#its been 1.75 year…..s…….

[dearesteria]

crossing off “playing genshin again” in my 2023 bingo card

[kittykatinabag]

Got talked into a bed frame that can raise and lower each half of the bed (à la those old sleep number commercials back in the day) since it was on super clearance and holy shit I may never go back, it's so cool.

[shipwreckedwithcaptainmarrow]

The 100 Escudo - The Most Valuable Coin in Spanish History

This oversized 100 Escudo gold coin minted by the Spanish Empire during the 17th century in the reign of King Philip III is one of the only known of its kind. This 1609 coin, created in Segovia, Spain, was once part of the Caballero de Yndias Collection, which had once belonged to a Spaniard who lived in Cuba. Spanish Escudos existed in a variety of denominations, typically from 1 - 12, with the common 2 Escudo made famous by pirate sensation through the years as the "Doubloon."

Measuring 71 mm and weighing 339 grams, the 100 Escudo was sold at auction during 2009 in Barcelona with a starting bid of €800,000 ($882,520.00). A Swiss man, known only as Number 74 ended up purchasing the coin at €944,000 ($1,037,460.72) - making this the most valuable coin in Spanish history. However, despite it's selling price with no one willing to top 75's bid, its true worth was speculated to have been closer to €1.75 million, or $1,923,258.75.

[inkovsky]

The Hong Kong stock market continued to rise. The Hang Seng Index opened 13 points lower and then moved up and down in a narrow range. The gains expanded in the afternoon and closed at the day's high of 16,742 points, up 239 points or 1.45%. The technology index closed at 3,410 points, up 58 points or 1.75%. The main board's total daily turnover was HK$100 billion.

The Hong Kong stock market maintained its upward trend after the Lunar New Year holiday. Yesterday, it once reached a level close to the 100-DMA (16,776), and the trading volume increased. The market has obviously turned around. In the short term, it can reach the 17,000 level, with the support level at 16,150. Since the mainland cut interest rates, the market still seems to be expecting more stimulus policies from the mainland. Even though the performance of heavyweight stocks did not bring much surprise, the market sentiment was not affected. In fact, the Hang Seng Index has accumulated a lot of losses since the beginning of 2024, and the selling pressure has been digested to a certain extent. The short-term moving range may move further upward, but further breakthroughs will require the support of more policy news. Investors pay attention to the settlement of the index next week.

The most important stock on earth, chip manufacturer Nvidia, performed strongly in its latest performance, driving its stock price to soar 16.4%, closing at US$785.18 and setting a new record high. Its market value increased by US$277 billion in a single day.

Nvidia's performance touched the nerves of global stock markets. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed at a new high. French and German stock markets also reached new highs during the session, closing up 1.27% and 1.47%. British stocks rose slightly, dragged down by banking stocks, with a moderate increase of 0.29%.

Nvidia also led to a surge in U.S. stocks on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 hitting record highs and closing record highs. After opening 232 points higher, the Dow rose as much as 537 points to a high of 39,149 points; the S&P 500 rose 2.26% to 5,094 points; the Nasdaq, which is dominated by technology stocks, rebounded as much as 3.09% to 16,061 points, approaching the current historical high of 16,080 point.

At the close of the U.S. market, the Dow still rose 456 points, or 1.18%, to 39,069 points; the S&P Index rose 105 points, or 2.11%, to 5,087 points; the Nasdaq rose 460 points, or 2.96%, to 16,041 points.

The U.S. dollar index once rebounded 0.12% to 104.129; the yen fell 0.23%, hitting a low of 150.65 per dollar. Meeting minutes showed that ECB officials believed that cutting interest rates too early would pose a greater risk. The euro fell as low as 0.15% to as low as $1.0803.

[zdigitizinguk37]

Brother Persona PRS100 Single Needle Embroidery Machine

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[hakesbros]

Las Cruces New Mexico Properties Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices

Additionally, nearly every drive in the Las Cruces area is nice and beautiful. Take a cruise toward the mountains, or close to the river. If you’ve lived in larger metropolitan cities, you know the ache of long commutes and bumper-to-bumper visitors. You can sometimes drive from one aspect of town to the other in about 20 minutes. By transferring to this stunning city and cutting out the commute in your life, you’ll have extra time to spend with household, and associates, and on leisure actions.

Our top-rated actual property agents in High Range are local experts and are able to answer your questions about properties, neighborhoods, colleges, and the newest listings for sale in High Range. Redfin has an area office at 314 S Guadalupe St., Santa Fe, NM 87501. Beautifully designed Tuscan fashion home in fast rising University Meadows neighborhood. This 3-bedroom, 1.75 bath house is currently under development and scheduled to be accomplished in October 2022.

The Las Cruces homes for sale between the finances of $500,000 and $599,999 saw a 160% increase in sales. Redfin is redefining real property and the house buying course of in High Range with industry-leading expertise, full-service brokers, and lower charges that provide a greater homes for sale in las cruces nm worth for Redfin buyers and sellers. Redfin is redefining real property and the home buying process in with industry-leading expertise, full-service agents, and decrease fees that provide a greater worth for Redfin patrons and sellers.

Enjoy two household rooms, cozy up with a hearth, grill up in your spacious back yard with mature trees. Work from home with home builders in las cruces your built in desk/office area. No worries, your personal home comes with a 10X10 storage unit & garage!

A home for ballet lessons in the living room, taking half in together with your food within the kitchen, or humorous canine snores during naptime. Coming from all over the world, our IKEA co-workers share a special set of values and a imaginative and homes for sale las cruces prescient to enable individuals to reside a better, extra sustainable on an everyday basis life. They come together within various, inclusive, open IKEA work environments, the place every of them offers something distinctive.

With granite counters, an open floorplan and an award-winning builder, you won't want to miss this opportunity. With over 20+ years of combined actual estate experience, the Z Real Estate group can help you buy or promote a house or property within the Las Cruces area fast and efficiently. With current security measures in place, attention to element homes for sale in las cruces new mexico in relation to pricing and advertising, and working on the customer's behalf we will provide devoted service to all our clients. Searching low-cost houses for sale in Las Cruces, NM has never been easier on PropertyShark! Sturtevant, of Bright MLS, predicts that costs will rise 0.3%.

Las Cruces is situated within the picturesque Mesilla Valley, between the majestic Organ Mountains and the mighty Rio Grande river. As the second-largest city in New Mexico, Las Cruces serves as the economic and geographic hub of the southern half of the state. Home to New Mexico State University, White Sands National Monument, and a charming downtown district, the city is rich in tradition, history, and journey.

Both dwellings will want work to have the ability to be habitable but with the right vision may be a perfect funding property. BHH Affiliates, LLC is a Delaware limited legal responsibility company. Its principal workplace is located at Von Karman Ave, Suite four hundred, Irvine, California USA.

Many builders are certainly attempting to make use of this seller’s market to add extra homes to the list. The spike in demand increases the asking price, making the patrons wonder if it is the right time to buy. In a typical real property market, the vendor would obtain approximately 96% of the asking worth after a discount. Today, the consumers of Las Cruces are gaining a median of 98% of their asking price, and this trend would improve. The median home costs issued by Realtor.com may exclude much, or even most, of a market's homes. The worth and volume characterize solely homes that are single-family homes, condominiums or townhomes.

Las Cruces, NM has a very affordable price of residing in comparison with the national common.Sperling’s Best Places breaks it down in a chart. BankForeclosuresSale.com does not guarantee the availability of any property listed herein and does not promise that there are listings for each new homes las cruces area. This charming home has a grassy again yard with mature shrubs great for entertaining household and pals, and desert landscaping in... … completely designed, customized and constructed to be everything you want it to be.

[formeryelpers]

626 Quick Bites, 9505 Garvey Ave, Ste A, South El Monte, CA 91733

I’ve been going to Baguette City for years and was surprised that they closed. However, it turns out that it’s still the same business only they changed names because they wanted to add dim sum. They also remodeled and added some new equipment. One piece of equipment looks like a refrigerator but actually keeps the dim sum hot.

They still have banh mi sandwiches (made to order, starting at $5.50), but they added baked and steamed buns/bao, har gow, shu mai, chicken feet, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, and steamed pork ribs. They also have some Vietnamese ready to eat food on the counter. Oh and a few vegetarian items and drinks. The sandwiches are buy 5, get 1 free. They bake their own baguettes and make their own dim sum.

Combination bun/ dai bao ($2): Smaller than usual but the dough was surprisingly thin, surprisingly stuffed full with a piece of sausage, a tiny quail egg, pieces of shrimp, chicken, pork water chestnut. The sausage was a little salty and I like black pepper in my dai bao but still, it’s a pretty good deal with good flavor

Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf ($5): They say it comes with pork, chicken, shrimp and egg but I could only see ground meat. The sticky rice part was fine but the flavor was lacking.

Baguette ($1.75): A big baguette, pale looking. The exterior is thin and crisp and the interior soft and chewy. It’s lighter and softer than your French baguette. Toasted, it works well for banh mi sandwiches.

Takeout only (there’s no seating). Service was friendly. They even gave me a free iced tea (free with the purchase of dim sum, I believe). It’s in a strip mall with its own parking.

4 out of 5 stars

By Lolia S.

[your-dietician]

Oil prices down a second session as IMF’s world economic outlook feeds recession fears

New Post has been published on https://medianwire.com/oil-prices-down-a-second-session-as-imfs-world-economic-outlook-feeds-recession-fears/

Oil prices down a second session as IMF’s world economic outlook feeds recession fears

Oil futures fell for a second day Tuesday, unwinding part of the previous week’s sharp gains scored after OPEC+ agreed to cut crude production, as a downgrade to the 2023 world economic outlook by the International Monetary Fund fed fears over a recession.

