#nancy kramer

[degrassi-fandom-confessions]

Shout out to Nancy Kramer the one degrassi character with like 0 drama!

[garadinervi]

David Attie (photograph), A.I.R. Gallery founding members in Daria Dorosh's loft at 370 Broadway, New York, NY, 1974 [A.I.R. Gallery Collection, A.I.R. Gallery and The Feminist Institute, New York, NY. Courtesy of A.I.R. Gallery and New York University. © David Attie]

«Pictured in the bottom row, from left to right, are Howardena Pindell, Daria Dorosh, Maude Boltz, and Rosemary Mayer; in the second row: Mary Grigoriadis, Agnes Denes, Louise Kramer, and Loretta Dunkelman; in the third row: Barbara Zucker (slightly behind), Patsy Norvell, Sari Dienes, Judith Bernstein, and Dotty Attie (on the ladder); and in the fourth row: Laurace James, Nancy Spero, Pat Lasch, and Anne Healy.»

[feel-the-fire]

Part 3.

Please like/reblog if you use ❤️‍🔥

[colleendoran]

Writer Nancy Collins is in great need.

She has taken some hits over the years, but none more damaging than what happened after she blew the whistle about serial abuser Ed Kramer who preyed on kids for many years and who was finally sent to jail after decades of cover ups.

Kramer was well-connected, and the controversy nearly destroyed Nancy's career. She was treated abominably.

I hope you'll share this and consider helping Nancy at this difficult time.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dumping links like Galileo dumped the orange

Today (May 20) at 3:15PM, I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on Monday (May 22), I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On Tuesday (May 23), I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

Welcome to my Saturday linkdump, the third in an occasional series that may or may not be restricted to Saturdays, but which will ever be a celebration of olde-timey linkblogging of the sort practiced by our blogfathers, blogmothers, and assorted other blogparents:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Any fule kno that Saturday is Caturday, and today’s woke felinism comes courtesy of Dr Eleanor Janega, the earthiest of all the Medivelist Bloggers, author of the superb Once and Future Sex, all about dirty dirty medieval people and their filthy filthy habits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/17/ren-faire/#going-medieval

One of Janega’s winningest formulas is “Find a dopey thing about medieval people racing around social media and then set the ignorant straight in a world-beating, extremely well-informed rant.”

See, for example, “I assure you, medieval people bathed”:

https://going-medieval.com/2019/08/02/i-assure-you-medieval-people-bathed/

This week, Janega addresses herself to the burning question, “Did 14th C religious leaders label cats evil, precipitating a mass European cull of poor moggies?”

The answer, you will not be surprised to learn, is: “No.”

https://going-medieval.com/2023/05/16/on-cats/

Rather, medieval people — including those in the 14th century — just adored cats. That goes double for the religious leaders, as is evidenced by all the cats monks drew in the margins of religious manuscripts. Janega also reproduces painstakingly inked manuscripts crisscrossed by pawprints left by a cat that did the medieval version of walking back and forth over your keyboard while you’re trying to enter your password.

There’s also a manuscript with a large blotch that is labeled by a monk who identifies it as a piss-stain left behind by a cat (presumably a cat that wanted to go out and was tired of the monk not taking the walking-back-and-forth-over-the-manuscript hint).

In case there’s any doubt about how monks felt about cats, there’s a freaking adorable manuscript margin-doodle of cat in a little monk’s outfit. There’s doodles of cats with nuns, illustrations of cats hanging out with 14th century monks, and of course, drawings of working cats keeping down the rats in the barns and kitchens of the day.

As if that wasn’t enough, Janega closes with this banger: 14th century didn’t kill all their cats in a witch panic, because “witch panics are not a feature of medieval society”:

Indeed, medieval people didn’t really believe in the concept at all. Even in the fifteenth century when the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, a witch-hunting guide was written it had to justify its very existence because no one believed that ol’ Heinrich Kramer was right about witches existing.

When people think that the Middle Ages is a place full of superstitious backwards religious fanatics it allows them to think they can just ignore over a thousand years of history because all you are going to see is disease and cat murder. This then allows stupid ideas like this to perpetuate and exacerbates the problem further. Suddenly the only people paying attention to medieval history are weirdo trad people who can bend the truth to suit their own aims, and baby, we cannot have that.

Happy caturday all, and especially to Dr Janega, may her quill never blunt.

Caturday — even a caturday about people being Very Wrong About Cats — is a reminder that the internet is often great, and not a cesspit of awful. Here is one way in which that is true: Mohit Bhoite builds tiny, perfect electronic sculptures that are both gorgeous little artworks and supremely functional exemplars of the hardware hacker’s noble art:

https://www.bhoite.com/sculptures/

Oh. My. God. These are so great. The tiny temperature monitor with the 7-seg digital display:

https://www.bhoite.com/sculptures/tiny-temp-monitor/

This stunning 7-seg counter:

https://www.bhoite.com/sculptures/seven-segment-counter/

This 555 Demux, with its delicate tracery of chassis and pins:

https://www.bhoite.com/sculptures/555-bcd-demux/

Each one a delightful morsel, made seemingly for the artist’s own pleasure and self-expression. I’m slightly disappointed that these aren’t for sale (because I want all of them), but even happier that these pure works of art, unsullied by commerce.

An important note about Bhoite’s sculptures is that they’re built on open source hardware, notably kits from Adafruit, often based on Arduinos and other open designs. This openness leads to “generativity,” the ability of follow-on creators and inventors to make new things based on existing things.

Generativity is the heart of the early explosive growth of the internet. From “view source” teaching millions of us to make the web to the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, Mysql and python/perl) forming the substrate for billions of projects, the generative internet was — and is — the creative internet.

