#I took real estate law as my elective

[petervintonjr]

For only the second time since beginning this series in the summer of 2020, I have had to resort to drawing a much more abstract illustration --in this instance, the long-demolished President's House in Philadelphia-- as there appears to be no visual representation of the individual that I want to talk about (which in itself already speaks volumes).

Almost paralleling these last three years of this series, there has been an embarrassing (nay, alarming) uptick in the number of proposed so-called "divisive concepts" legislation brewing in various state legislatures. The (stated) intent behind such performatively-drafted law is to "protect" public school students from the "trauma" of studying American history in such a way that they won't be made to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about the history of their own country; that the curriculum should instead focus primarily on instilling an all-pervasive sense of pride and patriotism. I think on this creeping propaganda (against which my own home state is sadly not immune), and immediately begin to reflect on the life trajectory of Oney Marie Judge (in some instances spelled Ona), whose greatest claim to fame (if one can call it that) is having been one of President George Washington's slaves. Oney Judge is assumed to have been born sometime in 1773 at Washington's Mount Vernon estate --the daughter of an enslaved mother, Betty; and a white English father who had been hired by the Washingtons as a tailor. As was so often the norm for the time, Oney's relatively light complexion promoted her to house status instead of field hand, and by the age of fifteen had become Martha Washington's personal maid. On paper, Oney and her mother Betty were considered to be the property of the Custis estate, and would pass back to the ownership of that family upon Martha's death --specifically to Martha's granddaughter Elizabeth ("Eliza") Custis.

After his popular election in 1787, Washington travelled first to New York, and then to Philadelphia, to serve as President of the new nation while a more permanent capital city was being constructed. Washington brought Judge and seven other slaves with him from Mount Vernon, taking up residence in what would become known as The President's House at the corner of 6th and Market Streets. Significantly, as befit her elevated status (such as it was), Judge was permitted to travel about the city unescorted and pay for such things as shows, dresses and other clothing, and even making social visits on Martha's behalf. Judge intermingled with Philadelphians and became VERY aware of the city's abolitionist sentiment and its markedly large population of free Black people. Philadelphia had passed an Emancipation law in 1780 (one of the very first such laws in the new nation), which included a Gradual Abolition Clause; a policy of automatic emancipation of any slaves who remained in the city limits beyond a six month time-frame. For obvious reasons George and Martha took particular care to strategically rotate out their slaves, each time sending them back to Mount Vernon "to visit family" just shy of this deadline.

On May 21, 1796, under the guise of appearing to pack for her next not-quite-sixth-month return to Virginia, Judge fled, and escaped aboard a ship called the Nancy bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. An advertisement went out on May 23rd asserting that the escaped slave had "no good reason for running away." By September of that year a family friend of the Washingtons recognized Judge in Portsmouth and sent word back to Philadelphia. Under the terms of the very Fugitive Slave Act that he himself had signed into law three years earlier, Washington could have forcibly kidnapped Judge back to Virginia, but undoubtedly mindful of the public optics, he opted not to take action. While he expressed undisguised annoyance at Judge's actions and wrote at length about "loyalty" and "unfaithfulness," privately his real resentment was that he would be expected to reimburse the Custis estate for lost property. After Washington's term in office ended, he made another attempt to retrieve Judge, this time asking the help of a nephew and several New Hampshire public officials to do so. Fortunately then-Senator John Langdon got wind of this attempt and warned Judge, who then fled to the town of Greenland where she eventually settled, learned to read and write, became a devout Christian, married, and had three children --even though she legally remained a Fugitive Slave to her dying day.

Judge's story would have faded into history as just another footnote to the life of George Washington, had it not been for a lengthy interview she gave many years later in an 1847 issue of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. In the article she detailed the events of 1796 from her point of view, which had never before been known, though she never gave up the name of the Nancy's captain nor crew, nor the names of anyone else --including many free Black people in both Pennsylvania and in New Hampshire-- who had aided her. This very month (March 2023) a mural to Judge's bravery is underway in Portsmouth as part of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire: https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/2023/03/03/black-heritage-trail-nh-seeks-to-honor-ona-judge-staines-with-mural/69957500007/

Which brings me back to my earlier point about "divisive concepts" legislation and its stated intent --and the hard, un-ignorable truths that such laws intend to erase from the public discourse. Truths such as the fact that it is not possible to study, in any meaningful way, anything about the administration of our country's literal first President, nor his time in office, without eventually bumping up against the reality of Oney Judge and what she endured. The phrase "Black history is American history" is neither hyperbole nor a trendy slogan --it is an objective fact. And even as Women's History Month 2023 draws to a close, I can assure you that this art series will continue to throw light on that fact. For as long as it needs to.

[beardedmrbean]

I testified Thursday against the City Council Fair Chance for Housing Act, my second time in Council Chambers. The first was in May 2019 when I spoke personally and passionately about protecting New York City’s specialized high schools.

The bill, also known as Int. 632, is another City Council measure designed to protect lawbreakers at the expense of the law-abiding. It would prohibit criminal background checks on prospective tenants and buyers of residential housing.

After testifying, I left City Hall. It wasn’t until hours later that I heard the racist response to my testimony from Douglas Powell, who spoke on behalf of city-funded nonprofit Vocal-NY. He and his organization want individuals such as Powell, who has a criminal record and is a level 2 registered sex offender, to be able to access housing without criminal background checks.

His testimony laid out his criminal-justice experience and his lived experience of anti-black discrimination at Asian stores — culminating in a racist attack on the Asian community where he lives. In his three-minute tirade, he called Queens’ Rego Park the most racist neighborhood because it is majority Asian. “It’s not their neighborhood — they from China, Hong Kong,” he said. “We from New York.” 

Convicted sex offender spews anti-Asian slurs during NYC Council meeting — and pols do nothing to stop him

This anti-Asian, perpetual-foreigner, “You don’t belong here” rhetoric is dangerous hate speech that incites violence. Unprovoked attacks on Asian New Yorkers are on the rise.

Powell’s racist rant was delivered in the presence of three councilmembers without interruption or admonishment. Committee chair Nantasha Williams even thanked Powell for his testimony. It’s as if his anti-Asian hate speech in the chamber was unremarkable white noise. It took hours, after online pressure from constituents, for those present to issue generic disapproval statements, retweeting other electeds’ condemnation, and say “both sides” share blame for systemic racism.

Like many Asian Americans, I am a property owner and small landlord. When I graduated, my parents encouraged me to live at home, pay off my debt and save to buy a property. I lived at home for a few years and paid off my student loans as quickly as I could. Decades later, I bought my first investment property. I rented mostly to young men and women at the start of their careers. As a landlord, I treated my tenants the way I wanted to be treated: fairly and responsively. I’m fortunate real-estate brokers and condo management could conduct criminal and credit checks, not only for my benefit but for the safety of neighbors in the building.

Powell spewed hateful, anti-Asian rhetoric at the council meeting.Stephen Yang

Asian Americans have the highest rate of home ownership in the city, 42%. The stability of owning property as a means of building wealth is deeply rooted in Asian culture. New York’s pro-tenant policies, especially the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, have resulted in heartbreaking stories from small-property landlords. The laws, intended to help tenants, some of whom lost jobs during COVID, disproportionately hurt immigrant landlords. Not only have they not been paid rent for three years; some living in multi-family units are terrorized by tenants who know they can’t evict. Many Asian property owners are working class, and their modest rental income helps pay for the mortgage, property taxes and unit upkeep.

While bad tenants existed before this bill, it would make things worse. Private-property owners should not bear the burden of unknowingly renting to convicted arsonists and murderers and letting them live next door to New Yorkers who want a safe place after a long day braving our unpredictable city streets and subways. We worry about higher insurance, liability in endangering other tenants and frivolous lawsuits in tenant-friendly courts. That becomes a cost-benefit question for owners — whether it’s worth it to rent with little profit.

Like most landlords, I don’t live in the building I rent, but I do worry about the tenants I rent to. I think of the kindhearted young Asian professional who pleaded with me to let her have a Hurricane Sandy rescue dog. I worry about the wheelchair-bound young man grateful to find independence in living in an accessible building and appreciative of me letting him install an automatic door opener for his convenience. I want them to have the peace of mind that when they return to their small haven in the city, they will be safe, among neighbors who won’t pose a risk to them.

The fight to save specialized high schools that brought me to council the first time galvanized many Asian voters who had never been involved in city politics before. I am one of those newly politicized voters. This year, I co-founded Asian Wave Alliance to make sure that Asian-American New Yorkers’ needs are not ignored by the very councilmembers who sat quietly and listened to Powell’s racist attacks.

This time, I went to council to convince the Committee on Human and Civil Rights and the bill’s sponsors that the Fair Chance for Housing Act is not “fair” at all to small landlords and already-existing tenants. Getting rid of reasonable safeguards like criminal background checks is not “fair” to the city’s law-abiding citizens and will put people in danger. True fairness requires listening to all New Yorkers and prioritizing safety and transparency. 

[rauthschild]

The Kamal's Secret Connection To The Largest Election Tech Firm

The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power. Ted Nugent

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office. Andrew Jackson, 7 th president of the United States

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. Thomas Jefferson

Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons. Mark Twain

The following meme popped into my email this morning...

"Kamala Harris failed to disclose her relationship to Sir Nigel G. Knowles, her husband Douglas C. Emhoff's former boss at DLA Piper PLC of London, UK.

"Sir Nigel is co-director of SGO Smartmatic with Lord George Mark Malloch-Brown who controls Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin voting machines from Dominion, Smartmatic, ES&S, Sequoia, Premier, Diebold and Optech machines responsible for the alleged 2020 voting fraud."

Shocking? Yes! I decided to check it out.

And surprisingly, Bloomberg is reporting that Harris' lawyer husband, Doug Emhoff, faces election quandary as Vice President's spouse.

In 2014, Smartmatic's CEO, Antonio Mugica and British Lord Mark Malloch-Brown announced the launching of the SGO Corporation Limited , a holding company based in London whose primary asset is the election technology and voting machine manufacturer. Malloch-Brown became the chairman of the board of directors of SGO since it's foundation . Antonio Mugica remains as CEO of the new venture. They were joined on SGO's board by Sir Nigel Knowles , Global CEO of DLA Piper , and Douglas Emhoff's former boss before his wife was named as Democrat candidate for President of the United States. Emhoff has since left his job as partner at DLA Piper.

Nigel Knowles did not take his father's name; he took his mother's. His father was connected to Cecil Rhodes, Ruskin and others, all early communists.

SGO Smartmatic that controls all election systems, including Dominion, worldwide - the various company names (Smartmatic, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia, Premier, Diebold, ES&S) and all have common Optech software.

SGO is the largest elections tech firm .

The aim of SGO according to its CEO was to continue to make investments in its core business of election technology, as well as rolling out a series of new ventures which should make us extremely wary. Those ventures include biometrics , online identity verification , internet voting and citizen participation, e-governance and pollution control . Can you imagine the possibilities?

As an aside, Peter Comey, the brother of former FBI Director James Comey, is a Senior Director of Real Estate Operations for the law firm DLA Piper. Birds of a feather.

Here is a timeline on Sir Nigel Graham Knowles, as well as his family tree . Knowles appears to be the king of "K" Street, the home of lobbyists and Non-Governmental Organizations in DC. He is the lead Trustee of The Prince's Trust , a United Kingdom-based charity founded in 1976 by King Charles III to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school and at risk of exclusion.

DLA Piper is most likely the primary law firm for the British Crown.

The Prince's Trust

In 1990, Knowles founded the Prince's Trust International at the Knights of Malta. Then they incorporated in the United States as Prince's Trust America. Another British connection is the fact that Kamala Harris' father was a Jamaican citizen and Jamaica was also a British holding. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.

Major donors to the Prince's Trust are BAE Systems, BlackRock, CDW UK, Garfield Weston Foundation, HSBC UK, LDC, Marks & Spencer Group plc, and NatWest. Here is a list of Prince's Trust patrons , which includes Barclay's Bank, Dell, Apple, Google, HSBC, Accenture, Capgemini, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Marriott, BAE, Clear Channel, Ricoh, American Airlines, Allianz, Amazon, AT&T, Baillie Gifford, Bloomberg, Boeing, DLA Piper, Facebook, HP, Joules (John Podesta), NBC, Qualcomm, NTT Data, Oracle, Rolls Royce, RBC, TikTok and Worldpay.

Basically, it appears as though Harris may be taking orders from the mother ship, The Prince's Trust of Great Britain.

The Pilgrim's Society

The Pilgrim's Society is the mother lode, operating from the London office of the Privy Council. Those names include the English-Speaking Society, Royal Over-Seas League, Atlantic Council, Club of Rome, Bilderberg Group, Davos World Economic Forum, Trilateral Commission, Aspen Institute, United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations among them.

Knowles is also a member of the British Pilgrims Society and apparent handler for Biden and Harris. The Society was founded in July of 1901 allegedly to bring peace and harmony between America and Great Britain. However, there definitely seems to be ulterior motives behind the society when one examines former members such as Allen and John Foster Dulles, Alexander Haig, John D. and David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, General George Marshall, Averall Harriman, Henry Luce, King Charles III and more.

Sir Nigel-directed companies include DLA Piper (auditor: Deloitte), SERCO/SGO Smartmatic (auditor: KPMG), Prince's Trust America/QintetiQ (auditor: Price Waterhouse Coopers), Wellcome Trust/DLA Piper (auditor: Deloitte), Investec (auditor: Ernst & Young, director Lord Mark Malloch-Brown).

The Pilgrims of Great Britain and the Pilgrims of the United States have reciprocal membership. These two groups are the two oldest and most prestigious Anglo- American organizations on both sides of the Atlantic.

British Colonialism in India

Britain controlled India from 1757 through the East India Company which was initially created in 1600 to serve as a trading body for English merchants, specifically to participate in the East Indian spice trade, and it later added items such as cotton, silk, tea, and opium.

From 1858 onward, the British government directly ruled India and it became known as the British Raj. It had a negative impact on people living in India as many suffered from extreme poverty and famines during British rule. The government as well as British individuals gained a lot of wealth from trade with India which they used in part to fund the industrial revolution.

India gained independence from British rule on August 15, 1947, after decades of nonviolent resistance led by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. The Indian Independence Act of 1947 created two independent nations, India and Pakistan, ending 200 years of British rule.

