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roxywashere · 5 years ago

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Knee Deep in the Dead

Roxy takes a Vacation

Contrary to what you might think, Hell is a veritable Paradise for an Angel. Especially those Angels who take pride in and derive enjoyment from their ability to slay Demons.

Roxanne is one such Angel. And she had one Hell all to herself, after the associated Earth and Heaven attached to it had disappeared from the face of the Multiverse, leaving only the Demons and their prison behind. However, she’d been an Angel for so long that she had started growing bored with her personal, as it were, Hell.

Lucky for her, she wasn't limited to one Hell. She had infinite Hells to pacify.

Roxanne stood on a cliffside in her private Earth, barren of humanity, which she had christened Altar. She unsheathed her magic sword, Dawnherald, and pointed it out over the cliff, which faced a pristine blue ocean.

She spoke to the sword. “I think it’s time we took a vacation, eh? You pick this time. Try to surprise me.” She released the hilt, leaving the blade floating in the air. Dawnherald then minutely vibrated, in an increasing frequency and tightening amplitude, until it’s subatomically sharpened point snagged on a subatomic wormhole and then ripped an orange-red swath through the blue sky.

Roxy peered through the portal and examined the universe Dawnherald had chosen. “I’m intrigued... tell me more.”

Dawnherald continued ripping open the wormhole until it completely enveloped Roxy, bringing her into the world Dawnherald was proposing. She saw an endless plain of sulfur, interrupted only by towers of sulfur spitting clouds of sulfur like smokestacks.

The air smelled of sulfur, and napalm, and melting flesh, and burning plastic.

She saw movement, in small patches, on the edges of the horizon: Imps, scrambling towards the holy presence of Roxy and her semi-animate gear, enraged at her consecrating effects on their infernal home.

Roxy pointed at Dawnherald and traced a curve from where it was now to it's sheath on her back, which Dawnherald followed until it clicked snuggly into its home. Roxy took a calm, deep breath, and then rocketed towards the squadrons of imps so fast she left a vacuum which sonic-boomed in her wake.

She stopped among a group of imps as fast as she had gotten going, knocking to the ground all but the one she had stopped in front of and held still by wrapping her ethereal wings around it. Her hand was outstretched towards it, her pointer and index pressed gently against its forehead, and her middle finger was pinned towards her palm by her thumb. When she released the coiled-up flick, the minor Demon's head exploded backwards in a jet of steam, literally vaporized by the energy Roxy's smallest possible attack had imparted.

“Come on, put up a fight. Make me earn my vacation.”

The Demons snarled and indulged her, all attempting to pounce on her at once. She grabbed one, palming its face, and used it as a club to bludgeon the rest. Its neck failed after only three Demons, the body detaching from the head and flying off into the near distance. She then pitched the head at a tight cluster of imps, splattering the head through all 6 of them.

These imps were no challenge for Roxy at all. As soon as she realized she had already exhausted her enjoyment from this particular encounter, she reached back to Dawnherald, pressing the button to release it from its sheath and help dispatch the imps.

As soon as the last imps splattered across the ground, Roxy heard a steady, rhythmic pounding. She smiled. “There we go...” She zipped in the direction of the sound, and as she grew closer she tracked it as coming from beneath the ground.

She set down on the sulfuric stone, and punched down at it, shattering the relatively thin floor she had been standing upon, revealing the chamber below.

It was massive.

It was several hundred feet across, and the bottom of the chamber was so far down that it was obscured by the glowing smog of sulfur dioxide that filled the low-lying regions of this world. She could see flickering sources of light, and shifting shadows, but no details.

The walls of the chamber were smoothed and shaped sulfides, with a whole wall of pure carved native Sulfur. The Sulfur wall had a door 50 feet tall, and behind that door was the source of the pounding.

Roxy wedged her fingers between the crack of the doors, and ripped a hole through it, the soft stone crumbling in her grip. As soon as she did the great fist of some Greater Demon punched through the door, grabbed her, and pulled her into the pitch darkness. It drew her close to its face, and opened its eyes, revealing six charcoal flames, and then opened its mouth and snarled, revealing a bright furnace burning white-hot.

It exhaled rocket exhaust at her, and her semi-mortal flesh melted away, stripping her down to little more than a golden skeleton wearing golden armor, which the demon released to watch clatter to the ground.

The skeleton dropped down to the floor, and then instead of collapsing jumped back up and head-butted the Demon. Roxy pulled her disk shield, Aegis, off her back and held it up, where it surrounded her with an impenetrable sphere of light.

As Roxy’s flesh reconstituted behind the barrier, she slowly paced around the Demon, examining it in the new light. It was 30 feet tall, with skin like bubbling tar, the face of a gorilla and the horns of a ram, cloven hooves, and fingers like foot-thick obsidian blades.

“You couldn’t have picked a more typical form,” she enunciated as soon as her lungs, throat, and mouth had grown in. “Got a name?”

“Ba’al-Beirut,” it growled in response.

“I’m Roxanne. Tell your friends.” With that said, Roxy took Dawnherald and smashed it against Aegis. The two rang out with a thundering clang, and the sphere of light exploded, sending Ba’al-Beirut flying through the ruins of the door and down into the chamber below.

Roxy’s human form had completed repairing. She walked up to the edge of the chamber, just in time to see Ba’al-Beirut scamper off whimpering before the sulfur dioxide smoke filled the Ba’al-Beirut-shaped hole that had been punched through it. She dropped down into the darkness. She landed in a gentle kneel among the smog, surrounded by hundreds of pairs of embers.

“Hello, boys. It’s time to fucking party.” She reach back towards Dawnherald in its sheath, and without even touching the catch pressed it and then flicked her wrist upwards, an action Dawnherald mimicked, launching into the air. “Shine.”

Dawnherald ignited with the light of a sun, blinding every single one of the five or so hundred Demons in the chamber with Roxy. Roxy could still see perfectly, however. While they were all still stunned, Roxy zipped around obliterating the Demons in approximate order of ascending power. By the time she had eviscerated the imps, the other Demons had recovered.

They all competed to be the one to kill her, accidentally attacking each other in their frenzy. Roxy took advantage of the confusion by hovering in places that would lead to more collateral damage when they missed her. She managed to kill almost a quarter without laying a finger on them.

It wasn't much of a challenge, but it wasn't effortless either. Once Roxy had almost completely cleared the room, the surviving greater Demons turned tail and ran.

“You fucking cowards,” Roxy yelled at their backs. “You call yourselves Demons? Get back here!”

She took her time tracking them through the endless system of sprawling tunnels under the surface of this Hell. She slowly, patiently, paced every foot of the 100,000 miles that quest required, killing a million other Demons along the way. But after 10 years, more or less, she found them all, and killed all but one.

She had left Ba’al-Beirut alive, out of some fleeting whimsy to see what his driving fear of her would lead him to do.

She saw him journey across Hell for 20 years after she had finished killing the other Demons she had first come across. He consulted with hundreds of Demon fortune teller and magisters, seeking what it would take to get this implacable Heaven-Spawn off his trail.

Every place Ba’al-Beirut passed through would be shortly thereafter wiped from the infernal map, so the longer his quest drew on the more resistance he found from other Demons not wishing to be marked for certain annihilation at the hands of a bored rogue Archangel.

But eventually his quest led him to the answer he thought would work best.

After utterly destroying the demonic temple that had given him his final solution, Roxy caught up with him as he was adding the final touches on an enormous magic circle.

It was a massive pentagram made of crushed up cinnabar, with lettering in greek, arabic, and norse runic along the edges, and surrounded by more geometric shapes extending out almost a hundred feet from the center. Ba’al-Beirut had spent a day tracing it, making sure that each line and curve were perfectly drawn, to minimize the chance of failure. Thousands of other Demons had gathered to watch.

