#and wrote her into every single piece of financial documentation he had so if something happened to him she'd get everything

[ejzah]

A/N: The less serious and more fun fic in Kirkin’s memory. This also builds on several other stories I wrote about Kirkin gifting Deeks a variety of highly inappropriate gifts. Takes place a couple months after the latest episode.

***

One Final Gift

“Hey Deeks!” Kensi called through the house. “We just got a special delivery. Did you order something?”

“Uh, not that I can think of,” answered, walking out of the kitchen to find Kensi examining a wooden box that came up to her waist and was as wide as the average refrigerator.

“It came with this letter addressed to you.” She handed him a cream white envelope that had his name on the front in elegant script and he turned it over with a frown.

“Oh my god,” he muttered once he noticed the embossed “AK” on the front and wax seal. “Kirkin.”

“Sweetie, he’s dead,” Kensi reminded him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still cause some kind of mischief from beyond the grave.” For proof he gestured to the massive box.

“Well, at least open the letter.” Kensi leaned over his shoulder as he slid his finger under the seal and pulled out several sheets of folded paper. Clearing his throat, Deeks squinted at the overly ornate script and started reading,

“Dear Martin,

If you are reading this letter, it means I have met an untimely death. I like to think that despite the mistakes I made earlier in my life, that I have made a positive mark in this world in the recent past.

My only regret is that we did not have more time together. Although I realize that we may not have ever been more than friends, I cherished each moment with you, as fleeting as they often were.”

Deeks paused to glance at Kensi and rolled his eyes. So far the letter was perfectly Kirkin through and through. He made it almost sound like they’d had a forbidden romance.

“I could not let our long-standing relationship go without leaving you some small token. Please accept these two gifts as a sign of my deepest affection and gratitude. Since my previous gifts were not always to your taste, I have left my pride and joy, my greatest ambition, my House of a Kirkin to you. You will find the transfer of ownership and all necessary papers included in this letter. Hopefully it will ease any financial burdens you may come to know.”

“Holy crap!” Deeks said, turning to Kensi who appeared as equally shocked. “He left me his freaking business.” He pulled out the accompanying set of documents, the first of which bore his name at the very top.

“Is that even legal?” Kensi asked after a minute.

“I mean ethically and by NCIS standards, probably not. But all the papers are legit.” He shrugged. “For all intents and purposes, I technically own a fashion line. Worth $10,000,000.”

“You’re joking.” Kensi came to peer over his shoulder again, shaking her head in disbelief. “Clearly we need to quit our jobs.”

“Wait, I didn’t read what’s in the box yet,” Deeks reminded her, clearing his throat again.

“I also want to take a moment to thank Kensi for always being a kindred spirit. We had so much in common, the least of which was our love for you. I always appreciated her understanding and camaraderie.

Be well my friend,

Anatoli.

P.S. Kensi will most likely appreciate my second gift more than you, Marty. Enjoy, my dear.”

“I bet it’s the Kirkin collection,” Kensi cackled excitedly, reaching to pry off the boards.

“Why are you so excited. Every single one of his designs was hideous. And fairly horrifying.”

“Because you swore you would never wear them again, but now you totally have to.” She flashed a grin his way as she pulled out her pocket knife and began loosening the nails keeping the box lid in place.

Despite himself, Deeks was mildly curious himself and started helping Kensi. Within a couple minute the last nail popped out and the door fell away, uncovering a blanket of cotton which Deeks gingerly removed.

This times Kensi actually squealed as he revealed a painting. Not just any painting; it looked like a Kirkin original.

“Oh, this is so much better than clothes,” she gasped, removing the picture which was done in fine oil paint and featured Deeks leaning against a surfboard in the fading sunlight. “Thank you, Kirkin!”

“He never even saw me with a surfboard,” Deeks protested, pointing at his perfectly rendered body.

“Not that you know of.”

“Ew, Kens, why would you say that?” She ignored his disturbed expression in favor of setting the first picture aside and digging deeper into the box.

“Geez, there’s like an entire gallery in here,” Kensi said coming out with two smaller portraits that would easily fit on their walls. If they weren’t borderline pornographic.

“He certainly had a good memory.” Kensi sighed deeply, not seeing Deeks’ glare, and handed him the two current paintings so she could continue her search.

Resigning himself to several more minutes of torture, Deeks stood by while she carefully took out roughly 20 more portraits that ranged from full-sized to miniature cameos in every medium imaginable. A couple even featured both him and Kensi. And one truly disturbing one, which Deeks hoped never to see again, pictured him staring deeply into Kirkin’s eyes.

When the entire living room was lined with images of Deeks, Kensi turned around with her hands on her hips, nodding in a satisfied way.

“I think this is my favorite,” she decided, pointing to one of Deeks in a three piece suit. “Or maybe the surfing one.”

“I feel sick,” he muttered, plopping down in a chair. Deeks sat down next to him, still holding the portrait, and wrapped her free arm around his shoulders.

“Oh come on, baby. Kirkin was just trying to be nice.”

“I know he meant well, but these-” he jerked his finger at one that featured his chest and abs in stunning, oh so disturbing detail- “will never not be creepy.” Actually that one must have been painted fairly recently since Deeks recognized the pants from his photo shoot.

“Well if helps, at least none of these will make it into unsavory hands,” Kensi pointed out.

“True.”

“And this one will be the perfect addition to our new home.”

“Kensi-”

“It will tie our bedroom theme together.”

“Kensi, I’m not hanging that picture up,” he said in what he hoped was a severe tone.

“Baby, it’s what Kirkin would have wanted,” she reminded him, turning towards the bedroom with a thoughtful look. “Or, we could put it in the guest bedroom. Start our own little gallery.”

“Damn you, Kirkin,” Deeks groaned, chuckling to himself. “You got me again. Well played, my friend, well played.”

***

A/N: Thanks to @psyched1328 for letting me use her idea involving the paintings/drawings.

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 6: The Future

Chapter 6 of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! You can find it here on Tumblr, or here on AO3. Spoiler-ish extras under the cut!

With chapter 6 under our belts, we’ve made it through the main portion of this fic! The next two chapters will wrap up a few loose ends -- and possibly create a couple more, of the open-ended variety -- and if I hadn’t gotten quite so deep into the world-building for this, I might have actually ended the story here. All the research I did for the world-building directly inspired the next two chapters, which were both written and finished before I had anything more than a basic sketch in place for chapter 6. 

Egyptology in the 1920s has clearly been a huge part of the world-building for this story from the beginning, and we get a bit more of it in chapter 6. The Doctor mentioned Howard Carter briefly in chapter 5, and here we loop back around to that and find out that Clara and the Doctor knew Carter well. I didn’t want to derail the chapter too much with talking about their friendship in any detail, but large portions of the timeline of when they were in Egypt in the 1920s was built around the historical events of the discovery and documentation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and there are a few passing allusions to it in the journal entries in chapter 3 as well.

Howard Carter (pictured above in 1924) and his team of excavators found the entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb in November of 1922, which would have been during the phase when Clara and the Doctor are exchanging letters and falling in love. One little historical detail that I sadly couldn’t quite use was that 23 November 1922 was actually a date of minor significance in the discovery of the tomb. It was the day that Carter’s financier, Lord Carnarvon, arrived at the dig site to witness the opening of the tomb, along with his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert, who would have been about a year and a half younger than Clara. This picture of the three of them was taken at the entrance of the tomb in late 1922, and is similar to how I imagine Clara and the Doctor’s picture with Carter would have looked:

As the tomb was being excavated, Carter and Carnarvon assembled a team of experts to help with the huge task of cataloging, preserving, and translating all the many items found in the tomb, and though I never called it out specifically in This Isn’t A Ghost Story, I figure the Doctor was part of that team, probably specifically focused on translation work. In late February 1923, there was a short halt in the excavation that lasted a few weeks, which was what led, in our fictionalized version of events, to the Doctor briefly returning to Glasgow, and Clara’s impulsive decision to follow him there. After their wedding in May of ‘23, Clara and the Doctor went directly to Egypt, and the Doctor returned to work on Carter’s team.

Family members, tourists, and the press were all known to visit the dig site during that first year of excavation and the resulting media craze:

Given that, and Clara and the Doctor being ‘disgustingly in love newlyweds’ it seemed reasonable that Clara would have visited the site at least a few times, and been on good terms with Howard Carter. Carter actually got his start in Egyptology when he was hired as a young man to paint reproductions of ancient temple walls and other Egyptian artifacts:

During the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, he made detailed sketches, including careful measurements, of every item removed from the tomb and where it had originally be found in the tomb. Much of what we know about King Tut’s tomb now is down to how methodical Carter was in documenting the original untouched state of the tomb, both with measurements, drawings, and photography. These are both drawings Carter did of the tomb during that period:

Chapter 3 mentions that Clara decided to learn to draw in the summer of 1923, so I liked the little detail that it was Howard Carter, with his meticulous and beautiful art, that suggested she take up the hobby. Modern Clara also notes in passing that she drew all throughout her childhood, particularly her ghost, which all connects back to those early days of their marriage in 1923.

I’ve got more up my sleeve about the world-building elements for the next two chapters, but since chapter 6 was the last chapter I finished, long after chapters 7 and 8 were done, I thought I’d talk a bit about the writing process as well. The final scenes I wrote for the entire story were near the end of chapter 6, and despite knowing what I needed this chapter to do, what needed to be in place to set up chapters 7 and 8, chapter 6 gave me a bit of trouble along the way. 

I imagined this chapter in a lot of different ways as the story was evolving, but I always knew I wanted to emphasize the possibility of future travels for Clara and the Doctor. The theme of ‘101 Places To See’ is so strong in canon that echoing it for 1920s Clara was a big part of my world-building from the beginning, and I felt like any version of a happy ending for Clara and the Doctor had to include travel. An early draft of this chapter ended on Clara’s final line from Mummy On The Orient Express, ‘Then what are you waiting for? Let's go.’ to help emphasize that travel theme -- and because I can never resist borrowing a line from canon whenever I can find an excuse.

Another early sketch for this chapter had Clara and the Doctor venturing out for grocery shopping, with the Doctor complaining up a storm while Clara tried to carry on a conversation with him without any strangers taking note of it. Originally I had planned to include more of Clara’s work week, and had scenes roughed in where her friend and fellow teacher Amy Pond found out that Clara had gotten “engaged” over the weekend, leading Clara to have to make up something on the spot about how she’d been in a long-distance relationship that had only recently turned serious, which was why Amy had never met him. There was a whole thing about how Clara and Amy (who taught ancient world history) were co-directing Coal Hill’s production of Antony And Cleopatra, and Amy wanting to make sure that Clara wasn’t going to run off to see the world with her new fiance before the night of the play. Eventually that all got boiled down to just a single exchange between Clara and the Doctor, as I decided to keep the focus tight in on the two of them and their relationship, and not even include dialogue from any other characters.

One thing that comes up again and again in my writing projects is that when I’m imagining the plotline early in the process, it always takes up a lot more calendar days than the final product does. I imagine events taking place over the course of weeks, but then find that the emotional flow works much better condensed down to a handful of days instead. Despite my stories following that same pattern in development for more than a decade now, it somehow always seems to surprise me, lol.

Really early on in working on Ghost Story, I knew I wanted to keep Clara’s canonical birthdate of 23 November 1986 and build the rest of the timeline around that, and I picked out November 2014 as the time period for the main part of the story because it corresponds roughly to when the end of s8 of the show originally aired. But in a very early outline of events, Clara didn’t have the nightmare that led to her memories coming back until the night of her birthday, a full week later from what ended up happening in this final version. 

Even as recently as a few weeks ago, I was still planning on ending this chapter on her birthday, and it wasn’t until I started digging into the scene by scene and line by line breakdown of the chapter that I realized that it really wasn’t necessary. And leaving her birthday as an upcoming event folded in nicely with the ‘Future’ theme I wanted for this chapter, so again I decided to keep the focus tight on Clara and the Doctor’s relationship as they unravel the mystery and deal with the fallout of what happened in 1927.

Figuring out what I actually wanted to happen this chapter versus what could be left on the cutting-room floor, as they say, was a huge part of the final phase of writing This Isn’t A Ghost Story. Once I had cut out extraneous scenes and meandering plot tangents (and poor Amy Pond), I was left with a very specific list of scenes and conversations, and I wrote them much the same way I write everything, jumping around to a given scene as dialogue or internal monologue occurs to me. To me it always feels like putting together a large jigsaw puzzle, filling in holes and connecting up pieces as the puzzle comes together.

I find that technique works really well for me when I’m in early and mid development of a story, but once I was down to just a couple of scenes that still needed written, progress slowed way down. I got to the point where I knew the emotional content of a scene and even most of the dialogue, and needed just a little bit of stage direction to stitch the whole thing together. Those of you who have been following along with my #process thoughts posts here may remember me posting about working on that last scene just a couple of weeks ago, trying to wrestle it into shape. 

@tounknowndestinations, @praetyger, and a few others of you have asked about it, and I can now reveal that the very last bit to get written was the sequence with Clara preparing for bed and then the two of them getting into bed. I had the awkward sex conversation and the final scene the next morning already written, I just had to connect the first part of the chapter up with those last scenes. I’m happy with how it eventually came together -- and very curious to hear if any of you could pick out that that was the last bit written? -- but not having the option to work on anything else, just those specific words in that specific place, made it more of a struggle for me than writing most of the rest of Ghost Story.

My husband and beta reader Jack was more involved with the editing of this chapter than he was with any of the other chapters, and in several places helped me rewrite individual lines or conversation beats until we were both happy with how they read. @praetyger asked how I know when writing is ‘done’, and I have to admit it’s mostly a process of reading it over and over again, and then getting Jack to read it and taking his feedback seriously. I tend towards overly long run-on sentences, so if Jack gets lost while reading a sentence, that’s one he’ll call out as needing to be reworded for clarity. 

There’s one sentence in this chapter that we went back and forth over quite a lot: ‘The feeling of what might have been that seeing their wedding photo had elicited in her wasn’t some strange, misplaced jealousy, but rather the knowledge she carried deep in her soul, buried in her subconscious, that their story wasn’t over yet.’ It was originally even more wordy, and Jack would have preferred the final version be a lot more simple, but it just didn’t read right to me without ‘elicited’ so I stuck to my guns on that bit, even as I filed down some of the wordiness in other parts of the sentence.

Both for reworking a sentence and for writing big sections in the first place, my method is generally to write it and edit a little as I go, trying to get the word choice and pacing as close to what I want as I can on a first pass. Then I’ll let it sit, at the very least overnight but often for days or longer at a time, then come back and reread it when it isn’t so fresh in my mind. At that point, sometimes a phrase will jump at me as awkward or something I used just a paragraph or two earlier, so I’ll rewrite it, let it sit, come back and edit it all over again. Sometimes what seemed like plenty of room for an emotional beat when I was writing it will go by way too fast when I reread it, so I’ll add to it, give it space to breathe. Rinse and repeat.

For the record, Jack’s favorite line from this chapter is this bit of dialogue for the Doctor: ‘“Yes,” he allowed warily, clearly not sure where she was going with this.’ I imagine it’s probably for similar reasons as why he liked the ‘she didn’t add again but knew they were both thinking it’ bit from chapter 5. I try not to put my own marriage into my writing too much, but there are some experiences of being married that I think are probably pretty universal.

@ephemeralhologram asked about my writing inspiration, and for me my writing is always driven by a kernel of a what-if idea and a desire to convey a certain emotion. I almost always start out with a ‘plotbunny’ idea, some tiny thing that I daydream about and consider from multiple angles until a plot and emotional tone starts coming into focus. 

For Ghost Story, it was actually a shitpost here on Tumblr about a real estate agent having a conversation with the ghost who haunts the house they’re trying to sell, along with wanting to try telling a Twelve/Clara story in an alternate universe completely separate from the show canon, which I had never done before Ghost Story. The emotional tone started out much sillier, more in line with that Tumblr post, but as I got into the world-building and decided I wanted to have a mystery and mutual pining at the center of this story, the tone shifted quite a lot.

