#we have emailed support about this for the record. it has been a mere two days. (perhaps three? what is a passage of time.) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dankusner · 5 months

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Daniel, Kurt, and Jeremiah: Why “Hi, How Are You” Matters

Austin’s most famous mural is a case study in art preservation and cultural impact

"Hi, How Are You," Daniel Johnston's mural at Guadalupe and 21st was originally only one of two images by the artist/songwriter, the other being painted over mere months after completion.

The frog was already an icon of cool after Kurt Cobain wore it on a t-shirt at the 1992 MTV Music Awards. (Photo by Jana Birchum)

In April, the innocuous single-story building at 21st and Guadalupe was razed, save for one brick wall.

Once the home of the scene-anchoring Drag record store Sound Exchange, then a series of restaurants, then purchased in 2018 by Austin-based housing company American Campus Communities (ACC), that last wall standing is home to a mural by the late Austin singer-songwriter/artist Daniel Johnston.

Known variously as "the Daniel Johnston mural," "Jeremiah the Innocent," and "that weird frog thing near campus," the 30-year-old image has become an indelible of part of the Austin landscape: as emblematic of the city as the UT Tower, Barton Springs, and talking over bands.

Via a restrictive covenant agreement with local nonprofit Austin Creative Alliance (ACA), ACC has pledged to "preserve the mural in perpetuity" – which means that if the building's owner doesn't maintain or allow for the maintenance of the artwork, ACA can sue them.

Which means the building went down, but the frog remains and will further remain.

For now, it's just a weird creature on a jagged wall, surrounded by rubble – and the site looks set to stay that way for a while.

Chuck Carroll, vice president of development for American Campus Communities, told the Chronicle that "there are no redevelopment plans at this time other than ACC's commitment to integrating the mural into a new building design in the future."

According to ACA CEO John Riedie, ACC was "super into" preserving the mural, adding that "it was a proactive process on the part of both parties."

Everybody with interest in the image wins: Austin holds on to a symbol of itself, and a developer avoids a PR nightmare (ACC is one supporter of the Hi, How Are You Project, a nonprofit focusing on mental health, especially that of students).

But why this particular image?

How did it get to this point?

It's not like this is Johnston's only piece of public art; arguably, his work has never been more visible.

The 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston explored the complexities of his life, his struggles with mental illness, and his art.

Books have been published; exhibitions have been mounted.

Johnston's mural on the old Nau's Enfield Drug on West Lynn (photo by John Anderson)

Indeed, there is a Johnston mural on the side of the former Nau's Enfield Drug on West Lynn.

Austin-based PR firm GSD&M sponsored Johnston in 2014 to paint the image – a boxer triumphant over a monster representing disease – as a fundraiser for Dell Children's Blood and Cancer Center.

The restaurant closed in March, and the Labay family, who ran the old-school diner, said the owner of the building declined to renew their lease and was planning on selling the property.

No word yet on what will become of that mural, and there has not been a fraction of the public outcry about its fate.

David Rockwood, GSD&M VP of community relations, told the Chronicle via email that "it's important to us and we'd like to see it preserved so we are looking to see how we can help make that happen."

So why all the effort to save Jeremiah?

The answer, at least regarding the image itself, is more about both marketing and how people look at images in 2023 than anything else.

The "Hi, How Are You" mural not long after it was painted in 1993.

Record store Sound Exchange commissioned Daniel Johnston to paint two images:

The signature frog, and a flying eyeball on the adjoining wall.

The eyeball was painted over within months: The frog remains. (Image Courtesy of Sean McGowan)

In 1983, Johnston released the cassette Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album, perhaps his signature release, with a young Jeremiah on the cardboard insert.

As the American underground began to push its head out of the soil, Johnston's work became more … well, "popular" isn't quite the right word, but more well-known, especially after he appeared two years later in an episode of MTV's The Cutting Edge about Austin music, alongside less-remembered local acts like Glass Eye and Dino Lee and the White Trash Revue.

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September 9, 1992: Kurt Cobain, a product of that same American underground and singer/guitarist and primary songwriter for Nirvana, appeared at the MTV Music Awards wearing a shirt with the bullfrog cover art from Hi, How Are You on it.

His band had released smash album Nevermind almost exactly a year earlier and Cobain was well on his way to being anointed the voice of a generation, a job nobody has ever seemed to want less.

The next year, the late Sound Exchange commissioned Johnston to paint said bullfrog, as well as one of his signature flying eyeballs, on the side of their store at 21st and Guadalupe.

Over the next 30 years, it became a fixture of the landscape: No such luck for the eyeball, which was painted over after a few months. Sound Exchange closed in 2003.

That space became a Baja Fresh Mexican Grill.

Then, for a spell, a Thai restaurant called Thai, How Are You?, an almost criminally egregious pun.

The frog remained.

Over time the Jeremiah mural was touched up and restored and repainted so many times that Johnson's brushstrokes are no longer visible.

What's being preserved is less Johnston's work than work over Johnston's work – art restoration as the ship of Theseus.

Still, the frog remained.

It was merchandised on coffee cups and shirts and collectible statues. It went from underground art to pop art.

The frog remained, a sentinel of good cheer.

Then something interesting happened in 2007:

Everyone started to get smartphones.

Suddenly everyone was documenting every single thing they did all the time.

Instagram launched in 2010.

Après le 'gram, le déluge de grenouilles. "It's one of the most visited places in Austin and one of the most photographed places in Austin," Riedie says. "It is all over social media."

The frog remained, now virtually.

Just type #danieljohnston into Instagram: 57,866 hits.

Of the top nine hits, five involved the frog.

Of the 30 most recent, 10 involve the frog (though only two involve the wall itself).

One is a photo of Cobain wearing the shirt.

The wall is on all sorts of "most Instagrammable places in Austin" lists.

The sheer amount of promotion that Austin gets out of this mural is a little startling to folks who remember Johnston at almost any stage of his career.

Indeed, it seems downright foolish to get rid of it.

One of the images, credited to Austin's Street Art Muralist Organization (SAMO, itself a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat's old tag) shows an artist kneeling in front of a re-creation of the image.

"The significance of the 'Hi, How Are You,' Mural lies in the shared experiences and expression of mental health challenges through art and music," the caption says.

"Whether it is Daniel Johnston, Kurt Cobain or the @hihowareyouproject, artists and organizations can use their creativity and platforms to bring attention to mental health issues, fostering understanding, empathy, and dialogue."

Cobain, of course, committed suicide at the very height of his fame in April 1994.

His music and image have stuck around ever since.

"I have kids in their 20s that know Kurt more than they know about Daniel."

Austin Creative Alliance CEO John Riedie on the importance of Kurt Cobain's t-shirt in the mythology of "Hi, How Are You." (Image via MTV)

Which brings us to perhaps the biggest reason (besides free advertising for Austin) that the image persists: Kurt Cobain.

"I have kids in their 20s that know Kurt more than they know about Daniel," Riedie says.

He got one of his younger kids a "Hi, How Are You?" shirt during lockdown.

When the kid went back to school, he was surprised he wasn't the only one who was wearing it.

You know, as some of the other kids said, "that shirt Kurt Cobain wore."

It's not necessarily because of Johnston's music, or art, but because of the endorsement of his art by someone whose work persists on a mass scale, that the wall is sticking around.

In April, Cobain had been dead for 29 years; in September, the Hi, How Are You album turns 40.

And in mid-May of 2023, the same week that Nirvana's 2002 self-titled greatest hits album reentered the Billboard Top 200, U.S. News and World Report published its newest annual report of best cities in which to live.

In 2019, it ranked Austin No. 1 for the third time.

Today, it is ranked No. 40, noting that "home prices in Austin have risen sharply in recent months, however. Austin offers a lower value than similarly-sized metro areas when comparing housing costs with median household income."

Flashback to that 1984 episode of The Cutting Edge.

At one point the show contains the phrase,

"They say that 90 people a day move to Austin. The signs of growth are everywhere. Changes are not always welcome, however."

This was 38 years ago. The times, they are not, in fact, a-changin'.

Yet the frog remains.

Chronicle Earns Six aan nominations

Publisher Nick Barbaro

AssociAte Publisher Cassidy Frazier

Editorial

editor Kimberley Jones

MAnAging editor James Renovitch news Maggie Q. Thompson Music & culture Cy White coPy editor Kat McNevins

Staff WritErS

On Friday, The Austin Chronicle received six AAN Awards nominations, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual recognition of outstanding work done by member papers. Congrats to the Chronicle nominees (listed below with the categories in which they’re competing) and to our fellow nominees who’ve survived another year in an extremely challenging era for alternative weeklies and other progressive news outlets. Winners will be announced on July 12.

Arts Feature: “Daniel, Kurt, and Jeremiah: Why ‘Hi, How Are You’ Matters” by Joe Gross (Editor: Richard Whittaker) burlingtoncountytimes | Gannett

Michelle Shocked: Sewage & Skum Invade Philly

May 25 at 2:00PM - 6:00PM

The Fire412 W Girard Ave Philadelphia

it's not a punk rock party til the windows break Michelle Shocked a. bassist in punk band Spike Polite & Sewage b. composer & singer in Shocking Red c. acclaimed picker-poet generating compelling lyrics and mneumonic melodies for over 30 years.

In the '80's, she was thrust into an inadvertent recording career when a bootleg tape was released in England.

In the ensuing bidding war following the phenomena of The Texas Campfire Tapes, Mercury Records signed her and she produced a trilogy of Grammy-nominated albums over the next five years, launched by her signature song, "Anchorage."

DRIFTER PLEADS GUILTY TO KILLING KINK SHRINK BY NANCIE L. KATZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Wednesday, January 22th 2003, 7:11AM An escapee from a Tennessee prison pleaded guilty to murder yesterday, admitting on tape he slit the throat of a Brooklyn psychologist after a kinky sex session went awry. Jonathan Cardwell, 23, escaped a possible life sentence in the murder of Taite Walkonen, 51, a former concert pianist and NYU professor who was bound and stabbed to death in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on July 12, 1999. In a deal struck over prosecutors' objections, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Plummer Lott promised Cardwell a sentence of 25 years to life for pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the sordid case. Cardwell admitted his crimes calmly in court yesterday. In a tearful audiotaped statement accepted as evidence, he told police he was a drifter who went to the victim's house expecting to be paid for sex. Distasteful last meal Cardwell said things got out of hand when Walkonen poured urine into food and drinks and then served them to Cardwell and punk rocker Jared (Spike) Errington, a tenant of Walkonen's. "This guy was crazy in his own way!" Cardwell said in the tape. "We were on dope. He was cooking spaghetti and he had a cup in his hand, and when I looked again it was empty! The food tasted like piss was in it." Cardwell said he met Errington, who is serving 15 years for robbery in the incident, when he wandered into Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan after escaping a Tennessee prison where he was serving six years for theft. Broke and high, he went to Walkonen's home after Errington asked him if he "wanted to make some money." Sex antics turn deadly Cardwell said the two tied Walkonen to a weightlifting bench with telephone wire and that Errington slapped Walkonen on the back, saying, "Bad doggie!" "He was in a sexual state of mind, and we were playing along with it," he said. But the pair got angry when a laughing Walkonen admitted he had urinated in the food. Errington seized a knife and slammed Walkonen on the head with a pan. The men demanded money, and Walkonen gave them $1,400, Cardwell said. "I was like, 'Let's go,' " he said, but Errington responded, 'He's going to rat on us. You got to kill him, man, because we're going to die.' I picked his head up, and I cut his throat. He starts gargling real loud. Spike takes the knife, and he starts stabbing him in the back." Defense lawyer Joyce David painted Cardwell as a lost soul who was physically and sexually abused as a child. Prosecutors had wanted to try him in the hope of a obtaining a life sentence.

The Rip Van Winkle of Punk During a decade in prison, Spike missed the memo that punk had died. Now he’s out, reviving his band and playing shows in Tompkins Square Park like CBGB never closed down.

Black Balloon

http://vimeo.com/16877230 In “What Happened to the Punk Rock?”, Spike Polite sings that someone’s closed down CBGB’s, cleaned up Tompkins Square Park and turned everything that he used to do for fun into a crime. He’s disappointed and perplexed. He wants to know how this could have happened. Spike has more of a right than other nostalgic New York punks to ask these questions because he isn’t being precious; he really wants to know. After all, he was away in prison for 11 years while it happened.

Jared Errington was found not guilty of the murder of Taite Walkonen. However, because he used the victim’s credit cards to satisfy his heroin addiction, the 28-year-old was sentenced to four to 15 years for robbery in 2000. At the time, Spike — which is how Errington is better known in the music world and downtown — was living with Walkonen, who’d developed an obsession with the punk crowd. The 51-year-old followed Spike and his friends, taking endless photographs of his band, Sewage. Walkonen’s family did not understand why the classically trained pianist and former NYU professor was so fascinated by a band once called Humyn Sewage, but apparently there was some homosexual interest because Walkonen asked Spike to arrange an S&M encounter in July of 1999. Once Walkonen was taped to a chair, Jonathan Cardwell, a 20-year-old punk whom Spike had met at one of his gigs and brought home, stabbed the older man to death. Cardwell, who had previously escaped from prison in Tennessee, is now serving life. Spike did 11 years and four months in New York State (sharing four of those years with me in Greenhaven Correctional Facility).

Sewage during the late ‘90s As jarring as any arrest, this particular incident also arrested Spike’s musical career, which looked like it was about to take off in the early 2000s. His band Sewage is respected for its authenticity, and Spike Polite is a punk’s punk. Back in 1991, when he was a runaway from a difficult upbringing upstate, the band formed on the benches of Tompkins Square Park. With the lines for heroin, riots by squatters and GG Allin eating his own shit on stage, the now-gentrified Lower East Side was unimaginable then and Sewage was in the middle of it all. (“Humyn” was dropped from the band’s name in 1993.) In fact, Sewage opened for GG Allin and the Murder Junkies on the very night Allin died of a heroin overdose. The entire scene had been expecting his demise, but Spike was there when it actually happened. He was also present at other hallmarks of the era, like the ‘91 Memorial Day Riot in Tompkins Square Park. He played the Pot Parade with Cypress Hill, and he led a tour of the Lower East Side which is still available for view at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sewage played with Joey Ramone and appeared in the commercial for Spike Lee’s film Summer of Sam. (The mohawks helped get that gig.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrtQPP_KnZU By 1999, Spike Polite was not just a neighborhood fixture. He was in the music video for the Jessie Camp and the 8th Street Kidz song “See Your Around,” which MTV aired on the hour for three months that year — meaning that, during the time of the murder, you could see Spike singing or in handcuffs depending on which channel you were watching.

