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rowanhawthorne22 · 1 year ago

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Progress Update 01 - Character Introductions

This is progress update 01 for my novel. I'm writing it for my master's classes at SNHU. To date, I have an intro, the first chapter, and half of the second chapter. I'm writing this blog to keep my shit in order and my brain on track and free of thoughts. Additionally, earning a following pre-publication seems like it would be useful, so I'll just be transparent about that. I'm not trying to live off my writing, but I do want an agent and a good editor. So I can't just publish my work and pray to god that people read it, I've gotta put in a little leg work.

With that in mind, the main focus of this blog is to talk about my progress with the novel and contextualize the writing process against the publication process. I have no specific plans for publication now, but as they develop I'll detail them here.

Let's get into the novel. The idea for The Stars have Always Beckoned Us is relatively simple. Ernest, a scholar at Solas Realt in a fictional Boston Victorian inspired city, feels the rush of discovery and love for magic. He wants to make a contribution to the field of Astronomy, which in this universe is a combination of arcane magic and science. Spells are created by invoking the names of certain planets and channeling their power. Ernest intends to find a new planet which he can harness the power of, and then cast a spell to observe farther and more closely than anyone before. He intends to leave a mark on the field and establish his name.

I wanted to use the name Ernest Ebreitas, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate or even legal to bite Bloodborne like that. Of course, the game is a huge part of the inspiration for the book, but that doesn't mean I can just copy it, I think. I mean it's only a name and a reference, I'm not like stealing the intellectual property of the game, or is just the name considered IP? It's a question an editor would know the answer to.

Ernest is determined. He's a little snobbish about the Academy; he doesn't have a lot of friends (two, to be exact, and one of them lives far away) and he doesn't make any effort to be social. All of his time is poured into his research and his classes. Ernest doesn't really understand the concept of "getting his hands dirty" because things sort of naturally fall into his lap. He's not exactly a genius, but things kind of tend to go right for him. This ease of access for him makes him look down a bit on his classmates. He can't understand why everyone else seems to be struggling and failing when it all comes so easily to him.

The first few chapters I want to spend setting up the academy and Ernest's interactions with it. Chapter 1 has Ernest arriving back at the academy after summer break to find that the headmaster still has not returned. He's been missing for three years now after a mysterious happening at his tower. Here we are also introduced to the interim headmaster, Alder Stately, and the mysterious new Professor Marwyn.

Chapter 2 introduces us to Ernest's friend Viola Tillman and Ernest's observatory space. It's not really his, but he has picked up enough of a reputation at the academy that most people just sort of leave it for Ernest. This chapter will be used to introduce some of the basics of the magic system as well. We'll see Ernest doing some Astronomy(TM).

In the next few chapters, I want to spend some time establishing the school and the magic system. The big problem will be hooking the audience - I need to drop some clues as to Elrick's (the headmaster) whereabouts. I think I will have Ernest overhearing chatter or have Viola drop some gossip, or something. Eventually, Ernest will demand to see the headmaster, and Elrick will reveal himself as having been mostly fine over the past three years. He's just been desperately trying to find out more about what happened to him - which was, of course, contact from an Old God residing deep in the center of a black hole. Elrick was given an inadvertent gift. Just as the planets are great sources of arcane power for the scholars of Solas Realt, this Old God was drawn on for power accidentally. This resulted in Elrick experiencing the first instance of blood magic ever recorded.

So, once Ernest and Elrick get in contact, they both make efforts to understand and control this new magic. It will go poorly for Elrick and he will be transformed into the primary villain of the novel. Somehow. This is subject to change.

Anyway, more blog posts forthcoming. I'll try to stick to a roughly weekly upload schedule so that I can continue to organize my thoughts and think through the structure of the novel.

I need feedback. If you, by chance, find this post, read the whole thing, and decide you want to rip me a new one and call my ideas stupid, I completely encourage you to do so. I need everything.

#lovecraft #cosmic horror #science fantasy #writers #space #new writers #magic #book writing #fiction

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rustedhearts · 1 year ago

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misled (college!steve harrington x fem!reader)

summary: overtaken by irritations with his playboy persona, you distance yourself from steve. but how long can you really stay away?

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

✶ the scholar stud masterlist ✶ main masterlist

tags: angst-ish; steve’s a whore; general horniness; teasing; smut; frat-party-sex; rough-ish; choking (but not really); once again not edited.

“late at night, body’s yearning. restless night, want to be with you. someone’s playing in the garden, so enticing, he’s sure to take a bite.”

misled, kool & the gang

somewhere in indiana, october 1988. tillman university.

last week...

"So, you fucked me and don't even have the courtesy to call after?"

The students listening across the hall winced at the sound of your voice shrilling through the hall. Peeking through the crack, the rear of Steve Harrington's chestnut tresses, recently conditioned and gleaming in the fluorescents, could be seen standing in front of your door. Behind you, your roommate, Caroline, could be seen hovering a pink nail polish brush over her big toe, too stunned by the confrontation to even move.

"Heh," Steve chuckled, bracing one hand against the doorframe. "I was gonna call, baby."

Chest tight with an air bubble of embarrassment, you glared at him fervently through a pair of thinly rimmed glasses. "Yeah, when?"

Steve, though never usually colored with humiliation, tinged pink. He'd slept with plenty of girls and never called—but with you, it was purely accidental. He meant to call, he honestly did. But then his dad appeared the day and demanded Steve's attention, and off they went to their second home in Connecticut, where he laid down "the law."

"The law" being that this was Steve's year to "get his head on straight," and drop the poli-sci major for pre-med as originally intended.

"I've let you screw around long enough," Mr. Harrington gruffed over a grilled lobster, white chunks buried in his teeth. "It's time to get serious."

"Sweetheart, listen—"

"—I thought I was 'distracting.' I thought you were so obsessed with me that I barely had my bag down before you were humping me like a dog, Harrington," you snipped. "What happened to that?"

The girls across the hall giggled and snickered, and Caroline grimaced into her nail polish bottle. Steve, on the other hand, pushed himself away from the doorframe and crossed his arms. You hadn't meant to be so cruel, the words just came rushing out like a tap on high—and it came out scalding hot.

"You're cute." His tone matched yours, sharp-edged and mean. "I said I was sorry, that not enough?"

You mirrored his stance, arms folded tightly over your baggy t-shirt. "You didn't, actually."

Dropping his arms defeatedly, Steve sighed and tipped against the doorway again. His cruelty fizzled out, overtaken by soft, rounded eyes of hazel brightness.

"Well I am, alright? C'mon, you gonna make me stay out here and beg?"

The shuffling across the hall ceased, the girls taken aback by Steve's murmured words. You, on the other hand, watched him carefully. He was handsome, no doubt, and knew how to turn on the sweetness like a honey drip. But is that all it was—an act? Did he mean all he said in his dorm that night? Or did his reputation precede him, and he just knew how to work you a little too well?

