#a few campaigns ago i was dealing with my escapism issues so I played an addict who never faced his shut

[twinksintrees]

dnd campaign ended kinda unexpectedly tonight and fuck i’m gonna miss it. this is the campaign that got me through my sister moving, through my first big show at my theater, through this fucked up holiday season. i made this character to help me process my sister leaving and now. she’s gone. and my sister is completely moved out and i’m used to that now, and that’s so strange to me, that she’s not Here. we are still so close and talk near every day and it’s weird that that is my new normal. idk. i need to come with a new character and i feel as though i have no ideas.

[cozy-the-overlord]

Crimson Curls

Summary:  A barista at the Avengers Tower coffeeshop goes missing. Her boyfriend, prominent Avengers engineer Michael Hauer, headlines a desperate campaign to find her, aided by the support of Tony Stark and the rest of the super-powered team. But as Hauer's narrative begins to unravel, it becomes clear that a certain Asgardian prince knows more than he's telling.

Pairing: Loki x Original Female Character

Chapter 1: Disappearance

Previous chapter | Next Chapter

Word Count: 3,138

A/N:  This is definitely something born out of my obsession with true crime and missing persons cases... I'm not sure if anybody else is as interested in this concept as I am, but I had the time of my life writing this story, so I hope that translates to you in some way. 

Also, this is my first multi-chaptered fic (I know, exciting, right?!)-- part 2 should be up within the next week.

Thanks for reading!

TW: domestic violence

Read it on Ao3 

Kristine Ververs was first reported missing at 6:07 AM on Tuesday, March 17, by her boyfriend Michael Hauer. He was a bit worried, he said, because she had stormed out of their apartment the night before after a fight, and he had only just realized when he woke up that morning that she never came back. His attempts to call her led him to discover that she had left her cell phone on the kitchen counter.

The dispatcher asked him to wait at the apartment for investigators to arrive. He told her he couldn’t. He had to go to work. A bit befuddled, she asked if it was at all possible for him to wait until police arrived so they could ask him some questions.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I work for Tony Stark.”

Michael Hauer was considered to be fairly acclaimed at the Avengers Tower. He had been one of the first engineers hired when the Tower opened, picked out by the infamous genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist himself. He spent his days in the restricted upper floors, designing and testing projects so confidential that his girlfriend didn’t even know what they were.

He had met Kristine at the Tower. She worked in the coffeeshop next to the cafeteria, where the employees of all 93 stories flocked to with bleary eyes each and every morning. Kristine was hardly the most talkative barista there (on the contrary, she appeared to make it a point to say only the bare minimum), and yet she was the girl everyone thought of when they thought of their morning brew. Her wild mane of curly red hair stood out in a crowd. Even when she wasn’t in uniform, people knew her as the coffeeshop girl.

It was unclear what she thought of this. A lot of things about Kristine were unclear—she spoke very little, and never about herself. Her coworkers often wondered why someone so shy would choose to work a job that so heavily relied on social interaction, but she managed just fine. Despite her natural demeanor, she would put on a smile and speak in that bubbly barista voice people found either endearing or irritating for the customers, and no one thought anything of it.

When she disappeared, people were shocked.

“You mean the redhead from the food court?” asked Bruce in the apartment story of the Tower when the news broke. “She’s the one?”

“Yeah,” said Tony. They were crowded around the TV, the newscaster flashing a photo of Kristine shyly smiling at the camera as the tip hotline ran across the bottom of the screen. “Poor Hauer. He was a mess. I can’t believe he even came in today.”

“I didn’t know they were dating. I don’t think he’s ever mentioned her.”

“Yeah he has,” Steve turned around in his chair to face the doctor. “He brought her to the Christmas party, remember?”

Tony frowned. “Did he?”

“Of course! I remember!” Thor lit up. “She danced with my brother!”

“Oh that’s right,” Tony chuckled. “Poor girl. She didn’t say much, did she?”

“She did strike me as a bit shy,” Steve said. “I hope it’s all a misunderstanding. Maybe she’ll be back on her own.”

But she didn’t. As the days passed with no news of Kristine Ververs, media attention snowballed around the Tower. On its own, there wasn’t much to the case, but the fact that both the missing girl and her boyfriend worked for the Avengers caught the attention of the public. It seemed so impossible. How does someone who walks among superheroes vanish without a trace?

Missing posters lined the hallway walls: HAVE YOU SEEN KRISTINE? People rushed to news stations for interviews, most of which had no connection to her beyond the fact that she sometimes made their lattes in the morning. Hauer held emotional press conferences, begging anyone with information that might lead to Kristine to come forward. Everyone looked at him differently now. The standoffish, stiff engineer that had once been considered uncomfortable to be around was now a grieving boyfriend. They sent him flowers and patted him on the back in the halls, telling him they’d be praying for his girlfriend, promising to help keep the story alive.

Although that probably wasn’t an issue. Stark himself got in front of the camera, making international news as he expressed the Avengers’ concern for the Ms. Ververs and offered to help the police in their investigation in any way they could.

The investigators would have happily accepted this help if they had found anything for Stark to help with. But the fact of the matter was that there was nothing: no clues, no sightings, not even the slightest trace that Kristine Ververs had ever left her apartment. The security cameras in the lobby showed her coming home from dinner with Hauer at 8:13 PM that Sunday night, but had no record of her exiting the building around two hours later, when Hauer saw her storm out. They considered that she may have been pulled into another room, that for some reason she left through a fire escape, but the few cameras in the hallway showed nothing and witnesses were nonexistent.

Kristine had seemingly vanished into thin air.

“Do you think there’s something supernatural at play here?” Natasha asked one day. “Like, a leftover portal from the Convergence or something?”

“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “The Convergence caused our tech to go haywire. We’d definitely be getting noticeable readings if there was a portal down the street.”

“But something like that is still possible,” Tony interjected. “What with all the crazy shit we deal with on a regular basis. Someone might have been going after Hauer—he’s one of our top engineers, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

The fact that she had left her phone was strange, as well. The screen was cracked rather badly—Hauer explained that had happened a few weeks ago when she dropped it on the bathroom tile. Her call history showed that the night she went missing she had phoned an unlisted number. The call hadn’t been long—likely, it had been cut off before the other line even had a chance to answer.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be no clue as to who was on the other line. The number was so badly scrambled that it was untraceable, even with Tony’s resources. In fact, he was relatively certain that whoever she had called had been using his tech to hide their number—leading to a heightened suspicion cast upon the higher-ups at the Avenger Tower.

When after two weeks there were still no leads, Tony held another press conference to announce that he would be posting a one-million-dollar reward for any information that led to the safe return of Kristine Ververs. Hauer joined him, thanking Mr. Stark profusely and pleading once more for help from the public. In the Tower, the others watched the broadcast from the television in silence.

“Filthy weasel.”

No one had noticed Loki entering the room until he spat the words like venom, glaring at Hauer’s distressed face on the screen.

Nat frowned. “What’s your problem?”

The Asgardian made his way to the kitchen and set about boiling water, still scowling darkly. “He has the audacity to sit there and wail as though he’s the victim of some great crime,” he said. “As if he’s some tortured soul wracked with fear.”

“Brother, the woman he loves has gone missing,” Thor said. “Can you not blame him for being in pain?”

“Oh yes, he’s in such pain,” Loki rolled his eyes as he prepared a mug and teabag. “Stark is close with him, is he not? Has he asked him what it was they were quarreling over so passionately that his lady felt compelled to run out of their home in the middle of the night?” He mixed the water in the mug. “Or has no one thought to question that?” With that, he slipped down the hallway with his tea, leaving the others and their gaping expressions behind.

Loki wasn’t the first to doubt Michael Hauer’s authenticity. His neighbor, Colleen Donalds, had come forward to the police shortly after the case went public to voice her concerns. She lived across the hall from the couple, she said, and a lot of times she’d overhear their arguments. They were always incredibly one-sided. She told the police that she very rarely made out Kristine’s voice during these exchanges, but Michael’s boomed all the way down the hall. He called his girlfriend the most demeaning things, throwing out words that Colleen was ashamed to repeat. She felt sorry for Kristine.

“She’s always so quiet,” she said. “Even when I run into her when Michael’s not around, she barely says a word. I can’t believe she stays with him.”

Colleen Donalds attempted discretion. Her story was to the police and the police alone, avoiding making any direct accusations and trying to stay out of the entire situation as much as possible. Marlon Arcardi had no such interest.

“He hits her,” the couple’s next-door neighbor told the tabloid reporters. “I hear it through the walls. I’ve called the cops on him a couple times, but they never do anything about it. He was doing it the night she went missing, too. I heard the crashing. He’s a complete piece of shit.”

The magazines that hit the stands next to the grocery store checkout lines screamed in red ink: AVENGER ENGINEER RESPONSIBLE FOR GIRLFRIEND’S DISAPPEARENCE?

When questioned about it, Hauer denied all allegations. “We’d get into fights,” he said. “What couple doesn’t? It was nothing serious, and the more we focus on it, the more distracted we become from the actual issue: Kristine is missing.”

“Are you saying Mr. Arcardi is lying in his statements to the press?”

Michael Hauer shrugged bitterly. “He wants attention. He’s getting attention. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s trying to derail the investigation so he can have fifteen minutes of fame. It’s sickening, because we right now we need to be concentrating on Kristine.”

Hauer managed to skirt by on this explanation for a bit, but the investigators soon discovered that Marlon Arcardi was telling the truth—at least, about calling the cops. In the two years that Kristine and Michael had been living together, the police had been called to their apartment nine separate times: seven public disturbance calls from a smattering of different neighbors including Acardi, and shockingly, twice from Kristine herself.

The police refused to release these calls, saying only that each time there were no charges pressed. The public was left to draw their own conclusions as they called in Michael Hauer for more questioning. Suspicion began to blossom.

“If they’re this perfect, happy couple like he wants us to believe,” asked one newscaster. “Then why is she calling 911 on him? Why is she running out in the middle of the night? The whole thing is extremely concerning.”

More people began coming forward. There seemed to be no end to the neighbors who overheard crashes and cursing coming from the Hauer apartment. The baristas Kristine worked with started doing interviews as well.

“We used to have like, you know, night outs on the weekends sometimes,” said Curt Chambers, one of her coworkers. “We’d always ask Kristine, but she always had some excuse. Like, she was sick, or she already had plans, or something. I joked with her once, like ‘you can just say you don’t want to go, we won’t be offended.’ And she said something like ‘no, it’s not that. It’s just my boyfriend doesn’t like me being out too late.’ And I remember thinking that was a really weird thing to say.”

Elaine Janson, another coworker, had more to add. “Something always felt off about that relationship,” she said. “They’d come in together, and then he’d come down a couple times during the day. It was like he was checking on her. It was weird. And they always left together. If he was working late, she’d wait for him.” Elaine shrugged. “Kristine always seemed so tense when he was around. I mean, she was shy to begin with, but when Michael came by it was different.”

It was also revealed that Michael Hauer had failed two lie detector tests: one taken on March 19th, within days of his girlfriend’s disappearance, and another on March 27th.

Tony Stark was inundated with calls: from reporters, from employees, from concerned citizens, some asking if he still supported Michael Hauer in light of new allegations, others demanding that he fire him immediately. He responded in a press conference in front of the Tower.

“As of right now, I’ve been shown no evidence indicating that Michael Hauer is in any way involved in Kristine Ververs’ disappearance. If and when that evidence comes to light, we will reevaluate the situation and take appropriate steps.”

Then somebody leaked the calls.

No one was quite sure who got ahold of those tapes, but by morning they were being blasted on every single news broadcast under the sun. It was the first time that the public was hearing anything in Kristine’s own words, and it didn’t bode well for Michael Hauer.

“Can you please just send someone?” she whispered into the microphone, breath labored as she struggled to get the words out. “He’s really mad, I think he’s going to break down the door. Please, is someone coming?” In the background, a masculine voice was yelling something intelligible, clobbering at a wall.

“Does he get mad often?” the operator asked after assuring her that the police were on their way.

Kristine Ververs gulped back a sob. “He’s always mad.”

The second call didn’t even have words. A scream, the crash as the phone tumbled to the floor, more yelling, pleading, crying, pounding, the operator tracing the call and sending in a unit…

Michael Hauer was formally asked to resign from his duties at the Avengers Tower. When he refused, he was terminated.

Still, he remained steadfast in his story. “Kristine has been missing for nearly a month now,” he stated in a recording posted to social media (press conferences were out of the question now; so many people showed up to protest that he couldn’t get a word in edgewise). “On occasion, we would get into violent fights, but I would never do anything to hurt her. I loved her more than anything. Please, don’t allow my mistakes to derail the investigation. We must not lose focus.”

A tweet of the video link with the caption “You loved her?? Enough lies. Where’s the body, Michael?” shot up to over 2 million likes in a day. #WheresTheBodyMichael and #JusticeForKristine began trending. Petitions for the arrest of Michael Hauer racked up signatures by the hundreds.

On April 21st, over a month after Kristine Ververs was first reported missing, a second, more in-depth search of the Hauer apartment was conducted. They noticed some things that had been missed the first time. The door lock had recently been replaced. The television screen was scratched. But, most critically, there was kitchen knife missing from the set atop the refrigerator. When questioned, Hauer claimed he had no idea what could have happened to it.

Detection dogs were brought in. While the cadaver dogs found no sign of the presence of a corpse, two different blood hounds alerted to the scent of human blood in the kitchen area and indicated a trail leading towards hall. A sample was taken from the carpet and sent to the lab for analysis. With the help of the advanced technology offered by the Avengers Tower, it was conclusively identified as Kristine’s blood.

As if that wasn’t enough already, a few days later, on April 25th, a trash collector turned in the missing kitchen knife to the police. He said he had noticed it in a dumpster earlier that day and recognized it from the description in the paper. There were three sets of fingerprints on the handle: Michael Hauer’s, Kristine Ververs’, and an inconclusive set assumed to be the trash collector’s, despite his insistence that he was wearing gloves when he picked it up. Kristine’s DNA was found on the blade.

The public had been screaming “GUILTY!” ever since the phone recordings were released. Now, they roared.

Michael Hauer was arrested on April 29th and charged with the murder of Kristine Ververs.

It was a shocking turn of events. Technically speaking, there was still no proof that a murder had taken place: there was no body, nor any sign that one existed. And just as there was no evidence of Kristine Ververs leaving the apartment that fateful March 16th, there was no evidence of Michael Hauer leaving the apartment that night either, especially with something as cumbersome as a human corpse.

The twitter hashtag found its home in newspaper headlines: Where’s the Body, Michael?

In the penthouse of the Avengers Tower, Tony rubbed his forehead. “This is such a fucking mess.”

They were gathered once again in the living room, watching as the newscaster recapped the last month and a half, breaking news that was already known. Kristine’s picture, with her downcast cerulean eyes and her frizzy red curls, flashed across the screen once more.

Tony sighed. “He just seemed so normal. I never would have thought—”

“You think he did it?” asked Steve.

“Well, he did something,” Tony snapped. “Clearly. He’s got a history of violence, her blood’s all over the floor—”

“No one’s debating that he did something,” interjected Bruce. “But if he killed her, what happened to the body? He never left the apartment that night, and there’s no evidence that a cadaver was ever stored there”

“He’s smart! That’s why we hired him, he’s a freaking genius! He probably thought of something—”

“Thought of what?” the doctor asked, throwing up his hands. “Teleportation? How the hell did he get the body out?”

“He didn’t.”

The group turned around to find Loki lurking in the back, studying them carefully from the shadows.

Bruce was the first to find his voice. “What?”

“He didn’t remove the body, because there was no body to remove,” he said deliberately.

“But, Loki,” Thor said uncertainly. “Weren’t you convinced Hauer was a killer from the start?”

“I never said he was a killer. I said he was a filthy weasel,” Loki said. “And he is, clearly. He's a slimy, abusive, manipulative, wretch of a man, but he's not a killer—although he likely believes himself to be."

Tony frowned. "What are you talking about, Loki?"

"He cannot be labeled a killer if his victim survived his attempt on her life. Which she did,” Loki paused a moment to let his statement sink in. “Despite Michael Hauer's best efforts, Kristine Ververs is very much alive.

[losille2000]

Mister America, Prologue: Massachusetts

CHAPTER NUMBER: 1/? CHARACTERS: President!Chris Evans/OFC (see notes) GENRE: Romance/Drama FIC SUMMARY: After a massive social media write-in campaign organized by others, Chris finds himself thrust into a spotlight that he is unprepared to handle. His campaign managers suggest that a political marriage might help him weather the storm and help his image during the campaign... just so long as it isn’t the one woman Chris really wants. RATING: M  WARNINGS:  Nothing. AUTHORS NOTES: This story is AU in the fact that this is the 2020 presidential race, and Chris is a candidate. But everything in the past is still the same with him being an actor. Also, COVID-19 is not a part of this story. I needed to play in a land where COVID didn’t exist and “Captain America,” in his alter ego, punched out a Nazi in a metaphorical(?) way. For more on the story, go here.

This first part is prologue-y.

I have also curated a soundtrack for all 50 states, and then some. You can listen on Spotify right now, may eventually put it on Youtube. There will be 50 chapters (I’m hoping), but many of them will be shorter.

Also on AO3!

Boston, MA Evans for President Campaign Headquarters November 3rd, 2020 30 Minutes Before First Polls Close

Stage fright is no joke.

When it hits, it hits like a semi truck going seventy on an icy Massachusetts road. In the blink of an eye, you’re completely obliterated. Except this is on stage and you’re not dead, even though you wish you were. In fact, you’re very much alive. Alive enough to feel the force of the impact, followed by the squeezing in your chest and choking on your breathless words. Paralysis takes over. Cold clammy sweat slicks your palms and also trickles down your back to that one spot between your shoulder blades you can’t reach, but causes your costume to uncomfortably stick to your skin.

There’s no escape. You know what’s coming. You worry you’ll forget your lines, or trip on your cue, or make a complete and utter fool of yourself. You feel like an imposter, questioning why you’re here, in this role, when that dude, JD, from your acting class years ago was a million times more talented than you, and you’re the one that got that teen movie deal.  You’re the one who became one of America's most beloved superheroes for a decade.

You’re also the one who has a very real chance of winning the 2020 presidential election, despite no college education, limited understanding of what elected officials in DC actually do on a day to day basis, and the closest thing you have to experience as a “boss” or “commander in chief” of anything was a movie set or two where you were director and executive producer. 

Nope.

What I, Chris Evans, have is a dedicated online fan base who took the time to write my name into ballots when they discovered I had filed for ballot access in every state of the union. I didn’t do the filing on a whim; we sat around late one night talking about the interviews I had been conducting in DC for a website about party positions on important issues. My business partners and I came up with the idea that a long form documentary about campaigning would be interesting, and we determined the best way to understand the process was to become a “candidate” myself. Meaning, we only planned to use the credentials to be on the front line of the campaigning process. I was never going to create signs and make speeches or debate with others.

I never intended to run a legitimate campaign.

But, as I mentioned, something strange happened during the Democratic primaries. People started to vote for me, a trickle of rain in a hurricane.

I won a few primary delegates.

Without even trying.

Not enough to win the Democratic ticket, but enough to make pollsters sit up and take notice.

My loyal fans stepped in again, undaunted, and ignited a storm. They dubbed it “Operation America’s Ass” and created a grassroots campaign across the country with GoFundMe donations and a lot of pluck. I thought it was a joke. A part of me still does think it’s a joke. I mean, what other explanation is there for this mess? For the red, white and blue bunting hanging on the walls with the “Chris Evans for President” sign plastered underneath it? For the staffers who stop briefly to see if I need anything...‘Would you like a drink, sir?’... or, upon seeing how pale I look, give me a vote of confidence… ‘Are you ready for your acceptance speech?’ There’s absolutely no good explanation as to why there are twenty or thirty people buzzing around the hotel suite waiting for results. They’re so energized with hope for a better future.

