#this new law is only designed to fuck over blue collar workers

[the-bibrarian]

“The EU average stands at 64.3 years for men and 63.5 years for women. In France, the current retirement age is 64.5 years for both men and women, according to the OECD dataset. This means that France has a slightly higher retirement age than the EU average.”

Source : euronews.com

The absolute fucking irony

[moro-nokimi]

why light’s class matters

and no, i’m not talking about light’s political science or english classes, i mean the ones we’re sorted into by how much money we or our parents make per year. buckle up

socio-economic class is three tiers: the working class, middle class, and upper class. between that, there’s also the “-collar” designations -- blue collar (manual labor), white collar (office labor), pink collar (“women’s work” typical jobs like nursing, teaching, childcare), grey collar (not white or blue collar, or sometimes post-age of retirement workers), and green collar (environmental labor, like environmental consultants).

income equity in japan is fair (nippon.com), with a Gini coefficient of .5594 in 2017. the Gini coefficient measures an amount between 0 and 1. the closer to one, the higher amount of income inequality. fairly middle of the road compared to the area between .61 and .68 in the rest of the world.

equity in japan is still there: compared to the US and UK, CEO pay is considerably less; JP firm CEOs with revenue over a trillion yen take home less than 100 million yen (715,000 pounds, or 917,838.35 USD), which is literally less than a tenth of US competitors, and less than a fifth of UK competitors. 

however, according to another article from the guardian, 

Japan now has some of the worst wealth inequality and highest rates of child poverty in the developed world, according to a Unicef report released in April that ranked Japan 34th out of 41 industrialised countries. 

to be clear, poverty across the board is. 16%. in comparison, the poverty rate for the US and UK is 11.8% and 20%.

we don’t learn a whole lot about the sheer amount of money that soichiro (a white or grey collar worker) brings home but based on the house and that the yagamis comfortably have a stay at home mother, we can say that he’s middle class (upper middle class, imo). if the stats i got are correct, soichiro's annual salary in 2003 would be around 82,558 USD - 115,669 USD in 2020 money.

however, the motive behind crimes being committed isn’t as cut and dry as them Refusing To Be Better Than Their Circumstances or Just For Shits And Giggles; many commit crimes like petty theft of formula so their child can eat, or steal tampons because they ran out last month. children in particularly impoverished areas (read: heavily Black)* join gangs for some sense of belonging. cops will straight up fudge charges for quotas (adrian schoolcraft and the NYPD tapes) for ticketing people or plant illegal substances on detainees. 

light is not only removed from the people being killed by virtue of his socioeconomic status, but because his dad is a cop. not only has he had no exposure to crime, he also sees people who commit crimes as people who are helpless to continue the cycle of shittiness they’re in.

crime is, frankly, relative. not only because laws being written are unjust (see: marital rape was completely legal in all 50 states until 1993), but because the enforcement of these laws disproportionately targets anyone who isn’t white, and especially Black, in the US. i shouldn’t even have to provide sources for this shit, it’s been news since may. 

Kira is a worldwide death penalty, which i have talked ab before as being unjust and disproportionately racist in the US. but since we’re not talking ab the US and many states have a moratorium on capital punishment, let’s talk about japan. 

there were no statistics i could find that were from a trustworthy source about how often the death penalty is used, but according to CNN, the most recent executions were carried out in august 2019. japan and the US are the only countries who (semi-) regularly carry out capital punishment. considering the 99% conviction rate in japan, it’s not a stretch to say that there are at least a few people who are innocent on death row. 

light’s entire POV is informed by his father’s job, his environment in japan’s criminal justice system, and how sheltered he is bc of his class.  if you’re pro-Kira, not only are you seeing that POV and not realizing how fucked up it is, it implies that you don’t see incarcerated individuals as deserving of life.

* i say heavily Black because in the US, there’s this funky thing called redlining. banks would deny mortgages to BIPOC and shoehorn them into underdeveloped areas near industrial plants (google cancer alley at some point), houses with lead paint, poorly funded schools, etc; and in combination with White Flight (the term where loads of Black families move into a formerly white neighborhood and all the white people haul ass out), we end up with low income nbhds where it isn’t unusual to hear police sirens everyday

TLDR of that point, Black people are systemically poorer than white people bc of redlining and white flight, so poor areas end up being heavily policed regardless of race.

[team-science-mega-nerds]

Fictober Prompt #19: “Yes, I admit it, you were right.” 

Fandom: Supergirl

Pairing: Danvarias

Warnings: Minor mentions of drug use

Thirteen miles from a bustling city with a designer landscape, quaint eateries, and a baseball team that nearly became the pride of Ohio is a rural blip on the map that is better left ignored. Duntown, which the residents resentfully call Doomstown, is a place that makes you reckon with reality. Ramshackle churches and hate crimes that people struggle to name, the folks of this city fear everything they do not know. For most that means outsiders. They turn up their noses and yell out the windows of their pick-up trucks. Go back where you came from! For some, their greatest fear is the only thing they’ve ever known - church. They drag themselves to Sunday service, seeking forgiveness for the things they cannot control. 

The two most popular places in Duntown are a local bar that serves stale beer and moonshine - if you know how to ask just right - and a weekly flea market that sets up in the parking lot of the local high school. Tents and tables are propped up around potholes that will never be fixed and people banter and barter their mundane little lives away. 

