#because five right now has 0 frame of reference for what parents are like

[elumish]

@mjjune if you care to share 👀 i'm v curious about this tbh

Okay so these are fairly unformed thoughts based at least in part on the fact that I'm currently watching "Indelible" (S8E1 of CSI: NY) for my PhD data collection right now.

I was a child when 9/11 happened, and I grew up fairly close (not NYC, but a commuting town to NYC) in an area that lost a fair number of people. I didn't know anyone who died, but that's more chance than anything else.

I grew up pretty literally in the shadow of the attacks. Ironically, that means that I grew up in a place where we talked about it far less than I think they did in most places that were further removed. Teachers had no way of knowing if kids in our class had lost parents/relatives in the attacks, and I think the adults just didn't know how to talk about it. They were too close to the attacks.

I didn't see the footage until I was a senior in high school, something like 11-12 years later. I've watched the footage twice, both times for school. We did moments of silence every year that I was in school, but we didn't talk about it.

In TV shows, 9/11 is presented as this massive collective trauma for the country, which was absolutely true. You can argue whatever you want about whether we as a country overreacted and whether politicians took advantage of it to carry out their own agenda (which, to be clear, I wouldn't disagree with), but for a lot of particularly white Americans, it was the first time that there was a real sense that the country as a whole was under threat. Unlike a lot of other countries in Europe, etc. there simply is not a major history of attacks from external actors in the United States. Pearl Harbor literally was the only modern frame of reference that Americans had, and that was what brought us into WWII.

Obviously it wasn't the first attack on the U.S. homeland by external actors, or even the first by Al Qaeda on the World Trade Center, but notably, the 1993 bombing failed. It killed six people. That was bad, it was damaging--but it wasn't visceral.

So a lot of shows set outside of New York and DC/Virginia show 9/11 as That Big Attack That We Need To Prevent From Happening Again. It's the catch-all whenever they're talking about terrorism, particuarly Islamist terrorism or terrorism focused on planes. It's The Event, it's the boogeyman, it's capital letters, bolded, italicized. It was an Attack On All Of Us, and They Are Coming To Get Us.

Shows (especially cop/firefighter shows) set in NYC and to a lesser extent DC/Virginia, as well as shows with major characters from NYC (e.g., Hawaii Five-0, 9-1-1: Lone Star) tend to make it much more personal. CSI: NY has a major character whose wife died in the attacks. Hawaii Five-0's Danny talks about it. 9-1-1: Lone Star has a major character who was a firefighter who has lung cancer from responding.

In many of these shows, 9/11 (the attack, not the police response after) becomes inextricably tied with law enforcement and first responders, and it becomes in some ways both reframed as being a particular tragedy for emergency responders (and, to be clear, hundreds of extremely brave first responders died or suffered major long-term effects from responding to it) and also framed as an excuse for extreme and horrifying actions taken by law enforcement.

Using 9/11 as a frame of reference when doing terrorism studies is always interesting because, on one hand, it literally changed the field of terrorism studies and how we conceptualize terrorism as a whole. As someone who studies terrorism, it is impossible for me to separate my understanding of terrorism from the 9/11 attacks. But at the same time, continuing to center 9/11 as the terrorist attack constrains our understanding of terrorism and hurts our ability to effectively think of and respond to terrorism (especially domestic terrorism, which is more my area of study).

I have so many thoughts about how 9/11 is presented in TV shows

[in-tua-deep]

i’m really interested in writing a baby!five (like someone he’s regressed even younger than 13 but is still, like, mentally the five we know and love) fic bc i love him- how would you characterize him? and what do you think his relationships with each other the siblings would be?

I have some info about headcanons for a babier Five right here! I’ll be honest most of my own personal musings on a little Five have focused around him and his relationship with Claire bc I have a feeling they would team up and become an unstoppable duo together - which also ends up with me thinking a lot about Patrick as well lmao so there’s that

But overall I think his relationship with his siblings would be,, tense to say the least until they came to a happy medium about being realistic about his current capabilities vs. his fierce independence born out of not having anyone to rely on for the vast majority of his life

I’d say it’s probably the most tense with Allison?? Because she’s a mother so of course she’s going to treat him like a child. She has a child. She’s going to lean on what she knows and do some stuff automatically and Five would hate that!! At least the other siblings probably would have no idea what to do with a child or how to treat one and so they have no preconceived notions about what a small child is capable of tbh

Probably second worst at first is Klaus?? Just because Klaus would 100% swing Five up into his arms and use a baby voice and make kissy noises and proclaim that Five is “Adorable!” every few minutes if only to wind Five up and make him angry. It probably gets better after a pretty frank meltdown on the issue that has Klaus treading more carefully, but I mean,, Klaus is a touchy feely person. That’s who he is. 

But as an interesting paradox Klaus being 100% willing to sweep Five up and cuddle him might actually lead to Five seeking Klaus out more if he wants affection since he doesn’t know how to ask for it. He’d put up token protests, but any protest short of actually jumping away or using a knife is probably just for show tbh so yeah when he wants affection and doesn’t want to admit it he’d go to Klaus,, plus Klaus probably takes Five’s side on arguments to play devil’s advocate and start shit because you know Klaus totally would

Vanya probably respects Five’s choices the best out of the siblings, automatically making her Five’s favorite. If Five insisted on doing something by himself she’d probably just let him. If he succeeds, he succeeds. If he doesn’t, she’ll help after, easy as that. She probably doesn’t pick him up mainly because she’s afraid of dropping him but I mean I’m sure Five jumps places and is perfectly capable of jumping onto counters or tables to have conversations at a better height tbh. She always frames things as requests or reflecting back on her like “I get worried when you vanish” and so therefore Five is letting Vanya know when he goes off not because she told him he has to but because he doesn’t want her to worry and stuff like that

Luther is just,, awkward tbh bless his heart. Probably not super patient with Five and has a tendency to just grab him and move him places which makes Five bristle and get on the defensive. But I mean. Luther also has no concept of what children do or are capable of so he’s also probably the one Five jumps in front of like “Luther drive me to the department store/library/other place in town” and Luther is just kind of like “okay I can do that” (also probably the one who threatens Five with a child leash if he just ditches Luther someplace again because then Allison will chew him out about losing a Child)

And there’s Diego who has all these protective instincts and a very unwilling recipient who swings wildly between “You know what fuck you do what you want I don’t care” and “but what if you got HURT or LOST, Five????” and just generally does Not Know what to do with himself in this situation. Probably butts heads with Five a lot over Five wanting to go off on his own or otherwise do things Diego classifies as dangerous and it never helps that Klaus, who loves to start shit, will often take Five’s side regardless of any actual opinions on the topic just to start drama

and oh man I could see Five really getting vicious, like being too small to do real damage physically makes him feel way more cornered than your regularly scheduled Five but he is certainly capable of using his tongue as a weapon and hitting all of the siblings where it hurts (and then you have the issue of Five being fully aware of the punishments Reginald gave him at his current physical age, because I doubt Reginald stood for defiant behavior very well, and so he might just be pushing boundaries to figure out where those boundaries are because it’s really scary to not know where the line in the sand is - especially for someone used to toeing that same line)

but I mean I think each sibling will have pros and cons and issues that need to be addressed - they’re all still processing their own childhood traumas after all and Five, who as I mentioned is incredibly independent and almost incapable of relying on others after his extreme isolation, is going to have a really rough time if he’s being forced to rely on others and he’d absolutely hate any and all limitations placed upon him and would probably reject those limitations even if they’re in place for a good reason (like being forbidden from using the stove, or having to be in a car seat/unable to drive period, or having someone with him when he goes out, absolutely no alcohol, and other such ground rules)

But yeah there are so many potential stories within such a universe!! I’m definitely curious to see where you take it and please do link me your story if you do go for it as I would love to read!!