Hope that I can be everything they ever wanted in a president.

An Independent president, free from party oversight.

A president with class.

A president for the people.

A president who can bring the United States back from the brink of destruction at the hands of previous leaders.

I wish I had their confidence.

When they asked me on career day in school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said artist. When I was older, in high school, I knew I was going to be an actor. Never president. The job never entered my mind as being a possibility, not even when I used to work for my uncle’s congressional campaigns. Or when I started filming those interviews.

Why does anyone think I, a straight white momma’s boy from Boston should be president in 2020? Just because I made a few popular Tweets about the current president’s lack of leadership?

It has to be a joke. A cosmic one. I’m a punchline. I am convinced they’ll jump out from behind a doorway and yell “You’ve been PUNK’D! We really got you this time, now here, Bernie, you’re the better candidate.”

And yet…

What if they see in me something I do not?

I place a lot of stock in being in the moment. I’ve also put a lot of work into accepting the twists and turns of life instead of allowing all the “what ifs” and “what should I dos” to eat away at me. I told everybody after I was done with Marvel and financially secure enough to only work on projects I really wanted to, I’d take life as it came at me.

Well, it came after me.

To be fair, I originally chose to get into politics, even in a tiny way, because I wanted to be informed about my choices. I created a website so others could learn, as well. As time went on, I became more involved on Capitol Hill. I even did some lobbying for a few causes dear to my heart. And, yes, I did file the ballot access paperwork.

Had I unintentionally set my path in this direction? Was it inevitable for me to become a contender for the presidency?

Fortunately, I learned early on in the process that a lot of being a presidential candidate is being a convincing showman. An actor. The world's a stage, after all, and I am but a player. You have to have some solid ideas and convictions to back up the image, but a lot of the governing comes from other members of the executive branch. Should I win, I’d only be signing off on everything.

Of course, that “everything” affects the lives of more than 300 million souls. I wouldn’t trust me with a kitchen knife, much less nuclear launch codes and people's livelihoods and education and health and…

My hands shake with nerves just thinking about it.

Let it be said, once I do make it out onto the stage--be it as an actor or presidential candidate--I rise to the challenge. The energy from the audience buoys me. Makes me feel alive. But I am not, by nature, someone who likes to sign away so much personal freedom in exchange for the weight of carrying an albatross around my neck. I thought signing for Captain America would be tough; the human toll of running for president even moreso.

Actually being President? I can’t even wrap my mind around that.

It would be easy to call it quits, even now when the votes are already cast. I could have done it a long time ago, when the reality of the situation hit me the first time. I didn’t. Something told me to hold back, play it out. I persevered. Why? Somewhere, along the line, I began to believe I could do this. I could make a positive difference in the lives of Americans.

I certainly want to do right by all my supporters--and my detractors. I want to be a leader for all Americans.

But can I, really, while knowing my incredible deficiencies?

Maybe I can’t, but I can be the team leader. A brand ambassador, if you will. A good leader delegates. And I intend, should I win, to surround myself with the best and brightest. I will accept no less. I will do ‘Whatever It Takes,’ as our slogan boasts. I am American, first and foremost, and I care deeply about this country.

A real Captain America, if you will. Maybe not as strong or powerful as others, but I sure as hell can give a great speech and will defend my country from bullies until my last breath, whether they be purple… or orange.

Except, I suppose if I’m elected, I won’t be Captain America anymore. They’ll call me Mr. President.

Or, horror of horrors, what if the new name my nearest and dearest coined makes it out into the public. They tease me with it just to see my visceral revulsion and get a laugh. But if I have learned anything about the internet--and pop culture--is that if something is catchy, it sticks around for a long time.

Maybe I ought to get used to the idea of being a punchline.

So, I suppose I have a question for you.

Won’t you consider a vote for Mr. America?

[mythicnoir]

Gatekeeper Session 1-3

Decided to share some recaps I wrote on the last few sessions of the current adventure in my campaign. The writing style is a bit more casual than I usually go for, but I think it sums up stuff well.

This’ll be under a readmore, because it gets long.

Session One:

It is the Waithdyd, the fourth day of Khelek, the month of Ice, in the year 1550 Anni Zylla. On the island of Ludum, a nation torn and divided, deep within Vindred Forest, three destinies slowly intersect. Two months since the adventuring family called Thunderclan lost one member to a life of piracy and another member to a life of performance, Equaarion Tarkus the druid and Rae the elf sought out answers within Simona Village. They've heard a call for help, a unique one that piqued their interest. From here, they will encounter new allies, new enemies, and new adventure.

For the uninitiated, Ludum is an island within my campaign setting of Yalda, and it's a nation in crisis. The royal family and their Hallow Knights vanished from the capital city of Hamlet mysteriously almost a year and a half ago, and since then, the nation has been in chaos. Brigands have run of the woods, evil creatures close in on unguarded villages, and a host of ambitious nobles seek a claim on the throne. Within this chaos comes Thunderclan, a group of mercenaries.

The group was originally Equaarion Tarkus, the human druid folk hero, played by my friend Cam... Rae, the elven ranger, played by my friend Michaela... the half-elf eldritch knight pirate Salty Martine, played by my friend Cal, and the human bard Sasha Sabotage, played by my friend Jacque. But Cal and Jacque had to go and study abroad in Prague, so a newcomer has joined our D&D group, and you'll find out who that is in a second.

The heroes are all about mid-level now, which means that they've been through the shit, they've made some friends, made some enemies, seen stuff that gives them new perspective, and they’re approaching infamous status, which is pretty much what every player wants, imo.

But on with the story.

Rae and Equaarion approach the gates of Simona Village. The rain has drenched them completely, and the guard is delaying opening the gate as he waits for a new figure to roll up.

The two heroes are eager to get inside the village walls, find warmth, and a place to sleep, but they turn to meet the figure joining them.

Standing three and a half feet tall, clad in a noblewoman's dress and walking with a long staff, ankle-deep in mud, comes the next part of their adventures. Freesia Flores is her name, and she is a halfling warlock of the archfey.

The heroes introduce themselves politely to their diminutive friend as the guard exits the gate to check them in. The players are anticipating a quick pat down and an interview, but that's not what they get.

Dunstan, the guard, needs to take a blood sample. The town has been plagued by demons and fairies in disguise in recent months, and local superstition holds that if you bleed red, you're the real deal.

The heroes are confused but comply, hoping to avoid making a big deal of it. Their blood is taken and their eyes are examined and they're asked their names and motivations. Dunstan shrugs, figures they're fine, and lets them in. Freesia immediately races off for the tavern while Rae and Equaarion help Dunstan get the gates shut through the mud and rain.

Within the Blue Vine Tavern, Rae examines the letter that summoned her and Equaarion to Simona Village in the first place. It's from a logger named Elsha, who nervously talks about the predicament the village is in. Bandits from the south calling themselves the Redhoods have set up camp outside the town. Word is they're looking for an artifact in an ancient Wengwith ruin called Tir Dyffryn. Elsha is afraid that with enough time, the Redhoods will get bored and just ransack the town, killing and stealing whatever they find.

On top of that, there's the demon problem. Demons have been spotted in the woods, upsetting the status quo of fairies and neutral beasts.

Freesia Flores, meanwhile, didn't come here for that. She came separately, she came with her own motivations. She's a warlock, she's on the search for knowledge and understanding her pact, and fairies in particular.

In time, Elsha meets up with Rae and Equaarion in the tavern, and Freesia Flores begins to sidle up, hearing word about fairies and the Black Thicket tribe, a group of druids that may know a thing or two.

As they discuss the bandit situation, Michaela, as Rae, asks, "Well, do you want us to just go into their camp and kill them all?"

But Elsha says no, they can't do that. "If you kill the Redhoods, their allies will hear of it, and take vengeance on the town, you'll only cause more problems."

The solution, Elsha posits, is for Thunderclan to go and search for the artifact themselves, stealing it from underneath the Redhood's noses.

This is appealing to Rae and Equaarion, because the artifact that's being discussed is a celestial artifact of tremendous power. This artifact alone is believed to be an egg that could transport people across dimensions.

Also, they’re playing Dungeons and Dragons and who doesn’t want to go looking for treasure?

This is appealing to Rae and Equaarion, because they're hot on the trail of Rae’s missing girlfriend. Her name was Emilia, and she was a Hallow Knight of Hamlet. After some scrying and investigation, they've realized that the Knights, including Emilia, have become trapped in another dimension.

So they are VERY interested in getting this artifact.

Meanwhile Freesia is interested because this is an opportunity for more knowledge, and the three of them are each aware that if they split up and adventure around these woods, they are most certainly dead.

So the heroes, having talked with Elsha, get the picture. There's a band of Redhoods, they gotta get away but we can't just kill them. There are demons and fairies in this neck of the woods, and our best bet for more information on the location of the artifact and the supernatural stuff going on is the Black Thicket Tribe of druids. Got it.

So the heroes thank Elsha, finish their drinks, eavesdrop a bit, and head out.

It’s a lot of information but who gives a shit, fairies and demons and bandit rings are all cool and it’s my personal philosophy when running a game that players should at least know what sort of stuff they can get up to.

The heroes exit the tavern and are about to look for the Black Thicket encampment when they see an old man in a hood and robe moving a wheelbarrow and calling out for help. Everyone in the street seems to ignore him, but the heroes approach regardless and start asking him for help because they’re oh-so-good people.

This conversation ended up being hilarious, because the man, who was Obviously evil, the halfling could see up his hood and see his pitch black eyes, kept on making absurd lies and speaking in a ridiculous old man voice. The heroes are rightfully super suspicious of this guy and as he reaches out for Rae's shoulder. She jumps back and discovers that he has black claws.

Eventually Freesia decides to use a warlock ability to make him Frightened of her, and he casts away his cloak, revealing horns and a little tail, as he sprints away. He manages to escape, but the heroes all suddenly aware of the shit the town could be in.

But from the shadows comes a voice. "You shouldn't do that in public."

This is Ragweed, the halfling elder of the Black Thicket tribe. He brings the heroes back to his encampment with the rest of his tribe and hears their concerns. Ragweed is essentially a short freckled mess of ginger hair and an eyepatch.

The Black Thicket tribe have agreed to help the Master of the Town in these trying times, defending them and serving as guardians, so they're definitely good guys, they have the interests of the villagers at heart, but they've got their own issues.

The heroes want to know more about Tir Dyffryn and this mysterious artifact. Ragweed tells them that they don't seem like they're going to run over the town and kill everyone, but he's the keeper of this secret as to where Tir Dyffryn is and he's not just going to give it up for free.

So Ragweed tells them, "My tribal brethren lost something very precious to her in a battle with demons. Maybe if you retrieve it with her, I'll trust you a little more."

This is a super classical fetch quest, it's a little gamey, but this session to me was just about simplicity and defining the new group dynamic, so I'm fine with some basic stuff.

The tribal brethren in question is Poppy, an earth genasi woman. She's friendly and sweet and has a little bit of a slow and nice friendly voice.

The heroes head out, but before they go, Rae uses her ranger abilities to sense the woods around her, and detect what kind of creatures are out there.

I describe the normal souls and presence of various civilized races, or kith, as they're called in my setting. But at the end of her abilities range I describe a pure unfathomable darkness and boiling hatred. I call it 'necrotic rot', which Michaela really hitched on to. I think she repeated it a couple times, it was pretty descriptive.

So they know they're gonna fight some demons. 

Sure enough, the heroes end up at Pwigra Pass, where Poppy tells them she lost her Codex Terragnosis, a sacred text detailing the beasts and fairies and interplanar travel of this setting.

And pretty much every single person in the party wants to see that book.

I could describe the fight that they had at Pwigra Pass in an attempt to retrieve the book, but overall it was pretty easy. They faced off against some demons. They were ram skulls with spider legs, but those spider legs could suck up into themselves and become bat wings. Freaky stuff,

Rae is a hardcore as fuck ranger that never misses and never does minimal damage.

Meanwhile Equaarion is a conjuring and shapeshifting druid. He recently got a hold of a figurine of wondrous power of a Griffon that he recently named Honeyduke, and in this fight, he detected the enemies, summoned the griffon, and jumped off of a 60-foot high bridge to be caught by the griffon. Which is fucking awesome.

Freesia Flores is the newcomer and is pretty much totally decked out with weird fairy warlock powers. So far she’s pretty much a generalist that can shore up all of the group’s weaknesses.

Anyway, they win the fight, grab this arcane book, and begin to head back to Simona Village. But more adventure awaits.

Session Two:

The characters returned to Simona Village to find that Ragweed had departed to meditate. The heroes chose to find Ragweed first before looking at the book.

The heroes visited Ragweed, in a meditation spot he fancied in an abandoned tower, and had an insightful conversation about Wildshape. It was really about Equaarion. Just about his aims, how he felt that adventuring was the natural choice for him. 

It’s the age old compulsion for adventure, the feeling that there’s nothing for you but the road and the desire to seek more.

Ragweed is a good man and while he's a bit eccentric, he really does love the world and wants to protect the life within it. So Ragweed shares with the heroes the location of Tir Dyffryn and the Angel Egg, this mysterious celestial artifact that may allow the heroes passage to the realm of Concord, where the heroes believe they will find Emilia. Ragweed warns them of the dangers, pointing out that the Wengwith heavily trapped and guarded their buildings with constructs. Instead, Ragweed asks them to stay in the village and help out. The elven ranger Rae knows, even as close as she is to Emilia, that she cannot abandon these people in their time of need, and solemnly nods.

Rae heard a voice call out in Wengwith, asking whether they were friendly. After a brief deliberation, Rae invited the voice up. The group discovered he was a tiefling clad in all sorts of trinkets and fine robes and jewelry, but as soon as the tiefling saw their map, Equaarion got antsy and said that they needed to kill him -- in Common, which Chem couldn't understand. Freesia says that's absurd and barbaric and they don't need to do that. I'm feeling like between Sasha and Freesia, the charismatic ladies are always going to be the voices of reason in Thunderclan.

Eventually the heroes had a weird conversation with Chem of Longquest about his travels, the dangers of the woods, and a strange obsidian idol Chem of Longquest had in the shape of a bat before they decided to head back, whereupon Equaarion heard a slithering liquid-like sound coming from outside of the tower. Rae moved to inspect the sound, bow drawn, and Chem of Longquest strokes the obsidian idol, tosses it to the center of the tower, and punches Rae in the head.

It's initiative, and already the heroes have problems. The black idol is in the center of the tower and it starts leaking out black gas that deals poison damage to the heroes. Chem of Longquest begins using his spider-climbing magic item to attach himself to the inside of the wall and get a good vantage point on the heroes.

They manage to deal some damage to him, but soon enough a shadow demon answering to Chem slithers in and the situation gets more complicated than the heroes would like. Equaarion orders Honeyduke, the griffon, to carry the idol out of the tower, but the poison cloud still lingers for two rounds. The heroes break out of the tower and into the open meadow, followed by the shadow demon.

The heroes struggle, and Rae goes down, but Honeyduke carries her to safety and Ragweed's healing word brings her back up. Freesia and Equaarion battle the shadow demon while Chem of Longquest hides out of sight, uncovering its many resistances and immunities before Rae puts the final nail in the coffin and kills the demon. Freesia charges back into the tower and with two swift eldritch blasts knocks Chem unconscious.

The interrogation of Chem begins. The heroes strip him down and tie him up, only to find that he is a demon worshipper and a bit of an edgy creep. He's forthcoming about information. He serves She-Who-Walks-Away-Alone, the Crimson Bat, a demon slain by Prince Laurence that now slumbers and regains her 'flame' beneath the Tomb of the Ancients -- the undead city of Necropolis. Chem also says, very plainly, that "my master answers to the one you call King."

The heroes look at one another. King Ezra? What's going on? Could these be the answers everyone is searching for? Chem states that Ezra abandoned his family to seek greater power with demons and dragonkind in order to further advance his own nation. Meanwhile, according to Chem, Queen Rosaria's hubris dragged the Hallow Knights of Hamlet into a harrowing nightmare (Knightmare), in a bid for her children to become more powerful.

This is big news, and it only makes sense for a demon worshipper to be clued into these sorts of things. But these answers are only revealing new questions. When did this schism happen? Where is Ezra? Who's the bad guy in this situation? We know more about what Ezra's up to and this is in line with what Agrippa or Rend said a long time ago, but all this news about Rosaria is very opinion-based and unclear. Was she trying to cure her son Ludwig's sickliness or ascend them to Godhood? What's going on?

In the end this is a huge moment for the heroes, but they still are wondering why Chem of Longquest is so forthright with all this information. And the answer is very simple. Chem of Longquest points out that this information is meaningless to him because in the end, the strong will rule, and he believes that his mistress, the Crimson Bat, is the most powerful. So these secrets are really meaningless to him. Meanwhile, why isn't he afraid of Rae holding a bow and arrow up to his head? Simple, he's in service to a demon queen. Death is also meaningless to him. He states very plainly, "Upon my death I will rejoin the Abyss, and I will be taken through the Wheel and reborn." Which is at least partly true. Freesia basically raises an eyebrow at this and correctly observes that while he's right about eventually being reincarnated... the rest seems like religious belief.

Rae says, "Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you."

And Chem replies, "Only your own weakness."

And the arrow is loosed, Chem of Longquest is killed.

The heroes and Ragweed agree to return to Simona Village to rest up and look at the book in the morning. The heroes are a little shaken by all this information, but rest will do them good. The heroes rest in separate rooms, Equaarion and Rae in one and Freesia in another, and in the morning they examine the Codex Terragnosis with Poppy.

The heroes learned all sorts of things about the other planes of existence, fairies and their origins, angels and their search for the true meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and a ton of beasts, including the Aguila Thunderbird, a legendary storm phoenix.

After geeking out over books, though it's mostly nerd warlock Freesia geeking, they decide, based on Poppy's advice, to tell the Master of the village, Pickford Pine, about them clearing Pwigra Pass. So they go, and they have a really pleasant conversation, mostly thanks to the heroes having a good reputation all around, but also definitely thanks to Freesia being super charismatic and very honest about everything. She didn't sugarcoat why she was in town, no pretenses to coming just to help with the struggle, which actually made Pickford Pine happy. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy, he's 34, married with two kids, he's a master of a small village and a proficient hunter, so he just says, "You adventurers have a good reputation in this forest, so as long as you're not making friends with the bandits, then I won't have you arrested and run out of town."

He offers them a gold ingot as a reward for clearing out the demons at Pwigra Pass and tells them that there's more where that came from if they manage to keep things peaceful in town and use that goodwill to improve relationships between the Black Thicket Tribe and the villagers. If that happens, and the village is unified and strong together, then Pine is less worried about the Redhoods ransacking the town, and Thunderclan will be good people in his eyes.

So the heroes decide to formulate a plan, a creative solution to the problems plaguing Simona Village, that doesn't involve bloodshed and drawing the attention of the Redhoods allies. And also hopefully doesn't get them run out of town.

Equaarion observes that he's both a druid and a civilian in many senses, and his reputation as a folk hero may allow him to serve as the bridge between those two peoples and to solidify that and maybe strengthen the town through peace and diplomacy.

Meanwhile, Freesia is wondering whether the Redhoods could be tricked into believing that Tir Dyffryn and the artifact isn't anywhere near Vindred, and get them to depart the village and give the townspeople time to prepare and defend themselves, or maybe just permanently mislead the Redhoods.

Rae, meanwhile, just wants to find her girlfriend, but her heart knows that sometimes what you want and the right thing is not always the same.

