#Climate change? Doesn't exist according to some

[greatspacedustbin]

Een oproep aan alle lieve stemgerechtigde Nederlanders

Neem alsjeblieft de verkiezingen serieus, en als je geen herhaling wil van de afgelopen 13 jaar (hoeveel schandalen moet ik hier voor je linken?), en niet het land 70 jaar terug in de tijd wil zien gaan als het gaat om medisch-etische kwesties en de acceptatie van de lhbtiq+ gemeenschap, stem links, en stem tactisch.

De laatste peilingen laten zien dat rechtse partijen, VVD, PVV en ja, ook NSC hoort daarbij, nogal aanwezig zijn. Als een van deze partijen de grootste wordt, kan je er donder op zeggen dat er weer een rechts kabinet komt, met een beetje pech ook met de SGP erbij. Dat is uitermate slecht voor het klimaat, alle zorgkwesties en immigratie. GroenLinks/PvdA staat relatief hoog in de peilingen, maar als zij niet de grootste worden, is de kans heel klein dat er een links geluid in de regering terecht komt.

Geen enkele partij zal voor de volle 100% bij je aansluiten, en je hoeft het ook niet met alles eens te zijn, maar voor een sociaal en toekomstbestendig Nederland, stem alsje-alsjeblieft links. GL/PvdA als je tactisch wil zijn, maar elke linkse stem telt.

In ieder geval: leg je stempas alvast klaar en doe je burgerplicht op 22 november!

Stempas kwijt? Een nieuwe aanvragen kan per formulier uiterlijk vrijdag 17 november, of bij de balie van je gemeente dinsdag 21 november, tot 12:00u.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

HEYA WHO WANTS TO LEARN ABOUT GRASS AND VOLCANOES

Yes I'm alive and yes I'm making posts and music again. Ok so moving on HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GRASS???

This patch of grass is from a Youtube video by Quincyvhs ranking grass in Tears of the Kingdom. He's a cool guy and has a similar video on Breath of the Wild and I highly recommend you watch it cause his editing is very cool.

HOWEVER. He made an egregious error today by ranking this patch of grass, this lovely, magnificent, extraordinary patch of grass upon Death Mountain as a mere B Tier. It clearly is an S Tier.

How do I know this? Well this patch of grass indicates miracles. It indicates determination. It indicates the spirit of adventure, of change, of liberty and mayhaps even the purest form of happiness the world round...

...and as later corroborated by the actual geologist that I am dating, it is an indication of the massive shift in Hyrule's ecosystem and climate.

Let's Begin.

Using my ace detective skills I have located the site in question in both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (Botw and Totk). The general consensus is that there is a 5~ year time gap between the two games.

Given that the grass does not exist here in Botw, this means that this patch of grass took at maximum 5 years to grow. However, I'm going to prove that it probably took even less time than even that.

Below is the site on Botw's Map:

We are unable to get an accurate temperature reading of the area because the Sheikah Slate decided to give up. So we're going to use science to determine this soon to be important number

Given that wood near instantly ignites at this location in Botw, we can conclude that the temperature in the air is around 370 degrees Celcius or 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now typically, rock and soil serve as good insulators of heat, so the air temperature around a volcano itself isnot usually that much higher than the ambient temperature (unless you are actively within a Pyroclastic flow, which would be a more pressing problem than analyzing grass to say the least)

However, when near the presence of lava, that temperature of the air can actually reach up to 1000 degrees Celcius (1800F) so this reading is actually even more reasonable when you note that we are in good distance of the Medingo Lava Pool.

Conversely, we can actually grab an active temperature reading of the area during the time of Totk thanks to the Purah Pad.

It's 102 degrees Fahrenheit.

Easy. Simple. Fantastic. I love when my job doesn't require four hours of research for every single question!

Anyhow, here are some figures from the Oregon State Volcanology Laboratory on the rate of lava cooling

Yes this post is still about grass, stay with me.

To truly appreciate the glory of science and the glory of this patch of grass, we are going to calculate the exact amount of time needed for the temperatures to lower on Death Mountain to one sustanable for growth (That being around 100 degrees Farenheit).

SPOILER ALERT: It takes less than 5 years. This is insanely impressive considering grass of this type* typically takes DECADES.

Anyhow, The Figure 2 and 3 have to do with the depth of the lava, and Figure 4 deals with the thickness. (Many thanks again to my partner for providing their geological expertise and resources)

The thickness of the Medingo Lava is very easy to calculate given that Link can literally jump in with a splash and drown in it like the world's worst hot tub--the bitch ain't thick at all. So we use the lowest listed reading for that.

The depth of the lava is more tricky, but comparing the lava pool in Botw and Totk, and using Link as a marker of around 5 feet, we can say that the pool is around 10 feet deep.

Therefore, the Medingo Lava Pool took around 2-3 years to cool after Death Mountain stopped erupting.

Now when exactly did Death Mountain stop erupting?

According to the catalog of Volcanoes of the World by the Smithsonian Institution, 93% of volcanos stop erupting within 3 years.

Now I know that Death Mountain only started erupting because of the return of the Divine Beast Vah Rudania, and Link only "stops" the eruption of Death Mountain by defeating it. So one could argue that Death Mountain's "eruption" had to be less than a year or something.

My rebuttal to that would be 1) Within the game's canon, I don't see how we could justify Link taking one day, or even one month to wake up from the Great Plateau, travel immeidately all the way to Death Mountain. and then tame the Divine Beast in less than a month, and 2) Link didn't really stop shit because we can clearly still see active lava flow after taming Rudania. He only stopped the rock falls caused by the Divine Beast, the actual activity of Death Mountain still continues.

Given its insane size, I am going to say it took the full 3 years for its active lava flow to stop on Death Mountain. Volconologists in the notes, feel free to correct me.

SO! The Timeline is:

3 years for Death Mountain to stop actively flowing

2 years minimum for Medingo Lava Pool to cool

= >1 year for temperatures to be right for grass to grow!

This is an insanely quick time period for grass to thrive! The literal instant that the conditions were correct, we are able to see not just grass, but stoloniferous grass as well other types of shrubbery thrive! We would usually need several years for the volcanic rock to erode to rich soil (such as the soil in the Akkala region)

Allow me to elaborate:

This is Fountain Grass. Fountain grass is usually the fist type of grass that you would see in a volcanic region. They grow from a rhizome root system, which is a very vertical downward root system as you can see. This is good for young volcanic regions where only specific dotted areas are good enough for plants to grip onto and grow.

They grow something like this:

This patch of grass below I would call some sort of rhizome. (Botanists feel free to correct me in the notes)

THIS. however. (amazingly) is an example of stoloniferous grass!

This is thick bladed grass (as opposed to the more thin, fine-bladed grass with rhizomes) that grow in a stolon spreading pattern that is much more horizontal. It's a lot like the grass that might grow in your front lawn, if you're rich enough to have one of those in this economy--

They grow a bit more like this:

This type of grass need soil! Especially if we want to classify that other red flower behind the rock there as some sort of volcanic flower

We're basically talking about mass, rapid volcanic erosion in less than a year for this to happen. For context, the soil necessary for the region of Akkala to grow could have taken anywhere between a decade to thousands of years. The weather and erosion necessary for this patch of grass to grow took, at most, 3 years.

And all this in the period of time following an actual apocalypse. How quickly the tides have turned for Hyrule's ecosystem!!!!

IT'S A VERY IMPRESSIVE AND COOL PATCH OF GRASS AND THUS IS DESERVING OF THE S TIER RANKING

Also here's some behind the scenes of what my much smarter than me partner had to say about it ["Last pictures referencing the rhizome grass which, indeed, would be the oldest grass among the patch given it needs the least specific conditions to thrive/less soil to get started]

Growth is cool.

[aithusarosekiller]

Why Jegulus would actually work with their (barely existent) canon personalities:

This isn't a place for a debate so literally don't bother, I'm just trying to articulate to appeal to the 'iT maKEs No seNsE' crowd because while I don't care about canon, some Jegulus haters don't respect you unless you worship it so

-

First: James' benefit from it-

To begin with, you have the superiority complex. As much as fans (and Sirius) like to say that Sirius immediately saw through his parents' beliefs when he was born and was a perfect activist from infancy, this is not true. First of all it's highly improbable and much more likely that he told that sort of tale that in order to convince himself and Harry that he was always good, but he isn't and we see that. He is progressive but he still treats Kreacher incredibly poorly, he uses oppressed creatures as jokes and sees no issue with it (yeah, canon-worshippers, sorry but in PoA there is no remorse for the prank, he laughs about it proudly) so he would have had to grow out of most of the behaviours he did have when he was sorted. He would carry some leftover beliefs from his family that James and the others had to help him unlearn. He would be willing to of course but it was still work. Why on earth would James not have reason to think 'I can do it again! They were raised in the same house they're practically the same.' Sirius had described his brother as weak and idiotic so James sees it as an easy win for his ego and the worth of his name, maybe even in Lily’s eyes.

And even when he falls in love and realises he may not be able to change them? Canonically? James wouldn't care. Not before he was 17 at least. He only ever relies on equality when it matters to him. They bully for no reason but target Snape a lot anyway, they already hate him when James sees the opportunity to stand up for Lily, speaking over her wishes instead of with her. He seems more intent on humiliating Snape and making a scene than actually fixing any issues. He's never truly evil but he's not a perfect virtuous angel. So him staying with someone who's morals are compromised wouldn't feel evil to him, he still thinks he's great and perfect, he just loves people who aren't. Let teenage James be morally grey, it's all he ever has been. It would give a pretty cool exploration of his growing maturity in the later school years. There's no real explanation for it apart from 'well it worked for him getting Lily' (which I hate, he nastily jokes about dating her infront of a crowd in exchange for not physically assaulting her friend and then she marries him? Give them more fucking depth than that, it reminds me of too many creeps I know) so it would be kind of cool to explore what could have set him off down the path of becoming a better person. Maybe age or outside pressure but I like the idea of him having a personal relationship that helped him to grow. He's with someone he can never be open to the public with and it's eating away at him because technically he should call it off but he doesn't bloody want to. When it ends, it's all too much and he chooses to flip his life over. He realises how Lily must have felt having Severus turn around on her and force her to leave him; he looks at the war and social climate with more integrity. He begins to change for the better in response to this upheaval of his life and his heartbreak. Also regulus gave him that snitch he was playing with and nobody can convince me he didn't.

