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lilbasedqueen · 6 years ago

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story of my fucking life

First off I wanna start by saying my intention on putting this all out in the open isn’t to tarnish whatever pedestal some people might hold Adam upon. I should’ve have seen from the beginning that he was nothing but a literal walking garbage can.

Adam and I met in September of 2015, at Jamba Juice. He was my manager at the time and not shortly after he quit and I took his job. Somewhere down the line (maybe 5 months) I met and stupidly started dating Adams roommate. This OF COURSE made Adam jealous, because he saw someone have something he wanted, someone who at the time didn’t want him back. Anyway, that shit DID NOT work out, if I ever met anyone WORSE than Adam, it’s Joe. Don’t ever fw a Taurus who’s also a recovering addict, it don’t work. No matter how hard I tried to help him, he never wanted it, never accepted it, I’d bet all the $ in the world he relapsed.

After things ended between Joe and I, I would still talk to and hit up Adam, mainly because he sold me weed. Now at this time, Adam had a girlfriend who he had moved out here from Hawaii and was living with him in the apartment that eventually became ours. I’m not exactly sure what the reasoning was for her leaving, but something made her go back home and thats when Adam and I started messing around. I should’ve took the fact that he so willingly cheated on this girl he was SOOOO IN LOVE WITH as a huge red flag but apparently I’m just as stupid as he is.

February 2016 was the first time Adam and I had sex, when we officially started dating and when I should’ve seen the signs of his narcissistic, emotionally abusive ways. When we first got together it was all about sex drugs and alcohol. I’m not gonna go deeeep into it, cause some stuff really is better left unsaid and unknown, but we spent the majority of almost everyday together drunk and high. We’d drive out to lake mead, Nelson’s landing, state line and back, intoxicated. I had become so infatuated with this BOY who gave me free weed and took me wherever I wanted, I got undeniably caught up in the moment and never once thought about how things would be down the line.

Fast forward to April 2016, my 22nd birthday. That night was when everything started going wrong. My debit card got stolen out of my wallet by someone I thought of like family, someone I trusted. That person, you know who you are, I will never EVER forgive them. Anyway, after that happened, I lost my bank account and all my money with it AND THEN Adam and I came home one day to find the apartment emptied of almost everything, roommates gone. They just packed up and left and I assume it was because of me. Joe was still living there even after Adam and I started dating, talk about awkward. So after these guys moved out and the other fucked me over, it was just Adam, Cloud and I, in a three bedroom apartment we couldn’t afford.

I had started working, Adam had gotten fired from his job. It was just us living off an 8.50/hr paycheck every two weeks.We could hardly afford to eat, but eventually Adam got a job at a restaurant as a server and things were starting to look up...until I first caught him hitting up girls/older women off of Craigslist sex. This continued throughout the entirety of our relationship, while I was pregnant, while I was in labor, and after. He spent the past three years only caring about himself and his shrimp dick.

So, after my first initial catching him talking to bitches, he got his phone shut off and eventually pawned it to pay rent...but somehow he was still managing to meet girls (through his job). I realize how much of an idiot I was and am, for not leaving, for believing his lies of changing, for falling in love with him. He’s become far to comfortable, and any chance he got of me leaving the house, he’d bring a girl up into our room, into our home. We went through about 8-9 roommates before we ended up on our own, and every single person would tell me the same thing: “He doesn’t deserve you.” At a point we had 6 people living in a 3 bedroom apartment, Adam and I had broken up, he broke up with me ONLY so he could fuck a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL in our house.

Let’s jump ahead, to September 2017, when I found out I was carrying this bum ass niggas baby. My initial reaction was fear, I had never EVER EVER wanted to be pregnant, especially by someone like him, but I was...and I couldn’t even get the pregnancy terminated which was my first choice. How shitty dos that sound? I so badly wanted away from this dude I was gonna have a whole ass abortion to do it. I was 24w pregnant and had only 3 months to completely GROW UP. I had to stop smoking, and drinking, which I had been doing up until the day we found out. Adam and I made a pact that if I couldn’t get high or drunk then neither could he...y’all could imagine how well that worked out. We were now living with his brother and his girlfriend, Adam was working at Carl’s Jr. and WAS STILL CHEATING ON ME WITH CRAIGSLIST WHORES. I just could not believe his thought process, what type of dude cheats on their pregnant girlfriend?! At this point, I was so far along in my pregnancy it was almost like I HAD TO STAY, he made me believe that everything would be different once that baby was earthside.

March, 2018. Zander was born in December and was now three months old. Hold onto your seats cus this where shit gets JUICY. So by this time we had moved out of his brothers house and into a real house, with my friends mom. Adam was now working at Levis, since he just up and quit Carl’s Jr. He was finally making decent money, working good hours to help and PROVIDE for his family like a man should. A friend of his had gave him this cheap ass Obama phone, since he didn’t have one, so that I could call and text him when needed. He hardly ever used that phone to contact me, but instead he again WAS FINDING PPL OFF CRAIGSLIST TO FUCK. Me being the curious cat that I am, I went and looked in that phone to see just who he was talking to and again this is when I should’ve left. Adam was now not only cheating on me with FEMALES, but this dude was LEGITIMATELY hitting up other guys. He was texting someone named Alex, who I at the time assumed was a girl but me being the spy that I am, I put that phone number into my phone and it popped up on Snapchat AS A DUDE!!

So, the year went on and our relationship at this point is nonexistent. I harbored so much hate and anger and resentment toward him I had absolutely no tears left to shed over him and his disgusting ways. By August of 2018, we had moved out of the house, and into the co do we are still currently in. He was at Levis from May 2017 until November, fired yet again from another job. In December he started working at FedEx, and my health was the worst it had ever been. I wasn’t eating, hardly sleeping, my headaches were completely incapacitating me, I couldn’t care for myself let alone my child. I was alone at night from 5-11 while he went to work at FedEx, alone and in pain and left to care for a baby.

Three days before Zanders first birthday, I woke up at 4am on Thursday morning, got out of bed and fell to the ground, where I started having a partial seizure, awake and aware of every going on, unable to move or speak. I was completely STUCK on the ground almost the whole entire time while I waited for my dad to pick me up and take me to the ER. I was in the worst pain of my life, and honestly wished I would’ve just died so I did t have to feel like that anymore. I was brought back to surgery around I think noon, came out around 2pm. Anesthesia is a HELL OF A DRUG, that shit is so crazy bro, almost as crazy as all the shit I put up with.

You’d think after having BRAIN SURGERY, your boyfriend would do anything he could to make life easier for you but shit just went back to the way it always has been. I was the one cleaning, taking care of the baby, cooking, taking care of the dogs. I JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL FROM BRAIN SURGERY and it was back to how shit had always been. All things considered I was feeling better, but it was shitty having your significant other not give a shit about you or your health. Dude could hardly be bothered to visit me in the hospital I had to BEG him to come see me.

Now, we jump ahead to today...2019 and I’ve again caught him on CL hitting up people. At this point Adam is again UNEMPLOYED, hasn’t had a job since March. We haven’t paid Mays rent, can’t pay bills or buy food because he uses MY ebt card as if it’s his. Now, I say people because at this point I have no clue if it’s guys or girls he’s trying to talk to. I had about two other more times where I saw gay stuff that rose my suspicions as to whether or not Adam like boys...I mean I hook up with girls so what’s to be embarrassed about? Right now is May 23, 3 days ago I was on my email on MY PHONE, checking emails like anyone else would, when I saw yet again something from Craigslist. Emails exchanged since JANUARY up until now, between Adam and another guy, talking about stuff they’ve done, Adam asking him if he wants to suck his dick again, and if they can smoke. I realize one reason for his actions is Adams extreme addiction to cannabis. He hits up people online to ‘party and play’, who tf ever thinks their baby daddy is a closet homosexual? People say you can’t be addicted to weed but I assure this nigga is an addict. When he’s not high he’s grumpy and rude and takes everything out on everyone but once he smokes his whole mf mood changes.

I literally feel like my whole last four years of my life is a movie. Who the hell finds out their boyfriend cheated on them with MEN? lol wtf bro, is this even real? But yes, it is, so very real and so very much my life. Adam and I broke up two days ago, and unfortunately for me, I got no where else to go. So for all of you who constantly ask me if I’m okay, if everything’s alright, NO IM NOT OKAY, no everything’s not alright. My life is a fucking prison, and I have nowhere to go to escape him and his absolute toxic ways.

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antoine-roquentin · 6 years ago

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The new German left coalition, Aufstehen, aims to break the morbid consensus of perpetual ‘grand coalition’. Unsurprisingly Wolfgang Streeck, one of the few sociologists who would think to ask the question How Will Capitalism End?, is one of its partisans, making the case for the coalition in a provocative long-form article for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. A long-time supporter of Die Linke, he sees in the emerging coalition the chance to realign the left on the basis of an orientation to power.

If the ‘realists’ of Die Linke coalesce with the left-wing of social democracy, they could legitimately aim to govern. They could break the deflationary fiscal regime, end the taboo on taxing corporations and the rich, end debt rules that prevent municipalities from writing off their debts and the government from credit-financing infrastructure, address class and regional inequalities, and abandon a decrepit US-aligned foreign policy of propping up some corrupt governments and bombing others. This is an agenda that most on the Left would support.

So why is there a need for a new coalition? Die Linke is surely the one German party that has consistently supported policies like this. What would yet another realignment achieve beyond a further step down the road to a fractal Left? What, given the ambition of Streeck’s agenda, is there to be ‘realists’ about? What is the issue over which there is such “moralising away of fundamental questions” that one needs a new Left?

The issue, at least for the ‘realists’, is immigration. Specifically, it is Die Linke’s commitment to open borders, and its repudiation of former leader Sahra Wagenknecht for dabbling in anti-refugee rhetoric. The ‘realists’ are the Wagenknecht wing, the ‘sectarians’ are the delegates who voted against her. Unable to win the argument in Die Linke, the ‘realists’ are betting on a new political vehicle. This is the aspect of Streeck’s case that I want to comment on. Or rather, because he submerges the argument in the general rhetorical sweep of his recent Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article, this is the part I want to expand on.

One has to admire, first of all, the parsimony of Streeck’s political taxonomy. As far as arguments on the Left go, there is only one fork in the tree of possibilities. On one branch, we find ‘realists’, accommodating the anti-immigrant sentiment which the Alternative for Germany (AfD) capitalises on. On the other, ‘sectarians’, sacrificing political efficacy to moral posturing, and using the AfD’s far right politics to avoid the issues they raise.

If these sound like the sorts of one-dimensional protagonists one might encounter in a morality fable, they are. Nonetheless, Streeck says, the prevalence of preening sectarians means that the “big questions” are suppressed. Capitalism, democracy, climate, war, “globalism” and “national statehood” are off the agenda while purists ineffectually worry about the “niceties of national and international asylum law”.

From this, one might get the impression that the ‘realists’, led by Aufstehen founder Sahra Wagenknecht, are desperately keen to stop talking about refugees. Yet one thing that one really can’t say about them is that they’ve driven refugees down the political agenda. It may not be the issue they spend most time talking about, but it is the issue that defines them as distinct from their opponents on the Left. Granted that they do, in fact, also talk about war, climate, inequality and capitalism, that wasn’t ever controversial in Die Linke.

Indeed, it was Wagenknecht who chose to make refugees the issue, in a deliberate and predictably controversial break with Die Linke’s policy, by attacking Angela Merkel from the right, beginning in August 2015. Merkel had, in response to a popular sentiment in favour of letting in Syrian refugees, undertook a short-lived pirouette to Wilkommenskultur. The Dublin Regulation, an EU law which says that member-states have to process applications from asylum seekers, was suspended. The purpose of the law is to ensure that migrants who arrive in destinations like Greece, Italy and Spain, stay there. It is linked to an apparatus designed to deter refugees from making the journey to Europe, from illegal ‘pushback’ agreements with Greece and Turkey to the harassment of rickety boats on the Mediterranean seas by Frontex operations. But Germany, for a brief moment, said it would welcome the refugees.

One would be entitled to be a little cynical of Merkel. Though often mistaken for some sort of bleeding-heart liberal, she had cheerfully baited migrants and Muslims, and declared multiculturalism a failure, and bears significant responsibility for the fortification of ‘Fortress Europe’. But when Wagenknecht attacked her, it was for suggesting that Germany could handle the refugee inflow. She later blamed Merkel’s “uncontrolled border opening” and police cuts for causing a major attack carried out by an ISIS supported in Berlin in December 2016.

Nor was Wagenknecht, in making this claim, weighing in with an argument that was under-represented in the political spectrum. The giddy thrill of transgression that palpably comes with such ostensibly hard-headed ‘realism’ is entirely unwarranted. Her argument that open borders was to blame echoed the AfD. The complaint about police budget cuts echoed the social-democratic vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel. More broadly, in attacking the momentarily liberal-sounding Merkel fom the right, Wagenknecht was cutting with the grain of established government policy and rhetoric. There are, further, many ways to describe what such rhetoric does. For example it, demagogically, leverages the emotional response to a devastating event to advance a political argument. But one thing it definitely doesn’t do is break the mould, forcing the long-neglected issues of capitalism, democracy, climate and war back on the agenda.

Still, what if the argument was correct? Shouldn’t that be the most important thing? Should political correctness censor the truth? What could be more typical of the moral Left than its fidelity to abstractions over mucky realities? Anis Amri, the Berlin killer, was after all an asylum seeker from Tunisia: QED. I will not evade this, but I will just briefly pause to point out what might not be obvious, viz. that majority of terror attacks in Europe continue to be carried out by citizens of Europe, not migrants, and that the UN’s study could find no evidence of any correlation between migration and terror. So there is already a problem with conflating border controls with counterterrorism.

That said, Anis Amri was definitely not the beneficiary of any “uncontrolled border opening”. Amri had arrived in the Italian island of Lampedusa by boat in 2011, like tens of thousands of other migrants fleeing the turbulence of the Arab spring. He was held in a detention camp for refugees. Why is there a detention camp for refugees in Lampedusa? I’ll come back to that. When thousands of the detainees rioted, in protest against the notoriously awful conditions – which the island’s mayor compared to a concentration camp – he was among those locked up for it.

It was in a European jail that Amri was spotted and recruited by the jihadists who would link him to ISIS. He was already in the Schengen Zone when he migrated to Germany in July 2015, shortly after his release but before Merkel’s announcement. And while he did apply for asylum, he was turned down and scheduled for deportation – like most asylum applicants in Germany. While the deportation was going through the courts, he was under surveillance by German security services. They determined that he didn’t pose a threat. They were wrong, of course. But neither in the detail nor in the big picture does the Amri case prove anything about Merkel’s suspension of the Dublin Regulation, let alone that Germany is a soft touch and that refugee controls are too lax.

So, far from thinking asylum is a marginal issue, or a distraction, Wagenknecht and allies clearly think it an issue worth fighting over. One for which they are prepared, at key moments, to say things that are emotive, grossly inaccurate, and just a little bit sleazy.

It is clear enough what Wagenknecht was trying to do, and what the ‘realists’ in Aufstehen are now trying to do. Die Linke had been suffering from a prolonged political stalemate. Far from gaining amid capitalist crisis and eurozone turmoil, it had seen its vote stagnate since making a small gain in the 2009 Federal elections. In 2017, it was beaten into fifth place by the FDP and the AfD. The Left Party lost eleven percent of its voters to the AfD between 2013 and 2017, although a far bigger share of far right votes came from the CDU/CSU, and more still were previous non-voters.

Wagenknecht and her allies think this is because Die Linke is out of touch with its ‘traditional’ supporters. The older, less educated manual workers in the East who voted AfD are not reached by squeaky-clean, sanctimonious middle-class activists crying about dead refugees. The rage against refugees, they think, reflects a misdirected class anger on the part of the poor. This poor man’s economism patronises people. It treats them as victims of an astonishingly crude form of ‘false consciousness’, taking no account of the elaborate systems of perception and values in which such beliefs are grounded. Not to mention the sheer stubborn, cussed delight with which people invest their beliefs. It doesn’t ask what it might mean, in terms of their attachment to hierarchies and competition, if people are more offended by refugees than by class injustice.

