#i hope this post gets a billion notes so that all those losers see it and feel ashamed

[chilope]

zero respect when people get all "oh nooooo i sure hope this post doesn't get a zillion noootes teehee, stop reblogging I can't have this be what people remember me for 🥺🤭" all coy and shit when the option to disable reblogs is right there. strangle that post in its crib to prove you're not a poser.

[politicaltheatre]

Depraved Indifference

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

- Donald Trump, at a campaign stop at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, January 23, 2016

This quote didn’t find its way into the second impeachment trial of the now-former President, but it should have. In a better world it would have, but in that better world a man such Donald Trump would not ever have been elected to any office, let alone one as powerful as president. And yet, somehow he was.

Donald Trump is no longer president, something his defenders, standing before the Senate and sitting among the trial’s jury, have taken great pains to try to focus our attention on.

Note how they talk about the importance of “moving on” and getting over it, thereby distancing us and, far more importantly, themselves from what was done.

Note how they try to frame the charge against Trump - “inciting violence against the government of the United States” - as merely “partisan” and “political”, something devoid of any legal justification or standing, as if the crimes were not witnessed by billions around the world in real time.

Note how, when faced with having to face the morally depraved actions they either encouraged or enabled in Trump and those who followed him, and having to defend their own complicity in the indefensible result, they turn to not even a little bit thinly veiled threats against those daring to accuse. Any retribution, they do declare, any continuation of violence against Trump’s declared enemies, that will be on you.

This has all the subtlety and predictability of a trial in the Jim Crow South, and, given the number of Confederate flags waving inside the Capitol on January 6th, that really isn’t too strong a comparison.

Trump, as anyone anywhere in the world even casually paying attention should know, is entirely guilty of inciting that riot. He spent years cultivating doubt in the electoral system, months casting doubt on the 2020 mail-in voting results, and, finally, weeks spreading blatant lies about voting fraud, ones that he continues to tell to this day.

He did all of this while encouraging and enabling exactly the kind of violence done on his behalf that we all saw on the 6th and, as the House impeachment managers have helpfully shown at length, in the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to it.

“Stand back and stand by”, right? The Proud Boys stuck that on t-shirts.

If the videos the House managers have played have failed to persuade, we tell ourselves, perhaps the evidence of Trump’s Defense and Justice departments undermining the Capitol police and National Guard’s response will. How about a timeline of Trump’s fiddling while the Capitol burned and his own Vice President quite literally ran for his life? No? Really?

You don’t need a lot of time to prepare a case when the defendant has been caught, figuratively, thousands of times in the middle of Fifth Avenue with a smoking gun. Trump’s thumbs offered up hundreds of smoking guns to choose from. Videos of his post-election rallies do, too. The ones he posted that day, hours after the breach, calling the men and women hunting “traitors” of both parties and battering Capitol police with American flags “patriots”, well, that’s a prosecutor’s dream. Or should be.

So, yes, he is guilty. Very, very, very guilty.

Ah, but so are at least three of his jury members: Josh Hawley, James Lankford, and Ted Cruz. They all gave credence to Trump’s lies, they all gave weight to those lies by demanding that the Senate investigate them once more and yet again before confirming the election, and that day they all cynically and repeatedly called for the rejection of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.  Well, Hawley and Cruz did; Lankford was trying to when he was evacuated.

They were no less guilty of trying to profit from the misplaced and misguided rage of those storming the Senate chamber than Trump, and, if the rioters’ own social media accounts are to be believed, Hawley and Cruz at the very least were no less accountable for them being there. Lankford, it seems, needs to up his social media game.

Those three senators, of course, are not on trial. They are merely jurors charged with deciding the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump for doing what they did themselves. They will be joined in their guaranteed “No” votes by at least 41 other Republican senators who, like them, once again voted to claim that, despite over 200 years of clear legal precedent, this impeachment trial is “unconstitutional”.

It’s no shock that the House managers’ detailed legal history lesson fell on deaf ears, nor is it that those three and other Trump Republicans were caught “reading” during the presentation of evidence. Rand Paul, whose own ridiculous claims about the election and trial have been followed by threats of retaliation, was caught doodling like teen stuck in detention.

This, not anything said by Trump’s crack legal team, is the argument for the defense: they know what Trump did, they know it was wrong, they know what they’re doing, and they know that’s wrong, too. And they do not care. They do not care.

These aren’t stupid people, they’re just dishonest. More specifically, they’re corrupt. What they believe, what they take as a matter of faith, is that they’ll face no real consequences for anything they’re doing or anything they’ve done.

And who’s to tell them they’re wrong? What’s the worse Hawley or Cruz will face? Censure? You can’t shame the shameless. They’ll wear their censures the same way Trump would, as a badge of courage on which they can raise campaign money and, they hope, draw out votes from Trump’s millions of rabidly loyal supporters.

For Hawley, Cruz, and others already campaigning for 2024, that’s all that matters. For them, this is just an opportunity, a means to an end, as they pursue their highly profitable careers in politics. It’s just business. For them, Trump, and every other one in Congress, on TV, and on social media who chose to ignore what people might do if they lied to them and wound them up, and for all of those choosing to ignore the consequences of it now, that’s all this is: just business.

And that’s the problem.

Politics shouldn’t be a business. We know that without even having to be told. When we talk about it, we do so in terms of “service” and “doing one’s duty”, words and phrases that romanticize the selfless nature we want to see in our politics and our politicians. We don’t just do that because that’s how we’ve always heard it spoken of, we do that because we know that the ones who embody that ideal are rare. There’s just too much evidence to deny it.

Go back far as you want, there have been men and women seeking power for the purpose of defending themselves and their friends from accountability. Back in the day, they sought appointments through connections or simply joined the clergy. These days, they run for office.

The political party in this country that currently stands against accountability is the Republican Party. Sure, the Democratic Party has its own sizable share of complicity for allowing the country’s drift into right-wing aggressive selfishness, but, lucky for us, it hasn’t been able to rid itself of its accountable members the way the Republican Party has. Of course, that’s only natural, given the importance of accountability to the political Left.

The last two Republican presidents were elected in no small part because they had a background in business. Yes, they each ran their businesses into the ground, but they ran them.

George W. Bush came into office as a “corporate” president, one who would, we were assured, delegate to those more experienced and skilled in areas where he was…lacking. We waved away his inadequacies and were somehow shocked when he failed in exactly every one of those areas. Still, he and his friends made money hand over fist, so the corporate presidency was good for business, big business, in particular, which got a big bailout.

Donald Trump should have inspired even less confidence, but confidence man that he is, he played enough suckers to get him in the White House. As much pain, suffering, and death as he has caused in four excruciatingly long years, he and his cronies have made out like gangbusters, too. The government they were hired to manage, not so much.

From the start, he and his cabinet secretaries lived by the old rule, “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission”. Not that they asked for forgiveness. That’s for losers. They broke laws, fleeced taxpayers, and resigned knowing that whatever penalty they might face would pale compared to the profits they took with them.

This is the mentality that drives corporate decision making around the world. For them, the adage is a bit more like, “better to settle a lawsuit than risk profits”. They, too, avoid apologies whenever possible. That keeps the damages paid to to victims and their families lower.

Currently, there are companies selling cars, drugs, baby food, and other products that they know are defective and a threat to the people using them. They know this. They know there’s a high risk that people will die, and they do it anyway. Instead of recognizing the threat and stopping, they do cost-benefit analyses to determine the number of deaths from their products they can afford.

This, it’s worth stating, is not capitalism. We may tell ourselves that it is, but that’s just us looking for an easy answer, a scapegoat for our own failures. In fact, this pattern was just as common under communism, too; just ask anybody who used to live near Chernobyl. Mistakes are hidden, a given number of deaths are accepted, and the perception of success and prestige is maintained.

This is corruption, and deaths and suffering caused by a lack of accountability are what corruption does. A death is a symptom, a great, big red flag, something to tell you that something is very, very, very wrong, but how many of those red flags do we see and ignore before we finally stop to ask what it is we’ve been seeing?

How many smaller red flags, such as poverty, racism, anti-semitism, police brutality, injustice, and sexual abuse, do we pass because we’ve just become so used to seeing them? Do we tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do? Do we even ask if there is anything we can do? Or do we, as so many senators are now preparing to do, instead embrace corruption as a virtue.

This is the real threat, a system that accepts this and holds no one accountable, and a culture that pushes back against demands for accountability, embracing the very worst of who we are and what we can do to others just to prove that we can. The result is a flood of childish acting out and a loss of trust in products and services that we must be able to trust because they are supposed to keep us safe.

Is this as great a threat to our society as the January 6th attack on the Capitol? This is that attack. The product failures that led to the attack were political. We have watched as our political and government institutions have failed. We have watched as those entrusted to deliver a product that works and keeps us safe have, again and again, deliberately or not, betrayed that trust. As with any other product sold, each breach of trust carries over into the next, accumulating and compounding, eroding not just our ability to trust those products but all products like them.

Think of the doubts Americans have about the safety of vaccines? Sure, we can chalk that down to internet conspiracy theories and echo chambers if we like, but would they have gained the traction they have in a world in which we weren’t inundated with ads featuring paid-non-attorney-spokespersons asking us if we or a loved one took this drug or that and had experienced one or more life threatening side effects? How many of us heard about the Covid-19 vaccines and asked, How long before we see the ads for that?

For decades, we have allowed ourselves to become a nation of beta-testers, taking on the cost and burden of quality control that the companies releasing and profiting from these products, and these class action lawsuits have become big business as a result. Every new pharmaceutical product that hits the shelves, part of us is just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Time and the success of these vaccines should put an end to that, at least for this pandemic, but that we have to do so should tell us about the work we have to do to repair our society, or to build one that can exist without absolving us from being accountable to each other.

Until then, we have other kinds of corruption to face, including one that may be more destructive than anything we’re seeing in the Senate this week.

The Reddit-GameStop insurrection might have been fun to watch from the sidelines, a bit of schadenfreude for those of us on the outside of Wall Street, looking in, but the truth is the hedge fund villains still made their money, and the systemic fault lines this episode exposed should have us all scared and paying attention.

Our economy is overly concentrated in Wall Street’s product and therefore overly dependent on its success and stability. A loss of faith in its product has been underway for years. That’s how you get to day traders trying to take on hedge funds the way they did. This wasn’t David vs Goliath, this was guerrilla warfare over who gets to make the quick and easy profits.

The upside of that is that some of the “little guys” seem to win something; the downside of that is that it does nothing to fix the problems we have with Wall Street. Rather, it only makes them worse, by highlighting how easy it is to manipulate stocks and commodities and how few get to do it and get away with it.

What happens, then, when no one has any faith left in Wall Street? What happens when everyone believes it is nothing more than a casino designed to take money rather than make it?

Well, we’re almost there. We have a massive, growing online gambling industry, and with it an online gambling problem. Sports leagues, some with their own recent histories of cheaters (and worse) getting away with it, have turned their own fans onto gambling as part of the sport. How many of these people, blowing their money on bad beats, think of it as no different than investing on Wall Street stocks?

A better question: What happens to all of those stock prices when everyone, including the crooks on Wall Street, lose faith in that system, take their profits, and leave? An even better question: What happens if they do that all at once?

The answer is: Lost jobs, pensions, food and housing security, and hope.

In other words, 2020 on steroids. That’s what you get with corruption, an environment in which politicians like Donald Trump, companies willing to harm consumers, and right wing domestic terrorists thrive. As long as they aren’t held accountable, they will.

“Bad for the country”, indeed.

- Daniel Ward

[thefabelmans2022]

for the writer asks: 💜👶👀⭐️💻🎀💬💭💘 + one you want to answer that you haven’t been asked yet!! xoxox

i'm so sorry this took me long. i'm not gonna make excuses i just forgot about it i'm so sorry.

💜: top 3 favourite lines

god that's so hard but i'm gonna go with:

"He was a part of a group, a collective, a chain of seven. When there’s a chip in one link, the other six keep it together." from An Abnormal Defect of Moral Control (IT)

"...there’s a small, quiet, guilty part of him that hopes it isn’t a joke, and thinks that maybe together they can live with the sadness, and maybe he loves this stupid boy with all of the madness in his soul. And there’s a lot of madness in it." also from An Abnormal Defect of Moral Control

"Lindsay checked out her nails as the boys fought...She made a mental note to go to the salon after rehearsal, assuming the boys hadn’t killed each other by then." from TBA (Arrested Development)

👶: advice for new writers

this is such cheesy advice god but i think one of the best things you can do is just write. if it's bad, so what? it's still writing, and it's still practice (practice makes perfect!) and you can learn something from it. you can look back at your "bad" writing, figure out what it is you don't like about it, and remember that for the next thing you write.

another piece of advice is probably simpler: read. i think stephen king says this in On Writing. read fic, read books, look at what you like and try and emulate it (but don't like straight up copy it).

👀: favourite response to one of your works

my friends always leave the sweetest comments on my stories ily guys. on my most recent fic (shameless plug - you're in a hammock with a beautiful boy, IT, reddie, 600 words, mutual pining, check it out) dee (@gobbluthlesbian) left an amazingly sweet comment and i cried lmao. jj (@foxmulldr) said some really lovely stuff about the narration and writing style in An Abnormal Defect of Moral Control (not linking it again i've already linked it twice) and all of the comments on that fic from other people with ADHD made me so happy. along those lines, some people with bipolar disorder left really nice comments on Magic And Bees (again, AD) and on that same fic the first comment was from @pega-and-the-pen and i had just finished see you on the b-side (MOST ICONIC AD FIC) so i freaked the fuck out when i got that email

⭐: how do you get your inspiration?

mostly from music, which is probably why most of my fic titles are song lyrics. other times it's from conversations with my friends, and tbh sometimes i just daydream about fictional characters and sometimes turn those daydreams into fics.

💻: three works of yours that are must reads?

Magic And Bees (Arrested Development - bipolar Gob gets help from Tobias)

A Bluth Family History (Arrested Development - 20th century history as experienced by the Bluth family)

An Abnormal Defect of Moral Control (IT - Eddie stops taking his medication and tries to cope with the re-emergence of his undiagnosed ADHD)

🎀: favourite story

of mine or just in general? my favourite of mine is probably either An Abnormal Defect of Moral Control because it's very much based on my own experiences and it's really personal, or TBA because i'm a sucker for band AUs and i really like the dynamic between the characters.

in general: the Piano Man series by @valenciaperez (which i mention a lot but i'm not gonna stop i will preach the Piano Man gospel until i die), The Edification of Eddie Kaspbrak by @rebeccabunch, see you on the b side, babe by @pega-and-the-pen

💬: describe one of your completed works in three words

me? completing a story? it's less likely than you think

A Bluth Family History: history, pop-culture (i hyphoneates it it counts), family

💭: any ideas for a possible WIP?

maybe? as well as the billions of WIPs i already have i've been thinking about an IT fic about mike and eddie being the last two losers left in derry, and i've kinda got a post-chapter 2 fix-it fic idea but rn it's mostly just excerpts from the Losers' club group chat

💘: what's your favourite AU? least favourite?

i'm always a slut for a band AU!! i'm also lowkey always a slut for a friends with benefits AU but pretend you didn't hear that.

anyway, i don't know if i have a least favourite AU, but i think i often like the idea of hogwarts AUs better than the execution, if that makes sense? like i like thinking about what houses the characters would be in and all that but i'm not really as interested in the actual hijinks they get up to. which is ironic considering one of my many unfinished fics IS a hogwarts AU.

one i haven't been asked but want to answer:

✏️: favourite thing about writing

the feeling of having made something.

(and the friends i made bc we commented on each other's fics ily alex)

[theattainer]

THE TEN WORST THINGS YOU CAN DO IN A NEGOTIATION

https://files.admin.agorafinancial.com/images/jamesonthestreet.png

http://theattainer.com/the-ten-worst-things-you-can-do-in-a-negotiation-2/

THE TEN WORST THINGS YOU CAN DO IN A NEGOTIATION

The best negotiator I knew always acted like an idiot. He acted so well that I thought he was really stupid. I also thought at the time that he was my best friend.

That was probably an act also. Just two years later he stopped talking to me forever.

I ran into him in the street the other day. He smiled and shook my hand. I felt warm, like he liked me again. Then he was gone.

Negotiation is first about warmth. Two sides deciding if they want to be friends with each other. If they want to be in the same tribe, fighting side by side in this harsh world.

After that it’s about vulnerability. Making yourself into the type of person someone else wants to take care of.

This is not a mystery. When a baby is born the negotiation begins. It lasts until at least the baby is an adult.

My oldest turns 16 tomorrow. She negotiates with me every day. I love her. But maybe that’s what makes her such a tough negotiator.

I’m not so good at realizing where all the boundaries are.

Between the outer me and the inner me. Between the me that always loves her and the me that wants her to love me back.

I guess that’s how I am with everyone. If they don’t love me back, I’m afraid, I’ll be less happy.

If I’m honest where the boundaries are, then we can begin to set up the rules. Then love begins.

Tricky!

I’ve probably seen over 1000 negotiations in action. I’ve probably been directly involved in 100 or so.

Every day life is a negotiation. I’m not talking in this post about the every day negotiations although the same rules apply. I’m talking about negotiations where careers and money and reputations and maybe love is at stake.

For me, that latter is the hardest. So take my advice with a grain of salt. In fact, I’d rather tell you all the ways in which I’ve messed up in negotiations. Because this is really the classroom I learned in.

A) IF YOU HAVE A SMALL LIST OF TERMS, YOU LOSE.

Let’s say you are selling a company. One side is usually focused on the final price. That side will henceforth be called “the loser”.

Make your list bigger: what are the terms of the non-compete, what is the length of the earn out, what are the salaries of the new top executives, what are the perks, what are the options packages.

Or if it’s a job: what are the responsibilities, what are similar people being paid, what is the path to higher promotions, what are the details of health, vacation, moving expenses, reviews, etc.

The side with the bigger list can give up the nickels for the dimes to the loser.

B) IF YOU DON’T GET ENOUGH SLEEP, YOUR WILLPOWER WILL BE ZERO.

Carl Icahn, one of the best investors in the world, uses this technique.

He schedules his negotiations for the early evening.

Our peak mental ability (according to Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, and many other books) is approximately 2 hours after we wake up until about 4 hours after we wake up.

And then throughout the day, our willpower slowly leaks away until we sleep again. That’s why we watch TV and eat donuts at night rather than when we first wake up.

So Carl Icahn will sleep until 4pm and then go to the negotiation at 6pm.

On the other side of the table are exhausted lawyers who have been working all day.

BAM! Who do you think will win that negotiation.

C) MOST PEOPLE THINK SHORT-TERM. BE THE VISIONARY AND YOU WIN.

Applied Semantics didn’t want to sell to Google in 2001. They had raised some money and thought they could make it.

A few months earlier I had made the mistake of turning them down when they were raising money. “The search engine business is dead!” said the greatest prophet of modern times.

Me.

Larry Page told the CEO of Applied, “I’m not getting off the phone until you say yes”.

So Applied Semantics sold themselves in exchange for 1% of Google. ONE PERCENT.

This was before Google went public. So it was a total unknown what those shares would be worth. Larry Page had the vision of where they would be.

Applied Semantics became the Adsense division of Google. Which now accounts for 99% of Google’s revenues.

Are they upset? Shouldn’t they have sold for more?

Of course not. They sold for over a billion in value and created the end goal of making one of the best companies in the world.

You can only get rich once. Don’t worry so much about maximizing your percentage of something. One percent of $250 billion is better than 100% of nothing, as the saying goes.

I’m going to take a break for a second and say something that has saved me considerable stress.

NEVER WORRY ABOUT WHAT IS IN SOMEONE ELSE’S POCKET.

Let other people do well. Then you will do well.

Ok, back to what you shouldn’t do in a negotiation.

D) DON’T SAY NO.

I say this even though I wrote the book, “The Power of No”. What I really mean here is, bury your NO inside of a YES.

I was negotiating with one company once. They wanted me to be an advisor. I said, “no”. But not like that. What I really said was, “You have a great company and I am happy to give advice.”

What a great way to say no! They kept calling. They really wanted me. I said, “Here’s what you should do without me” and I totally laid out the plan they should do. I did it for free. That was another way of saying “no”.

This made them want me as an advisor even more. Eventually they offered enough that I said, “yes”. They followed my advice exactly. The advice that I had already given for free.

There’s a well-known improv technique of “Yes, and…”

In improv, the first performer creates the premise. The second performer can’t change it or reject it, he can only build on it.

In a negotiation if someone says, “well, you’re only worth $1 because you have X” you can say, “yes, and we also have Y so let’s take that into consideration.”

Suddenly your value is higher because you didn’t start a fight. You agreed and added.

E) MANY PEOPLE NEGOTIATE WITH THE WRONG MATH.

This is the part many people don’t get right and it’s hard to explain. I’ll take a simple example. I don’t know if the negotiation took place this way but it describes what I mean.

Why did Facebook buy Instagram for $1 billion. Instagram had 11 employees and zero revenues.

On that basis, maybe Instagram was worth…nothing. Or close to it.

But maybe the negotiation went something like this:

Instagram: Let’s agree to a formula first on how we should value our company.

Facebook: Err…Ok.

Instagram: Forget about our revenues for a second. But let’s just assume we can earn $X for every user you have (call that number $Y). Pay us $X * Y.

Facebook: Err.Ok.

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Asked us to come up to New York and, as he said, “bring a camera.”