DLA Piper has international trade and customs in India . Why is this history important? Because we have two natives of India in both parties campaigning for president, Kamala Harris and Usha Vance, wife of JD Vance. And that's not to mention two other South Asian Republican candidates who vowed for the top slot, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, the latter a first cousin of Usha Vance.

Usha Vance

JD Vance's wife, Usha is also a member of the Pilgrim's Society. Usha has worked for law firms associated with the Clinton Foundation and Bill and Hillary. She was at Cambridge University as a scholar of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill and Melinda are 2005 knighted members of the British Pilgrims Society who funded with Britain's Pirbright Institute (UK), who is testing new coronavirus vaccines on animals to help combat Covid-19. Usha was on the board of directors at Gates Cambridge, a Bill Gates enterprise. (The Pirbright Institute is a national center that works to contain, control, and eliminate viral diseases of animals through its fundamental and applied research programmes.)

JD and Usha both worked at Sidley Austin law firm, a firm that employed the Obamas and others of their standing.

Usha received both a BA and JD from Yale—classical CIA grooming venues notoriously controlled by secret societies like Skull and Bones. It was business associate and Bilderberg globalist elite Peter Thiel who introduced JD Vance to Donald Trump. The Pilgrim Society strikes again. Some 40 or 50 years ago, Phyllis Schlafly wrote that every vice president is chosen by the Bilderbergers.

The British Connection

Kamala Harris and Usha Vance both have South Asian heritage. The bigger interconnection however, is Great Britain, The Pilgrim Society and The Prince's Trust.

Add all the pieces together...

This gives us a clearer picture of the breadth and complexity of transatlantic thought from the 19 th and 20 th centuries to present day. Behind the scenes, the stealth of the British crown and her hierarchal organizations have wormed their way into America's governmental administrations with their utopian hopes of once again controlling the "colonies."

[attheexactlyrighttimeandplace]

Not sure if it can help you with your headcanon but there's this mention of a hobbit police force in the prologue to The Lord of The Rings, in the chapter 3 called " Of the Ordering of the Shire":

The Shirriffs was the name that the Hobbits gave to their police, or the nearest equivalent that they possessed. They had, of course, no uniforms (such things being quite unknown), only a feather in their caps; and they were in practice rather haywards than policemen, more concerned with the strayings of beasts than of people. There were in all the Shire only twelve of them, three in each Farthing, for Inside Work. A rather larger body, varying at need, was employed to 'beat the bounds', and to see that Outsiders of any kind, great or small, did not make themselves a nuisance.

At the time when this story begins the Bounders, as they were called, had been greatly increased. There were many reports and complaints of strange persons and creatures prowling about the borders, or over them: the first sign that all was not quite as it should be, and always had been except in tales and legends of long ago.

About the legal authorities/institutions, it says:

The Shire at this time had hardly any 'government'. Families for the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged for generations.

There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of Kings' Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.

It is true that the Took family had long been pre-eminent; for the office of Thain had passed to them (from the Oldbucks) some centuries before, and the chief Took had borne that title ever since. The Thain was the master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in-arms, but as muster and moot were only held in times of emergency, which no longer occurred, the Thainship had ceased to be more than a nominal dignity.

The only real official in the Shire at this date was the Mayor of Michel Delving (or of the Shire), who was elected every seven years at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Midsummer. As mayor almost his only duty was to preside at banquets, given on the Shire-holidays, which occurred at frequent intervals. But the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the busier of the two. 

Source of the quotes: Book I Prologue 3. Of the Ordering of the Shire

In my view, it's more likely think they just waited for Bilbo to reappear and after a while, the mayor sent the shiriffs and bounders to search for him inside the borders of the Shire but of course they found nothing.

I imagine that the Sackeville-Bagginses were the ones pushing for an auction of Bilbo's goods, in order to empty the house and take possession claim it for themselves, as his closest relatives. Or maybe they were going to make a new auction for the house? Anyway, the mayor was probably the auctioneer and i imagine he was on their side since he was going to keep the money of the auction for the town or himself (i mean he waited one year so he wasn't trying to steal form Bilbo but he didn't oppose their claim).

Bilbo was gone so long that he was declared legally dead and his stuff was being auctioned off when he returned.

Now I’m wondering…was there a missing person investigation?  Does the Shire have a police force?  Are there hobbit detectives?  Were the Sackeville-Bagginses suspected of murder and cleared because there was no sign of foul play?  I mean, the book even says there was a whole legal mess in declaring him alive again, so they have a justice system.

[the-cookie-of-doom]

so my dad’s boss/best friend is selling his house to move out of state, and my dad came in to ask about some stuff since I am a Real Estate Agent (yes, this was post cry. When I’m that level of emotional I need to be Distracted; talking through my issue only makes me fixate and blow things out of proportion and spiral; I need to talk about something else to calm down.) and he was asking what I can Actually Do currently and like 

nothing. literally nothing. I am not allowed to say a house even looks NICE, or God forbid I may end up sued for it. (i’m exaggerating but only a little.)

one of my RE profs stressed the fact that the most dangerous point in your career is right after your get your license, and before you sign with a broker. Because during that period of time all the liability falls to you, and it’s very easy to get yourself into trouble, even just by giving advice.. I’m happy to give advice here because lol none of you have my agent number, but irl? yeah no I can’t touch that with a 10 foot pole. I wish, though... ya girl wants a JOB

[mojave-pete]

Donald J. Trump 😎

12:02pm May 19, 2021

I have just learned, through leaks in the mainstream media, that after being under investigation from the time I came down the escalator 5 ½ years ago, including the fake Russia Russia Russia Hoax, the 2 year, $48M, No Collusion Mueller Witch Hunt, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and others, that the Democrat New York Attorney General has “informed” my organization that their “investigation” is no longer just a civil matter but also potentially a “criminal” investigation working with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. There is nothing more corrupt than an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime. But, make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening here. The Attorney General of New York literally campaigned on prosecuting Donald Trump even before she knew anything about me. She said that if elected, she would use her office to look into “every aspect” of my real estate dealings. She swore that she would “definitely sue” me. She boasted on video that she would be, and I quote, “a real pain in the ass.” She declared, “just wait until I’m in the Attorney General’s office,” and, ”I’ve got my eyes on Trump Tower.” She also promised that, if elected, she would “join with law enforcement and other Attorney Generals across this nation in removing this President from office,” and, “It’s important that everyone understand that the days of Donald Trump are coming to an end.” The Attorney General made each of these statements, not after having had an opportunity to actually look at the facts, but BEFORE she was even elected, BEFORE she had seen even a shred of evidence. This is something that happens in failed third world countries, not the United States. If you can run for a prosecutor’s office pledging to take out your enemies, and be elected to that job by partisan voters who wish to enact political retribution, then we are no longer a free constitutional democracy. Likewise, the District Attorney’s office has been going after me for years based on a lying, discredited low life, who was not listened to or given credibility by other prosecutorial offices, and sentenced to 3 years in prison for lying and other events unrelated to me. These investigations have also been going on for years with members and associates of the Trump Organization being viciously attacked, harassed, and threatened, in order to say anything bad about the 45th President of the United States. This would include having to make up false stories. Numerous documents, all prepared by large and prestigious law and accounting firms, have been examined, and many hours of testimony have been taken from many people, some of whom I have not seen in years. These Democrat offices are consumed with this political and partisan Witch Hunt at a time when crime is up big in New York City, shootings are up 97%, murders are up 45%, a rate not seen in 40 years, drugs and criminals are pouring into our Country in record numbers from our now unprotected Southern Border, and people are fleeing New York for other much safer locations to live. But the District Attorney and Attorney General are possessed, at an unprecedented level, with destroying the political fortunes of President Donald J. Trump and the almost 75 million people who voted for him, by far the highest number ever received by a sitting President. That is what these investigations are all about—a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of the United States. Working in conjunction with Washington, these Democrats want to silence and cancel millions of voters because they don’t want “Trump” to run again. As people are being killed on the sidewalks of New York at an unprecedented rate, as drugs and crime of all kinds are flowing through New York City at record levels, with absolutely nothing being done about it, all they care about is taking down Trump. Our movement, which started with the Great Election Win of 2016, is perhaps the biggest and most powerful in the history of our Country. But the Democrats want to cancel the Make America Great Again movement, not by

Making America First, but by Making America Last. No President has been treated the way I have. With all of the crime and corruption you read about with others, nothing happens, they only go after Donald Trump. After prosecutorial efforts the likes of which nobody has ever seen before, they failed to stop me in Washington, so they turned it over to New York to do their dirty work. This is what I have been going through for years. It’s a very sad and dangerous tale for our Country, but it is what it is, and we will overcome together. I have built a great company, employed thousands of people, and all I do is get unfairly attacked and abused by a corrupt political system. It would be so wonderful if the effort used against President Donald J. Trump, who lowered taxes and regulations, rebuilt our military, took care of our Veterans, created Space Force, fixed our border, produced our vaccine in record-setting time (years ahead of what was anticipated), and made our Country great and respected again, and so much more, would be focused on the ever more dangerous sidewalks and streets of New York. If these prosecutors focused on real issues, crime would be obliterated, and New York would be great and free again!

[shararsblog]

BENGALURU - INDIA'S CRIME CAPITAL.

(28/07/2021)

Greetings for the day. Here I am beginning with my first blog or post whatever you can say. To begin with let's straight away come to the point. Many blogs have been written till date, with each blogger expressing his heart and mind on various issues. So I am too putting my heart and soul into a subject, which is present throughout the world, and each country has its own law policy when it comes to dealing with i.e. crime.

Here are my experiences of living in a city based in Karnataka in India for four months. Bangalore or Bengaluru as you can call it, is considered as the IT hub of India, a city from where United States of America sources the highest number of software professionals for working in projects in its own backyard. But apart from being the Information technology hub of India, Bengaluru is also the hub for highest number of crimes, along with New Delhi.

Though I have stayed in Pune too a city in neighbouring Maharashtra state another IT hub, and visited Mumbai which is close by, but never ever had this fear psychosis of happening to see gang wars, because the law and order machinery in Pune, Pimpri - Chinchwad and Mumbai was by far very much in control by police authorities there. So why Bengaluru has become lawless? during my four months of stay there, every morning I happen to open the newspapers and the Bengaluru section showed up at least one or two murders, the result being gang wars. The killers regular criminals and their victims also history sheeter's. These gangsters or rowdies carried on with their killings on the streets of Bengaluru with so much audacity, that they never possessed any fear of law. The recent killing of Joseph Babli who himself a rowdy inside a bank in Koramangala, highlights the brazenness of killers, that Joseph was chased inside the bank, and hacked to death in broad daylight in front of scores of customers and bank employees, goes on to show complete failure of law and order machinery in Bengaluru.

Not just this, another murder of a former corporator Rekha Kadiresh that too in broad daylight in cotton pet area of Bengaluru, was an added feather in hat for an inefficient Bengaluru police. Slaying rivals in daytime in full public view, indulging in rowdism, road rage, harrasing innocent people, chain snatching gangs over bikes on prowl in every area, So where is the Bengaluru police in picture, that is the question?

And why rowdies in Bengaluru have no fear of police?

Bengaluru police and Karnataka politicians are to be blamed for this. The answer here lies in police - criminal - politician nexus. Also you may be surprised to know that Karnataka state ranks top in corruption index in whole of India. Power hungry politicians, greed for money and coupled with it the biggest major factor which has led to rise in goondaism is land deals. Bengaluru city is considered as one of hot cakes for real estate market, land grabbing is rampant and where higher acre's of land is involved for deals corrupt politicians, mafias and police are hand in glove.

Though land is very less available in Bengaluru urban areas and even if available, the prices are skyrocket and rowdies ultimately with blessings of politicians get involved. This rowdies - karnataka politicians nexus have blossomed to such an extent, that middle class families, who despite can afford to own plots at higher prices never dare to get involved. The problem begins from the bottom of organizational hierarchy in police department. The rot is so deeper that for example, say five out of every ten constabulary rank officials within Bengaluru police force, are hand in glove with the rowdies, this relates to daily hafta collection or in simple language extort money through these rowdies from hawkers, bar restaurant owners, share in commission arising out of disputed land deals and many illegal activities done by these rowdies. The buck does not stop here, the Bengaluru traffic police have a set target of collection fixed by every DCPs in their respective zones, so regular office goers either in two wheelers, four wheelers, rickshaws, commercial vehicles face the brunt of hafta collection. What an irony! Never ever in the history of Policing across the world, has there been so much rampant corruption, as has been the case with Bangalore police.

Kamal Pant Bengaluru police chief : completely clueless.

But then whose responsibility is it to discipline the Police?

Karnataka is a state, which has seen two parties struggle for power, back in 2018 Congress - JDS (Janata Dal secular) combine wrestled power from BJP (Bharatiya Janata party) headed by BS Yeddyurappa. Kumaraswamy son of former prime minister Deve Gowda became the chief minister, the BJP despite being the single largest party could not garner the numbers required to form the government. But two years later the tide turned completely in BJP's favour, the biggest drama unfolded in Karnataka, with accusations of horse trading leveled by Congress - JDS combine against BJP. The Kumaraswamy govt was reduced to a minority, and it failed to retain power. The BS Yeddyurappa led BJP stormed to power in Karnataka. Power tussles are nothing new in Indian politics, but the sad part is the lust for power has taken a huge toll on law and order machinery in Bengaluru. The Karnataka politicians already neck deep in corruption, have left the city to rot at the mercy of rowdies. Another major factor for rise in hooliganism is the patronage provided by political parties to rowdies, take any party be it the Congress, the BJP or JDS have rowdies seated at their party offices, the favour these goons do for these political class may vary, it may be anything even getting a cup of tea for the party youth leaders or district incharge, distribution of pamplets during elections many other things and obviously the favour is returned, with blessings of these political parties rowdies have a say, in every tender issued by the Karnataka government, almost 99% of contracts sourced out by the local corporation body of Bengaluru i.e. the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has been handed over to rowdies, whether related to garbage collection, disposal, road repair contracts etc. When elections are round the corner, the hooliganism is at its peak, these very leaders are accompanied by these rowdies, threatening people who raise their voices, gangwars involving rowdies from rival political parties, if an in-depth analysis is done of the extent of criminals invasion into political parties, shocking as it may sound close to 80% of these so called party workers are rowdy elements. As it is said, the strong basis for students to pass with good marks in school and later to excel in life and become ideal citizens of the country, the onus lies on the principal and teachers and the education imparted in schools getting students to value good culture, respect for one another, and focus on studies. If one or two students fail in all these aspects, the blame can be put on students themselves, but just imagine if the whole class fails, then obviously the principal, the teachers are responsible. So the same applies to the police force of a state as well, the police department is a big school in itself, and the chief minister of the state is the principal and teachers his respective cabinet colleagues, so they are the torch bearers for these law enforcement agencies, and giving them guidance drafting policies is the sole responsibility of chief minister his cabinet colleagues. But here the entire Bengaluru police machinery has failed miserably and politicians governing the state are solely responsible.

