#National Review Online

[fatliberation]

they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts

Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 

1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.

Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].

4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.

The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].

5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.

Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].

6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].

10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.

Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].

11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.

The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 

12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.

“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].

13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.

Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].

19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 

20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].

21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 

Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].

22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  

23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.

Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].

24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.

Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].

25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.

There's my "proof." Where is yours?

[hospitalllllllllllll]

Look for MRI centers in Shaheen Bagh on search engines like Google or Bing. You can also use local business directories like Justdial or Sulekha to find MRI centers in the area.

Read reviews: Once you have a list of potential MRI centers, read online reviews from past patients to get an idea of the quality of service offered by the centers.

Check accreditations: Look for MRI centers that have accreditations from organizations like the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) or the Joint Commission International (JCI). This can be an indicator of the center's commitment to quality and patient safety.

Ask for recommendations: Ask family, friends, or healthcare providers for recommendations based on their experience with MRI centers in Shaheen Bagh.

MRI Centre Near New Friends Colony, Best MRI Centre in Delhi, Srivastava MRI and Imaging Centre

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #31

August 9-16 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced together the successful conclusion of the first negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. For years Medicare was not allow to directly negotiate princes with drug companies leaving seniors to pay high prices. It has been a Democratic goal for many years to change this. President Biden noted he first introduced a bill to allow these negotiations as a Senator back in 1973. Thanks to Inflation Reduction Act, passed with no Republican support using Vice-President Harris' tie breaking vote, this long time Democratic goal is now a reality. Savings on these first ten drugs are between 38% and 79% and will collectively save seniors $1.8 billion dollars in out of pocket costs. This comes on top of the Biden-Harris Administration already having capped the price of insulin for Medicare's 3.5 million diabetics at $35 a month, as well as the Administration's plan to cap Medicare out of pocket drug costs at $2,000 a year starting January 2025.

President Biden and Vice President Harris have launched a wide ranging all of government effort to crack down on companies wasting customers time with excessive paperwork, hold times, and robots rather than real people. Some of the actions from the "Time is Money" effort include: The FTC and FCC putting forward rules that require companies to make canceling a subscription or service as easy as signing up for it. The Department of Transportation has required automatic refunds for canceled flights. The CFPB is working on rules to require companies to have to allow customers to speak to a real person with just one button click ending endless "doom loops" of recored messages. The CFPB is also working on rules around chatbots, particularly their use from banks. The FTC is working on rules to ban companies from posting fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, or paying for  positive reviews. HHS and the Department of Labor are taking steps to require insurance companies to allow health claims to be submitted online. All these actions come on top of the Biden Administration's efforts to get rid of junk fees.

President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden announced further funding as part of the President's Cancer Moonshot. The Cancer Moonshot was launched by then Vice-President Biden in 2016 in the aftermath of his son Beau Biden's death from brain cancer in late 2015. It was scrapped by Trump as political retaliation against the Obama-Biden Administration. Revived by President Biden in 2022 it has the goal of cutting the number of cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years, saving 4 million lives. Part of the Moonshot is Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), grants to help develop cutting edge technology to prevent, detect, and treat cancer. The President and First Lady announced $150 million in ARPA-H grants this week focused on more successful cancer surgeries. With grants to Tulane, Rice, Johns Hopkins, and Dartmouth, among others, they'll help fund imaging and microscope technology that will allow surgeons to more successfully determine if all cancer has been remove, as well as medical imaging focused on preventing damage to healthy tissues during surgeries.

Vice-President Harris announced a 4-year plan to lower housing costs. The Vice-President plans on offering $25,000 to first time home buyers in down-payment support. It's believed this will help support 1 million first time buyers a year. She also called for the building of 3 million more housing units, and a $40 billion innovation fund to spur innovative housing construction. This adds to President Biden's call for a $10,000 tax credit for first time buyers and calls by the President to punish landlords who raise the rent by over 5%.

President Biden Designates the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot a National Monument. The two day riot in Illinois capital took place just blocks away from Abraham Lincoln's Springfield home. In August 1908, 17 people die, including a black infant, and 2,000 black refugees were forced to flee the city. As a direct result of the riot, black community leaders and white allies met a few months later in New York and founded the NAACP. The new National Monument will seek to preserve the history and educate the public both on the horrible race riot as well as the foundation of the NAACP. This is the second time President Biden has used his authority to set up a National Monument protecting black history, after setting up the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument on Emmett Till's 82nd birthday July 25th 2023.

The Department of The Interior announced $775 million to help cap and clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. The money will help cap wells in 21 states. The Biden-Harris Administration has allocated $4.7 billion to plug orphaned wells, a billion of which has already been distributed. More than 8,200 such wells have been capped since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2022. Orphaned wells leak toxins into communities and are leaking the super greenhouse gas methane. Plugging them will not only improve the health of nearby communities but help fight climate change on a global level.

Vice-President Harris announced plans to ban price-gouging in the food and grocery industries. This would be a first ever federal ban on price gouging and Harris called for clear "rules of the road" on price rises in food, and strong penalties from the FTC for those who break them. This is in line with President Biden's launching of a federal Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing in March, and Democratic Senator Bob Casey's bill to ban "shrinkflation". In response to this pressure from Democrats on price gouging and after aggressive questions by Senator Casey and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the supermarket giant Kroger proposed dropping prices by a billion dollars

[onlinemedibazar-1]

The Dos and Don'ts of Buying Adderall 30 mg Online: Your Guide to Safe and Effective Treatment

Adderall 30 mg is a prescription drug used to treat narcolepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Adderall 30 mg, which contains the active chemicals amphetamine and dextroamphetamine, can help increase attention, concentration, and productivity, making it an excellent medication for people with ADHD and narcolepsy.

While a prescription for Adderall 30 mg from a registered healthcare practitioner is required, many people are resorting to internet pharmacies to get the drug. Online pharmacies provide convenience, privacy, and, in many cases, lower pricing than traditional brick-and-mortar pharmacies.

When purchasing Adderall 30 mg online, however, it is critical to take caution. Some internet pharmacies offer counterfeit, outdated, or tainted medication, and others do not. To safeguard your health's safety, only purchase Adderall 30 mg from a reliable online pharmacy.

You may conduct research and read online reviews to identify a reliable online pharmacy, check for accreditation from organisations such as the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), or ask your doctor for advice. Before distributing Adderall 30 mg, ensure that the online pharmacy demands a prescription.