[antoniabelli]

Should vaccines be mandatory? A look at the Italian case

Vaccination hesitancy in Italy sits at the crossroad of cultural isolation and economic inequality. Now a controversial law making vaccination mandatory might just make the issue even more inflammatory 

After years of declining vaccination rates across Europe and mounting political pressure, in 2017 then Italian health minister Beatrice Lorenzin introduced a law to make a number of vaccinations mandatory in order to access public education between the ages of 0 and 16. After a two-year period during which parents could get up to date with the vaccination schedule, the law has recently come into full force. However, this piece of legislation remains controversial, with some claiming that the so-called Lorenzin law violates their civil liberties.

The law was overwhelmingly supported by the Italian scientific community, who described it as a success in the fight against the anti-vax movement, and proof of an improved relationship between health authorities and politicians. Roberto Burioni, a famous immunologist and online personality, has often responded to anti-vaxxers on his facebook page with his now-famous line: “Science is not democratic”. 

In Italy, Burioni is seen as the epitome of “the expert”: well dressed, internationally renowned for his work, witty and authoritative. He gained prominence during the height of the vaccination debate by running a popular facebook page, in which he refuted many of the usual arguments made by anti-vaxxers: Andrew Wakefield’s famously discredited study about a supposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the presence of toxic substances like mercury and alleged shady corporate interests. 

Many users write comments under Burioni’s posts thanking him for being a voice of reason against obscurantism. However, I can’t help but feel a sense of unease seeing this wealthy, educated man publicly shame people who, either because of cultural isolation or simple misinformation, have developed skepticism against institutions and scientific practices. There is an evident subtext of classism in many of his posts or television interviews, and he has often referred to anti-vaxxers as stupid or ignorant. He is a strong supporter of the idea that only medical professionals should speak publicly about issues like vaccination, and has often said so on Italian TV.  

A small but vocal minority in Italian civil society remains opposed to the law, deeming it discriminatory against unvaccinated children and a violation of individual liberties. Some members of the German-speaking minority in the Alto Adige region even tried to apply for asylum in Austria to avoid the heavy fines they faced for refusing to vaccinate their children. A spokesperson for the group stated that “Asylum is claimed not just by people fleeing war, but also by people whose rights are being violated”. More recently, the Italian press reported that a mother went on hunger strike when her daughters were refused access to primary school. 

The negative attitude against vaccination in Italy is linked to the concept of “casta”, the idea that the cultural and political establishment represents an elite that controls institutions to the detriment of regular citizens. This idea is what fuels the success of populist parties such as Lega and the Five Star Movement. It is no surprise that both these parties campaigned against mandatory vaccination during the last election in 2018, although they eventually failed to repeal the law in parliament. As early as 1998, the former comedian Grillo, who later became the political leader of the 5 Star Movement was incorporating monologues against vaccinations in his shows. In this context, any attempt from the medical community to reach out to the general public with scientific facts and reassurances is perceived at best as condescending and at worst as “covering up their tracts”.

However, skepticism about vaccination is first and foremost an issue born out disenfranchisement, which leaves people vulnerable to fake news or conspiracy theories. Parents who have concerns about vaccination want to be listened to and they might feel that health authorities are either dismissing their fears or are outright hostile towards them. Italian media coverage of the anti-vax movement often depicts these parents as frenzied or irrational, portraying the issue as a personal moral failing rather than an outcome of systemic inequalities, and sometimes refusing to engage honestly with anti-vaxx concerns. Too often, the discourse about vaccination hesitancy is framed simplistically, ignoring the history and complexity of the issue. As early as the beginning of the 20th century there was widespread opposition to mandatory vaccination, for example in Rio de Janeiro in 1904. The concerns of a hundred years ago are the same of today: what is the trade off between individual liberties and the common good? Who gets to decide what risks are acceptable and which not?

The backlash against anti-vaxxers is connected to a deep-rooted anxiety of the social elites regarding the rise of populism and the shifting of cultural capital ever since the end of the first republic in the early 90s. More than a genuine concern for the well-being of the country or of immunodeficient children, it is a longing for a time where the doctor, the nurse, the university professors were the uncontested manufacturers of public consensus. But since the sweeping corruption investigations that started in 1992, the reputation of public servants has never truly recovered. Thirty years on, Italians believe that they live in a society where no one is to be completely trusted or expected to act for the common good without self interest. 

What perhaps the establishment fails to see is that the rise of populist sentiment in Italy is only the natural consequence of years of corrosion of the welfare state, of the slow destruction of the healthcare system and public education. Years of corruption scandals and political instability have corroded the relationships of trust that used to hold between doctors and their patients, authorities and citizens. It seems evident that a punishing measure like the Lorenzin law does nothing to rebuild this trust.

Early reports seem to show that the policy is effective in improving vaccination rates. Italy has recently returned near the 95% vaccination rate recommended  by the WHO for some diseases. However, until big structural changes are put in place to make sure everyone is able to participate to the cultural and scientific life of the country, anti-scientific sentiments will never truly go away. Pushing people further out of the public sphere by denying their children access to public education only entrenches the inequalities which lie at the root of the problem. A real solution to the vaccination hesitancy problem in the country should involve a broader effort to rebuild the welfare state and trust in public authority.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia: Chapter 16

As always, raw and unedited until it gets added to AO3 and FF.net 

Chapters 0-12 can be found here.

Chapter 13 (unedited) is here

Chapter 14 (unedited) is here Chapter 15 (unedited) is here

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 16: Tensei Iida Has No Idea What He’s Doing

Tensei Iida looked himself over in the mirror and hoped that what he saw was good enough.  He wore a white t-shirt that was right across his muscular frame, specially tailored in the back to accommodate his Jetpack, paired with a pair of blue jeans.  He’d pulled his pink, tubular hair back into a tight ponytail.   Simple, but effective enough, he supposed.  Not that he was sure he could tell.

Considering it was the fifth outfit he’d tried on for his date with Takuma Sero, he really hoped he was making the right choices.

He turned to his friends, for their opinion.   Like his sister’s room, his was mostly cluttered with works in progress and blueprints, things he could work on without access to a larger workshop. Most were half or more finished, but the allure of new ideas, not to mention the joint projects with his sister, kept everything in a state of near completion.   That, however, left very little space in his room for other people. Sora was perched on the bed, while Toshi Midoriya leaned back against the wall.  He had offered Izumi Todoroki the one chair that was not covered with other things, while Chihiro Kaminari and Asuka Tokoyami both sat on the floor.

“How do I look?” he asked.

Toshi gave him a thumbs’ up. “Looking sharp, Tensei!”

“It is… a little tight?” Izumi said.

“A necessity,” he said. “Fitting around my Jetpack requires additional tightness in another areas.”

“And it shows off your muscles!” Kaminari piped in.

Asuka gave her a curious look.  “Why exactly are you here, Kaminari?  You just walked in and sat down.”

Kaminari’s Extension Cords bobbed up and down in the approximation of a shrug.  “I’m a sucker for a dress-up montage,” she said.   “Besides, I’m bored and Mika’s sulking.”

“Is she okay?” Toshi asked. Mika Mineta may have been… a bit much, but they were still all friends to some degree or another.

Kaminari laughed. “She’ll be fine.  She’s just pouting because Iida here is, and I quote, “off the market and eating from one of the same menus as me.’”

“She did not know my orientation before now?” Tensei asked.  “I did not believe I had made any secret of it.”

“She did not,” Kaminari confirmed.  “Of course, neither did I.  You don’t exactly talk about your preferences like that.  Even when Mika and me were making plans to seduce you and your sister, I figured I maybe had a chance.  Of course, I was mostly humoring her…”

She gestured at Tensei, pointing at his abs.  “But I figured it was worth a shot.  Gave up after the first day, though.  Got bored.”

“You were what?” Sora gasped.

Tensei pinched the bridge of his nose.  “I should be more surprised at this.  But given the large swath of previous data points, I am not.”

“Wait,” Sora said. “Go back to the part where Mineta was planning to seduce me?”

“She tries to seduce everyone,” Kaminari said.  “It’s kind of her thing.   Except me, Kirishima-Bakugo, Todoroki, and Sero.  And now you, Iida, I guess.”

“Good to see she has some boundaries,” Asuka said.