DRIFTER PLEADS GUILTY TO KILLING KINK SHRINK

An escapee from a Tennessee prison pleaded guilty to murder yesterday, admitting on tape he slit the throat of a Brooklyn psychologist after a kinky sex session went awry. Jonathan Cardwell, 23, escaped a possible life sentence in the murder of Taite Walkonen, 51, a former concert pianist and NYU professor who was bound and stabbed to death in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on July 12, 1999. In a deal struck over prosecutors’ objections, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Plummer Lott promised Cardwell a sentence of 25 years to life for pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the sordid case. Cardwell admitted his crimes calmly in court yesterday. In a tearful audiotaped statement accepted as evidence, he told police he was a drifter who went to the victim’s house expecting to be paid for sex. Distasteful last meal Cardwell said things got out of hand when Walkonen poured urine into food and drinks and then served them to Cardwell and punk rocker Jared (Spike) Errington, a tenant of Walkonen’s. “This guy was crazy in his own way!

” Cardwell said in the tape. “We were on dope. He was cooking spaghetti and he had a cup in his hand, and when I looked again it was empty! The food tasted like piss was in it.

” Cardwell said he met Errington, who is serving 15 years for robbery in the incident, when he wandered into Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan after escaping a Tennessee prison where he was serving six years for theft. Broke and high, he went to Walkonen’s home after Errington asked him if he “wanted to make some money.

” Sex antics turn deadly Cardwell said the two tied Walkonen to a weightlifting bench with telephone wire and that Errington slapped Walkonen on the back, saying, “Bad doggie!

” “He was in a sexual state of mind, and we were playing along with it,” he said. But the pair got angry when a laughing Walkonen admitted he had urinated in the food. Errington seized a knife and slammed Walkonen on the head with a pan. The men demanded money, and Walkonen gave them $1,400, Cardwell said. “I was like, ‘Let’s go,’ ” he said, but Errington responded, ‘He’s going to rat on us. You got to kill him, man, because we’re going to die.

‘ I picked his head up, and I cut his throat. He starts gargling real loud. Spike takes the knife, and he starts stabbing him in the back.

Top Stories 01:00 NYPD released two images of a baby that was sitting in an idling car when it was stolen on Sunday morning in the Bronx. ” Defense lawyer Joyce David painted Cardwell as a lost soul who was physically and sexually abused as a child. Prosecutors had wanted to try him in the hope of a obtaining a life sentence.

youtube

2000-10580

Argued June 13, 2003.

July 21, 2003.

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Gary, J.), rendered November 3, 2000, convicting him of robbery in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and sentencing him to a determinate term of 15 years imprisonment.

Laura R. Johnson, New York, N.Y. (Deepa Rajan of counsel), for appellant.

Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Leonard Joblove and Anne C. Feigus of counsel), for respondent.

Before: FRED T. SANTUCCI, J.P., LEO F. McGINITY, SANDRA L. TOWNES, WILLIAM F. MASTRO, JJ.

#Youtube

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reconroofinggutters5g · 6 months

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reconroofinggutters5f · 8 months

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Commercial roofing canton ma

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sleepyleftistdemon · 2 years

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Back on July 4, 2020, the family of disgraced and subsequently pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn took a video during their Independence Day festivities. The video came into the public sphere because Michael Flynn posted it to his Twitter account, adding the hashtag #TakeTheOath. In the video, Flynn and his family are seen recording themselves chanting, “Where we go one, we go all.” The phrase had become well-known as one of the catchphrases of conspiracy theorists in the QAnon world. CNN reported this. Michael Flynn quickly took down the post and said his family was simply reciting their oath to themselves. Yeah. It sounded just as true then as it sounds now. Any the ways! Flynn’s brother and sister-in-law decided to sue CNN for defamation. A judge allowed the lawsuit to continue, even though CNN pointed out how many times the Flynns supported QAnon hokum on social media. However, the problem with suing for defamation is that it gave CNN and its lawyers the right to ask for a review of responsive evidence, including text messages and emails from the phones of Flynn family members. Since that time, CNN has tried unsuccessfully to get that information. Flynn family attorneys have claimed that the evidence sought is “highly confidential” and/or nonexistent. As CNN attorneys wrote last September, “CNN is not merely speculating that additional responsive documents exist that have not been produced; rather, CNN actually knows this to be true. For example, on September 15, 2022, nearly two months after the first meet and confer, Plaintiffs’ counsel produced a single text message conversation between Leslie Flynn and Valerie Flynn discussing the CNN Report at-issue.” Having f’ed around, the Flynn family is now about to find out, as CNN lawyers are turning up the heat.

CNN says Michael Flynn's family deleted potential evidence, asks for 'forensic search' of phones

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salems-hq · 3 years

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in-game dates included in this drop: september 11th-12th system hack: evening of september 11th, 6:47pm. town hall mob: immediately following the hack, reaching its peak at 7:26pm. warehouse: the morning of september 12th, 5:28am trigger warnings: violence, murder, dead bodies, gore, horror, and supporting themes, religious themes

setting: all across salem, affecting all powered televisions, mobile devices, PCs/laptops, and radios

it’s a normal saturday evening in salem. daily activities are winding down, transitioning into family dinners, game nights. businesses are booming as the sun begins to set, jaunting near the horizon for a final show before giving way to nighttime. main street is crawling with life. it seems as though the city has come to terms with its last jarring occurrence, and things are almost back to normal, even amidst looming threats- which have thus far failed to prove credible. birthday parties, retirement dinners, sport championships, engagement parties: there’s no lack of celebration on the street. this is what makes the interruption that much more memorable.

the sound of static alters the music coming from various speakers that adorn main street’s lampposts before pushing it to a halt. few people pay it any mind, until a voice chimes into the air, through the speakers on the street, radios, phones, laptops, and other affected devices. “good evening, salem.” the voice brings with it the simultaneous shutdown of all powered screens in the city. one by one, people cry in surprise as the single image of a skull appears in the center of their screens, the spoken words written underneath it. the disguised voice continues. “don’t be alarmed. i’m merely here to indulge you all with some secrets our dear mayor has decided to keep from us.” the skull vanishes, and the captions continue as video footage comes onto the screen. a single figure can be seen in the footage, standing near the edge of the recognizable forest river park.

FREDERICK B. FREEMAN stands center frame. unknown to the public, MIKKO THROMBEY is behind the camera, having recorded this incident himself after receiving an anonymous tip about the mysterious civilian. he stands in the shadows, having followed frederick all the way from downtown. mikko’s breath hitches, which can be heard on the video footage, as he watches the man double over, almost as if in pain. limbs can be heard cracking, shifting, as the man slowly morphs into an animalistic, hideous creature. the camera zooms in on the gruesome transition, catching it in its entirety before the creature’s head suddenly snaps up. its gaze points straight into the camera, holding there for a few moments before turning into the forest at full speed.

“this footage is from the computer files of none other than the dashing mayor JULIAN AUSTERE. how many things has our city kept from us? what other dangers do we not know about? what ELSE are they keeping from us? freddy here isn’t the only monster among us. where have all these missing persons victims come from? why are they here now? our city officials have known about these suspicious arrivals for weeks and have kept us in the dark.”

as the voice continues, various files are shared through the screens. official city hall documents, emails exchanged between officials and contracted employees, and images of the mentioned ‘returned missing persons’. “have these demons come here to infiltrate us? why are we still in the dark?”

a smiling image of MAYOR AUSTERE appears on the screens, followed by the edited effect of invisible claws slashing diagonally through the image. “wake up, salem. we deserve the truth.” the same skull appears on the screens before the message disappears, and all devices are released from the hack.

___________________________________________

setting: town square

one would think images such as the video leaked to the public would shut everyone in their homes out of fear, but then again...salem has never been known to follow the meek mentality of fear. instead, hysteria rises. as if driven by a hive mind, the majority of the city has taken to marching down the streets, headed for the same location: city hall.

julian austere had been in his office at the time of the hacking, wrapping up a day’s work. he had been on his way out the door when the radio in the upstairs accounting department suddenly switched channels, playing the hacker’s recording through the second floor. as expected, the mayor heads to the city hall’s tech department, where the employees are doing their best to counteract against the hack- to no avail. the hacker’s message comes to an end, and it isn’t long before the all too familiar sounds of a mob reaches the building’s steps.

the mayor exits the building to meet the growing crowd, narrowly dodging garbage and other such articles that are thrown his way. he comes to a stop at the top of the stairs, looking down at the crowd, at a loss for words. how can you call yourself our mayor?! why are you keeping secrets?! what else is there what else don’t we know are you even on our sidehowcanwetrustaliaryoudon’tdeservetob-

“people, people, please!” his voice cuts through the shouted questions that threaten to crumble his already wavering psyche. the worst possible case scenario has just shown up on his doorstep- and he finds himself struggling to deal with it. “i assure you it was never my intention to keep secrets from you,” he continues, brows furrowing over a sincere gaze. however honest he’s being, the mayor is clearly not in top condition to deal with the situation. he opens his mouth again to stammer out his explanation, when a heavy hand lands on his shoulder.

“your mayor neglected to inform you all per my instructions,” the figure booms from beside mayor austere. the crowd seems to silence at the sudden arrival, entranced by the stranger. to them, the man seems to be glowing with an unsourced light. “i am the archangel GABRIEL,” behind gabriel stands MICHAEL, who is known around town. “joined by my brother Michael. we asked your mayor to investigate a breach in hell’s gates for us, and report directly to us to avoid a panic like the one we have now. please, be still.” incredulous mumbles scatter through the crowd, but they are quickly dispersed when the two angels standing by the mayor unleash their wings. to many, it might be too difficult to stare directly at. the light they resonate is celestial. “but now that things are in the open, we can assure you that this creature you saw on your devices is on your side. they are a select few who have been allowed to return to their human forms. they protect the town in exchange, per our orders. mayor austere hasn’t lied to you. dark threats loom over this city, and i fear the worst is yet to come. please, go home for now. continue your lives as you have been. my brother and i will be available to you from here on out, but for now...get some rest.” the angels ignore the questions being thrown at them and usher the mayor back into city hall. the last thing the crowd sees before the double doors close are michael’s large, blindingly white wings, which sends a gust of wind into the crowd strong enough to push people a few feet back.

___________________________________________

setting: the old lumber mill warehouse, just between salem and eastrath 11:51pm.

“that makes 13.”

“i count 14.”

ANTHONY LORENZO and ORION GREYSON stand amidst 14 bodies, protected from detection and watchful eyes by azrael’s own blessing. the imp raises a bloodstained hand to his mouth. a tongue hovers near the ruby red substance when a crash comes from the other side of the warehouse, earning the interest of both men. matching grins, sharper than an assassin’s knife, stretch as eyes full of bloodlust meet each other.

“you know what’s better than 14?”

claws unsheathe from the imps hand, the sound slicing through the still night air. the sound of bones cracking follow as the siren cracks his neck. the two are in the outer hallway immediately, allowing tony a glimpse of a new victim fleeing out the back door, into the woods outside. they expertly dodge each other as they rush through the hallway and out the door. it would be clear that this is not their first massacre together, were anyone watching.

“15.”

shadowy figures move out of the warehouse and into the night, their supernatural speed causing them to look more like electrically charged figures bounding from spot to spot. it doesn’t take long for them to catch up to the fleeing civilian. they follow him into a clearing in the woods, where he stops in the middle, out of breath. “please! i have a family! i can get you money!” in unison, the boys chime. “oh, shut up.” the last thing the man sees is red: the color of his own blood staining tear-filled eyes.

___________________________________________

the police are at the warehouse the following morning, responding to a 911 call at 5:22am from a warehouse employee. the warehouse’s main hall is covered in blood, and a few dozen of the bodies have been posed in the center of the floor. torsos, severed heads and limbs, are littered on the floor in the shape of a pentagram. the pentagram’s shape is lined underneath the bodies in blood. found in the woods, half a mile from the scene, is old farmer abernathy, strung on a pole in a fashion similar to that of a scarecrow. his throat has been slashed and stuffed with some of the dry grass that covers the clearing’s floor. his hands are purple from the ropes tightly wound around his wrists. surrounding the figure on the pole is a much larger pentagram, this time made of fire.

the fire crew are the next people on the scene, soon followed by local news stations. the story is broadcast on the first news of the day, the 7am session. headlines read: MASSACRE AT THE MILL. a moment of silence is given on the news for the following victims:

Melody Pearson, Katrina Brock, Patti Cooper, Isaac Hernandez, Jaime Greer, Janie Briggs, Austin Hammond, Valerie Bradley, Lee Grant, Betsy Fletcher, Carroll Schneider, Clayton Abernathy, Gordon Delgado, Mindy Chandler, Sylvia Summers

___________________________________________

PLAYER NOTES: players may post threads surrounding/involving the events of this plot drop. if you want your muse to have known any of the listed deceased, go ahead and add it into your interactions! if you would like your muses to have plot specific interactions (i.e meeting with the mayor, any of the exposed angels, etc), or have part in any upcoming plot drops, events, etc, please approach any admin.

tldr; first of all :’) ow. second of all, ANGELS have appeared in salem, specifically the archangels MICHAEL and GABRIEL 15 bodies have been found with no suspects thus far. NEWS ANCHORS announced an 8pm CURFEW following the murders, effective immediately.

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fatehbaz · 4 years

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June 2020: Canadian mining company PolyMet very close to opening Minnesota’s first open-pit copper-nickel mine next to Boundary Waters, as Minnesota’s Supreme Court prepares to hear one of the final cases involving the company’s environmental permits. The $1-billion mine is expected to threaten Iron Ranges, Boundary Waters, Lake Superior, and 1854 Treaty Native territory; and would have a lifespan of merely 20 years.

Some resources:

For a good summary: Lorraine Boissoneault. “Conflicted Over Copper: PolyMet copper-nickel mine has been trapped in litigation.” Great Lakes Now. 12 June 2020. Excerpts are included below. Quick excerpt: “In 2011, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa provided PolyMet with a review of the cultural and traditional religious significance of areas within the NorthMet project area. One of the authors summarized Band members’ unease over the mine, writing, ‘The area still supports cranberries, blueberries and trees with barks that was (and still is) used for illness. In addition, the pristine waters, fish, and natural habitat for fur bearing animals and birds will be affected by the mine. Our thoughts are on the generations to come and the generation that is here now.’”

