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tiramisiyu · 3 years

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【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: “Romantic Rail Getaway” Zuo Ran Route, Day 4

Translation Masterlist | Themis Event Masterlist

Zuo Ran Route: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

Videos, where applicable, are hyperlinked on the headings in the post.

See under cut!

Part 1 – Waterbus Scenic Location – “Visiting James River”

After deciding we would report the random fee collection cases in Rumbaliya…

Zuo Ran and my itinerary had an additional sense of mission tacked on.

We recorded every cost during our trip and diligently inspected the amount indicated on each electronic receipt.

MC: Sure enough, there’s an issue! Lawyer Zuo, look…

MC: On the bill for the waterbus we were just on, there’s an additional 30% service fee.

MC: There are also additional costs of unknown sources on the speedboat receipt.

Zuo Ran: And there are additional costs on the waterside restaurant receipt.

MC: If we didn’t check, we wouldn’t have known…

In fact, not only the receipts we received today had issues. Last night, Zuo Ran and I carefully checked the bills from the past few days…

On the first day of our trip, we had been charged with additional service fees. We simply had not noticed back then.

MC: I feel like these are sufficient to indicate problems.

Zuo Ran: Mhmm, I’ll look up the route to the police station…

We hadn’t finished talking when a furious voice cut Zuo Ran’s voice short.

???: You’re bullying others too much – I’m going to sue you!

A man whose hand was wrapped in bandages furiously walked out of the water bus station.

From time to time, he would point into the air and swear, seeming to be severely resentful of some people in the bus station.

However, no one came out of the bus station to respond to him…

Injured Visitor: Don’t hide in there without making a peep. I know you’re there!

Injured Visitor: I don’t care, you better give me an explanation!

Seeing him like this, I couldn’t help walking up and asking him.

INTERROGATION START

Issue Reason

MC: Hello, may I ask… what happened?

Injured Visitor: Hmph, I wanted to board the waterbus, but they wanted me to pay for tickets for two!

Injured Visitor: Don’t you think that group is just ridiculous?

MC: Eh? Yeah… that’s so weird, why did they want you to pay double the cost?

Injured Visitor: Because my left hand’s bone is fractured and I’m afraid of accidentally getting my arm bumped into, so I requested the staff to leave a seat empty on my right side.

Injured Visitor: I didn’t force them to give me an empty spot, I was just saying that it would be great if there was a bit more space…

Injured Visitor: But the staff told me that they could give me a single seat, but I had to make up for the cost!

Injured Visitor: They even said that this was their rule, and unless I bought an empty spot, they wouldn’t let me get on the bus!

Injury Situation

MC: Is your injury… alright?

Injured Visitor: Oh, it’s fine. I accidentally fell and injured myself a few days before travelling. It’s already been several days, and it no longer really hurts.

Injured Visitor: The doctor says that it’s regrowing the bone right now, and I can’t jostle it that much.

Bus Rules

Zuo Ran: I remember that… there aren’t rules of this sort when riding waterbuses.

Injured Visitor: Right? I also said, how could there be this sort of rule!

Injured Visitor: After, I told the staff that “I don’t need to pick a seat, I’ll just sit with the other riders.”

Injured Visitor: Who would’ve thought that the staff member would actually say “No can do, this will affect the other riders”!!

MC: (That being so, aren’t they deliberately forcing this visitor to buy another bus ticket?!)

Issue Aftermath

MC: Then… what happened after?

Injured Visitor: What sort of “after” could it be? I straight-up stormed off the waterbus and ran to their office area, demanding they refund the ticket…

Injured Visitor: Hmph, their manager ended up telling me that tickets could not be refunded after sale!

Injured Visitor: Reason this out for me – I didn’t ride the bus… so why shouldn’t they refund me?!

MC: (Looks like, aside from random fee collection cases, Rumbaliya’s attractions have a lot of heartache-inducing problems.)

INTERROGATION END

MC: To be honest, we’ve also encountered some bad situations…

I gave a simple explanation of what we’d encountered for this injured visitor.

Injured Visitor: Ugh, so you two have also encountered these things.

Injured Visitor: Actually, same here. When I dined at Kelosi City a few days ago, the restaurant also charged me a lot in service fees.

Injured Visitor: That day I was in a decent mood, so I didn’t make a big deal out of it…

Injured Visitor: Who would’ve thought that they wanted to defraud me today over here! Hmph, I don’t want to endure it anymore!

Zuo Ran: Are you willing to come with us to the police station to account for your situation?

Injured Visitor: Sure, I’ve got to give them a few words and have them give me an explanation!

Part 2 – James Bridge

[Gameplay]

Part 3 – James Commerce District

[Gameplay]

Part 4 – James Plaza – “Governance Program”

James Police Station

MC: The course of events is basically like so.

I gave a systematic, detailed account of the problems we’d encountered for these few days and handed the related evidence to the police officer.

After the police officer who received us finished listening, his brow wrinkled tightly.

Police Officer: I’m very sorry that you had to encounter these things. In the past, though we have received a few visitors’ complaints on the attractions’ price issues…

Police Officer: But as there were few of them, after we finished mediating on scene, we didn’t intervene too much.

Police Officer: Please don’t worry. We will definitely clear this up under pertinent regulations.

Police Officer: For the excess fees at restaurants and scenic locations, we will also supervise the return of those to you all from related persons.

MC: Thank you. It’s just that we hope that there will be a more thorough resolution for this…

I hadn’t finished speaking when that injured visitor started shouting angrily.

Injured Visitor: Hey, so it ends like this?

Injured Visitor: Can’t you properly think up of a way to make sure those people will never defraud visitors again?!

Police Officer: Please don’t worry, please don’t worry, we will definitely bring out a governance program as soon as possible. It’s just…

Zuo Ran: If I may be so presumptuous, is it that you’ve encountered a difficult issue?

Police Officer: Oh, that’s not it. It’s just that a definite implementation plan might require a stretch of time.

Police Officer: Although, please believe us – within the upcoming few months… we definitely will have the ability to completely eliminate the random fee collection cases in the scenic areas.

INTERROGATION START

Governance Plan

MC: May I ask… is it alright if you tell us about your governance plan?

Police Officer: Unfortunately, I cannot reveal too much, but I can guarantee…

Police Officer: After we will work with the police stations in all of Rumbaliya to spread rectification work and strictly handle the fee collection cases that already exist.

MC: (It sounds like they’ll probably draw up a very detailed governance plan…)

Visitor Compensation

Zuo Ran: Then, how will the losses that have already been dealt to visitors before be dealt with?

Police Officer: Oh, please don’t worry.

Police Officer: With regards to this, we’ve already prepared a related reimbursement plan.

Police Officer: We will do all we can to guarantee the benefit of each visitor. After verification, we will have related scenic areas carry out compensation according to rules.

Afterwards Handling

MC: I’m sorry, there’s something else I want to ask…

MC: After centralized regulation, do you have other plans to prevent cases of this sort from happening again?

Police Officer: Of course, we will partition out a group of colleagues to manage these affairs.

Police Officer: Also, we will have periodic checkups, as well as irregular spot checks to ensure that staff at scenic locations are cooperating with our work.

INTERROGATION END

MC: I hope it’s as you have said… that the fee collection cases can be held back in time.

Police Officer: It definitely will. Please believe in us.

Police Officer: When all of you visit again, you will definitely feel an obvious change.

Part 5 – Romantic Greenhouse Park

[Gameplay]

Part 6 – Tenderness in the Greenhouse

James Greenhouse Park

Following James River to the end of a little lane, Zuo Ran and I entered a greenhouse park filled with blooming flowers and wandered in it.

Diverse and splendid flowers, green plants that were full of vitality – everything was filled with life… just like my mood now.

MC: Awesome! Good thing Lawyer Zuo was there for the scenic spot fee collection issue to finally be resolved.

The evidence that Zuo Ran and I collected finally made the relevant people pay attention to the fee collection issue.

The staff repeatedly promised that they would definitely rectify this issue and work on reimbursements for visitors who had blindly suffered losses.

So far, the effort we had expended finally received its harvest in stages.

Zuo Ran: In fact, most of the credit goes to you for how smoothly this issue was resolved. I did not help much.

MC: You clearly helped a lot!

MC: Lawyer Zuo, you helped me organize the information, collect the visitors’ feedback, and helped me obstruct that unreasonable restaurant boss…

MC: If not for you, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to deal with this so well on my own.

Zuo Ran: You’ve already done very well, and good work deserves to be praised. Unless you want me to tell you…

Zuo Ran: Do not be arrogant, and continue doing your best?

MC: They’re all fine. Either way, it’s all praise, and I can accept it all.

Zuo Ran: Ah… I just can’t beat you.

Zuo Ran made a helpless expression, but his eyes revealed a deeper smile.

Zuo Ran: Seeing your mood improve, I can be at ease. For the past few days, you…

MC: Hm? Lawyer Zuo, my mood wasn’t as bad as you imagined.

I sat on a chair in the garden, enjoying the gentle sunlight that shone through the glass of the greenhouse.

MC: We did encounter some troublesome things these past few days and I was indeed annoyed…

MC: But these things won’t affect my mood! I’m even full of confidence that these sorts of things aren’t problems at all.

Zuo Ran sat beside me, his shining eyes fixed on me, seeming to decipher the deep meaning in my words.

MC: Because we’re the best partners. I know that if we’re together, any difficult issues we encounter will be resolved smoothly.

Zuo Ran: You’re right, we are the best partners.

MC: I feel a lot more relaxed! We can finally continue our trip!

MC: In a moment, how about we go see a performance again? Hm… or we could stroll down the riverside?

MC: I saw on the guides that the sunset view at the side of James River is very beautiful. Let’s go take…

The two words “take photos” hadn’t left my mouth when I suddenly froze, and with a “buzz”, it seemed like something was resounding in my head…

MC: Ah! I’m so screwed! I-I completely forgot about taking photos for Yao Yu!

For these few days, I kept feeling like I’d forgotten something, but I didn’t pay it much mind.

I’d completely forgotten about Yao Yu having me take photos!!

MC: I’m done for. Now I won’t be able to finish the task… in the next few days back, I’ll just cling onto Yao Yu’s legs and cry.

Zuo Ran: …

MC: Lawyer Zuo… you’re even laughing at me!

Zuo Ran: I’m not laughing.

Zuo Ran said he wasn’t laughing, but a smile still sprung up in his eyes.

Zuo Ran: Don’t rush, we’ll go now to take a picture of the James River sunset.

Zuo Ran: Also… the train will arrive at Forenlo Palace tomorrow and there are lots of building landscapes there. You’ll definitely be able to take beautiful pictures.

MC: Starting from now, I’m going to take pictures seriously! Lawyer Zuo, you’ve got to supervise me!

Zuo Ran: Okay, I’ll supervise you.

#Tears of Themis #tears of themis translations #artem wing #zuo ran #mihoyo #未定事件簿 #weiding shijian bu #tot translation

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walpurga-nacht-academy · 4 years

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Dorm Keys & Crests

“Witches are territorial and elusive creatures, but this you must already have noticed. The eight witches themselves were said to rarely consult with mortals or even among themselves. It is in our nature to safeguard against prying eyes and hungry minds. ‘Bearing your soul like that will only invite trouble’ is what my own grandmother used to say when I was a child.

This is why our institute is such as it is with locked doors and secret passages. Visitors call us ‘paranoid’ and ‘theatrical’ when they see the lengths to which we go to ensure that access is limited, but they do not understand. Our knowledge is a fragile thing and allows no fraternization. The world is changing and in its wake our traditions disappear. Soon enough even the teachings of our founders will become obsolete. It is our duty - my duty - to keep them alive for as long as it’s possible.” - Ursa Astoria, Headmistress of Walpurga Nacht Academy

While other schools might not consider it an issue for students to freely travel between dorm buildings, WNA is different. Dorm visits are a highly regulated affair whose restrictions are implemented directly by the students themselves. Not even Prefects have access to other dorms and in order for any student to be allowed to visit they must check in with the Prefect herself. The manner in which this is achieved is with the help of dorm keys.

Made from pure silver, much like the brooches, the keys contain magical properties that allow the girls to open the assigned ‘door’ to their dorm. Each key can be easily differentiated by the crest on the handle that makes reference to the dorm’s founder.

Rosenhex (Scallop Seashell): The chosen crest for this dorm is the seashell. A symbol of feminine beauty and love, it was said that the Lady of Beauty emerged from a seashell before the Witch of the Rose in order to impart her knowledge of charms and hexes when the witch was looking for a way to enact her vengeance on the man who had betrayed her. Heeding the Lady’s advice the witch brought about a curse on him during his wedding night, transforming him into a bush of roses, and her fury was sated. Following this event, the witch engraved the cover of her volume with the same image. In history, scallop shells were often used as decoration or as chalices and vessels for love magic. As a dorm that prizes beauty above all, the scallop shell perfectly embodies the image of witches as seducers of mankind and influencers of love affairs.

Grimmaire (Wings): The chosen crest for this dorm is a pair of wings. It was said that when the Witty Witch had reached a crossroads in her research the Lord of Wit had sent a dove carrying in its heart his knowledge so that it may aid her. When she had finished writing her volume she engraved the cover with the same symbol to show her respect. In history, wings have many different interpretations, but are usually regarded as a symbol of the world above and spirituality. Pictures of dead humans are often shown with wings on their backs as a way of symbolizing their ascension to a different plane of existence. As a dorm that prizes wit above all, a pair of wings perfectly embodies the image of witches as educated women who were involved in occult societies and desired to transcend the human condition.

Kriegskald (Shield): The chosen crest for this dorm is a shield. Legend says that before a great war the Witch of the Shield had been visited in her dreams by the Lord of Conquest. He warned her that her death was near and in order to prevent such an event from happening she should engrave her shield with his knowledge. Just as the Lord had prophesied the witch would have died during the struggle had her shield not caught the blow of her opponent’s mace. In order to show her gratitude, the witch engraged her volume with this image. Though shields might come across as a primarily masculine symbol, one could argue that their function is in many ways the same as a veil: to protect and to ward. During history women often wore veils in order to protect themselves from unwanted gazes and a witch’s hood often has the same role. It is an object used for escaping recognition. As a dorm that prizes the preservation of old artifacts, the shield perfectly embodies the image of witches as protectors of mankind against evil forces.

Galdtrea (Cornucopia): The chosen crest of this dorm is a cornucopia. During a great drought, when the plants had died and the earth had become barren, the Witch of the Harvest had called upon a higher being for help. What she received was not her Master’s aid, but rather the visit of the Lord of Rulers who bore a cornucopia with him. Imparting his knowledge the Lord showed the witch how to once again make the land prosperous. When the witch had finished her volume she engraved its cover with this symbol as a means to show her allegiance to the Lord. As a symbol of abundance and nourishment, the cornucopia is perhaps best known as the horn broken by Jupiter from his she-goat nurse which then provided unending sustenance. The object is also a symbol of the harvest, which in ancient times was a symbol of power. A lord’s or ruler’s authority was often equal to the mass of land that he owned. As a dorm that prizes knowledge of nature above all, the cornucopia perfectly embodies the image of witches as female practitioners of herbal medicine and healers.

Monarchia (Monarch Butterfly): The chosen crest for this dorm is the monarch butterfly. Having angered her Master through insubordination, the Wicked Mistress of Beasts had taken to hiding among the monsters of the forests and savannas as a means of escaping his wrath. Yet, his power was great enough that he could find her even in the farthest corner of the world and thus her fate had been sealed. Or so it might have been had the Lord of Revelry not sent the monarch butterfly her way and taught her how to disguise herself just like the creature did. Escaping the detection of her Master, the Wicked Mistress of Beasts received the knowledge of the Lord and engraved the cover of her volume with his symbol. The butterfly symbolizes rebirth and personal change in particular, though it could also be considered a symbol of death. In the animal world the cycle of birth and death is perhaps most obviously represented by these creatures. As a dorm that prizes integration with the animal world, the monarch butterfly perfectly embodies the image of witches practicing animism or shapeshifting.

Oraluna (Crescent Moon and Star): The chosen crest for this dorm is the crescent moon and the star. Legend says that the Witch Who Dreamt of the Endless Sleep was a prophet who could foretell the fates of mortals and immortals alike and in her dreams she saw the fall of her Master before it even happened. Spurned by the whispers of the Lord of Stars, the witch had in secret adopted his knowledge and soon her prophecies began to emulate the pattern of the stars and the phases of the moon. Though this sudden shift had caused her followers to accuse her of insanity, she had nevertheless engraved the Lord’s symbol onto the cover of her volume. The moon is strongly connected to the notion of lunacy and female energy, as many women who refused to adhere to the standards of femininity imposed upon them in the past were often accused of suffering from insanity. As a dorm that prizes abstract thinking, the crescent moon and the star perfectly embody the image of witches as prophetesses of future events.

