#OP is a journalist sitting in the press section

[sunshineandlyrics]

🇦🇺🎾 That's Matt V, Louis, Riccardo and Oli, Rod Laver Arena, Australian Open, 27 January 2024

[theculturedmarxist]

Chances are that by the time you get to the end of this article, there will be news of another information operation targeting Donald Trump. There’s one a day now—each trumpeting a new mortal threat to the republic or some dastardly revelation based on sources that are usually anonymous. Whatever it is, it will serve the same purpose as the hundreds of similar sallies launched over the last four years—namely, to preserve and protect the position and privileges of America’s ruling elite.

Trump stories are rarely about Trump. The same stories, or versions of them, would have targeted anyone who threatened to sever the American political, corporate, and cultural elite’s economic lifeline to the Chinese Communist Party. It is largely because Trump sought to decouple the United States from the CCP that America’s China Class, which owns the platforms on which Americans communicate, has waged a relentless campaign of information warfare against him through its social media and prestige media brands.

Consider the last two anti-Trump info ops: He gratuitously denigrated the historical suffering of African Americans, and he expressed contempt for America’s war dead. These are the sort of false allegations that political operatives are tasked to manufacture and disseminate during election season. Their purpose is to reinforce a negative impression of the opposing party among whatever cohort is being addressed, and make the target spend resources—time and money and sometimes blood—on defense. That’s politics 101, since the time of the Romans.

What’s new is that this is now journalism too. Since the internet defunded the press at the end of the 20th century and social media became the dominant player in America’s information space, journalism has abandoned the traditional standards and practices that once defined reporting. For instance, the smear holding that Trump is contemptuous of the military was supposedly based on four anonymous sources recalling exchanges from three years ago, which have been contradicted by dozens of named sources, some of whom were physically present when the comments were supposedly made—and some of whom have been public Trump opponents. In traditional journalistic terms, that’s not a news story—that’s a failed attack line.

The press that existed in America from the end of the 19th century until the turn of this one was designed to inform, influence, and sometimes inspire or inflame fellow citizens. But for people under 30, the only kind of “journalism” they’ve ever known is more like Pravda in the old Soviet Union or the kinds of party media found throughout the Third World. Journalism is an insider’s game, in which the stories are often outlandish, but rarely true; their actual news value is the hints they may offer about shadowy maneuverings that affect people’s lives but take place out of public view, like the rise or fall of a particular colonel who is pictured standing closer to or farther away from El Caudillo or Al Rais. Stories aren’t about the realities they purport to depict; the real stories are always the stories about the story.

American journalists, who now draw their paychecks directly and indirectly from the country’s largest economic interest—technopolies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook—are now turning the public sphere into a phantasmagoria of conspiracy theories and hysteria to cement the politburo’s position and privilege.

Accordingly, the debate in Washington, D.C., over which great power is feeding more disinformation into the 2020 election cycle isn’t real—it’s not Russia, as collusion impresario and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff claims, nor, as Attorney General William Barr says, is it China, though he’s closer to the truth. The source of the purposeful disinformation pouring into the American public sphere like untreated sewage is the American elite, led by its tech oligarchs, who own the platforms on which information campaigns are staged and laundered to protect their core interests—foremost among them being cheap Chinese labor and access to Chinese markets.

Let’s return to the two smears from above: Trump scoffs at Black suffering and Trump says military service is for suckers and losers. The former comes from the Washington Post’s famous Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s new anti-Trump book, and the latter was posted on the website of the Atlantic. Strip away the decorative paraphernalia that dresses them up to look like news articles, and both of these pieces of “journalism” are actually just tweets. The stories they’re attached to are hollow vessels festooned with brand names to ensure their reach and reception as they circulate through the information ecosystem of social media and cable news platforms.

Of course, when Jeff Bezos bought the Post and Woodward brands in 2013, he had no more idea than Vladimir Putin did that the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” would one day sit in the Oval Office. Bezos acquired them for the same reason the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs picked up the Atlantic—to defend the industry, tech, and political arrangements with China’s manufacturing base that drive their profits from “political interference.”

A little historical background may help explain how America’s information supply has become so badly poisoned. The Atlantic magazine was founded in the mid-19th century in Boston, where it published some of the founding figures of the American nationalist movement in literature like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 2005, its owner moved the Atlantic to Washington, D.C., where it accomplished the rare feat of turning a profit in the contemporary publishing industry—not by selling magazines or ad space, which had been turned into cheap commodities by the rise of the internet, but by billing Beltway lobbyists and tech and defense executives for the opportunity to influence well-known thought leaders at conferences, luncheons, and parties hosted under the Atlantic label in Washington, Aspen, and elsewhere. Laurene Powell Jobs bought a majority share in 2017.

The big message her property sent with its anti-Trump blog post was that Trump is contemptuous of a significant part of his base. What many Trump supporters saw was something else, though: Another proof of the elite’s determination to replay the 2016 election cycle.

Four years ago, few normal Americans imagined that their political class was capable of manufacturing a conspiracy theory out of whole cloth and laundering it through the nation’s spy agencies and the press in the hope of overturning the result of a democratic election. But after four years of Russiagate, and subsequent operations (the Mueller investigation, Ukrainegate, the razing and looting of American cities disguised as “peaceful protests,” etc.), no one is unaware that such coordinated campaigns are possible. In fact, they have become normal.

This time around, the role played by spies in the 2016 election is being filled by former senior Pentagon officials, including James Mattis, Trump’s one-time defense secretary. In June, Mattis wrote an article—in the Atlantic—likening Trump to the Nazis for wanting to dispatch the military to protect the lives, homes, and businesses of American voters.

Gen. Mattis is no stranger to Silicon Valley or its scandals. As head of U.S. Central Command, the four-star Marine general pushed for the products of one Silicon Valley startup to be used on wounded Americans in uniform, and after retiring he won a lucrative seat on the board of the same company, Theranos, which turned out to be the biggest fraud in the history of biotech.

Then there’s Stanley McChrystal, a retired four-star Army general who is reportedly advising a Democratic PAC called “Defeat Disinfo” on how to use Pentagon software to wage information warfare operations against the Trump campaign. McChrystal resigned his post in 2010 after a magazine reporter documented how he and his aides savagely mocked then-Vice President Biden, the man his information warfare campaign is now supposed to install in the White House.

McChrystal’s beef with Trump is something more than just greed or ego. He has been openly critical of Trump for wanting to get American forces out of the Middle East. He ripped the president when Mattis left his Pentagon post because the Marine wanted to keep more troops in Syria. McChrystal was head of operations in Afghanistan and thinks Trump should stay there, too. The problem is, he’s not sure why. As he told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he thinks the best option is to stay in Afghanistan and “muddle along.” And now he’s getting paid by Silicon Valley, too.

Trump is right that top military brass has it out for him and probably for the reasons he states—because pointless engagements like Afghanistan advance them personally and land them lucrative seats on the boards of defense and technology companies. But the personal ambitions of Pentagon officials are finally no more relevant here than those of the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Department bureaucrats who played a role in the first installment of the Russiagate franchise. They’re walk-on parts, as are the various media operatives and outlets like Bob Woodward and the Atlantic, in a much larger corruption of our politics.

The central pillar of the corrupt new order is the American elite’s relationship with China. To be clear, the issue is not that former media organizations like the Post and the Atlantic are pro-China. Both publish articles about the Chinese military, intelligence services, propaganda campaigns, human rights abuses, etc.—at the same time as the Post runs a regular insert produced by the Chinese Communist Party called China Daily. The point is that terms like pro- or anti-Red China are from a different era, when publications like Henry Luce’s Time Magazine were partisan and had points of view.

What matters now are platforms. And for the purposes of information warfare, what’s important is not the content but rather the availability and reach of the platforms, whose job is to protect the American ruling elite’s wealth and preferences by spreading whatever propaganda the elite sees as beneficial. By threatening to split the United States from China, Trump earned the enmity of America’s China Class, which is working hard to remove him from office, and replace him with someone more pliant.

Trump was not the first presidential candidate who noticed there was a tremendous political opportunity in picking up the support of a middle class undone by the ruling class’s foreign trade practices. Democratic Congressman Richard Gephardt made the same case during the 1988 election cycle. Gephardt lost. He lost again in 1992.

By the time the Clinton White House granted China most favored nation trade status in 2000, all of Washington knew that America was running a vast trade deficit that was destined to increase with accession to the World Trade Organization. The price for lifting tens of millions of rural Chinese peasants out of poverty through favorable trade arrangements would be tens of millions of American lives ruined, even as large American companies like Apple and Nike and bankers like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs got richer. The elite reasoned that they had no choice: The rise of China was inevitable. Why fight it?

American political and corporate elites didn’t choose decline. They chose to get rich. By shipping America’s manufacturing base off to China, they seized a business opportunity the likes of which had never been seen before—an enormous captive labor force controlled by an authoritarian regime that guaranteed the steady production of goods at a fraction of what it would cost at home. American cultural elites (Hollywood, sports, art, etc.) who exploited the increasingly large Chinese market for their products provided cover for the China Class cohort with messaging that dovetailed with CCP propaganda.