“Hold on a moment,” Izumi said, holding up a pale hand.  “I understand not trying to seduce you, her friend.  And I understand not trying to seduce Tensei or Sero.  And I know that Katsumi has threatened her enough to at least make her back off with regards to attempting to seduce her.  But why am I on the “do not seduce list’?”

Kaminari gave her a look that Tensei could not entirely identify.  “Please never say ‘seduce’ again, Todoroki.  That just sounds weird when you say it.”  

“Nevertheless, you did not answer my question.”

The electric blonde looked guiltily around the room.  “I refuse to answer on the grounds that Kirishima-Bakugo will explode my head.”

“She threatened you?” Toshi asked.

Kaminari nodded rapidly.

Toshi sighed.  “Of course she did.”

“Always looking out for me,” Izumi mused, a small smile pulling at her lips.

As usual, it was Asuka who pulled them back on track.  “When are you and Sero leaving for your date?” she asked.

“I am meeting him downstairs in,” Tensei began, checking his watch, “five minutes ago!”

His heart seized up in his chest and he bolted from his room towards the stairs.   Behind him, he could hear his friends calling out and wishing him good luck.

It was the first date of his life.  He was going to need it.

***

“Okay, he probably just got distracted, maybe doing blueprints or something,” Sero said to himself, as he paced in the Common Room.  “He hasn’t bailed on you.  You still got this.  It’s only been six minutes.  Seven. It’s only been seven minutes.”

“Sero!” Tensei called out, as he burst out of the stairway.  “My apologies!  I lost track of time preparing for this date!”

Relief washed over the pink boy’s face.  He was wearing a loud, Hawaiian print shirt, which was garish and clashed with his pink skin, and dark pants and boots.  His dark hair had been slightly spiked.   Tensei did not know much about the ways of dating, but he did know what he liked, and he liked what he saw.

“Iida!” Sero said. “It’s all right, sorry, I was just kind of freaking out.  It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date and I was making myself kind of nuts there.”

Of course Sero had been on many dates before.  Who could not help but fall for the cute, pink-skinned, dark-eyed young man?  Even if he did not always understand the purposes of Sero’s antics with Sato and Ojiro, the enthusiasm he brought to everything was contagious.

But Tensei?  Tensei admitted he did not always understand the expected social conventions.  He was much more at home with machines than people, or in the presence of likeminded individuals like his sister, mother, and father.  These were things and people he could understand and predict.  Having a clearly defined rules helped as well, something his father excelled at, even if his Uncle Tensei occasionally referred to him as being “too tightly wound.”   Clear rules helped define your responses and also allowed a clear opportunity for the necessity of invention, when you spotted the loopholes between them.

“Again, my apologies,” he said.  “I was having difficulty deciding what to wear.”

“Well, you look good,” Sero said, giving him a thumb’s up.  

“And you are certainly…” Tensei hesitated, trying to think of the best word, “interestingly dressed.”

Sero laughed at that. “Dude.  You can say I’m an eyesore.  That’s the point.  Show of the colors, make people notice you.  First rule of entertainment.”

“If you say so,” he said. “I am not very “with it,” as people say.”

“No one says “with it” anymore, Iida,” Sero said.  “But that’s all right.  I’m “with it” enough for both of us.  And speaking of entertainment…”  He pulled his phone from his pocket.  “Selfie with me?”

“Ah… sure?” Tensei said. If that was something that was “with it,” then he could do that.

“Awesome, thanks.” Sero stood next to him and put one arm around him (and didn’t that make him flush!), holding out the phone with the other.  “Smile!” he said, as he pushed the camera button.  The phone made a shutter sound and Sero released him (too soon!), checking the picture.

He showed the picture to Tensei.  “Perfect,” he said.  “Definitely making that my new lock screen.”

***

Dinner was a quick bite, purchased from a “"Noodle Noodle, Come Get Your Noodle" cart, run by a man whose Quirk manifested in the form of a little blue goblin, probably somewhat similar to Tokoyami’s Frog-Shadow.  Sero had insisted on paying, in spite of his protest that he pay his own share.  They found a bench to sit on while they people watched.   All around, people were walking, while the air could be seen to be full of people flying, and even the “speed quirk” lane next to the sidewalk had quite a few people in it.  The small relaxation of the laws on public Quirk use since their parents’ generation had opened up a lot of travel possibilities, among other things.

“I asked you, out” Sero said, slurping noodles. “You can get next time.”

That was certainly an optimistic proclamation!  But Tensei nodded.  “That seems fair,” he said.

Tensei was bad at small talk, he knew, but Sero seemed quite able to fill the silences.  “You know,” Sero said, “when I asked you out, I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes.  I wasn’t even sure you were into guys.”

That seemed to be a common statement.  “I have made no secret of it,” he said.  “But I admit, I have not exactly broadcast it either.  Perhaps I should have.”

Sero shook his head. “Nah, it’s all right, dude. Everybody’s different.  Besides, what’s life without a little risk?”

“Precisely!” Tensei agreed. “There is something to be said for venturing into the unknown, pushing boundaries, never knowing whether you might be met with success or an explosion!  All part of the learning process!”

Sero tilted his head. “I… don’t think we’re talking about the same kind of risk, dude.  But I still get it.”

“Possibly not,” he said. “I may have something of a unique definitely of acceptable risk.  Father is always warning my mother, my sister, and me about the dangers of our experiments and projects.   Sensei Power Loader does too, for that matter.  I think they are overreacting.  We always manage to put the fires out before they spread.”

“Uh…huh.”  More noodles disappeared into Sero’s mouth. “Worst my dad gets up to is wearing socks with sandals.  Mom tries so hard to make him be cool, but he just doesn’t get it.”

“That is… a sartorially incorrect choice?”  Granted, the times when a person would wear both were probably limited, but it was not something he had enough data on to make a determination on.

Sero laughed.  “Oh, dude.  Funny.”   He stopped when he saw the confusion on Tensei’s face.  “Oh, wait.  You’re serious.  …Ah, sorry.”

He looked so forlorn that Tensei could not help but forgive him immediately.  “Do not worry about it.”

“Okay, if you say so,” Sero said.  “But yeah, major fashion error.  It’s even worse when he combines it with cargo shorts.   If they’re going anywhere together, Mom doesn’t let him leave unless she pre-approves his outfit.”

“That seems harsh.”

“Trust me, dude.  He deserves it.”

“I will take your word for it.”   Tensei smiled.  “Father sometimes attempts to exert control over Mother’s choices like that as well, usually when he feels she is not eating or sleeping enough.”

“Is she?”

“That,” he said, “is an interesting question with many variables to the answer, including statistical averages for humans, which admittedly have been highly skewed due to the wide variety of Quirks…”

“I’m gonna take that as a “maybe” and not ask any more questions.  About that, anyway.  I have plenty more questions.”

“I am happy to answer any I can.  Provided I am also allowed to ask questions.”  Tensei certainly wanted to know more about the handsome pink boy. True, all of the children of the former Class 1-A knew each other to some extent, but there were also small if somewhat variable cliques within that group, just as there had been with their parents.  His and Sero’s had not been especially close, so they were not as close as he was to, say, Izumi or Toshi.  Granted, Toshi was probably a bad example, as he was close to almost everyone.  

Probably for the best, however.  It gave him an exciting and new set of possibilities, with plenty of uncertainties. A brand new venture into the unknown.

“Sure, dude,” Sero agreed. He finished the last of his noodles. “You ‘bout done, though?  I’ve got so much I wanna show you at the arcade.”

Tensei popped the last of the noodles into his mouth and nodded.  “I am ready!”

***

Sera helped him sit down on a chair in the arcade’s small café, easing him down gently.  “I am okay,” Tensei said.  “I just… need a minute… for the room to stop spinning…”

“Dude,” Sero said.  “I am so sorry!  I just figured that with how you zip around,” he made various motions through the air with his hands, “that the virtual roller coaster wouldn’t be a big deal.”

Truthfully, Tensei had not expected to react so poorly to it either.  He had often pushed his body to the limits, flying through the air. While he was best at traveling in a straight line, he could execute rapid turns when he had to, even barrel rolls and loop de loops.   As he grew, so too would his Jetpack, enabling him to execute even more precise maneuvers.  So a virtual roller coaster should have been nothing more than a bit of excitement and a chance to tightly hold hands with the boy that he liked.

