#this sort of thought process has also kept me from being an active poster

[fellamarsh]

RELATED to my last post i think we should kill the notion that you have to keep your writing or art or whatever kind of themed blog strictly On Theme. because of professionalism or whatever

like you are the artist (or curator). you are inextricably linked to that which you create. you are inherently on theme. also i like to hear about the weird thing your sister said or the really bangin sandwich you ate

[squidproquoclarice]

What’s Arthur’s recovery treatment like in Sunrise in terms of medically, because it was really interesting to see such a realistic view on how he would recover from the drastic effects of TB. And the way you wrote that the TB although dormant is always gunna be there with him for the rest of his life was a good other aspect to his character, and added to the strength he has, considering the stigma too attached to the disease at that time, and especially once you get to the last chapter and see how far he’s come from the first chapter, I was just like good for him. It was great.

Combining this with another similar Ask:  “Can you talk about Arthur’s proceduree with the cactus? Just that him living one with those scars of treatment.. it’s great for the story”.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So as I’ve remarked on his gunshot wound, I hate “Hollywood” medicine and how it gives us such an inaccurate impression of what treatment and recovery for something is like.  It was important to me that I depicted the actual process of dealing with tuberculosis recovery realistically, both medically and for the period.  I didn’t want to just skip ahead to three years later and go “And Arthur was well again”.  I also absolutely didn’t want to go the route that I’ve seen of claiming “nonspecific magic Indian cure from Rains Fall” because holy shit, that’s exoticism-as-Other and racism.   Arthur is badly off at the end of Chapter 6.  His TB has run him down to the point where, combined with his fight injuries and hypothermia, it was too much for him in-game.  That’s really not something you can sleep off for a few days or get rid of by popping a few DayQuil.   Being as antibiotics were several decades in the future, TB was everywhere at the time of RDR2.  It was one of the leading causes of death in 1900 America at 194 deaths per 100,000 people.  To give you a comparison to another deadly communicable respiratory disease that kills slowly, leaves chronic impact to survivors, and has huge impacts to society, daily life, and public health?  As per Johns Hopkins University stats, the current American COVID-19 death rate is 149 deaths per 100K.  That’s how bad TB was.      Tuberculosis wasn’t a guaranteed death sentence like people assume from the game.  But yes, it was very likely.  Roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of people who contract active tuberculosis die within five years without antibiotic treatment.  Although interestingly, those who make it to 5 years in untreated tuberculosis then show a 60% spontaneous remission rate. So making it to 5 years was unlikely, but your odds got pretty decent at that point. Arthur's a resilient man who's beaten the odds before, so I figured it wasn't impossible for him to do so again. In terms of actually getting into the details of medical treatment, 1900 is an interesting point in TB history.  It's sort of a transition point between two regimens of treatment.  

The first is the post-Civil War "rest cure" (advised to Arthur by Dr. Barnes in St. Denis) of going to a climate thought to be more helpful to TB sufferers, and from there getting as much rest and fresh air as possible, and just hoping for the best.  TB was actually a significant part of the Old West as plenty of people came westward for that supposed better climate.  What the ideal climate was varied depending who you asked (hot, hot and dry, mountainous, forest, etc.), and spoiler alert: climate doesn't really affect TB recovery.  Getting away from crowded cities was probably the more effective thing. That relied very heavily on patient initiative, though, and the ability of a family to provide any necessary care, as well as to uproot and move to another place.  Obviously for those in poverty, not likely to happen.  We see this with Thomas Downes, who clearly is poor enough that he wouldn't have had that option.  Many didn’t.  Many died because they simply couldn’t stop working, let alone move halfway across the country.  There were a few sanatoriums/well-known rest places, but they were few and far between.       After 1900, and increasingly after WWI, the notion turned more to TB as an issue requiring direct medical intervention rather than letting people quietly hope for the best.  That led to patients often undergoing quarantine and a formal treatment regimen (which still relied a lot upon rest and fresh air) in either a private or government-run sanatorium.  People went in until they recovered enough to show numerous consecutive negative TB tests and the disease had become latent, or they died.  Some took years to leave, and some took years to die.  This is the institutional phase of TB treatment, and it lasted until it got increasingly superseded by the antibiotic phase post-WWII. What I did with Las Hermanas was create something in that transition phase.  It's a TB ward with a more structured treatment regimen, but there's not the strict bureaucratic oversight and total isolation of patients from family and the world that you see later.  I did bring that notion in later in 1907 with Sadie seeing a poster in New Hanover for the new state-run Six Points TB Sanatorium advising that TB patients would be quarantined there. Las Hermanas' treatment is more the hallmark of a forward-thinking doctor.  Felipe Garcia's trying different things in treatment with that mentality, and taking the unusual step of keeping families with patients (which wouldn't be the case later).  It's something that worked on a micro level, but probably couldn't have happened on a macro level as a nationwide program, so Arthur and Sadie are lucky to have hit upon it.  The total bed rest for a while to start to give the lungs a chance to recover is accurate to some TB treatments of the time, and also later. The treatment there at Las Hermanas does include artificial pneumothorax.  Again, Felipe's a bit ahead of the curve.  It was a known treatment at the time, having been reported, as he says, at an AMA conference in Denver several years before.  It had been noted that spontaneous lung collapse (pneumothorax) in a patient actually had i,proved their TB, and the idea of inducing that collapse deliberately (e.g., "artificial" pneumothorax) got kicked around some.  But it didn't really become commonplace as a treatment until post-1912 with Italian physician Carlo Forlanini "rediscovering" the technique and getting visibility for it--he'd actually been among its pioneers thirty years earlier.  But the fascination with microbiological advancements, including Robert Koch's identification and description of the tuberculosis bacteria in 1882, meant it got sort of shelved for a while.  Again, this increasing use post-1912 is also coinciding with the rise of sanatoriums, where controlled treatment regimens under a doctor’s close direction were more possible. Essentially what happens in classic artificial pneumothorax (AP from here on in) therapy is introducing gas--either air or nitrogen--into the cavity surrounding the lungs (*not* the lung itself) via needle and bellows apparatus.  For video of classic AP being performed around 1925 in a patient in Chicago, watch the first 3 minutes of this video.  It does a good job showing exactly what the procedure looked like, what the equipment looked like, etc. Side note: local anesthetic was definitely used in later years because being jabbed with a decent sized needle deeply enough to puncture your chest wall is not fun.  It's very possible Felipe might have used it, as local anesthetic was a concept known and somewhat used at the time.  It very likely would have been a localized injection of cocaine as more familiar, still-used local anesthetics like lidocaine and novocaine were years in the future.  But, hey, for a cowboy game that's period accurate enough that it gives you cocaine gum, using cocaine as a local anesthetic isn't unreasonable.  ;) The AP apparatus, once it was hooked up, put enough gas in there to cause enough pressure and force to induce a partial or full collapse of an infected lung.  That would help rest that lung or that part of it from struggling to breathe, and also provide an oxygen-deprived environment that would help kill the TB bacteria swarming in the lesions and cavities they had chewed into the tissue of the lungs. Bonus: breathing on one or one-and-partial lung also probably generally obliged patients to rest more. For one quick set of statistics, 23 of 40 patients with lungs successfully collapsed by AP in 1913 showed dramatic improvement in their TB.  So not a magic bullet, but a tool that perhaps upped your odds when done right.  There were more severe AP methods also used later, including phrenectomy and thoracoplasty, but those wouldn't have been seen in 1899 in this case. The problem is that the AP gas pumped into the pleura would eventually leak out, or be absorbed by the body tissue.  There's a somewhat vivid detail in Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", a 1924 novel about a TB sanatorium, of a whistling sound issuing from the AP hole.  So the AP process had to be repeated at regular intervals, often called "refills", usually cited as about two weeks from what I read.  AP treatment often continued after symptoms stopped, because they wanted to be damn sure that they hadn't treated only enough to just get ahead of the TB or that this wasn’t just a temporary up-cycle, and the disease was well and truly in remission. They confirmed this in later years with actual tests for TB at regular intervals to track that progress.  I kept that two week refill schedule for Arthur, and also its effect on keeping him tethered to Las Hermanas for a few more years even after he has a more normal, active life.  I think (?) I wrote him as stopping treatments sometime in late 1902, so roughly three years total, and two years post-release as no longer actively symptomatic. All in all, I wrote a treatment that wasn't widespread at the time, but would have been very possible with the knowledge and equipment available.  I went the AP route in the end because I wanted to give Arthur more than just bed rest both for higher survival odds, and also because I think now-obsolete medical history in fiction is interesting. The effects are some of the things I noted in Arthur throughout Sunrise.  Getting jabbed with a needle every two weeks for years is going to produce some scars on the skin.  It would be a tight cluster given you wanted to place your needle very carefully, but they would exist.  We see something similar now with "track marks" in those addicted to intravenous drugs, and I think I noted Arthur or Sadie remembering Swanson having something like it in his arm from years of addiction to injected opiates.    Working on that one or one-and-partial lung during all AP refills also means that Arthur is incapable of really hard daily physical labor, even after being released from Las Hermanas.  The lung capacity, and the stamina, just isn't there.  That was one factor that impacted his ability to get a regular job, which has the effects we see in 1904 of them worrying about money. That's also because even after he's got two fully-inflated and working lungs in later years, he's still not 100%.  While the lesions on the lungs may heal and send the TB into remission, they don't become healthy lung tissue again.  They become scars that still would be visible in later years when X-rays became more common.  So there's a lack of both flexibility to contract/expand and surface area for oxygen exchange that were there with healthy tissue.  In other words, Arthur's lungs are permanently running on a reduced capacity.  His stamina and strength and resilience are going to be affected. He's never going to be exactly what he was before becoming sick due to permanent effects of the damage, as well as just the fact of him going from 36 to 48 and thus just getting into middle age.  If Sunrise was an actual playable game using the RDR2 system, I'd depict that as Arthur's Stamina and Health cores being permanently damaged and capped at a lower level than before.  Probably down 3 bars for the Wapiti chapter and his first six months at Las Hermanas (due to the near-death status initially and then massive muscle and strength loss from all that bed rest), down 2 for the next six months at Las Hermanas and all of 1901 after his release, and down 1 for 1904/1907/1911 and the rest of his life. The other thing is Arthur can't be "cured" with the medicine of the time.  That was pretty much impossible in the pre-antibiotic era given the bacteria could never be entirely killed off in the lungs.  The best you could do was get strong and healthy enough for your immune system to effectively keep the ones left contained and inactive.  So while TB survivors could live healthy, happy lives, they knew that there was always a chance that TB could always come back.  Hence Felipe chewing Arthur out more than once for pushing himself too hard and risking getting run down enough for the TB to have an easier time gaining a foothold again. So his lifestyle's permanently changed in some ways.  He learns to recognize the signs of approaching exhaustion, and having to back away from it and slow down or rest.  Sadie's necessarily become attuned to this as well.  Arthur has to learn his own limits for the sake of self-care, and I think that's not a bad thing given he'd never had any real sense of self-preservation before.  He can't just keep pushing like he used to do, telling himself he'll make up for it later.  He has to commit to taking care of himself for his sake as well as Sadie's well-being, because he knows she can't lose him, just like he can't lose her.  He has to do it later for their children too.  Recognizing that taking care of yourself for the sake of your loved ones is actually protecting and showing them love too, rather than selfishness, is a big step forward for him.  I'll do the work to take care of myself so I can better be here for you, so I don't cause you the pain of watching me suffer or die, plus the emotional and financial and logistical burdens of my not being there. As first Anon noted, he and Sadie tend to keep hush about it unless they can trust someone, given the stigma associated with TB due to fear of the disease.  At some points, Arthur has to wonder if this person knew the truth about him whether he'd be more of a pariah as a notorious outlaw or as a TB survivor.  It didn't necessarily matter that the disease was latent.  All people had to hear was "tuberculosis".  So something like the fact Drew MacFarlane as the father of a TB victim himself not only doesn't stigmatize Arthur, but is willing to work around the TB restrictions, means a lot to both Arthur and Sadie.

[quicksilversquared]

A Christmas Liar

After Ms. Bustier mentioned the annual school charity fundraiser in class, Lila seems determined to raise funds for her own "charity", aka herself. There's no way that Marinette is going to let that fly, but how successful will she be in taking Lila down in time for the holidays?

links in the reblog

It started with a normal morning in Ms. Bustier's homeroom class.

"As you all know, it's fast approaching the holiday season, and our collège always does a fundraiser for a charity before Christmas," Ms. Bustier told the class, smiling widely. The first few cut-out paper snowflakes had appeared in the classroom window that morning, and they all knew that the collection would only grow as December went on. "So remember to remind your parents to check their emails for details soon! Our student representatives have been hard at work brainstorming what to do this year."

Marinette smiled, even as she kept drawing in her sketchbook. Jagged Stone had commissioned an outfit for his Christmas present to Penny from her, and wanted the design ready to be sent to his seamstress as soon as possible so that he could have it ready in plenty of time. He had told her not to rush, of course- "you have so much going on, and I don't want to put you behind in your studies!"- but Marinette wanted to try to get things done early.

After all, akumas could appear and eat up her free time without any notice, and so she was going to take advantage of any extra time when she could.

"Oh, a charity fundraiser?" Lila asked from the back of the room, and Marinette mentally sighed before setting her pencil down. Clearly she wasn't going to get anything done now, if she had to deal with Lila's nonsense, and her nonsense-o-meter was going wild. "That's so wonderful! Do you think that- oh, no, I suppose it would come off a little self-appreciating, never mind..."

"No, go ahead!" Ms. Bustier reassured her quickly. "What is it that you wanted to ask, Lila?"

"Well, I was wondering if maybe I could put forth one of my charities to be considered for the fundraiser's proceeds," Lila told the class, and even without turning around, Marinette could picture the way that Lila would press a hand to her chest delicately, doing her best to look bashful. Adrien's eye roll from in front of her told Marinette that her mental picture probably wasn't very far off. "But I suppose that could come off as, well..."

Ms. Bustier perked up. "Oh, how could I have forgotten that we had someone in our class who had done so much charity work before? I don't think it would come off as self-serving at all! In fact, it could add an extra connection and an element of interest to the whole thing if the school picked one of your charities. Marinette, could-"

"Student council has already settled on a charity for this year's fundraiser," Marinette said at once, not even bothering to look up. She could see exactly where this was heading, and she was going to put a stop to it. Now.

In front of her, she could see Adrien's hastily-hidden grin out of the corner of her eye.

"But this is special, Marinette," Ms. Bustier implored. "Surely they'll understand and want to support a fellow student's charity efforts! This is a pretty unique opportunity!"

"We've had multiple meetings about it, thinned our selections down, did all of the background checks and verification on our final pick, filled out all of the paperwork to submit to Mr. Damocles, and let the charity know so that we could get more information to post around," Marinette informed her, because seriously? Ms. Bustier was going to fall for it, just like that? Also, she was super glad that she had pushed for the council to make the decision early this year, because at this time the previous year, they had been working on finalizing everything still, which would have made a last-minute change like this possible. It wouldn't have been fun, or easy, but it could have been possible. "We can't change it now."