How will these plans be enacted? Will the heroes run into trouble? Will they uncover more secrets about the Royal Family soon? Will I ever remember to make a concentration check without being reminded? Probably not.

Little Moments from this Session:

Freesia being adorable just constantly with a little fear of animals and being super haughty and highbrow about everything, while still having this insatiable thirst for knowledge. But she's a warlock. So of course.

Equaarion saying some really deep shit about his character and his motivations for becoming an adventurer. Equaarion basically became a hero and learned to be at peace with nature not for any desire for power or because it was his tribal identity, but simply because it was the right thing for him, purely as an individual.

Rae reminding everyone that while she's absolutely a badass that will kill at a moment's notice, her character is fundamentally motivated by love.

Session Three:

Last session one of our players was forced to be late so we opened with just Freesia and Rae planning. Equaarion had gone off into the woods to 'meditate', which (comically) nobody believed.

The two of them rolled over possibilities in their minds for how to trick the Redhoods into leaving Simona Village alone. They poured over a number of possibilities and ended up deciding that the best solution was to forge a map that indicated Tir Dyffryn was elsewhere in the woods, leading the Redhoods astray just long enough for Thunderclan to scoop up the artifact and get out of dodge.

Wandering a bit, they found Elsha and talked details and specifics with her. Apparently Elsha isn't too popular around the town, what with her trying and failing to sneak up on the Redhoods and possibly drawing their ire even more. Thunderclan (or at least the two lesbians) did get some more pertinent information though: the trade route to the east that has been patrolled by bandits since the crown left.

...It's a strangely cold day outside.

They decided that it'd probably be best if they tried seeking out somebody who could actually help them with authentic mapping skills. The two of them don't have proficiency with cartographer's tools or anything of the sort, so they were just wandering back to Rae's room when Rae hears a noise on the other side of the door. Marble footsteps and ocean waves.

It's Chess.

Chess, the black and white dragonborn wizard and scientist, professor of the Brigmore Institute at the Academy up north. He's surprised to see Freesia, whom he's never met before. As she moves to shake his hand, his hand passes through hers. "I'm not actually here," he says. Project Image, a high level spell. Pretty useful.

This is one of those things that wizards just do in fantasy. They show up for weird reasons out of nowhere, have cryptic things to say, and disappear after sending their love.

Chess is here to check on Thunderclan, tell them that their old partner Salty Martine sends her regards, and fails at concealing a bit of secret information from Freesia: the immortal warlord Vander Coil has returned from the World Below to rejoin Chess and his husband Set on their mission to restore independence to Ludum.

Chess and Freesia basically stare each other down and pick apart everything the other says. So by the end of the conversation, these two genius scholars have pretty much totally figured the other out. Chess is a revolutionary and a bit of a prick, Freesia is a witch. The basics.

After Chess gives them some advice about Wengwith ruins and fails to conceal important information, he disappears without a goodbye.

The adventurers agree that Ragweed is the best bet for making a good convincing map, and they pawn it off to him as Equaarion arrives.

They notice a small druid boy, about a teenager, shivering neurotically. His name is Osvyn, he's mute, and a little asocial. Equaarion is kind enough to summon a black bear to keep him company in his discomfort, though.

Equaarion is prickly and stubborn, but these are the moments that endear him to everyone.

The temperature in town is steadily dropping.

The plan is formed: They're going to wait for the town to be occupied at a local temple tonight, then they'll sneak off and drop the map near the Redhood's camp. They do this by summoning a giant eagle and having it leave the map, like a fairy omen. Ludum, and anybody who's spend serious time in Vindred, is aware that fairies often do weird stuff like that, but it's pretty weird one way or the other. But the heroes don't want to leave it up to chance, so Equaarion turns into a cat and dashes toward the Redhood camp to see their reaction.

Ludens know that cats are supernatural creatures, and that hurting them is horrible luck, so they greet Cat-rion and allow him to dash around the camp, figuring him feral. He explores a bit and gets a good look at the leader of the Redhoods - a drow woman, but he doesn't get her name.

The group heads back to the town, where Osvyn is panicking outside the temple. After some debate, the heroes open the doors -- cold to the touch. The inside of the temple is freezing, all the visitors are shivering and yawning.

Osvyn bursts through the doors to the temple and begins barking and panicking, trying to push people out of the door. There's a violent burst of snow and ice and a creature appears in the center of the temple.

It wheezes, "Deshperim..."

Freesia casts mage armor. Equaarion turns into a dinosaur. Rae is guiding the villagers out of the temple.

The villagers are screaming, crying. "The druids have brought the Abyss upon us all!"

Maybe the whole 'improving relationships' thing has a ways to go.

The battle is an uphill climb from the get-go. (But honestly, have I ever run a serious combat that’s been perfectly straightforward and not at all immediately harrowing?) The demon's weakness to fire is clear immediately, and the heroes are pumping tons of damage into it. But the snow and pure aura of despair the demon gives off makes all melee attacks at disadvantage. Equaarion has to drop his dinosaur form and switch to conjuring fire. Freesia casts Blink and begins phasing in and out of reality, popping off fire bolts whenever she can.

But the demon launches a lightning bolt into the crowd, and five villagers go down. The demon begins to fly away.

Oh fuck, right?

Equaarion immediately runs to the villagers, where Ragweed and Osvyn are trying to help them get up. Freesia follows the demon and sees the cellar door of the temple flung open, a trail of ice leading within.

Rae, recalling the cold of the Deep that struck her down months ago in the Bullroarer's Ritual Room, barely has the strength to go on.

Equaarion saves the lives of five villagers, a task they'll never forget, and chases after the rest of the party, who have descended into the cellar to find a rift in the stonework leading to inky blackness.

The two of them are transfixed by the rift. Freesia makes her save thanks to her Lucky feature as a halfling, but Rae, corrupted within by the Abyss, falls into the darkness.

Equaarion drops down. Freesia is panicking.

But Equaarion would never abandon his friends.

He summons Honeyduke, grabs Freesia off the ground, and they all dive into the rift.

They fall for minutes, and land in snow.

They are at the top of a tower, ruined, overlooking what appears to be thousands of structures all collapsed on top of one another. Below that, a black and endless sea. There is no light in this horrendously cold place.

In the distance, a giant red bat shrieks into the perpetual night, and flies through a portal. The party has followed the demon to its home... the entropy of the waking world, that which all shall fall to in time. The very base of the Abyss. The source of Rae's trauma.

Welcome to the Deep.

[weekendwarriorblog]

Weekend Warrior Home Edition – April 3, 2020 – Slay the Dragon, Tape and More

Well, things sure have gone to hell since I last wrote this weekly column that I’ve now been doing in some form or another at one place or other for over nineteen years! For the first time in those 19 years and probably a good 80 or 90 years before that, there were no movies in theaters. In fact, there were no movie theaters. Because of this, the last two weekends have been the first in history with ZERO BOX OFFICE. It’s kind of tough to write a column about the box office and theatrical releases when there are none, n’est ce pas?

So I’m going to try to evolve for the time being, and we’ll see how that goes. I’m not too thrilled about having to watch movies as screeners, let alone writing about movies that will probably never get a theatrical release, but I’ll try to make the best of it. (Oh, and Disney’s Onward, which opened in theaters less than a month ago will be available ON DISNEY+* tomorrow.) (*corrected)

This week’s “Featured Movie” that you absolutely must see, especially if you’re reading this from one of the “red states” and feel like government just isn’t doing things the way you’d like them to do, is Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance’s political documentary SLAY THE DRAGON (Magnolia).  It covers how gerrymandering is being used in census years (like this one) to maintain a Republican majority in local and state government.  Goodman’s doc begins in Michael Moore territory of Flint, Michigan and shows how gerrymandering was used to create a Republican majority that led to the town getting water from the nearby Flint River which contaminated the pipes and leaked lead into the system.

The film does a good job explaining gerrymandering in an easy to understand way by following a few specific cases of people fighting against the policies.  Counties and voting districts in different states aren’t just a straight grid on a map. Instead, the districts are drawn up to cause an unfair advantage to a party. This was especially true of the REDMAP program instituted in 2008 by the GOP after Barack Obama was elected President to make sure Republicans could dominate Congress as well as politics on a state level.  

Much of the film deals with Katie Fahey’s group Citizens United that has decided to take on the politicians with its grassroots campaign to allow the people’s voices and votes to start counting. (One of the programs that grew out of REDMAPping was that thousands of voters were not able to vote since a few states passed a law that ID was required to vote, thereby keeping black and brown voters from the polls.)

Yes, it’s a rather complicated situation but it’s one that people in the primarily liberal states like New York, California and others really need to know about, since it’s why we have a reality TV host as our President right now as well as why we have a Republican Senate that just prevented him from being impeached. All of the bigger politics goes back to the individual state politics and how gerrymandering and REDMAP unfairly sways the vote against those who win on the state level in census years (essentially every ten years including 2020). Originally, this was going to get a theatrical release in March but now it will only be available on digital and On Demand, so you can find out how to see it on the official site.

I also want to give a little extra attention to Deborah Kampmeier’s TAPE (Full Moon Films), which skipped its theatrical release instead to do an interesting “virtual theatrical run,” playing every night On Demand via CrowdCast. It’s available every night at 7pm eastern followed by discussions with the filmmakers and then will be on Digital and VOD on April 10. Again, these are changing times, but this is a haunting and powerful thriller based on true events, starring Anarosa Mudd as a woman trying to catch a sleezy casting agent (Tarek Bishara) who is preying on actresses and one in particular, played by Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan). Both of their performances are pretty amazing, Mudd playing a shaven-head whistleblower and Fuhrman playing an ambitious young actress who think she’s finally gotten her much-needed break, but finding out there’s a lot darker side to the business than she expected. While a lot of people have raved about The Assistant as a response to #MeToo, this is a much starker and direct look at the abuse of power to take advantage of young women. The movie is not going to be for everybody, because it takes some time before you realize what Mudd’s character (who could just as easily be Rose MacGowan) is up to, but the way how things play out in the film makes it unforgettable. It’s a fantastic new movie from Kampmeier, who famously had an underage Dakota Fanning have a rape scene in her earlier movie, Hounddog.

A movie that was released last week that I didn’t get to write about (but it’s still available On Demand and Digitally, as many movies currently are) is Lorcan Finnegan’s VIVARIUM (Saban Films), starring Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots. It’s a virtual two-hander in which they play a couple who look at a house in a suburban housing complex where every house looks the same. They soon learn that they can’t escape and things get weirder and weirder from there. I can’t say I loved the movie, because it just got weirder and weirder, almost to a fault at times.

Polish filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska’s THE OTHER LAMB (IFC Midnight) is another movie about a religious cult, this one a group of women that live in a remote forest commune led by a man they call “Shepherd” (played by Michiel Huisman from Game of Thrones and The Haunting of Hill House). It follows a teenager named Selah (Raffey Cassidy) who begins to question her existence when she starts having nightmarish visions. This was okay, but I really have hit my limit in terms of movies about religious cults. They’ve just been overdone.

Mike Doyle’s rom-com ALMOST LOVE (Vertical) is about a group of middle-aged friends trying to navigate love and relationships with a cast that includes Scott Evans, Kate Walsh, Patricia Clarkson, Augustus Prew and more. Some of the characters are having marital issues, others are dating or getting into early feelings of possible love. It’s a nice distraction from all the serious stuff going on in the world today.

A great music doc now On Demand, digital and other formats (Blu-ray/DVD) is Brent Wilson’s STREETLIGHT HARMONIES (Gravitas), which takes a look at the early doo-wop vocal groups of the ‘50s and ‘60s that predated and formed the basis for Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues and other music genres as we know them today. It deals with acts like The Drifters, Little Antony and the Imperials, The Platters, and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. It includes interviews with some of the more recent acts influenced by it including En Vogue and N’Sync as well as Brians Wilson and McKnight. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this despite doo-wop not being my preferred music style. (For the sake of transparency, I helped out with a little bit of publicity on this film.)

Also, Olivier Meyrou’s fly-on-the-wall doc Celebration (1091) is a movie that was commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent’s former lover and business partner, Pierre Bergé, more than ten years ago but was shelved for being too revealing. It was filmed over the course of three years where Laurent was at his most frail and mostly separated from the world as we get a look inside one of the last great haute couture houses. It’s now available On Demand and digitally.

Jon Abrahams directs and co-stars in Clover (Freestyle Digital Media) opposite the great Mark Webber, playing bumbling Irish twins trying to pay off their father’s debt to local mob boss Tony Davolo, played by Chazz Palminteri. Things get more complicated when a teen girl named Clover (Nicole Elizabeth Berger) shows up and the brothers need to protect her from Tony’s “hit-women.” Looks like a fun dark comedy.

Unfortunately, Saban Films didn’t offer advance review screeners of the action sequel, Rogue Warrior: The Hunt (Saban Films), directed by Mike Gunther, but it stars Will Yun Lee.  I’m not sure if this is a sequel to 2017’s Rogue Warrior: The Hunt, but I haven’t seen that either. It involves the leader of an elite team of soldiers being captured by terrorists, so his team needs rescue him. Oh, and Stephen Lang (Avatar, Don’t Breathe) is in it, too.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s Netflix offerings include the streaming network’s latest true-crime documentary series, HOW TO FIX A DRUG SCANDAL, directed by Erin Lee Carr (Dirty Money), which covers the 2013 case of Sonja Farak, a crime drug lab specialist who was arrested for tampering with evidence but also accused of using the drugs she was supposed to be testing.  (It’s on the service as of this writing.)

Stuber and Good director Michael Dowse helms the action-comedy COFFEE & KAREEM, starring Ed Helms as police officer James Coffee, who begins dating Taraji P. Henson’s Vanessa Manning while her 12-year-old son Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) plots their break-up. Kareem hires criminal fugitives to kill Coffee but instead ends up getting his whole family targeted, so the two must team up. Also starring Betty Gilpin, RonReaco Lee, Andrew Bachelor and David Alan Grier.

Also on Friday, Disney Plus will stream two Disneynature docs, Dolphin Reef and Elephant, in honor of Earth Day taking place later this month. Previously, one or both of these movies might have been released theatrically but hey, earth is going to hell right now.

Now playing on Hulu is the latest installment of Blumhouse’s “Into the Dark,” Alejandro Brugué’s Pooka Lives, which ties in with “Pooka Day” (no idea what that is) but apparently, Pooka is a fictional creature like “Slender Man” that was created on Creepypasta  by a group of friends that goes viral but then manifests into creatures that become real. It stars fan faves Felicia Day, Will Wheaton, Rachel Bloom and more.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

[buttonholedlife]

MY TAKE: Exactly how blockchain modern technology pertained to seed the next wonderful techno-industrial transformation - Surveillance Blvd

Some 20 years ago, the creators of Amazon as well as Google.com practically established the training course for exactly how the world wide web would certainly pertain to bestride the method our team live.Jeff Bezos

of Amazon.com, and Larry Web Page as well as Sergey Brin of Google performed greater than anyone else to realise digital trade as our team're experiencing it today-- including its own black bottom of ever-rising risks to privacy and cybersecurity.Today we might be depending on the brink of the following fantastic turmoil. Blockchain innovation in 2019 may verify to become what the world wide web resided in 1999. Blockchain, likewise described as distributed journal innovation, or even DLT, is actually considerably additional than only the system behind Bitcoin as well as cryptocurrency speculation mania. DLT keeps the possible to open up brand-new perspectives of commerce as well as society, based on a new standard of openness as well as sharing. Some think that this moment around there won't be a handful of specialist empresarios grabbing a monopoly on the wealthiest electronic goldmines. As an alternative, idealists claim, people will definitely emerge and nab direct command of minute elements of their digital characters-- and companies will certainly be actually obliged to conform their company designs to a brand-new principles of sharing for a more significant good.At least that is actually an Utopian situation being actually largely promoted through thought leaders like economist and also social thinker Jeremy Rifkin, whose talk," The Third Industrial Change: A Radical New Discussing Economic Condition, "has actually amassed 3.5 thousand viewpoints on YouTube. And a lot of the blockchain innovation taking place today is actually being sent through software natural born players, like Ethereum owner Vitalik Buterin, who market value visibility and also self-reliance over all else.Public blockchains and exclusive DLTs reside in an inchoate phase, as stated over, roughly where the net remained in the 1990s. This time around about, having said that, many additional difficulties are in play-- as well as consensus is actually forming that blockchain will take us someplace altogether various coming from where the world wide web took our company. "Along with the Net, a solitary firm can take a strategic decision and after that forge ahead of time, however that is actually not thus

along with DLT," mentions Forrester expert Martha Bennett, whose cautious perspective of blockchain we'll listen to later on." Blockchains are a group sport. There needs to have to be major shifts in strategy and also company society, in the direction of collaboration among competitions, prior to blockchain-based systems may come to be the norm." That stated, right here are actually a handful of significant points every person ought to comprehend regarding the gelling blockchain revolution.How social blockchains function A blockchain is nothing at all greater than a dispersed data source that functions as a common journal in between numerous gatherings.

The ledger could be shared amongst individuals with a particular interest, like Bitcoin holders. Or it can be actually a journal for almost any kind of sort of details shared between providers or between individuals and also organizations. A real-time copy of the ledger is actually dispersed to the computers of the participants, and progressed cryptography stops previous journal contestants from being actually altered.There's a large distinction in between public blockchains like Bitcoin as well as Ethereum as well as private DLTs, like those leveraging the open-source Hyperledger framework reared by IBM, Intel, Cisco as well as dozens of other corporate titans.

(Even more on exclusive blockchains appearing.) In social blockchains, any person can get involved. The ledger is actually one hundred%decentralized, and a fully clear view of all ledger entrances is constantly easily accessible to one and all. Community blockchains usually rely upon a computational competition, phoned proof-of-work, to bring in participants as well as to make it possible for the blockchain to work without needing to have an individual to work as the depended on middleman.Bitcoin mining, for case, is actually a contest to resolve a hard cryptographic puzzle so as to gain the right to incorporate the upcoming block of verified journal entries to the historic establishment of ledger blocks. The winning miner gets a token-- one Bitcoin. All of the other miners, by contending against one another, serve to confirm the ledger, thereby dealing with the requirement for a relied on middleman.It's challenging to spot the amount of correct public blockchains, however there are actually right now a few dozen noticeable ones that provide souvenirs. Hence, peripheral services have actually appeared to assist trading and supposition of blockchain tokens, aka cryptocurrencies, and the consequent hunch curler coaster gets a great deal of attention.However, cryptocurrencies

are just one little component of blockchain technology.Supplanting intermediaries The bothersome part of social blockchains is actually not what numerous individuals presume. It is actually certainly not simply about giving out digital currency. The true energy of blockchain depends on its potential to decentralize a lot of other kinds of ledger keeping.Sometime in the next 10 to twenty years, blockchains might begin to exceptionally replace all sorts of middlemen who

right now manage the circulation of finances, the motion of goods and services, as well as the distribution of digital web content. This features getting rid of the tasks of magnate the similarity Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, whose business control the flow of social discourse.Social analysts like Rifkin and engineer Andreas Antonopoulos have garnered international followings discussing just how blockchain can easily inspire folks to manage and monetize numerous aspects of their electronic lifestyles. For circumstances, I participated in an intriguing talk Antonopoulos offered on this subject matter in Seattle labelled" Escaping the Worldwide Financial Cartel. "Efforts are underway to establish and at some point largely release public blockchains that could decentralize just how legal documentations are actually provided; disperse and also keep an eye on electronic IDs for impoverished individuals; and divide and also disperse fragmented payments to attendees in supply establishments. Thinking has also started for producing circulated ledgers the manner of fraud-proof blockchain ballot systems.What creates private DLTs beat Through contrast, exclusive blockchains are actually essentially the item of the corporate field acknowledging one thing large is actually taking place as well as reflexively clambering for a grip, so as certainly not to be left. Personal DLTs don't have any need for a proof-of-work device. This is considering that a single corporate facility, or even a group of facilities, preserves full command of verifying brand-new blocks of entrances and including them to the status journal. You must be actually invited to participate in an exclusive blockchain, and also the view of the journal is actually restricted to permissioned customers. Obviously, every person in a private blockchain shouldaccept to follow by a set of rules established

and implemented through the controling corporate body or entities.The huge attraction for firms to carry out personal blockchains is actually that the journal data obtains dispersed throughout several devices, enhancing the performance and also flexibility of transactions in a way that is actually dead-on, and also really tough to maliciously alter. Having said that, after an initial burst of pep, enterprises today are zero longer competing after blockchain systems merely to be actually capable to say that they are actually doing one thing cutting-edge, Forrester's Bennett informed me.Fewer jobs are actually acquiring released by the corporate globe, and the campaigns that are getting greenlighted often tend to concentrate on mapping the social as well as technical difficulties that lay ahead and specifying specialized guideline everybody can acknowledge on.