You could feel your edges rounding, melting bit by bit like butter in the heat. You reached for the door, prepared to open it a bit further and ask him inside—but a whizz of long, silky blonde hair flittered by and skirted to a stop. It came with a thin, fair-skinned face and eyes as blue as water. A girl too pretty for Tillman, a girl too pretty to be real.

"Steve?" she gasped, staring at the back of the boy's head with a wide grin. "There you are, I haven't seen you in ages!"

The quiet across the hall quickly morphed to noisy commotion: fumbling, gasping, and a little profanity. The softness quickly hardened like caulk, and you whipped the door halfway shut, flashing Steve a bitter grin. The blonde's hand reached for Steve's arm, turning him to face her and avert his attention.

But the boy's big eyes were only set on you, welled up with pleading. "Honey, wait, it's not what it—"

"See you around, Harrington."

today...

Since that day in the hall, you did everything you could to avoid Steve Harrington.

But it seemed Steve Harrington didn't let up easy.

He was there when you got back from class, waiting for a chance to explain himself. You rushed past him with a speed he couldn't keep up with (and the other girls glared at him with such ferocity that he worried for his safety). He stared at you in class, eyes unabashedly fixated in the rear of his chair, back to the professor until a sharp "Mr. Harrington," startled him back into focus.

But on the fifth day, when all you offered was silence, Steve felt his patience wear thin.

When your familiar scent wafted by on the way out of British Lit, Steve shot his hand out and grabbed you by the arm. You gasped upon impact against the wall, heart racing at the sight of Steve's firm body blocking you in. He felt firmer than before—or maybe you just missed the solidity of those bronzed muscles. Scented overpoweringly of vetiver and amber, coaxing you with that animalistic restlessness that festered in your veins just like last time.

Steve's lip quirked upward, hand pressing flat against the wall beside your head. "How long's this gonna last, sweetheart?"

You could feel yourself slipping into a daze. What harm could dipping your toe in the murky water really do? It certainly looked enticing—with all his bulging muscles, and beautiful plump lips—

No. You had to have some self-respect.

"I’m over you, Steve. Simple as that.”

Steve watched you tip your nose up at him, jut your little chin out and huff. You were good, he’d give you that—enough to keep a calm face beneath his heavy stare. But he could see the way your chest stuttered beneath your shirt, how your nose flared with shallow breaths. You lingered on his mouth a little too long to be over him.

He slid his tongue over his teeth and shrugged, pulling his hand away from your head. “Alright, baby. Whatever you say.”

Steve whirled around and strode down the hall, shoulders pulled back and head held tall. If you wanted to play, he’d play. But he wouldn’t make it easy for you.

✶ ✶

“No Harrington at the door, that’s new,” Caroline snickered as she kicked the door shut behind her.

You glanced at her over your shoulder from your place in the mirror. Makeup bag spilled over the tiled floor, lips sticky with gloss, you were ten minutes deep into a carefully crafted eye look meant for one night only. Alpha Phi were hosting a Halloween party tonight, and you were determined to prove Caroline—and Steve—wrong. You were over him. Totally, 100%, completely over Steve Harrington.

You didn’t even care if he’d be there tonight, which you knew he would. Maybe that’s why you insisted on keeping your dress pulled down so low, skirt hiked high. You wondered what he’d decide to wear. Something tight on his chest, stretched thin across the broadness of his back. Maybe something dark, because dark colors made his eyes brighten and sparkle.

Swallowing, you tossed your eyeliner back into the makeup bag and huffed. “It was about time he got the hint.”

Caroline’s gaze narrowed. “Right. Because you’re over him.”

Straightening your spine, you grinned at the mirror and nodded. Even a heavy, centering breath couldn’t calm the stirring in your stomach. An arousal burrowing deep in your bones.

“Absolutely.”

✶ ✶

He wore a black suit. Somehow, though it covered his limbs completely, it made him look bigger. A tall vision of lean limbs striding through tightly-knit bodies leaking liquored sweat. The music Alpha Phi played seemed to muffle at the sight of his back, heading toward another room where people waited. Waited for him. Just for him, in all his pretty boy glory.

The black clothes on your body stiffened, and you huffed as you plucked at the fabric thinning with dampness. You just got here and you were already pining.

“Fuck,” you muttered, pushing through a group of people at your left to maneuver toward the kitchen.

You wanted to be souped up and fuzzy with alcohol haze in the next twenty minutes, or else you weren’t sure you’d make it. As you scrutinized the drink selections wading in ice buckets on the kitchen counters, a familiar, deep-throated chuckle rumbled somewhere behind you. You squeezed your eyes shut, inhaling slowly, curling your fingers into fists in time with the swell of breath. You could do this. Steve Harrington was just a boy, and there had been plenty of boys over the years. He wasn't special.

Opening your eyes, you snatched a pumpkin flavored ale from the first bucket and reached for the bottle opener.

"Here, sweetheart, lemme get that for you."

Steve's hand swallowed your own, plucking the opener from your grasp as easily as a toy from a baby. He crowded you, arm brushing your own as he popped the top off the amber bottle of beer with ease. It clattered somewhere on the floor, but Steve seemed uninterested in mess; his eyes settled on you as he held the opened bottle out, sunglasses tucked in the collar of his t-shirt.

You reached for the bottle, but he held it out of reach toward his elbow. Frustration took hold in your throat, lumped like undigested food. And it found home in your stomach, twisting like a thin blade in a mess of guts. You can do this, you reminded yourself. He's just a boy.

"Steve," you huffed, glaring at his chest instead of the sly smirk toying on his handsome mouth.

"What, no thank you?"

Lifting your eyes, you settled a hard, narrowed gaze on his forehead and reached for the bottle again. "Thanks."

Steve shot the bottle up toward the ceiling, held tight in his fist. He was wearing a silver ring on his right ring finger and that slutty, brown leather-banded watch again.

You swallowed, fingers recoiling toward your sides where they twitched with need. Flashes of those long, slender fingers of his skating over your flesh came like waves of heat. Massaging fat, pulling, prodding, spreading, diving into wetness and coming out soaked. How sometime after he dressed you again, when his roommate calmed his frustrated screaming, complaining about washing Steve's "jizz" out of his comforter, Steve's fingers found your bottom lip and traced their softness. How sometime on the walk back to your dorm, he pressed you against the brick wall in the walkway and wrapped them around your jaw to devour your mouth.

"You can't take it, can you?" Steve's voice, graveling lowly with an erotic rasp, snapped you out of your syrup-sticky thoughts.

He was closer now, standing toe-to-toe, gazing at you down the slope of his nose. Your beer bottle still in the air, his other hand dangling emptily near yours, Steve stood at a proximity so near that you could smell the cigarette on his breath. The outline of the pack in his front left pocket was enough to have you squirming. You craned your neck, attempting to release it of strain and tension from a constriction of muscles. Not even the tightest clench of your core could calm the festering heat settling in your body.

