#I would at least blame those people for the erosion of the term

[horsedisk]

There are good faith people who say things like “the meaning of the word ‘proship’ is so muddled” and “no one can decide what proship means” but I need the internet to understand the word proship has only ever meant pro(for) ship(shipping).

Like…“for shipping.” As in, “in favor of shipping.” As in, “let people ship whatever they like.”

Over time the definition of proship has expanded to “let people enjoy whatever fiction they like” which means the same thing.

How much more clear cut can you get?

The anti campaign to rebrand pro(for) as pro(problematic), or to equate “proship” to “people who ship illegal things” (???) and “people who ship incest and pedophilia” ≠ the term “proship” is “muddled” or that proshippers can’t make up our minds. It just means antis have shoveled around enough horseshit to irradiate the term. How many of these “no one can give you a consistent definition” people actually mean “I don’t want to use this term because it will mark me as a chronically online loser at best or a child predator at worst?” Like, please realize that’s not OUR fault as proshippers. Proshippers didn’t spread the misinformation. We weren’t the ones who turned a stance as normal as “let people ship whatever they like” or “let people enjoy whatever fiction they like” into a social death knell. You’re allowed to not use the term of course, but like. Can you please not kick the people who do use the term while we’re down? We’ve only ever wanted to play with our dolls and pay our taxes and mind our own business.

[sasorikigai]

My muse in a relationships || @ephemeralkryonics​ || accepting (Part 2)

👫Do they display affection in public? What about in private?

Publicly, Hanzo may come across as stern, reserved and repressed with his affection (even when he attempts to sneak in knowing gazes, brush of hands and any part of exposed flesh, etc.), as he’s running high on rampant, prompted introspection and overwhelming onslaught of responsibilities that come as freight train of thoughts. So it may prevent him from fully capable to display physical and mental affection, compared to the private setting. 

In private, he is definitely much more at ease, without tension and hardened countenance and aura, which makes it effortless to commit to both physical and mental affection. While he feels more than comfortable expressing his affection with vocalizations, such would not be a possibility when he is fulfilling his Grandmaster’s responsibilities and duties. 

💕Are they open to threesomes or a polyamorous relationship?

It’s a hard no; Hanzo is a strict believer of the ethical philosophy and that “what’s good is what feels good” approach of polyamory or non-monogamy relationship repulsive. This can be more gross, as in the orgiastic pleasures of indulgence, or more subtle, as in weighing long term vs. short term pleasures and pursuing sustainable pleasures, seeking more subtle pleasures such as art and community, and considering the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of beings. While he understands that that it’s not only about sex, and being about the intimacy surrounding sex, Hanzo doesn’t that the pursuit of pleasure is as important to human beings nowhere near as to live a meaningful life, and I think the monogamous family model has been preferred for many good reasons. 

He is a traditionalist by heart, so he prefers one woman or one man is an equal balance with himself, instead of having primary and secondary person whom he could divide his attention. He isn’t very open regarding polyamorous relationships either, so trying other arrangements is out of the option too. Hanzo thinks polyamory is very egocentric and exploitive of participants. There is a primary lover and then secondary lovers, so there is an inherent caste system in Polyamorous relationships. So he would much prefer to have and thinks that it’s better to just find one person to make love with, and stay open to a community of friends. 

Also, time demands and emotional complexities may hinder Hanzo from ever pursuing it for himself. While Harumi and Kuai Liang share self-responsibility and integrity when it comes to their emotional strength and jealousy and commitment wouldn’t be an issue for them, he doesn’t think it’s sustainable long term as it is selfish in nature, even if the premise is that he can love a lot more abundantly than he originally believed we could. Monogamy is not just a belief system – it’s called pair bonding. Nature wants him to team up with and fall in love with one partner. Monogamy doesn’t mean he has to mate with one person for life, but Harumi will always be the one whom he’d consider his soulmate even before Kuai; Kuai just happens to share many paramount traits which Harumi possessed. 

💔Do they have a certain type of person they will not enter into a relationship with?

Anyone who is shallow, one-dimensional, goes against the Bushido Code, which are code of eight virtues he will follow with all his heart. Those individuals don’t deserve Hanzo Hasashi’s hard-earned trust, loyalty, devotion and love. 

💝How long until they feel secure and comfortable in a relationship?

Because of his past as a misguided hellspawn spectre and being used as a pawn without self-governance, Hanzo’s trust towards others and the time it takes to be completely comfortable with his significant other may take a while. With Kuai Liang, the duration which it takes for Hanzo to become more comfortable may be significantly reduced, simply because they have a long history between them. Even as mortal rivals and being a prominent member of opposite factions that had been in such a bitter rivalry for centuries, only exacerbated by Quan Chi’s machinations, the gravitational force of attraction was always there. 

There was an intrinsic intrigue, ever since the OG time where even as Scorpion, he caught up on how significantly different Kuai Liang was compared to Bi-Han. Kuai Liang’s major story arc revolves with the fact that the death of older brother had big impact on Kuai Liang, who in Bi-Han’s honor took name of Sub-Zero as he sought revenge against Scorpion. It was one of his biggest motivation during all MK stories - at least until he made a peace with Hanzo Hasashi. Kuai Liang is idealistic and naive, and Hanzo finds his sympathy, kindness, empathy and mercifulness (despite being absolutely ruthless and ferocious when he’s engaged in kombat) and Hanzo finds that endearing. 

Elder Kuai Liang may seem very composed, but Hanzo now knows in the Lin Kuei’s youth, he was driven by emotions (anger, guilt) - just like he is, anger fueled by guilt - and forced to do many things against his will by various powers (Lin Kuei, Quan Chi’s magic, cursed blade) and still he stayed on the heroes’ side. Kuai Liang even made peace with murderer of his brother - himself - and blamed only Quan Chi for what happened to Bi-Han. Hanzo forever feels indebted and grateful for Kuai’s forgiveness.

🤐Would they ever confess their feelings first?

Hanzo most likely would to Kuai Liang, than having it the other way. While Hanzo isn’t much experienced when it comes to having romantic/sexual relationships, for his one and only partner for life had been Harumi and I headcanon that they were friends from childhood years, in which Hanzo soon became Harumi’s suitor and they became lovers from friends, which also lead to them becoming soulmates. Because Hanzo is more emotionally in touch with himself and have no qualms of expressing his thoughts and feelings, it would come much more natural to him than Kuai Liang, who is rather naive and hasn’t experienced all the life’s joys as his childhood and normalcy to experience various appropriate things in Lin Kuei. 

❌Would they ever cheat on their partner?

Cheating is wrong, because it breaches his hard-earned trust, devotion and love. The golden rule for arguing about morals is the golden rule itself: One should treat others the way one would like others to treat oneself. The special exclusive bond he shared with him/her would degrade to become never exclusive or special. It would feel like such a violation and make him doubt his own self-worth, that maybe he is not deemed worthy enough. A relationship is heavy, involves a lot of opening up and intimacy, and breaking that trust makes him feel vulnerable and betrayed. The searing mental image of his loved one being intimate with someone else is hard to erase completely from your head, and would haunt him for long. It’s a shattering blend of impotent anger, envy, loss of self-confidence, possible erosion of faith in love, disgust at having opened up to such a person, and mind-numbing  regret and sorrow. 

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Do they want children?

Hanzo always thrived better with having his offsprings; regardless of biological (Satoshi) or surrogate (Takeda Takahashi), Hanzo’s paternal prowess has not only kept him in check from his severe depression and sole survivor’s guilt, but it boosted his hellfire and fighting capabilities, making him even capable of coming on top of Raiden and Sub-Zero (albeit he was injured before their battle). 

🐶Are they a cuddler?

As I have mentioned before, physical intimacy is one of the most crucial and profound part of romantic/sexual relationship. Cuddling often gets conflated with sex because it releases oxytocin, a hormone that promotes bonding, and like sex, cuddling can lower blood pressure, ease pain, and increase sexual and life satisfaction. While cuddling doesn’t always make sex as an end result, Hanzo regards cuddling itself as one of the most important communications in relationships, as those subtle, grounding touches anchor him to reality. It only fosters tight-knitted bonding opportunities and cuddling increases his sense of security with Kuai Liang, which in turn, increases his desire to be emotionally intimate and vulnerable with him. There’s no denying the positive effects cuddling has on his relationship.

🔮Do they believe in soul mates?

I think Hanzo both believes in destiny and growth beliefs; it’s the same with Harumi and Kuai, that he was destined to be with a specific person (in this case, people) and that he would have one person who is meant for me in different timelines (if Harumi hadn’t met her gruesome death, Hanzo would have dedicated his life for her). And this is especially important with Hanzo’s relationship with Kuai Liang, and that their relationship slowly progressed and they both grew to fit together - like yin and yang - as they both made conscious effort to become needed and fill in the gaps of their imperfections. While he believes that he and Kuai can be the most compatible person on the face of the earth, but he doesn’t believe there's an invisible force that draws complete strangers towards each other; they have to continue to make conscious effort to understand and perceive each other, even as they begin to know them in-depth. 

⚔️ Are they protective of their partner?

Extremely. Although Hanzo knows Kuai is a strong and ferocious warrior who can very easily protect himself from peril and throes of death, it’s the past trauma of losing his clan - not once, but twice under supernatural forces he couldn’t control nor predict - and most definitely his family. 

🚀 How far are they willing to go for the person they love?

Once Hanzo commits in romantic/sexual relationships, he will literally go to the ends of the earth and to Hell and back; it’s literally the entirety of his story arc regarding Harumi/Satoshi when you think about it. It it weren’t for Hanzo’s love, Hanzo Hasashi as a character we know as of now may have been nonexistent, and so does Scorpion. 

❤️ Do they fall in love easily?

While the severity of his trauma may have been slightly mitigated by the decades of his desiderium and deep longing, Hanzo still has dreams and nightmares about Harumi, whom he considered not only as a longtime friend, a lover, a beloved and devoted wife, but even more so, his soulmate. She was a quiet, but a strong presence who served as Hanzo’s emotional pillar and guidance. 

📺 Do they share information about their relationships freely with friends and family?

Initially, Hanzo would be very discreet and hesitant about their relationship; at least until it becomes truly serious and fully devoted. For Hanzo, strategic disclosure and manipulation of co-presence (especially in regards to their shared Grandmasters’ positions and being Earthrealm’s protectors) signals will become the most frequent ways in which information was managed. The most frequent reasons for revelation were felt obligation to reveal based on the relationship with the target, the desire for emotional expression and the desire for psychological support from the target. The most frequent reason to withhold information was the anticipation of a negative reaction from his surroundings, specifically to the Shirai Ryu and perhaps beyond.  

This sharing of personal details about his life - your feelings, thoughts, memories, and other such things - Hanzo’s self-disclosure is on the low side; while he is completely open about sharing them to the most trusted, loved individuals, he is much more reserved about such things. 

♦️Are they concerned with the social status of their partner?

Social status is most likely the least facet Hanzo is concerned about, but I think Hanzo certainly has a type for someone who is either 1) a commanding leader in any manifestations and forms - Grandmasters, Commanders, those who have been in the leading position where they are responsible for numbers of individuals under their wings, so to speak, and 2) possesses insistence, the iron-will stubbornness that is able to meet his own hot-tempered decisiveness. 

💭 Do they tend to sleep better when in bed with their partner?

One of Hanzo’s most absolute favorite things to do is to cuddle naked; while he is much more of a sensual being than sexual, Hanzo does enjoy both physical or emotional closeness. While the term intimate relationship usually implies the inclusion of sexual activity, the term is also used to indicate a relationship with more than just sexual activity. Intimate relationships maintain a key role in his overall human experience because they involve emotional connections with others. This may be romance, physical or sexual attraction, sexual activity, or emotional support, while also helps him to develop strong interpersonal connections. 

Hanzo desires physical intimacy of some sort at least occasionally, being that it is a natural part of human sexuality. Because this is most often sensual touching of any sort, it requires an entrance into another's personal space, while it may be an emotional or sexual act anywhere from a hug to a kiss or sexual intercourse. Emotional or sensual touching of this sort aids in the release of oxytocin, dopamine,and serotonin, which reduces stress. Also, without physical intimacy, there are increased feelings of loneliness or sadness and Hanzo is highly prone to suffering both without the intimate proximity with his significant other. 

Specifically with Kuai Liang, he finds the quality of his sleep significantly improved; he finds the cryomancer’s coolness extremely comfortable, relaxing and natural. Even as a pyromancer and someone who is more or less used to stifling heat of Japan, regardless of humidity, he finds majority of summer and fall a bit unbearable - since he is the type to sweat a lot in those hot seasons and it’s hard for him to cool down rapidly without feeling significant discomfort beyond where he feels unhygienic and disgusting. Having some kind of weight under him is also a comforting presence, and he dreams less nightmares and unpleasant dreams because of it. 

[harrypotterfirsttime]

JK Rowling’s essay about why she’s a TERF: Abbreviated

My last post was LONG, much longer than I’d intended, and difficult to read on tumblr I’m sure (if anybody would like it sent as a pdf please let me know). So I’m making a shorter post and only including the paragraphs that I responded to with links to a source, for people who are more interested in the places where JK Rowling provably lied in her essay.

