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Elon Musk Now Owns Twitter and 6 Other Weird Facts – Is He The IRL Tony Stark?

Amy LamareOctober 28, 2022

*This article was updated on October 28, 2022.

It’s true. The unthinkable has happened:Elon Musk officially owns Twitter. Welcome to the wild, wild west of social media. The internet is exploding with the news and what will happen to one of the most popular social media platforms.

Elon Musk is everywhere lately. Twitter owner after a very drawn out, public, and complicated deal, SpaceX’s most recent rocket is in orbit, and he recently welcomed twins with an executive at one of his companies, just weeks after he welcomed a second child with his ex-girlfriend Grimes.

That’s a lot in one lifetime, but this is only a few months in the life of the Tesla co-founder.

RELATED: Elon Musk: The Life Story of the Boy Who Changed the Future

Even Musk’s dad made headlines for secretly fathering a second child with his stepdaughter (whom he raised from when she was four). Suffice it to say, it’s impossible to escape Elon Musk or the Musk name. Musk certainly knows how to make news and has a legion of devoted fans to prove it.

Musk has often been called the real-life Tony Stark. Love him, hate him, or even if you’re ambivalent towards him, he’s built an impressive resume during his 51 years as co-founder of PayPal, founder of space exploration company SpaceX, the head of luxury electric car company Tesla Motors, and now Twitter owner. He is a fascinating man who is unapologetically himself.

Elon Musk Buys Twitter

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Musk’s first tweet after the purchase was, “The bird is freed!”

Musk, a free speech enthusiast has been vocal against what he considers “censorship that goes far beyond the law” and Twitter’s “left-wing bias.” Previously Twitter regulated tweets and banned users that were considered spreading hate speech or disinformation.

Other goals to “improve Twitter” include getting rid of bots and making the algorithm for how Twitter shows news available to everyone. No word yet on how these goals will be implemented.

Get ready for some changes, they are happening fast! In Musk’s first few hours as owner, he has fired Twitter’s company’s chief executive, Parag Agarwal; chief financial officer Ned Segal; general counsel Sean Edgett; and Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust, and safety.

Elon Musk joined Twitter as @elonmusk in 2009 and is an active member of the social media platform. He’s at times amusing, at other times enigmatic, and at still other times, controversial. He frequently posts memes, trolls other users, promotes his various business endeavors, and comments on pop culture and politics. Musk’s Twitter bio reads: Mars & Cars, Chips & Dip. He has more than 100 million followers as of this writing.

The $44 billion dollar acquisition was a long time in the making. Musk talked about buying Twitter as early as 2017. He got serious about that plan in January 2022, when he started buying up shares of Twitter’s stock, amassing a 5% stake in the company in March. By the following month, he had a 9.13% share in the company, which made him the company’s largest shareholder. It looked like he might attempt a takeover of the company. When he revealed his position as Twitter’s largest shareholder, the company’s stock surged to the largest amount in one day since its IPO in 2013.

Musk began publicly debating Twitter’s freedom of speech (or in Musk’s eyes, lack thereof). He mused that he might start a rival site. By this time, he owned 7.5% of the company. Then on April 13, 2022, Musk offered $44 billion and launched a takeover bid to try and buy all of Twitter’s stock.

Twitter retaliated by putting a shareholder’s rights plan in place to make it harder for any one individual to own more than 15% of the company without approval from its board of directors. Musk offered $46.5 billion for Twitter. Immediately following that news, Tesla’s stock sank by more than $125 billion, causing Musk to lose $30 billion of his net worth.

RELATED: Elon Musk Says This One Habit Is the Secret to Becoming Successful

About a month after he made his intentions to take over Twitter clear, he put the deal on hold, claiming that too many of the site’s daily active users were spam accounts. This caused Twitter’s share price to fall by more than 10%.

In July 2022, Musk sent a notice of his termination of the deal to purchase Twitter. The company’s board of directors remain committed to holding Musk to his deal as of this writing and have filed a lawsuit against Musk in Delaware, citing his breach of a legally binding agreement to buy Twitter

Elon Musk’s Family and Education

Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971 during the era of apartheid. His mother, Maye Musk, is a Canadian-born model. His father, Errol Musk, is an entrepreneur who, among other endeavors, was half-owner of a diamond mine in Zambia. Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, a sister, Tosca, as well as a stepsister, half-sister, and half-brother on his father’s side. His parents divorced in 1980, and after living with his father for a few years in his teens, became estranged from him.

Musk became interested in computers and video games as a kid. When he was 12, he created a videogame called Blastar and sold the code (he wrote it in BASIC) for $500. After high school, he applied to emigrate to his mother’s native Canada. While he waited, he enrolled at the University of Pretoria for a semester so that he could avoid mandatory service in the South African military.

RELATED: Elon Musk Says This Surprising Thing Helped Him Become A Billionaire, Offers Unusual Parenting Lesson In The Process

Musk moved to Canada in 1989 to attend Queen’s University in Ontario for two years. He then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a BA in physics and a BS in economics.

During the summer before his senior year, he worked two internships in California’s Silicon Valley. One was at a startup called Pinnacle Research Institute which was in the field of energy storage, and one was at Rocket Science Games. After graduating from Penn, he enrolled in Stanford University’s Ph.D. program in materials science. He dropped out after two days and decided he’d be better off taking advantage of this new thing called the internet and launching a startup.

Elon Musk’s Early Career

Elon Musk borrowed money from his father and founded Zip2, a software company, with his brother and friend Greg Kouri in 1995. Zip2 put together and sold an internet city guide for the newspaper industry, including yellow pages, maps, and directions. At this point in his life, Elon was broke and slept on the couch in his offices and showered at the local YMCA rather than renting an apartment, Vanity Fair reported.

RELATED: 3 Incredible Times Elon Musk Failed and Still Came out on Top

In 1999, the company Musk co-founded sold to Compaq for $307 million in cash. Musk owned seven percent of Zip2’s stock which was equal to $22 million. He was on his way to becoming the richest person in the world, and he was 28 years old.

Elon Musk’s Involvement With the PayPal Mafia

After the sale of Zip2 in 1999, Elon Musk immediately co-founded an online financial service and payment by email company called X.com. The company was one of the first online banks to be federally insured. In 2000, X.com merged with another online bank called Confinity to reduce competition.

Confinity was founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin and had its own money-transfer service, called PayPal and Musk was the CEO. However, by September 2000, the board of directors replaced Musk with Thiel as CEO.

RELATED: How to be Successful: 16 Habits to Help You Succeed in Life

In September 2001 the company was renamed PayPal. eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock in 2002. Musk was once again the largest shareholder and his 11.72% of shares in PayPal were worth $175.8 million. Musk, Levchin, and Thiel are commonly referred to as the PayPal Mafia as all three went on to further and even greater successes.

How Did Elon Musk Get So Rich With SpaceX?

Elon Musk is a serial entrepreneur who is not only brilliant but also had the fortune of being in the right place at the right time (several times). Musk was fresh out of college when the first dot-com boom took place and Zip2 and PayPal were part of that.

After PayPal sold to eBay, Musk’s net worth was nearly $200 million. From there, he dove into his interest in space exploration and founded SpaceX in 2003. He identified and took advantage of the opportunities his life and career put him in the path of, including Tesla Motors.

The company was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. Musk joined the company not long after, investing $6.5 million of his own money into the company, which made him the majority shareholder. As a result, Elon Musk was made the Chairman of the board of directors.

RELATED: What Is ‘BDE’ and What Are the Signs You Have It?

Musk is also the founder of several other companies including the neurotechnology startup company Neuralink, which aims to artificial intelligence chips that can be embedded in human brains to make it easier for people to merge with machines. He also founded The Boring Company, in 2017 to construct tunnels to improve heavy vehicular traffic.

We cannot talk about the facts about Elon Musk without mentioning his incredible $198 billion net worth. According to Celebrity Net Worth, this makes Elon Musk the richest person in the world. Musk owns 48% of SpaceX, valued at $46 billion, and 22% of Tesla, and in 2020 his net worth skyrocketed, increasing $142 billion that year.

Elon Musk Joins Tesla Motors

When Elon Musk was first Chairman of Tesla’s board of directors, he was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. However, conflicts between Martin Eberhard and the board of directors, coupled with the 2008 financial crisis, led to Eberhard being fired from the company he co-founded.

RELATED: Why Being Financially Organized Can Help Your Motivation and Emotional Well-Being

Musk was made the CEO in 2008. As Tesla CEO he oversaw the development of the Tesla model called the Roadster, an all-electric sports car in 2008. In 2017, the mass market sedan, the Model 2 was released and became the best-selling plug-in electric car in the world. Elon Musk is the longest-tenured CEO of a car company in the world.