Despite a decade of energetic commons-enclosing, some of the staunchest bastions of openness and generativity continue to thrive, like Wikipedia, an encyclopedia that isn’t just “free as in beer,” it’s also “free as in speech” — free to mix and remix as you choose.

Here’s a whole passel of delightful Wikipedia-generated search tools, the Search Gizmos, a whole suite of special-purpose search tools that mine Wikipedia for informational goodies:

https://searchgizmos.com/

They’re the creation of Tara Calishain, and there are so many of them that’s it’s hard to choose just one to highlight, but I’m enormously fond of “Gossip Machine”:

A powerful tool that uses Wikipedia page views to surface potential “news days” in a given year for any topic with a Wikipedia page. By analyzing daily page views and flagging dates with significantly higher-than-average views, Gossip Machine provides you with pre-filled Google News and Google Web search links, taking you straight to valuable and insightful information about your chosen topic.

One of the bitter ironies of companies like Open AI is the co-opting of generativity for “Generative AI,” a set of products that could not be more unlike the generative projects of Bhoite or Calishain.

This kind of language game is a hallmark of every scam (not for nothing: Open AI isn’t open, and its product is neither artificial nor is it intelligent). As debates over “Generative AI” (which neither “generative,” nor “artificial,” etc, etc) rage, it’s worth revisiting how earlier debates about automation, creativity and appropriation played out.

This week in Clot Magazine, Estela Oliva interviews electronic music pioneers Jennifer Walshe and Jon “Wobbly” Leidecker (Negativland):

https://clotmag.com/interviews/jennifer-walshe-jon-leidecker-on-collaboration

The whole interview is great, but it really starts to smoke when Leidecker describes “Morover” a Negativland project built on samples of billionaires’ own fevered rants about AI:

With Negativland, we sample those CEO quotes directly — with Jennifer, those quotes also wind up in her notebooks, which she uses live as a source — it turns out CEO & EA musings make for an excellent libretto. Our deliverable is the ecosystem itself! Image diversity is more useful than photorealism! Sometimes the original sample is unbeatable, such as when Sam Altman’s voice falters when he says he feels terrible that AI is the reason his Rationalist friends have decided not to have kids. He thinks in the future, so many jobs will be lost to AI that our economy will be forced to come up with new solutions.

Later, Leidecker digs into the meat of the debate:

Electronic music has been dealing with issues of generative music and cybernetics since the 1940s, with Louis and Bebe Barron working out the creative potential of these new tools, making self-playing instruments capable of observing their own behaviour. I take the core questions faced by creative electronic musicians to involve issues of automation. What can be automated that points one in unheard musical directions?

Can networks involve more people, as opposed to replacing them? What new roles open up for humans once the old decisions are being handled? Electronic music has over 70 years’ worth of deeply moral and very creative responses to the issue of automation, and these patent-chasing corporations aren’t likely to bring up any of that work during their product demos. They need you to believe they invented this. But there’s a long and helpful history, and there’s still time to learn it.

These are the interesting discussions we could be having about these tools, if we could stop letting mediocre billionaire live rent-free in our heads as they hold flashlights under their chins and intone “Aaaaaaaay Eyeeeeeeee” in their spookiest voices. These guys are pumping their upcoming dump, and all the biggest disaster-stories are part of the scam: “AI will become sentient” and “AI will do your job as well as you” are both statements whose primary purpose is to increase the value of the stock in companies making “AI” technology (neither “artificial” nor you get the idea).

I mean, sure, our bosses will fire our asses and replace us with shell-scripts, but they don’t need working AI to do that — no more than they needed working voice response systems to replace human operators. They just enshittify their products and services, and do it under cover of chasing amazing new technology, and reap the stock gains bequeathed by keyword-drunk investors.

But the endless repetition of this vision of Fully Automated Austerity Pronatalist Space Neofeudalism gives people absolute brain-worms. The entire passive-income/rise-and-grind subculture has been convinced that they can use AI (neither etc etc) to make a fortune by…uh…generating plausible paragraphs.

Only problem: there’s no market for plausible paragraphs. The closest anyone comes is the tiny, low-dollar market for short science fiction and fantasy, which is pretty much the last bastion of paid short fiction markets. Now, these are amazing publications, and they do wonderful work, but they pay $0.01 to $0.25/word, and — more importantly — are edited by humans who sift through 1,000+ manuscripts per month looking for brilliant work to publish.

These editors are handily capable of distinguishing between extruded verbal slurry and actual short fiction, but the brain-worm bros are convinced that if they hammer these editors hard enough with enough algorithm-wrought word-salad, eventually, they’ll sell a “story” (netting a princely sum in the tens of dollars!).

This is objectively very stupid, but it’s also very terrible, because the human editors doing this labor of love are drowning in aishit. The most vocal among these LLM-blighted publishers is Neil Clarke, editor of the great Clarkesworld, who is waging a one-man war on spammy LLM submissions. His latest dispatch from the front lines (ominously titled “It continues…”) would be hacky sf, if it wasn’t real:

The one thing that is presently missing from the equation is integration with any of the existing AI detection tools. Despite their grand claims, we’ve found them to be stunningly unreliable, primitive, significantly overpriced, and easily outwitted by even the most basic of approaches.

http://neil-clarke.com/it-continues/

This is not the future we dreamt of. It’s been stolen from us by the brain-worms. Writing in Business Insider, the great Nathan Proctor describes how automation lets companies bring about the “death of ownership”:

https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-software-legal-tricks-subscriptions-customers-money-pay-death-ownership-2023-5

When your device won’t accept the ink you chose, or run the software you prefer, or let you repair it at the depot of your choosing (or even on your own kitchen table), do you really own it?

