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delightfullyatomicfest · 3 years ago

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John and Yoko interview with Melody Maker pt 2

MELODY MAKER DECEMBER 13 1969-

JOHN LENNON’S “PEACE Crusade” inspires a variety of emotions in people. Sadly, few of those emotions are worthy ones. John and Yoko have been mercilessly lampooned and vilified by the public and the mass media, and a great proportion of this reaction has been thoughtless and hurtful.

It would surely have been enough to make any lesser man, whose heart was not in his cause, retire from the field to a more comfortable, less publicised existence. But not the Lennons.

They have kept up their output of peaceful propaganda in the face of a ceaseless barrage of insults, and the time will surely come when even their most jaundiced and gout-ridden detractors will realise their essential honesty, and their right to exercise it in the way they most see fit.

But like it or not, John Lennon and his lovely wife are in the process of becoming leaders in the public eye. They stand for a cause, and as public figures they can be held responsible for the failings and excesses of that cause.

This is not how they want it. Leadership in any form is the last cloak which Lennon wishes to put on, as he told me.

“I’m not falling for that one. Like Peter Seeger said, we don't have a leader but we have a song -‘Give Peace A Chance'. So I refuse to be leader, and I'll always showmy genitals or do something which prevents me from being Martin Luther King or Ghandi and getting killed. Because that’s what happens to leaders. Our whole mistake is having leaders and people we can rely on or point a finger at.”

Yoko, as always at John's side, chipped in: “For instance, many people say if you want to do that kind of thing, about peace, don't do anything that is misleading like showing your genitals. Always keep a clean image so that people can believe in your peace movement.

“But that's exactly what the establishment is doing (“And that's what the Beatles did too” - John) , taking their children to church on Sundays.

This is showing that, ‘I'm the President of the United States and I'm alright and I'm healthy and very moral et cetera.' You don't get anywhere that way-you become just another hypocrite, and you're playing the establishment game. We don’t want to do that. We try to be honest and the point is, if we are really honest, just to make it between us is a lifetime thing, and if we can't make it together and endure each other, the world is nowhere.

“If ordinary couples can make it together and make it with their children and so forth, love-wise (“She doesn't mean ‘make it' as you ‘lay"’ - John) , then you can look after the world.”

John continued, “One thing we've found out is that love is a great gift, like a precious flower or something. You have to feed it and look after it, and it has storms to go through and snow, but you have to protect it. It's like a pet cat. You know, people get a cat and they don't want to feed it, or they get a dog and they don't want to walk it. But love has to be nurtured like a very sensitive animal, because that's what it is.

“And you have to work at love; you don't just sit round with it and it doesn't just do it for you. You’ve got to be very careful with it; it’s the most delicate thingyou can be given. It's a very delicate situation.”

What will John and Yoko do about Vietnam and Biafra, which John mentioned in the letter that accompanied his MBE back to the Queen?

“We'll keep promoting peace in the way we do, which, whichever way you look at it, is our way, because we're artists and not politicians. We don't organise; we do itin the best way we know how, to make people aware that, if they want war to stop, only they can do it.

“The politicians can’t do it. I think our whole movement is successful, as shown by Nixon, who's having to wriggle around a bit now and make propaganda films about the Moratorium claiming that the ‘silent majority' is with him, with a highly polished Negro in an Italian suit

saying how great it is to be American. Nixon has been moved by the peace movement - that includes John and Yoko and all the people in the world who are doing it, and that’s how we're going to change it. We’re not going to Vietnam to die for it or going to Biafra to die for it. We’ve considered everything, not dying but going to the places.

“People prefer a dead saint to a living annoyance like John and Yoko. But we don’t intend to be dead saints for people’s convenience. They prefer Ghandi and Martin Luther King since they died, but you should see them in India now, celebrating Ghandi Year - anything less like Ghandi's principles going on in India you’ve never seen. It’s a hoax. And so we don't intend to be dead saints - or living saints either. People don't like saints.”

Their highly unusual Wedding Album has caused its share of controversy. Why did they make it?

Yoko: “It's like a diary, it reflects our love and peace ideas.”

John: “When people get married they usually make their own wedding albums. We're public personalities and I'd enjoy reading Jackie and Onassis' album. Our wedding was public, we were sharing our diaries and our feelings with the world. So one side shows our involvement with each other, and the other side shows what we do together outside of our involvement with each other, which is promote peace.”

Isn't there a danger that the diary of Yoko and John will become too public?

“We have nothing to hide. ‘ Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey 9 , you know? We keep certain parts of our life private because we’re not as wild as people think. I doubt if we'll ever make love in public, or invite the TV cameras into our bedroom, and I doubt if I’ll ever go to the toilet in public. Just because I think some things, I don’t want to show that side of me.”

Yoko: “We’re from a certain generation, you can’t deny that, and for people in our generation it is so difficult, and maybe the next John and Yoko will...”

“Show all,” said John. “Maybe we will before we die. People hide themselves from each other all the time, and everybody’s frightened of saying something nice about somebody in case they don’t say anything nice back, or in case they get hurt, or of looking at somebody in case they say, ‘What are you looking at? ’

“Everybody’s so uptight and they’re always building these walls around themselves. All you can do is try and break the walls down and show that there’s nothing there but PEOPLE . It’s just like looking in the mirror, there’s nothing to worry about- it’s only people.”

Yoko : “And even we are not relaxed enough as people. We have many complexities and tensions. We try hard to be honest and expose ourselves, but there are certain things that we just can’t. . . Maybe in the next generation they can, good luck to them. We’re trying hard as we are”

John has always tried to carry out his philosophies and campaigns in a sense of fun. Are they, as some cynics suggest, in fact taking the mickey?

“That’s true, although we’re not taking the mickey. Everybody’s frightened of being conned, of being tricked. If you say something nice to somebody they ’re not sure if you mean it, so that rather than respond to your loving movement they’ll rej ect you, and that’s what the press do .

Because they’re frightened of what we did with the MBE about the Biafra thing, they’ll write about my Auntie Mimi’s reaction to me giving the MBE back, because they don’t want to fall for the con of ‘Is he joking? ’

“Of course we’re joking as well. We mustn’t take ourselves too seriously, otherwise it’s the end. We think the mistake of everyone - Ghandi and Martin Luther King AND the left wing AND the students and all society - is taking it too seriously. If you take it seriously, it IS serious. What we try and do is be non-serious about things, but we are very serious about being not serious.”

Yoko : “We maybe too serious, even. We try to have a sense of humour and we try to smile at everyone a really genuine smile from the bottom of our hearts. But it’s very difficult for our generation to really genuinely smile, but we’re trying.”

John: “It’s like when I sent the MBE back, and I wrote that it was against Britain’s involvement in Biafra and Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts. When we thought of that we were screaming with laughter, and so a few snobs and hypocrites got very upset about mentioning ‘Cold Turkey’ with the problem of Biafra and Vietnam, but that saved it from being too serious and being another colonel protesting! You have to try and do every thing with humour, and keep smiling.”

Richard Williams

#john #Yoko #melody maker #December 1969

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enthusiasticsobrietyabuse · 4 years ago

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Bob Meehan - Times Advocate: Sunday, August 26, 1984

The story of a con man who helps kids kick drugs

Robert Meehan describes himself as a hippie, a rebel, a former heroin addict and a con man. There is no one better qualified, in his mind, to help teenagers get off drugs.

Meehan is the director of a Valley Center drug-rehabilitation program for young drug abusers called SLIC - Sober Live-In Center - Ranch. The former director of a major Houston-based drug rehabilitation program, Meehan has won high praise from clients and their parents, who have included comedians Carol Burnett and Tim Conway.

Despite that praise, however, Meehan's methods have attracted considerable controversy. He left the Houston Palmer Drug program in 1980, after television reports questioned the accuracy of the program's vaunted success rate and Meehan's possible conflict of interest in receiving a lucrative hospital consulting fee.

Meehan's problems did not end when he left Houston, however.

The county has declared SLIC Ranch to be in violation of zoning ordinances, and the state has threatened to close it down unless Meehan gets proper license to run a drug-treatment program. The county has also questioned SLIC's ties to a burgeoning self-help drug program called Freeway that has a satellite programs throughout San Diego County.

SLIC, which charges $4,000 a month and caters mainly to children of affluent parents, has also prompted concerns among drug-counseling professionals. Some worry that the cost of the program is excessive and that it relies heavily on non-professional counselors to provide treatment. They also express concern that Meehan could exert undue influence over his impressionable young charges.

Meehan established SLIC Ranch in 1981 as a privately-funded live-in center for young drug abusers requiring daily counseling to overcome their habits. Between 10 and 16 young people live in a rambling ranch-style house, supervised by Meehan and recovered drug-abusers who have gone through the SLIC program themselves.

While two professional psychologists are associated with the program, the emphasis is on former drug addicts and recovered alcoholics whose counseling approach is: "I've been there before." Meehan himself is a former heroin addict and recovered alcoholic.

Meehan, who wears his hair shoulder-length and sports tight designer jeans and a gold chain necklace, both dresses and acts hip - partly, he says, to gain the trust of his young clients.

"They say, 'Wow, look at this crazy old hippie,'" said Meehan, who does not care to modernize his image.

"I'm still a rebel. I'm still a hippie. I don't know how to change. I love the cause. I feel like I've got as righteous a cause as the Vietnam War."

Meehan said he can understand how parents bringing their kids to SLIC might be leery of him, given his appearance.

"I don't know if I'd trust me," he said, laughing. "But beneath this hair is a red neck. I'm a Republican. Voted for Reagan."

But when he talks about drugs, Meehan speaks in a voice that teenagers can understand.

"It's the Cheech-and-Chong generation," Meehan is fond of saying to his clients. "They're committing suicide on the installment plan."

Meehan often harps on the comedy team of Cheech and Chong, whose trademark is overindulgence in marijuana. In sharp contrast to some health professionals, Meehan regards marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs used by teenagers.

"Marijuana is the most insidious chemical in society today," because it affects the mind, Meehan said. "I'd rather the kids were shooting heroin."

Meehan's message and his style often prompt adulation from the young people in his care.

"He has the answer to everything," said 16-year-old girl from La Jolla who said she was having trouble getting along with her mother, who had recently remarried. "He has love. It's like one big family. We work together and play together, and it's fun. And Bob's our big daddy."

Meehan, 41, the son of an Irish policeman, grew up in Baltimore. He said he started taking drugs at age 12.

He became an alcoholic and a heroin addict, spending four years in state and federal prisons for drug convictions. While in a Texas jail, Meehan was befriended by an Episcopalian priest. Upon his release he became the janitor for the Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston.

The priest urged Meehan to stay off drugs by counseling some of the local kids with drug problems of their own. Meehan said that at the time he was "a crazy kid with a 'hellatious' ego and visions of grandeur" and too flattered to turn down the offer.

The informal, self-help group began in 1972 with six members. It grew to become the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, which, according to Meehan, has had 30,000 participants. Meehan described it as "the most powerful drug program in the world."

It was closely modeled after the Alcoholics Anonymous program, with recovered abusers helping their peers.

Palmer garnered national publicity in the late 1970s, when actress Carol Burnett sent her daughter, Carrie Hamilton, there for treatment. Burnett was so impressed with her daughter's improvement that she and her husband accompanied Meehan on the "Phil Donahue Show" and other television shows to tout the program's success.

But Meehan's claims that his program had a cure rate of 75 percent to 80 percent attracted some sharp scrutiny.

In January 1980, CBS' "60 Minutes" TV program broadcast a piece on Palmer. According to a transcript of the broadcast, Meehan conceded under repeated questioning by Dan Rather that he did not have documentation to support his alleged success rate.

Rather also questioned Meehan's $50,000 annual consulting fee from a Houston hospital to which Palmer routinely sent young drug addicts for costly medical treatment. Meehan said during the interview that he saw no conflict of interest.

Meehan was also asked about his power to "persuade" some of the program's vulnerable young clients.

"I have that power," Meehan said. "I certainly do. I've been a con all my life. Just now I'm using it in a good way, see."

Following the "60 Minutes" piece, Meehan was asked to leave Palmer. In retrospect, Meehan now says, he could have prevented his firing by paying more attention to program details.

"I wasn't doing a damn thing wrong," he said. "I didn't mind the store. I was naive."

Meehan came to San Diego to work for Contemporary Health Inc., which was consulting with Center City Hospital, now Harborview Hospital, to establish a drug-abuse program. But his work for the hospital was short-lived.

"My methods are very unorthodox," Meehan said. "I was always fighting the staff."

While working for the hospital, however, Meehan helped establish a self-help counseling program called Freeway. It was modeled directly after Palmer and named after a rock music group formed at Palmer to entertain the kids in the program.

Freeway was started in 1982 by Jac Coupe, a former Palmer counselor, and by other Palmer employees who has left Texas after Meehan's departure. It now has centers in Coronado, Point Loma, Solana Beach and the newest one in Fallbrook.

The program, whose services are free, is funded in each community by local civic groups and churches. It is open to people 13 to 25 seeking help for drug and alcohol problems.

Participants are encouraged to attend weekly group-counseling sessions and to follow a 12-step program to achieve sobriety. Those who are severely addicted are referred for hospital treatment. In some cases, however, Freeway counselors conclude that a young person needs more intensive counseling - at SLIC Ranch.

Those who go to SLIC for a typical one-month stay range in age from 13 to 24, with the average age about 16. Most are psychologically - not physically - addicted to drugs. They have come to get free of dependence on marijuana, alcohol, speed and LSD.

Pat, a 19-year-old Rancho Santa Fe youth, realized he needed help when he mugged a woman to get money for his $600-a-week cocaine habit. John, a 21-year-old alcoholic from Clairemont, had tried a variety of alcohol treatment programs with no success.

SLIC participants live in a spacious ranch house, set among the oaks and hills of Valley Center, with a garden and pond-shaped swimming pool. They share bedrooms dormitory-style, with three or four to a room.

The participants are required to prepare their own meals to their own tastes, and there are no planned menus. Cereal and hot dogs are staples.

The rules prohibit drugs, alcohol, sex and violence. However, smoking, which is allowed, is prevalent.

"We don't care about cigarettes, diets and vitamin intake," Meehan said.

Participants spend most of their days in counseling. During their free time they are allowed to lounge by the pool and play rock music, much to the dismay of the neighbors. Occasional field trips are taken to Disneyland and other amusement centers.

SLIC residents are supervised by a staff of six, most former SLIC residents themselves. At least one staff person is on duty 24 hours a day.

One of the supervisors, Jackie Moors, 26 got off drugs a year ago after going through the SLIC program. Moors, who started doing drugs at age 10 and progressed until she was shooting up crystal methamphetamine, credits SLIC with turning her life around.

"The next stop would have been either jail or death" without SLIC, she said. The program worked, she said, because "people really cared about me." Her young son stays with her at the ranch.

Meehan said one goal of the center is to show residents "how to have more fun sober" than on drugs or alcohol.

Every weekday SLIC residents are transported by van to a rented house in Escondido, where they spend six hours in therapy and discussion.

The sessions are directed by Meehan and by Peter Sterman, a psychological assistant, who cannot practice without supervision of a licensed psychologist. His supervisor is Dr. Carl E. Morgan of San Diego.

In the evenings and on weekends, the residents are often taken to meetings of Freeway or Alcoholics Anonymous.

Last month the state notified Meehan that the center was operating without a license and threatened to close it down unless the center meets state standards required for a so-called residential-care license.

SLIC has been operating without a license because Meehan has successfully dodged the requirements, according to Tom Hersant, director of the San Diego office of the state's Community Care Licensing Division.

He told state officials that the ranch was operating not as a residential-care center providing therapy to live-in clients, but as a "boarding house," with the boarders receiving their counseling off the ranch in an Escondido house.

Meehan told the Times-Advocate that he attempted to avoid licensing to keep costs down.

Last month state investigators who has been suspicious of the arrangement finally confront SLIC officials.

"They told us, 'All right, already. We do provide therapy,'" Hersant said. "Suddenly now they're 'fessing up that they offer therapy."

State officials informed Meehan that a license would be needed.

To obtain a license the center would have to meet fire safety standards, provide a medical checkup for new clients to insure they are getting the appropriate treatment, and keep records evaluating the clients' progress. SLIC would no longer be allowed, as it does now, to mix clients younger than 18 with those older than 18.

Please see Ranch, page B2

Meehan has insisted that the licensing requirements are minor. He said he would comply, though he feels that the regulations would bring too much formality to the relaxed way he runs the program.

Not only must the ranch be licensed, but the counseling program run at the Escondido house must obtain a separate license to offer drug counseling. Once a facility is licensed, the state inspects it once a year to insure that standards are met.

Hersant said SLIC has agreed to apply for the two licenses. The licensing approval usually takes 90 days. If no licenses are obtained, he said, the state will move to shut SLIC down.

Meehan said he plans to meet the state requirements, but he dislikes the paperwork.

"I will comply to whatever extent I have to, to help young people," he said. "At the same time, I just want to do my thing."

Meehan said his problems with the state occurred because of negative publicity generated by the ranch's landlord, Clayton Blehm, an Escondido accountant. Blehm was sentenced in June to one year in jail for zoning violations at the Valley Center property that included adding illegal structures around the ranch. He is out on bail awaiting an appeal.

Blehm has also been cited by county zoning officials for allowing SLIC to move in without getting a major use permit - required to run a treatment center in a rural-residential area. The zoning investigations were prompted by complaints from neighbors, some of whom said that a drug treatment center did not belong in their quiet neighborhood and that they were repeatedly disturbed by loud music.

Last year SLIC and Freeway were the subject of an "informal investigation" by the county Division of Drug Programs. The investigation was prompted partly by complaints from a San Diego city schools official concerned that Freeway encouraged some young persons to stay away from school for one to three months to avoid their drug-using friends.

The report concluded that the complaint was the result of lack of communication between the school district and Freeway and that the two should work out an understanding.

The county investigation was also prompted by concerns about SLIC's relationship with Freeway.

"On the surface," the report said, "one might question the referral relationship, since both program directors hold a personal acquaintance that foes back to the Palmer Drug Abuse Program in Houston. However, DDP has no documentation information to suggest there is any impropriety or conflict of interest in the referral process."

Meehan said he has no break-down on where SLIC clients come from, but that many are referred by Freeway. He said SLIC and Freeway have no financial arrangements, because that would be unethical.

"There can't be," he said. "There's absolutely no financial arrangement either way."

Meehan urges all SLIC residents to attend Freeway counseling sessions after they leave the ranch. That is critical to staying sober, according to Meehan.

"If we can't hook a kid into Freeway," he said, "his chances are less than 60 percent of making it."

Some who go through the SLIC program are advised to live with "Freeway families" for several months, rather than with their own families. Meehan defended the practice for some clients, contending they would fall back into bad habits at home.

Asked whether continued reliance on Freeway would hurt a client's chances of becoming independent, Meehan said, "It's a very safe group of friends to have. I don't know if it's an unhealthy dependency."

According to Meehan, 90 percent of those who have gone through the SLIC program in the past 18 months have remained sober or off drugs after they left. He said that figure comes from undocumented reports from Freeway officials. "I hate statistics," he said.

Despite its concerns, the County Division of Drug programs concluded that there was "no documentable evidence" to prevent the county from recommending SLIC and Freeway as treatment centers.

At the time of the investigation, Meehan was serving the first year of a three-year term on the county's Advisory Committee on Drug Abuse. The 11-member volunteer committee helps county officials select drug-treatment programs to receive county money.

Freeway centers, which are privately funded, are generally located in affluent regions of the county.

"They're in the ones that can pay for it," Meehan said. "They have raised the money."

Parents in those communities can also afford to send their children to SLIC. The $4,000-a-month cost of attending SLIC has raised eyebrows among professional drug counselors.

By comparison, the county-funded McAllister Institute of Training and Education in El Cajon charges about $720 a month to treat women with drug problems.

Jessica Lewis, program director for Community Resources and Self-Help Inc., which has a county contract to treat drug abusers in San Diego, said the program has never referred anyone to SLIC. Lewis said her program's clients cannot afford Meehan's program.

"His target audience is kids from families that are financially successful," she said. "He's earning big bucks. More power to him. He has a mindset of big business and the heartset of helping people. I don't question his sincerity."

During his "60 Minutes" interview four years ago, Meehan said he was worth more than the $100,000 he was then making. He would not say in a recent interview how much he makes running SLIC.

Meehan, who lives in Rancho Bernardo, said that despite the $4,000-a-month per-person SLIC Ranch fee, he is not getting rich.