The biggest plight of the city takes everyone by surprise. It happens so fast that people struggle to make time between work - at a fading steel mill - and Sunday’s services to figure out exactly what’s going on. It’s a funeral of all things that sparks the interest of the collective town. Watching their children play in a field that they will probably never grow out of and eating bologna sandwiches and salad that’s nothing but iceberg lettuce and croutons, Sam’s entire life changes. 

“Went to water my plants this morning. That darn water,” Deborah says shaking her head, “looked like someone done pissed in it.” It’s the way she says it, all bite and resolute, apprehension comes to a head. That’s what catches Sam’s attention. It seems like just another thing to fear, another thorn in her side. Sam’s eyes go to Ruby, she’s laughing and playing tag with her friends. Ruby’s at that age where youth slowly starts to crumble and she’ll become aware of the world around her. 

Sam can see Tuffy and John sitting near a makeshift shrine of Kevin. They drink and drink, saluting their dead friend who perished on a normal workday at the mill. To date, Sam had been to seven funerals of people she’d known from high school. They all died in the same place, all had funerals presided over by the same poverty-stricken mourners, and all had after funeral receptions just like this. Tuffy and John smoked meth behind Mrs. Ainsley’s - Kevin’s mother - car. And all this was normal. All this met Sam’s expectations. 

Water that she had to boil before drinking did not. 

Deborah had made the comment about the drinking water six months ago and now, Sam seemed to be the only one brave enough to do something about it. Her bravery was, in fact, an accident. She’d been weaving in and out of her trailer home, trying to carry all of the groceries that she’d purchased at Costco six towns over. Ruby was supposed to be taking a bath and then going right to bed, Sam didn’t want to argue about it. Not today. 

It’d been a long road, getting where they are now. Borrowing from people she despised, working extra shifts at the grocery store, and relying on nosy neighbors to babysit. Sam, you’re a pretty girl. They’ve got some good men at the mill. She’d got a daily reminder of just how cute she was by handsy men, most of whom would go on to live and die at that very mill. Now that Sam and Ruby had a place of their own, things were starting to look up. “Mom. Mom!” Sam grabs four bags at once and rushes inside. She dumps the bags and throws the bathroom door open. 

“Oh, Rubes,” It’s a rash, tiny and probably inconsequential, but Sam has promised herself to always put Ruby first. Yellow water that has been slowly turning brown for months, and a rash, are enough to get Sam to make a call. 

The call itself goes terribly. She doesn’t know who to ask for or how to ask for what she wants. The secretary on the other end uses big words that feel suffocating. All Sam wants is to be safe. “Do you understand? I need you to send someone who can help us feel safe.” Sam feels like she blew it the moment she hangs up. She deeply considers moving. The cost is far outside of her reach but if she asks the right people and is willing to speak to her mother again, then she can make it happen. 

“Someone sent you an email!” Bernice, who everyone just calls Bezza, yells from where she’s seated in front of her trailer. Rocking and knitting like always. Sam approaches with Ruby at her side. “Remember when you showed me how to use the ‘Gmail’? Well, I guess your account is still up. The noise that email made, scared me to hell and back.”

“Who’s it from?” Sam can’t remember the last time she’d gotten an email that wasn’t about her missing a bill. 

“Some law firm.” Sam nearly trips on herself as she runs into Bezza’s trailer. She pushes past mounds of newspapers and boxes of old junk and finds her desktop computer. Sam bites her nails while she waits for the computer to wake up. She listens to Bezza tell Ruby about all of her fantastic finds at the flea market that week. Sam feels nauseous. 

When she finally manages to get to her email, Sam has to rifle through a bunch of spam and late fee notices to get to an email from Danvers & Danvers Law Offices: 

Dear Ms. Arias, 

I’ve received some initial information about Duntown and I am concerned about the lack of progress being made on behalf of your town. I’d like to come and talk to you sometime within the next few weeks. Please send me a list of dates and times that you are available to meet and we will work something out.

Alex Danvers LL.M. 

Sam rereads the email five times before typing out her response. She’s embarrassed that she’s only free to meet after eight most days, but she leaves room for other suggestions like a phone call. She sends the email and immediately gets a response. They’ll meet at The Tipsy Cow at 8:30 the following day. “Mom, you took like fifty years,” Ruby, who is far too aware and mature for a nine-year-old, says as they walk back to their trailer. “Bezza smells like mothballs.” Ruby hops up the steps one by one and they enter and both go in search of something that will pass for dinner. 

“I had to answer an email,” Sam explains. “Don’t comment on how people smell unless it’s nice.” 

“I like moths.” Ruby finds an apple in the fridge and munches on that while Sam gets to work on Hamburger Helper. “Who emailed? Delany’s mom got a new boyfriend. They went to Chicago for the weekend.” Sam wishes she could tell Ruby that Delany’s mom’s new boyfriend is an alcoholic who has questionable world views. Instead, she remains silent. “Can we go to Chicago?” 

“Someday.”

“There’s a giant bean there!” Ruby gets lost in an old Almanac, Sam starts to think that she’s made a grave mistake. Big corporations don’t take too kindly to meddling women. Sam’s a nobody, she knows that and what kind of lawyer travels all the way from National City just to talk? If Sam had a computer of her own, she’d email this Alex Danvers right now, and tell him to forget it. But dinner and bedtime stories get in the way of those thoughts. 