Lila let out a small sigh from the back, and Marinette turned around just in time to see her shoulders slumping. "Oh, that's really a shame, then. For a minute there, I was picturing how much good I- we could do for the children in Africa with a bit of extra funding, but I suppose if they've already picked a charity..."

Ms. Bustier glanced from Marinette to Lila. "Marinette, do you think that we could do two charities instead of one, perhaps? It would just be so nice to be able to support Lila's charity!"

Marinette was honestly going to scream.

"I'm afraid that that would make things too complicated," she said instead, politely as she could and with as little teeth-gritting as possible. "We had a couple fundraiser activities in mind- which we agreed was important, in case an akuma attack keeps people away from an in-person event- plus a couple volunteering opportunities that we wanted to offer. Plus, there would be all of the paperwork and the background checks that would have to be done to add in another charity, and that's not exactly a short process. It's a lot of work."

There was also the fact that Lila didn't have any charities, and any money they earned would- if she managed to sneak her way through their careful screening process- no doubt go straight into her own pockets.

"Oh, I could fill out paperwork so that you guys don't have to!" Lila offered eagerly. "I don't mind, it's for the kids-"

"And the email letting parents know about our fundraiser and our selected charity is already scheduled to go out today," Marinette continued, raising her voice just ever-so-slightly to drown Lila out and making a mental note to talk to Aurore to actually get that email sent over lunch. It had originally been planned for tomorrow, actually, but Marinette wasn't going to give Lila any ins. "So the deadline for any changes has passed." She pasted on her best fake smile, trying not to let any signs of a smirk through as she looked back at Lila. "It's just not possible for this year, I'm afraid. Maybe you can bring it up for consideration earlier next year."

"I suppose that's fair," Ms. Bustier agreed. She smiled over at Lila. "It's my own fault for not bringing it up earlier, it just slipped my mind. Hopefully your charities will still get plenty of support! But right now, we're going to move on to today's lesson. If everyone could please get out your notebooks, we're going to start with a quick video..."

Marinette smiled to herself as she put her sketchbook away and opened up her notebook to a fresh page. This probably wasn't the last that she would hear about Lila's so-called "charities", but at least Ms. Bustier had dropped the subject and she wouldn't be getting pressure from that angle.

Now she just had to be ready for Lila's other attempts to get her hands on charity money.

  "I am so glad that you already had stuff all finalized," Adrien said in Marinette's ear as they headed for their next class. Lila was ahead of them, surrounded by several of their classmates. "I got worried for a minute there when Ms. Bustier hopped on the Lila's charity thing."

"I'm just glad that it's a school-wide thing, not just a class-wide fundraiser," Marinette admitted, glancing around to make sure that no one was going to overhear them. She had managed to get out of being blamed for deliberately denying Lila's "charity" a chance to get more money because she wasn't the only person in charge of the fundraiser, and she didn't want anyone in their class mishearing and blowing things out of proportion. Again. "I mean, it's obvious that Lila jumped on that because I'm class representative and she wanted to put me in a bad spot, but she couldn't when I'm just one of the people involved in that process."

Adrien nodded. "Yeah. I was so sure that she was going to drop it after you mentioned the background check and verification thing, though, and then she didn't. Which is...weird, honestly."

"Not really. If we tried going forward and I was the one doing the check, she would probably just say that I was making stuff up about her charity out of jealousy or spite and that was why it failed or something." Marinette had thought the same, honestly, but it became apparent pretty quickly what Lila was up to. Lila wasn't nearly as sly as she thought she was. "I'm surprised that she didn't jump on that and complain that I was just making the background check thing up because I was doubting her. Ignoring, of course, that we want to have statistics in our flyers and posters and emails about how the money is used, and how much work they get done, and their rating by a charity watchdog. That's standard."

"Which is why she wanted to do her own paperwork," Adrien added. He made a face. "I bet that she's still going to try to piggyback off of the fundraiser somehow, or at least rope people into donating some of their own money. I already heard Rose bringing it up, and Alya mentioned something to Nino about posting something on the Ladyblog."

Marinette winced. That wasn't good. She would have to forward the link to their charity watchdog site to Alya later on, maybe under the guise of providing a resource to get all sorts of charity statistics at once to put in her posting. That didn't guarantee that Alya would look at it, of course, but it was worth a try.

(Also, she could use her throwaway account to point out the charity's questionable status, and then- well, hope that other people would see her post and upvote it.)

"She's really going too far now," Adrien said after a moment, pulling Marinette out of her brainstorming of how she could keep Lila from pocketing a bunch of charity money. "I mean, she has been for a while, especially when she tried to get you expelled, but this is just the cherry on top of a heap of awful. I just don't know... I mean, she's sunk her claws in really deep now, I don't know how to fix it. I guess I should have recognized it earlier, but..."

"Well, there's no point in worrying about what we should have done earlier now," Marinette said as they went through the door for their next class, though she couldn't help but feel a bit validated, since she had wanted to stop Lila's lies ages ago. "We can brainstorm later, if you can get away for lunch. I was going to talk to Aurore then anyway."

Adrien looked puzzled for a moment, then caught on with a grin. "Aha, right, since she's on student council too. Is she the one in charge of submitting paperwork?"

"No, that was me. She's in charge of sending out the emails to families." Marinette grinned up at him. "And I bet that we can do a bit of damage control with that."

-0-0-0-0-

Aurore was all too willing to bring her lunch over to the Dupain-Cheng bakery instead of eating in the school cafeteria. After all, she told them as they headed upstairs, her lunch was leftovers and best served warm, and the cafeteria microwave was gross.

Marinette could believe that. Aurore had already floated the idea of setting up either a roll of paper towels near the microwave so that people could cover their dishes to keep the contents from exploding all over, or going the more environmentally-friendly route of having microwave plate covers instead, which could then be washed daily in the industrial dish washers that the cafeteria kitchen had. Clearly it was a Big Deal for her.

"You said you wanted to talk about the email right?" Aurore asked finally, finishing her grumbling about someone who had apparently microwaved fish and ugh, the smell was awful. "I thought it was meant to be going out tomorrow? I have a draft that's almost complete, I was just going to review it tonight to make sure that it was perfect, but do you need something changed?"

"We had a situation come up in our class this morning," Marinette told her, leading the way into their kitchen. Her mom had left out food for her and Adrien, it just had to be warmed up and assembled. "I don't know how much you've heard about the new girl in our class..."

Aurore frowned. "Lila? The one with the questionable stories?"

Adrien laughed. "Okay, so we aren't the only ones with working brains in the school, that's good to know. Yeah, her."

It didn't take long to get Aurore caught up, and predictably, she was furious at the idea of Lila trying to hijack their fundraiser funds.

"This is going to go one of two ways, I know it," she told them, pulling out her laptop and getting it set up next to her on the table. "Either this girl is going to make up a charity- name, mission, and all- or she's going to find a charity that already exists, and then she'll claim credit for it. The first one is easy enough to disprove, because no one will be able to find anything about the charity. We could just put a reminder in the email about checking charities out before donating to them, and then enter that link we've been using. But the second one...well, she could use their rating and reputation to collect money, and then- if I'm reading her character right- keep it all for herself."

They all thought about that.

"Well, if Alya posts anything on the Ladyblog, in theory any donations would have to be electronically, though a website," Marinette pointed out after a minute. "As for in-person donations, I would say that people should use checks instead of cash, but I don't know how many people use checks anymore, and besides, that's not going to stop her from cashing them if she wants."

Adrien made a choked, horrified noise in the back of his throat. "It- it won't? How do you even know that?"

"But it might deter her, since that's a traceable crime," Aurore pointed out, her eyes gleaming. She snapped her fingers. "And as for the Ladyblog- if she's capable of creating a website that looks decent, she might give Alya a link for that. So that's still a problem-"

"-unless we notice that and bring it to the attention of the police!" Adrien exclaimed, sitting up straight. He winced. "I'd hate to get Alya in trouble, but otherwise people will be thinking that they're doing something good and helping people in need when actually, they're just giving Lila spending money. And if she told them that Lila gave her the link, then she'd get off pretty fast."

Marinette nodded. Alya would probably be a thundercloud that they had gone to the police first instead of her, but she couldn't say that they hadn't warned her. She just never listened when it came to Lila.

"So we can put in a line reminding people to check charities before they donate and to make sure that any links they follow for charities go to the actual website," Aurore finished. Her fingers tapped away at her keyboard. "My older brother is a computer whiz, so I can text him and ask about things people should look for to make sure that a site is the real deal. Then I can get that typed up and sent during study hall, so it'll go out today."

Marinette could only grin. Maybe Aurore could be hotheaded at times, but there was no denying that she could really pull through. "That would be great."

  Unsurprisingly, Lila sold a sob story to Alya about her charity's website being down at the moment, so she couldn't provide a link right away.

"We're working on it, of course, because this is the best time of the year to get donations and we're going to fall so far behind with every day we miss, but the entire system is down and our tech guy is having trouble," Lila told Alya, looking positively wilted. "It's so upsetting! The longer it's down, the fewer people find out about our work, and the less budget we have to work with next year."

"That's terrible!" Alya exclaimed, frowning, and Marinette exchanged an exasperated look with Adrien. "I just wish there was a way to help..."

"Maybe you could post about our school charity instead, for the time being," Marinette suggested dryly. "Since Lila's charity is on the table for next year anyway."

"But we need budget for this year!" Lila repeated, and- yep, she was gritting her teeth. The glare that she flashed Marinette left no question that she had been trying to set up some sort of fake website and the email the night before had thrown her off. Either she was trying to make a more convincing website or- more likely- she was just hoping to wait until the reminder to be careful had faded from people's minds. Or she had had to abandon the online idea entirely in favor of throwing a pity party for herself in hopes of getting cash donations with the help of their classmates, if that hadn't already been the plan all along. "If we wait for a maybe next year, we could go into debt and collapse!"

Alya was looking worried now. "Marinette, are you sure that the student council can't switch charit-"

"It's all set up. We can't change anything, Alya, we established that yesterday." Marinette spared a glance at Lila, who was clearly working to keep a poker face. "Maybe Max can help you with your website issues, he's quite good at stuff like that. We wouldn't want you missing out on donations, after all."

"Oh, I couldn't," Lila simpered, glancing towards Max as well. "We, uh- well, my tech guy is back in Italy, so they wouldn't be able to work together, and he's quite protective of the system. Plus we were in the middle of upgrades when everything crashed, so that makes everything more complicated."

"We'll figure something out, Lila," Alya promised, patting the other girl's arm. Marinette took that as her cue to leave, but she wasn't going to go far. She needed to be able to overhear, after all. "We don't want those kids in Africa to suffer, after all! We can brainstorm before class."

Adrien caught Marinette's eye as she came back to her seat. "It sounds like she's just going to go another way, but isn't about to give up."

"No, she's got the idea of getting money into her head, and she's not about to give it up." Marinette kept her voice low, so that no one would overhear. "Which means that we need to come at the problem at a different angle. Any suggestions?"

Adrien looked unexpectedly delighted at being consulted, but then he paused, clearly not coming up with any ideas. "Uh."

"My first instinct would be to try to warn Alya and Rose and whoever else is going to get sucked in, but we all know how well that would go over," Marinette said, just to fill in the space. "They would clamp down and refuse to listen."

Adrien nodded. "Yeah. But I like what you did yesterday, where you made it sound like you would have gone along if you could and suggested trying next year. Then everyone thought that you weren't fighting against her-"

"-and was actually willing to listen!" Marinette finished, smiling. It was an approach that Tikki had suggested, and she was glad that it had worked. Well, sort of. It had worked in the moment, but just- apparently- pushed the problem off for later. "Yeah, that was nice."

"Maybe we could do something similar now," Adrien suggested. "And offer to be helpful by providing that link still. Like, it doesn't need the website, right? Just the charity name."

Marinette grinned. "Right. And there's no way that she can get around not telling anyone her charity's name. And if she does...well, either it's made up, or she's going to pick a real charity and we can find the real website."

"And congratulate Lila on her site getting back up so quickly," Adrien added with a small laugh. "It's a pain to deal with her, but I'm actually curious about what she's planning on doing going forward. Like, how long can she play this game? She's going to run out of escapes soon enough."

"Yeah, I don't know..." Marinette trailed off as Alya slid into her seat, and she and Adrien exchanged one last look before he turned back to the front, greeting Nino as his best friend entered the classroom.

"Man, I can't believe what bad luck Lila has, to have her charity's website crash at a time like this," Alya said glumly, sliding into her seat. "Lila is stressed about it, of course, but she has so many other obligations for her other charity work that she can't go out and do a collection, not that it would be easy with her throat still recovering from her laryngitis surgery. She can't be out in the cold for more than ten minutes without it causing a ton of pain, which can't be fun at all."

...Naturally.

"I want to help, but if we don't have a working link to put on the Ladyblog, I just don't know..." Alya trailed off. "I mean, we could do a door-to-door, I guess, but that only ever gets fairly minimal donations. And there's so many people who set up near the Eiffel Tower, we wouldn't have a chance. But- oh!" Alya perked up as another thought hit her. "We could put posters up at school, so more people know about it and maybe help us!"

Yeah, how about no.

"That's actually against school rules," Marinette said idly, flipping through her notebook as she waited for Ms. Bustier to call for a start to class. "All posters posted in the building have to be approved by Student Council normally, so that the walls don't get too cluttered, but there's an amendment to that that say that if the school is doing a charity fundraiser, posters promoting other charities can't go up during that time. I think it's to keep the effort from getting too splintered and distracted."

Alya slumped. "Oh."

That was not actually a lie, though clearly Adrien thought it was, if the slight frown on his face was anything to go by. Marinette had picked through the guidelines to make sure that she knew every rule that she could use to turn Lila's attempts aside, and apparently the Student Council had come up with and voted to implement that particular rule at some point in the past.

"Maybe you could do a surprise collection," Marinette suggested. "As a Christmas gift to Lila." She was improvising, admittedly, but this would be a good way to keep Alya and Rose and whoever else was getting sucked in from asking Lila too much and giving her chances to control the narrative. "If you ask her what the name of her charity is, and then you can use the website that we were using on Student Council to look at charities- it has all sorts of stats that you could use, information about charities and their work. That way, you don't need to bother Lila for all that when she's so busy."

"Oh, good idea!" Alya exclaimed. She grabbed Marinette's arm. "You know, none of the rest of us has ever organized any sort of charity fundraiser before- if we put you in charge of that-"

"I'm already busy, Alya," Marinette pointed out. She wasn't about to go make a fool of herself collecting money for a charity that didn't exist, not when she had a million other things to do. "The fundraiser for the school is already going to take up all of my time. I can send you the link that we used, but that's it."

"Oh, but-"

"She already said no, Alya," Adrien cut in, so Marinette didn't have to. "Marinette was telling me about that entire process yesterday, and it sounds like a lot of work and planning to pull something off at the level the school is planning. Asking her to plan another thing on top of that for you, instead of doing it yourself- that's not fair to her."