This is the theme of much of my work, of course, including my novella “Unauthorized Bread,” which performs the science-fictional trick of building a world around a single technical conceit to magnify and clarify the underlying issues:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Proctor leads PIRG’s Right to Repair campaign, and he’s a comrade. He’s got these companies’ numbers and he’s a tireless fighter:

I believe in truth in advertising. If you’re going to sell somebody something, sell it to them. If you are going to lease something to somebody, lease it to them. If you tether their future purchases to a secret “agreement” that you baked into the technology that they don’t know about, that is deceptive. Not to mention, tinkering and fixing are American traditions. The ethos of “if it’s broke, then fix it” has other benefits, too. Repair teaches critical skills, it saves consumers money, it helps cut waste and product obsolescence. Tinkering and fixing also leads to product innovations that can benefit everyone.

Preach on, brother!

For ever tech bro who took cyberpunk dystopia as a suggestion, there are a dozen more who took it as a warning. Technologists like Micah Lee are on the front lines with Proctor and others. Lee was my colleague at EFF when Snowden contacted him privately, identifying himself as a would-be whistleblower who was trying to securely deliver a trove of US government leaks to some journalists who were struggling with the technology.

Now Lee is at the Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept, and he’s working on a book: “Hacks, Leaks and Revelations,” is a practical manual for whistleblowers, reporters and investigators. Subtitled “The Art of Analyzing Hacked and Leaked Data,” it’s out in November:

https://nostarch.com/hacks-leaks-and-revelations

Meanwhile, Lee has put swathes of the book online for early perusal:

https://staging.hacksandleaks.com/introduction.html

This book isn’t a mere manifesto — it’s a manual, and it contains exercises for the reader to help them build a secure process for communicating and publishing in a way that protects sources.

Micah’s work is a reminder that the internet is made of people. Take the people away, all you’ve got is algorithms spamming each other (this is the plot of my short story, “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/14/masque-of-the-red-death/#eschatology-watch

People matter. Everything people make — corporations, cities, workplaces, networks — only matter to the extent that they help people. Here’s a useful rule of thumb: when you’re trying to figure out whether a cause deserves your support, ask yourself, “Does this help people? Does it help more people than the alternative? Does it help people who need help?”

Asking that question made me a union man. That’s why I’ve been walking the WGA picket-lines in my neighborhood on my home-days while touring. It’s also why I cheered the dancers at LA’s Star Garden Topless Dive Bar when they became the first topless dancers in America to win recognition for their union:

https://apnews.com/article/strippers-union-los-angeles-star-garden-4069df93b149076dc2e23a0bff16438b

The Star Garden workers are organized under the Actors’ Equity Association, the same union I wrote a check to when I paid Wil Wheaton to record the audiobook of Red Team Blues (Wil’s a union man, too:)

https://www.tvinsider.com/1093201/jeopardy-wil-wheaton-ken-jennings-writers-strike/

There’s been a lot of “ha ha the strippers unionized ha ha” nonsense in response to this news, but fuck that. Sex work is work. These are workers. They work in a field that is physically demanding, potentially dangerous, and rife with exploitative practices. Damned right they need a union. Go, sisters, go!

People who think they understand ironic laughter because they made a snotty remark about a stripper’s union are absolute amateurs. To see how it’s done, check out The Onion, a publication that is consistently pretty funny, but also reliably screamingly, viciously, incredibly funny, especially about the things that hurt the most.

The canonical example of this, of course, is The Onion’s first issue after the 9/11 attacks, headlined “HOLY FUCKING SHIT” and containing such articles as “Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake”:

https://www.wired.com/2001/09/onions-bitter-tears-of-irony/

The Onion continues to be America’s leading ha-ha-only-serious forum, serving, somehow, as both escape valve and flame-fanner for the nation’s bitterest ailments. For years, they’ve run their “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” headline after every major mass shooting:

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527

But as America continues to record multiple, daily, mass shootings, The Onion’s writers needed something else. Yesterday, they ran “Americans Describe What It’s Like Surviving A Mass Shooting,” and oh shit is it a doozy:

https://www.theonion.com/surviving-a-mass-shooting-americans-describe-what-it-s-1850438794

“It makes you really appreciate how free we are as a country when you’re hiding under a desk with bullets flying over your head.”

“Those 15 minutes standing a safe distance away from the school while the suspect finished shooting were the most harrowing of my life.” (picture of a cop)

“There’s nothing like a brush with death to remind you that all your previously held beliefs are correct and should not be questioned.” (Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA))

“My boss let me use one of my three unpaid sick days to get sewed up.”

“Only two of my three kids came home from school, but Texas has no property taxes, so it’s a wash.”

I mean.

Shit.

The new Gilded American Age is already looking a little tarnished. The unholy alliance between the infinite greed of the capital classes and the sadistic indifference of the terrified, authoritarian, musket-fucking Bible-bashers has us racing for the precipice.

It’s wild to see the parties fiddle while the Shining City on the Hill burns. I think we all expect it of the Republicans, but watching the Democrats fail working people and continue to climb into bed with the ultra-wealthy and their priorities is demoralizing, especially for those of us hoping for more from the party of the New Deal.

There’s been a lot of ink spilled on the Trump transformation of the GOP, but Dems’ transformation from a party representing labor to a party representing McKinsey consultants is less well understood.