Now for Regulus:

The betrayal is the obvious one, he'd always been tentative and naive according to Sirius. Sirius is under the impression he would've just tried to run when it got scary and we can assume he just misjudged him but wouldn't it be interesting if somebody was there to help him embrace his courageous, reckless side? If James sat there whispering words of victory and bravery to him, planting the seeds for his later rebellion? It could also have begun to place seeds of doubt in his mind surrounding the death eaters, even if they did not come to fruition until later. Even if you think he only changed due to Kreacher being hurt, the disproportionate response of sacrificing his entire life over it in some grand display of power is SO JAMES of him.

Then there's the opportunity to explore him on a more personal level. Who is he outside of his family? Was the locket the only secret betrayal or were there more? How does this impact his relationship with Sirius, regardless of him knowing of it or not? It adds even more layers to the meaning of his name and it helps to explore his own doubts before they are ever apparent to his family. James would likely not feel a sense of betrayal in not telling Sirius due to his ego and the fact that British teen boys are just like that™️ with their friend groups. But would Regulus? He would likely feel guilt anyway, but towards his brother? Did he still see him as a family member, as someone worth telling things to, as someone James belonged to? Well never know the canonical answers to this and that's why it's so FUN to explore. The layers to the secrecy and hope in their relationship is amazing.

What are his lingering feelings like after it ended? Hatred, regret, jealousy? And for James- guilt, sorrow, crushed hope?

The timelines add up too- the mark, James growing more mature, the snitch and the bullying of Snape.

And if your argument is 'they're not gay' tell me what makes you think that. Their personality? There isn't one 'way' to be gay. Prejudices? You think gay people are born holding a rainbow flag and chanting peace and love? So may gay ppl are vile to other marginalised groups. James married a woman? Bi people exist.

You don't have to like it, but don't say it makes no sense becuase it can and neither do half of your hcs about wolfstar and the prank and James' sunshine personality and how perfect jily were

[talkingpointsusa]

Matt Walsh's ignorant bigotry about Imane Khelif shows just how little he knows about the subject he claims to be an expert on

I'm back from DC folks! I saw Mike Johnson in person (true story, didn't have tomatoes to throw sadly) and got to flip off the Heritage Foundation Building. Now I'm back to talk about lighthearted topics like....transphobia and....misogyny. God, writing this blog is going to be the death of me.

So, Matt Walsh is one of the worlds top experts on transgender issues....or at least he thinks he is. In reality, Matt Walsh is an ignorant and loud-mouthed bigot who mostly shoots from the hip based off of his preconceived notions about minority groups whose existence he hates. Naturally, he decided to weigh in on the latest completely BS controversy about the Olympics that right-wing media made up seemingly to make the first day I got back from DC and checked in on what they’re doing as miserable as possible. In all seriousness, lets see what Matt's yapping about this time.

01:04, Matt Walsh: "One of the most common arguments you'll hear in defense of gender ideology is that some people are intersex and therefor the gender binary is a myth."

At the very least the existence of intersex people proves that the construct of gender isn't as black and white as Matt Walsh likes to portray it as on his show. Matt likes to claim that gender is binary but he's completely wrong. For example, Matt would tell you that a woman is a biological female whilst ignoring that some people are born intersex or born with heightened levels of testosterone, which in Matt's world doesn't make them female. Matt would tell you that a woman is defined by the ability to give birth because "men can't get pregnant" but some women are born infertile. None of these rhetorical games really matter since gender is a social construct whereas sex is biological but they are certainly worth noting.

The truth is that Matt doesn't know jack shit about biology nor sociology and is simply a bigot using distorted versions of those concepts to camouflage his hateful rhetoric. Matt is not somebody who has a lot of respect for science, he regularly disregards the scientific evidence for climate change as nonsense and ignores the mountains of scientific evidence that validate trans and queer identity. However, when he feels like he can use it to validate his weak arguments Matt will gesture vaguely towards "the science", not cite anything, and proceed to act as if he's made some kind of salient point that debunks the scientific community. He's not using evidence, he's using his gut and he'd look like a complete idiot if he actually debated someone that isn't a college freshman without media training.

01:21, Matt Walsh: "You often hear wildly inflated numbers from gender activists about how many intersex people there are in the world. You also hear various definitions for what it means to be intersex, those definitions are often tailored to that -- so that they can inflate the number of people who qualify as intersex."

Matt Walsh has no idea what he's talking about. According to the World Population Review, nearly two out of 100 babies in the United States are born intersex. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, an intersex person is somebody born with sex characteristics including genitals, chromosomes, etc that do not align with the traditional male/female gender binary. Intersex is an umbrella term which is probably where Matt's getting those "varying definitions" from.

Matt seems to think that there's some bizarre conspiracy to artificially inflate the number of people that qualify as intersex but the truth is that some things just don't have a hard definition. However, I understand how this might be confusing for somebody who seems to reduce the human condition down to what genitals you were born with.

01:39, Matt Walsh: "Here's the only definition that has any meaning, as Leonard Sax framed it. Being intersex means that your phenotypic sex, meaning your primary sex characteristics, is inconsistent with your chromosomal sex. For example, someone with Y chromosomes is biologically male and normally has male genitalia but if that person develops female genitalia or genitalia that appear female than that person would be a biological male that suffers from intersexuality."

This definition is widely considered to be pretty outdated. For example, that definition would exclude people with Klinefelter Syndrome which is a condition that is widely considered by modern scientific organizations as a variation of intersexuality that isn't covered by Sax's definition.

Leonard Sax himself isn't a very credible source. Sax is an advocate for single-sex education, the practice of segregating education by gender, and his claims around said topic have been refuted as pseudoscience based off of gender stereotypes while ignoring the children that don't necessarily fit the black and white definition that those stereotypes box children into. Sax has also pushed the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Hitler was actually Jewish, a conspiracy theory that was originally started by Adolf Hitlers own attorney. Historians agree that Sax's evidence was complete ahistorical nonsense. In short, not only are this guys findings on the definition of intersexuality at odds with the broader scientific community but he has a documented record of pushing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. In short, this guys a wingnut.

02:09, Matt Walsh: "On the other hand, if someone is born with Y chromosomes and then chooses to remove his male genitalia through surgery that individual would not suddenly become intersex."

Absolutely nobody on the planet is claiming that being trans is the same thing as being intersex and there are multiple articles explaining the difference. The issue that Matt seems to be having here is that intersex people are often brought up as an example of how the black and white view of sex and gender brought up by people like him doesn't really make any sense due to the fact that even if you ignore the existence of trans people there are still outliers in even the biological binary. The only person who interprets that as "Ha! You're saying that trans people and intersex people are the same thing!" is Matt Walsh who doesn't seem to understand that everything isn't black and white and that you actually have to look at things with nuance sometimes.

02:50, Matt Walsh: "At the Olympics the other day that confusion led to a male, somebody with XY chromosomes, pummeling a woman in the face at a woman's boxing event on live television."

For those who have been living under a rock, in which case I envy you, this story concerns an Olympic boxing match that took place between Imane Khelif and Angela Carini where Khelif won.

Khelif is a cisgender female and has been for all her life. There is no publicly available evidence that Khelif has XY chromosomes at the time of writing and even if she did that would legally make her an intersex woman due to the rest of her physical characteristics being female.

"But she failed a gender test!", cry the transphobes. Yes, she did in fact fail a gender test but the methodology for this test was never disclosed nor was a copy of the results. The IBA, the organization that gave Khelif the test, is an organization with deep ties to the Russian government that once elected a businessman with deep ties to heroin trafficking and Russian organized crime as their president. Conversely, the IBA only disqualified Khelif after she beat a Russian boxer in the ring, funny how that works. Furthermore, the International Olympic Committee has cut ties with the IBA over concerns of corruption and has denounced the test on Khelif as illegitimate.

Basically, this is another instance of right-wing media running with Russian propaganda to justify their hatred for others. It's disgusting and clear-cut bigotry.

03:01, Matt Walsh: "This male, an Algerian named Imane Khelif, was reportedly DNA tested at the Woman's Olympics World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last year by an organization called IBA and officials at the time disqualified Khelif from the competition because testing confirmed a Y chromosome which means again, that Khelif is a male. There are reports of some sort of disorder affecting the primary sex characteristics, I can't verify those either way."

Hey Matt, I looked this up and I verified it extremely quickly. At the very least it is Matt's responsibility as somebody presenting themself as a journalist to disclose the fact that the legitimacy of this test is in question.

03:42, Matt Walsh: "Intersex is just a word we've come up with to describe people who suffer from certain conditions and deformities. Intersex is not a third sex, it's not an exception to the rule of the sex binary. There are no exceptions. Everybody is either male or female, everyone."

There's that black and white thinking again. The thing is that this argument doesn't make sense because the primary definition of intersexuality is people that don't fit that exact black and white binary that Matt's laid out here. This entire topic invalidates that black and white approach to gender and Matt doesn't even realize it.