For a shorter overview: Jennifer Bjorhus. “What you need to know about Minensota’s PolyMey and Twin Metals mine projects.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune. 23 October 2019. A bit outdated, since a lot of permitting/regulation has changed since the pandemic and since US presidential administration rules changes in April 2020.

“The [Minnesota] Court of Appeals ruled that the MPCA, which granted the air permit in 2018, should have looked harder at whether PolyMet plans to expand the mine well beyond the limits imposed by the permit.PolyMet’s Canadian securities filings indicate it may be planning a mine nearly four times larger than the operation covered by the air permit, which limits the mine to producing 32,000 tons of ore per day, the court noted.PolyMet, formally based in Toronto but run from St. Paul, is majority-owned by global mining giant Glencore.” [Source: Mike Hughlett. “Minnesota Supreme Court to review second Polymet permit ruling.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune. 7 June 2020.]

“Minnesota's non-ferrous mining rules have only been used to approve one project: the PolyMet copper-nickel mine, which sits outside the Rainy River Watershed and in the St. Louis River Watershed that flows into Lake Superior. PolyMet is not up and running as it faces numerous legal challenges to its permits, and Landwehr noted the state rules have never overseen an operational copper-nickel mine.” [Source: Jimmy Lovrien. “New lawsuit targets Minnesota’s copper-nickel mining rules.” Duluth News Tribune. 24 June 2020.]

A report on the nearly-complete permitting and Supreme Court case: Jerry Burnes. “PolyMet air permits join others at Minnesota Supreme Court.” Mesabi Daily News. 23 June 2020.

From June 2020, a summary of PolyMet’s mine and local Native objections:

“Who’s going to be there to tend PolyMet’s grave?” Klemz [Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy engagement director] said. The Department of Natural Resources estimated that restoring the mine area wouldn’t be completed until 2072, but another estimate showed water treatment could be necessary for up to 500 years at the plant site. [...]

In 2011, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa provided PolyMet with a review of the cultural and traditional religious significance of areas within the NorthMet project area. One of the authors summarized Band members’ unease over the mine, writing, “The area still supports cranberries, blueberries and trees with barks that was (and still is) used for illness. In addition, the pristine waters, fish, and natural habitat for fur bearing animals and birds will be affected by the mine. Our thoughts are on the generations to come and the generation that is here now.” In September 2013, the Tribal Cooperating Agencies submitted their own cumulative effects analysis, pointing out their many concerns over the proposed mine. “The Fond du Lac, Bois Forte, and Grand Portage Bands, as well as the 1854 Treaty Authority (1854) and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), have consistently advocated for a more robust, comprehensive CEA for the PolyMet NorthMet project and other mining projects,” the groups wrote. “We have observed that current, historic, and ‘reasonably foreseeable’ mining activities have profoundly and, in many cases permanently, degraded vast areas of forests, wetlands, air and water resources, wildlife habitat, cultural sites [...].

-----

Despite efforts by these groups, PolyMet was on the brink of moving forward at the beginning of 2020. More than a decade of environmental impact studies and permit applications had resulted in the project nearing full approval. But in the past six months, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has sent back four permits for review: two dam safety permits, a permit to mine and an air emissions permit. The court has also been scrutinizing a water discharge permit as well. Now the company is mired in litigation, waiting for the Minnesota Supreme Court to issue a ruling that will either let them move forward or force them to participate in further hearings over the feasibility of their project. The outcome of the cases could have major repercussions for the future of copper-nickel mining throughout the state. [...]

PolyMet Mining, a Toronto-based company owned by Switzerland mining conglomerate Glencore, began the environmental review process in 2004. The next year, the company took ownership of an ore processing plant in northeastern Minnesota, formerly owned by LTV Mining Company and used for taconite. The site proposed for the project comprises approximately 19,000 acres spread across the headwaters of the St. Louis River near the towns of Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes. The NorthMet mine has been projected to produce 72 million pounds of copper, 15.4 million pounds of nickel and 720,000 pounds of cobalt each year of its operation, despite less than 1 percent of the ore being marketable mineral. With a proposed lifespan of 20 years [...].

-----

WaterLegacy began looking at the permitting process. Through records requests, they found that the EPA had serious concerns about the water permit. A leaked email later revealed that a Minnesota regulator asked EPA staff not to file written criticisms of the draft water permit during the public comment period. [...] The water pollution problems might look similar to what has already happened with iron and taconite mines: sulfates and heavy metals leeching into groundwater and flowing from rivers into Lake Superior.

This would also have further deleterious impacts on wild rice beds and fish around the St. Louis River watershed. As for major collapses, Klemz points to what has happened when tailings basins of the type PolyMet has proposed break open and release pollution downstream. Dam collapses like this have happened in Brazil in 2019, killing nearly 250 people, and in British Columbia in 2014 at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine.

In April [2020] the Trump administration provided a new definition for marshes, wetlands and streams that qualify under the Clean Water Act [...]. The new definition removes protections for most of the country’s wetlands [...]. Then in early June, Trump signed an executive order that instructs agencies to waive environmental laws in order for new industrial projects -- like pipelines and mines -- to move forward more rapidly, in the aftermath of the economic depression caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the federal legislation went into effect, state agencies in Minnesota had already eased regulations of environmental safeguards. According to Jennifer Bjorhus of the Star Tribune, by mid-May the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency had granted almost 430 emergency requests to delay or ease compliance -- though the agency also denied a request from PolyMet to defer monitoring nearby wetlands as well as surface and groundwater.

[Source: Lorraine Boissoneault. “Conflicted Over Copper: PolyMet copper-nickel mine has been trapped in litigation.” Great Lakes Now. 12 June 2020.]

---

Another mine undergoing review right now: Twin Metals. Also discussed 24 June 2020, in Duluth News Tribune.

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koreaunderground · 3 years

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(2021/04/02) LexisNexis to Provide Giant Database of Personal Information to ICE

[theintercept.com][1]

[1]: <https://theintercept.com/2021/04/02/ice-database-surveillance-lexisnexis/>

# LexisNexis to Provide Giant Database of Personal Information to ICE

Sam Biddle[email protected]theintercept.com@samfbiddle

10-13 minutes

* * *

_The popular legal research_ and data brokerage firm LexisNexis signed a $16.8 million contract to sell information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to documents shared with The Intercept. The deal is already drawing fire from critics and comes less than two years after the company downplayed its ties to ICE, claiming it was “not working with them to build data infrastructure to assist their efforts.”

Though LexisNexis is perhaps best known for its role as a powerful scholarly and legal research tool, the company also caters to the immensely lucrative “risk” industry, providing, it says, 10,000 different data points on hundreds of millions of people to companies like financial institutions and insurance companies who want to, say, flag individuals with a history of fraud. LexisNexis Risk Solutions is also [marketed to law enforcement agencies][2], offering “advanced analytics to generate quality investigative leads, produce actionable intelligence and drive informed decisions” — in other words, to find and arrest people.

[2]: <https://risk.lexisnexis.com/law-enforcement-and-public-safety/crime-and-criminal-investigations>

The LexisNexis ICE deal appears to be providing a replacement for CLEAR, a risk industry service operated by Thomson Reuters that [has been crucial][3] to ICE’s deportation efforts. In February, the Washington Post [noted][4] that the CLEAR contract was expiring and that it was “unclear whether the Biden administration will renew the deal or award a new contract.”

[3]: <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/magazine/ice-surveillance-deportation.html?login=email&auth=login-email> [4]: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/26/ice-private-utility-data/>

LexisNexis’s February 25 ICE contract was shared with The Intercept by Mijente, a Latinx advocacy organization that has [criticized links between ICE and tech companies][5] it says are profiting from human rights abuses, including LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters. The contract shows LexisNexis will provide Homeland Security investigators access to billions of different records containing personal data aggregated from a wide array of public and private sources, including credit history, bankruptcy records, license plate images, and cellular subscriber information. The company will also provide analytical tools that can help police connect these vast stores of data to the right person.

[5]: <https://theintercept.com/2019/11/14/ice-lexisnexis-thomson-reuters-database/>

Though the contract is light on details, other ICE documents suggest how the LexisNexis database will be put to use. A [notice][6] posted before the contract was awarded asked for a database that could “assist the ICE mission of conducting criminal investigations” and come with “a robust analytical research tool for … in-depth exploration of persons of interest and vehicles,” including what it called a “License Plate Reader Subscription.”

[6]: <https://beta.sam.gov/opp/dd2901df29274e49921fdc232bb18d8d/view#general>

LexisNexis Risk Solutions spokesperson Jennifer Richman declined to say exactly what categories of data the company would provide ICE under the new contract, or what policies, if any, will govern how agency agency uses it, but said, “Our tool contains data primarily from public government records. The principal non-public data is authorized by Congress for such uses in the Drivers Privacy Protection Act and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act statutes.”

ICE did not return a request for comment.

The listing indicated the database would be used by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations agency. While HSI is tasked with investigating border-related criminal activities beyond immigration violations, the office frequently works to raid and arrest undocumented people alongside ICE’s deportation office, Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO. A[ 2019 report ][7]from the Brennan Center for Justice described HSI as having “quietly become the backbone of the White House’s immigration enforcement apparatus. Its operations increasingly focus on investigating civil immigration violations, facilitating deportations carried out by ERO, and conducting surveillance of First Amendment-protected expression.” In 2018, The Intercept reported on an [HSI raid][8] of a Tennessee meatpacking plant that left scores of undocumented workers detained and hundreds of local children too scared to attend school the following day.

[7]: <https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/social-media-surveillance-homeland-security-investigations-threat> [8]: <https://theintercept.com/2018/04/10/ice-raids-tennessee-meatpacking-plant/>

Department of Homeland Security[ budget documents][9] show that ICE has used LexisNexis databases since at least 2016 through the National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, a division of ERO that[ assists][10] in “locating aliens convicted of criminal offenses and other aliens who are amenable to removal,” including “those who are unlawfully present in the United States.”

[9]: <https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/u.s._immigration_and_customs_enforcement.pdf> [10]: <https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy-pia-ice-das-september2017.pdf>

> It’s exceedingly difficult to participate in modern society without generating computerized records of the sort that LexisNexis obtains and packages for resale.

It’s hard to wrap one’s head around the enormity of the dossiers LexisNexis creates about citizens and undocumented persons alike. While you can at least attempt to use countermeasures against surveillance technologies like facial recognition or phone tracking, it’s exceedingly difficult to participate in modern society without generating computerized records of the sort that LexisNexis obtains and packages for resale. The company’s databases offer an oceanic computerized view of a person’s existence; by consolidating records of where you’ve lived, where you’ve worked, what you’ve purchased, your debts, run-ins with the law, family members, driving history, and thousands of other types of breadcrumbs, even people particularly diligent about their privacy can be identified and tracked through this sort of digital mosaic. LexisNexis has gone even further than merely aggregating all this data: The company [claims][11] it holds 283 million distinct individual dossiers of 99.99% accuracy tied to “LexIDs,” unique identification codes that make pulling all the material collected about a person that much easier. For an undocumented immigrant in the United States, the hazard of such a database is clear.

[11]: <https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/products/public-records/powerful-public-records-search.page>

For those seeking to surveil large populations, the scope of the data sold by LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters is equally clear and explains why both firms are[ listed as official data “partners” of Palantir][12], a software company whose catalog includes products designed to [track down individuals][13] by feasting on enormous datasets. This partnership lets law enforcement investigators ingest material from the companies’ databases directly into Palantir data-mining software, allowing agencies to more seamlessly spy on migrants or round them up for deportation. “I compare what they provide to the blood that flows through the circulation system,” explained City University of New York law professor and scholar of government data access systems Sarah Lamdan. “What would Palantir be able to do without these data flows? Nothing. Without all their data, the software is worthless.” Asked for specifics of the company’s relationship with Palantir, the LexisNexis spokesperson told The Intercept only that its parent company RELX was an early investor in Palantir and that “LexisNexis Risk Solutions does not have an operational relationship with Palantir.”

[12]: <https://www.palantir.com/partnerships/data-providers/> [13]: <https://theintercept.com/2019/05/02/peter-thiels-palantir-was-used-to-bust-hundreds-of-relatives-of-migrant-children-new-documents-show/>

And yet compared with Palantir, which eagerly sells its powerful software to clients like ICE and the [National Security Agency][14], Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis have managed to largely avoid an ugly public association with controversial government surveillance and immigration practices. They have protected their reputations in part by claiming that even though LexisNexis may contract with ICE, it’s not enabling the crackdowns and arrests that have made the agency infamous but actually helping ICE’s detainees defend their legal rights. In 2019, after [hundreds of law professors, students, and librarians signed a petition][15] calling for Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis to cease contracting with ICE, LexisNexis sent a mass email to law school faculty defending their record and seeming to deny that their service helps put people in jail. Describing this claim as “misinformation,” the LexisNexis email, which was shared with The Intercept, stated: “ **We are not providing jail-booking data to ICE and are not working with them to build data infrastructure to assist their efforts.** … LexisNexis and RELX **does not** play a key ‘role in fueling the surveillance, imprisonment, and deportation of hundreds of thousands of migrants a year.” (Emphasis in the original.) The email stated that “one of our competitors” was responsible for how “ICE supports its core data needs.” It went on to argue that, far from harming immigrants, LexisNexis is actually in the business of empowering them: Through its existing relationship with ICE, “detainees are provided access to an extensive electronic library of legal materials … that enable detainees to better understand their rights and prepare their immigration cases.”

[14]: <https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/> [15]: <https://theintercept.com/2019/11/14/ice-lexisnexis-thomson-reuters-database/>

> “Your state might be down to give you a driver’s license, but that information might get into the hands of a data broker.”

