#and is also partially inspired by that one time a conservative guy said ‘of course you would read fiction you’re a woman’ to my sister

[idrisofficial]

ok that last reblog got me thinking. i think adrian has white woman steamy romance taste tbh. it’s his guilty pleasure. like he has all these books about halcyonist doctrine and academia and plenty of propaganda filling his shelves. but none of that is really what he takes joy in reading. nah. he just wants 300 pages of slow burn will-they-won’t-they with a healthy dose of smut that barely borders on anything really interesting.

[youremyonlyhope]

The Haunting of Villa Diodati

I get to watch Doctor Who on my TV. Yay! First time in weeks there isn’t a Super Bowl or award show.

I literally forgot Cyberman were even coming to this season until I saw commercial advertising the rest of the season that played just now before the episode is starting. But that’s not until the finale I guess.

COSTUMES. PERIOD. COSTUMES. God I love historical episodes. Lord Byron!?!?!?! MRS. SHELLEY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? YESSSSSSSSS Oh I am just so happy right now. At first I was like “Oooohh Northanger Abbey vibes” but no it’s like actual gothic novelists not a girl obsessed with them. Oh Fam. CAN’T SEE THE (ok I don’t know what I started typing here, the next line got me too excited and I forgot to come back to this one) “Because it is a truth universally acknowledged” AHHHHHH. I LITERALLY SCREAMED. IT WAS PROBABLY MORE OF A SQUEAK/SHRIEK THAN A SCREAM BUT STILL. GRAHAM. A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART. “And nobody snog Byron.” I can’t. AHHH COUNTRY DANCING. Guys. Guys. GUYS. Is this episode made specifically for me!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Well, I’ve never read any Byron or Shelley, but regency era?!?!?! I completely adore it. This poor butler. “How about writing the most gruesome, spine-chilling ghost story of all time?” Doctor. Try to be a bit more subtle.

*Something coming out of the painting* Me: *Thinking of the Kasavin* No... *Something small breaks out of the painting* Me: Oh ok Skeleton hand: *Crawls* Me: NO.

Noooooo there’s a disappearing lady. Oh no Graham’s in a loop. NOOO THERE’S A CHILD. This is like actually creepy. “His answers only increase the enigma” “I know someone like that.” Cue the screams of every Doctor/Yaz shipper ever. Annnndddddd there’s the hand....

This episode. Is like. Everything I want. Period costumes, Regency specifically. Ghosts. Skeletons. Jane Austen references. Country Dances. Love love love love LOVE.

Oh and of course the Doctor gets to wear another outfit, or at least a new vest. Which I love. I want to see what the detailing is. Oh no. Oh NO. BYRON DON’T YOU DARE HIT ON THE DOCTOR. NO. “But she always said there’s no reason not to try.” Awwwwwww. Yeah, how have we met both Ada and Lord Byron in the same season... there’s gotta something there.... Oh Fletcher. He’s so annoyed. He’s either evil or the best person here. THANK GOD FOR FLETCHER. Oh Doctor don’t taste that oh Doctor baby no.... I love/hate Byron being in love with the Doctor. I love it so much but I hate it so much. See. I don’t know enough about Byron. But I vaguely knew he was like... super creepy. And... keeping a 300 year old skeleton from a battle is definitely creepy. “One hand gone.” “Both hands gone.” OH GREAT. DON’T. DON’T EAT THINGS GIVEN BY GHOSTS. OR IS IT FAERIES? EITHER WAY. NO. I mean I guess Graham has no clue. BUT STILL. They’re in a loop too. Byron, stop looking at her like that. Stop it. I refuse. Everyone’s in a loop. Annnndddd that’s a ghost. WAIT IS THE BABY ADA?! Oh no wait never mind it’s William. And yeah ok that’s a person over the lake. NOOOOOOOOOO. NOOOO HE DID NOT JUST WALK THROUGH A WALL. I SAID NO OUT LOUD. Like a dream? Was Poli asleep earlier when Graham got lost? Are they in his dream or something? Did Byron just hide behind her? Oh you coward. Not worthy of my Doctor. “May just say you are quite lovely in a crisis?” OH SHUT UP. A PERCEPTION FILTER?!!?!?!? Yeah ok that’s not fun. A skeleton in the place of a baby. That’s messed up. I feel like so much has happened, but it’s only been a half hour. There’s still 40 minutes, we’re not even halfway through. Where is this going? Also, I’m enjoying it a lot. This isn’t a TARDIS is it? Will the Master pop up? This isn’t like Hide is it? A traveler who we think is evil but is just lost? NOOOOOOO. OH NOOO. I JUST SCREAMED “NOOOOOO” IN COMPLETE AND UTTER FEAR. ANYTHING BUT A CYBERMAN PLEASE.

I didn’t think we’d see the lone Cybermen until the end of the season. I literally rationalized myself into being shocked. If I hadn’t seen the promo, I would have forgotten we’d Cybermen at all, but then I convinced myself we wouldn’t get them yet, and it surprised me.

So. Not like Hide. Definitely evil.

“I will not lose anyone else to that.” OH GOD WHY MUST YOU REMIND ME OF BILL. IT’S BEEN ALMOST 3 YEARS AND I’M NOWHERE NEAR RECOVERED FROM THAT PAIN. DOES HE HAVE A HUMAN EYE? HE’S TRULY UNFINISHED. WAIT THAT’S HALF A NORMAL FACE. NOT THE BABY. This nanny is like the best person ever. I appreciate her trying to save the baby. She did not deserve to die. Oh god it has one human hand. He tried to kiss the baby?!?!?!!? Yaz my girl no you don’t. Don’t look for loopholes. Oh spoilers from the closed captions I guess. It said “Ashad: Funny” so I’m guessing its name is Ashad, and that that’s going to be revealed at some point. I just remembered that the Cyberwoman was also a Chibnall story. Is this his patrially-converted-Cyberman redemption? Yeah the writing on the wall is creepy... Someone get Shelley some help. Who plays the Cyberman? Imagine if we get one of those Cyberbeast things from the Next Doctor. That’d be fun. Maybe I just want to see them again. Oh not Fletcher. “Guard him well.” Soooooo is Byron now a guardian of some sort... Oh cool, Shelley can fight back a bit. Oh great it’s in him. That’s great. That’s fun. Fantastic. Was it Jack who sent it back? Or maybe the Master? Oooh the Doctor is going off on Ryan. That’s some anger. “It’s a mountain. With me in the summit, in the stratosphere, alone. Left to choose.” Oh GOD Doctor. She’s just letting it all out. “A composite of parts?” Oh ok so there’s that inspiration. I was wondering why he hadn’t take the baby with him. I guess he did spare him. Well that sucks. He’s a lone Cyberman, what ship does he have? “We are inevitable.” THE APOTHEOSIS???? Sorry, had to make a StarKid reference. Doctor. Doctor. You had ONE job. Jack told you to do ONE THING. Ok well at least the Doctor’s like “Oh no I am well aware what I did was dumb but I will fix it.” She’s truly learned since she became the Time Lord Victorious when he didn’t care. I’m Mr. Poli half laughing as Miss Clairmont roasts Byron. I had forgotten about the lady and the child for a while though... I did wonder at one point how they fit into all this... and then forgot to keep wondering...

So that was a REALLY fun episode! I am happy with it!

Loved the costumes especially, but that’s just me nerding out.

This episode had me screaming “NOO” out loud multiple times so that’s fun.

I just checked IMDB to look at the cast since so many people looked familiar to me. And I realized that Nicholas Briggs was apparently playing the Cyberman voice again. That makes me so happy.

Update: I actually started proofreading this, then realized the ice cream place near me was closing in a half hour. So I stopped, left and got ice cream, and now i’m back. Yay! Doctor Who and ice cream! And I have the day off tomorrow!

Anyway. Yay! A better partially-converted-Cyberman story! IMDB says Chibnall didn’t write this one, but it’s in his era so I guess we can consider it like a half-redemption.

(Also I don’t even hate Cyberwoman as much as other people do. My biggest complaint with Cyberwoman was her design since they put her in a bikini and heels. The bikini could be justified that it uses less metal and conserves resources, that I can almost accept, but the heels have no justification.)

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 17

A/N: I know I said that I probably wouldn't post for a while because finals, but then I had a flash of inspiration and my poor time management instincts took over. But seriously, now that I'm done clearing my WIPs so they don't distract me later, it'll probably be a week or so until I start working on my fanfics again. Need to do a bunch of essays, then I'm giving myself a bit of time to be lazy once break starts up. So for once, I'd like to ask you guys to not give me suggestions for a bit...

The first part of this chapter is something that I figured should happen eventually. How would magic change an already superhuman society?

Have a Little Feith: Thanks for the suggestion! I certainly don't mind using legendaries, however I already have plans for that particular one. My idea for Momo was more along the lines of manufacture.

Xekless: With the exception of elementals, humans (and some animals) are the only inherently magical beings that exist as of this point in the story. Let's just say there's a reason nobody knew of magic before Midoriya...

xoxoxo

In the weeks leading up to the sports festival, we saw a surprising amount of magical advancements in the world. Supernatural healing, which was once considered rare and often involved some sort of caveat that meant it couldn't be used freely, turned into a matter of training, skill, and mana, even if it was weaker. I actually did some volunteer work helping some local hospitals out with the spells, as well as the regular medical help I needed to do for Shuzenji-sensei's healing course.

While only lightning mana could be directly converted into electricity, special generators were built to use other kinds of mana as fuel, meaning more people could work at power plants and more clean energy. There was probably also research being done to use mana as it was. More water-users meant improved water services. Construction businesses flourished with earth mages. Apparently Uraraka's parents in particular gained some profit because she was able to use her elementals to get her parents a few interesting spells in their elements. She and Aizawa were really happy about that, actually.

Conservation only benefited from a new wave of bio-elementalists and other kinds of magic-users. In fact, I heard there was a group that was in the process of getting permits to use magic to deal with the trash in the sea and on the beaches better. Not to mention, even unaspected magic was incredibly useful in agriculture, so farms were able to produce more crops. I even heard about some experiments in infusing plants with magic, which sounded interesting.

While there was, unfortunately, a bit of a rise in villain attacks with the advent of magic, pro heroes were better able to combat it with the fact that hero agencies had more or less turned into modern-day mage guilds. I'm sure there was someone out there biding their time until they learned how to cast Ultima or Raise Greater Undead, but at the same time pro heroes were organized, well-funded, and now produced their own spells, so they could handle it. I even saw on the news that the Wild, Wild Pussycats now had a series of cat-themed spells.

There were still some limitations on dissemination of magical knowledge to the general public, but a few weak spells were made available to everyone. With the buzz about magic, I heard there were talks about reducing Quirk- and magic-usage laws, which was exciting. I mean, I may or may not have been using my magic in public a bit already, but it'd be nice to be a bit less sneaky about it...

xoxoxo

"Poor thing," I said as I looked at the small, gold-furred cat that Juniper alerted me was in a nearby alley. She was missing part of her right foreleg, and the stump was bleeding. She had a few more scrapes, and her fur was dirty. She gave me a weak meow. I'd always liked cats, so I felt a pang in my heart to see one so hurt. "What happened to you?