The other major drivers of writing inspiration for me are that I enjoy putting words together into interesting and emotionally evocative combinations, and I enjoy conveying character emotion and eliciting emotion in the reader. No matter what fandom I’m writing in, no matter how close to canon or how AU, how short or long the story is, those two things are always at the center of my writing.

I walk around the house or do chores that I don’t have to focus on too much (dishes are excellent for this) just tossing around bits of dialogue in my head until I find an emotional beat that grabs me or a bit of phrasing that I really like. I jot those down into a googledoc -- most of my DW stories start out in a doc called “Doctor Who Bits” that is in fact just fragments of multiple stories, and then eventually a story will graduate into having its own dedicated googledoc. Figuring out the plot is just as much about deciding on the emotional journey I want to take the characters and/or the readers on as it is deciding on an order of events.

Thank you to @tounknowndestinations​, @ephemeralhologram​, and @praetyger​ for the questions! I am more than happy to answer any questions about my writing process or details about this story, or anything really, so feel free to hit me up in my ask, or in the comments on this post, or in a comment over on AO3. Thank you to everyone who has followed along with this story, and for all the support and encouragement you’ve offered along the way, I couldn’t have written this story without this wonderful little corner of the Whouffaldi fandom! ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 7: The Museum

[cryoculus]

More love for Semi please? Anything will do, your writing is exquisite in any form anyway :D

» Word Count: 1,857 wordsCross-posted on AO3

SORRY THIS IS SO LATE :(( I actually wrote three chapters’ worth of content for him already and you can read the whole thing on the ao3 link.(NOTE: This is based on the current events of the final arc of the Haikyuu manga. I tagged it as a spoiler but I won’t really go into the specifics of what’s going on. Semi is our main focus here ^__^)

—

“Please?”

“No,” was your flat reply.

Semi heaved a long sigh, mouth twitching into an irritated grimace. You returned his reaction with a sassy look of your own—one, finely penciled brow quirked as bright, red lips rivalled the adamance that Semi brought about. While you were in no position to tell him to just go back to his cubicle and get today’s work done (you, sadly, held the same position in office), you at least had the right to turn him down. Your department had a monthly financial report coming up. Why on Earth did he want your help writing a song?

“Come on,” he groaned. “You know I’d eat my fist first before asking for your help, but our manager really digs your old pieces from college.”

Your eye twitched.

“Way to beg for someone’s aid in a time of dire need,” you bit back sarcastically. “Go do it then.”

“What?”

“Eat your whole fist.” You gave him a pointed look, even making a show of paying attention by putting your pen down.

Your co-worker let out a frustrated groan, fingers carding through his messy, ashen hair. The gesture made the tattoos on his chest visible for a second, before disappearing again behind his barely done button-up. It was a mystery, how a man like him made it as a public servant—with his flamboyant piercings and tip-dyed hair—but you supposed you should learn to look past physical appearances. The agency allowed it, so why should you make a fuss?

Ah, right. Semi Eita was the most hot-headed man in your department, and he had a knack for picking fights with you.

“If you get the balance sheet done by five o'clock, I might reconsider,” you told him, not really meaning the words, as you directed your attention back at the paperwork on your desk. Balance sheets are the toughest to fill out, since the data needed had to be collated from different sectors of the city. You highly doubted that Semi, with his thinner-than-a-strand-of-hair patience, could finish it in one sitting.

“Deal.”

Your gaze hardened as you looked back up at him. “Come again?”

“Are you deaf?” he asked, folding lean arms across his chest. “I said it’s a deal.”

You couldn’t help the snort that made its way past your lips. Whatever his reasons may be, it was painfully obvious that he was desperate. But still. You knew that he wouldn’t be able to carry out the deed in your given deadline, but instead of talking him out of his own agreement, you merely shook your head in acceptance.

Semi eventually stalked off to his cubicle; the one just in front of yours. There was a divider that separated each employee’s workspace from the others, and it at least granted some semblance of privacy from outside gazes. You’ve been to Semi’s cubicle a couple of times—more to coordinate paperwork than engage in conversation, really—and he decorated his personal space exactly how a part-time rock band vocalist would. Though he didn’t exactly put up posters and painted the walls black, he added his own flair to his desk with guitar figurines, neon stickers on his desktop, and a photo of his bandmates enclosed in a sparkly picture frame.

The only reason you bothered looking so closely was the fact that you also went to the same university together (under the same degree, too!) You’ve always been keen around him, with his loud way of living, as opposed to you, who’s always chosen to live simply and without pretentiousness. Sure, the disparity between your lifestyles had caused you to be at each other’s throats since freshman year, but it was still a surprise that your synergy was top notch. You would, as Semi put it so delicately, eat your fist first before admitting to the fact, but it’s a given that you preferred to work with him instead of other, unfamiliar people.

You sighed, brandishing a bored look at the bleak document in front of you. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to help him out…

But when you recalled every time he’s talked over you during board meetings, sneered at you when he got a higher score during exams, and his distateful behavior in general, you steeled your resolve.

Either he’s going to get that balance sheet over with or he’ll keel over. If he wanted your help, he’s going to have to work for it.

—

You were in the middle of fixing your belongings when the sound of a stack of papers hitting your desk rang in your ears.

“There,” Semi said breathlessly, making you look up at him in surprise. He even tossed a flash drive on top of the papers he deposited, where you saw the city hall’s heading printed in full color. You reluctantly checked your phone for the time. 16:57, it said, in a mockingly bold typeface before shoving it in your pocket.

The damn guy really did get it done before five.

“The electronic document is saved in there, in case you lose the print.” He was panting at this point, and you had a vague idea as to why he looked like he just ran a marathon. The one printer in your department (this year’s budget was cut) broke down a few days ago, and the nearest functional one was at the Logistics office three floors down.

Still refusing to believe it, you peered at the documents he just brought in. You scanned each of the entries printed on each page. That’s when you realized that Sendai City’s expenses have skyrocketed since the new year because the list of expenses occupied a whole page alone. A worried sigh made its way past your lips, but at least the liabilities were cut down to a minimum. You heard that the governor of Miyagi was going to pledge a few hundred thousand yen for the city’s founding anniversary, too.

You paused. Blinking, you rearranged the papers neatly back into its pile—biting back the urge to clutch your wounded pride. Semi was looking at you expectantly, like he wanted you to praise his flawless bookkeeping.

In actuality, his determination was beginning to freak you out.

“Why do you want me to help you so badly?” you asked, voice almost trembling. “Seriously, dude. I thought we hated each other. Quit acting out of character.”

“I told you, our manager really liked the songs you composed back in senior year,” he drawled, tired of having to repeat himself.

Your face twisted in confusion. “Who even is this manager of yours?”

There was a half-second delay in his response, but before you could paint a reason for his hesitation, he immediately replied with, “Saito. Saito Makoto.”

You stiffened, gaze going rigid at the mention of that name. “Oh.”

“Yeah. If I manage to give him a piece by the end of the month, he’ll help us sign a contract with a big-shot record label,” Semi explained, oblivious to your discomfort.

“But haven’t you been writing songs since high school?” you wondered aloud. “That’s what you said during our Pol-Gov class ice breaker.”

He frowned. “You still remember that?”

Okay. You kept forgetting that your sharp memory wasn’t always a praiseworthy thing. You gulped, feeling the heat creep up your face. “Um, anyway, the point still stands. You’ve been writing songs for God-knows-how-long, and while I’m not one to dish out compliments especially to you, I’m pretty sure they’re okay if you managed to gather a decent fanbase.”

He rolled his eyes, leaning against the divider of your cubicle. “We’re a rock band. I write rock songs, but Saito wants me to write a goddamn love song.”

Typical Saito. Though he looked like a rugged high school delinquent, he was awfully sentimental when it came to music. He was the one who inspired you to write the songs Semi was pestering you about all day after all…

“Fine,” you relented. “I never go back on my word and since you did a…good job with this, I’ll help you out.”

His light brown eyes lit up for a moment, but Semi managed to mask his relief in a split second—containing his excitement in a single nod. “Are you free this Saturday? You can come by my place and we could start getting to work.”

Well, that was forward of him. You expected to work on the song in a coffee shop or something, but he went on ahead and invited you to his own humble abode anyway. You parsed through your weekend plans in your mind, and once you confirmed that you were free, you scribbled down your phone number on a sticky note. Almost five years of acquaintance and you’d never bothered giving it to him. Huh.

“Just text me the time and place,” you told him, pocketing the flash drive as you slipped the balance sheet in one of the empty folders in your organizer. “You better not pull anything funny and lead me to a secluded alley or something.”

Semi scoffed, folding the piece of paper and sticking it inside his trousers. “As if.”

You then slung your bag across your shoulders, grinning insincerely. “Glad we’re on the same page, then.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

With that, Semi exited your cubicle, leaving you no room to wonder why he didn’t even spare a quick ‘thank you’.

Just as you were smoothing out the creases on your pencil skirt, your phone began buzzing in the pocket of your blazer. Brows raised, you fished it out and unlocked it.

From: Makohey, wanna grab some dinner? its on me :3

Speak of the devil. You swallowed the lump in your throat, fingers shakily managing to type a coherent reply.

To: MakoYeah sure. Where to tho

From: Makocan we get some italian? ik u love the udon place across the street but akane’s having dinner w her friends there

From: Makocant have her seeing us together now do we

The way he put that so casually made your chest constrict with a too-familiar sensation. You heaved a deep breath, pursing your lips into a thin line as you sent a quick “Ok” text to end your conversation. Saito replied with those iffy heart-eyed emojis that he only ever used when he wanted something from you, and you had to compose yourself so you wouldn’t burst into tears right there.

“Oi.”

You almost jumped at the sound of Semi’s voice as he peered inside your cubicle once more. He clutched his suitcase in one hand, eyeing you curiously.

“What do you want?”

“You’re headed uptown, too, right?” he asked, and you nodded reluctantly. “Thought you’d want a lift.”

“Semi, just because I’m helping you achieve your dreams, doesn’t mean you have to be nice to me.” You laughed softly, tension easing from his uncalled for kindness.

He, however, looked unconvinced. “Do you want a ride or not?”

You raised your hands in defeat, managing a genuine smile. “Alright, fine. It’ll be a hellish commute anyway.”

You liked to think that that’s how you started becoming friends with your odd, hot-headed co-worker.

[arabellaflynn]

Hello, all. It has been a rough pandemic.

As you may have figured, since I am in the performing arts, I have been completely out of work since this shitshow began. The earliest venues will open up here in MA is September, which is not helpful for me, because I need to be out of my current place by 8/31. No one will rent to me on my Patreon income, so I've been trying to figure out how to supplement that with other online work.

My first thought, frankly, was camming. I'm attractive and I know that, and I don't care about being naked in "public". I have a lot of opinions on the legitimacy and legalization of sex work, but making a statement would be a convenient bonus; I'd be in it for the tips. As the appliance menagerie on the Flintstones used to say, "Eh. It's a living."

The best camera I currently have is attached to the slightly-less ancient laptop. You know, the one with the broken hinge that won't hold the screen up on the right. Only the wifi on that computer has quit working. The onboard chip was always kind of flaky, but for some reason it has chosen now to deteriorate to the point where it no longer acknowledges a router on the other side of the goddamn wall. Shooting in the living room with an ethernet cable is not an option, because another housemate is already doing that.

I bought a dual-band USB wifi adapter with antenna. It's a Realtek chip -- not gold-plated, but also not total junk. I specifically checked to make sure it worked with Ubuntu Bionic before I ordered. I have now installed three separate sets of drivers in three completely different ways, read everything ever written about this on AskUbuntu, and still the computer refuses to acknowledge its existence. Not even if I blacklist the onboard chip to keep it from falling back into previous bad habits.

The other elderly laptop (with the working wifi) has a cam that tops out at 640 x 480, which I suppose might squeak by as a tiny facecam on Twitch, or for tutoring where no one cares about pixelization. The microphone, however, is crap. It's a tinny omni on the screen bezel that likes room noise more than my voice. I don't have an external microphone, and there's no onboard Bluetooth for my wireless headset. So I bought a USB Bluetooth adapter, which this computer is ignoring as hard as the other one is the wifi dongle. I have a wired headset with a mic, but because this computer is probably mere months too old to know what to do with an inline mic on the same jack as the output signal, it doesn't register at all.

The camera on my phone is potato quality, because that is honestly about how much the phone cost. Ditto the refurb Kindle. Neither is smart enough to keep up with streaming video, which I found out when I tried to do a video rehearsal for something months ago. 

I have no place to do any kind of professional non-entertainment streaming work (e.g., tutoring) with my terrible equipment in any event. I don't own a desk. If a free desk appeared on my doorstep tomorrow, I would have nowhere to put it. My bedroom is small enough to contravene the Geneva Convention requirements for POW cells and I'm basically stuck in here, for reasons of both air conditioning and not having to interact with a house full of people who very much want me gone.

What I do have is a set of working emulators and some free video editing software, so I decided to take a stab at a subtitled Let's Play. I can certainly ramble on for 30 or so hours of Final Fantasy II. At the very least it'll give me something scheduled to do. So I pulled everything out and set it up, only to find that my controller was "pining for the fjords" -- no lights, no acknowledgement from RetroArch, no response to any button presses.

...

...okay, well, at least we're down to a level of equipment I can afford to replace. So I am waiting for the mail carrier to bring me another $10 gamepad, whilst stuck in bureaucratic hell. I'm down to emergency public assistance, which keeps asking me to send them random documents, inconveniently one at a time. Even when I can submit them online I'm required to wait a minimum of 2-3 business days before a human can look at them. I'm trying to not be mad -- they are clearly horribly overworked -- but it also leaves me with a lot of time to do nothing but busy-wait. They've finally decided I'm destitute enough for food stamps, so now I have to sit on my hands until the card arrives in the mail.

The chronic, crushing lack of resources is not helped by (or helping) the fact that I'm just not functioning very well. I was already on the edge of disintegration when the lockdown orders hit anyway; I was taking every piece of work I could find in an effort to scrape together enough for first/last/deposit on a new apartment, and honestly that's more than I can handle. I can consistently get to about 20 hours of "stuff that can't be done while in bed, wearing pajamas" per week, with occasional spikes up to about 30, before I start losing the ability to take care of myself. I skip showers, let my living space become a complete disaster area, and go to bed without dinner because the whole process of choosing something to eat, preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up after myself is so overwhelming that I just burst into tears and don't do it. I fed the rats twice a day and cleaned their cage once or twice a week, but couldn't manage to do the same for myself.

It's difficult to explain to people the state of being physically and mentally exhausted without also being sweaty and shaky from muscle fatigue. Perhaps the single most salient example I can give is lying in bed at night and realizing I kind of vaguely needed to pee. Not like urgently -- just enough that I knew if I didn't, I'd wake up the next day with an uncomfortably full bladder. Then just lying there anyway, not because I thought suffering was noble or I deserved it or anything idiotic like that, but just because taking care of it would involve standing up, walking into another room, and initiating a new task, and I did not have the capacity to do any of those things.

If you suggest I start making a to-do list, I will sit down right now and invent a brand new Blunt Object Transfer Protocol (botp://) expressly for the purpose of punching you, personally, in the face over the goddamn internet. I will even credit you in the patent application. I will not share the licensing profits, which judging from social media right now, would be approximately all of the money on the face of the Earth. I do not need "life hacks". 

What I really need is a case worker, or possibly a babysitter, or just to have shown up at the ER about two months ago, because that is the only way I have ever found to get people to pay attention when I ask for help. Otherwise I get triaged out of sight and out of mind -- they ask if I'm suicidal, I tell them no, they tell me 'okay, here's a prescription for six Xanax and a packet of resources, go home and fix it yourself'. I'm just like, you sons of bitches, do you think I don't know how to Google things? If I could fix this on my own, I wouldn't be talking to you. Except I can't right now, because plague.