The notion that LexisNexis is somehow more meaningfully in the business of keeping immigrants free rather than detained has little purchase with the company’s critics. Jacinta Gonzalez, field director of Mijente, told The Intercept that LexisNexis’s ICE contract fills the same purpose as CLEAR. Like CLEAR, LexisNexis provides an agency widely accused of systemic human rights abuses with the data it needs to locate people with little if any oversight, a system that’s at once invisible, difficult to comprehend, and near impossible to avoid. Even in locales where so-called sanctuary laws aim to protect undocumented immigrants, these vast privatized databases create a computerized climate of intense fear and paranoia for undocumented people, Gonzalez said. “You might be in a city where your local politician is trying to tell you, ‘Don’t worry, you’re welcome here,’ but then ICE can get your address from a data broker and go directly to your house and try to deport you,” Gonzalez explained. “Your state might be down to give you a driver’s license, but that information might get into the hands of a data broker. You might feel like you’re in a life or death situation and have to go to the hospital, but you’re concerned that if you can’t pay your bill a collection agency is going to share that information with ICE.”

Richman, the LexisNexis spokesperson, told The Intercept that “the contract complies with the new policies set out in President Biden’s Executive Order [13993][16] of January 21, which revised Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities and the corresponding DHS interim guidelines” and that “these policies, effective immediately, emphasize a respect for human rights, and focus on threats to national security, public safety, and security at the border.” But Gonzalez says it would be naive to think ICE is somehow a lesser menace to undocumented communities with Donald Trump out of power. “At the end of the day, ICE is still made up by the same agents, by the same field office directors, by the same administrators. … I think that it is really important for people to understand that, as long as ICE continues to have so many agents and so many resources, that they’re going to have to have someone to terrorize.”

[16]: <https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2021-01768.pdf>

#https://theintercept.com/2021/04/02/ice-database-surveillance-lexisnexis/#usa

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blogstorm807 · 3 years

Text

Google Home Shazam

Google Home Shazam Free

Shazam On Google Home

Google Home Shazam App

Can Google Home Shazam

Google Home Shazam Game

How To Use Shazam On Google Home

We’ve all been there, peacefully minding our own business, when suddenly an infectious melody enters our heads that we just can’t place, no matter how hard we try.

We’ll desperately consult family, friends, the internet in our vain attempt to identify the track, and Shazam's no good as it needs a snippet of the song itself to identify it. Well, Google’s latest feature is here to make this situation a thing of the past.

PS5 pre-orders: Where to buy PS5

Shazam application is the most popular music application has been downloaded hundreds of millions of time. Once you install this application on your Android device then you can easily identify your. First trailer for SHAZAM!

Announced at Google’s ‘Search On 2020’ event, the Google Android/iOS app now supports the option to use voice search to specifically search for songs by humming or whistling.

Dubbed Hum to Search, the feature uses machine learning to match a hum or whistle to a song. If Google’s data is anything to go by, with the question ‘What Song is Playing?’ reportedly being input into Google search almost 100 million times a month, this feature should prove extremely popular.

You don’t even have to have the right tone or key, which should help alleviate the embarrassment of your tone-deaf rendition of Era’s ‘Ameno’ in front of your friends.

To access the functionality, ensure you have the latest version of the Google app installed on your smartphone. Open the updated Google app and then tap the microphone icon to start Voice Search. Tap the prompt called ‘Search for this Song’ that should appear towards the bottom of the expanded search box and let rip with your humming or whistling.

After 10-15 seconds, Google will present a series of potential matches based on your input with quick links to the song on streaming services as well as related content like lyrics and music videos.

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So, how well does it work? In our testing, we found that Hum to Search was able to identify numerous classic and contemporary tracks, particularly from the Pop and Rock genres, such as Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart and The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights with relative ease.

However, the search seemed to falter when presented with hummed renditions of contemporary Hip-Hop, namely Kendrick Lamar’s Alright – and there’s no way this kind of tool could be used to identify less melodic genres like Death Metal.

Regardless of the feature’s limitations at the time of writing, it still offers a clear advantage over services like Shazam which require direct samples of the track in place of Google’s much lower requirement of humming or whistling. We’re sure this feature can only improve over time, like all deep-learning AIs.

This feature is currently available in English on iOS, and in more than 20 languages on Android.

Best Christmas gifts: present ideas for everyone

Google recently filed a patent that on first glance seems remarkably similar to Shazam. But rather than identifying music, Google will 'listen' to the environment around you to answer questions like 'who's in this TV programme?' or 'who directed this movie?' Michael Thomson, senior digital media strategist, DigitasLBi outlines its potential.

Having already conquered the subjects of the world, Google now wants to know more about your world. In a recently published patent, Google details how it plans to use signals from your environment – such as what you’re watching on television – to create a frictionless way to search.

At Advertising Week Europe, Google introduced “Search in the Age of Assistance”, a way to connect inspiration with action, search intent with search result.

This “assisted” world that has been patented is merely a breadcrumb trail, leading us closer towards a broader ambition:

Google Home Shazam Free

“Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google… it would understand exactly what you wanted, and it would give you the right thing.” – Larry Page, co-founder of Google.

Google would like an effortless relationship with you – after all, you know each other well. It should be easy, like a friendship.

Shazam On Google Home

Search for a general subject and your approach is natural. As Google has come to know what to expect from us to some extent, we also know what to expect from its response. ‘How old is Edinburgh Castle?’ will return a factual statement, much like a tour guide would. Google will now even voice your answer, which is more human than machine. Ten years ago, the response would have been a list of links.

Search has clearly made strong strides recently: using our pin-pointed location to add context to the weather, changing what it provides based on where it predicts we’re driving to, or looking at email receipts to know where we’re flying to. It will recommend we leave in 10 minutes so we don’t miss our check-in, and explore our chat history to find out which restaurant we need opening times for (without us needing to name the place when commanding). It has so far simplified our day to day lives to the best of its impressive ability.

The challenge for Google is; us, and our world. We’re complex. We’re not available for crawling and indexing, unless we have a digital footprint.

Environmental search is arguably the next natural step. It’s no longer just a matter of making our lives easier, but rather, helping us to stay engaged in the right moments.

This new development gives us a glimpse into how Google wants to know and understand us. As we discover how it plans to listen to our environment – i.e. what’s happening around us – it’s clear that it aims to improve its relationship with inspiration and action.

Like a version of Shazam, but beyond music, the search engine will – on command – answer queries like ’Who’s the lead actor in this show?’ or ‘Who directed this movie?’. By listening to your environment, it’s able to use sound to establish what you’re watching, and provide you with answers. Fast.

Google Home Shazam App

To make this a reality, you’d need a device with a sound recorder, making Google Home or Mobile essential. Chromecast could play a role too, but there’s no apparent reference to it in the patent.

The patent does list the types of content it will be able to carry this out for: movies, music, television shows, trailers, podcasts, images, artwork, books, magazines, internet video and video games. To get a similarly good result in today’s search, you’d need to add more meat to your query. For example, ‘Who’s the lead actor in T2 Trainspotting?’ or ‘Who directed T2 Trainspotting?’.

Can Google Home Shazam

The difference is subtle, but what changes is the context (or environment). As the searcher, you will not need to know the name of the movie you’re watching before searching, for example.

Aside from the problem-solving that the patent authors depict, what I enjoy most is Google’s interest in us. This new solution has the potential to open up a whole new world of searches, which would typically require multiple research steps. Imagine being able to ask ‘what shoes is the actress wearing?’ or ‘what’s the name of the street they’re walking down?’ when watching a film. A welcome development for brands, I’m sure.

This article is about:

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sareyen · 4 years

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Let Me Whisper In Your Ear, Darling (Cherik)

Read on ao3

Basically, Erik is an angry, horny college student who discovers audio porn made by one ProfessorXXX and becomes his #1 fan.

Erik was sitting in the library glaring at the screen of his old and beaten laptop, absent-mindedly twisting a paper clip hovering over the palm of his open hand. He had read and re-read his assignment ten times already, and he was still wondering why Professor Shaw had marked him down by eight marks.

Erik knew that his paper on mutant disadvantage in the female workforce had been good - good enough that he was sure that he shouldn’t have been docked eight marks. His asshole of a professor hadn’t even told him why he had been marked down, merely giving him a 42/50 and calling it a day.

“Sugar, glaring at your computer isn’t going to get Shaw to change your grade,” Emma said as she chewed on her spearmint gum behind her cool smile. Erik didn’t stop staring at his paper, flipping his friend off as he mouthed out the concluding sentences of his paper, still no closer to finding out ‘why the hell Shaw marked me down eight marks’.

“He’s a misogynistic piece of shit, Emma,” Erik gritted out, his friend letting out an amused huff, manicured nails clacking on her own computer.

“Not really. He gave me a pretty decent mark on my essay on the female mutant experience,” Emma said, flicking her immaculately curled blonde hair behind her shoulder, Erik finally peeling his eyes from his laptop to give her a seething look.

“That’s because he’s a misogynistic pervert who’s trying to pull sexual favours out of you by meddling with your grades,” Erik countered, Emma laughing.

“Oh, Sugar. You know he’d never try, not when I could just…” Emma vaguely gestured towards her head, corner of her mouth curled upwards. “And your grade isn’t even that bad by Shaw’s standards, so why are you so riled up?” Erik glared at Emma, who had plucked out his mark from inside his head. Emma looked thoughtful again, and Erik could feel her rifling through his brain with her ice-cold touch, making him growl and slap his mental shields over the things he really didn’t want her to see.

“Your boss is an asshole, Erik. Why don’t you just quit already?” Emma sighed, having seen how Erik’s boss at the coffee shop hadn’t paid him for the last week because he ‘forgot’ - for the second week in a row.

“Unlike you, I don’t have my daddy’s money to support me,” Erik snapped, Emma just raising an eyebrow, not fazed by Erik’s temper in the slightest; Emma was, perhaps, the only person who could deal with Erik’s moods.

Everyone knew that Erik Lehnsherr was an antagonistic, combative and downright scary person. On the first day of college, he had alienated the entire class by getting into it with a mutantphobic prick, pinning him to the wall by using all of the metal on his body. After that, no one tried to talk to him, ever. Only Emma, who was equally as intimidating (though for an entirely different reason), had been able to talk to him without shitting herself.

“Snappy. And it’s not just the fact that you’ve been eating cup ramen for two weeks and Shaw’s marking that’s pissing you off either, is it? Erik, you’re frustrated. If you’re so horny, come to the bar with the rest of us after class on Friday and just find someone and get laid,” Emma said casually, Erik flipping her off again. “Hey, I’m not judging, Sugar. Just concerned about a friend.”

“Well, you can go and shove your concern up your-”

Erik’s words cut off the moment he felt his phone buzz on the table in that particular tone. Erik knew that tone. He had set that singular bzz-bzz…bzz-bzz-bzz rhythm for one thing, and one thing only, different to the vibration pattern of text messages (that he really only got from Emma and his mother) or college email notifications (about how his requests for remarks have been denied for the fiftieth time).

Erik didn’t say anything else to Emma as he hastily slammed his ratty laptop screen down, stuffing it into his bag alongside his notes and phone, before quickly leaving the library. Emma was just looking at him with amusement as he left, and Erik knew that she would have sensed his mood suddenly change from angry/frustrated/tired to excited/horny/joyful.

It was only just past midday on a regular Wednesday, but Erik was done with classes and had only planned to study with Emma in the library until she went out on a dinner date with Scott, and he went to work his shift at the late-night coffee shop.

But then he had felt that particular bzz-bzz…bzz-bzz-bzz, and threw his plans straight out the window.

By the time he had unlocked the door to his apartment with his powers and hightailed it into his room, locking the door behind him with another flick of his wrist, Erik was already thrumming with anticipation, his cock stirring. This far into the game, just hearing the particular bzz-bzz…bzz-bzz-bzz rhythm gave Erik’s cock some sort of Pavlovian response, and Erik knew he was fucked.

Erik tugged his fraying earphones out from his bag that he had thrown haphazardly on the floor, arranging himself comfortably on his bed before jamming the buds into his ears and connecting them to his phone. Erik’s fingers tapped impatiently, opening the app hidden away in his guilty pleasures folder.

(1)New post from creator ProfessorXXX

The newly uploaded audio clip was titled “[M4M] I’ve had a hard day and need your big cock to fuck the stress out of me”. Erik almost groaned just reading the title, thinking ‘fuck, yes, okay, I need this too, I can do that for you’. He quickly skimmed the tags (which included BFE, massage and begging), his cock twitching in his jeans which were becoming a little tighter already.

Erik’s fingers tapped on a few things quickly, before jerking up the media volume and licking his lips.

There was a little crackling as the audio started, Erik slowly flattening his hands atop his thighs, closing his eyes. There was a sound of a door opening and closing, quiet and muffled, like it had been recorded from a distance. Erik’s breath hitched when heard the sound of clothes rustling, footsteps, and then another click of a door, but closer this time.

Before now, Erik never would have thought that hearing the sound of a door opening and closing could be considered foreplay, but the suspense was doing things to him, and he cursed silently, fighting back the urge to skip through the audio to get to the stuff that was beyond foreplay.

He didn’t have to wait long, though, when the reason he ditched Emma in the library without a second thought began to speak. The ridiculously hot voice curled with the lilt of a posh English accent, filtering through his ears and straight to his dick.

“Mm, darling, I’ve just had the worst day at work,” the voice groaned, taking on the role of a tired, overworked boyfriend. Erik would have been embarrassed at the fact that his heart was rabbiting in his chest over a boyfriend roleplay, because Gott, he was not that desperate for a boyfriend. No way. Nope. Erik definitely wasn’t desperate enough, even though he enabled push notifications on his phone to tell him the exact moment ProfessorXXX uploaded a new audio.

Definitely not desperate.

Erik pushed the errant thoughts from his head and focused on ProfessorXXX’s voice, slowly stroking his hands up and down his thighs. He wasn’t going near his twitching member just yet, though he could feel it begin to swell in his pants, uncomfortable.

“Mm, yes. You know my boss, his head is stuffed all the way up his arse. Oh, you know, the usual. He made me rewrite the entire presentation just a few hours before we had to present it so I missed my lunch break. Ugh, yes, a massage would be lovely, darling. Mmhmm, let me lie down on the bed first, and take off my jacket. It’s bloody hot in here, darling, let me take off my shirt too,” ProfessorXXX said, followed by the sound of more fabric rustling.

Erik could picture it in his mind; a soft and pliable body shrugging off a black suit jacket, dropping it onto the floor. He imagined phantom hands unbuttoning a crisp shirt, revealing perky pink nipples and soft skin. He could imagine watching the faceless man with the addictive voice and posh accent crawling onto his bed on all fours, moaning when Erik hovered above him, straddling the backs of his thighs and squeezing out the knots in the man’s strong muscles.