Eliksia (Poison Bottle): The chosen crest for this dorm is a poison bottle. Legend says that the Witch of Poisons was known far and wide for her expertise regarding poisons and elixirs and that many had come to seek her help whether for a noble or macabre reason. The witch herself did not care for the morals of the mortal world and simply dreamed of enriching her knowledge and mastery. She consorted with the Lord of the Sea whose dominion reached such depths that the plants who grew there had never even graced the eyes of mortals. After she swore her allegiance to him, she engraved her volume with this symbol. It is often considered that poison is the traditional weapon of women and many famous poisoners have indeed been female. However it is also important to note that though the god of the sea is male, water is traditionally considered a female element. Water symbolism is often dominated by the notion of grace and wisdom, but it is important to remember its chaotic properties too (“waters of chaos” and Charybdis). As a dorm that prizes innovation, the poison bottle perfectly embodies the image of witches as poisoners.

Noctasis (Skull): The chosen crest for this dorm is a skull. It is said that when the Witch of the Night would visit the resting place of the dead she was visited by a strange apparition which took the form of a flaming skull. The creature presented unto her the knowledge of the Lord of the Underworld in exchange for her own soul upon death, and the witch willingly accepted this offer. Up until her death she had kept the skull close by and consulted with it on numerous occasions seeking her new master’s advice and guidance. Once she had finished writing her volume she engraved the cover with this symbol. Skulls are traditionally a symbol of mortality and death. It is associated with the Grim Reaper, the collector of human souls, and thus it could be argued it is also emblematic of the notion of knowledge beyond human wisdom. As a dorm that prizes knowledge of the arcane and pushing the boundaries, the skull perfectly embodies the image of witches consorting with spirits and devil for greater knowledge of the afterlife.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland fanschool #walpurga nacht academy #twisute #twist #rosenhex #grimmaire #kriegskald #galdtrea #monarchia #oraluna #eliksia #noctasis #dorm keys

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ilovejevsjeans · 5 years

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How another Aussie champion helped Ricciardo recover from horror start with Renault

As beginnings go, it was less than auspicious. Mere seconds into the first race of his high-profile Formula One move to Renault, Daniel Ricciardo's 2019 Australian Grand Prix disintegrated into a shower of broken carbon fibre, the front wing of his car smashed to smithereens after he ran off the side of the Albert Park circuit and clipped a trackside ditch.

Things didn't get a lot better in the early races of 2019 for Ricciardo who, so accustomed to fighting at the front with his former team, had to sate his hunger with occasional crumbs dropped by the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull outfits that annexed the available podium places. Top-10 qualifying efforts were rare, decent race finishes largely out of reach. He couldn't recapture the feeling on the brakes in his new Renault that had made audacious, last-gasp passes his trademark at Red Bull, and he knew he was over-driving to make up for the performance of his car and his own frustrations, determination to fix one mistake inevitably leading only to another.

Ricciardo's signature smile was still there, but those who know him best could see the grin's wattage was dimmed. Ricciardo knew something needed to change – and another high-profile Australian athlete unexpectedly provided the impetus.

"It was April last year, the season hadn't been going all that well for me, and I was spending some time with [Australian snowboarder] Scotty James," Ricciardo tells The Age.

"Scotty's a good friend. He writes a daily journal, and he was telling me about how much it helped him focus on his goals, what he wanted to achieve, and how regularly writing things down for yourself forces you to be honest and accountable.

"I started one myself to see if it would make a difference, and it definitely has. I'm being honest with myself and it's for my thoughts and my eyes only, and it's something I look back on. It could be something as simple as 'how did I feel today?', 'how did I feel how I felt about that race?' and so on, and then going back and trying to understand why.

"It's just me and my thoughts, and it has definitely given me some clarity. I never sit down with a plan of what to write, but in the writing process you answer questions you may have about something, and that's really useful for me."

Ricciardo's season eventually recovered to some degree from its stuttering start, and while ninth place in the championship didn't get his pulse racing after a pair of top-three finishes with Red Bull in 2014 and 2016, he comprehensively out-performed the driver in the sister Renault, German Nico Hulkenberg, and achieved the team's best result with a storming drive to fourth in Italy in September.

A strong finish to the year gave the 30-year-old reason to be optimistic about the 2020 campaign set to start in Melbourne next weekend, but it's a season he realises comes with questions he can, so far, only take an educated guess at answering.

Ricciardo's knowns for 2020 are few, yet indisputable. One, he's in the second and final year of a deal with Renault that hasn't yet delivered on its considerable promise. And two, there's little chance the West Australian will see the view from any step of a Formula One podium given drivers from Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari have annexed the top three positions in all but six races over the past four years.

Can Renault show enough progress that he'd consider re-signing? Might Mercedes or Ferrari, both of whom have driver vacancies next year, remember Ricciardo's recent past in a race-winning team and come calling? And what of 2021, where a significant shake-up of F1's rulebook could completely change the sport's pecking order, as Ricciardo discovered the hard way the last time the regulations were rebooted seven years ago?

"This year definitely carries more weight than most," Ricciardo admits.

"The chaos that surrounded my move from Red Bull to Renault, I don't expect it to be anything like that. But there's a lot happening. I'm 30, so whatever I do, it's a case of 'how many more contracts will I sign?'

"The easiest decision would be that if my year is going well [at Renault], then I'd feel like we were only going to get better and I wouldn't even think about the what-ifs or maybes elsewhere. Even though next year is going to be a new car, I think if we were able to make some big gains this year with Renault, that would give me enough confidence that whatever happens in the future would be good, but you never know how these things will play out.

"I certainly see myself in the sport for at least five more years, but every year I'm one step closer to when my career might end. You're not thinking like a 20-year-old anymore."

While Renault's preference is to retain their combination of an established race-winner in Ricciardo and French youngster Esteban Ocon for the first season of F1's rule reset, chances to drive for Mercedes, the dominant team of the past six seasons, and Ferrari, still the sport's biggest name despite not winning a drivers' title since 2007, are rare.

When the lights go out at Albert Park, Charles Leclerc will be the only driver among the sport's two biggest teams to have a contract beyond this year, the 22-year-old Monegasque inking a deal with Ferrari until 2024.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton's retention by Mercedes appears a formality, but the futures of 2019 Australian Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) are murkier, particularly with Ferrari banking its future on Leclerc with such a long-term investment.

Ricciardo openly expresses his admiration for what Mercedes, who won a record sixth consecutive constructors' championship last season, have achieved since the advent of the sport's V6 turbo hybrid engine era in 2014, which brought down the curtain on a reign of dominance by a Vettel-led Red Bull as Ricciardo joined the team that same season.

Mercedes debuted a revolutionary dual-axis steering (DAS) system at February's first pre-season test in Barcelona, a hydraulically powered innovation that allows their drivers to adjust the angle of the front wheels to gain lap time by pushing or pulling the steering wheel while the car is in motion.

Rival outfits were blindsided by the DAS concept when it was unveiled, Renault's sporting director Alan Permane commenting the team was "wide-eyed" about something Mercedes admitted they had been hatching in secret for a year, but Ricciardo says Mercedes' relentless pursuit of progress should be lauded.

"Hats off to them because they have been dominant this whole turbo era, yet they are still the ones pushing everyone else," he says.

"They're not getting complacent, and I think that's why they've been so dominant. They're setting an example right now and as a competitor, I certainly respect that."

Further clouding any picture Ricciardo paints of what 2021 may look like are rule changes that will make the grid that appears for next year's race in Melbourne almost unrecognisable from next Sunday's starting line-up. The next generation of cars will feature significantly different bodywork and low-profile tyres on larger, 18-inch wheels, while a cost cap, set at US$175 million ($A263 million) per team per annum, will halve the budgets of the sport's biggest spenders at the flip of a calendar, creating, in theory, a more level playing field.

The sweeping changes have the potential to make more of an impact than the implementation of the current iteration of rules in 2014, which propelled Mercedes from the midfield to a team that has won more than 80 per cent of grands prix since.

Pre-season testing threw up enough clues to suggest Mercedes, who never really showed their true pace in Barcelona, may just demolish the field again from Melbourne onwards. Should that happen, and with little carryover between this year's rules and next, expect their rivals to switch their focus to 2021 early.

Driver market intrigue, short of Leclerc and Max Verstappen, who is contracted to Red Bull until 2023, will be the narrative of the season, and Ricciardo will be in the middle of it.

#daniel ricciardo #dan #love that he openly talks about this kinda stuff

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sweet-star-cookie · 4 years

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Ideas for a Rewrite of Pixar’s Onward

So I finally watched Onward, unfortunately not in theatres because of [REDACTED] but what can you do? Gotta be honest, it didn’t wow me. :/ The world seemed flat and boring, and a lot of the tropes and story beats felt really played out and done before, even within other Pixar movies. That said, fantasy themed worlds and the potential creativity therein is a topic that is super close to my heart, and even when the trailer dropped for this movie I wasn’t super impressed with what it had to offer. From the setup of the plot itself, I’ll admit that I was skeptical of it from the outset, perhaps a bit more than usual.

I have my issues with the world building of this film from a visual design standpoint as well, but I’ll save that for another time. For now I want to discuss how I would approach rewriting this film to make it an overall stronger product in terms of story and character development. Obviously there will be spoilers for the actual plot of the movie in addition to my thoughts, so fair warning there.

Okay so when it comes to building a new world for your characters, regardless of its themes or genre, it is important to establish how much of that world pertains to the story you want to tell. As in, are you telling a story about the world itself via your characters, or are you telling a story about the characters with this world as a backdrop? It might seem like a small distinction, but a world’s rules (or lack thereof) can easily divert an audience’s focus within a story. I believe the current version of Onward is an example of the latter, but with a few complications of the former that muddles the direction of the plot a bit. The sense of scope for this film seems to go half-and-half instead, but we’ll get to that later. At the beginning of the movie, we are told about how the world of Onward followed more closely with what we would call a fantasy world; wizards, mythical creatures, knights, a magical staff, the works. But in a pretty rapid-fire scene, we are shown how modern technologies began to usurp the use of magic, thus leading to the modern day fantasy world that is the setting for the rest of the film. Despite how quickly this plays out as a sort of prologue for the movie, I do believe this is a fine set up for a movie like this...

If the movie was about the world.

But as we know, it’s about Ian and Barley’s quest to bring their father back, and almost exclusively focuses on their family. This too is a perfectly good setup, but the movie somehow ends up with both, and it leads to a lot more questions than answers as a result. The prologue setup generates a lot of questions about the world itself, such as the use and discovery of magic, that do have an effect later on in the story, but the implementation of magic itself does not have clearly defined rules about who can use it and why. Modern day law enforcement seems to govern this world, yet any use of magic does not seem to have any bearing on that. Magic clearly still exists in this world, but the audience does not know when or how it appears. Where does magic come from? What is the scarcity of it? Can you get arrested for using magic? Do people who use or own magical items get special treatment? Are magical items more valuable and therefore need to be regulated? How common are they? All creatures in this world appear to be inherently magical, or at least possess abilities from their magic-based ancestors, but seem to have “forgotten” those abilities over time. Both the pixies and the manticore have wings, but it seems that only the pixies need magic to use them. Why? Historical landmarks like the one Barley tries to protect in the film are viewed as passive history, no longer holding much significance. And even the manticore’s map is reduced to a placemat at a children’s restaurant, so the preservation of this history does not appear to be a priority for this society. Moreover, these questions also directly correlate to the main protagonists, namely, why can Ian wield magic and Barley cannot? If Wilden (the dad) could or used to wield magic, could Laurel (the mom) do it too? Are their different kinds of magic? Is there a hierarchy to how powerful one’s magic can be? Ian becomes better at using his father’s staff over time in the film, but how he is able to do so via the staff or Barley’s instruction is pretty unclear. Now, all of these are questions are actually ones that wouldn’t need to be answered necessarily, but only if the film reeled itself in a bit and its scope was a lot clearer. Many other fantasy or alternate world stories have a much smaller scope that doesn’t need to ask these questions of the audience when it doesn’t pertain to the story they’re telling. An excess of world building does not matter if it has no bearing on the current story being told. A good example is in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where the establishment of toons existing in the real world is the entire crux of the story, but how toons became a part of the real world is not explained, and doesn’t need to be for the direction of the plot and characters. You are introduced to the world with only the information you need, and you are taken through the story with that specific set of information. The progression of the plot does not rely on answering the question of why toons exist in this world, so it does not address it. Onward could have achieved this too, if the film didn’t explicitly ask these unanswered questions within its own plot. If the film focused solely on the Lightfoot family without the prologue, all of these questions about the world wouldn’t need to be answered. This is not a “magic was usurped by technology” story. This is a “how do I get my Dad back?” story. Which honestly begs the question:

Why does this have a fantasy setting?

With how much this film goes half-and-half on the relevance of the world to its characters, the more it seems like a coat of fantasy paint slapped on top of a story that could be told with real humans, or any other kind of creature for that matter. The fact that these characters are elves, pixies, trolls, etc. is inconsequential to the storytelling. Magic aside, if you replaced all of the fantasy races and locations with real-life equivalents, what would change about the story or its progression? In fact, if you removed the idea of magic entirely and replaced it with a series of non-magical challenges that Ian faces on his quest, you would have the same movie, just without the fantasy filter. All of the locations in the movie are not inherently fantastical, the school, the gas station, the tavern, even the vehicles and animals in the film, all have really obvious real-world equivalents, which diminishes the fantasy theme even further. Nothing separates them from these parallels. Even the main magic system is an equivalent to DnD and other tabletop roleplaying games in this world, and isn’t viewed as anything more despite becoming a prominent source of power for the protagonists. Again, having the world take a backseat to the characters is not inherently a bad thing, but if you’re going to take the time to establish how this world began and changed over time, then that has to be relevant to the story at hand in some way, otherwise you’re just establishing something that ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. So how would I fix this? Well, at this point I feel like you’d have to pick one of the two halves that this story tries to weave together: either open up the world and the relevance of magic within it, or focus exclusively on the Lightfoot family and their relationships. If it were me, I’d pick the latter, because to me the best parts of the film were the parts that focused on the family, especially the relationship between Ian and Barley. The world of Onward really isn’t that interesting as it stands, so putting more focus on that without a complete overhaul probably isn’t a good idea.

To start, I would keep the part about Ian wanting to learn more about his Dad, as well as Barley’s memories and misgivings about not saying goodbye to him. This, like most Pixar movies, is the strongest part and serves as the emotional core of the film. Both of them have their individual reasons for wanting to see their father again, and those motivations can move and change over the course of the narrative. But, have Ian tie his own identity to finding his father, as if his father is the one person who can tell him who he needs to be. A missing piece of him that only his father can fill, and this desire becomes more and more desperate as the film progresses and they run closer to that 24 hour time frame. Those earlier scenes about others who knew and admired his father could help corroborate these feelings, where Ian wishes to carry on the legacy of his father. Perhaps Barley could have similar feelings, as if being called a “screw up” throughout his life made him question the legacy of his father and his relationship with him. A “I don’t know who I am + believe in yourself” message has been done to death, but the execution could still make the ending of this film that much stronger. When the climax happens and Ian is unable to see his father before the sunset, THAT is when you want him to have the Act 3 Pixar realization about the overall message of the film, and how he had a father figure through Barley the whole time. Maybe there’s a point where Barley is hanging onto Ian in the rubble and time is running out, and he tells Barley to go see their father while he still has the chance. Have the internal realization be that Ian doesn’t need to see his father to know who he is anymore, as the journey he went on throughout the movie already gave him that answer, thus allowing him to let go and let Barley get his closure instead. Some of these points do exist in the current version of the film, but I feel that this slight reframe could strengthen it enough so that it is a common theme throughout the movie.

