#The rural indigenous folk need to be better looked after

[fazcinatingblog]

Omfg it's funny because it's true, damn we needed that 3 game member.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

i'm finding it so surprising that no one (yes including me) hasn't really done any exploration into pavitr's village life. it's in his (comic) lore, it's where his story is first started out, and lowkey it never gets talked about, neither by the audience nor marvel. we're gonna change that >:)

no but i completely understand why we as the audience mightn't've delved into this route before. most of us online folk don't have *that* much experience working on the land. i'm not judging anyone for it, it's just something i've noted. on that note i'm pointing fingers at marvel themselves for brushing over such an important facet of the character- he's got all the hallmarks of regular peter parker spider-man, but where peter's stories oft highlight his origins and the different experiences he has as someone from the suburbs, the same isn't done for pavitr!! there are no flashbacks to his time as a village boy after he moves into mumbai!!! there is no discussion regarding any experience in his youth!!! (there is exactly only 1 flashback in 2023's SMI #5 and it is only 6 panels long talking about helping those in need). that whole portion of his life is just NOT THERE and i can't keep living life like this.

truth be told the only reason i'm even making this post at all is because i got a little too inspired by the stories my parents have told me. we've got tales of parents disobeying their parents and playing out in the streets 'til nightfall and all that. but hearing my parents talking about the joy they've managed to find between hours of tending the crops, going to school, catching the buses, avoiding spooky marshes and abandoned houses, catching rainwater and racing paper boats, making sculptures out of clay and twine, catching fish in the wells and butterflies between bushes, being present in communities and village gatherings...there is so much more to life than we realise.

i'm genuinely not talking about cottagecore aesthetics when i say i think working on the land might've healed something in me. sure a bunch of the things that i do now might definitely be squandered, but different parts of me *could* have flourished if i was tilling and such. many of the core parts of me would've remained, but i'd probably be putting my energy in a bunch of other things (like tilling and such, obviously. and then crying over harvests). the second-generation immigrants yearn for the fields (it's me, i'm the second-generation immigrant).

FURTHERMORE (with uppercase and in bold, that's when you know i'm being serious) if i were to take a more sociopolitical look at things, i think pavitr being personally connected to the land in some way, shape or form can actually provide insight into the livelihoods of modern agriculture and the farming industry. obviously centred on desi farming practices, but also on the global scale, if that can be allowed. he can shed light on a bunch of issues!!! he can fight for the rights of farmers, of those who tend to the land, and the members of the community!!!!

i don't know! i don't know. i just think spider-man india can provide a beautiful avenue to explore and appreciate the livelihoods of farmers and rural and/or indigenous communities. he can also highlight societal issues working against them and shed light on ways we can better everyone's circumstances while preserving these unique experiences and cultural practices. i don't know. i just think it's neat.

pavitr prabhakar, if only marvel would let me into spidey hq i'd do you SO MANY FAVOURS i'd bring in a new age of spidey india comics fr fr i'd also blast nick lowe into the sun so in fact spider man would be free forever from stupid idiots

[kuramirocket]

The historic center of Puebla city, where I live, is a World Heritage site. Tphe nearby post office, like many buildings in the area, is beautifully decorated in the traditional tiles. But among theses buildings there is also a McDonald's, Dominos, Oxxo (a Coca Cola store), Subway, and Burger King, and there is a Pizza Hut, KFC; and Starbucks one block away.

Starbucks has 670 stores in Mexico, Subway has 900, and Walmart has 2,610—the largest number in any country after the US, and a figure that is likely to increase given their profits during the pandemic.

The impact of this change in urban landscape and consumption on Mexicans' identity, lifestyle, and culture, shouldn't be underestimated. More and more US transnationals have opened up in Mexico over the past few decades, taking advantage of unfair trade agreements, super-exploitative labor conditions, and cheap utilities. Local restaurants and traditional Mexican tianguis markets struggle to compete.

"There isn't any equality of conditions, so it isn't really a competition," says Iktiuh Arenas, an expert in urban planning and human rights, and a specialist with Mexico's Secretariat of Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development (SEDATU).

Arenas says shopping centers, department stores like Walmart, and transnational chain restaurants have advantages compared to local markets and craftspeople, because they have a big marketing budget. They encourage people to buy products that weren't produced locally, and they have the money to secure the best locations in squares and main streets.

Over the past few decades, he argues, "development" has been limited to building shopping centers and supporting chain stores, while green areas and museums have been deprioritized. "This policy of urban development is based on copying the US model," he says.

Walmart in Mexico (which operates as Wal-Mart de México y Centroamérica) is the biggest retailer in the country, and it includes other brands, like the smaller Bodega Aurrerra supermarkets, the wholesale Sam's Club, MaxiPali, and Superama. In 1994, it had just 25 stores in Mexico, but the NAFTA agreement (1994-2020) meant it could easily sell hundreds of products imported from the US, without paying customs taxes.

Since then, Walmarts have been built on forested areas, threatened buildings of artistic value, and been built on or near ancient ruins. There is a Walmart near the archaeological zone of Teotihuacán, and local resistance managed to prevent one being built in the Indigenous town of Cuetezalan.

Joining the Walmarts are hundreds of other companies, including Pepsico, Uber, 19,558 Oxxos, The Cheesecake Factory, Baskin Robbins, 718 Dominos, over 400 KFCs, Pizza Hut, Home Depot, Office Depot, Citigroup, JP Morgan Case, and thousands of factories, from Ford to General Electric.

With NAFTA's lifting of tariffs and trade barriers, these companies also benefit from some of the highest rates of exploitation in the world. While a Mexican worker in the US will earn US$1,870 per month on average, in Mexico the figure drops to US$291.

NAFTA also saw a mass displacement of rural workers in Mexico, and Arenas says public policy has abandoned rural areas in favor of cities. He argues that "classism and racism towards rural workers" has also been a factor.

I also talked to Isis Samaniego, a poet and traditional market worker, and an expert in native Mexican fruits and vegetables. "Department stores, shopping centers, and fast food joints from the US displaced local businesses here, like the tlapalerias [Mexican stores selling paint and hardware goods]," they say, arguing that those shops sold products that lasted, whereas the new shops sell cheaper, but lower quality goods.

As more and more farmers moved to the cities, they became the new cheap labor. Bertha Meléndez is a lifelong activist and well known musician. She sings in 10 Indigenous languages and researches and compiles Indigenous songs, while collaborating with community radios. She says the new arrivals to the cities were then sold the idea of junk food as a way to feel modern.

"It wasn't just a change of diet, but a change of lifestyle, as people left communities where there were strong connections between neighbors and a slower approach, and came to the cities where they were then so exploited that they didn't have time to prepare their own food," she says.

As she talks, we eat tortilla soup. "This is a Mexican dish," she says. "It takes time to prepare."

"People are abandoning the street markets and going to supermarkets because of the status … When a family goes to McDonald's, its because they want to look like they are upper class. People think the food is better there, but it has a lot of chemicals in it, it can be very addictive and bad for your health," comments Samaniego.

Many Mexicans feel the need to put on appearances. That involves pretending their living conditions are better than the poverty they face, as well as imitating US or European ways, and buying products or brands from there. For hundreds of years, colonization and imperialism have taught people that their culture and way of life were inferior.

Prior to the Spanish invasion, and well after it as well, people ate food according to the seasons, Arenas notes. "But now, Walmart sells products all year round, and so it breaks with the old way of doing things," he says.

He explains that producers compete for the privilege of Walmart shelf space, and consumers buy things they don't need as part of aspiring to be something better. "It strengthens those issues of classism and loss of identity," he says.

Before the Spanish invasion, people gathered in main squares and central areas and laid down woven petate mats, then arranged their products on them. They either exchanged goods, or sold them for cacao or for tools made of copper. These tianguis markets were a key part of people's culture and way of life, and they continue to exist in some form today in towns like Cuetzalan, Tianguistengo, Otumba, Tenejapa, Chilapa, Zacualpan, and more.

"In Walmart you exchange money with someone, but you don't exchange knowledge, you don't have a conversation," says Samaniego. But in the modern and traditional tianguis, you can talk to the farmers directly, or to the artists who made the handicrafts, they argue.

That's why Meléndez sees companies like Walmart and McDonald's as displacing communities, as well as their food and lifestyle.

"We are the children of corn. Since ancestral times, we have depended on corn," she says. She describes a relationship with the land and environment that is a key part of people's identities.

"Indigenous culture is alive, but it isn't as visible," she says. Some of the languages she sings in, such as Nahuatl and Mixteco, are widely spoken. But others are almost extinct, spoken by a few hundred people. Colonization, then US economic and cultural imperialism have seen people rejecting their indigenous roots, and "instead they imitate US culture. Being indigenous is stigmatized," she says.

That's why Meléndez sees her songs and Indigenous and Mexican art as being vital for people's sense of identity, and their visibility. There are 12 million professional folk craftspeople in Mexico. But they have been one of the sectors most negatively impacted by the pandemic. They often live in regions without Internet or phone signals, and frequently don't have the technical literacy to promote their products online—instead relying on interactions in the street and squares. During last year's lock downs, many artists were completely cut off from their income.

Stores like Walmart, on the other hand, have adapted to selling online. Walmart's profits in Mexico had increased to 162 billion pesos in 2020, from 148 billion in 2019.

"Mexico is dominated by the US … culturally, economically, and they even choose our presidents so that they can keep sending their companies here and enjoying cheap labor … and with that comes a policy of making people reject their culture, and that means rejecting themselves," Meléndez says.

Foreign corporations have a lot of freedom in Mexico, and they are backed by trade agreements like NAFTA and USMCA that were created within very unequal power dynamics. One activist, Gustavo Esteva during the 2002 protests against plans for a McDonald's in the main square of Oaxaca put it succinctly, "This is nothing less than a cultural conquest."

[ozarkhealingtraditions]

Ozark Folk Healing

Folk healing and magic in the Ozark Mountains isn’t a well-defined set of practices. It encompasses countless traditions that were both brought to the New World by immigrant groups and were picked up through interactions with indigenous peoples. These traditions mixed and melded together in the melting pot of the Appalachian Mountains. Then, they were brought with hillfolk into the Ozarks during settlement of the region in the early 1800's after the forced removal of the Osage and Old Settler Cherokee. These Appalachian families found a familiar home in the hills and hollers of the Ozarks. The traditions of healing and magic they brought with them would continue to evolve and change through extreme isolation on the one hand and interactions with new cultural centers on the other. They are still evolving in this way today.

