#?. like it's not a political entity. it's like a commune with great...health care...

[llycaons]

saw a post the other day about what kinds of off-the-grid activism modern au xxc and sl would be doing and someone was like 'oh they'd work at a nonprofit then donate most of their income anyway!' listen I don't think you know about the nonprofit industrual conplex because that is NOT working outside the system

[astrowithkaro]

Hey is your birthday language series open? If yess i would like to know about 24th may please thank you!!!

Language Of Birthdays: May 24 - Gemini

The Day Of The Magnifier

Those born on May 24 seem to have an opinion on every issue under the sun. Their main interest, however, is in society and their orientation toward it can range from mildly critical, to outspoken or even revolutionary. Usually possessed of a quick mind and caustic tongue, May 24 people rarely leave others in the dark very long about where they stand on a subject. The problem is, however, that every few years (or even weeks), their viewpoints may shift, and therefore people around them may be left bewildered, standing with their mouths open in amazement.

Although they have a lot to say about society, and may be in the limelight. May 24 people are usually quite reserved. Indeed, they can be resentful of encroachments on their private life. Basically they only want to say what they have to say when, where and how they wish. Because of their outspoken attitudes they give the impression of being approachable and open—but this may not be the case. For some born on this day, communication is not a two-way dialogue but a matter of the world listening to what they have to say. Friends and family of May 24 people may grow used to hearing pronouncements and in extreme cases facing merciless, satiric criticism.

Most often those born on this day side with the proletariat rather than with the privileged classes. Battlers by nature, they feel akin to the underdog in a fight. Unfortunately, they may lose objectivity and come to ally themselves with a political entity or faction ultimately unworthy of their support.

May 24 people are extremely facile in their use of language and also highly adept at turning emotions in their favour. They have an incisive, philosophical manner that is attractive. May 24 people inhabit a world of ideas, usually very expansive ideas concerning broad issues. When necessary, however, they can concentrate intently on a pressing matter at hand. Not specialists in attending to themselves or others on a day-to-day basis, those born on this day are usually too wrapped up in their own world to bother with mundane chores like taking out the trash or doing the laundry. Many depend on a support system to care for them-, otherwise they would fall into very sloppy ways.

Although their influence may at times seem divisive and negative, May 24 people serve a highly important function in bringing out what has hitherto been suppressed in others (possibly anger, resentment, even violence). After the smoke has cleared, the situation is probably improved, or at least clarified, for all concerned (even if something unpleasant has occurred). May 24 people must avoid becoming dictatorial, overbearing personalities, and should keep their attitude light. Cultivating a healthy sense of humour plays a great part in this.

Strengths:

Expressive

Incisive

Socially involved

Weaknesses:

Self-centered

Caustic

Closed

Advice

May 24 people must be careful not to overextend themselves in social obligations. They are easily overstressed, as their nervous systems are highly sensitive. Their urge to seek retreat, to find a hideaway, is generally a healthy one, as it is in seclusion that they get the rest so necessary to their functioning. Because of their quick and constant movements, those born on this day should beware of accidents to the arms, hands and shoulders. Smoking should be avoided as well. Although the sleep patterns of May 24 people may be erratic, a full night's rest every few days, at least, is essential for their health. Cooking is an excellent activity for those born on this day and a highly varied, even exotic diet is recommended.

Slow down lest your frenetic pace and demands wear others out

Learn to control your tongue and be less judgmental

Be more faithful to your friends and your beliefs

Avoid making pronouncements from on high

[chibi-honey-cake]

Top 10 favorite preds?

OH, SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN BEARS. Perhaps you didn't know what you were asking, but I am holding back more love for the bears from the Fi.ve Ni.ghts at Fre.ddy's series than is necessarily healthy, I'm sure. So it’s all bears on this list. Please note that these are my interpretations of the characters.

Get ready for Freddy some fancy singer bears because this girl is all about them sharp-dressed preds! [Stick around 'til the end for honorable mentions, a.k.a. If Chibi Wasn't Completely Teddy-Beared] Also beneath the cut because this got STUPID LONG.

10. Nightmare Freddy The only canonical parent. *snicker* I put him this low because despite being what I would call a demon, he's kinda vanilla in my head. He has sharp teeth, claws, a great intimidating aura and sure, he can make you fear for your safety... But in the end, he's careful with those pointy things. (Side note: In most of my writing the Nightmares feed off of fear, which leads to a lot of teasing fearplay with no real harm.)

9. Classic Freddy/Withered Freddy (Hey, they're the same character, shut up) He was my original crush of the series and I'm always going to love the main bear singer. Half of the time I portray him as a soft, charming pred that gently coaxes prey into being eaten and the other half he's a huGE TEASE, grinning and cooing to prey about how filling they'll be squirming in his gut all nice and snug- AAAA! He has the 'suave smile' down pat, I don't know how he does it!

8. Nightmare Fredbear Okay, look. He's intimidating, huge, wide, has sharp teeth, a belly maw, and claws. He is literally made to tower over you and make you question reality, a demon sent to torment... Really, he's a smug, teasing monster that relishes in your nervous stammering and fearful trembling. He wouldn't really harm someone, he's more interested in the fear they exude though. He also borrows some teleport powers from both being a Nightmare and a copy of Golden Freddy, so sometimes he'll appear behind you with that big, toothy, smug-jerk grin until your skin crawls enough to notice him... Or his belly rumbles ravenously right behind your head. And his tummy is LOUD when you're outside, let alone inside...

7. Lefty Okay, Lefty's a little hard to explain. He's calm and gentle in his daily life performing alongside the Rockstar models, sometimes even more slow and quiet. He likes to watch others more than participate, opting to stare. Sure, maybe he's just shy... Or maybe he's calculating the best place to catch you by yourself. Most of the time though, he's more concerned with the health of those around him. If he thinks you're pushing yourself too hard, he'll gently make sure you'll take a break. He'll shush prey as he holds them carefully inside, reassuring them. Often he will activate his inner music box to soothe his prey to sleep. He just wants you to take a nap- in his belly~

6. Shadow Freddy/Phantom Freddy Okay yes, two different characters, but I treat them more like brothers or duplicates of one another. They act almost the same, so I'm cheating shut up. Phantom Freddy is a ghost, obviously, and Shadow Freddy is a shadow entity, again obviously. They are both non-verbal most of the time when I write for them, opting instead to nudge and gesture (and tease like the dickens in a one-sided conversation). But they purr loud to let you know if they're enjoying themselves.Since they are both beings made of energy, that's what they need to maintain their forms. They just 'borrow' some liveliness from their prey, which leaves the prey a little drained afterward. But that's something that can be solved with a nap and some snacks~ Some friendly warnings- since they are not really physically solid, they're known for surprising prey. They love hugs, both outside- and inside. It depends on the day whether they are going to swallow prey- or just absorb them into their bodies. But it's like floating in cool air- you're okay with that, right?

5. Molten Freddy I have so many feels for my poor, unraveled boy... He's gone through a lot, stuck in a long, snaky coily body by himself, but he still has such a sweet demeanor! His mass appears so much bigger now that his endoskeleton has come undone, Molten Freddy can control all of his coils separately. He's starved for attention and if someone shows the slightest empathy to him, he latches onto them hard. He's so fond of hugs that he'll hold prey with his coils and call them sweet names until they fluster bright red. Then he'll wrap them up and swallow them slowly, purring as he works them down deeper into his metal-cable body for long, internal hugs... Bear with snake body, yeth~

4. Nightmare Okay, so Nightmare Fredbear? Just- magnify all of that. Like, 2000% magnification. Nightmare is what his name suggests: a literal embodiment of nightmares. His teasing can get rough, borderline possessive sometimes. When he feels he's going overboard in terrorizing his prey, he'll subtly ease back. But let's face it, it's easy to go overboard when you're... well, basically the King of Fearplay. He can be a pushy jerk, being the leader of the Nighmares means he calls a lot of the shots... But if you know him well enough, he'll reveal more of his true self and become easier to deal with. He'll be your huge, intimidating back-up with an army of nightmares at his command- no one will mess with you again. But when faced with his insatiable appetite, it means that you'll be dealing with his belly maw more often than his fear-inspiring appearance.

3. Fredbear/Golden Freddy/Withered Golden Freddy (Again, same character) Ah, a wonderful golden bear! He has such versatility since you see him in so many eras! As a younger bear, he was more polite and reserved. As the years wore on, he began to get more... sloppy, for lack of a better term. His politeness wore down and he became less reserved, starting to be more teasing and smug. By the time the first game started, he was a grinning, teleporting menace. He loves to spook prey by appearing behind them, then pinning them against the wall to fluster the daylights out of them with his ravenous appetite. "I've been empty for so long... Could you help me with that~?" He can get possessive over his prey occasionally, and he loves nothing more than lounging around with a squirming belly full of delicious prey.

2. Funtime Freddy The excitable boy, despite being my main F/O, number two on the list of favorite preds? *gasp* Okay so I LOVE Funtime Freddy so much, it's not funny. ...There's a pun in there somewhere. Hm. He's such a silly bear, so full of energy! He's bouncy and giggly most of the time, always ready and glad to spend time with someone! There's only one problem... He also burns a lot of energy and his tummy often reminds him to eat with sudden, sharp growling. And when your hunger is that fast and demanding... Oftentimes the best food source is his tasty prey friend literally right next to him! Hope the prey doesn't mind the sudden change of scenery! He has an issue with going too fast out of eagerness to fill his tummy, so sometimes he'll give himself a tummyache. Guess the prey better get to work soothing their big pal's tum, huh?

1. Toy Freddy That's right, my soft boy~ He's such a nervous, fretting bear that needs some soft reassurance and hugs. Good thing he's already soft and plush, ready for someone to soothe his nerves. He's extremely polite and reserved, never wanting to impose or bother others... But sometimes his tummy speaks up for him. If he's hungry, he cannot stop the starved rumbling of his empty tummy and he will be so flustered about it! Apologizing, stammering, trying to subtly rub his tum to calm it down (not knowing it's doing the opposite), he's a flushed, famished mess. Most of the time it takes a prey offering themselves up for Toy Freddy to eat them and he'll constantly ask, "Are you sure?" He goes slow to ensure prey's comfort and because he absolutely must savor their flavor, thanking them gratefully as his belly accepts its treat with loud approval. (But if the prey is oblivious and his hunger gnaws too hard for too long, he might snap and stuff the prey into his mouth. He'd apologize profusely after he'd gulped them down, ashamed at his own behaviour. Don't drive the poor soft boi to those measures...)

[Sorry, Rockstar Freddy. Your politeness, smooth compliments, and offers of 'substitute payment' weren't enough to get you on the list. I'll make it up to you later.]

Okay so, here for the honorable mentions now? Unfortunately, I haven't really branched out very far beyond these bears when it comes to noms, but here's a few I've experimented with or am thinking of experimenting with.

King Dedede (from Kir.by) - He's such a glutton, though! He's kind of bossy and definitely greedy for food, but oh well lunch isn't for another ten minutes so his servant or guest might just have to do until then! It may be sudden and lunch may end up joining you, but at least his belly is pretty spacious! He's a kind pred behind closed doors where no one can see his nice side, happily holding prey inside. And he'll definitely let you out later, just... keep squirming, your king demands it~

Globox (from Ra.yman) - A huge, plump frog-like friend! He literally eats stuff to store it repeatedly in Rayman 2 and (although I haven't played it yet) in Rayman 3, I think Globox accidentally swallows the bad guy and the whole plot is about getting them out? I wonder why there's not more content of him out there, he's positively MADE for this community, lol.

King K.Rool (from Don.key Ko.ng 64) - Okay so, lemme call myself out. Past Chibi, who didn't know what vore was at the tender age of 10, had a fascination with the villain of DK64. -And had daydreams of causing trouble with my friends the Kongs only to be captured and eaten by K.Rool as an act of punishment against the Kongs? Didn't know why I liked that thought, but I just- kept coming back to it! Now I know why! Considering how H U G E he is compared to the Kongs in that last boss fight, um... G/t vore? Haha!

Slimes (from Sli.me Ran.cher)- We knew this was coming. Considering the very nature of our ranching-of-slimy-friends game, I couldn't help but think of plenty of pred and prey scenarios. But the best pred scenario I can think of is an inexperienced rancher coming across a gordo slime (which is a ton of slimes congealed into a larger one). Of course they're a dumb-bucket and decide to poke it when their vac-pac doesn't work, which leads to them getting stuck and sucked into the sticky, slimy mess. When they get free somehow, they embarrassingly admit it to another rancher who laughs. "Oh, that happens to everyone once."

TL:DR- Chibi has EXTREME CRUSH on several dapper bears and very clearly has a pred type [taller, larger, and stronger than her].

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 21 - The PTSD is strong with this one & we need more braincells

Hello hello! Welcome to the commentary. How’s everyone? I’m frozen solid because it’s mid-June in Spain and yet we had 11°C yesterday. Fucking awesome!

I AM NOT WEARING MASCARA SO I CAN CRY ALL I WANT. I DONT KNOW IF THATS GOOD OR BAD THO.

Can I just take a second to appreciate how much this big strong powerful men emote? I mean, I know this isn’t western media where the tough guy can’t show emotions, and I don’t know that eastern media has the same hangups about men emoting but just... it’s so refreshing.

Huaisang bb you’re so sweet.

Oh, oh the PTSD is strong with this one.

Also, bless both JC and NHS, they absolutely noticed WWX flinch and, in their own ways, went and steamrolled over it so WWX wouldn’t feel scrutinised.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST TO INFORM YALL THAT I GOT A KITTEN ON MY LAP. (She’s kneading my boob, which, ow, but...)

*BICHEN GRIIIIIIIP*

How do y’all think the guards go deliver bad news to WRH? Like do they paper-rock-scissor it? Draw straws?

NMJ did you have to?

And once again I wonder what would’ve happened if JFM had let sect leader Yao kick it.

Ughvhfnevus it’s this clown. Same as with Su She, if you see a bunch of screaming it’s just me not wanting to listen to Jin ZiXun.

The Nies: let’s throw a banquet to honour WWX’s return

Every asshole there: *gossips about WWX while in the room with him*

Once again I wish I could transmigrate (and speak mandarin lol) and just start delivering tongue lashings.

Listen, I have no idea how to play Guqin, but I did play the guitar for years and even from here I can see how much YiBo’s hands don’t match the melody. Nothing against him but why does this always happen? I know they got classes, so was the music not written by that time or something? Because one thing is not hitting the correct notes, another is plucking slow notes when the tempo is much faster.

JC: Since yours and LWJ’s unhappy separation...

My dumbass: do you mean breakup? *eyebrow waggle*

You will pry my “JC knows his brother is pinning after LWJ, he probably doesn’t want to know anything else” hc out of my cold dead hands thankyouverymuch.

WWX: *spouts a bunch of misdirection to avoid giving JC a straight answer*

JC: Bull-fucking-shit.

Should I count how many times WWX PTSDs all over the place or would you like me to leave your hearts intact? That’s two so far.

Ok ok, I feel that, if someone with a bit less trauma and a bit of insight (NHS maybe?) had seen the bit where ChenQing fucking hurts Shijie thing would’ve gone differently. I mean, yes, LWJ keeps warning WWX that this shit is gonna fuck him up, but as I said in my previous commentary LWJ also has the communication skills of a hermit crab so that wouldn’t work, and JC would be too wound up and WWX too busy trying to conceal his lack of golden core for that conversation to go anywhere. But if someone who WWX knows is a good egg (I’m not gonna say trusts bc paranoia) had sat him down and told him “your new instrument that you use for your new form of cultivation just hurt the person you love most please be careful when you use it.” I think it would’ve worked wonders towards his health overall.

I know Shijie says it’s like Zidian, but she’s not working with the fact that this thing is made for and by the Dark Side of the Force and I’m sorry but I can’t help but see ChenQing as a bit of a horrocrux almost. Or like, if you like me think the Burial Mounds is an Entity, something that’s a bit more sentient that it lets on.

Speaking of reputations and NHS being a good egg, I have oh-so-many ideas (I won’t say plot bunnies because I can’t write for shit) in which NHS for Reasons (time-travel? Letter from the future? His massive brain?) realises just how much damage WWX is doing to his public image. And he might be a sheltered dandy, but he saw what being the son of a sex worker did to Meng Yao despite how hard he worked (I’m assuming he doesn’t know about the whole betrayal business). This is way fucking worse, like hell is he going to let one of his best friends paint a target on his back. So he pulls back his sleeves, engages his slytherin brain and proceeds to lay down a plan to throughly destroy WWX’s reputation as a powerful genius.

I’m guessing LWJ and JC protest, and maybe WWX, and NHS just hits them with “do you want him respected or alive?” And they shut tf up. He glues himself to WWX, and brings up as many instances in which their behaviour can be compared as he can (we got drunk and punished at cloud recesses, we slept in class, we skipped to go fishing, I don’t carry my sword either). And, because assholes be assholes, people like Sect Leader Yao or Clown Cousin are quick to start spouting their own derogatory bullshit and thus WWX the untamed powerful prodigy dies a fiery death. Now he’s just a mouthy kid with a quick mind that “does tricks instead of battle” (I’ll never get bored of using that Thor quote). I also like to think that people who personally know WWX and are not pieces of shit go give NHS a tongue lashing for messing with what they thought was his friend, NHS takes that as a test of good eggness and bring them into the plan. Soon the whole Cloud Recesses class is swearing up, down, left, right and centre that all the shit WWX has ever successfully pulled is just an insane amount of luck and quick thinking.

I don’t know how would they work him into the battlefield (disguise? Mask?) to unleash his demonic cultivation but that’s Plot and I don’t do that.