"W-what?" you scoffed, head shaking. "Can't take what?"

You lacked the bite of last week's confrontation, and both of you could tell. Steve swooped down a little closer, neck arching to meet your height. His eyes lolled left, then right, then back to your face where they met your mouth like he readied to tell a secret.

"You're all squirmy, darlin'," he mumbled, voice almost slipping away in the music from a stereo in the living room. "You want me. I can tell."

Pressing your teeth together, jaw wired shut, you huffed a breath through your nose and fixed up your chin. "In. Your. Dreams."

Beer abandoned, you whirled around on one foot and stomped toward the way you came. Behind you, Steve straightened his spine and tongued away a grin. Through the opening above the sink, Steve watched you dash toward the stairs, hair flouncing with every rushed stomp. You were insatiable. It would be so much easier for you to give in, but your stubbornness prevented you.

Steve set the open beer down on the counter and headed toward the hall, knowing even he could no longer stomach your hard-headedness. If he had to be the one to give in, then so be it. But watching your ass sway in that little black dress, your breasts rise and fall in quick, shallow successions in that plunging neckline, jeweled with a little, blinged-out blue cross—Christ, his knees felt weak.

He wanted you in his hands, and he wanted it yesterday.

With bounding, leaping steps up the stairs, Steve hurried to place you in the mass of bodies. The music faded, swallowed by distance and the blood rushing in his ears. He threw open doors and ignored screeches of bare, naked surprise from stray couples that couldn't contain their own impatience. When he made it to the bathroom door, he skirted toward the front of a line of girls half-clothed forming against the wall and knocked twice.

"Hey, back of the line," a red-head in a witch hat snapped at him from the front.

Glaring at her, Steve knocked again, incessantly desperate.

"Somebody's in here!" your voice called sweetly from the other side.

Screwing his face up at the girl still huffing and puffing at him, he jiggled the door handle. "It's me, sweetheart, just open the door."

A quiet 'oh, Christ' came through the door, and Steve shuffled back a step as things slammed and clattered on the other side. The witch hat girl crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, and Steve shot her another sharp look before the door flung open. Before you could admonish him with more synthetic, short syllable grievances, Steve breached the gap between your bodies and grabbed your face. Two big hands, slender-fingered and cooled with metallic accessory, scented of cologne and tobacco and Steve, pressing firmly against your cheeks and partially under your jaw.

Steve used this hold to pull you in, mouths attaching and eyes sinking shut. Tongue gliding against yours, searching the crevices of your teeth, sloppy and needy and completely blinded by the tightness in his pants.

"God, get a room already!"

Steve popped away from your mouth with a soft, detaching slurp. You heaved for air, cheeks round with warmth, lips plumped with rushing blood.

His eyes rummaged your face, and when he found nothing but astonished thrill, he slipped his hold to your hand and gave it a little sideways tug. "C'mon."

The stumble to a free bedroom came with a fumbling of clothes and wandering hands. The search for a bed without people already humping on it was fruitless, and so dazed with lust, Steve snapped at a couple with such ferocity that they went skittering out of the room before anyone could protest. And once the door was locked and the bed once-overed for ick, Steve grabbed you by the waist and pulled you back in again.

It was as you were bouncing back on the bed, shuffling to make room for him on the duvet while exploring his mouth with your tongue, that Steve pulled away.

"Mmm...wait, wait..."

Pulling back to sit on his haunches, Steve smoothed his hands over your thighs, teasing them under the hem of your dress—just to keep touching you, stimulating you, keeping you there. Your breath came and went rapidly, body collecting heat in the wait. Your fingers were practically buzzing to touch him again, thighs quaking with anticipation of the burning stretch from his body between them. You were itching for him. Sitting there in all his glory, black fabric and tousled hair.

"I just...I wanna say, baby, I really meant to call you. Honestly, honey, I did."

You sighed, desperation taking a rest at the softness of his voice. Reaching out, you rubbed the pad of your finger over his ring. "Okay—"

"And that girl? I haven't seen her in months—she said so herself! I just...I had a past before you, sweetheart, but that's all it is. Just the past."

A smile swept over your face, small and coy and completely taken by his boyish admission. Sincerity held his eyes with unblinking certainty. You reached up and brushed his hair away from them, thumb sweeping across his cheek.

"Okay, Steve. I believe you."

As though triggered out of some conditioned state, Steve pounced at your forgiveness. His weight toppled down on you, pushing a wheezed giggle from your mouth as he attached his own to your neck. Your amusement trickled straight back into arousal, thighs tightening around his hips as his fingers looped into and tugged down the front of your dress.

"Christ, couldn't take it anymore," he mumbled, wiggling down to smatter kisses across your chest. "Had to...mmm...have you."

Gliding your fingers through his hair, you tipped your head back toward the ceiling and sighed blissfully. “Then have me, Steve.”

The groan Steve expelled against your breasts came with a gust of hot breath, and a rumble that had you gasping and shivering. He nipped at the pudgy flesh once, lolled his tongue over the aggravation to soothe the sting, and pulled back to shed his layers. You hiked your dress around your waist, too busy ogling Steve’s bare abdomen and the thatch of hair at the base of his pelvis, all exposed with every article freed from his body, to bother discarding your own. You weren’t sure you could last much longer.

And as his cock sprung free, fisted with his ringed hand in all its pinken, glistening glory, you became embarrassingly needy—mewling, reaching out and pulling, scraping with your nails, pouting out your lip and welling up with tears.

“Aw, cryin’ again, sweetheart?” Steve cooed, rubbing his thumb through the slick on the head of his cock to smear it as he pulled your thighs over the top of his. “Don’t worry, baby, you won’t be waiting long.”

Trembling with anticipation, you shifted and tilted your hips in an attempt to gain friction and release your aching torment. Steve snickered, pushing his hand down firmly against your hip to pin you to the bed. You huffed through your nose, pout deepening. Steve’s eyes flickered up toward your displeasure, and he felt himself softening.

“God, look at you—alright, sweetheart, a little wider. Little wider—there you go, fuck,” Steve rambled, pushing your thighs as far as they could go to make room for his body.

Sweeping his cock through your slickness, he made gentle, delicate massaging glides against your sensitive, throbbing clit before sinking in. The stretch burned and stung, and you pinched your eyes closed with a gasp. But when he sank in to the hilt, settled in deep and snug, the burn fizzled away to a feeling so full that you could only whimper and writhe.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart,” Steve’s voice was soft, a low whisper that tickled over your face.

Peeking them open, you found his face above yours, graced with a handsome smile that softened him like light. Trembling, your fingers approached his face, running down the dampness of his cheek and through the front of his hair. He kissed your wrist as it passed his mouth. His thumb pressed against the underside of your jaw, shifting you a little to the left until you felt the plumpness of a pillow beneath your neck.

“There,” he mumbled, swooping to kiss your head. “Comfy?”