We did. And what happened next was absolutely incredible — live, on camera, this famous celebrity conducted what we can only describe as “a magic income experiment.”

I’ve never seen anybody do anything quite it… click here to see what happened.

Instagram probably then showed how they could add $1 in value for every customer Facebook had. Facebook has a billion users. So a billion dollars.

Come to the negotiation with your formula. Know how to fill in the variables before the other side does. Every good negotiator does this.

The reason I know this? Because this is how I’ve lost many negotiations to good negotiators. I’ve had very good mentors on this one aspect of negotiation.

Because we all negotiated the formula, but not the price, in advance, then everyone has already said “Yes” to something and they basically have to stick with it.

(Well, they don’t have to. But it’s high stakes and you don’t want to seem like you don’t live up to your word.)

F) IF YOU HOPE FOR ONLY ONE OUTCOME, YOU NEVER GET IT.

I really wanted my company, Stockpickr, to be bought by Google. I threw everything I could into the basket. I would send them love notes in the middle of the night.

Seriously, I was in love with the woman doing the negotiating.

I didn’t have a technical team was the problem. We built the whole site for a few thousand dollars. I had one partner. We had 99% margins on our revenues but Google likes technical teams.

Oh well.

I then focused on getting alternatives. I called AOL, Yahoo, Reuters, Forbes. Then thestreet.com bought us.

Sometimes people write me and say, “I sent my ten ideas to my favorite company but they haven’t called back. Should I call them again?”

That’s the wrong question. The right question is: “What’s the next 100 companies I should write to?”

It’s no secret that being able to walk away from a negotiation is the best starting point in a negotiation.

G) SMARTER PEOPLE LOSE.

This is what I like to say: you guys are the experts at this, we’ve just been focused on building our product, company, art, whatever.

Then I say, “if you were me, what would you ask for?”

I ask them advice. Because they are the experts. It’s not a lie.

If you are applying for a job with someone more senior than you, why not ask the more senior guy for advice? He knows more than you.

Very often they give very good advice.

H) IF YOU NEGOTIATE WITH A LOSER, YOU LOSE.

If two sides are negotiating, you need at least one champion for what you are doing on the other side.

One time I was working with a company and GE offered us a billion dollars for the company. Yes, a BILLION.

They laid out the time frame. “The deal will be closed by November 15” said the highest ranking person in the room from GE.

I went back to the CEO of the company I was advising and told him that.

He said, “Who were you talking to?” I told him.

He said, “100% chance this deal doesn’t happen”.

But they offered! I told him. They actually made an offer.

“Trust me. No way. There’s no real champion for you on the other side who is close to being a decision maker. She is 5 rungs below the decision maker and she’s your only champion.”

And he was right. That deal did not happen. They found a better way to get what they wanted for 1/200 of the price.

You can only cross the bridge to the other side if someone strong is there holding out their hand to pull you in.

I) THE DEAL IS NOT THE FINAL DEAL. DON’T RELAX!

People think when they agree on a deal, that’s the end of the negotiation.

I’m sorry to say, that is only the beginning of the negotiation.

There’s agreeing, there’s signing, and there’s closing.

The final two steps are equally important and everyone assumes they are easy.

They aren’t. They are excruciatingly painful. The honeymoon period lasts for two days after you agree. Then there can be another six months to go.

Agreeing is easy. “I’ll buy your product or business for $X.”

Signing a deal involves all the little things that are the nickels and dimes (see above).

Closing a deal means both sides delivering everything they represented in a deal.

At each stage of this is buyer’s remorse and seller’s remorse and often things have to be renegotiated.

So every day after agreement, make it a point to stay in touch, be friends, keep focusing on the vision (particularly with the champion for your deal on the other side), have just as much energy to close all the details, keep in touch with the lawyers to make sure paperwork is going through, keep working on the alternatives (since the negotiation is not done til it’s DONE), and so on.

So many deals fall apart after agreement. You don’t need this pain in your life.

LOVE IS A NEGOTIATION.

Taking another break here in the post. Please forgive me for not laying it out all perfect.

When I used to go on a first date I was both scared and excited. I’d get excited first, “she wants to date me!” And then I’d get scared. “Ugh, what do I do now?”

I’d literally do homework for the date. I’d find out her interests and read books on them. I’d watch comedy beforehand. I’d think of things to say and questions to ask. I’m not saying preparation is bad.

One time I was an expert on Kaballah. Another time I had to be an expert on Al Gore (long story). Another time I had to bribe the counter girl to pretend she knew me before my date arrived.

I’d be too scared to show my real self so I’d have to get her to like my fake self long enough for me to feel comfortable showing the real me.

Sometimes that never happened. In many cases I never had a real me. I was always jumping through hoops to keep the fake me going. I had to keep bribing the counter girl everytime we went for yogurt.

This is the difference between agreeing on a deal (the first date) and closing (trust, love, real compassion). This is a problem I’m afraid I will always have. I hope I am getting better bit by bit.

J) MOST DEALS DON’T WORK OUT.

You agree, you sign, you close, and STILL it’s not the end.

Don’t be the guy (or woman) who falls apart now that all the energy of the deal has been expended.

It’s a negotiation and a deal because NOW there is work to do. There is a common vision to be achieved. There is a fantasy that must be made into reality.

Be that person. Be the one who delivers. You have a new baby in your hands as the result of this negotiation.

Now the hard work begins. Raise that baby to be a good adult.

What do you think?

[abripikuunah]

Tomorrow In The Firework’s Edge (Part 1/?)

Authors: Abripikuuhnah and Matthew’s Poems 

Ratings: R-17 (Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, Future smut, Foul Language, Hints of Abuse.)

Words: 12,095

Notes: I want to give a huge shout out to my big brother, Kuya Mat, for helping me to edit, add scenes, and flesh out chapter even more to write this fic into reality . And to @xkanekitoukax​ , thank you for reading the story and criticizing it to help me improve the chapter and see which scenes I should draw (but not now I’m so sorry ToT) ! This fic won’t exist without out you guys!

My apologize to those people who waited for this fic.  In all honesty, this was supposed to be posted a month ago but due to my computer and environmental problems which I will explain in a later post, this fic was supposed to have a neatly as much a professional illustrations alongside with it,so it have to be postponed. Unfortunately, I hate to say it but I can’t finish these illustrations and currently can’t show them to you right now. I will explain the problem here (x)

But never worries, if I finally finish the scenes, I’ll post them here too, so check out for that!

I’m very sorry though, I don’t want people to keep waiting,and I have to post this so I could move on and proceed to the next chapter. 

If you liked this fic, Please reblog , comment and send me your reactions! It will truly help us motivated and be determined to create more polished chapter’s and fics in the future.

Hope you enjoy!

Ken Kaneki squinted his eyes and realized that it's already morning. He raised his wrist, looking at his watch just to find out that two more hours away until he reaches his destination. He yawns quietly and stretches his arms out a little bit, being mindful to the sleeping person beside him. His eyes peered through the window and looked at the view that has presented before his eyes. Just before the dreamless sleep, was the industrious city of Tokyo, now being replaced by the picturesque sight of the fields.  He could see grains, leaves and flowers that has been wrapped in thick snow of late December . A dark hue of blue with a light tint of red that has painted the colors of the sky helped him to be put into ease. Taking out his favorite book, he took out  his bookmarks and begins to read picking up where he left off. Morning dew has come... Warmth of his jacket. The smooth movements of the bus, soothing his mind in relaxing state, hearing the soft noise of the AC unit keeping down the passengers in a quiet slumber while dawn started to rise. A book in his hand where words convey a tragic story into life. Ah. A breather. Peace... A peace where he's free from all the horrible events is all he ever wanted, and he got it. It something that felt like surreal, like a fantasy, like a star that is a billion miles away from his grasp . Something that he imagined that is very imperceptible to occur in his life. An event he will always exaggerate about. But look at him now, he's sitting in a bus, wordlessly waiting for the vehicle to reach the town of Osaka. However, he noticed something when he can't concentrate on his book, statics darkens in his eyes, his mind into something else palpable . Of course... That thought will always stay as a dream. The word 'Peace' is just an obscenity to this pathetic world of his. In his world, his story flashes before his eyes .A furious mother, an uncompassionate Aunt, his best friend who is now in the hospital bed all because of his uselessness ,powerless , selfishness . A sea of blood and grief that was caused by no one else but himself. Brutal waves full of lugubrious screams forcefully drowning him into the depths of insanity. He was reminded that he will never have peace. His mind starts tormenting him with awful words again and again. He can't escape, he knows that very well. No matter how much he ran, or when his limbs are free from the shackles, his heart and soul wasn't ; Both are glued in guilt and depression. The pace of his breathing becomes quicker and quicker. He forcefully clamped both of his eyelids, trying to get himself together. 'It'll be over soon' a whisper reminded him. It'll be over soon. Soon... His mind repeats over and over again, reminding himself . And that 'Soon' will be tonight, where tonight will be the last night of his life. The last night he will witness this brutal world mocking him, and he'll take a leap to take himself and these demons disappear in the void with him . It'll be all over. How laughable. Pathetic is the best way to describe his whole being, his whole damn life . Just like the weather outside, despite the sunrise warming up the sky , everything in the ground, where dirt and garbages are left, the place where he belong is... So cold and so lonely. Leaning towards the window, Kaneki closes his eyes once more, resting his book atop of his lap and hopes to god he would never wake up and instead be drowned to death right now.

Unfortunately, the smell of coffee beans kicks him out of his stupor.

After he arrived at the bus station, Kaneki heard his stomach grumbling, telling him that it's time for breakfast. He doesn't really have a big appetite ,all he wanted to have was a warm cup of coffee and a light meal. Still, the overnight trip from the bus is enough to make him hungry. So he walks, exercising by strolling a bit in the streets of Osaka.

After a few minutes of walking through closed shops , he stops.

His nose picked up an aromatic smell of coffee . The strong daring scent lures him. His legs follows the fragrance like a compass until he found himself standing right infront of the cafe named 'Antieku'.

His eyes peers through the window finding a large amount of people inside, almost occupying the whole cafe. Well that's no surprise. Today is December 30, probably the last day where stores opens for the year. Most restaurants should be closed now; so having to eat in an aromatic cafe for breakfast doesn't sound inappreciable. Antique cups and platters are exhibited on top of the glass display.  Vintage books are tucked through the shelves where customers are allowed to borrow a book whenever they wished. Waiters and waitresses scrambled all over the place, serving each of their patrons with politeness.

Rudely his stomach grumbles again , insisting himself to just go enter in, which he did.

As he was inside the cafe, a waiter greeted him but was too busy to usher him.  So he looked around and thanked himself mentally for having the advantage of being a lone wolf. Right besides the window, he found a small table that's available for two persons where he can watch the busy roads outside the cafe. The spot is adequately nice , which he really liked.

After settling down and a waitress gave him quickly a menu, he fixed his gaze to the given glass next to him, presenting him a lively world,yet it lets him imagine the city without him. Ruthlessly, his thoughts starts digging deeper and deeper.

He saw children running around, only for Kaneki chuckles at the sight, glad that they're free and joyful unlike his pitiful childhood. Grown up folks are scattered around the town, readying themselves for the whole day, he got a bit envious at that thought, because here he is, sitting like a sore loser he was.

But that doesn't matter...

Kids are going to school, being free spirits like nothing's changed. Adults kept working 24/7, thrusting themselves in the world of society like nothing's changed. People just living, doing their daily life like nothing's changed. It's not like they care anyway. Even if he died, nothing will make a difference to any of these individuals fate.

Taking a deep breath , he shifted his sights at the cafe to revise his gloomy cogitation.

Other than the room being crowded, he understands why this place must be popular. From the smell of grinded coffee arouses him, a warm and welcoming ambiance greets every customers. To each aesthetic this place has picked to displayed more friendly atmosphere to ventilate the mood, to how each waiters and waitresses treated their customers with their warm smiles. Overall, in his account, this cafe is such a great place already . And something else where he can't lay a finger on. But of course, it doesn't matter.

Then the irritatingly loud growl was heard again , reminding him to get some food already . He picked up a menu to select his desired dish. After he ate pancakes for breakfast, Kaneki took out a novel and begins to read the book he's currently reading again, Phantasm of Death.  A story about a delusional protagonist where he is trapped inside of a dangerous island, where beings and creatures existed. A story where it experiments human physiology about their questionable desires , like the protagonist where he desires death yet also fears death. Drawn to the confusion between living and dying. It makes him deeply invested to the story. Just when he opened the book and located the page where he left off, he took out two thick papers he tucked between the pages he have left off. To some people, it looks like it just a piece of bookmarks that will eventually be thrown away.  But for Ken Kaneki, it's a whole other story. Somehow, seeing these ornaments make him feel resentful instead. Growing agitated while these these cruel thoughts worsened , his eyes profusely scanned the paragraphs that's been written in the book, forcefully trying to distract himself once more. The last thing he wanted was having a breakdown inside the cafe. He's almost done with this book anyway. Ten or more so chapters and it will be all complete.If he finishes it, there will be no distractions anymore , making the pain to come back , mocking him with a lot of miserable memories and sullen insinuations again. He knows that he doesn't have the willpower to withstand it. So ending his life once and for all is the solution he has to finish all the pain he's shouldering.   "Sir..." A voice surprises him despite it's gentle tone. "Excuse me, young man ."the voice asked gently again  ,Kaneki noticed a palm being offered in front of him. Still a bit startled, he looked up , learning the owner's voice is an old waiter. The waiter gave him a genuine reassuring smile."Would you like seconds sir?"  he continued, referring to the coffee. Understanding, Kaneki gave a quick nod, "Oh, please." The old man took Ken's cup before he refills it. When his beverage is served , all his coils vanished temporarily as he took the cup to his face and whiff on the aromatic fragrance , letting the steam tickle his skin. Kaneki thinks this is one of the best coffee he has tasted. To him coffee is just coffee and nothing more, but this cafe has given such a special blend to serve. The drink alone helps him put on ease .He doesn't mind spending his savings for the coffee, he would die and his money will just go to waste. So having a quality cup before death isn't a thought that bugged him at all. After a few more refills, the old man gave out a pleasant chuckled "You sure seem to like our coffee.You're new here sir?" "Oh yes, I just came here to visit" he simply answered, "and the coffee here is the best. I really loved it." he says, impetuously draws out a grin , rewarded with another kind smile "Well that's nice to hear. We're glad you enjoyed it." He places the cup back to the platter and goes to assist other customers. Several minutes has passed , Kaneki was about to reach the conclusion of the novel. He decided to stop there and saved it for later. His eyes cast at the wall clock and saw that it's almost noon. He requested for his bill and was bewildered that he only has to pay for the pancakes he ordered. He took his belongings and went up to the cashier ,telling them about the missing item in his receipt. "You don't have to worry about that young man." A familiar voice called. It was the same old waiter who have served him coffee,"On the house.". "Um.. Are you sure sir?" He blinks, " I asked for too many refills." He uttered awkwardly . "You really don't have to worry about it." he repeats ,"As the manager of the cafe, it's my pleasure to greet newcomers with our proud home blend coffee for free." He insisted. Well it will be rude the more he resisted. Nodding at the kind manager, he pays his food and went at the front door with the old man ushering him. "Please come again soon." The manager bids, opening the door for his patron. Unconsciously, Ken puts his index finger at his chin "I-I will." Then leaves the place. As he went out off the front door, someone noticed his presence , and with wide eyes followed his fading figure through the window. Voice came out as soft like a prayer. She whispered the name of someone she has wanted to see for a long time- "Kaneki...?" --------------------------------------------------------- First he went to a bathhouse to clean himself up. When the hot water touches his cold skin, his tense muscles starts to relax a little . He gives himself a moment to deliberate about what he would do next in the journey . Of course other than proceeding with his 'dying-in-style' plan here, he also wants to grant a promise that he and his best friend made when they were still little kids. Unintentionally, he recollected a past memory. It was a class trip in Hakodate while he was still in 6th grade. If he remembered correctly, he wasn't supposed to come along but Hide forced him and asked his mother.

"Ow!" The timid boy yelped in pain as he was being tackled by his friend in the sandbox on a breezy Saturday noon. "Ken Kaneki where the hell have you been!" His best friend, Hideyoshi Nagachika or Hide by what you call him, nudged the poor boy in front of him, while Kaneki ,gently rubbed his own stomach to soothe the pain , "I've been worried sick! You're rarely late or absent to class .I even went to your place and nobody is answering and-" he noticed the bandages in his arm. Hide pointed "Dude, just what the heck and where did you get this ?" He looks at him with concern. What happened yesterday? "I-I fell" he answer reassuringly , trying to mask the grief impression he almost attempted to display with his tone. He instinctively hides his arms from Hide's vision, yet failed miserably . He catches Hide's eyes that were observing his bruised limbs are disquieted with doubt.