Sam is hunkered down at work just enough to forget all about it until it’s six-thirty and Ruby is asking why she has to stay at Deborah’s house that night. “I have to meet someone and I don’t know how long it’ll take. You like Deborah.”

“I like you more,” Ruby tells her pouting and sulking the whole walk over. The minute they arrive at the ranch house, Ruby sees Scout, an Australian Shepherd mix, and she forgets all of her misgivings. 

“Everything alright?” Deborah asks as they both watch Ruby, and her oversized backpack, bouncing around the yard. “You finally meeting someone?”

“A lawyer. Just to talk about the water situation.”

Deborah turns very serious. “You be careful now,” She warns, echoing the same tone that Sam’s mother had when she told her about this last night. Sam kisses Ruby goodbye and returns home to change into something more presentable. She settles for a turquoise shift dress and white platform sandals. The bar is close which is good for most people in the trailer community but terrible for Sam. On more than one occasion, there have been fights that have broken out right outside of Sam’s window. For now, she considers it a good thing that she lives so close, otherwise, she might have been late. 

The Tipsy Cow represents all the good and bad of the town. Everyone certainly knows everyone but that means that things often boil over and get heated in these very walls. Sam normally wouldn’t be caught dead alone in this place but it’s 8:30 and she doesn’t think she’ll have to wait long. 

Unless this big city lawyer is late. 

Sam orders a club soda and finds a booth in the back. They’ll need a quiet place to talk and there are too many mill workers crowding the bar and watching some baseball game that Sam could care less about. There’s a little bit of a lull, which Sam hardly notices until one of the mill workers barks - yes, barks - at a woman who’s just entered the bar. That kind of ruckus signals outsider, so Sam lifts her head to see what’s going on. The woman is wearing a grandad collar white button-up, mid-wash blue jeans, and a blazer that could probably pay off Sam’s mortgage. The briefcase is the thing that catches Sam’s attention the most. 

Oh, she sits up properly, Alex Danvers is a woman. 

Alex doesn’t notice Sam just yet. She checks her expensive watch, mutters fuck, and orders something from the bar. When Sam sees the bartender going for the tap, Sam rises to her feet and approaches. “I’d advise against that.” Alex turns looks between Sam and the bartender and taps her head as if to say ‘duh’. 

“Long drive. The brain’s on autopilot.” Alex motions to the bartender. “I’ll take a soda.” 

“We say pop around here,” Sam informs the lawyer. Once Alex has her soda, she follows Sam to the booth, and extends her hand. “So, you’re Alex.”

“Yep. And you’re Sam?”

“Yes.” Sam sits first. Alex slides her briefcase into the seat across from Sam and takes off her blazer before sitting. 

“Am I late?”

“Only by a few minutes.” Sam smiles. “I see you got a good Doomstown welcome,”

“Doomstown?”

“This place. It’s a nickname of sorts.” Alex frowns. 

“Doesn’t look doomed from where I’m sitting.” Sam toys with her straw trying not to get distracted by Alex placing her briefcase on the table. Alex pulls out a few documents and sets them on the table. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Coores & Phillips Company seems to be the main corp involved. They have the proper ordinances to drill in Cook and Favors county, but as you know, they’ve been drilling near the border here.” Alex goes to take a drink of her soda, but Sam reaches forward and grabs the glass first. “What?” 

“Don’t drink that.” 

“What’s wrong with it?” 

“The bartender put moonshine in that.” Sam quickly lets go of the glass when she realizes that their fingers are touching. Alex laughs, uncomfortably, at the very suggestion that she’d get her drink spiked. “I’m serious.” 

“I can handle my liquor.”

“Don’t be...stupid. We’ve got no-joke moonshine out here.” There’s a competitive drive in Alex. Sam imagines that makes for some magic in the courtroom. “Those papers can tell you plenty but not enough. This place isn’t some cute little town that needs big city saving. It’s been six months, soon people are going to start fighting back.” 

“And how would they? Fight back I mean.” 

“You see those guys?” Sam nods toward the men at the bar, cheering for a homerun. “When they’re not working, they’re drinking. And if they’re drinking and on crank, then guns get involved.”

“We’ll need a town hall meeting. Something to show everyone that the problems are being addressed.” Alex takes a sip of her drink and grimaces. “We did a case in Texas two years ago. A nice settlement too.” 

“How much were the lawyer fees?”

Alex shakes her head. “No, no, nothing like that. This is pro-bono-.”

“I’ll pay. We’ll scrape money together. I’m not a charity case.” Alex seems to recognize Sam’s seriousness, so she lets it go in favor of mulling something over in her mind. 

“Show me.” 

“Show you...what?” 

“This town. Show me what I’m missing.” Alex pays for their drinks and manages to polish off the rest of her soda before following Sam out of the bar. They get another bark on their way to Alex’s car, Sam turns sharply. 

“Fuck off!” She warns. She’s seen these guys before. Heard their poor pickup lines. She won’t let them bully what might be their saving grace. 

“Oh, mommy’s pissed,” One of them says as Alex unlocks her car. Alex looks like she might say something, but Sam grabs her arm and continues to pull her along. When they’re in Alex’s SUV, which is a black Porsche Cayenne, Alex looks over at her sympathetically. 

“You have a kid?” 

“A daughter.” Alex will probably ask more but for now, she drives out of the parking lot and down the road. “Nice car.”

