#of course it serves other purposes too making political statements etc

[gideonisms]

idk with this ai art stuff we kinda have to face the fact that the bots can make art as good as ours, maybe one day could generate stories just as easily, but they probably aren't having as much fun doing it. Their job is basically marketing. Ours is living

[wawamouse]

Oz "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -inspired AU

(Yes this is just me bullet pointing a fic I’m too lazy to write out)

Another strange unethical study gone wrong!

First the snatched inmates return to their pods, distinctly but indescribably Changed

Inmates who weren’t in the study observe the odd, emotionless state of their returned fellow inmates and initial responses range from ridicule and mockery to muttered statements acknowledging how creepy it seems, like all the study participants got brainwashed

Pod by pod, inmates from the study begin to emerge in the mornings, Different. Better?

They are polite. They do not fight. Even the most vile inmate suddenly takes a turn toward expressing remorse! The experiment from the staff’s POV seems to be a success. The inmates have no desire for parole or a hasty release. They will serve out their time quietly and without incident and if/when they are released, they want only to reintegrate into society so quietly that it will be as though they don’t exist. Ideal, no?

Cue increasingly unnerved staff — Sister Pete, Father Mukada, McManus, etc, perplexed by the changes they see

But the study appears to have been a rousing success, so Querns wants more people to sign up, and increase the incentives (incentives that, once the inmates emerge from the experiment, they no longer care about) (they no longer care about anything). The experimental Round 1 group is now moving into some sort of Round 2 involving different therapy treatments, while a new Round 1 is opening for volunteers.

Chico, working in the hospital ward, has been one of the inmates who got roped into helping the outside doctors who have been overseeing the trials. He finds the changes in the inmates very strange although he also thinks they’re kind of funny at first, too (because they don’t really react right to things he says)

But it gets harder to laugh off when Miguel says he’s thinking about signing up the next Round 1 of the study. If he gets the real drug then maybe he’ll finally have a better chance getting paroled

Chico tells him it’s a bad idea. Sure, no one’s brains have bled out their nose yet, but look around man!! Half of Em City has turned into creepy husks of their former selves.

Miguel can’t be talked out of it, so Chico just tries to make sure his name gets out into the control group by breaking into the office and going through the files (cursing under his breath the whole time like whyyyy should he give a fuck) (except that some of the other Latinos have already gone through the trial and they Changed and it scares him a little, deep down. It feels like they've all turned into background extras (lol) with no personality. HE’s not going to take some spooky mind numbing drug but if he’s the only one who doesn’t, he’ll be alone)

As he’s rifling through files he shouldn’t be looking at, he can’t find the subject lists but he does find papers that seem to outline some sort of secondary purpose for the project that no one ever really explained to the participants or the prospective participants. It’s hard to make out what it all means and also Chico’s running out of time (gate opening across the ward, someone approaching) so he just takes one of the papers and crumples up to stuff in his pocket before getting the fuck out of there

Since he couldn’t find the patient list, he’s not sure which group Miguel has been placed into. He’s also not really allowed to be around past the intake assessments so he can only help usher Miguel into a curtained off area and wait for him to emerge. Of course, that doesn’t really tell him anything either. Saying “how was it” and getting a grunt of “fine” doesn’t mean much; it takes a a couple doses for the drug to take effect

Cue Chico staring at Miguel during meals and first thing in the morning, trying to tell if he’s turning into a pod person (much to Miguel's bemusement and then annoyance)… doesn’t SEEM like it… But maybe it’s still too early

Chico’s still got that crumpled piece of paper in his pocket that he presses into a library book and carefully reads in the safety of their pod after lockdown; it's still got a lot of jargon that he doesn't understand and he crawls down to Miguel's bunk to show him. Chico is convinced that the gist of it seems to be that the project is some sort of mind control experiment; it's not that the inmates have been treated and are becoming better, they're just becoming blank slates.

"For what?" "For round fucking two, Miguel."

Unnerved, the next day Miguel agrees to not swallow the pills, just in case he has the real deal. Meanwhile, Chico goes to the only other person either of them can think of for advice: Rebadow.

Rebadow hasn’t taken part in the study. He says he doesn’t take part in any studies, and he’s seen his fair share come through Oz over the years—not since the first one, anyway. The first one?

BACKSTORY UNLOCKED: The year was 1966. Rebadow’s death sentence had just been commuted and he had a new lease on life. Oz’s then-new warden had agreed to let a private research group ask for volunteers among Oz’s inmates in order to gather participants for a behavioral therapy study. It was supposed to be a non-invasive experiment, and after a few weeks of drug trials and feeling no great difference in terms of his outlook on life (physical symptoms: fatigue in the morning and a general brain fog), it was announced that the study participants would be moving on to a new segment of the study. A “physical therapy” room had been set up in an old unused wing of Oz. Here, the participants were given increased/injectable dosages of the study drug and then subjected to various “stimulation” to see how they would react. Bob was place in a chair with a hood over his head and repeated zapped with what felt like an electric charge before the hood would be ripped off and a bright light would be shined in his eyes while a strange indistinct static would be blasted into his ears from a headset. Then he would be asked what the voice had told him and each time he would say that he never hear any voices. This went on and on for what felt like hours and at the end of the day, when he wanted to leave the study, the doctors told him that was alright, but he would just have to take some more medicine before so. Well, he was at this point, quiet wary of taking any more medicine, so he asked instead how much longer the study would be going on. The doctor told him it would only be one more day, and that the final day would really just be the patients getting asked a series of questions while having their brains scanned. Rebadow says that he doesn’t remember the final day whatsoever—just that he went into a room and had nodes attached to his head while he was lying down. The doctors asked him a series of inane questions and then asked him to count down from 10, and then the next thing he knew, he was waking up in his cell. He never did find out what the study was all about or whether it had been a failure or a success, but the research group left pretty swiftly and it was said that they were quite disappointed. One of Rebadow’s fellow participants later went berserk and got sent to Solitary before being transferred to a mental hospital instead, but every one else’s behavior seemed unchanged. Rebadow hadn’t been a particularly violent man—aside from the murder—to begin with, so it was hard to say. But a few weeks after the experiment, God spoke to him for the first time.

Chico: …That’s cool, Bob. What about the shit they’re doing right now? / Rebadow shrugs. He says it seems like whatever they’re doing right now, it must be more of a success. Science these days… it’s not like how it was when he was a young man. Back in his day, mind control was just a CIA pipedream.

Whatever is going on, he advises Chico to tell Miguel to find a way to back out of the study, or to at least make sure he doesn’t get locked into Round 2. Look around: haven’t you noticed?

The pod people emerging from Round 2 have started to cluster together, abandoning their previous affiliations to all shadily meet in the classrooms or gather at lunch tables to sit/stand as if in conference… But they don’t seem to be discussing much at all, or at least, when either Miguel or Chico try to pretend to stumbled across them and see what they’re up to, they fall silent and just make polite, robotic conversation instead

Miguel has experience with pretending to take pills but not actually taking them, so he’s been collecting the ones that he’s been given. He, Chico, Rebadow (and now Busmalis lol) gather around and stare at the little pile of pills Miguel has collected. Of course, none of them are fucking scientists or anything so they just sort of stare at the pills like they expect something to happen.

“Maybe they’re placebos,” Busmalis says. Miguel lifts his head a little and peers around Em City. “I don’t think they’re doing placebos anymore, man.”

Chico suggests they try crushing up the pills and giving it to someone else to see what happens. At such a concentrated dose, if Miguel is being given the real drugs, then surely if they give it to someone else, they'll know right away

Miguel's not so into that plan, but Rebadow reasons that the study drugs don’t seem to actually be actively harming (killing anyone), so Miguel sweeps the pills back into his pocket and says he’ll think about who to dose and how.

Chico’s vote is that Miguel gives it to Torquemada, who’s been running around doing his own thing in the background. It’ll be easier to tell if there’s a sudden change in someone with a bigger personality to begin with, plus fuck that guy for the Destiny business. With the inmates becoming transformed by the study drug anyway, the tits trade in Oz has been suffering a serious demand shortage that has caused some troubles for Torquemada, as his power is now beginning to slip. (“At worst, you’ll be putting the guy outta his misery by letting him join the vegetated masses” is Chico’s twisted logic). Still somewhat conflicted, Miguel agrees.

Busmalis is all “oooh How will you get the drugs to him? Sprinkle it in his food? Mix it into his toothpaste?” / Miguel and Chico just give each other a look.

Smash cut to: they have bonked Torquemada over the head and have dragged him into a supply closet to stuff the pills down his throat the old fashioned way: one guy holding his nose and and mouth until he swallows and the other guy sitting on his legs. Once all that’s done, they knock Torquemada out again and untie him like “now what” / “guess we see if anything happens” and skip off to wait for Torquemada to emerge from his beauty sleep either very pissed off or completely zombified

In the meantime, the inmates coming out of round 2 have formed even more of a peculiar hivemind, moving in packs and generally being very creepy. At night, some of them stand at the glass of their pods, just staring at each other until the hacks tell them to get back in bed.

Of course, Miguel and Chico aren’t the only ones who have noticed the strangeness. One of the bikers whose associates have mostly all been lured into the experiment by that point finally snaps and freaks out—starts wailing on another guy but is quickly subdued by a horde of the pod people, who turn him over to the hacks and confirm each other’s stories that he completely went berserk and needs to be duly punished

Similar incidents arise

Torquemada is discovered wandering around in a complete daze with no recollection of where he is or how he got there and is admitted to the hospital ward for evaluation. Dr Nathan thinks it could be some sort of temporary concussion based amnesia—he does have a bruise on his head, but it doesn’t really seem to account for the severity of his case; his motor skills and reasoning is all there — top notch, in fact, but it turns out he’s not only quite amnesiac but also very susceptible to suggestion and unable to remember too much at once. Gloria thinks they have to send him to the hospital for brain scans altho Querns isn’t so enthused about it, since Torquemada seems physically healthy and MRIs are expensive……. So Nathan just continues to hold Torquemada for observation instead. His condition doesn’t seem to deteriorate but it doesn’t seem to get better, either.

Miguel continues to feel conflicted about what’s happened to Torquemada, thinking the drugs basically gave him dementia or something (Chico: it’s not dementia, it’s mind control!! And if you’re not careful, they’ll turn you into him, too). They have a real philosophical argument about the point of continued resistance and sneak into the hospital ward to see Torquemada in person. Torquemada has no idea who they are and doesn’t hold much interest in anything around him. Just sits patiently in the hospital bed until he seems to pick up on the fact that they’ve sneaked over and aren’t actually working a shift, and then he calls Dr Nathan over who calls a hack over to drag them back to Em City and face discipline for wandering where theyre not supposed to be (Chico tells McManus that technically they are both allowed to be in the hospital ward as inmates; its not really their fault the hack who took them their took his eye off them. It’s a big misunderstanding, yep.)

McManus suspects that they’re (Chico’s) the ones who did something to Torquemada to make him all confused. He doesn’t know WHAT but he WILL find out. Also, he’s very fucking disappointed in Miguel (yeah yeah). It’s been a year and a half since the incident with Ruiz and the evacuation and then repopulation of Oz. Chico just barely avoids the Cage (gets gym and library privileges revoked for a month instead) and is dismissed, with McManus having Miguel stay behind to talk instead. (cue Chico dawdling around the base of the stairs for Miguel to come down; in the mean time, he gets to the enjoy the unsettling stares of the pod people around the unit. He starts to wonder if maybe they’re planning something)

When Miguel at long last comes out of McManus’s office, he seems subdued but just says that McManus suggested that going through with round 2 met help him show the parole board that he’s truly changed (results have been amazing. disciplinary slip hand outs have been at an all time low)

“You can’t.” Miguel only shrugs. “I know,” he says, but he doesn’t seem so sure.

That night Chico stands at the pod wall and quietly reports what he sees. He’s got all kinds of theories about the mind control—theories which Miguel usually listens to, but that night Miguel doesn’t want to hear anything about. He’s been moody about the whole thing since they when to see Torquemada and it’s clear to Chico that Miguel thinks that they really did just give him a concussion somewhat and that there’s no big conspiracy at all. It’s just their imaginations they’ve been letting run wild.

“What about the paper?” “Chico, we don’t know what that shit was talking about! You grabbed ONE paper talking about neurotransmitters and fucking CBT. It doesn’t mean SHIT.”

And Miguel likes Rebadow too, but the man says a CIA experiment let him hear the voice of God. Doesn’t that seem a little insane to Chico? JUST A LITTLE? Has it never occurred to Chico that maybe there’s nothing weird about what’s going on, and he just WANTS there to be so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he’s not likely getting out of Oz anytime soon?

Chico is like YEAH? What about them?! > Points behind him to the rest of Em City and Miguel just says quietly that nobody’s goddamn out there. Nobody’s standing out at the windows communicating telepathically to each other. It’s just Chico standing there making up shit to pass the time.

Chico dives at him and tries to choke him, demanding to know if Miguel’s been taking the pills the past couple of days after all. He took them, didn’t he? They™ got him, didn’t they?

Miguel manages to throw Chico off and hiss “Don’t you get tired of your own bullshit?” just as there’s a sharp rap against the glass and a strong light shining into the pod. The hack tells Chico to go back to his own bunk, but otherwise can’t be bothered to deal with them. Shaking, Chico retreats to his own bed, and sleeps very little that night.

The final day of the round 1 trials Miguel is participating in comes ups and while he’s locked into it based on the contract he signed, he’d originally decided he wouldn’t continue on to round 2 like the researchers will assume he will. Now Chico’s not so sure what Miguel’s plan is. After their argument, it seems like Miguel wants to just succumb to the mind numbing effects of the trial, and there’s nothing Chico can do about it. He does feel a little insane about it, wondering if Miguel is right and that somewhere along the line, he simply went off the deep end and didn’t notice. He’s always been a little ehh in the head but who in Oz isn’t? And he’s never been nuts the way Miguel has been. He’s always been able to SEE reason even if he doesn’t always ACT rational. The transformation of the pod people had seemed like an obvious thing in the beginning; now with everyone else acting one way, and him starting to become part of the irritable, troublesome minority, he’s not so sure.

He gets a last chance to catch Miguel for a muttered conversation as he’s waiting in queue to be called behind the curtain where the drugs are administered for the trial. Chico says that Miguel is right and that maybe he’s just been seeing what he wants to see, but one thing he does know is that Miguel Means Something™ to him , now, after everything, and he doesn't want to lose him to the apathy of whatever it seems like the drugs do to participants

Miguel just gives him a strange look but doesn't have time to say anything else because he's being called in next already. Chico steps back and gestures for Miguel to go ahead

Miguel acts normal coming back from the study that afternoon, but they don’t really get the chance to talk and then the next time Chico sees Miguel is at dinner after Miguel has had a counseling session with Sister Pete, which always puts him in a sort of dull mood, too, all tired from having to think about/remember why he’s still stuck in Oz. This sort of starts to make Chico think Miguel has turned into a pod person, and between Chico’s paranoia and Miguel behavior, they sort of keep at a distance as the unit goes into lockdown for the night. The quiet isn’t exactly unusual tbh but there’s an unease to it that hangs over Chico—keeps him wired, keeps him awake for another night even as the boom of LIGHTS OUT rings through Em City and they plunge into darkness.

The next morning, Miguel is still hard to read, but while they’re standing outside for count, he turns to Chico. Leans over and is like “you look like shit btw” and Chico’s like "Oh thank fuck"....the most beautiful words he's ever heard in his life. It's "You scared this shit outta me" and "You didn't take it?" / Miguel just shakes his head. He looks around Em City and says he doesn't want to be a zombie, doesn't want someone else planting thoughts in his head. Oz has already taken enough from him; when he leaves—and he will, someday—he wants to still recognise the man in the mirror.

It's an uncertain ending: Miguel and Chico have not been turned into the strange pod people... yet... but they’re surrounded by them, and it’s soon announced that the program was a success, and in turn, the Emerald City project looks like a success, and that the entire thing will be rolled out on larger scale to the rest of Oz in the an upcoming phase

---

That's the general idea anyway 🤪 I'm open to riffing on this

I just wanted some psychological vibes for Oz and I rewatched Invasion of the Bodysnatchers last night (the 70s remake)

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Was Napoleon a tyrant? I don't necessarily think he was: at least, I believe he was a better alternative to the absolute monarchs he was fighting. But there are those who disagree. What are your thoughts on the subject?

This is a can of worms to be sure.

I mean....how are we defining the word tyrant? All monarchs are tyrants to someone. Monarchy, by its very nature, is tyrannical in one way, shape, or form, no matter who is at its head. Even in the more neutered forms we see now days with the British. The Queen still exerts a ridiculous amount of power, all things considered.

Napoleon was no better or worse than any other monarch in Europe at that time. Indeed, better than some, worse than others. Because you know, he was human!

-

This got VERY long. SO LONG. Choice excerpts from below the cut:

"'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it."

"(And I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system. Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door. Napoleon: Hush.)"

"Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor."

"Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight! (I'm putting my money on Napoleon.)"

--

tl;dr: a more or less benevolent emperor who had his faults and who was intimately aware, for better or worse, more than most monarchs, that the head is only tenuously attached to the body. (Skim to the bottom for my thoughts on the personal things i.e. how I interpret Napoleon's actions and brain)

But, more seriously, as with most absolute statements, I am opposed to calling him a tyrant because it is reductive and serves no purpose except to make broad sweeping political statements that I believe are far more about the person making the statement exemplifying their modern political, republican position (as in, actual republican-I-support-the-existence-of-republics not the gop) rather than expressing any sort of truth about the past. (wHaT iS tRuTh.)

For historical purposes, it can over-simplify the situation and lead to skewed interpretations of events because you're coming in with this word that has a lot of modern, 20th and 21st century baggage to it.

And, because these people are coming in with this big, bad word of tyrant as a label for Napoleon, it doesn't allow them to engage with the nuance and complexities of his reign.

Anyway.

Napoleon, as emperor, supported centralized power held in his own hands, with support from other governing bodies (senate, council of state etc.). However, Napoleon had a lot of influence in the structuring of these governing bodies and the subsequent appointments as a means to exert control over entities that would otherwise be able to act somewhat independent from him and impinge his power.

We see this consolidation of power beginning, obviously, under the consulate. 'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it.

There was the whole theatre around the Tribunate offering to extend Napoleon's tenure as First Consul for another ten years as a means of thanks/showing gratitude for all he did for France (Fouche was like: fuck that, let's just make a statue of the guy). Napoleon played the part of Humble Servant of the Public and refused both statue and the ten year extension. (Very Julius Caesar: You all did see that on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?)

In actuality, though, he was pissed because he wanted it extended for life.

This resulted in the Council of State deciding "independently" (i.e. Napoleon wasn't present but he sure as hell influenced that Council session) to hold a plebiscite in order to ask The People two key questions: 'Should Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' and 'Should he have the right to designate his successor?'

Napoleon nixed the second question saying to Cambaceres, 'The testament of Louis XIV was not respected, so why should mine be? A dead man has nothing to say.' Which is to say, he knew people would vote for him to be Consul for life, but the prospect of him choosing a successor, a la the Roman Empire, and having that choice be without input from the people and respected upon his death? Less clear.

(And, I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system.

Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door.

Napoleon: Hush.)

For the Plebiscite, there were around 3.56 million votes for Yes to the question of Napoleon as consul for life and only around 8,300 for No.

The turnout rate was 60% which is uhh...impressive! (To be fair, there was no real evidence of tampering with the vote. Unlike in subsequent Plebiscites, such as the results for Do We Make Him Emperor, which were absolutely doctored. But, considering the highest turnout ever seen in the French Revolution was around 30/35%, double that is certainly something.)

Lafayette was pissed with this. He kicked up a fuss in the Senate and wrote to Napoleon saying that his 'restorative dictatorship' had been well and fine for now but has Napoleon thought about restoring liberty? and that he was certain Napoleon, of all people, wouldn't want an 'arbitrary regime' to be installed!

Napoleon: Bold of you to assume that, Lafayette.

There were, at this time, some mumblings and grumblings about tyranny from the liberals and those still wanting to continue the experiment of the French Republic, to be sure. They increased as time went on and Napoleon's power continued to consolidate.

Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor.

Lafayette: WhAt Is tHiS??

Napoleon: Look into my face and tell me honestly that you are shocked.

--

His government, as Consul and as Emperor, was centralized and very top-down in how it operated. Little was done without Napoleon's input.

The seemingly democratic institutions that had propped him up into power were retained and Napoleon used them as a means to facilitate his rule. As noted earlier, Napoleon had a heavy hand in appointments and the processes in place to fill various offices. Nothing was really...independent of him and his influence.

Though, in terms of Image Building of Empire, Napoleon worked hard to try and maintain the façade of impartiality as emperor. That he was head of state, sure, but all state apparatuses operated independent of him.

(Why is Napoleon's hat so big? because it is full of lies supporting the imperial image making machine.)

That said, when it came to filling those offices, Napoleon focused on merit more than anything as he wanted his governing officials to be capable, hardworking and, above all else, loyal.

(A good quote from Napoleon in one of his more Eat the Rich moments of the consulate: 'One cannot treat wealth as a title of nobility. A rich man is often a layabout without merit. A rich merchant is often only so by virtue of the art of selling expensively or stealing.'

Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight!

(I'm putting my money on Napoleon.) )

--

This is getting really long and I feel that I've not addressed anything in a useful manner, but am I going to stop? No.

--

Napoleon, himself, at least in 1803, did express some conflicted views about assuming an imperial title. To Roederer he said, 'So many great things have been achieved over the past three years under the title of consul. It should be kept.'

Cambaceres said to Napoleon that upon assuming an imperial title 'your position changes and places you at odds with yourself.' No longer are you merely a public servant, an upholder of the Republic's ideals. Now you are a man wearing a crown, trying to be the upholder of the Republic's ideals.

(nb: I feel that duality is something Napoleon never fully got a handle on. He would veer strongly into authoritarian monarch then have moments of Rousseau-ian Idealism.)

Napoleon was insistent that his rule be a parliamentary monarchy (keeping the governance framework implemented in the Constitution of Year VIII, if I am not mistaken. But don't quote me on that.) and that the French were not his subjects but his people.

So, the imperial government worked thus with the Legislative process divided between four bodies:

Council of State which would draw up legislative proposals,

Tribunate which could debate on legislation but not vote on it,

a legislative body which could vote on legislation but not discuss it, and

Senate which would consider whether the proposed legislation conformed to the Constitution.

The Senate and the Legislative body could, theoretically, curtail Napoleon’s freedom/power. However, considering the fact that he was involved in the appointment process of these offices, and the general rhythm of daily governance, how much power they were able to exert over him was limited.

(This is at his height! Of course, towards the end we see a shift in that. But that's largely tied up in his military defeats and the British banging the door knocker demanding to be let in. Also they brought with them some friends. You might have heard of them? Bourbons?)

The initial terms the Senate brought to Napoleon with their offer of accepting him as a hereditary monarch included, but weren't limited to:

liberty cannot be infringed

equality cannot be jeopardized

sovereignty of the people must be maintained

the laws of the nation are inviolable

all institutions were to be free from undue imperial influence (e.g. the press)

the nation should never be put into a position where it needs to behead the head of state. Again.

Napoleon was uh. Not best pleased with this and had a new version drafted up that included acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the people, but a lot of the other things (e.g. freedom of the press) were cut out.

Yet, Napoleon maintained certain parts of the French Revolution's values which were reflected more in the 1804 Code Napoleon and other legislative and legal pieces than in the initial terms of Senatorial acceptance of his imperial title.

Some of the things enshrined in the Code that were carry-over from the Revolution include, but aren't limited to, the abolition of feudalism, equality before the law, freedom of conscience (to practice their own religion), gave fixed title to those who had bought church and émigré lands during the 1790s, and the equality of taxation was maintained (tax those aristos and the church). Also, there was affirmation of the idea of careers being "open to talent" rather than an accident of birth (as touched on above).

The Freedom of Conscience clause in the Code was a further formalization of several Articles Napoleon amended onto the Concordat in 1802. The Articles guaranteed the principle of religious toleration and made the Protestant and Jewish churches similarly subject to state authority (alongside the Catholic).

These are just a brief summary of some of the more liberal/revolution-informed aspects of Napoleon's governing.

The non-liberal ones I believe we're all pretty familiar with: suppression of the free press, roll-back of rights for women (women are for babies!), reinstatement of slavery (which he later reversed circa 1810/12-ish), top-down Emperor-has-final-word approach to ruling (Napoleon was all about Authority From Above, Trust From Below) etc. etc.

At the end of this, I would say Napoleon's empire falls into that "benevolent monarch" situation. For a given value of "benevolent." As stated at the start, he was like most other monarchs in Europe at the time. Better than some, not as great about certain things as others.

--

Really, it all ties back to Order and Stability.

Napoleon's assent, and his approach to strong, centralized ruling, was a result of uncertainty and constant government change over ten years of revolution alongside the growing belief, by 1803, that a republic like the Romans or Greeks was not going to happen any time soon. Not without constant warfare and the forever looming threat of a Bourbon restoration.

In addition, Napoleon was doing imperial drag. (If that makes sense.) He was dialing the notch of Emperor up to 11 - being the most emperor of all emperors. So, state control was absolute because he couldn't show any signs of weakness - either in his own body, his familial body, or the body of state. The court protocols were intense and over-the-top at times because he had to prove he was not just a second son of a parvenu lawyer from the sticks. No! he was worthy of this pomp. He was worthy of imperial majesty. He was worthy of the crown and scepter.

Napoleon was not raised to be anything other than a military officer and a middle-class head of a family (would have been a MASTER at doing Sunday Dad Puttering About the House). When he dawned the mantel of power, particularly that of empire, he had to make it up as he went along. For such a self-conscious and proud man, this was difficult. He never wanted to misstep and be embarrassed - on a personal level, political or military.

At the same time, he was reared on Rousseau and Revolution so still had those values and ideals imbedded in him, and those fears and memories. Napoleon knew as well as any Frenchman that a monarch's head is easily removable should it become necessary. Therefore, he sometimes ran roughshod over the liberty to ensure security. For better or worse, that was the choice he made.

--

Napoleon was a flawed leader with a complex approach to governing that was focused on a centralization of power within him while, at the same time, trying to be the Successor of the Revolution, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Layers! Like an onion.

His approach as emperor really was within the realm of normal-for-the-times when compared to most other monarchs on the European stage in 1800. He also granted liberties to his people that were unheard of in other countries.

I feel like all my Napoleonic ramblings end with the same message: Dude was nuanced. Dude was complex. Dude did good things and bad things. Dude helped people and hurt people. Dude contained multitudes. Because he was simply human, at the end of the day.

--

ANNNNNNND we are done.

Gods bless all y'all who made it this far.

Have my favourite picture of Napoleon at Tuileries as a prize.

hmm that beautiful heavy, handed symbolism.

[mbti-notes]

My esfp brother has recently started saying racist things, talking about how white men have it worse in this country than anyone, etc. I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’m intp, so my instinct is to counter with a factual argument, but this is not an effective way to communicate. For one, he tends to see challenges or contradictions as personal hostility, even when they’re gently stated, and a debate usually ends up with him digging in, raising his voice, and resorting to statements (1)

[con’t: like “It’s just my opinion” or “You just hate me no matter what”. Secondly, he has a slippery relationship with facts and not a lot of philosophical integrity, so logical debate is pretty pointless; sources that confirm his argument are real and ones that don’t are Fake News, and he’ll also freely change his line even if it contradicts what he was arguing yesterday. For these reasons, our family doesn’t usually take the bait when he picks fights or says something outlandish (I think in our interactions, he’s motivated to be racist because he likes to provoke and knows it’s one of the few things he can say that will consistently get under my skin, and also because he thinks I look down on his alt-right friends (he’s right, though I’ve always tried to be diplomatic about why I find that worldview disagreeable). I don’t want to think my brother is a lost cause, and I don’t think he’s as invested in the ideology as some of his friends are at this point but I still don’t know what if anything I could do to get through to him. Any ideas?]

I often hear people say that they hope to have “a reasonable debate” about controversial issues, but then what they proceed to do is not debate but rather squabble, lecture, preach, proselytize, compete, or browbeat. You know that constructive debate (i.e. one that reaches a satisfying conclusion for both parties) can only happen under very specific conditions, including:

good faith: the willingness to give fair consideration to the opposing viewpoint as well as the willingness to allow fair critical examination of your own viewpoint

higher purpose: a commitment from both parties to seek out the truth and put it above personal ego and pride

critical reasoning: the ability to carefully construct and deconstruct arguments such that one can draw logically valid and sound conclusions

I’m not making any statement about you or your intentions. I think you’ve shown patience and restraint. I’m simply pointing out the fact that most people are not prepared to have a proper debate because they do not meet the conditions for being able to debate well. This matters in the sense that you should ask yourself whether it’s worth it for you to engage in debate with someone who is obviously not debating in good faith. This also matters in the sense that, if you are the person who isn’t able to engage in good faith, then you might be part of the problem in creating and continuing the conflict, despite whatever good intentions you possess.

I think many of us know someone who likes to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Perhaps they like the drama of provoking people. Perhaps they like the feeling of being “special” in going against the grain or belonging to an “underdog” tribe. Perhaps they hide behind victim mentality (i.e. claiming “persecution” of their beliefs) because they don’t want to feel responsible/guilty for their ignorance or complicity. If someone is irrationally motivated to hold on to their beliefs, they’re not open-minded, in fact, they might even “debate” you just to use you as an excuse to double and triple down on their beliefs. It would be nice if everyone in the world were rational and came to their beliefs rationally and listened to reason all the time, but humans are just not that simple.

People at low levels of ego development have a very difficult time admitting when they’re wrong, often due to misplaced pride. Also, Fs use their moral beliefs to define who they are, which adds an additional obstacle to changing their mind. ESFPs are not particularly serious people, and that can be an advantage because it means that they are mentally flexible in terms of easily getting bored with any one idea. If you are right that your brother is only “flirting” with these beliefs and doesn’t actually believe in them wholeheartedly, then you should be careful about pushing him the wrong way. You don’t want to push him into a position where he is: 1) too embarrassed/ashamed/guilty to admit to being wrong, and 2) too personally identified with these beliefs to change his mind.

Fs are often insecure about their intellectual abilities, so perhaps it is difficult for you to understand how they feel when they have to admit to being wrong - it is a vulnerability for them that serves to harm their self-esteem. Different types have different vulnerabilities, but most people don’t like feeling vulnerable and do what they can to avoid it. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind, do it in a way that lets them maintain a sense of dignity in their vulnerability. In other words, make it easier rather than more difficult for someone to change their mind by being sympathetic (e.g. by creating a “we all mistakes” social atmosphere) rather than indulging the desire to humiliate or punish them for their mistakes. 

If he’s just trying to provoke you to get your attention, then he’s not interested in debate, right? It’s a “game” that he plays with you, on repeat. ESFPs are mostly about having fun because they are easily bored, so perhaps this is his way to create some interesting drama between you, though it isn’t fun for you. If you take it too seriously, you push him into defending his beliefs, which has unintended consequences. Studies have shown that simply being asked to defend a belief for a few minutes leads people into identifying more strongly with it. Therefore, avoid putting him on the defensive too often, otherwise the beliefs get gradually subsumed into Fi, and then he really won’t budge.

Also, note that he may genuinely feel that he has it tougher as a guy, etc. Something that people often don’t understand is that inequality hurts everyone. It doesn’t hurt everyone equally, but it does hurt everyone in some way. For example, men also suffer from rigid gender expectations in that they are extremely limited in the ways they can express their identity. Maybe this is the point he’s trying but failing to make. If so, you’d do better to acknowledge the feeling itself while not agreeing with the subsequent conclusion/belief. Of course, you know that feelings do not equal fact, but he doesn’t, because FPs treat feelings as facts. You coming in to counter him with your facts doesn’t work because you’re ignoring that his beliefs don’t come from "fact” as you define it, rather, they come from his personal feelings. Instead of letting him bait you into conflict and invalidating his feelings, tell him that you respect his right to have his feelings/opinions, though you disagree. 

Explicitly establish that you agree to disagree, and you stop playing your role in this game of his. Show people that you understand why they have their beliefs (despite them being wrong), or let them know that you will continue to love them (despite disagreeing with what they stand for). Then they have little reason to feel defensive and hold even tighter to their beliefs. When people approach you with the attitude of “winning” or getting the upper hand (though you have nothing in particular to lose), you should NOT join in and try to get the upper hand over them, because this will make it harder for them to change their mind, since they will perceive it as being “defeated” and then feel “inferior”. Leave people their pride by remaining as neutral about them as possible, then they are more likely to calm down and be reasonable. 

Remember that Fs value relationships and, deep down, they often want nothing more than to be validated and loved. If they have psychological development issues, they may choose the wrong methods for seeking love and attention. In that case, it’s up to you to be the bigger person if possible and avoid playing their game of “bad attention is better than no attention”. He already knows your beliefs at this point, so there’s no need to debate him in circles over and over again. You can simply say that you disagree and leave it at that. If he suddenly shows the willingness and capacity to examine his beliefs, then by all means guide him. But, until then, don’t give him an excuse to engage in tribal mentality and fashion you into his enemy, especially when he’s already feeling “aggrieved”. Focus on the fact that he’s your brother and you care about him. Remember that “to err is human; to forgive, divine”. From there, your approach should be empathetic enough to create the space that is necessary for him to change his mind without losing too much face. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to admit that you can’t help people who don’t want help and/or you might not be the right person to help them at this time.

