#I respect any individual first nations person's choice to not support the voice if it feels too insufficient

[mirrorofliterature]

why you should support the voice: an imperfect step forward

australia’s next referendum will be about changing the constitution to give the federal government the power to create a First Nations voice, which will have NO legislative or executive power and will simply be able to provide APPROPRIATE ADVICE on RELEVANT legislation.

first of all: I am not a First Nations person, but a supporter and ally. any first nations person residing in australia - your feedback (critical or otherwise) is welcomed. sovereignty was never ceded.

the voice will not solve all of the issues in australia, but it is a step forward to healing and restoring relations between First Nations Australians and all other Australians. it is also not really that drastic - all the constitutional amendment will do is give the voice a constitutional footing so it cannot be swept away by hostile governments, like ATSIC was.

I have studied the voice and the uluru statement extensively, both from a sociological and legal perspective. I think that it is worthy of support, not because it is a panacea but because australia for too long has done nothing. hopefully this will help amplify first nations voices - because when it comes to issues concerning first nations people, first nations people are the best equipped to solve them (see grandmothers against removals, for example).

anyway.

[zutaraplatter]

Avatar: The Last Airbender Critique

There are already a million of posts like this one, and I might be saying things that’ve already been said a million times but I’ve recently become reheated about the ATLA ending and wanted to let it out -_- No one asked, this is true, and this may or may not be a way to stall from this final project I still have to complete, but here’s 10 things I didn't like and/or would change about the show that likely shouldn’t need changing because they should have been done in the first place.

1. Katara should have apologized to Sokka after TSR

It should have happened and it didn't. In my canon-avoiding mind, Katara and Sokka have a heartfelt conversation where she apologizes for the awful things she said, Sokka says he forgives her and he's sorry if he wasn't as there for her as much as he should have been, which he follows up with "but I'm happy you listened to Aang and took his advice," leading into my next point

2. Katara should have said that not killing Yon Rha was her choice

And thats why it was the right one. Not because Aang already said it was wrong. No no. It was the right choice because that's what she chose. I love my mom to death and can't imagine losing her in any way, let alone the way Katara did. And I can't say for sure that if I was in her shoes that I know what I would have done f that yes I do I would have killed that motherfucker. But I also know that if Katara decided not to kill him, then that was one of two correct choices because they were Katara's choices to make. Not Aang's or anyone else's and this should have been clarified. I know it's a kids show but I said what I said. Next point.

3. Katara should have said more after telling Aang she was unsure at the Ember Island Players

Katara hasn't had any trouble saying how she feels, especially when it comes to helping others and making them feel better, whether she was right or wrong. But she holds back or overly softens blows and seems to even shrivel up at times when it comes to Aang. And me no likey. I had a boyfriend who I adored and admired and just genuinely looked up to. I'm also a shy and anxious person who hates confrontation, but because I loved him, I never refrained from telling him when he was wrong. I might have been a little shaky about it but I did it tho because when you want to be with someone you walk through the grass and stomp through the mud. And I personally feel like either in that moment or later on in an added scene that Katara should have voiced to Aang how unheard and disrespected she felt about his words before TSR and his actions on the balcony. I hate being uncomfortable and my secondhand embarrassment is toxic but I would love to see a scene of this. I always imagined Katara saying stuff like "But I'm not you Aang, and I'm not an Air Nomad," or "Zuko could understand why I needed to go, and I'd hoped you would too," or...I'm out of ideas but you get the idea. And you know what, I know I'm a hard Zutara shipper, but them having this conversation would honestly make me respect their relationship a whole lot more should it be believably written to end on a good note (I don't see how it could be but hey I'm an open minded person and I did think they were cute together once upon a time). Basically, all I'm saying is that Katara is no small voice and she should have been written that way when with Aang. Boyfriends can make you shy but should never make you weak. Period. Next point.

4. No rock! ONLY GROWTH!!!!!!!!!!!

I still squint my eyes whenever I remember that rock that unblocked Aang's chakra. What even was that? The laziest writing possible in my opinion. That's what. And Aang deserved better. What should have happened should have been that Aang started to lose to Ozai. And then as Ozai's about to deliver the finishing blow, Aang has flashbacks of everyone he's trying to save and honor, ending with a very prominent flashback of Katara with the guru's disembodied voice reminding Aang to let go of his attachments to become all he needs to be...then BOOM! Baby boy is back on his feet, chakra unblocked, he kicks Ozai's ass, I'm crying hysterically on the floor, as are the rest of us, and he wins. Then at the end of the series, instead of a kiss, he gives Katara an apology. She accepts, everyone else comes to join them on the balcony, cinematic group hug, camera pan into the sun. I don't know lol. Basically what I'm saying is that Aang did not deserve some deus ex machina. He deserved to grow and become his best self like everyone else got to.

5. Aang should have heard differently in The Storm

Katara is a very fate-minded person and this is when I saw potential for her to become a toxic character in regards to Aang. When he admits that he ran away from home 100 years ago, Katara tells him that that was basically a good thing because he was meant to be here and now. Like...no? What Aang did, though understandable for someone so young, was still wrong. Yes he would have maybe been killed but I'm like 10000000% sure they had a plan to protect and evacuate the literal avatar. And what was technically "meant to be" was a new avatar. But hey, what's done is done and kicking Aang while he's down is a no-no in this household. But that doesn't change the fact that Aang needed and deserved honesty. Maybe the fisherman could have said this, I don't know, but I feel like Aang should have been told by someone that although running away was wrong, it's a blessing he and Appa were able to survive and be able to help save the world now with his amazing friends found-family. Maybe this is too harsh, and maybe even outright wrong, but I felt like Aang deserved a truer answer here to support and comfort him.

6. MAILEE!!!!

Do I even need to go into detail?

7. Spiritual sigh*

Don't make me go into detail -_- I will say though that although Aang and Katara are both amazing individuals capable of earth shattering things, they were not a healthy fit for one another. This is evident in the original series and especially in their children from LOK. They both deserved the best but better than one another.

8. ZUTARAAAAAAA

This is a Zutara blog you KNEW this was coming, as it should. There's just too much. There's too damn much. I would give a real paragraph to this too, but, I mean, there's already so much proving that this was the pair. Fics, metas, rants, this site. Scroll through my blog or any of the ATLA related blogs I follow and...dude. These two were meant to be together and I'll mourn the narrative brilliance WASTED for no good reason every day for the rest of my life. No reason these two shouldn't be married with three kids. sob. I will take this part to say thank you to the amazing fic writers that gave Katara, Zuko, Mai, and Aang what they deserved that the writers didn't have the guts to give them themselves. Next point tho.

9. AANG AND ONJI

Good God almighty. Why not this? WHY NOT THIS? I'm putting on my bullet proof vest and I'm going to say this; Aanji is cuter than Zutara. Now before you scorn me or whatever, let me explain. Zutara for me is like steak. No. Chicken parmesan. I like chicken parmesan better. The point though is that Zutara is savory. You know? I don't see them as cute, I see them as Obviously. Aanji on the other hand is like a bag of my favorite candy. They are like a brownie. A cookie. Girl Scout Samoas!...I don't know what words are anymore. This post got way out of hand. I guess what I'm saying is that for Zutara, I scream, but for Aanji, I squeal. I hope that makes sense. But here's the main point I want to make. Onji never knew who Aang really was. And Aang was always, at his core, himself. She very obviously had a crush on Aang for his personality and that was crazy cute and frankly preferable to Katara's "I...guess he is." (you know exactly what I'm talking about) Anyway, I kept wanting more of them together. I wish all the time that we'd gotten to see her again, with a more fleshed out character and all. And in the way that I imagine the show should have gone, she could have been the perfect love interest for Aang, during this episode or way later, even in the comics! Another WASTED opportunity for greatness and I will, again, never recover T-T

10. Iroh get your ass back here

Maybe this is a misguided critique but I hated that Iroh just left Zuko alone in the fire nation at the end of the series. Baby was in trouble in every sense of the word and Iroh was just like "See ya! You got this nephew." I'm expected to believe that? I'm expected to accept that? No no no. He should have at least stayed for a few years to help Zuko stay upright and, you know, alive. And by "upright" I don't mean "good." I just mean been there to support him because Lord knows he needed it, at least in the beginning of his reign. It was cute that Iroh was able to settle down with his own teashop after all those years of violence and mourning and running and this and that. I was more than happy for him for being able to have that peace finally. But I still think it could have waited a little while longer so he could support Zuko.

That's it I guess. I know not everything I've said makes the most sense in one way or another, but I enjoyed putting it together all the same. Thank you for reading and have a great day. I'll go finish my final now.

(Edited for a typo)

[accio-victuuri]

The GG & Li-Ning & Xianjiang Cotton Situation

I was asked to give my opinion. This is also for other bxgs who may have the same sentiment. You don’t have to agree with me but i hope you respect whatever it is I choose to share here. This is my blog and my space. I maintain this out of my pure enjoyment of the fandom and all the good it has given me. So let me address some of the points.

Li-Ning boasts their use of XinJiang Cotton

My simple answer here is, of course they will. This is not something new. Li-Ning is a celebrated olympic medal winning gymnast. A billionaire. You don’t get to that place in CHN w/out supporting the government’s agenda. In this case, that there is no injustice and persecution going on in Xinjiang. This brand, boasting about China made cotton, in their terms, shows patriotism and support for their country. This brand’s literal goal at first was to provide a local brand for Chinese athletes to wear in the Olympics. This is also not the first time that Li-Ning had been called out along w/ other international brands due to questionable ethical practices.

I find it very hard to believe that the timing of GG’s massive Li-Ning ad campaign, coinciding as it has with these Western brand boycotts, was a coincidence.

Let’s get this out of the way. Whether the boycott happened or not, Li-Ning is guaranteed an insane amount of sales because they hired Xiao Zhan. This is the same man who always sells out products in seconds. Who took KXZ to 200% growth and so on. I can talk about stats all day but this massive campaign for him is a no brainer. GG is expensive and a guaranteed success. Any brand who hires him will be stupid to not launch an all out campaign across all cities. Li-Ning knows what they are doing by hiring him. For years, they have been trying to appeal to Gen Z. Especially now that youth in CHN are more and more into the “guochao” (国潮) - National trend. Integrating traditional chinese culture and fashion w/ domestic brands. This ties in with the whole movement of erasing the connotation that made in china is of inferior quality. GG was a good choice. He appeals to the younger generation (19-25) and the working class ( 26 and up ) who buys goods. I would imagine even GG’s team did their research and knows this trend is going on too. This will not be the last you will see of this type of endorsement from him or Web. The rumors on this collaboration was going around as early as, March 15 I think? I was literally asking another bxg if GG’s ad will be pushed back a day or two because of what was happening. or what will this all implies. He was always gonna come out and endorse this brand boycott or not.

I am not removing the possibility that these local brands have a hand in the boycott. It’s a very valid concern. or that, it was a convenient perfect storm for them. A perfect storm of EU, US & CAN sanctioning CHN. The sudden attack on brands’ statements against Xinjiang cotton from a year ago. The whole agenda of controlling the people’s view on what is happening. All of these are connected. sure. There are many things behind the scenes that we will not know but we can make an educated guess of. Li-Ning is not the only domestic brand that had a positive push because of this.

On 3/25 Li-Ning’s stock closed with a high of 10.74% , plus an added 9% on the 26th when GG was announced as ambassador. The same thing happened with Anta and others.

I find it very hard to stomach seeing Li-Ning ads on my dash, regardless of GG’s presence in them. Without condemning him for taking this endorsement deal, and without judging what he is or is not personally aware

I will just be addressing GG’s alleged part in all this. I say that cause we don’t live in his brain and won’t know what he’s thinking. You can all try and project your values on him but he is a whole person of his own. I have hopefully given some view on why GG accepted to endorse this brand in the previous point. GG has spent most if not all, of his life in China. He has repeatedly said that he was brought up traditionally. Tho his father was very encouraging in him participating in the arts and widening his knowledge. He had Foreign professors at CBTU. He is part of the generation that knows what’s going on outside by using the internet. He’s smart. I would guess that he is aware of the country he is living in vs what it’s like outside of it. But at the end of the day, his loyalty will always be with his country. I hate to break it to you all but he will continue to live and thrive as an Actor even without international support. Tho it is great that he is a source of National Pride with how people outside of China love him.

Now, about his support for Xianjiang Cotton. I wanna start by showing this:

It’s a post from People’s Daily wb which boasts all the c-ent top stars that voiced their support of XJ cotton. The sense is, hey people look at your idols supporting the cause. Look at their Patriotism. What do you think will happen if GG was not on this list? Knowing that he is a top star in CHN. Knowing he was just in hot waters post 22*? Knowing that he is actively being endorsed in CCTV which is a National Channel. Are we still surprised that he posted that support? I was just honestly waiting for him to post if anything. I talked before about how C-ent celebrities are expected ( and actually it’s in their law ) to be more morally upright than the lay people. This is prime example of that.

Another one is this from CCTV Wb. I’m including this for you all to have an understanding of how this whole thing is being played out in CHN. This is the type of online narrative that is going around and I would think GG is seeing. The sentiment is,

“No matter what hardships, ups and downs and blows go through in our country, her people will always come from all directions and stand up to speak justice and do just things.”

It’s also showing all the hot searches that is related in support of XJ cotton and defending CHN’s innocence.

Also this video that was heavily circulated showing mechanized picking of cotton vs the allegations of manual.

This is the kind of narrative that is going around, as expected. I don’t really fault GG or condemn him for doing what is best for him. What is the best for an individual does not always mean it’s the best for all. In talks like this, I always try and put myself in their position. I mean, who the hell are these people trying to attack my country? the country that has provided for me. I wanna say I understand where they are coming from but understanding does not mean agreeing. I see these A LOT. ALOT ON WEIBO. The China vs. Everyone story. It’s the notion of, they are attacking us and we must protect the country. Also keep in mind that news is heavily regulated.

You know what type of news the CCP would love for them to get a hold of? The rising attacks on Asians in the US. Oh boy they would fuckin love that! Making America the big/bad asian-hating boogeyman in the eyes of their people yet again.

Okay, now we’re down to the final part of this. Why do I share the promo pics for Li-Ning. Where do i draw the line.

To me it’s simple. It had GG in it. I was waiting for this to come out, and tbh, would you all even know about this brand’s practices if the boycott didn’t happen? No. This is a bjyx blog where i share things about them. That includes ad, dramas, pictures and videos. I understand if people don’t feel comfortable w/ Li-Ning ads and others, so just don’t like those posts. Did I buy anything from the collection? No. Did I buy multiple copies Web’s single Youth in Times ( like i do with his other singles )? No. That’s where I draw the line in this. I know we’re all gonna be put on a tight spot again once Faith Makes Great comes out. Once I saw that leaked pic, Ooohhh! I just know. Also if BAH adds some propaganda about CHN’s war on drugs. I am just waiting. I am ready. I know what my values are. I will not allow other people to dictate who I am. I know what type of content I’m only gonna be sharing.

I see this very forceful air of asking bxgs to take a stand on this ( always bxg, never the other side. always us of course even if we are the minority) and it really puts me off. I read someone say that they will not say anything because they don’t owe strangers on the internet an explanation. Which is true. I have separate spaces that I share my views on world/local issues. Accounts that show my actual name and around people I know in real life. That’s what I choose to do for myself. I started this blog for myself and i still find it very bizarre that people follow this account. I am not some sort of KOL, let’s get that straight. This is just a blog where I talk about things if i want to and SCREAM about GG and Web too much. I will probably not answer any follow up questions on this cause i feel like I have addressed a good chunk of it.

Just know that whatever I post on here in support of GG and his projects does not equate to my entire political/moral stand regarding this event or any. It’s really good that we have conversations like this cause it’s an important one.

Whew! That was a long post! 😅

[likealittleheartbeat]

Okay, but this whole sequence!! First off, the series moves from an entirely red palette to full black and white as Zhao assaults the moon spirit. Like, what full-bodied choices for a 28minute per episode show on Nickelodeon to make. And then the iconic “No, it’s not over.” The first time we hear the Avatar speak in that the multi-voice style! And it’s the first time that the Avatar state doesn’t begin with a display of shear elemental bending force. Instead Aang simply speaks and walks with intense clarity of purpose. It’s the first time Aang’s supernatural rage is contained, directed, and dutiful. It’s not a tantrum nor a self-preserving feat. In fact, it’s only since the Northern Air Temple episode that we’ve actually started to see Aang display any kind of anger or intensity outside of the Avatar State. And it’s all the more terrifying for that reason. There is a sense that Aang invited the wrath of the Avatar state this time. When the next season begins and Aang for the first time can recall what happened while he was in the Avatar State, why should we be surprised?

Also Also Also, though, in the previous episode Aang gets to witness Katara’s struggle and willfulness against the patriarchal rigidity of Master Pakku. “I’m not finished yet,” she declares after he says the fight is over. It’s more than a classic ATLA parallel. It can be seen as a direct inspiration for the way Aang deals with Zhao’s act of imperial patriarchal violence. And yes, Zhao’s assault of the moon spirit NEEDS to be read in explicitly gendered terms because of a trend Joseph Campbell notes (and remember that the ATLA creators have explicitly cited Joseph’s Campbell’s mythological studies as influential to the show). Now bear with me as we dig into some mythological analyses here. Within the Greek-influenced and Abrahamic cosmology traditions, both patriarchal, the sun has been assigned masculine while lunar features have been associated with femininity. So, right off the bat, Zhao’s attack could be read as display of masculine power over feminine spirit. And the Water Tribe’s eventual victory, along with Katara’s victory over Zuko in every Zutara shipper’s fav fight, as a win for girl power and water peasants. But Avatar’s blessedly never so basic.

It’s not tryna engage in a comparison between male and female power nor is it avoiding it. Instead it’s interested in the ways imperial power ignores and even requires the defilement of BALANCE. Imperial ideology requires it’s members to work within strict categories, which allow for comparison and therefore hierarchies and subjugation. It does not simply ask for men and women to be seen as standing on equal footing in which girls can subjugate the boys, too, or where water and fire can coexist as long as they either stay far away from each other or accept their sexual tensions (read: open antagonism and inability to communicate with one another) and just make out already! ATLA is interested in how an individual can nurture a sense and respect for the Other within their self. Preceding and outside of the traditions I mentioned, there had and have been mythological perspectives which not only aligned lunar and solar aspects with the opposite gender but that assumed each person contained within themselves feminine and masculine qualities and should seek support to cultivate these different traits without concern over what gender the deity or teacher might be. That a man might easily and expectedly see or work to cultivate his feminine aspects and that he might feel in no sense different to seek inspiration from the plights and abilities of a goddess than he would seeking them from a god!

This is why I think it’s important that Aang so clearly imitates Katara here and fuses with the coy fish ocean spirit in the Northern Water Tribe and why we hear the Avatar multiply voiced here. Instead of seeking his own power, he is embodying a kind of humility, an openness to influence across gender, tribe, history, species, even between animate beings (his human form) and inanimate(the ocean), until he comes to resemble a god from Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke that is the very line between life and death. But he doesn’t enter into that position simply because he feels he has the authority as the Avatar. He has been welcomed and invited to be there and resist alongside these people and within their sacred space. Then, it’s one of the people’s leaders, Yue, whose hopelessness spurns on his choice to act (and we know facing problems is pretty famously not easy for Aang). And finally, it’s his relationship to Katara and her actions in the previous episode that inspire him to the radical openness and persistence that allows him to invite the Avatar State and repel the Fire Nation’s navy, giving Yue the vital time she needs to save her people’s way of life and thus the world.

[lastsonlost]

Women’s groups and prominent feminist figures have remained almost universally silent over a former staffer’s accusation of sexual misconduct against former Vice President Joe Biden—including those individuals and groups who came to express regret for how the Democratic Party handled similar accusations made against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

The collective non-response from mostly Democrat-aligned groups comes as potential female running mates struggle themselves in responding to the Biden allegation, which has the potential to upend his campaign against President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women in alleged incidents spanning decades. And it echoes the division among progressives when the #MeToo movement revived scrutiny of Clinton’s own alleged sexual misconduct.

The Daily Beast contacted 10 top national pro-women organizations for this story, including Emily’s List, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the National Organization for Women. Most organizations did not respond to a detailed request for comment about the allegation by Tara Reade, a former staff assistant in Biden’s Senate office who has accused the former vice president of forcibly penetrating her with his fingers in the early 1990s. Others replied and did not provide a statement. 