It had not worked out that way.

Instead, he had felt overwhelmed almost immediately after the first hill and drop, letting out a sharp scream.  He was also pretty certain he had squeezed Sero’s hand painfully tight.  He had emerged from the VR pod disoriented and dizzy, ready to drop.  He was just grateful he had not thrown up.  Tensei was pretty sure that throwing up in front of or on your date was a very good way not to get a second date.  And he very much wanted a second date.

Nevertheless, it was still quite embarrassing.

Tensei shook his head. “It is not your fault.  I had no statistical framework to in which to predict that that would happen.”

“If you say so…” Sero said, though he sounded uncertain.   Tensei wished there was more he could do to reassure him.  

Fortunately, Tensei’s recovery was rather quick.  “Perhaps something… a little less intense?”

Sero brighted, his dark eyes sparkling with the light of an idea.  He snapped his fingers.  “I know just the thing.”

***

Sero’s eyes had been growing steadily wider.  “How,” he asked, “are you so good at this?”

Carefully and with the utmost previous, Tensei maneuvered the claw with the joystick, dropping it only when he was absolutely certain it was in the right place.  He might not have had his mother’s Quirk, but his vision was very good and years of working with precision tools in his mother’s workshops had given him a very deft hand indeed.   It dropped, easily snaring the Froppy plushie and depositing it in the hole.  Tensei fished the plushie of the prize slot and handed it to Sero, whose arms were already quite full with plushies of Tentacole, Tailman, Lemillion, Phantom Thief, Chargebolt, Pinky, and Cellophane.

“Compared to setting microcircuitry,” Tensei told him, “this is quite easy.”   He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “Though perhaps that makes it a bit unfair, both to the arcade and anyone else who would want to try.”

“Ah… maybe?” Sero said, with a small shrug, struggling not to drop the plushies in his arms.  Tesei reached out and took a few of them from him, then they started walking out of the arcade.

“Can I keep some of these? I kind of want to taunt Mom with the one of her.  She’s never been happy with it.  She thinks it makes her look fat.  She’s made it her mission to find as many of them as she can and dissolve them in her acid.”

“Keep as many as you like,” he said.  “The skill challenge is reward enough.”

“Really?  You sure, dude?”  Tensei nodded in response.  “Well, thanks.  Baby sis will love these, especially.”

“Ah, that is right,” Tensei said, “you have several younger sibling, don’t you?”

Sero nodded.  “Yeah, three brothers, one baby sister.  Mom likes to say Dad’s just that irresistible, but she only does that when she wants to see us squirm.”

Tensei wasn’t sure he followed all that, but he decided it wasn’t worth questioning.  “That seems like it would make for a very crowded household.”

Another nod.  “You have no idea, dude.  The dorms are the rest time I’ve had my own room in years.”

“Sora and I shared a room for many years,” Tensei told him.  “Until we were about twelve.  After that, it a modicum of privacy became necessary.  Not that either of us slept there more than forty-percent of the time. Usually we slept on cots in the workshop.  Or simply fell asleep over a workbench.”  Not something their father had been especially happy about, but he had his ways of navigating around it.

“Man,” Sero said, “I could not do that.  I am a sleep-a-holic”

“A waste of perfectly good time that could be better spent working,” he replied.

Sero made a face, putting a hand to his chest.  “That was painful, dude.  Absolutely painful.  Never say the word “work” around me again.”

Tensei had a general feeling he was joking, so he smiled.  “As you wish.”

***

Tensei had walked Sero back to his room, which was as unusually decorated as Sero was dressed. The walls were covered in what he would have called leopard print, except that the prints were all bright pink instead of a golden-yellow, and there were multiple lava lamps.  From what he could determine, the bed appeared to be a waterbed, which must have been quite the feat to get inside.  His desk had been set up with multiple monitors and multiple webcams, obviously to further his efforts to become an internet sensation.  Not a goal Tensei understood, but Sero certainly seemed devoted to it.   They dropped the plushies in a corner.

Sero seemed much more uncertain than Tensei could ever recall seeing him, save perhaps for when he had asked him on this date.  He was usually brimming with confidence and showmanship.

Sero rubbed the back of his head, nervousness radiating off him.  “So, I, ah, I had a good time tonight, Iida.”  He smiled and Tensei could see that it reached his eyes.

Tensei smiled, and he realized that his own heartrate was quite elevated.  “As did I, Sero.”

“I, ah, don’t suppose you’d like to do this again some time?  Maybe go see a movie or something?”

Tensei was aware he was given to a certain amount of impulsive behavior, but in this case, he already knew the answer.  “Absolutely.”

“Great!” Sero said, perhaps a little louder than he intended.  “I mean, great.  And, ah, you know, if you, ah, really wanted to… you could call me Takuma.  Since we’re, you know, dating.  If, ah, that’s what we’re doing.”

Tensei realized that Sero—Takuma—was very adorable when he was nervous.  He was vaguely aware that he and his sister could make other people nervous.  Toshi had gently reminded them of this from time to time.  But this seemed to be very different from those scenarios.  He had never made anyone nervous like this before; he found it somehow flattering.

“I believe that is what we can call this,” he said.  “So, please, if you wish, you may call me Tensei.”

“Tensei it is,” Takuma said. “I’ll, ah, see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Tensei agreed. “Good night, Takuma.”

“G’night, Tensei.”

He left and started to head back to his room.  And for the moment, Tensei was feeling pretty good about life in general.  He had successfully completed one date and now he had another. He was officially “dating.”  He knew his sister would be expecting a full account of the evening, but for once in his life, he did not care about analyzing results or accumulating date.  He was happy just the way things were.

[sportsandideas]

Watching the World Cup Through Social Science Lenses

(note that a shorter version of this framed around sociology specifically is now available on the Engaging Sports blog)

(photo from Huffington Post UK)

In November 2013 a capacity crowd of nearly 40,000 fans at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, Croatia celebrated one of the great moments for any team competing in international soccer: by defeating Iceland 2-0, the Croatian national team was among the last of 32 countries to qualify for the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil. Amidst the ecstasy, someone made the fateful mistake of handing a microphone to Josip Šimunić.

Šimunić played as a hard-tackling defender for Croatia, and at the age of 35 this was almost certainly his last chance to play in a World Cup. Alone on the field but for a cameraman tracking his every move, Šimunić moved with a manic and youthful energy that belied his gangly 6’5” frame, his receding hairline, and his perpetual five o’clock shadow. As he dramatically gesticulated with the microphone and a jersey in hand, he screamed to the crowd in a call-and-respond repeat “Za dom spremni” – “For the homeland!” In perfect and immediate synchrony, a large portion of the crowd responded “Ready!”

The stadium was pulsating with the raw energy and symbolism that soccer – as the sport with the most genuine claim to being a global game – has a distinctively universal capacity to produce. Unfortunately, Šimunić’s chant was also a clear local reference to a hateful nationalist cry used by the fascist Ustase pro-Nazi regime that ruled Croatia during World War II. Šimunić himself has protested innocence, relying on a defense of simple patriotism and claiming “some people have to learn some history.” Global soccer authorities disagreed; he was suspended through the 2014 World Cup for his “discriminatory” act and never played for the Croatian national team again.

To make Šimunić’s story even more intriguing from a social science perspective, it turns out his moment of nationalist frenzy followed on a lifetime spent mostly nowhere near “the homeland.” Though Šimunić’s parents were Croatian, he was born and raised in Canberra Australia and developed into a world class soccer player at the Australian Institute for Sport – a famous talent factory for Australian Olympians. Professionally, Šimunić spent the majority of his career playing in Germany with teams in Hamburg, Berlin, and Hoffenheim, and in his personal life he married a “Canadian-Croat.” Though he ended his career with the Croatian professional team Dinamo Zagreb and spent several recent years as an assistant coach for the Croatian National Team, it is plausible to suggest that Šimunić’s emotional nationalism was not at all “for the homeland.” Instead, it may have been a way to make sense of splintered and imagined identities – types that powerfully shape our 21st century lives.