The subplot with the mother and Officer Colt is a strange one, further complicated by the inclusion of Corey the manticore as a secondary character, but I think it could have rounded out the story even more with a bit of work. If there really needed to be a stepparent role for this movie, I feel like Corey could have filled that role while also providing the map for Ian and Barley’s quest (I know getting a Disney Gay is like pulling teeth at this point but hear me out). There is a fairly decent amount of time spent in the movie regarding Laurel’s role in protecting her sons, especially when she recruits Corey into finding them. And with the scene at the tavern, Corey already has a decent idea of what the boys are like, which could make for good chances to bond with Laurel. There’s a good line in the movie that I feel really goes under-utilized, where Corey describes the boys’s assertiveness at the tavern. Laurel assumes she’s talking about Barley, but she’s really talking about Ian, and this surprises her. This is a really good way of showing that another’s perception of one’s character is not the whole picture. With the climax reframed to better focus on Ian’s sense of identity, this could have been an excellent line as a lead up to that climax, and for thematic coherence overall. Ian struggles with his identity while relying on others to make it for him, and that extends to his own mother’s perception of him, which changes as the story progresses. Despite that, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conflict between Laurel and her sons, even when discussing their late father. They’re sad, yes, but ultimately they’re dealing with it okay. They love each other, and despite their differences they have a good sense of solidarity. There doesn’t have to be conflict in that way in every story like this, but her quest to rescue them could have been a good way to bridge that, bringing in a one-two punch of parental resolution at the end.

With this you could cut Officer Colt’s character entirely, in fact I don’t know why both him and Corey are in the film when they seem to fight for the same purpose in the story. His inclusion doesn’t seem to create a rift in any of their relationships outside of mild disdain when he’s first introduced. I genuinely did not know that Colt was officially in the Lightfoot family until the word “stepdad” was used over halfway through the movie. Otherwise I just assumed he was someone who was involved with the family via arresting Barley and had at least a mild romantic interest in his mother. And given the relevance of Wilden and the strength of their prior relationship, that doesn’t paint him in a very positive light at the start. But if you really wanted to keep him, there needed to be a scene that truly solidified that he cared for Ian and Barley. There is very little to suggest what kind of relationship the brothers have with him, other than Colt’s disapproval of Barley’s delinquency, but by the end of the film they’re suddenly on good terms, as if some resolution was made. He doesn’t seem to do much more other than pursue them like a cop would a criminal, and even when Laurel is worried for them, his search still seems to be nothing more than a part of his job, like it was at the start.

Perhaps he could save them from something while they’re on the quest, like when Barley sacrifices his van to make the rocks fall. Maybe it goes wrong and the rocks falling still puts the brothers in danger, forcing Colt to abandon the other officers to save them. The brothers may be surprised at this, but it would have come from a genuine desire to protect them on Colt’s part. If you really wanted to establish even a bit of a connection with the brothers, he could’ve accompanied them on part of the quest, doing things that only he could do to help them, and perhaps having a chance to hash out their relationship with him along the way. I realize that Colt having difficulties connecting with the brothers is a common stepdad trope, but if he was to have any relevance at all, he needed a reason to be there. Ironically, Corey ends up having more interactions with the boys at the tavern than Colt does for the entire film. Overall I feel like there was a lot of missed potential with Onward, and while the emotional core was there like it always is in Pixar movies, I feel like it got skewed a bit along the way, thus diminishing the final emotional punch at the end. There are some genuinely great parts of this movie, especially Ian’s final character resolution with Barley, but the whole is not greater than the sum of those parts, and that saddens me greatly. I’m not sure how much of this was Disney mandated versus Pixar implemented, but I hope they can get their groove back eventually.

#onward #onward spoilers #i know the movie has been out for a while but still #thoughts #long post

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yogaposesfortwo · 4 years

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The Yoga Rx for Dementia, Alzheimer's, and Memory Loss

New research on the practice's ability to improve brain health and stave off dementia has us running to our mats. Michael Trainer’s father, John, was diagnosed with dementia in 2012, shortly after he’d finished chemotherapy for prostate cancer. “Cancer was treatable, but dementia felt like a devastating diagnosis,” Michael says. Leaving his job to spend time with his dad, Michael first traveled with him to South Africa to forge new memories. Then, staying at home with him, Michael devoured every book and study he could find on Alzheimer’s disease—desperate to help his father retain those memories for as long as possible. He considered everything: “What doctors to see, what supplements to take, how to change his diet,” Michael says. Asana and meditation were already part of Michael’s daily routine. He had studied both, along with Ayurveda, when he was on a Fulbright scholarship in Sri Lanka in 1996. Based on his own experience with yoga and what he was learning about cognitive decline and repair, he thought these practices might help his father. But his dad—a “meat and potatoes” kind of man—was 75 and set in his ways. “It was a challenge to implement new behaviors, especially amid the cognitive decline,” Michael says. “I had to learn to surrender.” But his dad did love classical music, and Michael came to think of it as meditation. “I started to see that it was serving as an anchor in his mind, like mantra; it had the power to bring him back to a calm place.” Sitting side by side on a white loveseat in his parents’ sunny living room, Michael and his father now spend hours in silence listening to the local classical music station. They breathe together, slowly, and Michael can see his father relax—closing his eyes, leaning his head back, and occasionally reaching out for Michael’s arm. John’s cognitive decline was slow, starting with subtle forgetfulness—people’s names, where he’d put his keys—and exhaustion, coupled with restless sleep. And now, eight years in, “he’s sailing much farther from the shore,” Michael says. “We no longer share words, but we find home together in a loving touch or smile. I can see and feel that the music puts him at ease. It brings him joy.”

The Mind-Body Connection

Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia can start several decades before an official diagnosis, so now is the time, according to the experts, to optimize your life for better brain health. The benefits will help you feel grounded and ready for anything, at any age. And yoga can help (of course). We’ve long known that practicing asana, meditation, mantra, and mindfulness can improve health and happiness. Now, scientists are uncovering how these practices can help prevent memory loss and delay the onset of more serious and scary cognitive impairments that often come with aging.

See also The Benefits of Yoga and Meditation for Alzheimer’s and Dementia For more than a decade, Helen Lavretsky, PhD, psychiatry professor and researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, has managed some of the longest-running studies of mind-body interventions for depression and cognitive decline in older adults. Day after day, a constant stream of people pour into her office. They are scared. They feel paralyzed and unable to cope as their loved ones slip away—or worse, they face forgetfulness themselves, regularly losing track of where they’ve parked or having to read words a dozen times over to comprehend them. Over the course of her career as a geriatric psychiatrist, Lavretsky has worked with hundreds of dementia patients and their caregivers who are stressed and depressed. In 2008, she started studying how meditation, yoga, and other gentle-movement practices, such as tai chi and qi gong, affect both mood and memory. “We’ve found that these movement practices help improve mood, resilience, and cognition; reduce inflammation; and positively affect brain health,” she says. In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Lavrestky and her colleagues found that participants (adults older than 55 and with mild cognitive impairment—a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s) who practiced yoga over a 12-week period experienced improvements in mood and in visual and verbal memory for up to six months. Through brain scans, she was able to identify increased neural connectivity in the default mode networks (DMNs) of their brains—where complex decisions are made; awareness, focus, and empathy emerge; and memories are stored. Lavretsky says these changes occur when we practice unfamiliar movements. When we learn new skills, we create new neural pathways, improving neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to rebuild, she says.

Our brilliantly complex brains are made up of billions of neurons that form trillions of connections with one another. These connections create electric and chemical networks that shape our experiences and help us learn and evolve. If we stop doing things that build and strengthen these connections, our brains will atrophy and lose plasticity, and we’ll start losing memories and our ability to function in the world. “Creating new neural pathways is a way of recovering and improving cognitive capacity, including processing speed and memory, that may decline with aging or brain diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s,” Lavretsky says. Furthermore, spiritual practices, such as meditation, also improve the ability for self-regulation during stress, meaning your mind and body learn to not react immediately to stressors. Instead you can take a breath, get centered, and respond in a healthier way. Meditative practices may also change neural activity and connectivity in the DMN. “Individual preferences for relaxation can play a role in what works for reclaiming bits of their old selves and memories.” —Helen Lavretsky, PhD And as for what is happening in the mind of John Trainer as he listens to complex classical music, there may be a connection to meditation. Studies focused on music and brain health have shown that listening to your favorite songs also improves connectivity among parts of your DMN and strengthens connections between the sections of your brain responsible for hearing and memory. Jonathan Burdette, MD, works at the Laboratory for Complex Brain Networks at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and studies the effects music has on the brain. His research has shown that listening to your preferred tunes—whether Mahler or Eminem—lights up your DMN. Other studies have shown that chanting, practicing mantra, and listening to music can help develop new neural pathways. While research hasn’t been amassed on how music and meditation may compare, or whether music as the object of attention during meditation is the same as other focal points, such as your breath, Burdette says, “it wouldn’t be surprising if there was overlap between them: Music is a huge encoder of memories.” And maybe we don’t need all of the science to be in; the observations are powerful. “I’ve seen people with Alzheimer’s, who haven't spoken in years, listen to a song from their teenage years and come back to life, singing and dancing,” Burdette says. There are even nonprofits, such as Music & Memory, that bring music to people in assisted living to help them reconnect to themselves and the world. “Individual preferences for relaxation can play a role in what works for people in terms of reclaiming memories and bits of their old selves,” Lavretsky adds. As we age, we continue to form neural connections, but the brain’s processing speed slows down, causing those “senior moments”—such as when you walk into a room and forget why you’re there or can’t recall someone’s name. But something more severe happens in the minds of people with Alzheimer’s. Normal processes go haywire and eventually an overabundance of a peptide called beta-amyloid is produced, damaging healthy synapses and creating holes in the brain—literally and figuratively. The loss of memory, decision-making skills, and speech ensues. Unfortunately, this scenario is becoming increasingly common. Around 75 million, or 25 percent, of Americans carry one copy of the ApoE4 gene variant—a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s, and 5.8 million people in the United States are already living with the disease—a number that is projected to grow to 14 million by 2050.

Plaques and tangles are found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Plaques are clusters of protein fragments that form when beta-amyloid clumps together. Tangles are made when a protein within nerve cells collapses into twisted strands and can no longer do its job, essentially killing brain cells. Researcher Dale Bredesen, MD, author of the New York Times bestselling book The End of Alzheimer’s, believes that the out-of-control amyloid response detected in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is most often a reaction to inflammation, suboptimal levels of nutrients and hormones, insulin resistance, and toxic exposure to mold or bacteria (try Ayurvedic oil-pulling to prevent some harmful bacteria from migrating from mouth to mind) or to chemicals (think off-gassing from paraffin candles)—factors that we can mitigate with diet and lifestyle changes. “You can think of plaques and tangles like unpaid bills. You can remove them, but if you don’t fix the cause, you’ll continue to decline," Bredesen says. Bredesen and other experts say there are four key areas that you should optimize now, so that you can stay sharp as you age and stave off more serious cognitive impairment later in life: sleep, stress levels, exercise (physical and mental), and diet. And yogic practices can help in almost all of those areas. Here, your four-part plan for maximum brain health.

Manage Stress

Chronic stress is really bad for you, as you know, and the research shows that it’s potentially noxious to your brain. High levels of the stress hormone cortisol, often a response to inflammation, are associated with brain atrophy. “It is critical that you find a way to balance your nervous system, and one way is through yoga, meditation, and relaxation,” says Bredesen, who refers to Alzheimer’s as a 21st-century disease that requires a total-body approach and the combination of Eastern and Western medicine to treat. The emphasis on the dangers of chronic inflammation can’t be overstated. It has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune disease, and in a study published in the August 2018 issue of Neurobiology of Aging, researchers tracked more than 12,000 people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and found that those with high levels of inflammation had more memory problems later in life. See also Improve Your Memory By Reducing Stress There’s also a strong correlation between acute stress—such as your response to a sudden death in the family—and the onset of Alzheimer’s, says Henry Emmons, MD, author of Staying Sharp: 9 Keys for a Youthful Brain through Modern Science and Ancient Wisdom. But meditative practices and movements can help dampen stress, he says. Restorative yoga, for example, can balance the autonomic nervous system, shutting down the fight-or-flight response and bringing the body back to rest-and-recovery mode.

Sleep Soundly

The most important thing we can do for our brains as we age is sleep, Emmons says. Deep sleep, in particular, impacts learning and memory: When we’re in it, chemicals transfer memories for long-term storage in the brain. A study published in Science several years ago shed light on how our brains clear out waste products, such as beta-amyloid, through a series of channels (called the glymphatic system) as we sleep. The process that goes haywire in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients doesn’t allow for the normal clearing of waste, so any extra help could go a long way. “During deep sleep, when the brain is quiet and brain cells literally shrink, waste channels open up, allowing metabolic byproducts and toxins to drain from the brain,” Emmons explains. Plus, research suggests that deep sleep may also help reduce stress hormones and improve glucose metabolism, both of which impact inflammation levels.

Yoga can help you get better Zs, and practicing asana during the day promotes better sleep at night. Emmons also suggests taking regular breaks to do a few rounds of what he calls calming breath: Inhale to the count of three or four, pause briefly, then exhale to the count of five or six. This exercise helps turn off the body’s stress response and promotes uninterrupted sleep, Emmons says.

Move Your Body and Mind

Physical exercise has a plethora of brain-boosting benefits. Activities that get your heart rate going help get rid of stress hormones and help you develop a more resilient relaxation response—one you can call on in most any situation to calm down (and one that can help you recognize that 18,000 emails in your inbox is not the same as being stalked by a lion), Emmons says. Exercise also improves insulin sensitivity (one of up to 25 contributing factors to Alzheimer’s, according to Bredesen) and increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—a protein that controls the growth of new neurons. Running and tennis are great, but asana can do the trick, too. Lavretsky’s yoga studies have shown that a 60-minute Kundalini Yoga class once a week, involving movement, chanting, and meditation, accompanied by a daily practice of a 12-minute Kirtan Kriya meditation, can improve connectivity in the default mode network of the brain. Try Kirtan Kriya for yourself.

Why Kundalini? Well, Lavretsky is a longtime teacher of the practice, and it’s easier to perform than hatha or vinyasa, she says, because it can be done mostly from a seated position. Sixty-five-year-old Sylvia Mendoza, one of Lavretsky’s subjects, started the Kundalini Yoga protocol feeling as if she couldn’t organize her thoughts like she used to. She had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and was scared to speak in front of people, fearing she wouldn’t be able to recall words or might lose her train of thought. After practicing Kundalini for 12 weeks, she says she felt more like herself. “I went from having marbles in my head to being able to organize my thoughts into files: I regained perspective,” she says. Four months after participating in Lavretsky’s study, she still practices Kundalini Yoga almost every day. “I’ll continue for the rest of my life,” she says. “Yoga has given me confidence and peace.” The next step in Lavretsky’s ongoing work is to include larger sample sizes by studying up to 100 women at risk for Alzheimer's disease who practice for an entire year, to see if the results improve month after month. Study after study has shown that meditation alone (essentially a workout for your brain) can increase connectivity in the parts of your brain responsible for decision-making and memory. In one 2011 study, reported in the journal Psychiatry Research, a team of Harvard University neuroscientists observed, through brain scans, that just 27 minutes of meditation per day for eight weeks kept the brains of 50-year-olds looking much younger. Their minds had as much gray matter as the brains of 25-year-olds. Mind-body practices that combine meditation and movement may be the most beneficial, says Lavretsky. In a 2016 study published in Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, Lavretsky and her fellow researchers reported that both mindfulness-based meditative practices that focus on present-moment awareness, like vipassana and Zen, and meditative movements, such as yoga, can help improve attention and memory. The difference is that yoga practices recruit parts of the brain that are involved in speech, motor function, and the ability to make complex decisions. In fact, Lavretsky’s Kundalini routine was actually more effective at building neural networks than some of the standard memory-training tools used by medical professionals. The protocol Lavretsky used in her study was developed at UCLA and utilizes mnemonic strategies for improving memory and recall. And now you might be wondering about those online memory-training tools that you've seen ads for. The jury is still out on whether apps such as Lumosity and Elevate are truly effective at improving mental agility. A 2017 study in Neuropsychology Review compared 18 apps and found that only two—Mahncke’s BrainHQ and CogniFit—were studied in clinical trials and found to help users process thoughts more quickly and improve visual memory in real-world situations.