Yet it is not just an argument about false consciousness. Rather than alienating those who vote for the AfD, the ‘realists’ proceed, the Left needs to understand and address their legitimate concerns, then give them a radical gloss. In an article written with playwright Bernd Stegemann for Die Zeit, Wagenknecht rebukes the Left for feel-good purity, oblivious to the fact that refugees compete for “scarce resources at the bottom of society” and can be a little bit scary and strange at times. Notice that Wagenknecht and Stegemann aren’t, themselves, claiming to be affrighted by refugees with their strange ways. I suspect they would be mortified to confess to such a disposition. For that reason, the attempt confer a certain rationality and grown-up dignity on an everyday prejudice reeks of condescension and bad faith.

It is also, finally, illogical. There is no evidence that the anti-refugee position is driven by any practical experience of competition or brushes with any frightening foreign culture. To the contrary, the AfD vote in 2017 was highest in the areas with the lowest share of foreign-born population: an utterly typical pattern. By that time, moreover, Wagenknecht’s rhetoric had been prominently broadcast across all media for two years. If it was going to woo those racist voters, one might have expected it to do so by then. Instead, it may well have given some voters the motivation they needed to jump ship.

As Aufstehen was launched, Wagenknecht and Stegemann co-wrote another article for the Nordwest-Zeitung, calling for a “realistic” immigration policy, steering a convivially middling course between two unpalatable extremes: “the resentment of the AfD” and “a limitless welcome culture”. Such a policy would fund those volunteers looking after refugees, without allowing people smugglers “to dictate which people can reach Europe by illegal means”. This is a soothing formulation. Realism. Who wants to be unrealistic? Smugglers. Who wants to be on their side? Neither this extreme nor that extreme. Who doesn’t want nuance?

The ‘realists’ are in no way breaking new ground with such rhetoric, so familiar from centrist triangulation. It is not as exciting as blaming open borders for terrorism, but it is utterly conventional for the politicians who empower traffickers by criminalising refugees, to then blame the traffickers. And even, when the predictable casualties wash up in their dozens, even their hundreds, on an Italian beach, threaten to bomb them. Yet, in a world where transport is becoming ever cheaper, what is it that gives exploitation-mongers such leverage? Why, to put it more concretely, has there been a spike of drownings in the Mediterranean in recent years, as those rickety boats run by the traffickers sink?

The number one reason, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), is the ramping up of European border controls, including strategies of “illegal pushback” by land. These strategies have been formalised by Merkel in deals with both Turkey and Greece. Deals which have been faulted for violating Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, outlawing the collective expulsion of aliens.

These policies didn’t follow a huge influx of refugees. The flow of irregular migrants, only a minority of whom were refugees, had fallen sharply in the 2000s. The share of irregular migrants as a proportion of the population has varied from 0.38 to 0.77% of the total European population. There was a short-lived spike in 2015, driven by the Syrian civil war: with one million arriving by sea alone, according to data kept by the IOM. In 2016, it fell to 387,985 by land and sea. In 2017, the figure was 176,452. In a continent of 741.4 million, with over five million born each year, and even assuming that every single new arrival was accepted and then contributed nothing by way of work and taxes, this is simply not the crisis-inducing burden that Wagenknecht has claimed.

It is always a risk to play the numbers game. For a lot of people, any number is too high when it’s refugees and immigrants. They have been defined in advance as a problem, by newspapers, politicians and policies intended to demonise them. To downplay the number of refugees implies that it’s just as well there are fewer, because ‘they’ are indeed a problem. Worse, this tends to have a retroactive effect. If new migrants, refugees or not, are defined as a problem and a burden, then it follows that they must always have been a problem and a burden. Therefore today’s citizens, whose parents and grandparents arrived as migrants, are always potentially a problem and a burden. But it is useful to underline just how separated from reality anti-asylum rhetoric has become.

The logical position, if you’re anti-trafficker, is to wind down the panic, and roll back the policies known as ‘Fortress Europe’. Rather than spending €25bn over six years to expand the EU borders apparatus, let more refugees in and let them build new lives. And, to her credit, Wagenknecht has in the past voted against asylum restrictions, and called for such invidious measures as the Dublin Regulation to be permanently cancelled. Yet, that increasingly is not the tenor of her rhetoric around immigration. And nor, in view of the publicity around Austehen, will it be the tenor of the new organisation.

It would be convenient to dismiss this as mere political opportunism. And, in part, it is: to give up difficult strategic terrain for short-term, tactical gains, is the essence of opportunism.

Nationalism and anti-immigrant racism have long been major pull factors drawing millions to the Right. The centre-left traditionally attempts to neutralise it, electorally, by appropriating it. Shortly before losing the federal election in 2005, Schroeder unavailingly mimicked Merkel’s attack on multiculturalism, worrying that immigrants were failing to integrate, creating “lawless zones or parallel societies”. Their coalition partners, the Greens, joined in: “integration is no game”, they said, abjuring multiculturalism “if it means that anyone can do whatever they want”.

This was not a response to a real situation. Multiculturalism had never meant anyone doing “whatever they want”. Germany was not dotted with “lawless zones”. But the SPD and Greens believed that others believed in this fantasy, and it was easier to attempt to ventriloquise them than abandon their hardline neoliberal reform agenda. It is difficult not to see an echo of this in the Wagenknecht strategy, from demagoguery about terrorism to middle-steering, difference-splitting rhetoric about the AfD. But, even in cynical, electoral realpolitik terms, it doesn’t work. It never works. It merely sustains the emotional basis for racism, what Spinoza called the ‘sad passions’. And those who want immigration-bashing can usually smell a bullshitter and will vote for the real Armani. If the radical-left doesn’t defend immigrants and challenge the racism driving the AfD vote, even at the cost of offending the sensibilities of potential voters, no one else will. And the beneficiaries will be the Right.

It is not just opportunism, however. This is where Streeck’s piece does usefully clarify the stakes. In his sophisticated analyses of capitalism’s modes of crisis management, and the brick wall it hit in 2008, Streeck has repeatedly asserted the legitimacy of the national state against globalisation. If capitalism is to be subordinated once more to democratic control, the key strategic locus for that control is the nation-state, which is not just a material fact but a legitimate civic and political community. In this he opposes the necessarily rooted nationality of democratic citizenship to the cosmopolitanism of investors and bankers.

For Streeck, as for Lafontaine, Bernie Sanders, and many others on the social-democratic Left, immigration controls are essential for any viable left-wing government. If you have open borders, Streeck warns, it is harder to regulate labour markets and suppress wage inequality. You can’t take account of what infrastructural capacity there is to support migration. A “pragmatic” policy would dispense with such abstractions and determine socially-just criteria for admissions and exclusions. Points systems, for example, as well as means to keep out undesirables. Given, moreover, that Streeck accepts the nation-state as the only viable locus of social solidarity and democracy, open borders is morally unacceptable. Hence, he worries about fellow citizens – AfD voters, one presumes – being declared “Nazis and racists” because they don’t want the collective goods they have financed through taxation “to be declared morally liable to being expropriated”. It is not clear whom the expropriators are supposed to be here, if not migrants.

Of course, believing all of this need not lead one to engage in the kinds of public baiting that some of the ‘realists’ have. One could believe every word of the above and still think that there should be fewer and less restrictive border controls than there currently are. One could, as Streeck does, flatly dismiss the open borders position, much as one might dismiss the case for flying saucers, without thinking that one can somehow bait-and-switch racist voters. There are as many varieties of ‘realism’ as there are ‘sectarianism’.

Yet, the fact that in the case of the ‘realists’ he lauds, it does lead to demagogic baiting – and soft-peddling the argument with the AfD, and vague genuflections to the ‘issues’ they raise – is grounds for questioning it.

Is it really plausible to oppose nation to capital in the way that Streeck and so many other social-democrats do? How ‘cosmopolitan’, really, are investors and bankers? Are they not wholly dependent on nation-states to furnish them with stable currency and infrastructures and advance the global institutions which entrench property rights, investor rights and capital mobility? Are they not largely integrated into their respective national states? Has the strength of the nation-state really waned, or is it more the case that the position within nation-states of subaltern groups, and their democratic self-expression, has waned? Is the Left’s task to re-empower national states and to rally round the civic communities subtending them, or to shift the balance of power within them?

On the question of migration, it is not clear that what Streeck adumbrates by way of strengthening the nation-state’s role is in any sense inconvenient to capital. In what way would a points system, for instance, not subordinate labour mobility to the interests of capital, and further entrench labour market segregation? In what way is it better for workers that states assume more right to restrict their mobility in the coming years? Presumably the idea is to use tighter borders to create tighter labour markets and support wage claims supposedly threatened by competition from migrant labour.

This is known as the “lump of labour fallacy”, neglecting as it does the fact that migration tends to increase total employment, rather than raise competition for existing employment. Even in the Schengen Area, where the ‘pull factors’ are shaped by institutionalised precarity, weak unions and emaciated welfare, there is little evidence of such effects in the aggregate. Even having a points system in place, however, doesn’t stop migrants from being blamed for low wages, despite the paucity of evidence. To put it bluntly, whatever immigration regime you have, there will always be people falsely blaming social problems on immigration. Not because it’s the fault of immigration but because some people are xenophobic or racist. Why should the Left give ground to this?

Finally, is the nation-state really the exclusive plausible basis of democracy and social solidarity, as Streeck suggests in his debate with Adam Tooze? The Left didn’t always think so. Much of its history has been characterised by social movements and alliances which deliberately practiced democracy and solidarity on scales other than the nation. This is a matter of taste, no doubt. But I prefer the Left that is uncompromisingly in solidarity with migrants and refugees, recognising them as class brothers and sisters, to the Left that will throw them under the bus for the mirage of “political power and responsibility”.

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kramerinwriting · 3 years ago

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Bipolar - I just need to write. Maybe it’ll help you too.

Hi, hello. I wanted the first thing I wrote to be a little less during a chaotic feeling but waiting for the waters to calm has only made me realize they’re going to get more severe before the mellow out. I guess I’m writing this mostly because I desperately need to. I have no real goal or purpose to this. I’m just hoping using this outlet will help clear my mind a bit. I’m writing as the thoughts come up. Hopefully it’ll go smoothly.

My name is Kramer and I’m diagnosed Bipolar and I’m awful at productively managing it since the pandemic.

I was diagnosed bipolar in 2015 and the beginning didn’t have the smoothest transition into my life in mental health management. I was in a failing relationship, we had a miscarriage and my partner started to resent me. I don’t take it personally. It’s easier to cope when you assign blame. I had just gotten laid off from work shortly before that as well. So my life was at what I thought was my major low point. During the beginning of treatment, I was constantly told by my spouse at the time that the medication wasn’t working and I was constantly talked down to about my failures and even had bottles of pills thrown at me in anger. I was on 7 different medications at the time, never once been on medication before that, and navigating all of the other things mentioned above. I was terrified. Terrified how medication would feel and how it would affect me.

Shortly into my beginning of treatment, I was cheated on and left for a guy she worked with. So with my mental health treatment came a fresh start at a new life. I had just gotten a job working with a big company and things were looking up. And they did look up for quite awhile. I was regularly going to therapy, managing my medication very well, and doing well at work. My psychiatrist said I was the best success story he had ever seen. In reflection, I feel like his hyping me up was more hazardous than not as a common symptom of bipolar can be occasional delusions of grandeur so maybe feeding my ego wasn’t the best move.

I worked with that company from 2015 to 2020. I got promoted every year and by the end I was managing teams, training people over seas, and running daily meetings with important people at the company. In 2017 I quit smoking weed and I lost 110 pounds. It was amazing and I felt so good about it. Except it wasn’t good. Want the honest truth? I wanted someone to like me and felt I wasn’t good enough.

I developed an obsession with working out and counted calories so far that I would max out at 600 calories a day and that’s with working out at the gym every day via an hour and a half of cardio and an hour of weight lifting. I lost 110 pounds and was thinner than I’ve ever been. Except naturally, I felt like complete garbage all the time. Eating disorders will do that to you. My body felt awful, I felt awful. My mental health started declining really fast because guess what? Losing the weight didn’t change that person’s opinion and in retrospect she didn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things and isn’t even in my life anymore. I started smoking weed again just because I missed being high. I live in a legal state, by the way.

With the decline of my mental health, work started to suffer. I was missing work occasionally and falling apart. Then in 2020, the pandemic hit and after 5 years I was laid off. They claimed it was due to the pandemic and cutting costs because I was the newer member of a 2 person team but no other area was downsized. Just me. This was the start of things slowly unraveling.

During the pandemic, I was put on a medication called Seroquel. I’m sure it works for some people but for me, I slept 14 hours a day, and was only awake to eat and get stoned. Between 2020 and now, I gained all that weight back and even extra. I’m currently struggling with leaving the house because im so ashamed with how I look. I had a small stint working with a company as a call center agent from December 2020 to August 2021 but the anxiety got to me and I couldn’t handle it. During this time I tried multiple different medications and none of them made me feel better.

July 4th 2021 shortly after midnight, my dog, who was my best friend for the last 15 years, started suffering heart attacks and was dying. I rushed him to the vet where he passed in my arms. It was a horrific situation because he had a heart attack again in my arms and I couldn’t even properly say goodbye to him because they had to rush to put him down so he wouldn’t be in pain anymore. Since that day, I haven’t been the same. It was hard enough seeing my best friend pass away but the way he did has honestly traumatized me. I think about those moments more than the happier ones no matter how hard I try. I see them when I close my eyes. I see him in distress and I so desperately want it to stop.

Since that day, I have been on a downward spiral. I quit all my medication in July as I convinced myself they were making me worse. Please never do this. I started smoking weed a lot heavier to cope. I wasn’t working. I was just rotting away. The one good thing about 2021 is that I met someone who I love more than anything and we’re currently dating as of December 11th. She keeps me grounded and I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. I know I can be a burden though.

I have my future lined up, I’m going to move from Washington state to Arizona and attend college full time. A second shot at building my future stronger than ever after dropping out of college twice in my early 20’s. I’ll be staying with my grandparents so I’m trying to quit smoking weed as I won’t be able to do it in their house and honestly I need to because I don’t have a healthy relationship with it anymore. This is where the issues come in.

Weed isn’t addictive but being high is. And honestly weed probably isn’t the best for people suffering from bipolar disorder anyway. It’s been two days since I’ve stopped as of writing this and dealing with my thoughts and feelings and mania that comes with bipolar with zero medication or weed to cushion the crushing weight of the world. I’ve been so miserably depressed and stressed that I haven’t left my bed in two days. I’m not eating or drinking liquids. I’m sleeping all day, I’m writing this on my phone on bed. I feel absolutely crushed right now and I can’t function. I’m not doing anything I enjoy and I’m such an extreme mess.

Never fear however because I have my sights set on a better future. Once I get to Arizona I’m making it a priority to get my life in order. Get back into treatment, stay sober, make exercise and HEALTHY dieting a daily routine, and kick life’s ass. But as of right this second, I’m doing awful. I’m struggling greatly. But don’t worry, I don’t feel any type of thoughts that would put me at risk for anything serious. But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. The part of the tunnel I’m in currently just has a bunch of mud to sift through.

My point of writing this is for it to hopefully be cathartic. It’s also to show that even if you’re doing poorly now, the future isn’t pre-written for you. I’m doing bad currently but I’m setting goals for myself outside of the cloud of despair. This pain is temporary. I hope it’s relatable. I hope that if someone reads this and they’re struggling, they’ll feel less alone. You’re never alone. Please be kind to yourself and I’ll do my best to be kind to myself.

Much love

-Kramer

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i-am-the-entertainer · 7 years ago

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What Killed The Comet?: For The Extremes of The Two Sides of The Great Comet Debacle

I can’t believe this is still a thing a month after the Comet closed on Broadway. Recent comments by Okieriete Onaodowan regarding The Great Comet have led to two things flairing up: diehard Comet fans and even some of the cast calling BS on Oak’s claims of TGC not “investing” in diversity, and diehard Oak/Hamilton fans claiming the Comet fandom “must officially apologize” to Oak.

