#and not have a sufficient pension

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

Is it true that in germany, people who dont have kids have to pay a specific tax, and people who have kids are exempt from It?

If its true is the tax applied for single people or just couples who live together?

its not really my topic of expertise but from my understanding we have six tax classes, if you are not married and dont have kids you get put in the class with the highest taxes. so its not a special tax its just a higher percentage. if you have kids and are not married i think you are in a different class with lower taxes than unmarried childless persons. married people do in fact have tax advantages but dont ask me how that works exactly… overall german social politics are very conservative, they are clearly aiming at fostering traditional families where the parents are married and the mother does not work or only parttime. this is a bit off topic but related, single mothers are among the groups most at risk of poverty, and even though fathers can take paid time off after the birth of a child, on average women leave the workforce for around eight years while men do so for two or three months on average. so overall i would say its mostly married men who profit…

[majimassqueaktoy]

Just thinking. Trying to maybe write later...

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Comment in the Standard: How dare Montecito millionaire Prince Harry demand our tax money to cover his legal costs

This subject matter cannot be covered too much for my taste.

Emphasis and comments by me:

Prince Harry’s latest court defeat in his rightly unsuccessful bid to overturn the decision to refuse him guaranteed Met police protection after he pulled out of royal duties might seem like a trivial battle over legal fees.

But in fact the duke’s failed attempt to pass 50 to 60 per cent of the costs incurred by the Home Office in fighting his unmerited claim tells us much about the preening prince and his selfish disregard for virtually anyone other than himself, his equally self-obsessed wife, Meghan Markle, and his children. [No one else matters of course. It is all about them.]

That’s because when the Duke of Sussex, as he still wants to be called despite ditching his royal role, wasted yet more of the High Court’s time in arguing for the taxpayer to fund at least half of the hundreds of thousands of pounds that the Home Office was forced to spend on the case, what he was really doing was trying to pass on a large chunk of the bill to ordinary taxpayers. [Sponging off others is quite on brand.

That’s right: instead of having the decency to accept that he’d have to pay up when he lost, the Montecito multimillionaire, for whom the legal expenses will be loose change, wanted taxes paid by everyone ranging from people on the minimum wage to bus drivers, cleaners and pensioners to cover his costs. It’s frankly contemptible. [Does he think it is his birthright to have the peasants pay for his temper tantrums?]

It's notable too that yesterday’s costs order by the High Court judge, Sir Peter Lane, reveals that Harry, who is so protective of his own privacy (when it suits him), managed to breach a confidentiality agreement made as part of the litigation by emailing “certain information” that was meant to be secret to one his lawyers and the MP Johnny Mercer. The prince might have apologised for the error, but the costs order refers to the “seriousness of the breach” and it was at best a sloppy mistake that added to the Home Office costs that he was trying to avoid. [What were you up to Harold?]

Harry’s whole case was, of course, misconceived from the start and it’s worth recapping why.

He asserted that the decision in 2020 by security experts on the Government’s Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as Ravec, that he should no longer receive publicly-funded police protection in Britain because of his move abroad should be overturned.

The supposed reasons were that the committee had allegedly failed to take into account the impact of a successful attack on the prince and had also acted unreasonably, unfairly and with a lack of transparency.

It was nonsense for the prince to think that he knew better than a panel of experts informed by the latest security advice from the police and intelligence agencies. [This man has a very high opinion of himself.] The High Court unsurprisingly dismissed Harry’s claim on all grounds, finding that there was no reason to overturn the Ravec panel’s decision. It had in fact left open the possibility of occasional police protection for the prince when in Britain, if there was evidence in future of a sufficient threat to his safety.

An attempt by the prince to persuade the courts that a later offer by him to pay for police protection should have been accepted was also rebuffed. Yet another judge dragged into Harry’s interminable litigation ruled it would be wrong to allow the wealthy to receive a service from the limited pool of specialist Met protection officers that a less affluent person could not afford.

That too was the correct and inevitable decision. Police protection officers are highly skilled specialists, trained at significant public expense, who exist only in restricted numbers and who are required to safeguard those facing the highest risks such as working royals, Cabinet ministers and prime ministers current and former, not others like Harry wanting the comfort blanket of protection they don’t need.

In short, every argument put forward by Harry was flawed and rejected by the courts. It’s a sign of his delusion that even the succession of earlier rebuffs from the judiciary didn’t stop him basing his attempt to get off a big chunk of the Home Office’s costs in fighting the litigation on the fantasy claim that he’d achieved “partial success” in his legal action. [He learns nothing from his experiences.]

Maybe that was how Harry viewed it. After he all, he told the world in his biography Spare that “there's just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts”.

But it simply wasn’t true, as yesterday’s High Court costs order reminded him.

It pointed out that Harry had “comprehensively lost” and that there was “no merit” in his claim of partial victory with his judicial review argument failing “on all of the pleaded grounds.” [Harold is a big loser.]

It was the obvious outcome from the start and the claim should never have been brought. His inevitable defeat was deserved and now it’s time for the penny-pinching prince to pay up.

👉 How dare Montecito millionaire Prince Harry demand our tax money to cover his legal costs | Evening Standard (archive.ph)

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author: Von_und_zu_

submitted: April 17, 2024 at 10:53AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[tsaomengde]

“The Mission”

A short story about love, time travel, healing, spaceplanes, and making the world a better place, even when no one will ever know.

---

After the TAG forces shot me out of my cockpit in low orbit, I floated there for about six hours.  Something – probably debris from my fighter – had hit me in the back, hard, and I couldn’t feel anything below my waist.  My suit’s maneuvering jets let me correct the initial nauseating spin I was thrown into, but they didn’t have sufficient thrust to get me out of my unstable, highly eccentric orbit.  

My suit told me I had about eight or nine trips around Titan before my periapsis wobbled low enough into the atmosphere that drag would bring me down below escape velocity.  At that point, gravity would catch up with me, I would fall, and I would crash into the surface and die.  The suit had an emergency beacon, but no built-in communications beyond that.  I was alone in the silent dark.

I sped around the moon at a little less than ten thousand kilometers per hour.  The view of Saturn, for the parts of the orbit where it wasn’t eclipsed by Titan, was gorgeous.  That was a small comfort, as my brain endlessly analyzed the ways I could go.  A bit of debris from the battle could kill me outright at these speeds, or it could puncture the suit on a glancing hit and it would be a toss-up whether I would die of suffocation or extreme cold.  My oxygen meter also claimed I had about three hours of air left, which meant I would probably be unconscious or dead by the time I actually hit the ground.  And, of course, there was the matter of my probably-broken spine.  I suspected I was bleeding internally from that.

Later, when I woke up in a hospital bed on the Agamemnon, they told me that the TAG brass had transmitted a formal surrender eighty-seven seconds after my fighter had exploded.  I was officially the last casualty of the Earth-Titan war.

They fitted me with prosthetics so I could still walk, but as the physical therapist with the cute dimples explained to me, there was some kind of incompatibility with my chromosomal something-or-other that meant I couldn’t use them at a hundred percent, which meant I didn’t qualify for combat.  My spine, which had indeed been broken, was too damaged to repair with conventional methods.  That left experimental regenerative genetic surgery, which was more expensive than the navy was willing to shell out for.

So, at thirty-one, after thirteen years in the navy, I got out with an honorable discharge, a pension that was decent enough but far from what it would take to fix my spine, a chromium heart for my injury, and enough PTSD to fuck me over for the rest of my life.

--- 

“I don’t care about my legs,” I said to Kate, the first time we ever met.  We picked a bar about halfway between us for our first meeting. She had a gin gimlet with cucumber simple syrup.  I had an old fashioned.  “They get me from point A to point B just fine.  I just miss flying.”

“Were you good at it?” she asked, blue eyes very wide.

“I certainly thought so. But then some TAG dipshit blew me out of my fighter above Titan and ended my career, so maybe I was less good than I thought.”