One prominent women’s political group cited a scheduling conflict and asked to be kept “in mind for other opportunities!” When pressed if the following day would work better, an associate said it would not, citing another scheduling conflict. 

The near-total lack of acknowledgement from nearly a dozen leading pro-women organizations comes as new corroboration has emerged with respect to the allegation, which the Biden campaign has categorically denied. Neither the Biden campaign nor Reade responded to requests from The Daily Beast for comment Tuesday. 

It also is taking place as prominent elected women in the Democratic Party rally to Biden’s side. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton became the latest to offer her endorsement of Biden’s candidacy—a symbolic passing of the torch from one presidential candidate to another, but a moment that also served as a reminder of moments in recent party history when accusers were almost uniformly dismissed.

In 2017, attorney Patricia Ireland, who served as president of the National Organization for Women for the entirety of the Clinton administration, told The Washington Post that she wished she had “done more to be supportive” of Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who alleges that Bill Clinton sexually harassed her during his time as governor.

“For Paula Jones, there were nice distinctions that people made: She didn’t work for him, he didn’t have the power to hire or fire her,” Ireland said at the time. “But that ignores the reality that he was a very powerful man.”

During the same period, feminist icon Gloria Steinem told The Guardian that she regretted some parts of her aggressive defense of Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, including a New York Times op-ed in which she dismissed accusations of sexual misconduct against the president. “Even if the allegations are true,” Steinem wrote in the 1998 op-ed, “the president is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass. President Clinton took ‘no’ for an answer.”

Steinem told the Guardian that “I wouldn’t write the same thing now because there’s probably more known about other women now. I’m not sure… What you write in one decade you don’t necessarily write in the next.”

But neither Ireland nor Steinem responded to a request for comment about Reade’s accusations against Biden. Bill Clinton has long denied Jones’ claims, settling a lawsuit she filed in 1998 for $850,000 with no apology or admission of wrongdoing.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Reade accused Hillary Clinton of “enabling a sexual predator.”

“Hillary Clinton has a history of enabling powerful men to cover up their sexual predatory behaviors and their inappropriate sexual misconduct,” Reade said in response to Clinton’s endorsement. “We don’t need that for this country. We don’t need that for our new generation coming up that wants institutional rape culture to change.”

Reade first accused Biden of digitally penetrating her in a podcast interview with journalist Katie Halper in March. Two other people, including Reade’s brother and a friend who has remained anonymous, told various outlets that Reade had told them about certain aspects of the alleged assault and her subsequent dismissal from Biden’s office over the years.

On Monday, Business Insider quoted a former neighbor of Reade’s recounting that the ex-staffer had disclosed details of the alleged assault when she lived next door to her in the mid-1990s. “This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” Lynda LaCasse, Reade’s former neighbor, told the outlet.

On April 24, Reade told The Intercept that her mother called into Larry King’s cable-news program to discuss “problems” her daughter experienced with a prominent lawmaker in 1993. In the episode, a caller from San Luis Obispo, California—where property records indicate Reade’s mother lived at the time—asked the host “what a staffer might do besides go to the press in Washington.”

“My daughter has just left there after working for a prominent senator and could not get through with her problems at all,” the caller said. “The only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.” 

Reade said on Twitter that it was her mother’s voice. “This is my mom. I miss her so much and her brave support of me.”

Biden’s defenders have argued that Reade’s story has changed over time—she previously had said only that she felt Biden had inappropriately touched her and made her feel uncomfortable. But sexual-assault victims’ advocates have noted that its common for victims to hold back on details as they recount their traumatic experiences. 

Various aides to Biden have said they have no recollection of any assault incident happening. And Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement this month that “this absolutely did not happen,” and that “Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women.” Bedingfield added: “He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard—and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue.”

Over the past several days, the Biden campaign has signaled that it is paying additional attention to issues that disproportionately affect women. On Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), one of the contenders thought to be on Biden’s shortlist of potential running mates, was a guest on a virtual town hall with black leaders on coronavirus’ impact on women of color. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), another possible running mate and former Biden rival, was also featured in a virtual forum addressing similar women’s focused issues late last week. 

On Tuesday, in introducing Clinton during a virtual town hall, Biden declared she is “the woman who should be president of the United States right now.”

“I want to add my voice to the many who have endorsed you,” Clinton said during the event to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on women. “This is a moment where we need a leader, a president, like Joe Biden.” Biden, she said, has been “preparing for this moment his entire life.” The former vice president reciprocated by saying it was a “wonderful personal endorsement.” 

On Monday, in offering her own backing, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi called him a “partner for progress in the White House.” 

Four years ago, women’s groups threw their weight behind Clinton’s historic campaign as the Democratic Party’s first female nominee. But they remained largely out of the primary in 2020, when an unprecedented number of women campaigned with that similar goal in mind. Still, some groups haven’t been shy about criticizing parts of Biden’s past record relating to women.

In the early stages of Biden’s campaign, Planned Parenthood Action Fund took issue with a position he previously held around support for the Hyde Amendment, a provision that sought to restrict the use of federal money for abortion. In June 2019, the group’s executive director specifically called out Biden by name, reminding him that “the Democratic Party platform is crystal-clear” around repealing Hyde. Biden later denounced his support of the amendment. 

Now, as Biden faces a sexual-assault allegation as the presumptive nominee, his past record and prominent female defenders are facing a new round of scrutiny. In particular, the decision to select a female running mate delighted many party activists and women’s rights advocates when Biden announced it in March, but is taking on a new form as the Reade allegation receives additional corroboration. 

Already, potential nominees are having to answer questions about the allegation. The Daily Beast recently contacted the most prominent figures thought to be considered as possible contenders about Reade’s claim, including Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams.

Among the seven Democratic women’s offices reached, only Abrams commented, telling The Daily Beast that “women have the right to be heard” and adding, in part, that “nothing in the Times review suggests anything other than what I already knew: That Joe Biden is a man of highest integrity who will make all women proud as our next president.”

[suckishima]

suckishima’s hq!! 30 day gif challenge masterpost

I’m doing the 30 Day Haikyu!! Gif/GFX challenge! But I’m slightly modifying the rules so it’s more fun for myself.

Link to the prompts here!

I’m skipping a few prompts because I felt like it lol. So I’m doing 22 of the 30 *shrugs*

I’m not allowed to repeat any characters, because if I did, well, basically the whole challenge would just be Tsukki gifsets and as much as I love him, that wouldn’t be much fun for me or for anyone else lol. This also works out for me because I’m generally bad at choosing definitive favorites, and now most everyone gets a turn.

I’m only choosing moments from the anime and therefore doing gifs only, because it would have just taken me too long to add colorings into the mix. Maybe one day I’ll do the challenge again but with only gfx/manga edits. That does sound fun lol, especially since a lot of my favorite moments haven’t actually been animated yet.

If I’ve done my math/timing right (and I stay on schedule) there should be one set every day from today until the second cour of Season 4 airs on October 2! So it’s kinda like a countdown event? idk lol

See which ones I’ve done so far here!

I’ve listed why I chose what I chose for each day under the cut if you wanna see me ramble on some more!

(I’ll update each prompt with a link to its post when it’s uploaded)

Favorite character: Yamaguchi Tadashi. Tsukki is probably more of my actual favorite, but he fits better for the character development category for me. So, I went with my second favorite, Yamaguchi! I love him so much, he’s such a sweetheart and I really like how we get to see him slowly grow more into his own. His big moments are some of my favorites of the entire series and I just really relate to his drive to just get to play with the rest of the first years.

Character first fell in love with: Hinata Shoyo. This one was easy peasy lol. Hinata is the light and love of my life and I’d honestly be surprised if anyone picked anyone other than Hinata for this prompt. He’s just so *clenches fist* good. Hard working, fun, determined, a little dumb, and so so caring and compassionate. And I’m so proud of him too tbh. I don’t care how cliche and overrated it is to say this, he is a ray of sunshine and I love him.

Character gradually warmed up to: Tendou Satori. Again, this could easily be Tsukki lmao since I didn’t like him at allll at first until he slowly began to grow on me in s2. Anyway, Tendou also grew on me. I tend not to like characters that feel chaotic just for the sake of it, and that’s how I felt about him at first. But as the Shiratorizawa match goes on, and especially in the Ball Boy arc as we see him interact with his teammates more I realized he just wants to have a good time and shame on me for wanting to be down on that. He’s funny, fun, doesn’t give a fuck what people think, and is a supportive friend. Nothing not to like tbh.

Favorite karasuno ship: Tsukkiyama. I mean, it’s my two favorite characters together lmao, it was bound to happen. Especially since a lot of the reasons they’re my favorites is because of their interactions together. I feel like each significant interaction between them isn’t just development for them together, but for them individually and I love that. There’s like this silent building each other up. They’re both there for each other without having to say anything, but then when they do voice it, it makes it that much more powerful. I just love how strong their friendship feels by the end of nationals arc, it feels so earned and genuine. I love that Tsukki is proud of how far Yamaguchi has grown, and that Yamaguchi is proud of not just Tsukki with volleyball, but Tsukki’s relationship with Akiteru. They’re both just so proud. I’m cool with all ships being just platonic too, but if we’re talking non-canonically, them being together just makes me happy. I’m a big ol’ sucker for friends to lovers.

Favorite episode/chapter: Illusionary Hero. Sensing a pattern yet? ha ha haaaa. The relationship between the Tsukishima brothers is one of my favorite in the series (i still cry over the peace signs), and this episode is where I really began to not only fall in love with Tsukki but the writing of the show. I too had been wondering “what IS the point of them working so hard,” and I loooooved how Furudate addresses that question through Tsukki’s backstory. Great stuff. (favorite manga chapter is 298 when yams and tsukki do their successful serve and block for the first time, if you were interested lol).

Favorite team: Karasuno. This was another easy choice. I love every single team in the series, truly. But I can’t just abandon my boys lmao. Karasuno is the heart and soul of the show, and they are also now my heart and soul.

Favorite position: Setter. “The setter is the information tower of the team” is the “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” of volleyball. Okay, not really, that quote was just repeating in my head while I made this set. I don’t have any cool meaningful reasons for this one. Setters are just cool.

Favorite wing spiker: Ushijima Wakatoshi. Ohhhh how I love Ushijima. At first you think he’s just big huge muscle baddie (and, like, he kinda is) BUT he’s also some of my absolute favorite comic relief in the whole series. He is so frickn earnest and blunt and doesn’t give a Fuck what people think and I love him.

Favorite middle blocker: Kuroo Tetsuro. This was a hard choice lol, because my top three favorite characters (tsukki, yamaguchi, and hinata) are all MBs, so I was like uhh which one do I choose? Aone was a close second to Kuroo too.

Favorite libero: Nishinoya Yuu. He’s just so dang cool.

Favorite setter: Kageyama Tobio. My boyyyyyy. God I love Kageyama. I’m not sure I can put into words how much he means to me. His character arc of shedding the King mantle only to pick it back up again with a new context is one of my favorite character developments of all time. His arc is all about learning to communicate and not only relying on others but learning to be relied on and I just ah - and the stuff about self care??? i love him.

Favorite captain: Sawamura Daichi. He just, is The Captain ya know. He’s got the vibe down pat. We love a good solid foundation for our team. He’s integral and Karasuno would have never made it as far as they do without him.

Favorite manager: Yachi Hitoka. I love Shimizu too, I do, but Yachi’s very unique brand of crazy is just too much fun lol. The first season feels so empty without her, and she brings so much joy to the team and to the show.

Favorite match: Shiratorizawa. Of the whole series, my favorites in order are actually, Nekoma, Inarizaki, Kamomedai and then Shiratorizawa, then Aoba Johsai 2. But since most of those aren’t animated yet, we get to focus on Shiratorizawa. Which I do still love, the hype is SO real the entire match, I still get chills at the end and during Tsukki’s Block.

Favorite non-match scene: BAR-BE-QUE!! Lmao tbh it was a close one between the fun of the bbq and heartwrench of the meal after the lose to Aoba Johsai in s1. Furudate said let them eat.

Favorite arc: Tokyo Training Camp. I love to see them improving and practicing and growing and ah it just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Favorite underrated character: Tanaka Ryuunosuke. I LOVE HIM. HE IS SO FULL OF LOVE. And he’s so slept on I feel like. He is one of the most supportive characters in the show. He is always positive and is a great morale booster and is just an overall Good Boy. Yeah yeah he’s a bit intense with his crush, but he’s always respectful and I’ll fight anyone who thinks he’d do anything that makes Shimizu uncomfortable.

Favorite character development: Tsukishima Kei. Ah, we’re finally here lol. The top two reasons Tsukki is my favorite character is 1 because I relate to him sooo so much and I’ve never seen a character written in a way that feels so much like just how I personally think about and see things. 2, because of just how amazingly earned and cathartic his development is. I could ramble about this forever so I won’t. But when I found out he was still playing volleyball after the time-skip, I actually cried. Like, after everything, he’s still playing? He WANTS to play?? godddd.

Favorite non-player: Tsukishima Akiteru. Ah, I gotta say I relate to his struggle. Plus I love how expressive he is lmao, crying over like every little thing.

Favorite friendship(s): The Tsukishima Brothers. They are so important to me okay. The admiration, the falling out, the chasm for years that affects how they both interact and even see the world, the slowly piecing things back together, and then the reversal of the peace signs in the Kamomedai match, wow. (kageyama/hinata is a VERY close second, i’m bad at favorites)

Favorite pairing(s): Kageyama/Hinata, Bokuto/Akaashi, Shimizu/Yachi, Ushijima/Tendou. There’s so so many more tbh, but I had to narrow it down.

Favorite rare pair: skipped

1st, 2nd, or 3rd years: First Years. They’re my babies. I love them all and they way they all interact and I need them to be friends forever thanks.

Girls: skipped

Most relatable: skipped

Most like to be friends with: skipped

Most heartbreaking moment: skipped

Most heartwarming moment: skipped

Stage play day: skipped

Your choice: skipped

[arcticdementor]

Understanding what drives the revolution that is destroying the American republic gives insight into how the 2020 election’s results may impact its course. Its practical question—who rules?—is historically familiar. But any revolution’s quarrels and stakes obscure the question: to what end? Our revolution is by the ruling class—a revolution from above. Crushing obstacles to its growing oligarchic rule is the proximate purpose.

But the logic that drives the revolution aims at civilization itself.

What follows describes how far along its path that logic has taken America, and where it might take us in the future depending on the election’s outcome.

…

The U.S. Constitution had codified as fine a balance between the powers of the Many, the Few, and the One as Aristotle may have imagined by arming the federal government’s components, the States, and ordinary citizens (via the first ten Amendments as well as elections) with means to maintain the balance. Its authors, however, were under no illusions about the efficacy of “parchment barriers” to prevent interests from coalescing into factions against the common good. During the 19th century, interests and opinions in the South and the North coalesced into antagonistic ruling classes that fought the century’s bloodiest war. In the 20th, the notion that good government proceeds from scientific expertise, as well as the growing identity between big business and government, fostered the growth of a single nationwide Progressive ruling class. Between the 1930s and the early 21st century, the centralization of administrative power in this class’s hands did much to transform the American republic established in 1776-89 into an oligarchy.

…

The European tradition of government by experts reaches back beyond Napoleon and Hegel to royal techno-bureaucrats. Being essentially amoral, it treats transgressors as merely ignorant. It may punish them as rebellious, but not as bad people. That is why the fascists, who were part of that tradition, never made it as totalitarians. People—especially the Church—remained free to voice different opinions so long as they refrained from outright opposition. America’s growing oligarchy, however, always had a moralistic, puritan streak that indicts dissenters as bad people. More and more, America’s ruling class, shaped and serviced by an increasingly uniform pretend-meritocratic educational system, claimed for itself monopoly access to truth and goodness, and made moral as well as technical-intellectual contempt for the rest of Americans into their identity’s chief element. That, along with administrative and material power, made our ruling class the gatekeeper to all manner of goods.

Progressivism’s foundational proposition—that the American way of life suffers from excessive freedom and insufficient latitude for experts to lead each into doing what is best for all—is the intellectual basis of the oligarchy’s ever-increasing size, wealth, and power. The theme that the USA was ill-conceived in 1776-89 and must be re-conceived has resounded from Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government (1885) to the campaigns of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Joseph Biden: “listen to the scientists!” The criticism’s main point has been constant: America’s original conception validated the people’s right to live as they please, and made it hard to marshal them for Progressive purposes.

But the Progressive critique adds a moral basis: the American people’s indulgence of their preferences—private ease and comfort, focus on families, religious observance, patriotism—has made for every secular sin imaginable: racism, sexism, greed, etc. Because most Americans are racist, sexist, un-appreciative of real virtue or refinement (these are somehow rolled together), because these Americans resist knuckling under to their betters, America is a sick society that needs to be punished and to have its noxious freedoms reformed.

…

The moral class critique from above was always implicit. It largely stayed in the background of the campaigns for social improvement into which Progressives have led the American people ever since the 1930s, and especially since the 1960s. The ruling class chided Americans for insufficient commitment to education, to well-being for the poor and disadvantaged, to a healthy natural environment, and to public health, as well as for oppressing women, and, above all, for racism. The campaigns for remedying these conditions have been based on propositions advanced by the most highly-credentialed persons in America—experts certified by the U.S. government, whom the media treated as truth-telling scientists, their opponents as enemies of the people.

But each and all of these campaigns produced mostly the ostensible objectives’ opposites while increasing the numbers of the oligarchy’s members and their wealth and power, endowing them with socio-political clienteles as well as with levers for manipulating them. As its members’ powers grew, they developed a taste for disdaining independent Americans and acquired whips for punishing them.

…

Race (and sex, etc.) is yet another set of excuses for transferring power to the ruling class. The oligarchy is no more concerned about race than it is about education, or environmentalism, or sex, or anything else. It is about yet more discretionary power in the hands of its members, for whom not all blacks (or women, or whatevers) are to be advantaged—only the ones who serve ruling class purposes. In education, employment, and personnel management, co-opting compatible, non-threatening colleagues is the objective. As Joseph Biden put it succinctly: if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t black.” A ruling class of ever-decreasing quality is a result.

…

I noted that this revolution’s logic leads to no logical end. That is because “the logic that drives each turn of our revolutionary spiral is Progressive Americans’ inherently insatiable desire to exercise their superiority over those they deem inferior.” Its force, I observed, “comes not from the substance of the Progressives’ demands,” but rather “from that which moves, changes, and multiplies their demands without end. That is the Progressives’ affirmation of superior worth, to be pursued by exercising dominance: superior identity affirmed via the inferior’s humiliation.” Affirmation of one’s own superiority by punishing inferiors is an addictive pleasure. It requires ever stronger, purer doses of infliction, and is inherently beyond satisfaction.

In short, the Progressive ruling class’s intensifying efforts to oppress those they imagine to be their inferiors is not reversible. It is far less a choice of policy than it is the consequence of its awakening to its own identity—awakening to the powers and privileges to which they imagine their superior worth entitles them. It is awakening to its deep resentment—indeed, to hate—for whoever does not submit preemptively.

Let there be no doubt: the ruling class’s focus on Donald Trump has been incidental. America’s potentates do not fear one pudgy orange-haired septuagenarian. They fear the millions of Americans whom they loathe, who voted for Trump, who gave his party control of House and Senate, and who will surely vote for folks these potentates really should fear.

…

The people who killed one another in 1861-65 respected each other as individuals and shared standards of truth, justice, and civility. But as our ruling class put the rest of America beyond the proverbial pale, what remained of friendship among the American republic’s components drained away.

By 2016, most Americans preferred either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders over ruling-class candidates for president. And of course, they increasingly despised one another. In short, the popular basis for constitutional restraint had ceased to exist on all sides. But mostly the ruling class, unaccustomed to outright opposition to its presumption of authority, deemed the voters’ recalcitrance to be illegitimate. That began the revolution’s active phase.

At that time, I wrote that, regardless of who won the upcoming election, the United States of America had crossed the threshold of a revolution, and that though no one could know how that would end, we could be sure only that the peaceful American way of life we had known could never return. Hilary Clinton’s or Donald Trump’s victory in the election would merely have channeled the revolution onto different courses. We would look back on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as relics from an age of moderation.

…

The oligarchy’s offensive to forcibly disable the voters began as a mere protest against—and explanation and excuse for—the 2016 elections’ outcome. But, as its identity unfolded according its logic of hate, one thing led to another.

