#North Jackson Chiefs

[svalleynow]

Area Football Teams Finish Regular Prepare for Playoffs

In South Pittsburg, when you lose 18 of 22 starters, you don’t think about rebuilding its next man up. The 2023 Pirates won the TSSAA state championship but only returned four starters. They were on the road on Friday night against their region rival, Whitwell Tigers. Both teams entered the contest ranked in the top 10 in the state and unbeaten in Region 3-1A play. South Pittsburg used their…

[therainingkiwi]

Train travel in The Lightning Thief/PJO TV season 1

Oh look, I'm overanalyzing fictional train travel because I'm one of Those neurodivergent people. Let's get into it. Warning for VERY minor book spoilers (just mentioning the names of all the cities our trio travels through).

TL; DR our trio's cross country travel route makes no sense at all.

In the first book/season of the Percy Jackson series, our main trio takes a cross-country trip from Long Island, NY, to Los Angeles, CA. In the beginning, it appears as if they've boarded a cross country bus that will drive them the whole way there (a trip that usually takes ~72 hours). However, they get derailed in rural New Jersey (presumably the northwestern part of the state).

After New Jersey, the action immediately skips ahead, and we next see our trio on an LA-bound train that's about to stop in St. Louis (and in the book, has a later stop in Denver).

So, just off the bat: the train route that the trio are taking doesn't exist IRL (assuming they board a train in Trenton, and that train stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Los Angeles). It's also impossible for a single person to travel that route for $200, much less three people. Chiron needs some up to date information about cross country travel prices.

If they were traveling a reasonable IRL amtrak route, they'd probably take the Cardinal from Trenton to Chicago, and then take the Southwest Chief from Chicago to LA. However, if they can get back to Penn Station from Aunty Em's, they could take the Lake Shore Limited from NYC to Chicago, which would be 7-8 hours shorter than getting to Chicago via the Cardinal.

They could also take a bus from north New Jersey to Chicago.

However, the Southwest Chief (most direct amtrak route to LA) stops at neither St. Louis nor Denver. The most notable cities along the route are Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff.

If they wanted to take a route to LA that had them pass thru St. Louis, they could take the Texas Eagle from Chicago to St. Louis to San Antonio, and then take the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to LA. There are 3 trains per week that make this two-leg trip without requiring travelers to transfer at San Antonio, so our trio are probably on one of those. Why they didn't take the (shorter, cheaper, and more frequent) Southwest Chief is a mystery, honestly.

Since Chicago is the USA Amtrak hub, most routes will pass thru that city. The only alternative route is taking the Crescent from Trenton to New Orleans and then taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to LA. This would take them nowhere near Denver or St Louis, but probably wouldn't have a significant time/price difference from routing the trip thru Chicago (assuming they travel direct from Chicago to LA rather than taking the Texas Eagle thru San Antonio).

Unfortunately, there are no trains in the USA that travel between St. Louis and Denver (or even between St. Louis and Colorado in general), so that leg of their trip would have been made via bus. Greyhound (the USA's main long-distance bus travel company) has buses directly from St. Louis to Denver that end in California (but in San Francisco rather than LA).

In conclusion, I propose a new Amtrak route called "The Lightning Thief" that travels from New York-Penn Station, down the Northeast corridor thru New Jersey, and then turns west, making major stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Las Vegas, before terminating in LA. It doesn't stop in Amtrak's Chicago hub because all hub-and-spoke transit systems should have rim routes, and because Chicago isn't mentioned in The Lightning Thief.

Also, in conclusion, the USA needs better rail infrastructure and I'm a fucking nerd.

Amtrak map below for reference.

[karl-jensen]

Henry and the Great Western Fiasco, 1919

This drawing that I made on December of last year was based on Henry's old shape and who built him. To pair up with the drawing, I also made a headcanon concerning Henry's old shape and who built him and it just so happens to be related to a failed Pacific locomotive that a certain railway experimented on.

H E A D C A N O N T I M E .

The Great Bear

Our story begins in 1908 in Swindon Works when Chief Engineer George Jackson Churchward designed an experimental engine that can haul passenger and freight trains. This came in the form of Number 111, also known as The Great Bear. The engine turned out to be a failure due to some issues with its boiler, which resulted in the engine being converted into a Castle-class Locomotive in January 1924. Churchward was distraught at his optimistic ambition being turned into a failure, but when he had heard news that Scottish-born Chief Engineer Sir Nigel Gresley was going to design a Pacific Express Locomotive, he remarked with "What did that young man want to build it for? We could have sold him ours!"

Churchward vs. Gresley

Illustrations of Henry's old shape in the Railway Series featured a brass-tip on his funnel which was common on locomotives of the Great Western Railway meaning that the original illustrator Reginald Payne associated Great Bear to Henry. Hints are present as to why I made Henry a Great Western engine.

Seeing a brass-tipped funnel on Henry looked very odd to me. Doesn't it remind you of the Great Western Railway?

During the design process of the now famous A1 Pacifics of the London and North Eastern Railway, an unknown engineer sent out thieves to steal plans for Gresley's express locomotives. People say that the engineer was old Mr. Churchward who still could not recover from the failure of his experimental Pacific. A Blueprint was stolen, but it wasn't the latest design that Gresley had drawn up, but an earlier design that he drew up in 1915 when the Great War was at full swing. The drawing had a boiler that was quite small which made Gresley think about the consequences. However, a certain Swindon Engineer decided to build it to satisfy his needs. That man was George Jackson Churchward.

And so, the engine was built under the orders of Mr. Churchward. He had placed William Stanier as the technical advisor of his latest Pacific project. Stanier recommended that he redesign the engine and add a larger firebox, but due to Churchward's decisions it didn't happen. The engine was finally built in 1919 and was given a name - and that is Vanguard. However, Factory Workers would often call the engine Henry.

When Henry rolled out of the factory, he was given a nice healthy batch of Welsh Coal for testing. Great Bear wasn't pleased when Henry rolled out and thought that he'll outperform him. When the first trial run came, Henry was steaming properly while pulling a heavy train consisting of twelve coaches jam-packed with passengers. Great Bear envied him, but when Henry was put into regular passenger service, the same problems from Great Bear finally showed up when he was given a batch of regular coal. With this, Henry was deemed a failure and was planned for scrapping. However, when a Railway Director was buying a locomotive (specifically a 4-4-2 Atlantic), he received a Pacific-type locomotive in the form of Henry. His remarks were quite enraged and profanity-filled.

"I wanted an Atlantic. But that stupid, son of a bitch gave me that instead!"

— Sir Topham Hatt I, 1922

Henry was planned to be scrapped indeed, but when the Director saw Henry's sad expression, he had no choice but to give him a chance. The rest is history.