Who were Americans to judge a great and ancient civilization like China’s for jailing dissidents and enslaving the Uighur minority? Doesn’t America have its own history of slavery and political prisoners? It’s racist to protect American jobs. Those jobs aren’t coming back and there is nothing to be done about it, as Barack Obama famously said—unless you have a magic wand …

Calling out the American elite for betraying American interests in the service of their own personal and corporate bottom lines helped Donald Trump win the presidency. But it’s not clear that he truly understood how deeply entwined Beijing’s interests were with America’s China Class—and that trying to decouple the two would lead to an attempt at a permanent coup by the new techno-elite, targeting not just him and his supporters but the foundations of the republic, from our military to the media, and from our justice system to the institution of the presidency itself.

The American elite’s financial relationship with China is the key to understanding what’s been happening in America the past four years. Any president, Democrat or Republican, who took on China would have been targeted by the China Class. Because it was Trump flying the Republican banner who sided with America’s working men and women, the Democrats resorted to alliances with powers that now threaten the stability and security of the country.

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Until I moved to the Kootenays in 2014, I’d never been politically engaged enough to be able to make an informed vote at the municipal level. Politically I had UVic-style leftward leanings, but that didn’t mean I understood the implications of the sort of decisions a city’s mayor and council would make. What did I know about bylaws? Or taxes? I thought it was stupid that we had to buy stickers to put on our garbage bags, but beyond that I didn’t have any pressing concerns about how they were running things down at Nelson city hall. 

With the election coming up, I knew I had to wrap my head around the various issues in the city and how they related to the people we were voting into power. The mental health crisis was going to be a talking point, I knew from Police Chief Wayne Holland, and there was talk the dog bylaw might finally be overturned. The most interesting element to me was weed legalization and its implications. The hottest topic was affordable housing. When Calvin assigned me to interview all of the city council and mayoral candidates, at first I felt daunted by the scope of the project — more than 10 interviews and thousands of words over the course of a few weeks. I realized pretty quick, though, it was my opportunity to deep-dive into this shit. 

If I was going to be a real journalist, I would have to get into politics.

Greg was on the city hall beat at that point, and anytime Tamara, Calvin or I had a question about the election or the people involved, it was him we went to. Some of the candidates Greg knew from growing up in the area, others from covering them in previous elections, but there was nobody he couldn’t give us a multi-year rundown on. He would swivel in his chair and gesticulate with one scholarly finger in the air, opining in his radio announcer voice. The longer I worked alongside him the more I admired his encyclopedic knowledge, how relentless he was about pursuing the truth, sometimes scouring through old archives to better understand a crime that happened 100 years before he was born and other times harassing clerks to get damning documents on criminals still working their way through the court system. He was the Star’s greatest asset, and everybody understood that.

One afternoon I sat in the newsroom with Greg and talked about the elections of the past and how they influenced the one coming up. He told me Phil McMillan, the compassion club director, had run for mayor on a cannabis slate around ten years previous. And a local actor named Richard Rowberry had campaigned as the ghost of Nelson’s first mayor, John “Truth” Houston. One former mayor he spoke about with affection was Dave Elliot, who was remembered mostly in town for stopping an expansion of the local Walmart. The executives were in back-room negotiations to double the store’s size into the next lot when Elliot broke confidentiality and raised the alarm with the community. Ultimately he purchased the neighbouring land, along with a number of other Nelson families, just to stop the deal from going ahead. The property had been sitting vacant ever since — a visual testament to the Kootenay spirit of opposing development. A number of projects had tried to get off the ground there, including a condo complex, but the math just didn’t seem to be right. It was prime lakeside property, fenced off, the yard full of abandoned machines, broken concrete and waist-high grass. 

Depending on who you asked, it was this move that got ultimately got Elliot ousted. Some felt he over-stepped. The right-wing types felt he was too hippy dippy, and wanted someone who would champion the small businesses on Baker Street with more diligence. Dooley was a reliably conservative city councillor at this point, and ended up taking the big seat in 2005. By the time I showed up in the Kootenays he was the longest serving Nelson mayor in history. 

According to Greg, Dooley was hyper-popular and heavily favoured to win. But there were murmurings in the community about dissatisfaction. He seemed like a perfect Irish gentleman to me, polite and amiable, but apparently some felt he was a a bully in the council chambers — as evidenced by the signs stapled to telephone poles around town that read ‘Bully for Mayor’. That being said, he had a number of impressive accomplishments under his belt and had proven himself adept at finding new revenue streams for the community, whether it was from the provincial and federal governments or from organizations like the Columbia Basin Trust. Many credited his contribution for making the new skate park possible. No matter what anyone said, they couldn’t question that he loved his community deeply, and wanted to create a better future for its residents.

*

Then there were the cops.

“What are they going to do about that cop that punched the woman? That’s what I want to know,” Paisley asked one evening, while I was watching TV. She had come up with a plan, along with her new burlesque friends, to hold a topless protest outside the NPD station. 

She carefully poured vegan muffin batter in to a baking sheet.

“I can’t believe we’ve got a proven woman-puncher just working away at the police station like nothing happened. That fucker needs to be fired.”

“He still might be. Depends on how things go with the trial.”

“What’s left to know? Didn’t he admit doing it?”

That situation was an ongoing black eye for the NPD, and they were also under scrutiny because they were requesting a $300,000 boost to their budget. Another smouldering question was how they would deal with the end of cannabis prohibition. They were still busting people routinely, whether it was for grow-ops or possession, and residents wanted to know when that would change. The new mayor would be head of the Nelson Police Board, giving them power over Holland and his force, so this was an opportunity for pot advocates to land an ally in a strategic spot. Dooley was openly hostile to cannabis, and had gone on record a few years previous vehemently opposing an anti-violence initiative related to pot decriminalization, so he clearly wasn’t the right champion. That’s why a new provincial organization called Sensible BC, represented by pot activist Dana Larsen, announced its intentions to get involved in an attempt to eject him. 

They wanted someone pot-friendly running the province’s weed capital.

One afternoon I met the local Sensible BC representative, Herb Couch, who was perfectly named for his position. He wanted to see less money wasted policing cannabis, and announced his intention to quiz each candidate on their stance and instruct his followers to vote accordingly. Couch had the backing of Phil McMillan and over 1000 dispensary members, so his influence wouldn’t be insignificant. He was a chill, soft-spoken former high school teacher sporting a signature cowboy hat and a vibrant orange shirt. Relentless about his activism, to the point of annoying some, he’d also been a vocal advocate for the preservation of Red Sands Beach. 

I liked him right away.

“Sharon wants to know why we’re writing so many stories about pot,” Calvin said, after the interview with Couch ran. “I don’t think she’s a fan of this Herb character.”

“So many stories? We’ve just done the one.”

“Well, and it’s come up as a topic in some of the other stories about the election. The candidate profiles, a few of them had whole sections about their views on weed.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“She says this isn’t even a relevant municipal issue. Legalization is a federal issue.”

“Right, but it has municipal implications.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like it will affect the police budget. How’s that not relevant?”

“Let’s just cool if with all the weed stuff, okay? People want to know about their taxes, about affordable housing, about all kinds of other stuff. This whole election can’t just be about marijuana.”

*

The moment Severyn announced his candidacy, the campaigning got ugly. Late-night vandals drove all around multiple neighbourhoods to collect his lawn signs, which featured cartoon moustaches, and dump them outside of town. He showed up at the Star office distraught, frustrated that his comrades in the police department weren’t doing more to figure out who the culprits were. (“You know how much those things cost? And that comes right out of my pocket,” Severyn lamented.) He made totally inappropriate accusations about Dooley, yelling in our foyer, and the rhetoric continued to devolve from there. It was clear to even the casual observer that the two men absolutely hated each other. 

Dooley was furious that Severyn would even consider running against him, and more furious that the political dunce seemed to have hundreds of voters’ worth of support. He took it as a personal insult. During campaign events Dooley barely contained his frustration. I watched him repeatedly lose his cool.

Into this mix came Deb Kozak. Sporting a tidy grey bob and a simple pearl necklace, she had a sing-song friendliness to her voice and a fierce determination in her eyes. She’d been on council with Dooley and, though she wouldn’t say it directly, clearly had issues with his leadership. Observers believed she would’ve never been able to take Dooley on in a two-way race, but with Severyn as a wild card she stood a chance to take a strategic majority. If successful, she would be the first female elected mayor in history — a feat fellow councillor Donna Macdonald had tried and failed to accomplish twice. Deb had a maternal energy, and a general optimism about bringing people together and accomplishing positive things. It was a hopeful time in politics, with Obama in power down in the U.S., and I believed things were trending upwards. Culturally we were evolving, and our leadership reflected that, right down to the municipal level. By the end of our first interview it was clear she had my vote, whether I could admit it openly or not. 

She seemed audacious.

“One thing I’ve learned as a councillor, and even before that, is I’m good at conversation. And I’m good at welcoming even difficult conversations. We have a diverse community, and sometimes that leads to conflict. I think you work through those things, and you make better decisions when all those groups are pulled together, or at least have an opportunity to share what they think about the future,” she said.

Kozak had arrived in Nelson in the 80s, just after David Thompson University and the Kootenay Forest Products plant shut down. The economic downturn was in full swing, and she’d been inspired by the ambitious moves made by the council at the time. They set out to give the downtown core a makeover, making it more attractive to tourists.

“It was a very frightening time. But it was at that time that the council of the day took a bold step forward to rejuvenate Baker. They said ‘we’re going to rip off all the old clapboards off these beautiful buildings and we’re going to go for it,” she said.