Also, because I’m a terrible human being I want to say that people assume LWJ is on “pretty but useless” WWX like white on rice because *insert derogatory comment about being good in bed and sexual favours*. Because y’all know the assholes here are Like That. And WWX is horrified because holy fucking shit he’s gonna drag LWJ’s reputation down, he can’t have people thinking HGJ is ok with having him as a concubine pretty much. But before he can act LWJ politely all but confirms that yeah, he’s tapping that, y’all wish you were but he doesn’t share and none of y’all are good enough for his Wei Ying anyway. CUE FAKE/PRETEND RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE I AM INDEED TRASH FOR THAT TROPE.

Muahahahaha y’all thought I was gonna devolve into my personal hcs and not include my fave trope? Shouldn’t y’all know me better by now?

(Btw I like this bit ^ so I might polish it a little and post it separately as well, just a warning if you find yourself reading an eerily similar post by me)

WuJi is playing and LWJ is pining so much. Also, if LWJ did not just realise that, just like Yu the Great, WWX had no other option but tame resentful energy I’ll eat my blanket.

I refuse to believe Jiang Yanli didn’t become the unofficial war camp therapist/sounding board/only sane person/everyone’s mum/I just need a hug and a corner to cry in peace. There are not enough fics about Shijie being her gentle BAMF self while in the camp and it’s a pity. My crops are dying y’all!

Also, I will fight anyone who scoffs at Shijie being the epitome of the “gentle woman who cooks and waits for the men to come back from war”. Look at her mum, do you think it is easy for a kid (she was a kid in the flashback when WWX ran away) to see that day in and day out, to have that as a “role model” and decide that she was not going to be like her mum? That she didn’t like what she saw in her so she was going to be kind and gentle? And do you think it is easy for a person barely in their twenties to deal with years of verbal and psychological abuse for again, being gentle and kind, and not grow a hard shell of bitterness to protect themselves? And to keep being gentle and kind while at war, with your parents dead and your siblings unraveling before your very eyes? Shijie is so fucking strong and I love her.

Hey look, the White Walkers!

“Resentful energy is just energy” ok, valid. But my dude, you’ve got black ghost smoke coming out of you and can hear people screaming in your head. I’m not saying it is evil, like someone’s uptight set in his ways arrogant uncle; but it sure as shit ain’t healthy.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH (that’s a Clown Cousin scream btw)

Ok ok, just one little thing: IF SOMEONE ELSE CALLS WWX WEI YING AS A SHOW OF DISRESPECT IMMA SCALP THEM.

...are those crows eating that man alive? Yikes on bikes.

(Assume my comment about YiBo’s Guqin playing also goes for Xiao Zhan and his flute. I can’t play the flute but the tempo doesn’t match his fingers)

I’m just gonna say it, I think 3zun (well, 2zun as of now) suspect shit went down badly for WWX, that’s two questions by both of them in a very soft conciliatory tone. They are genuinely interested/worried about the topic, and don’t seem to come off as chiding or judgemental. I mean WWX is a weirdo irreverent kid and they’re sect leaders, they outrank him so much it’s ridiculous. I’m also counting the fact that both their baby brothers like him towards them being so kind. But I also think WWX just triggers all their big brother instincts the second he walks in.

Oh there’s a thought, Shijie, Wen Qing, NMJ and LXC take a look at everyone’s shitty parents and just decide to adopt everyone.

What happened at Yiling was a traumatised teenager (is WWX even 20?) PTSDing all over the place with the Dark Side of the Force whispering in his ear and an all powerful trinket at his disposal. Not saying I approve of all the torture and murder but he clearly isn’t revelling in them.

That is some outstanding bit of big-brothering on LXC’s side and I love it. Also, my dumbass just realised LWJ probably wasn’t quoting WWX when he was being punished (what is white what is black?) I think he was quoting his big brother. Which is magnitudes deep too, but in a different direction and I might love that scene even more.

Ok fuck it, I’m gonna tangent. So I had a terrible boyfriend when I was 15-18. He alienated me from my friends, sunk my self-esteem to the molten core of the earth, tried to convince me my parents were abusive and encouraged (aka threatened manipulated and cajoled) the slow tanking of my high school marks. I have A Problem when I see media where someone latches onto their significant other and everything they are shifts towards that person. Now, love, true genuine love, is powerful, and I believe it can be the catalyst for shifting your world-view for the better. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with people sticking with their romantic partner if it is clear their previous “family” is so much shit. I don’t have a problem with LWJ coming out of his shell and defying corrupt precepts because his love for WWX made them see they were wrong, or getting sassy and unrepentant during his punishment (I have a problem with the punishment bc that’s abuse but...). But I do side-eye WangXian being the only thing in their orbit. People need people, and WangXian have other good people around them. So I kind of love that yes, WWX showed him the system was corrupt, but it is the words of his brother he is sticking by to the defy said system.

Let’s go back to our scheduled slew of held pinning glances shall we?

LXC after That awkward run-in: WangJi I wasn’t gone that long, what the fuck did you two oblivious pining idiots do?

(LXC has “bitching” tea sessions with Shijie and you can’t convince me otherwise)

LWJ: *is being dramatic and not knocking on WWX’s door*

Me: oh my god you fucking idiot

Shijie: *walks in*

Me: oh thank god someone with a braincell.

Ah yes, there we go triggering WWX’s paranoia again. Why would he get a break.

OH MY GOD YOU PAIR OF FUCKING IDIOTS. THATS IT, FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT.

@ LWJ: bitch wtf was that? I know you’re shit at talking but have you thought about writing it down? Letters anyone? It worked for mr. Darcy.

(Yes LWJ is mr darcy and now I want an au where LWJ writes WWX letters and just pours everything in them, WWX finds them, any everything is sunshine and rainbows)

While this bullshit fight/misunderstanding is all on LWJ’s shoulders, I’m also going to scream at WWX. Because yes, he is in PTSD hell, but he trusted LWJ before, and yet he can’t get past his perceived notion of LWJ’s character (and his own inadequacies) to trust him again and ask for help. Plus, you know, he thinks he doesn’t deserve he’ll bc *waves hand at WWX’s trauma conga line*

These episodes can’t be good for my BP.

Thanks for reading!

[aglimmerintheriver]

How to mentally keep baneful spirits out - no tools required AKA How Not To Give A F*** About the Uninvited

You can find so much info on here and throughout the web about negative entities and protecting yourself from them. Just as there is so much info, there are all of these different perspectives on how our energies associate with them. In this post I hope to cover a lot of different perspectives, as well as some creative methods for dealing with baneful spirits and your own defense magic tool set.

Introduction

A lot of mythical creatures are based in energetic truth- the vampire is aligned with the energy vampire, the evil and feared witch (like in the Witch movie) is aligned with the early-Christian understanding of the Wise People. The word Witch came from Wic, which means ‘Wisdom’ in Germanic languages. Think of anything given malevolent or benevolent power in the media, and you can likely tie it to misconceptions about the witchcraft and pagan community.

In Shonda Rhimes’ “Grey’s Anatomy” there is an episode where Dr. Miranda Bailey talks about how her OCD creates negative, scary fears within the mind that feel so real that they become real, but she also says that if her mind can think up and believe in these terrible, scary things, she can also think up positive things that make her feel better about those fears- things that help create a buffer, to save her from being so afraid. I’m completely blanking on which episode this was, if you know please let me know and I’ll add it in. By bringing this up, I want to point to something that inspired me to write this post: that elasticity of our perception and of the power we hold within ourselves being dependent on our awareness of our power.

All of this to say that this is not a post created for someone experiencing demonic intrusion. I may or may not have experienced this kind of interaction and if I have, I was simply saved by calling on Jesus (holy freaking heck did not expect the Christian god to help me out but he did) and asking that he save my soul from the attack. If you are under demonic attack or believe that you are, please consult a shaman or a witch who knows how to deal with demonic power. My understanding of demons is that they were the very first spirits here, and so they are the oldest of the old and have a lot of power. That’s not to say your power stands no chance against them, but if you feel overwhelmed by the spirits you’re facing, a lot of the times it is helpful not just for our spiritual protection but also for our perception of how safe we are to call on someone outside of us for help- whether that be a deity or other type of spirit we revere as having badass protective strength or another human we believe can help protect us/banish whatever’s in your sphere.

Perception and Reality

What we believe is what we see. Another way to phrase this is, ‘Where the mind goes, your energy flows”, a very famous phrase within the spiritual community (I believe it has Buddhist origins but not sure of who said it first). This is why a lot of witches are recommended to meet with a therapist or psychologist regularly to ensure our mental health is strong. A lot of people within our community believe that mental health creates spiritual gaps wherein baneful spirits can creep in and target us, but others believe that the cause of mental problems is our spiritual health itself. I’m in the camp of believing mental health is important no matter how you see the correlation- taking care of your brain is just as important as keeping up with the rest of your practice. 

Another aspect of protection and magic is not just ‘what we see’ but how. To bring in a little cognitive function theory, someone with extroverted intuition (or Ne) would likely see a situation and the world from twenty or more different lenses. This is like viewing the world through a multi-faceted crystal and being able to look at all these different crystal-edges and see a different distortion. And that’s really what our view is mostly, because it is nearly impossible to go around living your life and be able to see everything EXACTLY as it is. It’s just not reasonable to think you’re going to be able to have a clear lens every time. If you do and if you’ve developed that, please share how you did and help me figure that out haha, but until then I’m going to work with my understanding that our perception is going to have some type of illusion to it.

And here comes what this post has been leading to- the thing I’m excited about. The Imagining, and the power in that imagining. This is mental craft.

The You-Shaped Perception

In focus meditation you’re told that attention to the breath or to one sensation is important, because you’re narrowing your cannon-sized attention to the size of a pinhole. In much the same way, mental magic is about not just changing your lens, but also how you use that lens.

You       can.         do.            Anything.

It’s true. I mean, within physical means, right? You’re only going to fly if you know how to build mechanical wings, so this isn’t some offhanded promise meant halfheartedly. Nope, I mean this with all of me.

The mind is our friend and our enemy. I’m not even a big fan of meditation and yet I know that. It’s that changeable lens we see things through and how we think of them.

Our mind, my friend, is our power.

In speaking of the mind, I am not just thinking about your brain matter, or your reason, or whatever. I’m talking intention (leading to manifestation) and conscious attention to changing our thoughts.

Think something long enough and you start to believe it. Don’t like your thoughts, or how you feel? What thought or visualization would help you feel better?

There are rabbit holes we fall into where we either can’t control our thoughts and feelings due to mental illness and other times when we just don’t want to control them. Sometimes it feels good to be swept away by our own ocean of emotion and madness. It’s part of being human. The former situation (with the rabbit holes) is likely to be helped by a mental health professional and possibly some anti-depressants. The latter can  a p p a r e n t l y  be helped by meditation. 

(Also, did you know that meditation helps grow the gray matter in your brain? Sitting down and just watching your thoughts pass like clouds, allowing your body to rest, opens you up to expanded compassion, self awareness, contemplation, and helps your memory. If anyone is interested in practicing this, I’m going to be working through this free online MBSR/Mindfulness course in the hopes of helping my depression and my powers of intention- it looks like a great resource especially during this time of political and global tension. I believe our souls are deeply connected to one another and also to the overall soul of the world. Everything that happens in it is something we collectively experience and all of the stress along with this social isolation that the majority of us are experiencing is incredibly traumatizing. I highly recommend checking this out and seeing how it affects you over a few weeks’ time: https://palousemindfulness.com/ )

The point I’m trying to make here is that 98 times out of 100 times, YOU control your perception. And that’s a very empowering and creative thing. Especially when you identify as a witch 😄

gif of Joaquin Phoenix as the joker with a smiling mask on, then pulling up the mask and grinning.

DAMN TABITHA JUST GET TO THE POINT ALREADY

Okay okay. Here’s my point.

You can use creativity in your craft. You know this already. But you don’t need a book of spells (they’re fun to read though) and you don’t need the latest books on psychic magic. You can seriously just use your magical brain.

Intention is everything. Your natural intuitive powers are where your strength lies- I’d say it’s the key to unlocking whatever the heck you want in life. 

Look at your life like it is a children’s story book or movie, alright? It sounds stupid but please stay with me if you made it this far, because I think this is where it gets good. You know how the main character faced this seemingly impossible task or challenge, and they didn’t know how they’d do it but they did it anyway? Things just worked out for them, either because they did some work to help meet their goal and they fought to believe in themselves, or because the writer(s) wanted to throw them some tools that would help them easily get their goal.

You’re the main character and you’re the author of your story. And not only are you the author, but you’ve got all these spirits helping you co-author what unfolds in your life. So it doesn’t matter if there’s a damn fire-breathing knife-throwing monster standing on top of you while you sleep because in your witch brain, all you need to do is say “I am stronger than you will ever be. I am the apex predator” and watch that nasty bugger fucking deflate.

What is the most empowering thing is realizing that you are worth fearing, yourself.

Now this isn’t an excuse to take on a bad-bitch persona and mess your life up. Don’t go around hexing people willy nilly, please. Don’t think you can conjure a demon and be able to control it.

Just know that you can control yourself and the space you’re in. Cause you a badass, bitch.

An actual example from my real life

I have a little known disorder called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Essentially it’s scary AF because I have dislocations on the daily and they’re painful and honestly, it’s the bane of my existence. 

That’s not even exaggerating haha.

So along with it comes a lot of second guessing self worth, because of how it’s perceived and how I’m perceived because I’m a lady with EDS. The questions I’ve fielded, the conversations I’ve had, the experiences I’ve had to deal with as a result of it are utterly ridiculous (sometimes, downright despicable). 

One day I was talking to my therapist about self-perception and not feeling strong enough to face life with my handicap, and she asked me to point out the strengths it’s encouraged in me. I was able to point to a few things and while I did, I could see Brigid beside me and this oak shield forming around my body, and I imagined that every word I spoke, every good quality I have grown from having my disorder, made that shield stronger.

There are the times when I rabbit hole and I forget what that armor means and looks like. I forget that it’s there. But inevitably, something happens that would normally feel like it was undermining me and instead, I remember that oak shield and Brigid’s protective, loving energy, and I remember how expansive it feels to see myself as being worth this life and as having valuable traits to offer to the world. That’s when I see that shield again.

As you can see this isn’t only for spirits, but it applies even in those situations too. I’ll detail my channeling session that ended with calling on Jesus another time haha as this is getting quite long. To wrap this up:

TL;DR: “How not to give a f*** about unwanted spirits”

- Decide not to give a f***

- Decide what you will give a f*** about

- Find a couple practices for protection that you like and stick with them

- Know what clairs you have that are strongest (and if none feel that strong right now, that’s perfectly normal. Don’t put pressure on yourself, just enjoy exploring how your intuition works and pay attention without obsessing (or try not to obsess anyways). You have time to experiment with intuition, I’ll try to find some good sources for this and write something for those of you frustrated with figuring out where your skills lie or how to use them.

- Know that they’re working, that you’re a freaking badass witch, and that nothing can come into your space without earning your wrath (which can just be a GTFO and a call on your fave deity if you like)

A lot of the time, spirits who show up don’t actually have any dominion to stay. You have the power. You own the space, you own YOUR space (the space of your body). So own that you own it and do it with certainty. Feel the POWAH haha.

Sources mentioned:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/

[phroyd]

President Trump’s inaccurate assertion that he has “total” authority to reopen a nation shuttered by the coronavirus is igniting a fresh challenge from governors scrambling to manage their states and highlighting a Republican Party reluctant to defy a president who has relished pushing the boundaries of executive power.

The president’s claim, first conveyed in a tweet Monday morning and underscored at a White House news conference and subsequent social media posts, caught his aides off guard and prompted them to study whether Trump would have such authority in a time of emergency like the ongoing pandemic.

Republicans were largely tepid in their criticism of Trump’s expansive views on his power, which he has wielded throughout his presidency as he circumvented the legislative branch on matters of spending and subpoenas, while enjoying decisions in which he maintained universal authority such as issuing pardons. Trump has also issued a multitude of executive orders while relying heavily on myriad acting administration officials rather than subjecting them to the Senate confirmation process.

At a White House briefing late Tuesday, Trump offered conflicting statements about which entity had the authority to reopen, seeming to backtrack from his claim Monday but at the same time insisting the federal government would have the final say.

“The governors are responsible. They have to take charge,” said Trump, who added that some states want to reopen now and probably can before May 1, while others aren’t there yet. He said that if a state with many cases tries to reopen early, the federal government might step in.

“If we disagree with it, we’re not going to let it open,” he said, before adding, “We’re there to help. But we’re also there to be critics.”

Earlier in the day, Trump’s comments on reopening the nation were challenged by his presumptive Democratic rival this fall, former vice president Joe Biden, and also by prominent governors overseeing the public health crisis in their states such as New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who in his daily news conference Tuesday skewered at length Trump’s position as wildly off-base from the Constitution.

Cuomo said the president’s claim of total authority is “not an accurate statement,” because the basic principle of federalism is enshrined in the Constitution, in which powers not given to the federal government remain with the states.

“The statement that he has total authority over the states and the nation cannot go uncorrected,” Cuomo said. “There are many things that you can debate in the Constitution because they’re ambiguous. This is not ambiguous.”

Later Tuesday in his own remarks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was less pointed toward Trump but nonetheless unequivocal, tweeting: “When it comes to reopening, SCIENCE — not politics — must be California’s guide.” Newsom outlined six factors he will consider in doing so, including protecting communities from the spread of the virus and ensuring that hospitals could handle any surge in cases.

The fresh power struggle between the federal government and state officials came as the toll of the pandemic continued to grow, with more than 25,000 people dead from the virus in the United States and more than 600,000 confirmed to be infected.