04:08, Matt Walsh: "However, the International Olympic Committee, which is overseeing the boxing competition at the Paris Olympics, apparently doesn't care about Chromosomes. According to the Washington Post, the IOC doesn't test for gender. Now, it's not really clear what that means. Does that mean that they'd let Lebron James compete in the woman's basketball tournament?"

I don't know where he's getting that from, this is the full article and I can't find the quote Matt's talking about anywhere but some twitter thread that claims that this article has it in there somewhere. I have a funny feeling that Matt just read something on Twitter and ran with it without checking.

So, Matt's mad at testosterone testing which is something that it doesn't make sense for him to be mad at but go off I guess.

04:27, Matt Walsh: "What it appears to mean based on reporting that I've found is that the IOC allows different events to implement some testosterone guidelines, not rules but just guidelines which can vary event by event. And if that's the case, it obviously would be completely useless for a few reasons. One of them is that even if you have low levels of testosterone now, you might have had very high levels in the past which would contribute to increased muscle strength, bone growth, etc."

Except that testosterone levels peak during your late teens-20's and the current average age for an Olympian is around 27 years old, which by the way is a record high meaning that for most of the history of the Olympics it's been significantly younger. The average healthy male will only start to see a marked decrease in testosterone levels when they're significantly older.

But yeah, good thinking Matt, you really showed them. Truly a man of science over here.

04:56, Matt Walsh: "The other reason is that having high levels of testosterone doesn't make you a man in and of itself, having a Y chromosome doesn't make you a man and a man with low testosterone, even a man with very low testosterone, is still a man."

"And by the way, this doesn't apply to women with high testosterone who are men." - probably also Matt Walsh given his track record when it comes to that group of people.

05:48, Matt Walsh: "Now, one of the things about all these gender tests and DNA tests is that it really, for the most part, they're not even necessary. Like, looking at that footage anyone can instantly tell that Angela Carrini was fighting a male."

And here's where the misogyny comes in. In Matt's eyes, women who are physically strong are naturally men because surely there's no possible way for a woman to actually be that strong without some kind of tieback to masculinity. I guess by his own logic, Matt's also for banning basketball players for being too tall.

06:59, Matt Walsh: "Now, trans activists have claimed that the fact that this male boxer apparently isn't trans, that's the claim anyway I don't know for sure, the fact that Khelif is allegedly intersex, that that somehow proves the point about the woman's sports issue but of course it does the opposite because those of us on the side of common sense have always said that segregating sports based on sex has nothing to do with transgenderism."

It absolutely does! For example, in England trans people were banned from competing in the female category of professional darts. How exactly do trans people have a "biological advantage" in throwing a tiny sharp stick at a target? That story and many others like it show the absurdity of this whole "debate" around woman's sports. It's not about protecting women, it's about bigotry.

This entire thing doesn't really matter though because it ignores the fact that trans athletes go through years of hormone therapy and oftentimes surgery which take away whatever "advantage" they might have possessed. Lots of transwomen have won in women's sports and lots of transwomen have lost in women's sports. Mainly because that's just how sports work!

Oh well, we now know Matt's for discriminating intersex people as well as trans people. At least his bigotry is....consistent I guess? God, I hate this guy. Next clip!

08:43, Matt Walsh: "But if you think that, you know, violent episodes like this are gonna make the trans activists admit that they're, you know, wrong and so wrong that now actual women are being endangered and of course actual women have been endangered by this for a while now, you should know that there is precisely zero chance of that, they're not going to admit anything."

This is just dehumanizing bigotry meant to paint trans people as "the other" and as some evil group trying to endanger women for kicks. This kind of rhetoric is how hate crimes end up happening and Matt knows it.

Matt's also mad at JK Rowling because her particular form of transphobia calls transphobia a "men's rights movement", which is a clear effort to erase trans identity but Matt's too thick to get that she's on his side, but since a big part of Matt's whole identity is whinging about how men are "oppressed" he basically throws a little tantrum about how she's being mean to the manosphere.

11:02, Matt Walsh: "The problem with Rowling's attempt to blame this on the mens rights movement, whatever that is, is that first of all there is no men's rights movement, at least not one with any degree of power right now."

The manosphere is a thing that exists. Just look at the success of Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, and even the subject of this post Matt Walsh who regularly parrots manosphere talking points on his show. These people exist and have a lot of influence on the internet which in turn gives them influence in the real world. Essentially, Matt has totally missed the point of what Rowling is saying, which is also disgusting bigoted garbage but the point still stands, I guess this is what happens when you're so wrapped up in your "masculinity" that you become blinded to reality.

I also think that this is definitely something that shows how BS JK Rowling's whole "feminist" schtick is. Never mind that delegitimizing transwomen is inherently misogynistic at it's core, the people that Rowling's allying herself with because of her obsession with trans people hate feminism and women's rights. Here we have a "feminist" allying herself with misogynists and for what? Is the existence of trans people that much of a threat? Don't believe me? Here's Matt Walsh saying that he hates feminism and women's rights literal seconds after the last clip.

11:42, Matt Walsh: "Instead what we saw in Paris this week is a natural consequence, not of mens rights or the patriarchy, it's a natural consequence of the ideology that feminists have been pushing for decades. It was feminists who argued that sex differences are mostly social constructs that are exploited by patriarchal oppressors. Feminists are the ones who laid the groundwork for the idea that there's no job a man can't do that a woman can't do better, OK? They came up with that! Men and women are equal, they can do the same things, genders a social construct, that came from feminism and once you believe that lie you get this. You get women in the boxing ring with men getting violently assaulted."

There's so much wrong with this that it's hard to unpack in one go. The disgusting transphobia, the blatant misogyny, the fact that he handwaved men and women being equal as a "lie". If anything, this is more proof that transphobia and misogyny are directly intertwined.

On a smaller scale, it also goes to show you how much of an absolute douche-canoe Matt Walsh is. However, that particular topic is a recurring theme on this blog so regular readers probably won't be too surprised by that.

Conclusion:

Boy oh boy, starting off with a bang after my holiday ended. Matt Walsh sucks, JK Rowling sucks, that weird antisemitic guy that Walsh cited as a source sucks, this whole discourse around Imane Khelif sucks, everything about this sucks.

While we definitely did approach some of this from Matt's own terms by looking at the actual definition of intersexuality and the stuff about Khelif's gender test, it's important to look at what guys like Matt Walsh actually mean when they talk about stories like this.

Matt doesn't give a crap about Olympic boxing nor does he give a crap about the "sanctity of women's sports". The dude literally stated in his show supposedly about defending women's sports that men and women being equal is a lie. Matt Walsh is just a bigot with a microphone using this story to spew hatred towards a group he's built his career around othering and the thing that he's actually saying is that he wants those groups that he hates so much excluded from the public life.

Original Video:

“Ep. 1414 - Wokeness Turns the Olympics into a Farce.” Dailywire.com, The Daily Wire, 2 Aug. 2024.

Sources:

Halpern, D. F., et al. “The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling.” Science, vol. 333, no. 6050, 22 Sept. 2011, pp. 1706–1707.

World Population Review - Intersex people.

The UN Commission for Human Rights' definition on intersexuality.

Article refuting false claims about Hitler's Jewish Heritage

“What Is the IBA? Governing Body behind Olympic Boxing Storm Has Russian Ties, Troubled History.” PBS News, 4 Aug. 2024.

"IBA gender tests on two boxers were flawed and illegitimate, says IOC." Reuters, 5 Aug. 2024.

“Testosterone Therapy: Potential Benefits and Risks as You Age.” Mayo Clinic

Hansford, Amelia. “Trans Darts Player Left “Broken” after Tournament Ban.” PinkNews.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

How would being transgender work with a Time Lord? Obviously regeneration is an option, but that's not entirely the best solution. Could you use biodata alteration? (Getting into the social ramifications of this would also be pretty cool9

How would gender transitioning work with Gallifreyans?

Time Lords have a few options when it comes to potential transitioning. Here’s how these processes might work, covering advanced tech, biological abilities, and societal implications.

🔄 Regeneration

Regeneration is obviously the most notable feature of Time Lord biology that can provide a quick and easy gender change.

🎚️ Controlled Regeneration: Newblood Gallifreyans have very good control over their regenerations. They can influence their new form directly, choosing more masculine or feminine traits according to their preferences. This ability generally doesn't stretch to Oldbloods, however. Sorry, Doc.

⏳ Post-Regeneration Adaptation: After regenerating, Time Lords have a brief period during which they can still influence some features of their new body. This is useful for fine-tuning physical characteristics to better match their identity, though a complete gender switch when your new body's on the other side of the spectrum is probably a step too far.

💥 Trauma Switches: Some sources suggest a particularly traumatic death can trigger a gender switch on regeneration.

🤷 Random Regeneration: Sometimes, it just happens.

🔧 Technological Interventions

For those who don't have a controlled regeneration as an option, Gallifreyan technology probably offers sophisticated alternatives:

🫥 Chameleon Arch Technology: Based on the technology used in the Chameleon Arch, which can rewrite a Time Lord's biology down to the genetic level, this method could theoretically be adapted to align a Time Lord's biological sex with their gender identity. However, given the Chameleon Arch's primary design is for identity concealment, this probably isn't going to end well.

🛠️ Lindos Machine: A hypothetical device - lindos is the hormone involved in regeneration. If a lovely spacey-wacey machine could provide a Time Lord with some excess lindos, this could allow a sort of partial regeneration that can make adjustments more targeted than those typically allowed in the post-regeneration phase.

⚖️ Biodata Alteration

Although theoretically possible, altering a Time Lord's biodata to change gender characteristics is a minefield.

⚠️ Risks of Biodata Editing: Biodata isn't just genetic information; it encapsulates a Time Lord's identity across all their regenerations. Altering biodata can have unintended consequences, potentially affecting a Time Lord's future regenerations and their fundamental existence.

🚫 Social and Legal Ramifications: Gallifrey probably views biodata alterations with scepticism or outright banning due to the high-level risks involved. Biodata changes are often used in the Gallifreyan legal system to punish lawbreakers, so changing your own biodata probably has a huge stigma attached to it because people will just assume you're a convict.

🌍 Social Ramifications and Acceptance

The social aspect of being transgender in Gallifreyan society would depend significantly on the socio-political climate:

📜 Pre-Time War Societal Norms: Traditional Gallifreyan society, particularly during periods dominated by the High Council's conservative stances, might have restricted or frowned upon gender transitions, favouring stability. They'd also have a few things to say regarding how much they favoured masculine traits over feminine traits.

⚧️ Post-Time War/Post-Curse Changes: Following these key developments, societal norms are still shifting. With many traditional structures being broken down, there might be greater acceptance and support for individual identity explorations, including gender transition.

🏫 So ...

While regeneration is a pretty simple gimmick for gender transition among Time Lords, technology broadens these options, though with significant considerations. The acceptance of transgender Time Lords would vary based on the era and the prevailing attitudes of Gallifreyan society.

Hope that helped! 😃

More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[h2-so-4]

AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory (debunked): A superior "race" of white, horse-riding Aryans invaded the areas of the inferior and primitive Indus Valley population, which included the Dravidians (but actually no one said that the IVC was a pure, dark-skinned Dravidian civilization so idk where that idea came from), and civilized them.

AMT or Aryan Migration Theory: A group of usually horse and chariot-riding nomads and pastoralists usually called the Aryans migrated from the Indo-Iranian region to India and mingled PEACEFULLY with the population of the late Indus Valley population (who were already highly advanced, as we know), by which time the IVC was beginning to collapse, possibly due to change of climate and rain patterns (still not sure yet), and hence the people were abandoning these settlements spreading across the subcontinent. These Indo-Aryans on arriving mixed with this population and shared their genetics, art and culture with each other, which led to the introduction of Sanskrit and Vedic culture in India.

To any leftist who keep regurgitating the former busted myth, please stop. You look stupid. And to any rightist who keep using AMT as AIT to debunk it, they're not the same. These two theories have a sky-ground difference.

The previous one makes Aryans look evil. That they were some high-level royalty who invaded India. But, in fact, they were regular people, regular migrants, just how every migration used to happen 3000-4000 years ago. Like I said, most of them were nomadic settlers.

Sure, later on, the varna system came into existence and this was the beginning of a hierarchical structure in India for the first time (since during the IVC there wasn't any sort of social hierarchy according to current sources). But who's to say it was ONLY the Aryans? Remember. They're NOT a race. They're a particular group of people. And by the time the varna system was introduced already a hell lotta intermixing had happened. Hence it wasn't JUST the Aryans (history and especially anthropological and genetic history is not that black and white LMFAO), because it was a term for 'noble', not some kinda "righteous clan" or something. Idk why people keep thinking of it as a race lol. I thought that was already debunked with the AIT.

As for the indigeneity of the Aryans, technically no one is indigenous. Many of the adivasi and non-adivasi tribes came AFTER the Indus Valley Civilization. So the "who came first" logic doesn't really work at all. (There might've been many that came before as well, who knows. Point is, again, it's all a migration salad at the end of the day)

adjective

indigenous (adjective)

originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native:

This is the Google definition of indigenous. If we take THIS into account, there would be SEVERAL groups of people involved, instead of just one, like the IVC people, a few of the oldest nomadic tribes, mixed Indo-Aryans, etc. But I'm not gonna call ANYONE indigenous, or not indigenous. Because guess what, none of the humans are really indigenous to any place apart from the African continent. Also the Aryan migration led to the rise of a LOT of genetic subgroups, which was a key factor in leading to the most confusing anthropological history of the Indian subcontinent. It has a fuck ton of genetic markers and groups and subgroups, it's wildly confusing and historians are still trying to figure out every kind of intermixing that has happened. So STOP fighting over who is indigenous or not LMAO. Because guess what, we can never truly assert the indigeneity of a migrant species such as humans. (Yes we do call Native Americans the indigenous people of Americas, or the aboriginals the indigenous people of Australia and the Australasian archipelago, but they were also migrants at some point of time. Now before anyone says I'm disregarding the indigeneity of these groups, I'm not. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't CARE who's indigenous and who's not, because unlike the case of Americas and the Australasian islands, Aryans didn't INVADE India. They were simply another set of migrants, JUST like the IVC people, who also came from the middle-eastern region, and JUST like the adivasi tribes, who migrated from mostly the African and Australasian regions, probably, not sure again.)

I'll link the genetic studies done below because they explain it all way better than I can (and these research papers may also correct some of the incorrect statements I might've unnoticeably or ignorantly made in my own paragraphs so yeah):

Hence, at the end of the day, idk why we're banging our heads on the walls over ONE SIMPLE MIGRATION, which was NOTHING DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER MIGRATION. Migrations happen ALL THE TIME. Get over it, BOTH the sides of the political wings, and live in harmony lmao. The Aryans and Dravidians AREN'T RACES. They were just certain groups of REGULAR ass people jeez.

History is a complex subject, and the more evidence we find, the more we would know about our past. I have literally nothing against any of the political wings, but I do want to keep the current theories (which are NOT synonymous to hypotheses btw) and facts straight. I'm once again not saying these facts will never change, because that's not how history works. Maybe in the future, we might find out something completely different about India's past. But remember, whenever we talk about our country's past, we should keep it unbiased, unopinionated, and definitely factual and objective, without including our own views (both political and personal) into it. Interpretations? Sure. But they should remain at ONLY interpretations at best, and only the solid evidences should be claimed as facts.

[charmwisp]

miyawaki sakura. cis woman. she/her. bisexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that hoshino rika? i think that the twenty-six year old from minamisatsuma, kagoshima, japan works as the psychic at the raven house, but outside of that people describe them as moons and stars and celestial lights against a night sky, fairy lights strewn across the wall, windchimes twinkling in the breeze, vague silhouettes and shadows glimpsed between the curtains. i hear they are evasive & an overthinker, but they are also known to be curious & hardworking. consider giving them a visit at their home in seal harbor apartments and get to know why they’re called the secret charm.

the names above are written according to their native japanese format (surname, first name). to clarify, this character's given name is rika!

IMPORTANT LINKS: pinterest.

BASICS

The Kanji for her full name is 星野梨華 and I deliberately incorporated 星 into her name as it means star! Usually surnames don't need to have a meaning so i'm only pointing this out bc it was a creative choice. (btw i know there's a popular anime rn where the protags have the same surname, with the same kanji, but that's a coincidence; i haven't watched the show and i made rika before the manga was even published.)

She grew up in a small city called Minamisatsuma, located in the southernmost region of mainland Japan (Kagoshima), and was always surrounded by the ocean. Alaska's proximity to the coast puts her at ease for this reason, even if the difference in climate has been a big change.

She has a pet cat; a little black cat with with big round eyes and she's called Charmy. She's kind of silly and a bit of a menace. Because Rika doesn't feel safe letting her roam but knows that her apartment isn't quite big enough to expend Charmy's excess energy, she has been known to take her cat on walks with a harness.

Rika lives in the Seal Harbor apartment complex but she rarely tells people that fact. Having worked in Kabukicho (a relatively seedy area) for a couple years, she always tries to err on the side of caution. As a young woman doing work that might spark unpleasant emotion reactions, she finds it safer to claim that she lives in Delilah's Den instead. That, and it fits the witchy character she's taken to playing at work much better.

She's a bit of a bookworm. A total bookworm, actually. She spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book, mostly stories and fiction but she has been known to spend hours researching topics that interest her. She's got a quick mind and loves to learn. All this extra information has proven quite useful in her cold readings.

Ever the overthinker, Rika has some concerns about the general ethics of her work, especially when it comes to the matter of lying to people (she tries to keep to vague embellishments as best as she can) but it helps to think of herself as a performer. It's all an act and people are encouraged to take from it what they will.

Rika loves horror and all things spooky. Because of her reserved nature, people might expect her to be quite squeamish but she's braver than she looks! That said, she likes cute-spooky best of all. Halloween is easily her favourite time of year and she's been known to go all out when buying decorations; for Rika, it's one of the biggest positives about moving to the States.

In the kitchen space of her apartment, you'll find a corkboard covered with notes and photos and mementos. You'll also find a photograph of a young man (he's Sho, you'll learn about him later!) whose face has been drawn on. Devil horns, angry eyebrows, stink lines. The works. If you ask Rika about it, she'll just tell you it's 'some useless asshole'. Do not assume that's her ex.

BACKGROUND

please note that this backstory makes references to a few named characters besides rika. they will not be opened as wanted connections, as these are all existing ocs of mine (they're mostly npcs but sho is specifically a character i have actively written).

MINAMISATSUMA, KAGOSHIMA

Rika had always considered her childhood to be a fairly ordinary one; she had two parents and three siblings (one older sister and two younger brothers, a pair of twins), and rode her bike to school every day like any other kid. Everything was always normal, simple, uneventful and maybe even a little boring. But, as the years went on, Rika started to find that she was more spiritually inclined than other children her age and her intuition was so sharp that it sometimes frightened her. (Those around her had started to joke that she could predict the weather better than the official forecast.) Never one to rock the boat, she tried not to bring it up too often and nobody ever seemed to mind but, in her own time, she grew to harbour an interest in the mysterious and unusual.

When she was thirteen, her dad was given a promotion that saw the whole family packing up and moving to Tokyo. The shift was staggering, it seemed to Rika like an entirely different world. Suddenly, she wasn't normal anymore. Overnight, she'd become the quiet new girl with weird interests. She was eventually able to make friends but only after months of sideways glances and whispers. Junior High had not been gentle on Rika.

By the time she got to high school though, things had changed. People had gotten used to Rika's sharp instincts and even started to take interest. Girls would hover outside her classroom, peering through the windows as they waited for her to come out and let them test her. Cold readings based on gut instinct, answers to questions like 'what number am I thinking of?', so on and so forth. She didn't get it right every time but it was enough for people to be impressed. After months of students begging her insight on to their entrance exam performance, Rika was worn out. Graduation was a blessing.

Shortly after graduation, Rika's family ended up moving back to Kagoshima. However, having already gotten into a good University to study Japanese Literature, Rika stayed behind and got her own tiny apartment in Tokyo.

SHINJUKU, TOKYO

Rika was quick to find work to support herself while she worked on her studies; she got a job as a cashier in a little bookstore that specialised in the occult. Although her experiences growing up kept her from telling anybody about her talents, she had never let go of that interest in all things strange and unexplained. It was a perfect job for her and she continued to work there for the entirety of her academic career. Her coworkers were Hayato, the nephew of the shop's owner and son of a television illusionist, and Sumire, the daughter of a wealthy family whose idea of rebellion was getting into retail work.

About two years into working there, a new regular started showing his face. Rika quickly learned that he was a good friend of Hayato's and had previously worked at the bookshop, having been replaced by Rika almost as soon as he had left. His name was Tsukidate Sho and he was...an interesting character; he'd quit his bookstore job at twenty-two, head filled with haphazard dreams of becoming an unlicensed private detective. (Hayato had ensured her that Sho had a real and valid motive but it too sensitive a subject to share with her, despite Sho's own claims that he wanted to get paid for being nosy.) Regardless, it didn't take Rika very long to get used to his bewildering presence and she even soon befriended him.

Eventually, Rika grew to trust this ragtag team of friends enough to tell them about her apparent gifts. She admitted she wasn't really sure if it was anything special at all, that she was sure it was probably just good judgement. Sumire told her, 'You've either got freaky powers or you're just freaky smart. Either way, it's freaky.' And yet, for the first time, nobody cared all that much. To them, she was still just Rika.

By the time Rika had graduated from University, it seemed like Sho had grown disillusioned with life as a private detective. Week after week, she'd hear him complain that all he ever had to work on were adultery cases. One day, Sho pulled Rika aside and proclaimed he had a plan, a great plan, and he needed her help. Sho's was from Kawagoe, a city in Saitama known for having maintained it's Edo-era architecture and, as it turned, his family had upheld a tradition of fortune telling for generations. The plan was as follows— they'd set up their own fortune telling and psychic reading business, with Rika as the face of it, using her talents wherever possible, while Sho used his skills to hunt out information on the customers. A mix of cold and hot reading at once. He would teach her the skills he'd gained growing up, things like showmanship and similar little flourishes. Rika had her doubts at first, not wanting to scam or fraud anybody, but Sho insisted that most people didn't believe this stuff, that they were selling an experience. She recalled her experiences at school and how much trouble people had caused her just for that same experience. She agreed to his plan.

Setting up shop in Sho's office in Kabukicho, Tokyo's answer to a red light district, the two would work together for a couple of years, with Rika juggling the scheme with her bookstore job, and they made a surprisingly good team. Eventually, they got close enough for Sho to explain himself, why he'd gotten into the business of being a private detective. When he was just a kid, maybe about fourteen years old, his best friend had gone missing. Sho was the last person to see him but there was a big dark gap in his memory between that last sighting and Sho coming to his senses. Despite his best efforts, he'd never been able to find any answers and the only appeasement he'd ever found was looking into the problems of others.

At some point, Sho had developed a fascination with the mysteries surrounding Anchorage and became fixated on the idea of hunting for answers himself. Before long, he'd become set on moving over there and he swore that, if Rika came with him, they could continue to work together. Rika paid out of her own pocket for English lessons and studied as hard as she could. Before long, they were ready to leave. Rika would go on ahead first, as Sho had a case to finish up, and they would reunite later. They never reunited.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

At first, Rika had feared for the worst. Sho's job was hardly free of danger. The only way she could contact Sho was by email and it took her a couple of weeks to get decent access to her inbox. When she finally got access to everything, there was nothing. Another month passed before she finally heard from Sho. In his email, he explained that he'd gotten caught up with a new, interesting case and that the scope of meant he wouldn't be making it to Anchorage after all but he was sure she'd do great on her own. Needless to say, Rika was pissed.

Thankfully, she was still able to do exactly what she set out to do. She had been worried about finding work with her degree but she'd quickly come upon the Raven House. Seeing that they didn't appear to have anybody working as psychic, Rika immediately put herself forward. At this point, it was all she really knew how to do.

Only months after Rika arrived, Monique Jackson's body was discovered. So, she had thought, this is Anchorage.

[charmedreincarnation]

Well I don’t hate any race of people. Race doesn’t even technically exist on a biological standpoint so yea I’m cool with everyone unless you give me a reason not to like you tbh which is very hard

What do you mean with "race doesn't exist on a biological standpoint"? You mean you don't see a difference in DNA or?

Because as a WOC it sounds like something white people would say, to act as if race is not a big thing, as if people all over the world aren't oppressed because of their race.

I’m literally a Native American, Afro latina and African American woman? Humans have the same gene make up of 99.99 percent. Human race is not the same concept as species as animal, like respectfully have you taken a biology class, or an anthropology class? I’ll explain what I mean just so I don’t have to explain myself again! This is no hate to you anon 💗

Humans have migrated around the globe since the dawn of time. But these migrations were limited by climate, geography, and resources. Over time, people evolved differently in different parts of the world, allowing us to form distinct identities based on elements such as skin color, language, and cultural practices.

The concept of race as it’s known today is largely a product of the 19th century and attempts to categorize humans based on physical attributes. This framework was commonly used to justify colonialism, exploitation and slavery. It was constructed as a tool to oppress certain individuals and to elevate others.

But this idea of race does not hold up when examined further. Migration patterns throughout history have resulted in racially diverse societies with unique cultural markers. Weather also plays a significant role in migration; drought and seasonality can force people from their lands, resulting in a mixing of regional identities. As a result, any conception of race based on biology can quickly become outdated and inaccurate.

In terms of genetics, humans are 99.99 percent similar, meaning that we all have the same basic set of DNA. So, why does race exist?

The human species is a product of evolution. As humans moved around the world, some populations developed physical adaptations according to their environment. For example, people in colder climates developed light skin to allow better absorption of Vitamin D from the sun, while those living in sunnier climates developed darker pigmentation to reduce the risk of skin cancer.

These physical differences such as skin color are associated with race, but they don't necessarily define it. Race is actually more of a social construct than a biological reality. It's based on perceived physical differences and often involves placing people into categories based on stereotypes and prejudice.

So again It's important that we remember that race isn't real and that we possess the same 99.99 percent genetic makeup. The genetic differences between individuals are minuscule and are not enough to create the divisions of race that we have come to accept in society.

During our evolution our environment has shaped us, but does not define us. We can use our knowledge about genetics to challenge false and harmful stereotypes. We should recognize that we are all fundamentally the same, no matter what our physical appearance is.

So…., race exists due more to social conditioning than any sort of biological difference. We may have developed physical traits to cope with our environments, but these superficial traits do not define us as individuals. Recognizing that we all share the same genetic makeup is key in overcoming the prejudices that have been associated with the concept of race throughout history. Am I saying to ignore the social construct that has been put on our people to literally oppress us? No but it’s is an objective fact that race is not real. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you girl.

At the end of the day, race is a socially constructed concept with no basis in biology. It is constantly shifting, changing as we move into new regions and as our environment changes over time. In order for us to really understand it, we must look outside of biology and focus on social, economic, and political history. Only then can we truly begin to comprehend the complexity of the concept of race. The only biological concept bestowed upon humans is sex. Not to be confused with gender and gender norms before anyone twists those concepts

Btw im not mad, I just wanted to clarify this subject that is often discussed in the wrong way! But no hate to you anon I know what you mean, and how non poc use it to literally pretend like racial issues don���t exist. But that’s through a social construct and not the biological one I’m referring to! I also just like talking abt this stuff so I don’t want to come off as aggressive or pretending like I’m smarter than you or anything I’ve just done my research pertaining to this topic 💗💗

[amara-iceleb]

Rooftop Gardens in Urban Landscapes

🌳 The New School's Green Roof

🌳 New York City's Community Gardens

In this article from Bent Architecture, an argument is made for rooftop gardens instead of run-of-the-mill green roofs. From the outside, green roofs might seem like a fantastic idea — they're streamlines, pretty to look at, and inject some much needed greenery into urban skylines, but they don't hold much benefits. The grass that we know from front lawns and sprawling parks is already an invasive species in this country, and we don't need any more of it. Grass also doesn't have that many environmental benefits. It requires a lot of maintenance and water, and when cut low like it usually is, it doesn't make much of a habitable environment for insects which would be the most-likely user in areas like New York City and other urban spaces.

Bent Architecture has a philosophy when designing rooftop gardens: "Let the plants win."

They describe wanting to create an oasis for people while also creating a healthy, thriving ecosystem for the plants and organisms that live within them. This approach to gardening (whether on a rooftop or not) is a necessary shift in order to make green spaces like lawns and parks all across America more environmentally friendly. Currently, the vegetation that is planted fits the idea of what people want to see, not what the soil wants to grow. By sticking to native species and not interrupting the natural flow of nature, we can create thriving ecosystems even in the busiest and most urban of environments.

Urban gardens, on the other hand, hold so many benefits, not only for the planet but for us living in the surrounding areas. Bent Architecture emphasizes that usable green space will always be better and in higher demand than non-usable green space. So many people lament about how they would love to be able to escape to Central Park on their lunch break if only it wasn't a 20 minute train ride away. People want to connect to nature, if only to have a bit of breathing room in a city so jam packed with people, and rooftop gardens are a great solution to this.

Metropolis Magazine reported on two former USPS locations in Chicago and New York, both densely populated urban landscapes desperately lacking green space, had implemented rooftop gardens. The one in Manhattan is the size of Gramercy Park, yet isn't taking up any more space than it was before its existence. What formerly was a practically useless, boring rooftop became a reprieve from city life and smoggy air. This became a new place for people to see each other and have conversations. If it was open to the public, it would undoubtedly become a well-loved third space for so many people.

Green roofs and rooftop gardens also help the built environment. Rooftop gardens provide insulation for the colder seasons but also help the building breath in the hotter months, sinking heating and cooling costs but also lowering the amount of energy it takes to heat and cool a building. Green roofs also have one very beneficial feature for an island city such as Manhattan, which is that it can capture rainwater and prevent it from becoming excess runoff. In recent years, New York City has been experiencing a lot of flooding problems due to the changing climate and that is because the rainwater has nowhere to go.

According to DC.gov, a couple of inches of soil (which is present on all rooftop green spaces) can capture 1" of rain which is the equivalent to about 0.6 gallons of water per square foot of green roof area. Now multiply that by an rooftop green space that has the equivalent square footage to a park and that is a lot of water being stored without any more ground space being taken up.

We should be pushing our public officials to make our lives and the world a bit better by implementing these green spaces which, in the end, help them, too!

[hewholivesinhisname]

Urban Survivalism

So it looks like my new GF is going to save me. If she doesn't another woman will. It feels good to have achieved a level of social skills where random women offer sex in exchange for pizza. Babetron 7000 has promised that in exchange for love and devotion she will set me up in her family's construction 🏗️ company.

In addition it looks likey idea for building a life extension hospital 🏥 is gaining traction in at least one section of the life extension community. This is good. It means someone might give me lots of money to do the things I really want which is to make society much better than it is even if it is only for the snotty rich kids at first.

Up until now though my life has been a living fucking hell because when you can't earn money being a neuroscience major and my mental illness and my families' complete lack of support has meant I had to survive on the street.

Boston is a good city to be homeless. I resent that these Harvard kids can't end it here but it is a better place than many because there are many churches with meals shelters and food stamps are given out.

I have all these mental health tics too that make me look really weird and as we all know weirdness = evil in the eyes of the majority. Weakness really equals evil now doesn't it if people are looking to predate on people. Why are we surprised at all the pedophiles again? Let's not get side tracked though

Gabi my wonderful gay social worker has been great! Thank God for the queers. She has taken care of me and got me a tent when all the men and women in my life just said fuck you. I think there is a strong connection between queerness and wanting to take care of all the babies already here.

MGH hospital has two days where they help out the homeless and that is where I got my phone. During the day I spend time in the libraries.

I do not believe that Utopia is optional and the reason is that I would not be alive without the desire to make a better society with the top utopian probably being the Jewish and Christian god. Thanks 👍 God!

If you find yourself homeless a tent is a good option and stay the fuck away from other homeless people. Many are downright dangerous. My stuff was stolen the first month I was homeless.

Having someone with money romantically into you will save you. That is what I have learned. Jobs will not and the reason is that they don't pay enough. Those with money are not interested in solving homelessness. They want a return of the middle ages, but with less wizards and more serfs.

I still want kids but I now want to adopt. There are too many kids and adults not taken care of. I might have some lined up with my friend Rebecca who has like 4 kids and her house burned down. We will see what Babetron says. Adopt mom and kids together? Sounds good 😊

Psychological survival means willing to do degrading things but not get bothered by it like eat from trashcans. If you are a woman a job may be more feasible of course because the men who run things will hire women but rarely other men.

Why can't we get public housing? I don't know Europe has more. It will still be inadequate though because there is too many people all of a sudden. Especially with climate change.

A lot of this is masons...I think. The cops board up old houses and I don't know why. I think the real reason is that people are suing one another to get money after being injured in these houses. If on the other hand you are on the street and you get mentally ill and die from drugs. That is not a problem according to the law.

Why can't we have a more well run Earth? I don't know I really don't. But I really want one wherein shit like this doesn't happen. Bit seems kind of hopeless though because far worse things happen on a regular basis.

If you find yourself homeless though sure you don't look it. And definitely do not hold up signs saying "help" or "will work". It doesn't fucking work. Expect to be criminalized for existing while real criminals go uncaught and unmolested so long as they have money. It's a violent world out there friends.

During this time I actually have met many interesting people including priests, monks, interesting mentally ill folks, Robyn the best navigator and angriest person I know, got closer to God, read much more bible and watched free plays and went to museums.

It is my conviction to have a life that saved me I think....there is free wifi as well. Be wary of people though and count on your friends and family to say fuck you.

[tech-flying]

The Real Zombie Fungus That Inspired HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’

Humans will probably never face a fungal apocalypse, but in the insect world, mind-controlling fungi can pose a serious threat

A virus quickly turns humans into ravenous monsters in classic zombie tales like The Walking Dead, World War Z, and Train to Busan. But The Last of Us, a new HBO series based on the same-named computer game, breaks a few rules.

For one, the human hosts that the pathogen lives in are not "undead"; they are still living. Furthermore, a fungus, not a virus, has infected them.

Additionally, the fungus really does exist. The makers of the game have claimed that a scene from the BBC's "Planet Earth" documentary series, in which a fungus takes control of an ant's mind, served as inspiration.

Of course, the show contains some fantasy elements. According to David Hughes, an entomologist at Penn State University who provided advice on the video game, the idea that a mind-controlling fungus could one day annihilate humanity is unrealistic. Kasha Patel of the Washington Post reports this.

However, other portions are motivated by actual science as well as theories concerning climate change and disease that researchers are currently debating.

Mycologist Matthew Kasson of West Virginia University says of the fungi in the programme, "It's not far-fetched for me."

According to Benji Jones of Vox, an Ophiocordyceps fungus infects a bullet ant in the "Planet Earth" clip that served as the game's inspiration. As the fungus develops inside the insect, nearly half of its body is transformed into fungus. However, it doesn't harm the ant's brain, giving it the ability to control how the insect behaves. The ant is directed by Ophiocordyceps to climb a branch, where it perishes. As the fungus develops from the ant's head, it may more easily disperse spores and infect additional victims.

According to Joo Arajo, a mycologist at the New York Botanical Garden, 35 species of Ophiocordyceps are known to affect insect behaviour, and scientists predict hundreds more are still undiscovered.

However, experts are not worried that these fungi may infect people. According to Charissa de Bekker, a researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who specialises on "zombie ants," "they're very species-specific." And compared to these insects, humans have extremely different bodies.

Nevertheless, a couple of the show's themes still apply to scientists today. One is that human fungal infections are poorly understood and challenging to cure. Every time we breathe, we inhale fungal spores, although most of them are safe, according to de Bekker, who spoke to Vox. Few hundred of the 1.5 to 5 million species of fungi that exist, most of which are dangerous to immunocompromised individuals, cause disease in humans.

According to Kasson, fungi are more closely linked to animals than they are to plants. It's challenging to fight them without also fighting ourselves. Therefore, they must develop specialised kinds of substances that can eradicate the fungi without endangering the host.

Microbiologist Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University told Wired that "humanity should be investing more in knowing about what is the largest kingdom on the earth."

The Last of Us also makes the argument that the planet's warming temperatures played a role in setting the stage for the fungal invasion. According to de Bekker, most fungus prefer temperatures that are lower than those experienced by humans. According to the episode, as fungus adjust to a warmer globe, they might be more prepared to infect people. Researchers are

Ilan Schwartz, a researcher at Duke University who focuses on invasive fungal infections, tells Roxana Hadadi of Vulture that the claim that global warming has enhanced a fungus' heat tolerance is not absurd. It hasn't been demonstrated. It's just a theory, and things are moving along at a moderate pace. However, it is feasible.

One example is the theory that the fungus Candida auris, which threatens persons with compromised immune systems and is resistant to several antifungal medications, has adapted to human body temperature, according to the newspaper.

The University of Texas' Dimitrios Kontoyiannis, a mycologist, tells CNN that there is no need to fear because a broad fungus pandemic is unlikely given the way human infections propagate.

Schwartz tells Vulture that despite the show's concept, there are many more important issues in the world.

However, the present worldwide pandemic may make humans more vulnerable to fungi.

According to things like Covid-19 and other viruses, "maybe a larger section of the population will be immunocompromised, predisposing us to eventual invasion by these generally prevalent fungi," Kasson tells the Ringer.

[kedreeva]

It blows my mind that such a huge misconception (the flushing in the coop thing) about peacocks existed so recently - do you have any other examples of this?

Well, this isn't to say that no birds will ever flush up and break their necks if you interact overnight- the people saying this were likely saying this because it happened to them, and it most likely happened to them because they never worked with their birds. But they were also telling everyone that there was no other outcome, that it is always and only this way, and that nothing can be done to change it because it's in peafowl nature. Except that it's not. And I know it's not, because I have worked with my birds for thirteen years now and never had one flush when I handle or touch them at night, which I do literally all the time. I know it's not because I've taught this and spoke to others about this over the years, and last year at the peafowl convention, one of the major breeders in the US included in his speech a section about which color flashlights are best to use when visiting the birds at night for health inspection (which is something I started recommending over a decade ago). Green, if you're wondering, according to him, is the best light. They don't seem to notice green lights. I use white.

To answer your question, around the same time people were also passing it around as 100% true no exceptions that you could not give chicks to a peahen the way you could do to chickens. That if you put a chick under them they would kill it. That if you fussed with their nest they would abandon it. I don't know about anyone else, but I have shoved a lot of chicks under a lot of peafowl in the last few years, and I've never had a hen kill one. Even days apart. They're so hopped up on mom hormones and rage that in reality the biggest problem I've been having is that I can't get them to keep just their own babies, they will fight each other to steal everyone else's too. If it peeps, it's their baby. I've stolen eggs from under them. I've put eggs under them. I feed them treats from my hands while they're brooding. They'll abandon the nest if you fuss with it???? HOW. I can't force them to even get off of it for a few minutes without them losing their shit until they're allowed to sit back down.

I'm sure there's other stuff, too. I know there's been major deficiencies in genetics knowledge (which I'm working to correct). Perches and cage shape have changed a lot; some people are starting to look at the benefits of having round perches, even though round perches have traditionally been looked down upon in cold climates because of the risk of frostbite to toes (normally you want them to lay flat on their feet to cover them and keep them warm), but there's no actual studies out there, and flight pen minimum requirements recently (last 10 years) changed from 300 square feet/100 per bird (whichever is larger) to 500 square feet or 150/per. A woman is doing or recently did a study on what peahens are looking at to judge a male and it turns out they don't care about pretty much anything we thought they did... They spend most of their time inspecting the lower edge of the train, not the arch like people thought, and the color doesn't seem to matter (except whites, whose feather quality is inferior due to the leucism). Hand raising peafowl is still hotly contested; some people believe it always leads to violence and aggression when the bird hits maturity and others have hand raised perfect sweethearts that never change, which says to me that it's not an immutable property of peafowl behavior but rather poor selection of breeders and a lack of understanding what aggression looks like, and how to work with behaviors that aren't aggression. Stan, for example, could have been pegged as aggressive if he was owned by somebody else. But knowing what I know when he hit maturity I was able to understand that he's just dumb as fuck and can't see very well and was often confused about where he stood in the pecking order because no one told him, because he was hand raised by a human instead of other birds. Once he sorted out where he stood socially with me, and I sorted out where he stood physically, we stopped having problems, even though he was a hand raised baby.

So like. I dunno. There's a lot being learned. Several people are forcing everyone else to learn stuff very quickly because we aren't just listening to "that's how it's always been done." I'm one of them, but certainly not the only one.

[shihalyfie]

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

[bopinion]

2022 / 47

Aperçu of the Week:

“Everyone’s a murderer. All it takes is a good reason and a bad day.”

(Stanley Tucci as Jefferson Grieff in “Inside Man”)

Bad News of the Week:

According to estimates, 150 species of animals are becoming extinct - every day. For me, an unbelievable number. And a tragedy. After all, we are not talking about a comet impact or a gigantic volcanic eruption that changes living conditions so radically that some species cannot survive it. But the behavior of the parasite Homo "sapiens" (yes, the "wise" can be put actually only in quotation marks), which leaves no more space to the other species by its way of life. He destroys every habitat, ruins every ecosystem. Changes the climate at a pace that leaves no time for adaptation. Kills not just for food, but for trophies - and for fun. And as of last week, there are 8 billion of them. It's exasperating.

In Panama, the CITES Conference ended last week. Every three years, the 184 member states of the "Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora" try to protect nature - in principle against man. The best-known example is the ban on the ivory trade. And what is the result? Exemptions for Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Which stupidly cover most of this highly questionable market. So a toothless tiger. Who doesn't even exist in Africa.

Therefore, I do not share the current euphoria that has currently seized even the WWF. "A milestone was set at the international species protection conference in Panama for the protection of sharks." They are hunted for their fins and their meat. But they also often end up in the net as bycatch. The population of almost all deep-sea sharks has declined by more than 70 percent in the last 50 years. So all is well now? No, because it is the small print and the lack of legal binding force that make the whole maneuver appear in a different light.

Namely in that of the whales. Their protection has also long since been agreed. Officially, their hunting is now only permitted for "scientific reasons." What the largest whale-hunting nation on the planet, Japan, has solved quite simply for itself: a laboratory sample is taken from every whale slaughtered precisely for these pseudo-scientific reasons. The 99.999% remainder ends up on the fish market, as it always has. And Iceland and Norway (number two and three on the list) simply do not recognize the ban and engage in open commercial whaling. Bravo! So what has it helped the gentle giants? That's right: nothing. It is not what is written on paper that counts, but what happens in reality. Which brings us back to Homo "sapiens". And the quote from "Inside Man". Sigh...

Good News of the Week:

It was not really enthusiastic how the coverage and the public mood developed in the run-up to the men's soccer world championship currently taking place in Qatar. From astonishment to incomprehension and doubt to rejection. And now it has started. And Qatar and FIFA are being emphatically shown what's what. Normally, in a soccer country like Germany, a World Cup is a really big deal. Flags fly on cars, children wear national jerseys, pubs decorate thematically, every second package in the supermarket looks like soccer, the media is about hardly anything else.

This time it's different. The ratings are way down, many are deliberately boycotting the event - or simply not feeling it. There is no euphoric mood at all - neither here nor there. How could there be. A World Cup for soccer in a country without any soccer tradition. In early winter instead of summer. In an autocracy instead of a democracy. And: there is not even beer in the stadiums - that can't go well at all.

This shot emphatically backfires. Qatar wanted to put itself on the map with this event. It certainly succeeded in doing so. But not in the way it was planned. Nonsensical stadium constructions without a future at the expense of thousands of dead workers, suppression of women's rights and freedom of expression, a devastating environmental and climate balance etcetera are what will stick.

FIFA, too, is caught with its pants down: corrupt hanky-panky, an idiotic president, non-transparent structures, erratic decisions, presumptuous arrogance. And both have only themselves to blame. A melt-down in terms of image cultivation. Not an episode that will be easily forgotten, but a fundamental stigma. Which will remain. Good thing.

By the way: it's a real shame that actual highlights are lost in all this: Saudi Arabia beating Argentina, Morocco beating Belgium, Japan beating Germany: favorites that were thought to be safe losing to underdogs. This is how a sporting competition should be. Sporting - and not political.

Personal happy moment of the week:

I have already told you about my son's problems at school with the beautiful language French. We were even more surprised when he wanted to apply for a student exchange with a French Lycée. He did that very successfully (with a little help from a friend... ;-): on Tuesday we learned that he was the only student from his grade to be selected. So next year in February we will welcome a French student from Nanterre / Paris. And in the month of delight our offspring will celebrate his 15th birthday in the city of love. Mon dieu!

I couldn't care less...

...that Canada has unfortunately already been eliminated from the FIFA Men's World Cup. Because the "golden generation" has - a typical soccer expression - "played its way into the hearts". For their first participation was not really expected success. But there is now a new team on the block. Which will (also) compete in its own country at the next World Cup. There's definitely more to come. You go, canucks!

As I write this...

...I realize that because of the FIFA World Cup (which we are boycotting on TV) even our cherished Sunday crime movie "Tatort" ("crime scene") is cancelled tonight. FIFA and Qatar are apparently really doing everything they can to make themselves unpopular with me.

Post Scriptum:

As you know, when you enter a search term on Google, text suggestions or search queries are suggested to you - a very popular party game. Currently, the first suggestion for "Twitter" is "What do you need Twitter for?" A very topical, and on second thought downright philosophical, question. In this case, I would actually be curious to hear an answer from Elon Musk, the loose gun of the Internet.

[chuunijianghuyuri]

To each according to their ability, to each according to their need on a basic level means doing what one can to provide the needs of others. Disabled people's needs for instance need to be provided and they of course each have their own special needs related to their disabilities, and this of course requires work or labour. Some people who probably think AI art is the early or beginning steps to skynet or some shit think people's needs can simply be provided without human labour in some sort of utopian socialist world that isn't based in reality. Even more significantly is that this idea of "I do not dream of labour" or whatever fundamentally ignores both economic conditions and the reality that the imperialist core that they live in will fade from existence as socialism takes hold across the world and imperialist labour relations between the global north and the global south fade. Countries like the United States do in fact have something to lose over the transition to socialism and eventually communism, even if it would ultimately benefit workers even within the US in the long run and in significant ways such as being provided food to all and such in ways applicable. Conveinences and resources however are going to be reduced once capitalism and imperialism and colonialism ends, and some of these utopian socialists are going to be looking real funny when many of them do in fact actually have to work to provide for others around them. Not everyone will have to work, and people such as the disabled will have their needs provided more so than ever under a system that doesn't decide their worth based on their labour value. But work is still going to exist and especially be needed during the transitional stages so that needs are provided even in the most chaotic times. This isn't even getting into climate change and so on or how the robots they're imagining or whatever won't come into existence as easily without the labour exploitation and economic relations that exist under imperialism. You don't even have to get into the moral basis, a world without labour is economically unrealistic and unviable to its very core. The idea of a world without human labour requires sentient robots and other nonsense to spawn out of the asses of sci-fi writers and cannot exist in reality when basic economics and resources are taken into account.

I feel like people wouldn't keep falling over themselves to have the utopian idea that socialism and its goals is about not working and some techno transhumanist sci-fi utopia if people just stopped for a second and read literally the basic tenants of marxism lol. You see there's this whole thing about how there's scientific socialism aka what actual socialists who have ever gotten anything done strive and advocate for and then there's utopian socialism which coincidentally tends to lead to people condemning everything scientific socialists have ever achieved while simultaneously getting nothing done. Funny how that works.