When buying Adderall 30 mg online, be sure to supply the online pharmacy with correct information about your medical history and current prescriptions. This information will assist you in determining whether Adderall 30 mg is safe and effective for you to use.

To summarise, while purchasing Adderall 30 mg online might be a handy alternative, it is critical to exercise caution and only acquire the drug from a reliable online pharmacy. Before using Adderall 30 mg, make sure you have a prescription from a competent healthcare provider.

[soracities]

where do you find articles or personal essays to read? and also do you have any favorite sources for news? i want to read more but i’m having a difficult time finding sources 🤍

I've answered this just recently but here's a more complete list for essays from places I visit most often (favourites are marked **)

LitHub**

Electric Literature**

Guernica Magazine**

Hazlitt**

Longreads**

Pangyrus

The Dial**

Bloodknife**

Aeon **

The Marginalian**

Asymptote Journal

N+1

Nautilus**

Quanta Magazine**

The Believer

Ordinary Plots**

The Point Magazine

The Baffler

Paris Review (Redux newsletter is good for things usu behind the paywall)

The New Yorker

The Artifice

The Collector

The Rumpus

Catapult

Tin House Archives (the online section is no longer running but past publications are still available)

Additionally, highly recommend switching to Mozilla Firefox and trying the "Pocket" feature on their homepage: it collects links to articles across the web on topics that are either trending or based on the Pocket suggestions you usually click on. I'm on private browser 99% of the time but there's still 2 or 3 articles at least that I'm always interested in and I love it!

Some other places I read things: Poets&Writers, Atlas Obscura, The Guardian, The Independent, New Scientist, Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, BBC, National Geographic, Wired, NY Times, GQ, NPR, The Irish Times / Independent, etc., I don't have favourite news sources as a rule since I usually read 2 or 3 articles on the same topic from different places depending on what it is (I don't like relying on single sources). But on the whole this covers most of what cross my orbit unless I'm looking for something specifically 💗

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Musician Age Gap AU Pt 20 of 20

The first year, Kara knows she made the right decision. But that doesn't make it any easier. She retreats for a good week and a half before she forces herself out of her apartment to walk the streets of National City. Day after day she wanders, until one afternoon a spot of color catches her eye.

A butterfly alights on a park bench-- perhaps, Kara thinks, the same one she and Lena had sat upon-- and sits, lightly winking its wings open and closed. It seems out of place, even in the park, at odds with the industrial buildings and zooming cars. Kara sits and stares, thinking unable to help the next thought that runs through her mind.

I wish I could show Lena.

There's nothing that says she can't... the split was amicable, and maybe-- maybe they could still manage to be friends. But as soon as Kara snaps the picture on the phone, she knows she can't. They were never really just friends, were they?

She almost deletes the picture. But at the last minute, she simply slips it into a new folder in her photos app. There it lives, soon to be joined by other images she captures on her walks.

Kara sends a few to Esme, just to satisfy her trigger finger that wants to fire the thing off to Lena. On Kara's birthday a few weeks later, Esme gifts her a slip of paper with an instagram username and password. When she logs in she finds a carefully curated feed of her National City photos, with simple descriptions and minimal hashtags.

It takes her breath away, to see the images reframed not as the product of her heartache, but as hidden glimpses into the city. It makes them less her guilty pleasures, and more... a gift.

It sparks something in Kara, inspires her to continue, and expand her horizons beyond city limits. She starts hiking, first with Esme, then on her own. She buys a real camera and enrolls in classes to learn how to use it.

By the start of year two without Lena, she's hopping planes to other countries, other continents, in search of secret vistas to capture. Her instagram turns into a sister channel for a travel blog, which gains her followers and a small amount of popularity online. She's careful, though, not to put her face on it. She operates faceless, under the penname of KD, and that's enough for her.

She can't say if she hides her identity to ensure any traction she gains is for her work rather than her brief stint as a celebrity's date, or whether it's to keep her work more honest (its more rewarding to find areas on her own, to travel on her own terms than it is be sponsored or reviewing upon request). Or maybe it's simply to avoid the restrictions that notoreity had put on Lena. Not that Kara thought her site could elevate her to such a status, but... she's content with who she is, and how she is.

Every so often, the magazines and tabloids explode with news of Lena, and each time Kara's heart breaks a little-- even as it beats a little harder.

First, there's a bit of a hubbub about ownership rights of Lena's first three album masters. But then, six months later, Morgan Edge is indicted on charges of sexual assault, sexual harrassment, sexual abuse of minors, and emotional abuse. Lena isn't listed among the identified plaintiffs, but Kara knows. Kara knows, and her hear breaks.

The world is shocked when Lena testifies to her own abuse at Morgan's hands, the world is shocked, but Kara isn't.

Kara *is* surprised when news breaks of Lena obtaining new management shortly after the trial. Though the press frames it as Lillian retiring, Kara knows nothing short of a cataclysmic schism could cause a split between Lena and her mother.

And when Lena does release new music, three years after she leaves Kara in Alex's driveway, it sounds... different. Not a bad different. A good different. Kara has known since Paris that Lena's personal life fuels her songwriting, and it's clear that's still the case-- just as its clear that this album had been written in the midst of the legal battles and personal journey of confronting her abuser and coming out the other side.

When Kara listens, she hears acceptance, empowerment, and forgiveness. She hears Lena's value in herself, and a strength in herself that Lena has fully embraced. One song in particular resonates, not just with Kara but seemingly the entire planet. When Kara watches the VMAs with Esme that year, Lena performs *that* song with a full chorus of women behind her, making it a veritable anthem for victims' strength.

If Kara cries, she knows she's not the only one. It may no longer be her place to be proud of Lena, but she is. She is so, so proud.

After that, Lena becomes more visible. She takes more interviews, more guest appearances on talk shows to both advertise her new album and to advocate for victims and the charities that proceeds from the album will support. Kara doesn't go looking for these interviews, but when she sees one playing in the airport lounge she can't help but stop and watch, and marvel at the peace she can see in Lena's features.

Right around her birthday, five years into her travel-photography life, Kara readily accepts Esme's invitation to help her tour Metropolis University. They make a weekend of it, including sight seeing around the city, and even getting last minute seats to the taping of a talk show.

To their shock and surprise, the guest who walks out is Lena herself.

Kara clutches Esme's wrist, who blanches under Kara's accusatory glare. "I swear I had no idea!" Esme hisses. Her eyes are wide and frantic. "Do you want to leave?"