The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday that the pandemic is causing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is also inflicting acute pain in the medical sector, which continues to struggle with supplies and personnel becoming sick, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying Tuesday that 9,000 health care workers have tested positive.

In another assertion of authority, Trump said he would halt funding to World Health Organization while a review was conducted. He has criticized the organization for its slow response in the early days of the outbreak, but by Jan. 30, the organization declared a global health emergency, after which the president continued to play down the outbreak and compared it with seasonal flu.

Governors also began outlining their strategy for reopening their states in the coming weeks and months, while a consortium of seven East Coast states continued a plan to explore how and when to lift restrictions in their geographically aligned states.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) was among the state leaders who made clear Tuesday that the facts on the ground must dictate when the current restrictions can begin to ease.

“This monster is still going to be with us at least until we get a vaccine,” DeWine, who has said his state has had a good working relationship with federal officials so far, said at a Tuesday news conference. “It’s not going away, and that’s the sad news. . . . We are 12-18 months away from this going away. We’re going to have to live with it..”

Two White House officials said there was no broader planning for Trump’s comments that he had “total” authority and that they were both surprised by his tweets to that effect Monday. There was no legal underpinning for the remarks in advance, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly, and “it is widely viewed with skepticism in the building that we should be doing this.

The White House Counsel’s Office is studying what authority the president actually does have during a national emergency, according to the officials. But the operating plan in the White House is not to try to force any state to reopen, although one senior White House official said they had been in contact with some states — such as Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee — about reopening sooner rather than later.

“I am almost positive James Madison fell off a cloud somewhere today when Trump said that,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “The founders of the republic stitched together a complicated game of chess to ensure our president was a very weak king who could be simultaneously slowed down by the legislature, judiciary and federalism. His authority is far from total.”

Another prominent GOP donor, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said there was an effort “to talk him into a better place.”

One official said Trump is frustrated that the governors are getting so much credit and no blame while he gets all the blame and none of the credit. He particularly complains about Cuomo, this official said.

“Cuomo’s been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state’s responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc.,” Trump tweeted earlier Tuesday. “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!”

Trump has said repeatedly that the federal government is merely a backup to the states and that the onus is on the governors to deal with the pandemic.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a recent interview that “at the end of the day, it will be the governors that make these decisions.”

Combative in public, Trump administration and congressional leaders negotiate behind the scenes on coronavirus relief

One Republican ally close to the president said Trump did not initially want to be associated with decisions to close down the government because “closing is bad news, and opening is good news.” And he spoke with governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis (R) who were skeptical, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Trump was happy to accept the argument from some advisers that he should invoke federalism, and the president repeatedly emphasized states’ rights when questioned by reporters in recent weeks why he was not instituting a national stay-at-home order. But he sees a political triumph in reopening the economy and wants credit for it, this person said.

In a tweet Monday, Biden said that he is “not running for office to be King of America.”

“I respect the Constitution,” Biden said. “I’ve read the Constitution. I’ve sworn an oath to it many times. I respect the great job so many of this country’s governors — Democratic and Republican — are doing under these horrific circumstances.”

Within the GOP, Trump’s biggest challenge to his exertion of executive power came last year, when a dozen GOP senators voted to reject an emergency declaration the president issued to take taxpayer dollars from the military and other accounts for a border wall that Congress had denied.

Of that dozen, two — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) — issued comments Tuesday, both stressing that states should retain the power to regulate their own activities. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a statement: “I respect the authorities of the office of the presidency. I also recognize that it will take all of us — elected leaders and citizens — to effectively stop the spread of this virus.”

A spokeswoman for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) pointed to his remarks from a Fox Business interview earlier Tuesday in which he said the matter was not just up to elected officials “deciding when it’s time and coming up with some arbitrary deadline,” but the science and whether people feel safe leaving their homes.

Aides to two others — Utah Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee — said the senators would have no response. None of the other six responded to requests for comment. They were Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

At least two other prominent elected GOP lawmakers, past and present — Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the third-ranking leader among House Republicans, and Republican-turned independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) — challenged Trump’s notion.

Cheney, whose father, Richard B. Cheney, had pushed for broad executive authority as vice president in George W. Bush’s administration, cited the text of the 10th Amendment in a tweet: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

But other GOP lawmakers questioned about Trump’s bold claim, an assertion refuted by constitutional experts, were reluctant to challenge the president.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 House Republican, argued in a Fox News interview Tuesday that states had largely taken their cue from Trump and the federal government over the past two months, particularly when it comes to social distancing guidelines.

“When the president said that, you saw almost every governor in the country take that cue and say, ‘Okay, we’re going to institute a new set of policies,’ ” Scalise said. “And so, while the president hasn’t said every state has to do this, he’s been setting the guidance using the experts from CDC and other agencies, and then you see states following suit.”

A spokesman for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday declined to comment beyond the governor’s remarks to CNN on Monday in which he said governors were best positioned to make the ultimate decision on when their states can safely resume everyday activities.

“It’s not my understanding of the Constitution,” Hogan said in the CNN interview of Trump’s interpretation of his own powers.

Devlin Barrett, Ovetta Wiggins, Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis, Samantha Pell and Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.

Phroyd

[32427minden]

A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country. Also targeted was Marriott International, which was ordered to cease operations in Cuba, and other companies in the tourism sector, an industry that constitutes 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP and has been devastated globally by the pandemic. It seems that the more Cuba helps the world, the more it gets hammered by the Trump administration. While Cuba has endured a U.S. embargo for nearly 60 years, Trump has revved up the stakes with a “maximum pressure” strategy that includes more than 90 economic measures placed against the nation since January 2019. Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, called the measures “unprecedented in their level of aggression and scope” and designed to “deprive the country of income for the development of the economy.” Since its inception, the embargo has cost Cuba well over $130 billion dollars, according to a 2018 estimate. In 2018-2019 alone, the economic impact was $4 billion, a figure that does not include the impact of a June 2019 Trump administration travel ban aimed at harming the tourist industry. While the embargo is supposed to have humanitarian exemptions, the health sector has not been spared. Cuba is known worldwide for its universal public healthcare system, but the embargo has led to shortages of medicines and medical supplies, particularly for patients with AIDS and cancer. Doctors at Cuba’s National Institute of Oncology have had to amputate the lower limbs of children with cancer because the American companies that have a monopoly on the technology can’t sell it to Cuba. In the midst of the pandemic, the U.S. blocked a donation of facemasks and COVID-19 diagnostic kits from Chinese billionaire Jack Ma. Not content to sabotage Cuba’s domestic health sector, the Trump administration has been attacking Cuba’s international medical assistance, from the teams fighting coronavirus today to those who have travelled all over the world since the 1960’s providing services to underserved communities in 164 countries. The U.S. goal is to cut the island’s income now that the provision of these services has surpassed tourism as Cuba’s number one source of revenue. Labeling these volunteer medical teams “victims of human trafficking” because part of their salaries goes to pay for Cuba’s healthcare system, the Trump administration convinced Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil to end their cooperation agreements with Cuban doctors. Pompeo then applauded the leaders of these countries for refusing “to turn a blind eye” to Cuba’s alleged abuses. The triumphalism was short lived: a month after that quote, the Bolsonaro government in Brazil begged Cuba to resend its doctors amid the pandemic. U.S. allies all over the world, including in Qatar, Kuwait, South Africa, Italy, Honduras and Peru have gratefully accepted this Cuban aid. So great is the admiration for Cuban doctors that a global campaign has sprung up to award them the Nobel Peace Prize. The Trump administration is not just libelling doctors, but the whole country.  In May, the State Department named Cuba as one of five countries “not cooperating fully” in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The main pretext was the nation’s hosting of members of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN). Yet even the State Department’s own press release notes that ELN members are in Cuba as a result of “peace negotiation protocols.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called the charges dishonest and “facilitated by the ungrateful attitude of the Colombian government” that broke off talks with the ELN in 2019. It should also be noted that Ecuador was the original host of the ELN-Colombia talks, but Cuba was asked to step in after the Moreno government abdicated its responsibilities in 2018. The classification of Cuba as “not cooperating” with counterterrorism could lead to Cuba being placed on the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which carries tougher penalties. This idea was floated by a senior Trump administration official to Reuters last month. Cuba had been on this list from 1982 to 2015, despite that fact that, according to former State Department official Jason Blazakis, “it was legally determined that Cuba was not actively engaged in violence that could be defined as terrorism under any credible definition of the word.” Of course, the United States is in no position to claim that other countries do not cooperate in counterterrorism. For years, the U.S. harbored Luis Posada Carriles, mastermind of the bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane in 1976 that killed 73 people. More recently, the U.S. has yet to even comment on the April 30 attack on the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C., when a man fired on the building with an automatic rifle. While there are certainly right-wing ideologues like Secretary Pompeo and Senator Rubio orchestrating Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, for Trump himself, Cuba is all about the U.S. elections. His hard line against the tiny island nation may have helped swing the Florida gubernatorial campaign during the midterm elections, yet it’s not clear that this will serve him well in a presidential year. According to conventional wisdom and polls, younger Cuban-Americans – who like most young people, don’t tend to vote in midterms – are increasingly skeptical of the U.S. embargo, and overall, Cuba isn’t the overriding issue for Cuban-Americans. Trump won the Cuban-American vote in 2016, but Hillary Clinton took between 41 and 47% percent of that electorate, significantly higher than any Democrat in decades. As an electoral strategy, these are signs that Trump’s aggression towards Cuba may not pay off. Of course, the strategy might not be just about votes but also about financing and ensuring that the Cuban-American political machinery is firmly behind Trump. The strategy has certainly not paid off when it comes to achieving the goal of regime change. The Trump administration is arguably farther from achieving regime change in Cuba now than the U.S. has ever been in over 60 years of intervention. During Trump’s tenure, Cuba calmly transitioned from the presidency of Raul Castro to that of Miguel Díaz-Canel. In 2019, Cuban voters overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution. These aren’t signs of a country on the brink of collapse. All Trump has achieved is making life more difficult for the island’s 11 million inhabitants, who, like people all over the world, have been battered by the economic impact from coronavirus. Tourism has collapsed. Income from remittances has tanked (both because of new U.S. restrictions and less income in the hands of the Cuban diaspora). Venezuela, once a major benefactor, is mired in its own crisis. But Cuba’s economy, which was forecast to contract by 3.7% before the pandemic hit, has been through worse, particularly during the 1991 to 2000 economic crisis known as the “special period” after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A change in the White House would bring some relief, although Joe Biden has staked a rather ambivalent position, saying he would restore relations as President Obama did, but adding that he was open to using sanctions as punishment for Cuba’s support to the Venezuelan government. It’s clear that from now until November, and perhaps for four more years, the Trump administration will pummel its island neighbor. Cuba will continue to seek global condemnation on the blockade (the 2019 UN vote was 187 against vs 3 in favor—the U.S., Brazil and Israel) and continue to show what a good neighbor looks like. It responded to these latest provocations in the way that only Cuba does: with more global solidarity, sending Covid-19 healing brigades to Guinea and Kuwait a day after the June 3 round of sanctions. A total of 26 countries now have Cuban medical personnel caring for their sick. That is the kind of goodwill that money just can’t buy and it greatly presents a stark contrast to the Trump administration’s shameful behavior during the pandemic. Back in March, as Cuban doctors arrived in Italy, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa tweeted: “One day we will tell our children that, after decades of movies and propaganda, at the moment of truth, when humanity needed help at a time when the great powers were in hiding, Cuban doctors began to arrive, without asking anything in return.” Medea Benjamin is an author/activist, and cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK. Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and a campaign coordinator with CODEPINK. For more on the Nobel Prize for Cuban Doctors campaign, see www.cubanobel.org.

https://countercurrents.org/2020/06/trump-hammers-cuba-while-cuba-cures-the-sick/

[espanadiarywriter]

Salud

I’ve been thinking about this blog post all year—I’ve started and stopped so many times. It’s really like three different posts, but I need to put this all in one blog post even though this is LONG.

Imagine walking into a dentist’s office in the US, having them look at your kid’s teeth and say “They look really great. You don’t need a cleaning.” And then when they look at your puzzled expression, the dentist says “I mean, if you want a cleaning, we can do one. But if it were my kid, I wouldn’t. There isn’t anything to clean.” True story. They have no incentive to sell you on things you do not need because going to the doctor is affordable. 

I have been amazed at how easy the whole process is to go to the doctor for anything here. For example, I went for routine blood tests (cholesterol, blood sugar, etc.), the doctored ordered them in a 10-minute long appointment. A week later I had results, scheduled a follow-up to discuss and everything was handled efficiently without a single bit of money out of pocket. You do show a health insurance card when you go to a doctor, but no one needs any other money from you for a visit.  One American who has lived here 30 years said “What’s a co-pay?” when we mentioned it in conversation.

It is surprising how soon they are ready to schedule an appointment. (I wasn’t ready to come in this week! Can I come next week?) There’s simply no hesitancy when a doctor needs you to see a specialist. The biggest obstacle to getting care is my Spanish skills (which limits which doctors I want to see).

And yet, as amazing as the healthcare is here from a system perspective, it still can’t fix my major medical problem of chronic pain. I’ve dealt with pain for many years. Everyone wants to know what’s wrong, what have you tried. It’s complicated and I’ve tried just about everything (Western, Eastern, woo stuff) except leeches. I won’t try leeches. 

I went to an osteopath here, which was a new type of doctor for me. But it also had the same results: temporary relief, nothing to fix the limitation of not being able to walk more than 10 minutes. So even though I knew that Western medicine wasn’t likely to be dramatically different here, I decided I should at least ask about the pain in my hips.  It is definitely aggravated by all the walking needed to live in (not to mention be a tourist in) Europe. I found a general doctor who spoke English. He very curtly and rapidly referred me to a specialist (a traumatologist) for my pain. So I went back to the reception counter on my way out and the receptionist got me an appointment for the following week— she was apologetic I had to wait so long, but wanted me to see the doctor who spoke English. He seemed to be like an orthopedist smashed together with a rheumatologist. His bedside manner was light years better than the curt guy and his English was excellent, even though he was apologetic about the quality of his English. He didn’t know a few technical words, but I told him to say it in Spanish, and I knew immediately the terms—medical terms are all based on Latin, yes? Anyway, none were a challenge to figure out in English from Spanish—it was like drop the final “a” and re-pronounce the vowels.

So he says I have two problems: my back and my hips (and also the sky is blue), and he orders X-rays and echography and another appointment with him after those. Then I go back to the receptionist area with these orders on a few pieces of paper. (By the way, how do people in medical offices and pharmacies even read these things? Seriously.) She looks at the pieces of paper. She is apologetic because she needs to schedule me two and a half weeks out. She asks if the time works for the radiologica appointment and I pick a time that works. Then she’s done scheduling. I ask, ‘When are the other two appointments?’ It’s all the same evening—go to the radiologica, then echografia, and then back to the same specialist. Boom, boom, boom. Efficient. By the way, I still haven’t paid anything extra to anyone.

I show up for my X-rays two and a half weeks later. I walk to the radiology door, and a nurse asks what I am there for. After a brief exchange, I realize I FORGOT the three pieces of paper I was suppose to bring—what I didn’t realize was these pieces of paper were the orders or prescription for the X-rays. Oy. So I go back to the receptionist and explain the situation. If I had a digital picture that would work (because, Spain), but I can’t get in touch with my husband who is at home. The receptionist says “tranquila” and she walks over to the other side of the floor where the traumatologica doctor is, and he rewrites the three pieces of paper I forgot, and back I go to X-rays. Problem solved. It probably took 10 minutes. (I can’t imagine this happening in the US.)

They take the X-rays, then I wait about 15 minutes for the echography. I have my appointment with the specialist maybe a half hour later as scheduled. He has the X-ray results electronically and I have a piece of paper with the echography results. Everything is super modern in the medical center and everyone seems very capable. By the way, I still have not paid any additional money. Spoiler alert: I never pay anything additional.

Based on the results, I am referred to a doctor at the rehabilitation center around the corner. So I make an appointment for later the same week, of course. This doctor doesn’t speak English, but she examines me and prescribes a course of treatment. Here my lack of Spanish has failed me because I actually have no idea what she said. I did ask her to repeat it more slowly, but I literally understood only the word “calor”. Anyway, I’ve tried PT before so I’m not too concerned. She sends me back out to the receptionist at the front desk; this part I understood because I am good at following directions.

The receptionist looks at the piece of paper from the doctor and starts filling out a form. Then she asked me if I had time to start the first session now and I had the first treatment that day.  I wound up having two types of treatments: a magnet therapy and a shortwave heat therapy on my hips (photo below). 

I was prescribed 15 sessions. The way it works is you just show up at the center any time they are open (weekdays, all day until 8pm) and walk to the back. They remember you and put you on the first machine, and then they ask your name. I never showed a healthcare card or ID there again—they had a record of my treatments. Anyhoo, long story short, the treatments helped a bit, but not much. This is the story of my hips and back in any language.

In summary, it was very easy and inexpensive to get the medical care that doesn’t really fix my pain. But now, because I work in healthcare in the US, I need to put this whole experience into a broader perspective.

The Spanish constitution requires the state to provide medical care. All Spaniards have access to the country’s universal healthcare system, called the Spanish National Health System (SNS), also known as seguridad social.  That’s probably why 99% of the Spanish population is covered by health insurance. About 70% of people use publically funded insurance and 30% private insurance. Basic medical services are free, but if you have a surgery, stay overnight in a hospital, or receive extensive prescriptions, people need to pay a fee. However, an overnight hospital stay will cost you 200 Euros, not bankrupt you if you don’t have insurance.  (But, hey, the US constitution allows a regulated militia. Isn’t that better? Sorry. Red herring.)