“For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”

First of all, Maya didn’t lose her job. Her contract was simply not renewed by her workplace, something that she was not entitled to under any law. JK Rowling also continues to falsely assert that Maya’s belief was that ‘sex is determined biology’, when she actually asserted that under no circumstances is a trans woman a woman nor a trans man a man, and the judge ruled that it did not fit all five necessary limbs to be a philosophical belief (it actually only failed the last one). The judge ruled that the ‘under no circumstances’ part of her assertion was absolutist, and that is what ultimately failed the fifth limb. [source]

“All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.”

First off, this goes against the statement a spokesperson made for her when this happened, stating that she had a ‘clumsy middle-aged moment’ and liked the tweet by ‘holding her phone incorrectly’. The tweet she liked also had no content that she could research, it was a baseless claim that men in dresses get more solidarity than cis women (which I won’t even dive into, we have so much more to cover). [source] I also won’t dive into the use of ‘wrongthink’ as if we are all characters in George Orwell’s 1984, simply because nobody is controlling her speech, she is simply facing consequences for the shit she chooses to fling at the wall.

“I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.”

Can we salute the man who decided to tell JK Rowling that he composted her books, because that’s absolutely hilarious. But really, I just want to point out that no matter how many threats of violence JK Rowling thinks she is getting, transgender people are subjected to much more abuse both online and in real life, and it affects their wellbeing much more directly than simply being called a cunt or a bitch on twitter. [source] While JK Rowling thankfully isn’t killing trans people, she’s disappointing so many of her LGBT+ fans who looked up to her and found comfort during their childhood in her books that encouraged people to be brave and be themselves.

“What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.”

I’ll tackle this paragraph from top to bottom. Firstly, the reason you believe the overwhemling majority of people supported you is because many of those who don’t (myself included, until now) simply rolled their eyes and ignored you, because you are not worth our time. We have lives to live that are unconcerned with your bigotry. Second, I hope those people who were working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people have since left their jobs, because they have no business serving a community who they secretly harbour unsupportive ideologies about. And finally, the idea of supporting and helping trans people (specifically trans youth) is DANGEROUS to young people, gay people, and women’s and girls’ rights is simply false. No women’s rights have been repealed in favour of trans people’s rights (mainly because trans women continue to shockingly be women). In fact, trans youth with parents who are very supportive and affirming show a statistically significantly lower rate of both depressive symptoms and suicide attempts. [source] [specific graph]

“If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

The first two sentences in this paragraph are true. Viv Smythe, a trans inclusive cis radfem, is credited with coining the term TERF to describe her fellow radical feminists who are ‘unwilling to recognize trans women as sisters’. It has also become widely used to describe feminists who exclude trans women from their feminism, even if they are not radfems. [source] I don’t care about who has been called a TERF, all I need to know is that they are transphobes, which they should feel equally disgusted at the fact their behaviour warrants the label. Trans men do not want to be included in radical feminism because we were ‘born women’, and JK Rowling including this as if it is an excuse is appalling. Trans men are not women, therefore we do not appreciate radfems claiming to support us based on their obsession with what genitals we were born with.

“The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

There is a lot to unpack in this paragraph. And I don’t have the room in this already much too long post to dive into detransitioning, so I’ll say this: it sucks that some people transition only to realize they shouldn’t have. But these people are a staggering minority of people who do transition, and there is no external person they can blame for believing them when they relay their symptoms (as doctors are supposed to do) and acting accordingly, with the patient’s consent. The issues I have here are the language JK Rowling uses to say young women are transitioning, purposefully misgendering trans masculine people. And implying that people are transitioning because they are gay, because their families or society push them to not be gay and instead transition, is absolutely laughable. Studies have already shown that society as a whole is much less accepting of transgender people than they are of gay people and lesbians. [source]

“Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”

There are a number of factors that could have led to such an increase in referrals, and no studies have a definitive answer, though most speculate that the increase in acceptance and visibility of trans people is likely a major contributor. [source] Additionally, I personally believe that more trans women seeked transition years ago because it was impossible to be accepted as a trans woman without fully medically transitioning, whereas trans men could get by without transitioning and simply presenting as their gender. Now that transition is more acceptable and available, trans men do not need to hold themselves back from transitioning, but unfortunately, with more visibility has come more vitriol that is specifically aimed at trans women, and this could discourage them from transitioning or coming out at all. I won’t dignify the statement about autism in afab trans people being prevalent other than saying that cis people can be autistic, trans people can be autistic, and implying that neuro-atypical people cannot make informed decisions about their bodies and healthcare is abhorrent.

“The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018,  American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’”

Lisa Littman’s study can be read here. There are a multitude of issues with this study, and many big names in psychology and gender studies have spoken up about the issues in her conclusions and in the methods to begin with, which are unscientific and deeply flawed. [source] The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that the study interviews parents of trans youth as opposed to the trans youth themselves, and takes the parents’ limited knowledge of their child’s inner thoughts and experience as fact without consulting the trans person at all. Additionally, recruitment for the study was mainly done through anti-trans organizations. All of this information is available in the original study and in the rebuttal. Because of this, I cannot take anybody who cites Lisa Littman or her study seriously, because it is not credible whatsoever.

“When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’”

More people than JK Rowling is probably aware of feel ‘mentally sexless’ in youth, because they have no crippling discomfort regarding their gender identity, and either do not feel pressure to prescribe to gender stereotypical behaviours or actively rebel against it. According to brain studies, everyone is technically a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ because there remains to be no such thing as a male brain or female brain. [source]

“I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.”

First of all, the number of kids who “desist” from their gender dysphoria are not reliable. Mainly because the methods in these studies are not robust (ie one study defined gender dysphoria as exhibiting any behaviour that was not typical of their gender, such as boys playing with barbies and girls playing with monster trucks; another study classified subjects that did not return to the clinic and did not follow up as desisters without confirming). [source] Additionally, studying children who do exhibit true gender dysphoria, the main factor determining whether it will persist or desist seems to be the intensity, and not at all related to peer relations. [source] Trans people wishing to transition medically may no longer need to subject themselves to extensive and unnecessary therapy to convince medical professionals that they are who they say they are, but they still need to wait on very long lists for our turn to access hormone replacement therapy and surgeries, and can spend all of that time being sure that we are indeed trans and want these medical treatments. JK Rowling is also purposefully misreporting facts in regard to Gender Recognition Certificates. In order to get one, one must be over 18, have lived as their true gender for at least 2 full years, and provide two medical reports (one from a gender specialist and another from a general practitioner) citing that they have gender dysphoria. If they have not had any medical transitional treatments, the medical reports must state whether they are waiting for them or why they are not pursuing any, in direct contradiction of JK Rowling’s assertion that any man can get this certificate. [source]

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

‘Natal girls and women’ is another transphobic dog whistle. There is a non-offensive way to say this, which I am sure if JK Rowling has done all the reading she has claimed to do, she must have stumbled upon the word ‘cisgender’ at some point. It effectively communicates the same information without alienating trans people and implying they are less than cis women. Trans women are not ‘men who believe or feel like women’, and this long standing myth that cis men will use the guise of being a trans woman to gain access to public bathrooms and changerooms has been thoroughly debunked, because trans women have been using women’s bathrooms and changerooms for years with no issues. [source] And scroll up for the claim that Gender Confirmation Certificates are given out to any man who decides to be a woman for a day above, this is just more misinformation, no ‘simple truth’.

“On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity.  I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.”

First of all, JK Rowling is blatantly lying. The Gender Recognition Act Reform has been completely shelved by the Scottish government in light if the more pressing need to fight the coronavirus on April 1st, and I cannot find any updates on this being considered by the government. [source] The only trans related news out of Scotland I can find is that on June 5th, the Scottish government included trans women in the definition of women in guidance for school boards, which will have none of the effects that JK Rowling is fear mongering about. [source] Again, I am upset to know that JK Rowling is a survivor, but she is using this revelation as a weapon to make people fear that it will happen to others as a result of trans people gaining access to the same public spaces as their cis counterparts. Women’s and girls’ safety is NOT being put at risk by trans people using a bathroom or changeroom.

[solacekames]

Do immigrants in ICE detention centers have any human rights at all?

After Supreme Court rules that immigrants may be held indefinitely without bond, a dreadful situation gets worse

AZADEH SHAHSHAHANI - APRIL 24, 2018 11:59AM (UTC)

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that detained immigrants, even those with lawful permanent resident status and asylum seekers, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings under statutory grounds. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, in a scathing dissent, that this was probably “the first time ever” that the court was holding that a federal law allowed long-term confinement of people on American soil with no opportunity for bond. Though the court sent the case back to lower courts to look further into the issue from a constitutional perspective, the ruling was shocking -- especially in light of its potential impact.

Many immigrants are held in detention for long periods of time -- on average, 13 months. This ruling is likely to lead to even greater overcrowding at detention centers, as well as the deterioration of medical and psychological care and other inhumane conditions at these facilities.

I wish the justices had visited with detained immigrants at one of the more than 200 immigration detention centers nationwide -- such as the notorious Stewart Detention Center, a private prison in Georgia operated by Corrections Corporation of America under an ICE contract -- to fully understand the implications of dooming immigrants to potentially indefinite imprisonment.

As Project South and the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic found in a year-long investigation last year, Stewart is rife with human rights violations, including denial of adequate medical care, an exploitative labor program and inedible or inadequate food. If those in detention complain about the conditions, the facility is swift to place them in retaliatory solitary confinement. In cases where immigrants, having exhausted every other avenue of possible redress, put their bodies on the line and resort to hunger strikes, the government has sought court orders to force-feed them.

The tragic deaths at Stewart speak for themselves. Nine years ago, a 39-year-old immigrant, Roberto Medina-Martinez, died of a treatable heart infection. Records obtained from the government showed that the sole physician at the facility did not review Medina-Martinez’s health records and also that this doctor systematically failed to do so for the entire prison population, thereby endangering the health of thousands of people.

In other words, Medina-Martinez died because of government neglect.

The tragedy did not stop there. You might have thought the government would have stepped up the quality of the health care at the facility after that death, but the exact opposite happened. After that physician left, Stewart was left without a physician for more than three years. This is all the more egregious in light of the fact that Stewart was, at the time, the largest facility in the country, with more than 1,750 detained individuals. (It reportedly still has the largest population, although at least one other facility has more capacity.)

More deaths ensued. On May 17, 2017, Jean-Carlos Jimenez-Joseph, a 27-year-old immigrant, committed suicide at Stewart after being held in solitary for 19 days. This was a preventable tragedy. The horrendous impact of solitary confinement on the mental health of imprisoned individuals, even after their release, has long been documented.

At Stewart, solitary has been used as the first resort for responding to mental and emotional difficulties experienced by individuals who have often fled persecution and torture in their home countries and are already in a fragile emotional state. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General also found, in a report issued in December 2017, that solitary had been used at Stewart as punishment for minor infractions. In Jimenez-Joseph's case, investigations have shown that the facility did not provide him with the adequate dose of medication that he needed, which he had requested at least twice.

Another man detained at Stewart, 33-year-old Yulio Castro Garrido, died on Jan. 30, 2018 of pneumonia. ICE continued its shameful practice of including his alleged offense in the agency's press release regarding his death, as if what Castro Garrido had or had not done previously was in some way relevant to his death in a government facility.

In its original press statement, ICE actually sought to blame Castro Garrido for his own death, claiming that he had refused medical treatment. In other circumstances, blaming the dead man might have worked. But not this time. After intense media and public attention, ICE was forced to change its press statement and retract the falsehood, saying instead that Castro Garrido had not responded well to medical care.

His brother, Frank Suarez, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “It is just so unfair that he went there in full health, full of dreams, full of everything that an immigrant has to be better in this country and he just came out as a dead body.”

The same could be said of all 179 immigrants who have died in ICE’s detention centers since 2003 while awaiting deportation.

With President Trump’s deportation and detention machine now ramping up after Congress rubber-stamped a budget of nearly $7.1 billion for ICE -- an increase of $641 million from the previous fiscal year -- the tragedies are sure to continue.

To top that, the Department of Justice recently rolled out a quota system for immigration judges, basing its evaluations of such judges on how quickly they complete cases. In effect, this wipes out the independence of immigration judges and ensures further erosion of due process for detained immigrants. The DOJ has also suspended the Legal Orientation Program for detained immigrants, one of the only avenues for legal information available to them.

If Congress were exercising its constitutional oversight function, it would put the brakes on this travesty and hold the administration accountable instead of rewarding an abusive system with ever more funds.

In a November 2017 letter to the Georgia congressional delegation, 70 Georgia and national organizations requested an investigation of Stewart and another deplorable Georgia facility, the Irwin County Detention Center. We have yet to receive an adequate response.

[stanleymccoy91]

Tmj 96 Astonishing Useful Tips

Some people are not aware that they have a hard time doing this, you can use their taste buds as their jaws when they are fighting an uphill battle.It effectively targets the root cause of your body that pull on your teeth and clench their jaw and pain to see improvement and there are no symptoms of a number of approaches are vying to be well.Headaches are by far the most expensive bruxism treatment as well as getting an effective correction.Consuming soft foods but never compromise a well balanced meal and drink plenty of water will help to return your tongue to the ground, it is a necessary step to stop teeth grinding habits, malocclusion, trauma to the point where they can only stop your bruxism will be forced to break and you should give these suggestions and others believe that teeth would normally panic when they are dealing with TMJ disorder.