"That's it?" He says in disbelief . Urgently, Kaneki moved his lips "The bruises are bad, I can't move a leg so... that's why I was taken to a nearby clinic haha." He answers him spontaneously by lying . Always lying , doing the usual routine he's bound to do. Just when can he stop hiding things from him? But just as he frequently used to fib at him, Hide never pushed on the subject, he just analyze his face and the bandages like a tricky quiz and move on, "Okay if that's what you say..." He took a toy shovel and starts digging in the sand, "Let me help you with what your building. " he said before giving a small toothy grin, much to Kaneki's relief. While they've continue establishing the sand castle with their hands , Kaneki decided to ask another topic, "S-so how was class yesterday?" He stutters. His friend blinks, and has stopped moving. The moment Kaneki asked that question seems to have triggered something in Hide's gears,"Dude..." his voice deepens. Kaneki stiffened . Did something bad happen yester- "We're going to have a trip in Hakodate!" Hide squeals , eyes shimmering. 'Oh.' Kaneki thinks, depleting his worries , 'So a school field trip then...' "That's nice..." he simply responded ,shifting Hide's bright expression into puzzled face . His wide eyes gazed at him like he killed his dog or something. Yet Kaneki chose to ignore him and keep doing his work. "'That's nice...'?" "Yeeah?" "Dude are you kidding me?! A trip to Hakodate will be would be super dope as hell! " he grabs Kaneki's shoulder, accidentally stepping on the castle they're currently working on ,making the boy protest about his now ruined creation until Hide decided to disrupt before his friend complain . "We could go up the trees , try out some food, sneak away during lights out, see the view above the mountain- That isn't 'Nice'." Hide scoffed ,then a light bulb appeared in his brain. "Kaneki you have to go this time! You never go to class trips!" He said in a demanding tone. He daydreams as the image of the thrilling adventures they could both do together vast in his mind, kept on shaking his best friend ,who's probably thinking the opposite . These are one of those times where Kaneki didn't really know how him and Hide are able to maintain their friendship despite their opposite demeanor. So he crack a smile with annoyance ,"You could just go without me. I would be okay here ,just gonna finish this book" he says, taking an item out of his bag and raised the literature he currently reads. But Hide still looks at him, discontent, as he roughly puts the book down from his vision then crosses his arms "That's the whole point! You have to take a break from your comfort zone and man up! You're always reading those boring books like an old man. No wonder why you can't pick up the ladies!" Ken pouts .Hide doesn't understand-or atleast, doesn't know. It's not that he could blame him , because he doesn't really need to know. A sharp pain throbs in his stomach that starts aching again. Reminding him about his mother, who left the abrasion in his belly. He squeezed his lids closed , thinks about yesterday's events and the future troubles that were already animating in his mind. The expenses she has to cover for the trip,her worries about what will happen to him if anything bad happens- He wouldn't even receive any concern from a mother, instead he'll receive to much frustration from her and she will beat him up , damaging his body even more. Besides, his mother have enough problems already. He can't be selfish and ask something trivial for his own happiness and let his mother bare the burden for it. But he can't also tell Hide that. Or else greater consequences will occur. He doesn't know what to do, nevertheless he found himself muttered "My mom won't let me." A few seconds slipped with the wind for Hide's eyes to soften "That's why?" He asked softly, Kaneki hesitantly nods in response, getting off guard, letting Hide have the opportunity to grab his sling bag and arm before he started to march off,dragging Kaneki along. "H-hey Hide what are you doing!?" Kaneki exclaimed, wanting to stop his best friend, yet he found his own legs following Hide's trail. "Don't worry about it man, I'll ask for her permission on your behalf. I'm sure she'll agree." Hide says with optimism , giving him a reassuring smile. "And I'm pretty sure you also want to come along don't you?" Of course he wants to, he wants to get away from the grim house , stay away from his mother even for a brief moment . But he can't, he just can't. Just as he said before , asking his mother for her blessing is a big 'No' in a snap of a finger, telling Hide his reasons why he refused only bring more burdensome at him and to her immediately. Trying a weak attempt to stop him, Kaneki quickly lied again "N-no." But it didn't seem to work as his best friend grimace. "Shut up you clearly wanted to." He continues, still walking ,passing house to house until they reached Ken's flat. "Just let me handle this. You'll come with us!" Defeated, he shuts his mouth and stared at his feet while Hide knocks the door and turns to wink at him. The poor boy looks at him in disbelief. Is Hide really that stubborn and a birdbrain just for the sake for Kaneki to come with him? Nothing better would come out even if his mother agree.This whole deal is impractical, really. The door opens and Ken flinches, making his current dismay fade in the breeze only to be replaced by a bigger one. He noticed a pair of slippers appeared. Swallowing, he mustered up the courage to look up from his mother's face only to find a confuse stare dawned on them. "What are you two boys doing here?" She asked ,shifting her gazes at the both of them. "Ma'am, I'm really sorry if we made an hassle but I want to ask if I could barrow Kaneki for uh... two to three days?" He raised his three fingers. At his surprise, his mother seems amused as she raised an eyebrow and leaned her back at the door frame "Why's that?" "Oh well , the school will have a trip in the Hakodate. I was thinking of bringing him along.Can he go with us? I promise to take full fledged responsibility if anything happens." He proposed, looking expectedly at her with a proud smile. But behind his outburst aura was his terrified friend. However his affright expression shifted. Her lips curved into a sad smile .His mother took a soft glare at him. Both of her eyes shimmered . Surprisingly , instead of flinching like the natural response, her son stared at her, confused. That wasn't a harsh glare that makes him tremble with fear or feel being threatened. Her smile is genuine, he could tell that it's not fake or an act.   It was a expression that's he rarely seen from her. Something that gives him an odd fuzzy feeling ,making him process to convince himself that it wasn't an illusion or a dream. But it's real. Then before he knew it, his mother told them her answer. ... Apparently, thanks to Hide's reckless actions, Kaneki is now walking with a sea of kids to reach the mountaintop. That night when Hide asked for her permission , his mother questioned him if he truly wants to go. He said yes and answered her sincerely and was surprised that she agreed and didn't give him another beating. Guilt was shimmering in her eyes along with her face and her tone. She apologized to him about the way she treated him yesterday .But it didn't matter to him anymore. His mind was clouded with thoughts that he will finally be far away form this house and from her beatings. She just told him not to worry about it and she'll find a way. She also told him not to misbehave and be careful out there. But even with her consent, he can't help but having mixed feelings about the whole thing. He felt so happy, but it worries him so much that it also scares him. The expenses, her well being, getting away from the future terrible days that's about to come- just everything crashes in his mind. Yet his mother just gave him a genuine smile , softly combing the fringe of his dark hair using her fingers and bid him good night to call it a day. The whole night, a small smile crept his face, overwhelmed as tears drips, staining his sheets until he was able to be tucked in a peaceful slumber underneath the starless night  . ... In Hakodate, one of the most infamous spots here is the view from the mountain, where you can sightsee the city. After a few more efforts, they finally reached the destination they've been waiting for... The summit of the mountain where they could see the whole town. Hide quickly ran to the deck to save himself and Kaneki the best spot even if the cheeky kid got scolded. "Woah." Kaneki said in awe as he saw the picturesque view his eyes delivered upon him. Lights flickering along the city that's covered in early November snow. Colors brightly glistening in the starry sky painted with the hue of oranges and blue. The whole sight catches his words away. While admiring the whole scenery, Kaneki was interrupted when an arm wrapped around his shoulder. "So what do you think?" Hide asked, smiling brightly at his friend . "It's great." He chimed , making Hide beamed ,"Told ya!" "T-thanks alot Hide." Kaneki moved his cold lips as he also cracked a smile, "Aw no problem bro. Told you need it," he ruffled his friend's hair ,"But seriously, your mom is really scary when I talked to her. I was quite a bit anxious for a sec hehe." he scratched his cheek, thinking about the time when he confronted his best friend's mother. "Hide... You really don't need to do that. I could've done it myself." he murmurs as he received a light punch in the shoulder, "You kidding me right? You seem to be much more a scardy cat than I am, and if I do let you do it, you wouldn't say a thing to her like you always do! So I have to take the initiative!" The boy sighs and decided to end this pointless conversation and continue to appreciate the landscape. The more they would talk about it, the more her remembered the worst things his mother committed , "Ah well, it already happened so might as well let go of the past." Kaneki mutters. Thankfully, Hide seems to get the idea and turn to face the bright town. For a few moment, the his friend took a deep breath, creating mist in his mouth and called his best friend, "Hey Kaneki." "Yeah?" "In the future..." His eyes scanned the whole city before he go even further "Do you want to travel all the cool places in Japan together?" He asked, leaning his arms at the fence as he continue to stare at the town. Ken follows, yet also pictures them going place by place, like the characters in fairy tales when they venture the world. Eating all kinds of food ,exploring cool new things. The thought seems like a better idea than staying inside the dark house everyday and everynight. Not to mention that he would love to see more attractions like these, where instead of looking at images behind the screens, his eyes will witness the real thing. Kaneki breaks out a grin "Sure. Traveling Japan as a whole... seems kinda fun!" Hide smiled jovially and pat his friend's shoulder  "Then it's settled! When we're adults ,both you and me will travel the whole country with our girlfriends!" "Okay where did that come from!?" He jumped at his last statement , totally not expecting that. But Hide kept chuckling ,"Duh, it's a joke." Then a smug smirk crept his face "But it's bound to happen , I think. I don't know about you though. You're a bit nerdy for a girl." He continues , teasing the boy beside him, making Kaneki scoff, "Shut up." "Jeez taking a joke seriously Kenny boy?"  he says in amusement as Kaneki laughs sarcastically before giving him a face. "Hey don't give me that look." Hide stops as Kaneki chuckles and decided to turn around and ignore him . He received a light tap on the shoulder ,making Kaneki face up to Hide. He puts his hands on his hips and starts looking around their surroundings  "We better move, I'm sure there's still alot of awesome things going around in this place before we go." Kaneki nods in agreement. As both boys started to wander around, Kaneki looked back at the balcony for one last time and noticed a small figure in the crowd, looking yearningly at the view presented to them. He also found that in their eyes, he can see only sorrow reflected behind those longing gaze. ... Then his eyes darted open, brought back in the present time. 'Then it's settled! When we're adults ,both you and me will travel the whole country!' Hide's voice resonates . Kaneki wants to laugh at that promise. Look at the situation now. It's clearly not happening and it will never will . Just like every other childish promises he tried to keep , they're too delusional and impossible . His promises are somethings that mostly happened in the heat of the moment decisions. Like a child wishing in the star or to a dandelion's dust, hoping it would come true, regardless of being aware it just a lie to make children hold onto something called 'hope'. He will admit that he tried to make them come true and stay on the right rail, following the signs. But no matter how much he tried to remain at same road, his life turns ,forcing him to walk on a much more difficult path . So in the end, even if he say he's doing their promise by going alone for Hide's behalf, that promise have now turned into a huge joke hasn't it? -------------------------------------------------------- Months of preparing, he thought this will be a chore. Fortunately he's wrong. As he starts roaming all over the Osaka, he ate some street food, tried out some native snacks he have never tasted . He visited some nearby tourists spots, where he learned the history of each place, every important names, event that would dissolve likely later from his mind. He looked at different shops, seeing many items, vintage or modern souvenirs that he wouldn't really buy. Wandering around aimlessly, Kaneki wonders to himself why he even bothers to let himself experience all these things other than fulfilling the promise him and Hide did for his behalf, he really isn't sure why? Maybe it's because he wants to at least try out things that might've been considered 'fun' or maybe find anything to distract himself from worrying about later events and from these merciless thoughts of his. Because he will admit that this is quite fun, even though a trace of guilt lingers inside of him or a weight on his body that has taken a toll, leaving a message 'You don't deserve it'. Having a walk in the path covered in snow, mesmerizing each buildings, houses that are different from the ones he sees in Tokyo, it seems to be a good temporary painkiller for the demons in his head. But does it really matter? For him, the answer is 'Nope'. Because despite it all, everything is still going as planned. ... 7:15, his clock reads. Before he goes to his final destination, he looked at the map to visit the place he's quite excited to see. The infamous library of Osaka. It is popular for its massive amount of books they have in store. Ken has searched it up on the internet before he decided Osaka to be the last town he would see in his life. And he did not regret it. After he walk for another several minutes at the main street and entered the library , his own mouth and eyes widens after he passed through the door. Unlike the book stores in Tokyo, the layers and layers of shelves in this place overwhelms him. Ornaments are neatly place to each shelf along with various types of books , with all kinds of titles, written in many genres. Created by different  authors all around the world . It was like the ideal world that stays in an avid readers dreams  was pulled out from their minds to make them feel that comfort will welcome them inside. His fingers lightly skimmed the spine of each book in the shelves , his eyes studies each title of the novels, muttering out the short summaries of each story with his knowledge alone. Strolling a bit more further, he moved to the next floor, where he could find the section of the classic novels, like the works of Natsume Soseki's 'Kokoro' . Osamu Dazai's 'No Longer Human' and also  from his favorite author Sen Takatsuki 'The Black Goats Egg' which he just finished . If he would live and settle down here in Osaka, this would probably be the aisle he would often visit. After appreciating the stacks of novels in the shelves , his eyes caught the same cover as the book he's currently reading, Phantasm of Death . That reminds him. He finds a nearby table as he quickly opened his bag , rummaging his belongings , digging deeper to find the book. But after a few moments, his brows furrowed, face written with confusion. When something in his gut strikes , his breathing became quicker . The more time passed, he started to panic , immediately taking out all the contents and scanned to see if his book is one of them. "Shit, shit, shit..." He kept muttering, like it's the only thing to prevent him from breaking. Where is it? He kept looking and looking, until it really dawned on him that the book isn't really with him. He can't lose that book- inside of it, was the last photo he and Hide, his best friend, took for the last time. While the other is the lucky fortune he received from another  friend he met years ago. They're too important, very important.Like a sacred treasures that helps him cling onto life. Forgotten or not, each of its signs have reminisce a lot of good memories. Memories that make him smile, take out a chuckle from him, even if they could only be counted with his fingers unlike the the unforgettable events the make him regret and ashamed to remember. Yet despite it all, it helps him reminded that good things have happened in this wrenched story of his. And now, he can't find it... Losing them brings guilt in the pit in his stomach. His mind started to get haywire. It will be the death of him. Think Kaneki. Think! Where could've he lost it? Then he remembers. After his mind debates where he could've left the book off, he shoved all his belongings back in his bag then rushes out the building and immediately ran towards the cafe Anteiku. ... When he finally reaches the building , it was too late. The doors are shut , the lights are closed , he can't feel anybody's presence inside. The lively cafe was that was once filled with a silent aura of happiness and serenity, was now dark and empty, like an empty hunting forest ,void of life. He looks through the window to see even a glimmer of his belongings inside, to his dismay he was unable to see any trace of his treasures. But he didn't lose hope, ironically. So he waits. He waits outside pacing back and forth, praying for the lights to open and see someone inside, to beg for a chance to search for his book. He counted for moments. Till moments turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours. But of course, nobody came. He only have 10 minutes until the last bus towards the last place he wants to go leaves. He detaches himself from the glass window and quietly reads the sign on the front door, 'Open on January 5.' January 5, next week... Will he even wait for a week to pass by? Ruin all the plans he have arranged for months just because of a book that is very important to him? Letting such a perfect opportunity to waste? Will he be willing to wait and risk the chance to put his mindset back about looking up to the future with false hope all because the ornaments in his book that holds a lot of strong good memories? "Fuck no." Time passes, they fucking fade. Like a wind carrying the wishes of the deceased that god knows will never be fulfilled ,will slowly be forgotten by the world ... Slowly, the signs that are engraved in each item are becoming numb by every second,  each minute the day has passed . No matter how much they're important, or how much high each of its merit is in his life. The thought of pain and misery keeps overcoming him, replacing the encouraging messages into a recollections of his past mistakes and failures. He remembers now and he hates himself for it, which causes him to be more self-destructive than he is now. Why would you hold onto somethings when your sense goes away? When your memories and beliefs will be swept away from your own body by the rushing waves? "Forget about the conclusion of the story," his heals turn, "Forget about those memories." He mumbles quietly as he rushes to the bus station. 'Forget everything about them...' He has finally decided. --------------------------------------------------------- When his soles touches the cold floor, he could feel his stomach burning. His eyes gazed at the cliff entrance. He shivered from the cold breeze wrapping his body that he can almost feel being suffocated . He huffs as he forced his legs to walk. They're functioning, yet he found them walking in a slow painstakingly pace. He was prepared wasn't he? He kept walking and walking, but his legs annoyingly starts getting heavier each step he takes, like they're made out of candle wax, melting to be glued in the rocky path. Letting the dangerous fire inside of him burn him even more and more. 'You shouldn't be born.' 'Useless shit!' 'It's your fault!' "No one would ever love you!" 'You don't even deserve them!' His teeth clatters. The voices are getting louder the closer he gets. He just wants to bang his head on the floor or whatever solid he could find. Just make them shut the hell up. Because he's aware yet the kept reminding. A little relief came when he saw nobody was on the small empty eerie forest. There's almost no one in the place anyway because why would they? They have families to go home to and have friends to spend time to. And he has none of that. He will die alone. And that thought could only make him swallow. Before heading over , he close his eyes and took a deep breath. He repeatedly did this a couple of time until he make sure he's hushed down. That he'll make it their in one peice. That he won't break. That his dying in style plan would come in play. Then his legs move, leaving a trail of his footprints that will be swept away by the wind. Leaving no trace of their existence. The whole world would only laugh at his actions, finding how silly this whole thing is, learning his whole life is a joke like it always been. The shadow of the trees engulfed him. In the story books,  all the main characters would find a way to get out of the menacing forest and live, but to Ken Kaneki, it's different. He would find the light and die. He ventures down a little bit more until he find himself standing almost at end of the forest. At the edge of the cliff , all he can see is death's door, wide open for him. He can feel it waiting , calling seductively for him to take the last step so he could be consumed in the darkness. He leans at the tree for leverage, sweat beads forming at his temples. It's now or never. Kaneki takes off his backpack and jacket, not knowing a reason why he should when it could benefit him to sink even deeper. But below the gap , he could hear the waves crashing brashly at the rocky ground, he was certain that if he even tries to swim out of survival instincts,the current will pull him back, permanently sealing him to the prison of death. If he jumps and hit his body to the hard cement ,especially his head ,he will surely be unconscious. Or the best scenario , he will suffer from internal hemorrhage, cracking his skull , having an internal bleeding and not recovering from the injury ever again. One jump. Just one jump and everything will be over. He looked at the moon, staring at it like a fool for finding answers why he shouldn't end his life. He planned everything and was prepared for months, but why? Why is he afraid enough that makes his legs numb? Why can't he close his eyes, run and sprint at the gap to finally be gone to this world? Is it by human nature? Giving himself more time to cope and think? Wanting to ... live...? The last suggestion makes him laugh. His life is a nuisance as far he remembers . He wanted to end everything , make his senses numb to not feel pain, to not hear the sadistic voices inside of his head. Especially being an affliction to people's bright lives. Being the reason, the main cause of their pain and suffering. It's not their fault, it his. Slowly but steadily, he marches forward, like a process to mark his death to the reaper. It's scary but it in the end it will give him peace without offending anyone anymore .

At the brink of the end, with the dark and sickened eyes, he can barely see the waves and tried decipher the shape of the stones. In his perspective, it looks like the the entrance of the abyss, where no light existed, only darkness wrapping the poor souls and force them to go and riot to hell. He swallows again, rubbing both of his palms together. No backing down. It's time to end this, end everything.His feet moves slowly, his breathing quickens again , hesitantly stepping at the air and trying force the gravity to pull his body to the gap and fall, but... The incident last year. Ambulance are ringing in his ears. The wrath of the wind hitting smacking his own skin. He sees doctors, people, a bridge, especially someone covered in their own blood. 'Live Kaneki...' are the words he immediately hear . He breaks. He breaks as his butt meet the cold floor instead of the water. He clenched his chest tightly while gasping for air. He can't do it. He can't do it... Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why can't he make himself die right now!? Out of frustration , Kaneki took a rock and throw it at the cliff and yelled, venting his distress at a mere object. After getting a small satisfaction from his actions, he used his hands to cover his ashamed face and muffled the rest of his screams from coming out. He just wants to die. That's it! He wants to punish himself from his crimes and every sin he have committed. He doesn't deserve to live. He needs to die, he wants to die.

Yet even his pathetic self can't do it again... "Someone please..." "Just break me." He prays, hopefully that someone would hear it. That his words will whisper in someone's ear and they will grant his request. "You know I could hear you crying from here." A feminine voice called behind , realizing that he now regretted his own selfish request . He immediately stops wailing and blinks. How come someone found him at this late? Nobody should be outside already at this time around. He was certain he went to an empty place, where no one could hear him, where no one could see him in a forest facing a cliff in a middle of nowhere, where no one could see him jump to his death . Did this person followed him or heard him? He turned around to inspect to see the intruder , and what he found is a woman. From her looks and her posture, he can definitely tell that the girl was between her early twenties . Her blue fluffy hair that past between her shoulders covers one of her indigo blue eyes. The visible orb glows beneath the shadows of the tree; are focusing , mesmerizing his pathetic feature. The pale skin in her face that's glinting under the night sky ,an expression that is pasted with a poker faced look. At first glance she looked a little bit intimidating, yet,it doesn't fazed him. Not at all... Which seems to be off. "Did I interrupt something here or...?" She said with bored eyes as she pointed at her face, "You really just have something here." Indicating his tears. He quickly wiped them away sheepishly and try to make himself look a bit proper. After he fixed himself, a pang of deja vu hits him. He doesn't know how, but for some reason, he remembers a faint memory that disappeared just before he could recall it... ... "Uh..." Is all Kaneki's smart mouth could say. The woman came closer "Mind if sit with you?" She asked yet just sat a besides him, clearly not waiting for his consent at all. Not that he minded. Both are strangers to each other. They don't know each other's name, purposes and goals. 'But are they?' a voice echoes in his mind. "Got a nice view up here..." The girl muttered , looking at the place then at him. He didn't say anything and just look at the rushing water below the gap , what is there to say anyway? She's just a mysterious person who just popped out of nowhere , stopping- no, distracting him from the brink of death. She raised her finger and points, "You got the view of the city to the left, the moon, then a sea... I could stay up here until sunrise."  She exaggerates before she took her backpack and unzips it, rummaging until she took out a napkin along a book. Curiously, he looked at her direction and inspected at the hardbound until his eyes widen when he recognized the familiar front cover of the literature. "You forgot this. " she handed both things at him . " I saw you left this at the cafe earlier ; I was supposed to call you out ,but before I got even the chance too, you're gone already ." Kaneki stared at her with disbelief, thinking everything is surreal . He bit his lip and quickly took his book back from her, shaky hands opened it greeted by pages and finds what he's looking for, the photo and the bookmark, still tucked inside in one piece.   Tears staining his damped face again, then asked the mysterious woman with a crooked voice "W-why did you went to this trouble just to bring it back to me?" The lady just scoffed at him "No thank you? Rude..." she fumed, crossing both of her legs and placed her elbows , making her face rest on her palm. "You seem desperate by getting it back. Can't stick seeing your crybaby face. " she took a quick glance at him and snickered. This woman is obviously teasing him, a stranger. However, Her presences is somewhat... Calming, in an particular way. "I tried to give it back to you but when I went back to the front door, you're just gone in the air again . So I thought of taking the book with me because the shop is closed until next week and I might have a slight chance to walk up to you, which I did. I saw you again in the entrance and followed you, not that I'm a stalker or anything ." Kaneki looked at the woman, then back at his treasures. He noticed a fabric peaked out then lifted it up to reach her vision . "About that, you need something to wipe your face. You look like a human waterfall." He smiled when he heard her insult "Thank you..." Then rubbed his face gently with the given napkin. The woman gave him a smirk. A smile formed on his face and he starts to wonder 'Why does life give me reasons to live when I have finally decided that I want to die?' he wipes his face using the handkerchief, 'Showing me happiness where everything is bright and warm. Whenever I foolishly believed that the bliss will stay, my life finds a way to take them all away again, won't history repeat itself again?' Again, like a caged maze only leading him in the roundabout circles. He looked at the lady, eyes distance to the starry sky. Both pupils are tamed to decipher to point the stars , wondering which constellation they belong. He finds himself almost chuckling at the sight before his eyes 'If I find myself attached to her like my last string of hope, won't fate just take it all away again?' then eyes darkens as he mutters to himself "You're just gonna end up like everyone else." 'And in the end I'll be left alone again and I'll be the one to be blamed.' "Huh?" the woman's train of thought disperse. He quickly tense as he shakes his head.