"I just thought that it might be a good way to repair the bad blood between the two of them!" Alya objected, frowning. "Since Marinette wasn't very welcoming when Lila first arrived."

Marinette narrowly withheld a snort. Gee, I wonder why?

"But if you're busy, I guess you can wait to try to mend that bridge later," Alya added. She sighed. "We probably won't be able to raise as much money, though, since we don't have your experience."

"Mmm," Marinette managed noncommittally, ignoring the clear attempt at a guilt-trip in favor of checking her email on her phone. Alya really had been spending too much time with Lila if she was starting to act just the same. Hopefully she would cut that out after Lila's lies had been exposed and everyone realized what a manipulator she was.

Marinette's phone lit up with a text, and she didn't hesitate to open it at once.

Adrien: Remember, if you commit homicide, you won't be around to gloat when people discover the lies.

Marinette snorted in amusement.

Marinette: I'm going to gloat for a solid MONTH after she gets found out. I wasn't very welcoming? Try SHE was a bully from the start and I wasn't about to tolerate that.

In front of her, Adrien's head gave a tiny nod as he put his phone away, just in time to start class. Marinette locked her phone and put it away, resigning herself to what was probably going to be a week of poorly-concealed efforts to get her into the extra fundraising before Alya either dropped it or realized that something was up with Lila's "charity".

At least now she had Adrien on her side.

  The school fundraiser was going well as they marched steadily closer towards the holidays, their online portal showing just how much money had already been raised by people going through the link that they had both sent out and posted on the school site. There was going to be a bake sale before the break too, with each family asked to donate two dozen cookies for them to sell at their booths near City Hall and (courtesy of Chloe) in the Grand Paris.

Marinette was really happy. People were being generous, and it really was a very deserving charity to receive the funds. On top of that, Adrien had asked for her help in baking his family's two dozen cookies, so they would get to hang out together.

(She was going to ignore the fact that Alya had tried to convince her to make another extra two dozen cookies because Lila "wasn't going to have time" because "all of her charity work"; that attempt had fallen flat when Marinette had just point-blank asked Alya why, exactly, Alya didn't just do that herself. At least with Adrien, he was just a novice baker and was going to be actively participating in the baking, but he just wanted help to be sure that his attempt turned out edible and it was a good excuse to hang out with one of his friends.)

And possibly best of all...well, Aurore's tech-savvy older brother had pulled through for them again.

"I was looking at the email that we had on file for Lila, and something about it just didn't seem right," Aurore told them as they sat together in a private study room in back of the library over lunch. "The domain on it, to be exact, because it was '.net' instead of, oh, I don't know, something actually related to the government. And my brother agreed, so we did a little searching."

Marinette was pretty sure that her jaw was on the ground. Next to her, Adrien wasn't doing much better. "You mean she was keeping her mom from finding out about everything school-related? I wondered how she got away with skipping so much school! And she was probably emailing as her mom, too, to confirm whatever stories she was telling."

Aurore grinned. "Exactly. So we did some digging, and found Mrs. Rossi's actual email. It's almost the same, just with a different domain. So I'm trying to think of what to send that wouldn't sound weird, because obviously we need confirmation that this is the right address so we can get Mr. Damocles to change it for the school system, but I don't want to come off as accusing or anything and have her tip Lila off accidentally."

Marinette exchanged a look with Adrien as she thought about it. "Well, we could just send the fundraiser email again with a comment about how we think that maybe her email was mis-entered before and is this one the correct one that we should be using. That's pretty straightforward and it asks for a response, and she might not even think to say anything about it to Lila."

"Ooh, I like that." Aurore typed that in at once, giving it a quick once-over to make sure that there weren't any errors and that the email had been entered correctly before sending it. "So, what else is going on in Ms. Bustier's homeroom? Anything new with the not-a-charity?"

"Alya's been confused about why our watchdog site doesn't list anything about Lila's 'charity'- she decided to go for the make-one-up route, apparently- and she's still been trying to find stuff on it just on Google, but apparently no connection has been made," Marinette told them, trying not to roll her eyes. "I know she and Rose were talking about trying to just go ahead with a collection of sorts anyway, so I forwarded an email talking about the importance of keeping track of how much money they raised, down to the last cent, in a ledger sort of thing." She couldn't hold back the grin. "Which Rose is really into. So even though they're trying to collect money for Lila still, at the end she won't be able to keep any of it because there'll be record of how much money they collected."

"Which, if we get in contact with Mrs. Rossi, we can make sure that that gets paid back in full!" Adrien exclaimed, scooping Marinette up in a hug for a long few seconds. Marinette prayed that she wouldn't turn red and make things weird. "Genius!"

"As long as Rose doesn't give that to Lila," Aurore pointed out. She raised an eyebrow at Marinette's head-shake. "No? You've already taken care of that?"

"She'll give Lila an electronic copy, but not the hard copy. I suggested that she might want to hold onto that to show what she did for future charity work. Which I still think is a good idea, even if Lila's charity is a sham. It doesn't change the fact that she was doing all of the bookkeeping."

Aurore made a face. "I am so glad that Samuel is doing our bookkeeping for the non-online donations, because that stuff is not fun. It's really fiddly, and if anything gets off..."

Marinette nodded. Things had gotten off fairly early on, and she had head Samuel- another member of Student Council- complaining about having to go through everything to figure out where his mistake was. Since then, he did regular, frequent checks so that he wouldn't have to go through absolutely everything again, just the most frequent donations. Admittedly, Rose was working with much smaller amounts of money- most people wanted more information on what they were donating to than just the name and "helping kids in Africa" if they were going to toss more than an euro or two into the collections basket- but it was still good practice.

Aurore's computer let out a ding, and she pulled up the student council email at once. "We already got a response! Mrs. Rossi says that yes, this one is correct, please keep using it and thank you for catching the error and were there any other recent emails that she might have missed. I'm going to forward this to Mr. Damocles with a message to note the change in email address, just a second- and done."

"Nice job," Marinette told her, leaning across the table to bump fists with Aurore. After a second's thought, she fist-bumped Adrien, too, so that he wouldn't feel left out. "That's one more thing off of our plates."

  Their fundraiser finished right before holiday break with a silent auction, with all of the items up for purchase having been donated by parents, teachers, extended family members, community business owners, and- in the case of an array of signed CD cases and posters- Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, and several of their musician buddies, after Marinette had approached Jagged Stone with the request.

And of course, everyone was invited. Posters had been put up outside of the school and emails had been sent out, reminding everyone about the time and date and their charity, plus attaching a list of the items up for auction to get people's interest.

"My mom so wanted to make it, but work came up," Lila told several of their classmates when she arrived at the auction, looking sad. "And there were several things that she was really interested in, like the-"

"Ooh, barf, I can see what you mean," Aurore said, materializing at Marinette's side and wrinkling her nose at Lila. "That's a pretty obvious ploy to get people to buy things for her, isn't it? Or at least to pitch in some of their own money to help her, so that she won't have to pay them back."

Marinette nodded. It really was disgusting, but at least now Lila was moving off with the group towards one of the items so that they didn't have to hear her. She was steering clear of the signed Jagged Stone things, oddly enough, but maybe that would be a dead giveaway that she didn't actually know him. After all, Jagged Stone would sign anything put in front of him, so her going out of her way to buy a signed item when she was supposedly on great terms with him would be pretty strange.

"Do you think her mom actually can't make it, or Lila just assumed that she wouldn't know about the auction and didn't tell her?" Adrien asked. His arm was tucked through Marinette's, though she was pretty sure that it was just so that he wouldn't lose her in the crowd. "Is the fake email still on the list?"

Aurore nodded. "Yeah, up until this morning. I cleared it off so that there wouldn't be any confusion going forward."

"And I would place bets on Lila assuming that her mom doesn't know anything," Marinette added. "She wouldn't want to risk anyone asking her mom about her charity." She grinned and pointed as she noticed someone new stepping into the school. "And look, over there."

The other two looked. There, standing in the entryway and looking around, was Mrs. Rossi. She really didn't look much like Lila, but it was easy enough to recognize her from her official embassy photo.

(Her official embassy photo, where she wasn't listed as the actual ambassador, but just one of the embassy staff, but that- well, that was an interesting little tidbit that Marinette was going to sit on for a little bit longer.)

"Oh, she's spotted Lila," Aurore said gleefully, craning her neck to follow Mrs. Rossi as she wove through the crowds. "And- whoops, Lila sees her!"

Marinette hastily smothered a laugh. If Lila's expression was anything to go by, she definitely hadn't realized that her mom was getting emails from the school and was going to be coming. She had never seen the other girl look so pale before.

"I'd ask if I should go get some of that amazing-smelling popcorn that they're selling so that we can watch, but honestly, I kind of just want to let things take their course and find out later," Adrien said, glancing down at Marinette. "There's some pretty cool items up for auction that I want to check out."

Marinette considered that. On one hand, she wanted to watch Lila's downfall. On the other... well, she had been keeping an eye on the whole Lila fiasco for a while now, and she was kind of tired of it. It would probably be a bit awkward to watch, too, and there was no guarantee that it would happen right away, and they were too far away to hear anything besides.

...yeah, her decision was pretty well made.

"That sounds like fun," Marinette told him, before glancing over at Aurore. "What about you?"

"I might go point Mr. Damocles in her direction," Aurore commented, glancing around the crowd. "Or maybe that can wait until later, since I don't want to throw everything at Mrs. Rossi at once and disrupt the auction with an akumatization." She sent them a slightly sheepish grin. "But you know I like my gossip, so..."

Marinette had to laugh. That was so very Aurore. "All right. We'll bump into you later, then."

Aurore grinned in return, and then was off. Marinette watched her go for a moment, then let Adrien lead the way off into the crowds surrounding the tables. It was amazing to be able to sit back and relax after the past weeks of planning and making sure that everything, from the online link to the cookie sale to this, was going to go off without a hitch. They were well on track raise more money this year than they had any other year, and that was amazing.

And to think that she had had a hand in setting all of this up...well, Marinette just couldn't be prouder.

It was fun investigating all of the donations with Adrien, even though- as part of Student Council and also part of the team that had photographed and logged all of the donated items- she had seen them all before. Marinette couldn't help but peek at the bids despite herself, grinning when she saw some of the higher ones.

"This is amazing," Adrien commented once they had made the rounds and had gone to browse through the assorted refreshments available for purchase. "There were a lot of nice things donated. And people are definitely bidding plenty of money."

"Yeah, some people will spend more to win the prize than it's worth," Marinette told him. "Like with the voucher for stuff from our bakery- the top bid right now is for more than the value of the voucher. It's interesting, but I think that people see it as buying the item, and then making a donation on top. Or something, I don't know."

"That's really cool," Adrien commented, then pointed. "Oh, look, Nathalie and the Gorilla are here! They said that they might show up and do some shopping. I honestly thought that Nathalie was just saying that to be nice, because she's been sick and hasn't wanted to go out, but I guess she's been feeling better lately."

"Oh, that's good," Marinette said, before a memory made her frown. "Wait, I thought you commented on her being sick, like, three months ago. Is she still having problems?"

Adrien shrugged, but he was frowning, too. "I don't know. She had been having these weak, dizzy spells like Mom used to before she disappeared for a bit before I commented on it at school, I think. Maybe whatever treatment she was getting finally kicked in, I don't know."

Marinette frowned even deeper. Nathalie had been showing the same symptoms as Adrien's mom before she vanished? That was a really weird coincidence. And for both of them- presumably both, at least- to have those same symptoms for an extended period of time?

If Mrs. Agreste and Nathalie had been related, Marinette might have guessed that it was a genetic thing. But since they weren't- again, that was an assumption- then the chances of them both separately having the same condition...

"I cannot believe that I fell for such a manipulative, thieving, disgusting liar!"

Alya materialized at Marinette's side, clearly steaming. Rose, Mylène, and Juleka weren't far behind her. Rose looked like she was close to tears, and the other two just looked lost.

"Pardon?" Adrien asked politely, but Marinette could see the amusement glimmering in his eyes.

"Lila's been leading us all around by the nose, making up stories about her life and about her nonexistent charity- and I've missed a dozen akuma attacks because I was wandering around in the cold, trying to raise money for her! I offered to make a posting on the Ladyblog so that I could put up a link to her site to raise more money! She was probably just planning on pocketing it all!" Alya scowled deeper. "I can't believe we fell for it! And aren't you even surprised?" she demanded when neither Adrien nor Marinette reacted. "At all?"

"Are we meant to be?" Adrien asked dryly. "After Marinette's spent so long calling Lila a liar?"

Alya faltered for a moment, then scowled deeper. "You- you knew, but you didn't warn us?"

"Yes, because pointing out the obvious lies worked so well the first several dozen times I did it," Marinette said, adopting the same dry tone that Adrien had used. "And I gave you the watchdog charity link to use. I rather thought that its complete lack of anything about Lila's charity might tip you off."

Alya faltered. "Oh."

"But we still gave Lila money that was meant for charity," Rose said tearfully. Juleka pulled her to her side, trying to comfort her. "And it was a decent amount, too."

"You have your log, right?" Marinette reminded her. "If you tell Lila's mom how much Lila got for her 'charity', then I bet that she can get that money back to you and you can donate it to another charity."

Rose perked up at once, tears drying up magically. "Oh, that's right! We can still put that money to good use! I'm glad you suggested that we keep track of everything, Marinette."

"Yeah," Juleka agreed. "Lila sucks, but at least we can get the money back."

"We should go talk to Lila's mom before she leaves," Rose decided. She dug in her bag, pulling out the ledger notebook that she had been using for their charity collections. "Aha! Yes, I have the amount we gave Lila yesterday written here. C'mon, let's go make sure that Mrs. Rossi knows!"

"Well, all's well that ends well," Adrien said cheerfully as the other girls headed off. "I bet this isn't how Mrs. Rossi saw her evening going, and Lila definitely wasn't expecting any of this, but at least now the adults can figure everything out and Lila can actually see some consequences. And hopefully next semester, there'll be less drama now that she'll be restrained- or gone, if Mrs. Rossi or Mr. Damocles decides that Lila staying here wouldn't be a good idea."

"Hopefully," Marinette agreed. She grinned over at Adrien. "But that's enough worrying about Lila and her nonsense for tonight. I think we should just sit back and enjoy the evening, don't you?"

Adrien beamed back. "I couldn't agree more."

[eyesaremosaics]

I loved your last two zodiac posts! Can you describe how you feel about Aquarius?

My father is an Aquarius. Aquarians are the biggest mystery of them all aren’t they? You know that quote from that blink 182 song where he says: “I traced the cord back to the wall, no wonder, it was never plugged in at all.” That is Aquarius.

They are always in the next moment, dreaming seamless dreams. They are poor listeners because of their active imagination running away with them constantly. They create their own world–for sure. They are Alice through the looking glass. They are a kaleidoscope. They are that stock character talking about random things in the background. They are the rainbow after the storm, the silver lining, the political protest, the Renaissance. They are revolution, they are unconventional lifestyles, they are the best of friends and the worst of lovers (not that they are bad in bed, they are very frisky and experimental. They just don’t do committed relationships very well. They like to be in the romantic longing, or outright refuse connection altogether).