She wanted to be similarly ambitious. 

“I bring to the table experience, passion, heart and mind. What I have to offer is almost fearless exploration of who we can be.”

The Kootenay Goon

[wardensantoineandevka]

My favorite small Overwatch theory is the Jesse is Joel Morricone theory. In brief: it is speculated that Jesse and Joel, a minor character who works as a writer, are the same person.

This theory stems from the positive view Morricone takes of vigilantism, his defense of Jesse’s vigilantism, and his self-description as a “white hat wearer” and “pundit for hire” and from quotes about Jesse’s name on Hollywood and his identity in spawn interaction with Sombra.

Meet the Press

Morricone is a very minor character in the lore, a journalist who wrote an opinion column about rising vigilantism: “The New Peacekeepers: Vigilante Justice — Vital in a Post-Overwatch World?” The first paragraph, except for the last phrase, of the column was tweeted by @PlayOverwatch in March 2015, prior to the closed beta period, as part of introducing the world, the lore, and the characters. This column helped introduce Jesse, and it’s the only piece of lore that mentions Morricone. The image in the tweet also appears in the Overwatch Visual Source Book in Jesse’s section, with the first paragraph complete. It’s the version shown below for that reason, despite being of lower quality:

The New Peacekeepers Vigilante Justice — Vital in a Post-Overwatch World?

By Joel Morricone // Guest Blogger, Coffee Drinker, White Hat Wearer, Pundit For Hire

[Photo of a flaming Rikimaru Ramen Shop van in a cordoned off street in Hanamura] Street still in shambles following noodle joint shootout—who’s keeping us safe?

COLUMN—The scent of gunsmoke mingled with the aroma of gyōza following yesterday’s thwarted ramen shop robbery attempt. And while the mainstream media focused on the anachronistic fashion sense of the stranger who saved the day, I want to know whether he’s the self-appointed sheriff of the corner store, too. We’re told we live in an era of peace, but crime is running rampant, and the authorities don’t seem to care. If folks like him want to protect us, maybe we should just let ‘em round up a posse and ride.

Tangent, I want to point out the joke in the headline: Peacekeeper is the name of Jesse’s revolver. If Jesse is Joel, that’s very cheeky of him to do.

Joel is thought to be Jesse for several reasons, one of which is the opinion taken in this column: a support of vigilantism to make up for slack law enforcement in recent years and maintain order, peace, and justice. The article is also written in a diction very similar to McCree’s.

(As a sidebar, although it’s often joked that, if this theory holds true, Jesse writes so positively about himself, really, the structure suggests that it isn’t an article about himself, it’s just he’s using a recent incident involving himself as a way into the topic, a common rhetorical device—and he actually isn’t that glowing about himself, and he even makes a small dig at how he dresses in line with the popular comment.)

It’s worth mentioning that Jesse seems to keep tabs on how the media portrays him and how the public sees him, or at least keeps tabs on why he’s wanted, based on his comments in the “Train Hopper” comic.

Top panel. “This ain’t got nothing to do with me. If I show my face, guess who gets the blame? Again.”

Bottom panel. Jesse is watching news coverage of the attempted robbery. “[Train staff:] We arrive at Houston in three minutes. What do you want us to say to the police? I think they’re blaming you for this. They mean to arrest you.” “[Television:] The fugitive is wanted for murder, theft...” “[Jesse:] Yeah, I figured.”

Joel’s self description also tends to evoke Jesse, especially in “white hat wearer” and “pundit for hire”. A white hat is an old filmmaking convention as a symbol to separate the good guys (the white hats) from the bad guys (the black hats), especially seen in Westerns beginning with The Great Train Robbery; Jesse himself has a White Hat skin referencing this convention. “Pundit for hire” echoes Jesse’s description as a “gunslinger for hire” in his official bio.

The Man With No Name

To get two minor tidbits out of the way: Joel Morricone’s name references Westerns. He shares a name with Ennio Morricone, a film composer who notably scored every Sergio Leone film since A Fistful of Dollars, which includes The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, which Jesse makes liberal reference to both in design and in quotes. In addition to sharing references to Westerns, Joel and Jesse also share the same initials.

On more weighty points, Jesse was infamously difficult to name during development. Developers created two lists of names—first and last—and nothing really stuck until the name of one of the designers was floated (Wired: Every Overwatch Hero Explained By Blizzard’s Michael Chu). Before they finally settled on that name, he was known as “Joel” in development (Reddit: Gunslinger Joel, lampshaded by Kaplan at PAX East 2015). Within this theory, it is believed that this development history led to the names having been reshuffled to become one of Jesse’s aliases. 

Two quotes in-game reference Jesse’s name. On Hollywood, Hal-Fred Glitchbot, the passenger in the payload, comments, “What, Jesse McCree? That is a terrible name for a cowboy.” It’s felt to be a reference to the real-world difficulty of naming Jesse and the struggle of going through lists of terrible names in the search for a perfect name for a cowboy. Within the theory, it’s felt to be an indication that something is off about who Jesse says he is.

Similarly, Sombra and Jesse have a spawn interaction surrounding Jesse’s name:

Sombra: Pleasure working with you McCree... if that is your real name. McCree: Don't know what you heard, but my name's not Joel. Best remember that.

Just like the first, it’s also felt to reference to the real-world struggle of finding a name for him. Lore-wise, it’s part of a series of elements in which Sombra is investigating Jesse. He appears in images alongside Ana and Jack in her room on the Castillo map:

Computer screen showing Jesse and Ana, connected through an Overwatch symbol. The screen also shows the eye symbol Sombra uses to represent the large global conspiracy and “ESCANEAR...”, indicating in Spanish that she is scanning for something.

Documents lying on the floor, including a photo of Jesse, a circled photo of young Jack, and papers about Lumerico.

This exchange is also similar to one she has with Genji, her statement even employs the same structure:

Sombra: You wouldn't believe what I learned about you... Sparrow. Genji: I'm at peace with who I was. Your threat does not concern me.

Sombra is investigating Jesse, in the way that she’s investigating other key characters, and given her skill, she is in great position to find out all sorts of things about him. His defensiveness and hasty denial of an identity that was not mentioned is possibly an indication that there is merit to her suggestion that his real name isn’t what he says it is.

Why do it?

To get speculative about it, why? There isn’t much in the way to explain why Jesse would have two identities or why he’d stop laying low as Joel Morricone.

We don’t know, well, anything about what Jesse is doing in the present, besides hunting bounties, hopping on trains to Houston, drinking in Mexican bars on Christmas, letting Echo out of her box. It isn’t known what he did in the years after he left Blackwatch and went off the grid, no information on how he supported himself or kept busy in those years. After Overwatch’s Golden Age, after Rialto, after the Swiss HQ explosion, it’s possible that McCree is too publicized to drop off the map. (Maybe even too much a target for Talon?) In contrast, who cares about a particularly opinionated local journalist? Who would expect Jesse McCree, gunslinger and black ops agent, to turn to a career as a pundit and start writing a law and crime opinion column?

Why resurface then when he has things well set up as Joel, if he’s trying to keep a low profile? Joel’s article gives one reason: "We’re told we live in an era of peace, but crime is running rampant, and the authorities don’t seem to care." It’s clearly outlined throughout the lore that when Overwatch collapsed, the world seemed to be at its height in peace; however, that peace quickly collapsed, and it was felt that Overwatch ought to return. As an individual, Jesse is defined by a relentless pursuit of justice, and for decades he’s contextualized his own ongoing journey of redemption as something that is achieved by “righting the injustices of the world” to use a phrase from his bio. If writing did little to stem the rising tides of crime and injustice, he isn’t one to sit by and watch it get worse.

[fenton-bus]

Sagan's Comet

(a prologue)

   ∞

2020

 If there is a causal relationship between the popularity of Barry Eisenberg's autobiography and the complete loss of journalistic integrity exhibited by the Manhattan press no one acknowledges it. In spaces formerly occupied by actual news, one can now find awed descriptions of the fun way the eighteen year old Portland native verbally decimates the Buzzfeed contributor brave enough to cross the threshold of his lair. Articles dedicated to examining the significance of his hoodie collection (consisting solely of secondary colors) are written with the zest and intensity of individuals delivering the defining information of the age. Between covering Syrian conflicts and Zayn's solo career these adults with journalism degrees they allegedly worked hard for print wild speculation about what Barry's digital watch says about him as a person, maps his evolution from monosyllables to making a Newsweek reporter cry whilst thanking him for the opportunity through her tears, and publishes three thousand word think pieces heavily suggesting that he is the voice of his generation.

Two months into his junior year at Columbia, Barry becomes a meme.

According to the lanky, mustachioed Starbuck's barista (who enjoys all the benefits of tumblr fame for two glorious minutes before he's brought down by an old "problematic" Burning Man post.) he waits in line every other Thursday before his Applied Calc class, and one morning he is informed-with an unfathomable regret-that they are currently out of bran muffins.

Barry allegedly makes a face that defies the descriptive power of the written word.