“You can’t fly for one of the intrasolar shipping companies?” she asked.  “Or transport?”

I gave her a patient smile. “Do you know what a pilot actually does aboard one of those big fusion torchships?”

“No, actually.”

“They point the nose where the destination is going to be, fire the engine for half the trip, then flip the ship around and fire the engine for the other half.  There’s nothing to that.  I miss flying.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I understand.”  I could tell she didn’t, not really, but that she wanted to.

I moved in with her a few months later.  Part of me wondered if it was a good idea, moving so fast, but I was two years from Titan and still waking up screaming in the middle of the night, convinced I was back in my suit, in the dark above the moon.  The greater part of me, the selfish part, was happy that someone was there to touch me, to talk to me, to root me back in myself and pull me back to earth from up there in the black.

In that sense, Kate could have been anyone.  I never thought of her as replaceable, but there was always a vague sense of guilt, of knowing that I was definitely getting more from the relationship than she was.  I voiced this to her once, and she told me I was being silly, and that she loved me, and that was all she needed.

So when she first approached me with her idea for the Mission, I like to think it was that part of me, the part that wanted to be more for her, that moved me to say yes to what was honestly an idiotic idea.  Not the part that missed flying.  Just selfless altruism and desire to help the woman I loved.

I like to think that a lot.

---

We cracked time travel about a decade after I was born.  Much to our collective disappointment as a species, it was not the fun kind of time travel that lets you go back in time and kill Hitler.  

Kate, as she told me once we were living together, was part of a DOD think tank tasked with finding some kind of use for the technology.  After a lot of experimentation, they came up with what Kate called the Four Rules.

1.      It’s time travel, not space travel.  If you want to meet Julius Caesar, you had best make sure you’re in Europe when you travel back.

2.      It only works by going back.  There is no forward travel because the future hasn’t happened yet. The only exception is returning to your point of origin.

3.      If you actually do meet Julius Caesar, it’s because your meeting him will not change history in any measurable way.  If you try to go back in time to change something significant, it simply doesn’t work.  The little box makes the noise, it uses up a lot of energy, and then nothing happens.

4.      The corollary rule to number three, then, is that when you travel back in time, whatever you do end up doing has already happened.

I asked Kate what this meant about determinism versus free will, and she primly replied that she was a theoretical physicist, not a philosopher.  The DOD was not known for employing philosophers and paying them the kind of money they were paying her.

---

The Mission’s personnel consisted of four people.  Myself, the heroic pilot.  Kate, the brains behind the time travel stuff and the one who came up with the Mission to begin with.  Leon, the aerospace engineer slash DOD contractor.  And Ash, the director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. We would go over to Ash’s place, have dinner, and conspire.

Over one such dinner – mac and cheese with broccoli, I remember it vividly for no adequate reason – we discussed the logistical difficulties involved.

“We can’t use anything from the last century,” Leon was saying around a mouthful of mac.  “All the guidance systems on those ships are keyed into the orbital satellite network.  There’s nothing like that at the target time.  We need a craft that can achieve orbit, rendezvous, and de-orbit in a single stage, without remote guidance.”

I nodded.  “That means we need a spaceplane.  Not just a fighter, but an actual spaceplane.”

Ash chewed over the problem as well as their food.  “There might be an SR-75 in decent enough shape we could appropriate from the displays at the museum.  The hardest part will be bribing the transport operators to take it to home base instead of, you know, a navy cache where highly dangerous military surplus equipment is supposed to go.”

I raised an eyebrow at them. “That’s going to be the hardest part? What about getting the parts to get it into decent working condition, or the fuel?”

Leon waved a hand dismissively.  “Do you know how many spare parts I have lying around at work?  How many millions of tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen are stored in poorly-guarded places that I have access to?”

“No.  I’m guessing the answer to both is ‘more than the general public would be comfortable knowing about.’”

“Exactly.”

I looked at Kate.  “Is the magic box going to be able to send a whole spaceplane back, kitty?”

She wrinkled her nose at me for using her pet name in front of our friends, but let it go for the moment. “The magic box can send anything back given enough juice.”

“Okay, but is the shitty little battery at home base going to be able to give it enough?”

“Probably.  If we strip everything nonessential out of the spaceplane, get the mass down as much as possible.  I need to know the exact mass of the plane, plus us, when it’s ready for travel.”  Kate shrugged.  “If it won’t be enough, we can always add to our list of capital offenses and steal a torchship, then use its fusion reactor for the power.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.  “Last resort.”

---

“I don’t really understand why we’re doing this,” I told her one night, in the silence following her helping me out of another flashback.

She shifted a little in bed so she could look me in the eye.  “You said you were on board.”

“I am.  I’d do anything you asked, kitty, you know that. And obviously I’m excited to get to fly again.  But nothing we’re going to do is actually going to matter.  That’s one of the four rules, right?”

With a little shrug, she began running her fingers through my hair, which I’d stopped bothering to keep short after I was discharged years ago.  It was pretty long by now.  “It’ll matter to us, won’t it?  And to her?”

“I mean, sure, but the risk-reward ratio is way off.  You and Leon and Ash could all lose your jobs, we could get prosecuted by the Justice Department –”

“Vee, why did you sign up to be a pilot?”

I stopped.  “I mean, I always wanted to fly.”

“Yes, but what was the reason you put on your application?  And the reason you told me on our first date when we were still trying to look really good and put together for one another?”

That took me back, and I snorted gently.  “To make the world a better place.”

“Exactly.  Does there have to be a minimum threshold of goodness increase in order for an altruistic act to be worthwhile?”

I weighed that particular bit of moral utilitarianism in my mind before I committed to an answer.  “No.”

“So, that’s why we’re doing this.  To make the world a better place, even by the tiniest, slimmest margin.”

I gently snaked a hand out from under the comforter to lightly boop her on the nose.  “And the real reason, since we’re not on our first date and this isn’t an application you’re filling out?”

She stuck her tongue out at me.  “I know how much you want to fly again.  And I want to see my magic box used for something other than letting rich assholes reenact Bradbury’s ‘A Sound of Thunder’ without any of the nuance or lessons learned.”

“Dinosaur leather shoes is not the outcome you probably had in mind,” I agreed.  The time-travel hunting industry generated billions for the government every year now.

We fell asleep that night, and the next morning, we took a magtrain to Vegas, and from there we went to home base.

---

Home base was an abandoned aircraft hangar in the middle of the Nevada desert.  Leon had said something about centuries-old top-secret aircraft testing, when we first conceived of the Mission, and lo and behold, there was a facility with room for a spaceplane.  We spent far too much money on the highest-capacity quantum battery civilians could buy, hooked it into the Vegas grid, and watched it take eight weeks to charge.

It had also cost far too much money to bribe the transport operators to bring the SR-75 here, but the deed was done and they hadn’t sold us out so far.  They probably assumed we were aviation junkies.  What domestic terrorists would bother stealing a hundred-year-old spaceplane when there were far cheaper and more effective ways to kill people, these days?

Kate, Leon, Ash, and I sat at a small table in a corner of the hangar, drinking coffee and going over the ascent profile.  Ash’s part was done, having delivered the goods, but they wanted to be here for everything, and I certainly respected that.  The spaceplane took up the majority of the hangar space, a sleek black dagger with barely a suggestion of wings to either side.  The underside was dominated by a pair of huge jet intakes, and the rear of the plane sported three engine nozzles, the center much larger than either of the ones flanking it.  A gracefully curved tail fin slightly forward of the engines completed the vessel’s profile.

“The plane looks like it’s in good condition,” Leon was saying.  “I’ve sourced the fuels we need.  The main problem is going to be the timing, not the equipment.”

“How so?” Kate asked.