A new book, Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, by Lily Geismer, tells that story:

https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/lily-geismer/left-behind/9781541757004/

Left Behind gets a fascinating review by Ruby Ray Daily in Public Books, where it is contrasted with Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s by Nicole Hemmer:

https://www.publicbooks.org/what-the-1990s-did-to-america/

Both books grapple with way that the end of the Cold War and the Reagan era transformed both major US parties. In Hemmer’s telling, Reagan wasn’t the “dawn of the free-market conservative,” but rather, the “late summer” of that brand of conservativism. Without “anticommunism” to animate it, the Reagan Right coalition thrashed in a void, eventually gelling into today’s “nativism, racial resentment, and media hysteria.”

Meanwhile, the Dems under Clinton turned their backs on state-backed programs and towards market-based initiatives, making today’s “lopsided, unfair economic gains” inevitable. The Atari Democrats of the Clinton years were — in the words of one bitter union organizer — “crypto-Republicans.”

Clinton isn’t the Democrats’ Eisenhower (“accommodating his party to, and sanding the radical edges off, a new consensus”). He’s the Democrats’ Reagan, “shaping and even leading this new market-oriented consensus.”

For Geismer, Clinton wasn’t simply jettisoning the New Deal — rather, he was embracing its technocratic, expertise-worshiping aspect. It was this tendency that produced Clinton’s ghastly “welfare reform” and other attacks on working people. It’s a stark reminder that ideology without a moral center sows the seeds of its own ruin.

Meanwhile, we live today in the Atari Democrats’ world, where wealthy professionals play a high-speed game of musical chairs for the few remaining opportunities to survive the coming polycrisis with intact shelter, food and comfort. One way this plays out is in the surreal, vicious fights over college admissions.

It’s only been a minute since the Varsity Blues scandal erupted: wealthy parents (including some celebrities) bribed college officials to pretend that nepobabies and failsons were elite athletes, letting them ooze into top college slots reserved for sports prodigies (slots that often represent the only chance for poor teens of color to enter these universities):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal

The scandal touched a nerve, perhaps because it punctured the already-fragile bubble of pretense that top colleges were full of the smartest kids in America — rather than, say, the kids whose parents attended those institutions (“legacies”), or made giant donations, or were coached and polished by tutors and consultants.

Well, there’s never just one ant. Varsity Blues wasn’t the only way for rich, status-obsessed parents to buy their kids’ way into college. The latest rot exposed is a doozy of a scam: parents pay academics to pretend to collaborate with high-schoolers so they can put their names on papers published in peer-reviewed journals:

https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications

The story was broken last week by Dan Golden for Propublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education, in a long-read that details all the variations on this scam. For example, sometimes the kid does actually do some original research, but the “journal” is a fake outlet run by the “service” that connects academics and kids.

Bottom line is it works: college admissions officers are deluged with applications and don’t have time to look up the “peer reviewed” publications claimed by applicants. Faculty don’t have the time or inclination to do it either. The stakes are incredibly high, the costs are very high, and the institutions that do the evaluations are weak afterthoughts.

I wonder if we won’t just eventually give up and admit that a degree from a Big Ten or an Ivy is just a thing you buy, like a Picasso or a blood diamond. We could just turn it into a half million dollar blue tick and have done with it.

Anyway.

Hate to end this linkdump on a down-note, but there you have it. Next time I do one of these, I’ll try to remember to hold back one of the upbeat links for a palate cleanser.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

[Image ID: A pot of chunky chicken and vegetable stew.]

[slashingdisneypasta]

I think we need more pop up books. Very underrated! Horror movie moments that would make great, elaborate pop up features:

Jason jumping out of the lake at the end of F13.

Freddy's claw creeping up between Nancy's knees in the bathtub scene.

Michael sitting up after you thought he was killed.

Karen holding Chucky up and him going from Doll-Faced to Rage-Faced.

Bubba's mad chainsaw dance.

Chop Top, Drayton and Bubba all clumped together having that 'sex... or the saw' talk.

Tiffany's bubble bath scene!!

Candyman hovering above Helen.

Sheriff Hoyt using the hose (At the audience)

Pleasant Valley welcoming visitors under the Guts and Glory Jubilee banner.

Pinhead holding out his hand to you to show you such sights~

The red balloon hovering out of Pennywise's gutter.

Baby, Otis and Spaulding driving away all beat-up and bloody.

Norman appearing in the doorway with a knife in grandma clothes!!

Freddy and Jason staring eachother down in that burning building.

John Kramer standing up at the end of Saw.

Oh- and extra interactive features:

You can pull out Freddy's arms so they 'grow' in the scene where he's chasing Tina.

You can pull Bubba's door open and closed.

You can flip the mask off of Billy and Stu in the reveal scene.

You can tip the pigs blood bucket over Carrie's head (But also right it again and then close the book so nothing bad happens!! XDD)

Freddy might have a page where you can mix-and-match different costumes of his. Like you can give him his normal head, Super Freddy's top half and then Worm Freddy's bottom half. If you get what I mean?? Like those flip books.

Patricks business card would be detachable, of course (You'd take it outta his inside suit jacket pocket).

Oh!! A page full of newspapers you can flip open to articles like 'Chicago Mother Claims Childs Doll is Possessed', 'Krueger Released Free of Charges', 'Camp Crystal Lake Closed Down After String of Murders', etc.

You know those things where you turn a wheel inside a page and it changes part of the scenery? That, but you can change Jason's weapon (Machete, crossbow, bare hand, axe, pitch fork, saw, pickaxe, etc).