Official and unofficial ruling class confluence in the Resistance turned the Democratic National Committee’s July 2016 throwaway lie that the Russians had hacked its emails into a four-year national convulsion about Trump’s alleged conspiracy with Putin. Ruling class judges sustained every act of opposition to the Trump administration. Thousands of identical voices in major media echoed every charge, every insinuation, nonstop, unquestioned. The Resistance made it official ruling class policy that Trump and his voters’ “racism” and a host of other wrongdoings made them, personally, illegitimate. In 2016 Hillary Clinton had tentatively called her opponents “deplorables.” By 2018 the ruling class had effectively placed the “deplorables” outside the protection of the laws. In any confrontation, the ruling class deemed these presumed white supremacists in the wrong, systemically. By 2020 they could be fired for a trifle, set upon on the streets, and prosecuted on suspicion of bad attitudes, even for defending themselves.

This happened because the Resistance rallied the ruling class’s every part to mutually supporting efforts. Nothing encourages, amplifies, and seemingly justifies extreme sentiments as does being part of a unanimous chorus, a crowd, a mob. Success supercharges them. The Resistance fostered in the ruling class’s members the sense that they were more right, more superior, and more entitled than they had ever imagined. It made millions of people feel bigger, and better about themselves than they ever had.

Ruling class violence started on inauguration day 2017 and grew unceasingly, at first an ominous background to all manner of bureaucratic, oligarchic, and media attacks on the election’s winners. But note well that the black-clad burners and looters were the very opposite of a proletariat and that, Marxist rhetoric aside, they never attacked the wealthy or the powerful—not Wall Street, nor major corporations, certainly not any government, never mind Google, Facebook, or Twitter, America’s most powerful monopolies, or corporate officials. Instead, they received financial contributions from these sources. The violent ones were as troops in the service of the powerful, out to crush the spirit of rebellious subjects. Some Marxists!

…

Most remarkable has been the unbroken consistency with which every part of the ruling class’s entourage joined the campaign while piggybacking its own priorities to it—to the complaisance of all the others. That is the meaning of “intersectionality.” Teachers’ unions, for example, conditioned returning to the classroom on the government banning charter schools; Black Lives Matter (BLM) claimed that “White Racism” must be treated as another public health menace. All other components supported them. All signified solidarity by demanding that all Americans wear masks outdoors, and that those who don’t be jailed. Meanwhile, they insisted that persons convicted of rape, robbery, and murder be released. The world turned upside down.

The riots that began depopulating America’s major cities in late May are intersectionality’s apotheosis. Since blacks commit homicides at five times and other violent crimes at three times the rate of whites, confrontations between black criminals and police are quotidian. Violent reactions to such confrontations are common. Any number of personalities and organizations, mostly black, have made fortunes and careers exploiting them, e.g. New York’s Al Sharpton. Increasingly since 2013 BLM has become the most prominent of these, founded as a project of a hardline Communist organization based in Cuba and funded lavishly and unaccountably by a high percentage of America’s major corporations. Its stated goals of protecting the black community against police brutality notwithstanding, it functions to mobilize black voters on the Democratic Party’s behalf. Along with Antifa, an organization of violent Marxists and anarchists, BLM organized the physical side of the ruling class’s campaign of intimidation against the American people.

The patently counterfactual claim that months of burning, looting and personal attacks by mobs professionally armed, marshaled, and effectively authorized are “mostly peaceful protests” doubly serves the ruling class by warning the victims that they are alone, can expect no help, and that even resenting the mobs is culpable.

Yet the riots may be intersectionality’s downfall because ordering people to tell each other things they know are not true is the most hazardous of political power grabs.

…

The major question overhanging our revolution is how all this has affected the Right side of American society. Since recognizing that the ruling class’s oligarchy surrounded them circa 2008, they sought to keep it at bay. In 2010 their Tea Parties elected the most heavily Republican Congress in a generation. But the Republicans they elected mostly joined the ruling class. Rather than voting for one of them—Mitt Romney for president in 2012—many stayed home.

Then in 2016, sensing that the barbarians were at the gates, they gave short shrift to whoever would not denounce Republicans as harshly as Democrats and elected the loudest denouncer, Donald Trump. By 2020, Trump notwithstanding, the barbarians had proved to be the gatekeepers. They cowed the deplorables, punished them to convince them that they are evil and isolated, deprived them of normal social intercourse, and made them dependent on media that pushed politically correct reality down their masked throats.

The deplorables are angry. But so what?

Why have conservatives mostly obeyed perverted authority? Did the ruling class succeed? Is the revolution over? A minority seem to believe that example may lead leftists once again to recognize their opponents’ equal rights. In short, they are conservatives who yearn to preserve something already gone. They are not yet revolutionaries for their own cause.

…

No one could know for sure how much the empowered oligarchy had cowered ordinary people’s resentment or inflamed it. The fact that some two thirds of respondents told pollsters that they are afraid publicly to voice their views suggests much.

Whatever may happen, it is safe to say that, on the Right side of American life, conventional conservatism is dead, as is political moderation.

…

When the American people vote on November 3, they—like the proverbial husband who walks in on wife in flagrante—will choose whether to believe what they are told or what their senses tell them.

The ubiquity, depth, and vehemence of the ruling class’s denigration of Donald Trump is such as to render superfluous any detailing thereof. Suffice it to note that not a day in four years has gone by without the news media hyperventilating or ruminating on some allegation of Trump’s wrongdoing or wrongbeing. For what? Again, the list of subjects is so exhaustive that it is easier to note that there is hardly any mortal transgression of which he has not been accused. Suffice it to say that, to the extent one depends on the media’s narrative, one cannot help but believe that Donald Trump is the enemy of all good things, that nothing he has done has been any good, that he is responsible for all that is bad.

…

Since 2016 the ruling class have had the luxury of acting as if the deplorables were lifeless punching bags. On November 3 they will find out to what extent that may not be so. Its leaders have already discovered that their “intersectional” entourages are not entirely controllable. After the election, the politicians bidding for leadership of conservatives will make Trump look like milquetoast. As the ruling class tries to suppress them, it will also have to deal with uncontrollable allies, whose violence will spur the conservatives to fiercer resistance.

…

The revolution long since destroyed the original American republic in the minds, hearts, and habits of a critical mass of citizens. They neither want nor are any longer able to live as Americans had lived until so recently. Loudly, they declare that the rest of us are racists, etc., unworthy of self-government. No one can undo that. Chances are against the undoing happening on its own. The longer we pretend to live under precisely the same laws, the likelier we will end up killing one another. We must not do that. And yet regional differences notwithstanding, we are mostly intermingled. Sorting ourselves into compatible groups is part of the American genius and tradition. More of that has been happening and more will happen yet. If we want to live in peace, as we should, we must contrive to agree to disagree to accommodate peace.

[keepingupwithlinmanuel]

Lin-Manuel Miranda on "Hamilton" Coming to Washington, D.C., and His First Voting Memory

Before the campaign ends on May 31, Teen Vogue sat down with Lin-Manuel to talk about partnering with Prizeo to benefit BlackPAC, the Latino Victory Fund, the Center for Popular Democracy, and Let America Vote. He also opened up about his memories as a young voter, his hopes for the D.C. production of Hamilton, and who he most hopes visits what he predicts will be a very "meta" show.

Teen Vogue: You've worked with Prizeo before on other ticket drives. How did this specific sweepstakes come about? What about these organizations specifically spoke to you?

Lin-Manuel Miranda: It turns out people want tickets to Hamilton, and that's a lovely thing. So we've tried to leverage that into raising money for organizations that are important to our family. [This time] we wanted to focus on voting. I personally believe that the more of us that vote, the healthier our democracy is, so these organizations are all involved with that. [We're working with] Let America Vote, which is very involved in terms of gerrymandering and voter suppression, and calling it out. Really, Jason Kander has built an organization that is mobilizing people to make people aware of the way people get you to stay home. The Latino Victory Fund is really concerned with getting out the Latino votes, particularly with immigration being so hot-button nowadays. It's so important that the Latino voter base be mobilized. With each organization, we were looking at getting out as much of the vote as possible and contributing to the organizations that are making that happen. Ones that get you to the polls. By contributing to this, yes, you may win tickets to Hamilton, but you're contributing to the organizations that really do the work. Let America Vote is always looking for volunteers. The Latino Victory Fund is always looking for volunteers. Sign up for their newsletter. There's no shortage of ways to get engaged, which is the thing I tell myself constantly.

TV: The midterm elections are coming up, and voter turnout for elections that aren't the presidential election every four years tends to be pretty dismal. How do you hope that this push addresses the need for voting all the time?

LMM: I come by it honestly. My dad was in Democratic politics in New York as long as I can remember. At my 18th birthday party, I made a wish, I blew out the candles, and then I filled out my voter registration form.

I think that more than ever, the issues we face are really engaging young people. To see how focused the Parkland survivors have been on voting, in particular — it has been inspiring to see the people most affected by this leading the charge. There was another school shooting on Friday, May 18. There was an article in The Washington Post [about how] more students have died [in 2018] as a result of gun violence than active military personnel. That is appalling.

TV: When the Parkland shooting happened and the survivors started mobilizing with March for Our Lives, critics were really quick to claim that "they're kids, they don't know what they're doing." It's also easy, we've seen, for people to dismiss young people's votes as being less-than, that their voices don't matter.

LMM: Boy, does it matter. Absolutely, I feel like that goes around every year, but I think it has a greater urgency because we're losing young people to senseless violence. People who should be coming home from school at the end of the day. Kids who should not be afraid of going to school. Parents who should not be afraid of sending their kids to school. Young people have always changed the world. It always comes from them. Our job is to support them and to listen.

TV: What did the first time you actually voted feel like?

LMM: I think my first "vote" was probably '88? I think I turned my mom's vote for [a local election]. I was eight years old, and I got to go in the booth with her, and I remember I got to flip the knobs. The thrill of that as a kid, of "I get to go into this little tented room, and I get to have a say." It was always an exciting thing for me.

The first time I voted in a presidential election was in 2000. I turned 18 in 1998. I've always found [voting] thrilling. I love the follow-up. I love everything about voting. I love the volunteers, I love the sense that you see people from your neighborhood, that people are taking a break from work to go do this, that you're taking time out of your day to have a say in something much larger than yourself.

I deal in larger-than-yourself things. You can't put up a musical by yourself. By necessity in my trade, I work with people who do what I can't do, and we make something that is bigger than the sum of our parts. And I think of voting that way: If we work together, we can affect change that is greater than the sum of our parts individually. I get that rush from working in theater and working in animated movies, when you're working with a crew of thousands, and I get that same rush when I go to the polls, because I know I'm one drop in the bucket, but I know many drops in the bucket is a sea change.

TV: Minority voters are finding themselves in the spotlight more and more by virtue of the rhetoric around issues like immigration, xenophobia, and police brutality against black and brown bodies. Do you have any specific message for young people who feel marginalized by the overwhelmingly white, male, cisgender, straight majority still in office?

LMM: Well, it's a lyric in the show, and I hate to be that guy....

TV: Please be that guy.

LMM: But the quote is, "Tomorrow there'll be more of us." There are more of us. There are more young people than ever before. We all just have to push in the same direction. We all just have to get out and vote. I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for because that's also your choice, and what a glorious thing it is that you have that choice.

TV: Hamilton is opening in Washington, D.C., which feels kind of like art imitating life. Do you imagine this production will be different in any way, simply by virtue of the location?

LMM: "The Room Where It Happens" is gonna be a very surreal number in D.C., because we're in the town where it happens. That song is literally about the establishment of that town, so it's meta on a few levels. It's the origin story of D.C. It's the origin story of our particular politics. That beef between Jefferson and Hamilton is, in varying different hues and shades, our two-party system. Those two fundamentally different views of what our country should be. It's not a clean break down the line; there's not a direct line between Democrats and Republicans. They've swapped positions on various issues over the years, but the notion of a two-party system began with these two guys catching beef. One of the things George Washington warned against in his Farewell Address, which Hamilton wrote, was beware of the rise of factions. We feel more factionalized than we've ever felt. The show is a reminder of those origin stories and a reminder that the past isn't passed, and we have been having these fights for as long as we've been a country.

...

TV: Given that Hamilton is now in their backyard, it's going to be interesting to see if politicians come to see the show. A lot of people remember when Vice President Mike Pence came to the New York show. The way the cast handled it was so beautiful and moving.

LMM: I think people forget the context of that. That was the week after the election. The emotions of the audience were so raw that we had to speak to the moment one way or the other. You couldn't leave it where it was, and I was very proud of our cast and the way they handled it and basically made a call for inclusion and respect for everyone. They said, "I hope you will include all of us as you govern." The way that was mischaracterized later via Twitter by our president is a very different thing. But I was very proud of our cast, and I was impressed with Pence's response, which was he heard us and stayed to listen.

TV: Is there any one politician or any few politicians that you hope come to the D.C. show?

LMM: Not that this show is some definitive text, by no means — it's a musical. But [the show is about] things we grappled with at the founding of our nation — when do we estate? When do we unite as one country? When do we get involved in the affairs of other countries? That's "Cabinet Battle Two." In their case it's the French Revolution; in our case it's insert country here. And when do we tend to ourselves and work on ourselves? The legacy of slavery, which is still being felt today, was still being felt then. Every character in my show — with the exception of George Washington — dies as a result of gun violence. That's another original sin of our country. It's so many years later and it's worse than it's ever been because our founders could never have imagined shooting off 30 bullets in 30 seconds. There was just no universe in which they would've imagined that. So we are dealing with the effects of that as well.

I say all that to say it's a great reminder of the questions that were there at our origin and how our politicians deal with those challenges today. Our message is: We're in your backyard. You know how to get tickets. Honestly, I hope everyone comes, from both sides of the aisle, because I think it's always good to see a show that reminds you the origins of what we are.

[falsemerits]

“I kept track of the violence done to Black people in my city, Toronto, and my country, Canada, as if it was being done to me, because it was, because it is, because that’s what Black people are facing in Canada and around the world, and I’d never been more aware of it.”

When Desmond tells of the violence that is happening to him metaphorically, through others who are experiencing it physically- All across Canada, I recognize this as truth. He is not being selfish in feeling that this violence is also done unto him, as it is for the person physically involved. It would be selfish to think that he could not relate, because that is not his problem in the moment. It would be selfish if because he lives in Toronto, and violence in British Columbia against Black people happens, that it has nothing to do with him. I will liken this to an experience of my own, and challenge others to think abstractly and connect the dots. September 11, 2001- A day of destruction, alleged terrorism, and global fear. I remember being in class when this happened, and my sixth grade teacher asked us to take a moment of silence for it and to discuss the event. This had nothing to do with Canada. I was not involved with these families that suffered, or the government that protected them. I was a little 10 year old girl, who only knew that if my dad, mom, uncle, aunt, or whoever I loved was in that tower that I would feel tragedy. To me, that is why I sympathized with this event. Because if something similar happened in my country, I would hope that others would share my same feelings.

Being metis, I share the same feelings that Desmond does for the violence Black people experience daily. Indigenous people are being profiled, and abused every day as well. Our causes are similar. I cannot attest that our origin stories are the exact same. I cannot say that one is more pressing than the other. All I know is that, if I can feel suffering for my ancestors, then I can share the same feelings with immigrants who were taken from their countries, forced into slavery, made to start their lives in North America, and to continue to be robbed of honour and respect every single day.

“A CBC News investigation that analyzed 461 fatal civilian encounters with police between 2000 - 2017 found that “70 percent of people who died struggled with mental health issues or substance abuse or both.” The combination of this violence with the police targeting of Black people makes Black people with mental health issues more likely to experience police violence. The CBC also found that, of the 461 deaths, “criminal charges were laid against 18 officers… With only two ending in convictions.”

To me, this is proof that our system of police and authority is grossly under trained and ill-prepared. Police are able to perform “wellness checks,” on civilians, but only when prompted by a person who has called and claimed that said person’s wellness is in question. Police feel that they do not have to assess, de-escalate, or consider external factors in an investigation, false or with merit. These are horrifyingly sad statistics, that I believe many people would just glaze over. The typical citizen doesn’t understand enough about mental health, to care about mental health. There is a culture of common socially acceptable misunderstanding, when mental health is in question. It is okay to not know. There are cues that one can detect about mental health, if given the chance. Crying, hyperventilating, excessive language, obvious frustration, resistance to identify, these are actually all signs that someone might be experiencing mental distress, or exacerbation of their pre-existing mental health condition. Police are here to enforce the protection of personal property and assets. Opting for violence against someone who is mentally unstable, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, White, Asian any race is not the answer. Protect and serve. Protect lives of police, against usually unarmed unsuspecting vulnerable people, and serve to uphold the laws that help protect officers of wrongdoing. That is what that statement means nowadays. When officers use violence against people who have mental health problems, and do not question this as a possibility first, we see why this system fails 100 percent of the time.

“In my experience, the average white Canadian doesn’t know that British and French settlers enslaved Black and Indigenous people on these lands for two centuries, and simply shifted legislative tactics once they had abolished “legal” slavery. Those who do acknowledge slavery in Canada often add that it was “not as bad as in the States,” a nod to the white Canadian proverb used as a checkmate end to a conversation. No need to consider anti-blackness here. This idea that Canada’s racial injustices are not as bad as they could be- This notion of slavery lite, of racism lite, of what my friends calls “toy version of racism”- Is a very Canadian way of saying “remember what we could do to you if we wanted to.” Passive- aggressive racism is central to Canada’s national mythology and identity. White supremacy warns Black people against setting our own standards and pursuing dreams that stray too far from the global atmosphere of anti-blackness.”

My parents were never taught this, so they never had the opportunity to educate me. Years of public school didn’t ever teach me about slavery in Canada. Not even of slavery of Indigenous people. I remember being taught about the “trading,” and “successful negotiations” that would happen among settlers and my ancestors, sometimes after battles. Settlers considered themselves to be a type of saviour, to this land. Not once, were slaves given a voice in the education system that was taught when I was growing up. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that knowingly, this information directly contradicts the “hard work,” that British and French settlers did for Canada today. These settlers are the reason we even have an education system, the same system that blindfolds it’s students. That information would be detrimental to the foundation of Canada. This misleading information, this terrible kind of education is the reason why we have violence and racism in this country. This is why racialized groups are marginalized and oppressed. White Canadian citizens feel that they are the ones that are owed thank yous, and apologies. They are owed sympathy and rewards for “letting” immigrants take shelter in this great country.

“BLM-TO co-founders and their supporters marched into the 2017 parade close to the intersection of Yonge and College street where, a year earlier, they’d interrupted the festivities to call out Pride Toronto, the not-for-profit organization that runs the annual celebrations. This time the group’s signs read, “May we never again need to remind you that we, too, are queer,” and “May we never again need to remind you that WE built this” and that “we shut it down for ALL OF US.” I remember this as righteous, bold, inspirational and powerful- But not surprising.”

I wish I could have been there to agree with them. To rally beside them, and take honour in their pride. To me, this is a reminder that the society we live in today, no longer cares about history or where we came from. It no longer cares about the pain and suffering that was experienced, to get us to where we are today. When the executive of Pride misleading signed their list of demands when BLM-TO interrupted the parade and said the next day “What I did was move the parade forward,” I get that, however I felt distrust. I felt that having pride in your own dignity meant nothing, and that people are constantly misconstruing what this means. People mistake integrity, with entitlement. They confuse honour, with gratification. This was a great reminder that, where we come from, in all walks of life, our paths should never be forgotten. It should never be disrespected or looked down on. Everything that we go through, unjust or just, shapes, molds, and builds who we are today as a civilization and individuals.

“Canadians who do recognize historical injustice seem to understand it in this way:

Bad things happened.

Bad things stopped happening and equality was achieved.

The low social and political status held by Indigenous peoples is now wholly based on the choice to be corrupt, lazy, inefficient and unsuited to the modern world.”

Desmond quotes this excerpt from Chelsea Vowel’s novel “Indigenous Writes.” This three point bulletin explains exactly how most Canadians understand their country now. It highlights that things happened, and now there is a notion that those same things no longer happen. These days when government officials in Ottawa hold press conferences, or public meetings, they say “ We [I] would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People.” I am not disagreeing that they should not acknowledge it. However, I acknowledge that it is not enough, and never will be enough. Bad things happened to these people, and they get less than 2% of Canadian soil for reserves. Acknowledging that these lands once belonged, and still rightfully belong to these nations and tribes, only serves to coddle Canadians, and dismisses the conversations that many people are still fighting to have.

