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SEX, LIES AND CHEAP COLOGNE: AN ORAL HISTORY OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH’S SOFTCORE PORN MAG

The story of how an oversexed, strangely intellectual magazine by a polo shirt brand completed the improbable task of changing the course of sexuality in America’s malls, homes and moose-print boxers

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was a shrewd businessman, but he didn’t always make the best decisions. Between the blatantly racist T-shirts he signed off on, the child thongs he called “cute” and the series of public statements he made admitting that his brand intentionally excluded anyone who wasn’t “cool” and “good-looking” with “great attitudes and a lot of friends,” it’s no wonder that he spent the majority of his reign at Abercrombie in hot water. (For the uninitiated, Abercrombie made what fashion writer Natasha Stagg calls “sexy versions of the clothes kids already wore to school: T-shirts and jeans, stuff you could toss a football in or throw on the grass if everyone decided to go skinny-dipping.” More importantly, as she writes in her book Sleeveless, it was “for those who were casually peaking in high school.” It, meanwhile, peaked in the 1990s.)

An exception to Jeffries’ questionable CEO-ing would be A&F Quarterly, the glorious, controversial and questionably pornographic “magalog” he created at the height of the brand’s popularity in 1997 in order to connect “youth and sex” to its image. Woven in amongst surprisingly thoughtful interviews with A-list humans like Spike Lee, Bret Easton Ellis, Rudy Guiliani and Lil’ Kim was a cascade of naked photos from photographer Bruce Weber which showed nubile youngs in various states of undress. They were frolicking, they were caressing and they were deep in the throes of experimenting with types of sex that — at the time — had never been portrayed by mainstream brands.

With issue titles such as “XXX,” “The Pleasure Principle” and “Naughty and Nice,” the Quarterly dove headfirst into the risque. During its 25-issue run between 1997 and 2003, it printed interviews with porn star Jenna Jameson, offered sex advice on how to “go down” in public and suggested — on multiple occasions — that its readers dabble in group sex. One issue published an article on how to be a “Web exhibitionist,” another featured a Slovenian philosopher barking orders to “learn sex” at school and big-dick Ron Jeremy even stopped by to talk about performing oral sex on himself and using a cast made from his own penis.

The actual Abercrombie clothing being modeled in the magalog was an afterthought, appearing in Weber’s photos as more of an impediment to nudity than an actual, purchasable item. The whole thing was, as journalist Harris Sockel put it in an Human Parts essay, “20 percent merch, 20 percent talk and 100 percent soft-core aspirational porn.”

None of this would have been vexing had a more adult-oriented brand been the ones hawking it, but Abercrombie & Fitch was — and still is — marketed toward suspiciously toned teenage field hockey players named Brett. Though he might have looked like a man in his big salmon-pink polo, Brett was but a child. Abercrombie was fond of saying its clothing was for college-aged clientele, but we all knew where its real haute runway took place — inside the crowded halls of every middle school in Ohio.

The Quarterly, too, was intended for college kids, and to prove it, Abercrombie shrink-wrapped it in plastic and sold only to those over 18 for $6 a pop. You could buy it as a subscription, of course, but it was more commonly found in-store, nestled alongside A&F’s cargo shorts and “thongs for 10-year-olds,” a questionable placement that prompted concerned parents, conservatives and Christians to accuse Abercrombie of sullying their children’s minds with impure thoughts.

As such, the Quarterly became the subject of a mounting number of boycotts, protests and controversies that some believe were responsible for its eventual demise. By the time circulation peaked at 1.2 million in 2003, it had been denounced by organizations like the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the American Decency Association, Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Women and, of course, the Catholic League.

Yet the outrage against the Quarterly was matched — if not exceeded — by its cult following, who found its frank portrayal of sexuality to be transcendent. Journalists, artists and the teens whose hands it fell into adored the magazine, and its rarity — plus its utter absurdity — makes it a sought-after collector’s item to this day.

At the same time, few people know about the Quarterly and even fewer realize what it meant to the generations of young people discovering themselves and their sexualities through the unlikely lens of branded content. As journalist Emily Lever puts it, “There’s no weirder way to learn about sex than to pick up a magazine by Abercrombie & Fitch — a brand for hot, mean mostly white kids who shoved you into lockers — but, I guess I’ll take it?”

This is the story of how an oversexed and strangely intellectual magazine by a polo shirt brand completed the improbable task of changing the course of sexuality in America’s malls, homes and moose-print boxers.

AND IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS ASS

The first issue A&F Quarterly debuted in June 1997. With 70-ish pages of full-color hard bodies, it was relatively tame compared to later editions, but it quickly became popular when Abercrombie’s nubile clientele realized it was a paper-backed portal into an adult world of sex, nudity and the kind of unbridled sensory hedonism their parents warned them about. As rumors of its legend began to spread, people began to wonder: What the hell is A&F Quarterly, and why is it printing ass for teens?

Emily Lever, journalist and chronicler of the Quarterly’s absurdist philosophical leanings: A&F Quarterly was an in-house magazine put together by Abercrombie & Fitch that published a who’s who of literati to accompany their images of young adult and teen bodies in order to hawk expensive distressed jeans and polo shirts to kids who would shove you inside a locker.

Alissa Quart, author of Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers and director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project: From what I recall, it had a Bruce Weber-y vibe — gorgeous young men and teens unapologetically objectified, a leering retro pin-up element, also sort of like the highly stylized, sexed-up, nostalgic 1980s and 1990s black-and-white Guess ads. Men — boys, really — were photographed without their shirts, elaborately muscled abs, sometimes naked.

Harris Sockel, in his Human Parts essay: [It was] Playboy crossed with Fratmen.com and a bit of Field & Stream. The Quarterly made my hormones do a kick line across my frontal lobe. I wanted to nibble the soy ink for snack until sunrise. To absorb it so deeply I sweat grey drops onto my pillow. To rip a page from that issue and fold it into a paper flower and stick it all the way up my ass until it came out my mouth.

Lever: Yeah, it was hot. But it was also extraordinarily literary. It featured big-time thinkers, writers and philosophers — stuff that was supposedly intended to expand your mind. It was way too high-brow for the average Abercrombie teen, and its existence made almost no sense given what the brand represented.

Savas Abadsidis, editor-in-chief, 1997-2003: There was nothing else like it. We were the first mainstream brand to combine playful, irreverent, intellectual content with sex and youth in this beautiful, high-art magazine format. Was it controversial? Sure. But it made the entire country take notice.

What they didn’t necessarily see, however, was what was going on behind the scenes. Not only were we the first brand to do this kind of advertising, we were also the first big brand to normalize gay culture for a mainstream audience, expose America’s youth to some of the era’s most progressive thinkers and use our platform to address sexuality in a useful, hands-on way. And you wouldn’t necessarily expect that from Abercrombie. That’s what made it so cool.

It all began in 1996. I was 22 and working at a temp job for a prominent New York architect who happened to be friends with Sam Shahid, a big-time creative director for Calvin Klein, Banana Republic and later, Abercrombie & Fitch. He was looking for an assistant. I had taken a deferment to go to law school and was looking for a job for that interim year, so I applied. I got in.

It was a horrible gig at first. Just awful, Devil Wears Prada-type stuff. I left crying many nights. But I had two things going for me. The first was that Abercrombie had a really small office in the West Village. Mike Jeffries, the president and CEO of Abercrombie, used to come in. He wore flip flops, had a desk made out of a surfboard and began each sentence with the word “Dude.”

Mike Jeffries, ex-CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, speaking to Salon in 2006: Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.

Abadsidis: I didn’t know it at the time, but Mike was gay (I wouldn’t find out until much later). I think that was part of the reason why he and Sam — who was also gay — took me under their wing. They actually didn’t realize that I was, too — it’s not like we all sat around a bonfire at Fire Island and talked about how us gay guys were infiltrating Abercrombie — but that dynamic dovetailed nicely with Bruce’s photography for both the brand and the Quarterly, and it certainly set the tone for what was to come. I was grateful to get what amounted to an unofficial apprenticeship from both Mike and Sam, and eventually, they had me doing much more involved tasks than I was hired to do.

One of them was sitting in on important meetings. At the time, Mike was inviting all these different editors from magazines like Interview, Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone to come in and brainstorm ideas for what the Quarterly could be, but their ideas were flat. They felt like ideas coming from 45-year-olds writing for college kids, and I could tell Mike was getting frustrated by how little they seemed to grasp what he wanted.

One day in a meeting, one of the magazine editors threw out an idea. Without even acknowledging him, Mike turned to me. “Savas,” he asked. “What do you think about that?”

My mind raced — I could tell he was testing me. If I flubbed the answer, I’d be done. I briefly considered censoring myself, but then I thought better. What did I have to lose? I was young. Surely, I’d find another summer job. “I don’t think it’s a great idea,” I told him.

Apparently, that was the right answer. Mike practically threw the guy out of the room.

After that, I started to think more about what I’d want to see out of a magazine. I was just out of college as a French comparative literature major at Vassar, and I was super into that sort of 1950s-style Esquire journalism with the dapper closing essay. I was deep into The New Yorker, Interview Magazine, 1990s-era Details, MAD Magazine and 1980s pop star mags like Tiger Beat, too — those were all an influence. I also loved philosophy, social theory and comics. And graphic novels. You know — college stuff. Then it hit me: If the magazine was for people like me, why not get actual college kids — not 50-year-olds — to create our content?

I suspected my ideas were what they were looking for and knew they’d look fresh compared to what other editors were throwing out, so I decided to take a risk. I got up at 2 a.m. and typed out a 20-page proposal for what I thought the Quarterly should be. The next morning, I faxed a copy to Mike. I left another on Sam’s desk.

About a (very anxious) week later, Sam called me into his office and told me to pick up his phone. Mike was on the other line. As I reached for the receiver, he leaned over to me and said, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

I didn’t even have time to comprehend what that meant before Mike’s voice was in my ear. “Congratulations, kid,” he told me. “You get one shot.”

Shortly thereafter, I was promoted from Sam’s assistant to the completely green, 23-year-old editor-in-chief of the Quarterly. It was a Jerry Maguire moment. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.

They gave me a month to put together a staff and get the first issue out. Bruce Weber was named as its exclusive photographer — he’d already been shooting ads and campaigns for Abercrombie — and Sam was the creative director. As for me, I knew I’d need an editorial staff, and stat.

HOLY SHIT, THERE ARE NO LIMITS

Abadsidis quickly throws together a team composed of two college buddies, Patrick Carone and Gary Kon, who he describes as “pretty funny and stuff.” Carone became the only straight guy on the editorial side. Kon is Jewish and gay. The three of them vow to stay as true to the idealized college experience as possible with their content — even if it means chasing white whales.

Abadsidis: I can’t remember the exact starting budget, but it was upwards of a few million, probably much larger than most magazines get for their first issue! But our budget was also Bruce’s budget. He was getting advertising money, so we were well taken care of in that regard.

We weren’t really expected to turn a profit, though. That was never the point. Come to think of it, I don’t even think we tracked how much the magazine impacted clothing sales, although from what I can remember, clothing sales bumped up double digits every quarter after we launched (for a while, at least). [This statement is unverified.] But that didn’t matter: Our mission was just to set the brand image and make people aware of us. That was our version of success. We were also our only advertiser for a while, so we could get away with a lot of stuff that other publications couldn’t.

Gary Kon, managing editor, 1997-2003: When Savas offered me the job, I jumped at the opportunity. I’d already interned for Sam, and I’d have to scan hundreds of Bruce Weber images that he shot for Abercrombie as part of the job. And I fell in love with his work. It was the visual connection that seduced me. Weber’s photos were like a new Greek mythology; the men and women depicted in the photos were both idealized and sexualized. As a gay kid, who was pretty comfortable by that time in my own skin, I had no problem recognizing the eroticism in his work.

Abadsidis: Me, Gary and Patrick was definitely something special. I don’t think I’ll ever have an opportunity to create anything like that again. I was a huge comic book fan. If I had to describe it, it’s the closest thing I’ll ever come to Stan Lee’s Marvel comics bullpen. Pretty much everyone I hired was super unique. We weren’t all gay (maybe half of us were) but few of us really adhered to the Abercrombie image.

I think Sean came on in 2001.

Sean T. Collins, managing editor, 2001-2003: I was a little skittish about it at first because Abercrombie & Fitch represented everything I was not. They marketed, almost exclusively, to the lacrosse players that called me names I cannot repeat. It was very preppy, and that was not me at all.

I was alternative, maaan. I was a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. I wore a lot of black. A&F was everything I wasn’t, and in a way, everything that had tormented me as a kid. The irony of me working for them was palpable, but what I learned very quickly was that at the Quarterly, you could do anything that you wanted.

One of my first articles was an interview with Clive Barker, the writer and director of Hellraiser (he also wrote Candyman). Now, if you’ve seen Hellraiser, you can imagine just how far of a departure a sadomasochistic horror film was from Abercrombie & Fitch, but getting him to sign on was easy. He’s gay, and at the time, he was super ripped. I think he appreciated the extravagant gayness of the Weber stuff in particular. He was also a photographer, and his husband was, too. I think he recognized what was going on with the photography.

We had an unlimited expense budget, so I took him out for drinks at the Four Seasons. I talked to him for hours, and then he invited me to go back to his house and hang out and see his art studio. He had three mansions in a row on Sunset in Los Angeles, up in the hills. One for his office, one for his actual domicile and one that was a painting studio. I got to see that. I was just a 23-year-old kid. This was my first job out of college, and I felt like Cameron Crowe from Almost Famous. After that, I was like, “Holy shit, there are no limits.”

Kon: I have to credit Savas with pushing us to work without limitations. We were very lucky. At some point during my tenure, I realized that as long as we worked within our (sizable) budget, we had almost full autonomy. We could plan trips to Hollywood to shoot our favorite actors. We could travel to Thailand to reenact our version of The Beach. We could tag along to London or Rome or wherever Bruce was shooting the catalog. We could stroll into the office at 11 a.m. and work until 11 p.m.

Collins: If I wanted to talk to Bettie Page, the pinup model from the 1950s, they’d be like, “Okay, sure.” If I wanted to feature Underworld, my favorite electronic music band, it was, “Sure, go ahead.” It was total editorial freedom, which was so strange knowing how specific of a person the “Abercrombie type was.” I’ve been writing for two decades now, and I’ve never experienced anything like it since.

Abadsidis: Everyone wanted to be in it, too. At first, it was just indie musicians. But then, in the second issue, we snagged Lil’ Kim. That’s when I knew we’d made it big. She was into it — she loved everything about the Quarterly. A lot of people did. The whole high-brow/low-brow thing was really appealing, and the idea of going to college, reading good books, getting drunk and having sex felt uniquely nostalgic and fresh in the context of America back then. Clinton was getting impeached for getting a blow job. It was just a weird, puritanical time, and the Quarterly gave people a national platform to let their freak flag fly.

We had Rudy Guiliani, early Britney Spears, Paula Abdul. There was the New York issue where we talked about the Harlem Renaissance. Spike Lee — one of my idols — asked me if he could be in it. He’d done advertising, you know? I remember him being like, “Yo, this is the deal. I’ve got to give you mad props. This is the dopest thing out right now, advertising-wise.”

We had big-time philosophers and literary figures, too. They were great. We wanted to mimic the experience of being in college and having your mind expanded, so we got writers like Bret Easton Ellis and Michael Cunningham on board. There was a whole Sex Ed issue plastered with musings from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a friend of a professor’s from college. I believe Jonathan Franzen was in there, too.

Jonathan Franzen, award-winning novelist and essayist: I gave hundreds of interviews between 1997 and 2003, almost all of them at the request of various publishers. One of them must have thought it was a good idea to talk to A&F. The fact that I apparently did (I don’t remember it) signifies nothing except that I felt grateful to my publishers.

Collins: We got a lot of weirdos, too. John Edward, the guy who talked to dead people. Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club. At the time, it didn’t have the meathead reputation that it does now. It was legitimately looked at as this piece of anti-corporate, anti-capitalist art, the irony of which was just delightful given that we were a capitalist brand trying to sell polo shirts and $90 ripped jeans.

Abadsidis: The only guy who refused an interview was Donald Trump! I have a feeling his 90-year-old secretary had something to do with it. Though we were technically a magalog and did belong to the brand, our stuff was just really visionary. David Keeps, who was the editor of Details at the time, always defended the Quarterly as a real magazine and publicly said that we were doing more innovative stories than most “real” magazines at a time.

ASPIRATIONAL HOMOEROTICS

It’s no secret that the photography and creative direction of Weber and Shahid contained homoerotic undertones. Irreverent, minimal and moody, it was suggestive without being literal, spinning entire storylines into a single frame. At the same time, it was too idealized to be “real.” The queerness that their photos showed was, as Collins puts it, “aspirational,” meaning that like the mostly white, ab-riddled models instructed to sell cargo shorts by taking them off, they didn’t necessarily represent the full reality of what queerness actually was.

Still, the photos that the Quarterly published during its seven-year run did more to normalize and represent queerness and non-monogamy than any other mainstream brand at the time — weird, considering that Abercrombie’s target market was hegemonic suburbanites whose parents bred genetically pure golden retrievers and had cabins in Vail. Without these photos, the Quarterly might have read more as a minor-league Esquire or Ivy League MAD Magazine, but with them, it became one of the least-discussed, most under-appreciated items queer history.

Collins: Our editorial content — which almost functioned as a parody of so-called “Abercrombie people” — was always accompanied by this extremely beautiful photography that was also extremely queer. But it was never explicitly so. It was all this nudge, nudge, wink, wink stuff. I don’t know how you could miss it, though. The homoeroticism was so overt.

Abadsidis: You’d have had to have been blind not to consider the imagery homoerotic (though, it was really in the eye of the beholder). We had the Carlson twins posing on the cover and riding a motorcycle. We had a drag queen named Candis Cayne. There was a lesbian couple kissing at a wedding.

Kon: David Sedaris, Gus Van Sant, Gregg Araki, Avenue Q, Stan Lee, Peaches, Fischerspooner… you could teach a queer theory class with everyone we featured.