Skylar totally believes in fate. He was meant to come in that day, despite dancing on the precipice of being fired for coming to work after ingesting some "herbal refreshment". He was meant to get dragged behind the counter to fix the espresso machine, meant to turn around to grab the wrench at the exact moment Barry made That Face. He grabs his phone, snaps a pic and before Todd can offer the dude a blueberry substitute, twelve hundred people have added gross looking block text to Skylar's post. That Face becomes a universal constant just as relevant when describing reactions to sexism (When ur in a patriarchal society ) as it is to receiving troubling medical news (TMW UR DOCTORS ALL: GENITAL WARTS!!!?!1) . Kids aim That Face at unprepared parents in the aisles of Toys R Us. Girls just trying to enjoy happy hour with their besties clock the dudes halfway across the bar with The Face and the "you're the only ten I see" dies in the bros' throats. Tired moms schlepping their kids from one hellish interpretative dance class to another collapse against the seats of their Subaru Foresters and That Face all over the traffic cop worried about his quota and are let on their merry way with a stern warning. After announcing a pop quiz in Applied Calculus Professor Bevens is hit with sixty-two different versions of That Face.

The effect is so powerful\disturbing the professor decides to take lunch in his office that day.

When Mike Wallace asks Dr. Josef Stenberg why we, as a culture, are so fascinated the noted historian and scholar replies that The Face "effortlessly and intrinsically captures the depth of the human experience."

∞

There is a three day period wherein The New York Times makes a genuine attempt at substance before all parties involve realize how difficult it actually is and decide that mining Barry's first two years at MIT for scandal is much more creative use of their time.

The seven article series proves so popular the rate of traffic often causes the site to crash, to the point where the NYT puts an ad for a new head of IT in its own newspaper. (An error brought to their attention by the former IT supervisor as she storms out of their office making two very rude gestures with both of her hands.) The articles come dangerously close to reporting the significance of the solar ray that's currently powering the campus greenhouses and the fifteen classroom\lecture halls running on fossil fuels before remembering it's audience and veering back to the good stuff: in addition to campaigning long and hard to get one of his professors fired, (because the individual is a plaintiff in a current lawsuit his name has been redacted from all documentation in order to protect his identity. In any further documentation he shall be referred to as Mr. S.) Barry starts a (still active) war between the physics and computer science majors, stages a ninety-day sit in at Lanctom Hall and refuses to attend class until the United States converts to the metric system, attends seven out of his ten classes in his pajamas, builds a Death Ray, stages his own funeral, and has regular off-campus lunches with Neil Degrasse-Tyson where (according to an unnamed source) they discuss plans to reanimate Carl Sagan.

The Times receives countless emails from current and former MIT professors the content of which ranges from "Come on guys" to paragraphs of legal jargon, but because facts are annoying and can easily ruin a good time, they only publish one. For Mr. S who is, at this very  moment, teaching a remedial chemistry class in a Hoboken public school, seeing his words in print gives him the necessary courage to take out an entire page of the Op Ed column for the sole purpose of calling Barry an "odious, mouth-breathing cretin" (among other, more foul monikers) and insist that his time at MIT is "the most convincing super villain origin story I've ever seen." Buried in the seventh paragraph under piles of incoherent rage is a fairly lucid comparison to Lex Luthor, which all things considered, Barry rather likes.

At six-thirty the following morning,

Don't you have young minds to compromise?

appears in the comments section of Mr. S's article. The user name is something banal and forgettable, but the 25 x 37 armadillo icon is responsible for the overjoyed intern's giggle snort and the frantic search for a 2013 Scientific American article in which Barry mentions that armadillos are often underestimated because of their size and deceptively docile demeanor.

∞

2017

So.

Barry wakes up in Naldo's body, which because he invents time travel when he's fifteen and perfects localized teleportation over summer break his freshman at year at MIT isn't even the weirdest sentence he's ever had to type. It isn't even the strangest thing that happens that year, (that literal prizes goes to Sergey Abermoff a stunningly mediocre marine biologist who wins the Noble Prize for his contributions to Alaskan Puffer Fish research. From March to August Barry is engaged in a furious letter-writing campaign to the Academy because seriously? Dr. Gloria Hernandez discovers and isolates what appears to be a second God particle but generous funds are being allocated to his dad's favorite Red Lobster entree? No.) While he makes a concentrated effort to document his daily experiments, and somewhat less dedicated attempts to record his thoughts about more personal subjects (he objects to the use of the word "personal" in this context because it implies a mutual exclusivity between the personal and the scientific where no such distinction exists, but he digresses) spontaneous ionic transference is apparently unworthy of documentation. Reading through the accounts of the incidents of that spring, scholars and historians alike are surprised to find only the briefest, most perfunctory outline of events.

It's an odd, tangential footnote in most textbooks, and even the larger more expansive biographies tend to refer to it transiently. One of the foremost examples of this phenomenon being Edgar Chen's Event Horizon which glosses over the events in a way Joan Collins of the New York Times calls "whimsically dismissive". Of the archived articles, research papers, essays, books, films, digital recordings and miscellaneous sundries that number in the thousands only two hundred and eighty-six contain references to the events of the spring of 2017. Of that number one hundred and thirty-seven are passing references, eighty-five are footnotes, five are visual references ( two screen grabs, a gif, and two vague scenes in the Cern documentary and the feature film Singularity, all of which are subject to intense and varying interpretation) forty- two are allusions in popular fiction,  twelve are auditory, and seventeen are references to supplementary reading material that contain descriptions of the events so vague they border on unintelligible. In chapter four of Jackie Iron's (famed director of the Crabnormal Behavior Octo-thrilogy) tell-all Shellin' Out, Barry writes:

"I've never been fond of the "body-swap" trope. At best it's a cheap device used to create a sense of empathy between two characters possessing diametrically opposing viewpoints. At worst it's a study of the traumatic power of unrelenting body horror, a state of such brutal, paradigm-shifting physical and emotional dissonance that it's difficult to imagine surviving the encounter without constantly testing the tensile strength of  reality for the remainder of one's natural life. Why would a writer subject their audience to something so terrible?"

Strangely, Barry's autobiography makes only a passing reference to the event. He glosses over his years at Columbia (there are a few offhand references to a Washington think tank he attends in the summer of 2017) but expands upon graduate school in such unrelenting, excruciating detail that chapters forty-seven through fifty-three are known to make a few students nauseous. The clinical, almost detached narrative  prompts  Melanie Fung, freshman human interest columnist of the Columbia Daily Spectator, to write: "The text habitually  bathes Eisenberg in the soft light of scientific heroism, but the more personal, and possibly, more interesting threads of the narrative are glaringly absent."

It isn't until Jill Suarez publishes The Eisenberg Principle that the personal elements of Barry's life-coming out to his parents, the bullying he experiences in school, the two week period he spends in Renaldo Montoya's body-are recounted in detail.

[valiantchildstudentme-blog]

Jokowi the party man - New Mandala

New Post has been published on http://gampangqq.link/jokowi-the-party-man-new-mandala/

Jokowi the party man - New Mandala

The view from the stage at PDI-P’s Sunday rally in Malang, East Java. (This and all photos below: from the author).

At the back of Malang’s tiny airport terminal, surrounded by fields of sugarcane in a beautiful valley just outside town, grands fromages from the local PDI-Perjuangan branch assembled with excited journalists as a chartered turboprop pulled into the apron after its short flight from Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. The plane was carrying Joko Widodo, the recently-anointed presidential candidate whom local PDI-P figures are counting on to significantly boost the party’s vote in the region (as indeed are PDI-P branches all over Indonesia).

By now it’s cliched to observe that wherever Jokowi goes, he’s greeted like a celebrity. What’s important to note about this man is that he knows this, that he likes it, and that he goes out of his way to make sure that he’s seen being greeted like a celebrity. Take his car, for instance: the candidate had specifically asked to be driven in a Kijang, the cheap Toyota van beloved of Indonesian middle class families, and that the vehicle in question await him on the far end of the airport car park, thus ensuring that he would be photographed by the media while being photographed by groups of near-hysterical members of the public.

The perp walk: Jokowi makes sure he’s the centre of attention at Malang Airport.

More than once on the drive into the city, the motorcade suddenly ground to a halt (forcing all other traffic to do the same). At the rear of the motorcade, there were a few panic-stricken faces when it was thought, at first, that there had been an accident at the candidate’s end. The reason for the snarl-ups became clear, though: Jokowi had gotten out of his Kijang to press the flesh with bystanders who came out of their houses to see what all the police sirens were about.

‘Has there been an accident?’ The motorcade grinds to a halt as Jokowi greets the punters.

These ladies seemed chuffed to have just met Jokowi.

By now the visit to Malang was displaying its adherence to the standard Jokowi campaign trip template, with a visit to a cheap restaurant for lunch. Naturally, this turned into a media circus, just as it was meant to. The candidate enjoyed some tongseng and sate with a succession of local PDI-P politicians keen to have their picture taken with him. Apart from the throngs of media, civilians from neighbouring restaurants crowded into the small restaurant to wave, shout ‘long live Jokowi!‘ or try their luck at taking a selfie.

A quiet lunch.

After stopping for a quick prayer and photo op at a nearby mosque, it was time for the ostensible reason for Jokowi’s visit to Malang: the sole scheduled kampanye terbuka (open-air rally) for the local PDI-P branch’s legislative campaign. Around 2,000 simpatisan (supporters) of the party had gathered on a field at the edges of town for the big event. By law it needed to finish by 4:00p.m., and thanks to the candidate’s tardiness it ended up being mercifully brief. If you’ve seen one of these kampanye terbuka, you’ve seen them all–but it is nevertheless always interesting to see Jokowi perform in this context, a big contrast to the settings (food stalls, neighbourhood streets) which he is most comfortable in.