And- separate interactive Horror book idea: Leslie Vernon's book of Horror Trivia (With all due respect to Mr Ghostface), by Leslie Mancuso

[pottersmiracle]

masterlist 【!】

• Harry Potter

- harry potter - ron weasley - hermione granger - draco malfoy - pansy parkinson - blaise zabini - tom riddle - fred and george weasley - sirius black - remus lupin

• Euphoria

- rue bennett - cassie howard - jules vaughn - maddy perez - kat hernandez - fezco - nate jacobs - lexi howard - elliot - chris mckay - ashtray

• Life is Strange 1 2 True Colors & Before the Storm

- max caulfield - chloe price - nathan prescott - victoria chase - rachel amber - warren graham - kate marsh - frank bowers - sean diaz - alex chen - gabe chen - steph gingrich - ryan lucan

• The Umbrella Academy

- luther hargreeves - diego hargreeves - allison hargreeevs - klaus hargreeves - five hargreeves - ben hargeeves - viktor hargeeves - lila pitts

• The Sparrow Academy

- marcus hargreeves - ben hargreeves - fei hargreeves - alphonso hargreeves - sloane hargreeves - jayme hargreeves

• Supernatural

- dean winchester - sam winchester - castiel - crowley - jack kline - rowena macleod - lucifer - gabriel

• Stranger Things

mike wheeler - jane hopper - lucas sinclair - erica sinclair (platonic) - will byers - dustin henderson - max mayfield - billy hargrove - steve harrington - robin buckley - nancy wheeler - jonathan byers - eddie munson - joyce byers - jim hopper

• The Walking Dead

- daryl dixon - rick grimes - maggie greene - negan - michonne grimes - carl grimes - glenn rhee - rosita espinosa - king ezekiel - jesus - abraham ford - shane walsh

• Outer Banks

- jj maybank - john b routledge - sarah cameron - pope heyward - kiara carrera - rafe cameron

• 13 Reasons Why

- clay jensen - hannah baker - jessica davis - justin foley - tony padilla - zach dempsey - alex standall - tyler down - skye miller

•Slashers/horror

- stu macher - billy loomis - jennifer check - colin gray - ethan landry - [will be adding more i just dont know how to write for some other movies cause i dont know all the lore for them 😭]

•Jackass/Viva La Bam

- bam margera - johnny knoxville - ryan dunn - chris pontius - chris raab - brandon dicamillo

• Pitch Perfect 1 and 2 (i don't like 3 i apologize)

- beca - emily junk - chloe beale - stacie conrad - ashley - cynthia rose - jesse - bumper - benji - pieter kramer - kommissar

The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

-damon salvatore - stefan salvatore - elena gilbert - klaus mikealson - elijah mikealson - rebekah mikealson - kol mikealson - bonnie bennet - jeremey gilbert - caroline forbes - kai parker -

• Avengers (+Loki and Valkyrie)

- tony stark - steve rogers - peter parker - natasha romanoff- thor odinson - bruce banner - loki laufeyson - valkyrie

• Guardians of the Galaxy

-peter quill - gamora - nebula - rocket raccoon - drax - mantis

• ATSV/ITSV

- miguel o’hara - hobie brown - miles morales - peter b. parker - gwen stacy - pavitr prabhakar -

• Youtubers

- colby brock - sam golbach - jake webber - johnnie guilbert - tarayummy - anthony padilla - ian hecox - damien haas - shayne topp -

• Wednesday

- wednesday addams - enid sinclair - ajax petropolus - xavier thorpe - bianca barclay -

• Miscellaneous

- theodore finch - pete davidson - david wooderson - joel miller (show & game) - jake peralta - tate langdon - willy wonka (timothee chalamet) - felix catton - oliver quick - joe goldberg - spencer shay - freddie benson

[will probably update in the future!]

[jazztidbits]

Angel Eyes (Remastered)

Lead Vocal: Nancy Wilson Conductor: Oliver Nelson Bass ( Vocal): Charles Buster Williams Piano: Donn Trenner Drums, Vibraphone, Percussion: Hal Blaine Violin: Harry Bluestone Alto Saxophone: Frank Strozier Violin: Louis Kaufman Harp: Ann Mason Stockton Viola: Alvin Dinkin Alto Saxophone, Flute: Bill Green Violin: Sidney Sharp Cello: Raphael Kramer Viola: Louis Kievman Violin: Jacques Gasselin Violin: Victor Arno Violin: Marshall Sosson Violin: James Getzoff Violin: Edward Bergman Tenor Saxophone, Flute: Gene Cipriano Baritone Saxophone, Flute: Ernie Snell Guitar: Joe Gibbons Violin: Lou Haderman Viola: Samuel Boghossian Cello: Anne Goodman Cello: Gloria Strassner Cello: Igor Roroshevsky

[nikkiruncks]

The graduation class without retcons and in the proper years.

1992 - Archie Simpson, Caitlin Ryan (skipped a grade), Lucy Fernandez (valedictorian), Simon Dexter, Alexa Pappadopolos-Dexter, Christine Nelson, Derek Wheeler, Michelle Accette, Bryant Thomas, Heather Farrell, Erica Farrell, Lorraine Delacorte (left before graduation; leukemia), Liz O'Rourke, Amy Holmes, Allison Hunter, Shane McKay (left before graduation; brain damage), Stephanie Kaye (left before graduation; transferred to private school), Voula Grivogiannis (left before graduation; moved away), Joey Jeremiah (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Rick Munro (held back, wasn't gonna graduate with this class; left before graduation), Tim O'Connor, Nancy Kramer

1993 - Caitlin Ryan (skipped a grade later), Susie Rivera (left before graduating), Kathleen Mead, Melanie Brodie, Arthur Kobalewscuy, Yick Yu, Alex Yankou (probably valedictorian), Diana Economopoulos, Maya Goldberg, Joey Jeremiah (repeated), Rick Munro (repeated; left before graduating), Tessa Campanelli, Luke Matthews, Scooter Webster, Bartholomew Bond, Wai Lee, Trudi Owens , Trish Skye 