As though satiated just by the fullness of his cock lodged inside you, you breezed with a dreamy sigh and nodded. “Very.”

Steve’s lip twitched into another grin. “Good.”

Running your palm over his bare bicep, freckled with mocha spots and slick with exertion, you hummed. “Steve?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“Don’t be gentle. Need you bad.”

A snorted chuckle rumpled from Steve’s throat, and he lifted another hand to cup his palm over the crown of your head. “That so? You need it a lil’ rough, pretty girl?”

Bobbing your head fervently, eyes rounding with delight: “Yeah—yes, please.”

Eyes scanning the surface of your flushed face, Steve took on a look of exasperated hesitation, wrinkling in his brow. "Ooh, I don't know—"

"Please," you yelped, hands tugging at his shoulders.

Steve chuckled, pretending to be moved by your ministrations, falling a little closer to your mouth where he pressed a kiss. "If you insist, honey."

The start to his thrusts were slow. Deep and languid, full of sweeping hips and firm arms. And just as you were about to protest, face screwing up with impatience, Steve located a ferocity that had you wailing. Barreling into you, fingers scrunching in your hair to pull by the root and yank aside, bearing your throat and calling to his teeth. They scraped over and sank into the flesh, bursting blood vessels and burning with vivacity. The bed frame clattered into the wall with a thumping melody, and every thrust inched you a little closer to the headboard.

You reached up to find footing, bracing yourself with two hands around the wooden bars of the headboard. Steve slid his hand from your hair to your neck, fingers pressing gently into the column of your throat. Not squeezing, just holding.

"Kiss me," you rasped, feeling the spark of an approaching climax gather in your nerves, rising to the surface.

Steve's mouth moved to yours like a magnet, latching with full lip and licks of tongue. His thumb pressed gently into your chin, tipping your head up. He followed every angle of it, never stopping the furious pace of his hips, every one coming with a prod of his cock at somewhere with tremulous, visceral surges. When you began to vibrate so badly you could barely hold tight around his hips, Steve pressed his fingers a little further into your skin. Enough to cut the pressure in your air stream, suppressing it to just the slightest wheeze.

And as you fluttered around him, Steve's arms grew weak, wobbling with need as he clenched every muscle he could to hold back. He wanted to cum with you.

He didn't have to hold off long—your vision bursted to white, streaked with tears pulled by a high-pitched shrill. The guttural, animalistic sound, and pure, heavenly delirium on your face had him spiraling—freeing himself from your tightly-clenched walls to spill over your stomach, coating it with sticky warmth. Nonsensical babbles slipped from your swollen mouth, low grunts and moans from Steve's. His fingers uncurled from your throat, the other leaving your hair to smooth it down on his way toward the other side of the bed.

When breath returned to an even symphony, and the room resumed to faded, thumping stereo music, you rolled onto your side and stared at the naked, glistening boy.

"You owe me a date, Harrington."

Steve chuckled breathily, tugging you into his side with a lazy push against your back. In the crook of his arm, he popped a kiss on your head.

"More like two."

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drmarshallbahr · 2 years ago

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#pat tillman #marshall #marshall bahr #veteran #military #medicine #doctor

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marketingstrategy1 · 2 years ago

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How did Pat Tillman die? All you need to know about ex-Cardinals LB being honored at Super Bowl

The NFL will honor Pat Tillman at Super Bowl LVII this Sunday. Four scholars from the Pat Tillman Foundation will act as captains for the coin toss as the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs get set to lock horns. The Pat Tillman Foundation was started as a way to honor the former NFL player who was drafted in the seventh round by Arizona. Tillman played for Arizona State University before…

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justforbooks · 4 years ago

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Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath of the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most-recorded in modern history. She has been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was born around the year 1098, although the exact date is uncertain. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim. Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child, although there are records of only seven older siblings. In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

Hildegard's works include three great volumes of visionary theology; a variety of musical compositions for use in liturgy, as well as the musical morality play Ordo Virtutum; one of the largest bodies of letters (nearly 400) to survive from the Middle Ages, addressed to correspondents ranging from popes to emperors to abbots and abbesses, and including records of many of the sermons she preached in the 1160s and 1170s; two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures; an invented language called the Lingua ignota ("unknown language"); and various minor works, including a gospel commentary and two works of hagiography.

Several manuscripts of her works were produced during her lifetime, including the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript of her first major work, Scivias (lost since 1945); the Dendermonde Codex, which contains one version of her musical works; and the Ghent manuscript, which was the first fair-copy made for editing of her final theological work, the Liber Divinorum Operum. At the end of her life, and probably under her initial guidance, all of her works were edited and gathered into the single Riesenkodex manuscript.

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval Catholic Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard's music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, sixty-nine musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost. This is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

One of her better-known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is uncertain when some of Hildegard's compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151. It is an independent Latin morality play with music (82 songs); it does not supplement or pay homage to the Mass or the Office of a certain feast. It is, in fact, the earliest known surviving musical drama that is not attached to a liturgy.

The Ordo virtutum would have been performed within Hildegard's monastery by and for her select community of noblewomen and nuns. It was probably performed as a manifestation of the theology Hildegard delineated in the Scivias. The play serves as an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, not the male Patriarchs or Prophets. This would have been a significant message to the nuns in Hildegard's convent. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima (the human souls) and the Virtues. The devil's part is entirely spoken or shouted, with no musical setting. All other characters sing in monophonic plainchant. This includes Patriarchs, Prophets, A Happy Soul, A Unhappy Soul and A Penitent Soul along with 16 female Virtues (including Mercy, Innocence, Chasity, Obedience, Hope, and Faith).

In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard's own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences, to responsories. Her music is monophonic, that is, consisting of exactly one melodic line. Its style has been said to be characterized by soaring melodies that can push the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant, and to stand outside the normal practices of monophonic monastic chant. Researchers are also exploring ways in which it may be viewed in comparison with her contemporaries, such as Hermannus Contractus. Another feature of Hildegard's music that both reflects twelfth-century evolution of chant, and pushes that evolution further, is that it is highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units. Scholars such as Margot Fassler, Marianne Richert Pfau, and Beverly Lomer also note the intimate relationship between music and text in Hildegard's compositions, whose rhetorical features are often more distinct than is common in twelfth-century chant. As with all medieval chant notation, Hildegard's music lacks any indication of tempo or rhythm; the surviving manuscripts employ late German style notation, which uses very ornamental neumes. The reverence for the Virgin Mary reflected in music shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars. They note her reference to herself as a member of the weaker sex and her rather constant belittling of women. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis. Such a statement on her part, however, worked to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice. Hildegard used her voice to amplify the church's condemnation of institutional corruption, in particular simony.