Part of Kara does want to leave, but she knows that bustling out now would only call more attention to themselves. So she simply shakes her head and settles in.

The interview starts just like all of the others Kara has watched over the years. Good natured banter, then a segue into the purpose of Lena's visit. She discusses her philanthropy, her album, all the usuals, and Kara sits enraptured.

Her heart flutters at the smooth cadence of Lena's voice, richer and more velvet than Kara remembers. And the Lena she remembers had always contained such coiled energy that Kara wondered how she ever sat still. But now, she's relaxed and at ease-- upbeat and engage, but with a calm she didn't have five years ago.

Towards the end of the segment, Lena asks to share something new.

"Well, some of you may have heard it, but it doesn't officially come out until next week, so it's *mostly* new. I wrote it a while ago, when a relationship was still new, so-- here's to all the people hoping for more."

A production assistant carries out an acoustic guitar, and when Lena starts to strum, Kara's heart leaps in her throat. The lyrics Lena sees are bright and hopeful... starry-eyed if a song could be such. It's a song of a crush hoping to be something more, a promise of love if only it were accepted.

Kara can feel Esme swaying to the tune, bopping just a little bit to the chipper beat, but she only has eyes for Lena. For most of the song, Lena looks either at the strings or the middle distance. But then, as the bridge leads into the final chorus, she scans the audience.

Holding her breath, Kara expects Lena's gaze to slide right past her. But with wide eyes of her own Kara sees the moment Lena catches sight of her. Green eyes widen momentarily, sparking with surprise, then pure delight. Lena's features spread into a kilowatt smile before she slides her gaze away. Kara swears the strumming gets a little more enthusiastic, Lena's voice a little brighter.

When it finishes, the applause from the audience should be deafening, but Kara can barely hear it, even when the crowd stands in ovation. She watches as Lena and the host exchange thanks and pleasantries, and then Lena exits, still waving and beaming.

Kara leaves with the rest of the audience, numb and quiet as Esme stands anxiously beside her. Had that song-- could it have been about--

"Wait!"

A vaguely familiar call makes Kara pause. She and Esme turn to see a young woman with dark hair trotting towards them.

"Excuse me!" Jess calls as she nears. "Would you come with me please?"

Esme's hand closes defensively on Kara's, but Kara responds before her brain can talk her out of it.

"Sure."

Jess leads them back past the soundstage, through a maze of turns that terminates in a cinderblock hallway lined with doors. Kara doesn't have to guess who's behind the one Jess drops them in front of.

Jess meets Kara's gaze with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Miss Danvers."

Kara can barely offer a smile back before Jess reaches out to turn the knob. The door opens.

Lena stands on the other side, a respectful distance from the door but plainly anticipating their arrival. She straightens as the door swings wide, and Kara can barely bring herself to step inside for the way their proximity has turned her legs to jelly.

Lena smiles. "Hey there," she exhales.

"I--" Kara's voice cracks, forcing her to try again. "Hey."

"Hi, Lena," Esme offers nervously. Kara could kiss her. The distraction pulls Lena's gaze from Kara, giving her the chance to catch her breath.

Lena's eyes widen slightly. "Esme?! Wow, look at you! Does this mean you're too old for a hug now?"

Esme giggles. "No!"

The two hug warmly, and Kara's amazed to see that Esme is almost taller than Lena, now.

"I loved the new song," Esme tells Lena, grinning.

"Thanks," Lena returns. Her gaze slides back to Kara. "I've been profiting off my pain and heartbreak for years. Figured it's time for some of the good stuff to see the light of day."

Kara swallows thickly. "Was that about..."

Lena nods, shifting self-consciously on her feet. "Yeah." She looks at Kara, her gaze open and vulnerable. "Did you like it?"

"Did I--? Lena, I think everyone in the world is gonna like it."

"No offense to the rest of the world," Lena says in a low voice, "but I don't care what they think."

Kara can feel Esme's eyes bouncing between them.

"Honey, could you give us a minute?"

"Yep," Esme says swiftly. "Right. I'll just go wait... It was Jess, right?"

The door closes, leaving Kara and Lena in a room charged with electricity just waiting to spark.

"Do you still feel that way?" Kara can barely bring herself to ask the question, but knows if she doesn't she'd regret it forever.

Lena shifts again, wiping her palms on the front of her jeans. "Would it make any difference if I do?"

It's a fair question. Has anything really changed? Lena is still a critically acclaimed and internationally beloved artist, and Kara... Kara pauses.

Lena's circumstances may not have changed, but Kara's have. She isn't a forty year old a hairsbreadth away from a mid-life crisis anymore. She isn't miserable in her day to day. She lives comfortably doing something she loves, something she knows she'll never give up. And though she may not have had any serious relationships since she last saw Lena, she's closer to her family than she's ever been. She isn't *alone*.

That knowledge allows her to offer the truth.

"Yes," she breathes. "It would."

Lena's eyebrows lift hopefully, an astonished smile sprouting on her lips. Then it softens to a mirthful grin. "Slower this time. Lest I whisk you away on tour again."

"Hey, now," Kara chides softly. "We had some good times on that tour. All five weeks of it."

Lena laughs, the sound bright and happy and golden. "Yeah," she agrees, before falling quiet. She gazes at Kara with soft eyes. "I've missed you, Kara. You have no idea how much."

"I might have some idea," she allows, thinking of her own life the past five years. "A lot has happened I've wanted to tell you about."

Pressing her lips together, Lena guiltily shoves her hands in her pockets. "I... I think I might have already seen some of it."

Kara blinks. "What?"

"Okay, maybe all of it? KD Photog on insta?"

"Wha... how!?!?"

"I saw a picture on insta of a park that seemed familiar, and when I looked a little closer, I found out the photographer lived in National City. I swear I didn't know it was you, I just admired the photos. It wasn't until I followed to the website that I suspected."

Kara stares at her, breathless. "Wow," she exhales.

Lena's expression falters. "I didn't mean... I'm sorry, I guess I should have-- I should have stopped reading once I suspected."

"No, Lena, it's fine," Kara reassures her, regathering her wits. "I don't mind. It's just..." She hesitates for a moment. "Esme is the one who actually first set up the instagram account. I'd sent the photos to her... so I wouldn't send them to you."

Green eyes blink at her, shocked. "Oh."

"I never thought you'd ever see them," Kara continues. "But I'm glad you did. Because I did want to show them to you. Every single one."