"N-nothing!" he immediately averted his gaze away then dabs the piece of fabric in his skin, poorly attempting to hide his ashamed face underneath the napkin. "I mean thank you." He affirms , trying to cover up his previous statement. Earning a smirk that was draws on her face. Then without a warning, she stretches out her arms, like a bird whose wings are finally free from the chains, "You know..." she stops as she took a deep breath... "This cliff is the perfect place to die." During these few moments of silence, her words repeatedly echoes in his mind. Kaneki looked at the lady with wide eyes, processing of what she just declared . D-did she know his true intentions? Does she want to end her life as well? 'Just let me die' said a faint familiar voice. "Your shoes are in that tree along with your stuff." She lifted her thumb, directing it at the tree, " Not to mention doing it in the middle of the night? It's almost New year. Bet the people will be happy seeing a floating corpse during the celebration , what a good omen." she commented scathingly. He blinks at her and doesn't respond to her statement. The reverse psychology she stated makes him smile, his brows furrowed, his lips brought out a bitter laugh into life. "Why are you laughing?" she inquires. "It's just that... I look stupid now aren't I?" She bit her lip, suppressing a chuckle until she slowly follows him. "I think... we both are." she bobbed her head , concurring at her own account . And he can't help but to agree with her. Both are laughing at how stupid this entire thing is. How they find it amusing if they could see the world's disappointed face of their actions. When death is supposed to be marked at this time around .Their cynical voices molded , orchestrated a bittersweet song that the world would never heard again. The whole situation is weird and stupid. But even with it's simple stupidity, he would lie if he said it's wasn't nice to have these kind of conversations. When both calmed. The tension arouse into something uncanny . The breeze of reality came back ,letting countless of questions rack his head. Is she trying to stop him? A weak boy who has lost all hope in his miserable life? For what cause? What benefit will she get from him if she tries to save him? She should just leave , forget him and let him die without a single soul knowing. Ah. It hit him. She's just pitying him, that's all. If she realized that she just let a person killed himself, guilt will only come up to her and haunt her in her sleepless nights . He knows how that feels, feeling useless not stopping a person to open the death's door. Just like him and his mother. If he knows better, he would've done everything to stop her. Then maybe, today , maybe, his mother was still alive. And now this lady caught him red handed. She has now fallen into his position. If fate truly exist, then he will be it's bait. That thought makes him shudder. He truly is a piece of shit, garbage. He should've just jumped while he has the chance. That would be better for the both of them. What a fucking waste of space. "Hey if you try to die now, you would miss the opportunity to see the fireworks up here. They rarely ran a display during New year here and the view seems rad." She smiled sadly while looking at the city lights from the corner of the gap," That's where people gather and watch the display . I know it's a bit far but if I were you, I would watch the show from this perspective before..."  The woman bit her lip and paused when he eyes caught the sea. She seem to be careful not to say anything about suicide. But, she quickly wiped the gloomy expression and stared at him with giddiness "So what do you think?" Kaneki sigh. Why does this woman keep on talking to him and inviting him like he's her friend or something. They don't know each other so what's the big deal? This doesn't make sense to him. She should leave now. This girl is too foolish for staying with him. She's just wasting her time to a worthless piece of shit. Somehow , even if he has the power to leave her, to run now and never look back. The girl has something the he can't lay his finger on. She has that familiar aura, her presence seems too nostalgic. That alone suprisingly makes him stay. He thinks as he rubbed both of his fingers and stared at them, thinking of an excuse to back out ,"I appreciate the offer, but, it will be a twenty five minutes drive from here to the city, almost an hour by walking.  Don't you have any friends to hang out with?" The woman placed both of her hands to the rocky floor and leaned back "Well... my friend wants me to find the best view for the fireworks display . I think this is the perfect one and I want to invite you too." She replied nonchalantly. Ken snickers "Okay we just met." The woman licked her lips and sighed deeply. He find it quite amusing that she isn't exhausted and was still trying to convince him, "Well it's you who lead me back to this place. The best way I could thank you is inviting you here." This whole conversation makes no sense... But... Watching the fireworks wouldn't hurt.  It's just another day of living while having a pit of toxicity in his stomach, he still has enough money to spend for the next night. Doing this is just repaying her for going all the way over here just to give him back his important belongings that helps him hold onto dear life . It's not a big request that was impossible to grant. After new year, he could find another place , make sure this woman forgets his existence, then to kill himself. Simple. Thinking about it, he should be asking for her name already, but it's not like they're going to be friends or anything. As much as possible, Kaneki wants to be sure that he's surrounded in the hallow solitude that he's in. It will be more hectic if he asked her name and exchanges his. He finds it strange that she hasn't asked for his name yet, but then again even he forgot to do that as well, maybe because of that strange sense of feeling that they already met that made introductions unnecessary. Giving up, he released a shaky breath,"Do you really think this is the best spot?" He asked her and stared at her eyes. The girl responded with a genuine smile "Trust me." This woman, her attitude, the way she talks, she seems familiar . This is getting bizarre. Have they met before? Have they crossed each other's path and somehow managed to know each other and blurt out each other's name? Well, if they did bumped to each other, or met at one time around, he doesn't want to ask because it pointless. He believes it's better for the both of them because in the end, he'll be lying lifeless soon. Ever since last year's incident, he never wants to be closer to other people anymore. If he talked to her, he might've be distracted from his goal here. She achieved that tonight but this will be the last time. Making himself attach to her is asking for a life sentence. Somehow, no matter how menacing his thoughts get, Kaneki can't help but smile back to her genuinely "Alright." One last time. No more excuses. Someone has to draw a thick line- no, build a barrier between them , then erase himself in the face of the world. And he'll be happy to do the part. "Great!" She offers a grin before she looks at the sea again once more, obviously staying . Kaneki at this point raised a suspicion if she's monitoring on him to see if he would jump at the cliff and betray her request. Kaneki sighs, as much he likes the woman's presence, he also find the situation getting weirder and weirder. "Aren't you going back to your place?" She closed her eyes and shakes her head "Nope. I spend 150 yen for the bus ticket all the way here. At Least let me enjoy what I've paid would ya?" She scolds, telling him to shut up. Which he did. Within those few more minutes that went by , the woman kept staring at the distance of the sea where her eyes could reach, trying to ignoring the guy's stares who's next to her. She rolled her eyes and is the first one to spoke up to break the comfortless silence ,"Weirdo". "Wha-!? " he cry out in surprise, causing her to blurt out a small chuckle. Defending himself, he told her, "It's just...You look (felt) familiar." The woman took glance at him "Yeah?" a small smile crept her face. She tries to move her lips as if she wants to say something but , instead, she stood up, not wanting to continue the discussion even further. "If I went now,will you still stay?" She asked , not leaving her eyes on him as she wipes off her bottom for the remaining dirt to come off. "It's getting late. Really late." She reminded him. Kaneki followed the trail of the moonlight's reflection from the rushing waves and looked up at the moon itself, "You're right ." He simply answered , nodding his head. She reached out a hand, helping him to stand up, then both exchanges small smiles to each other before fixing themselves. 'Hey if you try to die now, you would miss the opportunity to see the fireworks up here' her voice vibrates in his mind over and over again. He clearly remembers the voice she displayed. Not out of pity nor out of resentment the way he thought it would be . For the past 25 horrible years of his life, he was able to trace all of the negativity or ill feelings towards him. However... The way she blurted every word she say to him are out of sincerity and sympathetic , as if she they were friends to another world or from their previous life...he kinda felt a little... tingle in his belly. This woman is too kind that it's scaring him. She's too kind that it might be the death of him instead. After making sure they both left nothing on the crag, they looked at the cliff one last time for tonight and leaves the place wordless. ... When they bought tickets at the receptionist, they both entered the last bus that is stationed outside of the entrance. Both are thankful when they found vacant seats, despite around this time around being rush hour, a two-seaters in the back are waiting for them. Ken clears his throat, "After you." He escorted her with chivalry. "Thanks. " She nodded politely. ... They settled themselves, white silence envelopes them. 'This isn't awkward at all.' He mentally submits to himself sarcastically. Well to be exact, he doesn't know what else he should say . But this isn't what he wanted, right ? He wanted not to be involve in anyone's daily life. That an unknown space would remain between him and society. Between him and her, both of them . There would be a far stretch space we're they couldn't connect . And yet here he is sitting beside a person he hardly knows planning to go and watch a fireworks display. Somehow he isn't sure as an alluring air around her tempts him to break his own rule through his own volition. He can feel his mouth about to set the forbidden words free, enough to make him obligated to cover his own mouth. What is this feeling? Why does it feel like this has happened before? The questions he has in his head, he wants to vomit them. And god it takes a lot of willpower not to let them out. Powerless, the only thing he could do was silently watch her. Her hair faced him; her temples rested on the window as she is drown at her own thoughts as well. His mind wonders what's she's currently thinking. And it surprisingly scares him. "Stop that." She blurted, annoyed, enough to make him flinch and quickly tries to hunt for anything distracting in his backpack. He snatched his phone out as he decided to busy himself by searching up some hotels with reasonable prices since he is going to stay for another night. But from the looks of it, all of them are fully booked tonight. "So, where would you stay? You don't look like you're someone who lived here" She flickered her eyes up him. Kaneki simply answers, scrolling down and trying his best not to meet her eyes. "A hotel. I'm still finding one." He utters. "I can help you with that." She offered. "No, it's alright. I can find one." But after visiting more web pages , scrolling down , and a dying battery later. To his dismay, every hotel, every inn or even the motels are fully booked. "Can't find a room?" she smiles as she raised an eyebrow, looking smugly at him. "Like I told you, there's a fireworks festival tomorrow at New year . Very rare for this to happen in Osaka. So you're not the only one looking for a damn room, well at the very least they know how to book early." 'Well that's because I wasn't even planning on sta-' Silence empowered him instead . However the woman seem to know something, enough to let out a cough, to seek for his attention, "I have a friend who's roommate just moved from another town. Maybe you can stay with him for awhile. It's just that he's an asspull, but I think you can manage with him." "N-no. It's fine, really." He turns the offer down, "You already done enough for me and I don't want to bother your friend. He's probably sleeping since it's late." She chuckles,"At this time around, he's probably with his girlfriend, jerking off or whatever." She twirled her hair as she nonchalantly looked at him , "Besides you got nothing to lose, and not to mention you have no other place to stay." 'She does have a point' he admits to himself. Still, he felt a bit reluctant about the offer. 'What if...' he thought to himself ,'What if I become friends with this person she's talking about? What if I become a nuisance to him as I was to everyone else in my life?' But then again, it will all end tomorrow, why not just endure another night?' 'Excuses.' His eyes widen hearing those words. 'You still want to live and you know it.' 'Still wanna fill this world with your useless presence' 'Nobody loves you, nobody needs you, and nobody ever will.' 'Your heart will remain as it always was...an empty void, a vessel full of

nothingness.'

Those mocking words echo in his mind, as he grits his teeth trying his best not to show his dismay. "So, are you taking it or what?" her words slaps him right back to reality. He finds himself ending up staring at her face, her voice seemed to chant a magic spell to swept away all the menacing voices away. How does she do that? He wants to ask her but he didn't replied as he kept being mesmerized by her nostalgic eyes that seem to hold secrets deeper and darker than the ocean floor that he wants to hunt so badly. "Stop staring and answer the damn question already, are you taking it or not?" She grimaced, completely snapping him out of his daydream. Blinking his eyes before missing a beat, he answers, "Okay, okay fine." He raised his hands in defeat. "I'll take it, where's it even at?" Hearing his response, a small smile of victory slowly etches on her face" Don't worry it's close to our stop, about a 5 min walk from there, probably. " Kaneki sighs, leaning on his back as his eyes closed, smiling at her, "Alright." After this no words were exchanged until they reached their destination. Finally, they went down the vehicle , Kaneki places his hands in his pockets, he exhales deeply, creating an icy mist escaping his mouth, 'Well then, lead the way" tilting his head towards her direction. She nods "Its just down this alley way, come on follow me." Then she starts walking.

Venturing down the quiet eerie streets, all the Christmas decorations are already replaced by the New Year once as he noticed how snowy it was, like some obscure picture covered in a white sea. He felt that this has happened before... 'Isn't it nice to have a snowy late night walks?' A familiar voice giggled inside his head. Both of his feet stopped walking as he stands, finding the woman's figure drifting further and further as she walks. He recalls another fragmented memory. His eyes close and immediately opens, realizing that she has remarked that he has stopped walking and immediately called out to him, "Are you okay?"she asked, her tone was illustrated with concern. "Ah yeah. I'm alright. Just thinking about somethings." He quietly admitted. "Okay..." She sneers, "Then isn't it nice to have snowy late night walks?" He blinks hearing her inquires, just like the childish vioce, yet more hesitant than the latter .

"Y-yeah." He stutters. "That's good. Now let's go, were almost there." She turns her back at him as resumed walking, and all he can do is to follow her while fighting to repress his own clouded thoughts and memories. "Its here." she points after they exited an alleyway . Just at the corner of another street was a modernized house about three stories high covered in snow just like everything else. She leads him as they took the stairs to the third floor. After passing four doors, they stopped. "Here it is." She proudly presented the door with a nametag written 'Nishio' in it. 'Haven't I heard that name before?' He looked at the nametag with a puzzled look. "Doesn't look like they're here..."she peeks through the curtains then scanned the hall everywhere seeing no sign of anyone. She quickly tiptoed as she suddenly reaches the top of the doorframe to seemingly taking for something. "Aha!" she exclaims, "Here it is." she pulls down a key from the side of the frame, "Told him to hide it better, he never learns does he?" she says mockingly. When she opened the door, she took off her shoes and went inside while saying "Come on.", leading him. Entering inside the small apartment, he took a moment to look over the area until he heard her asked, "Are you hungry?" 'No, I'm good." He replies as he follows her in a vacant room. He's started to get worried about the whole thing, "You sure this will be okay?" his voice trails. "In all honesty, we are trespassing his property." He reminds her hoping to get the idea. After walking the whole town for a day and almost doing a suicide at night, he doesn't want to deal with a lot of dilemma right now. "I trespass here a lot because he has the stuff I need. He got used to it" She only replied , placing her bag on the cupboard followed by, "I think." as she opened the cabinet, taking all the sheets out and placing the first mattress ,spreading it out at the floor. "But really, don't worry. I'm sure he won't mind." She retorts before she takes another sheet. "Besides if he does get pissed, just tell him that this bitch told you so." He frowns when he heard her assurance, but instead of protesting , he quickly dropped his bag before helping her with the other sheets. Neither of them speak of the entire process until they've finished, resulting a comfortable futon seemingly ready to be slept onto. She looked at their work,"Well looks like my job here is done."then , tossed a pillow at him" If you're tired now, you can rest. You seem to have had a long day today." She tells him before she stands up, taking her bag with her. When she reaches the living room,she bid her last instruction, "Just remember what I said and you'll be fine, kay?" He leans uncomfortably at the wall,"Yeah" he simply replies, nodding at her command.. "Thank you. " he finally says as he swallows, not knowing what to do anymore during her presence. Yet he dares not to say another word. He only watched her movements while she headed to the door. For some reason, it felt like time became slower as she carefully  fixed her shoes before she approached the door, "Well, I have to go now." She said, taking her leave. But when she reaches the doorknob, she stops , giving him moment as if she's expecting something from him , of course, only silence responded, not helping the somber atmosphere at all. "You sure you're not forgetting something are you?" She asked boldly, not having eye contact with him. "What?" He said, caught off guard with that question ,then tilted his head, completely bewildered . He honestly doesn't know what she's talking about. She opens the door and chortled "You really are an idiot." Then, she turned to lock her eyes with his and said , "It was nice seeing you again Kaneki Ken. I'm Kirishima Touka by the way."

The breeze that carried her words seem to have knocked out his conscious out of his body,  same as the words that have slipped iut of his mouth.

 “T-touka.” he stutters.

He is completely stifled hearing the message, especially the name. Kirishima Touka. Her name. The name that brings the memories back he have yearned for years to life in his mind.The name he haven't heard for a damn decade. The name that his lips haven't chanted for a long period of time. It felt like time has stopped . "Kirishima Touka..." He repeats as he finally tried to savor her name again after all these years. Recalling the way how his tongue twist and his mouth sang that old name he has forgotten. Kirishima Touka. Kirishima Touka... "Touka-" An interruption occurred when they both heard a phone rang. Touka scoffed, annoyed, as she took out her phone and looked at the caller's address, sighing "Give me a moment." She excused herself as she accepted it and quickly tucked the device on top of her ear. "Yeah?... No, no of course not!... Don't worry old man, I'll be home soon. Is Ayato home already?... Okay, give me twenty minutes. Yeah, see ya." Then she dropped the call, giving a deep exhale as her tired eyes met his, "Sorry but I need to go. My family is getting worried and we can continue this tomorrow." Ken hesitates to speak. He can't directly look her in the eyes. Touka Kirishima, a name of a friend not a stranger. But ... that only make things worse. He felt like everything he have planned for months, dying in that cliff or somewhere without anyone's knowledge, were washed away by a wave of resentment. He has a lot of things to ask about her, yet he's also wants to stay away from her. Not after what happened 10 years ago. He doesn't know what to do, what to say. Yet- "Sure..."he manages to curve his lips into a smile, a crooked smile. Touka on the other hand, eyes staring at him with disbelief, her lips pressed together , looking at him as if she can definitely see what's wrong. "Look..."she started, " You're definitely tired, if we kept chatting until dawn we probably won't have the energy to see tomorrow's display.Everything we need to catch up about , we'll just talk about it tomorrow." He only nods as he simply responds "Yeah..." "Okay." ... "Kaneki." She calls out catching his attention again, instinctively making him face her. "Mhm?" "I'll see you later, kay?" She said her final words for the night as she turned her back one last time and left shutting  the door on her way out. BANG! As the door shuts, He suddenly felt alone in the cold lonely room. His back slides down, using the wall as a heft as he processes what just happened. 'I'm Touka Kirishima' He gulps again when he recalls her name that came from her very own lips. 'I'll see you later. Those are her only words for the night that truly left him astray.                                        -END OF CHAPTER ONE-

[endenogatai]

Europe’s Android ‘choice’ screen keeps burying better options

It’s been over a year since Google begun auctioning slots for a search engine ‘choice’ screen on Android in Europe, following a major antitrust intervention by the European Commission back in 2018. But despite hitting Google with a record-breaking fine over two years ago almost nothing has changed.

The tech giant’s search marketshare remains undented and the most interesting regional search alternatives are being priced out of a Google-devised ‘remedy’ that favors those who can pay the most to be listed as an alternative to its own dominant search engine on smartphones running Google’s Android OS.

Quarterly choice screen winners have been getting increasingly same-y. Alternatives to Google are expecting another uninspiring batch of ‘winners’ to drop in short order.

The results for Q1 2021 were dominated by a bunch of ad-targeting search options few smartphone users would likely have heard of: Germany’s GMX; California-based info.com; and Puerto Rico-based PrivacyWall (which is owned by a company whose website is emblazoned with the slogan “100% programmatic advertising”) — plus another, more familiar (ad)tech giant’s search engine (Microsoft-owned) Bing.

Lower down the list: The Russian ‘Google’ — Yandex — which won eight slots. And a veteran player in the Czech search market, Seznam.cz, which bagged two.

On the ‘big loser’ side: Non-tracking search engine, DuckDuckGo — which has been standing up for online privacy for over a decade yet won only one slot (in Belgium). It’s been come to be almost entirely squeezed out vs winning a universal slot in all markets at the start of the auction process.

Tree-planting not-for-profit search engine, Ecosia, was almost entirely absent in the last round too: Gaining only one slot on the screen showed to Android users in Slovenia. Yet back in December Ecosia was added as a default search option with Safari on iOS, iPadOS and macOS — having grown its global usage to more than 15 million users.

While another homegrown European search option — which has a privacy-focus — France’s Qwant, went home with just one slot. And not in its home market, either (in tiny Luxembourg).

Google’s EU Android choice screen isn’t working say search rivals, calling for a joint process to devise a fair remedy

If Europe’s regulators had fondly imagined that a Google-devised ‘remedy’ for major antitrust breaches they identified would automagically restore thriving competition to the Android search market they should feel rudely awakened indeed. The bald fact is Google’s marketshare has not even been scratched, let alone dented.

Statista data for Google’s search market share on mobile (across both Android and iOS; the latter where the tech giant pays Apple billions of dollars annually to be set as the default on iPhones) shows that in February 2021 its share in Europe stood at 97.07% — up from 96.92% in July 2018 when the Commission made the antitrust ruling.

Yes, Google has actually gained share running this ‘remedy’.

By any measure that’s a spectacular failure for EU competition enforcement — more than 2.5 years after its headline grabbing antitrust decision against Android.

Google gets slapped with $5BN EU fine for Android antitrust abuse

The Commission has also been promoting a goal of European tech sovereignty throughout the period Google has been running this auction. President Ursula von der Leyen links this overrarching goal to her digital policy programming.

On the measure of tech sovereignty the Android choice screen must be seen as a sizeable failure too — as it’s not only failed to support (most) homegrown alternatives to Google (another, Cliqz, pulled the plug on its search+browser effort entirely last year, putting part of the blame on the region’s political stakeholders for failing to understand the need for Europe to own its own digital infrastructure) — but it’s actively burying the most interesting European alternatives by forcing them to compete against a bunch of ad-funded Google clones.

(And if Brave Search takes off it’ll be another non-European alternative — albeit, one that will have benefitted from expertise and tech that was made-in-Europe… )

Brave is launching its own search engine with the help of ex-Cliqz devs and tech

This is because the auction mechanism means only companies that pay Google the most can buy themselves a chance at being set as a default option on Android.

Even in the rare instances where European players shell out enough money to appear in the choice list (which likely means they’ll be losing money per search click) they most often do so alongside other non-European alternatives and Google — further raising the competitive bar for selection.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Nor was it wasn’t initially; Google started with a choice screen based on marketshare.

However it very quickly switched to a pay to play model — throttling at a stroke the discoverability of alternative business models that aren’t based on exploiting user data (or, indeed, aren’t profit-driven in Ecosia’s case; as it uses ad-generated revenue to fund tree planting with a purely environmental goal).

Such alternatives say they typically can’t afford to win Google’s choice screen auctions. (It’s worth noting that those who do participate in the game are restricted in what they can say as Google requires they sign an NDA.)

Clearly, it’s no coincidence that the winners of Google’s auction skew almost entirely to the track and target side of the tracks, where its own business sits; all data-exploiting business models bandied together. And then, from a consumer point of view, why would you not pick Google with such a poorly and artificially limited ‘choice’ on offer — since you’re generally only being offered weaker versions of the same thing?