Šimunić’s story thus becomes less a morality tale and more a prompt for broader thinking about soccer, and the upcoming World Cup to be hosted by Russia, as a mirror and a lens – reflecting and refracting our social world in ways that both illuminate and distort how we understand our selves and others. Though a growing number of scholars use soccer for that type of thinking on a wide range of social science topics, it is obviously not the reason most people watch, play, and love soccer. Mostly we enjoy the game because it is fun. I get that. As someone who has played and coached soccer at all levels from recreational to professional, I love few things more than the simple pleasure of a beautiful game on a sun-drenched summer day.

But as someone who has spent several decades teaching and researching soccer as a cultural form, I also see events such as the World Cup as an opportunity to better understand people and society. It provides a rare combination of global attention and emotionally engaging spectacle, a combination that offers a unique perspective on critical issues including, but not limited to, nationalism and development. So, if we watch the World Cup as both a mirror and a lens, what might we see?

(photo by Maxim Shemetov—Reuters from Time.com)

Society on display

Global sports mega-events, most notably the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup, derive at least some of their popularity from the rare opportunity to put nations on display. Though United Nations meetings may be more consequential, they don’t make for particularly good television. The World Cup final, in contrast, draws enough viewers to make it the globe’s most broadly shared cultural experience.

Though American marketers occasionally like to claim that the Super Bowl is the world’s most watched sporting event, the statistics suggest that’s not even close to true. Where just under 300 million people tune into a typical modern Super Bowl, estimates suggest nearly a billion people watched the 2014 World Cup final played in Brazil between Argentina and Germany. 26.5 million of those were watching on American televisions – 17.3 million watching English commentary on ABC, and 9.2 million watching Spanish commentary on Univision.  

This kind of mass appeal, both across and within nations, has made global soccer an increasingly legitimate area of study for academics. Though still sometimes caught between the stereotypical disdain of academic-types for sports and of sports-types for academics, recent decades have seen a burgeoning of what some jokingly call ‘futbology.’

The academic study of soccer (or futbol, or football – the question of what to call the game has a contentious history that has been the subject of its own academic inquiry) is often quite interdisciplinary, with a healthy mix of social history, area studies, international studies, anthropology, psychology, and sociology. In the English speaking world academics with a shared interest in the global game regularly fill academic journals such as Soccer in Society, have formed scholarly communities such as the UK-based Football Collective and the US-based Football Scholars Forum, and offer classes on topics ranging from the general sociology of soccer to a University of British Columbia offering on the “Sociology of Cristiano Ronaldo: Futebol, Identity, and Representation.”

For these types of scholars, each World Cup generates social and cultural narratives that are ripe for interpretation. To just cite recent examples, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, as the first World Cup hosted in the Global South, became a forum for discussions about development and division – soccer’s global governing body FIFA trademarked the phrase “Celebrate Africa’s Humanity” as if there was something singular and unified about the humanity of that diverse continent. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil, particularly after massive 2013 street protests surrounding the Confederations Cup warm-up tournament, became about corruption and inequality. There are still regular news briefs about ‘white elephant’ sporting facilities from both Brazil’s World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics – emblems of bread, circus, and massive profits for well-positioned elites. The 2018 World Cup is gestating narratives about cultures of hooliganism and racism that pervade an unfortunate proportion of the soccer landscape in Russia, while the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is already rife with attention to worker’s rights and religious tolerance.

While each of these types of cultural narratives garners thoughtful analysis from scholars and opportunities for the application of social theory around each four-year World Cup cycle, during the month-long tournament itself attention most often shifts to narratives about nations and nationalism. As the British cultural historian Eric Hobsbawn famously (among futbologists) noted, “the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people.” The start of a World Cup game, with eleven men from each side donning national colors and saluting their flag, is a powerful visual image of nationhood.

It is also often inaccurate. For one, the simple fact that the players who get the most global attention are men, despite the athletic accomplishments on display in the women’s World Cup, only starts to hint at the many questions about gender, masculinity, and sexuality embedded in global soccer. In addition, World Cup teams often visually present complex stories about race, class, and ethnicity – stories that vary by nation from the relative homogeneity of the Russian national team to the sometimes surprising diversity of teams such as Belgium.

Yet for many the World Cup offers crude representations of nationalism otherwise only available at the most fevered of political rallies. My own experiences of World Cup watching with American fans are colored by ostentatious displays of red, white, and blue – often in the form of Uncle Sam, Wonder Woman, or Captain America. The soundtrack is full of chanting and singing, sometimes creative, sometimes crude, and almost always infused with the emphatic repetition of U-S-A. The emotional climate is a conflicted mix of unity and enmity: we share a pride that depends at least partially on derogating the other – other teams, other fans, other places and people. There is, as many scholars and commentators have noted, a fine line between patriotism and jingoism.

There may, in fact, be no better example of social identity theory in action than the emotional nationalism of a World Cup. The mix of externally defined in-groups and out-groups, visual markers of identification, and competitive social comparison primes the human mind to invest deeply in shallow group memberships.

I experienced it in person at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, watching among a tightly packed crowd of US fans in the corner of Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Tshwane/Pretoria while the US and Algerian teams traded futile surges in a high-stakes game that would determine who advanced to the next stage of the tournament. Each shift in the game’s flow, and each missed chance, brought a visible and visceral tightening of fan bodies – we coiled and reeled as 90 minutes ticked away. Then, after one surprisingly fluid move of the ball from the US goalkeeper’s hands to a winger’s feet to a striker’s deflection, US star Landon Donovan slotted home a winning goal that unleashed in me, and in nearly all my neighbors, a screaming abandon familiar only from the deep recesses of childhood. A massive American flag unfurled over us as if dropped from the sky, and all I could see was red, white, and blue. That moment, though it said nothing rational about my country, may be the single moment where I felt most intensely and irrationally American. It was a World Cup version of collective effervescence; a feeling that immersed me in the moment, and then begged for interpretation.

(photo from The Free Beer Movement)

Development and representation

In my own efforts to interpret the feelings evoked by a World Cup, I’ve found it useful to analyze what the teams actually represent. Where did the players come from, and what are the social forces that shape soccer talent? What does the World Cup tell us about how soccer itself assumes meaning in different places and communities?

Take, as just one example, the players involved in that affecting US goal against Algeria during the 2010 World Cup. Tim Howard, the New Jersey bred US goalkeeper who started the move towards the Algerian goal with a long throw from his own goalmouth, is the child of a Hungarian immigrant mother and an African-American father who spent much of his professional career representing Everton FC in Liverpool England. Jozy Altidore, the player who crossed the ball into the box and forced the Algerian goalkeeper out of position, is the child of Haitian immigrants who plays professionally in Toronto after representing teams in Spain, Turkey, Holland, England, and New York. Clint Dempsey, the player whose initial shot rebounded into Landon Donovan’s path for the final strike, grew up in a Nacogdoches Texas trailer park playing the game mostly with Mexican immigrants until he was shuttled off to an elite Dallas youth soccer club and the blue-blooded Furman University in South Carolina before a professional career based in Boston, London, and Seattle. Donovan, California-bred but born of a Canadian father, never went to college, substituting a brief and somewhat dismal apprenticeship in the German Bundesliga before eventually settling back into a wildly successful professional career in California – with occasional breaks that included a soul-searching ‘sabbatical’ backpacking in Cambodia and time off to manage depression.

The stories of nearly any World Cup team viewed in this way offer a lens, however fractured, on modern societies. The US men’s team, despite failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup due at least in part to systemic failures to integrate diverse American soccer cultures, often offers a genuinely eclectic mix of ethnicity and personality. In fact, according to an analysis of the rosters for all 32 teams in the 2014 World Cup finals by sociologist David Keyes for Pacific Standard, 19 of 30 players in the final US player pool were ‘dual nationals’ – players holding either multiple citizenship or having a parent or a grandparent from another country. This was tied with the teams from Switzerland and Australia for third most dual nationals in the 2014 World Cup, behind only teams from Argentina (with 24 of 30) and Algeria (with 22 of 30). While both the Ecuador and South Korea teams had no dual nationals, Keyes found that overall 30% of 958 World Cup roster players were dual nationals – numbers greater than one would expect based on broader international migration statistics.