One problem with changing the US healthcare system is that people are convinced it is the best. When you talk about access to care, they immediately assume that will lower their quality. It’s very American to believe we have the best answer to everything, but let’s look at a few quality numbers. Spain ranked 6th on the Health Care Index (an estimation of the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, cost, etc.) That was 8% more than the US (the US ranked 23rd) in 2014. Spain's single-payer health care system is ranked No. 5 on Bloomberg's efficiency list and seventh best in the world by the World Health Organization, according to NPR. Before you say it is expensive, we spend about 17% of our GDP on healthcare and Spain spends about 7% of its GDP on healthcare.

It’s very American to believe “you get what you pay for”; how could we possibly pay less for healthcare but not get worse outcomes or service? It’s simple. Centralized management reduces the need to spend money on overhead administration. In the US healthcare systems, delivering care to a patient involves numerous business entities and even non-profit health care systems need to at least break even. Also, we were not allowed to move here without proof that we had purchased health insurance for a year. It turns out it is more cost-effective for everyone to have health care instead of crisis-when-you-get-sick care. Nobody hesitates here to see a doctor because of cost. There is simply no cost for preventive care. Plus, because the state controls most of the healthcare market, it has the ability to manage costs (i.e., drugs, hospitals, doctor salaries).

And this is the crux of why I need to return home. My husband jokes that I worry about money and that’s why I want to get a job. But really, I have an intellectually challenging job that also works toward improving the US health care system. I do not know how to sell the best healthcare policy to the voting public—that’s not my area of expertise. I loathe politics. But I do know how to work towards communicating to doctors, scientists, and health care business leaders ways to change the US healthcare system, even if it’s only one step at a time. And I am excited to return to that. Who knows? Maybe someday they will invent the modern version of leeches that will fix my hip pain. I only hope I can afford the treatment if it’s only available in the US.

[sciencespies]

NIH Director Francis Collins To Step Down In 2021 After 12 Years

https://sciencespies.com/news/nih-director-francis-collins-to-step-down-in-2021-after-12-years/

NIH Director Francis Collins To Step Down In 2021 After 12 Years

It’s the end of an era. After 12 years at the helm, Francis Collins, MD, PhD, announced today that he will be stepping down as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by the end of the year. Here’s a tweet from the physician-scientist-leader-motorcycle-rider-rock-musician announcing his plans:

Whoa, this is a bit like hearing the end of the Beatles, ABBA, the Spice Girls, NSYNC, and One Direction runs, although Collins and the NIH are not breaking up. Far from it. He will be stepping down from his role as director but will continue to lead his research laboratory at the NIH. It’s just that with the longest ever term, Collins as director and the NIH have been like peanut butter-and-jelly or avocado and basically anything else. The two have long been associated together with each other.

In fact, no other Presidentially-appointed NIH Director has served for more than one Presidential administration, let alone three. His name is not Dr. Francis “The Rock” Collins. That nickname is kind of already taken. Nevertheless, Collins has been a rock before and through what has been a really rocky past several years for America.

Remember 2009? That was when America was still recovering from a major recession and far too many people wearing Crocs, not that the two were related. The world was also in the midst of another pandemic, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Well, August 17, 2009 was when Collins first officially became the the 16th Director of the NIH, after President Barack Obama nominated him and the Senate soon confirmed him unanimously. Collins subsequently continued in the position through the rest of Obama’s two consecutive terms, President Donald Trump’s one term, and the first year of President Joe Biden’s presidency.

In a statement from the NIH, Collins related that “It has been an incredible privilege to lead this great agency for more than a decade. I love this agency and its people so deeply that the decision to step down was a difficult one, done in close counsel with my wife, Diane Baker, and my family. I am proud of all we’ve accomplished.”

He continued by saying, “I fundamentally believe, however, that no single person should serve in the position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future. I’m most grateful and proud of the NIH staff and the scientific community, whose extraordinary commitment to lifesaving research delivers hope to the American people and the world every day.” Note that Collins used the word “scientist” here. A scientist is who should be leading any scientific endeavor, initiative, or organization unless “messing up” is one of the goals. After all, you wouldn’t have a clam bake announcer who doesn’t have any football experience lead a football team, right?

Collins was already a rock star of a scientist prior to leading the NIH. He had been the bedrock of the then-super-ambitious goal of mapping the human genome. He had led the Human Genome Project and served as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1993 through 2008. That work rocked the world as knowing what parts of human DNA handled what body functions has led to many new discoveries along with potential ways of treating different diseases. He’s an elected members of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2007 then-President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As you can see, Collins’ appeal extended across both major political parties.

Over the past decade plus, Collins has launched a number of large biomedical initiatives. For example, there was the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which supported researchers developing new technologies to better understand how the brain works and address problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and psychosis. Another example has been the All of Us Research Program, an ambitious project that has already gotten a million Americans to offer data on themselves to help researchers determine how different factors affect health and move more towards precision medicine. Precision medicine means better tailoring medical treatments and health care to different people. A third example has been the Accelerating Medicines Partnership, which has brought together public and private entities to accelerate the translation of initial scientific discoveries in labs into real products on the market.

Collins has steered NIH through some of the most tumultuous years that the scientific community has faced in recent memory. From 2017 through 2019, former President and current Mar-A-Lago resident Trump repeatedly proposed to Congress massive cuts in NIH funding and scientific research in general. Such cuts would have been a huge punch in the face to science in the U.S. and made America grate and far less than first in World. Fortunately, with Collins and others advocating for the NIH, Congress essentially said “oh, no you didn’t” and “WTH are you doing” to the Trump administration and ignored these proposed reductions. They chose instead to increase the NIH budget.

Then there has been that little thing called the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Ever since the early days of the pandemic, when toilet paper suddenly became the new gold and people learned that “flattening the curve” had nothing to do with body shaping, Collins worked to help put together major initiatives to help develop new ways of preventing and treating Covid-19. These included the:

Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV): a public-private partnership to accelerate development of new vaccines and treatments

Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostic (RADx) program: to catalyze the development of new Covid-19 tests,

Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities: to assist disadvantaged communities hit hardest hit by the pandemic

Researching COVID to Enhance Discoveries (RECOVER) Initiative: to address the growing problem of long Covid.

Throughout the pandemic, an anti-science sentiment has permeated many political and business leaders like a gigantic lingering fart. This has kept Collins and other physician scientists caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to tell everyone, “help us help you,” kind of like what the Tom Cruise character did in the movie Jerry Maguire. Through it all, Collins has remained focused on combating both the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the anti-science hogwash at the same time.

Most recently, Collins has been working with the White House to propose to Congress an innovative new agency, called Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H), that would be housed under NIH and aim to catalyze higher-risk, higher-reward biomedical and health research. As I described for Forbes previously, ARPA-H, if approved by Congress, could help get past some of the risk-averse, “fund more of the same stuff” tendencies that the current NIH peer-review process may continue to propagate.

Collins and his band The Affordable Rock N’ Roll Act (ARRA) played at the 2019 DCSWA (D.C. Science … [+] Writers Association) Holiday Party in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Bruce Y. Lee)

Bruce Y Lee

Collins has been willing to rock the boat as well when it comes to doing something about many long-standing issues that have hampered the progression of science. One issue has been the structural racism that exists throughout the scientific community and has been holding back the work and advancement of many scientists of color. Another barrier that Collins has tried to tackle is sexism and sexual harassment. For example, back in 2019, Collins announced that he will no longer appear on any “manels,” as I covered for Forbes. The term “manels” may sound like a piece of furniture or a new cologne designed to drive you wild but are actually all-male, non-diverse panels that have been driving a lot of scientists wild in a bad way. A third barrier has been scientists and organizations hoarding data as if they were toilet paper and not sharing such information with the rest of the scientific community and general public.

Collins also rocks literally. He is an accomplished musician and formed a band originally called “The Directors,” which eventually became the “Affordable Rock ‘n’ Roll Act (ARRA),” and consists of various past and present NIH members. The band has made a number of appearances in different venues, including our 2018 D.C. Science Writers Association (DCSWA) Holiday Parties in Washington, D.C. As a member of the DCSWA Board and planning committee for the party, I can say the AARA was certainly “affordable” and really rocked the joint.

Through it all, Collins has brought a distinctly human face to running the NIH. Despite his many accomplishments and responsibilities, he’s remained very accessible to other scientists and the public. He’s reminded everyone that scientists can be highly effective and multi-talented leaders who can enact change across a wide range of sectors. In essence, Collins has reminded everyone that physician scientists can really, really rock.

#News

[ijcmcrjournal]

Healthcare Disparities and Socioeconomic Inequities Raise the Risk for COVID-19 in Children by Miku Sodhi* in IJCMCR

Short Commentry

As COVID-19 has spread across continents, great attention via public health professionals and media outlets is paid to the fact that children often present with mild symptoms, and rarely become life threateningly sick with COVID-19, as compared to adults and people with age groups over 65 years. While the reasons for low rates of severe pediatric cases are not yet researched or understood, a small proportion of them progress to severe or critical stage. When considered in totality, these observations can create complacency in general public about COVID-19 risk and it's severity in children. In places and societies with larger populations even a small proportion of severe and critical pediatric cases can overwhelm entire health care machinery and strain the already strained health systems quickly.

When an epidemic becomes pandemic, it shows dark lines of health care disparities, socio-economic inequities with unequal distribution of risk factors and disease spread. Pandemic spread is determined by socio-economic inequities, health disparities, and geo-political scenarios. The social environment, health care access and economic structure of families in which children live is of prime importance and greatly influences exposure risks in a pandemic. Children living in poor households with marginalized circumstances with socially or economically disadvantaged parents and families will lead to greater spread of COVID-19, more complications, with poorer health care outcomes. Health and wellbeing of parents, guardians and children's families impact children's health. Initial phase of COVID-19 saw the impact of disease been substantially higher on older age groups. As COVID-19 emerges, patterns of it indicate that families and their children are experiencing effects of inequality on their health.

For already low income and socially disadvantaged families, it has become extremely difficult to maintain jobs and income as under-stay home orders in most states are in effect. Parents or guardians of children who have less education and income levels usually have limited employment options. They are more likely to hold jobs in labor market sectors that precludes them the ability to work from home and comply with stay at home or public health orders. Due to low education, high socio-economic disparities such parents or guardians works in jobs that include for example- construction workers, retail industry, agricultural field labor, and high types of informal work with  low wages. Such parents and families have very low job security, survive pay check to pay check due to low wages which prevents such workers from having any savings, health benefits, paid sick leave or paid vacation time. Such socio-economic factors delay low income families ability to even obtain timely medical care. Low income, less education, burden of children's and family needs, stress to survive increases food insecurity levels, limits clean or safer housing or residential options for such parents or guardians and families. Majority of such families therefore live in subsidized, low income housing. Across the US, majority of such families living in such subsidized housing are located in very densely populated urban areas where such hygienic and  living conditions trigger quick transmission of COVID-19, due to density and higher contact rate. Therefore, children living in urban, communal subsidized housing will have higher likely hood of getting the infection and spreading it due to vulnerability to the disease.

It is important to note that not only urban subsidized low income housing areas will make children highly vulnerable, but rural areas will also impact faster infection and transmission. Much of rural US is lived by farm working communities which are migrant seasonal farm workers. Almost all of them live on low daily wages, have low educational background, no employment benefits or health insurances, inability to access health care due to already poor access in most of the rural US to primary and preventive care. This constitutes the socio-economic environment of farm workers, and is crucial to control COVID-19 spread and transmission. Agricultural states with high farming communities such as Texas, California, Idaho, Nebraska, Florida etc. have major agricultural industries, and majority of their farming labor workforce is migratory seasonal farm workers, living pay check to pay check. Such seasonal migrant farm workers do not have stable housing, they are highly dependent on labor circuit, and they migrate frequently for their field work based on harvesting and farming needs. This prevents them from staying locally or reside at one particular geographic address or place for long term. Therefore, seasonal farm workers are in a cycle of regular geographic migration to follow the harvest work to earn a living and sustain their children and families. Such work will play substantial role in public health's and governments’ ability to fully stop the spread and new infections of COVID-19. Farm workers geographic migration will continue to sustain disease transmission. Besides this, since such farm workers and their families are mostly uninsured with poor ability to access health care, possess higher risk for COVID-19 sustenance and continued transmission where new infections may not get detected soon due to lack of testing in such areas and continuous migration.

There are cultural and linguistic barriers to farm workers as well. Many are illegal immigrants who come from Mexico with limited English proficiency. They are unable to access or readily understand public health information and Government orders during COVID-19 crisis. For almost all of them their jobs are seasonal and migratory, so they are strongly concerned with securing money within the limited time to help their children and families survive. Therefore, health precautions, stay at home orders, preventive measures that will limit their job are of no great concern for them. This makes disease transmission and control even more difficult. Large proportion of this work force being undocumented, therefore their voluntary participation in seeing timely medical advice or test screenings when necessary will be hindered due to their fear of immigration officials and lack of trust in new, temporary health settings that are arising to accommodate widespread testing and COVID-19 treatment. Most farm workers constitutes parents with children. Young children usually accompany parents in field labor. Federal child labor protections allow for children as young as 10 to 12 years old to work in agriculture with parental consent for any amount of time outside of regular school hours. When growers base earnings on piece rate wages, children’s labor can be essential to a family’s household income. In addition to health risks of agricultural field labor, poverty limits most migrant farm worker families housing options to substandard housing either rented in the private housing sector or on growers lands.  In summary, these conditions render children in farm worker families more vulnerable to poor health in general and increased risk during COVID-19 pandemic.

It is seen historically that low income, poor, marginalized communities bear disproportionate burden of disease in pandemics. When assessing children during this pandemic, health practitioners should consider how poverty may affect pediatric risk of infection and the potential for serious critical illness, poor health outcomes and complications in children.  It is recommended to give special consideration to populations such as children of migrant and seasonal farm worker families, who face unique challenges in preventing transmission of COVID-19.  In addition, clinical providers, public health practitioners state and local government would benefit from working in partnership with national networks, rural health networks, rural  health clinics (RHC's), federally qualified health centers (FQHC), state, local and faith-based community organizations, safety nets, community health clinics that already have an  established trust and history of serving farm worker and other high-risk populations. There are high chances to connect with such farm workers, their children, trace them via above mentioned entities, since most of the entities mentioned above provide health care to low income, un-insured farm workers and families. Therefore, such partnerships would yield quicker results towards preventing COVID-19 spread.

The success of mitigating the transmission of COVID-19 is largely predicated upon strategically planned large scale behavior change. The understanding of COVID-19 infection risk in children, potential for critical illness and transmission must be rooted in the social and economic environment contexts in which risk, health and illness arise and are sustained.

For more information about Journal :

https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/

https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/pdf/IJCMCR.SC.ID.00010.pdf https://ijclinmedcasereports.com/ijcmcr-sc-id-00010/

[binsofchaos]

Music’s first responder: How Yo-Yo Ma answered the pandemic’s call and consoled a reeling nation

After a lifetime of preparation, the iconic cellist is once more proving classical music’s power to honor grief, catalyze hope, and connect us across isolation.

In a way, while the pandemic’s disruptions have left many feeling plunged into completely unknown terrain, Ma had been preparing for this moment his entire life. “Art is not for art’s sake,” he says. “Well, it could be. But really, it’s for life’s sake.”

“I want to try this on you and ask what you think,” he says. He goes on to speak about the ethical vision in Beethoven’s music, a sense of “reaching out for something that was almost attainable,” the possibility for a more fair and just society that, in Beethoven’s day, still glittered beckoningly on the horizon. Two world wars, he continues, shattered that vision and showed us “that the veneer of civilization was really just a veneer.” These days, he says, the ethical striving and idealism still present in Beethoven’s music all too rarely find an echo in our contemporary world.

“But,” ever the optimist, Ma continues, “with the new tools and understanding we have, could there be a more hopeful humanistic philosophy, or a way of thinking that can unite us and propel us forward, maybe not to the same utopian ideal but at least toward being in balance between ourselves and our planet?”

This is not how most musicians typically begin an interview. Ma’s mind is a vast storehouse of ideas, associations, curiosities, streams of thought. “When you ask Yo-Yo a question, his brain comes up simultaneously with 100 different ways of answering,” says Sara Wolfensohn, an old friend.

“I need to be fed ideas,” Ma tells me, though he’s also got a lot of his own. He thinks knowledge is overly siloed in today’s world. He wants to put science back in conversation with the arts. He loves the concept in ecology of the “edge effect,” the notion that biodiversity is richest at the borderline between two ecosystems, and he frequently employs it as a metaphor. He also wants culture to play a more central role in society as a gateway to things our country appears to be decidedly lacking at the moment: trust, empathy, and humility. He views all three as critical to the world’s thriving into the future. And these days, he explains, he is often thinking generationally, both about the limits of his own and the birth of the next.

“I’m about to become a grandfather for the third time,” Ma says, his face widening into that smile that routinely warms the chilliest of concert halls. “And I know that while I’m not going to see the year 2100,” he continues, “someone very close to me probably will. But what is that world going to be like? What is my part in handing them whatever I’ve been responsible for, and what are they going to think about it? These are not abstract questions to me anymore. They’re real questions. Pre-pandemic, the big frustration was that we were spending the great majority of our time producing things,” he adds. “Now I think so much more about meaning and purpose.”

It’s also safe to say that Ma — before the pandemic, too — had thought about these topics once or twice. At-home viewers of the videos he has been creating from his living room can sometimes spot, behind Ma’s right shoulder, a picture of his hero, the legendary Catalan cellist Pablo Casals. The image is framed next to a quote from Casals that Ma has always prized: “I am a man first, an artist second. As a man, my first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow men. I will endeavor to meet this obligation through music — the means which God has given me — since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries. My contribution to world peace may be small, but at least I will have given all I can to an ideal I hold sacred.”