2004 - Dylan Michalchuck

2006 - Hazel Aden, Jimmy Brooks (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Sean Cameron (held back; expelled), Marco Del Rossi (valedictorian), Ashley Kerwin (left before graduation), Craig Manning (left before graduation), Spinner Mason (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Paige Michalchuk, Ellie Nash, Alex Nuñez (repeated one semester), Heather Sinclair, Fareeza, Amy Peters-Hoffman, Rick Murray (held back, wasn't gonna graduate with this class; died before graduating), Terri MacGregor (left before graduation)

2007 - Jimmy Brooks (Repeated), Damian Hayes, Toby Isaacs, Spinner Mason (repeated), Emma Nelson, Manny Santos, Liberty Van Zandt (valedictorian), Rick Murray (repeated; died before graduation), Chris Sharpe, Lucas Valieri (dropped out), J.T. Yorke , Ashley Kerwin (took a year off; dropped out), Sean Cameron (repeated)

2008 - Johnny DiMarco, Peter Stone, Danny Van Zandt,Jane Vaughn (Valedictorian), Bruce the Moose (Not seen graduating), Kendra Mason , Nadia Yamir, Darcy Edwards (left before graduation), Derek Haig (Not seen graduating), Mia Jones (held back, wasn't gonna graduate with this class; left before graduation), Chantay Black 

2009 - Sav Bhandari, Fiona Coyne (held back; didn’t graduate with this class), Anya MacPherson, Zane Park Holly J. Sinclair (valedictorian), Riley Stavros, Ethan McBride, Heather Poulette, Trish, Leia Chang (not seen graduating), Blue Chessex (not seen graduating), Declan Coyne (left before graduation), Mia Jones

2010 - Fiona Coyne (repeated; valedictorian), Mike Dallas (chose to stay back; didn't graduate with this class), Bianca DeSousa, Eli Goldsworthy, Marisol Lewis, Jake Martin, Mo Mashkour, Katie Matlin, Owen Milligan, Imogen Moreno (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Drew Torres (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Mark Fitzgerald (expelled), Julian Williams

2011 - Becky Baker, Alli Bhandari, Mike Dallas (victory Lap), Connor DeLaurier (valedictorian), Clare Edwards, Jenna Middleton, Imogen Moreno (repeated), Drew Torres (repeated), Fab Juarez, Liam Berish, Ingvar Andersson, Bo Andersson, Hannah Belmont, Cliff Jacobs, Reese, Jess Martello, Luke Baker (expelled), Wesley Betenkamp (not seen graduating), K.C. Guthrie (left before graduation), Adam Torres, Dave Turner (not seen graduating)

2012 - Jonah Haak (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Jack Jones (left before graduation), Tori Santamaria (held back; left before graduation), Campbell Saunders, Jess Martello (retconned to Class of 2014), Sadie Rowland

2013 - Tristan Milligan, Maya Matlin, Zig Novak, Zoë Rivas (valedictorian), Miles Hollingsworth III, Winston Chu, Grace Cardinal, Tiny Bell, Jonah Haak (repeated), Esme Song (held back; didn't graduate with this class), Goldi Nahir (salutatorian), Tori Santamaria (repeated; left before graduation), Damon Carter (not seen graduating)

2014 - Frankie Hollingsworth, Hunter Hollingsworth, Lola Pacini, Shay Powers, Baaz Nahir, Yael Baron, Vijay Maraj, Saad Al'Maliki, Rasha Zuabi, Esme Song (repeated), Keisha, Arlene Takahashi

2015 - Abra Al'Maliki

[hangon-silvergirl]

Don't jerk off? Lmao

Ha! Thanks for the ask.

don't jerk off

This will be a one-shot in the Last Chance to Run (runaway bride) series. It's inspired by The Contest episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George have a contest to see who can go the longest without masturbating. This one will have alternating POVs with the core group of friends in this universe (Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, Robin, Eddie, and Chrissy), spurred by them telling drunk stories about being 'caught' in the past by others (friends/parents,etc). It ends with one of them getting caught by one of the others, unwittingly aware that they are actually the winner of the contest, keeping in mind that this will be my attempt at a slowburn Hellcheer series. A snippet: "He said 'Boy, if I walk in on you with your pants down in the living room one more time I'm going to burn the trailer down'," Eddie recounts, with enough time having passed since junior high school that the niggle of second-hand of embarrassment is now blessedly faint; there was a time when he would've rather walked into traffic than admit this to anyone. "Oh gosh," Chrissy says with a hiccup, brows furrowed, looking pained. "Poor Wayne!"

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

New in June - Hallmark Movies Noe

Ride (2023) - Complete Season 1 Starring Nancy Travis, Tiera Skobye, Beau Mirchoff, Sara Garcia, Jake Foy, Tyler Jacob Moore, Marcus Rosner, Greg Lawson, Vasilios Filippakis, Rob Stewart, Dylan Neal, James Tupper, and Holly Deveaux. Hallmark Channel

Love at First Dance (2018) Starring Becca Tobin and Niall Matter. Hallmark Channel / June Weddings

Love at First Bark (2017) Starring Kevin McGarry and Jana Kramer. Hallmark Channel / Spring Fling

A Way Back Home (2013) - aka Norman Rockwell's Shuffleton's Barbershop Starring Austin Stowell, Danny Glover, and Kayla Ewell. Hallmark Movie Channel

Smooch (2011) Starring Kellie Martin, Simon Kassianides, and Kieman Shipka. Hallmark Channel