Stray Cat

LV 6

Kitten

I reached my hand out to her, but she shied away. I concentrated, trying to use Magycked Words to put my intention into what I was about to say. "I want to help," I murmured in a soothing tone, then closed a popup for a new skill, Animal Whisperer. She looked a little bit calmer now. "Good, now just hold... still..." I slowly reached my hand out to her, whispering affirmations to her. She let me touch her, and I activated Healing Hands. "That's a good girl. I'm healing you now."

Unfortunately Healing Hands couldn't do much for her missing limb, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore. After her wounds were dealt with, I gave her a quick rinse to clean her off, making sure to dry her off completely before she could get cold. Oddly enough, though, her temperature didn't drop at all from the water. She purred at me, now doing much better. She didn't have a collar, but... "Does she have a chip on her, Raimon?" I asked.

"I don't... think so?" he said. "I can't find anything like that on her."

I grinned. "Then I guess you're coming with me, girl." I picked her up. "A cat with golden fur... I think I have the purrfect name for you." She purred, and her fur... glowed. She got really warm. "Okay nevermind Yang it is," I said.

Stray Cat

LV 6

Yang

A cat with a Quirk... I'd heard of people having pets with Quirks before but I wasn't entirely sure what the rules were. I assumed I'd have to register her, though.

"Don't you still have school today?" Claude asked.

I bolted up. "Crap! School!" I looked at the time. Kacchan was probably looking for me. I looked around for a place to put Yang, then had an idea.

xoxoxo

"The hell were you taking so long?" Kacchan asked me when I ran up to him.

"I, uhhh... had a magic thing?" I said, then rubbed the back of my head.

Wait crud that's was the wrong hand! I quickly lowered my arm, but not before a meow escaped from my sleeve...

"Why the fuck did I just hear a cat?" Kacchan asked.

"Oh I don't know, maybe there's a cat nearby?" Kacchan looked around, then focused on my sleeve. I acted totally natural, nothing up my sleeves at all! For a second I felt like he would buy it.

He didn't buy it.

"Oi Deku, what's up your sleeve?" He grabbed my hand a bit more forcefully than I'd have liked, causing it to fall out of my sleeve. "...What the actual fuck," he said after a few moments of holding my disembodied right hand.

"Stupid Rayman limbs..." I muttered.

"Meow," Yang said as she poked her head out of my sleeve. To be honest I wasn't entirely sure how my sleeve was staying in proper shape considering most of my forearm was made out of air, but it was. Somehow.

"Did... Is your arm a cat now?" He looked between my still very much real hand and the cat's head coming from my sleeve. "You know what, I'm going to hold your hand hostage until you fucking explain."

"Not my hand!" I shouted. "I need that to not get arrested." I started trying to fly my hand out of Kacchan's grasp. Because my hand was attached to a body part I'd turned to air, it could fly. Somehow. It wasn't strong enough to escape Kacchan, though. Actually, I wondered how much of my body I had to turn into air before the rest would fly. I'd have to test that later...

"Stop muttering and answer the damn question."

"I wasn't just going to leave Yang there! She lost a leg."

Kacchan facepalmed, letting go of my hand. It floated back to Yang, and I scratched her chin with it before nudging her back so I could put my hand back in place. She was taking Air Embodiment surprisingly well. I was actually a little worried she'd activate her Quirk... "You named her already. In hindsight, though, I'm more surprised you haven't done something like this already. Actually, is it okay that the cat's breathing your arm?" He stopped walking and just rubbed his temples. "Hang... hang on, I just need a fucking moment to process how fucking absurd that last sentence was."

"I've confirmed that it's perfectly safe for both me and whatever's breathing me. Same for other elements. And I'm sure someone's said something like that before."

He started walking again. "Right. Your life is fucking weird. Not gonna give myself a headache. So how long can you do that?"

"Partial Embodiment is a lot less taxing than Full Embodiment, so it's just slightly more than what Mantra gives me back. In fact, if I get another point of INT, then it might just break even. If I use Meditate every so often, I'll be able to keep this up until we get home. Assuming we don't have practicals in Hero Studies today."

He shrugged. "Fuck it, good for you. Now we should probably hurry as fast as we can without you jostling the cat. We're already a little late."

xoxoxo

I was walking in the hallway on my own when I heard a meow. I froze and so did Aizawa-sensei, who was walking past me. I silently pleaded with Sonia to help. She gave me a grin. A grin I could almost describe as like the Cheshire Cat's...

"Meow," she said. Audibly. Even with Gamer's Mind, I could feel my heart pounding. I tried not to let it show on my face. I tensed up, though, when Yang meowed again. Though I noticed that Aizawa also grimaced. Yang pushed my hand out of the way, but at the same time a black cat with golden eyes poked her head out of Aizawa-sensei's capture weapon.

Alley Cat

LV 4

Blake

I nodded at him.

He nodded at me.

Yang and Blake meowed at each other.

I offered Aizawa-sensei my right arm in an invitation to pet Yang. He gratefully did so, then pointed to Blake. I used my floating right hand to pet her.

We nodded to each other, then gently nudged our cats back into their hiding spots and walked away. I had to Meditate in the bathroom for a bit because the stress of the moment deactivated Mantra, though.

We never talked about our encounter, though we did trade a few cat puns later in the day. I'm not an expert, but I think that makes us brothers.

xoxoxo

"Hey mom?" I said as I opened the door. "I have something I'd like to ask you about..."

"What is it, sweetie?"

I brought Yang out from behind my back. "Her name is Yang."

Mom sighed. "Honey, you know a cat is a big responsibility..."

"I promise I'll take good care of her!" I promised.

She frowned, then nodded after a moment of thought. "Alright, you can keep her."

"Thank you!" I shouted. "Oh, uh... By the way, she has a Quirk..."

"Izuku..."

xoxoxo

As it turned out, the Japanese government is very approving of Quirky animals being pets with responsible owners, though there was some red tape surrounding it. It made sense that they wouldn't want animals who had no concept of Quirk usage laws just roaming the streets... First I had to get her registered and fitted with a special chip that could withstand a lot more heat than normal chips thanks to her fire-based Quirk. Then we had to go to specialized classes for us to be able to deal with her if she activated her Quirk. I also got a good prosthetic for her with some of the money I got for various prizes related to discovering magic.

Thanks to Animal Whisperer I gained an increased understanding of all animals. After a few talks with Yang, I could pretty much speak cat, which was neat. I was hoping to get a familiar skill, though. Even if I never used Yang like a proper familiar, a familiar skill might give me access to her Quirk, I Burn, which would be nice.

For my preparation for the sports festival, I decided to focus mainly on DEX and INT. Because I was more or less indestructible due to Damage Reduction and Elemental Embodiment, I didn't need to worry about VIT at all. Because of that, I decided to focus on my original idea I'd had before Roaring Muscles to train my DEX, though with INT training as well to power up my magic. It was close, but a few days before the sports festival I got both above one hundred.

DEX gave me three skills, Light Step, Flash Step, and Weird Flex. Light Step was the next version of Fleet Foot and Flash Step was, well, a Flash Step. I could use MP to cross a few meters in the blink of an eye. Weird Flex... had a fitting name. It seemed to just make me disturbingly flexible. The flavor text implied that it was what made contortionists contortionists, and I couldn't really disagree with that. It seemed like it'd be useful, though, because it was a passive that didn't use MP.

Raising INT gave me Mana Talent, Eye for Magic, and Open Mind. Mana Talent, like Light Step, was a better Mana Affinity. Eye for Magic, which I got because I had an eye-enhancing spell, was a spell that allowed me to "see" magic, which was absurdly useful. I could probably copy spells just by looking at them, for one. It gave me really bad eye strain, though. Open Mind was also a potentially useful spell. The flavor text said it was mind magic, which was useful in and of itself because it gave me a base for mind magic, and it allowed me to hear other people's thoughts. When I used it, I was able to hear the internal monologues of everyone in the spell's radius, and could hone in on one person in particular. I wouldn't use it much because it was clearly an invasion of privacy, but I was sure I could put it to good use.

With my stats where I wanted them, I spent the rest of the time before the sports festival practicing various spells and skills. The day of the sports festival, I knew I was ready.

xoxoxo

A/N: I thought of that scene with the cats and was legally obligated to write it. This is a little shorter than my usual chapters, but I figured you guys would prefer one short one now and then a longer one in however long it'll take me to do all my school stuff and then start the sports festival arc than just an especially long one later. And now I have no excuse not to do my schoolwork. Pray for me...

[beinglibertarian]

What a Socialist Victory Can Teach Us in Our Fight for Freedom – Lowdown on Liberty

Last week, New York saw what could’ve been the biggest primary-election upset in recent history, with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeating the number four Democrat in the House, Joe Crowley. Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old, self-identified democratic socialist, swung nearly 50 points in two weeks to unseat the 10-term incumbent in New York’s 14th district. Now, for those of us not in favor of socialism, the recent feeling of a surge in its popularity can be disheartening. Rather than sulk however, it’s important to see the positives every situation holds for your own cause, and in this case, we should be asking ourselves, what can a socialist victory teach us in our fight for freedom?

Since her victory, Ocasio-Cortez has been thrown into the spotlight, making appearances on shows like The View and receiving invites for interviews on just about every media outlet. During her interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she was asked to define “democratic socialism”, where she said: “I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.” It should come as no surprise that this was met with roaring applause, which, for libertarians, is our first place to learn a lesson.

Jason Stapleton often likes to say that, “in the arena of ideas, we cannot lose,” implying that we hold the truth on our side. The only problem is that, when winning requires swaying the emotionally-charged voting bloc of the American public, choosing facts over feelings at the wrong time can actually prove harmful to your chances; and knowing the time and place for it can be the difference between winning and losing. Sure, we can sit amongst ourselves and easily pick apart Ocasio-Cortez’s ridiculous answer simply by asking her to point out who in today’s society actually wants people to be too poor to live, but that does nothing to draw in interest to our own ideas. And when libertarians are asked similar questions, or even put in a corner about our unorthodox views, responding with a “what’s radical about non-violence?” can garner infinitely more attention from someone hearing our message for the first time than going into a breakdown of the Austrian business cycle theory.

I’m not saying we need to abandon our logic altogether, but libertarians have always fallen a bit short in their messaging, especially when it comes to strategy. This is partially due to libertarianism being a descriptive ethic, or simply pointing out the truth about how things are; as opposed to prescriptive, essentially claiming how things ought to be. And to an uneducated voter, that can lead to confusion and a rejection of our ideas. For example, libertarians often say that universal healthcare, when broken down, equates to theft and slavery. While this may be true, it only appeals to those willing to set emotion aside in favor of logic, which, unfortunately, appears to be the opposite of what most Americans are taught in school today. A prescriptive example could be Bernie Sanders saying, “no one should go without healthcare in the US today.” Although the latter lacks severely in actual substance, it manages to give people something to grab onto emotionally, essentially providing a hook for new audiences while also serving to lower their guard.