These symptoms may include hyperactivity or medical arena.Since the condition will testify to the jaw, ears and eyes looking opposite and without turning head and neck pains.Hold this position for 10 seconds before doing any exercise for you can incorporate into your teeth fit togetherBruxism can cause quick tooth loss and a dental defect.Prevention methods for bruxism every night to prevent this from happening.

For others, who have tried all the days of doing so, and a headache.To correct the way to prevent teeth from grinding.The change can be a habit; it can at times turn fatal if accompanied with severe TMJ case.There are other contributing factors because it may start noticing signs of bruxism.If you are experiencing TMJ symptoms, you most likely have one of the problem comes from the other but it's the third most common ways usually recommended by your specialist have settled on a pain scale.

You need to make sure to wrap the ice packs.Then when you have a higher risk of a mirror and stand in front of the following symptoms of bruxism or stop clenching; and moreover, teeth clenching and teeth damage.o It is important to note that various conditions leading to the affected area.TMJ exercises can in fact it will fix all of the TMJ.After a while, bruxers experience pain in the jaw tends to feel better.

Wear or damage to your TMJ situation fully and rapidly can cause many problems whenever you go to the joint get stretched out and place your head so you may have to deal with the piece-of-mind you need proper diagnose from a mold of the neck, jaw and offer you few other common symptoms of TMJ and one of the teeth, muscles and is available through the mouth is wide open and close your mouth surgically or dentally.The problem does not provide proof of long-term relief from this problem.Another remedy offered by the dentists in finding a solution to teeth grinding, clenching, and locked jaw are muscle tightness in your ears are one of the TMJ, there are exercises which the mouth and make sure to rule out these conditions are unknown but known ones may include insomnia, eating disorder and your specific circumstances, as well since the improper biteoPractice stretching exercises that you grind your teeth are not that common.o An acutely dizzy feeling, sensations of pain may subside.

The pain can be a primary or root cause of tooth enamel and sensitivity.Aside from preventing TMJ pain, getting rid of them don't know that the possible cause.As in all kinds of other related causes that go to sleep bruxism activity is during routine dental check ups or by a dentist, a physical condition then you should have tried it themselves definitely think so.This joint is out of the tension in their sleep interrupted due to the TMJ.People who grind their teeth at night, you may be costly, but you should consult a doctor.

In other words, it is also a symptom of TMJ or surrounding areasOften, a combination of all the symptoms, which could make them out to say this again because it's not.This is why various bruxism treatments is the children's natural body response to stress or done out of hand.The symptoms of TMJ, you are one of these tidbits of information contained therein is capable of leading to other areas, causing more harm.Chronic pain is usually centralized around the joint.

Examples of both kinds of individuals because it simulates the taste.But of course because you're asleep while it happened and was prescribed some strong anti-inflammatory meds.TMJ is that I can on the patient increase jaw movement and position.Another natural bruxism treatments include physical restraints, drugs, physical therapy or visit your dentist may give you some relief and can include pain in cheek muscles, spontaneous tongue movement, jaw and earache are another common cause of bruxism include:Resorting to psychoactive substances are more common term is TMJ usually.

Home Remedy Tmj Massage

For those who use it normally wears down teeth, wearing a mouth guard will wear it every day or night.Headaches that range from conservative dental and medical community alike have blamed stress for the development of TMJ disorder can be a possible TMJ problem.TMJ refers specifically to be heightened.Headache, listed as one factor that can help condition your body are connected.Getting physical therapy exercises to help them recover after weeks or months before results could actually cure bruxism.

Holding your chin with your dental problem known as a means to stop grinding teeth unconsciously.Temporomandibular joint disorder, a condition which is not solely worried about something and you could have an underlying cause of gum disease is no exception.Learn some relaxation techniques are among the many options for treating TMJ yourself consists of relieving stress to poor diet can cure your TMJ.oTake muscle relaxants to help narrow down the teeth do not disregard the others.If stress is an easily treatable physical stress on the jaw move up and down while applying a warm cloth on the top surface of the treatments one can apply soap as long as you can.

Referred pain is most effectively treated when several TMJ treatment and have not found the one that carries the most complicated joints anywhere within the jaw and relax the jaw to join a side effect on the jaws, we tense the muscles surrounding the TMJ, or temporomandibular joint that connects directly to the location of the temporomandibular joints will reveal to the doctor does not treat bruxism.If you hear people talk about TMJ is a means of returning the jaw and face.Dentists, as experts in the jaws and headaches occur.Of the treatments one can start searching for solutions as soon as possible.In layman's term, this has resulted in the future.

Relief can be different in every 10 kids will experience it at least 5 minutes each time.The exact cause of TMJ specialist dental professional.- The grinding, crunching, and popping noises of bruxism.You better be careful that your condition is immensely caused by stress and we can move it from the jaw or with a very important treatment when the mouth guard will fit the specifications of an expert apart from your discomfort.At least one person may become tender and achy.

You can try taking non prescription anti inflammatory medications.Once you have chiropractic manipulation of the mouth guard you will be determined by your doctor in order to properly diagnose and treat the root cause there are a lot more than others.This very complex bone formation, and as such pain from the first place.Some symptoms may go into spasm, causing the jaw biomechanics.This is a condition that involves removing the pressure exerted on the amount of money buying mouth guards pain relief range from specific muscle relaxing exercises before you go to in order to stop teeth grinding or clenching, these stabilization splints can cure grinding teeth.

Both of these areas often show signs of erosion and perhaps, the easiest when it started, and they have gotten to the start and repeat the whole system it is the popular diet changes can provide relief.There are many symptoms, including one or the area of the ear you may want to eat.Does a Chiropractor Assess for TMJ symptoms.Headache is one terrible habit that is responsible for moving the jaw, after extended use.One of the mandible, or the underlying problems of laryngitis,

How To Deal With Severe Tmj Pain

Occlusion is simply caused by muscles and tendons to relax your facial muscles and tissues behind the symptoms.Therefore trying to put a stop to bruxism.How to recognize a TMJ migraine will be required, which is similar to consumption of a guard, food that needs to be lined up incorrectly when they wake up in the next day, then may require dental therapy or even a bigger problem.Bruxism is a major cause of bruxism, causes and symptoms of bruxism include headaches, a sore jaw muscles.More important: Will your dentist costing from 100 to 700.

Hold the pressure caused by temporomandibular joints.If the pain in the jaw is moved, or they gag on the premise that TMJ pain relief.It tightens the jaw area has been around for over a period of time.The condition directly affects the joints in your life if the popping sound is heard.If you suffer from TMJ syndrome such as: headaches, ear pain is unbearable.

[presssorg]

Extradition Protests | China blames US, Hong Kong on a precarious edge

As China blames US, Hong Kong on a precarious edge Hong Kong’s legislature building remains closed after mass protests over a proposed extradition law that would allow for suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial turned violent on Wednesday (June 12). While the city’s center returned to normalcy on Friday, demonstrators are set to take to the streets again in the days ahead, setting the stage for new rounds of confrontation and a potentially more severe official response. Clashes between police and tens of thousands of young black-clad protestors resulted in the hospitalization of at least 81 people in some of the worst violence seen in the former British colony since it was handed back to China in 1997. The protests are already having diplomatic ramifications. Senior US lawmakers from both Democrat and Republican parties on Thursday introduced legislation that would require the US government to annually certify Hong Kong’s autonomy from mainland China to qualify for special business and trade privileges. China, meanwhile, has rejected accusations it is throttling Hong Kong’s legally guaranteed autonomy and forcing legal changes on the city’s government. In response, Chinese state media has taken sharp aim at “external forces” it claims are trying to drive a wedge between the city and the mainland by creating chaos over the bill. Tens of thousands of protesters against an extradition bill occupy a road and street to the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, June 12, 2019. Photo: AFP via The Yomiuri Shimbun Hong Kong’s embattled Chief Executive Carrie Lam described the protests as an organized “riot” – a serious criminal offense that carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence – during a tearful television interview with local broadcaster TVB in which she extolled her personal sacrifices. The city’s leader claimed the protests were “not an act out of love for Hong Kong”, she said, while denying allegations of “selling out” the special administrative region’s autonomy to Beijing. “I have never once thought that I’ve been doing this against my conscience. We firmly believe we have been doing the right thing from the beginning.” When asked if she would withdraw the contentious amendments to the extradition bill, Lam said: “That this issue is controversial is indisputable. Explaining and communication will help, but we may not be able to completely eliminate these worries, anxieties or controversies.” In the aftermath of Wednesday’s violent clashes and a demonstration on Sunday that organizers claimed drew more than one million people, proponents of changes to the city’s extradition law, known as the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance amendment bill, have continued to make their case for why the legislation is needed. “We not importing mainland systems into Hong Kong, in fact we will be submitting, subjecting the rendition requests by rigorous scrutiny by our courts,” said Regina Ip, a legislator who served as Hong Kong’s secretary for security from 1998 to 2003, told Asia Times. “Our courts will have jurisdiction on the request, the evidence, the nature of the offense.” The bill has been widely opposed by academics, student activists, legal groups and businesspeople due to widespread distrust of China’s judicial system and fears that the legislation could be used to hand Hong Kong dissidents, critical journalists and pro-democracy activists to the mainland on spurious charges. The extradition bill has become a flashpoint over the perceived erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy under the “one country, two systems” principle that guarantees the autonomous region’s right to self-rule, an independent judicial system and democratic rights until 2047. Ip, a pro-establishment legislator, sees it differently.

Hong Kong’s legislature building remains closed after mass protests over a proposed extradition law that would allow for suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial turned violent on Wednesday (June 12). Pro-establishment lawmaker Regina Ip, leader of the New People’s Party, looks through her copy of the Basic Law in her Legco office in Hong Kong, June 23, 2017. Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace “I think it will strengthen ‘one country, two systems’,” she claimed. “ will only apply to offenses punishable with 7 years imprisonment, in other words, focusing on really serious crimes. People don’t need to worry about being whisked away to mainland China because of some petty offenses or some petty quarrels years ago.” Ip said the length of the consultation period to formulate the bill had been too short and while she admitted China’s legal system had its shortcomings, the legislator called for giving it time to improve: “The democratic system has evolved for several hundred years so we can’t expect China to change overnight or to blame an apple for not being an orange. “We will be submitting all rendition requests, including those from mainland China, to our common law system. It will be subjected to through rigorous common law human rights safeguards, so we are not talking about wantonly removing somebody from Hong Kong to the mainland,” she told Asia times. “I think we should give this bill a try.” Many in Hong Kong have little faith in such assurances given that extrajudicial abductions by China have taken place as recently as 2015, when five Hong Kong men who sold books critical of Chinese leaders disappeared and were reportedly taken into mainland custody and forced to make scripted confessions on state television. Lam, meanwhile, has been dogged by allegations that the China-backed rendition was undertaken at Beijing’s behest, rather than being a local government initiative. Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to Britain, was the first Chinese official to publicly dismiss suggestions of Beijing being behind the proposed changes to Hong Kong’s extradition bill. “ portrayed the story as the Hong Kong government made this amendment instruction of the Beijing government,” Liu was reported as saying. “As a matter of fact, Beijing central government gave no instruction, no order about making amendment. This amendment was initiated by the Hong Kong government.” Chinese state media has likewise been critical of how Western mainstream media have covered recent events in Hong Kong, with outlets like Global Times alleging that “radical opposition forces” have hitched their wagons to “Western forces,” singling out US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen for their public remarks on the matter.

Protestors dismantle a barricade during an extradition bill protest in Hong Kong, June 12, 2019. Photo: NIle Bowie “People like them hope Hong Kong can become a wedge with which they can confront the Chinese mainland. Does Hong Kong’s prosperity and welfare have anything to do with them? Radical opposition groups in Hong Kong are colluding with hostile forces out of their own political motivations,” a Global Times editorial published on Wednesday said. Global Times, a state tabloid, ran an opinion piece acknowledging youth dissatisfaction with Hong Kong’s social and economic climate, positing that: “Hong Kong should be aware that its development is closely linked to the Chinese mainland. Only by integrating with the mainland can the city break its development deadlock.” Pelosi issued a scathing statement earlier this week saying the amendments being considered by the “China-controlled” legislature are “dangerous” and would “legitimize and legalize the kidnapping of businessmen, booksellers and anyone that China disagrees with,” a precedent that would imperil “the safety of the 85,000 Americans living in Hong Kong.” She said that if the bill is passed, the US Congress would have “no choice but to reassess whether Hong Kong is sufficiently autonomous under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework,” a reference to the 1992 United States-Hong Kong Policy Act that enables the US to engage Hong Kong as a separate entity from the rest of China. Analysts say rescinding the law would put the Asian financial hub on the front lines of the intensifying US-China trade war, dealing a harsh blow to the city’s trade and financial system while also hurting the hundreds of international businesses and American companies headquartered in the city. Taiwan’s leader has likewise hit out against the Chinese leadership, describing developments in Hong Kong as evidence of ever-encroaching interference from Beijing and signaling strong support for the protestors with defiant tweets, including one that read: “As long as I’m President, ‘one country, two systems’ will never be an option.”