I spoke up.  “The SR-75 should theoretically be able to hit escape velocity just on the air-breathing engine mode, but the target has an extremely elliptical orbit, and we’re launching much closer to the equator, so we’ll have to adjust our inclination, too.  That means either a lot of burns with the rocket fuel mode once we’re in vacuum, or a very steep climb to orbit.  That pronounced an angle of attack might affect the engines’ ability to get enough air to achieve escape velocity.”

Kate blinked.  “Still not seeing how that affects the timing.”

I pulled out my personal comm, laid it on the table, and put it in draw mode, so I could trace pictures on its screen with the tip of my finger.  I drew a little ball, the Earth, and traced a messy, elliptical orbit around it. I indicated the very top of the orbit, where the line peaked like a mountain summit.  “We have about a thirty-minute window to achieve rendezvous with the target.  We need to rendezvous at or near its apoapsis, here, where its orbital speed is lowest and matching relative velocity will be easiest.”

I loved Kate, but it was endlessly amusing to me how she could understand quantum and temporal physics and articulate mathematical concepts I could never grasp in a million years, yet still not understand basic orbital mechanics.  She gave me a blank look, then just said, “And that’s hard?”

“Yes.  It is very hard, kitty.  We are trying to hit a target the size of, roughly, a bullet train car, except the target is going twenty-eight thousand kilometers per hour.  We need to come alongside it, match velocity with it, perform our docking maneuver, and then decouple.  And the parameters of the Mission mean that there is exactly one half-hour window we can do this in if we’re going to avoid violating rule three.”

“I think the best solution is going to be adding some external rocket fuel tanks,” Leon said.  “Not much, since we have to think about flight performance and transit mass for the magic box, but even a few hundred extra meters per second of delta-vee might make the difference in your ability to match orbits with the target.”

“Agreed.  Just make sure the Goddamn things aren’t going to come loose at Mach fuck-you.”

Leon grinned at me.  “I love your optimism, Vee.”

---

Unlike with most modern fighters, and indeed with even-older jet aircraft, the SR-75 did not have a fully enclosed cockpit.  The pilot sat in a big swiveling chair in front of the instrument panel, and the main cabin of the craft was accessible from there.  It was a spaceplane, and therefore supposed to be able to perform orbital docking maneuvers exactly like the one we were about to attempt, which necessitated the crew being able to actually get up and access the docking port without going fully extravehicular.

Kate sat behind me in a second chair that Leon bolted in there for her.  She had the magic box in her lap, hooked up by a pair of very fat and long yellow wires to the bulk of the quantum battery, which squatted heavily just slightly off-center in the SR-75’s main cabin.  (“Gotta keep that center of mass where it’s supposed to be,” Leon had said.)  She was doing something with the box’s controls, squinting at the small readout which displayed some kind of complicated waveform.

“I’ll initiate the breach when we get to fifteen thousand meters,” she told me.  “It wouldn’t do for anyone to actually see us at the target time, because then it just wouldn’t work, but I would rather not get shot down by our modern-day autonomous airspace defenses.”

“Sounds good,” I told her. “Hey.  Kate.”

“Yes, Vee?”

I craned my neck around as best I could while strapped into the pilot’s seat.  “I love you, kitty.”

Her cheeks darkened a little and she smiled.  “I love you too.”

I keyed in the ignition sequence and the SR-75 roared to life.  Leon and Ash, both standing a safe distance away outside the hangar so their eardrums didn’t rupture, started waving and giving us thumbs-ups.  I gave them a thumbs-up in return, projecting more confidence than I actually felt, and brought the throttle up just a little.

The spaceplane practically leapt out of the hangar.  Ruggedized, smart landing gear wheels hit the Nevada desert ground like it was perfectly maintained asphalt.  Within twenty seconds I pulled back on the yoke and the SR-75 was in the air, starting a steep climb.  I opened the throttle up the entire way and was slammed into my seat with the gee-force.

“JESUS CHRIST WE ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE!” Kate screamed.

I glanced over my shoulder at her.  “You okay, kitty?”

She was clutching at her chest, magic box forgotten, and for a long, terrible moment I thought she was having some kind of heart attack.  But then she nodded, looking pasty.  “I just got taken by surprise,” she shouted over the roar of the engines.  “Sorry!”

“Okay!”  I returned my attention to the instrument panel.  We were already moving at a good clip, and the altimeter was increasing fast enough that even the digital display was having trouble keeping up.  For a long, pure moment, I just relaxed into my seat, hands on the yoke, feeling the currents of air spiraling around the ship.  Now, more than ever before my prosthetics, it felt like an extension of myself.  I was flying again.

“We’re at fifteen thousand meters!” I told her.

Kate pressed a button on the magic box.  Everything blurred like someone just messed with the focus on a camera, except the camera was my brain.  When it re-focused, we were still in the plane, climbing toward space at an impressive clip, but all of the global positioning systems were dead.  There were no satellites to receive data from, not in this era.  However, we had accounted for this; the SR-75 had its own onboard suite of computers dedicated specifically to calculating orbital information.

It was at this point that things began to go wrong.  I felt a sharp tug on the yoke.  Swearing to myself, I corrected, keeping the plane on course, and keyed a status readout. The SR-75’s onboard systems insisted that nothing was wrong, but that the plane was experiencing significant and unexpected drag.

It hit me.  “Fuck me!” I snarled.  “Leon’s fucking external fuel tanks!  I told him they needed to be secure!”

“What’s going on?” Kate asked.

“One of the external fuel tanks Leon spit-soldered onto this Goddamn thing has come loose, and the drag is killing our velocity,” I told her.  “I need to get it off of us, now.”

My gaze was fixed on my instruments, so I couldn’t see the horror in her big blue eyes, but I could hear it loud and clear in her voice.  “How?”

“Shearing force.  Hold on, this is going to fucking suck.”

I stomped down on one of the SR-75’s rudder pedals with my right foot, the motion almost as smooth as it used to be even with the prosthetic, and spun the plane in a sharp, hard three-hundred-sixty-degree roll.  I nearly blacked out, and I know Kate did for a few seconds, since she didn’t go through flight training.  But there was a sudden, violent wrenching feeling that went through the yoke into my arms, and afterward the drag was gone.

“Did it work?” Kate asked blearily.

“Yup.  And apparently an external fuel canister from several hundred years in the future crashing in the Nevada desert doesn’t fuck up the timeline, since we’re here at all.”

“Are we still going to be able to make it?”

I eyeballed the delta-vee readouts on the navigation display.  The lost fuel tank didn’t exactly have a ton in it, and of course, the reduced mass of the ship now that it was gone meant the net loss was slightly ameliorated. But even so, the situation was grim.

“Well, yes and no,” I told her.

“That is never the answer anybody wants to hear, Vee.”

“I should, should, still be able to match velocity with the target and achieve rendezvous. But our margins are basically nil now. If I don’t do this perfectly, we’re going to miss completely.”

I felt her reach out and place a hand on my shoulder, give it a squeeze.  “You can do this, Vee.  I know you can.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I told her, and was surprised to hear that it didn’t come out sarcastic.

The ascent became a delicate balance.  I was trying to hit escape velocity while still using the air-breathing mode of the engines, which was incredibly efficient compared to the rocket fuel.  But as I got higher, the engines needed to work harder to ram enough air in to function, which meant my thrust decreased.  Without the global positioning system to feed me flight info, I needed to do it all by feel and eyeballing the orbital information given to me by the onboard computers.

I trimmed a couple degrees off my angle of attack, trying to find the sweet spot between still gaining altitude and not starving the engines of air in the increasingly-barren stratosphere. The SR-75 shuddered, engines straining, and began to threaten me with a stall.  I swept my gaze across my instruments.  “Fuck,” I muttered, and switched the engines to rocket mode.

Instantly, we were slammed back into our seats again as our thrust suddenly increased dramatically. I glanced at our projected apoapsis, counted to three, then shut the engines down.

In the sudden silence in the absence of the engines’ roar, Kate asked, “Did we do it?”

“Yes and no.”

“Goddammit, Vee!”