Tesla made its IPO in 2010 and by 2020, was the most valuable carmaker in the world. In October 2021, Tesla had a market cap of $1 trillion, becoming just the sixth US-based company to reach that milestone. At Tesla Musk is changing the way the world perceives electric cars.

Elon Musk’s Relationships and Children

No look at facts about Elon Musk would be complete without a look at his relationships, marriages, and children. Musk met his first wife, Justine Musk (nee Wilson) while studying at Queen’s University in Canada. They married in 2002. Elon and Justine had six children. Their first child died at 10 weeks old of sudden infant death syndrome. In 2004 they had twins and in 2006 triplets via IVF. Elon and Justine divorced in 2008.

That same year, Elon began dating actress Talulah Riley. They married in 2010. In 2012, they divorced. The following year, in 2013, they remarried each other. In December 2014 he filed for divorce a second time, but that request was removed. Elon and Talulah divorced for the second and final time in 2016. He moved on to actress Amber Heard, whom he dated for a few months in 2017.

RELATED: Elon Musk Has a New Girlfriend, and the Quirky Way They Met Shows He’s a True Sapiosexual

In 2018, Musk revealed that he’d been dating musician Grimes. The couple’s first son, a son they named X AEA-XII, was born in 2020. In December 2021, the couple had a daughter named Exa Dark Sidrael via surrogate. Grimes and Musk broke up a few months before their daughter was born. Then, in July 2022, Insider published legal documents that revealed Musk and Neuralink executive, Shivon Zils, had twins together.

As of this writing, Elon Musk has nine children with three different women.

Lessons We Can Learn From Elon Musk’s Success

Elon Musk is incredibly successful. He knows his strength, what his value and interests are, and relentlessly pursues projects that he can dive into, grow the value of, and sell at a huge profit. Some people say he marches to the beat of his own drum, but that’s true of any truly successful person, especially creative ones. Musk may be an engineer at heart, but he’s also highly creative in the way he applies his strengths to his endeavors.

KEEP READING:

Elon Musk Shared the Most Refreshing, No-BS Productivity Tips with Tesla Employees

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freevoidman · 7 years ago

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All of the questions form the ask except for 16 and 17 because I read the tags 😏😊

yoU FUCK--

Also I guess it’s 15 and 16 bc those are the ones that ask for pics? So ur getting everything but those two instead lmao I can’t read.

1. Song of the year?

Thunderstruck by 2CELLOS (skip ahead to 0:38 for the start of the music, 1:10 for the actual cover). It’s a great cover for a famous song and i’m a sucker for cello-only covers. Plus, it’s a great song to listen to when you want to get some of ur aggression out.

2. Album of the year?

The Persona 5 Original Soundtrack! There’s so much amazing songs from the game, all of them jazzy and catchy and oh my god I love the entire thing. The stuff featuring Lyn’s vocals is especially great!

3. Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year?

Hm... there’s not a lot that come to mind, but I guess BTS? I’m not super into their music, and I don’t check out their livestreams and shit where they talk with fans, but their music is pretty sweet!

4. Movie of the year?

UUUUUUUUUUUUUGGH it has to be a tie between IT and Wonder Woman. IT was great on a sheer talent level and, after watching the 90s film, it was a massive improvement and gave the book the justice it deserved. However, Wonder Woman I appreciate because of the hopeful change it might bring to the movie industry and superhero movies, and perhaps lead to less over-sexualization of women in movies.

5. TV show of the year?

Nothing really comes to mind (especially because I don’t really watch TV a lot) but it’d have to be Brooklyn 99. Comedic gold at its finest, and the level of representation is NUTS! I love it!

6. Episode of tv or webisode that defined the year for you?

...y’all’re gonna laugh but it’s fucking Shibboleth from West Wing. We watched the episode in one of my classes and it brought up so much political topical stuff that’s happening in my country, as well as the sheer ridiculousness of what the fuck is happening in the US (as well as unintentional attachments that can form bc I made a stupid level of those with just fictional characters lmao)

7. Favorite actor of the year?

Finn Wolfhard. Not only for his level of talent in Stranger Things and IT, but also just his level of comedic genius outside of films and shows. He’s great, and I can’t wait to see where his talents will lead him next.

8. Game of the year?

WHY MUST YOU TORTURE ME LIKE THIS.

I’d have to give it to Persona 5, though Breath of the Wild and Final Fantasy XV are close. The reason why P5 wins is because I’ve been waiting for this games since 2013 and it delivered on everything I wanted. Meanwhile, BOTW and FFXV were only purchased after they came out and I saw all the reviews, or (in the case of FFXV) was and impulse buy that I didn’t have much faith in. They’re both great games, don’t get me wrong, but my god, Persona 5 delivered of fucking everything I wanted and a bit more.

9. Best month for you this year?

December (and no, I’m not just saying that because that’s the month we’re in). I’ve been accepted into the colleges I really wanted to be accepted into, and Christmas wasn’t that bad. Though I am sick with something right now, it’s definitely not a bad month, and easily the best one I’ve had with all the stress/disappointments of the months prior.

10. Something that made you cry this year?

...getting a bit personal, it was seeing my cousin during Easter. She’s been struggling with drugs and she had a relapse and was completely out of it. She’s got a kid. I was mad as hell and ready to punch her, but I just kind of broke down outside the house once no one could see me.

11. Something you want to do again next year?

...uuuuuhhh I didn’t really do it this year bc of the amount of shit I had to do, but I really, really want to do NaNoWriMo again. It was fun, and I nearly succeeded last year. I was about two thousand words short because I got sick and I want to get the 50k word count for something!

12. Talk about a new friend you made this year

YES HELLO I’M ABOUT TO PRAISE THE HELL OUT OF @yoitssabrinee SO PREPARE YOURSELVES.

Honestly such a sweetheart???? She’s a-fucking-mazing and so strong despite all the bullshit she’s gone through and she’s so freaking nice and caring! Like, I’ve been complaining to her about how I’ve been sick and she’s always like “did you take your meds? Did you drink water? Did you eat?” And it’s so nice and even if our convos are mostly screaming at each other about FFXV fanfics we’re writing it’s SUCH A JOY to see her messages whenever I wake up/am about to go to sleep.

13. How was your birthday this year?

Good! The only negative part was that it was during a school day (typically it falls on Thanksgiving break, but not this year) and I got a lotta good gifts! I certainly can’t complain about it, that’s for sure.

14. Favorite book you read this year?

Catcher in the Rye. It’s very rare that I find a school book that I enjoy, and this hits all my favorite things. It’s a super introspective look on Holden’s life (which is pretty messed up tbh) and his struggles to reconcile with his flaws and the need to be somewhat ‘normal’.

15. What’s a bad habit you picked up this year?

Sort of a bad habit that I’ve continued and haven’t stopped--picking at my skin. Especially scabs and any chapped skin on my lips. I have so many cuts and scars from doing this, and I really need to stop...

18. A memorable meal this year?

I went with my family to some fancy-ass Japanese restaurant with my friend irl before we went to see Hamilton. The food there was tasty as hell, and the experience itself made it incredibly memorable.

19. What’re you excited about for next year?

There’s a couple! Getting my driving license, graduating high school, and going to college would definitely be at the top of that list! For more material things, I’m looking forward to Hacker’s Memory, the new Persona rhythm games (I’m being very hopeful that they’ll be released in English around the same time of their Japanese versions) and Final Fantasy Dissidia!

20. What’s something you learned this year?

How to drive!

21. What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?

My old swingset broke. I still use it as a way to destress (the repetitive motion of swinging, combined with listening to music really clams me down) and there’s no way we can really repair it until it gets warmer... which could be as early as February, or as late as April, considering the weather patterns. Basically, it has to be above freezing to do anything.

22. Favorite place you visited this year?

Boston for college tours! It was a great city, though I could’ve dealt with less stress from trying to figure out where the fuck to go...

23. If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be?

It’s hard right now. God do I know how hard it is right now. It’s gonna get harder. You’re going to hate everyone for a while, because no one really helped you the way you needed help, but you’ll make it. I promise you’ll make it.

24. Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions?

Technically yes, because I didn’t make any. Can’t break any resolutions if you never make ‘em.

25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one

Uuuuugh I have a lot that I just make in my head, but because I have the artistic skills of a drunk goldfish I can’t typically draw them, and I’m too nervous to write about them (^^;). Other people can keep asking this one, and I’ll describe a different OC that I have, but only in my head, y’know?