Hildegard has also become a figure of reverence within the contemporary New Age movement, mostly because of her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic. Though her medical writings were long neglected, and then studied without reference to their context, she was the inspiration for Dr. Gottfried Hertzka's "Hildegard-Medicine", and is the namesake for June Boyce-Tillman's Hildegard Network, a healing center that focuses on a holistic approach to wellness and brings together people interested in exploring the links between spirituality, the arts, and healing. Her reputation as a medicinal writer and healer was also used by early feminists to argue for women's rights to attend medical schools. Hildegard's reincarnation has been debated since 1924 when Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner lectured that a nun of her description was the past life of Russian poet-philosopher Vladimir Soloviev, whose Sophianic visions are often compared to Hildegard's. Sophiologist Robert Powell writes that hermetic astrology proves the match, while mystical communities in Hildegard's lineage include that of artist Carl Schroeder as studied by Columbia sociologist Courtney Bender and supported by reincarnation researchers Walter Semkiw and Kevin Ryerson.

Recordings and performances of Hildegard's music have gained critical praise and popularity since 1979. See Discography listed below.

The following modern musical works are directly linked to Hildegard and her music or texts:

Sofia Gubaidulina: Aus den Visionen der Hildegard von Bingen, for contra alto solo, after a text of Hildegard of Bingen, 1994.

Peter Janssens: Hildegard von Bingen, a musical in 10 scenes, text: Jutta Richter, 1997.

Cecilia McDowall: Alma Redemptoris Mater.

Tilo Medek: Monatsbilder (nach Hildegard von Bingen), twelve songs for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano, 1997.

David Lynch with Jocelyn Montgomery: Lux Vivens (Living Light): The Music of Hildegard Von Bingen, 1998.

Alois Albrecht: Hildegard von Bingen, a liturgical play with texts and music by Hildegard of Bingen, 1998.

Christopher Theofanidis: Rainbow Body, for orchestra (2000)

Ludger Stühlmeyer: O splendidissima gemma, for alto solo and organ, text by Hildegard of Bingen, 2011.

Wolfgang Sauseng: De visione secunda for double choir and percussion, 2011.

Devendra Banhart: Für Hildegard von Bingen, single from the 2013 album Mala.

Gordon Hamilton: The Trillion Souls quotes Hildegard's O Ignee Spiritus

The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Hildegard.

In space, the minor planet 898 Hildegard is named for her.

In film, Hildegard has been portrayed by Patricia Routledge in a BBC documentary called Hildegard of Bingen (1994), by Ángela Molina in Barbarossa (2009) and by Barbara Sukowa in the film Vision, directed by Margarethe von Trotta.

Hildegard was the subject of a 2012 fictionalized biographic novel Illuminations by Mary Sharatt.

The plant genus Hildegardia is named after her because of her contributions to herbal medicine.

Hildegard makes an appearance in The Baby-Sitters Club #101: Claudia Kishi, Middle School Drop-Out by Ann M. Martin, when Anna Stevenson dresses as Hildegard for Halloween.

A feature documentary film, The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard, was released by American director Michael M. Conti in 2014.

The off-Broadway musical In the Green, written by Grace McLean, followed Hildegard's story.

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

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Hildegard of Bingen

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constance-iloh · 4 years ago

Video

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Episode 1 of "Scholarship to Practice" Featured Scholar & Guest Luminary Dr. Constance Iloh will share insights from her work with Scholarship to Practice co-hosts, Dr. Derrick Tillman-Kelly and Dr. Bridget Burns from University Innovation Alliance.

In this discussion, Dr. Iloh, unpacks how administrators and practitioners can draw upon the "Iloh model of college-going & decisions trajectories.”

Sponsored by Innovation Alliance and Inside Higher Ed

#education #research #highered #constanceiloh #theory #blackwoman #iloh #tumblr #aesthetic #ilohmodel #scholar #phd #higher education #constance iloh #academia #forbes30under30 #college #interview #youtube

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sedmonds · 4 years ago

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Macro-post #4: Our Impact.

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On Thursday, November 19, 2020, my practicum group and I officially ended our practicum by presenting our work to our class. With the help of our preceptor and owner of On Target Preparedness, I feel we have fulfilled our duty of meeting our assigned competencies and deliverables given by our professor (Dr. Tillman). Below are the assigned competencies, deliverables, and ways we tackled each task.

Deliverables:

1. Design educational material and activities related to COVID-19 for distribution to Latinx/Hispanic communities in Harnett and surrounding counties

2. Collect assessment data related to the Latinx/Hispanic COVID-19 outreach efforts from various stakeholders (health departments, advocacy orgs, nonprofits, healthcare systems, state/federal

agencies, etc.)

3. Create an advocacy campaign promoting improved emergency response outreach to Hispanic/Latinx communities.

Competencies:

R1. Differentiate the impacts of social determinants of health that contribute to health disparities in rural communities as compared with urban communities

F2. Select quantitative and qualitative data collection methods appropriate for a given public health context

F7. Assess population needs, assets, and capacities that affect communities' health

F14. Advocate for political, social, or economic policies and programs that will improve health in diverse populations

F19. Communicate audience-appropriate public health content, both in writing and through oral presentation

For deliverable one, we created a Spanish and English COVID-19 informational brochure that highlighted the virus's symptoms, the importance of following safety regulations, local resources, state resources, the importance of wearing a mask, and testing sites. We decided to print more Spanish brochures than English because our target was the Hispanic/Latinx communities at our tabling events. We recruited undergraduate students from Campbell University's Hispanic Association to help us communicate efficiently who are not proficient in English. For this part of our project, Michelle and I tackled the competency F19 because we communicated with our target audience in both writing and Spanish.

My practicum group member Sophia came up with the idea of creating COVID Care Kits, which was an excellent idea because we learned that many members of the Hispanic and Latinx population did not have the proper equipment to fight the pandemic. Many did not have a reusable mask, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer, hand soap, and more. Although we ran into some doubt from our preceptor regarding creating the kits, we believed in our teammate and helped make it happen. We met early in the morning to go to local businesses in Montgomery County to inform the owners of our goals and asked for any donations towards the events. Initially, we did not think many people would have donated, but that was not our reality. The community was very supportive of our efforts; therefore, they donated gracefully. With our care kits, we created a bilingual COVID Coloring Book for the children to understand why it is necessary to wash their hands, explain our dangerous germs, and more. We made over 200 COVID Care Kits to give to the Hispanic/Latinx population in Montgomery County. Additionally, the Public Health Department gave us 500 reusable wipes to give out at our last tabling event. I believe this was definitely a part of our efforts to create a campaign to improve emergency response outreach to the Hispanic and Latinx populations in Montgomery County (competency F7).