BJP has been at the helm of Karnataka for almost two years now, even in these two years chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and his home minister colleague Basavraj Bommai miserably failed to bring crime rate down in Bengaluru. What can you expect from a police force, when the chief minister himself is embroiled in an illegal land deal. The bench of Karnataka high court led by justice Ravi malimath and Micheal Cunha even refused to give him any relief on the matter. Also infighting within the state BJP, and some leaders unhappy with Yeddyurappa's style of functioning has led to the CM busy trying to save his own govt, fighting his detractors, leave development of state at God's mercy and Bengaluru of course at rowdies mercy. And finally infighting within the BJP took its toll, Mr. BS Yeddyurappa resigned from the CMs post. And as usual came the drama with his resignation, an emotional Yeddyurappa in tears thanking Prime minister Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda for giving him an opportunity to serve the people of the state. Mr. Yeddyurappa we can understand your emotions but you should have stopped at that, your immature and misleading comment that, "Bengaluru is turning into a world class city" is the biggest Joke of the millennium. The reality is you and your predecessor Mr. Kumaraswamy have turned Bengaluru into a world class gangsters city.

Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa : equally responsible for lawless Bengaluru.

Corruption in police department is not something new and is prevalent across India. Also let me make it clear, not all cops are corrupt, there are a few who put their heart out and perform their duties. Even in Bengaluru police department there are officers at constabulary rank, inspectors, senior inspectors, who have excellent track record in curbing crime and have acted tough against rowdies but there are also a few with questionable track record and it is this few dark sheep within the police that has led to rowdies wrecking havoc in the city. Also this time things really aren't good in Bengaluru at all. Though police chief Pant on his behalf is doing everything thing to bring crime rate down, Bengaluru CCB has siezed a large cache of drugs, several drug peddlers have been nabbed, several rowdies homes have been raided a large cache of weopans recovered, but still the rowdies menace has been increasing in Bengaluru rapidly.

Mr Kamal Pant now you also need to bring the hammer down harder on some of your own men, women within the force, who have links with these rowdies. Cleaning must also be done at home. There was a time when Mumbai city in Maharashtra state, also known as the financial capital of India was under the grip of the underworld gangs in 90s, things had totally spiralled out of control due to gangwars, prominent builders, film personalities, small time business men became victims for refusal to pay extortion and some for links with rival gangs.

It took the combined effort of the Mumbai police who formed hit squads later on called as encounter specialists to eliminate the gangsters. And the credit for completely wiping out the underworld from Mumbai, goes to then Mumbai police commissioner Mr. MN Singh. Bengaluru is facing the same problem today, that Mumbai faced in 90s. And Bengaluru police commissioner Kamal Pant will have to take a leaf from what MN Singh did in Mumbai.

Also political interference in police working has been the biggest problem in India. That police work under political pressure is not a hidden secret. And this has been one of the reasons for rowdy explosion in Bengaluru. Rowdies enjoy political patronage, from all three the Congress, JDS and BJP. In Mumbai the police turned a deaf year to political influence, and took on underworld in a spirited way under guidance of MN Singh. Certainly Bengaluru police go weak in their knees when it comes to politicians, and none but Mr Kamal Pant will have to put his foot down on such interferences, when it comes to dealing with rowdies, even if it means confrontation with a ruling party and also take action against political leaders who are linked to these rowdies. Kamal Pant and Bengaluru police have a long long way to go if they want to rid Bengaluru from gangsters. And I have no doubt at all that things have come to a level where Bengaluru cops have to form a separate hit squad to eliminate the rowdies like Mumbai police did.

Also Bengaluru being an IT hub and one of the cities with higher number of foreign tourists visiting for trips as well as official company work, such lawlessness does not augur well for the city, the image of Bengaluru has already taken a severe beating at international level and it will have severe consequences. Foreign direct investment will be hit, if things don't improve, that day won't be far when other countries start issuing advisory or warning to its citizens to deter from visiting Bengaluru, as it has already happened in New Delhi's case, and if it happens in Bengaluru's case prime minister Narendra Modi's 'ache din' or 'good days' of his promise to citizens of India will be dented beyond repair.

[no-name-mutt]

And (Working Title)

Mostly unedited here. Probably many mistakes.

Ji-Woo Suzuki was six generations removed from her ancestor Shimazu Nariakira, a galvanizing feudal lord of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. Shimazu Nariakira’s most famous quote was words that Ji-Woo worked to install firmly into her life.

"if we take the initiative, we can dominate; if we do not, we will be dominated."

  After years of war, scheming and destructive cajoling, Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. Korea was considered a part of Japan until the end of WWII and subsequently,  the fall of the Japanese Empire in 1945.

 During this time, Ji-Woo’s great grandmother, Jeong-Ja was forcibly betrothed. Jeong-Ja (ji-young ja) was eleven years old. Jeong-Ja was arranged to marry Sora Nariakira. Sora abhorred the thought of marrying a Korean woman. Sora, as with most other Japanese people during this time, saw Koreans as second class citizens to the Japanese. In their marriage, Sora took every opportunity to order Jeong-Ja like a slave. One late night, Sora forced himself upon her and Jeong-Ja became pregnant.

 A daughter was born, Hina Nariakira. While Korea was under Japanese control, it was initially illegal to change your name. As it were, Koreans that refused to change their names, were unable to enroll in school, receive mail or even receive meal rations. Eventually the colonial bureaucracy allowed the changing of names, and as much as 84% of Koreans changed their names. Speaking the Korean language was banned and Korean newspapers and printing houses were forced to close. Nearly 200,000 ancient and historical documents were burned. Korean youths were volunteered and conscripted into the Japanese army. Shinto shrines were built, and became places of forced worship. Japanese colonial policy became a clear policy of unlimited cultural erasure. 

Hina attended school and became a voracious reader and journal keeper. Hina, as a product of her environment, became fluent in both Japanese and Korean. From an early age, it was evident that Hina was highly intelligent. Her vocabulary in both Korean and Japanese quickly surpassed Jeong-Ja’s and Sora’s respectively. Though Sora was quick to forbid speaking Korean in the household, Jeong-Ja taught her in private.  

Sora frequently had Hina recite aloud his military orders. If there was ever a word that he didn’t understand, he would strike her. This was a sign to make the order as comprehensive as possible, though his reasoning was always, “Do not waste my time with pointless words!” 

Life for Jeong-Ja and Hina was of unceasing malaise. Their only solace was in each other. 

From reading Sora’s military orders, Hina became familiar with impending military movements, encampments and strategies. Hina learned of an upcoming landing of US Ships to discuss treaty possibilities. Hina devised a plan in which Jeong-Ja and her would flee their home to seek refuge with the US Navy. Somehow, discovering their plan, Sora attempted to stop the two from fleeing.

In a frenetic haste, Hina jumped on to Sora’s back, holding on to him with an arm around his neck. He drew his Manchukuo manufactured pistol, the Sugiura, and started firing wildly. Hina kept a dull pen-knife for protection and stabbed him three times in the chest, and twice in the neck. In a matter of seconds, Sora had fired every bullet in his pistol, one of which struck Jeong-ja in the head. She died instantly. Hina fled to the US Navy ship, covered in blood and alone.

The Korean peninsula has been in an imperial theater of war since the late 1800s. It remains a strong strategic naval position and is between three of the strongest and most hostile countries; Russia, China and Japan. 

Hina found herself as a refugee, aboard a US battle cruiser. From Hina’s journal, we know that while aboard the ship, she was raped multiple times by a Japanese-American Navy captain. Hina became pregnant. Clinton James Suzuki was a rising star among the ranks and arranged his marriage with Hina. He thought that having a baby out of wedlock would be detrimental to his military career. Hesitant, and silently unwilling, Hina agreed to the marriage. Through this, Hina became a US citizen.The wedding was expedited and facilitated onboard the cruiser. As her belly grew, so did her hatred for Clinton Suzuki.

Hina silently imagined his death in whatever setting they found themselves in. If he choked while eating, she wouldn’t save him. If he had fallen overboard, she wouldn’t call for help. If he slipped and fell down the stairs, she would elect to simply walk away. When the two arrived back in the US, there was to be a Navy welcoming parade in port. All of the seamen were to be standing with their wives (if they were married) on the dock as the Navy cruisers came back to port. Though Hina’s husband would have preferred to not be seen with his very young and very pregnant immigrant wife, he thought it would be a great opportunity to rub shoulders with those higher in command. 

As the ship was coming into port, the anchor was dropped, and four inch thick mooring lines were lashed from the anchor to the ship to the dock. Hina’s husband was the first one out on the dock behind the commanding officers, hoping that it would impress a lieutenant, admiral or anyone with any sort of authority. She happily let him stand as far away as possible from her. 

As the last mooring line was being lashed, a massive and potent rogue wave rocked the ship, and snapped the thick cable. The cable whipped downward and cut him cleanly in half from the right collar bone, down through the groin. His body fell apart like a sliced melon. Hina was silently imagining him drowning in the bay, but she never could have envisioned that. For a second she was stunned, and then started to laugh hysterically. She was finally free.

Hina easily found translator work. Although Hina adhered to strict ideals of frugality, she made enough as a single mother to comfortably support her newborn son Kaito Suzuki. Kaito Suzuki stood an average five foot nine inches. His hair was short, poofy, and straw like. His arms and legs were thin and underdeveloped, though his torso was somehow, rather round. Kaito had a round face, unremitting acne and eyebrows in need of a good trimming. He attended public school. He was unremarkably below average. He found little interest in extracurricular sports and clubs; instead, he spent most of his time skipping class, smoking pot and hanging out with his like-minded friends. After barely graduating high school, Kaito was given an ultimatum, either find work or attend college. In the end, Kaito decided to move out of his mother’s house and found work as a second shift janitor at night and weekend garbage collector. 

Kaito Suzuki and Ji-Woo I(the first) first met when she decided to stay late at the commercial real estate office where she worked. Kaito was just starting his shift, starting by collecting the garbage around the office.  Ji-Woo I was a quiet, mild mannered individual. She came from a good home and an affluent community. Ji-Woo I was going through a “rebellious” phase and began making a flurry of short-sighted decisions all revolving around Kaito. The two developed addictions to different drugs and made small time scams in order to fund these new habits. Ji-Woo I unexpectedly became pregnant. The night they found out, Kaito grabbed her car keys and said he was going out for cigarettes and never returned. Hina was the only person in the delivery room when the daughter was born. Ji-Woo I was emotionless. She stared emptily at the crying newborn girl. Ji-Woo I looked to Hina in silent disdain. Hina nodded in affirmation. When Ji-Woo I was released from the hospital, Hina drove her to the airport and handed her some money. Neither Hina nor the newborn baby girl ever saw her again.

Hina decided to name the baby Ji-Woo II, after her mother. (Whom despite the situation, actually quite liked.)

As a baby, she cried constantly. Even in sleep, she murmured and wept in unsilence. Ji-Woo would stop crying only momentarily if she were fed pureed sweet potatoes or ripe apricots. 

When Ji-Woo was six months old, she stopped breathing for nearly two minutes. Hina panicked, rushed to the emergency room. But by the time Hina arrived at the the hospital and Ji-Woo was breathing again and after that point, Ji-Woo never cried again. It’s as if she were an entirely different baby. Ji-Woo excelled in school and surpassed all of those around her. She had few friends throughout her youth. It wasn’t until her mid twenties when she learned how to simply “get along” with those around her. 

Ji-Woo took a master’s degree in Japanese History. Then continued on to get a doctorate  in Korean History. After a few bored years of teaching, Ji-Woo left to attend law school.

Everything about Ji-Woo was professional. Her skin was fine, with a healthy touch of melanin. She had high cheekbones and slightly sunken cheeks. A slightly upturned, pointed nose, symmetrical eyebrows. A single asymmetrically placed mole populated her face. She was beautiful. Equally strong and delicate, like the skeletal system of a great predatory bird. Her hair was long, to her lower back, though it was always pulled taut into a perfect braid. She wore simple, gold Tiffany earrings. She purchased them for herself. Ji-Woo’s wardrobe consisted mostly of well-fitting dress suits that obeyed her movements like a harshly conditioned army. There was never a loose thread out of place. Not even so much as a single piece of lint dared to adhere itself to her. She had an athletic, hidden, muscular build that I couldn’t help but to admire.

As a lawyer, Ji-Woo was ruthless. She constructed such pithy arguments, the opposition was often left speechless. And on a few occasions they were left literally stammering. Ever professional, Ji-Woo never showed any form of celebration or elation in victory. She spoke clearly, with seriousness and a dose of harnessed emphasis. Ji-Woo’s days were neither ‘good days’ nor ‘bad days’. She took on the day’s obstacles as if she had rehearsed them wholly the day before (though probably didn’t need it.).

The first time that I saw Ji-Woo Suzuki I was somehow dragged into a meeting of which I had no reason for being in attendance. I was struck by her. Though I prayed I could stay hidden, as a fly on the wall. Ji-Woo Suzuki led a team of class-action specific lawyers. Without ever speaking with her, one would simply assume she was the unquestionable leader. Only after an introduction, Ji-Woo Suzuki would offer to call her “Ji”, as a favor to you. It was not uncommon for people to reply to this offer by thanking her. Though, they were often left deciding whether to continue calling her Ji-Woo out of respect or interpreting her offer as an order. Most people continued to call her Ji-Woo or Ms. Suzuki.

I was staring at her. She was unpacking her case notes. People in the room started conversing. She uncapped a Montblanc rollerball and began to write. Just then, she stopped writing, wrinkled her brow in confusion and looked up directly at me as if to ask, “Who are you, and why are you here?” Her look was sharp, piercing but gentle. A needle and thread. 