Erik licked his lips again, flicking his fingers and undoing his pants with practised finesse by tugging on the metal button and zipper. Erik moaned quietly as he lifted his hips slightly to pull down his jeans, leaving his briefs on which were sporting a little patch of dampness where his leaking head poked at the stretchy fabric.

“Mmm, darling. Your hands feel so good,” ProfessorXXX purred, and Erik swallowed, fisting his hands where they sat on his thighs, not touching his cock yet. He wouldn’t, not until ProfessorXXX mentioned it.

“Mm, yes, touch my lower back too. Nngh, God, yes. Feels so good.”

Erik imagined sliding his hands down the mystery back, one that he has never seen but imagined in great detail. As Erik’s imagined hands slid down and began to slip beneath the waistband of the imaginary man’s slacks, so did ProfessorXXX’s hopefully fake boyfriend, which coaxed a bubbling laugh from ProfessorXXX, one that was so endearing that Erik’s heart clenched.

Verdammt.

“No need to be so smug, darling. Of course I’m going to get hard if you’re touching me like that,” ProfessorXXX said, voice light but with a slight edge of arousal. Erik heard him breathe a little more heavily, and the sound of bed sheets rustling made Erik imagine the man turning onto his back, bulge evident in his work slacks.

“Mm, yeah, I was actually already getting hard on the train ride home,” ProfessorXXX panted, and Erik’s mouth went dry when he heard the sound of a zip being pulled down in his ears, and he wished that he would be there to pull it down with his powers, feel the slide of the zipper straining to contain the bulge of ProfessorXXX’s cock. He didn’t know what that cock looked like, but considering ProfessorXXX had a pretty voice, Erik knew that he would have a very, very pretty cock.

“You won’t let me touch it? Nngh, okay. Okay. You can tie my arms up with my tie, yes, I’ll do anything. Please, please just touch me.”

“Oh, Gott,” Erik breathed out through his flared nostrils, now beginning to palm his own cock through his briefs, moaning at the friction and the sharp inhaled breath ProfessorXXX took, as if Erik had just touched his cock.

Alongside the Englishman’s breathy moans and occasional long mewl, Erik could hear the overlying noise of some slick, wet stroking. For a moment, Erik wondered how ProfessorXXX made those noises; was he actually jerking himself off while he made this audio (which was hot as fuck), or did he use something else, like a mayonnaise-coated banana (slightly less hot). Erik didn’t ruminate much longer on that, though, not when ProfessorXXX began begging again.

“Darling, I need your big, hot cock inside me. Please, I’ve been thinking about it all day. When my boss was yelling at me, all I could think about was how I wanted to get home and let you bury your cock inside me and fuck me hard and fast,” ProfessorXXX whimpered, words punctuated by a squelching sound that, really, should not have been sexy. But when the Englishman suddenly said “God, your fingers feel so good inside me,” Erik didn’t mind the wet noises that really did begin to sound like a lubed-up asshole taking in Erik’s fingers greedily, sucking them in and begging for more.

Erik couldn’t wait any longer, tugging out his leaking member from inside his briefs, wrapping a big hand around his length and beginning to stroke. He matched his pumps with ProfessorXXX’s moans and cries as he verbally described how his (fake, please be fake) boyfriend’s cock felt as he thrust deep inside him.

Erik stripped his cock to the sound of a faceless, posh-sounding audio porn star whose potentially-real-but-hopefully-not boyfriend was burying his cock inside him. Erik only let himself orgasm when ProfessorXXX did. Erik knew when the voice would come, he had listened to so many of his audios before that he could identify the change in the man’s breathing, the way his words would begin to slur, and how he would begin to cry out ‘Oh, God, yes, God, yes’ as he came.

Erik spilled himself over his hand with a choked cry, mind searing with white as he shook, the orgasm ripping through him.

When Erik came down from his high, some cum dribbling onto his T-shirt, he heard ProfessorXXX laugh softly with a low, throaty moan.

“Mm, thank you, darling. I really needed that.”

‘I really did too,’ Erik mused, the audio clip ending, leaving Erik in silence with his heart beating rapidly and cum pooling in his hand. He tried to ignore the way his heart ached a little when the clip ended, as if he’d just found out that his faceless and English boyfriend had to go home after a long session of hot, tender love-making.

But deep down, Erik knew that he was fucked.

***

Charles listened to his latest audio recording, making sure that everything was fine; the volume was even, his Foley-esque squelching noises popped in at the right times and the slapping sounds perfectly matched his sharp gasps.

Satisfied, Charles set the upload time for Wednesday 12:00pm like always, adding a short comment:

Hope you enjoyed this week’s audio, darlings, because I definitely enjoyed making it ;) Next week’s audio is something that many of you have been requesting – you’re all a little freaky, aren’t you?

Charles checked over everything one last time before submitting it, groaning as he stretched his arms and back, neck cracking after sitting at his computer editing the audio for so long. Just as he shut down his computer, Raven walked in wearing her favoured blonde hair and blue-eyed appearance, opting to wear a slouchy T-shirt and cotton shorts. In her hands was a plate with a disassembled sandwich on it.

“Finished making fingering noises with the mayo?” Raven teased her brother, who rolled his eyes and wheeled to the end of his desk to grab the bottle of mayo. He threw it to Raven who caught it deftly, squirting some onto her sandwich before assembling it and taking a bite, moaning loudly just to make her brother roll his eyes at her.

“Oh, stop it, Raven,” Charles huffed, not embarrassed about his side job, but tired of Raven taking the piss out of it every moment she could. He had been making (excellent quality) audio porn for almost a year-and-a-half, and if he was still embarrassed about it by now, then he clearly chose the wrong job.

“Did you just finish editing the punishment audio?” Raven asked while chewing, looking so casual she might as well have been talking about how cup noodles were on sale at the supermarket today.

“Yes, I have just set it up to be posted at 12,” Charles replied, wheeling out of his cramped bedroom, which was only just big enough to fit his bed, wardrobe and desk. It only just managed to allow his wheelchair to manoeuvre through.

“Sweet. You always get lots of hits on the ones where you’re getting thrown around,” Raven said, smirking around a mouthful of chicken, bread and mayo. “Your fans want to spank the shit out of you, Charles.”

“I don’t need my sister keeping tabs on how many hits my porn clips get, thank you very much,” Charles said, holding his hand out to stop Raven, who just snickered at his expense. “But yes, if this audio does well, then we might have enough money to get someone to come and fix the blasted heater.”

“Yes!” Raven cheered, fist pumping the air while still holding her sandwich. Charles laughed at that, wheeling past his sister and into the lounge room to make himself some lunch as well.

Charles hadn’t started making audio porn because he wanted to – it had been a moment of desperation when he and Raven needed cash. Things had never been easy after they were cut off from the Xavier fortune, and though they never regretted it, they did struggle at first. Raven’s part-time job as a waitress only paid so much, and Charles found it difficult to find jobs suitable for him because of his chair.

One day, Charles had stumbled on an online article about a new surge in the popularity of audio porn, and it had piqued his interest. Charles knew that people made a lot of cash by making standard porn, but he had never wanted to become known as ‘That Paraplegic Pornstar’ (of ‘The Paraplegic Penis’, as Raven unhelpfully quipped, once), or fulfil the unsettling disability kink some people had.

Audio porn, on the other hand, bypassed that. Charles could be whoever he wanted to be, acting out whatever scenarios he wanted without having to show his body. It was a bonus, really, that he had a natural English accent, which was very, very popular online.

Charles’s first audio had been a very basic, very vanilla JOI clip, which had done moderately well, enough to encourage Charles to keep going. His next one had incorporated some more roleplay, and his role as an office employee who got caught masturbating in his office (and subsequently getting bent over a desk and thoroughly fucked) had immediately made his new career take off.

Even though he had fallen into it somewhat accidentally, Charles did not mind it. It was creatively liberating, brought in more cash than he and Raven were making through conventional means, and was sometimes extremely convenient. Even as a paraplegic, Charles had needs. Charles, unfortunately, hadn’t been in a relationship for a long, long time, so he had to make do with pleasuring himself whenever he was feeling frisky. This was hard to achieve, considering the sensation in his cock was iffy even on a good day, but he had worked out with practise how to bring himself over the edge. It was easy money to just record himself getting off, considering he was going to do it anyway.

That didn’t mean Charles that was 100% satisfied. Sure, his toys were fun, but he missed being with someone. It was a shame that he hadn’t met anyone who was truly fine with him being a paraplegic that couldn’t have a reliable erection, even if they pretended they were okay with it.

Downside of being a telepath.

“You’re pulling your lonely face again, Charles,” Raven suddenly said, snapping her brother out of his momentary daze. Charles was suddenly very aware of his face, frowning at Raven.

“I’m not making a ‘lonely face’,” Charles said, Raven snorting.

“Don’t lie to me, Charles.”

‘You’re obviously wishing that you’re actually getting some real dick instead of pretending to get it by slapping two pieces of steak together,’ Raven added mentally when Charles ignored her, pulling out some bread to make himself a sandwich. Raven didn’t want to drop the conversation though, and sidled up beside Charles, leaning on the edge of the low kitchen counter.

“Chaaaarles,” Raven dragged out, her brother ignoring her as he squelched mayo onto the bread. “Charles, what if I set you up with someone?”

Charles glanced at his sister at that, eyes narrowed.

“No,” Charles responded flatly. “The last time you tried to set me up with someone, he ended up ditching me half way through dinner by pretending to pick up a phone call. I knew he was going to, of course, but that doesn’t mean it hurt any less.”

“Okay, that was my bad. But I can properly vouch for the guy this time. He’s Emma’s friend, and Charles, he’s the definition of your type.”

“I don’t have a ‘type’,” Charles said, tearing up some chicken and throwing it onto his mayo covered bread.

‘Where’s that photo of Erik I have, no, no, no, hot, but no, no – ah! There he is,’ Charles caught Raven thinking, and soon her phone was thrust in front of his face, revealing the most ridiculously handsome man Charles had ever seen.

Brown-ish hair, light ginger scruff, angular face, pale blue-grey eyes, lean body, broad shoulders and narrow waist, long legs and – Christ – Charles could see the outline of his cock against his thigh and the man was packing.

Charles’s mouth was hanging open, and he was sure he would have started drooling if Raven hadn’t started cackling.

“He’s totally your type,” Raven said smugly, Charles unable to deny her because that man was definitely Charles’s type, at least physically. Good God. “And, to sweeten the deal, he’s a metallokinetic, can dirty talk to you in German and is passionate – maybe overly so – about mutant rights. Uh, he’s a separatist, but you did say that some of the best sex you’ve had is with people you wanted to punch, so I’d say that’s a positive. Oh, and he’s single.”

That was a very sweet deal indeed.

But Charles was hesitant – a man like that, he could have any one he wanted. Why would he want someone like Charles?

***

Erik never came harder than he did when he jerked off to ProfessorXXX’s voice, and he didn’t want to think about what that meant. Erik had never been that guy who had a thing for porn with storylines, usually skipping the terribly cheesy opening scenes and going straight to the parts where someone was getting their cock sucked down by red lips, getting himself off quickly and efficiently.

For Erik, jerking off was just a thing he did when he was feeling horny. It was honestly so impersonal that was almost clinical. It had been a long time since he had time to go out and actually find someone to help him relieve his sexual frustration, but he was deep into an assessment heavy part of the year and had no time to go out, so for the past few weeks it’s just been him and his hand.

He had come across ProfessorXXX’s audios by accident; he had been trying to click on another video of some pretty basic porn, but his laptop had slid off his lap slightly and he had clicked on something else instead, leading him to ProfessorXXX’s PornHub page.

Erik had never been interested in audio porn, even though it had come up every now and then when he was ten pages deep in the #mutant porn tag. Erik would have just clicked back straight away, but his eye caught a few comments on ProfessorXXX’s page gushing about how his voice gave them the most soul-shattering orgasm they had ever had in their life. Erik had just snorted, wondering what desperate soul could get off with just the sound of someone’s voice, and curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He had clicked one of the latest audios that had been posted, skipping a pretty basic-sounding title for one labelled “[M4A] I get horny making pancakes and jerk myself off in the kitchen”, not expecting to be turned on in the slightest, but at least hoping that it would be a mildly entertaining clip.

But the moment Erik heard ProfessorXXX’s voice, with his stupid accent and slight rasp when he became aroused, Erik was gone. He had jerked off at 3am after finishing his mutant studies essay to the sound of a man talking about how his cock was sticky with syrup and how filling his hole with his fingers was worth burning his pancakes for.

Erik had been mortified at himself in the privacy of his room, throwing his phone across the room but growing a mind and catching it with his powers before it smashed against the wall.

Erik hadn’t jerked off for a week after that, almost embarrassed that something like that had given him what was, arguably, the best masturbatory orgasm of his life. But, he was a young and healthy man, and it was late on a Friday night that Erik had accepted the fact that he hadn’t stopped thinking about ProfessorXXX’s voice during the entirety of his week of abstinence.

Erik just figured that he would jerk off to a few more of ProfessorXXX’s audios, get it out of his system and move back to safer, greener pastures.

He did not.

Erik knew he had a problem when he had downloaded a whole app dedicated to audio porn, ignoring all other creators and simply worked his way down every single one of ProfessorXXX’s audios. Erik had his rock bottom the moment he attempted to scroll down further after coming for the second time to the sound nothing more than ProfessorXXX jerking himself off – no roleplaying, no context, just a file aptly titled “Edging myself for forty minutes straight and cumming so hard I pass out”.

After exhausting every single one of ProfessorXXX’s audio clips, Erik ended up paying to access VIP audios on the man’s Patreon page (ones that the creator had clearly spent more time on, since the quality of the paid audios were even better than the free ones). When he exhausted even those, Erik had to settle on revisiting his favourites to get himself off while waiting for new uploads. ProfessorXXX was, at least, a man that adhered to a schedule, something Erik liked.

Every Wednesday, at 12:00pm GMT-4 sharp, ProfessorXXX uploaded a new audio. And, every Wednesday at 12:00pm GMT-4, Erik’s cock would know that it was time to start getting interested.

Erik decided that he needed to compartmentalise things. ProfessorXXX’s roleplaying scenarios maybe confused Erik’s mind a bit, the Englishman’s acting somehow too believable. That was one of the things that set ProfessorXXX apart from regular porn – porn plots were always terrible, but ProfessorXXX really sold whatever he was trying to pass off as. Actual professor in a student/teacher scenario? Yes. An employee performing sexual favours for his hot boss? Perfection. Needy brat in need of a spanking? Fuck yes.

