#and denying them any agency within that label?

[sheepydraws]

Something that people on tumblr seem to struggle with is that "cool" and "dehumanizing" can overlap. Like, okay, this asian dude is the sickest fighter in this story and teaches the main white guy everything he knows, but is he portrayed as, like, a person

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amee Vanderpool at SHERO:

Before World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified German, Italian, and Japanese aliens and claimed they were “suspected” of being potential enemy agents. These people, some of them American citizens, were legally kept under surveillance, and following the attack at Pearl Harbor, people from “enemy nations” and all people of Japanese descent were immediately considered suspect and referred to the US Army. In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under this order the entire west coast was deemed a military area, and was divided into military zones. Curfews were established that included only Japanese-Americans. Voluntary evacuation of Japanese-Americans from a limited number of areas, totaling about seven percent of the entire Japanese-American population, was begun. The issue of human rights had been briefly brought up at Congressional Hearings prior to the issuance of these new laws, but in 1942, no one felt these rights were important enough when compared to securing the United States. On March 29, 1942, Japanese-Americans on the west coast were given a 48-hour evacuation notice, and most of their land and private property was abandoned and never recovered.

From the end of March to August of that year, approximately 112,000 persons were sent to racetracks or fairgrounds, which had been re-labeled as “assembly centers.” People were tagged like cattle and sorted for removal to a more permanent "relocation center" where they would be imprisoned for the remainder of the war. In these "relocation centers,” also called "internment camps,” four or five families shared tar-papered army-style barracks for nearly three years or more until the end of the war. The people in these camps shared eating facilities and restrooms and had limited opportunity for work or school. Nearly 70,000 of these evacuees were American citizens, who were denied their due process rights as the federal government froze their ability to appeal their circumstances under the guise of “American security.” This was just 80 years ago. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, through the the Texas General Land Office, offered Donald Trump the 1,400-acre Starr County site to build new detention centers to fulfill his promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in the Tuesday letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”

We are again on the brink of repeating some of the most shameful and abhorrent lessons that America should have learned long ago. While Donald Trump and his Project 2025 implementation team move to enact the fascist promises made during the election, many of Trump’s cronies are already aligning themselves to profit from the impending migrant prison system that will be nothing short of a concentration camp. Due Process Rights will again be frozen, as amnesty and human rights will cease to exist within these militarized zones. Dismissing any warnings about where we are headed by calling these claims hyperbole will cease to matter after Donald Trump assumes his office on January 20, 2025.

Amee Vanderpool wrote an excellent blogpost on SHERO that the dark days of internment camps (or concentration camps) are back again, this time aimed primarily at undocumented immigrants. But will it stop with just undocumented immigrants? Absolutely not.

[snakeautistic]

Thinking about how when horrible acts are committed often our immediate response is to deny the humanity of their perpetrators. How often do you hear that someone who has done something so terrible, so vile that you could never imagine doing it yourself must be less than human?

It’s meant as a source of comfort in some ways, I think. It serves to distance yourself from even the potential to do harm. Surely, only someone who is irreconcilably different from you could do that. Surely they must have been born evil. But, as we in a way mythologize these people, we obscure a fundamental point.

All of us are capable of the worst aspects of humanity. Does that mean we would ever, in our circumstances, our lives, reasonably seek to do them? That we would even humor the idea? No. But that is not an inherent difference in you- that is a difference in context- in circumstances, in choices. I think that’s why we become fixated on the idea of labeling people around us who have done terrible things to us as irreparably broken- that to hurt is their nature as a living thing. But that’s not true. No one is inherently bad.

And that doesn’t at all take away the weight of someone’s actions. In fact, in some ways it places more burden on them. If you argue that a person is born to inflict pain, that they have no other potential- can you reasonably blame them for doing that? You can’t- it wouldn’t be their choice, they would lack any agency over their own actions. (Of course, not all harm is inflicted purposefully and maliciously- but for the sake of keeping our scope a little narrower, as broad as it already is, we are focusing on malicious harm.)

I think recognizing this humanity, even within the worst of people is incredibly important. When we demonize people, they become more representative of abstract concepts than real people. Actions are no longer seen with nuance or intent behind them- they are assumed to be the manifestation of some greater dark force- one with a satisfaction for evil. (To be super clear here- this nuance does not lessen the responsibility of whoever caused harm or its impact- it simply gives us a fuller reason of why something was enacted.)

And then we fail to see how the people around us we don’t immediately recognize as ‘monsters’ (including ourselves) can inflict harm. We say- “I know that guy, he was always nice to me, there’s no way!” We say- “those were just a few bad apples- the system itself is fine.” We say- “bad people will find ways to get their hands on weapons. It doesn’t matter what we do to regulate them- the shooters will always exist”.

[semper-legens]

25. Now She Is Witch, by Kirsty Logan

Owned: No, library Page count: 327 My summary: Lux’s mother is dead. She was burned as a witch, and Lux was expelled from the convent where she lived. Alone, with few skills but her knowledge of herbs and poisons, Lux meets a young woman called Else who promises to take her to the witches of the north - if Lux helps her with her revenge. So Lux and Else walk their unsteady path through the forest, looking for people like them. Looking for home. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Well, this is an interesting one. While I was reading it, I had absolutely no idea whether I liked it or not, and afterwards I find that this is still the case. On the one hand, my knowledge and dislike of popular tropes regarding real-life witch hunts and witch hysteria. On the other, my love for interesting historical women in fiction, and particularly women who aren't the most conventional or straightforwardly good. Enter Kirsty Logan. I've read her work before, and really enjoyed it - her lyrical, fairy tale prose is exactly my kind of storytelling, and definitely what I look for in fiction. And her short story collection, Things We Say In The Dark, was great enough that I near-immediately went out and bought a copy after reading it from the library. So, how does this book stack up?

Lux's world is interesting. It has all the hallmarks of Europe in the 14th century - the Black Death, flagellants, mummers, extreme Catholicism and religious abuse - though I know the witch hunts in England didn't begin until the 1600s. Then again, it's not as though people weren't persecuted as witches before that, both in England and across Europe, and more importantly this is decisively not any place in particular. There are no place names, and many characters don't even have personal names. Places are referred to in the generic (the north country, the south country, the stronghold, the village) and are given no other identifying features. I obviously can't know for sure, but I suspect that this was in order to make the setting more general and its ideas and themes more applicable, as well as taking this out of historical fiction and leaning it more towards the mythic. It's an interesting choice, and a well-executed one.

This book is largely about womanhood and witchcraft, or rather the perception of witchcraft, and the complex intersections of those two labels. One thing I have to give it points for - real witchcraft doesn't exist. Lux sells herbal cures and poisons, as well as things like poppets which she knows do nothing, but she says hold magic so they'll sell. She grows up hearing stories of the 'north witches', the supposed real witches who live in the north and have amazing powers, but they're not real either. It's just women doing what they can to make their way in the world, and the stories that are told to demonise them. And that's the push and pull here - the agency that Lux's ambiguous status as witch grants her versus the ways her life is in very real danger from that status. Lux spends most of her life under the thumb of her mother, then the church, then needing to survive. A common phrase is 'There's no use in a girl wanting'; because of the nature of the world in which she lives, she is denied agency and choice and desire. But taking her agency back and acting on her desires is dangerous. So many are killed for that, for speaking out or being different. And I really love how this book portrays different women - there are women who live within the framework of society and women who live outside of it, women who bury themselves in a desperate attempt to seem 'civil' and women who hide their misdeeds but still keep doing them, women who believe what they're told and women who question, and all of the grey areas in between. And all of this with a very select cast! It's a really cool view on history, especially within its framework of not by necessity depicting reality.

Okay, so here's what I meant about my dislike of certain popular witch tropes. I always frown on the historicity of some books about real-life witch hunts or fictionalised versions of the same, especially ones that try and claim that 1) the person persecuted as a witch was actually a witch in a neo-Pagan framework, 2) people labelled as witches were exclusively women, 3) 'the Burning Times' is a real thing that happened. This...wasn't that. As I've mentioned, this book's setting is highly ambiguous, so I can kind of look past the burning rather than hanging of witches as being a bit of fantasy worldbuilding. And while this book does have the female empowerment narrative of many witch novels, the fact remains that Lux isn't an anachronistically feminist character. You know the sort. "I'm a Strong Independent Woman who can kick a-- like the boys! I hate corsets for no real reason other than symbolism! I have ideas about women's rights that date to 2010 at the earliest!" That kind of character, a feminist ideal of a woman that doesn't engage with the actual lives of women in the time period the story reflects, or otherwise is grounded in 21st century ideas of women's empowerment rather than historical ones, really annoys me. But this isn't that. Lux just wants to have agency, to exist as a woman in the world without being labelled by others, without having her identity be based around one aspect of herself. She's called a witch, a servant, a sacrifice, a maiden. But in reality she is more than that. She has wants, and desires, and learns how to act on them and take what she can from the world. And that's a much more empowering character than the Strong Woman archetype.

Next up, a dark and grim portrait of a serial killer.

[loremonster]

If you'd like to do the most you can for the homeless and food insecure

-Find your local food bank / assistance center ( most counties have one )

-Ask about volunteering

-Give money to fundraisers with specific and concrete goals. This is key. Raising money 'for the homeless' is vague. Raising money to build new housing at a specific address at a specific place is concrete. Raising money to feed x amount of people on y day is concrete.

-Donate MONEY to your local food bank. Food banks frequently take direct monetary donations, and can get much more with a single dollar than you because sourcing non perishables at the best price is their job. Bonus points, any time a soup label changes your local grocer wants the entire stock to change at the same time, so they'll give the old design away for pennies... Assuming the food bank has the resources to go get it. More direct donations means the food shelf can pay more people to go get unwanted food they can use.

-Give money to unhoused people. I don't give a fuck that you read a story once about a guy pretending to be homeless to scam people outta their money. Did you know that guy? Didja meet him? Do you even know his fucking name??? No, because it was a HEADLINE meant to make you afraid of helping people written by folks who have never had to be afraid of living on the street. Treat the unhoused as HUMAN BEINGS, because THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE. IT'S NOT OKAY TO IGNORE THEIR DISTRESS. IT'S NEVER BEEN OKAY. Meet the person begging on the street corner in your town. Learn their name. Learn their struggles. And help within your means. Give rides when you have time. Give money when you can afford it. Give support and understanding when you see a person being denied that so much that they can stand on a street corner with a sign and No One Will Even Look At Them.