I looked over my shoulder at her and gave her my most reassuring grin.  “Sorry, couldn’t help it.  The drag from the fuel tank breaking loose meant that we lost velocity, which meant we took longer to get to the speed we were needing, and the spin I had to put the plane through shifted our course a little bit.  Our inclination is about five degrees off of where it should be.”

“Okay.  What does all that mean?”

“We are going as fast as we need to be, but we’re not in the place we need to be going that fast.  I’m going to need to do correction burns at certain points in our ascent.  We can still make our rendezvous, but we won’t have the fuel to do a proper deceleration burn. I’m going to have to perform emergency aerobraking.”

“In English, Vee!”

“On our way back down I am going to use the atmosphere to slow us down the old-fashioned way.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Is this plane designed for that?”

“Probably.”  I shrugged.  “Assuming we don’t burn up, I’ll be able to switch the engines back to air-breathing at a certain altitude and land without the need for lithobraking.”

I could see her trace the Latin roots of litho and arrive at the gallows-humor definition of the word.  She went even paler than before.  “Certainly hope so.”

I let my grin fade as we continued to coast on our momentum, rising inexorably up through the mesosphere into the thermosphere, our speed gradually slowing as we crested toward the very top of our parabolic arc.  At key points, I reoriented the SR-75’s nose, now using chemical thrusters to maneuver the craft in the absence of air for the control surfaces to manipulate, and fired the engines in rocket mode, tweaking our orbital inclination until it matched that of the target.

The computers suggested to me, at that point, that we would be able to achieve equal relative velocity, and it would leave us with enough delta-vee to then de-orbit ourselves. We would not be stuck in orbit forever until we died.  I blinked hard, banishing the memory of Titan as it suddenly threatened to overwhelm me, and repeated the affirmations Kate taught me.  I am not there anymore.  I am here, now.  I am safe.

Safe was, of course, a relative term in the vacuum of space, going tens of thousands of kilometers per hour.  But Kate took my hand from behind and gave it a squeeze, and I was good again.

“We’re going to do a long burn once we’re within ten kilometers,” I told Kate.  “That’ll bring our relative velocity to zero.  From there we just point our nose at the target, fire the engines for half a second, get as close as we can until we’re either about to hit or miss, fire them again to bring ourselves back to zero relative velocity, and then we do that over and over until we’re close enough to dock.”

“I don’t need to know all the mechanics,” Kate replied, and I could see she was fighting to keep her teeth from chattering.  The environmental controls were working just fine, so it was fear she was dealing with, not cold.  “I just trust you, Vee.  Make it happen.”

I suited action to words. It took ten long, arduous minutes, and by the end of it we were very short on time to actually execute the retrieval, but I successfully brought the SR-75’s docking port, which sat on the dorsal surface of the spaceplane, in contact with the target’s own.

Not that they were remotely designed to be compatible, being hundreds of years apart in origin, but fortunately the SR-75 had the advantage of smart materials incorporated into its construction.  Its port sealed itself tight around the target’s, flashing a green light and hissing open to reveal the shiny metal surface of the target.

Kate was already out of her seat, plasma torch in hand, and the acrid smell of it hit my nostrils as she ignited it and started cutting through the ancient hull like butter.  It was joined less than a minute later by new smells: faint traces of iodine and ethanol, urine, feces, and a wet, animal musk.

And, of course, I heard barking.

“Got her!” Kate called to me.  “She’s in pretty rough shape, but she’s alive!”

“Strap back in, and get her secured too,” I told her.  “We’ve passed apoapsis and I need to fire the engines right now for the Oberth effect or we’re going to be stuck in orbit forever.”

I keyed in the command for the docking port to close on our end and release.  The leftover atmosphere inside the target puffed out of it in sudden decompression, pushing our two crafts apart, but not hard enough to seriously perturb either of our orbits.  That was the engines’ job, and I brought them to life as soon as we were clear.

They sputtered out as they burned the last of the rocket fuel.  I looked at our orbital readout.  “Ah, shit,” I muttered.  “This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

---

We all but rammed into the atmosphere with the entire length of the plane.  The yoke bucked in my hand and the instrumentation suggested to me that I was a fucking moron that had doomed us all, but with polite numbers instead of those exact words.  I kept an iron grip on the yoke, worked the rudders with both my leaden feet to keep us perpendicular to our approach vector so we would generate more drag and thus lose more speed, and prayed to every God I could think of.  Behind me, Kate’s teeth were audibly chattering, but she managed to avoid screaming again, and the dog was remarkably quiet.

The interior of the SR-75 got incredibly hot, naturally.  The instrument panel helpfully informed me that it was almost fifty-five degrees Celsius inside, and that was with the life-support system working as hard as it possibly could to cool it.  The one saving grace we had was that the spaceplane’s designers had anticipated the need for this kind of extreme aerobraking, and the skin of the craft was designed to tolerate it – in theory.  I sweated, and I panted, and I watched our velocity slowly decrease until we were no longer going to boomerang back up out of the atmosphere.

Then I pointed the plane’s nose down, let gravity take over, and switched the engines back into air-breathing mode.

They decided they did not want to start.

“Well, we’re fucked,” I laughed.

“This is a plane, right?” Kate asked through clenched teeth.  “Aerodynamic?  You can fly it without the engines, right?”

“Well, glide, yes. Fall slowly, yes.  Land… maybe.”

I let us half-glide, half-fall until we were back in the troposphere.  “Magic box time,” I told Kate.

Everything unfocused again, and when I was able to see once more, my global positioning displays were back online.  They told me that, if I did nothing, we were going to crash into the ocean just off the coast of Hokkaido.

I tried the engines again. Still nothing.  The reentry had fried them, as far as I could tell.

I started the plane’s nose trending up again, trying to bring us out of the dive and into a climb. The control surfaces bucked and the plane fought me.

“I’m sorry, Vee,” Kate said.

“Don’t start,” I told her. “We’re not dead yet.”

“I couldn’t go back and save you from what happened at Titan.  I thought, if I could save Laika, maybe –”

“I know exactly what you were thinking, kitty.”  I looked back at her, and the scared-looking mutt buckled into her lap.  “It’s okay.”

“I just – when I read about how she died, all alone, in that terrible little capsule –”

“I said don’t start, Kate. I said it’s okay and I meant it.”

She kept going like she hadn’t heard me.  “She was supposed to have enough food and oxygen for a week.  But the satellite was rushed, and the temperature control system failed.  So when she was –”

“FUCK me!” I shouted.

That finally got through to her.  “What?!”

“Temperature control.” I quickly hit a series of switches. “The jet intakes were superheated by our reentry.  When you switch the engines to rocket fuel mode, they have shutters at the front that close so you don’t get trace amounts of gaseous oxygen mixing with the liquid fuel. Those shutters are probably half-melted shut.”

“And?”

“There’s an emergency release that just drops them completely.”  I pressed the button, felt the SR-75 shudder as explosive bolts fired and it shed hundreds of pounds of metal.  “Okay. Now –”

I was cut off as the sudden force of the engines firing slammed me hard into my seat.  The plane began to corkscrew wildly as the engines put out differing amounts of thrust for the first few moments until the oxygen feeds equalized.  Clearly one of the intakes had had less of its shutters blown off than the other, and the plane had needed some time to adjust.

Kate coughed.  “The engines?  They’re working?  We’re not going to die?”

“Oh, we’re still going to die,” I told her.  “Eventually, of old age.  But probably not today.”

She smacked the back of my head.  “Jackass.”

---

The vet gave us a very suspicious stare as we paid our bill and accepted Laika’s carrier back from his nurse.  “I have never seen an animal in that kind of shape before,” he said.  “Malnourished, half-dead from heat exhaustion, matted shit in her fur, and primitive bio-monitoring equipment surgically grafted into parts of her. I assume you didn’t do this, since it would be colossally stupid to come into my office and ask me to fix her up if you did.”