“Thanks,” Alex says a slight smile on her face. 

“I was being sarcastic, you can’t drive this thing around.” Sam points to her trailer which is only a block away. “You need to pull over there. You can park by my place.” Alex follows directions well but seems less than eager when they get out of the car and start walking. “Don’t worry.” 

“I’m not worried,” Alex lies. They approach the church. Sam hasn’t stepped foot in there in four years and counting. Alex seems to acknowledge her jitters by slowing near the front door. “This the kind of place for you?”

“Girls like me avoid places like that,” Sam tells her. “Didn’t always. Things change.” The streets are quiet on the weeknights. The further you get from the bar, the easier it is to forget what kind of town this is. Sam glances up at the sky, the pollution from the mill has changed the whole world from Sam’s perspective. She doesn’t want Ruby growing up in a place without stars and with rusty water. “You shouldn’t take this case.”

“Why not?”

“I saw the way you looked at those guys. Like you wanted to say something or fight.” Sam stops Alex before they reach the long pathway that leads to the mill. “But you didn’t.”

“I would’ve. Easily. You don’t know me.” Alex sticks her hands in her pockets. “My mom would say that this is a lost cause. That we’ll get buried under big corporate lawyers, but our firm is solid. We’ll get you paid-.”

“If you think any of this is about money, then you don’t understand.”

“I do understand.” Alex touches the small of Sam’s back. She isn’t certain what to make of the gesture but she’ll remember it in case things take a turn for the worst. “Whoa.” Alex bends over with her hands on her knees. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“That moonshine.”

“Oh,” Sam laughs. “Yeah, it takes a bit to bite you like that.” Sam wraps her arm under Alex’s shoulder and guides her back down the road. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I could just use some water, which...I recognize is a problem.” 

“I have bottled water at home.” Even though they’re strangers, Sam feels comfortable enough with Alex to invite her into her trailer. For one, there’s nothing worth stealing in the place. And two, Alex has just decided to put so much on the line to help out. Sam wishes she’d cleaned up more. Or maybe folded up her couch so it would look like there was more space but Alex seems mainly focused on water, so Sam buries her shame. 

“Thanks,” Alex mumbles as she leans against the counter and downs half the bottle. Sam tries not to stare when Alex untucks her shirt and looks around the modest kitchen. 

“I told you not to drink that shit.”

“Okay, yes, I admit it. You were right.” Alex shrugs it off. Sam sits at the tiny wooden table and starts unlatching her sandals. When she’s finished and looks back up at Alex, she’s struck by the fact that Alex’s eyes are already on her. Like she’d been watching her. “Um...I’ll go. You have your kid and everything-.”

“She’s staying at a friend’s place.” Sam doesn’t know why she jumps in to say that but she does know that everything has a cost. If Alex wasn’t accepting payment from her, then she must want something. Sam takes a chance, a small one, and stands shoulder to shoulder with Alex. She’s been here before, giving recklessly. Never with Ruby around but there were times where desperation took hold. “I could repay you…” Sam has never had to say much to anyone, just show casual interest and they would find a way to take control. 

Alex is different, Sam learns right away, taking a step away and putting her water bottle down. “You’re a good person, Sam. I am too.” Alex lets out a breath. “We can work together, can’t we? Probably better when I’m not this drunk.” 

“I wasn’t…” Sam shakes her head. “In this place, things sometimes get warped.”

“It’s okay,” Alex says sincerely. “And in honor of us understanding each other. Would it be possible for me to sleep here tonight? On the couch, on the floor...whichever.” 

“Of course you can.” By the time Sam has gathered a pillow and blanket from the closet, Alex is already snoring softly on the couch. Sam covers her with a blanket, locks the doors, and goes into her own bedroom. Outside of feeling embarrassed by basically offering sex as payment, Sam is remarkably thrilled with her day. Even in her tiny room that often makes her feel like a child, Sam is floored by the possibilities that the future brings. 

Doomstown might not be doomed quite yet and if the fight that Sam has seen crop up in Alex’s eyes is any indication, they might actually have a chance. Sam doesn’t like to get her hopes up. She kneels at her bedside, crosses herself, and prays for the first time since she was in high school. She wants to be safe and for once, someone understands that. 

When she wakes up, Sam finds Deborah and Ruby in the kitchen. They’re both eating cereal and Deborah is boiling the water for the coffee maker. Neither seems all that phased, especially Ruby who points to the other room with her spoon, “Who’s that in there?”

“That’s Alex, she’s a lawyer.” Deborah arches a brow at Sam. Sam peeks into the room and finds Alex exactly where she left her. 

“What’s she doing here?” Ruby whispers as she looks over the couch at Alex. 

“She’s going to help us get clean water.”

“Really?!” Ruby yells. She bolts to where she can get face to face with Alex whose eyes open slowly. She has to blink a few times to remember where she is but when she does she smiles at Ruby and says ‘hi’. “You’re gonna help us?”

Alex looks to Sam and then sits up a little. “Yeah, I’m gonna help you.” On their way to check to see if Alex’s car got stolen Alex observes the town in the light of day. Bezza is rocking away in her chair. The hazy overcast does nothing to deter Alex’s smile. Even shouting from inside a trailer doesn’t seem to frighten her. “I like it here,” Alex tells Sam.

“Really?”

“I like the people at least.” 