Why am I not talking about drugs? Because people self medicate. Being homeless is fucking miserable. Fuck off. If you get a beer outta the fridge after a long day, the HUMAN BEING stuck outside deserves the entire industrial sized keg it was filled from. Needing help does not transmute an adult person into a child with no agency that must have all decisions taken from them, get outta here with that shit.

Help the food insecure and unhoused directly, scream at your local city council for hostile architecture that tried to sweep those HUMAN BEINGS under the rug by making their lives even more hellish just to get them outta sight, and film cops evicting people from tents while loudly protesting the removal with as many people as you can get to go with you.

None of us can fix the world. But we can all start at home, and meet like minded individuals along the way who also wanna help.

a lot of yall wanna be leftists until you have to treat drug addicts and the homeless like theyre human beings deserving of dignity and respect

[soaplett]

unfinished ramble upcoming

---------

I hope no one reads this—bro, I love Misa because of how cute her style is, but I’ve always found her insufferable. Her personality is so aloof to the literal massacres she’s involved in and to the disdain directed at her, which is what makes her so one-dimensional. There is no central character in the series who has a more well rounded personality than Light and arguably he is the most dislikeable (Yotsuba Kira aside) Mellow reaches his end just to overcome his and Near's shortcomings to surpass L and end the investigation- their failings are what make them worth caring for.

Misa, however, is denied any of these redeeming qualities. She quarters her life without a second thought, completely dismissive of the rejection she faces from the man who’s driven her to the brink of sanity. She asks repeatedly to be killed and even attempts suicide by biting her tongue just to be released from solitary confinement, only for Light to turn to the investigatory team and tell them he feels apathetically towards her, she pouts and it's the end of it- where was the woman who turned to Light threatening to kill all the women he was going to pretend to date?

As the main female character, the one we see more than any other woman in the series, it’s hard not to wish she had the same conniving nature we see glimpses of—or at least the cognitive sharpness of someone like Yagami or even Matsuda (I hate his ass).

Oleander’s take on her hits the mark, though: the idea that Misa isn’t intellectually sharp but is deeply emotionally intelligent makes her such a richer character to think about. Without a doubt a random woman who has found one of the smartest men within Japan via the eyes and then ends up also being unnaturally perceptive and smart would make the entire show insufferable, to some extent i would say maybe she is put in there almost as a self insert character along with Matsuda for those who are watching making it so they write up some alternate plot diverging from what Ohba & Obata have written but fostering that in the form of crude characters is to me a cop out. i think grief tends to be the strongest motivator for those who invested in any art form, her untimely death due to the Kira in the Yotsuba group due to Light's lapse in judgement? She's unaffected so her grief which remains minimal is unimpressionable to the audience.

Now to Oleander (this is where things get dark)

In this rendition her character integrity isn't compromised- she's still a woman of average IQ but this not at all a failing of her character, she's no longer a woman lacking agency but her depraved hunger for love and affection is rattling. When i began reading i didn't feel particularly remorseful to the fact she was a pawn manipulated via her intense desire to be loved, infact seeing her be comforted by Ryusaki and seeing him find reassurance for being more than a mind to someone made my heart swell- he was walking a line that became more and more precarious and in that he became more and more human. Finding comfort in Misa and giving her in turn the love she deserved.

And so watching her undoing in such a grotesque manner was the last thing i expected.

In the spin off she is rightly labeled as having borderline personality disorder and from the way she acts in the show and in the retelling i find that it falls into the cluster A group (i don't like playing arm-chair psychiatrist but i also have BPD but i fall into the cluster B when considering the three groups). Now that aside, her neurotic obsessive behaviour is picked up by L as he talks to Aiber in the ways he might be able to use her instability to foster a romantic connection between him and Misa so he can come closer to understanding or revealing Light & Misa's true identities all the while being able to put a wedge between her and Light's relationship, ostracising him from a possible right hand woman. Now as expected things fair well for Ruyzaki, he gets the girl- albeit her getting on her knees and taking him by the mouth in the work kitchen only for him to then finish while the rest of the taskforce watch in horror- causes him to lose his team, the one thing she identified as keeping her and L from being together. Her behaviour is expressed in a more conniving way. she even states after her bout of hysteria when she is temporarily abandoned by L that she'll do anything, what has she done wrong only to sit in his lap while he consoles her to tell him she knows what he's trying to do to her, she knows he's playing mindgames she knows to an extent he doesn't love her but he plays his role the best and to keep at it if her wants her complying

Anyway, oleander’s take of her being just as lacking when it comes to cognitive skills but being deeply emotionally intelligent makes her so much more of an intriguing character to read about. Breaks my heart knowing that despite everything she’s done or will ever do there self preservation will be the last thing in her mind- especially where she lets herself be chained for Ryusaki’s sexual gratification despite it reminding her of the 50 days they had her locked up in solitary confinement. Knowing underneath that pillowcase she was crying, and that the memory would haunt her through it. Just for her to then say i’m sorry in case he didn’t enjoy it enough. "we can do it again, misa can do anything for the one she loves" her face still marred with tears

It’s written in such a way i can’t help but hate and love the characters, ryuzaki’s transformation from being someone who gives to allowing himself to take, to let his desires begin taking root despite then being "corrupted" by everything that couldn’t be considered sane.

---

was Yagami a catalyst? is L's behaviour meant to be a mirror of one of the known actions people tend to take after being assaulted? Hypersexualizing themselves, creating a neural connection destructive in nature as a coping mechanism?

Maybe i'm reading too into it- all i know is this author deserves a (whatever award authors can get)

[t-jfh]

The process for the drop starts on a tarmac deep in the Jordanian desert, where troops from the RAF pack pallets with non-perishable supplies like flour, oil, rice, sugar, baby cereal, water and tinned tuna.

With all the safety checks done, the pallets are moved by forklift and packed into formation on one of the RAF’s largest transport planes, the A400.

After a 40-minute flight to Gaza, the release button is hit, and the pallets roll off the back of the plane in seconds, carried on the breeze, hopefully to the ground.

The RAF dropped 11 tonnes of aid on Gaza during its flight.

(Photo: ABC News / Haidarr Jones)

In Gaza, desperate Palestinians look up to the sky as the jumbo plane flies overhead and the packages float down towards them.

Mohamed and others at the site describe the drops as a humiliating experience — where they have to run for food, they say, like dogs.

A tin of sardines falls from the sky

Besieged on all sides, slowly starving, Palestinians in northern Gaza can sometimes rely only on aid dropped from a plane. But surely there is a better way than this.

Since Israel imposed a partial siege on Gaza after the October 7 attacks, it has nearly exclusively controlled the flow of goods, including humanitarian aid, into the strip.

All trucks entering Gaza through a limited number of ground crossings are being vigorously inspected by Israeli authorities.

Human rights groups have accused Israel of blocking and restricting aid and causing unnecessary delays in the distribution process.

The United Nations human rights chief has warned that “extensive restrictions” by Israel on aid entering Gaza could amount to a war crime.

Even the United States President Joe Biden has criticised Israel for using aid as a “bargaining chip” and called on the country to allow more aid in.

Israel denies blocking aid and says the backlog was caused by distribution problems with the UN — which the organisation has disputed.

And after increasing international pressure, including from the US, Israel has increased the number of aid trucks allowed to go through the ground crossing points each day.

But the UN’s Palestinian Refugee agency — UNRWA — says the amount of aid is still nowhere near enough.

By Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn and Haidarr Jones over Gaza and ABC staff on the ground

ABC News - 6 May 2024

•

•

Australian-German writer, Antony Loewenstein, says Jewish people will never be secure until Palestinians are safe. Now living in Sydney, Loewenstein is a leading voice among Australian Jews speaking out against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

(Photo: ABC / Brietta Hague)

Antony Loewenstein believes there are far more critical Jews around than many in the Jewish establishment want to acknowledge. "The false charge of antisemitism against anybody who challenges Israeli racism and occupation is increasingly shunned by young Jews, Palestinians and people of conscience.", he says.

Not In My Name

How Jewish author Antony Lowenstein changed his mind about Israel and became a voice against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

By Brietta Hague

ABC TV Compass program

ABC News - 6 May 2024

•

YouTube video >> ABC TV Compass program - The Australian Jew dubbed traitor for speaking out against the war in Gaza | Compass | ABC In-depth [Released 5 May 2024 / 27mins.+28secs.]:

Jewish journalist Antony Loewenstein is a leading voice among Australian Jews speaking out against Israel’s military attacks on Gaza. But he’s been called a traitor by many in the Jewish community.

He’s outraged by the rising death toll in Gaza and rejects any suggestion the military campaign is necessary to make Jews safe. But some Australian Zionists see activists like him as a danger to the Jewish community amid rising anti-Semitism over the war in Gaza.

This powerful documentary explores Loewenstein’s journey from a traditional Jewish upbringing in Melbourne to being an international critic of Zionism and Israel.

•

[oliviajames1122]

Airport denies 110 Britons entry

Innsbruck airport refused to allow 110 British tourists entry into Austria because they had not followed updated Covid restrictions, it has emerged.

Police said many were probably caught out on Sunday by a new rule requiring a negative PCR test within 48 hours.

Austrian opposition politicians blamed the health minister for failing to update restrictions on the internet.

Most of the tourists were flown home immediately but 40 were put up overnight in a hotel.

Of those 40, 12 were allowed to take new PCR tests and continue with their holidays, the local authority in Innsbruck said.

British travelers arriving in Innsbruck for skiing holidays in the western Tyrol region on Sunday were met by what some of them described as chaos, as the airport implemented new rules that came into effect on Christmas Day for arrivals from the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway because of the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus many business listings.

While 70 of those arriving in Innsbruck were able to fly home on the day, the other 40 were not and were quarantined in an Innsbruck hotel for the night. The 12 people eventually allowed in were reportedly all families with children.

The restrictions, currently displayed on the Austrian UK embassy website, require anyone over the age of 12 to have a third Covid vaccination and a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours of arrival. Under the previous rules, a negative PCR test had to be taken within 72 hours of arrival.

While many reportedly had older PCR tests, some also had not received booster doses.

One tourist, Victoria Win Stanley, said on social media that the team checking Covid certificates for an EasyJet flight either did not have up-to-date information or were not checking them properly. The BBC has approached EasyJet for comment business listings.

Local opposition People's Party tourism spokesman Franz Hörl said he had no problem with tighter restrictions on countries such as the UK labeled "virus variant areas".

His issue was with a "botched" operation that he called neither professional nor humane, to bring in tourists over the Christmas period, take them to a hotel under police protection and then send them home at their own expense, he told the APA news agency.

·French ski season in disarray as UK tourists banned

·Tighter Covid restrictions imposed across Europe

He said Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein was to blame because the old restrictions were still showing on the relevant government websites.