As both an activist for diversity in theater (not to mention a person of color) and a fan of The Great Comet, I think it’s time to restate some stuff to remember about what caused the Comet to close.

tl;dr I cannot in any capacity summarize this in a “tl;dr,” this is a very long post, hence I’ve put the rest under a read more. The only thing I can say is there’s nuance. I just ask that you read this whole thing, and no matter what your opinion is, keep an open mind.

But a disclaimer: I am not an industry insider, nor do I consider myself a supporter of either extremes of this. My intention here is not to support either of you: you, the people who blame Oak for everything, and you, the people who think Oak takes no blame and people need to apologize to him. I’m only restating information. In the real world I am equal parts a POC, a diversity in theater activist, and a political activist. My analyses are essentially my best guesses, I am by no means an expert on financials.

A lot of this information is culled from the NY Times coverage on the show’s closing, as well as the three NY Post articles by Michael Riedel––I’m inclined to trust the Times coverage more, but seeing as the Times article confirms a lot of what the Post first reported, we’re gonna assume at least some of Riedel’s sources are accurate. Other statements, like cast members and others, are cited in-text.

The Background

Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812, based on a short excerpt from Tolstoy’s War and Peace, first opened in 2012 to critical acclaim at Ars Nova. Its popularity led to it transferring to Times Square in a specially-built venue called “Kazino,” where it enjoyed a run before transferring to the Meatpacking District and finally closing in 2014. Among its original cast was Phillipa Soo as Natasha, who of course later went on to star as Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton. The show, staged in an immersive setting by Rachel Chavkin, incorporated a highly diverse cast of multiple ethnicities and sexualities: as of the Original Broadway Cast, besides lead actress Denee Benton being black, there were “seven additional cast members of African descent, three Asian Americans and five Latinos.”

In 2015, talks began for a Broadway run of The Great Comet, starring pop-singer Josh Groban as Pierre. In preparation for this run, Comet was staged at A.R.T. in Boston where its immersive elements were successfully transferred to a proscenium setting. Groban’s presence was announced, as well as the casting of black actress Denee Benton in the lead role of Natasha.

The Great Comet opened on Broadway in the fall of 2016, earning significant praise, especially for Denee Benton and Josh Groban, as well as sporting a hugely diverse cast. With Hamilton of course having swept the Tonys the previous season, TGC was easily one of the contenders for Best Musical, especially with its diverse cast.

Part of what sold The Great Comet in its pre-Broadway runs was its highly immersive staging where actors were literally on top of audience members and its diverse casting, on top of a hugely creative score by writer Dave Malloy. But it played in a very small theater when it was Off-Broadway. To guarantee tickets, the producers felt they needed a bankable star. So they chose Groban.

However, the casting of Groban had an unintended effect: The Great Comet, which had already amassed a cult following for being “that cool immersive musical,” suddenly became “that Josh Groban musical.” The reason it was selling out every week and attracting an audience was because people wanted a chance to see Josh Groban in a show. And Josh Groban, bless his heart, is a busy guy. The show needed a bankable star to take over once he was done.

In early 2017, the producers announced the casting of Tony-nominated actor Okieriete Onaodowan, the original Hercules Mulligan/James Madison from Hamilton, as Groban’s replacement for Pierre. A few months later, it also emerged that singer Ingrid Michaelson would be temporarily taking on the role of Sonya, apparently while original actor Brittain Ashford was on vacation. (remember this part for later.)

When Oak arrived for rehearsals shortly before his Broadway debut, it emerged that he was not ready for performances yet despite having been given several months’ notice: he had not learned all of his piano and accordion parts for the role, which under Groban and Malloy had largely been Pierre’s involvement in the show besides his singing parts. Without a workable star, Oak’s debut was pushed back a week from the July 3 date so he could have adequate time to learn the parts. Eventually, with no time left, the instrumental parts were largely divided up among the cast members, with this new arrangement being used for the rest of the run.

When the delay was announced, Oak tweeted the following message: “UPDATE: July 11th will be Oaks first show! DATE CHANGE! They need another week 2get ready for Oak!” Dave Malloy goes on record in the Times article (link above) that he found it bizarre that Oak was claiming the show needed to be ready for him considering he had been the one who wasn’t ready.

Point: I personally have heard from my own credible sources that Oak was, in fact, ready for the role and there was no reason for the producers to delay his debut, nor to divide the parts.. While I trust this source, I can’t help but notice that when I saw Josh Groban and Dave Malloy as Pierre they played their instruments for the entire show, whereas when I saw Oak and later Dave at the final performance most of Pierre’s instrument-playing had been divided among the ensemble. If Oak had in fact been ready, what accounts for Pierre’s role suddenly becoming him just sitting there instead of serving as part of the orchestra? Was this narrative incorrect? Or maybe the producers didn’t have faith in him?

Besides Oak not having been ready for the role, the NY Post reports that he had been actively clashing with Chavkin about his personal choices for the role: he wanted to do his own interpretation while Chavkin wanted him to stick to the previous direction she’d given the previous Pierres. Again, this is NY Post which is basically tabloids, however one of the drummers on the Great Comet, Joey Cassata, retweeted the original article for this claiming it was the truth. Cassata as a member of the orchestra would have been privy to a lot of what decisions were being made with the instrumentals.

Point: Cassata, along with much of the fandom and even the cast, was and is very protective of The Great Comet, and it’s well-known the cast wasn’t too pleased by the backlash that would later follow. It’s equally reasonable to suggest Cassata, in a bout of anger at the show’s likely demise, retweeted the article to reiterate its claims and find a scapegoat. However, as the article’s central claims, mainly Oak being unprepared and clashing with Chavkin, were confirmed in the Times article, we’re just gonna have to decide how much faith we put in the Times in checking reliable sources. There is also the possibly that the cast read the Post, decided it fit their ideas of the narrative, and subsequently confirmed its story to the Times reporter. That’s up to you.

In the meantime, it became apparent that Oak was not selling the desired amount of tickets. See, the thing is, The Great Comet was an expensive show. In order to make the renovations to the Imperial Theatre to properly stage it, the building had to literally be rented. In order for the show to turn a profit while still being able to use the theater, it had to make over $900,000 a week. This was hardly a problem with Groban, as he was selling the show for over a million a week. But once he left, ticket sales began to drop: Oak, despite his own popularity, wasn’t the draw that could sell tickets for this expensive show which was still quite popular among audiences. And the show needed a certain number of pre-sale tickets to make sure they could keep the theater, otherwise the Shubert Organization would give it to another show. This, coupled with the summer season generally being a difficult one for Broadway, meant the show was losing money fast.

Only a few weeks into Oak’s run, the producer’s began training Mandy Patinkin, of Sunday In The Park With George, Evita, Criminal Minds, The Princess Bride, and Homeland fame. (Note: this is directly aimed at the Hamilton fans who had never heard of Mandy Patinkin). Discussions with Oak led to the decision that he would step down from the role temporarily and the last three weeks of his original run would be taken over by Mandy, who could only do it then because of Homeland. And then he was free to come back after Patinkin was finished (while the producers looked for another potential star to play Pierre once Oak was done, with the benefit of summer ending meaning it wouldn’t mean too much of a money problem).

Why would it work this time, you ask? Because they’d done it before. Brittain Ashford’s temporary departure from Sonya was specifically to draw in an audience for the summer with Ingrid Michaelson. But again, Michaelson is a busy woman: once she left, they wouldn’t have a non-Broadway name to draw an audience. More on that later.

Here’s where recasting Oak so abruptly ran into trouble: Oak, an actor of color, was being set aside temporarily for Mandy, a white actor.

Rather, a Jewish actor: I’m not gonna make any claim to whether being Jewish is a race or not. But the point is, it was perceived as an actor of color being pushed aside for at the very least a white-passing actor.

Needless to say, the POC community wasn’t too happy. Broadway Black posted an article pointed out what this could mean, with Cynthia Erivo and Rafael Casal tweeting about what a poor decision this was and frankly unfair to Oak. What developed from their tweets first came #MakeRoomForOak, which they supported, as well as one which to their credit they quickly distanced themselves from: the sudden call for #BoycottTheComet, saying because it had forgone diversity it deserved to close. I should reiterate that all three parties quickly pointed out this was not what they were calling for.

Oak, as it turns out, didn’t actually think the decision had been about his race, but he also did not really believe the controversy was his problem, as he had not been the one to start it. He eventually decided he did not want to return to the role once Patinkin had finished, and announced on his Instagram he would not return after the new August 15 end date.

Patinkin, in the meantime, had apparently not been told he was replacing an actor of color before the original contract was up, and felt it was not his place to take over the role, and so he pulled out only days after his casting was announced.

Dave Malloy took to Twitter and sent out a series of tweets, apologizing for not having seen the racial optics of the situation, and explaining the financial situation. He noted that he was not sure the show had a future.

The producers scrambled to find another star to take over, but by that time the show had ceased to become “that Josh Groban musical” and suddenly became “that musical that’s now tied to a racial controversy so it would be really bad for a white actor to take over after Oak, plus now we know the show is failing so that looks even worse for us” and a TV star who had been training to take over for Oak pulled out.

Point: I have heard that said-TV star was Rainn Wilson. I’m...not entirely positive that would have worked anyway.

With no bankable star and no way to make up for the lost money, the theater was handed back to the Shubert Organization, who subsequently scheduled the upcoming revival of Carousel to take the theater. Comet closed to a sold-out audience on September 3, 2017.

End of story? Well, not exactly. Recently, Oak did an interview with Forbes talking about Colin Kaepernick’s recent protests and how it had spread. During the interview, he noted the Broadway community should “take a knee” with Kaepernick, and brought up the Comet:

“I played Pierre, a white Russian aristocrat, and my co-lead was Denée Benton," said Onaodowan, the child of Nigerian immigrants, of his role in The Great Comet. "Two black leads playing not black people--it was an important moment for the Broadway community to say diversity is possible and it's here."

But, he added, there is more to diversity than just existing, it must be nurtured--and that's where The Great Comet failed.

"You have to cultivate diversity for it to work, and I feel the Great Comet didn't take the time to cultivate it. They didn't want to invest in it," he said. "That's how diversity becomes a gimmick or device, when it is introduced but not supported."

Oak’s comments quickly sparked outrage from both the Comet fandom and even the cast (see Sumayya Ali’s essay on the topic): after all, The Great Comet had won shortly before its closure an Extraordinary Excellence in Diversity award on account of its diversity. To the fandom, and even to cast members Cathryn Wake, Celia Mei Rubin, and Nicholas Belton, it appeared Oak was essentially lying about the diversity of the cast. In addition, the MakeRoomForOak people returned to claim Oak “deserved an apology from the entire Great Comet fandom,” an apology the fandom felt no obligation to give.

Which brings us to now: our central question is what killed the Comet? Well, despite what the NY Post and even The National Review may claim, there’s no single answer. To come up with the answer(s), we need to bring up a few points.

There has been some suggestion money was being mishandled at the Comet from the start

The Post recently reported a group of investors in the show requested an audit: they are demanding answers as to why a show that was regularly taking in $1 million a week only returned 15% of the investment.

Dean Roth, one of the investors, said the following:

What determines whether a show runs is if it can continue to make money for the producers. Great Comet has, in my opinion as an investor, been grossly mismanaged from the start. Where the original budget had the show sustaining itself with a weekly gross in the $750k range, by the time all was said and done, we need nearly $900k to break even. Further, had budgets been followed, there would have been a healthy reserve in place to get the show through the seasonal trough in Aug-Oct to the highly profitable Nov-Jan months. There was little reserve, so this controversy made for an almost immediate closing.

Again, I’d like to state I’m not a financial expert, and I’m not privy to what was going on financially with the Comet. But if the show was regularly taking in a weekly gross of over a million and the money could have been reserved to keep it going during the summer months, what happened? Where did it go? Could that money have saved the show?

It’s worth bringing up that the money issues aren’t the first time the producers have been embroiled in a potentially unnecessary issue. Some of you may recall back in October when the show opened there was a bit of a controversy regarding the show having the pre-title “The Ars Nova production of,” seeing as the show had originally been developed for Ars Nova and the Kagans, the producers, were on Ars Nova’s board. The original contracts had required the use of this pre-title, yet the programs did not label it as such, instead listing Ars Nova among other contributors. When Ars Nova complained, rather than agreeing Howard Kagan banned the board of Ars Nova from being able to attend the show. Needless to say, this caused some controversy: the cast was silent, but supporters of the show quickly called this out and the situation was resolved.

While this incident seems unrelated to the money issues, it does suggest a lack of judgment particularly on Howard Kagan’s part. After all, his poorly-worded announcement about Oak leaving and his initial responses helped stoke the flames of the MakeRoomForOak people. In any situation, it is not wise for a rich white guy to downplay the concerns for people of color.

This is based purely on my opinion of Kagan, but I think it’s safe to say we can name the producers as a culprit.

Culprit: The Producers

A lot of the MakeRoomForOak people are Hamilton fans with little to no knowledge of The Great Comet or who is in it

If we’re basing this on the response I’ve personally gotten from some in the following, this has no bearing on the situation and does not affect their opinions. Only, well, it kind of does.

The Great Comet is very easily diverse: just one look at the cast and knowing the history of the show demonstrates it. Rachel Chavkin actively strives for so-called “color blind” casting, although in her case it would be more appropriate to say she’s “color conscious”: diversity is not only an element, it’s an essential part of her productions, including the two I’ve seen, Hadestown and Primer for a Failed Superpower. Part of Comet’s cult-following Off-Broadway came from its diverse casting.

While that following continued to Broadway, the show wasn’t becoming known as “that new highly diverse musical”: again, it was becoming “that Josh Groban musical.” The diverse element of the show was known if you were familiar, and indeed some Hamilton fans, knowing of Phillipa Soo’s connection, easily became enamored with it. I myself first fell in love with the Comet after learning Phillipa Soo had been in it.

Here’s the thing though: Great Comet is a really strange musical. Its style doesn’t necessarily appeal to everyone in the Hamilton fandom, so it’s safe to say some just didn’t pay it much mind. And in a case like that, it’s actually quite easy for you to miss the fact that the show was already extremely diverse.

It’s also worth noting even for people who haven’t been living under a rock that there isn’t really a musical theater fandom quite like Hamilton’s: the way people have connected to the show is akin to a fandom for a widely-seen TV show like Sherlock or Supernatural. People write fanfiction and become attached to the original cast members. So attached, in fact, that they will become highly protective of them to the point of deciding they can do nothing wrong.

In the long-run, it certainly helps overall political causes that Hamilton has attracted and encouraged a new generation of political activists striving for diversity in theater. However, these same activists are also fans, and it’s not uncommon for fandom to mistake their own obsession with a character or actor for reasons for social-justice activism. Do y’all remember that whole Steven Universe fiasco?

“Which one?” the smartass asks.

A lot of potential discourse regarding #MakeRoomForOak has boiled down to this:

For the MakeRoomForOak person, Oak being a member of Hamilton’s original Broadway cast and also being an actor of color inextricably ties him to diversity in theater, and so long as one show he’s in decides to cut him loose, diversity for that show thatI’veneverevenheardofIjustknowOakisinit is officially over, and anyone who disagrees with me on that “obviously doesn’t care about POC.”

For the Comet fan, it comes to trying to explain to someone who’s protective of their precious actors that they’re forming a lot of opinions about a show and its creative team that they’ve never even heard of, especially not knowing Chavkin and Malloy’s history with diversity, and shutting down any potential discourse. Because the MakeRoomForOak person doesn’t think there is any discourse––as I learned from my SJW years, anyone who disagrees with you is inevitably wrong, the world is Black-and-White, and people are either racist or not racist.

This incredible refusal of discussion and crowding behind Oak from a highly vocal fandom very much increased the controversy and helped make the show nearly untouchable.

The culprit: The Hamilton fandom

Casting Oak and Josh Groban in this show was kind of a bad idea

I mentioned earlier that the show’s reputation before it came to Broadway was its diversity and its unique staging. Remember Hamilton? Even though we all knew Lin from In The Heights, what drew people to the show was the idea of portraying this historically white actors with people of color and portraying it through hip-hop. There were no really well-known Broadway celebrities except possibly Lin and first Brian D’Arcy James and then Jonathan Groff, but people weren’t crowding to see the show because of them, they heard about the unique concept and it turned out brilliant.