Lena's eyes crinkle at the corners. She tilts her head to one side. "Then it sounds like we have a lot to catch up on."

Kara nods. "We do."

"I'm actually in town for a while," Lena tells her. "Maybe... maybe if you'll also be here, we could maybe... do dinner."

Kara considers the offer. "Are you free now?"

Lena blinks, the breaks into a brilliant smile. "Yeah."

"Then how about dessert first?" Kara turns her chin over her shoulder. "Esme?" she asks totally conversationally.

There's a squeak at the door, confirming that Esme's curiosity had her pressing her ear to the door. Then, "um... yeah?"

"Would you like to get ice cream with me and Lena?"

The door flings itself open. "Oh my god, YES!"

Lena's laughter fills the room, filling Kara with a warmth she hadn't totally realized she'd been missing.

As they gather up their things to leave, Lena clasps Kara's hand gently. "Dinner...?"

"Just us," Kara promises. "If that's okay."

Lena nods, her fingers tightening on Kara's.

"I can't wait."

Stepping out into the open air of the city, Kara feels something new bloom in her chest. Seeing Lena this time feels less a whirlwind than more a simple fork in the path on one of her hikes. The paths look largely the same, except that one includes Lena holding her hand.

One thing Kelly said, in perhaps the first year after Lena, that had really resonated with Kara was that lasting romances really only required three things: the person, place, and timing.

Right now, even in these early minutes, Kara feels hopeful that maybe--just maybe-- they might finally have all three.

[csuitebitches]

book review: Stolen focus by Johann Hari

Major learnings from this book. It basically talks about focus, why and how we’re losing it. Why can’t we pay attention anymore? Are we individuals to blame or our systems? 

There will be a time when the upper class will be extremely aware of the risks to their attention (caused by tech, social media, our current generation) and the masses, with fewer resources to resist the temptation of technology, will be manipulated more and more by their computers. 

Multitasking is a myth. What actually happens when we multitask is that we “juggle” between tasks. This results in incomplete tasks, higher error rates, less focus, less creativity and memory decreases. 

Sleep is extremely important, especially sleeping according to nature - when the sun sets and sun rises. If the whole world slept the way we are naturally programmed, we would have an economic earthquake. Our economic systems run on sleep deprived people. 

Reading online and reading print has a huge difference. Reading online creates tendencies of skimming and scanning text. This prevents our brain from focusing intently on one story at a time, which print allows you to do. You also remember and understand things from printed texts better. 

Empathy. Certain research suggests that reading fiction and novels improves empathy, because you are immersing yourself in another character’s life for a while. Empathy has played a huge role in human advancements. If a group of white people did not realise that colonisation was wrong, if men did not realise that women deserve equal rights, we would not have independent nations nor be close to gender equality today. 

There are multiple types of paying attention. Focused attention is one thing. But day dreaming and letting your mind wander with no distraction (that is, being alone with your thoughts) is equally important. Some of the most important breakthroughs in human history were because the inventors were not actively focusing on solving the problem. 

Being on social media = giving a free pass to be manipulated. No thoughts, opinions, desires that you have are original. They have all been fed into you by social media and the online world. It is by their design that we cannot focus. 

Leaked internal records of Facebook show that they are aware that their algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness. 64% of people, for instance, who join extremist groups join because FB’s algorithm directly recommends too. “Our recommendation systems grow the problem.” Zuckerberg eventually terminated the unit that was studying this. 

Diet and attention. The diet we consumed today is a diet that causes regular energy spikes and energy crashes. Our food does not have the nutrients we need for our brains to function well. Our current diets actively contain chemicals that seem to act on our brains almost like drugs.  

Be careful about reading research, especially when it’s funded by the industry itself. For 40 years, the lead industry funded all the scientific research into whether it was safe, and assured the world that it was. Lead later turned out to severely stunt your ability to focus and pay attention and that you are more likely to get ADHD. 

We define success broadly as economic growth. Economies should get bigger, companies should get bigger. Growth can happen in two ways - either the companies find new markets or they persuade the existing consumers to consume more. If you can get people to eat more or to sleep less, you’ve found the source of economic growth. It results in people working overtime, not having enough time with family, friends and themselves, stress and anxiety prone, lack of sleep and bad health, etc. 

Conclusion: use precommitment to stop switching tasks, try to focus more on intrinsic motivation than extrinsic, go off social media periodically (say 1 month at a time) and then extend those breaks; everyday spend 1 hour in walking in silence (no music, conversations or people- and if this is in nature, even better) to connect with yourself, 8 hours of sleep every night, build on slow practices like yoga, cut out processed food, take your PTO!!

[ahaura]

Title & subtitle:

[Nov. 21] The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza: The piece was nearing publication when the journal decided against publishing it. You can read the article here.

Article text:

On Saturday, the board of the Harvard Law Review voted not to publish “The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,” a piece by Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. The vote followed what an editor at the law reviewdescribed in an e-mail to Eghbariah as “an unprecedented decision” by the leadership of the Harvard Law Review to prevent the piece’s publication.

Eghbariah told The Nation that the piece, which was intended for the HLR Blog, had been solicited by two of the journal’s online editors. It would have been the first piece written by a Palestinian scholar for the law review. The piece went through several rounds of edits, but before it was set to be published, the president stepped in. “The discussion did not involve any substantive or technical aspects of your piece,” online editor Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, wrote Eghbariah in an e-mail shared with The Nation. “Rather, the discussion revolved around concerns about editors who might oppose or be offended by the piece, as well as concerns that the piece might provoke a reaction from members of the public who might in turn harass, dox, or otherwise attempt to intimidate our editors, staff, and HLR leadership.”

On Saturday, following several days of debate and a nearly six-hour meeting, the Harvard Law Review’s full editorial body came together to vote on whether to publish the article. Sixty-three percent voted against publication. In an e-mail to Egbariah, HLR President Apsara Iyer wrote, “While this decision may reflect several factors specific to individual editors, it was not brd on your identity or viewpoint.”

In a statement that was shared with The Nation, a group of 25 HLR editors expressed their concerns about the decision. “At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way. “

When asked for comment, the leadership of the Harvard Law Review referred The Nation to a message posted on the journal’s website. “Like every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece…” the note began. ”Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular Blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.”

Today, The Nation is sharing the piece that the Harvard Law Review refused to run.

enocide is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is unfolding in Gaza. And yet, the inertia of legal academia, especially in the United States, has been chilling. Clearly, it is much easier to dissect the case law rather than navigate the reality of death. It is much easier to consider genocide in the past tense rather than contend with it in the present. Legal scholars tend to sharpen their pens after the smell of death has dissipated and moral clarity is no longer urgent.

Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. But naming injustice is crucial to claiming justice. If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics.

The UN Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of a protected group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that “these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,” as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes. More importantly, genocide is the material reality of Palestinians in Gaza: an entrapped, displaced, starved, water-deprived population of 2.3 million facing massive bombardments and a carnage in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 11,000 people have already been killed. That is one person out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured, and over 45% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed. The United Nations Secretary General said that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children,” but a cessation of the carnage—a ceasefire—remains elusive. Israel continues to blatantly violate international law: dropping white phosphorus from the sky, dispersing death in all directions, shedding blood, shelling neighborhoods, striking schools, hospitals, and universities, bombing churches and mosques, wiping out families, and ethnically cleansing an entire region in both callous and systemic manner. What do you call this?

The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a thorough, 44-page, factual and legal analysis, asserting that “there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Raz Segal, a historian of the Holocaust and genocide studies, calls the situation in Gaza “a textbook case of Genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.” The inaugural chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, notes that “Just the blockade of Gaza—just that—could be genocide under Article 2(c) of the Genocide Convention, meaning they are creating conditions to destroy a group.” A group of over 800 academics and practitioners, including leading scholars in the fields of international law and genocide studies, warn of “a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip.” A group of seven UN Special Rapporteurs has alerted to the “risk of genocide against the Palestinian people” and reiterated that they “remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.” Thirty-six UN experts now call the situation in Gaza “a genocide in the making.” How many other authorities should I cite? How many hyperlinks are enough?

And yet, leading law schools and legal scholars in the United States still fashion their silence as impartiality and their denial as nuance. Is genocide really the crime of all crimes if it is committed by Western allies against non-Western people?

This is the most important question that Palestine continues to pose to the international legal order. Palestine brings to legal analysis an unmasking force: It unveils and reminds us of the ongoing colonial condition that underpins Western legal institutions. In Palestine, there are two categories: mournable civilians and savage human-animals. Palestine helps us rediscover that these categories remain racialized along colonial lines in the 21st century: the first is reserved for Israelis, the latter for Palestinians. As Isaac Herzog, Israel’s supposed liberal President, asserts: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true.”

Palestinians simply cannot be innocent. They are innately guilty; potential “terrorists” to be “neutralized” or, at best, “human shields” obliterated as “collateral damage”. There is no number of Palestinian bodies that can move Western governments and institutions to “unequivocally condemn” Israel, let alone act in the present tense. When contrasted with Jewish-Israeli life—the ultimate victims of European genocidal ideologies—Palestinians stand no chance at humanization. Palestinians are rendered the contemporary “savages” of the international legal order, and Palestine becomes the frontier where the West redraws its discourse of civility and strips its domination in the most material way. Palestine is where genocide can be performed as a fight of “the civilized world” against the “enemies of civilization itself.” Indeed, a fight between the “children of light” versus the “children of darkness.”

The genocidal war waged against the people of Gaza since Hamas’s excruciating October 7th attacks against Israelis—attacks which amount to war crimes—has been the deadliest manifestation of Israeli colonial policies against Palestinians in decades. Some have long ago analyzed Israeli policies in Palestine through the lens of genocide. While the term genocide may have its own limitations to describe the Palestinian past, the Palestinian present was clearly preceded by a “politicide”: the extermination of the Palestinian body politic in Palestine, namely, the systematic eradication of the Palestinian ability to maintain an organized political community as a group.

This process of erasure has spanned over a hundred years through a combination of massacres, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and the fragmentation of the remaining Palestinians into distinctive legal tiers with diverging material interests. Despite the partial success of this politicide—and the continued prevention of a political body that represents all Palestinians—the Palestinian political identity has endured. Across the besieged Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, Israel’s 1948 territories, refugee camps, and diasporic communities, Palestinian nationalism lives.

What do we call this condition? How do we name this collective existence under a system of forced fragmentation and cruel domination? The human rights community has largely adopted a combination of occupation and apartheid to understand the situation in Palestine. Apartheid is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is committed in Palestine. And even though there is a consensus among the human rights community that Israel is perpetrating apartheid, the refusal of Western governments to come to terms with this material reality of Palestinians is revealing.

Once again, Palestine brings a special uncovering force to the discourse. It reveals how otherwise credible institutions, such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, are no longer to be trusted. It shows how facts become disputable in a Trumpist fashion by liberals such as President Biden. Palestine allows us to see the line that bifurcates the binaries (e.g. trusted/untrusted) as much as it underscores the collapse of dichotomies (e.g. democrat/republican or fact/claim). It is in this liminal space that Palestine exists and continues to defy the distinction itself. It is the exception that reveals the rule and the subtext that is, in fact, the text: Palestine is the most vivid manifestation of the colonial condition upheld in the 21st century.

hat do you call this ongoing colonial condition? Just as the Holocaust introduced the term “Genocide” into the global and legal consciousness, the South African experience brought “Apartheid” into the global and legal lexicon. It is due to the work and sacrifice of far too many lives that genocide and apartheid have globalized, transcending these historical calamities. These terms became legal frameworks, crimes enshrined in international law, with the hope that their recognition will prevent their repetition. But in the process of abstraction, globalization, and readaptation, something was lost. Is it the affinity between the particular experience and the universalized abstraction of the crime that makes Palestine resistant to existing definitions?

Scholars have increasingly turned to settler-colonialism as the lens through which we assess Palestine. Settler-colonialism is a structure of erasure where the settler displaces and replaces the native. And while settler-colonialism, genocide, and apartheid are clearly not mutually exclusive, their ability to capture the material reality of Palestinians remains elusive. South Africa is a particular case of settler-colonialism. So are Israel, the United States, Australia, Canada, Algeria, and more. The framework of settler colonialism is both useful and insufficient. It does not provide meaningful ways to understand the nuance between these different historical processes and does not necessitate a particular outcome. Some settler colonial cases have been incredibly normalized at the expense of a completed genocide. Others have led to radically different end solutions. Palestine both fulfills and defies the settler-colonial condition.

We must consider Palestine through the iterations of Palestinians. If the Holocaust is the paradigmatic case for the crime of genocide and South Africa for that of apartheid, then the crime against the Palestinian people must be called the Nakba.