Roxy recognized this ritual: she'd seen it attempted six dozen times across the Omniverse before; it was the ultimate ritual of local Multicosmic Demonism. Never once had she failed to stop it.

But this Hell was a sandbox. She wanted someone else to play with.

Roxy sat in the air above the circle, legs crossed patiently. When Ba’al-Beirut stopped to run and cower, she zipped into his path, still sitting lotus.

“Finish the ritual,” she commanded of him. Not only did Roxy not interfere with the process, she actively aided it: when Ba’al-Beirut reached the final step, and went to kill a random imp for blood sacrifice, Roxy stopped him.

“He’s more likely to answer if it’s somebody he knows,” she advised. She stood in the center of the pentagram and used Dawnherald to slit her own throat so deeply her head technically wasn't connected to the rest of her body. Her blood pooled within the pentagram, not spreading past its 5 sides. It poured out of her until her heart ran dry. “Call to him,” Roxy ordered.

In an ageless and multiversally spread infernal tongue, Ba’al-Beirut cried: “<Therion, I summon thee.>”

There was a flash of light from the center of the pentagram, and a crack of thunder, and the cinnabar dust started glowing.

The blood started roiling and churning, as if it wasn’t only mere centimeters deep. A shape slowly rose out of the liquid, looking like it was composed of the blood itself. It was vaguely human-shaped, though many things often were, but as it rose higher it’s features became sharper. The face of a man became distinct, already smiling wickedly, and before it had risen completely its eyes snapped open.

Therion leapt forward at Roxy, not yet fully formed. His arm shot forward like a tentacle, which materialized into a hand around Roxy’s neck. She still had Dawnherald in her hand, so she swung it to cleave the gripping fist.

She zipped backwards, out of his reach. “I thought She forbade you from entering any Hell?” she interrogated.

“She let me back in as a reward for my good behaviour,” still half-blood Demon answered disingenuously. “I thought She forbade you from using your wings under foreign suns?” he then asked in return.

“She gave me new wings.”

“Well, I guess that all our questions have been answered.” He examined his surroundings, and himself, still partially solidifying out of Roxy’s blood. He saw the figure of Ba’al-Beirut towering over the much more minute Angel. “Though it was her blood that drew me here, the voice that summoned me was not hers. I presume that was you?”

Ba’al-Beirut was in a state of obvious confusion. “I summoned the Demon King, God of Evil, the Immortal Dragon. What is this buffoonery?”

Roxy and Therion shared a rare smile over their mutual amusement at the situation.

Ba’al-Beirut gestured at the random assortment of Demons that had surrounded to watch the ritual. “Kill this imposter!”

Roxy gave him some space, flying straight up to not be in the way, and Therion spread his arms and cackled as hundreds of imps and middling Demons converged upon him and ripped his finally completely solid body to shreds.

Roxy landed upon a hill a fair distance away. Ba’al-Beirut turned his back on the frenzy and walked for a long minute to confront her. “Why did the spell fail? You said he would answer.”

“And answer he did, you stupid impish emberling. Look again, and see for yourself.”

In the minute that Ba’al-Beirut had spent stomping over to Roxy, the scene behind him had changed dramatically. No longer was there a legion of imps tearing at the flesh of some random human, but there was instead an enormous form standing above the imps, stretching up into the sulfurous smog until it could only be seen as a shadow against the ambient glow of this Hell’s atmosphere.

Everything had gone silent. The enormous shadowy figure had never made a sound as it had come into being, and the imps had ceased their squawking out of awe.

A shadow leaned down out of the smog, revealing a colossal draconic head beset upon a long thick snake-like neck. The head was itself beset by a crown of four curved horns. Six other nearly identical heads then leaned down around the first head, their only difference being having a single pointed horn instead of four.

The central head spoke, with a deep, but genial voice. “Therion, The Beast from the Pit, The Seven-Headed Dragon, the King of Demons, at your infernal service. I see you have already met my opposite.”

Ba’al-Beirut fell to his knee and genuflected. “Forgive me for my disbelief-”

“Up! Stand up! We don’t have time to be formal, we’ve got a Legion to organize! No time to waste! Go, rally as many as you can!”

As Ba’al-Beirut scampered off to obey his command, Therion leaned even further down to Roxy. “You think yourself so clever, driving a Demon to insanity to draw me into a far-flung realm and imprison me...”

“You’re the one calling me clever, here,” she responded. “I only wanted to see what would happen if you were summoned to where you were forbidden. I thought maybe the process would finally destroy you.”

“If only.”

Roxy sighed in commiseration. “If only indeed.” Roxy cracked her neck and fingers, her joints popping as loud as firecrackers. “Let’s get to business, shall we?”

Therion reared his six single-horned heads back up and inhaled deeply through all of them. At the very end of the inhale, his four-horned head quietly said “Let’s,” and then roared with all the Wrath and Pride he exemplified, the sound spreading out over this Hell for thousands of miles.

#Short Story #Superhero #Superhero Literature #The Aftermath #Roxanne Furst #Writing

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mcccleaningomaha-blog · 5 years ago

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keptin-indy · 8 years ago

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Exalted: Saigoth Gates 11

The circle hits Essence 2! And starts a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, complete with dragon.

The next morning saw the group discussing the logistics of their journey after West discovered that his faithful Stormwind Rider was bigger than it had previously been, but not quite big enough to carry the entire circle. Mazatl volunteered to take the slower agata and meet up with the others in the Lap. To avoid notice, the first group would set down outside the densely farmed region surrounding the city and hire a cart from a local to take them in the rest of the way. Krait mentioned incidentally that he was both from the Lap and wanted for theft from the brother of the new emperor. West exasperatedly dyed Krait's hair and made him a disguise. Once the group arrived at the city, they found it bustling and prosperous with token guards stationed around to protect the happy populace, including some dematerialized spirits of varying sorts stationed at major crossroads. Being the center of a new empire had been good for the Lap and the more civic-minded party-members lamented the necessity of taking out an obviously effective ruler. The group rented rooms at an inn, where Krait summoned a couple of perroneles for both Twilights over the next couple of nights and explained what he knew about how the Lap and the Ragaras there functioned. Half of the group was horrified by the system of indentured servitude, but less so when it was framed as compulsory military service. Shashaka was delighted by the forested game preserve on the Penitent’s arms and West wanted to encourage the illegal industry around blackmarket chatchkes. Ragara Aluru was known before his coup to be both a terrible gambler and a corrupt politician who used him position to pay off his gambling debts, but neither trait seemed to be at play in his rule anymore. He only rarely made public appearances, leaving the day to day running of the city to Cathak Sigip, one of the other former co-satraps. Much less useful was the other co-satrap, Peleps Tuchet, who was useless politically but very popular with the people for his approachable manner and excellent parties. Additionally, the Lap technically still had a king, Vellish Makatrie III, who was now even more of a puppet ruler than he had been under Realm rule. Shashaka scouted the grounds around the palace, a converted administration building rather than a fortress, and found it to be largely unsecured, with guards at the major entrances and dematerialized demons milling about as backup, but still many obvious ways inside for someone of her skillset. West suggested attending Cathak Sigip’s court to get the lay of the land and find more information on their quarry; Naran wanted to go directly to the head of the Penitent, where they suspected the control room for the Sword was; and Krait wanted to slowly summon his own demon army and have them quietly replace the existing demon army. The last suggestion was given the consideration it deserved (e.g. none) and the circle settled on scaling the two-mile-tall statue to look for a door.