A similar thing happened to the Comet off-Broadway. But as the financially dictated Broadway system has proven more than once, a show needs a bankable star to sell it. Especially for an expensive show like Great Comet, there needed to be confidence. Hamilton took the risk of no huge stars and it paid off. But The Great Comet played it kindasortanotentirely safe by casting Josh Groban.

As I said before, this resulted in it ceasing to become known as “that immersive musical” and suddenly becoming “that Josh Groban musical.” Suddenly the success of the show was linked to Groban, meaning if they couldn’t get someone with a big enough name to replace him the show could be doomed.

Point: This is literally what happened to American Idiot. It was doing well on its own, then they cast Billie Joe Armstrong as St. Jimmy, and suddenly that role became linked to what celebs they could get to play it. When they couldn’t get anyone, the show tanked and had to close.

Oak is a very talented actor and Tony-nominated. But let’s be honest: he’s not Josh Groban famous. The Hamilton actors who have gained the most in celebrity status have been Lin, Leslie Odom Jr., Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Daveed Diggs: it certainly helps that they’re the ones who won the Tonys. Oak is still mainly known to the Hamilton fandom.

Another point: Because the majority of the Hamilton fandom is people outside of NYC who often cannot afford to see live theater, casting a Hamilton star does not necessarily lead to show success. Amelie was banking on Phillipa Soo drawing a Hamilton audience, but the show tanked and closed pretty quickly.

This one you could blame on casting, but I’m not going to. Because the thing about Hamilton and in fact a lot of the few original musicals out there is that to end up on Broadway they took a lot of risks. And a lot of shows aren’t confident enough to take that risk of not using a celebrity to sell the show, yet they’re still pretty successful. It’s a tough one, but I think the culprit here is the business side of show business haunting the producers.

Culprit: The Heavily Financially Dictated Broadway System

There’s a lot to be said about Oak’s perceived aloofness towards the show and the controversy

Oak states in the NY Times article that he was given the role with the understanding he would have a lot less work to do than he ended up doing. On a personal level, I doubt this, considering just how demanding a role Pierre is. But I also don’t doubt the possibility of Oak being groomed for the role with the understanding he would just sit around and sing occasionally with one big solo number. I find it unlikely (considering Patinkin when he was announced mentioned he had been training to play the accordion for only two weeks; Oak had several months to prepare), but the possibility exists.

When the controversy began, there were a lot of loud voices. But one that stayed oddly silent was Oak’s.

Mr. Onaodowan said that it was not his obligation to stanch a controversy that he did not create.“If people feel strongly and passionately about something, I’ll let them speak strongly and passionately — I’m not going to tell them not to,” he said. He said he did not believe race was a factor in the show’s decision to replace him, but “there’s a fundamental issue with representation that’s bigger than the show.”

If we’re looking at this from the lens of fans and even the cast, it appears that Oak didn’t think his recasting was racially-motivated nor necessarily a factor, but didn’t feel like the controversy was his problem. Personally, I see it more as him pointing out that even if he didn’t mind being recast, he understood there was a bigger picture his recasting implied. However, there’s something to be said about him not saying anything while the situation was in full-swing, besides announcing he would not return and retweeting some of Cynthia Erivo and Rafael Casal’s tweets.

But you do have to bring into account Oak’s statements on the Comet not “investing in diversity.” As some of the POC cast members Sumayya Ali, Azudi Onyejekwe, and Celia Mei Rubin have pointed out, the show was actively interested in diversity: just look at the cast.

But there’s a larger point, which is why I’m not going to list Oak as a culprit. Because no matter how annoyed I can get at him for seemingly not caring about the show, there’s a matter even I have to admit to...

Oak is not entirely wrong

Oak, and in fact a lot of the POC actors on Broadway, have been outspoken on their political beliefs. Hamilton has always been a political show, with the cast addressing then-future Vice President Mike Pence when he came to the show, and the cast members often commenting on current events. Remember the Forbes article? The central focus was on Colin Kaepernick’s recent silent-protest regarding public ignorance of police brutality aimed at African-Americans. This has been on the news a lot lately, and Oak, being Nigerian-American himself, is easily a political activist. And I appreciate that: an actor of color bringing the real world issues into the white-dominated theater world. This is something that comes quite close to Oak’s heart. And he’s right about Broadway in general: y’all remember how white the Tonys were this year?

On the topic of his “invested in diversity” comments, I want to point out something. The initial casting notices were all emphasizing diverse casting, and the opening cast was extremely diverse. But what inevitably happens in a Broadway show is that as the year passes actors get outside opportunities and leave. While the previously-white Pierre was taken over by Oak, a lot of the diverse ensemble began to leave the show and had some of their roles taken on by white actors. Granted, it was still quite diverse, but why was there not a concerted effort to make sure the replacements were also POC, like they’ve done with Hamilton?

Point: Even then, I really do have to question his complete silence about the whole business when it was in full swing. The situation very much involved him, and if I am going to take him as a vocal activist, staying silent did not do much for his benefit nor the show’s. In all honesty, I have some doubts about seeing Oak in a Broadway musical in the near-future.

Now I want to address the two extremes.

To the people criticizing Oak

STOP BLAMING OAK FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW CLOSING. I swear to god, there were so many factors that led to the Comet closing, you’re seriously just running in circles if you keep claiming he had sole blame. No one actor is gonna take down a show, and the word “business” is right there in the name “show business.”

Also, the only reason you think Oak is to blame is because as fans you have been following the coverage a lot. If you’re gonna bring that coverage into the foray, you gotta cite it. Otherwise the people who can’t be bothered to look for themselves assume you’re making it up.

To the extreme MakeRoomForOak people

STOP ASSUMING YOU’RE THE ALMIGHTY BASTIONS. You know how many threads I’ve seen where people point out “well Oak did have some effect” or “the show was already committed to diversity” only to have the reply “the people in this thread obv don’t care about POC smh” or “these are obviously white people talking.” Newsflash! Your precious Hamilton is not the only show with POC or fans who are POC! If you’re gonna approach this with absolutely no background on the show’s history, its cast, its history of commitment to diversity, or even bothering to find out about the cast’s statements on the matter, you’re just gonna keep shouting in an echo chamber!

So, that’s it. Now, you may have noticed I avoided naming a single culprit or necessarily putting forward a single viewpoint. Why? Simple: nuance.

As I’ve said and many others have said, there is no single answer to why the Comet closed. Oak, despite being passive, overall had little to do with the controversy. Plus, it’s hard to say if the controversy would have mattered: could Patinkin really have kept the ticket sales up? Was the show just going to become a stud-casting show? If Oak had said anything, would that have encouraged people to come anyway? Could all of this have been avoided further back with some other decisions?

In the end, this post changes nothing. The Great Comet closed a month ago, and in all likelihood won’t return to Broadway, barring a goddamn miracle. But I think if the whole mess of its closing is gonna keep flaring up every once in a while, people need to know just how complicated it was.

#okieriete onaodowan #the great comet #natasha pierre and the great comet of 1812 #great comet

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quietasides · 7 years ago

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It's so exciting to wake up in the morning, scroll through my dash, and see all the new 2017 moments from promo. The fandom has such talented gifmakers! Thank you all! Myself, I haven't been making much of anything new, though I hope I will when Harry tours. I’ve wondered what my blog will look like until then, and it’s likely I’ll be running a skimpy queue.

There's some big change happening in my life right now, pivoting around my decision to ask my husband, an alcoholic, to leave the house. Less than forty-eight hours later one of our kids found him "passed out in the woods next to his car," at a campground. Indeed he was, looking like every other time he's been passed out in the course of our marriage. His drinking got really severe a few years ago, and he's been trying—to wildly-varying degrees—to get dry since early 2015. That was at my insistence. He had passed out on Christmas Eve before the kids were in bed, by that time. I stopped drinking in 2008, and it's rough to live with a drunk person.

Less than a year ago he said he needed help, and went to AA. Now he's likely facing rehab, and some very hard work. He's such a good, strong, and determined man, I feel sure he can do it once he's finally hit rock bottom. I think he torpedoed himself this weekend.

Me, I'm at the point of, "Okay. Fucking have it, then." We met almost twenty-three years ago. It's been a long long long long time coming.

My future has taken a turn. I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the challenges, though I’d felt swamped by stresses in my relationship. I've been deeply sad for several years, now. A few days ago, I checked to see if I was still feeling that sadness...No, I'm not. I'm very excited about the future. I feel I'm about to enter an artistically fruitful time. I think I'll be a better mother. Who knows what the future holds.

I'm all about making life the best I can for our four kids. I told one the other night that I would never have chosen for her to be the child of an alcoholic. But then again, I said, "I chose to marry Daddy." I would trade none of my children for anything in the world.

That's where I am these days. Not making gifs. Not on tumblr, so much. Out in the world, in this shifting life.

(after the jump, see what I’ve posted before about this)

originally posted September 2016—

I’m going to ruminate at unexpected length on this quote: Love… force it and it disappears. You cannot will love, nor even control it. You can only guide its expression. It comes or it goes according to those qualities in life that invite it or deny its presence. (David Seabury)

When I first read this, the last sentence really struck me: [Love] comes or it goes according to those qualities in life that invite it or deny its presence.

I’ve mentioned here before that my husband is a heavy drinker. He’s been a heavy drinker since we met as teenagers. He’d already gotten a DUI before we met, when he was nineteen. The second week we were hanging out I told him that drinking would be an issue for me. I had abruptly left a possessive alcoholic and mental abuser just eight months earlier. I was a high-strung mess when high, and super-depressive most other times. It was rough. (Thanks, undiagnosed bipolar II) But I was unable to see how much I needed to protect myself from the consequences of being with a drinker. He loved me and my difficulties very well, and it felt worth it.

I’d never really enjoyed drinking, but I started doing shots with all my friends. (And getting high, which I always enjoyed, lol.) So it was even more okay. Drunk people have fun together! Loud and uninhibited fun! (Sidenote: self-medicating doesn’t work and the next morning hurts.)

It’s been years since I met my husband. Laughing together, his intelligence, his creativity and determination, how he expresses himself, and how he loves me and our children – I value those things, tremendously. I chose for those attributes to carry more weight than any black-out drunkenness.

I stopped drinking almost eight years ago, and it was really hard. I was accustomed to a few light scotches taking me elsewhere, and fast. Shortly after I stopped drinking, I asked my husband what we had in common besides that. He got really pissed off and said my question chapped his ass. I’d say we’ve been growing distant since then — though still loving one another and functioning somewhat decently as a family with four kids (ages one to seven, at the time).

As I went through a few years of serious self-work in therapy, my husband continued drinking. He was extremely supportive of me and caught me a lot whenever I started to fall. He’s a good and committed father, for the most part. Only rarely did he drink around the kids; usually he started after they’d gone to bed. Until it got really bad and he'd been drinking by the time he got home from work.

Being around a drunk person when you’re sober is not fun, not entertaining, not enlightening. Many drunk people have some enthusiastic but often stupid and loud ideas. Though my husband’s a genial drunk, never cruel or using his fists, I was almost always annoyed and angered. His drinking was a quality in life that denied the presence of love. I didn’t want to be close to him. I was, eventually, fully disgusted by his inebriation. I hate my husband when he’s drunk. Honestly hate him. His heavy drinking denied the presence of love. I can’t say that enough, I don’t think. And I tried to get the message through to him a number of times, but he brushed it aside.

Because he was trying, oh he did, to manage his drinking. To stop, for a few days at a time. To only drink beer, or wine. Only occasional benders. The self-delusion of control. It doesn’t work, and it didn’t work for him. You can fool yourself into thinking it’s your free will choosing to drink, rather than the compulsion of an addiction – it’s all so deceptive. (I know what it’s like, a bit. I’ve been an addict. The best way to quit smoking is never to start, kids.)

Drunkenness does not invite love. Passing out doesn’t invite it, the oddly-sweet stink of alcohol doesn’t invite it. The unfocused eyes, the attempts not to stumble. Sloppiness. The unreliability, the worry, the disappearance from every evening whether physically present or not. Falling down. Eventually passing out, sometimes early in the evening, slouched down in a chair. Being passively repulsive. I’m very used to spending hours alone in the evening (and frankly, as an introvert, I don’t mind it). I withdrew from him long ago.

So, what does invite love?

Well… about a month ago, my husband told me he needed help. And he started going to AA meetings, almost every day. He’s fallen off the wagon once since then — but instead of hiding it from me, he was honest about it. And though I was annoyed, I was not angered, like I have been for years every single time he’s been drunk. I said I despise him when he’s drunk. This time, I felt real compassion.

Honesty invites love. It invites respect. Honesty from him makes such a huge difference. I can respect that he’s passing the burden from his own two hands, and allowing others to support him. I can respect that he’s started going to therapy. I can respect that he’s really serious about this, and doing the work to achieve sobriety.

I believe he can do it. The man’s already run ten marathons, and that takes a ton of determination.

Love and genuine respect are, after years, coming back into our household, and things are looking up. I feel like we can become partners again. I feel like we’ll be able to grow together, again. I’m not entertaining thoughts of ending my marriage.

So I’m doing well indeed. Thank you for asking! How many nights does it take to count the stars?/ That’s the time it would take to fix my heart/ Oh, baby, I was there for you/ All I ever wanted was the truth, yeah, yeah  How many nights have you wished someone would stay/ lie awake only hoping they’re okay/ I never counted all of mine/ if I tried I know it would feel like infinity

26 August 2016—

If there’s any small issue of concern when you first get together with someone, that shit doesn’t just go away. Like, you choose to “manage” it and justify it being alright, usually by virtue of being in love with that person. Who��s likely an amazing person. Loving someone well (so to speak) won’t manage the problem, though, and it certainly becomes less tolerable and a much bigger issue as time passes. It’s really important to consider this stuff early on in a relationship, and suffering the difficult pain of a break-up can protect you in the long run. I’m glad I married my husband, he really is a great guy and I love him and I can’t imagine life without our kids – but there’s also some alternate reality out there where I’m partnered with someone who doesn’t have to fight substance abuse. Who knows what kind of person I’d be, then. Real life is hard stuff, sometimes!

25 August 2016—

On a personal note, you can hide things about a relationship, and even people close to you have no idea. My husband, a very good man, is/was a heavy drinker, and my parents didn’t know until I was near-breakdown. He’s a genial drunk, but a drunk is a drunk is a drunk, it affects the entire household, and stopping is an ongoing struggle. I’m not inclined to blithely share any of our troubles, and telling the truth is hard. So acquaintances see the picture of our apparently uncomplicated relationship, but they don’t know the half of it.

#me #personal #very long #tw drinking

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yuichiroe · 7 years ago

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So this is going to address everything i have been accused of by @yuichrio in the past. Some of this will be me debunking and some of this will be me blatantly admitting to stuff i have done wrong. Im going to be using screenshots from yuus post about me.

Theres going to stalking mentions and suicide mentions and for a vrief moment there is a drug mention so be wary of that. Here is the original post abouit me

Lets just start from the beginning of their post abt me

apparently this started in 2015 shortly after i had broken up with yuu. it was a very messy breakup that i dont want to get into.

he claims that after i had broken up with him, i started using his typing style and started iding as ciel out of no where (which he had ided as at the time)

He uses this as proof/context of me taking his format/style

i will not be commenting on this as i cannot really... remember much from 2015 and maybe i had an unearthly grudge against him back then but honestly i cant say much bc i cant remember.

then he fast fowards to 2017

like he says in the post, me and him were on ok terms by this time. he says he has no idea i had even been following him until one of his friends told him i was following him. i had been following yuu for a long time on vent and after a while i knew it was him but never directly approached him or really even interacted with him much because i had no ill feelings regarding him at the time and didnt care to start anything with him.

anyways back in january, yuu attempted to commit suicide(im only bringing this up because he did). and a week later, i list yuichiro hyakuya on my me page. he’s ided as yuu for a very long time, and anyone whos been mutuals with him for a while will know that. He made a post abt it on ig and he has addressed my responses to the post.