Mason was the group member in charge of the tabling events. I'm glad we selected Mason because he got the job done. He contacted the two businesses where we hosted the tabling events with the help of Michelle because La Cosecha owner is a Spanish speaker. Our tabling event overall brought every deliverable together to meet our goals. At our first tabling event we noticed that many people were not wearing their mask, which was not surprising since we hypothesized that they did not have the resources.Our tabling event was hosted at a Hispanic market. We really touched many people from or targeted population. Some were sharing their stories of how they contracted the disease, how they had to pay for COVID testing, and stories of their families back home in their home country. It was definely and eye opener and really made my experience a member of OTP worth every minute. Our second tabling event was interesting. Because it was hosted at the local flea market we encounter alot of track and ended earlier than the last event. We engaged with a variety of demographic with the community. After our first event, we were given instructions to ask the people about the amount of help or information they received from their local health department. Over 80% of the people said they “did not hear anything” from the Montgomery Health Department. This was surprising because the department stated that they gave over 10,000 mask to the citizen. Being the public health students that we are we hypothesized that the department was not successfully reaching the Hispanic/Latinx populations! Tragic!

Overall, I’m grateful to have this experience to work hands-on in a community and make a small but mighty impact on the lives of others. I grew closer to my group members and learned the importance of working with others who are different. I was grateful to be the leader of ensuring our brochures got to the Montgomery County School District. Our brochure was given to over 3,000 young scholar and out of that 1,000 were Hispanic. I feel that my group has come a long way. We experienced some setbacks, but we remained motivated and got the job done. I hope OTP continues our efforts and impact many others through this pandemic.

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militaryspouse101 · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Military Spouse

New Post has been published on http://militaryspouse.com/career/education/this-tillman-scholar-is-fighting-for-better-autism-education/

This Tillman Scholar Is Fighting for Better Autism Education

While completing her senior year of college in San Diego in 2002, Heather Barnett met Dwayne, an active duty Navy sailor. They fell in love and lived in San Diego for several years before being stationed to Italy, where they married in a small Sicilian town.

Heather had studied abroad in Florence in college – it was a coincidence she already knew the language. The young, child-free couple traveled all over Italy. Four weeks before leaving Sicily for Dwayne to attend school in Rhode Island and Virginia, Heather and Dwayne found out they were expecting their first child. Seven weeks after giving birth to their son, the young family moved to Japan and began what Heather describes as “a really difficult tour.”

Dwayne graduated from the Naval Academy in 1999 and was a surface warfare officer. Heather describes him as being kind, charismatic and highly intelligent while having a type A personality and being a perfectionist. Despite winning awards, being number one in his department head class and doing well overall, he still didn’t think it was good enough. Heather says he suffered from depression and anxiety, which was heightened by ship conditions incompatible with his personality. After a challenging tour in Japan, the Navy relocated the family to San Diego, scooping Dwayne up into what Heather describes as a safety net and giving him help.

Meanwhile, their son was 14 months old when they returned to the U.S. Because he wasn’t speaking yet, Heather met with a development psychologist, who did a four-hour assessment before diagnosing: “Your son has autism.”

Heather, who by this point had a master’s degree and was a school counselor, decided to stay home with him and immersed herself in the five-days-per-week therapy sessions. Paralleling that time, Dwayne was thriving. Nine months after returning stateside, he was back on a ship as an operations officer with a phenomenal captain and crew.

Fast forward to 2012 when the couple welcomed a daughter. Between caring for a newborn and her son’s new classification as having heightened aggressive tendencies, Heather was consumed. When Dwayne was screened for commander, he was assigned to a different ship with an atmosphere that resembled Japan’s experience.

“We had hit a point where we thought everything was okay again, but it was still fragile,” she says. “I was somewhat unaware of how stress was taking a toll on him; he internalized so much.” Nonetheless, he continued doing his job, and she continued with hers as mother to two. In May 2014, Dwayne committed suicide.

Heather felt blindsided. Survival in the first year was a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. “I had to figure it out, nobody would do it for me,” she says. “I’m a Navy spouse who had been dependent on a military man for a long time.”

Pursuing an advanced degree crossed her mind while contemplating her options. “I was thankful for the education I had behind me already and knew I had to do something with what I knew and experienced with education and autism. I felt like I needed to make a bigger difference. These military families need more help than what we’re getting,” she says.

Tillman Foundation

So Heather enrolled at Alliant International University in San Diego to pursue her doctorate in education, taking classes through a combination of online and in-person sessions.

She has three more classes to complete before she starts her dissertation, which she anticipates focusing on autism and access to postsecondary educational/vocational transition programs. “I’d like to understand the hardship military families face during this transition and what their specific needs are for their young adult with autism,” Heather says. This past year, the university asked her to be an adjunct professor.

Heather discovered the Pat Tillman Foundation while researching funding resources. “I thought I’d apply just as a scholarship and nothing else would be attached … totally not that,” she remembers.

Heather went through three rounds of interviews before being accepted as a scholarship recipient. She flew to Chicago to meet the other Tillman Scholars and was blown away to be part of such a group. “It gives me a lot of hope and motivation,” she shares.

“I really liked Pat Tillman’s character and what he stood for,” she says. “He wanted to do something bigger than himself. In fact, that’s their motto: Do something beyond you. Reach out. Affect more people.”

A marathon is, unarguably, something bigger than oneself. “The Tillman Foundation can get you into the NYC marathon and I had mentioned I was interested in being a team captain and raising money,” she says. “It was my way to give back to them.” Heather, who had qualified for and competed in the 2011 Boston Marathon, captained the team last November, and is slated to be the team captain for the Chicago marathon this October. “Running is my therapy. It keeps me going.”

Increased awareness for special needs

Heather hopes to bring awareness to adults with autism. “Services fall off at 21 years old,” she explains. “There is a lack of public services available for adults and accessing them is questionable.” Even during childhood, though, treatment still is a patchwork process parents must navigate. Currently, programs are expensive and availability is limited.

Despite being in one of the top school districts in California, the system is inadequate for her son; special education in schools is a difficult system to traverse. The most effective proven treatment – applied behavioral analysis (ABA), in autism’s case – is pricey and schools don’t require aides to be trained in that. “You are dealt what they give you in the public school system.”

Not one to idly sit by, Heather took matters into her own hands. She formed strong relationships with the teachers and administrators. After much research and five years, she has succeeded in getting an ABA aide in the classroom with her son. She’d like to see her individual success become the norm. “This is about credentialing programs and enhancing intellectual disabilities programs,” she says. Heather hopes to see all special education teachers be certified as Board Certified Behavior Analysts – a supervisor level of an ABA therapist – so they fully understand the ins and outs. “Districts get lucky if they hire a teacher that has this training,” she explains.

“I’d love to continue to help military families and special needs kids,” she continues. “It affects me very personally. I know how hard it is to be a military family and how extra hard it is to have a special needs child. People don’t know half the resources available; communication isn’t super strong if you don’t know where to go.”

Lead By Example

Heather’s example serves as motivation to keep pursuing your passions. “I think it is important to motivate spouses,” she says, “to encourage all spouses to continue to pursue something. I believe in continually educating yourself and contributing in any way – not necessarily being 100 percent reliant on your spouse because of the unknown. You have to take care of yourself and have something to fall back on. I’ve been there.”