Austria's Tyrol is especially sensitive to further outbreaks of Covid-19 in its famous ski resorts. The resort of Ischgl was linked to cases in 45 countries at the start of the pandemic when skiers returned home with the virus in February and March 2020 free business listings.

Earlier this month, France banned British holidaymakers from its ski resorts, barring all non-essential travel from the UK.

In some cases a selection of your comments and questions will be published, displaying your name and location as you provide it unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published.

If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age, and location with any submission.

[mhaccunoval]

@corvusossifragus i'm sure this would go over the reply character limit, or in the least i need a second to gather my thoughts, so you get a read more cut:

i should preface up front that i believe your opinion and everyone else's are valid, and the general consensus of them is why i question if i interpreted things wrong.

anyway. to me i feel like looking at victor AND the creature alike is complex and nuanced. pop culture looks at victor as a madman (even with some greed involved question mark), some people on here have said he was a weak little wimp and the likewise. i Can see those things but my take is more. nuanced. like i don't think he's a madman or anything; sure, he did, in some form / to some extent, try to play god by creating a "man" from olden flesh but i don't think it was done with malicious intent? yes we can sit here and debate the morals and ethics of This action all day— and i'm not saying that reanimation or playing god or however you want to phrase it is necessarily morally right or ethical— but at the end of said day i would call this a case of misled curiosity going too far / out of its original bounds. now, i will say it does suck of victor to not hold himself accountable for his actions, especially when the creature's grown his own agency and is asking for a simple(-not-so-simple) request. especially when breaking his promise to make the creature a mate when he was nearly done with her, as much as i understand his internal discord on the consequences of going through with it. i mean i can't necessarily blame victor for being scared of his own creation, at least on a primal level because. big burly beast of creature look like big burly predator to monkey brain. i think i'd be scared of my actions and mistakes to in that position too (especially because it WOULD be my curiosity getting the better of me that'd land me in those circumstances), whatever that says about me. and i don't think it's wrong for him to want to be happy, including happily married to elizabeth, though yes it IS unfair to deny the creature a similar sort of happiness (particularly after he left the de lacey family dejected and dismayed because of their rejection).

the creature i think i'm mostly in popular opinion about. i mean i don't think that's it's cool or Entirely moral that william, justine, and elizabeth had to die because of actions within his agency or to make a point but. if william wasn't necessarily with malicious intent, justine was indirect blood on his hands (despite liking her so), and elizabeth was to hit a nerve/get at what victor truly loved then i can't say i'm Surprised nor can i think about how else he could have said what he said with them. same with him following victor around and trying to strike fear into his heart about the consequences of his actions. plus if there's any angle of not having asked to be created and certainly not asking for people to look at him with such fear and hate, when being "born" was not within his choice or capacity and neither is looking the way he does. i mean, again, i do understand victor's dilemma in making the creature a mate, but at the same time, just as any of Us may not have asked to have been born but still try to make the most of living, i do think to an extent the creature had a right to ask for a mate so he could have his own happiness such as victor trying to secure his. especially if justine or someone like safie (or even a male mate) would not have him as he is so he needs the creation of someone on his same level.

i got lost in my own rambling but my point remains that i PERSONALLY feel like there's more nuance than simply labeling a black and white dichotomy of these main characters

is it me? am i the problem? did i read frankenstein wrong?

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

MYTH Human Rights Watch has proven Israel is an “apartheid” state. FACT In its longstanding campaign of demonization of Israel, Human Rights Watch (HRW) adopted a new tack in its latest report. Knowing the absurd and ineffective efforts of anti-Israel propagandists to compare Israel to Afrikaner South Africa, HRW decided to write a new definition of “apartheid” it could selectively apply to one state – the Jewish state. HRW relies on definitions that apply to the systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group. Neither Jews nor Palestinians are racial groups so HRW expands the definition to include groups – actually only Palestinians – that share descent, national or ethnic origin. As Professor Gerald Steinberg noted, “Beyond South Africa, no other regime or government has been deemed to meet the international definition of apartheid, not even murderous and oppressive regimes practicing separation based on race, religion, and gender such as Saudi Arabia and China” (Gerald Steinberg, “Human Rights Watch demonizes Israel via propaganda of apartheid,” Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2021). “The report mocks the history of apartheid by using its hateful memory to describe a grab bag of policies that HRW happens to disagree with, and in many cases are not in effect, or were never in effect. Apartheid is not just a term for policies one dislikes,” the Kohelet Policy Forum wrote in its response to the report (“HRW Crosses the Threshold into Falsehoods and Anti-Semitic Propaganda,” KPF, April 26, 2021). For its part, the Biden administration wasted no time rejecting HRW’s conclusion: “It is not the view of this administration that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid,” a State Department spokesperson said (“US disagrees that Israel carrying out ‘apartheid,’” France24,” April 28, 2021). Too often, however, truth does not matter. When a human rights organization, even one with a long history of anti-Israel bias, makes an inflammatory accusation it is assured of attracting media coverage, as was the case with HRW’s report. Journalists rarely factcheck the material before quoting the report and its authors in stories with incendiary headlines. By the time the information is evaluated by third parties, it is too late because the original, unverified story has been transmitted around the world to become fodder for Israel’s detractors. Graphic courtesy Elder of Zion Thus, you are unlikely to see any quotes about the report from Judge Richard Goldstone, who was appointed to the Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela, played an important role in that country’s transition to democracy, and was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged crimes committed during Israel’s operation in Gaza in 2009. In a New York Times essay, “Israel and the Apartheid Slander,” Goldstone wrote, “In Israel there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute” used by HRW in an effort to get around the specious comparison to South Africa (New York Times, October 31, 2011). In a rebuke to the equally fallacious claims made in the recent B’Tselem report, Goldstone noted, “there is no intent to maintain ‘an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.’ This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.” Presciently anticipating the similarly misguided argument of John Brennan, Goldstone notes, “until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed.” Speaking to those who demonize Israel while claiming to be interested in peace, Goldstone concluded, “The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.” Hirsh Goodman, another native South African, said HRW “is blind to fact and reality.” He called the report, “a disgrace to the memory of the millions who suffered under that policy in South Africa” (Hirsh Goodman, “I left apartheid South Africa. Applying the term to Israel is disingenuous,” Forward, April 27, 2021). Goodman noted that HRW is an advocate of discrimination against Jews, supporting the anti-Semitic BDS movement, and that the report came out as an Israeli Arab, a member of an Arab party in the Knesset, and an Islamist no less, had the potential to determine who would be Israel’s next prime minister. In the previous election, a coalition of Arab parties was the third largest faction in the Knesset. This is discrimination? What about Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens? They have the opportunity to vote for their leaders in Palestinian elections, which were last held in 2006 (the one scheduled for May was just cancelled because the president, serving the 16th year of his four-year term, is afraid of losing). HRW apparently has no problem with the fact that a Jew cannot vote in a Palestinian election even though the outcome will affect Israel or that a Palestinian who has acquired Israeli citizenship also cannot vote in the Palestinian Authority (Elder of Ziyon, “Another Double Standard: Palestinian Law Excludes Israelis From Voting,” Algemeiner, March 26, 2021). HRW condemns Israel for treating Palestinians in the disputed territories and Israeli citizens differently, but Israel has no obligation to treat them the same. In the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed the Palestinians should be responsible for their own lives in virtually all areas except security; hence, about 98 percent of Palestinians are governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The fact that both deny their own people civil and human rights goes unmentioned by HRW. HRW also ignores reality while applying a standard that would make nearly every country, including the United States, guilty of apartheid. Take, for example, the report’s criticism of the Law of Return. Yes, it grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. More than two million non-Jews are Israeli citizens and 21% of the population are Arabs who enjoy equal rights under the law with Jewish citizens. Meanwhile, Ireland has a law allowing immigrants of “Irish descent or Irish associations” to be exempt from ordinary naturalization rules while Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany and a number of other democratic states also have policies similar to Israel’s Law of Return and yet are not labeled by HRW as apartheid. HRW apparently has no problem with Arab nations that have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the exception of Palestinians, or with Jordan’s “law of return that provides citizenship to all former residents of Palestine – except Jews. Graphic courtesy Elder of Zion For HRW it is a crime for Israelis to want a Jewish majority in the Jewish state. Are Muslim states equally guilty for not accepting a non-Muslim majority? The report castigates Israel for placing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, ignoring that checkpoints and the security fence were created to protect Israeli citizens – Jews and non-Jews from terrorists. It accuses Israel of “Judaization” of Jerusalem, the Galilee and the Negev, implying that Jews should not be allowed to live in parts of Israel where there are “significant Palestinian populations” (which is not the case in the Negev), including its capital. Israel is also condemned for not agreeing to commit suicide by allowing the 5.7 million Palestinians UNRWA calls “refugees” to live in Israel. To refute the charge that Israel is therefore discriminating against Palestinians simply refer to the thousands of Palestinians who left the country and were allowed to return and become citizens (“Israel Claims 184,000 Palestinian Refugees have Returned since 1948,” Al Bawaba, January 1, 2001). Israel has also repeatedly offered to accept a limited number of Palestinians as part of a peace agreement (Gene Currivan, “ISRAEL TO ACCEPT 100,000 REFUGEES; Offer, to Go Into Effect When Peace Comes, Is Delivered to Arabs at Lausanne,” New York Times, July 30, 1949). Summarizing the absurdity of HRW’s argument, one writer tweeted: “Israel: The only country that’s shrinks when it colonizes, grows the population it’s genociding, fattens the people it starves and consistently increases quality of life and freedoms on every metric for the people it apartheids” (@TheMossadIL, April 29, 2021). Contrast Israel’s behavior with that of the Arab states which deny Palestinians living within their borders, sometimes for decades, the right to become citizens. The Lebanese government goes even further by denying Palestinians a host of rights and placing limits on where they can live and work (Lisa Khoury, “Palestinians in Lebanon: ‘It’s like living in a prison,’” Al Jazeera, December 16, 2017). If you want to talk about discrimination, consider that it is a crime for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew and a fatwa was issued by the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri, saying it is permitted to kill the seller (“Khatib Al-Aqsa issues a Sharia fatwa regarding the diversion or sale of real estate to settlement associations,” Sama News Agency, April 8, 2021). Ironically, the author of the HRW report, Omar Shakir, was happy to live in Israel (imagine a black person choosing to live under the Afrikaner regime) until the Supreme Court revoked his residency permit. He is an advocate of the BDS campaign, which raises the question, Why would HRW choose someone who objects to Israel’s existence as the arbiter of its behavior (Ben-Dror Yemini, “A most dangerous and mendacious report,” Ynet, April 27, 2021)? Highlighting HRW’s hypocrisy, the Jerusalem Post reported that one of the organization’s board members runs a venture-capital fund that invests in Israeli start-ups (Lahav Harkov, “Human Rights Watch chairman invests in Israel as he calls it ‘apartheid,’” Jerusalem Post, May 2, 2021). It is also worth remembering that HRW uses its anti-Israel record as a fundraising tool, as we learned when Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division, went to Saudi Arabia to raise money by highlighting the group’s demonization of Israel (David Bernstein, “Human Rights Watch Goes to Saudi Arabia,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009). The founder of HRW, Robert Bernstein, said in 2009 the organization had become devoted to “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” Contrasting Israel with the countries HRW once focused on, he noted it had “at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world.” Writing in the context of a biased HRW investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza, Bernstein lamented that “Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism” (Robert L. Bernstein, “Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast,” New York Times, (October 19, 2009). Israel’s government is not immune to criticism and many of its policies are subject to vigorous debate and, in some cases, harsh condemnation by Israelis. What distinguishes Israel from the countries HRW should be investigating is the internal democratic processes that lead to self-examination, more enlightened policies and, where legally warranted, punishment for criminal activity. Nevertheless, Israel’s detractors and anti-Semites will use the report to reinforce their existing prejudices and try to convince the uninformed of HRW’s alternative reality. It also feeds into the BDS narrative by arguing it is not just the “occupation” that is bad; Israel itself “is intrinsically racist and evil” and therefore should be dismantled (Herb Keinon, “The HRW apartheid report: Does it matter?” Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2021).