This queuing is most notably taking place within Hyperledger, a consortium held through the Linux Groundwork whose charter members occur to become 30 corporate titans in banking, source establishments, production, money management, IoT, and modern technology, led by IBM and Intel.Since exclusive blockchains do not use any sort of proof-of-work system-- the incredibly trait that reveals blockchains close to inconceivable to affect-- typical cybersecurity issues use. Without miners battling to win mementos and also validating the reliability of historic records, a counted on middleman is actually needed to have. Which trusted intermediary continues to be the like constantly: an at risk company facility. With therefore many more interfaces rolling via a blockchain unit, it becomes even much more crucial for organizations to adhere to extremely meticulous cyber care practices, and every thing, security-wise, need to go right for them. Just how frequently does that take place today?"Those involved in one of the most innovative privacy DLT campaigns have uncovered that operationalizing and also sizing this modern technology is actually a major obstacle,"Bennett claims." A number of these obstacles will definitely vanish in time as tooling enhances, but others will not, like producing the device plus all its user interfaces safeguard. "Open up source collaboration begins This is the main reason for Hyperledger, which is certainly not a blockchain, per se, and can easily certainly not issue any sort of kind of cryptocurrency of its own. IBM and also Intel would certainly like nothing far better than for Hyperledger to occur as the best framework for both public and also exclusive blockchains, standardizing, as high as possible, around reliable open-source elements. Once again, reflect twenty years. This is actually precisely just how Linux evolved from an enthusiasts'operating system to a commercially realistic OS commonly utilized in enterprise networks.I operated this through Avesta Hojjati, head of r & d at DigiCert, a Lehi, Colo.-based provider of electronic certifications who's an active individual in Hyperledger."You can consider Hyperledger Cloth as a cars and truck chassis that's been bonded, painted and also perhaps has wheels on it,"Hojjati told me." You still need to have to incorporate an engine as well as a variety of various factors to create

it entirely functional. You're capable to

work along with something that's incredibly effortless to sustain as well as set up."Launched in 2016, Hyperledger has started breeding ventures like Hyperledger Ursa, which is planned to become a best, communal cryptographic library."Previously, making use of such innovation would certainly possess required content expertise,"Hojjati claims, "whereas today, any type of creator can easily utilize the Ursa library and implement projects based on these abilities."Capturing public-private harmonies New tools under the Hyperledger umbrella can be made use of to turn our team right into a grow older of so much more equalized global commerce. Or they could become the tools that assist today's business leaders remain in power.I've concerned strongly believe that it's perhaps going to be one thing in between. Public and personal dispersed journals have presently begun to converge. A ton of development is under method. Difficult tradeoffs should be created and pivotal home advancements must be obtained. Enterprises will remain at the table given that improved performance and greater incomes are achievable. Is it imaginable that the crossbreed blockchains of the close future could likewise blow up the existing electronic gold mines and equalize that receives access to the gold dust?Forrester's Bennett has actually noticed and studied developing technology for 30 years, the past five looking at dispersed journals. I inquired her what part she thought blockchains will definitely participate in ten years coming from now. Her solution: Bennett"

The only point our experts can say for sure is actually that it'll look absolutely nothing like what our team've obtained today. I'm not anti-blockchain, I'm only intending to become practical. While the technology will not provide magics, it performs offer us with the opportunity to accomplish traits differently-- radically in a different way-- from today. In other phrases, blockchains can easily sustain brand-new organisation and also trust fund versions-- however our team need to have to make them. And also while some trade-offs are going to no question be important, the innovation problems are most likely to become resolved even more swiftly than every one of the non-technical facets."When you put it that way, it is actually challenging for me to picture the comprehensive termination these days's top intermediaries. But maybe they'll get pushed down a handful of marks by a brand-new type of middlemen.The blockchain reformation has actually started, people. There's no stopping. It extremely well could possibly take us to boosted privacy as well as cybersecurity. Going ahead

, one point is particular: It won't be boring. I'll maintain watch.Pulitzer Champion business reporter Byron V. Acohido is actually dedicated to nurturing public recognition regarding exactly how to make the Web as private and protected as it should certainly be actually. (This column

initially seemed on Avast Blogging site.) Current Articles By Author

This content was originally published here.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

‘Dirt’ reveals a failing of book industry

The establishment deemed it the great immigrant novel, yet it doesn’t reflect Latino experience

JEANINE CUMMINS said she was nervous to write a story of the plight of Mexican migrants and wished “someone slightly browner than me would write it.” (Joe Kennedy)

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ESMERALDA BERMUDEZ

By now, you’ve probably heard about the uproar that took place last week over a book.

“American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins was celebrated by critics as the great immigrant novel of our day.

“Masterful.”

“Pulse-pounding.”

“Soul-obliterating.”

“A ‘Grapes of Wrath’ for our times.”

Even Oprah Winfrey dove in early Tuesday morning, the day of the release, and anointed “American Dirt” with the holy grail of endorsements, selecting it for her book club.

“I was opened, I was shook up, it woke me up,” Winfrey said in a promotional video. “I feel like everyone who reads this book is actually going to be immersed in the experience of what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom.”

It was a perfectly orchestrated mega-budget campaign that might have gone off without a hitch if weren’t for Latinos. Many who grew up in actual immigrant families unleashed a storm of criticism — unlike anything the book industry has seen in years.

I was among those who spoke up.

I’m an immigrant, after all. My family fled by foot and bus to the U.S. in the 1980s as right-wing death squads were killing and torturing thousands across El Salvador, including several of my relatives.

The trauma of those dark days shaped everything about me.

I figured I might recognize some part of my story in Cummins’ book, which follows an immigrant mother and son on their harrowing escape north from Mexico.

Then I read the book. My skin crawled after the first few chapters.

Not because of the suspense, though that’s probably the only thing this narrative does well, like a cheap-thrill narconovela.

What made me cringe was immediately realizing that this book was not written for people like me, for immigrants. It was written for everyone else — to enchant them, take them on a wild border-crossing ride, make them feel all fuzzy inside about the immigrant plight.

All, unfortunately, with the worst stereotypes, fixations and inaccuracies about Latinos.

Sure, I know it’s all fiction and I’m no literary critic. Cummins is not obligated to write a book that reflects my life. But it’s strange that a novel so many are praising for its humanity seems so far from all the real-life immigrant experiences I’ve covered.

Never in nearly two decades of writing about immigrants have I come across someone who resembles Cummins’ heroine, a Mexican woman named Lydia.

She’s a middle-class, bookstore-owning “Mami” who starts her treacherous journey with a small fortune: a stack of cash, thousands of dollars in inheritance money; also an ATM card to access thousands more from her mother’s life savings.

Why is she fleeing? Because while her husband, a journalist, was investigating a drug lord, Lydia was flirting with that same narco.

Moments after he walked into her bookshop, “She smiled at him, feeling slightly crazy. She ignored this feeling and plowed recklessly ahead.”

Later, when Lydia is running for her life, debating whether she and her 8-year-old son should jump on La Bestia, the perilous northbound freight train that’s cost many immigrants their limbs and lives, she has an identity crisis. She used to be “sensible,” “a devoted mother-and-wife.” Now she calls herself “deranged Lydia.”

Because hint, hint, reader: Any immigrant parent desperate enough to put their kids in such danger must be crazy, right?

It’s a book of villains and victims, the two most tired tropes about immigrants in the media, in which Cummins has an “excited fascination” with brown skin, as New York Times critic Parul Sehgal pointed out in one of the few negative reviews of the book. Her characters are “berry-brown” or “tan as childhood.” There is also a reference to “skinny brown children.”

When two of her leading characters, sisters migrating from Honduras named Rebeca and Soledad, hug, “Rebeca breathes deeply into Soledad’s neck, and her tears wet the soft brown curve of her sister’s skin.”

When’s the last time you hugged your sister and stopped to contemplate the color of her skin?

All novelists offer vivid descriptions of their characters, but Cummins’ preoccupation with skin color is especially disturbing in a society that constantly measures the worth of Latinos by where they fall on the scale of brownness.

Soledad, by the way, is also “dangerously” beautiful. She’s a “vivid throb of color,” an “accident of biology.” Even in the “most minor animation of the girl’s body … danger rattles off her relentlessly.”

Of course. Everywhere we Latinas go, our bodies are radioactive with peligro.

Speaking of Spanish, you’ll pick up quite a few words in “American Dirt.” Cummins, in stiff sentences that sound like Dora the Explorer teaching a toddler, will introduce you to conchas, refrescos, “Ándale,” “Ay, Dios mío,” “¡Me gusta!”

All this, it pains me to say, was praised by nearly every U.S. critic who reviewed it as a great accomplishment.

It’s what the Washington Post’s critic “devoured” in a “dry-eyed adrenaline rush,” what kept the Los Angeles Times reviewer up until 3 a.m., what the New York Times initially said had all the “ferocity and political reach of the best of Theodore Dreiser’s novels.” (The latter paper later deleted the tweet, and an editor explained the line had been from an unpublished draft.)

The heart of the problem is the industry — the critics, agents, publicists, book dealers who were responsible for this project. They’ve shown just how little they know about the immigrant experience beyond the headlines.

So we are left with this flawed book as our model, these damaging depictions at a time when there’s already so much demonizing of immigrants.

Cummins said she questioned whether she was the right person to tell this story.

She was born in Spain and raised in Maryland. A few years ago she identified herself in the New York Times as “white,” though in the book she plays up her Latina side, making reference to a grandmother from Puerto Rico. Her publisher publicized the book by promoting Cummins as “the wife of a formerly undocumented immigrant.” She doesn’t mention that her husband is from Ireland.

“I worried that, as a non-immigrant and non-Mexican, I had no business writing a book set almost entirely in Mexico, set entirely among migrants,” she said in her author’s note.

“I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it.”

Still, she saw herself as a “bridge,” so she plunged in.

I don’t take issue with an outsider coming into my community to write about us. But “American Dirt” so completely misrepresents the immigrant experience that it must be called out.

Cummins said her goal was to help immigrants portrayed as a “faceless brown mass.” She said she wanted to give “these people a face.”

How’s that for a captivating book pitch?

The industry ate it up. In a rare three-day bidding war, Flatiron Books reportedly won Cummins’ book for a seven-figure sum.

The number astounded many writers. It fell with a blunt force on Latinos, who are constantly shut out of the book industry.

The overall industry is 80% white. Executives: 78% white. Publicists and marketing: 74% white. Agents: 80% white.

These numbers include 153 book publishers and agencies, including what’s known in the book world as the Big Five, which control nearly the entire market.

This diversity study, the most comprehensive in the industry, was launched by a small independent children’s book publisher in New York called Lee & Low Books. They’ve conducted it twice, in 2015 and in 2019. (Figures noted above are from the latest study, which will be released Tuesday.)

In those four years, the numbers showed no significant change.

“The power balance has been off for so long,” said Hannah Ehrlich, director of marketing and publicity for Lee & Low. “Even when a big mistake is brought to their attention, when there’s a sense of urgency, publishers don’t fix it — or they try, with good intentions, but they don’t know how.”

They don’t know how. (Insert emoji of head exploding.)

The solution is simple: Hire more Latinos. More people of color. Listen to them. Promote them. Treat them fairly so they don’t leave.

Ehrlich kindly walked me through the world of publishing, which of course is very similar to journalism, including in its glaring lack of racial diversity.

Often, Ehrlich said, what happens is gatekeepers go looking for good stories, stories that resonate with their view of the world. If they come across a compelling pitch about a person of color, the question becomes, “How do you sell this idea to a broader, mainstream audience?” Translation: white people.

By focusing on one audience, the industry makes it harder for writers of color to break through and also for publishers to build a more diverse customer base.

So it goes, in a long process that many writers of color know all too well, where the best of our stories are frequently sanitized, devalued, tropicalized, manipulated, shrunk down, hijacked.

All for sums that don’t come close to seven figures.

And for deals that don’t get the kind of superstar treatment of “American Dirt.” That includes books that Cummins studied closely to prepare for her novel, with real migrant stories like Oscar Martinez’s “The Beast,” Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” Luis Alberto Urrea’s “The Devil’s Highway.”

Cummins has no regrets about reaping the benefits of the system. She already got a movie deal and will travel to the border with Oprah for more publicity.

“I was never going to turn down money that someone offered me for something that took me seven years to write,” she said in a recent interview.

When asked about the criticism, the author often keeps the focus on the question of appropriation, saying writers shouldn’t be silenced. I have no desire to silence her, but her book is a symptom of a larger problem.

Cummins said people should direct their attention to the publishing world, not individual writers like her.

She’s got a point. In the end, the real fight over “American Dirt” is not about this writer. It’s about an industry that favors her stories over ones written by immigrants and Latinos.

Still, it’s hard to let Cummins off the hook.

Not when she has posted photos on her Twitter account showing her celebrating “American Dirt” with floral centerpieces laced with barbed wire.

“That’s what I call attention to detail right?!” she wrote in a comment below the photo she posted of the party.

I can’t explain the gut punch I felt when I saw this image on the internet.

Growing up, my family spoke of this barbed wire. How it encircled them, how it tore their hands and legs in their treacherous trek north.

For us, the boogeyman that forced us to leave El Salvador was not some drug kingpin with a quivering mustache like La Lechuza.

It was a brutal 12-year war of terror waged on poor people by oligarchs, backed by the United States, which spent billions to train and equip Salvadoran death squads and the Salvadoran military; the U.S. helped pay for their weapons, bombs, jeeps, uniforms, gas masks. More than 75,000 Salvadorans died in the fighting.

Before my third birthday, I lost just about everyone: My grandfather, uncle and aunt were killed. My father was exiled. My mom was forced to leave me behind in El Salvador to come north.

It’s a story that repeats itself among the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who fled to the U.S. in the 1980s.

Because of greed, a thirst for power and government violence in Central America — a place where the United States has heavily intruded since the 1800s — thousands of families continue to run north. From Honduras. From Guatemala. From El Salvador.

This is the immigration story of our times.

Hopefully, soon, the book world will gather the nerve to let more of our own writers tell it. And give that story the same royal treatment it gave “American Dirt.”

[cyberkevvideo]

Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 6: Play as Myceloids (Book 3)

Today is Halloween. I figured it would be the perfect time to discuss playing a monster race. Namely, the Pathfinder 1st Edition mushroom monster, the myceloid.

When Gary first started developing the Throne of Night adventure path, he talked about alternate races that could do the scenario as well. One was as elves or humans who’d been bought as slaves. He even had a Campaign trait available in Book 1 that gave these non-darkvision characters, darkvision 30 ft. Not bad. It wasn’t brought up in detail, but I theorize that these particular characters would likely have managed to escape their drow or derro captures, and made their way to the outside world temporarily, whether with help from their saviours or even on their own. They could have even started in the village of svirfneblin and been nursed back to health.

One of the races that was talked about most as an alternative to the drow and dwarves, was the myconid. There was even art for it. So in one of the unpublished books (Book 3 specifically), we were supposed to have had a section that would have been all about playing this telepathic and voiceless mushroom race from D&D. And, unfortunately, there in lies the problem. They’re a Wizards of the Coast copyrighted race. They’re not OGL. You see fan versions online for both 3.5 and 5e, but they’re fan works only. They can’t generate any monetary value. Not without permission from WotC. My guess is Gary didn’t realize this when he first conceived of the idea and had the art work commissioned. He might have even thought Paizo would eventually release their own version, but they did not. Or that he could borrow from another 3PP, but no one officially released a clone version of the race. This sadly meant that Gary would never be able to see this come into fruition. And I can’t help but wonder if other copyright issues got in the way as well. But that’s just another hypothesis.

What could have been done, and it’s not exactly his forte, is to design his own version of the race or convert one that already exists in monster form. With the help of the Advanced Race Guide, that’s possible. Looking at it though, that would have taken up quite a bit of space in the book, and could even have other logistic issues that I might not be aware of. Thankfully, that doesn’t stop me from doing updates like this though.

Images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus. The art is on Michael’s dA page, which I’ve brought over, and am sharing for this article.

EDIT : Going through Gary’s old updates, it seems he did realize at some point that the myconid race was not a possibility, but that he’d have to write for myceloids. The art piece uses the former name, but that was back in 2014. By 2015, Gary must have updated his notes for the final update that he gave us on the project. Saying: “Here also is another piece of preview art showing a party of myceloid adventurers. In Book Three, there will be an article about playing an all myceloid party through Throne of Night and this is the piece of art that accompanies that article.“ It’s still unknown whether or not he was waiting on Paizo to release an official race or if he was going to homebrew one just for this adventure path. He might have even have thrown caution to the wind and decided that he’d just have players go up as the 5 HD monsters and play them straight out of Bestiary 3 as-is. There’s a lot of options he could have gone with.

While the small size myconid is not a playable race, the medium size myceloid from Bestiary 3 is a possibility. Normally a CR 4 monster, and a mushroom creature at that, they have many abilities and traits that could come in handy. Normally of evil alignment, this definitely fits for the theme given for the drow side. It’d be interesting to know the reasons that these mushroom people would have for making their own kingdom. Maybe they’re all good-aligned and they want to establish an empire that showcases trade and emphasizes peace. Always a possibility. The party could consist entirely of black sheep myceloid that aren’t carnivores and looking to consume mortal flesh and have a magnitude of slaves. Or they could be the most evil of all myceloids and were booted for being too evil, and their own empire filled with cages upon cages of slaves that also serve as their food rations could be just the thing they’ve been looking for.

I broke the race down into two different sections. The first is a very playable and balanced race of only 12 race points (RP) with an optional section that shows a myceloid race class ala Savage Species (D&D 3.5) that slowly gives them back all of their abilities over the course of the 5 hit dice that a myceloid normally gets. If you haven’t seen them, Dreamscarred Press and Rite Publishing both have monster books that deal with this kind of progression as well. Necromancers of the Northwest did a stint on their site as well, for free, a few years ago. Everyone definitely has their own style of doing things. This just happens to be mine.

The second section is a much more Advanced Race version that puts the race at 25 RP. This rivals things like the svirfneblin, adaros, kasatha, and wyrood. All of which are 20 RP or greater. While I don’t break it down point for point, I do make mention of just how much this race would cost if you tried to get everything available through the Advanced Race Guide, for the race, without taking any racial HD.

Note: There is no telepathy ability in the Advanced Race Guide, however, strix have an ability to only be able to speak with avians, and it’s 0 RP. Figured that for 30 ft. a myceloid could speak to other myceloid with telepathy. You’re welcome to ignore and remove it though if you feel that’s not a correct assumption.