"Where that profit is, I haven't seen it yet," he said. "I make enough to pay my bills and save $100 a month."

Some health professionals were reluctant to speak candidly about Meehan's program. One noted that Meehan, because he sits on the county advisory committee, wields influence over the finances of many local treatment programs.

Nevertheless, some drug-treatment experts expressed reluctance to refer clients to SLIC because of its reliance on non-professional counselors. After sitting on a panel discussion with Meehan, Greg Baer, head nurse of the substance-abuse unit at Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Chula Vista, he said he would not recommend Meehan's program for anyone.

"I just question his ability to be therapeutic," said Baer, whose program also treats adolescents for as much as $10,200 a month. "The people we deal with need a therapeutic approach from people who are knowledgeable... you need to have knowledge of what you're doing and not just go with a gut feeling."

Baer criticized SLIC's exclusion of the families of young drug abusers from its treatment program.

"If Johnny is going to return home, you have to discuss how this is going to be done... Otherwise you are doomed for failure," he said.

Some professional counselors said they worry about Meehan's influence over young people. Lewis said it is important for an organization such as SLIC, which treats emotionally-dependent people, to be accountable to a licensing or watchdog agency. Otherwise, she said, clients can be exploited.

"It's a pain in the neck," she said, "but I'm prepared to answer to those (licensing) people. There are enough people looking over our shoulder to make sure our clients are safe."

John Adam, a licensed psychologist in Coronado who has monitored SLIC Ranch and Freeway for more than a year, said he is concerned about the unorthodox nature of the counseling. Adam said the adulation that SLIC participants feel toward Meehan resembles hero worship.

"Any time you depend on the charisma of a leader, you fear that results will fade with time or distance from the guru," he said.

Meehan said he knows that he has tremendous influence on this young charges, but he tries to use that to good purposes.

"I'd like to think I'd become one of their local heroes instead of Cheech and Chong," he said.

But he acknowledged that his relationship with the clients could lead to problems.

"Yeah, it scares me," he said. "You get into a real guru (situation). This is where cults can begin."

"I have an advantage, though, because they're here only 30 days. I cut them loose emotionally when they leave here."

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tabloidtoc · 5 years ago

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Globe, June 15

Cover: Troubled Angelina Jolie giving up the kids -- Brad Pitt finally wins

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Farrah Abraham, Jason Statham and son Jack, Melissa Gorga

Page 3: Alex Trebek, Lily-Rose Depp in Paris wearing a mask, Andy Cohen and his dog

Page 4: Mad-as-hell Matt Lauer has triggered an all-out war with Whoopi Goldberg of The View and his old co-workers Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb -- Matt believes Whoopi has been smearing him every chance she gets and has vowed he’s going to get even and she’d better watch out

Page 5: Wild-living country star Morgan Wallen lived up to his Whiskey Glasses tune when he was busted at Kid Rock’s downtown Nashville beer joint, NeNe Leakes is stepping out with a hunky government bureaucrat Rodney White right under the nose of her cancer-warrior husband Gregg Leakes

Page 6: Days of Our Lives legend Judi Evans is fighting to survive after suffering devastating injuries when she was thrown from her horse while trying to escape some mysterious riders, Elvis Presley’s rhintstone-studded initialed jock strap is on sale for $36,000

Page 7: Wendy Williams’ friends are terrified after the talk show host has fallen off the wagon again after stopping her live TV show for the third time in two years even though Wendy blames Graves’ disease

Page 8: Disgraced Prince Andrew was caught abandoning Britain for oil-rich Qatar in a desperate plot to escape prosecution for his role in the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal -- as pressure mounted on the defiant Duke of York to spill his guts on the sordid life of his murdered pedophile pal Andrew reached the end of his rope and believed moving to the Arab monarchy which has no extradition to the U.S. or the U.K. was his best shot to stay out of prison but he was intercepted boarding a private jet bound for Qatar by members of the Scotland Yard team who have been bird-dogging the prince

Page 9: Queen Elizabeth has devised a clever system of getting rid of people she’s done dealing with without hurting anyone’s feelings -- she merely uses a series of secret signals to alert her aides she wants to escape a sticky situation

Page 10: Cover Story -- Bitter and fed-up Angelina Jolie is planning to stash her five youngest kids with ex Brad Pitt so she can pal around with buddies in Europe -- Angie is slowly going stir-crazy during lockdown and she needs to do this for her soul

Page 11: Smitten Sean Penn is quietly wooing his onetime muse Naomi Watts and he sees her as the one who got away and he would have dated her before now if they’d both been free at the same time and now that Naomi is living in L.A. and her romance with Billy Crudup has cooled Sean sees an opportunity to win her once and for all, gender-bending pop star Boy George says the coronavirus lockdown has kicked his libido to the curb

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Ashley Madekwe on a morning run (picture), Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling are teaming up for Legally Blonde 3, Dakota Johnson says the fact she’s dating Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has nothing to do with her being chosen to direct the band’s Cry Cry Cry song video because she wrote the story and pitched it to the band like every other director did, David Arquette will reprise his role as Sheriff Dewey in a reboot of the slasher horror smash mystery Scream but no word on if his ex-wife Courteney Cox who also starred in the original four-flick franchise will be returning too, Tony-winning musical star Ben Platt has gone public with his new boyfriend Noah Galvin and he’s the Broadway actor who replaced him in his smash musical Dear Evan Hansen and are quarantining together in L.A.

Page 13: Patrick Schwarzenegger taking a dip in the ocean (picture), Jaime King wearing a mask but no wedding ring (picture), hot mess Matthew Perry (picture), Andy Cohen helped out brand-new papa-in-need Anderson Cooper by generously giving up the nanny of his one-year-old tot Ben

Page 14: Amber Tamblyn commemorated her 37th birthday with a social media selfie boasting true natural beauty right down to her unshaven armpits, former Grey’s Anatomy star Jessica Capshaw is hardly counting pennies since her character got axed from the show in 2018 since she’s married to Christopher Gavigan the co-founder of Jessica Alba’s business The Honest Company and the paid have moved into a newly constructed $10 million dream home a stone’s throw away from mom Kate Capshaw and stepdad Steven Spielberg’s palatial digs, Fashion Verdict -- Kristen Bell 9/10, Chrissy Teigen 5/10, Kaitlin Olson 2/10, Chrishell Stause 7/10, Kerry Washington 3/10

Page 16: Goldie Hawn’s gone bonkers in coronavirus quarantine triggering monster meltdowns and crying jags that have longtime lover Kurt Russell living in lockdown hell, Olympic golden boys Michael Phelps says his ongoing mental health struggles have gotten worse during the quarantine but he vows to get through it for the sake of his three sons

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Meghan McCain, Skeet Ulrich didn’t beat around the bush when discussing his departure from Riverdale -- he says he ditched the CW series because he was bored creatively

Page 20: True Crime

Page 23: Mary-Kate Olsen split with selfish husband Olivier Sarkozy because she wanted kids and he refused

Page 24: The coronavirus has shattered Jennifer Lopez’s plans for a spectacular wedding with Alex Rodriguez and she is brokenhearted, Bindi Irwin is set to walk down the aisle in a second wedding with her already-hubby Chandler Powell to score a whopping $10 million payday from the networks that are already lining up for the rights to broadcast the event that’ll appeal to audiences all over the world

Page 25: The model daughter of Christie Brinkley is having a lockdown meltdown about her body -- Sailor Brinkley-Cook is crying over her cellulite and letting the fat on her body ruin her day and the body dysmorphia and leftover eating disorder tendencies have been coming in strong, former Bond girl Britt Ekland is mourning the Bond girls who only had to look good in a bikini

Page 26: Health Report

Page 40: Real Life

Page 41: Jackie Kennedy Onassis had to be convinced to take a pay raise while working in the publishing industry and insisted on a small office, rocker Ronnie Wood is 79 but claims he never got beyond 29 in his head and that’s maybe why the Rolling Stones guitarist beat lung cancer in 2017 after smoking nearly 30 cigarettes a day for 54 years

Page 44: Straight Talk -- the phrase “reality TV” is nothing but a straight-out lie

Page 45: Lisa Rinna’s pals worry she’s being eaten alive by stress over her feud with Denise Richards after seeing shocking online videos showing the stick-thin star dancing

Page 47: Hollywood Flashback -- Rocky, Bizarre But True

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santoteez · 5 years ago

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A Manhattan Tale - Seonghwa (10- Finale + Epilogue)

Parts: 10 of 10

Masterlist HERE

Genre: Chef!Seonghwa, FormerDrugdealer!Seonghwa, FormerKingpin!Hongjoong, Bad boy/ Good Girl kinda??

Warnings: MC is a Black Female, Mentions of funerals, pretty fluff tbh, hospital setting

Requested: yes

NOTE: This fic does NOT, in any way, shape, or form, portray the way I view any member of Ateez nor does it depict their true personalities or actions. This AU is just that. An AU. All family members are FICTIONAL.

Seonghwa groaned, as the hospital TV, which was stuck on the news, repeated his name for the umpteenth time.

“25-year old city renowned chef Seonghwa Park was found with a gunshot wound in his shoulder in the backroom of a yacht on the pier of the East River in Flushing Meadows. Chef Park is the owner of The Majestic Dragon, with locations in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Brooklyn, with several on the way. Park was recently accused of being part of a gang, running a prominent drug ring and the murder of Raymond Carter Sr. by an anonymous tip to the city hotline. The accuser also claimed Park used leftover drug money to purchase his locales, making the purchases questionable by law. It is said his accomplice in the drug ring was 25-year old college student Hongjoong Kim, known in the public eye as underground music producer Kilo. Kim was also critically injured with a gunshot wound to the back. He is also accused of using dirty money to acquire his condo, college payments and the tuition for his sister’s private school and the Santana’s Threads Manhattan location. We’ll keep you all posted as more information is available, and we await Mr. Park and Mr. Kim’s statements once they are released from the hospital.”

“Nurse!” Seonghwa said, desperate.

A fair-skinned woman with a neat bun of chestnut brown hair waltzed in. “You called, Mr. Pa-”

“The TV. Turn it off.”

“What? But you just told me to turn it on-” She froze as Seonghwa’s picture flashed on the screen once again. “I see.” She said, clicking the device off. “There. Enough of that. Is that all? Anything else I can get you?”

“I wanna see my family.”

“Dr. Park isn’t in yet.”

“You know who I’m referring to.”

She sighed. “Mr. Park, we’ve been through this. Immediate family only while in the ICU. Your girlfriend and everyone else can come in once you’ve been transferred or discharged.”

“But they can go see Hongjoong?”

“Mr. Kim is a different case. Biologically, his immediate family are his siblings, but Ms. Davis is the mother of his child and under common law, they can be considered married. You and Ms. Carter have not been together long enough to be bestowed the same privileges.”

Seonghwa rolled his eyes, looking out the window. He wanted to see Zelie more than anything. His sister had been the only one he saw since he was admitted. His parents, after watching the news, wanted even less to do with him, although his mother did call once behind his father’s back. Seonghwa didn’t care. He wasn’t interested in getting back into his family’s good graces, he lost that hope years ago. He just wanted to see the people he truly considered him family. His sister Minseo was now on maternity leave, her baby due any day now. She canceled her baby shower when she realized Seonghwa was hospitalized but decided to celebrate after the baby was born. Seonghwa appreciated her being there, confirming that he would attend as long as he was in good health.

The nurse sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up, but I’ll see what I can do about visitors. In the meantime, are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“I’m fine.”

“You didn’t eat your breakfast earlier. Maintenance told me.”

He shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “Hospital waffles aren’t really appetizing. Neither is hospital meatloaf or whatever you’re gonna bring me.”

The nurse rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky I like you, Mr. Park.” She said, closing the door.

Seonghwa and Hongjoong were in surgery for hours, the bullets in highly critical areas. Seonghwa’s was in his shoulder, dangerously close to his neck, while Hongjoong’s was in his back, just centimeters from his spine. Doctors were afraid that one wrong move could permanently leave Hongjoong paralyzed. Thankfully, the bullets were removed and the pair were recovering nicely. Zelie had tried multiple times to see Seonghwa but was rejected every time by his doctor. She called him almost every hour, but Seonghwa was dying to see her. He had not seen her since that night. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little jealous that HJ could see Santana as much as he pleased. She went home with Orion and Minjoon a couple days ago but came almost every day to see Hongjoong.

“Well, Mr. Park, looks like you owe me some Lo Mein when the restaurant opens back up.” The nurse said, opening the door. “I spoke with the doctor, and he said as long as the immediate family confirmed they would not be visiting you, the rights could be transferred off. So I called your parents, and sure enough, I was able to make magic happen!”

In walked Zelie, Minjoon, Soojin, and Santana carrying Orion. Hongjoong, who was advised to stay off his feet for the few weeks after surgery, wheeled into the room on the wheelchair the hospital provided.

“Thanks, Nurse Jackie. I appreciate it.” Seonghwa said, hugging Zelie.

“Like I said, when I get that Lo Mein, I want extra shrimp and soy sauce.” She said, smiling. “I’ll leave you to catch up with your family.” She winked, closing the door.

“I like her. Give her two Lo Meins.” Zelie said, cozying up in Seonghwa’s arms.

“Well, honorary big brother, how you feeling?” Minjoon asked, approaching the bed.

“I’ve been better, but I wouldn’t be here without you. I don’t remember much after getting shot, but I do remember you pressing your shirt into my shoulder to stop the bleeding. Thank you.”

“if I had to, I’d do it a thousand times again.” Minjoon smiled.

“Where is my godchild? Bring him to me.” Seonghwa said, extending his arms out.

Santana placed Orion in his arms, who stared up at Seonghwa with wide, brown eyes.

“Hey, little guy,” Seonghwa whispered, smiling when Orion seemed to smile at his words.

“Looks like he likes you, Hwa.” Santana said.

“He better. I already furnished his room.” Seonghwa replied, making everyone laugh.

“I’m so excited to have a little brother!” Soojin said.

“Soojin, sweetie, Orion is your nephew. He’s your brother’s son.” Seonghwa explained.

“But…he’s little and I’m little. Doesn’t that make him my brother?” Soojin asked, confused.

Hongjoong laughed. “She’ll get it eventually. How are you feeling, though? Really?”

“Like I want out of this damn bed. How’s everything with the court case?” Seonghwa asked Zelie.

Given that Zelie was the last to interact with her brother before his death, she was a prime suspect. However, with the large number of workers in the room at the time of the death, those who survived the bloodbath agreed to testify in her favor in exchange for a lighter sentence. Everyone agreed that Zelie never meant for it to happen, but she wrestled him in self-defense and as a last resort and wasn’t even the one who pulled the trigger. The trial was far from over, but Zelie was optimistic.

“It’s been lengthy, but it’s going well. It’s not like I wanted him to die. I just couldn’t stand back and watch him kill you. Boyfriend or not, he’d be taking an innocent life all because of a vendetta.”

“Thank you. I mean that.” Seonghwa said, pulling her closer.

“One thing’s for sure, like father like son. It’s sad they had to go the same way.” Santana said.

“Somethings just can’t be avoided,” Hongjoong said. “I spoke to an attorney the other day; I invited him to my room. The city investigated the money we used for our initial purchases and while it was indeed money that had not been in circulation for years, given the circumstances, the court has agreed to grant us clemency. All we have to do is pay a fine. It’s hefty but at this point anything that keeps me out of jail.”

“Seriously? Babe that’s amazing!” Santana exclaimed.

He nodded. “They said we had already suffered enough, and the purchases happened years ago. The statute of limitations is almost up, and all of our recent purchases have been by the books. Everything worked out in our favor. You should be able to reopen the restaurants whenever you’re ready.”

Seonghwa nodded. “We came out the other side unscathed once again. I’m starting to think we’re indestructible.”

“Let’s not find out.” Hongjoong rolled his eyes, making everyone laugh. “I’m actually glad we’re all here, though. There’s something I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and with everything that’s happened, I think sooner is better than later.”

“Babe, what are you talking about?” Santana asked, confused.

Hongjoong turned to Minjoon. “Did you bring it?” He asked, and Minjoon nodded, fishing a small velour box from his pocket.

“Oh my God,” Santana said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Santana, baby. I initially planned this to be happening at a place way different, but I know you were never one for fancy scenery as long as it came from the heart, so that’s what I’m doing. I met you almost 5 years ago. I was young and a knucklehead. I didn’t know the first thing about treating a woman right or being grown. But when I met you, I realized I would have to man up quick or you’d be gone. I couldn’t have that. You’ve been with me through thick and thin, even when I was doing shit you knew would get me in trouble. You never ditched me, not when the police barged into my apartment, not when I was sitting up in Sing Sing, not when I was released, not when I started taking music seriously, and not when I was almost paralyzed. You were by my side through it all. Now that we have our beautiful son, I want to do the same. Be by your side no matter what. Never leave you ever again, and never have you worried I’m not coming home.” He opened the tiny box, revealing a beautifully adorned gold band with a large, square-cut rock at the center. “Santana Jarelle Davis, I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with any other woman besides the one in front of me. I’d be honored if you gave me the chance. Will you marry me?”

Santana nodded frantically, the entire room looking like a mosaic through her tears. “A million times, yes. I love you so much.” She said, kissing Hongjoong as he placed the ring on her finger.

“ACTUALLY,” Soojin interrupted, “I was on your lap, so that makes me the person in front of you.” She said, folding her arms.

“Nice try. I said, WOMAN. Not booger-eating little girl.” Hongjoong said, tickling her.

“That was ONE time!” Soojin said, laughing.

Just then, the doctor walked in.

“I was wondering where you had wandered off to, Mr. Kim.” He said, entering the room. “Looks like you’re getting around just fine without being hooked to the IV. How’s your back?”

“It hurts from time to time, but nothing excruciating.”

Nodding, the doctor turned to Seonghwa. “And you, Mr. Park? How’s your shoulder?”

“Better. I can move my neck freely now.”

“I can see that. Well, you men seem to have healed remarkably fast. It’s like you’re not human. If you’re truly feeling better, and nothing comes up in this morning’s x-rays, I’ll process your discharge papers and you’ll be free to go.”

“Thank GOD,” Seonghwa shouted, making everyone laugh.

“Careful, Mr. Park. Don’t want us to magically find something to keep you here. A rectal exam, perhaps?” The doctor asked.

Seonghwa laughed nervously. “You don’t mean that, right doc? DOC?” He shouted when the doctor didn’t answer. He turned to Zelie.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE.”

*2 years later*

“Alright Mitch, I’m heading home for the day,” Seonghwa called out, walking through the back kitchen of the restaurant.

“Alright, boss. Be safe.” Mitch answered, getting started on another Bibimbap. “Tell the Missus I said hello and we miss her here at work.”

“I will. Oh, and before I forget. The woman with the brown hair and scrubs on is getting two House Special Lo Meins, on the house.”

“Got it!”

Seonghwa walked out to the dining area, where Nurse Jackie was standing. “Took you long enough to come redeem your food.”

She shrugged. “What’s the rush? You owed me no matter what. Didn’t feel like cooking, so here I am.”

Seonghwa laughed, his voice booming against the walls. “Well, should you not want to cook again, this location is much closer to the hospital. That’s why I chose it.”

She put a hand over her heart. “My hero. Go ahead, I know you’re heading home. Don’t wanna keep you too long. Good night, Chef Park.”

“Good Night, Nurse Jackie,” Seonghwa said, making his way out of the crowded restaurant. Despite the controversy, die-hard fans of the restaurant couldn’t wait to go back, and others who had yet to try the food were even more inclined, causing lots of traffic, especially on a Friday like today. Seonghwa hopped into his car and made his way home.

The clemency went through, and the fine was half of their monthly earnings for the next year. The boys were more than willing to cough up the cash if it meant they could resume their normal lives. The Coca Twins skipped town when they realized they failed again and the boys weren’t going to jail. So, they changed their names and were never heard from again. Despite everything, Zelie paid for RayRay’s burial, figuring he deserved a peaceful resting place at the very least. One-Eye was laid to rest but some of his men, his death being real this time. Lil Mike quit drug dealing once he saw what being involved in the game did to HJ and Hwa. He brought his mom home from the hospital and went back to school. To everyone’s surprise, he had a knack for baking and decided to open his own bakery. To show his gratitude, he made Hongjoong and Santana’s wedding cake free of charge.