Yes, some beliefs are quite morally abhorrent and difficult to stomach. But the fact is that they exist out there. The point isn’t about eradicating them, it’s about trying to discover the best strategies for reducing the number of people who believe. One subject I came across in my studies was about people who had been politically radicalized and then later de-radicalized, e.g., incels, terrorists, white supremacists, etc. If you are interested, you might benefit from reading a book or watching a documentary about why people get radicalized so that you understand how it happens and how to avoid exacerbating the process.

[khhunniewriting]

White Roses Over Red Roses (1)

[ Mafia AU ]

For a long time, Illionaire had steadily gained wealth and power through their various businesses. Joonkyung, better known as Dok2, was the boss who leads the successful operation of the group. He flaunts his wealth wherever he goes making sure everyone noticed him when he entered a room. Luxury vehicles, clothes, jewelry, etc. Nothing was out of the question.

His second in command was Donggab. Apart from advising and enforcing he also oversaw the monetary side. He flaunted his vast wealth as well but in a much more tasteful manner. The luxury suits he wore made him seem as if he came from a wealthy family. 

Sometimes it was hard to identify who the actual leader was.

Especially when Joonkyung was always getting into messes and Donggab was the one bailing him out.

“One of your accounts is overdrawn,” Donggab flipped through pages of statements sounding very nonchalant. 

Joonkyung nodded, he had already gotten a call from the guilty party. “Just take some from Y/N’s account and put it into hers.”

Donggab looked up, jaw clenched. “Why Y/N’s?”

“She hardly uses it.”

Donggab went back around to his desk and sat down. He flipped through to your account statements and indeed you had hundreds of thousands accumulated from scarcely using the money Dok2 gave you. The other two women in his life managed to go through theirs entirely with one having overdrawn.

“How much?” 

Joonkyung thought for a moment. “Triple the overdrawn amount, she’ll be happier when I go over tonight.”

Regardless of his personal opinion on the matter, Donggab picked up the pen to write down the amount. He would have to handle the transfer before Joonkyung left even though he shouldn’t be going to her at all. 

“What about Y/N?” The clueless look had Donggab tapping his pen on the leather cover of the statement logs. “Today is her birthday.”

“That’s right,” Dok2 confirmed the date by looking at his phone. Today was your birthday and he couldn’t ignore it. You were by far the most difficult of his relationships- with him only because he asked for you as part of a deal between him and your old group.

You were so beautiful in his eyes, that’s why you caught his initial attention. He began looking into you when he found out you were an expert at running money laundering operations. He knew he had to have you for himself even if it meant playing dirty.

Now you were one of three women but ultimately his favorite. While the others were equally as if not more, prettier than you... You were the only one who could serve a purpose to Illionaire. Only you could ever become something more to him. But he wasn’t done with the others yet.

“I’m gonna need you to do one more favor for me.”

\\\

When you heard your doorbell ringing you jumped out of bed. You had been lounging about all day dressed as if you were actually going somewhere. However, it was only for the sake of boosting your mood on what should be a happy day.

“What the-” you took a second glance at the screen showing you what was on the other side. All you could see was flowers and as soon as you undid the last lock your house became a literal rose parade. Men you had barely seen before marched inside carrying bouquet after bouquet into your home. They covered every flat surface with the floral arrangments. 

“Hey why are you going in there...” you stomped your bare feet onto the ground chasing after the ones who had taken the liberty of filling your room as well. The whole situation was crazy. What could you possibly do with so many flowers? It left you speechless and a little irritated to be ambushed this way. 

“Knock knock...”

You turned to see Donggab politely knocking on yoru bedroom door despite it being open. In his hands were yet another bouquet.

“Happy Birthday,” he handed it over to you.

You took it with a forced smile knowing what it was even before you got the card opened. “Joonkyung sent you.”

He nodded.

“Tell me the truth is he ditching me to be with one of the others?”

Once again he nodded.

“Great, then he won’t mind.” You harshly slammed the glass vase onto your vanity. 

“I thought you loved roses.” 

You nodded picking up one of the much more elegant looking white rose arrangments. “White ones.”

Of course, he knew that but Joonkyung didn’t that’s why he insisted on getting red roses. “Then I have a confession to make.” Donggab eyed the others motioning with his head for them to leave. After the last one was out of sight he turned his attention to you. “The white ones are from me.”

Suddenly you weren’t so irritated. “You got me white roses?”

“Happy Birthday Y/N,” he kissed your cheek and flashed you a killer smile.

Your hand went up, your fingertips gracing the burning flesh of your blushing cheeks. “I don’t understand.” More like you didn’t want to get your hopes up. 

"I love you."

"What-" Your eyes blinked rapidly as if testing whether or not you were awake. But you were. This was reality. Donggab was honestly confessing his romantic interest in you.

Donggab took a quick glance out your door before locking it giving you two some privacy- which he should have done from the very beginning but he did not know those words would come out of his mouth today. After all, you were the boss' favorite of all his women. If ever a time came when he would open his eyes and see how truly special you were he wouldn't stand a chance. If he ever chose to settle down he would have to sit back and watch quietly but if he acted first perhaps there was a chance.

He tenderly caressed your cheek to gain your undivided attention. Once you looked up he locked onto your eyes capturing them in a loving gaze. His lips could not help but curl up into a smile. This was all he wanted. He wanted to see you smile. He wanted to touch you, hold you, love you.

He wanted you.

"I love you Y/N." He pressed his forehead against yours. "I always have, I just couldn't tell you until now." After realizing how Joonkyung took your compliance for granted, interpreting it as mutual affection when in reality he and you were simply part of a business transaction.

You held his face in your hands in a similar fashion. If only he knew how you secretly wished, dreamt of this moment. But could you selfishly confess? If you showed him the feeling of love was mutual what would become of him? Too bad years of yearning made the choice for you and leaned in to kiss him.

The kiss was better than any verbal confirmation. He held you with one arm around your waist, the other at the back of your neck and dipped you.

Your arms went up around his neck not getting nearly as much of him as you had wanted. The chemistry between you was undeniably present as your actions synced perfectly. The whole moment felt like a well choreographed, well-directed kiss scene in a movie. When you jumped he caught you- never breaking said kiss.

Donggab sat you on the vanity knocking down the bouquet of red roses Dok2 had just sent him to deliver to you. The sound of shattering glass startled you causing you to pull away. "Oh-" you did not get to say a word as Donggab hungrily reclaimed your lips.

Not caring if any of the security he had brought with him heard.

There was no use in stopping now. He had crossed the line of no return. He had gotten a taste of your sweet lips and he would never allow them to be taken from him. "You are mine now," he nearly growled in his signature low voice.

"But-ah" you shuddered as his lips went to your neck. The sensation was equal to the way your stomach fluttered on a rollercoaster drop and the warmth of a blush creeping to your cheeks. "Donggab what about Joonkyung."

"Don't think about him now." His hand led yours to rest atop his chest where his rapidly beating heart echoed yours. "It's just you and me now."

"But he'll kill you." You could care less about your life or your fate but Donggab meant the world to you. Risking his life was out of the question. "I could never watch you get hurt."

"You won't, we'll run away somewhere Joonkyung can't find us."

Your eyes widened in shock. "Are you really willing to give up your position for me?"

"Since day one."

You jumped off the vanity and pushed him back until he fell onto the bed. You picked up your skirt allowing you to straddle his lap. His hands came to rest on your ass pushing you closer into him.

Once again you had answered with actions rather than words but it was clear you would go anywhere with Donggab as you began to undress him.

\\\

"After dropping off the flowers at Y/N’s, where did you go?” Dok2 was losing his patience with the security team.

“I-uh we went nowhere sir.”

“Then how and when did you lose them!”

Another stepped in to help him, “He asked us to leave ahead of him while he helped Miss Y/N.”

“Helped her with what?”

“I don’t know.” He could tell by the look in his eyes that wasn’t the answer he was looking for but it was all he could offer. 

Dok2 threw everyone out of his office as he began making some calls. The more he looked for Dongabb the more he uncovered. He found he had emptied your account the day before along with his own. If that didn’t scream betrayal then what did?

In a final act of rage, Dok2 picked up the framed picture of you he kept at his desk and threw it against the wall as hard as he could. The sound alerted the guards to come inside. “Now you do your jobs?!” 

Dok2 leaned over the broken glass and metal to fish out your picture. In the process, he managed to cut his hand but did not flinch at the pain. He stared at it for a second longer than he wanted to. His resolve wavering for a moment at your smile. You were his most precious possession, his love...

He handed the now bloodstained photo to the head of his security. 

“Find her.”

-end-

A/N: Can’t believe I did this to Dok2 or that I put them against each other. 

Gif wouldn’t show up in the search thingy so I had to directly paste it in the post. Credit to @moxiepoints for always making such inspiring gifsets.

[zombutt]

Your military based OCs inspire me to want to make one, but I'm nervous about that kind of stuff being inaccurate about facts D: How do you do it?

Hello!!Oh man, thank yoU ❤️. And YES, join the heist!I will put it under read more; since I wanna answer your question best to my ability, a.k.a extensively.

OKAY, SO, to answer your question: I’d gone through the same ordeal and it can be a struggle. I didn’t know much about the military except for the scarce tidbits you can find online, but, there are few ways you can educate yourself in that aspect:First of all, the very basics. What nationality your OC is, where will they serve, what were they like growing up and what made them join, etc; it might seem trivial at first, but trust me, it’s important.What I suggest doing is, if your OC happens to be, say, British, you can search up reputable British authors (preferably former soldiers or SoO) and pick books specifically describing combat maneuvers. Keep in mind, however, that those are largely made up scenarios inspired by real events; still, they provide valuable insight as to how specific groups operate (a bit of a hit or miss that one, but it’s better than nothing).Then there are authors, who, given their broad knowledge and experience, pile it all up and provide you a guide of sorts. Usually, there’s a thorough description of the inner structure, chain of command, the history behind the unit and the reason for its formation, preferred weapons and equipment, the selection process, and so on. I find these to be immeasurably valuable, especially once you are satisfied with your initial draft.Therefore; if you have an idea already in mind, go with it and then search up the bits and pieces of information online before you supplement it with additional literature.If you want to come up with a soldier from the eastern part of Europe, books detailing the Russian army will do for the most part (the post-soviet countries that is; the military structure’s been largely untouched since that period). The writers/titles I can suggest on top of my mind are:Supervivencia - “CCCP Red Army Special Forces Spetsnaz”Viktor Suvorov - “Spetsnaz”Mark Galeotti - “Spetsnaz - Russia’s Special Forces”William H. Burgess - “Inside Spetsnaz: Soviet Special Operations”For British SAS, I’ve found John Wiseman’s “The SAS Survival Handbook” to be of great use (he has a really extensive bibliography for that very purpose tbf)If we’re talking about hired guns, a.k.a Soldiers of Fortune and all corporate manners of mercs, my two hot takes:Peter W. Singer - “The Private Military Industry and Iraq: What have we learned and where to next?”Christop Kinsey - “Corporate Soldiers and International Security, The Rise of Private Military Companies (2006)”The third option, which can be either a very frustrating experience or a goldmine; join forums where retired soldiers and vets offer their fair share of experience.If you do, keep in mind that people who join these are folks aspiring to become recruits one day; so having me prep a thread in there and explain as to why I did was met with various reactions at the time. Few members seemed weirded out, while others were delighted to see I wanted to be precise in my fiction and were very eager to help. I have compiled a massive doc for personal use thanks to’em, and the experience altogether was very satisfying; everyone was super kind and pleasant to deal with. Lastly; I can offer a bit of a small trivia that might help get you started:- There is a cultural gap between East and West, and that, too, affects the military structure and people’s view on it. I find West to be extremely formal, as they treat the army as a separate way of life. It’s a completely different take in the East; the army is actually viewed favorably upon (same applies to Poland, though we’re right in the center we used to be part of the Soviet Union. You could say we have this weird mixture of both mindsets intertwined together). 

Oddly enough, this also seems to affect how the soldiers themselves tend to behave? It’s a weird statement, I know, but I happen to see Russian/Ukrainian/Polish soldiers much more easy-going and open to discuss the cons and pros behind their job. Westerners usually skip the subject altogether or give very vague answers (especially if they’re part SoF)- Not every special force soldier is a black belt.CQC (Close Quarter Combat) adds up to around 25-36 hours per the whole training course, therefore it boils down to pure essentials and bare grind. Soldiers are taught how to tackle down their opponent quickly and efficiently; it’s all about speed. There’s no such thing as self-defense techniques; that’s the kind of unrealistic horseshit you get from Hollywood movies. Additionally, there are no secret techniques regarding hand-to-hand combat. Krav Maga, despite the popular opinion, is not that special. It’s neither good nor bad, but nothing sets it apart. If you happen to get a hold of a SoF, they will admit that the best techniques stem from… MMA.

I’m dead serious; hear me out.MMA, in all fairness, is a system that compiles the best moves of all available techniques out there. A combination of MMA and BJJ (especially the latter) seems to be favored by a wide variety of Western forces due to its effectiveness. As far as you are concerned, you want to tackle your opponent down the moment you see them (speaking strictly of unarmed combat) - render them vulnerable. For some cool trivia; look up the involvement of Gracie Brothers and Delta Force (and the logos for both; Delta Operators and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu School )Keeping that in mind, it’s worth noting that CQC can be referred to combat that takes place at 100 meters or less; so gunfights are in!- Special Operation Forces are very, VERY quirky people! I noticed everyone has this belief that operators tend to be serious, no-nonsense people that fear nothing and no one.Let me tell you, that’s an exaggerated statement. During my time at the forums, I’ve met a handful of people that claimed to be SoF and few even provided actual proof. Regardless, some of them asked me very throughout questions about the nature of my fic (good morning I want to RP a realistic soldier, huge fan thanx) and apologized in advance in case I found all the attention overwhelming. I asked whether or not a trait like that is common amongst their colleagues, to which they replied that it depends on the person more or less, but it’s not an isolated occurrence! Normally you want to figure out your surroundings and adjust well enough, adapt so to speak; if you can learn something new, they’re all in for it - it may come in handy sooner or later. And they really do grasp stuff quick, fuck me.In general, they are polite, quiet and laid back people. There were one or two cases of somewhat “arrogant” fellows I’ve had to deal with, but it was nothing too drastic IMO.- Soldiers who claim to fear nothing and no one. Doesn’t happen; unrealistic af. In fact, there was this one interview, where a Blackwater executive admitted to having turned down so many potential employees exactly because of that. A man who thinks himself fearless is not only delusional but becomes a liability to himself and his own unit. In fact, most recruitment officers are in favor of hiring already married soldiers; these men will always take fewer risks and make for a more compelling fighting force in the end.- Whether an ordinary ground troop or all-out skilled SoF, no man can singlehandedly cause havoc or prevent it. Another Hollywood trope so to speak; one-man army. It simply doesn’t happen. 

-RPing/writing about soldiers includes, besides occasional gunfights, figuring out basic medical terminology and educating yourself about respective procedures for each sustained injury.- SoF soldiers usually excel at two roles; a single special forces operator can be both a remarkable marksman and a field medic.- Humor is essential - it helps elevate pressure in between skirmishes.

- PTSD doesn’t always boil down to sheer anxiety and sleep insomnia. A PTSD can well enough turn into an OCD of sorts; looking out of a window for hours on end despite having no reason to do so, counting your possessions, hoarding objects of no importance. It can be very personal or right at your face- Some individuals find themselves unable to retire early; the bond between them and their unit, the belief of doing something good (or of putting themselves to better use out there) and constant adrenaline rush are too appealing of an option to refuse. IMO it’s completely normal if you consider the following: those people had worked together for a couple of months and under extremely hazardous circumstances. 

Danger brings people together, it’s only natural; all of you want to survive and help one another while doing so, having formed a prior bond.

All in all, everyone’s different and everything can influence your OC’s choices and decisions, hence why I feel having come up with their backstory, such as nationality and alike, shortens the process significantly; you know where to look at and for what.

Hope you’ve found my lil wall of text useful! In case you’re in need of literature for that exact purpose, feel free to shoot me a message!

[awesomelisaremoaner-blog]

Combatting Cummings Communications Campaign

So, here they are.

Three road-tested and ready to go campaign messages designed to strike at the wavering hearts of a few hundred thousand people in a smattering of marginal constituencies that Dominic Cummings knows he needs to win if he is to save Brexit and place Boris ‘Bozza’ Johnson on the Iron Throne of rUK until god knows when.

These simple, pared-back statements have been focus-grouped to death, and are now finely-honed weapons of mass persuasion. They are to be feared.

They will be repeated ENDLESSLY by the Conservativeratti, hoping that, over time, the statements will smash their way into the consciousnesses of ordinary people, grab ahold of their amygdalas, and squeeze a vote for the Tories out of their ordinary hands.

But there are two great things about these statements:

1.    They tell us lots about what Dominic Cummings has learnt from his focus groups

2.    They can be killed.

Let’s deal with point 2 first.