Though fun and exciting, true intimacy is alien to them. So accustomed to living in their own world, everything else is like an intrusion. They enjoy spinning their web for others to see and admire in its unusual beauty, but they only want you at an arms length distance. They are not emotionally centered, they are intellectually centered. Very “in their head” at all times. When an emotion happens to them, they don’t know how to process it. It just sort of comes up like projectile vomit, and everyone has to drop everything they are doing to attend to them, but if you are hurting–they just cold shoulder you and shrug it off. They can’t easily access emotion unless they have water in their chart. If they have fire, they are ultra creative.

Aquarians are the friends who always have their door open to you. You are always welcome to stay over, they are always down to travel, go to a concert, try something fun and spontaneous. You will never be bored with an Aquarian. They are always off in another dimension. Speaking random truths from the ether, or just completely denying any existence of that “space traveler” in them.

Aquarians are outraged by social injustice, and are natural humanitarians. That is… Unless they have a bunch of cap and Pisces like my dad. That makes him very dark and bitter a lot of the time, however, Aquarians by nature are silly, offbeat and playful. They will fascinate you with their keen insight and unique sense of humor. They march to the beat of their own drum, and are very objectively curious.

Aquarians are great and restructuring, or finding alternative routes or ways of thinking. Their mind traces every avenue, and often they have a wisdom, which seems to come out of left field at times. It is hard for them to line up with their emotions, but when they do it is so pure.

Aquarians generally vibe well with Aries and Sag because they are truth tellers. You will get a bare bones, straight answer out of them. However, their colorful imagination gives them a more delicate delivery as opposed to these fiery counterparts. Aquarius has a dreamy, yet very no-nonsense approach to most things. It is much more appealing to them to return to their own world as quickly as possible. Giving information will only be done when absolutely necessary, and at lengthy intervals. As social as they can be (especially with fire in their chart), they are the sign that most appreciates and values solitude.

They are champions of justice, and can’t stand to be a bystander. If something goes on that they don’t approve of, they will make it known. They are crusaders by nature, nothing fills them with more purpose than joining a meaningful cause. A good example of an aquarian in this position is Abraham Lincoln.

They march to the beat to their own drum, and follow a music that only they can hear. Aquarius are known for being free and independent thinkers that come to their own conclusions about things, as a result they don’t hold much stock in gossip or other people’s opinions. They are much more interested in coming to their own conclusions. They rarely (if ever) judge a book by it’s cover and prefer to keep an open mind when meeting new people, walking into unfamiliar surroundings, or new situations.

They are horrible liars. Like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar, “Oh gee I thought it was mine.” My dad was a flagrant womanizer, and could never keep all his affairs straight. When an aquarian is put in a position where they feel they are unable to tell the truth, they prefer to remain silent. It’s better to say nothing at all, hoping no one will notice so they don’t have to say anything, because it is actually deeply rooted in their nature to be brutally honest.

Also, aquarians live and breathe music. More than any other sign in my experience. I get my good taste in music from my father. When he was a young teen back in England, he kept handwritten catalogs rating albums and live performances, comparing artisits etc. He took me to my first concert at 12 years old, and it’s still an important tradition for us. Going to concerts are most of my favorite memories with my dad. For Aquarius, everything is better with music. An Aquarian I dated back as a teenager was in a band, and he idolized Tom Waits along with the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Negative side to aquarians is their fixed opinions, and determination to take the road less traveled. They need to do it their own way, and don’t listen to reason a lot of the time. They also brood, over analyzing things to a point that ALMOST puts Virgo to shame. Aquarians are also wickedly sarcastic. They are hilarious, and sharp as a tack. Even aries remains amused and interested in whatever aquarius has to say. They have keen insight, and unique observations to offer others.

Aquarius is selective about who they allow into their ‘inner circle’ and prefer quality over quantity when it comes to intimate connections.They would much rather have a handful of solid friends that they can depend on than a tonne of random name droppers who aren’t really invested. They don’t often show emotions, they feel them, but it is such an unfamiliar disconnect for them that they need solitude to get their head back on straight. Also, in a darker aspect, they are so detached from their own inner life that they can’t be present with anyone else’s feelings. If you go to them for advice, they seem agitated and tell you to “deal with it”, but if they have a problem….everyone needs to drop everything to attend to their feelings. That has been my one pet peeve with them.

They are incredibly independent and self reliant. A friend of mine hopped trains across country in proper aquarian joie de vivre. They have a huge desire to make it on their own. They hate taking hand outs or charity from others. They’d rather starve. My father is the master of this, and never asks for help when he really needs it.

Aquarians often feel deeply misunderstood, and that the world is against them, or that people just don’t “get” them at all. They embrace change, and can be quite unpredictable, almost erratic in their behavior. They come out of left field with something… all intense like and you are suddenly asking yourself: “where did you come from??”

Aquarians are the ultimate “James Dean” trope. A rebel without a cause, they hate being told what to do, or how to think. My father resents being forced into catholic school like you would not believe, and is now convinced that catholicism is bullshit (which I agree) and hat we are actually an alien experiment. My dad is a conspiracy theorist to the max. Another interesting thing about Aquarius, is that they actually LEARN from their mistakes, and they never make the same mistake twice. My dad has no problem washing his hands of something and never looking back. Although… contrarily, they want to believe the best in people, and believe in second chances. If you fuck up on the second chance though….you are through.

Aquarius is the melodious sound of music reverberating in your ears like kettle drums. The laser light show of a huge stadium, Fox Mulder in his dingy office balancing a pencil on his nose, the “I want to believe” poster blaring behind him. They are the children of the revolution, they are faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust, fairy like in their energy (if female), a waif with eyes (Mia Farrow is an Aquarius). Male aquarians are the mad scientist, the vulcan, (Victor Frankenstein, Mr. Spock). They are snorkeling off the coast of Hawaii, giggling as the colorful fish brush past heir skin. They are para sailing, astronauts, aliens, travelers of time and space. They are bloody knees beneath a silk party dress, building a toy rocket in your backyard. They are telescope eyes, metal teeth. Faulty explanations with no feasible alibi. The piece pf ribbon caught in the tree, the evidence of your departure, the proof that you came, you saw and you slipped away. They are escape artists, magicians, scholars, inventors, innovators. They are the groat of the cello, the twang of the electric guitar. The second star to the right, that shines in the night, unapologetically themselves.

[kitkasimba]

5 Things tag

Okay, so I was tagged by @jmplel to tell y’all things about myself in a sequence of 5s. Warning, this is gonna get real long, and I’m going to make it a “read more” thing. So, if you’re really want to know more... PREPARE YOURSELVES. Also, thanks friend! ♥♥♥

5 things you’ll find in my bag:

1. Wallet because it is the holder of my (lack of) money & multitudes of Dutch Bros cards.

2. Important and sentimental notes from my best guy friend, best gal friend, my uncle, and my roommate from my freshman year. These letters are some of the most important things I possess, and they’re all from different parts of my life.  My best guy friend gave me this letter when we first started dating freshman year of high school and I have it because there are a few sentences in it that still hold true of our unbreakable friendship. My best gal friend gave me this letter when I was surprise visited by her 2 summers ago at the San Francisco airport. It was my birthday and every other holiday in the year letter/card and everytime I read it I cannot help but cry because the bond we have is truly remarkable. She’s my best friend, wife, and sister. My uncle gave me this letter when I moved into my resident hall my freshman year of college. He placed it in my rolled up memory foam in a package that was wrapped in half-naked men paper. The “gift” he bestowed upon me was condoms (that I ended up distributing to my friends), but his note was congratulating me on my accomplishments and how proud he is of everything I’ve done. I cry everytime I read that letter too. My roommate from freshman year of college gave me this letter when we were moving out. We were close, but not as close as we could have or wished we could have been. She was the best roommate I could ever hope and ask for though. We were so alike and still keep in touch today, and I keep it because it was the first time living “on my own” with another person. 

3. Well that last one was hella long... sorrynotsorry. I also keep prescription sunglasses (that need updating) because I, too, like seeing in the sunlight. Also, they make everything look like an instagram filter and that is what I truly live for tbh.

4. Allergy pills because I am kind of, sort of, maybe allergic to pet dander... and I have a cat at home-home and living with me in my apartment. Good move Ashley. I also just have terrible allergy attacks from the sun and pollen. Life is great.

5. Chapstick because my lips be hella chapped all the time.

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom:

1. POSTERS GALORE. I don’t like having too much empty space on my walls, so I cover them with posters, flags, cards, pictures, art, etc.

2. A really high (and hella comfy) queen bed with 3-4 blankets and 7-9 pillows (3 are pillow pets and 2 are body pillows). I sleep on a cloud. This is my first time having a bed to call my own that is not a twin.

3. LOTS of clothes (and flannel). I like having options!!

4. Pictures and pictures of my friends and family. Not entirely recent pictures, but people who are important in my life and deserve to be recognized and seen.

5. White Christmas lights that are above my bed and window. They help me wind down at night and they relax me whenever I am feeling too much of anything. Just seeing them makes me feel better. 

5 things I’ve always wanted to do in life:

1. I’ve always wanted to own a Corgi, and someday I will. I walk my past supervisor’s corgi almost every week and it never fails to make me smile. I cannot wait to have a corgi to call my own who I will spend time with and share a home with. It’s one of the only thoughts that actually makes excited for the future (at the moment).

2. Cut my hair short. I’ve been mulling over this for months now and I just cannot bring myself to get it all cut off. Like, I’m talking somewhat of a pixie cut but with a lil more length. Sounds ridiculous, but I’ll explain later why it’s challenging for me. 

3. Come out to everyone... not just people I have carefully selected, especially in my family. I’m pretty much completely out at school (I mean, with my job it’s kind of hard not to be & I have no fear of being out at school). At home, though, I’m out to immediate family except my grandma and dad. I really want to come out to my dad and I was so to doing so towards the end of the year because at the time I had a partner who got involved. However, things didn’t work out and I ended up not doing it... but someday I’ll get that chance--hopefully.

4. Travel to London and Australia. I don’t know why, but I have always had some sort of inclination to go see those two places. It’s probably those red telephone booths and those wombats... But, I would love to see them for myself.

5. Roadtrip around the PNW (or just Oregon, and maybe Washington). I really want to visit Crater Lake again and learn more places about Oregon! It’s a beautiful place and I feel like I have been confined to parts of it and don’t know a whole lot more about its other regions. Oh, and also learn an instrument while on this roadtrip (now I’m just bending the rules and throwing that in there). But I think I’m instrumentally challenged... or just don’t have the ability.

5 things I’m currently into:

1. Tattoos. I am suffering from serious tattoo fever and I just want to get one after the other. I’m trying to wait out until my next one in the summer, but I don’t know... I am really interested in getting a small one on the side of my lower right arm.

2. Reading. During the summer and up until now, I’ve been very invested in the Harry Potter series because it has been my goal for the past couple years to read them. I’m on the final book and I just want to finish the series but I’m finding it really hard to make time to read them with other things I need to do and a part of me doesn’t want them to end. I know I missed the train on these in childhood, but they’re so amazing, and it’s hard to believe that I just got around to reading them. (The length of books and series intimidates me, especially when they’re 400+ pages. Mostly because I’m a slow reader).

3. Working out. I made it a goal of mine to go to the gym 2-3 times a week this term (and year) because I’m paying for the gym at my university and also because I want to channel my extra energy and emotions in a constructive way. Also I just want to try to take care of my body more. (I’m hella sore rn).

4. MOANA. That movie is absolutely beautiful and I cannot get over how amazing it was. It’s in my top 4 favorite Disney movies right now, and I love the music from it. (Lin Manuel-Miranda is a phenomenal human being).

5. TV shows. I’ve been watching more TV shows than I usually have. Like I used to watch shows here and there, but now I’m like “Okay, we finished one show. What’s next?” I just haven’t been invested in them as much before? Or maybe because I’ve gotten older I am able to understand and appreciate some shows more? Currently I’m watching Jane the Virgin S3. I just finished watching A Series of Unfortunate Events... all in one evening. Good job Ashley.

5 things on my to-do list:

1. Do the reading for the one class I had this past week. It’s nothing too much but it’s tedious and I lack the motivation to do it.

2. Finish drafting the email for the people I work with and to make the poster for that other program I have in about a week. 

3. Respond to emails for social activities... I love emails, but sometimes I just do not want to Adult. 

4. Get prepared for Drag Show auditions next weekend!!! AAAHHH I AM SO EXCITED!!

5. Make a list of food to buy within the next 2 weeks. I miss not paying for these things.

5 things people may not know about me:

(Some of you may know these, and sorry. I can be pretty open, so I’ll do what I can).

1. You know how I mentioned I want to cut off my hair but won’t? Well, one of the things I use to mask my (many) insecurities is my hair. Therefore, if my hair turns out not lookin’ so good I am going to feel extremely vulnerable... then again, that may not be a bad thing?

2. I’m in the process of trying to see a counselor. This has been something fairly new because I’ve never seen a licensed counselor. I’ve done volunteer counseling for grad students obtaining their degrees, but never with someone who already has their degree and is out of school. I’m really nervous because opening up to people about things in my past is extremely difficult for me due to self issues. However, this will be extremely beneficial for me because there are some things I need to work out personally and trauma related. 

3. I’ve had pretty short lived relationships... My first relationship (freshman year of high school) was 2 weeks and 4 days (longest). My second relationship (sophomore year of high school) was 2 days. My third relationship (fifth year in college - recently) was 2 weeks and 2 days. I have a feeling the number 2 is not a number in my favor?

4. I have a deep passion for photography and hope to incorporate it more into my life when I don’t have to worry about school all the time. I miss being behind a lens. 

5. While I have accepted the quote “your eyebrows are sisters, not twins,” my left eyebrow is a lil wonky because it has nerve damage. When I was younger, my cousin and I were doing something in the yard and he threw a wooden brick at me and it ended up hitting my left eyebrow. So, my left eyebrow goes flat when I smile too hard. It’s one of my biggest insecurities when people take my picture, but I have learned to accept it (that and my bangs kind of hide it). Its ability to arch is not too great, but she does her best. 

If you read all of this, I’m hella impressed. I’m not too interesting of a person, but something kept you going til the end and I thank you very much for sticking by. 

I’ll tag @sass-and-chocolate, @darth-pope, @latenitetacos, and @kitkatkat18.

Y’all totally don’t have to do this (it’s real long, I know), but I’d love to see your responses if you do. Again, thanks for the tag, Katie! ♥

[thetrumpdebacle]

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies in for Terry Gross, who’s off this week. In the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign, a Facebook group called “United Muslims of America” staged a rally in support of Hillary Clinton. They handed out posters with this quote attributed to Clinton – “I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.” The quote was made up, and the rally was actually organized in St. Petersburg, Russia. The rally and sign were part of a Russian effort to affect the election, according to a grand jury indictment brought by special counsel Robert Mueller last Friday against 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies.