The party crept its way through the restricted game preserve (with the Night caste ironically coming closest to being caught), but the light of the full moon was too bright to risk riding an agata upwards, meaning they had to climb (with Shashaka basically carrying West the whole way). After the long ascent, they were rewarded with an amazing view of most of the South, slightly marred by the two dematerialized blood apes who watched, but made no move to attack. West plotted the lay of the dragonlines and found them to be unnaturally ordered into intricate patterns. Krait suggested the most likely place for a door in a giant statue from the age of Solar rule to be at the castemark, at which point the apes attacked and were summarily dispatched. Ardor volunteered to check out the forehead since Shashaka had been slightly injured by the apes and discovered that the featureless rock responded greedily to the gift of her essence. She gave a significant amount to the statue and was rewarded with the opening of an impossibly bright portal like a Zenith castemark opening and shedding its light upon the entirety of the direction toward the Pole of Fire, lighting up the sky like a small sun. With any chance of stealth destroyed, the circle quickly jumped through the doorway into a warm, sunlight-filled meditation room sized for something much bigger than mere humans. Something like the dragon that put its head through the door they’d just entered through and demanded to know who and why such mortals had entered this sanctum. West was extremely deferential to what he recognized as a directional censor, but Krait was offended that it would call them mortals and Naran set about making friends as usual, though he refused to give his real name. Naran observed that the sanctum did not belong to this dragon and that the circle had evidently done him a favour by opening it and deserved a little consideration for that. The dragon begrudgingly agreed and introduced himself as Wong Bongerok, Censor of the South. During this discussion, Ardor wandered around the huge room and discovered a dragon-sized writing desk and a human-sized scribal assistant’s desk, as well as a bare, 200 foot tall pillar and a stairwell leading down. She waved Krait over to look at the desks and he discovered mortality reports from the Great Contagion and a letter summoning Censor Swan Dragon to fight a sudden incursion of Rashka. The chamber did not appear to have been touched since. Naran secured Wonk Bongerok’s goodwill for him personally and permission for the circle to explore the Penitent while the dragon privately celebrated finally getting his claws on the seals of office he’d been denied for so long.

As the circle made their way down the spiral staircase that served as the Penitent’s spine, they found themselves growing heavier and more sluggish. West explained that the Penitent’s chakra points were laid out like a real human’s and their descent down the spine brought them closer to the gate of Earth at the base of the spine. Once they reached the chakra itself, filled with ancient machinery, the weight became oppressive and painful, so after an examination of the mechanisms, the group retreated to where it was merely uncomfortable to discuss their options. West said he could work the machines in theory, but that control of them had been disabled, likely from the hearth room of the manse, if manse it was. He did have the ability to release the earth lock on the control room, meaning there were probably four more locks at each of the corresponding chakra points (wood at the crotch, water at the stomach, fire at the heart, and air all the way back up at the throat, leading up to the control room's "logical" location above the Penitent's head), each guarded by the same concentrated elemental energies that made the Earth one so painful, and that they’d need to disable them all to reach the central command. Unfortunately, the circle-member most able to deal with such energy was Mazatl.

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newseveryhourly · 5 years ago

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Recordings of 911 calls obtained by the Guardian provide details on the moments before a man was shot while jogging in GeorgiaAudio recordings of two 911 calls have shed further light on the final moments before Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead by two white men while jogging through a neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia.The full recordings, obtained by the Guardian, come after new video footage showing Arbery’s killing in February was released this week, prompting widespread outrage and raising questions over why no arrests have been made. Transcripts of the 911 calls have been previously reported by local media.Arbery had gone for a jog in Satilla Shores, near the Georgia coast, on the afternoon of Sunday 23 February. The 25-year-old was known around the neighborhood, and would sometimes wave to residents as he ran. But that day, a series of events unfolded that ended in his killing at the hands of Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael.Lawyers for Arbery’s family have said his death was a “lynching” and requested it be investigated as a hate crime.In one call, made at 1.14pm, the dispatcher asks for the address and the reason for the call. An unidentified man’s voice can be heard responding, “Uh, I’m out here at Satilla Shores. There’s a black male running down the street,” in an apparent reference Arbery.In an earlier call at 1.08pm, a different unidentified caller reports “a guy in a house right now, a house under construction”. The dispatcher asks if the man is breaking into the property, to which the caller responds: “No, it’s all open, it’s under construction.”The caller then says, “He’s running right now, and there he goes right now,” referring to Arbery, who was taking his usual jog around the neighborhood. The dispatcher asks: “OK, what is he doing?” The caller replies: “He’s running down the street.”A few second later, the dispatcher says: “I just need to know what he was doing wrong. Was he just on the premises and not supposed to be?”The beginning of his response is garbled, but when the background noise clears, there is no clear answer to the question. The dispatcher ends the calls shortly after, and says she will send someone by to check.At 1.14 pm, the second call is answered at the call center. Following the first exchange between the caller and the dispatcher, the caller again did not respond to the dispatcher, instead yelling: “Stop. Stop that. Dammit. Stop.”A moment later he shouts “Travis!” apparently addressing Travis McMichael.The dispatcher attempts to redirect the man’s attention 27 seconds into the call, saying, “Sir, hello, sir,” but does not receive an answer. The 911 call continues to record for nearly five minutes.Authorities have not released the identities of the callers. No one has been charged in the case.Two prosecutors have recused themselves, citing professional connections to Gregory McMichael. Documents and state records show the elder McMichael is a former police detective and district attorney investigator in Glynn county.The Guardian has contacted Gregory and Travis McMichael for comment.An outside prosecutor in charge of the case said he wants a grand jury to decide whether criminal charges are warranted. But that will not happen until at least mid-June, since Georgia courts remain largely closed because of the coronavirus.According to a police report from that day, the two men grabbed their weapons, a .357 Magnum revolver and a shotgun, jumped into a truck and began following Arbery after seeing him running.Gregory McMichael told police he and his adult son thought Arbery matched the description of someone caught on a security camera committing a recent break-in in the neighborhood. Arbery was not considered a suspect in any burglary.Gregory McMichael told police Arbery violently attacked his son. The video footage filmed by an anonymous individual and released this week contradicts that claim.Georgia law says a person can kill in self-defense “only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury … or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” The law also says a person who provokes an attack or acts as “the aggressor” can’t claim self-defense.Arbery’s family has called for immediate arrests after the video was released this week.“I saw my son come into the world,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, said. “And seeing him leave the world, it’s not something that I’ll want to see ever.”The civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Arbery’s father, said the video calls into question the claims made by the McMichaels in the police report.“They are heartbroken,” Crump said of the family. Of Arbery’s father, he added: “It’s just heart-wrenching for him that he has to look at his other son and daughter and try to make sense of it. He really thinks that his son was lynched.”Crump said Arbery’s parents, who are separated, want the public to see the video, even they cannot bring themselves to watch it themselves.Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery’s mother, said the justice department should investigate the death as a hate crime.“The FBI has said it’s assisting,” said Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd, “and as is standard protocol we look forward to working with them should information come to light of a potential federal violation.”Republican governor Brian Kemp late Tuesday threw his support behind that inquiry. He tweeted: “Georgians deserve answers. State law enforcement stands ready to ensure justice is served.”Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, also a Republican, said in a statement: “Based on the video footage and news reports that I have seen, I am deeply concerned with the events surrounding the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. I expect justice to be carried out as swiftly as possible.”