Jewish Virtual Library refutes the odious myths perpetrated by “Human Rights Watch” (except Jewish rights) in their latest edition of “Myths versus Facts”. 

[the-cooler-snimbusjavy]

XCOM: Chimera Squad Character Trivia Masterpost

So with XCOM: Chimera Squad having been out for a bit of time now, I’ve come to love and appreciate every single member of the squad we got, so I went ahead and decided to take a look at everything possible we have on the gang. Between character bios, in-game dialogue and conversations, lines pulled from the config files, concept art, all coupled with my personal interpretation on the information given, I have tried to give a go at making a post with every detail of each character I found worth mentioning (in absolutely no particular order). So, enjoy! Also fair warning, it’s long, ayy

SPOILERS AHEAD While not too important in the great scheme of things in Chimera Squad’s story, do read at your own risk.

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Terminal - China, 29 years old

Terminal lost her parents during the invasion of 2015. They were a factory worker and a cook. Afterwards, she escaped with her uncle to a relocation camp, who unfortunately died of disease the following year.

After this event, she was adopted by a doctor who lost her only daughter. It was her who inspired Terminal to become a combat medic. In a cruel turn of events, she was killed during a retaliation attack from ADVENT. It is said Terminal’s personality severely shifted after this.

Terminal keeps a photo of her deceased adopted mother in her locker.

She was originally rejected to join the Reclamation Agency, so she requested the use of psionic probes to prove her worth. She was then admitted in probationary period.

Terminal believes Verge is the only one in the team who truly understands her. Verge “knows” this.

Terminal wants to have a fight between hers and Patchwork’s GREMLINs, for “training purposes”.

Terminal nicknames Patchwork “Patches” on occasion.

Whenever Patchwork “smack talks” Terminal down, she expresses she’s “so proud” of her.

Terminal often eats Whisper’s lunches in the fridge, under the excuse that he doesn’t label them.

Terminal seems to know the Jabberwock, and perhaps other stories surrounding it, as she wished to hear Zephyr pronounce said word, likely out of Terminal’s mocking of her Australian accent.

Terminal claims to be the “biggest fan” of conspiracy theorist Floyd Tesseract’s radio show, You Should Have Believed, and is absolutely delighted to meet him. This is much unlike every other member of the team, who all seem to either disregard him, dislike him, or outright suggest he be captured.

According to Terminal, the restorative mist within her GREMLIN is “minty fresh”. It seems Cherub once sniffed it on accident.

Terminal seems to consider Verge’s singing to be “the second worst thing she’s heard all year”.

Whisper accuses Terminal of sleeping during their briefings. According to Terminal, she’s just “resting her eyes”, as well as her “ears” and “interest”.

According to Godmother, Terminal tenses up whenever she pulls the trigger of her gun. Terminal attempts to deny this, unsuccessfully.

According to herself, Terminal has always wanted a “heavily-armored entourage”.

Terminal doesn’t know what a vertipad is, and upon learning of it, she questions who calls them that way, thinking it “stupid”. Seemingly, everyone else on the squad calls them by their name without issue.

According to Terminal, she’s never gonna retire, she expects to just die some day in the field (five years at most). Afterwards she confesses that she’s no good anywhere else, suggesting that she has an issue in finding direction with her life. Godmother claims that she knows well what she means.

Verge - ~40 years old

Verge originally worked alongside Thin Men in order to infiltrate society and psionically control them to share good word of the Elders’ occupation of Earth. It was due to his constant exposure to human thoughts that gained him empathy.

He worked as a mole during the events of XCOM 2 and provided the Resistance with information, making him the only* known alien to aid XCOM during their war against ADVENT. (*Ethereal Asaru is theorized to have aided XCOM by merging with the Commander, and sometimes even implied, but it still remains devoid of official word about it)

Sectoids can mind-merge with someone in order to “taste” whatever they may be eating. He suggests doing this with Cherub by offering to go to a new restaurant that serves “authentic old world cuisine”, but only with Cherub’s own consent.

Sectoids, and Verge as an extension, seemingly cannot eat terrestrial meat and eggs, or “greasy” food as worded by Cherub.

On that note, it would seem Sectoids are also intolerant to jam, as it’s considered poison for them. It’s possible Godmother was aware of this fact, as she instead replaces “jam“ with “butter“ during a phrase pre-mission.

Verge recognizes his acts during the original invasion were wrong, and there having been worse alternatives don’t excuse his actions still, according to him.

That said, he doesn’t seem to want to talk about his part in it, when asked by Godmother if he regret any of it.

Verge finds butter delicious, though he also believes the consumption of “the churned remains of another lactating mammal” to be slightly disturbing.

Terminal seems to be “creeped out” by Verge’s Battle Madness ability. Blueblood similarly finds it unsettling, yet still appreciates the “breathing room”. Surprisingly, Torque seems to outright love it, and even requests Verge to have the enemy “dance”.

Cats apparently find Sectoids to be adversaries for undisclosed reasons as declared by Verge, yet according to Axiom, he’s seen “a lot of Sectoids with cats”.

Verge keeps a ramen shop sticker, as well as an excerpt of a ramen cooking magazine in his locker, suggesting either or both an interest in cooking and enthusiasm towards this particular dish.

It seems Verge was acquainted with conspiracy theorist Floyd Tesseract during the invasion, claiming that he was “just as insufferable“ throughout it as he is now.

Verge enjoys “messing” with Whisper whenever he makes a comm check, by instead listening to him psionically. Whisper at least appreciates the honesty.

Verge seems to respect and care greatly for the Archons, as he states they will never be slaves again, and that the Progeny will do them no harm. He becomes particularly angry when threatened by the terrorist faction.

Verge claims that he enjoys collecting old watches.

Godmother - France, 48 years old

Godmother lost track of her family during the 2015 invasion. She spent a year looking for them, with no result.

Godmother does not consider herself a leader, but rather a teacher. This is the case in her old job as a police trainer, as a member of the Resistance, and now as provisional member of Chimera Squad.

Godmother plans to retire soon, but has decided to stick around Chimera Squad to aid them until she feels they are truly ready.

Terminal seems to be an example of the above, with Godmother constantly guiding the former.

Godmother witnessed Cherub’s adoption papers under request of Headquarters. She also signed them in addition.

Godmother believes Cherub has a talent to “bring people together”.

Godmother seems to consider the Sacred Coil faction as “re-heated ADVENT propaganda”.

Godmother seems to be good with card games as she claims her hobby to be “bluffing” with them, after being asked by Cherub if she had any.

According to Verge, Godmother still does not trust aliens. However, she’s actively trying to do so, which Verge claims is enough.

On the same note, Godmother is said to not trust the world leaders after surrendering so quickly, suggesting over the years she’s lived with trusting issues around her.

According to Godmother, she was once pinned down in a bank of Paris for three days.

Godmother seems to enjoy crêpes, as she orders Terminal to “stop making her hungry” after the latter desired donuts and crêpes respectively during a mission.

Godmother seems to be proud of her French heritage, as she keeps a touristic poster of the Arc de Triomphe in her locker.

Alongside this, a photo of presumably Godmother herself and a long-haired blonde woman both in police uniform is present. Who this woman is is not disclosed.

Cherub - Estonia, 5 years old

Cherub belonged to a batch of ADVENT clones under the name of the Empty Cohort, who never got to receive the respective indoctrination.

After being discovered there, Cherub was only recently adopted by the two resistance members who originally found him in his ADVENT facility of origin, as they found themselves responsible for him and his safety. They fell in love precisely due to this, having married one year prior to the events of XCOM: Chimera Squad.

On the same topic, Cherub keeps a picture of himself and his parents in his locker.

Alongside the aforementioned picture, Cherub keeps a card celebrating his fifth birthday. It presumably comes from his parents, seeing he put it alongside their picture.

Cherub was originally a clone of Bellus Mar, former ADVENT Officer and leader of the Sacred Coil terrorist faction. Cherub seems to be concerned of his teammates believing something of Mar could potentially be present in himself, which Director Kelly assures is not the case.

Cherub believes that friendship cannot be forced on others, and is content with simply letting others know that they are not alone.

Despite this, his naturally innocent and naive attitude allows Zephyr to use him as a “practice dummy”.

Cherub used to pronounce DJ as “deej” before he actually heard it aloud.

Cherub believes that it would be normal that everyone voiced whatever was exactly in their mind, without having the need to hide anything. Verge reveals to him that rarely do people do so, and that they choose to hide many things for a number of reasons. Cherub believes it to be too much work to think about, so he’d rather say things as he actually means to say.

Cherub believes sunrise, waffles, laughter, and wood smoke to be important things of life.

Cherub doesn’t understand the protection of money. He believes it’s not as rewarding as protecting people.

According to himself, Cherub is “so bad” at riddles.

Cherub enjoys watching wrestling from the old world whenever he gets the chance to find it. Whisper offers to search some for him, however, still forbids him to actually compete in it.