The term Nakba, meaning “Catastrophe,” is often used to refer to the making of the State of Israel in Palestine, a process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and destroying 531 Palestinian villages between 1947 to 1949. But the Nakba has never ceased; it is a structure not an event. Put shortly, the Nakba is ongoing.

In its most abstract form, the Nakba is a structure that serves to erase the group dynamic: the attempt to incapacitate the Palestinians from exercising their political will as a group. It is the continuous collusion of states and systems to exclude the Palestinians from materializing their right to self-determination. In its most material form, the Nakba is each Palestinian killed or injured, each Palestinian imprisoned or otherwise subjugated, and each Palestinian dispossessed or exiled.

The Nakba is both the material reality and the epistemic framework to understand the crimes committed against the Palestinian people. And these crimes—encapsulated in the framework of Nakba—are the result of the political ideology of Zionism, an ideology that originated in late nineteenth century Europe in response to the notions of nationalism, colonialism, and antisemitism.

As Edward Said reminds us, Zionism must be assessed from the standpoint of its victims, not its beneficiaries. Zionism can be simultaneously understood as a national movement for some Jews and a colonial project for Palestinians. The making of Israel in Palestine took the form of consolidating Jewish national life at the expense of shattering a Palestinian one. For those displaced, misplaced, bombed, and dispossessed, Zionism is never a story of Jewish emancipation; it is a story of Palestinian subjugation.

What is distinctive about the Nakba is that it has extended through the turn of the 21st century and evolved into a sophisticated system of domination that has fragmented and reorganized Palestinians into different legal categories, with each category subject to a distinctive type of violence. Fragmentation thus became the legal technology underlying the ongoing Nakba. The Nakba has encompassed both apartheid and genocidal violence in a way that makes it fulfill these legal definitions at various points in time while still evading their particular historical frames.

Palestinians have named and theorized the Nakba even in the face of persecution, erasure, and denial. This work has to continue in the legal domain. Gaza has reminded us that the Nakba is now. There are recurringthreats by Israeli politicians and other public figures to commit the crime of the Nakba, again. If Israeli politicians are admitting the Nakba in order to perpetuate it, the time has come for the world to also reckon with the Palestinian experience. The Nakba must globalize for it to end.

We must imagine that one day there will be a recognized crime of committing a Nakba, and a disapprobation of Zionism as an ideology brd on racial elimination. The road to get there remains long and challenging, but we do not have the privilege to relinquish any legal tools available to name the crimes against the Palestinian people in the present and attempt to stop them. The denial of the genocide in Gaza is rooted in the denial of the Nakba. And both must end, now.

[reimenaashelyee]

Midcareer Artist/Author Tip: Save a copy of any interviews or reviews about your work because who knows if the outlet where that was published will completely collapse

I'm really grateful I'm sorta shameless enough to archive copies of interviews and especially nice reviews of my comics because if I hadn't, this particular interview with the British Library would just be gone forever. I've put up a copy in the Alexander Comic website, so at least this piece of my webcomic's personal history is intact and accessible.

Late last year the British Library experienced a huge data breach / cybersecurity attack that completely evaporated the digital archives. Blog posts, the manuscript/illumination archives, web pages, exhibition catalogues, ... they are still down months later. It's wild to me that such a thing can happen to a PUBLIC infrastructure - a NATIONAL library and archive!!! Decades of information gone like that. Its been months and months of barely anything coming back online.

As an artist from outside the UK, I literally CANNOT access any of the European manuscripts of the Alexander Romance in their collection - meaning the British Library as a resource is impossible for Book Two. Which is wild cos the Library was like almost 50% of the bibliography and art references for Book One. As someone whose dayjob is to build, manage and audit workflow / data infrastructure this stuns me in disbelief at how lax the library was about backing up their website and digital infrastructure. They don't even have offline, offsite copies?? I'm talking about basic things here, not even the high level security and data engineering stuff. (all this being said with the knowledge that the British Library itself keeps getting their budget cut)

Anyway idk, this whole thing is a big lesson on archiving things online (and always backing up your stuff). Cos the Internet isn't forever apparently.

[judassmyvirtue]

Hey folks, just dropping some resources here for those of you who, like me, are always on the hunt for free reading material, whether it's for research or just to satisfy your curiosity. Check these out:

Library of Congress: Absolute goldmine for academic researches and historical documents. You can spend hours diving into their collections.

Z-library: A treasure trove of books, articles, and papers on pretty much any topic you can think of. Quick downloads, no fuss.

Project Gutenberg: Free e-books galore, especially if you're into classics. Saved me from many a boring commute.

Internet Archive: A digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, plus archived web pages. Endless hours of browsing joy.

Google Books: Sometimes you just need a quick peek inside a book without committing to buying it. Google Books has got your back.

Google Scholar: It scours through scholarly sources, journals, theses, and more. Just be ready to sift through some dense material.

JSTOR: Another heavyweight in the academic world. JSTOR is packed with scholarly articles, books, and primary sources across various disciplines. Some stuff may be behind a paywall, but there's still plenty to explore for free.

Newspaper Archive: Want to browse through historical newspapers? This site has a massive collection spanning centuries and covering a wide range of topics. Perfect for digging up primary sources.

Newspapers.com: Need more historical newspapers? Look no further.

Perseus Digital Library: Focuses on ancient Greco-Roman materials, perfect for those deep dives into classical history.

Digital Public Library of America: Another treasure trove of digitized materials, including photos, manuscripts, and more.

Europeana: European cultural heritage online. Images, texts, the whole shebang.

DOAJ: Open access journals. DOAJ indexes and provides access to high-quality, peer-reviewed open access research journals.

Open Library: Another digital library offering over 1.7 million free eBooks.

Librivox: Audiobooks for when your eyes need a break.

National Archives (UK): Offers access to a wealth of historical documents, including government records, maps, photographs, and more.

Sci-Hub: For the rebels. Access to scholarly articles.

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Looking for free scholarly books? DOAB has got you covered with a vast collection.

Digital Commons Network: Free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.

Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR): Find open access repositories worldwide.

Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France): French flair for your research.

DigitalNZ: Your gateway to New Zealand's digital heritage.

[metamatar]

sentences i do not wish to repeat again but i found out from parul sehgal's new book review that there is a huge online movement with its own 4chan style lingo that casts infidelity as abuse called chump nation

[f1ghtsoftly]

All The Women’s News You Missed Last Week 9/16/24-9/23/24:

Hi, this newsletter is late. On Thursday, September 19th, I was the victim of a crime and needed emergency medical care. I am currently recovering with family outside the city. This is the earliest I could get out this project. I appreciate your understanding at this time.