There are few PDI-P parliamentary candidates who aren’t puttingJokowi on their election posters.

After the national anthem (free advice for PDI-P: don’t mike your politicians while any singing is going on) and some overbearing oratory from senior party figures, it was Jokowi’s turn to talk. Though he is clearly more articulate and confident speaking in front of a crowd (or on TV, for that matter) than when he first arrived on the national stage during his 2012 gubernatorial campaign in Jakarta, Jokowi’s speech was abysmal in terms of content, containing nothing of substance. And when I say nothing of substance, I mean nothing of any substance whatsoever: his speech was the political equivalent of a pep talk given by the coach of an under-13’s soccer team before a big game.

He mentioned that he ‘hadn’t slept in three days’, saying that PDI-P supporters shouldn’t either. ‘Let there be nobody here who sleeps at 6 o’clock, or even 8 o’clock!’ in the lead up to the election, he said somewhat bizarrely. Telling the crowd to consider how great it would be if PDI-P won enough of the parliamentary vote to not have to enter into a coalition, he made a self-deprecating joke about his skinny frame and wrapped up. The only mitigating factor in all this was that Jokowi–unlike most Indonesian politicians who, completely missing the point of a microphone, decide that the best way to deliver such vacuous and patronising rhetoric is to shout it as loudly as you can–spoke at a reasonable volume. He’s never been known for being able to speak convincingly about policy issues in detail, but this was remarkably and inexplicably devoid of even the most vague discussion of policies or ideology.

PDI-P’s open-air rally in Malang.

Indeed, when taken out of the blusukan and casual media conferences at where his appeal is showcased and onto the stage at a party rally, Jokowi begins to look and talk like every other Indonesian politician–interestingly, given how much of his political success is due to his carefully-cultivated image (based, to a large degree, on truth) that he is very much different from the hacks the electorate is used to. Jokowi is known to regard this style of campaigning as a bit of a drag, and would rather stick to what he is good at. I doubt that any of this does him grievous political harm, but it is in some ways symbolic of what happens when the outsider becomes the figurehead of an uber-establishment party, trading his checked shirt for PDI-P colours.

A sign of more trouble to come was, literally, right before everyone’s eyes on Sunday: the presence of the Megawati Soekarnoputri-era national police chief Da’i Bachtiar, of whose anti-corruption credentials many would be skeptical, to say the least. This comes after speculation about PDI-P matriarch Megawati’s preference for a military or police figure to become Jokowi’s running mate: the individuals mentioned in this Jakarta Post story are decidedly shonky, even by Indonesian standards. Jokowi and his allies would be crazy not to resist, at all costs, efforts by Megawati to force such a political time bomb on him after the legislative campaign ends.

But the fleas, as it were, come with the dog. Jokowi obviously feels that he must pay his dues, having been handed the nomination without a public conflict with the party brass, and this is why the campaign trip template now includes events at which he blends into the crowd of PDI-P hacks around him. Local party officials are certainly excited that he is on board, saying that his candidacy has improved morale and that it’ll definitely win votes. Jokowi’s efforts at campaigning for the party are appreciated by the grassroots, and it is certainly in his interests in the short run that the goodwill is maintained.

Jokowi gives his pep talk in Malang.

Later on Sunday night, in the hill town of Batu, a Jokowi-branded live comedy show had attracted a young crowd to a city park. The event was supposed to close off Jokowi’s visit to the area, but he was characteristically late. The performers ran out of material and the crowd began to ebb away, but just before midnight everything burst to life as the candidate showed up for a quick photo op, walking around the park with the young volunteers who organised the event and having a cup of coffee at a nearby drinks stall. It was classic Jokowi, made all the more reminiscent of the grassroots energy which characterised his famous gubernatorial race by the presence of enthusiastic, mostly young, volunteers from outside the party. It was this ability to inspire people–many of whom would otherwise have not gotten involved in politics–to give up their time for him that helped Jokowi defeat a formidable political machine in Jakarta in 2012.

Inevitably, Jokowi the plucky outsider and Jokowi the party man are two personas which sit uneasily with each other. Despite its pretensions of being the party of the common man, and the vaguely populist worldview which many of its functionaries share, PDI-P is more than capable of being as corrupt and reactionary as any other section of the Indonesian political establishment. Yet Jokowi has overwhelmed his rivals in the past with the sheer force of the popularity he’s cultivated through his own populist political strategy, and there’s no reason to dismiss its potential effectiveness in the future. It will be fascinating to see, after the votes are counted on 9 April, if Jokowi chooses once again to embrace his outsider schtick–exchanging the PDI-P jersey for his old checked shirt.

………

Liam Gammon is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University. He wrote an honours thesis on Joko Widodo’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign and is currently researching populism in contemporary Indonesia.

Source

[theconservativebrief]

Bari Weiss and Eve Peyser thought they would hate each other and are now friends. I’m glad they’re happy, but I’m not sure what the rest of us are supposed to learn from their experience.

Weiss is a staff editor/writer at the New York Times opinion section, where she’s developed a reputation for making arguments that maximally annoy the online left (example headlines: “We’re All Fascists Now”; “Three Cheers for Cultural Appropriation”; “Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader.”). Charitably, she’s a provocateur; less charitably, she’s a troll with a huge platform.

Peyser, on the other hand, is a reliably left-of-center writer at Vice. Weiss describes her as “like the caricature of the person I know hates me on the internet: Gawker Media alum, probable Democratic Socialists of America member, many tattoos.”

So, naturally, they met up. Weiss insisted on going swimming so that Peyser wouldn’t wear a wire, a very normal precaution. And — surprise, surprise — they got along. Swimmingly, one might even add!

The piece, published in the New York Times and structured as a conversation, is ultimately about the deleterious consequences of Twitter on interpersonal relationships — how it can create enmity and contempt where none would exist in person. So the authors would probably view the hostile response the article has received in some corners of Twitter as evidence for their thesis.

The piece’s critics make some good substantive points: Journalists are supposed to be able to build productive relationships with a wide range of people; Peyser and Weiss are actually quite similar to each other and even agree on most of the topics they discussed; the piece treats disagreements on issues that matter as peripheral to whether you’re a good person or not.

But I want to make a much simpler point: You do not have to do this. You do not have some kind of civic duty to reach out to and actively befriend people you disagree with, and doing so is a very high-cost and ineffective way to address political polarization.

The undercurrent driving the Weiss/Peyser team-up is that what they’re doing is, in some way, a model for how we all should be behaving. Their piece ends with an ask from the Times: “Maybe you have a political nemesis whom you subtweet.… If so, we’ve got a challenge for you: Invite that person to have a beer or coffee, or join you in a FaceTime chat. Tell us how it went.”

That goes quite beyond what even Weiss and Peyser themselves are arguing. If they want to be friends, fine, do your thing. But the Times op-ed page as a whole appears to believe this is something you — not journalists but you, the reader, average person — should be doing, part and parcel of good citizenship.

This notion has spread widely since Trump’s election: that Americans just don’t talk to each other enough, that we need to build friendships that reach across our personal info bubbles if America is ever going to heal. You see this in Mark Duplass’s abortive attempt to build bridges with right-wing polemicist Ben Shapiro. You see it in the group Better Angels, which aims to “reduce political polarization in the United States by bringing liberals and conservatives together.” The group holds workshops that function as scaled-up versions of the Peyser/Weiss meeting, and it’s gotten copious press coverage for its efforts, including a whole David Brooks column.

[embedded content]

For journalists, understanding what other people are thinking and why is part of the job. For average citizens and voters, it’s another burden to add to the list after work, schlepping the kids to and from school, taking care of elderly family members, and attending PTA and church/synagogue/mosque meetings, etc.

What the call for cross-partisan friendships asks people to do, essentially, is to make an altruistic sacrifice of time, perhaps money, and definitely emotional energy, in an attempt to heal our politics.

But if we’re going to make that ask, we should be pretty confident that good things will come of it, because the cost is not trivial. And there is no good evidence, to the best of my knowledge, that these efforts are effective at scale.

It would be one thing if this attempt at depolarization were an attempt to persuade participants of certain specific, socially beneficial beliefs. Insofar as individual beliefs are deforming our politics, the beliefs that do so the worst involve bigotry — especially, in the American case, racist sentiment. There’s a role for small-scale persuasion in trying to reduce prejudice, as well as large-scale structural changes.

But the “can’t we all get along” gambit of Better Angels and the NYT op-ed page isn’t that. This is a small-scale attempt to make people nicer to each other, with a hope that this will somehow improve political outcomes in the United States.

And that can be a big ask. Asking a Muslim mother to sit and listen patiently as a white Trump voter explained why the “Muslim ban” appealed to him — that’s not a trivial request.

It’s not clear to me what exactly that conversation is accomplishing. The Muslim mom knows there are people who hate her and her family. She doesn’t need to be reminded face to face. She isn’t learning anything. And when the goal of the conversation is “depolarization,” not prejudice reduction, it’s far from clear that her white interlocutor will emerge with less socially deleterious views either. There’s some evidence that contact with people from a vulnerable group can reduce prejudice against that group — but notably, a recent meta-analysis concluded that the effects are weakest for racial prejudice, and the evidence sparsest when it comes to adults.