[ppdoddy]

Republicanism

The attached proposed op/ed article is hereby submitted to every print media organisation in Britian and Ireland with a view to getting it published. No fee is sought. ===== Republicanism. A Normative Definition. "If you ask what kind of a man he was, he answers that he lived content with his own small fortune. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth". (Epitaph of John Locke). After all the recent talk of reclaiming 'republicanism' for the Irish people, I argue that we must first describe what we mean by that term before we can have any meaningful insight into what in fact we are 'reclaiming.' Traditionally, in an Irish context, 'republicanism' has been identified with opposition to 'monarchy,' but it is more. The word comes from the Latin term 'res publica' meaning 'things public' or alternatively 'public affairs.' Plato's 'Republic' is something of a misnomer in that the original title ' politeia' more closely relates to the concept of politics or citizenship. Likewise Cicero's 'De republica' is not taken to accord to any modern definition of republicanism although he did say that 'some sort of free-state' is the necessary condition of a republic. The modern idea of the Republic (in the sense that is widely understood) is drawn from ancient Greece and Rome but it was truly created during the Renaissance when scholars developed what is known as 'classical republicanism'. Classical republicanism rejected monarchism in favour of 'rule by the people' and writers like Machiavelli proposed various versions of such a system of government. However, during the Enlightenment men like John Henry, Thomas Paine and John Locke paved the way for a new understanding of republicanism that ultimately came to fruition in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. Familiar from before was Jefferson's call that 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' However, freely elected governments could still lead to the 'tyranny of the majority' where democracy was "nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Thus, according to Jefferson, democracy was a necessary but not sufficient factor for republicanism. Necessary too was the concept that each individual (however in the minority) had 'certain inalienable rights.' In order to prevent pure democracy endangering individual rights therefore, Jefferson advocated a republic where individual freedom was protected from democratic rule by a set of laws enacted in a Constitution. Expanding on the concept of the 'sovereignty of the people' Jefferson wrote that the mother principle of republicanism was therefore that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' Citizens likewise had responsibilities. Implicit here is the idea of active citizenship which stresses the moral duty of 'republicans' to act in the interests of the republic or to be 'patriotic.' The opposite of patriotism consists of the corruption often referred to by such classical republican thinkers as Aristotle and Machiavelli, in which citizens are more concerned with their personal and group interests than with the common good of the political community as a whole. So what has the term 'republicanism' come to mean in an Irish context then? Some years ago while on a J1 visa on Nantucket a friend remarked on the fact that every house on the island seemed to have a US flag flying proudly in the front garden. 'If we did that people would just think we were RA' he remarked. I don't think you would struggle to find somebody of my generation in Ireland today who hasn't been inhibited in expressions of pride in Irish republican values as a result of the uniquely Irish connotations of the term 'republicanism,' even if perhaps they wouldn't have put it quite that way. Consider this from Queens's historian Feargal McGarry; 'the ideological vagueness of modern Irish republicanism, a distinctive political tradition rooted more in an incoherent blend of Fenianism, Catholic nationalism and Irish-Ireland cultural nationalism than the republican principles of the American revolution.. It is only in this sense that figures as diverse as Wolfe Tone (a product of the French Enlightenment) and Patrick Pearse can be brought together in a seamless pantheon of martyrs to sustain and legitimise present day republican objectives'. Tom Gavin has also noted that 'the term republicanism is generally understood in Ireland as a sort of shorthand for insurrectionist anti-British nationalism rather than any particular ideological or philosophical principles'. On this question there can be little doubt, although I have yet to hear a single commentator in the Irish media make this point. Yet the importance of this question is central to the whole debate. Surely we must know what we are 'reclaiming' if we are to have any chance of a legitimate choice with regard to whether we want to 'reclaim' it or not. Suppose as an experiment we took to agree on Jefferson's principle that politicians or governments are 'republican' 'only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' How would modern-day Irish 'republicans' score on this metric then? Sinn Fein/IRA would surely not score well. Never since the 1920's did the 'struggle' command popular support, so their compliance with the 'will of the people' or even basic democratic principles is surely in single figures. On the personal and ' inalienable rights' of individuals they must score zero by default such has been their callow disregard for innocent life. Ironically, until the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein/IRA have repeatedly been defined and shaped by their opposition to political compromise, and the most inflexible of them have always succeeded in representing themselves as the authentic voice of 'republicanism.' How about the 'republican party' Fianna Fail? How do they score on embodying the 'will of the people?' Well, recent evidence is not encouraging. On February 15th 2003 an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll showed that without a new UN resolution (which never came) just 21% of the Irish people would approve of allowing Shannon airport to be used by the US military, with 68% disapproving. A republican government therefore would have disallowed the use of our sovereign territory in such an illegal war in accordance with the wishes of 2.8 million of its citizens. 'The Republican Party' in government did the opposite. However, any attempt to assess the extent to which Irish politicians 'embody and execute' the will of the Irish people however is subject to one serious restriction. Even if data on wider citizen preferences were available (which is infrequently the case), such an analysis presupposes that each citizen has all the information at hand required to form an informed opinion. If this is not the case then surely no degree of public acquiescence can confer 'republicanism' on any politician, political party or government. As Jefferson said, 'only when the people are well-informed can they be trusted with their own government.' It may come as cold comfort to those of us who view Irish 'republicans' as having abrogated their political responsibilities to the Irish Republic to say that in the United States the situation is even worse. There, the 'Republican party' was long known for its adherence to balanced budgets, constitutional government, a non-interventionist foreign policy and for keeping government out of peoples personal lives. Today that country has unprecedented deficits, the Bill of Rights has been eviscerated, the army is bogged down in two (and potentially a third) Asian wars and well, in a word, Schiavo. It is perhaps symptomatic of the age that nobody seems to realise that here in Ireland or in the United States we are led by 'republicans' who only seem to share one thing in common, a distain for basic republican values. This can be expressed in terms of democratic values, respect for the individual or advocacy of an informed public. Axiomatically, we don't realise because we are uninformed. We are uninformed (in both jurisdictions) primarily because we live in corporate controlled media environments where the objectives of corporations (legal citizens?) and citizens shall never the mark twain meet. Almost one hundred years ago that Irish patriot James Connolly stated that the struggle for Irish freedom had two aspects, national and social. Were he to analyse the state of Irish freedom in 2006 he would surely have a different focus. Yet if we can agree that a republic is such 'only in proportion as it embodies the will of their people' and that the people 'can only be trusted with their own government when they are well-informed' can we not say that 'republicanism' in 2006 can be interpreted as the degree to which public opinion is informed? I believe we can and we should. Perhaps only then is our true august destiny possible. ===== Morgan Stack is a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy, Finance and Information Systems at University College Cork. He is co-founder of the Irish 9/11 Truth Movement and an independent candidate at the next general election in the constituencies of Kerry North and Cork South Central.

[dailynewswebsite]

Three women: stories of Indian trafficked brides

Cornfield/Shutterstock.com

“I attempted to flee in the midst of the night time,” Mahira* recalled. “With a small packed bag, I tiptoed in the direction of the door considering that he was asleep. Abruptly, he grabbed me from behind and attacked with a cutlass.” I sat, surprised, as she lifted her saree and revealed a large scar beneath her knee.

In north India, there’s a explicit historical past of buying brides from different states because of the “male marriage squeeze”: there’s an extra of eligible males however not sufficient native girls for marriage. That is attributable to an imbalanced little one intercourse ratio attributable to sex-selective abortion and feminine foeticide.

A latest research discovered that selective abortion may result in 6.Eight million fewer women being born by 2030, with choice for sons highest within the north of nation. These gender imbalances have elevated cross-cultural and cross-regional marriages, which has in flip exacerbated trafficking of brides in India.

There may be inconsistent and restricted information on what number of brides are trafficked within the nation. However the numbers are vital. In 2013, a research that included 10,000 households throughout 92 villages confirmed that about 9,000 girls have been bought from completely different states in pressured marriages. And a door-to-door survey in 2014 discovered 1,352 trafficked wives dwelling with their patrons in 85 villages in north India.

Native women and men function as brokers, brokers or suppliers, to facilitate marriages with brides in different states. In lots of circumstances, younger girls are sometimes tricked, manipulated, kidnapped or coerced into marrying “unmarriageable” males: these which are older, widows, disabled, alcoholic, separated from their earlier spouse, or financially unstable. For such males, it’s handy to buy a bride throughout state for a less expensive worth.

For my PhD analysis I spoke with a number of migrant brides in cross-regional marriages. Some have been survivors of marriage trafficking. I discovered that these girls usually give consent to those marriages to flee poverty and the burden of dowry. Regardless of varied challenges and difficulties, they often keep in these marriages for his or her youngsters and for materials, social and cultural causes. I met all of them in villages within the northern states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Assam and West Bengal.

In line with the 2011 census, for each 1,000 males, there are 947 girls in West Bengal. In Rajasthan the determine stands at 926 girls, whereas in Haryana it’s 877 (the bottom of all states). Assam and West Bengal, in the meantime, are often known as “supply states” – localities scuffling with poverty, the aftermath of pure disasters and the burden of the dowry system.

Households in these areas are manipulated into sending their daughters away for work, unaware that this finally results in them turning into subjected to pressured marriage in a distinct state. In different circumstances, households in supply states prepare such long-distance and dowry-free marriages for at the very least one daughter, in order that their different youngsters are capable of marry in the identical state or area.

Mahira was one such spouse. Her expertise of exploitation, social isolation, abuse and an absence of primary human rights are removed from distinctive.

This text is a part of Dialog Insights The Insights crew generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary analysis. The crew is working with lecturers from completely different backgrounds who’ve been engaged in tasks geared toward tackling societal and scientific challenges.

Mahira’s story

I met Mahira on a heat November afternoon in 2016 throughout my first go to to a village named Kherli within the district of Mewat, Haryana.

As a researcher from overseas, the locals have been interested by my presence and Mahira and different girls willingly shared tales about their marital journeys. I adopted Mahira’s lead as we walked on a sandy path passing cattle and hens, girls drying cow and buffalo manure in entrance of their homes and on their partitions, youngsters taking part in round, and males fixing damaged roofs or rebuilding their homes. Upon reaching her home we drank chilly bottles of Thumbs UP (Indian cola) with seasoned chickpea leaves. A few different girls joined us as we sat in a circle.

Mahira recounted obscure reminiscences of leaving her household residence within the state of Assam on the age of 14, after which being pressured to marry to a person in Haryana who was thrice older than her. A distant member of the family had accompanied her beneath false pretence of touring the town of Delhi along with her, the place she was offered to a “dealer”. It’s believed that Mahira’s relative and the “dealer” acquired cash for the deal, however in lots of circumstances of marriage trafficking, mother and father who supposedly “promote” their daughters in the end fail to obtain any money, even when promised. It’s usually solely the so-called “marriage agent” that earnings from the commerce.

Mahira was pressured to hitch different women who have been being auctioned off to males bidding for brides. She was bought for Rs.8,000 (US$104) by a 45-year-old Sikh man. He lived in a small village in Haryana and labored as a driver and labourer within the fields. By 28, Mahira was a mom of three and earned Rs.2 per hour for working within the fields.

A home within the village of Mewat, Haryana. Creator supplied

Life turned a steady wrestle to take care of her alcoholic husband whereas partaking with strenuous home chores and work within the fields. For most of the girls I met, it was tough for them to recollect their age due to how younger they have been once they acquired married (most of them have been between 14 and 17 years outdated). And so it was not doable to determine Mahira’s age. However the age distinction between her and her husband was over 30 years.

Her husband died in 2014. Since turning into a widow, Mahira has been dwelling alone along with her youngsters in a small village in Mewat, Haryana. She walked throughout the room and returned with a passport-sized {photograph} of her late husband – a person who appeared to be in his late 60s with a protracted beard and a clean look on his face.

Some 15 years later, Empower Individuals, a number one pioneer grassroots organisation that campaigns towards marriage trafficking, helped Mahira to be reunited along with her household in Assam. After they suggested her to go away Mewat and settle again at residence, Mahira instructed them she would keep the place she was, replying: “Jaise mere bhagya mein likha hai, foremost who hello bhugtungi” – “I’ll endure no matter is written in my future.”

I additionally met Mahira’s cousin in Assam and heard his facet of the story. He nonetheless needs Mahira would return to their village in Assam, however understands and respects her causes for staying in her marital residence in Haryana. In different circumstances nonetheless members of the family abandon girls after studying that they have been offered to a groom in a distinct and state. In different excessive circumstances the place girls select to be rescued and return residence, they usually expertise social stigma and wrestle to reintegrate.

Related tales have been instructed by different girls whose marital journeys resembled Mahira’s. Most of them had restricted or no contact with their household. In lots of circumstances, these girls are thought-about “lacking” or stay deserted by their household because of the disgrace and stigma related to being offered or kidnapped for marriage. These marriages typically break caste and non secular boundaries, and a number of other girls face exclusion of their new marital communities. The lads that buy brides for marriage don’t face social stigma to the identical extent, even when brides usually belong to a distinct caste or faith. It’s extra shameful for them to stay bachelors.

A room in Mahira’s brother’s home the place we chatted over buffalo milk tea and fruits. Picture © Sreya Banerjea, 2016, Creator supplied

Most of the girls discovered comfort in believing that their marital residence, or “sasural” was written of their destiny. But it surely was clear that their thought of “residence” was distorted: it appeared as if many of those girls didn’t actually really feel a way of belonging to their marital residence and neighborhood. They struggled with feeling like a foreigner of their marital village, and sometimes felt remoted, deserted and that their voice was subjugated.

The ladies in these marriages confronted many issues. Their mobility and determination making was closely restricted and so they lacked primary reproductive and property rights. They often needed to take care of monetary points and home abuse. Added to this, these girls have been additionally coping with primary points like an absence of water and electrical energy, to not point out the final shortage of bogs and bogs. Brides from far-off states with completely different cultural backgrounds have a tough time adjusting.

‘Sons are pinnacle of the house’

My analysis has proven that there’s extra to marriage trafficking than the “marriage squeeze” and feminine shortage. Intersections of gender, class, age and caste play a big function in pushing girls into exploitative conditions. Women from poor households dwelling in precarious situations are extra weak to such long-distance and cross-regional marriages.

The choice for sons amongst land-owning caste teams within the north is supported by native folks’s disapproval of inheritance legal guidelines that acknowledge the rights of men and women equally. However there’s a demand for women and girls for labour, home manufacturing and sexual pleasure. A well-known saying within the Hindi language is: “Ladki paraya dhan hoti hai” – “a lady is another person’s property.” Because the Indian sociologist Ravinder Kaur has identified, a daughter is “dispensable” and “burdensome”, whereas a daughter-in-law is required for “household wellbeing and perpetuation”.

There are legal guidelines towards bride trafficking in India. The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA), the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, the Little one Labour Act, the Juvenile Justice Act, and elements the Indian Penal Code are all used to penalise trafficking for business sexual exploitation and compelled labour. However analysis has revealed a number of gaps and ambiguities in how worldwide regulation conceptualises trafficking, migration and slavery. This makes it much more difficult to know and recognise it.

‘He used to beat me along with his sneakers’

One purpose it’s so tough to doc the correct variety of trafficked brides is as a result of they’re usually recognized as home servants by the marital household and “brokers”. The story of Sahar is an instance of this.

Sahar was simply 14 when she was pressured to marry a person of 50. Born and raised in a small village of Bihar, she was the youngest of her 12 siblings. She instructed me that her cousin’s husband labored as a wedding dealer and organized her marriage with a person in Haryana. Sahar’s new husband was a widow and sought a second spouse who would elevate his three youngsters and handle home duties reminiscent of cleansing and cooking.

Sahar instructed me that her mother and father have been hesitant in regards to the proposal as a result of they needed her older siblings to marry first. To persuade them, the dealer instructed them that the groom lived in Delhi and Sahar wouldn’t be too far-off from residence. They got a false age of the groom and have been instructed that he solely had one little one from his earlier marriage.

A village close to Thanesar in Kurukshetra, Haryana the place I met one of many girls I spoke to. Picture © Sreya Banerjea, 2016, Creator supplied

Sahar spent the preliminary three months of her marriage crying and secluding herself from the remainder of the village. Later, she discovered that her mother and father got a false deal with in order that they’d not be capable to hint her. In the event that they did discover her, she stated: “I’d’ve returned residence with them as a result of I didn’t prefer it right here and didn’t wish to cool down. However they might not attain me and with no different alternative, I needed to get used to this place.” After pleading along with her husband, Sahar was allowed to go to her mother and father as soon as, beneath supervision of the wedding dealer – her cousin’s husband.

Sahar’s husband died in Hyderabad when her youngest daughter was born (who sadly died on the age of two). She has been elevating her three youngsters on her personal by working within the fields. Once I requested whether or not her husband beloved her, she replied:

He used to inform me that he didn’t kidnap or steal me from anybody, he married me … He used to beat me along with his sneakers and broke my bangles. It angered him once I instructed him I didn’t wish to dwell right here. He would punch me. I’d cry all night time and my bruises would develop into swollen. My mother-in-law didn’t say something and I used to be not capable of confront her. Now we have now cellphones, however again then, we solely had letters to speak. How would I’ve escaped or ran? The place would I’ve gone? How was I presupposed to contact anybody?

Like a number of different girls that I spoke to, Sahar’s views on marriage and emotions in the direction of her husband have been sophisticated. They have been lowered to the mistreatment she confronted.

He was an outdated man with a protracted beard. How may I like him? I couldn’t even tie rakhi(a Hindu competition which includes sisters tying a threaded bracelet across the wrists of their brothers to rejoice brotherhood and love) on him. I used to be very younger once I acquired married, however I discovered to cook dinner from different girls within the village.

Her views and emotions are additionally formed by social and familial norms that situation women and girls into believing that a part of their responsibility as a spouse is to stay submissive, compromised and have interaction in care work, little one rearing, home and agricultural work with an amazing lack of economic safety, respect and primary freedom. The thought or expression of affection in these marriages are advanced, and typically, absent. It’s primarily the ladies’s unpaid care work and casual labour that informs their perceptions about their conjugal relationship.

Sesame crops and handmade quilts dry in a small village on the outskirts of Barpeta, Assam. Picture © Sreya Banerjea, 2016, Creator supplied

Security and hurt

In circumstances the place women are kidnapped or tricked into marrying out of state, their experiences of isolation, dislocation and their wrestle for a way of belonging are rather more nuanced. Regardless of varied constraints, some “select” to remain and fulfil the wedding as a survival technique.

Amreen was 15 when she was kidnapped on her manner residence from college. She lived along with her mom, Mahnoor, and three brothers, ages 14, seven and three. Since their father deserted the household, Mahnoor raised all 4 youngsters on her personal and paid for Amreen’s training. Amreen was first taken to Ambala in Haryana, 2,033km away from her residence village. Then, she was taken to a different village the place she was married off to a person 12 years her senior. I requested Amreen’s mom how she ended up in Haryana. She stated:

I don’t know. I returned residence from a relative’s home and realised she was lacking. A month later, I acquired a cellphone name from her and she or he defined that she married somebody and lived in Haryana. Her husband took the cellphone and we chatted for some time, though we didn’t communicate the identical first language. I visited her as soon as and requested her to return residence with me, however she refused to return again with out her husband.

Round 5 years later, in 2015, Empower Individuals was capable of reunite Mahnoor and Amreen. The organisation and the police initiated a “rescue try” however Amreen refused to return residence to her mom. She instructed Mahnoor that two males had pressured her right into a automotive and she or he ended up in Haryana. The husband, in the meantime, claims that he discovered her at a railway station and managed to rescue her from the abductors, and later, they determined to get married. When Mahnoor and Amreen reunited, Empower Individuals discovered that Amreen was pregnant. Once I spoke to her, it had been six months since Mahnoor final spoke to her daughter. Amreen’s quantity is now not lively and she or he has not tried to contact Mahnoor.

Many ladies stay in these marriages as a result of they don’t bear in mind their deal with nor have they got the means to go away or escape. Meaning there’s a lack of enough and constant information on marriage trafficking. When a girl’s natal household involves know {that a} marriage has taken place by means of abduction or commerce, in lots of circumstances they refuse to reconnect because of social stigma. Some really feel relieved that the burden of dowry and financial baggage of single daughters have been lifted. Amreen’s mom, nonetheless, genuinely needed her daughter to return residence. So why did she refuse?