Behavioural science tells us that if you keep repeating a statement enough, eventually it will become truth. This is why Donald Trump says ‘Fake News’ a lot. If you keep repeating something that taps into people’s emotions, you will have an even easier job. And if that thing you repeat is very simple to say, job is most definitely a goodun.

These days lots of bad people on the depressing side of politics have worked this out, and the internet is abuzz with the sounds of bite-size populist sentiments pouring unwantedly into the minds of defenceless populaces, from Budapest to Beijing.

BUT – behavioural science also tells us how to effectively debunk these unhealthy mind viruses, strip them of their power and turn them into weapons that actually do the opposite of what was originally intended, like a re-programmed Terminator.

This was done to some effect in the 2017 election, when Theresa May’s ‘Strong and Stable’ message gradually became paired with a ‘Weak and Wobbly’ counter-message (on t’internet at least), which – allied with her increasingly wobbly performances - made repeating the phrase more of a liability than a strength. By the end of the campaign they had stopped using it altogether.

And that’s what we are going to try and do this time around – take super-villian Dominic’s campaign messages apart, and reconstitute them as something remain-y.

This is an eminently winnable fight. The Conservative victory absolutely depends on getting the kind of people who hate Brexit but also hate Jeremy Corbyn and thought Ed Miliband was a bit wet to say ‘fuck it, there’s no one else, I have to vote for Boris fucking Johnson because I am a Conservative voter’.

whereas, our victory depends on getting these lovely people to say “I don’t feel good about voting for Boris Johnson, and I never wanted Brexit anyway.” And then either voting for someone else or just going to the pub and saying fuck it all and not voting.

By the way - they are not going to vote for Corbyn, okay?

I know loads of these people, and so do you. They feel politically homeless and are ripe for conversion.

So, what does behavioural science say about how exactly you counter Dominic’s misinformation? Well, there are certain key principles:

1.    Never re-state the myth. In 2017, too many people would say “it doesn’t sound very ‘Strong and Stable’ if you can’t turn up to your own debate. Sounds more like weakness”. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. All you are doing is strengthening the phrase ‘Strong and stable’ in someone’s mind. No, instead you must have a…

2.    Persuasive alternative counter message. Which you repeat anytime you come across the original. This counter message should directly relate to the original message (e.g. ‘weak and wobbly’ scans like ‘strong and stable’), and it should contradict its impact.

3.    It should be simply expressed

4.    It should be framed to appeal to YOUR audience.

So, let’s look at the three Conservative statements and see what they can tell us about how to destroy them. Here they are:

1.    We will get Brexit done by October 31st

2.    We are the Party of the people

3.    We will take this country forward.

I am going to deal with the last one first, as I think this is the common theme that will underpin a lot of what the Tories try to do over the next few weeks.

We will take this country forward

It’s clear that much of the clash and thunder of Bozza’s arrival in Number 10 over the last few weeks have been about creating the illusion of busyness and purpose. ‘At least he is doing something’ cries Dominic’s target audience, and this message is designed to appeal further to that powerful sentiment of frustration.

This central idea of forward momentum, impetus, activity, inevitability is going to be big for the Tories. They will complain that they were dragged into an election they did not want, and only they, not the squabbling remainers or even parliament as a whole, have the sense of initiative to get us out of the morass.

And it makes some intuitive sense. They do have a plan (a stupid, self-serving one), and they are certainly very focused on winning over the next few weeks (for the benefit of the Conservative party if not the country). So, you can’t challenge this myth by saying, “no, you are not going forward”. They are most definitely in motion.

What you have to say instead is “But they are heading in the wrong direction.”

It’s that simple: “The Tories are steering Britain in the wrong direction.”

Easy. Say that whenever you hear this ‘going forward’ line, and it will become a rock of Kryptonite around the neck for them.

Or, in the mocked-up parody campaign posters: ‘We are taking this country in the wrong direction” under a big picture of Boris’ mug.

Of course, you will have to be able to justify why you think they are pointing us in the wrong direction – but as soon as you do that you have WON, because now we are not talking about ‘forward’, but about ‘wrong direction’.

And it’s easy to justify, because not only is Brexit a BAD thing, but also they are spectacularly unprepared for any of the logistical issues of either shit Brexit, or terrifically shit Brexit, PLUS they are not going to get any meaningful changes to a thrice-rejected deal so we are either going to be a vassal state or watching fist fights breakout in chemists all over the country over the availability of Epipens  or both.

See – wrong direction.

Which brings me to point 1.

We will get Brexit done by October 31st

So, once again, the way to deal with this is not to say ‘no, you won’t’, or ‘it’s a coup and the Queen will stop you’ or anything else silly – that will not appeal to our target audience.

The power of this statement comes from (1) implying that the endless debates and fannying about around Brexit will be over if we just lie back and let Bozza get on with it, and (2) that this is not such a bad thing after all – in fact it’s all fine and we might as well be cheered by his jollying, can-do demeanour rather be positively sickened by it.

It’s key to challenge this ‘not such a bad thing after all’ emotion with its converse – Brexit is in fact a terrible, terrible thing (for many of the reasons listed above).

To this end, we have had a stroke of good luck, courtesy of Theresa May no less, who managed to delay the date of Brexit doom to October 31st. Or Halloween.

Yes, Halloween.

Brexit is coming on Halloween.

And thus it is easy to pair evil with evil in the mind of the floating voter.

There are many possible permutations, e.g.:

·     Boris’ Halloween Horror Show is coming

·     It’ll be a real fright night this Halloween

·     Don’t let your kids see what Weird Uncle Boris has planned for them, etc.

The important thing is to pair the October the 31st thing with fear.

And yes, here at last we can use Project Fear to our advantage. If someone mentions it, we can say “Yes, it is Project Fear – because Boris is about to make Project Fear a reality – on Halloween... Steve Barclay said last week they haven’t even started talking yet about how to keep car parts supply chains running after Brexit – WTF?!”

See – turn their weapons on them.

This can be fun, this can be playful. We can make memes where Boris is a scary clown. We can make jokes. We can make deep fakes.

The important thing is October 31st stops being a nothingburger, and starts being something that people might want to think carefully about before rushing headlong into it.

So we have:

·     Boris’ Halloween Horror Show is coming

·     He’s steering Britain in the wrong direction!

I think these two ideas play well off what I imagine are Bozza’s brand weaknesses - his underlying associations with being reckless, slapdash, mendacious and spivvy. Our target voter has all these doubts about him too.

We are the Party of the people

So this is the Tories attempt to roll their tanks on to traditional Labour territory, by indicating that they are the true champions of the 2016 popular vote, PLUS this probably also encapsulates their crowd pleasing policies on the NHS, policing and crime.

You can’t challenge this by pointing out (as I am sure Labour supporters are minded to do) that no they are bloody not the Party of the people. Trying to explain who actually influences Tory policy and how that tends not to benefit the person in the street is all a bit ‘yawn’ and won’t actually register with disengaged voters.

No, we need something cleverer and something that skewers the meaning at the heart of the message.

I think the solution is two fold:

One – the statement refers to ‘the people’ like we were one big homogenous mass of dutiful subjects, but the truth is vast swathes of the country are not reconciled to Brexit and never will be. They are in open rebellion against their flagship policy.

Most polls show more than 50% support for remain these days – so even those soft Tory voters who are leaning towards voting for him for want of any other obvious candidate do not feel truly represented by him.

Boris is acting like he is the unifying figure that can bring the country back together, and this is where we must challenge the statement. He is not uniting us at all. We are a divided people.

And this gives us the key to unravel the second part of the sentence – that reference to the big P Conservative Party.

The sentence implies that the Conservative party is acting with one voice (trying desperately to draw on that ‘stability’ that they have long ago squandered) – but the plain truth is they are divided too.

MPs are resigning, others are in open rebellion and the executive is calling for de-selection. They, like the people are split down the middle.

So there you have it:

“A divided party can never unite our country”.

The final message:

·     Boris’ Halloween Horror Show is coming

·     His divided party can never unite our country

·     He’s steering Britain in the wrong direction!

Getting the message out

It’s clear from 2016 that Dominic has lots of whizzy tools for targeting his message where it needs to go, and you may not.

But you do know soft Tories, lots of them.

What you need to do now is to deliver this message – by sharing it on social media – into the heart of the conversation about who should run our country so it changes the dialogue and makes everything they try to do work against them.

You are like Han Solo flying the Millenium Falcon deep inside the Death Star, Frodo lobbing Gollum into the Cracks of Doom, Arya pulling the knife-drop trick on the Night King. Watch the waves of destruction spread.

Thanks for listening and good luck.

[zerobeans]

Reflective Journal

The most significant experience for me throughout my time so far in the Creative Technologies Course has been the first Studio assignment which was Cards for Play. This project required us to from teams and to create an original card based entity or system that encouraged one or more of the fundamental aesthetics of play, while allowing us to decide the intended audience and purpose. This allowed us to have the freedom to lay our foundations regarding our interests, beliefs and motives onto the project, with each of us contributing a part of ourselves into the decisions that affected the creative process. That being said, the process of conceptualizing and development was by no means easy, as the seven of us operating as a singular entity led to many inefficiencies due to the frequent disagreements we had about the direction the project was heading.

However, this experience was definitely worth it as we got to go through the iterative design process and got to work together as a team, which meant we had to take into account each others’ ideas, opinions and interests. It was very interesting for me to observe how my other team members’ backstories affected the project, with each individual possessing unique abilities, skills and knowledge that they have acquired prior to entering the course. Although we ended up backtracking a lot, the information that we exchanged and the judgements and critiques that we challenged ourselves with proved to be invaluable to the development and refinement of our project. At one particular point, we were forced to reflect on ourselves and on whether the direction the project was headed was one that was desired. We eventually placed the outcome to a vote, which led some of us to realize that at certain times, the ability to compromise and sacrifice is very crucial, especially if the deadline is not far away. 

In terms of hierarchy and group dynamics, there was no dominant member who took control of the project, but rather individuals who stood up and assumed coordinator positions to ensure we remained relevant and on track. I assume this was because none of our personalities were overly extroverted, and that we respected each other and our unique skills that we brought to the table. One of the downsides to this is that sometimes we would get carried away with ideas that are too ambitious as we overestimated our combined abilities, which is why having members in pseudo - management positions to pull on the reins whenever we got derailed is something I am grateful for. Despite that, we did go off track, and changed our statement of intent multiple times, and well as scrapped ideas we spent a long time developing, but to have a perfectly streamlined design process would contradict the intent of iterating and development in the first place.

From the extract of book “Team Players and Teamwork” by Glenn M. Parker, that I read, it states that with the development of technologies and globalisation, the paradigm of the team is rapidly changing as new opportunities allow for individuals of all walks of life to communicate and collaborate on tasks. Aspects such as location, culture, religion, and political views all become all the more prominent as virtual meetings and commissions become more mainstream due to convenience. Much of the extract is dedicated to stressing how important good team management is, and how a good team manager should have high meeting facilitation skills and easy access to the necessary tools, templates, and checklists for planning and managing a successful meeting. 

One of the most interesting points that was brought up and that I haven’t considered was the concept of people serving in multiple teams simultaneously. In the context of a workplace environment, it could mean an individual serving in multiple factions, (be it marketing, administration,etc), within the same company. This would often result in the individual spending a lot of time attending meetings relating to these different factions. In my experience during Cards for Play, the equivalent of these multiple commitments among my teammates would be the extracurricular activities and the various self driven projects that they work on outside the classroom. It is inevitable that creatives individuals, such as those who make up my team, would have other forms of expressing said creativity beyond the boundaries of the curriculum. 

Further research regarding the makings of a streamlined and functional team led me to stumble upon an article by Pernille Bjorn and Ojelanki Ngwenyama, entitled “Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdown and creating translucence”. This extract, like the last, acknowledges the ability of technology to allow “geologically distributed participants” to work collaboratively on a task with ease. Despite this, “breakdowns” can still occur due to misunderstandings and a lack of shared meaning between the participants. The article addresses the complexities of building “shared meaning”, and indicates that there is an extensive process of employing organizational structures, policies, ritual activity, and patterned behaviour. Although my team did not actively and consciously assign these techniques to our paradigm, we did end up developing our own quirks, such as recording humorous lines of our own dialogue and referencing them occasionally as a way of boosting morale, allowing us to strengthen our relationships with each other in environments that do not involve the project. 

As the Bachelor of Creative Technologies course is heavily project based, it would be impossible not to encounter other group activities and projects. Therefore, observing the makings of a good team, and the techniques and methods employed to allow for this will be very crucial. The group selection process for the next few projects are bound to be more complex, as before, we were blank slates with relationships and knowledge yet to be formed. But now, our personalities, abilities, and social circles are more defined, and would therefore be harder for those who assume the role of team manager to accommodate and cater to these ever changing dynamics. I suppose now that I am aware of the principles behind group collaboration, I am now able to react appropriately when breakdowns occur, and do my best in order to prevent miscommunication amongst members. They say the sum of the whole is greater than the individual components that make it up, and I can affirm that with my experience so far as a member of a group, and hopefully with all future projects to come.

References:

Pernille Bjorn, Ojelanki Ngwenyama (2009) - Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence - Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00281.x

Glenn M. Parker (2011) -  Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration - Retrieved from: https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eenyo0-gjIsC&oi=fnd&pg=PT11&dq=successful%20teamwork%20collaboration&ots=JegJKSFveu&sig=ITiM6_xXqEUbA_zjADuZDvH5H0w&fbclid=IwAR2Vpmd2DQCl_akSZPv-gSS-WOfpQeIyFKA4MGfJ1UWZ-YCJBg9gGmM11sU#v=onepage&q=successful%20teamwork%20collaboration&f=false

[throwawayaccount-things-blog]

House Raid / Homelessness.

Hello. My name is William.

I’ve recently just been made homeless and am currently seeking housing.

Yesterday I made a post on my Tumblr Blog talking briefly about what happened to me as a sort of SOS since at the time I was completely unsure of what to do. Through the help of my followers, they were able to help with donations to help me through the process of finding a new accommodation. I’ve now set up a savings account with the funds inside which will help me find an accommodation easier. I’ve also contacted an Emergency 24/7 Homeless network and they have helped me figure out what my next course of action is. Monday, they said they’ll be able to send a support worker to see what can be done. I’ve also had help from my social worker who has kindly been able to store my furniture such as chair/mirror/bookshelf while I'm searching for a place in her house. 

I can’t even begin to state how essential you guys have been for me. It's not even funny. You guys are some of the finest. 

However as much as I wish to gush about your guys selflessness, that's not why I am making this post.

I’m making this post to go over everything what has happened during the past two months of me living in my previous house. My previous room. You might of already seen it here [warning blog is nsfw but content of link is not]. A way to get my thoughts out. Maybe let it serve as a Cautionary tale of sorts of what sort of stuff to look out for if any of you are looking to move out. For that reason, I'm using a Throw-Away account since my main blog is NSFW and will filter this post as such.  

 I want this to reach as many people as possible so if you could. 

- Please Reblog this if you wish - 

 This is going to be rather long. Extremely long and rather heavy. 

 I’ve divided it into three parts

Before the event. 🔴

The event. 🔸

After the event.📗

Personal Thanks. ❤️

1). Before the event. 🔴

So, around July 15th of this year. I moved out of my parent's. They were already moving into a new place at the time. This was the place I posted about during the same time saying how I was happy with the accommodation. It was small and the nights were pretty cold but just for the sheer independence I loved it. Able to draw whenever I wished. Sleep as I wished. It was a good starting point The Landlords (I will be referring to them as Derrick and Jessica) seemed friendly and down to earth too. Often sharing tinfoil and lending cups and plates. So, I never suspected that things would end up... this bad...

The rent was around the higher end of £350 - £400 (I’ve been told I shouldn’t disclose the official payment) per month. This was for Rent/Water/Wi-Fi/Heating. I’ve been told this was rather pricey for what was rather small room but being inexperienced in this sort of stuff, I didn’t really assume it as a problem.  

However here is when I did notice a problem. One of the council members who regularly supports me needed me to supply her a ‘Tenancy Agreement’. The terms and conditions for actually living at the place and was baffled by the fact that the Landlord never gave me one. She told me to get one ASAP since it discloses my rights as a resident and on the same day I went to talk to Jessica about getting one.  

She then told me that she wasn’t a landlord, she was only filling in for Derrick as he just recently when on a holiday to America and wouldn’t be back for 6 weeks, but said she would get in contact with him to get one. Various times during all of August, I would ask about it over and over again since it was a big priority for me but with little feedback aside from “He hasn’t gotten back to me yet”. I also found out halfway during his trip, Derrick and Jessica changed their numbers, making contacting them extremely cumbersome. Again, being rather naïve I assumed they were just busy on their Holiday/Work.   

Derrick eventually came back around the beginning of September. So, I asked him “When can I get my ‘Tenancy Agreement’?” With him being rather unsure and seeming wanting to avoid talking about it. It wasn’t until this week. Monday the 10th of September I was able to get one and it was extremely light. I was told a Tenancy Agreement would come in a pack of documents, going over the Terms and Conditions as well as what sort of benefits such as Housing support you could apply for.  