Some of the best resources we have for these Ozark folk traditions come from renowned folklorists like Vance Randolph, Mary Celestia Parler, and Otto Ernest Rayburn. Many no doubt have a copy of Randolph’s Ozark Magic and Folklore on their bookshelf right now. These folklorists spent much of their lives collecting and publishing material collected first-hand from Ozark hillfolk. These resources have become a vital link with our past in a rapidly changing region. Another significant amount of information has come from popular works like the “Bittersweet” and “Ozark Mountaineer” magazines, and even the well-known “Foxfire” books. This series, while not directly about the Ozarks, does cover folkways from the cultural homeland of the Ozark hillfolk in the Appalachian Mountains. This cache of collected material becomes integral to any studies on Ozark folk culture because for the most part, we're talking about the past.

A problem arises early on for anyone studying Ozark folkways; it's very much a culture that is disappearing. Some would say dying, but I choose to say changing or evolving. There are still rural areas holding pockets of some of the old folkways, but for the most part, as with many other American folk traditions, most of this knowledge which at one time would have been so vital to survival, is now limited to the weekend fall festival, square dance, or museum reenactment. It would be an overstatement to call these folkways a living tradition in the Ozarks. There are still those in the region who are working hard to preserve what little material is still out there and to educate folks about these folkways before they’re lost forever. I've been a part of this struggle for years now, collecting my own folk material and working methods of traditional healing into my own practice as a Power Doctor, or one who heals with plants and prayers. While it’s a sad sight seeing these traditions die off with every passing elder, we have to look at the Ozarks of today and what this new culture has to offer. Before we do that, let's go back in time and examine where we’ve come from.

When we talk about Ozark folk healing, we can divide practices and knowledge into two main groups. I’ve worked hard trying to come up with some cleaver names for these groups, as have other folklorists. Some might use nature-based and faith-based medicine. When you look at the details though, faith plays a vital role in all aspects of the work. I choose to use plant-based and non plant-based medicines. Cleaver, I know. The plant-based group includes, well, plants! Whereas the non plant-based group covers items repurposed from the cabin like string, knives, axes, bones, feathers, eggs, etc. These hold just as much healing power as a locally harvested yarb or healing plant. You’ll notice I haven’t divided between magic and medicine, as these labels are found across both groups. Red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), for instance, can be used in salves for healing the skin, or burned to drive away evil spirits.

The plant-based category includes traditions of folk herbalism held by the community Yarb Doctor or Granny Woman. Both of these terms, as well as others that will be mentioned later on, come from out of the old Ozarks, although they can still be heard in isolated cases today. These medicines incorporate ingredients from the botanical world and include remedies that many would be familiar with even today. Herbal preparations include salves, ointments, tonics, tinctures, powders, drops, draughts, and many more. Much of the herbal knowledge of the mountain Yarb Doctor comes from a blending of traditions from across Europe and the knowledge of native plants offered by the indigenous peoples, particularly of the Southeast. One can note many similarities in remedies between those collected by folklorists like Vance Randolph and those that appear in the Appalachian Foxfire series. In many cases we see the uses and beliefs surrounding plants native to Europe later applied to New World examples that bore some resemblance to the original plant. For instance, the associations of European Mandrake (genus Mandragora) applied to the Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), often called American Mandrake.

The non plant-based category includes the use of items of great healing value that were repurposed from household tools and paired with prayers, verbal charms, and ritual, in order to magically heal a patient. This would be the expertise area of the Power Doctor and the Goomer Doctor. The Power Doctor heals through the use of magical charms, prayers, and is an expert in ritual and the making of talismans. Occasionally they might have some herbal knowledge that they bring into their work, but most often, any use of plants is through their magical, not medical, properties. The category of Power Doctor stands on its own, but might also include such specialized healers as Blood Stoppers, Burn Doctors, Wart Charmers, and sometimes even the local preacher. The Goomer Doctor deals with all cases of goomering, meaning hexes, curses or any malign witchcraft that might be put onto someone. Also sometimes seen is the Witch Doctor, or Witch Master, also able to cleanse a person of any magical maladies. The Witch Doctor isn’t himself a witch, but someone skilled in removing the effects of witchcraft on a person. It should be noted that in most Ozark accounts, the word witch is seen in a negative light and refers to someone who uses their magical gift to harm or steal from others. The witch stands in direct opposition to the Doctor, whose gift is said to come directly from God or another divine source, and acts as a foil to the witch’s work. There are exceptions, as with the water witch, the witch wiggler, both names for traditional dowsers, able to find underground water sources through magical means, and the white witch, little used in the Ozarks, but often heard in the Appalachian Mountains. Healers are always cautious when using the word witch and often walk a very thin line between what is socially acceptable and what isn’t. Ozark people often tread in a gray area when it comes to magic and healing. A healer who prays, believes in God, and does good works in the community must then be considered good. A healer must constantly be vigilant about how they appear in the community, lest they be taken for a witch in disguise. While we Ozarkers don’t worry so much anymore about witches, it’s still a thin line that healers walk. Nowadays it’s a line between what is helpful and what those who don’t believe might label as quackery.

There have been and still are healers whose expertise covers both the plant-based and non plant-based medicines. The trend over the past fifty years or so has been that the magical and religious healing traditions are dying at a much quicker rate than the herbal knowledge. One reason for this is an increase in interest in herbal and alternative medicines since the 70's and 80's. The Ozarks have always been a hub of herbal activity, providing many useful plant medicines to pharmaceutical corporations as well as the local herbalist or naturopath. With this increased interest in herbal medicines the need for more and more scientific validation behind herbal preparations has forced the faith-based or magic-based healing traditions to retreat into the shadows. My experience has been that these practices no longer go hand-in-hand with herbal medicines as they once used to, and are more likely to be labeled as vestiges of a more superstitious past by researchers. One can understand why many modern Ozark people might want to disassociate themselves with anything related to these old traditions and so-called superstitions of their parents or grandparents. Someone who was passed a healing charm now finds themselves without any kin or interested listener to then pass it on to, and so the charm dies. By its very nature, many of these practices depend on having someone to pass the knowledge to, almost always orally, and most often with the understanding that the traditions will be used and not recorded in any way. There has always been a taboo against writing down or recording much of this traditional knowledge. In this way, many of the Ozark healing knowledge and practices are naturally susceptible to forgetful minds and the changing times.

As a modern Ozarker living in an ever-changing Ozarks, I find myself at the crossroads between the traditions of my past and those of my future. For many old timers, change is an unwelcome force to their day-to-day lives. “It was better in the good ol’ days!” they say, but for who? For minorities it wasn’t so great. For anyone who was different or stood on the fringes of society it was a terrible time. In the old Ozarks, the local witch was often this person. Sometimes a widow, or someone with a disability, or someone who just plain didn’t like people, could easily be pushed to the edge of town. This isolation from society was often the nail in the coffin for hillfolk, many who depended upon the amenities of life in town. Exile was the best option for a witch, though, as hillfolk were known for lynching witches, people of color, and those caught in the arms of the same sex well into the 20th century. This vehement hatred for change remains throughout the older generations, but we see today an evolution of what it means to be an Ozarker as more and more people from diverse backgrounds arrive in the area. 

What are our Ozark traditions today? How can we keep the candle of the past burning while still embracing new folkways and identities? This process requires a good amount of pruning. There are folk traditions that should be studied but not practiced. For instance, the old Ozark remedy for the terrible skin condition called shingles once was to cut the throat of a black cat and rub the blood in a circle around the afflicted area. So, you know, that’s probably not something we should bring with us into the future. There are other traditions that need pruning, but at the core of Ozark folk culture is this connection to the land, the plants, hills, hollers, and rivers that make up the natural landscape for us, and what that connection means for us spiritually and magically. For the longest time city-folk, or those living in farming communities throughout the old Ozarks were rightfully afraid of the monsters that lurked up in the hills and the people that knew how to tame them. This fear didn’t go away, despite what people in town might say. There’s still a suspicion about the wildness of the Ozarks and what magic might lie hidden in the trees. For the healer this is the heart of the magical world, this is power. Herein lies our connection to what it means to be an Ozarker; a deep connection to the land that we can see and the land we must use other eyes to view. This connection crosses all cultural and personal boundaries. In this way, we as a younger generation can embrace the strength and wisdom of the past while understanding that all traditions must evolve. 

[mrsrcbinscn]

Franny Robinson HC Infodump #4: Country and Bluegrass Music

hi, I’ll finally do a writeup on her work in jazz next but I’m in a country mood and was INSPIRED so oops country first

Word count: 2486

Dara & Danny

  In 1991, Daniel Maitland (fc: Martin Sensmeier), an Indigenous Alaskan kid, moved from Alaska to Payne Lake, Georgia, with his parents and older and younger sisters after his father got a job opportunity in Atlanta, a reasonable commute away. Daniel spent two years being musical rivals with Franny Framagucci before he proposed they just combine their talents and perform together at talent shows and the county fair. The two were inseparable, musically, until Franny went to college at NYU and Daniel went to East Tennessee State.

  They remained friends throughout college and reunited during winter and summer breaks to play together locally. Daniel was in Franny’s wedding party. He’s Wilbur’s godfather and is ‘Uncle Dan’, they’ve always remained close. They would write songs together usually through an internet connection except for when they could travel to write in person.

  In 2009, Daniel once again was the one who suggested they officially collaborate. That’s when the bluegrass-country-traditional southern/Appalachian folk duo was born. They have released 9 albums together since they started releasing music under Dara & Danny.

  One album, titled Molly’s Church, is almost entirely songs from the hymnal of the Church of the Nazarene in their hometown in Georgia, which was the church their friend Molly attended before her death. It was a “fuck you” response to them having received backlash from certain gatekeepers for a video of them singing Hank Williams’ I Saw The Light going viral. They were pissed two non-Christians were getting praise for performing the song. (Franny is a Buddhist and Daniel is an Indigenous Alaskan with traditional spiritual beliefs).

  To the backlash, Franny said, and announced the dropping of this album on an Instagram Live Q & A, “It’s funny. Like. Christmas is such a part of mainstream American culture. I celebrate Christmas, my non-religious Maori husband celebrates Christmas, are y’all mad about that too? Christianity is so deeply woven into American culture and the history of American music, like I just -- its wild y’all are so mad. And because I like to poke an angry bear, our new album, Molly’s Church [...] and what really gets me is like - just because I ain’t Christian, don’t mean I’m ignorant about it either. I’m from the Bible Belt, y’all. I did go to church with my little friends some Sunday mornin’s as a child if I had a sleepover at their house. [...] One of my best friends, the lovely, talented, beautiful, late Molly Vaughn, who we named the album after, was a devout Christian. When I would cry, she’d always sing It Is Well With My Soul to me and play with my hair. You can’t tell me that because I’m not a Christian, that song ain’t special to me. I think of that song whenever I’m going through a hard time and my heart is at peace because at its core it's a song about looking at your situation and making peace with it, and finding the strength to move on to hopefully better days. At her husband’s request, I sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing at her funeral, okay? Like- [pause for annoyed exhaling] to suggest we have nothing but respect for these beautiful hymns is insulting. [...] Insulting not just to us, but to the hymns. They’re so beautiful that they have made an emotional impact on two non-Christian musicians. I think that’s wonderful and speaks to how lucky we are to live in a time where all sorts of sorts are able to learn from and share with each other. But that’s just us, I guess.