Abadsidis: At the same time, we never labeled anything as “gay” or “lesbian” or “queer.” We never came out and said, “Welcome to our gay magazine!” and we never had a meeting where we were like, “Okay, guys, let’s figure out how to make this thing gay.” It was more nonchalant. The imagery implied it without saying it.

Hampton Carney, A&F Quarterly spokesperson, 1999-2003: The message we were sending was clear: “You do you, whatever that is. Have fun!”

Abadsidis: That was a very 1990s thing.

Collins: There was a specific brand of Abercrombie gayness that got shown, though. The word that they always used to describe Abercrombie as a brand was “aspirational.” They didn’t want to make it like an everyday, normal-people brand. They wanted it to be associated with money, glamour and that WASP-y aesthetic. So all the gay raunch of it was presented within the context of what appeared to be a very square, nuclear family: white, wealthy and secure.

At the same time, that was really when same-sex marriage was kicking off as a political issue. I think you can see a commonality in how Abercrombie was essentially making an argument that you could be a normie and also be gay. That was a newish thing at the time (though I’m barely an expert as I’m not gay myself). Still, I can’t help but see a resonance between coming up with this clandestine content that normalized being gay at the same time this big political fight that was brewing.

Maybe being more forward about it would have come across as “too political.”

Abadsidis: Part of me wishes we’d gone a little further with being more outwardly queer, but I don’t think the time was right. Maybe with a braver CEO — no one at the time was brave enough to take on queerness or gay rights as a mainstream brand, including us — and that’s why few people remember the Quarterly as the sort of transcendent queer thing that it was.

Kon: It’s never been credited as such, but the Quarterly is really an item of gay history. I don’t think we were pushing a “gay” or “metrosexual” lifestyle on people as much as we were showing that it already existed, even out in Middle America. Perhaps that’s what made people uncomfortable. We took that thread of counterculture and taboo that ran through the imagery and continued it into the editorial content. We dealt with topics like drinking, drugs, religion, politics and sex. Again, these are issues young people dealt with daily, but were rarely editorialized.

At Vassar, there was a yearly party called The Homo Hop. It was one of the biggest parties of the year and leaned on Vassar’s history as a women’s college. I bring this up because, on the night of my freshman Homo Hop, I was instructed that each student had to do something sexually that they had never done, and one drug that they had never done. It wasn’t that you had to be gay, but you had to experience something that was new and different. I think that translated well into the Quarterly. Yes, there were a bunch of gay guys writing and shooting and drawing images. But we were simply trying to expose Cargo Short Brett to ideas, images, artists, books, writers and directors that he may have never heard of before. Our shared experiences would become his.

Collins: It was culture jamming, really.

Abadsidis: It was also very “college” to be fluid or experimental without labeling it. I think it’s safe to say that college is one of the gayest places there is in life, maybe not sexually, but definitely in terms of having your mind expanded about different types of people.

Carney: I was in a frat. I’d see fraternity brothers streaking across campus together. It was never a big deal. There are a lot more people in the middle of either extreme of sexuality than people talk about. We’re not one and 10 — we’re one through 10, if you will. That kind of stuff has always happened on college campuses, and that’s the kind of mentality we had around sex. We just happened to editorialize it really beautifully.

Collins: There’s a Barbara Kruger print that reminds me of the mood we were trying to capture: It reads: “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.” That’s basically what Abercrombie & Fitch was. It was an intricate ritual that allowed sunkissed lacrosse players to metaphorically touch the skin of other men.

Carney: You know what’s funny, though? It was never the gay stuff people had a problem with. It was everything else.

LET THE CONTROVERSIES BEGIN

For almost every moment of its seven-year life, The Quarterly was a controversial publication. Parents, politicians and conservative-types didn’t appreciate its no-holds-barred approach to rampant fucking, and they could not, for the life of them, understand how such an adult magazine was making its way into the hands of their precious teens (who were probably jacking off to dad’s Playboys long before the Quarterly came along, but I digress). There was approximately one year — 1997 — where the amount of people it pissed off stayed below a critical mass, but after a certain somebody published a story that vaguely suggested underage kids drink, it was off to the races.

Abadsidis: We got in our fair share of trouble with Christian groups and concerned parents right off the bat. Let’s take one of the earlier issues — I believe it was Summer of 1998. It was my story. Basically, I suggested that people could do better than beer and that they should “indulge in some creative drinking.” There was one drink I made up called the “Brain Hemorrhage” and a few others you could play a drinking game with. We also included a spinner insert people could cut out.

None of it had anything to do with driving, of course, but the issue was called “On the Road.” It was a sort of beat-focused, Jack Kerouac thing, so some people interpreted that as us promoting drunk driving (though we did nothing of the sort). Also, the kid on the cover was underage. He was 16, if I remember correctly. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) didn’t like that.

Karolyn Nunnallee, vice president of public policy for MADD: We had been really focused on underage drinking and had been instrumental in getting the country’s legal drinking age raised to 21. Then Abercrombie & Fitch comes out with this weird magazine that basically said, “Don’t go back to college drinking the usual beer. We’re going to show you a new way to drink.”

Not only did they have this drinking game, but they had recipes for these mixed drinks for young people to partake in. I was like, “Abercrombie & Fitch? Aren’t they in the clothing business?” What in the world were they doing? I mean, they were a high-end brand, not Walmart. Why would they take their focus off of clothing and put it toward alcohol? Were their clothes not good enough that year or something?

Needless to say, we weren’t happy with them. Curse words were handed out. We sent a letter to them and started a whole media campaign about it. We went on as many news media outlets as we possibly could with the story of how incensed we were.

Abadsidis: I was sure I was going to get fired over that. We had to remove the page with the spinner out of every single issue across the country. We apologized, of course, but it ended up backfiring against the protesters — that incident gave us so much publicity. It put us on the map. It also made us a target for conservative types. They hated us. After MADD, boycotts of Abercrombie started flaring up all over the place. That’s around the time we hired Hampton to do PR.

Carney: It was my job, at the time, to defend the brand. I’d go on talk shows like Entertainment Tonight or Today Show and explain away our latest controversy (there were a lot). It wasn’t hard, actually; each time, I’d give them what was more or less my go-to response: “It’s a beautiful publication intended for college-aged kids.” And that was the truth! It was way ahead of its time and was absolutely meant for people 18 and up.

Though not everyone saw it that way. The sex and nudity really got to people. A lot of them definitely thought we were making porn. That was the constant complaint: We were deliberately putting porn in the hands of young kids.

Lever: The Quarterly featured about the same level of nudity as a European yogurt commercial. Which is to say, a lot. It was a “clothing catalog” with almost no clothing. Of course [American] people thought it was pornographic!

Carney: Okay, sure — there were photos of like, six girls in bed with one guy and more than a few spreads that enthusiastically suggested naked non-monogamy — but it wasn’t porn. It was tasteful. And let me tell you — nothing we had in there was surprising to kids.

Abadsidis: The models ranged from 16 to 20. It was erotic. It was art. I don’t think there’s anything pornographic about the Quarterly unless you think that nudity, in and of itself, is pornographic.

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood did, apparently. In 1999, she called for a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch because its “Naughty or Nice” holiday issue “contained nudity” and “even an interview with a porn star.” That porn star was none other than Jenna Jameson, who at the time was well on her way to becoming a household name. A so-called “child prodigy” occupied the neighboring page, sparking accusations that the Quarterly somehow intended to connect children to porn.

A cartoon of Mr. and Mrs. Claus experimenting with S&M across from the statement “Sometimes it’s good to be bad” didn’t help, nor did the “sexpert” who offered advice on “sex for three” and told readers that going down on each other in a movie theater was acceptable “just so long as you do not disturb those around you.”

The Illinois Coalition of Sexual Assault joined Wood’s boycott. Later that year, Michigan attorney general (and eventual governor) Jennifer Granholm sent a letter to Abercrombie complaining that the “Naughty or Nice” issue contained sexual material that couldn’t be distributed to minors under state law.

Carney: There were four states that tried to ban us after that. I remember Granholm. She was my arch-nemesis at the time — we really got into it. I respected where she was coming from, of course, but our whole thing was that we weren’t showing anything that wasn’t actually happening on college campuses. And I’d already made it pretty clear to the press that the magazine wasn’t for minors.

Also, it’s not like we were the only magazine talking about or showing sex. You could find all the exact same stuff in Cosmo or Playboy — it’s just that we were a clothing brand, and one whose major customer base just so happened to be teens and young adults. No one expected that from us. Brands weren’t “supposed” to be talking about sex period, let alone to teens and young adults. But we took it upon ourselves to pioneer a more open, honest view of it. That’s the wrinkle that made it so interesting.

We did come to an agreement with Granholm. We decided to wrap the magazine in plastic and make it available for purchase only to those over 18, that way, it’d be even more clear that we weren’t “selling porn to the underage.”

Kon: I believe it was one of the few times the company acquiesced.

Collins: Other than that, don’t remember getting any instruction from Savas, Mike or Sam to tone it down. It was kind of mutually assumed that we weren’t going to apologize for the sexual nature of our content. We knew we had to keep things sexy, as it were — that was our whole thing.

We weren’t deliberately trying to piss off people, but we were trying to push the envelope, and there was definitely an element of deliberate trolling of conservatives and Christian groups. It was a good thing if we pissed them off. It created the controversy that made the brand seem edgy and dangerous, which is what you want if you’re trying to appeal to young people.

Carney: We were also just showing real things that happened at college. And as anyone who’s been to college knows, it’s not just about reading and writing papers. It’s also about sex. Not only that, of course, but we’re sexual beings. We respond to images that are sexual. We were trying to take the stigma away from that and acknowledge that it’s not a bad thing to do.

But no matter how clear we made it, our stance on sex polarized people more and more. I could tell, because almost as soon as I started speaking on behalf of the magazine, strange things started to happen to me. I got stalkers. People left me messages saying I was going to hell and I’d have no afterlife. I got hate mail to my house. One person left a package containing their dirty, stained underwear at the front door of my apartment with a note saying they’d be “coming by later” to “talk to me about it.” I had to call the police on that one.

I was the face of the publication, so I got the vast majority of the harassment. But I didn’t mind. It was my job to take the fall, and I heard and respected every single person’s complaint and talked to them about it. Plus, for every message I got banishing me to hell, I got another from a journalist or a fan begging me to save a copy for them. People collected them. They really loved it, precisely because it was so sexual.

Abadsidis: Mike didn’t flinch about any of this stuff. He wanted to defend it because he could see it was working. We weren’t about to tone anything down (at the time).

Flash-forward to June 2001. The Twin Towers are still standing tall, tips are being frosted and Apple has just unleashed iTunes onto an unsuspecting populace. A&F Quarterly, now in its fourth year, is in hot water once again. Having survived a number of boycotts, lawsuits and controversies since its inception, it’s now in the midst of weathering another minor national conniption over its use of nudity.

Jeannine Stein, describing the Summer 2001 issue in an excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article called “Nudity? A&F Quarterly Has It Covered”: [It’s] explicit in ways that most catalogs and fashion magazines are not, and its use of male nudity is uncommon among general-interest publications. It features 280 pages of young, attractive men and women alone and together, in serious, romantic, sexual and party modes, wearing lots of A&F clothes, some A&F clothes and sometimes no clothes at all. Among the coffee-table book-ish photos by Bruce Weber is a man, covered only by a towel, surrounded by five women; a woman at the beach reclining body-to-body with three men; a back view of a naked man getting into a helicopter (we haven’t quite figured that one out yet); and a few topless females.

There are many naked butts and breasts.

Abadsidis: We also had photos of nude women in a fountain — which were inspired by Katharine Hepburn skinny-dipping at Bryn Mawr College — and a whole set dedicated to the Berkeley student that spent a day naked in class. It was par for the course for us, but even though we’d done the whole shrink-wrap and over-18 thing, people still felt it was too sexual for branded content.

In response, an unexpected alliance formed between cultural conservatives and anti-porn feminists to boycott Abercrombie & Fitch over the Summer 2001 issue of A&F Quarterly. According to Wikipedia, the offending issue included “photographs of naked or near-naked young people frolicking on the beach,” “top-naked young women and rear-naked young men on top of each other” and an “interview with porn star Ron Jeremy, who discussed performing oral sex on himself and using a dildo cast from his own penis.” Once again, Wood was at the helm.

David Crary, journalist, excerpt from a 2001 Associated Press article: Illinois Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood — a Republican who has been sparring with A&F since 1999 — announced the boycott campaign last week in Chicago. She has recruited a diverse mix of supporters more familiar with facing off against each other than with working together.

Wood, writing on her website in 2001: A&F is glamorizing indiscriminate sexual behavior that unsophisticated teenagers are not possibly equipped to weigh against the dangers of date rape, unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease.

Michelle Dewlen, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, speaking at one of Woods’ press conferences in 2001: It’s not a catalog. It’s a soft porn magazine.

Rev. Bob Vanden Bosch, head of Concerned Christian Americans, as quoted by the AP: It’s very important for people to get involved. The exploitation of sex and young people in A&F’s catalog isn’t only atrocious but also a psychological molestation of their teenage customers.

Quart: It was predatory in a few ways, really. One was that it confused the corporate identity of Abercrombie and the advertising with the editorial. It preyed on young consumers not understanding the difference between editorial content and sales content. Back then it led, I saw, to a way that girls were objectifying themselves and commodifying themselves. It ultimately led to boys also objectifying themselves and commodifying themselves — not to the same extent, but far more than they were when I started reporting Branded a little more than two decades ago.

I have the stats on the male body image dysmorphia at the time in Branded (which has only worsened). Then, male body shaming and “manorexia” was on the rise, for the first time on a mass scale. It couldn’t help for the most popular brand at the time to have a dedicated giant glossy magazine filled with pictures of male teenagers with zero body fat half undressed.

Abadsidis: I mean, sure, as much as any advertising does. It wasn’t like we were leading that charge. Any effect on self-image was certainly unintentional, but I do think it did make people want to be athletic. You definitely saw a lot of guys trying to look like that during that period, especially as time went on. If you look at the first few issues, the guys aren’t that built. Ashton Kutcher was actually in the second one — that was his first big break — and they get increasingly more cut from there. That whole era is when men’s body issues started to come out.

Lever: I’d also submit that all this was controversial because it was pre-internet. The internet mainstreamed sexual content in a way that makes A&F or other “scandalous” ad campaigns (like the 2003 Gucci ad with the model’s pubes shaved into the shape of a G) seem quaint, even obsolete. Like, do you remember that Eckhaus Latta ad a few years ago that scandalized people for five minutes because it showed people having real (albeit pixelated) sex? Neither does anyone else.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK TEACHES SEX ED

Always filled with philosophy, social theory and intellectually minded topics that likely soared over the heads of most Abercrombie consumers, the Quarterly outdid itself in the Fall of 2003 with its penultimate issue. A gorgeous romp of summer-spirited abandon accompanied by some delightfully incoherent, Dada-like musings from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, it connected a “back-to-school” theme with a pretty clear directive to fuck. Yet, the information it presented was actually rather safe and tame, a reality which confused and irritated Quarterly staff. Their content was legit, so why was everyone up in arms?

Abadsidis: The “Sex Ed” issue was the second to last one that we did. It got some of the most criticism, and was supposedly the reason everything was finished. I literally had stuff in there cited straight from the University of Michigan’s freshman student handbook on sexual conduct, and it still pissed people off! Then, of course, there was Žižek.

Lever: Žižek identifies as a radical leftist. He’s very famous for his work on cultural theory and critical theory. He analyzes all kinds of topics in his signature, impenetrable — but also approachable — style. And when I think of him, I think of his very distinctive manner of speaking, that some people have described as being on cocaine constantly. But he’s definitely kind of a cult figure, a favorite of people who consider themselves highbrow, but also fun.

He’s really touted as the greatest anti-capitalist of our time, and yet, here he was, “sexually educating” the mean girls and boys of your high school, in a brand catalog whose entire goal was to ensnare young people for the purpose of selling them distressed jeans.

According to the magazine’s foreword, the editor wrote to Žižek and said this: “Dear Slavoj, enclosed please find the images for our back to school issue. We’ve never had a philosopher write the text for our images before, so write what you like. We’re looking for that Karl Marx meets Groucho Marx thing you do so well. Thanks, Savas.”

Abadsidis: I love Slavoj. He was friends with one of my professors from school. He only had 24 hours to write this, so we actually sent someone to London where he was to drop off the images we wanted him to write text for. They hung out for a day and then flew back with what he’d written.

Lever: It was basically a series of insane, absurdist ramblings pasted over really hot naked people.

Žižek, excerpt from A&F Quarterly’s 2003 Sex Ed issue: Back to school thus means forget the stupid spontaneous pleasures of summer sports, of reading books, watching movies and listening to music. Pull yourself together and learn sex.

Lever: I mean, that’s like the first episode of every teen TV show, where these three nerdy boys start high school and they’re like, “Okay, we’re going to be cool this year guys. We’re going to lose our virginities.” It’s very formulaic. But there’s more.

Žižek: The only successful sexual relationship occurs when the fantasies of the two partners overlap. If the man fantasizes that making love is like riding a bike and the woman wants to be penetrated by a stud, then what truly goes on while they make love is that a horse is riding a bike… with a fantasy like that, who needs a personality?

Lever: The “go learn sex at school” part really struck a nerve with conservatives. But I don’t think it was that transgressive. Fourteen-year-olds are receiving messages to have sex all the time — what did it matter if some Eastern European anti-capitalist was hitting them over the head with it through the pages of a polo shirt advert?

Abadsidis: Fox News got involved, if I remember correctly. That was one of the few times I actually got pissed off about how an issue was being covered. I mean, the information in there was handed out to students by an actual university. Half the issue was quotes from this really influential philosopher. But for some reason, people really took offense to the language of it. That whole year [2003] was just a bad one for us.