There’s also some reason to think that interventions like this, in certain circumstances, could do harm. In a wonderful paper, evocatively titled “When Going Along Gets You Nowhere and the Upside of Conflict Behaviors,” the psychologists Mina Cikara and Elizabeth Levy Paluck argued that promoting cooperation and avoiding social conflict can backfire — and promoting conflict between groups can, on occasion, bring positive change. The authors write, citing this study:

For example, an intervention, in which low-power groups (i.e., Mexican immigrants, Palestinians) were able to voice their grievances to the high-power group (i.e., White Americans, Israelis), and in which the high-power group had to take their low-power perspective, resulted in more positive regard between the groups compared to when grievances were not voiced or heard.

It seems plausible to me that Twitter could serve a purpose like that. From its very inception in the late 2000s, Twitter was massively appealing to journalists and had a disproportionately large and influential black community. This happened, probably not coincidentally, after a large “white flight” of wealthier white users from MySpace to Facebook. And it pushed white journalists into contact with black voices in a way that they (we) hadn’t been before. It was a more even playing field, where a group with less power had the same claim to a voice as a group with more power. If we should expect that forcing high-power groups to hear the perspectives of low-power groups promotes tolerance, on net, then maybe we should expect that on Twitter too.

That’s not to say Twitter is perfect; using it makes me wildly unhappy much of the time. But it does make me wonder if the Weiss/Peyser hypothesis, that Twitter prevents us from listening to each other and we should really just try to get along as people outside it, is right. And if we’re not sure that hypothesis is right, then asking that people bear significant personal costs to reach out and befriend their political enemies starts to make less sense. That goes not just for takesters but for politicians like Barack Obama, who often emphasize the value of civil discussion and collaboration ahead of heated disagreement and confrontation. We need both.

We have a tendency, as a culture, to equate morality with bearing a heavy burden. Actually running and operating an orphanage and taking care of orphans day to day looks more saintly than funding 15 orphanages while living in a mansion does. And this kind of reasoning makes for effective, click-friendly articles. “Befriend people you disagree with” seems like the kind of thing you should do but is something you probably resist doing for one reason or another (it’s hard, it’s unpleasant, etc.). That tension, between duty and revulsion, has the makings of good content.

But I don’t think it makes for good moral reasoning. If you want to heal America, donate to and vote for candidates you think can do that. Give cash to poor people in the US, or people working to reduce prejudice. Do what you feel you can. But don’t let anyone guilt you into befriending people you don’t actually want to befriend. Don’t force yourself to listen to people spouting hate against you and your family in the name of civil comity. Life is too short, and the costs are real.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.

Original Source -> The “why can’t we all just get along” theory of politics

via The Conservative Brief

[rebeccahpedersen]

Should “The Government” Regulate Rent Increases?

TorontoRealtyBlog

I couldn’t resist putting “the government” in quotations, since most people who have a problem in 2017 suggest that “the government” should do something about it.

That’s society’s answer to everything these days.

The government.  The solution to all of our problems, right?

There’s been a lot of talk about spikes in rent in the past two weeks, and I want to highlight two stories that got the most press, then discuss what, if anything, “the government” should do about it…

It never fails to amaze me when journalists find somebody to pose for the camera, giving an otherwise mundane story that much needed “artwork” to make the article pop.

I get calls all the time from reporters who want a buyer, seller, tenant, or any of the above to go on camera, pose for a photo, or even talk to them, on the record.

Nobody wants to do it.

Ever.

So I stopped asking a long time ago.

Not since 2009, and I remember the exact client, have I had somebody agree to put their name out there.

It makes sense.  As one client put it when I asked him, “It’s all well and good now, since I’m 25, and I don’t really care.  But the Internet is forever.  I don’t want to be on the outside looking in for the big CEO job when I’m 42-years-old, but some random newspaper article from 2010 shows ‘little John Smith’ posing in his living room for some story about downtown living.”

Totally fair.

And since then, having asked maybe a couple more times, getting a “no thanks” each time, I’ve stopped asking.

When reporters do call me, and I tell them I stopped asking, I tell them, “I’m always amazed when you find these people to pose for the camera, with that little rain-cloud perched above their head, looking all sad, for whatever piece you’re currently running.”

One reporter replied back to me, “So am I, but I’m sure as hell not going to tell them that.”

Toronto Life ran an awesome piece about now-bankrupt developer Urbancorp, who I’ve been complaining about for a decade, and in the piece they interviewed a host of buyers who had been screwed by the developer, and got these people to pose for the camera.

This is their feature photo for the online story:

I feel bad for that couple, as I do for everybody who bought into Urbancorp’s projects.

But I’m just amazed when people go on the record, and then pose for photos.

How about this other couple featured in the piece, who were extra sad when the flashbulb went off:

It’s incredible!

Kudos to Toronto Life for the incredible expose, but also for finding people to add “artwork” to the piece.

Personally, I would never agree to that.

Would you?

No offence to these folks, and I don’t want to sound insensitive here because I know they got royally screwed, but as my client told me years ago, “This is now on the Internet forever.”

But maybe none of this matters in 2017?

Maybe we’re so forthcoming with our social media, and life stories blasted on multiple platforms for all the world to see, that this is simply to be expected?

Log on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – you can find out what everybody you know had for breakfast, and what sized bowel-movement each of their children had this morning.

So maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be surprised when every real estate story these days has “a face” to accompany it.

And with that long lead-in, let me explain why all this matters.

Last week, a CBC reporter named Shannon Martin gave us a great piece called, “No Fixed Address: How I Became A 32-Year-Old Couch Surfer”

This piece blew up, big time.

It was, as the younger kids in my office tell me, “trending.”

The piece appeared in print, and online, and it also came with videos, which racked up thousands of views.

The online article has a whopping 607 comments right now.

If you haven’t read the article, and didn’t click above, let me summarize.

Shannon Martin was renting a 454 square-foot condo in downtown Toronto for $1,650 per month, and her landlord recently gave her notice that the rent would be increasing to $2,600/month.

There’s an audio conversation in the video piece with somebody from the Ontario Landlord & Tenant Board, who simply tells her, “You’re screwed.”

This piece went viral for a few reasons.

For starters, there’s a face and a name to the article.  It’s not random, and it’s not anonymous.  As we know from the Toronto Life article above, stories get far more attention when there’s real people involved, and when you’ve got artwork!

Secondly, this isn’t just Jane Smith, some random person that Toronto Life, or The Globe & Mail found to tell their story, and then snapped a photo of.  This is a public figure – a reporter who is on camera, online, and you can read about her at your leisure through a simple Google search.

Thirdly, and tell me if I’m wrong here, but I think the fact that she’s a single, 32-year-old woman helps.  If this was a middle-aged man sitting on the couch in his basement rental apartment, with his pot-belly bulging through his Def Leppard t-shirt, I don’t think it wouldn’t get as much attention.

And last but not least, this is a story that a lot of people can relate to.  Real estate is, and has been for some time, the biggest story in Toronto.  Whether you’re a renter, an owner, or a would-be of the two, you’re feeling the heat of this red-hot market.

All told, this story has been shared, re-Tweeted, and talked about at the proverbial water cooler (do offices still have those?)

And the take-away, as usual, is whether or not “the government” should do something about it.

I’ll save you my political rant, but as is often the case when anything goes wrong in society today, many of the onlookers, commenters, and those on the unhappy side of the real estate equation are calling on “the government” to step in and “do something.”

Do what?

What is this…….something, that people want done?

In this case, it seems, some people want the government to step in and create rental increase guidelines for condominiums – something that currently does not exist.

The rental increase guidelines only apply to units built before November of 1991.

And with about 98% of downtown Toronto condos having been built after that date (we could probably the 20-25 buildings older than 1991 if we wanted to), it means we essentially have no rent control in the downtown core.

But should we?

Should we have rent control for downtown Toronto condos?

That is the question people are asking after reading Shannon Martin’s story, and as rents continue to skyrocket.

That is also the question I want to pose to you all today.  Have your say in the comments section below, and I’m guessing this will be one of the fiercest debates in a while.

People seem pretty evenly distributed on the matter, but I feel as though it is 100% dependent on their own individual status.

Can you detach yourself from your financial and living situation to give an unbiased opinion?

Let me try first.

I believe in capitalism, I believe in the free market, and I believe in hard work.

I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative.

And I believe that increasingly in society today, there’s a jealousy toward people who have more, so much so that we’re forgetting that being successful isn’t a crime.

If a person works long and hard enough to be able to purchase a condo as an investment, and can rent it out for $1,650 one year, and $1,850 the next, then good on them.

I think what happened to Shannon Martin is terrible, but it’s also exceptionally rare.  I polled the agents in my office and asked, “Is there anywhere downtown where you see a 454 square foot condo renting for $2,600/month?”  The answer was a slew of “No’s.”

I’m not doubting Ms. Martin’s claim, but rather I think this was a case of the landlord wanting her out, not the landlord being able to get $2,600/month for the unit.  In my professional opinion, that rent is absolutely, impossible to obtain on a standard one-year lease.

So excluding these outliers and exceptions to the rule, do you think that a landlord should be able to charge market rent, or should a landlord’s actions be limited by some wing of government?