Mr. Stanier's Chance

After Henry's infamous crash with the Flying Kipper in January 1935. He was sent to Crewe Works to be rebuilt entirely. The engine was skeptical until he met a familiar face that he had seen years ago back when he was in Swindon.

"When I first met Henry at Crewe, I was very surprised to see him in such a beaten-up state. I had intentions in redesigning him prior to being built, but that impatient old man [Churchward] did not listen. Seeing him like this made me want to redesign him entirely, but would cost me plenty of money to create a new boiler and frame for him, as well as a new tender. Instead, I went for the cheaper alternative and turned him into a Black 5 instead of what was supposed to be a 'prototype' for the Coronation class."

— Sir William Stanier, 1948 Interview

Sir Topham Hatt did not have enough money to completely convert Henry into a Princess Royal or redesign him entirely. Instead, he decided to turn Henry into a Ten Wheeler. His smokebox and front wheels remained, but the trailing wheels were discarded. Everything else were parts from the Black 5, including his Tender.

"Being rebuilt entirely was a huge blessing for me, and many people sent me 'Get Well Soon' cards and flowers while I was at Crewe. My smokebox and wheels were retained while many of my old parts were scrapped or perhaps reused as spares. I now felt better after that fix up at Crewe, and I managed to share stories with Mr. Stanier, whom I first met in Swindon when I was in my old shape."

— Henry, 1963 Interview

During his rebuild, he met several Princess Royals that were being maintained. Mr. Stanier explained to him that he was the inspiration into building a Pacific locomotive.

"Seeing those beautiful engines made me want to cry, since they told me that I was the inspiration for their design. The Princess Royals were meant to be the success that Mr. Churchward wanted, but failed to achieve. I do envy him and wished that he had the patience to make his dream come true. Great Bear would have seen those beauties."

— Henry, 1963 Interview

The rest is history...

And as for the laconic version or the TLDR:

Henry was designed by George Jackson Churchward as a second attempt for a Pacific Locomotive for the Great Western Railway.

[on-my-vigilante-sht]

Masterlist

The Hunger Games

Finnick Odair

You’re Losing Me

Inspired by Taylor Swift’s “You’re Losing Me.” How Finnick loses the best thing he’s ever had.

Haymitch Abernathy

Capitol Punishment Masterlist

A story in which Haymitch’s lover is a plaything for the Capitol

I'm Sorry

Moments of Haymitch having to mentor his ex-girlfriend

Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus

Luke Castellan

Follow Me

Luke's girlfriend is excited to finally become a year-round camper so she can spend it with him. But Luke has other plans for them.

Delicate

"Is it chill that you're in my head? / Cause I know that it’s delicate"

Competing With Gods

When Apollo is sent to camp as a punishment, he sets his sights on Luke's girlfriend.

The Way I Loved You

"But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain / And it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name / So in love that you act insane"

The Final Quest

How a quest with the love of Luke's life turned him away from the gods

Asshole Instructor

Luke has been an asshole but he can't help it until he realizes the girl he likes could be gone any minute

Mine

"You are the best thing that's ever been mine"

Apollo

Immortal Danger

Apollo marries a half-blood without realizing how dangerous it can be

Immortal Danger II

Despite an extravagant wedding, Apollo is still confronted by those who want to end his marriage

John Wick

Forced Love Masterlist

Arranged marriages aren't uncommon in the crime world but John Wick never expected to be forced into one with his boss' daughter.

Criminal Minds

Aaron Hotchner

Undercover in a Skin Tight Skirt

The BAU Chief isn’t fond of sending his scantily clad wife in as bait

That Skirt

Smutty follow up to Undercover in a Skin Tight Skirt

I Can’t Leave

When the reader is forced into hiding, she’s desperate to inform her fiancé and his son

Move On

Rossi tells Aaron he should move on

Moving on to You

Aaron finally tells his longtime crush about his feelings when he almost loses her (Sequel to Move On)

Sparring Matches

The BAU undergoes PT evaluations, that includes sparring matches. And in the ring will be the secret couple, tipping off the rest of the team

Home Sweet Home

Sometimes going home isn’t always a good thing. Especially when your hometown is obsessed with marriage and you have a secret boyfriend.

Spencer Reid

Erotomania

Spencer’s girlfriend has a stalker

Game of Thrones

Sandor Clegane/Robb Stark

Between a Wolf and a Hound I

Sandor Clegane was never naïve enough to think he could marry the king's daughter but it doesn't make it any easier to see her married off.

Between a Wolf and a Hound II

The new Lady of the North tries to cope with the fact that she is now married and has a responsibility to her husband.

Robb Stark

The Godswood

When the newest Lady of the North is chased into the woods, the lords of the north search for Robb Stark's wife

Grey’s Anatomy

Mark Sloan

Haunted

Mark finally finds where his wife has been hiding

Twilight

Carlisle Cullen

Sorry to Meet You

The moral dilemma of the patriarch of the Cullen clan finally meeting his mate after 350 years

Attack on Titan

Levi Ackerman

Amnesia

When the Levi Squad goes out on a mission with a few rookies, accidents happen

Favoritism

Captain Levi wouldn't let his feelings for a scout under him get in the way of his professionalism, right?

Reiner Braun

Guard

When Reiner returns from his ten year long mission, he is assigned to protect the the woman he could never have.

[beardedmrbean]

Do they ever give up? Those looking to divvy up Americans by race, that is.

In California they tried to get race preferences approved in a 2020 referendum, but voters rejected it 57.2% to 42.8%. This was a stunning rebuke, not only because the rejection came from residents of a blue state but because the losing side had outspent opponents something like 14 to 1.

In 2023 the Supreme Court weighed in with a landmark ruling that barred colleges from treating people as members of a racial group instead of as individuals—and cast constitutional doubt on all race-based preferences. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. Couldn’t be clearer, right?

Not in California. Undaunted state Assemblyman Corey Jackson is pushing a bill called ACA7. It takes aim at the state ban on race preferences that voters put in the constitution in 1996 when they passed Proposition 209. Californians reaffirmed Proposition 209 three years ago at the ballot box.

The language the voters agreed to and the activists hate reads as follows: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Unlike the 2020 effort, the new bill would leave that language intact. Instead, it would add a provision allowing the governor to create “exceptions.” Effectively that would gut the ban.

Apparently, the lesson the advocates of state-sponsored discrimination have taken from their defeat is that if at first you don’t succeed, try something sneakier.

Here is Mr. Jackson’s press release summarizing the bill: “ACA7 will allow . . . the Governor to issue waivers to public agencies that wish to use state funds for research-based, or research-informed and culturally specific interventions to increase life expectancy, improve educational outcomes, and lift people out of poverty for specific ethnic groups and marginalized genders.”