  Every song on Molly’s Church has a special memory attached to it for either myself or Daniel, or in the case of Be Thou My Vision, it was Molly’s favorite hymn ever. We couldn’t name an album of hymns after her and not put that on it.”

  The track list is as follows: [Spotify playlist]

  I couldn’t find a folksy or bluegrassy version of Be Thou My Vision, which. I’m ANGRY about. Because when I was a practicing Nazarene Christian it was my favorite hymn, and I still find it beautiful but.

  Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing

How Great Thou Art

Dwelling In Beulah Land

Be Thou My Vision

It Is Well With My Soul

I Saw The Light

Victory In Jesus

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel 

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory

Holy, Holy, Holy

  Another album, titled Something’s Rotten in The Sticks is purposely very dark. It’s largely covers of murder ballads and sad traditional folk songs from the American South and Appalachian Mountains, featuring original songs and covers of songs that explore the darker sides of more modern rural life like the opioid crisis, unemployment, poor education, poverty with no social safety nets, and more. 

  Franny openly admits that she wrote the original songs from a place of immense privilege. In an Instagram Live Q&A about the album she said, “These aren’t my exact lived experiences. But I feel like I have some right to talk about these stories because these are the things happening to my people, the good people of the town that took my mother in when she was a twenty-something year old refugee, and then helped raise me. I buried my first friend thanks to the Sacklers (the family whose pharma company produces oxycontin, who purposely spread misinformation about how its a safe drug and who pret-ty much engineered the opioid epidemic) in 1998. I just last month buried one of my best friends since elementary school after three narcan shots couldn’t save them. 

  Rural Southern folks and the problems they face are dear to my heart. [...] I know how lucky I am to have grown up in the rural south and ended up where I am today, in the privileged position I am in. [...] And I see the way people in the cities talk to and about these people and it’s fucking gross. You know nothing about these people and what their lives are like, and what they care about and worry about. I have always been proud to be Southern, just as I’m proud to be Cambodian. [...] Rural poor folks are the kindest, most loving, most resilient people, and I am not ashamed that I came from that. 

  This album… so our last album, Prodigal Children of Clayton County, Georgia, was a love letter to and about our hometown and the people of the rural south. This album is more of a ‘we see you.’ And it's also, I hope, an accessible way to start explaining the problems our people face to city elites that look down their noses at them. Like, I hope people can say in response to “I just don’t understand these people”, “hey, go listen to I Grabbed A Banjo (And You, The Pills), then talk to me.”

  Daniel said in that same Q & A, “I was born in Alaska, I met Franny when I moved to her hometown in Georgia, in middle school, and we began playing music together in high school. I live in the Appalachian Mountains now, I studied Bluegrass and Old Time music at East Tennessee State University, in Johnson City. Now, I’m -- I’ve been lucky enough to make a living out of the music I love, but you know- like I said. I live in the Appalachian mountains, in Kentucky, in a rural area. I never left the rural south, since I came here, this has been my home. We’re privileged now, but had a few stars aligned differently, our high school friends’ lives would have been ours. We love the people of this region. Like Franny said, we both have two groups of people we are passionate about amplifying and equipped to amplify. Mine are our struggling rural folks, and Indigenous voices, and Franny don’t ever shut up about Cambodian or the rural south.”

  “I really fucking don’t.” Franny quipped.

The track list is as follows: [Spotify link, the first 8 tracks are the songs they covered on the album and the rest are songs that fit the vibe of the original songs to give y’all a picture]

  Knoxville Girl

I Grabbed A Banjo (And You, The Pills), an original song about the opioid epidemic that’s killed many of Franny and Daniel’s high school friends 

Troubles, traditional folk song as popularized by Kilby Snow and Anna & Elizabeth

Red Dirt Girl (Emmylou Harris cover)

But I Ain't A Milton Boy/Girl , an original song about how in Milton (a bougie rich people part of Georgia) kids go to college and become doctors and lawyers while people from the song narrators’ town don’t bother learning to solve for X because all that waits for them is army recruiters, the power company, or the unemployment line [the male narrator, Daniel], and the female narrator [Franny] sings about how she was a smart girl who held her first baby when she was a baby herself, married two bad men she thought were good, and now she sells her ADHD pills to college kids to buy groceries, and how their high school aspirations crumbled easily, and the chorus is literally just narrators fantasizing about a decent standard of living and having decent opportunities and then going, “But I ain’t a Milton boy/girl, and that’s why I’m cryin’ today”

Deportee (Woody Guthrie song as covered by Dolly Parton)

Savannah, a song Franny wrote about the time her brother drove her down to Savannah when she got pregnant in high school so she could have an abortion three hours from home, where nobody local to them would be out front shouting at people needing abortions

Poor Folks Town (Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton cover, instrumentation is modified to be a little melancholy to fit the rest of the album, but it is still a markedly happier song than the rest of the album except for Rich Kid Clothes)

Don’t Put Whiskey In My Water, an original song about a man nine years sober almost falling off the wagon when he’s laid off ahead of his teenage daughter’s high school graduation, including the line ‘don’t worry about Ole Miss, we’ll figure it out, somehow we always do, smart little girl like you can’t die in this town’

Don’t Take Your Guns To Town (Johnny Cash cover)

Pretty Polly

Down In The Willow Garden

Rich Kid Clothes, original song about a brother and sister super jazzed about their “new” clothes, hand-me-downs from the rich kids of the house their mama cleans, happiest song on the album

Health Insurance, an original song from the perspective of three different people, on in each verse, either dying or seriously suffering from solvable medical issues but because healthcare in America is trash they either can’t get help, or are going bankrupt trying to, that’s incredibly sarcastic including lyrics like ‘and I know I deserve to die for not having had a rich great-grandaddy, and who wants to see their daughter graduate college anyway’ , one of those sad songs with joyful instrumentation

  Another album! Is titled The Rise And Fall of Jenny and Jamie, and is a concept album meant to be listened from start to finish that tells the story of a couple that falls in love, gets married, has a very dysfunctional marriage, and ultimately divorces. Think the energy of Alpha Desperation March by The Mountain Goats, and the entire Tallahasee album but especially No Children. The Dara & Danny album is a little less dark because the last few songs, about divorce, are like...happy. 

  Daniel, who had been divorced twice by the time they wrote the songs for that album, said “There is nothing sad about ending a marriage you’re miserable in or don’t want anymore. The two songs about the divorce, they’re happy because our characters are happy to be done with each other. It isn’t Tammy Wynette spelling D-I-V-O-R-C-E and lamenting the end of her marriage, instead, Jenny and Jamie realize their marriage is toxic not just for the other person, but for themself, and they’re relieved to not be married anymore.

  Notable Dara & Danny performances and accomplishments:

They cover Whiskey Lullaby at many shows they do. A video from a 2016 show went semi-viral, and fans of the duo will show it as an example of “Peak Dara & Danny”

Nominated for the 2019 Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song, as the duo Dara & Danny, but ultimately Brandi Carlile won for ‘The Joke’

Franny was absolutely thrilled for her. She STANS Brandi Carlile and has written songs with her before. 

In the post-Grammys interview, the interview asked Franny if she was disappointed and she was like “I would pay Brandi Carlile to punch me in the face, so no.”

The clip of Franny saying that went viral and embarrassed poor Wilbur

“To be honest, when I saw The Joke was nominated, I didn’t even bother writing a speech. Daniel and I were both just thrilled to be considered to be like, at her level.”

Nominated for the 2019 Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance, as Dara & Danny, and again lost to “The Joke”, but again, did not care at all

Won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album as Dara & Danny, their fifth nomination in the category and second win

Nominated as Dara & Danny in the category Vocal Duo of The Year at the 2019 CMA awards.

Nominated for IBMA Album of the Year in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018

Won the 2019 IBMA for Album of the Year 

Won the 2019 IBMA for Song of the Year 

Franny is the first person of Cambodian descent to win a Grammy, an ASCAP award, an IBMA, or be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Daniel is the first Alaskan Native to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Solo work

  Franny’s used bluegrass-folk style music to write songs about the experiences of her mother and other relatives under the Khmer Rouge and in the civil conflict that preceded it. It leans a little away from #pure bluegrass but it includes mandolin, banjo, and even some traditional Cambodian instruments. It’s this blend of bluegrass instrumentation and traditional Cambodian instruments that on paper sounds like “Franny you’re crazy” but in practice its fuckin’ lit, y’all.

  It’s as genius as The Hu, that Mongolian band that was like “what is we play metal music with guitars and a drum set and TRADITIONAL MONGOLIAN INSTRUMENTS?” Lit.

  She did an entire album, Franny Sor Robinson Covers Kitty Wells [playlist] and that album gained Franny a ton of street cred in the country/bluegrass industry. She got a lot of respect for her Kitty Wells covers.

  She’s released three solo albums of folksy-bluegrass-country style music that is original music she wrote the lyrics and music for.

  Three solo albums, the Kitty Wells cover album, and nine Dara & Danny albums makes twelve country-bluegrass albums total Franny’s released, not counting featured artist appearances on other albums.

  Notable Franny Sor Robinson awards, performances, and accomplishments in the country music sphere:

  Franny sang ‘Born To Fly’ with Sara Evans once

Franny loves that song, it came out in 2000, when she was in college at NYU, and it was a staple song of hers to perform at any gigs she did in college

The day the United States legalized same-sex marriage, Franny was a supporting solo act for a friend of hers and she was like “I don’t know a better way to celebrate than by taking one of my favorite country love songs and making it better. And by that I mean gay.” By this point she’d been out as bisexual for years. So she sang Brad Paisley’s She’s Everything 

Franny’s always kept the pronouns the same in songs she covers, so if it was a man’s song about a woman she’s always kept it about a “she.” Her cover of She Thinks I Still Care by George Jones was an instant hit when it was released on one of her solo albums

At an event honoring Randy Travis, Franny performed his hit Deeper Than The Holler for him

She also got to sing I Told You So with him once at another occasion and she damn near died

At the final show of George Strait’s final tour, Franny sang Carried Away with him and almost cried he is one of her!!! Idols!!! and during his encore, she joined him and all of the other special guests of the final concert to sing All My Exes Live In Texas

She’s been awarded and recognized by various organizations for the furthering of Asian-Americans in the arts in general, in music, and empowerment for both her work in jazz and country umbrella music

She’s performed at and been nominated for CMA awrds, ACM awards, and Americana Music Honors & Awards

She’s won Americana Music Awards

When challenged to prove she could yodel she fuckin got right up and sang Hank Williams’ Long Gone Lonesome Blues and nailed all the very technical yodeling, and its a thing she’s like, Known for doing, so she will perform it live pretty often

[runawaymarbles]

transcript: twitter thread from Dr. Sarah Taber

fuck this guy for pulling this shit when I have a deadline honestly Hi there, I work in ag! I also do canvassing in rural areas, including knocking doors in Bladen county NC- home of the NC-09 election fraud. You have no idea what you're on about.