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sneaksite · 5 years ago

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from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://news.yahoo.com/ahmaud-arbery-killing-man-called-174543742.html

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attredd · 5 years ago

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#Ahmaud Arbery killing: man called 911 to report 'black male running' prior to shooting

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newsfundastuff · 5 years ago

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Recordings of 911 calls obtained by the Guardian provide details on the moments before a man was shot while jogging in GeorgiaAudio recordings of two 911 calls have shed further light on the final moments before Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead by two white men while jogging through a neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia.The full recordings, obtained by the Guardian, come after new video footage showing Arbery’s killing in February was released this week, prompting widespread outrage and raising questions over why no arrests have been made. Transcripts of the 911 calls have been previously reported by local media.Arbery had gone for a jog in Satilla Shores, near the Georgia coast, on the afternoon of Sunday 23 February. The 25-year-old was known around the neighborhood, and would sometimes wave to residents as he ran. But that day, a series of events unfolded that ended in his killing at the hands of Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael.Lawyers for Arbery’s family have said his death was a “lynching” and requested it be investigated as a hate crime.In one call, made at 1.14pm, the dispatcher asks for the address and the reason for the call. An unidentified man’s voice can be heard responding, “Uh, I’m out here at Satilla Shores. There’s a black male running down the street,” in an apparent reference Arbery.In an earlier call at 1.08pm, a different unidentified caller reports “a guy in a house right now, a house under construction”. The dispatcher asks if the man is breaking into the property, to which the caller responds: “No, it’s all open, it’s under construction.”The caller then says, “He’s running right now, and there he goes right now,” referring to Arbery, who was taking his usual jog around the neighborhood. The dispatcher asks: “OK, what is he doing?” The caller replies: “He’s running down the street.”A few second later, the dispatcher says: “I just need to know what he was doing wrong. Was he just on the premises and not supposed to be?”The beginning of his response is garbled, but when the background noise clears, there is no clear answer to the question. The dispatcher ends the calls shortly after, and says she will send someone by to check.At 1.14 pm, the second call is answered at the call center. Following the first exchange between the caller and the dispatcher, the caller again did not respond to the dispatcher, instead yelling: “Stop. Stop that. Dammit. Stop.”A moment later he shouts “Travis!” apparently addressing Travis McMichael.The dispatcher attempts to redirect the man’s attention 27 seconds into the call, saying, “Sir, hello, sir,” but does not receive an answer. The 911 call continues to record for nearly five minutes.Authorities have not released the identities of the callers. No one has been charged in the case.Two prosecutors have recused themselves, citing professional connections to Gregory McMichael. Documents and state records show the elder McMichael is a former police detective and district attorney investigator in Glynn county.The Guardian has contacted Gregory and Travis McMichael for comment.An outside prosecutor in charge of the case said he wants a grand jury to decide whether criminal charges are warranted. But that will not happen until at least mid-June, since Georgia courts remain largely closed because of the coronavirus.According to a police report from that day, the two men grabbed their weapons, a .357 Magnum revolver and a shotgun, jumped into a truck and began following Arbery after seeing him running.Gregory McMichael told police he and his adult son thought Arbery matched the description of someone caught on a security camera committing a recent break-in in the neighborhood. Arbery was not considered a suspect in any burglary.Gregory McMichael told police Arbery violently attacked his son. The video footage filmed by an anonymous individual and released this week contradicts that claim.Georgia law says a person can kill in self-defense “only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury … or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” The law also says a person who provokes an attack or acts as “the aggressor” can’t claim self-defense.Arbery’s family has called for immediate arrests after the video was released this week.“I saw my son come into the world,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, said. “And seeing him leave the world, it’s not something that I’ll want to see ever.”The civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Arbery’s father, said the video calls into question the claims made by the McMichaels in the police report.“They are heartbroken,” Crump said of the family. Of Arbery’s father, he added: “It’s just heart-wrenching for him that he has to look at his other son and daughter and try to make sense of it. He really thinks that his son was lynched.”Crump said Arbery’s parents, who are separated, want the public to see the video, even they cannot bring themselves to watch it themselves.Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery’s mother, said the justice department should investigate the death as a hate crime.“The FBI has said it’s assisting,” said Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd, “and as is standard protocol we look forward to working with them should information come to light of a potential federal violation.”Republican governor Brian Kemp late Tuesday threw his support behind that inquiry. He tweeted: “Georgians deserve answers. State law enforcement stands ready to ensure justice is served.” He added on Thursday that the killing was “absolutely horrific”.Also on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump said: “I’m getting a full report on it this evening. My heart goes out to the parents and to the loved ones of the young gentleman. It’s a very sad thing.”The chairman of the House judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, cited “clear probable cause for first-degree murder charges”.> Nadler: "The cell phone footage of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery would appear to present clear probable cause for first degree murder charges. Justice for Ahmaud requires a full investigation ... beginning with the arrest of all assailants ... [DOJ] must immediately investigate."> > — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 7, 2020Georgia attorney general Chris Carr said he was deeply concerned, adding: “I expect justice to be carried out as swiftly as possible.”

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clobov · 5 years ago

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saadullah-faisal-world · 5 years ago

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creativesage · 6 years ago

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(via Solomon Darwin Takes Corporate Innovation to Rural Villages in India)

The UC professor, born into the so-called group of India’s “untouchables,” thinks one great idea can change rural lives, and is proving it with his Smart Village Movement.

By Patrick Hoge

Solomon Darwin was born in a rural village in southeast India to a family of so-called “untouchables,” a group of people designated by the Hindu religion as cursed because of sins in former lives and thus historically subject to poverty, discrimination, and oppression.

Darwin nevertheless went on to successful careers in U.S. banking and academia after his family converted to Christianity and moved to California, where he was able to get an education. He’s now a UC Berkeley professor.

“America has been extremely beautiful for me,” said Darwin, an unassuming man with jet-black hair, bushy eyebrows, beard, and mustache as well as jarringly intense eyes and a kindly voice. “The equal opportunity which I experienced in America brought me into prominence because it has given me the chance to prove myself. It’s a place where hard work can be rewarded.”

A life of comfort and ease, however, was not Darwin’s reward. Instead, Darwin has embraced personal sacrifices and threats from Hindu extremists to spread prosperity in his former homeland, particularly for those at the bottom of society.

As an academic, Darwin has become an increasingly influential promoter of U.S.-India ties, meeting with government officials up to India’s president and prime minister, and becoming the leader of a Smart Village Movement that aims to bring technological and economic development to India’s rural villages. There are some 650,000 such villages in India, and they are home to nearly 70 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion citizens.

Though virtually all of his extended family long ago emigrated to the United States, Darwin has also consistently gone back to his native village of Mori Podu on the Bay of Bengal, a town of 8,000 where he built and runs a school, an orphanage, and a hospital, all of which serve the poor and outcast, regardless of religious persuasion or social status.

“We are all blessed because of him,” said Harish Pindi, a 27-year-old Mori native who attended Darwin’s Riverside International School. He recently graduated in computer science from California State University, Northridge, and now lives in Fremont. Pindi recalled Riverside as an egalitarian oasis, and said Darwin counseled him to success when he almost failed college.

Darwin explained his motivation to help others by quoting Abraham Lincoln’s adage that almost anyone can go through life’s challenges and succeed, but gaining power will truly test a person’s character.

“I see lot of old friends, even my own relatives, and they are so forgetful and lacking in gratitude now in America. Remember where you came from,” he said. “Even to today I am always remembering.”

This year, Darwin published two books. One, The Untouchables: Three Generations of Triumph Over Torment, is about his own family’s journey over three generations to escape caste oppression. The other, The Road to Mori: Smart Villages of Tomorrow, is about his campaign to digitally empower villages, which, over the past couple of years, has been officially adopted by two Indian states and received support from numerous universities and tech corporations like San Jose’s PayPal, Google in Mountain View, and Ericsson, Sweden’s networking and telecommunications giant.

PayPal chief technical officer Sri Shivananda, for example, dispatched staff to work with Darwin’s students in Mori interviewing local citizens about how to help them sell saris, cashews, and other goods over the internet.

Ericsson in May was touting how it has developed applications of sensor technology in Mori to help shrimp farmers improve harvests and improve water distribution.

Those efforts have already produced tangible benefits for Mori’s residents, and last year the state of Andhra Pradesh approved funding to help Darwin spread similar innovations to the rest of its 470-plus villages, said Venkatesan Ashok, India’s consul general in San Francisco.

“We saw how the villagers were thriving with the improvements that had come in,” Ashok said. “We need many Solomon Darwins to make change in India.”