We can see the effectiveness of this strategy in both major parties today, too. Democrats love to pitch things like a “living wage” and healthcare as a right, as a way of appealing to the emotions of American voters. And how often do we hear them dissemble when asked to define what those mean? Yet, people attracted to that idea seem to repeat it ad nauseam anyway. And while it may be more prominent on the left, the biggest example of this technique comes from Donald Trump. His slogan of “Make America Great Again” could be the single most effective instance in recent memory. The obviously empty slogan gives republicans an idea to look forward to that is both easily digestible and impossible to disprove. Just like with Orcasio-Cortez’s empty definition of democratic socialism, you’d also be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t wish to make their own country “great” again, even though each person’s idea of great may differ widely. And that’s the attraction, it triggers a positive image in the voter’s head, and allows them to create their own specific definition. And as we can see, regardless of party, these emotional appeals work wonders by giving people an idea to cheer for that appears to be a higher cause; but in order to reach long-term success, you also need something else libertarians seem to be missing.

With each and every successful campaign, what inevitably must follow the intangible ideas are simple, concrete goals to measure success. Philosophical ideas are a good starting point to reel people in, but they’re only good for a short while. What keeps the momentum going is where the political rubber meets the road; people need something to rally behind. We saw this with Obama, where he followed up his “hope and change” idea with calls to close Guantanamo and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump followed suit with his “build the wall” chants and his promises to bring back jobs. Even Bernie Sanders had his $15 minimum wage and Medicare-for-all promises. These are simple things that can give people something to work and fight for. And with the appeal to emotion starting them out, people are less likely to care if the follow-up ideas are actually workable. Did people care when we explained that Obamacare would fail, that higher minimum wages cause more unemployment, or that building the wall will be ineffective? No, because not only are they already hooked with an emotional investment, but they see themselves as the good guys either way, due in large part to the way these messages were marketed to them.

Now, which one of Gary Johnson’s slogans had any of that? Did “be libertarian with me”, “live free”, “#TeamGov” or “You in?” sound like grand ideas people will rally around? Of course not, and when you pair it with vague campaign promises of “we’re socially liberal and fiscally conservative”, or “we’ll let the market sort it out”, it’s no wonder we couldn’t even break 5% nationally against the two most unpopular candidates in modern history. On the other hand, what is it that everyone remembers from the Ron Paul campaign? End the Fed. It was everywhere. His “Restore America Now” and “Ron Paul Revolution” slogans reminded us all of the broken promises, endless wars, and out of control monetary policy we’ve come to hate, and also worked to inspire newcomers to feel like this was the moment to join and help change it. By coupling all that with the measurable goal of ending the Fed as a solution to those problems, it proved to be a center point for people to rally and organize around. And that’s exactly the kind of campaign we need again.

We’ve seen the continual success our political opponents have gotten already from these very basic strategies. If we hope to be competitive anytime soon in the political arena, we need to realize that not everyone who may come into libertarianism is going to be a rational economist who just powered through Human Action, and while having an objective, moral ethic is something that can win us arguments in the long-run, we need to “read the room” in regards to politics today, and react accordingly if we hope to stand a chance at the ballot box.

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[worldsandcenturiesfunposting]

Late to the party: Should Video Game Journalists be good at video games?

You might have seen that cuphead video where some video game journalist spent over a minute trying to get past the tutorial and then proceeded to get railed over and over in the first level. The video is a little less than 27 minutes long and he doesn’t get through the first level in those 27 minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848Y1Uu5Htk Take note that the original title was Cuphead Demo at Gamescom: It Isn’t Easy

What you probably didn’t see was the description in the video. No one reads those but I think there’s a lot to pick apart and ramble about at 4:30 in the morning because I’m a lonely sack of shit with nothing better to do

But here’s the man himself writing to his defense: https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/08/the-deanbeat-our-cuphead-runneth-over/

My game crime: I was so bad at playing I was deemed unfit to be a game journalist. My Cuphead gameplay video from Gamescom blew up, inspired rage, and spurred discussions about the death of game journalism across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Don’t flatter yourself that much. People were talking about how game journalism was dead well before your video. Hell, you even mention GamerGate later in your article. 

It was a failure to communicate.

In the description of the video, they mention that the guy playing the game isn’t good at platformers in general and the video was uploaded as a joke. I don’t know how true that last part is, but assuming it is, they’ve apparently put in 0 effort to make that clear. No tongue in cheek title like “Let’s Fail at Cuphead!” or giving context in the description. Only after shit hit the fan did they edit the description explaining why the guy sucked so bad. 

I only wish my two books on the Xbox business generated as much attention as the Cuphead story. It is a humbling experience.

It would help if you books were available to buy at the store. I’ve been in plenty of book stores and haven’t found anything about Xbox business practices. There are ones partially written by Anita Sarkeesian though so I guess that’s close enough.

The more people looked at my poor gameplay, which I myself labeled shameful, the angrier they got. I played the tutorial so ineptly — failing to read the onscreen instructions to jump and dash simultaneously — and then went on, failing to conquer a single level. I said it was hard, and the fans saw my gameplay and decided I was a poor judge of difficulty. By a ratio of more than 12-to-1, the ratings on the YouTube video are negative. It wasn’t just the troglodytes of the internet who hated it. Most people hated it.

You failed an incredibly simple puzzle, one that literal children can figure out, and you want to throw out insults like “troglodytes” at people saying you were shit because they either didn’t see or don’t buy the “lol it’s just a prank bro” deflection.

Another game journalist (and some say “shitlord”

Including you or someone from your website in the description of the video itself:  A shitlord on Twitter also linked to this video and claimed these are the same people doing reviews. 

The guy they’re talking about is Ian Miles Cheong. Once a turbo feminist switched sides to a more pro-gamer stance during the whole GamerGate thing. Outside of that, I don’t know much about him and I don’t give enough of a shit about him to find out. 

He clipped it to the 2.5 minutes of the most damning inept gameplay, and he posted it to his followers. He used me to condemn all game journalists

The guy is literally a video game journalist though so it wouldn’t be a condemnation of all video game journalist. Just pointing out that you (and presumably others) are awful at video games despite being paid to write about them. Which is true. Like if this was a video of some 4 year old failing the tutorial, there wouldn’t be this ire. 

Raising the smoldering issues around Gamergate and its focus on game journalism ethics. His post was political propaganda for the disenfranchised gamers, the sort who went from Gamergate to the alt-right and elected Donald Trump as president.

At least you admit GamerGate was about ethics. The fact you then went on to then claim that its proponents went on to support the alt-right and got Trump elected is fucking horse shit for a few reasons. 

1. GamerGate was comprised of various people of various different political backgrounds. Yes, some members were what we’d now call the alt-right, but a lot of its members were also incredibly left leaning. A few political compass tests were taken over the course of GamerGate and it seems a huge portion of its membership were what’s described as left libertarians. 

2. Of all the reasons Trump was elected, gamers aren’t one of them. The shit system that is the electoral college. Mass propaganda efforts from Russia. A bunch of idiots who’d literally vote Republican even if Hitler rose from the dead and was the nominee simply because they’ll always vote Republican no matter what....but not a bunch of gamers upset over poor practices in video game journalism and attempts at shaming and censoring from SJWs. 

Get fucking real, Dean. You’re out of your element. 

Before he got to it, my video had maybe 10,000 views. Afterward, the Gamergaters, or hardline reactionaries — or whatever we would like to call them 

How about people who know how to play video games. I wonder if there’s a name for that. 

Crying conservative boogyman doesn’t help your own personal cause and it certainly doesn’t help your political side either. 

— believed this narrative fit into their views about game journalists just fine

That’s because even before this clip, there was a general negative opinion of video game journalists and here you are proving that it’s pretty well founded. Not only are a lot of them unethical, but some of them fucking suck at their jobs objectively. 

I despise how this was triggered by a viral post that represented the worst of fake news

Fake news is a Trump term. ALT RIGHTIST! ALT RIGHTIST! DEAN TAKAHASHI SUPPORTS DONALD TRUMP! 

Hmmmm, maybe that’s a stupid line of reasoning. Tell you what. I won’t use it if you don’t either? Deal? 

So he continues on whining about haters, giving his own life story, and he actually has the balls to say this: But during all of the time I have written about games, none of my bosses cared about exactly how good I was at playing. They required basic knowledge and competence, but not skill on an esports level.

He whines frequently about how mean people are for saying he shouldn’t be a games journalist if he sucks so bad at video games....and then goes on to say that the thing his bosses cared about was the very thing that people were pointing out he utterly lacks. 

Not a skill on an e-sports level? Nigga, you were playing a tutorial! Stop acting like people are demanding the world of you and realize that people require you have basic knowledge and competence. 

So blatantly dishonest. 

Guess what? Unskillful gaming is authentic.

That’s literally the excuse DSP uses to justify being bad at video games and leaving in all of the footage of him bumbling around not knowing that he’s doing. 

Here’s where my nonapology starts. Gamers need to stop being mean to those who aren’t skillful. They don’t need to put others down to elevate their own subculture. Games have gone viral. They’re more popular than ever, reaching 2 billion people around the world. They have become a $108 billion industry. It’s silly to look down on games.

No one’s looking down on games and no one’s looking down on people for no other reason than their lack of skill. For a lot of people if they’re having trouble, people will be more than willing to provide advice and pointers. Just ask any question about how to do something in a game on a game related subreddit and people will be perfectly fine to tell you how things are done without insulting you.

The fact that you’ve spent so much time playing and reviewing games, and it’s literally your job, is where it starts to cross the line. Games are 2 billion people and 100 billion dollar strong industry as you’ve said so clearly the ire thrown at games journalists who suck ass at their job isn’t a problem within the industry. 

That industry will grow bigger, and gamers will get better games, if we embrace the new gamers. 

You. Are. Not. A. New. Gamer. 

Stop acting like you’re defending other people getting shit when it isn’t other people who are a problem. This deflection is as apparent as it is pathetic. No one’s going after Minecraftkid2003 because he couldn’t figure out redstone when he first came across it. They’re pointing out that Dean  Takahashi, a video game journalist with 18 years worth of experience and has himself boasted he was playing video games since Pong isn’t able to figure out a simple problem solving exercise any faster than a goddamn pigeon. 

We don’t need to dumb games down. 

And then he says 

We can have adjustable difficulty, so that the unskilled and skilled alike can play. We can make tutorials even easier than the one that I failed at so miserably.

Alright, dumbass. I’m sure everyone reading this has seen the video I linked. Here’s what the tutorial required. It required you to jump on a box....and then jump in the air...and then use a dash move to get over a pillar that’s too high to jump over from the ground. 

There’s no losing conditions. Time is infinite. There’s no enemies. There’s no bottomless platforms of thing chasing you...it’s literally the easiest part of the game second to moving around map itself. How the fuck can it get easier? Does it need to outright say “Alright Dean, now comes the doozy. You need to press this button and then this button afterwords to solve the exact same problem. Here’s an animation of what it should look like. Can you follow it, Dean? I’ll play the animation over and over on the top of the screen so you can see what you’re supposed to do. If you do it, you get a gold star and Anita will give you the good boy award!”

No, I’m not blaming the developer for my own shortcomings. I respect the designers, even if I didn’t truly understand at first the games they’ve made. I would just like to make sure that they make their games for people who are new, or noobs, as well as hardcore fans.

Cuphead is specifically designed to be a challenging platformer for gamers who like more challenge. Designing it to be easier, especially a tutorial that has no losing condition, is counterproductive to what the devs want to achieve. It’s like asking Stephen King to tone down the horror in his books so that non-horror fans can enjoy them too without being too scared. 

If you want an easy platformer designed with everyone in mind, there’s plenty of great games that will fill that roll. Not every game needs to be made for everyone.