Kate shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t us.  She’s a stray.  Found her while we were out on a trip.  We felt so bad for the poor thing that we brought her back with us.”

Somewhat mollified, the vet nodded.  “Well, make sure to give her the antibiotics for the rest of the week, and call me if there’s anything else she needs.”

We stepped outside, and I opened the carrier to let Laika out.  She staggered out, still a little loopy from the anesthesia, and I got her leash onto her without too much trouble.

“You know,” I said to Kate, “when we first shacked up, I said I didn’t want any pets.”

She grinned at me.  “For someone who was so against the idea, you went very far out of your way to get me one anyway.”

---

About six months after we brought Laika home, a very humorless man in a snazzy uniform, accompanied by many more humorless men in uniform with large guns, came and visited our house. The humorless man in charge sat and chatted with us for a while, and Laika sat in his lap and let him give her pets.

Nothing else ever came of the visit.

There is no neat bow to tie on this story, unfortunately.  I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night, though not quite as often. That probably has more to do with the passage of time and a lot of therapy than pulling a time-travel dog rescue, though.  The only point to any of it is that we spent a lot of taxpayer money (since Kate, Leon, and Ash are all paid by the government) and risked our lives to make the world a better place, even by the tiniest, slimmest possible margin.  

And perhaps having read about it will have made your world a little better too.

[bangficsx]

OVERLOVED

CHAPTER 1

index | next

pair : jjk x y/n

synopsis : you meet jungkook when you're trying to find another tenant for a spare room in the house you rent a room in, you have to lie to get your landlord to let him stay. Life turns upside down from there.

genre : roommates to lovers, fake dating, slow burn, smut, fluff, bantering, pining, yearning, college students, aspirant professor jk, aspirant journalist y/n, reader is a child of divorce, both have trust issues, mild angst, sexual exploration, first love, impromptu dates, soulmates.

Chapter 1

BELOVED WINDOW

On days you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders weighing you down, crumbling you into pieces you went to that room and sat by the window staring at the starry sky visible from there unlike your room where there was nothing but mostly darkness. A very old cupboard filled the space in front of the window making it useless, you'd tried to shift even with help from some friends but none of you could move it even an inch from its place. When you placed a complaint with the landlord he dismissed your request to get rid of it as it was a gift from his father in law on his wedding to his late wife hence, a reminiscent of his good old days.

About a week ago your landlord had assigned to you the task of finding a tenant for the other empty room in the house. His son used to live there but he left to work abroad and now he'd slowly stopped contacting his father and therefore, he decided to rent the room as his pension didn't prove to be sufficient for his growing medical bills.

Regardless of the few inconveniences you had to face, you liked the place as it was the only accommodation you could afford on your allowance and your part time jobs weren't that regular to rely upon for serious expenses. Your father was the one who suggested this place as he knew the landlord Mr. Choi and gained his trust for your safety and convinced him that you wouldn't cause any trouble.

Mr. Choi was a bit orthodox in his views of the world as expected from a man of his age. He had made it clear that he wouldn't allow cohabiting with a male unless you were married or any sort of casual hookups inside the house. You could invite your boyfriend only if he'd been approved by your parents.

You were looking out the window as the to-be tenant of the room you were sitting in had texted you an hour before that he was on his way. You waited and waited until you dozed off by the window sill lulled by the cool breeze blowing on your face. When a packers & movers truck stopped behind the house you were awoken. You blinked your eyes a couple of times to see clearly a hot guy stepping down from the driver seat, tattoos going up his sleeve when he looked up struggling to keep his eyes open under the direct sunlight you noticed the lip piercing shining. He looked away after taking a full view and then looking back at his phone to check if it matched the image on the screen provided by you on the online site where you'd put up a to-let advertisement.

Realisation struck you like lightning on a pole and you ran downstairs as fast as you could right before Mr. Choi could open the door. He hated exactly the type of guys that you had just seen. You realised you'd made a grave mistake. He would never allow a guy like that to reside in his own home. He would never leave an opportunity to taunt a stranger walking down the street with tattoos or a beard, Jungkook didn't have a beard or any facial hair but he did have tattoos.

To save your sanity you didn't want to look for a tenant once again and reject this one. He was the only guy who was willing to give such a good amount for this 'pig sty' as labeled by some comments online. He didn't even negotiate about the rent and only asked when was the earliest he could come look. As you saw the guy had already moved out of his old place as he came with all his stuff in a truck, he had high hopes that he would get his hands on this place.

By his profile online you knew he was also a college student just like you with a knack for art, music and photography. And you knew from your own past experiences how difficult it was to find a rental place you didn't want him to stray like a homeless until he could find another place.

"Sir the new tenant must be here" you said to the old man smiling at him as he stood with the support of his cane nodding at you.

You opened the door your heart palpitating and a lump in your throat. The boy met you with a polite smile as soon as he saw you.

"Neo?" He asked his eyes curious. "I don't know..." before he could continue explaining himself for using your random online name you interrupted him.

"Oh Jungkook I have asked you not to call me that so many times..." you faked a laughter before pulling the guy by his arm and standing by his side. He was flaggerbasted by your sudden actions and you were glad he was rendered silent.

"Mr Choi meet my boyfriend Jeon Jungkook. Also the new tenant. Don't worry we'll not enter each others room." You said with a fake smile plastered on your face while your whole body was sweating profusely.

"Stay at a distance of 6 feet." Mr Choi said putting his cane between both of your arms and pushing Jungkook aside.

"Sir he has brought all of his stuff here... please let him stay here, he's been approved by my parents. We're supposed to get married after we graduate and find jobs. Next year appa will hold our engagement ceremony." You said whatever came to your mind at the moment.

"Your father should've found a better man, what is this... he has tattoos everywhere and what's this thing..." he started saying all sorts of things again and you knew better than to let him go on with his ranting which could cause Jungkook to leave.

"Mr Choi even the good guys have all these things nowadays its not uncommon... Jungkook is a great guy trust me" you said leaning your body in front of him.

"I'm trusting you but if he creates any trouble I'll whip his ass and make him run around Seoul for three days" He glared at Jungkook but you caressed his arm from the side. It felt awkward to be touching a stranger's skin like that.

"Don't you both dare to goof around under my roof. I don't care what you do outside the house but stay at a distance after you enter that door." He said going away towards the dining room.

"Come with me Jungkook I'll show you the room" you held his hand to lead him upstairs. As soon as you reached inside the room he jerked away your hand.

"What the fuck! What was all of that?" He shouted but you widened your eyes at him and he lowered his volume.

"What the fuck was that..." he muttered.

"If you wanna stay at this place then play along with it... I didn't knew you looked like this in person. Mr Choi is quite orthodox and he doesn't likes the unconventional lifestyle of the youth. That's why I had to lie to him. If it benefits you in any way you can stay here..." you were explaining to him wishing he would stay, hated yourself for praying he was under a crunch with no other option besides this.

"What will I get if I play along? There should be some compensation considering how I let you lie about whatever..." he said his hand swinging to point at you and him.

"I'm sorry I don't like it too. I have a long distance boyfriend my father set me up with him and it suddenly struck me that Mr Choi doesn't knows about him so I just played with his ignorance."

"Oh god... whatever just stay away from me. I don't like being touched by strangers especially girls who are strangers." He said stepping backwards from you.

"Are we still strangers?" You asked looking at him watching you closely. He thought for a second but then you changed the topic.

"If you want to leave you can but this is a decent place at a decent price..." you spoke as he looked around the room. He looked outside your beloved window for a solid minute and the view must've appealed to him. As there were no tall buildings around you could get a clear view of places situated far away. And the fresh air that came in was the best thing about the room. It always kept the room cool making any sort of air conditioning unnecessary.

"There has to be something for me to act as your fake boyfriend." He folded his arms as he stood in front of you. You squinted your eyes at him as if thinking about it.

"I'll pay 1% of your rent" you offered him your hand as if to lock the deal. He chuckled listening your words.