I DID get FFXV Comrades and made an OC! His name is Tonitus, Tony for short. He’s 5′3″ and hails from... Altissia, if I remember correctly. He has about mid-length black hair and bright, that almost Mako-colored blue eyes.

In my weird-ass lore about the guy, he’s a messenger who got amnesia from falling to the surface. He’s loyal to Ramuh and can harness lightning magic easily, and struggles with fire and ice magic. He got the Kingsglaive uniform from Ramuh himself, who sent him down to Eos to assist the humans with the encroaching darkness and rampant daemons and infected wildlife. As he regains his memory, he’s torn with assisting them like a human would or like a pseudo-god, and his own mortality and how he’ll deal with everyone passing long before him, long before the light can be restored, long before the King can ascend.

#Ask meme #End of the Year #Anonymous

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eggzy · 8 years ago

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I’m honestly just dying to write somethingggg -- I’d really love a mumu?? maybe just two of us or throw in another person?? it could be anything from apartment wing, college roommates... maybe the truman show???? or something supernatural maybe???

under the cut are the characters/faces in the mumu I’d be interested in playing.

IVAN BISHOP | janis ancens | 22-26 years old

his family has had money for decades bc they’ve always managed to deal with corrupt government officials and whatnot. the bishop family make profit off war/violence bc they sell weapons!! they tend to sell to both sides of wars, even if in secret!! plus, they deal with monster/creature hunters!!! bishop is a name known around the world for many things.

um he’s a perfectionist. has to be the best at everything. everything. he was head boy in the private boarding school he attended, president of whatever fraternity that rich young men like him get into the kind with bad hazing and shit, was president of his university’s SGA, has perfect grades and a perfect record!!! he strives to be the best and ambition has taken him far. he doesn’t just rely on his family but the name does open A LOT of doors for him

he’s very stoic but can charm the pants off people!! but he’s very manipulative in this, can often get people to do what he wants. he once had his whole fraternity turn against this kid on campus who was running against him for SGA… he’s got a real cruel streak. hope you never see it. ://

he’s like ALLLLMOST greysexual but he still likes the act of sex from time to time. its hard to catch him with his guard down. doesn’t have a good relationship with either of his parents. mother cheats while away at one of their many beach condos. father is absent, busy with work && hunting. he’s good at gaslighting ivan so, as you can imagine, the boy has some real daddy issues.

he has younger brother and sister who are twins!! his mother is a BICTH!!! she is not nice. not pleasant in the slightest!! but she’s really really good at hunting! maybe a witch??? haven’t decided where I want that to go lol

MALLORY LEWIS | nicola peltz | 21-23 years old

so mal is an only child and her young parents were very excited to have a girl, especially her mother. she was pretty much a tiny doll in her mother’s eyes. she was an only child and the woman saw her daughter as something to dress up and parade around rather than really take care of. so, unsurprisingly, she’s been to a decent amount of pageants, a few Ws under her belt, in fact.

her parents got divorced when she was three! the highschool sweethearts didn’t last but five years! and so she was never really close with her father because her mother monopolized her time. she grew pretty resentful towards him as she got older because of their lack of time together and because he never really tried to see her or get her away from her mother. after a while, her father didn’t even try to stay in touch. he helped a bit with expenses for a time but once he was remarried, there was no hearing from him.

mal was primarily raised by her mother who jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend and husband to husband!! when she was especially young, there were a lot of boundary lines that were blurred between her and her mother. she slept in bed with her until she was nine, she wouldn’t ever be far from her. her mother would get them matching outfits and she’d always do mal’s hair, make sure she was perfect, and she had to be exactly the way that her mother wanted her to be. no questions.

so being left alone with her mother and being groomed by her mother alone, she kind of became a mini version of her!! she didn’t care about anything other than getting what she wanted. men were tools. they were just bank accounts and pretty things to surround herself with. if she wanted it, she could get it – she knew what her appearance did to others, men especially. ever so manipulative, she has her own harem of men, ages all varying from twenties to sixties, that she spends her time with. she’s easily a homewrecker to a handful of relationships out there.

she relies on some of her daddies forreal though because between them and hustling, she can only resort to criminal acts to support herself!

the monsters she seen all her life!! she used to be very vocal about it but her mom put her in a institution one summer when she was 13 which really traumatized her so she does NOT talk about the shit she sees! NOT CRAZY!!

“GK” STARR | madison mclaughlin | 19-23 years old

my baby is like the human form of peach tea. is that weird to say? gk is a super sweetheart and most people genuinely like her when they meet her. she makes it easy, bc she’s bit of a pushover and people-pleaser so she gets walked on a lot. still learning how to stand up for herself!!

she’s an art freak. loves oil painting the most as that’s the one she’s more experienced with. learning how to use water colors and gouache just as well. wants to be graphic designer one day!!

with a short and small stature, most underestimate her, if not all who cencounter her. she is no impressive figure, by any means, so her goal of becoming a superhero seems farfetched to many. with the appearance of such fragility, gk attracts those who wish to protect without meaning to, often due to her size. her skin is very tanned with a decently clear complexion as she still struggles with acne and such. freckles are scattered across the bridge of her nose and over the tips of her shoulders. A dark mole is one of her most striking features, location just under her right eye.

gk is very friendly and very loud. so basically, one of those people who just makes themselves known, no matter the room they enter into. very much a people-person, loves to be in the company of anyone, even strangers. she’s extremely naive, so constantly people are using her for her powers, abusing her kindness and willingness to help. questions are constantly on her tongue, because she doesn’t know about anything and is so very curious! she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s for sure – but she’ll never know unless you tell her upfront, she’s a bit oblivious at times.

gk stands for georgia katherine, so as you can imagine she’s pretty southern. her accent is thick like molasses!! her family moved here from louisiana about five years ago. it had been a tough move and she struggled for a bit, bc people aren’t always kind and the starrs aren’t necessarily well off. they’re barely pushing by, one might say.

TRENTON LEROY | chris wood | 20-25 years old

tw: child abuse, violence, mental illness

so like!! trenton is from lyon, france! he has a SLIGHT accent but its not strong anymore because he hasn’t been back to france in like ten years.

his mother and father are not married. he was born out of wedlock because his mother was his father’s mistress. the man left after the idea of trenton was even mentioned. he was a married man with hands in politics, he couldn’t afford to have this out.

so labeaux family paid off the leroy family, sending money every month to keep them quiet.

the leroy family is kind of a TRASHY family living in the countryside near lyon. it was just trenton, his mother, grandmother and uncle. a small family that lived on the checks sent by a man worlds away.

he adored his mother more than any person!! like almost an obsession!! but thats because out of that house, she was the only one to ever show him kindness. his grandmother and uncle both were quite unkind to him, blaming him for their misfortunes and taking out their stress. unfortunately, his mother left the family and ran off with a boyfriend. trenton was only seven at the time but the sense of loneliness and abandonment following her departure REALLY affected him in ways that weren’t good. and the abuse he took from other family members only pushed him further.

his father took an interest back into his life at age twelve, realizing that the boy was his only current heir. he quickly took the boy from that house and placed him into a boarding school in england to learn everything from ENGLISH itself to business and other ways of the world.

the setting wasn’t much better tbh!! he was mistreated by older kids for a while, bullied for a variety of things until he finally shot up between age 15 & 16. he really grew into his awkward limbs, a charming face to match!! it was a surprise to everyone that the awkward boy had transformed into that. trenton started to get attention he had never received before. and it delighted him. but he didn’t know how to handle it.

he began abusing his friends, girlfriends… anyone who was close to him. violence was the ONLY language he would ever be fluent in – his family made sure of that.

when he graduated, he was a shadow of the boy he once was. dark and twisted with desires that no good person should have. but still he passed it off like a charm, being the perfect son that his father had never wanted.

trenton was moved to highland springs and he lived there with his just father for a few years, learning the ways of the family business and politics.

but eventually everything got to him and he SNAPPED. the incident had him sent away once more but this time to a mental institution on the west coast. he was heavily guarded secret so no one really knew where he disappeared to. his father only claimed traveling the world.