Here, i say i have been hiding that id for about a month. which right here, that was a lie. i had just started iding as yuichiro.. probably a few days ago. But, under that where i say i had been questioning for a few months is very true. they get dms from their friend of a hidden account i made when i ided as not yuu but mika.

so to explain, his friend showed him a secret account in which i ided as mika. i tagged myself in art of mika and my boyfriend at the time as yuichiro. Let me explain this in the best way possible since all the other times i had tried to explain, yuu either interrupted me or kept refuting with ‘LOL U HAVENT BEEN QUESTIONING FOR MONTHS’. i had. i had tried to get into owari no seraph many times before this happened. no one has to believe my word on this, and since i have no proof, this can totally be disregarded. i didnt want to id as yuu at first because i actually liked having yuu as a friend. he was a nice mutual. i also didnt want to start petty kin drama with him either. i knew he’d blow up on me. so, i ided as mika instead for a few days. i wanted to see if it would feel like an okay coping id as thats what i thought yuichiro would only be if i decided to id as him. i dont remember if i was planning on sbing him at the time because his boyfriend ids as mika and i knew he’d still be uncomf but i didnt know if he’d blow up. in turn, i made a secret kin account to try and see if iding as mika felt right. Obviously, seeing how most of my identity revolves around yuichiro, it didnt. i had to drop the id within two days because it never felt like me.

this is why it was posted on the same day. you can write this off as bullshit, but this is my explanation.

he now says despite me being white, i went by yuu. which is entirely my bad. i have since then used yuu as an alternate name which isnt something i ever should have done. Now here is where things get Messy.

so here i am, giving frustrated and annoyed responses. this is because he was so intent on me trying to steal his identity and be him. And by now ‘identity’ doesnt just mean me iding as yuichiro. he claims that i have stolen traces of his personality and maybe even his personality as a whole. This whole situation here can be refuted with the above ‘questioning’ explanation. i had lied about me being yuu for a few months, but the questioning argument still stands as that was 100% the truth.

when he addressed this, i acted out of anger and annoyance and insulted him and just left my account because at the time, i was 99% sure he wasnt going to listen to my explanations and were intent on him being right. i wasnt in the right for just abandoning my account without talking this out maturely and just giving sarcastic responses, but this is what happens when im called out on stuff, even if it was true or not. i apologize for sarcastic and aggressive behavior. this probably couldve been avoided if i had just tried to explain myself in a calm manner.

i had moved accounts after this. i would sometimes go back on it to see if yuu was talking shit about me, to which he had eventually found out about and sbed said account. now, he shows dms of me ‘cutting off’ people that do not agree with me and

i am going to shed light on these dms.

this person and i have a bad past in general, they have accused me of things i will not go into now, but to shed light on This situation here, they had been making me uncomfortable for a few week anyways. they said they would support me being mikaela when i admitted to them i was going to id as mika for the time being. then, they turned around on me and sent yuu some stuff that i had told them about me being mikaela as receipts on me. so not only had they made me very uncomfortable, but they had broken my trust in them and i didnt want contact with them anymore. to show why i was uncomfortable with this person, here is a screenshot of them vagueing me on their ig account after we had ‘made up’ for past situations.

so yeah you can see why i was uneasy in the first place. they were jealous of my bf and i being closer than i was to them. they later apologized, but i didnt completely forgive them as it made me and my bf WILDLY uncomfortable about her. so yeah, them breaking was trust was the last straw and i cut her off. Here is another instance of mecutting someone off that they show

NOW THIS... .Ohhhh h hhhh hhm ygod this is a fucking. Okay. this was my qpp. i had recently broken off from being qpps with him because of his drug addiction. He knew drugs made me uncomfortable and yet he still posted about him being high as hell on sleep meds and texted me about whenever he was fucked up and would always crytype his was out of situations . i would frequently vent about him to my bf at the time and after a while, he got upset about me being closer to my bf than i was to him. (i had only been qpps with him for a few weeks, maybe even less and i had been in a relationship with my boyfriend for over a year and had stronger feelings for him.) i have very little receipts on the shit hes said to me bc i have since blocked him on multiple accounts and do not have access to his vent accounts. him and i had cut ties Multiple times after i broke off being qpps with him, but he kept coming back to me and telling me he loved me which i didnt want to hear anymore. after the drama with yuu (even though he stated 3028534905840958 times that he couldnt hate anyone because it was ‘against his morals’) he posted some Very ugly shit about me.

this is all i can dig up because i think i had deleted most of the screenshots because i hated seeing them in my camera roll. but there were Many posts like this of him wanting me to kill myself and for craig to leave me.

he made up shortly after this drama but i didnt accept it or forgive him.

now, back to the yuu drama.

what edna claimed i copied for the ‘clicky clicky’ thing was on my blog where the links where i put ‘clicky clicky!’ and yuu had that in his links. While it was a petty thing to accuse me of and i have to admit, i didnt copy it from his blog, he did have the same thing on his links.

at this point i was vaguing people on tumblr that were involved in this drama

and i had yuu blocked and i did try to unblock him multiple times at his request, but for some reason on mobile it will not let me unblock people.

heres a screenshot of me being immature and avoiding the problem yet again.

heres a half assed apology from me and after that i left it all alone and so did he.

skipping to march 2017

i requested him on vent out of paranoia and i wanted to know if he had any vent of him talking shit about me. at the time, i went by a different name and had different ids listed but i quickly changed everything back. he got uncomfortable with me very quickly out of paranoia of him thinking i was going to steal is bf from him just because i was friends with him. mika was a sweetheart but i am not a homewrecker + i am 99% sure i was dating someone at the time Lol.....

skip to april 2017

i send another apology to which i later admit it was only to follow them to see if yuu was talking shit... i will get into that later when it comes up again.

here is me ‘admitting’ to everything they have accused me of. this was mostly bs and to try to End this shit. i did get the idea to id as yuu from yuu bc? i wouldnt have really found out abt o////w////ari/// no se///ra///ph at the time if not because of yuu and his bf. i am not going to get into the iding outside of my race thing now. at the time. i had not been trying to separate myself from nonwhite ids as most of them had helped me cope with insecurities and whatnot. as for the abusive tendencies thing, i had showed abusive behavior in the past and will not make up excuses for that and for a long while now, i have been bettering myself in that sense

like i said, the apology was bullshit. but now, i am actually sorry to yuu for saying such nasty shit to him just because i was in the wrong for some things and didnt want to admit it.

tyeah like i said the mika thing was mostly paranoia on their part since i never had any intent on making mika hate yuu or to date them or whatever they thought i was attempting to do. so after that shit was pretty peaceful. until i started iding as ciel.so yuus bf dms me all, ‘i gotta sb you for rn’ and im all ‘ok’ and they both sb me at the same time and now i realize smth was wrong and apparently i did smth and that smth was iding as ciel.... Which let me be honest i forgot that yuu ever ided as ciel since the last time he brought up that id was probably around a few years back a little after we broke up as shown at the top of this. so that shit was left alone but iwas So confused as to why they both sbed me at the time + i was so scared they were spewing hate abt me to their followers so i made a spy account to try to figure out wth even happened.

i, of course, made it seem like i didnt know what the fuck he was talking abt. but yeah this was me. fast forward to may 10th i had begun iding as yuichiro again as a main id and was gradually getting more and more attached to that id. on vent, i had changed my name to yuichrio and used yuus art as my icon. I had debunked the icon thing as i found it on google, but i knew very well that yuichrio was yuus url. i just wanted the next best thing to yuichiro in all honesty but it was still kinda gross of me to use his url and it kinda dug me into a deeper hole.

here the comparison that yuu made. They asked me to take down that pfp which i did and then i deleted their comment and blocked them immediately.

now to may 11th

This still makes me uncomfortable that even now they keep up with my new blogs/users even though i have only interacted with them Once since this happened and it was a complete accident. (i followed him last night on accident).

like yuu said himself, this was his weakest argument in this entire thing. maybe i had gotten a few ideas from his links before, but generally, most people do use those things in their links.

Now i do believe i was reincarnated and i have delusions as well so i dont know if i am just ... delusional abt being reincarnated or if i am actually am but this is what i believe and like i said, i am not going to delve into spiritual beliefs and i certainly didnt get the idea from yuu.

this was the only evidence that i had to give to yuu. but i did debunk the icon thing.

yeah things get out of hand again. they had receipts on me and knew i was lying about all this so as soon as they wouldnt believe what i was saying 100%, i was getting to be ... a bad sport lol.

i got passive aggressive towards yuu and

in turn i started insulting him and blatantly lying again.

“so what sky was saying here is an obvious lie. i mean, theres the fact that i KNOW the request was accepted before this dm started, the 7 hour gap before i replied for them to drink that all in, and the fact that they literally SAID they are following me, right there. so obviously they were aware they were following me and had no reason to make up some random fake “apology”. i still have no clue what their motive was, but it says a lot about the kind of person they are.” yeah this is all vwery true i didnt have to actually apologize as i had already been accepted and i knew very well of that fact.

so here is where he tries to analyze me

heres with the questioning shit again so go back up for that explanation.

Hwre is where i get Angry again and start to just want this situation Over because hes brining up shit i could not refute at the time.

so after all this, i block yuu once again. this is all that i have on this situation in the posts about me that yuu has made. i have followed yuus accounts many times and in a way you can call that stalking but my reasoning for doing that was to see if he was shit talking me 99.9% of the time. if i had picked up any of yuus personality traits im sorry. adn i am sorry for being so immature and not admitting to my fault earlier. i want this drama to be 100% done and for this shit to Never happen again i am not going to add onto this post unless yuu himself asks for me to explain some more shit that i hasnt listed. i am sorry to yuu for copying your layouts and for repeatedly stalking your accounts. i want nothing to do with you or this situation anymore after this post.

#drama #long post

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a-woman-apart · 8 years ago

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The Road Less Traveled

In our last conversation I told my parents something that I'm not sure that I even believed at the time. I told them "I didn't come to this decision lightly." The decision, that is, to begin questioning the very fundamental beliefs of Christianity and the accuracy of the Bible in general. This has been a year's long process- all of 2016 was about me growing into my own identity. 2017, it turns out, was just the time when my new faith would be tested. It's true that I've gone back and forth a lot over the years in this search for the real me. During my early teenage years I was still too mentally ill to conduct the search properly. Now, I'm developing a better understanding of things. 2014-2015 I was extremely involved in church. I prayed on almost a daily basis. Mom and I would chat back and forth about some of things that were said to me in the prophetic and prayer lines. If I could go back, I wouldn't change those years. I even aided a friend of mine from the recovery home in finding her faith again. Those, too, were years of growth. They shaped my identity and perceptions today. I don't believe I was inauthentic in any way. I truly believed in what I was doing- I was truly being blessed. That's why you won't hear me dismissing churches and religions today. Fellowship with people and working together for the common good is so important. I'm at a church that feeds the homeless, pays off peoples' debts, visits people in hospitals. I love my church. Somewhere along the way, though, the doubts started to creep in. It happened at a time in my life where things were actually going unusually well. I had just moved into my own apartment after three years at the recovery residence. I was doing well in my classes. It didn't really make sense for me to question God then, if my questions arose out of some kind of discontent or anger at the heavens. It was none of those things. I think, that, left alone, I just had more time to really examine what it was that I truly believed. I had already started reading books like "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" by Bishop John Shelby Spong, and "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens. If I was truly at peace with what I believed, I would never have found the need to pick up those books, but I did. Behind the purposefully jarring and "controversial" titles were actually some fair, balanced, and well-thought-out views on God and religion. Shortly after my journey began I knew that I would need to start a blog to further expand on and explore my ideas. I still haven't received the feedback that I've been hoping for, but I did connect with a few awesome people. More importantly, I had a place where my thoughts could be filed and organized in a way that was easy for me to go back and review things. I started writing last January, and here we are. I'm actually being "out" about my beliefs. I didn't think I would ever find the courage to stand up and defend what I was feeling, but I was faced with the opportunity and I stood strong. I didn't cave even in the face of one of my big fears- total rejection by my parents and being cut off from my younger siblings. Of course, I still weigh that decision- of whether I really should've been honest and truthful. Lying, however, would've met not only that I didn't really respect my parents, but also that I didn't really respect myself. I know that it isn't permanent. I know I'll be able to speak to my family again, but for now, this is an opportunity to focus on myself. This is the year that I'm set to graduate from community college. Honestly, the thought of going on without my mom's support is a very tough one to be at peace with. I have to remind myself, though, that my dad never wished for me to go to college in the first place, and there was a high chance that neither of my parents would be at my graduation. Now, that's pretty much guaranteed- unless I have a "sudden change of heart" which seems to me to be very unlikely. The thing is, I never did it for them- I more or less did it in spite of them. I have to remind myself that I'm doing what I love, and I've sacrificed a lot to do this thing. I plan to go full steam ahead with my plans. By God's grace I'll make it- if not, there is always an opportunity to begin again. I feel nervous, but I have to just push through these fears into being the best self that I can be. Lots of people have been telling me that 2017 is a year of new beginnings and breakthrough for me, and while I'm not superstitious, I do tend to believe that God can speak through people in this way. God is not against me- if He were, I would've been gone a long time ago, but I'm still here. I'm still breathing in and out, and I'm still moving forward into the "exile" without a real destination in sight. It's just one foot in front of the other.

#the road less traveled #the exile #deconversion #ex-christian #ex-religious #ex-evangelical #new roads #new directions #change #new adventures #adulting #personal growth #spiritual growth

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ibilenews · 5 years ago

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Life after death row: The pastor praying for Nigeria's prisoners

Enugu, Nigeria - Each morning, 56-year-old Clinton Kanu wakes up on a thin mattress laid on the tiled floor of his tiny flat.

He lives on the third floor of a modest apartment building in the southeastern Nigerian city of Enugu, in a flat not much bigger than a walk-in closet.

He takes a moment to look around the room. There is not much to see. A battered, rust-coloured armchair sags in the corner beside a barred window that overlooks the neighbourhood's red dirt roads. Sunlight filters through a lace curtain, exposing the dirt caked into the textured pattern painted on the pale yellow and grey walls.

Kanu is not quite six feet (1.83 metres) tall, but when he stands, his head almost scrapes the ceiling.

He goes through his plans for the day, trying to figure out where he will get something to eat. On this particular Saturday, he decides to go down the road to the home of his sister, Victoria Okoroji.

There, she dishes out scrambled eggs and shares a loaf of bread. Kanu, his sister and her husband eat together at the dining table. After that, she brings out a family photo album.

Kanu smiles at the old pictures of his nieces and nephews. Pictures taken of them when Kanu was not around. Pictures taken during the 27 years Kanu spent in prison for a murder he did not commit.

He has been trying to make up for lost time since he was released last April and trying to get his life back - but neither are easy to do.

Back at his apartment, Kanu brings out a Bible and flips through the pages to one of his favourite passages.

"And the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt,'" he recites in a gentle voice, eyes moving over the words. In the room's stuffy heat, beads of sweat settle in the dip above his lip. "'I have heard their cry.'"

A mild, easy-going man, Kanu says his faith saved him in prison and continues to inspire him, despite his present struggles.

"Look at me, just look at me," he says. "I have nothing."

Kanu was an ambitious, charismatic 27-year-old who owned two residential buildings and had a good job and government connections when he was arrested. Today, he has no job, no car, not even a refrigerator. He has no wife, no children. He does not have many friends. There is no land, no valuable jewellery, no retirement account, no stocks or bonds in his name.

Although he is no longer behind the bars of a maximum-security prison, he is without a job in a country where poverty is rapidly rising and finding employment often depends on who you know. His frustrations are mounting.

'The height of wickedness'

Born in the Nigerian oil hub of Port Harcourt, Kanu was raised in a middle-class family with a high regard for education. His father grew up poor but educated; he built himself up professionally and managed to earn a good income from a stable government job as a director at the national postal service. He made sure his children got the best schooling his money could buy. Kanu's mother, a teacher, also pushed her children to focus on academics.

Kanu worked hard in school. He was studious and liked to read. He collected young-adult crime novels and went on to study law and criminology at a nearby university. He became a consultant criminologist and an aide to government officials.

His problems began when he tried to help solve a case involving theft and a dispute over family land. When a man connected to the dispute died, someone accused Kanu of murdering him, even though he was more than 100km from the scene of the crime.