The next time Alex Danvers comes into town, it’s to rent an entire building out for her team. They parade in with their fancy cars and nice suits but they immediately get to work. The drilling ceases for a week and after what seems like a standoff - marked by a lot of yelling in and outside of town hall - Alex takes the Coores & Phillips Company to court. The win comes suddenly, after months and months of proceedings. The big corporation senses the uneasiness and after a few men from the mill, high on meth, blow up a drill, it’s fairly obvious that this is a war they won’t win. Alex knocks at Sam’s door, sweaty from jogging over to this side of town, she is elated and Sam knows that finally, everything is right in their little burden of a town. 

Two weeks later, while Ruby, Deborah, and Bezza are playing cards, Sam announces that she’s going to take a shower. Alex looks up from where she’s seated, after losing in the very first round, and follows Sam into the hallway. “Don’t make me get a restraining order,” Sam jokes. 

“This is actually...about that night.” 

“I’ve known you for about a year. There’s been plenty of nights.” The hallway is barely a hallway. Just a sliver of space that leaves only a few inches between their bodies. 

“The first one.” Alex rolls her eyes, knowing that Sam will wait until she says exactly what she means. “We could’ve, you know. Ended up in bed together.”

“You wouldn’t have been very good. From what I remember you were all valiance and moonshine.” 

“That stuff was so strong, I might still be all moonshine.” Alex puts her hand on Sam’s waist, it’s the most direct she’s ever been with something outside of the courtroom. “I’d like to try again. Properly, I mean.”

“That’s sweet.”

“You aren’t interested?” Alex questions sadly. 

“I am interested. But more so in you joining me for a shower.” Sam holds Alex’s face in her hands and smiles. “Show me you belong in this crazy little town. Show me what you’re made of.” 

“We can hear everything you’re saying!” Deborah yells from the kitchen. Alex and Sam crack up laughing, hustling into the bathroom, and taking off their clothes.

[ilyashrayber]

The Mission

  When I first entered high school, I knew absolutely nothing. No work ethic, no plans, and perhaps most alarming, almost no friends to speak of. I was so young, and yet, it felt like the world was already closing in around me, as if some metaphorical caution tape was already cropping up on things I wanted to do and people I wanted to meet. I had no knowledge of what was around me, and even more so, it felt like I never would. But as you get older, things start to change, and you feel more and more doors open up, one after the other, in a way that could only make sense with the passage of time. If I’m coming off as vague, it is because it’s hard for someone like myself to specify exact moments when you feel validated, satisfied, and as if you’ve broken away from an almost self-imposed mental barrier. But if there was a place that embodied the transition from the timid, smelly, and raggedy boy I was to the slightly less timid, smelly, and raggedy man (by Jewish law) I am today, it would be the Mission District.

I would be remiss to bring up the Mission without addressing the growing, all-encompassing wave of change that is hitting it right now. What used to be a primarily Latinx community comprised of families, artists, and blue collar workers has been all but washed away by white software engineers in search of some strange, exoticized concept of ‘urban grit’ and ‘authenticity’. Where there once were family owned groceries, optometrists, and photo studios, I now see exorbitant pre-fixe menus, ‘organic’ clothing stores, and the occasional (read: extremely common) misuse of local history to sell me something. I am exhausted, and I don’t even live there. Additionally, the privilege of being a cis, white man is something that makes me just at fault when I do not speak up as those who are actively destroying a piece of what makes this city so dynamic. It is a tricky tightrope to walk on, and the best thing people like myself can do is listen, and help when asked, whether that is giving our time, money, or a mix of the two to help preserve the integrity, and magic, of the Mission.

 I remember the first time I ever had a sleepover. It wasn’t with the kid next door to me, or at a birthday party, or even in the first 14 years of my life. Instead, my first sleepover happened in my freshman year of high school. This isn’t super uncommon among children of immigrants, but nonetheless, I felt like I was missing a key piece of the American experience. When it came to mind, before I actually went to one, I had, like most things, romanticized each and every single aspect of a sleepover. I had imagined a world where we would get to the house, only to be greeted by plates of fresh grapes, served to us on priceless marble while enjoying French brut in tall glasses. Instead, we made eggs at midnight and drank Tropicana Orange Peach Mango (henceforth known as ‘OPM’) straight from the carton. In place of sampling liquors from around the world and discussing literature, we downed Kirin Ichiban and talked about girls from our high school we would definitely want to go out with but definitely would have no idea what we would even begin to do if we ever did. Usually crouched down, in the basement, trying to stealthily sip our brew while an adult was upstairs. All this happened in a Victorian on the corner of 27th and Guerrero, a house purchased by my friend’s father for $70,000 right when he got out of the Navy in the 1970’s. It had four bedrooms, an insane kitchen leading out into the backyard, and a circular top floor window, one situated right above the bed of my friend who would always invite me over. It was through this window that I had witnessed car break-ins, smelled the waft of burritos only a couple blocks over, and totally messed with other people trying to get in at the front door. They are good, sacred memories that put a smile on my face when I remember them, both in their quality and the sheer quantity that I have of them.

 The Victorian sat on the cusp of Noe Valley and the Mission, leaning more to the former when you went east and more to the latter when you went west. And boy, did we go west a lot. We would often leave the house at night, with no plan at all, burnt out from playing video games, and simply walk down Mission Street trying to process what it was we were seeing as little baby birds sprouting their wings for the first time. People were out drinking and dancing, the air had a palpable energy to it, and it seemed as if everything was right with the world. It was a sensation I knew I wouldn’t have for a long time, but I wanted it anyway. Street vendors, taquerias, and the only CEX in the city were the main draws, but it was the friendly faces, life experience, and exposure to cultures outside our own that really made us want to stay.