Hongjoong and Santana’s wedding was held the summer after the shooting, and luckily the boys were fully healed by then. It was a small ceremony, with Seonghwa, Zelie, Soojin, Minjoon and a few of Santana’s employees and family. The girl Minjoon went on that date with ended up becoming his girlfriend, so she was invited to. Soojin had a little guy friend from her soccer team she begged to let come, so he and his family were invited as well. To Hongjoong’s surprise, Seonghwa was able to schedule a video chat with Chungho, who congratulated the young couple and was able to see his grandchild and Soojin, who he had not seen for years. Everyone at the reception was in awe at the fact that Zelie effortlessly caught the bouquet, with Hongjoong teasing Seonghwa, stating that it was fate. Seonghwa didn’t think much of it until he proposed just a year later. Granted, it was during their lunch break at work, but Zelie accepted nonetheless.

“Lucy I’m home!” Seonghwa shouted, walking into the plush, luxury condominium. When he was discharged from the hospital, Seonghwa realized that if he planned to be with Zelie for the long run, his tiny studio wouldn’t do. So, he packed up all his things (sans the leather couch, to Zelie’s satisfaction) and bought a condo, not too far from Hongjoong’s building.

“Ricky, darling!” Zelie shouted, running to the door, kissing Seonghwa tenderly on the lips.

“Do you two have to greet each other like that every night?” Minseo asked, laughing. Her son, Minhyuk, right behind her. After being released, Seonghwa kept his word to attend Minseo’s celebration once the baby was born. She chose Minhyuk since it was similar to Minjoon. She said had it not been for Minjoon, she’d never have run into Seonghwa that day. Their relationship was far from perfect, but they’d been patching things up pretty well. His father had yet to speak to him, although his mother sent him a housewarming gift when she heard from Minseo that he was moving. Seonghwa learned to live with his father’s blatant disapproval and was grateful his mother was warming up to him again on her own accord, although he doubted they’d ever cross paths again. Ever since their reunion, Minseo spent most weekends with Seonghwa and Zelie.

“We don’t HAVE to, but where’s the fun in that?” Seonghwa asked, smiling. “Hey, sis.” He hugged Minseo. “And you! How you doin, big man?” He picked up Minhyuk, throwing him up in the air and causing him to laugh.

Cries were heard from the living room.

“Uh oh, someone’s jealous.” Zelie laughed.

“Now why would my princess get jealous? She knows she’s the apple of my eye!” Seonghwa said, reaching into the baby swing, picking up the month-old baby girl. “You know that, right Zelig?” He said, the curly-haired, caramel-skinned baby halting her cries immediately.

When they officially got engaged, Seonghwa and Zelie…couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, to say the least. The next thing they knew, Zelie was late. Seonghwa was ecstatic…once he regained consciousness after Zelie told him.

“It’s crazy how you had a kid with a head full of hair. Minhyuk was bald for MONTHS.” Minseo said, running a hand through the curly locks.

“Yeah, that heartburn was a bitch,” Zelie said, immediately turning to Minhyuk. “Don’t repeat that.” She said, causing the siblings to laugh.

Seonghwa kissed Zelie’s cheek. “I guess it’s true what you said.”

“What’s that?” Zelie asked.

“I was just a work in progress.” He said, thinking about his friends, business, sister, and the kids, even one of his own. And of course, his beautiful fiancée. “And for the first time in my life, I feel complete.”

Stephie Here! Thank you SO much for reading and sticking with me through this fic as well as ‘In The Bronx’! I’ve been going through some life changes which delayed this finale but only because I wanted it to be perfect for you guys and tie up any loose ends from the Hongjoong fic as well as previous chapters of this fic. Please keep an eye out for my one-shots and AUs as I will make an effort to upload routinely for you all!! As always, thanks for reading!

#ateez #Ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #ateez fanfic #ateez fluff

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justforbooks · 7 years ago

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Rebirth Of A Legend

While the 1950s and 1960s produced many remarkable personalities, few public figures had the charisma and audacity of the late Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who converted a warship into the yacht Christina, one of the most glamourous private yachts ever built. Inseparable from his ocean-going palace, Onassis lived aboard for decades, reveling in a life of partying and pleasure that by turns made him hated, envied and admired while attracting the global celebrity set of the era to his jewel of the seas, now reborn as Christina O.

This is one yacht that cannot be fully appreciated without knowing a little about her larger-than-life owner, a man who created the boat as an extension of himself and his professional and personal ambitions. Ari Onassis was not the first yachtsman to understand that by pampering influential guests he could open doors that might otherwise remain closed. And life aboard Christina was an endless round of lavish self-indulgence. Ex-King Farouk of Egypt, a frequent visitor and a man whose appetite for the good life would eventually drive him into exile, referred to the yacht as “the height of opulence.” The actor Richard Burton said, “I do not believe that any man or woman in the world would resist the temptation and the pure narcissism shamelessly flaunted on this boat.”

Onassis was immensely proud of Christina and insisted on escorting his guests on guided tours from stem to stern and deck to dazzling deck. All the bathrooms were in marble, the fittings in gold. There was a fireplace encrusted with lapis lazuli at a cost of a dollar per square centimeter. The dining room included frescoes by Marcel Vertes representing the family throughout the seasons: Tina, Onassis’ first wife, skating, and Alexander and Christina picnicking in the grass.

Other artwork had less exalted origins, the two El Grecos, for instance. Onassis knew these were fakes, but as he once said, “If people want to believe they are authentic, why spoil their pleasure.”

The décor in the nine guest suites was inspired by the Greek islands after which they were named. Onassis’ children, Alexander and Christina, used to occupy the Chios suite and the Ithaca suite respectively, although Christina would give up her place when Greta Garbo, Maria Callas or Jackie Kennedy came aboard.

There were also the Santorini, Mykonos, Lesbos, Andros, Crete, Rhodes and Corfu suites. All contained wood and stone work that had been brought in from the Greek islands, the beauty of the materials chosen to enhance the guests’ pleasure.

The most beautiful suite was that of Onassis himself. Located on the pilothouse deck, where it remains today, it consisted of three rooms: the stateroom, an office containing a Louis XV desk, and an ostentatious bathroom. In addition to gold fittings, the bathtub in blue Syene marble was surrounded by a mosaic depicting fish scenes in the style of the lost palace of King Minos of Knossos.

His taste might, in our politically correct world, be regarded as intolerably crude, perhaps, but he was a man of his times, fabulously wealthy, unapologetic and unashamed of his virility. In Ari’s Bar on the main deck the stool seats were covered with the tanned foreskins of whales. The footrests were whales’ teeth and the ivory armrests were engraved with scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey, Onassis’ favorite epics.

During one cruise, the famously aloof Greta Garbo was seated at one of the stools in Ari’s bar when her host entered and said, “Madam, do you realise you’re sitting on the biggest penis in the world?”

With two chefs, one French and one Greek, Christina’s galley offered the finest dishes and rarest wines, with Onassis fussing over the smallest details on the menu. Among the crew there were two hairdressers, a butler and a Swedish masseuse. There was an elevator, an operating theater with radiography equipment, a telex and a network of 42 telephone lines.

Whether it was in the harbor at Monte Carlo or cruising off Venice or in the Caribbean, Onassis sailed with the stars. The parade on Christina’s guest list included Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli and Rudolf Nureyev. Among the heads of state, industrialists and high ranking statesmen: John Kennedy and Sir Winston Churchill. Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Paul Getty, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace—all were there at one time or another. Britain’s wartime Prime Minister was such a revered guest that Onassis gave up his own suite whenever Churchill visited, an honor never conferred on anyone else. And Churchill, who was aboard for eight cruises between 1958 and 1965, must have enjoyed the company of his host, who could in turn be a public entertainer, a political or a cultural critic, all with surpassing intelligence, charm and insight.

Christina was also the stage for Ari’s endless amorous adventures, and in that respect the summer cruise of 1959 was a blend of high drama and bedroom farce, because this was when Onassis finally won over Maria Callas after she came aboard with her husband. In the course of a few days, the other guests witnessed the break up of two couples and the start of one of the more sensational love affairs of the era. Its notoriety was eclipsed only by his subsequent marriage to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Christina started life as a Canadian Navy River Class Frigate, HMCS Stormont, built in 1943 by Vickers of Montreal. After distinguishing herself in the Normandy landings, she became a surplus relic. Onassis bought her in 1952 as part of a block purchase of ten ships from a Baltimore scrap merchant, John Shapiro. His plan was to build a fleet of whalers in collaboration with the Greek government, and when this enterprise fizzled Onassis kept the Stormont for himself. Shapiro said later, “I sold her to him for the scrap value.”

Onassis had showed his sharp nose for business, paying $50,000 (some put the figure at $34,000) for a ship of 1,724 tons, propelled by steam engines developing 6,500 hp that gave her a top speed of 21 knots. There is no record of what happened to her four 20 mm Oerlikon machine guns, various cannons and 145 depth charges. What mattered to her new owner was that at 327’ LOA and 36’6” beam she could be converted into something quite exceptional. Onassis chose the Howaldt Werke shipyard in Germany for the conversion, pouring in a total of four million dollars; and he paid great attention to the work, intervening personally on many occasions during a project that lasted a year and a half.

He commissioned a German professor of architecture, Caesar Pinnau, who created harmonious, classic lines, characterized by a very high stern. All did not go smoothly with the work, however, as there were many complicated challenges to overcome. The stem, for example, had to be rebuilt in one piece and welded to the existing skeleton. But it was above all Onassis’ demands that posed seemingly insoluble problems.

He wanted Christina to carry a fleet of tenders, a normal requirement aboard large modern yachts today but unheard of in postwar Europe in the early 1950s—as indeed were large private yachts themselves. In addition to two lifeboats, Christina was to house five fast launches, a glass bottomed boat for underwater observations, a small dinghy, two kayaks, a Fiat 500, and a five-seater seaplane, the famous Piaggio. This armada meant that the engineers had to resolve many stability calculations. Part of that problem was settled when Christina became one of the first yachts fitted with Vosper stabilizers.

For the comfort of the passengers there was an electronic climate control system that also regulated the temperature of the swimming pool; the pool could be transformed into a dance floor, and this raised the question of providing enough electricity to the ship’s systems. Demand was so great that Christina’s four generators had to run almost continuously and so required special soundproofing.

Onassis took delivery of his jewel in October, 1954. By then, Christina had little in common with Stormont. Her hull had been lengthened by 29’ and only her engines and forecastle had survived the extensive conversion.

As fabulous as the life of the Christina was, her decline was just as spectacular. After Onassis died in 1975 the boat became the property of his daughter, Christina. Jackie Kennedy Onassis owned 12.5 percent, the same share she had in the private island of Skorpios, but she abandoned her rights after bitter negotiations in which Christina Onassis tried to compel Ari’s widow to renounce all claims to the inheritance. The dispute was settled for $26 million. Christina kept the yacht that bore her name and continued to maintain it as her father had, and in 1978 she made a gift of the boat to the Greek government. An unfortunate move, as it turned out, because after using her for state functions in the early days, the government abandoned her and the looters took over. Among the greatest losses was the famous Syene marble bathtub.

Christina continued to rot until 1991 when one Alexander Blastos came into the picture and said he wanted to buy the boat and bring her back to life. Blastos was a self-described financial genius; he had the paperwork to prove it, and his offer of $2.2 million at public auction was immediately accepted. Sadly, his deposit check for $220,000 bounced. Investigation showed that Blastos had over-stated his credentials. He was actually a waiter from Keene, New Hampshire, and it was in New Hampshire that he was eventually charged with fraud. At his trial the court learned that between 1991 and 1995, in addition to swindling various people out of money and airline tickets, he had also commissioned a complete and reportedly superb redesign of Christina from the Luigi Sturchio studio. That project went nowhere. Ex-waiter Blastos got five years and was fined $250,000.

Serious buyers appeared, among them Peter Tauck, whose company bought the yacht in 1998, only to sell her again to John Paul Papanicolaou, a ship owner and friend of the Onassis family. With a group of investors, Papanicolaou and Tauck organized a refit with the intention of offering the yacht for charter, either for a private party or by the cabin, as on a cruise ship. From the outset, their avowed objective was to restore Christina to her former glory.

Considerable design work was required beforehand, and this was undertaken by the Greek naval architect Costas Carabelas. The refit contract went to Viktor Lenac, a Croatian shipyard, and work began in January, 1999 with the removal and storage of interior fittings. At the Lenac yard one of the first tasks was to clean the hull with high-pressure water jets, the force of which opened up two enormous cavities in the steel.

When ultrasonic measurements were made to test the rest of the plating it was found that 65 per cent of the hull needed replacing, not the 20 per cent originally predicted, which meant that instead of drydocking the boat for 60 days, as anticipated, she spent 345 days in it.

Christina O was delivered to her new owners last July 24 after 16 months of intensive work requiring a total of 1.2 million man hours and an estimated cost of $50 million. In all, 560 tons of new steel had to be added. It is now half an inch thick (12 mm), in compliance with the exacting SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations governing a charter yacht.

The SOLAS standards highlighted other major problems. The sun deck or compass deck where the Galaxy Bar occupied an area of about 1,600 square feet, could not, for stability reasons, be decked in teak. This extra weight of several tons 33’ above the keel would indeed upset the stability of the boat which, incidentally, is now fitted with two sets of Vosper stabilizer fins.

Because the vessel is very low on the water, most of the lower deck portholes were eliminated, leaving only those installed in staterooms at the aft end of the ship. The fire control system was redesigned and prop shafts aligned, a vastly complicated operation because of their length. Cold rooms, an incineration chamber and garbage compactor were installed to serve the new, professional galley on the lower deck.

The three original steam engines extended through three decks, occupying a huge volume amidships. Their replacement by two MAN diesels of 2,775 hp each has greatly increased space in this area. The MANs are placed farther aft, rendering the funnel duct redundant.

Additional space has also been gained on the main deck, which now has a 1,000 sq. ft. dining room. This is flanked on each side by relaxation areas with sofas, a gaming table and a piano. On this same mid- or promenade deck, there is a new gym and a lounge decorated in the style of an English clubroom.

The staterooms on the main deck have hardly changed, but in order to house more passengers a new accommodation area has been created at the aft end of the lower deck in the crew’s former quarters. Now there are eight guest staterooms, which increases the guest capacity to 36 people, without counting the famous Onassis suite. This remains one of the most beautiful apartments on the boat, with the main changes in the furnishing of the bathroom, which has an immense shower stall and a marble bathtub.The funnel has been retained, along with its trademark yellow color, but it is now a dummy, housing an air conditioning system and a back-up generator set, again complying with SOLAS standards. The new engine exhaust has been created in the form of an aft mast and takes up a lot less room than that of the old system. Similarly, the arrangement for stowing the ship’s tenders has opened up extra space. There are less of them and they are smaller than in Onassis’ time, but positioning them around the funnel and on the foredeck has created new exterior layout possibilities.

Among some of the elements preserved from the Onassis era are the wall lights, the leather settees in his suite, and the onyx and silver handrail of the monumental stairway. Ari’s Bar has been preserved largely intact, though the famous stools have been recovered with leather but retain their whale teeth footrests. The Atlas on the wall, which incidentally was in a very good state of preservation, has also been kept. The Lapis Lounge abaft the bar retains much of its former ambiance even if, for safety reasons, the fireplace decorated with lapis lazuli is no longer functional—and works by Renoir, Le Corbusier and Chirico can now be found here. The fake Grecos are gone.

For the rest, the classical decoration reflects Mediterranean inspiration with light-colored tones strengthening an abundant luminosity. The best fabrics from Mulberry and JR Scott have been used, with elegant furniture by Giorgetti.

In short she has regained much of what she had before, class and beauty, two of her late owner’s most cherished ideals.

In her time the old Christina became the epitome of opulence, a shrine for celebrity worship and a dockside paradise for tabloid paparazzi. Above all she may be remembered as an object of desire created by the forceful personality of the man who married Jacqueline Kennedy.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS

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gyromitra-esculenta · 8 years ago

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Hatemates. This is r76valentines AU to Crack!Au. Welp. Last crack masterpost.

I Hate You More

A lot of the people never got their Marks. Most got only one Mark. If two Marks appeared on one’s skin, it was considered the luckiest outcome in a way, because they were sure to meet their soulmate. Then there was Jack Morrison, fifteen going on sixteen.