FOX KINSLEY | matt hitt | 19-22 years old

ALCOHOLISM TW, DRUGS TW

okay so this is atticus fawkes kinsley!! he goes by fox because he hates those names and he’s bitter af towards his family right now.

his dad lost his dream job when fox was about ten or so and he took to the bottle and stayed with it. he wasn’t abusive or anything, just yelled sometimes. Mostly laid around the house, sulking. he’s attempted other jobs, but it always ends up with him fired because of a DUI or something. so that’s where fox got most of his lazy traits from

his mom is this SUPER ambitious woman who’s really great honestly but she really cares about how people view her. so witnessing her husband in the state he was in really embarrassed her?? that destroyed their relationship. she thinks pretty lowly of the man. they fought A LOT. after the man’s fourth DUI in two years, she left.

she tried to convince fox to come with her, but he refused. he didn’t like the idea of abandoning his father. they used to be really close once. :’) so she left seventeen year old fox as well and took his sister to live with her parents for a while.

fox and his father did okay for a year or so. it was a bit rough because he had to get a shitty job with shitty hours to handle the bills and stuff. because good ole dad was still just doing his thing, drinking himself silly and sleeping at the oddest hours. fox had to leave on his last year of high school, which at the time didn’t bother him. but now, he’s starting to regret that more and more.

he’s a stoner through and through. mostly just sticks to weed. he’s really sloping down that path towards harder drugs though so he wears long sleeves occasionally to cover track marks.

things started to get really shitty one late saturday night when he returned after a double at work to find the house empty. only a note from his father, detailing that he needed to find himself and work out his problems on his own, was left. it fucked him up.

the loneliness and desperation he’ll never forget. it’s been carved into his bones and burned into his skin. he’ll never forget that pain. and because of that, he’s very very bitter. he’s been going out and partying doing every drug you can imagine. trying to destroy himself for the past year. sick, unhealthy living.

he’s still working at the gas station, still manning the slushie machines even if he has no one to go home to. no one to teach him how to be an adult in the real world.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR:

maybe like more family members? mother/father... sister/brother??? rival family?? maybe some kind of sentient monster???? or like friends of either mal or ivan??

platonic to romantic relationships!

a partner that can put up with me and my work/lazy schedule! I’ve been dying to write and rps are just dwindling around here so they’re just not gonna cut it... but I’m determined to have this plot because I NEEEED the creative outlet.

#1x1 #1x1 rp #mumu rp #mumu plot #mumu roleplay #1x1 plot

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years ago

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Trump says Ilhan Omar ‘hates Jews’ to defend against racism claims

President Trump speaks outside the White House on Monday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump, unrepentant after hurling racial invective at four nonwhite lawmakers, accused one of the first two Muslim women in Congress of harboring animosity toward Jews in an apparent attempt to claim the moral high ground in an explosive contest over identity, patriotism and bigotry.

Trump asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Somali-born refugee who fled civil war when she was 12, “says horrible things about Israel, hates Israel, hates Jews.”

“Hates Jews,” the president repeated from a lectern at the White House on Monday. “It’s very simple.”

The tactic demonstrated how aggressively the president has courted Israel and its most fervent American supporters, as well as his willingness to use that base of support as a bulwark against accusations of intolerance. So, too, it highlighted divisions within the Jewish community between those who look skeptically on a newly vocal left-wing flank of the Democratic Party and those who see these voices as natural allies in the struggle against religious prejudice.

Wrapped up in the protest against Trump’s language is discontent about how non-Jewish commentators have appointed themselves guardians of Jewish interests in a moment of rising anti-Semitism.

“I was disturbed by the president’s weaponization of people’s indignation about anti-Semitism from some of these women to cloud the accusations of racism against him,” Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

[Trump says they ‘hate our country.’ The Democrats he attacked say the country ‘belongs to everyone.’]

The charge of anti-Jewish animus was especially noteworthy because the quarrel’s basis — the dissent of the four freshman Democrats against an emergency border aid package and their criticism of Trump’s handling of immigration enforcement — bore no obvious relation to accusations of anti-Semitism that have dogged certain members of the liberal cadre. Omar apologized in February for comments suggesting that politicians were motivated by money to support Israel. She has also faced backlash for discussing the “allegiance” of Israel’s American proponents.

But the two issues — the fate of migrants detained at the southern border and the mounting incidents of anti-Semitism — have now been mixed together in a politically toxic brew.

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, compared migrant detention centers to concentration camps, Trump’s allies in Congress accused her of minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust. Hundreds of historians have since signed an open letter defending the use of analogies to the Nazi genocide, though not all agree with the accuracy of the freshman lawmaker’s claim.

It was again the accusation of anti-Jewish bias that became prominent in Trump’s escalating war of words this week with the progressive women of color. In addition to verbally attacking Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, he appeared to target Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Omar and Tlaib are the first two Muslim women in Congress. Pressley is black, and Ocasio-Cortez has described herself as a “Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx.”

Trump initiated the feud when he tweeted on Sunday that the Democratic women, only one of whom was born outside the United States and all of whom are American citizens, should leave the country if they were unhappy because they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.”

The comments were roundly condemned, with some in his own party chiding him while many others defended him against accusations of racism.

Trump, speaking at an unrelated White House event on Monday, said the women were the ones at fault. And the alleged wrong he chose to highlight, focusing in particular on Omar, was anti-Semitism. He also asserted that the women “hate our country,” in addition to Israel, and made the baseless claim that Omar sympathized with al-Qaeda. Trump previously called President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black commander in chief, a terrorist who was born in Africa.

Omar has been critical of the Israel lobby, at times using language widely seen as inflected with anti-Jewish conspiracy. Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, had advocated for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which Jews and Arabs would jointly govern. Both women support the movement known as BDS, for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Modeled on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the campaign aims to leverage economic pressure on Israel to win Palestinian rights. It bitterly divides American Jews, notably on generational lines.

These positions have brought the freshman lawmakers into conflict with some Jewish members of Congress. One of their especially outspoken Republican critics, Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, did not take issue with the president’s remarks on Monday, instead writing on Twitter that the onus of “self reflection” was on those with a “blame America 1st mentality.”

The charge of anti-Semitism lobbed by Trump was echoed by other congressional Republicans, some of whom said they regretted the president’s style while making clear that they sided with him against the Democratic women.

Monday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) advised the president to “aim higher,” but suggested that the more grave transgressions were those committed by his colleagues on the other side of the Capitol.

“They’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America,” he said, also accusing the congresswomen of being communists.

Sen. Susan Collins, the self-styled moderate Republican from Maine, called Trump’s initial tweets “way over the line,” recommending that he “take that down.” But she began her statement on the matter by chiding the freshman congresswomen. Among the issues where she disagreed with them, she said, was “their anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

Trump relished the support from fellow Republicans. He quoted Graham in tweets on Monday, adding, “Need I say more?”

The Republican Jewish Coalition also promoted Graham’s statement, writing on Twitter, “He isn’t wrong.”

Meanwhile on Monday, speaking at a forum on combating anti-Semitism, Attorney General William P. Barr said a “body politic must have an immune system that resists anti-Semitism and other forms of racial hatred” and condemned “identity politics” for breeding hate.

Some American Jews have objected to the injection of concerns about anti-Semitism into partisan contest.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) drew on long-simmering resentment about the way accusations of anti-Semitism were being deployed when he responded to the president’s remarks.

“I have been pretty polite about this and so have other American Jews,” the lawmaker wrote. “But you really have to leave us out of your racist talking points.”

He protested, “Your racism is your thing and we are not your shield.”

I have been pretty polite about this and so have other American Jews. But you really have to leave us out of your racist talking points. You are not helping us, you are not helping society, you are not helping Israel. Your racism is your thing and we are not your shield.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) July 15, 2019

Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, struck a similar note when he observed on Twitter that Trump was harming “the Jewish community” by “using Israel to defend his blatant racism.”

“He doesn’t speak for any of us,” wrote Greenblatt, who has previously spoken out against Omar, calling statements from the freshman lawmaker plainly anti-Semitic and urging House leaders to pass a resolution clarifying that the chamber prized different values.

#AntiSemitism is on the rise.@realDonaldTrump using Israel to defend his blatant racism only hurts the Jewish community. He doesn’t speak for any of us.

We call on ALL leaders across the political spectrum to condemn these racist, xenophobic tweets & using Jews as a shield.

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) July 15, 2019

Still, others saw danger in dismissing complaints about anti-Semitism as self-serving politics. While he hardly thought Trump’s accusation absolved him of blame, Amos Bitzan, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said he worried about describing the invocation of anti-Semitism as a shield employed by racists.

“I don’t want people to say that everyone who levels the charge of anti-Semitism is racist, or on the far right,” Bitzan said, pointing to the example of Britain’s Labour Party, which has been roiled by complaints of anti-Semitism. The concerns, the historian said, have been dismissed as a conservative attack on the party’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

But Lipstadt, the Emory professor, said Trump was brazenly attempting to pit those most concerned about racism against those most concerned about anti-Semitism. Jews, she said, should be alarmed by the president’s rhetoric about foreign loyalty, and his suggestion that the congresswomen leave the country if they are unhappy.