In 1992, he was arrested. He maintains that his arrest was politically motivated; that he was framed by people who were envious of his connections to government officials.

He was detained in a small prison in the southeastern city of Owerri to await trial. He waited for several years.

Looking back at it all, he believes he was a victim of the corruption in Nigeria's criminal justice system.

"The height of wickedness," he says, his face twisted into a scowl. "The height of crudeness, the height of treachery, the height of judicial murder."

Sentenced to death

Nigeria's criminal justice system is rife with corruption. In the past, judges have been suspended for misconduct and caught accepting bribes.

Excessive delays compound the problems, with enormous backlogs of stagnant legal cases. Nearly 70 percent of the country's approximately 74,000 prison inmates are awaiting trial. The long waits contribute to overcrowded prisons.

The maximum-security prison in Port Harcourt where Kanu was transferred after he was sentenced in 2005, held more than 4,000 inmates last year, although it was built for 804, according to figures from the federal government.

"Certainly overcrowding is the biggest problem caused by over-arrest, indiscriminate and unlawful arrest of citizens, some of whom are innocent," explains Sylvester Uhaa, director of International Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE), a Nigerian prison reform organisation.

"This has caused a lot of congestion in the courts and results in congestion in the prison system. That is the biggest problem - the visible problem that we see. The invisible ones are the corruption, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law and human rights."

Kanu was sentenced to death by hanging or by firing squad, a common sentence in the country.

Nigeria has the highest death row population - 2,000 people - in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Amnesty International.

The 621 death sentences the country imposed in 2017 accounted for 71 percent of all confirmed death sentences ordered in sub-Saharan Africa that year.

In 2016, Nigerian courts carried out three executions and handed out 527 death sentences - three times more than in 2015. Death sentences are typically given for armed robbery, murder and involvement with militia groups.

'Like a thorn in my flesh'

The confinement and death sentence took a heavy toll on Kanu. He suffered physically, as well as emotionally, having to receive treatment in the prison's health ward for high blood pressure, insomnia, complications arising from diabetes, depression and stress.

"I was frustrated, and I was tired," he recalls.

In 2008, he tried to commit suicide, swallowing 10 tablets of diazepam he had managed to get smuggled into the prison to help with his insomnia. But it did not kill him.

Kanu missed his relatives and spent hours thinking about his siblings - Kingsley, Uzoamaka, Chikezie, Ginika and Victoria. Although they would visit him in prison, seeing them leave was hard.

His family suffered, too.

"It was like a thorn in my flesh," Victoria explains. "Anytime I woke up, I remembered my brother is in the prison. That would be a sad day to me."

She waves her hand in the air, as though pushing the memories from her mind. She avoids talking and even thinking about those years now, she says.

While he was incarcerated, Kanu's father, his brother Kingsley, his uncle and several of his cousins died. But it was his mother's death in 2014 that hurt most deeply.

"It's painful," he says.

People told him his mother died of a broken heart.

"I loved my mother so much. I'm the first [child]. My mother loved me so; it's painful. I don't know how to express it … a lot of times we [sons] live for our mothers."

His mother's death pushed him over the edge. He tried, again, to end his life, this time overdosing on dialine - a medication used to treat diabetes. But a prison nurse rushed him to the medical unit where he was stabilised. He was closely monitored but, the following year, managed to get hold of a sharp tool from the prison workshop. He used it to stab himself but stopped when another inmate pleaded with him.

"I realised God wanted me alive," Kanu explains.

He decided to try to make something of his time in prison.

He turned to counselling other inmates, helping them to cope with the woes of confinement and, having persuaded the African College of Christian Education and Seminary to run classes in the prison, he enrolled to study theology along with 50 other inmates.

Each week, he looked forward to his classes in philosophy, religion, interfaith studies, world conflict and psychology. His studies gave him solace, and he earned a bachelor's degree in guidance counselling in 2009 and went on to get a master's in education management and another in guidance counselling. But Kanu did not stop there. After seven years of studying in the prison's college, he was awarded, in 2014, two doctorate degrees in missions ministry and counselling.

That same year, he was ordained as a nondenominational reverend.

"It was one of the best things that ever happened to me," he reflects. "I've always wanted to be a reverend."

Ten other inmates were also ordained as reverends, but they all referred to him, affectionately, as "The Bishop".

He would hold prayer sessions with the inmates, encouraging them to stay calm and manage their anger. He spoke passionately about religious tolerance.

As the years passed, he waited for word on his appeal - a process he began shortly after the 2005 pronouncement of his death sentence.

"2005 was when the battle was set," he says. He ended up selling his four cars, the two residential buildings he owned, his stereo system, air conditioners, beds, and his refrigerator to pay the legal fees. He had nothing left.

Then, in 2015, his case went to Nigeria's supreme court, which reviewed the scant details of the original trial. It had been a skeletal case: only one witness - the brother of the complainant - claimed he saw Kanu at the scene of the crime, whereas two witnesses were called to testify that Kanu had not been there.

In April 2019, the supreme court ruled that there was no evidence against Kanu. He was discharged and acquitted. About two weeks later, he walked out of prison carrying his educational certificates in a bag packed with clothes donated by Christian organisations.

"I didn't know I was going to walk into unemployment and hunger," he recalls. "I was thrown into the cold wind."

Praying for a miracle

On a Saturday evening in November, the sound of people singing and clapping drifts from a church on the upper level of an industrial-looking commercial building along a bustling thoroughfare in Enugu.

Inside, a young woman grasps a microphone and leads about 40 people - mostly women and some restless children - in devotional songs as they sway with their eyes closed. Their voices fill the small space.

As Kanu walks in, she says: "Hello, we've missed you."

He takes a seat in the front row.

The church is makeshift, the room packed with plastic lawn chairs. Ceiling fans circulate stale air while purple, green and pink lights flash from tiny bulbs hung high on the walls. The back wall is covered in a colourful banner with the church's name printed on it: Days of His Awesome Power Ministries.

Tonight, Kanu is a guest speaker. He has led services here in the past, but cannot attend as often as he would like because the church is nearly 30 minutes from his home and he has to beg to put together the bus fare. Still, the head pastor at the church, Mike Okey Agu, refers to him as "Pastor Clinton".

The church is the only place, Kanu says, where he actually feels wanted. People there value and respect him.

Pastor Agu is an energetic man, shouting into the microphone as he paces up and down the aisle, laying his hands on people's heads while repeating, "take it, take it, take the anointing", and "blood of Jesus".

When he sees Kanu, he smiles. He believes Kanu's spirituality helped him gain his freedom.

Up at the podium, Agu leads the church in prayer. Kanu bows his head. Like everyone else in the dimly lit space, he believes he has a lot to pray for. The yearly rent on his apartment is due in January - N200,000 ($550) and he has no idea how he is going to find the money. He is leaning on his faith to take care of it.

Dreaming of prison reform

Kanu knows exactly what he wants to do with his life now that he is out of prison: He wants to advocate for prison reform and be what he calls "a voice for the people".

The nearly three decades he spent behind bars gave him insights into the country's prison system, where he says he witnessed corruption, torture and extortion.

Money allocated to prisons and detention centres is sometimes siphoned off elsewhere. "Prison officials routinely stole money provided for prisoners' food," a 2015 United States government report read.

Many facilities lack basic amenities like clean toilets and a constant supply of drinking water. Prisoners are dying from treatable illnesses like malaria and tuberculosis. Cells, sometimes rat-infested, are cramped, with little to no ventilation.

"I was boxed up in a cell that could have killed me," Kanu says.

He would like to see inmates have opportunities to study and learn trades that could help them when they are released.

Back in his apartment, he sits in his armchair, thinking aloud. The more he thinks, the more frustrated he grows.

"Nothing is happening in the prisons," he says, slamming his hand down and leaning forward in his chair. "You dump people there and ... [they] develop ideas about how to come back and get revenge."

Kanu wants to change that. He has big dreams. He wants to sit down with Nigerian officials to devise policies that would improve life for inmates, to establish a nonprofit organisation that will help people to transition to life on the outside after incarceration and to visit correctional facilities in other countries to see how they are run there.

He is full of ideas, but with no money, no connections and no job, he does not know how to get started. He has knocked on doors, visited government agency offices and filled out job applications. He has made phone calls and pleaded for help. But he has been away for so long and cannot trace any of his old contacts and friends.

"Everyone has moved on with their lives, as they should. It's been 27 years," he says, looking pensively up at the ceiling.

He believes he has marketable skills and a solid education, but he has become a beggar, living off handouts and free food.

It has been about four months since the church service.

March is coming to an end, and he still has not paid the rent. It is a quiet Wednesday night in Enugu and in his apartment, Kanu is holding in his hand a notice from the landlord. It reads: "Your rent has expired since the end of January and you have been instructed to evacuate the premises."

Kanu sighs and sets the paper aside. Then, he closes his eyes. As he does several times a day, he bows his head in prayer, hoping his faith will lead the way.

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idolizerp · 5 years ago

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LOADING INFORMATION ON HEAVEN’S LEAD VOCAL LEE TAEHEE...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Tali CURRENT AGE: 27 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 16 COMPANY: 99 ETC: This member is known for her sometimes controversially sexy image

IDOL IMAGE

she is everyone’s best friend. oh, you want to have a girl’s day and sing to your favorite, catchy and cute songs? tali is your girl. oh wait! you want to stay at home and play your favorite video games? don’t worry, tali is DEFINITELY the friend you’re looking for!

funny, spunky, quirky, electric and beautiful, heaven’s variety queen can be exactly what you’re looking for if you’re looking to have fun and be sporadic or if you just want to spend a relaxing time with a good friend. or at least, that’s what management wants everyone to believe, and much to their relief? everyone bought it. sure, it worked in their favor that taehee is naturally good at cracking a joke or laughing at herself, and she never has a problem with it. no one exactly knows how reluctant she was to do this, but in reality it is now the love she has for her group members what pushes her forward to keep working hard.

tali was 99′s strong card when it came to variety and if she were to admit it? she loved it. she always knew she wasn’t the most skilled when it came down to dancing, or singing, or rapping. she was okay, but she was not the best. she worked hard to get better at it, but it just wasn’t enough. however, there was something about her personality that just attracted people, maybe her silly jokes, maybe her ability to make a fun moment out of anything. if the group was invited to a variety show, they always made sure to underline the fact that tali had to stand out, and effortlessly, she did. it was surprising for her -but not for them-, when she started to receive invitations to attend shows by herself. sure it was intimidating to do something without her group members, but she always worked hard for them. not even to make the company proud, but to make her own members proud, to put the name of heaven out there as much as she could and for people to see they were so much more than just the pretty faces with the cute beach-y concepts.

in order to further her friend-of-everyone status, 99 gave her the ‘yes’ when she pleaded them to start her own gaming channel. taehee never really did anything wrong, per say, so why not give her something that could even work in their favor? and work in their favor it did. on 2015, she was allowed to start her own channel, playing all kinds of games (minus violent ones that parents could disapprove of, or that the company could deem as inappropriate), and being able to chat with her fans.

everything always worked in everyone’s favor. If heaven wasn’t promoting, tali was sent to make sure everyone knew they were still very much /active/. It was safe to say, she was doing her part of the job quite well.

that is, until she made a mistake.

in 2017, the mistake came in the form of a rant against men. on a bad day, a very, very, very bad day, tali couldn’t contain her anger towards a person who hurt her and went on a tirade against “all” men. this clearly didn’t suit well with her now well established male fanbase. 99 received thousands of emails and letters from angry fans, attacking taehee for her comments and demanding them to kick her out of the group and to shut down her channel. the company didn’t go that far, but they did put taehee’s channel on indefinite hiatus - although she usually thinks it’s a permanent hiatus and won’t be allowed to go back to it at all - and while she did record new music with her group members she was still removed from promotions and shows for some months, you know, “to calm the waters” so to speak.

months passed by and on early 2018 she was allowed to go back to promoting and performing, making a few appearances here and there, but things just aren’t the same. the company tried to push the same character they had for her in the past, but it just didn’t work. the popularity she once had during variety shows or her gaming streams is now gone. because sure, she’s back to doing promotional work as an artist, but she’s still not allowed to do anything /gaming/ related at all. due to this, the company wants to push a much more mature concept with her. in a sense, they want to create a “redemption” arc with her, they want to show people how actually loving and caring she is and how, funnily enough, she doesn’t hate men. which, you know, she doesn’t at all.

the new tali, however, comes with an ingredient she didn’t have before. beautiful, stunning & unapologetically bold; and she absolutely loves it. she has no issue on showing a sexier side of herself, and not even because the company demanded her to, but because she wants to. she’s brave, more daring and so she thinks, more inspiring. what’s so wrong about being a geek who loves games but can also take anyone’s breath away? there’s nothing wrong with that and she’s come to the world to make such statement.

evolution. this is what it’s all about; evolution. in an era where new groups show up, with different concepts, with sexier images; she knows she can’t stay behind. refuses to. so she makes the change, shows a different side of herself and as always, it has created mixed reactions, from those who encourage her and those who shame her. and she? she is more than okay with that. at least it keeps people talking, doesn’t it?

IDOL HISTORY

there’s something lee taehee has never learned to do and that’s to do things on her own terms. to do things because she wants them to be that way, because she wants to follow that path. ever since she was a little girl, she’s been what all of us would call “a people pleaser”. she was born in orlando, florida, to two korean and loving parents that had decided to move to the united states shortly after getting married. i guess you could say she had a normal life, her parents weren’t strict or mean people, quite the contrary, they were loving and understanding, always making sure to let her know just how precious and important she was because they knew kids at school could be cruel and how that could affect her. when she turned 10 years old, her parents asked her about moving back to south korea. sure, she was a kid, but they still wanted to know if she’d be okay with that change. taehee didn’t know much about it, besides its language, but she was okay with the change. as a kid, sometimes you want to explore and get to see more places and this was like a small opportunity for her to do so.

adapting was hard. the cultural difference between one country and the other was huge, and she had trouble making friends. most knew she came from america, and while some were fascinated by it, some used it as a weapon to tease her. the first months were tough and taehee is sure the rest of her school life would’ve been worse if it wasn’t for one person; jiyoo. jiyoo was a short, funny and loud girl, who had no issue in confronting someone if they tried to hurt or mess with taehee. in her eyes, jiyoo was the coolest and she didn’t know how such a cool girl like her could be friends with such a shy loner like herself.

most days, after school, jiyoo would drag taehee back to her place, where they would sit down and discuss the latest trendy things happening. taehee was all about games. jiyoo was all about idols, fame and fortune. she was a huge fan of k-pop and always showed taehee just how good she was at dancing her favorite group’s choreography, sometimes missing a step or two, but always did it with a bright and wide smile on her face. she sometimes wanted to get the taller girl involved, but taehee always refused and said that it just wasn’t for her, it just wasn’t her thing. little did she know, jiyoo would make sure it would become her thing.

“we have to audition! we have to audition!”

when both girls were fifteen-soon-to-be-sixteen, jiyoo pressured taehee into auditioning with her for a trainee spot. taehee didn’t feel too confident about the idea and wasn’t excited at all about it, but she remembered all of the things her best friend did for her so… why not? plus, she always deemed herself as a very weird and clumsy girl, surely they wouldn’t like her and that was fine, as long as they selected jiyoo, she would be okay with that.

and life is unpredictable.

as auditions got closer, jiyoo stepped back. taehee was confused and wondered why. her best friend never gave her an accurate answer except, “it’s because i got two feet.”