Price action

West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery CL.1, -1.66%

CL00, -1.66%

CLX22, -1.66% fell $1.79, or 2%, to $89.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange with front-month prices on track for the lowest finish since Thursday.

December Brent crude BRN00, -1.54%

BRNZ22, -1.54%, the global benchmark, fell $1.75, or 1.8%, to $94.44 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Back on Nymex, November gasoline RBX22, -0.60% fell 0.6% to $2.6083 a gallon, while November heating oil HOX22, -3.41% dropped 3.6% to $3.7745 a gallon.

November natural gas NGX22, +0.19% was up 1.2% at $6.515 per million British thermal units.

Market drivers

Oil prices declined  as “recession fears take the attention away from a tightly supplied market,” said the Kansas City energy team at StoneX, in Tuesday’s newsletter.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said it’s downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, with the global economy likely to eke out growth of just 2.7% next year, down from the 2.9% it had estimated in July. The IMF cited a list of threats that include Russia’s war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the global pandemic.

Meanwhile, Shanghai is “going into a version of quarantine, along with other megacities in China,” said StoneX’s Kansas City energy team, adding that COVID-19 infections have risen to their highest point since August this week, following the National Holiday, “Golden Week”, which was earlier this month.

Last week, oil rallied off eight-month lows, boosted after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russian-led allies — known together at OPEC+ — agreed to cut their output quotas by 2 million barrels a day beginning in November. The actual reduction is expected to be around half that since many producers were already producing below their targets.

The Platts survey by S&P Global Commodity Insights released Tuesday showed that the OPEC+ alliance boosted crude production by 170,000 barrels per day in September, to the group’s highest since April 2020.

However, the gap between the group’s quotas and actual production remained at 3.6 million barrels a day, roughly the same as in August, the survey showed.

Oil was also showing weakness Tuesday as investor appetite for risky assets suffered amid volatility in the U.K. government bond market that required further intervention by the Bank of England and expectations that aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks could spark a sharp global economic downturn.

The OPEC+ decision does underscore tightness in physical markets and should help keep crude prices supported, wrote analysts at Commerzbank. “That said, concerns about demand in view of the sharply rising interest rates in the US, the escalating energy crisis in Europe and the zero-COVID policy in China should preclude any more marked upswing,” they wrote.

Commerzbank sees a “trading corridor” close to current levels, while updating their year-end forecast for Brent to $95 a barrel from $90. They see Brent at $100 a barrel by the end of 2023, versus a previous forecast of $95, due to an expected supply deficit and persistently low inventory levels.

Read the full article here

[rcl-stan]

tw‼️pr*datory beh*vior mention, s*xual*zation mention, swearing

hey so i wanna talk abt frazel

as many of you may know, i dont like that ship. i dont like frank and i think that hazels maturity level is a huge problem on its own. my dislike for the ship isn’t entirely rooted in the age gap but i do still have some problems with it that i would like to address.

i know that if you have done the math, they technically met at 14 and 15 (theyre 14 and 16 the majority of the series though) and that the age gap is really 1.75 years (one year and nine months) but there are still things that bother me with that

first of all, and i wish i could scream this one in the ears of the ignorant, it depends on where youre from, who you know, and what you have experienced. for me personally, where i am from and from what ive been through and from the people i know that much older than me, they’re all absolute creeps that are desperate, predatory, and cant land anyone their own age so they go after vulnerable younger girls. the things i have heard them say about the younger people my age are absolutely disgusting and appalling and have deeply shaken me up if i am being honest. i understand that frank isnt like that and that this series is made for kids so he wouldnt be, but i just cant shake it. it also deeply worries me knowing that young kids thinking “frazel is otp” are probably gonna be more susceptible to this kind of stuff because they read about it portrayed as safe. the world is a fucked up place and i wish i could go into more detail on that topic, but i dont want to distract from the real issue im addressing

secondly, rick riordan still wrote frazel thinking that the age gap was 13/16. i know you may think that its okay because its a mistake and that thats not really what happened in canon because doing the math proves the 13/16 age gap to be false, but its not about what you think. its about what the author thought and their true intentions behind their actions. if im creeped out by a 1.75 year age gap you can bet your ass im creeped out by a three full year age gap, especially with those ages (ex 53/56 is fine, not 13/16). the fact that a grown man who taught kids around these ages and experienced their maturity and behavior first hand thought it was okay seriously creeps me out.

no, it doesnt “cancel out” because theyre both minors, its fucking creepy and i can justify that through first hand experiences

*eaei

[aion-rsa]

The Pandemic in Pop Culture Trends

https://ift.tt/32wrfZT

The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was both a universal and incredibly personal experience. While not everyone’s life in the first year of the pandemic looked the same, there have been some common joys, struggles, and tragedies. And there have been stories that have helped get us through the first year of pandemic. The global COVID-19 pandemic is not over, but it has hopefully reached a turning point. Multiple vaccines protecting against the worst of the virus have been developed and have begun to be (unevenly) distributed around the world, with Israel, the U.K., Chile, and the U.S. currently with the greatest percentages of their populations having received at least one dose. As we hopefully move into a less deadly phase of the pandemic, we’re taking a moment to look back at the TV series, games, movies, and other pop culture moments that brought comfort, distraction, critique, and catharsis for many in the pandemic’s first year, as well as some of the major trends and news stories that shaped the industry itself between March 2020 and February 2021.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

March 2020

NBA To Suspend Season Following Tonight's Games pic.twitter.com/2PTx2fkLlW

— NBA (@NBA) March 12, 2020

The NBA Suspends the Season (March 11th)

Many use the NBA’s March 11th announcement that the 2019-2020 season would be suspended until further notice as an unofficial start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The season would continue four months later in the “NBA Bubble,” but no one could know what the future would look like, only that things were indeed very serious for the billions-dollar professional basketball and media industry to shut down.

Everyone Watches Contagion

Though Steven Soderbergh’s pandemic thriller came out in 2011, Contagion jumped from Warner Bros.’ 270th most digitally rented movie in December 2019 to their second most rented one in February, and that trend would only continue into March. As the pandemic continued, we would see audiences turning towards more “escapist” fare, but, in the early days of this international crisis, people turned towards this matter-of-fact, fictional imagining of how a global pandemic might play out to help process their new and frightening reality.

Movie Theaters Essentially Go Dark

In addition to the immense loss of human life the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, there has also been an economic cost that will no doubt continue to impact human health and livelihood in the coming years. On March 17th, the movie theater chains Regal and AMC announced their temporary closures, an early sign of just how bad the pandemic would be for the movie theater business.

Movies in Theaters Begin Going to VOD

With movie theaters closed, studios needed to get creative about how best to distribute their movies still “in theaters.” Universal Pictures was the first to make the decision to move its new releases to a video on-demand model, bringing The Invisible Man, The Hunt, and Emma to VOD on March 20th.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is Released (March 20th)

On March 20th, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch, allowing players (most of whom where stuck at home) to digitally move to an island and nurture their own community. The fifth game in the Animal Crossing series, New Horizons would go on to major commercial success. It broke the console game record for most digital units sold in a single month, became the 15th best-selling video game in history, and the second best-selling game of all time in Japan. It was also the most blogged-about subject on Tumblr in 2020!

Tiger King Drops on Netflix (March 20th)

Netflix remains the largest streaming service worldwide, with over 200 million global subscribers and roughly 74 million of those subscribers in the U.S. Because of this, when a Netflix Original becomes a hit, it usually becomes a major part of online discourse, especially in the United States. This was the case for Tiger King, the true crime (and truly wild) documentary series that dropped on Netflix on March 20th. With most watchers stuck at home, the online discourse around the show felt even more intense than usual. For a few weeks, you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a Tiger King meme.

April 2020

Quibi Launches (April 6)

While not necessarily pandemic-specific (did Quibi ever really stand a chance?), 2020 saw the launch (April 6th) and death (December 1st) of Quibi, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form streaming platform that squandered $1.75 billion in investment capital and star power like Sophie Turner, Kiefer Sutherland, Idris Elba, Chrissy Teigen, Karlie Kloss, and Laura Dern before bowing out in December.

Trolls World Tour Becomes First Movie to Break Theatrical Window (April 10)

Remember when it was radical for a movie to break its theatrical window? Yeah, that was in April, when many media professionals were shocked with Universal’s decision to release Trolls World Tour, the computer animated musical comedy sequel to 2016’s Trolls, as both a limited theatrical release and via video on demand services. The move led AMC Theatres to temporarily announce that they would no longer be distributing Universal films, but the two companies quickly came to an agreement shortly after.

Extraction was a Thing (April 24)

Honestly, every week in 2020 felt like its own lifetime. Remember when Extraction, the Chris Hemsworth-helmed action-thriller, became the most watched original film in Netflix’s history? Directed by Sam Hargrave and written by MCU vet Joe Russo, the film follows a black ops mercenary who must rescue the kidnapped son of an Indian drug lord in Bangladesh. As self-reported by Netflix, the movie was watched by 99 million households in its first month of release.

May 2020

TikTok Pops

TikTok was already firmly a thing heading into 2020, but the pandemic was when more people found it—especially the olds… by which I mean millennials. In October 2019, TikTok had almost 40 million U.S. users (and 507 million global users in December 2019). By June 2020, that number was at almost 92 million in the U.S. (and 689 million globally by July 2020). This was part of a larger trend over the course of the pandemic that saw people spending more time on their mobile devics than ever before: According to a report from mobile app intelligence agency App Annie (via Social Media Today), by the end of 2020, Americans spent more time on TikTok than they did on Facebook, and the average American now spends more time per day on their mobile device (4 hours) than they do watching TV (3.7 hours).