“One of the tropes of anti-Semitism is that Jews don’t belong, that they’re more connected to each other than to the country in which they live,” she said, also noting that it was the denial of citizenship, under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, that paved the way for the Nazi extermination.

The “terrible irony” of the conflict over race and loyalty pitting Trump against the minority lawmakers, Lipstadt said, was that the president was “hoisting Omar on her own petard” — using a racist trope about loyalty similar to the one that she apologized for enlisting earlier this year against backers of Israel.

If the controversy were to have a positive outcome, the historian said, it would be Omar gaining greater insight into how the rhetoric of loyalty and belonging is deployed. By the same token, she said, Jews who were upset by the congresswoman’s comments about loyalty to a foreign country “should be equally outraged by this comment from the president.”

“Don’t weaponize your indignation and only see it on the other side of the political transom,” Lipstadt said.

More from Morning Mix:

A neo-Nazi unleashed a ‘troll storm.’ Now he could owe his Jewish victim $14 million.

A graphic suicide scene in ’13 Reasons Why’ drew outcry. Two years later, Netflix deleted it.

Credit: Source link

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christianworldf · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on Nehemiah Reset

New Post has been published on https://nehemiahreset.org/christian-worldview-issues/republicans-criticize-minority-lawmakers-as-far-left-while-chastising-trump-for-over-the-line-tweets/

Republicans criticize minority lawmakers as ‘far-left’ while chastising Trump for ‘over the line’ tweets

Felicia Sonmez

National reporter on The Washington Post’s breaking political news team

Mike DeBonis

Congressional reporter covering the House of Representatives

Paul Kane

Senior congressional correspondent and columnist

July 15 at 9:35 PM

A day after President Trump said four minority congresswomen should “go back” to their home countries, Republicans criticized the quartet and cast them as the face of a socialist, left-wing Democratic Party while chastising the president in language that stopped short of fierce condemnation.

Republicans were largely silent Sunday in the face of Trump’s tweets, decried as racist, urging Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

But by Monday evening, several GOP lawmakers responded by taking a swipe at the Democratic women, and then criticized the president.

“While I strongly disagree with the tactics, policies, and rhetoric of the far-left socialist ‘Squad,’ the President’s tweets were inappropriate, denigrating, and wrong,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a tweet. “It is unacceptable to tell legal U.S. citizens to go back to their home country.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is close to Trump and was praised by the president in tweets last week, repeatedly insisted to reporters at the Capitol Monday that “the president is not a racist” and that the president had spoken out of “frustration.”

Asked if Omar should return to Somalia, McCarthy said, “No, they’re Americans. Nobody believes somebody should leave the country. They have a right to give their opinion.”

But he later sought to turn the tables by noting that Ocasio-Cortez made comments last week accusing Pelosi of “singling out… newly elected women of color.”

“The speaker of the House, she claimed, was a racist and was attacking these women of color. That was a comment last week. Now this week we’re accusing somebody else of it,” he said, before referencing comments Omar and others have made that prompted claims of anti-Semitism.

All four of the Democratic lawmakers are U.S. citizens. Three were born in the United States, and Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and became a U.S. citizen as a teenager.

All House Republicans will probably be forced to go on record on Trump’s tweets in the coming days as Democrats in the chamber introduced a resolution condemning the president’s words. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the resolution could be brought to the House floor as early as Tuesday. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Senate Democrats are preparing a companion resolution.

Congressional Republicans were left largely to chart their own course Monday in the absence of any unified messaging effort by their party, aides said. One Senate Republican chief of staff, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the party’s response, said that there was only “commiserating” at such moments, “no coordination.”

“Every man for themselves,” said a House Republican close to party leadership, who spoke on similar terms.

But common themes quickly emerged. In responding to Trump’s tweets Monday, several Republicans echoed the president’s claim that the four women “hate Israel with a true and unbridled passion,” while others cast them as lax on border security.

“I disagree strongly with many of the views and comments of some of the far-left members of the House Democratic Caucus — especially when it comes to their views on socialism, their anti-Semitic rhetoric, and their negative comments about law enforcement — but the President’s tweet that some Members of Congress should go back to the ‘places from which they came’ was way over the line, and he should take that down,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in a statement.

In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill, called the Democratic lawmakers both socialist and communist while saying that their ideas were “anti-Semitic” and that they “hate Israel.” But he also counseled Trump: “Aim higher. They are American citizens. They won an election. Take on their policies.”

Omar apologized this year after making comments that were interpreted by many as anti-Semitic. Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, has advocated what has been dubbed a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump has repeatedly seized on their comments to argue that the lawmakers are insufficiently supportive of Israel, a claim the Democrats have denied.

Other Republicans criticized Trump’s remarks Monday with no mention of the policies of the four women.

“I am confident that every Member of Congress is a committed American. @realDonaldTrump’s tweets from this weekend were racist and he should apologize. We must work as a country to rise above hate, not enable it,” said Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio).

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said the Republican Party “has a stronger platform to talk about; that’s what we should be focusing on.”

Asked whether she found Trump’s comments racist, Ernst replied, “Yeah, I do. They’re American citizens.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said “there is no excuse for the president’s spiteful comments — they were absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop.”

She added: “We have enough challenges addressing the humanitarian crises both at our borders and around the world. Instead of digging deeper into the mud with personal, vindictive insults — we must demand a higher standard of decorum and decency.”

And Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said that Trump “failed very badly yesterday and today,” calling his comments “destructive and demeaning and in some ways dangerous.”

Several former officeholders, including former senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and former Ohio governor John Kasich, rebuked Trump as well.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), meanwhile, issued a defiant defense of the president, arguing that his remark was “clearly” not racist.

“He could have meant go back to the district they came from, to the neighborhood they came from,” Harris told Bryan Nehman on Baltimore talk radio WBAL.

Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, chalked up Trump’s racist remarks to frustrations over Congress’s lack of progress on a bipartisan immigration reform deal.

“The president is frustrated that Congress has not acted to solve the crisis at our border, and he expressed his frustrations in a way that didn’t promote reconciliation across the aisle and across the country,” Collins said in a statement.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), too, defended Trump from accusations of racism and said that “it’s weird to me that our politics is all, you know, people calling each other racists.”

But he said that the president had sent “a dumb tweet, if for no other reason than it takes attention off of some of the, I think, dangerous and dumb policies that AOC and her crew are advocating for.”

And Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) issued a full-throated defense of Trump, saying in a tweet that “Montanans are sick and tired of listening to anti-American, anti-Semite, radical Democrats trash our country and our ideals.”

“This is America,” he said. “We’re the greatest country in the world. I stand with @realDonaldTrump.”

In a scathing floor speech, Schumer said Trump’s comments “drip with racism” and are in line with the president’s history of birtherism, his administration’s ban on travelers from certain Muslim-majority countries, his disparaging remarks about a federal judge of Mexican descent and his use of the term “shithole” to describe some countries in Africa and Latin America.

“My Republican friends, he’s not backing off,” Schumer said. “Where are you? . . . Those who fail to condemn the president are fellow travelers on his racist road, whatever their motivation.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made no mention of Trump’s comments in his floor remarks. In response to questions from reporters, he said he would address the issue at his weekly news conference Tuesday.

Keisha N. Blain, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and president of the African American Intellectual History Society, said that by telling the Democratic lawmakers to “go back” to their countries, Trump “was employing a tired racist trope that white Americans have long used to try to silence and intimidate people of color in this country.”

“In so doing, he was essentially saying that they are noncitizens of this country and therefore have no basis for offering a critique of U.S. policies,” Blain said. “The reality, of course, is that they are American citizens. They have a right — and as public servants, an obligation — to critique the administration’s policies and demand immediate changes to improve the country they love and serve.”

By Sunday night, more than four-dozen House Democrats had used the words “racist” or “racism” in denouncing Trump’s tweets. But on Monday, only a handful of congressional Republicans — including Rep. Will Hurd (Tex.) and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the only black Republicans in Congress — used similar language to describe the president’s words.

Hurd said in an appearance on CNN that Trump’s tweets were “racist and xenophobic” as well as inaccurate, given that three of the four Democratic women were born in the United States. Scott issued a lengthy statement that focused on Democrats’ own intraparty debates over race before going on to denounce Trump’s “unacceptable personal attacks and racially offensive language.”

As much as anything else, multiple House Republicans complained privately and on the record that Trump had essentially managed to at least temporarily quash the internal battle among Democrats that had exploded last week between party leaders and the four freshmen.