Gail Heriot is a University of San Diego law professor who sits on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was a leader of both Proposition 209 and the “no” effort on the 2020 referendum. She has launched a petition with Extremely Concerned Californians at change.org opposing the measure.

“ACA7’s proponents are hoping that voters will be fooled into thinking that it is just a small exception,” Ms. Heriot says. “In fact, it gives the governor enormous power to nullify Proposition 209.”

Edward Blum agrees. As the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, he spearheaded the lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina that killed race preferences in college admissions.

“Racial preferences are never legally justified because some specious ‘research’ report concludes it would be beneficial to a certain race,” says Mr. Blum. “This exemption will trigger endless litigation that will polarize California citizens by race.”

But sowing discord is a feature, not a bug. As the bill was making its way through the Assembly, Mr. Jackson got in a spat with Bill Essayli—a Republican who is also the first Muslim elected to the Assembly. Mr. Essayli pointed out that the majority of Californian voters disagree with state-sanctioned discrimination. “I fundamentally disagree with this backwards policy,” he later tweeted.

Mr. Jackson responded in his own tweet: “This is a perfect example how a minority can become a white supremacist by doing everything possible to win white supremacist and fascist affection.”

ACA7 passed the state Assembly in September. If it passes the Senate, it will be on the ballot in November. If Californians vote yea, it will become part of the constitution.

But all is not lost. The 2020 referendum awakened a sleeping giant: the Asian-American community. Asian-Americans quickly realized (as the Harvard case drove home) that they and their children are the primary victims whenever race is substituted for merit. Asian-Americans are more aware and organized than they were in 2020. They aren’t likely to be fooled by talk of “exceptions” based on “research.”

It also isn’t a given that ACA7 will make it through the state Senate. Though Democrats enjoy a 32-8 majority, polls consistently show race preferences are unpopular. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s support will be crucial.

Though he has no formal role in the constitutional process, some think the bill will go nowhere if Mr. Newsom doesn’t want it to. If it does make it to the ballot this November, he’ll be under immense pressure to endorse it. That’s another reason the Senate should kill ACA7 now, Ms. Heriot says.

“California voters need to make sure their state senators know where they stand—through emails, phone calls, letters, and petitions,” Ms. Heriot says. “Once the senators understand that, they will realize putting ACA7 on the ballot is not in their interest.”

[gentle-giant-swag]

HELLO EVERYONE! I SHALL NOW REVEAL THE BRAKCETS

First up

Wait

MOST FUCKABLE GENTLE GIANT

The A bracket (finished)

Battle 1-16

(most submissions in form 1 and most submissions in form b)

Starts Friday the 9th of June. 5pm CET. The brackets will be posted between the 9-10th of June.

Side A, 9th of June. 5pm to 8pm cet

Raphael Hamato (rise of the TMNT) vs Totoro (my neighbor Totoro)

Heavy (team fortress 2) vs Big Friendly Giant (BFG)

King Dedede (Kirby) vs Scorpia (She-ra)

Bismuth (Steven universe) vs Susan Murphy (monsters vs aliens)

Fezzik (the princess bride) vs Dick Gumshoe (ace attorney)

Master Chief (halo) vs Bumblebee (bumblebee)

Big Macintosh (my little pony: friendship is magic) vs Massimo Marcovaldo (Luca)

The titan (the owl house) vs Tyson (Percy Jackson)

Side B, 10th of June, 5pm to 8pm CET

Ivan Bruel (miraculous ladybug) vs Asahi Azumane (haikyuu)

Takeo Goda (ore monogatari) vs Caduceus Clay (critical role)

Milly Thompson (tri-gun) vs Sandy (Lego monkie kid)

Jaguar D. Saul vs Jean Bart (one piece)

Komamura (bleach) vs William Ellis (identity v)

Beelzebub (obey me) vs Kazanari Genjuurou (symphogear)

Senri (plus anima) vs Murakumo (rune factory 5)

Holly (super lesbian animal rpg) vs Brutus Feels (Kane and feels)

The B bracket (finished)

Battles 17-32

Characters who have returned from the spring bracket and from fandoms I’ve personally interacted with. So the spring bracket but we blacklisted big man

Date: Tuesday 13/6 to Wednesday 14/6, between 5pm to 8pm CET

Side A (Tuesday)

The iron giant vs Baymax (big hero 6)

Gonta gokuhara (danganronpa) vs Jonathan Joestar (JoJo’s bizarre adventure)

Dj (total drama) vs Yasutora “Chad” Sado (bleach

Muriel (the arcana) vs Jasmine (total drama)

Subject Delta (bioshock) vs aaarrrgghh (trollhunters)

Klaus Von Reinherz (kekkai sensen) vs Asterios (fate grand order)

Hunk (Voltron) vs Gooliope Jellington (monster high)

Dragonite (Pokémon) vs Asgore Dreemurr (undertale)

Side B (Wednesday)

Alphonse Elric vs Major Lewis Armstrong (full metal alchemist)

Urbosa (legend of Zelda) vs Glamrock Freddy (five nights at Freddy’s)

Milla Vodello vs Helmut Fullbear (psychonauts)

Dedue Molinaro vs Raphael Kirsten (fire emblem: three houses)

Winston vs B.O.B (overwatch)

Kanji Tatsumi (persona) vs Common Wubbox (my singing monsters)

Mordecai vs Muarim (fire emblem: gay rights path of radiance/radiant dawn)

Minsc & Boo (baldur’s gate) vs Big the cat (sonic the hedgehog)

C BRACKET (ongoing)

Battles 33-48

Those who fell in between the A and the D bracket. So this one has some pretty chaotic matchups

Date: Sunday the 18th to Monday the 19th, 5pm to 8pm cet

A bracket: Sunday

Nicholas St North (rise of the guardians) vs Grear Danes (irl)

Falkor the good luck dragon (the never ending story) vs Susan Strong (adventure time)

Grandpa Max (Ben 10) vs Cerberus (Greek mythology)

Kiryu Kazuma (yakuza) vs Dr Joshua Strongbear Sweet (Atlantis)

Fatgum (my hero academia) vs Takashi Morinozuka (ouran highschool host club)

Will Powers (ace attorney) vs Luther (Detroit: become human)

The Tick (the tick 1994) vs Evan Buck Buckley (911 on fox)

Riki Nendou (saiki k) vs Hearts Boxcars (homestuck)

Side B (Monday)

Shirahoshi vs Tony Tony Chopper (one piece)

Jetfire/skyfire (transformers) vs Indus Tarbella (epithet erased)

Sisyphus (hades) Vs Grog Strongjaw (critical role)

Hugo the abominable snowman (looney tunes) vs Aone Takanobu (Haikyuu)

Android 16 (dragon ball) vs Tiny (ever after high)