Eat Well

Optimizing your diet is another important defense in the fight against dementia. Bredesen recommends keto-like meals that are plant-rich, high in healthy fats, and low in carbs and sugar. Think colorful, high-fiber, and detoxifying veggies, such as red cabbage and kale; low-glycemic index fruits like berries; and fats from nuts, seeds, and olive and medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils. And he encourages 12- to 16-hour fasts between dinner and breakfast the next day. The goal is to stabilize resting insulin levels and reduce inflammation (remember, high levels are risk factors for Alzheimer’s). Several experts point to ways Ayurvedic eating practices align with modern lifestyle protocols for delaying cognitive decline. Finding harmony among your doshas, or primary energies—vata (air and space), kapha (water and earth), and pitta (fire and water)—may help slow aging, including memory loss... or so the theory goes. Intermittent fasting and a low-sugar, plant-rich diet that calls for abundant healthy fats and oils are all part of Ayurvedic eating. 4 Recipes for Intellectual Eating Julie Morris, chef and bestselling author of Smart Plants: Power Foods & Natural Nootropics for Optimized Thinking, Focus & Memory, says the key to boosting brain power really comes down to one simple guideline, similar to what Dale Bredesen, MD, recommends: A diet that supports a healthy brain includes some fat, some protein, less sugar, and more plants. “Then sprinkle in natural nootropics,” she suggests. “Derived from the Greek words noos, meaning mind, and tropos, meaning turned or changed, nootropics are indeed mind-changing, cognition-enhancing substances that can improve the way you think, feel, and function.” She says she thinks of them as the superfoods of the cognition world. Natural nootropics—such as cacao, matcha, reishi mushrooms, goji berries, ashwagandha, and turmeric— not only maintain and protect neurological function, but research shows they can also improve your mental performance. Here, four recipes that are rich in healthy fats, anti-infl ammatories, and nootropics to keep your brain firing on all cylinders. Get smart about what's on your plate and in your mug. Try these brain-healthy recipes. The Supplement Solution Dialing in your diet is critical, but there are all sorts of supplements marketed for brain health, too. Navigating what to buy can be as confusing and complicated as brain science itself. Emmons generally prescribes activated B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium threonate, and antioxidants such as coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), along with a few herbal products that have been backed by science for memory and cognition improvement, such as ginkgo, vinpocetine, and huperzine A. He also recommends taking phosphatidylserine (PS), which plays a role in creating nerve-cell membranes. There's also L-serine, a trending supplement used for protection against cognitive decline. A naturally occurring amino acid, the substance has shown promise for reducing inflammation and potentially helping those exposed to the neurotoxin L-BMAA, which can happen from eating contaminated seafood. “But there is scant evidence that it is helpful for Alzheimer’s,” Emmons says. And people with cognitive decline who have contributing factors, such as insulin resistance or exposure to various pathogens and toxins other than L-BMAA, likely won't see any effects with L-serine, says Bredeson, adding that ongoing trials with L-serine should help us learn more. On the Ayurvedic front, research from Bredesen and his colleague Rammohan Rao, PhD, at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging suggests that common Ayurvedic herbs, such as ashwagandha, turmeric, brahmi (also known as bacopa), and gotu kola, may have the potential to improve concentration, reverse forgetfulness, and reduce inflammation. 4 Brain-Boosting Herbs

Start Now

The earlier you start making brain-protective lifestyle choices, the better. Alzheimer’s essentially develops in four phases. In the early stages, nearly all people respond to lifestyle interventions, whereas those in late stages show only occasional responses, Bredesen says. The first stage is asymptomatic, but a brain scan may show abnormalities. This could go on for 10 or so years, Bredesen says. In the second phase, subjective cognitive impairment begins—patients know that things aren’t quite right, but markers for beta-amyloid still aren’t showing up in lab tests. This can last for more than a decade, he says. The third phase, which can last several years, is mild cognitive impairment. Lab tests show cognitive impairment, but self-care and independence aren’t suffering. “Most people with MCI can get better, but not always,” Bredesen says. “Each year someone has MCI, they have a 5 to 10 percent chance of developing full-blown Alzheimer’s—the fourth phase.” This crossover begins when patients start to have trouble taking care of themselves. In an effort to get ahead of the problem, Bredesen recommends checking for potential at-risk markers, including ApoE, as soon as you turn 45. (His blood test recommendations, and how to interpret and act on them, can be found at mycognoscopy.com). With prevention in mind, “the key is to pick a practice you like and adhere to it,” Lavretsky says. “The earlier you start learning how to cope with stress, the more you delay aging-related diseases,” she says. Michael Trainer is sticking to his meditation practice. “Witnessing my father’s decline changed me. It was a catalyst for me to look at how I approach life,” he says. “I stopped working so many 12- to 14-hour days and I practice meditation and yoga daily, in addition to eating and sleeping well, because they are buffers to and integral in my own defense of dementia.” In fact, he’s taken it a step further and now draws global attention to brain health through his digital platform Peak Mind—where you can sign up for meditation and mindfulness practices. In 2015, he co-hosted a Peak Mind event with the Dalai Lama, on His Holiness’ 80th birthday, to “make my dad proud,” he says. But by the time the star-studded occasion rolled around, Trainer says his father no longer recognized the Dalai Lama. “All of a sudden, I realized I just wanted to be with my father; it became less about grand gestures and more about the simple quality moments with him.” Author: Tasha Eichenseher Source: https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/yoga-rx-dementia-alzheimers-memory-loss Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: Yoga Poses for Two Read the full article

#yogamemory #yogahealth #yogaposesfortwo #yoga

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broken-chinadolly · 6 years

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(SUMMER BISHIL, 29,SHE/HER), have you seen (PERSEPHONE PYRITE)? SHE is working as a (MEMBER OF THE DEPARTMENT FOR THE REGULATION AND CONTROL OF MAGICAL CREATURES) who, rumour has it, are also (MEMBER OF THE ORDER) but don’t tell anyone. Some people say they can be (CREATIVE) and (QUICK-WITTED), but they can also be (BLUNT) and (SHORT TEMPERED) so watch out! ( beth, 26, she/her, est )

Persephone Pyrite is twenty-nine years old, works in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in the Ministry of Magic and was formerly in the house of Gryffindor

❝A strong woman looks a challenge dead in the eye and gives it a wink

↳ BACKSTORY

Persephone was given everything her heart desired when she was younger. Everything she asked for at least–for she found it more fun sometimes to fight for things rather than ask and have them handed–except for the racing dragon she would still be inclined to seek out, despite which Ministry department she now represents, next time she feels the itch that life has gotten too predictable and no fling, fight she could pick, or other thrill will do. Hector was her first demand at a few weeks shy of two years old when she’d been introduced to her new little brother and handed down the verdict, “Mine.” It was a decree she was never able to take back, not that she often wanted to. While Hector saw himself as trailing after her, she saw herself pulling him along into whatever messes she made or adventures she had, because he was a part of her . The eldest sibling is typically a guide to the rest, but it was different with Hector than with any of her sisters that came after him or her “Irish twin” that had come before him. It didn’t mean she favored him. It was laughable for any Pyrite to favor one sibling over the others, like favoring your pinkie finger over your pointer. They were all one unit, all digits on a hand that could join together into a fist to crush whoever was foolish enough to think they could take on one of them.

Family before all else, and, for Persephone at least, that also included any and all who came out of the woodwork claiming to be half-siblings and the various uncle and aunts that had never had an official place on the Pyrite tree, but were not fully denied either, that sometimes visited. The bond wasn’t quite the same if they weren’t raised Pyrite and didn’t understand what it meant to be so, but it was never in doubt that they were fully family. For one, blood doesn’t make family like love and loyalty does, and, for another, sometimes the line between bastard child and heir is thin and smudgy. After all, some say Persephone herself looks nothing like her father and everything like an old ambassador friend of her mother’s. Who cares? Her father was there when she was born and ever since even if he wasn’t there when she was conceived.

Persephone had a difficult time at Hogwarts as all Pyrites did, finding herself serving a record number of detentions, not often understanding there was such a fuss over her going about life normally. Surely defending yourself wasn’t something to be punished for. If you didn’t have a scratch on you and the other party was in the hospital wing for a week with tentacles growing out of their ears and two black eyes, vomiting black goo that just meant you were a good duelist versed in both magic and muggle fighting and should be congratulated. So what if you were the first to throw a spell as well if you were also the last and the winner? And students on Hogsmeade weekends weren’t told specifically that they couldn’t slide along apparate away with people they met in town so when you go missing on a Saturday night and are tracked down to a club in Brighton on a Sunday was it even your fault or was it the school administration’s fault? Similarly, why teach students about hippogriffs if breaking them out of their paddocks and giving them exercise is for some unfathomable reason off limits? There’s no sign saying not to skinny dip in the Black Lake, and if there were, there are better things to do in a day than read. If she’d wanted to read, she would have done her homework more often--study habits being another frequent source of detentions though more because of what happened to anyone who implied the reason she still got good grades despite seeming to put in little effort was cheating or at the very least collaborating with others.

Persephone's frequent rallying against rules and sometimes even laws got her the flippant response from many adults that when she was older she could get a position and change the rules, but until then she had to obey. It was said to shut up a precocious teenager who’d invented the sport of broom surfing, drank her defense against the dark arts professor’s secret stash of scotch and wrote the names of every prefect of both genders on her to-do list instead of her assignments, but Seph never liked being mocked, and desire to show up everyone and a love of irony joined with legitimate desire for political reform in her serious moments (anyone paying attention knew it wasn’t just in enforcing the wrong types control where the system was broken and Seph had always paid attention more than she was given credit for) to have her look for a Ministry position from any department that would hire her based on her NEWTs and passion and ignore the reputation and any negative recommendations .

The Pyrites never claimed to look or act like most traditional pureblood families but Seph carried the badge of going against the grain into other areas, proving to be quite vocal about rights of downtrodden or often neglected groups such as muggleborns or squibs. It didn’t make her popular with some factions but she would look you in the eye and say she never gave a fuck what anyone thought. Her newest cause is an attempt to update the werewolf registry and write new legislation regarding werewolves, an even more unpopular area with opposition from all sides: those who sympathetic to werewolves who hear the word registry and think she’s a bigot; those who actually listen to her proposals for group and solo counseling and job placement for the newly turned (the real purpose of a registry) , permanent classification of weres into the being not beasts division of regulation, and for anti-discriminatory policies to be implemented in schools and work places and think she’s “soft on the mongrels;” and those who don’t care either way about werewolf rights but simply think she’s painfully naive to think her proposed werewolf laws will work any better than the werewolf registry of the 1940s.

Someone else with Persephone’s pet projects and outspoken opinions might have been found their life turned upside down by the war, becoming a target or victim. Persephone was neither, enough Pyrites in league with the death eaters to make sure there was always a higher priority, but she jumped in with both feet with a typical lack of subtlety or thought for her own future or welfare, not worried about covering her tracks as she went after anyone she suspected of taking the mark in the early days. She was used to problems she could solve on her own, or with logical, productive steps that led to actual progress (Yes, every death eater out of commission or every attack thwarted was progress but it didn’t feel like it, and her hammer against nails default tactics led to no valuable intel), or, failing that, ones that were easy to blast apart or brush off. Nothing was supposed beyond her or at least not beyond the family, and the family was more split than any of them were used to even though none admitted it. She wouldn’t call what she felt fear or helplessness. Neither were part of a Pyrite vocabulary and even less so hers. She’d only admit to blinding anger. Ironically, it was being drawn into the Order that tamed her somewhat (and likely saved her from losing her job at the best and being the one inevitably sent to Azkaban for vigilante action if she carried on escalating ) when it was making fighters out of so many others that weren’t born to that path. Given productive missions and legitimate targets she had a lens to focus her anger and help her regain the semblance of peace knowing she was making a difference. For awhile.

Still, it took very careful selection of mission partner to keep her from going too far that she wouldn’t either ignore or resent. Tension between her and the more cautious members of the Order has only grown as most grow tired of fighting, she’s fed on it.While she started for justice, she she enjoys the outlet and permission to cause a little havoc and pain--only on those who deserve it of course--and doesn’t want to go back to being just her day job or even the hedonistic wild-card.

So far, aside from the early crusading against shadows, the face Persephone shows outside of Order gatherings and business is much more neutral. Her views aren’t sugar coated but she gives off the impression that she is much more occupied with spoiling her niece, crusading for fair treatment of werewolves whether the weres agree or not, returning to old vices, discovering new vices to add in, and so on. She is known to pull string to keep her brother and sisters and their friends out of trouble and is even friendly with some of them herself, the closest to controlled she’s ever been.

↳ PERSONALITY TRAITS

» {+ positives} creative, intuitive, determined, quick-witted, nurturing

» {- negatives} stubborn, blunt, hot-tempered, violent

↳ BASICS

» blood status: pureblood

» magical aptitude: Strong innate talent + Studious

» date of birth: October 3rd

» wand: maple and phoenix feather, ten inches

» boggart: one of her siblings (it changes each time) has killed one of the others. Hector features the most often in both roles, not a sign of favoritism as much as her knowledge he’s likely to meet a bad end

#ni:intro

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Why Do Republicans Oppose The Affordable Care Act

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-oppose-the-affordable-care-act/

Why Do Republicans Oppose The Affordable Care Act

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act In 2014

Will Republicans be able to dismantle the Affordable Care Act?

Health insurance exchanges scheduled to open for 2014 enrollment begin writing policies that go into effect January 1, 2014.

People buying insurance on their own get subsidies to help them pay their monthly insurance premiums. Premiums are allocated on a sliding scale, as determined by income. Any individual earning over 400% of the poverty level does not qualify for subsidies.

When health insurance exchanges are operational, small business tax credits are up to 50% of premiums.

Insurance companies are required to provide health insurance to any adult aged 19 to 64 who applies for coverage.

To prevent people from waiting until they get sick to buy health insurance, the ACA requires all Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine. The fine starts at $95 for an individual in 2014 and goes up each year until 2016, when the fine is $695 or 2.5% of a persons annual income, whichever is greater.

Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans , established in 2010 are scheduled to expire on January 1, 2014 once all major ACA reforms go into effect.

Rep Pete Stauber Of Minnesota

The freshman flipped a longtime Democratic seat;in northeast Minnesota that Trump had carried by 16 points in 2016. Its a largely white, working-class district, where Trumps populist appeal resonated. The former Duluth police officer ran a campaign ad last year about his son Issac, who has Down syndrome, and he talked about the importance of insurance companies covering pre-existing conditions. Democrats are not targeting this seat in 2020. Inside Elections rates the race Likely Republican.

Even Conservatives Call Aca Case ‘absurd’

This is just one of many absurdities that have caused even conservative legal experts like Jonathan Adler,;who backed previous challenges to the ACA, to call this case absurd. But the absurdity is the point.

The point has always been to deny Americans the health insurance that was secured for them when the ACA was signed into law. And Republicans have been remarkably successful at this.

How Dems can beat Trump on health:;Focus on high costs and economic security

Thanks to a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that made Medicaid expansion optional instead of required, 14 states have turned it down. This;has;left an estimated 2.5 Americans without coverage that these states pay for anyway.

As Medicaid expansion has proved popular even in red states, Republicans have adopted another poison pill in the form of bureaucratic requirements to prove that recipients are working. These burdens could leave up to;800,000 additional Americans uninsured, which would match the covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health;Insurance Program;in 2018 alone.;

Also Check: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

What Did Trump Say About Obamacare

President Trump has been actively trying to repeal the healthcare law since he campaigned for the 2016 presidential election.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to revoke Obamacare because it’s been an “unlawful failure.”

A brief filed in June asked the court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, arguing it became invalid after Congress axed parts of it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “President Trump and the Republicans campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.

“If President Trump gets his way, 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions will lose the ACAs lifesaving protections and 23 million Americans will lose their health coverage entirely.

“There is no legal justification and no moral excuse for the Trump Administrations disastrous efforts to take away Americans health care.”

Republicans also argue that some people are better off without Obamacare due to the fact that it does not cover those who need it most.

According to the provisions, people who earn just slightly too much to qualify for federal premium subsidies, particularly early retirees and people in their 50s and early 60s who are self-employed are not covered.

Trump endorsed a replacement to Obamacare in 2017 but fell short of passing the Republican-controlled Congress.

Democrats Must Try Harder To Cover People

The November elections, when Democrats won the House by the largest popular-vote margin in the history of American midterms, marked the first time Republicans paid a real cost for their efforts to suffocate the ACA.;And while Democrats are united in defense of the law, theyve never been as ruthless in the pursuit of covering Americans as Republicans are in their lust to uninsure them.

Michigans new governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has a chance to save about;70,000 people from the useless work requirements signed into law by her Republican predecessor.;Yet she hasnt acted. And the three states with the largest populations that could benefit from Medicaid expansion are also three of the nations key or emerging swing states Texas, Florida and Georgia.

A Harvard study of the Massachusetts law that served as the model for the ACA;found one life saved for each 830 people gaining insurance. This;means if Republicans in Congress had finished off the law they’ve;spent a decade vowing to kill, they would have put thousands of lives at risk.

But thats the genius of the GOPs focus on the courts. With an appointment that lasts a lifetime, you dont have to worry about the consequences of leaving 20 million uninsured. And if it works for the ACA, watch out. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and any program conservatives have long reviled but lacked the audacity to repeal could be next.