“I think Napoloeon had a quote about that, didn’t he?” said Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), pulling out his phone to read it off: “Never interfere with enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.”

“I think it applies,” he added. “Why would you step in someone else’s dumpster fire?”

Among those declining to weigh in on Trump’s remarks was Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who said it’s “useless to engage in that rhetoric.” Capito is up for reelection in 2020, along with Collins, Daines and Ernst.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) also ducked media questions about the controversy. The son of a Cuban emigre, Cruz was born in Canada before his family moved to the United States. Trump eviscerated Cruz during the 2016 presidential contest, including making false claims that Cruz’s father played some role in the Kennedy assassination.

“I have a long-standing policy that I don’t comment on tweets,” Cruz told reporters. Informed that Monday’s controversy came from Trump’s own comments, carried on live television from the White House grounds, Cruz smiled, entered an elevator in the Capitol and said nothing.

Shane Harris, Seung Min Kim, Erica Werner and John Wagner contributed to this report.

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deadcactuswalking · 6 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23rd July 2018

Welp, nothing happened. Very stale week for the most part.

Top 10

Delightful – the worst single Drake’s released since “Pop Style”, “In My Feelings” featuring uncredited vocals from the City Girls, has gone up three spots from last week’s debut, making it our current chart-topper, surprisingly not replacing Drake himself, but we’ll get to that. At least City Girls, Magnolia Shawty’s family and Lil Wayne are getting money from this being #1 in both the UK and US. God knows they deserve it, well, at least Wayne.

“Shotgun” by George Ezra is somehow still at number-two. This song has a surprising amount of longevity.

Oh, yeah, “Solo” by Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato has also kept its place at number-three, which is cool.

Now, we have our first debut on the charts, which, similarly to last week, had its first-week charting position at number-four, the controversially-titled “God is a woman” (yes, it’s stylised in sentence case for no reason) by Ariana Grande, the second single from her upcoming album Sweetener.

Oh, yeah, Drake just won’t leave, as “Don’t Matter to Me” with Michael Jackson and Paul Anka is at a standstill at number-five.

“Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jack & Jack is up a spot to number-six. Just lovely.

“Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B is also up that single position to number-seven.

“Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer has jumped up three spaces to entering the top 10, at number-eight, and yeah, this definitely deserves it. Good song.

Talking about songs that deserve to finally enter the top 10, “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone has also taken a three-space increase right to number-nine.

Oh, and because of the album hype lessening and dying down, “If You’re Over Me” by Years & Years kind of collapses four spaces to number-ten. It seems to be on its way out, and I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing.

Climbers

There’s not really that many notables this week, but we do have Tyga’s “Taste” featuring Offset entering the top 20 as it moves up eight spaces to #16, “Only You” by Cheat Codes and Little Mix doing the same as it hits #19 after a nine-space increase. “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid also had a lesser increase, only jumping up six spaces to #23.

Fallers

There’s only one fall of note here, but it’s pretty damn interesting how Tom Walker’s “Leave a Light On” just suddenly crashed down 15 spaces to #31... I know adverts only have a short impact on the charts, but I’m surprised by how this was just in free-fall this week, especially since I’ve actually heard it gain some traction on radio... except I checked the statistics and it’s done exactly the opposite. This song massively fell on UK airplay charts, to the point where it’s neck and neck with Meghan freaking Trainor. Yikes.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Guys, we have just witnessed a chart history milestone: Last week’s #1, “Three Lions” by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds dropped from the top of the charts to #97, which means it experienced the biggest ever dropout from the top 40 (from #1) and the biggest decrease in UK Singles Chart history, having a 96-space fall. That’s kind of impressive in the weirdest way. I suppose we as a country were so crushed by Croatia winning against us that we decided to crush this song’s chances of any longevity, which I’m not necessarily complaining about, honestly.

Other drop outs from the top 40 include “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Dan Caplen and Macklemore, right after it returned for a brief stint at #40 last week, as well as “Moonlight” by XXXTENTACION out from #37. Last week’s incredibly convenient returning entry, “American Idiot” by punk-rockers Green Day is now out from #25, also.

Oh, and “This is Me” by Keala Settle and the Greatest Showman Ensemble is back again at #37, just go away, already!

Now for a new feature:

The Ed Sheeran Update

On this show, we often talk about Ed Sheeran and his inexplicable chart success, well, I figured I’d add something to shake up the formula: a short feature where we talk about how Ed Sheeran fared in the top 100. Well, “Shape of You” jumped up 13 spaces to #73 for no reason at all, and “Perfect” is up three spaces to #58.

Oh, yeah, and “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers? Still holding on. In fact, it just returned to #99 this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#34 – “Ocean” – Martin Garrix and Khalid

So, this song has been bubbling under for a while now, but on a slow week, it actually was able to have a pretty high debut. It’s no surprise to see Khalid on an EDM track, either, as he also sang on “Silence” by Marshmello last year, and has collaborated with Calvin Harris, albeit on a decidedly very non-EDM track. Well, how does this song compare to the countless collaborations Khalid has popped up with in the last few months?

Well, it doesn’t, at all, because, frankly, I don’t think this song even exists. It’s such a non-presence that after I listened to it – four times, may I add – I could barely even remember the hook’s melody. It has an annoying an unnecessary synth sound that goes on throughout the whole thing, but it had a decently complex drum beat, and Khalid’s performance is smooth as always, even when he dips into his falsetto, but damn, that pre-chorus build-up is powerful. Honestly, this drop is so much of a mess that I’m surprised I have no memory of it. There’s some vocal samples all intertwined with a fast-paced orchestral string loop that only plays once throughout the whole drop, even though it could definitely add a lot of “oomph” to the track, then there’s an out-of-place acoustic guitar riff that is again, the only time you notice that instrument at all in this song. I don’t have any real complaints with this song – it’s mixed near-perfectly (even if I’d appreciate more accentuation on the bass), Khalid’s fantastic, and I’m not saying the all-over-the-place drop is bad, necessarily, it’s just kind of... intangible.

When a song is named after a place or an emotion, you’re going to have to feel that translating into the composition, even if it is completely without lyrics. I think that’s why I’m more appreciative of “SAD!” than a lot of people – you can tell that it successfully, even if you hate it – well, especially if you hate it, makes you sad or at least gets you to realise the effort into making it sound sad. “Plastic Beach” by Gorillaz is another good comparison in terms of places, as it is stiff and noisy like plastic but it still has wave sound effects to paint the background, joyous synths and whale-related lyrics (delivered in a rather plastic monotone), that create a beautiful contrast between the plastic and the beach. It feels like an artificial shore... but “Ocean” is only an ocean in name. It’s weaksauce EDM, that doesn’t feel as powerful as an ocean and definitely isn’t upsetting in any way to capture the “blue” colour of a wave. This is why I like CamelPhat so much. “Panic Room” is urgent but still kind of trapped in a confined space, “Cola” is constantly shaking it up, like a can of coke. They are EDM producers who make the titles fit and matter, but “Ocean”... nah, I can’t feel this. Next.

#30 – “Summertime Magic” – Childish Gambino

Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, recently dropped a surprise-release Summer-themed two-track R&B EP called Summer Pack and the first track of two, obviously gained the most traction. Last time I talked about Glover on this show was when “This is America” debuted, and I wasn’t very impressed, but from what I heard, this new EP harkens back to his 2016 album “Awaken, My Love!”, which I loved, so hopefully I’ll dig this.

Well, it’s less disjointed than “This is America” but it’s definitely not as exciting, as it starts with some dreadfully boring steel pans with barely any accompaniment other than the reverb they’re soaked in, then Gambino comes in and starts singing over some admittedly nice synths, before the hook – which, for a lyrical wordsmith, is oddly and infuriatingly repetitive, especially since it’s full of nonsense words – which covers Gambino’s decent voice in just DJ Mustard-like bass and extra percussion, which definitely picks things up a bit, but not enough. It feels like Summer, alright, but it tries its hardest not to, with all the rain effects and the pretty dreary melodies that surround the vocals that could have made a pretty damn good pop song.

#4 – “God is a woman” – Ariana Grande

I know a lot of people are worried about Sweetener, but personally, I’ve liked all the singles released from it prior to this track, which stirred some controversy for its pretty clickbait title. Of course, the song doesn’t even dare to trip into any religious or political territory, no, it’s a sex song. Why is it called “God is a woman”? Well, because, sex with Ariana is apparently so good that the man will believe afterwards that God is a woman, because the sex was heavenly, yeah, you get the gist. It’s pretty obvious that Grande wouldn’t get right-wing nuts complaining, or a debut this high for a single like this, if it wasn’t for the clickbait-level title. Honey, just make a good, safe song and you will have success, it happened with “no tears left to cry” just a few weeks back. It’s a pretty dumb move to resort to tactics like this when Grande’s such a big star with such a loyal fanbase that people will stream this no matter what you call it.