The indictment details how Russian computer specialists created hundreds of social media accounts that in turn created and spread political memes and messages in an attempt to undermine the Clinton campaign. Our guest Scott Shane covers national security and intelligence issues for The New York Times. He’s been reporting on these Russian social media accounts for months and has broken stories on how Russian operatives used Twitter and Facebook to spread anti-Clinton messages and sew political discord in the U.S.

Well, Scott Shane, welcome back to FRESH AIR. You know, there’s a lot of talk now about Russian efforts to interfere with – in the American political process. This is not new to you. Last fall, you were digging into clues of this kind of activity. Give us a sense of what you found and how easy or hard it was to put things together.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, with colleagues, I had written a long story in December of 2016 about the Russian hacking and leaking, as everyone remembers, of emails from prominent Democrats, the DNC and so on. But, you know, we kept hearing that the intelligence agencies thought this was part of a broader sort of information attack and that one of the elements was social media. So I started looking at Facebook and Twitter and talking to a lot of people. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult to identify who were Russians out there, what were Russian efforts on Facebook and Twitter, and what were just part of the, you know, cacophony on both sides of the presidential election or the many sides to the presidential election in 2016.

But eventually, I found a couple ways to identify what appeared to be Russian efforts, and one of them was – the intelligence agencies had identified a website called DCLeaks that popped up in the middle of 2016 and started posting some of this hacked material. And one of the things that I found – I had searched on Facebook to see who had started promoting DCLeaks leaks, and it took about a month for DCLeaks to get any media attention. But I found that there were a handful of Facebook users who got very enthusiastic about DCLeaks right away, on the first day that DCLeaks appeared, and they were promoting it heavily across Facebook and various groups. And also, I noticed that their English was not ungrammatical, but a little odd. It wasn’t idiomatic.

So I started trying to see if these were real people. If I could find them, I messaged them on Facebook. I looked for them in other ways. And most of them – you know, you just – they had generic names. You couldn’t really track them. But there was a guy named Melvin Redick, and that was an unusual enough name. And he had put enough information on his Facebook page to try to track him. He’d put his high school. He’d put his college. He lived in Pennsylvania. He’d grown up in Philly. He lived in Harrisburg and so on.

So I set out to find him, and it turned out there was no Melvin Redick in Pennsylvania. No one had graduated by that name from his high school. No one had graduated from his college with that name or attended the college. And so gradually, I was able to determine that this guy was a Russian creation. And that was the first time I really was able to nail one of these imaginary American voters who had been created by this Russian effort with the notion of influencing the American public.

DAVIES: So tell us about the size and scale and reach of this operation. How big was it? Where did it come from?

SHANE: Well, it was operated by – you know, mostly from a company called the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, Russia, which appears to be controlled by a guy named Prigozhin, who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and has made a fortune in the catering business – school food business and that sort of thing – and has close Kremlin ties, has done other favors for the Kremlin, seems to be one of these oligarchs that Putin calls on from time to time for special projects, and this was a special project.

So, you know, they hired a bunch of people we would refer to as trolls in Internet language who had – you know, many folks may not know that they had major domestic operations. So they would attack the Russian opposition, the opponents or critics of Putin. They would go on the comment areas of various media outlets and post comments, you know, along the sort of guidelines they were given.

But then they created this separate project to deal with the United States. Eventually, as you suggested, that started in 2014 when they dispatched some people to the U.S. to travel around and apparently do sort of intelligence work. They sent two women over in 2014. They were here for three weeks in June of that year. They visited nine or 10 states – nine states, I guess it was. You know, so who were they meeting with? What were they looking at? What were they doing? I would love to be able to reconstruct that.

DAVIES: So when this thing got rolling, how big was it? What was its reach?

SHANE: It ended up, according to the indictment, involving about 80 employees of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. So they were, you know, working on shifts, trying to sort of imitate U.S. time zones to lend a little more credence to their operations. So they were sort of posting away on Facebook, creating these pages, firing away on Twitter – quite a big operation on Instagram.

So they were working a way – you know, to me, it had an entrepreneurial feel. You know, these people were given general instructions, and guidelines and the messages they wanted to convey, and then they were given, you know, a bit of leeway, and they could use imagination. And there’s a little bit of a sense of throwing stuff up against the wall and seeing what stuck.

DAVIES: Right. It included, we are told, establishing hundreds of email, PayPal and bank accounts, include – and including the theft of some – the identities of some Americans. Why would they need to do that? I mean, anybody can, you know, sign up for a Twitter or Facebook account pretty quickly, right?

SHANE: Yes, but they paid for ads, in some cases. And they also – you know, it appears they wanted to sometimes borrow people’s identities just to lend a little more credibility to their operation. Ultimately, you know, this really became a pretty large-scale operation. Facebook estimated that the Russian material, which is basically these pages, if people haven’t seen them – they have these memes, these sort of posterlike images with a slogan, usually.

And those were, you know, followed by hundreds of thousands of Americans, and so they would start seeing the messages in their Facebook feed. So Facebook estimated that over two years, about 126 million Americans, you know, had this stuff in their feeds. You know, how many Americans actually saw the material and focused on it is impossible to say. But that’s half of the U.S. adult population, so by then, it was a pretty big operation.

DAVIES: Wow. They sought to connect with actual American political operatives and activists, Trump supporters and others. You want to give us some examples of how they tried to do that and how successful they were?

SHANE: Sure. The – you know, this is where it gets both even more impressive and kind of creepy. But they were using direct message on Twitter, Facebook messages and other means to reach out to real American activists. So these pages were anti-immigrant pages. They were, you know, sort of taking volatile stances on race. They were, generally speaking, vociferously anti-Hillary Clinton, often pro-Donald Trump. So they could reach out to activists in all of these fields and try to say, hey, you know, we’re part of your cause. And in many cases, they started calling people to rallies.

So, you know, it’s hard to even get your mind around this, but these are people – Russian citizens – sitting in St. Petersburg, 4,000, 5,000 miles away, calling people to rallies, saying, you know, be at such and such a place at 1 p.m. on Saturday for a rally on so and so. And in many cases people actually showed up. You know, Facebook has sort of gradually become a little more transparent about this. Took them a long time to acknowledge any of this had happened, but they have said that 13 of these Russian Facebook pages called a total of 129 rallies, that about 338,000 different Facebook users viewed these events, the calls to these events, and about 62,000 Americans at least said on Facebook that they planned to go to one of these events. So you have people, Americans, being manipulated from thousands of miles away by people who they assumed to be fellow activists but are actually these Russian trolls.

DAVIES: You know, it’s interesting. I cover state and local politics here in Philadelphia, and I remember in October of 2016, in the heat of the presidential campaign, seeing a notice in my email of a Miners for Trump Rally in South Philadelphia. South Philadelphia, as you know, is nowhere near coal country. And I just thought this was odd. And with all the other things to do, I didn’t go. But now it turns out this appears to have been promoted by something called Being Patriotic, which I guess is one of the Russian-inspired fronts. And there’s a Facebook post of theirs that reads, America has always been hinged on hard-working people. The state of Pennsylvania rose owing to multiple companies mining coal, producing steel and creating the need for other jobs, groceries, doctors, dentists, insurance, gas, vehicles, et cetera. That’s closer than I could get to vernacular in any foreign language, but it’s a little off.

SHANE: (Laughter) A little off – exactly. And that’s sort of classic. Sometimes they hit the target. Sometimes you see their stuff and you say, huh, little bit off. I remember seeing one that spelled nationalist within an E instead of A, netionalist (ph), which is actually sort of the Russian. You know, if you’re pronouncing English with a Russian pronunciation, it’s more netionalist. In Baltimore, where I live, there was a pastor who was also a big activist, named the Reverend Heber Brown III. And he saw a group on Facebook, called Blacktivist, calling a rally, a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the death of Freddie Gray, who, some listeners may remember, was a black man in Baltimore who died after being injured in police custody.

And Heber Brown went on direct message on Twitter to contact this group, Blacktivist, and said, you guys don’t even seem to live in Baltimore. How appropriate is it to call a rally when you’re not even here? And, you know, but he still assumed they were Americans. And they answered in that same kind of English that you were just citing. They said, we are looking for friendship because we’re fighting for the same reasons. Actually, we are open for your thoughts and offers. So (laughter), again, you know, he was a little perplexed by this. Told them to, you know, back off and stop meddling in other cities’ affairs, but, you know, only found out months later that these guys were in another city that was far, far away.

DAVIES: So it doesn’t seem there’s a lot of evidence of them generating mass events, although clearly there are some people who responded to some of their appeals in some way. But it’s harder to estimate how much these efforts might have influenced the thinking opinions and votes of Americans. There were some pretty colorful ads. You want to describe one or two?

SHANE: Yeah. I mean, one had sort of a debate between Jesus and Satan in which Satan was promoting Hillary Clinton. There was…

DAVIES: Satan actually has horns, right? And he’s arm-wrestling Jesus.

SHANE: Yeah. I mean, you know, something that has occurred to me, especially as I got back into this in recent days after the indictment, there must have been some fun and joy involved on the Russians’ part just getting into creating these images, fooling people, you know, sort of insinuating themselves into these divisive American debates. You know, it seems to have been quite a vigorous and, maybe for them, a kind of enjoyable effort.

DAVIES: Scott Shane covers national security and intelligence issues at The New York Times Washington bureau. We’ll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AHMAD JAMAL’S “THE LONE”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we’re speaking with Scott Shane. He covers national security and intelligence issues for The New York Times at its Washington bureau. He’s recently written about Russian efforts to influence American politics and the charges coming from the Mueller investigation.

Apart from promoting Donald Trump and attacking Hillary Clinton, once the general election campaign was underway there were other more subtle efforts – right? – like depressing black votes.

SHANE: That’s right. I mean, one thing that you see is that these Russian trolls promoted not only Donald Trump, but also Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. And the Sanders efforts seemed to be when Senator Sanders, you know, had given up his campaign and endorsed Hillary Clinton. These Russian efforts kind of went into overdrive to tell Sanders supporters, don’t betray the cause, don’t go with Hillary Clinton. Stay home. Don’t vote. And similarly, there was some Russian messaging that was mentioned in the indictment addressing Jill Stein supporters, the Green Party candidate, saying, vote for Stein. Your vote will not be wasted. And some of these efforts were directed at the black community.

There were also these Russian trolls took advantage of, I think it’s fair to say, existing currents in the black community during the campaign where folks had gone back and taken a harder look at Bill Clinton’s record, at the beginnings of mass incarceration and sort of zero-tolerance policies against crime, and Hillary Clinton’s infamous labeling of some criminals as super predators. And the Russians played up that, as well, to try to apparently depress black turnout for Clinton.

DAVIES: You know, this might be a point to talk about how we regulate our political speech. I mean, you know, there are rules about political advertising in this country, right? If you’re affecting a campaign, you have to disclose who you are, the name of your organization, and you have to file reports disclosing your donations and expenses. So-called news reports, I guess, aren’t subject to those same rules, right, ’cause they’re not paid advertising. They’re theoretically, you know, journalism or some kind of nonfiction. What obligation do social media sites have to regulate something like this?

SHANE: Well, I think it’s fair to say that social media companies have been extremely wary of regulation because their business model has been based on user growth, getting millions and then billions of people to use their sites, and then directing advertising at them. So, you know, they’ve worked very hard to avoid regulation. But now there are some proposals to begin to regulate social media political advertising the same way, you know, say, political ads on TV are regulated.

Everyone remembers the kind of, you know, I’m Donald Trump and I approve this message, the notion that you have to have somebody to take responsibility for a particular ad. You know where it’s coming from. Of course, that is imperfect, too. On TV, you see these ads for paid for by citizens for a better America, and you have no idea who that really is. But there’s some accountability there, at least. And there are efforts in Congress now to perhaps apply that to the social media world.

But I should say that there’s been a little bit of misunderstanding out there about how the Russians operated. You know, there have been a lot of reports that they only spent a hundred-thousand dollars on Facebook ads, and only about half of that was before the election. And that’s true, but the vast majority of the exposure of the Russian material was not in the form of paid ads. The paid ads were really a small effort. It was more this, you know, what Facebook calls this organic spread of material from the Facebook pages, stuff that the Russians didn’t have to pay for that people were liking and sharing with their friends and that was making its way through Facebook organically as opposed to being paid for.

DAVIES: Facebook estimated that these Russian efforts reached roughly 126 million Americans, which is a huge, huge number. We don’t know how many of them took them seriously or acted upon them. I’m just wondering, do we have any context for that number? Do we know how it would compare to a Koch marketing campaign, or some other big effort to influence public opinion?

SHANE: Well, you know, Facebook has emphasized that even that huge number, half the adult population in the United States, is small by Facebook standards. The amount of information that’s out there on Facebook being looked at by people, that was only one out of 23,000 pieces of content placed in people’s news feeds on Facebook during this period. So it’s a tiny percentage of everything on Facebook. But of course at the same time, it’s a whole lot of stuff. They put up 80,000 posts over two years, the Russians did, and a lot of it was shared quite a bit.

And, you know, we’ve been kind of picking on Facebook here. On Google, you know, the Russians created 18 channels, put up more than a thousand videos totaling 43 hours. Twitter identified – and I’m quite sure this is incomplete, but – they identified more than 50,000 automated accounts, these so-called bot accounts, on Twitter that were linked to the Russian campaign. So they were sort of firing on all cylinders during this period.

DAVIES: Scott Shane reports on national security and intelligence issues for The New York Times. After a break, he’ll talk about President Trump’s response to the charges in the Russia investigation and about past efforts by the United States to influence political events in other countries. Also, Ken Tucker reviews Brandi Carlile’s new album. I’m Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ELMER BERNSTEIN’S “THE CITY (FROM ‘THE GRIFTERS’)”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies in for Terry Gross, who’s off this week. We’re speaking with New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane about the Russian effort to influence American politics, including the 2016 election. Last week, special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies with orchestrating a massive online campaign to interfere with the presidential election.

You know, Masha Gessen, the Russian-born New Yorker writer, posted a piece this week in which she essentially says the impact of all this is exaggerated. She wrote, loyal Putinites and dissident intellectuals alike are remarkably united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous. She is, by the way, certainly no fan of Putin. She’s been very critical of him. Do you have any sense of what the reaction’s like in Russia, other than the official Kremlin denials of responsibility?

SHANE: Well, I think she’s right. And I have the greatest respect for Masha Gessen. She knows this stuff, and she certainly knows the Russian political scene extremely well. But, I mean, there’s a certain Russian cynicism that says there’s no way the government could actually have done a good job on this. You know, you can argue till the cows come home about whether this had a big impact, a little impact, no impact. But I guess I’ve been impressed on the more than a year that I’ve been looking at this.

As the picture filled in, I’m more and more impressed by what they achieved. And I’m not just talking about the social media aspect of this. You know, everyone who’s looked at this would agree that the biggest impact the Russians had by far was to hack into the Democratic National Committee, into the Clinton campaign and then, through WikiLeaks mostly, put up these emails. You know, they managed to disrupt the Democratic National Convention, forced the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the eve of the convention. They dripped out John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s emails over a period of weeks before the election.

