video of the interview and a partially transcribed interview article.

This time it's on Oricon News. Here's my attempt to translate the article.

Kitagawa Keiko, Encouragement to Her Rookie Era Self, Meeting Her Friends... Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is "Life Itself"

Actress Kitagawa Keiko (age 36) is voicing the key character Sailor Cosmos in movie Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos (Part 2) (released on June 30th), which is the final chapter to the new movie series of the popular anime Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Kitagawa stated that to her Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is "life itself". In this interview, she looked back on her time as a rookie and talked about her strong feelings for this series, which she has a fateful connection to that can be described as a "miracle romance".

***OP Note: the direct quotes are quite long in this, so I highlight the quotes in Mars's colour to make it easier to read. 🔥

■ When working on her debut in the live-action, she was met with a series of setbacks. A word of advice she offered to her rookie self: "It's okay."

She met [Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon] when she was in kindergarten. She read the original work by Takeuchi Naoko that was serialized in the "Nakayoshi" (translation: Good Friends) magazine, and reminisced on her reaction that "the images are cute, the colours are beautiful, the costume and accessories, all of them are sparkling and shiny, I want to be like that! Those were the thoughts I had. [Sailor Moon] was like a slightly older and mature, cute older sister to me. When [Usagi] transforms, she's strong. She is so cool when she gathers her strength to face her enemy. My first encounter with [Sailor Moon] was so striking, it was like being struck by a bolt of lightning."

Later while in high school, she was scouted by an agency, and her first audition was for the live-action Tokusatsu drama Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (TBS) in 2003. "I felt like I was destined for it. That I joined the entertainment industry at the right time when the live-action was in the works. My favourite had always been Rei-chan, so I actually declared I wanted to play Rei-chan in the audition, but I didn't think I would actually be accepted for the role."

She received the role of Sailor Mars/Hino Rei, a role she had longed for. "At the time of the audition, I felt I love Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon more than anyone else, and I love Rei-chan, so I approached the audition with confidence. But when I arrived at the audition site, I realized there were so many other cute girls who also love Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, who are good at singing and dancing and full of many other talents. I immediately lost all my confidence, so I couldn't believe it when I was accepted for the role. I jumped into the production in a state of lacking confidence after realizing there are so many more talented girls out there." Despite what seemed like a smooth sailing start, she experienced many setbacks because it was her debut work.

"With no prior-career experience at all, and this being my first acting job, I cried every day. I didn't know what to do. Starting from a blank slate with nothing, every day was tough even though I was holding my dream in my hand. But because this is my favourite series, I gave my best, trying my hardest with a mindset of responsibility and obligation to this series to deliver good performance. I tried to boost my confidence by thinking 'I'm the only one who could play Rei-chan'. I could only imagine how many people were looking forward to the live-action version of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, so I worked hard with that in mind."

If she could say something to her old self now... "Back then, I was agitated and impatient with myself every day, thinking I can't keep staying like this, it was really tough. I felt I was holding the others back because of the experience gap I had among the Sailor Senshi team. But there was also no use in not believing in myself. That's why, I want to say 'Calm down, it's okay'"' to myself", she said with a warm and gentle gaze.

■ Taking on the challenge of voice acting with the "Sailor Senshi" team's support. Would she upload a group photo after viewing the final product? "I want to take a picture with everyone"

The live-action filming lasted 14 months. "We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and became comrades-in-arms from overcoming hardships from the filming process. Knowing the fact that each of us is doing our best in our respective lives gives me courage." "The 5 Sailor Senshi" consists of Kitagawa, Sawai Miyuu, Izumi Rika, Amaza Mew, and Komatsu Ayaka, who co-starred in the series at that time, are still good friends and in frequent communication with each other. This time when she received the offer, as someone who played Sailor Mars/Hino Rei in the live-action series, she was shocked to be asked to voice Sailor Cosmos and wondered "Is it alright for me to take this on?"

"I voice the ultimate form of Sailor Moon from the distant future. In my mind, Sailor Moon was always either Mitsuishi Kotono-san or Sawai Miyuu-san from the live-action. That's why I was at a loss on what to do about [the offer]. However, everyone said 'you should definitely do it'. They were really excited by the prospect of having a member from our live-action Senshi team be involved with Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon again, especially on the year of 20th anniversary of the live-action airdate, and they were happy for me to be asked to do it. That was really the deciding factor for me [to accept the job]" These were the support she received.