Oh, yeah, and this song? Well I like the vocal melody here, it’s really nice in the hook, especially when Grande starts to sing more seductively over a surprisingly hard-hitting trap beat, with some heavy bass and a blocky, yet pretty slick drum pattern that makes Grande subconsciously start making Lil Pump-like “yuh” ad-libs in between the lines on the pre-chorus. There’s also a choir of a chorus harmonising with multi-tracked Grande voices, which sing pretty beautifully while Grande belts out some ad-libs. This whole song is so tight and constricted yet has a great final release as its climax, so unlike “Ocean”, everything feels worth it by the end.

Conclusion

“God is a woman” by Ariana Grande takes Best of the Week home, obviously, but nothing else here is good or bad, it’s all just kind of a boring middle-ground. See you next week!

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jasonnell056-blog · 7 years ago

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Miami. - Free Online Library

Miami. Joan Didion has written a superlative account of Miami, beginning with what she has been able to ignore.* She ignores her own drama as Gringa in Latinland, a fascination to which she succumbed in Salvador. Beyond one or two cocaine anecdotes, necessary to prove that this is Miami we're talking about, she says nothing further about drugs. Unless she is scratching for ethos, she is indifferent to the new Miami architecture, the nightlife, the weather, the revitalized art deco district, or "Miami Vice.' She overlooks the fact that Miami has been discovered by New York as a place to be seen. She takes no part in the nervous Assimilation Watch--that is, do the Cubans prefer to drink Coke and watch TV in English, or do they prefer to drink Yerba Mate soda and watch TV in Spanish? * Miami. Joan Didion. Simon & Schuster, $17.95. Of George Gilder and George Will, wide-eyed observers who came to Miami's Little Havana and saw in its ebullient plantain vendors the colorful tropical reenactment of the Ellis Island story, Didion writes: "Fixed as they were on this image of the melting pot, of immigrants fleeing a disruptive revolution to find a place in the American sun, Anglos did not on the whole understand that assimilation would be considered by most Cubans a doubtful goal at best.' Instead, Didion tells the serious Miami story, the Miami story as understood by 700,000 Cubans, which is to say, a story of exile and not of immigration, of intransigence and not absorption, a story whose essential elements have not changed since the terrible defeat at the Bay of Pigs, a story that began with a single villain, Castro, but where villainy has spread to the Democratic party and The Miami Herald, a story with only one acceptable ending: revenge. John Kennedy, traitor Miami's influence as a city goes far beyond its economy and its character in situ. That Miami has a foreign policy is the kind of detail that arouses Didion's curiosity--no other U.S. city outside Washington has so single-mindedly pursued an international crusade. It took the Irish and the Italians in the northern neighborhoods a couple of generations to work up through the wards and the sinecures and into national power politics, while Miami exiles were admitted into the Oval Office, into clandestine discussions, since the earliest days of the war against Castro. Not all Miami was there of course, but Cubans, such as Jorge Mas Canosa, a director of the Cuban American National Foundation, have been prominent in Washington for years. Didion points out that Mas Canosa is still generally unknown to Miami's Anglos. Since the bitter lesson of the Bay of Pigs, that the U.S. government only can be trusted while it plots in secret, Miami has engaged in a series of open defiances (the Mariel boatlift, launched against President Carter's orders) and abetted the various subterranean missions (Watergate, the contra supply network) that have changed the rules of politics. Miami as a staging area interests Didion, Miami at the action end of the CIA plastique and the C-5A flights, Miami as the most unofficial of official channels. In and out of the trap doors of Washington sneak two decades of khaki-clad intriguers. The Bay of Pigs is old news, as is the CIA's original training of the exiles, especially in detonation, which led to a busy decade of free-lance political bombings in this country. It is no secret that perhaps half the Cuban male exile population was naturalized on covert action, trained in undercover operations. What Didion adds is a context, a method of presentation that gives the Miami story a sombrous continuity. Names appear and reappear, incidents for which Anglos have short memories are, in the Cuban community, ritualized in the procession of "la lucha,' the struggle:

"For most of them as children there had of course been the formative story of la lucha against Spain, the central scenario of 19th-century Cuba. For some of their fathers there had been la lucha against Gerardo Machado and for some of them there had been la lucha against Fulgencio Batista and for all of them--for those who had fought originally with the 26 Julio and for those who had fought against it, for barbudos and Batistianos alike, there was now la lucha on the grand canvas of a quarter century, la lucha purified, la lucha in a preservative vacuum, la lucha not only against Fidel Castro but against his allies, and his agents, and all those who could conceivably be believed to have aided or encouraged him.' The litany of la lucha demands a careful choice of words. Words are taken very seriously in Miami--people have been killed for using the wrong words. From Didion, we learn that a recent conference entitled "The Future of Hispanic Theater in Miami: Goals and Constraints' required a metal detector at the door to guard against a retaliatory strike against one of the panelists, playwright Dolores Prida, who years earlier had been connected to "dialogo'--a word that suggested communicating with the devil, Castro. Where else but Miami would Luciano Nieves have been shot dead in a parking lot merely for having raised the possibility that Castro could be brought down "politically'? It is this potentially fatal Cuban lexicography that Didion explores, safe words and unsafe words, subtle distinctions with unsubtle consequences. The recondite staking out of political positions that nobody can seem to fathom but for which everybody seems willing to die is baffling to Anglos, who prefer to dismiss Cuban exiles simply as "right-wing.' "A man who buys a Browning and Beretta and an AR-15 and an UZI under his own name does not have as his first interest the successful evasion of http://www.waterandfirepros.com/mold-removal American justice.' "Right-wing' simply does not capture the wildest elements of la lucha. We learn from Didion that the owner of the above-mentioned arsenal, one Eduardo Arocena, did not see any necessity to hide his ownership nor his intentions to use weapons domestically. The jury that convicted Arocena on 71 counts of bombing and one count of assassinating a Cuban attache at the United Nations must have thought he was a terrorist, but to Miami at large, Arocena will always be a patriot. The mayor said so in a speech. We learn from Didion that the second most hated man in Miami, after Castro, is John Kennedy--hated forever for his handling of the "disposal problem' of Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, for withdrawing U.S. air support at the precise moment the hapless brigade hit the beach, the primeval example of Anglo betrayal.

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Truths are not self-evident in Miami, at least not the ones in Mold Abatement Miami our familiar Declaration, and politics is taken too seriously for there to be any casual political conversation of the kind one hears in Houston or Chicago or Atlanta. After hanging around the popular Cuban radio stations, and listening in at various exile functions, Didion observes that Miami is the second city in this part of the world where people actually look over their shoulders before they speak. The other is Havana. Paella in the paper "The Cubans will not read it,' Bernardo Benes reassures his wife, who is worried that what he is telling Didion will appear in a book. Benes is probably right. Cubans generally do not buy Anglo books or Anglo newspapers, which has been a problem for The Miami Herald. As the city has doubled in size, the Herald's circulation has remained flat. The editors first thought there was a language problem and put out an edition in Spanish, but El Herald never really caught on, and the editors have since learned that beneath the language problem there is the philosophy problem, a basic difference of opinion with a majority of the city's inhabitants over elemental questions of the First Amendment and the role of the free press. Didion's book appears just at the time that the editors of the Herald have been trying to put more paella into the paper, more stories about beans and rice, Cuban quince parties, guayabera shirts--all part of the effort to be Good Neighbors. Just this month, the Cubans countered with a full-page advertisement blasting the Herald for betraying them politically, a betrayal that all the paella stories in the world can't absolve. All Cubans didn't support this ad, of course, just the Cuban American National Foundation. Among the directors is Mas Canosa, whose importance is noted by Didion. "A political approach implied give and take, even compromise, an unthinkable construct in a community organized exclusively around the principle of implacable resistance.' There is general agreement among Miami exiles that the best way to defend democracy is to disallow it. This hasn't happened, of course, but one has a suspicion that the tape on the Watergate doors could just as readily be slapped across the mouths of local liberals, which is to say, anyone to the left of Pat Buchanan. Anglos, for their part, privately suspect that if the exiles had their way we'd soon have a dictator for mayor. Pick up the Herald these days, and these serious differences of opinion are lost in the local burlesque. A conniver named San Pedro goes on trial for offering bribes to half the local power structure, a few cocaine cops have metastasized into a cocaine brigade, the county manager and other notables have been caught buying stolen suits, and the simple investor who gunned down his stockbroker turns out to be an ex-con with an alias, a gun bought with a credit card, and a curious pile of cash. One wonders if the exile viewpoint will win over the Herald. Is it possible that this winner of numerous Pulitzers will be forced to enlist as official cheerleader in la lucha? Perhaps not, but some reporters tell me privately that their work is being questioned by certain editors, who themselves have been told they must be more sensitive to what the most vocal--which usually means the most fanatical--exiles have been saying. Columnist Carl Hiaasen, the great Herald gadlfy, and probably the most hated Anglo in town after President Kennedy, labors under increasing pressure. Didion writes: "Revolutions and counterrevolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player.' Miamington One wonders, also, if the exile politics will win over the nation. As Didion has said, her book is as much about Washington as it is about Miami, about the long-standing connections between operatives here and there, connections between the back rooms of Washington and the airstrip at Opa Locka, where Miami and Washington converge into some murkier Miamington. If anything has changed from Watergate to Irangate, it is that the perpetrators have learned to better protect themselves and to provide deniability, and one foresees in their actions the frightening possibilities of private cadres with official blessings doing the work of the Argentinian or the Chilean death squads. "This particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States.' Didion leaves us at the edge of the secret contra supply flights, but the future is not exactly unknown. There is the reverberative effect of certain ideas. All the decades of our clandestine adventures in Latin America have been turned back against us, and if there is any such thing as the sins of intrigue being revisited on our shores, then Miami is the gateway to that revisitation. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Miami.-a06198313