World Cup teams may therefore be less representative of national character and more indicative of global hybridity. Part of the beauty of soccer as the one truly global game is that the players come from everywhere. The World Cup has players who learned the game on the streets of South America, in the community sports clubs of northern Europe, in professional team academy outposts in west Africa, and in the elite government sports schools of east Asia. But as player development has become a significant global business for professional teams, the labor flows of global development and inequality have often reproduced themselves on the soccer field.

The biggest money professional soccer leagues are primarily in Europe, with the English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French top divisions usually identified as the ‘big five.’ In fact, a Pew Research Center analysis of 2014 World Cup rosters found that over half of all players were professionals in one of those five countries. The English league was a professional home to the most 2014 World Cup players with 15% of the global total, figures that have combined with a rapidly declining proportion of English players in their own Premier League (and the mediocre performance of the English national team) to raise concern in the English Football Association. A report they commissioned in 2014 begins: “In twenty years the number of English players playing in the top division of English football has fallen by more than a half and the trend remains downwards. Our Commission was set up to ask what, if anything, could be done about this.”

The English are essentially asking whether we can’t just stop this globalization thing. The answer is likely no. And while that might potentially be bad news for English national team players who can’t get a game in their own nation’s top league, in the way of globalization it is also a challenge for developing countries who end up exporting much of their top talent. The World Cup teams from talent rich nations such as Nigeria and Colombia will only have two or three players who suit up professionally in their home nation, most having been “bought” by European professional clubs at young ages. The 2014 Pew Research Center analysis found that 93% of players on the five African teams in the World Cup played elsewhere professionally.

In 2015 FIFA felt compelled to start vigorously enforcing a rule to prevent players from being “transferred” (ie, bought) away from their home countries before they turn 18 to counter the potential and real exploitation of young players from poor countries. Whatever the rules, through a social science lens the exportation of labor as a raw material from poor counties for the manufactured pleasure of soccer fans in rich countries looks uncomfortably neocolonial.

Partially as a minor salve for this discomfort, another version of ‘development’ has gained popularity around World Cup soccer in the form of charitable efforts to use the nearly universal appeal of the game as a hook for community development programming. These types of programs, along with the broader endeavor of what is often called Sport for Development and Peace (SDP), have proliferated in recent decades alongside the general move in international development from large government initiatives to the decentralized work of non-governmental organizations. FIFA itself has regularly integrated “corporate social responsibility” initiatives with World Cup hosting, though these are easy to critique as greenwashing for the big business of sporting mega-events and the notorious corruption of FIFA as an organization.

The appeal of soccer as a development tool, however, derives at least partially from a version of the same emotional pull that makes the World Cup itself such a powerful spectacle. The international development trope of the barefoot child joyfully kicking a handmade ball in a destitute patch of dirt is affecting because it symbolizes joy and potential overcoming hardship and poverty. But, as sociologists Douglas Hartmann and Christina Kwauk articulated in their 2011 “overview, critique, and reconstruction” of sports and development more broadly, sports and development programs that swoop in to the Global South from the Global North with a belief in “sport’s ability to resocialize and recalibrate individual youth and young people” actually serve to “maintain power and hierarchy, cultural hegemony, and the institutionalization of poverty and privilege.” Poor communities in the developing world rarely need additional soccer games as much as they need decent health care, living wage jobs, functioning schools, and safe places to live. And, as Hartmann and Kwauk suggest, sports may best contribute to those types of goals through consciousness raising more than through rolling out a ball.

The World Cup as a whole is a good test of whether soccer can genuinely serve to raise a critical consciousness, or whether it serves primarily to reproduce dominant structures. When the US beats Mexico in a World Cup knock-out game, as happened in 2002 during the US men’s team’s best ever World Cup performance, does that reinforce the idea of separation and distinction in an era of mass migration? Or do the many contributions of Mexican-Americans to the US national team help to challenge visions of what it means to be “American”? When France lost to its former colony Senegal in that same World Cup, with Senegal fielding a team where only the two back-up goalkeepers did not play professionally in France, was that a further example of colonial resource extraction? Or was that a statement of shifting global power dynamics?

The answer to all these questions may be yes: global soccer is open for multiple interpretations. Watching the World Cup like a social scientist offers an opportunity to see the game in a way that raises consciousness about the dynamics of global society, recognizing ways the raw emotion and global appeal of the World Cup make soccer itself a distinct mirror and lens.

The appeal of interpreting the World Cup is also reflected in a final addendum to the Josip Šimunić story. Since his banishment from the 2014 World Cup, and in a quest for exoneration, Šimunić collaborated on a documentary film titled Moja Vlojena Hrvatska – My Beloved Croatia – that argues his moment of nationalist fervor was an embodiment of noble pride rather than a hateful screed. The English language trailer for the film begins with the claim “Soccer, to Croats, is much more than just a game” and segues into interviews with Croatian World Cup players talking wistfully about the patriotic emotions of playing for their national team. Even Šimunić’s father, the Australian emigree, makes a tearful appearance describing his pride at seeing Josip in the distinctive red checked uniform of the Croatian national team.

Viewing the whole story as both a soccer fan and a social scientist ultimately leaves me conflicted and curious for more. I don’t know for sure what motivated Šimunić that fateful day, but I do know the way a World Cup game can capture one’s emotions and distort one’s intellect. The complexities of the World Cup, both Šimunić and futbologists seem to say, is something you have to really watch to understand.

[deepbluexsea]

Blueboy

Rating: PG-13. Relationships: Johnny/Briel, Virginia/Geoff. Recurring Characters: Jonathan, Gabriel, Virginia, Geoff. Warning/Notes: Reference to porn + suggestive content. Language.

“I was a grade nine boy—the most awful form of humanity.” – Robert Hoge

2010.

They hadn’t anticipated this part – the part of renovating the house where they couldn’t actually stay in it since the contractors were going to be knocking down walls. They had literally just moved in and now they were being, for all intents and purposes, temporarily kicked out. Since the lease had just ended in January on his townhouse in Manhattan, Johnny had gone right back to it and tried to re-up it for another month, but it had already been rented out. Realistically, they could stay in a hotel. The whole process would only take a few days. But the moment Virginia Matthews caught wind of what was going on, she made it seem as if there was only one option and one option only that made an ounce of sense: they had to stay with Johnny’s parents. Of course, they would’ve offered the same accommodations to Johnny if he was still single, but the insistence he got from his mom about it this time was almost 110% certainly due to how well the first meeting between them and Gabriel had gone. There was no doubt in Johnny’s mind that his mom liked her son-in-law more than she did her own son. The house was every inch the same as it had been a few weeks ago. It looked like a model home – like someone came in to clean a couple of times a week, but was otherwise empty. It was in pristine condition. This was how it had been Johnny’s whole life, except it had been updated some years after he’d moved out. Virginia had insisted that they get Buddakan takeout for dinner, and it was on the table before they even set their suitcases down in the foyer. Johnny really didn’t know much about the extent of Gabriel’s cultural experiences before prison, but he knew he’d never been to the east coast. There was so much here that he wanted his husband to see – mainly because Gabriel had always reminded Johnny of home, and he thought that he would absolutely love it. He belonged in this culture. Buddakan was just the beginning of the New York experience; their soup dumplings were so delicious they could put David Chang to shame. And then there was the absinthe at Apotek... the sunrise over the skyline... Broadway, MoMA, Central Park. The list went on and on. There were years’ worth of life to be had, so Johnny was pleased that his mom had decided to get the immersion underway. From oxtail dumplings to pear short ribs to duck to pea shoot salad, they were each stuffed by the end. And when all was said and done, somehow Johnny got tasked with doing the dishes. His dad went to his office with a tall glass of bourbon as he did every single night, so that was no surprise. It was just like being 12 again – except now Johnny had reason to get suspicious about where his mom had taken his husband for so long. He’d never done a chore so quickly. He was sure of it. Naturally, the pair was the last place he looked: upstairs in the den. The best feature about the room was its full-wall mahogany bookcase complete with a rolling ladder. Unfortunately, that bookcase was also where the family photos were housed.