It happened one day, in a shower, when he felt a sting on the inside of his arm. Both symbols were the same. “For fuck’s sake!” Came the agitated scream. And a crash when his fist made a contact with tiles. It all summed up in a visit to the hospital, five broken bones and a hole in the wall. * For Gabriel Reyes, it came as no surprise, considering how the rest of his life was turning out. He just took a look at his shin, raised his eyebrows and took another sip of coffee. Maybe the fact had something to do with how he just decided subconsciously he was going to join the military after graduating. “Figures,” he muttered under his breath, returning to his homework. * Their romance was every bit as volatile as one could suspect. Or a smoking keg of repressed issues. Or ‘the monster in the closet that was going to bust out one day and fuck everything up’, as Ana used to say. Neither man ever considered showing his Mark to the other, and they were okay with that. Besides, the Marks were considered something extremely private, and with how they were, giving up on finding a soulmate wasn’t that bad of an idea. Not to mention, with their chosen career path, a bond would complicate everything. * Out of people that knew both Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes the best, no one was surprised it all culminated in an explosion that left the two of them very dead. * Somehow it turned natural that every time the vigilante known as Soldier 76 and the mercenary called Reaper turned up on the same field of battle, they both singled out each other. No one questioned it. They had some kind of personal vendetta going on, and at least kept each other occupied, both to Talon’s and the new Overwatch’s relief. * It often got very personal, with both Soldier and Reaper coming to physical confrontation rather than trading shots over the distance. When Soldier’s jacket got torn and Reaper lost his glove in the scuffle, exposed fingers moved over the Mark. They froze in shock with the electric feeling of the both bonds settling in place. Reaper stared stunned and didn’t notice the right hook that sent him reeling back. He didn’t give a chase after. * Next time they met Reaper was very aware of the fact that the vigilante was leading him away from the fight, his position easy to pinpoint with the bond. He was positively sure he would fuck this little shit this time and then blow his brains out. Both literally. No matter the fucking consequences. He wasn’t surprised when he rounded the corner and came face to face with a barrel of the rifle. “My, my, aren’t you a feisty one,” Reaper observed mockingly. “The mask, take it off,” Soldier was not amused. “You first.” “Rockets are loaded and my finger is a bit twitchy right now.” “You’re going to blow yourself up too.” “Don’t mind if I do.” With a sigh, Reaper complied. He wasn’t prepared for a string of screamed curses that came after he slid his mask off. “Fuck! I should’ve seen this fucking coming, you fucking arsehole! I’ll fucking fuck you up, you…” As it continued, something clicked. “…Jackie?” Reaper asked with his voice strangely hitching and breaking. Later, he conceded that, in fact, he did fuck that little shit and blew his brains out, although the second one definitely figuratively. * Tentatively, they did agree, somehow, in-between trying their damnedest to kill each other from a distance (no, neither of them was trying to avoid coming too close to other, perish the thought), to meet in a very public place to at least attempt talking the clusterfuck over. Or attempt attempting. Gabriel certainly didn’t rent a room in a close by the hotel. He might have reserved it for personal use, though. “The fuck you looking at?” Jack moved the chair as away from the table as the wall let him. The bottle of vodka was still within his reach and he decided apparently to forego using a glass as he chugged straight from it. “A fucking boy scout,” Gabriel relished the feral growl that made Jack’s throat vibrate so fucking sexy… Not thinking about that, no, not at all. “Says the fucking traitor,” the blonde smiled, his teeth bared, and Gabriel thanked the gods for the restraint that didn’t let him jump over the table and strangle the little shit sitting in front of him, no matter how much he wanted to. “You have no idea…” “Working for Talon?” A fair point then, not just Jack being difficult, as he usually was. Which didn’t change the fact he was such a fucking shit about that and should already know what Gabriel was doing because that was their plan before it all went to shit. “Like you are one to say, Jackie,” Gabriel sneered, his fingers almost splintering the wood of the table. “You fucking little…” “Um,” the waitress that was standing there for the last five minutes finally decided to speak up. “Can I take your order now? Please?” She added in a small voice. “Another bottle of this,” Jack waved to the vodka. “I’m going to need it to deal with this bloody traitorous arsehole and his fucking shit.” “I will take the special. And something you scrap from the back of the fridge for him because I’m not getting embarrassed by this little fucking shit when he throws up on himself because he decided it’s a fucking great idea to drink himself into the stupor with an empty stomach, again, little fucking ingrate.” Gabriel recited in one breath. “Oh, okay,” the waitress eyed them warily and fled. “For fuck’s sake, it happened only once, you fucker!” “This time I’m leaving you in your own pool of vomit.” They spent next ten minutes silently glaring at each other. * Next day, Gabriel made sure to leave a very generous tip, to make up for all the furniture they, no, scratch that, the little shit broke. The fact that Jack tried to strangle him with the curtain cord only once during the whole ordeal brought a beginning of a fond smile to his lips. He squashed this feeling with extreme prejudice. * “Dude, isn’t it, like, a bit, you know, extreme?” Lucio eyed Jack as he hefted a pretty big rocket launcher onto his shoulder. “Nope, not at all,” the man drawled pleasantly, taking the aim carefully. Though, one could say that with the yield, aiming wasn’t really that much of an issue, as long as you tried to point away from your own position. “Bastard had it fucking coming for a fucking long time now.” Ensuing explosion took out a half of the building, but the preemptive victory cheer of ‘fuck yeah’ proved to be for nothing as Reaper repositioned to a roof adjacent to them. And then, slowly, taking his sweet time, presented exactly one taloned middle finger. The tip of the claw gleamed dangerously in the sunlight. “Fuck,” Soldier threw away the launcher. “Like, dude, are you two, like, having a hate quarrel?” The vigilante didn’t even spare him a glance as he reloaded his rifle and jumped down to the street, accompanied shortly after by Reaper. More explosions followed. * “Wot happened to you?” Tracer stood with her mouth agape at the sight. Soldier just shrugged, the jacket falling off his left shoulder where the sleeve was missing – simply torn off. “You look like ye got yerself mauled by a bear… Wait, are those love bites?” “Fucking certainly not,” came the hissed reply as he passed her on the way to the transport. * Widowmaker lined the shot, waiting patiently. “76 is on the ground,” she noticed. Reaper growled, his attention switching immediately to the matter at hand. “Shoot him.” “But the target…” “I’m not fucking repeating myself, you fucking French tart, shoot him, that’s a fucking order!” Widowmaker rolled her eyes and shifted the focus. She pulled the trigger. “He’s still fucking standing!” Another shot. “Still not fucking dead! You are supposed to never miss a stationary target!” “I didn’t miss! The bullet, it disappeared!” Amelie sneered at him. Ah. Reaper saw that wisp of black. Treacherous fucking nanites. “And now the window for our primary target is closed!” “Right, because the prima ballerina can’t shoot the stationary target, I have to do everything by myself,” Reaper snarled, disappearing. * “Reaper.” The mercenary stiffened under Widowmaker’s scrutiny. “What?” “Your sex life is even more complicated than mine, it seems.” She gestured with her head to a stain on his coat. One he apparently missed somehow. “Target was eliminated. Not a fucking word.” * They had tried to address the issue again a week later. Reaper had to admit that it definitely was not his most shining moment, not when he stood brandishing a table lamp and trying to threaten Jack with it. Of course, the little shit found it funny enough and just doubled over laughing hysterically, but he was being completely serious. Which is how he could now claim the title of a person that knocked someone out with a fucking table lamp. But then, it gave him a satisfaction of leaving the little shit tied up for the room service to find later. He just hoped the headboard was capable of withstanding super soldier strength. It kind of did earlier. * “Gabe,” Sombra half-whined over the communicator during one of his private endeavors. “I told you to stop calling me that,” Reaper grunted while sidestepping a swing from the automated mech. “But your friend is here.” “I don’t have friends.” She was planning something, he could tell. “Oh, sorry, Gabe, your ‘boyfriend’ is here.” In retrospection, snapping at her was not the brightest idea he ever had. “He is not my boy…” Because taking your attention off a very big mech you were trying to disable was never a good idea, and his ribs happily agreed. More so, if it was to try and focus on checking if you actually could feel the little shit in the vicinity. “Tch. I might end up having to call him, Gabe.” “Don’t you fucking dare,” he grunted, trying to get up with the mech looming closer. “Oops, my finger slipped,” Sombra gleefully laughed. “You fucking little…” The explosion made him snap back to the mech that now wobbled on its legs. It almost looked like a chicken dance. “Mierda. In my defense, Gabe, uh, I swear that I really didn’t call him, he just was here.” “What?” “I was bluffing.” The mech fell forward with a terrible screech of metal bending. “Like, Gabe, you gotta believe me.” “What?” “I mean, your ‘boyfriend’ really must be good to actually pull off stalking you.” Great. His goofy sidekick was making a very bad joke that turned out to be true. The universe still hated him. At least that one thing was a constant in his life. “Fuck off,” Reaper narrowed his eyes, and really, really wasn’t sure to whom he was addressing the words now. His dislike was now divided between Sombra, and Jack standing over him. “Both of you.” The little shit just plopped down by his side, back to the wall, and placed a biotic emitter between them. “This doesn’t change a thing,” Jack growled unclasping his mask so he could glare, in person, at him. “I still fucking hate your guts, you fucking arsehole.” “The feeling’s mutual, you little shit.” “So I’m not letting any fucking Helix goon fucking shoot you up before I kill you.” Jack leaned closer, showing teeth in a hateful grimace, which was not doing his face any favors. “And I’m definitely not fucking helping you infiltrate their motherfucking base.” “Oh, perish the thought.” Reaper slid off his own mask, so the eye roll was visible. “Like you were ever the helpful one.” “Said the arsehole that blew me right sky-high.” “And the little shit obviously deserved it.” And no, they did not start making out like two horny teenagers. Definitely not. “I don’t want to ruin the mood, but they are coming to check up why the mech went off the grid, los amantes.” Right. There was that other thing too. They did try to avoid the eye contact for the time being. * It was only during the next Talon assignment he took only because of the price tag attached that Reaper – with considerable defiance – did decide that his priorities did, in fact, need a full overhaul. Because the sudden frantic panic that seized him out of the blue had no explanation, at least not until Widowmaker broke the radio silence. “76 in on the ground again. Wounded him. Relaying coordinates.” Right. As usual, it was all the little shit’s fault. The fact that he was on the verge of going into full blown hysterics with an undercurrent of glee. What the actual fuck? “On target,” Reaper ground out, trying very hard not to sound too eager. Or fucking panicked. Which he without a doubt was at the moment. And a little bit happy. This fucking bond thing was confusing more than ever now. “Sombra, cut the communications,” he barked into the coded channel when he found the blood trail. “Worried about the boyfriend, Gabe?” She quipped over the clicking keys. Yes, he fucking was, Reaper admitted, but at the same time suspiciously elated. Everything aside, they really had to sort out this whole fucking mess. “Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Reaper growled, ghosting between the metal cargo crates and following the track of decidedly too much blood for his liking. “Not even a…” “Shut it.” Of course, the little shit spat blood on him and rasped out ‘fuck off’ before fainting. * And the next day they (yes, he was using the plural now) broke the bed in the little flat Reaper kept off the grid. The little shit made pancakes for lunch. Then they broke the table and put a hole in the ceiling. Later Reaper got a frying pan to the face after he had voiced his disapproval of the fact they were having pancakes again. That small detail that the pancake mix and milk were the only things he had stocked was inconsequential. * When it was the fourth time that the pancakes loomed over the horizon they went out for the groceries and had a screaming match in the produce aisle. Reaper nailed the little shit with a well-thrown zucchini. * Three days in, the apartment was just beyond the point of being recoverable without a full renovation. “Fuck off,” Jack almost kicked his teeth in – not entirely on purpose this time – while curling between the blankets on the floor. “I’m tired. Your fucking turn to cook.” “Right,” Gabriel yawned and stretched. “Pasta?” “Garlic sauce.” “Are there any tomatoes left?” “Fridge.” “Right.” * “Dios mio,” Sombra muttered when she got an eyeful after breaking in. “How are you both still alive? It stinks here like a cathouse! And who the fuck managed to rip off the sink? And why is it stuck in the ceiling?” “So many questions, so little answers,” Jack shrugged. * A week off took a little explaining. What made it better was the knowledge the little shit got it worse. But then, a month later, Reaper decided that he finally had his priorities straight. Whatever Jack thought about that, was his own fucking business. “We’re switching to the other team.” “Came to your senses, Gabe?” Sombra giggled. “Missing the boyfriend’s polla that much?” He did not dignify that with an answer. “Hope you’re all packed up, running the Talon protocol.” * The Talon protocol apparently involved calling the motherfucking Jack who still packed a mean punch even without the frying pan. The kiss made it bearable. “Took you long enough, you fucking arsehole.” “Well, Jackie, not everyone is a regular psychopath just like you.” “Los amantes, we are on the schedule here,” Sombra tapped her wrist. Jack shut the door in her face. “Soulmates! Who needs them! We’ve got fifteen minutes to spare!” She shouted at them through the wood. Twelve was enough. Exactly three minutes later Talon agents converged on their position. First, the whole building went up in flames. Then the continuous fire from fusion cannons took out most of the stragglers and the rest fell under well-aimed pulse shots. “Since when did you both have this planned out?” Gabriel shook his head. Not even that surprised. “Oh, I don’t know, Gabe, about…” Sombra looked to Jack. “A month,” Jack finished for her while beckoning the pink mech closer. “You crazy son of a bitch.” “And you love me exactly because of that,” Jack rolled up his sleeve to show that there was now only one Mark in red. Gabriel chuckled. “That I do, Jackie, but that’s in spite of, not because of.” “Whatever makes you sleep better at night, babe.”

#R76valentines #sometimes i write #r76 #reaper76 #what is this even #crack it's crack #it's a simple idea really #and i'm not a good writer #good reading to you #waifu #day 3 #soulmate #R76 valentines #maybe i'll get to sleep one day

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roseisread · 8 years ago

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Top 25 Movies of 2016

I saw 51 of the many more films released in 2016, so naturally this list suffers from the usual incompleteness. But of those 51, the movies listed below are the ones that really stuck with me, entertained me, moved me, or made me see the world through a different lens after the credits rolled. Some of them are deeply personal and hold great meaning; others are just a great excuse to laugh or shudder or sob about something that doesn’t matter so you don’t have to think about the things in real life that might evoke that reaction for a couple hours.

If you saw something amazing that didn’t make the list, be sure to let me know so I can add it to my watchlist (or defend my choice to leave it off the list of faves).

25. Zootopia (Netflix) At a time when the world was finding reasons to divide itself into fractious subgroups, along came a winsome little animated film about tolerance and eschewing stereotypes. The animation is top notch, the story is funny and action-packed, and any scene featuring the sloth from the DMV threatened my ability to breathe because I was laughing so hard. If you missed it in theaters, be sure to catch up with it on Netflix. It’s a real gem.

24. The Conjuring 2 (Amazon/iTunes rental) The first Conjuring got a ton of acclaim but I wasn’t that enamored with it. This one, on the other hand, totally delivers. Once again, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson star as paranormal investigators who are plagued by dark forces. This time, the action centers on a family in England (inspired by the somewhat infamous Enfield Poltergeist) with an unwanted apparition who interacts with them in all kinds of upsetting ways. Rather than relying solely on jump scares, there’s a lot of great suspenseful sequences and practical effects that use the atmosphere and physical space to masterful effect. Plus, the characters are likable and we are rooting for them which goes a long way toward making this a better than average horror movie.

23. The Edge of Seventeen (Theaters) Hailee Steinfeld plus Woody Harrelson equals brilliance. Add to the mix the savvy direction of first timer Kelly Fremon Craig and the charming supporting cast (particularly Hayden Szeto) and you have a winning combo that leaves other teen dramedies in the dust. The story is relatable for anyone who experienced high school: Nadine feels alienated at school and at home, partly because high school sucks and parents just don’t understand but also partly because she sees herself as just a little bit superior to her peers and family members. She’s a classic Holden Caulfield type, really. When her best friend starts dating Nadine’s brother and mortal enemy, she takes it as a personal betrayal. Between this, her crush on a bad boy type, and her tentative steps toward romance with a nerdy but sweet classmate, she’s got a lot on her plate. Naturally, she takes solace by venting to her favorite teacher, the bemused Harrelson who takes all of her abuse and whining with stoic aplomb.

22. Jackie (Theaters) I was born in 1981, which means I don’t have any personal connection to Jackie O. the way people of my parents generation did. I don’t have recollections of seeing her on TV or experiencing the Kennedy assassination, but I’ve been hearing about it all my life and thus feel like I know the story. This movie took me by surprise by showing me something new, something I’d never considered: The personal grief of a tremendously public loss. Natalie Portman embodies the carefully manicured public persona as well as the private devastation of Jackie Kennedy in the days surrounding JFK’s death. It’s not a traditional biopic, and not a traditional historical drama. That makes sense coming from Chilean director Pablo Larrain, who also gave us the excellent political thriller/comedy No a few years ago. He captures pivotal moments and edits them together into a kind of fractured consciousness befitting the recently bereft Jackie.

21. 10 Cloverfield Lane (Amazon/GooglePlay rental) I’ve still never seen the original Cloverfield (I know, I know), but I do love me some John Goodman being a possible creeper so I had to see this movie. The title really was an afterthought; the story was written independent of the horror franchise and marketing decided a built-in audience and some name recognition would boost ticket sales. All of this to say, you don’t need to know or love Cloverfield to know and love 10 Cloverfield Lane. Essentially it’s a chamber piece, modeled on some of Hitchcock’s techniques (Lifeboat/Rope/Dial M for Murder). Oh and also the original script got a once-over by a certain Damien Chazelle, who was once slated to direct it as well until Whiplash got greenlit and then he got a little busy making a movie called La La Land which may or may not be definitely coming up later in this list so... yeah. But anyways. It’s got that breathlessness and intensity Chazelle brought to life in his other movies, but this time in an actual horror/suspense setting. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher, Jr. play Goodman’s reluctant houseguests in his underground bunker. Goodman claims to be protecting them from something horrible outside; they’re not sure whether to believe him or to trust their instinct that the something horrible is Goodman himself. All three performances are excellent, and your nerves will be frayed little bundles by the time 103 minutes is up.

20. Certain Women (Theaters) Just watching this movie made me feel physically cold. It takes place in Montana, and is essentially a triptych that follows three different women in the same small town. The first, played by Laura Dern, is an attorney with a particularly high maintenance client (Jared Harris). The second is a woman (Michelle Williams) who feels alienated from her husband and their teenage daughter, even as the family is working on building a house together. The final story, and by far my favorite, focuses on a farmhand (the glorious Lily Gladstone in a breakout role) who chances upon a night class taught by Kristen Stewart and becomes transfixed. This is a quiet film, about women who yearn for more than their lives so far have given them. Each one deals with the small injustices and tiny victories that ordinary events bestow, but one senses beneath the surface a lingering question of “Is this all there is?” In that way, it’s totally relatable. There aren’t a lot of major plot arcs here, but that’s exactly the point of the film. In watching this movie, you realize that Henry David Thoreau’s quote about the masses leading lives of quiet desperation might well be answered by Simone de Beauvoir: “I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves.”

19. Don’t Think Twice (YouTube/GooglePlay rental) If you listen to podcasts at all (especially This American Life, WTF, or You Made It Weird), you should know the name Mike Birbiglia by now. He’s a comic turned actor/writer/director and this is his latest original work. This time, he enlisted fellow talented comics to join him onscreen: Chris Gethard, Gillian Jacobs, Keegan Michael Key, Kate Micucci, and Tami Sagher play his friends and fellow members of an improv troupe. They’re all people you know or have been--starving artist types who are holding onto a dream that comedy will one day pay the bills and take them to the next level. When that actually happens to one of them, the group dynamic shifts considerably. As Morrissey so accurately sings, “We hate it when our friends become successful.” But really, the truth is we hate ourselves when our friends become successful. It makes us question whether it’s a matter of deserving it or working hard or random chance. The great thing about this movie is the blend of truly hilarious comedic moments and stirring emotional honesty. It’s about friendship, it’s about surviving your thirties, it’s about figuring out if the dreams you’ve had your whole life are the dreams you still actually want to come true. If you can get through Gillian Jacobs’ incredible solo improv performance toward the end of this movie without tears, you get to be the new Clear Eyes spokesperson instead of Ben Stein.

18. Love and Friendship (Amazon Prime) This movie features one of the funniest characters of the year, an immensely clueless rich dolt named Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), who marvels at the existence of peas and struggles to arrive at the correct number of commandments. Who could be responsible for such a creation? Well, who else but the writer whose best work pokes fun at social climbers and wealthy nitwits: Jane Austen. Whit Stillman adapted her little known work Lady Susan into this charming and hilarious period piece starring Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Stephen Fry, and Xavier Samuel. Beckinsale does her absolute greatest work in this movie--I had no idea she was capable of this kind of performance, and she absolutely slays. As far as Austen adaptations go, this one is my favorite since Clueless--and that’s about the highest praise I could offer.

17. Don’t Breathe (YouTube/Amazon/Vudu Rental) The premise of Fede Alvarez’s sophomore thriller is simple: A trio of young Detroit opportunists break into the home of a blind veteran (Stephen Lang) after hearing he’s got a lot of cash in the house, figuring it’ll be an easy score. But they underestimate this particular blind man and his ability to protect his home and property. The result is a fast-paced cat and mouse game that will definitely have you holding your breath for long chunks of time. I had a blast watching this movie, even if it should have ended a few scenes earlier than it did.

16. Hell or High Water (Amazon/iTunes/GooglePlay Rental) One of my favorite pieces of music, classical or otherwise, is Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. This composition was directly inspired by a speech delivered by Henry Wallace in 1942, which outlined the cause of freedom and the stakes of World War II while also setting a tone for the whole century as one in which ordinary people--the common man--would share the same standard of living, of educational and economic opportunity, of scientific discovery. An excerpt of this speech reads thusly: “When the freedom-loving people march; when the farmers have an opportunity to buy land at reasonable prices and to sell the produce of their land through their own organizations, when workers have the opportunity to form unions and bargain through them collectively, and when the children of all the people have an opportunity to attend schools which teach them truths of the real world in which they live — when these opportunities are open to everyone, then the world moves straight ahead.” Well, the world has continued moving since those words were spoken, but those opportunities are certainly not yet open to everyone despite promises all around that anyone in America should be able to succeed on grit and good will alone. When grit and good will fail to deliver, some people give up and some people become outlaws. That’s where we find our protagonists in this movie, Toby and Tanner Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster, respectively), as it opens. They’re robbing banks out of perceived necessity, and also out of a sense of Karma not acting quite fast enough for their liking. Meanwhile, a pair of Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) get assigned to the case and aim to catch up with whoever’s responsible and give ‘em hell. The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, and the screenplay contains scintillating dialogue and the kind of characters you might find in a classic Western, plus a final showdown for the ages. On the performance side, there’s not a weak one in the bunch. Chris Pine proves he’s more than just a pretty face and Jeff Bridges sheds his Dude persona to give an even better performance here than in his Oscar-winning turn in Crazy Heart. If you need a movie to watch with your Dad that you can both enjoy, this is that movie.

15. De Palma (Amazon Prime) Sisters. Carrie. Dressed to Kill. Blow Out. Mission Impossible. Body Double. Scarface. The Untouchables. Casualties of War. About 20 other films--all directed by Brian De Palma, the subject of this documentary. For some, he’s alienating. For me, this guy is legendary. His films pick up where Hitchcock left off and go running off in their own bonkers directions, oozing style and excess and delivering tawdry and thrilling twists along the way. I’m convinced that one day he’ll be revered by film students and not just genre lovers, and at that point this doc will serve as a Hitchcock/Truffaut type text. The doc is really just De Palma going through his filmography chronologically, shots of him talking edited together with clips from every one of his movies and archival behind the scenes footage. That might sound boring but I promise you it is not. He tells lots of stories, does not shy away from pointing out the flaws and issues in his movies, and reflects on the reception his movies have received from critics and cultural scholars over the years. He also tells some fascinating stories from his youth that shed light on the types of movies he grew up to make. He also talks a lot about his techniques and the way his shooting style developed. If you are interested in filmmaking or De Palma or both, this movie will have you riveted from start to finish.

14. Manchester by the Sea (Theaters) For a meditation on grief and loss, this movie made me laugh a lot. That might sound inappropriate, but if you’ve ever experienced loss yourself, you know it’s not linear and doesn’t follow rules or codes of conduct. Sometimes you laugh at inopportune times. Sometimes you want to cry and can’t. Sometimes you melt down at the sight of frozen food (see what I did there? Melt/frozen! Ahh I kill me sometimes). Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges make a great onscreen team, with Affleck playing Lee Chandler and Hedges playing Patrick, Lee’s teenage nephew. They’ve both lost someone important to them, but neither is great at opening up on the subject. Lee does his best to take care of his nephew, but he feels ill-equipped to be the stable parental figure Patrick needs. For his part, Patrick would prefer to keep things the way they are. “I have two girlfriends and I’m in a band!” he points out, and who is Lee to argue with that kind of logic?