“but you will audition for me. is that okay?”

reluctantly, the floridian said yes. for her, she would.

and she did. not only did she audition, but she was accepted and signed as a trainee only months after her sixteenth birthday. taehee was confused, after all, this wasn’t her dream, this was jiyoo’s, and while she was signing her contract with 99 entertainment, jiyoo was at home, wishing on the stars that her best friend would get a spot, that her best friend would get to live the dream she wouldn’t be able to.

as time passed by, taehee’s talents and skills progressed, but jiyoo’s health didn’t. practice was tough and draining and taehee barely had any time to visit her friend anymore, but every time she got the chance to do it? she did it, sitting by her best friend’s side and explaining every single detail about her new life as a trainee. there was always a small, nostalgic smile on her best friend’s face as she closed her eyes and imagined everything she was being told. almost as if she was trying to live her dream in her friend’s body.

if you were to ask taehee about the day she was told she would be debuting with three other girls in “heaven”, she would tell you she remembers it like it was yesterday, that it was such a joyous moment, such a special, fantastic day. in reality, she barely remembers it. that day was a blur. after the announcement, she rushed to jiyoo’s home and told her the big news. her best friend, with a tired, but happy smile, hugged taehee hard, with all the remaining strength left in her and said,

“thank you for doing this. for me.”

only hours later, jiyoo passed away. up to this day, taehee has no recollection of that day, and when questioned about her best friend, she simply brushes it off, as if she never existed. but she did and she does, everyday, in her heart. sometimes it’s easier to pretend something doesn’t hurt, no matter how bad it could be killing you and that’s what taehee did. for her.

the rise to fame wasn’t easy, but heaven managed. taehee learned to do what she was told and always complied with a smile on her face, after all, she felt like a girl on a mission. while her passion wasn’t this? her love for her best friend was bigger than anything else, and that’s why she worked hard everyday, pushing herself through everything, being the best version of herself - tali, in this case -, that she could be. and so far? so good, she felt like she was succeeding. then again, among all of her group members, when it comes down to general skills? she didn’t feel like she was the best, not the best singer, not the best dancer, not the best rapper, no matter how hard she worked. but she tried, she tried so hard, eventually finding her strong suit in variety.

but, how does a girl who often considered herself shy and quiet be successful at variety? that’s thanks to her friend too. in shows, taehee always channeled the kind of person jiyoo was. funny, spunky, spontaneous, all of the great things she loved about her. and the crowd now did too. she adopted all of her best friend’s qualities and showed them to the world, showing them just how much they would’ve loved her.

but all of this didn’t mean she didn’t have the chance to do something she loved too and that was gaming. she often talked about video games and just how good she actually was at them. so good? she wanted to show the entire world and to do so, she asked her company to let her have her own streaming channel, where she would make sure to play her favorite games and spend a happy time with all of her fans. they said yes, and she promised them to embrace the opportunity in the best way she could.

simultaneously, around the same time she was allowed to start her own channel, she met a boy. this boy was everything a girl could ask for, or you know, anything she could ask for. it was safe to say that she fell for him, not only hard, but fast. there was only one tiny problem; he was an idol too. and yet, for two years, they managed to sneak around, to lead a love life away from prying eyes, to live happy without anyone else bothering them, to live freely without anyone else hating on them. that is, until he got caught by management.

but taehee has always been about passion, about working hard, about doing what you love, about sacrifices, about pain, about trials and tribulations and she was willing to drop it all for him. no, it didn’t mean she was putting behind what she promised jiyoo, in a sense, she felt like she would be doing something that would make her friend happy. best friends always want what’s best for them, isn’t it? and she was willing to leave it all behind for him, for their love.

but he said no.

“i worked so hard for this. we can’t do this anymore.”

and he broke her heart.

and with a broken heart she still logged on the next day for her scheduled stream, a smile on her face and jokes to tell. when approached by a fan question about if she ever got upset for boys potentially calling her a “fake gamer girl”, something inside her exploded and she couldn’t hold it back. it wasn’t even the fact she was bothered about being called a fake gamer girl. she was bothered at the mention of boys and those boys got mentioned back. taehee went on a tirade about how men were the scum of the earth, useless, heartless, lacking of passion, lacking of commitment, lacking of sympathy. it was only two seconds later that she realized just how wrong it was, how she had said that live and now there was no taking it back, she fucked up.

nervously, she giggled,

“well, sometimes. ha.”

too late. 99 entertainment got ambushed , mostly by angry former fans of tali, questioning her decency, work ethic and lack of respect for her own fans. some female fans, but certainly not many, also felt personally attacked because they felt the female idol had insulted the perfect image of their “oppas”, and that was unforgivable to them. fans wanted her to get fired, to just be kicked out of the group. but the company didn’t go that far, simply putting tali’s activities on indefinite hiatus until further notice, a thing that infuriated her most loyal fans. some thought maybe tali had legitimate reasons to do what she did, some thought she was obviously joking, but the backlash was just way too strong to justify her actions. tali apologized with a letter and a video, but it didn’t calm the situation down, which forced her to maintain a very low-key presence with her group. while she still recorded music with them, she didn’t attend presentations or variety shows, her social media also remained on hiatus, not wanting to cause any trouble that could further affect her, the group and the company. she simply stayed at home, just wondering how in the world did she allow herself to ruin her career like that. she was a second generation idol, she was supposed to know better, she was supposed to pave the way for the younger generations, and she blew it.

and now, over a year later, tali is back on the game. doing variety, doing promotions, etc. but tali’s life as an idol just isn’t the same anymore. she works hard everyday, for her parents, for her group mates, for her fans, for jiyoo. but she also knows that she’s no longer the personality she used to be and can only continue working hard to go back to the person she used to be, to the idol people used to respect and for her to forge a path towards all of her goals and dreams, without anyone else interfering in them or without sabotaging herself. only time will tell.

#id.bio #id.tiffany young #id.99 #id.heaven

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fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years ago

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Why Read Your Horoscope When You Can Read Your Whole Birth Chart?

http://fashion-trendin.com/why-read-your-horoscope-when-you-can-read-your-whole-birth-chart/

Why Read Your Horoscope When You Can Read Your Whole Birth Chart?

This birth chart how-to was originally published in May of 2017, shortly before astrology-mania reached its peak altitude, which now hovers somewhere between 50,000 feet and Pluto. We figured it was time for a refresh. If you’re tired of skipping over the part of your horoscope that waxes poetic about the implications of your rising sign, learn how to read your full birth chart below.

love astrology. I couldn’t care less if it’s “accurate.” It’s fun and harmless. And, as an ever-prideful Leo, there are few things I enjoy more than reading about myself on the internet. In fact, I spent the better part of my spring 2015 college lectures educating myself on astrology’s origins and nuances because I couldn’t get enough.

When my interest blossomed into a blog, Bossy Planets (where I eventually garnered hundreds of questions a day), I was surprised to learn that many of my fellow horoscope enthusiasts knew little of their astrological cocktails. You know, like the planets and houses and asteroids that bubble beneath the surface of the basic zodiac wheel. That’s probably because you can’t determine your full natal chart with your birth date alone. There are many websites (like this one) that will calculate it for you — but you need your exact time and city of birth. It’s worth the extra effort though, trust me. Natal charts delve far deeper into your psyche than your average weekly horoscope, dissecting various celestial placements at the time of your birth to give you a fuller idea of how they may affect your personality. Once I studied mine, I was hooked.

I’m not sure where you fall on the astrology spectrum. Maybe you think it’s dumb, maybe you read it every week just in case, maybe you consult the stars on what to eat for breakfast. Regardless of your level of interest, a full natal chart reading is an interesting canvas on which to explore your personality. If you’re one of those people who never felt understood by your sun sign, who knows? Maybe you’ll find you relate more to other aspects of your zodiac. Below, I’ve broken down the guiding principles of astrology to help you read your full chart. It’s a starter kit, if you will, complete with all the vagaries and self-indulgent details that make astrology so appealing to begin with.

The Sun Sign

The 12 zodiac constellations — observed and used in Ancient Rome, though their origins can be traced even earlier — are positioned along the “path” of the sun as seen from Earth. Your sun sign is determined by which zodiac constellation is behind the sun on the date of your birth. This is the one you no doubt already know; the most commonly known and important aspect of your birth chart. Essentially, your sun sign speaks to your most basic identity. It represents your ego, your daily actions, the dynamic expression of your will.

As a Leo, I would describe myself as outspoken, creative and affectionate. Although my sister would say I’m basically an “emo lion” and an anonymous user on Tumblr once used the phrases “obsessed with yourself,” “curious bugger” and “somewhat of an outcast.” Take that as you will.

The Elements

There are four elements in the zodiac, between which the 12 zodiac signs are split evenly (so, three each). These three are believed to be most compatible with each other due to their commonalities and shared values.

Fire Signs (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius) are known for their passion, confidence and strong gut instincts. Water Signs (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) are the most sensitive, idealistic and kind. Air Signs (Gemini, Aquarius and Libra) are typically the most communicative, social and open-minded. Earth Signs (Taurus, Capricorn and Virgo) are renowned for their practicality, stability, realism and persistence.

Elements tend to paint the signs with broad strokes, but they’re fun to think about when analyzing your friend, family and romantic relationship dynamics. (As a fire sign, I find I gravitate more towards air signs.)

The Moon Sign

Arguably, your moon sign is just as important as your sun sign. It’s determined by which zodiac constellation the moon was in at your exact time of birth. Your moon sign speaks to your emotional nature and inner self. It tends to reflect your personality when you’re alone — or deep within your comfort zone. It’s considered more feminine and reflects your relationships with important women in your life. So next time you’re eating chips in bed, spiraling down a conspiracy theory YouTube rabbit hole and crying on the phone with your mom, maybe blame your moon sign.

Also, some believe your moon sign is more accurate in predicting the root of your subconscious thoughts than your sun sign. My Gemini moon has given me comfort whenever I’ve felt misunderstood, because this placement is often characterized as having complex and valuable inner monologues.

The Houses

Okay. Houses. Have you ever heard someone say something like, “Mars is in your third house”? They’re referring to which slice of the sky Mars was in at the time of your birth. The house system divides the sky into 12 sections and, depending on which planets and constellations fall into which sections when you were born, provide insight into specific areas of your life. Your first house is determined by which zodiac constellation was rising on the eastern horizon at the exact moment you were born, which is why both time and location of your birth are needed to determine it. The rest of your houses count up sequentially from there. Sites like this one can provide these visuals for your chart!

Here’s what each of the houses might tell you about your personality and life:

1. The First House represents self-image 2. The Second House represents money and finances 3. The Third House represents close platonic relationships and our immediate environments 4. The Fourth House represents family and childhood 5. The Fifth House represents self-expression, creativity and entertainment 6. The Sixth House represents work and health 7. The Seventh House represents marriage and long-term partnerships 8. The Eighth House represents both transformation and sexuality 9. The Ninth House represents belief systems and faith 10. The Tenth House represents careers and responsibility 11. The Eleventh House represents aspirations and personal goals 12. The Twelfth House represents privacy, secrets and karma

If your head is spinning right now, just pay attention to your first, fourth, seventh and tenth house. They’re typically given more weight.

The interesting thing about houses is they may reveal or confirm your strengths and weaknesses. When I learned that Aries was in my second house, for example, I wasn’t surprised. Aries is a sign characterized by ambition, passion and volatile emotion, and when it’s in my second house, which represents money and finances, it makes sense that I’m very career-minded and feel that my money needs to be self-made. It also makes sense that I fall victim to impulsive spending (shout-out to my unnecessary — but also necessary — shoe purchase a week ago). Oops.

The Rising Sign

A quick word on your rising sign. Also known as “the ascendant,” your rising sign is the zodiac constellation that falls into your first house. It’s the most fickle and difficult to nail down — you may get different results if you shift your birth time even a few minutes. Many astrologists say this one is your third most important placement, after your sun and moon signs. As mentioned, your ascendant represents your public identity. It can often manifest in your clothing or really any decisions related to your outward-facing identity (such as hair color, piercings or overall style). It also might symbolize how you respond to your immediate surroundings and your attitude towards everyday life.

For me, learning my rising sign made me feel emboldened to get a septum piercing — even though my friends said it’d be too “weird” — because my Aquarius ascendant is defined by individuality and often rebellious style choices.

The Planets

Some argue that planets are even more important than houses. In the process of their orbits, planets move in and out of the zodiac constellations, lingering in some much longer than others, depending on the speed and size of their orbits. When you’re born, imagine the night sky freezing in place. Which planets are in which constellations? The answer will help you read into your personality even more.

The Inner Planets

Mercury, Venus and Mars are called the inner planets due to their changeability and closeness to Earth. For that reason, precision with your birth place and time is far more important for these. The signs that fall within the inner-planet placements dictate your core personality traits, needs and desires.

Mercury is the planet of communication, so determining where it is when you’re born will tell you something about how you learn and converse. For instance, those with earth signs in Mercury (Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo) will likely be very reasonable, observant people. Those with air signs in Mercury (Gemini, Aquarius, Libra) are most effective communicators when writing and public speaking. Fire signs in Mercury (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) are passionate and sometimes hot-headed in arguments. Water signs in Mercury are highly emotional and likely to avoid confrontation.

Venus — named for the Roman Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite — rules a person’s love life. It speaks to the ways in which you express affection, what you look for in a partner and generally what you find attractive.

Mars is the planet of conflict, aggression and action. It represents the physical expression of your initiative and drive — often applicable to both your sex life and ambition in business — and speaks to the ways you channel desire and anger, particularly for those with fire signs in Mars. (My Mars placement often reminds me to reflect before I act and channel the balance-seeking energy of the Libra sign.)

Your inner planet placements may appear contradictory, but that’s part of what makes them fun — they delve into our own contradictions, too. For example, being a Leo Venus, I’m a sloppy love puppy who thrives on meaningful conversation and is generally a bit emotional. My Virgo Mercury placement, on the other hand, seems to speak to a detached nature — like my hatred of small talk, maybe.

The Outer Planets

The outer planets — Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (RIP) — have the longest and widest orbits, which makes them generational placements. People born within a few years of you will likely have the same placements for all the outer planets, which makes them less consequential in each individual person’s chart. The longest an outer planet will stay in the same sign is about 15 years.

Uranus rules change, Neptune rules dreams, Pluto rules power. Your placements can suggest what you work towards in these areas throughout your life. For those around my age — 21 and smack-dab in the middle of Generation Y — you’ll find both your Uranus and Neptune placements in Capricorn, indicating a strong inclination towards equality and social justice. Feel free to use that as a counter-argument the next time someone tells you millennials are useless.

The Social Planets

Jupiter and Saturn are sometimes called the social planets because their orbits are wider and longer than those of the inner planets, but smaller and shorter than those of the outer planets. They represent and influence how people relate to society.

Jupiter is the planet of luck, education and growth. The Jupiter placement is also seen as very philosophical and might indicate how you feel about religion.

Saturn is is all about limitations and boundaries. The Saturn placement can help reveal what you need to overcome and the restrictions you might encounter along the way — especially earlier in life.

For me, having Sagittarius in Jupiter, a restless sign, probably means I should travel more (I’m not complaining). An analysis of my Saturn placement, Pisces, known for its isolationist tendencies, might encourage me to take more risks with collaboration.

A truly comprehensive and in-depth birth chart interpretation requires research, instinct, time and resources. The details are important — even twins may find that some placements can shift within minutes. That said, you’ll rarely find two astrologists who tell you the exact same thing, because the world and the cosmos and all the people who exist within them are ever-changing and dynamic. It is important to remember, though, that these charts are designed to provide descriptions and possibilities, not absolutes. I’ve found that interpreting my chart has led me to a greater sense of self-understanding. At times, it’s given me confidence in my decisions. I’ve made it my own. Astrology should be used as a tool to enhance our lives, not dictate them.

Feature collage by Emily Zirimis, inserted collages by Maria Jia Ling Pitt.

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clusterassets · 6 years ago

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New world news from Time: The Trump-Macron Friendship Is Falling Apart at the G-7. That Spells Trouble for the French President

The world’s most powerful friendship might finally be on the rocks.

Enraged by President Donald Trump’s decision not to exempt America’s close allies in the E.U., Canada and Japan from his steel and aluminum tariffs, French President Emmanuel Macron has broken his year-long warm embrace of his U.S. counterpart—and threatened to isolate the world’s biggest economy by forming a united bloc against Trump with other allies.

In a Trump-like tweet-storm overnight on Thursday, Macron lashed out at Trump from Quebec, where the world’s seven more powerful leaders are meeting at the G-7 summit. “Maybe the U.S. President doesn’t mind being isolated, but we also don’t mind signing a six-country agreement if need be,” Macron tweeted in a rare and sharp warning to Trump.