Male Violence/Femicide: 

US: Sean 'Diddy' Combs arrest live updates: Charged with sex trafficking and racketeering 

India: West Bengal Assembly in India passes bill mandating life in prison or death penalty for rape convictions

France: Shocking rape trial highlights the systematic struggles French sexual abuse victims face

Australia: Suspect in 1977 Melbourne cold case arrested in Italy

US: Several Mark Robinson campaign staffers quit as fallout over online posts continues

Italy: Italy holds a trial into the killing of a woman that sparked debate over femicide

US: Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sexual assault charge 

UK: Harrods' ex-owner Al Fayed raped, assaulted staff over decades, lawyers say 

Reproductive Rights in the USA/Special Focus:

A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban 

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.

Federal judge temporarily blocks Tennessee’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law

‘She should be alive today’ — Harris spotlights woman’s death to blast abortion bans and Trump

Western nations were desperate for Korean babies. Now many adoptees believe they were stolen

Euphoric two years ago, US anti-abortion movement is now divided and worried as election nears

US Senate IVF bill fails after Republicans block it, despite Trump support

Transgender News/Gender Critical:

Australia: Australian woman's complaint at hostel backfires as manager fires back: 'This guest is lucky we didn't press charges on her'

Women’s Achievements: 

US: 2 Black women could make Senate history on Election Day

Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka has more women voters than men but no female presidential candidates

US: ‘Hidden Figures’ of the space race receive Congress’ highest honor at medal ceremony

MISC: 

Sweden: Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

Arts and Culture: 

Music Review: Katy Perry returns with the uninspired and forgettable ‘143'

Why does ‘The Babadook’ still haunt? Its director, Jennifer Kent, has some answers

JoJo was a teen sensation. At 33, she’s found her voice again

'Agatha All Along' crafts a witch coven community run by women

Demi Lovato’s ‘Child Star’ Is Now Streaming on Hulu and Disney+

As always, this is global and domestic news from a US perspective covering feminist issues and women in the news more generally. As of right now, I do not cover Women’s Sports. Published each Monday afternoon.

I am looking for better sources on women’s arts and culture outside of the English-speaking world, if you know of any-please be in touch.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #3

Jan 26-Feb 2 2024

The House overwhelmingly passed a tax deal that will revive the expanded Child Tax Credit, this will effect 16 million American children and lift 400,000 out of poverty in the first year. The deal also supports the building of 200,000 housing units over the next two years, and provides tax relief for communities hit by disasters.

The Biden Administration has begun negotiations on drug prices for Medicare. Earlier this year the administration announced it would negotiate for the first time directly with drug manufacturers on the prices of 10 common medications. This week they sent their opening offers to the companies. The program is expected to save Medicare and enrollees billions over dollars over the long term and help push down drug prices for everyone.

The Department of Transportation has green lit $240 Million to modernize air ports across the country. Air Ports in 37 states will be able to get much needed updates and refurbishment.

The Biden Administration announced 10 sites across America as sites for innovation investment. They will receive up to 2 billion dollars each over the next 10 years. The goal is to stimulate economic growth and innovation in semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, sustainable textiles, climate-resilient agriculture, regenerative medicine, and more.

The State Department reviews options for recognizing Palestinian Statehood. While as of yet there's been no policy change this review of options is a major shift in US diplomatic thinking which has long opposed Palestinian Statehood and shows a seriousness of reported Biden plans to push for Statehood as part of a post-war Israel-Saudi normalization deal.

President Biden imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers who have engaged in violence against Palestinians and peace activists. This marks the first time the US has leveled sanctions against Israelis and sets up a standard that could see the whole settlement movement cut off from the US financial system

the Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to a $1.5 Billion dollar loan to help reopen a Michigan nuclear power plant. This would mark the first time a closed nuclear plant has been brought back online. Closed in 2022 it's hoped that it could reopen in time to be generating power in late 2025. This is part of Biden's plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035.

the Internal Revenue Service launched a program to allow tax fillers file for free directly with the government. In 2024 its a pilot program limited to 12 states, but plans for it to be nation wide by tax day 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services announced $28 million in grants to help with the treatment of substance use disorder, including a program aimed at pregnant and postpartum women, and expanded drug court aimed at directing people into treatment and out of the criminal justice system.

The Department of Energy announced $72 million for 46 hydroelectric projects across 19 states. This marks the single largest investment in Hydropower in US history.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's 175th federal judge. Biden has now appointed more federal judges in his first term in office than President Obama did in his, however still lags behind Trump's 186 judges. For the first time in history a majority of a President's nominees are not white men, 65% of them are women and 65% are people of color, President Biden has appointed more black women to judgeships than any administration in history.

[bronzecats]

National Rainbow Week of Action in Canada

In this post I have compiled all the information I could find regarding upcoming events for the Rainbow Week of Action. There are two online events, and dozens on in-person events across the country.

"Within the Rainbow Week of Action, we are pushing governments and elected officials at every level to take action for Rainbow Equality and address rising anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate. As such, we have identified calls to action for every level of government. These calls to action can be reviewed here."

Event list below:

Events are listed in date order, provinces in general west-to-east order. I have included as much detail as possible, please reference the links at the bottom of the post. At this time, there are no events in N.W.T. and Nova Scotia. Last updated: May 14th, 9:53pm PDT. Please note that I am not officially affiliated with / an organizer of these events, I have simply compiled all the dates to share on tumblr. Original post content.