Don’t Miss: Do The Republicans Want To Cut Social Security

Republican View On Healthcare

Republicans take pretty much the opposite view of Democrats. Traditionally dedicated to the notion that less government is better government, and the free market makes adjustments on its own without regulation, the party has fought every reform the Democrats have enacted. Much of this comes down to their traditional diametrically opposed notions of what is best for Americans. Citing freedom of choice and the sacrosanct doctor-patient relationship, predicting huge losses to the economy in general, arguing that the ACA doesnt work despite years of evidence to the contrary, the GOP would rather scrap it and go with the status quo as it stood before the ACA was passed. Their key phrase is Why should healthy people pay more to cover sick and poor people?

Looking to make a difference? Consider signing one of these sponsored petitions:*Rantt Media may receive compensation from the partners we feature on our site. However, this in no way affects our news coverage, analysis, or political 101’s.

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, Republicans have been determined to destroy it while Democrats insist its the countrys best chance at reforming healthcare to make it affordable and accessible. Both parties want reform, but the approach has been fundamentally different and for good reason. There are basic, core reasons why conservatives and liberals cant get on the same page when it comes to healthcare reform.;Lets take a moment to dig into the details and figure out what is exactly keeping Republicans and Democrats from being able to find a middle ground on healthcare reform, so far.

Democrats want the federal government to legislate and administer healthcare while Republicans want private industry to helm the healthcare system with as minimal input from the federal government as possible.

Of course, there are always exceptions within each party because people arent one-dimensional. Moderates on both sides, for instance, would seek compromise wherever possible. But in general, these core ideological differences make healthcare reform particularly challenging, especially when one party holds more power. In 2010, Democrats passed the ACA without a single rightwing vote.

Also Check: Do Any House Republicans Support Impeachment

House Republicans Vote To Sue Obama

Republicans in Washington insist they arent planning to impeach President Obama any time soonbut did just get one step closer to suing him.

Just before lawmakers go home for the five-week August recess, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted Wednesday evening to authorize Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to file a lawsuit on behalf of the House of Representatives against the president for delaying implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

The vote was 225-201, with every Democrat voting against the lawsuit as well as five conservative Republicans who felt the suit didnt go far enough and preferred impeachment.

The lawsuit itself is expected to fail once it reaches the inside of a courtroom, but the politics of the impending lawsuit raged Wednesday and will continue to in the months leading up to the November midterm elections.

The partisan battle andand the talking pointsover the lawsuit was on full display during the debate on the House floor before the vote. Democrats variously called the lawsuit a political stunt, a gimmick, and a sorry spectacle of legislative malpractice intended to appease the conservative base of the Republican Party before the midterm elections in November.

Groups Opposing The American Health Care Act

The American Health Care Act: A Republican Response to The Affordable Care Act

Over 50 organizations oppose the proposed healthcare plan that will make Americans will pay more for less.;The list includes nurses, doctors, hospitals, teachers, churches, and more. You can see a few here:;

AARP: AARP opposes this legislation, as introduced, that would weaken Medicare, leaving the door open to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors.

Before people even reach retirement age, big insurance companies could be allowed to charge them an age tax that adds up to thousands of dollars more per year. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs.

On top of the hefty premium increase for consumers, big drug companies and other special interests get a sweetheart deal.

Finally, Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much-needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities. Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable.

AARP stands ready to work with both parties on legislation that puts Americans first, not the special interests.

That just wont do.

That is, above all, why physicians must be involved in this debate.

You May Like: How Many Senate Seats Do The Republicans Have Right Now

When Did Obamacare Start

The timeline of key events leading up to the passage of the Obamacare law began in 2009. Here is a list of those events, along with key provisions that went into place after the law was enacted.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and a group of Democrats from the House of Representatives reveal their plan for overhauling the health-care system. Its called H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

;Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a leading supporter of health-care reform, dies and puts the Senate Democrats 60-seat supermajority required to pass a piece of legislation at risk.

;Democrat Paul Kirk is appointed interim senator from Massachusetts, which temporarily restores the Democrats filibuster-proof 60th vote.

;In the House of Representatives, 219 Democrats and one Republican vote for the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and 39 Democrats and 176 Republicans vote against it.

In the Senate, 60 Democrats vote for the Senates version of the bill, called Americas Healthy Future Act, whose lead author is senator Max Baucus of California. Thirty-nine Republicans vote against the bill, and one Republican senator, Jim Bunning, does not vote.

Who Voted For Affordable Care Act

Question: Who voted for Affordable Care Act?

Answer: The Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama;on March 23, 2010. ;Before becoming the law, there were 219 House of Representatives that voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act. ; Below is a complete list of House of Representatives that voted in favor of Affordable Care Act: ;There was not a single Republican representative that was in favor of the Affordable Care Act.

Read Also: Why Did Republicans Lose The Election

Democrats Republicans And Your Health Insurance

Shereen Lehman, MS, is a healthcare journalist and fact checker.;She has co-authored two books for the popular Dummies Series .

Healthcare reform has been a contentious political topic in the U.S. for many years, and is shaping up to play a major role in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. What does each party want? Let’s take a look at how the priorities of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party;could impact your health insurance.

Republicans Really Hate Health Care

Theyve gone beyond cynicism to pathology.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

Of all the political issues that divide us, health care is the one with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans lives. If Democrats hadnt managed to pass the Affordable Care Act, around 20 million fewer Americans would have health insurance than currently do. If Republican-controlled states hadnt refused to expand Medicaid and generally done as little as possible to support the act, national progress might have tracked progress in, say, California so another 7 or 8 million people might have coverage.

You obviously know where I stand on this political divide. But Im starting to believe that I misjudged Republican motives.

You see, I thought their behavior was cynical and strategic: They opposed Obamacare because they thought there was political mileage in scaring people about change, and also in denying Obama any successes. Oh, and their donors really hated the taxes on the rich that pay for the ACAs subsidies. And right up through 2016 they could hope to convince voters that they had a secret plan for something much better than Obamacare.

Indeed, all of these things surely played a role in GOP health care strategy. But at this point theyve clearly lost the political argument. In 2017, Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare made it clear to everyone that their party didnt have any better ideas, and never did; everything they proposed would have devastated the lives of millions.

Read Also: What State Has The Most Republicans

Attempts To Change Or Repeal

Read Ballotpedias fact check »

The Affordable Care Act was subject to a number of lawsuits challenging some of its provisions, such as the individual mandate and the requirement to cover contraception. Four of these lawsuits were heard by the United States Supreme Court, resulting in changes to the law and how it was enforced. In addition, since the laws enactment, lawmakers in Congress have introduced and considered legislation to modify or repeal parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Finally, between 2010 and 2012, voters in eight states considered ballot measures related to the law. This section summarizes the lawsuits, legislation, and state ballot measures that attempted to change, repeal, or impact enforcement of parts of the law.

Read Also: Did Republicans Shut Down The Government

A Conundrum: Majority Of Republican Voters Want To Overturn Aca But Keep Protections For People With Pre

The latest KFF Health Tracking Poll revealed a stark contrast in opinion on two questions about the current challenge to the Affordable Care Act facing the U.S. Supreme Court. Since it was enacted in 2010 by President Obama, the ACA, sometimes known as Obamacare, has been opposed by Republicans and favored by Democrats, but many of the benefits it provides are popular across parties. One of the most popular provisions of the law is that it protects people with pre-existing medical conditions from being denied coverage or having to pay more for coverage. A large majority of voters, across political party identification, say they do not want the Court to overturn the ACAs protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but there are strong partisan differences on attitudes towards overturning the entire ACA. Two-thirds of Republican voters say they do not want the ACAs protections for people with pre-existing conditions to be overturned, while three-quarters of Republican voters say they do want to see the ACA itself overturned.

Figure 1: Majorities Do Not Want Court To Overturn ACAs Pre-Existing Condition Protections, Republicans Want Entire Law Overturned

Figure 2: About Half Of Republican Voters Want To See The Supreme Court Overturn The Entire ACA, Not Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions

Figure 3: Republican Voters Say President Trump Has A Plan To Protect People With Pre-Existing Conditions

Topics

Also Check: What Will Happen If Republicans Win

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act In 2011

A provision goes into effect to protect patients choice of doctors. Specifics include allowing plan members to pick any participating primary care provider, prohibiting insurers from requiring prior authorization before a woman sees an obstetrician/gynecologist , and ensuring access to emergency care.

Young adults can stay on their parents insurance until age 26, even if they are not full-time students. This extension applies to all new plans.

All new health insurance policies must cover preventive care and pay a portion of all preventive care visits.

A provision goes into effect that eliminates lifetime limits on coverage for members.

Annual limits or maximum payouts by a health insurance company are now restricted by the ACA.

The ACA prohibits rescission when a claim is filed, except in the case of fraud or misrepresentation by the consumer.

Insurance companies must now provide a process for customers to make an appeal if there is a problem with their coverage. ;

NOTE: In January,;2011:;eHealth publishes 11 guides on the top;child-only health insurance coverage;that examined differences in implementation in numerous states.

Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared

Senate Republicans Come Out To Oppose Healthcare Bill

There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.

Don’t Miss: When Did The Southern Democrats Become Republicans

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newstfionline · 6 years

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Where Europe’s most powerful economy is falling behind

By Paul Carrel, Reuters, June 25, 2018

MASSEN-NIEDERLAUSITZ, Germany--Until March of this year, goods arriving at family engineering firm Zemmler Siebanlagen in eastern Germany generated piles of paperwork and hours of manual cross checks. These days, stockman Ronny Mucha records deliveries on a specially designed tablet application that immediately updates other departments. It takes a fraction of the time.

The firm’s founder, Heiko Zemmler, credits a government-backed scheme with “taking us through a psychological barrier” about digital technology. The inventory application is just a beginning, hopes Zemmler. One day he wants his welders and assembly line workers to be able to access design plans and lists of parts on a shared platform.

That’s all common enough in modern factories from California to South Korea. But there’s a problem. Zemmler needs high-speed internet capable of carrying large quantities of data to make the switch. “Broadband has come to many people, but unfortunately not to us,” he said at his plant in the Brandenburg region, not far from the Polish border.

Europe’s most powerful economy, at the forefront of industrial innovation for decades, is struggling to adapt to the digital age, and its policymakers are worried.

Zemmler’s experience encapsulates two key obstacles to change here. It took a nudge by the government to get him to embrace digital technology in the first place. And, now that he has done so, his plans are being frustrated by a woeful broadband network.

A 2017 study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked Germany 29th out of 34 industrialised economies for fast internet connections. Japan and South Korea lead the pack. Chancellor Angela Merkel has made fixing Germany’s digital deficiencies a priority for her fourth and likely final term, saying “our future prosperity depends on it.”

In interviews, company bosses and senior policymakers set out the scale of the challenge the government faces and explained why German firms have been slow to adopt digital technology to store and share data and manage workflow.

The paucity of high-speed internet was one barrier, they said. Others included government inefficiency and a reluctance among small and mid-size firms, Germany’s “Mittelstand,” to embrace new ways of working. Added to that, years of surveillance by the Nazis and then the Communists have left many Germans suspicious of data sharing.

There’s also a paradox at work: Germany’s strong economy is blocking efforts to modernize, they said, with firms too busy meeting orders today to plan for a digital future.

Government data shows the extent of the problem. A government fund created to expand Germany’s broadband network managed to spend only three percent of the money available last year, figures in a Jan. 23 letter from the deputy finance minister at the time, Jens Spahn, to a fellow lawmaker showed. Spahn has since said Germany is up to 20 years behind U.S. competitors, with many managers stuck in the “fax age.”

Even Germany’s car industry is feeling the threat. In the past, Chinese firms sought to learn from German carmakers. But on a trip to China in May, Merkel was so struck by China’s progress in data processing that she asked for Chinese help to develop electric and autonomous vehicles. China has yet to commit.

To be sure, Germany has shown an enviable ability to adapt to political, economic and technological challenges over the decades. At the turn of the century, it was called “the sick man of Europe,” with an inflexible labour market that weighed on productivity. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government responded by shaking up the welfare system to encourage more people into the workforce. It turned out well: Germany regained competitiveness and profited from demand in the industrialising world for its high-end engineering products. Unemployment has fallen from above five million in 2005 to less than half that level now.

“Germany has overcome much bigger problems before,” said Carsten Nickel, managing director at consultancy Teneo Intelligence.

“But it did so by not shying away from, at times, radical change. That, in turn, requires agency and political leadership. Schroeder ultimately lost his job over his economic reforms. It would probably be a stretch to claim that a comparable willingness for bold political leadership exists in Merkel’s Berlin today.”

Indeed, Merkel has spent much of her political capital this year trying to defuse a row in her coalition over immigration policy.

Alexandra Horn’s team at the BVMW Mittelstand association of small and mid-size firms worked with Zemmler to introduce the inventory application his company now uses. It is part of a government-backed scheme called “Digital Together.”

Horn says she has sometimes been met with laughter when taking this digitalization drive to firms outside the main cities like Berlin, where a healthy startup scene masks slow progress elsewhere. Because of poor internet speeds, “digital business models cannot be implemented, plain and simple,” Horn said.

According to the OECD, just 16 percent of German firms use cloud services, “a key productivity enhancer.” That’s well below the OECD average of 25 percent and far behind countries including Finland (57 percent), Sweden (48 percent) and Japan (45 percent).

“If you don’t have the infrastructure, you cannot have a successful digitalization of the economy,” said OECD telecoms and internet expert Verena Weber.

Germany’s coalition government has pledged to provide high-speed gigabit internet access across Germany by 2025. It aims to develop a fibre optic network to all corners of the country. Japan has 76 percent of its broadband via fibre, Latvia 62 percent and Sweden 58 percent, compared to just two percent in Germany, OECD data show.

Efforts to upgrade Germany’s internet with state-of-the art fibre technology are coming late partly because Germany’s telecoms industry regulator, BNetzA, allowed Deutsche Telekom, the former national network monopoly, to use an intermediate solution called “vectoring technology” to increase the bandwidth of existing copper lines instead of running fibre all the way into homes and offices.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in May the government would use higher-than-expected tax revenues to start a digitalization fund into which his ministry would transfer 2.4 billion euros ($2.85 billion) this year. The fund will be increased by revenues generated from the auction of 5G mobile licences.

But throwing money at the problem is not guaranteed to fix it, as shown by the Jan. 23 letter from Spahn, the deputy finance minister at the time. It revealed that of the 689 million euros set aside by the government for broadband investment, only 22 million was used last year. Policymakers and company bosses complain that tender operations for subsidies can be so slow and complex that federal funds often go unused.

For Kyffhaeuserkreis, a rural district in the eastern state of Thuringia, moves to streamline the process can’t come soon enough. Kyffhaeuserkreis is still waiting for its high-speed broadband three years after setting the wheels in motion. The tender process alone has taken almost two years.

Another problem is that no single government department is in overall charge. The ministry for transport and digital infrastructure is in charge of broadband rollout, the economy ministry for promoting new technologies, the interior ministry for security and the justice ministry for consumer protection in the digital age. In addition, regional authorities grant planning permission.

Heiko Zemmler honed his engineering skills repairing mopeds in former East Germany. He began leasing and servicing industrial sieves for the construction, forestry and waste management industries in 2000 and later began manufacturing them, establishing Zemmler Siebanlagen GmbH in 2010. With recent annual sales growth rates of 20 percent to 30 percent, Zemmler said he was so busy fulfilling orders he didn’t consider shifting to digital technology until the BVMW Mittelstand association contacted him.

It’s a familiar story. The transition to digital technology is being overlooked because of roaring growth now. Last year, the German economy grew by 2.5 percent, the strongest pace since 2011, outperforming France and Italy.

Digitalization czar Baer said firms need to think ahead.

“Of course, it’s pleasing that the order books are full now, but that will not automatically remain the case,” she said. “The German Mittelstand is characterized by the fact that it thinks long term, in generations instead of in quarters. Without digitalization, no company can be future-proofed.”

“To think that we can be at the forefront of artificial intelligence and be as restrictive as possible with data is just like wanting to rear cows without feeding them.”

#Germany #digital technology in Germany

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Did Any Republicans Vote For The Aca

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Did Any Republicans Vote For The Aca

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act After 90 Days

20 Republicans Vote Against GOP Healthcare Bill | MTP Daily | MSNBC

Some small businesses qualified for tax credits of up to 35% of premiums.

Five billion dollars were allocated for individuals who could not qualify for insurance. These funds allowed them to buy insurance from the government instead.