Andhra Pradesh has given Darwin the honorary title of chief innovation officer. In June, the state of Arunachal Pradesh near the Himalayas in the northeast followed suit with its own deal to develop Smart Villages, shortly after Darwin hosted state officials in the Bay Area and introduced them to executives at PayPal’s headquarters. Darwin is now planning a trip with UC Berkeley students for next year.

Throughout, Darwin has continued to raise money for his school, hospital, and orphanage he started in Mori, relying heavily on church and service groups, like Rotary clubs, which have provided cash, materials, and volunteer services.

Vivek Wadwha, a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering at Silicon Valley, said what Darwin has accomplished both personally and professionally is “incredible.”

“These are complete extremes,” said Wadwha, who met Darwin about a decade ago through another academic but did not know until recently that Darwin was born into India’s Hindu underclass. “You are talking about going from the poorest of the poor in India to the height of academia in Silicon Valley. How does that happen? He didn’t hit the lottery. He worked his way to where he is.”

Darwin was born a member of India’s scavenger caste, the members of which have historically been expected to take jobs like cleaning public toilets and sewers, burying the dead, or working virtually as indentured rural slaves. Such “untouchables,” also called Dalits by activists, are among an estimated 200 million people that the government designates as “scheduled castes,” and though affirmative action programs exist and discrimination was officially banned when India adopted its constitution in 1950, prejudice remains, economic opportunities are often limited, and incidents of oppressive violence continue. Deaths of Dalit men manually cleaning out sewage equipment have been commonplace in recent years, for example, even though the practice was outlawed in 2013, and inter-caste marriage provokes killings.

Fortunately for Darwin, he had a remarkable role model of resilience and entrepreneurism in his grandmother, a woman known as Subbamma, who rejected caste distinctions, converted to Christianity and ran restaurants, a lace-making export business and a community bank while also acting as schoolteacher and midwife to countless local children.

“Entrepreneurship is a liberator. That’s what my grandmother proved,” Darwin said.

Opportunity proved nonexistent for Darwin’s academically inclined father, however. He could not find a job despite completing an advanced degree in marine science — a fact he attributed to caste discrimination.

Incredibly, Darwin’s father eventually got hired by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, and after four years’ separation, Darwin and his mother joined him in La Jolla. The family later relocated to San Bruno.

Equipped with at best a fifth-grade education, Darwin was overwhelmed by culture shock and depression. He tearfully pleaded his way into community college, working as a janitor at the school. Three years later, he transferred to San Francisco State University, where he got a bachelor’s degree, proceeding then to get an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Darwin got a job as a financial analyst for Motorola Inc. in San Mateo, worked at a bank in Tulsa, Okla., and then got a job at Glendale Federal Bank in Southern California working as a cost accountant in a crowded basement in a warehouse-like building. In his spare time, he wrote a report identifying how to cut costs.

The report made its way to the bank’s president, who pulled Darwin from obscurity and sent him to Harvard University for an executive training program. When Darwin returned in 1984, he was named corporate controller for GlenFed and given a corner office with a stunning view of the Glendale hills and spreading metropolis.

Darwin bought some nice suits. He worked a lot, went to church, bought a large new house.

Then, in 1988, Darwin’s grandmother died, and the trajectory of Darwin’s life again changed dramatically. Subbamma had come in her twilight years to live near relatives. In her final days, she asked Darwin to take her body back to Mori Podu for burial. Darwin told her he could not commit to making that journey, as he was very busy, but his boss urged him to go.

o in 1988, Darwin traveled with Subbamma’s embalmed body by airplane, rail, truck, rickshaw, and finally in a small boat poled by hand across the Godavari River.

Darwin had not been back to Mori Podu since the age of 15. When the boat carrying Subbamma’s casket landed at the water’s edge, hundreds of people were waiting for her arrival. One held a sign in Telugu reading “Subbamma, a friend of the poor.”

Upon returning to the United States, Darwin sold his big house and moved into a communal home for Christian missionaries in Pasadena, where he shared a room with four other men. He sent his savings to Mori to begin rebuilding Subbamma’s mud hut school.

On the professional front, Darwin continued to advance, ultimately becoming a senior vice president of corporate finance for Bank of America in San Francisco. But when the bank was sold to NationsBank and the headquarters was moved to Charlotte, N.C., Darwin resigned. He had fallen in love with a ballet dancer of Swedish descent whom he met at his church, and the two got married and moved to Mori to supervise construction of the school and an orphanage on land Darwin bought when an upper caste farmer had a heart attack and needed money. It opened in 1996 and today serves nearly 800 students a year. The nearby medical center Darwin built similarly sits on land from which Darwin recalled being chased as a child by an upper caste man who yelled that he was unclean.

Darwin moved back to Southern California when his wife was going to give birth. He was broke and exhausted, but one day received a call from former Harvard Business School professor Ken Merchant, who had tracked him down to offer him a teaching position at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Elated, Darwin worked at USC for nine years, where Merchant said he was an outstanding teacher, before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley.

Today, Darwin and his wife, with whom he has three children, live in Pacifica. He is executive director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, part of Haas’ Institute for Business Innovation.

From that perch, Darwin teaches about business innovation, hosts conferences to promote U.S.-India commerce, the most recent being in September, and supervises student research aimed at using technology and global trade to develop villages around the world, where 3.4 billion live.

“I’m very excited about the work I’m doing. Otherwise, I would be depressed. Most of my life, I’ve had a lot of setbacks. At times, I have not wanted to live anymore,” Darwin said. “At this moment, God has blessed me to a point where I can give something back.”

It’s not all roses, Darwin is quick to point out. Caste and intersectarian tensions in India remain, with violence and other outrages occurring regularly. Despite his own accomplishments, Darwin feels discrimination from Hindus in India and in the Bay Area.

Darwin’s name has even appeared on a Hindu radical target list.

As a result, Darwin said he is careful about broadcasting his whereabouts when he’s in India, and his goal is never to inflame opposition, though he has taken stands at times to ensure staff at his school treat students equally regardless of caste.

“I want to live peaceably with everyone and work with everyone no matter who they are,” he said.

[Entire article — click on the title link to read it at Oakland Magazine.]

***

We’re glad that “new Silicon Valleys,” or place-specific innovation centers, are growing all over the world, at least in terms of innovation and the development of creative economy ecosystems — and we would love to visit them all! We all learn best by exchanging ideas across cultures and industries. We fully support complete diversity in the workplace, and overcoming the inequality challenges that are still too prevalent in our world.

Now, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and organizational leaders from other cities and countries who are visiting the San Francisco Bay Area can have access to Silicon Valley companies to learn from their cultures, hiring, leadership and innovation methods. Come join us for a dynamic, unforgettable, and very enjoyable Innovation Tour in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, the East Bay (Emeryville, Oakland, Berkeley, and more), in the Wine Country, or on the beautiful, rural Northern California seacoast in Mendocino County, including Fort Bragg, California, where we have worked on business, arts and tourism projects.

At Creative Sage™, we design high impact, customized creativity, innovation, and leadership programs, and we are now offering related tours, events, corporate retreats, and workshops in wonderful urban and rural settings that will spark your imagination — and your team’s — to come up with brilliant ideas and plan how to implement new innovations in services, products, your organization’s business model, operations, or in any other area. We also design programs for specific areas and markets, such as health care and health-related travel.

We use the latest in value-tested creativity and innovation techniques and processes; and we select world-class facilitators and partners to help your organization gain lasting value from your experience working — and playing — with us. Creativity and innovation processes could include design thinking, business model canvas, arts-based, interactive creativity activities, lateral thinking, gamification, World Cafe, or other proven methods.

We also work on workplace culture issues, leadership challenges, handling transitions, and building resilience in organizations and individual clients. You’ll be able to see first-hand how Silicon Valley companies create a culture of creativity and innovation, and you’ll be able to talk with their leaders. We’ll arrange a customized tour for you that addresses your organization’s issues.