Returning to school as a widowed mother of two is a rocky road. Despite having respite care, babysitters and help from her mother, it’s not the same as having another parent to leave the kids with. Yet, “I need to take care of myself to take care of them,” Heather explains. “The time management is huge — being self-motivated to get through school, prioritize and be responsible. All of these things have to align.”

Still, Heather laments the stigma surrounding mental health: “It’s very difficult and something not many people talk about. It’s viewed as a weakness,” she says.

Despite the tragic turn her life took, she’s channeling her energy into her family and into their future. “You can recover. You can keep going and move forward, hard as it may be at times.”

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#Heather Barnett #how to move on from suicide #military spouses are strong #military suicide #Pat Tillman Foundation #Tillman Scholar

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theamberfang · 5 years ago

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WIP Music Playlist

What?

This is just a list of songs I really like that I’ve been putting together in a notepad file. To my knowledge, there isn’t really a single music app/website that reliably has everything, so I just decided to keep a local list that I could then try to transpose wherever else.

(At the time of writing) I’ve just organized everything alphabetically—by last name, where applicable, and ignoring articles—so I figured I’d just post it to my blog as it is. This post can serve as a backup, if nothing else.

The List

Lily Allen - Everyone's At It Arilena Ara - I'm Sorry (Gon Haziri & Bess Radio Mix) AronChupa - Little Swing Atlas Genius - Trojans AWOLNATION - Kill Your Heroes AWOLNATION - Soul Wars Baasik - The Fight (Feat Jetset) Bad Suns - Learn to Trust Bad Suns - Outskirts of Paradise Bad Suns - Transpose Bear Attack - Broke Beats Antique - Mission Blackmill - Let It Be Blackmill - Rain Blue Scholars - Inkwell Capital Cities - Kangaroo Court Capital Cities - Love Away Capital Cities - Safe and Sound Caravan Palace - Brotherswing Caravan Palace - Lone Digger Caravan Palace - Russian Caravan Palace - Wonderland Carolina Liar - I'm Not Over Cazzette - Beam Me Up Collective Efforts - Easy Cro - Dream CunninLynguists - Love Ain't Depeche Mode - Dream On (Dave Clarke Acoustic Version) (Remixed By Dave Clarke) Dialectrix - Outcast DJ Egadz - Disconnected Pt. 2 DNCE - Cake By The Ocean Rob Dougan - Clubbed To Death (Kurayamino Variation) El Ten Eleven - My Only Swerving The Electroswing Circus - Empires Else - Paris Emancipator - Anthem Emancipator - Ghost Pong Emancipator - Father King Emancipator - Old Devil Emancipator - Wolf Drawn Enigma - Modern Crusaders Fall Out Boy - The Phoenix Joey Fehrenbach - Indigo Road Fever the Ghost - Source Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) Foster The People - Best Friend Foster The People - Sit Next to Me Foster The People - Worst Nites Frou Frou - Breathe In Max Frost - Adderall Max Frost - Withdrawal The Griswolds - Live This Nightmare (NGHTMRE Remix) Homestuck - Flare (Cascade Cut) Homestuck - Terezi Owns Hybrid - Last Man Standing Incubus - Drive Thomas Jack - Rivers Hayden James - Nowhere To Go ft NAATIONS Jem - I Always Knew Jem - Save Me Joywave - Tongues (feat. Kopps) Kim Tillman & Silent Films - Evelyn Lilly Wood & The Prick - Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit) Linkin Park - Faint Little People - Moon Living Legends - Moving At The Speed Of Life Living Legends - Remember Who You Are LYAR - Cool (ft. Matthew J. Kurz) Brendand Maclean - Stupid Madeon - For You Madeon - Pop Culture Magic Man - Paris Maroon 5 - This Love Massive Attack - Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix) Matchbox Twenty - Unwell Alex Midi - In The Air Tonight (Feat. Delacey) (Radio Edit) Matthew Mosier - Hotel Discordia (Discord Cover) Mylo - Otto's Journey Mystic - Neptune's Jewels Nihils - Help Our Souls (Urban Contact Remix Radio Edit) Maty Noyes - In My MiNd ODESZA - La Cuidad Ostrichhead - Just Another Star OstrichHead - Sun City Panic! At The Disco - Hey Look Ma, I Made It Panic! At The Disco - Victorious Phoenix - Lisztomania Powers - Georgie Rag'n'Bone Man - Human Ratatat - Kennedy Ratatat - Nostrand Ratatat - Wildcat Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Zephyr Song Rhymefest - Bullet RJD2 - Ghostwriter Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing? RÜFÜS DU SOL - Desert Night RÜFÜS DU SOL - Until The Sun Needs To Rise Robin Schulz - Sugar (Feat. Francesco Yates) The Score - The Heat Set It Off - Partners In Crime (Feat. Ash Costello) SIAMÉS - As You Get High SIAMÉS - Used to Be Sir Sly - Fun Skeewiff - Don't Rock The Boat (Bart & Baker Remix) Smallpools - Dreaming Aaron Smith - Dancin (Krono Remix) (feat. Luvli) Solar Fields - Insum (Remix) Sons of Maria - What It Feels Like (Radio Mix) Strobe ft. Feather and Forest Rain - This Distance (Silva Hound Remix) Sugar Ray - When It's Over (Remastered) Sweatshop Union - Close To Home Sweatshop Union - Think About It Swingrowers - Butterfly Swingrowers - My Mood Swingrowers - No Strings Attached Swingrowers - Selfie Face Tarro - Holding On ft. Marie Lynn The Tech Thieves - Enough The Tech Thieves - Work on Me TeddyLoid - Theme for Scanty & Knee Socks Tep No - Me and My Guitar Tep No - Swear Like a Sailor Didrik Thulin - Dancer (Kygo Remix) Two Door Cinema Club - Are We Ready? (Wreck) Two Door Cinema Club - Sun Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know Two Door Cinema Club - You're Not Stubborn Veorra - Nasty Freestyle Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want The XX - Intro Zedd - Beautiful Now (Zonderling Remix) (feat. Jon Bellion)

#music #favorite music #playlist

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Questions, comments, or thoughts about cases to cover? Email us here.

Two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, we still know relatively little about the inner workings of his family business, the Trump Organization. But on Tuesday, a case that could force the company to reveal some information about its finances faces a big test in a federal appeals court in Virginia. Judges will hear oral arguments over whether a lawsuit alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by accepting payments from state officials and foreign diplomats at his Washington, D.C., hotel, which the Trump Organization operates, can go forward. The case is one of a trio of lawsuits that were filed relatively early in Trump’s term and claim that the president is violating two little-known clauses of the Constitution that prohibit federal officials from accepting titles, gifts or “emoluments” from foreign countries, the federal government or state governments.