Wrecker (Star Wars: the bad batch) vs K (virtues last reward)

Goldlewis Dickinson vs Potemkin (guilty gear)

Yasha Nydoorin (critical role) vs Lily Bowen (fall out)

D BRACKET

Battles 49-64

Aka the one where the contestants sadly got the least amount of votes)

Date: Thursday 22/6th to Friday 23/6th 5pm to 8pm CET

Side A: Thursday

lain chu (dragon hunters) vs Panda (tekken)

Isaroth (genshin impact) vs Bizarro (DC red hood and the outlaws)

Jienji (Inuyasha) vs Jackie Wells (cyberpunk 2077)

Looks to the moon (rain world) vs Jogu (naruto)

Bane Perez (identify V) vs Zinnia (super lesbian animal rpg)

Vulkanon (rune factory 4) vs Argus (Greek mythology)

Mountain (ark knights) vs Taiga Saejima (yakuza)

Abbi (Omori) vs Gorem (bakugan)

SIDE B: Friday

Junko (storm hawks) vs Hajin (monstress)

Gylph (super lesbian animal RPG) vs Bongchun (Bongchun bride)

Fitz Fellow (detective grimoire) vs Bubbles (questionable content)

Dubo (omega strikers) vs Bob the titan (Percy Jackson)

Otto the giant water dog (wondla) vs Kurita Ryoukan (Eyeshield 21)

Mele the Horizons Roar (ishura) vs Gentle Bear (dog island)

The Selfish Giant vs Banjo Lilywhile (the hogfather)

Livio the double fang (trigun) vs Hank McCoy (x-men)

I will make propaganda master posts and if you want to add, just use the ask box or dm me with propaganda for one of the characters who’s going to participate. But that’s all!

May the best gentle giant WIN!

SECOND CHANCE BATTLES FOR ROUND 1

27/6, apricot bracket

Battle 1

Battle 2

Battle 3

Battle 4

29/2, shavedown of the apricot bracket

The battle

1/7, blueberry bracket

Battle 1

Battle 2

Battle 3

Battle 4

3/7, shavedown

The battle

4/7, citron bracket

Battle 1

Battle 2

Battle 3

Battle 4

5/7, shavedown

7/7, durian bracket

Battle 1

Battle 2

Battle 3

Battle 4

8/7, shavedown

The (un)official GGSmod messed up someone’s name post

The crime list

Ask game

[ifreakingloveroyals]

10 July 2011 | Chief Executive of Tusk Trust Charlie Mayhew and Meredith Ogilvie-Thompson (at rear, Tusk USA), Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge laugh as they attend a reception to mark the Launch of Tusk Trust's US Patron's Circle in Beverley Hill, California. The newly married Royal Couple are on the final day of their first joint overseas tour to the USA. They arrived on Friday after spending 9 days in Canada. The couple started off their tour of North America by joining millions of Canadians in taking part in Canada Day celebrations which mark Canada's 144th Birthday. (c) Chris Jackson - Pool/Getty Images

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The Republican-dominated Mississippi house of representatives has passed a bill to create a separate, unelected court system in the city of Jackson that would fall outside the purview of the city’s voters, the majority of whom are Black.

The bill, which local leaders have likened to apartheid-era laws and described as unconstitutional, would also expand a separate capitol police force, overseen by state authorities. The force would expand into all of the city’s white majority neighborhoods, according to Mississippi Today. Jackson’s population is over 80% Black.

Speaking after House Bill 1020 passed on Tuesday evening, Jackson’s mayor Chokwe Lumumba branded the proposed law “some of the most oppressive legislation in our city’s history”.

“It’s oppressive because it strips the right of Black folks to vote. It’s oppressive because it puts a military force over people that has no accountability to them. It’s oppressive because there will be judges who will determine sentences over people’s lives. It’s oppressive because it redirects their tax dollars to something they don’t endorse nor believe in,” Lumumba said.

The bill passed largely along party lines in a 76-38 vote and will now travel to the state senate, where Republicans also hold a significant majority. The passage was preceded by an intense, four-hour floor debate in which members of the state’s Black caucus made impassioned pleas to reject the legislation and compared the bill to the state’s Jim Crow-era constitution of 1890.

The legislation was proposed by house Republican Trey Lamar, who is white and represents a district in the state’s north-west, which is majority white.

Lamar, who does not live in Jackson, has cited county court backlogs and crime rates in the city as his motivation for the proposed law. During floor debate, Lamar was asked if any of his constituents had asked for the bill. He replied: “I don’t live in Jackson … but you know what I like to do … I like to come to Jackson because it’s my capital city.”

The bill, which is over 1,000 pages long, would expand Jackson’s existing capitol complex improvement district, which is patrolled by the state’s capitol police and currently covers parts of the city’s downtown that house state government buildings. The district’s expansion would cover areas in the city’s north, which, according to local press, include entertainment and shopping neighborhoods.

The new court district would feature two judges directly appointed by Mississippi’s supreme court chief justice, Michael K Randolph, who is white. There would be two prosecutors, appointed by the state attorney general, Lynn Fitch, a white Republican. And two public defenders appointed by the state defender's office.

[ballisticiansfolly]

I've noticed this about you – Trying to pick up and understand things referenced in The English, pt. 1/2

So, I just watched Amazon's new miniseries The English at the beginning of this year, and while enjoying the it immensely I couldn't help but to notice that, besides historical facts and details, there were undercurrents in it that I just wasn't getting. I decided to do some research and came across pretty interesting things. Lots of thought has went into the making of this series. I've divided my findings in two parts. This first part is about general stuff.

Eli's a member of the Skiri/Skidi-Federation, one of the four bands (or groups) of the Pawnee people. Also known as the Wolf Pawnee or Loups, the Skiri used to live along the Loup and Platte river areas in Nebraska. The Skiri use a different dialect of Pawnee than the three southern bands (South band and Skiri differ mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary), but Pawnee speakers don't have trouble understanding each other. Eli's Pawnee name Ckirirahpiks is pronounced [tskirira:hpiks]. Ckirir means 'wolf' and rahpiks 'scarred.'

Recruitment of Indian scouts was first authorized in 1866 by an act of Congress. Between 1864 and 1877, 170 Pawnee men served in the "Pawnee Battalion" under Frank North (1840–1885) who had learned the Pawnee language after moving to Nebraska at the age of 16. (Interestingly, in 1882 North joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West as a manager of the American Indians.) Indian Scouts were officially deactivated in 1947 when their last member retired.

I found pictures of Pawnee scouts from 1870s in this blog post. These three pictures, taken by William Henry Jackson, were particularly interesting because you can clearly see that details of their appearance have been used as an inspiration when creating Eli's looks.