Read more: U.S. Allies are ready to turn their backs on Trump at the G-7 summit

Those words could spell the downfall of one of the most curious political odd couples in recent times—a friendship in which Trump has called Macron “fantastic,” and Macron has addressed Trump as “dear Donald.”

In many ways, Macron and Trump were polar opposites in style and policy, pitting a young global-minded intellectual against an aging nationalist.

Even so, ever since Macron shot to power in May last year as France’s youthful, come-from-nowhere president, he made it clear that he intended to be Donald Trump’s friend—a decision he said was based on a centuries-old alliance between the U.S. and France. The two exchanged mobile numbers shortly after Macron’s election, and have spoken frequently since.

Macron’s warmth has been a marked contrast to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has barely concealed her distaste for Trump’s views, and to British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose relationship with Trump has been strained.

That quickly made Macron—a first-time elected politician—the preeminent global figure among the E.U.’s 28 leaders. “I’m not here to judge or say I’m the opponent to anybody,” Macron told TIME in an interview last November at the Elysée Palace. “I do believe we have a very good personal relationship.”

Read more: French President Emmanuel Macron won a shocking victory. But he’s just getting started

In turn, Trump was receptive to Macron’s advances. In July last year, he gushed in Paris after Macron hosted him at the Bastille Day military parade and at a fine dinner with their wives atop the Eiffel Tower. In late April Trump hosted Macron at the first White House state dinner of his presidency.

“There was a kind of reciprocal fascination between the two men because they had both won in the most unexpected manner,” Dominique Moisi, senior advisor to the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, or IFRI, tells TIME. “Macron was very sure of himself, and his charm, believing that if he could seduce his teacher at 16 [Brigitte Macron, now the French president’s wife] and seduce France at less than 40, he could do the same with Trump.”

But as the relationship takes a bumpy turn, Macron potentially has much to lose. Some see his assuredness that he could persuade Trump to reverse course as a miscalculation—leaving Macron open to criticism that he has been far too acquiescent until now to Trump, who is deeply disliked in Europe.

“You wonder why Macron went to all that effort, dining with the Trumps at the Eiffel Tower, the whole masquerade in Washington, all that hugging and holding hands,” says Laurence Nardon, head of IFRI’s program on U.S. relations. “It looks ridiculous.”

One moment during Macron’s Washington visit in late April hinted at the trouble to come. In what seemed to be a power play, Trump, in full view of cameras, appeared to flick dandruff off the French leader’s jacket, telling him he was trying to “make him perfect.” “It was a cringing moment,” Nardon says.

In fact, Macron’s anger over Trump’s tariffs marks just the latest rift between the two leaders.

The relationship officially turned sour in early May, when Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015 with the E.U., U.N. and Iran. Trump gave no forewarning of his decision to Macron, despite their Oval Office meeting in late April, during which the French leader pleaded with Trump to stick to the Iran deal.

The schisms began well before then, however, dating to Trump’s decision in June 2017 to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, which was signed in 2015 in the French capital; the U.S. is now the only country in the world not to commit itself to the deal, which aims to drastically reduce carbon emissions in order to rein in global warming. Macron slammed the decision, telling Trump in a speech that “there is no Plan B.”

And on Tuesday, Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem increased violence. “If this leads to people dying it is not a celebration,” he said.

“There has been an accumulation of differences,” one senior aide at the French Foreign Ministry, speaking anonyously, told TIME last month after Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

Moisi calls the current chill between Washington and Europe “the worst trans-Atlantic crisis ever,” leaving Europeans wondering who they can turn to if a far deeper crisis—say, a war—occurs. “If American is no longer the life insurance of Europe, well, where are we going to turn?” he says. “I have no idea.”

For that very reason, Macron has thought it essential to maintain a warm relationship with Trump. Now, that seems too difficult to pull off.

Where this will leave Macron—Europe’s most globally ambitious leader—is not yet clear. A canny, highly calculating politician, Macron may have chosen his tough words for Trump with careful deliberation, attempting a new strategy to win him over.

Nardon says that having read Trump’s book The Art of the Deal, she believes Trump might be persuaded to make concessions if the rest of the G-7 leaders stick together and refuse to compromise. That could be in Macron’s mind too, she says.

“Macron tried to be friends, and it didn’t work,” she says. “Both positions are tactics. Now, Macron thinks, ‘I’m going to try the tough guy method, and see if it works better.'”

It just might, she says. “If you read Trump’s book you see if someone won’t give concessions, he will run after them.”

June 08, 2018 at 11:07PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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This Is Ajit Pai, Nemesis of Net Neutrality

In March, Ajit Pai, the 45-year-old chair of the Federal Communications Commission, took to the internet—a community he joyfully inhabits and grudgingly regulates—to pay tribute to his favorite movie. “It’s not just, like, my opinion, man: 20 years ago today, #TheBigLebowski—the greatest film in the history of cinema—was released,” Pai wrote on Twitter. “Decades on, the Dude still abides and the movie really ties us all together.” And sure enough, the response to Pai’s cheerful tweet was united.

You’re out of your element Ajit. —@JohnsNotHere

Yes, Ajit. Stop trying to mingle with humans. —@Douche_McGraw

I hope you enjoy watching that movie alone since you have zero friends —@aseriousmang

No one likes you dork —@chessrockwell_

The insults, hundreds upon hundreds of them, accumulated in his replies. Some took the form of incredulous Jeff Bridges GIFs, others mimicked famous lines of Lebowski dialog. (“Shut the fuck up, Ajit.”) People debated whether Pai was more like one of the movie’s nihilist kidnappers or its corporate stooge.

The WIRED Business Issue

The competition is stiff, but Pai may be the most reviled man on the internet. He is despised as both a bumbling rube, trying too hard to prove he gets it, and a cunning villain, out to destroy digital freedom. (As one mocking headline put it: “Ajit Pai will not rest until he has killed The Big Lebowski, too.”) The anger emanates from his move, shortly after being appointed by Donald Trump, to repeal Obama-era net neutrality regulations. He called his policy the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, an Orwellian touch in the view of his critics, who see it as a mortal threat.

In the simplest terms, the principle of net neutrality prevents internet service providers, such as Verizon or Comcast, from manipulating network traffic for discriminatory purposes. Defenders contend that, without such rules, those companies could exert nefarious powers. They might slow down Netflix, making movies like The Big Lebowski unwatchable, in order to push captive subscribers to their own properties, a prospect that becomes more plausible as telecoms like AT&T and Verizon expand into content. They could charge tech companies extra fees to reach customers, giving a competitive advantage to those that pay. They could starve a startup or stifle a voice of dissent. Pai discounted such scenarios, calling them “hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom,” and pointed out that there was little evidence of such behavior before the Obama administration imposed the regulations in 2015. But the opposition, drawing energy from the broader anti-Trump resistance, was not persuaded by his reassurances. “If you’re not freaking out about net neutrality right now,” the activist group Fight for the Future warned its followers last year, “you’re not paying attention.”

Pai sought to defuse suspicions by presenting himself as an affable nerd, dropping conspicuous references to Star Wars and comic book heroes. But the internet wasn’t buying it. Last May, after satirist John Oliver delivered a scathing monologue ridiculing what he called Pai’s “doofy, ‘Hey, I’m just like you guys’ persona”—he focused on Pai’s habit of drinking from a giant novelty coffee mug at meetings—and calling on viewers of Last Week Tonight to stand up for net neutrality, the FCC’s website received an onslaught of comments against the repeal. Most simply voiced support for Obama’s policy, but some spat racist vitriol at Pai, who is a child of Indian immigrants, or even threatened his life. Trolls tracked down review pages for his wife’s medical practice and filled them with abusive one-star reviews. Perhaps unwisely, Pai kept trying to fight back on the internet’s own terms. He jousted with celebrities and nobodies on social media. He staged self-conscious stunts, like appearing in a video entitled “7 Things You Can Still Do on the Internet After Net Neutrality,” in which he posed as a Jedi and danced to “Harlem Shake” with a bunch of young conservatives. But the video just inflamed the internet. On Twitter, Mark Hamill—Luke Skywalker himself—jeered at Pai, calling him “profoundly unworthy” to wield a lightsaber. Someone else quickly identified a young woman dancing next to Pai as a right-wing conspiracy theorist who had helped spread “Pizzagate,” a hoax scandal from the lunatic fringe that linked Hillary Clinton to a child-abuse ring.

At a meeting of the FCC in November 2017, Ajit Pai drank from the novelty cup he finds so amusing—and his critics love to hate.

Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

On December 14, as that spectacle of Pai cavorting with the far right was zipping around the world, the FCC commissioners met to consider the fate of net neutrality. Demonstrators rallied outside the agency’s headquarters, but Pai appeared unperturbed as he and his four fellow commissioners filed into a fluorescent-lit chamber. By Washington tradition, the FCC’s membership is divided, with two seats picked by the opposition’s congressional leaders. His two Republican colleagues spoke in favor of the repeal, while the two Democrats offered harsh dissents. The chair had the final word. “The internet has enriched my own life immeasurably,” Pai said. “In the past few days alone, I’ve set up a FaceTime call with my parents and kids, downloaded interesting podcasts about blockchain technology, I’ve ordered a burrito, I’ve managed my playoff-bound fantasy football team. And—as many of you might have seen—I’ve tweeted. What is responsible for the phenomenal development of the internet? Well, it certainly wasn’t heavy-handed government regulation.”

As Pai spoke, there was furtive commotion in the back of the room. A hulking armed guard stepped forward. “On advice of security, we need to take a brief recess,” Pai said abruptly, and then stood up and hurried out a side door. A murmur went through the audience: bomb threat.

The room was evacuated and searched. Eventually everyone returned and Pai called for a vote. The repeal passed, 3–2. Pai took a satisfied sip from his much-maligned coffee mug.

People who know Pai swear that his nerdy persona is authentic. And even his adversaries will admit that he’s an anomaly in the Trump administration: a skillful practitioner of the Washington game. Pai has spent his entire professional life in the capital, acquiring influential patrons (Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions) and insider expertise. As Harold Feld, an ardent critic who works for the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, laments, “Why was my area of policy the one that got the guy who actually knows what he’s doing?”

Behind Pai’s brainy, technocratic mask, though, is an alter ego: ruthless conservative ideologue. In this sense, he is emblematic of Trump’s Washington, where all debates—even the bone-dry bureaucratic ones—have become so heated that they are fought like matters of life and death. Pai’s competence has allowed him to make quick work of undoing the Obama administration’s legacy at the FCC. But his polarizing politics assure that the battle over internet regulation will keep raging. “I like Ajit Pai personally, although I don’t want to defend him in public,” admits another net neutrality supporter. “But you’re not allowed to try to destroy the internet and then be treated well by the internet. The internet should hate him.”

Pai may be a creature of Washington, but he still presents himself as a provincial at heart. He grew up in the small town of Parsons, Kansas, where his parents, both Indian-born doctors, practiced at a county hospital. Pai’s connections to the wider world were AM radio and his family’s satellite television dish. Today many rural communities are without broadband internet access, an issue Pai often addresses publicly. “I’ve been to many, many towns around this country, and I’ve seen how people are on the wrong side of that digital divide,” Pai told students at his old high school in Parsons last September. (He declined to be interviewed for this article.) He told the assembly about a momentous occasion: meeting Trump in the Oval Office for the first time. “You walk out and you see the grandeur of the White House and you think about the fact that you just met the most powerful person in the world, and I couldn’t help but think about a kid I used to know 30 years before,” Pai said. “He was a shy kid, bushy mustache, bushy hair, really awkward talking to people, just didn’t quite know what was going on. He was, candidly, a dork.”

Pai could argue, though, that dorkiness was his ticket out of Parsons. He was a top-flight debater in high school and, later, at Harvard. He arrived in Cambridge as a Democrat, but under the influence of a professor, Martin Feldstein, who had advised Ronald Reagan, he adopted a conservative free-market philosophy. Pai was also put off by the racial politics on Harvard’s campus. After the 1992 race riots in Los Angeles, his residential house invited students to post their feelings on a wall—a literal, brick-and-mortar one. Though a minority himself, Pai was skeptical of liberal identity politics, and he wrote that “the real problem” when it came to race at Harvard was “voluntary segregation.”

“Pai is very much casting his lot with this Trump revolution.”

Pai graduated from Harvard in 1994, a year in which two developments emerged that would shape the course of his professional life. That October, Netscape released the first commercially successful web browser, opening the way for the modern internet. A month later, the Republican Party won control of Congress. The spirit of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” was strong at the University of Chicago, where Pai had just started law school. He belonged to the Edmund Burke Society, a vocal conservative group, but also studied with Cass Sunstein, a brilliant liberal scholar of administrative law. (Gigi Sohn—a Democrat and net neutrality advocate who worked at the FCC when Pai was there—told me that after a controversial vote, she saw Pai vehemently arguing with someone who had disparaged his knowledge of administrative law on Twitter. Explaining his anger later, he told her: “I got an A in Cass Sunstein’s administrative law class!”)

When Pai later moved to Washington, he joined a cohort of young conservatives who were impassioned about curtailing regulation. “Ajit was a type, as were a lot of his friends from Chicago, that would geek out about the differences in originalist philosophy of Scalia and Thomas,” says a friend from the time, Ketan Jhaveri. “And how to use that to get the government to do less.”

In 1998, Pai joined the Justice Department as a junior attorney in the antitrust division. He was assigned to a task force overseeing the telecommunications industry, which was going through a period of upheaval. Deregulation had contributed to a boom in dot-com stocks, huge investment in broadband, and a wave of telecom mergers. In 2000, Pai took part in an investigation that eventually blocked the proposed merger of WorldCom and Sprint, partly because it stood to give one company a dominant percentage of the internet’s “backbone” infrastructure.

Protesters, like these in Chicago, came out in force to support Obama-era net neutrality regulations. But the Republican-majority FCC repealed the rules on December 14.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The concern, then as now, was that the company that owned the pipes could also manipulate the flow of data. For practical purposes, some traffic management was essential, but the academics and engineers who pioneered the internet could already foresee how that control could lead to abuses such as blocking access to websites and “throttling”—or deliberately slowing—the connections of certain consumers. In 2002, a young law professor named Tim Wu wrote a short paper that he titled “A Proposal for Network Neutrality.” He framed the issue in modest terms, suggesting a standard that regulators could use to decide which methods of network management should be permitted (for the valid purpose of directing traffic) and which should be banned (for distorting the fundamental openness of the internet).

“I was sure it was a complete waste of time,” Wu recalls of that paper. But the phrase “net neutrality” caught on. Over time the concept has come to mean something far more sweeping, invoked to protect not just bits of data but free speech, personal privacy, innovation, and most every other public good associated with the internet. (Pai has called it “one of the more seductive marketing slogans that’s ever been attached to a public policy issue.”)

The world of telecommunications law is small, and Wu says he crossed paths with Pai around the time he came up with the concept of net neutrality. “Back in the day, he used to throw pretty good parties,” Wu said. Pai was active in the Federalist Society, the intellectual center of the conservative legal scene, but he was a bipartisan networker. He used to arrange large happy hour events, sending out mass email invitations that took the form of clever limericks. “Everyone knew his politics, but it was kind of like a joke,” says Jhaveri, who worked with Pai at the Justice Department and is now a tech entrepreneur. “A lot of our close friends were liberal and would give him a hard time about it, but all in good fun.”

After the Justice Department, Pai went to work at Verizon as a corporate attorney, but his foray into the private sector lasted just two years. He went on to Capitol Hill as an aide to two of the most conservative members of the Senate: first Sessions, from Alabama, and then Sam Brownback, who represented Pai’s home state of Kansas. Unlike his bosses, Pai was not a fire-breather on social issues, but he could see who was on the ascent in Washington during George W. Bush’s presidency. Finally, in 2007, Pai found his natural place at the FCC, taking a midlevel position in the general counsel’s office.

Established in 1934 to oversee radio airwaves and the Bell telephone monopoly, the FCC is one of those government institutions that conceals its importance behind an impenetrable veneer of boringness. The agency has historically had a dynamic of symbiosis—to put it politely—with the companies it oversees. FCC staffers deal mainly with lobbyists, and often become lobbyists, shuttling back and forth between K Street and the “8th Floor,” as the commissioners’ suites are known in Washington.