On a side note, these "Senshi" members still get together on a regular basis, and their group photos are always a hot topic on social networking sites. "I think we're getting tired of the photos by now. lol 'What do we want to do? Photo? Since we made the effort to come together, we should take a photo, shouldn't we?' is how it always ends up being. lol I think everyone would probably go see the new movie even if I'm not in it, that they'd want to see it. I want to go see it with them. I want to take a photo with them in front of the theatre signboard", she said, explaining their unchanging friendship.

■ "If you play the role as you feel it, it will definitely produce good results," she expresses gratitude for Mitsuishi Kotono's advice

In this new film, a new enemy "Shadow Galatica" appears, and with her friends targetted one after another, Sailor Moon and her team are once again thrown into battle. In playing the role of Cosmos, she said "[Cosmos] has overcome and transcended after many happenings, she is neither mere human nor Senshi but instead shines like a goddess, and she has a gentleness and warmth that seem to embrace everything, but also a core of strength from overcoming pain and hardships. It's very difficult to try to express everything in voicing her. A holy maiden who embraces and supports the Senshi team, is the image I wanted to portray and thought of", she said.

Working on the dubbing "was nothing but difficulty. I was not used to working as a voice actor, and I had only voiced boys before, so this was my first time playing a woman. It was difficult to explore the pitch and volume of the voice. Like wondering how should I tone my voice and how loud should I raise my voice, etc... During the testing phase, I fine-tuned my voice with the direct, but even with that I wasn't used to the process of fine-tuning itself. I usually do most of my acting involving my whole body, so it was very difficult to be limited to voice only. I was also nervous to stand in front of the microphone," she shared about her struggles.

Meanwhile, "I received a voicing guide video for reference, and it was Mitsuishi-san voicing Cosmos in it. I had goosebumps when I listen to it. After that I contacted Mitsuishi-san, she said, 'this is only a guide, and if Keiko-chan plays the role as you feel it, you'll definitely produce something good, so have fun in the process.' To be made welcomed by Mitsuishi-san, who has been the lead of "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon for so long, gave me courage." she shared about the encouragement she received from Mitsuishi Kotono who has starred as the lead role of Sailor Moon/Tsukino Usagi for many years.

Speaking of Mitsuishi, she played the role of Kitagawa's mother in Rikokatsu, the drama series in which she starred in the April 2021 season. "I was happy to be able to co-star with Mitsuishi-san on Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, not only because I felt bonded with the series, but also because I feel a bond with Mitsuishi-san. The fact that every time I work on a production of personal significance, that I happen to also work with Mitsuishi-san, it's coming to an extent where I wonder if a bond was established between us in a past life. I never thought that two years after Rikotatsu we would be working together again. That time Mitsuishi-san jumped into a field she said she was not used to at a film site. This time it's me jumping into Mistuishi-san's field... I'm happy that this kind of exchange keeps happening," she said joyfully.

It was the starting point of her life as an actress, what led her to the irreplaceable bonds she formed, and now she is once again involved in voicing an important character in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. "To me Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is my life itself. The series has been with me and been my favourite since I was in kindergarten. I admired the characters and aspire to be as awesome as the girls, made my debut and play one of them. I am still connected to the friends I made through working on the series and they have supported me throughout my life. It has become such a big part of me, that's why I have the feeling that the series is as important to me as life itself. "

[melyzard]

I was wondering if you have resources on how to explain (in good faith) to someone why AI created images are bad. I'm struggling how to explain to someone who uses AI to create fandom images, b/c I feel I can't justify my own use of photoshop to create manips also for fandom purposes, & they've implied to me they're hoping to use AI to take a photoshopped manip I made to create their own "version". I know one of the issues is stealing original artwork to make imitations fast and easy.

Hey anon. There are a lot of reasons that AI as it is used right now can be a huge problem - but the easiest ones to lean on are:

1) that it finds, reinforces, and in some cases even enforces biases and stereotypes that can cause actual harm to real people. (For example: a black character in fandom will consistently be depicted by AI as lighter and lighter skinned until they become white, or a character described as Jewish will...well, in most generators, gain some 'villain' characteristics, and so on. Consider someone putting a canonically transgender character through an AI bias, or a woman who is not perhaps well loved by fandom....)

2) it creates misinformation and passes it off as real (it can make blatant lies seem credible, because people believe what they see, and in fandom terms, this can mean people trying to 'prove' that the creator stole their content from elsewhere, or allow someone to create and sell their own 'version' of content that is functionally unidentifiable from canon

3) it's theft. The algorithm didn't come up with anything that it "makes," it just steals some real person's work and then mangles is a bit before regurgitating it with usually no credit to the original, actual creator. (In fandom terms: you have just done the equivalent of cropping out someone else's watermark and calling yourself the original artist. After all, the AI tool you used got that content from somewhere; it did not draw you a picture, it copy pasted a picture)

4) In some places, selling or distributing AI art is or may soon be illegal - and if it's not illegal, there are plenty of artists launching class action lawsuits against those who write the algorithm, and those who use it. Turns out artists don't like having their art stolen, mangled, and passed off as someone else's. Go figure.