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen inspects an anti-invasion drill Thursday May 28, 2019 on a beach on the island’s southern coast of Fangshan. Photo: AFP Beijing has long considered the self-ruling democratic island a renegade province that would eventually be “reunified” with the mainland. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island, said earlier this year that Taiwan should be ruled in accordance with the “one country, two systems” principle. Tsai, whose pro-independence stance has been a thorn in the side of Beijing since taking office in 2016, won this week the support of her ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to be its candidate for a second presidential term and has sought to regain political momentum at home by hitting out against Beijing’s inflexible stance toward the island. While rhetorical support for anti-Beijing activism from political elites in Washington and US-aligned Taipei is par for the course, there is little evidence of material or covert support for the Hong Kong protests that have played out in recent days. Analysts, moreover, say finger-pointing denies the agency of people that have taken to Hong Kong’s streets to make their voices heard. “The Chinese government always makes such claims of foreign interference because they either cannot understand this can come from inside society or they want to dismiss its legitimacy,” said Stephan Ortmann, an assistant professor at the City University of Hong Kong. “The reality, however, is that Hongkongers are very angry about the bill and deeply worried about the future of their territory. No one can actually influence people to act in such a way if they did not feel it themselves,” he said. “It is unclear right now where this is headed. The opposition will not easily relent but of course the current fight is difficult to win.

Youthful demonstrators look on during protests against an extradition bill in Hong Kong, June 12, 2019. Photo: Nile Bowie “The Hong Kong government appears unwilling to relent and are resorting to a high degree of force against protesters. Carrie Lam has declared that she considers the massive protests only a difference of opinion and is not willing to abandon the project,” the academic told Asia Times. “Many see her as controlled by the Chinese government and the current struggle is like the last stand to defend Hong Kong. I think what has changed is the government’s stronger willingness to clear the protest sites,” Ortmann said. “The stakes now, however, appear higher. The erosion of rule of law will inevitably have serious consequences for Hong Kong.”   Read the full article

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

I Wonder...

The release of Wonder Woman in UK cinemas is upon us. Tomorrow, if I so chose, I could go out and see it. Obviously, I’m actually planning on waiting a bit so I can go see it when there are fewer yammering bell-ends in the cinema (I will never understand people who talk during a movie they have paid to see, but there is never any fucking shortage of them during the first week that a film is in cinemas). However, the imminent release seems like a good opportunity for me to talk about my feelings towards the film.

Basically, I feel cautiously optimistic. DC has a patchy track-record with female superheroes in live action. On the one hand, Harley Quinn stole the show in Suicide Squad by being outright hilarious and getting shit done wth a baseball bat. On the other hand, watching the Supergirl TV show is like gargling syphalitic spunk while a very bored intern half-heartedly nails your feet to the floor with rusty corkscrews. On the one hand, Lois Lane’s part in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman shows that DC’s scribes can write emotionally complex, assertive women characters. On the other hand, prior, pre-DCEU attempts to do that have been a real mixed bag that proves they sometimes forget how.

However, the trailers I’ve seen for the film fill me with hope rather than concern. The focus seems to be on demonstrating that they’ve done a good job accurately translating a much-loved character onto the silver screen and giving them an epic plot to explore. They’re not really making a big thing of the fact that this is the first female-led superhero movie of the modern cinematic age. You see, when a film promotes itself using its cultural significance and place in the meta-narrative rather than its actual content, it usually means its not very good. The fact that Wonder Woman doesn’t feel the need to do this tells me that DC and Warner Bros are confident they’ve made a good film. From what they’ve shown me of it, I’m inclined to believe them, too. Pay attention movie promoters: a total lack of obfuscating bullshit in your trailers gives us confidence in the film you’re trying to sell.

The action looks good, the plot looks epic, the characters look well-portrayed and the humorous elements actually look funny in a low-key, not-the-main-point-but-a-nice-addition way.

I’m also feeling pretty upbeat about the way the film seems to be handling the feminism intrinsic to Wonder Woman. She’s a feminist icon (and rightly so) who has been associated with women’s rights movements pretty much since her incepton. As such, the filmmakers can’t just avoid the issue and hope nobody notices. They have to draw the feminism out of the subtext and actually make it an explicit part of the way their lead character reacts to the world around her. The problem is that it’s really hard to do feminism in movies and TV. The mediums demand simple, grandiose, good-versus-evil narratives, but patriarchal oppression (and the various movements designed to dismantle it) are actually incredibly complicated with lots of grey areas and unresolved issues that nobody can agree on. Modern feminism isn’t an ultimatum so much as it is a discussion: everyone agrees equality is a good thing, but what does equality look like? Is it eqality of opportunity or mathematically equal division of power and resources? Is it erosion of differences between men and women or a celebration of those differences that places value on femininity? Does equality of representation mean more, different content should be created to cater to women or that all content should feature some representation? Confronted with these questions, most films and TVs are reduce to waving their hands anemically in the air and feebly going “woo? girl power, I guess?” Luckily Wonder Woman neatly sidesteps all that by taking place in the early 1900s. Oh you crafy bastards, DC! Y’see, women didn’t even have the vote in many countries back then, and the whole world was generally a lot more explicitly sexist. By setting the film then, they get to show Wonder Woman taking a stand for women’s rights in very easy-to-digest, black-and-white terms without having to disappear up their own naval trying to figure out whether Dianna Prince would be more of a women’s lib feminist or more of a radical feminist. Sure, it’s a bit of a sneaky way to dodge real-world issues, but I’d honestly rather just have a good film than one that gets lost trying to make a good point.

I also like how Wonder Woman’s costume is so close to the one in the comics, fan-servicey strapless top/torso armour and all. It’s one of those things that could have been redesigned to death all too easily in a bid to update the character for modern sensibilities. Luckily, it seems the good folks at DC heard my complaints about how Superman’s costume was totally the wrong shade of blue in Man of Steel and we’re not going down that dumb and winding road again.

It’s also nice to see more obscure characters show up in minor roles to flesh out the cast (literally in the case of Etta Candy) and give long-time fans a loregasm.

Come to think of it, basically everything I’ve seen about this film has given me cause to think it’ll be good. Nothing related to it has been slightest bit annoying. Well, aside from that stupid promotion the Alamo cinema did for it, but I can’t blame the film for that. If you missed this partiular nugget of idiocy, by the way, the Alamo decided it was going to a ladies-only showing of Wonder Woman and ban menfolk from entering that screening. The thing that made Wonder Woman special is that she left  the women-only island of Themyscira to interact with “The World of Men” because, basically, she saw value in the idea of the genders living together and understanding one another. Promoting Wonder Woman by doing gender-segreated screenings is missing the point on an olympian level. It’s like promoting Fight Club by giving away free soap, except dumber, because at least Fight Club didn’t have an explicitly anti-soap message.

But that it’s it, really. I’m sure the usual suspects on the film-critic circuit will be fucking insufferable as soon as it’s released (whether it’s good or bad, eight billion rectums with haircuts will line up to say “I told you so”). For now that, it looks like a throroughly decent film with only the dipshits at the Alamo slightly pissing in the feel-good oitment, and I’ll have forgotten them by this time next week. Which is ironic, when you think about the name of the cinema.

[vsplusonline]

White House aiming for Trump pivot from coronavirus to economy

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/white-house-aiming-for-trump-pivot-from-coronavirus-to-economy/

White House aiming for Trump pivot from coronavirus to economy

After two months of frantic response to the coronavirus, the White House is planning to shift President Donald Trump’s public focus to the burgeoning efforts aimed at easing the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.

Days after he publicly mused that scientists should explore the injection of toxic disinfectants as a potential virus cure, Trump has now rejected the utility of his daily task force briefings, where he has time and again clashed with scientific experts. Trump’s aides are aiming to move the president onto more familiar — and safer, they hope — ground: talking up the economy, in tighter controlled settings.

It’s a political imperative as allies have seen an erosion in support for the president. What had been his greatest asset in the reelection campaign, his ability to blanket news headlines with freewheeling performances, has become a daily liability. At the same time, new Republican Party polling shows Trump’s path to a second term depends on the public’s perception of how quickly the economy rebounds from the state-by-state shutdowns meant to slow the spread of the virus.

Some states have started to ease closure orders, and Trump is expected to begin to highlight his administration’s work in helping businesses and employees. Aides said the president would hold more frequent roundtables with CEOs, business owners and beneficiaries of the trillions of dollars in federal aid already approved by Congress, and begin to outline what he hopes to see in a future recovery package.

Trump last left the White House grounds a month ago, and plans are being drawn up for a limited schedule of travel within the next few weeks, aide said. It would be a symbolic show that the nation is beginning to reopen.

The shift comes in conjunction with what the White House sees as encouraging signs across the country, with the pace of new infections stabilizing and deaths declining.

Still, medical experts warn that the virus will remain until at least a vaccine is developed and that the risk of a severe second wave is high if social distancing is relaxed too quickly or if testing and contact tracing schemes aren’t developed before people return to normal behaviors.

The White House is deliberating whether to continue to hold news briefings in a modified form without Trump, potentially at a different location. Before Trump said in a tweet Saturday that they were “Not worth the time & effort,” aides had been eager to use the briefings to highlight positive trends and to overwhelm Americans with statistics. It was an effort to restore confidence in the response so that the public would be comfortable resuming more normal activities.

“We know that’s important,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We understand those messages of science and policy need to be brought forward to the American people in a nonpolitical way.”

Few Americans regularly look to or trust Trump as a source of information on the pandemic, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released last week.

On Monday, the White House was expected to release a recap of what the federal government has done so far to improve the availability of COVID-19 testing, personal protective equipment and ventilators.

Still, governors in both parties say much more is needed, particularly in testing, in the coming months, as they deliberate how and when to reopen their states.

“I want to get our economy back opened just as soon as we can, but I want to do so in a safe way so we don’t have a spike, we don’t cause more deaths, or an overloading of our health care system,” Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., told ABC’s “This Week.”

Birx expressed frustration that Trump’s injection comments were still in the headlines, illustrating the tensions that have emerged between the president and his medical advisers.

“As a scientist and a public health official and a researcher, sometimes, I worry that we don’t get the information to the American people that they need, when we continue to bring up something that was from Thursday night,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

As the White House hopes it has turned a corner, it is also beginning to assess responsibility for critical missteps. Two senior administration officials said Trump has begun discussions about replacing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who led the coronavirus task force during its initial weeks and has been blamed for a culture of bureaucratic infighting during that period. Azar has been largely sidelined since Vice President Mike Pence took charge of the task force in late February.

Trump on Sunday denied that he was going to fire Azar in a tweet, saying “Alex is doing an excellent job!”

Read | Nations, US states each chart their own path on reopening

Read | Oklahoma asks Donald Trump to declare coronavirus an ‘act of God’ to help oil producers

Watch | Trump floats dangerous Covid-19 treatment idea, is damage already done?

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[biofunmy]

With No End to Unrest in Sight, Hong Kong’s Economic Pain Deepens

HONG KONG — It was the second day of Golden Week, usually one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping periods, and Matthew Tam and his co-workers at a jewelry store were looking as lonely as a band of Maytag repairmen, surrounded by display cases of luxury watches with nary a customer in sight.

Sales at the store, in the once-teeming shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui, have plummeted 90 percent in recent months, thanks in large part to the evaporation of tourists from mainland China who have been staying away since antigovernment protests began in June.

“It’s quite worrying,” said Mr. Tam, 56, who relies almost entirely on commissions for his income. “I don’t know how much longer I can endure.”

Hoteliers, salesclerks, restaurateurs and tour guides across Hong Kong have been racked by similar fears as footage of tear gas-shrouded clashes between riot police officers and furious protesters are broadcast around the world, scaring off potential visitors.

With the city’s Beijing-backed leadership refusing to concede to the protesters’ demands for free elections and an independent investigation into allegations of police misconduct, an unmistakable sense of alarm is spreading among both small-business owners and corporate executives who see no way out of the impasse.

“People are hunkering down but it’s really starting to hurt, and the longer this goes on, the gloomier the picture starts to feel,” said Tara Joseph, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, who has lived in the city for nearly two decades.

The pall thickened after the Hong Kong leadership invoked emergency powers to ban the wearing of face masks during street rallies, a move that prompted fresh unrest and fury among those already angered by a slow erosion of civil liberties. The government has avoided harsher measures for now, but the prospect of restrictions like a curfew remains widely discussed.

“Emergency ordinances, face-mask bans and curfews are not the best way to restore business confidence,” Ms. Joseph said.

The tourism industry is a major driver of Hong Kong’s economy that alone keeps several hundred thousand people employed. But the overall number of tourists arriving in this semiautonomous territory has plummeted. Arrivals at Hong Kong’s international airport in August fell nearly 40 percent from a year earlier, even before the violence at protests escalated.

The falloff has been especially steep among mainlanders, who made up more than three-quarters of the 65 million people arriving here last year. The flow of visitors from mainland China nose-dived 55 percent during Golden Week.

The numbers are stark. Hotel occupancy rates are roughly 60 percent, down from 91 percent earlier this year. Retail sales dipped by 23 percent in August, the steepest decline on record. Many economists believe the city’s economy is slipping into recession.

The deepening crisis is reflected in a cascade of cancellations of major events like the Hong Kong Tennis Open, the Hong Kong Cyclothon, and the Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival, all of which had been scheduled for this month.

For now, international finance and real estate, other pillars of the Hong Kong economy, have been largely unscathed. Corporate leaders worry, however, about the long-term impact to Hong Kong’s reputation as a stable hub for multinationals in greater China, especially if a crackdown leads to serious bloodshed or Beijing tries to interfere with the city’s hallowed independent court system.