Cow dung chips drying in a subject. Picture © Sreya Banerjea, 2016, Creator supplied

Mahnoor didn’t understand how her daughter reached Haryana. All she knew was that after gaining consciousness, Amreen discovered herself to be very removed from residence, in a spot the place the native language was utterly unknown to her. It’s doable that she willingly determined to stick with her husband. Whereas the motivating components behind Amreen’s determination stay unknown, such survival methods are utilized by many ladies and should shed some mild on Amreen’s determination.

Amreen’s being pregnant may additionally be a key think about her determination to not attempt to escape or be “saved” by the native NGO. It might seem to be frequent sense to attempt to escape the oppression of a pressured marriage. However Amreen – and girls like her – even have materials and safety wants and an obligation towards their youngsters. This is the reason many select to remain.

On the finish of our dialog, Mahnoor instructed me: “I hope that she comes again in order that we will dwell collectively once more.”

Greater than a ‘trafficked bride’

The life tales of those girls reveal that the difficulty of marriage trafficking can’t be equated with different, legally recognised, types of human trafficking. It’s a type of exploitation that’s embedded inside the establishment of marriage – significantly the customs, guidelines and concepts round gender roles and gender disparity. Marriage trafficking perpetuates financial, reproductive and sexual violence beneath patriarchal domination. This results in varied levels of marginalisation and oppression in girls.

A analysis participant strolling in the direction of her home in West Bengal. Picture © Sreya Banerjea, 2016, Creator supplied

Listening to those girls allowed me to know and recognise their very own wishes and opinions. They talked about their targets, their childhood reminiscences, their ideas round love and marriage and the gendered division of labour. The ladies’s tales of survival reveal that – even within the face of normal oppression and abuse – they negotiate for his or her rights and “discount” with patriarchy each day.

Acknowledging the tales, voices, changes, and survival methods of migrant brides to find out about their lived realities supplies a technique ahead. With the help of grassroots organisations and native activists, a few of these girls have develop into neighborhood leaders and mentors.

Many of those girls don’t essentially wish to be “saved”. They strongly consider that marriage trafficking and gender inequality should come to an finish. However on the similar time, they want to be recognised for his or her contributions as a spouse, mom, and widow – not only a “trafficked bride”.

*This text doesn’t disclose any identifiable data of the analysis individuals, and makes use of pseudonyms to take care of full confidentiality.

For you: extra from our Insights collection:

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Sreya Banerjea doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/three-women-stories-of-indian-trafficked-brides/ via https://growthnews.in

[buzzdixonwriter]

Social Justice Warrior Snowflake

All the unimaginative neo-nazis and their alt-right fans glom onto certain catch phrases the way anxious middle schoolers glom onto the latest slang in a desperate attempt to pass for one of the cool kids.

Catch phrases and slogans are a great way to avoid thinking, and when you avoid thinking you dupe yourself into believing you are also avoiding responsibility, that if anything goes wrong the “they” are responsible and not “me” because “I was only following orders” or “they said it was okay”.

Neeps.  Nope.  Sorry.  We allow none of that bullshit here.

Here we do the math, we show the work, we follow things through to their logical-even-if-painful conclusions…and we live with the results.

So let’s look at two phrases the neo-nazi propagandists and their stooges like to bandy about.

The first is “social justice warrior” or SJW.[1]

Let’s break the phrase down into its three components.

First, ”social”.  From the Latin socialis "of companionship, of allies; united, living with others; of marriage, conjugal"; in this context it means “of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society.”

In particular, relating to an orderly, peaceable culture among people who follow basic principles that reduce friction and maximize benefits to as many people as possible.

A society adheres to certain codes / morals / taboos / ethics so as to maintain order.

Clearly, not all societies are the same, and what might fly in an Irish pub might not pass muster in a Moroccan coffee house.

However, both societies, Irish and Moroccan, possess certain standards they subscribe to, and woe to those who violate said standards by either acts of omission or commission.

If you deny a patron of either pub or coffee house their due rights in those environments, you can expect someone to stick up for them.

So “social” in the SJW context means a person who recognizes no one is an island, and that all of us owe one another basic rights and courtesies.

To be opposed to “social” means by definition to be anti-social, or to live one’s life only for one’s own benefit.

Not all anti-social people are destructive psychopaths, but by definition all destructive psychopaths are anti-social.

So to use “social” as part of a derogatory insult is pretty much declaring one is at odds with what society stands for.

This is not necessarily a good thing.  Hunter S. Thompson wrote extensively about Hell’s Angels and other outlaw motorcycle clubs, and while he took a sympathetic view of them and pointed out the numerous times they had been framed or set up by the establishment, he also noted their isolation from society fueled their animus against it, a truly self-fulfilling / self-defeating prophecy.

The Hell’s Angels, a surprisingly conservative and authoritarian group on their own terms, at least possess a live-and-let-live attitude where they will not actively seek out confrontation if left alone.

Not so the neo-nazis, who see any gain by any non-neo-nazi as a loss for them.

Which brings us to the second part of the phrase, “justice”.

Bad movies and TV shows and comic books obliterate the original meaning of “justice” and replace it with retribution.

Retribution is not justice.  Retribution is merely…retribution.

Justice is what happens before any wrong occurs; justice is not about returning pain for pain.

The neo-nazi mindset scorns the idea of justice while embracing the concept of punishment.

Punishment is what those in authority mete out to those who dare disobey them, and this is the rationale behind the alt-right’s scorn of justice.

“Justice” in the SJW context means taking pro-active steps to avoid harm or injustice falling on someone.

Justice is served if a store isn’t robbed, it is not served if it merely punishes those who committed the crime.

This is why the neo-nazis mock the concept of justice, frequently linking it to a straw man of their own devising:  Political Correctness.

“PC” is nothing more / nothing less than the golden rule -- threat others as you wish to be treated -- writ large.  It is an open and above board effort to forestall problems and injustice and harm by rephrasing issues so all sides are treated fairly,

I have yet to hear an anti-PC argument that does not boil down to some variant of “I can’t call people [slur of choice] anymore without being criticized for it!”

Anti-PC rhetoric is the mark of the coward and the bully, not of fearless persons who can defend their ideas.

As noted previously, the neo-nazi / anti-PC mindset is incapable of tolerating anything that challenges its authority, despite such authority often being unearned.

When they hear an oppressed group should be treated with the exact same dignity and respect them demand for themselves from others, neo-nazis respond with anger and resentment that their “right” to treat others unilaterally without fear of accountability or reprisal is being challenged.

Their argument against “Political Correctness” and their argument against “justice” are one and the same, and knowing that an open and honest assessment of their arguments would demonstrate their intellectual and ethical bankruptcy, they lash out in pre-emptive strikes (literally and figuratively) to prevent themselves from ever having to live up to the standards established by America’s founding fathers.

Their claims that “PC culture” squelches the free expression of ideas is simply further proof of the paucity of their own arguments.

Ideas can be expressed in a vast array of means, and if so-called “PC culture” requires a certain vocabulary, then intellectually fully engaged people can make their ideas known -- and known clearly! -- in any number of ways.

Neo-nazis fancy themselves as people of action, not intellect, and as noted do not want a genuine discussion of ideas but only acquiescence to a system that benefits them at the expense of others.

They refuse to embrace any system in which they are not the dominant group but instead are one of many.[2]

The final sneer from the neo-nazis’ lips is aimed at “warrior” which they use with deliberate irony, denigrating SJWs as impotent whiners while they are people of action.[3]

They hurl this epithet at those who stand up and voice support for people who have received a raw deal by society and want to see them treated fairly under the law.

This is where one must pause and scratch one’s head at the number of military and law enforcement personnel who support neo-nazi beliefs.  They are either woefully ill-informed on who and what they are supposed to be defending, or else they are deliberately and willfully betraying the nation that has trusted them.

And I write this as a military vet.  Even in the post-Vietnam era we were all acutely aware we had sacrificed certain rights and privileges guaranteed our fellow citizens in order to serve our country by protecting those rights and privileges for those fellow citizens.

Too many military and police today do not see themselves as servants of their nation and what it stands for, but rather as self-justified authority, might made right by application of force.

It’s easy to grasp why this appeals to the neo-nazi mindset -- inarticulate action aimed at others to force them to obey simply for the sake of obedience.

And it is a well documented fact that in many jurisdictions the police have indeed been infiltrated by crypto-fascists -- klansmen, neo-nazis, and white supremacists -- who subvert the mission of their own departments in order to wage war n those they consider “undesirable”.[4]

Thus, whenever one hears the term “social justice warrior” used as an insult, one is very clearly hearing the speaker rejecting all sense of society and justice in order to claim unearned power and authority over others.

There is no escaping this truth.

In the case of the military and the police, this attitude besmirches the huge sacrifice made by others in order to protect the weak, the poor, the powerless, the defenseless, and the oppressed.

The military and police who support neo-nazis and their alt-right followers are for all intents and purposes wiping their asses with the Constitution and turning Arlington into a vast cesspool.

If that image offends thee, soldier / sailor / airman / officer, ask yourself why.

As stated earlier, there is no dodging unpleasant truth here.

Finally, the neo-nazis’ use of the term “snowflake” to denigrate SJWs.  Again, the all too literal neo-nazi mindset fails to grasp the irony of their use of the term.

To them a snowflake is weak and ineffectual, melting at the first sign of trouble.

As with the fasces, the symbol they use belies their own philosophy.

A snowflake by itself is weak and fragile; every human being is.[5]

You know what you call a bunch of snowflakes moving in the same direction?

AN AVALANCHE

And nothing stops an avalanche:  You either get out of the way or you let it roll over you and hope you survive.

By their words ye shall know them.  The neo-nazis and their alt-right supporters are incapable of recognizing how badly their own words portray them.  They do not lack the intellectual capacity to grasp such ideas -- indeed, in technical fields they often easily grasp far more complex subjects -- but they lack the introspection to see how “social justice” is in fact a true measure of a person.

They lack introspection because they fear responsibility.

They love exercising authority over others, they loath exercising mastery over themselves.

. . .

[1]  Another sign of weak minded neo-nazis is not only a fondness for reducing everything down to simplistic slogans but then boiling those slogans down even further into abbreviations.  What this does is remove all intellectual thought and rational articulation from the equation, suspends critical thinking, and renders complex, profound, and often nuanced and complicated issues down to pure visceral emotional reactions -- reactions often totally at odds with the subject they are directed towards.  Eventually even the abbreviations are discarded and replaced by a symbol designed to stir up violent emotion and spur unreflective action guided by others who are doing the thinking for those doing the work.  “SJW” is always used in a sneering, derogatory, to ridicule and belittle those whom the neo-nazis and their alt-right sycophants have slapped this label on.

[2]  Ironically, the very symbol of fascism -- the fasces, or axe with the handle reinforced by a bundle of sticks -- was co-opted by Mussolini and his crew of thugs despite the fact it symbolized the very thing they were opposed to! (i.e., trust, loyalty, and cooperation among all people).

[3]  Yeah, I know, I’ve seen pictures of them, too.  Irony is not one of their strong points.

[4]  And the great tragedy -- the great betrayal -- is that honorable police officers, exhibiting loyalty to their own, allow the normalization of such treacherous behavior, and in doing so actually undermine their own real authority as well as the authority of the society that grants them that authority in order to protect the society itself.

[5]  Though neo-nazis and their ilk live in a mental comic book where they are great invulnerable superheroes who can do no wrong and make no mistakes.

© Buzz Dixon

[ohdallaslove]

January 27, 2020

Coming Soon: The A Team

Today the world is changing drastically. Technology has improved, discoveries have been made, and new lifestyles have been implemented. The most common opinion is that this is the best time to be alive. We have all kinds of technology available, making life and interaction with the entire world easier than ever. It’s disappointing to know that we’re still lacking a lot more as human beings. The idea of perfecting our ecological systems and making the world “green” again is exhausting. There’s a lot to consider, especially our ecological footprints as individuals and as a whole. There’s high levels of pollution, wastes, carbon emissions. Seems quite everlasting. People go on about their lives everyday,  most of them caring more about luxuries and ways to live their best life.  You can’t possibly think of helping the world by yourself. I think it is interesting, however, that you would want to live your “best life” in a dying world. Again, no one is asking anyone to take on all the tasks on their own,  but I am asking people to at least consider taking small actions. Taking initiative as a whole would be a great start. Earth isn’t immortal, it has been damaged severely. In Living in the Environment, page 24, anthropologist Margaret Mead is quoted, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’ Again, one person cannot change the world, one voice cannot cover the entire planet earth. But one voice can reach out to others, and can show how to try to fix an issue. Making sure to not litter, reduce the consumption of plastic or other non renewable resources.

Many other developing countries have already established the “no plastic bags” policy. Last summer, I went to a small town in Puebla, Mexico. I remember that many ambulant vendors, most not providing any plastic bags for every sale. Instead, many people shopping had plastic, hand-woven, shopping bags on hand. Those bags are very resistant, and very useful. The point with this is that people in a small, low-income town rather invest on a reusable that’s over $200 pesos. (Side note: a common agriculture worker in Mexico earns about $190 pesos a day) Other options are to buy cheaper and less resistant plastic bags that are about $100 pesos, or a regular disposable bag for $10-$25 pesos. This all comes to say that in a place where a policy has been enforced, we see that people are given the option to opt for a simple disposable bag or invest in reusable shopping bags. Even then, I noticed that 90% of the people shopping had the hand woven ones. People are deciding to invest into something that’s worth more than a day’s paycheck. I’m not saying that we should go and buy shopping that is worth more than a day’s pay. But I do encourage people to think about making a small investment, buying a reusable shopping bag that will allow us to reduce the waste of plastic. It could be as simple as a tote bag that’s $5 USD, or maybe use one of the free tote bags that you get at public events. After all, this is about recycling.

Going forward onto policies placed by governments, I personally think they don’t always have eco-friendly ideas. Actually, they seem to think “money” and make decisions based on it at the cost of the environment.  It’s as if you must use some of these non renewable resources, whether you like it or not. Sounds rough. The point here is that as an individual we should be conscious of our choices, and not just act the way everyone else does. Maybe you alone can’t fix the world, and again,  no one is putting all off the pressure on you alone. However you can change your way of carrying yourself and reduce your input of waste, oils, or others.

We should also not just be interested in changing our lives, but also be mindful of the rest of the world. Try to voice out our concerns for the rest. How many third world countries have no access to clean water? How many do not have the same privilege of breathing clean air, or at least not as polluted? India is one of the countries where people cannot even breathe without a mask. If they breathe too much air, they run the risk of getting very ill. Most of these cases aren’t even known by most of the people in America. We should be mindful of our actions and how these affect the rest of the world. In this discussion any other issue can be brought up, social injustice, poverty, poor government leadership, amongst others. We should try to raise our voices and look more into improving our ecological footprint. We should want to help these other countries get some of the privileges that we have in America. We can raise awareness.

I know that I speak from the perspective of a person who lives in America, and that alone makes my opinion biased. I’m also aware that I keep comparing America to other countries, but I also have a reason for that. America is one of the riches and most powerful countries in the world. Like it or not, others follow our lead, other countries see us as an example. Let us be a good example. With that being said,  we should also pay a lot more attention on our domestic issues. We should want to work our way out, by starting to acknowledge some of the domestic problems and try to come up with solutions. Earth is everyone’s home and should therefore work together. Let’s spread the word, educate ourselves and others. It shouldn’t be a selfish act.

Another great point brought up in the textbook and discussions is ecological footprints. I did not have any previous knowledge of this topic until I took the online quiz. Personally I know that I’m not the most eco-friendly person, so I feel a little ashamed to talk to people about fixing their toxic habits and I’m not even a good example. However, I do make more conscious decisions than many of my peers and try to encourage others to do the same. In a small group of students, our average ecological footprint was not so good, our highest were like 5.0+ worlds, while our lowest was about 2.5 worlds. I was 2.9 worlds, so I do fall on the lower spectrum, but it’s still not something I’m proud of. We found that most of our print was made up by the emissions of carbon dioxide and our diet. We decided that we should be more educated on the subject, try to figure out the sources of our wastes. We should also avoid the blame game, and instead accept our responsibilities and hold ourselves accountable. We are all responsible for our own actions. We should  be more conscious of our daily decisions, maybe carpool with friends. We should also be more conscious of our food, how much we buy and where we get it from. We should start buying locally.  It’s small baby steps that will take us all a long way. What other ways can we approach the issue of our ecological footprint?

Word Count: 1225

Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

https://www.footprintcalculator.org

https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-753815643-bolsa-tejida-a-mano-de-plastico-_JM?searchVariation=49771460807&quantity=1&variation=49771460807#searchVariation=49771460807&position=1&type=item&tracking_id=aecacec6-515a-470e-8ef7-b54189576524

February 3, 2020

Native?

Do you remember your science teacher back in elementary school telling you that everyone is a scientist? Well, it is true. We’re not all the lab kind, but we are observers that see, listen, and learn. Lately, we’ve been playing this game, called “stay woke” with social media being our only source. Did social media tell you about California Floristic Province being the only biodiversity hotspot in America? A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographical region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. What is the big deal about this? First of all, my “sources” didn’t tell me anything. Secondly, why are we so humancentric? This province is home to many of the endemic plant species. In fact about 60% of the province’s plants are endemic. I get it, this land is very important for everyone. Since it grows about half of the food eaten in America,  we can already assume it's essential to us. The issue is not using land to survive, because it is in our nature to want to survive. The issue is that we think we are above every other organism, and automatically deserve to dispose of the land and its resources as we please. We are being unconscious and selfish, not considering that our actions affect other ecosystems. About 75% of the original land in the Province has been lost to agriculture and other human developments. You can easily argue that we need all that land to grow our foods and develop our economy, or something else. I think my issue is that we are consciously acting selfish, taking up more land than needed, probably still knowing that we are jeopardizing the sustainability of the land and the endemic plants along with it. It seems like we don’t care. We are not respecting it.

To us it’s a competition, a survival of the fittest. If you can’t adapt, then you don’t belong here. I found it interesting that the textbook went over a few myths about evolution through natural selection on page 89. First off, we tend to think that survival of the fittest means survival of the strongest. Not in the sense of strength, but in who has more descendants. The second myth is that evolution explains the origin of life. It doesn’t take us all the way back, but it does show us how we have evolved over the last couple of billion years. Thirdly, it’s believed that humans evolved from apes or monkeys. Fourthly, evolution by natural selection is part of a grand plan in nature in which species are to become perfectly adapted. Lastly, the evolution by natural selection is not important because it is just a theory. It’s much easier for us to simply believe what we think supports the idea that we are the strongest or most developed.

In How Wolves Change Rivers by George Monbiot, he speaks on how important an ecosystem working together is, he tells the story of trophic cascades of wolves in Yellowstone. After wolves being absent for 70 years, they reappeared, and helped improve the ecosystem in the park. It was a chain reaction, their most significant and major thing they did was decrease the population of deer and consequently changed the deer’s behaviour. The land that was overpopulated like the gorges and valleys were able to regenerate, and trees quintupled in size over a few years. This allowed smaller animals to reappear as predators and prey. Not only did they impact other species, but also improved the rivers and its behaviour. The narrative on its own shows us that everyone has an important role in improving the environment. It’s not to say that wolves are the most important, but their absence was definitely noticed. You can say that the ecosystem was imbalanced.

I think what I found interesting is that there was a clear problem in Yellowstone, there was an abundant population of deers that reduced the vegetation to almost nothing. What really caught my attention is that humans tried to control the situation by shooting deer. It was necessary to try to restore the vegetation for the sake of other animals. But this section really causes me a conflict. I see this as another way in which humans want to show their superiority by trying to fix an issue that is beyond them. Also, killing deers “to help solve the issue” sounds more of an excuse to be able to hunt as many people already enjoy to do so. Although the public reasons given to kill and try to control the ecosystem seems “right”, I feel like the real reasons underneath are much more selfish and arrogant.