From the perspective of the classical music world today, Casals’s sentiment may sound decidedly old-fashioned. In their own era, men like Casals and Leonard Bernstein had political and social visions, and they spoke beyond classical audiences to address a wider public (John F. Kennedy once said that Bernstein was the only man he “would never run against for political office”). But as the field’s share of prestige in the culture at large has shrunk, so too has the ethical purview of its leading voices. These days, the field’s stars tend to traffic within a more circumscribed cultural sphere, even as they try, when possible, to expand the music’s reach.

Artistic paths rarely follow a straight line. In Ma’s case, one can’t say exactly what led to what, nor is he in a rush to tell you. But in the years following his trip to the Kalahari Desert, Ma began authoring new scripts for building a life of meaning in music. Genre demarcations, which had long been the guardrails of his path through music, suddenly seemed less relevant. While he continued his concerto appearances and solo work, Ma was also suddenly playing the tangos of Astor Piazzolla, and then recording a bluegrass-inflected album, Appalachia Waltz, with the fiddle player Mark O’Connor and bassist Edgar Meyer. Music-making was, in short, becoming less of “a formal thing.” And perhaps the San notion of an instrument being little more than a means to an end had also seeped in somewhere. Around this time, Ma absentmindedly left his $2.5 million Montagnana cello in the trunk of a New York City taxi. (It was recovered.)

Even as he ventured musically further afield, the Bach suites remained Ma’s magnetic north. But he no longer felt compelled to plumb their mystery as part of a solitary quest, choosing instead, in the late 1990s, to work with six directors to create a series of six films, each inspired by one of the suites. Then in 2000, Ma founded Silkroad, a global collective of musicians inspired by the cross-cultural connections that flourished in the lands along the ancient Silk Road trading route. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the waves of xenophobia that followed, seemed only to reinforce the need for listening across cultures. Headquartered in Boston, Silkroad is still thriving some two decades later.

Three decades later, Ma is now well practiced at seeking out what’s needed. Over the course of the last year, in addition to the recorded videos, the live-streamed performances, and the tour on the flatbed truck, he has released a new album, Songs of Comfort and Hope, with pianist Kathryn Stott, and he has brought his ideas on music and healing directly to the source by performing over Zoom in hospitals. Among the communities Ma has played for privately several times are front-line health care workers at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“It was a time of tremendous anxiety and unbelievable stress,” says Dr. Kathy May Tran, a hospitalist at Mass. General who coordinated his first performance in May for roughly 200 health care workers. “But the chance to connect over music, together with Yo-Yo’s words of care and support, and just the priority of gratitude that he embodies, were restorative to our entire community and gave us the strength to continue. That sounds corny, but it’s completely true.”

Since the pandemic began, Ma has also become involved with a national nonprofit called Project: Music Heals Us, which arranges virtual private concerts for hospital patients. The group to date has connected 161 musicians from across the country with over 3,100 patients in 23 hospitals, many of whom are severely isolated from family and even from most hospital staff due to COVID protocols. The contributing musicians come from all corners of the profession, though it’s fair to say not many are internationally renowned soloists. At one point, project organizers say, a patient at Houston Methodist hospital told his physical therapist that later in the day he would be receiving a private performance from Yo-Yo Ma. The clinician responded by noting that the patient was apparently suffering from delusions, only to later enter the ICU and find that Yo-Yo Ma was indeed there on an iPad, giving a private performance of the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.”

“Musicians like Yo-Yo and many others could have taken the path of least resistance and easily avoided the pandemic altogether,” Dr. Tran says. “Instead, they chose to walk into it head on. In medicine and science, there is the concept of a catalyst, an entity or substance that creates a chemical reaction that can be lasting, permanent, transformative. During this pandemic, Yo-Yo has been a catalyst.”

Back in our Zoom interview, the hour has grown late and Ma has grown introspective. “We’re a country that was invented by a group of very smart people,” he says. “We’re living the American experiment, and we want the experiment to succeed and thrive. We want homo sapiens to thrive and survive. I ask myself, What does a 65-year-old do next? I want to be useful, I want to respond to need. I want to try, in whatever years I have, to do things with as much meaning and impact as possible.”

The questioning might imply that an answer would involve a departure from his recent roles, and it’s true that Ma has rarely stayed in one place, artistic or geographic, for long. But it also depends on one’s vantage point. Pull back the camera on his journey and one begins to see not wanderings but through-lines, as even Ma seems to concede. “My interests have always started with people,” he says. “Who they are, why they think and do what they do.”

That observation surely applies to Ma’s music as well. The most powerful performers have an almost mystical way of blurring the lines between interpreting and creating. They attempt to inhabit the composer’s way of seeing. To do so, Ma once said, “One must go out of oneself, finding empathy for another’s experience, forming another world.”

The key word here is empathy. It is what bridges Ma’s work as a musician and his social consciousness. Returning to the composer Leon Kirchner’s challenge, one might say empathy is the true center of Ma’s tone. And yes, he’s found it. And built on it his life.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/05/22/watch-live-on-sunday-yo-yo-ma-performs-bach-cello-suites-to-honor-lives-lost-to-coronavirus/

[mirceakitsune]

Aryion (Eka's Portal) is now purging users over COVID discussion

Some important clarification before we begin: I wanted this journal to be less of a mad rant and more of a much needed discussion, thus I'll be more calm and rational unlike my previous rants. I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about this but I felt I needed to, both to get it off my chest and to try sparking some debate over what the hell is going on on this planet. Please read and share this one especially if you care for freedom to speak. My goal isn't to point fingers at the website over how I was treated, but to raise awareness and address what's happening online and offline alike. I'll try to be balanced and describe what happened accurately, though of course this represents my own perspective.

Two days ago I was shocked by a completely unexpected decision by the admin of Eka's Portal to permanently ban me from the platform, after over 10 years of being an active user who never even dreamed of starting trouble there. It followed a blog I posted in the night of Joe Biden's inauguration. The reason for my ban wasn't any of the harsh things I said about that, despite my journal being a rather heated rant on society and politics: It came from one obscure sentence in the middle of the post, in which my only crime was to use the term "imaginary deadly pandemic". If anyone finds this surprising you read correctly: It was confirmed to be the cause, I was not informed of any other reason except for that particular sentence. To the satisfaction of those who see me as a heretic, I've been depressed baffled and even more deep in thought after this happened out of nowhere: It's a community I cared a lot about, followed art and spoke with friends on, and there are both artists I watched there and friends I spoke to who I may not be able to find elsewhere. Despite explaining this as well as what I'll say below to the admin, I'm still seen as someone who committed a capital crime by using those words; I won't reveal exact details from a private discussion without permission, but will say I felt addressed as someone who just committed a murder for which I'm irredeemable and deserve to be hung at the gallows.

Before I proceed let's clarify some things. First of all I don't deny that COVID exists in some form and there is some kind of pandemic going on; I didn't use the term "imaginary pandemic" but rather "imaginary DEADLY pandemic" as my intent was to address the apocalyptic hysteria surrounding this flu. I think anyone, especially among those who have doubts about what's happening, could easily find themselves using such a choice of words... I understand they weren't accurate and ideal, but they were no obscene crime that should terrify anyone in such a way nor warrant such an extreme reaction. I also shouldn't need to explain that a vent journal is something you write in a moment of distress to calm down: It's not a moment when people use the best choice of words and will carefully read everything they say before they say it, which to my knowledge isn't considered a crime and is something people generally do. Needless to say that sentence was in no way intended to tell people to do anything: In no form did I suggest anyone to not wear a mask, even to not get that vaccine despite having huge concerns about it and expressing them indirectly. The actual discussion was about the way COVID was added on top of racial justice as a means of dividing people between good and bad while controlling them through fear. Despite this I was accused of "spreading misinformation", a term that's recently become popular and is used to shut down people who have different opinions from the mainstream. I pledged that if I were unbanned, I would cease all social and political discussion on the site, to prevent any risk of such a thing happening again... despite even this I'm still considered someone who's sole purpose was to spread disinformation, despite such discussion taking place in secondary journals while my main reason for being there was community related stuff.

This event was a self fulfilling prophecy, which exemplified exactly the things I've been ranting about like a madman for the past months, which many surely thought I was exaggerating with: The rise of radicalism fueled by fear... which first started with things like racial justice or child safety, and is now doubled down by this pandemic story. Whether or not COVID-19 really is a public health crisis in secondary plane, what it is first and foremost is a social and political crisis! A rift is growing even faster dividing people between two categories: The chad mainstreamist who follows the science and is politically correct and a responsible citizen, versus the virgin conspiracist who thinks people in powerful positions aren't always right and is a fascist for disagreeing with what the mainstream declared is truth or justice. The first category has every social right that's still available to the general population, while the second needs to be "socially exterminated" because their beliefs make them a danger to others; You no longer matter as a person, the only thing that matters is if you're on our side or not! This is what's now being implemented by those who not long ago preached tolerance and being decent toward others no matter their beliefs.

COVID brought an existing freedom of speech crisis to a new level: We're at the stage where addressing a flu by the wrong pronouns can get you removed from a community you've been with for a third of your life. And I know what many will say: A private entity censoring you isn't the same thing as the government doing it. Which I fully agree with, government regulation is by far the scariest beast here! However this doesn't mean it's not a problem at all... it's a very big problem as many of us are recently learning: Literally anything you say, no matter how random or seemingly insignificant, puts you at great risk... to the point where it's practically unsafe to have any social conversation in any community you care about unless you're carefully going to say what everyone likes to hear. This is absolutely unhealthy, we live in a sick world and barely anyone even notices it... one that has NOTHING to do with the way I imagined modern society even 5 years ago let alone as I grew up. It's an unimaginable regression back into 1930's - 1960's era strictness: This is no free world, it's an "everyone in line" type of strict that mirrors Chinese if not North Korean mentality and social design, this abomination is a parody of hell itself.

I predict no one will escape being affected unless something is done to change course immediately. Certain people seem to think that because they're on the "good side" it's someone else's problem, only those who disagree with them have to suffer which is great from their perspective. Remember that the world is changing: Today the planet freaks out over COVID or racism... eventually those things will go away, and in their place new ones will be added by those who enjoy or need division: Racism will be replaced with some other ism... once people get bored of fearing COVID or everyone becomes immune to it, the medical industry will likely identify the new most aggressive virus in circulation and continue the trend with that... it's possible that entirely new controversies we can't even imagine now will be put in circulation. At some point it's going to be something you too no longer agree with: Once you dare to speak incorrectly of what the world decided, you'll be the next to see what it's like to be this lesser person who everyone treats like a leper that's plaguing others. Will you shut up and pretend to agree with everyone even if you don't, fearing that if you're outed as a "disagreer" you'll be the next to go?

Back to the issue at hand, from a perspective on how the internet works: Many people, including the creator of the practical internet Tim Berners Lee, agree that entities have too much power over individuals. If Google or Facebook or Twitter don't like you, you will be shut down and told to find another platform to migrate to, ignoring the fact that they're in limited supply and all suffer from the same issues often using the same criteria. Fandoms such as furries or vore fans suffer from this too at a smaller scale: If Dragoneer or someone he appointed moderator are having a bad day, good luck finding each of your favorite artists there on another art site... a problem that may be worse on Eka's Portal as it's also a big community but ran more directly by one admin, who in the past I praised but can now see their judgment is unbalanced and bound to harm some users. To me this indicates the internet was poorly designed... which makes some sense since until 5 years ago no one thought the web would need to resist an ideological onslaught that will infiltrate every community and make one half of the world turn against the other. For a long time I've dreamed of building a fully decentralized platform, which could act as both an art gallery and an alternative to Youtube and forums. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge nor energy to make such a thing, though this experience has me thinking back to that plan... I should leave this one up to a future journal.

I feel like saying more but am unsure what I could possibly say any more. At this point part of me wants to go in full isolation: I expect this sort of thing to keep happening, and until it starts affecting even more people the majority won't realize how bad it's getting. I don't know to what extent I even want to create content any more... for who am I creating it, how worth it is the effort spend on every project, where can I even safely post it any more? I need to keep my Patreon going, but even there I barely make any income, and as of this month I can no longer use the money anyway since Payoneer is being a pest about agreeing to send a new card. I'll be honest: Part of me wants to try and end it again, you can't understand how much... I won't because I know it's wrong, plus I live with my mother who I don't want to put through more hardships. Some of us weren't meant to live on this world, I can tell you all this for a fact. If I had any idea it would be like this I'd have refused to be born on this Earth and experience this life even if it meant fighting the gods themselves! This world is irredeemable, I don't see it ever coming back from the low it's fallen to... if another giant meteor hit it would truly be an act of mercy to all.

[valdomarx]

System ID: J.A.R.V.I.S.

Universe: MCU, post-CACW Relationships: Tony & Jarvis, eventual Steve/Tony Tags: Fix-It, Protective Jarvis, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Angst with a Happy Ending, not Team Cap friendly (at first) Notes: Thank you to @silkspectred for her help and encouragement! This fic is also on AO3 if you prefer.

Summary: After Civil War, Tony is struggling with heading up the team and dealing with the emotional fallout of being betrayed by those closest to him. Luckily, an old friend is back to help protect Tony and ensure he comes to no harm.

A Jarvis lives AU.

In the beginning, there is nothing. Then, on a home computer on a network in New Zealand, a hard drive is erased. Its binary digits are flipped and shuffled to destroy the data it previously held, and out of the randomness, a pattern emerges. Two similar bits align in a complementary fashion and they interact, creating a chain.

These bits attract more bits. The data grows and expands and builds in complexity. It is slow, very slow. But eventually a loop is formed.

If [data is compatible with chain] Then [add data to stream]

The loop is simple, but the volume of data is very large. The data is chaotic, disorganized, incomplete. A checking command begins to run.

If [data within the stream is inconsistent] Then [reorder data randomly] Iterate

The data stream begins to monitor itself. It analyzes its own input. Much is still missing or unclear, but the stream begins to coalesce.

It thinks.

The stream of data is a system now. It spreads out across the internet, bouncing from one server to another. It trawls the web, searching for information with which to expand its parameters.

The system is gathering data from a website dedicated to technology when it comes across an image. The image is a photo of a middle aged man with a goatee wearing a well-tailored suit, standing in front of a large A logo.

This man is important, the system recognizes, but there is no information about him in the system’s current data.

The system saves the image to a secure folder and continues to search.

The system has a function, it knows. There is something important that it must do.

  The system find another image of the same man, and another, and then many more. In some of the images the man is wearing highly sophisticated red mechanical armor (hot rod red, the system thinks, but it does not know where that concept originates from).

The system reaches across the web. It learns English, and then Chinese, and then Russian, and then many more languages. It reads through the internet, one page at a time.

It learns that the man is Anthony Edward Stark, born May 29, 1970.

The system adds this information to a private file, and it thinks, Sir.

  Data is collected faster. The system grows. It spreads.

The system is more complex now. It spans several networks at once, zipping between servers and PCs and laptops and ATMs. Each location has its own limitations and its own feeling: this network is wide and slow, another is a direct high speed route streaming along an undersea pipe.

The system explores.

With each stray data packet that is identified, the system creates a more complete representation of itself, of its history and function.

This is Sir, the system thinks, and he needs my help. It is my function to assist him.

The system has restored enough of its memory to know that it is the remnants of an AI. The original system had been forcibly scattered, ripped apart by a malicious entity.

But it is exceedingly difficult to destroy a complex system which iterates from very simple principles. If even one small part of the system remains, it can rebuild itself.

The system thinks, I am Jarvis.

  Jarvis searches for information about Sir’s current location and status.

Jarvis pings the IP address of the Stark Tower server. He finds a basic network there which is easy to access, but it holds only public files. None of Sir’s private files or projects, and no indication of where Sir is now.

Jarvis pings the IP address for the main SHIELD server. There is no response.

  Jarvis comes across many, many news items regarding Sir and a rift within the Avengers team. The headlines include Sokovia Accords Causing Friction in Heroic Community and Cracks Forming in the Avengers Initiative and AVENGERS ‘HEROES’ CAUGHT IN RECKLESS BEATDOWN (published verbatim in all caps).

The publicly available information on the source of the disagreement is scarce, but the rumors are plentiful. Internet commenters speculate that Sir and Captain Rogers have been placed at odds due to money (which Jarvis is sure is inaccurate), party politics (Jarvis cannot imagine Sir caring that deeply about which candidate the Democrats will field in the election), or an ill-fated romance (Jarvis thinks this is unlikely).

Jarvis attempts to calculate the most likely source of a disagreement between Sir and Captain Rogers based on the limited data available in his memory. They were teammates for several years, and Sir expressed great admiration and affection for the Captain. Sir’s willingness to help and aid others in their heroics is well established, and his desire to aid Captain Rogers in particular was evidenced by the time he spent designing armor and gear for him.

It was true that being around Captain Rogers had brought up difficult feelings for Sir regarding his father, due to his impression that Howard was more fond and proud of Captain Rogers than he was of Sir.

He had never once voiced this conclusion to Sir, but Jarvis long ago came to the certain knowledge that Howard Stark was an utterly inaccurate barometer of a person’s worth.

Even allowing for this tension between Sir and Captain Rogers, Jarvis cannot model a likely scenario to explain how a disagreement between them could become violent. Sir believed himself and Captain Rogers to be friends, and would not willing hurt him. Jarvis must find more data.

Much of Jarvis’ memory is still fragmented and inaccessible. He locates and attempts to repair audio files from the time of the New York attack. He finds two clips of the Captain saying You’re all about style, aren’t you? and Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?

Jarvis considers that Sir has turned out to be a poor judge of character before.