I took my Tenancy Agreement to my supporter. She was confused by the size too but told me I should take it to the Job-Centre to verify it and to see if I was applicable to any of those benefits. This was on Thursday afternoon. I went to see it being checked by the Job-Centre and shortly after went to work. The Job-Centre told me that I needed Derrick to give me a statement saying what he does, I asked him before I went to sleep saying to just catch me when he has it since I already assumed this would take another week long of catch up anyway.

2). The event. 🔸

Friday. I woke up to someone knocking at my door. I actually thought it was Derrick, seemingly having that statement for me. That was until I heard the knocking again escalate into full on banging and slamming. Checking my phone, it was 6:43AM. Who the hell was slamming my front door? My room was divided into a small hallway into the bedroom so I couldn’t hear anything until I was actually approaching the stairs. 

“Open up. Council Enforcement.” Or something along those lines. 

I was... well fucking confused to say the least but I got down the stairs and opened up the door. The hallway was flooded with Police. About 3 Officers per door. Two of them typical police clothes and one of them wasn’t, sporting equipment like scanners and cameras. 

I kept calm and politely asked what was going on? Invited them upstairs and they told me they were doing an inspection on the building. To make sure it was safe or something. I didn’t think that inspections meant busting down people's doors but I wasn’t really too eager to be joking around with law enforcement.  

 They summed it up as needing to look over the house to make sure it was safe or something. The lady with the scanner checking my room for fire alarms and exits of which there wasn’t any. One of the officers asked my typical personal information, another one asking for information on the house, when I moved in, was I living alone. How much did I pay? Etc. They were asking everyone this.

After around an hour of questioning. I got told this. 

“The place you’re living isn’t safe. There is no official heating in the room” (Which is correct. Derrick said they couldn’t install radiators up there and had to make due with electric heaters, meaning I was paying heating for no reason.) 

“There are no fire alarms or exits up here. In the case of a fire. You would not be able to fight any flames up these stairs and wouldn’t be able to escape (due to it being an attic room). 

They told me that I should move down to the lower room. I asked them if this would mean that I couldn’t live here anymore and they did say “Not to worry, we will sort this out” 

At around 8:39AM they left. Everyone going down to Derrick and Jessica and asking what the heck was going on?  

Jessica and another House Guest said that the Police was banging on the door saying they were doing an ‘immigration check’ and pointed to the dining room table, a yellow sheet of paper which was an immigration warrant was there which was one of the reasons why they raided, but we also were asked Council related questions so this just furthered the confusion. 

 Derrick told us that “They have given him a list of things which need fixing and that he is going to contact HIS landlord to see if he can get these installed.” 

This was one of the biggest red-flags for everyone. This piece of conflicting information about how he was going to see another Landlord? Another housemate asked him what he meant by that to which Derrick replied- 

“Oh, I’m the landlord of this house, but I don’t own the house itself. My Landlord does.” 

After that he went into his room and got his coat before setting off, Me being as oblivious as always asked him ‘Should I move all my stuff into the empty room on the second floor? The Police told me upstairs isn’t safe to live in anymore.” I was given the go ahead and started. 

I went straight at it. Every single item in my attic room I moved by myself down into the empty room. Except it wasn’t empty at all. In fact, it was filled with Derricks stuff. I got told I needed to “Move all of Derricks stuff into the hall if you want to use the room.” ... Well I needed somewhere to put my stuff so I went ahead and moved all of his stuff and then my stuff. 

From 9am till around 3pm. I just kept moving it. I was sleepy from being woken up so early. I usually go to work at 6pm and finish at 11am so I’m usually asleep by like 4am. So, working with like 3 hours of sleep was certainly a thing. But after all that work. I was happy to see my new room set up. The room itself was most certainly a downgrade from the attic room. The ceiling was gross and crap was pressed into the carpet but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get some sleep before work. My room looked nice enough. I set up a little bed area and went for a kip.

...Haha. Now for the fucking sucker punch. 

One of the house mates knocked on my door as I was just about to take a nap. Jolting out of bed he handed me a brown envelope. A document was in it, the same was taped to the door of the house.

“Following a visit to the property today, an Emergency Prohibition order has been served. This means that the property cannot be used for living or sleeping accommodations or any other purposes not approved by the council until the work specified in the Order has been completed.” 

...We have just been made homeless. 

This document lists all of the house's issues. Lack of fire exits. Lack of fire doors. Boiler on brink of dangerous eruption. Etc. Anyone who stays and ignores the Prohibition Order will be fined and arrested. 

We instantly went to look for the Landlord. But they weren’t in the house. We went to check their rooms and they were gone. Not answering their phones either. We assumed that he was going to talk to that landlord which actually owned the house... But they never came back. 

 I was so lost. I had no idea what to do at all. My parents were out of the country. I have no close family connections and my only friend in the area already has a full house. What about work? What about my postage? What about all my stuff? 

As much as I wanted to just... drop and cry, or grab my chair and break shit or just anything emotionally reckless and stupid. I just had to start packing. 

I phoned my family to tell them what happened. They told me that they’d phone my Uncle to see what he could do. Even during this time, I felt guilty because he only recently recovered from a minor stroke. However, even though legally I wasn’t allowed to stay at his. He told me I could spend the weekend here to help search for a new place. During this time. I decided to basically fire on all cylinders. I made the post on my art blog asking for help. I phoned my friend who was at work and offered to help drive my items to my uncle's place since this was an urgent thing. And I called an Emergency Homeless hotline which while went to voice mail. at least got back to me the following day. 

I had to abandon a lot of my stuff. Stuff like my game console, games, and piano keyboard I had to flash sell for dirt cheap. Stuff like all my books I had to leave behind due to being too heavy. All I could afford to take is my PC gear (since it's my second form of income with commissions + only way to talk to friends online) and my clothes, of which I only was able to cherry pick my best. 

I felt like a fool to have made that room that nice if I would have known this would have been the end result.

Around 6pm. My friend Anthony came to help. He and his dad helped pack his car with my stuff and drove me to my Uncles for the weekend.

I had still to go back there tomorrow for the rest of my clothes and medical stuff. But within 12 hours of the Police Raiding the building. Everyone was made homeless.

...And to think I fucking joked about it with that DK64 music...

3). After the event.📗

I slept really rough last night. But it was mostly just me thinking about what to do. I phoned all of the contacts of the Landlords but I got no reply at all.  

 My first plan was to jump to the house and sell my consoles and keyboard in order to accumulate some money for the upcoming room/house hunt. The only thing I have now is my 3DS. I don’t have the room to really bring along 4 consoles + games along. For my collection, £73 wasn’t a lot at all. But I should be happy I was able to actually get to sell them. When I came back to the house one of the doors was busted. The room was Derricks office where he kept his PC. PC gone. So, I kind of assumed my stuff would have been compromised.

The second time I came, there was another House-Mate getting his stuff with his friends. I basically had to cherry pick some of my clothes again and set off back to my uncles. However just as I turning into his house. My social worker offered to help take in some of my bigger stuff like my Bookshelf and Mirror. I took them up on that offer and she convinced me to let her take in the rest of my clothes and books. So, while I had to abandon some of my stuff. I still got to keep the bulk of it now, I just wish I had of waited before selling my items... 

However, as we get to the house. There were two people at the door looking rather puzzled? We went to talk to them and it turns it it was the ACTUAL landlord and his lawyer. 

They were wondering what happened to the place. So, after we told them what went on last night. He then told us that He was the landlord of Derrick and Jessica. Derrick and Jessica were illegally sub-letting the house without him even knowing. All he knew was that Derrick and Jessica were living in the house with their family. It all made sense now. The house itself was perfectly safe for a single family. However, as a “Shared House” it was deemed unsuitable and dangerous and thus why it was placed under an Emergency Prohibition

The guy from the second time I came back was also back in the house getting more items. He said that he actually stayed the night and at around 1am he actually saw Derrick and Jessica come into the house in an extremely irate manner and then quickly leave. Leading us to assume they took what thing they needed and bolted out of there before the Police catch them. 

The Landlord and Lawyer, my social worker and I all shared details and started searching the house for anything else which would be considered proof of Derricks and Jessica’s Subletting scheme. 

 After that. We checked their room and saw that they abandoned their cats. We had to call the RSPCA in order to get them both rescued. They both seemed in rather bad health.

We finished off by moving my stuff to my Social workers house. Gave our keys to the actual landlord and told them to keep in touch if they need anything. 

  And then. Well... This. I started writing this around 8PM and as of typing this right now its 22:31PM. I really needed to get all this off my chest. It's been eating me up inside to just go along with all of this and continue with no real way to outlet how I feel. I’m not even sad or angry now. I’m just really tired. 

Here is a couple more pictures of the place

So yeah. I hope this paints a better picture of what I've been through in like the past two months or so. For having all this thrown on me. I’ve kind of just... continued. I’ve been so enamoured by being independent and free that I was so oblivious to the fact I was being taken advantage of. I was none the wiser. I trusted those landlords. I thought they were genuine. And when I was told that we were all homeless I expected them to help us. But instead they backstabbed us and skipped town. The Police, The Council, The Landlords left us. All we were told to do is call the Homeless Hotline. A hotline which auto transfers you to the local Council and Housing Firm. (Which is fucking closed on the weekend FYI) 

Let this be a big warning. No matter how comfortable or clean or convenient your life is, DIG DEEPER. You need to make sure that you’re standing on stable ground. Put some money into savings. Keep your connections with your family and/or friends strong. Never doubt yourself or keep yourself from asking for help. I could have easily kept myself from asking any of you guys for help or my friend for help and I would of been left with only my clothes and laptop. 

This finally leads into 

  4.) Personal Thanks. ❤️  

 I need to thank every single one of you which has given me support. Don’t get me wrong. I am still far from being securely housed. But just for yesterday alone. 

A huge thank you for everyone who reblogged my post 

A huge thank you for everyone who donated to my aid 

A huge thank you for even reading my emotional rambles. 

I really do not deserve you guys.  

Just... thank you. 

thank you. 

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Austin episode 1 reaction

I wasn’t planning on writing long-winded reactions to Skam Austin, I thought I might just have fun with the clips as they happened. Because there’s such a different context with this remake as opposed to the French/German/Italian ones, that it’s hard to take in! Julie Andem’s direct involvement, the Facebook factor, that it’s American rather than European. I’m processing this one very differently. I’m not even sure how to gather all my thoughts about it.

But then a few things got my attention so here’s episode 1 a week late. I don’t think I say anything that hasn’t already been said, lmao, unless you want to hear about my high school English unit on The Scarlet Letter.

Clip 1 - Frozen is #relatable

Let’s point out all the signs we see during Poonam’s opening monologue:

“Be a winner, be you”

“Work hard, finish strong”

“Always victorious”

“Shoot for the moon”

a board full of college acceptances

IDK guys, I think there might be a theme about the pressure to succeed here.

Poonam’s monologue and the overall themes about pressure and success may seem generic or #relatable depending on your POV. For me, I found it worked, mostly because it’s funny in how mundane and teenage-y it is and the bit about Elsa from Frozen is so weirdly specific, and I knew a million kids like Poonam in high school. But I do get how Julie could have done something more topical considering the world of shit that is going on in the US politically and culturally, including in our schools. (I don’t know exactly how much of the show was filmed before or after the Parkland shooting and I don’t know if/when/how it will be mentioned, but I certainly hope they address it. That’s the kind of issue that Skam is made to cover: things that are directly relevant to the youth of the culture.)

Poonam is talking super loud and were she not serving up our thesis statement, the teacher would tell her to shut up.

I tried to listen to what more of what the teacher actually says, and it’s hard to make out, but of course she concludes with “draw a connection to something happening in present day” … hmmmm….

I was really confused because the test Megan looks at in class appears to be a state-mandated standardized test, not a regular exam you’d take in class. You can clearly see on her paper that it says 68th percentile, which means she scored as well as or better than 68% of students tested. But Marlon seems to be grabbing a similar-looking paper and he says he got a 99, like … is he in the 99th percentile? And Shay’s in the 100th percentile somehow (which cannot be a thing because you can’t go higher than the 99th, lol)? Is there an actual score out of 100 on these tests? Are they talking about a different test?

I’m not from Texas so I don’t know the format of this specific test, but I took a similar standardized test for my state and this is not how I remember it. Also we didn’t go around sharing our scores on those tests the way we would a regular math test or even the SATs or something. And no one studied for those things. 

Meg swaps the numbers around (68 to 86) and he says, “That’s not bad” in a somewhat patronizing way so you know she feels great about it.

The music for the Kittens’ slow-motion walk is very apropos lyrically.

I like Shay, she’s charming. There’s a lot of American “bro” talk and shit like that in the dialogue and it gets cringeworthy, but I think she and Tyler seem pretty natural and I buy them as friends.

Clip 2 - Survival kit

As people have pointed out, The Scarlet Letter is incredibly thematically relevant to Meg’s past. In fact it’s so on the nose that I’d almost say it’s overkill, however that book is so widely taught in American classrooms that yeah, I buy it, it works for me. At least they’re keeping it fairly subtle so far - we notice it because we know the S1 story, a new viewer wouldn’t necessarily realize the connection. And I have seen so many versions of the classroom scene where the inspirational teacher openly talks about the themes of the novel/impact of the historical event/educational topic that just so happens to coincide with whatever’s going on in the protagonist’s life, that yes, this is actually relatively subtle.

Pointless personal anecdote #1: In high school I had one of those stereotypically artsy English teachers and every year she had her students do a mock trial based on The Scarlet Letter, where the goal was to determine which of the main characters was the least guilty. It was a huuuuge project and worth a ton of our grade, and the year we did it, there was tons of drama and crying and name-calling outside of the classroom due to everyone taking this trial 200% too seriously. I drew the team representing Dimmesdale (the minister who fathers a child with Hester Prynne) and miraculously everyone else on the team was smart but chill; we were the only team that didn’t blow up into drama, and we won the trial. I had a great time doing the project, but as time went by I started to think about the point of the trial and whether it was a good assignment, and how our biases crept into the result. Because I remember when kids drew the Hester team, they groaned, because they knew they wouldn’t win. One of the male characters was going to win. Chillingworth might win even though he’s an evil piece of shit and some readers think he straight-up poisoned a dude, but he wasn’t Hester. Hester was definitely guilty because she had sex outside of marriage and had a baby. And if we want to tie this back to Skam, it gets me thinking about how Eva/Meg is the one who loses everything and Jonas/Marlon’s life seems to be more or less intact. The girls lose their friends and in Meg’s case, her hobby/passion, while the boys are OK. Then the same thing happens later with Eva where P-Chris is just a fuckboy but Eva is a slut. Because the girls are the guilty ones. 

Megan’s homework mentions the “life-changing event happens to Hester when she is in the forest away from her community. What do you think this says about the role of community in the outcome of her life?” hMMMMMM. The next question is also about the story centering around a “strong female character.”

Shay talking to Meg while stretched out on her back sure is quite flirty.

Meg’s parents are arguing and contributing to making her feel like a loser, building up some of that pressure (theeeeeme). She has a survival kit which implies that this is a regular thing and she feels the need to escape a lot. 

I do think Julie is getting in some nice shots of the city and making these teens look all picturesque.

Clip 3 - Sad sad eating alone time

I wish Poonam had a Frozen lunchbox.

I'm wondering what Meg’s and Poonam’s relationship is supposed to be. Are they old friends? Are their parents friends? Are they acquaintances who share a class? Does Poonam just want a sounding board to vent about her busy life? I knew people like that in high school. 

Poonam is self-centered in a rather teenage way, not just in talking about herself and being insensitive, talking about how quitting extra-curriculars makes you a loser, assuming Megan doesn’t care, etc. but also how she ditches Megan to go sit with her choir friends instead of like … inviting Meg to sit with her and the choir kids.

There's the THEME!!! of community again as Poonam encourages Meg to be more social, because people who engage in community have happier, healthier, more successful lives. The clip starts with both Meg and Abby alone, but ends with Meg alone and Abby not, because Abby is part of a community and Meg is not.

Also Meg has to be super checked out not to notice the giant Talent Night posters everywhere, including right next to her. It’s too bad they probably won’t go into this but I feel like she’s depressed on a level that Eva wasn’t, which is likely due to losing not just her friends but also purpose of being on the dance team.

“Talent night is the one night of the year where the entire school comes together to celebrate the foundation of our social hierarchy - sports.” Lol, no it’s not. I guarantee you it’s not, no matter what your school is, but especially not this school where sports appear to be a big deal. Try Homecoming.

Marlon is the worst. The woooorst. It really feels as if he, Shay, and Tyler are a group that Meg is just not in, in a way that I didn’t feel with Eva. Because while Eva was often excluded and was the third wheel to Jonas and Isak, Isak was also in some situations the third wheel to her and Jonas. Megan feels like she’s completely on the outskirts of this group. She’s friendly with Shay but I wouldn’t say that they’re friends, while Eva and Isak had some history and were decently close on their own. Some of the other remakes emphasize this too - in particular Italian Eva and Isak (Martino) feel like great friends in their own right. Plus if Marlon does opt to hang with Megan over his friends, Shay and Tyler still have each other.