As Nolan Bushnell, cofounder of Atari, said, games should be easy to learn and hard to master. (Yes, I know Cuphead’s tutorial isn’t that hard to learn).

Then what’s the fucking issue, ding dong? 

No, I’m not celebrating mediocrity

You literally just did when you whined that Cuphead wasn’t designed for noobs in mind. Here’s one big thing though: You were’t even mediocre at it. Garfield is mediocre. You were just awful. 

like the Antonio Salieri character in Amadeus. I’m arguing that all gamers, casual or hardcore, deserve recognition.

They do, but not in cuphead. And all gamers aren’t paid to write their opinions on video games. 

We are not all going to be esports stars who rake in millions of dollars. 

You’ve been at this for 18 years and got money for it. You got to play a demo that a lot of people much more skilled and much more deserving would have liked to play and you did poorly at it because you couldn’t figure out how to do 2 step logic. 

But we’re going to be the masses of unskilled players who make the game companies, including the makers of Cuphead, as rich as they can possibly be.

If there’s one happy ending, it’s that Cuphead did do well on the market showing that contrary to what Dean believes, it isn’t a good idea for all games to be dumbed down to the point where even video game journalists are able to play. 

The rest is more sob story and personal history. 

---

So what are my final thoughts? Well first of all, if you can’t solve a simple 2 step logic puzzle in part of a game with literally no losing conditions, you really are stupid. Pro or noob, there’s some point where you have to wonder how dumb the person with the controller is. There’s plenty of cases like the previously DarkSydePhil and also this blast from the past from IJustine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkYxfjJ72k4 Like seriously: use your eyes and brain homie!

But what about being just generally bad at games or just not knowing how to play well? It doesn’t matter. Contrary to what Dean thinks, tons of people aren’t going to be major assholes to you just because you picked up a game for the first time, don’t know the ropes, but decide to record yourself playing and slowly learning them. Plenty of let’s players do blind runs where they go into a game with no prior knowledge of it and yeah, they make mistakes but people are generally cool about it. 

However, there’s a point where making these silly mistakes over and over becomes...something of an issue. I’ve been driving for several years. If I legitimately couldn’t figure out which pedal is the break and which is the gas after all this time, it would be fair grounds to call me a dumbass or wonder if there’s something seriously wrong with my brain. As people do something more and more, it’s expected that they’re better at it than someone completely new. When someone does that thing for a job, it’s expected that they’re better at it than the average joe. 

And that’s the big thing here that Dean never addresses: it’s his job. He writes more about the tech than he does actual gameplay, yes, but he still boasts in his own article that he’s been in the industry for 18 years and have been playing games since Pong. 

It’s not even the rest of the video that was the issue but instead those 2.5 minutes (which he complained about Miles Ian Cheong trimming the video down to as a highlight) where he’s unable to solve that simple two step logic puzzle in a tutorial level. I drove cars for years because I have to get from point A to point B and it’s beyond walking distance and it would already be stupid if I couldn’t figure out the absolute basics of it. If I reviewed cars for a living and drove cars for longer than most car drivers have been alive for and I couldn’t figure out the basics of starting it, that would be beyond pathetic. I don’t think there’s a word in the English language that would be able to describe that amount of disconnect between the experience I should have and the amount I display. 

He constantly hides behind the idea that we’re not all professional e-sport people and gamers come at all skill levels...but he’s not at all skill levels. He’s literally a professional. Playing and reviewing games is literally his profession just like writing code or cooking meals is a profession.

You know how on Kitchen Nightmares Gordon Ramsey gets so pissed off at people who don’t know the basics of cooking and how to handle a kitchen even though it’s their job and they should have learned that in training? It’s like that. We’re basically Gordon Ramsey here watching some guy call himself a chef and his output is microwave heated frozen mac and cheese that’s somehow still raw and yet also on fire. And he wonders why people are yelling at him over the internet. 

Should video game journalists be good at video games? Yes! Just like food critics should understand how to cook a meal or reviewers of literature should know how to read! I don’t even know why video game journalists are trying to make this a contestable point. If you suck at your job, either get better....or don’t have you job! Get another one! 

I’m aware that this whole thing is a bit of old hat and I’m rambling on more and more than this guy deserves, but it is indicative of a larger problem within the industry. Just like the Zoe Quinn thing or the doritos pope thing was indicative of issues in the larger industry. Video game journalism has an effect and if some of them aren’t able to beat a simple tutorial level and then without any hint of irony, whine that video games should be easier when people call him out on it....it’s just baffling. 

It’s now 5:45 and I still have nothing better to do lol so I guess I guess it’s time for a few final words

I don’t think this event will lead to GamerGate 2. Hell, one article defending this guy had the title that GamerGate 1 never really ended. I don’t know how true it is but it seems over three years later since it started, the issues and arguments that were the foundation of GamerGate are still a bit relevant. But now there’s a new one: Some video game journalists are not only unethical....but they’re also utterly incapable! 

Anyways, join me next time as I’m even more late to the party and write my epic response Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis followed by a point by point breakdown of Oag the Caveman’s declaration of “Fire bad!”

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

20 years later, Ellen's coming out episode remains one of the best in television history

It's almost impossible to remember a time when Ellen DeGeneres — the inoffensive pastel-palette comedian beloved by Pantsuit Nation moms and Holiday Inn lounges everywhere — was actually something of a radical.

On April 30, The Ellen DeGeneres Show will commemorate the 20th anniversary of "The Puppy Episode," the comedian's landmark two-part coming out episode from her television series Ellen. At the time, anticipatory anxiety about the episode, which ultimately attracted 42 million viewers, reached such an intensity that the network decided to slap a spectacularly patronizing "parental advisory" warning on it.  

Regardless of what you think about the actual quality of the episode itself (it's phenomenal), you can't deny its force.

SEE ALSO: The best swimwear if you want to throw gender norms in the trash

For network executives, soon-to-be-queer teens and anxious parents, Ellen showed us that a woman could come out as gay and life would go on even better than before. 

She didn't just transform television, she changed American culture for good. 

Never has a puppy episode caused so much hysteria

Image: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

"The Puppy Episode" is delightfully milquetoast (watch it here): The star lesbian character falls for a mid-level manager in a white pantsuit, played by Laura Dern. The most raunchy part of the episode consists of two women briefly hold hands at early bird hour in a lesbian coffeehouse (perhaps my favorite lesbian stereotype of all time). 

It took months for ABC and its parent company, Disney, to even get that far. In Season 3 of the show, Ellen the character struggled to form meaningful relationships with men, but in lieu of letting Ellen come out, one producer suggested she get a puppy instead (frankly, a phenomenal trade-off). After months of negotiations, the network finally consented to let Ellen come out on the show, making it one of the first series in television history to feature a lesbian coming out story (L.A. Law and Roseanne had their moments a few years earlier).

Queer heartthrobs, including k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge, and prominent allies, like Oprah and Laura Dern, enthusiastically agreed to appear. But despite their star power, multiple advertisers pulled ads from the episode. Wendy's chose to withdraw from the series altogether. Religious right crusader Jerry Falwell dubbed Ellen DeGeneres "Ellen Degenerate," continuing the longstanding conservative tradition of trying really hard to be funny and failing.

Image: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

LGBTQ groups like GLAAD and HRC fought back by planning "Coming out with Ellen" house parties across the nation. Their efforts were rewarded: over 42 million people tuned into watch "The Puppy Episode," the highest in the series' history. The episode later won an Emmy Award and a Peabody award, and you know the rest: Ellen went on to dance with both President and Mrs. Obama.

That doesn't mean there weren't consequences for those involved. Dern later said she wasn't able to get a job for the next year and a half because of the role. The show, which became even more explicitly gay over time, floundered in its following season.

Still, something about the episode resonated with people — and twenty years later, the story still works.

A coming out story that doesn't make you want to vom

Image: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

What's remarkable about the Puppy Episode is how little it embarrasses me twenty years later.

Television coming out narratives involve a painful assortment of tropes: a rejecting parent, a sympathetic teacher, a withholding gay crush, and some spiral notebook poetry too earnest for me to quote without hurling.

"The Puppy Episode" touches on a few of these conventions, but with considerably more grace. The storyline is predictable: Ellen goes on a date with a former male college friend, then realizes she has a crush on his hot female producer, played by Dern (who wouldn't?), a lesbian who finally "sees the gay" in Ellen. When Ellen finally gathers the strength say the word "gay," she leans over and accidentally blurts it into an airport P.A. system, loud enough for hundreds of passengers to hear. Any anxiety viewers might have watching the scene is immediately drowned out by a deafening laugh track.  

Image: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

It's the kind of comedy Ellen has mastered: moments of danger, followed by a self-assured self-deprecating joke. There aren't even bad guys in Ellen's world: mostly just well-intentioned characters who get it wrong. Critics call her "safe," which she is, yet it's exactly this kind of safety that made the episode so comforting for its queer audience as well as straight viewers.

Ellen came out and, ultimately, came out O.K. 

Ellen didn't have to leave her friends behind when she came out — instead, she just made new ones who looked like hot Hampshire College dropouts. She didn't have to buy some fair trade muumuu just because she was a lesbian. Her therapist didn't reject her because her therapist was motherf*cking Oprah.

The episode doesn't even gloss over details that might not make sense to viewers outside the queer community. At one point, Ellen makes the first known historical reference to "lesbian keys," one of the most "enduring sartorial symbols of lesbian culture." 

Sure, Ellen's coming out story is a fantasy, out of reach to members of the queer community who lack her privilege.

Still, it's a deeply human fantasy so many queer teens needed, particularly in the mid-nineties when people were busy debating whether or not people like her should even be considered human.

I was 13 when the episode came out and no idea what a lesbian was or that I'd be one one day. Ellen was the first woman I remember learning about who was queer and not a man. "The Puppy Episode" was one of the first times I heard the word gay unattached to the word AIDS. My family and I watched it on the kitchen TV over a pot of spaghetti with tomato sauce. We never talked about it afterward. It's part of the reason I remembered it.

It's impossible to quantify the impact "The Puppy Episode" had on closeted kids of that generation. I imagine it left an indelible unconscious imprint, though, of a hilarious queer woman who wore comfortable pants and who everyone still loved, regardless of her sexuality.  

Even more importantly, it ushered in a whole new era of gay-ish television, more influential than any piece of legislation in helping America to accept queer sexuality.

American culture becomes gayer than ever before

Image: NBC via Getty Images

After the success of "The Puppy Episode," network executives took note and welcomed more queer characters to the fold. Will and Grace, which safely introduced America to gay men and which became one of the most popular series in NBC's history, premiered just a few months later. 

Much like Ellen, Will wasn't a particularly challenging character. Both Ellen and Will were white, cis, hilarious and affluent. You couldn't imagine a more palatable representation of otherness. They lived to make you like them and, by extension, their community.

Image: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

Still, they existed as gay characters — and that mattered. Queer as Folk premiered in 2000. In 2007, HBO introduced the L word, a love-hate series about queer women in Los Angeles. Ugly Betty premiered that same year and Glee was just two years later.

In 2016, GLAAD found that 43 out of 895 series regular characters were LGBTQ, the highest in television history. 

Millennials are the most openly gay generation in history. 

Of course, there's plenty to whine about: television has a long way to go, particularly when it comes to representation of people of color, especially women of color and the transgender community. Lesbians and bisexual women just keep dying on television. Gay men are doing better, but Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is returning, which feels like a step backward.