We can design additional customized programs and tours for individuals, families, work teams, university students and faculty, including those in undergraduate or graduate entrepreneurship or MBA programs, and other special interest groups, such as the charitable tourism activities.

Join our email list and visit our web site, or call: (510) 845-5510 for more information.

You’ll take away essential, valuable insights that you could not achieve in any other way, while enjoying the experience of a lifetime!

***

#solomondarwin #ucberkeley #india #ruralindia #socialinnovation #socinn #socent #entrepreneurs #innovationprograms #innovationtourism #leadership #smartvillagemovement #smartvillage

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epacer · 6 years ago

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Martenizing the Unified District

Cindy Marten's fortune: leading San Diego Unified forward while suffering personal setbacks

Fortune #1,082: “You will have good luck in your personal affairs.” Years ago, Cindy Marten started finding fortunes — not the cookies, just the tossed-aside slips of paper — in random locations: under her seat at a Mexican restaurant, inside a supermarket, outside a gas station.

Marten, the San Diego Unified School District’s superintendent, catalogs these messages. Some are encouraging.

Others seem to be mocking her. That “good luck” fortune? She found it soon after losing control of a scooter on a city sidewalk. This May 12 accident sent her to the emergency room with a broken right arm, cuts and bruises.

Three days later, she was released from the hospital. “She comes out on a Tuesday at 10 a.m.,” said Mel Katz, a friend. “She’s had surgery, there’s a metal plate in her arm, a gash in her head — and she goes to her 3:30 p.m. board meeting.”

She stayed to the end of the six-hour session. “People think she is going to pass out,” Katz said.

But Marten, who next week marks her fifth anniversary as superintendent, was determined to honor her personal credo: “Work Hard, Be Kind, Dream Big! No Excuses.”

“You be there for joy and for pain,” she said. “You show up for it.”

In this position, showing up for five years is a major accomplishment. To lead California’s second-largest public school district, a mammoth enterprise of 181 schools and about 106,000 students, is to defy fate. This is a meat grinder of a job, a destroyer of reputations, a graveyard of bold plans and high hopes.

In the 10 years before Marten’s hiring, the district was led by four permanent and three interim superintendents. The position seemed so unworkable, the board of trustees debated scrapping it in favor of some less-punishing arrangement.

But roughly 24 hours after another short-term superintendent resigned, the board offered the job to an elementary school principal with decades of classroom experience: Marten.

Fans say this experiment is now showing signs of success. In April, the district topped the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card.”

“San Diego Unified School District blew the socks off this cycle of the Nation’s Report Card, which measures progress on reading and math at grades four and eight,” said Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, representing 69 of the country’s largest urban public school districts.

“No other city in the country saw gains in both grades in reading and math like San Diego.”

Graduation rates have risen to 91 percent. Marten seems to have won over her five-member board and many of the district’s 12,900 employees.

“The good thing is she’s been a teacher,” said Myriam Pedersen, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching in the district. “It makes a huge difference when they talk about, ‘here’s our goals, here’s what we will do,’ if they’ve been a teacher.”

Still, budget cuts and layoffs are perennial issues. An achievement gap between students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, while narrowing, persists. There are still under-performing schools.

While juggling these professional challenges, Marten has been hit with personal crises. In January Marten’s mother, Fern Siegel, the former president of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, suffered a heart attack. Visibly scarred from her scooter mishap, Marten bears invisible scars from the deaths of her father in 2014 and her husband in 2016.

“None of it affects her job,” said Katz, who is on the board of one of the district’s charter schools, the C3 Academy. “She has such a positive attitude and really, really believes that we are doing great things for the city.

“We are just starting to see what Cindy can accomplish in San Diego.”

Fortune #592: “You will find good fortune in love.” Marten is 51, two years younger than her brother, Charley Cohen — “the love of my life,” she calls him. As a young girl, Cindy rapidly surpassed her older sibling in most academic subjects, as he is developmentally disabled.

“I’m certain I became a teacher because of my brother, Charley,” she said. “I wanted to teach him.”

The Cohens moved from Chicago to San Diego when Cindy was 11, so Charley could enroll in California’s special education program. The family prized education — the father, Donald Cohen, was a lawyer and certified public accountant who spoke several languages; the mother, a CPA and community activist, was president of a synagogue (Temple Emanu-El in San Carlos) and led a campaign to build a residence for the mentally ill (Chesed Home: Hope Village in Escondido).

Cynthia Minette Cohen, the couple’s middle child, is the only one who was adopted and the only one without a serious disability. Her younger sister, Laura, was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic as a young woman.

Cindy attended local public schools — Hardy Elementary, Horace Mann Middle — before enrolling in La Jolla Country Day. For her senior project, she interned at the Aseltine School, then a special education academy where Charley had studied.

She idolized Aseltine’s energetic principal, Marian Grant. Years later as a young teacher, Cindy Cohen took Grant to lunch.

“What’s your secret?” the fledgling educator asked her mentor. “How do you avoid burning out?”

“You’ll never burn out,” Grant predicted, “because you are curious.”

Armed with a teaching degree from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Cohen began her career at Beth Israel Day School in 1991. That same year, she married her longtime boyfriend, a dashing hotel manager from Mexico City, Sergio Marten.

After a stint in the Poway district as a teacher and literacy specialist, Marten moved to San Diego Unified and City Heights’ Central Elementary. There, she was a teacher, vice principal and principal.

She assumed that last position in 2007, just as her husband suffered a massive stroke.

“I had 1,000 kids counting on me, our son was 12 going on 13, and my husband, my soul mate, was in the ICU and we didn’t know if he would live or die,” she said.

To maintain her emotional balance, she vowed to take one photograph a day for a year, focusing on something that made her grateful.

Nature supplied most subjects — butterflies, sunsets, ocean vistas — but homey images sometimes appeared. Her feet, for instance, kicking off her shoes after a long day.

“The world doesn’t change,” Marten said, “but the way you look at the world changes.”

When the year ended, Marten continued this practice. She still does today.

Fortune #1,083: “An unexpected visitor will bring you good blessings.” Under Marten, Central was cited as a successful inner city school by experts local and national. The principal advocated smaller class sizes, established clear, measurable results for her teachers, and provided staff with additional training and resources.

When Richard Barrera, a local labor leader, began his successful campaign for the school board in 2008, he spoke with students, teachers, staff and administrators.

“Cindy was the most articulate educator I met in this whole process,” said Barrera, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers’ Local 135. “She was able to take me and show me and articulate at her school how to create an environment where kids were thriving.”

When Superintendent Terry Grier resigned to lead Houston’s school district, Barrera tapped Marten to serve on the search committee for a successor.

“She became a leader in that process,” Barrera said.

That process resulted in the June 2010 hiring of Bill Kowba. Less than three years later, when he announced his retirement, Marten became the trustees’ unanimous choice without a search committee or any community testimony.

This was “virtually unheard of,” the Union-Tribune reported, and some were upset by the move. Marten disturbed some district employees and parents early in her tenure, as she replaced close to 75 percent of the district’s principals.

“She wants strong principals who support and hold accountable the teachers,” Katz said. “It’s all about proper training and doing the right things — supporting your teachers, giving them the tools they need and holding them accountable.”

Those tools include special teams dispatched to schools to share the latest best practices on math or reading instruction.

Observers say Marten benefited by inheriting a board of trustees that, unlike many earlier boards, is not split into warring camps. There’s an agreed-upon mission, to tackle racial achievement gaps and to provide every student a broad and challenging curriculum.

“We’re all pulling in the same direction,” Barrera said.

“I think we’re getting a lot accomplished,” said Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, another trustee. “We want every child reading by third grade and we're working on that. We want every child to graduate and we’re working on that.”

Part of that work involves the superintendent regularly briefing the trustees and keeping the surprises, good or bad, to a minimum.

“We meet weekly,” Whitehurst-Payne said. “That’s good access.”