THE LAST HORNY CHRISTMAS

For its final trick, the Quarterly released a holiday issue featuring 280 pages of “moose, ice hockey, chivalry, group sex and more.” It had oral sex, group sex, sex in a river, Christmas sex and pretty much every other type of sex you could think of, all which followed an earnest letter from Abadsidis which read: “We don’t want much this year, but in keeping with the spirit, we’d like to ask forgiveness from some of the people we’ve offended over the years. If you’d be so kind, please offer our apologies to the following: the Catholic League, former Lt. Governor Corrine Wood of Illinois, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Stanford University Asian American Association, N.O.W.”

But the issue didn’t really hit. By fall 2003, Abercrombie was involved in a number of lawsuits and protests related to exclusion and discrimination, which left people cold despite the inviting warmth of a crackling, fireside circle jerk (a Weber offering which, I’m told, can be found on page 88 of the final issue).

Cole Kazdin, journalist, writing in a 2003 Slate article called “Have Yourself a Horny Little Christmas”: The challenge for me, when masturbating with my friends to the nubile nudies in the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, is trying not to think about serious things like racial diversity; it tends to kill the mood. But because most of the models in the catalog are white and because a lawsuit has been filed against the clothing retailer for allegedly discriminating against a Black woman who applied for a job at the store, it’s hard for the issue not to rear its nonsexy head. [In 2004, Abercrombie also agreed to pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of promoting whites over Latino, Black, Asian-American and female applicants.]

Collins: As a brand, Abercrombie did a lot of things that were quite gross. I’m sure you remember when they came out with these T-shirts with these racist stereotype characters on them. You would just see it in the catalog and just be like, “Jesus Christ.” It was awful and stupid and self-defeating, just tone deaf. And we just couldn’t figure out how no one at the company saw the problem with it.

Stagg, excerpt from Sleeveless: Kids in my high school wore shirts that read, “Wok-n-Bowl” and “Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White,” accompanied by cross-eyed propaganda-style cartoons. If you weren’t part of the in-crowd (and white), A&F was oppressive. Non-jocks made their own anti-A&F T-shirts, using the brand as a catchall for exclusionary, competitive behavior and old-fashioned bullying.

Carney: That stuff was indefensible, really. Those were the darkest days of my job — listening to calls and reading letters about how offensive those shirts were. Even though the Quarterly was quite separate from the brand and we had no influence over what they did or what clothes they designed, we did still have to print their stuff at the back of the magazine. It was pretty uncomfortable.

Stagg: By 2006, Mike Jeffries’ most controversial public statement on sex appeal was really just saying what we were all thinking: “Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” Those remarks were followed by lawsuit after lawsuit, mostly involving staffing discrimination. An announcement about the store refusing to carry anything over a size 10 reportedly marked a noticeable decrease in sales.

Abadsidis: There were a lot of underlying problems at the company. The amount of negative press Abercrombie was getting was getting silly. No matter what we did, we’d end up in the news, especially if it was related to the Quarterly. After so many bad news incidents, it just felt done, like its moment had passed. It was bound to crash at some point.

Gina Piccalo, excerpt from the Los Angeles Times: Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has pulled its controversial in-store catalogs after outraged parents, conservative Christian groups and child advocates threatened a boycott over material they said was pornographic. However, a company spokesman said the move had nothing to do with the public outcry. The catalogs were pulled to make room near cash registers for a new Abercrombie & Fitch fragrance.

Abadsidis: People like to think that the boycotts and Christian protests had something to do with it, but that wasn’t the case at all. By 2003, Abercrombie’s stock was low — something to do with ordering too much denim. The store was having negative sales for the first time. There was the line in the New York Times, who covered our demise, that Mike was “bored” with it.

Collins: We had no warning. We were all there one day, and the next, we were gone.

Lever: The Quarterly was a relic of a different time. I feel like it could never have been made after 2008 for so many reasons — economic, and cultural and political. It would just never fly. It was made before feminism pervaded everything, at a time where you could be completely flagrant about gross patriarchal shit and still get away with it.

It was kind of like this last gasp of a certain conception of what’s desirable — a very hegemonic coolness exemplified by white Ivy League frat kids who got fucked up the night before their philosophy class. That doesn’t have much currency anymore. Abercrombie kept that image on life support until its last gasp.

Now, 20 years later, what’s cool is not that. What’s cool is to have depression and ADD. The ideal is out. The real is in. And the Quarterly, having always existed in the liminal space between, is neither here nor there.

EPILOGUE

In 2008, Abercrombie resurrected the Quarterly in the U.K. for a limited-run special edition to celebrate the success of its European stores. The original team was reunited — Abadsidis, Shahid and Weber — with the hopes that Britain’s more “open-minded approach to culture and creativity” would provide a welcoming substrate on which to re-grow their original ideas of sexual liberation. The issue, “Return to Paradise,” was “more mature” than its American cousin. It was well-received — aside from the usual protests about sex and nudity — but it wasn’t continued.

Two years later, in 2010, the Quarterly was revived again, this time as a promotional element for Abercrombie’s Back-to-School 2010 marketing campaign, which bore the unfortunate title of “Screen Test.” The lead story Abercrombie put out on its website sounded like a cross between American Idol and a gay porn shot: “The staff of A&F Studios opens up to editorial to explain the steps the division takes to find new, young, hot boys. The cattle-call approach to herd young talent ends with the best of the beefcake earning a screen test that ‘could be the flint to spark the trip to the star.’”

Bruce Weber would be shooting, of course. This would become especially ominous after he was accused of a series of casting-couch style sexual assaults by 15 male models beginning in 2017. According to the accusations, he subjected them to sexually manipulative “breathing exercises” and inappropriate touching, insinuating that he could help their careers if they complied.

Arick Fudali, a lawyer at the Bloom Firm, which represents five of Weber’s alleged victims, declined to confirm or deny whether any of the alleged assaults happened on a Quarterly shoot. If they did, they’re not prosecutable as sexual assaults in New York. Because the states’s statute of limitations on reporting rape is only three years, anything that happened during the Quarterly’s run wouldn’t count toward a sexual assault charge (unless a minor was involved, which Fudali also declined to confirm).

No one I spoke with for this story remembers seeing, hearing or experiencing anything like what the allegations against Weber describe, but some expressed concern over how they might affect the legacy the Quarterly leaves behind. “The accusations are pretty grim,” Collins told me. “You feel for the people who are put in that position. People had power over them. It just makes you think, ‘Was any of this worth it?’ Not really, if people were getting hurt.”

As such, it’s difficult to conclude with definitive sign-off about the Quarterly’s legacy. Either it was a bastion of progressive and transversive sexuality that simultaneously trolled and nourished the very audience it sought to mine, or it was the product of darkness and pain. Either way, Sockel sums it up just right: “The Quarterly was discontinued in 2003, after the American Decency Association boycotted photos of doe-eyed bare-assed jocks in prairies and glens,” he wrote in his recollection. “It was nice while it lasted.”

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charcubed · 4 years ago

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I agree with your opinion on ?no thing and wanted to ask what do you think of jackles saying his number 1 reservation about 10.05 was destiel mention. People also use that as a proof that he is/was homophobic, which I tbh can't agree with, bc there's like a million reasons someone can dislike a ship involving their character and it's not fair to immediately make the worst conclusions possible? Idk, can you share your opinion on that?

Part 2: Forgot to add: and even saying that those reservations mean he dislikes the ship is already an assumption anyway - 10.05 anon

Hi anon!

First thing I’m going to say is that I think it’s frankly bonkers for anyone, in any fandom, to call someone homophobic for not loudly supporting or maybe not understanding a gay ship. Of course this is a blanket statement and in some ways it can still depend on the situation, because could someone be outright homophobic about a queer ship? Sure. But that’s not always (and tbh, probably rarely) the case in situations like this. As you said, there are a million reasons someone can dislike a ship or simply not understand fandom culture with that kind of stuff; if one is unfamiliar with it, it does take a certain level of PR coaching to understand it more fully. I’ll go back to that though.

I looked around for ages, and for the life of me I can’t find a source on Jensen saying that the Destiel mention was his number one reservation. If that was something he said, can you (or anyone reading this lol) point me to a source?

All I know of–and found in my search again–is this video / article, where he talked about his initial reaction to the episode.

"I didn't have a positive reaction," Jensen Ackles told E! News. "The first time in I think 200 scripts I went and sat down in the showrunners office and said, ‘What in god's name are you doing?! Why? I need to understand why this is happening.'"

It took some convincing from executive producer Jeremy Carver for Ackles to finally come around to the idea.

"He gave very eloquent answers and did a great job of explaining why we were doing what we were doing," Ackles said. "I guess I had been aware of this 'fan fiction' for a while and I felt like maybe if I ignored it, it would eventually go away. When I read it in the script that is what I do for a living and is my work—I'm very protective of these characters and the story and I think we have a right to be—I wasn't angry. I just wanted to understand why and what was the message we were ultimately sending with this script and story. By the end of it, I felt good and it gave me all the confidence I needed. It was better than I could have ever hoped."

He continued, "I never should have even sat down in that office, so Jeremy, I'm sorry."

So from the perspective of this quote (if that is indeed the quote in question):

No part of this is anti-Destiel lol. I think it’s very clear what he meant by having concerns about this episode. I’d even go as far as to say that if he has said something about worrying about the Destiel name drop (if there’s a source on that I don’t know about), then it was still in this context: he wanted to know what message they were sending with this story.

I think it’s also key to remember that he’d been aware of fanfic and ignoring it. Why? Because he was also primarily aware of w*ncest fic and J2 tinhatters and the like. There’s a sordid history there, and it’s not unrealistic to say that it caused problems. That was Jensen’s first and primary encounter with fanfic and shipping as concepts, and it makes sense that his method was trying to ignore it and not focus on it.

Then, the flip side: maybe he didn’t want the fans to feel ridiculed either. What kind of message were they sending with this episode? aka is this going to be a nod to fans, or be seen as making fun of them or even getting their hopes up about a ship?

Then clearly things were explained to him, and he understood, and felt good about it. That counts for a lot. After that conversation, he clearly liked 10x05 and often said as much in other interviews too.

Overall, look, ultimately... I don’t know Jensen as a person, obviously. I wouldn’t ever claim to. But I think he seems to be the kind of person who just doesn’t like being back into a corner, especially very publicly such as at conventions. I think he–like all other actors–know they don’t write the stories and can’t promise things on behalf of the writers’ rooms. This applies to any instances people dredge up across the board.

I think he also–especially in the early days–didn’t understand what fandom wanted from him when they asked him leading questions about Destiel... because even at the best of times sometimes fandom doesn’t know what they want, and because without being coached in the best kind of responses no one would know how to answer perfectly especially back then. A mere 5, 6, 7 years ago, social media was still growing, talk of queer rep was still actively evolving and becoming louder, and fans were becoming emboldened (not necessarily in a bad way) to demand more of stories–but that didn’t mean everyone (especially actors) were engaged or educated on what that all meant for the ways they had to respond including on the spot.

SPN season 10 aired in 2014. Same sex marriage wasn’t legalized country-wide in the US until 2015. Lexa died in The 100 in 2016, and I mention this to put in perspective where queer rep conversations were at the time, using a marker many people know about.

Is it so surprising that an actor in a show from the early 2000s–with the baggage of w*ncest shipping debacles, network pressures, inability to speak for writers, and already many years’ worth of playing a character who felt personal to him–wouldn’t have known that fandom wanted to hear the exact phrasing of “I’m not sure Destiel is where the story is going but all interpretations are valid and if you think Dean is bi then of course he is” anytime he was asked a question practically designed to trip him up?

It’s not homophobia to have a cocktail of concerns surrounding a topic like that, in context like that, and especially in very public spaces like conventions. (Homophobia is shit like “not everything is about the gays, okay gay people?” Lol.) There are many reasons an actor could dislike a ship, but even more so, there are many reasons an actor may not understand fandom culture or not know how to perfectly address a ship / queer question because they didn’t know what the fans wanted to hear.

Basically, in summary: I agree with you and I’ve never personally seen anything from the backlog of history that Jensen’s said that struck me as either homophobic (a big word people should stop slinging around!!) or deliberately anti-Destiel with malice.

#asks #anonymous #jensen ackles

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ingek73 · 4 years ago

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EXCLUSIVE: Piers Morgan’s Disputed Evidence to Leveson Inquiry to Face Full Courtroom Test - Judge Rules

13 Oct. 2020

EXCLUSIVE: Piers Morgan’s Disputed Evidence to Leveson Inquiry to Face Full Courtroom Test - Judge Rules

PIERS MORGAN’S SWORN PUBLIC DENIALS OF INVOLVEMENT IN ‘PHONE HACKING’ AND OTHER ILLEGAL INFORMATION GATHERING AT MIRROR GROUP NEWSPAPERS (MGN) ARE TO GET A FORENSIC COURTROOM EXAMINATION, A TOP JUDGE HAS RULED

THE CONTROVERSIAL FORMER DAILY MIRROR EDITOR - TODAY ONE OF BRITAIN’S MOST RECOGNISABLE PUBLIC FIGURES - WILL NOW BECOME A FOCAL POINT OF A BIG MIRROR PHONE HACKING TRIAL SET FOR NEXT JANUARY

PRINCE HARRY IS AMONG 68 PEOPLE CURRENTLY SUING MGN FOR HARASSMENT AND MISUSE OF PRIVATE INFORMATION; OTHERS THAT MAY GO TO TRIAL INCLUDE ACTORS RAY WINSTONE, MARTINE MCCUTCHEON, AND ANTONY COTTON, AND THE ENTERTAINER DAVID WALLIAMS

AMONG THE ALLEGATIONS MGN FACES IS THAT MORGAN, OTHER SENIOR EXECUTIVES, THE NEWSPAPERS’ LAWYERS AND BOARD DIRECTORS COLLUDED TO COVER UP NEWS-FLOOR CRIMES, AND MISLED THE LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE AS THE PLC RAKED IN MILLIONS IN PROFITS

MGN - A SUBSIDIARY OF TRINITY MIRROR GROUP (NOW CALLED REACH PLC) - IS DENYING A TOP-LEVEL ��EXECUTIVE’ COVER UP - ALTHOUGH ADMITS ITS NEWSROOMS RAN EXTENSIVE CRIMINAL NETWORKS TO CREATE STORIES, AS;

FIVE MORE OF ITS FORMER NATIONAL NEWSPAPER EDITORS WITH CLOSE BOARDROOM CONNECTIONS ARE IMPLICATED IN WRONGDOING - WHILE THE COMPANY SPENT MORE THAN £5M ON ILLEGAL OR ALLEGEDLY ILLEGAL PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

Allegations: Piers Morgan (l) will be a main focus at the Mirror Group hacking trial. Prince Harry (r) is among 68 people currently suing Morgan’s former employer (c) PA

PIERS MORGAN’S allegedly extensive knowledge and encouragement of criminal news-gathering at the Daily Mirror while he was editor and his connections to a claimed boardroom cover-up conspiracy will face a full courtroom examination, a High Court judge has ruled.

Lawyers acting for Mirror Group Newspapers last week fought but failed to keep the outspoken 55-year-old journalist and broadcaster out of a case alleging the publisher’s board and top lawyers turned a blind eye to years of criminal activity at its three British national tabloids.

Significantly, it means the evidence that ITV Good Morning Britain host and star Mail columnist Morgan gave to the Leveson Public Inquiry into Press abuse in 2011 - in which he denied knowing of newsroom criminality - will for the first time be tested against detailed allegations to the contrary in a civil court of law where a High Court judge will make findings.

And a legal source told Byline Investigates: “If the Claimants prove their case at the trial, there would no doubt be calls to investigate Piers’ evidence to the inquiry, which would then be called into question. If the evidence was anything less than the truth, it could have very serious ramifications for him.”

Wheels of Justice: The Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London, (inset) The Rolls Building (c) PA

It is specifically a criminal offence in England and Wales under the Inquiries Act 2005 to knowingly give wrong or distorted evidence to a public inquiry, punishable by up to 51 weeks’ jail, a £1,000 fine, or both.

Lord Justice Leveson himself described Morgan's denials of knowledge of phone hacking at the public inquiry as "utterly unpersuasive”.

Leveson was not at the time of his 2012 report after Part 1 of his Inquiry - conducting the sort of exercise that would allow him to make findings of culpability or to enable him to find that phone hacking went on at MGN titles.

However, the company was forced to admit in 2015 - in the teeth of compelling whistle-blower evidence and an ongoing police probe - that it was a common practice at the Sunday Mirror (at a time when Morgan was its de facto ‘Editor in Chief’).

Inquiry findings : Sir Brian Leveson (C) PA

The latest Morgan development, decided in rulings made last week by Mr Justice Mann, one of Britain’s most senior media judges, form part of an extraordinary case, argued by 68 Claimants currently suing the UK’s biggest newspaper publisher, that its legal department and certain board members colluded to conceal the widespread use of illegal news-gathering that drove millions of pounds of the plc’s profits for at least 12 years.

As first revealed by Byline Investigates in 2019, Prince Harry is among the latest tranche of alleged victims of MGN’s ‘historic’ lawbreaking to be taking legal action for harassment and misuse of private information. Actors Ray Winstone, Martine McCutcheon, and Antony Cotton, and the entertainer David Walliams, are among a sub-group of 18 of those 68, selected as eligible to go to trial in January.

Morgan, the Claimants say, is key because of his closeness to MGN board members, and because in his powerful role as editor of the Daily Mirror he was involved in a number of alleged incidents that showed his knowledge and encouragement of unlawful news-gathering.

INCIDENTS

The incidents include one in which Morgan, according to the eminent British journalist Jeremy Paxman, allegedly openly discussed the hacking of TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson’s phone, at a lunch hosted by the then company chairman Sir Victor Blank, and even teased her about the content of her private phone messages.

But, despite Paxman’s evidence being that Morgan’s behaviour toward Jonsson bordered on “bullying”, both Morgan and Blank claim to have no “recollection of this taking place”.