Laid out on the coffee table in front of them were a dozen snapshots of Johnny that had been picked out of the albums: Virginia in the hospital holding him, a few school pictures featuring three different bowl cuts, him playing the cello, he and his grandma cooking, his prom, his graduation ceremonies, him and Joan leaving for college. Gabriel was holding onto one where a toddler-aged Johnny was covered in something that looked like red paint, but was actually fingernail polish from his preschool teacher’s desk. “Mom, really?” he grumbled, shaking his head, though he moved to sit on the arm of Gabriel’s chair to follow along anyway. He propped himself on his husband’s shoulder, letting his mom do all the talking while they were handed photos, until… “Here, Gabriel. You must see this one,” his mother was saying as she pulled one out and held it up. In it, there stood a three-year-old Johnny looking over his shoulder at the camera. He was wearing a ‘Book ‘em, Danno!’ Hawaii Five-0 t-shirt and absolutely nothing else. Bare-assed, he was almost as naked as the day he was born, just standing freely on their back balcony with a big grin. “Alright, okay, that is more than plenty,” Johnny spoke abruptly, reaching over Gabriel to shut the album tightly with the picture inside. “Who would keep a picture like that?” he muttered under his breath as he put the book back on the shelf. Before anybody could protest, he stood and changed the subject. “Mom, where do you want us to sleep? I need to bring our bags up.” She didn’t even hesitate. “Your room is fine.” His room was most absolutely not fine. It hadn’t changed a single bit from the way he had left it – not even so much as rearranged. “What? What’s wrong with the guest room?” “What’s wrong with your room?” “Aside from that it looks like a fourteen year old boy still lives in it?” “At least it doesn’t smell like it anymore,” she retorted, sharp as a whip. “Fine,” Johnny conceded. The last thing that needed to happen was Virginia and Johnny getting into an argument. Someone would probably die due to lack of oxygen before a winner was declared. “I’ll be back.” He was not oblivious to the fact that his mother was standing up and heading to the bookshelf before he was even out of the den.

ONE HOUR LATER.

After fetching the suitcases, Johnny left Gabriel with his mom only long enough to shower. When he was done, his husband was already in his childhood bedroom, cross-legged on his bed. At the sight, he allowed himself to wonder what life would have been like if he had known Gabriel when he still inhabited this room. That thought was swiftly pushed aside when he noticed the box of keepsakes next to the other man. It was one that Johnny himself had packed away when he was 18 and moving out. He had stuffed it in the closet only to never come back to it again. Apparently, Virginia and Geoff had never touched it either. “I have to be honest, I found this one all by myself,” Briel boasted. “I got bored.” “I don’t even remember what’s in here,” Johnny said, sinking down beside him. It had been nearly twenty years since he’d last opened it. Inside, there were a few cards and notes that people had written Johnny back then. There were baseball trophies, cassette tapes, Polaroids, a 30-page essay he’d written his senior year with a huge A+ on it, a Rubik’s cube (which Johnny kept out to take home with them), some tiny army men, and other odds and ends. The last item was a Levi’s jean jacket, folded just so to cover the entire bottom of the box. “Check it out,” he spoke, pulling it out and walking over to the mirror to hold it up against his chest. “Why would I stuff this relic beneath all that junk? I mean, it won’t fit anymore, but it’s probably worth some money now.” Gabriel’s immediate response was... laughter? “Maybe because you were using it to hide something,” he cackled. Johnny shifted so he could see him through the mirror and found his husband flipping through a Blueboy magazine from 1987. He swiveled around so fast that he almost tripped. “Where did you get that?” he questioned, trying to snatch it away, but Gabriel held it out of his reach.

“From under the jacket!” Johnny was mortified. “I don’t even know if I should be touching this. I wonder how many times my little Jay took this under the covers with him...”

“Okay, well. You’re terrible,” Johnny griped. “You know I’m already fragile from being here, Briel. Can we give it up and go to bed, please?” Johnny begged. Mercifully, with only a few more jokes, his husband obliged. The two of them fit in the full-size bed as was to be expected: basically on top of each other. Considering that they were both over six feet tall, it was a little ridiculous that they didn’t just take the guest bedroom, and Johnny was definitely going to push the issue tomorrow evening. It wasn’t that he minded an entire night of cuddling his husband; on the contrary, they had quickly discovered that they seemingly had to be touching each other in some form or fashion in order to sleep well, anyway. No, it was more that his mother apparently wanted Gabriel to get to know the full, embarrassing, underage Johnny – much to her sick delight and his own chagrin. At least they could simply be two adults in the other room. After a few minutes and a deep sigh, Johnny was finally able to relax and remind himself that Briel wasn’t judging any of what he’d seen since they had been here – it was cute to learn about your spouse’s life. “I’ll show you some actually interesting things in Manhattan tomorrow,” he murmured against Briel’s temple as he held him. “...I know I wasn’t myself today. After being gone so long, catching up in the New York office has been brutal. I’m sorry.” Gabriel nodded slowly. “I’m just sorry... that you didn’t get the Blueboy you dreamed about for a husband,” he whispered, his frame shaking against Johnny’s as he silently laughed under his breath. “Goodnight, Gabriel,” Johnny announced, turning over and petulantly crossing his arms.

[junker-town]

Dorktown: The quest for the six-win playoff team

Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The NFC East is so bad that we’re in danger of seeing a six-win team in the playoffs. Maybe even a five-win team.

When the NFC East heads into Week 11, its leader will have three wins. THREE WINS! Ever since the NFL split into its eight-division format in 2002, there have been 152 opportunities for a team to drag its sorry three-win-having ass to Week 11 and find itself atop its division. This is the first and only time it has ever happened. Congratulations to the 3-5-1 Philadelphia Eagles.

At this stage of the season, you almost always need at least six wins to lead a division, but the Eagles hold sole possession of first without even having to resort to tiebreakers:

Eagles (3-5-1)

Giants (3-7)

Washington (2-7)

Dallas (2-7)

Know this: throughout NFL history, no team has started 2-7 or 3-7 and made the postseason – unsurprising, since even if they’d somehow turned around and ran the table the rest of the way, 9-7 is often not good enough. This year, the NFC East is harboring three such teams, and all three are right in the thick of the playoff hunt.

If this were intentional, it would take a lot of orchestration. This is a two-stage rocket, and the first stage concerns the games these teams play against each other. Time and again, we’ve seen a not-great team vault into a record like 10-6 after proving just good enough to pick up cupcake wins within its weak division. That won’t work here. All four of these teams have to be more or less equally bad, such that they notch equal wins and losses against one another. So far, they’re doing a great job of this. These are their records within the division:

They’re sharing wins and losses as equally as the schedule allows; as of this date, the Giants and Cowboys are stuck with odd records only because they’ve played an odd number of division games. There’s every reason to hope that this equal winning and losing will continue: the Eagles have lost to Washington, who have lost to the Giants, who have lost to the Cowboys, who have lost to the Eagles, who have lost to the Giants, who have lost to the Cowboys, who have lost to Washington.

Now, the second stage of this rocket is a far more demanding one: these teams have to go out and lose to everyone else. And have they ever:

Look at all that orange. When NFC East teams are kicked out of the house by their exasperated parents and told to go play with the neighborhood children, they almost always lose. They’re 2-18-1 against the rest of the NFL this season. Let’s examine those three games that weren’t losses:

Eagles 25, 49ers 20. Philly squeaks by an injury-depleted Niners team that was missing their starting quarterback, their top two running backs, their starting center, star edge rushers Nick Bosa and Dee Ford, star cornerback Richard Sherman, and several other key guys. They did so after mounting a fourth-quarter comeback and barely surviving a last-minute drive led by their third-string quarterback.