Of course I can’t finish discussing this movie without highlighting the luminous presence of Michelle Williams, who owns every second she’s onscreen (which isn’t very long). Her final scene with Affleck broke me right in two.

13. Born to be Blue (Digital Purchase) Every year springs new musical biopics upon us, to varying degrees of creativity and critical acclaim or derision. My favorite one from 2016 was Robert Budreau’s nonlinear narrative inspired by incidents from the life of Chet Baker as portrayed by Ethan Hawke, who gives his best performance outside a movie with “Before” in the title. For the unfamiliar, Chet Baker is best known as the singer of “My Funny Valentine” today, but he was also a prominent jazz trumpet player and part of the West Coast jazz scene in the 1950s and 60s. As so many artist types, his genius was often threatened by his dalliances with substances and people whose momentary glamor gave way to decay and destruction.

Hawke captures Baker’s charming qualities as well as his tendencies toward self-sabotage, and the movie does not feel like a typical biopic as it incorporates a more meditative approach than a chronological one. There’s also a movie-within-the-movie which adds to the novel feel and keeps this from just hitting all the major events in Baker’s life in order. Carmen Ejogo is excellent as Baker’s primary love interest, a complex and well-drawn foil for the troubled musician. Her character is an amalgam of real life people, but she stands out as more than just your typical long-suffering wife/lover trope.

12. Fences (Theaters) August Wilson’s intimate play gets the cinematic treatment at the hands of Denzel Washington, who both directed and stars here. Troy (Washington) is a garbage man who drinks a lot and talks a lot more to his wife Rose (Viola Davis), his friend Bono (Stephen Henderson), his son Cory (Jovan Adeppo), and others who show up at his doorstep. The story is simple, but the characters are anything but. This may be my favorite ever Denzel performance, and certainly my pick for Best Actor in a Leading Role of 2016. Davis is phenomenal too, in a quiet but steady way. And not as many people are talking about Stephen Henderson, who played Bono in the play as well as the movie, but he’s excellent. If you want to hear beautifully written dialogue (and monologues), see some of the year’s best performances, and be moved by a family drama that feels relevant even though it was written and set in a bygone era, go see Fences.

11. Midnight Special (On Demand) In the first of two Jeff Nichols-directed movies that came out in 2016, Michael Shannon (a frequent Nichols collaborator) is a father trying to protect his son. The boy has some unique abilities, to say the least, and everyone from cult leaders to government agencies wants to exploit those abilities. It’s part superhero origin story, part Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and all about the joy, terror, and unbridled love that come with being a parent. The movie features memorable visuals as well as supporting performances from Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, and Adam Driver. The ending may leave you with more questions than answers, but the emotions it evokes are unmistakable.

10. Tower (iTunes) In 1966, a lone gunman stood atop a tower on the University of Texas campus and opened fire on the unsuspecting people below. For the next 96 minutes, chaos and carnage took over the scene as law enforcement and campus officials tried to devise a way to stop the shooter without endangering more lives. This documentary tells the story of that day from the perspective of people who were there, using interviews and re-staging events using rotoscoping animation. The result is one of the most powerful documentaries in recent memory (outside of Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence). Hearing from victims, bystanders, police officers, journalists, and students who experienced this firsthand reveals so much about the nature of trauma, the way we react in extreme circumstances, and the contrast between what was then a first-of-its kind incident and what is now an all too frequent occurrence: The campus shooting spree. It’s never preachy, just lets each person tell their own story. Always, the focus is on the people on the ground rather than the person behind the violence. It’s a must-see film.

9. Arrival (Theaters) Denis Villeneuve has become one of my favorite directors of recent years, and it’s great to see a film of his get embraced so widely by audiences as well as critics. In case you haven’t yet seen it, this movie features Amy Adams as a linguist and Jeremy Renner as a scientist. Both of them have been recruited to help the government communicate with the aliens who have recently parked giant pods all over the world. The movie opens with a much more human story, and if you cried at the beginning of Up you will certainly shed tears here too. I won’t give more away than that, but what happens informs the emotions and decisions made throughout the film in interesting ways. I love the visuals of this film, and the emotional arc of the story. I also adored all the technical linguistic things that were going on, and I don’t know enough about science or language to know whether they were plausible so I’m just going to assume ignorance is bliss and aids in suspension of disbelief. There is one scene that seems to create a divide in audiences between loving and hating this movie. I won’t explain beyond saying it involves a phone call, so if you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. I can understand the criticism, but for me it was not enough to derail all that came before and after. If you haven’t seen this yet and you like your science fiction with a few tugs on the heartstrings, this is definitely worth your time.

8. The Lobster (Amazon/iTunes/GooglePlay Rental) I adore this movie, but that does not mean you will. I have to put that caveat right up front. In fact, at least one person I recommended this movie to absolutely hated it. So, take my opinion with a grain of salt but I will try to convey truth in advertising. Yorgos Lanthimos, whose previous films were Dogtooth and Alps, makes his English language debut with this dystopian romantic comedy. Colin Farrell, John C. Reilly, Rachel Weisz, Ben Wishaw, Lea Seydoux, and Olivia Colman are the human subjects who populate the story. In their world, if you find yourself without a partner, you go to a hotel where you have 45 days to pair up with someone. If you do not find a suitable match, then at the end of 45 days you get turned into the animal of your choice. You can extend the time of your matchmaking opportunities by going out to the forest and hunting “loners,” people who have escaped from the hotel in the past and choose to live lives of solitude. It’s a wacky premise, but leads to numerous laugh out loud scenarios in addition to the more plaintive moments. I should warn you that there is a scene or two of violence involving an animal, which may be tough to watch for some. That may be one of the reasons people hate it. But as a critique of human behavior and society’s obsessions, it’s quite an effective parable.

The latter half of the film takes a different turn, and while I don’t want to give away what happens, that’s why I called this a “romantic” comedy. You may not want to watch it with your date on Valentine’s Day, but if you do it should certainly give you much to discuss afterward.

7. April and the Extraordinary World (YouTube/Vudu/GooglePlay/Amazon Rental) This animated steampunk French film features a talking cat and a whipsmart girl and an underground lair and a bunch of other wondrous things that I don’t dare attempt to describe. It’s an alternative history film, it features the voice of the marvelous Marion Cotillard, and it should’ve been nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Alas, it was not. But if you want to watch a gorgeous, funny, charming film that might inspire a generation of girls to go into STEM careers, watch this.

6. The Neon Demon (Amazon Prime) I feel intoxicated every time I even recall this sumptuous film. If you missed my review of it earlier this year, go check it out and then go watch this film... if you dare.

5. Sing Street (Netflix) This is, hands down, the feel good movie of the year. Written and directed by John Carney, who gave us Once and Begin Again, this film is set in Ireland in the early 1980s. The premise is simple, really: A boy starts a band to impress a girl that’s out of reach. Not only does he hope to impress her with the music, but he convinces her to star in their music videos since she’s seeking a career as a model. Then he has to actually form the band, and learn how to play instruments and write songs. Along the way, his older and cooler brother educates him on the cool musicians of the day: The Smiths, Duran Duran, The Clash, The Jam, Hall & Oates, The Cure, Spandau Ballet. The original songs in this film are super catchy and fun, and serve as homages to the great bands referenced above. If you’re a sucker for the films of John Hughes, the music of the 80s, and stories about brothers and coming of age and following your dreams, this is the movie for you.

4. The Handmaiden (Theaters) Take a novel set in Victorian England about pickpockets, conmen, and insane asylums that’s been referred to as “lesbian Dickens” (Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith), and set it in colonial South Korea, and make sure it’s directed by the guy who made Oldboy. This is a recipe for the most gorgeously photographed, erotically charged, bonkers in the best way movie of the year. I don’t want to get too far into the story which has so many delicious surprises, but the quick version is that an orphan pickpocket goes to live with a rich but possibly mentally ill young woman to serve as her handmaiden. This is all in an attempt to con said rich young woman into a marriage plot with a smooth talking ne’er do well man. And there’s also the added wrinkle of the rich girl’s creepy uncle, who collects banned erotic books and holds readings in his library for men who pass through. It’s a very unsettling atmosphere for two young ladies, and they form a bond with one another in spite of themselves. There are moments of horror, laughter, and blush-inducing romance in this unrated film (don’t watch it with Grandma unless she has a very open mind and you have a very comfortable relationship). Its runtime is 145 minutes but I wanted to stay in this world forever.

3. Green Room (Amazon/iTunes/GooglePlay Rental) We lost too many good people last year, and Anton Yelchin was one of the losses that hurt the most. In this movie, he gives arguably his best performance as a member of a punk band that gets in way over its head when they take a gig for gas money that takes place in a remote area where most of the audience is neo-Nazi skinheads. They get through the performance, uncomfortable as it is, but the real trouble happens later when one of them witnesses something their hosts really don’t want them to see. From there, it’s a tense stalemate as the band members have to improvise and evaluate who can be trusted. The movie is directed by Jeremy Saulnier, who gave us the excellent and underrated Blue Ruin a few years ago. This one has a similar blend of regular people in irregular situations, with plenty of blood and gore but also a fair bit of humor and a whole lot of real raw punk rock, both on the soundtrack and in the aesthetic. It helps that Saulnier was in a band himself back in the day, so he brings a real authenticity to the characters in the movie. This stayed atop my “best of the year” list all the way into December, when I finally saw the last two films on my list. I’ve watched it multiple times and would watch it many more. If you took delight in a video of a Nazi getting punched a few weeks back, you should definitely watch this movie. And if you didn’t, well, you should still watch this movie.

2. Moonlight (Theaters/Digital Purchase) Barry Jenkins (director/co-writer) and Tarell Alvin McCraney (co-writer) have created a moving, timeless piece of visual poetry in this film that captures three significant chapters in the life of a young man named Chiron. When we first meet him, he’s maybe six or seven years old and people call him “Little.” He hides out in an abandoned house to escape from neighborhood bullies, and is discovered by Juan (Mahershala Ali), a local drug dealer with a complicated moral compass. Juan and his wife Teresa (Janelle Monae) become de facto surrogate parents to Little, whose mom (Naomie Harris) works late and brings random men home and sells their belongings off piece by piece to afford the drugs she craves. In the second chapter, Little is now “Chiron,” in high school and life hasn’t gotten easier. He’s still quiet, still has a troubled relationship with his mom, and feels pretty alone in his peer group with the exception of his friend Kevin. He and Kevin share an unexpected but life-changing evening on the beach that is intimate and believable and raw. The next day at school, however, another life-changing exchange takes place between the two young men and this one is even more visceral in its immediate and long lasting impact on Chiron’s future. Finally, we see him as “Black,” a little older and transformed from the skinny vulnerable teen into a muscular, physically intimidating presence. He’s clearly fighting against his past by embracing everything he can to seem larger than life and untouchable, in both his physical appearance and his lifestyle. He gets a phone call one night that reconnects him with a part of his past he could never quite shake. I won’t spoil what happens next, but the final twenty minutes of this movie are a perfect encapsulation of long-suppressed feelings finally forcing their way out into the open. It’s such a personal story, but the specifics make it so relatable that it feels universal in its specificity. The performances in this movie are wonderful, the cinematography is gorgeous, the score is amazing--I could go on for years. To me, this movie showed a story I’ve never seen on screen before, from a perspective that’s completely underrepresented in pop culture. It never feels manipulative or stereotypical or preachy--just real and achingly human. Some moments in this movie have replayed themselves over and over in my mind hundreds of times, and even having seen it twice in the theater I can’t wait to study every frame of it on multiple viewings once it’s available on Blu-Ray. I want it to seep into my bones the way it seeped into my heart. 1. La La Land (Theaters) “This is the kind of movie that just fills your heart up,” I texted a friend the second I exited the theater after seeing La La Land the first of three times (and counting). And every time I watch it, my heart overflows a little more. Here’s a film that will resonate differently depending on your frame of mind when you watch it, the same way Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind can feel funny or sweet or tragic or dark or romantic depending on your current relationship status. At first glance, Damien Chazelle may seem to be showing off in his follow up to Whiplash, tapping into an easy sentimentality that short circuits our center of reason by throwing in references to Singin’ in the Rain, Casablanca, West Side Story, and an LA that probably only ever existed in the imaginations of the people who never actually visited the City of Stars but fell in love with its many portrayals on the silver screen. And yes, Hollywood does love stories about itself and yes, the novelty of an original movie musical does scream “anachronistic film school prodigy.” So I get the skepticism, I truly do. I can’t promise this movie will live up to the hype of a record-tying number of Oscar nominations for you, but I can tell you that it means so much more than that to me. It’s not just another charming but forgettable throwback (I’m looking at you, The Artist). In case you haven’t yet experienced this movie, a quick breakdown: Sebastian and Mia, portrayed by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, are both in LA chasing their dreams of artistic success. He’s a jazz pianist; she’s an actress. Neither has quite made it, and “making it” to them means doing something authentic on their own terms which makes success even more elusive. Compromise may be part of real life but neither of them is quite ready to give up the fantasy yet. Their relationship starts off adversarial, then tentative, then before you know it they’re literally floating into space so carried away are they with love and visions of a future together. The stages of their lives and the story are divided up by seasons, and sure as summer follows spring, you can’t get through the year without the fall. Fall in this movie has a double meaning, and the cute flirty interludes give way to frustrated sighs and changing priorities. Other seasons follow, which I will not spoil, but I will say that the final five or ten minutes of this movie could stand on their own and still be my favorite film of 2016. People compared Whiplash to The Red Shoes, and I would make the same comparison to this film although for different reasons. The ballet sequence of The Red Shoes and the final sequence of La La Land share an artistic splendor the can induce wonder and catharsis in equal measure. I’m prone to quoting Charles Bukowski, so I’m going to close by quoting him again. I think the following poems explain the core of this film, and why it resonates so much with me: “the area dividing the brain and the soul is affected in many ways by experience – some lose all mind and become soul: insane. some lose all soul and become mind: intellectual. some lose both and become: accepted.” --You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense “if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.” --So You Want To Be a Writer?

#best films of 2016 #lists #movie reviews #la la land #moonlight #arrival #sing street #green room #the handmaiden

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years ago

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Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her

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Not long ago, a 4-year-old boy died of the flu. His mother, under doctor’s orders, watched his two little brothers like a hawk, terrified they might get sick and die, too.

Grieving and frightened, just days after her son’s death she checked her Facebook page hoping to read messages of comfort from family and friends.

Instead, she found dozens of hateful comments: You’re a terrible mother. You killed your child. You deserved what happened to your son. This is all fake – your child doesn’t exist.

Bewildered and rattled, she closed her Facebook app.

A few days later she received a text message from someone named Ron. Expect more like this, Ron warned. Expect more.

The attacks were from those who oppose vaccination, and this mother, who lives in the Midwest, doesn’t want her name used for fear the attention would only encourage more messages.

Nothing too cruel

Interviews with mothers who’ve lost children and with those who spy on anti-vaccination groups, reveal a tactic employed by anti-vaxers: When a child dies, members of the group sometimes encourage each other to go on that parent’s Facebook page. The anti-vaxers then post messages telling the parents they’re lying and their child never existed, or that the parent murdered them, or that vaccines killed the child, or some combination of all of those.

Nothing is considered too cruel. Just days after their children died, mothers say anti-vaxers on social media called them whores, the c-word and baby killers.

The mother in the Midwest, who wants to remain anonymous, isn’t alone.

Jill Promoli, who lives outside Toronto, lost her son to flu. She believes the anti-vaxers are trying to silence the very people who can make the strongest argument for vaccinations: those whose children died of vaccine-preventable illnesses.

Flu took the life of Promoli’s 2-year-old son, Jude McGee, three years ago. She’s since started a campaign in his name for flu prevention, including vaccination.

“I know that these people are really trying to hurt me, and I understand that the reason they’re doing it is because they want me to stop,” she said.

Anti-vaxers respond

Larry Cook, the founder of Stop Mandatory Vaccination, doesn’t deny that such attacks on mothers of dead children exist.

In an email to CNN, he wrote that members of his group make more than half a million comments on the group’s Facebook page each month.

“Any discussions about parents who lose their children after those children are vaccinated would be minor in number, and even smaller would be the number of members reaching out to parents in private message to share their concerns that vaccines may have played a role in a death,” Cook wrote.

“I do not condone violent behavior or tone and encourage decorum during discussion,” Cook wrote, adding that anyone “who deliberately engage[s] in the politics of advocating for compulsory vaccination where children may be further damaged through government vaccine mandates can expect push back and resistance, alongside knowledgable discussions about vaccine risk in social media commentary.”

Cook said some of the more than 160,000 members of his group have been targets of “harassment campaigns,” and that “police have actually showed up at my members’ doorsteps.”

He added that he’s been threatened and included a screenshot of a private Facebook message that said, “Finally found where you live. Finally I’ll be able to put a bullet in you. You are dead.”

Another anti-vaccination leader blamed the postings on grieving parents’ pages on “infiltrators” who try to “create incendiary situations.”

“I tell everybody that you should look at the person you’re talking to and those on the other side of this discussion and recognize that they care about children, too,” said Del Bigtree, chief executive officer of the Informed Consent Action Network.

During the public comment period at a meeting last month of the US Center for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, more than a dozen people spoke about their concerns about vaccines. Some said they or their loved ones had been injured by vaccines.

“My older son suffered documented illness and regression following vaccination,” said Jackie Martin-Sebell. “These vaccines are not safe for everyone.”

Another speaker, Rilei Cherry, said her son developed autism as a result of vaccines. “We owe it to our children to truly look at the long-term effects of vaccines and be honest about what could happen to our children,” she told the CDC committee.

Despite the speakers’ concerns, more than a dozen studies have shown that vaccines do not cause autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics says “Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives.”

The mothers

On May 6, 2016, Promoli put her toddlers Jude and his twin brother Thomas, down for an afternoon nap in their home. Jude had a low-grade fever, but he was laughing and singing when he went down for his nap.

When his mother went to check on him two hours later, he was dead. Promoli said the next few weeks were “a living hell.”

“Having to go in and plan a funeral and find the ability somehow to even take steps to walk into a funeral home, to make plans and decide whether to bury or cremate your child — it was just all so horrifying,” she said.

When an autopsy came back showing Jude had died of the flu, Promoli started her flu prevention campaign.

That’s when the online attacks began.

Some anti-vaxers told her she’d murdered Jude and made up a story about the flu to cover up her crime. Others said vaccines had killed her son. Some called her the c-word.

The worst ones — the ones that would sometimes make her cry — were the posts that said she was advocating for flu shots so that other children would die from the shots and their parents would be miserable like she was.

“The first time it made me feel really sick because I couldn’t fathom how anybody could even come up with such a terrible claim,” Promoli said. “It caught me off guard in its cruelty. What kind of a person does this?”

Twisted logic that relies on scientific lies doesn’t bother Promoli so much anymore. She’s continued with her flu shot campaign, persuading Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicize his flu shot.

“I’ve had to grow some very thick skin,” she said.

She said no matter how many nasty messages she’s received — and she says she’s received hundreds — she’ll continue her campaign.

“The work that we’re doing might mean that somebody else doesn’t have to go plan a funeral for their toddler, and that is everything,” she said.

Other mothers have also persevered despite attacks from anti-vaxers.

Serese Marotta lost her 5-year-old son, Joseph, to the flu in 2009, and is now chief operating officer of Families Fighting Flu, a group that encourages flu awareness and prevention, including vaccination.

In 2017, she posted a video on the eighth anniversary of her son’s death to reinforce the importance of getting the flu vaccine.

“SLUT,” one person commented. “PHARMA WHORE.”

“May you rot in hell for all the damages you do!” a Facebook user wrote on another one of her posts.

She says a Facebook user in Australia sent her a death threat.

“She called me a lot of names I won’t repeat and used the go-to conspiracy theories about government and big pharma, and I responded, ‘I lost a child,’ and questioned where she was coming from, and she continued to attack me,” said Marotta, who lives in Syracuse, New York.

Catherine and Greg Hughes, an Australian couple who lost their 1-month old son, Riley, to whooping cough, have also received online abuse. Too young to be vaccinated, Riley relied on herd immunity — the vaccinations of others — to protect him.

But herd immunity didn’t protect him, since the area where the Hughes family lived in Perth has some of the lowest vaccination rates in Australia.

“Riley’s death was a very inconvenient truth for anti-vaccine activists,” Catherine said. “The nasty messages started 24 hours after he died. They called us baby killers and said we would have the blood of other babies on our hands. We’ve been told to kill ourselves.”