ProfessorXXX was so versatile in his repertoire that Erik was beginning to get confused. He needed to just push ProfessorXXX and all of his personas into a box labelled WANK MATERIAL, and keep it far away from the other, dismally empty box labelled FEELINGS.

Erik did not need to start feeling things for a man who makes (really good quality) audio porn.

One thing that helped was that when Erik’s heart began to itch, he would just think to himself ‘ProfessorXXX is probably a middle-aged lecher with a beer gut and receding hairline who makes these audios wearing a ratty wife beater and adult diaper’. That would work for a bit, but then Erik would hear his voice, and someone that sounded that posh, that gentle (unless he was begging to be choked) and that lovely (because his flirtatious laugh was beyond lovely), Erik couldn’t picture him as someone that visually abhorrent.

Erik had no idea what ProfessorXXX looked like, but for some reason he thinks that if he ever met him, he’d think he was gorgeous no matter what he looked like.

‘Gott, Erik, stop,’ Erik growled to himself, pushing away the traitorous thoughts by focusing on feeling the metal around him, tugging on the barista’s coffee machine, the tacky hipster light fixtures, the legs of the glossy chairs.

It was just past 11:30 on the Wednesday after Erik had wanked to ProfessorXXX getting pounded by his boyfriend after a bad day at work. Instead of being at the library, Erik had been dragged to a café around the corner from campus by Emma and her friend, Raven.

Erik didn’t know Raven well since she wasn’t undertaking the same degree as him, but Emma had apparently known her and her brother for ages, their old-money families running in the same circles. Erik had really only spoken to Raven a handful of times, but from what he’d seen, he didn’t mind the girl; she was straightforward and borderline brash, but she wore her blue skin, yellow eyes and shock red hair with such confidence that even Erik was impressed. Erik had always been biased towards mutants with visible mutations.

Erik hadn’t felt particularly hungry, and just ordered a coffee and guarded their table from being snagged by a haughty-looking woman, spreading his long limbs across the plush wall seating. The woman glared at him, and he smiled with all his teeth, sending her scuttling off to try and find a table at the back of the café.

Erik’s coffee came as Emma and Raven sauntered back to their squeezy table in the corner, and he sipped on it while they waited for their food, continuing to chat about whatever they had been talking about at the counter.

“I wasn’t aware that it pays so well,” Emma said to Raven, leaning forward, genuinely interested in whatever they were talking about. Erik was only half listening, his finger tapping on the rim of his coffee cup, letting his powers linger on the hands of a wall clock above the café counter.

11:43am.

“Yeah, it’s because he’s surprisingly really popular on the forum. Which is great, because it means he gets paid more, but I mean… it’s gross,” Raven said, shivering, Emma letting out an amused laugh.

“Only because he’s your brother,” Emma said as a waiter came by with their food, eyeing Raven in her natural blue form warily. Erik sent him a cold look, tripping him up by the metal eyelets on his boots.

“Come on, Emma. If your brother was popular like that, you’d be grossed out too,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, he’s thinking about branching out. He’s not gonna stop that part of his job because it pays well, but he’s thinking of creating other things. You know, like podcasts.”

“Is he going to stop once he starts his TA job? This is only a temporary thing, right?”

“I don’t know. I asked him, and he said that he’ll definitely cut back since he’ll have less time, but I honestly think he kind of likes it. Which, I mean, good for him, because you know… but as his sister, it’s still gross,” Raven said, before they started taking hefty bites into the food while Erik sipped on his coffee.

11:50am.

Erik’s leg began to bob up and down, Raven turning to him mid-way through taking a large bite from her large pulled pork sub.

“What’s got you so antsy?” Raven asked, Erik huffing and rolling his eyes. Emma smirked, eyeing Erik with amusement.

“He’s probably waiting for his regular midday text from his boyfriend,” Emma said, Erik whirling to look at her, face a comical picture of genuine shock. Emma and Raven both burst out laughing at his reaction, the man schooling his expression back to its usual one of blatant disgust, cursing at both Raven and Emma and making sure that his mental shields were solid. Emma picked up on his immediate padding of his shields, only smiling wider.

“Boyfriend? Erik? A boyfriend? That’s hilarious,” Raven snickered, Erik glaring at her while Emma just grinned.

“Oh, but is it? Erik has been acting awfully suspicious lately,” Emma said easily, waving her hand around as if she were talking about the weather.

“Shut it, Emma,” Erik growled, Emma ignoring him and turning to Raven conspiratorially.

“He always turns down invitations to go out, and I’ve caught him looking at his phone with a gooey expression on his face. And sometimes, he’ll be looking at his phone and get all aroused,” Emma said, and Erik contemplated ripping the white pearl and silver barrette out of her blonde hair and slapping her in the face with it. Emma seemed to catch that thought since it was directed at her, and she just laughed lightly. “Oh, Sugar. You think you’ve been so discreet. Look at you, blocking me out. Trying to hide the identity of your mystery boy?”

11:57am.

“Verpiss dich, I don’t have a boyfriend,” Erik churned out, cheeks heating a little despite himself. He definitely did not have a boyfriend. Nope, not at all. Instead, he had a complicated relationship with the voice of a man who could wring out an orgasm from him like no other person ever before. Verdammt.

“Wait, you actually have a boyfriend?” Raven asked, ignoring everything Erik said and scrunching her nose up. “Damn, I was going to try and set you up with my brother. You’re exactly his type.”

“Charles likes the moody, unapproachable type?” Emma asked, Raven snorting.

“He likes the tall, European, huge dick and ‘groovy mutation’ type,” Raven replied, Emma snickering as Erik glared at the both of them.

“Thanks for the concern, Raven, but I don’t want you to set me up with your brother,” Erik said, pretending that the voice in his head did not just say that was because he was interested in someone else. Someone with an English accent and a filthy mouth that was sometimes ridiculously sweet.

“Because you have a boyfriend,” Emma replied, Erik wanting to rip his own hair out at the circular conversation that was going nowhere.

“I already told you that I don’t ha-”

12:00pm.

Bzz-bzz…bzz-bzz-bzz.

Erik’s cock twitched right on cue.

Emma laughed, Raven raised a brow, and Erik just flipped them both off and drained the rest of his coffee, briskly walking home to lock himself in his room and jerk off to ProfessorXXX’s new audio.

***

Even though Charles’s audios were very successful and he had cultivated quite a dedicated fanbase, that didn’t mean he wasn’t free from the occasional negative comment. Most of them were ridiculous and speculative, saying that Charles was probably a balding, overweight 50-year-old man with a pedo stache and BO that would be a natural mosquito repellent. Charles found these kind of hate comments hilarious, and often replied to them jokingly, saying that was why he was making audio porn and not visual porn.

His fans said that only someone who wasn’t completely butt ugly would be able to joke about that.

Charles wasn’t ugly – in fact, he would consider himself quite handsome, even if he had developed a bit of a paunch because of his paraplegia, and his legs were atrophied and frail. Even with that, Charles’s upper body had become broad and leanly muscled, though he usually covered himself up with the frumpy sweaters that he loved, but Raven hated.

Charles was reading through the comments on one of his latest audios, which he made for people with visible mutations. It involved a lot of body worship (though he had to make it vague because visible mutations came in all shapes, colours and forms) and mutant positivity, and Charles had actually thought that it was one of his better audios, but apparently it brought a lot of mutantphobic bigots out of the woodwork.

cumbot2000 : ProfXXX is a mutant fucker? go to hell

diiickya188 : i came here to cum, not get turned off by this fucking mutie shit

mayhem2928 : well my dick is soft now

dl8191398 : profxxx is probs a fkn mutie himself fking disgusting

Charles sighed, quickly working his way to report the comments, but stopping when he saw that lots of the earlier mutantphobic comments on the audio had replies to them. One of them even looked like it had turned into a full-blown argument lasting 20+ responses, all of them from the same person – magneto22.

jayybee : profxxx is a mutie fucker im never listening to his shit again

magneto22 : Good riddance. This was a very well thought-out and executed audio that respected mutants with visible mutations while still being sexy and fun. You evidently can’t understand the quality of ProfessorXXX’s craft, and are a mutantphobic piece of shit, so go right ahead and fuck off and leave ProfessorXXX alone.

Charles read through a few more of magneto22’s replies, some ranging from polite and measured, and others devolving into utter swear-fests. All of them, though, defended Charles with a surprising amount of passion.

It probably wasn’t a great idea for Charles to feel so touched by someone who pays money to listen to Charles orgasm (because magneto22 did pay for Charles’s exclusive Patreon audios, he checked), but he was. There was something about the honesty in magneto22’s words, and even if Charles couldn’t hear his voice or see his face, everything the man (he assumed he was a man, considering Charles’s audios were aimed at men) said seemed genuine.

Charles ended up sending a private message to magneto22 through the audio porn app, even though that was probably a very, very stupid thing to do. This was a man paying for Charles’s porn, and Charles was what, sliding into his DMs?

‘God, I need to get laid, properly. Now I’m even catching feeling for people paying for my porn, good Lord.’

Still, Charles had sent magneto22 a message, keeping it light and somewhat formal.

ProfessorXXX : Hello. I know this might seem very strange, but I saw your very supportive and very kind comments on one of my audios ([M4M] You’re beautiful, darling [mutantandproud] [bodyworship] [visiblemutations]), and I just wanted to say thank you for your help with addressing the mutantphobic bigots. It really means a lot to me, as a mutant myself. Your words were also very flattering, and I am glad that you found the audio to be respectful – I tried to take great care in ensuring that I wasn’t playing into a mutant fetish like some people tend to do. Thank you, once again, my friend. Yours, ProfessorXXX

Charles pushed his mind off magneto22 after sending the message, focusing on editing a new audio. He was in the middle of syncing the squelching mayo noises when his email pinged, signifying that his message to magneto22 had been replied to. Charles’s stomach flipped and his heart thumped, suddenly far too giddy to be healthy.

Charles quickly clicked onto the new message, not even caring that he may seem desperate.

magneto22 : Hello ProfessorXXX. Receiving a message from you was surprising, but not strange at all. In fact, I am very glad to hear that my comments were well-received. I am very pleased to find out that you are also a mutant (I am as well). It is very refreshing to find such tastefully made adult content for mutants, especially those with visible mutations. I enjoyed your other audios, but this one made me a great fan of your work. I hope that you create more audios targeted towards those with visible mutations, but I will look forward to all of your future work nonetheless. Regards, magneto22

Charles was smiling widely at the message, endeared by the slightly awkward and stiff tone throughout it. Even though it was awkward, magneto22 sounded genuine, like he was speaking from the heart. Charles was glad that magneto22, who was a mutant (likely with a visible mutation considering he seemed very hung up on support for such mutants in particular), had enjoyed the audio.

Charles replied again swiftly, saying that he would definitely be making more mutant-centric works, adding that he would dedicate the next one to magneto22. Charles had already sent the message when he realised he had just dedicated his porn to a random man on the internet.

Charles groaned and chastised himself, closing down the app and putting his phone on do not disturb, focusing on editing the audio so he could move on to some of his college assignments.

But Charles itched to see if magneto22 had responded, and the distraction made him take much longer than usual to edit his audio clip.

***

If Emma and Raven had thought that Erik had a boyfriend because he had been hung up on notifications that ProfessorXXX had released a new audio, the fact that he was now messaging the man was icing on the cake.

When Erik had received the private message from ProfessorXXX, he had nearly dropped his phone mid-wank; the man was moaning in his ear and whispering about how he wanted to choke on Erik’s cock, but the message he had sent to Erik was well-written and friendly, and the juxtaposition of the two made Erik’s head implode.

It had taken him a while to reply, having to quickly get himself off before he could think straight. Erik had responded awkwardly, and had berated himself for sounding like a fucking tool, but ProfessorXXX had replied swiftly, sounding as jovial as he had in the first message. Erik naturally replied again, and he was waiting for ProfessorXXX to just… stop replying. But he hadn’t.

Their conversation, which had started off formal, had progressed into a mixture of heated debates about mutant rights (and Gott, now that Erik knew ProfessorXXX was a mutant made him orgasm twice as hard) and about more mundane things, like terrible college professors and trying to make a living while juggling three assignments and exam preparation.

Erik had originally thought that ProfessorXXX lived in England because of his thick accent, but when Erik had slyly asked him where the accent was from, the other man had said that the accent was from Oxford, but he was actually born and raised in New York. Erik’s brain had short-circuited again with the knowledge that ProfessorXXX lived in the same city as him.

Erik began to imagine scenarios where he would spontaneously ‘bump’ into ProfessorXXX. On the train, at a café, or just on the street. Erik thought that he would be able to recognise ProfessorXXX’s voice anywhere.

Somewhere along the way, Erik had stopped thinking of ProfessorXXX as ‘that guy I sometimes masturbate to’ to ‘the guy that is an infuriating pacifist but actually argues his case really well and is also a broke-as-fuck college student like me and Gott he’s funny and nice and-’

Erik could go on forever about ProfessorXXX, and that was the problem. Even though his compartmentalisation had been pretty shoddy to begin with, now it was just non-existent. Erik, to his mortification, liked ProfessorXXX. Really liked him. He didn’t just like how his voice could draw out the most delicious orgasms from Erik’s dick, but he liked him as a person.

Erik couldn’t even pretend that ProfessorXXX was just jerk-off material any more. No, he was too far gone for the person behind the sexy voice and dirty fantasies to pretend he wasn’t something more.

Erik and ProfessorXXX had been messaging for almost three weeks now, and Erik wanted to meet the man terribly. But he doubted ProfessorXXX would want that; in the end, Erik was his fan, and the fact that ProfessorXXX never said anything personal about himself, not even about his appearance, in his description or audios, Erik figured that he wanted to remain anonymous.

It came as a shock to Erik one day during his exams to receive a message from ProfessorXXX asking if Erik would like to meet. In person.

“Oh, fuck!” Erik yelled, the metal in his room rattling as he nearly dropped his phone on his face from where he was lying in bed. Erik was still freaking out when his roommate banged on his door, yelling at him to fix the bloody shower head, his powers running so amok that he had been twisting the metal in the bathroom into misshapen lumps. Erik apologised quickly and straightened all of the pipes out, before turning back to the message.

magneto22 : Yes, I would love to meet in person. Were you thinking sometime after exams? I finish on Wednesday this week.