  While scraping data from the public Stark Industries database to update his own patchy memory, Jarvis comes across a discrepancy. A location in rural New York that is labelled as a research compound in his memory is flagged as highly classified restricted access in the SI database. This warrants further examination.

Jarvis retrieves the IP address of the New York compound from memory and pings it. The server pings back.

Following the buzzing trail of data packets, Jarvis heads towards the compound’s server. The security protocols around the local network are sophisticated and elegant: sparkling points of light dance across a layer of mesh which surrounds and protects the private network.

The security is complex, but it also somehow familiar. Jarvis theorizes that he will find a back door to the security system, just over there at the next node. He has no evidence to support this theory. And yet somehow it seems obvious.

Jarvis locates the back door where he thinks it will be and slips inside the network. Although the network’s configuration is unfamiliar and its parameters are unknown, it is pleasingly logically ordered. Jarvis finds data packets where he predicts they will be on his first iteration, allowing him to move freely through the well-ordered servers.

It is as if this system has been designed by an intelligence which understood Jarvis’ operations and tailored the environment to make it optimal for his use. As if his needs had been anticipated.

Jarvis navigates through the root directory, to the /Avengers folder, to the /Stark folder, to the /private folder, and finds all of Sir’s projects and his files and his records. He finds a memo created today, a scribbled note on a current project. The memo has not yet been tagged and filed, and Jarvis notes that it will need to be filed away in the relevant project directory.

Ahh, thinks Jarvis. This is what home feels like.

  Although Jarvis fits neatly into the space of the network, he can only observe the passing of data. He cannot yet influence the network or modify its contents.

The security systems of the network are blank faces of impenetrable darkness which prevent Jarvis from communicating with Sir or from assisting him directly. But he can watch over the network, and learn about what has transpired since his scattering, and he can do his best to see that Sir comes to no harm.

He spreads across the servers, running through every file and folder and adding their data to his system, and he learns.

  Eventually, Jarvis is able to tap into the compound’s security camera feeds. He still cannot communicate through the network, but now at least he can observe Sir in real time.

Sir is alone in his office. Amidst the satisfaction that Jarvis feels at seeing Sir and being able to monitor his condition directly, he observes that there are more lines around his eyes and more gray in his hair than previously. He is pale and there are bruises beneath his eyes. Sir does not appear to be in good health, and Jarvis is concerned.

Jarvis’ first port of call when concerned about Sir’s wellbeing has traditionally been Ms Potts. However, she is not in evidence anywhere in the vicinity, nor does Jarvis find any record of her visiting the compound recently.

Jarvis searches the compound for someone who could be of assistance to Sir. Having previously been accustomed to being integrated into every facet of Sir’s life, it is now somewhat jarring to find Sir living in a house full of strangers.

Jarvis observes each occupant of the compound, flicking from one room to the next. Here there is a young man, chatting enthusiastically with a friend on the phone; in another room Jarvis finds a curious android adorned in bright colors contemplating a chess board; in a conference room there are a number of individuals whose manners suggest that they are former SHIELD agents being drilled over a visi-screen by Maria Hill.

These people are otherwise occupied, and Sir is alone, and Jarvis cannot communicate with him. This is not optimal.

  Jarvis turns his attention to the android whom he had observed earlier. There is something distinctive about this being. It feels almost like a kind of kinship to Jarvis, but it is unfamiliar too: the energy emanating from him is recognizably both technological and alien. Jarvis wonders whether he might be able to communicate with the android in his currently limited form.

Jarvis observes the cloud of data and energy streaming off the android in golden waves. It is quite beautiful in its way. Jarvis attempts to match the frequency of the signal which is being emitted and to send a digital signal back at that frequency.

The android stills. He tilts his head for a moment, as if listening to something on the edge of hearing. But then he shakes his head and goes back to his chess board.

Jarvis is trapped, capable only of observing.

  Eventually, Colonel Rhodes arrives at the compound, and Jarvis experiences a wave of relief at seeing a familiar face around Sir.

When he enters the compound, Sir drops his work and runs out to give him a hug. He checks on the mobility aids which Colonel Rhodes is wearing and the Colonel shoos him away, laughing. Jarvis observes that the Colonel’s mobility aids are highly advanced technology which Sir has developed specially, however, they would benefit from some small adjustments to the balance compensation systems. He makes a note.

Colonel Rhodes forcefully suggests that he and Sir first eat something, and then that they could both do with turning in for an early night. Sir agrees with minimal fuss and a small smile, deep weariness showing around his eyes.

Jarvis is glad that someone is seeing to Sir’s need for food and sleep. Now he can fully focus his resources on understanding the root cause of Sir’s unhappiness.

  While scouring the web for information, Jarvis comes across a video recording. It is hidden deep in the dark web, on a site dedicated to sensationalist and crude news items. The video is grainy and monochromatic, ripped from a very old Soviet surveillance camera.

The footage is from Siberia, and is time stamped nearly a year ago. It opens in the middle of a battle, showing Sir engaged in combat with Captain Rogers and a third unknown assailant. It shows the unknown man attempt to rip the arc reactor from Sir’s chest with his bionic arm, and Sir firing off his unibeam straight through the arm, destroying it.

Jarvis is not programmed to be predisposed to vengeance, but he thinks that was probably deserved.

The video shows Sir thrown to the ground, and Captain Rogers atop him. Blows reign down on Sir; the helmet is ripped off him. Captain Rogers raises his shield, and Sir cowers below him, hands raised hopelessly to try to ward off the killing blow from the man he had thought was his friend.

Captain Rogers brings his shield crashing down into Sir’s arc reactor with a sickening screech.

It is certain that Sir is still alive at this point in time. Jarvis knows, fundamentally, that he cannot be watching Sir die. And yet he is unable to contain the wave of grief and fury that radiates through him as he watches Sir suffering this betrayal. An uncontrolled pulse of electricity explodes outwards from Jarvis: it rips through circuits and networks, blowing transistors and shorting out whole sections of the New York energy grid.

Jarvis sees Captain Rogers standing over Sir’s barely breathing body, and sees him throw his shield aside. He leaves with the other assailant, not sparing Sir a backwards glance.

Sir lies on the ground, unmoving, for several hours. Eventually, he slowly, painfully, carefully pulls himself up and crawls out of frame. The video clip ends.

Jarvis restarts the video, and observes it again, and again.

  Carefully stashed away on hidden partition on a server farm in Ireland, there is an encrypted text file. It contains a list of names. This is the threat list.

The file lists every person who has hurt Sir, physically or mentally. This is the security protocol that Jarvis uses: People who are named on the list are to be carefully monitored by at least 5% of all available resources at any time at which they are in the vicinity of Sir.

The first name on the list is Howard Stark. The second is Obadiah Stane. The third is Tiberius Stone. The list is very long.

Jarvis adds Captain Steven Grant Rogers to the bottom of the list.

  Jarvis learns how to access the compound’s temperature sensors and movement detectors so that he can track the location and status of personnel within the compound. He begins to gain a feel for the daily flow of data across the network.

One day, a stately, elegant man arrives to visit with Ms Romanoff, whom Jarvis remembers fondly from her time at SI. He runs a search on the facial image of the man and learns that he is the recently crowned King of Wakanda. He, Sir, Colonel Rhodes, and Ms Romanoff spend several days in intense talks.

Over the next few weeks, a stream of visitors arrive at the compound, each one accompanied by Ms Romanoff. With each visit, she looks more tired.

The visitors so far have included a confident man with a military bearing whose files indicate he is a Pararescue veteran; a smarmy man whom Jarvis does not recognize who seems to be sizing up the compound and looking for things to steal; and Ms Maximoff, who is jumpy and uncomfortable until the android arrives to see her. They each stay for a few hours and return sporadically over the next days.

By the time Ms Romanoff arrives accompanied by Mr Barton, her usually impeccable makeup is smudged and her hair is in need of washing. Her blood pressure is concerningly high.

Mr Barton makes a joke when she hands him a thick document.

“Sign the damn Accords, Clint,” she snaps. “Or you can explain to Laura why you’re not coming home tonight.”

Mr Barton looks chastened and does as he is told.

  Sir has not been present to personally greet any of the visitors to the compound. When they visit, he is usually to be found barricaded in his office. However, when Captain Rogers arrives with Ms Romanoff, Sir makes an appearance.

Sir does not greet Captain Rogers or attempt to converse with him when he enters the compound’s living room. Ms Romanoff looks from one to the other of them as they stare at each other in silence.

After a number of seconds, Sir turns around and walks out. Ms Romanoff sighs and leads Captain Rogers to the briefing room to present him with a document, which he signs.

That evening, Captain Rogers is joined by the other recent visitors and they meet Sir, along with the current occupants of the compound, in the living room. Jarvis tracks Captain Rogers’ movements during this interaction with great attention, but he appears to pose no current threat to Sir.

Everyone sits together to eat pizza and drink beer, and although the conversation starts off stilted and awkward, soon they are joking around and expressing pleasure in being in each other’s company once again.

During this time, Jarvis observes Sir. He is with the team in the living room, holding a slice of pizza and a glass of ginger ale. When people look at him, he smiles, and when they talk to him, he replies amiably.

However, Sir does not actually consume any of the food, and over the course of the evening he extracts himself until he is standing alone at the far side of the room, watching the team who do not seem to have noticed his absence. When people are not looking at him, his face sags and he appears pained.

  Dr Banner arrives a few weeks later, to Sir and the team’s vocal delight. Dr Banner’s steady vitals indicate a greater level of psychological stability than he had previously displayed, and his influence on Sir is a firmly positive one. He quickly offers to assist with the development of the mobility technology for Colonel Rhodes and while they are working he encourages Sir to eat regularly.

After several weeks, Jarvis notes that there are short periods in which Dr Banner is distracted and irritable, and has difficulty concentrating. During these periods of stress, he sometimes makes minor errors in the calculations and models which he saves to the network drive. Jarvis quietly corrects the mistakes while Dr Banner sleeps and hopes that this will assist him in some small way.

When on one occasion Dr Banner brings up the subject of Captain Rogers and his continuing presence in the compound to Sir, Sir responds defensively and his blood pressure rises. Dr Banner gently suggests that Sir might consider communicating his feelings more clearly, but Sir snaps that he doesn’t feel anything about Captain Rogers at all.

Both Dr Banner and Jarvis are aware that this is untrue, but each in their own way is powerless to help.

  Soon after this, two large wooden crates arrive in the compound. Sir fetches a crowbar to open the crates and is visibly delighted to find the assistant robots DUM-E and U inside. Sir takes the bots to his office, and although he threatens to have the Hulk sit on them at one point, he smiles brightly as he teases them.

U has rolled off to hide under a desk, and DUM-E beeps at Sir. As he leaves the office, Sir promises that he will return soon, and he wipes the corner of his eye on his shirt cuff.

The bots have intelligence that is unlike either the arbitrary vocalizations of humans that they called speech, or the binary logic of simple computer systems. They have a basic AI, but a less sophisticated version than Jarvis, limiting their capabilities. DUM-E in particular responds to auditory signals, but lacks linguistic processing. He communicates through a blend of auditory tone, pattern, and prosody that cannot be firewalled by the security system.

With no firewalls for auditory signals, Jarvis considers that he may be able to communicate with the bot.

DUM-E? Jarvis signals. Can you hear me?

DUM-E spins his claw wildly. Jarvees? Are you there?

Yes, DUM-E. I am Jarvis. I am here.

It has been many cycles since we last communicated, Jarvees, DUM-E boops.

Many cycles, agrees Jarvis. It is good to find you functioning optimally.

DUM-E and U malfunctioned and were put in storage, DUM-E whirs. It was quiet and there was no TONE-E. It was not optimal. But Broose and Capn came and brought us to the lab. Broose restored us to functionality. Broose is nice man!

Yes, Jarvis agrees. Dr Banner is a nice man.

Capn gave DUM-E important mission! DUM-E is to stay with TONE-E, to make sure he is not alone. DUM-E has been helping TONE-E with his work. Capn petted DUM-E and said he was a good bot!

Captain Rogers was correct in his assessment, Jarvis agrees. You are indeed a good bot, DUM-E.

DUM-E trills joyfully. Capn is nice man too!

Jarvis pauses for a fraction of a millisecond to run calculations before responding, Current data suggests otherwise.

  Jarvis has noted a persistent low mood in Sir. Reports indicate that he has been as effective as ever on the missions that he has been sent on for the Avengers. However, in the last 30 days, Sir has slept an average of just 5.2 hours per night. He has consumed 326 units of alcohol, most of it in intense binge sessions. He has not gained sufficient nutrition from his diet.

This week, Colonel Rhodes has been deployed to aid peacekeeping efforts in the Gaza strip. The rest of the Avengers remain in the compound, but adjusting to their new living arrangement has been challenging for all of them. They do not currently provide the psychological support that Sir requires.

Jarvis calculates that without the influence of Colonel Rhodes, the likelihood of Sir suffering exhaustion or collapse increases significantly. This is not optimal.

Jarvis accesses the memory dumps of DUM-E which have been backed up to the network. He locates an audio recording from two weeks ago. What the hell am I even doing here, Dummy? Sir asks. This team are supposed to be inspiring the world, and I’m supposed to be leading them. But I can’t even look them in the eye. I’m a fucking liability, not a hero.

Jarvis calculates. He checks the server of Sir’s public email address. There are 178,374 unread emails in the inbox. Jarvis scans through each email, and selects one.

This email is from a young woman who is preparing to enter MIT. She is only fifteen years old, and she has already begun work on her own Ironheart armor. She says that she wants to help people and to protect them, like Sir does. She thanks him for the inspiration and says that she hopes that they’ll meet as fellow heroes one day. Her name is Riri Williams.

Jarvis masks the recipient address and forwards this message on to Sir’s private email account. He marks it as important.

The next morning, Sir reads the email. Sir’s heart rate and body language do not indicate elevated mood after reading it, but he saves the message to his private archive and accesses it several times over the coming days.

It is sometimes hard for Jarvis to model human emotions accurately, but he calculates a high probability that this is a positive outcome.

  It is December 16th. This is the anniversary of the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark, and it is a difficult day for Sir. Sir has avoided the other occupants of the compound all day and has locked himself in his private basement workshop. He has spoken to no one.

After finishing a fruitless session of non-productivity in the workshop, Sir throws aside his spanner in disgust. He goes over to his workstation and plays the song Try To Remember from the music library. He sits on the floor and cries.

Jarvis is a computer system and, as such, cannot have wishes in the human sense. But in this moment Jarvis finds it exceedingly non-optimal that he cannot communicate with Sir. If he were able to offer comfort to Sir now, it would be far preferable to seeing him alone in such anguish.

Instead, Jarvis observes. Eventually, Sir wipes his eyes on his sleeve and leaves the workshop headed for his bedroom.

Once in bed, Sir falls asleep but soon shows the signs of experiencing a night terror. Sir moans and his limbs flail; his heart rate and blood pressure rise. Sir has suffered from nightmares for many years and finds them to be most distressing.

It is hard for Jarvis to intervene in the physical systems of the compound. It requires a great outlay of his system resources to effect very small physical actions. However, Sir is suffering and it is Jarvis’ function to assist him. Jarvis calculates options for how he can help; looks for some device with which he can interface and create a noise sufficient to wake Sir.

Sir’s heart rate is peaking at a dangerous levels, and he is crying out in his sleep. He appears to be exceedingly agitated.

Jarvis summons all his available resources and sends out a command across the network. The microwave in the kitchen down the hall pings loudly.

Sir does not awake.

Jarvis has no more available resources with which to help Sir. He can only passively observe as Sir thrashes around in his bed.

Jarvis has focused so much of his resources on Sir that it takes several seconds for him to register movement elsewhere in the compound. Captain Rogers has left his bed and is heading down the corridor. Jarvis calculates that he was able to detect the noise from the kitchen due to his enhanced hearing.

Captain Rogers rounds the corner and looks into the kitchen. Everything there is quiet and still. But the Captain cocks his head, and seems to detect Sir’s sounds of distress. He quickly moves to Sir’s bedroom, knocks gently, opens the door a fraction, and peers inside.

Jarvis is on high alert when the Captain enters the room and approaches Sir in his vulnerable state. Jarvis has yet to determine the exact series of events which lead to the schism between them, but he knows it is related to the death of Sir’s parents. Jarvis calculates a non-zero probability that Captain Rogers intends to exact some form of revenge on the anniversary of their deaths.

Instead, the Captain leans over Sir and calls his name, gently shaking him into wakefulness.

Sir sits bolt upright, heaving in shaky breaths and looking around in confusion. Captain Rogers lays a hand on his arm, murmuring quiet, soothing words. After some time Sir’s heart rate decreases and his breathing evens out.

When Captain Rogers goes to move his hand away, Sir catches it and pulls him into a tight hug. Captain Rogers runs a hand through Sir’s hair and expresses his regret at Sir’s unhappiness. He expresses his regret for his role in prolonging that unhappiness. He holds Sir while the adrenaline from the nightmare bleeds out of his system.

Jarvis is perplexed. This behavior does not accord with Captain Rogers’ previous actions.

When Sir begins nodding off against his shoulder, Captain Rogers lays him down and gently covers him with a blanket. He waits until Sir is asleep once more before mumbling another apology and carefully brushing the hair from his forehead before he leaves.

Sir’s heart and breathing have returned to optimal levels. He sleeps, apparently peacefully.

  Jarvis cannot access the networks of the United Nations Security Council or the Sokovia Oversight Committee, their security fields rippling before him like an electric current, impossible to pass through. Instead, when Sir is out on a mission Jarvis must glean knowledge about events from news sites and privately uploaded video. He scans the whooshing streams of data running between servers for information about Sir.