Everyone wants to fob me off on someone else. I was referred to an SSDI attorney by a friend, because frankly that's where I'm at right now. I wrote to them, specifically mentioning his name and the associate who helped him, and explained that I was basically a vegetable and I needed help applying for disability. I'm a college-educated suburban white girl, who grew up hearing her parents make rude jokes about welfare queens -- I have no idea how any of this works and I'm so broken I kept losing my place in a blanket whose pattern was literally "knit-purl-knit-purl to end of row; turn work over; repeat". Their response was "Sounds like you need some help applying for SSDI/SSI disability. Here's the website for the Boston Bar Association, good luck!" Crisis lines of both the psychiatric and financial varieties keep directing me to one of two national clearinghouse sites for social support services, both of which direct me to each other, because neither has any programs in my area.

I am trying really, really hard not to resent the ever-loving fuck out of anyone who has any sort of support system right now. One housemate has almost the exact same list of medical problems that I do, and is also completely out of work right now. She is married to the one who has a grown-up salaried WFH IT job, and will never have to worry about having a roof over her head or food in the cabinets. The single housemate has supportive family literally a five minute walk down the street; if she ever gets her feet kicked out from under her, she can stay with them temporarily while she scrambles back up. Another friend yote out to California right before lockdown to stay with his family. A local offered to help me with paperwork, then ghosted me intermittently before explaining that he was having a hard time himself right now and barely had the capacity for his own life. I have an elderly rat, no more savings, and no options.

I don't even know how I'm going to move the little I own. How do you even ask people to do that in the middle of a pandemic? If I don't have the money to move, I definitely don't have the money for a moving company, and I'm envisioning all of my community-minded friends pursing their lips in judgement and declining because like all the good people they are diligently social distancing.

I have also discovered, while hauling an empty suitcase out to Watertown and a full one back home again, that I do not cope well with face masks. It's fine if I'm not doing much, especially if I'm in a climate-controlled space like a store or the T, but as soon as I exert myself at all, I see spots. And no, it is not a matter of "just get used to it"; I have tested this by trying to wear a mask during my home workouts. It is just stuffy enough under there, and there is just enough reduction in air flow, that the world keeps going all film-grainy and dark on the sides, which I know from experience is the first step on a very short path to the Magical Land of Syncope. I had to stop during the outdoor trek and sit on the suitcase about twice a block through the commercial district, where it stayed on because there were people. This was when it was 72 whole degrees out (and the AC is generally on 74°F inside) which doesn't bode well for moving my heavy shit around in late August. 

I'm normally good at catching things at the weird-vision stage, although enough random strangers and T employees have asked me if I'm okay that I have to assume I look as ill as I feel at that point. And I have an absolutely tragic talent for talking people out of calling emergency services when I do actually keel over, but everyone is so health-panicked that I don't think it would work right now. I know what's happened and why, but I can't exactly communicate that to bystanders when I'm unconscious. As nice as EMS is, I don't feel like waking up to a round of Twenty Questions ("How many fingers am I holding up? Who's the President? Do you have a seizure disorder?"). So I just don't go out.

Alison over at Ask A Manager got a question about this the other day that suggests this is considered legitimate can't-(always-)wear-a-mask territory, and I am able to wear a mask where required in MA, which is indoors/during interactions with other people when it's actually useful, so I don't have any qualms on the scientific or legal front. I have just never been a good judge of how much potential peril/damage it's "reasonable" to put up with, and I don't have the capacity to explain myself over and over again a million times a day. 

I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of covid, I'm tired of living in a big glitzy continent-spanning banana republic, I'm tired of anxiety, I'm tired of other people carping at me to do things I can't in order to fix their anxiety for them, I'm tired of not having the space to dance, I'm tired of asking for help before things fall apart and being told 'well, come back when it is an emergency', and most of all I'm tired of this cycle where I tell myself "I'm going to stop being lazy! I'm going to put on my big-girl pants and wake up early and work 40 hours a week and support myself like an adult!" and then fail at it again because I just do not have the capacity to do that. I do not know how to make the system understand that I need some kind of support right now. 

Sorry for yet another depressing update, but that's where I am right now.

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[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/anna-delvey-the-trial-of-new-yorks-fake-heiress/

Anna Delvey: The trial of New York's fake heiress

Image copyright BFA

Just how far can you get in the New York City socialite scene without a real fortune of your own?

Incredibly far, in the case of Anna Delvey – real name Anna Sorokin – who allegedly tricked the city’s elite into thinking she was a billionaire heiress. She reportedly hired a private jet, went to all the best parties, and threw cash at everyone she saw – a $100 (£78) tip if you carried her bag or were her Uber driver.

Yet, ultimately, her time at the top was short-lived. And it unravelled spectacularly.

In real life, Ms Sorokin had no multi-million-dollar trust fund. According to New York Magazine, her father is a former trucker, who runs a heating-and-cooling business.

After her credit cards began to fail – repeatedly – and she was kicked out of the luxury hotels she lived in, other people were left to pick up the extortionate bills, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Following a month-long trial, Ms Sorokin has now been found guilty of multiple offences, including stealing more than $200,000 – after racking up debts and fraudulently trying to secure major bank loans.

“As proven at trial, Anna Sorokin committed real white-collar felonies over the course of her lengthy masquerade,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement announcing the conviction.

Ms Sorokin, who chose not to testify and pleaded not guilty, now faces up to 15 years in prison and will be sentenced on 9 May.

So how did this woman in her mid-20s allegedly cause financial chaos across a city, leaving people picking up her tabs in the US and beyond?

‘Faking it’

Anna Delvey came to New York City on a mission. At least that is what she told people.

She wanted to start an arts centre, with a chic Soho House ethos. She was considering calling it the Anna Delvey Foundation, according to New York Magazine, and she claimed to have lined up renowned artist Christo for the inauguration. For the venue, she had her eye on a six-floor space – 45,000 sq ft (4,200 sq m) – in Church Missions House, a prestigious, late 19th Century building, on the corner of Park Avenue and 22nd Street.

There is a certain lifestyle that goes with such bold claims – and she was living it.

Jered Threatin: The fake rock star

Fyre: the world’s biggest festival flop

Speaking at the trial’s opening, defence lawyer Todd Spodek said: “Anna had to fake it until she could make it.”

He told jurors that Ms Sorokin was “easily seduced by glamour and glitz” when she saw how wealth – or the illusion of wealth – opened doors.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Anna Sorokin (right), then known as Anna Delvey, at a fashion event at a New York hotel in 2014

According to court documents, Ms Sorokin represented herself as a German heiress with $60m in assets to try to get a loan of $20m for her foundation. She allegedly presented forged bank statements and would also deposit bad cheques, then withdraw the money before they bounced.

Prosecutors said that, while she never managed to secure millions, she did get a temporary $100,000 overdraft with City National Bank – based on forged proof of foreign assets – but she failed to repay it with a wire transfer, as promised.

Instead, they say, she went on a one-month shopping spree, spending $55,000 on “her upkeep at 11 Howard (a luxury hotel), high-end fashion purchases from Net-a-Porter and Forward by Elyse Walker, sessions with a personal trainer, Apple, and other personal expenses”.

Her lawyer said she never intended to commit a crime.

“In her world, this is what her social circle did,” he told the jury. “Everyone’s life was perfectly curated for social media. People were fake. People were phoney. And money was made on hype alone.”

How it unfolded

“Wannabe socialite busted for skipping out on pricey hotel bills”, read a July 2017 headline in the New York Post.

This was followed, in April 2018, by a confessional first-person piece in Vanity Fair by one of the magazine’s photojournalists, saying she had been hoodwinked by Ms Sorokin.

Rachel DeLoache Williams became a key witness in the trial. “I wish I had never met Anna,” she said in the courtroom during a tear-soaked testimony.

She said she had met her at Manhattan nightclub Happy Ending. She said Ms Sorokin held court with tales of her proposed arts foundation and then picked up the tab for a bottle of vodka.

They became friends. Ms Williams wrote in her article about being seduced by the apparent “glamorous, frictionless” lifestyle. She enjoyed going out for espresso martinis and fancy dinners. Anna usually paid, referring to her trust fund, and this culminated in her inviting Ms Williams on a trip to Morocco.

Ms Williams wrote: “Anna also invited her personal trainer, along with a friend of mine – a photographer – whom, at a dinner the week before our trip, Anna had asked to come as a documentarian, someone to capture video.”

Getty Images

Anna’s was a beautiful dream of New York, like one of those nights that never seems to end. And then the bill arrives.

The photo editor was a key witness in the trial. One of the counts of larceny was directly linked to her experiences.

She told how Ms Sorokin asked her to reserve a luxury, $7,000-per-night riad in Marrakesh, complete with three bedrooms, a private swimming pool and a dedicated butler.

She said it was always intended that Ms Sorokin would pay the bill, but when they came to check out, her credit cards did not work.

Put on the spot, Ms Williams ended up footing the bill for the entire trip, which, including extras, came to approximately $62,000 for a six-night stay. Sorokin was acquitted of the charge related to that bill.

The photojournalist said she was left in tears and suffering regular panic attacks, consumed by the stress of trying to retrieve the money.

“It was a magic trick,” she wrote at the conclusion of her story. “I’m embarrassed to say that I was one of the props, and the audience, too. Anna’s was a beautiful dream of New York, like one of those nights that never seems to end. And then the bill arrives.”

Though Ms Williams’ magazine article had had people talking, it was an an article in New York Magazine in May 2018, by journalist Jessica Pressler, that really blew the lid on the scandal. She interviewed various people who had come across Ms Sorokin, including a concierge, Neffatari “Neff” Davis, also in her mid-20s, who worked at the 11 Howard hotel.

Ms Davis said Ms Sorokin arrived at the newly opened Soho hotel like a whirlwind in April 2017, block-booking a deluxe room (around $400 a night). Gestures, such as allegedly paying a personal trainer $4,500 in a cash advance, gave the impression she was wallowing in money. She also spent an inordinate amount of time at the concierge desk, said Ms Davis.

“Usually tourists just come in and ask how to get to the Statue of Liberty,” Ms Davis later told New York art and fashion magazine Paper. “But then, you have this girl who’s draped in Rick Owens, huge Céline glasses, messy hair, European accent, hundreds of dollars of bills on her and she’s literally just giving it to me, for my time?” She said she was used to being a makeshift therapist for guests travelling on their own. “It’s really none of my business where the money comes from,” she said.

But somewhere along the line, 11 Howard had made an apparent error of judgement. Staff had not got a credit card on file for Ms Sorokin. A major dispute broke out, according to Ms Davis.

However – perhaps surprisingly – Ms Sorokin did eventually settle that debt. She used the money from the City Bank overdraft.

In court, her lawyer said that his client “believed that she would have the funds to pay every single person back”. This was the crux of her case.

But jurors were not convinced.

An age-old ruse in a modern world

Many people have said this whole story is so specific to New York’s young socialites; how some people move in circles where they don’t know their friends’ surnames or background; how what matters most is the night out, the connections, the name-drops, the moment.

Ms Sorokin’s lawyer was keen to play into this. “Any millennial will tell you, it is not uncommon to have delusions of grandeur,” he said in court.

But writer and psychologist Maria Konnikova, the author of The Confidence Game – a book about con artistry – believes the case is full of elements that are both timeless and universal. “People love to think they are idiosyncratic, but this has happened over and over and over again, everywhere. Anna Delvey fit the New York scene, but this could have happened in London and even in a small town, if certain things were adapted.”

“Claiming to have an aristocratic edge is something that has been done for hundreds of years,” she says. “In the past, people would take out newspaper adverts, or befriend gossip columnists, or get photographed with the right people to bolster their credibility.”

But social media has made it easier, she concedes. “The barrier of entry is so much lower. We accept so much at face value, and we put so much out there.” Theoretically you should be able to vet people better, she says, but people are not being savvy.

Ms Sorokin was an active Instagram user, building a profile that made her look like a mover on the arts scene.

An arts story

Eileen Kinsella has been covering the story from the courtroom for New York-based art market website, Artnet.

She says it has made the art world sit up because there are always concerns about being duped. “You often don’t know who is on the other side of a transaction, and people do buy things they can’t afford,” she says.

She also says the city has been on a particularly high alert since a 2012 exposé of one of its most-established galleries – Knoedler – was exposed for selling fake works, supposedly by the likes of Jason Pollock and Mark Rothko. “People went to incredible lengths to make things seem authentic. It had huge implications.”

One of her Artnet colleagues, critic Ben Davis, also wrote a piece analysing the art content of Ms Sorokin’s Instagram account, noting her use of familiar hashtags, and posting works from major events: Frieze, Art Basel, the Venice Biennale and the openings at Pace Gallery.

It was, he concluded, a “thin tissue of celebrity and scene-y artists”. However, he added that the envy generated by social media has become a kind of currency of its own, and she had managed to create “crisply curated fabulousness”.

The ongoing season of scammers

The New York Magazine story about Ms Sorokin’s ruse was almost instantly optioned by Netflix, and linked with producer Shonda Rimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal).

Ms Williams’ story is being adapted for HBO, with writer Lena Dunham working on the screenplay. Ms Williams has also signed a book deal with Simon and Schuster.

People have been captivated by the idea of Ms Sorokin’s apparent audacity, and yet also left with so many questions: Why? What was the end game? Where did she come from? How come no-one guessed sooner? (Some have said that her unkempt hair should have been a giveaway. People who live in hotels have time on their hands for daily blow-dries. In court, Ms Williams said there were, in hindsight, plenty of “red flags”.)

There were rumours that Jennifer Lawrence might take the title role in the adaptation, however, the Oscar winner was then signed up to play up another so-called “millennial scammer” – Elizabeth Holmes, the deep-voiced entrepreneur who fraudulently built up the Silicon Valley company, Theranos.

Ms Holmes’ story has become the subject of various documentaries and podcasts. As has that of Billy McFarland, who created the infamous and completely hollow Fyre Festival. Both characters have been the subject of hit documentaries.

Image copyright Patrick McMullan

Image caption Billy McFarland (R) with former Fyre Festival employee Andy King, who became a memorable character in the Netflix documentary

TV critic Scott Bryan, who co-hosts BBC Must Watch, says such documentaries have become huge hits because they explore social media stories in such depth.

“The documentary that followed then provided a great amount of context and insight into how it all spiralled out of control and viewers learnt so much more than what they did from the original news story, when they initially thought that they weren’t going to do so. When these documentaries are done well, they can be equally, if not more compelling, than when we heard the story first time round,” he says.

Theranos founder in $700m fraud charge

Celebrity parents and the bizarre ‘cheating’ scandal

In the case of Ms Sorokin, some already view her as a sort of antihero. They admire her for gaming a system that few people will ever have access to.

Last summer, T-shirts saying Free Anna Delvey became the ironic must-have for Brooklynites. New York Magazine – via its website The Cut – also also saw an opportunity to profit off the story it had made viral and added a range of slogan tees to its online shop: “Fake German Heiress”; “My other shirt will wire you $30,000”.

Marie Claire magazine also explored the outpouring of enthusiasm for the story. “No-one died as a result of her actions, she just made rich people look like idiots,” it said. However, it also recognised the story’s alleged victims, notably Ms Williams.

A trial as a fashion show

Anna Sorokin was held in New York’s notoriously tough Rikers Island jail ahead of her trial.

Image copyright AFP

Since her detention, she has not been Instagramming from the inside, according to jail officials. After her detention, one of her posts was tagged with a Rikers location (“Throwback Thursday to @LeCouCou_NYC”), but the authorities say someone else must be managing the account.

She appears, however, to still be curating her image. She reportedly told Ms Davis – who remains a friend – that she would prefer if Margot Robbie played her in the Netflix production.

And she also worked with a stylist, Anastasia Walker, to get her courtroom look during the trial.

She arrived in the court room on the first day dressed in stylish black glasses and a matching choker, and went on to parade a number of other designer outfits: Saint Laurent, Michael Kors, Victoria Beckham.