The couple started a vaccination campaign, Light for Riley.

Catherine said they still receive vile comments years after Riley’s death.

“[F**k] you, Hughes family,” one Facebook user wrote on the Light for Riley page.

“What a [f**king] evil whore you really are,” another user wrote to them in a private Facebook message.

Another Facebook user was more succinct.

“Please die,” the user wrote in a private message.

“A lot of them come from the position that they have children that were vaccine-injured,” Catherine said. “But a fair chunk of them are just haters.”

The professor

Grieving mothers aren’t the only targets of anti-vaxer abuse.

Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Hastings School of Law, has received countless vile messages, and as with the mothers, many of the messages are gender-oriented. Over the years, she’s become pretty blasé about it.

“‘Whore’ is pretty normal,” said Reiss, a pro-vaccine advocate who has written extensively about vaccines. “I’ve also been called a [c**t].”

Sometimes Reiss, who is Jewish, receives comments that mention the Holocaust.

One Facebook user made a meme with a photo of her father with “Proud Supporter of the Vaccine Holocaust.” Reiss says her father has nothing to do with vaccines.

Another meme shows a photo of Reiss holding her infant son and it says that Reiss is “FORCE-injecting” her baby with vaccines.

Below the photo is written: “Because one holocaust wasn’t enough.”

Other Facebook users have said her children look sick in photos, and that vaccines are clearly to blame.

“The Boy [sic] appears lethargic,” one user wrote, with “dark circles under his eyes. These are common precipitants of vaccine induced immune damage and suppression, as well as vaccine induced transient ischemic adverse event.”

Of all the various messages from anti-vaxers, Reiss said the one that angered her the most was a voicemail left for her husband on his work phone.

“If I hear or see anything written by your wife after today, I will release your phone number, your work phone number, your work address, her work address, her work phone number,” the caller said, correctly reciting their phone numbers and home address.

The doctors

Three pediatricians who are vocal vaccine advocates have also been frequent targets of anti-vaxers. All three now have security escorts when they speak publicly.

Dr. Paul Offit keeps a fat folder of nasty messages he’s received so that “if someone kills me, my wife can give it to the police.” He does not laugh when he says this.

“Rot in hell you baby killer,” one user wrote in an email to Offit, who is director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Go [f**king] kill yourself,” another wrote.

Dr. Peter Hotez at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston is a vaccine researcher who wrote a book about his daughter called “Vaccines did not Cause Rachel’s Autism.”

“You have no morals whatsoever and you know that you are a [f**king] liar. I hope you rot in hell,” one anti-vaxer emailed Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor.

Users on the social media platform MeWe discussed an upcoming public meeting Hotez was expected to attend.

“Maybe if we cause him enough stress he’ll have a heart attack before [Wednesday],” one woman wrote, adding, “#sorrynotsorry.”

Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and a California state senator, spearheaded a successful attempt to get rid of vaccine exemptions for personal or religious reasons for schoolchildren in his state. He’s frequently been the target of race-driven abuse by anti-vaxers on Facebook.

He says he’s received thousands of hateful messages from anti-vaxers.

“Chinese garbage,” one user wrote on Pan’s Facebook page, followed by vomiting and devil emojis. “Most ignorant [a**hole].”

“I hope they stone you to death,” another Facebook user wrote. “I’ll make a special trip to happily watch your head crack. The parents of the children you are destroying should each get a chance. Like a nazi piñata.”

Some of the professionals and the mothers interviewed for this story said they reported the abusive messages they received to Facebook. Most of those who made reports said they received an automated response and in the end nothing changed. Others said after they made a report the sender was suspended from Facebook for a short period of time, or their offensive messages were removed.

Others said they didn’t report to Facebook because the process was onerous or they’d heard that it wouldn’t change anything.

A Facebook spokesperson responded to these concerns:

“We try to empower our users with controls, such as blocking other users and moderating comments, so they can limit their exposure to unwanted, offensive or hurtful content. We also encourage people to report bullying behavior on our platform, so we can review the content and take proper action,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

“We want members of our community to feel safe and respected on Facebook and will remove material that appears to purposefully target private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them.”

The spy

Erin Costello, a former bartender and current stay-at-home mom in Utica, New York, is the “Ron” who texted the grieving mother in the Midwest, warning her to expect more anti-vaxer attacks. Costello is an administrator for the pro-vaccine Facebook page “What’s the Harm?”

Costello is one of several vaccine advocates who’ve set up so-called “sock puppet” or fake Facebook accounts and then joins the closed anti-vaxer groups to spy on them.

She said she often sees members discussing posts by parents of sick or dead children, sometimes suggesting that members “educate” those parents by posting on their page.

For example, a member of the anti-vaccine group Stop Mandatory Vaccination said a mother had posted that her baby had suffered seizures after receiving vaccines.

The anti-vaxer urged others in the group to “comment for her to read! I want to win this mom over and she really trusts her pediatrician but at the same time she is scared!”

Another member of Stop Mandatory Vaccination re-posted a post by Catherine Hughes, the mother who’d lost her child to a vaccine-preventable disease, calling for others to vaccinate their children.

“Anyone want to chime in on this post?” the anti-vaxer wrote.

Another member responded, “I feel sorry for the lost baby and her other children but someone needs to inject her with vaccines until she dies.”

A mother’s greatest fear

When she sees anti-vaxers talking about parents in their closed groups, Costello, the online pro-vaccine spy, gets in touch with those parents to warn them they may be getting nasty messages from the anti-vaxers.

When Costello reached out to the mother in the Midwest, she explained why she was contacting her.

“I know you’re likely getting many horrible messages on Facebook right now,” Costello wrote to the mother. “Children such as [yours] are the reason why I do my part to fight for overwhelming acceptance of vaccines as well as fight against the lies and misinformation that are recklessly spread around against vaccines.”

The mother wrote back.

“I appreciate the strong role you take in helping protect families like mine,” she said.

After hundreds of Facebook comments from anti-vaxers, the mother turned off comments on her page, and deleted many of the ones she received.

Some are still in her head, though. She weeps as she remembers the one that was hardest to read.

“The ones that said this was a fake story. That he wasn’t real. That my child didn’t exist,” she said. “Because when your child dies, that’s the biggest fear — that he will be forgotten.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/03/19/her-son-died-and-then-anti-vaxers-attacked-her/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/her-son-died-and-then-anti-vaxers-attacked-her/

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bargainsleuthbooks · 6 months ago

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Book Reviews: Kennedy Edition #NetGalley #NewBooks Jackie: A Novel; Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life; Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

It's time for another round-up of reviews of new or soon-to-be published books. This time, I'm reviewing four books about the #Kennedys. #NetGalley #ARCReview #BookReview #Asknot #LittleBrownandcompany #ourjackie #nyupress #jackieanovel

Anyone that has followed this blog for any length of time knows that much like the British Royal Family, I am down for most any book on the Kennedys. This year, I have already read four new books that shed more light on the family that some call American royalty, some more flattering than others. Here’s a round-up! Most books can be found at the affiliate links below or try your local library!…

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tortuga-aak · 7 years ago

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Female candidates are targeting 3 key Senate seats in 2018

Three congresswomen — Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, and Nevada Rep. Jacky Rosen — are strong contenders for Senate seats in 2018.

Sinema and Rosen, both moderate Democrats, are challenging the most vulnerable incumbents: two Republicans who have been critical of Trump.

And Blackburn represents the rise of ultra-conservative GOP women running for elected office.

In the months leading up to last November, many predicted that 2016 would be the next "Year of the Woman."

The October 2016 release of the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women, would be another Anita Hill moment calling attention to gender disparities in politics in much the same way that Hill's sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas did in 1992, a year that saw significant gains for women in public office.

Instead, female candidates came up short in 2016. As they have for the past few decades, they made small, but steady, gains in the Senate in 2016, their numbers risings from 20 to 21, with female senators of color growing from one to four.

And in 2018, three women are in strong positions to pick up Senate seats, two of them in states that have never elected a woman senator.

Courting swing voters in the Sun Belt

Two of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection in 2018 are GOP incumbents: Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake.

Heller, who has distanced himself from Trump on immigration and healthcare policy, will be challenged by first-term Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, a computer scientist and synagogue president. And Flake, one of the GOP's most vocal Trump critics, will face Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, an openly gay two-term Democrat with a compelling life story.

Both incumbents will be primaried by more conservative candidates, both of whom are backed by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has vowed to challenge every incumbent Republican senator in 2018 in an effort to undermine the GOP establishment.

Sinema and Rosen are banking on those primary races to move the senators father to the right and alienate swing voters.

Lucinda Guinn, vice president for campaigns at Emily's List, told Business Insider that as Heller and Flake are forced to stake out more conservative positions, they will "get more and more out of touch with their states, with those they represent, than they already are."

Emily's List, a political action committee that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, was quick to endorse Rosen and Sinema and has already begun campaigning against their opponents, launching a series of attack ads on Heller in August.

The rise of 'hardcore' conservative women

AP Photo/Zach Gibson, File

Meanwhile, veteran congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is running as a Trump-supporting, far-right conservative to replace retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a prominent Republican who recently broke with Trump.

In an October campaign ad announcing her Senate bid, Blackburn sold herself as a strong Trump backer — a "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative" and "politically incorrect and proud of it."

Syracuse University professor Danielle Thomsen has found that that since the 1980s, Republican women elected to Congress have become more conservative (along with the rest of their party) and their numbers have declined in recent years, while Democratic women have made steady gains both in the House and Senate. Just five of the 52 Republicans in the Senate in 2017 are women. Of the 46 Democrats in the Senate, 16 are women.

Blackburn — along with Kelli Ward, Flake's conservative primary challenger — epitomizes the rightward ideological shift among Republican women elected to Congress over the past several years.

In her 2017 book on partisan polarization in Congress, Thomsen used Blackburn, who has been in Congress since 2oo2, as a benchmark for ideology, and found that between 1980 and 1992, just 6% of incoming Republican members of Congress were more conservative than Blackburn. But between 2006 and 2010, 42% were as or more conservative than the Tennessee congresswoman.

Among female candidates, Thomsen found that ultra-conservative candidates are 20 times more likely to run for office than moderates are.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Avoiding identity politics

In her 2016 campaign memoir, "What Happened," former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wrote about how her campaign struggled to find a sweet spot in its messaging around gender and the historic nature of Clinton's candidacy. She wrote that key demographics, including undecided voters in swing states, didn't respond well to Clinton's focus on her gender.

"Many of our core supporters were very excited by the idea of finally breaking the glass ceiling," Clinton wrote. "But some younger women didn't see what the big deal was. And many undecided women in battleground states didn't want to hear about it at all. Some were afraid that by leaning into the fact that I was a woman, my campaign would end up turning away men — a disheartening but all-too-real possibility."

Some predict that all three female Senate candidates will avoid talking explicitly about their gender during their campaigns.

Despite the fact that, if elected, Blackburn would be the first ever female senator from Tennessee, she mentions her gender only in passing in her nearly three-minute campaign ad.

After quoting former President Andrew Jackson — "One man with courage makes a majority" — Blackburn adds, "Courage comes in both genders and I'm running for the US Senate because I'll fight every day to make our Republican majority act like one."

But Blackburn's "100 percent pro-life" position — what she calls "pro-baby and pro-woman" — positions her as an outspoken activist in a highly gendered debate around reproductive rights.

Notably, Blackburn touts her work investigating Planned Parenthood following the release of secretly filmed videos purporting to show healthcare providers discussing the sale of fetal tissue for scientific research.

"I fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts, thank God," she says in the ad.

The claim is manifestly untrue — the investigation never found that Planned Parenthood engaged in the sale of fetal tissue — and it prompted Twitter to block the ad from promotion on the platform, sparking an outcry among conservatives who accused the "liberal elite" and Silicon Valley of censoring their speech.

Because Simena and Rosen will both target Trump supporters and swing voters, their campaigns will likely avoid discussing glass ceilings or "playing the woman card," as Trump famously accused Clinton of doing in 2016.

"They need to gain voters that are sometimes turned off by 'identity politics,'" Kelly Dittmar, a professor at Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics, told Business Insider.

But, Dittmar added, regardless of whether Sinema, for example, discusses her sexuality during the campaign, it will play a role in her race.

Sinema, who would be the first woman senator from Arizona, makes no mention of her gender in the ad announcing her candidacy, which focuses on her life story — she lived in an abandoned gas station for three years as a child — and a positive, uniting message reminiscent of Clinton's "stronger together" tagline.

And while evidence abounds that Democratic and progressive women are more politically engaged than at any time in recent history, they are not the voters who will make the difference in Arizona and Nevada.

"They can't win on the Democratic progressive women who are super engaged and want to see more women in politics," Dittmar said.

NOW WATCH: Tom Price resigns after controversy over private flights — here are the casualties of the Trump administration so far

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shadyluminaryinfluencer · 7 years ago

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Hello Fashionista’s,

The next must have item in our capsule closet has to be the little black dress also known as L.B.D. In fact I would go so far as categorically stating that no modern women’s wardrobe can be considered complete if it does not have one of them. The popularity of this must have item has by Fashion Historians been ascribed to the 1920’s designs of Coco Chanel.

Double layered shirred bodycon dress

Lets pay homage to this incredible women by finding out a little bit more about them. Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel was born on the 19th August 1883 in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, France to Eugenie Jeanne Devolle (who went by the name of Jeanne) her Mother who was unmarried and her father, Albert Chanel. Her mother was a laundrywoman who spent her days working at a charity hospital which was run by the Sisters of Providence. This was a government run facility which took care of and gave support to the very needy in society. Coco had an older sister called Julia who was born less than a year earlier.

Her father made a living peddling work clothes and undergarments traveling to and from market towns to do so. After being persuaded to marry her by her family the couple wed in 1884. When she was born, Coco’s name was entered into the official registry as “Chasnel”,her mother Jeanne was to unwell to attend the registration. With both parents absent, the infants’s name was misspelled – suspicion being that it was a clerical mistake. The couple had three other children, another girl and two boys. Growing up was extremely cramped as they resided in a one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gallarde, France.

Tragically her mother died of Tuberculosis when she was 12, her mother perishing at the young age of 32. Her brothers were sent to work as farm labourers and her father sent his three daughters to a convent called Aubazine in Correze which is about 10 km’s away from Brive-la-Gallarde. The orphanage , was “founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and orphaned girls”. Life in the orphanage was stark, sparse and the nuns demanded strict discipline. Historians agree that despite the tragic circumstances which landed her in the orphanage, it was here where she learned to sew. When she turned eighteen, she went to live in a boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins. Interestingly it is widely reported that Chanel would tell a somewhat different version of her own childhood when she was older often telling people that after her mother died, her father sailed to America to persue his fortune. Or that she was sent to live with her Aunts. It seems she regailed a far more glamorous childhood than the tragic one afforded to her which saw her loose her mother at such a young age and her being sent to grow up in an institution.

Her name Coco arose from a somewhat different earlier career she enjoyed as a singer – albeit a brief one. She would sing at various clubs in Vichy and Moulins in France. Chanel herself is quoted as saying the name is a “shortened version of cocotte, the French word for ‘kept woman’”. It soon became apparent that a stage career was not for her.

A young Gabrielle Chanel

Coco Chanel and her Aunt, Adrienne outside her first store in Deauville

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in her youth

The young Coco Chanel

An association with Etienne Balson when she was twenty years old prompted her early foray into fashion when he assisted her in starting a millinery business in Paris. When she met Arthur “Boy” Capel – an even wealthier associate of Etienne’s she promptly dumped him. The stylish Arthur was an impeccably dressed man and his influence is widely associated with Chanel’s concept look. Her first boutique was opened in 1913 in Deauville with Arthur’s financial assistance. The store introduced the world to her range of casual and sportswear. It marked the start of future success. By 1915 a second boutique opened its doors in Biarritz. The establishment of her Maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon took place in 1919.

Coco Chanel introduced the world to the Little Black Dress in the 1920’s. Her intention being that the dress be affordable and easy-to-wear this being in stark contrast to the restrictive fashion of the time which included constrictive corsets which were used an essential piece of underwear forcing a women’s waist thinner. She will remain forever enshrined in the fashion worlds hall of fame for freeing women of corsets, daring them to wear short skirts – short enough for their ankles to be shown in public. It is for this and her elegant, comfortable and practical approach to women’s fashion that revolutionized the world of women’s fashion forever.

In 1921 Coco introduced the world to her first fragrance – named after her as – Chanel No. Five. The Number Five was included as Chanel had been told it was her lucky number by a fortune teller. This floral scent was created by Ernest Beaux and he was briefed by Chanel to create a perfume that ‘smelled like a women”. She did not want it to smell like a rose or lily of valley but rather as a floral composition. The original scent has been adapted since then by Henri Robert and Jacques Polge

‘I am told that when Mlle Chanel met Ernest Beaux she asked him to create ‘a perfume that will make even the perfumers jealous’. She said he could use the richest products available, and so he used the best he had – jasmine from Grasse, May rose, a special quality of ylang-ylang – and, at the end, he added some aldehydes to let all that richness fly a little,’ Polge said.

Chanel No. 5 was adored by Marilyn Monroe who family said she wears Chanel No. 5 and nothing else to bed. The perfume remains on the best selling perfumes in the world – adored by celebrities and man across the world.

During the World War II, she was accused of being a Nazi spy. At the end of the war in 1945 Chanel moved to Switzerland. She remained there for nine years eventually returning to Paris in 1954, this marked the re-opening of her couture houses. Chanel, aged 71 is reportedly to have told the famous actress Marlene Dietrich that it was because she was “dying of boredom”. Her new collection wasn’t well received by Parisians as the taint of being a Nazi spy continued to haunt her. However, her designs were well regarded and endorsed by the British and the Americans.

Another iconic Chanel piece is undoubtedly the Chanel Handbag which was created in 1955. Owning one of these incredible handbags is akin to being accepted into an exclusive sorority. For decades the classic flap has been incredibly sought after. The 2.55 Reissued helped revive the style of this icon in the mid 2000’s. The redesign appealed to a modern looking new generation of customers who didn’t want to be seen wearing their mothers handbags.

Many other designers and retailers from Urban Outfitters to Marc Jacobs has been accused of stealing from Chanel’s signature bag, and there’s a good reason for that – it’s timeless, iconic and still as relevant to luxury customers today as it was back in the 1950s. Chain straps and quilted leather have become nearly synonymous with the idea of the designer handbag, and the Chanel flap may even be more well-known across the world than the illustrious handbag holy grail, the Hermes Birkin. Its pricey at about $ 3,000 but then again you would be buying one of the most sought after handbags in the world and you would own a legend.

On 10 January 1971 Chanel died at the hotel Ritz in Paris at the age of 87. It is widely reported that she uttered her last words to her maid Celine were, “You see, this is how you die.” A recent biography written by Lisa Chaney called “Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life” lays claim that she frequently used opiates and considered the use of morphine as a simple sedative. All of which surfaced with discovered love letters and other archives which go on to claim her bisexuality. Chanel’s funeral was organized at eglise de Madeleine. She rests in peace in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Her life has been captured on two films both released in 2009: Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky starring Anna Mouglalis and based on a novel of the same name, and Coco before Chanel starring Audrey Tautou.

No matter what is portrayed of her posthumously, her influence on the fashion world is unmistakable and her legacy will remain forever. When a women today puts on a pair of trouser she can credit Chanel that she no longer needs to be squeezed into a corset. Jackie Kennedy was wearing one of her pink suits on the day JFK was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. In the 1980’s Karl Lagerfield took over as head of design and he is much credited with appealing to a younger more modern women. The company owns 100 boutiques around the world and is still one of the most recognized names in fashion and perfume.

In his book, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own, Axel Madsen says, “Coco was the Pied Piper who led women away from complicated, uncomfortable clothes to a simple, uncluttered, and casual look that is still synonymous with her name. It conveys prestige, quality, taste, and unmistakable style.”

Today her namesake company continues to thrive. Although it is privately held, it is believed to generate hundreds of millions in sales each year.

When I think of a black dress I fondly remember my first trip to the far east in 2007. A shopping trip to the famous Xiushui Street in Beijing. The Market is in the extension line of Chang’an Street, near to International CBD Commercial Area, so it enjoys convenient location and transport.

Among the extensive variety of goods on offer ranging from branded clothes, shoes, bags, leather goods, sportswear, handicrafts, jewelry, antiques, calligraphy, clocks, watches and glasses to name a few I came across a black dress which caught my eye. We were a bit weary after making our way through the maze of people selling their goods. The reason for our weariness stemming from the sellers clutching on to you and whinging that you must by their goods and having to be quite abrupt and stern with them to get rid of them. It quickly dawned on me to avoid making an eye contact with any sellers as this was an invitation for a sale…I can distinctly remember the sound of “best price” and “only so many $’s” as clear as if it were yesterday.