When rewatching the show I noticed that Eli was wearing an Indian peace medal. According to Trooper Charlie White, Eli was known for his heroic exploits while in the army, but - given Eli's brush off - I wonder if Eli's medal had been something he had inherited. Had his father been a chief? Still, among William Jackson's pictures there were Pawnee scouts with peace medals hanging around their necks. A Pawnee scout called Co-Rux-Te-Chod-Ish was the first Native American to receive the Medal of Honor.

Raise your hand if you really thought that Richard Watts had managed to get his hands on freshwater oysters. Perhaps this was yet another case of him "spitting in the soup."

I was super confused when Simon the squeezebox player reappeared in the last episode since I had completely forgotten about him, but I loved the colours in this scene.

"I've noticed this about you. You keep saying these negative things and you end up always doing the opposite." "Hmm, well... Maybe I should start listening to myself."

So apparently even women who have never given birth can breastfeed babies. To induce lactation you need to stimulate breasts 10–15 minutes several times a day and milk will start after a month or so. Also, of course a 'breast' would be an English word Eli couldn't have picked up naturally.

Although hunting was also an integral part of the subsistence pattern, horticulture - particularly corn - occupied a preeminent position in Pawnee life. It not only provided their sustenance but also figured prominently in their religious life.

At the beginning of the 19th century the Pawnee lived earth lodges which were large, dome-shaped structures of wood covered with packed sod and earth and had a long, narrow, covered entryway. The sizes of lodges varied in diameter from 8 to 15 metres and generally contained several families. Historical sources give varying numbers of Skiri villages, ranging from 13 to 18. Each village had its own separate identity through religious functions, but by the mid-19th century the importance of village identity began to fade as the Skiri population rapidly diminished. (Murie, J. R. and Parks, D. R. (1981) Ceremonies of the Pawnee.)

As the 19th century progressed, the Pawnee bands were forced together onto a reservation on the north side of the Platte and were treated as a single tribal entity by the United States government. Missionaries and the government worked steadily at "making white men"of the Pawnee. By 1873 because of disease, crop failure, warfare, and government rations policy, the Pawnee population had decreased to approximately 2,400. In 1875 the Pawnee were persuaded to give up their reservation in Nebraska and move to new one in the Indian Territory. By the 1876 the entire tribe had removed there, where efforts to acculturate them continued. By 1890 most of the Skiri Pawnee lived on individual farms, dressed like contemporary whites, and spoke English. (Murie, & Parks, 1981)

Bundles were an integral part of Pawnee religion and served as shrines. Among the Skiri, there were two general types of bundles. Sacred bundles, cuharîpîru, were village and band bundles and naturally more important. The oldest sacred bundle was the Evening Star bundle. The other type was referred as karûsu, a bag/sack, and was any lesser bundle – that of a warrior, a doctor, or any other individual.

I was curious about the skull in Eli's bag and using skullsite.com and Royal BC Museum's bird bone identification guide I was able to identify it. Given that Pawnee villages used to be located along rivers, it not surprising that that the skull Eli treasured would belong to an osprey aka fish hawk.

Ospreys differ from most hawks by having short prefrontals.

Round and almost circular nasal (nostril).

Has perforation in sheet of bone between eyes.

Particularly curved bill.

Frontal’s width stays even. 

I always like it when a show makes me curious and inspires me to learn something new, in this case to determine cardinal directions using the sun. I used the instructions in this post to make the collage of Eli determining the compass points.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

Twenty-six Republican state attorneys general are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the anti-transgender sports laws in Idaho and West Virginia. The AGs of Idaho and West Virginia have already asked the high court to review rulings that blocked them from enforcing their laws barring trans athletes from competing under their gender identity in school sports. The justices, who are in recess for the summer, haven’t said if they’ll take the case. The AGs calling on the court to uphold the laws filed friend-of-the-court briefs, known formally as amicus curiae, August 14. Such briefs are filed by people and organizations that are not directly involved in a case but want to express an opinion on it. The attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming signed on to the Idaho brief, and the same ones, with the exception of West Virginia and the addition of Idaho, signed on to the West Virginia brief — that’s because Idaho and West Virginia, respectively, are the states directly involved.

They assert that such laws are needed to assure equal opportunities for cisgender girls and women in sports. “Amici States all have laws or policies like Idaho’s that restrict girls’ sports teams to biological females,” the Idaho brief reads. “Basing the distinction on biology rather than gender identity makes sense because it is the differences in biology — not gender identity — that call for separate teams in the first place: Whatever their gender identity, biological males are, on average, stronger and faster than biological females. If those average physical differences did not matter, there would be no need to segregate sports teams at all.”

[...]

Arkansas AG Tim Griffin and Alabama AG Steve Marshall are the leaders in filing the briefs. “Like Arkansas, West Virginia has a strong interest in safeguarding the benefits of equal access to athletic opportunities for women and girls,” Griffin said in a press release. “They deserve the opportunity to shine on a level playing field. Biological males should not be robbing females of their opportunity to compete for athletic accolades or scholarships, nor should they be threatening the safety of women in competition. I will continue fighting to protect girls’ sports teams and the opportunities of female athletes.” In Idaho, Lindsay Hecox, a trans woman track athlete at Boise State University, filed a suit challenging the state's law, the first in the nation, shortly after Republican Gov. Brad Little signed it in 2020, along with Kayden Hulquist, a then-senior at Boise High School who is cisgender and was concerned about being subjected to the law’s invasive “sex verification” testing. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Idaho affiliate, Legal Voice, and Cooley LLP.

Idaho Chief U.S. District Court Judge David C. Nye issued an injunction blocking the ban in August 2020. He noted that it appears to be on shaky constitutional ground. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed his action in 2023. In West Virginia, trans girl Becky Pepper-Jackson, then 11, filed suit challenging the law in 2021, represented by the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and a private law firm. U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin that year issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking enforcement of the law and said she could try out for girls’ sports, noting that the suit “seeks relief only insofar as this law applies to her.” Goodwin also wrote that Pepper-Jackson, who is on puberty-blocking drugs, “has shown that she will not have any inherent physical advantage over the girls she would compete against on the girls’ cross country and track teams. Further, permitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls’ teams would not take away athletic opportunities from other girls.”

26 Republican AGs ask the MAGA majority on SCOTUS to uphold Idaho and West Virginia’s laws banning trans people from playing sports competitions matching their gender identity.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.

If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state Attorney General would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state Public Safety Commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.

The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.

Mississippi’s capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black.

After thorough and passionate dissent from Black members of the House, the bill passed 76-38 Tuesday primarily along party lines. Two Black member of the House — Rep. Cedric Burnett, a Democrat from Tunica, and Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia — voted for the measure. All but one lawmaker representing the city of Jackson — Rep. Shanda Yates, a white independent — opposed the bill.