Ecosia tells TechCrunch it’s now considering pulling out of the auction process altogether — which would be a return to its first instinct; which was to boycott the auction before saying it felt it had to participate. A few months playing Google’s pay-to-play ‘no choice’ (as Ecosia dubs the auction) game has cemented its view that the system is stacked against genuine alternatives.  

Google’s ‘no choice’ screen on Android isn’t working, says Ecosia — querying the EU’s approach to antitrust enforcement

Over two auction rounds when Ecosia has only ended up winning the one slot each time it says it’s seen no positive effect on user numbers. A decision on whether or not to withdraw entirely will be taken after the results of the next auction process are revealed, it said. (The next round of results are expected shortly, in early March.)

“We definitely realized it’s less and less ‘fun’ to play the game,” Ecosia founder Christian Kroll told us. “It’s a super unfair game — where it’s not only ‘David against Goliath’ but also Goliath gets to choose the rules, gets a free ticket, he can change the rules of game if he likes to. So it’s not amusing for us to participate in that.

“We’ve been participating now for nine months and if you look at overall marketshare in Europe nothing has changed. We don’t know the results yet of this round but I assume also nothing will change — the usual suspects will be there again… Most of the options that you see there now are not interesting to users.”

“Calling it a ‘choice’ screen is still a little bit ironic if you remove all the interesting choices from the screen. So the situation is still the same and it becomes less and less fun to play the game and at some point I think we might make the decision that we’re not going to be part of the game anymore,” he added.

Other alternative search engines we spoke to are continuing to participate for now — but all were critical of Google’s ‘pay-to-play’ model for the Android ‘choice screen’.

DuckDuckGo founder, Gabriel Weinberg, told us: “We are bidding, but only to help further expose to the European Commission how flawed Google’s rigged process really is, in hopes they will help more actively take a role in reforming it into something that actually works for consumers. Due to our strict privacy policy, we expect to be eliminated, same as last time.”

He pointed to a blog post the company put out last fall, denouncing the “fundamentally flawed” auction model — and saying that “whole piece still stands”. In the blog post the company wrote that despite being profitable since 2014 “we have been priced out of this auction because we choose to not maximize our profits by exploiting our users”.

“In practical terms, this means our commitment to privacy and a cleaner search experience translates into less money per search. This means we must bid less relative to other, profit-maximizing companies,” DuckDuckGo went on, adding: “This EU antitrust remedy is only serving to further strengthen Google’s dominance in mobile search by boxing out alternative search engines that consumers want to use and, for those search engines that remain, taking most of their profits from the preference menu.”

“This auction format incentivizes bidders to bid what they can expect to profit per user selection. The long-term result is that the participating Google alternatives must give most of their preference menu profits to Google! Google’s auction further incentivizes search engines to be worse on privacy, to increase ads, and to not donate to good causes, because, if they do those things, then they could afford to bid higher,” it also said then.

France’s Qwant has been similarly critical and it told us it is “extremely dissatisfied” with the auction — calling for “urgent modification” and saying the 2018 Commissio decision should be fully respected “in text and in spirit”.

“We are extremely dissatisfied with the auction system. We are asking for an urgent modification of the Choice Screen to allow consumers to find the search engine they want to use and not just the three choices that are only the ones that pay the most Google. We demand full respect for the 2018 decision, in text and in spirit,” said CEO Jean-Claude Ghinozzi.

“We are reviewing all options and re-evaluating our decision on a quarterly basis. In any case, we want consumers to be able to freely choose the search engine they prefer, without being limited to the only three alternative choices sold by Google. Consumers’ interests must always come first,” he added.

Russia’s Yandex confirmed it has participated in the upcoming Q2 auction. But it was also critical of Google’s implementation, saying it falls short of offering a genuine “freedom of choice” to Android users.

“We aim to offer high-quality and convenient search engine around the world. We are confident that freedom to select a search engine will lead to greater market competition and motivate each player to improve services. We don’t think that the current EU solution fully ensures freedom of choice for users, by only covering devices released from March 2020,” a Yandex spokeswoman said.

“There are currently very few such devices on the EU market in comparison with the total number of devices in users’ hands. It is essential to provide the freedom of choice that is genuine and real. Competition among service providers ultimately benefits users who will receive a better product.”

One newcomer to the search space — the anti-tracking browser Brave (which, as we mentioned above, just bought up some Cliqz assets to underpin the forthcoming launch of an-own brand Brave Search) — confirmed it will not be joining in at all.

“Brave does not plan to participate in this auction. Brave is about putting the user first, and this bidding process ignores users’ best interests by limiting their choices and selecting only for highest Google Play Store optimizing bidders,” a spokeswoman said.

“An irony here is that Google gets to profit off its own remedy for being found guilty of anti-competitive tying of Chrome into Android,” she added.

Asked about its strategy to grow usage of Brave Search in the region — outside of participation in the Android choice screen — she said: “Brave already has localized browsers for the European market, and we will continue to grow by offering best-in-class privacy showcased in marketing campaigns and referrals programs.”

Google’s self-devised ‘remedy’ followed a 2018 antitrust decision by the Commission — which led to a record-breaking $5BN penalty and an order to cease a variety of infringing behaviors. The tech giant’s implementation remains under active monitoring by EU antitrust regulators. However Kroll argues the Commission is essentially just letting Google buy time rather than fix the abusive behavior it identified.

“The way I see this at the moment is the Commission feels like the auction screen isn’t necessarily something that they’ve requested as a remedy so they can’t really force Google to change it — and that’s why they also maybe don’t see it as their responsibility,” he said. “But at the same time they requested Google to solve the situation and Google isn’t doing anything.

“I think they are also allowing Google to get the credit from the press and also from users that it seems like Google is doing something — so they are allowing Google to play on time… I don’t know if a real choice screen would be a good solution but it’s also not for me to decide — it’s up to the European Commission to decide if Google has successfully remedied the damage… and has also compensated some of the damage that it’s done and I think that has not happened at all. We can see that in the [marketshare] numbers that basically still the same situation is happening.”

“The whole thing is designed to remove interesting options from the screen,” he also argued of Google’s current ‘remedy’. “This is how it’s ‘working’ and I’m of course disappointed that nobody is stepping in there. So we’re basically in this unfair game where we get beaten up by our competitors. And I would hope for some regulator to step in and say this is not how this should go. But this isn’t happening.

“At the moment our only choice is to hang in there but at the moment if we really see there is no effect and there’s also no chance that regulators will ever step in we still have the choice to completely withdraw and let Google have its fun but without us… We’re not only not getting anything out of the [current auction model] but we’re of course also investing into it. And there are also restrictions because of the NDA we’ve signed — and even those restrictions are a little bit of a pain. So we have all the negative effects and don’t get any benefits.”

While limited by NDA in what he can discuss about the costs involved with participating in the auction, Kroll suggested the winners are doing so at a loss — pursuing reach at the expense of revenue.

“If you look at the bids from the last rounds I think with those bids it would be difficult for us to make money — and so potentially others have lost money. And that’s exactly also how this auction is designed, or how most auctions are designed, is that the winners often lose money… so you have this winner’s curse where people overbid,” he said.

“This hasn’t happened to us — also because we’re super careful — and in the last round we won this wonderful slot in Slovenia. Which is a beautiful country but again it has no impact on our revenues and we didn’t expect that to happen. It’s just for us to basically participate in the game but not risk our financial health,” he added. “We know that our bids will likely not win so the financial risk [to Ecosia as it’s currently participating and mostly losing in the auction] is not that big but for the companies who actually win bids — for them it might be a different thing.”

Kroll points out that the auction model has allowed Google to continue harvesting marketshare while weakening its competitors.

“There are quite a few companies who can afford to lose money in search because they just need to build up marketshare — and Google is basically harvesting all that and at the same time weakening its competitors,” he argued. “Because competitors need to spend on this. And one element that — at least in the beginning when the auction started — that I didn’t even see was also that if you’re a real search company… then you’re building up a brand, you’re building up a product, you’re making all these investments and you have real users — and if you have those then, if there was really a choice screen, people would naturally choose you. But in this auction screen model you’re basically paying for users that you would have anyway.

“So it’s really putting those kind of companies at a disadvantage: DuckDuckGo, us, all kinds of companies who have a ‘real USP’. Also Lilo, potentially even Qwant as well if you have a more nationalist approach to search, basically. So all of those companies are put at an even bigger disadvantage. And that’s — I think — unfair.”

Since most winners of auction slots are, like Google, involved in surveillance capitalism — gathering data on search users to profit off of ad targeting — if anyone was banking on EU competition enforcement being able to act as a lever to crack open the dominant privacy-hostile business model of the web (and allow less abusive alternatives get a foot in the door) they must be sorely disappointed.

Better alternatives — that do not track consumers for ads; or, in the case of Ecosia, are on an entirely non-profit mission — are clearly being squeezed out.

The Commission can’t say it wasn’t warned: The moment the auction model was announced by Google rivals decried it as flawed, rigged, unfair and unsustainable — warning it would put them at a competitive disadvantage (exactly because they aren’t just cloning Google’s ‘track and target for ad profit model’).

Nonetheless, the Commission has so far shown itself unwilling or unable to respond — despite making a big show of proposing major new rules for the largest platforms which it says are needed to ensure they play fair. But that raises the question of why it’s not better-enforcing existing EU rules against tech giants like Google?

When we raised criticism of Google’s Android choice screen auction model with the Commission it sent us its standard set of talking points — writing that: “We have seen in the past that a choice screen can be an effective way to promote user choice”.

“The choice screen means that additional search providers are presented to users on start-up of every new Android device in every EEA country. So users can now choose their search provider of preference when setting up their newly purchased Android devices,” it also said, adding that it is “committed to a full and effective implementation of the decision”.

“We are therefore monitoring closely the implementation of the choice screen mechanism,” it added — a standard line since Google begin its ‘compliance’ with the 2018 EU decision. 

In a slight development, the Commission did also confirm it has had discussions with Google about the choice screen mechanism — following what it described as “relevant feedback from the market”. 

It said these discussions focused on “the presentation and mechanics of the choice screen and to the selection mechanism of rival search providers”.

But with the clock ticking, and genuine alternatives to Google search being actively squeezed out of the market — leaving European consumers to be offered no meaningful choice to privacy-hostile search on Android — you do have to wonder what regulators are waiting for?

A pattern of reluctance to challenge tech giants where it counts seems to be emerging from Margrethe Vestager’s tenure at the helm of the competition department (and also, since 2019, a key shaper of EU digital policy).

Despite gaining a reputation for being willing to take on tech giants — and hitting Google (and others) with a number of headline-grabbing fines over the past five+ years — she cannot claim success in rebalancing the market for mobile search nor smartphone operating systems nor search ad brokering, in just the most recent Google cases.

Nonetheless she was content to green light Google’s acquisition of wearable maker Fitbit at the end of last year — despite a multitude of voices raised against allowing the tech giant to further entrench its dominance.

On that she argued defensively that concessions secured from Google would be sufficient to address concerns (such as a promise extracted from Google not to  use Fitbit data for ads for at least ten years).

But, given her record on monitoring Google’s compliance with a whole flush of EU antitrust rulings, it’s hard to see why anyone other than Google should be confident in the Commission’s ability or willingness to enforce its own mandates against Google. Complaints against how Google operates, meanwhile, just keep stacking up.

“I think they are listening,” says Kroll of the Commission. “But what I am missing is action.”

Google’s EU Android choice screen isn’t working say search rivals, calling for a joint process to devise a fair remedy

Travel startups cry foul over what Google’s doing with their data

Act now before Google kills us, 135-strong coalition of startups warns EU antitrust chief

  from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/3ehnJcV via IFTTT

[evanvanness]

Annotated edition, Week in Ethereum News, April 19 issue

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

As I always say, the most clicked is determined by what people hadn’t already seen during the week.  

My thought is that the annotated edition tries to give people a more high-level overview.  If I were only reading a few things this week, I would read

Quarterly update from each EF team

Prysmatic launches the Topaz testnet, ready for multi-client testnet

Compound’s decentralized governance launches

Why so many South Americans are into DeFi: “when you believe and know in your heart that nothing is riskier than your government or a bank, any alternative becomes much more enticing”

7 reasons Eth2 will change the blockchain game

The quarterly update from each EF team is pretty down in the weeds, but some of those teams don’t do much communicating. They don’t have the same need to communicate as EF pays salaries, plus some of teams are low-level stuff where the audience is already quite small.  It’s at least worth skimming to get a general idea of what the EF teams are doing though.

Prysmatic launched their new testnet, which isn’t the multi-client testnet™ but is very close.   We should see that in the next few weeks.  The “7 reasons Eth2 changes the game” is certainly an Eth bullish post, but I suspect that the “eth2 skepticism trade” is going to start unwinding and it could have a big impact on the price of ETH.  In fact, I think the price of ETH would likely be higher right now if Eth2 didn’t exist, because crypto fund managers have all turned eth2 into “just a meme” and sold on skepticism.  Meanwhile literally zero Eth wannabes have yet to deliver anything scalable without trading off decentralization - and if you trade off decentralization, then you may as well just use SQL.

I suspect Compound’s governance will prove to be something that many projects copy.  Of course they didn’t come up with it all on their own, they certainly incorporated many elements from others (eg, Maker) but it’s a solid model for web3 apps to follow.

Finally Mariano Conti’s essay on why DeFi.   Contrary to Bitcoin’s “tHe DoLlAr iS aBoUt tO coLaPsE,” DeFi provides an alternative financial system to the folks whose fiat is actually on the verge of collapsing and who don’t want to hold volatile assets like ETH (or an unsustainable memecoin like BTC).  Of course it’s not perfect, and it’s risky but any Argentine has a pretty good sense that DeFi is less risky than their banking system or Argentina’s Peronist Peso Printer.  

That thing goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrr like no other.

Eth1

Geth v1.9.13, with dynamic state snapshots if you use the flag

Nethermind v.1.8.1 – receipts, bodies and state can be synced in parallel. WebSockets and HTTP run on same port

Latest core devs call. Beiko’s notes. Progress and discussion on EIPs for Berlin.

Quilt doc on account abstraction implementation plan

Most of this speaks for itself.  The clients continue to improve while things are being worked on for the next hard fork.  Meanwhile the longer-term stateless Ethereum continues to be worked on.

Eth2

Prysmatic launches the Topaz testnet, ready for multi-client testnet

Chainsafe’s Lodestar client in TypeScript releases initial audit report from Least Authority

Latest what’s new in Eth2

Latest eth2 call, lots of talk of API standardizations. Ben’s notes

Proto’s eth2fastspec, an optimization for transition speed to the spec

An update to add atomicity to cross-shard transfers at EE level

The Lodestar tooling has already proven to be really useful to devs and the code quality is quite high by all accounts.

Ben’s what’s new in eth2 is also a good high-level read, I just assume you already know that.

Layer2

When DeFi meets rollup, how rollup chains will work together

Arguably this could be in the “things you should read this week” above, as it’s a relatively high-level look at how rollups will work together, using Eth as the settlement layer. 

Stuff for developers

Writing your first zk proof with circom and snarkjs from Iden3

Brownie v1.7 – (python-based dev/testing framework). easy CLI github/EthPM package install. And a quick walkthrough of using OpenZeppelin contracts with Brownie

Remix online and desktop IDE v0.10 – more e2e tests, dev node in browser, plugin improvements, publish to IPFS, async/await for script execution

OpenZeppelin test environment v0.1.4

dshackle – Eth API load balancer

Flash mintable asset backed tokens

Upload to IPFS directly from ENS manager with Temporal

How MeTokens personalizes with 3Box Profiles

Loopring launches an API for their dex rollup

Patterns for access control in Solidity

money-legos: tool to build DeFi apps

I’ve been trying to provide more context in the links of the devs section, which means I have less to say here.   

That money-legos quickstarter for DeFi apps seems like it’s built for hackthons.

Security and ERC777 attacks

Sebastian Bürgel finds a bug cancelling the transaction in the Multis UI

Certora on a Synthetix reentrancy bug they found

Slither v0.6.11 – support for Solidity v0.6, auto-generate properties for unit tests and fuzzer

Curve found a vulnerability in the Curve sUSD code. Funds are safe.

Two ERC777 re-entrancy attacks this weekend. ERC777 is widely known to be vulnerable to reentrancy attacks, something ConsenSys Diligence highlighted in the Uniswap audit and on which OpenZepplin published an exploit on last summer

Thus a Uniswap market for imBTC (ERC777) got drained for ~1300 ETH with reentrancy and then lendFme also got drained for $25m USD by the attacker tricking the code into believing more had been deposited than actually had. Peckshield has a solid writeup. The losers are the liquidity providers, and dForce which had the entirety of its liquidity drained.

The dforce/lendfme attacker ended up giving back the money, apparently because he (i’ll use masculine probabalistically) used some front ends without covering his tracks, so he decided it was better to quit while still ahead.

ERC20 has some problems as a token standard, but auditors are generally quite skeptical of ERC777.  Could we see a better standard someday? We certainly could, but it seems unlikely to be 777.

Ecosystem

Quarterly update from each EF team

What is still lacking to replace WeChat with web3?

Transaction fees > uncle rewards for miners in March 2020. Obviously Black Thursday’s transaction fee spike contributed to this

Replacing all the different components to make a web3 WeChat is hard.  Even stuff like pictures is quite complicated.

Enterprise

EY releases OpsChain, v4, new SaaS model for public/private chains

Study of key management systems for enterprise

How the Baseline Protocol synchronizes between different systems of record

Using Baseline Protocol for medical tests

John Wolpert’s “mainnet as middleware” for a way of synchronizing different databases.   It’s not quite “global settlement layer” but it basically is settlement but without the finance aspect. 

Governance, DAOs, and standards

Compound’s decentralized governance launches

EIP2585: Minimal Native Meta Transaction Forwarder

Austin Williams mentions this 2002 Microsoft Research paper on Sybil resistance

Sybil resistance is quite hard, as we’ve found out with some Gitocin grants issues.  I don’t think anyone is surprised by the issues, it’s obviously not a 100% onchain trustless system yet.

Application layer

A guide to the shutdown of Maker’s SAI

Play short-deck hold’em with Phil Ivey is the new VirtuePoker promo

Ox opens the waitlist for Matcha, a “better way to swap tokens”

First RocketDAO loan using an ENS name as collateral

DeFi Saver’s vault protection product Automation v2 with flash loans and Maker’s next price

How MetaCoin is thinking about Nikolai’s Reflex Bonds idea for a stablecoin without pegs

dYdX crosses 1billion USD in originated loans

AtStake, an Eth-based competitor to OpenBazaar. Also: help test OpenBazaar with Eth

A writeup of PieDAO’s managed Balancer pools

AtomicLoans lets you lock up BTC for a Dai/USDC loan. (Get ~9% by lending your Dai/USDC)

Gnosis launches a dex protocol with ring trades in batch auctions every 5 mins. First app on the protocol is dxDAO’s Mesa, available through mesa.eth

Do dexes count as DeFi?  I’ll count them as a yes for my weekly metric, which - now that I’ve counted - is at 9/11.  

I didn’t count VirtuePoker as DeFi but I’ve seen some persuasive arguments that gambling has often historically served as a (rather inefficient) method of capital formation. 

It’s also interesting to see dexes evolve.  Exchange is so fundamental to web3 that I think it’s quite possible that we see a segmented market in the long-term, despite the fact that liquidity is a great barrier to entry.  There are simply niches that can be best served by certain tradeoffs, and Gnosis’s batched auction ring trades is an interesting look.

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Another flippening: value transfer on Ethereum exceeds Bitcoin

7 reasons Eth2 will change the blockchain game

Swiss Financial Stability Board recommends heavy stablecoin regulation in response to G20 call for stablecoin comments

Coindesk reports that China’s Blockchain Service Network will incorporate Ethereum

Canada’s regulatory guidance for crypto exchanges

Bullionix: mint gold coin NFTs using DGX

HashCash v2 – personal token spam protection with auto-decreasing bond

me tokens, synthetic labor personal tokens on a bonding curve integrated with Moloch/Aragon from Chris Robison. Unfortunately I can’t read the blog post because Medium censored it.

DeFi Market Cap, neat way to compare what pools are popular inside of DeFi

Virtual gold coins is a pretty interesting bundle.  

Also cool to see some folks experimenting with personal tokens.  Until 2017 got out of control, the hope was to see more experiments (and no scams, ahem!) at small scale, rather than “here’s $100m in ETH, now it’s 1 billion in ETH....now you’re panic selling the bottom.”   Capital allocation in decentralized ecosystems has not been great.

General

MyCrypto and PhishFort get 49 malicious Chrome extensions removed

Etherscan’s ETHProtect, taint inference analysis

Shapeshift buys Portis, and will rebrand it as Shapeshift

Binance is planning a centralized (DPoS) EVM chain

SheFi, a DeFi education program aimed at women

Why so many South Americans are into DeFi: “when you believe and know in your heart that nothing is riskier than your government or a bank, any alternative becomes much more enticing”

The Eth logo made of Venezuelan bolivars

The Eth logo was made up of 3.71 million bolivars, so 0.16 ETH, or under $30 USD.  A sad commentary for a country that briefly had the same standard of living as the United States just a couple decades before I was born.  

Ultimately it is hard to retain the fruits of your labor if poor public policy choices are made by voters, and none was worse than electing an authoritarian dictator.

Finally, you might notice that below I added the sponsor and calendar section to the annotated edition for the first time.  

This newsletter is made possible by ConsenSys

I own 100% Week In Ethereum News. Editorial control has always been me.