Myceloid Race Ability Score Modifiers +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, –2 Intelligence 1 RP Type Plant 10 RP Size Medium 0 RP Base Speed Slow 20 ft. –1 RP Senses Darkvision 60 ft. 2 RP; low-light vision — RP Thick Skin Natural armor +1 2 RP Special Quality Telepathy 30 ft.; other myceloids only 0 RP Weakness Vulnerable to electricity –2 RP Languages Xenophobic: Undercommon plus Common, Elven, Sylvan, Terran, Treant 0 RP

Total 12 RP

Myceloid Race Class Hit Die d8 Racial Class Skills Perception, Stealth Skill Ranks Per Level 2 + Int Modifier. HD    BAB    Fort    Ref    Will    Special 1    +0    +2    +0    +0    Claws (1d4), thick skin, scent, shatter resistant, Survival +2, +2 Wis

2    +1    +3    +0    +0    DR 2/slashing, resist 5 (cold and fire), Sense Motive +2, telepathy (+10 ft.), +2 Con

3    +2    +3    +1    +1    Disease (purple pox), Survival +4, telepathy (affects purple pox sufferers too), +2 Str

4    +3    +4    +1    +1    Claws (1d6), DR 5/slashing, resist 10 (cold and fire), Sense Motive +4, telepathy (+10 ft.), +2 Con

5    +3    +4    +1    +1    Spore cloud, spore domination, telepathy (+10 ft.), +2 Str

Disease (Su) Purple Pox: inhaled or injury; save Fort DC 10 + ½ racial HD + Con-modifier; onset 1 minute; frequency 1/day; effect 1d2 Wis and 1d2 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. A creature that dies of the purple pox becomes bloated over the course of 24 hours, after which its body bursts open, releasing a fully grown myceloid. Additionally, as long as a creature takes at least 7 points of Wisdom damage from the purple pox, it must make a Will save, equal to the initial save DC, each day to avoid becoming affected by a lesser geas (no HD limit) that compels the sickly character to seek out the nearest myceloid colony in order to offer itself up for spore domination. The save DCs are Constitution-based. Shatter Resistant (Ex) At each racial level, a myceloid gains resistance to sonic 2 (to a maximum of resist 10). Spore Cloud (Ex) Once per day as a standard action, a myceloid can expel a 10-foot-radius burst of spores centered on itself. This cloud persists for 1d3 rounds. Any creature caught in this cloud or that moves through it is exposed to the myceloid's purple pox disease—a creature need save only once against any one spore cloud, however, before becoming permanently immune to that particular spore cloud's effects. The spore cloud does not hamper vision. Spore Domination (Sp) This spell-like ability functions as charm monster, but functions only against creatures currently infected with purple pox. Thick Skin (Ex) At each racial level, a myceloid’s natural armor improves by +1 (to a maximum of +6).

If taking monster race hit dice isn’t your speed, or your GM doesn’t approve of this, an alternative is to play a version of the race that’s still playable, and uses the Advanced Race Guide to its fullest. While the total racial points looks like it’s a lot, remember that the svirfneblin is 24 RP and the newer released adoros shark humanoid race from “Blood of the Sea” Player Companion is 32 RP. It’s also been suggested that despite how powerful they are, playing an entire party of drow noble (41 RP) still wouldn’t give you much of an advantage. That’s honestly kind of crazy. So with that, in mind, if you’re allowed to play this, I’d go this route over the hit die route. That said, if you want to add in the rest of the stats and natural armor, you’re looking at +4 Str, +4 Con, and +2 Wis for 28 RP and the additional +4 natural armor comes to 14 RP. Improving the resistance to cold and fire to 10 is another 2 RP each for 4 RP. You’d also need to take the Improved Natural Attack to get the claws to 1d6 damage. Granted, you could just buy the “Named Feat” for 2 RP. Without the resistance to sonic, telepathy, spores, and disease, you’re still looking at a total of 73 RP. That’s beyond monstrous. But for now, here’s the basic version that’s more likely to be approved. Hopefully.

Alternate Myceloid Race Ability Score Modifiers +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, –2 Intelligence 1 RP Type Plant 10 RP Size Medium 0 RP Base Speed Slow 20 ft. –1 RP Senses Darkvision 60 ft. 2 RP; low-light vision — RP; scent 4 RP Thick Skin Natural armor +1 2 RP Natural Attacks Claws (1d4) 2 RP Energy Resistance Cold 5, fire 5 2 RP Skill Bonus Sense Motive +2, Survival +2 4 RP Weakness Vulnerable to electricity –2 RP Languages Xenophobic: Undercommon plus Common, Elven, Sylvan, Terran, Treant 0 RP

Total 25 RP

If you like this, I’ve done others, and a couple of 3PP have been making their own Savage Species compendium over the past couple of years. Seek them out. Necromancers of the Northwest probably did my favourites. The ogre mage and the medusa ones are what I used for the Way of the Wicked when we had to figure out how to work them into the story and advance them for the campaign. I changed them up a bit because they were missing a few ability score advancements and didn’t have a “base race” of 10 RP, which would have helped A LOT. But that wasn’t part of the original design because the creator thought that would make cause the PC to out-scale other PCs. Which, no, it won’t. Monster PCs of equal HD will never trump a standard PC. I guarantee you of this as someone who’s been forced to play one too many monster PCs. But that is neither here nor there.

What’s funny is that there was possible mention of a team of all kobolds doing this AP. I would have loved it despite the fact that they’re so weak. If you wanted to that out, I would highly, HIGHLY recommend the Jon Brazer Enterprises umbral kobolds or go with the standard Paizo kobold and make the advanced variants that gain bonuses on what chromatic dragon scales they have, and even gain a breath weapon of that type. Much more survivable. The party’s opponents would soon regret underestimating them just for being a kobold.

I hope you enjoy this update and should you do an underground adventure, whether Throne of Night or not, it’d be great if this race build was of benefit to you.

I will say though, that if you are running 5e because you’ve converted the AP to D&D 5e or are doing your own Underdark/Darklands campaign, I would absolutely implore you to seek out the fan made myconid race. It’s pretty well designed. I will say that a party of mutes would make for a very difficult campaign. However, I have heard of parties that are composed entirely of kenku. Those poor, poor DMs.

Have a happy and safe Halloween.

[nodancer]

Fic Rec Days #1 - Hamilton

I love the idea of fic rec days and so I’ll try to make a post for each day.

Starting with Hamilton since that’s what I read pretty much exclusively last year - these are mainly Hamilton/Burr or Gen with a focus on the two. In order to keep this list a bit shorter I’ve cut it down to only fics with under 1000 kudos (with one exception). Some stories are about the historical and not the musical figures, they’re marked with an asterisk in front of the title.

Gen & Not-Hamilton/Burr

Bound Together by triedunture Rating: G Burr and Hamilton are captured by British scouts and shackled together, but manage to escape. They can perhaps survive in the wilderness for a day. If they can work together for a few moments. 

a great frienemies fic with wonderful banter and lots of fun obstacles for the unlucky companions, with just the right amount of feelings thrown in.

Frienemies by Esti7310 Rating: T Pairing: Angelica Hamilton/Theodosia Burr What do you do when you finally get to know an old family nemesis in front of your locker? Pretend to date them just for kicks, obviously. 

a modern au that will satisfy all your needs for fake dating, enemies to friends to lovers and awkward but supportive dads. happy and fluffy and with all that good good pining and denial.

Hamilton Modern AU Gothic by AlanOfAllTrades Rating: G What does "Modern AU" actually mean? Especially for the characters involved?

exactly what you expect from the title. short and hilarious metafic.

I support our troops is not a political opinion by Sarah1281 Rating: G He and Hamilton are definitely not friends. The fact he's not even surprised Hamilton broke into his house to yell at him about his lack of political opinions might confuse the issue but they're not.

a short and funny modern day fic that’s mostly dialogue between hamilton and burr about the latter’s (lack of) stances in his campaign for the presidency.

keep the light in by Mira_Jade Rating: T “God be good, Alexander, you commanded entire battalions during the war, but you can't keep track of a troupe of adolescents - ” 

hamilton manages to lose his kids in the presidential mansion and during his search runs into someone with the same problem. adorable interactions with the little hamlets and funny dialogue between the adults. just wholesome fluffy gen all around.

Outside the Lines by BethCGPhoenix Rating: G Guess that’s what the Cabinet gets for hanging around with a narrator, though. They’re all like that.

the characters act out their lives, but they’re also aware they’re part of a play and what their roles in it are. the metafic in this fandom is particularly excellent and this one is my favorite - the way the writer incorporates the lyrics and musical motifs and the character’s awareness of their meanings on a meta level is just incredible.

someone else’s story by iaintinapatientphase Rating: M Warnings: Dubious Consent, Abusive Relationship Pairing: Alexander Hamilton/Maria Reynolds This isn’t a love story, not at all. Maria doesn't like to dwell on it, but that doesn't make it any less true. 

maria’s story gets told. everything about this fic is incredibly good - the writing, the multilayered characterisation, the way it absoluetely isn’t apologetic about hamilton’s actions, but doesn’t demonize him either. it just feels absolutely real and unrelenting in its portrayal of maria’s world and the decisions she has to make. the one hamilton fic absolutely everyone should read.

The Source of Distant Rivers, the Sound of Distant Guns by scioscribe Rating: T Pairings: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton/Eliza Schuyler Men who put their faith in history must sometimes live to see themselves be overwritten.

the colonists are losing and they are overwritten by the winners - literally. this is a creepy, otherworldly metafic where the characters see themselves change into something different as their stories get told by their enemies. absolutely everything scioscribe has written for hamilton is amazing and this one really stayed with me.

Hamilton/Burr

A More Perfect Union (WIP, regular updates) by holograms Rating: E Other Pairings: Alexander Hamilton/Eliza Schuyler Hamilton survives the duel. He gets more time, and Burr does too. 

the duel doesn’t end fatally, so aaron and alex slowly become friends again and plot a future that involves them staying together, despite massive disapproval from... everyone. the slowest of slow burns with great characterisations and wonderful relationships both between alex and aaron and alex and eliza.

Alexandrite by pennylehane Rating: T Warnings: Implied Child Abuse Other Pairings: Aaron Burr/Theodosia Prevost The words pushed their way from Aaron's lips without pausing to await consent. A single, soft white begonia  slipped out from under his tongue, drifting lightly in the morning wind. 

a fairytale au where a witch put a spell on aaron so that flowers and gemstones fall out of his mouth whenever he speaks - and so he talks as little as possible and hides his words from other people. the fairy tale it’s based on is such a great fit for burr and the fic is beautifully written with lovely use of symbolism and flower language.

* and indeed there will be time by cherry_darling Rating: M In which Burr and Hamilton sit down and play their hand again. And again. And again.

a beautifully written non-linear reincarnation au where aaron and alexander meet each other at different times throughout history and keep making the same mistakes.

Everyone who loves me has died by belmanoir Rating: M Alexander has been talking for eight solid days about the importance of an independent judiciary. He doesn't have to stop for breath anymore. 

a hamilton’s ghost haunts burr fic that starts light and humorous and becomes increasingly heartbreaking.

fools who run their mouths off (WIP, on hiatus) by scioscribe Rating: T Other Pairings: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens The one where Alexander Hamilton is a witness in need of protection and Burr has just lost a very crucial coin toss.

my one exception to the less than 1000 kudos rule, simply because this is my favorite hamilton fic (and one of my favorite fics in general). this is scioscribe, so the writing and characterisation are excellent, in particular her burr is heartbreaking here. both hamilton and burr in this are people who have to lock away large parts of themselves in order to live a functional life and both deal - and fail to deal - with that in their own way. and this look on them (and in fact on all of the characters) is just so very empathetic, so non-judgmental about their flaws and mistakes. all of the relationships are touching in their own way, in particular the friendship between aaron and angelica is the heart of some of the most memorable scenes. that being said, do heed that “on hiatus” and read at your own risk, as it hasn’t been updated in a good while.

History Obliterates by holograms Rating: M Alexander Hamilton has had Aaron Burr erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again. Thank you. 

an absolutely devastating eternal sunshine of the spotless mind au where first alex and then aaron erase their memories of each other, looking back at how their relationship began and how it broke apart.

Making a Million Mistakes by 4b4the22 Rating: T In a desperate attempt to prove he can be a responsible father Alexander agrees to watch Philip for the weekend at the "apartment" he doesn't actually have. Fortunately Aaron invites him to spend the weekend with him and Theo. 

hamilton’s life falls apart fast, so he gets drunk in a ballpit. aaron doesn’t need another person in his family, except maybe he does. this one’s a classic and everything you could possibly want out of a hilarious desperate single dads au.

* Religious Duty (WIP, not on hiatus anymore!!) by ghostburr Rating: M Just another modern AU Hamburrger reincarnationverse.

honestly just the definitive historical hamilton & burr characterisations for me. this writer has done her research for years and has such a good grasp on their character voices and motivations, and doesn’t shy away from darker topics like burr’s overburdening parenting and his sex addiction. also featuring: hilarious hamilton/burr/morris/troup exchanges, lots of fun and snarky dialogue in general, a wonderful theodosia b/angelica h friendship, spectacularly bad decision making, copious amounts of miscommunication and all the ways aaron and alex fail at being single dads. also, there are additional ficlets in that ‘verse if you crave that extra content.

* a halo of patience and a less sporadic pace (WIP) by elizajumel Rating: M Alexander smiles brilliantly. “You know,” he says, “that we’ll never be fully free of ghosts.”

set in the universe of religious duty. they move in together and learn to settle into domestic life, but that doesn’t mean their differences simply go away. snippets of their life, some melancholic, some disgustingly domestic and with fun, sharp dialogue throughout. it’s marked as chapter 1/? but can easily be read as a standalone.

The Crackpots, Two Schuylers, and Burr by thelittlelion Rating: G Many years ago, Andrew Jackson, America's 7th President, had a two-ton block of cheese in the White House foyer that everyone was welcome to eat. Alexander really should know better than to mix his least favorite gimmick with a bet against Angelica Schuyler.

a west wing au full of snark, fun interactions and hamilton fucking things up in a masterful way. you don’t have to watch the west wing for this but it does make it even more hilarious.

you had to have him (and so you did) by Nakimochiku Rating: E Aaron isn't superstitious, so he sees nothing wrong with moving into a suspiciously cheap apartment, despite Theo's words of warning. And if there's a spirit or something in his house, well, he has better things to do than worry about it. 

burr moves into a new apartment and, ignoring his best friends’ warnings, slowly befriends the fairy haunting it. just a good old mystery/witchy au with an unrelentingly prepared theo, an openly seductive fairy alex and a way too ready to be seduced aaron.

[bountyofbeads]

Impeachment's hectic fourth week ends. Here's what to look for next week.

https://news.yahoo.com/impeachments-hectic-fourth-week-ends-heres-what-to-look-for-next-week-214515567.html

Impeachment's hectic fourth week ends. Here's what to look for next week.

By John Ward | Published October 18, 2019 5:45 PM ET | Yahoo News | Posted October 19, 2019 |

The fourth week of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry in Congress was the busiest so far, with five different depositions, a fractious meeting of Republicans and Democrats at the White House, and a shocking press conference by President Trump’s chief of staff.

Next week will ramp things up even more. A key diplomat who called it “crazy” for Trump to press Ukraine to investigate political rivals is expected to go to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, and he is just one of eight people whom Congress has asked to testify as part of its impeachment inquiry.

A lawyer for Fiona Hill, a former senior adviser to Trump on Russia and European affairs, told the New Yorker that after his client’s defiance of the White House’s warning not to testify this past Monday, “the floodgates may have opened.”

Next week’s schedule appears to back up that theory. Five of the eight officials called to testify are expected to do so, an official working on the impeachment inquiry told Yahoo News. That includes William Taylor — the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine — who texted a colleague that it was “crazy” for the White House to withhold military assistance in exchange “for help with a political campaign.”

The appearance of Hill, a former White House official, and three other State Department officials before the impeachment inquiry this week has been described in starkly different terms by Democrats and Republicans.

“Witness after witness, especially the career public servants, came forward despite the risks to their own careers, and talked about how there was misconduct going on ... and they didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told NPR Friday morning.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, meanwhile, disparaged those who were testifying as having political motivations.

“What you’re seeing now, I believe, is a group of mostly career bureaucrats who are saying, ‘You know what? I don’t like President Trump’s politics, so I’m going to participate in this witch hunt that they’re undertaking on the Hill,’” Mulvaney said.

Meanwhile, the White House is doubling down on the comment that Mulvaney made to reporters when defending the Trump administration’s pressure campaign to try to force Ukrainian government officials to investigate Trump’s political rivals in the Democratic Party. “Get over it,” he told the press. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

By Friday afternoon, the campaign to reelect Trump in 2020 was raising money off Mulvaney’s comment, selling T-shirts with large white letters repeating it.

Bystanders in Washington remain unsure of how it will all play out.

“I have lost my ability to rate disasters anymore,” one veteran Republican told Yahoo News, declaring himself “kinda numb.”

This week began with news of a chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, leaving Kurdish fighters — who had helped a U.S.-led coalition defeat the so-called Islamic State — abandoned in the face of a Turkish invasion. Hundreds of Islamic State fighters who had been held by the Kurds are reported to have escaped.

“Trump seems to believe it’s easy to raise an army and fight an enemy like ISIS. It’s not. It takes years of work and it may be impossible now as the world sees a historic success upended in six days after a call with a foreign leader and in the most careless and callous manner,” wrote Brett McGurk, who was the top Pentagon official  overseeing the Trump administration’s war against ISIS until a year ago, when he resigned early over Trump’s announcement that he would withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

Trump’s bumbling in Syria weakened him considerably inside his own party on Capitol Hill, where Republican senators and congressmen — who have either kept silent on impeachment or downplayed the significance of the Ukraine matter — blasted away at the president.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been one of Trump’s strongest allies in the Senate, promised midweek that if the president did not change course, he would become “President Trump's worst nightmare” on the issue.

Nonetheless, even some Republicans who have denounced Trump on Syria continued to back him on impeachment. Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a leading critic of Trump’s Syria policy, said Friday on Fox News that the Democrats’ process for conducting the impeachment inquiry is too secretive and “very unfair.”

This was the first week for Congress back in Washington after a two-week recess. Congress left town only a few days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first announced on Sept. 24 that the House would open an official inquiry into whether Trump should be impeached for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate a political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Accordingly, the closed-door activity by three House committees running the impeachment inquiry ramped up considerably. On Monday, Hill told the inquiry that Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, had instructed her to alert White House lawyers about an inappropriate effort by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to pressure the Ukrainians.

On Tuesday, George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, told the inquiry that he had been cut out of policymaking on Ukraine by Mulvaney. Kent said he was replaced by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union; Kurt Volker, special envoy for Ukraine; and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. (Perry, who was subpoenaed last week by the inquiry committees, announced Thursday he was resigning).

Kent also said that he had expressed concerns inside the Obama administration in 2015 about Joe Biden’s son Hunter serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, Michael McKinley, a veteran diplomat who had been a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, told the inquiry he resigned last week over concerns revealed by the impeachment investigation. He said he left his job over “what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives.”

“I was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents,” McKinley said.

That same day, Democratic and Republican leaders from Congress went to the White House to meet with Trump about the situation in Syria. Trump, according to Democrats, lobbed personal insults at Speaker Pelosi. Little was resolved with regard to Syria.

On Thursday, Sondland — a central figure in the Ukraine inquiry — testified that Giuliani’s dealings with Ukraine were likely intended to involve them “in the president's 2020 reelection campaign.” Sondland took pains to distance himself from Giuliani. “I would not have recommended that Mr. Giuliani or any private citizen be involved in these foreign policy matters,” he said.