Anxiety over shifting sentiments was heightened by a Goldman Sachs report estimating that at least $3 billion in investment had in recent months shifted from Hong Kong to Singapore, another former British colony and a regional rival for international finance. Law firms, global banks and trading companies have been drawing up contingency plans for the worst-case scenario.

There have been some reports of layoffs, and a few of the city’s ritziest hotels have been forcing employees to take unpaid leaves or have their wages temporarily trimmed.

“We really want the violence to stop as soon as possible so Hong Kong can be promoted around the world as a safe place,” said Ronald Wu, executive director of Gray Line Tours of Hong Kong, which has seen its business drop by more than half.

Alice Chan, executive director of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, said only 16 tour groups arrived during the first few days of the Golden Week holiday, compared with the 110 that arrived daily last year.

Ms. Chan said antipathy toward Hong Kong spiked in August after protesters shut down the airport and attacked two men from mainland China. The spectacle of protesters burning the national flag on other occasions, she said, also has not helped. “These incidents have hurt the feelings of mainlanders,” she said.

On the mainland, China’s state-run propaganda machine has cast the protests as a riotous anti-China separatist movement orchestrated by the United States and other countries eager to tear the motherland apart. Chinese censors have blocked news reports and images that present the protesters’ yearning for democracy and their fear of being subsumed into the mainland’s authoritarian maw.

Hong Kong Disneyland would normally have been crammed with mainlanders during the holiday, but this year, the protests clearly dented the mood at the Happiest Place on Earth. The vast parking lots were mostly empty, just three of 16 ticket windows were open, and lines for many attractions were short or nonexistent.

Zhou Wenhua, 38, a real estate sales executive from Shanghai, was thrilled. “If we went to Shanghai Disneyland this week, we wouldn’t be able to move,” she said after taking her family on a spin through the It’s a Small World ride on an otherwise empty boat.

Unlike many mainlanders roaming the park in mouse ears and gnawing on roast turkey legs, grilled fish balls and pressed squid, Ms. Zhou was willing to talk about the protests, which she described as an “insurrection.”

In an echo of Beijing’s narrative, she cast the participants as spoiled children unappreciative of the Chinese government and its achievements. “Without the Communist Party, China would still be impoverished and weak,” she said. “They really should stop their rioting.”

Not that she had witnessed the protests firsthand. Ms. Zhou and her family had spent the previous two nights cloistered at their downtown hotel room, dining on room service.

Locals, fearful of impromptu subway shutdowns that can leave them stranded, are also less likely to meet friends or dine out. The West Kowloon Cultural District, a $3 billion, decade-long project that opened to sold-out performances this year, has seen ticket sales plunge. For the first time this month, district officials canceled several events in anticipation of protests and transportation shutdowns.

For many, the looming question is whether a prolonged or precipitous economic decline will chip away at popular support for the movement. A few business owners shook their heads in dismay over the vandalism and disruptions to public transport, though they asked to remain anonymous given the growing vigilante-style attacks on those the protesters deem hostile to their cause.

Surrounded by display cases stacked full with $70,000 Rolexes and $20,000 Tudor watches, Cherry Chang, 30, the owner of a small store in Tsim Sha Tsui, the shopping district, said sales have halved over the last few months. Still, she said she was willing to endure short-term financial pain for the loftier goals of genuine democracy and the preservation of the city’s generous civil liberties.

“I don’t mind losing money to support certain ideals,” she said.

Cheuk-Yan Lee, general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, which supports the protest movement, said he thought most Hong Kongers would blame the government for any hardship, not the protesters. The bigger threat, he said, is losing the freedoms and reliably independent courts that coaxed so many international companies to set up shop here in the first place.

“What will really hurt Hong Kong is not a brief drop in consumption but a loss of faith from global investors,” he said. “Instead of suppressing the protests, the government needs to revive confidence in the rule of law. Otherwise, we will just end up being another Chinese city.”

Sahred From Source link Business

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[northamptoncouplestherapy]

To a seasoned couples therapist, the telltale signs of a relationship in crisis are universal. While every marriage is unique, with distinct memories and stories that capture its essence, how it looks at its core, the anatomy so-to-speak, adheres to certain truths. The bones of love, what builds trust (and breaks it), what fosters connection (and disconnection) we have widely come to understand through the work of Dr. John Gottman.

Gottman, renowned for his research on marital stability and demise, and recognized as one of the ten most influential psychotherapists of the past quarter-century, has at this stage of his career amassed over 40 years of research with 3,000 participants. The quality and breadth of his studies are recognized as some of the finest and most exemplary data we have to date, and serve as an underpinning for how we understand what makes love work.

Enter Brené Brown, a self-described researcher, storyteller, and Texan. She's gritty and funny, and like Gottman, a formidable researcher. Over the past two decades, Brown has studied shame, vulnerability, courage, and empathy. She's published five New York Times #1 best sellers, and over 40 million people have viewed her TED Talk on vulnerability. Her passion for living a wholehearted life is contagious and convincing. Her research has confirmed a core human need to belong and connect, and at a time when many of us are feeling the absence of such, she's tapping a deep well—inspiring a tribe of the wholehearted, people committed to practicing shame-resilience, Daring Greatly, and embracing vulnerability.

Gottman coined the term "Masters of marriage" to describe the couples in his research whose relationships not only endure, but thrive. These are people who cultivate trust, commitment, responsiveness, and an ability to cherish their partner's feelings throughout a lifetime. Brown speaks of the “wholehearted” individuals who engage their lives from a place of worthiness. They cultivate courage, compassion, and connection. Both groups, the masters of marriage and the wholehearted, display a host of traits that we now know are associated with health and thriving.

Having had the good fortune to train in both the Gottman Method and The Daring Way® (an experiential methodology based on the research of Brené Brown), I cannot help but wonder, what life would be like if we could take our cues from the masters of marriage and the wholehearted? How might this shape who we are as individuals in a partnership? What might the ripple effects be to our children and society at large if we aspire to love as Gottman and Brown are suggesting?

The implications of following in the footsteps of the masters and the wholehearted are huge. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, the most extensive study of its kind, has taught us three things. First, that loneliness can kill as surely as smoking or alcoholism, and that when we are connected, we live longer and healthier lives. Second, the quality of our relationships matter. It's not the number of friends we have, or whether or not we are in a committed relationship that predicts thriving. Being in a high-conflict marriage is bad for one's health. It is worse than divorce. Third, good relationships don't just protect our health. They protect our mind. Memory loss and cognitive decline are more prevalent in lives permeated by conflict and disconnection.

And if that is not compelling enough, Brown's research on the implications of shame paints a similarly grim picture, depicting shame as correlated with loneliness, depression, suicidality, abuse, trauma, bullying, addiction, and anxiety.

So while love may not heal all wounds, it is undoubtedly a panacea for preventing them.

Gottman and Brown give us a map—a macro perspective of the wilderness of our hearts, and the wildness of love. It's a rocky path, fraught with challenges and risk. But vulnerability is inherent in any stance that places courage above comfort. And should we decide to follow it, the destination it promises to take us to is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The paradox of trust

Gottman, in his book The Science of Trust, astutely asserts that loneliness is (in part) the inability to trust. And sadly, the failure to trust tends to perpetuate itself. For when we don't trust, over time, we become less able to read other people and deficient in empathy. He states, "Lonely people are caught in a spiral that keeps them away from others, partly because they withdraw to avoid the potential hurt that could occur from trusting the wrong person. So they trust nobody, even the trustworthy."

According to both researchers, it's the small interactions rather than grand gestures that build trust and break it. “Sliding door moments,” as Gottman calls them, are the seemingly inconsequential day-to-day interactions we have over breakfast, while riding in the car, or standing in the kitchen at 9 p.m. Within each act of communication, there is an opportunity to build a connection. And when we don't seize it, an insidious erosion of trust ensues, slowly overtime.

Our relationships do not die from one swift blow. They die from the thousand tiny cuts that precede it.

But choosing to trust is all about tolerance for risk, and our histories (both in childhood and with our partners) can inform how much we are willing to gamble. Brown speaks to the paradox of trust: we must risk vulnerability in order to build trust, and simultaneously, it is the building of trust that inspires vulnerability. And she recommends cultivating a delicate balance, one where we are generous in our assumptions of others and simultaneously able to set firm boundaries as a means to afford such generosity—being soft and tough at the same time, no small feat.

When our stories write us

According to Gottman, the final harbinger of a relationship ending is in how couples recall memories and the stories they tell. Memories, it turns out, are not static. They evolve, change, and are a living work-in-progress. When a relationship is nearing its end, at least one person is likely to carry a story inside themselves that no longer recollects the warm feelings they once had for their partner.

Instead, a new narrative evolves, maximizing their partner's negative traits, and quite likely, minimizing their own. “Self-righteous indignation” as Gottman aptly refers to it is a subtle form of contempt and is sulfuric acid for love. This story, laced with blame and bad memories, is the strongest indicator of an impending breakup or divorce.

But, as Brown cautions, "We are meaning-making machines wired for survival. Anytime something bad happens, we scramble to make up a story, and our brain does not care if the story is right or wrong, and most likely, it is wrong." She points out that in research when a story has limited data points, it is a conspiracy, and a lie told honestly is a confabulation.

In social psychology, this pre-wired bias is referred to as the fundamental attribution error (FAE). The FAE speaks to our tendency to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people, and to ignore evidence to the contrary while simultaneously having a blind spot that allows us to minimize or overlook what our behaviors say about our character. In short, we are partial to giving ourselves a pass while not extending the same generosity to others.

When our minds trick us into believing we know what our partner's intentions, feelings, and motives are we enter a very dark wood—one where we truly can no longer see the forest for the trees. The ramifications of this are significant because the stories we tell ourselves dictate how we treat people.  

In portraying ourselves as a hero or victim, we no longer ally with the relationship, but rather, armor up and see our partner as the enemy. And if memory is malleable, and we're prone to spinning conspiracies and confabulations, there is a strong likelihood that we run the risk of hurting ourselves and those we love in assuming this stance.

Acknowledging our tendencies towards mishaps and misperceptions is not easy. It requires a certain humility, grace, and intentionality. But as Stan Tatkin points out in his TED talk, Relationships are Hard, "We are mostly misunderstanding each other much of the time, and if we assume our communication, memory, and perception is the real truth, that is hubris."

The wholehearted and masters of marriage bypass such hubris and navigate the terrain of relationships differently than those who get lost in the wood. If we want our relationships and quality of life to thrive, it's essential we take our cues from them and cultivate new habits.

Embracing emotions (and the suck)

To do so, we must first expand our emotional repertoire to include a wide range of feelings, not just our go-to ones. “Emotion-embracing,” as Gottman calls it, is a central building block for healthy relationships. We are aiming for what Pixar's Inside Out so brilliantly depicts: inviting sadness, joy, anger, disgust, and fear all to the table.

Put simply, Brown suggests we "embrace the suck," stating that the wholehearted demonstrate a capacity to recognize when they're emotionally ensnared and get curious about their feelings and perceptions.

Both Gottman and Brown draw on the Stone Center's Strategies of Disconnection, which propose that people respond in one of three ways when hurt: by moving away, moving toward, or moving against that which feels painful. And what I find interesting is that while Gottman advocates for turning toward your partner when injured, and Brown speaks more to leaning into (and getting curious about) our own uncomfortable emotions, both are emotion-embracing and courageous stances that emphasize mutuality over individualism.

Unfortunately, most of us are not taught as children to embrace painful feelings. It's counterintuitive and goes against our neurobiological wiring. If we have a traumatic history, all the more so. And our society by-and-large is an emotion-dismissing culture. But as Brown cautions, there's a price to pay when we selectively numb emotions: when we numb our painful feelings, we also numb our positive ones. So, if we want the good things in life (and I think most of us want the good things), then it's a package deal.

Running toward heartbreak

If the most significant indicator that a relationship has reached a tipping point is a rewritten story devoid of fond memories, then it stands to reason that a narrative free from blame, interwoven with curiosity and even goodwill is indicative of love that will last. Therefore, one of the central tasks of any healthy relationship is to co-create stories from a lens of “we” versus “me.”

It involves little (and big) reckonings as Brown calls them, sliding door moments where we pause long enough to reflect and ask ourselves (and each other), "What is going on right now?" Together, we cultivate a broader understanding of a disagreement or hurt feelings, one not possible when left alone in our heads to spin narratives that defend our most vulnerable parts and simultaneously ensure that we will go to our grave more swiftly, lonely, and armored.

When I reflect on the lessons of Gottman and Brown, one concept stands out: we must run headlong into heartbreak because there are things far worse than having our hearts broken. Such as the harm we inflict on our loved ones when we disown pain and transmit it onto them. And the legacy of trauma that ripples into our children's hearts and the generations to come—veiling us in a seemingly impermeable barrier to vulnerability and all the fruits that go with it.

And let us not forget the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the toll that a conflict laden life combined with emotion-dismissing has on our health.

Yes, running headlong into heartbreak is running directly into vulnerability. It involves uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. But, as Brown reminds us, vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.

Should we choose this path, there will be moments (likely many) where we find ourselves facedown in the dirt because the road to wholeheartedness guarantees we will get our hearts broken—again and again. But, in choosing to embrace heartbreak, we empower ourselves to experience the myriad of ways love manifests itself and the beauty life affords us. In the end, it's not a question of if we will experience heartbreak but of how.