Avatar: The Last Airbender is Released on Netflix (May 15th)

In many ways, the pandemic has been an accelerant of global processes, and this applies to pop culture as well. While we were already seeing the rise in more foreign-language TV, including anime, and the return to some major nostalgic properties due to broader and easier accessibility because of platforms like Netflix, the pandemic really ramped that process up. When all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender became available on Netflix in May, the American animated TV series that originally aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, was discovered or re-discovered by millions of viewers, becoming one of the top Tumblr fandoms of 2020. It was indicative of a larger trend of old shows becoming new again through release on major global streaming platforms.

Read more

TV

Avatar: The Last Airbender – What Can We Expect From the New Avatar Studios?

By Shamus Kelley

TV

Avatar: The Last Airbender Co-Creators Exit Netflix Live-Action Series

By Shamus Kelley

June 2020

Buffy Lands on All4 (June 1st)

In a year where what’s old was necessarily new again, all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer came to UK streaming platform All4, and were broadcast on E4 every weeknight at 11pm. Elsewhere in the UK streaming market, the BBC iPlayer saw its best-ever quarter from April to June with 1.6 billion requests, an increase of 59% on the same quarter last year (according to a BBC press release).

Staged Premieres (June 10th)

As it became apparent that TV and film production would not be going back to normal anytime soon, many creators got, well, creative and began making things in lockdown. One of the best and most high-profile examples was BBC’s Staged, in which David Tennant and Michael Sheen play fictionalized versions of themselves, trying to rehearse a performance of Six Characters in Search of an Author via video chat, alongside director Simon Evans. The low-budget, high-charisma series is filmed in the actors’ real-life homes but, unlike some celebrity efforts during the pandemic (see March), strikes the right tonal note in relation to its subjects’ privilege.

July 2020

Ray Fisher Speaks Up About Alleged Abuse on the Justice League Set (July 1st)

Actor Ray Fisher raised his voice on July 1st in a tweet, calling out director Joss Whedon for alleged abuse on the Justice League set, and WB execs Geoff Johns and Jon Berg for “enabling” that alleged behavior.

Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. Accountability>Entertainment

— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) July 1, 2020

Later, in December, Fisher would add WB exec Walter Hamada’s name to that list, following a December 11th announcement by WarnerMedia that their investigation connected to Justice League “has concluded and remedial action has been taken.”

Hamilton Blows Us All Away (July 4th)

One of the deepest cultural cuts during lockdown was the necessary elimination of live, in-person theater, which is probably one of the reasons why Hamilton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning stage musical that originally came to Broadway in 2015, made such a splash when it became available in its filmed format via Disney+. Even without a pandemic, Hamilton (and all Broadway theater) is only accessible to a select group of people, making the addition of the pop culture phenomenon in a more accessible form so very important.

Read more

TV

From Bridgerton to Hamilton: A History of Color-Conscious Casting in Period Drama

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

Movies

Hamilton: Thomas Jefferson Controversy Explained

By David Crow

Host Becomes the Most Zeitgesty Movie of 2020 (July 30th)

Another particularly impressive entry into the “filmed from lockdown” genre that sprouted up during the first year of the pandemic was British found footage horror film Host. Written and made over 12 weeks in a pandemic and based around a haunted Zoom call, few pandemic-made stories managed to nail the balance between both frighteningly topical and escapist quite so well.

The NBA Bubble Begins

Professional sports went into their bubbles, aka tightly controlled settings in which pro sports players live, practice, and play their respective seasons—to varying degrees of success. The NBA’s Disney World bubble went into effect on July 22nd for exhibition scrimmages, before launching into the final eight games of its regular 2019-2020 season and then the 2020 NBA playoffs. Twenty-two of the NBA’s 30 teams were invited to participate and ended the bubble in October with no recorded cases of COVID-19 amongst its participating players. The MLB bubble was… less successful.

SDCC @Home: WTF Was That? (July 22)

San Diego Comic-Con is one of the most important and lucrative pop culture events of the year, bringing hundreds of thousands of people into downtown San Diego to celebrate and discuss some of the largest franchises in the world. SDCC was one of the many in-person conventions that attempted to transfer its programming online in 2020 and… it didn’t really work. Part of the fun of Comic-Con is in the excitement of the crowd and the exclusivity of the events. (Though not on Thanksgiving, thank you very much.) There is nothing quite like getting to be part of a major Hall H announcement, and watching via video chat is just not the same.

August 2020

Tenet Comes Out in the UK (August 26th)

In what was largely a year without theatrical cinema in the U.S. and the U.K., a brief respite in COVID-19 cases and therefore lockdown meant a proper theatrical release for Christopher Nolan’s latest in August 2020. Sci-fi blockbuster Tenet hit U.K. theatres on August 26th, bringing in $5.3 million domestically in its first week of release and marking the first major studio release since the pandemic began.

American Sports Leagues Go on Strike to Protest Jacob Blake Shooting

Many professional sports in the U.S. came to a temporary halt when some players and teams refused to take the field or court following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black American who was shot in the back and paralyzed by a police officer in front of his sons on August 23rd in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The incident re-ignited ongoing protests over racism and police brutality, with which many players and teams stood in solidarity. The NBA, WNBA, MLB, and MLS all postponed games as players protested Jacob Blake’s shooting.

Chadwick Boseman Passes Away (August 28th)

In a devastating loss to American culture, Chadwick Boseman, the star of Black Panther and many other films, passed away due to complications from colon cancer, a condition with which he had been living and working since a 2016 diagnosis. Boseman was one of the most successful Black actors and creators working today.

“He … knew that his voice was now strong and people were listening and paying attention,” wrote Kelley L. Carter in The Undefeated. “And he knew that even as this moment was victorious, Hollywood still needed to be called to task on the things that make this industry problematic, even as it was in the infant phases of creating a groundbreaking blockbuster with a mostly Black cast.”

September 2020

Tenet Flops in the U.S., Hollywood Abandons Ship for Fall 2020 (September 3)

While Tenet may have been a hit in the U.K., the Nolan blockbuster flopped upon its release in the U.S., where many theaters remained closed or empty through the summer and fall. The film would make around $58 million in the U.S. and Canada, prompting Hollywood studios to further push back major releases slated for the fall.

Mulan Becomes First Disney “Premier Access” Release (Sept. 4)

After several pandemic-caused release delays, Disney’s much-anticipated, live-action adaptation of Mulan became the first “Premier Access” release for Disney+, causing a bit of a stir. In the U.S. and in some other markets, Disney forwent releasing Mulan in theaters, instead offering a “Premier Access” window on Disney+ that viewers could access for an additional fee of $29.99. While the film received middling reviews from western critics, it was not received well in China. Additionally, a #BoycottMulan movement, which started out as a response to social media comments star Liu Yifei made in support of the Hong Kong police in their (sometimes violent) suppression of pro-democracy protestors, gained some traction in the lead up to the release.

Read more

Movies

How Mulan Maintains The Animated Film’s Queerness

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Mulan: Disney Plus Grosses Exceed $200 Million? (Report)

By David Crow

I’m Thinking of Ending Things Makes People Go “Whaaa?” (Sept. 4)

As our Rosie Fletcher wrote in the “Ending Explained” for I’m Thinking of Ending Things: “[this story is] a movie, and a book, which really requires you to watch/read twice to actually fully understand.” It’s a gloriously confusing movie, and many in September dove right into the mystery chiller adapted by Charlie Kaufman from a novel by Iain Reid. As Fletcher put in her review, the film is “a perfect storm of philosophy, ambiguity and wankery.” What’s not to love?

October 2020

Trial of the Chicago 7 Debuts on Netflix (Oct. 16)

However you may feel about Aaron Sorkin, the man knows how to make a taut political drama. Trial of the Chicago 7 is a dramatic retelling of (as it says on the tin) the 1969-70 trial of the Chicago Seven, a group of anti–Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines with the intention of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The movie has an all-star cast of dudes, and is both written and directed by Sorkin. It made many critics’ best-of-the-year lists and made a cultural splash when it dropped on Netflix in October, after a summer of American and global protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans.

Borat 2 Makes (a Bigger) Fool Out of Rudy Giulilani (October 23rd)

Rarely do the paths of pop culture and politics so explicitly intersect as they did in Borat 2. The mockumentary comedy sequel came out in October, in the long, plateau-ed height of the lead up to the presidential election, and featured a scene in which Republican politician Rudy Giuliani puts his hand into his trousers in front of actress Maria Bakalova, who is impersonating a conservative journalist. While Giuliani attempted to spin the event in both the lead up to and following the release of the film on Amazon Prime, Sacha Baron Cohen told Good Morning America in an interview after the film’s release: “It is what it is. He did what he did.”

Read more

Movies

Maria Bakalova is Ready to Do Borat 3 in ‘Five Minutes’

By David Crow

Movies

Borat 2: Sacha Baron Cohen Reveals Dangerous Deleted Scene

By David Crow

The Queen’s Gambit Turns Everyone into a Chess Player (Oct. 23)

Odds are that, in October 2020, you either knew someone or were someone who watched The Queen’s Gambit and then fell hard into the world of chess. The Netflix period miniseries tracks the highs and lows of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (the brilliant Anya Taylor-Joy), from her upbringing in a Kentucky orphanage in the 1950s to her time at the top of the competitive chess world in the 1960s. In its first month of release, The Queen’s Gambit became Netflix’s most-watched scripted miniseries, and sent chess set sales soaring—yet another sign of just how commercially and culturally powerful Netflix has become.

November 2020

PlayStation 5 Alleges Launches, But No One Can Get Them (Nov. 12)

Even if you aren’t a gamer, you probably heard about the release of the PlayStation 5. Though the PS5 technically became available in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, Singapore, and South Korea on November 12th (and worldwide a week later), the limited supply of the console made it almost impossible to find.