Sondland also denied that his response to a fellow diplomat who expressed alarm at Trump’s apparent push for a quid pro quo relating to investigating business dealings in Ukraine by Hunter Biden was not an attempt to evade transparency.

“Any implication that I was trying to avoid making a record of our conversation is completely false,” Sondland said. “My text-message comments were an invitation to talk more, not to conceal the substance of our communications.”

Also Thursday, Mulvaney spoke to White House reporters in the Brady Briefing Room for nearly 40 minutes, and told them that Trump had indeed ordered the freeze of military assistance to Ukraine, which has been battling Russian-backed separatists for several years — until Kiev agreed to investigate the “DNC server,” a conspiracy theory that Trump appears to believe would disprove Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney responded, when a reporter asked about what appeared to be a quid pro quo. “I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

Mulvaney denied, however, that the money to Ukraine was held up in relation to Trump’s request that the Ukrainians look into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the region. “The money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden,” Mulvaney said.

Later in the day, Mulvaney walked back his comments. “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election," Mulvaney said in the statement. "The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server."

The depositions are set to continue next week. Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official involved in Ukraine policy, was rescheduled from a Friday deposition to next Thursday.

On Tuesday, Taylor is expected to testify.

Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, has been asked to testify on Wednesday. That same day, Michael Duffey, associate director for national security programs at the White House budget office, is scheduled to appear.

Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council director for European affairs and an expert on Ukraine, has been summoned to appear Thursday, the same day as Cooper. Kathryn Wheelbarger, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary for international security affairs, is scheduled that day as well.

And there are three depositions requested for Friday, with Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer stationed in Kiev who specialized in energy issues, White House budget office Director Russ Vought, and Tim Morrison, the senior director for Russian affairs at the National Security Council.

Democratic leaders remain optimistic they can finish the inquiry soon.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Wednesday it would “be my hope” that the House will be done with impeachment before the end of the year.

*********

[bockkrogsgaard5-blog]

Destiny two Gaming Pc

A Destiny two free of charge trial weekend for the PlayStation four will commence this weekend as Bungie is trying to attract players who have in no way attempted playing the game. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg not too long ago confirmed in an earnings call that Destiny 2” would get a key expansion” at the end of this year Provided the achievement destiny 2 pc download of 2015's The Taken King,” and the reality that only two seasons' worth of content was included in the Destiny 2” season pass , it appears affordable to speculate that the game will follow in its predecessor's footsteps with a larger, far more cinematic story expansion that will cost players somewhere in the $40 range. Whereas the Warlock Voidwalker once felt like a generic purple space mage, in Destiny two, the subclass in fact feels like a mage steeped in the mystical Void of space. Abilities are grouped so that the Voidwalker saps the life force out of enemies to feed their own Destiny 2 pc download powers, doling out singularities to deal huge damage. Likewise, the Hunter Gunslinger skills suit a high-threat, higher-reward playstyle focused on precision hits and reckless but effective gunslinging. I updated my rating to 5-star since I've played it more and genuinely like the action combined with the story-line. I located missions related to "The Dark Under" and "House where i can download destiny 2 of Wolves" so I conclude that the both Expansions installed automatically. If you search destinations, especially Earth, you will locate various missions, some which will be from either Expansion 1 or 2. Up to its launch, Destiny 2 was billed as a globe with out Light,” even though it only requires a couple of missions just before things return to status quo and you happen to be hurling the components with the greatest of them. The game also brings along 3 new sub-classes, Arcstrider for the Hunter, Striker for Titans, and lastly the Dawnblade sub-class for Warlocks. Gun-play nonetheless feels fairly crisp and ultra-responsive. Every class of weapon handles as effectively how to download destiny 2 as you remember, though two new weapon kinds, Sub-machine Gun and Grenade Launcher, have been introduced as well permitting even much more techniques to fend off waves of enemies. There's lots of comfort to be identified in how comparable the game feels to the very first, so a returning Guardian can dive back in with ease and feel at property. Sadly, none of this enterprise needs to concern us on Computer. Bungie have confirmed that console veterans are not in a position to transfer their profiles to Computer to play Destiny two - that's due to the fact those profiles are linked to your PSN ID or Xbox Gamertag, and as a result can not be transferred to another Destiny 2 PC Download platform. You may possibly instantly assume that new mode” for most publishers in 2018 signifies battle royale, but Activision emphasizes that the mode is all new and functions a style of play that is distinctive among FPS titles. The upcoming Warmind expansion will bring horde mode-style events to the game when it launches subsequent week. Fortunately, Bungie has taken steps to address some troubles individuals had with the endgame. Now there are quests you can do soon after finishing the main story, and practically all of them reward you with incredibly strong gear. A few where i can download destiny 2 of them even award exotics, the highest grade of equipment obtainable. Sadly, that means that considerably of the lengthy campaign is rife with combat that rarely adjustments, backed up by a story that the game itself appears to feel is unimportant. All of Destiny 2's issues continue in Curse of Osiris, and there are not enough high quality additions or important alterations to adjust anybody's mind. If you think Destiny 2 had a flimsy story, awkward characters and embarrassing dialogue , Curse of Osiris is more of that. If you consider Destiny 2 pc download Destiny two was a shallow, repetitive shooter wrapped in bafflingly opaque and in the end unrewarding progression systems created to cater to all types of players without having genuinely nailing any of it , nicely, there's more of that also. destiny 2 pc download size for Destiny,” Property of Wolves,” starts in the Reef with the Awoken. Mara Sov, the Awoken queen, previously had a Fallen home that served her: the Wolves, but they escaped. Their leader, Skolas, attempts to unite all the Fallen houses, some thing how to download destiny 2 that hasn't occurred since the Battle of Twilight Gap. The Awoken ask the player for aid, and with each other they handle to track down Skolas and recapture him. Stepping up to 4K (3840x2160) necessitates the use of a significantly faster graphics card, and the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the world's fastest. On "High" it averages 96.7 FPS at 4K, and 50.2 FPS on "Highest", when paired with a stock-clocked i7-6700K. As a result, we're recommending a custom detail level in between How to Download Destiny 2 "Higher" and "Highest", that turns down only a handful of settings for a barely-noticeable reduction in image good quality, and a sizeable enhance in overall performance, acquiring your gameplay running at 60 FPS+. That seems to be the principal takeaway from most of the Destiny 2 critiques that are live: for what ever missteps the game requires, it really is greater than the 1st, representing a step forward for the series. That's Destiny 2 pc download reflected in Metacritic scores as nicely, with Destiny 2 on PS4 currently holding down an 85 out of 100 rating, compared to the original Destiny‘s 76 out of 100 for the very same platform.

[newssplashy]

June 12: The Epetedo declaration that killed MKO Abiola

MKO Abiola declared himself the democratic president of Nigeria in the Epetedo area of Lagos on June 11, 1994.

Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (otherwise known as MKO Abiola) is a name that continues to haunt the chaotic halls of Nigeria's political history.

On June 12, 1993, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate won the country's presidential elections with a majority of 58.36% of the total votes cast, winning 20 out of 30 states against Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC).

 The election was widely considered as the nation's freest and fairest democratic election, but then-military Head of State General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida disagreed with the outcome and annulled the election.

ALSO READ: June 12: Nigeria is trapped in MKO Abiola's 1993

This annulment caused a lot of agitation among the masses, with the perceived injustice fueling protests against the government and resulting in violence that claimed lives.

By 1994, General Sani Abacha had already overthrown Babangida's interim government of Chief Ernest Shonekan, and Abiola's claim to his mandate appeared even more dead.

 In a last-ditch attempt to claim his mandate, backed by the international community, Abiola declared himself the democratic president of Nigeria in the Epetedo area of Lagos on June 11, 1994, effectively sealing his eventual fateful death.

"People of Nigeria, exactly one year ago, you turned out in your millions to vote for me, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

"But politicians in uniform, who call themselves soldiers but are more devious than any civilian would want to be, deprived you of your God-given right to be ruled by the President you had yourselves elected.

"These soldier-politicians introduced into our body politic, a concept hitherto unknown to our political lexicography, something strangely called the 'annulment' of an election perceived by all to have been the fairest, cleanest and most peaceful ever held in our nation.

"Since that abominable act of naked political armed robbery occurred, I have been constantly urged by people of goodwill, both in Nigeria and abroad, to put the matter back into the people’s hands and get them to actualise the mandate they gave me at the polls.

"But mindful of the need to ensure that peace continues to reign in our fragile federation, I have so far tried to pursue sweet reason and negotiation.

"My hope has always been to arouse whatever remnants of patriotism are left in the hearts of these thieves of your mandate, and to persuade them that they should not allow their personal desire to rule to usher our beloved country into an era of political instability and economic ruin.

"All I have sought to do, in seeking dialogue with them, has been to try and get them to realise that only real democracy can move our nation forward towards progress, and earn her the respect she deserves from the international community.

"However, although this peaceful approach has exposed me to severe censure by some who have mistaken it for weakness on my part, those with whom I have sought to dialogue have remained like stones, neither stirred to show loyalty to the collective decision of the people of their own country, nor to observe Allah’s injunction that they should exhibit justice and fair-play in all their dealings with their fellow men.

"Appeals to their honour as officers and gentlemen of the gallant Nigerian Armed Forces, have fallen on deaf ears.

"Instead, they have resorted to the tactics of divide and rule, bribery and political perfidy, misinformation and (vile) propaganda.

"They arrest everyone who disagrees with them. Even the 71-year old hero of our nation, Chief Anthony Enahoro, was not spared.

"How much longer can we tolerate all this? People of Nigeria, you are all witnesses that I have tried to climb the highest mountain, cross the deepest river and walk the longest mile, in order to get these men to obey the will of our people.

"There is no humiliation I have not endured, no snare that has not been put in my path, no 'setup' that has not been designed for me in my endeavour to use the path of peace to enforce the mandate that you bestowed on me one year ago.

"It has been a long night. But the dawn is here.

"Today, people of Nigeria, I join you all in saying, "Enough is Enough!"

"We have endured 24 years of military rule in our 34 years of independence.

"Military rule has led to our nation fighting a civil war with itself. Military rule has destabilised our nation today as not before in its history.

"Military rule has impoverished our people and introduced a dreadful trade in drugs which has made our country’s name an anathema in many parts of the world.

"Even soccer fans going to watch the Green Eagles display in America are being made to suffer there needlessly because Nigeria's name is linked with credit card and fraud and '419.'

"Politically, military rule has torn to shreds the prestige due to our country because of its size and population.

"The permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council that should be rightfully ours, is all but lost.

"For who will vote for Nigeria to get the seat if Nigerian military rulers do not respect the votes of their own people?

"Enough of military rule.

"We are sickened to see people who have shown little or no personal achievement, either in building up private businesses, or making success of any tangible thing, being placed in charge of the management of our nation’s economy, by rulers who are not accountable to anyone.

"Enough of square pegs in round holes.

"We are tired of the military's repetitive tendency to experiment with our economy: Today, they say "no controls." Tomorrow; they say "Full controls". The day after, they say "Fine tuning". The next day, they say "Devaluation." A few days later, they say "Revalue the same naira upwards again Abi?"

"All we can see are the consequences of this permanent game of military "about turns;" high inflation, a huge budget deficit and an enormous foreign debt repayment burden, dying industries, high unemployment and a demoralised populace.

"Our youths, in particular, can see no hope on the horizon, and many can only dream of escaping from our shores to join the brain drain. Is this the Nigeria we want?

"We are plagued also by periodic balance of payments crises, which have led to a perennial shortage of essential drugs, that has turned our hospitals and clinics into mortuaries.

"A scarcity of books and equipment has rendered our schools into desolate deserts of ignorance.

"Our factories are crying for machinery, spare parts and raw materials. But each day that passes, instead of these economic diseases being cured, they are rather strengthened as an irrational allocation of foreign exchange based on favouritism and corruption becomes the order of the day.

"Enough is enough of economic mismanagement! People of Nigeria, during the election campaign last year, I presented you with a programme entitled "HOPE ’93."

This programme was aimed precisely at solving these economic (problems) that have demoralised us all.

"I toured every part of Nigeria to present this programme to you the electorate. I was questioned on it at public rallies and press conferences and I had the privilege of incorporating into it much of the feedback that I obtained from the people.

"Because you knew I would not only listen to you but deliver superb results from the programme, you voted for me in your millions and gave me an overwhelming majority over my opponent.

"To be precise, you gave me 58.4 per cent of the popular vote and a majority in 20 out of 30 states plus the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Not only that, you also enabled me to fulfil the constitutional requirement that the winner should obtain one-third of the votes in two-thirds of the states.

"I am sure that when you cast an eye on the moribund state of Nigeria today, you ask yourselves: 'What have we done to deserve this, when we have a president-elect who can lead a government that can change things for the better? Our patience has come to an end.'

"As of now, from this moment, a new Government of National Unity is in power throughout the length and breadth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, led by me, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, as President and Commander-in-Chief.

"The National Assembly is hereby reconvened. All dismissed governors are reinstated. The State Assemblies are reconstituted, as are all local government councils.

"I urge them to adopt a bi-partisan approach to all the issues that come before them.

"At the national level, a bi-partisan approach will be our guiding principle. I call upon the usurper, General Sani Abacha, to announce his resignation forthwith, together with the rest of his illegal ruling council.

"We are prepared to enter into negotiations with them to work out the mechanics for a smooth transfer of power.

"I pledge that if they hand over quietly, they will be retired with all their entitlements, and their positions will be accorded all the respect due to them.

"For our objective is neither recrimination nor witch-hunting, but an enforcement of the will of the Nigerian people, as expressed in free elections conducted by the duly constituted authority of the time.

"I hereby invoke the mandate bestowed upon me by my victory in the said election, to call on all members of the Armed Forces and the Police, the Civil and Public Services throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to obey only the Government of National Unity that is headed by me, your only elected President.

"My Government of National Unity is the only legitimate, constituted authority in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as of now.

"People of Nigeria, these are challenging times in the history of our continent, Africa, and we in Nigeria must not allow ourselves to be left behind.

"Our struggle is the same as that waged by the people of South Africa, which has been successfully concluded, with the inauguration of Mr. Nelson Mandela as the first African President of that country.

"Nelson Mandela fought to replace MINORITY rule with MAJORITY rule.

"We in Nigeria are also fighting to replace MINORITY rule, for we are ruled by only a tiny section of our armed forces.

"Like the South Africans, we want MAJORITY rule today, that is rule only by those chosen by all the people of Nigeria as a whole in free and fair elections.

"The only difference between South Africa and Nigeria is that those who imposed minority rule on the majority rule whether it is by black or white, remains minority rule, and must be booted out.

"I call on you, heroic people of Nigeria, to emulate the actions of your brothers and sisters in South Africa and stand up as one person to throw away the yoke of minority rule for ever.

"The antics of every minority that oppresses the majority are always the same. They will try to intimidate you with threats of police action. But do not let us fear arrest.

"In South Africa, so many people were arrested, during the campaign against the Pass Laws, for instance, that the jails could not hold all of them. Today, apartheid is gone forever.

"So, let it be with Nigeria.

"Let us say goodbye forever to minority rule by the military.

"They talk of treason. But haven’t they heard of the Rivonia treason trial in South Africa? Did those treason trials halt the march of history?

"People of Nigeria, our time is now. You are the repository of power in the land.

"No one can give you power. It is yours. Take it!

"From this day, show to the world that anyone who takes the people of Nigeria for fools is deceiving himself and will have the people to answer to.

"God bless you all. Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Long live the Government of National Unity."

After the declaration speech, Abacha sent 200 police vehicles to arrest and detain Abiola on charges of treason against the state.

 Despite widespread criticism and pressure from several quarters, Abiola died in custody under suspicious circumstances on July 7, 1998, four years after his arrest.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/june-12-epetedo-declaration-that-killed.html

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Why The American Conservative Purged Its Own Publisher

Note by the Saker: today, with his kind permission, I am posting an article by Ron Unz originally posted here.  While this article deals with something specific which has happened at The American Conservative, I am sure that there are many amongst you who will immediately see the parallels with some, lets call them, recent “changes of course” we have recently observed in the Russia-oriented blogosphere.  Simply put – to cater to specific political interests might give you a short-term advantage but in the long run it is always self-defeating.  I will not polemicize with those who chose that path – not publicly, not privately.  But I am offering Ron’s article as a valuable insight into what happens to those who chose to follow such a path.  Finally, I want to most sincerely thank Ron Unz for this support.  The Saker  

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Why The American Conservative Purged Its Own Publisher by Ron Unz

Some may be aware that when I originally established The Unz Review over four years ago one of my main motives was to have a convenient venue for my own writing, a situation necessitated by my removal as Publisher of The American Conservative. However, other matters intervened, and all but a few months of my time since then have been preoccupied with software development issues and politics, but now at very long last I do hope to return to that original purpose.

Shortly after my departure from TAC in Fall 2013, I had written an article recounting the unfortunate circumstances, and this had attracted some interest from editors at The Atlantic. But they not unreasonably balked at the length, and soon afterward I was drawn into a major campaign to implement my proposal of a huge hike in the American Minimum Wage, an effort that eventually helped establish it as a central economic pillar of the Democratic Party; this was soon followed by other endeavors, mostly on software matters. Over the years, various people have expressed curiosity about my TAC story, which remained unpublished, and with the fifth anniversary of my defenestration now upon us, I’ve decided I might as well release it in its original form, changing scarcely a single word though updating some of the links. Five years represents an eternity in political journalism, and various events and personalities have surely lapsed into obscurity, but such is the price paid for historical authenticity.

Continue reading after the page break

Given hindsight, I’d consider myself satisfied with the ultimate outcome. The Review currently operates on an absolute shoestring while the editorial budget of TAC these days is an order-of-magnitude larger, covering the costs of a full-time staff of seven or eight. But according to Alexa.com our readership passed theirs six months ago, and has been substantially higher every week since. Possibly for these sorts of reasons, TAC recently named yet another new top editor, with Benjamin Schwarz becoming the third in eighteen months. And aside from providing some of the background to the creation of The Review and helping to explain its eclectic ideological focus, I think my story also serves as an example of why so many small publications tend to blur their editorial line over time, lured by mainstream respectability and resources, a process that seems to have recently claimed the late Alex Cockburn’s once fiercely-independent Counterpunch.

On June 12th, 2013 I was having an unusually lengthy phone conversation with Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative (TAC). I live in Silicon Valley, three thousand miles away from DC, and despite holding the nominal title of publisher my involvement with TAC business operations had usually been negligible, amounting to just a few minutes a week on the phone. But I had grown alarmed over the lack of any major new donations since January, and had begun urging McCarthy to make the cuts in expenses necessary for the publication’s survival, while lobbying the board on the same subject. Web traffic had also been sharply declining for six or seven months, suggesting the need for a change in editorial focus. And several months earlier, TAC had cut its print frequency in half to just six issues a year while doubling the annual subscription rate to $60, thus quadrupling the per issue cost to an unreasonable $10, a pricing decision I’d strongly questioned at the time and now believed we needed to reverse.

  Despite my tradition of operational disengagement, I felt comfortable pressing these points. Since late 2006 I had provided some 70% of TAC’s total funding, and even after converting the publication into a non-profit in 2010, I had still remained TAC’s largest donor during 2012, while also serving as chairman. TAC had come close to shutting down on a couple of previous occasions and I wanted to avoid taking such a risk again, especially since over the last year or two I had begun regularly publishing some of my own articles in the magazine.