She looked right through me. And that was the first time I knew, 

I was going to marry Ji-Woo Suzuki.

The meeting must have ended. I assumed so because the room had started to clear out. I hadn’t really been paying attention, not that I should have been. I wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place! 

I pretended to collect my things slowly trying to match Ji-Woo’s pace so we could incidentally leave the conference room at the same time. This was quite difficult because I had no belongings to pack up, nor a briefcase to put them in. So I took out my phone from my pocket and pretended to reply to an email. I looked up again and she was already pushing her chair in (when did that happen?!). She moved with intent. I hurriedly shoved my phone into my pocket and jumped up to meet her in the doorway. 

“Hi”, I said, giving my best impression of someone far more casual than myself.

Ji looked at me quizzically, replied dryly with “Hello” and continued past me. Just like a fighter-jet breaking the sound barrier, she was gone, leaving only a potent echo. I must’ve blacked out, because the next thing I knew, she was already halfway down the hall. A paper came loose from her briefcase and she didn’t seem to notice.

This

 was

 my

 chance. 

I fast-walked down the hall as coolly as possible, “hey wait!” I called out. But she was already rounding the corner down the hall. I picked up the piece of paper, in perfect cursive writing it read,

I see you, do you see me?

5:00pm

My temple wrinkled in confusion. I looked up again and she was gone. The heart in my chest reminded me of its presence with a mighty thump. I felt myself sweat. Was this meant for me to find? I returned to the copy room and returned to my work. 

But all I could think of was one Miss Ji-Woo Suzuki. One moment she was there, and then she was not. 

In the periphery, 

of where I wanted to be. 

I felt invigorated. Anxious and curious. 

Piqued.

I got back to the copy room and looked at my digital casio watch, 2:04pm.

My inbox of “to be copied” was now spilling out. I assumed position in front of the plastic, off-white monstrosity. 

First, I’ll take the source material in my left hand! Then! I read the copy instructions and made the proper adjustments and number of copies. After the copies were completed I placed a single paper clip on the ream and set it in the pick up box. Organized alphabetically. To most people, the job would seem boring, though I would argue that there are quite a lot of nuances to it. For example: Eighteen copies of pages one through three, six copies of pages four through ten, and that’s an easy one. 

A page goes in, the scanning light travels from right to left, and left to right, pages come out. I know the machine inside and out. I know because I have had to take it apart and reassemble it, not without hiccups, of course. I went home that day with a black ink stain on my chest. Like I was blasted by a shotgun, and bled black. The skin on my belly was still stained where the ink and bled through the shirt. 

Occasionally pieces of dust or folded paper would cast a shadow on the rest of the page. It caused a ghastly, black, pixelated shadow to print on the copies. Sometimes the shadowed copies were fine to pass along, sometimes, they were better discarded. 

At five pm, I stood outside of Ji-Woo’s office. I was nervous to enter. She sat behind a sleek mid-century desk with her legs folded. Her slate gray dress suit and Mac Pro reminded me of a brutalist era sculpture I saw once as a teenager. I didn’t understand the sculpture then, though maybe I do now. 

She had nice legs, I absolutely understood that. I caught glimpses of her toned calf muscles through the gap of her desk as I paced as casually as possible in front of the open doorway. 

After a few paces back and forth, I heard her call out to me, “You can come in, you know.” I froze. Then somehow came to find myself sitting in the chair across from hers. The desk remained between us. I didn’t know what to say, at that moment, I couldn’t be sure if I knew how to speak. 

“I noticed you today in the Carter vs. Amadeo-Hastings meeting.” She said. 

“No… I mean, yes, I was there. Just trying to learn what it’s all about.” Do you think she bought it?

“Are you interested in practicing law?”

“Uhm, yeah, interested? Definitely.” 

I actually had only worked at the office for about a month. I was still fairly unclear on what business the office conducted, let alone the ‘partners’. Before, I worked at the busiest copy center in Seattle. I got let go after I yelled at a customer, “Stop breaking my shit!” and in my defense, they were going to break the

Konica Minolta c754e! Those things aren’t cheap, and the replacement parts take three weeks to get to the states. 

 “Would you like to go to dinner with me?” She asked. 

    I felt a draft in the back of my agape mouth. Ji-Woo liked a breeze in the office. I found that out later that night when she told me at dinner. 

We continued to see each other after work every Tuesday and during the day on Saturday. This was when Ji-Woo allowed herself recreational time. I learned a lot about Ji-Woo’s schedule during this initial period of dating. I found her structure and stoicism quite sexy. She made all of the reservations at restaurants. And not just nice restaurants, she even made reservations for tacky hole-in-the-wall places that she knew I would like. A few times she would order for me. Like a mind reader, she would always order exactly what I wanted yet never in a demeaning way. She seemed to know exactly when I wanted to speak for myself and when I was comfortable with her ordering for me. 

After about a month, midday on a Friday, she sent me an email. The subject line simply read, 

“Tomorrow Night 4/16/2019”

Hi Kentaro, 

Please meet me at my house tomorrow night at 6:00pm. We’ll go to dinner. I’ve made reservations at 7:30. Casual attire.

Ji

This was more or less the usual date query. Though, interestingly, she signed it at just Ji. Futhermore, she would usually ask to meet at six with reservations about the time it took to get to the restaurant. Surely we weren’t going somewhere that was an hour and a half away. 

That night, I was talking to an old friend of mine, Leo, on the phone. I was telling him about Ji-Woo and I. About how I eagerly awaited those Tuesdays and Saturdays. And about the one time I asked her out on a whim on a Friday night. She declined. I was upset for a while. But respected her need for personal space, and strict schedule. “It’s just how she is”. 

 I told Leo that we hadn’t had sex. “That’s good dude, she’s probably a Sazae Oni” he replied sarcastically. I didn’t understand his reference, but as his tone implied, it was a snide comment I’d best ignore... but didn’t. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked sharply. 

“Sa-zae Oh-ni!” He said louder and slower in syllables, as if it were common knowledge. He continued, “They’re these folk tale snail mermaids that preyed on Japanese pirates. They would pretend to be in distress, but when the pirates brought them onboard, the sazae oni would chop off their balls and hold them ransom for gold. They’re like, obsessed with gold or something.” A weird silence filled the phone line as I looked around the room, waiting for him to finish. 

He started again, “ok, it doesn’t matter. You’re the Japanese one, should you know what a sazae oni is?”

I held my lips taught, annoyedly. 

“Well, is she someone you’d bring home to meet your mother?” He asked me. I thought about this for a while. I imagined a cartoon caricature version of my mother asking me, “Why would you want to be with someone that is so serious all the time?”

Up until this point I had never even seen the inside of her apartment. Whenever I was to meet her there, she would already be outside the gate waiting for me. 

That Saturday night I took a cab to her apartment building as I usually did. It started to rain on the way over and fog grew in density the closer I got to the apartment. I didn’t check the forecast beforehand, and I didn’t have an umbrella. I arrived at the gate and Ji-Woo wasn’t around. I checked my phone for any missed messages from her, but there were none. 

    I buzzed her intercom. “Hi, I’m here. Are you there?”

    “Still getting ready, come up.” 

She buzzed me in. This was it, I was finally going to see where(and how!) she lived. 6th Floor, apartment 6F. Embarrassingly, I panted a bit when I got to her floor. I stood on her doormat, it said ‘Welcome’. I was slightly damp, everywhere. I wore an old grey knit sweater. I had washed it so many times the collar was getting tiny holes. Faded blue jeans and shabby sneakers. I checked my casio, 6:00pm exactly. “Yes! Perfect timing” I exclaimed silently as I clenched my fist in victory, then knocked on the door insouciantly. “Come in!”, I could hear Ji-Woo shout from behind the door. I opened the door, slowly. I floated in like an astronaut, opening the hatch to an alien planet. I opened it to a small foyer. There was a modern-looking coat rack which I hung my soggy jacket on. To the right was an inviting, lamp-lit living room. There was one of those long arched floor lamps spilling its light on an Eames Lounge chair. I imagined Ji-woo perched on it, with a warm beverage, reading a dense book. Floor to ceiling bookshelves and floor to ceiling windows lined the rest of the room, I realized it was a top floor corner apartment. Black and white photographs and pen drawings hung on the wall. There were blankets draped on the modern couches. It felt uncharacteristically cozy. The furniture all flowed perfectly, like it was a team of designers’ life’s work. 

    On the left there was another closet. Then further down, it opened up to the dining room. “In here” She shouted, from that direction. 

    I kicked off my tattered sneakers and the uppers deflated like popped balloons. I took one step toward the kitchen and I was struck with the most extraordinary smell. It was rich, minerally and spicy. I let my nose lead the way. 

She stood at the stove. She was wearing a loose knit navy sweater that was well loved and jeans. Her sleeves were pushed up. She was wearing a nice apron. Her hair was pulled back, not in a braid, but in a perfectly round bun. 

    The dining table was set for two. Plates, silverware, a wine glass for her and a beer glass for me. There were two candles and a decorative bowl. The bowl was filled with some unknown liquid that looked like molten gold. I wanted to stick my finger in it but didn’t. 

    She turned and saw me, and I saw her. “I didn’t mean that casual.” she said jokingly. Lately she has been making more and more jokes, but only during our dates. It was comfortable, and usually pretty funny. 

“It smells so good, what is it?” I said. I walked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter by the stove. She leaned over and planted a kiss on my lips. I was so surprised that it was over before I could react. There was a battle in my head between the heavenly smelling food and the thought of the kiss. 

“It’s almost ready. Get us drinks from the fridge.” She instructed me. The fridge was filled with different sized glass containers. They all stacked neatly, each with a label of what it was and a date. There was a bottle of white wine and a fancy looking beer with today’s date. I took them from the fridge and opened them. She looked as though she were a professional chef. She moved with tempered urgency and precision. “Budae-Jjigae. Budae is ‘army’ or ‘army base’, jjigae is ‘stew’. It’s a recipe my grandmother taught me... a long time ago.” She stopped what she was doing and looked off into space. 

A few seconds later, she regained consciousness from her memory and started to plate the food. It was finished. 

It was delicious. It was perfect. It was obvious that Ji-Woo had made this dish many times and was able to recreate it perfectly. “How many other romantic interests had she made this for?” I wondered, but quickly spurned the thought. I wasn’t shy, and got a hearty second helping. 

I wiped my mouth and leaned back in my chair, and polished off the last of my beer. I wanted badly to unbutton my pants and relieve the pressure on my waistband. Instead, we got up and cleaned the kitchen together. 

Later on, we found each other on the sofa near the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I was elated. Warm, with a full belly. Calm, sleepy, but present, I closed my eyes and relished. 

“Do not fall asleep.”

Ji-Woo instructed me. “I will be right back.” She said. 

Insubordinately, I was falling asleep when from down the hall, I heard her call me, “Come here, I need to show you something.” I sleepily approached the room at the end of the hall. A bedroom. As I got closer to the doorway, I could see a mirror’s reflection in the bedroom. It truly was a bed-room. A queen size mattress and two small side tables with lamps were the only furniture. Warm, golden light spilled out of the bedside lamps that reflected off the polished hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. A single, brand new candle was lit on the nightstand. But there was no lighter or matches anywhere. How was it lit?

    Ji-Woo lay on the bed, one leg crossed over the other. Her right arm supported her posture. Her hair was down. It was now I could fully realize the length and volume of her hair. It flowed down her back and fanned out perfectly behind her like a ginkgo leaf. The low lighting in the room accented her dark makeup. Her eyeshadow shimmered subtly.

She was wearing a lacy bodysuit of lingerie so scant, it could hardly be described as clothing. A lacy and delicate fabric choker connected to thin straps perfectly obfuscated her nipples. Ethereal panties suspend a pair of elegant garters. The fabric adhered to her slender, toned body as if it were made custom. 

She eyed me fervently,

And I was very awake then.

After it was over I felt euphoric and peaceful,

Unburdened. 

I turned over, towards her in bed.

I put my head on her chest.

 And I heard nothing.

[96thdayofrage]

The circumstances surrounding Breonna Taylor’s killing by police in Louisville, Kentucky, are by now well known. When plainclothes officers executed a no-knock warrant at the medical technician’s apartment in March, her boyfriend fired at the police, thinking they were intruders, and three officers returned fire, killing Taylor.  

These facts were enough to help spark the ongoing wave of protests for racial justice, but earlier this month, lawyers for the Taylor family made troubling new claims about the context of the police raid. 

The lawyers allege that the raid that killed Taylor was part of a broader effort to evict residents who were impeding the city’s Vision Russell redevelopment initiative. When they broke down Taylor’s door, the Louisville police were seeking to apprehend an associate of Jamarcus Glover, a former boyfriend of Taylor’s who lived on Elliott Avenue at the center of the city’s neighborhood “renewal” project. Glover, who faces drug charges, was not in Taylor’s apartment at the time of the raid, and it is unclear whether he was there with any frequency at all. 

The Taylor family’s lawyers accuse the city of targeting Glover—who was arrested in April—so it could repossess the home he rented. Indeed, in June, the city and a land bank purchased the house for $1.

Employees with the city’s department of economic development vehemently denied a “grand secret” between police action and the redevelopment initiative, but acknowledged wanting to return the block “to productive use” by tearing down some properties. They added that the plan for the city-purchased properties on Elliott Avenue will most likely be to create permanent affordable housing by turning the houses over to a community land trust. 

Whatever the truth in this case, academic research and historical scholarship show that policing can be particularly intense during the process of gentrification. This research suggests that the continued use of police to pursue economic development will most likely result in more needless stops, arrests, and deaths like Breonna Taylor’s. Recent protests have demanded that police no longer be used as the first response to social problems like mental health crises and drug addiction. That demand might also extend to excluding police from urban “renewal.” 

We need non-police responses to housing policy that create affordable housing and keep long-term residents in their homes. Cities should move funding away from police and toward housing, community development, and poverty alleviation—the kinds of efforts that can prevent crime. 