  The stretch of 24th Street that begins on Mission and ends on Potrero is perhaps my favorite dozen or so blocks in the city. It has everything anyone could need, ever. Casa Lucas is the exclusive grocery store I shop at when my folks are out of town and I’m calling the shots, and believe me, it’s worth every penny of the Muni fare I feel disillusioned to pay. The fruits and veggies there taste better than any trustfund soulcycle hayes valley bullshit they’re trying to feed you over at Whole Foods, and at a fraction of the price. Plus, they’re the only grocery in the city I’ve found that stocks the very specific kind of kola I’ve become dependant on, imported all the way from Oaxaca. When I say that this kola fucked up my world, I am being modest in the effect it had on me.. I don’t even know the name of it, but I reach for the stuff everytime I’m on 24th because it has that kind of hold on me. Days get brighter, and nights get longer, whenever I feel the sweet, smooth liquid gold pass through me. Anyways. Moving on. Not only does 24th have the most kick-ass grocery in the entire world, they also have maybe the best cheap seafood ever, in the form of Basa Express. Ignore the sign that was made in Microsoft Paint. Appreciate the fact that this is a no frills, what you see is what you get kind of seafood place where you can grab a freshly made California roll for 5 dollars. With ceviche and sashimi being just a little bit more than that, it’s a refreshing change of pace from the recent increase of trendy seafood places with exposed wood and vintage buoys hanging everywhere. There is no exposed wood here. There is no old photo of a ship captain the owner bought on eBay. There is no lengthy description of how the fish lived and died along with a short obituary. It is just good, cheap seafood that you can feel good about eating.

 Walk up and down 24th and you’ll realize the plethora of people and places that feel like hidden gems, but have been there all along. I stand by Humphry Slocombe as the best ice cream in the city, while the vast majority of my friends cry out in support of Mitchell’s, another place that is very good but in no way a competitor to Humphry and his offerings. The classic at Humphry’s is to walk in, have no idea what you want, and then have the young college kids behind the counter begrudgingly ask if you want a sample. That is just the way it works. If I can just be bougie for one second here; they have a Wine & Cheese flavor. And it’s delicious. If this is the hill I die on, so be it. After a nice little ice cream break, I like to peruse the various cultural offerings, in the forms of records and books that 24th has to offer. I always have to walk into Pyramid Records, which, dare I say, is the most finely curated selection of wax in the entire Bay Area. Is there a huge selection? No. Do they have deep discounts and unbeatable prices? Not really. But is there a dude behind the counter who compliments my sneakers everytime I’m there? Yes. There is. For myself, Pyramid has a beautiful mix of international, lounge, and soundtracks on vinyl, which just so happen to be some of my favorite genres in music. It’s all designed in a super clean, minimalist-but-nowhere-near-boring type of aesthetic. I feel like I’m in a music video for a bedroom pop artist when I’m in there, and that’s all I could ever ask for. When talking about literature however, it’s hard to beat Alley Cat, a big bookstore with a gallery and event space in the back. I’ve picked up some of my favorite graphic novels from this spot, and their mystery section makes me feel good. Adobe Books a few blocks up is great too, and it sports a much more intimate setting for falling in love with any number of books, local or not. I’ve seen many a performance inside of Adobe, ranging from Chicana poetry, all the way to a solo performance from the bassist for Real Estate. Great books, great vibe, and it always feels nice to support a place that feels like an institution. For any bookstore, that should be a slam dunk. And it is. Usually directly into my wallet.

  There are tons of other great places on 24th, especially if you’re into just sitting down and having a good time. There’s the OG Philz, a coffee shop with perhaps the comfiest furniture in any cafe, and Haus, half a block down, where I may or may not have a crush on every single female barista that works there. Again, this is unconfirmed. I would really love to recommend Wise Son’s, a jewish deli with an insane breakfast salad, but every since I took edibles right before I ate there and thought I was in 1920s New Orleans, it has been a tough sell. They have a very nice restroom, however, that they’ll let you use if you ask nicely. St. Francis Fountain, a diner nearing the very end of 24th, has the best pancakes in the city. I am sorry but everyone got together and voted on it, and there will be no recount. Whether chocolate chip, banana, or even, dare I say, vegan, these guys are a home run every. Single. Time. It is almost uncanny how good they are, and are the definition of a food that is ‘good for the soul and not so much the love hips.’ Lastly, when you come up on Mission, you’ll no doubt see a line going out the door for the much beloved El Farolito. If you ask me? It’s good, but it’s definitely not my favorite. I try to explain it in terms of ice cream flavors. When you take your kid to go get ice cream, you always start with vanilla. There’s a reason it’s the default, you know? Well rounded, satisfying, and very inoffensive. I feel the exact same about El Farolito. (Cue the thinkpieces attacking me.) It is the vanilla ice cream of taquerias. My favorite, however, is also in fact on 24th, and it goes by the name of Taqueria Guadalajara. More salsa options, less rice, and juicier meat is what drives me to make this almost sacrilegious decision. Plus, there’s never a line. And that in and of itself should be celebrated.