Ms Walker told Elle magazine the look was “mysterious chic“. It won plenty of headlines.

One day, the proceedings were delayed because of wardrobe troubles and Justice Diane Kiesel gave her a verbal dressing down. “This is unacceptable and inappropriate,” she said. “This is not a fashion show.”

Yet multiple media outlets pulled together galleries of her in-court fashion, and an Instagram account (@annadelveycourtlooks) has picked up a few thousand followers.

Ultimately her lawyer, Todd Spodek, was keen to paint this as New York story, referencing the Frank Sinatra song in his opening and closing statements.

“In a city that favours money and the appearance of money… they both created their own opportunities,” he said.

“She was creating a business that she believed would work and she was buying time,” he argued.

Anna Sorokin was a part of it. But not for long.

Guilty of multiple crimes

She was found guilty on Thursday of four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny, and acquitted of one count of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny.

She also declined a plea deal, which could have resulted in a more lenient sentence if she agreed to return to Germany, where she lived after the age of 16, having been born in Russia.

She now faces deportation to Germany because she has overstayed her visa.

[my-dear-hammy]

Basking in Firelight-Jamilton Sequel-Part Forty Nine

Masterpost

Part Forty-Nine: The Cost of Presidency

Warnings below

----

Madison went every day to Jefferson's office where he made a report for the several cabinet members involved in the rebuilding of the infrastructure. It was easier just for Madison to give it to Jefferson all at once than have a bunch of people come flooding into the office with a bunch of fragments. Hamilton no doubt got the same from his own cabinet. As Madison went over the list of expenses and required steps, Jefferson rubbed his temples. "The cost, Madison, what's the overall cost?" Madison cleared his throat and told him. "Shit, we're in worse shape than I thought." Jefferson rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms.

"Shall I call it off?" Madison asked, looking at the outrageously long number.

"No. I'll call Hamilton in here so we can discuss and send it over to Congress straight away. Thanks for the report, Madison." Madison handed Jefferson the file, said his farewells and left, walking briskly toward his next assignment. Jefferson flipped open the file and looked lazily over the charts and numbers, each neatly labeled. He had to go to Hamilton office but he wasn't entirely sure he had enough energy to stand. Maybe a quick nap, his papers looked like the perfect pillow. No. He had work to do. Maybe Hamilton had coffee brewed already. Jefferson walked down the hallway and pushed open Hamilton's door.

"-just tell Jefferson, Alex."

"Angelica you-"

"Tell me what?" Jefferson's voice interrupted Hamilton's and Angelica's conversation.

"Holy shit! Jefferson? What do you want?" Hamilton yelled, startled by his sudden appearance.

Jefferson held up the file, "Paperwork. What did you need to tell me?"

Hamilton glanced to Angelica who gave him a look that said just do it. He sighed. "It's the emergency departments. Police, fire, all of them. They're shutting down all over the country, one by one from lack of government funding. We don't have enough money."

Fuck. Without police departments, anarchy could easily take hold. That's not good. "No pennies we can stretch?" Jefferson asked.

"None," Hamilton replied grimly.

"How much to keep them running?" Hamilton handed him a piece of paper.

This was just getting worse and worse. Jefferson paged Burr, knowing Madison wouldn't  be available. Jefferson handed Hamilton the file. "Here, sign off on this. It's the infrastructure plan."

Hamilton flipped it open, scanning over the words and charts, flipping pages until he found the total number. "Holy-" Burr walked into through the door.

"Burr," Jefferson greeted.

"Sir."

Jefferson stole paper from Hamilton's desk, wrote something down, and handed it to Burr. "Transfer this amount to the proper departments listed here." He handed the paper to Burr who took it and saw to it immediately.

"Jefferson, did you just-"

"Don't worry about it, Hamilton. Just sign those papers and send them to Congress pronto so we can get going again. Lovely seeing you, again Angelica," he said on his way out the door.

Angelica rushed over to Hamilton to look down at the file and swore. "How are we going to fund this infrastructure plan, Hamilton? We can't even find the police."

"Don't worry about it, Ang. We've got it all figured out."

"I'll start some fundraisers," she said, picking up her own pile of documents and walking out the door.

Hamilton picked up a pen and signed the file.

***

Hamilton walked into Jefferson's office to find him fast asleep, surrounded by an outrageously tall stack of finished paperwork. Looks like Jefferson managed to get all caught up on his work and decided the desk was a suitable replacement for a bed. Hamilton smirked and snapped another picture. The last one he took was still he phone's background photo. Jefferson was just so cute in it, with his glasses all askew.

Hamilton put away his phone and set the stack of paperwork he needed Jefferson to look over and sign on his desk. He felt a little bad since Jefferson had just finished. Hamilton's desk was also finally clean. He glanced over at the stack Jefferson completed, well, not now, he'd have to go through those ones too. It could wait. Neither he or Jefferson had slept in a week and they needed the rest before they died. Hamilton gently shook Jefferson awake. "Hamilton?" he said groggily, not lifting his head. "What do you need?"

"For you to stand up and go to bed."

"Ehhh."

"I would carry you but I'm not strong enough."

Jefferson's head shot up from the table, a piece of paper stuck to his cheek. "I can carry myself," he said, only half conscious.

"Carry? No. No, you can't, that impossible. Walk? Yes, that you can do."

Jefferson swayed to his feet and walked down the hall, Hamilton following to make sure he didn't pass out on the floor or walk into a closet. Although if he did pass out, Hamilton was definitely shoving him in a broom closet. Sadly, he didn't get the chance. Jefferson managed to make it to his room and collapse on his bed, falling asleep instantly. Hamilton found his way to his own bed.

***

"Mr. Presidents!" All four vice presidents burst through the door of Hamilton's office in the middle of a very heated argument between Jefferson and Hamilton. They both cut off and turned to ask for news.

"The infrastructure is running well enough now that we can collect taxes again," Madison reported.

"The emergency departs are up and running at full efficiency," Angelica said happily.

"The Western and Independent (aka the fuck the rest of you states) States of America have entered into commercial agreements," Adams said.

"Education centers are also up and running again," Burr reported.

Hamilton and Jefferson looked at each other and grinned. They did good. It wouldn't be long before it was smooth sailing. A decade or so maybe. If things kept up the way they were going.

"Great work everyone!" Jefferson cheered, "We're making great headway!"

"For how much we have to fix and get running again, we're making astounding progress," Hamilton said.

"The percentage that this government held together to this stage without falling into anarchy was extremely low," Madison said, "I'm impressed. But it's still extremely low that this'll all work."

"Buzzkill," Angelica muttered. "I know! Party! Time to celebrate!"

Jefferson chuckled, "Maybe you guys can. Get Lafayette, Mulligan, Laurens, Peggy, and Eliza and go have fun. I've got work to do."

"And everyone says I'm the stick in the mud," Burr commented. Adams slipped out the door with no one noticing.

"Actually, he's right. We've got too much to do. Plus, we've got to address the nation soon. That has to be planned. Then there's the Presidential Manor, it's almost complete which means we'll have to deal with a move. And then add dealing with Govey uprisings, ambassadors and commerce agreements, financial systems. We've got too much to go over and pass on to Congress," Hamilton gestured to the Leaning Tower of Paper on his desk.

"You two used to be the life of the party. What happened?" Angelica asked.

"Presidency," Jefferson sighed.

***

The group left to go party. Hamilton's and Jefferson's absence wasn't going to stop them. So Jefferson and Hamilton went back to their discussion.

"You're such an ostentatious little shit!" Hamilton yelled.

"And you're a pretentious fucker!" Jefferson shot back.

"Asshole."

"Bastard."

Hamilton paused for a split second. He stepped closer, getting Jefferson's face. "You're just afraid," he hissed.

"Afraid of what?" Jefferson growled. His body was hot from the argument, from the insults and facts they'd been spitting back and forth.

"Afraid my system will turn your precious Republic into an aristocracy of corporations."

"Of course I am! It happened the first time too and it turned into this mess of a nation!"

"I don't see you thinking of anything," Hamilton retorted.

"I'm not signing it. I regretted this same decision for the rest of my last life and this one the first time. No way am I repeating it."

"It's not the same as before!" Hamilton's hair had fallen out of its bun hours ago and now it was falling in his face much to Jefferson's annoyance.

"It's close enough." Jefferson swiped the hair from Hamilton's face. "I'm not signing it."

"You're stuck in the past, Thomas. I just bettered the system that was in place before the war. Even if I thought it was a good idea to replace it entirely, which I don't, the sudden massive change would trigger an economic meltdown and send us spiraling into depression. Look around, there's no gold and silver backing anymore at this point. This is what we have and if we don't put it in place soon, we won't have anything, including a nation."

Jefferson may have been slightly distracted. Hamilton was standing way too close for Jefferson's comfort but he couldn't bring himself to step away. Hamilton's soft lips were forming angry words rapidly, Jefferson could feel his hot breath on his skin. "Alexander, the corporations will easily-"

Hamilton cut him off, "We have checks against them now. They can't overpower the government and take control like last time."

"Oh my fucking God, do you ever shut up?"

"Not when I'm right."

"You're never right," Jefferson.

Hamilton leaned in slightly to try and show dominance subconsciously. Jefferson refused to back down. "I'm always right," Hamilton hissed.

"You're disillusioned." Jefferson didn't think he could take this anymore. Hamilton was just so hard headed, every single one of his barbed words made Jefferson's heart beat faster, his skin grow hotter. Hamilton was so close, staring him down with those brilliant dark eyes that sparked with intelligence and burned with a fiery passion that fueled his words.

Jefferson loved that look. That look Hamilton only had when they argued.

"Sign the fucking bill."

"Give up and shut your mouth about your stupid plan."

"Make me," Hamilton growled.

Jefferson shoved Hamilton against the wall, Hamilton's eyes going wide with shock. Jefferson never resorted to physical confrontation when they fought. Hamilton regathered his thoughts in seconds, ready to push him off. "Jefferson what do you think you're-"

"I keep reliving one moment," Jefferson said heavily, head dipping down, his breath hot in Hamilton's ear.

Oh.

"One moment I can remember with you, me, and a wall."

Oh.

"And it drives me crazy."

"Thomas," Hamilton breathed, his chest aching. "What exactly are you thinking of doing?"

Jefferson pulled back enough to look Hamilton in the eyes. "I'm thinking of kissing you so deeply and so through, you won't be able to think straight for a week."

Fuck.

Jefferson's lips hovered just above his, his body pressed flush against him to where Hamilton could feel every inch of Jefferson's body. Jefferson hung his head, "But I can't.." He pulled away and made for the door.

"No, Thomas, wait-"

"We're the Presidents, Alexander," he said quietly as Hamilton's office door clicked shut behind him.

That mother fucker.

----

Warnings: Sexual tension, arguing.

[cryptowavesxyz]

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

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The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Crypto Waves.

from Crypto Waves https://ift.tt/3aU9GEY

[noisyunknownturtle]

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

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The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on For Crypto.

from For Crypto https://ift.tt/3d1akma

[angryconnoisseurface]

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

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The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Tip Crypto.

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[coinfirst]

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

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The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on Coin First.

from Coin First https://ift.tt/2vtpfok

[coinretreat]

Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

Bitcoin price drops to $3,637, rebounds above $5,200 within minutes

Whenever there’s a big crash on the stock market, traders on Wall Street are often pictured with their heads in their hands — surrounded by a sea of screens with red numbers. This week, it was crypto’s turn. Bitcoin prices had been relatively stable in the high $7,000s at the start of the week… then Thursday happened. BTC dramatically fell by 17% in the space of an hour — taking it below $6,000 for the first time since May 2019. Hours later, BTC was under $5,000. But the sell-offs were far from over. Later that evening, BTC slumped to $3,637 only to rebound above $5,200 within minutes. The meltdown means that, at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 33% compared to where it was last Sunday. Analysis from Keith Wareing suggests there are reasons to be optimistic: True hodlers are unfazed, newcomers can enter the market at lower prices, and catastrophic sell-offs are now much less likely. The carnage also means the number of people owning 1 BTC has hit a new record. More than $50 billion has been wiped off Bitcoin’s market cap over the past seven days. Uncertainty surrounding the ever-worsening coronavirus pandemic means we could end up waiting a while for a bounceback.

MakerDAO community to vote on upgrades, conduct debt auction

Of course, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency that’s been having a bad week. Thursday also saw ETH prices take a beating — and this was especially problematic for the decentralized finance community. MakerDAO briefly explored the prospect of an emergency shutdown after the crash left millions of dollars in debt under-collateralized. Voting is now underway to determine how the lending protocol should tackle this crisis. Despite the “perfect storm,” many executives in the DeFi community remain confident in the ecosystem. Some believe that harsh lessons will be learned as a result of the crash, with InstaDApp CEO Sowmay Jain saying: “Such painful times remind us that we are extremely early in the space, and there’s still lots of room for improvement.”

Some Indian banks are still “arbitrarily” refusing to process crypto transactions

Earlier in March, a controversial ban that stopped banks from offering services to crypto-related firms was overturned by India’s Supreme Court. If you thought this would be the end of it, you were badly mistaken. This week, lawyers claimed that certain financial institutions are still arbitrarily denying to process crypto-related transactions. It seems these domestic banks are waiting for further confirmation from the Reserve Bank of India — which instigated the ban in the first place and is planning to appeal the ruling. It’s also possible that the country’s parliament will revisit a proposed law that would see anyone caught dealing in cryptocurrencies will face up to 10 years in prison. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a happy ending for India’s crypto community anytime soon.

Exclusive: A major French bank is blocking customers from using Coinbase

BNP Paribas is apparently blocking customers from sending funds to Coinbase, a major crypto exchange. The French banking giant’s restrictions seem to have come into force over the past week — and transfers to other crypto trading platforms appear to be taking place as usual. A source told Cointelegraph that Coinbase is considered an “illegal operation,” and the restrictions look like they were imposed with very little notice. Fraud, malware, scams and the anonymous coin Monero were among the factors that led to the decision.

Bitcoin miner stumbles upon $8 million stash from 2010, sells before crash

In a week of doom and gloom, it’s worth ending our news roundup on a high note. A former Bitcoin miner has stumbled upon an old wallet that contained 1,000 Bitcoins, which also included myriad forks. It’s believed that the BTC was mined a long time ago, and the wallet.dat file was recently found on a USB stick. The lucky miner, identified on Reddit as “whoamisoon,” had turned to Reddit on Tuesday for advice on how the coins could be moved onto an exchange — and later that day, 1,000 BTC appeared to be making their way to Coinbase. A post on Thursday suggested that whoamisoon managed to liquidate everything before prices crashed. Whoamisoon wrote: “Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $5,342.51, Ether at $125.01 and XRP at $0.15. The total market cap is at $153,190,529,804.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Multi-collateral DAI, USD Coin and Paxos Standard. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Matic Network, Maker and Algorand.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The MakerDAO had a +$500K surplus before the price drop and now has a -$4M surplus that needs to be filled.”

MakerDAO

“We are in the middle of a revolution in payments. Banknotes — the bank’s most accessible form of money — are being used less frequently to make payments.”

Bank of England

“If I interpret the chart without bias, I would say sub $1,000.”

Peter Brandt, veteran trader

“Insane theory of the day: There was no BitMEX hardware issue.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda CEO

“Banks’ refusal to provide services for the sale/purchase of crypto assets is absolutely illegal, unjust and arbitrary in the eyes of the law and the same amounts to wilful disobedience to the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Mohammed Danish, fintech lawyer

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason.”

Edward Snowden

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin under $1,000 is possible, warns veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the aftermath of Bitcoin crashing below $4,000, one experienced market analyst had an alarming prediction that the worst may be yet to come. Peter Brandt — who is famous for correctly predicting the market crash from the all-time high — said the new bottom is potentially “sub-$1,000” if he interprets BTC charts without bias. That would be a fall of more than 80% from their current level. Brandt is no crypto skeptic, and he often makes predictions that are more bullish than bearish. In the past, he’s suggested that parabolic increases in BTC charts could see it hit $140,000. His latest analysis will be something that many in the crypto world don’t want to hear.