Here are some articles that might help lay out more clear examples and arguments, from people more knowledgeable than me (I tried to imbed the links with anti-paywall and anti-tracker add ons, but if tumblr ate my formatting, just type "12ft.io/" in front of the url, or type the article name into your search engine and run it through your own ad-blocking, anti tracking set up):

These fake images reveal how AI amplifies our worst stereotypes [Source: Washington Post, Nov 2023]

Humans Are Biased; AI is even worse (Here's Why That Matters) [Source: Bloomburg, Dec 2023]

Why Artists Hate AI Art [Source: Tech Republic, Nov 2023]

Why Illustrators Are Furious About AI 'Art' [Source: The Guardian, Jan 2023]

Artists Are Losing The War Against AI [Source: The Atlantic, Oct 2023]

This tool lets you see for yourself how biased an AI can be [Source: MIT Technology Review, March 2023]

Midjourney's Class-Action lawsuit and what it could mean for future AI Image Generators [Source: Fortune Magazine, Jan 2024]

What the latest US Court rulings mean for AI Generated Copyright Status [Source: The Art Newspaper, Sep 2023]

AI-Generated Content and Copyright Law [Source: Built-in Magazine, Aug 2023 - take note that this is already outdated, it was just the most comprehensive recent article I could find quickly]

AI is making mincemeat out of art (not to mention intellectual property) [Source: The LA Times, Jan 2024]

Midjourney Allegedly Scraped Magic: The Gathering art for algorithm [Source: Kotaku, Jan 2024]

Leaked: the names of more than 16,000 non-consenting artists allegedly used to train Midjourney’s AI [Source: The Art Newpaper, Jan 2024]

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

The basic facts of mass hunger and death, although sometimes reported in the European and American press, never took on the clarity of an undisputed event. Almost no one claimed that Stalin meant to starve Ukrainians to death; even Adolf Hitler preferred to blame the Marxist system. It was controversial to note that starvation was taking place at all. Gareth Jones did so in a handful of newspaper articles; it seems that he was the only one to do so in English under his own name. When Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna tried to appeal for food aid for the starving in summer and autumn 1933, Soviet authorities rebuffed him nastily, saying that the Soviet Union had neither cardinals nor cannibals – a statement that was only half true. Though the journalists knew less than the diplomats, most of them understood that millions were dying from hunger. The influential Moscow correspondent of the New York Times, Walter Duranty, did his best to undermine Jones’s accurate reporting. Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, called Jones’s account of the famine a “big scare story”. Duranty’s claim that there was “no actual starvation” but “only widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition” echoed Soviet usages and pushed euphemism into mendacity. This was an Orwellian distinction; and indeed George Orwell himself regarded the Ukrainian famine of 1933 as a central example of a black truth that artists of language had covered with bright colors. Duranty knew that millions of people had starved to death. Yet he maintained in his journalism that the hunger served a higher purpose. Duranty thought that “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” Aside from Jones, the only journalist to file serious reports in English was Malcolm Muggeridge, writing anonymously for the Manchester Guardian. He wrote that the famine was “one of the most monstrous crimes in history, so terrible that people in the future will scarcely be able to believe that it happened.” In fairness, even the people with the most obvious interest in events in Soviet Ukraine, the Ukrainians living beyond the border of the Soviet Union, needed months to understand the extent of the famine. Some five million Ukrainians lived in neighboring Poland, and their political leaders worked hard to draw international attention to the mass starvation in the Soviet Union. And yet even they grasped the extent of the tragedy only in May 1933, by which time most of the victims were already dead. Throughout the following summer and autumn, Ukrainian newspapers in Poland covered the famine, and Ukrainian politicians in Poland organized marches and protests. The leader of the Ukrainian feminist organization tried to organize an international boycott of Soviet goods by appealing to the women of the world. Several attempts were made to reach Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States. None of this made any difference. The laws of the international market ensured that the grain taken from Soviet Ukraine would feed others. Roosevelt, preoccupied above all by the position of the American worker during the Great Depression, wished to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The telegrams from Ukrainian activists reached him in autumn 1933, just as his personal initiative in US-Soviet relations was bearing fruit. The United States extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in November 1933.

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin