#Conservation Overture

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Wings of Wonder

Wings of Wonder: Celebrating World Migratory Bird Day 2024 As we navigate the critical juncture of climate change and biodiversity loss, the call to action resounds louder than ever. One essential step in this conservation journey is the creation of a biodiversity inventory, a collective effort to illuminate the richness of our urban wildlife and fortify measures for their…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing at Philadelphia Inquirer:

BETHEL PARK, Pa. — In the sea of caps and gowns, Thomas Matthew Crooks hardly stood out. Few people clapped when his name was called. A YouTube video of his graduation two years ago from Bethel Park High School shows a slender and bespectacled student receiving his diploma with a soft smile. But the class of 2022 awoke Sunday to learn that the 20-year-old Allegheny County man was notorious, the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally that left an ex-firefighter, Corey Comperatore, dead and two other attendees wounded. U.S. Secret Service counter-snipers killed Crooks moments after he opened fire on the Saturday night rally from a nearby rooftop. The FBI said Sunday they believed he acted alone. He had not been on the bureau’s radar.

Crooks’ actions shocked residents in his hometown, sparked countless conspiracy theories online, and prompted investigators to begin combing through every aspect of his life, looking for motive. The mystery has been fueled by a near-total absence of Crooks’ social media postings, political writings, or other digital fingerprints. Several former classmates appeared on national television Sunday, quickly casting Crooks as a stereotypical loner who was bullied heavily during his time at Bethel Park. One of them, Jason Kohler, told reporters Sunday that students tormented Crooks “almost every day” and that he often wore “hunting” outfits to class. “He was just an outcast,” Kohler said, “and you know how kids are nowadays.” Yet, two former students interviewed by The Inquirer disputed the characterization. They did not recall specific incidents of violence or other antagonism involving their now-infamous classmate in the community they described as generally tight-knit.

[...] The slight traces of public information Crooks left behind leave few clues about his political ideology. Federal campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation to progressive political action committee in 2021 after President Joe Biden’s election, but later registered as a Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data. His father was a registered Libertarian, his mother a Democrat. Crooks’ body was found on the rooftop of an agricultural tool manufacturing plant a few hundred feet from the rally with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle — legally purchased by his father. The shooter was wearing a T-shirt promoting “The Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts. If Crooks maintained any personal social media presence, it went largely undetected on Sunday. Discord, an instant messaging platform mainly used by video gamers, released a statement acknowledging Crooks held a “rarely utilized” account that contained no information relevant to the shooting.

Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.” Another former classmate did not share this view. Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements — but they shed no light on his actions Saturday. “He definitely was conservative,” he said. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”

The gunman who killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore and attempted the assassination of Donald Trump at Saturday night’s Butler, PA rally was not only a registered Republican but also a vehement conservative.

This should hopefully put an end to the right-wing’s nonsensical claim that a “violent leftist”/”Antifa” tried to kill Trump.

[merlinmerlot]

We finally finished the fifth elephant.

I wish I could say after my 2nd reading I enjoyed this book, but unfortunately it's marred by painful pacing and deeply frustrating overtures to any of the actually good scenes.

Read more for my full thoughts:

Fifth Elephant is a book that struggles with its identity in a way I haven't seen in previous watch books, and it's made all the more maddening by the fact that out of the twenty million things the book tries, there is some stuff of substance! But you can never quite get a handle on any of them because the book is so damn busy!

I struggle to pinpoint a main theme in this book. Is it about fascism, the consequences of long distance communication, or gender and race in conservative society? The book doesn't doesn't stay with any of these concepts for long enough, which results in a muddy plot.

Is it about the past, the future, history, belief, traditions, what it means for things to stay the same and yet change, and what that means for truth? But that feels like well traveled ground, especially with Men At Arms and Feet of Clay, and honestly, this book doesn't sell this well enough to me, because while it’s Telling me these things, it's not actually Saying anything with them.

While Pratchett makes a point to give Klatch space to breathe, and make it a country on its terms (though, admittedly, he falls into orientalist tropes), Uberwald is plagued by Western exceptionalist writing choices. Why does Pratchett connect ideas of the future to Ankh Morpork (a proto-capitalist state), and imply that Uberwald must be forcefully pulled along with it? Why are there multiple scenes about how much the people of Uberwald hate living there, that they want to go to ‘modern’ Ankh Morpork, without really scrutinizing Why that is? Why is the fact that Ankh Morpork has become Such a global economic power not explored in a critical way, at least not thoroughly? (Especially since I Know Pratchett is capable of it. He did it with Jingo.)

I think the biggest crime this book does, though, is with its characterization of Vimes. I can't fathom the ‘why’, but for some reason Pratchett leans into the hyper-masculine noir traits of Vimes' character. They’ve always been there, but while the other books took a satirical spin to it, there's a certain romanticizing of it in this book. Vimes’ violent, ‘beastly’ nature is bad and Scary, but oh, isn't it Cool and Dark and Edgy too? Look how this strong, bloody man frightens the townsfolk, smokes a cigar while he shoots a man to save his poor wife. This is tolerable in bite sized portions, but in Fifth Elephant it's like sickening sweet. Why does Vimes kill a man in the streets, on purpose, (the first time he does that in the climax of these books!) and it's hardly addressed! (Yes, Wolfgang deserved it. But when So Much of Vimes' character is delegated to Not giving in to the Easy Choice, why is this decision not given the space it needs? Especially RIGHT after Jingo!)

There's just this strange sense of a focus on masculinity in this book that wasn't in any of the others. Like, why is it that in the Uberwald book, we spend more time with Carrot chasing Angua then with Angua herself? Why the hell is this not an Angua book? Why, in every scene where she has to confront her problems, whether that be her family or otherwise, must she be saved by a man? 

And all of this is a shame because there Are some scenes I really enjoy in this book! I love when we see Sybil and the wedding pictures, I love Vimes getting chased by werewolves. I find Inigo a really fun character, and I LOVE MARGOLOTTA. The parallels between the clacks towers and modern day communication, the little crumbs here and there of spy media tropes, the addiction metaphors, the werewolf family! But that's the kicker! We never spend enough time with Any idea! And none of it connects well enough together! Which is crazy, because Jingo and Feet of Clay were both such Cohesive stories. 

Regardless. I’m looking forward to The Truth because I really missed Ankh Morpork in this book. And Also Vetinari. (who, funnily enough, is hardly in this book. I guess he took up too much space in Jingo).

My final thoughts: Vimes should have had a daughter instead. 

[beguines]

When the CIO was formed, Lewis and the mineworkers gave mixed support to more radical segments of the labor movement, but in the end often undermined them. Lewis was, of course, less narrow-​minded at times than his more ideologically conservative colleagues, and gave early support to the CP-​led United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) and the United Electrical Workers (UE). At other times, however, he helped destroy more radical forces. The woodworkers, under their early left-​wing leadership, wanted to organize Black and white southern woodworkers, which would have given a tremendous boost to labor/​civil rights activism in the South. As we shall see, this was eminently possible. Lewis, however, presided over the first anti-​communist purge in 1938–​39, sending in his operatives to support a right wing, which not only did not want to organize the South, but which even liberal/​right CIO leaders came to view as totally provincial and incompetent. The same scenario almost played out in meat slaughtering and packing. In steel, Lewis and Murray used the Communists, especially their Black organizers, to organize the industry, then eliminated all democracy, leaving the union under the firm control of the anti-​democratic, unimaginative, racially oppressive Philip Murray. There were other possibilities that a more radical mineworkers' union might have pursued. It could have sought broader alliances with the Trotskyist-​led insurgency in the teamsters and strengthened rather than tried to eclipse the power of the West Coast longshoremen. Had they had been willing to force a direct confrontation within the CIO, they could have pushed for a militant campaign among southern textile workers in 1937, when the possibilities for organizing the industry looked real, rather than letting the Hillman-​led Textile Workers Organizing Committee pursue its self-​defeating Gompers-​esque approach.

As the structural power of the union declined, especially in the 1950s, miners might have allied more closely with the radical wing of the labor movement. Interestingly, at times Lewis was not averse to this, as his support of UAW Local 600 suggests, as did his overtures to the United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA) in 1947 to call a joint general strike against Taft-​Hartley. The UMWA's refusal to sign the Taft-​Hartley anti-​communist affidavits did in the beginning lead Lewis to explore alliances with the CP-​led UE and FTA. Lewis and the union might have taken a more aggressive stance on saving the jobs of Black miners, especially in West Virginia, as mechanization all but eliminated them from the industry. Although the ILWA on the West Coast largely capitulated to employers on the issue of jobs as the companies switched to containerization, the ILWA did not do so at the expense of Black and Latino workers. The example of the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which transformed itself both internally and externally into a militant civil rights organization, could have been followed. Lewis, a vocal advocate of civil rights, leading the union to be active in the CP-​influenced National Negro Congress during the late 1930s and early 1940s, might have joined with or even transformed the National Negro Labor Alliance of the 1950s in pursuing such aims. Broader associational power during the 1950s might well have aided the mineworkers in their own struggles.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[solradguy]

Wait what is chimaki’s lore? This is definitely going to affect whether or not I want a plushie of him

From the GG wiki:

Chimaki was born in a conservative island nation known as Japon, which strongly favored remaining neutral and isolated on the world stage. Times changed, however, and foreign culture made its way to the shores of his country. Extremists who despised these changes chose to resist violently. In this time of chaos, the government realized the only way to stop these extremists was through the use of force, and created an anti-terrorist unit, the C1000. At the forefront of its inception was Chimaki. Although the C1000 patriots struggled to execute their authority, they managed to bring a new era to their island home. No longer in need of their services, President Meiji ordered the dismantling of the C1000. As a result, the Chimaki is unemployed, overcome with boredom, and has generally abandoned thinking at all. It is in this state that he became Sin Kiske's precious stuffed toy prior to Guilty Gear 2 -Overture-.

[th3-0bjectivist]

Dear listener, this will be my final musical post of this year and you know I’m gonna end it on an eternal banger. Godspeed to ALL my followers on Tumblr, happy holidays! Let’s have a great, and positive 24'. Fret thee not, I will be back with more tuneskis next year. That said, I’ve been commenting on classical music for the end of 23'. If you’re just joining me on my page I alluded to Bach and Vivaldi in previous weeks… along with a generous peppering of pejorative comments when I was describing myself listening to modern radio. Modern radio was the REASON I started listening to classical music again this year. Why? Because radio BLOWS. Actually, the programming blows and modern music SUCKS. Classical music on the other hand, for all its technological limitations and despite its clear crow’s feet, is at least quality music. Timeless even! So, for Christmas this year, let’s focus on the excellence of execution for music in the 1800’s, Johannes Brahms. Inventor of great individual and collectivized musical works, and the final exhibition in my three-part 23' classical showpiece. At the end of 24', join me for the likes of Mozart and Beethoven, but for now, smash play and enjoy the uniquely holiday and dream-time piece above. Recognize it? Thought you might, dear listener. For those of you who stay and read my little commentaries on these musical posts I really appreciate it. When you read them, you’re spending time with me in a way. Thanks for your time!

For his time, the mid to late 1800’s in Europe, Johannes Brahms became the tip of the spear in Germanic symphonies and sonatas. Writing something like two hundred songs in his lifetime, he started off in his young teens as a naturally talented pianist and played in inns and brothels around the docks of Hamburg to help his family generate money. For such humble beginnings, he also began composing his own music and performing concerts with other notable musicians such as Eduard Reményi. Through further networking, Brahms became closely associated with other virtuosos and composers like Joseph Joachim and Robert Schumann. Schumann helped boost Brahms’ career when his compositions were featured in a media periodical called Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Now, I’m not gonna lie, this guy is not my favoite composer and if I’m being 100% honest, I think his symphonies are a little boring. A lot of it is just too lite and plodding for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, the man was a God among normal humans, but when it comes to personal taste, I prefer orchestral symphonies by the likes of Bach and Vivaldi. However, where I think Brahms’ truly excelled was in his original solo piano works, as he was truly a master of vastly intricate mechanisms and capable of very technical applications with music. He invented harmonies with an almost entirely different kind of emotional resonance than other contemporary classical artists; often using instruments to create a warm and introspective noise rather than a lot of the LOUD AND GALIVANTING classical music that you can find a lot of in the 1700’s. In the 1800’s, the tail end of the Romantic period, concerts and festival overtures were the Taylor Swift venues of the time, and the music of Brahms sold BIG in an international way. He also held the Masters of Composition that came before him in high regard, attempting to cling hard and fast to the idea of ‘absolute music’ (the idea being that music should carry no specific or primary meaning) like composers before him. This conservative view of music put him at odds with composers like Wagner, who wrote program music (introducing literary ideas, a subjective drama, an actual scene, etc). Brahms never married but had a few flings. He was known as being prickly and reserved with adults, but kind-hearted and warm around children. He also died of liver carcinoma in Vienna in the late 1800’s after nearly three decades serving as a musical director, principal conductor, educator and perhaps one of the most influential European composers of all-time.

I should also be diligent and let you know that his most concentrated and vital works came along after he began visiting Vienna around the 1860’s. His mother passed in 1865, and he afterward created German Requiem, which is widely considered to be a mass for the living. His works such as Hungarian Dances, Violin Concerto, Wiegenlied (also known as Lullaby or the Cradle Song), and his Piano Quintet were all generated in his later years from 1860 to 1885 or so, gimme a break folks I’m not a historian. It’s all about subtle movements with Brahms, or just his harmonic movement in general. On Christmas this year, or every year, consider coming back to this post and clicking on the Best of Brahms. Spend time and mend with family folks! One more musical post and then I need a long break. Enjoy! Image source: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/best-looking-composers-musicians/johannes-brahms/

[gloriousmonsters]

this post is just killing me.

the flying leap from a tweet that's just 'the fanciest house in my neighborhood put notes in everyone's mailboxes asking them to be quiet from 2pm bc they were having a backyard wedding, and i'm in awe of my neighbor who proceeded to mow his lawn at exactly 2' to 'oh my god this is everything wrong with america. thinking HORRIFYING behavior like this is OK is why we had Trump!! don't you know that conservatives feel the same way about PRONOUNS as you do about the richest people in the neighborhood issuing a notice that everyone needs to shut up for their event?'

Like sure, it's rude! It's really funny to characterize it as 'you think you're the MAIN CHARACTER', though (god, that criticism is... not only flawed to begin with, but is quickly being overused to the point of incoherence) considering that if anyone seems to think the world revolves around them, it's the people who expected the neighborhood at large to stop and shut up because they're having a backyard wedding (which requires absolute silence from the surrounding area, apparently).

This wasn't some plea for love and kindness and mutual understanding that was shut down by chest-thumping MURICA spirit--the tweet is a TWEET, short and lacking a lot of context by its nature, but the implications are glaringly obvious. Fanciest house on the block, by a mile. No names, they probably aren't friends with anyone in the neighborhood. They issued notes to everyone via mailbox--not talking to them. The notes weren't inviting them to the wedding or any overture of friendship, just 'please be quiet we're doing something important'. Do you think they cared about or checked whether anyone else had something important happening? You don't get love and peace and community and mutual understanding and respect by shushing when someone asks you to shush. In fact, the attitude of 'you have to be polite and not bother people--for the sake of Community and not being rude!!' is twisted just as much to use against marginalized people as belligerence over being asked to do anything at all.

but overall, maybe this isn't some great example of america/humanity's flaws with villainous behavior that must be decried and analyzed, maybe it's just someone's funny little bit of gossip about the richest people in their neighborhood being rude and someone being rude to them back. and maybe if you're comparing it to YOUR neighborhood where everyone is totally OK with people being noisy because they all respect each other and YOU personally would be quiet if one of your neighbors, who you already have an understanding with, asked you to be quiet for a wedding in the area.... realize at some point that the situation is not the same? and this has nothing, in fact, to do with 'how is anyone going to respect your pronouns/being queer if you don't respect and be kind to people in the first place??' which is an unhinged connection to make, period.

Respect and kindness are good. Being respectful and nice and a Good Community Member is not actually a tax you must pay to have a right to live your life. Don't have an outdoor wedding in the middle of a neighborhood if your life will be ruined by someone mowing their lawn. why did we even make this jump in the first place

[dertaglichedan]

Biden-Harris Admin’s Taxpayer-Funded Voter Project Replaces, Dwarfs Facebook CEO’s ‘Zuckerbucks’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s admission he has paused his “Zuckerbucks” scheme ignores that the Biden-Harris administration has adopted and expanded the concept — potentially unlawfully — on a scale that renders Zuckerberg’s involvement unnecessary.

The billionaire repeated his 2022 pledge to discontinue the controversial program in a Monday letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) that appeared written to continue his efforts to placate conservatives — efforts that have included recent overtures to former President Donald Trump.

Yet, the program has been rendered moot after a 2021 Biden-Harris administration executive order requiring the head of every federal agency to develop programs to register voters and to increase voter participation — programs subject to White House approval.

Zuckerberg initially revealed he would pause his efforts “to support electoral infrastructure” after overwhelming public scrutiny concerning if his efforts heavily targeted potential Democrat voters.

That pledge came after the Biden-Harris White House’s executive order.

During the 2020 election cycle, Zuckerberg enlisted David Plouffe, who managed former President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and is now advising Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, to advise him on his controversial initiative.

[stoportotouch]

acquired, through... certain means, the original LONDON cast recording of 1776, and. some observations:

overture had a bizarre reorchestration. don’t necessarily mind but it was a strange decision

accents. either bother or don’t but don’t half-ass it

franklin, dickinson, and rutledge are the best voices

martha WOULD have been up there too if she hadn’t been doing something... weird accent-wise

dickinson sounds very pleased that the cool, cool, conservative men are all MEN

HATED momma look sharp. actively insulting.

the 3/4 sections of molasses to rum were taken at... quite a clip. presumably the real reason rutledge stomps out immediately after it is that he had a bus to catch

interesting little musical quotation of rhapsody in blue in molasses to rum? don’t know what it was doing there but sure

rutledge uh. he was GOOD but more on that in a moment

is anybody there? was done with real like. walls-closing-in-around-me terror

thomson having to yell over the sound of posterity never makes much sense

[nodynasty4us]

From the August 21, 2023 article:

According to a report from Axios, big money donors are sitting on their wallets while the search for a Trump alternative proceeds with Governors Brian Kemp (GA) and Glenn Youngkin (VA) high on the list.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Lula’s Climate Actions Must Match His Rhetoric

Brazil’s president-elect has pledged to halt deforestation in the Amazon. He can’t do it alone.

“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told a cheering crowd at climate talks in Egypt last month. He’s right: Limiting global warming requires saving the planet’s largest rainforest, which shriveled under outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro. To reverse the damage, Lula needs the world’s help — and must convince more Brazilians that fighting climate change is in their interest too.

In terms of planetary health, Bolsonaro’s tenure was disastrous. He made climate change a partisan debate and hollowed out agencies responsible for monitoring illegal mining, logging and burning in the Amazon. His actions resulted in the freezing of an international Amazon Fund dedicated to preserving the rainforest. A costly military campaign to fight fires there made little progress. Even with a slight reduction in 2022, deforestation surged to 11,400 square kilometers a year on average during Bolsonaro’s tenure, compared to 7,100 from 2015 to 2018. Parts of the forest now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb.

As a candidate, Lula blasted Bolsonaro’s environmental record for harming Brazil’s image. He’s promised to host a summit of Amazon rainforest nations and has made overtures to countries like Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which also have large tropical forests, hoping to secure more generous international assistance for conservation efforts. In addition to pledging to name a dedicated climate envoy, Lula has repaired ties with former environment minister Marina Silva, a prominent green activist. In his first speech as president-elect, Lula vowed to fight for zero deforestation.

After the previous government’s neglect, Lula deserves credit for putting the Amazon and climate change back on the agenda — but he has little time to waste. His first priorities should be to revive forest oversight agencies, expand protections for indigenous people and lands, and crack down on surging violence in the Amazon region.

Continue reading.

[solradguy]

Decided to mess around with the Outrage files finally. This is going to take so long to print lol. Pieces 1-11, 13, & 15 will all take around 24 hours to print. Piece 12 will take the longest at 1 day 15 hours. 14 will take approx. 14 hours. The quickest piece, 16, will take 11h 45m.

The average amount of filament each piece will take is 250g. Since spools come in 1kg rolls, I should be able to get 4 pieces from each roll. 12, 14, & 16 kind of mess the numbers up but I think I'll be able to print this thing with 4 whole rolls and then maybe a little bit from a 5th roll. I'm gonna use Overture's white PLA+ filament for it. It's the safest for my pets to be exposed to, it's lightweight, and it's more durable than standard PLA (bending instead of snapping, higher heat tolerance, etc.).

If I did the math right, it's looking like the total print time for this will come out to ~381 hours, or almost 16 days exactly (rounded up, though my printer seems to be conservative with its estimates and the total time will likely be a bit less).

I'm going to do more practice prints to familiarize myself further with the hardware and software for my printer before starting this project; there are too many things I need to learn about it still. In any case, when I do start it, it'll be a very interesting stress test for the little base model Ender 3.

Outrage waffle

[davidpwilson2564]

Bloglet (7-9)

Friday, June 7, 2024

A short video of Alex Jones faux-weeping about the liquidatiion of his misinformation empire. Boo hoo hooing.

Odd how Marco (Trump called him Little Marco) has now begun praising His Orangeness. It can only mean he wants to win the Veepstakes. His hope, we guess, is to become President.

Saturday, June 8, 2024

After going out in the afternoon I break with tradition and watch a movie. It's available on Prime Video. (My son showed me how to navigate this site.) "American Fiction." A Black writer's struggles. Succeeds after penning trash.

Beautiful weather.

Sunday, June 9, 2024

Head out to Brooklyn by train. An odd feeling when, sittting in the front car, I am, for a while alone. Feel quite vulnerable. At the Museum, a runthrough, a break, and then the concert. It goes okay. Nice piece. (R V Williams Third Symphony, subtitled "Pastorale.") Nice melodies and conductor quite good. An all-British program. An overture I'd never heard of, by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Really quite good. Well crafted.

The trip back into the city goes without incident. Nice to be home. Later, on whim, I find Trump's angry Las Vegas speech. Actually it's in Henderson, which I think of as a conservative enclave. I remember seeing a huge sign there advertising an appearance by Ann Coulter. These people are angry. Trump is there man. During the (rambling) speech I doze off. it's the same old thing. He's peddling the same snake oil.

He needs some new material.

to be continued

[alohaastro]

Moon transiting Pisces, Thursday, May 30th, stimulates imagination and inspired ideas, but also invites distraction, procrastination, and unrealistic yearning, as the moon approaching Saturn in Pisces forms a square aspect with Jupiter, Venus, and the sun in Gemini. Your perception of time, time management, or the timing of your presentation or overture, may be off, so it might be best to release any attachment to outcomes while the planets are playing a puckish game with affection and attainment. Yes, it is possible to achieve a lofty goal, or win the heart of another, while a Minor Grand Trine consisting of the Gemini planets conjunct Mercury and Uranus in Taurus, Pluto retrograde in Aquarius, and Neptune in Pisces, is turbo charging the manifesting power of your thoughts and desires, but will you still want that relationship, or job - or whatever - once you have it, or are you being influenced now by what you see others have, or what society is telling you that you should have? Shiny object syndrome and fear of missing out are amplified now. Mars, Chiron, and the North Node in Aries squaring Pluto in Aquarius, underlines the importance of considering the future consequences of any action you take or direction you choose now, because you may have to live with it for a long time, or it could demand a great deal of energy output. Even if you wish to help or please others under this Pisces moon, you could resent them or regret your involvement later. Conserve your energy and direct your attention toward what feels true or empowering to you.

[plethoraworldatlas]

On March 8, a Manhattan federal court found Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, guilty of conspiracy to import large amounts of cocaine into the United States over nearly two decades.

Mainstream U.S. media generally framed the ex-president’s trial and conviction as a triumph of justice, a service rendered by the impartial U.S. justice system to the people of Honduras.

The great majority of such accounts, however, ignored and obscured context crucial for understanding Hernández’s rise and rule; in particular, how Washington contributed to both. Though the mainstream narrative around the ex-president rightly connects his tenure in office with massive emigration from Honduras, it has elided the degree to which U.S. influence enabled Hernández’s career and thus partially drove the migration that arose in response.

For roughly two centuries, Honduras, the original “banana republic,” has suffered a deeply unequal relationship with the far more powerful United States. One of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras and its people have endured frequent American military interventions, U.S.-backed coups, and a corrupt, rapacious local oligarchy closely tied to U.S. corporate interests.

Despite Hernández’s ultimate conviction on U.S. soil, he served Washington for many years as a loyal client. The single most important event in the ex-president’s political career was a 2009 coup, which overthrew center-left president Manuel Zelaya (whose wife, Xiomara Castro, won election in 2021 and currently occupies the presidency). Zelaya raised the minimum wage, subsidized small farmers, and authorized the morning-after pill, infuriating the country’s business elite and, in the last case, ultra-conservative religious leaders. Moreover, to Washington’s consternation, he made overtures toward Hugo Chavez’s socialist Venezuela and sought to convert a crucial U.S. airbase entirely to civilian use.

Joint action by Honduras’ military and judiciary — in a manner the U.S. ambassador called “clearly illegal” and “totally illegitimate” at the time — forced Zelaya to pay for these sins in late June 2009. While the White House’s reaction to the coup initially appeared confused, Washington soon recovered its footing. Even as huge protests raged, the Obama administration played a key role in ultimately compelling Honduras’ people and the region’s governments to acquiesce to the regime change as a fait accompli.

Despite widespread repression by the post-coup de facto government, accounts of fraud, and the condemnation of many countries and international organizations (including the normally deferential Organization of American States), U.S.-endorsed elections in November 2009 received Washington’s imprimatur. In her memoirs (the passage excised from the book’s paperback edition with no explanation), then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained that the U.S. sought to “render the question of Zelaya moot and give the Honduran people a chance to choose their own future.”

It was in this context that Hernández catapulted into power. After Porfirio Lobo won the 2009 presidential race, Hernández became President of the National Congress as a member of Lobo’s National Party — an institution historically closely linked to U.S. agribusiness. Lobo was Hernández’s mentor and groomed his protege to succeed him. But while Hernández enjoyed success, the coup’s consequences constituted disaster for ordinary Hondurans.

Political violence and repression became routine. The murder rate, much of it due to cartel-related gang violence, soared — it was the world’s highest for three years running. As the economic situation also deteriorated, and Lobo and his son allied with major narcotics syndicates, a huge surge of emigration swelled out of Honduras, with desperate citizens flooding northward. The total number of Hondurans apprehended at the U.S. border exploded — from less than 25,000 in 2009 to nearly 100,000 in 2014 — reaching 250,000 by 2020.

In Washington’s eyes, however, such concerns took a back seat to longstanding strategic needs: above all, Honduras’ openness to foreign investment and its role as a base for American military power. And, as head of the National Congress, Hernandez was seen as particularly amenable to U.S. desires.

“The State Department loved Hernandez,” according to Dana Frank, an expert on Honduras at UC Santa Cruz. As Lobo’s heir apparent, “he was young and could stay in power for a long time.” Frank cites a 2010 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa asserting that “He has consistently supported U.S. interests.”

The depth of American support for Hernández became clear after his 2013 election to the presidency. Despite credible reports of fraud, his National Party’s control over the counting process, and a wave of threats and sometimes lethal violence against opposition candidates and activists during the campaign, the State Department commended the election as “transparent, free, and fair.”

In 2015, a major corruption scandal centered on the misappropriation of funds from Honduras’ Social Security Institute exploded, prompting unprecedented popular demonstrations against Hernandez and calling for his resignation, “There was a real sense that Hernández could fall,” according to Alexander Main, a Latin America expert at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. Fortunately for Hernández, however, the U.S. swooped in, helping to defuse the unrest by prodding the OAS to organize a local anti-corruption body known as MACCIH.

In that same year, according to Frank, Washington gave an “official green light” to a “completely criminal” power grab by Hernández whereby his hand-picked Supreme Court ruled that he was eligible to run for a second term in clear violation of Honduras’ constitution. Washington’s complacent reaction — “It is up to the Honduran people to determine their political future” — stood in remarkable contrast to 2009, when Zelaya’s mere suggestion that the constitution might be amended to permit a second term served as the pretext for the coup that the U.S. subsequently legitimized.

In Hernández’s 2017 reelection bid, the fraud was so blatant and widespread that even the generally conservative OAS declared the incumbent’s victory an example of “extreme statistical improbability” and called for new elections. The State Department, however, stood by Hernández, prodding Mexico and other OAS members to recognize the results, even as security forces suppressed massive and prolonged protests with live ammunition.

Indeed, U.S. training and funding also proved crucial in the creation of the brutal special operations units Hernández’s government used to terrorize opposition and environmental activists. Particularly significant in the military sphere was the role of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the American combatant command responsible for Latin America. Hernández was a particular favorite of John Kelly, SOUTHCOM’s head during Obama’s second term (and then White House chief of staff for Donald Trump), who, as Dana Frank noted, once referred to the convicted drug trafficker as a “great guy” and “good friend.”

Considering the U.S. relationship with Hernández, it is perhaps unsurprising that U.S. officials seemingly turned a blind eye to his deep involvement in narcotics trafficking. As both Hernández’s recent trial — during which a witness claimed Hernandez had privately vowed to “stuff drugs up the noses of the gringos” — and that of his brother in 2019 showed, the drug trade’s reach into the Honduran government was unmistakable, with numerous high-ranking security officials repeatedly implicated.

CEPR’s Main argues that it was “highly unlikely American officials were unaware” of Hernández’s criminality. Indeed, as a document from his brother’s trial revealed, the DEA began investigating the ex-president as early as 2013. As noted in Hernández’s trial, just weeks after his inauguration in 2014, the agency reportedly obtained video evidence indicating his involvement with major drug traffickers. Even after his brother’s 2019 conviction, when it became apparent that millions of dollars in drug money helped underwrite Hernández’s political career, President Donald Trump publicly praised him for “working with the United States very closely” and for his help in “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened.”

Given all this, the U.S. media’s failure to probe the influence of American policy on Hernández’s career begins to look less like an anomalous oversight and more like a manifestation of structural dynamics that tend to reinforce the notion of American innocence. We can see the same logic apply to the frenzied media accounts detailing “caravans” of Central American migrants headed to the U.S. While mainstream news outlets rightly note the relationship between Hernández’s presidency and increased migration from Honduras, they nevertheless fail to connect the two to the impact of U.S. policymaking. Without Washington’s complicity and assistance, Hernandez might have spent 2014 to 2022 in prison, rather than the presidency. Unfortunately, it was the Honduran people who paid the price.

[digitaltariq]

Kari Lake, a Trump Acolyte, Struggles to Discover Her Path

Kari Lake opened her Senate run in Arizona displaying each intention of shedding the trimmings of the Trumpism that made her a star in conservative circles however price her the governor’s race two years in the past: unfounded claims of election fraud, ruthless assaults on fellow Republicans and obsequious tributes to former President Donald J. Trump. Ms. Lake, a former tv anchor, has reached out to her critics. She has sought to attraction to the Republican institution in ways in which Mr. Trump has not, framing his Make America Nice Once more motion as a pure evolution of Reaganism, which attracted legions of voters to the get together extra 40 years in the past. And he or she has moderated her message on abortion, opposing a federal ban on the process she as soon as referred to as “the last word sin.” However after six months as a Senate candidate, she is struggling to stroll away from the controversial positions which have turned off independents and alienated potential allies, lashing out in ways in which Republicans now backing her marketing campaign have warned will lead to one other defeat. At a marketing campaign occasion final week in Cave Creek, Ariz., she introduced plans to proceed her authorized challenges to her 2022 election loss, castigated Republicans as cowards who didn't help her struggle and claimed, with out proof, that Democrats have been orchestrating illicit voting schemes involving undocumented immigrants. “That’s the one means they will win — with illegals voting,” Ms. Lake stated. Ms. Lake constructed a nationwide political persona in remarkably quick order with applause traces that electrified each nook of MAGA Nation. Now, in her second high-profile battleground marketing campaign in as a few years, her try and mood her method sufficient to win a Senate seat is proving to be a tough activity, even for somebody with communication abilities polished after a long time within the native TV information enterprise. Many reasonable Republicans in Arizona stay against her bid, criticizing Ms. Lake’s overtures as insufficient and insincere. Some conservatives who supported her in 2022 have voiced considerations about her authenticity and questioned her capacity to win in November. “Kari Lake is making a variety of rookie errors, and also you simply don’t know what you’re going to get along with her or the place she’s going to land,” stated Dan Farley, the president of the Arizona Tea Social gathering and a former supporter who's now backing her major opponent, Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County. “She’s a strong power however form of like a bazooka missing intention. She’s blowing up her personal storage as a substitute of enemies within the driveway.” Public polls present Ms. Lake as a transparent favourite in opposition to Mr. Lamb. She can be inside hanging distance of Consultant Ruben Gallego, the front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination. The race for the seat, which is being vacated by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an unbiased, is considered one of solely a handful this yr anticipated to find out management of the carefully divided chamber. Republicans in Washington, desirous to win again a seat the get together held for 14 years earlier than Ms. Sinema gained it in 2018 as a Democrat, have rallied round Ms. Lake, who has been endorsed by get together leaders within the Senate. Mr. Trump has additionally backed her marketing campaign. However Ms. Lake nonetheless faces a tricky promote inside her personal get together. In a poll final month from Noble Predictive Insights, 27 p.c of Republicans stated that they had a detrimental view of Ms. Lake, greater than double the share of Democrats who stated the identical about Mr. Gallego. Amongst all Arizona voters, 49 p.c had a detrimental opinion about Ms. Lake in contrast with 40 p.c who seen her positively. Ms. Lake’s workforce highlighted her public attraction and her profitable fund-raising efforts. She raised about $2.3 million in her first three months as a candidate, one of many strongest showings for any Republican. A lot of that complete got here from small donations, signaling sturdy grass-roots help. “We've got a tremendous alternative to deliver our nation collectively below conservative beliefs,” Ms. Lake stated in an interview. “I’m assembly with folks on a regular basis who haven't been Trumpers. I sit down with them, and I’m not altering who I'm. I’m saying, ‘Look, we agree on this, this and this.’” The open query is whether or not Ms. Lake can forgo the conservative crowd-pleasers lengthy sufficient to speak that message convincingly. Jeff Fleetham, an Arizona Republican who was a Trump delegate on the previous two Republican Nationwide Conventions, backed Ms. Lake two years in the past however stated he didn't suppose she may transfer on from previous fights. If she wins his get together’s nomination, he stated, he is not going to vote within the race, which might be the primary time he has skipped voting in a contest with a Republican candidate. “She appears to only need the limelight,” stated Mr. Fleetham, who's backing Mr. Lamb within the major. “She will be able to’t be trusted in something she says or does.” Mr. Lamb, who gained nationwide consideration by refusing to implement stay-at-home orders in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, stated in an interview that he was campaigning on his expertise as a sheriff of a county on the U.S.-Mexico border, including that Ms. Lake’s endorsement from Washington Republicans would backfire. “To have the individuals who screwed up this nation backing you shouldn't be taking part in nicely in Arizona,” Mr. Lamb stated. Ms. Lake has reached out to considered one of Mr. Lamb’s supporters, former Consultant Matt Salmon, who ran in opposition to Ms. Lake in 2022. Mr. Salmon stated he ignored a textual content message from Ms. Lake final month, which got here days after she mocked him throughout a radio interview for refusing to fulfill along with her. “There’s nothing genuine about her,” Mr. Salmon stated. “She touts her endorsements, however two years in the past she would have criticized anybody with those self same endorsements and declared them swamp creatures.” At her rally in Cave Creek final week, a few of Ms. Lake’s supporters stated she ought to drop her false claims that she had been cheated out of the governorship in 2022. “It alienates lots of people,” stated Julee Miller, 47, of North Phoenix. “It’d be good if she tries to tone down slightly bit, compromise right here or there.” However others stated the problem demonstrated her combating spirit. “Amp it up — we like that,” stated Gary Savage, 67, of Cave Creek. “The alternative of an election denier is anyone in the dead of night.” Read the full article