Morgan also allegedly admitted being well aware of the widespread use of phone hacking at its height in the early 2000s in a 2007 interview published in Q magazine and in a Desert Island Discs interview on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Allegation: But Morgan and Blank claim not to recall the Paxman incident

Morgan’s controversial nine-year editorship ended in disgrace in 2004 after he published phoney photos of British troops ‘abusing’ Iraqi prisoners. Now it is being alleged he also oversaw the extended use of private investigators (PIs), allegedly connected to corrupt police, to steal the bank account details of Prince Michael of Kent, among many other targets.

Southern Investigations - the PI firm to which Morgan is being particularly linked - is just one among many operating in the shadowy world of non-governmental surveillance used wholesale by MGN to look into the subjects of stories, from all walks of life, including even senior members of the judiciary.

“The Claimants will refer, in this regard, to the fact that Southern Investigations were used by MGN to obtain financial information for use in MGN’s stories, and that the Editor at the time Piers Morgan and the Legal Department were well aware of this,” reads part of the case concerning Morgan and his board.

‘NO SURPRISES’ RULE

Southern Investigations and its principal owner Jonathan Rees, were the focus of Murder in the Car Park, an acclaimed Channel 4 documentary aired in June, which revisited the UK’s most-investigated unsolved murder - that of Daniel Morgan, a partner in the business killed by axe to the head in a pub car park in 1987 in a cold-blooded crime, to which Rees denies any connection.

Further, it is alleged, another board-member contemporary of Morgan’s - MGN’s former legal manager Paul Vickers - operated an open ‘no surprises’ rule with the newsroom lawyers who, the Claimants say, were well aware their journalists were sourcing and confirming stories using illegal methods.

Notwithstanding Vickers’ alleged knowledge, the Claimants argue it is “inconceivable” MGN’s board was ignorant to the use and functions of the many private investigators the company employed because it is alleged to have spent more than £5 million on them over a 12-year period, at a time the company was also trying to cut costs.

DESTROYED

Trinity Mirror’s former Chief Executive Sly Bailey is among those said to have “misled” the Leveson Inquiry, under oath, while the company put out a“false” impression of firm denial of newsroom criminality in public statements to the London Stock Exchange, although in its Defence the company denies it did any such thing “deliberately”.

The plc is also denying wrongdoing over accusations it destroyed, lost or “spoliated” masses of evidence relevant to its allegedly illegal activities, including phone records pre-2002, email archives relating to Morgan and top company lawyer Marcus Partington, microfiches of PI invoices, and backup hard-drives of the company’s servers.

Acquitted: Editor of The People in 2002 Neil Wallis, whose paper is accused of targeting the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler with private investigators. In 2015, Wallis was found ‘not guilty’ at the Old Bailey in London on phone hacking charges relating to his time at the News of the World . (c) PA

Indeed, the Claimants say there is evidence to show the highest newsroom echelon generically were well aware of the illegal nature of much of the PI work MGN commissioned.

For example, they argue, Mirror Group Editorial Manager John Honeywell sent an email to Managing Editor Pat Pilton on February 9, 1999, about the cost of “searches” undertaken by the Sunday People - then under the editorship of Neil Wallis, who denied, and was acquitted of, phone hacking charges covering his time at the News of the World a few years later, at the Old Bailey - in which Honeywell recognised much of the money had been spent on “illicit” checks.

On the Claimants’ case, informed as it is by some eight years’ worth of documents that MGN has been ordered by the Court to disclose, including internal emails, phone logs, expenses details, and payment trails including tens of thousands of invoices to private investigators, no fewer than five other editors of MGN’s national newspapers are said to be implicated, including Neil Wallis, Tina Weaver, Mark Thomas, Richard Wallace and James Scott.

Litigation: Former Mirror editor Richard Wallace (l), former Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver (c) are implicated, while actor Ray Winstone (r) is among the Claimants suing MGN (c) PA

MGN CLAIMS FORMER EMPLOYEE PIERS MORGAN ‘FOUND CULPABLE ALREADY’

IN A dramatic turn of events, when opposing the inclusion of Morgan in the case, his former employers argued he’s already been found culpable for covering up phone-hacking.

Resisting the amendments to the so-called Particulars of Common Facts and Issues (POCFI) in which the case against the Trinity Mirror plc board (now Reach plc) and the MGN legal department is set out across 49 pages, the publisher’s lawyers claimed the inclusion of Morgan was unnecessary, as - the company wrongly said - Morgan had already been found in a 2015 judgment of Mr Justice Mann to have covered-up phone hacking and given wrong information to the Leveson Inquiry.

However, the judge rejected this stating he had made no findings against Morgan personally.

The earlier judgment (Gulati & others vs MGN) did make strong criticisms of Richard Wallace (who succeeded Morgan at the Mirror) and Tina Weaver (Morgan’s former Mirror Deputy whom he endorsed to become Sunday Mirror Editor, and whose long service covered the phone-hacking period), and their evidence to the Inquiry.

While the Claimants have permission from the Judge to rely on these points, he has not made any findings on the allegations, which he will be doing at the end of January’s trial. An updated version of MGN’s defence to the new allegations is due to be served at the end of October 2020, and the current 84-page Defence can be found here.

Richard Spearman QC - representing MGN, which is defending the claims - vigorously resisted the inclusion of Morgan in the case against the board, insisting: “Mr Morgan’s purported knowledge as to the extensive use of unlawful information-gathering activities is irrelevant.”

But Justice Mann said: “It seems to be important to the Claimants' case that they should seek to establish Mr Morgan's knowledge, and they will make a case that he was closer to the Board than other editors.

“I do not know how they will make it or seek to make it, but it seems to me to be a potentially relevant matter, and I shall therefore allow the pleading in on that basis as well. This amendment may be made.”

Morgan is also said to have known about the hacking of former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson’s phone - “Mr Morgan knew it (the story) was unlawfully obtained”, said the Claimants’ barrister David Sherborne - as well as making a string of public admissions to the fact that he was well aware of the practice of voicemail interception during his watch as MGN’s most senior journalist.

Piers Morgan is someone who is happy to turn up anywhere and everywhere to give his opinion on things, if Mirror Group wanted to they could easily get in touch with him and ask him to give evidence

— legal source

Justice Mann went on: “Mr Spearman makes the point that it is already established that editors knew of unlawful activities and that adding, as Mr Spearman put it, one more editor does not really add anything.

“One more editor may to a degree strengthen Mr Sherborne's generic case... so far as he needs to establish widespread activities known to senior members.

“The more editors that knew about it, potentially the greater the likelihood that people above and beyond editors knew about the activities as well.”

David Sherborne for the Claimants went on: “They were well aware of what Southern Investigations were doing and the payments being made, and that these were unlawful.”

Despite the seriousness of the allegations against him, Morgan is not expected to defend himself from the witness box in the latest unfolding chapter in the MGN phone hacking saga. He may offer to give evidence for the Mirror Group, but MGN may not want him to face what would be a withering cross-examination by the Claimants’ counsel.

However, his expected absence from proceedings would be consistent with MGN’s strategy of not calling journalists as witnesses to defend either the stories they wrote, or their former employers.

The legal source said: “Piers Morgan is someone who is happy to turn up anywhere and everywhere to give his opinion on things. It is plain and obvious that if Mirror Group wanted to they could easily get in touch with him and ask him to give evidence to what he says the facts are, under oath, and explain the apparent discrepancies in the documents and other information which appear to contradict, on the Claimants’ case, what he said to Leveson.

“If MGN choose not to call him as a witness the judge will be entitled to draw whatever inferences he will from that.

“It ought to be easy to get a journalist to come along and say ‘no no it was nothing to do with hacking’ then the judge is entitled to make of it what he will.

“He has done this already in the first four original claims (Gulati); on his judgment he said it is notable that the other side has not got any journalists to confirm that a source is not hacking.”

* The case continues...

#royals #prince harry #piers morgan #duke of sussex #princess diana #phone hacking scandal #byline investigates

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d2kvirus · 4 years ago

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Dickheads of the Month: November 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of November 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Nobody was expecting Donald Trump to concede defeat gracefully, but bloody hell, between the completely batshit insane conspiracy theory bollocks from himself and the rancid Trump offspring to Rudy Giuliani making complete fools of themselves even before he had to give a press conference from the parking lot of a landscaping firm as nobody checked which Four Seasons it was, before threatening to outlaw Twitter because people made fun of his little table (yes, that sentence does make sense), nobody could have expected just how tempramental toddlers are now thinking it's a bit much

...although somehow the Tory government managed to have an even worse response, because not only did posting a boilerplate jpeg to congratulate Joe Biden for his victory the laziest response possible, but then it turned out that they only had a celebratory jpeg for a Trump victory and hastily edited it on Paint so that Biden’s name was on there, but did a cack-handed job of it even though a.) Common sense dictates you have one for each candidate ready in advance, and b.) Given they had several days to accept which way the wind was blowing, the fact they did the most cack-handed job says everything you need to know

Smirking cretin Priti Patel has bullied Home Office staff and, having initially tried to bury the report, the best the Tory government could come up with to try and make this go away was claim that she was bullying her subordinates by accident while proven liar Boris Johnson claimed she had done nothing wrong, numerous members of the Tory government either said that as they hadn’t seen her bullying anyone she must be innocent or tried claiming she was “accused” of bullying instead of found guilty of bullying, and to top it all off we had Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine accused anyone calling Patel of being a bully racist while Alison Pearson said Patel can’t be a bully as she isn’t tall enough. Also, did I mention this came out during national Bullying Week?

...and just a thought for Jess Phillips after she decided to weigh in, considering it’s on record that you bullied Diane Abbott (and have gleefully said how you told her to “Fuck off” on various occasions) it's not a good idea for you to try and act as you’re above bullying as you will get called out for your hypocrisy

Murderer Amanda Knox thought it would be a really funny joke to suggest that, no matter what the election result, the next four years couldn’t be as bad as the four years she spent studying abroad. You know, those four years where she murdered Meredith Kercher and got away with it

So it turns out that the moral compass of the Tory government says that it is fine for Dominic Cummings to be happy to sacrifice the elderly if it protects the economy during a pandemic while displaying that he doesn’t know how herd immunity works, purging 21 MPs from the party for not buying into his No Deal Britait Jonestown, siphoning hundreds of millions of pounds into the pockets of his mates in various dodgy contracts, or flagrantly violating the lockdown rules by driving several hundred miles to Durham (where he owns a house he doesn't pay council tax for) after testing positive for Covid - but as soon as he calls Carrie Symonds “Princess Nut Nuts” he’s out the door...for a staged photo op, even though he is remaining in his job until December, which is when he was going to leave anyway

...and we should mention Laura Kuenssberg bullishly stating that Cummings was going nowhere in the wake of Lee Cain being told he could leave when his contract is up in December but they want to make it look like he is being fired, but within twelve hours saying that Cummings would always be leaving in December as a blog post in January stated, which not only asks if anyone has checked the archived version of that blog in case any edits were made in mid-November, but also how she can justify her £290k a year salary if she can get a story that badly wrong that Cummings’ blog disagreed with her

There’s a reason why Lindsey Graham isn't popular in the Senate and it isn’t because he questions if Biden won the election, it's because he’s telling people to “misplace” the votes for Biden which they are counting so that Trump could claim that he won Georgia instead of losing Georgia, demanding a recount, then losing Georgia

Once again proven liar Boris Johnson demonstrated that lockdown rules apply to the little people but not to him or his inner circle, as he met with fellow Tory MP Lee Anderson in person rather than via Zoom as the lockdown rules state, didn't wear a mask as lockdown rules state, and clearly didn’t social distance as a picture of him with Anderson taken during the meetings shows they are not two metres apart as lockdown rules state, which means that he had to spend two weeks self-isolating as a direct result

Has anyone told Keir Starmer that The Board of Deputies weren’t on the ballot for Labour leadership? Because by his performative act of refusing to restore the party whip to Jeremy Corbyn after his performative suspension, which he did after the BoD stamped their feet and demanded the whip not be restored, he’s not doing a good job of demonstrating leadership

First of all it was news that Steve Bannon uses Twitter, as surely he should have flounced off for Parler years ago. But secondly, the real news is how he used his Twitter account to call for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded - at which point he suddenly couldn’t use his Twitter account anymore

According to Iain Duncan Smith putting the UK into a second lockdown is “giving in to the scientific advisors” as if during a pandemic, which the last time I checked was a scientific matter, you should instead be listening to Julia Halfwit-Brewer, Dan Wootton, Alison Pearson or Isabel Oakeshott rather than people qualified to talk about what to do in the face of a global pandemic

Nice Guy Rishi Sunak proposed a return of Eat Out To Help Out for Christmas. You know, the thing which has been directly linked with causing a spike in Covid numbers in August?

Tory arrogance was neatly summed up by George Eustace casually saying that, if Lurpak didn’t want to incur the massive price hikes of Britain crashing out of the EU without a paddle, all they have to do is move their entire base of operations to the UK

The fact that Disney have been trying to justify their refusal to even issue royalty statements to Alan Dean Foster for his novelisations of the Star Wars and Alien franchises and have simply been pocketing the revenue made by the books continued sales by claiming they only purchased the license and not the liability, which is a particularly unique interpretation of copyright law

It was only a matter of time before The Daily Mail started trying to create dirt about Marcus Rashford because he has the sheer gall to say that feeding children is not a bad thing, which they did by reporting the horrors of him...buying a house for his mother

Twitter troll Ben Bradley had a stellar month, first by standing up in Commons and asking why there isn't a Minister for Women while also showing a terrifying inability to understand what equality is, and soon followed that up by quoting Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech by claiming that it was about equality - only for Bernice King to tell him that, no, her father’s speech was about eliminating racism from our society

I think that it's time for The Daily Express to admit that, when they're running articles saying that it’s Remainers who are to blame for Trump getting dumped onto the street, that maybe they have a problem

The Streisand Effect still hasn’t reached WWE judging by their continuing to double down on demanding their employees independent contractors stop earning money via third-party platforms manifested in their releasing Thea Trinidad from her contract in spite her Twitch account always being under her real name and not her WWE moniker of Zelina Vega

It was a coincidence that the Jewish Labour Movement decided to hold their annual conference on the Palestinian Day of Solidarity. Of course it was...

This month it was Fin Taylor who demonstrated just how far from satire HIGNFY has strayed with his “Bomb Glastonbury and kill all Jeremy Corbyn supporters” joke in response to Joan Bakewell lying about Corbyn breaking the law - and, afterwards, Taylor was generally being a smug twat about it on his Twitter - which also serves to show how Tim Davie is fine with booking comedians whose acts have plenty of questionable content contained within it if it guarantees the Tories escape criticism

This month’s example of Steve Baker making himself a walking punchline with no self-awareness came from him howling that further lockdown measures would be a violation of terms set out by the European Convention on Human Rights - yes, the exact same convention that Baker has a.) Repeatedly accused of meddling with British affairs and is an example of the EU nanny state, and b.) Frowns upon things such as Steve Baker repeatedly voting against allowing child refugees to be reunited with their families

Nothing says “worker happiness” quite like GameStop running a competition for their stores to post Tik Tok dances where the store which is voted the winner receives prizes such as an Amazon Echo, a Visa gift card, and the privilege of working an additional ten hours during the week of Black Friday. Wait, did I say “worker happiness”? I meant to say “Dickensian shithousery” where employees are expected to compete so they can work more hours

Of course the “We’re not racist”s of Twitter had an issue with Sainsburys Christmas ad because it didn’t appeal to white men due to having a black family, in much the same way that Compare the Market’s ads don't appeal to white men as they’re not Russian meerkats

Professional victim Laurence Fox thought it would be a good idea to get into a slanging match with The Pogues while lying that Fairytale of New York would be banned from the airwaves. It went about as well as could be expected

It wouldn’t be Remembrance Day without The Sun or The Daily Mail exploiting it for some obvious ragebait, and this year was no exception with both “papers” posting a photo of Extinction Rebellion posting with a banner in front of the Cenotaph protesting climate change - a photo taken two days earlier, but they held off on posting it until the day itself to get the rage flowing, because they needed something as neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Meghan Markle were within a mile of Whitehall

This month it was Ernest Cline who demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Streisand Effect by ordering DMCA takedowns on anyone who posted an excerpt of Ready Player Two online, which mainly served to help the internet realise which the actual excerpts were and which the parody versions were - because it was pretty hard to tell them apart otherwise...

“I’ve been silenced”, shrieked Suzanne Moore in an interview with the Telegraph, fatally undermining her argument in the process. Funny how the people who have been “silenced” keep doing that, isn’t it?

Because we haven’t heard anything idiotic from Jake Paul in a while, Jake Paul decided to say Covid isn’t real and flu has killed just as many people. So I give it a week before his older brother Logan feels he has to one-up this and say the Holocaust was fake...

And finally, not for much longer, is Donald Trump and his complicity in trying to organise a coup - but not a very good coup, as his minions at Fox News had to exaggerate how many people were actually protesting about him losing an election and crying about it - which was further undermined by his inability to tell Michigan and Minnesota apart

#dickheads of the month

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srandhawa21ahsgov · 4 years ago

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Election 2020 Presidential Candidates Assessment

Hawkins/Walker (Green):

The Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Nicole Walker do not state their exact position about Criminal Justice Reform but the website does provide the American people with what the Green Party is going to do in order to ensure change within our criminal justice system. The Green Party wants to “monitor and prosecute White Racist terrorists, provide federal investigations of local police misconduct, have community control of the police, end mass incarceration, decriminalize personal possession of hard drugs, provide drug treatment on demand, decriminalize sex work, fight corporate crime, end warantless mass surveillance, and pardon whistleblowers and political prisoners”. I disagree with a few of the Green party’s positions. For example, they want to legalize Marijuana but isn’t it already legal? Another position I don’t understand is decriminalzing sex work. Personally, I do not think this should be okay. To make sex work legal also means that abortions, HIV’s, STD’s, infections, and even Aids would still go on. Why would we pass a bill that would basically state that rape, abotion, and all the infections that I listed would be okay. Even if they did pass a bill with safety regulations while decriminalizing sex work there would be nothing to guarantee those safety guidelines. I think that they should still criminalize sex work BUT provide these people with better, high-quality jobs that aren’t so risky and dangerous. Other than that I agree with all other positions stated for this political party. I agree that we need to monitor our police system to ensure that they are providing safety and NOT danger to the community. I also agree that American citizens that are detained because of a non-violent drug addiction should be hospitalized and forced into rehabilitation. If we compare the candidate stance to the party platform stance, we can identify that there are way more things that the Green party platform wants to do in order to reform the criminal justice system. While their views are quite similar and supporting to the candidates, the Green Party platform goes more in depth about their positions. They want to abolish the death penalty, repeal three strikes laws, incororparte mental health social services to bail agreements, and even provde community team policing. These are just a few specific things that the Party platform wants to do ensure changes within the criminal justice reform. The platform compared to the candidates state more of what they specifically want to do whereas the candidates put their positions into short terms.

Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (Republican):

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have provided the American people with their plan to reform the United States law and justice system. Trump has given the Department of justice $98 million to hire 802 full-time enforcement officers. He also signed an executive order to restore state and local law enforcement access to surplus equipment such as armored vehicles. This was not Trump’s idea but it was on his Law and Justice page but the Department of Justice created the National Public SAfety Partnership, which would reduce violent crimes in cities. Trump’s administration expanded Project safe Neighborhoods in order to work with communities and cities to develop customized crime reduction strategies. The department of Justice returned to their old standard policy because they want federal prosecutors to charge criminals with the most serious, readily provable offense. Now those prosecutors were directed by the Department of Justice to focus on taking illegal guns off our streets. Trump has made many decisions on how to confront street criminals like gangs and criminal cartels. For example, he signed a three executive order that focused on international criminal organizations that prevented violence against law enforcement officers. The Department of Justice has designed a priority for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in order to allow federal law enforcement to utilize an expanded toolkit in its efforts to dismantle the organization. Trump’s version of reshaping the American courts include him appointing conservative Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He also has appointed more than 50 circuit or appeals court judges, along with appointing 80 district court judges. Now, here is my position on all of this. First of all, hiring new police officers may or may not make a difference and it might enforce better more equal police officers within our nation but don’t you think that $98 million dollars could go to a better cause. A better cause could be giving police officers across the nation a lesson or some type of training to make sure that no one is brutally hurt while being detained or to make sure that a police procedure is done fairly with equal rights set on the table. I think that it was a smart idea from Trump to expand the project Safe Neighborhoods because it is a way for communities to come together to reduce crime. While it was good that Trump signed a three executive order that protected officers more, I think there needs to be an order that protects American citizens from police officers. In all, I don’t think that with Trump with Trump being President we are going to reform much of our justice system. Based on his views and what he wants to do he is looking out more for the officers which is great but as a leader of the United States we need someone that will be looking out for everyone as a whole. He needs to set laws where we are guaranteed an equal justice system for all people of color, race and ethnicity. The candidate stance is a lot different compared to the party platform because the party platform goes more in depth about what republicans actually want to do to reform our systems. Whereas from the candidates stance he just talks more about protecting Law enforcement rather than American citizens. I think their position supports the party platform but not in a way that is shown. In addition, I think that Trump supports police more because that is how he is going to get their vote. He does it for a voting tactic. Personally, our law enforcement needs new training and they need to learn how to keep our American citizens safe. I am half Indian and even I worry about the police looking at me in a different way because of my darker skin tone. I couldn’t even imagine being African American and dealing with everything that is going on.

Gloria La Riva/Sunil Freeman (Peace and Freedom):

Gloria La Riva and Sunlil Freeman seem to be educated about what they want to do with their decisions when it comes to reforming the justice system. They know that police brutality is hurting the lives of African Americans and they also take into consideration that we need to give back to those communities who lost loved ones. These candidates say that “reparations must be paid to the African Americans and Native communities”. With their knowledge they know that 2.2 million people are behind bars in the biggest prison and they want to change that to end mass incarceration. Luckily, they want reform by punishing law enforcement when police brutality and violence are performed from cops. “Free Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners”. These candidates' goals are to end racism, end mass incarceration, and create equality. The party platform is very similar to the candidate stance because they both want to do different things to create change and they are both very set on what they do. Their ideas are very similar for example they both want to end mass incarceration, end torture from police bruality especially in prisoners, but the party platform wants to do more specifics like abolishing the death penalty, prove rehabilitation for drug offenders, and repeal the three strikes law. I agree with these candidates! I think that their positions and plans define a future for a more reformed justice system. They want to keep our Americans citizens safe and give opportunity and a chance for those who are in trouble with the law. Providing rehab, and treating every individual like they are all equal when in difficult situations makes everyone feel equal!

Roque De La Fuente “Rocky” Guerra/Kanye Omari West (American Independent):

Email sent to Candidates -

Dear Roque De La Fuente Guerra and Kanye Omari West,

The issue I am concerned about is reform within the justice system. I am concerned about this issue because it appears to be a major problem that is happening in our world right now. We have mass incarceration rates and people are being treated poorly within our justice system. I am currently a senior at Acalanes High School and I am researching this issue for my senior Government Class. Please clarify your stance on this issue. Thank you so much for your time and good luck!

Sincerely,

Sonali Randhawa

[email protected]

O Jorgenson/Jeremy “Spike” Cohen (Libertarian):

These candidates really point out exactly what they want to do in order to reform the justice system. Many statements from their website start with “As your president” which means that it is specifically coming from the president so we understand what their positions and exact plans are. Their plan is to “decriminalize all drugs and encourage states to do the same '' and they state that they will work with congress to make history of the failed and unjust War on Drugs. They want to deal with substance abuse issues in a way that salvages lives, instead of throwing them away and detaining them for a long period of time. In order to see if an actual criminal act is taking place nameless, faceless SWAT teams that have been imported to our streets. Their mission is to go after drug offenders who have harmed no one and have taken scores of innocent peoples lives in violent confrontations. The president says that “I will defund federal involvement in policing. I will defund the DEA and keep federal agencies out of local police matters unless called upon by state authorities. No Knock raids will be performed because many times it ends up in killing innocent bystanders like Breona Taylor. They state that their goal is to get the government out of the way of AMericans lives to end the harm which the government itself has created. The candidate stance is a huge comparison to the party platform. The candidate stance does not support the Liberatraian party Platform. The difference is the party platform supports the constitution and they only talk about their view on crime and certain consequences that need to be done to the offender. But the candidate stance does. From the candidates stance, they have a lot of positions in place and they want to create change for the people that are capable of changing with drug offenders. NON-VIOLENT OFFENDERS are the people that we need to be changing in order to create a more united country. I agree with the candidate's stance. Mass incarceration needs to end so we can have our American citizens be reunited with family. We need to end mass incineration and provide help and rehab to prove that we actually do care about our U.S citizens.

Joseph R. Biden/Kamala D Harris (Democratic)

Email Sent to Candidiates -

Dear Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris,

The issue I am concerned about is reforming the juvenile justice system. I am concerned about this issue because it appears to be a massive worldwide problem that is making our country even more divided by the day. We have mass incarceration rates and people are being treated poorly within our justice system. I am currently a senior at Acalanes High School and I am researching this issue for my senior Government Class. Please clarify your stance on this issue. Thank you so much for your time and good luck!

Sincerely,

Sonali Randhawa

[email protected]

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cryptovalid · 5 years ago

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Watchmen: My favorite show of 2019

Now that I’ve watched HBO’s Watchmen in its entirety, I can safely say that it is by far my favorite show I’ve seen this year. The more I think about it though, the less it seems to offer a coherent statement about vigilantism, power and violence the way the original graphic novel did. I don’t think this makes it any less clever, bold or satisfying to watch, but Watchmen is more interested in playing with the weight and drama of themes than actually expressing a clear, useful thesis about them.

The show is a sequel to the graphic novel, taking place in 2019, when the fallout from the 1987 story finally comes home to roost.

To give you some more context, I’ll be talking about Alan Moore’s 1986-1987 maxiseries of comics first, and then comparing it to the new television series narratively. In terms of acting and production values, I’d say that the show is great across the board, although your mileage may vary. This is doubly true of its narrative: I’m curious if the show is too confusing for people who’ve never read the comic, and the show doesn’t show a lot of reverence for the characters of the original. In my opinion, this is for the best and actually completely in the spirit of Alan Moore’s work. From here on out, There be Spoilers for the comic, movie and the tv series.

Watchmen (1987) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is by far my absolute favorite superhero comic. It is the only graphic novel to be named as one of Time’s 100 best novels of the twentieth century. It’s certainly not true that it is the only graphic novel that deserves that kind of honor, but it is not on that list for bad reasons. This post would be too long if I listed all of Watchmen’s many achievements, so I will just say this: Watchmen investigates how the existence of masked vigilantes and superheroes would change the real world, and its answer is not positive. No matter how you slice it, in order to inflict violence on strangers or save the world based purely on your own moral compass, you have to be either hopelessly naive or narcissistic, sadistic, fascistic, fetishist, manic, or untethered from human experience in one way or the other. However you imagine them, superheroes escalate danger. They are not cooperative or peace-loving by their nature, the comic says. ‘Superheroes’ will do terrible things in the name of ‘saving the world’ or ‘doing the right thing’. In this sense, the book is thoroughly anti-utopian but also anti-superhero, and it commits to this by depicting all of its ‘protagonists’ as deeply flawed, ultimately dangerous or inept people.

In terms of plot, the big twist that effects the show is that the smartest man in the world, the vigilante Ozymandias, predicts that nuclear armageddon is inevitable unless he convinces the global superpowers that there is a massive alien threat, making their feuds appear petty and risky by comparison. He literally kills millions of people with a genetically engineered giant monster that he teleports to New York, not including the dozens of murders to prepare the ground and cover up this fact. The fear that more monsters like this could appear prevents nuclear war at the last second, but another vigilante named Rorshach figured out Ozymandias’ plan and wanted to expose it, which would undo its intended peacemaking effect. He was killed, but his notes survived.

In the end, the only vigilante with actual superpowers, Dr. Manhattan, is so far removed from human experience because of his godlike powers and his nonlinear perception of time, that he seems to retreat from Earth itself, expressing a desire to create life elsewhere.

This is the backdrop against which Watchmen (2019) frames itself: what would that alternate history look like about 20 years later? But instead of focusing on the evils that vigilantism and superpowers would create, this sequel puts race and policing at the core of its narrative. The main protagonists: Angela Abar, Will Reeves, Laurie Blake and Wade Tillman are all cops and all of them are at one point in their lives masked vigilantes. They are also pitted against white supremacist terrorists, and the show depicts them as regularly violating the constitutional rights of suspects and killing lots of people in justifiable situations. The show depicts both cops and civilians in both real and historical race riots.

But the more I think about it, the less I can identify a coherent thesis about the origins or nature of racism or the morality of extra-judicial violence. It seems to say ‘violating a person’s human rights is alright as long as they’re racist’, and I mean, I can’t be too mad about that, but it also implies that the cops are basically good, that it is possible to root out specific racist conspiracies and that’s all that’s needed to set things right. There’s a definite assumption that most of the time, we can just trust cops to have integrity. The show rarely frames unmitigated violence as a systemic issue; even when the government is implicated. The protagonists are also relatable and sympathetic, and their victory against the white supremacist conspiracy is without any real moral complications or ironic personal costs. This show, unlike its source material, is pro-vigilante. Or at most neutral on the subject.

Its message about racism is more straightforward, but also a little hollow. Racist violence is shown viscerally, but also roundly condemed, ridiculed, and avenged by the protagonists. But that’s really as deep as it goes. All racists in this show are openly and stereotypically Southern whites. There is very little exploration or covert or insidious racism: there is a clear divide between literal neo-KKK types and antiracist avengers, with little ambiguity in between. We are not really shown what drives racists to be racist. The most motivation racists are given is a resentment over two attempts at improving the world: Reparations for the Tulsa Massacre, and the aforementioned plot to stop the Cold War by faking extradimensional invasion. Not that I’m begging for a humane portrayal of racist terrorists, but it does make it extremely easy for actual, less obvious white supremacists to ignore any criticism because ‘at least they’re not like the Seventh Kavalery’. It in short, doesn’t give viewers any special insight into racism and how to deal with it in the real world.

What Watchmen does do beautifully is representation. The first masked vigilante, Hooded Justice, who in the comic was a clear reference to a Klansman, is reimagined as the victim of a threatened lynching, who fights his attackers still wearing the noose and hood they put on him. He then pretends to be white to gain the support and cover he needs to be a vigilante. This man, Will Reeves, named himself after his childhood hero, the historical inspiration for the Lone Ranger, Bass Reeves. As a child, he was smuggled out from the Bombing of Tulsa in the trunk of a carriage, much like Moses or Superman. We later discover that HJ is bisexual and is essentially strung along for years by the media-savvy Captain Metropolis for publicity purposes and sex, and ends up desillusioned by his white allies. We also learn that Angela Abar, the de facto main character, is in fact his granddaughter, and she becomes involved in his decades-spanning plans to root out the racist conspiracy that the plot revolves around.

Perhaps even more interesting is the decision to integrate Doctor Manhattan into this sequel as a jewish and a black man. Rather than simply recasting the part, the show frames the revelation in a way that Dr. Manhattan might experience it: out of order, but also clearly telegraphed. The show uses this to characterize Dr. Manhattan as someone whose decisions do not adhere to standard causality. Why does he start to woo Angela Abar in the first place? Because from his perspective, he’s always been in love with her. Just like nothing ever ends, it doesn’t really begin from his perspective either. One day, he walks into A Bar and starts explaining to Angela Abar that they will be in a relationship for ten years, which wil then end in tragedy. While she is understandably skeptical, Regina King and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II really manage to sell both the frustrating absurdity and the transcendant romance of this idea. In the end, Osterman chooses to take the shape of a dead man based purely on the fact that Angela is most attracted to, and goes to great lengths to lose is powers and become human again, as a black man named Calvin Abar, who we first meet as Angela’s charming stay-at-home husband and father to their adopted children. The fact that he is Dr. Manhattan all along is revealed to us in my favorite sequence in the whole show. We, the audience, fall in love with both the husband as well as the God, Jon Osterman, as both are vulnerable and honest about who they are. Even though everyone knows it can’t last. These scenes are both heartbreaking and beautiful, and are foreshadowed masterfully from the beginning. This is what I mean when I say the show is clever.

The dialogue is witty and the cinematography, editing and plotting do a subtle job of worldbuilding. There are very few exposition dumps and characters rarely do or say things just to help the plot along; they are always driven by their own motivations rather than those the viewer might prefer in their hurry to learn more.

As a result, characters feel smart and their personalities and relationships develop more naturally. From Jeremy Irons’ Ozymandias to Hong Chau’s Lady Trieu to Jean Smart’s Laurie Blake, they all come across as clearly defined assholes with a charismatic competence.

The world and its history also unfold at their own pace. This can be confusing in the first couple of episodes. It isn’t explained why cops wear masks, what ‘Redfordations’ are, or why squids rain from the sky often enough that a siren goes off whenever it happens. Instead, viewers piece a lot of it together from context. The details make it feel very believable. It makes me feel like I’m discovering an alternate history the way a lost time traveler might.

In the end, it is not the themes that make this version of Watchmen so enjoyable. Its the intricate details of its world and the interactions between its characters that make Watchmen 2019 so fun to watch. And as far as on the nose messages go, ‘vaporize as many racists as possible‘ isn’t that bad.

#Watchmen 2019 #Watchmen HBO #reviews #fave shows #fave show of 2019 #Dr. Manhattan #Angela Abar #Hooded Justice #Cal Abar

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storiesnobodyreads · 6 years ago

Text

Hard To Be Loved 5

PART FIVE

Characters: Tom Holland x Reader

Story: You are Tom Holland’s girlfriend, afraid of being in the spotlight. Your concerns are proven right when a crazy fan starts stalking and threatening you. Will your relationship with Tom stand, and are you in real danger?

A/N: this is part 5, as promised, on sunday! let me know what you think!! lots of lovee

Warning: curses

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

“Can I say it?” Chris asked, voice higher pitched than usual.

The ones who understood, so mainly the founding Avengers, all sighed in desperation. Clearly, Chris had attempted to do this before. The rest looked around a little confused. Jeremy Renner answered for the sake of the group, “God, Evans, Just get it over with!”

“Alright,” Chris cleared his throat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he was Captain America. “Avengers…” he spoke, voice low and deep and serious. “Assemble!”

*****

The meeting with the Avengers passed by awfully quickly. Even though you had in fact met all the wonderful actors plenty of times before and even considered them as more than just acquaintances, it took your breath away to see them all in the same room. Tom was looking around wide-eyed and in awe, seeing his childhood heroes every way he turned. Unfortunately, the atmosphere had been serious and tense.

Because yours and Tom’s reputation was on the line here.

Every one of them had agreed to post something on social media, a picture with either Tom or you or both, making a statement about privacy and respect to this couple.

It triggered you that you didn’t know anything about Rebecca except her first name. You wished that the actors could have tagged her in their posts, unleashing the storm of rage from the fans upon her. Or perhaps it would be the other way around, and you would be burned to the ground for exposing an innocent person to the world of paparazzi. No matter what, it pissed you off that Rebecca was ruining your life and you didn’t even know her last name. She knew everything about you and Tom.

Hours passed and eventually it was actually quite fun. After a while, however, it became time to go back home and have dinner. Lots of hugs and manly embraces were exchanged.

Sebastian Stan held you a little longer as he was hugging you. “Stay strong, kid,” he murmured.

“Man, I’m like the fucking Hulk,” you grumbled in his chest.

Seb’s low laughter made you shake. “Good.” He held you at a distance, rubbing your arms. Suddenly, the smile vanished from his face and his blue eyes sparkled sadly. “I really hope you don’t get your heart broken.”

His words stung.

“Well, I’ll let you know if I do,” you commented, trying to laugh light-heartedly, but truthfully you felt as if you chest was as heavy as the entire fucking world. “I do expect you to bring my chocolate if something goes wrong.”