If it’s the latter, then by how much?

Because if the real estate market is going up 20% in a year, then how can you possibly set rental increase guidelines?

Or how about this – if property taxes went up 10%, then is it really fair for the government, who increases the taxes/expenses on the condo, to follow up with a limit on the increase in rent by, say, 2%?

As I said, the feedback seems evenly distributed on this.

And Ms. Martin’s first article spawned a second.

Check this one out:

“Why Toronto’s Condo Market Is Described As ‘Ridiculous’”

Yet another “real, live person” who put her name to the story, and posed for a photo.

Her rent was increased too.

There’s that saying in the media, “Don’t read the comments.”  It’s what journalists tell each other, since so much of the commenting these days focuses on the writer or author, rather than the content.

But I like to troll the comments to see what the anonymous public thinks.

On that story above, the first two comments were the following, and do not skim these:

Could they be any different?

This is what I find so interesting!  People are so evenly split!

And once again, I have to put in my two cents, for what it’s worth.

I completely agree with the first person, and I think his point hits the mark.

I completely disagree with the second person, who I deem to be uninformed, naive, and possibly of simple-mind.

The point about “living in the big city” being a “choice” is exactly what I’ve always said.

And along with that, comes the idea that being successful isn’t a crime, and dare I say that on the opposite side of the coin – being unsuccessful, doesn’t mean you should always be bailed out.

A good friend of mine finds himself unable to afford housing in Toronto, and he laments his situation.

I was honest with him a while back.  I told him that in 1998, the day before we went off to university, he made a personal choice not to go, but rather to stay behind and chase his dream of being a rockstar.

It didn’t work out.  The millions didn’t flow in.  And as a result, he’s not building a house next to Drake on The Bridle Path.

There will always be haves and have-nots in society.  It’s impossible not to see it this way.

And as “Howard Roark” points out, those who make a choice to live in Toronto, need to pay the going rate for Toronto housing.  Otherwise, there are options outside the city.  Living in Toronto is not a fundamental right, and “the government” shouldn’t subsidize everybody and anybody who can’t afford to live here.

As for “Meghan Johnston” and her comments, I don’t think she really knows much on this, but rather wanted to hear the sound of her own voice.

“…the pre sales are sold in Shanghai before they’re even listed in Canada.”

This is what 2017 has come to.  People just say things, with no idea what they’re talking about, and zero burden of proof because they’re anonymous.

“The govt needs to act and fine.”

“It really is extortion.”

“File human rights complaints.  It’s real.”

Where do people get this stuff?

Is this representative of public opinion?  Does this person’s ideas, and her ability to self-express, represent a good section of society out there today?

Does somebody really think you can file a human rights complaint because your landlord raised your rent?

I have to agree with “Howard Roark.”  Many people out there today feel entitled to “a lifestyle they can’t afford.”

The second article has a sub-heading, in bold, that reads, “Everybody wants to live here.”

So maybe that is the real problem?

Needs versus wants?

Supply versus demand?

If “everybody” wants to live downtown, then that skews the balance between supply and demand, right?

Is it any wonder that prices are going to increase?

And before somebody says, “Well why does every landlord have to charge more money just because they can,” I’ll tell you that I’m not prepared to get into a debate about human nature today.

So what do you say, folks?

The post Should “The Government” Regulate Rent Increases? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2lbCd3r

[newstfionline]

Web of Investigations Entangles Israel’s ‘King Bibi’

Reuters, Jan. 19, 2017

JERUSALEM--Benjamin Netanyahu has spent 30 years in public office, including 11 years as Israel’s prime minister, but this year his political future is being called into question as seldom before.

Police say they have questioned Netanyahu twice since Jan. 2 at his official residence in Jerusalem in two separate criminal cases involving allegations of abuse of office.

Netanyahu, known to supporters and opponents as “Bibi”, has denied any wrongdoing, saying repeatedly: “there will be nothing because there is nothing”. No charges have been brought.

Almost every night on television and every day in newspapers since Jan. 2, purported leaks have appeared describing what the media say are details of the investigation.

Prosecutors have confirmed almost none of what has emerged, only that Netanyahu has been questioned and that one of the cases relates to gifts he received from businessmen.

The leaks, though, have fueled opposition calls for him to go, and separate opinion polls conducted on behalf of the Jerusalem Post, the Walla news website, the Globes business newspaper and Channel 2 all show his party’s popularity is slipping. Netanyahu has said the media is out to get him and he has no intention of stepping down.

“This orchestrated campaign includes media people who are acting not just as journalists but also as investigators, judges and executioners,” he told a weekly meeting on Monday of legislators from his right-wing Likud party, who welcomed him with chants of “King Bibi”.

“I intend to keep leading the Likud and the country for many more years.”

In the second investigation, Haaretz newspaper and Channel Two news say police have tapes of Netanyahu speaking to an Israeli newspaper publisher about a mutually beneficial deal. Sections of transcripts, which Reuters has not independently authenticated, have been aired nightly for the past week.

The attorney-general has confirmed recordings exist, but has said he does not intend to release them yet.

The first case Netanyahu has been questioned about, according to a Justice Ministry statement, involves receiving gifts from businessmen. Under Israeli law, public servants and their immediate family are prohibited from taking gifts or receiving benefits, unless they are small gifts that conform to “social norms”.

According to Haaretz, one of the businessmen was Arnon Milchan, an Israeli-born Hollywood producer, who supplied Netanyahu and his wife with hundreds of thousands of shekels (1 shekel=$0.26) of cigars and champagne.

Netanyahu’s lawyers do not dispute that he received gifts, but say there was nothing wrong in getting presents from personal friends. Milchan’s lawyer in Israel, who is handling the matter, declined to comment.

Channel 10 and Haaretz have said the second businessman who supplied Netanyahu and his family with gifts was Australian casino tycoon James Packer. Channel Ten reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu’s son Yair, 25, whom the Prime Minister’s Office said is a friend of Packer, was questioned by police.

Representatives of Packer, who owns a home in Israel and has high-tech investments in the country, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to Channel 10, the gifts included tickets to a Mariah Carey concert in Israel for Netanyahu’s wife Sara, gourmet meals for the family and Packer hosting Yair Netanyahu at his home in Colorado, aboard his yacht and at a hotel room in New York.

Media reports regarding the second case have startled many in Israel, because they say Netanyahu discussed a possible deal with a man many people believed to be his sworn enemy.

According to Channel Two, Netanyahu is being investigated over discussions with Arnon Mozes, owner and publisher of the widely-read Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, to receive positive coverage in exchange for Netanyahu-backed legislation that would limit the distribution of competing free daily Israel Today.

Israel Today is financed by U.S. casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is a Netanyahu supporter. The paper is staunchly pro-Netanyahu. In 2014, the opposition proposed a bill to restrict its distribution. Netanyahu opposed it, and shortly afterwards called early elections, which he won.

Netanyahu has accused Mozes and his newspaper several times of trying to topple him. During the 2015 election campaign, Yedioth Ahronoth took an editorial line against Netanyahu, frequently running critical reports on him.

Netanyahu’s conversations with Mozes were recorded in the run-up to the March 2015 election at the prime minister’s request by a former staff member, and the tapes were seized by police in a separate investigation, according to Channel Two and Haaretz.

The newspaper’s editor, Ron Yaron, published a front-page op-ed on Sunday in which he said that had such a deal between Netanyahu and Mozes been concluded, Yedioth Ahronoth’s entire staff would have resigned.

Netanyahu said Yedioth Ahronoth’s negative attitude towards him and Israel Today’s operations remained unchanged. “Every evening, filtered, carefully chosen transcripts are disseminated,” the prime minister’s Facebook response said.

According to what Channel Two described as excerpts from a transcript of a Netanyahu-Mozes conversation, the prime minister told the newspaper publisher: “We’re talking about moderation, about reasonable reporting, to lower the level of hostility towards me from 9.5 to 7.5.”

It quoted Mozes as replying: “We have to make sure that you’re prime minister.”

Channel Two also aired what it described as excerpts in which the two men discuss limiting Israel Today’s circulation through legislation and Mozes asks Netanyahu to suggest names of journalists he would like to see write in the newspaper.

Yair Tarchitsky, the chairman of Israel’s Journalists’ Union, said the suggestions of a backroom deal were shocking.

“I would never have imagined these two big enemies would be sitting down together and discussing how to shape Israel and the media landscape,” he told Reuters.

“This deal, if it’s really true, is a threat to Israel as a democratic state and to freedom of the press.”

Netanyahu is not the first Israeli leader to have faced criminal investigation: former prime minister Ehud Olmert was convicted of breach of trust and bribery in 2014 and Ariel Sharon, premier from 2001-2006, was questioned while in office over allegations of bribery and campaign financing illegalities. He was not convicted.

[rebeccahpedersen]

Should “The Government” Regulate Rent Increases?

TorontoRealtyBlog

I couldn’t resist putting “the government” in quotations, since most people who have a problem in 2017 suggest that “the government” should do something about it.

That’s society’s answer to everything these days.

The government.  The solution to all of our problems, right?

There’s been a lot of talk about spikes in rent in the past two weeks, and I want to highlight two stories that got the most press, then discuss what, if anything, “the government” should do about it…

It never fails to amaze me when journalists find somebody to pose for the camera, giving an otherwise mundane story that much needed “artwork” to make the article pop.