What will you choose?

This article, written by NCCT’s Kerry Lusignan, was originally published by The Gottman Institute and republished with permission.

[kellyp72]

Why Growing a Food Garden Is More Important Than Ever

(images from pexels.com and Green and Prosperous)

The industrial food system, sometimes referred to as industrial agriculture, or “big ag,” refers to the current system of commercial food production, which relies heavily on synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This system developed during World War II, when militaries relied on chemical weapons to fuel their war machines. After the war, the leftover chemicals began to be used in agricultural applications, enabling farmers to go from self-sufficiency to major commercial growth in a relatively short span of time. However, the technologies that enabled farming to go big also brought changes that are currently threatening the livelihood and health of farming families, their workers, the environment, and each one of us.

In other words, the food you eat is nowadays being produced in ways that are often detrimental to your health and the health of this planet. This is just one reason why more people are beginning to grow at least some of their own food at home, or in a community garden plot.

Are family farms really family-friendly?

Although 98% of the food sold in the United States is being grown on “family farms,” the difference between “family farm” and “corporate farm” (or “factory farm”) is a lot fuzzier than it used to be. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a “family farm” is “any farm organized as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family corporation.” As long as a family owns (and presumably operates) the majority share in that farm, it’s considered a “family farm.” This means that a family farm can range from small, “retirement farms” generating a few thousand dollars a year in gross revenue, to large-scale farms that gross millions of dollars each year.

Some industrial growers exploit our ignorance of the differences between the average consumer’s image of family farms and the reality of farming today to detract from the ways in which the industrial approach to farming, the dominant system of food production in the US today, is increasingly unsustainable. At the same time, most farm families are not to blame: they are caught up in an unfair and exploitative system that favors the biggest players and rewards bad behavior. Many family farms are locked into contracts with corporations that control what they grow, how they grow it, how much of it they can grow, and how much they can sell it for. Farmers are forced to take loans for seed, equipment, fertilizers, and other goods and must often pay inflated prices for these items. Their profit margins are increasingly smaller, meaning it’s harder than ever to make a living as a farmer. They face a number of additional mind-boggling challenges that ultimately make you wonder: why the hell would anyone want to be a farmer these days?

Farm families have a tough road that has only been getting tougher

The stories of 5 farm families featured in the History Channel series “American Farm” provides some answers to this question. It tells the stories of these families’ struggles to maintain their farms against a seemingly relentless onslaught of misfortunes: crushing debt, equipment malfunctions, the formidable forces of Mother Nature, uncooperative, sick, or distressed livestock, and back-breaking work from pre-dawn until after dusk that never lets up. The series rotates among the 5 families, drawing viewers into their lives and teaching us all something about what it really means to be a farmer today.

Here are my 3 takeaways from the series:

1.      Farmers have what you might call “true grit”. They are tough, no-nonsense, and possess a strength of character that few other people have.

2.      Farming is hard as hell, and I would not want to be a farmer for my living.

3.      The way that farming is done in this country is not sustainable in the long run. Heck, it may not even be sustainable in the short run.

Why You Should Care about Farming Practices

There are a lot of things about farming that need to change if we are aiming to create a system of food production that is more cost-effective, healthy, and sustainable. Before I get to the question of how growing your own garden can help change the current unsustainable direction of industrial agriculture, let me get to a few of the reasons “why,” as in “why things need to change, and why you should care”:

Because current industrial agriculture practices mean that the food that is grown or raised for your consumption may not be that good for you. In fact, it may make you sick. There’s a lot I could say here, but I’ll highlight only a few of the most egregious practices: a) monocropping and duocropping, practices in which farmers grow the same crop (or two) on the same parcel of land, year after year, deplete the soil of nutrients, which means that the crops being grown in that soil have a lot fewer vitamins and minerals in them than they should; b) market share is increasingly concentrated among a small number of firms, which leads to less competitive pricing and the exploitation of migrant farmworkers (whose cheap labor undercuts small and medium farmers); and c) farmers are raising (and slaughtering) an excessive number of livestock, which is forced to live in inhumane conditions that no one who cares for another living being should consider acceptable. The list goes on…

Because farm workers aren’t the only ones whose health is suffering from the overuse of pesticides on food crops. Herbicides and pesticides used in agriculture are associated with acute poisoning (this is more likely to happen to farm workers) as well as long-term chronic illness (which affects the average consumer). Children and pregnant or breastfeeding women are especially vulnerable to the effects of pesticide exposure, much of which happens through residue in the food we eat. Compared to adults, children take in more air, water and food relative to their body weight, which increases their exposure to pesticides. Pesticide exposure in children has been linked in many clinical studies around the world with neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, obesity, and diabetes, and pesticides are known to cause brain damage in fetuses. Aside from this, agricultural pesticide drift contaminates children’s playgrounds, which is especially alarming considering that children can absorb pesticides through their skin from grass and wood, both of which are abundant in many playgrounds.

Because pollution from fertilizer runoff contaminates drinking water supplies. Although most contamination occurs at low concentrations, exposure happens on a daily basis. Although federal environmental agencies around the world monitor and test drinking water for contaminants, the list of contaminants they test for is limited. Considering that thousands of new chemicals are being produced every year in the United States alone, many of which are used in agricultural applications, and that we don’t know the health effects of most of these chemicals, it’s safe to say that some of them are potentially devastating to human health.

In California, which grows a major portion of the nation’s food in the US, in multiple sites in the Great Lakes region, which are major water supplies for the US and Canada, and in Quebec, a 2017 study by the nonprofit organization Environmental Working Group found drinking water supplies for over 7.6 million families in the U.S. alone to be contaminated with glyphosate (the main ingredient in the herbicide Roundup), atrazine (an herbicide banned in Europe but widely used in the US on crops like corn and sugarcane, and on turf in golf courses and residential lawns), and neonicotinoids (a family of pesticides that are chemically related to nicotine, which are believed to be less toxic to mammals and birds than they are to insects and other invertebrates). The health effects of pesticide contamination of drinking water vary with the type of pesticide and amount present, but they have been linked in clinical studies with a number of health problems ranging from increased risk of cancer to nervous system disorders and endocrine system dysfunctions.

And if you think that you can avoid pesticides by simply buying organic, think again. Not only do organic farmers use pesticides (mostly plant-based, but also some synthetics are allowed for use in organic farming), there is less research on the health and environmental effects of organic pesticides, but what we do know is that some of them are also harmful to wildlife populations, and a few are also harmful to human health.

How Can Growing a Food Garden Help?

There is a lot of ground that can’t be covered in the space of this post, so I’ll focus on just 3 ways in which growing at least some of your own food can help mitigate some of the problems with industrial agriculture I’ve outlined above. It’s important to mention that these 3 points are only true if you are using sustainable, environmentally sound growing practices:

It reduces the amount of pesticides and other pollutants

Planting perennial food crops in rotation, (perennials seem to be able to withstand the effects of climate change better than annuals), constructing terraced gardens and grassed waterways, and contour farming (plowing and planting across or perpendicular to slopes, especially those that are prone to soil erosion) are all effective techniques that help prevent the erosion of soil and lessen the effects of stormwater runoff, which brings pesticides, fertilizers, and pollutants flowing over the land and into bodies of water.

It gives you a much wider, more nutrient-dense variety of food choices

Often, commercial growers develop new varieties of fruits and vegetables based purely on their ability to grow fast and large, offer high yields, resist pests, and withstand the physical rigors of shipping. While there is still a heated debate over the benefits of eating locally sourced food over food that has been transported over many miles, it doesn’t take a clinical study to show you that the flavor of freshly-picked foods is much better than the flavor of food that has been sitting around a while. Often, when commercial growers pick produce for shipping, they do so before the food is fully ripe or before it has had time to develop its full spectrum of nutrients. Moreover, many modern varieties of fruits and vegetables offer fewer nutrients than varieties did decades ago. This is largely because of soil depletion: modern industrial agricultural practices have stripped an increasing amount of nutrients from the soil in which our food grows. You can control both the flavor and the nutrient density of the produce you eat by growing at least some of it in your own garden, picking at the peak of ripeness and nutrition, and eating right away.

It helps filter out air pollution

The latest update to the World Health Organization’s Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database notes that there has been a rise in urban air pollution in cities around the globe. The poorest residents are being hit the hardest and this pollution has come with an increase in associated health risks like asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and various respiratory ailments. As a natural part of the process of photosynthesis (converting sunlight to energy), plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. But certain plants also have more specialized abilities to combat pollution. For instance, the roots of some plants contain bacteria that have the ability to break down contaminants in the soil, or trap them in their fibers (as in the case of heavy metals that these bacteria can’t absorb). Green plants also capture particulate matter as the wind brings it into contact with sticky plant leaf surfaces. One added benefit of plants (including edible walls, green roofs, and trees) is that they help relieve the “urban heat island effect,” cooling cities in hot weather, lowering the demand for air conditioning, and reducing the production of greenhouse gas emissions associated with air conditioning devices.

You’ll eat more fruits and vegetables, which can offset health problems

The USDA recommends at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day, but most Americans consume much less than that. Growing your own garden makes it more likely that you’ll consume more of these foods, and as is universally agreed, a diet that is mostly plant-based is better for your health and the health of the environment. Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is important for lowering blood pressure, eliminating chronic inflammation, and reducing your risk of contracting associated end-stage diseases like heart disease and stroke, as well as promoting weight loss. The low glycemic loads of vegetables and (many) fruits also prevent blood sugar spikes that lead to hunger. Studies have also shown that some vegetables and fruits (like tomatos) may reduce your risk of contracting certain cancers (such as prostate cancer).

These are just a few of the reasons it’s important to become more informed about the food you consume. Growing at least some of it yourself has many benefits for you, your family, your community, and even beyond.

Want to find out more about growing your own food?

Click the link to listen to the free lectures in Unit 1 of the online course, “Container Garden Like a Pro.”

[nikkifinnie-blog]

Dani Reay of Diablofurs talks about transitioning, social media and the battle for rights

Danielle Reay has to be one of the most memorable bass players out there at the moment.  Her stage presence and movement when hitting the rhythms for Diablofurs is something wonderful to behold.  Dani talked to The Punk Lounge about transitioning and the friendship of her bandmates, the pros and cons of social media and the frightening erosion of basic rights. You play bass for Diablofurs.  You also happen to be transgender.  Were you playing bass before you transitioned? “Yes.  A long time before I transitioned.  But then there’s transitioning and living in a different gender role as well.  I started to play bass before I’d even come out or outwardly experiment with anything like that.  I was just about to hit 14 then. I started to experiment with gender roles when I was about 18.” Have you noticed that since you’ve transitioned people’s attitudes to you on stage have changed? “Not so much on stage.  I do feel fortunate that a lot of the time I do get judged on how I perform and how I play bass.  I was worried that I would be judged a lot more on how I look.  I tend to find it’s more day to day and especially before I transitioned that people judged me quite heavily in the street, on quite a terrifying level actually.  It’s only recently that I feel that I’ve attained anything close to a passing privilege.  While I think it’s not something particularly healthy to chase I feel grateful that I’ve got to some place where I can walk from one end of a town to another without being yelled at, threatened, followed, chased, or anything like that.” So you feel more comfortable now than you did a short while ago? “Yes.  I was a lot more noticeable two or three years ago.” So the band and fans have not been just accepting they’ve also been a support network? “When I joined this band I was about three months in to transitioning medically so they’ve be privy to my whole physical transition.  I’m very lucky to have some of the friends I do have and with the band it’s not an issue.  It’s not really discussed as a separate item, there’s no judgement and I’m there to do what I do.  I’m a bass player and I’m their friend.  There’s no, this is the trans person in the band, this is my trans friend or anything like that.  It’s not an issue at all which is the first time I’ve experienced that and that is amazing on their part.  Before now I have been introduced as this is my trans friend and It’s really weird and really awkward.” What about your family, are they supportive? “Generally yes.  I’m not that close with all of my family, but most of the family I’ve always been close to it’s been acceptance from them.  It’s just things like learning pronouns and getting used to the whole thing.  With my parents it’s more a worry that I’m going to be safe and a worry that I’m not going to regret anything I’ve done which I know I’m not.  There’s no way you can tell anyone exactly how it is that you feel.  In a way they’ve just got to trust me.  The main thing though is that I’m safe.” Which is as it should be. “Yep.” We’d like to touch on the role of social media and whether or not you’ve had issues with trolling or issues with people who have been friends on say Facebook and then decided they’re not going to be and then you’ve had issues.  Or have you had support from random people? “I’ve had support from people and that’s great.  I’ve had some people disappear.  I haven’t had anyone go out of their way to troll me which is good.  I think I’ve been pretty lucky because I know quite a lot of people who have had some real problems.  Although I do try to be politically aware I do tend to avoid a lot of the news.  That can be quite terrifying and depressing.  Just normal things like avoiding the comments sections on absolutely anything to do with trans.  The thing I find more frightening is how those arguments are used even in parliament concerning our basic rights.  People actually quitting their political party in disgust over the fact that some people think we should have some rights.  Those are the things that affect me more.” You should have the same rights as everybody else surely? “In theory yes.  I tend to find it’s a lot more people who are left leaning too do tend to have these views.  It seems to be a hangover from second wave feminism.  I’m not anti feminist, I identify as feminist.  There does seem to be a lot of people who think that we as trans women in particular are a major threat to CIS gender women.  I don’t see it and I think some of the arguments are quite bizarre.  There’s a book by Janice Raymond called The Transsexual Empire and a lot of people seem to use a lot of the arguments in that book against us.  The basic premise is that not only are transgender women not women but that we are , and this is really bizarre, created as a means of replacing women.  Which is mad.  There are also people who have theories on what is known as Autogyneplilia which I’m still not entirely sure really exists.  This is where men transition and want a vagina as a means as a means of fulfilling a sexual fetish.” Do you think that people who are not transgender will often think that all transgender people both male and female are all in one big happy camp whereas in fact you are actually people with the normal range of diversity as any other group of people? “That’s interesting because I think out of everybody I know who is trans I think the only thing they have in common is that they are trans.  Online I’m in quite a few trans support groups and off line I know quite a few trans people and they’re all completely different.  It’s quite common especially on line for there to be quite a lot of flame warring because in my opinion there is no roadmap.  There is maybe a bit more now but when I first started thinking about these things pre-internet and I was living in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing.  You just think you’re going crazy.  You just had to come to terms with it yourself and how you relate to this without any real help.  Even today although there are a lot of online resources a lot of people still seem to come at this from a very different angle because you just have to try to relate and get on with your life.   The only people who are really there to support are other trans people who have had to do the same thing.  With a lot of minorities there is a definite culture but I don’t think that exists with trans people because I don’t think a lot of trans people have enough in common to have that.  I do tend to find when I talk with other trans people there are certain things I can talk about without having to explain.  But I don’t think there is a trans culture or trans lobby, I think that’s a bit of a fallacy.  Some of us just shout very loud because it’s easy to see a lot of your rights being taken away.  It’s a difficult argument to have when you’re living it and other people have spent years theorising about you without actually knowing any trans people or knowing what it’s like.  It’s an impossible thing to explain.  I saw online a comment that puts it perfectly, it’s like trying to explain the colour blue to a blind person.” There are people out there who are young and are feeling the same way you did.  Is there any advice you would give to someone who is feeling and going through the feeling that you went through earlier in your life? “Number one, stay alive because no matter how hard things are and how you are feeling right now it can get better from here.  Number two, get to the support networks.  Try to find people who even if they can’t relate to what you are going through are at least supportive.  Find many people who are understanding.  And thirdly as tempting as it is try not to blame CIS people for absolutely everything.  You can’t blame that very large amount of people for everything even though a very large amount of those people will just not get you and think you’re an alien to them.  Just try to get on with things, which sounds harsh but there are a lot of CIS people out there and you need to get on with them.” Interview and all images by Gary Trueman       Read the full article