Fortune #619: “You can be trusted to keep a secret.” In his retirement, Marten’s father became known as "Don the Can Man.” A longtime runner and bicyclist, Don Cohen often scoured San Diego’s streets for aluminum cans, keeping meticulous count of how many he had grabbed and recycled.

On his 80th birthday, Oct. 14, 2014, he scored his 4 millionth can. His goal was 8 million cans, but he would never reach that number. While bicycling near San Diego State University that fall, he was hit by a car. He died from his injuries on Nov. 7, 2014.

Marten had little time to mourn her father, as her husband’s health was deteriorating. In the summer of 2016, while in a rehab center, he seemed to be recovering.

Marten called him early on Aug. 21, 2016, the day of the America’s Finest City Half Marathon, which she had entered. He sounded fine, an impression reinforced by a positive report from the rehab center’s staff, and promised to see Marten after her run.

“I was running to honor my father,” she said. But the race soon took on an even darker hue.

At Mile 7, Marten’s cell phone rang. Sergio Marten’s heart had failed, and he had died at the age of 57. He and Cindy had been husband and wife for 25 years and a couple for 33 years.

Days later, the 2016-2017 school year kicked off with a rally.

“I went to school, went to the meetings,” Marten said. “I could have been the grieving widow, but you go.”

Her emotions were profoundly mixed — “there’s this great joy because the beginning of school is such an amazing time” — but she didn't want her own sorrows to cast a shadow over that special day.

“If I need to cry,” she said, “I cry.”

Even now, she tears up when discussing the Job-like series of calamities that has hit the family in the last four years. She mourns, but she also takes comfort in the loved ones who remain and the chance she has to move this district ahead.

“This district”? Scratch that.

“I don’t think of this as working for the district,” she said,. “I think of this as working for my community.”

As superintendent, she’s privy to inside information about principals, teachers, counselors, secretaries. Some of this is joyful — Marten is known for writing notes to staff, marking birthdays and anniversaries — and some is not.

On June 13, she testified for an hour in a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by an investigator who says he was fired after refusing to alter his reports on a sexual assault incident at San Carlos’ Green Elementary School.

On the witness stand, Marten was asked if she had urged anyone to “whitewash” the report by the investigator, Michael Gurrieri.

“Absolutely not,” she replied, “of course not.”

In an interview, Marten said she could not comment on this case, as a decision is still pending.

Intense scrutiny comes with this job, for better or worse. Tyler Cramer, a San Diegan who serves on the board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, was present when superintendents from the nation’s top four urban public school districts spoke in Washington, D.C.

“Cindy did her presentation on math and she was amazing,” Cramer said. “You can see her panel on Youtube and she’s a knockout on it. This is playing in the major leagues at the playoff level.”

That’s one characteristic of a champion — the ability to play and win, even when hurt. *Reposted article from the UT by Peter Rowe of June 24, 2018

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lovestructionworld · 7 years ago

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“ISIS of the Heart” LFM #28 March 16, 2016

"ISIS of the Heart"

When I see something that isn't right and is causing pain, I'm always pulled to "Why is this happening" and "What is the root?" This is one of the reasons I am so drawn to deliverance ministry. Omnipotent Holy Spirit can rescue anyone no matter how strong their stronghold is. Holy Spirit, I give you full credit for every miracle I've ever seen!!

The key is humility. "God opposed the proud, but gives grace to the humble." He decides whether to dispatch one of His messengers...or an angel...or a legion of angels to accomplish whatever he wants.

Please understand that deliverance isn't just for the individual. Deliverance is for families, for churches and for nations too.

Our Christian flesh tendency is to point the finger away from our own negative, sinful issues as being responsible for our pain and personal disintegration. At birth, we are born into this cycle of aggressive denial. Masses of people can be in aggressive denial as well.

Old and New Testament Historical Evidence

Time after time, in the Old Testament, Israel (God own people) always experienced some measure of foreign invasion and attack as God's response to their root cause and denial of sin. Somehow, we like to pretend that The Trinity is different today.

"Old Testament" Israel's most precious religious object, The Temple, which physically and symbolically connected them to their living God, was destroyed twice by foreign invaders because of God's disappointment and anger with them. Please give some thought to how Israel's loss of the Temple parallels the unleashed and undefended attack on our "In God we Trust", "10 Commandments" and Prayer being removed from our schools in the United States today.

Through the whole of the "New Testament", Israel was experiencing foreigner (Roman) occupation because of sin.

Israel's sin was so odious to Holy Spirit that an entire "chosen" race of people was eventually scattered to the four corners of the earth by God's restraint toward demonic activity attacking His people. He allowed or sent Himself torturous foreigners as His rod of correction. Think Taliban, ISIS and a host of other AK-47 carrying corrective rods secretly positioned around the USA right now, inside and outside of our borders, about which billion dollar nuclear submarines and ten billion dollar aircraft carriers can't touch.

US/Israelite Parallels

I'm sure the Jews were blaming their weak, national (US Senate/House), regional (State Governors) and local leaders (City Mayors). Or maybe they were blaming their last weak King (President Obama today) who was into appeasement and negotiation. Maybe they thought the reason for their difficulty was flimsy protection at their borders with southern Egypt (Our Mexico), eastern Iran (ISIS in Europe) and the invaders to the North, there Syria (Our Russia attacking with nukes from over the North Pole).

And let's not forget the "sinners" as a potential reason for their trouble (Homosexuals and baby aborters in our country today). Both are without a doubt sin, but not the real and deeper reason for our countries regression.

We know from the Gospels Israel was convinced that a new King, one with all the right, progressive ideas, would save them. They wanted someone who would side with the "pious" and "righteous", the Pharisees and Sadducee's of their day (Religious Right in ours).

They wanted a leader who would stop the inflow of foreigners, and be tough on the invaders causing them mass casualties (US Illegal Aliens, the Border Wall and Muslim infiltration).

They wanted a leader who was all about their national safety and security, who would make them strong again ("The Donald" today). This desire was so strong it caused them to miss the real King of Kings.

They wished and prayed for this kind of King/Leader all day and every day, decade after decade and never were able to find that person. Instead, they had national weakness, moral decay and political and spiritual gridlock with a synagogue in most cities. Sound familiar?

The last of those looking for this kind of King and those rebellious to the foreign invaders committed suicide in a place called Masada.

Hail to the Chief

None of this mattered to God. And instead He set His kind of King right into their midst. God introduce Jesus, through John the Baptist, as His choice for Israelite Presidency, Prime Minister...King. I can hear our own President's "Hail to the Chief" song playing and then dying off in the background as the Pharisees said, What???, wait...Him??? Seriously???

He was a humble King who taught them about confession and repentance. He told them not to be afraid of death (Oh death, where is your sting) and to reach out to foreigners and the weak with love, whether they were going to be killed or not.

Let's face it. Jesus' exit poles weren't fairing well with, "Crucify Him"!

Right when He was about to show them how to die for others, at least one person in Jesus' entourage had a carrying permit for a sword and pulled it in Jesus' defense. He even winged one of the torturers in the ear, symbolically pointing to both the defender and the religious leaders inability to hear. What was Jesus' response to the person who wounded the torturer?... "Sheath your sword. For those that live by the sword, die by the sword". Sounds like the disciple was using the wrong kind of weapon to me.

Heaven On Earth

To Jesus, living life was/is about bringing heaven to earth while you are here. He wants us bringing His resurrection life to each of our spheres of influence through the loving, real miraculous power of the Helper, Holy Spirit. I know this might hurt. But political parties have zero miraculous, heart changing power. The Litmus Test is this. Are you having a miraculous, resurrection life impact, with your own spiritual DNA gift set, on your own, personal sphere of influence? I'm laughing right now, out loud, at how simple this truth is. But, the evil spirit of pride will potentially block it.