Day after day after day, they produced many, many news stories. And actually, Donald Trump picked up the contents of some of that leaked material, including Clinton’s speeches, and made that the centerpiece of many speeches that he gave. So there was that. That was very high profile, very significant. And then you have all this social media stuff. You know, the analogy that I have come up with in my own head to try to understand this is the Russians were wielding a firehose of information during the campaign. But a campaign is a hurricane.

So there was a whole lot of stuff coming from the Russians, but there was a whole lot more stuff coming from Americans, a very polarized, very divided American public. And that’s, you know, again, that’s one of the reasons it was so hard to tell on social media what was Russian and what was not. There were anti-immigrant, anti-Clinton pages on Facebook. Some were Russian, many were American. And so they were adding to the – sort of the cacophony of political noise.

And the only reason I think it’s possible to speculate about a significant effect on the election is this was an extremely close election. As everybody knows, Clinton won 3 million popular votes more than Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, you know, won the election by fewer than 100,000 votes in three states. So we’re talking about a squeaker of an election. And so therefore I think it’s hard to discount, with all due respect to Masha Gessen, I think it’s hard to discount entirely the notion that the Russian activities did have an effect on the outcome.

DAVIES: Yeah. I mean, I’ve covered a lot of elections. And when they’re really, really close, you can point to a half a dozen things that, had they gone differently, might have affected it. And this could be among those. I want to ask kind of a naive question. You know, we know that campaign contributions from foreign nationals to political candidates in the United States is banned. This was different. I mean, this was an independent social media campaign. What laws did the Russians allegedly break in doing this?

SHANE: Wow. That’s a great question. You know, they’re accused of something that sounds very grand, which is conspiracy to defraud the United States. And then there are a number of other counts including things like other kinds of fraud and identity theft for stealing the identities of Americans who they then – whose identities they then use to create these accounts on social media.

DAVIES: Right. And, of course, the – I mean, the anger is really borne of a sense of outrage that you don’t want a foreign country meddling with your elections. And it’s fair to note that this is not the first time this has happened and that the United States itself has done this, which you’ve written about and have talked to intelligence officials about their reactions. What did you find?

SHANE: Yes. I mean, something that has gone mostly unnoticed in this, you know, year-long debate on what happened, what the Russians did to our election was what the U.S. has done to other countries elections over the decades. The CIA, in particular, has a long and colorful history of intervening in other people’s elections and, indeed, in some cases going much farther – certainly much farther than the Russians went in 2016 in countries like Guatemala, Iran, Brazil.

They actually helped overthrow elected leaders who, you know, were seen by American officials as antithetical to U.S. interests. We haven’t seen that in quite a while, but in other instances that – some of the older ones are well documented now. The CIA, between the ’40s and the ’60s, intervened repeatedly in Italian elections trying to prevent the election of the communists to power. And the Soviets were undoubtedly on the other side. But we were delivering suitcases full of money to a hotel in Rome in one instance a CIA retiree described. Those went to various candidates, financed all kinds of activities.

In other instances, the CIA would put in – would insert into foreign newspapers – would pay to have inserted true information, in some cases, that would hurt a particular candidate, in other cases, false information. So they did – many of the things the Russians did in 2016, the U.S. has done historically using the, you know, whatever technology was available at the time. In more recent cases, post-Cold War, it’s harder to get information. The stuff is still classified and still carefully protected.

But we have certainly put our thumb on the scales in elections once in Russia, trying to prevent the election of a communist in 1996 who was leading in the polls against Boris Yeltsin. And so we, you know, we intervened in a significant way to help Yeltsin’s re-election. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, where, of course, we were and are at war, we’re pretty heavy-handed in showing our preference and working to get particular candidates elected in both those countries as well.

DAVIES: Scott Shane covers national security and intelligence issues at The New York Times in their Washington bureau. We’ll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SIDESTEPPER’S “ME VOY ANDANDO”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we’re speaking with Scott Shane. He works for The New York Times covering national security and intelligence issues at their Washington bureau. He’s written recently about the Russian efforts to influence American politics and the Mueller investigation.

We should talk about the president’s reaction to all this. One thing he said is that the American election was not impacted by the Russian activities. The Mueller indictment made no such claim – right? – and no one can know for sure.

SHANE: Exactly, yeah. I mean, the president has always reacted to news about the Russian attack on the election in terms of what it means for him. And so he immediately took to Twitter to essentially say, initially, case closed because the Mueller indictment and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, when he announced it, said, no American appeared to, you know, had willingly cooperated with this operation or was named in the indictment as wittingly cooperating with this, knowingly cooperating. So, you know, the president took that opportunity to say, you know, I’m off the hook. Good news.

My colleagues who cover the White House said that his attitude evolved over the weekend and became somewhat darker because he realized this was not be being taken as a sort of clean bill of health but, in fact, proof that there had been crimes committed during the Russian operation. You know, there were violations of American law. And also that this was, you know, a very significant effect. It was not a hoax. It was something very specifically that was carried out by a large team in Russia. So the president at times has said Russia hoax. And this does seem to say whatever this was, it wasn’t just a hoax.

DAVIES: You know, President Trump said, you know, this clears me. It shows there’s no conclusion. It didn’t really do that. He said it shows there was no effect. The indictments don’t do that. One thing the president hasn’t done is to comment on the seriousness of this effort to undermine American democracy. What’s the impact of his lack of attention to that part of this?

SHANE: Well, I think it concerns a lot of people in Congress and across the government and across the country because, you know, intelligence officials told Congress last week that there are already signs that the Russians are thinking about the midterms and are likely to intervene in various ways in the midterm elections held later this year. You know, primaries are coming up in many states, you know, in the near future.

And so there’s been a lot of unhappiness that the president has not shown sort of leadership in terms of saying, you know, Russia intervened in our election, in our democratic process. And we are going to use all the forces of the government, all the resources of the government to make sure they don’t do it again. He hasn’t focused on that. He hasn’t said that. And that has distressed a lot of people inside and outside the government.

DAVIES: You know, one reason I like to read indictments is that they often provide clues to how investigators learned what they know. What does this indictment tell us about how the FBI figured this out?

SHANE: Well, there are some clues and some interesting ones. Among other things, the indictment quotes from emails. For example, an email that a woman working for the Russian troll operation in St. Petersburg sent to her family saying – you know, actually last year – saying, geez, you know, sorry I’ve been busy. We were really scrambling to cover our tracks because the FBI has busted us. (Laughter) You know, the FBI is on to us. Now, how did the FBI get a hold of an email that a woman in St. Petersburg sent to her family? You know, one would have to assume that the National Security Agency might have been targeting some of these folks and picking up their emails.

So there seems to have been, you know, signals, intelligence intercept – intercepted communications involved. And another possible clue is that three people are being described – are described the indictment, Russians, as having visited the United States on sort of intelligence missions in advance of this operation in 2014. And two of them are named, but one is not named. Now, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to treat that person differently unless that person is cooperating with the investigation, in which case their name, you know, would be left out of it. So that does raise the possibility that there’s an insider from the Russian operation who’s cooperating with Mr. Mueller.

The other thing that’s interesting about that is from the description of the person who visited Atlanta in November of 2014 and who’s not named, his colleagues, his bosses in Russia could certainly identify him. And the fact that that he, you know, that they did put that information in the indictment could potentially endanger that person. So it makes you wonder whether not only is he cooperating, but is he perhaps in the United States now?

DAVIES: I gather nobody expects the Russians charged in this investigation to be, you know, brought to justice. Why do you think Mueller unveiled this indictment, made these accusations public?

SHANE: That’s right. I mean, I don’t think, you know, about the biggest effect of this is likely to prevent these Russians from traveling without fear that they might be, you know, arrested not only in the United States but in other parts of Europe and so on an arrest warrant from the U.S. One of the bosses from this troll factory in St. Petersburg actually said in an interview after the indictments Russia is a big country with a lot of beautiful places, and so he’s going to limit his travel to Russia.

But so, you know, I think one answer to why Mueller, you know, indicted these Russians, you know, knowing that they probably would not be punished is that that’s, you know, that’s what he was asked to do. He was assigned to investigate, carry out a criminal investigation of the Russian interference in the election and any possible, you know, cooperation, collusion from President Trump or his associates. And that’s what he’s doing. And this is sort of so – he found that these Russians had violated American law, so he indicted them.

But one former government official told me that he thought this was a message indictment and that he thought that one reason Mueller did it was to settle once and for all the question of whether the notion of Russian interference in the U.S. election was or was not a hoax, as the president has said. By, you know, indicting three companies and 13 Russian individuals, you know, he’s certainly sending the message that this was not a hoax. And also, perhaps the same official thought putting some Americans, you know, on notice that if they had had any communications with these Russians or other Russians as part of the election campaign – that basically, you know, Mueller was going to come after them, and it might encourage some of those people to come forward and offer what they knew in hopes of ultimately avoiding punishment or mitigating punishment.

DAVIES: The attention in the Mueller probe focused on the effect of the elections. Are these networks still active? What are they doing now?

SHANE: Yeah, it’s – you know, certainly, the experts who follow this stuff closely – while it’s impossible to be absolutely certain what’s Russia and what’s not, they say that these Russian trolls, who are believed to be government-sponsored, are still very active, and their continuing activity appears to be in dividing, you know, Americans. And so every time there’s a divisive issue – a school shooting, the controversy over, you know, NFL players kneeling to protest against police shootings, anything that’s sort of a hot topic on which Americans have strongly divided feelings – you find these suspected Russian Twitter accounts especially pumping it out at a very high volume. And so it appears that the Russians have not abandoned the idea of doing their part to divide America, not that we’re not pretty well divided on our own.

And the motive here is that Vladimir Putin does not want the United States to be a model for his own country. In 2011, there were big demonstrations in Moscow and other cities against Putin and essentially in favor of democracy. And he – you know, to the degree that he can help mar the image of the United States, make the U.S. look like a chaotic, and gridlocked and divided place, a very troubled country, neither Russians nor their neighbors are going to say, hey, geez, let’s create a society like the United States.

DAVIES: Well, Scott Shane, thanks so much for speaking with us again.

SHANE: Thanks, Dave.

DAVIES: Scott Shane covers national security and intelligence issues at The New York Times Washington bureau. Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews Brandi Carlile’s new album. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOZZY AND YHUNG T.O.’S “LIFE OF SIN”)

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via The Trump Debacle

[republicstandard]

A Citizens Primer on Propaganda: From the Third Reich to the Deep State

I saw an interesting comment earlier today, actually a quote by Joseph Goebbels, a name synonymous with the word propaganda. He said once;

"Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting of their own free will."

An exhortation, if any further were needed, to be profoundly suspicious of those who are unerringly confident to the point of the instant rejection of alternative points of view. In fact, I would say in most cases, people believe Goebbels invented or perfected propaganda as a tool for Adolf Hitler. And if you think that, you’d be wrong. In fact, if you believe that, you yourself are a victim of propaganda.

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While Goebbels was an excellent student of the art and he used it with great effectiveness in Hitler’s Germany, he was in no way the inventor of the idea.

What exactly IS propaganda?

The dictionary gives the following information:

information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.: "he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda".

synonyms: information, promotion, advertising, publicity, spin, disinformation, counter-information, agitprop, info, hype, plugging, puff piece, the big lie

In thinking about early examples of propaganda I immediately thought of the Jewish leadership in the days of Jesus. Were their efforts of misinformation against Him, not propaganda? And then I thought of Adam and Eve in the garden. We know Satan as the “Father of Lies”- was his message to Eve not one of disinformation and enticement to act in a way she otherwise would not have acted? And I would be remiss if I did not remind you that Saul Alinsky dedicated his Rules For Radicals to Satan.

So, understanding that propaganda has been with us since the beginning perhaps we should have a better understanding of how it has been used in recent history and how we can combat its use against us.

To look at the modern use of propaganda we have to look before 1930s Germany. The use of posters is widely connected to early 20th-century propaganda, and this was certainly true in Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution.  Slogans and images were used to inspire the people and promote the efforts of the revolutionaries. Maybe this effort looks familiar, but more on that later.

In reality, what is propaganda if not advertising?

Born in Austria in 1891, Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, a fact he used to his advantage whenever possible.  Brought to the US by his family at a very young age, he graduated from Cornell with a degree in agriculture.  Unfortunately for the world, he would not go into farming.

Bernays had great success in both the political and commercial realms.  While we will focus more on the political, his commercial successes were many.  He promoted smoking as a glamorous and even healthy act for women during the 1920s-  In a time of social change around women’s suffrage, it was portrayed as empowering “Torches of Freedom”, as Bernays dubbed them.  While he was making Lucky Strike cigarettes appealing to the nation’s women, he was extremely dismayed that his own wife chose to smoke, destroying her cigarettes anytime he found them.

There was a highly successful campaign with the American Dental Association for public water fluoridation.  We might find it hard to believe, but bacon used to be considered of little value, a cut of meat that was often discarded or the fat was rendered into lard.  He made bacon and eggs a desirable meal, the “All American Breakfast”.  A hairnet company hired Bernays to campaign for the “need” of hairnets and soon many government agencies required their use.  Dixie cups also benefited from his campaign of disposable cups being more healthy than washing and reusing a glass.  Proctor and Gamble profited from his touting the purity and floating of Ivory soap.

While we are used to advertisements that convince us we might “need” a product or service, what of government using the same methods to convince us we need and want certain behavior from our politicians and officials?  As we look at the re-election of Woodrow Wilson in 1916, the slogan “He kept us out of war” and “America First” were two that swept him back into office. Obviously, we did get into WWI, so how was that received after running on a platform of peace? Did you ever hear of Bernays idea, “Making The World Safe For Democracy”?  Americans were sold on the idea that it was in our best interest to become involved.

Bernays efforts would be very similar to what we might call branding today.  He turned the negative connotation of propaganda to what we now call public relations.  In his book Propaganda, he asserted that public relations were a necessity, not just a gimmick.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”

Bernays was Jewish, so we might imagine what he thought when he learned that Joseph Goebbels was using his method and writings in Hitler’s plans for the Jews of Europe.  A foreign correspondent informed Bernays in 1933 of what the Nazis were doing with his work.  Bernays later recounted this in his autobiography in 1965:

“They were using my books as the basis for a destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me, but I knew any human activity can be used for social purposes or misused for antisocial ones.”

It clear from his work and personal comments that Bernays placed financial gain and personal ideology over benefits and/or harm to the people and nation.  It seems his object was simply to shape public opinion without regard to the end result.

What is interesting to me is that some of the most progressive thinkers on the 1940s saw the danger of Bernays.  SCOTUS Justice Felix Frankfurter warned FDR about using him in any sort of leadership role in relation to WWII, outlining how he and his colleagues were

“professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism, and self-interest.”

Joseph Goebbels was not his only student.