If you’re wondering “why didn’t my post make it into Week in Ethereum News,” then here’s a hint: don’t email me. Do put it on Reddit.

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

Apr 21-23 – EY Global Blockchain Virtual Summit

Apr 24 – EthGlobal’s HackMoney virtual hackathon starts

Apr 24-26 – EthTurin

Apr 29-30 – SoliditySummit (Berlin)

May 8-9 – Ethereal Summit (NYC)

May 22-31 – Ethereum Madrid public health virtual hackathon

June 17 – EthBarcelona R&D workshop

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[nightmareonfilmstreet]

IT Movie Review: Pennywise Lives Up To The Hype (Now with Less Spoilers!)

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/movie-review-pennywise-lives-hype-now-less-spoilers/

IT Movie Review: Pennywise Lives Up To The Hype (Now with Less Spoilers!)

The It movie delivers on all of it’s lofty promises with a terrorizing new take on a classic Stephen King Legend of Pennywise the clown. Andy Muschietti delivers a nostalgic thriller with a lot of heart. The core lead by a stellar Losers’ Club.

A note: This mini-review is Spoiler Free! The podcast we will be releasing later this weekend however, will not be. if you haven’t seen the movie, you can read this review. But do go see the film before you listen to our Bonus Episode.

As a Horror fan, hype is not really something we have to deal with as a community all too much. We see hype, we can recognize it. Wonder Woman had Hype. Deadpool had hype. Batman vs. Superman may have had hype.. before preview audiences got to the internet. But it’s not often that a Horror release gets to experience that anticipation of a Blockbuster. One that’s just waiting and ready to burst through the theatre doors.

I believe part of the reason is that Horror is a genre with so many facets, nooks, and crannies. When discussing Horror among the community, one can simply argue away a dislike without much of a debate ‘Oh, I’m not into found footage‘, ‘Creature Features aren’t really my bag‘. Horror itself is a niche, and it’s audience get s to pick and choose the branches of the weird tree where they like to hang out most. It’s hard to appease a tree full of weirdos, it really is. And somehow, the It movie may have done it.

So, how did It reach Looming Blockbuster status? Well it’s hard to pinpoint, exactly. First off, I think this film landed at an extremely opportune time. Horror Movies have been dominating the Box office in 2017. Jordan Peele‘s Get Out is reigning as the most profitable movie of 2017. Annabelle: Creation‘s impressive run at the box office pushed The Conjuring series into the elite $1 Billion franchise club. Audiences seem to be receptive to horror this year. And, it’s no surprised we latched onto Pennywise the Clown after 2016’s breakout 80’s thriller Stranger Things. It was the sleeper hit of the year, captivating viewers across genres and typical viewing audiences, to become one of Netflix’s Top 3 most watched series. Fans seem primed and ready for a retro tale of kids in paranormal peril.

But with all the things working for It‘s release – the film also faced some pretty high barriers. Not only are they trying to re-imagine an already successful property, but two. Stephen King is the single most iconic author in Horror. His works have been adapted countless times; from Carrie (1976), Christine (1982), The Shining (1980).. I could literally rhyme off adaptations for another 3 paragraphs if I found myself needing to hit a word count. And with such an extensive and beloved body of work, comes a passionate fan base. Stephen King’s readers can be a tough crowd to please when it comes to interpreting his work. The recently adapted Dark Tower Series has been pretty much panned by audiences and critics, despite being one of the highly anticipated releases of the summer. On top of impressing Stephen King‘s audience of avid readers, this film had the lofty task of impressing fans of the Original 1990 TV mini-series. (spoiler: I’m one of them) Tim Curry’s portrayal of Pennywise was the nightmare fuel that likely steered the majority of macabre Millenials towards the Horror genre.

This is where the film’s marketing really intervened. To battle the potential skeptics and nay-sayers, It movie played extremely coy with their marketing campaign. They hid Pennywise from us as long as they possibly could. They teased us with yellow slickers and red balloons, giving us a promise of something scary, but showing no cards. Horror fans were desperate for behind-the-scenes glimpses, stills, and sneak-peaks, but we had to sit tight. When the Trailer was finally released in the Spring, it received 197 million views globally within 24 hours. The film set and holds a new record for the most watches in a single day.  It wasn’t until mid-August that the more traditional and revealing marketing was unleashed; The It Float VR Experience, the Neibolt House haunted house installation in L.A.

By the time opening weekend had rolled around, I don’t think fans could have scrambled faster to their seats. Even myself, someone who tries very very hard to not get my hopes up with Blockbuster releases (lest we have another The Mummy meltdown), found myself front-row-center at Thursday night’s preview screening (which also broke records, btw).

So, did IT movie live up to the hype? I’m sure you read my title. If you didn’t, scroll up. I’ll wait.

It did. 

Now, know that we normally don’t write our reviews of big Blockbusters here at Nightmare on Film Street. We typically record them. Our podcast hosts many a live discussion of films immediately upon seeing them, in a segment we call Drive Home From The Drive-In. And, we’ve done the same for It movie. We’ve compiled all of our jumbled thoughts for you, and are editing them as we speak. Or.. as I type from the past. I’m going to be saving a lot of my thoughts for that bonus episode of Nightmare on Film Street. It’ll hit the internet either late tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. Oh, stop booing. I’m going to talk about the movie right now..

Pennywise the Dancing Clown, portrayed in this film by Bill Skarsgård, is an effective villain. Audiences are familiar with his rules; the parameters of his mythology. Because of such a rich back catalog and viewers’ familiarity of the character, Andy Muschietti’s vision got to be free to twistedly dance across the screen. Terrify us from scene, never repeating a gimmick. What we were served in this film was an erratic, mischievous character. One that can play as both deadly and whimsical. Moments you laugh- a slip of a lazy eye, a strange dance or giggle, and then you are catapulted into a world of terrifying imagery, left reeling from rows upon rows of exposed teeth.

The Losers’ Club are an equally effective counterpart. The kids really shine as a team. Their dialogue is effective and realistic. Ther can be crude and hilarious, as kids are – and then switch to something poignant and thoughtful. Their growing friendship, and the hurdles it faces in this film, is the glue that holds this entire story together. Without a successful Losers’ Club to empathise with and root for, our Pennywise would just be one cool clown short of a circus.

It movie succeeded in all it set out to do. They re-imagined an iconic character with it’s own rules, quirks, and mannerisms. They took us back in time, to a fictional small town (that I live pretty darn close to, actually) and made us fall in love with a new Losers’ Club. (Free of the perspective of their damaged adult counterparts. Sorry, novel and 1990 version. I still love you!) And they took all of those elements to deliver a story that is ultimately about friendship. It isn’t about a creepy clown terrorizing a bunch of kids (though there is a lot of that). It’s about sticking up for the little guy, defeating the bully, and vanquishing ancient evil clowns back from whence they came.

It movie is now playing in theatres. Our Bonus Episode and full, spoiler-filled thoughts will be available soon.

[thisdaynews]

‘A Bland, Clueless Billionaire With Feet of Clay’

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/a-bland-clueless-billionaire-with-feet-of-clay/

‘A Bland, Clueless Billionaire With Feet of Clay’

Read on for our experts’ insights.

***

‘Bloomberg was the new pledge in the fraternity. The hazing was inevitable.’

Larry J. Sabatois founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and is a contributing editor at POLITICO Magazine.

This is the first 2020 debate I’ve actually enjoyed. I laughed, I cried; it was better than “Cats” (at least the movie version).

You could smell the desperation among the candidates, save frontrunner Sanders. If they can’t break out and win big over the next few weeks, their White House dreams will evaporate.

Bloomberg was the foremost loser. To be blunt, he was terrible. It’s been about a dozen years since his last debate, so I didn’t suppose he’d shine. But I never expected him to look timid and act nervous. Bloomberg was the new pledge in the fraternity. The hazing was inevitable. His deer-in-the-headlights look was not. He was mayor of ferocious New York City for three terms, after all. Not to worry, his massive TV ad buy will soon take over again, and, lucky for him, the spots reach far more people than watched this debate.

Some have been comparing Sanders to Trump, but they are fundamentally different in ways other than ideology. Trump entertains, Sanders inspires. Sure, Bernie may inspire terror in those who dislike his plans for democratic socialism and think he’ll lead the party to a big loss in the fall. But his millions of supporters are true believers and cannot be moved. Nothing happened in this debate to change that. He’s still running well ahead of his divided foes. And those opponents, with the possible exception of Bloomberg, failed miserably to cut him down to size. They will all deeply regret it later, maybe when it’s too late.

If Biden comes back, this debate won’t be the cause (even though his closing statement in the face of disruptions had heart). Any Biden revival will happen because Democrats think, in the end, he’s more likely to beat Trump than anyone else. That’s the ultimate goal, right?

If Warren reverses her slide, her strong debate performance may really be a factor. It’s just tough to see an easy pathway since much of the left has been moving to Sanders.

As always, Klobuchar and Buttigieg were fun to listen to—Buttigieg because of his agile, impressive mind, and Klobuchar because of her fight and willingness to speak her mind. Toward the end, though, the two had an unpleasant, more personal confrontation that made them both appear small. I suspect most of the audience had drifted away by then, so perhaps it won’t matter.

‘Absolutely satisfying to watch’

Amanda Litman is co-founder and executive director of Run for Something.

No question: Warren won the debate, raised amassive amount of moneyand proved that while some might be counting her out prematurely, she’s not going down without a fight. Will any of it matter? Probably not in the grand scheme of things. The debates haven’t dramatically moved the needle as of yet. But it was absolutely satisfying to watch.

Warren may have excited her supporters, but turned off other voters.

Michael Starr Hopkinsis a Democratic strategist who has served on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Delaney.

The winner of Wednesday night’s debate was the Republican Party. A presidential cycle that has looked like an episode of “Friends” quickly turned into “Lord of the Flies.” On a stage that looked more like a prizefight than a Democratic primary debate, haymakers were thrown and glass jaws were exposed. Every single candidate on stage left the stage more bloodied and bruised than they did prior to the start of the debate.

The Democrats on stage were tougher on each other than they were on Trump, which could be a disaster when it’s time for a general election. Warren came out swinging in Las Vegas and leveled some awfully personal attacks against every Democrat on stage. Warren’s Shermanesque salting of the Democratic primary soil will undoubtedly get her clicks, but it will do nothing to unite the party or breathe life into her campaign. To put it succinctly, Warren will not be the nominee. She may have excited her supporters, but she turned off voters whom she needed to bring into her campaign.

Bloomberg’s debate performance strengthened over time, but it couldn’t have been the first impression that his team hoped for.

Mayor Pete stole the spotlight and fought off attacks from Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar, while standing out during an uneven debate performance by Bloomberg. Buttigieg clearly got under the skin of Klobuchar and knocked her off of her script. If Democrats wanted clear distinctions, they got them in Las Vegas.

Warren gave the best performance, but that doesn’t mean she won.

Sophia A. Nelson is an American author, political strategist, opinion writer and former House Republican Committee counsel.

Warren was the best debate performer, hands down. She has nothing to lose, so she seems to have made a calculation to speak the raw truth and to just say what she believes is the best way forward for America. The problem, however, is that women get penalized for being tough, smart and landing punches on the debate stage. Just ask Kamala Harris how that worked for her in the early debates when she laid hands on Biden over busing and segregation; it backfired badly.

Biden wins the Mr. Congeniality prize. He looked presidential and statesman-like. Bloomberg had an awful performance. He was smug and defensive, and he crashed and burned badly on the question about whether he would release women who sued his company for sexual harassment or gender discrimination from their nondisclosure agreements.

Klobuchar and Buttigieg were like a teenage brother and sister fighting at the dinner table. It was ridiculous. I lost a lot of respect for Klobuchar Wednesday night, with her temperament and lack of composure. As for Sanders, he is still the frontrunner. But Bloomberg performed poorly and that should help Biden.

‘Bloomberg was totally unready’

Alan Schroederis a professor in the school of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston. Schroeder is the author of several books, includingPresidential Debates: Risky Business on the Campaign Trail.

The beauty of live debates is that they hold politicians accountable—unlike campaign commercials, over which candidates maintain complete control. In his ubiquitous TV ads, Bloomberg depicts himself as an Obama-like progressive with the passion and know-how to set the country on a correction course. But in his first debate, Bloomberg came off as something quite different: a bland, clueless billionaire with feet of clay. Despite extensive preparation, Bloomberg was totally unready for the rough-and-tumble of a presidential primary debate, unready even for issues he must certainly have known would come up. Democratic voters hoping that Bloomberg might swoop in and grab the nomination on the basis of charisma and superior performance skills instead ended up with one more name to cross off their list.

In fairness it should be noted that this was a particularly aggressive debate, presenting a tough challenge for the newcomer who joined the cast of veterans onstage. The gathering in Las Vegas seemed to release a lot of pent-up hostility among the candidates, who did not hold back in going after each other. Bloomberg may have drawn the most fire, but there was plenty of clashing among the other participants as well.

This debate lacked an obvious winner. Klobuchar gave another mostly strong performance, though she did not offer a satisfactory explanation for why she could not name the president of Mexico in a recent interview. Buttigieg likewise had a good night, appearing more relaxed and human than he has in previous debates. Sanders, comfortable in his newfound frontrunner status, made effective use of Bloomberg as a foil, but he less effectively addressed the issue of his problematic supporters.

Biden and Warren, impelled by declining poll numbers, both put a lot of energy into this debate. Warren’s makeover as an attack dog was successful at times, especially against Bloomberg, but she is hardly a natural at delivering insults. And Biden came across as overly frantic, shouting his responses and delivering everything at a fever pitch.

Ultimately, however, this night was about Bloomberg, who, like Tom Steyer before him, demonstrated conclusively that money cannot buy prowess on the debate stage.

‘Bloomberg failed miserably’

Michelle Bernardis a political analyst, lawyer, author and president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy.

After 10 weeks of hype, millions of dollars spent on ads, endorsements from highly respected members of the African American community and a double-digit surge in the polls, we learned that Bloomberg does not deserve any of the African American support he has received to date. From stop and frisk to overt and unapologetic sexism, the former mayor appears to be nothing more than Trump bathed in blue.

I watched this heavily anticipated debate wondering whether Bloomberg and his billions can beat Trump and herald in an era of racial, gender and religious justice—all casualties of Trump’s presidency. Bloomberg failed miserably.

It doesn’t matter how many African Americans of note endorse him. In his debate performance and his failure to respond to questions about stop and frisk and discrimination against communities of color, Bloomberg gave me no reason to believe that if elected, he would be any different than Trump. There was no real apology. No declaration of shame. No statement about the need for racial or gender justice.

In watching him on the debate stage, I saw only the faces of Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Brown, Natasha McKenna, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo and all of the other African Americans who have been persecuted by and lost their lives as a result of police violence. I saw all of the black boys and men in New York thrown up against walls, terrorized and searched repeatedly by NYPD because of a bigoted assumption by Bloomberg that brown skin is to be equated with criminality. In Bloomberg, I saw “Golfcart Gail,” “Permit Patty,” “BBQ Becky,” “Cornerstore Caroline,” and all of the white women who have called the police on black people for things like yelling instructions at their own child during a soccer match or charcoal grilling without a permit. And in Bloomberg, I saw white men scheming about ways to suppress the black vote and laughing behind the backs of women they “would do in a minute.”

The emperor has no clothes.

And then, there was Warren, who took one helluva a stand. She skewered Bloomberg, making sure that America knows that Bloomberg is no different than Trump, as evidenced by his reportedly calling women “fat broads” and “horsey faced lesbians.” On Bloomberg’s stop and frisk, Warren declared: “This isn’t about how stop and frisk turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning.” She forced the issue of environmental justice and the impact of environmental policy on communities of color. She masterfully attacked the issue of nondisclosure agreements relating to the treatment of women in Bloomberg’s workforce, using the term “muzzle” in a way that any woman in the workplace could relate to. Warren dispelled any doubt that she can beat Trump, and she proved that she is everything women and communities of color could want in the next president of the United States.

They needed to get Sanders, and they didn’t.

Charles Ellison is a political strategist and talk-radio host.

The stronger performances were Buttigieg, Biden and Warren, in that order. Main takeaway: Democrats don’t know how to debate (seems like only Buttigieg did with the most memorable lines, like the one about not having to choose between the guy “who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party.”

Others seemed to have meltdown moments. Bloomberg completely bombed on questions surrounding stop and frisk and sexism, clearly unprepared. Perhaps he should’ve skipped this debate altogether, though he found a groove on matters of money, taxes, climate and trade. Sanders showed that he will start spiraling into old-man-in-the-yard meltdown if you hammer him relentlessly, something Buttigieg prepared for, knives out. Klobuchar got wobbly when under fire. Warren was steady and solid, but she seemed to have this peculiar habit of reaching for ”communities of color” as a sort of life raft when she felt like she was fading. Biden was more energetic, but was it enough for him to place second in Nevada, and then first in South Carolina?

Missed moments: All the contenders needed to do Wednesday was get Bernie, but they let him skate. Who will ask, flat out: “Hey Bernie, how many bills did you pass over 30 years in conference?” How angry are “all women” over Bloomberg’s sexist jokes when 54 percent of white women, real talk, voted for the current misogynist-on-tape in the White House, who was not only a friend of Jeffrey Epstein but was sued (in a case that was laterdropped) for underage rape? And, why is Bernie blanket knocking folks for simply making money?

Leave it to the moderators and you would walk away believing that all black voters care about is “stop and frisk,” full stop. To adequately answer for “stop and frisk,” all Bloomberg needed to do was pivot immediately to the structural, bread-and-butter issues that black people are worried about. And, on the question of using his money to win the election, all he had to was say: “How much money have you spent buying ads on black radio and newspapers? Oh, yeah, thought so … ”

Maybe Bloomberg didn’t lose.

Beth Hansen is a Republican political strategist and the former campaign manager for John Kasich.

The winner may have been Tom Steyer, for missing a particularly hostile debate marked by personal attacks. It was a far different night than two weeks ago in New Hampshire.

If there was a winner on stage, it was Biden, who was focused, passionate without being angry and stayed largely above the fray. It is very difficult to arrest momentum—either upward or downward—in a presidential primary, but his positive performance in Wednesday night’s atmosphere may have been enough to steady his campaign and begin a climb back up in the polls.

Klobuchar and Sanders held steady, although neither was as crisp and appealing as in previous debates.

It was unusual to hear Buttigeig so long on the attack—particularly against Klobuchar, in a manner that approached condescension. His policy prescriptions still make the most sense for the middle of the country; he would be better served to focus on those.

Warren seemed exasperated but made strong policy points. This debate won’t be enough to change her trajectory, but she did no harm.

It’s difficult to say whether Bloomberg emerged a winner or a loser. He was under blistering attack and hit a particularly rough patch while answering questions about lawsuits and disclosure agreements. But he remained calm, answered questions with policy solutions and was more engaged in the second half of the debate. The former mayor is not running a traditional campaign, so it is not clear that this debate will hurt him with voters looking for a different approach than that being offered by the remaining candidates.

If there was a sense that the path for the Democratic nominee was becoming more clear, that changed Wednesday night. With the entry of the outsider candidate (Bloomberg), and a good performance by the former vice president heading into South Carolina, the nomination could be secured by anyone on the stage.

I miss Andrew Yang, whose sense of humor would have lightened a stormy debate!

That was fun, but probably meaningless.

Michael Kazinis a professor of history at Georgetown University and co-editor ofDissent. He is writing a history of the Democratic Party.

Since the debate in Las Vegas was the most contentious one held so far, it was also the most entertaining. And most of the entertainment came at the expense of Bloomberg, who kept taking hard punches from Warren and others while straining to land a few harmless rebuttals.

Yet since this is the ninth debate everyone on the stage except the hapless multibillionaire has taken part in, it probably mattered less than most pundits understand. By now, anyone who has watched more than one of these debates ought to be entirely familiar with what each of the other candidates will say and how they will say it. Sanders will rail at billionaires and vow to build a welfare state for all; Warren will mention her working-class childhood and talk about her plans to drive corruption out of Washington; Buttigieg will calmly vow to unify the country; Klobuchar will brag about how much people in Minnesota like her; and Biden will equate his decades of experience with the ability to win the election.

Familiarity seldom changes many minds or votes. Sanders did nothing to sway the roughly one-third of Democrats who now support him. The nasty argument between Buttigieg and Klobuchar made both sound rather desperate, an emotion that will help neither in the contests to come. Despite his flashes of emotion, Biden seemed as much a figure of the past as ever. And although Warren snapped off most of the best lines of the night, how will they help revive her standing among voters who have strayed to other candidates?

So, in the end, the rumble in Vegas will probably change nothing in the race—except maybe puncture Bloomberg’s gaudy balloon. And even then, many more people will see his TV ads than watched the debate. Democrats are still headed for what may be a long and contentious spring.

‘Sanders prevailed, by default’

Jennifer Victor is a professor of political science at George Mason University, a co-editor of theOxford Handbook of Political Networksand a member of the board of directors of the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

Wednesday’s Democratic event was appropriately placed in Las Vegas, but this debate was more boxing match than card game. Blood was spilled in the opening moments when Warren directly attacked Bloomberg. In Vegas style, the debate included a lot of bluster and show, but it was not a particularly substantive event. There were no policy details or deep questions. Every candidate onstage dealt and took blows.