B.C. EVENTS:

15th: Fernie; Fernie Seniors Drop-In Centre, 572 3rd Avenue, 6:00PM. (Letter writing and Potluck)

17th: Vancouver; šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl'e7énḵ Square - Vancouver Art Gallery North Plaza, 750 Hornby St, 5:30PM. (Rally)

19th, Sunday: Abbotsford; Jubilee Park, 5:00PM. (Rally)

ALBERTA EVENTS:

15th: Lethbridge; McKillop United Church, 2329 15th Ave S, 12:00-1:00PM (letter writing)

17th, Friday: Calgary; Central Memorial Park, 1221 2 St SW, 5:30PM. (Rally)

17th: Edmonton; Wilbert McIntyre Park, 8331 104 St NW, 6:00PM. (Rally)

SASKATCHEWAN EVENTS:

17th: Saskatoon; Vimy Memorial Park, 500 Spadina Crescent E, 5:30PM. (Rally)

17th: Regina; Legislative Grounds, 2405 Legislative Dr, 6:30PM. (Rally)

May 18th: Saskatoon; Grovenor Park United Church, 407 Cumberland Ave S, 6:00PM. (Art event)

MANITOBA EVENTS:

16th: Carman; Paul's Place, 20 1 Ave SW, 7:00-9:00PM. (Letter writing)

19th: Winnipeg; Manitoba Legislature, 450 Broadway, 12:00PM. (Rally)

ONTARIO EVENTS:

15th: Barrie; UPlift Black, 12 Dunlop St E, 6:00-7:30PM. (Letter writing)

15th: Chatham; CK Gay Pride Association, 48 Centre St, 5:00-6:30PM. (Letter writing)

15th: Peterborough; Trinity Community Centre, 360 Reid St, 12:00-3:00PM. (Letter writing)

16th: Midland; Midland Public Library, 4:30-7:30PM. (Letter writing and pizza)

16th: Ottawa; Impact Hub, 123 Slater Street, 2:00PM. (Letter writing)

16th: Toronto; Barbara Hall Park, 519 Church St, 11:30AM. (Rally)

17th, Friday: Barrie; City Hall, 70 Collier St, 6:00PM. (Rally)

17th: Cornwall; 167 Pitt St, 5:30PM. (Rally)

17th: Essex; St. Paul's Anglican Church, 92 St. Paul St, 6:00-8:00PM. (Letter writing and pizza)

17th: Hamilton; City Hall, 71 Main St W, 6:00PM. (Rally)

17th: Kitchener; City Hall, 200 King St W, 6:00PM. (Rally)

17th: London; City Hall, 300 Dufferin Ave, 6:00PM. (Rally)

17th: Sarnia; City Hall, 255 Christina St N, 1:00PM. (Rally)

17th: Sault Ste Marie; City Hall, 99 Foster Dr, 11:30AM. (Rally)

17th: Ottawa; Confederation Park, Elgin St, 5:30PM. (Rally)

22nd: Renfrew; 161 Raglan St. South, 7:00PM. (Letter writing, fashion and makeup event, and pizza)

QUEBEC EVENTS:

May 15th: Lachute; CDC Lachute, 57, rue Harriet, 12:30PM. (Letter writing event)

NEW BRUNSWICK EVENTS:

17th: Woodstock; Citizen's Square, Chapel St, Next to the L.P. Fisher Public Library, 12:00-1:00PM. (rally)

17th: Saint John; City Hall, 15 Market Square, 12:30PM. (Rally, flag raising)

18th, Saturday: Fredericton; Legislative Grounds, 706 Queen Street, 1:00PM. (Rally)

NOVA SCOTIA EVENTS:

May 17th: Middleton; NSCC AVC RM 121, 6:30-8:30PM (letter writing and pizza)

P.E.I. EVENTS:

May 15th: Charlottetown; Peers Alliance Office, 250B Queen Street, 6:00-8:00PM. (Adult drop-in)

May 16th: Charlottetown, Peers Alliance Office, 250B Queen Street, 6:00-7:00PM.

May 17th: Charlottetown; PEI Legislative Assembly, 165 Richmond St, 12:00PM. (Rally)

YUKON EVENTS:

16th: Whitehorse; The Cache, 4230 4 Ave, 2:00-7:00PM. (Letter writing)

NUNAVUT EVENTS:

May 16th, Thursday: Iqaluit; Four Corners, 922 Niaqunngusiariaq St, 5:00PM. (Letter writing)

Reference links:

About the Rainbow Week of Action.

Website letter writing events list (does not include all events)

General events website list (does not include all events)

Instagram general events image list

Instagram letter writing / pizza party image list

[socialistexan]

The editor of the National Review - the pinnacle of so called "conservative intellectualism" for the past 70 years - fully dropped the n-word with a hard-r (at around 44 seconds in) on Megyn Kelly's show. He then went unchecked until someone online noticed the clip and then tried to claim he didn't say what we all heard.

This is what we mean when we say that these people know exactly what they're doing.

[spawksstuff]

National Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame - Part 3/3

William, Leonard, Bill were invited to say a few words. De's speech is at the bottom. But first-

Backstory: In the article posted in Part 1, it mentions how a man rushed the same stage where Ronald Reagan was giving a speech the day before, smashing his award, glass flying everywhere, before getting tackled by the Secret Service (video is online).

William gets up to the podium and says, "Leonard, if somebody comes to grab this and smash it, pinch 'em."

During Leonard's speech, he read the very first Variety review Star Trek got. If you haven't heard it, this is the funniest version of it, along with the actual review. If you haven't seen it, go watch/read it, and then come back:

https://www.tumblr.com/spawksstuff/730307018235281408/variety-review-of-star-trek-september-14-1966-the?source=share

Leonard reads "William Shatner appears wooden."

Then reads "The same goes for Leonard Nimoy, co-stared as Mr. Spock, so-called chief science officer whos bizarre hairdo is a dilly. And DeForest Kelly as chief medico is the same." As soon as he said "DeForest Kelley", De did this:

De's speech. (FYI Brandon Tartikoff is the one that introduced them for their awards and is standing behind De on the left). The transcript is below.

Thank you. There's something very weird about this. We have a new godfather at Paramount now, Mr. Tartikoff. We lost Mancuso so Tartikoff is here to take over our family. Since he's been here we have been celebrated in some very strange ways. I received a Star on Hollywood Boulevard. Then we were immortalized in cement on December the Fifth at Mann's Chinese Theater. Next time I saw Mr. Tartikoff was in Washington, D.C. where we were installed in the National Space Museum where they have a bunch of artifacts for OLD museum pieces. I shudder to think where he's taking us next. I want to express my deepest and heartfelt feelings for you bestowing this honor upon us today. We are, indeed, grateful. But I cannot leave here without quoting a poem, a little short poem that I read, in lieu of some of those smart-ass remarks that Don Rickles made. I wrote a poem sometime ago, and in the body of it, there were a few lines about the critics. You see, what we've done in the motion pictures, we've made a few bucks for Paramount. They haven't done badly. But it seems to be its the critics of someone who can't stand the fact that we're growing older. So I wrote a little thing that said they have critiqued our bellies, our wrinkles, our hair, we just keep going, we don't care. It seems to me that they've never been told that all of us are growing old. Thank you very much.