FUD of the Week

Judge slams Craig Wright for forged documents and perjured testimony

A judge has attacked Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving a perjured testimony. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has been fighting a ruling that is forcing him to hand over more than 500,000 BTC to the family of Dave Kleiman, his late business partner. Judge Bruce Reinhart has questioned Wright’s credibility and said during a hearing: “I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence.” Wright is under pressure to provide documentation detailing how many Bitcoins are held by the so-called “Tulip Trust.”

BitMEX denies it made Bitcoin price drop to $3,700 after going offline

The crypto crash was bad news for BitMEX. During frenzied trading activity as prices fell off a cliff, the exchange faced unexpected downtime. This sparked rumors of foul play, with BitMEX officials rejecting the allegations as a “conspiracy theory.” The outage meant the company’s services suffered disruption between 2:16 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. UTC on Friday — minutes after BTC prices had suddenly tanked below $4,000. BitMEX says a “hardware issue with our cloud service provider” was the reason requests were delayed.

Revealed: How North Korea laundered $100 million of stolen crypto

A blockchain forensics firm has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals linked to North Korea laundered stolen cryptocurrency worth tens of millions of dollars. According to CipherTrace’s findings, the pair are believed to be associated with the Lazarus Group — cybercriminals who were responsible for 2014’s Sony breach and 2017’s WannaCry ransomware epidemic. The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals. It is believed “peel chains” were used to obfuscate the size of funds being deposited to any given wallet.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Zooko’s Triangle: The human-readable paradox at the heart of crypto adoption

Memorable, decentralized, secure: Can you really only pick two? Maya Middlemiss looks at the trilemma facing crypto advocates as blockchain domain names become more common.

Fintech in the United Kingdom after Brexit

Because of the coronavirus, many have lost sight of major issues such as Brexit. Thankfully, Sarah Hall hasn’t. Here’s her look at how the financial technology sector may change after the U.K.’s transition period ends on Dec. 31.

French court moves the BTC chess piece — how will regulators respond?

A court in France has ruled that Bitcoin is a fungible, intangible asset — sending ripples through the crypto community. Is this an important milestone for further development in the crypto market? Andrew Singer finds out.

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The post Crypto Carnage, Fears of $1,000 BTC, MakerDAO Crisis: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 9–15 appeared first on CoinRetreat.

from CoinRetreat https://ift.tt/39SsB3b

[travelworldnetwork]

By Victoria Stunt

18 January 2019

If I closed my eyes, I could see her. It was Friday evening in July 1956. Thirty-one and travelling alone, my grandmother had just arrived at Mexico City’s Hotel Geneve. She’d be tired; she would have just stepped off a five-day bus journey from Toronto. More than 60 years later, I could relate. Twenty-six and travelling alone, I had listless bags under my eyes, and I was checking into the same hotel.

There I was – ready for her spirit to guide me

I arrived in Mexico City a few hours before – luckily by plane, but nevertheless exhausted from an overnight jaunt. I’ve been based in Medellín, Colombia, for the last four years, but Mexico City has always lured me. And now, I finally had an excuse to make the trip.

Amidst boxes of old letters belonging to my maternal grandmother Jean, my own mother had recently found her old tour itinerary for Mexico City; it listed the hotel room where my grandmother stayed, the sites she visited and receipts from the stores where she shopped.

Following her itinerary would be an experience, I thought. Perhaps something to pay homage to Jean. So, as her only granddaughter, there I was – ready for her spirit to guide me around the centuries-old city.

View image of More than 60 years after her grandmother, Jean, arrived in Mexico City, writer Victoria Stunt decided to retrace her steps (Credit: Credit: robertharding/Alamy)

You may also be interested in: • What it means to know when to leave • Where people speak the Aztec language • The islands of unbridled imagination

My grandmother died when I was 14, and for years, she stood still in my memory as a patient woman with salt-and-pepper hair. Born in China to missionary parents, Jean spent her 20s and early 30s travelling throughout Canada and the United States as a nurse. She raised four kids in the small Canadian city of Thorold and cared for me, my brother and our cousins every summer in nearby Niagara Falls. She obliged us to write summer diaries, habitually loaded us in her minivan and drove us to a nearby pond to catch frogs. When I got tired of playing with the boys, we’d sit down in a quiet spot, I’d lean against her and she’d read me a book.

My grandmother didn’t tell me much about travelling in her younger years; according to my mother, Jean didn’t talk about herself a great deal. That’s why, we both concluded, reading through her old letters and documents was so intriguing. They acquainted us with a different version of Jean.

View image of Stunt was inspired to travel to Mexico City after reading her grandmother's letters and sorting through her old documents (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

Back on that Friday night in 1956, she was young, single and unrestrained. She’d crossed two borders and travelled for days through dusty desert. At a time when many women were expected to stay home and keep house, my grandmother was unfettered in Mexico City – and at liberty to explore it on her own terms.

Based on her crumpled itinerary, Jean left Toronto with a loose tour that listed ‘at leisure in Mexico’ on the itinerary. She rode the Greyhound bus through Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; and Laredo, Texas. According to Jean – and as retold by her father Rundall in a letter to all his children – the ‘buses had gotten progressively shakier and shoddier as she travelled southward’. Several buses had broken down, as had their air conditioning systems.

Still, everything was going as programmed. “Alors – mañana – over the border!” wrote Rundall in another letter, sent to the Hamilton Hotel in Laredo, where Jean stayed at the US-Mexican border.

View image of Like her grandmother, Stunt stayed in Mexico City’s Hotel Geneve (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

I wondered if my grandmother thought the journey warranted the destination. Hotel Geneve is grand today, and would have been in 1956. Opened in 1907, it was the first hotel in Mexico to admit women travelling alone. Fitting, I thought, for the sake of both Jean and I. The hotel felt like a destination in itself. With a floor-to-ceiling library and a heavy chandelier dominating the lobby, it looked like an old film set. I hardly left on my first day.

However, it seems Jean used Hotel Geneve purely as a base. My grandmother had a packed schedule during her short four-day stay. She’d go to Puebla, a city 135km south-east of Mexico City; to Teotihuacán, a pre-Aztec city settled in 400BC an hour north of the capital with ancient temples, plazas and pyramids spread throughout; and on a tour of Mexico City – although I wasn’t exactly sure where.

View image of The Hotel Geneve was the first hotel in Mexico to admit women travelling alone (Credit: Credit: Hotel Geneve)

I’d be in the capital for just five days. And as I spent more time in the city, much of the trip became a game of comparison. I made my way down Paseo de la Reforma, a monumental street three streets up from the hotel, and I tried to imagine what my grandmother saw back then. There certainly wouldn’t be any of today’s glass skyscrapers. The iconic Angel of Independence would be there, towering over the avenue – although the following year, Mexico’s 1957 earthquake would hit, and the gold-covered statue would fall into pieces, later to be replaced.

I spent my days taking the metro around Mexico City, checking off not only the sites my grandmother might have visited but my own bucket list, too: the Coyoacán neighbourhood; the Vasconcelos library; and the Zócalo, a main square in the historical centre of Mexico City built on Aztec ruins.

At a time when many women were expected to stay home and keep house, my grandmother was unfettered in Mexico City

The Zócalo was somewhere I figured my grandmother had gone. A devout Catholic, Jean likely wouldn’t have missed the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was built on the square between 1573 and 1813. In fact, my grandmother rarely missed a Sunday mass. She’d even attend the same services I did with my Catholic school. And when it came time for the students to shake hands in peace near the end of mass, I’d whip my head around to find her. We’d catch eyes from across the church, and she’d hold up her hand in a peace sign. She was a constant, smiling face in the crowd.

I entered the Metropolitan Cathedral – something I thought Jean would be happy about – and then made my way to the centre of the Zócalo. I had my hands in my coat pocket, overcome by the square’s sheer size. Groups of families and friends walked by. But for me, standing idle as people whizzed past, it’d never felt so good to be alone.

View image of Jean’s four-day itinerary included a day trip to Puebla and a tour of the ancient city of Teotihuacán (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

Like many women today, travelling alone is something I do often. But despite speaking fluent Spanish and being based in Latin America for years, some loved ones still thought it’d be better for my partner to be my chaperone. For me, landing in a different country to explore solo still feels like a small push against the social system.

I wonder if Jean felt the same way 62 years ago. At the time, women in Canada were earning around 59 cents to the dollar. Women in Mexico had just got the right to vote in 1953 after years of fighting. Jean supported herself financially and wanted to explore the world; and when she did, she was giving the system a full-out shove.

As my trip progressed, I understood my grandmother was a more relentless traveller than I am. After sitting for five days on a bus, perhaps Jean felt she’d better squeeze everything in. I travelled to Teotihuacán on public transit, but never made the day trip to Puebla as she did. I did try to visit the stores where she shopped, since the addresses were listed on the receipts she kept. At one I found a hotel. The second boutique, simply listed at the ‘corner of Londres and Calle Génova’, was now either a convenience store, taco chain, an off-license liquor shop or a Starbucks.

View image of Stunt made sure to visit the Metropolitan Cathedral, a site her grandmother, a devout Catholic, surely visited (Credit: Credit: Mark Kanning/Alamy)

As I retraced her steps, I thought about what drove Jean to break the mould. The needle pointed to her family. Her parents lived in China for 10 years starting in 1921 – in fact, the first time my grandmother travelled was from China to Canada, on a boat for three months as an infant while her parents were on sabbatical.

Landing in a different country to explore solo still feels like a small push against the social system

As an adult, Jean’s parents encouraged her to travel. For months, her mother sent letters convincing Jean to go with her to the Bahamas. They went together in 1955, and her father, Rundall, proudly commented on their trip in letters sent to the family – just as he did when Jean set off for Mexico.

Since moving to Colombia in my early 20s, I’ve never been able to fully explain why I’m there. One year quickly turned into four, and as I matured, the reasons I listed to my family varied. But while in Mexico, Jean reminded me just as her parents did for her, that there was no justification needed. Jean boarded the bus to Mexico City because she felt like it, and that was reason enough.

View image of Following in her grandmother's footsteps reminded Stunt that she did not need to justify her desire to travel (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

My grandmother met my grandfather the year after she returned to Canada from Mexico. They married in 1958, raised their family of four kids, and she continued working another 30 years as a nurse. Her adventurous spirit never faded, though. She’d drive across Canada with her kids – east one time, then west another. And she’d point out car number plates to her grandchildren, encouraging us to imagine far-off places.

Not long before she died, Jean went to China with her younger brother. She said she’d found the house where she was born using only an old photograph. Travelling to connect with the past, I now realise, must be a family trait.

Travel Journeys is a BBC Travel series exploring travellers’ inner journeys of transformation and growth as they experience the world.

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If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

BBC Travel – Adventure Experience

[lopezdorothy70-blog]

Hundreds of Thousands of Children in the U.S. are Being Separated from Their Parents – Many are Sexually Trafficked

7 home-schooled children were forcibly removed from their home and parents in 2015 even though their parents had committed no crime (not even charged with one.) Story here.

by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News

The corporate sponsored “mainstream” media has been fixated in recent days with reports that children are being separated from their parents at U.S. borders.

For the news sources that are critical of the current administration, one is led to believe that this is a recent problem that just started.

However, this limited and biased view is not even close to the truth.

Health Impact News has covered the issue of child trafficking of minor children coming across the U.S. borders since 2016, when Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) published a six-month investigation into the matter during the Obama administration.

Focusing on a couple of thousand children currently in border facilities without their parents also ignores a far greater problem, one that is a national crisis, and that is the 400,000+ children who have been taken away from their parents, and the practice of child trafficking that is continuing to happen in every U.S. state every single day.

The overall real problem in this tragedy is one of child trafficking, and it is time that this issue gets public attention.

The Border Issue of Minor Children Separated from Their Parents

2014 photo of children at the border kept in chain link “cages” with tin foil being used for covering during the Obama administration. Source – Daily Caller.

The problem of children separated from their families crossing the borders illegally is a problem that has plagued all of the modern-day administrations, and it certainly did not begin with the current administration.

There are conflicting reports that the current administration is doing something different to force the separation of children from their parents, but published reports of investigations into this issue clearly show that the vast majority of minors entering the U.S. illegally are “unaccompanied alien children” (UAC).

In other words, most of these children were separated from their parents before they ever reached the border. Senator Portman's 2016 report looked at 125,000 unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S. borders into the United States during a 5-year period (2011 – 2016), reportedly fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

This U.S. Senate report concluded that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has failed to protect these children from human trafficking, leaving them vulnerable to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers.

U.S. law requires HHS to ensure that unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are protected from human trafficking and other forms of abuse.

However, the 2016 report conducted during the Obama administration clearly showed that this had not been happening.

The fact that the United States is a popular destination for child trafficking has been well documented:

The causes of the surge of UACs are disputed, but all stakeholders, including HHS, agree that one reason UACs come to this country is that they are 'brought into the United States by human trafficking rings.' According to the State Department's 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report, '[t]he United States is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, transgender individuals, and children-both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals-subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor.'

Human trafficking involves transporting or harboring human beings, often for financial gain, through the use of fraud, force, or coercion. (Report)

The Senate report noted several “Systemic Deficiencies” in the government's failure to protect these vulnerable children from organized criminal trafficking, and all of these existed prior to the current administration:

HHS's Process for Verifying a Category 3 Sponsor's Identity and Relationship with a UAC Is Unreliable and Subject to Abuse

HHS Is Unable to Safeguard Children from Sponsors Attempting to Accumulate Multiple Children

HHS Failed to Require Background Checks on Non-Sponsor Adult Household Members or on Backup Sponsors

HHS Policy Allowed Non-Relatives with Criminal Histories to Sponsor Children

HHS Does Not Ensure a Sponsor Has Adequate Income to Support a UAC

HHS Approves Placements with Sponsors Who May Not Remain in the Country

Sponsors Often Inflict Legal Harm on UACs by Not Ensuring Their Appearance At Immigration Proceedings

The claims that over 2000 children have recently been separated from their parents at the border should be carefully investigated if it is to believed as true. As the 2016 report under the Obama administration clearly found, documentation for these children, including who their parents are, is seldom present to even verify that the adults who are accompanying the children are, in fact, their parents.

Whoops! Turns out Time Magazine did not even bother to investigate their portrayal of this crying girl as being separated from her parents. The mother eventually spoke up and claimed they were always together.

The fact that the media is hyping this issue for partisan purposes, and not always conducting journalistic investigations to determine the truth to back up their claims, was exposed last week when Time Magazine portrayed a young, crying girl as being separated from her parents at the border due to the policies of the current administration. Turns out they made a mistake, and it was later learned that the young girl had been with her mother the entire time since they crossed the border.

Children being separated from their parents and crossing the U.S. border illegally is a very serious problem, and should not be taken lightly nor used for partisan politics.

As the 2016 report published under the Obama administration clearly shows, the tragedy of these unaccompanied minors is that they are being sexually trafficked as a commodity, and this human trafficking problem is such a lucrative market in the U.S. that it exceeds both the illegal drugs and gun trade combined.

This issue of sexual child tafficking is the real tragedy the media should be focusing on and exposing.

But even this issue, as horrible as it is, pales in comparison to the separation of children and parents of U.S. citizens that occurs through Child Protection Services and the Foster Care industry, where most children are routinely sexually abused, and many of them are sexually trafficked to that lucrative trafficking market that includes pedophiles.

Sexually Trafficking Children Through Foster Care

Young Devani (not an immigrant) was taken away from her mother who had never harmed her, and put into the home of a pedophile and child pornography operation in Tucson Arizona. Story here.

Just as the Senate report in 2016 clearly showed that minors crossing U.S. borders where being sold into child trafficking rings, so too it is well-documented that the vast majority of children sexually trafficked into pedophilia rings in the U.S. come through the U.S. taxpayer-sponsored foster care system.