I see a new-ish home on a private tract of land. Not a moldering old trailer on a rented plot in a park. I see TWO big pickup trucks, one of which seems to have a motorcycle or ATV in the back. I see a satellite dish and the dude's got his own dumpster.

I see a lot of coolers, a grill, yard tools, & racist flags in mint condition. That takes effort- those things fade fast. This is the home of someone who spends a lot of time and $ on leisure! This right here is a country playboy. "Radicalized by economic circumstances" ayfkm

If you stop & actually look at the stuff that's strewn around by the porch, it's not junk. It's in good condition. It's strewn around and the window's broken because THIS HOME JUST GOT RAIDED BY THE FBI NOT BECAUSE IT'S THE AVATAR OF YOUR WHITE-TRASH FANTASIES

Did you know that almost half the population of Bladen County works in the pork industry? Most of them work in the Tar Heel plant, aka the largest slaughterhouse in the world. It's 20 minutes from our house. So let's talk what RURAL POVERTY looks like. 'Cause this ain't it.

It can get real fucking grim. Crowded trailer parks w decaying modular homes, surrounded by puddles that never go away because swamps are where you put the poor people. And weird enough, it's not homogeneous. There's always a few neighborhoods with nice crisp clean new houses (: 

Rural poverty is heavily skewed Latinx, Black, & Indigenous. The narrative about rural = white = poor is rich white folks' invention. It exists to keep all their REAL oppressed workforce, mostly BIPOC, hidden from public view. 

JFC you'd think after watching the nation blow up with COVID hot spots fueled by meat plants people would have figured this out but NOPE, we're right back to the Save The White Trash Narrative. You learned NOTHING from this pandemic.

Bladen County is filled with broke pork BIPOC slaughter workers living in shoddy trailer homes but you don't see THEM running around trying to overthrow the gov't. That was the Republicans!

And they did it in a nice clean way. They didn't run around kidnapping governors bc they didn't need to. They just stole ballots. You know, the respectable kind of coup d'etat.

[screenshot of a tweet: Walker Bragman, with a picture of a mansion, captioned “Ever seriously consider why people who live like this aren't the ones who take up arms against their government? Are they just better people? Or could it be that they've benefitted more from the system and government is responsive to their demands (bc they own DC)?”]

Which brings us to THIS dumpster fire of a tweet Nothing says "I'm woke" like buying into rich people's myth of themselves as obedient, supportive members of civil society. "People like this don't take up arms against their own gov't" ok do you really need a list

-Ammon & Cliven Bundy: rich men who took up arms against their own gov't -Donald Trump: rich man deploying armed forces against his own people in contravention of the rules of his own gov't -Vast majority of militias: it takes leisure & money to collect that many guns my dude

-The whole entire Confederate States of America: snotty rich kids' club -Not to mention the DeVoses, the Kochs, the Mercers, & every other white moneyed dynasty actively pillaging the rest of the US. They don't use guns bc they don't NEED to. Not bc they're nice.

Rich, propertied white folks are the single most militant demographic in the United States. And you know what they love? When journalists & "thought leaders" buy into their bullshit about how "poor whites are violent & the solution is to throw $$$ at rural areas [that we own]."

To be clear: poor white folks living in trailer homes are very real. They're too broke, tired, & sick to overthrow the government. That's what economic oppression does. It keeps you down. IDK how to explain the obvious fact that it takes MONEY & LEISURE to join/run a militia.

OP here is literally spreading right-wing propaganda. Right now. By blaming well-off white militants' behavior on "poverty," ergo the rest of us have to "save" them. When they're already well-off. Stop it. Think about what you've done. Do better.

[dailynewswebsite]

Peru’s democracy faces greatest trial since Fujimori dictatorship after two presidents are ousted in one week

Riot police face off towards protesters in Lima, Peru, Nov. 12, 2020. Ernesto Benavides/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

Peru’s new interim president took workplace on Nov. 17 underneath unenviable circumstances.

Francisco Sagasti turned the South American nation’s third president in per week after President Martin Vizcarra was impeached for “ethical incapacity” in what many Peruvians noticed as a coup by Congress. Then Vizcarra’s successor, congressional president Manuel Merino, was shortly compelled to resign after livid public protest.

New president Sagasti should now steer a shaken nation not simply towards elections, scheduled for April 2021, but in addition towards renewed religion in democracy.

It’s not an unprecedented mandate for a Peruvian chief. Precisely 20 years in the past, Peru’s political leaders confronted – and in the end failed – an identical take a look at, after the autumn of dictator Alberto Fujimori.

And their failures clarify why Peru, within the phrases of political scientist Alberto Vergara, peered into the “abyss” of repressive authoritarianism for six days this November – with protesters dealing with indiscriminate and lethal violence, even kidnapping, torture, unlawful detention and sexual abuse by Peruvian police.

Nice expectations fall brief

Throughout Fujimori’s corrupt military-backed rule between 1990 and 2000, Peru’s democratic establishments have been dismantled and its democratic values subverted. Dissenters confronted dying, disappearance and torture.

Fujimori’s regime got here crumbling down in November 2000 due to electoral fraud and a mass widespread rebellion. Fujimori was faraway from workplace by Congress and changed by congressional chief Valentín Paniagua.

As interim president, Paniagua had a mandate – as Sagasti does immediately – to steer a deeply scarred nation into a proper democratic transition and assist society heal. In 2001, Paniagua established a fact and reconciliation fee to doc Fujimori’s atrocities and created a constitutional fee tasked with figuring out the structural modifications required to safeguard Peruvian democracy sooner or later.

Paniagua’s successors didn’t see his initiatives by.

The reality fee meticulously documented state crimes, and in 2009 Fujimori was convicted of mass human rights abuses. However prosecutions of others and redress for victims – notably poor, rural and Indigenous populations – have been excruciatingly sluggish and insufficient.

Confrontations with safety forces, like this 1992 encounter exterior a Peruvian jail, have been a characteristic of life underneath Fujimori. Roberto Schmidt/AFP by way of Getty Photographs

Peru’s leaders after Paniagua additionally discarded arguments that Peru wanted a brand new structure with better protections for democracy and the rule of legislation. Drafting a brand new structure might need ensured, because the late Peruvian politician Henry Pease put it, that “scoundrels received’t be at liberty to dissolve the Congress” as Fujimori had.

As an alternative, Alejandro Toledo, the primary democratically elected president after Fujimori, channeled reform calls for into 2002’s “Nationwide Settlement.” This doc, developed collectively by authorities, civil society and political events, laid out the idea for Peru’s democratic transition and established a shared nationwide imaginative and prescient.

Nevertheless it did little to deal with Peru’s persistent governance issues. Social, environmental and accountability controls over private and non-private funding remained weak. So did Peruvian courts, that are susceptible to particular pursuits due to a politicized and infrequently corrupt judicial appointment course of.

Uneven development

The implications of Peru’s lack of reform have been dramatically revealed in recent times within the Lava Jato corruption scandal, wherein building firms bribed politicians throughout Latin America to snag huge authorities contracts.

Since 2016, 4 Peruvian presidents and Fujimori’s personal daughter have been criminally implicated in Lava Jato. Vizcarra, whose impeachment set off Peru’s present political disaster, turned vp due to this long-running scandal. He got here to energy in 2018 when then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned after accusations of bribery.

However when lawmakers ousted President Vizcarra with the identical costs in November 2020, it induced quick public condemnation. Protesters felt lawmakers’ interpretation of “ethical incapacity” – a clause within the Peruvian structure – was doubtful at greatest. At worst, they feared, it was a cynical manipulation by congressional conservatives to grab Peru’s authorities.

When Vizcarra’s successor, Merino, appointed as his prime minister politician Antero Flores-Araoz – an ally of congressional excessive right-wingers – these fears gave the impression to be confirmed. Some 2.7 million Peruvians – virtually one-tenth of the inhabitants – took to the streets. Merino resigned after six days, having did not safe the navy’s assist.

Efficiency artists commemorate the victims of police killings throughout November’s protests. Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket by way of Getty Photographs

At this time, 85% of Peruvians surveyed by the Vanderbilt College pollsters Latinobarometro agree that Peru “is dominated by a handful of highly effective teams for their very own profit”. The nation loses about US$6.5 billion to corruption yearly, in accordance with the nationwide comptroller.

Nonetheless, Peru’s financial system has boomed since 2000, fueled primarily by mineral extraction, gasoline and crops like asparagus, grapes and avocados. Mining accounts for about 60% of exports.

Whereas these actions happen in rural areas, Peru’s countryside stays extraordinarily poor. Folks in gold-rich Cajamarca are about 5 occasions extra prone to stay in poverty than these in metropolitan Lima.

Peruvian Nationwide Police at an unlawful gold mine close to Puerto Maldonado, June 11, 2013. Lig Ynnek/flickr, CC BY-NC

Peruvians who protest towards the environmental injury and disruption of livelihoods brought on by mining – each authorized and unlawful – are sometimes met with police and safety power violence.

Protests and authorized battles over mining in Peru have earned little political response. Oversight of mining operations is so weak that police and navy forces generally signal agreements with firms to guard mines from protests.

Sagasti’s activity

Bettering political and financial inclusion and reforming the police are actually excessive on Peruvian protesters’ listing of calls for.

President Francisco Sagasti after taking his oath of workplace Nov. 17. Hugo Curotto/Getty Photographs

As in 2000, some protesters and politicians are once more calling for a brand new structure that can strengthen the separation of powers in Peru and maintain elected officers extra accountable for his or her actions.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Again within the 2000s, Congress uncared for such structural modifications, permitting the issues that gave rise to Fujimori’s regime to proceed after his overthrow.

At this time Peru’s vigilant younger protesters count on Sagasti to do extra. To succeed as a post-crisis chief, he’ll want to revive Peruvians’ belief in authorities and lay the inspiration for a extra democratic future.

Anthony Bebbington can be a Board member of Oxfam America.

Gisselle Vila Benites doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that will profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/perus-democracy-faces-greatest-trial-since-fujimori-dictatorship-after-two-presidents-are-ousted-in-one-week/ via https://growthnews.in

[unitedvending]

The Safe-cracking Mini Game Isn’t As Difficult As It Preserves

You will be looked at a lot more favourably by the neighborhood people if you observe their lead once it comes to clothing and maintain a `casual-modest’ dress code. More thorough investigation wasn’t able to be made through observation alone. In addition the raid was supposed to raise public morale in the uk.