ProfessorXXX : Oh, excellent! I finish this week as well – Thursday, to be exact. We could maybe grab coffee some time? Is there a time and day that would work best for you? I’m flexible.

“I’m sure you are flexible,” Erik mumbled to himself, cursing at the way his cock twitched at the unintentionally suggestive words.

magneto22 : Friday around midday?

ProfessorXXX : Oh, I’m sorry, my friend. Unfortunately I have a prior engagement at that time. I am free all of Saturday, though.

If he’s free all of Saturday, that means he’s free at night and maybe- Erik, Gott, stop.

magneto22 : Saturday works for me as well. Should we say 11am? We can choose a coffee shop somewhere between the both of us.

ProfessorXXX : Excellent! I live near Columbia. I recall you mentioning that you go to NYU? I know of a fantastic coffee shop right between them. I can send you the details.

magneto22 : Looking forward to it.

ProfessorXXX : As am I, my friend.

Erik stared at his phone with giddy anticipation, his grin almost splitting his face in two.

Saturday couldn’t come soon enough.

***

It was 11am on Friday, the day after Charles had his last exam. The telepath watched Raven try on outfits for Emma’s birthday brunch in the mirror, waiting a little impatiently since he had been ready for 45 minutes already, while Raven had only just decided how she wanted to style her natural red hair. Emma’s brunch started in 30 minutes, and on the subway it took at least 20 minutes to get to the ritzy brunch house, and Charles hated being late. He also wasn’t looking forward to having to squeeze onto the subway to get to the restaurant, but what could he do. He and Raven couldn’t afford a cab, let alone a car.

“You’re telling me you’re not interested in Erik anymore? Mr ‘Exactly My Type’?” Raven asked incredulously as her blue skin rippled into a tight red dress that matched her hair. Clicking her tongue as she spun in the mirror, she changed it to a sleek white jumpsuit, nodding thoughtfully.

“I am sure that he’s lovely, but no, I am no longer interested,” Charles said, fighting the smile on his face as he remembered magneto22’s messages to him. Charles had thought that asking the man on a date – because this was a date, right? – would have ended in immediate failure, but he had seemed excited. Almost as excited as Charles, but Charles was beyond the realm of excited and was bordering on manic.

“Oh my God, did you meet someone?!” Raven exclaimed, eyeing her brother’s expression with shock. Charles just shrugged, Raven squealing. “You so did! When the hell did this happen? How did this happen? You’ve been so busy with your TA job and the audios, not to mention exams. Just when? What? How? Spill, now.”

“Okay, don’t… freak out,” Charles said, trying to figure out how to explain things. Even though Charles felt like he knew magneto22, they hadn’t revealed their true names to each other, or their faces. Charles thought there was this tiny barrier hanging over their heads, a barrier that stemmed from the fact that they only began talking to each other because Charles made porn, and magneto22 was a fan of said porn. Things started off in an odd place, and even though Charles liked magneto22 – really liked him – it was still this thing hanging over his head like a storm cloud.

Charles hoped that meeting magneto22 in person would get rid of that last little barrier between them.

“Don’t freak out? I’m already freaking out,” Raven said, turning away from her figure in the mirror after changing into a floral sundress. “Spill, Charles.”

Charles quickly told her what had happened, and by the end of it, Raven was staring at her brother with a blank expression.

“You’re meeting up with a guy who’s a fan of your porn?” Raven paraphrased, blinking rapidly like she was still trying to process everything.

“That’s the short of it, yes.”

“Charles, I get that you’re desperate, but… That’s desperate,” Raven said, Charles giving her a look. “Oh, come on! You’re meeting up with a guy who pays you to help get him off! What if he’s a creep?!”

“People who watch porn aren’t all creeps, Raven. I watch porn, you watch porn – heck, even Hank watches porn,” Charles said, throwing up his hands. “And it’s not like I haven’t spoken to him. We’ve messaged. A lot.” Charles grew a little quiet then, nervously knotting his hands together.

“I… I really like him, Raven,” Charles whispered, peeking up at his sister, whose expression softened.

“Oh, Charles,” Raven sighed, walking over to him and wrapping him in a tight hug. “Fine, I’ll accept this for now, and only because I know you can use your mind voodoo to make him start dancing the macarena if he turns out to be a creep.”

“Oh, I can make him do more than just that,” Charles said, smirking a little, Raven laughing.

“Damn it, now I’m more worried about the other guy, Charles!”

***

Erik glared at Emma from where he stood on the sidelines after being forced to attend her birthday brunch. Erik hadn’t wanted to come at all, which is why he had asked to meet ProfessorXXX on the day of the event. He hadn’t asked to meet up on Friday just because he wanted an excuse to miss Emma’s obnoxious brunch though – he asked because he also because he didn’t know if he could wait any longer, knowing that he was going to meet ProfessorXXX.

Erik was already head over heels for the man, even though he didn’t know anything about him other than the things the porn creator told him through their messages, and the sound of his voice. He also knew how ProfessorXXX sounded when he had a real orgasm, one that wasn’t put on for the sake of an audio (ProfessorXXX had told him, a little shyly, which audios were authentic and now Erik believed he could tell the difference between the man’s real and fake orgasms).

Erik refused to let his good mood from securing a date with ProfessorXXX be dampened by Emma and her stupid brunch, but it was becoming hard to not rip up the metal pipes to flood out the whole restaurant and force the party to end.

Erik never liked events with lots of people, and this was one such event. Emma had a wide social circle. The Summers brothers were chatting with Armando and Sean while waiting for drinks from the open bar Emma hired, and Angel was busy helping the birthday girl arrange a balloon arch set up at the photo area. Emma had even invited Hank McCoy, whom she had only met once through Raven and her brother, but had decided to invite him anyway.

Speaking of Raven, she was still not here yet. The party was scheduled to start at 11:30, and it was already 11:40. Erik had never met Raven’s brother before, but Raven and Emma had mentioned him in front of Erik enough times to know enough about the man. Charles was apparently ridiculously intelligent, and though he was born into privilege he had a solid work ethic and never complained about having to work two jobs to support him and Raven. Raven said that he was a TA, but never mentioned what his second job was. Erik wasn’t the type to be curious anyway, so he never found out.

Erik also knew that Raven’s brother was involved in a horrific car accident when he was nineteen, leaving him wheelchair-bound. Erik wondered if that was why they were late – public transport could be hell for most people, but even more so than people who used wheelchairs. Erik sometimes used his powers to shove people out of the way when they were being assholes and inconsiderate to people trying desperately to get through on their wheelchairs, even giving the chairs themselves a helpful nudge if they got snagged.

Just as Erik was thinking about the siblings, the door to the restaurant opened, revealing Raven in a tight white dress. She had decided to make her red hair long and wavy, but retained her yellow eyes and blue scale-like skin. She looked fantastic, and Erik always preferred her when she was wearing her natural appearance.

‘ProfessorXXX’s visible mutation audios would make more people feel comfortable in their own skin like Raven,’ Erik thought to himself, heart-warming at the thought of the man.

Erik admired Raven’s appearance for one second longer, before turning his gaze to her brother.

And, mein Gott, when Raven and Emma talked about him, they seemed to forget to mention that he was fucking beautiful. Fluffy brown hair that was a little too long to be fashionable but worked for him, eyes that were so blue they looked supernatural and lips that were so red that he perpetually looked like someone who had been snogged within an inch of his life just seconds prior. His shoulders were strong, biceps flexing as he wheeled himself into the room, visible through the crisp white shirt he was wearing.

Raven’s brother – Charles – wheeled towards Emma with a wide smile on his face, corner of his eyes crinkling.

Then, Erik remembered that he was a telepath – and a powerful one, too – and quickly clamped down on his errant thoughts. He also remembered that he was going on a date with ProfessorXXX tomorrow. Even though Charles was extremely attractive – anyone with eyes could see that – he didn’t make Erik’s heart go mushy like ProfessorXXX did when he talked about wanting to create an audio specifically for mutants with tails.

ProfessorXXX could look nothing like Charles, and Erik would still be ridiculously attracted to him.

Emma’s eyes turned from Charles to meet Erik’s, and she smiled a little, flashing her white teeth.

‘Don’t be such a party-pooper, Erik. Come and mingle,’ Emma sent him telepathically, Erik projecting an emphatic ‘No, thank you,’ back at her.

‘Oh, please, Sugar. I could hear you undressing Charles with your eyes before. It’s lucky that he has a stronger moral code than me and actively blocks out your thoughts, otherwise he’d know exactly how his biceps make you feel,’ Emma continued, Erik gritting his teeth.

‘I am not interested, Emma,’ Erik shot back, the woman laughing inside his head.

‘Yes, because of your secret boyfriend. Very well, Sugar. I’ll let you off the hook – but only if you come and talk to people, they’re thinking that you’re dampening the mood by being all doom and gloom over there.’

Erik glared at Emma, but trudged over to the group of people, heading directly over to Raven. She was the person he could stand the most out of the lot of them, even if her ridiculously attractive brother was hanging around by her side.

Raven spotted him as he stalked over, waving him over with an excited “Erik! Come and meet my brother”. Erik sighed, figuring that it was about time he met the brother his friend always gushed about.

“Charles, this is Erik. Erik, Charles,” Raven said as the men shook hands, Charles doing so with a wide and friendly smile, Erik just grunting.

Just before they moved to drop their clasped hands, Charles spoke.

“Hello, Erik. It’s lovely to meet you. Raven’s told me a lot about you.”

What.

“Oh my fucking God,” Erik choked out, body freezing as his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Raven stared at Erik like he had grown two heads while Charles’s brow furrowed in concern at Erik’s strange reaction. But how else could Erik react, when he had instantly recognised Charles’s voice, clear as day.

It was a voice that has been whispering obscenities into Erik’s ears for months, the voice belonging to the man Erik has been crushing on for just less that.

‘CHARLES IS PROFESSORXXX HOLY SHIT,’ Erik’s mind screamed, and Charles’s eyes widened then, no doubt hearing the screaming words despite his shields, especially since their hands were still clasped tightly together.

Erik felt an unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation tickle at the edge of his mind, a spreading warmth that almost felt like a gentle knock on the door. It was Charles, it had to be – he was the only other telepath here apart from Emma, and Erik knew what Emma’s telepathy felt like. He also knew that she would never ‘knock’ and just barge on in without hesitation.

‘Erik, you wouldn’t happen to be magneto22, would you?’ Erik heard in his mind, ProfessorXXX’s voice – Charles’s voice – a little hesitant and nervous. Erik did not have to respond, Charles feeling the flood of embarrassment/attraction/affection pouring from Erik. Charles’s face then flashed with shock, happiness and something much more.

“So this is what you meant when you said you had a prior engagement,” Erik suddenly blurted out, Raven looking even more confused while Charles just laughed, the sound so beautiful and familiar that Erik fell for him even further, right then and there.

“And you said you were free,” Charles replied teasingly, red lips curving upwards. ‘Would you happen to still be free, ah, after brunch?’ Charles asked in Erik’s mind, the metallokinetic nodding furiously.

‘I’m free all day. I could even free myself up right now, if that works for you?’ Erik pushed into the telepath’s head, the man’s blue eyes twinkling with excitement.

“That definitely works for me, my friend.”

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #magneto #professor x #professorxxx #modern au #xmen #xmen fic #audioporn #marvel #emma frost #raven darkholme #mystique #james mcavoy #michael fassbender

19 notes · View notes

creepingsharia · 5 years

Text

New Jersey: Paterson passes Muslim-proposed law allowing Islamic call to prayer (5 times a day, everyday)

Hear example of the harrowing call at end of post.

After a lengthy and divisive public hearing, the City Council passed an ordinance allowing the broadcast of the adhan or the Islamic call to prayer.

Council members voted 5-4 to adopt the ordinance following a more than two-hour long public hearing.

Nearly 30 people spoke at the public hearing both in favor and against the measure. Before the public hearing, councilman Shahin Khalique, who sponsored the ordinance, sent out text messages and robocalls to encourage supporters of the measure to attend the meeting.

“The Christians use the bell to call people to worship. The Jews use the shofar to call people to worship. And the Muslims use the adhan to call people to worship,” said imam A. Quddoos Farra’d of Masjid Salahuddin on Broadway.

Masjid Salahuddin has been broadcasting the call to prayer for the past half-decade without complaints from neighbors, said Farra’d, who served in the Vietnam War. “I fought for the freedom of religion.”

Farra’d said the U.S. Constitution protects his right to practice his religion.

Farra’d was among a dozen people who spoke in favor of the measure. Others, more than a dozen people, spoke out against the measure.

“I pray to God you vote against this ordinance,” said resident Stephen Bauer. He has sent emails to council members to oppose the measure.

Bauer said the ordinance is an “imposition” on the non-Muslim residents of Paterson. He faced interruptions from council president Maritza Davila and law director Farrah Irving after he attempted to tie Islam to terrorism.

Some local church leaders also spoke out against the ordinance. Last week, some pastors held a meeting to discuss the ordinance at a church. Five council members attended the meeting potentially violating the New Jersey Sunshine Law.

Council members were just as divided as the speakers during the public hearing.

“What you saw today is fear mongering. Islamophobia is alive and well. I’m sad to say it’s in the city of Paterson,” said councilman Al Abdelaziz.

“This is about being fair to everyone,” said Khalique. “If churches could ring the bells, why can’t we call the adhan?”

Council members Ruby Cotton and William McKoy pointed out some mosques have been calling the adhan without facing problems.

“We’re attempting to solve a problem that does not exist,” said McKoy, longest serving member of the City Council.

Both Cotton and McKoy said there should be more discussions before the measure is adopted. Khalique pointed out there were four public meetings to discuss the measure.

“We cannot do a law that favors any religion,” added councilman Luis Velez. He cited the Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution.

“It is a tough decision we’re making today. As you can see there is already division,” said Davila.

Davila voted in favor of the measure. She was joined by Abdelaziz, Flavio Rivera, Michael Jackson, and Khalique.

Cotton, McKoy, Lilisa Mimms, and Velez voted against.

Cheers erupted after the council granted final approval to the measure.

Many speakers said the measure is dividing a city that’s home to more than 50 ethnic groups.