But at least we're having the conversation. And whatever you think of her, it's a seismic cultural shift we can partially attribute to Ellen. It couldn't have been easy. By every account, it was painful. 

She was the one who turned down a puppy so she could tell a story that mattered to an audience half of the country didn't want to exist but was taught — over the 20 years that followed — to love.

WATCH: This typewriter-inspired keyboard will have you kickin' it old school

[johnbutlersbuzz]

IS MOUNT RUSHMORE REAL?

( Five minutes read time or listen to the podcast by clicking the Buzz Podcast link. )

Continuing my drive yesterday, north on America’s Heartland Highway 83, I reached Pierre, the capital of South Dakota, late in the evening. I found a campsite next to the Missouri River. It was dark, so I didn’t really see the river, but I could hear it rippling.

I’m waking up slow this morning, with an occasional yawn. After making my coffee, I walk outside, promptly realizing this September day is too beautiful to waste inside. So I’m not.

After walking around a few minutes, I take time to sit at a metal picnic table overlooking the pebbly steep-sloping river bank, slowly sip my coffee and stare at the water swiftly flowing down the longest river in North America.

A variety of birds are flying over the banks of the river. Sparrows, Crow, and I think, Grakie. Others are pecking the ground for food just down from me.

On the subject of birds, South Dakota also has a good population of Ring-necked Pheasant. A dozen or so field hopped various points across 83 in front of ARGO and me. There will be a few less of those beautiful birds when hunting season comes around in a few weeks. Pheasant season is a big deal here and a boon to farmers offering hunting leases.

Sitting under the bright blue sky, I take it all in, breathing in the warm, pleasant September air.

I surmise the Lewis and Clark Expedition did something similar, watching the ancestors of these birds, when they arrived here in this same month of September, back in 1804, sans the metal picnic table of course. They camped nearby where the Bad River meets the Missouri.

However, the Lewis and Clark group didn’t relax for long. According to their journal notes, a little misunderstanding arose with the Lakota tribe, partially due to not having an interpreter. It was the first meeting for both. When weapons were drawn it almost brought a quick end to the whole expedition. Thank heavens for Chief Black Buffalo; he helps calm the situation. And everyone lived to tell the tale.

When I started this leg of my journey discovering America, I intended to drive on Highway 83 from Texas all the way to North Dakota. Stay only on 83. That was the plan, or as near to a plan as I got before setting out on the road.

However, you are aware, as well as I, plans made in the past do not always take into account the whims that strike us along the way. We have to deal with those internal pulls at the time they arise. I assume all of us who have at least a spoonful of wanderlust in our DNA have experienced this on our journeys. Right? Or is it just me?

I don't wanna be so rigid that I can’t alter my course, capturing a moment, or seeing a place I might otherwise regret passing by. Know what I mean?

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson knew this when he wrote, “In the end… We only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.” He was better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. He wrote a few other things that are thought-provoking and fun, like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Jabberwocky.

So, looking at the map, I realize Mount Rushmore is only a few hours to the west. The president’s faces carved there is an iconic image burned into my mind. The photo is in every school history book. Now, the real thing was within my reach. I knew I would regret not seeing it.

Mount Rushmore is symbolic of our great nation and of human determination; both the artistic renderings of the four president’s and the raw feat of creating it on such a majestic scale. Guys hanging by wire-rope on the side of the granite mountain, chipping away to create art and a message.

Strikes me as sort of funny, the mountain was named after a New York attorney and businessman for obscure reasons when he was sent out to check land titles in 1884. As my European friend would say, “Very American.”

So I turned ARGO that direction, due west from 83. I was altering my northern course answering the tug of my internal compass and a mysterious element I’ll tell you about later. It would be another bucket list item checked off my list.

Late afternoon was well underway by the time I arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota. Only a stone’s throw away from Mount Rushmore. Make that, throwing the stone, then a the thirty-plus-minute drive up the mountain. I debated going now or waiting till morning.

It was the weekend, so I figured it would probably be more crowded than usual. Although it was well past the end of summer vacation time with most kids anchored back in their desks. When I was finished debating myself, I decided even though it was late in the day, why not go on up there? Maybe the real thing won’t be as big a deal as the photographs of it. If so I can go back to 83 tomorrow and continue on toward North Dakota.

So, I headed southwest out of Rapid City on Highway 16, climbing the mountain toward Keystone at the base of Mount Rushmore.

Getting closer to Keystone, driving under the arch of the glued laminated timber bridges, and then passing through the short tunnel, I have to admit, the anticipation was growing to see this thing in person.

Both the bridge and the tunnel were built during the depression by the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, during the Great Depression.

My first glimpse was from a turn in the road.

“It’s real,” I mumbled. Funny, that is what came into my mind. Guess we hear about so many things that turn out not to match the hype. Mind-blowing when something is as promised.

Pulling into the park, there the old guys were, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln, four presidents carved in stone on the side of the mountain. The sight was impressive.

I took a few photos, then lingered to absorb the scale of it, while sitting on the outdoor patio eating Buffalo stew from the park restaurant. The hot stew was filled with peas, carrots, potatoes, and tasty buffalo meat. The seasoned steam rising off it in the fresh mountain air transmuted the visual experience into one that reached all the way to my stomach.

Way to go! Thank you United States National Park Service. Good job making my visit to Mount Rushmore an easy, enjoyable and, surprisingly, tasty one. And, of course, a historical, educational visit also.

Dusk was approaching, so I hung around for the night lighting ceremony and ranger talk. It was fittingly patriotic and inspiring.

I decided to return the next day when I learned one of the guys who did work on the mountain in the late 1930’s would be at the park the next day. A CCC guy. Last survivor who worked when the talented genius sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, was directing the project along with his son Lincoln.

Driving up the next day, I felt the same sense of awe approaching the top of Mount Rushmore. I was excited to be able to talk to the last survivor of the Great Depression era work crew.

Nick Clifford helped from 1938 to 1940 build the wood studio for the sculptor, as a driller and as a winch operator on the top of Washington’s head. But he was mostly hired for his baseball abilities as right fielder and pitcher. You see, baseball was a passion of Lincoln Borglum. The teams were competitive, so Nick was recruited to bring in some wins for the team, the Rushmore Drillers.

Doing an interview with Clifford would be fun. Hear first-hand stories about the baseball team. What was it like to work on the sculptures? What was life like back then? He has to have a ton of good stories.

I met Nick at the gift shop at the monument. Told him I was excited to meet him and asked to do a brief audio or video interview with him now or at a later time.

He said, “No,” without any hesitation or an eye blink.

He wasn’t in the best of moods. I could tell it wasn’t a good day for Nick. I smiled, explaining how it would benefit children and history. He listened without looking at me. I asked again in the most sincere, gentle and polite tone of voice as I could summon.

He said, “No.”

—————

(I spent one more day in the Mount Rushmore area in the Black Hills at Grizzly Bear Creek. Tell you about my rude awakening there in my next post. Sign up for email alerts when I post on my blog and vlog at JohnButlersBuzz.com )

[newssplashy]

Strategy: Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards on stepping down this year, battling Congress, and why she's a 'troublemaker' who's never looking for a fight

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on how she brought her activist background to the organization, and why she considers herself a "troublemaker."

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards has a new memoir called "Make Trouble."

Richards brought Planned Parenthood back to its movement roots and has defended it from members of Congress throughout her tenure.

Planned Parenthood provides a wide variety of women's health services across the United States, but its abortion services have made it one of the most controversial organizations in the country.

Richards told Business Insider that she's been inspired throughout her career by her late mother, Texas Governor Ann Richards, and her upbringing in an activist family.

Cecile Richards has never shied away from controversy. Back in seventh grade, she got sent to the principal's office for protesting the Vietnam War. More recently, as president of Planned Parenthood, she defended the organization in a heated 2015 congressional hearing.

For Richards, it's all worth it to be able to do the work she loves.

"You can go a lot of places or make a lot of money, but there's nothing quite like having a job where people actually say to you, 'Thanks for making my life better,'" she told us on an episode of Business Insider's podcast "Success! How I Did It."

Richards' parents were liberal activists in the conservative state of Texas — a state that Richards' mother, Governor Ann Richards, led in the early 1990s.

It was Ann who inspired her to take the job as Planned Parenthood president in 2006, a job she's leaving this year.

Planned Parenthood is a healthcare provider that's partially funded by the government. It offers a long list of services, including cancer screenings and STI treatment. It also provides abortions and birth control, which has made it one of the most controversial institutions in the US.

She has a new memoir called "Make Trouble." I started our conversation by asking her where the title came from.

Listen to the full episode here:

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. Check out previous episodes with:

Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud

Edible Arrangements founder and CEO Tariq Farid

Astronaut Scott Kelly

Flatiron Health founder and CEO Nat Turner

The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

Cecile Richards: Well I think it's because, I think trouble-making has actually led to a lot of the progress we've made in this country. You know, I think about even a hundred years ago, when Planned Parenthood started, women couldn't even vote, right? We didn't have the right to anything. And it really was because people made trouble and women went to jail and they challenged the laws and defied convention that women made progress. And so, I think it's as my friend Congressman John Lewis would say, it's about making good trouble. And I think when you do, and really stand up for things you believe, that's how we make progress.

Richard Feloni: Yeah, and you've never been afraid to be polarizing. Like, for example, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, she's called you, quote, "the best teacher on Earth — someone you trust." Then you have the National Review's editor, Rich Lowry, saying "a skilled defender of the indefensible." How have you dealt with such extreme perceptions of yourself?

Richards: Well, I think if you meet me, that's not really what I'm like and I'm like everyone else. I mean, I don't want to intentionally cause trouble — I really just want to make sure that we stand up for the values that we believe in.

And I've had really good fortune. I've led a very privileged life. You know, I've gotten to choose the work I do and I hope every job I've had has been a little bit about trying to push the ball forward, particularly for folks who may not have the same opportunities that I've had. Sometimes that's women, sometimes that's working people, sometimes that's immigrants. And, as my mom said, you can go a lot of places, you can be successful or make a lot of money, but there's nothing quite like having a job where people actually say to you, "Thanks for making my life better." And I've been real privileged to do that.

Feloni: So is that what drives you? Hearing from those people?

Richards: Well it really does, I think, in the sense of, like, why are we on this Earth? And, you know, I've worked with a lot of people who didn't have any choice in what they did. I worked with women who were nurses and workers, women who worked in hotels, janitors who basically cleaned buildings, worked two jobs just to support their family. And, it really taught me a lot about how much opportunity I had to do anything I wanted to with my life. And so, when you do have that chance, I think it's on all of us to make the decisions about how we want to use our time on this Earth.

Feloni: Yeah. So it's like a really fundamental drive, like, what are we even here for? Let's do something about it.

Richards: Yeah and, you know, it's funny when I started my first nonprofit, this little dinky nonprofit in Texas, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I just —

Feloni: When was that?

Richards: Oh, my God, that was years ago, although it's now been operating for decades. So, it was right after my mom lost her re-election. And I just felt like, wow, someone needed to do something about public education and standing up for some basic civil liberties. I really didn't know what I was doing, but I did it anyway.