In a statistical analysis of New York City from 2009 to 2015, I analyzed policing trends in neighborhoods whose low-income residents and lack of recent housing construction made them natural targets for gentrification. I found that, of this group, neighborhoods that experienced increased real estate reinvestment were more likely to see intensified misdemeanor policing than those that did not. As property values increased in those neighborhoods, so did order-maintenance arrests for offenses like loitering and disorderly conduct, as well as proactive arrests for offenses like drug possession and driving while intoxicated. This indicates that development-directed policing can happen in neighborhoods experiencing more mundane types of redevelopment, and not just in high-profile renewal zones. 

The connection between real estate development and policing would not have come as a surprise to long-term residents of New York City’s Lower East Side or Times Square neighborhoods in the 1970s and 1980s. Those communities witnessed high-profile urban renewal projects, which brought intense law enforcement with them.  

In 1984, the NYPD made more than 1,300 arrests—mostly for drug possession—in just 18 days on the Lower East Side. They called the military-style enforcement action Operation Pressure Point. The neighborhood’s gentrification was encouraged by the police and city media; a New York Times article in 1985 described Operation Pressure Point as a harbinger of “rising” fortunes during which “art galleries [were] replacing shooting galleries.”  

Uptown, Times Square was also undergoing intense policing. As the city was rezoning the area and offering tax incentives to large chains to locate there, they were also making aggressive arrests for prostitution, vagrancy, loitering, and other petty crimes that characterized the area. With an Olive Garden and a Disney Store now having replaced pornogaphy theaters and gay bars, it seems the redvelopment agenda was effective.  

Of course, gentrification is not just this kind of movement of capital back into disinvested areas—it is also the movement of middle class people, often white, into those places. In my study, I found that rising numbers of middle class residents in a neighborhood were correlated with increased reports of non-emergency disorder crimes to the police, as might be expected in light of the recent and highly publicized spate of people calling the police on Black, Latinx, and Native people for spurious reasons. Yet, surprisingly, in my data those increased calls, and the presence of middle class and white people in general, was not consistently or statistically significantly related to increased arrests in gentrifying neighborhoods.  

In another analysis of New York City, however, Ayobami Laniyonu used a simultaneous measure of gentrification’s investment and demographic changes and found that, overall, an in-movement of middle class people and an increase in rents led to more stops citywide. 

In two studies, Elaine Sharp found that cities with larger shares of professionals living in them made more order-maintenance arrests; Adam Goldstein and I found that cities relying on housing market growth in the lead-up to the Great Recession in 2008 spent more on police.

As these national studies show, intensified policing during gentrification is not just a phenomenon in big coastal cities. In Wichita, Kansas, elected officials have been trying for about 50 years to remake the downtown-adjacent “skid row” neighborhood into a business-friendly, middle class area rebranded as “Old Town.” Chase Billingham found that police, local business owners, and Witchita’s parks and recreation department aligned to try to  “clean up” a park in the area by moving out the homeless men, social services providers, and sex workers who have historically characterized the area. Though efforts to upscale the area have proved elusive, intense policing remains.  

This collaboration across city agencies and business owners to displace poor people has also been noted by Chris Herring in San Francisco. He found that much of the policing effort to clear areas of homeless people was spurred by residents’ and business owners’ complaints. Trying to satisfy these politically powerful groups, officers sometimes told people sleeping out in the city’s rapidly gentrifying Mission District to move to more industrial areas.

City leaders often trumpet their use of police to “clean up” neighborhoods and accelerate economic growth. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch bragged about the effectiveness of the NYPD’s sweeping arrests at “reclaiming” Union Square Park. He said of the area, “First the thugs took over, then the muggers took over, then the drug people took over, and now we are driving them out.” 

Baltimore’s police commissioner also emphasized the centrality of police in urban redevelopment when he said in 1998 that police “have a huge impact on property values, [and] the commercial viability of the community.” Denver’s current mayor said in 2007 that crime statistics can affect home values. Minneapolis’s police chief said his officers should take pride in the city’s rising home prices. And the Topeka, Kansas, police department touted its ability to raise property values and grow the city’s tax base when they solicited public donations to a 2013 stolen property tracking initiative. 

Police departments in many cities have adopted property value growth as a formal performance metric, Mark Moore and Anthony Braga found. Police are orienting their success to that of the real estate market as city leaders encourage them to add “protecting economic growth” to their growing portfolio of responsibilities.

This new role for police comes at the cost of displacement and increases contact between police and vulnerable communities. Long-term residents in gentrifying neighborhoods have noted the ramp-up in policing that often accompanies reinvestment and gentrifiers. In his 2006 book, Lance Freeman quotes a Harlem resident who says, “If you sit on the benches the police will come along and point to the no loitering sign and say you can’t stay here. [This is] because of new people moving in and putting pressure on the police to make things orderly.”

Researchers studying Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C. have all cited long-term residents who say police make more stops and arrests during gentrification, with homeless people and sex workers experiencing  especially harsh police contact. Manissa Maharawal found that the 2014-15 wave of Black Lives Matter protests in San Francisco were motivated in part by opposition to this policing of gentrification.

 Gentrification is hardly the only force restructuring American cities. Neighborhoods are more likely to experience durable poverty, white flight, or persistent segregation than reinvestment and new middle-class neighbors. Each of these metropolitan contexts will influence policing in a different way. What the academic research summarized here reveals is that gentrification seems to coincide with a particular intensification in policing. 

Sadly, Breonna Taylor is only the latest example of a Black or Latinx person killed by police against the backdrop of gentrification. Eric Garner was killed by an NYPD officer near recently renovated apartment buildings on Victory Boulevard in Staten Island. Saheed Vassell was killed by the NYPD just seconds after they confronted him in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn. Alex Nieto, a lifelong resident of San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, was shot there by four officers after two white people called 911. These deaths are reminders that the struggles for affordable housing and against hyper-policing are intertwined.

[what-a-messsss]

2x1 rewatch

My poor Netflix is so confused.  I’ll hop on my phone to see if I can find a detail in an ep and then it’ll try to start the show again at halfway through 4x7 or the end of the finale, and I have to figure out what ep I’m actually looking for.

All aboard for “Unquiet Mind.”

Ok, realizing that Jacob and Vic are both ‘play with the radio’ types and Henry and Walt are both ‘or silence’ types is probably a bit funnier to me that it should be.  Didn’t really expect to be finding character parallels between those two.  

BAAAABY!  I totally forgot about the baby buffalo!  Eeeeee!  

Interesting that the prisoner (whose name I have totally braindumped, whoops) knows that Walt would know about the meaning of the white buffalo to the Cheyenne.

$10 says that doctor agent is a redhead because of Starling.  For being 2% of the population, redheads sure do make up a disproportionate part of fictional character real estate.  (I say with lots of love for Cady...)

Also, I feel offended on behalf of both the Red Pony and the Busy Bee by the sign Cowboy’s Corner claiming they have the best food in 3 counties.  Piffle.

“Progress.  Prosperity.  People.  I’m Branch Connally, and I can alliterate.  Vote for the PP People.”  Shut uuuuuup.  Jacob, I’m blaming you for this.  If it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t have had the money to be annoying us even when he’s hours away.  Boooo.  (I mean, obviously also blame Barlow, but that’s more of a ‘with a shovel to the face’ kind of blaming, rather than an eyeroll and calling ‘boooo’ at the screen because your fav was a pain.)

Ah ha, title drop.  I haven’t really paid that much attention to the episode titles, I’ll be honest.  This is the only title drop I can actually remember other than Jacob’s line about “Dogs, horses, and Indians,” although it still bothers me immensely that the episode title doesn’t have the Oxford comma, omGs.  

Durrel’s discoloured eye is really good.  I’m guessing a scleral contact lens?  Just different enough to be noticeable and a little off-putting without drawing too much focus.  It keeps the mental discomfort we get from it just around the unconscious level.

That’s right!  Ruby is out of town!  Min and I decided that she was at a conference in Idaho Falls, since we had already said that her family lives in Texas, and I like the idea of her also doing vocational enrichment training and keeping on the cutting edge of her wheelhouse of policing.  She’s a heckin’ boss, and I adore her.

This is the most random thing in the world, but that’s sort of my wheelhouse... Does Katee Sackoff have a scar on the tip of her nose?  Because I swear at 9:09-11 it looks like it.  Not that it matters, but I’ve never noticed it any other time, and now I’m really curious.

Ope, longer hair Henry in this flashback.  With emotions and it’s killing me.  I also didn’t think about the fact that the Halfmoon’s were talking to the white police instead of (in addition to?) the tribal police.  Though that would have been during Malachi’s reign, since it was 4 years ago.  Oof.

Is that a gas fire?  Because if that’s one of the lines on fire, isn’t the whole place in serious danger of going up in a massive explosion?  There was an explosion like that locally last year and it took out the whole station and killed two people.  Please tell me they called in the fire as soon as they saw it when they were pulling up.  (Of course they didn’t, who are we kidding.  It’s these two.)

So they’ve been driving along with their lights on, pull up maybe 8 feet from the abandoned prison van...  explain to me why he turns his headlights off at that point?  Anybody waiting to ambush them is going to have their eyes more adjusted to the dark, and these two loose the light and there is already no element of surprise because they pulled right up to the van.  Why did you turn the lights off, Walt?  I mean, maaaaaaybe the headlights being on would have reflected off of the van windows and make it harder to see inside?  But that is not particularly good reasoning, I feel.  (Meta guess being that the director/whomever figured that the lights off left them in a colder colour palate and heightened the drama.  Which... they’re not wrong.  But whyyyyyyy would Walt turn them off, not the director?)

“Come on out and I won’t shoot you!” prisoner McGoober yells, having just tried to take Vic out with a shot to center mass.  Ok, sure buddy, we believe you.  The laser sight catching the falling snowflakes does look cool.

Good use of an elbow, Walt.  I’m not actually sure if it was supposed to be a punch but wasn’t lined up great with the camera, but I’m ruling it an on purpose elbow, because Walt is absolutely a dirty fighter, and an elbow is more likely to lay somebody out if you’re close enough.

Oo, what amazing precautions you’re taking.  You actually grabbed a scarf.  And my gods, gloves.  ...work gloves?  Which I know from experience save next to no heat, what the hell, Walt.  I just... why hasn’t he closed his fucking coat??  ::screaming::  Staving off hypothermia isn’t emasculating, you KNOB.  Well at least the snowbunny actually brought a flashlight.  How forward thinking of him.  And has zipped up his coat.  Lawd.

Ew, I just agreed with Branch.  :(  How dare the writers make that happen.

And in strolls Agent Pretty von Douche to make everything just that much more annoying.  Special Agent in Charge Towson, FBI.  Burrpaderrpaderp. Myeh.  

Such special, very agent, much in charge, wow.  >insert doge meme here, lol<

“Whose in charge in his absence?”  Hmmmmmmm.  They ended the shot on Vic, and the look on her face is just... prophetic for how I figure she handles being in charge when Walt abruptly decides to fuck off into the wilderness for the Treasure Hunt portion of his Manly Midlife Crisis, before they can have an election.  Lol.  Womp womp.

Dang, spit strings dangling from your stubble is... uh, a look.  >.>  Did you know that your nose is one of the first parts of you that tends to get frostbite?  And that we know you have a scarf?  (Yelling at Walt is my new hobby.  It’s not a good hobby, but it is mine.)

HI HENRY.  Great, you’re at the hallucinating part of the fieldtrip.  Not that I’m complaining, because even your imaginary Henry is more sensible that you will generally let yourself be.  (Also, he’s pretty, and I am very shallow.)

Yeeee, one of the only poems that I actually have memorized.  Lovely Robert Frost.  Though Robert Burns would also be quite apt.  And miles to go before I sleep and all.  

“The cavalry has arrived.”  Henry is so fucking droll.  I can just imagine the little kernel of muted glee he has at the irony of using that phrase.  I adore him.  “We ate,” says von Douche.  Honey.  Booboo.  

Fuck off, von Douche.  He’s so In Charge.   Burrpaderrpaderp, pthb.  “Any request for activities will go through me.”  That’s so cute.  And Henry’s look would kill you at a thousand paces.  

It does annoy me that Vic keeps calling him Walt when talking about him with the fibbies.  Like, we get it, you’re real close with your boss, but you might get more traction with them by reinforcing the fact that he’s a fellow law enforcement officer and the head of your department by calling him the Sheriff rather than broadcasting how unprofessional you both are.  

Bless Ferg for actually speaking up, though.  Branch just falls in line without a peep (though if I remember, he’s plotting his own little insurrection.)  And Henry is just quietly in the background, gathering data and being invisible as he decides to be.

“I don’t like your tone.”  Well I don’t like you FACE.  That’s actually a lie, it’s a very nice face.  But you’re just such a douchecanoe.

For all that Branch is a rusty wingnut, he does occasionally have decent observational skills.  And he is less emotionally riled, so he sees that Henry is planning something while Vic is too busy fuming.  I’m wondering how that lands with Ferg/why he doesn’t notice, and I think he’s still just isn’t very good at thinking out of the box yet.  Or seeing stuff that’s out of the box.  He definitely gets better about it as time goes on, but it’s an interesting thing to think about as far as his character development.  He’s focused on what he can think of to help, and isn’t expanding that to see thinking about what others might be able to do to help, which Branch does, but Vic doesn’t.  

The gunshots in the cabin and the lever action rifle and all are taking me straight to the beginning of Red Dead2.  Sadie, is that you?  Nope, it’s Omar, aaaaahahaha, I forgot he was in this.

I love that Henry keeps his saddle at home/the bar.  I don’t know why I’m surprised, though.  Maybe figured that he’d keep it where the horses are stabled, I guess.  But I can imagine him keeping it close in case, and cleaning the tack and oiling the saddle as a way to unwind after a hard day or something.

Heeeeehehehe, the look on Henry’s face when he leans in to Branch and goes, “...supporting the FBI.”  Such a beautiful way of expressing how very little he thinks of Branch without ever having to say it.  “Right now, I am the sheriff.”  You are so deeply obnoxious.  And do not play nice with others.

And here’s Walt with his circumstantial evidence, laying out his assumptions, and being right, which is all good and such now, but he is so in the habit of doing this shit and being right that he cannot accept when he isn’t right about things.

Well at least Omar has his place stocked for the weather.  I know I fall farther on the ‘over prepare’ end of the spectrum, but Walt not having better gloves in his truck in the dead of winter makes me roll my eyes so dang hard.