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wionews · 7 years ago

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South Africa blighted by racially charged farm murders

"They beat him with a pole... and you could hear the bones breaking," said Debbie Turner, recounting her husband's murder in a slow, defiant voice.

She refuses to talk about him in the past tense and sleeps with a photo of him close by.

"I miss him so terribly -- it's just so hard," she said, sitting in front of the frail-care unit that has been her home since the attack at their farm.

Robert "Oki" Turner, 66, was beaten to death before her eyes six months ago on their isolated stretch of mountain land in South Africa's northeastern Limpopo province.

He was one of the latest victims of a long campaign of violence against the country's farmers who are largely white.

The rural crime epidemic has inflamed political and racial tensions nearly a quarter-of-a-century after the fall of apartheid.

Farm murders are just one issue that reveals how South Africa is struggling with violence, an economic slowdown and divisions along race lines.

The Turners moved to the verdant region, half-way between Kruger national park and Zimbabwe, some 30 years ago.

On their property, which spans dozens of acres, they grew gum trees which they sold to craftsmen or for firewood.

"Until about four or five years ago, we were very open. We didn't have a key for our house -- we would go away and nothing would have happened," she said.

But then the extreme violence that had long afflicted major cities engulfed rural areas like theirs.

Break-ins, hostage takings and killings became common -- with attackers often making off with just a few hundred rand (less than $20), a mobile phone or a hunting rifle.

The Turners were targeted after nightfall on June 14 when two armed men stormed their farm. Debbie was alone after her husband stepped out to fix a water tap.

- Savagely beaten -

"They said 'we want money'. I said I haven't got money," recounted Debbie.

"They dragged me all over the house and put me under the shower and turned it on and left me for 15 minutes.

"Then they decided to try to rape me. I said 'please don't rape me, I've got HIV'."

Sometime later, Oki was found slumped motionless covered in blood after being savagely beaten by the attackers searching for the key to the couple's safe.

He died in hospital a few hours later.

Dozens of white farmers are murdered in similar circumstances in South Africa every year.

In the absence of detailed statistics, the scope and scale of the crimes has become a battleground.

AfriForum, a pressure group that advocates on behalf of the country's nine-percent-strong white population, is one of the forces seeking to shape the debate around farm murders.

"Farmers are living in remote areas, they are far from police stations," said the group's vice president, Ernst Roets.

"There are political factors that play a role here. We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who... would say for example 'the white farmers should be blamed for everything'."

He is particularly damning of Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of South Africa's radical left, who has called on his followers to "retake the land" from whites.

In 2012 President Jacob Zuma sang a struggle-era song containing the words "shoot the farmer, shoot the Boer".

Agriculture, like much of South Africa's economy, remains in the hands of the white descendants of colonial-era settlers.

White farmers control 73 percent of arable land in the country compared with 85 percent when apartheid ended in 1994, according to a recent study.

Calls for "radical economic transformation" to benefit the black majority have gained traction as unemployment has soared.

They are frequently coupled with accusations that the white minority control a disproportionate share of the nation's wealth.

- 'We built this country' -

That narrative has alarmed many white rural communities.

"We're being hunted," said Pauli, a 43-year-old farmer who declined to give her surname.

More militant white farmers describe the violence they face as "genocide" and use the casually racist rhetoric of the apartheid era.

"They (black people) truly think that we have stolen the country from them," Limpopo-based farmer Gerhardus Harmse told AFP.

"We built this country, show me anything, any place that the blacks built -- there isn't any. They cannot build, they destroy."

The radical fringe has become increasingly vocal.

Last month, some supporters flew the flag of the old white-minority government during a protest against farm murders.

The demonstration called on the government to guarantee farmers special protection -- something that police minister Fikile Mbalula categorically refused.

"All deaths of all South Africans must be met with disgust," wrote Mbalula in a Twitter post. "My problem is that farm murders are racialised and politicised."

While black farmers have so far been largely reluctant to march with their white colleagues, they face many of the same risks.

"We don't feel protected by the government," said Vuyo Mahlati, president of the African Farmers Association of South Africa.

"We need to deal with everyone trying to utilise farming as a centre of a right-wing political discourse. That we are not going to allow."

- 'I will go back' -

Feeling abandoned by the government, many white farmers have taken steps to protect themselves.

Some patrol their land under moonlight, pistols tucked into their belts, to deter would-be attackers.

Others undergo commando training in anticipation of the worst.

Among them is Marli Swanepoel, 37, who owns a farm in Limpopo.

"You have to be prepared. You have to protect yourself," said the mother-of-three.

Hans Bergmann was recently assaulted on his farm, but takes a different approach.

Some weeks ago, armed men broke in to rob his safe, tied him up and shot him in the foot.

"In South Africa everybody thinks farmers have a lot of money," he said.

Bergmann, who is in his sixties, declines to carry a gun or abandon his land.

"I just accept it... where do I go from here if I leave the farm?" he said.

Debbie Turner is scathing of the police who have yet to catch her husband's killers -- or even take a statement from her.

"It shows that what happened that night doesn't mean anything to these people," she said.

"I'm angry against those people who killed my husband. Sometimes I wish they could hang them."

But she will not be leaving any time soon, vowing: "One day I will go back to the mountain."

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eggzy · 8 years ago

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under the cut are the characters/faces in the mumu I’d be interested in playing.

IVAN BISHOP | janis ancens | 22-26 years old

MALLORY LEWIS | nicola peltz | 21-23 years old

she relies on some of her daddies forreal though because between them and hustling, she can only resort to criminal acts to support herself!

“GK” STARR | madison mclaughlin | 19-23 years old

she’s an art freak. loves oil painting the most as that’s the one she’s more experienced with. learning how to use water colors and gouache just as well. wants to be graphic designer one day!!

TRENTON LEROY | chris wood | 20-25 years old

tw: child abuse, violence, mental illness

so like!! trenton is from lyon, france! he has a SLIGHT accent but its not strong anymore because he hasn’t been back to france in like ten years.

so labeaux family paid off the leroy family, sending money every month to keep them quiet.

he began abusing his friends, girlfriends… anyone who was close to him. violence was the ONLY language he would ever be fluent in – his family made sure of that.

trenton was moved to highland springs and he lived there with his just father for a few years, learning the ways of the family business and politics.

FOX KINSLEY | matt hitt | 19-22 years old

ALCOHOLISM TW, DRUGS TW

okay so this is atticus fawkes kinsley!! he goes by fox because he hates those names and he’s bitter af towards his family right now.

he’s a stoner through and through. mostly just sticks to weed. he’s really sloping down that path towards harder drugs though so he wears long sleeves occasionally to cover track marks.

he’s still working at the gas station, still manning the slushie machines even if he has no one to go home to. no one to teach him how to be an adult in the real world.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR:

maybe like more family members? mother/father... sister/brother??? rival family?? maybe some kind of sentient monster???? or like friends of either mal or ivan??

platonic to romantic relationships!

#mumu rp #mumu roleplay #1x1 rp #1x1 roleplay

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