In 1961, Ronald Reagan warned of the propaganda that would be used to promote socialized medicine, old people dying, poor people kicked to the curb.  These were some of the arguments that brought about Social Security.  A few years later we were given Medicare, in 1993 the effort by Hillary Clinton to go to single-payer health care and again with Obamacare.  Rahm Emanuel was famous for his “Never let a crisis go to waste” comment and with good reason; a crisis is always a time when people are more susceptible to having their thoughts managed and directed in a desirable direction.

Today, we are bombarded from every direction by propaganda, and in many cases -as it was last century- some people are becoming exceedingly wealthy in the process of manufacturing reality.  For instance the Global Warming/Climate Change hoax/lie/fake news. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.”  How does this tie in with all the surveillance, data collection and data retention programs are in place to keep us safe and protect us from terrorism?

Charges of racism, homophobia, class warfare and misogyny are all terms of propaganda used and intended to marginalize and demean. It is impossible to have an honest discussion and debate on the issues when one side makes every effort to shut off the debate with false charges.

Was 9/11 a "crisis that should not be wasted"? It brought us FISA courts, The Patriot Act, NDAA added many provisions, TSA, Homeland Security -all put in place for our security and in most cases, we readily accepted it all.

If you think there is a significant difference between the left and right in American politics, you are a victim of propaganda.  Both want the government to control the people, they might disagree as to what degree, but neither believes in Constitutional liberty.  They’ll pay lip service to supposed wrongdoings, talk of rogue agencies and bureaucrats, yet neither side suggests arrest, indictment, and trial.  And we have not addressed the memes and such that permeate social media, often intended to inspire and motivate.  In this case, we do it to ourselves!

What is a citizen to do?  How can we combat this insidious cancer?

Education, if you dare.  If we don’t make an effort to learn, we will be treated like sheep and mushrooms, and deserve it.  Allow yourself to be open to reality, facts and truth.  We often are prevented from moving forward by confirmation bias...we only read and follow things that enforce our preconceived ideas.  Truth has no agenda, none of us is 100% right all the time.  Our bodies need physical nourishment, we don’t fast for extended periods of time, why do we fast from feeding our knowledge pool?

As you can see from the history of propaganda, we cannot simply read articles or reports and expect we have the full story, all the facts.  It would be nice if we could do as Detective Joe Friday of Dragnet did and ask for, “Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts”.  As a writer and researcher, I can attest that finding the truth is no easy task, but the search is well worth the effort.  I encourage each of you to search and learn as if the republic depended on it- because it does.

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[patriciacortes]

The Guest Posters Calendar – How To Manage Life And Chaos

Writing a blog for a living looks like an easy life. Maintaining a website seems super fun and easy. I’m here to tell you that both things require hard work. You have to be a well-organized machine in order to execute everything needed for success—day in and day out.

This post will serve as my personal account of “trying” (and more often failing) at maintaining everything needed to guest post and blog regularly and successfully. I will walk you through the technical aspects such as the laptop and the spot I like to sit on to write. I’ll also be covering the inner workings of process and management that come with the job.

The goal of this post is by no means to tell you that I have it all figured out. It’s also not meant to make you feel terrible if your own process isn’t working perfectly yet. Quite the opposite, this post is actually here to showcase how many failures I can string together and still, because I have a process in place, have a growing reputation and blog.

Subscribers Matter So Let’s Measure

I’ve been able to consistently grow subscribers. In fact, I have recently “re-engaged” my list to make sure everyone really wants to hear from me. I say that because it’s a measurement that matters. After all, the last thing you want is to keep on emailing people that aren’t even interested in what you have to say.

Let’s look at what matters when you’re blogging or guest blogging.

Key performance indicators or also known as KPIs are the measurements that matter to your business. Basically think of it like this, if it’s important then measure it. If it’s the single most important number then that’s a KPI for you. Cash flow is often considered as a KPI, for example.

So when you’re looking at growing a blog, you should focus on KPIs that make sense around blogging. Here are a few that I focus on:

I look at weekly, monthly, 90-Day, and 6-month views of these items:

Social Shares

Social Ads Stats

Unique VIsitors

Number of Visitors

Pageviews (highest to lowest)

Subscribers

Email Opens

Link Clicks on Emails Sent

# of posts scheduled

# of posts published

Growing subscribers is not extremely difficult. In fact, if you have a niche already down pat then it’s fairly easy. Make a simple call-to-action (use headline hacks swipe files to help you pick a converting headline) and then install a plugin with some sort of pop-up form. The Sumo plugin no doubt works great for this purpose. It has everything you’ll need for converting readers into subscribers on a WordPress site.

With that said, your daily and monthly routines should focus on growing your KPIs.

One aspect of this is how you set your calendar. If money is another important factor then you may want to add that into the mix as well. You want to have your KPIs set up for reporting. You need to lock in the time to review them and then decide on your path from there.

Basically, you’ll be writing and promoting your posts. So in order to know what’s working and what gives the best results, you need to review what’s causing your desired effect. That way, you can reproduce your wins and stop wasting time on pursuing activities that don’t really deliver anything for you. It’s really that simple!

KPI Focus Number One For Guest Posters: An Organized Calendar

I’ve been mentored by a few “millionaires.” There’s one I’ve never met and others that I paid to mentor me. The number one most distinguishing trait I can tell you about having success (all of them built their wealth and ran successful businesses) is that they ran an organized calendar.

They built their week with a purpose and had the discipline to focus and complete it. They didn’t put in bull-logney items. As Noah Kagan says, “If it doesn’t hit the one KPI then don’t even consider it.” That’s a kind of super micro focus—and that’s all you really need!

Multitasking is only meant for the kind of work you do in the corporate world. When you’re the only team member or the head of the company then you have to maintain super focus so mistakes are kept to a minimum. You also have to drive the results or else they don’t happen. And when they don’t happen for long enough…that’s the time that you fail. Ultimately, you then go out of business.

So set up your calendar. Realize that the content you’re posting in two weeks needs to be researched today. You then need to lay out the bullet points after that and write a killer headline with the information you have. After doing your research, let the info stew a bit with you so you have time to process everything!

Your calendar should cover your KPI and also the schedule for your writing time. You should also set time aside for promotion, social setup, and other similar activities. Once you’ve broken all the steps down, use CoSchedule and their templates to follow a process and repeat it. I definitely love that tool!

Getting to the Actual Work

One of the biggest things standing in the way of your blog thriving is content. I don’t even mean the content on your site. Just content. Period.

The best suggestion I have for bloggers is to create a landing page and start posting on Medium and other people’s blogs. This will give you a chance to study the audience you want to attract. You then write your email series as well as your Medium posts. Next is to write posts for other blogs. Figure out what people react to and what they find interesting. You’ll be growing your KPIs with that and gaining subscribers in the process too.

So in order to accomplish any of this—you have to write. We talked in a previous post about hiring writers. While it’s super important to have content coming out all the time, you don’t necessarily have to hire a writer. But I would. Even if I’m writing all the time, I love having additional content coming out at all times. It also makes the most sense for every KPI available. More content means more of everything!

With that said, whether you hire a writer or not, you have to continue writing yourself.

Writing Can Suck Big Time But Here’s How To Find Your Groove

I love to sit down either late at night or early in the morning (typically when life is calmer and phones don’t ding with texts) and I just write. I typically try to spend at least an hour daily writing.

That’s not how I always do it though. In fact, I will look up and go days without me writing anything at all. It’s not what I want really but there at time I just suck at it. Or I fail at writing big time. The key though is to go back and do it again even though I fell off the wagon.

For me, having a title is the most important part about writing. I need something to focus the topic around. I need something to really keep me on track since it gives me a singular focus. I want the article to be able to back up what I claim in the title. That means the research and the writing has to do all the heavy work so that things flow right after the title.

I think a big part of it, even if it’s kind of weird, is that my brain accepts the title as a rule about what I can or can’t write about.

It stops the “monkey” brain from running crazy and finding all kinds of cool stuff to include into the body. It focuses on that one topic I’m meant to deliver. I then walk through the writing process step by step until the title becomes evident in what I’m writing.

So I make the title and open the Hemingway App or Google Docs (I always run most of my stuff through those apps) and continue writing about the topic from there.

What I Write On and Where I Go to Write

For me, it matters what I’m writing on. When I’m at a desktop I feel less “emotional” and can’t write from a personal perspective as much. When I sit in my “thinking” chair then that’s the time I can really dial in.

I actually even bought a small little Chromebook just to write on. It can have a set of tabs open and I can pick up right where I left off from my last session.

This one small thing really works for me. Being able to login to a specific computer and write. It might be all that I do in that space but it really helps in ensuring that I get my writing done.

Typically, I can write a few thousand words in a few hours. That doesn’t mean I only write from my Chromebook. That’s just for the times when there’s something specific “assigned” to me or to guarantee my writing time. Depending on what’s going on, I’ll grab a few more hours and write more content.

Since I write for a few online publications as well as my personal and company blogs, I need to churn out a lot of content so I need to write a good deal. Amazing content and perspective is no doubt a quality asset especially if you want to make it online.

In a nutshell, my best advice would be to just write and see what happens. If you find it hard to start on a blank space, you can just focus on explaining the title in your own words and then adding more substance and data later. Find stuff you know about and enjoy writing or researching on. That could really help spur you to get your writing groove on.

Writing can be a really freeing activity and will draw you into the subject you’re writing about if you let it.

Follow writing blogs, writers, and of course, take some writing classes. Those will all build your confidence in your writing skills so you’re better prepared to take on the different content requirements you may need to succeed.

Different Kinds of Writing and How to Write Various Topics

Blog posts don’t have to be 2,000-word detailed, mega articles. They also don’t have to be brief 200-word thoughts. The cool thing is that if you have an audience that’s reading your content, you might want to mix things up from time to time.

Ryan Deiss has a blog post template that makes a ton of sense to me. It allows you to put 4 or 5 other articles and share the information in that manner. You write a short description about each item and then post a cool pic from the piece. Screenshots are fine to use here as well.

This is a great way to “bang out content” and really get quality information out while still focusing on your writing and conveying a solid opinion. You don’t necessarily have to think up or know anything. Think of it as you reporting on the subject.

Personally, I prefer to write in three formats:

I love writing detailed “how to” posts that involve heavy theory and analysis. Deep research and tons of references are the hallmarks of this kind of content. While these huge articles get a lot of shares, I don’t see the most uptick in KPIs from these. I do enjoy them and they bring in great SEO and credibility. I post most of these on other people’s blogs. Search Engine Journal has few of my recent ones.

Another preferred format of mine are personal experience and advice posts. Much like this article for example! I don’t have to do a lot of research but a good chuck of the content comes from my own personal experience. I’m just out there giving my advice and recommendations from what I’ve went through. This is targeted to my people. People that want to do online marketing and grow their website or blog. These post get the most feedback consistently. However, they can be a total miss sometimes.

Much like the one I described above, I also write round-up posts. I take a few items and group them together. I wrote an article on SEJ about the 3 Underground SEOs That You Should Follow. This got the total most views in the said online publication for that month. This kind of post is a quick hitter and is easy to put together. I love to write it but they’re not necessarily challenging to me so I like mixing them in with other things instead of just doing the same thing every time. A post like this taps into a few things:

You tap into their audience and they help you by sharing the article in their platform.

You can social tag other authors and they may even share the info.

You can post the article in social groups that have followers from a specific influencer.

You have multiple people who mention the post so it gets shared more often.

Readers love the brevity and quick info offered in this style of post.

They are simple to research and write.

Writing and Promotion Calendar Setup and Final Words

Running your life has gotten you this far. Now it’s time to set your emotions aside and logically improve your daily routine.

That’s what I tell myself every time when the calendar alarm goes off and I don’t want to do the thing it’s telling me to do. I know that I have to do it anyway. Writing is tough when you don’t want to do it and the monkey part of our brain can be a real prohibitory factor.

I found that running my life using a calendar gets me more results than any other hack I can tell you. It takes discipline and planning. Both of which I suck at most of the time. Operating at a rate where 40% of my tasks are calendared, I’m still able to get 10 times the results!

Next time you’re struggling, take a break and put on brain.fm. It helps get you focused. You might think it’s weird but it really does work.

If I can succeed or have some semblance of success online because of a simple step such as setting up a calendar (coupled with a whole lot of learning) then you can SOAR as well—no doubt about that. If you’re thinking I have some leg up on you, I don’t. I actually get in my own way all the time. I can lack focus and discipline at times coupled with random times where all I want to do is to chase puzzles.

Start today and start getting the results you’ve always wanted. Tweet at me @thewillrobins and let me know how it goes! You can also email me if tweeting is not your thing!

[andydeboer]

The Shark That Eats the World - and other things I learned from my Facebook fast

“And worse, you’re not doing anything interesting anymore. You’re not seeing anything, saying anything. The weird paradox is that you think you’re at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant.”

- Dave Eggers, The Circle

Around two months ago, I decided to take a hard break with Facebook.  

If you’re thinking to yourself that this will just be another critical indictment of our generation’s addiction to social media, you’re probably a little right, and if you want to avoid my attempt at self-deprecation and wittiness, feel free to skip ahead to the end or just close out this blog (which may actually be better for me in the long-run).  This is not going to be me trying to convince you to do exactly as I did, but rather an expression of my thought process as I seek to wrestle through a part of my life that I’m deeply uncomfortable with.

Back to my self-proclaimed Facebook fast.  For me, there were several situations that led to this decision.

In the wake of a highly contentious political season here in the US, many of us took to social media to express our thoughts and frustration, myself included.  I saw a lot of (what I felt to be) damaging opinions coming from nationalism, isolationism and ignorance, and I took it upon myself to read and promote some truth and dialogue (a cause I still pretty much agree with) online.  I didn’t think about much about this until I stumbled on a compelling perspective from a journalist who wrote about how a three month hiatus from social media freed her from getting caught in the latest moral outrage and actually enhanced her understanding of news stories around the world.  Interesting.

Then in May, I was given an amazing learning opportunity to travel to East Africa.  While there, I noticed a very interesting tension within myself.  On one hand I was feeling stretched and profoundly affected by the stories I was experiencing, allowing them to continue to shape my perspective and ideals for the future.  On the other hand, after a day full of these rich experiences, I found myself trying to figure out the best way to “package” them into a Facebook post to spread these stories to others (a cause I still agree with, but I kind of wish I spent more time learning and listening than I did plotting my next post).

Around this time I started reading a book written by one of my favorite authors (and which was also recommended by my mom.  Thanks Mom!).  

Dave Eggers’ The Circle is a novel that tells a story about what life would look like if social media was used to create a society where human behavior is predicted, controlled and exploited by one giant tech company.  As I poured through this book at a time when my mind kept wandering toward how best to maintain my online activism, I started to look at the way I used social media in my own life, or maybe more accurately how social media was using me.  I started to think maybe The Circle had just as much relevance in our actual present as it does in a dystopic future.

Essentially, I started to become a little (maybe a lot) fatalistic and contemplative about what was happening to the way I live out my everyday life.  

Some of you know that these existential ponderings/borderline-freakout moments happen to me about once a week for a host of reasons, but this one really culminated to the point of taking action during a very simple and yet significant moment.  One day at home, my wife was trying to talk to me and I heard literally nothing she said because I was scrolling through my Facebook feed to see if anyone had commented on one of my recent posts.