   The Mission is so, so many things. But most of all, it is not mine. And it’s probably not yours, either. I simply play, and for a little bit, worked there. There is so much to celebrate about this neighborhood, and so, so much that we as a city should try to preserve, even if it considered by many to be ground zero for gentrification. Be respectful. Think about your actions. How will this affect others? If you live there, try broadening it to a macro level. How will this affect my community, one that is already going through an incredible amount of change, and the heartbreak that comes with that? What can I do to make things better? Always say thank you, and respect those that came before you. These seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget with everything going on. At the end of the day, I like to hang out in the Mission, and I bet you, the reader, probably do too. So let’s just try and not be complete asshats about what we choose to do in a community that is experiencing an immense shift, both culturally and economically. Let’s just try and be a little better next time we’re there.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Artists Form Shell Company to Visit and Photograph Tax Havens

Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti, “Man floating in the 57th-floor swimming pool of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore’s financial district” (2015), photograph (courtesy the artists)

PARIS — How best to visually portray confidential globalized money transactions when they are an obscured and dematerialized phenomenon? Responding to this question through the use of ineffectual capture technology is Italian artists Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti’s Les Paradis, rapport annuel (or “The Heavens, Annual Report”), a superficial photographic culture jam developed undercover in tony offshore tax havens. This whistle-blow show, which premiered in 2015 at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, is now at Centre Assas in the law school Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas, where it has been augmented with two roundtables on the subject of tax evasion and supplimental materials.

Through the diversity of photo locations featured in their project, Woods and Galimberti make the judicious point that tax havens are not tropical eccentricities, but rather structural instruments of the globalized economy. Enormous amounts of money are continuously placed offshore by very wealthy individuals and by companies that use these very low-tax jurisdictions (often legally) in order to reduce their taxes, thus retaining resources that countries could devote to education, health, public art, and the safety of their citizens.

My own reading of the 1%’s world of tax evasion in connection to the secondary art market suggests that hush-hush havens and brassy, big-name art objects work together to dominate the underprivileged in a melding scheme that blends money-as-data with art-as-data. This data ploy is now a salient feature of our time in that much blue chip modern and contemporary art functions as market-transcendent coinage, turning art into a vessel for storing wealth. This became glaringly obvious on September 15, 2008, the day of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, when Damien Hirst sold over £60 million worth of his art in an auction at Sotheby’s that would total £111 million over two days. In conjunction with such demonstrated secondary art market stability, leaked tax haven data — like the Panama Papers, Swiss Leaks, and Lux Leaks — have become unavoidable themes of political and cultural deliberation. The relevance for art could not be more serious, as more and more big-name art functions perversely as a wealth investment hedge while the rest of artistic production goes largely ignored by collectors bidding up the secondary auction market.

Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti, “Tony Reynard and Christian Pauli, in Singapore Freeport” (2015), photograph (courtesy the artists)

One of the best photographs in Les Paradis is of Tony Reynard and Christian Pauli looking at each other in one of the high-security vaults of the Singapore Freeport. Reynard is the Chairman of the Singapore Freeport and Pauli is the General Manger of Fine Art Logistics NLC. The Singapore Freeport, which was designed, engineered, and financed by a team of Swiss businessmen, is one of the world’s maximum-security vaults where billions of dollars in art, gold, and cash are stashed away. Located just off the runway of Singapore’s airport, the Freeport is a fiscal no-man’s land where parsimonious individuals and creepy companies can confidentially collect valuables out of reach of the taxman. But this phenomenon, indicating that many are investing their wealth in visual art they rarely see, is spread widely around the world. Freeports have been established everywhere from Luxembourg and Geneva to Beijing, Hong Kong, Delaware, and soon will be in New York.

Woods and Galimberti took notice of these greasy and greedy trends and, after being galvanized by poor Haiti’s juxtaposition alongside the neighboring tax haven of the Cayman Islands (the fifth largest financial center in the world), embarked on this three-year, Yes Men-like project to expose tax avoidance among the extremely wealthy. They started by setting up a shell company called The Heavens LLC and headquartered in Delaware (a state where, for $700 and without any documents, a company can be created in less than 20 minutes) at the same address as offices of Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Google, Walmart, and 285,000 other companies. The show’s title refers to the annual reports of tax havens and corporations that set up systems of what those in the world of finance call “tax optimization.”

Installation view of Les Paradis, Rapport annuel at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

The same week I visited Les Paradis, rapport annuel, I saw Raoul Peck’s artistically bold and socially important documentary on James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro. Peck’s film and Les Paradis, when considered together, raise some conspicuous considerations. Peck brilliantly and emotionally cross-wove historical threads of poverty and racism with current events of black oppression, while Woods and Galimberti interject no historical context into their contemporary scenes of white-collar (and mostly white) conquest.