Cherub enjoys making puns and, apparently, he was taught of them by Whisper, who seemingly now regrets his decision.

Patchwork - Mexico, 29 years old

Patchwork lost her legs and left arm during the invasion of 2015. ADVENT provided her with new ones as part of their propaganda plan.

It was Patchwork herself who orchestrated her escape from the ADVENT City Centers, in order to join the Resistance.

Patchwork doesn’t name her GREMLINs anymore, presumably as they usually tend to be destroyed, as per Cherub’s inquiry. She counts at least 25 destroyed GREMLINs, one in particular destroyed by a Muton

Everyone apparently hates the androids they use on reinforcements for undisclosed reasons. Patchwork is the exception, as she considers them “robot friends” who fill in when they cannot.

On that note, it seems Patchwork is very protective of any sort of Android, and even refers to those stolen by Sacred Coil as her “niños” (Spanish for children).

Contrary to common belief within the squad, Patchwork did not choose her callsign due to her own state. In Terminal’s words, it was due to her affinity at “slapping software together”, and that everyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

Patchwork sometimes wonders if she and Terminal should switch callsigns, under the reasoning that she “works with computer terminals”, while Terminal “patches people back up”.

On the same note, Patchwork claims Terminal’s mouth moves at “terminal velocity”. The latter finds this very amusing.

Patchwork seems to refer to psionics as some sort of “music”. Stating she enjoys the “tune” of Shelter’s psi abilities, as well as claiming that Progeny’s leader Violet’s own sounds like a “symphony”. Similarly, when failed to be mind-controlled she states she doesn’t enjoy that kind of “music”.

Patchwork believes the ADVENT Gene Therapy clinics should not have been outlawed, as she considers ADVENT themselves to be the ones to blame for what they did to humanity, not the “tool” itself.

Patchwork is seemingly not allowed to enter tech vaults anymore. According to her, it was due to her mistakenly pushing a particular button that started some form of countdown. Seemingly, Director Kelly was “nearly irradiated” due to this mishap.

According to herself, Patchwork doesn’t like to go dancing, though it’s most likely due to the fact she distrusts the people running clubs.

Patchwork seems to be close to both Lily Shen and Richard Tygan, as she keeps a photo of herself alongside them both in her locker (John Bradford and the Commander can be seen in the background, with the latter strategically concealed).

Having worked as an engineer in the Avenger during XCOM 2, coupled with their personal love of robotics, her bond with Shen is easily explained.

As for Tygan, it is presumed by many he was the man in charge of providing a young Patchwork with her first prosthetic arm and legs back during his ADVENT days, explaining their bond now both together as members of XCOM.

Axiom - Born within an invasion ship, 46 years old

Mutons are apparently issued pet cats to demonstrate their capacity for compassion. Axiom did not get one as he proved himself while saving human lives during the Bugtown Massacre under his own initiative.

Despite this fact, Axiom still seems to be greatly fond of cats, as he owns a sticker of one surrounded by hearts in his locker.

According to Axiom, Mutons had a “spiritual connection” with their starships, returning to it signified some form of “pilgrimage”. Axiom’s ship, however, was destroyed back in 2015.

On this topic and true Muton nature, Axiom is fond of the space as well. He keeps a poster of Earth’s solar system in his locker.

Axiom considers Blueblood’s choice of weaponry to be inferior and small. However, after Blueblood explains his strategy of it being so unnoticeable that enemies focus on Axiom instead so then the former can pick up on those distracted, Axiom praises his cunning and respects the strategy.

Axiom believes Claymore fights like a woman, in that he’s fearless, calm under pressure, and is an inspiration to squadmates to give their all. After claiming he learned much from his sister, Axiom praises her as formidable and wishes to meet her, despite her views on the current world.

Axiom is surprised Godmother managed to fight and survive during the invasion of Paris, in her homeland in France. According to Axiom, the mortality rate was extremely high. They soon decide not to continue the conversation.

Apparently, Axiom wishes new boots, as his current footwear seemingly “pinch his ankles”.

Both Axiom and Torque seem to agree that Andromedons are “the worst”.

According to Axiom, Gray Phoenix leaders Custodian Xel and Crew Chief Yarvo’s names are aliases, and starship dialect. Xel meaning “good route” or “safe passage”, whereas Yarvo means “newly forged” or “birthed in flame”.

Claymore - India, 32 years old

Claymore has an older sister that he apparently worked with alongside the Resistance. According to Claymore, she’s the one that taught him many of the things he knows. However, she also seemingly has not come to terms with the current state of the world, presumably the peace between humans and aliens.

Other than her, Claymore also seemed to have an older brother. He, alongside their mother, however, lost their lives during the 2015 invasion.

Claymore worked on the Avenger during the events of XCOM 2, disassembling recovered alien explosives.

Claymore appears to be religious, as he claims that prayer brings him peace of mind. As to what religion he follows, is not disclosed.

When asked by Verge how he attains the aforementioned peace of mind, Claymore also adds that he does exercise and that he allows himself to love the world and the people around him.

On that same note, Claymore states that he “never touches” caffeine.

Claymore seems to enjoy food overall, and also appears to be a good cook, as he brings enough fish curry he made for everyone upon his arrival.

He and Verge enjoy visiting ramen shops together, cataloguing the good and bad places. They plan to go to the recently opened shop U.F.Oodle.

Claymore and Torque seem to have a thing against each other, referring to the other as a “rebel goon” and a “despotic flunkie”, respectively. Whisper facetiously refers to their aversion as “young love”.

Torque - Siberia, 20 years old

Torque was offered to act as “opposing force“ in training of XCOM agents post-war. She accepted as she considered prison to be “boring“.

During these events, Torque formed a bond with then-Colonel Jane Kelly, who seems to be the only person Torque truly respects and appreciates. It was thanks to her Torque was admitted into the Reclamation Agency and Chimera Squad.

Torque is afraid of losing her friends, so she tries hard to push them away with her unwelcoming attitude. This is due to her fear of forming bonds, since they may not come back from a fight the next day. She is incredibly self-aware of this fact. Director Kelly offers to talk with her about it, which Torque accepts.

On that same note, Godmother claims that Torque does in fact care about getting her team’s respect and appreciation, a topic Torque evidently wishes to avoid.

Despite these facts, Torque seems to be keen on improving as a person, as her locker shows she owns a book under the name of Meditation for the Exceptionally Stressed.

Torque sees herself as an earthling, as she was born on Siberia in 2020.

Torque seems to have something against off-worlders, but it’s unknown if this is due to her attitude, guilt about her own actions during the war that she projects against others, or legitimate aversion against them.

Terminal seems to be absolutely thrilled whenever Torque uses her Tongue Pull with the former, with her exclaiming she wants to “go again”.

Torque seems to have a heavy disliking of Whisper for undisclosed reasons, under occasions having suggested him to perform a lobotomy, as well as telling him to “bite his tongue off and bleed to death” after he asks the team to bring him a “souvenir” from a Viper-themed mature bar.

After Whisper reveals himself to be Canadian, Torque claims Canadians taste like maple. Whether it’s her joking with Whisper or not is not confirmed.

Torque believes Codexes to be “insufferable show-offs”. On that note, she’s always believed they judged her with their “creepy glowing eyes”.

Torque seems to enjoy drawing, as she keeps a bunch of sketches in her locker, most notably of terrestrial creatures like dogs and frogs. But most importantly, she has one of Axiom in civilian clothing eating noodles, scribbled in it reads “I’m never eating anything else ever again” in Axiom’s perspective. Axiom himself keeps this sketch on his own locker, demonstrating he values it.

Also present on her locker seems to be a touristic poster of the northern lights, presumably Siberian, suggesting she’s fond of her birthplace.

Blueblood - United States, 34 years old

Blueblood managed to live a peaceful life with his family under City 31 during the ADVENT regime. Despite this, he helped others where he could, even members of the Resistance.

Blueblood seems to love and respect his father dearly, as he decided to continue the family tradition of being policemen. The former also keeps a picture of them both after a fishing trip.

On the same note, Blueblood seems to be a fishing enthusiast, as he keeps a poster of the various fishes near City 31.

Blueblood personally knows City 31’s Police Department’s Commissioner Maloof, and even seems to be on friendly terms with her, calling her by her first name, Halia.

Blueblood is seemingly concerned that Terminal seems to be far too eager to put herself into danger. According to her, it’s just that she understands the concept of ”acceptable risk”. Blueblood fears it’s a “death wish“.

Blueblood states that he would not shoot any of his teammates, not even with training purposes, after being asked by Cherub. He instead suggests him to use the ballistic mannequins they already possess.

Blueblood states that Godmother reminds him of his mother, in that she lead his whole family without ever taking charge herself, always pushing them enough to reach their potential. Godmother claims that Blueblood has exceeded his.

Blueblood’s mother passed away back in 2014 due to cancer, and the former claims that “this time of year” always hits him due to it (presumably somewhere between March and May). That said, he’s glad she never got to live to witness the invasion.

On this note, Shelter feels the need to comfort him after noticing something was wrong. Blueblood appreciates this.

Blueblood states that his father used to love heist movies, and the two of them watched them together.

According to Blueblood, ADVENT’s soldiers helmets are “stupid”.

Shelter - Chile, 36 years old

Shelter lived in a big family, but got separated from them during the 2015 invasion.

He was found and experimented on by ADVENT after discovering he had latent psionic potential, forcing him to kill and torture “criminals“ with his abilities. This affected him to the point of crying. He managed to escape from them afterwards.

Shelter is a proud farmer. He was taken in by the Resistance thanks to these skills, and in his locker he keeps a picture of a younger self standing in front of plentiful crops, as well as posters promoting new “delicious and nutritious” breeds of vegetables.

Shelter seems to enjoy chilli, as he was joyed to have some upon his arrival.

Shelter doesn’t like to read other’s minds, as evidenced by Cherub playfully asking him to read his, with Shelter claiming that he “would never” do so.

Shelter knew to some capacity of the Progeny’s leader, Violet. Upon his escape, he psionically contacted her during the event, but then lost connection. Presumably, she was yet to lose her mind due to ADVENT’s experimentations on her. He refers to this connection of emotions as a sort of “poem”.

Shelter is very fond of his squadmates, complimenting them whenever the chance is available, as well as exclaiming against enemies that he won’t allow them to hurt his friends.

Claymore seems to hate it whenever Shelter switches their positions with Relocate, as it makes him feel “queasy”. Blueblood similarly thinks it’s “freaky”. Cherub, on the other hand, consider it to be “so fun”.

According to himself, Shelter doesn’t like banks.