A mixture of Japanese style baths and quite a heated outdoor pool are ideal for relaxation. Or, it is possible to just have a drink and hang out for some time. You also get a totally free birthday drink. Water comes from the rock where a stone pool was built around a pure spring. It transmits the idea of emotion and psychism.Where once pristine waters provided a wholesome atmosphere for ocean life to flourish, currently there 92020 are only a few oceans that aren’t polluted in some manner. Today Winchester Bay is also famous for tourism.

A fantastic place to walk, you simply pay to go into the inner sanctuary (1000 Yen as of 2006). Rural agriculture villages populate the region that’s relatviely near Naha, the island’s biggest city and a big metropolis.The upcoming little town is Santa Cruz, which is a distinctive California spot for a number of reasons. My preferred area is the initial floor. The Pavones area is part of Costa Rica that is more jungle and not as much development and could still offer you some less expensive beachfront. Remember there are many vessels usually in the area, including cruise ships.

Lovely streetch of beaches that have many resorts. As soon as you have the local driving licence all of it becomes a great deal simpler.If (619) 481-5588 you’re in St. Louis and can only choose one particular thing to do, visit the City Museum. Though Cuba is among the much better places on earth for medicine and doctors, some healthcare items might be hard to obtain. Carmel is quite a distinctive town. Just do what you could to stick to the signs to Carmel while you’re inside Pebble Beach, but should you miss it, it’s easy to find Carmel.

Water signs give significance and meaning while some are somewhat more rudimentary.Moving to Australia you’ll need security guards ocean beach to come up with a credit score history from scratch. Another story that springs to mind is a pal of mine moved into an old property.

The very first number is the simplest to get because in case you screw up you can go back quick. There are plenty of options you may attempt to help elderly with depression. Destroy the rest of the cement trucks You will find a text from Martin. It’s not important that you comprehend the information.

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The easy answer is you are able to do neither. You may go on, but we won’t. Continue to do so until you discover the perfect one. If you enjoy that type of thing, do it. At the peak of the list of things to do is the should look at the laws of the countries you’re traveling between.

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To prevent confusion, it’s a superb concept to spell out the idea thoroughly and simply since if your guests are confused, they might not try to dress up. 1 idea that could help you develop an enjoyable party theme is encouraging your guests to pick a costume that starts with a particular letter of the alphabet. After you have earned 300 points, youall is given a totally free pretzel. When you earn 550 points, youall qualify for a totally free weekend day.

A totally free nation is the outcomes of its absolutely free indigenous folks. Individuals are more health conscious today, on account of the alarming increase in American obesity. Now, the Monterey Bay Aquariumlures people from all around the planet, therefore it’s changed a good deal over time. It is not worth a distinct trip if you aren’t in the region and happen to be close by.

The outside the building features activities on the face of the building in addition to the roof. There are an assortment of places to spend the night in Pacific Grove along with Monterey. The latest places to stay are costly, but very luxurious and worth the cost. You may discover that several of the renowned spots mentioned in the Cannery Row story continue to be there. If you are fortunate enough to locate a parking spot, grab it.

Parking becomes tight El Cajon in the summertime on account of the United States of America prevalence of the beach, so plan ahead. There’s even a cave space, which is made from large stones and looks like an actual cave. The enjoyable house and arcades are still there from once the place was constructed. All the buildings are authentic and conventional. There are two kinds of projects. The other kind of project is an attempt to turn a dream into reality

from United Vending http://unitedvending.net/the-safe-cracking-mini-game-isnt-as-difficult-as-it-preserves/

[takebackthedream]

Providing a Chance for a Better Way of Life by Paulette Jordan

Paulette Jordan, candidate for governor of Idaho, speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 24th, 2018. Jordan, a former member of the Coeur D’Alene Tribal Council, has served in the Idaho Legislature since 2014.

I was born and raised on the Coeur D’Alene reservation; I’ll tell you that times are hard. You know, growing up, we had very little access to health care – we didn’t have any access to the best education that anyone could provide, and of course our economy is not that great.

So the frustration for me was trying to figure out the best ways to address all these issues – because here we are, decades later, still with the same problems. Still facing the same grueling challenges. And unfortunately, we have a state that is ruled by a single party majority system.

When I left my Tribal council to run for higher office to serve my district, I served it in a very conservative part of my state. We have white supremacists in our neighborhood. And you’re looking at the Indigenous woman – the only Indigenous representative in the entire state. Very little diversity, which is unfortunate – because we need more representation at that level to represent our Hispanic community and our Native population.

So while these challenges are persisting in Idaho, for me what I see is a chance, an opportunity for us to present a new vision – and this is the vision of my elders. Because our elders have always said it’s all about humanity, at the end of the day. It’s all about how we can be better neighbors, better relatives for all of society – not just for Idaho, but for the world.

So my elders, my grandparents, they taught me this vision, this way of life: to be more compassionate, kind, caring. And what I love about this is that the people now in Idaho, whether they’re Libertarian, Democrat, Republican, Independent or unaffiliated, they’re finding a way to build in to this campaign.

Because the minute I announced, which was for all of them, they realized this was the leadership they want to see more of.

They see corporate corruption, and of course the cronyism. As we talked about before, the lady said that people are responding to the fact that lobbies are controlling our government.

I’ve served in the State House for the last two terms, four years now, and noticed how much the lobbyists control our system. It is wholly corrupt.

I’m not dripping with wealth – I serve as a national business leader, community leader, I come from very deep roots in both agriculture and ranching heritage, and the fact that I stem from this rural area, representing a very broad base of people in our state, because most of Idaho is very rural.

The challenge has been being that voice for all of them. Because when you go the State House, all you hear is the wealthy few, who have all the power, determining all the laws, determining our future. And telling the way our system needs to be for all of our future generations.

I have two sons, and all I think about is, “Why would I want my two sons inheriting all this corruption?” Of course they plague our society, pollute our environment. And every time we see this, day in and day out, as a mother it is my responsibility to stand up and take this challenge.

So I’m wholly honored, but I’m humbled by the fact that people are building into this progressive movement, that we’re building in Idaho.

Photo credit: Paulette Jordan Campaign

Because they’re not looking at me as an Indigenous woman, the first to make history in our state, but they’re seeing me as a leader, someone with a bold new vision, with innovative solutions. And providing a chance – a better way of life.

Because they know that I’m not one that comes up with a political ploy, trying to buy anyone’s vote or support; we’re earning it. Because we’re paying respect to all of our constituencies. We’re listening, we’re building up community from the ground up, and we’re building up our next generation at the same time. Because while we’re leaders here and now, we have to look to our young people.

So I implore all of you to really talk to our younger folks, because they’re already stepping up. And I remind them that you are not the leaders of tomorrow – you’re the leaders of today, so step with us. Right now, they’re building it into the campaign.

One, I’m proud as a mother, because I know that these younger generations, they have it right. They are some smart individuals: they are so incredible, they inspire me every day. So when I hear their stories, that keeps me going, especially when times get hard.

Photo credit: Paulette Jordan Campaign

You know, often times, we’re breaking barriers. Someone told me that “you’re the first woman to run in Idaho for governor.” And while we have been one of the earlier Progressive states to allow women the right to vote, we still have never had a woman Governor in our state. And the fact that we are such a minority in representation in that base, in the State House, is still an issue.

We are attacked daily – whether it’s women’s reproductive health care rights, or whether it’s the right for people of color to have a voice in the State House, Tribal communities and the Hispanic population, we are going after them and we’re sending our immigrant population to Mexico. We’re shipping them South; yet, we’re going to employ them and take advantage of them, as slave laborers.

We are a “right to work” state. In fact, in 1986, when this was on the ballot, people thought this was going to protect our employees and our workers, yet they were fooled. And now I’m here, bringing a voice to say we will no longer be fooled – ever again.

So my brother here, Rafael, he got it right. It is all about the people; this is our movement. And what I love about this, this true grassroots way, is that no one can buy us. And while they say money can buy people, money cannot buy freedom.

My grandfather, a World War II veteran, has always said that when government is not representing the people, then government has failed all of us.

So this is our time: so, relatives, let’s move forward together.

So as a momma, too, from rural north Idaho, I really want to thank you all for continuing with us, because this progressive movement is not only the most powerful, but is the way forward for us to take back not only our country, but our states, state by state.

[ghostlybouquetballoonstuff-blog1]