Once Upon a Prince (2018) Starring Megan park, Jonathan Keltz, and Collen Winton. Hallmark Channel / Spring Fling

A Brush With Love (2019) Starring Arielle Kebbel, Nick Bateman, and Matthew James Dowden. Hallmark Channel / Spring Fever

June 1

A Nashville Legacy (2023) Starring Andrea Lewis, Pooch Hall, and Stan Shaw. Hallmark Movies & Mysteries / Mahogany

Groundswell (2022) Starring Lacey Chabert, and Ektor Rivera. Hallmark Movies & Mysteries

June 8

Moriah's Lighthouse (2022) Rachelle Lefevre and Luke Macfarlane. Hallmark Channel / Summer Nights

June 22

Two Tickets to Paradise (2022) Starring Ashley Williams, Ryan Paevey, and Mary-Margaret Humes. Hallmark Channel / Summer Nights

June 29

Girlfriendship (2022) Starring Tamera Mowry-Housley, Krystal Joy Brown, Lyndie Greenwood, and Brad James. Hallmark Channel / Fall Into Love

And more....

[mariacallous]

In the Netherlands yesterday, a majority in the Dutch Parliament supported a legislative proposal to make menstrual hygiene products free for individuals at or below the national poverty level. The bill is slated to be implemented in 2023.

Dutch legislators in favor of the bill maintain that for eligible persons at or below the poverty level menstrual hygiene products should be “free and easily accessible.” Initially, this is only projected to cost the government around two million euros. The Minister who handles policy issues related to the reduction of poverty, Carola Schouten, has indicated that she eventually wants a comprehensive solution to the problem; namely, making available menstrual hygiene products for free to every person who needs them. Of course, this would raise the costs of the program considerably.

Inadequate access can be “very restrictive, especially for young women,” Minister Schouten said. “If they can no longer afford those products, that could determine whether they can still participate in school and other activities.”

Described as period poverty, for many women having a period can be a substantial financial burden. Worldwide, according to the World Bank, 500 million girls and women experience what is also termed “menstrual poverty.”

Many people who can’t afford menstrual hygiene products wind up using unsafe materials like toilet paper or even rags. This can lead to infections or other health problems.

As a result of deficient access to menstrual products, many also experience learning deficits at school due to absenteeism.

And, there can be a loss of human dignity when a person is unable to afford necessary items every month. Further magnifying the matter is the fact that periods and sanitary protection can be an embarrassing topic for some. Provision of free period products can reduce the stigma.

Kenya was one of the first countries in the world to recognize these issues. In 2004, Kenya repealed its value added tax on feminine hygiene products. And since 2011, the Kenyan government has budgeted approximately $3 million annually to distribute free sanitary pads in schools in low-income communities.

Several other countries followed Kenya’s lead. In New Zealand, for example, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced in February 2021 that all schools in the country would start providing free tampons and sanitary pads by June 2021.

And in August 2022, Scotland became the first country* in the world to codify in law the right to access free period products, such as tampons and sanitary pads. Councils and education providers will be legally required to make period products available free of charge to anyone who needs them.

In practice, Scotland’s Period Products Act implies that all educational institutions and local governments must offer menstrual products free of charge. A BBC report suggests that the program will cost the government around $32 million dollars annually.

In the U.S., about 10 years ago a debate began on the topic of period equity. Advocates argued that local, state, and federal government policies exacerbate inequitable access by imposing sales taxes on menstrual products, not providing free menstrual products in correctional facilities, exempting such products from public health benefits programs like Medicaid, and not making these products uniformly available in schools, institutions of higher education, and shelters.

And so, starting at the local level there have been numerous initiatives on “period equity.” In 2013, Nancy Kramer founded a group called “Free the Tampons,” which promotes the idea of “freely-accessible tampons and pads in all restrooms outside of the home.”

Leave it to New York City – often ahead of the curve in the U.S. on so many social issues – to be the first large city, in 2016, to have instituted an an extensive program to ensure access to menstrual products in public schools, shelters, and correctional facilities.

At the state level, there’s recently been a concerted effort to facilitate and improve access. In 2021, proposed legislation related to period equity was introduced in 37 states, according to Women's Voices For The Earth, a nonprofit advocacy group. But only six states currently require all schools and places of learning, prisons, and shelters to provide free menstrual products.

The latest state to implement a far-reaching bill is Washington. Former Governor, Jay Inslee, signed the legislation into law in May 2021, mandating that all public schools, colleges, and universities make free menstrual products available to all genders starting in the 2022-23 school year.

Of course, for the most encompassing changes nationwide federal action is needed. In 2021, Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) and dozens of her colleagues introduced a bill called Menstrual Equity For All Act, which would “increase the availability and affordability of menstrual products for individuals with limited access” in schools, institutions of higher education, prisons, and shelters. The proposed legislation states that “period poverty exacerbates the vicious cycle of poverty by further marginalizing individuals who menstruate, causing them to withdraw from daily life, forego pay, or miss educational opportunities.” The very latest action on the proposal is that in November it was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Why the bill was referred to this committee and not one that is health-related is anyone’s guess.

If left solely to market forces - with attendant tiering and inequality - menstrual conditions may continue to go marginalized and misunderstood. Besides, women’s health, and even their education, may suffer.

The Dutch Parliament’s move to provide widely available, free access to menstrual hygiene products to those on low incomes is the most recent attempt to address period equity. The question is whether this movement to “free the tampon,” if you will, expands beyond Kenya, Scotland, New Zealand, and now the Netherlands. There appears to be some momentum in the U.S. in this regard, especially at the local and state levels.

[xstardustgirlx]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Strange Attraction Lisa Snellings 1st Edition Signed by all, 85 of 500.