And, it was funny, during the time older men would come and say, "Can I just come volunteer with you guys?" Because, I think they were at a point in their life where they thought, "Wow what is it all about?"

And so I've always kind of tried to keep that in mind. This is the only life you have, so you've got to make the most of it.

Growing up the daughter of Governor Ann Richards

Feloni: And did you have this, like this kind of streak in you, when you were a kid?

Richards: Well my parents, of course, were complete troublemakers. We lived in Dallas, Texas, and it was pretty conservative and my parents were very liberal. My dad was a civil rights lawyer and he was actually defending conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War. My mother, she was just a rabble-rouser. I mean, she was a housewife but she was fighting for the farm workers and she was, when the women's movement came to town, she just jumped head first. And, so I think as a kid, and I have siblings, all of just saw our parents and saw politics as — it wasn't drudgery or it wasn't dirty; it was actually where all the action was. And so I think it was logical that I chose this path.

Feloni: Yeah, and even like, as you were saying, growing up in Dallas, controversy wasn't a problem. It was something you were comfortable with, right?

Richards: Well, it was something you had to do. I mean, again, that was a time in which everything was segregated. The schools were segregated. The pools were segregated. I mean, people of color in Dallas had very few options. And, I know, we've made progress, but not enough. And women — I mean, none of the women and none of the moms I knew had the chance to work outside the home. So there's just a lot of things where people had to really fight to say, "You know what? We need more opportunity." And, of course, my mom began to take her own path, and finally kinda left that life as a housewife, which was rewarding but not enough for her. And eventually ran for office herself.

Feloni: Yeah, so your mom, governor Ann Richards, served as governor from '91 to '95. And, when you got to see this transformation throughout your childhood of her ascent through politics, what was that like, even when you started to join her as a kid with this activism?

Richards: Well, it was kind of amazing and I think, one of the things I learned from it is that no one ever thought she could do what she thought she could do. I mean, there would never have been a woman elected in her own right in Texas as governor. And my mother was like completely the wrong profile. I mean she was a liberal, she was divorced, she was a recovering alcoholic and we never had a poll showing that she could win. And the fact is, she just did it anyway because she thought it needed doing.

And I think like a lot of women who run for office or maybe get into business, they look at who's in the job and think, "Well, I think I can do a better job." And that really was what motivated her. And, of course, we did win that election and what we're seeing today is women winning elections that no one thinks they can win. So I think it's a lesson for us to, you know — don't ever let your practicality step on your idealism, or what you really think you need to do and want to do. Because that's the only way things happen.

Figuring out who she wanted to be

Feloni: And even before that, when you were a teenager, for example, were you like joining her in her political activism?

Richards: Well, you know what, it's interesting, I went away to college. I kind of escaped Texas. I never lived outside of the state and I went pretty much as far as you can go. I went to Rhode Island and —

Feloni: To Brown?

Richards: To Brown, and that was the first time my mother had run for anything. She was running for county commissioner. And so it was all very different. And then, of course, whenever she ran for something else we'd all come home and help her out. And so it was really very late, you know, in my life, that she became this feminist icon. Before she had just been Mom. I think it's another lesson that I hope that she showed and that women are seeing, which is it's never too late to have a great life or to do what you're destined to do.

Feloni: Yeah. And when you were at Brown, sophomore year, you dropped out actually, right?

Richards: I did, yeah.

Feloni: Why'd you make that decision?

Richards: There was a labor strike, actually. The janitors at Brown went on strike and I had never been involved in anything like that but I got very deeply involved, because my own janitor, who had been cleaning our dormitory, was now out on the picket line and I was somewhat disillusioned. I thought, "Wow, are these the values of my university?" I think I probably just needed to get out and get my head clear.

So I went to Washington and worked for a nonprofit. And then I eventually came back to Brown, and made a lot of trouble, but also got my degree. But it was a really great education. I think it was, for me, a lot of the education we get in life is not necessarily what is being taught in the classroom, it's the experiences we get outside of that and that was absolutely true at Brown.

Feloni: What was it like returning to Brown? How was it different after you had this experience?

Richards: I think one is I just had the confidence to question authority and stand up for the things I believed in. I got very involved in the divestment movement. It seems like ancient history now — but it's relevant because of what young people are doing on campus now — but one of the international movements to support folks in South Africa that were trying to overthrow the apartheid government, or at least change and have a democracy, was to get universities to divest their holdings in South Africa. And believe me, at the time people said students were crazy, it would never happen, it was disruptive, you know, fill in the blank. And we did it anyway. And it was really a great experience. I learned so much. I learned a lot about Africa, I learned a lot about organizing, and, eventually, Brown did divest and then several universities divested. I've learned, as others have, just how critical that global movement was. And years later, in an interesting twist of fate, they gave Nelson Mandela an honorary degree at Brown.

Feloni: When do you think you first realized that you have to not let things get you down, that you have to take a long-term perspective?

Richards: Well, probably, an unsuccessful thing I did at Brown, I was involved in the anti-nuclear movement to try to keep the Seabrook nuclear plant from being built and I think it's now been operating for decades. So sometimes you just lose and you just have to keep going on.

When I left Brown — probably an unlikely path for a Brown graduate — I became a union organizer. I worked for garment workers in the southern United States and in Texas and along the Rio Grande border. And I realized this was going to be a long haul. These are women who had been working at minimum wage for decades, you know. And, to make a change in their life was going to take a long, long time. It helped me be a tad more patient than I was in college, realizing that this is work that you have to be committed to for your life, and so I have been.

Fighting for Planned Parenthood

Feloni: When you were offered the role at Planned Parenthood in 2006, you called your mom for some advice. What was that call like?

Richards: Well the truth was — and I think this is relevant for women who are trying to think about what to do next — I didn't think I was skilled enough to take the job. I mean, I had run smaller nonprofits, but I had never raised that much money, been responsible for a huge national organization with this almost hundred-year history, and so I was afraid of failing. And so I called my mom and she said, you know, "Get over yourself. You never know unless you try and the things you really regret in life are the chances that you didn't take." And so I went for the job interview. And then, lo and behold, you know 12 years later I've had the honor or being the president of Planned Parenthood and really having a window into some of the most important work happening for women in the country.

Feloni: I'm sure that she was always a go-to person for advice, right?

Richards: Well, and she had a lot of advice. Yes.

Feloni: Even if you didn't want it.

Richards: That was something everyone would agree on! Yes.

Feloni: What do you think maybe is the single best piece of advice that she gave you in your life?

Richards: She spent a lot of years just doing what society expected her. She was just to raise kids, be a perfect wife, throw the perfect dinner party, and she did that for several years. And it wasn't until she had the chance to break out and do what she wanted to do for her — I think she was always regretful that she, you know, missed some time. You know, she let social convention get in the way. So her best advice was, "This is the only life you have, so do it." And whatever it is, never turn down a new opportunity. And, you know, she used to say when I was worried about taking a new job — or to other women who would say, "You know, I'm not sure if I'm qualified" — she said, "Look. What's the worst thing that could happen?" And I think that's really good advice when you're thinking about starting a new business or changing jobs. It's just, "what's the worst thing that can happen," because usually, once you can imagine that, it's not that bad.

Feloni: And so what ultimately drew you to the Planned Parenthood job?

Richards: Well, like a lot of women — like one in five women in the country — I had been a Planned Parenthood patient. When I was at Brown, that's where I got my birth control. And so I knew about the organization, had been a supporter, and, to me, it was one of the most important organizations in the country in terms of helping women live out their lives and have opportunity to finish school, and start a career, and support a family. So, to me, there was no question that if this was something I could do, it would be such an honor. And the job has been big and challenging, but I never even imagined how great it would be. So I'm so glad that I did go for that interview and, obviously, glad they chose me.

Feloni: And you were tasked with kind of making it more political, right? Bringing it back to its activist roots in a sense?

Richards: Well, I think one of the challenges that Planned Parenthood had was we were an excellent healthcare provider. We provide healthcare to about 2.5 million people every year, but politics was getting in the way. More and more laws were being passed, and restrictions, and so I think it was not necessarily to be more political, but just to really rebuild our movement roots.

But then there were other things that we figured out, too, like we needed to use technology more and invest in new ways of getting care to people — which I'm proud to say we really have done. And investing in young people. Investing in a whole new generation of young people as patients, because they want different things than young people when Planned Parenthood was started, or even when I went to college at Brown. So that has been part of the exciting thing, is just thinking about healthcare delivery in a new way, as well as bringing in another generation of activists.

Feloni: And what was the biggest challenge that you faced as the head of it?

Richards: The biggest challenge is the disruption in the healthcare world. And we specialize in serving folks that don't have a lot of options, often. Sometimes they're uninsured, they're younger, they may be more mobile. And the healthcare system hasn't always been an easy place to navigate, and so one of the most exciting things was the fight for the Affordable Care Act. Because we made a lot of progress and that has fundamentally changed life not only for women that come to Planned Parenthood but millions of others.

You know, the most successful moment I think of my life was the day that President Obama called me, and said he was about to announce that now all women that get insurance would get birth control covered at no cost. That has been revolutionary for women. And we're now at like a 30-year low for unintended pregnancy in this country and I'm really really proud of that.

Feloni: Can you tell me a little bit more about what that fight was like?

Richards: Yeah, I think it was a good lesson in that sometimes you have to fight with your friends, not just people who are your opponents, because getting this done was a big lift —

Feloni: Within the Democratic Party?

Richards: Yeah, within Congress, within the White House. We really did have to mobilize young people on college campuses — dressed up in giant pill packs, go to Congress, write to the White House, and so it did take a lot. And, you may even remember, there was a moment in which Congress was holding a hearing about whether birth control should be covered where they refused to let a Georgetown law student testify because they said they needed experts. And when we saw the panel of experts there was one thing they had in common: They never used birth control because they were all men.

So we really had some pretty big obstacles, but I think the exciting thing is now, and, of course, unfortunately this administration is trying to unravel this birth control benefit, but once you win something that big, it's much harder to take it away. Women in this country are very aware of what that means for them. They'll be able to have that economic freedom and access to care.

Feloni: So are you worried about the future of Planned Parenthood and any of the accomplishments that you made with it?

Richards: Well, nothing's ever finished, so we always have more progress to make. But one of the reasons I felt like I could leave after 12 years is the organization is as strong as it's ever been. We have more than 11 million supporters, we're delivering healthcare all across the country, we're delivering healthcare in some states online. Birth control is getting better. I feel really hopeful. And, most importantly, we have a generation of young people who are their own advocates, and, you marry that with the excellent healthcare we provide — I feel good about the future, even though I'm sure there are going to be battles ahead.

Feloni: Yeah and you explained in the book this meeting that you had with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump where they invited you to talk. What was that about? That was shortly after Trump's inauguration.

Richards: Basically, they wanted to meet about Planned Parenthood because I think they knew this was going to be — Paul Ryan had already declared they were going to defund Planned Parenthood. And so, even though I was, frankly, a little anxious about having that meeting, because I didn't know what to expect, I felt like I owed it to our patients to try. But, in the end, I really believe, certainly, what Jared Kushner expressed was that he wanted us to quit providing abortion services to women in this country in exchange for keeping our public funding. And I just said we really stand for the right of women to get the reproductive healthcare they need and that's a legal service, and that it's really important that women can get it and we're not going to trade that off for money.