Legal experts initially predicted that the cases wouldn’t make it very far. But last year, a federal judge in Maryland handed down a series of rulings in favor of one set of challengers — Washington, D.C., and Maryland — allowing them to issue subpoenas for financial information related to the hotel from several branches of the Trump Organization. In response, Trump appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia to get the case thrown out — or, barring that, to at least temporarily stop it from moving forward. And the outcome of this high-stakes case could hinge on how the court chooses to interpret “emolument” — a word that dropped out of our common lingo more than a century ago.

It’s rare for judges to be faced with a legal issue that is actually novel, particularly when it comes to the Constitution. But the emoluments clauses, which were initially designed to guard against influence from foreign and other governments, are truly arcane. “The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutional meaning of the word ‘emolument,’” said Georgetown law professor John Mikhail, who co-authored an amicus brief in support of D.C. and Maryland on the history of the word.

In other words, what the founders meant when they barred federal officials and the president from accepting emoluments is a central question in this case, although the appeals court judges will also have to consider other issues, like whether the states have the authority to bring the suit in the first place. Trump’s attorneys have contended that the president is not in violation of the emoluments clauses because they specifically refer to a payment for a service — like a salary or consulting fee — accepted from a foreign or state government in one’s official capacity as president. Trump’s opponents, on the other hand, have argued for a much broader definition that includes any kind of benefit or profit gained from a foreign or state government during one’s presidency, which would encompass payments received from foreign countries or state officials at Trump’s hotel.

Whether this argument will hold water in the courts is hard to know, because there isn’t a very decisive paper trail on the emoluments clause. Over the years, executive branch lawyers have issued guidance about particular situations that involve potential emoluments clause violations — for example, former President Barack Obama checked in with the Justice Department after he won the Nobel Prize, to make sure that accepting the cash award wouldn’t run afoul of the Constitution. (The department said it didn’t.) But Trump’s sprawling business empire and his decision not to fully divest himself from his companies make this a unique case.

As a result, Trump’s lawyers, his opponents and independent researchers have headed for 18th-century dictionaries and historical linguistic databases to try to figure out what “emoluments” meant at the time the Constitution was drafted. After the emolument lawsuits were filed, Mikhail examined dozens of dictionaries published over a several hundred-year period before around 1800 and concluded that broad definitions were overwhelmingly common.1 And a study completed earlier this year drew on “corpus linguistics,” a method that uses large sets of data to analyze language — in this case, databases of historical documents drawn from the founding era. The authors submitted a brief to the Virginia court outlining their findings. Clark Cunningham, one of the study’s authors and a law professor at Georgia State University, told me that the president’s argument that “emolument” had a specific, narrow meaning “is just not consistent with the data.” In the thousands of uses of “emolument” examined in the study, Cunningham and his co-author found that the word often referred to personal and private transactions. And Cunningham said that its proximity to other nouns like “bounties,” “fees” or “privileges” indicates that it was used as a catch-all term, which suggests that the definition was broader than the one offered by Trump’s lawyers.

But other legal scholars have pointed to historical examples that challenge a broad interpretation of the emoluments clauses. In a brief supporting Trump’s position, one of those scholars argues that George Washington bought federal land at auction while he was president, which could constitute a violation of the domestic emoluments clause under a broader definition. “The whole world saw that — why didn’t anyone complain?” said Seth Barrett Tillman, who is a lecturer in law at Maynooth University in Ireland and studies the foreign emoluments clause. He believes that even though the term may have regularly been used in the broader sense at the time the Constitution was written, examples like this support the idea that the founders intended for a more restrained version of “emolument” to apply.

The lower court judge in tomorrow’s case drew extensively on Mikhail’s study to support his conclusion that a broad definition of “emolument” was warranted. But other judges may not agree. And whatever the appeals court rules, it likely won’t be the last word. If the president loses, legal experts told me that he’ll almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. Ironically, the use of corpus linguistics is most popular among conservative judicial originalists like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who emphasize the need to interpret legal provisions based on the way they were understood when they were written. But getting a five-justice majority on the Supreme Court to agree that the states have the ability to bring an emoluments lawsuit against the president could be a tough sell, according to Andy Grewal, a law professor and emoluments expert at the University of Iowa, because generally, presidents are considered to have broad protections from civil lawsuits.

What’s perhaps most striking, at this point, is the way the emoluments cases have slowly evolved from a minor nuisance to a real threat to the president. If the appeals court allows the emoluments trial to go forward, Trump will be forced to divulge financial information about his hotel that he has fought for years to keep private. It’s a testament to both the ways that Trump’s presidency is testing our legal and constitutional system and the extent to which Trump’s opponents have used that same system to attack him.

Other cases

Pre-presidency Trump

A state appeals court in New York ruled that a sitting president can be sued in state court, rejecting Trump’s challenge to a defamation lawsuit filed against him in New York by a former contestant on “The Apprentice.” Their ruling is unlikely to be the final word, however — Trump’s attorneys have said they will appeal to the New York Supreme Court, and if they fail there, the case will likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was sentenced to 47 months in prison and ordered to pay $25 million in restitution by a federal judge in Virginia and was sentenced to an additional 43 months in Washington, D.C., bringing his total prison time to 7.5 years. The sentencing closes one of the most high-profile threads of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election. However, Manafort was indicted on a new set of charges in state court in New York shortly after his sentencing in D.C.

In another thread of Mueller’s probe, a trial date was set for Nov. 5 in the case involving Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser who was charged in January with lying about his attempts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn asked for a delay in sentencing, saying he’s still cooperating with federal investigators in connection with the Russia probe. Sentencing for former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates was also postponed while he continues to cooperate with Mueller’s team.

A federal judge closed Stormy Daniels’s lawsuit against President Trump, which had sought to void a “hush” agreement she signed during the 2016 campaign that gave her $130,000 in exchange for her silence about a past affair she says she had with Trump. The decision was expected, as Trump and his attorneys had said they wouldn’t enforce the nondisclosure agreement, which Daniels violated repeatedly.

President Trump

Later this month, a panel of judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a case about whether Trump can block critics on Twitter without violating the First Amendment. A lower-court judge ruled last year that this is unconstitutional.

The Trump administration

The Trump administration’s restrictions on military service by transgender people will be implemented next month, after a federal judge in Maryland lifted the last remaining injunction against it. However, legal challenges to the policy will continue to unfold in the courts, even after it goes into effect.

A second federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the legality and constitutionality of the citizenship question in April.

Following a court order last year, the Trump administration agreed to extend temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan and Nicaragua, which the Department of Homeland Security had initially tried to end. However, the administration left open the possibility that protections could be rescinded later if it ultimately prevails in one of the ongoing court challenges involving the policy.

Another judge ruled that the Trump administration’s attempts to withhold law-enforcement funding from cities and states with “sanctuary” policies are illegal. Despite ongoing lawsuits on the issue, almost all the cities and states that were initially denied law-enforcement grants have received their 2017 funds, according to The Associated Press — despite the fact that some haven’t changed their sanctuary policies to comply with the government’s grant conditions.

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