As Matthew Byrd wrote in his November article on the subject: “We know that the initial PS5 shortage can at least partially be attributed to a shortage of the console’s chips (as well as distribution and manufacturing problems caused by the complications related to the COVID-19 pandemic), but as we’re already seeing in Europe where some who pre-ordered a PS5 were warned they may not receive their console until 2021, Sony faces some notable additional issues moving forward.”

This is partially a story of supply and demand, and the growth of gaming in general. According to a report by market researcher SuperData (via Venture Beat), the game industry grew 12% (to $139.9 billion) in 2020, with console games revenues up 28% from 2019. While growth is expected to be slower in 2021, as fewer people will hopefully be stuck at home, more people than ever are gtting their story fix in the world of gaming.

Read more

Games

PlayStation Bets on Big Games as Game Pass Slowly Wins a Console War

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Why PlayStation Store Closing on PS3 Should Matter to You

By Matthew Byrd

December 2020

WB Announces HBO Max Release Hybrid Model (Dec. 3)

In a move that seems to be paying off, in December, Warner Bros. announced that it would be moving to a release hybrid model through 2021, putting its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max. As David Crow explained in our film section: “The move will put all 17 of WB’s scheduled 2021 films on a ‘hybrid’ model where films will premiere on HBO Max the same day as their theatrical release in the U.S. Technically speaking, the films will still be playing in theaters, particularly in international markets without HBO Max as a streaming option, but for the first (and most lucrative) month of their release, they’ll also be available on WarnerMedia’s streamer.”

People Actually Get to Play Cyberpunk 2077, Immediately Realize It’s Broken (Dec. 10)

Hooboy, Cyberpunk 2077. In December, after literal years of anticipation, CD Projekt released action RPG video game Cyberpunk 2077 to disastrous results. While the narrative and design of the game is ambitious and has its rewards, the rollout was plagued by performance issues (particularly in the console versions) that led to player backlash and actual lawsuits.

Read more

Games

Cyberpunk 2077 Lawsuits Explained

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Cyberpunk 2077 Roadmap Proves the Game Should Have Been Delayed to 2021

By Matthew Byrd

The Mandalorian Finale Breaks the Internet (Dec. 18)

Um, spoilers.

The second season of The Mandalorian may not have technically been the most-watched series of 2020, but it certainly felt like the most-talked-about, proving that, even in the era of streaming, there’s still such a thing as appointment television. This all came to a culmination with The Mandalorian Season 2 finale, “The Rescue,” which featured an appearance from Luke Skywalker himself.

Read more

TV

Could Durge’s Star Wars Return Lead to a Role in The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett?

By Joseph Baxter

TV

How The Mandalorian Challenges Star Wars’ History of Bad Dads

By Lacy Baugher

Wonder Woman 1984 Premieres (Dec. 25)

Wonder Woman 1984 dropped on Christmas Day in the United States, and quickly became the most-watched straight-to-streaming title of 2020 (knocking Disney+’s Hamilton out of the top spot), despite its middling reviews. In the U.S., it would be the first of WB’s “hybrid model” releases, getting a simultaneous release in theaters as well as on HBO Max.

Read more

Movies

Wonder Woman 1984 Star Connie Nielsen Defends Patty Jenkins’ Vision

By Don Kaye

Movies

Does Zack Snyder’s Justice League Set Up Wonder Woman 3?

By David Crow

Bridgerton Gets Saucy (Dec. 25)

Bridgerton, Netflix’s deliciously addicting period romance based on the Julia Quinn novels, also dropped on Christmas Day, and went on to become the streamer’s most watched series ever, reaching #1 in 76 countries. The Shondaland produced drama made leading man Regé-Jean Page a global star, so much so that the announcement that he would not be returning for Season 2 (as each season focuses on a different romantic pairing featuring a member of the Bridgerton family) into a bit of a meltdown. Bridgerton has already secured another three seasons—a post-Season 1 announcement that is unprecedented for a Netflix original.

Read more

TV

Why Bridgerton Had to Let Regé-Jean Page Go

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

TV

Will Bridgerton Become the Next Game of Thrones?

By Kayti Burt

Soul Brings on the Feels (Dec. 25)

Called Pixar’s “most ambitious movie in years” by Den of Geek film editor David Crow, Soul was another Christmas release that brought solace to people stuck at home, many without their families, for the holidays. Directed by Pixar vet Pete Docter (Up, Monsters, Inc., Inside Out) and co-directed by Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami, Star Trek: Discovery), the film follows middle school music teacher and pianist Joe Gardner as he seeks to reunite his soul and his body after they are accidentally separated, just before his big break as a jazz musician. 

January 2021

The Little Things Kicks Off WB’s 2021 Film Slate on Streaming (Jan. 29)

Fans of crime thriller and/or Denzel Washington and Rami Malek flock to HBO Max and theaters for the hybrid release of The Little Things, the first of WB’s planned 2021 slate.

Read more

Movies

The Little Things is Better Than a Seven Copycat

By Don Kaye

Movies

The Little Things and the Mystery of Denzel Washington’s Character Explained

By David Crow

February 2021

WandaVision Ensnares Us

Stop hogging the zeitgeist, Marvel!

In February, Disney+ released its first MCU show, WandaVision, and it broke the internet. The miniseries, created by Jac Schaeffer and starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, wowed audiences with its clever use of the sitcom format and superhero tropes to tell a story about grief that, for all of its fantastical elements, was oh so relatable.

Read more

TV

How WandaVision’s Doctor Strange 2 Connection Evolved

By Joseph Baxter

TV

WandaVision: The Unanswered Questions From the Marvel Series

By Gavin Jasper

Judas and the Black Messiah Debuts (Feb. 12)

Daniel Kaluuya and Lakith Stanfield lead an all-star cast in this 1960s period piece that follows the real life story of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton, who was the victim of a targeted assassination by the FBI. In a year that saw an increased mainstream awareness of Black trauma, the Oscar-nominated Judas and the Black Messiah shone a cinematic light on yet another state-led historical injustice against Black Americans.

Charisma Carpenter Speaks Her Truth

In February, actress Charisma Carpenter came forward with allegations about Joss Whedon’s alleged abuses of power during her time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, inspired by Ray Fisher’s own efforts to seek justice and systemic reform for Whedon’s alleged behavior on Justice League.

My truth. #IStandWithRayFisher pic.twitter.com/eNjYcJ6zwP

— charisma carpenter (@AllCharisma) February 10, 2021

Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. Accountability>Entertainment

— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) July 1, 2020

Pokemania Returns

Many older millennials have spent their time during quarantine reconnecting with their childhood faves. This culminates with a massive renewed interest in Pokemon cards to the point where McDonald’s Happy Meals with Pokemon cards as toys sell out instantly.

Read more

Sponsored

How Pokémon Snap Helped Pioneer the Photo Mode Era

By Matthew Byrd

Sponsored

Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years

By Alec Bojalad

Did we miss anything? What have been the stories and pop culture trends that have helped get you through the pandemic so far? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Pandemic in Pop Culture Trends appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3tFxFBF

[falloutglow]

noceur is just danny let's be real

heck you’re so right [word list]

noceur - one who stays up late [AO3]

Late Night Cohesion

Summary: Danny hates sleeping. He'd rather stay up late. X6-88 is charged with keeping this idiot in check.

Danny sat at his desk, muttering under his breath, as he continued to tinker with the wiring and gears of a 'surface bot' one of the coursers had brought back. The scientists, he didn't bother with names, had all pushed to get rid of it, but 'Father' insisted he could take a look at it. It was an eyebot, similar to the one he and Sam had fixed up years ago in their hellhole of a vault. According to the courser, letter number something or other, it had dropped suddenly despite its radio frequency still playing strong. At least, up until it came down to the underground confines of the Institute.

The courser 'assigned' to him, watched behind his sunglasses, silently judging as Danny continued to unscrew and deconstruct the eyebot in front of him. Several hours had passed, something which he had only noticed thanks to the crick in his neck and shoulders from being hunched over for so long. A glass of water had been set in front of him at some point, and judging from the lack of chill from the glass, at least an hour. He gulped it down greedily. His once dry mouth satisfied now that he had finally hydrated for the first time since the bot had been set in front of him.

Danny rolled his shoulders and grunted, trying to work the kinks out as the courser picked up the glass with gloved hands.

"It's late." The statement was neutral, like most things he said, and very to the point. Curt.

Danny's gaze shifted around him. The scientists had their shift change as he saw some familiar faces, ones that would come out for '3rd shift'. Only a few remained, busily scrawling on papers clipped to their boards as they collected data of the various experiments running 24/7. Several gen 1s and 2s were making their rounds, mostly janitorial in nature, but there was a collection he saw toting crates and boxes of equipment.

"I can see that X6." Danny stated, looking up at his 'caretaker' courser. "How many hours do I have left?" Most likely 3 before X6 would dare lay a finger on him. The Institute had learned through the data Danny had collected on himself a few years prior on how impeccably important it was for him to not stay awake longer than 22 hours.

They also learned the hard way to not use sedatives on him.

Imbeciles.

"One." X6 stated as the hints of a smirk played on his lips at Danny's widened and bruised eyes. "They are sealing this section off for cleaning purposes. So, perhaps it's time to wrap up what you are doing, Sir."

Danny arched an eyebrow. "Or what, they'll give me a bath."

"Vaporize."

"Ah." Danny clicked his tongue and looked at the parts and guts of the eyebot all haphazardly tossed on his desk and the floor around him. Well, this was gonna be hell to clean up. "Will the eyebot still be around, or are they gonna scrap it for parts as soon as I leave it?"