The duo went straight to the Cayman Islands to study tax shelters and realized there was nothing to photograph and no historical records to explore. There was no money (or no concrete traces of it) to be seen. So they crept on, traveling to 12 different countries on four continents to capture the cultural and geographical aspects of this opaque phenomenon. The best they could do to depict the dematerialized global network of capital is take photos like the one of a man floating in the 57th-floor swimming pool of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore’s financial district. There is a similar shot of another premium floater on the 66th floor of the Trump Ocean Club in Panama City; the view here is over-the-shoulder and down on a great number of dark, empty apartments, the results of a real estate bubble driven by drug money from Colombia and Venezuela laundered through property in Panama. Such luxury pool shots must stand in for the fact that most of the things that happen in these places are virtual and consequently hidden (so to speak) in computer hard drives and fiber optic cables. Tax havens are mostly places where companies receive email and mail. Unlike Peck’s much richer revelation through the words of Baldwin, Woods and Galimberti are only able to expose the face of places and actors currently profiting from or governing this connected system from which hundreds of multinationals benefit by shirking their social responsibility. It occurred to me that Mark Lombari’s conspiracy flow chart drawings do a better job of mapping and conveying invisible structures than current-event capture technology can muster.

Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti, “The lobby of Ernst & Young’s headquarters in London” (2015), photograph (courtesy the artists)

Faced with the impossibility of depicting financial transactions, Woods and Galimberti fell back on four types of photos: clichéd metaphors; aggrandizing portraits; architectural documents; and poignant, prosaic photos of tax havens’ coercive consequences on people — the inequality and exploitation rendered on the backs of the poor. In most of these images, the eye glides over the slickest of surfaces: computers, banks, storage buildings, and glassy offices — as in “The lobby of Ernst & Young’s headquarters in London” (2015). There are several portraits of rich people with their expensive toys in their colorful landscapes with amazing views. These infuriatingly aloof images exhaust themselves in that’s-just-how-it-is closure — they are “money porn” shots, if you will, of the 1% fucking the poor.

Happily, the installation supplements these depraved images with educational interviews on two video monitors and other informative texts by journalists and economists that expound on the magnitude of this phenomenon. The installation also features pungent quotes, like one from Warren Buffett — “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning” — that floats in gold above a photo of a large oil painting of billionaire Andreas Ugland and his family that hangs at the entrance of Ugland’s Cayman Motor Museum (an institution that houses his collection of Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, and vintage motorbikes). At the center of the painting is the banal-looking Ugland House office building, where more than 19,000 companies are registered to facilitate tax avoidance. Just right of the Ugland image is a photograph of Nicole, a 34-year-old sex worker in Singapore who looks at us through the reflection in the darkened glass of a window. This juxtaposition of have and have-not images strengthens both singular images and allows a connective thread to be drawn between cause and effect.

Installation view of Les Paradis, Rapport annuel at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (photo © UP2PA – direction de la communication – 2017)

In most of these images, Woods and Galimberti purposefully used the same type of visual codes that companies use in their communications, making photographs in the arcane photographic style of corporate self-promotion, which looks like advertising than art. Consequently, the status of these images is ambiguous — too ambiguous. All of the project’s faux-corporate images would have been greatly strengthened by being placed in direct diptych relationships with the photos showing the consequences of extreme global wealth inequality, like the image of poor 48-year-old Lam Po sitting in the tiny cage of an apartment he rents in Hong Kong.

Still, this is a revealing visual voyage that reminds us that tax havens are partially responsible for the growing inequalities in the world. Like slavery in centuries past, these money havens are not eccentricities but structural instruments of the capitalist global economy. Without pretending to deliver unambiguous solutions or to judge complex realities, Les Paradis offers those who wish it the opportunity to understand the deep structure of the time in which we live.

The exhibition may be aesthetically unsatisfactory, but it is a great pretext to talk about the world and the art world around us. Indeed, Les Paradis energizes art with confrontational juices, enriching it as a form of political discourse by provoking debate about photographic realism in our time of digital post-photography — a phenomenon perhaps best explained in Fred Ritchin’s book After Photography. In it, Ritchin offers an account of the dizzying impact of the digital revolution on the trajectory of the photographic image that changes the world in the very act of observing it. The myth of photographic objectivity has concealed fakery since the medium’s inception, but Ritchin stresses how digital media offer an appropriative and hyper-textual approach to photography that reinvents the authorial image into an evolving investigation among an infinite number of people. In a world where “the image” plays a central role, Les Paradis shows how difficult it is to see and investigate morally tilted systems. As such, the show reminded me of what Ursula Meyer proposed in her Conceptual Art anthology from 1972: “Art is not in the objects, but in the artist’s conception of art to which the objects are subordinated.”

Les Paradis suggests to me that framed photographic prints (such as these) and other art objects, when treated as a wealth repository and as stored financial data for high-end investment, lack the basic definition of art. All art-star images and objects in hermetically temperature controlled dark rooms are temporarily too philosophically and conceptually weak to remain art by Meyer’s standard. Perhaps these hoarded commodities merit the name “investment objects,” but such cultural artifacts, particularly when used to dodge taxation or to store and launder money, are the opposite of art: they are frozen limbo corpses caught up in the machine of the artless global economy, disconnected from the subjectivity of people at large. But Les Paradis isn’t only about art as frozen asset class. It is about the larger system of global capital dissimulation that abuses the moral responsibility of art through another form of de-materialization — the invisible, international flow of capital that still photography cannot capture. And that lack underlines a fundamental moral problem for art: the relationship between public and private, between the rich and the poor.

Installation view of Les Paradis, Rapport annuel at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (photo © UP2PA – direction de la communication – 2017)

Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti’s Les Paradis, rapport annuel continues at the Centre Assas at the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (92 rue d’Assas, 5th arrondissement, Paris, France) through April 21.

The post Artists Form Shell Company to Visit and Photograph Tax Havens appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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