Finally, at the end of the call I asked McCarthy whether he’d yet had a chance to prepare a redlined edit copy of the new article I’d submitted a couple of weeks earlier and on which he’d previously suggested one or two minor changes that I had subsequently made. To my enormous surprise, he informed me that he’d decided to flatly reject the entire piece—an analytical study of American urban crime rates—as representing the sort of racially-inflammatory material that had no place in a quality magazine such as TAC. He instead suggested that a more appropriate venue for my article would be one of the webzines categorized as White Nationalist hate-sites by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After a few stunned words on my part, I hung up the phone and almost immediately received an emailing McCarthy had sent out to his undisclosed distribution list, harshly criticizing my behavior while repeating his same charges in more measured terms, describing the subject of my article as “a distraction from TAC’s mission” and something that would “fatally detract” from TAC’s advocacy of “the case for noninterventionism and restricting executive power.” I soon discovered that my TAC blogging privileges had also been terminated, banning me from the website. Later, my access to TAC’s ongoing website traffic information was eliminated. So more than six years after becoming TAC’s publisher, I had been summarily purged.

For several weeks I made frustrating attempts to gain support from the other members of TAC’s governing board. But they had spent years just as totally disengaged as myself from TAC’s operations and had absolutely no desire to involve themselves in what they perceived as some sort of rancorous personal dispute. During this period I did my best to avoid publicizing my situation, partly because I found it so humiliating, but finally in late July National Review learned of this simmering controversy and solicited an interview. Initially I hesitated, but seeing that TAC—after rejecting my article as “a distraction”—had covered its homepage for several days straight with articles about British rock bands, zombies, giant robots, and cartoon characters, I became angry enough to provide my side of the story to the media. Three days after NR ran its short he said-she said item, TAC’s board convened in a special Sunday phone session to remove me, formalizing what had already occurred.

Although I regarded the denunciation of my article mostly as a pretext to eliminate my pressure on business matters and also a means of petty retaliation, one member of the TAC board did see the piece as central to the dispute. In subsequent exchanges, Founding Editor Scott McConnell, with whom I’d previously been on quite friendly terms, strongly opposed publication of my analysis, steadily growing more strident in his opinion that running such an article would severely damage TAC’s hard-won reputation; and therein lies a fascinating tale.

The American Conservative had been founded in 2002 as a rightwing alternative to National Review by McConnell, Pat Buchanan, and Taki Theodoracopulos, with Taki providing the financial backing. From its earliest days TAC had always represented “the Buchananite perspective” across both foreign and domestic policy, with McConnell having previously served as a senior advisor to Buchanan’s 2000 Presidential campaign, and Buchanan himself playing an early role as a guiding influence for the magazine, although without much day-to-day involvement.

Deep concerns over the dangers of non-European immigration had long been central to McConnell’s personal ideology, and the strength of his views had cost him his editorial position at the New York Post and his access to the pages of NR, after which he had joined with Peter Brimelow to co-found VDare, the hard-core anti-immigration website. Especially during its early years, TAC had often appeared as VDare’s somewhat more restrained print sibling, sharing many of the same writers, topics, and perspectives.

After various quarrels and disputes between the partners, McConnell was running the magazine by himself in 2006. As partial heir to the Avon fortune, he had invested a few hundred thousand dollars of his own inherited wealth to keep the publication alive, but was unwilling to contribute any additional funds and had decided to shut TAC down at the end of that year. I’d become slightly acquainted with him since 2000, and in late 2006 he desperately sought my financial help in rescuing his magazine.

TAC’s opportunity to escape its narrow rightwing niche had come from the reluctance of almost any American opinion magazines to strongly challenge President Bush’s foreign policy adventures during the early 2000s, which allowed the publication to draw in distinguished liberal and moderate contributors, eager for a print magazine platform enabling them to express their otherwise silenced views. I fell into that same ideological category and had been greatly impressed by TAC’s uniquely vigorous opposition to Bush’s foreign wars, which I regarded as totally disastrous for the country.

Thus, when McConnell approached me, I responded favorably, and soon afterward became TAC’s owner, eventually covering over $3 million of operating losses during the years that followed. Although McConnell had retained the title of editor, his involvement in the magazine’s operations had been rather meager for some time, with most of the work being done by Kara Hopkins, his exceptionally able executive editor. Our arrangement was that the two of them would continue to actually run the magazine, while I merely provided the necessary funding.

To my surprise, McConnell also named me publisher and put my name at the top of his masthead, presumably as a means of more firmly binding my crucial financial support to his publication. So I ended up with titular authority over a small DC opinion journal—almost invariably labelled “Pat Buchanan’s Magazine”—despite living on the other side of the country and being totally preoccupied with my own work. I don’t think I actually visited the TAC office more than once every year or two, when other matters brought me out to DC, though most weeks I did try to briefly touch base with the editors by phone.

An important aspect of TAC’s domestic policy agenda still consisted of strident criticism of non-white immigrants and their supposed incompatibility with American society, a position I found distasteful or even ridiculous, but a cross I was willing to bear on behalf of my far more crucial foreign policy concerns. During my discussions about becoming TAC’s owner, I had pledged to allow the editors a free hand to continue publishing their same domestic policy views, and I believe I kept that promise.

Indeed, just a couple of months after I assumed control, my commitment was tested when one of their junior editors angrily resigned from the magazine over what he regarded as a totally unfair cover story on Barack Obama’s personal racial identity, and soon after published a harsh denunciation of TAC’s racialist orientation in the pages of the prestigious Washington Monthly. Although my own perspective was actually along the similar lines, I never gave the TAC editors any problems over this unanticipated early scandal in the DC media.

In the years that followed, similar sorts of racial absurdities, sometimes backed by doubtful factual claims, would periodically appear in a magazine that bore my name at the top of the masthead, but I never made any complaints. After all, most other conservative political magazines also published such nonsense, though perhaps less extreme, while liberal and leftist publications usually maintained their own unrealistic dogmas on all sorts of subjects. TAC’s line on foreign policy remained excellent, and the publication therefore continued to attract submissions from numerous outstanding academics and journalists, many of whom probably shared my own feelings. I allowed Kara Hopkins and Scott McConnell to run the magazine as they saw fit, and was always extremely impressed by the general quality of the writing and editing of each issue I happened to examine

Throughout this period, my own foreign policy and national security views had remained identical to those of my old friend Bill Odom, the three-star general who had run the NSA for Ronald Reagan. Gen. Odom’s outspokenness was always an inspiration to me, and after the media revealed the vast scope of illegal post-9/11 NSA eavesdropping in 2005, he publicly declared that the NSA Director responsible for those violations should be court-martialed and President Bush impeached. My first and only article for TAC during this period was a tribute to his exemplary career after his untimely death in 2008.

For various reasons, TAC seemed to gradually soften its focus on immigration and other racial issues during the last three or four years, perhaps with my own early 2010 analysis of Hispanic crime rates causing some rethinking of long-held assumptions. While I welcomed this trend, I never pushed it along, aside from occasionally publishing articles presenting my own views. It is notable that two of DC’s most vilified recent figures—Jason Richwine and Jack Hunter—had both remained welcome in the pages of TAC during this period, the former with a lengthy review arguing that genetics explained the low IQ of certain racial groups and the latter as a regular columnist.

Given TAC’s long history of transgressing the boundaries of acceptable opinion on racial matters, what could possibly have been so disturbing about my own article? I had produced a careful 7,000 word quantitative analysis of public data that explicitly avoided suggesting causal explanations, while offering a variety of insights cutting across ideological lines. After all, the subject of race and crime soon dominated America’s headlines in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, and several of Harvard University’s most eminent social scientists sent me favorable comments once they read my piece.

The topic is certainly a delicate one, but hiding from factual reality is hardly the best means of coping with social problems. Indeed, my introduction had actually cited the notorious case of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, noting that the vicious attacks he received for his 1965 report on the grim state of the black American family had hardly been a proud day in American intellectual life. In past decades, I think my article might have found a natural home in the pages of The Public Interest, edited by Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer.

I suspect that certain of TAC’s editors found my piece so alarming precisely because they feared that even a cautious and sober discussion of such racial matters might draw unwelcome attention to more than a decade of previous TAC articles in the same general area, many of them far less cautious and sober. The defensiveness and hostility that comes from having a very guilty conscience on racial issues is something I had previously encountered in American politics.

Consider the bizarre ideological contortions of the California Republican Party during the mid-1990s. For purely political reasons nearly all its prominent figures had wholeheartedly endorsed an appalling 1994 measure to summarily expel 300,000 immigrant children from their state’s local public schools, even though the majority of those children were native-born American citizens; the same law also mandated five-year prison sentences for any immigrant mother who attempted to prevent this. But once the inevitable backlash occurred and the Republicans realized they had set their state party on the road to oblivion, they desperately reversed every one of their related ideological positions. When I began my 1997 campaign to require that California not only enroll immigrant children in school but also teach them English, those same Republican leaders opposed my initiative with equal unanimity, sometimes darkly hinting that I was motivated by personal hatred toward immigrants or Hispanics. A few years later I described this ironic national situation in a WSJ piece entitled “The Bilingual Burden of Republican Guilt.”

Similarly, the legacy of having published a decade’s worth of mistaken and often inflammatory articles on racial topics had now convinced those same TAC editors that they must avoid the subject of race almost entirely, even when it moved to the absolute center of the national conversation. On the Monday following George Zimmerman’s acquittal, almost every media publication in America—left, right, and center—gave the topic wall-to-wall headline coverage. But TAC’s lead story that day discussed the Congressional Farm Bill, and it never ran a single major article on the subject, with its most substantial coverage being a later blog post by a recently promoted intern praising President Obama’s speech on the controversy. A couple of weeks earlier TAC had also completely ignored the crucial Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act and on the Fisher case challenging a half-century of affirmative action policies. Perhaps this was what Attorney General Eric Holder had meant when he criticized America for being a “nation of cowards” on the subject of race.

The collision between TAC’s editorial skittishness and my own work was inevitable, and sooner or later a conflict would surely have occurred. For the last twenty years, race, ethnicity, and social policy have been the main focus of my writings, and my personal website contains hundreds of articles and columns I have written on immigration, bilingual education, affirmative action, and other racially-charged topics. I have always found these issues both important and interesting, with the advantage that such dangerous minefields draw relatively few researchers, thereby providing me a less-crowded niche for exploration. And for better or for worse, my views have scarcely changed in decades, with articles I wrote long ago probably representing my current position almost as well as something I published last month.

Indeed, my first appearance in the conservative media came in the form of a lengthy letter on American urban crime and violence that run in a 1992 Commentary symposium, and I stand by those same words today. Although Commentary and TAC are usually considered ideological arch-foes, in 1999 I published a lengthy Commentary cover story entitled “California and the End of White America” while in 2011 I followed it up with an even lengthier TAC sequel bearing the similar title “Immigration, Republicans, and the End of White America.” American society had undergone significant changes across those dozen years and the two pieces differed in their focus, but otherwise their perspectives fit together as well as a matched set of book-ends. My opinions may or may not be correct, but at least they have remained consistent over time.

I believe my positions are based on evidence and solid analysis, and can withstand the criticism of my opponents. When my aforementioned Hispanic Crime article ran, it provoked a vast outpouring of exceptionally hostile responses both on the TAC website and across the Internet, which I later collected together as The Hispanic Crime Debate. Last year, my controversial Race/IQ series was just as strongly condemned by outraged racialists, and I gathered all their numerous attacks together in The Race/IQ Debate. I felt I had nothing to fear by assisting readers in considering all sides of these arguments and drawing their own conclusions. For the same reason I strongly supported TAC’s regular tradition of publishing a presidential endorsement symposium, in which a wide range of different perspectives were presented, some of which would surely never be found in mainstream publications.

In fact, I considered this part of TAC’s broader mission, namely to provide a congenial home for a wide variety of controversial or unorthodox views located outside the NYT-to-WSJ spectrum that represents permissible political commentary in our society. A magazine calling itself “The American Conservative” would naturally skew its perspectives toward the Right, but TAC could still provide ample room for opinions considered too far Left for DC respectability. In general, I think TAC did a pretty good job of fulfilling this goal during my time as publisher, though in hindsight that openness may have begun fading a couple of years ago.

In early 2011 we were contacted by Wick Allison, who introduced himself as the successful semi-retired publisher of D Magazine, billing itself as Dallas’ leading local guide to restaurants and nightlife. Allison had worked at National Review a quarter-century earlier and TAC was brought to his attention by his daughter, a recent college graduate then working as an intern at The New Republic. He told us he was close to TAC’s political positions, especially on foreign policy, and offered to become our CEO on a part-time, volunteer basis, providing the publishing expertise and fund-raising skills we needed to expand beyond our existing small-circulation niche.

Six months earlier I had converted TAC into a non-profit in hopes of obtaining outside financial support, and although some had come in, the donations were hardly enough to keep the publication going. Around the same time, we had suffered the severe loss of Editor Kara Hopkins, the shaping force behind each issue, who had been lured away by the U.S. government, thereby elevating her subordinate McCarthy to the top editorial slot. Since neither I nor any of the other board members were in a position to provide the time and effort to fill such an executive role and TAC’s tiny surviving staff was agreeable, Allison’s offer was readily accepted.

After some initial slow-going, he soon seemed to hit his stride and during a three month period, he raised several times more external funding than TAC’s entire total for the previous year, validating our hopes. Part of this support was earmarked to hire Rod Dreher, a popular blogger whose themes often related to Christianity; this represented something of a departure for TAC, which had never previously touched much on religious topics.

With Dreher’s personal following providing a major boost to TAC’s website traffic and early fundraising having gone so extremely well, Allison emphasized the need to build up TAC operations to the point where we could attract a multi-million-dollar capital infusion. Although a few of us had quiet misgivings about taking on these large additional expenses, months of highly successful fundraising made our doubts seem unreasonable.

Part-time and full-time staff and bloggers were steadily added to the payroll, and some salaries were sharply increased. The compensation of TAC’s business manager was tripled. Allison’s daughter went straight from an Andrew Sullivan internship to being TAC’s second highest paid editorial employee. The salary of one of TAC’s longtime bloggers was increased seven-fold, although his readership in mid-2012 was roughly the same as it had been in 2010 or 2011. During the course of about one year, TAC’s full-time editorial and business staff grew from two or three to a total of seven, while the number of its regular bloggers rose from one to four. I also later discovered that TAC seemed to be paying most of these bloggers five to ten times the going market rate relative to the traffic they generated. Hiring staff and raising salaries inevitably follows the Ratchet Principle: easy to increase but very painful and difficult to later cut. According to public IRS Form 990s, TAC’s operational expenses grew by two-thirds between 2010 and 2012, greatly increasing the burden of meeting every monthly payroll.

And unfortunately that early burst of large donations was never again matched, with top prospect after top prospect either turning Allison down or providing just a small fraction of the support he requested, while a direct mail appeal proved extremely unsuccessful. But TAC now needed to regularly obtain large donations just to survive. On a number of occasions, I had to write a sizable check to keep TAC’s lights on, and I became increasingly doubtful about the publication’s future, deciding that it had had a good run while it lasted.

In late 2012, Allison urgently sought an immediate $60,000 donation from me to bridge the financial gap until one of his strongest prospects came through. Then two weeks after I had sent my check he left me a phone message saying that TAC was totally out of funds, and therefore would be laying off its entire staff and shutting down. At that point I decided I had done all I could.

But as it happened, my 30,000 word article The Myth of American Meritocracy had just been published in what was scheduled to be TAC’s final issue, and the piece began creating quite a stir in the media, with David Brooks ranking it as among America’s best magazine articles for the year and The New York Times organizing a symposium on the college admissions questions it raised. On a more practical level, the thirty days that followed brought in as large a total of new donations as had arrived during the preceding nine months, together with an even greater sum in firm future commitments. After reaching the brink of extinction, TAC was now granted a second chance to achieve solid financial footing.

Such mundane financial difficulties experienced by a small business that over-expands are hardly of any interest to the outside world. But during 2012 and 2013 they probably had an increasingly pernicious impact upon the sort of articles TAC published, which constituted the sole reason for its existence.

A single example illustrates the problem. In late August 2012 TAC published “Revolt of the Rich” an outstanding critique of our corrupt economic policies written by a former longtime Republican Congressional staffer, and the piece quickly became the most successful in TAC history, generating enormous readership and attracting a great deal of attention. But when Allison soon afterward sought urgent funds from one of TAC’s larger donors, his request was angrily rejected on the grounds that the publication had begun promoting “class warfare.” We never received another dollar from that former contributor.

I learned of this unfortunate incident by chance, and I am sure there were many others as well, with various past or prospective donors complaining about particular TAC articles and writers whose material challenged their comfort zone. Few wealthy individuals do much independent thinking on ideology or policy so they tend to merely echo the views of the prominent Democratic and Republican pundits they follow in the mainstream media. TAC probably came under pressure to achieve greater respectability by doing the same.

For whatever reason, I began noticing over the last year or two that more and more of the bold voices whom I had first encountered at TAC no longer seemed to appear, and their places had been taking by establishmentarian commentary, much of which seemed to come from far down in the slush-pile of ordinary submissions to the op-ed pages of major American newspapers. I had often sharply disagreed with much of TAC’s material in the past, but had always found it interesting; now I encountered far fewer such disagreements, but the articles seemed dull and safely mainstream.

The growing desire of TAC to become a political “player” in DC circles was also problematic. Jack Hunter—a.k.a. “the Southern Avenger”—had gone from being a regular TAC columnist to becoming a senior staffer to newly elected Sen. Rand Paul, and with growing talk of Paul considering a possible 2016 presidential bid, Hunter apparently became a powerful influence at TAC, resulting in a great deal of Rand Paul boosterism. I also later learned that TAC had begun regularly rejecting articles critical of Rand Paul or his father Ron Paul, even if the material was original and important and might have gained TAC greater visibility in the larger media landscape.

Another factor that may have led TAC astray was its discovery that adopting “liberal” ideological positions tended to attract enormous temporary traffic. Articles endorsing Gay Marriage or advocating gun control drew huge attention from liberal outlets and pundits, eager to spread the word that “even Pat Buchanan’s rightwing magazine” now supported their position. The problem was that the liberal readers who arrived to read those articles gradually realized that TAC wasn’t all that liberal a website and soon departed, while much of TAC’s conservative readership was permanently driven away by such material. “Man Bites Dog” articles only gain attention a few times before they become passé.

This development also had an unfortunate impact upon the TAC’s influence on national security matters. As TAC increasingly rejected or avoided most hot-button conservative issues, fewer and fewer people continued to regard it as “conservative” in any meaningful sense, so TAC’s strong stance on American foreign wars or civil liberties concerns became no different from that of so many other liberal, moderate, or libertarian publications. Its unique value as a dissenting conservative voice was lost.

Certainly none of these venal sins were any worse than those regularly committed by so many other media outlets, but the only advantages enjoyed by a tiny publication such as TAC had been its journalistic integrity and its willingness to ignore the boundaries of respectable punditry and establishment media opinion. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum had famously issued a 2003 fatwa excommunicating all the “unpatriotic conservatives” aligned with TAC for their strong opposition to the Iraq War, but by late 2012 he was praising TAC for finally having become a responsible media outlet, which may or may not have been much of a compliment.

For years TAC had occupied an almost vacant media niche, but once so many of its articles began falling safely within the boundaries of mainstream media opinion, it began competing against dozens of other publications offering similar commentary on the Internet, many of them backed by vastly greater resources and featuring far more prominent writers. Dreher’s Christianity-tinged punditry remained hugely popular, but between November 2012 and June 2013 the remainder of TAC’s content traffic dropped by almost 60%, although no comparable post-election decline seemed to occur at some other political websites. Why would people read TAC if they had already read something similar in their morning newspapers?