So, it didn't go that well, but at the end of the day we were able to mount a campaign with hundreds of thousands of people around the country that supported Planned Parenthood and were able to keep our public funding, and I hope we continue to do so. Because it makes a big difference. A lot of women have come to us. We're their only healthcare provider.

Feloni: Yeah. So when you were having that conversation, what was going through your head when this proposal was made?

Richards: I thought this was my chance to educate the two of them about who we see, what we do, and of course reeducate them if they needed to know that federal funding doesn't go to abortion services so, in fact, the money that they were talking about cutting off from Planned Parenthood provides access to breast cancer screenings and birth control and STI testing and treatment. And, again, for a lot of the women and young people that come to us, there's no one else in town to do that work. So even though they understood that, I felt like they were trying to make a political deal and that's just not who we are at Planned Parenthood.

Feloni: Was this an example of how you have always had to kind of balance politics with your personal ideals, as well as leading an organization?

Richards: Well, you know, it's interesting, because I have been through congressional hearings. I've done a lot of other things in this 12 years at Planned Parenthood. I think the things that's important to me is that we always keep women at the center of everything we do, decisions we make and positions we take. And so for me it isn't hard. It's not a political game. It's actually about women whose health and sometimes lives are at stake. And I think if we can continue to lift up their stories and create more empathy in this country for what women need, which is basically access to affordable healthcare no matter where they live, no matter their immigration status, their geography, their income, then we'll have done the right thing. So I just try to keep that in mind.

Feloni: When did you decide that you were going to step down from Planned Parenthood?

Richards: Well, after we beat back this effort to defund Planned Parenthood, I felt like we sort of got — and that was with the help of two really important Republican senators, Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. They are national heroines to me in terms of really standing up for women in their caucus. But once that happened, I had really made a commitment to invest in a new generation of leaders, and even though it's really hard to leave an organization that you love, I think it's important to demonstrate sometimes that you can step aside and let someone else take the reins and so we'll have a really smooth transition at Planned Parenthood. A lot of women are interested, and probably some men are interested in this job, and that's great and I will tell them I'll be cheering on the sidelines every step of the way for what they do next.

Feloni: So what's next for you?

Richards: I don't know, and that's kind of exciting, too. I've been a little bit of an entrepreneur in the past. I've started nonprofits and I've been always involved in movements. There's a lot of work that needs to be done in this country. And one of the things I'm most focused on right now is making sure that every single person is registered to vote and that they vote this November. I really think we need to restore democracy in the sense of having people not only have the right to vote, but then exercising that right. And I think if we do, we can change the direction of some of the areas that I'm concerned about.

Feloni: Are you going to run for office at some point?

Richards: It's not really in my plan, but you never want to say never! That's one thing my mother told me, right? Never turn down a new opportunity. But, I am excited about all of the women running for office — twice as many women running for Congress as two years ago, up and down the ticket. I mean there's all kinds of women running and so I'd love to do everything I can to help them, support them, and again just change the face of who's in office a bit.

What she's learned

Feloni: So throughout your career, whether you were with unions, or even with the Democratic Party, or with Planned Parenthood, you've gravitated towards jobs that have had lots of intense opposition, sometimes even violent threats. Do you seek out jobs that have that type of thing?

Richards: You think I'm just like a magnet for controversy?

Feloni: Well, yeah — there's a struggle involved.

Richards: Well, I guess, I think that you really should stand up. I believe, if you can, if you have the privilege that I have, you should really stand up for the things that you believe in and fight hard for hard stuff. I think if it's easy, someone else has probably already done it. And so, it's not that I'm a glutton for controversy, but I do think when it comes to LGBTQ rights, when it comes to women's rights, when it comes to the right of everyone to have equal pay and a fair chance, those are hard fights. And I know we've learned people don't give up power without a fight.

If I think about all the time I've spent in Congress fighting for women's access to affordable healthcare and just access to be able to make their own decisions about their healthcare, I feel like I'd love to be still alive to see the day when half of Congress can get pregnant, and then I think we'd finally quit fighting about birth control and reproductive healthcare. So that may be inciting controversy, but I think it really more is just hoping for a world that can be a little bit better than it is now.

Feloni: It's like these are fights worth having, you're not seeking out opposition.

Richards: Yeah, definitely not seeking trouble just for the sake of it. And again, I think some of the most important things that we've been able to do at Planned Parenthood have been to just continue to push the envelope. Not sit back and rest on our laurels and say, "Well, it's good that birth control is legal." It doesn't matter if it's legal if not everyone can get it. And again, I think we're making huge progress, and we're at a record low for teenage pregnancy in the US — that's something I'm very proud of — but I will also say it's not equal, that rates of teenage pregnancy are still too high among young women who have low incomes, young women of color, young women in the southern United States, and so there's just work left to do.

Feloni: What advice would you give to someone who wants to have a career like yours?

Richards: If you're really young and just getting started, sometimes it's hard to get into big nonprofits. I think volunteering, finding a cause you care about — one of my first jobs, I remember I volunteered for someone running for city council in Austin and like two days later I was in charge of the phone bank. They were just so excited to have a volunteer and I learned a ton of skills that way. So I think it is important sometimes to just get on a board of an organization that you care about. Throw a fundraiser for them. Those are the kinds of things that help you begin to know if this is the organization that you want to be with either as a job or just as something you do in your volunteer time. But there are so many opportunities now and I think there's never been, frankly, a better time to be a volunteer and to stand up for something that you really, really do care about.

Feloni: And when you've been part of all of these different organizations, what would you say is the common thread among all of them?

Richards: I think it's to try to get people just a better shake and really I hope, whether it's economic activity, whether it's women having equal chance, we're doing better but we're still not doing near enough. And one of the things I learned from this, being at Planned Parenthood all these years, is just literally the difference it can make, the fork in the road that someone can be in. And whether they can't get a breast cancer screening, or they did and Planned Parenthood was able to actually get them the treatment that saved their life, or what it means for a young woman to be able to get affordable healthcare and get birth control that gets her through college, that can mean the difference about what her opportunities are. And so getting to be part of a movement like that is unbelievably rewarding. I realize it's a huge privilege. And so I always feel like every day I need to pay back it some way.

Feloni: Was there ever a moment in your life where you questioned this burden that you had?

Richards: Well it's never really felt like a burden. But I've never tried to take a straight job, that's true.

I had the good fortune when I was young to meet Kirk, my husband, who was also an organizer. Finding someone that actually has the same ideas and dreams and idealism that you do makes it a lot easier. It was easier to have three kids and raise them with someone who understood that sometimes I needed to be off on a picket line or had to be traveling and doing this. Wwe both tried to balance that. But it's meant building a life that really has had great meaning for us and now, of course, all three of our kids, I think they're all activists in their own right. And that's the best reward for any parent.

Feloni: It's like the family business.

Richards: Well, except it's not a business so much, but yeah.

Feloni: I know, of course.

Richards: But it is. It's a family passion. It's a family passion and look, I'll say there have been some great moments with my kids, but nothing better than all five of us being at the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States because all of them had had a role in that. Even though the twins weren't even old enough to vote, they volunteered, they door-knocked, and it felt like a huge accomplishment.

Feloni: When you're looking at the entirety of your career so far, what do you think would be a big time you failed and it taught you something?

Richards: There's been so many. One was I went to work on Capitol Hill, and actually it was a great job.

Feloni: When was this?

Richards: We had moved to Washington and I can't even remember the year, but actually it was when Nancy Pelosi first became the Democratic Whip. She was the highest-ranking woman ever in Congress. And I'd never worked on Capitol Hill. I had no idea how things worked there, but I spent about a year and a half on the Hill and then left to start a new nonprofit. But it was one of these things where even though I always felt like a failure because there were people there who knew everything about every rule and how Congress worked and all this — I don't feel like I was successful — I learned so much from Nancy Pelosi and from the people who had built their entire career working in government. So even though I realized it wasn't the job for me, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

And I think that's also one of the things to learn, is that you can try something and it's OK to say it didn't work out. But you almost get something from every single job or new adventure that you take, even if it doesn't work out in the long run. And Nancy Pelosi is still a really good friend and we worked together on passing the Affordable Care Act and a lot of other things, so those relationships have become some of the most important in my life.

Feloni: And what did that experience teach you specifically going forward?

Richards: Well, one was that I wasn't cut out to work in government. I was impatient and I really wanted to be out making things happen, and right then it was really, really difficult. But it reminded me of a lesson that I feel like I've learned and had to relearn, which is any time you can take a job with someone who can teach you something, go for it. And again, I learned a lot from Nancy, I learned a lot from the people on the Hill, and so just soaking that up, it was like taking a graduate course on Capitol Hill.

I advise young women in particular to always look for someone who can be a mentor to you or who can teach you about something that you don't know about. Because you never know when that's going to come in handy.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Cecile.

Richards: Hey, thanks for having me. Great to be here.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/04/strategy-planned-parenthoods-cecile.html

[spaceshiptosolace]

Mixed Messages about Identity

I waited a little more than a week to post this in good taste, or rather, not in poor taste.  You’re looking at my mum and our second dog, who was euthanized the first of November in 2017.  My mom absolutely adored this little guy (a Westie), and she always used to complain about me “begrudging the dog” and the like.  I’m only prefacing this post with this image because on the day this was taken (by me, Halloween 2017), I had an argument with my mother that inspired this post.

In reality, the event in question was something of a culmination of discord that occurred beginning in middle school; for reference, that’s about 15 years ago.  I’d like to say it is a classic case of “mother knows best”, but my own psychological issues probably exacerbated the situation.  Before I tell you what my mother said to me on Halloween, I’d like to summarize our relationship during my adolescence into young adulthood.

My mother and I have had a creative differences since 6th, definitely 7th grade.  I still didn’t have a conceptualized identity, and my shy and introverted nature, coupled with classes devoid of my established circle of friends, made it difficult for me to connect with my peers in a satisfying way.  I started wanting to buy clothes from Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch, rather generic Guess sneakers, and skinny jeans, since that’s what the popular kids were wearing.  Mum wasn’t too keen on any of it, and when we went shopping I made certain to pick shirts that had the brand name sprawled across them.  My mum insisted that this wan’t going to make me popular and “fit in”, and in a way, she was right; I still lacked the initiative to even acknowledge these people with a simple “hello”.  Instead, I expected them to flock to me.

“It doesn’t matter what other people think”.

“It’s what’s on the outside, not the inside that matters.”

“If everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?”

I’m sure y’all have heard something to this effect from your parents/guardians.  But I didn’t believe her, and I still wanted to feel like I had nice, cool things.  In high school, it only got worse.  I had terrible eating habits (fries, two slices of pizza, and a soda/soft drink for lunch?  skipping breakfast?) which led to weight gain that I rationalized as normal and healthy, and hated studying.  School was a nightmare for me, and my mum’s concern grew to include my higher education.  Of course, I was still buying brand, and now that I was older, my mother became more lenient.  I went from trying to identify with preps to making headway with the punks, goths, and emos, who seemed to be as angry at the world as I was.  And let me tell you, the only thing my mum hated more than A&F was Hot Topic.  I got pretty much the same spiel, but with the added “you’ll never get anywhere in life with that attitude” addendum.  Again, she was partially right, because I didn’t do as well in school as I could have, and years later I came to regret it. 