But for fuck’s sake, Marlon, why didn’t you ask your girlfriend to get some damn food with you? Unless you didn’t really go for food...

Clip 4 - Conservative

How many times has Meg had to listen to Marlon’s music? Yet when she asks him to go do something with her, he doesn’t want to do it. Dump him.

In terms of Marlon’s comments about sports culture … OK, on the one hand I would say there are bigger issues in sports culture, particularly in high school - for example, how sports gets more funding than any other high school program, just to name one issue. His thing about sports culture being about winners working hard, losers are lazy, is maybe not the most relevant, it’s kind of trite. However, I can see a so-called “woke” teen saying something like that, much like I can see a teenager rhapsodizing about Elsa from Frozen. And I get it, it fits in thematically.

Megan used to be on a sports team (and dance teams often do all kinds of competitions so I’d consider it a sport) and clearly misses it so maybe he should chill. And don’t ask your girlfriend to go with someone else when you know she doesn’t have any friends.

Dump him.

Clip 5 - Talent Night

Besides the dance memorabilia, in her room Meg has a poster for a costume party around Halloween, which is possibly when she hooked up with Jo.

Marlon is the worst!!! Worse than other Jonases!!! At least they canceled ahead of time, Marlon just bails last second to go do something fun he likes. Rude and inconsiderate! He doesn’t even invite her along to the concert (and gives an excuse in the next episode, but dude, if you’re going to CANCEL YOUR ESTABLISHED PLANS AT THE LAST SECOND you should at least ASK).

Plus she really needs an escape from her house at that moment due to her parents’ fighting. Great job, dude. 

The B-roll is nice. Again, good shots of the city.

Discussion was happening on @softnorwegians’ Tumblr about the plausibility of Talent Night in terms of location, setup, importance, etc. and I agree with a lot of the criticisms. I absolutely do not buy an official school-sponsored event taking place at what looks like a bar with no chaperones or adults around. Talent Night would probably be held at the school, in the auditorium or gymnasium. Maybe a community center. Maaaybe at a local coffee shop or restaurant, something like that, but that’s pushing it IMO - there would be so many people there that you need a large venue. This doesn’t seem like a small school. My high school did talent shows and there were always tons of adults present, teachers, parents filming their kids.

Also, Talent Night is typically not to fund sports teams! Talent Night is something put on by student government maybe, or if any school group is going to fundraise from it, it would definitely be the arts programs. Or it would be to raise money for charity. Sports teams already have a bunch of fundraisers, also a lot of them are for the individual teams, like swim team will have one, football will have one, etc. I guess it’s not impossible, but it feels a bit contrived. But there are probably some schools that do Talent Night for the sports teams, IDK. (Also, if it’s for the sports teams ... it seems weird to me that the athletes like Jordan don’t seem involved, either on stage or working at the venue? All fundraising I did for the school clubs/activities I was in, I had to do some actual work for the event - sell tickets, serve food, clean up, etc. Lol, here it seems like the sports teams are just hanging out and reaping the profits while random kids earn some money for them.)

Some of the graffiti in the bathroom: 

Sk8ers gonna Sk8 (I’m blanking on where this came from originally, I think it was on an IG post or text?)

Alt er love

Daniel + Grace

That last one, believe it or not, is what made me interested in reacting to this show. Because Grace is our Noora, there are hints of our William being called Daniel … and yet, what’s the context of that graffiti? It makes no sense when you think about it. New girl Grace surely doesn’t know Daniel. Is that supposed to be a hint to future Noorhelm, or is it a shoutout to something that won’t happen - like is Julie teasing us?

I mean, Grace and Daniel are very very common names, but the choice of graffiti was deliberate as we can tell from the other Skam references.

Lol @ me thinking Julie won’t do Noorhelm again but let me have this for now.

The Facebook/fandom reaction to Grace is an example of one of the worst parts of doing a close remake. If this were a completely new show and no one knew the plot, the reaction would have been, “Oh yay, Megan met someone nice :) Maybe they can be friends :) ”

But because she is supposed to be The Noora, a bunch of people had expectations for how she was supposed to act and (especially) look, and when she didn’t fit their expectations, complained. First of all, Grace was quite pretty to me so I didn’t even understand the backlash on a superficial level. Second, get the actual fuck out if you think any of these girls aren’t attractive enough to be a part of the squad. This show has never been about depicting the hottest, most physically perfect people. In fact that’s a reason people like Skam, that there are a variety of body types, their teeth, skin, and hair aren’t perfect. 

Pointless personal anecdote #2: “Let’s give it up for Natalie on nunchucks” is how I want everyone to greet me when I walk into a room, I’m going to have to start practicing.

Jo is great! So good. “I want to see your dumbass routine.” “Ballet shit?!” That whole bit was awesome. What a true friend.

This was so awkward. Painfully awkward.

General Comments:

The IGs are nice work, I’m sure FB pulled some strings to get the pictures backdated. There are some good clues in them - Meg appearing in the old Kittens pics and the Mannequin challenge, Abby has pictures set in Megan’s bedroom where she has clearly cropped out Megan. Abby and Marlon have pictures of a beach from the same day.

Poonam’s super paranoid text about posting things on IG made me laugh a lot. 

I didn’t talk about the acting. It’s ... not great in a lot of places, and sometimes it takes me out of the scene (especially in the Talent Night clip) but it’s not something I want to focus on a whole lot. The cast appears to be teenagers, many of whom have no acting experience, and I’m not totally comfortable being negative about them (NOT saying that no one can criticize their acting, just that for me personally I feel bad doing it). Besides, the fact of it being a direct remake is the more pressing problem for me. As for positives about the acting, I think Shay and Jo are great and have some natural comedic timing.

I am not rooting for Meg/Marlon at all. At all. No version of Eva/Jonas has induced this much annoyance in me. There’s a lack of chemistry, Marlon is more inconsiderate than the other Jonases, and they don’t seem to have much in common.

Unpopular (?) opinion but I have no problem with naming the Jonas character Marlon, or calling him marlonf9000 on IG. It’s an affectionate homage, sure. I guess my only problem with it is that Marlon the character sucks so far and Marlon the actor deserves better.

Man, I don’t even know what to feel about this show at this point. It feels so surreal. I don’t hate it? I’m not angry at it? I’m disappointed that we have to get yet another S1 more than anything. I actually want this show to succeed, believe it or not - even if I don’t care for it personally, I would rather have a lot of other people love it than not. 

I also feel stupid for making any type of speculation on what could happen! Because we’re going to come up with these elaborate theories about how Julie could adapt the story and take it in a different direction, and it’s likely to be all for nothing and we’ll just watch an awkward redo of a scene we’ve already seen.

I do want to say good job for increasing the cast diversity. That was a main fear, that Skam Austin would be lily-white, and we’ve already got 5 prominent WOC in the cast (including Zoya) which is terrific. 

I don’t take the millions of views on the first clip/first episode super seriously since FB was promoting it pretty hard and I heard something about a three-second rule? I’m more interested in seeing how the viewership on the episodes/clips manifests week by week.

It’s also clear that a lot of viewers were confused by the format and don’t get the concept of real-time clips vs. the compiled weekly episodes, which I can hardly blame them for since it’s not typical. 

[architectnews]

World Trade Center Architecture: WTC Manhattan

World Trade Centre Architecture New York, Manhattan Ground Zero Buildings

New York World Trade Center Architecture

Discussion on the Design of the Freedom Tower in Manhattan, NY, USA

post updated September 11, 2021 ; Mar 15, 2004

9/11 anniversary – 20 years since the 11 September attacks

Manhattan World Trade Center

Memory Marker: Remembrance of Things Past

Article by Adrian Welch, Architect and e-architect Editor

Article written in 2004 for the The Drouth Literary magazine

Any marker to ‘9/11’ must sit in relation to polar opposites: the capitalist drive to extract dollars per sq ft on the site and a desire to leave space for memory of this atrocity. But are these truly irreconcilable opposites or could a creative architect – or team (important distinction) – reconcile these goals partly or even fully?

Ground Zero New York photograph : Andrew McRae, 2007

I won’t dwell on questions of how the site is being parcelled up – the sadly separate competitions for ‘building’ and ‘memorial’ – but the separation is relevant background information. The ‘building’ competition came first probably due to its size and thus fiscal importance. The ‘memorial’ was slotted in afterwards – eight typically minimalist ‘spaces’ shortlisted mostly using water and light. If a creative mind was behind rebuilding this site the two could have been married together.

Pre-Modernism memorials were mostly formal objects – think of Lutyens’ Thiepval Arch in the Somme, memorial to the First World War dead. Modernism brought us simple forms – the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington DC stands out, more recently Libeskind’s Memorial Garden outside his Berlin Museum.

Memorials are described as being places to reminisce, but not normally too vividly: no overt references to falling bodies will appear in the Twin Towers Memorial. To avoid hurt they seem to retract from death and tragedy into abstract pathos or general formality. Memorials inhabit a twilight zone between architecture and sculpture; typically linked to taboo issues – here ‘atrocity’ – they sometimes suffer from lack of critique.

Back to the opening premise: can Libeskind et al make the dollar generator into the memorial, can ‘Freedom Tower’ itself have the required potency? The foot of Manhattan is already a powerful marker for many US immigrants, including members of my own family. Arriving on a ship seeing the towering lights of Mammon and the symbolic Statue of Liberty. The latter has a dual purpose – icon and climbable tourist attraction: how could the ‘Freedom Tower’ express both poles of its duality?

For a start the height of 1776 ft, resonating with America’s Year of Independence, fell flat for me: I expected it to change post-competition and so it did, unusually revised up! The impression is of lip service to the tragedy whilst the fiscal side is worked up in the background: the result is an aim to simply parcel off a patch of prime real estate purely for memory. The Ground Zero site is owned by Larry Silverstein and, with George Pataki, the City Governor, he ran an international architecture competition to find an architect / scheme for the site. The shortlist was whittled down eventually to Daniel Libeskind – radical Polish-born architect – and Rafael Vinõly – a conservative but contemporary architect born in Mexico.

But cries of ‘sell-out to Silverstein’ – especially from relatives – drown out reason: like Swiss Re for London, [after years of IRA bombs] is not the burgeoning tower of real estate the most fitting memorial? It should express city, embody confidence, and emanate determination to progress. The people who died, were primarily part of the bullish capitalist drive to make money: why pretend otherwise, wrap up reality with the cotton wool of disconnected abstraction?

Central to the memorial is symbolism and inscription. From Stonehenge to the humble gravestone we see this. For example Kahn’s 1968 abstract memorial to the ‘Six Million Jewish Martyrs’ proposed for Lower Manhattan contained both – the central pier served as an ohel (chapel), complete with inscription. The written word introduces the personal – the name you can point to, relate to. An unspoken rule of architecture is ‘good buildings don’t need signs’ and, by extension, ‘words’. Yet no architectural memorial seems complete without inscription. ‘Set in stone’ is a phrase to suggest permanency – rootedness is a useful aura when suffering loss. Hope, life after death.

Memorials also of course allow the State, organisations, people to make a statement, exert power, show respect. Just as arguments exist around the extent of ‘respectful’ space around city cathedrals – for example the years of vigorous debate around Paternoster Square’s relationship to St Paul’s Cathedral – so the same applies for memorials: do monuments really need space? Discussion re this site seems to have revolved around the notion of space given over to ‘memorial’: space = respect.

This corollary comes from the public / private opposition that has characterised debate on urbanism for decades: the more ‘public realm’, the greater the developer’s generosity and perceived benefit to the populace. The demand for rent creates maximum development by default. The Public appears to want ‘sacrifice’ where possible. Here the sacrifice could be a viewing platform at the top of ‘Freedom Tower’ a contemplative pool or a square for parades and gathering. The clever bit (in developers’ eyes) is dressing the necessary space around the building (building laws related to light, etc.) as the ‘sacrificial space’.

Monuments were essentially ‘monumental’ in the past [sounds obvious!], hence the textual linkage, i.e. grand and impersonal, arching over singularity to create plurality and collectivist aspirations but mostly subjugation. The Arc de Triomphe, Nelson’s Monument, the Monument to the Great Fire of London all rise above an urban context and dominate the human.

What validates ‘monument’, differentiates it from sculpture or building? Does the ‘title’ matter if you realise there exist ‘living structures’ (The London Eye) and ‘functionless buildings’ (Edinburgh’s National Monument)? The Ground Zero site will be home to one of the most observed memorials ever, trying to come to terms with huge, spectacularly vicious loss of life, and in one of the World’s largest and most popular cities. New York almost epitomises what we think a city should be. The memorial will be a marker for more than atrocity: it will also become a marker for cities, architecture and society.

The agenda of the people, the owner/developer, city and state may all vary. Monuments generally use scale, heroic forms, emblems/icons, metaphor and allusion. The Marker could synthesize function and memory and be emblematic of New York. Empirical institutions and situations of the city stand as allegories of the invisible substance of society as a whole.

Politically the site has to represent unbroken spirit, confidence to progress, unhindered by fears of terrorism but without creating what Giedion termed ‘devaluation of symbols’, empty gestures of civic monumentalism. Monuments should be catalytic. Tension between the ‘opposites’ could be played up or down. Aspirations of State could transmit to surging height or connotations of peace and freedom.

In Rossi’s ‘The Architecture of the City’ he defines monuments as ‘primary elements in the city which are persistent and characteristic urban artifacts. They are distinguished from housing, the other primary element in the city, by their nature as a place of symbolic function, and thus a function related to time, as opposed to a place of conventional function, which is only related to use’. A monument is dialectically related to the city’s growth.

In these days of superfast media the permanence of solid physical memorial may be a welcome antidote, but memorial possibilities have multiplied if NY wanted a more imaginative zeitgeist marker. Loops of crash footage on a massive screen, raining mannequins projected from above, the smell of kerosene and worse, screams and sirens blasted around the site complete with multi-screen slivers of reaction from bereaved families. However, this is not a horror film-set but a place of reconciliation for the bereaved, for East and West, conservative and radical.

Libeskind is working on a book fittingly about ‘tragedy, memory and hope, and the way architecture can reshape human experience’: his asymmetric tower ostensibly follows the Statue of Liberty so unless the forces of commerce puncture this concept, we will have iconoclastic towers forming a lop-sided symbolic gateway. Neither forms a traditional abstract solid, the obelisks, pyramids and towers of the past. The Twin Towers form modern day icons blasted into people’s minds. The Towers were considered by many to be ugly, but they will be a hard act to follow. Memory is what matters most, not built form.

* In 1946 New York State Legislature set up a WTC Corporation to analyse such a facility. The World Trade Centre idea formed in 1960* and preliminary drawings were drawn up by SOM, who slipped in behind Libeskind 43 years later (via David Childs). Michigan-based Minori Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons completed the Twin Towers between 1966 and 1973. Yamasaki had over a hundred schemes, one being a single 150-storey tower. Towers 1 & 2, nicknamed ‘David & Nelson’ after the supportive Rockefeller Brothers became quintessential New York symbols, appearing on a large proportion of postcards.

Author: Adrian Welch is an Architect and runs this website. The New York Freedom Tower article first appeared in The Drouth Literary magazine in 2004

Architectural texts welcome – no limit to words : info(at)e-architect.com

Location: 99 Church Street, New York City, NY, USA

9/11 Architecture

Contemporary 9/11 Architectural Designs

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitors Center, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America Design: Fentress Architects image courtesy of architects practice 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center

September 11th Memorial Building, New York City photo : Jin Lee 9/11 Memorial Museum New York

Architecture in New York City

Contemporary Architecture in New York City

New York City Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York Architecture Walking Tours

Site of World Trade Center New York (destroyed 2001) 1966-73 Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth & Sons

Freedom Tower New York – Site of World Trade Center Ground Zero, Lower Manhattan 2004- Daniel Libeskind Architects + David Childs of SOM Architects Controversial towers to replace the World Trade Centre skyscrapers lost to New York in 2001. The main skyscraper by Libeskind was to be a significant number of feet high – 1,776 ft – to mark a key American date in history – United States Year of Independence; the building was largely handed over to architect David Childs. Designed to be the tallest tower in the world for the site leaseholder – real estate developer Larry Silverstein. The angular design is typical for Libeskind but here echoes the Statue of Liberty. A Snohetta building was also due to appear but the situation is in a state of flux, more online soon – 2006.

Daniel Libeskind was commissioned to design the Freedom Tower after a strongly contested World Trade Center design competition in Feb 2003, beating architects such as Norman Foster and in the end winning a two-strong shortlist.