A temporary reinsurance program was established to reimburse participating employment-based plans for a portion of the cost of providing health insurance coverage to early retirees. ;

The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan was designed to make health insurance available to those that have been denied coverage by private insurance companies because of a pre-existing condition. See more in the Forbes Report: Obamacares High-Risk Pool Spending Doubles Government Estimates.

eHealth publishes a list of FAQs, which includes a following timeline for the enactment of key changes. Bear in mind that some of these components changed during the ACAs implementation. ;

The 8 Republicans Who Voted Against Trump’s Anti

Eight House Republicans on Wednesday joined Democrats to vote in favor of a resolution decrying the Trump administration’s push to have the courts invalidate ObamaCare.

The measure passed in a 240-186 vote.

The group of eight GOP lawmakers, largely made up of;centrist Republicans, opted to support the nonbinding measure led by freshman Rep. Colin Allred rebuking the Department of Justices recent announcement that it backs a district courts ruling deeming the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

Here are the;Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote against Trump.

Frederick Stephen UptonEquilibrium/ Sustainability Presented by NextEra Energy West Coast wildfires drive East Coast air quality alerts OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Western wildfires prompt evacuations in California, Oregon| House passes bill requiring EPA to regulate ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water | Granholm announces new building energy codesHouse passes bill requiring EPA to regulate ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking waterMORE

Upton, who previously served as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, explained his vote by citing the lack of an alternative to former President Obamas landmark health care legislation.

Pulling the safety net out from under our fellow Americans by repealing Obamacare without a replacement plan ready to go on day one would be cruel and irresponsible,” he said in a statement to The Hill.

How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, received no Republican votes in either the Senate or the House of Representatives when it was passed in 2009. In the Senate, the bill was passed with a total of 60 votes, or 58 Democratic Party votes and 2 Independent Party votes. The House passed the legislation with 219 Democratic votes.

The Affordable Care Act received 39 votes against it in the Senate, all from Republicans. One senator abstained from voting. In the House, the ACA received 212 votes against it, with 34 coming from the Democratic Party and 178 from the Republican Party. There were enough votes for the ACA in the Senate to prevent an attempt to filibuster the bill, while the House vote required a simple majority.

The ACA originated in the Senate, though both the House and Senate were working on versions of a health care bill at the same time. Democrats in the House of Representatives were initially unhappy with the ACA, as they had expected some ability to negotiate additional changes before its passage. Since Republicans in the Senate were threatening to filibuster any bill they did not fully support, and Democrats no longer had enough seats to override the filibuster, no changes could be made. Since any changes to the legislation by the House would require it to be re-evaluated in the Senate, the original version was passed in 2009 on condition that it would be amended by a subsequent bill.

Recommended Reading: Why Did Republicans Vote Against The First Responders Bill

Rep Pete Stauber Of Minnesota

Attempts To Change Or Repeal

Read Ballotpedia’s fact check »

The Affordable Care Act was subject to a number of lawsuits challenging some of its provisions, such as the individual mandate and the requirement to cover contraception. Four of these lawsuits were heard by the United States Supreme Court, resulting in changes to the law and how it was enforced. In addition, since the law’s enactment, lawmakers in Congress have introduced and considered legislation to modify or repeal parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Finally, between 2010 and 2012, voters in eight states considered ballot measures related to the law. This section summarizes the lawsuits, legislation, and state ballot measures that attempted to change, repeal, or impact enforcement of parts of the law.

Read Also: Did Republicans Shut Down The Government

Rep Brian Fitzpatrick Of Pennsylvania

Fitzpatrick, who;also voted against the 2017 GOP effort to repeal much of the health care law, is a top target for Democrats in 2020. He is one of three remaining Republican lawmakers running for re-election in a district that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Fitzpatrick, who often touts his role in the Problem Solvers Caucus, was re-elected to a second term;last fall by 3 points. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates his 2020 race Tilts Republican.

Mccain Votes No Dealing Potential Death Blow To Republican Health Care Efforts

After casting a “no” vote, McCain left the Capitol and declined to talk with reporters. Cliff Owen/APhide caption

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After casting a “no” vote, McCain left the Capitol and declined to talk with reporters.

In a moment of unexpected high drama, Republicans were stymied once again in their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and they have John McCain to thank for it.

In the early morning hours Friday, the senator showed why he earned the nickname “Maverick” over his long tenure.

McCain, who was diagnosed with brain cancer and returned to Washington to advance the health care bill, turned around and bucked his party’s leadership and President Trump by joining two moderate Republicans, two independents and every Democrat in voting against the so-called “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Associated Press via

McCain’s office released a statement from the senator on his reasoning:

McCain continued, calling on lawmakers to “return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of aisle, heed the recommendations of nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people.”

The Senate voted 51-49 against the legislation aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

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Top Trump Aide Says Ethics Filings Discourage Potential Government Employees

Something seemed afoot before the vote. It was delayed. McCain was seen huddling with Democrats. Vice President Pence, who had come to the Capitol expecting to be the tiebreaking vote, personally and unsuccessfully lobbied McCain on the floor to try to win his vote.

With McCain’s vote apparently gone, Republicans were seen trying to persuade Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski to vote for the bill to no avail. She eventually also voted no along with Maine’s Susan Collins.

Rep Denver Riggleman Of Virginia

Growing Numbers Of Republicans Are Willing To Vote For Impeachment | TODAY

The Virginia freshman, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, explained his vote partly as one to protect pre-existing conditions, which he said hit close to home for me and I campaigned on continuing healthcare coverage for those affected.

The healthcare system is broken and Obamacare is a major part of the problem, but we should proceed with caution as we try and fix it. This resolution certainly doesnt help solve the problem, but hopefully will allow us to have a productive discussion on healthcare, he said in an emailed statement.

Trump carried Rigglemans 5th District seat;by 11 points in 2016. Riggleman defeated Democrat Leslie Cockburn by 7 points last fall in a race that got some national attention. Democrats are not targeting him in 2020. Inside Elections rates his race Solid Republican.

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Vulnerable Gop Senators Vote To Protect Affordable Care Act From Trump Lawsuit

Six Republican senators, five of whom are up for re-election in 2020, sided with Democrats on Thursday in a procedural vote to block the Trump administration from supporting a lawsuit that would dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Why it matters: The final vote on the motion was 51-43, failing to reach the necessary 60-vote threshold to pass. But the move by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer forced several vulnerable GOP senators to go on the record on whether they support the lawsuit, which could strip protections from pre-existing conditions for millions of Americans.

The state of play: Sens. Susan Collins , Joni Ernst , Cory Gardner , Martha McSally and Dan Sullivan all voted with Democrats and are facing close re-election fights. Sen. Lisa Murkowski also voted in favor.

Sens. Steve Daines , Thom Tillis and David Perdue are facing tough re-election races, but voted against the motion.

Flashback: All six GOP senators who supported Thursday’s bill voted for the 2017 tax bill that set the latest Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act in motion.

Of note: Four of the Republicans to break rank were women nearly half of the nine female GOP senators in Congress.

While Murkowski is not up for re-election until 2022, she opposed President Trump on quickly confirming a Supreme Court judge to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and has publicly opposed the Trump administration on several occasions.

House Republicans Vote To Sue Obama

Republicans in Washington insist they aren’t planning to impeach President Obama any time soonbut did just get one step closer to suing him.

The vote was 225-201, with every Democrat voting against the lawsuit as well as five conservative Republicans who felt the suit didn’t go far enough and preferred impeachment.

The partisan battle andand the talking pointsover the lawsuit was on full display during the debate on the House floor before the vote. Democrats variously called the lawsuit a “political stunt,” a “gimmick,” and a “sorry spectacle of legislative malpractice” intended to appease the conservative base of the Republican Party before the midterm elections in November.

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Who Voted For Affordable Care Act

Question: Who voted for Affordable Care Act?

Obamacare Repeal Fails: Three Gop Senators Rebel In 49

WASHINGTON Obamacare stays. For now.

Senate Republicans failed to pass a pared-down Obamacare repeal bill early Friday on a vote of 49-51 that saw three of their own dramatically break ranks.

Three Republican senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and all Democrats voted against the bill, dealing a stinging defeat to Republicans and President Donald Trump who made repeal of Obamacare a cornerstone their campaigns.

The late-night debate capped the GOP’s months-long effort to fulfill a seven-year promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!

Donald J. Trump

The Senate has tried to pass multiple versions of repeal: repeal and replace, a straight repeal and Friday’s bare-bones repeal, but none garnered the support of 50 Republicans.

An emotional Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said after the 1:40 a.m. vote went down that Republicans remained committed to repealing the Obama-era health law.

Read Also: How Many Senate Seats Republicans Picked Up

Changes Required By The Affordable Care Act In 2011

Young adults can stay on their parents insurance until age 26, even if they are not full-time students. This extension applies to all new plans.

All new health insurance policies must cover preventive care and pay a portion of all preventive care visits.

A provision goes into effect that eliminates lifetime limits on coverage for members.

Annual limits or maximum payouts by a health insurance company are now restricted by the ACA.

The ACA prohibits rescission when a claim is filed, except in the case of fraud or misrepresentation by the consumer.

Insurance companies must now provide a process for customers to make an appeal if there is a problem with their coverage. ;

NOTE: In January,;2011:;eHealth publishes 11 guides on the top;child-only health insurance coverage;that examined differences in implementation in numerous states.

A Final Vote Isn’t The Whole Story It’s Like Researching Your Ancestry And Going No Further Back Than Your Mother And Father

The day after she was one of three;Republican;senators to vote against;her party’s proposal to repeal chunks of the Affordable Care Act, Susan Collins of Maine posted a press release that said:;”Democrats made a big mistake when they passed the ACA without a single Republican vote. I don’t want to see Republicans make the same mistake.”

It was a nice nod in the direction of bipartisanship. But it also perpetuates a deceptive narrative, repeated often by Republicans,;that they were completely excluded from the process that resulted in Obamacare. While it is true that no Republican voted for the final bill, it is blatantly untrue that it contains no GOP;DNA. In fact, to make such an assertion is like researching your ancestry and going no further back than your mother and father.;

Not only were Republican senators deeply involved in the process up until its conclusion, but it’s a cinch that the ACA;might have become law months earlier if;the Democrats, hoping for a bipartisan bill, hadn’t spent enormous time and effort wooing GOP senators only to find themselves gulled by false promises of cooperation. And unlike Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s semi-secret proceedings that involved only a handful of trusted colleagues, Obamacare, until the very end of the process, was open to public scrutiny.

More:Spare America a do-over on health care. Seize the bipartisan moment.

POLICING THE USA: A look at;race, justice, media

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Requirements For Health Plans And Insurers

See also: Health insurance policy cancellations since Obamacare

Coverage

The Affordable Care Act prohibited individual market insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. This policy is known as guaranteed issue. Guaranteed issue regulations had already existed for insurers selling employer-sponsored health plans, and the ACA extended this rule to the individual market as well.

The law also required insurers to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26. Insurers were also required to allow people in the individual market to renew their health plans each year unless they did not pay their premiums.

Benefits

The ACA required individual and small group health plans that were offered both on and off the exchanges to cover services that fall into 10 broad benefits categories, called essential health benefits:

Ambulatory patient services

Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices

Prescription drugs

Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment

Laboratory services

Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management

Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

Premiums

The ACA placed restrictions on the way individual and small group insurers set a plan’s premiumThe amount a consumer is required to pay for a health insurance plan. Premiums are usually paid monthly, quarterly or annually.:

Medical loss ratio

Stabilization programs

Some Vulnerable Republicans Side With Democrats In Schumer’s Show Vote To Protect Obamacare

Here Are The Republicans Who Voted AGAINST Certifying Electoral College Votes

A half-dozen Republican senators voted with their colleagues from across the aisle in an attempt by Democrats to block the Justice Department’s legal efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act amid a pandemic.

The case will soon be heard by the Supreme Court.

Despite the bipartisan support and a 51-43 vote, the motion failed. Sixty votes were required to pass the measure offered by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The six GOP senators who voted for the legislation were some of the upper chamber’s most moderateand vulnerablemembers: Susan Collins , Joni Ernst , Cory Gardner , Martha McSally , Lisa Murkowski , Dan Sullivan . Murkowski is the only one not up for re-election.

Schumer forced the vote to compel endangered Republicans to go on the record about the GOP-backed effort to dismantle the Obama-era health care law. He decried their support as hypocritical based on their previous opposition.

“We knew that some of them would squirm, but when you flip your vote a few weeks before the election, the American people see right through it,” the New York Democrat told reporters. “These senators are worse off today, no matter how they voted, because they flip-flopped.”

Schumer explained that the six had supported previous efforts to end Obamacare.

Other GOP senators who are considered at-risk, including John Cornyn , Steve Daines , Lindsey Graham , Mike Lee , Kelly Loeffler , David Perdue and Thom Tillis , voted with their party and against the measure.

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edisonashley · 4 years

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Olumide Akpata Understands the Need of the Bar and is Keen on Transforming the Association— E. O. Nwafor Esq.

Olumide Akpata is endowed to deliver a 21st Century NBA with some contemporary innovations that are capable of carrying all the young lawyers along and also capable of earning every lawyer the respect and dignity they deserve. With Olumide Akpata as the NBA President, we will have a tremendous turnaround in NBA and the anticipated future of every young lawyer who are serious and know what they want as a lawyer will be actualized. The respect and dignity of NBA will be restored.

I am privileged to have met with the game changer Olumide Akpata and in the course of our conversation, it was easy to tell that Olumide Akpata understands the needs of the Bar and is keen on transforming our Association. Our meeting transformed me and I started believing in myself more than I did before then.

Olumide Akpaka has what it takes to help lawyers earn more and to ensure that principals pay junior lawyers better. As Olumide Akpata once said, if you can not handsomely pay the young lawyer under your watch maybe because his services to you are not enough then don’t employ him (because some people hide under this guise and overlook their responsibility).

With Olumide Akpata as the NBA President he will be in charge without fear or favour. He will set a regulation that will favour any young lawyer practicing in any chamber/Firm and as well challenge every young lawyer to sit up to the responsibilities required of them to be able to earn the respect and consideration from their principals.

With Olumide Akpata every lawyer will be accorded the respect that they deserve. With Olumide Akpata, the reference to some lawyers as charge and bail lawyer will change because of his well set out 4 way approach to solving the issues of the Bar and its members.

My people, we have a great fortune in Olumide Akpata! A man with the burning desire to implement positive changes in all aspects of our legal practice. Olumide Akpata has a burning desire to effect great change in Nigerian legal system for it to compete with the standards of our contemporaries.

Why are we still contemplating about our support for his candidacy for NBA President? Olumide Akpaka is Godsent to NBA. When God sends people like him for an assignment, he equips them with all the necessary doggedness. We should all support him and witness the positive changes within the next two years.

Akpata is coming to work as he has taken permission from his firm to work for the NBA. He is not coming to get his share of the proverbial “National Cake” but he is coming to serve the NBA.

God bless you richly, as you vote Olumide Akpata for the betterment of NBA.

E. O. Nwafor Esq.

(Young lawyer from Enugu Branch)

The post Olumide Akpata Understands the Need of the Bar and is Keen on Transforming the Association— E. O. Nwafor Esq. appeared first on Lawyard.

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shervonfakhimi · 5 years

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The Razorback Renaissance Plus Observations From Auburn-Arkansas

To say the basketball program here in Fayetteville, Arkansas is an afterthought would be a stretch, but that also isn’t to say that basketball reigns supreme. If the launch of the XFL and it’s 3.3 million viewers is any indication, the nation-wide addiction of football has long matriculated in the state as its primary focus, along with the perennial powerhouse baseball, but it is about time to start to the basketball team. And fans are beginning to take notice.

I went to the Razorbacks hoops game against the 11th ranked Auburn Tigers (more on this in a second), and the buzz of Bud Walton Arena was electric. And rightfully so. This 2019-20 team is the most fun Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team I can remember watching. The team is not filled with many guys capable of creating their own shot from all three levels of the court (Mason Jones is really the only one), yet coach Eric Musselman has still managed to get big-time performances in big spots from Jones, fellow potential NBA draft pick Isaiah Joe and go-to glue-guy, to the extent that type of player exists, Jimmy Whitt Jr. Musselman plays to the strengths of his players; Joe has shot 212 3s before injuring his knee, while Jimmy Whitt, a midrange assassin and Shaun Livingston doppelganger in terms of style of play, has only shot one. Offense can be hard to come by with only one player shooting above 35% from 3 (that being big man Adrio Bailey, shooting 40% on only 20 3s on the season), but Musselman is not afraid to get creative to help kickstart the offense. When they can, they push it at will in transition. He’s trot out lineups with two big men on the floor together; Muss will play lineups with no big men at all. That’s important their defense has not suffered under just about any circumstance or lineup Muss decides to play. According to kenpom.com, Arkansas’ defense ranks 13th in the country in defensive efficiency. Jimmy Whitt is the linchpin that holds these lineups. Whether he’s guarding a guard on the perimeter or jostling with a big man to deny post position, his competitiveness on the defensive end matriculates across the team. They dig for steals, they rotate and recover, switch when necessary, and take charges (for what it is worth, they rank 21st in the country in steals per game). This is not only great to see for this year’s team, but for the future as well.