I think Monbiot had a deeper meaning behind this narrative. It sounds like the common story that humans, as the superior beings, are the only ones that can fix the issue. It is up to us to control animals and their behaviour because they don’t understand, they're wild, and need our guidance. The ironic part is that, in the end, at least I don’t think we directly or intentionally brought back the wolves. I actually still wonder what exactly made the wolves come back to yellowstone. The point is that wolves fixed the problem themselves, without the need of us to control the environment. Going back to Monbiot, I think a possible reason for his narrative is to show us that we need to write a new story. We don’t need a protagonist, we don’t need humans to be the saviours, the ones who have the power to control and destroy when necessary. He’s probably not arguing that humans aren’t needed either. I think maybe the point he was trying to get across is that instead of trying to always be superior, we should work together as a whole. Yes, try our best to improve our environment and the things that are at our hands. That that is beyond our reach, nature will work its course and bring the wolves back.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t worry about Yellowstone, because we should. But what I am trying to say is that there’s a lot of other environmental issues that also need our attention, and to be frank, we shrug it off like nothing. Maybe not focus so much on killing the deer to restore vegetation. We should take these situations as reflections and see the extremes of the spectrum. In California we have the province, who’s original land has been destroyed severely by agriculture, human developments and modifications. Here the endemic plant species are at risk, the province becoming a biodiversity hotspot. Meanwhile in Yellowstone, the overpopulation of deer and absence of wolves began to affect vegetation and water bodies in a negative way. So where we need to back up, we don’t, but where we don’t need to be so involved, we want to be. Can we come together as a whole, to rewrite a new story, where humans and other living organisms work together to have a better world?

Word Count: 1170

Bibliography:  Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q

https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/Headquarters/Administrative%20Law%20Judges/NOAA%20files%202019/34%20-%20AWI%20-%20Exhibit%2038%20-%20Biological%20Conservation%20Trophic%20cascades%20in%20Yellowstone%20the%20first%2015%20years%20after%20wolf%20reintroduction.pdf?ver=2019-05-29-112239-287

February 10, 2020

Human History

According to the timechart of the universe, Earth came into existence about 4.6 billion years ago. It wasn’t until about 150,000 years ago that humans came into existence. Technically, humans have inhabited the Earth for about 33% of its total existence, a very small amount of time in comparison to the damage we have caused it. We have improved our way of living by a lot, but at what cost? Is this even proven, or is it just another assumption? Well, there’s different ways of approaching this topic of self awareness. Big History and Anthropocene are two ways of approaching these impacts, using different techniques. The overall goal can be said that it’s not to  have a unified environmental history. Instead focus, respectively, on how it affects, its substantial results, and what it affects.

The first one is big history. Sounds big huh? Well it is an interdisciplinary study, whose goal is to retell “human story” (Big History). It examines the entire history from the big bang theory until our present day. As mentioned earlier, it’s an interdisciplinary study, so it uses physics, biology, chemistry, theology, and many others. You cannot examine such an extended period of time through one lense only, it takes many lenses to see a fuller picture. This discipline focuses on human kind as a framework, while having the universe as its center focus point. As Sam Wineburg from Stanford University said, “it’s less history and more of a kind of evolutionary biology or quantum physics” (Big History).  This can be taken as a valid overview of the discipline as a whole, or it can also be taken as a criticism. To be fair, humans don’t come into the picture until about a third into the courses, because the earth is a lot older than the existence of humans. What history will be told in the space in between if nothing is 100% either way. Going on with criticisms, many people consider this discipline “anti-humanist”. Personally I think it’s very interesting, it provides people with a different perspective. Our existence and that of Earth does not just fall under sciences, history, arts, or astrology. It reminds me of my introduction to Environmental Studies and how to go about class: be thinkers, unify the variety of approaches, and be prepared to be introduced to the productive nature of incoherence. If the world was never all about humans, why do we make everything else all about us?

Word Count: 411

Bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History#Criticism_of_Big_History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RejdkT2ExNVJjUWc/view

February 17, 2020

Does It Matter?

In this world, we see a lot of people with skin problems, acne, fungus, scars, discoloration, etc. As a female who is prone to acne, I’ll say that my skin’s condition affects me a lot. “Oh, but it’s just the exterior, what matters is the interior”. Yes, but having a clear skin can boost up your self confidence, and even indicate that you are healthy. When you don’t drink enough water or eat a lot of junk food/poor diet, your skin starts breaking out, it gets dry, peeling, or it gets too oily. It can even indicate other health issues. Let’s also remember that the skin is an organ and we should take care of it. It’s the barrier that protects us from the polluted air and other external factors that can harm us. As an organ, if decided and if in good condition, it can be donated to someone who needs it. This is all to say that we should take more care of our skin and also of the earth. It is probably not the best analogy, but I think they’re both similar in some ways.

Word Count: 189 Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

February 24, 2020

ECOnomics

Budgeting my own expenses can be a little nerve wrecking, deciding how and where to spend money. I have to constantly seperate my wants from my needs, and keep in mind where I buy and what I leave for later. Ideally, living in an eco-friendly world is what everyone would like. Imagine a world with a cleaner world, fresher air, and having other ecosystems working as they should. Wouldn’t it be great? Everyone talks about making a change, about changing our daily choices and making them more environmentally friendly. Shop locally, use public transportation, recycle more. It is hard to try to make changes when the people in big corporations, having a lot more power to make change, are choosing not to. They seem to care a lot more about the money going into their pockets than the environment. I mean, who wouldn’t choose one million dollars over clean water for everyone? I think you see where I am going here. Environmental economics has gotten a lot more popular, especially in the last decade. People have been making a lot more investments and trying to do more for the people who are below poverty. Following the principle of sustainability has become somewhat of a trend, but we’ll get into that later.  So how exactly does the economy play a factor in sustainability? How do corporations make these decisions? Everything is quantified. Usually we think of supply and demand, and even though that is what economics is mostly based not, it is not all. They are trying to quantify other factors, and usually the factor that comes in play is the cost of production. You don’t want to pay more for the production of something that won’t give you back your money or any profit. However, in the process of the making, we are not including the natural resources, their cost and the cost on society. For example, a piece of paper may cost 5 cents to make, so you’ll sell it for 10 cents. But how much did it cost to make, like really make? Let’s say that piece of paper takes up 6% of a tree to make. That6% of a tree that must be cut, how many leaves would you take down with it? So now that area has less clean air, maybe 1% less. It may seem like nothing, but do the math. We can only quantify things so much. We can’t be 100% accurate. Another point made was how much are people willing to protect certain resources. Another topic I wanted to touch on was quantifying human life? Life in general?

We cannot put a price on a life.

Word Count: 443

Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

VectorStock.com/22770066

The Economist- The Quantified Self

Living in the Environment- G. Tyler Miller. 19th Edition

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March 2, 2020

Will There Be Enough?

We live in a world, where capitalism reigns for the most part. At least in America works, it’s usually justified by the idea of freedom. We should be allowed to work for our wealth, consume what we live, and sell as much as we can. The restristics are limited. This isn’t a place for equality, it’s a “survival of fittest” but with power and wealth. As you’ve probably heard, time is money, and money can buy anything. Maybe not anything but most things. This all goes to say that today we live in a world where we are driven by wealth, and work around it. There’s about 8 billion people in the world, so there’s a lot of consumers, and a lot of demand that needs to be supplied. Even if not all 8 billion are able to consume as they please, they still consume. It’s getting to the point, where it’s becoming unnatural, and soon will collapse. The impossible hamster describes it as it being unnatural and unsustainable for the economy to grow forever. We need to set a cap on the situation to keep things from getting out of hand.

The steady state economy consumption’s main idea is to halt the growth of wealth, population, and with it the economy. Some of the approaches to limit consumption include more eco friendly options. It suggests the discontinue of the use of plastic bags. Maybe it won’t work 100%, but it can definitely decrease its usage by a huge percentage. This will probably increase the use of reusable bags, and with it control how much we buy. When I go grocery shopping, I take a bag depending on how much I’m planning to buy. So while adding items to my cart, I’m also being mindful of what I’m getting, and If I’ll really need it. Will it all fit in my bag? So then I’ll put down the cookies, and the creamer that I can substitute with milk. 

 The SSEC also suggests to reduce the use of plastic and promotes recycling. If you go to dunkin donuts and buy a reusable, you get a free drink with it. At Starbucks if you take your reusable cup, I think you get a 5% discount of your purchase. These are little steps that promote the switch to recycling, maybe offering a higher incentive would help accelerate the process. Other brands are starting to switch their packaging to reusable ones, avoiding plastic that after a couple of recycles will end up in land waste. SSEC also suggests placing a cap on the emission and/or emissions trade. I have actually been exploring this in another class, environmental economics. I think, as a capitalist nation, at the end of the day money will overweight ecological ideals. If we decide to place caps, we need to be careful and choose wisely whether it’ll be a tax cap or a quota. We need to be mindful that these policies need to be supported by federal law in order for it to truly be followed, and be ready for any pushes made by these corporations. I recently became aware of something very interesting in the beauty industry. We all know that black friday is a huge thing? All the prices are lowered, allowing people to buy in abundance. This is actually ironic because its origin comes from something like a financial setback, stocks were crashing, and inflation occured. The point is that on black friday, people spend hundreds of dollars, hoarding as much as they can. This is the time when makeup and skincare products are the lowest price, and people buy anything they get their hands on, usually not making a smart purchase. This past 2019, Diciem, a beauty company decided to not be part of the black friday sale. Instead they opted to do a 23% off special for the entire month of november. This is to let consumers think about their purchases more thoroughly, instead of supporting impulsive purchase. This makes since their products are known to be more eco friendly and accessible, such as the ordinary brand.

Another idea mentioned is the plenitude economy, suggesting that society needs a break. Corporations want to get the most of out every dollar, sometimes exploiting their employees. The plenitude model is to hire more workers who work less hours, caring for the well-bing of the laborers. It also sounds more ethical, you’re placing social capital above financial capital.  My job experiences are definitely on board with this. Working a minimum salary job is a very different experience than that of an internship or a better paid job.

A movement mentioned is the degrowth movement, it started in the 1970s advocating for an economic model that was not based on expansion. I think we know that current day expansion looks something like moving over to less developed countries, whose workers are exploited, not mayed enough, and work in poor conditions. The movement seeks to reduce the environmental impact of human activity, redistribute income and wealth within and between countries. It also promotes the transition from a materialistic a convivial/ participatory society. However it received some criticisms, as expected. It was accused of having a negative connotation to the phrase, misleading the public, it is too idealistic, it will come across many political and social challenges. So, as we see, there have been plans and movements to help find a solution to over consumerism, and attack the issue of sustainability with it.

We can talk about how to control the economy all day long, but there is still a big factor, population. There’s a need to create supply because we know there’s a demand. There are a lot of people in the world, 8 billion. Not only that, we are using our resources everyday, to the point where we can be hitting its peak very soon. We are using more than the earth can provide us with, this, along with unequal distribution of wealth can lead to a scarcity of resources. A topic that we should consider is overpopulation. A possible solution to unsustainability is to put more thought into reproduction. We cannot tell women how to go about their bodies, how many kids to have. 40% of the pregancies are unplanned, and out of those, half end in abortion. 225 million women do not have access to family planning services. Women should be educated, given the choice of whether they want to reproduce. Many are kept in the dark, told their only role is motherhood and providing family care. Sometimes they’re not even given the option to make a decision over their body. If they are given the information on how to have safe sexual intercourse, it’ll avoid abortion rates, as well as hunger issues. I’ve noticed that most of the women who aren’t offered family planning services are low income families or those who fall below the poverty line. These also happen to have the most children. This means that the income is distributed amongst the children. There’s already very little money coming in, now having more kids to provide for, reduces the amount each is given. It’s a cycle that keeps repeating itself. Educating ourselves and others is a step into helping us to continue living in a sustainable world.

Word Count: 1215 Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

https://www.ecowatch.com/four-brands-going-green-for-black-friday-2641466611.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/11/8689919/deciem-black-friday-boycott-sale-november-2019

https://www.womansworld.com/gallery/shopping/reusable-grocery-bags

March 9, 2020

Follow Up With The Plan

In the past couple of decades we have grown more conscious of how our actions affect other living things in the world. Even though we may not change our actions, we are at least aware. I like to believe that the more aware you are about your surroundings, the more likely you are to change your ways. Today’s readings were based on the importance of preserving terrestrial biodiversity, specifically forests, and wilderness areas. To start off, I think it’s important to realize these areas are important to preserve. Forests serve as medicines and food. The medicine is often used for humans, tested in labs to come up with medicines or other health related benefits. If used in a lab, the substances will most likely be modified and used as a more pharmaceutical way. The forest provides us with trees that produce herbs or fruits that treat illnesses that we cannot treat with more common ingredients. In South America, you can find the cinchona tree, who’s bark contains the drug that is known as quinine. This drug is known to treat malaria, and also contains quinidine that helps to treat arrhythmias. Forests also serve as economic dependance, like timber, paper, wood. The trees in the forest are very useful for the survival of us humans. They also serve as habitats for people and for animals. This may all be redundant, but just think for a moment. What would it look like if we don’t have any forests? I don’t think the picture is pretty. The air will be significantly more polluted. Animals that are dependent on them won’t have any homes, and will probably go extinct. I imagine a ruined world.

I think the typical solution offered is to STOP CUTTING DOWN TREES. I do agree, but I also understand that trees are very important for civilizations to function as they do now. There’s also other approaches to this issue such as maximum sustainable yield, ecosystem-based management , and adaptive management. Planting trees should be something we should consider and do more often, but we also have to be mindful of maximizing sustainable yield. We cannot go crazy and plant trees all our lives. We need to go by the forest’s carrying capacity to avoid any stress. We should also consider the environmental conditions that forests experience over time. The ecosystem-based management approach is being careful with the use of renewable resources, not overwhelming the land. It’s not about “oh, another tree will grow again”. How long will it take? What will happen until then? How is this affecting the organisms that surround it?  The adaptive management I think goes hand in hand with growing trees. It’s about using our knowledge to see how we can help forests to continue to grow, but it uses previous attempts including successes and failures. We should algo place an economic value on these areas, especially for those who go by the tangible value of things. This means to set a price on these resources, the work done to help these. In this, we may notice that keeping forests in a good shape, holds more profit than expected. The thing with this is that it is harder to set a price on how much carbon dioxide the trees absorb, or the price of providing habitats for animals. It’s much easier to set a price on log, because it's a tangible resource that humans can use, than something we can benefit from. We can also use prescribed burns. No, it’s not saying that we will say where and when we’ll burn down trees. It’s about being more careful, knowing where and how our actions can impact and possibly cause a fire. Not use flammable things nearby forests, keep vigilant over forests, and protect its surroundings. With global warming, we know that the sun can cause wildfires/forest fires, as so can human actions. So people should be more conscious and be careful or avoid open fires, properly dispose of hot charcoal, extinguishing materials, and have fire departments nearby? We know that wildfires can occur at any time, but especially during dry seasons, so in those times be more vigilant. Have tools at hand to help just in case there’s a fire. It’s simple things that can help a lot, not just to protect the trees but also the animals that live there, and ourselves. Honestly, it broke my heart to see videos of animals trying to escape the fire in Australia, and sometimes dying while trying.

Another section that caught my attention was the protection of wildlife. I think that because these are animals, they’re thought of as insignificant. In Narnia: Prince Caspian, narnians are talking animals amongst other creatures. But since the invasion of humans, they began killing these creatures and treating them as if they were dumb, and began to lose their essence. But I found it so interesting. The quote went something like, “it [the bear] is wild, that’s what happens when you’re treated like your dumb.” It may not sound so relevant, but I think the issue is that we think of animals as dangerous creatures that we should get rid of, for our protection. Hunting them became a way to practice your privileges, and their heads your trophy.

The idea proposed here to protect them from human activity, while having reserved areas and parks to keep humans involved. It’s a way to bring awareness of endangered and non endangered species, increasing care for other ecosystems. These areas will also be undisturbed and protected by the federal law, so we’ll know that they are safe. It can also increase populations, maybe even reintroduce species, like the wolves in yellowstone. The down side to this is that it may be seen as the promotion of local and widespread diversity. This may also imply the conflict of designation and unfairness. How to choose what animals will be in the reserve? Where will these be built? Another fear is that these can become human attraction, distracting us from the real issue. Even though I’d like to say that it’s not true, that it’ll serve us to learn about them and want to help. Let’s use zoos as an example. Isn’t their purpose to educate and entertain the public? They’re used for scientific research and species conservation. Yes, but, no. It is nice to go see animals at zoos, and be like WOW ! But with it also taking away their freedom by keeping them trapped inside a zoo. We are controlling them. It reminds me a lot of Finding Dory. One of the sharks in the aquarium says she is blind, and can only use her sensors to locate herself, but once she goes out into the ocean, she can see again. It’s not that she was blind. She was imposed on living in a certain way, she didn’t choose how to live. I think that if we do make wildlife reserve areas, we should manage these in the most ethical way possible. We should keep in mind that we do this for them, to help them, and not for our entertainment.

Word Count: 1200

Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/billion-animals-estimated-dead-australia-wildfires/story?id=68143966

March 23, 2020

Food: Side effects

After a long day on campus, If I decide to stay to do homework, I’ll go get dinner. I usually go for the testo, tomato and mozzarella panini at Fluffy’s. If I have a ram van to catch, I’ll stop by to get a chocolate croissant or pita chips with guacamole. Either way, I have the privilege of grabbing food nearby campus if needed. I have the privilege of having a meal on my table every day. If I choose not to eat, then it’s a different story, it’s not the world being so unfair with me. I think the topic of agriculture on food is something I can speak to. In this world, through media and education, we have been exposed to sides of the spectrum, malnutrition and overnutrition. One in eight people don’t have enough food, suffering from chronic malnutrition and hunger. There has been a correlation between hunger and poverty. Those who live in poor communities can’t afford to include meat and other important sources in their diet. They usually rely on a high-carbohydrate and a vegetarian diet. Not usually by choice. This makes it hard to have a proper balance of macronutrients and micronutrients. Those who experience malnutrition usually live in less developed countries. As expected, their diet is probably off grains like wheat and corn. Now, on the other side, we have overnutrition. This is more common in more developed countries, since there's more access to food, not always healthy. The food is likely to be processed, high in carbohydrates, high in salts and fats. These make it difficult for the intake of food to be disposed of through energy. Especially if the people are not as active as they should.  Like malnutrition, overnutrition can also cause health problems like cholesterol, obesity, etc. Both lower life expectancy, leading to susceptibility to disease and illness. They lower productivity and overall life quality.

A concept that was introduced is food security and food insecurity. Food security is the ability to have access to food rich in nutrients. Some of the causes of food insecurity are due to poverty, war, corruption, high costs of living, bad weather, the rapid growth of population, and climate change. Let us keep in mind that half of the people in the world earn about $2.25 USD a day, and one in every six earn about $1.15 USD a day. In one of my previous blogas I had briefly discussed the average salary of a typical agriculture worker in Mexico, who works 10 hours and is well paid, earns about $7.75 a day. Cecina is a traditional meat that falls in the upper range, is about $11.50 per kilo, which is 50% more of their daily paycheck. A kilo of raw chicken  is about $3.25, about 40% of their daily paycheck. It is much easier to eat grain based foods, using less expensive ingredients or ingredients that they grow themselves. Adding meat to their daily diet isn’t the best decision, they have other expenses to cover. Countries who are currently involved in war or something like that, may be facing rations in order to provide food for everyone. Even though the government may try to stabilize things by providings meals for everyone in their best ability, sometimes the portions given aren’t enough if it’s a big family. We can use NYC as an example. The rent for a small family apartment can be around $1800-$2000 a month. There’s bills to pay, and maybe even transportation. That alone may take up more than 75% of your paychecks. Now if you’re working a minimum paying job, you’re left with very little money to cover groceries. It may be easier for you to get meat into your diet than other parts of the world, but how nutritional would it be? Of course, the circumstances range and are different in each household, but the issue is there. The person can either be getting too little protein and fats, or more than needed. We are all aware of the dollar menu that Mcdonald’s has to offer, yes it has meat, and yes, it’s also unhealthy. Fast food can cause health issues that can later develop into something more serious.