Freedom Tower New York designer – Daniel Libeskind Architects

Six teams were shortlisted in Sep 2002 out of over 400 submissions, including: Foster + Partners Richard Meier Architect Studio Daniel Libeskind United Architects Think Group

Gehry Partners LLP and Snøhetta were selected as architects for the World Trade Center cultural complex by Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in Dec 2004

Ground Zero – first building now on site SOM Architects 7 World Trade Center

New York Skyscrapers

World Financial Center 1986 Design: Cesar Pelli Architect Including the Winter Garden

World Trade Centre – New Museum Complex, Ground Zero Design: Snohetta, Architects International Freedom Centre + Drawing Centre. Also named the WTC Cultural Center. Snøhetta Architects became well known with their Alexandria library in Egypt which won a major architecture competition. Snøhetta Architects have an architects office in New York based at 50 Broad St World Trade Centre Cultural Center architect : Snøhetta

World Trade Centre site – Ground Zero : News 2006 Richard Rogers Partnership to design Tower 2 Foster & Partners (Norman Foster) to design Tower 3

Norman Foster has recently designed New York skyscraper the Hearst Tower and is designing another, adj. The Seagram Building, so despite losing out in the final shortlist for the World Trade Centre site Foster has done well.

Richard Rogers is working on massive designs for the Jacob Javits Convention Center with controversy in early 2006 when he joined a group opposed to certain Jewish settlements in Palestine

World Trade Center Towers – photos of existing buildings + images of new designs

World Trade Center Architectural Drawings : Wright’s Important Design Auction

World Trade Center New York Competition finalist : Rafael Viñoly

Another featured building by Daniel Libeskind: Creative Media Centre – Hong Kong Buildings

Another New York building by Daniel Libeskind: Condominium tower in Union City, New Jersey

New York Architectural Designs

Contemporary Architecture in New York, USA

New York Architecture News

New York Architect

New York Architecture

New York State Architecture

Comments / photos for the New York World Trade Centre page welcome

Website: Visit New York City

The post World Trade Center Architecture: WTC Manhattan appeared first on e-architect.

[thereallygoodblogshow]

MA Fashion and Textile Practices Major Project Path - 28th May

Having a chat with Jo and filling out my PDP Self Assessment Evaluation Form has really helped me set some structure to my Major Project path. Receiving my feedback for TMA 1409 Processes module also helped me gauge which way my research and practical work should be going, and now I feel I have a relatively clear path ahead of me. 

Looking through my feedback from the processes module there were some great points made which I want to look at:

The comment relating to social media networks and how we communicate as people is an interesting point. Speaking to each other through text speak and emoji’s has lost some of the resonance language can portray, was I using the printed T-Shirt as a poetic vehicle? Or was I wanting to bring back some poetry to the way we communicate? Maybe I am. I am an older person and have embraced social media and communicating through it as an everyday norm, but I do hanker for those communications to say more, and to be said well, maybe my T-Shirts could do that.

The next comment was regarding what archetypes or symbols would future tribes relate to. The space on a T-Shirt is a limited one (although mine will be over-sized, so I have a little more scope than usual) so choosing what and how to say what you want to say is incredibly important. We all relate to symbols - we see logo’s and branding on a daily basis, and ancient symbols still resonate with us today, but which of these speak to future tribes? And how can I incorporate these into my designs?

In my processes blog I had used a music video to make a comment regarding the use of tribal style music within television advertising, and how it could subliminally encourage a sense of togetherness through a brand or product. The comment in my feedback was in regard the association of music and the band T-Shirt, and how as a medium it could also create a sense of belonging - to feel part of a tribe. Looking at Punk for example would be a great place to start as it not only encapsulated an entirely different kind of music, but was a movement, a prolific shift in culture and society - and had the T-Shirts to say as such.  

Looking at the above comments I began to think What is today’s poetry? What words speak to us on many levels and evokes so much emotion? To me it’s music and lyrics! So why not have a T-Shirt covered in song lyrics?! It was only the night before I had watched an episode of the American crime drama/comedy ‘Barry’ which depicts a hit man wanting to change his ways for the better, so he joins a acting class to become an actor. The expected mayhem and hilarity ensues, but there are also moments of real pathos. At the end of that particular episode the end credits music is ‘Smashing Pumpkins  -  Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ which is a great track from their 1995 album ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’. I then have the main chorus line running through my head all evening - ‘Despite all my rage/ I’m still just a rat in a cage’ - and wake up with it in my head the next day.

Smashing Pumpkins [Smashing Pumpkins]. (2011, Aug 2). The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly Wings [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-r-V0uK4u0

To me, that line is saying that we can get angry about the things done to us, we can protest and we can fight, but at the end of it all we are still controlled by governments and overlords. We are like test subjects - likes rats in a cage. Although it’s not all in vain like the song title suggests; we are delivering our message, albeit slowly, and we can still do something as long as we keep protesting and fighting - we will eventually change the status quo. The point is that we have the rage in the first place and are not apathetic to the ones who deem to repress us. 

Another song which sprung to mind was ‘Green Day - Letterbomb’. I had previously mentioned a line from it in my conversation with Jo - ‘Where have all the riots gone?’ - whilst we were discussing why people don’t riot as much any more. The song is taken from Green Day’s multi-platinum selling 2004 album ‘American Idiot’, an album which means a lot to me as I listened to it a lot whilst living in Spain with my husband, and throughout our consequential break-up. The song was not released as a single so there isn’t a official video for it. I found a YouTube video with the track and lyrics which actually works quite well to get the point across.

SrpskiStevieG [SrpskiStevieG]. (2011, Apr 14). Green Day - Letterbomb lyrics [Kinetic Typography] [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjuUMA6W9Zs

I feel this song is a call to power. We know what’s wrong with our society and what we need to do but we have become apathetic to it all. The chorus says ‘It’s not over till you’re underground/It’s not over before it’s too late/This cities burnin’/It’s not my burden/It’s not over before it’s too late’. It’s like a conversation with those apathetic ones, they’re saying what’s going on isn’t their fault, it’s not theirs to worry about but in the meantime society is collapsing all around. Whilst Billy Joe is saying but it’s not over until you die, until then we can all do something to change what we’re unhappy with.   

As I mentioned Punk is one shift in culture stemmed from political and social contestation where we have seen real change, but there are many other areas I can look at. It was suggested that looking at times which have been marked by artistic and creative expression such as Bauhaus, The Pre-Raphaelite’s, Pop Art etc would give a greater sense of purpose to the imagery I could use within my work. What could be the next cultural movement? Why is the use of text and graphics so important to mark these shifts? What events caused us to make these cultural shifts in the first place? Looking at the political agenda at the times of these cultural shifts may serve to address the above questions also. Society is effected by the ruling of the few, so creative expression becomes an outlet for our sentiments and emotions.

Black and white as a medium makes a striking statement, that’s why newspapers are still mostly monotone - with the exception of advertising, and that black text is more legible on a white background. So it was suggested that looking into newspaper posters and advertising would be a good course of research. I immediately thought of human billboards and the vintage black and white photographs they are depicted in. This then led me to think about The Suffragettes and how they used themselves as advertising for their own campaigns and how they and their advertising literature was so graphically noticeable. The same could be said of the protest march banners of today, we all have something to say and to shout about! I feel looking at these areas will serve to strengthen my research path and enable a more realised conclusion. 

I will look back over my first project proposal and see what research areas and methods I still want to continue with, and to incorporate these new paths along with them. It was also suggested within my feedback that I look at the website I had discussed previously as this could be a great platform for my practical work as well as a way to promote myself as a business. I think telling the story of my MA journey could be interesting, and along with some photographs of my finished practical work it could look impactful.

A Blurb book was also mentioned as another way of putting a narrative to my MA path, which is something I may consider. I created a book on Blurb whilst I was on my BA Graphic Design degree course, and it worked rather well, so I will consider this as a possible option further down the line.

My PDP form based on the above responses to my feedback is as below, it also discusses my plans for my practical work as well as the research directions I have mentioned: 

I am feeling excited to see how my practical work will look, I can envisage what I want it to look like but need to get it down on paper. I thought I could do a layout plan on Illustrator of the front and back of each T-Shirt mixing up the fonts and lyrics to get the look I want to achieve. I also thought about hand writing some of the lyrics and well as printing, spraying etc. I have some pieces of leather which I thought I could also use to form some of the text I want to add, so thought I could just apply this with fabric glue for a hand-made ‘punk’ look. With limited funds I will wait until I get paid to buy fabric and more materials I need, but I have acquired my sewing machine so will be ready to go once I have got everything together. I thought planning ahead with layouts on the PC first would help me visualise what I wanted to do and save time with the process later.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

EDITOR’S NOTE: Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday. Below is Jay Nordlinger’s review of the book from the October 10, 2016, issue of National Review. 

Colson Whitehead is an American novelist, born in 1969. He is one of the most praised and honored writers in the country. He has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur “genius grant,” etc. His latest novel been hailed in the Boston Globe as a “fully realized masterpiece.” President Obama announced that it was on his reading list. Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club — which can mean a bonanza. 

(I never thought Al Franken was funny, before or after he was elected to the Senate, but I did smile on reading about the dedication of one of his books: “For Oprah.”) 

The New York Times published a lengthy excerpt of Whitehead’s novel. And reviewers’ copies came with an extraordinary letter, serving as the very first page of the book. The letter was from the editor in chief of Doubleday, who spoke of the book in near-historic terms. “To bring novels like this into the world is the reason we all chose this maddening profession.” UP NEXT UP NEXT In Political Skirmishes, Where are the Police? 00:43 00:54 Powered by Colson Whitehead is a beloved African-American writer who has now penned a sweeping novel of slavery. He is, in a sense, beyond criticism: a Morgan Freeman of letters. Yet he is a man, not a totem, and I bet he appreciates being treated as such. 

This novel, The Underground Railroad, is touched with greatness. It is also touched with okayness. It is an uneven book, with marvelous passages and un-marvelous ones. There are home runs and whiffs. I think of musicians who are brilliant one night and off the next. Other musicians are neither brilliant nor off, ever. 

Whitehead’s book is most successful when it tells its story. It is least successful, I think, when it teaches and preaches — like a social-studies teacher, being sure that you recognize America’s massive sins. Also, I think some of Whitehead’s moral and historical judgments are wrong. But I remember that it’s his book, not mine or yours. 

The Underground Railroad is the story of a young woman, a slave named Cora, who runs away from a plantation in Georgia. The story begins with her grandmother, Ajarry, who has been snatched from Africa. “Two yellow-haired sailors rowed Ajarry out to the ship, humming. White skin like bone.” Before long, her captors rape her. She twice tries to kill herself, “once by denying herself food and then again by drowning.” Telling his story of slavery, Whitehead uses the language of the time, and it can take some getting used to: “buck,” “pickaninny,” and, of course, the worst word of all, “nigger.” Children in slavery are relatively carefree, for a short time. Then they have the joy ground out of them, as Whitehead says. “One day a pickaninny was happy and the next the light was gone from them; in between they had been introduced to a new reality of bondage.” (Whitehead uses pronouns in a modern fashion.)

Let me give you one of the most beautiful, and striking, sentences in the whole book. It’s about a freedwoman who “was meticulous in her posture, a walking spear, in the manner of those who’d been made to bend and will bend no more.” 

In slavery stories, I find, as in Holocaust and other stories, all you need to do is tell it — without gilding the lily. The subject matter, and the attendant events, are horrible enough. Whitehead has one matter-of-fact statement that is a real stunner: “Lucy and Titania never spoke, the former because she chose not to, and the latter because her tongue had been hacked out by a previous owner.” I was stopped by another sentence too — one that explains that two dogs “had been beloved by all, man and nigger alike, even if they couldn’t keep away from the chickens.” In my ear, this echoes Twain (“We blowed out a cylinder-head.” “Good gracious! anybody hurt?” “No’m. Killed a nigger.” “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt”). 

On the plantation, there is non-stop sadism. One day, white people assemble for a picnic. The entertainment, to accompany their eating, is the sight of a black man being tortured to death. Ultimately, he is doused with oil and roasted. Whitehead writes, “The southern white man was spat from the loins of the devil and there was no way to forecast his next evil act.” By the way, the Underground Railroad, in The Underground Railroad, is not a metaphor. 

In due course, Cora makes a run for it, together with a fellow slave. For a while, the novel becomes a thriller. The runaways are chased by the evilest slave-catcher of all, Ridgeway, who, to add insult to injury, has a philosophy: “the American Imperative.” It is the American Imperative, he says, to kill, steal, enslave, and destroy. By the way, the Underground Railroad, in The Underground Railroad, is not a metaphor. It is literal: a network of subterranean tracks, complete with choo-choos, engineers, and so forth. There is such fancy in this novel (a novel being a good place for fancy). 

In South Carolina, the runaways have a respite, doing honorable work among decent white people — or decent-seeming. Actually, the whites are subjecting blacks to eugenics — well before Margaret Sanger. They are also injecting them with syphilis — well before the Tuskegee Experiment. It is in South Carolina, I think, that the narrative grinds to a halt, or at least slows considerably. The author takes to teaching and preaching. He is the social-studies teacher, with one didactic paragraph after another. The evil that Americans did to the Red Man, for example. (In point of fact, some evil ran both ways.) Can’t Whitehead assume that people know this? I was reminded of the sitcoms I grew up on in the 1970s and ’80s, not all of them produced by Norman Lear: always making sure that social points were driven home, in purse-lipped ways. 

As a rule, teaching in a novel should be accidental, I think, not bluntly striven for. 

Whitehead depicts black people strung up in trees, for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see. He dubs this “the Freedom Trail” — thus pouring irony and scorn on the real Freedom Trail, that path in Boston which leads a traveler past hallowed Revolutionary sites. 

In North Carolina, an Irish maid rats out her employers, Martin and Ethel, who have been harboring a fugitive slave (Cora). In explanation, she tells her friends, “A girl’s got to look after her interests if she’s going to get ahead in this country.” Is that the maid talking or Whitehead? I think Whitehead, really, more than his character. 

Earlier, I spoke of moral judgments — and my disagreement with the author. He mocks Ethel for her girlhood desire to serve as a missionary in Africa. Fair enough. Whitehead uses religion as a foil in this book. Again, fair enough. But he mocks the woman after she has been lynched — stoned to death — by a white mob. Is the mocking really necessary, at this point? In the margin of the page, I wrote, “Heartless.” 

Worse, Whitehead equates the white man who wants to rape the slave with the white man who wants to help her — because they both act from selfish purposes, wanting satisfaction. To Whitehead’s style, or modus operandi, I had this objection: Momentous events happen too abruptly, even nonchalantly. 

This book has a point of view, maybe even an agenda: America the misbegotten and irredeemable. The country was built by slaves, with no one else contributing a lick. A hero of the book — probably a spokesman for the author — says, “This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.” 

In the closing two pages, there is a suggestion of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Cora is by the side of the road, badly in need of help. A white couple passes her by (like the priest in the parable). Then comes a young man with red hair and blue eyes. He asks (unlike the Levite) whether the stranger needs help. She shakes her head no, and he moves on. Finally comes the Samaritan, so to speak: “an older negro man,” whose eyes are kind. 

I think back to the opening chapters on slavery — the capture of Ajarry, Cora’s grandmother; Cora’s life on the Georgia plantation. One effect they had on me was to make me wonder, What would I do, if I were enslaved? How much would I comply? How much would I rebel? How much would I risk? Would I run? No one can know the answers, I think. We are lucky enough not to be slaves. 

To Whitehead’s style, or modus operandi, I had this objection: Momentous events happen too abruptly, even nonchalantly. The discovery of a long-hidden fugitive, for example. It’s wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. We need a little . . . space, somehow. 

Also, you know how, in horror movies and other movies, the good guys leave the bad guy alive, instead of killing him off when they have the chance? And you’re screaming, “Don’t leave him alive, he’ll come back!”? The same kind of thing is liable to happen in novels. The calamitous return of the un-killed-off bad guy is a cliché.

I have spoken of one dragging part of The Underground Railroad, and there are others. But, on the whole, the book kept me turning pages. I wanted to find out what happened next. I turned fast, straight through to the end. This may seem like faint praise, especially in light of the treatment that this novel has been accorded. But it is not. Not in my book.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446644/colson-whiteheads-underground-railroad-mixes-greatness-moral-judgment

[englishchinesetranslations]

Alexander Azadgan

“War is the continuation of politics by other means.”  Carl von Clausewitz (Prussian general and military theorist)

We can further deduce from the above Von Clausewitz quote that politics is a continuation of economics by other means. Therefore, it could be argued that war is always a continuation of economics by other means.

Now, let us briefly examine the current situation in Russia. President Putin has been under heavy pressure from outside and inside: Western sanctions and intended oil price crash. Despite efforts by the Rothschild-controlled Central Bank of Russia (hereafter referred to as CBR) and the use of dozens of billions of foreign exchange reserves –   the value of the ruble against the dollar has, therefore ,declined by 39% during the past few years.