When she called me out on it, it was like everything I was reading and thinking came together: The Circle was happening in front of me, and I was part of it. It was like Morpheus was force-feeding me the red pill, exposing me to a whole new reality.

At that point of “awakening”, I deleted Facebook from my phone, told Courtney to change my password, and decided to go full-on hermit and rid myself from my Timeline for a while.

Because I live in my head a lot, there are a few things I distinctly remember thinking and feeling over the course of these social-media-free weeks that I just need to get off my chest (because writing something online about my addiction to writing online is so therapeutic and non-ironic, right?):

For the first week, I could not believe how often I wanted to post something to Facebook, or wondered what other people were saying or sharing on my Timeline.  If I’m being honest, this was motivated by a desire to be involved in some sort of altruistic discussion about making the world a better place.  If I’m being more honest, it was driven by a desire to feel validated by the red number of notifications that appeared when I opened my phone.  (And if I’m being even more honest than that, this feeling lingered for way longer than the first week, and is probably still going to creep up the second this blog goes live.)

I learned how addicted I had become by how much my brain was literally craving to see that red notification appear on my phone.  Psychologists have actually connected the time we spend on Facebook with the triggering of the highly addictive chemical dopamine, so maybe I can attribute some of this craving to that.  I could also probably attribute some of it to my 9-ness on the Enneagram and my deep desire to bring people together and get some personal validation in the process.  

When my wife and I celebrated our third anniversary, I had a brief moment of feeling like a terrible husband for not being able to post my undying love for her online so all my friends could see how much I cared for her.  That moment was met with an equally revelatory feeling of realizing she was literally sitting on the couch next to me and I could just turn to her and tell her directly how much I care for her.

I started to check my phone less and less, and I started thinking about what I wanted other people to hear from me even less than that.  Sometimes I felt out of the loop, but other times, when faced with a desire to know what’s going on in the world, I found myself actually reading in-depth analyses instead of caring or commenting on what my progressive and conservative friends were writing about.  This taught me a lot about what’s been referred to as “slow-response”, and actually resulted in a lot more personal awareness of some of the most complex and controversial topics (who knew health care policy was so complicated).

My sister introduced me to the amazing “hobby” of hammocking, and I’ve been hooked ever since (pun intended).  One day I rode my bike to the most amazing spot along a river and spent the afternoon by myself, next to the water with a couple books and didn’t check my phone for notifications from a cool picture I had taken to chronicle the moment

However, I did miss a lot of communication on planning events with different friend groups (sorry guys), and I missed out on a really great post from my friend Adam in our Man Meeting group with a picture of Nicolas Cage superimposed onto the movie poster of Sharknado.  It really doesn’t get any better than that, and I’m truly sorry it took me so long to see that.

But maybe the most important thing I learned with being off Facebook for a while is that life goes on.  Yes, there are things that I missed, but there is so much more that I gained.  

I’ve struggled in my (so far very short years) of being in the professional world to find God and Beauty in the midst of an 8a-5p, cubicled work-week.  And sometimes it felt like social media was the way to share those mundane moments with the world to appreciate them.  But for me, it turned quickly into sharing those mundane moments for the not-so-subtle desire for validation in insignificant and unhelpful ways.  I found myself thoughtlessly flipping through my timeline to find meaning in looking at the ways my friends were trying to find meaning themselves, all while waiting for a quick dopamine hit as soon as the red notification appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Dave Eggers ends The Circle with an interesting metaphor of a shark that was captured from the wild and devours several other animals in a tank, while the creators of a new social media world watch from the sidelines.  This leads to an interaction where one character praises the way people use social media as a “hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment,” to which another character replies:

“But Mae.  We saw every creature in that tank, didn’t we?  We saw them devoured by a beast that turned them to ash.  Don’t you see that everything that goes into that tank, with that beast, with this beast, will meet the same fate? … All this. The f***ing shark that eats the world.”

For me, my online presence started to resemble that shark a little too closely.  And without it to fall back on, I was left looking at the aquarium from the outside and having to do things a little differently.

I was “forced” to read something without trying to find a witty quote to post, I spent time with people I care about without a way to tell other people how much I cared about that time, and I slowed my attention-span down to focus on comprehension and contemplation of the world around me instead of quick knee-jerk responses to whatever @realDonaldTrump felt like he needed to Tweet about.

Maybe this inward, hermit-seeking initiative is a selfish move on my part.  And maybe writing about it online isn’t the best strategy to keep trying to get over it.  Maybe you think I’m a crazy person writing about something that has zero relevance to the way you approach life online (I kind of hope that’s true).  

But maybe you resonate with even a small portion of this, and maybe you’ll find it helpful as you try to figure out how to live and enjoy the world around you.

After all, this world is way too interesting to flip through our phones mindlessly while a shark eats it.  

[seekerandthewizard88-blog]

Living Your Best Life Now

By Ash    *This post contains a small bit of adult language because sometimes I get real fired up and passionate while writting.

Something I see often online in quotes or articles are the regrets of people who are at the end of their lives. They talk about all of the things they wish they had done differently or the things they wish they had spent more time doing in their lives.

For years, I had a lot of anxiety around dying and not being able to do all of the things that I wanted to do with my life. It took me a long time to realize that was because I wasn’t living my best life from moment to moment. I wasn’t taking the time to make sure I felt satisfied with all of my choices and to really stay present. I am talking about the kind of anxiety around dying that involves medication daily and the creation of constant, negative narratives. Until I was able to undo this process, I had zero idea of the amount of my life energy it was consuming just to fall into this space of despair every day. Aside from prescription medication, I was also self-medicating every single day just to numb all of my feelings rather than to feel them and sort through them.

Some of you know my story with drinking and self-medicating, others of you do not. I think it’s good for me to share it with you guys so that you know what space I come from and the stark contrast it holds to the space I now occupy. These feel like two different lives to me that converge only occasionally anymore through people and memories shared.

I started drinking when I was 15. I remember very clearly the first time I really drank. I remember feeling fearless for the first time in years. Backing up a bit, my anxiety started when I was 12. I had my first panic attack at a slumber party and my mom had to come and get me. My close friend’s younger brother had passed away about a week earlier from a brain aneurysm and it rocked my 12-year-old system. This was my first experience with death in young people. This was the first time I was able to understand that people can and do die at any time, I couldn’t handle this. Of course, it wasn’t until years later that I understood that this was the catalyst for the onset of my anxiety, at the time, I didn’t even know what it was only that I felt like I was dying. This night would mark the beginning of a 17-year journey with debilitating anxiety for me. My Mother (who is the most wonderful person I know) was a fierce woman who always did her best to convince me that I was fine and nothing was wrong with me. I know for her, this came from a place of fear and no tools to handle that fear at that time. I didn’t really have a support system around my anxiety because no one really understood it, myself included. On top of the anxiety, I am also an empath. From as young as my Mother and I can remember, I have felt everything around me. Everything that everyone else is feeling I also feel, that can be crippling when you don’t know what it is and have zero skill set to manage the experiences. So I found alcohol. It made me fearless. It numbed out everyone else and allowed me to go out into the world and exist in a happy way without the overwhelming feeling of everything hanging over me all of the time. It was the thing that could quiet my internal narratives and as time went by, it became the thing I did every day. Alcohol became my support system, my best friend, my relationship, and my favorite extracurricular activity. In 2007 I got a DUI and was told I needed to quit drinking for 12 weeks to go through a program for said DUI. I chose not to do this because the drinking was more important to me, it was my lifeblood and I had no idea what my life would look like without it. So, I avoided this thing for three years. In 2010 it was time. My father was also drinking very heavily at the time and I remember my mother calling me on several occasions to express concern about this, I was drunk while talking to her and I hated myself for it. I hated everything about myself which of course only made the drinking worse. I had always been thin and drinking had taken that from me in the last few years of doing it. I had stomach problems and other body problems from all of the alcohol. I was sedentary and couldn’t even manage to take care of myself financially. My parents would take care of my bills and I would sit around on my couch and drink to avoid thinking about the failure I had become.

I had one particularly rough night and I walked into the bathroom and could not look myself in the mirror. Everyone has a bottom point if allowed to hit it, this was mine. I was crying hysterically and I knew it was time. I slumped down on my bathroom floor, head in my hands, and I knew there had to be something else. I decided my best course of action was to go and take care of my DUI because at least I would be forced not to drink for 12 weeks and that would be a place to start. This was November 6, 2010, and on the 7th I made the first step into an entirely different life.

It’s so funny how the brain works, even though I knew this was all a huge problem, I couldn’t admit that to the woman who did my intake into the diversion program. Ego is a hell of a drug. By the time we were done, both her and I were convinced that I didn’t have a drinking problem and that I would just casually do my time and be done with it. I had every intention of going back to drinking despite the way I felt the night previous. A week into this program, that changed for me. I don’t know the exact thing that made it click, but it did and it did hard. I had to go to two groups a week and also to several meetings a week. I think part of it was hearing other people’s stories and part of it was some blessing of being able to step outside of myself for the first time in my life. I spent about a year solid in AA and it fulfilled its purpose for me at the time, it kept me distracted from my desire to drink for the most part. I should also probably mention that when I stopped drinking I was also coming off of the 1mg daily dose of Xanax that a doctor had carelessly prescribed me that I had been taking for six years to also quiet my mind. If any of you know anything about coming off of Benzos, you will know that it’s very dangerous and also really really uncomfortable. I felt like my head was a glass jar and my brain was a rubber bouncy ball that someone had put inside and would just shake up every hour for good measure. It was a fairly excruciating journey for about six weeks. I am grateful to say that I had a great support system and also that this is the space I really found writing again in. I still have my first journal from that time in my sobriety. I don’t re read it but if I flip through it, it’s a mess of ugly, confused feelings. I went through a lot of weird spaces in this period, one of which involved me not having a sense of humor for about two weeks. I also spent about three weeks where I could not properly construct sentences.I had to shut myself in the house and occupy myself with anything I could. I colored those black fuzzy posters, painted models, played video games and cried a lot, but I moved forward day by day. At about five months in, someone said something very impacting to me, she said, “If you are going to let not drinking make you as miserable as drinking made you, you may as well at least be getting drunk” and I thought to myself, “There still has to be something else. Where is my happiness?” So naturally, I got online and started looking around for things to improve my happiness. I stumbled across a book called ‘Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting’ and it changed my entire perspective on life. To this day, it’s the first self-help book I suggest to anyone who is looking to make a change in the way they view their life. I knew nothing about myself so I had to start from the beginning. I had to find things I loved to do, new hobbies, new friends, anything that felt joyful and fulfilling to me. Then I had to work at fostering this joy and this new perspective every day. We’re all always a work in progress but we have to actually start that journey at some point.

This brings me back around to the importance of living your best life right now. I think the problem with doing this thing is that most of us want to be, we just don’t know how. So where do you start? ASK QUESTIONS! Find someone in your life who appears to be living their best life and ask them for suggestions on books or tools. Read anything you can get your hands on about the topics you want to change. Watch videos, learn to quiet your mind and listen to yourself. You have to learn to cut the bullshit you’re telling yourself and find some honesty. Find ways to quiet your ego and listen to your higher self. Now, I say all of this but these changes take a lot of time and work, let me be the first or maybe 15th person to tell you how fucking worth it this is. If I had any idea that the space I now live in existed, I would have cut the shit a long time before I actually did. We have to know there is a better way to live our lives. I am here to tell you that there is. You can be out in the world everyday entrenched in happiness. You can wake up in gratitude every single morning and feel so wildly in love with your life that it will bring tears of joy to your eyes. I get so overwhelmed with joy some days that it’s hard to breathe, in the best way. This is not to say that I don’t still struggle with the occasional bout of anxiety but I have the tools to deal with it now in the best possible way if and when it does crop up.

Let’s talk about some of the things involved in living your best life now. Some of the biggest regrets people have at the end of their lives are the risks and chances they didn’t take and the connections they didn’t foster. I promise you that you don’t want to wake up one day full of regret about these things when it’s so possible to avoid that entirely and live your best life. It’s important to live in the moment. We’re human so we always live in spaces of past contemplation or “future tripping”. We’re so worried about “what-if” that we don’t look at right now. One thing I try and do all of the time is to find joy in all of the moments in my life. If I am outside walking my dogs, I look around for things to give appreciation for. I breathe in the air and vocally share my gratitude for my life and the ability to even walk my dogs and breathe in the air around me, some people don’t have even that simple pleasure. Perspective is the greatest gift and one I will talk about a lot along the way. If you can’t find something to be grateful for in the moment, try instead, thinking about the things that you have the other people may not have and I assure you, you will find yourself in a space of gratitude very quickly. Try a ten minute guided meditation every day until you can meditate on your own. Insight Timer is a really rad app that I recently started using for this, check it out on the recommendations page. Read books on the things that you want your life to reflect. If you want to be more mindful, find a book on mindfulness. There are thousands of options available to anyone who wants them. Find the thing you are passionate about and do that thing. I know it’s scary, but you know what is more scary, never doing it and never knowing what it feels like. I can tell you that since I have started doing the things I am deeply passionate about rather than creating reasons why I can’t do them, my heart is so full I feel like I am going to burst daily. I feel so fulfilled in every aspect of my life and more in line with my truth than I ever have before.

Failure is not a real thing. What failure really is for us is other people’s opinions of what we are doing with our time and their followed judgment on said things. Other people are not living your life, they are living their own. They are having a completely separate experience from you and thusly, are not qualified to judge how a thing feels or works for you in particular, only for themselves. Therefore, it doesn’t matter at all what other people think, it matters only that you’re fueling the things that set your soul on fire. I don’t care what that thing is (unless you want to share it with me in which case I would absolutely love to hear about it) just find it, and do it. I want to tell you to do it fearlessly but that isn’t a real thing. It takes a long time to do anything fearlessly as fear is the strongest human emotion. However, don’t let fear make your choices. Elizabeth Gilbert has a rad quote about fear in her book ‘Big Magic’. She says, “We can’t get rid of fear, it is part of the family so you have to take it with you. However, you don’t have to let it sit in the front seat, you sure don’t have to let it drive the car, and you don’t let it touch the radio or the map”. What this means is that you have to acknowledge that it exists but you don’t have to let it control your choices in living your best life. When fear comes up for me around something, I try and sit quietly with it for a bit, and then I thank it for being there. I thank it for existing and for its attempt to protect me. I then let it know that while I appreciate it, I also don’t need it in this moment and I breathe it out of me. Then I do the thing. I am here to tell you that there has not been a single thing in my life that I have done that I was afraid of doing that did not turn out rewarding in some way. Most of these things have had a huge impact on my life as you will continue to see through my writing. Go do the thing, live your best life, I believe in you.

I am going to leave you with my favorite quote in hopes that it inspires you to go out and begin to live your best life now, in this moment.

 “We are the sole and exclusive creator of our own experience” - Excuse me, your life is waiting

Love and light,

Ash