"I could eat street food with what I save" he joked pushing your hand down with his finger.

"Are you gonna bring in your stuff now?" You asked him looking outside the window at the truck. It occurred to you that you wouldn't be able to sit by this window at ungodly hours anymore.

"Yes, I'm just waiting for you to leave" Jungkook said while you were just thinking about the window, a place you'd grown attached to in the past two years.

"Can I say bye to the window? Then I'll leave..." you said touching the windowsill where you uses to sit and dream on full moon nights or when it rained. You knew exactly how silly it sounded but what's important to you is important to you.

"What! Don't you have a window in your room?" Jungkook asked with an expression which said he couldn't believe you or the question you just asked.

"There's a giant old rusted almirah in front blocking it" you whined complaining for the umpteenth time now about the blocked window.

You hung around the window holding its frame and said in a dramatic manner "you beautiful window how many memories I made sitting by you... how many story plots I came up with sitting right here. So many hot summer nights I spent sleeping by your side. I'm gonna miss you so much I hope you'll like your new friend"

Jungkook controlled his smile and laughter looking at you before he went outside to bring in his stuff with the help of some other men. You offered to help him to bring in some small boxes without saying anything of it and he appreciated in a silent way with a tiny smile on his lips which left your heart warm.

[todaysdocument]

Senate Report 1619 to Accompany a Bill Granting a Pension to Harriet Tubman Davis

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of RepresentativesSeries: Accompanying PapersFile Unit: Accompanying Papers of the 55th Congress

55th Congress, 3d Session. Senate Report No. 1619. HARRIET TUBMAN DAVIS. FEBRUARY 7, 1899. - Ordered to be printed. Mr. SHOUP, from the Committee on Pensions, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 4982.] The Committee on Pensions, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 4892) granting a pension to Harriet Tubman Davis, have examined the same and report: The report of the Committee on Invalid Pensions of the House of Representatives is as follows: The effect of this bill is to increase from $8 to $25 per month the pension of the beneficiary, Harriet T. Davis, of Auburn, N. Y. Mrs. Davis is the widow of Nelson Davis, who served under the name of Nelson Charles as a private in Company G, Eighth United States Colored Infantry, from September 25, 1863, to November 10, 1865, and was honorably discharged. She also served long and faithfully as an army nurse. Soldier died October 14, 1888, and the widow filed a claim as such July 24, 1890, under the act of June 27, 1890, and is now pensioned under said act at $8 per month. It is not shown that the soldier's death was due to his military service. It is shown, however, by evidence filed with this committee, that the claimant was sent to the front by Governor Andrew, and acted as a nurse, cook in hospital, and spy during nearly the whole period of the war. The following is a copy of the letter from Secretary Seward: WASHINGTON, D. C., July 25, 1865. MY DEAR SIR: Harriet Tubman, a colored woman, has been nursing our soldiers during nearly all the war. She believes she has claims for faithful service to the command in South Carolina with which you are connected, and she believes you would be disposed to see her claim justly settled. I have known her long as a noble high spirit, as true as seldom dwells in the human form. I commend her, therefore, to your kind attention. Faithfully, your friend, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Major-General HUNTER. Gen. Rufus Saxton, in a letter referring to Mrs. Tubman, says: "She was employed by General Hunter, and I think both by General Stephens and Sherman, and is as deserving of a pension from the Government for her service as any other of its faithful servants." In a letter to Brigadier-General Gilmore, from Headquarters Colored Brigade, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, July 6, 1863, Col. James Montgomery, commanding brigade, said: "I would respectfully recommend to your attention Mrs. Harriet Tubman, a most remarkable women, invaluable as a scout."2 HARRIET TUBMAN DAVIS. These testimonials sufficiently show the character and value of the service rendered by Mrs, Davis during the war. She now is about 75 years of age, physically broken down, and poor. This woman has a double claim on the Government. She went into the field and hospitals and cared for the sick and wounded. She saved lives. In her old age and poverty a pension of $25 per month is none too much. The bill is reported back with the recommendation that it pass. The papers in this case show that a claim for this woman was once presented to the House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on War Claims. Manifestly that would be the better way to reimburse her for her alleged services to the Government, but her advanced years and necessitous condition lead your committee to give the matter consideration. There is, however, a strong objection to the bill in its present form. The number of nurses on the pension roll at a rate higher than $12 per month is very few indeed, and there are no valid reasons why this claimant should receive a pension of $25 per month as a nurse, thus opening a new avenue for pension increases. She is now drawing pension at the rate of $8 per month as the widow of a soldier, and in view of her personal services to the Government Congress is amply justified in increasing that pension. [full transcription at link]

[kaelio]

also the reason i made the pension post is the same reason i make a lot of posts on the same theme. stop romanticizing the past. everyone who is trying to convince you the past was great is snowing you ass, and i'm serious. it doesn't matter if it's Rome or 1950 or the Victorian age. peasants didn't have "more leisure time", the hours described were the hours they worked for the lord before their self-sufficiency, survival labor. corsets fucked up your body so bad you can see it on the bones of deceased, upper-class women from that period. in dickensian times the poor paid to lean on a rope overnight to sleep in a big communal room and that's how they could "afford rent"

[archduchessofnowhere]

In addition to the many agendas he had to deal with day in and day out for Elisabeth, Bayer [her secretary] of course also administered the most important task the empress had to perform beyond representation: charity. From time immemorial, the wife of the sovereign took on the task of being charitable and giving alms, donations and gifts to the needy. In the mid-19th century, municipalities and churches were responsible for social policies in the modern sense. In case of difficulties, one turned directly to the sovereign. As in how much the state and the imperial house still went hand in hand in this context can be seen in Elisabeth's secretariat: of the 100,000 ducats that Elisabeth received annually from the court treasury, a large part was immediately forwarded to various charitable organisations. From today's point of view, the Ministry of Finance could have forwarded the aid money directly to the recipients, but in those days the thinking was different: it was not the anonymous state that was responsible for the charity, but the imperial house itself. The needy thus did not turn to an official, but to the emperor. It is therefore not surprising that Elisabeth's largest outgoings were always for charitable purposes.

Most of the money went to established aid institutions. Shortly after taking office, Leopold Bayer informed the minister of the interior that the governors of the individual crown lands were to make the payments. The entire spectrum of charitable institutions was considered: orphanages, kindergartens, associations for the blind, educational institutions, boarding houses, pension institutions, schools, hospitals, homes for the poor and infirm, as well as churches and parishes. The most frequent entries in the books, however, are charges recorded as “to the poor in Vienna” or “to the poor in the provinces”. These were not subsidies, but classic alms distributed on a large scale in the name of the empress.

In addition to charities, individuals who approached Sisi as supplicants also received financial assistance. In general, requests for support, especially from the very poor, were accepted without difficulty. However, before any amount was granted to them, supplicants were checked. The secretariat or the office of the court grand master [Oberhofmeister] then asked the authorities for information on their material situation and reputation.

These were mostly widows and orphans. They asked the empress for financial help for various reasons: because they could not live on their pension, because their salary was not sufficient to maintain a decent standard of living, because they could not work because of a relative in need of care, or because they themselves were chronically ill. From the notes in Bayer's file and his correspondence with the court grand master, it is clear that all pleas were presented to Elisabeth.

In addition to the poor, members of the lower nobility in distress and so-called “high-ranking women” were the second large group who turned to the empress for help. Here the story was always the same: the ladies were unmarried or widowed and therefore without a supporter, a situation in which even women of the lower nobility and non-wealthy could easily fall into. The donations Elisabeth made to them were as varied as the fates of the applicants. The empress paid the impoverished Marie d'Ellevaux a hundred guilders so that she could travel to Vienna to visit her daughter who was about to give birth; the daughters of the second lieutenants in a precarious situation, on the other hand, she usually gave twenty guilders.