“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, said while pleading with his colleagues to oppose the measure.

For most of the debate, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba — who has been publicly chided by the white Republicans who lead the Legislature — looked down on the House chamber from the gallery. Lumumba accused the Legislature earlier this year of practicing “plantation politics” in terms of its treatment of Jackson, and of the bill that passed Tuesday, he said: “It reminds me of apartheid.”

Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten, who served in the House before being elected judge and would be one of the existing judges to lose jurisdiction under this House proposal, also watched the debate.

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, who oversees the Capitol Police, watched a portion of the debate from the House gallery, chuckling at times when Democrats made impassioned points about the bill. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the only statewide elected official who owns a house in Jackson, walked onto the House floor shortly before the final vote.

Rep. Blackmon, a civil rights leader who has a decades-long history of championing voting issues, equated the current legislation to the Jim Crow-era 1890 Constitution that was written to strip voting rights from Black Mississippians.

“This is just like the 1890 Constitution all over again,” Blackmon said from the floor. “We are doing exactly what they said they were doing back then: ‘Helping those people because they can’t govern themselves.'”

The bill was authored by Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican whose hometown of Senatobia is 172 miles north of Jackson. It was sent to Lamar’s committee by Speaker Philip Gunn instead of a House Judiciary Committee, where similar legislation normally would be heard.

“This bill is designed to make our capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, a safer place,” Lamar said, citing numerous news sources who have covered Jackson’s high crime rates. Dwelling on a long backlog of Hinds County court cases, Lamar said the bill was designed to “help not hinder the (Hinds County) court system.”

“My constituents want to feel safe when they come here,” Lamar said, adding the capital city belonged to all the citizens of the state. “Where I am coming from with this bill is to help the citizens of Jackson and Hinds County.”

Opponents of the legislation, dozens of whom have protested at the Capitol several days this year, accused the authors of carving out mostly white, affluent areas of the city to be put in the new district.

In earlier sessions, the Legislature created the Capitol Complex Improvement District, which covers much of the downtown, including the state government office complex and other areas of Jackson. The bill would extend the existing district south to Highway 80, north to County Line Road, west to State Street and east to the Pearl River. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people live within the area.

The bill would double the funding for the district to $20 million in order to increase the size of the existing Capitol Police force, which has received broad criticism from Jacksonians for shooting several people in recent months with little accountability. The new court system laid out in House Bill 1020 is estimated to cost $1.6 million annually.

Many House members who represent Jackson on Tuesday said they were never consulted by House leadership about the bill. Several times during the debate, they pointed out that Republican leaders have never proposed increasing the number of elected judges to address a backlog of cases or increasing state funding to assist an overloaded Jackson Police Department.

Democratic members of the House said if they wanted to help with the crime problem, the Legislature could increase the number of elected judges in Hinds County. Blackmon said Hinds County was provided four judges in 1992 when a major redistricting occurred, and that number has not increased since then even as the caseload for the four judges has exploded.

In addition, Blackmon said the number of assistant prosecuting attorneys could be increased within Hinds County. In Lamar’s bill, the prosecuting of cases within the district would be conducted by attorneys in the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is white. Blackmon said the bill was “about a land grab,” not about fighting crime. He said other municipalities in the state had higher crime rates than Jackson. Blackmon asked why the bill would give the appointed judges the authority to hear civil cases that had nothing to do with crime.

“When Jackson becomes the No. 1 place for murder, we have a problem,” Lamar responded, highlighting the city’s long backlog of court cases. Several Democrats, during the debate, pointed out that the state of Mississippi’s crime lab has a lengthy backlog, as well, adding to the difficult in closing cases in Hinds County.

Lamar said the Mississippi Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to create “inferior courts,” as the Capitol Complex system would be. The decisions of the appointed judges can be appealed to Hinds County Circuit Court.

“We are not incompetent,” said Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson. “Our judges are not incompetent.”

Democrats offered seven amendments, including one to make the judges elected. All were defeated primarily along partisan and racial lines. An amendment offered by Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, to require the Capitol Police to wear body cameras was approved. Lamar voiced support for the amendment.

Much of the debate centered around the issue of creating a court where the Black majority in Hinds County would not be allowed to vote on judges.

One amendment that was defeated would require the appointed judges to come from Hinds County. Lamar said by allowing the judges to come from areas other than Hinds County would ensure “the best and brightest” could serve. Black legislators said the comment implied that the judges and other court staff could not be found within the Black majority population of Hinds County. When asked why he could not add more elected judges to Hinds County rather than appointing judges to the new district, Lamar said, “This is the bill that is before the body.”

[svalleynow]

High School Recap for Games Played on Sept. 20

Last week, the Sequatchie County Indians stuffed a 2-point conversion attempt by South Pittsburg with less than a minute remaining to hold on for a one-point win. On Friday night, the Indians pulled off a huge upset over the state’s 2nd-ranked Class 2-A team, the Marion County Warriors, 13-10. Will Machado hit a 39-yard field goal as time expired for Sequatchie County. Sequatchie senior…

[iwanthermidnightz]

As Taylor Swift rolled into Los Angeles this week, the frenzy surrounding her record-breaking Eras Tour was already in high gear.

Headlines gushed that she had given $100,000 bonuses to her crew. Politicians asked her to postpone her concerts in solidarity with striking hotel workers. Scalped tickets were going for $3,000 and up. And there were way, way too many friendship bracelets to count.

These days, the center of an otherwise splintered music world can only be Taylor Swift.

The pop superstar’s tour, which is now finishing its initial North American leg with six nights at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles, has been a both a business and a cultural juggernaut. Swift’s catalog of generation-defining hits and canny marketing sense have helped her achieve a level of white-hot demand and media saturation not seen since the 1980s heyday of Michael Jackson and Madonna — a dominance that the entertainment business had largely accepted as impossible to replicate in the fragmented 21st century.

“The only thing I can compare it to is the phenomenon of Beatlemania,” said Billy Joel, who attended Swift’s show in Tampa, Fla., with his wife and young daughters.

In a summer of tours by stars like Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Morgan Wallen and Drake, Swift’s stands apart, in numbers and in media noise. Although Swift, 33, and her promoters do not publicly report box-office figures, the trade publication Pollstar estimated that she has been selling about $14 million in tickets each night. By the end of the full world tour, which is booked with 146 stadium dates well into 2024, Swift’s sales could reach $1.4 billion or more — exceeding Elton John’s $939 million for his multiyear farewell tour, the current record-holder.

Swift has now had more No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 over the course of her career than any other woman, surpassing Barbra Streisand. With the tour lifting Swift’s entire body of work, she has placed 10 albums on that chart this year and is the first living artist since the trumpeter and bandleader Herb Alpert in 1966 to have four titles in the Top 10 at the same time.