There has been much speculation that President Putin may soon nationalize the CBR and the ruble according to his senior advisor and chairman of the Russian parliament’s economic policy committee Yevgeny Fyodorov  in order to raise money for Russia’s now necessary armament projects in what appears as an imposed war on Russia by Washington and NATO.

Under the Constitution, the CBR belongs to a foreign State – the City of London – and is taking orders from London and Washington’s controlled IMF. CBR can only print money corresponding to its cash in foreign currency, that being the dollar, which is not sufficient for Russia’s purposes. The CBR even has to buy the worthless US treasury bonds for the dollars paid for Russian oil – whereby the dollars are returned to the Federal Reserve Bank. This is one of the biggest heists of all time!

Moreover, President Putin is under pressure from the West, which wants to overthrow and replace him with Western-minded puppet oligarchs. Thus, the US ambassador to Moscow, John F.Tefft, is said to have made it very clear in this statement: “We will displace Putin from office and install our own people as leaders of the Russian government.” It was reported that Tefft even mentioned the appointed ministers by name! Therefore, it has now become logical [and necessary] for President Putin to enhance the Russian military and strengthen the already existing alliance with the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) to prevent Russia’s submission to Washington and NATO’s will. Sadly, it has come to this.

Yevgeny Fyodorov said in an interview that a split in the Russian elite has taken place in the last couple of years, as part of the elite have decided to stay with President Putin who then made his decision which defines the events to follow. Furthermore, the logic of:

1) A state of emergency, or

2) A geopolitical war entered into force, while Russia feels under pressure.

What this means is:

1) Washington cannot [and will not] diminish its pressure especially if the war-monger Hillary Clinton is installed into office, while

2) The pressure on Russia forces it to technologically evolve into a national liberation movement. For example, for many years, Russia could not obtain de-offshoring technology, but thanks to the pressures from Washington’s sanctions, Russia is now well into domesticating this task.

So what’s next? President Putin must now methodically clean the 5th column. That means the West-toxified liberals in the CBR, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Economy.

But above all, President Putin sees the West as the big speculator against the ruble. To put the plan straightforward:

1) A split in the government,

2) Identification of the 5th column in various branches of the government,

3) Identification of the 5th column in the media,

4) A parallel and active position on the Ukraine, because Ukraine and Russia’s ships must sail in the same direction for the good of all.

Nationalization of the CBR would be the first signal and the means to implement the final breach with the Rothschild’s City of London gangsters and its implementation arm, Washington. This Relationship has been tense since President Putin’s seizure of the Rothschild/ Chodorkowsky’s Yukos shares. Therefore, President Putin hesitates with the nationalization. He also still needs authorization to enforce his plan as the president of the Russian Federation. For this, he needs a “great necessity” which is apparently imminent because of Washington’s aggressions via the NATO.

Returning from the 2014 G20 meeting in Brisbane, President Putin said, “US wants to subdue Russia, but no one has ever done or would ever do.” It appears that this statement has a much deeper, existential dimension – not only for Russia, but for the entire world!

Moscow Times has been quoted by stating that President Putin has been under tremendous internal and external pressure to the extent that he must become “another Stalin“ in order for him and for  Russia to survive the Western isolation efforts and the economic war currently waged on Russia.  This means a final (staged) breach with the Rothschilds crime syndicate via Washington– after the first schism due to the Khodorkovsky - Yukos share confiscation by President Putin.

It is now evident that the CBR is Rothschild’s pincers on Russia and on President Putin’s leadership per se. CBR is a member of Rothschild’s BIS (Bank of International Settlements) which is the central bank of central banks located in Basel, Switzerland – of course.

The Rothschild banking power structure controls the CBR via the US Federal Reserve Bank, i.e. making the CBR unable to print more rubles than corresponding to its supply of foreign exchange. Russia sells oil for dollars. For the dollars, Russia buys US bonds, whereby the dollars return to the US Fed. This in really is theft! As such, the Fed is squeezing the Russian economy in a grand game of vice and illusion.

Russia’s monetary policy has until now been jointly determined by the Fed and the People’s Bank of China (PBC). This means that CBR has never really been in control of neither the ruble nor am independent Russian monetary policy. CBR can only defend against these entities by limiting its foreign exchange reserves, which are finite.

In spite of Yevgeny Fyodorov’s statement of nationalization of the private CBR, President Putin is cautiously reluctant to interfere with Rothschild’s CBR grip on Russia – at least for the time being.

CBR’s CEO Elvira Nabiullina, 49, has served as the country’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade since September, 2007 before becoming Vladimir Putin’s aide in May 2012. Now President Putin demands the impossible from her: to stop the decline of the ruble.

Ever emboldened by its totally illegal regime change policies in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc., Washington and its allies are now foolishly pursuing the same in Russia. Mikhail Fradkov, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), warned that Moscow is aware of US’s moves to oust President Putin from power. The ruble has lost approximately 40% of its value against the dollar in the past several years. (Business Insider, May 2, 2016). Nevertheless, President Putin still feels under heavy pressure from the West, as the West seems to stop at nothing.

Deutche Welle reported on Dec.6 2015: Vladimir Putin wants to take action against ruble speculators:  “External enemies” would try “to force Russia to her knees. We have asked the central bank to take measures to ensure that the speculators cannot benefit anymore,” the Financial Times quoted the Russian President as saying. “We know who these people are.” He classifies the entire West to be the author of anti-Russian actions. “It’s been that way for centuries.”

Russia Insider quoted President Putin on Dec. 5 2015 as saying, “Those whom we considered our friends from across the pond, they would gladly let Russia follow the Yugoslav scenario of disintegration. It did not work. Just as it did not work for Hitler, who set out to destroy Russia and push us back beyond the Urals. Everyone should remember how that ended.”

“No one will ever attain military superiority over Russia. We have a modern and combat ready army, a formidable army. We have the strength, will and courage to protect our freedom. Some governments attempt to create a new iron curtain around Russia” (The Grand Chessboard).

In my opinion what we are seeing is a big “coming out”. It is painfully clear that Russia considers Washington to be an arrogant bully whom Russia can stop and that Russia considers the regimes in power in the EU as voiceless colonies. Washington is too arrogant and the Europeans are too spineless.

The Kremlin has given up any hope of achieving anything through any kind of dialog.

From now on, Russia will mostly rely on unilateral actions. These actions will always come as a shock and a surprise to the Western plutocracies. This will be a long cold war and it will only end when one of the two sides basically breaks down and collapses. Now Russia is preparing for war, but she does not want this war; it is being imposed on her!

CNN Money reported on Dec. 3 2015:  Yevgeny Fyodorov, a senior member of President Vladimir Putin’s party and chairman of the Russian parliament’s economic policy committee, accused the central bank of sabotage, telling local media that it was “an institutional enemy of the country.”

The bank is now being investigated by state prosecutors as a result. The bank’s biggest crime is failing to prevent the ruble from plunging – despite spending tens of billions of foreign currency reserves trying to prop it up.

Western sanctions froze investment and raised funding costs. The crisis has sparked a flight of capital — some $150 billion is expected to leave the country this year. Another $80 billion could follow in 2017.

Russia has been taking another big knock from the sharp fall in oil prices in the past few years. Revenues from oil and gas make up nearly half the Russian state budget. As revenues fall, the currency weakens further. This drives up inflation, forcing the CBR to jack up interest rates, exacerbating thereby depressing activity.

But Yevgeny Fyodorov has more to reveal: Wiki Spooks 3 Sept. 2015: He cited the unrelenting aggressive posture and actions by the West as having reached a stage where some in the Kremlin and other state institutions who decline to demonstrate appropriate national loyalty will have to be purged from leadership positions – the alternative being capitulation to the West.

“Our Central Bank, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economics, are driving us along the road to destruction of the Russian economy, because they are executing the orders of Washington and London”, Yevgeny Fyodorov has said.

Russia needs to return to a classical economy, nationalization of the ruble, discontinue the practice of currency reserves, and conduct accelerated de-off-shoring. That means freezing the assets of those who do not want to de-offshore which means all of the major foreign-owned businesses [of the foe nations] in Russia, Sadly, it has come to that.

Next, it’s just a question of when President Putin will get the revolutionary authority for a purge. That is a power that he currently does not have. We’re talking about an act directly contradicting the Constitution.  This is something that will have to be legalized under legislation which will be passed by the Duma, giving President Putin special powers. Or else, there could be a referendum, in which the people give him those powers if they chose so. But it has to be done and it has to be done soon.

We recognize that the purge will begin. It doesn’t involve ejecting people. This purge does not intend to remove Alexey Simanovsky (left - Central Bank First Deputy Chairman) from the CBR. However, he will be chased out with sticks when he severely damages the interests of the Russian population and the Russian economy.

Again, US Ambassador in Russia John Tefft has clearly stated, “We’re going to force out Putin and appoint our people as the leader of the government and the ministers”. This was the scenario in Kiev.”

President Putin gathered the deputies in Yalta and looked each of them in the eye to ensure they wouldn’t get cold feet. And being thus strengthened, President Putin’s decision pre-determines the subsequent events.

Next, the Americans attempted to break the situation using the Boeing incident – but failed. On the contrary, the Russian national path began to strengthen. At this point, it was clear to all, that:

1) Either President Putin had to go to the Hague where the Americans would have conducted a forceful trial, leading to the destruction of Russia and the further disempowerment of the Russian population,

2) Or else, there will form a system of resistance to the actual foreign invasion. A dynamic has now begun, which pushes President Putin in that direction:

a) The purge,

b) Building a national economy

c) Re-industrialization.

This brings us back to CBR which won’t allow the money to be lent to President Putin’s above-stated three objectives. As soon as the CBR and the ruble are nationalized, entrepreneurs can be granted business savvy loans.

As stated earlier, under the Constitution, CBR (for all practical purposes) works for a foreign state, i.e. Federal Reserve, City of London, and other Rothschild entities.

With those words, President Putin has defined his position and Russia’s strategy. It will all begin with certain mechanisms like nationalization of the CBR due to a necessity that doesn’t have to be far off because Washington is charging with frightful force. The Americans are not going to save anyone.  They only need oligarchs while Russia is a formidable challenge for them which they intend to solve by dissolution of the state – Yugoslavia styled. After that, it has now become crystal clear that Washington fully intends to construct an absolutely brutal, not just colonial, but an enslaved world!  

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Kolionovo v. Usury: a Lesson for the World

Russian Orthodox Church against liberal globalization, usury, dollar hegemony, and neocolonialism

Tradition and Usury: the Perennial Conflict

[holmquistewduckettwq53insur-blog]

immigrants can’t afford insurance

immigrants can t afford insurance

immigrants can t afford insurance

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immigrants can t afford insurance

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immigrants can t afford insurance

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

There is something growing in society. Perhaps it’s always been there and perhaps it has its purpose but with social media, the internet's connectivity and all that it is becoming more pronounced. I personally refer to it as “Burning Everything You love” it's commonly connected to the Hipster Culture; where they are hypercritical of things they are themselves involved in and take ownership of said thing while simultaneously tearing it down and of course denying others access to that same passion. Truth be told while Hipsters are the easy target,  society collectively picks on them because of this but a majority of people engage in this behavior themselves (especially those who hate hipsters if only because they see their own reflection).

This BEYL mentality is something we all seem to enjoy indulging in. Myself included reviewing movies, games, shows, and so on picking them apart instead of simply enjoying them for being apart of my world. I am guilty of letting this side of me run rampant once or twice hating things that I had no reason to hate on or become overly critical of things I truly love. This form of criticism can be healthy in the sense that we can use it to examine things and explore how we might improve them, however, if left unchecked (without purpose or function) it becomes like a cancer of the mind and begins to rip into everything we know.

It’s how fanboys of Star Wars take 30+ year obsession and become the biggest haters of the new movies for both a collection of valid and invalid reasons. It how progressive-minded people can be coaxed into believing that their party is NOT for them and suddenly find themselves associating with the alt-right and embracing apathy. It starts to gnaw at healthy relationships like a dog with a bone. It launches a meme culture that is all about trolling instead of uplifting people. It is Criticism with no function or purpose and dare I say its very toxic and highly addictive. So let's delve into the topic of Burning Everything You Love and see if we can reflect on this nasty social habit we all see online and in politics.

Critically Protective 

There are three glaring examples of Criticism in my mind in regards to BEYL: Protective, Possessive, and Destructive. Being Critically Protective is not always a bad thing. This is where healthy fandom exists, you love a thing there for you wish to see to respected and protected. This sort of criticism reflects on history, lore, previously set expectations, and so on. Its the reason why I said: “Why is the Stormtrooper black?” not because I had an issue with Finn but because we operated under the history that Stormtroopers were clones of Jango Fett. When they covered the history of switching from a clone army to using kids my criticism was immediately satisfied and had no reason to complain. People who held onto that criticism coldly might have been overly possessive or even destructive (racist) in their reasons for doing so.

Another element of being Critically Protective is caring for established lore. Using Star Wars again (I will do this a lot since it works for this subject) Disney decided to scrub the extended universe of all non-movie or cartoon related storylines. This naturally upset lots of fans who felt as though someone (or this case a large company) just invalidated their childhood in a big way. Being critically protective isn't always reflected inward on the material that fans analyze and review but it also reflects outwards at others who would see to adjust things as they see fit with no regards to how people might feel.

Critically Possessive

The Possessive element is the first taste of toxicity that people have. A sample statement of toxicity would be “I was into Star Wars before you were born”. They claim a seniority or ownership to the content. Males certainly embraced these geeky fandoms in a bigger way than women but girls are getting more and more into these fictions become a significant part of the base. This Critical Possessiveness tries to repel new people age, gender, and even race. The Possessive mentality locks in the expectations of the series and are highly critical to anyone or anything trying to change things. Its hard to tell just where a person is on a spectrum because they might get upset with Space Leia flying around like Superman after her bridge gets blown up (I even hated that scene) which puts them closer to Protective because the lore/rules of the force has kinda already been established for the community and someone was taking some big creative license. On the other end, people might possessive of the male-centric dynamic and slip into a destructive mindset when a bigger female presence is adopted into the movies which is plain sexism.

Critically Destructive

Being Critically Destructive is quite simply embracing the dark side. Hating on the movies for the sake of hating on it because it makes you feel important. I am ashamed to say I have done this in the past hating the Twilight series for being a vampire romance having never read the books or seen the movies. I don’t know why I hated on those movies or what purpose it served me to shake my fist at them. I was perhaps Protective of the Vampire lore of burning in sunlight instead of sparkling like a disco ball but that's a poor excuse to become destructive.

This sort of unhealthy criticism finds itself home in many forms regardless of gender or age. I would argue the largest antidote to this is maturity but some people never grow up. It’s why some people will always hate Justin Bieber, will troll strangers online and seek out ways to upset people who have passions they care deeply about. It no longer seeks to protect the thing that they loved but instead, feasts on corpses defeated fandoms. I think back to the most recent vore fest which was Mass Effect Andromeda, former fans smelling blood in the water wanted to see it fail and started shitting on a game for have bugs. The former ME games also had bugs yet we let that slide because we loved what was delivered to us. Something changed among the people who loved Mass Effect and we suddenly became social piranas becoming Critically Destructive and forcing Bioware to shelf the next installment.

Healthy Criticism

Criticism only serves a purpose when seek to make suggestions on how to improve or protect the things we love. Imagine if you will your favorite movie or video game was in your hands and you took a crack at writing the next chapter. You put your twist to it and try to make it both new yet familiar to the people who enjoyed the previous works. Would you prefer the review of your work to be “Wrong? Lame. Impossible. Fucking Stupid, You Suck.” or would you rather have “What did you mean by this? The force can’t reach across space. We can improve on this scene.“ One clearly exists to pull you down which is Destructive Criticism and the other thoughtfully combs thru your work asking questions that are protective and caring for the story.

So long as we understand why we are being critical of certain elements and are willing to help improve on those things as good critics do. Then indulging in this sort of Criticism is ok.

Reflection on BEYL

I have existed on both ends of the spectrum in regards to this. Hating on musicians, movies, or books; I never heard, seen or read. At the same time, I have gotten wiser with age and learned to be critical of the right things by letting the movie correct me if I approached it with a misconception. I did this with Black Panther wondering why they would isolate themselves in their advanced city while the world in chaos which my critique was quickly resolved when it became apparent that was one of the main themes of the movie. I learned to put things into their proper places understanding not everything must go through an unforgiving review process as it was meant to entertain not be work of art. Watch any of the Fast of the Furious movies, really fun to watch if you aren't trying to pick them apart. 

I can't always turn off the critique in me but understanding if I becoming possessive or even needlessly destructive is the sort of reflection we can all benefit from. Maybe we will come to realize that we have all become too comfortable attacking the various fandoms we love. Perhaps we will also learn to listen to those who protect those fandoms and realize their critiques come from a good place (sometimes). That their opinions stop companies (gaming, movie,TV, etc) from doing what they want because let's be honest the people who hate all critics are the ones at the top who care more about a box office hit then respecting the lore. Thanks for reading.

Regards Michael California