Winkelhofer, Martina (2022). Sissi. La vera storia. Il camino della giovane imperatrice (Translation done by DeepL. Please keep in mind that in a machine translation a lot of nuance may/will be lost)

[une-sanz-pluis]

It must surely be assumed that the scheme to consign Thomas to obscurity originated with the Prince and the Beauforts. It was hardly conceivable that Arundel - the only other councillor present with sufficient personal standing to put forward such a proposal — would have had a hand in anything so obviously at odds with the king's policy and inclinations. The fact that the matter had reached the point of serious discussion, and was entered on the record of the Council's proceedings, in spite of the presence of the man who might be regarded as responsible for upholding the king's interests at the meeting, was almost certainly an indication of the growing assertiveness of Arundel's political rivals. The precise implications of the suggestions are a matter for speculation, but it is difficult to interpret them as other than a personal attack on Thomas and, indirectly, on his father. At the very least, the proponents of the scheme were implying that they wished to relieve Thomas of a responsibility which he was unfitted to bear and to provide him with a pension for doing nothing in the hope that he would do just that. If Thomas had already demonstrated that his sympathies lay with his father and Arundel against the pretensions of the Prince and the Beauforts, the suggestions must have been openly hostile, designed to deprive Thomas of an office which carried with it the implication that he was actively serving the king and the country, and to expel him from his father's company to diminish his involvement in factional politics. There may also have been the incidental motive that the transfer to Ireland of Sir John Stanley, who was steward of the king's household, might be a small step in clearing the way for a Council which was favourably disposed towards Arundel's opponents. Nothing was done to implement the proposals, doubtless because the Prince failed to convince his father and brother of their merits, but ill-feeling and tension can only have been aroused.

Peter McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV: The Burning of John Badby (The Boydell Press 1987)

[beardedmrbean]

Helsingin Sanomat follows up on its reporting covering the country's demographic challenges as people have fewer children.

Today one in five women aged 40-49 are childless, while for men in the same age group, the figure is 30 percent.

The lower the level of education, the more common childlessness is, according to HS. The paper points out that nowadays having a child is increasingly perceived as an extra burden complicating life.

Juhana Brotherus, an economist at business lobby Suomen Yrittäjät, said falling fertility rates will inevitably impact the pension system.

While people are good at optimising their short-term opportunity costs, they don't always succeed in long-term planning, Brotherus explained, referencing economic theory.

"We know how to optimise a 30-year-old's lifestyle, but not whether it would be nice to have children and grandchildren in retirement," he said.

Colonial laws threat to Sámi

Sámi people would like an overhaul of Finnish law to support traditional Sámi reindeer husbandry, reports Hufvudstadsbladet.

Anne-Maria Magga, a reindeer herder and researcher, says that current laws prevent cross-border reindeer migrations, which are the traditional method Sámi herders use to avoid overgrazing.

Over the past centuries countries closed their borders to herders.

"The Sámi have been subjected to persecution and colonialism, and Finnish people are not sufficiently aware of it. They do not understand how much the Sámi people and individual families have already lost," Magga said.

In Sweden and Norway, there are laws securing the Sámi's exclusive right to reindeer husbandry.

Magga tells HBL that the absence of similar laws in Finland to recognise the Siida system of managing reindeer husbandry on a geographical basis threatens the Sámi community's ability to maintain its culture.

Public greetings

What happens when an Americanised Finn starts greeting strangers in the street like in the US where public greetings are the norm?

Thirty-year-old Aurora Pärssinen lives in Los Angeles where strangers often exchange hellos as they pass by one another.

As the sleet fell in Finland however, Pärssinen began routinely greeting people walking towards her.

"I got all sorts of reactions. About half of the people greeted me back, smiled or nodded. The rest didn't react at all, looked away or gave me a strange look," Aurora said, laughing.

IS followed Pärssinen down the street to document her greeting venture. Older ladies were most likely to respond to her greeting, whereas younger passerbys seemed to be too busy to deal with unexpected human interactions.

One English-speaking person waved hello despite being on the phone.

Johanna Isosävi, an academic specialised in Finnish manners, said greeting customs in the Nordic country are rooted in century-old norms.

"We believe that it's polite to respect another person's personal space. For us it's perfectly acceptable for a person to be left alone and walk around in their own thoughts without paying too much attention to their surroundings. This is not the case in many other countries," she explained.

[thefisherqueen]

Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his pocket.

“One of the most dangerous classes in the world,” said he, “is the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed.

Holmes, I appreciate that you want to help her but did you have to be so misogynistic about it? The word 'vulnerable' would have done

[thosearentcrimes]

Not sure how you solve the whole "shareholder value maximization" thing. It seems fairly obvious that CEOs being very highly paid for overloading perfectly functional and profitable businesses with debt they can't really service long-term to pay for stock buybacks and pointless acquisitions is a bad thing on balance, but a good thing for everyone who gets to decide if it happens or not. You start with a functional productive enterprise and end with a yard sale, with the now shambling frankencompany being re-carved up and bought piecemeal by other companies still in the "fanatical acquisitions" stage of the process. At best you end up with consolidation/monopolization and displacement of profits onto the finance industry. But how do you stop it? Will it wither away as increased interest rates compel more judicious application of capital?

I do wish it were practical for workers at companies being liquidated due to inability to service debt to buy the company free of debt at a steep discount and run it as a cooperative. Realistically, this sort of resolution has only been remotely plausible in situations with sufficient political agitation (LIP type) or established union power and wealth. But in the case of unions, often the funds they have available are pension funds and such, and it's generally not great if they burn people's retirement trying to make a company doomed by macroeconomics beyond their control work, and presumably that would be the case at least some of the time.

[innerangeltoadlover]

23. I think the one thing that upsets me the most is that I no longer believe in the intelligence of others. For all their training they took the ‘I can’t be bothered’ route . My life was pretty dysfunctional but at no stage was there any acknowledgment that I could have been in a dangerous environment- they decided that a person who fitted a cliched definition of normality was incapable of being a bad person and I think they're still stuck on that. It’s rather ironic that after 30 years of reporting abuse that these apparent experts don’t have the sufficient humility to reassess their approach . In fact my psychiatrist is so hard line that I feel she believes my sister was justified in taking me to court because this kind of world view is more appealing than one wherein they have fucked up - sounds bizarre but this is what happens when psychiatrists actually make judgements about family dynamics without seeing the dynamic- they are as capable as any of us of getting things wrong.i have mentioned to her on a few occasions that I’m unsure why when I was telling my former psychiatrist of my sister’s abuse it was not viewed as a report. This is met by her with lip pursing , body stiffening and eye squinting - my response to this is eye widening - I mean wtf. Just stop the cowardice and tell me it never happened but of course that scenario would be avoided. A session with a psychiatrist never includes a transparent exchange and if you are hitting the nail on the head these people will admit nothing. They will leave a patient within the illness rather than help them out of it. They observe they don’t act. The only thing that actually moves them is a threat to others or self- standard stuff. Psychiatrists are there to protect the status quo which is why they drug the fuk out of us. I think nowadays that schizophrenics should not be treated by psychiatrists- I do wonder why such people choose this profession. Certainly we can all say glib cliches about helping people etc etc but how does this explain 15 minute appointments and the disregard for the life experience of patients? A psychiatrist in Australia can make well over $200000 a year – does such a person have anything in common with their clients? It would always amuse me when my psychiatrist would cry poor as though she actually had something in common with a person on a disability pension - I would think is she really this out of touch? Like many of the elite psychiatrists have attended the best schools and any bumps in the road are quickly attended to by the help that real money can buy. Of course those who excel at school can also escape the wretched bullying that underachieving students can encounter. High functioning apparently equips them to treat low functioning even though their life experiences are so far removed from ours that any existence outside their peer group would be classed as dysfunction. What do these people really think of those of us that are crushed by life – that can’t overcome the barriers that life presents?