X6's shoulders moved an inch, but Danny saw the shrug. "Unknown."

Danny tapped his fingers against the desk and thinned his lips. He nodded to himself. "Then, the bot will come with me."

It was X6's turn to raise his brow. "Perhaps the 18 hour mark is more fit for the beginnings of your madness."

Danny snorted. "Ha, good one." he scanned the room. The other scientists had left, perhaps because they didn't want to be vaporized either. His gaze shifted back to X6, who was still looming over him. "...help me move it."

X6's lips thinned.

"Hesitant that we'll get caught? Ooooor-" he leaned against the back of his chair, "not wanting to help me?"

"Both." X6 stated after a long pause of silence.

Danny nodded as he swept up parts into a pile. "Honesty. I like that." He frowned as his eyes scanned the room.

"Need a bag?" X6 assumed, tapping the empty glass against Danny's temple. "Or a box?"

Danny squinted at him. "Compelled to help me? Or-"

"No."

Danny smirked. "Alright." He smacked his hands on the table and stood. "If questioned, blame my late hours getting to me and-"

"I was just doing my duty." X6 finished for him, "I've been here longer than you, Sir."

Danny rolled his eyes. "I know. I knoooow." He stretched his back and kicked a rusted gear across the all too clean floor. He smirked, watching the gear slide, leaving a red colored streak in its wake. That. Was satisfying. "Glad to know we're on the same page." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Think you can carry the bot's frame?"

"Yes."

Danny looked back at X6, who still hadn't put down the glass. "But?"

X6 raised the glass. "My hands are full."

Danny covered his mouth and coughed into his hand to suppress his laughter. "Fair." He rolled his eyes and grabbed an empty crate near the wall before tossing parts and tools into it. He grunted as he lifted the crate and arched a brow at X6. "How much time?"

X6 pointed behind Danny to the clock hanging on the clean, white wall across from them. "Fifteen."

"Hours?" Danny asked with a grin despite the slight panicked adrenaline coursing through his veins.

"No. Synths."

Danny whipped behind him and- sighed loudly as that subtle smirk appeared again on X6's lips. "Okay. You got me."

"I'll be here for the next thirteen minutes."

Danny grabbed the glass out of X6's and dropped it in the pile of parts and scrap. "So, we gonna use a cart or-" X6 took the box of parts out of Danny's hands, "-that works too." He grunted as he picked up the eyebot, feeling the ever long strips of code run across his mind. Oh. Huh."Just like Prometheus..."

X6 quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing as they made their way out of the labs and towards Danny's 'quarters'. None of the Gen1s or 2s stopped their progress, much to Danny's relief. By the time they arrived at the room, with white walls and neatly made bed, Danny's arms felt like gelatin. Danny sat the bot down on the table as X6 placed the crate at the end of Danny's bed, next to the locker full of Danny's regulated belongings.

Danny shook his arms as X6 once again picked up the glass from the pile of parts and placed it on the table next to the eyebot.

"Thanks."

X6 looked down at Danny, his brow scrunched.

Danny rolled his eyes. "For your assist, even though you made me carry the heavier thing."

"You still have 1.75 hours left." X6 stated, pulling up a chair.

Danny blew a raspberry. "Ugh, fine. I'll change just...turn around." X6 stood stationary as Danny walked over to the locker at the end of his bed and rummaged around inside. "What?"

"You're willingly going to bed?"

Danny pulled out the thin clothed pjs the Institute provided him and quirked a brow in X6's direction. "I assumed you were ready to put me in a sleeper hold and lock me in for the night."

X6 sat down in his chair and leaned forward. "As much amusement that temporarily gives me," Danny rolled his eyes, "I do not wish to return to my own quarters at this time."

"..." Danny hummed, feeling the fabric between his fingers, "okay," he shrugged, "feel free to stay as long as you want...so long as you're not staring at my unconscious body." X6's lips thinned. Danny snorted. "Gotchaaaaa-but seriously though," he stood with a grunt, "something on your mind?"

"No."

"Okay." Danny shrugged, "Cool. Feel free to knock me out whenever." He tossed the pjs onto the bed and gently brushed his fingertips against the cold metal of the eyebot. "I'll just keep working over here then."

"Understood." A smile went unnoticed on X6's lips.

[factorinvesting]

Income Purchasing Fantasyland: High Dividend Equity ETFs and Mutual Funds

Several decades back, while fielding questions at an AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) meeting in north east NJ, a comparison was made between a professionally directed"Market Cycle Investment Management" (MCIM) portfolio along with any of several"High Dividend Select" equity ETFs.

My response was: what's best for retirement readiness, 8 percent in-your-pocket income or 3 percent? Now's' answer would be 7.85% or 1.85percent ... and, of course, there is not one molecule of similarity between MCIM Programs and either ETFs or Mutual Funds. I simply took a (closer-than-I-normally-would-bother-to)"Google" at among those"best" high dividend ETFs and also a, similarly clarified, group of high-income Mutual Funds. The ETFs are"marked-to" an indicator like the"Dividend Achievers Select Index", and therefore are composed of mostly large capitalization US companies having a history of regular dividend gains. The Mutual Fund managers are tasked with maintaining a high volatility investment vehicle, and are anticipated to trade as market conditions justify; the ETF owns every collateral in its underlying index, each one of the time, regardless of market terms. For more details click here factor investing.

In accordance with their published numbers:

The four"2018's best" high volatility ETFs have a mean dividend yield (i.e., in your check book spending-money ) of... pause to catch your breath, 1.75%. Take a Look at: DGRW, DGRO, RDVY, and VIG. Equally income unspectacular, the"most useful" mutual-funds, even after marginally larger management fees, yield a whopping 2.0%. Now how can anyone hope to go on this level of income production with under the usual five approximately million dollar portfolio. It just can not be achieved without even selling securities, and unless your ETFs and funds proceed upward in market value each month, dipping in to chief merely has to happen on a regular basis. Imagine if there is a lengthy market down turn? The capital described may be most useful in a"total return" feel, however, not out of the income they produce, and I have yet to ascertain just how either total return, or sell value for that matter, can be utilised to pay for your own invoices... without selling the securities.

Far as I enjoy top quality dividend producing equities ( Investment Grade Value Stocks are volatility payers)they are only not the answer for retirement income"readiness". There is a much better, income focused, alternative to those equity-income production"dogs"; and with less financial risk.

Notice that"financial" risk (the possibility that the moving company will default on its payments) is substantially different from"market" risk (the chance that market value may move below the purchase price). For an apples-to-apples contrast, I chose four equity focused Closed End Funds (CEFs) by the much larger world I have now been watching quite tightly as the 1980s. They (BME, USA, RVT, and CSQ) possess a normal yield of 7.85 percent, and a payment history extending back an average 2-3 decades. There are scores of others who produce more income than any one of the ETFs or Mutual Money cited at the"best of class" Google results. Although I am a strong believer in investing just in dividend paying equities, high volatility stocks remain"growth purpose" investments and so they just can't be expected to create the sort of income which can be depended upon by their"income purpose" cousins. But fairness established CEFs come very close.

When you combine these equityincome critters with similarly handled income purpose CEFs, you own a portfolio that may bring you to"retirement income readiness"... and this is about two thirds the content of a controlled MCIM portfolio. When it comes to income production, bonds, preferred stocks, notes, and loans, mortgages, income realestate, etc. are naturally safer and higher yielding than stocks... as intended by the investment hubs, should not by the"Wizards of Wall Street". They will have been telling you for nearly ten decades now that yields around two or three percentage are the very best they have to offer. They are lying through their teeth.

Here's an illustration, as mentioned in a recent Forbes Magazine article by Michael Foster qualified "14 Funding that Crush Vanguard and Yield up to 11.9 percent"

The report compares both return and total yield, pointing out pretty certainly that total yield is moot once the rivalry is generating 5 or 6 times longer annual income. Foster compares seven Vanguard mutual funds using 14 Closed End Funds... and the underdogs triumph in every category: Total Stock Market, Small-Cap, Mid-Cap, Large-Cap, Dividend Appreciation, US Growing, along with US Value. His decision:

"When it comes to yields and one-year returns, none of those Vanguard funds triumph. Despite their fame, regardless of the passive-indexing craze and also despite the feel-good narrative many wish to trust that the true-Vanguard is a laggard." Hello! Time to get your retirement readiness income program in to high gear and quit worrying about total returns and promote value changes. Time to Place your portfolio into a position where you can create this statement, unequivocally, without hesitation, with full assurance: "Neither currency markets volatility rising rates of interest are likely to have a bad influence on my retirement income; in actuality, I'm in a ideal position to benefit from all market and interest rate moves of almost any magnitude, at any moment... without invading chief except for unexpected crises."

[reading-writing-revolution]

August 20, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

Sheesh. What a day.

It began last night, while I was writing last night’s letter, when shortly after midnight we learned that Alexei Navalny, outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s government, has apparently been poisoned. He collapsed in pain on an airplane after drinking tea at Russia’s Tomsk airport. The plane made an emergency landing, meeting medics who raced Navalny to the hospital, where he is gravely ill. The poisoning is a chilling reminder of Putin’s tactics just days after the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election established that the Trump campaign invited his influence into our affairs.

Then, today, federal prosecutors in New York acting for a grand jury indicted Steve Bannon, Brian Kolfage, and two others for fraud and money laundering in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $25 million to build a wall on the U.S. southern border with Mexico. The men told donors to “We the People Build the Wall” that “100% of the funds raised… will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose,” and that “we’re a volunteer organization.” In fact, they allegedly pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars, routing the money through a shell company and false invoices.