I get calls all the time from reporters who want a buyer, seller, tenant, or any of the above to go on camera, pose for a photo, or even talk to them, on the record.

Nobody wants to do it.

Ever.

So I stopped asking a long time ago.

Not since 2009, and I remember the exact client, have I had somebody agree to put their name out there.

It makes sense.  As one client put it when I asked him, “It’s all well and good now, since I’m 25, and I don’t really care.  But the Internet is forever.  I don’t want to be on the outside looking in for the big CEO job when I’m 42-years-old, but some random newspaper article from 2010 shows ‘little John Smith’ posing in his living room for some story about downtown living.”

Totally fair.

And since then, having asked maybe a couple more times, getting a “no thanks” each time, I’ve stopped asking.

When reporters do call me, and I tell them I stopped asking, I tell them, “I’m always amazed when you find these people to pose for the camera, with that little rain-cloud perched above their head, looking all sad, for whatever piece you’re currently running.”

One reporter replied back to me, “So am I, but I’m sure as hell not going to tell them that.”

Toronto Life ran an awesome piece about now-bankrupt developer Urbancorp, who I’ve been complaining about for a decade, and in the piece they interviewed a host of buyers who had been screwed by the developer, and got these people to pose for the camera.

This is their feature photo for the online story:

I feel bad for that couple, as I do for everybody who bought into Urbancorp’s projects.

But I’m just amazed when people go on the record, and then pose for photos.

How about this other couple featured in the piece, who were extra sad when the flashbulb went off:

It’s incredible!

Kudos to Toronto Life for the incredible expose, but also for finding people to add “artwork” to the piece.

Personally, I would never agree to that.

Would you?

No offence to these folks, and I don’t want to sound insensitive here because I know they got royally screwed, but as my client told me years ago, “This is now on the Internet forever.”

But maybe none of this matters in 2017?

Maybe we’re so forthcoming with our social media, and life stories blasted on multiple platforms for all the world to see, that this is simply to be expected?

Log on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – you can find out what everybody you know had for breakfast, and what sized bowel-movement each of their children had this morning.

So maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be surprised when every real estate story these days has “a face” to accompany it.

And with that long lead-in, let me explain why all this matters.

Last week, a CBC reporter named Shannon Martin gave us a great piece called, “No Fixed Address: How I Became A 32-Year-Old Couch Surfer”

This piece blew up, big time.

It was, as the younger kids in my office tell me, “trending.”

The piece appeared in print, and online, and it also came with videos, which racked up thousands of views.

The online article has a whopping 607 comments right now.

If you haven’t read the article, and didn’t click above, let me summarize.

Shannon Martin was renting a 454 square-foot condo in downtown Toronto for $1,650 per month, and her landlord recently gave her notice that the rent would be increasing to $2,600/month.

There’s an audio conversation in the video piece with somebody from the Ontario Landlord & Tenant Board, who simply tells her, “You’re screwed.”

This piece went viral for a few reasons.

For starters, there’s a face and a name to the article.  It’s not random, and it’s not anonymous.  As we know from the Toronto Life article above, stories get far more attention when there’s real people involved, and when you’ve got artwork!

Secondly, this isn’t just Jane Smith, some random person that Toronto Life, or The Globe & Mail found to tell their story, and then snapped a photo of.  This is a public figure – a reporter who is on camera, online, and you can read about her at your leisure through a simple Google search.

Thirdly, and tell me if I’m wrong here, but I think the fact that she’s a single, 32-year-old woman helps.  If this was a middle-aged man sitting on the couch in his basement rental apartment, with his pot-belly bulging through his Def Leppard t-shirt, I don’t think it wouldn’t get as much attention.

And last but not least, this is a story that a lot of people can relate to.  Real estate is, and has been for some time, the biggest story in Toronto.  Whether you’re a renter, an owner, or a would-be of the two, you’re feeling the heat of this red-hot market.

All told, this story has been shared, re-Tweeted, and talked about at the proverbial water cooler (do offices still have those?)

And the take-away, as usual, is whether or not “the government” should do something about it.

I’ll save you my political rant, but as is often the case when anything goes wrong in society today, many of the onlookers, commenters, and those on the unhappy side of the real estate equation are calling on “the government” to step in and “do something.”

Do what?

What is this…….something, that people want done?

In this case, it seems, some people want the government to step in and create rental increase guidelines for condominiums – something that currently does not exist.

The rental increase guidelines only apply to units built before November of 1991.

And with about 98% of downtown Toronto condos having been built after that date (we could probably the 20-25 buildings older than 1991 if we wanted to), it means we essentially have no rent control in the downtown core.

But should we?

Should we have rent control for downtown Toronto condos?

That is the question people are asking after reading Shannon Martin’s story, and as rents continue to skyrocket.

That is also the question I want to pose to you all today.  Have your say in the comments section below, and I’m guessing this will be one of the fiercest debates in a while.

People seem pretty evenly distributed on the matter, but I feel as though it is 100% dependent on their own individual status.

Can you detach yourself from your financial and living situation to give an unbiased opinion?

Let me try first.

I believe in capitalism, I believe in the free market, and I believe in hard work.

I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative.

And I believe that increasingly in society today, there’s a jealousy toward people who have more, so much so that we’re forgetting that being successful isn’t a crime.

If a person works long and hard enough to be able to purchase a condo as an investment, and can rent it out for $1,650 one year, and $1,850 the next, then good on them.

I think what happened to Shannon Martin is terrible, but it’s also exceptionally rare.  I polled the agents in my office and asked, “Is there anywhere downtown where you see a 454 square foot condo renting for $2,600/month?”  The answer was a slew of “No’s.”

I’m not doubting Ms. Martin’s claim, but rather I think this was a case of the landlord wanting her out, not the landlord being able to get $2,600/month for the unit.  In my professional opinion, that rent is absolutely, impossible to obtain on a standard one-year lease.

So excluding these outliers and exceptions to the rule, do you think that a landlord should be able to charge market rent, or should a landlord’s actions be limited by some wing of government?

If it’s the latter, then by how much?

Because if the real estate market is going up 20% in a year, then how can you possibly set rental increase guidelines?

Or how about this – if property taxes went up 10%, then is it really fair for the government, who increases the taxes/expenses on the condo, to follow up with a limit on the increase in rent by, say, 2%?

As I said, the feedback seems evenly distributed on this.

And Ms. Martin’s first article spawned a second.

Check this one out:

“Why Toronto’s Condo Market Is Described As ‘Ridiculous’”

Yet another “real, live person” who put her name to the story, and posed for a photo.

Her rent was increased too.

There’s that saying in the media, “Don’t read the comments.”  It’s what journalists tell each other, since so much of the commenting these days focuses on the writer or author, rather than the content.

But I like to troll the comments to see what the anonymous public thinks.

On that story above, the first two comments were the following, and do not skim these:

Could they be any different?

This is what I find so interesting!  People are so evenly split!

And once again, I have to put in my two cents, for what it’s worth.

I completely agree with the first person, and I think his point hits the mark.

I completely disagree with the second person, who I deem to be uninformed, naive, and possibly of simple-mind.

The point about “living in the big city” being a “choice” is exactly what I’ve always said.

And along with that, comes the idea that being successful isn’t a crime, and dare I say that on the opposite side of the coin – being unsuccessful, doesn’t mean you should always be bailed out.

A good friend of mine finds himself unable to afford housing in Toronto, and he laments his situation.

I was honest with him a while back.  I told him that in 1998, the day before we went off to university, he made a personal choice not to go, but rather to stay behind and chase his dream of being a rockstar.

It didn’t work out.  The millions didn’t flow in.  And as a result, he’s not building a house next to Drake on The Bridle Path.

There will always be haves and have-nots in society.  It’s impossible not to see it this way.

And as “Howard Roark” points out, those who make a choice to live in Toronto, need to pay the going rate for Toronto housing.  Otherwise, there are options outside the city.  Living in Toronto is not a fundamental right, and “the government” shouldn’t subsidize everybody and anybody who can’t afford to live here.

As for “Meghan Johnston” and her comments, I don’t think she really knows much on this, but rather wanted to hear the sound of her own voice.

“…the pre sales are sold in Shanghai before they’re even listed in Canada.”

This is what 2017 has come to.  People just say things, with no idea what they’re talking about, and zero burden of proof because they’re anonymous.

“The govt needs to act and fine.”

“It really is extortion.”

“File human rights complaints.  It’s real.”

Where do people get this stuff?

Is this representative of public opinion?  Does this person’s ideas, and her ability to self-express, represent a good section of society out there today?

Does somebody really think you can file a human rights complaint because your landlord raised your rent?

I have to agree with “Howard Roark.”  Many people out there today feel entitled to “a lifestyle they can’t afford.”

The second article has a sub-heading, in bold, that reads, “Everybody wants to live here.”

So maybe that is the real problem?

Needs versus wants?

Supply versus demand?

If “everybody” wants to live downtown, then that skews the balance between supply and demand, right?

Is it any wonder that prices are going to increase?

And before somebody says, “Well why does every landlord have to charge more money just because they can,” I’ll tell you that I’m not prepared to get into a debate about human nature today.

So what do you say, folks?

The post Should “The Government” Regulate Rent Increases? appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from http://ift.tt/2lbCd3r