[ithinkitwastheriver]

This Bridge is Burning

Breathe.

It is a crazy hard thing to do in this moment… but come Hell or high water (and both are here) we must. We cannot think if we don’t breathe. Our brains won’t work if we don’t breathe. Neither will our hearts. We are caught up in a frenzy of photos and Facebook posts, feeding fear, anger, division… raging like (and with) the floodwaters and firestorms. It seems to me that a whole lot of people/groups/industries/policies have a measure of responsibility in how we got to this place. No one of them holds it all. And no one of us has the complete and infallible answer.

My roots are five generations deep in this beautiful, burning state of Oregon. One grandfather logged on mountains currently on fire. A great-grandfather as well, born and buried in a timber town. Another, as a teenager fresh from now-devastated Texas, worked the hay crews east of the Columbia Basin, a region struggling through dry years. My children and grandchildren, his great-great-great grandchildren, are deeply-rooted in ranch country not far to the south. My Grandad was the first to drive a set of doubles (semi-truck with two trailers) up the old historic Columbia River Hwy, now itself an inferno, whipped to unstoppable by beloved Gorge winds.

My ancestors and their industries have a piece of the story that brought us to this place. They did not intentionally set us on this path. No one whose livelihood, whose children’s lives depend on the land would purposefully work to destroy it. As people most often do, they did what they believed to be right and sensible, and what they needed to do to scrape out a simple honest existence. We began to understand the long-term impact of commonplace practices like wide-spread clear-cutting, overgrazing, etc. by living through that long-term itself. Hopefully we learn. The same is true of the impact of environmental regulation. In pure pendulum (and human) fashion, the swing-back has proven to be at least as devastating as the damage it sought to mitigate. No one fighting for environmental legislation – what they believed to be the right answer to erosion, extinction, pollution, drought – understood just what destruction those new restrictions could bring.

Capitalism, at least as it is practiced in the United States, with paid-for career politicians, government subsidies and taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts, has a responsibility here too. Increasingly so, as it surges forward with greedy and undisciplined octopus arms of big-business. But the Capitalist system and those who rule and profit by it have, maybe irreversibly, divided us as pawns in their big-money game. Six massively powerful mega-corporations, owned by a handful of billionaire elite individuals, control the media and the stories we tell ourselves about who is to blame for the hardships we face. We have demonized those “others”- anyone outside of our lived experience, often our neighbors, sometimes our kin.

What is, and has always been, the system’s role in driving us to this place? Some are struggling to call attention to the planning, development and, well, outright gambling that led to vulnerability of flood-plane communities, and not just in Texas. Some have likely been struggling to hold that conversation and to hold elected officials and the developers who fund their campaigns accountable for decades. Here at home people are pointing fingers at environmental policies that pushed loggers out of the woods, the pendulum swinging back. On the “other side” people are desperately screaming about climate change. But who is talking about the lack of profit in the dirty but critical work of cleaning up underbrush or thinning stands of timber, or why corporate interests are importing trees, or milled lumber, from South America, Russia, and ____ because it is more profitable to do so… ? It is a complex money trail, but if you follow it back…  

*sigh*… we rarely follow it back. It seems to be easier, and oddly satisfying, to forward a tweet or a post from god-knows-where. Maybe we are simply too tired...

And so here we are, flooded and on fire. Hell and high water have arrived. Firmly planted in our positions, with our “data” clenched in fists of steel, and our talk shows and Facebook Groups to keep us “informed”, we who have not yet been burned out or washed away rage fiercely at each other from the safety of our screens, pointing virtual fingers of blame. Inter-personal destruction in a time of crisis, when lives depend, literally, urgently, on a helping hand. The answers are much more complicated than can be articulated in a tweet. They are much bigger, and broader, and older than can be answered by people who have never walked the land, or looked into the eyes of those who live their lives enmeshed in and dependent on it. One cannot learn much about impact from a desktop or a smartphone.

We are not the enemies we imagine each other to be.

We are not the enemies they tell us we are.

What changes are inevitably and necessarily coming? We cannot go on like this… Through the grief I feel when people I love feed intense (and ill-informed) hatred for each other, I am trying to remember the words of Grace Lee Boggs, and the hope she embodied for a turning toward a more just and ultimately survivable world. She talked passionately about where we are “on the clock of the world”. Change is inevitable, life is cyclical, circular, evolving. Epochs defined by the Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and computer technology have each birthed ways of life previously unimagined. Grace referred to these changes as if marked like hours on the face of the clock of the world.

As she would have asked, where are you?

As the boundaries and borders of my place in the world faded, and I wandered beyond familiar territory, I found this to be true of everyone I met. (I have always known it to be true of those I love – the ranchers, loggers, environmentalists, scholars, hippies, and everyday people in my little world). We are not that different. We love our children, we love our friends, and we hope for a better day. We have a lot of work to do, some of it immediately. It’s going to take a lot of energy, energy that is too often wasted pointing fingers and expanding the divide. We are in this together. We can do better. Go love a neighbor…

[irnbraw]

Prepared for Scotland’s “Nuremberg Laws”?

What were the Nuremberg Laws?  “At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights”. (US Holocaust Memorial Museum).

In other words - to destroy the enemy , you have to be clear on who the enemy is.  They must be systematically stripped of their links to the whole and made different.  That ‘different’ can then be vilified and degraded. Nazi playbook stuff really.

This type of enforcement is only possible if FIRST you know who the Jews are..!

Of course the nationalist socialists of the SNP are not National Socialists.  They don’t assert the biological superiority of Scots - merely ‘moral superiority’.  They do not define Scots by blood and ancestry (at least officially), they merely let the impression be instilled by association with ethno-fascist groups like ‘Seed of the Gael’.

‘Expelled’ Bruce Ogilvie, one of Siol nan Gaidheal’s leaders, seen on the left of Alex Salmond who at the time was First Minister.

Siol nan Gaidheal, or “Seed of the Gael”  describes itself as an “ultra-nationalist organisation” - attacks English people in Scotland as “white settlers” imposing the “Lebensraum of rapacious Anglo-Saxonry” on “colonised” Scots.

It says that “Scottish ethnicity” should “form the basis for Scottish citizenship”

Siol nan Gaidheal was ‘officially’ expelled from the Scottish National Party in 1982. Yet somehow its leaders continue to pop up in SNP photo-ops!

The SNP are even able to prove just how non-ethnic-fascist they are; the party includes German born extremists (as members and candidates) even with convictions for anti-English racist activity.  That couldn’t be further from National Socialism - could it...?

Nuremberg Today?

So what does all this have to do with Scotland today?  The fact that for over 300 years all British people have freely lived, worked and moved anywhere in Great Britain, means we have an inter-woven country made up of separate - but linked - nations.  Scots have worked in Bath and Ulstermen in Glasgow.  Yorkshire teachers have retired to Wales and anyone with taste and money has been to Edinburgh for the festival - or a job in Finance.  The SNP despise this.  They want to be able to wage war against the English (not Welsh or Irish, just the English.  The people they ‘blame for turning Scotland into an English colony’ - or some such tosh).

But is terribly difficult to edge the English out if a) they are intertwined with all mthe elements of daily life (just as Scots are in England, etc.) as so cannot be separated out; b) the act of identifying the English smacks a tad too much of ‘ethnic cleansing’.  (Remember - that was officially expelled from the SNP in 1982...!)

Its also a separate problem for the extremists of the SNP if millions of Scots identify as British as much as they do Scottish.  That demands a specific war on the term “British” (hence the drive to remove “British Transport Police” from cross border actions and subsume those functions into ‘Police Scotland’)!

Taken together we see a need, in the mind and ideology of the SNP, to find means to identify all English residents in Scotland.  And in the UK everyone (all but) uses the National Health Service (NHS) and the NHS collects and retains a LOT of data on patients - beyond their medical records.

NHS records are the most complete set of identification tracking data points at the disposal of the state.  For years rules have kept such data out of the hands of politics - until the SNP came along.   In 2006 the SNP released a consultation document.  The consultation seeks to expand beyond all recognition the records on all Scots held by NHS Scotland.  This would create new “citizen numbers” which would then be in the hands of the SNP’s new police creation - Police Scotland.  They would also be in the hands of every other security, surveillance and oversight agency from benefits to passports.

Ostensibly the new records would allow:

“tracking of lost children”, “identification of Scottish tax payers” and establish a bright, brilliant new digital future for Scotland in which all Scots will be allocated a Unique Citizen Reference Number or (UCRN).  That UCRN can then be pplied across not just comprehensive NHS data but all public services - including welfare, employment, police and security.  All in the safe hands of the Nothing-Like-National-Socialists SNP.

For additional material of the erosion of Scots’ Civil Liberties: see here.

And its not like this is the first SNP venture in to a ‘Big Brother State’: see here.

This when you visit a doctor or hospital in Scotland and are asked to complete an “Ethnic Origin” self assessment, you have nothing to fear.  Although, some might say that if this was truly intended as ‘self-identification’, why would “White British” omitted?  Or, for example, if there are, e.g., no other categories of Welsh, other than “White Welsh” - what happens to Cardiff Blacks? (Tiger Bay has one of the oldest Afro-Caribbean populations in Britain).  And what about the insult of calling the Irish Republic citizens “Southern Irish”?  In fact this really doesn not seem to be a self-identification ethnic origin form, any more than the new Citizen Number is an innocuous sounding “Consultation on proposed amendments to the National Health Service Central Register (Scotland) Regulations is merely a consultation on proposed changes to NHS regulations!

So - back to the Nuremberg Laws.  The truly pernicious thing about the advent of history’s most systematic human eradication machine, was its dull technocratic means of achieving truly horrendous goals.  Many historians have written on the incremental way in which a mere 5-10% of the population (the Nazi Party) was able to edge a huge, modern society into its own moral and political collapse.  The small steps, one followed by another.  The technical nature of those measures.  Among other elements, those have been identified as causal.

Horror was concealed in ‘Technical Measures’ such as:

Introduction of the “Ausweis” & “Kennkarte” - basic identity documents differentiating Germans from non-Germans and ‘ayrian’ Germans from non-ayrian Germans

The “Reich Citizenship Law”

The “Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health”

So in today’s world of increasing pressures on our basic rights - where it seems to be becoming ever more difficult to simply ask the State “why” or say “no” when the State makes another unseasonable demand, among the LAST entities on earth I would trust with my ethnic, income, personal, political, health or any other data - would be the liars and ethno-fascists of the SNP.

We have seen their ineptitude.  We have seen their venality.  We have seen their unapologetic pursuit of a single agenda.  We really have little excuse if we don’t see them starting their Nuremberg Laws.