Portuguese Tourism

Portugal is a metropolis of historical significance. Son Bou is a protracted seashore with loads of sand dunes, freshwater marshes stuffed with geese and a lagoon close to by. Glorious water sports facilities can be found right here although you need to take care to check the situations for swimming as there are dangerous currents at occasions. Shopping for property in Silver Coast Portugal gives good prospects for rental from both the native market and from holidaymakers, and with the potential of great property worth rises on the Silver Coast Portugal, this could be the best place to invest in a holiday residence. At this time 4 communities are appropriately categorized underneath the Sephardic label, though the time period Sephardic is usually misused to designate other communities that were from North Africa, the Arabian peninsula, or present day Iraq and Iran. Build high quality is high, property costs have grown a steady 10-15% per annum for the reason that Millennium, and there's a broad alternative of property throughout the price vary and nation - within the Silver Coast the price develop within the following years will possibly reach the 25 - 35 %. Rahman is descended from a Syrian and a Berber and could be very nicely received in Spain as he represents the unique Umayyad?s who initially occupied Spain in 711 they haven't acknowledged the change in power led to by the assassination of his household. As soon as you realize in your coronary heart that you are working with trustworthy folks and are proud of the supply you may have been made you ought to be prepared to order your rental villa or condo and enjoy the ultimate preparations to your holidays. Say you might be in Morocco and you want to visit the architectural heritage of Morocco however simply have no idea the place and tips on how to go, discovering a local travel agency such as the Morocco Journey Company to join a day tour around the lovely sights of Moroccan buildings can go away you with completely satisfied recollections to final. Although he's just 22 years of age proper now, Cristiano Ronaldo already has 208 professional matches and 53 targets (190 matches and 50 objectives for Manchester, the others for Sporting) and 46 caps within the national squad, with a tally of 17 objectives for Portugal. These, combined with the fact that the placement, though completely secluded, is shut enough to many native ammenities akin to the new Algarve Buying centre in Guia, make it ideally suited for the purposes of the Naturist holiday maker: privateness and entry. Aveiro Metropolis nonetheless has lots extra to offer any visitor like surfing in addition to wind surfing in its Costa Nova Beach and the river, or you possibly can always go shopping at Forum Aveiro or the Rua dos Combatientes de Guerra as well as store at Avenida Dr. Lourenco Peixinho. We at the moment wholesale swarovski havaianas, havaianas and custom beaded havaianas to ebay sellers, botique shops in Italy, Germany, Spain , Portugal, Sweden, Netherlands, France, UK, Monaco, Greece, Australia, Tokyo, South Africa, Mexico, Canada and USA. Looking is likely one of the most necessary activities, not only for providing food but for the symbolic meanings and status historically hooked up to it. Expert Hunters are very revered and taken into great consideration, especially in the event that they specialise in the most rewarding and important game activity: The Massive Elephant Hunt. We found the castle such an atmospheric place that we had been content material just to wander round its enchanting gardens, stopping to look out from the ramparts over the panorama of crimson roofs, or to simply sit and listen to a guitarist expertly enjoying intoxicating melodies in the courtyard below us. After we eventually left the citadel, we descended by means of the narrow streets and alleyways of the Alfama district, where the pointed roofs of the houses virtually touched one another and the sloping buildings appeared to defy the laws of gravity. Also the indigenous individuals were most likely extra apprehensive of the war like Franks who lived above the Pyrenees than they were of the Berbers from North Africa whom they had known for many years as buying and selling partners and folks of commerce. Spain when Euric declared his independence from Rome was of only secondary significance to say the territory that was already occupied and managed by the Visigoths in France which was much larger and at the moment of way more worth to Euric's empire. Gastronomy in the area is wealthy and various: there are lots of delicious pork dishes, oven baked kid, stewed rabbit with rice, celebrated fish stews, baked or boiled sea bream and rock bass from Peniche, eels and cockles from the Obidos lake and shellfish from the beds at Porto de Barcas (lagosta suada - 'sweating lobster' - is a delicacy which might solely be discovered in the Western Area). cheap flights priceline Crossing over to the get pleasure from Gulf Coast villas, you would easily be spoilt for choice of where to guide a vacation residence as most vacation accommodation is located across the beautiful seashores of St Pete's, Clearwater and Sanibel Island. Whether or not you need to hire a cycle and go off in your personal group or join one in every of many organised cycle excursions, the bike-pleasant local weather and delightful surroundings should make this a perfect starter to motion packed holidays in the Algarve. On a sandbank itself, Faro's seaside can be accessed through a small rope bridge, which as soon as crossed offers you wonderful gold sand, clear waters and loads of area and solitude to calm down with a chilly drink and a e-book while working in your tan. In the Western Mediterranean you can discover the traditional white Andalucian villages of Southern Spain, sample the world-famous Manzanilla sherry in Cadiz and go to the cultural hub of Europe in the form of Barcelona,before travelling onwards to the French Riviera. Although daytime temperatures can get into the low 20s Celsius and it does feel fairly heat, it shortly cools down when the Sun disappears round 5.30 pm. Due to this fact I always emphasise to anyone contemplating a visit outdoors the summer time months that they need to bring heat garments for the evening and night-time as it might, and does, get fairly chilly. The Silver Coast stretches from Porto down to Portugal's capital Lisbon and hugs the North Atlantic shoreline; it's residence to lovely beaches, superb cliffs, quaint fishing villages, lush rolling countryside and some of the most fascinating historic websites in Portugal. Allthough he was an occupier in a rustic which was not his original dwelling in many ways he and his occupation have been in some ways welcomed or perhaps I should say not opposed by the indigenous population as they introduced trade and financial system to Spain and with it got here a better life model and as we'd say right this moment an increase in the usual of living. Throughout this time there are persevering with hostilities between different tribes of Visigoth's so they're having inside energy struggles not solely between fellow Visigoth's but also with the unique local inhabitants which might have included Huns and Catholic Christians. Rural Portugal has proven to be a fertile area in which many individuals from different European nations (and from an excellent share of different nations from world wide) are taking to establishing second houses, pretty and enjoyable retreats tucked away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Related again in Historical past to the Roman invasion of Southern England in Ad 43 where the native inhabitants whose chief was identified by an adopted Roman identify the native inhabitants had traded with and had identified the Romans for some two hundred 12 months as in certainly the Spanish inhabitants had recognized and traded with the noble Berbers for many tons of of years. This would inevitably eradicate wardrobe battles along with your children regarding the appropriate garments to put on to high school, save time getting ready for college within the morning and make your procuring experience for college apparel a much simpler and less tense course of. The walled town of Obidos must also not he missed, with its slim streets of brightly white-washed homes and putting towers of the Fort that's now a splendid Pousada Take only a short trip south and you'll explore the lively fishing port of Peniche which has a dominating sixteenth century fort constructed for cover in opposition to marauding pirates. The world boasts full-bodied, fragrant crimson wines with wonderful alcoholic content material: the wines of the south (castas Camarate, Periquita and Tinto Miudo) are vigorous when younger, intense yet nicely balanced and with an beautiful bouquet when aged. Water sports together with browsing, windsurfing, water snowboarding and crusing are on supply from the seashores here in Cascais. Along the coastal regions of Portugal, an excessive amount of actual estate improvement has taken place. From tip to tip, Madeira measures roughly 54km (west to east) by 23km (north to south).

[jansegers]

Simple English Word List

SIMPLE1540 : a simple English wikipedia word list based on the XML export of all articles related to the nine major groups: Everyday life, Geography, History, Knowledge, Language, Literature, People, Religion, and Science and retaining all word forms appearing 7 times or more in this corpus. The total number of words in this corpus is well over the 100.000 words. a A.D. ability able about above absence abstinence abstract academic academy accent accept access accord account across act action active activity actual actually ad add addition adherent adjective adult advance advice affect after again against age agnostic agnosticism ago agree agreement agriculture air alcohol all allow ally almost alone along alphabet also although always amateur amendment among amount an analysis ancient and angel animal annals anonymous another answer anthropomorphism any anyone anything aphasia appear apple apply approach archaeology architecture area argue argument around arrange art article artificial artist ask aspect associate association astronomy at atheism atheist atomic attack attempt attribute audience author authority available average avoid award away B.C. baby back background backpack bad bah balance band baptism base basic basis battle BCE be bear beautiful beauty because become bed bee before begin behavior behind being belief believe believing belong below best better between beyond bias biblical bibliography big billion biological biology birth bit black blind blood blue body book born both bottom boundary box boy brain branch bring brown buffalo build building bull burn business but by c. ca. calendar call can cancer canon capital caption car carbon card carry case cassette cat category cathedral catholic cause cell center central century cerebral certain change chapel chapter character chemical chemistry child china China choice choir choose chronicle church circumcise circumcision cite citizen city civil civilian civilization claim clan class classical cleanup clear clergy click climate close closer clothes clothing coast coauthor code codex cognitive col cold collection college colonization colony color column com come commentary commission common commonly communicate communication communion communist community companion company compare competition complete complex compose composer computer concept conception concern condition confuse confusion congregational connect connection conquer conquest consciousness consider consistent constitution construct construction contain contemporary content context continent continue contrary control convention conversation conversion convert cook cooking copy core correct could council country course court cover covered create creation credit crime critical criticism crop cross crust cultural culture current currently daily damage dark data date day dead death debt decadence decadent decide declaration decline deconstruction deep define definition deity demonstrate denomination department depth describe description design detail determinism developed development device devil diagnosis dialect dictionary die difference different difficult difficulty diphthong dipstick direct directly dirt disagree disambiguation disbelief discipline discover discovery discussion disease disorder distance distinct distinction distinguish distribution divide divine do doctor doctrine document dog don't door down Dr. dream drink drown druid due during dynasty each earlier early earth easier easily easy eat economic economics economy ed edge edit edition editor education effect eight either electric electricity electronic element elevation else emperor empire encyclopedia end energy engine engineering enlightenment enough enter entertainment environment environmental epic episode equal era error especially establish etc. etymology even event eventually ever every everyday everyone everything evidence evil evolution evolve exact exactly example except exchange exist existence expansion experience experiment expert explain explanation express expression external extinct face fact failure fair faith fall false family famous far fast father feature feel feeling female feudal few fiction field fight figure file find finding fire first fish fit five fix flow folk follow food for force foreign foreskin form formal former fortune fought foundation founded four fourth frame framework free freedom frequently friend from front fruit full function functional further future gas general generally generation genre geographer geographic geographical geography geology geometry germ get give glass global go god gold golden good government grammar great greatly green ground group grow growth guide guillotine hair half hall hand handbook handicap handle happen happens happiness happy hard have he head heading health hear heat heaven help hemisphere her here heritage hero high highly him himself his historian historical historiography history hold holy home homo hope hot hour house how however human hundred hunter hypothesis hysteresis I ice icon idea identify identity if illiteracy illiterate illusory image importance important impossible improve in inc. incense include increase indeed independence independent indigenous individual industrial industry influence information inquiry inside instead institute institution instrument instrumentation intellectual intelligence interlinear internal international internet interpretation into introduce introduction invent invention involve iron island issue it IT itself job join journal journalism judge just keep key kill kind king kingdom know knowledge la LA label lack lake lamp land landlocked landscape language large last late later law lead leader leap learn learned least leave legacy legal legend let letter level lexeme library life light lightning like likely limited line linguistic linguistics link liquid list literacy literary literature little liturgy live local location logic logical long longer look lord lore lose lot love low lower mac machine magazine magic magnetic magnum mail main mainly major make male mammal man mankind manuscript many map march March mark market mass material mathematical mathematics matter may May me mean meaning meant measure measurement meat median medical medicine medieval mediterranean medium meet member memory men mental mention mercury message metal method mid middle might migrate migration military millennium million mind minister minute misconception miss model modern modernism modernist moment money monologue monophthong month monument moon moral morality more morning most mostly mother mount mountain mouth move movement much museum music musical musicians must my myth mythology name narrative nation national nationality native natural naturalism naturally nature near nearly necessarily necessary need negative neither neologism network neurogenesis neuron neuroscience never new news newspaper next night nine no non none nor normal normally not note nothing noun novel now nuclear number object objective objectivity observation observe occupation occur ocean octane of off offer office official officially often oil old older on once one online only open opera opposite or oral orbit order org organization organize origin original originally orthography orthology other others our out outer outside over own oxygen p. pack pagan page paint palace paper paradigm parent parish park part participant particular particularly party pas pass past pasta pattern pay peace peer penguin penis people per percent percentage perception performance perhaps period peroxide persecution person personal personality perspective persuasion pet phenomenon philosopher philosophical philosophy phoneme phonetic phonetics photo phrase physic physical picture piece pilgrimage place plan planet plant plat plate play please poem poems poet poetry point pole police policy political politics polytheism polytheistic popular population position positive possession possible possibly post power powerful pp. practical practice praise pray prayer precise predict prediction prehistory present preserve press prevent priest primary principle print printing private probably problem process produce product production professional program project pronounce pronunciation proof property prophet propose prose proselytism protection protein provide province psychological psychology public publication publish publisher publishing punishment pure purpose put pyramid quantum question quickly quite quote race racial rack radiation radio rain range rate rather read reader real realism reality really reason receive recent recently reclamation recognize record recreation red ref refer reference referred reform reformation regard region reign rejection relate relation relationship relatively relativity reliable relic religion religious remain remember remove renaissance replace report republic request require research researcher resource respect response result resurrection retrieve return revelation revert review revision revival revolution rhetoric rich right rise ritual river rock role room royal rule ruled ruler run rural sacred sacrifice safe saga sage saint salad same sample satellite saw say schizophrenia scholar school science scientific scientist scope sea search second secondary section secular see seek seem selection self sense sent sentence separate sequence series service set seven several sexual shall shaman shape share she short should show shrine side sign significant silence similar simple simply since single situation six size skill skin slavery sleep slightly slow small smell smith snake so social society sociology soft soil solar soldier solid soliloquy some someone something sometimes song soon sortable sound source space speak speaker special specie specific speech speed spell spirit spiritual spirituality split sport spread square st. stage stain standard star start state statement station statistic statistical statue status stick still stone stop story strange strap strong structure struggle stub student study stutter style subject successful such sugar suggest sun sung sunlight superior superiority supernatural support suppose supreme sure surface survey surveyor sushi sustainability sustainable sweat symbol symbolic system table take talk tam tan task teach teacher teaching technique technology tectonics teeth tell temperature template temple ten term terminology territory tertiary test testament text textual than thank that the their theism them themselves then theology theoretical theory therapy there therefore thesaurus these they thick thing think third this those though thought thousand three through throughout thumb thus ticket tight time title to today together toilet tolerance toleration tongue too tool top topic total towards tower trade tradition traditional train translation transport travel treat treatment tree trench trial tribe tried trig true truth try turn twentieth twenty two type typical typically ultimate ultraviolet under understand understood union unit united universal universe university unknown unsortable until up upon upper urban urbanization usage use useful usually valley value van vandalism various vassal vegetable verb verbal verse version very video view violence virgin visit vitamin vocabulary voice vol. volume vowel vs. wale wall want war warm warmer wash waste water wave way we weak wealth wear weather web website weight well what when where whether which while white who whole whom whose why wide widely wild wilderness will window wisdom wise witch witchcraft with within without witness woman word work worker world worship would write writer writing wrong yam year yellow you young your