Shelter doesn’t understand why their enemies, in particular members of the Gray Phoenix faction, would be willing to die for their causes.

According to himself, Shelter’s teeth itch, or otherwise rattle, whenever there’s high spikes of power or energy. It’s unknown if this is normal in other human psions.

It would appear that Shelter has a crush on Zephyr, as the latter noticed his face turned red whenever she was around (which she mistook for anger). After discovering this, Zephyr does not seem to be visibly upset, but perhaps surprised, to which Shelter reacts with embarrassment.

Zephyr - Australia, 33 years old

Zephyr is not a clone unlike many former ADVENT soldiers. She presumably was amongst the first humans to be turned into hybrids and then brainwashed to follow the ADVENT regime, presumably similar to Sacred Coil leader Bellus Mar, off whom Cherub was cloned from. It is not known, however, if Zephyr was cloned at any point.

After being liberated the the Skirmishers faction, she joined their ranks and operated near City 31.

Zephyr seemingly does not want hammocks in HQ as per Patchwork’s desire to improve the place. Apparently, there was a mishap regarding this in the past.

According to herself, it seems Zephyr has “always wished” to go bowling.

At least visibly, Zephyr seems to not be too fond of Cherub, as she’s seen referring to him as “knock-off” on occasion.

According to Zephyr, “punch-a-bastard-in-the-face” day is a “roving holiday”, which she enjoys to celebrate.

Zephyr seems to refer to Patchwork as a “nerd”, as she stood by her words whenever the latter was offended by Zephyr’s accusation towards computer-savvy Gray Phoenix members.

Zephyr believes that she has no place in the Skirmishers (or anywhere)  anymore as it began accepting more clones, and due to the fact of her not knowing of her own past as a human. Claymore expresses his profound disagreement, and even though Zephyr states it’s not as simple, she appreciates the words.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

ALISSA WHITE-GLUZ Responds To Accusations She Tried To Prevent Release Of THE AGONIST's New Album

Former THE AGONIST frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz has shot down accusations that she has tried to prevent the release of the band's latest album, explaining that she does not "have any time, energy or interest to invest in trying to control someone else."

Earlier this month, THE AGONIST's current singer, Vicky Psarakis, gave an interview to Rock Confidential in which she claimed that Alissa had been trying to hold band back. "In the beginning, she was doing it a lot through interviews and just talking very badly about the band members," she said. "That is super awkward for me, because this is a person I've never met in my life, so it's weird for me to be talking about it. There's no knowing how far and to what extent her reach could be to hold this band back. I definitely know some stuff that she's done and other things are just speculation. So, I don't wanna throw that out there, but I will say that she has been trying to kill this band ever since she was fired."

Now Alissa, who has fronted ARCH ENEMY for the past five and a half years, has responded to Vicky's comments, calling her claims "completely untrue, false and unsubstantiated" and saying that she has not talked about her former band "or even thought about them in years."

In a statement released by Alissa's management, Kult Management — which is run by former ARCH ENEMY singer Angela Gossow — Alissa has denied ever having spoken ill of Vicky or even mentioning her successor's name in public. "We welcome people to look through the entire history of all her social media and find a single instance in which she speaks about her or the band she is in," the management states.

Alissa confirms: "I do not and have not talked about them or even thought about them in years. I am more than happy to talk to Vicky and put her concerns to rest because I know for a fact they are completely untrue. I have nothing but good luck to give her since I know I really enjoyed the music I made in that band and I'm sure she is making great music now too. She is welcome to contact me and always has been welcome to do so, but never has."

According to Kult Management, Alissa has never met Vicky before and she "has never had any contact with her whatsoever, in writing, in conversation, or otherwise. They are complete strangers, and Vicky does indeed admit that herself, as well as the fact that her statements against Alissa are merely speculative."

Alissa adds: "I want to give her the benefit of the doubt that she is just confused or misinformed. I don't know anything about her and as such, don't have any ill will towards her."

The management goes on to say that "Alissa has had ZERO contact with the rest of the band since 2013 and has more than moved on for years now."

Alissa adds: "The only contact I've had with them in any way was when I encountered the bass player at a metal show in Montreal a few years back and had nothing but a handshake with him. That was the ONLY contact I have had with that band in any way shape or form since we parted ways. I cannot stress enough that I am extremely happy and extremely busy with my current projects and don't have time to dwell on the activities of others."

According to Kult, "Alissa does not work for a record label, agency, management, promoter or any other position in the music industry. The only role she has is that of a freelance singer and she has no power over what paths other bands take in their careers."

Alissa confirms: "I do not have any time, energy or interest to invest in trying to control someone else." She adds: "Women in metal ALL stick together, no matter what. She and I are both just trying to have our music heard and I know firsthand how emotional and difficult it can be because I've been through it all, working my way from the ground up for years.

"I have no negative feelings towards her. I think she just misspoke and got emotionally carried away.

"She is welcome to contact me at any time. I am happy to help her in any way she needs and I sincerely wish her the best.

"I am proud of my fans for taking the high road and not engaging in harassing others. Please do NOT harass Vicky or her band. People make mistakes and we can forgive them. Thank you."

Kult Management also adds that it feels "compelled to make sure the public knows that ALL of these accusations are completely false. For decades now, we have championed the unity between women in metal and within the metal scene in general and we will continue to do so, here.

"It seems Vicky has gotten quite emotional over things she either believes to be true or has invented for some reason. We are not angry at her; we are here to help her and clarify anything she needs. We are happy to jump on a phone call with her to set her mind at ease and we are sorry she is dealing with a lot of stress at the moment. So far she has not responded, but the offer still stands."

Kult also provided statements from THE AGONIST's current and former record labels, both of whom have also denied Vicky's claims of interference from Alissa.

Napalm says: "Alissa has never interfered, commented nor was she involved in or was the reason for any business decision. THE AGONIST's current album has been licenced to Rodeostar Records, a company that is a completely separated and independent entity from Napalm Records."

Century Media states: "THE AGONIST were signed to Century Media for four albums, all of which have been delivered by the band and released by the label. With the delivery of the fourth contractual album, 'Eye Of Providence' (featuring the band’s new singer Vicky Psarakis, released in February 2015), the deal was fulfilled. The decision not to renew the contract was not in any way influenced by ARCH ENEMY, the band's management or their singer Alissa White-Gluz."

[vatofrain]

On Winnie the Pooh & Paddington, Honey & Marmalade

Oh, something sweet on bread! To crave only sweet things: marmalade on toast, marmalade straight, another jar of honey. To subsist on sweet spreads and friendship alone: is this not the dream? To be a very nice bear going around the world, making the world (other people! other animals! hell, the weather!) nicer in turn.

My friend K and I have a running metaphor concerning honey. 11pm, on the backroads around a farm near the New York / Connecticut border, as “All the Birds” by Julia Weldon crooned through their beat up speakers, one hand on the wire by the headphone jack to keep the music playing (the wire bent just so)— we were talking about love. We were talking about how we had so much to give but were afraid to give it to anyone for fear that they didn’t want it— which is where the honey comes in, because, we thought, isn’t it like having an armful of honey? So much golden, syrupy sweet to give that we hold on to simply because we are afraid to make of others a sticky mess?

And our arms are not meant to hold viscosity so some of it drips, by accident, onto the grass, the road, someone’s shoe, but when we finally find somebody who says yes, love me, and I will love you too— in whatever capacity it may mean— we start to pour onto them and are afraid that they will stay shit you’re getting sticky all over me I don’t want this I don’t want this anymore. So we hold onto our honey. Though it doesn’t want to be held. You tell me to love you but I’m afraid that you won’t want it once you know what shape it holds. I don’t want to make of anyone a mess they didn’t agree to. There is so much honey in my arms.

A poem on honey and love: “Aunt Rose’s Honey Advice” by Lorna Goodison:

My aunt Rose told me that it is always good for lovers to keep honey mixed in with their food.

"Keep it around the house at all times," she said. Replace slick butter with pure honey on bread.

Feed it to your love from a deep silver spoon. Throw open the curtains draw free honey from the moon.

Use it to lend a gold glow to wan lustreless skin. Fold it into honey cakes, drizzle it into honey drinks.

Add a satin honey glaze to the matte surface of everydays. Voices sing polished with honey's burnishing.

Shall we then beloved become keepers of bees, invite an entire colony of workers, drones and a queen

to build complex multicelled wax cities near our home by the sea? Would that mean that salt

would be savoring through our honey? And you say, "What of it?" and give me a kiss

flavoured with honey and sea-salt mix. Integrated honey you say. Kiss me again is what I say

because the salt in that kiss could be the sting from old tears and we need to make up for all our honeyless years.

Honey as love, honey as effort, honey as a gift that can be both salty and sweet. When I say my love is an armful of honey, what I mean is this: I don’t quite know how to give it out slowly, how to make it just a honeyed piece of bread or a spoonful in the morning. What I mean is this: I am so concerned with its stickiness that I forget how sweet it goes down.

Winnie the Pooh is not a bear concerned with romantic love, but he is a bear concerned with love. Friendship, honey, let me shove my snout into the pot, let me lick out with my long hungry tongue every drop I can manage. Winnie the Pooh is a bear of very great appetite and a bear of very generous loving. His love is a constant loyal warmth, an endless hunger for the presence of the loved, a generosity, a deep and abiding faith. Some exhibitions:

Winnie the Pooh: It's always a sunny day, when Christopher Robin comes to play

Christopher Robin: I've cracked.

Winnie The Pooh: Oh, I don't see any cracks. A few wrinkles, maybe

Piglet: I-I think I'll just s-stay here... Y-you don't really need me anyways.

Winnie The Pooh: Oh Piglet... but we DO need you...

Piglet: Y-you do?

Winnie The Pooh: [takes Piglet's hand] We ALWAYS need you, Piglet.

Christopher Robin: I'm not the person I used to be.

Winnie The Pooh: You saved us. You're a hero.

Christopher Robin: I'm not a hero, Pooh. The fact is, I'm lost.

Winnie The Pooh: But I found you.

Pooh is not only hungry for honey; he’s generous with it. His actual physical honey may be a kind of love he keeps for his own consumption (I don’t feel very much like Pooh today / There, there, I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do), there is no denying the very greatness of his heart. His care for his friends (we ALWAYS need you, Piglet) his faith in them (you’re a hero), his devotion and love, the way his life is crafted around loving: is that not its own doling out of honey? So, then, with Pooh we learn that honey is not something to hide from the world: that while we should be mindful of human dignities like boundaries and agency, there is little to be gained in the rationing of love.