Attorney Michael Dolce, from the law-firm Cohen Milstein, wrote an opinion piece published by Newsweek earlier this year addressing this problem.

Dolce, who speaks from experience from representing children abused in foster care, writes:

Here's the ugly truth: most Americans who are victims of sex trafficking come from our nation's own foster care system. It's a deeply broken system that leaves thousands vulnerable to pimps as children and grooms them for the illegal sex trade as young adults.

We have failed our children by not fixing the systemic failures that have allowed this to happen for decades. (Story here.)

If you are tempted to think that this may not be a real problem, or that it is being exaggerated and sensationalized, see these previous articles:

Attorney Reporting in Newsweek: Foster Care is a System Set Up to Sex Traffic American Children

Publicly Open Pedophile Running for Office in Virginia Reveals How Foster Care is a Pipeline to Adopt Children as “Sex Toys”

Texas Judge: CPS Still Unconstitutional – Foster Care Sexual and Physical Abuse Still the Norm

Massachusetts State Auditor Finds Widespread Rape and Sexual Abuse in Foster Care but DCF Officials Won't Report It

Arizona Foster Care System Revealed as Pedophile Ring: Former Foster Child Tortured for Years Sues for $15 Million

Texas Sheriff Blasts CPS for Allowing Man Accused of Sexual Abuse to Foster 180 Girls

“Pedophile Farm” Alleged in Lawsuit Against Washington Foster Care Home for Boys

Florida Foster Parents Charged with Hundreds of Sex Crimes Against Children in Alabama

Child Sex Trafficking through Child “Protection” Services Exposed – Kidnapping Children for Sex

The U.S. Foster Care System: Modern Day Slavery and Child Trafficking

Child Kidnapping and Trafficking: A Lucrative U.S. Business Funded by Taxpayers

Tammi Stefano of the National Safe Child show was interviewed by filmmaker Sean Stone in 2015 and reported about child sex trafficking, and how Los Angeles County was placing thousands of foster children with known sex abusers. Story here.

If one reads through all the links above, it will become rather obvious that we were able to write and publish articles about sex trafficking through foster care, with clear evidence and examples given, starting around the midway point of 2017, during the current administration's first year after the elections.

Prior to this time, the best evidence we had that this was a wide-spread problem was a 2015 interview of Tammi Stefano of the National Safe Child show by filmmaker Sean Stone. (Child Sex Trafficking through Child “Protection” Services Exposed – Kidnapping Children for Sex)

That article and video was shared by hundreds of thousands of people in social media, but the only real evidence we could publish that this was happening was the older 1989 “White-house Call Boys” scandal that managed to break through into the corporate media at that time, although it quickly died down.

So what has happened that has allowed more evidence of these horrific practices of child sex trafficking happening here in the U.S. to be published and exposed to the public?

Arizona: Battleground State for Exposing and Fighting Child Sex Trafficking?

David Frodsham, a military veteran and former Arizona state-approved foster parent, was convicted of running a pedophile pornographic operation out of his home with foster children. Story here.

For Health Impact News, the key event that turned the tide, where we could start publishing real current examples of state-sponsored foster care being used to sexually traffick children, was a case out of Sierra Vista, Arizona, the home of Fort Huachuca near Tucson, where David Frodsham was arrested and convicted for running a child pornography pedophile ring out of his state-approved foster home in June of 2017.

Because he was arrested and prosecuted, Health Impact News (and all other media sources) was able to access court records and publish the story, as protected by our First Amendment “freedom of the press.”

This story was significant for several reasons.

First, Arizona has the highest percentage of children removed from their parents and put into foster care of any other state in the U.S.

Our MedicalKidnap.com website and topic was started in 2014, due to the sheer volume of parents from Arizona who were contacting us and telling us their stories of how their children were being kidnapped by the state and put into foster care.

What we were learning from our interviews and investigations into child social services in Arizona was truly appalling, as the corruption being reported reached to the highest levels of government. There were very few attorneys who even wanted to try and fight the system, and the few who did wanted huge retainer fees.

For most of these families, there seemed to be little hope for justice. We discovered that local judges were motivated by the federal funds available to the state when a child is placed in foster care, with little regard to actual justice.

When we exposed their deeds through the articles we published on behalf of the families, they threatened the parents with gag orders and even ordered Health Impact News to take down our articles (which we have never done.) See:

Arizona Judges Continue to Threaten Parents and Restrict Free Speech

One famous retired Arizona Judge (now deceased) even documented how corrupt the judicial system is:

Retired Arizona Judge Reveals Corruption in Legal System

Besides the corrupt judicial system, we learned that all the Arizona state legislators, upon being elected and taking their oath of office, were told to never deal with their constituents on child protection or foster care matters, but that all cases were to be referred to the Director of the Arizona Legislative Office of Family Advocacy, an unelected bureaucrat by the name of Maria Hoffman.

Ms. Hoffman used intimidation and threats to try and scare off anyone who dared to ask questions about court-ordered child abductions. See:

Why is the Arizona “Family Advocate” Threatening People Asking About Children in State Custody?

With such a concerted effort to subvert justice and keep children in state-sponsored custody, where we now know some of these children were placed with known child taffickers and pedophiles, how did David Fordsham get arrested and convicted?

The answer: President Trump's federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) intervened and made the arrest.

Somebody at the federal level, obviously outside of the corrupt state of Arizona, decided “enough is enough,” especially after Frodsham had already been disciplined for deviant sexual behavior while serving in Afghanistan, and had even been previously arrested in Arizona, and yet still was allowed to run his pedophile pornographic ring out of his state-approved foster home.

In court-filed documents, submitted on behalf of one of Frodsham's victims, we learn how federal law enforcement had to get involved to put this guy away:

John Doe is a victim of the State of Arizona's failed child protection practices and policies.

John Doe, who is now 18 years old, suffered over 12 years of shocking physical and sexual abuse because of the State's refusal to protect him.

John Doe was born in September of 1999 and before his fourth birthday was placed in foster care. The Frodshams were approved by the State to have John Doe in their home in 2004 and John Doe was subsequently adopted by David and Barbara Frodsham in 2012.

The Frodshams were licensed foster parents with the State of Arizona from 2002 to January 2015. The Frodsham license was not suspended until David Frodsham was arrested at the DES office for felony drunk driving with toddlers in the vehicle.

The State and its employees ignored actual notice of the abuse of John Doe and numerous warning signs that the Frodsham home was dangerous.

The State did not remove John Doe until ICE, a federal agency within the Department of Homeland Security, arrested David Frodsham for operating a pornographic pedophile ring based in the home. ICE identified John Doe as a victim of Frodsham's pedophilia.

John Doe suffered sexual, physical and emotional abuse for over 12 years in this home, despite numerous red flags of abuse and neglect. This abuse was no secret to CPS/DCS and well documented yet no investigations were undertaken.

See:

Arizona Foster Care System Revealed as Pedophile Ring: Former Foster Child Tortured for Years Sues for $15 Million

Here at Health Impact News, we have no political party affiliation. We stand for the truth, and we stand against corruption, especially corruption that is censored by the corporate-sponsored “mainstream” media. And there is corruption in both parties.

For example, much of the legal basis that allows these horrendous acts to occur in foster care is the result of a law passed by Bill Clinton, and said to be mainly crafted by Hillary Clinton, the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act.

The Clintons get a lot of blame (and rightfully so) for this very bad piece of legislation, but few bother to report that it was a Republican majority of “conservatives” that controlled both the House and the Senate, and led by Newt Gingrich, that passed this law and handed it over to President Clinton to sign.

But there is clearly something that has changed since President Trump has taken office, and we see it in Arizona.

More recently, we reported on the group Veterans on Patrol in Tucson who discovered a child sex camp in an area where known cartel members traffick women and children.

The leader of the group, Lewis Arthur, began live-streaming their operations in trying to shut down this human trafficking corridor in Arizona, which originally seemed to be met with opposition from local law enforcement.

At one point, they evacuated all the women and children from their camp, as it looked like local law enforcement was going to act on a trespassing complaint and try to remove them.

Arthur and another man stayed up all night in locked up in a tower, and they seemed to expect that they were going to be executed.

But the next morning, as Arthur live-streamed an update, he related how he allegedly received a phone call from Washington D.C. He could not give details or names, but after that, he and his crew of veterans and volunteers were allowed to resume their patrols in Arizona, seeking to find human traffickers and stop child sex crimes from those coming across the border.

Again, why the sudden change of events? If the call was from D.C., was it from someone on Trump's team that cleared the way for them to resume operations? They are continuing their operations today, although many still oppose them and are trying to stop them.

See:

BREAKING: Vet Group Finds Pedophile Child Sex Camp Near Tucson – Local Law Enforcement Refuses to Help as Tensions Rise

Conclusion: Let's Fight the REAL Problem of Children being Separated from Their Parents and Being Trafficked

This media frenzy over children supposedly being separated from their parents, due to policies of the current administration, whether valid or not, is obscuring the real issues facing our nation today, which are not being addressed.

The larger issue here is child trafficking, much of it the lucrative sex trafficking, and we won't gain much progress in stopping it if partisan political fighting continues.

Comment on this article at MedicalKidnap.com.

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[theletterunread]

The Best of the Best

I was commissioned to write this piece several months ago, but I so badly missed the magazine’s wishes for this profile that it was never published. The editors didn’t even bother to write back when I sent it in. I knew it didn't work when I finished it and only submitted it because I deserved to be seen being bad. Which is the same reason I’m now printing it here: after what’s happened to Leah, I feel like I need to be shamed on a public scale.

“I’ve had plenty of time to catch up on reality TV,” says Leah. On screen, a redheaded woman is throwing a sheaf of papers at a younger man and screaming, “You’re a user, Mohamed! You used me!”

“It��s about marriages and engagements between Americans and their foreign partners,” Leah explains. “There are some couples who really love each other, and others, there’s some kind of fraud or attempted fraud happening…either the American is looking for, basically, a mail-order spouse. Or the other person is planning to ditch as soon as they get a green card.” We watch the redheaded woman read her husband a list of his sins (“You have not been an active partner or spouse to me since we’ve been married”) while Mohamed gives the quintessential thousand-yard stare.

“This is the best couple,” says Leah, “because this guy thought he could do a quick marriage to this woman and leave smoothly once he got his green card…he had some idea in his head that this would be a small con to help himself get set up in the US. But Danielle will not let him go. Even now that they’re separated and living in different states, she won’t relinquish his life. She keeps calling him and stalking his Facebook and harassing anybody she sees him talking to online. So every close-up of Mohamed, you can see his terrible comprehension that he doomed himself to an eternity of…this.”

Leah Craig has time to devote to 90 Day Fiancé because she is under house arrest, far from where she had expected she would be this spring. Six months ago, she was handling millions of dollars, with the promise of a substantial cut going to her. She was a head organizer for the 4Most Festival, a promised weekend of elite entertainment and networking in Antigua. Ticket holders were promised a chance to mingle with leaders (or, in the brochure’s parlance, “influencers”) in the financial, business, entertainment, and fashion industries, enjoy performances by The Chainsmokers, and “partake in unparalleled culinary experiences.”

In the end, The Chainsmokers cancelled their performance the day before, the only food available was chili from dehydrated packets, and the guests who dared come out of their disaster tents into the inclement weather learned that the most prominent influencer at the festival was Ron Burnell, the founder of the internet’s 350th most visited video streaming website, TheBestFreakingVideos.com. “He kept bragging about the time the co-founder of YouTube retweeted him,” Leah tells me. “That one anecdote was the backbone of all his speeches.”

News of the festival’s disastrous rollout blew up online, with most people delighted that obnoxious youths who could afford to spend $12,000 to $100,000 on a ticket were suffering. But rich kids don’t need sympathy, because they can afford justice. Not only have there been six class action suits filed, but the US Attorney for the Central District of California has brought charges of wire fraud against the organizers of the festival. And due to a battlefield promotion, Leah falls under that category.

“I don’t think that we would have been charged with wire fraud if the kids who bought the tickets hadn’t been so wealthy. Their parents all know the judges and prosecutors. They’re well-connected, it’s a big lovefest, of course they’re going to get justice.” Leah speaks authoritatively, yet academically, without any apparent acknowledgement that “justice” in this case could lead to her spending ten years in jail.

“Of course, if I hadn’t been an attorney myself, the judge probably would have set the terms of my release much higher. Maybe impossibly higher. So it all balances out. House arrest isn’t so bad, compared to what they could have slapped me with. It just gets a little boring up here. Which I guess is why I was so happy to invite you over.” (I’m the first person not involved with the lawsuits whom Leah has talked to since the festival fell apart.) “I figured I won’t have to be embarrassed in front of you. Remember when we all went to that citywide freshman mixer ten years ago? And we pregamed and I fell down the front steps of the Met in front of every 18-year-old in the city? You’ve seen that, so what’s a little house arrest?”

(Full disclosure: Leah and I met ten years ago as freshmen in college. We weren’t friends exactly, but for four years, we ran in the same group of Friday night club-crawlers. We kept up to date on the broad contours of each other’s lives, and even slept together periodically, on some nights when neither of us paired up with anybody else. She left for Berkeley immediately after graduation and we didn’t see or speak to each other until I asked to come to L.A. to interview her.)

“I would have picked you up from the airport,” says Leah, when I come trembling out of my rental car into her house (neither the freeways from LAX nor the blind turns of the hilly roads up to her place suited me), “but I’m not allowed to leave here without accompaniment.” She shows me her pantries. “See, I have to stock up on canned goods and non-perishables because I never know when I’m going to get to the grocery store again. So I hope you like dried figs, because that’s what you’re getting for a snack.”

She walks me into her living room and after 90 Day Fiancé breaks for commercial, I turn on my recorder and ask her to explain to me how she got from New York and the future limitless to the Hollywood Hills and federal charges.

Leah points to the TV, at a battery commercial. “One second. Did you know that the Energizer Bunny is actually a parody of the Duracell Bunny? Most people don’t know that, but originally, Duracell had a bunny mascot, and this was meant to show it up: Duracell runs down, but Energizer keeps going and going. But it was so successful that it took on its own life. It’s like Weird Al recording ‘White and Nerdy.’ That stuck with people way more than ‘Ridin’’ did.”

I offer to take her Weird Al reference off the record. “No, leave it on,” she says. “That’s not even what I wanted to get to. So the Energizer Bunny is dominating the airwaves, Duracell stops using its bunny. But sales of Duracell still go up. Because people still associate any bunny with Duracell batteries. Isn’t it weird how things work out?”

Her point is that life is unpredictable, which leads her into the autobiography I’d asked for in the first place. “I moved to Berkeley, turned off my brain, and sleepwalked through law school. Honestly, I can’t remember a single moment from those three years. Except feeling an awful itchiness about the Bay Area. It’s so soft up there. I’m sure it’s fine for some people…if you’re happy to spend your life wearing cozy sweaters and drinking lukewarm cocoa. But I’m much more comfortable among the rats and the filth and garbage, so as soon as I graduated, I came down to L.A. Got a job as the lowliest associate at this dumb, nothing civil practice law firm. I was expected to take the bar and move up, but I just couldn’t. I was at entry level for a few years. My whole life was Bates stamping document productions. What about you?”

It takes me a moment to realize she’s asking for my biography. I stop recording.

“Wait, wait, leave it on. My life is on the record, but yours isn’t?” I remind her that she’s the one charged with a federal offense. “It’s not my fault you have a boring life.”

“Okay,” I say. “After graduation, I started freelancing.”

“Did you have a day job?”

“For a year or so, yeah. At a physical therapy office. Until I started making enough money writing. I had a few things published in little pop-up internet magazines, and then I parlayed that into…”

“Staff writing?”

“No, but into regularly publishing things in more enduring internet magazines. And eventually real magazines.”

“Anything you’re especially proud of?” I take a moment to respond and she says, “Yeah, go ahead. Be falsely modest.”

“I wrote a novel.”

“Published?”

“No.”

“You wrote a novel…let me guess…The Great Gatsby from the mechanic’s perspective? Or a physical therapist who sees an illuminating cross-section of the world pass through his office? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not making fun of you.”