This hallucination of Fales is a fascinating bit of character study both for Walt and for Fales.  Walt’s subconscious effectively calling him out for his suicidal tendencies with not there Fales asking him, “Are you looking to get yourself killed?” is more honesty than it seems like Walt tends to allow himself.

ASAC Hall is actually better at dealing with people like a human, but von Douche isn’t actually wrong.  Vic is understandably pissed by the withheld information, but she does stomp around like a bull in a china shop and pretty much never stops to think.  Maybe they all would have gotten farther if von Douche or Hall had asked the night before if the locals had other options, but unlikely.  

I FORGOT SHE PUNCHED HIM.  The look on Hall’s face was priceless.

Eeeeeee, I do love that Walt left a trail, knowing that Henry would be coming after him.  Branch’s comments to Henry show that while he can observe people and sometime predict how they’re going to act, he can’t really understand why they’re doing it, if it’s beyond his own lens of experiences (which are pretty fucked up).  Whether it’s cynicism or just stunted empathy, conceiving of someone’s motivations being selflessly altruistic are just beyond his ken.  That’s pretty sad, honestly, and makes me hate Barlow even more.  Everything in Branch’s life has been transactional, calculated.

Oh, and now he pulls something up over his mouth.  Ok.  Great, into the water.

I fucking love Ferg.  His gleeful awe over Vic hitting Towson literally made me press my hands to my face, giggling.  And he’s such a good friend.  And she’s such a pill.  I get that she’s feeling guilty and hurting, but it takes no effort not to take it out on Ferg.  How easy would it have been to say, “Somebody has to keep working on finding them.  Go back inside, Ferg,” instead of “You have to get out of here,” and just running him off like a jerk.

Cady having cut off contact with Walt gives me life.  AND THEN his shitty self-protecting LYING brain comforts him by having her say, “You were only trying to protect me, Dad, I get that,” because that’s what he keeps telling himself to excuse taking her agency away and lying to her for at least a year, and continuing to manipulate her!  GAAAAAH!  “I can’t lose you...”  THEN CHECK YOUR DAMN SELF, DISASTER BOI.

I’m not sure if hallucination!Theo telling him that there was nothing he could do is a sign of a healthy recognition of that, or the same kind of lying to himself because it’s what he wants to hear that he’s done with Cady?  The “...but I knew someone was coming to help me,” rather smacks of the latter, since earlier in the ep Walt says that that’s what he would want to know if he were held hostage.

I have decided (with my shippy goggles firmly in place, if not molecularly fused to my face) that him doubting that Henry is coming to help him is what makes him realize that he’s getting hypothermia.  Because the idea that Henry wouldn’t be coming to get him is so utterly ridiculous that clearly his brain is on the fritz.

The fact that the phone works after his dunking is also a minor miracle.  I know I said earlier that Walt is a dirty fighter, but oof, he’s the one who just took a dick shot.  I mean, that’s one way to use a cell phone.

Again, not super sure what it says about Walt for him to imagine Theo watch him in the process of killing Durrel.  Poor Henry.  That whole mess would have been incredibly stressful.  Your jackass boyfriend is way high maintenance in rather spectacular ways.

[adevotedappraisal]

The Carter Trilogy, part one of five

Introduction: Let's make love in the summertime, and breathe in each other's arms

There's an interesting cultural and historical framing device us Americans have been using in order to make sense of, and to comb out the nappy-headed developments of the past couple of years.  In our interactions with each other, we've resorted to reducing our shared events, and this ol’ President, and this ol’ year in particular, to a television show.   The U.S. President assassinated a top Iranian General at the beginning of the year, and the news was communicated in countless late night jokes and online memes as the raucous events of the season premiere of 'America - The Series.' 

In conversations throughout the year we would reduce the countless and needless complexities of this year into bite-sized episodes, and the countless and needless complexities of the Presidency into a mean ol’ villain or defiant hero in that show.  We do this so we could for a moment, warren order from the disorder of a pandemic, and we do it in order to masticate Trump, in an attempt to find something of cultural value in the marrow there. 

Set against the backdrop of the fall of the American Empire, Presidential Press Secretaries are referred to as mid-season replacements, scandals like Russiagate get packaged by cable news hosts as a storyline culminating in the ratings bonanza Mueller report episode, murder hornets appear as a J.J. Abrams-esque black box mystery, and over video chat we joke to our friends that the interview the President gave on the virus was ‘brought to you by Regeneron’. We do it so we can turn ol’ Trump up when you and the missus need a laugh, or so we can box it all in, get the highlights, and turn it all off sometimes.

Even now, as the results of this Presidential election conclude, we refer to it as the ‘Season Finale’ (a multi-day, multi-episode story arch, if you will).  We pontificate on the next move the President might take with the same confident hand-waving we gave to theories about Rachel and Ross, or about who shot that mean ol’ oil man J R Ewing. Except of course, these are real people up on our television screen that we treat as characters, passing, or not passing real laws, no matter how brazen and cartoonish their villainy might seem.

They are public servants, selected to be dutiful arbiters of democracy.  They are unpackaged and unscripted members of society, in stark contrast to the other faces you would see on television and billboards, those manipulated faces and lives, augmented and born from tinseltown, giant recording companies and whatever technological medium of the day.  Those other faces on television were the “illusion" Howard Beale talked about in the 1976 film Network, a traveling troupe of jugglers, fire-eaters, movie stars, athletes, singers and rappers, all completely separate from reality, striking a pose with a song to sing as soon as you press a button on a remote. Nowadays though, everyone you see is a little of column A, and a little out of column B.

For a solid century, generations of celebrities were fully in column A.  Notoriously private, insular, and sexually closeted, they would spend their days galavanting across the estates of their private Xanadus, appearing every once in a while to grace us with their presence, and fill our hearts with the gospel of America, all glowing and bright up there on that movie or television screen, or curled over the glossed-over pages of magazines, then glowing again illuminated on the flat-screens of our lives. Every now and then a scandal might hit the supermarket rags, or a scathing memoir would be published, but for the most part, celebrities came to us in ordered, scheduled appearances, their actual lives, marriages and drug habits compartmentalized away from that glowing screen I told you about.

Lately though, they're everywhere, with quotes under their faces dispensing grandfatherly advice on our school-mates Facebook page, or appearing on our media scroll without makeup to give cooking advice, or getting into days-long Twitter clashes with some unemployed rando. Every one of them leveraging some personal story, reported first in the news in order to tie in to the release date of their next project.  Rap star Cardi B herself has described her upcoming album as having “my ‘Lemonade’ moments, my personal relationship moments,” a set that wishes to delve into the inner workings of her own troubled marriage to Atlanta, GA rapper Offset.  

And through this monumental change, where actors in crisis, rappers expanding their brand, desperate online characters and season finale plot-lines get mixed up with our actual families, loved ones and our country, we the people have been there, fully comfortable with this conflation, in fact welcoming this with open arms.  So when did we become so comfortable mixing our mediums of entertainment with our frameworks of reality?

Well, I don’t know when this started, perhaps it’s gone on longer than I’m comfortable to admit.  That said, I believe this knotted entanglement of media products and reality, became unmistakable and indelible during the events of three of Beyonce's and Jay Zs albums released in the heart of the 2010s: 2016s Lemonade, 2017s 4:44, and Everything Is Love, from 2018, a Carter trilogy of albums, which came to us through television screens, speakers and ear pods, spinning a yarn about the crisis of a super-star marriage, that we discussed with each other as if it were our own.

After camera footage leaked of an argument between Beyonce, her sister Solange and Jay Z after the 2014 Met Gala, rumours spread concerning the state of their marriage and familial relationships. Normally, unplanned and embarrassing footage like this would have been downplayed, with a vague statement issued. Instead, the next set of releases from the chart-topping couple dealt with the issue head on, a trilogy of albums that gave us a look into the most famous marriage in music and, in the process, cross-pollinated the separated fields between the entertainer and the entertained, giving us an unnerving glimpse, like coming across a worried theme park princess on her smoke break.

The issue was not that a personal story was used in an r&b song --the genre is built on those songs -but rather that the story got bigger than the song. Divorce albums are one-sided affairs, so getting a response record to it gave their story added life every time another album in the saga was released. The story became about the modern American marriage, concerning the overworked wife that believes she can have it all, the prodigal husband, and the lack of communication about the common purpose of this union. 

After a while, the details found in their songs mattered more than the songs themselves, in fact, the personal details became the drawing card to the show. The production on Lemonade’s "Sorry" is a thin summer trifle with squat synth bleats, but the exciting, chopped and screwed introduction of Becky with the good hair obscures that. Jay on "Kill Jay Z" from 4:44 confesses "you egged Solange on, knowing all along all you had to say you was wrong," and it adds a new clue to that fateful night, but was it a good line? It isn't his strongest, as the cadence is awkward, but it took a while to realise, while waiting for the dust to settle, for the band to start up again.

Another look at these monumental albums is warranted then, now that time has blown the debris of gossip blog stories away, so that we can separate the story of Jay and Bey, from the music they released. It is useful, in order to see what worked and what didn't, but also to discern the difference between the person presenting the show, and the show itself, for this will be an invaluable tool in the decade ahead of us, as more celebrities from the lighted stage immigrate in and out of our lives. It is an exercise though, that our bodies secretly undertook over the years as we returned to this or that song throughout this trilogy, to accompany us through a sobering chapter in our lives, or to remind us of that hour that love shined brightest, during the restless summertime, when we looked at each other, felt something realer than high definition, and we breathed in each other's arms.

[beardedmrbean]

NEW YORK — Speaking to VOA from his New York apartment, Dmitry Savchenko, 34, recalls the prosperous life he recently left behind.

"In Belarus, we had everything. My wife had several cafes. I had two businesses myself, some real estate, an apartment, a car," he said.

Savchenko and his family had never intended to leave their home. But in the last few months, for him and many other Belarussian citizens, what was once unthinkable became a dire necessity.

"We were faced with a dilemma: either go to prison or run and hide in another country," he said.

Long described as "Europe's last dictatorship," Belarus has been run for 27 years by Alexander Lukashenko. But in the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections, there was a sense among his opponents that he was politically vulnerable.

Savchenko says he has been apolitical his entire life, but in those months he, like many others, was "smelling change in the air," inspired by the caliber and diversity of presidential candidates eager to challenge Lukashenko's authoritarian rule.

Two months before election day, August 9, the hopeful Belarusian entrepreneur registered as an independent observer for the polls.

But Savchenko was setting himself up for a major disappointment.

On the day of the vote, Savchenko chronicled numerous irregularities in his precinct, which reached their climax with the members of the elections committee — which normally consist of regime loyalists — not letting the independent observers monitor the process in person. The elections committee members then fled the building with the ballots through the backdoor, escorted by the local police, Savchenko says.

Hearing hundreds of stories like Savchenko's from friends and family — as well as from independent media — ordinary Belarusians took to the streets. The country saw a rise of civic awareness unprecedented in its history. In Minsk alone, about 200,000 people came out for a peaceful protest on one of the post-election weekends.

And then the violence began.

Trying to drown people's enthusiasm, Lukashenko, who baselessly claimed victory with more than 80% of the vote, unleashed a wave of repression and violence against the protesters. Video and photo evidence of police brutality, as well as of demonstrators' mutilated bodies, made headlines around the world.

"Some of my friends participated in those protests," Savchenko said. "It was heart-wrenching to even look at them (after their release from jail)."

Those who appeared to have suffered the most were those sent to the infamous Okrestina detention center in the country's capital where, according to numerous detainee accounts, they were beaten and tortured for hours and not given food or water for days.

"Photos of the people who were released from the Okrestina detention center looked like the photos of people who came from war," Savchenko added. "And I denounce that. Because people came out (to protest) unarmed."

Savchenko says he is determined to punish those who so flagrantly abused the law.

U.S. Slaps Belarusian Officials With Additional Sanctions For 'Repression' Of Athletes Abroad

75 MEPs sign open letter in defense of Belarusian independence

Two More Belarusians Sentenced For 'Insulting' Lukashenka

Political prisoner Natallia Hersche goes on hunger strike again

Blinken Calls For 'Immediate' Release Of Political Prisoners In Belarus

Belarusian Olympians in Beijing allowed to talk only to ‘right’ media

"I am gathering proof of falsifications of the election results, abuse of police authority. And I decided that I will bring them to justice no matter where I am," he said.

He sent the incriminating evidence he had gathered to BYPOL, an independent union of Belarusian ex-security officers whose mission is to keep a registry of crimes committed by the Lukashenko regime.

The state's crackdown drew international condemnation, but Savchenko says that did not stop the authorities from methodically targeting their critics after the elections.

"At first, the authorities cracked down on most vocal protesters, then on independent media. After that they started laying off state officials who — how should I put it — didn't vote for 'the right candidate.' Slowly but surely, they got to the people who were election observers," he said.

For days, he was harassed and intimidated, then detained and beaten by the police. The authorities threatened to send his 5-year-old son to an orphanage.

So he and his family ran. First to Moscow, then all the way to Mexico City, then to Tijuana, then to the United States, where they are seeking political asylum.

Washington-based immigration lawyer Elizabeth Krukova specializes in providing legal help to asylum-seekers from the countries of the former Soviet Union. She says there are many others like the Savchenko family.

"We've seen a number of these cases and a big increase in the number of cases coming from Belarus specifically," she said.

VOA spoke with several Belarusian asylum-seekers who arrived in the United States from the southern border following the post-election crackdown. They all spoke of intimidation, detainment and beatings by police back home.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows a steady increase in the number of encounters of Belarusian migrants by the southwest border CBP officers — from three in October 2020 to 123 in September 2021.

Savchenko says the main reason his family chose to travel to the U.S. instead of Europe is safety.

"There is a network of Russian and Belarusian agents that are active in the countries neighboring Belarus, as well as in some EU states," he said.

Belarusian officials demonstrated their relentless pursuit of critics when they forced a civilian Ryanair flight to land in Minsk last year and arrested an opposition blogger, Roman Protasevich. Another exiled Belarusian activist, Vitaly Shishov, was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv, an unsolved case widely seen as the work of Minsk's clandestine services.

John Sipher, the former CIA deputy chief of station in Europe, still views Europe as relatively safe but says the fears of dissidents are not groundless.

He says horror stories of kidnappings and murders spread among dissidents "like wildfires."