As TAC’s publisher and largest donor, my own articles had mostly remained immune from these growing restrictions, which is why it took me so long to discover they were being implemented. Although none of my writings had ever neatly fit into TAC’s original rightwing Buchananite ideology, I also doubt that most of them could have appeared in a mainstream media outlet in anything like their existing form, and that probably contributed to their considerable success. During the past two years, I had published four TAC cover stories, and these had been ranked #1, #2, #3, and #5 in total readership, averaging more than eight times the traffic of TAC’s other cover pieces. Taking risks is the only way a tiny publication can have any impact, but the desperate fear of alienating possible donors forced TAC to move in exactly the opposite direction.

At the end of April, my “American Pravda” article critiquing our dishonest national media was scheduled to run as the cover, with the artwork having already been produced. But just before the issue closed, Allison demanded that it be replaced, arguing that the focus on old news was unlikely to attract much interest and the harsh criticism of The New York Times seemed totally unreasonable; I strongly suspect he actually feared that my controversial claims would scare off timorous donors. After a heated argument, I finally acquiesced, and the piece nonetheless quickly became my second most successful ever, attracting almost twenty-five times the readership of the bland hagiography of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy that replaced it on the cover. That incident was how I discovered that so many other TAC writers had previously encountered similar problems.

It became obvious to me that financial pressures were a leading factor behind this growing reluctance to publish controversial material, and after I received my copy of TAC’s 2012 federal tax return, I was struck by the large growth in operating expenses. The existing staffing levels seemed completely disproportionate to TAC’s actual output.

Leaving aside the postings of its regular bloggers, TAC usually published just a single main article each day on its website plus a couple of short blog posts, with the material generally provided by outside paid contributors or sometimes even syndicated columnists. It seemed incomprehensible to me how this minimal workload required seven full-time editorial and business employees, or what most of them did each day. This was certainly a larger staff than had been necessary during the years when TAC published a meticulously edited 35-40 page print magazine every two weeks, with all the attendant effort of meeting strict deadlines in article solicitation, editing, layout, and cover design.

TAC’s print issue frequency had dropped to just six times per year and the website had become the primary means of its distribution, so it was obvious that staffing levels and costs could be drastically reduced without loss of output or quality, bringing expenses into much closer alignment with likely donations. In mid-May I was alarmed to discover that no significant new contributions had arrived since January. Therefore, I soon began pressing this issue with Allison, McCarthy, and my fellow board members. But people hate to admit that their aggressive growth strategy of the last year or two had ultimately proven unsuccessful.

Ideological organizations and publications often confront this exact dilemma. They can remain small, poor, and fiercely independent or they can take the path of growing in size and expense, hoping for greater impact and influence, but usually forcing them to make their peace with the wealthy sources of establishmentarian funding. My own opinion was that since American political journalism already contained such a vast number of different media outlets in the latter category, TAC should avoid merely becoming another one, but I can understand why others might see things differently.

During this heated dispute over TAC’s budgetary problems and strategic direction, I had also been completing my quantitative analysis of urban crime, and I finally submitted my draft at the end of May. If my American Pravda article had made Allison very nervous for its possible impact upon donors, my Race and Crime article must have terrified him, coming as it did soon after the Jason Richwine Affair but several weeks before the George Zimmerman trial eventually pushed that exact same subject to the top of every media outlet in America.

Even more importantly, Allison and my other opponents in the budgetary dispute surely saw denouncing my article as a perfect means of deflecting my financial arguments without addressing them, while undercutting my influence with certain of TAC’s board members and major donors. An accusation of “racial insensitivity” has become an extremely powerful political trump card to play against one’s adversaries in our society, not merely among liberals but these days among conservatives as well.

And that’s the story of why “Pat Buchanan’s Magazine” purged its publisher for submitting a Public Interest-style article analyzing urban crime in America.

Related Reading:

The Myth of Hispanic Crime

Race/IQ: The Jason Richwine Affair

Our American Pravda

Race and Crime in America

[battybat-boss]

Private Minneapolis Food Club Offering Direct-from-Farm Fresh Food Shut Down by Health Department

Image from ABC 5 KSTP.com

by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News

A local private buying club in Minneapolis, known as Uptown Locavore, was raided and shut down by the Health Department earlier this month (May, 2018).

Even though there were apparently no complaints, and no one reporting any illness due to the food being sold in this private market, the city of Minneapolis decided to shut them down, stating that they did not have proper retail licenses, and that some of their food was “dangerous,” because they were selling fresh raw milk and meat that had not been USDA inspected, according to ABC 5 KSTP.

Will Winter, the owner of the market, links members of his buyer's club with up to 50 different farmers.

He disagrees that the club was operating illegally without licenses, because it is not a retail store, but a private club.

The reason this is legal is it's a private transaction between consenting adults… Never a complaint, never made anyone sick, never had any questions about our food.

Minnesota's History of Attacking Private Food Clubs

Food rights activist and journalist David Gumpert sees a similar pattern in Minnesota with its history of attacking private food clubs and working together with the FDA.

Eight years ago, a private Minneapolis food market known as Traditional Foods was shut down by local public health officials for not being properly licensed. A few days ago, a private market meant to replace Traditional Foods was shut down in much the same manner, just days after it proudly opened in spanking new quarters.

Eight years ago, the owners of Traditional Foods claimed they would fight the food police and prevail. So it is today, as Will Winter, the owner, has expressed confidence that lawyers from Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund will find a way to allow the new market, known as Uptown Locavore, to reopen. 

If you examine history, though, the odds aren't great for the new market.  Traditional Foods never reopened at its old location after the owner was jerked around for many months by evasive local bureaucrats. Mind you, neither market was involved in selling raw milk, but rather focused on fresh meats and fish, along with other delicacies like quail eggs.

History has shown that the only way to make it as a private market in Minnesota is to defy the officials, as Alvin Schlangen did after Traditional Foods was shuttered. He continued to provide raw milk and farm-slaughtered meats to members of his food club, even after his delivery van was raided and food confiscated.  His defiance led to heavy-duty pressure by the powers that be, including criminal charges and a trial. In the end, he prevailed, and continues in business today. (Source.)

Gumpert reports on Will Winter's statement to supporters and members of the food club:

The policy at these agencies is clearly against small enterprise. Even without complaints we are GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT! They want to shut down anything except the big box stores that, in this case, support Big Ag. They are bullies (in general) and seem to want to feel BIG by crushing the little man. They are riding the clock anyway, so they can do this forever, knowing that eventually they can deplete our tiny resources, grind us down, and eventually destroy us. Instead of using their resources to pursue real criminals and real crime, they waste their day trying to destroy people they don't understand, and then seem to hate.

This means, to them, that we will now need to 'play hardball' with the city. We have had ZERO COMPLAINTS and there are absolutely no health problems from the operation of our private buying club. The “food police” has absolutely no jurisdiction over PRIVATE TRANSACTIONS. If I sold you a used car, that is between me and you, it doesn't make me a car dealer nor do I need a license to do it. It is PRIVATE, not public. The city officials do not understand what is our protected American right to make our own choices in private dealings. I am absolutely fine with public stores, shops and services being licensed. That has value. But, this unjustified persecution of people doing the right thing makes me very unhappy to be American.

As we have reported many times over the years here at Health Impact News, direct-from-farm-to-consumer sales is a direct threat to the industrial agricultural industry, especially with the sale of farm fresh raw milk. Corporate dairy brokers depend upon cheap, subsidized fluid milk to contribute to their milk pools to produce commercial dairy products.

As soon as farmers opt out of the corporate system and sell their high-end products directly to consumers for a larger profit, they are seen as a threat, and government regulatory agencies will take action to stop the competition.

Gumpert wrote how the FDA, using taxpayer funds, works with local agencies in states like Minnesota to go after private buying clubs:

When writing my book about food rights (“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights”) a few years back, I investigated closely the FDA's relationship with Minnesota food safety officials. Here is some of what I discovered, from the book: “The Minnesota health and agriculture agencies are known to be close to the FDA. A little over a year after the MDA's crackdown (on the Traditional Foods private market in 2010), it issued a press release saying it had received a one million dollar grant from the FDA 'to strengthen its capacity to respond to food-borne outbreaks and other food safety events.' A year later, the MDA was awarded six hundred thousand dollars in FDA grants 'to enhance the state's food safety capabilities.'

In its report to Congress covering 2011 activities in various states, the FDA said it had seventy-four employees in Minnesota, along with contracts and grants with the MDA. The report alluded to a contract with the MDA to 'conduct food safety inspections' as well as a grant that was for a 'Food Safety Task Force to coordinate and address food safety and defense issues among regulated industry and regulators within the state.'

The FDA's ties to Minnesota agencies are representative of a national campaign to strengthen the relationship between states and the FDA. In its messages to Congress and the public, the FDA communicates the sense that it cooperates closely with state public health and agriculture agencies. It even has a Division of Federal-State Relations, and in a Year in Review report recapping its activities, its director, Joseph Reardon, stated that the FDA handed out to states more than forty-one million dollars in grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements in 2010. Moreover, the FDA 'commissioned 1,346 State and Local officials to assist FDA in traditional program areas such as foods and animal feeds.' According to Reardon, 'the FDA and the States can equally benefit from the goal of a national food safety system.' (Source.)

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[lopezdorothy70-blog]

Private Minneapolis Food Club Offering Direct-from-Farm Fresh Food Shut Down by Health Department

Image from ABC 5 KSTP.com

by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News

A local private buying club in Minneapolis, known as Uptown Locavore, was raided and shut down by the Health Department earlier this month (May, 2018).

Even though there were apparently no complaints, and no one reporting any illness due to the food being sold in this private market, the city of Minneapolis decided to shut them down, stating that they did not have proper retail licenses, and that some of their food was “dangerous,” because they were selling fresh raw milk and meat that had not been USDA inspected, according to ABC 5 KSTP.

Will Winter, the owner of the market, links members of his buyer's club with up to 50 different farmers.

He disagrees that the club was operating illegally without licenses, because it is not a retail store, but a private club.

The reason this is legal is it's a private transaction between consenting adults… Never a complaint, never made anyone sick, never had any questions about our food.

Minnesota's History of Attacking Private Food Clubs

Food rights activist and journalist David Gumpert sees a similar pattern in Minnesota with its history of attacking private food clubs and working together with the FDA.

Eight years ago, a private Minneapolis food market known as Traditional Foods was shut down by local public health officials for not being properly licensed. A few days ago, a private market meant to replace Traditional Foods was shut down in much the same manner, just days after it proudly opened in spanking new quarters.

Eight years ago, the owners of Traditional Foods claimed they would fight the food police and prevail. So it is today, as Will Winter, the owner, has expressed confidence that lawyers from Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund will find a way to allow the new market, known as Uptown Locavore, to reopen. 

If you examine history, though, the odds aren't great for the new market.  Traditional Foods never reopened at its old location after the owner was jerked around for many months by evasive local bureaucrats. Mind you, neither market was involved in selling raw milk, but rather focused on fresh meats and fish, along with other delicacies like quail eggs.

History has shown that the only way to make it as a private market in Minnesota is to defy the officials, as Alvin Schlangen did after Traditional Foods was shuttered. He continued to provide raw milk and farm-slaughtered meats to members of his food club, even after his delivery van was raided and food confiscated.  His defiance led to heavy-duty pressure by the powers that be, including criminal charges and a trial. In the end, he prevailed, and continues in business today. (Source.)

Gumpert reports on Will Winter's statement to supporters and members of the food club:

The policy at these agencies is clearly against small enterprise. Even without complaints we are GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT! They want to shut down anything except the big box stores that, in this case, support Big Ag. They are bullies (in general) and seem to want to feel BIG by crushing the little man. They are riding the clock anyway, so they can do this forever, knowing that eventually they can deplete our tiny resources, grind us down, and eventually destroy us. Instead of using their resources to pursue real criminals and real crime, they waste their day trying to destroy people they don't understand, and then seem to hate.

This means, to them, that we will now need to 'play hardball' with the city. We have had ZERO COMPLAINTS and there are absolutely no health problems from the operation of our private buying club. The “food police” has absolutely no jurisdiction over PRIVATE TRANSACTIONS. If I sold you a used car, that is between me and you, it doesn't make me a car dealer nor do I need a license to do it. It is PRIVATE, not public. The city officials do not understand what is our protected American right to make our own choices in private dealings. I am absolutely fine with public stores, shops and services being licensed. That has value. But, this unjustified persecution of people doing the right thing makes me very unhappy to be American.

As we have reported many times over the years here at Health Impact News, direct-from-farm-to-consumer sales is a direct threat to the industrial agricultural industry, especially with the sale of farm fresh raw milk. Corporate dairy brokers depend upon cheap, subsidized fluid milk to contribute to their milk pools to produce commercial dairy products.

As soon as farmers opt out of the corporate system and sell their high-end products directly to consumers for a larger profit, they are seen as a threat, and government regulatory agencies will take action to stop the competition.

Gumpert wrote how the FDA, using taxpayer funds, works with local agencies in states like Minnesota to go after private buying clubs:

When writing my book about food rights (“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights”) a few years back, I investigated closely the FDA's relationship with Minnesota food safety officials. Here is some of what I discovered, from the book: “The Minnesota health and agriculture agencies are known to be close to the FDA. A little over a year after the MDA's crackdown (on the Traditional Foods private market in 2010), it issued a press release saying it had received a one million dollar grant from the FDA 'to strengthen its capacity to respond to food-borne outbreaks and other food safety events.' A year later, the MDA was awarded six hundred thousand dollars in FDA grants 'to enhance the state's food safety capabilities.'

In its report to Congress covering 2011 activities in various states, the FDA said it had seventy-four employees in Minnesota, along with contracts and grants with the MDA. The report alluded to a contract with the MDA to 'conduct food safety inspections' as well as a grant that was for a 'Food Safety Task Force to coordinate and address food safety and defense issues among regulated industry and regulators within the state.'

The FDA's ties to Minnesota agencies are representative of a national campaign to strengthen the relationship between states and the FDA. In its messages to Congress and the public, the FDA communicates the sense that it cooperates closely with state public health and agriculture agencies. It even has a Division of Federal-State Relations, and in a Year in Review report recapping its activities, its director, Joseph Reardon, stated that the FDA handed out to states more than forty-one million dollars in grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements in 2010. Moreover, the FDA 'commissioned 1,346 State and Local officials to assist FDA in traditional program areas such as foods and animal feeds.' According to Reardon, 'the FDA and the States can equally benefit from the goal of a national food safety system.' (Source.)

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[flauntpage]

“Escape from China” – Union Reportedly Looking to Add Czech Playmaker

One thing I’ve learned in the last 48 hours is that the Czech language is incredibly difficult.

Jon Tannenwald over at the Inquirer shared a newspaper front page this morning regarding the Union’s pursuit of midfielder Bořek Dočkal, and since I couldn’t copy/paste into Google translate, I typed out this blurb manually:

Vysvobození z neoblíbeného angažmá. pic.twitter.com/k6hBiavoWE

— Deník Sport (@DenikSport) February 20, 2018

This is what was spit out:

“Escape from China”

“Liberated from the year of a long and unforgiving Chinese Angasan, an attractive stay in the Zamorske MLS Philadelphia Union Bořek Dočkal can. Looking for another interesting part of his rich careers today, he should have signed a contract with the Czech creative center after he missed a medical examination, and he never got used to his life in a movie, and he can also look for a representation of his move to the USA.”

Seems like the translation is spot on, no?

This follows a tweet from his agency Tuesday that’s a bit more straightforward:

Bořek Dočkal odletěl společně se zástupci @SPORT_INVEST do Ameriky jednat o možném angažmá s týmem Philadelphia Union. Hráče ještě čeká lékařská prohlídka i jednání o finální podobě případného kontraktu. pic.twitter.com/hPaeIxNXFi

— SPORT INVEST (@SPORT_INVEST) February 20, 2018

“Bob had flown away with representatives @SPORT_INVEST to America to negotiate a possible engagement with the Philadelphia Union team. The player is still awaiting medical examination and negotiations on the final form of any contract.”

Nice to know that Twitter translates “Borek Dockal” to “Bob.” Maybe that should be his nickname.

Tannenwald had more from the agency in a Philly.com story:

“I can confirm that we went with Borek Dockal to the U.S. to discuss a possible contract with the Philadelphia Union,” Sport Invest chairman Viktor Kolar said in a statement issued to Czech media and the Inquirer and Daily News. “The club has been interested in Borek for a long time, but the club in China didn’t even want to discuss it for a long time. Finally, after long negotiations, we managed to negotiate the possibility of a one-year loan. However, there are still some things to do — for example, a medical examination and final form of a possible contract.”

I reached out to the person who got me the Charlie Davies story a few years ago, and they said all of this is legit. I know this is official word from an agency, but after the Carlos Valdes saga I became incredibly skeptical of anything coming out of an agent or representative or family member’s mouth.

Anyway, I don’t know a ton about Dockal, but his resume looks pretty good. 29 years old, a creative midfielder who would plug a massive, gaping hole in the Union roster.

His most prominent stints were with Czech clubs Slovan Liberec and Sparta Prague, with a two-year stint at Rosenborg sandwiched between. He’s in China right now with Henan Jianye, so I’d assume a Union deal would be a loan, considering the fact that he’s only played one season with his new club.

Dockal has 27 caps for the Czech national team and was part of a Euro 2016 squad that only scored two goals while finishing at the bottom of their group. He didn’t play in the first two games but started and played 71 minutes as a right winger in the finale against Turkey.

He’s played both spots actually – right wing and CAM, but he would be coming here to play CAM. The Union already have Fafa Picault and David Accam on the wings anyway.

Nick Fishman over at Philly Soccer Page did a nice writeup on Dockal with input from three Czech journalists:

“He was definitely one of the best players in Czech league when played for Sparta (and also quite important for national team),” Häring said.

Kaliba added, “He’s kind of a technical midfielder with very good passing, solid mid-range shooting. Right footed,” continuing, “For Sparta he was the key player, the one called a game changer as others relied on him to have the idea and the ability to make the final pass.

Vacek dove in a little deeper stating, “Dočkal is your typical offensive midfielder, No. 10. He is very creative and strong on the ball. He has great vision, a very good final pass and definitely can change the pace of the game.”

The Czech league isn’t amazing, but there are 3-4 good squads over there, Sparta being one of them. But domestic competition aside, one of the things that jumped out to me was Dockal’s experience with European football. Sparta had a lot of success in the 2015/16 Europa League, when they went all the way to the quarterfinals before losing out to Villarreal.

Dockal made 12 appearances in the campaign and bagged two goals and four assists:

If you add all of that up, he has more than 3,000 minutes of Europa League experience and played some Champion’s League qualifiers, too.

In that 15/16 season, Sparta took out Lazio and Krasnodar in the knockout stages and advanced in a group that included Schalke and APOEL:

The most impressive win of the campaign was the 3-0 win in Rome, when Dockal scored the first goal in the stunning rout:

I remember seeing that scoreline and thinking, “wow, what in the world happened there?”

Individually, his best season looks like the 2013/14 campaign, his first with Sparta. He scored 2 goals and bagged a ridiculous 20 assists in 25 league games (2,041 minutes). The next year, he had a 10g/4a season in 29 league games (2,434 minutes). He went for 8 and 7 the third year.

There was also a point in the 2016 Europa League where he assisted in 5 straight games:

For an MLS comparison, I’m not sure who I would connect to him.. maybe Albert Rusnak? Yea, Rusnak is a good comparison, a European CAM with good ball skills who can create something for your team. I have to watch more video before going to deep into that hole.

I’ve been incredibly underwhelmed with the Union offseason to this point, but if they sign Dockal, my interest level goes up exponentially. Only issue would be getting him integrated quickly, since the season starts in about 10 days.

    “Escape from China” – Union Reportedly Looking to Add Czech Playmaker published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/