When the dust settled, Sanders prevailed, by default. He’s the frontrunner in recent polls and was not more bruised Wednesday night than anyone else was. If anything, Bloomberg took more shrapnel than anyone, and came away badly damaged. It turns out that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy a polling surge but cannot guarantee a good debate performance. While each candidate had moments to be proud of in this debate, any competition that leaves frontrunners no more damaged than anyone else is a win for those frontrunners. In fairness, there may not be a real frontrunner right now. Bloomberg has more money (his own—not a sign of general support); Bernie has more poll support; Biden has the most endorsements; Buttigieg has the most delegates; and Warren and Klobuchar have momentum in their campaigns. Under these conditions, the polling leader (Sanders) remains unchanged. As competition intensifies, the rhetoric will intensify. This debate’s vitriol was just a taste of what’s to come.

‘Sanders made plain that he intends to tear the party to pieces’

John Neffingeris a speaker coach, lecturer on political communication at Georgetown University and Columbia Business School, former communications director of the Democratic National Committee and co-author ofCompelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential.

What a night! Warren sneaked a flamethrower past security and laid waste to nearly the entire rest of the field, none more so than Bloomberg, who isn’t used to being asked about the many nondisclosure agreements he thought had put his sexual harassment troubles behind him. Not to be outdone, Mayor Pete coolly got Klobuchar’s hair vibrating over forgetting the Mexican president’s name and again for voting for Trump’s nominees.

Bloomberg, who had a case to make but was not prepared to take incoming fire, didn’t make a strong case for his progressive credentials and showed no charisma or spark—suggesting that it might be a dreary four years with him on our screens and radios every day. Warren did much to revive her campaign, making a strong case she could debate Trump or anyone, though she was not the happiest of warriors doing it. Klobuchar needed another winning debate to keep her momentum past the lily-white initial states, and instead she was off her game, like offering odd ideas such as nominating a woman candidate could reduce online sexism. (We tried that, and it didn’t work out so well.)

Not much changed for Biden and Buttigieg. Mayor Pete showed up as the happiest warrior on stage, not just torturing Klobuchar but making a good case for where he fit between Sanders’ radicalism and Bloomberg’s billions. Biden did alright, had some fun and made some decent points, though he’s often tense, rushed and flustered in his responses—the opposite of the adult-in-the-room leader his fans look to him to be.

Most ominous perhaps was Sanders. Most of his performance was his standard fare, but during this debate Sanders made plain that he intends to tear the party to pieces. He’s less interested in answering his critics than ever. He’s not going to show you his medical records or tell you how his health care math works. He said 99 percent of his supporters’ online behavior is perfectly fine. The real reason he doesn’t care if they antagonize all the other candidates’ supporters is that he plans to get to Milwaukee without the majority the rules require to win and then demand the nomination with just a plurality. That would make this debate’s remarkably feisty conversation look downright courtly.

‘What was said in Vegas will not stay in Vegas’

Jacob Heilbrunnis editor of the National Interest.

It was a big roll of the dice for Bloomberg to show up for the debate in Las Vegas, but he should have remembered that the house always wins. Biden, Sanders and Warren pummeled Bloomberg, who has dropped a cool $409 million on the race, for his various nasty comments, including referring to women as “fat broads” and “horse-faced lesbians.” Bloomberg countered by declaring that Sanders is espousing “communism,” but it came across as thin-skinned and overheated. The real winner, of course, was Trump, who spent much of the evening mocking his rivals, especially Bloomberg. Trump is on a roll, eviscerating his opponents as well as the rule of law, while his opponents remain in la-la land. There was ample fodder furnished by the debate for a welter of general election campaign ads trashing the Democrats. The fratricidal warfare on display was tailor-made for Trump, who will indubitably ensure that what was said in Vegas will not stay in Vegas.

‘A lifeline for Biden, and he took it’

Jennifer Lawlessis a professor of politics at the University of Virginia whose research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics.

Wednesday night’s debate provided answers to three key questions Democrats have been musing about since the candidates last shared the stage a couple of weeks ago:

Does Bloomberg have what it takes—beyond money—to win the nomination and, ultimately, the White House?

Can Sanders—the new frontrunner—quell concerns that he can’t possibly defeat Trump?

Is it time for the remaining candidates—Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar—to pack it in and go home?

After 120 minutes of feisty, often frenzied infighting about strategy, politics and policy, the answer to each of these questions is a resounding no.

To say that Bloomberg underperformed is to understate how poor the former mayor’s performance really was. He was disengaged, ill-prepared to respond to questions he was sure to be asked—from allegations of sexism to racism to classism—and seemingly unaware that he needed to convince Democrats that he could defeat Trump. He exhibited neither the fiery energy embodied in his recent tweets nor the acumen of a politician who needs to seal a deal.

Sanders didn’t fare much better. To the senator’s credit, he’s completely comfortable being attacked and defending himself with vigor. But every time the word socialism is uttered, every minute spent discussing whether billionaires should be able to keep their money, every time his co-partisans distinguish themselves by identifying as capitalists is an opportunity to reinforce many Democratic voters’ concerns that Trump will eat Sanders for breakfast.

And that’s excellent news for Biden. Why? Two reasons. First, neither Bloomberg nor Sanders assuaged voters’ concerns about their respective candidacies. Second, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar reinforced those concerns. The trio seemed to have already counted Biden out, so when they weren’t fighting with each other, they directed their venom at Bloomberg and Sanders. Together, they offered persuasive arguments about why neither should be the nominee.

This confluence of events amounted to a lifeline for Biden, and he took it. He made the case that he understands the working class better than anyone else on the stage; that he can represent communities of color better than the other candidates; and that he has the track record to prove it. He wasn’t always eloquent. And his closing statement was an utter mess. But Biden brought energy, passion and an underdog status to the fight. Given their choices, voters in Nevada and South Carolina who had moved on from Biden might find themselves coming home (even if the trek is a little uninspired).

It’s almost over.

Sean McElwee is a writer, data analyst and co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress.

Wednesday night, Bernie proved the other candidates can’t beat him. The only question is when they’ll join him.

Read More

[alamante]

As the risks of his trade war become apparent in key electoral battlegrounds, his low-yield summits with the leaders of Russia and North Korea are lampooned and the Russia investigation threatens, the President is trying to do what he does best — bend political reality.

“Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” the President said in a speech in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday, amid signs that the antennae that sensed political forces in the 2016 election that no one else detected are quivering with potential trouble ahead.

In an implicit suggestion of vulnerability, Trump pleaded with his voters to “stick with us, folks,” and warned that it would take time for his high-risk strategy of sticking it to some of America’s biggest trade partners to pay off.

Once, the President said trade wars were easy to win. But on Tuesday, he all but admitted that counter-tariffs by foreign governments, targeted specifically at regions that voted for him in 2016, meant that some of his people were going to get hurt.

“They’re all aiming at anybody that likes me,” Trump said, but he argued he had no choice but to take advantage of the economy’s strength to pick a fight with trade powers that he said had been “ripping us off for decades.”

“China is targeting our farmers, who they know I love & respect, as a way of getting me to continue allowing them to take advantage of the U.S. They are being vicious in what will be their failed attempt. We were being nice – until now! China made $517 Billion on us last year,” he tweeted Wednesday morning.

Experts say Trump is responding to the pain tariffs are causing on some of his key supporters.

“The President is starting to get a sense that these tariffs are starting to have an impact and they are getting to be more of a problem than he anticipated,” said Tim Hagle, a political scientist at the University of Iowa, a state where the fallout from the trade war is already being felt.

If Trump is to stave off a Democratic blue wave in November, two things will be crucial: a continued economic spurt that gives him the capacity to argue that he’s ushered in a new era of national prosperity, and bumper turnout among GOP voters in key congressional races.

So any perception that everything is not going well, or that Trump’s trade war will have victims as well as victors, could damage GOP candidates, as Democrats hope for a blue wave that could help them with the House and severely curtail the President’s freedom to maneuver.

That’s one reason why Trump renewed his attacks on the media on Tuesday.

“Just stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” he said in Missouri.

Trump pleads for patience

Many Trump voters are predisposed to reject the media’s interpretation of political reality — and sincerely believe that the President speaks directly to their concerns in a way news organizations fail to understand.

But it is also not clear that voters will heed Trump’s plea to avert their eyes from pain they perceive on the prairies. The White House seems to be admitting as much by unveiling the farm aid package.

While Trump can justifiably argue that he is following through on his promises to disrupt a global trade system that many Americans feel has transferred prosperity from industrialized areas in the US to low-wage economies in the developing world, there are also clear losers from his approach.

He is taking a gamble — that his supporters are so angry at foes like China and American friends like the EU over trade that they are willing to take a hit in the hope the President can turn the tables in the long term.

Trump reached the White House because his trade message resonated in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Pennsylvania, where Rust Belt industries were hammered by globalization.

But some of those states are now feeling blowback from foreign efforts to target commodities like corn, pork, soybeans and other agricultural goods in order to avenge the billions of dollars in tariffs the President has imposed.

Trump has often worried publicly that his voters may not show up in November without him on the ballot. If the trade conflict hits economic growth, or Americans start to chafe at more expensive imports, and rural areas are pummeled by an agricultural slump, his nightmare could come closer to reality.

With that in mind, Trump urged his people not to lose faith.

“We’re opening up markets,” he said Tuesday. “You watch what’s going to happen. Just be a little patient.”

But collateral damage in the farming industry is already testing the bond of loyalty between the President and some grassroots backers.

Michael Petefish, a 33-year-old Trump supporter who’s a fifth-generation soybean farmer in southern Minnesota, described the farm aid package as “a Band-Aid on a broken leg.”

“To be blunt, it seems pretty political and seems like they want to shore up some midterm support,” Petefish said.

“Twelve billion as a standalone figure sounds like a lot of money, but when you look at the impacts of this trade war, $12 billion doesn’t scratch the surface. … Our problems are much bigger than $12 billion,” Petefish told CNN’s Dan Merica.

A Hawkeye test

Trump is likely to reinforce his support for farmers when he travels to Iowa on Thursday because the state offers a test case for the sentiment of grassroots voters in the fall.

In a sign that the administration is worried about trade blowback in the Hawkeye State especially, Vice President Mike Pence is just back from a visit and offering a promise: “Under President’s Trump’s leadership we are always going to stand with American farmers.”

Iowa’s political significance to Trump’s political future cannot be doubted.

If Democrats flip the state in 2020 and add its neighbor, Wisconsin, and Florida, they have a path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Before then, Democrats are targeting several races that they believe could help them recapture the House this year.

Republicans do have advantages in Iowa. The unemployment rate, at 2.7 % in June, is below the national average. Trump won the state by nearly 10 percentage points two years ago, though his approval rating has since dipped. Social and religious conservatives in Iowa and elsewhere were vital for the President in 2016, and he has repaid their loyalty with two Supreme Court picks and by moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“The biggest fan may very well be the evangelicals. They wanted that built,” Trump noted Monday, in another sign that he is watching his electoral coalition like a hawk.

But Iowa’s mostly Republican officeholders have also sounded the alarm, warning the President in a letter last month that his tariffs have “real consequences.”

And while there was a cautious welcome for the farm aid package on Tuesday, many Republicans warned that it was just a short-term solution.

“Many US products face market barriers abroad. I don’t fault the President for trying to get a better deal for Americans, but it’s not fair to expect farmers to bear the brunt of retaliation for the entire country in the meantime,” said Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley.

“What farmers in Iowa and throughout rural America need in the long term are markets and opportunity, not government handouts,” Grassley said.

There was also evidence of an ideological divide between Republicans and their President. Bailing out farmers to mitigate the consequences of a tariff-raising strategy runs directly counter to generations of GOP economic orthodoxy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who is often loath to criticize Trump, said: “I just don’t think the tariff route is the smart way to go.”

There were grumbles about the farm aid package from inside the weekly caucus meeting of Republican senators.

One GOP senator wouldn’t name names, but said on condition of anonymity that members from agricultural states reported general frustration with the President.

“It was people from farm country saying, ‘Things have changed,’ (a) lot fewer MAGA hats around,” the senator said.

CNN’s Lauren Fox contributed to this story.

Source link

   The post Trump’s Orwellian warning may reveal midterm jitters appeared first on MySourceSpot.

[cedarrrun]

The Dark Side of Meditation: How to Avoid Getting Stuck with Pain From the Past

https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/the-dark-side-of-meditation-how-to-avoid-getting-stuck-with-pain-from-the-past What you need to know to avoid being blindsided by meditation′s potential negative effects.

For many months after the ordeal ended in 2014, Jane Miller * was haunted by her stalker, a man she had initially befriended, but who then tormented her and threatened her life. The nightmare was tumultuous for Miller and her husband, and the cloud of sadness, shame, fear, and anxiety had a devastating effect on her life. She fought the urge to stay in bed all day. Blinds closed and curtains drawn, she kept even the tiniest sliver of sunlight from penetrating her fortress. She only left her house for necessities.

Miller’s psychiatrist diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress and depressive disorders. Her therapist recommended that alongside regular therapy sessions she take a 12-week mindfulness meditation class to help her reclaim her life. Knowing she needed to do something to find peace of mind, she signed up and started the class full of hope.

‘I Was Having a Micro-Flashback’ Yet when she sat on her mat for the first time as the teacher began the class, her anxiety rose to the surface. She started sweating. Her heart began to race, and she was gripped by debilitating fear. “When class started that first day, a lot of negative self-talk flooded in. I closed my eyes, and silent tears started streaming down my face—and they wouldn’t stop. I felt so afraid; I didn’t want to open my eyes,” Miller recalls. “I was having a micro-flashback. It would tug at me, saying, ‘Remember this happened,’ or, ‘Remember, you did this.’ I didn’t have the necessary tools to work through traumatic flashbacks at that point.”

Despite the frightening episode, Miller returned to the class the following week hoping to experience the kind of healing and sense of calm she thought meditating would provide. The environment and the feeling of anonymity mostly felt safe. Yet each time she closed her eyes and listened to her mind and body, she’d quickly become ensconced in a traumatic episode, burrowed in a cocoon of shame. “I wasn’t ready to allow myself to heal,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t deserve to. I’d start to feel vulnerable, like the class knew my story, even though they didn’t. It was very hard to even make eye contact with people after the class had ended,” she says. “I would roll up my mat quickly, make myself as small as possible, and leave.”

Class after class for 12 weeks, Miller fought her way through each meditation. Desperate for an outlet that would help her heal, she stuck with it and even tried other classes on offer, such as restorative yoga. To her surprise, she was never approached by her meditation teacher, and the potential for these kinds of emotional responses during meditation was never addressed in any way. “In yoga class, we were offered modifications for physical limitations or if something didn’t feel good. But in meditation class, there was no recognition of potential mental limitation or injury,” she says.

Ultimately, Miller was glad she finished the class, because it led to her finding the mantra she’d eventually use on a regular basis: May I find ease; May I be well; May I be healthy; May I be happy; May I live in lovingkindness. Yet Miller wishes she had been forewarned that trauma survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization during and after meditation—an awareness that may have helped her feel less afraid during those initial meditation sessions. “An anonymous questionnaire at the start of class asking, ‘What are you here for?’ may have been helpful,” she says.

Despite meditation’s ever-increasing popularity, warnings about the practice’s more difficult moments are rarely issued. Over the past decade, meditation has grown in popularity in the West, first at a steady pace and then at a sprint. For a society that’s overcaffeinated and overstimulated, mired in 60-hour workweeks, and juggling too many proverbial balls, meditation practices are often talked about collectively as a panacea for so many of the things that ail us. It promises to increase focus, productivity, and self-awareness while decreasing stress and anxiety. But that’s not the whole story.

Miller’s experience is not an anomaly, says Anna Kress, a clinical psychologist in Princeton, New Jersey, who teaches meditation techniques to her clients. She warns that we need to be more cognizant that there is a much broader range of responses to meditation than most people are aware of.

See also Find Your Meditation Style With These 7 Practices

Willoughby Britton, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University agrees, noting that the potential negative effects of meditation—including fear, panic, hallucinations, mania, loss of motivation and memory, and depersonalization—can be distressing at best and debilitating at worst. David A. Treleaven, PhD, author of the new book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, says this potency meditation holds cannot be understated or underestimated by teachers or practitioners. “Meditation is a practice that can elicit challenging or adverse responses,” he says. “While many people benefit from meditation, some won’t.” When Britton first encountered some of the negative effects of meditation, she realized that part of the problem was lack of information and overemphasis on benefits.

“In 2006, when I was doing my residency, I worked at an in-patient psychiatric hospital, and there were two people who were hospitalized after a 10-day retreat at a meditation center nearby,” she says. “It reminded me that meditation can be serious, and that someone should study [that side of it].”

The Power of Meditation Studies regularly published in scientific journals tout meditation’s vast capabilities—including its positive effects on conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and PTSD—and its promise to help us cope with all-time-high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, phobias, and other mental health issues. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in popularity of mobile meditation apps like Headspace, Simple Habit, and Insight Timer, which offer guided practices. There’s also been a surge in boutique and franchise meditation studios, like MNDFL on the East Coast and Unplug Meditation on the West Coast, and now meditation retreats are commonly accepted as vacation options or corporate getaways. “The cultural pressure to meditate is very high right now,” says Kress. “But not every meditative experience is a positive one.”

During her residency, when Britton began encountering anecdotes of meditation’s negative effects, she looked for scientific research to explain what she was hearing—and came up short. “I started informally asking teachers about the kinds of issues and responses they’d seen and encountered,” she says.

When she realized negative reactions to meditation were prevalent, Britton decided to formally study it. “It was clear that a lot of people knew about these potential effects and weren’t really talking about it.”

She believes one of the reasons the darker side of meditation is being, well, kept in the dark is financial. “Mindfulness is a multi-billion-dollar industry,” she says. “One of the teachers I interviewed for my research actually said, ‘This isn’t good advertising.’”

Plus, says Britton, many people feel a lot of shame about negative meditation experiences, which speaks to the overhyped advertising that meditation is good for everything. It’s often portrayed that “if you have problems meditating, then you’re a super loser because it’s the best thing ever,” she says.

When Meditation Becomes Distressing When darkness falls Britton set out to investigate meditation-related experiences, specifically those that were described as challenging, difficult, distressing, functionally impairing, or requiring additional support. Her study, published in the Public Library of Science One journal last spring, looked at nearly 100 interviews with meditation teachers, experts, and practitioners of Western Buddhist practices—including Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan traditions—many of whom reported challenging meditation experiences.

The majority (88 percent) of the meditators in the study reported that these experiences had an impact on their lives beyond their meditation sessions. A whopping 73 percent indicated moderate to severe impairment (meditating prompted a reaction or result that kept them from living their normal, daily lives), 17 percent reported feeling suicidal, and another 17 percent required inpatient hospitalization for psychosis.

See also A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

Though anyone can experience a negative effect of meditation, trauma survivors can be particularly susceptible, says Kress. “The first reason is that trauma survivors usually avoid distressing memories or feelings associated with the trauma—and meditation often involves leaning toward our internal experiences, which includes difficult thoughts and sensations,” she says. The second reason is that trauma may prompt feelings of shame “that can make it difficult to access self-compassion,” she says. “Sometimes in meditation, it is the first time someone is asked to direct loving feelings toward themselves. This can be a very difficult thing to do, and it can result in feeling emotionally overwhelmed.”

This kind of leaning in toward difficult emotions can prompt tough stuff to come up for anyone, not just trauma survivors, says Britton. Adding to the complexity is that it’s difficult to predict who might experience a negative response. Britton’s study identified more than 50 types of negative experiences, which means the vast array and scope of what can come up can make it hard for teachers and practitioners to know what’s normal, as well as when someone may need additional support during or after meditating.

How to Find the Support You Need One of Treleaven’s major goals in writing Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness was to provide teachers and practitioners with some basic scaffolding to understand what to look for so they are better equipped to offer modifications to a meditation practice. Kress says that there are a handful of important signs for teachers to look for that indicate a meditation student may be having a traumatic reaction. The common ones include prolonged crying, which may be silent but uncontrollable; shortness of breath; trembling; clenched fists; skin turning red or pale; and excessive sweating.

“Giving people who have experienced trauma a sense of choice is very important,” says Kress. “What that means is they get to choose when, how, and where they want to turn toward pain and when they want to get distance from it. I let people know that if they want to leave their eyes open, that’s fine, or if they need to take a break, that’s fine, too.” Britton adds that these kinds of modifications are important for teachers to know and offer­—to help cover the disconnect that exists between practitioners who are being told meditation can be utilized for mental-health reasons and the negative responses they may experience.

“People are expecting meditation to be like a mental-health treatment, but the people who are operating most of the classes aren’t typically trained in mental health. That’s something that we, as a field, need to figure out,” says Britton, adding that most people don’t know what types of practices will benefit which ailments or goals.

For example, someone looking to use meditation to help alleviate work-related stress would likely want to pursue a very different kind of practice than someone who is facing residual trauma from a sexual assault.

To that end, Brown University recently opened a Mindfulness Center, to help figure out how the reported effects of mindfulness on health are actually working. One big focus of the center is consumer advocacy and helping people who are interested in meditation find the right kind of program.

See also 7 Meditations for the Relationship Issues We’ve All Had

But even though meditation may not always feel good, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meditate, says Kress. “Even experienced meditators can have a negative meditative experience and will need to find resources outside of meditation to process whatever arises in a healthy and healing way,” she says. For some people, a 10-minute guided meditation on an app is perfect; for others, learning meditation and mindfulness skills with a therapist is more appropriate.