"If there are a few cases where Belarusians are hunted down or arrested, or brought back to Minsk, then it becomes a story that makes its way around that community," Sipher said.

With Russian troops now massing in Belarus and more on the border of Ukraine, experts see the region's authoritarian leaders becoming more collaborative, putting their critics at greater risk.

"Since Lukashenko's crackdown in the last year or so, he is going to be looking for more opportunities to assist (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Putin is going to be looking for means to work with Belarusians on these issues," Sipher said.

Experts say whether an activist is in danger depends on how high their name is on the Belarusian KGB's priorities list. But it's a guessing game no one on the list wants to play.

[lesbiansforboromir]

I am really curious what you think Boromir would make of the show. I think the soulmate AU is making me imagine Boromir meeting the Thain and how that would go. Like and just generally how the Camelot meets Regency Era vibe goes down? IDK TL;DR do u have feels abt Boromir meeting Pippin's parents/exploring the Shire in general? :)

I’m such a fool, there IS no topic I won’t have too much to say about- anyway to begin with... the concept of Boromir first hearing of the Shire and THEN seeing it lots later after he’s gotten all these second hand accounts is very important to me. Perhaps best explained by the instance of Boromir asking Pippin about his family and him hearing ‘Well I’m a Took you see, we’ve lived in the Great Smials for generations and we’ve always held the office of Thain of the Shire. My Da’, Paladin Took the second, he’s the Thain at the moment.”

And Boromir, hearing Thain and thinking ‘oh Thane, like the Thanes of Rohan, lords of fiefs and fielding armies and such’, creates a complete picture in his mind of a proper lordly princely fellow but just smaller. And then he meets Paladin Took who ties his neckerchief in a heart bow about his collar and conducts what Boromir would have considered a diplomatic meeting alike to a luncheon party. He asks Boromir if he’s a sporting man. Boromir has no idea how to answer that. He leaves utterly perplexed and with a golf club he didn’t know how to refuse. Pippin absolutely knew this would happen and purposefully did the LEAST he could to prepare his expectations. 

So in essentials Boromir just did not at all think about what the Shire would be like when Merry and Pippin invited him. At the time he has a lot on his mind and whilst he’s asked them about it quite a bit and listened with interest, a lot of what they say goes through filters of his own experiences and assumptions. When they say their homes are all holes in hills, he just... doesn’t take it all that literally. When they say they don’t really have cities, he just assumes they mean they aren’t as big as his own. The sheer lack of vertical real estate in the Shire is somehow one of the first things Boromir finds truly... not disturbing but it keeps nagging at him. Space is always a concern in Minas Tirith these days, but the Shire is just rolls and rolls of hills and valleys, much uninhabited or given up to fields or pastures. Everyone has a garden, even the poorer folks. It seems understandable for a country based people but Boromir would always assume that meant there WAS a city somewhere else. But no! Tuckborough is barely a town in his estimation. Michel Delving too! 

And truly, their political structure really throws him for like... A WHILE. Every now and then he’ll just give up on trying to understand what the Thain does vs what the Master of Buckland does vs what the Mayor does, only to pick it back up again when some new piece of information rises to the fore. “Wait- if the Mayor is the head of the Watch, which- I kNOW to be the only thing close to a military that you have- then- Isn’t the Thain your military leader?” “Oh no, he’s just the protector of the westfarthing.” “What... how is that different” “Well he protects us.” “You mean from trespassers??” “Oh no the Bounders do that and they’re part of the watch.” “SO WHAT DOES THE THAIN DO?” “He protects us! :)” 

It’s difficult for him to grasp because the concept of these things being kind of grey and part of ancient systems that’ve had no real need for maintenance just does not compute. He’d say that the Shire was shoddily run, except it obviously isn’t, things work out pretty well, they have a post office, clear laws of land and succession, proper manners of dispute settling, no one’s really going hungry and most folk can feed themselves and their massive families. It doesn’t help that he WANTS the Thain (as the hereditary position) to be the general master of all, since that’s the system he’s most comfortable with. “Oh no the mayor does more than the Thain I’d say.” “But the Mayor is elected.” “Yes.” “And you still trust them to do what’s right?” “Of course!” “But if a new mayor is elected every seven years, couldn’t someone just bribe folk to vote for him?” “Now why would someone want to do that?” Hobbits have a concept of power that is just so foreign to Boromir that he keeps missing the point in these conversations. 

I went off on a tangent- there never comes a point where Boromir thoroughly understands hobbit life. But there is a point during his long visit where it becomes more of a funny jesting conversation topic. Because he realises he doesn’t necessarily need to understand it all in order to do diplomacy and business with the Shire and Gondor. Realistically Aragorn is already making inroads into rebuilding Arnor by now, so it’ll be his job to do most of the work on that end. At some point Boromir decides to enjoy this visit to his friend’s homeland and that’s the point where he really starts noticing the stuff he’s more interested in. Like he gets a massive kick out of how gossipy Hobbits are. Everyone’s surprised by how well he slips into happy warm pub conversations. He’s so taken by the gardening fever that takes any hobbit when their personal area of expertise is mentioned that he not only learns a great deal about it but in fact starts his own garden when he gets home. 

He doesn’t come away with any ideas of which system is better ect ect, mainly because the idea that Gondor’s whole system might need rethinking doesn’t even enter his wildest DREAMS (can you all see how he might not be the best suited to a Stewardship). But he develops a healthy amount of respect and, more importantly, a deep affection for the shire that keeps him coming back years afterwards. 

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Pair of studies confirm there is water on the moon (Washington Post) There is water on the moon’s surface, and ice may be widespread in its many shadows, according to a pair of studies published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research confirms long-standing theories about the existence of lunar water that could someday enable astronauts to live there for extended periods. One scientific team found the telltale sign of water molecules, perhaps bound up in glass, in a sunlit region. Another group estimated the widespread prevalence of tiny shadowed pockmarks on the lunar landscape, possible shelter for water ice over an area of 15,000 square miles. Moon water has been eyed as a potential resource by NASA, which created a program named Artemis in 2019 to send American astronauts back to the moon this decade. Launching water to space costs thousands of dollars per gallon.

Colleges Slash Budgets in the Pandemic, With ‘Nothing Off-Limits’ (NYT) Ohio Wesleyan University is eliminating 18 majors. The University of Florida’s trustees this month took the first steps toward letting the school furlough faculty. The University of California, Berkeley, has paused admissions to its Ph.D. programs in anthropology, sociology and art history. As it resurges across the country, the coronavirus is forcing universities large and small to make deep and possibly lasting cuts to close widening budget shortfalls. By one estimate, the pandemic has cost colleges at least $120 billion, with even Harvard University, despite its $41.9 billion endowment, reporting a $10 million deficit that has prompted belt tightening. Though many colleges imposed stopgap measures such as hiring freezes and early retirements to save money in the spring, the persistence of the economic downturn is taking a devastating financial toll, pushing many to lay off or furlough employees, delay graduate admissions and even cut or consolidate core programs like liberal arts departments. “We haven’t seen a budget crisis like this in a generation,” said Robert Kelchen, a Seton Hall University associate professor of higher education who has been tracking the administrative response to the pandemic. “There’s nothing off-limits at this point.”

Thousands Forced to Evacuate From California Fires (NYT) Two firefighters were gravely injured and tens of thousands of Californians were forced to flee their homes on Monday as two new fires ripped through Orange County. About 90,800 residents in Irvine were put under mandatory evacuation orders because of the Silverado Fire and the smaller Blue Ridge Fire, said Shane Sherwood, a division chief for the Orange County Fire Authority. High winds and low humidity fueled the fires’ rapid growth. About 4,000 firefighters were fighting 22 wildfires across the state on Monday, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. As evening approached, the Silverado Fire had burned about 7,200 acres and the Blue Ridge Fire 3,000 acres. Later Monday night, the Orange County Fire Authority said that the Blue Ridge Fire had grown to 6,600 acres

Why N.Y.C.’s Economic Recovery May Lag the Rest of the Country’s (NYT) New York, whose diversified economy had fueled unparalleled job growth in recent years, is now facing a bigger challenge in recovering from the pandemic than almost any other major city in the country. More than one million residents are out of work, and the unemployment rate is nearly double the national average. The city had tried to insulate itself from major downturns by shifting from tying its fortunes to the rise and fall of Wall Street. A thriving tech sector, a booming real estate industry and waves of international tourists had helped Broadway, hotels and restaurants prosper. But now, as the virus surges again in the region, tourists are still staying away and any hope that workers would refill the city’s office towers and support its businesses before the end of the year is fading. As a result, New York’s recovery is very likely to be slow and protracted, economists said. “This is an event that struck right at the heart of New York’s comparative advantages,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, a Wall Street research firm. “Being globally oriented, being stacked up in skyscrapers and packed together in stadiums: The very thing that made New York New York was undermined by the pandemic, was upended by it.”

Asylum-Seekers Face Violent ICE Coercion (Foreign Policy) U.S. immigration officers have threatened, pepper-sprayed, beaten, and choked asylum-seekers from Cameroon to coerce them to sign their own deportation orders, the Guardian reports. A coalition of advocacy groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a complaint earlier this month describing a “pattern of coercion” by ICE agents at a Mississippi detention center that it called “tantamount to torture.” According to multiple accounts in the complaint, immigration officials used the coercive tactics to compel detainees to sign documents that would waive their rights to further immigration hearings. At least one individual was hospitalized as a result. One man, identified by the initials C.A., described how officers broke his fingers as they sought to force his fingerprint onto a document. “Officers grabbed me, forced me on the ground, and pepper-sprayed my eyes. … I was crying, ‘I can’t breathe,’ because they were forcefully on top of me pressing their body weight on top of me. My eyes were so hot. They dragged me outside by both hands,” said the individual, who was prevented from speaking to his lawyer before signing the document. C.A. was placed on a deportation flight on Oct. 13 but was one of two Cameroonians pulled off the plane moments before takeoff, as an investigation had begun into the allegations of abuse. At least 100 asylum-seekers, including many from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were deported on the same flight. For two consecutive years, the Norwegian Refugee Council has deemed Cameroon the world’s most neglected displacement crisis due to an insurgency in the north and a brutal government crackdown on two English-speaking separatist regions. Since 2016, the two conflicts have killed over 3,000 people and displaced more than 700,000.

Belgium’s former King meets estranged daughter for first time (Reuters) Belgium’s former King Albert has met his daughter Delphine for the first time, after she won a seven-year legal battle to prove that he is her father, earning recognition as a princess. The two met Albert’s wife, Queen Paola, last Sunday at their royal residence, the Belvedere castle, in the Brussels suburb of Laeken, the royal household said on Tuesday. “This Sunday October 25, a new chapter has opened, filled with emotions, calm, understanding and also hope,” the king, the queen and Delphine said in a statement. “Our meeting took place at the Belvedere Castle, a meeting during which each of us was able to express, calmly and with empathy, our feelings and our experiences.” “After the turmoil, the wounds and the suffering, comes the time for forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. This is the path, patient and at times difficult, that we have decided to take resolutely together.” Delphine Boel, 52, a Belgian artist, fought a seven-year legal battle to prove that the former king is her father. After a DNA test confirmed that, a court granted her the title of princess earlier this month. Albert, 86, who abdicated six years ago in favour of his son Philippe, had long contested Boel’s claim.

Germany cautions Thai king (Foreign Policy) Pro-democracy protesters in Thailand marched on the German Embassy in Bangkok to deliver a letter asking German authorities to investigate whether King Maha Vajiralongkorn “has conducted Thai politics using his royal prerogative from German soil or not.” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, speaking from Berlin, said the German government was “examining” the issue “and if there are things we feel to be unlawful, then that will have immediate consequences.”

Belarus Opposition Calls General Strike, as Protesters Gird for Long Fight (NYT) When Belarusians took to the streets in the hundreds of thousands in August, after Mr. Lukashenko claimed a re-election victory that was widely seen as fraudulent, many predicted that it was only a matter of days or weeks until the longtime authoritarian leader stepped down. Instead, Mr. Lukashenko and the large swath of the public that is arrayed against him have settled into a drawn-out test of wills, with their country’s future on the line. Protesters continue to turn out in the tens of thousands every Sunday, chanting “Go away!” and waving the white-red-white flag of the opposition. Mr. Lukashenko responds with waves of crackdowns by the police and, backed by Russia, appears determined to wait the protests out. “In such a tense situation, absolutely anything could turn out to be the trigger that topples the system,” said Artyom Shraibman, a Minsk-based nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “It could end in the course of a week, or it might not die for a year. No revolution has ever gone according to plan.” The authorities’ use of violence to try to put down the protests appears to be escalating, further feeding the anger in Belarusian society. It was a bout of severe police violence early in the uprising that supercharged the protests.

World’s largest IPO shows power of mobile payments in China (Washington Post) Go to a store, hop in a taxi, or even stop by a street peddler’s cart in China, and you will see QR codes strung up on colorful laminated squares. These mobile payment codes are the default way money changes hands in China these days, and the reason Ant Group’s initial public offering is set to be the world’s largest. China’s Ant Group—the Alibaba spinoff behind the ubiquitous blue QR payment codes across the world’s second-largest economy—announced plans on Monday to raise more than $34 billion in a joint listing across Shanghai and Hong Kong. This would trounce last year’s listing of oil titan Saudi Aramco, the reigning IPO champion. Mobile payments have replaced cash and credit cards in China as the preferred payment method, thanks to easy-to-use apps made by Ant Group and its closest rival Tencent. Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay are similar in spirit to wildly popular U.S. stock trading app Robinhood, in that they are user-friendly enough that anyone with a smartphone and bank account can make complicated financial transactions with a click or swipe.

China sanctions U.S. weapons manufacturers (Foreign Policy) China will impose sanctions on three U.S.-based weapons manufacturers after the U.S. State Department approved the sale of $1.8 billion worth of weapons and equipment to Taiwan last Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the sanctions were necessary “in order to uphold national interests.” It’s not yet clear what form the sanctions will take. More sanctions could soon be on the way, as the State Department approved a further $2.37 billion in weapons sales to Taiwan on Monday.