[ulkaralakbarova]

An affair between the second in line to Britain’s throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Tristan: James Franco Isolde: Sophia Myles Marke: Rufus Sewell Donnchadh: David O’Hara Wictred: Mark Strong Melot: Henry Cavill Bragnae: Bronagh Gallagher Bodkin: Ronan Vibert Edyth: Lucy Russell Leon: JB Blanc Morholt: Graham Mullins Simon: Leo Gregory Orick: Dexter Fletcher Aragon: Richard Dillane Kurseval: Hans Martin Stier Kaye: Thomas Morris Anwick: Jamie Thomas King Rothgar: Wolfgang Müller Lady Serafine: Cheyenne Rushing Lady Marke: Barbora Kodetová Young Isolde: Isobel Moynihan Young Tristan: Thomas Brodie-Sangster Tournament Judge: Gordon Truefitt Young Melot: Myles Taylor Young Simon: Jack Montgomery Luther: Marek Vašut Irish Soldier: David Fisher Lady Aragon: Bronwen Davies Paddreggh: Philip O’Sullivan Tournament Crier: Nevan Finegan Coronation Priest: Jón Ólafsson Widseth: Todd Kramer Widseth’s Sister: Winter Ave Zoli Pict Guard: Miroslav Šimůnek Funeral Priest: Kevin Flood Film Crew: Director: Kevin Reynolds Music: Anne Dudley Editor: Peter Boyle Director of Photography: Artur Reinhart Executive Producer: Jim Lemley Casting: Kate Dowd Executive Producer: John Hardy Producer: Moshe Diamant Producer: Lisa Ellzey Producer: Giannina Facio Producer: Elie Samaha Executive Producer: Ridley Scott Executive Producer: Tony Scott Production Design: Mark Geraghty Set Decoration: Johnny Byrne Costume Design: Maurizio Millenotti Costume Supervisor: Hana Kučerová Writer: Dean Georgaris Executive Producer: Frank Hübner Executive Producer: Matthew Stillman Co-Producer: Anne Lai Co-Producer: Jan Fantl Co-Producer: Morgan O’Sullivan Co-Producer: James Flynn Stunt Coordinator: Nick Powell Unit Production Manager: John J. Kelly First Assistant Director: Robert Huberman Associate Producer: David Minkowski Associate Producer: Christian Frohn Associate Producer: Jennifer Leshnick Associate Editor: Pamela Power Associate Editor: Stephen Boucher Hairstylist: Stefano Ceccarelli Hairstylist: Jiří Farkaš Hairstylist: Alena Marečková Hairstylist: Mario Michisanti Hairstylist: Adéla Robová Hairstylist: Jaroslav Šámal Key Hair Stylist: Mirella Ginnoto Key Makeup Artist: Manlio Rocchetti Art Department Coordinator: Marketa Puzmanova Assistant Art Director: David Voborský Assistant Art Director: David Vondrasek 3D Animator: Ales Dlabac 3D Animator: Zbynek Travincky Visual Effects Supervisor: Jaroslav Polensky Title Designer: Anthony Wonsoff Visual Effects Coordinator: Jan Vseticek Visual Effects Producer: Vít Komrzý Visual Effects Supervisor: Marius Mohnssen Special Effects Supervisor: Pavel Sagner Special Effects Supervisor: Kevin Byrne Additional Still Photographer: Larry D. Horricks Camera Operator: Erwin Lanzensberger Camera Operator: Kacper Lisowski Second Unit Director of Photography: Miro Gábor Gaffer: Tony Devlin Key Grip: Helge Felgendreher Key Grip: Ivo Grešák Rigging Gaffer: Kriz David Still Photographer: Rico Torres Casting: Nancy Bishop Casting: Anja Dihrberg Casting: Kirsty Kinnear Assistant Costume Designer: Giovanni Casalnuovo Assistant Costume Designer: Mariano Tufano Costume Supervisor: Šárka Zázvorková Costume Supervisor: Sarka Zvolenska Key Costumer: Cathy Smith Seamstress: Larisa Šrámková Set Costumer: Rebecca Higginson Digital Intermediate: Mandy Rahn Assistant Editor: Geraint Huw Reynolds Music Editor: Sophie Cornet Music Editor: John Warhurst Script Supervisor: Catherine Allinson Script Supervisor: Peter J. Clark Choreographer: Lucie Samcova ADR Editor: Gareth Rhys Jones Boom Operator: Roman Rigo Foley: Jack Stew Foley Editor: Sefi Carmel Sound Designer: Samir Foco Sound Designer: Zeljko Lopicic-Lepierre Sound Effects Editor: Peter Crooks Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Howard Bargroff Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Graham Daniel Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Martin Schinz Sound Effects Editor: Srdjan Kurpjel Standby Art Director: Rory Bruen Movie Reviews:

[abwwia]

A.I.R. Gallery founding members in Daria Dorosh's loft at 370 Broadway, New York, NY, 1974 Pictured in the bottom row, from left to right, are Howardena Pindell, Daria Dorosh, Maude Boltz, and Rosemary Mayer; in the second row: Mary Grigoriadis, Agnes Denes, Louise Kramer, and Loretta Dunkelman; in the third row: Barbara Zucker (slightly behind), Patsy Norvell, Sari Dienes, Judith Bernstein, and Dotty Attie (on the ladder); and in the fourth row: Laurace James, Nancy Spero, Pat Lasch, and Anne Healy. _ The Feminist Institute, New York, NY. Courtesy of A.I.R. Gallery and New York University _ David Attie (photograph), © David Attie source https://www.thefeministinstitute.org/images?id=586