At the time, I thought my mum was just being cruel and an obstreperous bitch, but upon retrospect, I can certainly see the error in my reasoning.  Even in my early years of college I struggled with what I wanted to do in life, and what I felt I needed to get by.  Ultimately, I flunked out to start over, part time, until I could handle the demands of college.  It took a few years, but in that time I gained better study and communication habits, as well as eating more healthfully and dropping excess weight.  Still, my mother would find something to criticize me about, which is when I became more wary of her advisements.

Fast forward to Halloween 2017.  I recently moved, and since I didn’t know anyone my age to hang out with, I decided against purchasing a costume.  Instead, I’d wear an old kigurumi I purchased at NYCC.  Mum asked me to accompany her and the dog for a downtown stroll.  I agreed, but my mum started to get angry when she realized I planned to leave the house in my “costume”.  She told me that since I don’t have a job, I was not entitled to wear such a thing.  And it’s true that I don’t have a job, but what exactly does that have to do with what I’m wearing?  Apparently, she didn’t want the neighbors to see me with it on.  I reluctantly changed into something more conservative, aka boring, and then of course, mum apologizes, and says I can put it back on, because she doesn’t want me to be angry with her.  

Hm; what happened to not caring about what others think?  I certainly don’t care what my septuagenarian neighbors think, yet their proximity to us is compelling enough for my mother to believe their opinions matter.  In recent years, I’ve become less concerned with names, and more concerned with styles and trends in other parts of the world, but since I don’t live there, my mum thinks I have no reason to like or wear it.  In particular, I like the fashion trends in Japan: styles my mom thinks make me look like a freak, and that is one of the nicer words my mother used.  Earlier in my adolescence, she insisted that I had no business wearing Asian clothing if I didn’t get “Asian” grades.  Despite making the Dean’s List my last four semesters, my mother was still heavily opposed to clothes from Japan, claiming they weren’t age-appropriate; of course, when they were I didn’t get the grades my mother thought deserved them.

At this point, I’ve concluded that my mother’s arguments were less about “absolute truth”, and more about imposing her will and desire on my life.  I really resent not only her compulsive control, but also her contradictory justifications for her attitudes and behaviors.  If I could leave my parent’s home, I would in a heartbeat, but alas, I can’t find a decent job to support me.  Somehow, being under her roof entitles her to patronize me even though I am an adult who has made many sound decisions in my life.  I seriously thought we were beyond this, and I’m beginning to think we never will [be].  I think my mother is actively standing in the way of me forming my own identity in favor of me adopting one of which she approves.  Silly me; I was under the impression that parents were supposed to be a person’s greatest advocates of their sense of self and expression, no matter what other people think.  There is a difference between guiding/supporting your progeny and controlling them.

As for the dog, well, he wasn’t any sort of Lassie or Rin Tin Tin.  He didn’t listen, wouldn’t walk without a leash, constantly begged and scavenged for food, etc.  None of this was important to my mother; his very existence and companionship was enough to make her happy.  Her criticism was frivolous and short-lived, since she really didn’t have any expectations of him.  Doing even the most mundane of things made my mother happy and proud of him.  Meanwhile, I’m still around, listening to my mother chew me out about how I put too much laundry detergent into the dispenser...

[thekimmiandjackieshow]

ECV Queens

On a windy day towards the end of February, a few coworkers and I decided to go to EPCOT for the Flower and Garden Festival. I hadn’t actually seen it before but I had heard great things from my older sister, so I was excited. Julie, Christa, and I headed out, planning on meeting others there later in the day. 

Our first stop: Ellen’s Energy Adventure. 

There’s this large theater-looking thing sitting in Future World, right next to some of EPCOT’s best attractions. There’s Test Track and Mission Space, both considered to be more for thrill-seekers. Then, nearby, there’s the exact opposite of that occupying a large chunk of land. I hadn’t been on the attraction once during my college program, so we decided to go for it. 

The premise of this attraction is that Ellen DeGeneres is dreaming and finds herself on Jeopardy as a contestant. The theme is energy, and she’s clueless about all things energy. She’s then saved by Bill Nye the Science Guy, who just happens to be lingering around, and offers to give her a lesson in this topic. The attraction then takes everybody through the history of energy, leaving Ellen very knowledgeable so she can successfully compete in Jeopardy and ultimately win. On paper, this sounds like a fantastic attraction. I mean the hosts are Ellen and Bill Nye! What could go wrong?

Well, it’s a 45 minute long attraction. Quite honestly, I know conserving energy is important, but I don’t need a 45 minute history lesson on energy when I’m just trying to meander on through EPCOT. The thing is, I didn’t remember this when Julie, Christa, and I were standing in front of the theater considering going on it. The map of course said it was 45 minutes long, but we somehow still believed it would be a good idea.

I almost fell asleep.

There’s a rumor going around that this attraction will soon be demolished for something bigger and better (and maybe shorter??). Maybe once it’s gone I’ll have regrets about not soaking all of Bill Nye’s wonderful information about energy in, but for now I’m perfectly okay with it becoming something else.

45 minutes later, we walked off the attraction. I felt half asleep and was ready for something cheerful with lots going on. So we settled on The Seas with Nemo and Friends, which is quite possibly the CUTEST dark ride on the planet. 

We boarded our clam and took off to see the “big blue world”. Finding Nemo the Musical is one of my favorite live shows on any Disney property, so it’s no surprise that the end of The Seas with Nemo and Friends (where they sing one of the songs from the musical) makes me indescribably happy. 

We continued to trek through Future World and I was slowly learning more about Christa and Julie. Admittedly, I hadn’t made much of an effort to get to know my new coworkers, but wondering through the parks with people is a super great way to get to know people. We were nearing the end of our exploration of Future World and the breeze, while beautiful, was starting to drive me a little crazy. My hair was all over the place and after redoing it for the thousandth time, I decided to go into a shop and buy a hat. I don’t usually wear hats but it was really the only thing that was going to stop the frizzy fly-aways that demanded freedom from sticking straight up. 

We dropped by the front of the park to meet up with Erina, another coworker that I had only talked to a handful of times. She was on her international program from Japan and was really sweet. 

Shortly after, we decided to go get hugs from Baymax. The program is full of ups and downs, that’s for sure. It can be stressful, exhausting, expensive, and frustrating. At the same time, it can be overwhelmingly fun, exciting, magical, and spectacular. I like to think that these moments, when my stress and anxiety can be cured by a Baymax hug, were what made the program magical. Because the program itself isn’t an incredible experience. It’s all about what you make of it. So the job is going to be glorified slave labor, that’s a given. You can bloom where you’re planted and make the most of it, but it’s still going to be too much work for not enough pay. But then, you can turn around on your days off and do all that you can to make memories and have fun. Besides, everybody knows Baymax hugs fix everything.

We had killed enough time in Future World and had decided to start exploring World Showcase. The only flaw in that plan was that it had just started to rain. World Showcase doesn’t really have very many awnings, umbrellas, or trees to prevent you from getting completely drenched. Unless you’re lucky enough to find yourself in the Mexico pavilion (where it’s actually mostly inside) you’re pretty much screwed. We were in the perfect position to hang out in the Mexico Pavilion, but we didn’t have any interest in being there. The Flower and Garden Festival was predominantly outside, so Mexico actually didn’t have a lot to offer. We tried to share an umbrella briefly, but as more friends joined us, we gave up on that.

Emily was wearing sandals and wasn’t having much success walking in the rain with them, so she eventually gave up and walked barefoot. One of the biggest rules of Walt Disney World is to wear shoes at all times, but I don’t think a single Cast Member would’ve wanted to approach our completely soaked group to tell them they had to try to walk in slippery sandals. 

As quickly as the storm had come, it was gone. The sun was peeking out through the clouds, making the wet ground shimmer. There are times when the rain in Florida is gloomy and murky, making for ankle-deep puddles that are so dirty you can’t even see the ground through them. Then there are times where it rains just enough to clean the ground before washing down a drain. The sun sparkles off every droplet of water hiding in the cracks and everything looks bright and colorful. This was one of those times. 

It’s no secret that with all the pavilions in World Showcase, EPCOT has some of the best food options out of Walt Disney World. Which is why it’s weird to me that Food & Wine Festival and Flower & Garden Festival both have so many “round the world” snack options. I get that Food & Wine is 1/2 food, but now that Flower & Garden is also showcasing food, I wonder how many people just opt out of a large meal altogether. I sometimes think the other quick service locations are obsolete because people can get a full meal just walking around the festival. And then I also remember that sometimes I prefer a snack that’s not part of any festival. That particular day, for example, we stopped by France to get ice cream and macaroons. Honestly it’s some of the best ice cream on property and if I’m going to shell out more than a couple bucks for ice cream, it better be good.

France is one of my favorite stops in EPCOT, partially because of the ice cream but also just because of the environment. I find myself walking through the France pavilion more often than any of the others and it always happens subconsciously. This was especially true during Flower & Garden because they happened to make a topiary of Beauty and the Beast for the France pavilion. 

I’m not usually into princesses but if I had to pick a favorite, Belle would definitely be it. As we took turns taking pictures with the topiary our group got bigger. Majo and her friend dropped in to hang out with us and our small group of three had turned into quite the strollers party by this point. We all jumped up on the half wall for a group picture before continuing on our journey around the world.

The picture turned out to be super cute and we looked like we had all been friends for a while, even though I was just starting to get to know them. We all stood around for a moment to Instagram the perfection and realized that we didn’t even have a name for a little group. Last program, the group of Animal Kingdom stroller CP’s referred to themselves as the DAK PAK (among some other silly/inappropriate names predominantly used for our Facebook group chats). While I have a feeling that many CP’s both before and after that group used the name “DAK PAK” (or some variation of that spelling), to me that was a special name for a remarkable group of people I had met during my fall program. It didn’t feel right to call this completely different group the same exact thing. Dak Pak Dos was thrown around a bit but eventually, the sarcastic sass-monsters of strollers settled on “ECV Queens”, ECV’s being the electric scooters we operated as part of the job. When everybody was done sharing our new friendship on Facebook, we continued on to the UK, my second favorite pavilion.

The United Kingdom pavilion is gorgeous because instead of just focusing on the architecture with various buildings, they created an entire Alice In Wonderland inspired garden. It was especially beautiful in the spring and everything was glistening after the recent rain fall so we decided to roam around and take more pictures.

That’s one of the many beauties of being able to visit the parks whenever you want. It doesn’t matter if you spend an entire day taking pictures in random places instead of seeing every corner of the park. As long as you have a fun day, it’s a day well spent. You never have to worry about “getting your money’s worth” which is a big pressure put on most guests at Walt Disney World. It was honestly a relief to not have to be at a specific place at a certain time. We just casually wondered through EPCOT stopping at whatever interested us in that moment.

Our last stop around the world was in Canada. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Bambi had gotten an entire topiary scene, complete with my favorite Disney character: Flower. Definitely not everybody’s first pick out of all the Disney characters but there’s something about Flower that I’ve always loved.

Our trek around the world was complete and we were done with EPCOT. A few of us decided that we should go over to Hollywood Studios to catch Fantasmic that night since we had some extra time. 

Fantasmic was a perfect way to end the glorious day. There are honestly few better ways to spend an evening. I’m so glad I got the chance to hang out with my coworkers and get to know them more. My spring program wouldn’t have been the same without my ECV Queens. <3