“Of course,” Seb nodded firmly. “For now, though, let’s believe that everything will be okay. You do have the Avengers on your side, you know.”

You made a face. “I guess that’s kind of cool.”

After that, more encouraging phrases were thrown at you and all your heroes told you to stay strong. It should make you feel more prepared, less frightened, however, the fact they all so seriously cared so much made you only the more concerned that this was massively messed up.

Tom found you when most of the cast was leaving. “Love,” he smiled, smoothly taking your hand. “Everything’s going to be okay. Right?”

“Right.” You couldn’t quite tell whether he was comforting you or you were comforting him.

Robert Downey Junior joined you by your side, wrapping a supportive arm around you. “Well, kids, I’d say this was a success. Now I suggest you two go out for dinner. Or order pizza and watch movie. Have a nice night together. Sound like a plan? Then I can start debating which picture I’m going to post.”

Tom stared at his mentor. “Please don’t post an embarrassing picture of me.”

Robert’s eyes shone mischievously. “I’d never do that, Tom.”

“You’re going to do it, I can tell,” Tom sighed.

“I would never!” Robert exclaimed, hitting his hand against his chest as if he was truly insulted that Tom would dare think such a thing. His face broke into a smile, clapping Tom on the back. “Now get out of here. I’ve seen enough of you two. We’ll all see each other at the Superhero Party in tomorrow, right? Not everyone is going, but I am confident that the youngest members of our team will be there.” He expectantly lifted one eyebrow eyeing you and Tom.

Tom grinned, “Absolutely.”

*****

That evening, everything finally felt kind of fine. Tom had ordered New York pizzas and and had opened up a bottle of red wine. You and Tom were lying on the couch, eating pizza, drinking wine, watching the new Sandra Bullock movie Bird Box. It was a good, cozy night. Tired as you both were, you curled up in each other and enjoyed each other’s warmth. Tom had his arm around you, drawing patterns on your back.

You period had begun the second you had returned from Robert Downey Junior’s house, and although you knew timing couldn’t be worse, you were also infinitely relieved you hadn’t leaked through your pants in front of all the Avengers. Having your period, emotions were at your all-time high and cramps soon became your enemy. Therefore, having Tom softly massage your lower-back and every now and then pressing a loving kiss into your hair, was the best thing you could wish for.

The two of you went to bed early. Tom had filled a special pillow with hot water to keep your uterus heated and lessen the pain. It wasn’t a night of many words. His actions spoke louder than his words anyway. Even though Tom regularly told you he loved you and how beautiful you looked, the main way he showed you how much he truly loved you was by his actions. He knew your period pain was intense the first day and did everything he could to make it easier.

In bed, you curled up into his side. He was cold, perhaps because you were practically a living furnace right now. Softly, you whispered, “Thank you for taking care of me. I know that’s probably not where your mind is at right now. Sorry.”

Tom kissed your temple. “Are you kidding? You’re the most important person in my life. And it’s not your fault that periods exist.”

“That’s true, I guess,” you murmured, appreciating the gentle way Tom was stroking your hair, fingers tracing over your sensitive skin. “I love you, Thomas. Very much so.”

You cradled your head on his chest, listening to his breathing. His steady rhythm slowly carried you to sleep, forgetting the pain in your back and belly.

Very much so: that was your thing. The first time Tom had told you he loved you, he’d said it rather fast and hesitantly, too scared of your reaction. Um-I-um-love-you-Y/N, he’d brought out. You’d apologised: sorry, didn’t catch that, babe. He’d taken a deep breath, fixing his sleeves nervously. I. Love. You. You’d kind of heard him the first time around, but didn’t mean to be the idiot who misunderstood such an important sentence. Your cheeks were redder than tomatoes, heart racing in your chest. Really? Tom had nodded. Very much so.

Tom’s chuckle rumbled underneath you. “I love you too,” he yawned. “Very much so.”

*****

The next morning, you didn’t feel much better. Cramps and nightmares about Rebecca had kept you awake. You remembered how Rebecca had texted you to break up with Tom and it would all be over--especially after how sweet he had been to you, this simply wasn’t an option. You should have broken up with him, of course. For the sake of his career. For the sake of Spider-Man and the millions of people who loved the character.

Tom was no longer in bed, which surprised you for a second, before you spotted the time and saw it was literally one o’clock in the afternoon. You’d woken up multiple times, but since your day had no agenda, you had decided to continue sleeping.

You grabbed your phone from the nightstand and scanned Rebeca’s last text message from yesterday: I saw the police in your home. Don’t think it’ll be easy to catch me. You know nothing about me except my first name, and I’ll destroy this phone immediately. You keep underestimating me, you whore. Stop thinking you’re so much better than me, or this will end very badly for you. Break up with Tom now, and I might leave you alone.

Letting out a deep sigh, you rolled over to take up the entire bed. It hardly felt real to you anymore. You’d experienced too many emotions the past couple of days; you were exhausted. You considered going back to sleep despite knowing it was 1 P.M., when the delicious smell of bacon and eggs hit you. Tom must be cooking breakfast, or lunch, for the two of you.

Cute.

Tom was fucking cute.

The bubble that exploded in your chest drove you to get out of bed, pull on a sweater from Tom and your sweatpants and Tom’s happy socks. Sauntering into the kitchen, you found Tom was wearing a similar outfit. He was busy with the bacon and didn’t hear you come in. You stood leaning against the wall for a bit, admiring him for who he was.

Finally, he did turn around. Seeing you, his face lit up. “Hey lo--”

You attacked his with a hug, firmly wrapping your arms around his neck. “Good morning, you wonderful human being. I’m super hungry.”

Tom was laughing. “Yeah, you probably should be after sleeping fourteen hours.”

You shrugged, letting go of him. “I expected to be going into hibernation, so really this is not so bad.”

Tom studied you. “You look like you could use more sleep, actually.”

“Gee, thanks, babe.”

“I’m sure you’re still just as beautiful on the inside,” Tom smirked teasingly, pulling you closer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you hummed, “I’m looking so flawless right now. Like damn, even I would date me.”

“Can’t think of a single reason why anyone wouldn’t want to date you,” Tom agreed with a smile.

The two of you had lunch together. The bacon was perfect and the scrambled eggs were just how you liked them. After eating, despite it being perfect, you were struck with an after dinner dip. You found yourself reluctantly yawning.

Tom eyed you suspiciously. “How can you still be tired? I swear if you’re going back to bed, I’m going to punch myself in the face.”

“Don’t do that,” you smirked, “Not in that face. I like that face.” You changed the subject, aware that you most definitely were going back to bed within a couple of minutes. “What are your plans for this afternoon?”

“I’m meeting Haz to go to the gym,” Tom told you excitedly. “And then I’ll go to the supermarket ‘cause we don’t have any food for tonight. So I’ll be back at like five.”

You nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Your plans?”

You shrugged and flashed a mischievous smile. “I’m going to sleep,” you answered truthfully. “I’m tired as hell. But then I’ll have enough energy for the Superhero Party tonight.”

Tom tilted his head. “Okay, fair enough. I do need you to be awake tonight.” The unsaid meaning of that sentence lingered in the air: because what if Rebecca might do something?

“I’ll be so awake, you won’t even know what’s happening to you,” you promised. “But for now, I’m going to bed.” You wiggled your brows. “Join me?”

Tom was on his feet faster than you could say please.

*****

Tom was gone when you woke up. You guessed he’d gone to the gym after you had fallen asleep in his arms. A fluffy blanket was wrapped around you burrito-style, and by your head you found your favourite book and hot chocolate with marshmallows that had unfortunately cooled, but the idea was sweet. You wanted to see if he’d sent you a message, but your phone was out of your reach and you didn’t want to ruin his carefully crafted burrito. Therefore, you stayed in your position for quite some time, warm and comfy, thinking about how adorable Tom really was.

Tom came back home a little later than he had promised, around 5:30 P.M., carrying three bags filled with food. Face white. Eyes empty.

You tried to kiss him hello but he sort of dodged your gesture with a swirl and ended up patting you on the shoulder politely.

Huh?

Something was wrong. You felt it immediately. What had happened? Had you done something wrong? This morning he’d been warm and fluffy, and now it was the complete polar opposite.

You cooked together, and you attempted to quip back and forth, joking around like the two of you usually did, but Tom was unusually quiet. His responses were dialled back to: “Uh-huh.” and “Yeah.” Which made it hard to have a conversation.

“How is Haz?” you asked.

“Fine.”

“How was the gym?” you asked.

“Fine.”

“Yeah, what’d you train?” you asked.

“Just the regular.”

“Is everything okay?” you asked.

“Ya.”

“Sure?” you asked.

“Ya.”

Dinner was made and smelt pretty good. You set the table and was thinking so hard your brain was whirring, spinning, until anxiety was crippling you. Anxiety was always quick to come to you when you were on your period, and also when you were being threatened by a psychopath named Rebecca. You and Tom sat down at the kitchen table, and you got nervous simply by the fact Tom refused to look you in the eye.

You watched Tom take a deep breath. “Y/N,” Tom said.

Oh, god. Just from the way he said your name, the light quiver in his undertone, you could tell this was going to be a serious conversation. You looked at him, cocking up one brow.

He swallowed thickly. “I was thinking...”

“That’s never a good sign,” you murmured sarcastically.

Tom blurted out his thoughts before he could change his mind. “Maybe you shouldn’t come to the Superhero Party. I mean, it’s going to be lots of people, from Marvel and DC and really anyone who has anything to do with superheroes. There’s going to be so much media attention and interviewers and paparazzi. I just... with everything that’s been going on, I don’t want you to be a victim to that. It might trigger you, you know?”

You frowned. You didn’t know whether to feel heartbroken that Tom didn’t want you by his side, or to deem it sort of sweet that he intended to protect you. “Tom, that’s very... thoughtful of you,” you brought out, blinking heavily, still unsure of how to respond. “But I... I want to support you. We can’t really let Rebecca have that kind of impact on our lives. She’s just one girl. She can’t keep us away from the things we’d usually do.”

You didn’t understand the look on tom’s face: the glimpses of panic in his brown eyes, combined with misplaced determination. “Well, love, that’s true for our personal lives,” he argued with a growl. “But this is just too public. Too much media. I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

Something in his eyes made you straighten your back, an uncomfortably chill running down your spine. “Is this a discussion, Tom, or have you already made your decision?”

A hard glare passed over Tom’s expression. “I think it’s the best decision for you not to come, yeah.”

You could feel yourself shrink under Tom’s gaze. It was highly unlike him to portray this dominant character and act as if you were his subordinate, his obedient wife. He was never like this. He was always kind and happy and bubbly and ready to communicate and converse to find the best solution for both of you. It was so badly out of character that a piece of your soul crumbled. Just for a bit, you couldn’t recognise the man sitting opposite you.

You tried to swallow your tears away, feeling them burn dangerously close to the surface. Goddamn, you hadn’t been able to stop crying since Rebecca entered your lives. “Oh. Okay. Whatever you want, I guess.”

Tom’s jaw tensed. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Tom didn’t say anything else. He reached out as if he intended to hold you, comfort you, but halfway through the gesture he seemed to change his mind and pulled back.

What a lack of love.

You felt painfully empty, gaping hole in your chest, making every heartbeat ache through your whole body. This was the end then. This was the end of your healthy, loving relationship, wasn’t it?

The two of you finished your plates in silence. Despite having lost your appetite, you shoved the food down your throat to leave the table as soon as possible. As soon as your plate was empty, you rose to your feet. “You should get dressed, then. I’ll clean this.”

Tom offered, “I can help--”

“You should get dressed, Tom,” you repeated.

Tom moved up, now matching your height. You refused to cry. You weren’t going to show him that you were stupidly girly enough to start crying over the fact he didn’t want you to come to the Superhero Party. Any other day, you wouldn’t have cared and wished him all the fun in the world. But now, it felt like a statement. “Y/N,” he tried to say.

“No, I think you’ve made your point,” you interrupted. “Look, Tom, I totally get it. I understand you. But I was looking forward to going to this party together. It just hurts a little, is all.”

Tom stared at you, shoulders hanging, eyes glistening. His cold determination vanished like snow in the sun. “I’m sorry,” he brought out.

“It’s fine,” you dismissed your own pain like it was nothing. “You should get dressed for real. I need a little time to myself right now.” You knew very well that if this conversation was going to last any longer, you wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears.

“I’m sorry,” said Tom again.

But actions speak louder than words.

*****

Tom got dressed. Suit and tie, just like the Infinity War premiere though slightly less formal. Whelms of perfume coming of him, he smelt fresh and ready to conquer the universe.

From the couch, you gave him a small smile. “You look handsome,” you commented flatly.

“Thanks,” he murmured unenthusiastically. “Have a good night, love.” He didn’t look you in the eye. Didn’t kiss you good night.

What the fuck was wrong?

“You too,” you whispered quietly, watching as he swirled around and marched out the door of your apartment that now suddenly felt chilly and abandoned. The front door slammed shut loudly. You flinched. And then Tom was gone. Just like that.

*****

You had ordered pizza and was drinking red wine, lying on the couch, watching Brooklyn 99 on Netflix. Any other day, it would have been a perfect night. Last night it had been a perfect night--but that had been with Tom. Everything was better with Tom.

It didn’t help that you were on your period and in pain and tired and stressed and emotions were cruel.

Your phone was buzzing continuously but you weren’t very interested, convinced that it was Tom texting you. Or perhaps you were only hoping it was Tom, and you didn’t want to be disappointed again.

After a solid hour, and three Brooklyn 99 episodes later, you finally decided to check your phone.

Well, it wasn’t Tom.

Hundreds of messages from friends and family and, strangely enough, Tom’s colleagues. The amount of attention you got was weird. You were used to seeing Tom’s phone blow up like this but not yours. “If this is because of Rebecca, I swear to god...” you whispered to yourself, panic clouding your judgement.

What if something was wrong with Tom? What if she’d hurt him as punishment for you not responding to her text message?

Harrison, Zendaya, Laura, Jacob, your good friends from high school, even Sam, Harry and Paddy, Robert Downey Junior, Sebastian Stan, Chris Evans and so many more had called you and texted you. You were confused, because at least half of those people should be at the Superhero Party and shouldn’t be focused on you.

First, you opened Harrison’s messages.

Harrison: Y/N, where r u?

Harrison: Tom didn’t say where you wereeee so text back plz

Harrison: Lol don’t think you’re here, why not??

Harrison: Ummmm I don’t mean to mess up your relationship and all, but I’m your friend too, and Tom is here with another girl?

Harrison: PleASe don’t say you broke up

Harrison: REPLY TO ME Y/N PLEASE

Harrison: Who is this girl????? Tom is ignoring me what the fuck

Harrison had sent a photograph, secretly taken from the back of the room and dramatically zoomed in to show Tom in his suit, side by side with a red-headed girl. Rebecca. It was actual fucking Rebecca. You couldn’t quite see Tom’s face, but Rebecca’s face was clearly visible: widely laughing, having the time of her life.

“What the fuck, Tom?” you brought out. Your heart skipped a beat, the earth tilting as you looked at the picture, its meaning boring through your chest like a sword. The end of the world would have hurt less than this.

So this was how Tom Holland betrayed you.

*****

don’t forget to comment and let me know what you think!!

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wellhalesbells · 6 years ago

Note

I see you reblogging some comic stuff an I was wondering if you have a favorite comic or favorite character or ship?

this ask is from so long ago but [DEEP BREATH IN] i’m finally going to answer it, nonny. finally. i kept wanting to read a little bit farther in my comics stack because.... maybe i’ll like that and will regret not having recced it, i just hafta--get--to it, see? and, honestly, i’m still there BUT, come on, i’ll never be caught up because that would mean comics would just have to stop coming out and i would be sad forever if that happened, SO

i’m not even going to pretend like i can narrow this down to one comic. (one ship? sure, that’s spideypool. one character? sure, that’s the merc with a mouth, the regenerating degenerate, wade motherfucking wilson. but one comic?!) there is just straight-up too much out there to make a definitive ‘yes, this is it, this is THE ONE ™ ’ statement. instead, uh, let’s break this shit down, yeah? (super special secret bonus round, will note all lgbt+ rep and standalone comics.) in no particular order, here the frig it goes!

HORROR

infidel, by pornsak pichetshote and aaron campbell. in case you haven’t seen this on every 2018 best list ever, here it is. and, yeah, it was good. a muslim-american main character living in a haunted apartment building where the entities feed off the xenophobia of its occupants. if that’s not a fucking modern horror story i don’t know what is.

spread, by justin jordan and kyle strahm. THIS IS ONE OF MY NEW AND ALREADY ALL-TIME FAVORITES. what an awesomely weird and epic story. the spread is an uncontrollable, unstoppable monster-making force that humanity accidentally unleashed by digging too deep. it infects everything it touches and basically all of humanity is running from quarantine to quarantine just hoping for the best. and speaking of hope.... she’s a baby, rescued by no, and the only thing that’s ever been able to stop the spread. also, no’s gay? and i just DID NOT see that coming. it seems like it’s going to be such a formulaic, bro-y story about the action hero who kisses the face off his girl (her name’s molly and she’s batshit insane and amazing) and instead, nope, it is not that at all. lgbt+ main characters.

the black monday murders, by jonathan hickman and tomm coker. hate capitalism? think all the rich and powerful are evil, soul-sucking monsters? [obnoxious, low-budget commercial sound effects] MAN, HAVE I GOT THE SERIES FOR YOU.

the beauty, by jeremy haun and jason a. hurley. i just started this recently but so far, oh my good golly gosh, i looove it. a sexually transmitted disease that makes you conventionally gorgeous.... at least before it explodies you. [wide, creepy smile] the art is gorgeous, the characters are aces and i am very, very pleased so far. lgbt+ minor characters.

the great divide, by ben fisher and adam markiewicz. this? was a COOL idea. the execution stumbled a bit but, gosh, was it neat. it’s post-apocalyptic where touching another person will literally kill.... one of you. the survivor then absorbs the memories of the person who dies, taking on a ‘rider.’ some people collect them, some people go mad, some form a bond, all have the side effect of dyslexia. like i said, neat as all get out. lgbt+ minor-ish/main-ish character. standalone.

revival, by tim seely and mike norton. a rural town in wisconsin experiences ‘miracle day,’ where the dead rise again.... except, they were kinda already mourned and buried and this is really just fucking up the status quo.

the woods, by james tynion iv and michael dialynas. a high school gets picked up and plopped down in an entirely new, and wickedly hostile universe. it’s all survival and alliances and seeing what you’re really made of when it comes down to it. lgbt+ main characters.

clean room, by gail simone and jon davis-hunt. a cult, a journalist and a clean room walk into a bar...

anya’s ghost, by vera brosgol. you think it’ll be a cute story of a girl and her ghost. HA HA THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS AT ALL, OKAY.