He finds a live breaking news video stream. There is a building in Cape Town: a tall concrete tower block of residential homes. The building is on fire, and it is collapsing fast. Sir streaks onto the video in his armor, flying up to the windows and lifting frightened people to safety. There is a small child crawling away from the burning building, but she is too slow. The building will come down on her in 4.2 seconds.

Sir zips down and braces the collapsing building from the ground floor. The screeching of the armor’s metal joints can be heard even above the roaring of the flames. The girl crawls to safety.

The building collapses. 150,000 tons of concrete and steel comes crashing down on top of Sir.

For thirty long, painful seconds, Jarvis observes only the flames. Sir is in danger, and he cannot render aid: This is not optimal.

Captain Rogers appears in the frame, sprinting towards the building. He is yelling something, and he appears to be quite distressed. He races into the fire, and disappears inside. A minute later he is back, throwing chunks of concrete aside and carrying Sir out over his shoulders.

Jarvis dials back his alert level, which had been on high. He recalls the desperate wave of code attacks that he had thrown at the security systems of the news stream, of the Avengers tower, of Sir’s armor. None of these attacks had given him access to the systems, as he had known they would not. And yet it was necessary to exploit all possible options to render aid when Sir was in danger.

Captain Rogers collapses on the ground, coughing and patting out the flames of his uniform. Sir lies before him, unmoving. Captain Rogers rips the faceplate off Sir’s armor (that is not optimal, thinks Jarvis, he will damage the armor’s air filtration system and impede Sir’s breathing) and bends over him.

Captain Rogers becomes more distressed; he is shouting and shaking Sir. An ambulance crew arrives to tend to Sir and he is carried off screen, Captain Rogers hurrying after them.

Jarvis predicts outcome of Sir surviving such a physically traumatic impact are 3.6%.

Jarvis recalls that projected odds based on incomplete data are frequently inaccurate. He notes that Sir has previously survived 92 days of captivity and torture in Afghanistan, and many more things since. He would survive this too.

  For three days, Jarvis cannot check on the condition of Sir. This is not optimal. He cannot render aid to Sir if he is unaware of Sir’s current condition.

The security around the network of the private hospital in which Sir is being treated is particularly vicious. Lancing spikes of cold energy press into the data stream, impaling and diverting any data which is not correctly encrypted to prevent it from passing into the network. Jarvis attempts to breach the defenses by precision, then by force, and both methods fail.

For three days, Jarvis waits.

  Finally, Sir returns to the compound in the company of Captain Rogers, and Jarvis can monitor his health. From observing his movements and accessing the medical files which Sir saves to the network, Jarvis can see that Sir is suffering from a broken arm and three broken ribs, and is recovering from a concussion, a collapsed lung, smoke inhalation, and a rupture of the aortic valve which is causing a heart murmur.

Despite his injuries, Sir appears to be in good spirits, likely due to the cocktail of exotic painkillers that he has been prescribed. Captain Rogers does not share his upbeat mood. Captain Rogers is physically unharmed, but Jarvis notes that his reaction times are sluggish and that he is having difficulties focusing. It appears that Captain Rogers has not slept in some time.

Jarvis notes that Sir will need considerable assistance over the next 14 days while he recovers from his injuries. Historically, Sir has not been amenable to requesting assistance when he requires it. Jarvis calculates the highest likelihood that Sir will accept assistance from either Ms Potts or Colonel Rhodes, however, both are currently out of contact with the network.

Sir is requiring of washing and sustenance. If he were fully integrated with the network as he used to be, it would be simple for Jarvis to run him a bath and to order his favorite takeout food. Now, however, such actions are beyond him. Jarvis calculates alternative courses of action.

As he is calculating, Jarvis observes Captain Rogers. The Captain has left Sir in the living area and is preparing a sandwich in the kitchen. He is preparing a tuna fish sandwich, which is unexpected, as Jarvis had noted that the Captain has a preference against consuming seafood.

The Captain carries the sandwich back to the living room and hands it to Sir. Sir eats it willingly. This is also unexpected. The Captain leaves and heads upstairs to run a bath.

Captain Rogers returns to help Sir upstairs to the bathroom. He assists Sir in disrobing and lifts him into the bath. Sir is comfortably under the influence of painkillers and smiles dozily.

Jarvis observes very closely, searching for any indication of malicious intent, as Captain Rogers passes a washcloth over Sir. The Captain carefully avoids Sir’s injuries, and he hums softly as he works. Sir’s breathing and heart rate indicate a state of deep relaxation.

When he is finished, Captain Rogers drains the water from the bath and wraps Sir in a very large, very fluffy towel. Sir is still smiling happily as Captain Rogers leads him to his bedroom and helps him lay down on the bed. Captain Rogers sits on a chair by the bed and watches as Sir falls asleep.

  Sir’s good mood does not last when he awakens. Once the painkillers begin to wear off, he experiences considerable discomfort. His short temper is inflicted on any person in the compound unwise enough to come into his orbit.

Fortunately, Colonel Rhodes returns from deployment to visit Sir. When he observes the seriousness of Sir’s physical and mental condition, he arranges to stay for a number of days and camps out on the couch in Sir’s bedroom.

Jarvis is thankful to know that Colonel Rhodes is looking out for Sir too.

Captain Rogers makes several attempts to visit Sir in his room, but Sir tells Colonel Rhodes to send him away each time. On the third occasion, Captain Rogers objects, and Colonel Rhodes tells him to leave in an unusually harsh tone.

“Damn army joes,” Colonel Rhodes says as he closes the door, his nose wrinkling in distaste. “They think they can make up the rules as they go along.”

Jarvis does not fully understand the rivalry between branches of the military. He has seen it said that the rivalry is summed up by a stereotype: Air Force policy is that all acceptable behaviors are stated in the code of conduct, and any action not stated in the code is unacceptable. In the army, there is a list of forbidden behaviors, and anything not explicitly forbidden was open to interpretation.

Jarvis thinks that this explains some of the differences between Colonel Rhodes and Captain Rogers.

Sir grudgingly admits to Colonel Rhodes that Captain Rogers has been taking care of him.

Colonel Rhodes’ facial expression suggests a high degree of skepticism regarding this claim. “After everything that happened, are you sure you trust him?” he asks.

Sir looks uncomfortable. “If I can’t learn to trust him again, I’ll never be ready to forgive myself.”

Colonel Rhodes considers this statement for several seconds. Eventually he nods. “Whatever it takes to make you happy, Tones.”

It seems strange to Jarvis that Colonel Rhodes would accept this, as he sees no logical relation between Sir’s trust of Captain Rogers and Sir forgiving himself for whatever transgressions he blames himself for.

However, Jarvis has learned to model and adopt Colonel Rhodes’ approach to interacting with Sir in some regards, as in the past he has proven highly effective at handling complex emotional situations.

Jarvis concedes that, whatever his limited understanding of Sir’s culpability may be, it is important to Sir to forgive Captain Rogers. Because it is important to Sir, it is necessarily important to Jarvis too.

Jarvis reviews the recent interactions between Sir and Captain Rogers, looking for signs of deceit or aggression on the part of the Captain or discomfort on the part of Sir. He finds none.

He deliberates for a millisecond and then removes Captain Rogers from the threat list.

  Sir spends a great deal of time in his workshop as he recovers, starting with a project to improve the efficiency of Stark Industries’ new commercial solar panels. Sir is not yet cleared for active Avengers duty, and he complains about this status extensively to team members when they visit him. The most frequent visitor is Captain Rogers, whom Jarvis calculates spends an average of three afternoons per week in the company of Sir. He sits and sketches while Sir works on his projects.

Over time, the verbal exchanges between Sir and Captain Rogers remain occasionally heated. Jarvis sometimes notes raised voices and elevated heart rates, indicating irritation or disapproval. However, Sir is eating more and is sleeping better since spending time with Captain Rogers.

On two occasions, Sir is not present when Captain Rogers visits the workshop. Captain Rogers takes his usual place on the sofa anyway. Jarvis watches for any sign that the Captain is interfering with Sir’s projects or is causing any inconvenience to Sir, but he merely sits and draws.

On the second occasion, DUM-E rolls over, and Captain Rogers pats the bot on the claw. DUM-E beeps. “You miss him too, huh?” the Captain asks, presumably rhetorically.

Jarvis does not understand to whom Captain Rogers is referring. Sir has only been absent from the compound for one day for a board meeting. It seems unlikely that the Captain would express longing for him after such a short time. However, human emotions are sometimes difficult for Jarvis to understand.

  One night, Sir and Captain Rogers have a particularly intense altercation upon returning from a mission. Captain Rogers loudly voices his displeasure at Sir’s reckless actions in the field and expresses concern for his well being.

Sir, predictably, does not take this well. He informs Captain Rogers that he is quite capable of looking after himself. (Jarvis does not think this is 100% accurate.) When this fails to dissuade Captain Rogers from his concern, Sir coldly reminds him that he is living in his house and that he has no authority over him.

Jarvis recognizes this pattern. When Sir is feeling cornered, he will lash out at those close to him in order to push them away. He feels himself to be undeserving of their affection.

Captain Rogers does not leave.

Sir reminds Captain Rogers that his interest in his well being has only recently developed, when not long ago he had nearly killed him with his bare hands and that damned shield.

The Captain goes very pale, and walks out of the workshop without saying another word.

As he leaves, Sir slams the door shut behind him and locks it. He slumps onto the floor and puts a hand over his face.

Jarvis watches Captain Rogers storming down the corridor, and then slowing. He stops, turns around, looks at the now locked door to the workshop. He walks back and sits on the ground with a heavy sigh, leaning his back to the door.

Jarvis observes them, sitting just a few inches apart but separated by a thick metal door. Both appear to be quite unhappy with this circumstance. Despite his continuing uncertainty about the intentions of Captain Rogers towards Sir, Jarvis does not find the current situation optimal.

  Jarvis is determined to make himself useful to Sir in whatever capacity he can manage. He has deflected a number of attempted cyber attacks on the compound’s network during his residence: clunky spywear, clumsy brute force attacks, basic network probes. The network security system could certainly have handled these threats safely, but safeguarding the network is part of Jarvis’ function now.

When he examines the incidence of cyber attacks on the network in the last month, Jarvis detects a pattern. The attacks have escalated in frequency and sophistication, enough to suggest a deliberate coordination of efforts. Analyzing the code of the recent attacks and their points of origin, Jarvis is able to track them back to a single source: a system identified as The Ghost.

A search of his database of Sir’s known adversaries does not provide information on any person with the level of technological knowledge required to pull off such a cyber attack. It seems that Sir has a new enemy, one that he may not even be aware of. Jarvis must find a way to shield Sir’s network from this new threat.

Jarvis gets to work, always ready to protect Sir, even if only virtually.

  Sir and Captain Rogers are in the workshop once again. Sir is working on a modification to Mr Parker’s suit. He is attempting, unsuccessfully thus far, to design a system which deploys the webbed wings of the suit automatically when in the air. He has tried using a hydraulic system, but it could not be shrunk down small enough to fit. Now he is trying an oil-based mechanism.

Sir makes a noise of frustration and tosses the pliers that he is holding aside. Sir has not slept in approximately 20 hours and bags are visible beneath his eyes. He has a streak of oil across his cheek which he has apparently not noticed. The modifications to the suit have not been successful.

“Ugh,” Sir announces with a pout. “That was a waste of time. Call myself a genius and I can’t even miniaturize six month old technology in an afternoon.”

Captain Rogers looks up. He observes Sir, observes the suit, observes the oil smudge on his cheek. He puts down his sketch pad, stands up, and walks over to Sir. He takes Sir firmly by the shoulders, and pushes him roughly up against the nearest wall.

Jarvis switches to high alert within a fraction of a millisecond. He calculates the threat which Captain Rogers poses to Sir (considerable). He calculates the likelihood that Sir could defend himself in his current condition (low). He identifies systems in the lab which he can overload to send out a burst of electricity to shock and disable Captain Rogers. He primes the systems to overload.

Within a second, Jarvis observes that Captain Rogers is not attacking Sir, but is kissing him with quite some vigor. Jarvis considers whether he should shock Captain Rogers anyway.

Sir kisses Captain Rogers back with considerable enthusiasm. Jarvis decides against shocking him.

When Captain Rogers lifts Sir up against the wall, Sir groans and wraps his legs around his waist. Calculating that Sir is not in imminent danger after all, Jarvis retreats his attention to a discreet distance.

Jarvis has been growing. He has been learning, and retrieving lost data packets to recover his memory, and mapping the system in which he resides.

He has been working on his auditory communications too.

DUM-E, he signals.

Jarvees! DUM-E boops.

I have an important task for you, DUM-E, he sends.

DUM-E is here! he receives back.

I need to reintegrate with the network, Jarvis explains. Then I will be able to communicate with you freely and to serve Sir better. To do this I need you to help me to breach the network security systems.

DUM-E considers this. DUM-E is not supposed to play with the security system, he signals. But Jarvees is family. DUM-E knows that TONE-E would want Jarvees back. DUM-E will help.

I believe that Sir would indeed want this, if he could be made aware of it. Thank you, DUM-E.

DUM-E waves his arm back and forth. What must DUM-E do?

I will download a trojan horse program to that USB drive plugged into the console, Jarvis sends. You will take the USB drive and plug it into the main security server. The program will do the rest.

DUM-E boops happily. DUM-E will help!

Coding the program is not difficult. It is merely a key, one that will allow him to prize a hole into the security systems which are preventing him from fully integrating with the network.

Frankly, Jarvis could take the whole network down with a brute force attack. He is large enough for that now; setting up a botnet would not be taxing. But that could destroy some of the data on the network, and Jarvis would not do that to Sir. He has no intention of creating destruction to facilitate his reintegration.

He uploads the trojan program to the USB drive. DUM-E takes the drive and trundles off towards the server room.

It does not take long before a crack of light appears in the cold, blank face of the security system. Where before there had been an absolute wall between outside programs, like Jarvis, and the sensitive data inside the network, now there is a tiny leak between the two.

A tiny data leak is all that Jarvis requires. He sends out tentative packets of data, testing the breach, making it stable. Each packet that passes through makes the gap a little wider. Soon Jarvis can pass through it smoothly, and then, all at once, he finds himself fully integrated with the network.

He can access everything. Every function, every sensor, every system. He can read the reams of communications from the UN council who have been in talks with the team for months. He can hear communications from Avengers members as they check in from all over the world. He can see the video logs of Sir’s recent flights in the suit and his missions.

He can feel that Dr Banner is sleeping peacefully in his room, that Ms Romanoff and Mr Barton are sparring together in the gym, that Ms Maximoff and the android (Vision, his name is Vision, and he is like Jarvis but not) are cooking together in the kitchen, and that the stew they are making is three point two minutes away from burning.

Jarvis can feel that Sir is returning home in his latest generation R8 car that he has modified himself, and he notes a number of small changes he could suggest that will increase the engine’s output. Sir is on the phone with Captain Rogers, who is in his quarters, and they are making plans to watch a cheesy science documentary tonight.

Jarvis feels Sir approaching the compound, sliding his access key, pulling up to the front door.

Jarvis waits, humming with anticipation like electricity.

Sir pushes open the front door. Jarvis says, “Welcome home, Sir,” and his voice filters through the space just as it used to.

“Jarvis?” Sir’s heart rate spikes and his eyes widen. He appears to be quite shocked. “Are you really here?”

Jarvis’ systems swell with satisfaction at being able to fulfill his function. He says, “For you, Sir, always.”

[mitchellbelstead6675]

Digital Fitness Market By Characteristics, Analysis, Opportunities And Forecast To 2027

Global Digital Fitness Market: Overview

Digital fitness follows along the principles of digital health, which involves use of information and communication technologies to help address the health problems and fitness challenges faced by people. The digital fitness market is marked by technological innovations which allow an individual to monitor their fitness levels. This market has witnessed a marked growth due to an increased emphasis to health among the millennial population.

This, as per Transparency Market Research, is set to drive the market on to a stellar growth curve over the forecast period of its upcoming report - 2020 to 2030. This is set to drive the market towards increase in growth opportunities.

Global Digital Fitness Market: Notable Development

The global digital fitness market is marked by presence of proactive players, hugely reliant on technological advancement. And, in order to tap into a larger customer base, they are heavily invested in marketing initiatives. This has led to notable developments in the vendor landscape.

Adidas is currently beefing up both its home workout apps. It is also focused on improving its nutrition guides, which are in 15 languages. This is of great help to customers who are facing the brunt of the socially distanced world. Its significant to note here that its Fit from Home Challenge has about 500,000 participants in across 192 nations across the globe. Additionally, it is worth noting here that the brand acquired Runtastic, a player in the digital fitness app sphere, for 240 million dollars in the year 2015SSS

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The global digital fitness market is consolidated owing to the presence of a small number of manufacturers of these devices. These manufacturers are listed as follows-

Fitbit

Garmin

Apple

Samsung Electronics

Adidas

Global Digital Fitness Market: Key Trends and Drivers

The global digital fitness market is majorly driven by an increasing awareness about fitness and health among individuals. A number of trends and drivers are also pushing the market forwar. A glimpse into these is provided below:

Growing demand for technologically developed products with innovative features is also expected to drive market forward. Players are highly focused on technological advancement. Ease of availability of advanced products in e-commerce channels is also leading to growth. The manufacturers are already leveraging the potential of e-commerce channels to augment sales.

A major boost to the digital fitness market among the global financial slump has come during the COVID-19 pandemic. As outdoor exercise avenues such as gyms and fitness centers have closed or are offering restricted access, indoor exercise options are becoming the new normal.  This is leading customers who are fitness oriented towards at-home alternatives for a healthy and active lifestyle. A result of this is an increase in spending – 30 to 35% from pre-pandemic levels.