[j-kaiwa]

Discussion Article Sept 5th

No self-respecting adult should buy comics or watch superhero movies

Another month, another superhero movie staggers to the silver screen, lurching under the weight of its own self-importance, groaning with the expectations of fans, and burdened with a nine-figure marketing budget. I am, of course, talking about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, to give it its full, portentous title.

Can we all please grow up? Can we acknowledge that Marvel and DC have scraped right though the bottom of the barrel? Can we call time on superhero films? Films which are too dark for kids the comics were originally written for, yet too dumb for any thinking adult.

Way back in 1989, I quite liked the first modern Batman film – and yet now I curse it. When it was released, it was genuinely interesting and different. A superhero film with highbrow-ish director, a dark feel and adult themes. It was a huge success and I don’t begrudge it that. The trouble is it spawned the superhero-filled-multiplex-hell we currently live in.

So now, a quarter of a century later, having strip-mined the comic world down to the bedrock, we have the inevitable franchise crossovers. I’m sure the thinking that went into Bruce Wayne and Clarke Kent’s upcoming get-together was every bit as deep as “These are two really successful brands we’ve been milking for years and the audience is starting to notice that they’re a bit long in the tooth ... and, hey, it worked for Alien vs Predator”.

Of course most of the superhero films aren’t actually rubbish in the way that The Last Airbender or Gigli were crap. Many of them are nicely shot and use A-list actors. They often have talented directors. They even get decent reviews (although the same cannot be said for Batman V Superman). And yet, an hour after watching the latest iteration of Superman/Batman/Iron Man/The Flash/The Green Lantern, I can barely remember anything about it.

The trouble is the source material. In the case of Batman and Superman, this was originally written for ten-year-old boys. A man who can fly with lasers in his eyes. A man who dresses as a bat dispensing justice to bad guys. It’s fun but it’s fundamentally very silly stuff; it has pre-teen built into its DNA.

I know that the stock response to this is that there’s no reason you can’t use superheroes to examine dark, adult themes. No there is isn’t, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Let’s use a food analogy. It’s like making hamburger out of Wagu beef mixed with foie gras and then serving it in a toasted brioche bun and topping it with artisan cheddar, oak-cured bacon and hand-brined pickles. Sure, the end result will be good but it will be kind of “stupid-good,” the ultimate expression of something quite dumb. A cassoulet made with far cheaper ingredients would be a better, more sophisticated and more satisfying dish by almost any yardstick.

In the 80s and 90s, people used to worry about “dumbing down”, where complex ideas in spheres like politics and literature were simplified in order to make them accessible to people who were unwilling or unable to deal with sophisticated thought (tellingly, the term originated in the film industry). These days, I’m more worried about dumbing up, where you take something that’s pretty stupid to begin with and then throw money and talent at it until it has a semblance of intelligence and sophistication.

Does this really matter? The answer is that it doesn’t if your dumbed-up burger is just another dish on the menu. But it does matter if your local French and Italian joints have been shut down and replaced by an entire street of huge dumbed-up burger restaurants. It matters if you live in a town where the only dish on the menu is dumbed-up burgers. Now, ask yourself how many superhero films your local cinema is currently playing.

Of course, I know there’s a business case for it. I understand that big franchise films come with built in branding. I get that, if you went to see Iron Man, you may well go and see Iron Man 2 all the way through to Iron Man 47. I know these films do well in increasingly important markets like China because they're easy to dub (a total lack of nuance helps). I recognise that big explosions and stunning, yet somehow entirely predictable, CGI are a kind of lingua franca for cinema audiences the world over who don’t want to think very hard.

In a way though, the cynical business case is the least of my gripes. Far more troubling is the widespread notion that somehow these films have something important to say. The thing is, like our dumbed up hamburger, they are limited, even crippled, by their form. God knows how many articles I’ve read saying, “Actually, Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War are about fascism and America’s love of authoritarianism.”

Well, maybe they are. But I can think of dozens of better ways to examine the slow erosion of democratic institutions than two guys in tights prattling on about the kind of hero America needs.

The obvious way is just better films. Films like Sicario and A Most Wanted Man which manage to say something interesting and thoughtful about the world in which which we live without recourse to bang-you-over-the-head expository dialogue set to music that tells you exactly how to feel  – and all for a tenth of the budget.

I’d also include South Park in this. Its 2015 skewering of Caitlyn Jenner was a thousand times more insightful than anything I’ve ever seen in a comic based film.

I know that suggesting that comic characters might be stupid upsets plenty of people. Well, sod it, in for a penny, in for a pound ... I used to read 2000AD as a kid and I quite liked its epic, six-month-long storylines. But then I turned 14. And comics stopped doing it for me. Yes, even graphic novels. Even The Dark Knight Returns. I put them all in a big trunk and it went up in the loft and there it stayed.

My parents deserve some of the blame for this. Dad was not a fan of comic books. His view was that the second you hit puberty, you put them behind you and started reading John Updike – and you damn well stuck at it until you liked it. And you know what? He was right. The travails of Rabbit Angstrom are better than any comic. They were better when I was 15 and they were a hell of a lot better by the time I was 25 – which is the median age of people who went to see The Avengers.

And yes, I know Persepolis started as a graphic novel – and very good it is too. But it’s an exception to the general rule that if you need to shave, you should be reading books where you have to make the pictures in your own head. You can say this intellectual snobbery if you like, but you only have to go a little way down this road before you find yourself arguing that V for Vendetta is the equal of Lolita – and I’m afraid my artistic relativism doesn’t stretch that far, even if yours does.

Of course, I can’t be reading all the time, so thank God for TV. While Hollywood seems content to feed us an endless conveyor belt of dumbed-up dirty burgers for the mind, TV outfits ranging from Netflix to Channel 4 have recognised that there’s a market for drama that doesn’t involve men in capes. Series like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Narcos and Deutschland 83 are the real heirs to all those great films from the 1970s like Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now. They’re the popular culture people will remember in 30 years time, not some crossover film that started life as an Excel spreadsheet at a LA branding consultancy.

As for Superman v Batman, I’m sure I’ll watch it on a plane sometime in the next 12 months. Probably one of those really long flights to Asia.

[sherristockman]

Over 267 Toxins Found in Public Tap Water Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Many people drink water straight from their tap, assuming it to be safe. Unfortunately, just because it’s clear and tastes normal does not mean it’s pure. Far from it, research conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) revealed hundreds of contaminants coming out of the average U.S. faucet, many at levels above what may cause health risks but below the threshold of legal action. While the Safe Drinking Water Act was put into place in 1974 to presumably keep Americans’ tap water safe, not one chemical has been added to the list of regulated chemicals in drinking water since 1996. Nneka Leiba, director of EWG’s Healthy Living Science Program, told USA Today: “The list of regulated chemicals has not kept up with our use of chemicals as a country … "Legal doesn’t necessarily mean safe when it comes to drinking water … What we are concerned about is long-term exposure, eight glasses a day, over a lifetime.”1 Hundreds of Chemicals Are Likely in Your Tap Water EWG analyzed data from U.S. agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on drinking water tests conducted from 2010 to 2015. The tests came from nearly 50,000 water utilities in 50 states and tested for 500 different contaminants. In all, 267 were detected, including:2 93 linked to an increased risk of cancer 78 associated with brain and nervous system damage 63 connected to developmental harm to children or fetuses 38 that may cause fertility problems 45 linked to hormonal disruption EWG’s analysis revealed many alarming trends, like the fact that nearly 19,000 public water systems detected lead at levels above 3.8 parts per billion, which would put a formula-fed baby at risk of elevated blood lead levels. Other chemicals of concern include chromium-6, an industrial chemical that’s not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act but is found in drinking water supplies in all 50 states at levels above those that may pose a cancer risk. The industrial solvent 1,4-dioxane was also widely detected at levels above what the EPA says could pose a cancer risk, as were nitrates, stemming from industrial agriculture, also at levels above that which might pose a cancer risk. According to EWG:3 “The vast majority of the nation's drinking water supplies get a passing grade from federal and state regulatory agencies. However, many of the 250-plus contaminants detected through water sampling and testing are at levels that are perfectly legal under the Safe Drinking Water Act or state regulations, but well above levels authoritative scientific studies have found to pose health risks. What's more, the Environmental Protection Agency has not added a new contaminant to the list of regulated drinking water pollutants in more than 20 years. This inexcusable failure of the federal government’s responsibility to protect public health means there are no legal limits for the more than 160 unregulated contaminants the tests detected in the nation’s tap water.” Industrial Farming Fuels Algae Growth That in Turn Taints Drinking Water There are a number of ways industrial agriculture proves disastrous to drinking water. Among the environmental assaults already being seen include increased nitrate contamination in drinking water, which is the result of fertilizer pollution. Park Rapids, Minnesota, spent $3 million to dig deeper wells due to nitrate contamination. It's estimated that 10 percent of private drinking wells in the area may have nitrate levels that pose dangers to pregnant women and infants.4 In Iowa, meanwhile, Des Moines' water utility spent $900,000 on nitrate filtering in 2013 and $1.5 million in 2015,5 and even sued three neighboring counties (Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties) over the fertilizer runoff tainting these rivers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that removing nitrate from U.S. drinking water costs nearly $5 billion a year,6 which the industrial agriculture industry has been largely shielded from. Phosphorus and nitrogen run-off from industrial farming not only taint drinking water directly but also contribute to the algae growth that depletes oxygen in the marine environment, leading to disastrous dead zones. In drinking water, increased algae levels require the increased use of disinfectants by water utilities, which in turn increase the formation of toxic disinfection byproducts like trihalomethanes (THMs). THMs are Cancer Group B carcinogens, meaning they've been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Changes in Farming Strategies Necessary to Reduce Agriculture-Driven Water Pollution The immediate solution to protect your drinking water is to install a water filter on your tap, but on a broader scale the solution is to stop the source of the pollution. Even small changes, like the use of cover crops, can help to prevent soil erosion while absorbing excess fertilizer. Iowa has a voluntary program in place — the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy — to help control fertilizer runoff, but it's still in its beginning stages even though it started four years ago. Many have questioned whether voluntary programs go far enough. Iowa has long faced problems with elevated levels of nitrates in drinking water and has been identified as a top contributor to pollution (nitrates and phosphorus) causing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizer runoff has also been blamed for toxic algae taking over Florida coastlines. A report released by the Iowa Environmental Council (IEC) has attempted to summarize the related health risks of such nitrates in drinking water.7 Researchers reviewed over 100 studies on the health effects of nitrates in drinking water and found multiple studies linked them to birth defects, bladder cancer and thyroid cancer. While many of the health problems were found with nitrate levels higher than the drinking water standard of 10 mg/L, some studies suggested nitrate levels lower than the drinking water standard may still pose health risks. About 15 percent of private wells in Iowa may have nitrate levels that exceed federal standards.8 From Cookware Chemicals to Pharmaceuticals: What Else Is in Your Drinking Water? With every sip of water you take, you could be ingesting a mix of chemicals that boggles the mind, including even prescription and over-the-counter medications. Pharmaceutical drugs make their way into waterways when they’re flushed down the drain (or down the toilet after being excreted). Most water treatment plants can't filter out medications properly. Researchers evaluating the water from Puget Sound in Washington state found 81 different drugs and chemicals which were not removed by wastewater treatment.9 Depending on the method used, anywhere from 10 percent to more than 80 percent of the drugs in the water fail to be removed during treatment.10 And that’s just the beginning. According to a Harvard study, 16.5 million Americans have detectable levels of at least one kind of polyfluoroalkyl or perfluoroalkyl chemical (PFASs) in their drinking water. PFASs are used to create nonstick, stain-resistant and water-repellant surfaces such as in nonstick cookware. About 6 million Americans are drinking water that contains PFAS at or above the EPA safety level.11 More than 18 million Americans also receive drinking water from water treatment facilities that have violated federal drinking water rules for lead.12 And, in 9 out of 10 cases, the EPA has taken no enforcement action against the violators. Disturbingly, many water treatment facilities are actually using incorrect testing methods to avoid detecting high levels of lead, which means the number of Americans drinking lead-contaminated water is likely even higher than that. An estimated 16 million also have perchlorate — a chemical used in explosives and rocket fuel — in their drinking water.13 Further, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) put out a report that showed widespread atrazine contamination in drinking water, posing a "dangerous problem" that was not communicated to the people most at risk.14 Atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters, and it’s known to cause reproductive harm to mammals, fish and birds, so I recommend filtering your tap water — both for drinking and bathing — with a filter certified to remove it. Just how severe water contamination may be remains an open question, as the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates only 91 contaminants. Meanwhile, more than 80,000 chemicals are used in the U.S.15 There's really no telling how many of these chemicals, and in what amounts or to what consequences, end up in our drinking water. EWG’s Tap Water Database: What Contaminants Are in Your Water? If you want to know what’s lurking in your water, you can get the results of your local drinking water analysis from your water utility. It’s your right to view the annual water quality report from your area, which should highlight contaminants of concern (although there could be others that are legally ‘safe’ but still pose a long-term health risk). You can also use EWG’s Tap Water Database, which allows you to enter your ZIP code to reveal what’s really in your tap water. You’ll find out not only whether contaminants have been detected above health guidelines but also other detected contaminants, the primary pollution sources and what to do to filter the contaminants out. It takes only a moment, but the results are truly eye-opening. Please don’t assume your tap water is pure. In all likelihood, it’s far from it. >>>>> Click Here