“It’s a pretty amazing feat,” Alpert, 88, said in a phone interview. “With the way radio is these days, and the way music is distributed, with streaming, I didn’t think anyone in this era could do it.”

But how did a concert tour become so much more: fodder for gossip columns, the subject of weather reports, a boon for friendship-bracelet beads — the unofficial currency of Swiftie fandom — and the reason nobody could get a hotel room in Cincinnati at the end of June?

“She is the best C.E.O., and best chief marketing officer, in the history of music,” said Nathan Hubbard, a longtime music and ticketing executive who co-hosts a Swift podcast. “She is following people like Bono, Jay-Z and Madonna, who were acutely aware of their brands. But of all of them, Taylor is the first one to be natively online.”

Before Eras, Swift hadn’t been on tour since 2018. And her catalog has grown by seven No. 1 albums since then, fueled in part by three rerecorded “Taylor’s Versions” of her first LPs — a project hailed by Swift’s fans as a crusade to regain control of her music, though it is also an act of revenge after the sale of Swift’s former record label, a move that, she said, “stripped me of my life’s work.”

“Folklore” and “Evermore” expanded her palate into fantastical indie-folk and brought new collaborators into the fold: Aaron Dessner from the band the National and Justin Vernon, a.k.a. Bon Iver, rock-world figures who helped attract new listeners.

The other major tour this year that is enticing fans to book transcontinental flights, and to show up costumed and in rapture, is also by a woman: Beyoncé, 41, whose Renaissance tour is a fantasia of disco and retrofuturism. Like Swift, she is also a trailblazing artist-entrepreneur, maintaining tight control over her career and fostering a rich connection with fans online. Together with Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” a critique of the patriarchy told in hot pink, they are signs of powerful women ruling the discourse of pop culture.

But in music, at least, the scale and success of Swift’s tour is without equal. Later this month, after completing 53 shows in the United States, she will kick off an international itinerary of at least 78 more before returning to North America next fall. Beyoncé’s full tour has 56 dates; Springsteen’s, 90. (Recently, Harry Styles wrapped a 173-date tour in arenas and stadiums, grossing about $590 million.)

Outside Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, fans posed for selfies and shared their ticketing ordeals. Esmeralda Tinoco and Sami Cytron, 24-year-old former sorority sisters, said they had paid $645 for two seats. A stone’s throw away, Karlee Patrick and Emily DeGruson, both 18 and dressed as a pair in angel/devil costumes after a line in Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” sat “Taylorgating” at the edge of the parking lot; they said they had paid $100 for parking but couldn’t afford tickets.

As Swift’s opening acts finished, the crowd rushed in. Glaser, the comedian, later said that of the eight shows she had been to, her favorites were the ones where she had brought her mother — and converted her to Swiftie fandom.

“Everyone is in love with her,” Glaser said her mom told her after one show in Texas. “Now I get it.”

[tomorrowusa]

Sandra Day O'Connor died Friday at the age of 93. She was the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court. Although she was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, her approach was more centrist than his and she was often the swing vote on the court.

After her retirement from SCOTUS in 2006, President George W. Bush appointed the hard right Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor. In 2022 Alito was the driving force behind the dismantling of Roe v. Wade.

Justice O’Connor joined the controlling opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that, to the surprise of many, reaffirmed the core of the constitutional right to abortion established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. To overrule Roe “under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to re-examine a watershed decision,” she wrote in a joint opinion with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter, “would subvert the court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question.” Last year, the court did overrule Roe, casting aside Justice O’Connor’s concern for precedent and the court’s public standing. In his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Alito wrote that Roe and Casey had “enflamed debate and deepened division.” Justice O’Connor also wrote the majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 decision upholding race-conscious admissions decisions at public universities, suggesting that they would not longer be needed in a quarter-century. In striking down affirmative action programs in higher education in June, the Supreme Court beat her deadline by five years. [ ... ] Justice O’Connor was also an author of a key campaign finance opinion, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission in 2003. A few years after Justice Alito replaced her, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote in 2010, overruled a central portion of that decision in the Citizens United case.nge? A few days later, at a law school conference, Justice O’Connor reflected on the development. “Gosh,” she said, “I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.” [ ... ] She held the crucial vote in many of the court’s most polarizing cases, and her vision shaped American life for her quarter century on the court. Political scientists stood in awe at the power she wielded. “On virtually all conceptual and empirical definitions, O’Connor is the court’s center — the median, the key, the critical and the swing justice,” Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn and Lee Epstein and two colleagues wrote in a study published in 2005 in The North Carolina Law Review shortly before Justice O’Connor’s retirement.

Let this be a reminder that the direction of the Supreme Court depends on the President who appoints its members and the Senate which confirms them.

While we may not have warm and fuzzy feelings about Ronald Reagan, two of his three† appointments to SCOTUS were centrists. Of the six current justices appointed to the court by Republican presidents, one is a conservative and the other five are hardline reactionaries.

When voting for president or senator, we are indirectly also voting for SCOTUS justices who could be on the court for decades. We ought to keep that in mind when we hear people suggesting that we should cast "protest votes" for impotent third parties which have no chance of getting elected.

Remember that no 2024 Republican presidential candidate will nominate to the court somebody as relatively moderate as Sandra Day O'Connor.

† I count Rehnquist, who Reagan elevated from Associate to Chief Justice, as a Nixon appointee.

[ansburg]

— from Norman G. Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History (14-16) (text below)

Yet if, as I’ve suggested, broad agreement has been reached on the factual record, an obvious anomaly arises: what accounts for the impassioned controversy that still swirls around the Israel-Palestine conflict? To my mind, explaining this apparent paradox requires, first of all, that a fundamental distinction be made between those controver- sies that are real and those that are contrived. To illustrate real differences of opinion, let us consider again the Palestinian refugee question. It is possible for interested parties to agree on the facts yet come to diametrically opposed moral, legal, and political conclusions. Thus, as already mentioned, the scholarly consensus is that Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948. Israel’s leading historian on the topic, Benny Morris, although having done more than anyone else to clarify exactly what happened, nonetheless concludes that, morally, it was a good thing—just as, in his view, the “annihilation” of Native Americans was a good thing—that, legally, Palestinians have no right to return to their homes, and that, politically, Israel’s big error in 1948 was that it hadn’t “carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country—the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan” of Palestinians.9 However repellent morally, these clearly can’t be called false conclusions. Returning to the universe inhabited by normal human beings, it’s possible for people to concur on the facts as well as on their moral and legal implications yet still reach divergent political conclusions.