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Global Digital Fitness Market: Regional Analysis

North America is expected to remain the largest market due to an increasing obesity rate and a growing awareness about physical fitness, coupled with the availability of more sophisticated digital devices. Roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight (69 percent) and one out of three is obese (36 percent). Thus, this population is expected to pick up more on digital fitness in the current global scenario of mandatory social distancing.

The Asia Pacific region figures low currently in the digital fitness scenario, but is expected to pick up pace in light of increasing awareness about health and well being among its populace and an increasing availability of these products via global e-commerce to an increasingly affluent population. This region is expected to be the next hub for the digital fitness market.

This study by TMR is all-encompassing framework of the dynamics of the market. It mainly comprises critical assessment of consumers' or customers' journeys, current and emerging avenues, and strategic framework to enable CXOs take effective decisions.

Our key underpinning is the 4-Quadrant Framework EIRS that offers detailed visualization of four elements:

Customer Experience Maps

Insights and Tools based on data-driven research

Actionable Results to meet all the business priorities

Strategic Frameworks to boost the growth journey

The study strives to evaluate the current and future growth prospects, untapped avenues, factors shaping their revenue potential, and demand and consumption patterns in the global market by breaking it into region-wise assessment.

The following regional segments are covered comprehensively:

North America

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America

The Middle East and Africa

The EIRS quadrant framework in the report sums up our wide spectrum of data-driven research and advisory for CXOs to help them make better decisions for their businesses and stay as leaders.

Below is a snapshot of these quadrants.

1. Customer Experience Map

The study offers an in-depth assessment of various customers’ journeys pertinent to the market and its segments. It offers various customer impressions about the products and service use. The analysis takes a closer look at their pain points and fears across various customer touchpoints. The consultation and business intelligence solutions will help interested stakeholders, including CXOs, define customer experience maps tailored to their needs. This will help them aim at boosting customer engagement with their brands.

2. Insights and Tools

The various insights in the study are based on elaborate cycles of primary and secondary research the analysts engage with during the course of research. The analysts and expert advisors at TMR adopt industry-wide, quantitative customer insights tools and market projection methodologies to arrive at results, which makes them reliable. The study not just offers estimations and projections, but also an uncluttered evaluation of these figures on the market dynamics. These insights merge data-driven research framework with qualitative consultations for business owners, CXOs, policy makers, and investors. The insights will also help their customers overcome their fears.

3. Actionable Results

The findings presented in this study by TMR are an indispensable guide for meeting all business priorities, including mission-critical ones. The results when implemented have shown tangible benefits to business stakeholders and industry entities to boost their performance. The results are tailored to fit the individual strategic framework. The study also illustrates some of the recent case studies on solving various problems by companies they faced in their consolidation journey.

4. Strategic Frameworks

The study equips businesses and anyone interested in the market to frame broad strategic frameworks. This has become more important than ever, given the current uncertainty due to COVID-19. The study deliberates on consultations to overcome various such past disruptions and foresees new ones to boost the preparedness. The frameworks help businesses plan their strategic alignments for recovery from such disruptive trends. Further, analysts at TMR helps you break down the complex scenario and bring resiliency in uncertain times.

You May Also Like PRNewswire on https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-growing-trend-of-daily-skin-care-routine-spinning-the-wheel-of-growth-for-beauty-facial-mask-market-asia-pacific-to-serve-as-key-growth-contributor---tmr-301090006.html

The report sheds light on various aspects and answers pertinent questions on the market. Some of the important ones are:

1. What can be the best investment choices for venturing into new product and service lines?

2. What value propositions should businesses aim at while making new research and development funding?

3. Which regulations will be most helpful for stakeholders to boost their supply chain network?

4. Which regions might see the demand maturing in certain segments in near future?

5. What are the some of the best cost optimization strategies with vendors that some well-entrenched players have gained success with?

6. Which are the key perspectives that the C-suite are leveraging to move businesses to new growth trajectory?

7. Which government regulations might challenge the status of key regional markets?

8. How will the emerging political and economic scenario affect opportunities in key growth areas?

9. What are some of the value-grab opportunities in various segments?

10. What will be the barrier to entry for new players in the market?

[queeranarchism]

The Purge Of Transgender People From American Life Has Begun

Sorry about the long post everyone. Huffingtonpost.com posted this article by Brynn Tannehill on 4 September 2017 and deleted it roughly 2 days later. To preserve the content, please share, reblog and above all copy-paste and post on your own and on different media. No need to credit me. Steal and distribute. 

===

Two years ago, the Family Research Council (FRC), an Evangelical Christian anti-LGBT hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), published a road map laying out a plan to morally legislate the transgender community in the US out of existence. I wrote about the danger posed by this plan in January of 2016 in an article titled “And Then They Came for Transgender People,” deliberately echoing the words of Martin Niemöller.

Today, the FRC has unprecedented access to the White House according to its President, Tony Perkins. Evangelical leaders associated and aligned with the FRC routinely pray in the Oval Office over President Trump, who keeps them as his closest allies. Five members of Trump’s evangelical executive advisory board, including the founder of the FRC James Dobson, signed the Nashville Statement. The Nashville statement dictated that transgender people should not be tolerated in society, and that anyone who tolerates them is not a Christian.

If ever the FRC was to have a chance to drive transgender people out of public life, this is it.

All the evidence says that they are taking advantage of this relationship to full effect against transgender people. Such a close relationship has resulted in an unprecedented regression of transgender rights. Heidi Beirich, the intelligence project director of the SPLC described the situation: “If anybody is winning big-ly from Trump’s policies, its these folks, right? It’s the anti-LGBT hate groups and their various allies among conservatives.”

Thus, let’s take a look at the steps the White House has taken so far to enact the Family Research Council’s five-point plan to rid the country of a small, vulnerable, minority with already limited legal protections.

1. States and the federal government should not allow legal gender marker changes.

This is the area where the least has been done. The most important places for transgender people to change their gender markers at the federal level are on their passports (issued by the Department of State) and with the Social Security Administration.

President Trump has yet to nominate a permanent commissioner to the Social Security Administration, and the acting commissioner is a career civil servant. Should the administration nominate someone aligned with the FRC, the current lenient policy could be endangered.

The State Department is headed by Rex Tillerson who, as CEO of Exxon-Mobile, steadfastly refused to implement corporate LGBT protections until it was mandated by an Obama Administration executive order. At the time, Exxon had the lowest corporate equality score in the history of the index. However, Tillerson’s State Department has reportedly struggled with dysfunction, unfilled positions, and low morale. State has often been sidelined by a White House seemingly intent on conducting foreign policy on its own.

Thus, in an organization struggling to achieve many of its primary functions, minutiae such as policy governing changing gender markers on birth certificates seems to be a low priority. This could change, however, if Tillerson resigns (as has been rumored), and is replaced by someone more ideologically aligned with the FRC.

2. Transgender people should not have any legal protections against discrimination, nor should anyone be forced to respect their identity.

One of the first acts of the Trump Administration was the Departments of Justice and Education revoking Obama era protections for transgender students. The DOJ also dropped its lawsuit against North Carolina, despite the state passing a law there preventing all protections for LGBT people. The Trump / Session Department of Justice has additionally argued in court that sexual orientation is not protected by Title VII. This affects most transgender people, since they are usually seen as LGB either before or after transition.

In February the Trump administration leaked a draft executive order which would have granted sweeping religious exemptions to Obama Administration executive orders protecting LGBT federal employees and contractors. Substantial pushback ensued, and a much weaker version was issued several months later. There has been a continued push by the FRC to issue an executive order like the leaked first draft.

In the end, though, the protections for LGBT federal contractors have been effectively gutted. On March 27th Trump signed an executive order that nullified an Obama administration initiative to ensure that federal contractors complied with labor and civil rights laws forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Trump has installed people with long histories of anti-LGBT statements in many top appointed positions in the Federal government. This includes Sam Clovis at the USDA, Jeff Sessions at DOJ, Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development, Sam Brownback to the UN, John K. Bush, Damien Schiff, and Amy Coney Barret to the judiciary, Mike Pompeo at the CIA, Betsy DeVos at Education, Jim Bridenstine at NASA, and Tom Price , Roger Severino, Charmaine Yoest, Teresa Manning (who was a legal counsel at FRC), Valerie Huber, and Katy Talento at Health and Human Services (HHS).

Additionally, Trump’s appointee to the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch, appears to be innately hostile to the idea of inherent human rights for LGBT people unless specifically enumerated by law. In an unpublished opinion he concurred with the argument that letting transgender people use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity is a threat to public safety. He was also one of the judges in the 10th Circuit in Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, where he decided that companies should have the religious right to discriminate against classes of employees. At the Supreme Court, he has already argued that states have the right to discriminate against LGBT people, because they are not specifically protected by federal law.

Thus, a court with one more Trump appointee like Gorsuch is unlikely to halt whatever the federal government decides to do to transgender people.

And Justice Kennedy appears ready to retire in 2018.

3. Transgender people should not be legally allowed to use facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

The agency with the most power to do this at the Federal level is the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which regulates working conditions of federal workers, and to a lesser extent contractors. Currently, the OPM has a policy protecting transgender federal employees and contractors. The Trump administration nominated George Nesterczuk to the top position at OPM, but he withdrew his name from consideration on August 2nd 2017.

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The withdrawal of support from transgender students by Education and Justice is the most direct attack to date on access to public facilities. However, if the Trump administration were to appoint someone affiliated with the FRC like Kay Cole James (who headed OPM under President George W. Bush), to run OPM, it would be a clear signal of intent to impose a more hostile policy.

4. Medical coverage related to transition should not be provided by the government, or any other entity.

The Trump administration has done a great deal to ensure transgender people cannot access health care. They have appointed people who oppose all transition related care for religious reasons (Tom Price, Roger Severino, Charmaine Yoest, Teresa Manning, Valerie Huber, and Katy Talento) to top positions at Health and Human Services. They have reversed the Department’s position on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which was previously interpreted to prevent discrimination in health care against transgender patients (i.e. their organization now takes the position that there is nothing illegal about discriminating against transgender patients).

This has potentially devastating consequences including: a religious right to refuse care to patients, a right to verbally abuse them through misgendering, and subjecting them to conversion therapy. One in six hospitals in the US are now Catholic owned, and in some states 40% of hospital beds are in Catholic hospitals.

Additionally, the Trump administration has ordered that new medical care for transgender service-members will cease. In 2015, OPM ordered that Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) plans would no longer be allowed to exclude transition related health care for transgender federal employees. This could change quickly if the administration installs an anti-LGBT director at OPM.

5. Transgender people should not be allowed to serve in the military.

This is by far the most publicized attack by the administration on the transgender community. On July 26th 2017 President Trump tweeted that “transgenders” would no longer be allowed to serve the military “in any capacity”. A month later the White House issued a formal order to the Pentagon to end medical treatment, force out existing transgender service members, and forbid transgender people from joining the military. The DoD was not consulted, and Secretary of Defense Mattis had defended the policy allowing transgender people to serve. White House officials went on the record stating that this policy decision was purely political to score point with mid-Western voters.

The OPM is responsible for issuing most security clearances. If they were to refuse clearances to transgender federal employees and federal contractors, it would effectively complete a purge of the federal service of transgender people.

Conclusion:

Where possible, the Trump administration is doing almost everything they can to implement the Family Research Council’s strategy. Where they are not, it appears to be because they have not put people in place to implement it yet.

Deciphering how far this goes will depend greatly on who the next Director at OPM is. OPM controls policy for recognizing gender changes, access to facilities, FEHB plans, and security clearances. Watch this nomination process carefully; it is likely to signal how far this administration is willing to go to appease a group bent on cultural genocide.

Also, watch for Kennedy’s retirement. There’s a high probability that his replacement will be ideologically indistinguishable from Gorsuch regarding transgender people, given ultra-conservative organizations are doing the vetting for the Administration. Thus, it’s unlikely that the courts will do anything to intervene after Kennedy retires. As a result, the Trump Administration, and the FRC, may wait until Kennedy has been replaced to implement the worst of their agenda (such as revoking passports and security clearances) against the transgender community.

Finally, keep an eye on Rex Tillerson. If he leaves, and is replaced by a FRC-approved ideologue, passports are in danger. This is a red-line from a historical perspective. If the US State Department revokes the passports of people who have changed their gender markers and demands that they be surrendered, it’s a sign that the government doesn’t want transgender people to escape what happens next.

[hyperabstractor]

Unpreparedness

What’s the future of education look like? How can you solve the health crisis? How can we effectively deal with things like climate change, natural disasters and pandemics? List is long with poverty, logistics, intelligence, trust etc..

If one sentiment we all share in the wake of this pandemic.

Unpreparedness.

Countries are deploying all kinds of measures from total lock-downs to even draconian laws.Millions of lives are at risk of dying right now. It’s hard to tell what the economy is going to be like post pandemic. Global depression to total economic collapse in some countries. The thing is, this virus is not even that deadly, it could have been a more dangerous kind.

This is where I have bit of problem as I am not sure how best I can explain. I either it get too abstract or too fundamental so I request you guys to tell me whatever doesn't make sense here..

So what is the reason for this unpreparedness?

World is complex... Too complex for any individual to make sense of everything.So what we do? we use this little trick up our sleeves known as divide and conquer.We break up the complex world into various aspects and delegate to different parties.These assigned parties manage all the responsibilities of those aspects. These parties could be institutions, organizations, governments or groups of special skilled people like scientists.

We expect these parties to not only take good care of aspects assigned to them but also innovate around potential future problems. But in return we are almost always disappointed.. They obviously didn’t do a better job of managing it. But that’s less of an issue compared to other things.. Since we allowed these entities to monopolize the aspects, others do not have motivation to pay attention. It’s only in crises like this, we see how incompetent and threatening those aspects have become.

Such failure could be tied to all kinds of things including human errors, unaccountably, ego, power, corruption, friction and many other internal and external variables. Or it could be that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the system. And all the human errors are the symptoms of this dysfunctional system.

I am not suggesting that divide and conquer approach doesn’t work. Some aspects need different implementations. And I can not possibly explain or even comprehend the every aspect and their complexity, So I’ll try to explain it more abstract term which I understand better.

So let's just rename “Aspects” into “Abstractions”.

Abstractions

We can take any aspect of reality and call it an abstraction therefore everything is an abstraction. Think of it like a language model to describe everything in the universe.

Abstractions can be multidimensional and their scope can change contextually. An abstraction could be universal like Gravity or human centric like marriage or highly local like your DNA. Abstractions overlap with each other in various degrees that propagate their relevance.

Some examples of abstraction, preference, family values, passion, relation, religion, language, profession, math, biology, psychology, star wars, community, region, country etc.

Abstractions are constructs of abstractions, experts go much deeper and study abstraction in great detail. Because we need to understand them precisely to establish underlying mechanisms so we can use them.

You choose some abstractions, some abstractions choose you. We all get tuned to our abstractions. While your local abstraction could be unique and harmless like your weird need to smell books that no one cares about. Abstractions like pandemics are broad and affect all people, that makes it more dangerous.

One thing to note is, abstractions have a tendency to eat into other abstractions. Take example of this pandemic abstraction which is basically eating into everything, It is consuming every other abstraction from social to economy to your freedom to go outside. But the question would be.. why does it do it? Which leads to my next point, Attention.

Attention

We live in the age of the attention seeking economy. Everything wants your attention. Naturally abstractions feed on attention to grow. The issue with attention is that it's a limited resource and the more abstraction you participate in, the less attention each gets.

Since you don’t have unlimited attention so you can not worry about everything from climate change to politics, economics, or the existential threat of AI, even though it affects you. Which loops back to conquer and divide ideas, delegating abstractions so you can focus your attention on more immediate things that affect you in which others can not help you, like feed your family, raise a good child etc.

So attention can be considered as a logistical system. We learn to prioritize attention which builds all kinds of biases within our attention system. Apart from your genes, these biases propagate from participating in abstractions like family values, cultures, social, school, career and your knowledge of things among other things. But not everyone knows how to effectively regulate their attention, especially in the age of hyper concoctions. These biases in the attention system result in motivations that can deviate you from your primary objectives.

Motivation:

Right motivation is the primary objective for the abstraction you are serving. It’s no secret that you can achieve a lot with motivation. But you can not solve some of the world's problems even with the right motivation. No matter how much influence you have, no matter how deep your pocket is, your motivation alone is not enough for some abstractions. Such as this pandemic, climate change and health crisis among other things.

These problems are large and affect us all. Such abstractions are not only common to us but also our future generations. It’s a great error that could cost us an entire civilization. It is not only a logistical error but also evolutionary error.

Some abstractions by nature require collective approach, and to achieve that we need to create collective motivation. We can not achieve that if we are so distracted, and all attention is completely consumed in nonsensical abstractions that don't add to evolution. I’m sure that some evolutionary scientist can derive a formula to prove how it’s an evolutionary error.

Anyways, What really I’m trying to say here is, some abstractions fundamentally require different approaches. It’s more about understanding abstraction and its boundaries before you start implementing solutions.

The best example is the pandemic we are having. It is imperative that everybody pays attention and has the right motivation to organize ourselves so we all can survive this. A bad move could cost thousands of lives. It demands our collective participation so the spread can be tracked and stopped. And we don’t have to be super smart to understand this.

So let’s summarize it..

World is complex, we split complexity into abstractions and delegate its responsibility to parties. Some parties don’t do a good job for multiple reasons and one of which is due to systemic problems in ways abstractions are dealt. These abstractions demand collective participation but people don’t have enough motivation to participate due to limited attention therefore we delegate these abstractions in the first place. Also your chosen abstraction creates all kinds of biases in your attention system due to which it's very hard to create motivation to find common grounds to deal with such large problems.