And here we come to another bear who doles out love like something only slightly thicker than water.: Paddington. While Pooh’s essential task is love, Paddington’s is kindness, that cousin of honey, both products of both effort and patience, both sweet & sweet & sweet & delicious on bread. While Pooh’s is the story of loving those we already love, Paddington’s is the story of how to offer kindness and compassion and respect and dignity to those we don’t yet know. Pooh tells us how to live and love within our inner circle; Paddington tells us to offer love wherever we go.

Some exhibitions of Marmaladeism, both by Paddington himself and his films at large:

Paddington Bear: if we're kind and polite the world will be right.'

Paddington: Thank you, Mr. McGinty. Nuckles McGinty: Don’t thank me yet. I don’t do nothing for no one for nothing. Paddington: Beg your pardon? Nuckles McGinty: You get my protection so long as you make that marmalade. Deal? Paddington: Deal.

& how through Paddington’s kindness, McGinty’s perspective changes:

Nuckles McGinty: [to Paddington] If you’re going to clear your name, you’re going to need our help.

Nuckles McGinty: “This bear is now under my protection. Anyone that touches a hair on this bear will have to answer to me, Nuckles McGinty. That’s Nuckles with a capital N.”

Henry Brown: No, of course you don't. YOU never have! As soon as you set eyes on that bear you made up your mind about him. Well Paddington's not like that. He looks for the good in all of us and somehow, he finds it! It's why he makes friends wherever he goes. And it's why Windsor Gardens is a happier place whenever he's around. He wouldn't hesitate if any of us needed help! So stand aside, Mr Curry. 'Cause we're coming through.

Aunt Lucy: Long ago, people in England sent their children by train with labels around their necks, so they could be taken care of by complete strangers in the country side where it was safe. They will not have forgotten how to treat strangers.

While both Paddington movies are completely wonderful, Paddington 2 is more effective in communicating its point: through a surprisingly nuanced look at the prison industrial complex, capitalism, and the insidious nature of evil (and how it roots from believing oneself superior to everyone else), it tells us that by offering people kindness, human dignity, compassion, and even love, we can often coax out their better selves from the protective shell of their worse ones.

These are times like any other: by which I mean, times in which we often learn the correct rhetoric, the correct stances, the correct politics, the correct opinions, and forget what all this is meant to be in service of: honey & marmalade, love & kindness. We speak out against prejudice (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, prejudice against LGBTQ people, etc.) rightly so— I don’t mean to say that we should stop activism or protest or a careful monitoring of language— but we must remember what we do this all for. Yes, structural change is crucial. What else is important? Treating the people you come across who are of these minorities we claim to support and defend well, treating them with kindness, with compassion, loving them well, as they need and want to be loved. Large-scale rhetoric is shaky and doomed if it doesn’t come from some deeper, sweeter instinct to ensure we are all fed: in food, in shelter, in education, in joy, in honey & marmalade. Let us not forget this.

I think we need to watch more kids’ movies. I think we need to reteach ourselves the fundamentals. I think it’s a goddamn shame that kids’ movies are dismissed as uncomplicated and unimportant, that wonder, hope, naivete, whimsy, charm, warmth, sweetness (those 2 secret sauces) are not granted the same gravitas as misery and grittiness, that there is somehow nothing important to say about them, that only cynicism and brutality are intelligent. One is not smarter for being miserable. One is not smarter for their pessimism. One is not smarter, is not better, is not more morally responsible or ethically aware or more worldly for refusing to place in their mouth a piece of bread spread with something sweet, for refusing to say yes, this is , in Leslie Jamison’s words (again, I know) significant, this“ single note of honey”.

[dippedanddripped]

This May, New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology hosted its annual Future of Fashion runway show. As usual, 2019’s presentation celebrated the work of its graduates in fashion design, with students presenting work across the genres of sportswear, knitwear, children’s wear, special occasion and intimate apparel. The difference is that this year the university added a new category for its students to try their hand at — street style and athletics. “This is the first Future of Fashion show that’s featuring athleisure and streetwear,” celebrity stylist Kesha McLeod, one of the judges for FIT’s street style and athletics capsule, said ahead of the runway show.

And FIT is not the only school to formally recognize streetwear’s relevance. Ahead of its own graduate fashion show in May, Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute chose none other than Dapper Dan to honor Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss with its 2019 Pratt Fashion Visionary Award.

But the inclusion begs a question: how can an institution like a fashion school incorporate streetwear into its curriculum? Is it possible to ���teach” a genre that is rooted as much in culture as it is in technique? And if so, does institutionalizing the genre effectively neuter streetwear’s rebellious edge?

For FIT, the introduction of the new category is simply a response to evolving styles. “Every generation of student brings with them a new perspective, and streetwear is the most current example. This is what makes fashion vital— what we wear represents who we are,” says FIT’s Chair of Fashion Design Eileen Karp.

“Knowing how to realize your vision is in no way a compromise, it is essential and empowers the emerging designer,” she adds.

To judge the street style and athletics capsule, FIT invited McLeod and FIT alumni Christopher Bevans. Bevans, who was a global design director for Nikeand creative director for Billionaire Boys Club before founding his own brand DYNE, says FIT has evolved its curriculum significantly since his time there. Back then, the school didn’t so much as have a menswear component let alone streetwear.

“I think that the new dean [Troy Richards] and [President Dr. Joyce F. Brown], they are well aware of street culture,” Bevans tells HYPEBEAST. “And they’re listening to the voices of the students and the professors, and they are doing a beautiful job to continue to keep FIT relevant and cutting edge and innovative.”

Tuomas Laitinen, senior lecturer at Aalto University in Helsinki, is a bit more skeptical of such overt labels. “We don’t really believe in categories. Something like trends, it’s a bit of a dangerous word in a way. It’s more about finding the individual path of a student,” he told HYPEBEAST ahead of Aalto end-of-year Näytös show.

Aalto, which was recently named one of Business of Fashion’s top fashion schools for 2019, may not “teach” streetwear directly, but clothes at the Näytös 2019 show, which took place this past month, certainly presented a streetwear aesthetic. Students created pastel-colored suiting reminiscent of Louis Vuitton’s menswear by Virgil Abloh and zippered, functional outerwear calling to mind Errolson Hugh’s ACRONYM.

But Laitinen finds his students are moving in a far more formal direction, perhaps representing a generational shift where wearing a tracksuit is no longer such an act of rebellion. “Actually it was more streetwear, more sportswear-y before. Now it’s tailoring,” he says. “They’re more attracted to formality. It’s funny, in my generation it was all about breaking formality.”

“We don’t really believe in categories. Something like trends, it’s a bit of a dangerous word in a way.”

For Laitinen, the difference in approach might be due to the fact that, as he sees it, American schools like FIT, Parsons and Pratt take a more “commercial” approach when compared to their European counterparts. “Saint Martins or Antwerp or Vienna and the other schools, our point of view is more kind of defined to make students dig really, really deep to things they are interested in. And if it happens to be streetwear or sportswear, then we’re one hundred percent embracing it,” he says.

But Laitinen brings up a crucial point in the question of bringing streetwear to schools. In an age where streetwear covers the gamut from casual brands like Stüssy to formal, luxury fashion from the likes of Off-White™, how does one even define what streetwear is?

For Rachel Lift, visiting professor of fashion at Pratt, that answer can change depending on the context. “It signifies a specific fashion market and the garments – sneakers in particular – that are sold there,” she tells HYPEBEAST. “It is also an umbrella term that is problematically used to group black designers, whether or not they are making clothes that are sold in the streetwear market.”

However, in the educational sense, Lift says the term “streetwear” can be used to ask students to contemplate designs “outside of the established hierarchies of the industry,” and to think of cultures left out of the mainstream fashion conversation. “Because of its connection to hip-hop, ‘streetwear’ serves as a prompt for thinking about diversity and inclusion in the fashion industry – a theme that we also address in fashion education,” she says.

FIT offered an interesting solution to this conundrum of how to “define” streetwear; the street style and athletics pieces in its Future of Fashion show were not relegated to a separate category, but instead students within each discipline — sportswear, knitwear, children’s wear, intimate apparel and special occasion — were invited to apply a street style and athletics lens to their graduate pieces if they chose.

In the case of the winner of the street style and athletics capsule, Gwen Hines, that ability to combine athleticwear with a contrasting style proved successful. Hines, who specializes in formal wear, created a striking evening gown with athletic materials like scuba and mesh. “I chose to take part in the athletic capsule collection because I saw it as a challenge. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and this is exactly what happened,” she tells HYPEBEAST. “Before this, I never had much of a relationship to athletics/streetwear. I chose to specialize my studies to special occasion design so, this style was very new for me.”

That lack of immersion in streetwear culture may ruffle the feathers of certain hypebeasts who want to keep streetwear to an underground genre. But for Bevans, recognition in other areas of fashion is a boon for streetwear. “I think it’s just important that we keep pushing and being innovative to have a seat at the bigger fashion houses, and it starts from here,” he says.

And not only that, but in the age of social media, going mainstream is a foregone conclusion for just about any genre. “I think social media has now just kinda made everything kinda mainstream,” he adds. “So if you think you’re underground, you probably shouldn’t be on social media, then.”

“I think it’s just important that we keep pushing and being innovative to have a seat at the bigger fashion houses, and it starts from here.”

Fashion schools aren’t the only institutions to bring streetwear to the spotlight, after all. In 2018, the CFDA honored Supreme’s James Jebbia with the Menswear Designer of the Year Award, a decision that invited its own share of backlash. Bevans, however, sees that decision as a due recognition of streetwear’s influence. “That just goes to show, there’s no denying just how street style is truly fashion. It’s just another chamber of fashion and it’s a serious business that has to be respected,” he says.

Laitinen agrees that streetwear’s time in the underground is over. “We have no subcultures anymore. We just go on this merry go round,” he says. He may not believe in teaching streetwear, but that doesn’t mean schools should remain static.

The way forward, Laitinen sees, is for universities to offer students a chance to experiment with technical innovations. “It’s more like keeping up with techniques and materials. That’s become kind of where we have to keep up,” he says. “You explore and you use machines you’re not supposed to. That’s the whole point of fashion education. Because you can’t really teach people how to design.”

The latter point may never change, but students’ access to streetwear knowledge certainly has. Kim Jones has ascribed role at influential streetwear agency Gimme5 during his student days as giving him a unique point of view compared to his fellow Central Saint Martins alum. Nowadays, students can find streetwear influences all around them, whether they’re looking for them or not.

[disabilitythinking]

The Disability Alphabet: A Is For ...