The enemy? Well, he is all about distraction from Jesus' Kingdom culture truth. The enemy wants us focusing on self protection, guns and the false belief that good government and just the right King will be our salvation. But we Christians so want to hold onto comfort, safety, border protection through our newly elected President. And OMG help us, we wonder why the Muslims cry "Crusaders".

Jesus constantly lived life on the assassination edge. But this didn't stop him from reaching out. I love how Jesus opened His Kingdom's borders to the Gentiles (The unclean, the foreigner, the angry, the torturers, the sinners) and He didn't save the promise (Himself) only for the Jews. For anyone who would bow the knee to him, He would be all inclusive.

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Matthew 16:25

In closing, God's own self centered, comfort minded, and frozen hearted people are always the reason for societal regression. When we blood bought believers begin "wanting" to lose our lives for Jesus is when Holy Spirit and society will respond positively to our internal revival." God the Father has this thing about sending His children to crosses. We don't get to vote on this. He expects it at, "Please save me Jesus".

One last thing...I'm not saying "don't vote". Holy Spirit is asking you, "What do you treasure" and "Where is your heart"? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

Love to you all,

Brian Burke

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darkcloud-kcalifornia · 8 years ago

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NOTHING IS GOING TO INTERRUPT ME THIS TIME! NANOHA A’S EPISODE 8 “The Decision of Heartbreak and the Courageous Choice”

* I’m not sure if the command center they’re referring to is HQ or the local dispatch post they’ve created in the apartment building, but either way it’s something that’d be fairly worrying. If it’s HQ, that would imply whoever is behind this is able to bypass their core systems, which isn’t good considering how HQ is a space station and they kinda need their systems to, you know, live. An if it’s the apartment, well, at the very least they probably know exactly where the heroes are now.

* Lindy brings up another worrying point, the perp used TSAB tech to do the hack, not Belkan.

* Oh hey, we finally get to see that Alex guy who’d occasionally act as a behind the monitor voice. Hi Alex! I don’t expect to see you again!

* It’s nice to see the Wolkenritter are actually trying to figure out what’s going on with the masked man’s assistance rather than just taking him at face value.

* It’s also nice to see that they’ve already thought to put as many protection spells as they can on the house in case somebody tries to mess with Hayate. …I kinda wanna see some dumb, mundane random burglar try to break in just to see what happens.

* Well we need more drama in this episode than people sitting around tables talking about problematic implications, so here’s a little girl’s BoD induced heart attack!

* Aww… both Lindy and Arf were waiting by Fate’s bed for her to wake up.

* Something I really like about this scene is Lindy tries to be conscious of Fate’s potential problems from her abuse. She worries that Fate might not have liked having her hand held by an adult and is ready to apologize for it when she realizes that.

* Uh, why’d you tell the school “family problems”? I’m pretty sure that you could have gotten away with saying she isn’t feeling well. Wouldn’t of even been a lie.

* Aww… Fate’s looking at the hand Lindy held and smiling.

* Well enough sick bay stuff, let’s switch scenes to… the hospital! Huh, lotta medical stuff going on this episode.

* The dc and Hayate both claim everything is fine, nothing to worry about, by-the-by can I speak to the adults separately over here for a second? Yeah, real subtle there show.

* Rather than going right away into the obviously bad news, let us instead contemplate the random crying girl being dragged along by somebody who, judging by lower body clothing at least, is an older female relative, like mother. My guess is that somebody just found out they’re getting a shot.

* So yeah, back to the serious stuff, the doc can’t back this up with test results, but thinks that the paralysis is spreading again and would like to hospitalize Hayate for a while to be on the safe side. Hayate first tries to think of a reason she can’t with the Wolkenritter all being helpless in the kitchen, and then tries to spin it as a vacation with room service. Obvious brave face is obvious.

* Well that’s certainly an eyecatch. But why is Vita Santa? I’d think if anybody was a good pick for elf it would be the eternally small girl. Is it because she wears red?

* Holy Sankt Kaiser I just thought of the cutest thing! Imagine Vita and Zafira dressing up like that and using the fact that they can fly to actually bring a sleigh with toys up to the window of a Children’s Ward in a hospital and distribute presents. I mean, obviously not the year this takes place as they’re kinda preoccupied with other things. But say next year when things have quieted down and they’ve had a chance to hear about Hayate’s experiences in a hospital around Christmas from her perspective (sadly I doubt the big battle at the end of this season was the first time she was in one). And so the Wolkenritter decide to do something with her to make the kids happy and it’s just the most adorable thing.

* Yay, we’re back in the Infinity Library! I know this means there’s an exposition dump in the future but I just love the concept, look, and music for that place so much.

* Actually here’s a thought, and one that’s quite spoilerful for those who haven’t seen this: what do you think Lotte and Aria actually thought about their time helping Yuuno in the Infinity Library? Did they consider it a waste of time in light of their plan, or were they hoping they’d somehow find another way?

* Anyway, back to exposition. The Book of Darkness was originally the Tome of the Night Sky, and was meant to aid its master in researching magitek. The whole Book of Darkness thing probably started by somebody taking a look at a research tool and thinking “I bet I could make a sweet gun outta this thing”. And trying to change the programing and purpose resulted in bugs that have resulted in the Travel and Auto-repair functions going haywire and resulting in an unintended Reincarnation system which is why the TSAB is having such a hard time putting the dang thing down for good. And because it’s main purpose was changed from “gather and store info for research” to “gather and spend power for boom” it’ll draw on its master’s power to get some if necessary, and use it indiscriminately once it’s full. Plus the only person who can try to make alterations to the program are somebody who has admin rights, which is the master of a complete BoD. Any attempts at hacking from the outside just cause the thing to eat its owner and hightail it.

* Amy brings up an interesting problem with the masked man. Even at the currently known max warping speed it would take somebody 20 minutes to travel between both worlds the last fight took place on, yet he managed to be there at critical moments for both within 9.

* On that note, apparently even magical teleportation isn’t truly instantainious in this setting, and when the distance is measured in… whatever the dimensional space equivalent of light-years is I dunno, it’s still gonna take time.

* And here’s the innocent decision that eventually causes the metaphorical horseapples to hit the turbines. Arisa suggests that they all go to visit Hayate in the hospital. Which is normally a good idea and was made for good reasons, but well, the road to wondering what kind of a devil somebody is is paved with good intentions.

* Ah, Shamal’s moment of panic when she sees who two of the visitors will be.

* Huh, interesting how costuming magic is explicitly a thing in this setting while it’s normally just assumed for certain magical girls. And that we find this out because Shamal is kicking herself for not using it as now the TSAB know her face and are dropping by Hayate’s hospital room for a friendly visit.

* Shamal… don’t take costuming advice from Jadeite.

* Oh hey, we have a date for this episode, December 13. And if I recall correctly everything goes down Christmas Eve. Hopefully it won’t actually take me that long to get that far in these recaps!

* Hayate’s hopes for being home for Christmas for a fun time are contrasted with the Wolkenritter not sure she’ll make it that long and desperately fighting to see that it happens. Plus Vita is starting to realize there’s something wrong with her memory and she’s starting to get a bad feeling about this. But of course she’s too heavily invested in the desired outcome and the known consequence for failure to stop.

* Interesting how the catgirls call Graham their dad. I wonder if Arf ever called Fate her mom?

* Also the twins mention that Durandal is already complete, but Graham isn’t exactly cheered by this thought.

And that’s it for episode 8. This one was mostly just exposition and medical drama, but well, I can’t exactly blame the show for having medical drama when the driving force for the antagonists is somebody slowly dying of a magical illness. And I like getting setting details and stuff like that to over-analyze. So it’s not a bad episode at all, just not a very thrilling one. But next time is Christmas Eve, hopefully to be posted before Christmas Eve.

#tv talk #episode reactions #magical girl lyrical nanoha #nanoha a's #nanoha s2e8 #the decision of heartbreak and the courageous choice

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