It is no secret that the population is growing rapidly. By 2050, the population on earth is expected to be 2.5 billion people. Our current population is around 8 billion, so by 2050, it is estimated to be 10.5 billion. All these people need to eat, whether it is in  small or large quantities, food will be in high demand. 40% of the world’s land is used for food production. Out of that land, 77% is used to grow grains like rice, wheat, and corn, while the reamiing 23% is used for meat, meat production, fish, and aquaculture. One of the agricultural systems that caught my eye is industrialized agriculture. It is responsible for 80% of the world’s food, and 25% is practiced on cultivated croplands mostly found in more developed countries. This already puts a lot of pressure on the system. As a result of its high demands, it uses GMOs, synthetics and chemical pesticides. Non-renewable fossils are used for machinery, causing significant pollution. This means that it only adds population to the areas, and contributes to modified food. Organic food isn’t the only way to go, but we also know that conventional produce isn’t always the best choice, it’s chemicals can cause some damage. However, since it doubles yields of key crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans, it has helped to save large areas in the United states that include forests, grasslands, wetlands from being converted into farmlands. The pro is that since the crops are the same species, you don’t need to use many chemicals to attack pesticides. But this is doubled edged. A resistance disease or pesticide can destroy the entire plantation.

I do have mixed feelings about this approach. You’re telling me that you produce 80% of the food I consume, specifically key crops. Since the food is genetically modified, I think it would sell out as conventional. If so is the case, that means that it will sell out as a regular price. In comparison to organic produce, conventional is more affordable. Due to its genetic modifications, the crops can last you longer than usual. So you can argue and say “if it can last me for so long, that means that it’s just as harmful”. This is really complicated to talk on. It’s not the safest, but that is what makes it cheaper and more accessible. It’s not the most ethical approach, but it seems like in this reality, it’s the most convenient. Now, it is sad that that is the only option available for those who can’t afford organic or less invasive products. How does food production push forward to financial and social inequality? Is food production a cause or an effect?

Word Count: 1166

Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/hunger/84126-double-burden-malnutrition-obesity-urbanization

March 30, 2020

FOOD INC

I think it’s more important for our society today to be more aware of our surroundings. Especially what we put into our body. Food Inc does this. It shows us the “behind the scenes” of our current food production. We are exposed to things corporations don’t want us to know. Ven though it’s hard to watch, because of the animal cruelty and exploitatiuon. I think it’s a way to get people to wake up, and start talking. Honestly, iot opens your eyes about things you thought weren’t so harmful. I for one thought eggs weren't so bad, like oh, chickens lay eggs. Yes, you can also say you’re killing is babies, but that’s a different topic. Seeing how they are injected and constantly treated in order for them to lay eggs over and over. Not to mention that at such a young age, they are placed through this is horrific. It may be overboard, but rape kept coming  up to mind. I kept thinking it was something disgusting. I’ve been a pescatarian before, because I found the slaughtering of animals very harsh and too brutal. But seeing the way eggs come, makes it even worse. The one thing I thought wasn’t so bad, turned out to be so disturbing. I think after this, I will probably reconsider my life choices. It opens up your mind about the world, what it really is. Markets advertise eggs, yes, they’re good for you, etc. But they don’t say “get an egg, we exploit chickens at young ages to produce their maximum capacity. Once they can’t produce or become not as useful, we kill them off like nothing.” If so was the case, they wouldn’t sell. It really comes down to money. I don't think people need 3 dozen eggs a day per household. Just think for a second. This is just one farm, there's probably hundreds doing the exact same thing. Doesn’t that just sit in your mind? Any heavy weights? This reminded me of those PETA videos that try to convince people to go full vegan. Except that it doesn’t show as much blood. But still. It made me very uncomfortable. I think this aslp goes to show that we need to be more conscious of the food we intake. Remember that a good amount of our ecological foot comes from food. Maybe making some changes to our diet can help us improve our ecological footprint, and also help to change our food industry. Making it safer for us and for the animals.

Word Count: 421 Bibliography: FOOD INC. Movie

April 6, 2020

Vs Health?

Science is seen as the way to go about health. We’re a lot more confident about our products if we know they have been tested. Not to mention that we feel much better knowing that we can count on science to tell us how to live healthy lives. It can be as simple as scientists telling us that we need to go get annual checkups at our physicians. They tell us to not share needles to help us avoid the possible transmisión of aids and other diseases. The issue is that scientists base their ideas on science, by doing research. Most of the public will listen since they feel that scientists have the upper hand on this topic. Many however, feel the need to not necessarily challenge medicine, but may ask for more information. Let’s take vaccines as an example, it’s a controversial topic, at least in the United States. Vaccines are a weakened version of the disease or virus trying to fight. When you get vaccinated, you are being exposed to the diseases, with no intention for you to actually get sick, something very minor. The idea is that the antibodies in your body will be exposed to the disease and fight it, that way, if your body is ever exposed to that same virus, your body will know how to fight. It’s not necessarily a solution that will take away the virus, it is more of a method to help prevent. This helps to reduce any upcoming cases of a virus that can severely affect a population. What’s the controversy about? It is straight, if you want to prevent catching the virus, you get vaccinated and then move on. Well there’s two reasons why people don’t want to take it. People think that getting vaccinated is actually more harmful, it can cause other diseases, making you sick. There’s a man that started a movement to stop people from getting vaccinated, claiming that it is one of the causes of down syndrome. Parents around the nation can believe it, and refuse to get themselves or their children vaccinated. I’m not sure, but I think this man was proven wrong scientifically, but until now, a good amount of people have refused to get vaccinated from anything. Another controversy around this topic is the ethics in its history. If not misinformed, vaccines were tested on humans as part of its research. A lot of people see human testing as the most unethical and disgusting thing ever. Now what makes this even more controversial is that the person who vaccines were tested on is a black woman, who died because of this. This knowledge infuriated many people from the community of color. This raised the number of people who don’t want to get vaccinated. Some think that this shows that the government is using vaccines to kill people of color as a way to get rid of them. Personally, I wouldn’t know how true these theories are. I know scientists and medical staff still encourage people to get vaccinated.

The textbook talks about five main hazards that include biological, chemical, natural, cultural, and lifestyle choices. Infections and viruses are seen as a biological hazard, because they usually die, and cannot always be treated with antibiotics. Not to mention that doctors start prescribing antibiotics for everything, our body will eventually become immune to the virus. Since 1960, infectious disease death rates have greatly decreased. It still doesn’t mean that it has decreased enough, and as we had said earlier, usually antibiotics are prescribed. The issue is that as helpful as it can be, drug companies do not invest in them because they are not profitable. I think it’s crazy that even at time of necessity, our health and well-being still have a price on it. I remember I was shocked when I found out that the United States’s GDP, measuring the value of economic activity within the  country, also includes the cases of cancer. That is like whoa. Even serious devastating cases, where people are suffering through chemotherapy are still priced, and that is part of our “increasing” economy. It’s sick from a human’s point of view, not so much from an economic point of view. I guess that it’s no surprise that in this capitalist nation, everything has a price on it.

I think it’s also important to mention that even though infectious disease death rates are declining, more and more diseases are transferring from animals to humans like malaria, zika, and coronavirus. We don’t know about these diseases, most are new. I think in this case, when there is no vaccination available, we should be more mindful of our actions and impact on the community. I know there were many people who took coronavirus as a joke. On my social media newsfeed, all I saw were memes about china, bats, and coronavirus. In these cases, I think the education of people is more important than entertainment. If there’s no medicine to directly treat the infection, or no vaccine available to prevent people from getting infected, we should all just take a step back. Analyze our behavior, and try to do what’s best for ourselves and others. It may sound redundant, but taking in consideration that this is a chain reaction, we should do our best to avoid the spreading.

At this moment I think the bat memes aren’t necessary. Yes, we shouldn’t be eating bats to begin with, but that’s not the case right now. Playing the blame game won’t avoid the conversation of how every single one of us is just as guilty of the spread. They asked us to stay at home to avoid the spread. Be more hygienic and keep our distances. What do teens do? Gather together at the park, or go out for trips. Not only them, we also have people who don’t wear masks or gloves, even when given the opportunity. We should all be a little more responsible. I also think that at this time, poverty and citizenship status were highlighted. Who goes to work and who is considered an essential worker? There’s medical staff, they are considered essential, but also have attained a diploma or special recognition for their completion of work in their field. They’re essential, but they have somewhat of an authority. Meanwhile most of the other essential workers are low-income people who work in grocery stores, supermarkets, or other services to help the society to keep running. This all goes to say that those who are considered essential workers, low-income, are exposing themselves everyday. Many of them will get infected. In comparison to a rich person who doesn’t need to go out, and instead sends other people to do their shopping or does shopping online. Do you think people will get the coronavirus vaccine if it is found?

Word Count: 1138 Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

http://vaccineresistancemovement.org/?p=2129

April 20, 2020

Got Water?

Water is essential for survival. Although 70% of the world is made up of bodies of water, not all of it is drinkable, and not all for us. I see many commercials that advertise buying a filter that can help purify or clean tap water. They say it’s more convenient, it is not the cheapest, but it claims to be a  very good investment. You can connect it to your water supply at home, so you’re purifying tap water, it also helps to save up from having to buy gallons of water. In the US, many people buy gallons of spring water, including brands like Poland Spring. I think people feel safer drinking water that is already purified. Others, however, decide to keep drinking tap water. It saves them money that could be spent on the filter or on gallons of water. Yes, tap water isn’t the cleanest water available but it contains few minerals. People’s bodies seem to react well with these, it becomes regular water. I see this as a privilege. Not all water sources are as clean, many containing chemicals, baterias, and other harmful things that will only harm us even more.

As the textbook mentioned, we have a couple of issues that revolve around water, polluting them. There’s point-sources, which are pollutants that are discharged from specific locations into larger bodies of water. They’re traced from specific drain pipes, ditches, or sewer lines like factories, animal feedlots, or oil tankers. There also is a nonpoint source, pollutants that are discharged from nonspecific locations inot large bodies of water. These are harder to control and regulate because of their origin. These are usually found in crop lands, animal feedlots, logged forest, or city streets. This is all to say that pure, unfiltrated water is not the safest. But also to emphasize that there’s possibly more point-sources in an urban area, than a suburban area. Not to mention that there’s more suburban with nonpoint source, meaning that it’s harder to control. Well, this tells us that maybe there’s more attention to stop water from being polluted in largely polluted areas, which makes the fight unfair. You’re giving cities more resources to reduce, when they cause more harsh pollution. In their defense I will say that helping cities will set an example for the rest. They’ll want to update their technology too. There’s two takes on this situation. By giving more attention to cities, you’ll be more likely to develop technology that can help, it also creates more awareness of the situation.

Word Count: 423 Bibliography: Bibliography: Miller, Tyler G, and Scott E Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. National Geographic Learning, 2018.

April 27, 2020

Equality?

The topic of possible equality was discussed. Yes, all these most developed countries became powerful and wealthy as they are now because they exploited the rest of the world. They used impoverished people and vulnerable places to build their own empire. So it can be thought as the poorer get poorer and the richer will get richer. This whole global situation reminds me of what the U.S is now. The 1% versus the 99%. It seems like the 1% will stay as it is, and the 99% will also stay as it is. Now, this enrages me. To think that no matter how much you try, how  hard you fight, how much you’re willing to sacrifice, things won’t change at either end. It said that these top nations had used up everything and they could not do much change, they kind of have to stay as they are. Maybe not continue to increase their use of nonrenewable fossil fuels. But the thing is, they won’t even do that. They’re still considering whether they actually want to do that or not. They are rethinking about this topic, they are trying to implace policies that will work around it, not actually attacking the real issue. They are still trying to find a way or “solution” that will benefit that 1% economically. MONEY. Meanwhile, the 99% cannot move either, as they are dependent on that 1%. Their economy is dependent on their decisions. As much as they would like to create change, they will still fall under the 1%’s shadow. Why not reunite the entire 99%? People are selfish. They’ll look out for themselves alone. Not care what the next guy is doing, unless the next guy will be feeding them, or providing some kind of support, especially if it is financial support. I think there's a way. People need to stop being selfish. Government and policy makers should make things less about money, more about the people and earth. It should be quality over quantity. At this rate, we will have billions of starving people in a dying world. I don’t see much quality there once we reach full carrying capacity. Do you think there’s a way that we can all get on board with an idea to try to turn or at least stop our negative impact on the world?

Word Count: 391 Bibliography: Lewis and Maslin's The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (2018).

[wishforwash]

5 Reflections after 5 Years of Leading the Social Impact Organization Wish for WASH

ODecember 12, 2019 by Jasmine Burton

Still reeling in the surreal. I was on stage with two other Georgia Tech women in STEM, wearing colorful dresses and talking about toilets. It was 2014, and we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergraduates from one of the best colleges in the world. And we were driven by a mission — to bring innovation to sanitation with a gender equity and design thinking lens.

Then following the pitch, which I had overhauled a few hours before based on some last minute, deeply critical feedback, Emmy Award Winning CBS Contributor Faith Salie shouted our names on stage and on live TV that was being streamed across the state of the Georgia. We had won both the People’s Choice Award and the First-Place Award at the Georgia Tech Inventure Prize Competition, making us the first all-female team to win the largest undergraduate invention competition in the United States.

And from that moment on, I have continued speeding ahead full throttle across 10 countries, in the public, private and social enterprise sectors, and all in the name of inclusion and innovation in the sanitation sector. Still reeling in the surreal.

Six weeks after our astounding win, our team experienced our first “glow up” where we progressed from the on-stage foam prototype to nearly a dozen manufactured toilets which were shipped to a refugee camp in northern Kenya. Here, under the auspices of the sanitation enterprise Sanivation, we participated in our first usability pilot.

Our journey was launched in a beautiful display of love and community when our Georgia Tech peers, professors and individual families (Shout-out to the best parents and sister in the whole world!) hustled to help us. They helped us manually pull plastic toilet molds at strange hours in the Georgia Tech design shop, shipped the parts and construction materials to the refugee camp, and provided an enabling environment in which we could grow and thrive.

We concluded the summer with a series of learnings about how to improve our toilet based on user feedback, and we sought to iterate it in the name of design thinking, which has been integral to our work from the start. In the fall of 2014, I founded Wish for WASH, and I have grown by its side over the past 5 years.

While in this season of thanks, as I marinate and meditate on musings that are the Wish for WASH story, I want to share 5 notable reflections that are top of mind.

1. Defining What It Means To Be an Expert

I have frequently asked the people in my immediate spheres of influence about ‘what it means to be an expert’. Do you just wake up one day and feel that you have now absorbed enough knowledge in your interest area to claim the status of ‘expert’? Or do you immediately become an expert the day that you complete a degree or certificate program? Or if enough people call you an expert, is that when you become one?

I began grappling with this issue over the course of the past 5 years as I have increasingly been labeled as an expert when I myself had not yet claimed that professional status. Beyond talking and processing with my communities of support about this, I have also begun defining what ‘being an expert’ means to me and what things I will align with as well as what I will not align with.

For instance, my 5+ years of work in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector in primarily the innovator, researcher, and communicator functions does make me a relative expert in a host of roles within the WASH space. However, while my extensive work in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past 5 years gives me a more realistic and nuanced picture of the realities of WASH-related work within the region compared to others who have not worked in the region as long, it does not, by any means, make me an ‘African expert’, which is a label that has been given to me quite a few times over the past few years.

I have come to align with, and increasingly claim, my growing expertise in my technical area of interest (WASH); however, I do not subscribe to the notion that non-African nationals can be ‘African experts’ as I believe that reinforces a pervasive neocolonial narrative and silences the voices of the brilliant minds that are actually from the region. These definitions that I have outlined for myself have helped me in both my personal and professional development, as I strongly believe that words matter.

2. The Importance of Claiming Your Space

Similar to my personal journey with the term ‘expert’ as described previously, Wish for WASH as an organization has experienced a bit of mission drift as we sought to find our niche within the WASH sector. We started as solely a product company and then pivoted to include research and education, which has been an incredible adventure in finding a way to have sustainable impact through a mission-oriented organization.

Due to high manufacturing costs and the complexity of overall logistics, with the support of our organizational advisors and my individual mentors, we have needed to redefine ourselves several times over the past few years. But while that process was often ambiguous, for me as the lead, it is really amazing to reflect back and see where we are today: a network of 100+ young and diverse professionals, all under the age of 30, who have been a part of the Wish for WASH journey since 2014.

And we now can claim our space as our growing mission is to bring more diverse minds, talent, and innovation to the problems of global health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) through the lens of research, design and education because #everybodypoops. With this change of our mission statement, it is clear that our organizational impact is no longer tied to the impact of a single toilet design, but it is captured by the youth-led and women-led movement that we have created to help the world reach the 6th Sustainable Development Goal. Claiming this space has enabled us to be more clear internally as we seek to grow in the future. I am incredibly grateful for the people who walked with me through all of these iterations and helped us reach this point of clarity and purpose.

3. Applying a Design Thinking Iterative Approach To Yourself

As a product designer with deep professional roots in the Design Thinking Methodology, I am quite familiar with the concept of not being married to any professional products that I create but being married to the process. The goal of approaching work in this way helps me to reframe ‘failures’ as just a part of the process of iteration and implementation until the output (be it a piece of design work, a research proposal, a manuscript, communications strategy, etc) best meets the needs of the end user or audience.

However, over the past few years growing as the leader of Wish for WASH, I have realized the importance of internally applying these same principles to myself. As a human-being who happens to be occupying a leadership role, I do make mistakes. And for me, some of those mistakes have hurt and felt more personal than others.

I am still working on truly internalizing this reflection into my life’s practice. However, I think the idea of approaching personal or leadership ‘failures’ as parts of the journey (and reframing them as opportunities to iterate and continue to grow) is a healthy way to strive to be both a responsible and servant leader. And in this increasingly polarized world, I have a deep respect for those who strive to lead with these leadership approaches.

4. The Need for Leaders to Lift As They Climb

Over the course of the past 5 years, it has become increasingly clear to me that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. I have been blessed with incredible communities of support that have enabled me to grow and thrive as blossoming innovator and thought-leader in the WASH sector.

The opportunities that have been afforded to me by my communities of support have given me a platform to better advocate for increased representation of diverse voices in the WASH sector with a particular focus on women, youth, and people of color. I firmly believe in the notion that responsible and servant leaders seek to lift as they climb to amplify not only underrepresented voices in the sector, but the voices of their team to ensure their professional development and ownership of products.

The decentralized and remote nature of Wish for WASH has facilitated an environment where our team members have had the opportunity to own products and processes rather than having it all led directly by me. While there have been some logistical challenges, overall, our 5 Year Wish for WASH Impact Survey revealed the value of the professional development opportunities and autonomy afforded to our team members.

5. Family Over Everything

And last but not least — family. As a person of faith, this mantra has always been central to my ethos, and as a young and growing leader, I could not align with it more. For those who know me personally, you know that my family is my rock. They are my biggest cheerleaders, support system and enablers, despite how crazy my ideas may sound. My family is always there for me, no matter what the topic is or which time zone I am based in. And as I have gotten older, this blessing is not lost on me and I am so thankful for it.

Because of this, I have sought to create a family environment within Wish for WASH. While not completely successful and with room for improvement, I do think that my team members feel seen, heard and valued. The work that we do is important, but the people doing the work — and their stories, visions, and needs — are equally as important.

My biggest realization over the years is the value of loving your people. Seek to love your teammates, your co-workers, your supervisors. Despite hardships, obstacles and differences. Show up for them. And approach them with respect and grace. It is not always easy and is a space where I am excited to continue growing. But overall, family — no matter how you define it — is everything.

So with that, I am ecstatic to still be reeling in the surreal. It has been 5 years and we are just getting started. Happiest Birthday, Wish for WASH! I am forever grateful for the person you have inspired me, and continue to inspire me, to become and the amazing people that I am blessed to work and grow with.

Onwards and upwards. The best is yet to come.

To learn more visit our website here and subscribe to our newsletter here.

Original post can be found here. 

[coloneljamesmoriarty]

This is. a mess. and over the top and entirely unlikely. BUT I PROMISED AND I WILL DELIVER. TW homophobia

Bradford finds her pacing in mission control along her path. It’s not an unusual sight, but the skyranger is not on its way back full of wounded soldiers, there is no vital research about to be announced for them to be debriefed on, and as far as he is aware, there is no reason for the council to call.

He steps in her path and forces her to come to a halt. “You need to relax, Commander. Everything is running smoothly, at the moment,” he assures.

She regards him for a moment, then starts fiddling with her cuffs. “I know it is, Central. You run a good operation,” she says. “I expect you to continue to do so no matter what.”

“Sir?” Her words are unlike her and he gets a sinking feeling in his gut.

“The Spokesman sent me a message this morning, warning me to expect a council meeting later. They aren’t happy with me.”

“Why would they be? We’ve been hitting back at the aliens hard. If anything, they should be commending us for a job well done,” he says incredulously.