[newcatwords]

where is hawai'i? can you point to it on a map?

if someone asks you to point to hawai'i on a map, where would you point?

before colonization, there was (and continues to be) an island called "hawai'i". the entire chain of islands is called "hawaii" and there is a state called "hawaii" made up of a large number of those islands.

now, because there are too many things named "hawaii," the island of hawai'i is often called "the big island", because o'ahu, the island where the city of honolulu is located, is what many people think of when they think of "hawaii". it's a mess.

on top of that, we have the "main hawaiian islands" (aka "southeastern islands" aka "windward islands") vs the "outer islands" (aka "northwestern islands" aka "leeward islands").

most maps of "hawaii" show only the "main" islands. the map above (created by USGS) shows more of the hawaiian islands, but omits the names of two of the islands in the "main" chain: lana'i & kaho'olawe. these are not insignificant omissions. lana'i is 98% owned by larry ellison, founder & chairman of oracle corporation. kaho'olawe has been relentlessly used & abused by the west. it has been used for ranchland, military training, and most notably, as a munitions testing site, resulting in the continued contamination of the island. after many years of protests & lawsuits by native hawaiians, the island is now only accessible by native hawaiians for cultural, spiritual, & subsistence reasons.

meanwhile, this tourist mug with a creepy colonial-style map of hawaii includes both kaho'olawe & lana'i. good job, tourist mug!

there are actually over a hundred islands in the hawaiian archipelago. the state of hawaii includes 137 of them (source). midway atoll (made up of 3 islands) is part of the archipelago, but not part of the state. it is one of america's territories: an unorganized unincorporated territory.

additionally, some of the islands "are too small to appear on maps, and others, such as Maro Reef, only appear above the water's surface during times of low tide. Others, such as Shark and Skate islands, have completely eroded away." [source: wikipedia page "list of islands of hawaii"].

in the course of writing this post, i failed to find a map that shows & names all the hawaiian islands and failed to even find a list of all of them (plus if an island only appears sometimes or has disappeared entirely, what do you even do with that?). if you find either or both of those, let me know in comments.

so where and what "hawaii" is remains a mystery.

but this has not prevented commercial & official interests from using maps of "hawaii" in all kinds of places! here on the islands, hawaii map imagery is all around.

maps are very common on tourist items:

the hawaiian telcom logo uses dots roughly arranged in the pattern of the islands on a map:

but i guess only five islands are worth including (i understand. branding needs come above all else!).

this souvenir cloth item is interesting because it includes all the main islands (including ni'ihau, lana'i, and kaho'olawe - which are often excluded), but smooshes them into the available space without much consideration for where they are in relation to each other:

the postcard above has the main islands in their rough places, but squishes them all together so that they fit in the space. also the islands are made more similar in size to each other so that you can better see the little illustrations.

here's a more "official" map to show where the islands "should be" in relation to each other, and their sizes relative to each other (although both of those can change depending on what projection the map uses):

in my mind, though, the ultimate hawaii map fantasy lives on the ubiquitous reusable walmart cloth bag (available for 50 cents at checkout to all who have forgotten to bring the right number of bags. there's a plastic shopping bag ban in hawaii.):

in the walmart commercial universe (wcu), the only islands that exist are islands that have a walmart. the general outlines of the islands & their general orientation is preserved (along with a rough topology too!), attempting to convey a sense of adhering to a recognizable reality, but islands without a walmart have been not only omitted, but the space where they would be has been eliminated as well - as if they were never there to begin with. in the walmart version of reality, what makes something "hawaii" is whether or not it has a walmart on it.

i've had a lot of time to think about this remarkable image because i have a whole bunch of these bags. this is the bag of the people - everyone uses it for everything. the one in the above photo is in a typical state - pretty rough - because it probably came from the side of the road. you can almost always find one on the side of the road. so wherever you are, you are probably within sight of the walmart version of the islands.

so why does it matter whether or not you can point to "hawaii" on a map? well, maps are political documents, meaning that they reflect the vision of whoever has the power to put the map in front of your eyes. so if you're the one with the power to make some of the most commonly-seen maps of hawaii and you decide to remove a few islands, well that can really shape what people think "hawaii" is! we're a sea of islands - many people here have only ever been to one or two of the islands. if it wasn't on the map, you might not know that it existed at all.

hawaii is incredibly important to the united states, not just for tourism, but in terms of global strategy. it's the largest outpost of american power in the middle of the pacific. it puts america & its troops half an ocean closer to some of america's biggest competitors, most notably, china. it's a springboard to all the other island territories of the pacific (which you maybe haven't heard of because they almost never appear on maps):

once you see a map of all of america's territories in the pacific, along with the exclusive economic zones (eez) that extend out for 200 miles around each island, you start to get a better feel for the extent of america's power in the pacific.

when a place is left off the map, it can be easy to make it (including its people!) invisible. so if you're america, with bases across the islands of the pacific, with a nightmarish history of atomic weapons testing in the pacific (rendering islands uninhabitable and leaving both land and waters too contaminated for people to use), perhaps you might not want some of these places to appear on the map.

in Foreign Policy in Focus, Khury Petersen-Smith writes:

"Many of us living in North America who are concerned about climate change, for example, have a sense that Pacific Islands are facing particularly severe impacts from rising sea levels. But that knowledge tends to be vague and limited, as actual residents of these islands are rarely invited to the table to speak for themselves.

This is not accidental. Commenting during the Nixon administration on U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, which share the same region of the Pacific as Guam, Henry Kissinger said “there are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?”

The U.S. has long had an interest in Marshallese and other Pacific Islanders remaining “out there” in the American mind. This marginalization helps allow the U.S. to carry out military operations in the region, along with policies that further climate change and other harms, while keeping most Americans unaware of these practices’ impacts in the Pacific." [FPIF]

often hawai'i (and alaska - which is in many ways similar to hawai'i in its relation to the contiguous US) doesn't even appear on national maps of the USA.

here's a screenshot from the new york times homepage on march 21, 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to spread:

there is no alaska and no hawai'i on those maps. so if you were looking for information on the most important issue that was happening at the time, and you live in or are concerned about hawai'i and/or alaska, there would just be nothing. and what does it say about the people who run the top newspaper in america that they decided it was fine to omit these two states? are they not states? do they not matter? do the readers in those states not matter? and this is not an unusual thing at all. it happens all the time.

i'd like to finish by sharing with you a poem by CHamoru poet Craig Santos Perez. CHamoru are the indigenous people of the mariana islands (which include guam, saipan, tinian, rota, and others).

in this poem, Craig Santos Perez writes about not appearing on the map...

“Off-Island CHamorus”

My family migrated to California when I was 15 years old. During the first day at my new high school, the homeroom teacher asked: “Where are you from?” “The Mariana Islands,” I answered. He replied: “I’ve never heard of that place. Prove it exists.” And when I stepped in front of the world map on the wall, it transformed into a mirror: the Pacific Ocean, like my body, was split in two and flayed to the margins. I found Australia, then the Philippines, then Japan. I pointed to an empty space between them and said: “I’m from this invisible archipelago.” Everyone laughed. And even though I descend from oceanic navigators, I felt so lost, shipwrecked

on the coast of a strange continent. “Are you a citizen?” he probed. “Yes. My island, Guam, is a U.S. territory.” We attend American schools, eat American food, listen to American music, watch American movies and television, play American sports, learn American history, dream American dreams, and die in American wars. “You speak English well,” he proclaimed, “with almost no accent.” And isn’t that what it means to be a diasporic CHamoru: to feel foreign in a domestic sense.

Over the last 50 years, CHamorus have migrated to escape the violent memories of war; to seek jobs, schools hospitals, adventure, and love; but most of all, we’ve migrated for military service, deployed and stationed to bases around the world. According to the 2010 census, 44,000 CHamorus live in California, 15,000 in Washington, 10,000 in Texas, 7,000 in Hawaii, and 70,000 more in every other state and even in Puerto Rico. We are the most “geographically dispersed” Pacific Islander population within the United States, and off-island CHamorus now outnumber our on-island kin, with generations having been born away from our ancestral homelands, including my daughters.

Some of us will be able to return home for holidays, weddings, and funerals; others won’t be able to afford the expensive plane ticket to the Western Pacific. Years and even decades might pass between trips, and each visit will feel too short. We’ll lose contact with family and friends, and the island will continue to change until it becomes unfamiliar to us. And isn’t that, too, what it means to be a diasporic CHamoru: to feel foreign in your own homeland.

Even after 25 years, there are still times I feel adrift, without itinerary or destination. When I wonder: What if we stayed? What if we return? When the undertow of these questions begins pulling you out to sea, remember: migration flows through our blood like the aerial roots of the banyan tree. Remember: our ancestors taught us how to carry our culture in the canoes of our bodies. Remember: our people, scattered like stars, form new constellations when we gather. Remember: home is not simply a house, village, or island; home is an archipelago of belonging.

–Craig Santos Perez

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thank you for reading this post! please let me know if you see any errors.

if you'd like to learn more about some important issues in the pacific, here are just a few:

july 2, 2020: "US says leaking nuclear waste dome is safe; Marshall Islands leaders don't believe it" - Los Angeles Times

may 30, 2021: "Pacific Plunder: this is who profits from the mass extraction of the region's natural resources." - The Guardian

april 5, 2021: "75 years after nuclear testing in the Pacific began, the fallout continues to wreak havoc" - The Conversation

june 4, 2021: "Guam won’t give up more land to the U.S. military without a fight" - The World (radio program)

aug. 24, 2021: "The US is building a military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Micronesian residents have questions." - The World (radio program)

and if you'd like to learn more about how maps are political, here are a couple articles:

june 5, 2014: "The politics of making maps" by Amanda Ruggeri, for BBC

july 11, 2018: "Politics and Cartography: The Power of Deception through Distortion" by John Erskine, for the Carnegie Ethics Online Monthly Column