[...] Benny Morris, although approving the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and nearly pathological in his hatred of Palestinians,28 nonetheless anchors Palestinian opposition to Jewish settlement in a perfectly rational, uncomplicated motive: “The fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism.”29 What’s remarkable about this formulation isn’t so much what’s said but, rather, what’s not said: there’s no invoking of “Arab anti-Semitism,” no invoking of “Arab fears of modernity,” no invoking of cosmic “clashes.” There’s no mention of them because, for understanding what happened, there’s no need of them—the obvious explanation also happens to be a sufficient one. Indeed, in any comparable instance, the sorts of mystifying clichés commonplace in the Israel-Palestine conflict would be treated, rightly, with derision. In the course of resisting European encroachment, Native Americans committed many horrendous crimes. But to understand why doesn’t require probing the defects of their character or civilization. Criticizing the practice, in government documents, of reciting Native American “atrocities,” Helen Hunt Jackson, a principled defender of Native Americans writing in the late nineteenth century, observed: “[T]he Indians who committed these ‘atrocities’ were simply ejecting by force, and, in the contests arising from this forcible ejectment, killing men who had usurped and stolen their lands. …What would a community of white men, situated precisely as these Cherokees were, have done?”30

To apprehend the motive behind Palestinian “atrocities,” this ordinary human capacity for empathy would also seem to suffice. Imagine the bemused reaction were a historian to hypothesize that the impetus behind Native American resistance was “anti-Christianism” or “anti-Europeanism.” What’s the point of such exotic explanations—unless the obvious one is politically incorrect? Of course, back then, profound explanations of this sort weren’t necessary. The natives impeded the wheel of progress, so they had to be extirpated; nothing more had to be said. For the sake of “mankind” and “civilization,” Theodore Roosevelt wrote, it was “all-important” that North America be won by a “masterful people.” Although for the indigenous population this meant “the infliction and suffering of hideous woe and misery,” it couldn’t have been otherwise: “The world would probably not have gone forward at all, had it not been for the displacement or submersion of savage and barbaric peoples.” And again: “The settler and pioneer have at bottom justice on their side: this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages.”

It was only much later, after the humanity of these “squalid savages” was ratified—in any event, formally—that more sophisticated rationales became necessary. In the case of the United States, the “hideous woe and misery” inflicted could be openly acknowledged because the fate of the indigenous population was, figuratively as well as literally, in large part a dead issue. In the case of Palestine it’s not, so all manner of elaborate explanation has to be contrived in order to evade the obvious. The reason Benny Morris’s latest pronouncements elicited such a shocked reaction is that they were a throwback to the nineteenth century. Dispensing with the ideological cloud making of contemporary apologists for Israel, he justified dispossession on grounds of the conflict between “barbarians” and “civilization.” Just as, in his view, it was better for humanity that the “great American democracy” displaced the Native Americans, so it is better that the Jewish state has displaced the Palestinians. “There are cases,” he baldly states, “in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.” Isn’t this Roosevelt speaking? But one’s not supposed to utter such crass things anymore.32 To avoid outraging current moral sensibilities, the obvious must be papered over with sundry mystifications. The elementary truth that, just as in the past, the “chief motor of Arab antagonism” is “[t]he fear of territorial displacement and dispossession”—a fear the rational basis for which is scarcely open to question, indeed, is daily validated by Israeli actions—must, at all costs, be concealed. To evade the obvious, another stratagem of the Israel lobby is playing The Holocaust and “new anti-Semitism” cards. In a previous study, I examined how the Nazi holocaust has been fashioned into an ideological weapon to immunize Israel from legitimate criticism.33 In this book I look at a variant of this Holocaust card, namely, the “new anti-Semitism.” In fact, the allegation of a new anti-Semitism is neither new nor about anti-Semitism. Whenever Israel comes under renewed international pressure to withdraw from occupied territories, its apologists mount yet another meticulously orchestrated media extravaganza alleging that the world is awash in anti-Semitism. This shameless exploitation of anti-Semitism delegitimizes criticism of Israel, makes Jews rather than Palestinians the victims, and puts the onus on the Arab world to rid itself of anti-Semitism rather than on Israel to rid itself of the Occupied Territories.

9. Ari Shavit, “Survival of the Fittest,” interview with Benny Morris, Haaretz (9 January 2004). For perceptive commentary, see Baruch Kimmerling, “Is Ethnic Cleansing of Arabs Getting Legitimacy from a New Israeli Historian?” Tikkun (27 January 2004); for Morris’s recent pronouncements, see also Finkelstein, Image and Reality, pp. xxix–xxx. 28. He’s called the Palestinian people “sick, psychotic,” “serial killers” whom Israel must “imprison” or “execute,” and “barbarians” around whom “[s]omething like a cage has to be built.” See the Haaretz interview and the pages on Morris’s recent pronouncements in Image and Reality cited above. 29. Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999 (New York, 1999), p. 37. 30. Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor (New York, 1981), p. 265. 31. For these and similar formulations, see Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West (New York, 1889), 1:118–19, 121; 4:7, 54–56, 65, 200, 201. 32. In fact, one isn’t even allowed to remember that Roosevelt said them: one searches recent Roosevelt biographies in vain for any mention of the pronouncements of his just cited, or scores of others like them pervading his published writings and correspondence. 33. Finkelstein, Holocaust Industry.

[beardedmrbean]

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made a "mathematically absurd claim" about Black newborns in her dissenting opinion in the affirmative action decision, attorney Ted Frank wrote in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed. 

Jackson argued in her dissent that diversity "saves lives" and that it was essential for "marginalized communities."

"It saves lives. For marginalized communities in North Carolina, it is critically important that UNC and other area institutions produce highly educated professionals of color. Research shows that Black physicians are more likely to accurately assess Black patients’ pain tolerance and treat them accordingly (including, for example, prescribing them appropriate amounts of pain medication). For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die," she wrote.

Frank responded to the argument in his Journal opinion piece: "A moment’s thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible. Imagine if 40% of black newborns died—thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that’s a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%." 

Frank, a senior attorney at Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in SFFA v. Harvard, according to the WSJ.

"How could Justice Jackson make such an innumerate mistake?" he wrote. 

Frank wrote that Jackson's claim came from a 2020 study, according to a footnote in the dissent, but added that the study didn't match Jackson's claim. 

"The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for black newborns with black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians)," he said. 

The Supreme Court rejected the use of race as a factor in college admissions at the end of June, citing a violation of the 14th amendment. 

In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that, "A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrim­ination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination."

Frank said the study cited in Jackson's dissent was "flawed."

"So we have a Supreme Court justice parroting a mathematically absurd claim coming from an interested party’s mischaracterization of a flawed study. Her opinion then urges ‘all of us’ to 'do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together.' Instead we should watch where we’re going," Frank continued. 

Wall Street Journal article here for ya if you don't like fox