FANTASY

rumble, by john arcudi and james harren. SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD, SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD, SCARECROW WARRIOR GOD!!! okay, first off, the art in this? pushes every friggin’ button i’ve got, and many i did not know i had. second, this book is so fucking fun. it’s mythology that’s balls to the wall ridiculous, funny, and features a main character whose life motto is basically: ‘do i have to?’ infinitely relatable and then some.

heathen, by natasha alterici and rachel deering. UGH, ONE OF MY FAVORITES. the art is just horribly, horrendously gorgeous and it’s LESBIAN VIKING MYTHOLOGY, OKAY. OKAYYYY??? lgbt+ main characters.

the wicked + the divine, by kieron gillen and jamie mckelvie. one of my favorite ever series right here. it’s a hella cool concept (gods reincarnating as humans every twelve years, and burning up their hosts in two), whip-smart and if you’ve ever met a human being who likes a pun more than kieron gillen i defy you to produce them. lgbt+ main and minor characters.

batgirl, by gail simone and adrian sayaf and vicente cifuentes. you know how people rave about gail simone? there’s a reason people rave about gail simone. honestly, i’ve never had much interest in babs. i don’t tend to go for superheroes who don’t kill and i have even less interest in ‘the killing joke’ story line and i am convinced only gail simone could’ve done the recovery on that and she did a GLORIOUS job of it.

red hood and the outlaws, by scott lobdell and dexter soy. (ignoring recent - and annoying - developments), this is my favorite of all the rebirths dc did. scott lobdell is the only writer to have gotten the idea down of: okay, we’re starting over, i assume you don’t know anything but i also assume there are a bajillion people reading who know everything, and hit the perfect medium between those two things. so if you want to start a jason todd run, you legitimately can here, and get all the found family, badassery, batman-teasing enjoyment there is to be had.

iceman, by sina grace and robert gill (covers by kevin wada). classic super-heroing here and bobby’s first solo title. he’s figuring out coming out while fighting (and flirting) with baddies. sina really gets his humor and how truly wonder-awful it is! lgbt+ main character.

spider-man/deadpool, by joe kelly and ed mcguinness. watch those names there, those are your guys right there, period. they looked at the void of a spider-man/deadpool series and filled it with absolutely everything you could possibly want for the pair (sans a hardcore make-out sesh, though they did get a few variant covers with some puckered up lips in there!)

limbo, by dan watters and caspar wijngaard. a fusion of 80s aesthetics, voodoo elements and a noir tone. just some remarkably cool shit in this. the ending, for me, left something to be desired but it was more than worth it to see worship via mixtapes. standalone.

hawkeye: kate bishop, by kelly thompson and leonardo romero. kate bishop is, apparently???, a super impossible character for a lot of writers. kelly thompson is not one of them. kelly thompson is my favorite kate bishop writer, actually, and the fact that she is ever not writing her is a gd travesty.

the unbeatable squirrel girl, by ryan north and erica henderson. honestly, i’m so tempted to just stick this under ‘contemporary,’ because it really does just feel very... normal. doreen’s navigating college, new friendships, and y’know... the squirrely-ness. this had every opportunity to suck and instead it’s funny as heck, never takes itself too seriously, and is just pure good-hearted entertainment through and through.

wolf, by ales kot and matt taylor. a paranormal detective and the-possible-antichrist go on a road trip. people hated this comic and i don’t know how you can hate a comic that has a character called freddy chtonic who has tentacles for a mouth???

ms. marvel, by g. willow wilson and adrian alphona. hi, you read ms. marvel because the world is a garbage fire and people are terrible and your cynicism is at an all time high and then kamala khan waltzes in and reminds you people generally want to help each other and the world improves when we work together and that thing optimists feel? you’ll feel that for as long as you’ve got the pages open and that’s a magical thing. lgbt+ minor character.

monstress, by marjorie m. liu and sana takeda. psychic links with monsters, matriarchal societies, magic and witchery, half-human/half-animal (and other ratios) characters, all through a steampunk lens. what’s not to like about that??

inhuman, by charles soule. i love this series, i love the idea of being a total average joe/joanne, getting smacked in the face by a cloud of mist and suddenly having to figure out how to live basically a whole new life. also, if you don’t fall madly in love with dante pertuz, i don’t even know what to tell you, my dude.

heart in a box, by kelly thompson and meredith mcclaren. break-ups suck, but only because of that whole pesky broken heart thing, right? so emma gives hers away. problem solved, no? standalone.

i kill giants, by joe kelly and j.m. ken niimura. i didn’t cry my eyes out or anything. did not. standalone.

sex criminals, by matt fraction and chip zdarsky. having sex = stopping time, which leads suzie and jon to the only logical conclusion: let’s rob some banks!

hawkeye, by matt fraction and david aja. honestly there are a lot of other artist combos in this run but the only ones that are worthwhile are the ones that have fraction and aja’s names on them - sorry not sorry.

SCIENCE FICTION

black bolt, by saladin ahmed and christian ward. saladin revived this character one hundred million percent. there is absolutely a reason this was parading around all over ‘best’ lists when it was released. it really, really did the damn thing.

saga, by brian k. vaughan and fiona staples. this is the comic you recommend to people who don’t even like comics because it is that good. like, my dad - who hadn’t read a comic since he was a pre-teen, eagerly awaits each new trade. the world-building, the characters, the care put into every single solitary bit of all the things? unparalleled. lgbt+ minor characters.

frostbite, by joshua williamson and jason shawn alexander. a post-apocalyptic story that has humanity dying from a plague that literally freezes you from the inside out. very neat, very cold, very readable. standalone.

descender, by jeff lemire and dustin nguyen. this had a rough start, for me, with the main character of the first trade being tim-21, an android who is literally incapable of having the depth to be a lead BUT that does not last through to the next trade, thank god. lots of space and found family and world-building in this to be had! but you know how people rave about jeff lemire? there’s a reason people rave about jeff lemire.

paper girls, by brian k. vaughan and cliff chiang. the 80s and time travel and lifelong friendships. it’s brian k. vaughan, you know it’s good, okay? why do i even have to sell you here, man? lgbt+ main characters.

injection, by warren ellis and declan shalvey. this is another one on my list that started out a little rough but really appealed to me later on. there was just a lot to absorb in that first trade but, once you’ve got it, the ride gets way, way smoother. lgbt+ main and minor characters.

black science, by rick remender and matteo scalera. this was a rocky start, because the main character is such an asshole but in a way where he can’t see he’s an asshole, he’s just a tortured genius who’s superior to all of you, don’t you know? but i am so glad i persevered because if that’s the set up? the rest of the series is knocking him back down. super scientist grant mckay finds a way to access the eververse, every possible reality the universe has on offer, and that’s really what causes every single problem that follows. hard to cause the apocalypse and be an arrogant prick, ya know?

CONTEMPORARY

giant days, by john allison and lissa treiman. this series is so funny and smart and warm. these girls are so kind to each other and relatable and failing at adulting regularly and often and i love reading about them. lgbt+ main character.

lumberjanes, by noelle stevenson and grace ellis and brooke a. allen. this is funny and ridiculous and kind and cool and all other awesome adjectives and you should read it, fact. lgbt+ main characters.

my brother’s husband, by gengoroh tagame and anne ishii (translator). this is such a sweet story about acceptance and family tbh. lgbt+ main character.

fence, by c. s. pacat and johanna the mad. i mean... i need to see nicholas and seiji hook-up, i need that, stat. stat means now! lgbt+ main characters.

WEB/INDEPENDENT COMICS

long exposure, by kam heyward. so mitch and jonas are my absolute faves and i love them to death and the author is so kind in that they actually put this up in print on indyplanet so i can read it the way i, personally, love to read comics (and - bonus! - support them with the monies). lgbt+ main characters.

modern dread, by pat shand and ryan fassett (editors). i’ve been trying to find more better horror comics lately so i’ve been kind of half-heartedly stumbling through kickstarter on the hunt and this was SUCH a great find. it’s an anthology but more cleverly done than any other kickstarter anthology i’ve read, with a main story line that seamlessly strings together the would-be-disjointed ones. this was really thoughtfully put together and really well done! standalone.

heartstopper, by alice oseman. a very sweet story about two high school-aged boys becoming fast friends, playing rugby and falling in love. the two characters are mentioned as an aside in the author’s book, solitaire, and she became so invested in them that she wrote their backstory as a free webcomic. lgbt+ main characters.

the pale, by jay fabares. JUST started this (like, just a day or so ago) but i’m enjoying it so far!

hotblood!, by toril orlesky. i mean... is it a webcomic about a centaur falling in love with his boss? it just might be. did i get a bound edition through a kickstarter campaign? maybe. maybe i did that. who’s to say? lgbt+ main characters.

the bay, by bbz. life on mars through the lens of three young professionals who form an odd but lasting friendship. lgbt+ main characters.

hard drive, by artroan. is it a nsfw comic about a dude and a robot? .... it might be a nsfw comic about a dude and a robot. [coughs] lgbt+ main characters.

seen nothing yet, by tess stone. a nsfw comic about two amateur ghost hunters. can’t imagine why i might be interested in that [coughs] lgbt+ main characters.

captain imani and the cosmic chase, by lin darrow and alex assan. i mean did i want a starship captain who can’t help but lust after the smuggler he’s chasing. i mean, maybe i did. maybe. lgbt+ main characters.

taproot, by keezy young. ghost falls in love with boy, boy falls in love with ghost, AND THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. lgbt+ main characters.

always raining here, by bell and hazel. just two boys falling in lurve. lgbt+ main characters.

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crediblesource-blog · 6 years ago

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Does Jeremy Scott actively perpetuate white supremacy with Fashion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XAjVevh-hc

Notes-

Designers at high-end fashion labels have soft power. Soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies.

In 2019 if you are the head designer at a high end fashion label you should be very well versed on what’s current from both an artistic and business perspective. To be in the position where you know what you put out is not only meant to be purchased but what is meant to inspire or influence the highly impressionable masses - weather accepted by the public or not the “art” in question still has an impact beyond its initial supposed intention. The supposed intention of fashion is not only to sell fashion but also to make an artistic statement. The artistic statements of high-end fashion labels often easily penetrate the media via celebrity culture which itself is pervasive to all cultures. The statement in the Moschino Fall 2019 line is ‘Patriarchal White Capitalism. Meaning Patriarchal White Capitalism is the conscious choice Jeremy Scott thought should influence the masses and is what people should continue to buy into. Jeremy Scott supports Patriarchal White Supremacy both through perpetuating these ideals in the artwork itself, and in practice.

-Clothing style inspired by and reminiscent of 80s power glamour styles commonly associated with the 80s Trump aesthetic.

-Gameshow set pieces and microwave dinner dress an homage to 80′s consumer culture.

-Pop art clothes another symbol of consumer culture. Also we’ve seen pop art a million times Jeremy.

-Also- (Like omg Jeremy Scott how old are you and you still are thinking it’s so cool, get over it.) -Model line-up overwhelmingly white.

-Black women in 2019 placed in straight hair wigs, non natural black hairstyles. Considering it’s 2019 and if he didn’t consider how the black models hairstyles would to be straight to fit the theme? Decided that putting the black models in straight hair wigs despite what black women often cite as a contention and has often been topic in black popular culture, I.E. community blogs, podcasts, new media content, music, television and movies would be fine. Extremely culturally insensitive if he has no knowledge of this. The reason you put different types of people from different demographics in advertisement is to show people 1.Everyone can buy this product. 2.Dont worry your demographic specifically can also buy this product. 3. We publicly want people to know we do business with this demographic. Continuing to outfit black women in wigs, or white hairstyles while being a member of a group of people historically known for the oppression of black people is not what I would consider “hip” or “current” by any means, Definitely not self expressive, it is an excuse to sell white ideals of what black beauty “should be”. This is also hurtful to the model as it poses on them the decision of choosing to turn down a job or accept white supremacist ideals for money. Important to note as oppressive and not artistic specifically because this fashion show is just supposed to be exaggerated 80s, and while big hair existed in the 80s real black natural hairstyles existed in the 80s and that could have been exaggerated to fit the theme of over the top, but instead models were outfitted with white hairstyles. and if your point of having models of color is to sell ideas to consumers of color then you are directly selling white hairstyles to consumers of color on purpose. Oppressing consumers of color.

Even IF the entire line and show is meant to be tongue n cheek and poking fun at the design aesthetics common amongst 80s capitalist glamour, the fact is that these pieces will be sold and influence stylists/designers/artists beyond just the one line, ultimately perpetuating the mood and theme of Patriarchal white capitalism into greater culture. The entire shows theme is dedicated to the thing it’s literally doing which is feeding excessive consumer culture with white patriarchal capitalist ideals to the masses AGAIN, weather or not the intention of Jeremy Scott is to do this, he literally is. Thereby solidifying the status of patriarchal white capitalism in a time when the country is literally torn between Liberals and Nazis. Actively choosing to make money off of the themes of Patriarchal white capistamlism whilst reinforcing the same ideals of patriarchal white supremacy that they are supposedly poking fun at.

He also designed these shoes below.

#Fashion #art #criticism #moschino #jeremyscott

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d2kvirus · 4 years ago

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Dickheads of the Month: October 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of October 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

After months of the Tory government fucking up their response to the Covid pandemic you would think that they’d have some baseline of competence by now, but no, it turns out that the Test & Trace program they were so proud of was nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet - an Excel spreadsheet that lost the data of at least 16,000 people, while also begging the question how they spend £12bn of taxpayer’s money on an Excel spreadsheet, to which the answer is...they didn’t, it was existing software, they just pocketed the cash

It comes as no surprise that proven liar Boris Johnson puts the blame on the rising Covid numbers in the UK on the public - because it's definitely not been his master advisor breaking the lockdown rules to pop to Durham with his family after testing positive for Covid on what just so happened to be his wife’s birthday, not the Tory government changing the rules on masks when Michael Gove was spotted in Pret Manger without one, and definitely nothing to do with cases rising significantly within two weeks of the double whammy of the Tory government saying children “must” go back to school and people must go back to work as they can now be fired if they don’t. Definitely not their fault, Not at all...

The approach of the Tory government to Manchester being upgraded to Tier 3 boils down to initially promising to provide the fully-costed £60m package that Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham requested, only to turn around and give them £20m instead and try and justify it by saying it boils down to £8 per head for the entire population. After all, if Burnham really wanted that money, he’d have been one of Dominic Cummings’ mates and completely unqualified for the job, as that’s the quickest way to open the purse strings as wide as he’d like

It was quite impressive that Margaret Ferrier came to the conclusion that, having tested positive for Covid while in London, obviously the best course of action would be to take a train journey 400 miles back to Scotland before self-isolating, because of course nobody else used that train

...although some of the Tory MPs criticising Ferrier really should have paused before commenting, mainly to check whether they were the ones vociferously defending Dominic Cummings for his 300 mile drive to Durham after testing positive or his subsequent drive to Bernard Castle to test his eyesight

Not only did the Tory government vote against giving free school meals to children a mere ten days after awarding Marcus Rashford an MBE for his work in trying to give underprivileged children free school meals, but they tried all manner of excuses to defend it best exemplified by Nicky Morgan saying she voted to let children starve because Angela Rayner called one of her parliamentary colleagues “scum”, while Twitter troll Ben Bradley claimed that people spent their free school meal vouchers in crack dens and brothels, before claiming he was “misquoted” - which is Tory code for “I have deleted that tweet, because I do not understand how screengrabs work”

Remember how Rishi Sunak has been presented as the human face of the Tory party? I have to ask, since he decided to yank £1000 a month from Universal Credit payments, and for some reason the “centrists” of Twitter who have been lionising him for several months have been oddly quiet

The batshittery of the Home Office has now extended to coming up with increasingly ludicrous plans to prevent migrants, with the latest bright idea of Priti Patel (and don’t pretend it was anyone else) being to have ships in the English Channel using pipes to blow air into the water that will create waves to send them back to France - as if a dinghy wouldn’t just steer around the ship, or that they wouldn’t make Calais and Sangat the best surfing destinations in northern France overnight

...and it got worse when we learned that Priti Patel was informed that a knife-wielding man stormed into the office of a migration solicitor spouting the exact same rhetoric and injured the receptionist, to which her response was to double down on the rhetoric as if she and proven liar Boris Johnson weren’t inciting violence at this point

...which makes smirking cretin Priti Patel issuing a statement expressing sadness at a couple of child migrants drowning in the English Channel about as sincere and reassuring as a card from Harold Shipman expressing sympathy for the death of an elderly relative

Not for the first time Keir Starmer managed to take all the focus off the Tories and onto the Labour party with his moronic approach to running his own party, namely by suspending Jeremy Corbyn for the crime of...hang on, he actually hasn't said what infraction Corbyn committed by responding to the EHRB report into antisemitism in the Labour party, but he suspended him anyway

...while Lisa Nandy supported this by using a blatant strawman argument saying “There are some on the left” who believe blatant anti semitic tropes...blatant anti semitic tropes that she invoked in the exact same sentence as her obvious strawman argument

Suspected rapist Brett Kavanaugh has been busy using legal loopholes to try and claim that votes in Wisconsin only count if they were tallied up on Election Day and no day past that. Because as we know, US Presidential Elections have often been straightforward affairs where both vote counts and recounts are always necessary, as Kavanaugh obviously remembers as he was working for George W Bush’s campaign in Florida after the 2000 election

How nice of the Tory government to use a parliamentary loophole to completely avoid allowing a vote on whether or not the UK should import chlorinated chicken, therefore enshrining both the importance of democracy and the importance of food safety standards - in the EU

Once again Keir Starmer seems to think “Opposition” means “Whip your MPs into abstaining”, this time on the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, because as we all know letting legislation pass that absolves the police of any and all illegal activity is definitely going to win voters around

Good guy Rishi Sunak took the Tim Martin approach to worker relations by telling musicians to get another job if they were so worried about their finances - which not only ignores the fact that plenty of musicians do already have more than one job, but also begs the question why this same advice hasn’t been given to the landlords carping about rent holidays etc

Not only did The Sun blatantly lie by claiming a photo of Jeremy Corbyn taken at a wake was at a “posh dinner party” as obvious rage bait for their knuckle-dragging readership, but it has to be asked where they got the photos from as they weren’t shared publicly on Twitter or Instagram

...although the Freudian slip by the BBC when reporting the non-story, calling Corbyn “the Labour leader”, not only sums up just how shit they are at reporting facts these days, but also underlines he’s doing a better job of rattling the establishment’s cages than Keir Starmer has

Definitely not a conspiracy theorist Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer claimed that the government are combining Covid numbers and flu numbers so that they could...anyone got any idea what the point of making this up was?