She sighs and shakes her head. “They’re not happy with me, specifically.” She rubs her hands over her face and suddenly looks as tired. “Remember two days ago, when I dismissed one of the soldiers?”

“Yes. That’s what you were hired for, though. The troops are your responsibility, you’ve every right to dismiss them as you see fit.”

“I didn’t intend to dismiss him I was only going to reprimand him for harassment, remind him that XCOM does not discriminate, but then he had to turn on me and accuse me of being - being a fag,” she spits the word out with more hate than he’d ever seen her with, “and I snapped. He got word to his council representative, and apparently most of the council was not aware of what I am.”

His jaw drops. “So what? Are they just going to yell at you for lying? It’s not as though you had control of what was on your personnel file.”

“Best case scenario, those that are angry shut up and deal with it. There’s no time to appoint a new Commander and keep things running smoothly. If enough of the council wishes it, though, I could be replaced.” She hesitates for a moment before continuing. “I will willingly offer to step down before it gets to the worst case scenario, though.”

“Worst case is..?” He doesn’t want to know, but he needs to be prepared for the worst.

“Approximately half the council withdrawing their support from the project.”

He wants to vomit just thinking about it. “There’d be no point in keeping the project going if they did. We’re succeeding, but barely, surely they know that?” He pauses for a moment, trying to think of what he knows about each council nation. “Is it really half the council?”

“Never underestimate how deeply some peoples’ hate can run,” the Commander says. There’s a bitterness to her voice that points to her having experienced more than her fair share. “And yes. Egypt, Nigeria, China, India, and Russia all certainly want to see me gone. Japan, Australia, Brazil, and Mexico it depends on the individual representative. As a member of the US Army, I have every legal right to hold this position, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Politics, and all.”

He frowns, the weight in his stomach only growing heavier. “And you’re not good at politics.”

She smiles sadly at him, but before either of them could say anything more she brings a hand to her comms device, clearly being summoned. She sighs and pulls a little pink, blue, and purple flag pin out of her pocket and sticks it onto her lapel.

“Is that really a good idea?” he asks, pointedly glancing at the pin.

She rolls her eyes as she straightens out her uniform. “I spent twenty years in the closet to keep from being discharged. I’m not hiding any longer,” she snaps, sounding much more like the person he was used to seeing command. “Do I look presentable enough?”

He looks over her uniform and adjusts her shirt collar so it lays flat. “You do now. Try not to yell too much,” he says.

“Of all the things I haven’t promised you, I can’t promise you that most of all,” she says, almost amused. “Well, it’s time. Do or die.” She waves as she turns on her heel and marches into the situation room.

There’s an odd sort of finality as the door snaps shut behind her that he tries not to think too much about.

More than an hour and a half later, the rest of the senior staff is summoned to the situation room. Neither Vahlen nor Shen have any idea of what they’re about to walk into, but they know well enough that if the council themselves have summoned them it can’t be good. They enter to find the shadowy figures of each of the council members staring down at them as they take their places just behind their Commander.

The Commander stands at rest in the center of the room, staring up at the figures. Just looking at her makes Bradford tense. Her hands are clenched into fists behind her back, knuckles bone white, her shoulders are tight and drawn back, her jaw is clenched so hard he thinks it might break, and in the glow of the monitor he thinks he sees her shaking in frustration.

“Doctor Shen, Doctor Vahlen, Officer Bradford. The Council is at an impasse, so it is up to you to decide what course of action shall be taken,” the Spokesman says. “We cannot agree if Commander Mercier shall be removed from her post.”

“Is there good reason for her to be removed?” Shen asks. “She has done nothing short of excellent work.”

“She’s a fag,” one of the other shadowy figures snaps. The Commander rolls forward onto the balls of her feet and tilts her head back, clearly conveying her displeasure.

“Commander,” the Spokesman growls, not unlike how one might threaten a dog about to bark. She rolls back flat onto her feet without saying a word.

“It has recently come out to us that Commander Mercier is an admitted homosexual, and has engaged in relations with both men and women in the past,” another one of the figures says. He can see the Commander’s shoulders rise at some of the wording used, but once again she does not say anything. From the corner of his eye, he can see both Shen and Valhen look at her with shocked expressions. “Were any of you three aware of her sexual preference?”

Both Shen and Valhen shake their heads, and he nods minutely. If any of the council questions how he knew, they fortunately don’t ask.

“If any of you are uncomfortable having a homosexual -”

“A faggot, a diseased deviant, a rap-”

“Councilman,” the first representative interrupts. It lacks the same bite as the warning given to the Commander. “Be civil.”

“I just want them to know just what they’re allowing to fester in their midst. She is hiding something, otherwise she would have shared a list, or at least a number of partners.” A few of the other council members murmur their agreements.

He wonders why none of the council members that supposedly support her don’t speak up to defend her, why she won’t defend herself. He glances at her again and realizes that she’d likely been threatened into silence, hence why she was about to break her jaw grinding her teeth. The trembling isn’t from frustration, he also realizes, but anger and betrayal.

“If any of you are uncomfortable having a homosexual in command, you should speak now. If it is a problem, she will be removed and replaced with an equally capable candidate,” the first council member says again.

“The Commander’s orientation has no bearing on her ability to lead. I see no reason for her to step down,” Bradford says quickly. He sees a sliver of tension leave her shoulders.

“She has been nothing but professional, in my experience,” Shen says. “And I believe trying to insert a new Commander at this stage of our operation would just cause more issues than not.”

Vahlen nods in agreement. “I have no issues with the Commander’s sexuality either. She does a fine effort leading, and that will not change due to her being out,” she says.

Though they can’t see the faces of the council members, he can feel their gazes bearing down upon them.

“It’s settled, then. Commander Mercier shall retain her position,” the first council member says. “Doctors, Officer, you are dismissed.”

He tries to catch the Commander’s eye as they march out, but she continues to keep her gaze locked on the screen before her. Just before the door closes behind them as they leave, he can hear the hateful council member start to spit their vitriol once more.

The senior staff doesn’t say anything between themselves, instead electing to scatter back to their respective departments. They’re all acutely aware that they have just skirted potential disaster.

Nearly half an hour later, the Commander finally emerges from the situation room. She keeps her head down as she scurries across mission control to her quarters, so as much as he’d like to stop her and comfort her he lets her go.

He doesn’t see her for the rest of the day, not even at supper where the senior staff usually gathers to discuss their current plan of action. Against his better judgement, he knocks on her door in the brief amount of free time they’re allowed. There is no answer but the muffled sounds of music played over the stereo. He knocks again, louder, but once again receives no answer.

It’s a bad idea, he knows, but the council meeting earlier still didn’t sit right with him so he opens the door regardless. The sound of the door closing behind him seems to finally get her attention as a hand appears over the edge of the sofa, remote in hand. The catchy pop song ends, and the first words of the next song starts playing before she finally pauses it.

“Queen?” he asks as he walks around the sofa, almost completely distracted by her choice in music.

“It’s my gay playlist, for when I need to not feel so shitty,” she explains, sitting up.

He flicks his gaze over her appearance. Her uniform coat is off, tossed over the back of the chair at her terminal, and the sleeves of her shirt are rolled up, and a red tinged bandage covers her knuckles on her right hand. There’s a dead look in her eye that shakes him to his core.

“It doesn’t look like it’s helped much.”

She shakes her head. She takes a deep breath to center herself and clenches her hands. He can’t help but notice that she’s still shaking, even hours later. “I’ve heard all sorts of shit over the years, both in general and directed at me. I can handle being called a fag, a homo, whatever, I thought I’d survived the worst of it once Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed. But - But god damn I’ve never been insulted with such hate, such vitriol that made me wish I were dead-”

She chokes up and covers her face with her hands. Without thinking, he slides into the seat beside her and pulls her into his chest. In the back of his mind he can hear the more rational side of him screaming that this is too close, too unprofessional and that he should step back, but he doesn’t want to.

“I thought the Spokesman was on my side, too. The- The bastard agreed that I needed to shut up and let the council insult me-” She chokes up again.

“Try to focus on the positive,” he says. He’s never had to comfort someone who’s been hurt, betrayed so deeply, so he can only hope it’s helpful. “You’re still in charge, and the council is still funding us.”

“For now,” she says. “I basically can’t ignore anything that happens throughout Asia and Africa to keep them happy. We’re already stretched so thin, I’m sure that the next report will have more than a couple countries withdraw.”

“We’ll figure it out. You said yourself they appointed you for your strategic genius, you’ll come up with something.”

She sighs and slumps against him. After a moment, she adjusts so she can rest her chin on his shoulder. “I hope so,” she says quietly.

He lets the hug linger a bit longer, then carefully extracts himself to calm the part of his brain screaming about workplace relationships and professionalism. “At least you know you’ve got your entire senior staff on your side. I haven’t heard any ill rumors being spread around, either. So there’s that,” he says.

“Thanks for that, by the way. Being quick to support me. Honestly, I could kiss all three of you for the support, but given the situation…” she trails off, amused.

He hesitates for a heartbeat, expecting Shen or Vahlen to call, or the council to berate them some more, or the alarm indicating an attack, or even just one of their men to have done something incredibly stupid to be scolded for. Blissfully, there is quiet, save for the screaming in the back of his head.

“I can’t speak for the Doctors, but you’re more than welcome to kiss me,” he offers.

She regards him for a split second, the dead look in her eyes finally replaced with surprise and relief and something that says fucking finally. She grabs his tie and pulls him into a kiss, short but by no means dispassionate.

She pulls back and licks her lips, finally looking more like her normal self. “So much for being a professional. Must’ve been hard for you,” she teases. “Thank you, though.”

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted to do that for a while,” he admits. “Whenever there was a chance, something usually came up.”

She laughs, a delightful sound compared to the beaten silence from earlier. “We’ve still some time now, if you want to make up for all the time lost,” she suggests, leaning in slightly.

He doesn’t need prompting twice, so he brings a hand to her jaw and pulls her into another kiss, and then another. At some point he ends up on his back with the Commander on top of him, hands tangled in each other’s hair and slipping under shirts. It feels so right, even though he knows logically it’s wrong.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says quietly, pulling away from another kiss.

“I was wondering how long it’d take for the boy scout to return,” she sighs. Neither of them make a move to untangle themselves from each other, though. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve kept a relationship secret. I’m practically an expert.”

“There’s not a whole lot of privacy here, though.”

“There wasn’t a whole lot in the desert, either, but I made do.”

He laughs. “With all respect, Commander, the Anthill is more like a ship than a collection of tents. We’re not supposed to leave the base, in case you forgot in all your escape attempts.”

“First of all, no commander or sir in my quarters. Tatiana or Taňa, please,” she says, pressing another short kiss to his lips. “Second, I know I’m not supposed to leave, but the council just had to build a secret underground base. Third, I had people trying to blackmail me for years, there is no privacy like that. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m a tactile person, you know. I like touching my partners.”

“And you can do so while we’re in our quarters. On the bridge nothing can change. Are you capable of that, at least?”

“Yes, si-” he cuts himself off. “I’ve managed so far, haven’t I? No one’s seen me do more than lay a hand on your shoulder.”

“Then we’ll be fine. If the men don’t see, the council can’t know, and we’ll be fine,” she says in that same self-assured tone as when she knows a mission is about to be wrapped up successfully.

They continue laying there for a few more minutes in blissful silence. “I should go back to my quarters,” he says at last. He still doesn’t make to get up, though.

Tatiana looks at a clock and then presses her face into his neck. “It’s still free time, someone might see,” she says. It’s a poor excuse, but it convinces him to stay.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” she asks while he’s absently feeling the bandages over her knuckles. “I know you said before that my orientation doesn’t matter, but I’ve had so many people say that, then get insecure because I’ve slept with women, or men.”

“I promise you, it doesn’t bother me. Whoever you’ve been with doesn’t change who you are now.”

She hesitates for a moment. “For the record, I didn’t give the council a list or a number not because I… you know, but because I just don’t know how many I’ve been with. I always kept up on my health, though. In that sense, I’m a good girl.”

“Tanya,” he says, moving his hand to her cheek again. “It’s fine. I never doubted that you were anything but responsible.” He presses a kiss to her lips.

She’s quiet after they part again. “It’s Taňa,” she says. “Not Tanya.”

He furrows his brow. “Tanya,” he repeats.

“Not -nya, -ňa.”

He’s forced to repeat the ň sound until she determines that he’s gotten close enough to it, though he still can’t quite tell the difference. It’s important to her, though, so he will learn. She deserves to have her beauty retained even in name.

After a while of talking more, she glances at her clock again. “It’s nearly midnight,” she says. “It’s probably safe to sneak back to your quarters.” She doesn’t move for a moment, then woefully pushes herself up.

He feels too cold, too light as he sits up as well. He leans over and steals another kiss, pressing her into the back of the sofa. “With my luck, we won’t get a moment of peace for at least a week,” he muses.

“I’ll make sure we find some. And I’ll sneak into your quarters so you can pretend to still be a professional,” she teases.

“I appreciate it.” Against his better judgement, he kisses her again before standing, straightening out his appearance, and leaving.

He sees her on the bridge in the morning, light of the hologlobe illuminating her face as she gives out orders. The blue glow makes it harder to see, but the bi flag pin is still worn proudly on her lapel.

“Commander,” he says, catching her attention. A smile pulls at the corners of her mouth, and he smiles in turn. “What do you need today, sir?”

[thebeautifulmountain-blog]

Thoughts on the BlizzCon news?

Oh geeze, where do I even begin.Let’s try, least to most.

Nothing for Diablo, again… maybe one day. (though I’m assuming it’s because they’re actively all off working on something big - which probably isn’t Diablo related)

Starcraft 2 going free to play. - sure, but it isn’t a new single-player experience so why should I care? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good game and you should definitely play it, but I’m not good enough to play against other people any more so yeah… means nothing to me.

Hearthstone got a new expansion and it’s… kobolds? The trailer for it is as awesome as ever, and Matt Mercer singing is just beautiful. I really hope the K&C expansion is literally just the team going “you know what is fun. Dungeons and Dragons, lets just do a Warcraft version and get Matt Mercer to do the trailer.”. I really hope that was the creative process. Plus it has a PvE Arena mode - which if it is a permanent feature to the game, I’ll definitely probably get into it.

Heroes of the Storm got new heroes revealed - we’ve all seen the spoilers, so no huge shock here. The trailer was a little meh, but Alexstrasza is #1 dragon bae and clearly the best choice for the first dragon aspect into the Nexus. We’ve got two dragons and two shimadas now, but still no proper Gnomes.Feels bad.

Overwatch is finally getting an Irish terrorist. FINALLY! She looks cool to play but her actual design and the fact she kind of came out of no-where without any kind of teasing or cinematic, considering what her backstory is and how crucial it actually is to Blackwatch.Her character design is not my favourite - I don’t think every agent of talon needs the terrible black trench-coat school-shooter vibe. She’d look way better in her Mercy-esque outfit that doesn’t wash out her already pale face and clash with her red hair. And there are other colours that would work well with the whole glowing chemical tubing (which is the only actual cool part about her outfit) and they really could have played up the bioshock alchemist vibe that she seems meant to have. Because honestly, if she doesn’t have a “would you kindly” voice line I’ll quit.I think if she was more monstrous and less just generically pretty like all the rest of the Overwatch characters, she’d be far more interestingly designed. Blizzard obviously knows how to make a good sexy monster - I mean, look at dragon-demon Symmetra, or the Queen of Blades, or Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen, Lady of Darkness, Breaker of the Scourge, Reaper of Souls, Bane of the Alliance, Queen of Lordaeron and the Northern Kingdoms.Kit wise, she is absolutely interesting and should be heaps of fun to play. I’m not a massive fan of the beams, but the bouncing orbs, the teleport (as if we needed another one) and the kamehameha wave heal/damage ult is pretty tasty.The cinematic though, I was kind of disappointed in at first because we’ve got a new character and I was hoping it’d shed some light on her and get me invested in her as a character. I’m guessing they’ll do an Ana style thing on her (though I’m still waiting to give a shit about Orisa). But that it was Reinhardt’s backstory was pretty interesting. Turns out Reinhardt was a complete and utter toolbag who left his friends to die because of his own selfish glory-hounding.What a fucking piece of shit.That hair though really was glorious.

They should have given us Balderich. He was a beast, and a team player.Seriously though, fuck Reinhardt - I lost all respect for him.

Warcraft… oh geeze, where do I ever start. It’s all lore for me. It’s all amazing and depressing and happy and dark and fucked up. I was going into it expecting a massive Old Gods mess with major characters dying off and Sylvanas probably getting retconned into some evil monster and maybe Jaina actually ending up an Old God puppet.

Nope, we’re getting Mists of Pandaria 2.0.Lorewise, I’m livid because there is absolutely zero reason so far as to why the Horde and Alliance are so out for blood against one another - but I’m going to assume that that amazing trailer is depicting the Alliance being their usual evil-masquerading-as-good selves and attacking first.Yeah guys, we get it, the original Horde got in one sneak attack, doesn’t mean you get to do it for the rest of eternity.And we might lose Lordaeron - which also makes zero sense. The currently strongest part of the Horde getting driven out of their heartland is like if a group of uncultured Orcs sacked Stormwind - actually nevermind…Doesn’t matter, we’re taking Ashenvale, which means the Orcs will finally have unfettered industrial growth and land to farm. Finally Thrall’s dumb fucking decision to found a city on a desert will be righted. And I’m hoping the Forsaken get Tel’drassil, can you imagine how cool an undead world tree would look? Geeze.

The features of the expansion are cool as well, two new continents, one per faction - which is a real kick for people like me that super heavily invest in one faction over the other. Kul’tiras is kind of like a lore shangri-la, to finally actually have it and that it is Alliance gated (by the looks of it) is salt-inducing, but if I ever manage to pay for that sub again I’ll definitely roll through on my druid.Even better though, the Horde is finally moving to make reparations with the Zandalari - who really are natural allies now that that Old God loving self-proclaimed prophet Zul is defanged.

Plus other stuff, blah, blah. Oh, and Classic WoW servers.

Anyway, about that trailer.That is what the Warcraft movie should have been. I don’t even care if it ended up as Michael Bay-esque single-scene war-porn, watching the Alliance and Horde battle it out for an hour would be bliss. The Alliance are actually wearing armour like they’re meant to - while slowly morphing into the obvious villains they are.

I really super appreciate it as a lore-nerd, a real-world lore-nerd, a military-science nerd and a political lore-nerd. Just that cinematic really underpins why I find Warcraft a compelling setting despite all the flaws of the writing team.

It is a melange of cold-war ideologies clashing, between two imperfect empires with completely different world views and philosophies despite the similarities in their overall structure.You have the Alliance, whose prime goal has always been the destruction of the Horde and establishment of Alliance supremacy, finely honed and heavily armoured. They form up in neat lines and integrate their armies using mixed-unit tactics - the human shield wall and the dwarven rifle volley. With kaldorei archers supporting in the back and siege engines rolling up from behind. Draenei shock troops waiting for the break through and just one Worgen gude (fuck Genn so much) being all like “yeah, Gilneas is totally here as well my dudes.”

The Horde though, they’re messy, they’re all fury and bluster. They don’t need armour, they’re already all like tanks. Saurfang leading at the breach, Sylvanas standing on the walls directing her archers. The Horde doesn’t integrate, they just are. They’re brawlers not soldiers, they’re fighting for survival not some revanchist notion that all Alliance land is their own.Their leaders don’t send in their pawns to die, they’ve always lead from the front - they do it through honour and not a sense of nationalism.You see this when Saurfang stands against the fallen rampart, taking arrows instead of retreating to led his men die. When he personally leads the charge out into the melee. When Sylvanas, realising she can do better elsewhere unleashes her fury on the siege engines and fucking melts an entire squad of alliance footmen.

As factions they stem from the same place but grew to have very different conclusions. The Horde revolutionaries against the Alliance reactionaries, collectivism versus integrationism. Individualism fighting against bureaucracy.

I haven’t always agreed on some of the decisions that the lore team has made in terms of growing these two factions; be it introducing a greedy randian libertarianist Goblins into the largely socialist Horde, or the introduction of the rather obviously communist Draenei into the monarchist alliance. But the fact that they’ve worked on integrating those kinds of problems into the fabric of each faction really makes it feel far more real.

I kind of think it is a shame that it didn’t include at least one Gnome though. Mekkatorque in his battle armour looks pretty friggin’ boss.

I think that mostly covers it.