I tell her I’m not angry, but that I think she’s attempting to dodge my questions. An insouciance has marked Leah during her entire legal ordeal. Her co-defendants turned on her in their initial statements, accusing her of being flippant towards their legal predicament, and therefore probably flippant towards the suffering of their ticket-holders.

“No dodging. I’m just trying to be friendly,” she says, defensively. “I like hearing what you’ve been up to…freelancing…so maybe you have a better ability to handle being out of work. But when I was fired…oh, and I don’t think it was anything personal. The firm was contracting and there wasn’t anything I did that couldn’t be absorbed by another attorney. So I started looking for other firms, but my heart wasn’t in it. And even if I could have dragged myself to apply, I didn’t want to get turned down. Have you ever been rejected from something you didn’t even want to begin with?”

Leah leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. I start to ask another question, but she cuts me off. “No, no, I’m still with it. I just needed a second. So: out of work, feeling depressed about…I started going out drinking. Like we do. Hey, remember that time at the 12th Avenue Pub?” She sits up. “We told those guys from Long Island that I was an exchange student from London? And we got them to pay for our drinks by saying I was only carrying pound notes? I don’t even know if they call them ‘pounds’ in England anymore.”

Leah still talks about that con with pride. “I got so drunk I stopped using an accent, and even then they didn’t catch on. I told them I knew one of the Spice Girls.” I ask her if she’s always enjoyed fooling people. She sinks back in her chair.

“No, I don’t enjoy fooling people. It’s just a story I thought you might like to remember. Well, anyway…I was out at a bar when Adam came up, and we started talking, and, uh…he goes right into talking about how he’s planning this festival, and I tell him that I’m an out-of-work attorney…” I interrupt to ask if she really volunteered that information so quickly. “It was the truth. Why wouldn’t I tell him? Oh, because I enjoy fooling people?”

Adam Foley, the son of a Silicon Valley power couple was five months out of Harvard with $1,000,000 in graduation money burning a hole in his pocket. His father presented him with list of aspiring start-ups he could invest in and shepherd to success, but Foley wanted to use his money for a project entirely his own. “I didn’t want to just fuel somebody else’s creativity: I wanted to be the fuel of creativity,” he has explained in a deposition that doubles as one of the all-time great megalomaniacal monologues in human history. (Foley declined to comment for this article.) He hit upon the idea of organizing and hosting the music festival to end all music festivals: rarified and extravagant, and with a heavy emphasis on networking, an activity that only the very wealthy seem to consider pleasurable.

But in his own words, he was a big picture guy, not the right person to bother with a million little details. (That he was assembling a staff by going to bars suggests that he was not even the right person to bother with any single detail.) Leah was the last person to be hired for his staff of five.

“He wasn’t looking for a lawyer, per se. Just for a grown-up. Somebody to oversee the project. There hadn’t been any…” Any planning? Any organization? “Any sense at all. They hadn’t kept a record of the ticket-holders’ info. Instead, they had just put up a big map of the US with pins where the buyers lived. So I had to retroscript the whole thing. I did such a good job with that that the week before the festival, when things started going awry…I got promoted to Head of Client Satisfaction Services – I mean, what a title! – which meant that I was authorized to make decisions by myself.”

And which meant that she was on the hook when the lawsuits came. “That was going to happen anyway,” she says, waving her hands. “They needed multiple defendants. It makes it harder for Adam to plead ignorance if this was a team effort. Looks more like conspiracy. And they’re hoping one of us will flip on another. I would have done the same thing if I was a lawyer on the other side.”

Leah is very equanimous about the whole situation, refusing to speak ill of the prosecutors, the ticket-holders, or her co-defendants. You can imagine her being advised to this by her attorney, but she doesn’t have one. This is entirely her decision.

Does she feel like she was set up by Adam as his fall guy? “No, that suggests a kind of conspiratorial thinking that isn’t him.” Does she think the prosecutor is taking them on because they’re easy villains? “Prosecutors aren’t in the business of wasting resources. Of course they’re going to pursue cases they think they can win.” What about the kids who bought the tickets? Does she really have sympathy for the entitled children of the 1%? “Look, this isn’t a festival I would have gone to. And, no, these aren’t people I would probably choose to be friends with. But I don’t see any problem with them paying whatever they can afford for the chance to travel and meet some people they think they’d like to meet. And if I paid a lot of money for a concert and accommodations that fell through, I’d be upset too.”

If she doesn’t feel angry at anyone else, does she feel guilty? “Of course. All the time. About this and about a million other things. I let the mess of my life spill into other people’s. I hurt people. And yes, they were rich assholes who ‘deserved’ to get hurt…but they didn’t deserve to get hurt by me.” Meaning what? “Meaning I’m not righteous enough to be doling out punishments.”

Because of the million other things? “I know we haven’t seen each other in six years,” she says, “but even on the basis of what you saw when we were in school, I owe a lot of people a lot of apologies. I haven’t got any better since then. Don’t you feel guilty?”

I’m jotting down a note, so I don’t answer. She repeats herself. “Do you ever feel guilty?”

“About what?”

“Unless you became a saint in the last six years…I’ve seen you lie to people, and steal their coke, and…remember when you threw up in the cab?”

It was senior year. I was in a cab from the Upper East Side to the East Village. Only five minutes into the ride, I threw up. And not just straight down, into a neat puddle: onto the cushions, the seat back, the ashtrays and cup holders…I told the driver to pull up to an ATM, where I could get cash to pay the damages. But instead, I hopped out of the cab, rounded the corner, and rushed down into a subway station to ride the trains home.

“I don’t feel guilty, no,” I explain. “I wouldn’t encourage anyone to throw up in a cab, but it was part of the process. The same way I didn’t like the headaches or having to drag myself back from some unknown neighborhood the next morning, but I wouldn’t give them up. I liked going out and getting drunk, I liked having sex with strangers, I liked stealing coke from…other drunk kids. If they could afford to buy their own coke, they could afford to lose it.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t Robin Hood. You weren’t giving bumps to the poor. You were just snorting it yourself. And you’re still smiling about it!”

“Everyone needs a reckless youth.”

“Needs?” asks Leah.

“What’s the alternative? You don’t have any fun and you wind up bitter and regretful and angry at young people for the rest of your life.”

Leah doesn’t reply for a moment, then says that’s she’s forgotten my original question, and I admit I have too. We decide to go get lunch. “Let’s go to the store, as long as you’re here,” suggests Leah. “I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to leave.”

Leah guides me down the mountain and tells me again how house arrest has changed her diet. “I’m on all non-perishables. Frozen fruit, frozen vegetables, dried…everything. Lots of soup cans. I’m like Ted Cruz. Except I’m not going to get away with it all.”

I joke that at least she’s not yet reached the point of eating Spam. “You know,” she says brightly, “here, Spam is a joke, but in Hawaii, it’s considered totally legitimate.” I ask her what that means. “One of the attorneys I used to work for is Hawaiian. She told me that it got big over there during World War II. Servicemen had it, it found its way into the stores, and it stuck.”

World War II was 75 years ago, I remind her. “And? Lots of things were 75 years ago. It doesn’t mean they’re not still today. It’s used in…sushi variations, for one. Turn here,” she adds, throwing her arm in front of my face.

I tell her that I’ve interviewed a lot of people and done a lot of diverse research in my career, and I’ve never heard anything like this about Spam. When I suggest that perhaps this was just a taste her coworker had, not a Hawaiian trend, she snaps at me. “You had never heard of this concept before I brought it up, and you think you understand it better than I do? Where do you get this reflexive sense that you know more than me?” I say that I don’t have any such sense, and Leah cuts me off. “That’s why you’re here for the interview at all.”

I think back to when I first heard about the 4Most Festival and what it felt like to see Leah’s name in the news stories. I think of the disconnect between the person I had in my memory, and the person being dragged by a US Attorney as “a criminal whose greed is only surpassed – thankfully for those who wish to see justice done swiftly – by her incompetence.”

“I’m here because I wanted to hear your explanation.”

“So you could write a little schadenfreude piece? You went up and up, while I let all the air go out of my life and sank into the swamp?”

“No. I wanted to be impressed by you. You always impress me…I mean…I couldn’t live in L.A., driving like this all the time.”

“What? Who cares about L.A.? You live in New York.”

“But so did you. You can do them both.”

“Yeah, wow. I’m equally at home in either elite coastal bubble. You’re not impressed by me, except maybe for the colossal scale of my fucking up.”

“Do you remember why you started telling those Long Island guys that you were from London? It’s because they were hassling Winnie and touching her on the dance floor. And you got them away from her and got them distracted and so drunk that they just passed out in the booth.”

I look over at her and she rolls her eyes. “That was like a million years ago. And how impressive is it when the reckless youth never grows up and stops acting like an idiot? You could write about anything. Why would you fly all the way out here to disrespect me?”

“I do respect you. I always knew you could handle everything that life dropped on you. That’s why I wanted to see what you had planned for this festival situation.”

“I don’t have a…” She’s cut off by a loud horn. I look back to the road and see that I’ve drifted into oncoming traffic. As an inexperienced driver, my only response to any danger is to slam on the brakes, which lock and send us skidding into a huge truck. Leah grabs the steering wheel with one hand and the parking brake with her other. She yanks the brake and pulls the wheel hard to one side, which spins the car around 180 degrees and drifts us in a semicircle out of the truck’s path. We wind up in the shoulder, alive and uninjured.

We forget the grocery store and drive back to Leah’s place in silence. Once we get inside, she dials for pizza. While we wait for it to arrive, and while we eat it, and while we finish off all the bottles of wine I had bought at the airport and left in my trunk (miraculously not shattered by my awful driving), we watch 90 Day Fiancé. Mohamed is describing the challenges of living with Danielle: “She was like…be like…sitting on the floor crying, screaming: ‘I want my sex tonight!’” It’s that second-language phrasing that’s so much more impactful than “proper” English.

The next morning, I leave and drive back to my hotel. By the time I arrive, Leah has already sent me an email.

I don’t know what you were thinking, but to make things easy, I’ll just say that everything from yesterday can be on the record. I hope it’s enough for your piece because I don’t feel up to another day of interviewing. Maybe we can see each other again in another six years, provided I’m not locked up, which, not that you asked, seems pretty unlikely, in my best legal evaluation. By the way, do you know what happened to Winnie after I saved her that night?

Winnie wound up going home with me, but I can’t bear to admit that to Leah. I step out onto my balcony and look out towards the ocean and try to imagine the anticipation people felt about the 4Most Festival. (Then I remember that the event was in Antigua, that Adam Foley and the hundreds of ticket-holders would have been staring in anticipation towards the Caribbean Sea. All that’s out my way is Hawaii.) It’s hard for me to imagine their excitement because I’ve always hated the ocean. I hate the crowds and the sunburns and the sand getting everywhere, but mostly I hate the water’s darkness and the water’s silence. I hate the thought of the tides endlessly rising and falling, for all history, for all time, no matter how sick anybody gets of it, no matter how much anybody wishes the world could change. It keeps going and going…

[itsiotrecords-blog]

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Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. We’ve created ones about space, politics, terrorist attacks, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Even celebrities are not safe from conspiracy theories – far from it. Tons of our biggest stars have had the most ridiculous things said about them. This is hardly surprising, considering the nature of their careers. They’re constantly in the public spotlight, and so everyone is always talking about them and speculating about what goes on in their lives. It’s only a matter of time until some crackpot comes along and starts telling everyone wild conspiracy theories about something that couldn’t possibly be true. But what if these conspiracy theories are real after all? What if the people telling these stories have hit the nail right on the head? In many cases, there’s no way we would ever know if these theories are real, except if the celebrities themselves confessed to it. And since many of these accusations would end a celebrity’s career and ruin their reputation, that’s probably never going to happen. I’ll be the first to admit that some of these theories are just plain ridiculous, but there are some which are really worth considering. Which ones are real and which ones are fake? Read on, and make up your own mind…

#1 Tom Cruise’s Wives One of the most well-known celebrity conspiracy theories involves Tom Cruise‘s wives. There’s a lot weirdness surrounding these wives, and some of it is actually rooted in truth. This is made even weirder by the fact that Tom Cruise is embroiled in the ever controversial church of Scientology. The theory is as follows: The Church Of Scientology holds auditions for women to become Tom Cruise’s wife. Those who are successful are offered a contract worth millions, and a hefty bonus if they’re willing to give birth to Tom Cruise’s child. The contract is reported to last approximately four years, which makes sense since each of Tom Cruise’s marriages have lasted that length. In fact, Katie Holmes divorced Cruise almost 4 years to the dot from the day they got married. This is also seemingly confirmed by actress Nazanin Boniadi, who says she auditioned for the role of Tom Cruise’s wife, but didn’t get the part. So why does Cruise do this? Theories range from the secret fact that he’s gay to just general Scientology weirdness.

#2 Alex Jones And Bill Hicks Alex Jones has been getting more and more media coverage these days, but there’s one strange conspiracy theory that keeps on dragging him down. The theory is that he is secretly Bill Hicks, and he faked his own death and then reinvented himself as the talk show host Alex Jones. This is made all the more believable by a number of things. First of all, they look incredibly similar, to the point where it really makes you wonder if they are the same person. Second of all, Bill Hicks was famous for having very extreme and unapologetic political views, something that he shares with Alex Jones. Alex Jones is one of the biggest enemies of the left these days. Alex Jones has vehemently denied this conspiracy theory, but it looks like he’ll never be rid of these allegations.

#3 Cristiano Ronaldo’s Relationships Cristiano Ronaldo is another celebrity who suffers from a very persistent conspiracy theory. The theory involves his many relationships. We all know that Ronaldo has dated a number of incredibly hot super models and other incredibly sexy celebrities. But some say that these relationships are completely fake, and they’re only to serve Cristiano’s image. These people say that Cristiano employs a similar tactic to Tom Cruise’s alleged tactic of paying girls to date him for a few months, and then moving on the next one. This is made all the more suspicious by the fact that all of Ronaldo’s children are born from surrogate mothers, meaning he hasn’t actually impregnated a woman the good old fashioned way. Why would he do this? Like Cruise, the allegations against him are that he’s secretly gay. This would seem to be supported by the nature of his relationship with boxer Badr Hari.

#4 Hillary Clinton Is Extremely Ill This is one theory that actually has some weight to it. A lot of people say that one of the main reasons Hillary Clinton lost the election was due to her much publicized health issues. She was famously caught on tape outside of the 9/11 memorial, and she appeared to completely collapse, having to be dragged into the waiting black car by her handlers. Many people say that the black car is actually an ambulance in disguise. She later said that she had pneumonia, but it’s not common for people to collapse like that from pneumonia. She also suffered from numerous coughing fits, and at one point spat out a huge ball of phlegm into a glass of water during her speech. Some say that her failing health is the result of a serious head injury she suffered years ago, which actually happened and is well documented.

#5 Keanu Reeves Is Immortal This is an all-time favorite of celebrity conspiracy theories, and it never seems to go away. As you can see by the picture, there is a theory that Keanu Reeves is somehow immortal, and has been living through countless centuries without aging a single year. The first painting, from 1530, depicts a man who is frighteningly similar to Reeves. We don’t know who this man was, as the painting is simply called “Portrait of a Man,” by Parmigianino. The second painting is of French actor Paul Mounet. He lived a long life, dying at age 77 – or so it’s thought. The theory is that Keanu Reeves is all of these men, and has lived throughout the ages. As interesting as this theory is, there are some serious doubts. The most notable one is the fact that Keanu Reeves seems to be aging in this lifetime… Unless he’s somehow hiding his eternal youth under that bushy beard…

#6 Bill Clinton And Jeffrey Epstein One theory that is as frightening as it is convincing is Bill Clinton‘s connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Who is Jeffrey Epstein? He’s a registered sex offender and US financier who has connections to all of your favorite politicians. He was convicted of sex with underage girls, and has even been connected with the alleged “loaning out” of young girls to people in high places to get on their good side. Many people say that he operated a huge child sex slave ring, and he used to take them all to his island, called Little Saint James. He currently lives in the Virgin Islands, where his island is located. Bill Clinton rode on Epstein’s private Jet, nicknamed “The Lolita Express” numerous times, while he was taken to Epstein’s private island. The former US president even ditched his security detail on a number of these trips, preferring to be alone with Epstein. The plane was equipped with a bed where passengers would allegedly have group sex with underage girls. The theory is that Bill Clinton participated in the underage sex that was going on both on the island and on the plane. And if he was travelling on the plane, to that island, it’s hard to refute these claims.