[handoverthekawaii]

Your Strongest Soldier | Levi Ackerman x You | Chapter XXI

Every moment you spend with Levi is precious, and you try to keep your mind in the present with him as much as you can. But as the days go by, the time until Gabi and Falco return becomes shorter and shorter, and your attention begins to shift to what lies ahead.

When Gabi and Falco get back from their honeymoon, you aren’t sure what will happen next between you and Levi. Money hasn’t been an issue lately because your expenses are so minimal, but eventually you will need to find work again.

You could return to the placement service and get another assignment but, if you do that, you could be sent anywhere on the island for who knows how long. You could also return to the field of emergency medicine, you suppose, but your previous stint as a medic left you with a serious case of burnout.

You know that tons of people have successful long-distance relationships but, if you’re being honest, you just don’t want to be parted from Levi. It would be devastating not to have him alongside you, and you’re pretty sure Levi feels the same way.

So it isn’t a total surprise when, a few days before the newlyweds are due to return, Levi casually asks how you’d feel about moving in together.

“Wouldn’t we need to speak with your roommates about that?” you ask, trying to still the flutter of hope you feel in your chest.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he responds. “Gabi and Falco have already done more for me than anyone would have expected of them. And, now that they are married, I’m sure they would appreciate a little privacy.”

All the survivors of the Battle of Heaven and Earth receive substantial pensions from several nations, Levi explains. He he has sufficient resources to move out of the townhouse and relocate elsewhere if he so chooses.

“Gabi and Falco will be fine with it as long as they know I’ll be taken care of,” Levi continues. “But it’s only a good idea if that’s what YOU want.”

Levi’s been turning this idea over in his own mind for days now, but actually saying it out loud makes it feel like a real possibility for the first time. Still, no matter how much he might favor the idea, he doesn’t want to force Y/N to agree if she doesn’t feel ready. Moving in together is a huge, life-changing decision, after all.

He starts to say, “We don’t have to decide right now. There’s still t—” But Y/N interrupts by throwing her arms around him.

“I think it’s a great idea!” she tells him, grinning with delight. Levi can’t help but smile back at her enthusiasm.

The joy in Y/N’s eyes stirs his heart, reassuring him yet again that he’s making the right decision. As they begin to look at real estate listings in the newspaper together, Levi absentmindedly uses his finger to trace the outline of a heart over and over on the back of Y/N’s hand… [continued in AO3]

[help-for-low-income-seniors]

Supporting Our Elders: Charities Easing Financial Burdens for Seniors

Introduction

Life can be tough, especially for our seniors who are like the seasoned threads holding our society together. With healthcare costs going up and pensions not always cutting, a lot of them are struggling to make ends meet. Luckily, there are these awesome charities for seniors that have stepped up to help. They're like a friendly hand reaching out to make things a bit easier for our elders. So, let's check out some of these charities that are all about giving financial support to seniors, and helping them get through life with dignity and grace.

The Rising Financial Challenges for Seniors

Before delving into the charities making a difference, it's crucial to understand the landscape of financial challenges faced by seniors today. As medical expenses soar and the cost of living continues to rise, a significant number of older adults find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Fixed incomes, often derived from pensions or Social Security, may not be sufficient to cover the burgeoning expenses of healthcare, housing, and daily living.

Meals on Wheels: Nourishing the Body and Soul

Meals on Wheels is a renowned charity that operates across the United States, dedicated to addressing the nutritional needs of seniors who face financial difficulties. The organization delivers nutritious meals to the doorsteps of older adults, ensuring they receive the sustenance necessary for a healthy life. This not only addresses the physical well-being of seniors but also provides them with a sense of connection and community.

The National Council on Aging: Empowering Seniors Financially

The National Council on Aging (NCOA) is committed to empowering seniors through a variety of financial assistance programs. From benefits enrollment assistance to initiatives aimed at reducing healthcare costs, NCOA works tirelessly to improve the economic well-being of older adults. By connecting seniors with available resources and advocating for policies that support their financial security, NCOA plays a crucial role in ensuring seniors can enjoy their later years with peace of mind.

AARP Foundation: Creating Opportunities for Seniors

The AARP Foundation, an arm of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), focuses on creating opportunities and solving the challenges faced by seniors in various aspects of their lives. Through initiatives like the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), the foundation helps older adults find employment opportunities that align with their skills and interests. By fostering financial independence through employment, AARP Foundation contributes significantly to enhancing the quality of life for seniors.

Benevolent Societies and Local Community Charities

In addition to nationally recognized organizations, local benevolent societies and community charities often play a vital role in supporting seniors facing financial difficulties. These organizations may provide direct financial assistance, cover essential expenses, or organize community events to foster a sense of belonging. Their localized approach allows them to tailor their assistance to the specific needs of seniors in their communities, ensuring a more personal and impactful connection.

Senior Affordable Housing Programs

Housing is a significant concern for many seniors, especially those on fixed incomes. Charities that focus on affordable housing for seniors contribute immensely to addressing this critical need. By partnering with developers, community organizations, and government agencies, these charities work towards creating affordable housing options that allow seniors to maintain their independence and live in safe, comfortable environments.

Financial Education Initiatives for Seniors

Charities dedicated to providing financial education to seniors are instrumental in equipping older adults with the knowledge and skills needed to manage their finances effectively. Workshops, seminars, and one-on-one counseling sessions offered by these organizations empower seniors to make informed decisions about budgeting, investments, and retirement planning. By enhancing financial literacy, these charities contribute to the long-term financial well-being of seniors.

Connecting Through Technology: Cyber-Seniors Programs

As technology becomes increasingly integral to daily life, charities that focus on connecting seniors with the digital world play a crucial role. Cyber-Seniors programs teach older adults how to use smartphones, computers, and the internet, opening new avenues for communication, entertainment, and even employment. By bridging the digital divide, these charities empower seniors to access online resources that can alleviate financial burdens and improve their overall quality of life.

The Importance of Volunteering: RSVP and Senior Corps

Charities like the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) and the Senior Corps recognize the wealth of experience and knowledge that seniors bring to their communities. These organizations facilitate volunteer opportunities for older adults, allowing them to give back to society while staying active and engaged. Through volunteer work, seniors not only contribute to the well-being of others but also find a renewed sense of purpose, which can positively impact their mental and emotional health.

Navigating the Application Process: Benefits Outreach Programs

Many seniors are eligible for various government assistance programs and benefits, but navigating the application process can be daunting. Charities specializing in benefits outreach help seniors understand their entitlements and assist them in completing the necessary paperwork. By simplifying complex processes and ensuring that seniors receive the financial support they are entitled to, these charities make a significant difference in the lives of older adults.

Conclusion

There are these cool charities that are all about helping older folks dealing with money problems, and they add some crucial elements to this whole song we're jamming to, making our society more caring and in sync.

We should take a moment to give a shoutout to our older peeps for all the cool stuff they've done and been through. It's on us to make sure they get the backup they need to deal with all the money stuff that comes with getting older. Supporting these charities and what they're about isn't just good for our seniors; it's like adding some extra strength to the whole human connection thing we've got going on.

Welcome to Stepping Up for Seniors, a dedicated organization committed to making a positive impact in the lives of low-income seniors who require assistance yet lack the essential family support and financial resources to access the help they need. Our mission is simple but profound - to provide a helping hand and bring hope to those in their golden years who might otherwise be left without the vital support they deserve.

Our organization is not just a helping hand; we are a lifeline for low-income seniors seeking support and care. With a team of dedicated professionals and a network of compassionate volunteers, we work tirelessly to make a meaningful difference in the lives of seniors who have walked a long and challenging journey.

Join us in our mission to lift the spirits of low-income seniors and provide them with the care and resources they deserve. Together, we can make a profound impact, ensuring that every senior in our community can enjoy their golden years with grace, respect, and joy.

Explore our website to learn more about our programs and discover how you can get involved in Stepping Up for Seniors. Let's step up together for those who have paved the way for us and deserve to be cherished in their retirement years.

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