China, March and May made this list because china, march and may are on it and I didn't want to decide in favor of the common noun or the proper noun; all other proper nouns have been omitted (even the ten other months that met the criterium of appearing more then 6 times). #SimpleWikipedia #SimpleEnglish #wordlist #English #words #level1540 #Inli #nimi #selo1540

[rswoan]

Seattle International Film Festival 2017 Films Ranked

SIFF 2017 Feature Films listed from best to worst with special emphasis on editing and structure along with content (especially with documentaries):

 The Farthest - history and legacy of the NASA Voyager project. Maybe best talking heads documentary in history of SIFF...

Ethel & Ernest - fantastic animation of the lives of the parents of a graphic artist set against World War 2 in London.

The Net - fascinating story of a North Korean who inadvertently crosses into South Korea.

Becoming Who I was - interesting look at the reincarnation of a Buddhist leader growing up. Stunning filmmaking over course of 8 years.

Secret 1

Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey - fascinating look at life of legendary climber Fred Beckey.

This Is Our Land - dramatization of how populism can take hold in France or any Western country.

Food Evolution- well edited documentary on GMOs and science.

The Last Animals - trying to save rhinos and elephants from extinction.

American Folk - best of the road trip movies this year as two people thrown together to drive cross country following 9/11.

God of War - well made genre movie. China defends against Japanese incursion against great odds.

Wind River - fantastic murder mystery set on Indian reservation.

At the End of the Tunnel - suspenseful crime caper drama.

Kills on Wheels - assassin in a wheelchair and his helpers.

The Journey - drama of what might have happened to end Irish Civil War.

Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton - well made documentary on Laird Hamilton’s contribution to big wave surfing.

Ivan - former helicopter pilot turned ambulance driver works through personal issues while taking care of young girl.

Better Watch Out - fun horror take on Home Alone theme of kid left alone with his babysitter near Christmas.

The Smuggler and Her Charges - filmmaker’s father’s past as a Jewish child on the run during WW 2 and a woman who helped him. Well made and educational.

Angry Inuk - commercial seal skin commercial trade bans threaten Inuk way of life.

The Odyssey - fascinating story of the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Mr Long - aspects of various Asian movie styles and themes blended in a cohesive movie.

I, Daniel Blake - drama of people caught up in UK support system bureaucracy.

Ingrid Goes West - social media obsessed woman moves to CA after death of her mother in attempt to reboot her life.

The Oath - doctor tries to rescue his daughter from a life of drug use with her boyfriend dealer.

Secret 3

Kalushi - story of a young man drawn into the ANC militant wing during apartheid.

The Unknown Girl - a doctor tracks down death of an unknown girl who she could have saved.

A Date for Mad Mary - young woman released from prison needs to find date for best friend’s wedding.

Handsome Devil - well executed coming of age as an outsider in high school.

Soul on a String - epic Tibet “western” chase movie.

Chasing Coral - bleaching of the world’s coral and climate change.

Quest - decade in the lives of a North Philly black family.

Finding Kukan - in search of a lost Academy Award winning documentary and the story of the woman behind it.

Afterimage - historical drama about life of a prominent artist swept up by socialist takeover of Poland.

Nowhere To Hide - 5 years in the life of a nurse and his family in central Iraq starting from being outside to becoming engrossed by war.

Cook Up a Storm - fun Chinese cooking competition movie.

Lady Macbeth - solid period drama focusing on indentured wife taking back her life.

Columbus - relationship between man dealing with ill father and young lady dealing with issues with her mother and future.

Gook - a pair of Korean-American brothers selling shoes in LA against backdrop of crime and Rodney King riots.

Entanglement - interesting look at a man dealing with mental illness after suicide attempt.

Feather - Italian teens dealing with pregnancy and life.

Mellow Mud - an orphan brother and sister struggle to make it on their own after guardian dies.

The Wedding Plan - woman gives herself and God 30 days to find a husband after breaking up with fiance.

I Was a Dreamer - unscripted drama based on life of non-actor lead.

Trouble - dysfunctional brother-sister relationship revisits past and changes future.

Wulu - solid crime drama set against the backdrop of turmoil in Africa.

The Midwife - a woman is reunited with her father’s ex during an inflection point in her life.

The Nile Hilton Incident - murder mystery against backdrop of Arab Spring and police corruption.

The Man - artist reunites with estranged street artist son.

The Truth About Love Is… - light hearted comedy regarding family relationships.

New Chefs On the Block - breezy documentary on two first time restaurant owners opening up in Washington DC.

Borders - Murphy's law for 4 women who meet on a cross West Africa journey spanning multiple countries.

Dara Ju - drug addiction and family secrets set against Wall Street and immigration.

Small Town Killers - dysfunctional couples find themselves after hiring assassins.

Napping Princess - enjoyable anime with contemporary themes, fantasy and reality.

Secret 3

The Feels - dialogue improvised, bachelorette party exposes many truths.

Hero - aging actor tries to come to grips with legacy.

The Reagan Show - documentary on importance of PR at beginning of television age.

Bad Influence - coming of age set against conflict between Chile government with native people.

Zip & Zap and the Captain’s Island - fun kids romp mystery movie. Far better than original movie.

Chavela- portrait of an iconic Mexican singer. Great subject but talking heads format is mind numbing during non-performance period of her life.

Moka - mother seeks justice for hit and run death of her son.

Two Irenes - 2 girls with the same name with a shared secret and curious of each other's lives.

A Ghost Story - time and sentimentality.

In the Radiant City - dysfunctional family torn apart by childhood disaster years later.

Whose Streets? - Birth of Black Lives Matter from Ferguson killing and return of citizen activism in a modern age.

Weirdos - coming of age in the face of family secrets.

8 Borders, 8 Days - first hand look at the journey of a Syrian refugee family to Germany.

Tea Pets - animated feature, life of tea pets when people aren’t around.

Death in Sarajevo - scattered look of tragic history of the city through interactions of individuals tied together by a hotel.

What Lies Upstream - water quality in US.

City of Ghosts - poorly edited documentary on incredible citizen journalism of Raqqa Syria.

500 Years - documentary on government genocide against indigenous peoples.

Roberto Bolle - The Art of Dance - ballet equivalent of a concert film.

After the Storm - father attempts to connect with divorced wife and son while dealing with personal demons.

Hedi - life of a Tunisian man getting cold feet before his wedding.

The Winter - life of Argentina sheep ranch foreman.

Searchers - classic western remake set in Arctic with Inuit people.

Goldstone - missing girl mystery in Australian outback.

Paradise - unique way of telling a WW 2 story from perspectives of persecutor and persecuted.

Godspeed - roadtrip drug smuggling story.

The Door - sliding doors what if look at life of a man as a mechanic and successful businessman.

The Landing - what if Apollo 18 wasn’t scrubbed?

Susanne Bartsch: On Top - life and times of a pre-eminent NYC party/club host.

Person to Person - a day in lives of different folks tied together only by NYC.

Manifesto - modern performance art answering question of what art is.

Heal the Living - lives of the families of an organ donor and recipient.

The Girl Without Hands - minimal charcoal like animated Grimm tale.

Come Together - Korean family drama set aside societal norms.

Landline - yet another dysfunctional family drama.

The Beautiful Kokonor Lake - awkward Chinese soap opera of love lost for duty in Communist China.

The Paris Opera - scatter shot look at a year of the Opera. No real narrative, just brief look ins.

Backpack Full of Cash - documentary of how charter schools are destroying public education. Too repetitive.

Rocketmen - campy episodic Seattle based serial.

Gholam - a immigrant/refugee taxi driver affected by a mysterious past that never quite emerges.

Have A Nice Day - animated mobster drama starting with foot soldier stealing money.

A Dragon Arrives! - Iranian mystery, bizarre, unrelatable characters.

Divine Divas - well made documentary of lives of Brazilian transvestite performers. Good if you have connection with subject. I just didn't care.

Footnotes - musical of struggles of shoe factory workers trying to prevent offshoring.

Vampire Cleanup Department - campy movie of team battling strange vampires in HK.

Pyromaniac- character study of a pyromaniac. No real insight just hints never tied together.

The Bloom of Yesterday - grandchildren of those involved in Holocaust still wrapped up in it’s aftermath. Unrelatable damaged characters. Who cares?

Zoology - middle-aged woman deals with having a tail.

It's Only the End of the World - day in life of dysfunctional family with return of prodigal son.

God’s Own Country - gay son finds romance on a rural farm in the UK.

Yourself and Yours - want to be amusing romcom really feels like making fun of mental illness.

Lane 1974 - coming of age set against hippie culture, feels long and sleepy.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson - cold case investigation into death of LGBT activist icon.

Anishoara - mind numbing year in the life of a girl in a Moldovan village.

Secret 2

Santa and Andres - a dissident and his government minder develop relationship in Cuba.

Without Name - pointless horror movie.

Terror 5 - a bunch of over the top stories of zombies, snuff films, and partying loosely connected.

Knife In The Clearwater - best described as contemplative meditation on lives of rural Muslim family in China, aka mind numbing days in the life.