The black dress was an exquisite Chloe black dress – complete with a mandarin collar and ruffled detail on the bodice. The pleated skirt was pure perfection with a ribbon belt which perfectly accentuated the waist. IT WAS PERFECT and then I tried it on…EVEN MORE PERFECT that it was hanging up in all its splendid glory. Then I heard the price which was a little more than I was budgeting on spending but I thought surely I can haggle down the price. So I began in earnest with a price which was immediately cut down – No the price remained. According to my colleague Amanda who was on hand to assist with the translation who also attempted (in Mandarin I might add) to negotiate better terms – the dress was the actual one the real deal and not a knock off. Hence the price was justified and not negotiable. With a heavy heart I exercised restraint and walked away. Everything else in the market after seeing that glorious dress was boring, plain and to me at least uninteresting. As our visit to the market was drawing to its inevitable conclusion my head filled with horror that I might never get a chance to wear that dress. I simply could not leave without that dress – it was haunting me. No matter which way we tried the seller was not budging – not even an inch – not even when we argued that if she was a licensed agent she would have to give me a warranty something she was unwilling to do. So I handed over the cash and the dress looked similar to this one:

I am pleased to report that the dress still hangs in my closet (although I fear it might not fit at the moment as I am carrying some Winter weight which I need to shed). Equally pleased to report that the dress has attended important events, weddings and sadly a few funerals. It has been there for girlfriends who have equally needed a Little Black Dress for an occasion – in fact it forms part of a travelling wardrobe between the girlfriends.

It must be said that the dress – with its classic feminine style – has been worth every cent. The dress wears beautifully, launders well and remains in perfect shape. Whilst I may not have acquired it from a licensed Chloe Store or Agent it’s longevity has been curious to me as to its true origins.

Or perhaps it is simply the nostalgia of remembering those items you buy when you are visiting foreign lands. They unlock memories, smells, sights and sounds with them of that trip. We have a standing joke at home that my husband only shops when he is abroad – cause oh boy can he shop! It is like the minute he gets to a foreign land he becomes a true shopper. I will never forget the look of sheer delight and enjoyment when we entered an Abercrombie and Finch store in Singapore. Oh and they smell great – whatever they use to scent their stores with.

Regrettably for us mere mortals, travels to foreign lands to acquire your full wardrobe is not quite realistic at this stage. However, with the incredible technology at our fingertips today we can order anything, from anywhere, pay for it and have it delivered. It is truly amazing and astounding.

So no matter what the event is you going to be it a funeral, dinner, dance or even a wedding a little black dress will work. It remains chic, modern and relevant even after all these years. One of the most iconic and stylish women of our times, Diana was often seen wearing a stylish Little Black Dress. I have recently listened to the Audiobook “Diana: In her own Words” by Andrew Morton which is a series of the Icon’s own insights recorded during “Morton tapes,” of secret interviews recorded by the princess and sent to the journalist. The one story which I recall is during the early years, Charles admonished Diana for wearing black to an event and she simply ignored his “oh no wearing black is for a funeral comment” and wore that Little Black Dress. By the way if you are a massive fan of her then you simply have to listen to the audio book which strikes a deep chord as it is her voice, her thoughts, her fears, her delights and her love of the boys which is so unscripted and real. Well worth a listen. You will really admire those royal heirs even more…

So as is immortalized in Coco Chanel and Diana to name a few the Little Black Dress is really worthy of its status as a staple piece and building block of any women’s wardrobe.

So here are some of my investment Little Black Dresses that I would recommend:

I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have putting together its roots and giving the Little Black Dress an insight into its illustrious history which is continuing to evolve among each and everyone of us.

xxx

Hello Fashionista’s, The next must have item in our capsule closet has to be the little black dress also known as L.B.D.

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micaramel · 7 years ago

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Artist: Verena Dengler

Venue: Kunsthalle Bern

Exhibition Title: Jackie of All Trades & Her Radical Chic Academy with (((HC Playner)))

Date: May 20 – July 23, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Kunsthalle Bern. Photos by Gunnar Meier.

Press Release:

Jackie took Jack’s claim that he can do everything away from him. The Jackie of all Trades is Verena Dengler (*1981 in Vienna, lives in Vienna). Verena Dengler is aware of how little future-oriented and extremely apolitical it would be to continue adhering to patriarchal notions of skill in the dawning matriarchy. But what are you supposed to do if you can do everything?

When women still found the thinking of poststructuralist theorists relevant and wore themselves out working on the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, she might have spoken of “deconstruction”. But Dengler doesn’t. She prefers Sigmund Freud, who was specialized in psychic life, and his concept of the woman who presumes to want a lot – and hides her fantasies of omnipotence behind the mask of a universal amateur, which she divides and proliferates.

Dengler’s works and anti-works are mostly appropriative and allusive bricolages of paintings, drawings, sculptures, texts, self-made, purchased, and found objects arranged in the gallery space. Dengler makes use of the bricolage in the broadest sense, for many of her pieces are based on her interest in the cycles of cultural products, in the transitions between cheap mass taste and refined culture, and in the alterability of aesthetic symbols.

Her show at the Kunsthalle Bern is kicked off with the term “radical chic” which was coined by the American writer Tom Wolfe in his 1970 essay of the same name. Wolfe commented on how wealthy members of the educated middle classes supported the radical political Black Panther Party just because it was fashionable. Since then, the term has undergone several changes, but it still stands for varying combinations of fashion, art, lifestyle, and political radicalism.

Verena Dengler broaches these kinds of conceptual relations not to elucidate them, but to deal with them in a humorous manner. In doing so, she is aware of how problematic it is to demand that art be politically effective, also and especially in a time when ongoing responses to current topics are asked for. Fashions and their play with appearance are deemed unstable and superficial, according to Dengler’s diagnosis: It is not considered good form for serious people and serious art to be fashionable. These conventional and bourgeois ideas of preserving and maintaining pose a challenge to Verena Dengler, and she even enjoys them, without her works lacking subtle seriousness.

Her Radical Chic Academy, in which she drilled her students at the art academy in Geneva and that led to a film, installs nonsense that according to its purpose leaves meaningful expectations unfulfilled.

As a member of the Hysteria Fraternity in Vienna, she proclaimed the unlimited matriarchy. Verena Dengler invited the artist HC Playner, also a member of the Fraternity, to exhibit in the main room of the Kunsthalle Bern. Hysteria with the crest symbol of a hyena mimics symbols of right-wing, nationalistic fraternities. Like Hysteria, Verena Dengler often pursues a sort of détournement, meaning misappropriating and reevaluating codes and symbols to employ them against something.

But there is more behind many of Dengler’s masks of flippancy: artistic ambitions of right-wing extremists in Austria, male sexisms, “regretting motherhood,” Dengler’s family relations. In the subtext of these weighty themes, she reflects on her role as an artist in the wake of contemporary art and social expectations on art. Dengler underfulfills the unwritten agreements on good taste and the proper tone in the sense of aesthetic models and originals. But she is not interested in the polemic demonstration of ennoblement processes. The pleasure she takes in gestures of exaggeration that can become satirical is at the fore.

Dengler’s impositions constantly question what is regarded as good form, for example, when she includes private affairs in her artistic work. But these impositions simultaneously maintain a distance, through humor and also her ongoing play with alter egos and fictitious characters.

Works by Verena Dengler (*1981 in Vienna, lives in Vienna) have recently been presented in solo or group shows at among others Museion, Bolzano (2016), Zabriskie Point, Geneva (2016), Thomas Duncan Gallery, Los Angeles (2015), New Museum, New York (2015), Hacienda, Zurich (2015), Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2014), Kunsthalle Wien (2014), MAK, Vienna (2013), mumok, Vienna (2013), 21er Haus, Vienna (2012), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2011), Kunsthalle Zürich (2011).

Link: Verena Dengler at Kunsthalle Bern

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 8 years ago

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Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial Day 1: Witness Breaks Down in Tears, Keshia Knight Pulliam Defends Her Support

Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial began on Monday at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where the 79-year-old actor is standing trial on three counts of aggravated indecent assault.

Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in January 2004 at his mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and has repeatedly denied similar claims from other women. Aggravated indecent assault carries a potential maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

On Monday morning, assistant District Attorney Kristen Feden presented the prosecution's opening statements to presiding judge Steven O'Neill, in which she stressed that the case is about "trust, betrayal and the inability to consent."

"When you think whether or not he knew what effect those pills would have on Andrea, I would submit that he did," Feden stated. She went on to present the possibility that the actor's status as a public figure has the potential to skew public perception, arguing, "Our society celebrates [celebrities] to the point that they become gods. …Because of that, we think we really know them."

WATCH: Bill Cosby's Accusers: A Timeline of Alleged Sexual Assault Claims (Updated)

Cosby's defense attorney, Brian McMonagle, staunchly denied all accusations presented against his client, and presented the case that the claims made about Cosby were patently false.

"The only thing that is worse than [sexual assault] is the false accusation of sexual assault," McMonagle said, adding that a false allegations can "destroy a man's life."

Addressing the jury -- which is made up of seven men and five women -- McMonagle said, "Try to be the juror that you would want if it was your grandfather or your father or your son or you sitting over there. No distractions! Be that jury."

WATCH: Keshia Knight Pulliam Supports Bill Cosby on First Day of Sexual Assault Trial

McMonagle refuted Constand's accounts of the incident and raised questions that aimed to discredit Constand's timeline and claims regarding the night in question.

The first witness to present testimony was Kelly Johnson, one of multiple women who claim to have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby over the last four decades.

According to Johnson's testimony, after meeting Cosby in 1990 and striking up a friendly, fatherly friendship, she alleges that, in 1996, Cosby offered her a pill during a private meeting at his bungalow and sexually assaulted her. She says she was scared and did not consent.

While recounting the alleged incident, Johnson broke down in tears. She went on to say that she didn't go to the police at the time because, "I was afraid."

NEWS: Bill Cosby Implies Racism, Revenge Behind Sexual Assault Allegations

The defense called into question the validity of Johnson's testimony upon cross-examination. McMonagle questioned her reported timeline, supposed inconsistencies with a deposition based on a lawyer's notes from 1996, and her claim that she was not a social drug user at the time of the incident.

"You, never having done drugs, took a pill out of a man’s hand, who was in a robe, and took it? That’s your sworn testimony?" McMonagle asked.

Cosby is not on trial for any allegations made by Johnson. Her testimony was presented by the prosecution in an attempt to establish an alleged pattern or history of behavior. Cosby has previously denied Johnson's claims, and all other claims made against him.

NEWS: Prosecutors Cleared to Use Bill Cosby's Deposition at Trial

Actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who has been an outspoken defender of Cosby, sat in the courtroom on Monday to show her support for the actor.

Pulliam -- who played one of Cosby's daughters, Rudy Huxtable, on The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992 -- spoke with reporters during a recess and opened up about why she was attending the first day of the trial.

"I came to support [Cosby] because this is where you hear the facts. This is where the truth happens," Pulliam, 38, stated. "Ultimately, it's easy to support someone and to be in their corner when things are great, when things are good. But...true family, friendship, integrity is how people show up and support when things aren't looking so great, when they aren't shining."

According to the actress, she will "accept whatever verdict" the jury decides and believes they will make the appropriate decision.

"Right now, it's the jury's decision, and it's the jury's job to decide guilt and innocence. It's not mine or anyone else's," Pulliam said. "As an advocate for women and with my nonprofit, the Kamp Kizzy Foundation, which is all about empowerment, self-esteem for girls, I don't take these charges lightly. I don't condone sexual assault in any way shape or form."

NEWS: Judge Rules Case Against Bill Cosby Will Continue

"My truth was to be here and to be supportive, and it's not always easy to do what you feel is truthful and what you feel is right when there's so much controversy. But ultimately, that's just how I've lived my life—in terms of being very genuine and authentic to who I am. And I can't stop doing that now," she continued. "I just pray for all parties involved because this isn't a great situation, no matter what side of the coin you're on."

Earlier in the day, before proceedings kicked off, Pulliam was seen walking with Cosby into the courthouse. The pair appeared to be in good spirits. Cosby later thanked Pulliam for her support on Twitter, writing, "Thank you to Cliff and Claire's 4 year old daughter (Rudy) and the Brilliant Spelman Alumnus."

For more on Cosby's ongoing legal battle, watch the video below.

Reporting by Jackie Willis.

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naomiarataxpolthe2-blog · 8 years ago

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Women of the world united against patriarchy

Patriarchy as a form of hierarchy within society is an ancient idea. Several of the great civilizations we look up to flourished within such a hierarchical society that places less importance on women as compared to men. Ancient Rome for once reveals much about women, not from women writing their hopes and dreams but of men writing about “their” women. Up until today, no personal diaries were found written by a woman but several are found written by men. Written in men’s writing were women’s place in society: with their unique power to conceive, girls around twelve years old are expected to be married and be perpetually pregnant (Shelton, 1988). But this idea must be put into perspective of their society. Since the average life expectancy of Romans in their time may only be until their 20s, thirties if they’re lucky, girls married very young. For instance, Venturia, a Roman woman like others died very young had such description in her funerary inscription: “she was married at eleven, gave birth to six children, and died at twenty-seven”.

Since the advancement of technology and medicine is not far progressive in the Ancient times as compared today, women gave birth to as many offspring as they could because there is no certainty as to which will reach maturity of even survive (Shelton, p. 292). Seeing this placement of women in the Roman society, it may also be assumed that they spent most of their lives taking care of their children as much as also conceiving more, leaving no room for women to step out from the private realm of life to the public, which is deemed to be a man’s world. This private role of women may only be chosen from: Being a child bearer, a daughter and wife and nothing more. Consequently, infertility of a woman was grounds for divorce and being their primary role to the society. They were not even permitted to vote or participate in public transactions. Nothing would be left of barren women (Mason, n.d).

Indeed, the Ancient Roman civilization is known to be an extremely patriarchal society because of its emphasis on peasantry and its custom of the “way of the elders”. This peasantry industry denote so well the implication of a hierarchy within the society, one that is not alien to us even today. Through the retrospective insight on Rome with regards to the role of women in their society, there is one concept still very similar to it today: Gender equality.

We would assume that something ancient would be beyond the imaginable today. That is one fact we couldn’t be anymore wrong about. Patriarchy still lives on. It’s alive and kicking! Until the contemporary times, women are sill considered inferior to men despite advances also on the Feminist movement. To mention a few major instances, about 70% of the world’s poor and 64% of the world’s illiterate adults are from the female demographic. Most of the evacuees in every disaster or calamity are women and children. There’s only 1 in 7 women that are promoted into managerial positions as compared to men. And as bright as day can you see male politicians dominating over women politicians, that sometimes it is necessary to recognize these female politicians in the world because there can be so few. In India, it is terribly appalling to know that 70% of wives are subjected into domestic abuse by their husbands. Globally, sexual assault and rape are experienced by women. This is all because women are believed to be inferior to men. The cause is not the fact that women have a smaller physical build as compared to men, or that men can lift heavier weights than women, or they can perform longer in tedious activities but the fact that these attributes translated into women being weak that they belong at home obscured from the important matters of the world. It is because this mindset is being passed from one generation to another. The very minute things that enter our subconscious into thinking that women are second-rate people, especially what our parents, our teachers, the elders and leaders we know tell us.

We often neglect that this mindset of ours was enculturated into our subconscious. Women themselves never realized how oppressed they are because it is the system they have dealt with. Men, who in their childhood never thought of a hierarchy in gender develop the thoughts the previous generations have thought them. Which is why women are so underrepresented. Women when they assert themselves would not seem as normal as men telling people that they’re boss. One of the most enraging consequences of this “gender hierarchy” is the fact that women, since the ancient times are treated as objects. When I was younger, I was not able to realize how objectified women are. That they are sources of entertainment, the fire of men’s loins and are treated as accessories.

I couldn’t help but wonder why there is a thing called “First Lady” in the Presidents of the world, because the President’s housewife is assumed to be a supporter of his husband. One who is expected to be graceful, pristine, calm and collected. Concrete example, the late Jacqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s bereaved wife in 1966. JFK was always the ladies man. It’s a public secret that he goes crazy over vivacious, bombshell-looking blondes, something that is quite the contrary of the classy Jackie Kennedy. Several affairs with blondes later, JFK met Marilyn Monroe, rumors circulated and eventually - almost - confirmed by the “late” Marilyn Monroe’s sultry “Happy Birthday to you” song to the handsome President at the Madison Square Garden. This was one event that Jackie Kennedy skipped in her appointment, as everyone would know why, yet she never admitted it. Until now, JFK and Marilyn Monroe’s affair seem to be classic to political history and American pop culture. the rumors regarding the phone calls to the Oval office, their vacation in resorts and beaches and Marilyn’s untimely death. People have formulated conspiracy theories in surrounding the FBI’s contribution in Marilyn Monroe’s death, claiming that the FBI took advantage of her lifelong depression and the bitter end of her and JFK’s love story. Death by barbiturate overdose was the conclusion of Monroe’s death, but avid fans of the bombshell and conspiracy theorists alike would beg to differ.

In that scenario, there are two takeaways: 1) Since this love triangle of JFK, Jackie and Marilyn, American pop culture devised only two binary classifications of a WOMAN. “Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn?” as many online quizzes ask you and if you still don’t know how there are only two classifications of a woman as dictated by a patriarchal society, you can try it here. It’s either women should be loud, enticing and entertaining or silent, submissive and collected. Marilyn or a Jackie, why should there be no in between? The second takeaway is that 2) JFK is not at all condemned for his liaisons. It was as if the world goes blind whenever they look into JFK’s many affairs (and are even entertained by it!). JFK cheats on Jackie - yet again - and no one bats an eye. Furthermore, Marilyn Monroe gets to be the ‘tramp’ while JFK proceeds to be one of the most favored US Presidents in the world. Jacqueline Kennedy gets cheated on several times and is still expected to be a person of grace, poise and class. It’s as if women are only meant to be seen and not heard. How come it is normal in this society for men to have affairs and it is so easy to judge women when they do the same?

Who is your other?

In this generation, I would no longer like to solely blame men for this folly, but the society that taught them how women are should be treated. The Feminist Movement as compared to other prevailing theories is relatively new, and some generations who did not initiate this movement did not have an aggressive stance against patriarchy as we are now, myself, especially. This Patriarchal concept permeates any aspect of life, family, even in the workplace, how classmates treat each other, politics, in times of war, etc. One will never run out of reasons to justify the feminist movement because we have always been on the sideline. The system is difficult to penetrate so much that we may have to dedicate our whole lives to the advocacy because definitely, there is a long way to go.

Have you ever been the object of domination and marginalization?

Patriarchy as a system has severed how I should see myself, how I should view the world and how the world views me. I am from the inferior gender, a woman, from an inferior race, Asian and from an inferior economic class, the middle class. Of course others have it worse, but it doesn’t mean that the plight of a demographic the same as mine should be totally ignored. I am speaking in behalf of all the women in the world who are not given the exact opportunities and quality of treatment because of something they have no control over (gender, race, economic class, etc).

In general, all women have been objects of domination without them even knowing. The less-developed a country is, the less they are open to ideas contrary to their traditions because they lack the certain technologies that allow them to learn of different ideologies and better options in the world. Oftentimes, ancient histories of civilizations placed better importance of women, but as soon as other facts come in (i.e invaders, colonizers, great diaspora, migrations, etc.), it’s inevitable that these values change.

To answer directly, yes I have been the object of domination and marginalization. Because of several reasons. Small, subtle and obvious, gut-wrenching reasons. Thinking about it as a woman, several instances in my life prove as to how enthusiastic I am to fight for equality but the wall of patriarchy is too high and too thick to breach. Which is why we’re making waves by uniting women transnationally. We are all for the feminist movement. and if some of them are still not aware how exploitative this patriarchal system is althroughout the course of history, it is the duty of the enlightened hearts to touch them.

If yes, how? (Objectified, exploited, subordinated, persecuted or oppressed). On the basis of gender.

- In the streets, it is as if catcalling has been a part of women’s day-to-day life. I have never walked alone in Taft completely undaunted of what might happen to me anytime. Whenever I wear clothes that show more skin because it is always ALWAYS hot as balls in this country, I’d have to prepare myself for catcalls from rather indistinguishable truck drivers and pedicab drivers. People might say that

“Hi beh”

“Ganda mo naman, miss”

“Hi idol!”