The indictment quotes text messages between the men indicating they were quite deliberately running a scam. The messages highlight how the Republican system of fundraising from small donors, pioneered by direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie in the 1960s to fund Movement Conservatives rejected by traditional Republicans, now is used to funnel money from unsuspecting marks into the pockets of people who stoke rightwing outrage.

Bannon’s arrest means that two of Trump’s 2016 campaign chairs—Paul Manafort and Bannon-- have now been indicted and arrested on charges of fraud. The third, Corey Lewandowski, was also arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge against a reporter, but while video proved the reporter’s account was accurate, the charge was dropped. The campaign’s deputy chairman, Rick Gates, an associate of Manafort, was also charged with financial crimes and conspiracy, and was sentenced to 45 days in jail after agreeing to cooperate with investigators.

Trump immediately tried to distance himself from Bannon, saying he hadn’t “been dealing with him for a very long period of time.” Bannon was the chief executive of Trump’s 2016 campaign, replacing Manafort, and upon entering the White House, Trump named Bannon to a newly created position as “chief strategist” on a level with the chief of staff. So influential in the early administration was Bannon that Trump gave him a full seat on the “principals committee” of the National Security Council, while pushing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence down to occasional attendees. Bannon left the White House after the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally highlighted the dangers of having an open white nationalist in the White House. Then-White House chief of staff John Kelly asked Bannon to leave. But at least for a while, Trump continued to call Bannon when Kelly was not around.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany issued a statement saying Trump “has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the Administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project.” In fact, supporters of the project include Donald Trump, Jr., his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, and anti-immigrant activist Kris Kobach. Last year, Kobach said Trump had given the effort his blessing, and there is a testimonial from Trump Jr. on their website. Trump Org spokeswoman Amanda Miller said Trump Jr. had given one speech at one of their events, and they used his words as a testimonial without his permission.

Bannon pleaded not guilty and was released on a $5 million bail bond secured with $1.75 million in cash. “This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall,” he told reporters as he left the federal courthouse.

The arrests set off a tweet storm from the president. Trump also called into the show of Fox News channel personality Sean Hannity tonight, claiming again that mail-in voting will create a fraudulent election and emphasizing—in unfortunate words about sending law enforcement to polling places—that he plans to deploy all the means he can to challenge the 2020 vote.

Today a federal judge rejected the argument of Trump’s lawyers that the subpoena of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. for eight years of Trump’s tax returns is “wildly overbroad.” Judge Victor Marrero upheld the subpoena. Trump’s lawyers immediately indicated they would appeal the decision.

Meanwhile, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling last year by a federal appeals court that he may not block his critics on Twitter. The lower court said that since Trump uses the account for official announcements, he violates the First Amendment whenever he blocks someone and silences them. Today his lawyers argued that his account is his personal property and that he does not have to tolerate opposing views on it. Blocking critics would enable Trump to control what his followers see on his account, preventing visible pushback to his tweets. In effect, he could dominate the discourse in a public space.

Trump certainly has critics.

Deborah L Hughes, the director of the Susan B. Anthony museum, today rejected Trump’s pardon for Ms. Anthony, saying the pardon validated a legal process Anthony called an outrage.

Then, shortly before the Democratic National Convention kicked off tonight, more than 70 senior national security officials from the Republican Party released a letter announcing that they are supporting Biden in 2020. Their letter lists ten reasons Trump has “failed our country.” Donald Trump, they write, “is dangerously unfit to serve another term.”

Tonight was the night that former Vice President Joe Biden gave his acceptance speech in response to the Democratic Party’s nomination of him as their presidential candidate.

Tonight was Biden’s, as military families and former service people testified to his support for them, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington explained how Biden helped him deal with his own stutter (huge props for this young man taking on this assignment and executing it so well), Biden’s former rivals for the nomination talked of Biden’s kindness and decency, and, above all, Biden’s family emphasized again and again that for Biden, family and faith is everything. The picture was of a fundamentally decent and moral man, a striking contrast to his Republican rival.

The Democratic National Committee has pulled off an astonishing accomplishment with this, the nation’s first virtual political convention. It was tightly choreographed, inclusive, passionate, and fun, drawing in viewers with its variety and quick pace. It demonstrated professionalism, talent, and skill even without taking into account its content.

But the content was key. Rather than weakening the event, the lack of audience created an intimacy between speakers and viewers that lent a shining new authenticity to the voices the convention highlighted.

Biden is always a better speaker than people who know him for his gaffes expect, and tonight he hit it out of the park. On FNC, Chris Wallace noted that the Trump campaign’s attempt to convince voters Biden is mentally impaired backfired badly as he delivered “an enormously effective speech.”

Rather than simply outline his plan for his presidency, Biden also gave an impassioned plea for the nation, tying his love for it to his own life and values. He treated voters not as tools to be manipulated, but as people who can be trusted to choose their own future.

“America is at an inflection point,” he said. “A time of real peril, but of extraordinary possibilities. We can choose the path of becoming angrier, less hopeful, and more divided. A path of shadow and suspicion. Or we can choose a different path, and together, take this chance to heal, to be reborn, to unite. A path of hope and light. This is a life-changing election that will determine America’s future for a very long time. Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And most importantly, who we want to be. That’s all on the ballot. And the choice could not be clearer.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/politics/republican-national-security-biden.html

Letter: https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/

https://susanb.org/news-and-updates/

Bannon: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-national-security-council.html

McConnell: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/08/20/rnc-mitch-mcconnell-not-speaking-gop-convention/3403498001/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/during-a-summer-of-crisis-trump-chafes-against-criticism-and-new-controls/2017/08/31/8fb32d72-8d97-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/20/each-trumps-2016-campaign-managers-has-now-faced-criminal-charges/

indictment: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/bannon-indictment/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/bannon-build-the-wall-indictment/index.html

Trump on Hannity:

Andrew Lawrence @ndrew_lawrence

Trump says that on election day he's going to send law enforcement to polling locations 

August 21st 2020

4,139 Retweets5,311 Likes

Vance: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/nyregion/donald-trump-taxes-cyrus-vance.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/read-full-speech-joe-biden-s-remarks-2020-democratic-national-n1237620

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-supreme-court-ok-block-critics-twitter/

tweets: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-prepared-accept-democratic-nomination-president-furious-trump/story

© 2020 Heather Cox Richardson

548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

[blackkudos]

Canada Lee

Canada Lee (born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata; March 3, 1907 – May 9, 1952) was an American actor who pioneered roles for African Americans. After careers as a jockey, boxer and musician, he became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project, most notably in a 1936 production of Macbeth adapted and directed by Orson Welles. Lee later starred in Welles's original Broadway production of Native Son (1941). A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, Lee was blacklisted and died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He furthered the African-American tradition in theatre pioneered by such actors as Paul Robeson. Lee was the father of actor Carl Lee.

Biography

Canada Lee was born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata on March 3, 1907, in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. His father, James Cornelius Lionel Canegata, was born on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, and as a youth had migrated to New York, where he married Lydia Whaley Gadsen. Raised by his parents in Harlem, Lee had an aptitude for music, and at age seven he began studying violin and piano with J. Rosamond Johnson at the Music School Settlement for Colored People. He made his concert debut at age 11, performing a student recital at Aeolian Hall. But after seven years of music studies, without explanation, he put away his violin and ran away from home. In 1921, aged 14, Lee went to Saratoga Springs, New York, and began a two-year career as a jockey.

Lee returned to his parents' home in Harlem in 1923 with no idea what he was going to do next. He considered returning to music, but an old school friend suggested that he try boxing. At one amateur match, fight announcer Joe Humphries saw the name "Canagata, Lee" on the card he was using. He tossed the card aside and instead announced "Canada Lee"—a name that Lee liked and adopted. In the amateur ring he won 90 out of 100 bouts and the national amateur lightweight title.

Lee turned pro at age 19, in October 1926, and became a favorite with audiences. At 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) and about 144 pounds (65 kg), he fought as a welterweight. His boxing statistics vary due to incomplete coverage and record keeping for the sport in the 1920s and 1930s. Boxing historian Donald R. Koss documents Lee having 60 bouts 1927–31, the majority of them taking place 1927–28. The New York Times reported that Lee had some 200 professional matches and lost only about 25.

During his victorious 10-round bout with Andy Divodi at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 1929, Lee was dealt a blow over his right ear that detached his retina. With treatment his vision could have been saved, but Lee feared losing his successful career and masked his injury. In time he lost all sight in his right eye. He quit professional boxing in 1933. Despite having made an estimated $90,000 during his boxing career (roughly equivalent to $1.7 million today), Lee was broke. "Just threw it away," Lee later said. Lee eventually lobbied for insurance, health care, financial consultation and retirement homes for fighters. "The average boxer possesses little education," he said in 1946. "If he winds up broke, he has no trade, no education and nobody to turn to."

As Lee's fighting career began to wind down, he put together a small dance band that played at obscure clubs. When an old friend, sportswriter Ed Sullivan, plugged him in his new entertainment column, Lee and his group began landing better engagements. His career as a bandleader peaked in 1933 when his group played at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. The following year he opened his own small club, The Jitterbug, which he managed to operate for six months. When it closed he had no prospects, and his mother convinced him to simply get a job.

Acting

All my life I've been on the verge of something. I'm almost becoming a concert violinist and I run away to the races. I'm almost a good jockey and I go overweight. I'm almost a champion prizefighter and my eyes go bad. Now I've got it, now I've got what I'm going to be.

Lee discovered a love for Broadway theatre during his years as a prizefighter. He remembered Show Boat as the first stage production he ever saw: "A big, tough fighter, all muscle, just sobbing," he recalled.