This year is a bit of a transition year for the Hogs. This is the first year of Musselman at the helm after taking over for Mike Anderson. Not only is he implementing a new modern style of play for the state of basketball today, but he’s also instilling a culture for the players of tomorrow. This is especially important because one of the best Razorback recruiting classes of all-time is coming into the fold next season. Montverde Academy star and Little Rock native Moses Moody (part of what some say is one of the best high school teams ever) is the headliner, alongside fellow Arkansas natives KK Robinson, Davonte Davis and Jaylin Williams. Musselman has gotten the most of a team without a lot of premier talent; all four of these players are in ESPN’s Top 100. On top of that, transfers Connor Vanover (California) and JD Notae (Stetson) will all be eligible as well, and there’s a non-zero chance both Mason Jones and Isaiah Joe forego the NBA to make a run next season. Guard Desi Sills will probably be back as well. Next season is the first one Musselman can really mold into his own image and will have plenty of talent and versatile players to do so with.

This year’s Hogs team is a very good team. They don’t have a loss by double digits and multiple losses in overtime. They’ve won big games on the road over Indiana and Alabama, a couple of tournament-caliber teams. That isn’t to say they’re a perfect team; offense can be a struggle and they seemingly have to make a choice between speed on the perimeter to push it in transition or size for rebounding purposes. But they’re an NCAA tournament-caliber team and have routinely pushed or beaten similar teams this season; they had a lead late vs Auburn but blew it, they led Kentucky with seven minutes to go, they lost by two on the road against LSU, they beat Indiana (part of a loaded Big 10) on the road, they held potential lottery pick, Kira Lewis Jr., in Tuscaloosa, Arkansas spanked a solid Tulsa team at home. They recently slipped up in Missouri and don’t have much wiggle room for losses like that in the future, but also have games against Florida and LSU upcoming, games they can certainly win.

Before the season started, as I was heading back to my car after class, I bumped into Mason Jones. I tried to play it cool and let him be, but after asking him what floor to press in the elevator we were entering, I couldn’t help myself and tell him that I was excited for the season and the arrival of Coach Musselman. I distinctly remember him telling me ‘You’re gonna love Coach Muss!’ I wished him and the team (and his brother) good luck on the season once we arrived to our destination and went on from there to go to three games so far this season and catch the games when I could and record them to watch later when I couldn’t. Watching them this season, Arkansas has proven they can play with anybody and are not scared of anybody, partly why this season has been fun for me. But next season can be even better and foreshadow a very bright future for years to come. Something special is brewing here. It’s time to start paying attention.

Takeaways from Auburn-Arkansas

Isaac Okoro Is a Pro

Mason Jones was the best player on the floor last Tuesday after he dropped 40 points, but Auburn’s Isaac Okoro was very impressive in his own right. He’s projected to be a lottery pick by many, and after watching him live, you very much could see why. No one scored on him. I’m actually serious; I don’t think anybody scored on him. He’s strong, quick and tenacious defensively, unwilling to concede an inch. I’m not sure why Bruce Pearl did not have Okoro guard Jones all game long, but when he did, he shut him down. He was fantastic all game, both on the ball and off the ball defensively. He’s not the best shooter percentage-wise but hit two of four from deep to add to his 14 point night. OG Anunoby of the Toronto Raptors may be a good comp for Okoro. There is a lot to work with here. If he adds a consistent jump shot to his game he’s going to return on the investment of a team that drafts him in the first round.

Mason Jones Is Too

Jones struggled when guarded by Okoro, but not when anybody else was on him. He put 40 points on Auburn’s head, scoring from everywhere on the floor. He’s got a mean step-back to his game. He’s a violent, physical driver willing to absorb contact (he shot 16 free throws in this game). Arkansas lets him go iso a bit (because they don’t have a lot of other options) and he’s proven time and time again he can create his own shot (this was his fifth 30 point game this season) and be fairly efficient (he has a 51.4% effective field goal percentage this season). But that doesn’t mean he isn’t unselfish either. With a condensed floor, he is often forced to give the ball up and is not afraid to do so. He’s adept at moving without the ball as well, often finding open spots along the three-point line to help himself get better looks. It’s time he gets more attention from NBA draft folks because he often carries this team when they don’t have much working as he did against Auburn.

Auburn’s Guards Have Cojones

Samir Doughty and J’Von McCormick, man. These dudes got some stones to them. Any time Arkansas would begin to separate, one of these two would hit a big shot to keep it fairly close. McCormick hit a huge three in the last 2 minutes of regulation to get Auburn its first lead in a very long time. Both hit big free throws in overtime to clinch the game (especially more important when you consider Mason Jones missed a free throw late in regulation that could’ve won Arkansas the game rather than go to overtime). McCormick followed that up by hitting another game-winner against LSU on Saturday. Auburn is not a perfect team, but these guards are the types of guards who can help propel a big run in the tournament. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to face them.

Solutions for Arkansas Spacing

With Isaiah Joe sidelined for the foreseeable future, Arkansas needs to find ways to navigate through their spacing woes. That isn’t to say they didn’t have these issues when he was playing as well, but they were easier to navigate because of the type of shooter Joe is and how well and far he can shoot it from. His presence alone creates so much attention for the defense to free up some holes for Arkansas’ guards whose strength does not come from their jump shot. On Saturday against the Missouri Tigers, these issues couldn’t be more apparent as Mason Jones struggled and they dropped another game in overtime. Jones only went 3-14 from the field and the Hogs as a whole shot 3-14 from three. Perhaps a solution could be to run more pick and rolls with guards to try to force a smaller guard to be mismatched against Jones? Maybe Adrio Bailey should be camped in the corner and hope his limited sample size of being a 40% shooter from three is legit? Maybe someone buried on the bench is known as a shooter and should get more run? I’m not sure, but something needs to change to help the offense. Two weeks ago, Arkansas was an 8 seed in ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s bracketology. They’re now a 10 seed after this slip-up against Missouri. They need to figure something out soon or they’re going to play themselves on the other side of the dreaded bubble.

That’s it for this. If anyone wants to catch a game, I’ll be going to the LSU game in Bud Walton on March 4th. I’ll see you all then. Thanks for reading. Go Hogs!

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phroyd · 7 years

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Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say.

The Environmental Protection Agency has become more secretive under the leadership of Scott Pruitt.Credit - Tom Brenner/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — When career employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are summoned to a meeting with the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, at agency headquarters, they no longer can count on easy access to the floor where his office is, according to interviews with employees of the federal agency.

Doors to the floor are now frequently locked, and employees have to have an escort to gain entrance.

Some employees say they are also told to leave behind their cellphones when they meet with Mr. Pruitt, and are sometimes told not to take notes.

Mr. Pruitt, according to the employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs, often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security.

A former Oklahoma attorney general who built his career suing the E.P.A., and whose LinkedIn profile still describes him as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” Mr. Pruitt has made it clear that he sees his mission to be dismantling the agency’s policies — and even portions of the institution itself.

But as he works to roll back regulations, close offices and eliminate staff at the agency charged with protecting the nation’s environment and public health, Mr. Pruitt is taking extraordinary measures to conceal his actions, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former agency employees.

Together with a small group of political appointees, many with backgrounds, like his, in Oklahoma politics, and with advice from industry lobbyists, Mr. Pruitt has taken aim at an agency whose policies have been developed and enforced by thousands of the E.P.A.’s career scientists and policy experts, many of whom work in the same building.

“There’s a feeling of paranoia in the agency — employees feel like there’s been a hostile takeover and the guy in charge is treating them like enemies,” said Christopher Sellers, an expert in environmental history at Stony Brook University, who this spring conducted aninterview survey with about 40 E.P.A. employees.

Such tensions are not unusual in federal agencies when an election leads to a change in the party in control of the White House. But they seem particularly bitter at the E.P.A.

Allies of Mr. Pruitt say he is justified in his measures to ramp up his secrecy and physical protection, given that his agenda and politics clash so fiercely with those of so many of the 15,000 employees at the agency he heads.

“E.P.A. is legendary for being stocked with leftists,” said Steven J. Milloy, a member of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. transition team and author of the book “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the E.P.A.” “If you work in a hostile environment, you’re not the one that’s paranoid.”

Mr. Pruitt’s penchant for secrecy is reflected not just in his inaccessibility and concern for security. He has terminated a decades-long practice of publicly posting his appointments calendar and that of all the top agency aides, and he has evaded oversight questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to the Democratic senators who posed the questions.

His aides recently asked career employees to make major changes in a rule regulating water quality in the United States — without any records of the changes they were being ordered to make. And the E.P.A. under Mr. Pruitt has moved to curb certain public information, shutting down data collection of emissions from oil and gas companies, and taking down more than 1,900 agency webpages on topics like climate change, according to a tally by the Environmental Defense Fund, which did a Freedom of Information request on these terminated pages.

William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as E.P.A. director under two Republican presidents and once wrote a memo directing agency employees to operate “in a fishbowl,” said such secrecy is antithetical to the mission of the agency.

“Reforming the regulatory system would be a good thing if there were an honest, open process,” he said. “But it appears that what is happening now is taking a meat ax to the protections of public health and environment and then hiding it.”

Mr. Ruckelshaus said such secrecy could pave the way toward, or exacerbate, another disaster like the contamination of public drinking water in Flint, Mich., or the 2014 chemical spill into the public water supply in Charleston, W.Va. — while leading to a dearth of information when such events happen.

“Something will happen, like Flint, and the public will realize they can’t get any information about what happened or why,” he said.

But Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., categorically denied the accounts employees interviewed for this article gave of the secrecy surrounding Mr. Pruitt.

“None of this is true,” she said. “It’s all rumors.”

She added, in an emailed statement, “It’s very disappointing, yet not surprising, to learn that you would solicit leaks, and collude with union officials in an effort to distract from the work we are doing to implement the president’s agenda.”

Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to undo a major water protection rule are one example of his moves to quickly and stealthily dismantle regulations.

The rule, known as Waters of the United States, and enacted by the Obama administration, was designed to take existing federal protections on large water bodies such as the Chesapeake Bay and Mississippi River and expand them to include the wetlands and small tributaries that flow into those larger waters.

It was fiercely opposed by farmers, rural landowners and real estate developers.

The original estimate concluded that the water protections would indeed come at an economic cost to those groups — between $236 million and $465 million annually.

But it also concluded, in an 87-page analysis, that the economic benefits of preventing water pollution would be greater: between $555 million and $572 million.

E.P.A. employees say that in mid-June, as Mr. Pruitt prepared a proposal to reverse the rule, they were told by his deputies to produce a new analysis of the rule — one that stripped away the half-billion-dollar economic benefits associated with protecting wetlands.

“On June 13, my economists were verbally told to produce a new study that changed the wetlands benefit,” said Elizabeth Southerland, who retired last month from a 30-year career at the E.P.A., most recently as a senior official in the agency’s water office.

“On June 16, they did what they were told,” Ms. Southerland said. “They produced a new cost-benefit analysis that showed no quantifiable benefit to preserving wetlands.”

Ms. Southerland and other experts in federal rule-making said such a sudden shift was highly unusual — particularly since studies that estimate the economic impact of regulations can take months or even years to produce, and are often accompanied by reams of paperwork documenting the process.

“Typically there are huge written records, weighing in on the scientific facts, the technology facts and the economic facts,” she said. “Everything’s in writing. This repeal process is political staff giving verbal directions to get the outcome they want, essentially overnight.”

Jeffrey Ruchs, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an organization representing government employees in environmental fields, said the E.P.A. could not allow changes like this to take place, or expect its employees to follow such directives.

“This is a huge change, and they made it over a few days, with almost no record, no documentation,” Mr. Ruchs said, adding, “It wasn’t so much cooking the books, it was throwing out the books.”

Experts in administrative law say such practices skate up to the edge of legality.

While federal records laws prohibit senior officials from destroying records, they could evade public scrutiny of their decision-making by simply not creating them in the first place.

“The mere fact they are telling people not to write things down shows they are trying to keep things hidden,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, a professor of administrative law at American University.

Mr. Pruitt had a reputation for being secretive before he ever came to the E.P.A.

While serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general, he came under criticism for maintaining at least three separate email accounts, including one private account that he at times used for state government business.

During his Senate confirmation, he was asked about these multiple accounts, providing what some senators considered a misleading answer.

A subsequent lawsuit resulted in the release of some of these other emails, which Mr. Pruitt had asserted did not exist.

“He’s got a serious problem because of his emails down in Oklahoma — he’s burned himself,” said David Schnare, who worked at the agency from 1978 to 2011 and then on the Trump administration’s E.P.A. transition team. “He doesn’t want to take any risks.”

Mr. Schnare, a conservative Republican who has backed President Trump’s broader agenda, had taken on what was expected to be a more permanent role at the E.P.A.

But he resigned last month in protest of what he said is Mr. Pruitt’s mismanagement of the agency.

Mr. Schnare noted that some previous E.P.A. administrators had been secretive — during the Obama administration, for example, Lisa Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, came under criticism for using an email alias, “Richard Windsor,” to conduct official business.

But Mr. Schnare said that Mr. Pruitt’s methods stood out from all of his predecessors.

“My view was that under this administration we would be good at transparency, particularly in the regulatory area,” he said. “But these guys aren’t doing that.”

Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the committee overseeing federal government operations, has criticized Mr. Pruitt for embracing what he calls “a culture of secrecy around everything from his schedule to the way the agency makes scientific determinations.”

Mr. Carper and other Senate Democrats have a dozen outstanding requests awaiting a response from Mr. Pruitt, and when responses do come, Mr. Carper said, they referred lawmakers to printouts of news releases instead of answering questions.

An E.P.A. spokesman disputed Mr. Carper’s criticisms.

“Administrator Pruitt has responded to 14 of the 27 oversight letters, which often contain numerous in-depth questions and it takes time to provide an extensive and through response,” he said, adding that he “has been incredibly responsive to Congress.”

Mr. Pruitt and his staff are also subject to intense scrutiny from the public and the news media: The E.P.A., just in the last two months, has received more than 2,000 Freedom of Information requests, many of them focused on Mr. Pruitt, asking for every possible record related to his tenure, including text messages, telephone records and even his web browsing history.

Yet for E.P.A. employees, information about Mr. Pruitt’s activities can be hard to obtain.

In April, for example, he traveled to Chicago to visit an E.P.A.-designated hazardous waste site.

But E.P.A. employees at the agency’s Chicago office said they had no idea he was there — nor did he visit the Chicago branch of the agency, or meet with staff members.

“He won’t meet with us or talk to us to make decisions about policy, and we don’t even know when he’s in town,” said Nicole Cantello, a lawyer in the E.P.A.’s Chicago office and a leader of the employee union.

[Source]

Phroyd

#epa #secrecy #pruitt

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dzamie · 7 years

Text

Fuckton of OC questions: Dzamie

Questions from @liaraliara‘s post here. Doing these for Dzamie, will do more for other characters eventually, whether y’all want me to or not.

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? Dzamie Deshulian. Dzamie is one of my common pseudonyms (linguistics joke I stole from a family member), and Deshulian... in-universe, he chose that name from a Chinese word for “skill” and the French "de.” It is almost certainly pronounced wrong, but it’s his name now.

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them? Holy fuck does he have titles. Well, descriptors mostly, though he does carry the moniker of Blue Bandit from his attempts at being a phantom thief, Lord of the Yellow Hive from Equestria shenanigans, and some places call him the Reaper due to his high body count nearby (he decided to get a scythe when he heard that, though he didn’t practice using it much for a long time). Title-wise, he’s described himself as a spellsword, archmage, weaponsmaster, assassin, illusionist, and complete fucking nerd. He self-describably “moonlights as a Lesser Spirit of Chaos.”

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? Oh man his childhood is tragic as fuck. Birthplace village burned down, his parents presumably killed or captured, and essentially left with his half-brother (HM) to fend for themselves. Managed to find their way to a really helpful... institution, for lack of a better word. Except it’s a place dedicated to teaching people how to kill dragons. HM happens to be a dragon. Dzamie went anyway, and HM sort of let dragon instincts help him survive, with help from Dzamie. Dzamie was at some point convinced to inflict an ambiguously-large amount of torture on a bunch of dragons, at first because... well, dragonslayer school at the time was fucked up, and later because science. And then people kept trying to kill him, but that’s just... that just keeps happening; it’s not a childhood thing.