#7 Elvis Presley Is Still Alive Another celebrity conspiracy theory that has been around for ages is the theory that Elvis Presley is still alive. There have been numerous pictures taken of a man who lives in Graceland who people say is none other than the King Of Rock. Could this be true? Theoretically, yes. Elvis would be 82 today if he were still alive, meaning he could still be out there somewhere. But why would he fake his own death? Well, his career was over, and the novelty of being a celebrity was probably starting to wear off for Elvis. He was old, fat, and everyone knew he was a has-been. So it makes sense that he decided to fake his own death and live a normal life of peace and quiet, without the press following his every move. There are numerous other supposed pieces of evidence for this, including the fact that his corpse was allegedly just a wax figure when it was seen in the funeral home.

#8 The Trump Time Travel Theory Okay, hold on to your hats people, because we’re about to go into serious tinfoil hat territory. During the election campaign, a user on 4chan’s infamous politically incorrect message board posted a series of bizarre revelations about Trump‘s supposed possession of a time machine. He says that Trump inherited the time machine from his uncle, John G. Trump. But here’s where it gets interesting. Apparently, John G. Trump really was a scientist, and a damn good one at that. He was reportedly capable of creating “death rays” and “megavolt beams of electrons and ions,” but he never used this knowledge to create weapons. But the really interesting facts come from John G. Trump’s connection to Nicola Tesla. After Tesla died, John G. Trump was tasked with looking over Tesla’s notes, to see if anything he invented could be turned into a weapon. That actually happened. John G. Trump reported back to his superiors that nothing Tesla wrote about was useful. The theory is that John G. Trump actually stumbled upon Tesla’s blueprints for a time machine, and was able to recreate it. Donald Trump was given this time machine by his uncle, according to the theorists. He allegedly traveled into the future, saw a dark and destroyed world, and then returned back, realizing he had to change history. According to the conspiracy theorists, this is the whole reason he ran for president. This is also apparently the reason Trump was able to win the election against almost impossible odds.

#9 Peter Thiel Is A Vampire You may not know of Peter Thiel, but he’s a very important man these days. He’s the guy who started Paypal, and he has since rose to become one of the richest men in the world. But Peter Thiel is into some pretty weird stuff behind closed doors. He’s investing insane amounts of money into life-extension technology, and he’s said numerous times that he wants to find a way to live forever and become immortal. And how is he doing this? The blood of children. You heard me right, Peter Thiel has admitted to taking blood transfusions from young people as a way to extend his life, and he says that it’s actually working. But some people say that he’s not only being injected with children’s blood, he’s actually drinking it. Either way, it’s pretty weird.

#10 Marilyn Monroe Was Assassinated Another very famous celebrity conspiracy theory centers around Marilyn Monroe’s death. She died under extremely suspicious circumstances, and some people claim to know the answer to the mystery. Her death was ruled as a suicide from taking barbiturates, but an autopsy was never conducted. She had suffered from depression throughout her career. But some say that it wasn’t a suicide. Monroe had an alleged affair with then president John F. Kennedy, and some say that she was threatening to expose him. As the theory goes, John. F. Kennedy actually silenced her before she could ruin his reputation and delegitimize his presidency. Other theories state that it was the CIA alone who took the murder of Monroe into their own hands, seeing her as a threat to America as a whole, and that John F. Kennedy had nothing to do with it.

#11 All Celebrities Are Pre-Chosen From Birth One of the weirdest conspiracy theories concern all celebrities, or at least most of them. Ever wonder why celebrities all seem to look so similar? Ever wonder why celebrities seem to only date other celebrities? Well some people say that celebrities are actually chosen from birth, and the ones who become superstars have their whole careers planned out from the time they can barely walk. These same conspiracy theorists claim that the elites breed certain celebrities with each other to try to create the most beautiful people ever, and that their marriages are all arranged. There are many instances of celebrities looking extremely similar to one another, even though they’re apparently not related to each other. Could this be the result of the same genes being recycled over and over again, and the same families inbreeding with each other over countless generations?

#12 John Travolta Is Gay Another celebrity involved with the Church Of Scientology is John Travolta. He was involved with the church even before Tom Cruise, and he attributes his success to the teachings of Scientology. And you can’t argue with the results. He started landing countless roles after getting involved with the church. But throughout his career, he has been dogged by the same rumor: that he’s secretly gay. To truly understand this conspiracy theory, you have to understand how Scientology works. Basically, a huge part of the religion is an activity called a “reading.” You go into a room with another trained Scientologists who encourages you to recall your deepest memories. John Travolta participated in countless readings, and the Church of Scientology still has all the transcripts from those readings. Every little secret he confessed in that room is in the Church’s possession. The theory is that the Church has evidence that John Travolta is gay from these readings, and they’re essentially blackmailing him with it, not letting him leave the church and forcing him to do their bidding. A man from California recently came out and said that he had been in a sexual relationship with Travolta. John Travolta later threatened to sue that man.

#13 Katy Perry Is JonBenet Ramsey Another celebrity conspiracy theory that’s gathering steam these days is the theory that Katy Perry is actually JonBenet Ramsey. JonBenet Ramsey was the child who was found dead at the age of 6 in her basement in 1996. The conspiracy theorists say that she didn’t actually die, and that she faked her death, went into hiding, and reemerged as Katy Perry years later. The theory was popularized by many people, including a popular Youtuber who claimed that “You know, the eyebrows don’t change much on a person. You’re born with your eyebrows. They’re very close, very close indeed, aren’t they? … As you know, this whole entertainment industry is just a charade — you really don’t know the truth.”

#14 Beyonce And Blue Ivy Another insane celebrity conspiracy theory surrounds Beyonce and Jay-Z‘s baby, Blue Ivy. There are various degrees to this conspiracy theory, from the somewhat believable to the ridiculous. The more conservative theorists claim that Beyonce was never pregnant with Blue Ivy, and that she used a surrogate mother to birth her child. They back up their claims with photos and video footage of Beyonce’s belly while she was allegedly pregnant, which seems to “fold in” at times. Other more adventurous conspiracy theorists claim that Blue Ivy is actually an Illuminati satan spawn, who’s name is a clever anagram of “Eulb Yvi,” which is the name of Satan’s daughter in many occult texts. Take your pick, both are pretty weird but they could both be true, especially given how connected this couple seems to be to Illuminati symbolism.

#15 Obama’s Real Father The last conspiracy theory surrounds Barack Obama. Many people say that Barack Obama’s real father was not Barack senior, but Frank Marshall Davis. Why is this important? Because Frank Marshall Davis was a communist who lived in Hawaii, where Barack Obama was born. Frank Marshall Davis had alleged connections to the Kremlin in Russia, and was not the sort of person you would associated with you if you wanted to become president. The theory is that Barack Obama lied about his father, instead claiming that a Kenyan man was his father, in order to seem more popular with many American voters. Obama even mentions Frank Marshall Davis in his book, Dreams From My Father. Also, Barack Obama’s own half-brother Malik expressed interest in this theory. Either way, does it really matter who his father was? Not really, in my opinion.

Source: TheRichest

[travelworldnetwork]

By Victoria Stunt

18 January 2019

If I closed my eyes, I could see her. It was Friday evening in July 1956. Thirty-one and travelling alone, my grandmother had just arrived at Mexico City’s Hotel Geneve. She’d be tired; she would have just stepped off a five-day bus journey from Toronto. More than 60 years later, I could relate. Twenty-six and travelling alone, I had listless bags under my eyes, and I was checking into the same hotel.

There I was – ready for her spirit to guide me

I arrived in Mexico City a few hours before – luckily by plane, but nevertheless exhausted from an overnight jaunt. I’ve been based in Medellín, Colombia, for the last four years, but Mexico City has always lured me. And now, I finally had an excuse to make the trip.

Amidst boxes of old letters belonging to my maternal grandmother Jean, my own mother had recently found her old tour itinerary for Mexico City; it listed the hotel room where my grandmother stayed, the sites she visited and receipts from the stores where she shopped.

Following her itinerary would be an experience, I thought. Perhaps something to pay homage to Jean. So, as her only granddaughter, there I was – ready for her spirit to guide me around the centuries-old city.

View image of More than 60 years after her grandmother, Jean, arrived in Mexico City, writer Victoria Stunt decided to retrace her steps (Credit: Credit: robertharding/Alamy)

You may also be interested in: • What it means to know when to leave • Where people speak the Aztec language • The islands of unbridled imagination

My grandmother died when I was 14, and for years, she stood still in my memory as a patient woman with salt-and-pepper hair. Born in China to missionary parents, Jean spent her 20s and early 30s travelling throughout Canada and the United States as a nurse. She raised four kids in the small Canadian city of Thorold and cared for me, my brother and our cousins every summer in nearby Niagara Falls. She obliged us to write summer diaries, habitually loaded us in her minivan and drove us to a nearby pond to catch frogs. When I got tired of playing with the boys, we’d sit down in a quiet spot, I’d lean against her and she’d read me a book.

My grandmother didn’t tell me much about travelling in her younger years; according to my mother, Jean didn’t talk about herself a great deal. That’s why, we both concluded, reading through her old letters and documents was so intriguing. They acquainted us with a different version of Jean.

View image of Stunt was inspired to travel to Mexico City after reading her grandmother's letters and sorting through her old documents (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

Back on that Friday night in 1956, she was young, single and unrestrained. She’d crossed two borders and travelled for days through dusty desert. At a time when many women were expected to stay home and keep house, my grandmother was unfettered in Mexico City – and at liberty to explore it on her own terms.

Based on her crumpled itinerary, Jean left Toronto with a loose tour that listed ‘at leisure in Mexico’ on the itinerary. She rode the Greyhound bus through Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; and Laredo, Texas. According to Jean – and as retold by her father Rundall in a letter to all his children – the ‘buses had gotten progressively shakier and shoddier as she travelled southward’. Several buses had broken down, as had their air conditioning systems.

Still, everything was going as programmed. “Alors – mañana – over the border!” wrote Rundall in another letter, sent to the Hamilton Hotel in Laredo, where Jean stayed at the US-Mexican border.

View image of Like her grandmother, Stunt stayed in Mexico City’s Hotel Geneve (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

I wondered if my grandmother thought the journey warranted the destination. Hotel Geneve is grand today, and would have been in 1956. Opened in 1907, it was the first hotel in Mexico to admit women travelling alone. Fitting, I thought, for the sake of both Jean and I. The hotel felt like a destination in itself. With a floor-to-ceiling library and a heavy chandelier dominating the lobby, it looked like an old film set. I hardly left on my first day.

However, it seems Jean used Hotel Geneve purely as a base. My grandmother had a packed schedule during her short four-day stay. She’d go to Puebla, a city 135km south-east of Mexico City; to Teotihuacán, a pre-Aztec city settled in 400BC an hour north of the capital with ancient temples, plazas and pyramids spread throughout; and on a tour of Mexico City – although I wasn’t exactly sure where.

View image of The Hotel Geneve was the first hotel in Mexico to admit women travelling alone (Credit: Credit: Hotel Geneve)

I’d be in the capital for just five days. And as I spent more time in the city, much of the trip became a game of comparison. I made my way down Paseo de la Reforma, a monumental street three streets up from the hotel, and I tried to imagine what my grandmother saw back then. There certainly wouldn’t be any of today’s glass skyscrapers. The iconic Angel of Independence would be there, towering over the avenue – although the following year, Mexico’s 1957 earthquake would hit, and the gold-covered statue would fall into pieces, later to be replaced.

I spent my days taking the metro around Mexico City, checking off not only the sites my grandmother might have visited but my own bucket list, too: the Coyoacán neighbourhood; the Vasconcelos library; and the Zócalo, a main square in the historical centre of Mexico City built on Aztec ruins.

At a time when many women were expected to stay home and keep house, my grandmother was unfettered in Mexico City

The Zócalo was somewhere I figured my grandmother had gone. A devout Catholic, Jean likely wouldn’t have missed the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was built on the square between 1573 and 1813. In fact, my grandmother rarely missed a Sunday mass. She’d even attend the same services I did with my Catholic school. And when it came time for the students to shake hands in peace near the end of mass, I’d whip my head around to find her. We’d catch eyes from across the church, and she’d hold up her hand in a peace sign. She was a constant, smiling face in the crowd.

I entered the Metropolitan Cathedral – something I thought Jean would be happy about – and then made my way to the centre of the Zócalo. I had my hands in my coat pocket, overcome by the square’s sheer size. Groups of families and friends walked by. But for me, standing idle as people whizzed past, it’d never felt so good to be alone.

View image of Jean’s four-day itinerary included a day trip to Puebla and a tour of the ancient city of Teotihuacán (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

Like many women today, travelling alone is something I do often. But despite speaking fluent Spanish and being based in Latin America for years, some loved ones still thought it’d be better for my partner to be my chaperone. For me, landing in a different country to explore solo still feels like a small push against the social system.

I wonder if Jean felt the same way 62 years ago. At the time, women in Canada were earning around 59 cents to the dollar. Women in Mexico had just got the right to vote in 1953 after years of fighting. Jean supported herself financially and wanted to explore the world; and when she did, she was giving the system a full-out shove.

As my trip progressed, I understood my grandmother was a more relentless traveller than I am. After sitting for five days on a bus, perhaps Jean felt she’d better squeeze everything in. I travelled to Teotihuacán on public transit, but never made the day trip to Puebla as she did. I did try to visit the stores where she shopped, since the addresses were listed on the receipts she kept. At one I found a hotel. The second boutique, simply listed at the ‘corner of Londres and Calle Génova’, was now either a convenience store, taco chain, an off-license liquor shop or a Starbucks.

View image of Stunt made sure to visit the Metropolitan Cathedral, a site her grandmother, a devout Catholic, surely visited (Credit: Credit: Mark Kanning/Alamy)

As I retraced her steps, I thought about what drove Jean to break the mould. The needle pointed to her family. Her parents lived in China for 10 years starting in 1921 – in fact, the first time my grandmother travelled was from China to Canada, on a boat for three months as an infant while her parents were on sabbatical.

Landing in a different country to explore solo still feels like a small push against the social system

As an adult, Jean’s parents encouraged her to travel. For months, her mother sent letters convincing Jean to go with her to the Bahamas. They went together in 1955, and her father, Rundall, proudly commented on their trip in letters sent to the family – just as he did when Jean set off for Mexico.

Since moving to Colombia in my early 20s, I’ve never been able to fully explain why I’m there. One year quickly turned into four, and as I matured, the reasons I listed to my family varied. But while in Mexico, Jean reminded me just as her parents did for her, that there was no justification needed. Jean boarded the bus to Mexico City because she felt like it, and that was reason enough.

View image of Following in her grandmother's footsteps reminded Stunt that she did not need to justify her desire to travel (Credit: Credit: Victoria Stunt)

My grandmother met my grandfather the year after she returned to Canada from Mexico. They married in 1958, raised their family of four kids, and she continued working another 30 years as a nurse. Her adventurous spirit never faded, though. She’d drive across Canada with her kids – east one time, then west another. And she’d point out car number plates to her grandchildren, encouraging us to imagine far-off places.

Not long before she died, Jean went to China with her younger brother. She said she’d found the house where she was born using only an old photograph. Travelling to connect with the past, I now realise, must be a family trait.

Travel Journeys is a BBC Travel series exploring travellers’ inner journeys of transformation and growth as they experience the world.

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