Devil’s Freedom - mind numbing talking heads documentary on the Mexican drug wars.

Pendular - pointless character study with gratuitous sex and nudity.

Black Code - important topic feels more like a vanity piece for organization.

Lives With Flavor - this year's chef ego movie. Don't learn much about food or his life really. Lots of food porn though without much explanation.

Lemon - pointless not funny comedy.

Struggle for Life - not funny French slapstick.

Hello Destroyer - predictable character study of a hockey player whose life is destroyed by a dirty play.

[alexasadventuresineducation]

Brand-new private college graduates teach the children of our highest-need schools. They are primarily white and middle class and/or have traditionally white and middle class values. They are driven by a desire to help others, but not necessarily a desire to teach.

If, for whatever reason, you’ve become dedicated to this publication, click below for my midterm paper for my independent study on education journalism! 

How (Not) to Help in our Highest-Need Schools

           Brand-new private college graduates teach the children of our highest-need schools. They are primarily white and middle class and/or have traditionally white and middle class values. They are driven by a desire to help others, but not necessarily a desire to teach.

           These are the conclusions drawn by Chris Emdin in his 2016 book For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… And the Rest of Y’all Too, and they’re substantiated by many criticisms of the renowned yet controversial Teach for America — especially those by TFA alums themselves. This paper will examine the complex relationships between the well-intentioned new teacher in an inner city school, particularly those who are a part of TFA, which is focused on bringing in teachers to do just that.

Whiteness in Public Education

           In For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…, Emdin uses unique terminology in calling urban youth of color “neoindigenous” throughout the work. He sees connections between the oppressions and silencing of indigenous youth, and claims that without self-reflection, teachers could be erasing the cultures of youth of color in the same way American Indian boarding schools did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (6-7). Emdin writes, “Positioning urban marginalized youth as neoindigenous moves beyond a literal biological or geographical connection and into more complex connections among the oppressed that call forth a particular way of looking at the world… [It] allows us to understand the oppression these youth experience” (9). The way that these teachers are taught to teach, focusing on discipline and rewarding kids who are “good” (quiet, well-behaved, often inhibited), perpetuates a narrative of indoctrination of mainstream values that “"privileges whiteness and reinforces the myth of meritocracy” (Brewer qtd. in Donella). This makes these teachers the “white folks” Emdin continually references — although not all of the teachers are white themselves.

           Emdin, a black man who attended urban public schools, writes that he himself fell into the trap of silencing his students particularly because he looked like and identified with him yet wanted to maintain authority. He learned that to succeed in school, he learned how to “play the game” by following the many institutional mores necessary for success in the public school system, despite knowing that they had little to do with learning itself. This was further encouraged when he decided to go into teaching. “My unabashed urbanness — loud, conspicuous, questioning of authority — became lost” (35). He was advised: “Hold your ground, and don’t smile till November” (35). This is an example of the attitudes of whiteness all teachers of all races are encouraged to emulate — and therefore, to pass down to their students.

           At the same time, Emdin was surrounded by new teachers who were there to assuage white guilt/a white savior complex. They were there to “give back.”

           And so are the young teachers of Teach for America.

Teach for America

           According to their website, Teach for America sends college graduates “to teach and to effect change in under-resourced urban and rural public schools” in 53 designated regions across the country (“Teach for America”). One percent of America’s teachers are current Teach for America corps members or alums of the program.

           TFA was started in 1989 as founder Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis. Since then, it’s blossomed into an industry that’s just as renowned among some as it is controversial among others. Through TFA, truly passionate college grads go through a highly competitive application process (only 14 percent are admitted) and sent to an area where students desperately need encouragement and enthusiasm (“Teach for America”).

           TFA is infamous for providing an only five-week training program for its teachers, regardless of what they studied in undergrad (“Teach for America”). Yet some studies have reported that TFA teachers are more successful than those who have already graduated from master’s programs. Erika Sanzi, a former educator and education blogger, writes:  “...Most teachers struggle at the beginning… [and] gold-standard research has established that TFA teachers outperform other new teachers, particularly when it comes to teaching math.” This research focuses on secondary math educators and comes from the U.S. Department of Education.

Corps members are also only mandated to stay in their schools for two years, although many stay longer. However, retention rates in the field of teaching are extremely low in general; almost half of all teachers leave within the first five years of teaching, costing schools over 2 billion dollars per year (Phillips). Elena Kavadny, a USC student previously wary of TFA, wrote in her weekly education column that her views on the turnover changed when she became an applicant to TFA herself. “And even if it seems like a “glorified temp agency” that swoops up talented young people for two years then loses them to another career path, they were there for two whole years. More likely than not, they made a difference in many children’s lives and in turn, those children probably changed their life forever as well” (Kavadny).

Additionally, districts will bring in TFA teachers to cut costs and fire their veteran staff. One such example of this was in New Orleans: “Prior to Hurricane Katrina, teachers in New Orleans were characterized as having quite a bit of experience; immediately after the storm the average teacher had zero to one year of teaching experience (mostly TFA corps members)” (Brewer). But a more subtle and sinister issue arises on a wider scale: TFA’s quiet sanction of racism.

It’s important to note that TFA has taken criticisms of lack of diversity among corps members to heart (Westervelt). This school year, 51 percent of corps members are people of color, 34 percent were the first in their family to graduate from college, and 48 percent have received a Pell Grant, a grant typically awarded to low-income individuals (“Teach for America”). But does that change in makeup of corps members necessarily reflect a change in ideology?

           Sarah Matsui and T. Jameson Brewer are TFA alums who have done prolific research on the problems of TFA. In both their own piece in Jacobin and in a detailed piece by Leah Donnella NPR’s Code Switch, they talk about their “worry that the program relies on a shaky ‘hero narrative’ to lure idealists into jobs for which they're wildly unprepared, and convinces them that a "can-do attitude" is all it takes to hurdle systemic gaps in our schools” (Donnella). Implicit in this attitude, the researchers and their sources explain, is perpetuating narratives of whiteness, both by literally white teachers and those taught to espouse values of white “professionalism.”

           Donnella cites one such teacher:

I accepted as true — and TFA was quick to confirm — the myth that all that poor students (of color) need is what affluent (white) students have: access to great schools with the best teachers that hold students to high expectations . . . I have come to acknowledge and recognize color-blind racism and to see how it undergirds educational inequity. TFA, in my view, perpetuates, commits, and cultivates this kind of covert racism. . . (qtd. Donella)

           The central attitudes of TFA — hard work and discipline, according to Matsui — aren’t as benign as they seem. Identity and privilege mean that hard work and discipline doesn’t look the same for everyone, and doesn’t necessarily provide the same success. “Color-blindness” (as Emdin too describes) is the opposite of what will foster a positive classroom environment. Additionally, emphasizing  individual actions can place responsibility or even blame on the students themselves. Matsui writes: “This focus on the simple power of individual effort to overcome structural inequity typifies TFA’s approach. There are two core underlying tenets of TFA: 1) the uncritical acceptance of the American meritocracy narrative and the American Dream, and 2) the disproportionate emphasis on the power of the individual.” Instead of learning about systems of power, students are implicitly taught to ignore them, and believe that they can overcome them without knowing the depth of their institutionalization and history.

           Brewer summarizes: “Overall, alumni narratives tell a story of TFA preying on the idealism of young people while offering them a chance to mostly better themselves, reinforce racist deficit ideologies, and all the while, crush and silence anyone who challenges such practices — especially when those challenges come from the inside.”

           There will always be young educators eager to influence and be influenced by America’s most difficult schools. But are there ways for them to do this without simply making the situation worse?

Alternative Pedagogy

           In For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…, Emdin outlines approaches that any teacher could use to better connect to and therefore better teach their students. These approaches are founded in what he calls reality pedagogy: “Reality pedagogy is an approach to teaching and learning that has a primary goal of meeting each student on his or her own cultural and emotional turf” (27). It’s the opposite of the “colorblindness” espoused by TFA and by many teacher education programs that claim meritocracy as the solution.

           One tangible action Emdin suggests is facilitating cogenerative dialogues, or cogens, to create a stronger classroom environment. Emdin was inspired to bring cogens into the classroom after seeing three extremely different students engaged in a rap cypher, the neoindigenous and non-academic version of a cogen, in the cafeteria. “Cogens are simple conversations between the teachers and their students with a goal of co-creating/generating plans of action for improving the classroom” (65). To create the group of students for a cogen, it is imperative to find kids from different “social fields” — different cultural backgrounds, roles in the classroom, and social identities. Those differences must be acknowledged for a successful and inclusive classroom community conversation. The fact that, in many cases, the teacher also comes from a different set of social fields is also vital: they are a participant in the cogen as well, not prioritized over the needs of their students.

           Cogens are one of the “seven Cs” Emdin outlines in his book: “cogenerative dialogues, co-teaching, cosmopolitanism, context, content, competition, and curation” (60). It would require the 200 pages he spends to sufficiently elaborate on these suggestions, but each one is focused in reality pedagogy and allows students to feel heard and respected in a place they usually don’t: their public school classrooms.

City Year

           City Year, an Americorps program that has young people 17 to 24 volunteer in classrooms for a full academic year, is widely acknowledged as an alternative to City Year. City Year lacks the clout that TFA has, and that’s partially because of the nature of the work corps members do. Where as TFA members become full-time classroom teachers, City Year members are tutors, teaching assistants, and run before- and after-school activities.

           Noam Hassenfeld is a TFA alum who is critical of the fact that many join TFA without certainly that they want to be teachers. He poses City Year as an alternative for these young adults: “City Year, on the other hand, wants to supplement rather than supplant the existing teacher workforce, making teachers' lives easier instead of putting them out of work” (Hassenfeld). He provides various examples, including: “The City Year corps member I worked with at my TFA site taught a small reading group of six to 12 students each morning, allowing lead-teachers to place other students in smaller groups.” Small groups and one-one-one attention are most vital to student learning, but often impossible considering the limitations of one teacher in a classroom of 20 to 30 students.

           City Year has its own flaws, but the most prominent one is minor: that it is “annoying.” “City Year’s internal culture can be pretty annoying: various chants and rituals are performed at various points during the day” (Goldman). More problematically, corps members are taught to focus on tangible, measurable goals when working with students, some of which are helpful but others of which are emblematic of issues in the public school system: “City Year highly emphasizes supporting students to improve their grades, classroom behavior, attendance, and test scores…” (Goldman).

Conclusion

           There’s no right way to enter the workforce as a teacher. Different service programs provide different opportunities and different flaws. Self-education is vital regardless of the route an aspiring teacher takes, even if they’ve gotten one or more graduate degrees, because curricula often leaves out roles of privilege, race, and other social identities in the classroom. Most important, however, is that if a young person is planning to become a part of a classroom community, they shouldn’t be planning their exit from their first day. Students deserve to have their teachers stick around.  

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