Are more of compliments than catcalling, but the hell do I get anxious and scared by hearing those. If I perceive these compliments/catcalls as theatening to my life, then they as a whole should not be doing such.

- Any social situation

I did not ask for it, but genetics gave me massive bosoms. I have not understood the pros and the cons of having such a formidable front until puberty. Because of this, I was often the subject of objectification coming from peers from high school I have not even spoken to. People perceive be as a dumb bimbo, judging me from my outer appearance than what I have to say. I have long endured times when catcallers specifically target my boobs as I am not a human being with dignity, thoughts and personality. The men who I thought were “admirers” did not really want anything coming out of my brain, but anything they can get out of my outer appearance.

I despise so much how society and entitled men have seen me as a weak, enticing creature that is “good for nothing”. I despise how society thinks I am a second-class human being as compared to male and that they would not think twice about my achievements because a man my equal would look far better than I am because apparently I am a woman, emotional, impulsive and ‘wild’.

It has always been baffling how women are expected to lure men into their private space due their sheer attractiveness. How men are the predator and women the prey. Defy nature and there’s a whole society that would judge you for “making the first move”. I oppose this norm for women to die old just because they cannot approach who they want. Personally, women should be equal to men that they can be completely honest about their feelings like men have always been, if they want to of course.

My generation is not the generation of my parents and I am so proud that our generation is more open to liberating women, not into misandry but to equality. I am optimistic about this united mission of women against patriarchy and it’d be my lifelong mission to push further the rights of the marginalized women who are often victims of casualties in the world. I am passionate in this cause and I see myself doing nothing else but fighting for empowerment in the future.

Did you resist? If yes, how?

I am not a fan of confrontation. I would like to deal with inconvenience the peaceful way possible, yet I am also guilty that staying quiet and tolerating these things to happen is a long way to go. Facing these head-on would make things faster, but I believe that changing norms would be an even better way to completely fight for the cause. It is not how I brutally confront a catcaller that would change him completely, one has to go into his head and inspire the change. As what I have mentioned awhile ago, it is society that should be dealt with - why they call it a patriarchal society anyway!

Women are being stripped off of the opportunities they deserve just because of a gender difference. We are the bearers of life. We are creators of biological life on earth and yet since the ancient times it has become our folly. Much power are given to us by nature and yet we are stuck in substandard treatment in every avenue one sees it. Once this patriarchal mindset changes the slightest bit, millions of women are to benefit from it. More women are going to be sent to schools and are literate enough to read things about the broad universe before them, more women are to be treated the same in the workplace and will have equal salary, or a chance in promotion or merely recognition from the higher ups, women are to be accepted to be equal as men in decision-making especially in the government, that way, we are given a narrative written by us. We are being represented by someone who personally encounters what it is like to be a woman. More open to opportunities, free from violence, free from a hierarchy. I’d probably be dead before this is all achieved, but I will do everything in my power to empower my girls. I am capable of change because I am one with the feminists all over the world. We have a united message that speaks to every human being and for me, that is the most powerful catalyst of change.

For all the women in ancient civilizations who lived and died just to make offsprings, the women who were ‘outcasted’ from the important decision-making bodies of kingdoms, for princesses being perceived as weak, cute figures incapable of making big waves, women servants who never achieved what they aimed to be - or didn’t even have the chance to dream for their sake, the efforts of women during the World Wars obscured from the public and rape victims - including myself, we have not been able to dominate this society. this is exactly why we have the Movement. Regardless of nationality we should be heard and all these narratives should be spoken not by male writers but by women themselves.

Have you ever dominated and marginalized others?

Regarding this question, I am a woman (the inferior gender), a woman of color (Filipino-Japanese) and a child from the middle class. The only thing I would be proud of and that I have aloof of some people is that I have been given the opportunity to be smart. I may not be the brightest bulb but I am well aware of words that would explain the world right now. Words that I can use to express myself. Words that I can use to theorize what I repeatedly observe in the system and abstractions I can translate to somebody.

If we would consider a caste system in the world, I would most probably be in the lower middle. I’m not male, I don’t come from an elite society, I‘m not white. Despite that, I am a Lasallian. I am a budding political scientist and that is one thing I am probably aloof of most Filipinos. So if there probably was a time I have marginalized others, it would be because I wanted to correct them of something I know that they don’t - which is happening more often due to my increasing passion in political science and the truth.

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movietvtechgeeks · 8 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/no-nip-tuck-richard-simmons-plus-demi-lovatos-revealing-hack/

No Nip Tuck for Richard Simmons plus Demi Lovato's revealing hack

While it hasn’t been long since she exited Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, model Yolanda Hadid is already preparing for her triumphant return to TV. In a new announcement, TV network Lifetime revealed that Yolanda would be starring on their upcoming reality show Model Moms. Media outlet Deadline reported on the upcoming show, saying, “Yolanda, along with her trusted team of experts, will put the girls and their “momagers” through an intensive eight-week training program, focused on the physical, mental and emotional wellness that it takes to build a sustainable brand. With a $5,000 weekly prize on the line to put towards their future careers, only one girl will be left standing to win a management contract with Yolanda’s company and the potential opportunity to be represented by IMG models in New York.” Essentially, the show will be similar to America’s Next Top Model. However, it will feature Yolanda guiding both up-and-coming models and their managing moms. In addition to her own success in the modeling world, Yolanda has successfully advised and supported all three of her children, as they pave their own paths as models. Yolanda’s two daughters, Bella and Gigi, are amongst the top models in the business right now and her son, Anwar, is just beginning to get into the industry as well. Yet another wave of hacks have hit the celebrities of Hollywood. Over the past while, numerous celebrities’ private photos and information have been hacked and shared online. Early this week, the hackers claimed yet another victim – this time being Demi Lovato. According to reports published on Tuesday, a series of Demi’s private photos were stolen from her Cloud account by an established group of hackers. It is claimed that some of the photos that the hackers managed to obtain included ones of Demi lying in bed with her ex-boyfriend, actor Wilmer Valderamma. In addition, various outlets claim that the hackers also got their hands on photos of Demi completely bare. While the rumor mill continues to churn out stories about the speculated intimate photos that were stolen from the songstress, Demi took to her Twitter to address the controversy head on. In a tweet posted Tuesday evening, the “Neon Lights” singer posted to her followers, “I love how everyone’s freaking out about one picture. It’s not nude, and it’s just cleavage.” The former Disney starlet went on to note, “Besides the world has seen me nude by choice before…#vanityfair.” Here, Demi is referring to her previous spread for Vanity Fair, where she went completely clothes and makeup free. Demi Lovato, Twitter post: https://twitter.com/ddlovato/status/844354359072821249 https://twitter.com/ddlovato/status/844354708240261122 Moreover, it appears that the whole leak scandal in regard to Demi Lovato has been completely overblown. However, this should not discount from the fact that cyber sleuths are targeting an increasing number of celebrities. Some notable stars that have fallen victim to the most recent wave of cyber hacks include Beauty and the Beast starlet Emma Watson and newlywed Amanda Seyfried. Terrence Howard, who has a history of domestic abuse, has turned over a new leaf these days. “I’ve made terrible mistakes throughout my life,” the 48-year-old “Empire” star told People. “I was dragging baggage with me that was crippling me mentally and physically. But I finally feel I can put that to rest. I can breathe again.” Howard’s childhood was rocked by numerous incidents of violence. His father, Tyrone, was jailed for fatally stabbing a man while the family waited to meet Santa Claus. Howard says he was “whooped” by his father until he was 14. The actor has also confessed to hitting his first wife, Lori, and there are multiple allegations of domestic abuse from his second wife, Michelle Ghent. Today, Howard credits the death of his mother in 2008 as well as meeting his third wife, Mira Pak, with changing his outlook on life and his behavior. The couple — who were married, divorced and reconciled — share two young kids. “Mira settled me,” Howard said. “Our marriage is effortless. Relationships are hard work, but we really don’t fight.” Weeks after meeting Pak in 2013, Howard moved to bury his past. “I gathered up my things associated with my past and found a nice hill and buried them all there,” Howard said. A week after, he popped the big question. Although Howard is in a new space in his life, he sometimes still encounters stress. “I’ll just watch a tree’s limbs sway back and forth and take my shoes off and put my hands on a tree,” Howard said of his unique stress-management technique. “It makes me feel part of the whole.” Pak, 39, has also picked up on the calmer side of her Howard. “He refuses to kill a fly,” she said. “And we’re trying to teach our kids not to pick flowers.” Howard, a father of five, followed up with his own theory: “I know in those two weeks or month of a fly’s life, that’s 80 years for them. And we smash them so quickly. I hope if someone saw me trapped, some bigger creature would help me.” Actor Shia LaBeouf is taking his controversial anti-President Trump art installation across the pond, claiming America isn’t “safe enough” for his work. The “He Will Not Divide Us” webcam exhibit has been adopted by the Liverpool-based Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, the group said Tuesday. “Events have shown that America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist,” LaBeouf and the other artists wrote in a statement. The project encourages people to say “He will not divide us!” into a wall-mounted camera that is live-streaming 24/7. It was launched in Queens on Inauguration Day and was supposed to run through the duration of Trump’s presidency. But the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria shut down the installation on Feb. 10, saying it became a “flashpoint of violence.” So LaBeouf moved it to Albuquerque, where it was yanked a few days later because of vandalism and gunfire Charlie Sheen knows the secrets of Hollywood, including which stars are HIV-positive. “I know who they are, but I will take that to my grave,” Sheen, 51, teased on Wednesday’s episode of “The Kyle & Jackie ‘O’ Show,” according to the Daily Mail. But Sheen, who announced his status in November 2015, did reveal the “miracle drug” he’s taking. “Here’s the absolute freaking irony — with the miracle drug that I’m on, this PRO-140, I am actually safer than most cats out there that profess to be on the tallest tree,” he quipped. The conversation also turned to the topic of Scientology. The radio hosts bluntly asked if any of his friends ever tried to lure him into the church. “Yes, actually,” the father of five stated. “There was one — and she’s a dear friend of mine. It’s Kelly Preston, who’s married to John Travolta.” Since he’s good friends with the couple, the hosts pressed Sheen about Travolta’s sexuality. They asked if he believed the rumors about Travolta and massage parlors. “I have a new rule now: If I wasn’t there, I can’t possibly harbor an opinion,” he said. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s pioneering Funny or Die website is closing its New York offices media outlets are reporting. Staff at the nearly 10-year-old comedy site’s East Coast operation were informed that they could either relocate to its Los Angeles offices or be laid off. Insiders tell us that of the 13 staff in the NoMad location, three have decided to leave the company, and the remaining 10 staffers chose to ship out to LA. Industry site Deadline reported in August that Funny or Die — which has featured videos on its site starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey and Johnny Depp, and also produced the Emmy-winning “Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis” and Billy Eichner’s “Billy on the Street” — was also shuttering its Silicon Valley office and laid off 37 staffers, mainly “on the tech side.” The move came shortly after production exec Mike Farah was promoted to CEO. At the time, Farah said: “As we move into the future, we’ve decided to double down and refocus on making the kind of content that made us a household name in the first place. To accomplish that, we’ve had to reorganize and reduce our staff.” In 2015 the site expanded by opening a Washington, DC, office and in 2016 hired David Litt, a former President Obama speechwriter who was also lead joke writer for the former POTUS’ White House Correspondents’ Dinner speeches. We’re told that many among the New Yorkers who have had to move their families cross-country are less than thrilled with the sudden upheaval. The three members of staff who elected to leave the company were designers, we’re told, and the site still has a sales office in the city. That team moved into a smaller space on Wall Street. The site — which Ferrell and McKay launched in 2007 with Ferrell’s legendary “The Landord” sketch, starring McKay’s 2-year-old daughter, Pearl, as a ferocious landlord — initially moved from a Broadway space to a bigger office in NoMad in 2014. A Funny or Die rep declined to comment. Since going public with abuse claims against her producer in 2014, Kesha has gotten substantial support in the court of public opinion. She has not fared so well in actual court. Again on Tuesday, a New York judge turned down Kesha’s attempt to break her contract with Dr. Luke, rejecting a motion to file an amended complaint. The ruling from Judge Shirley Kornreich reiterates many of the points from the same judge’s earlier ruling, in April 2016, in which the singer’s claims against the producer were dismissed. Dr. Luke, the stage name for Lukasz Gottwald, filed an initial complaint against Kesha in 2014 for failing to work on a third album as required under her contract. Kesha filed a countersuit, seeking to be released from the contract on the basis of allegations that Dr. Luke had raped her and verbally abused her over the course of several years. In February 2016, Kornreich denied Kesha’s request for an injunction that would have allowed her to record an album outside of her contract. In her April 2016 ruling dismissing the countersuit, Kornreich noted that the two specific instances of sexual abuse alleged in the counterclaim each occurred before Kesha signed her contract with Dr. Luke. After the success of her first two albums, the judge noted that Kesha sought increased royalties, but Dr. Luke rejected the request. Following the string of courthouse defeats, Kesha began working on the third album last fall. Her lawyers contend that Dr. Luke continues to interfere and delay the album’s release, which Dr. Luke denies. In January, Kesha’s attorneys sought to amend her original counterclaim, again seeking to release her from the contract. “Dr. Luke has aggressively sought to financially destroy Kesha by keeping her under his control while simultaneously waging a nuclear litigation campaign against her,” her attorneys claimed. “It is a vendetta against Kesha … She is not demanding more money. Kesha asks for something far more basic: the freedom to make music without being bound indefinitely to the very producer who subjected her to years of abuse and continues that abuse to this day.” Dr. Luke’s attorneys countered that she was attempting to litigate the dispute in the media. “It was obviously designed to garner sympathetic headlines for Defendant, and further tarnish Plaintiffs, based upon false assertions and blatant mischaracterizations,” they wrote. In Tuesday’s ruling, Kornreich ruled that Kesha could not advance claims for breach of the agreement because she herself had failed to perform her obligations. The judge took note that Dr. Luke’s accountants have calculated that she owes him $1.3 million in royalties, and has not paid him since 2012. Richard Simmons‘ private life is unlike anything tabloid speculation has made it out to be. The 68-year-old fitness guru, who has not been seen in public since January 2014, laughed off allegations he is unhappy and is transitioning into a woman. “The other day I told him, ‘There are people who think you are a very overweight, depressed woman.’ And he just laughed,” Simmons’ manager, Michael Catalano, told People. “He’s trim, and he has a beard.” Rumors surfaced that the reclusive Simmons was being held hostage by longtime live-in housekeeper Teresa Reveles. Publicist Tom Estey has since called the claims a “complete load of crap.” “She takes impeccable care of Richard. She’s nothing but a blessing to him,” Estey continued. The Los Angeles Police Department visited Simmons earlier this month, confirming that the colorful personality is doing fine. “There was something about his housekeeper holding him hostage and not allowing people to see him and preventing him from making phone calls and it was all garbage, and that’s why we went out to see him. None of it is true,” Detective Kevin Becker told the magazine. “The fact of the matter is we went out and talked to him, he is fine, nobody is holding him hostage. He is doing exactly what he wants to do.” While Simmons’ fan base may yearn to see him again one day, brother Lenny Simmons, 70, said his sibling prefers the secluded lifestyle, having spent 40-some years in the spotlight. “My brother is fine. He calls me every Sunday, and we have a nice conversation — it’s not me calling him, that’s him calling me,” Lenny explained. “He’s always been the way he is now. He’s always had his quiet time. It’s just that people only saw one aspect of him, and now that they aren’t seeing that, they thinking that something has happened, that something is wrong.” Though Simmons was hospitalized for dehydration 2016, he phoned “Entertainment Tonight” with an update last March. “No one should be worried about me … The people that surround me are wonderful people who take great care of me,” Simmons said. Simmons now dedicates his time to primetime television — specifically “60 Minutes” — and his garden. “After 40-odd years, he just decided that he wants to rest, and I certainly can’t blame him,” Lenny shared. “It’s his decision not to be seen.” If you have been Keeping Up with the Kardashians (i.e. watching their weekly reality show) this season, you may have noticed that the youngest sister, Kylie Jenner, has been notably absent. While the season just started 2 weeks ago, it is unusual for the show to completely skip over Kylie’s perspective on the ongoing family drama. In contrast to media reports saying that the makeup mogul is looking to distance herself from television, a source close to Kylie just recently revealed that the starlet is actually in the midst of developing her very own TV show. According to the source, Kylie is putting together a weekly show that gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at her ever-growing makeup empire, Kylie Cosmetics. The source told media tabloids, “Kylie is so excited [about getting her own show]…It’s going to be all about building her business and hiring people for her team.” While Kylie has already accomplished so much in regards to her makeup business, the 19-year-old continues to expand her reach. Just recently, Kylie opened up 2 pop-up stores, one in Los Angeles and one in New York, which both drew hundreds of fans on their opening day. This isn’t the first time there has been speculation surrounding Kylie and a possible spin-off show. In fact, back in 2016, sources were claiming that she was already collaborating with her family’s home network, E!, on one. A source told the press at the time, “[Kylie] wants the show to be all about her…She no longer wants to do one with Kendall [Jenner].” With Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ ratings downward trend, a Kylie-centric show may be just what E! needs to regain some momentum. Move over Gaga! There is another female starlet coming to FX’s hit anthology series American Crime Story. A while back, it was confirmed that singer/actress Lady Gaga would not be playing Donatella Versace in season three of ACS. While Gaga was initially the leading candidate for the role, ACS’s creator Ryan Murphy later told fans that they were unable to fit the show’s filming in with Gaga’s hectic schedule. Fortunately, the show enlisted another strong female actress, who is bringing plenty of her own star power to the cast. Early this week, media outlets reported that Vicky Cristina Barcelona star Penelope Cruz will be taking on the role of Donatella in season three of American Crime Story. Penelope will be helping Ryan, and the rest of the show’s crew, explore the murder of Gianni Versace (who will be portrayed by Edgar Ramirez), who was found dead on the steps of his Miami Beach home. It was later determined that serial killer Andrew Cunanan (who will be portrayed by Darren Criss) was responsible for the highly publicized murder. Stay tuned for more detail about the upcoming seasons of FX’s American Crime Story. While they have gone about being in the spotlight in different ways, there are plenty of things that One Direction’s Liam Payne has in common with pop singer Justin Bieber. Pulling from some of the commonalities present within their whirlwind lives and careers, Liam admitted that he previously reached out to Justin Bieber. The boy band member recently told Rollacoaster magazine that he felt obligated to offer his support to Justin when he was going through a notably tough time. In his interview with the publication, Liam gushed, “[Justin Bieber’s] a great guy - inside there’s a really good heart.” Liam went on to reveal that he previously gave Justin his cell number just in case Justin needed someone to talk to - particularly, someone who understood the craziness of Hollywood and show business. Liam explained, “I said [to Justin], ‘Look, the difference between me and you is I had four different boys going through the same thing to look to.’ [Justin] didn't have that.” The “Story of My Life” crooner added, “I said to him, ‘Take my number and any time you want a chat, let me know as I’m here and I understand exactly what you’re going through and I understand your world.’” While Liam did not disclose whether or not Justin actually took him up on his offer, he did further sympathize with how overwhelming Justin’s life must be. Liam told the magazine, “[Justin] needs somebody [that knows what he is going through] and in [a similar] position.” Disney starlet Demi Lovato has certainly come a long way over the past 5 year. Last week, the star celebrated her fifth year of sobriety. You may remember, back in 2012, Demi shocked her young Disney fans when she checked into a rehabilitation centre. While there, the singer got treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, as well as issues relating to her mental health and eating habits. Last Saturday, Demi proudly celebrated her 5 years of sobriety. In doing so, the talented songstress drove around Los Angeles and hand-delivered check donations to a number of admirable charities. Some of the causes that Demi offered her financial support to included: LGBTQ, animal rescue and adoption rights. On Wednesday, a few days before she ventured on her drive of goodwill, the star took to her Instagram to share her sobriety milestone with fans and followers. Alongside a picture of her Twelve Steps milestone details, the “Neon Lights” artist captioned, “So grateful. It’s been quite the journey. So many ups and downs. So many times I wanted to relapse but sat on my hands and begged God to relieve the obsession. I’m so proud of myself, but I couldn’t have done it without my higher power (God), my family, friends and everyone else who supported me. Feeling humbled and joyful today. Thank you guys for sticking by my side and believing in me.” Demi Lovato, Instagram post: Congrats Demi!

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#Celebrity Gossip #Charlie Sheen #Demi Lovato #Featured #Kesha #Richard Simmons #Yolanda Hadid

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