Instead of keeping Robert Jenrick locked in a cupboard until the whole “Getting backhanders which influence who he gives property contracts to” thing goes away (spoilers: it won’t) instead they sent him out to justify £25m to a Jake Berry’s constituency - to which he said it was fine, as Jake Berry gave £25m to Jenrick’s constituency so there’s no reason to say anything dodgy is going on

For some strange reason Dominic Cummings doesn't have to face any charges for his failure to pay £30,000 worth of council tax on a property he also broke planning laws to have extended. Yes, there’s a reason I put this directly after the phases “Robert Jenrick” and “backhanders”...

The ridiculousness that is Liz Truss started the month proudly stating that post-Britait trade negotiations with the US would undermine Britsh farmers - and this wasn’t a flub, she genuinely meant to express this - and ended with the frankly baffling crowing from the Department of Trade about how “soya sauce” which was being sued by Great British Bake Off contestants would be cost the same post-departure thanks to the UK-Japan trade deal, which ignores the fact that most soy sauce is imported from China - also that paying zero tariffs on £100k of stilton being exported to a country with high lactose intolerance while Nissa, Toyota et al face no tariffs when importing tens of millions of pounds of cars a year is not what anyone should be calling a victory...unless they work for Nissan, Toyota et al, anyway

Convicted criminal Darren Grimes learned that there’s such a thing as “responsibility” when he learned that the police were investigating his interview with David Starkey for incitement of hatred, which could have easily been avoided if he was in any way competent or if he admitted he isn't a journalist - and of course, the usual voices of Toby Young, Laurence Fox and Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer all came running to his defence...and shut up when they were informed this ruling was introduced by Thatcher

Somebody should have explained to WWE that, when their move to ban their employees independent contractors from third party platforms such as Twitch already cast a remarkably negative light on their shady employment practices, they should ramp it up by demanding their employees independent contractors hand over those third party platforms and then out of the goodness of their hearts WWE would hand them a percentage of those earnings

As if Steve Baker describing himself as “the hard man of Britait” isn’t reason enough to include him, his demanding that the Church of England be disestablished if it doesn’t fall in line with their No Deal death cult certainly is

It has to be asked why Ross Clark saw Jacinda Ardern winning a a record mandate in the New Zealand elections so decided it was in his interests to write a Telegraph article claiming her Covid has been a disaster...you know, a country which currently has 0 cases and a total of 25 deaths since February. It’s almost as if the thought of a left-leaning leader who hasn’t had a disastrous response to Covid being rewarded by the electorate has Clark worried for some reason...

Professional victim Laurence Fox has identified the biggest problem in modern society: Sainsburys supporting Black History Month. Of course, it definitely wouldn’t be something like Laurence Fox calling anyone who disagrees with him a paedophile, that’s all part of a healthy society...

The latest idea of Tim Davie to make sure that BBC newsreaders remain compliant drones was to bring in a set of rules saying they are never allowed to state an opinion ever (no doubt aimed at Emily Maitlis, who did) and to ban that favourite buzzphrase of the right, any form of “virtue signalling” no matter how worthy the cause...except for wearing poppies, that’s still allowed, in spite being a clear example of this “virtue signalling” that Davie is banning

Complete and utter nutcase Dan Wootton is dangerous as well. That’s both the entry, and also a quote from Labour MP Chris Bryant in response to him banging on about herd immunity as if he's an expert and not The Sun’s showbiz bottom feeder who has been elevated for no logical reason

Once again Laura Kuenssberg is quoting anonymous “sources” critical of the Opposition - meaning she’s either not a very good journalist as she can’t even name her source, or she doesn’t have a source so she's a liar. Has anyone else noticed this is a regular occurrence with Kuenssberg yet?

How thoughtful of Manchester United and Liverpool to pitch a wonderful idea that the Premier League be reduced to eighteen teams, while also christening the concept with the definitely not Orwellian moniker of Project Big Picture under the guise of helping the Football League and not, say, easing their fixture lists by four league games per season. Of course, they’re volunteering to give up their Premier League places, aren’t they?

Once again Isabel Oakeshott just had to be on the wrong side of a story, this time howling in outrage that an anti-lockdown petition with 15,000 signatures is being ignored - signatures including Harold Shipman, Bernard Castle, Dominic Cummings of Bernard Castle, Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename, and last but by no means least, Dr Corona McCoronaface...

Former wrestler Joey Ryan is dealing with his wrestling career being over due to a wealth of allegations of him being a sexual abuser in the most healthy manner possible, namely filing lawsuits against literally anyone he can blame, be it the accusers, his former employers, or random people who call him out via social media

So far it appears Shaun Bailey is planning on winning the London Mayoral election with batshit promises to allow corporations to sponsor London Underground stations and change the names appropriately (which won’t be confusing for tourist guides...) and try and say that Sadiq Khan is at fault for fans not being allowed into football stadiums nationwide

Clueless grifter Tim Pool came up with a genius answer when asked why his “centrist” podcast only ever seems to have right-wing guests and that was to claim that his setup couldn’t handle remote interviews - which would make sense if a.) He hadn’t been saying how much money had been poured into his setup, b.) Zoom didn’t exist, and c.) We forget all the times he’s done remote interviews in the past

Your would think that Lars Sullivan would have learned to not potentially jeopardise WWE’s efforts to promote him after a combination of injury and also not mentioning him for months due to being a creepy bastard online, but no, as soon as he returned to TV he was being a creepy bastard to a yoga instructor - while using his official WWE Instagram account to be a creepy bastard

Not only did Alex Hutchison open himself up for criticism by outright stating that Twitch streamers can count themselves lucky that they don’t have to pay licensing fees to stream games and their careers would be over if they did, he also opened himself up for ridicule when his aforementioned idiotic statement led to Google seeing his Twitter bio and telling him that, no, he was not a lead designer for Stadia and needed to change that shit PDQ

Once again Arsenal showed their lack of understanding of juxtaposition, with them announcing their longtime mascot was being let go for cost-cutting measures - and then a few hours later announcing they’d signed a player with a £200k a week wage

Some faultless logic from Apple regarding the the iPhone 12: the box won’t include a charger or earbuds to reduce packaging...yet it cost the same as if it did, while also meaning people have to buy chargers and earbuds separately that requires far more packaging

To nobody’s surprise it’s clear that Kim Kardashian does need it explained to her that saying how haaaaaaaaaaaaaard it is to spend two weeks being screened and self-isolating so you can go to the private island for your birthday is galling most of the time, but outright disgusting during a global pandemic

Oh dear, it looks like Eric Trump tried being clever again asking how Joe Biden owns a house that’s worth $4m on his senator’s salary of $174k...only to be told that Biden bought the house for $185k, sold it in 1996, pays more than $750 in taxes and loves his son

And finally, testing positive for Covid, is Donald Trump - but he assures us that he is fine and definitely not a contamination risk having been pumped full of steroids and aborted foetus cells which are available to so many people, and definitely didn’t need a better Twitter password

#dickheads of the month

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Friday, May 21, 2021

Record 55 million people internally displaced worldwide, NGOs report (AFP) Conflicts and natural disasters forced someone to flee within their own country every second of last year, pushing the number of people living in internal displacement to a record high, monitors said Thursday. This came despite strict restrictions on movement imposed around the globe in efforts to halt the spread of Covid-19, which observers had expected to push down displacement numbers last year. But 2020 was also marked by intense storms, persistent conflicts and explosions of violence, forcing 40.5 million people to become newly displaced within their countries, according to a joint report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). That is the highest number of newly displaced reported in 10 years, and brings the total number of people living in internal displacement around the world to a record 55 million, the report showed. “Both numbers this year were unusually high,” IDMC director Alexandra Bilak told AFP, saying the surge in internal displacement was “unprecedented”.

Ring (Guardian) Amazon’s Ring “smart doorbell” is the largest civilian-surveillance network the US has ever seen, writes Lauren Bridges, a PhD candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. One out of every 10 US police departments can access videos from millions of home-security cameras without getting a warrant, Bridges says. “In a 2020 letter to management, Max Eliaser, an Amazon software engineer, said Ring is ‘simply not compatible with a free society’ [and] we should take his claim seriously.” Ring is effectively building the largest corporate-owned, civilian-installed surveillance network that the US has ever seen. An estimated 400,000 Ring devices were sold in December 2019 alone, and that was before the across-the-board boom in online retail sales during the pandemic.

Is Competition With China the New Pork Barrel? (Foreign Policy) A bill that aims to counter the fear that China is overtaking the United States technologically passed the U.S. Senate by 86 to 11 on Monday, heralding the start of a new era of strategic competition—and businesses and special interest groups are getting in on the game. The Endless Frontier Act, which has backing from both parties and the White House, would allocate $120 billion to funding new technologies, focusing on artificial intelligence, superconductors, and robotics. It would also support new hubs to geographically diversify the U.S. technology industry, which is heavily concentrated in Silicon Valley. Competition with China will be the foreign-policy priority for this and future administrations, and special interest groups see attaching their causes to the so-called new cold war as a way into U.S. government support. This in a way mirrors the Chinese political economy, where companies leap on slogans such as “Belt and Road” to win government favor. Expect a lot more rhetoric suggesting that since China is supposedly doing X, the United States must also do X to compete—or it must instead do Y in order not to be like the Chinese Communist Party.

The Gaza Conflict Is Stoking an ‘Identity Crisis’ for Some Young American Jews (NYT) Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel. As a child in Brooklyn he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said. But his feelings have grown muddier as he has gotten older, especially now as he watches violence unfold in Israel and Gaza. His moral compass tells him to help the Palestinians, but he cannot shake an ingrained paranoia every time he hears someone make anti-Israel statements. “It is an identity crisis,” Mr. Kleinman, 33, said. “Very small in comparison to what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, but it is still something very strange and weird.” As the violence escalates in the Middle East, turmoil of a different kind is growing across the Atlantic. Many young American Jews are confronting the region’s longstanding strife in a very different context, with very different pressures, from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. The Israel of their lifetime has been powerful, no longer appearing to some to be under constant existential threat. The violence comes after a year when mass protests across the United States have changed how many Americans see issues of racial and social justice. Many Jews in America remain unreservedly supportive of Israel and its government. Still, the events of recent weeks have left some families struggling to navigate both the crisis abroad and the wide-ranging response from American Jews at home.

Cleared For Take-Off? (Washington Post) After more than a year of travel into the bloc being severely restricted, the EU council is recommending member states begin opening their borders to Americans and others who have been “vaccinated with an E.U.-authorized vaccine.” Specifically, that means all the coronavirus vaccines available in the U.S. would be greenlighted, but vaccines manufactured in Russia and China would not be. Officials said the reopening could take effect within days of final approval, which should happen this week or next since E.U. ambassadors signed off on the plan on Wednesday. The guidance is not binding, however, so some countries could choose to be more or less restrictive than the bloc as a whole. Some E.U. countries require quarantines of all new arrivals, regardless of vaccination status. And Britain, which is no longer a member of the bloc, has its own separate set of rules, which as of now includes no special treatment for vaccinated travelers.

Mexico’s coronavirus deaths are plummeting (Washington Post) After suffering one of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreaks, Mexico is witnessing a significant decrease in cases. Confirmed deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, have tumbled more than 85 percent since January, when a brutal second wave swept the country. Mexico City, the epicenter of the country’s outbreak, went off high alert this month for the first time in a year. Officials say the capital’s coronavirus alert could soon turn from yellow to green—that is, from medium risk to low. The abrupt decline in cases has brought relief to exhausted hospital workers and some sense of normalcy to a battered nation. During the weekend, the capital’s massive Azteca Stadium opened to fans for the first time in 14 months. Thousands turned out for a pair of quarterfinal matches in the Liga MX soccer league. Scientists and government officials say the pandemic seems to be abating—at least temporarily—because of increasing levels of immunity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. As much as half the Mexican population has developed antibodies because the coronavirus circulated so widely over the past year. In addition, U.S. vaccinations appear to be blocking the southward spread of the virus.

As India sets a record for covid-19 deaths, variant worries grow globally (Washington Post) India set another coronavirus milestone this week. On Wednesday, authorities announced the country had recorded more than 4,500 deaths from covid-19 for the prior 24 hours, setting a world record. Despite the record number of deaths, there are some positive signs that India’s surge may be slowing, with less than 300,000 new daily cases this week. Other countries are expressing new concern over the variant that is widespread in India. On Tuesday, British scientists said that the variant, known as B.1.617.2, could quickly become the dominant strain in the United Kingdom if it is allowed to spread. In recent days, U.S. health experts have raised their concerns about the variant spreading here, while there have been documented cases in Germany, Singapore and elsewhere. “It’s outcompeting the other viruses,” Jeremy Luban of the University of Massachusetts Medical School told NPR this week. “It’s replacing whatever variants were there before. And it’s always a concern when something like this changes because we don’t know what will happen.”

Netanyahu’s prospects bolstered amid Israel-Hamas fighting (AP) Israel is at war with Hamas, Jewish-Arab mob violence has erupted inside Israel, and the West Bank is experiencing its deadliest unrest in years. Yet this may all bolster Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Just over a week ago, the longtime Israeli leader’s political career seemed all but over. He had failed to form a coalition government following an indecisive parliamentary election, and his political rivals were on the cusp of pushing him out of office. Now, as Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers wage their fourth war in just over a decade, Netanyahu’s fortunes have changed dramatically. His rivals’ prospects have crumbled, Netanyahu is back in his comfortable role as Mr. Security, and the country could soon be headed for yet another election campaign that would guarantee him at least several more months in office. The stunning turn of events has raised questions about whether Netanyahu’s desperation to survive may have pushed the country into its current predicament. While opponents have stopped short of accusing him of hatching just such a conspiracy, they say the fact that these questions are being asked is disturbing enough.

Perspectives on war (CJR) Ariana Pekary, CJR’s public editor for CNN, writes about the network’s coverage of the violence between Israel and Palestine, and how it seems to give a lot more time and space to the Israeli government’s position than to that of the Palestinians who are being shelled and fired upon by the Israeli military. “CNN aired a two-hour special on the brewing crisis from 3pm to 5pm Eastern Time without explaining why it was happening,” Pekary writes. “Almost every guest was located in Israel; the network didn’t feature a single person in a Palestinian territory or neighborhood.”

Gaza’s health system buckling under repeated wars, blockade (AP) The Gaza Strip’s already feeble health system is being brought to its knees by the fourth war in just over a decade. Hospitals have been overwhelmed with waves of dead and wounded from Israel’s bombardment. Many vital medicines are rapidly running out in the tiny, blockaded coastal territory, as is fuel to keep electricity going. Just as Gaza was climbing out of a second wave of coronavirus infections, its only virus testing lab was damaged by an airstrike and has been shut. Health officials fear further outbreaks among tens of thousands of displaced residents crowded into makeshift shelters after fleeing massive barrages. The Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure was already collapsing before this latest war, said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides vital assistance to the 75% of the enclave’s population who are refugees. “It’s frightening,” he said.

Parenting under fire (Washington Post) Ayman Mghames couldn’t stop the nightly Israeli bombing that was making his 7-year-old daughter, Joury, cry. But just maybe he could turn the volume down. Just after midnight on the fourth evening of the bombardment, the Palestinian musician and rapper retrieved a pair of noise-canceling headphones. He fit them over the little ears, dialed up a YouTube video of “The Smurfs” and hit play. Mghames, 36, whose father was killed when an Israeli missile struck their house in 2009, knows well that headphones won’t protect his children from the bombs that have already killed more than 200 Gazans in the past 10 days, including more than 60 children. But like countless parents, Palestinian and Israeli, cowering in homes, shelters and stairwells under the air war raging between Israel and the Hamas militant group, he is doing anything he can to shield them from the trauma of being under fire. Dads and moms on both sides of the border have put aside their own terror to launch indoor soccer games, dance parties and cooking contests as distractions.

Israel, Hamas agree to cease-fire to end bloody 11-day war (AP) Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire Thursday, halting a bruising 11-day war that caused widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip, brought life in much of Israel to a standstill and left more than 200 people dead. Like the three previous wars between the bitter enemies, the latest round of fighting ended inconclusively. Israel claimed to inflict heavy damage on Hamas but once again was unable to halt the Islamic militant group’s nonstop rocket barrages. Almost immediately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced angry accusations from his hard-line, right-wing base that he stopped the operation too soon. Hamas, the Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, also claimed victory. But it now faces the daunting challenge of rebuilding in a territory already suffering from poverty, widespread unemployment and a raging coronavirus outbreak. At least 230 Palestinians were killed, including 65 children and 39 women, with 1,710 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians. Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl, were killed.

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