His acting career began by accident in 1934. While at a YMCA to apply for a job as a laborer, Lee stumbled upon an audition in progress and was recognized by playwright Augustus Smith. Lee was invited to try out, and won a supporting role in Brother Mose, directed by Frank H. Wilson. Sponsored by New York's Civil Works Administration, the show toured the boroughs, playing at community centers and city parks into the fall of the year. In October 1934 Lee succeeded Rex Ingram in the Theatre Union's revival of Stevedore, which toured to Chicago, Detroit and other U.S. cities after its run on Broadway. It was his first professional role.

Lee then was cast in his first major role, that of Banquo, in the legendary Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936), adapted and directed by Orson Welles.

"I never would have amounted to anything in the theatre if it hadn't been for Orson Welles," Lee recalled. "The way I looked at acting, it was interesting and it was certainly better than going hungry. But I didn't have a serious approach to it until … I bumped into Orson Welles. He was putting on a Federal Theatre production of Macbeth with Negro players and, somehow, I won the part of Banquo. He rehearsed us for six solid months, but when the play finally went on before an audience, it was right—and it was a wonderful sensation, knowing it was right. Suddenly, the theatre became important to me. I had a respect for it, for what it could say. I had the ambition—I caught it from Orson Welles—to work like mad and be a convincing actor."

Macbeth was sold out for ten weeks at the Lafayette Theatre. After an additional two weeks on Broadway it toured the nation, including performances at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas.

After five months in a supporting role, Lee succeeded Rex Ingram as the lead in the stage production Haiti (1938), portraying Haitian slave turned emperor Henri Christophe. One of the Federal Theatre Project's most popular productions, Haiti was seen by some 90,000 people at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem and at Boston's Copley Theatre.

In January 1939, with the end of the Federal Theatre Project, Lee won a role in Mamba's Daughters, a Broadway success that toured North America and returned to Broadway for another brief run in 1940. Lee took a break from the road tour to make his motion picture debut in Keep Punching (1939), a film about boxing. He made his radio debut as narrator of the weekly CBS jazz series Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm (1940–41). As that regular series came to an end, he opened a restaurant at 102 West 136th Street, Canada Lee's Chicken Coop, which offered authentic South Carolina cuisine, jazz and blues. Lee kept it going despite chronic financial difficulties.

Lee played the lead role in the 1940 revival of Theodore Ward's Big White Fog. A 1938 Federal Theatre Project production, the play was remounted by the newly created Negro Playwrights Company, founded in New York by Ward, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Theodore Browne, Richard Wright and Alain Locke.

Lee became a star overnight in his ultimate stage success, Native Son (1941), an adaptation of Richard Wright's novel staged on Broadway by Orson Welles. The show was a spectacular hit for both Welles and Lee, who starred in the initial New York run, a 19-month national tour, and a second run on Broadway with accessible ticket prices. "Mr. Lee's performance is superb," wrote Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times, who called him "certainly the best Negro actor of his time, as well as one of the best actors in this country." Wright also applauded the performance, noting the contrast between Lee's affable personality and his intensity as Bigger Thomas. The sympathetic portrayal of a black man driven to murder by racial hatred brought much criticism however, especially from the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Legion of Decency, and the ensuing pressure forced the play to close.

During World War II, Lee continued to act in plays and in films. In 1942, he played in two comedies by William Saroyan, and earned approving reviews despite the generally negative response to these plays. In 1943, his name was above the title on the marquee for South Pacific, a race-themed drama directed by Lee Strasberg that again was panned by critics but won Lee critical praise.

Perhaps Lee's most famous film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), in which he played ship’s steward Joe Spencer, one of 8 men and women who survive the sinking of the freighter carrying them from New York to London and are joined in their lifeboat by a survivor of the crew of the U-boat that destroyed their vessel.

According to a June 22, 1943, Hollywood Reporter news item, Lee was the first actor cast for the film. The script was criticized for making Joe "too stereotypical". Lee testified that he attempted to round out the character by revising dialogue, primarily eliminating repeated "yessir"s and "nossir"s that sounded subservient, and cutting some actions. An NAACP critique of the film condemned the role of Joe and praised Lee’s performance. The Baltimore Afro-American's review, while commenting on the character's shortcomings, praised Lee's portrayal. Historian Rebecca Sklaroff, while writing in 2009 that Joe's role was more "tokenistic" than black roles in the wartime films Sahara and Bataan, noted that Joe was depicted as compassionate, dependable and heroic. He is the only one who resists the impulse of mob fury that leads the other characters to kill the German. He is the only character who steps forward to disarm the wounded German sailor rescued at the end of the film.

Lee's successful radio career continued with New World A-Comin', which made its debut in March 1944. He narrated the first two seasons of the groundbreaking WMCA radio series that presented Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences.

He became the first African American to play Caliban, in Margaret Webster’s 1945 Broadway rendition of The Tempest. Lee had admired Shakespeare since his turn in Macbeth; indeed, at the time of his death he was preparing to play Othello on film.

In 1946, Lee played a principal role in On Whitman Avenue, a drama about racial prejudice directed by Margo Jones. Lee produced the play, making him the first African-American producer on Broadway. The play spoke directly to the need for interracial housing following World War II and won the praise of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote weekly columns encouraging readers to see it.

In the autumn of 1946, Lee made American theatre history when he portrayed the villain Daniel de Bosola in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Presented in Boston and on Broadway, the production marked the first time a black actor had played a white role on the stage. Lee wore a special white paste that had been used medically, to cover burns and marks, but had never before been used in the theatre.

In 1947, he had a supporting role in Robert Rossen's Body and Soul, another boxing picture.

In 1948, Lee played his last stage role, that of a devoted slave in Set My People Free, Dorothy Heyward's drama based on the aborted 1822 slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey.

In 1949, he took a supporting role in Lost Boundaries, a drama based on William Lindsay White's book of the same title, a nonfiction account of Dr. Albert C. Johnston and his family, who passed for white while living in New England in the 1930s and 1940s.

Lee's last film appearance was the starring role of minister Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).

Civil rights activism

As an actor, Lee came into contact with many of the leading progressive figures in the country. Langston Hughes, for instance, wrote two brief plays for Lee; these were submitted to the Theater Project, but their criticism of racism in America was deemed too controversial, and neither was staged. Lee spoke to schools, sponsored various humanitarian events, and began speaking directly against the existing segregation in America's armed forces, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to win World War II. To this latter end, he appeared at numerous USO events; he won an award from the United States Recruiting Office and another from the Treasury Department for his help in selling war bonds. These sentiments would carry on throughout his life, culminating in his early firsthand account of apartheid in South Africa.

Lee was an early influence on physician and human rights activist H. Jack Geiger. They met in 1940 when Geiger, a 14-year-old middle-class Jewish runaway, was backstage at a Broadway production of Native Son. Lee agreed to take Geiger in when he showed up at his door in Harlem asking for a place to stay. With the consent of his parents, Geiger stayed with Lee for over a year. Lee took on the role of surrogate father and introduced Geiger to Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, and Adam Clayton Powell. Geiger eventually became a journalist, then a doctor who co-founded the first community health center in the United States, Columbia Point Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He became a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights, and established community health centers in Mississippi and South Africa. Geiger says he would never have moved so deeply in these worlds so quickly if not for his experiences with Canada Lee.

By the late 1940s, the rising tide of anti-communism had made many of Lee’s earlier contacts politically dangerous. In 1949, the trade journal Variety stated that under no circumstance was Lee to be used in American Tobacco’s televised production of a radio play he had recently starred in because he was "too controversial".

The same year, the FBI offered to clear Lee’s name if he would publicly call Paul Robeson a communist. Lee refused and responded by saying, "All you’re trying to do is split my race." According to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, Lee stated that he intended to come out and "publicly blast Paul Robeson." However, the fact that the friendship between the two actors remained until Lee's death suggests that Robeson put no faith in Winchell's claim.

At the height of the Hollywood blacklist, Lee managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film Cry, The Beloved Country, for which both he and Sidney Poitier were smuggled into South Africa as indentured servants in order to play their roles as African ministers. During filming, Lee had his first heart attack, and he never fully recovered his health. The film’s message of universal brotherhood stands as Lee's final work towards this aim.

Being on the Hollywood blacklist prevented him from getting further work. Scheduled to appear in Italy to begin production on a filmed version of Othello, he was repeatedly notified that his passport "remained under review". Lee was reportedly to star as Bigger Thomas in the Argentine version of Native Son but was replaced in the role by Richard Wright, author of the novel, when Lee had to withdraw.

Family life

In December 1925, Lee married Juanita Eugenia Waller. On November 22, 1926, they had a son, Carl Vincent Canegata, who became actor Carl Lee. The couple separated while their son was young, and they were amicably divorced in 1942.

In 1934, Lee began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby, despite the threat of miscegenation laws. They often had lunch in uptown New York in Harlem at the then-new restaurant "Franks", where they could maintain their secret relationship. When Lee was performing in Washington, D.C., during the 1940s, the only restaurant in the city where they could eat together was an African restaurant named the Bugazi. Crosby and Lee's intimate relationship continued into the mid-1940s.

In March 1951, Lee married Frances Pollack. They remained together until he died just over a year later.

Death

Lee died of a reported heart attack at the age of 45 on May 9, 1952, in Manhattan. It was later revealed by his widow, Frances Pollack, that he had been diagnosed with uremia and died of kidney disease, slipping into a coma and passing away 10 days after his diagnosis. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

[garrettrulefivewhitlock]

Why saying “Fuck the entire South” is incorrect and toxic

The Republican voting record of the Southern region in the US is not reflective of the entire population. It is reflective of the white population.

Since this country started giving the right to vote to people other than white man, the South has done all it can to stop these people from voting.

- After the Civil War, white men stood outside voting centers with weapons to intimidate black people who came to vote.