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents? No strong memories. His father died in the fire or shortly after, and his mother is in hiding to keep herself alive definitely dead. No need to look for her.

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults? H.M. Deshulian is his half-brother (genetics are weird when dragons are involved). They’ve always had a pretty good relationship, though strangely tempered with a mutual feeling of “I don’t want it to happen for a really, really long time, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be the direct cause of my death.” Dzamie is HM’s favorite food, and HM is the reason Dzamie decided to increase his acid resistance to a ridiculous level.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate? Dzamie was wonderful at the technical stuff, but completely refused the “dragons are evil”-type rhetoric, so he just barely got by, eventually graduating bottom of his class (though the dragonslaying done as the graduation test was definitely the most efficient and least risky of the lot). He’s taken a few college courses here and there, but all after timelines start getting weird around him, so it’s hard to tell when or how many. He enjoys applied math

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood? He was completely study-driven, with HM being his only friend - though, it didn’t help that most kids he could’ve been friends with would’ve wanted to kill HM on sight. Interestingly, Kenny was in his year, though they never really liked each other much.

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals? Well, he has HM No pets to speak of. Closest there is is Smugleaf, a Serperior who occasionally lets him have her Pokeball and direct her in combat. He loves birdwatching, snakes, and a bunch of other animals.

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals? Animals are generally somewhat neutral towards him, though he can regularly get pretty close to wild animals without them caring.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect? No (but he does well with them anyway), yes, no, neglectful, not too bad (just because it’s not much interaction. Facades are tough to keep up over long times)

11. Do they have any special diet requirements? Are they a vegetarian? Vegan? Have any allergies? Will starve without meat. His species generally views bread as a mild poison, but Dzamie being Dzamie, he no longer has to care.

12. What is their favourite food? Brownies, the chocolate-ier the better.

13. What is their least favourite food? Sourdough bread.

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal? Nothing in particular. He remembers being food a lot, especially for HM, but that’s not really the same.

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking? He’s amazing at cooking, especially at arguably-taboo meals (though he won’t make anything he wouldn’t eat). He has a lot of fun with it, because he “gets to play with knives and fire, and out comes delicious food.” He’s quite the showman while cooking, which can be hit-or-miss, but most people like his cooking, assuming they like the dish he makes (i.e. he obviously can’t make a PB&J that someone who’s allergic to peanuts would like).

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it? He hoards knowledge, gold, and some shiny jewels, which he blames on growing up with HM. Additionally, he keeps trophies - the left horn of each dragon he slays, and the sword of any dragonslayer he bests in combat (not usually kills, just leaves weaponless for a while. It’s a slayer thing).

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos? Nope! He likes to be on camera, but photos aren’t really his thing.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else Books: Fiction with interesting worldbuilding stuff. He tends to visit those places. Music: Anything with a good rhythm and tempo, since he often fights in time to whatever’s playing in his head. Electro-stuff is good. TV shows: No preference, really. He doesn’t watch much. Films: Same as books, though he tends to riff on the films he watches. Video games: Platformers with tight controls.

19. What’s their least favourite genres? Most things to do with rural stuff, come to think of it.

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes? He likes the idea of musicals, rarely the implementation. Music is very important to him, especially as he can mimic male voices, and move precisely to rhythms.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper? He kind of does. He’s pretty patient, and tends to do the silent-rage sort of thing when upset enough. Though, it’s a little bit of a tell that his magic spikes and its color turns from green (pride) to red (anger).

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back? He’s definitely the kind of person who’ll insult someone to their face, either backhanded or up-front. Either directly pointing out flaws (”Let’s get this straight, you thought coming at both me and HM unarmed was a good idea? Did you maybe think the price on his head is that big for a reason?”) or just calling them names that probably don’t make sense if not for inflection (”You absolute salmon.”). Mostly for suicidal lack of common sense.

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces? He has good auditory and muscle memory, but can’t remember faces, and names are tough. He knows a lot of trivia, and has memorized a bunch of really useful dragonslaying regulations, but it can be kind of random what he remembers.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress? He sleeps whenever. Nobody’s known when or where he’s ever slept for almost two years now, save for a few times people could make guesses from him somehow waking up in a pile of dragons.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves? It’s really hard to predict, except for puns. He loves puns. He makes a lot of them, too.

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions? If it’s necessary to keep up a Facade, he hides his emotions well. If not, he smiles, sings and hums, and sometimes fiddles with knives.

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad? Not much, actually. He hasn’t cried in years, and nobody’s really known if he’s sad - even him.

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared? HM deciding he’d rather not have him around. HM with a large tactical advantage over him. Manic grin, blatant rules abuse.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? Depends on if he likes them or not. If he does, he usually doesn’t bring it up, and warns them if something he’s about to do is gonna be really scary (though he usually does it anyway after telling them how to avoid experiencing it). If he doesn’t like them, he’ll try to abuse that fear as much as he can without letting on that it’s him doing it.

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out? “Does playing with people trying to kill me count? Because if not, all I’ve got is sparring with Kenneth and HM, and occasionally going for really long walks.

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing? Nope, but he can act it really well!

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like? He has three modes of dress: comfortable and casual, ridiculously-accurate cosplay, and naked. To sleep, generally just a comfortable pair of PJ bottoms and a t-shirt. Dzamie doesn’t usually wear makeup, but does an excellent job of dying his fur to pass for a tiger or leopard when he needs to have a non-magical disguise.

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties? Boxer-briefs, if he’s wearing anything.

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body? Lean, somewhat muscular (but it doesn’t show through his fur at all). He’s roughly 6 feet tall, and makes sure he’s very comfortable with whatever form he’s in - he’s very physically expressive, and also does a lot of things that require knowing exactly where every part of him is.

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure? His guilty pleasure is probably making up identities to pretend to be online. His totally unguilty pleasures are a good swordfight, casual pickpocketing (though he generally returns the stuff he swipes), and being eaten, usually by HM, Smugleaf, or Sylvia.

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing? Dzamie’s good at... a lot of stuff, actually. He’s kind of a Mary-Sue. Most of my OCs for the Combined Setting are poorly-written, really, so I don’t write stories with them. He likes playing videogames, making his hoard look nice, and bothering talking with HM. And yes, he’s an amazing singer, pitch-perfect and flawless rhythm. Has trouble with female-sung songs, since he can’t just mimic those.

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction? Fast-ish reader, prefers fiction (fanfiction especially). Dzamie enjoys poetry and abhors free verse.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had? Fuck if I know. He wishes he could learn a telekinesis spell (he’s fundamentally blocked from doing so, ever), but this fosters resentment, not admiration.

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging? Definitely emails.

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert? “Awake and alert” is his default state, but he’s not known to turn down sugary snacks.

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship? Self-described as “complicated, or alternatively ‘straight plus also into women’” (he has a variety of transformation spells, and form affects mind). Physically, he likes... scales, tails, and forked tongues. Mentally is a bit tougher, but usually stable and steady enough to not go off the deep-end when he, HM, Dream, and/or Kenny inevitably do something... sanity-testing.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition? Dzamie doesn’t have any goals in particular. He’d sacrifice anything but his or HM’s life for, well, his or HM’s life. No secret ambitions, really.

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people? He’s not very religious, though if he had to choose he’d say he “observes” Eris (the chaos noodle, not the Greek deity), and he does tend to celebrate major Jewish holidays (Yom Kippur isn’t really “celebrated,” but you get the gist) and Christmas out of tradition. Nobody really knows where this tradition came from. He generally doesn’t really care about people’s religiosity or whatever, so long as they’re not bonkers enough to try to, say, ritually sacrifice him or someone he cares about, or to try to stop his kobolds’ “cult” at the source by killing Azurel (him as a dragon).

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most? Definitely autumn, and heavy cloud cover (but not quite overcast). He’s pretty good in the cold (fire spells just in case) but complains about high temperatures, blaming his fur coat for his crabbiness.

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves? They generally think Dzamie’s a bit to the side of normal and sane, but almost disturbingly effective. Those who aren’t used to him find him a bit unstable, but HM, Dream, and Kenneth figure he’s surprisingly predictable - just not in ways most people are. He, on the other hand... actually, he’d agree with all of that.

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves? He doesn’t usually have the opportunity to make a good impression; most new people Dzamie meets are met amidst chaos. “Introductions” tend to range from “Hey, I don’t suppose you’ve seen, like, six kobolds run through here?” to “Hi. I’m Dzamie Deshulian, but you can call me your worst nightmare.” to “Don’t worry! This spell should last for at least ten seconds, so you should run that way before it stops working! Name’s Dzamie, by the way.” to “Good evening. I suppose I should mention a bit of a hole in your security system. It’s about Blue Bandit-sized, which is going to be a problem about two minutes ago.” to “Hi. Dzamie Deshulian. I noticed you guys used to have a dragon problem with a nifty reward. Note the past tense. Here’s her horn.”

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event? Generally hates them. Plays well, but generally expects a pretty big payoff (assassination target, scoping out a Blue Bandit target, some really good food, etc.) if he’s going to pretend he’s actually enjoying his time there.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend? He vaguely enjoys get-togethers, but often stays away from group conversations, content to just watch people do people things. If it’s a party where a lot of the guests are dragons, he can usually expect to wake up in a pile of dragons. He has no idea how this keeps happening.

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them? Tough call between his twin katanas, his Dragonslayer blade, and the mana-crystal necklace he wears pretty much all the time. The katanas are actually everywhere he goes as well, but they usually don’t actually exist until they need to.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials? His spellbook and a bunch of knives. Everything else can be summoned, created, traded for, stolen, or... harvested, if they’re not the necklace (always on him) or his twin swords (also always on him).

#text #ocs #dzamie #tag

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creativecollabcharlotte · 5 years

Text

Week 1- Session

Carbon Neutral Copenhagen

youtube

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

Key points from video

- Plan to be 1st city to be carbon neutral by 2025.

- Reduced CO2 input by 40% since 2005 as a result of less use of coal as a energy source.

- Increased efficiency of old buildings by using new technology.

- 360km of cycle lanes taking up 25% of travel.

- By 2030 diesel and petrol to be eliminated in the use of electric vehicles

- By 2025 aim to have 100% renewable energy sources.

- By 2025 to build 360 wind turbines for renewable energy.

HOME’s Carbon neutral Policies

What is HOME doing that other companies aren’t?

Staff

All staff go through Carbon Literacy training, advocating climate change awareness and implementing actions to reduce the environmental impact of their working practices, operations, programming and activities.

HOME are one of only three organisations worldwide to be recognised with Platinum Carbon Literate Organisation status.

Through their Carbon Literacy training they are fostering, connecting and amplifying HOME’s mission with their cultural, local and global community, sharing knowledge, influencing others, and inspiring action in their commitment to collective responsibility, accountability and action.

Sustainability

Quoted from their Environmental and Sustainability Action Plan 2018-2022

HOME is committed to best sustainable policy and practice. The following document outlines our KPIs in line with the 2018-2022 Arts Council England Strategic Business Plan.

Working hard to reduce our environmental impacts, we continually monitor and report on our activities in order to better understand and improve our performance.

Through training and knowledge-sharing we enable our staff to become sustainability champions, supporting and inspiring our communities, audiences, partners and stakeholders through action and engagement.

As ambassadors for change we actively support Manchester’s Zero Carbon strategies, and as cultural leaders we advance the growth of our sector through innovative low-carbon initiatives and endeavours. With sustainability fully embedded into the heart of our organisation, its operations and programming, our efforts today strengthen a creative green future for tomorrow.

Sustainable Procurement

They support local business by using North West producers supplying dairy, fruit and vegetables, meat, sustainably-sourced fish, ales and snacks. The majority of their food is prepared from scratch on site, and they have a great selection of plant-based and meat-free options on the menu.

All in-house catering waste is composted, recycled or converted into Waste-to-Energy biofuel. They are also trying to eliminate single-use plastic by 2020. They want to change habits as well as mindsets, that’s why you’ll find reusable cups for use in our theatres and cinemas.

(but yet they use membership cards that are made out of single use plastic that isn’t recyclable?)

Through collaboration with Green Business Growth they have developed a sustainable procurement survey and regularly review their suppliers, creating a sustainable tendering process for operational activities.

Green Initiatives

They acknowledge that rapid and urgent action is needed across all sectors of society.

Their Environmental and Sustainability group comprises staff members from across the organisation, who are dedicated to bringing a variety of environmental innovations and practices to HOME, driving change, developing initiatives and inspiring both individual action and collective change.

Ideally located to be reached by public transport, cycling, or on foot, just off the Oxford Road corridor, it is now even easier to reach HOME without a car. Improved cycle routes and Dutch-style bike lanes ensure a smooth journey, and we have Sheffield stands available to secure your bike on site.

(one of the problems we identified as they have a HUGE car park which kinda conflicts with what they are saying here!)

Building

The building uses a 100% renewable electricity supplier alongside their Combined Heat and Power Plant (CHP) which helps to reduce their carbon emissions through on-site energy generation and conversion. The building scored a B-rating for efficiency in the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and continues to hold a C-rating for our Display Energy Certificate (DEC). The DEC is renewed on an annual basis, allowing HOME to target and demonstrate good energy management to all users and members of the public.

They have a Building Management System that assists in the operating of their building, ensuring that it is continually controlled, monitored and adjusted. By remotely monitoring energy meters they can record and consider their consumption. With real-time regulating of heating and ventilation systems, they minimise waste and run efficiently.

Which basically means it’s a smart building that auto-regulates itself so that it uses less energy.

Artist Research

Key Word

Social Sculpture- an expanded concept of art that was invented by the artist and co-founder of the German Green Party Joseph Beuys.

Joseph Beuys

A German Fluxus, happening, and performance artist as well as a painter, sculptor, medallist, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist, and pedagogue.

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7gNR8WH6BM

‘Everybody is an artist’

- Founder of the Green Party

- Connection between art and technology

- Talking to dead animal shows the break down of nature as a result of humans.

- Goes on about how the Swedish flag is the same as for medical, could be a bandaid healing mankind.

After looking at some of his work, I came across something that I thought looked familiar, a piece of his artwork called ‘I like America and America likes me’

In May 1974, the visionary German artist Joseph Beuys flew into New York City’s John F Kennedy International Airport and was immediately taken by ambulance to a room in West Broadway’s René Block Gallery. But he was not ill, or even in pain. Carried by stretcher, which was covered in his signature layer of felt, Beuys shared this solitary space with a coyote – a wild beast, often considered to represent America’s untamed spirit – for three days. It was a performance, entitled I Like America and America likes Me, taut with caution (the animal at first was erratic, and tore apart a blanket in the room), but one that was ultimately a success: the coyote grew tolerant, accepting, simply through Beuys’ desire to heal.

This is familiar to me because the name of the performance is also a song by the British band The 1975 who are also known for being quite controversial in their methods of conveying a message.

This song is a political song about gun violence.The song starts out with the lyrics

I'm scared of dying You're set on fire Am I a liar? Ooh (No gun required) I'm scared of dying No gun required, ooh My skin is fire, so desired

And later on goes on about how people are ignoring are happening what is going on in the world around them which is what Beuys was also trying to enlighten.

Would you please listen? Would you please listen? We can see it's missing When you bleed, say so we know Being young in the city Believe in saying something Would you please listen? Would you please listen? We can see it's missing When you bleed, say so we know

Idea

Could we possibly encourage people to be environmentally conscious by getting them to think of it as creating art?

Friedrich Engels

A German philosopher, communist, social scientist, journalist and businessman. His father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford, England and in Barmen, Prussia.

- Statue of him outside of HOME

- Statue of his beard outside of Adelphi building

Rafael Lozano Hemmer

A Mexican-Canadian electronic artist who works with ideas from architecture, technological theater and performance. He holds a Bachelor of Science in physical chemistry from Concordia University in Montreal.

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlvjGrOv2Ms

‘your asking people not to be separated from reality but to be part of it and think of the world in a different way’

- Inspired by computing pioneer Charles Babbage

- Found a way to visualise the movement of the air as words are spoken using various mediums.

Idea

How can we make the invisible visible so people will notice?

Theaster Gates

An American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlq5ilsfoSo

- Bought properties in run down areas and gave people a place to be creative

- This is what the world needs on a grand scale. a boost to community self esteem, individuals, and a boost to the economy.

- Non- profit organisations creating meaningful places which attracts a diverse community

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