As more diluted and tangential versions of meditation continue to arise, it’s important for practitioners, especially beginners, to remember that the practice has a long history in which students learned from a teacher—a highly trained meditation master who provided guidance. In its purest form, meditation was grounded in religious, spiritual, and philosophical purposes, not solely as a means of finding relaxation and inner peace.

“These days, we often just want to feel better, but we don’t have a sense of what we’re trying to achieve,” says Britton. “We also throw the term ‘mindfulness’ at everything. Oftentimes, people start meditating and they’re not necessarily clear whether the practice they’ve chosen is really the best match for the goal that they have.”

For Miller, that’s the kind of cautionary advice that may have helped her avoid being blindsided by the resurgence of her trauma and pain. It may not have spared her from the emotions that surfaced, but she says she would have been more prepared.

Still, she’s grateful for the meditation class, despite the tough stuff it churned up. “It took a while for me to trust the process,” says Miller. “But when I did, it was a feeling of the sun coming up, where I found this calmness.”

* Name has been changed for privacy.

[amyddaniels]

The Dark Side of Meditation: How to Avoid Getting Stuck with Pain From the Past

What you need to know to avoid being blindsided by meditation′s potential negative effects.

For many months after the ordeal ended in 2014, Jane Miller * was haunted by her stalker, a man she had initially befriended, but who then tormented her and threatened her life. The nightmare was tumultuous for Miller and her husband, and the cloud of sadness, shame, fear, and anxiety had a devastating effect on her life. She fought the urge to stay in bed all day. Blinds closed and curtains drawn, she kept even the tiniest sliver of sunlight from penetrating her fortress. She only left her house for necessities. 

Miller’s psychiatrist diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress and depressive disorders. Her therapist recommended that alongside regular therapy sessions she take a 12-week mindfulness meditation class to help her reclaim her life. Knowing she needed to do something to find peace of mind, she signed up and started the class full of hope.

'I Was Having a Micro-Flashback'

Yet when she sat on her mat for the first time as the teacher began the class, her anxiety rose to the surface. She started sweating. Her heart began to race, and she was gripped by debilitating fear. “When class started that first day, a lot of negative self-talk flooded in. I closed my eyes, and silent tears started streaming down my face—and they wouldn’t stop. I felt so afraid; I didn’t want to open my eyes,” Miller recalls. “I was having a micro-flashback. It would tug at me, saying, ‘Remember this happened,’ or, ‘Remember, you did this.’ I didn’t have the necessary tools to work through traumatic flashbacks at that point.”

Despite the frightening episode, Miller returned to the class the following week hoping to experience the kind of healing and sense of calm she thought meditating would provide. The environment and the feeling of anonymity mostly felt safe. Yet each time she closed her eyes and listened to her mind and body, she’d quickly become ensconced in a traumatic episode, burrowed in a cocoon of shame. “I wasn’t ready to allow myself to heal,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t deserve to. I’d start to feel vulnerable, like the class knew my story, even though they didn’t. It was very hard to even make eye contact with people after the class had ended,” she says. “I would roll up my mat quickly, make myself as small as possible, and leave.”

Class after class for 12 weeks, Miller fought her way through each meditation. Desperate for an outlet that would help her heal, she stuck with it and even tried other classes on offer, such as restorative yoga. To her surprise, she was never approached by her meditation teacher, and the potential for these kinds of emotional responses during meditation was never addressed in any way. “In yoga class, we were offered modifications for physical limitations or if something didn’t feel good. But in meditation class, there was no recognition of potential mental limitation or injury,” she says.

Ultimately, Miller was glad she finished the class, because it led to her finding the mantra she’d eventually use on a regular basis: May I find ease; May I be well; May I be healthy; May I be happy; May I live in lovingkindness. Yet Miller wishes she had been forewarned that trauma survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization during and after meditation—an awareness that may have helped her feel less afraid during those initial meditation sessions. “An anonymous questionnaire at the start of class asking, ‘What are you here for?’ may have been helpful,” she says.

Despite meditation’s ever-increasing popularity, warnings about the practice’s more difficult moments are rarely issued. Over the past decade, meditation has grown in popularity in the West, first at a steady pace and then at a sprint. For a society that’s overcaffeinated and overstimulated, mired in 60-hour workweeks, and juggling too many proverbial balls, meditation practices are often talked about collectively as a panacea for so many of the things that ail us. It promises to increase focus, productivity, and self-awareness while decreasing stress and anxiety. But that’s not the whole story.

Miller’s experience is not an anomaly, says Anna Kress, a clinical psychologist in Princeton, New Jersey, who teaches meditation techniques to her clients. She warns that we need to be more cognizant that there is a much broader range of responses to meditation than most people are aware of.

See also Find Your Meditation Style With These 7 Practices

Willoughby Britton, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University agrees, noting that the potential negative effects of meditation—including fear, panic, hallucinations, mania, loss of motivation and memory, and depersonalization—can be distressing at best and debilitating at worst. David A. Treleaven, PhD, author of the new book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, says this potency meditation holds cannot be understated or underestimated by teachers or practitioners. “Meditation is a practice that can elicit challenging or adverse responses,” he says. “While many people benefit from meditation, some won’t.” When Britton first encountered some of the negative effects of meditation, she realized that part of the problem was lack of information and overemphasis on benefits. 

“In 2006, when I was doing my residency, I worked at an in-patient psychiatric hospital, and there were two people who were hospitalized after a 10-day retreat at a meditation center nearby,” she says. “It reminded me that meditation can be serious, and that someone should study [that side of it].”

The Power of Meditation

Studies regularly published in scientific journals tout meditation’s vast capabilities—including its positive effects on conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and PTSD—and its promise to help us cope with all-time-high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, phobias, and other mental health issues. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in popularity of mobile meditation apps like Headspace, Simple Habit, and Insight Timer, which offer guided practices. There’s also been a surge in boutique and franchise meditation studios, like MNDFL on the East Coast and Unplug Meditation on the West Coast, and now meditation retreats are commonly accepted as vacation options or corporate getaways. “The cultural pressure to meditate is very high right now,” says Kress. “But not every meditative experience is a positive one.”

During her residency, when Britton began encountering anecdotes of meditation’s negative effects, she looked for scientific research to explain what she was hearing—and came up short. “I started informally asking teachers about the kinds of issues and responses they’d seen and encountered,” she says.

When she realized negative reactions to meditation were prevalent, Britton decided to formally study it. “It was clear that a lot of people knew about these potential effects and weren’t really talking about it.”

She believes one of the reasons the darker side of meditation is being, well, kept in the dark is financial. “Mindfulness is a multi-billion-dollar industry,” she says. “One of the teachers I interviewed for my research actually said, ‘This isn’t good advertising.’”

Plus, says Britton, many people feel a lot of shame about negative meditation experiences, which speaks to the overhyped advertising that meditation is good for everything. It’s often portrayed that “if you have problems meditating, then you’re a super loser because it’s the best thing ever,” she says. 

When Meditation Becomes Distressing

When darkness falls Britton set out to investigate meditation-related experiences, specifically those that were described as challenging, difficult, distressing, functionally impairing, or requiring additional support. Her study, published in the Public Library of Science One journal last spring, looked at nearly 100 interviews with meditation teachers, experts, and practitioners of Western Buddhist practices—including Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan traditions—many of whom reported challenging meditation experiences.

The majority (88 percent) of the meditators in the study reported that these experiences had an impact on their lives beyond their meditation sessions. A whopping 73 percent indicated moderate to severe impairment (meditating prompted a reaction or result that kept them from living their normal, daily lives), 17 percent reported feeling suicidal, and another 17 percent required inpatient hospitalization for psychosis.

See also A Beginner's Guide to Meditation

Though anyone can experience a negative effect of meditation, trauma survivors can be particularly susceptible, says Kress. “The first reason is that trauma survivors usually avoid distressing memories or feelings associated with the trauma—and meditation often involves leaning toward our internal experiences, which includes difficult thoughts and sensations,” she says. The second reason is that trauma may prompt feelings of shame “that can make it difficult to access self-compassion,” she says. “Sometimes in meditation, it is the first time someone is asked to direct loving feelings toward themselves. This can be a very difficult thing to do, and it can result in feeling emotionally overwhelmed.”

This kind of leaning in toward difficult emotions can prompt tough stuff to come up for anyone, not just trauma survivors, says Britton. Adding to the complexity is that it’s difficult to predict who might experience a negative response. Britton’s study identified more than 50 types of negative experiences, which means the vast array and scope of what can come up can make it hard for teachers and practitioners to know what’s normal, as well as when someone may need additional support during or after meditating.

How to Find the Support You Need

One of Treleaven’s major goals in writing Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness was to provide teachers and practitioners with some basic scaffolding to understand what to look for so they are better equipped to offer modifications to a meditation practice. Kress says that there are a handful of important signs for teachers to look for that indicate a meditation student may be having a traumatic reaction. The common ones include prolonged crying, which may be silent but uncontrollable; shortness of breath; trembling; clenched fists; skin turning red or pale; and excessive sweating.

“Giving people who have experienced trauma a sense of choice is very important,” says Kress. “What that means is they get to choose when, how, and where they want to turn toward pain and when they want to get distance from it. I let people know that if they want to leave their eyes open, that’s fine, or if they need to take a break, that’s fine, too.” Britton adds that these kinds of modifications are important for teachers to know and offer­—to help cover the disconnect that exists between practitioners who are being told meditation can be utilized for mental-health reasons and the negative responses they may experience.

“People are expecting meditation to be like a mental-health treatment, but the people who are operating most of the classes aren’t typically trained in mental health. That’s something that we, as a field, need to figure out,” says Britton, adding that most people don’t know what types of practices will benefit which ailments or goals.

For example, someone looking to use meditation to help alleviate work-related stress would likely want to pursue a very different kind of practice than someone who is facing residual trauma from a sexual assault.

To that end, Brown University recently opened a Mindfulness Center, to help figure out how the reported effects of mindfulness on health are actually working. One big focus of the center is consumer advocacy and helping people who are interested in meditation find the right kind of program.

See also 7 Meditations for the Relationship Issues We've All Had

But even though meditation may not always feel good, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t meditate, says Kress. “Even experienced meditators can have a negative meditative experience and will need to find resources outside of meditation to process whatever arises in a healthy and healing way,” she says. For some people, a 10-minute guided meditation on an app is perfect; for others, learning meditation and mindfulness skills with a therapist  is more appropriate.

As more diluted and tangential versions of meditation continue to arise, it’s important for practitioners, especially beginners, to remember that the practice has a long history in which students learned from a teacher—a highly trained meditation master who provided guidance. In its purest form, meditation was grounded in religious, spiritual, and philosophical purposes, not solely as a means of finding relaxation and inner peace.

“These days, we often just want to feel better, but we don’t have a sense of what we’re trying to achieve,” says Britton. “We also throw the term ‘mindfulness’ at everything. Oftentimes, people start meditating and they’re not necessarily clear whether the practice they’ve chosen is really the best match for the goal that they have.”

For Miller, that’s the kind of cautionary advice that may have helped her avoid being blindsided by the resurgence of her trauma and pain. It may not have spared her from the emotions that surfaced, but she says she would have been more prepared.

Still, she’s grateful for the meditation class, despite the tough stuff it churned up. “It took a while for me to trust the process,” says Miller. “But when I did, it was a feeling of the sun coming up, where I found this calmness.”  

* Name has been changed for privacy.

[vincentvelour]

The Economic Effects of Missing Out on the World Cup

The Economic Effects of Missing Out on the World Cup

11/20/2017

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        By John Bostwick, Managing Editor, Radius

  When sports fans or commentators say a game is “meaningless” they usually mean the game’s outcome will have no bearing on either team’s chances of qualifying for, or improving their seeding in, a postseason playoff tournament. In at least one sense, it’s absurd to say a particular game has less “meaning” than another simply because it won’t affect the teams’ respective future schedules. After all, one game in a professional league is much like any other — it consists of athletes competing against each other in front of spectators. What difference does it make if there are no playoff implications?

  For one thing, most fans don’t spend time and money on games for the pure enjoyment of watching technically accomplished athletes. They have rooting interests and want their teams to win leagues and championships. Maybe more significantly, a game without playoff implications is the rough equivalent of a stock with no potential for growth. A professional or revenue-generating college team that fails to qualify for future games — whether in a league playoff or in a tournament sanctioned by a body such as the NCAA or FIFA — has invariably forfeited monetary incentives, sponsorship opportunities, gate and TV revenues, reputational enhancement and other economic benefits. In that light, calling a game with no postseason implications “meaningless” is justifiable.

  Unfortunately for the US men’s national soccer team players, coaches, administrators, fans, commentators, sponsors and many other interested parties, the team will (arguably) not play in another meaningful game for nearly two years. The team’s 2-1 loss to the small twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago last month — which Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl called “the most surreal and embarrassing night in US soccer history” — knocked the US out of the World Cup for the first time since 1986. The economic consequences of the team’s on-field failure will be significant and long-lasting.

  If there are any US readers out there still laboring under the misapprehension that the World Cup isn’t a massive economic engine, consider this: Every four years since 1998, the venerable American finance behemoth Goldman Sachs has published e-books called “The World Cup and Economics.” The most recent edition, published a couple of months before the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, notes that soccer is almost certainly “the world’s most popular sport,” with over 250 million regular participants in more than 200 countries.

  The World Cup finals tournament has mirrored the sport’s popularity and growth, as well as reflected economic globalization. The first World Cup took place in 1930, with 13 participants. (Shockingly given our unimpressive national soccer history, the US actually came in third in that tournament behind Uruguay and Argentina.) The World Cup now has 32 teams, a nearly threefold increase that according to Goldman Sachs speaks to the world economy’s growing interconnectedness.

  A good measure of this interconnectedness, the report says, “is the size of goods exports, which have increased from less than US$30 billion in the 1930s to more than US$22,000 billion” at the time of the report. The report predicted that “the same market forces that are driving up exports are also likely to push for a larger representation of teams, especially as African and Asian nations increase their presence on the global stage.” The report’s authors were prescient. Earlier this year, FIFA announced its decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams, starting with the 2026 tournament.

  While the expanded pool may dilute each qualifying nation’s economic benefits, the benefits will certainly remain substantial for many interested parties. Those benefits are perhaps most glaring when they fail to materialize against expectations, as happened with the US this year. The two most prominent economic losers following the US’s surprise failure to qualify are the US Soccer Federation (USSF) and the Fox television network.

  The New York Times reports that the USSF’s revenue spiked from about $76 million to $102 million in 2014, an increase largely due to the men’s “national team game revenue, sponsorship and licensing, directly related to participation in the [2014] World Cup.” Forbes points out that the USSF won’t receive the $12.5 million each team gets from FIFA for qualifying for the 2018 tournament, and will miss out on “gate revenue and TV rights fees from pre-World Cup friendly matches.” NPR says that the USSF will “also likely … lose tens of millions of dollars in potential sponsorship deals, merchandise sales and television licenses.”

  There are additional possible negative ramifications for the USSF that are impossible to quantify. NPR notes that the US’s failure to qualify could affect the already dubious reputation of US soccer and its players, diminishing the USSF’s ability to schedule lucrative friendly games with high-drawing national teams such as Brazil and Germany. More generally, a failure to qualify is a missed opportunity to create new soccer fans and players in a country that still has huge untapped markets.

  In addition, players with dual citizenship may be less inclined to tie themselves to the US national team. For about two decades now, the US has been considered a lock to qualify for World Cups out of FIFA’s relatively weak CONCACAF confederation. I’ll mention one example of a player who (almost certainly) chose to play for the US due to the high probability it would qualify for all the World Cups over the course of his playing career. During the last World Cup cycle, US-born, Iceland-raised Aron Johannsson chose the US national team over Iceland’s, a decision that enraged Iceland’s football association. Despite the controversy in Iceland, Johannsson’s choice seemed like a rock-solid career move at the time. Predictably, the US qualified for the 2014 World Cup and Iceland didn’t.

  Things have changed. Almost incredibly, not only did the US fail to qualify for next year’s World Cup, tiny Iceland punched its ticket, doing so out of UEFA, considered one of FIFA’s most competitive confederations (also called associations). In any case, if dual nationals become less inclined to choose the US team in the wake of its recent failure to qualify, and after hearing stories like Johannsson’s, then the US talent pool, and by extension the USSF’s economic potential, will diminish.

  As for the other big economic loser, Fox, it has been widely reported that the network paid over $400 billion for the English-language broadcasting rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, outbidding among others ESPN. InvestorPlace reports that Fox and the Spanish-language Telemundo together paid over $1 billion for the US TV rights. That sum is more than double what ESPN and Univision paid for rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. InvestorPlace believes “the failure of the team to qualify for the biggest event in soccer will hurt viewership” for Fox, though Telemundo “might not get impacted by the elimination of the United States,” given its viewers’ rooting interests, which tend not to include the US team. InvestorPlace observes that Fox’s reduced viewership will “result in lower ad revenues, which in turn might affect [Fox’s] profitability.”

  Other sources make similar points about Fox’s situation. Sports Illustrated is particularly emphatic, saying: “Hyperbole is the drug of choice these days in the sports media but the [US’s failure to qualify] is a disaster for Fox Sports. Disaster. That is the correct word.” The Times article I mentioned quotes a Fox executive who indicates that while Fox has already sold about three quarters of its sponsorship deals, the absence of the US in the World Cup may result in Fox’s failure to “meet its ratings guarantees it gave to advertisers,” and it may hamper the network’s ability to promote Fox programming during World Cup broadcasts. Others point out that Fox has already suffered from the US’s on-field failure. Yahoo notes that the day after the Trinidad and Tobago loss, shares of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. fell 2.5 percent.

Countless corporations, small businesses and individuals stand to lose money from the US missing out on the World Cup. Tweet this

Alongside these two stakeholders, there are countless other corporations, small businesses and individuals that stand to lose money from the US missing out on the 2018 World Cup. The US’s fledgling but fast-growing top-tier soccer league, Major League Soccer, employs the majority of US players called up during the most recent qualification cycle. MLS will take a global reputational hit from the national team’s failure and may not see the increase in attendance you’d expect following a World Cup. The Washington Post notes that the league is experiencing a “sponsorship boom” that may be driven in part by popular interest in the US national team and the US’s bid to host the 2026 World Cup. But with the US out of the World Cup picture for now, the Post says that “MLS could see growth of sponsorship revenue slow.”

  There are other obvious losers, such as Nike, the US team’s jersey sponsor. Less than two weeks before the US’s shock loss to Trinidad and Tobago, the company, or anyway a designer named Franco Carabajal, leaked a photo of the US’s “potential” 2018 World Cup uniform. I’m not sure what the fate of that particular design will be (my hope is that it’s buried forever), but whatever jersey Nike and US Soccer release next it will be a modest seller during the 2018 World Cup.

  As an Italian politician observed in a Bloomberg article on the Italian national team’s own shocking failure to qualify, non-participation in a World Cup “is not only about missed advertising sales, television rights and merchandising related to the event…  There is much more to it, including the missed sales for travel operators organizing holiday packages to Russia, let alone the turnaround of betting companies and of bars and restaurants across the country during the matches.”

  While soccer is not nearly as culturally important in the US as it is in Italy, many businesses will suffer at home and abroad. The Yahoo article points out that “American fans have attended the World Cup in droves recently — more than 200,000 tickets for [the 2014] games in Brazil were purchased by US residents.” Of course, many Americans root for non-US national teams and will still book tickets for next year’s World Cup, but the share of American tourists and dollars going to Russia will be far lower than it would have been had the US qualified.

  Consider also small US-based businesses. A local Fox news website in Michigan quotes the owner of SpeakEZ Lounge in Grand Rapids, who estimates the effects of the US’s non-participation this way: “Let’s say the US has three [World Cup] matches and goes out; that’s roughly $3,000 per bar per match. So, 30 bars in the West Michigan area that’s $270,000. That’s a conservative estimate. I would guess it’s actually $400,000 or $500,000 just in West Michigan for an economic impact.” Needless to say, bars in more populous soccer hotbeds like Brooklyn, Portland, Washington, DC and Seattle will take even larger hits.

  Then there are the players. The World Cup has the ability to create stars like no other athletic stage. Former US national team defender Alexi Lalas explained in a 2012 interview: “Personally, I lived the power of what a World Cup can do to an individual in the summer of 1994. The reason why I’m sitting here talking to you today is without a doubt because of what happened in that tournament. ... I’d like to think that because of that summer, I was given an incredible life to live.”

  Current US national team winger Christian Pulisic, only 19 years old but by most estimates already the team’s best player, seemed poised to become a global star during the 2018 World Cup. He was a standout throughout the final round of World Cup qualifying. He scored the only US goal against Trinidad and Tobago last month, and was one of the few American players to have a respectable performance in that game. After the final whistle he appeared distraught, no doubt realizing the loss’ implications better than anyone.

  Pulisic wrote about the experience last week for the Players’ Tribune. In the article he recalls watching on TV a 2014 World Cup goal by current US teammate Clint Dempsey: “it almost felt like that one moment changed the mood of the entire country. And it’s hard to put into words how powerful that is. … Which is why I feel so crushed that we won’t be giving people that feeling this summer.” I don’t think it’s cynical to note that Pulisic won’t only be deprived of proud and profound feelings by not playing in the 2018 World Cup. He also stands to lose millions of dollars in potential endorsements and salary increases, and he won’t get another shot to play in a World Cup until 2022 at the earliest.

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