This is the first installment of a blog series that should run from now until the end of 2019. It’s called “The Disability Alphabet.” Twice a month, I will examine important words used in the disability community, in alphabetical order starting with A, and continuing through Z. But first, a few procedural notes:

I will be using a four-part structure to explore each term: Definitions, Common Uses, Problems & Misunderstandings, and Suggestions. The last will be my own thoughts on how we can best use the term, including any suggestions for changing how and when we use it.

This is an exploration of words, which is not quite the same thing as the things themselves. So for instance, I will explore the word “ableism,” but I won’t discuss at length what ableism means to me, what it does to people in society, or why it’s important.

I will try for the most part to take on terms that have special meaning and uses within the disability community. While words like “justice,” “health,” and “freedom” certainly have particular meanings for disabled people, they are a little too generic for this project. On the other hand, I may examine some general social justice terms, like “intersectionality” and “oppression,” becaus they are frequently misunderstood, and because they are used in specific ways in disability discourse.

These are going to be my personal explorations, based on my own limited research, but mainly my own experiences, ideas, and feelings. I will probably not cover every possible aspect of every word.

Feel free to add your own ideas, or disagreements, in the comments below.

And so we begin with …

Ableism

Definitions

Dictionary.com: “noun 1. discrimination against disabled people.”

Wikipedia: “ … discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities. Ableism characterizes persons as defined by their disabilities and as inferior to the non-disabled. On this basis, people are assigned or denied certain perceived abilities, skills, or character orientations.”

Common Uses

The most obvious use of the word “ableism” is to give a name to a broad range of discriminatory experiences people with all kinds of disabilities share to some degree. But the word has other, more specific functions too:

It distinguishes the disability experience from the more generic experience of “discrimination” or “prejudice” that can be applied to anyone, including non-disabled people.

It suggests some connection or similarity with other forms of discrimination that people may be more familiar with, such as racism.

By giving disability discrimination a distinct name, the word “ableism” takes the experience out of the category of mere misunderstanding and social rudeness, and places it more firmly in the category of damaging and urgent social ills.

Problems and Misunderstandings

At times, “ableism” is too general a word. There are too many different kinds of ableism. Each kind is serious, but often calls for different responses. Referring to such a wide range of experiences simply as “ableism” tends to over-simplify the way we think about it and deal with it.

I have tried a few times on this blog to map out the different kinds of ableism I have noticed. There’s a good summary of my thoughts here: Disputing “Ableism”. Roughly speaking, I tend to think in terms of three main kinds of ableism:

Well-meaning ableism

Systemic ableism

Asshole ableism

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

I think it’s also useful to separate “systemic” ableism … the ableism embedded and laws, policies, and practices … from interpersonal ableism … which is about the way people treat each other personally in regard to disability.

Another slight problem with “ableism” is that there are still people who hear the word and immediately think it’s “made up” for “political purposes.” I think what they mean is that they believe the term was coined with a specific rhetorical goal in mind. That’s probably true! But the same is true of a lot of words that are far more common and universally accepted than “ableism.”

In this run through the disability alphabet, I think we will find that people have fundamentally different beliefs about language that are distinct and separate from their political views. People seem to be hard wired one way or another. They either view language as an flexible and adaptable tool of communication and persuasion, or they cling to words as guardians of unchanging reality. And how people think about language affects how open they are to new words and new uses of language … something that has been essential in the evolution of disability culture and thought.

Finally, the way “ableism” borrows so directly on the meanings and rhetorical power of “racism” is, (to use another word we’ll need to explore at some point), problematic. Comparisons between ableism and racism do violence to the real-life experience of racism, and in any case the similarities are pretty limited. Both are systems of prejudice, but the similarities end there. On the other hand, “ableism” now has almost enough life and meaning of its own to stand alone, without needing to draw on that connection with racism or any other “ism.”

[Additional note: Squarespace underlines every time I type “ableism,” indicating that it doesn’t recognize it as a word. It may not be a new word to disabled people or the disability community, but it’s apparently new enough to be marked as a misspelling].

Suggestions

Despite all of the difficulties of “ableism,” there’s no better word available to describe and categorize the experience of disability discrimination and structural oppression. I use it. Still, whenever possible, I modify it, clarifying which kind of ableism I am talking talking about in any given situation.

Also, I try to use the word “ableism” describe, not to de-legitimize or shame. Calling someone or something “ableist” does not, to me, write them off. It’s not even a condemnation to me. At most it’s a criticism, more often an observation. I’m not suggesting shying away from the potential power of the word as a way to call out reprehensible behavior. I am suggesting that using the word with a bit of thought and nuance can make it more powerful and useful in the long run.

Advocacy

Definitions

Dictionary.com: “noun 1. the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active espousal.”

Wikipedia: “Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group which aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research or conducting exit poll or the filing of an amicus brief. Lobbying (often by lobby groups) is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on an issue which plays a significant role in modern politics.[1] Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States[2] and Canada[3] are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.”

Common Uses

In the world of disability, advocacy generally refers to any effort by an individual or a group to get something they want from some kind of institution … from a service agency, government office, employer, company, cultural institution, etc. When people with disabilities speak for themselves in order to get something they need or bring about some kind of change, we call it advocacy.

Problems and Misunderstandings

Like “ableism,” “advocacy” probably covers too many different activities. In current use the term encompasses both individual efforts aimed at personal gains, and group efforts to achieve broader systemic change. It covers asking your employer for extra time off or a raised desk. It also covers campaigning for health care reform and fighting attacks on the Americans with Disabilities Act. While all of these are related, they are also, obviously, quite different.

The term “advocacy” has also gradually become institutionalized. It is now sometimes used cynically to give the appearance of empowering disabled people, when in fact some activities labeled “advocacy” are really just dressed-up counseling or socializing. It’s a little too easy for an organization to say it does “advocacy” without really doing any.

Suggestions

I think we should start talking and writing about two related but separate things: advocacy and activism.

Activism

Definitions

Dictionary.com: “noun 1. the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.”

Wikipedia: “Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct, or intervene in social, political, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society. Forms of activism range from writing letters to newspapers, petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage (or boycott) of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.”

Common Uses

“Activism” generally refers to organized, group activities aimed at making some kind of legal or social change. It includes everything from lobbying, letter-writing, and other “within the system” efforts to demonstrations, protests, and civil disobedience.

It seems like “activism” hasn’t been used as much in the past to describe these activities done by people with disabilities focusing on disability issues. “Advocacy” and sometimes “systems advocacy” has been the more common term. I don’t know why. Maybe because until fairly recently, most disability activism has been either run or heavily influenced by people and organizations that spoke the language of social work rather than politics. Maybe “advocacy” is a more comfortable linguistic fit for people who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with politics.

But lately it seems like “activism” is being used more often by people in the disability community. After years struggling to find a word for the thing we do when we cooperate as a group to bring about social change for disabled people, it seems like we’ve finally started to realize that “activism” describes it quite well and quite simply. We don’t need to make up a special word for it. The right word has been there all along.

Problems and Misunderstandings

I don’t really see any problem with using the word “activism” in the disability context. I haven’t heard anyone complain that it mislabels what they are doing. Nor have I heard anyone assert that “advocacy” is a better term.

The only possible drawback to “activism” is that it might turn people off if they have a strong aversion to any kind of social or political activity. There certainly are lots of people in the disability community who don’t enjoy or appreciate “activism.” Yet, I’ve never noticed any aversion to the word itself.

Suggestions

So how about it? Let’s use “advocacy” when we talk about individual efforts, and “activism” when we talk about working together on broader goals. Who’s with me?

Next in The Disability Alphabet: B is for … Barrers and Benefits.

[libertariantaoist]

The mainstream media refuses to acknowledge that the hardest fighting against ISIS and al Qaeda has been done by Syria and its allies.  Indeed, we label Iran’s fight against Syrian terrorists as “malign activity,” ignoring the fact that al Qaeda in Syria [al Nusra] is the progeny of the al Qaeda force that highjacked jets and flew them into the Twin Towers and Pentagon, killing 3,000 Americans on 9-11.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Seymour Hersh, wrote that a Defense Intelligence Agency review of Syrian policy in 2013 revealed that clandestine CIA Program Timber Sycamore, had degenerated into a program that armed all terrorists indiscriminately, specifically including ISIS and al Qaeda.  I seriously doubt that this was merely a program failure.  There is strong evidence that the U.S. planned to overthrow Syria in 2001; the U.S. Embassy in Damascus issued a detailed strategy to destabilize Syria in 2006–long before the so-called “Arab Spring;” and that our focus has consistently been on toppling the duly elected, constitutional and UN-recognized government of Syria.

It’s sickening to hear these clowns repeatedly claim that “Assad murdered 500,000 of his people,” as though the U.S.-backed terrorists have played no role in the killings.  I’ve viewed hundreds of beheadings and crucifixions online but none committed by Syria troops–all were proudly posted by the hellish filth that we’ve recruited, armed and trained for the past eight years.  Major war crimes, like beheading 250 Syrian soldiers after running them across the desert in their underpants, were scarcely mentioned by the MSM.

During a five-hour drive across liberated Syria this September, I spoke with many people, from desert shepherds, to nuns and Muslim religious.  There were palpable expressions of joy that the Syrian armed forces had liberated them from the terrorists.  That was coupled with broad-based, unequivocal support for President Bashar al Assad and the Syrian Armed Forces.

This disastrous war would never have occurred without American planning and execution.  And it would have ended years and hundreds of thousands of casualties ago had we closed our training and logistics bases in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  The Syrian War had little to do with the “Arab Spring” and much to do with clandestine actions of CIA, MI-6, Mossad, Turkish MIT, French DGSE, Saudi GID and others, working with the savage Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.  We trained and recruited far more terrorists than we killed, and we will encounter those survivors again, at other times and places.

It is instructive that, despite President Donald Trump’s strong directive on a rapid Syrian pull-out, apparently not one soldier or Marine has departed Syria.  And the argument that they’re tied up with fighting ISIS doesn’t hold water.  On Syria’s southern border, across from Jordan, lies the U.S. base at al Tanf.  ISIS is nowhere around.  Al Tanf’s sole purpose is to hold and defend the sovereign territory of Syria (using a 55 km no-fly zone).  It denies Syria the right to restore order and provide aid to starving Syrians trapped in the American zone.

Al Tanf is the canary in the Syrian coal mine.  If Trump’s pullout has any credibility, the 800 or so troops and equipment assigned there could be withdrawn across the Jordanian border within 24 hours.  Their failure to do so suggests duplicity by our foreign policy shadow government.  The Pentagon seems unresponsive to the Commander-in-Chief, and he has surrounded himself with advisors whose allegiance does not lie with him–or with the American people.

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