- State constitutions were rewritten to suppress the votes of newly enfranchised African Americans.

- Colfax Massacre: Former Confederate soldiers/KKK/White League mob opened fire on courthouse full of black men. After the black men surrendered, many were shot and hung. It’s estimated that anywhere from 60 to 150 free black men were killed.

- Efforts to deny black men the right to vote was so bad, we literally made a new Amendment to further protect the right (14th).

- Texas, in particular, worked to stop black women from voting decades after the 19th Amendment was passed. There was poll tax, literacy test, grandfather clause, violence, economic coercion that kept most black women ineligible.

- In 1923, Texas created the white primary, by declaring the Democratic party was a private organization, which cleared the way for Democrats to allow only white people to vote in the primary. At the time, the Republican party barely existed in Texas. The white primary was, in effect, the general election. (Keep in mind at this point in history, Democrats were conservative and Republicans were liberal).

- Texas had a pole tax until it was banned in 1964. The tax discouraged many from voting, as it cost $1.50 and later $1.75, which was a day’s wage. If you were poor, you couldn’t afford to spend a day’s wage on the vote.

- It wasn’t until 1965, with the passing of the Voting Rights Act, that literacy tests were banned and federal oversight of elections across the country was applied.

These efforts to stop anyone but white men from voting have created systematic oppression, government built upon decades of law created by white men, and a society that perpetuates all of this.

Sources: https://www.history.com/news/voter-suppression-after-reconstruction-southern-states https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1873-colfax-massacre-crippled-reconstruction-180958746/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2019/06/28/338050/100-years-ago-with-womens-suffrage-black-women-in-texas-didnt-get-the-right-to-vote/

Here are modern examples to show how the South does all it can to remove non-white voters/votes.

- “In the 2000 presidential election...Florida kept African Americans from the polls or ensured that their votes would never be added to the state’s tally...On election day, there were faulty voting machines, purged voter rolls (purges that targeted minorities) and locked gates at polling places that should have been opened. There was also a Florida Highway Patrol checkpoint at the only road leading to the polls in key, heavily black precincts in Jacksonville. Then there were the piles of ballots, especially in counties with large minority populations, left uncounted. The US Civil Rights Commission ‘concluded that, of the 179,855 ballots invalidated by Florida officials, 53% were cast by black voters. In Florida,’ the commission’s report continued, ‘a black citizen was 10 times as likely to have a vote rejected as a white voter’ ”.

****Bush won Florida by 537 votes. According to the article, about 95,323 black votes weren’t counted. If even a fraction of those votes had been Democratic, Bush could have lost the election.

- In North Carolina, “after the US supreme court gutted the necessary protection of the Voting Rights Act in 2013...The state required ID’s which its research showed a disproportionate number of black people did not have...the GOP slashed the number of early voting sites in Guilford county, which is nearly 30% African American, from 16 in 2012 to a single location in 2016. Pleased with what they had accomplished, North Carolina Republicans ‘celebrated’ mowing down black access to the voting booth.”

- In Indiana, “The Republican-dominated legislature mandated that counties with more than 325,000 residents could only have one early voting location unless approved on a bi-partisan basis. The governor, Mike Pence, signed this into law in 2013. Once again, the targeting was clear. Only three counties in Indiana have more than 325,000 people and account for 72% of the state’s black population. The result, as the Indianapolis Star reported, is that Marion county, including the state’s largest city, Indianapolis, lost two of its sites and was reduced to only one early voting precinct, which was inaccessibly located downtown with no available parking. Not surprisingly, by design, in the 2016 election, early voting in the county plummeted by 26%.”

- There are a number of states who have laws in place to stop felons from voting. Georgia and Florida have laws saying anyone convicted of a “felony involving moral turpitude” cannot vote or require that “convicted felons must wait at least five years after serving their full sentences before they can apply” respectively.

Here’s incarceration rates by race in Georgia:

Here’s incarceration rates by race in Florida:

Here’s another statistic: “about one out of every 37 blacks in Florida is living in a prison, jail or detention facility, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Blacks make up 48 percent of all Florida inmates -- far exceeding their 15.5 percent share of the state's population.”

- In 2019, voters in Texas face new barriers like the Texas voter ID law and the recent statewide voter purge that removed 95,000 people from the rolls.

- Gerrymandering is still a very real issue.

- Disenfranchisement is not unique to black voters. The Asian and Hispanic voter turnout is also far lower that white turnout:

There is conclusive evidence that non-white populations do not vote as much as white populations in the South. This is not because they are lazy, this is not because they don’t have differing opinions, this is not because they don’t care. Non-white populations do not vote in Southern elections because they live in a society that tells them their votes don’t matter. The local/state governments have created a system that does everything in its power to stop these people from voting. They stop criminals from voting (again incarceration rates are significantly disproportionately non-white across the country), they make voting centers hard to access, they require ID that non-white people rarely have, and so on.

The non-white voters who do come out to vote, tend to disagree with white voters.

Here are exit polls from the 2016 presidental election:

If more non-white people voted, it is easy to assume this difference in opinion would remain, if not increase. If more non-white people voted, maybe non-white votes would have an impact on elections. But in the current state of the South, that won’t happen.

Do not dismiss these minority groups. They are victims of a biased system that works against them with a malicious tenacity. Dismissing the whole region and saying “Fuck the entire South” does nothing but further disenfranchise these people. They have grown up in a society that says they don’t matter and statements like “Fuck the entire South” further isolates the good people stuck in the quagmire of racism and oppression that is the South. Say “Fuck the white conservative South”. Say “Fuck the Southern government that enables this to continue in 2019”. But do not say “Fuck the entire South”.

Sources: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2019/06/28/338050/100-years-ago-with-womens-suffrage-black-women-in-texas-didnt-get-the-right-to-vote/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/07/black-voter-suppression-rights-america-trump https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/felony-voting-rights-law.html https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/georigia-s-strictest-possible-reading-law-stop-felons-voting-n1011056 https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2001-07-25-0107250314-story.html https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/11/hispanic-turnout-2016-election/ https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/texas/president https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/FL.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/GA.html

TL;DR: Saying “Fuck the entire South” is incorrect as the entire Southern population is not responsible for the current red wall of Republican voting that occurs in the region. Minorities have been silenced and/or oppressed by the society and legislature of the area to the point that their votes don’t matter. Saying “Fuck the entire South” is toxic because it doesn’t help the situation and discourages disenfranchised minorities from continuing to fight the uphill battle for their voices to be heard. Statements like “Fuck the entire South” are ignorant and make you a part of the problem.

[wolfliving]

WeWork devastation

*Insider gossip as the rather poorly managed real-estate and rental disruption company is ravaged by its own disruption.  It’s not the only one, though, as “disruption” doesn’t make much sense in a tech world where advances in hardware and software are basically static or even in retreat.

https://avc.com/2019/09/the-great-public-market-reckoning/

All of this falls under the heading of willful blindness, arrogance, and stupidity at the founder, lead investor, and board level.

Look at the bloodbath that We Work is undergoing right now on the heels of Adam Neumann being jerked back to earth -- he's gone, his wife is gone, the $60MM customized jet is gone, the $6MM We extortion is unwound, there is still a spa next to his office, 20+ of his henchpersons are gone, the company staff is likely to downsize by 50%, the company mojo is wrecked, they are going to get rid of their last 5 unrelated acquisitions.

They invested in a wave generating company and a health food company. Nuts.

Oh, yeah, the company is probably worth less than $4B -- so a lot of value is gone.

All the underwriters have been burned and JPMorgan is scorched.

There was a founder cult that was funded and encouraged by the lead investor and the board did NOTHING.

None of this stuff should ever have happened. Any decent CEO or board member would have stopped it before it got out of the cradle.

Those idiots on the board didn't even bother to tie the guy up with an Employment Agreement when they said in the S-1 his leadership was critical to the company. This one fact alone is an indictable offense.

This guy -- Adam Neumann -- tried to sell the market, the investors, the board that a business that has been around since man was living in caves was somehow a SaaS business commanding/demanding multiples like a software company. He actually used to say he was going to deliver Real Estate as a Service.

Meanwhile, real estate -- in which 25% of the world's wealth resides -- has been and always will be a rental arbitrage business.

You own real estate that lasts for 100-150 years and you enter into 15-25 year NNN leases with 15% bumps every 5 years.

You leverage it 3:1, while your 95% occupied building is throwing off a 10% ROI. That results in a 1.5-1.75 LTV and a 1.5+ DCR which makes it an A-AA security.

Your mortgage is 25 years at 4-5% and there are no pre-payment penalties such that you can refinance it every 11 years (two rent bumps + 1 year) and enjoy tax free "whip out." The refi proceeds are tax free.

Meanwhile you are writing off income with the depreciation and interest deductions.

See all the numbers in those preceding paragraphs. Real estate is a numbers game.

BTW, the preceding paragraphs are why Donald J Trump can be rich as Hell and it doesn't show up on his tax returns. He's whipping out massive cash every 11 years and it isn't taxable income so it doesn't go on his tax return.

You lease it fairly long term (15-25 years) so you can ride out the real estate business cycles (never longer than 12-15 years) and you own it looooooonger term.

We Work rented it short term and rented "desks" even shorter term. And, still they could not turn a current cash flow profit on every building.

Pros in the RE business saw this shell game a hundred miles away. The numbers are the numbers.

The idiot who gave this guy money was totally under his spell -- don't get me wrong, he's an idiot.

Real estate is not tech. It is not software, but it is a damn good business if you follow the rules. This guy, this company, this VC did not invent real estate or sex.

There is a good Swiss company, IWG, that figured this real estate play out. I predict that We Work will ultimately merge with IWG.

JLM www.themusingsofthebigredca...