Vietnam evacuating low-lying areas as strong typhoon nears (AP) Vietnam scrambled Tuesday to evacuate more than a million people in its central lowlands as a strong typhoon approached while some regions are still dealing with the aftermath of recent killer floods, state media said. Typhoon Molave is forecast to slam into Vietnam’s south central coast with sustained winds of up to 135 kilometers (84 miles) per hour on Wednesday morning, according to the official Vietnam News Agency. The typhoon left at least 3 people dead and 13 missing and displaced more than 120,000 villagers in the Philippines before blowing toward Vietnam. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered provincial authorities late Monday to prepare to evacuate about 1.3 million people in regions lying on the typhoon’s path. Phuc expressed fears that Molave, the latest disturbance to threaten Vietnam this month, could be as deadly as Typhoon Damrey, which battered the country’s central region in 2017 and left more than a hundred people dead.

Vaccines, not spy planes: U.S. misfires in Southeast Asia For months, by Zoom calls and then by jet, Indonesian ministers and officials scoured the world for access to a vaccine for the coronavirus that Southeast Asia’s biggest country is struggling to control. This month, their campaign paid off. Three Chinese companies committed 250 million doses of vaccines to the archipelago of 270 million people. A letter of intent was signed with a UK-based company for another 100 million. Absent from these pledges: the United States. Not only was it not promising any vaccine, but months earlier the United States shocked Indonesian officials by asking to land and refuel its spy planes in the territory, four senior Indonesian officials told Reuters. This would reverse a decades-long policy of strategic neutrality in the country. Washington’s campaign to buttress its influence in the region—part of its escalating global rivalry with China—has been misfiring, say government officials and analysts.

Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136 (AP) A powerful bomb blast ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, killing at least eight students and wounding 136 others, police and a hospital spokesman said. The bombing happened as a prominent religious scholar during a special class was delivering a lecture about the teachings of Islam at the main hall of the Jamia Zubairia madrassa, said police officer Waqar Azim. The attack comes days after Pakistani intelligence alerted that militants could target public places and important buildings, including seminaries and mosques across Pakistan, including Peshawar.

Hopes for peace in Libya (Foreign Policy) The two main factions in Libya’s civil war agreed to a nationwide cease-fire at U.N.-backed talks in Geneva on Friday. Previous attempts to broker an end to the yearslong conflict have failed, but the new agreement has cautiously raised hopes that it will lay the groundwork for a peace deal. The cease-fire, signed by the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord and Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, calls for all front-line forces to return to their bases and all mercenaries and foreign troops to withdraw within three months. The Libyan conflict has drawn in a multitude of international players, including Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Their actions in the coming months could make or break the cease-fire.

[stephsmith321]

Marijuana landlord turns activist, arguing local policies are slowing legal weed

Originally Published On Ocregister.com By Brooke Staggs On May 23, 2018

Stephanie Smith, a Pacific Palisades real estate developer, is challenging the constitutionality of a portion of Moreno Valley’s marijuana ordinance. (Courtesy photo)

Stephanie Smith was balancing one of her 2-year-old twins on a hip during a quiet morning in December when she heard a commotion outside her home in Los Angeles’ affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Someone began banging on her front door. As she moved to open it, she saw a line of police officers in her front yard and red laser gun sights coming through the windows, bouncing off her and her children.

Officers searched her home. They found and took blueprints for a kitchen remodel project and her cell phone.

At the same time, 80 miles due east in San Bernardino, dozens of officers were raiding two warehouses and another home owned by Smith. They seized nearly 25,000 marijuana plants and arrested eight men for growing cannabis in the three locations without city permits.

Smith wasn’t arrested or fined. But headlines the next day painted the 43-year-old as a “queenpin” and the “mastermind” of a multimillion-dollar illegal marijuana-growing operation.

“To be labeled a ‘drug lord’ in international press was a surprise,” she said.

“I don’t even have house plants.”

Though the mother of five boasts that she’s the biggest cannabis landlord in California, Smith insists she’s just that, a landlord. She says she isn’t involved with the marijuana businesses ran by her tenants.

Smith also insists her San Bernardino clients weren’t hiding. She says they’re part of California’s entrenched cannabis industry that’s struggling to join the emerging legal market, and that those efforts are being hampered by “corrupt” and “regressive” city policies.

Smith shrank from public attention when she was part of a very different scandal a decade ago, legally changing her last name to something that’s as anonymous as it can get.

This time, she says she’s fighting back.

Smith has filed lawsuits against San Bernardino and three other Inland Empire cities over their marijuana policies. And she’s floating marijuana ballot measures in six communities, determined to make conditions fairer for the industry that’s been so good to her.

First brush with infamy

Smith, whose name at birth was Stephanie Darcy, was raised in Minneapolis by a single working mom. She grew up dreaming of being an artist, and she still nurses a passion for painting.

After studying marketing in Boston, and using her artist’s eye to flip houses in the Phoenix area, she moved to Southern California in 2005 to attend business school at UCLA.

She was dating and working for Dr. Craig Alan Bittner, who had a successful liposuction practice in Beverly Hills. Things were going well until 2008, when a trio of lawsuits claimed Bittner had let Smith perform botched liposuction procedures even though she had no medical training. The lawsuits were eventually dismissed.

“At the end of the day, I made a regulatory mistake a decade ago and paid a $242 fine,” Smith said.

Things got more complicated when authorities caught wind that Bittner was violating medical waste laws by using fat removed from his patients to power his and Smith’s cars.

Smith said the intent with “LipoDiesel” was never to suggest that people could actually run their vehicles on human fat. She said it was simply a way to illustrate what was possible if people opened their minds to alternative energy sources. And she said they asked permission from every client, with all but one of some 8,000 patients enthusiastically consenting.

There was no word for internet “trolls” then, but Smith said she was intimidated into silence.

“If I could go back in time, I would have talked very openly about our goals for changing our view of energy,” she said. “I would have talked about my passion for the environment instead of being afraid.”

Becoming a cannabis landlord

Smith’s foray into another controversial industry started as a favor.

With the housing market in crisis a decade ago, Smith dove into commercial real estate.

A friend of a friend was growing cannabis under California’s loose medical marijuana laws as he put himself through law school in 2009. But he was struggling to find space to house his operation, with local and federal policies that made it risky for landlords to take on marijuana tenants.

Smith says she’s never been a “hardcore” marijuana consumer herself. “But like a lot of people, I wanted the laws changed.” So she let the small-time grower lease one of her L.A. properties.

The tenant finished law school and moved on. So Smith put the site back on the market, thinking its water and power stations would make for a good laundromat or nail salon.

She said she had no idea then that anyone would recognize signs of a grow house. But 45 minutes after the property went up on Craigslist, a cultivator offered double the asking price. Soon, she was in a bidding war, eventually landing a grower who paid three times the requested rent.

Stephanie Smith in San Bernardino, CA., Friday, May 18, 2018. Smith is the self-proclaimed largest cannabis landlord in California and has become a major advocate for the industry. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, The Sun/SCNG)

Stephanie Smith helps canvas for signatures, for a San Bernardino ballot initiative, with Alexander Navarrette in the Verdemont neighborhood of San Bernardino, CA., Friday, May 18, 2018. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, The Sun/SCNG)

Today, she said her company, Industrial Partners Group, owns two million square feet of industrial space. Most of it is in Southern California, but she has property as far north as Sacramento. And, while she rents buildings to Walmart and bakeries, many of her warehouses are leased to cannabis growers and manufacturers.

One reason Smith believes she’s been so successful is that many cannabis entrepreneurs were accustomed to dealing with landlords who refused to sign leases or made them use fake names so they could feign ignorance. Smith said she tried to “inject some professionalism” by treating them like other valuable tenants.

She’s also discreet.

B-Real, stage name for lead Cypress Hill rapper Louis Freese, leases a Downtown L.A. warehouse from Smith. When asked if she has any other famous tenants, Smith pauses, flashes her frequent smile and says: “I have a nice reputation among hip-hop and sports celebrities.”

Smith considers her work with the industry a form of activism. But this election cycle, she says, is different.

“This is my first time taking it to the streets.”

Raid prompts activism

Smith wore a gray cotton shirt, jeans and colorful sneakers on a recent Friday evening as she joined a political support team canvassing San Bernardino’s Verdemont neighborhood. The goal is to collect the 8,602 signatures needed to get her proposed cannabis measure on the November ballot.

Residents seemed largely receptive, though they’ve been through this before.

When Californians voted to legalize recreational marijuana under Proposition 64 in 2016, San Bernardino voters also approved Measure O, which laid out a framework for cannabis businesses to operate in town.

The measure was needed because Prop. 64 gives cities the rights to regulate businesses in their borders. And a study of local marijuana policies shows more than two-thirds of cities in California still bans all marijuana ventures.

San Bernardino awarded its first business permit under Measure O last year, to the owners of Flesh Showgirls. They now run a strip club in one half of the building and Captain Jack’s marijuana dispensary in the other.

But multiple lawsuits were filed over Measure O, and in December a judge threw the initiative out because, he said, it used spot zoning to create a monopoly that allowed just two shops in town. That ruling is being appealed.

Smith says her San Bernardino tenants had applied at least eight times for licenses to operate their businesses legally under Measure O, inviting city officials to inspect their high-end security and odor filtration systems.

A week after the raids, she said two of the tenants received letters from the city saying they could legally grow marijuana if they paid $140,000 in fees. Smith said they paid up but still haven’t been cleared to operate, leaving 100 people out of work. And she said police have been called 10 times since the raids over reports of vandalism and homeless people squatting in the vacant buildings.

The city is now accepting applications under its own licensing scheme. But a new policy says companies previously deemed to be operating illegally aren’t eligible for permits, leaving Smith’s clients with no route to run legal cannabis businesses in San Bernardino.

City and police officials declined to comment on any of Smith’s claims, citing pending and potential litigation.

Branching out

Spurred by what happened in San Bernardino, Smith has filed additional lawsuits against Colton, Hemet and Moreno Valley.

Concerns raised in the suits include Colton’s requirement that residents get permission from the city if they want to grow marijuana plants at home for personal use, as allowed under Prop. 64. And that anyone working for a marijuana business in Moreno Valley, from contractors to janitors, first get a city permit.

Her team is also collecting signatures for marijuana ballot measures in Colton, Hemet, Upland, Bakersfield and Kern County.

The initiatives are tailored for each area, Smith said. That means Central Valley policies support a cultivation-heavy market while San Bernardino is encouraged to put its affordable industrial properties to work by becoming a manufacturing hub, making vape pens and edibles popular with cannabis consumers.

California is close to an inflection point, Smith believes, where marijuana businesses won’t have to hide or beg cities to let them in. When that happens, Smith said she hopes Southern California cities will have fair policies in place that position them to compete for the jobs and tax revenue the cannabis industry can generate.

And Smith, of course, will have properties ready to house those valuable tenants.

[the-cookie-of-doom]

The house is definitely not haunted, is what the real estate agent cheerfully tells him when she shows him the house. That would cause Mitch to believe it definitely is haunted, if he believed in that kind of thing, which he doesn’t. It’s a nice place. Two stories, with three bedrooms, two baths and a nice backyard bordering the forest. There’s supposed to be some nice trails in the Preserve. 

The selling point is the fact that the house is a fraction of what everything else on the market is currently going for; Mitch can just about pay for it up front. That comes back to the definitely not haunted comment. 

“What happened?” Mitch asks, because someone definitely died here. The real estate agent’s bright smile tightens somewhat. 

“One of the previous occupants was murdered here, I’m afraid.” She doesn’t elaborate beyond that, and Mitch doesn’t ask her to, knowing that disclosure laws prevent her from satisfying his morbid curiosity; who was it? What happened? Besides, he can just look it up later. 

“I’ll take it,” he says, to the woman’s delight. There is paperwork to be done and arrangements to be made, but she assures him she’ll handle all of it, and get back to him by the weekend with an estimated closing date for escrow. They part ways, Mitch returning to his hotel. 

***

Tragic Death of Local Sheriff’s Son

Young Stiles Stilinski, seventeen year old son of Sheriff Stilinski, found dead in his bedroom last night. The Sheriff has been unable to comment, but authorities have told us that it is believed he was killed in retaliation, by a former suspect of Sheriff Stilinski. 

Candlelight Vigil For Stiles Stilinski: You Will Be Missed

Beacon Hills High School will be holding a candlelight vigil for Stiles this Friday night. All are encouraged to come and mourn his loss.

A Bright Life Cut Short

“Stiles was great. Wherever he went, he was always making everyone laugh.” — Lydia Martin 

“The lacrosse team won’t be the same without him.” —Jackson Whittemore 

“Stiles was a great student and friend, he will be missed.” —Mr. Harris, Chemistry Teacher

“Stiles, that punk. Terrible lacrosse player, didn’t have an athletic bone in his body, but kid was smart as hell. Could’ve gone anywhere if he ever took advantage of his talents. Guess he never will, now.” —Coach Finstock

“Stiles was my best friend. I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.” —Scott McCall 

Sheriff Stilinski Resigns Following Son’s Death 

In the wake of his son’s death, Sheriff Stilinski has decided to resign. All of our best wishes are with him. Deputy Jordan Parrish has stepped up as interim Sheriff until the next election, with Mr. Stilinski’s endorsement. 

“Well that’s morbid as hell,” Mitch says out loud, scrolling through articles on the incident. They all happened almost five years ago, now. Mitch would have been only a few years older than Stiles when he died. He tries to imagine having his life cut so short. 

It’s no wonder the house has sat empty for so long. No one in the small town wanted to move into the site of such a tragedy. Details of the case were never released, but it was confirmed by the Sheriff’s Department that Stiles’ murder was an act of retaliation, and the suspect was never apprehended. The poor kid never got justice for what happened to him. 

***

Given the nature of the transaction and the lack of third parties involved (appraisers, loans, inspectors) escrow is only a handful of days. Mitch is moving in by the end of the week, only feeling a little weird about being alone in such a large house. It really is too big for one lone guy. 

Maybe he can convert one of the bedrooms into an office, and leave the other as a guest room for friends he doesn’t have, and doesn’t intend to make. 

***

Mitch doesn’t believe in ghosts. Never has, even when his little brother tried to frighten him with scary ghost stories. Only to end up the one hiding terrified under the covers, because Mitch told even scarier stores. 

He doesn’t believe in ghosts, so when he hears creaking floorboards in the middle of the night, he assumes it’s just the normal sounds of an old house settling. 

In hindsight, he couldn’t have been more wrong.