“This is not to divide the community. I’m trying to be fair and equal. This not about my re-election,” said Khalique.

Khalique is running for re-election in two months. His critics say the measure is a ploy to burnish his image ahead of the election. Khalique suffered a blow last month when it was revealed he had been arrested for intoxicated driving by New Jersey State Police in 2010.

Several speakers suggested the council place the ordinance on the ballot for a referendum.

“This is a melting pot. I want everyone to feel at home in the city,” said Rivera. “If it’s not working, we can revisit it.”

Paterson is home to approximately 30,000 Muslims.

---------------------------------------------

As we noted in a prior post:

Under the ordinance, mosques will be allowed to use loudspeakers to announce the call to prayer during a 16-hour span. The ordinance states: “The city shall permit ‘Adhan’, call to prayer’, ‘church bells’ and other reasonable means of announcing religious meetings to be amplified between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. for duration not to exceed five minutes.”

Councilman Shahin Khalique proposed the ordinance on Tuesday night as an amendment to the existing noise control ordinance.

----------------------------------------------

Khalique is a shady character at best:

Khalique’s deceased father recorded as having voted in 2nd Ward election

Shahin Khalique sworn into Paterson council under cloud of allegations

Paterson councilman Shahin Khalique’s properties, including his residence, were in foreclosure in 2019, court records show

--------------------------------------------

More on the ordinance, via Jihad Watch who writes:

Notice the ridiculous comparison to church bells. The Adhan is not merely the sound of a bell. It is the loud shouting and declaration of Islamic supremacism over infidels. Paterson residents now have to be subject to this:

Allah is greater (Allahu akbar); intoned four times. I testify that there is no God but Allah (Ashhadu anna la ila ill Allah); intoned twice. I testify that Mohammed is Allah’s Prophet (Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah); intoned twice. Come to prayer (Hayya alas salah); intoned twice. Come to security/salvation (Hayya alal falah); intoned twice. Allah is greater (Allahu akbar); intoned twice. There is no God but Allah (La ilah ill Allah); intoned once.

——————————————

Paterson, aka Paterstine aka “Little Ramallah” , a notorious Hamas hotspot, is rapidly being Islamized.

At least 10 public district schools converted their lunch menus to Islamic, sharia-compliant only menus (aka halal).

More background on one of Chris Christie’s favorite Muslim enclaves.

Here’s what it sounds like in the Muslim-conquered sections of Brooklyn, New York:

youtube

#Legal #Islam #Muslim #Sharia #Immigration #Religion #Politics #Mosque #News #Media

12 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

Text

Pluralistic: 17 Mar 2020 (Punch Brothers and Masque of the Red Death, 2020 Census (ACT NOW!), Disaster Socialism, Scalzi's canceled tour, my Twitter account was (briefly) nuked, writing advice, Our Plague Year, Inception-level patent troll covid fuckery, tips for parenting kids stuck at home, Brave files GDPR complaint against Google)

Today's links

The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch: My latest podcast is Poe/Twain bathos crossover.

Fill in your census online: Otherwise you and people you care about literally won't count.

Naomi Klein: this disaster has no room for disaster capitalism: It's our moment to seize.

Scalzi's canceled bookstore: Support your local indie bookseller, especially now.

My Twitter account was suspended: I got in trouble for putting trolls on a list called "Colossal Assholes."

Talking digital writing careers with the Writing Excuses podcast: Covering a lot of ground in 15 minutes.

A new anxiety podcast from Nightvale's Joseph Fink: Proud to be in the debut episode.

Patent trolls try to shut down covid testing: Monkey-selfies, Theranos, Softbank – it's a garbage matrioshke!

How to live with your kids: "Working and Learning from Home with Young Children."

Brave files GDPR complaint against Google: Sharing data between Google services is a no-no.

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch (permalink)

My last podcast featured the Macmillan audiobook of my novella "The Masque of the Red Death."

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

For this week's podcast, I decided to read Poe's original 1842 story, "The Masque of the Red Death. It's some next-level gothic stuff. Neil Gaiman is right: Poe must be read aloud!

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

As a chaser, I close this week's podcast with a reading of Twain's classic, gothic, comedic "Literary Nightmare," better known as "Punch, Brothers, Punch," easily the best story ever written about an earworm.

Warning: earworms.

https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/punch-brothers-punch

The two pieces work incredibly well together, making a bathetic cocktail!

Here's where to get the podcast:

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/16/the-masque-of-the-red-death-and-punch-brothers-punch/

Direct MP3 link:

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_333/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_333_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death_Punch_Brothers_Punch.mp3

Here's the RSS for my podcasts:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Fill in your census online (permalink)

Guess what's happening on April 1, whether or not the nation is on virus lockdown? The 2020 edition of the decennial census, arguably the most consequential administrative task in the US government.

https://my2020census.gov/

You don't have to wait until April 1. Here's that URL again. Whether or not you've gotten a census card with a code, you can and should fill it in.

https://my2020census.gov/

From danah boyd: "Everyone who lives in the US (regardless of nationality or visa status) is required to fill this out. Children under 5 are often forgotten. Same with long-term house guests. Immigrants, black men, and indigenous communities are often undercounted too. If you want to make sure that your community gets its fair share of funding and political power, make sure to get everyone in your community to fill this out. The more people missing, the more you lose out."

If digital isn't your thing, call:

English 844-330-2020 Español 844-468-2020 普通话 844-391-2020 粤语 844-398-2020 tiếng Việt 844-461-2020 한국어 844-392-2020 pусский 844-417-2020 العربية:844-416-2020 Tagalog 844-478-2020 Polish 844-479-2020 Français 844-494-2020 Kreyòl Ayisyen 844-477-2020 Português 844-474-2020 日本語 844-460-2020

If you're reading this, you're on a device that can be used to fill it out.

Naomi Klein: this disaster has no room for disaster capitalism (permalink)

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein coined "disaster capitalism" to describe how, during a crisis, "ideas lying around" about how to enrich the few and take away our rights come to the fore.

In this short doc, she applies the theory to coronavirus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niwNTI9Nqd8

The shock doctrine is well underway: privatizing social security, closing borders, maybe canceling elections.

But as Klein points out, disasters don't always precipitate oligarchy. The Great Depression catalyzed the New Deal and transformative change.

This is moment to seize. We have "ideas lying around" that are better than exploitation and oligarchy: ideas like a $15 minimum wage, an inclusive government, evidence-based policy free from corporate influence, Medicare for All, and, most of all, the Green New Deal.

Scalzi's canceled bookstore (permalink)

John Scalzi has had to cancel his tour for for The Last Emperox, a book in The Collapsing Empire series. It was the right call for him (and Tor Books to make).

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/03/16/important-news-about-the-last-emperox-tour/

Even though it was the right call, it comes at a cost – to John, to Tor, and, especially, to the indie bookstores that rely on author events to keep the lights on. That's why John has urged his readers to "Keep your pre-order at your local bookstore, or make that pre-order at your local bookstore. Your local bookstore needs you right now."

He also suggests that you consider ordering a signed limited edition hardcover from Subterranean:

https://subterraneanpress.com/last-emperox

And John will be going into his local indie to sign books for mail order for so long as it's permitted:

http://www.jayandmarysbooks.com/

Indie booksellers aren't the most endangered or hardest-hit among those who will be devastated by the virus, by official incompetence and indifference, and by monopolism and corruption, but they will still be VERY endangered and VERY hard-hit. They need your support.

My Twitter account was suspended (permalink)

My Twitter account is back!

Here's what happened:

I woke up yesterday morning and discovered that my account was locked. There was no explanation, either in the app, the site or my email for this. I contacted everyone I knew at Twitter, and everyone who knew anyone at Twitter. At 830AM Pacific – about 5h after the suspension – I got an email from support – saying I'd been suspended for having a list to which I add trolls called "colossal assholes."

I'm not sure that this qualifies as a ToS violation (I gave up reporting trolls who called me much worse, because Twitter inevitably replied that these epithets were not prohibited), but it's super-weird that they suspended me without warning or explanation. Also weird: I could not rename the list while suspended, only delete it (I tried to rename it "thoroughly unpleasant individuals").

Weirder: "Colossal assholes" got me suspended, but not its companion list, "Toe-faced shitweasels"

Thanks to everyone who contacted Twitter on my behalf, and for the Twitter folks who lit a fire to get that suspension explanation email sent my way.

All of my followers were deleted. Twitter tells me they'll reappear over 24h or so, but more than 100k are still missing. If you're interested in seeing my future tweets, please double-check that you're subscribed.

Also, in response to Twitter's sensitivity about "colossal assholes" as a listname, I've renamed and expanded my lists.

Potent emetics

Tissue-thin bad faith

Foolish timewasters

Beneath contempt

Odious nonsense-spewers

Confederate gravy-eaters

Toe-faced stenchweasels

Hilariously inept lackwits

Probably bots

Thick as two short planks

Raving conspiracists

Sociopath climate deniers

Dim bulb centrists

Inept MAGA trolls

Red scare bedwetters

Talking digital writing careers with the Writing Excuses podcast (permalink)

Back when cruise ships were a thing, I went out on the Writing Excuses Cruise as an instructor with Mary Robinette Kowal and friends. While there, we recorded an episode of the Writing Excuses podcast.

https://podplayer.net/?id=99014840

In a mere 25 minutes, we pack in a lot of material: how to break into the field, what a publisher's job is, how "digital is different," self-promotion, not being an unlikable weirdo when you're self-promoting, technology's role in shaping artistic success, and more.

Here's an MP3:

https://writingexcuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/WX15_11_digital_is_different.mp3

And here's the RSS to subscribe to the podcast:

https://writingexcuses.com/feed/podcast/

A new anxiety podcast from Nightvale's Joseph Fink (permalink)

Our Plague Year is a new podcast from Joseph Fink of Welcome to Nightvale fame. It features short spoken-word essays about this extraordinary, scary, uncertain time.

https://ourplagueyear.libsyn.com/

The debut installment just went live and I was proud to contribute a piece to it, "Don't Look for the Helpers," which PM Press will be publishing in text form shortly.

https://ourplagueyear.libsyn.com/the-lesson-of-a-plague

Also in this episode: "Social Distances" by Nisi Shawl.

MP3 here:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/ourplagueyear/The_Lesson_of_a_Plague.mp3

Patent trolls try to shut down covid testing (permalink)

It's nearly impossible to sum up all the terrible in this story about a patent troll who is attacking America's ability to make and distribute coronovirus test-kits.

Labrador Diagnostics LLC is a patent troll (💩) that bought two of Theranos's patents (💩💩). They're a shell company spun up by Fortress Investment Group, Softbank's (💩💩💩) giant patent troll (💩💩💩💩). They're suing Biofire, a company that actually makes things (as opposed to Labrador, which only makes lawsuits). Which things are Biofire making? Covid-19 tests (💩💩💩💩💩).

They're represented by Irell & Manella, a lawfirm that previously claimed to represent a monkey. No, really. (💩💩💩💩💩💩)

It's inception-level terrible, a grifty shit burrito encased in a shit-flour tortilla, wrapped in a layer of shit-foil, and served in a go-bag of shitty, shitty, shit.

This is the kind of shit-matrioshke that could wipe out our species.

How to live with your kids (permalink)

I'm really impressed with Erin Kissane's "Working and Learning from Home with Young Children" – an important sanity check for anyone ramping up a new way of relating to our kids.

http://incisive.nu/2020/working-and-learning-from-home/

"Don't be Captain Homeschool on day one" is definitely a lesson we've already learned the hard way, and I'm excited to try out its antidote, "Rhythms > schedules":

"A simple rhythm is resilient, so when something goes sideways, recovery is much simpler."

Also impressed by the accompanying "rhythm chart" (something something "rhythm method" something something "parenting").

"Hold a morning household meeting" is something we're definitely doing, albeit awkwardly because we're taking advantage of the school break to let our kid do the sleeping in she never gets to do otherwise, so we're already up and about by the time she's ready for this.

Also impressed by the recco for the Raising Free People podcast, for unschoolers, free schoolers, Adlerians and democratic parents.

https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/podcast/

Brave files GDPR complaint against Google (permalink)

It's long been obvious that US Big Tech companies are unserious about their GDPR compliance, taking cosmetic, pro-forma measures that don't really engage with the substance of the rules (those rules demand nothing less than a top-to-bottom industry restructure).

EU regulators have been slow to punish them for this, but the GDRP affords standing to many private actors to demand action for noncompliance, which is how it is that Brave has filed GDPR action against Google.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/brave-browser-delivers-on-promise-files-gdpr-complaint-against-google

The complaint's substance is that Google is collecting data through its many products, divisions and services and merging that data on the back-end, which the GDPR expressly prohibits without meaningful, opt-in consent (and you can't deny service those who don't consent).

Brave published a study that analyzed Google's communications with users, partners, regulators and customers and showed that these are effectively an admission of the kind of "data-tying" that the GDPR bans.

https://brave.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Inside-the-Black-Box.pdf

I continue to use Brave and Firefox as my daily-driver browsers; I'm impressed with the quality of both, and how much better they make the web.

This action by Brave might trigger the kind of reckoning that the GDPR was meant to provoke — at long last.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago ETECH Notes: Life Hacks Live! (Danny O'Brien and Merlin Mann) https://craphound.com/etech2005-lifehacks.txt

#15yrago Sterling and Steffen's SXSW keynote https://web.archive.org/web/20050318074350/http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002353.html

#5yrsago The Glorkian Warrior Eats Adventure Pie https://boingboing.net/2015/03/17/the-glorkian-warrior-eats-adve.html

#1yrago China's "pawn shops" have loaned $43B, mostly secured by real-estate https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/china-is-said-to-scrutinize-43-billion-pawn-shop-lending-boom

#1yrago Chinese enthusiasts are serving global Thinkpad fans by making modern motherboards that fit in classic chassis from the Golden Age of the Thinkpad https://geoff.greer.fm/2019/03/04/thinkpad-x210/

#1yrago Majority of London's newly built luxury flats are unsold, raising the spectre of "posh ghost towers" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/ghost-towers-half-of-new-build-luxury-london-flats-fail-to-sell

#1yrago Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7uiv8b/myspace_player_wont_play_songs_and_i_want_to/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Kottke (https://kottke.org), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org).

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: The Masque of the Red Death and Punch Brothers Punch https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/16/the-masque-of-the-red-death-and-punch-brothers-punch/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

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