Eagles 23, Bengals 23. Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz leads a last-minute drive to tie a Bengals team that is universally understood to be bad. Overtime goes like this: Bengals punt, Eagles punt, Bengals punt, Eagles punt, Bengals punt, Eagles punt, end of game. During their final two possessions, the Eagles make it well into Bengals territory before penalties pushed them back to their side of the field.

Cowboys 40, Falcons 39. Atlanta leads 39-24 with under six minutes left in the game. In one of the most spectacular comebacks I’ve ever seen in the NFL, Dak Prescott mounts three quick, heroic drives to pull out the squeaker. Of these three non-losses, this is the only particularly impressive one, although three things must be said about it. First, it hinged entirely on a recovered onside kick, which in today’s NFL counts as an incredible stroke of luck. Second, this happened against the Falcons. Not the Raheem Morris-coached Falcons who have really shown some fight over the last month, but the Dan Quinn Falcons who went 0-5. Third, Prescott was sadly lost to injury a few weeks later, robbing the NFC East of their only guy who’s proven himself capable of this kind of magic.

Two wins, 18 losses, one tie. Since ties are conventionally counted as 0.5 wins and 0.5 losses, this gives us a winning percentage of .119. Let’s flip that around: this season, teams who get to play an NFC East team this season have a winning percentage of .881. They’re juggernauts.

Consider how tough it is to find any split that will get you more favorable results than .881 over a span of at least 21 games. Let’s stack up a few splits that would seem favorable, with the help of Pro-Football-Reference’s Stathead tool.

Let’s have even more fun or even less fun, depending on who’s reading:

Brief aside: this is due to the sample size really thinning out toward the summit, but it is pretty funny that NFL teams’ winning percentages actually dip just slightly if they pass 42 points, and only recover once they hit 50. Similarly, that .881 winning percentage is based on a sample of just 21 games, so this chart wouldn’t quite hold up in an academic paper, but the fact remains: teams that score at least 30 points still have a less impressive winning percentage than literally any non-NFC East team that plays an NFC East team in 2020.

Now, it is true that the interdivisional schedules of these four teams have been pretty damn tough. Let’s use Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings (through Week 9) to sort the quality of these teams from top to bottom, and count how many times our poor heroes have had to play them:

Rough stuff. Most of the time, they’ve run into good or very good teams. They’ve had to play the team with the NFL’s best record, the Steelers, three times (although it could just as easily be said that the Steelers have the NFL’s best record in part because they’ve gotten to play the NFC East three times).

Of course, the above chart omits the NFC East’s worst opponents: them. Come on out, fellas! There’s a bunch of folks here and they wanna laugh at you! Come on now!

This is why we can’t feel bad for any of these teams individually. Any tough opponents they’ve had to face elsewhere are more than balanced out by the privilege of being able to play their sorry selves.

You know, if I had the ability to assign teams to any division I wanted before the season started, with the objective of producing a division leader with as few wins as possible, I don’t know if I’d change anything. I think reality might have given us our best shot here, or at least something very, very close to it. If I just chose what I felt were the four very worst teams in the Jets, Bengals, Jags and Broncos, that could be trouble, because I suspect the Jets are miles worse than even the Bengals are. That would give the other three a punching bag that would allow them to pad their wins, which would blow the whole thing.

Instead, give me four teams who are both unmistakably bad, and almost the exact same degree of bad. Four teams who are dog shit in quadruplicate, and don’t appear to be much better or worse than each other in any material way.

So. Are we gonna see the NFL’s first-ever six-win playoff team? It’s absolutely in play, maybe even likely. I’m going to add a few more words in the hope of speaking them into existence:

We might see a five-win playoff team.

Let’s run through the remaining schedules of the Eagles, Giants, Cowboys and Football Team and see where we sit entering Week 11. Once again, we’ll rely on Football Outsiders’ DVOA.

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys would need to win five of these seven games to reach seven wins and ruin our day. While they did play the Steelers close over the weekend, and they have four very winnable games ahead, this is a team that’s lost four straight. I just can’t see Andy Dalton coming back from the bye and winning five of seven.

(I’m not factoring home-field advantage here, although it’s worth noting that home teams only hold a slight advantage this season. The omnipresent NFC East loser vibes are far stronger in my view.)

Washington Football Team

Same story as the Cowboys. Washington needs five wins to kill our dreams. I find the most useful way of framing this is: do we even trust them to get to three? I don’t.

New York Giants

The numbers are just slightly more friendly to the Giants: to make us unhappy, they need to win four of six, rather than five of seven. Their most likely path would be to beat the Cowboys and Bengals, then find some way to beat two 6-3 teams out of four.

I don’t see this as likely, but for purely unscientific reasons based on previous Giants team with entirely different rosters who stumbled backwards into sudden success, I think these guys are the most likely of the four to reach seven wins.

Especially because the Eagles’ upcoming schedule is so difficult.

Philadelphia Eagles

On paper, the Eagles have the easiest path to seven wins, as they only need to win four of their next seven. Four of these opponents are good-to-great (although the recent injury sustained by Drew Brees may mean beating the Saints is less unrealistic). The other three teams are subpar. All seven, though, hold a better DVOA than the Eagles.

The odds of Philadelphia reaching seven wins feel somewhere around 50-50 to me. I’ll take it! They still get to play two of their division rivals, and if they beat them both – which they’ll probably have to do in order to have a shot at 7-9 – that consequently deals a serious blow to all their seven-win aspirations, hopefully leaving the Eagles as the only team we’ll have left to worry about. From there, we hope that all five of the other teams, which are currently 6-3 or better, beat them.

Now, a five-win division champion? The road to that is tougher, but it’s absolutely possible. The math gets a little tricky, since in division games one team’s loss is another’s win, but you’re not at work here. You’re having fun. Simply scroll back up to those four charts and find:

four teams that can beat the Cowboys

four teams that can beat Washington

four teams that can beat the Giants

four teams that can beat the Eagles

If you can do that, you can imagine a team that lurches into the playoffs with a record of either 5-11 or 5-10-1. I need this. I need such a team to reach the playoffs while a very good team, like the Saints, Bucs, Cardinals, Rams or Seahawks, gets shut out of the postseason. Please, NFC East. Deliver us this future.

For further reading on the NFC East, check out this history lesson from Will, who points that these teams have been producing bad football since the 1930s.

[allinfozone-top-news22-blog]

Texas policy forces trans gender teenage boy to wrestle against feminine athletes

Texas policy forces trans gender teenage boy to wrestle against feminine athletes

On Friday, Mack Beggs, associate degree victorious highschool matman from Texas, can vie at the girl’s state tournament in residential area Houston.

But in contrast to the remainder of the teen’s feminine competitors, Beggs, 17, is a boy.

For over a year, the teen, World Health Organization was born a lady, has been transitioning from feminine to male with the assistance of androgenic hormone…

[thecoroutfitters]

Knowing how to use what you have on hand to make what you need is one of the hallmarks of a true prepper or homesteader. So is repurposing items and avoiding as much waste as possible.

So, in that frame of mind, what do you do with all the ash left after you build a fire, or dozens of them throughout a winter? Make lye!

There are many uses for lye, chemically named potassium hydroxide. You may also hear it called caustic soda or caustic potash. There are two different chemicals referred to as lye – the type that we’re talking about today that’s made from wood ash, and sodium hydroxide, which is made from salt.

The reason that we’re focusing on the type made from ash is that all of the ingredients that you need to make it are already right there in your house. Actually, you only need two ingredients – water and ash.

That’s it. To make sodium hydroxide, which is a common ingredient in industrial cleaners and caustic products such as drain cleaner, you need carbon electrodes and a power source. Not exactly prepper-friendly.

What’s Lye Used For?

So what, you may ask, is lye used for? Well, several things. First, it’s a necessary ingredient in soap.

Think about our ancestors!

Click here to uncover the long forgotten secrets that helped our parents survive!

You also need lye to make biodiesel and can use it to adjust the pH of your soil. There are also cooking uses for lye, such as making chocolate and preserving processed foods, but that’s pretty delicate and it’s completely outside my wheelhouse.

Oh, and lye also degrades soft tissues and, given enough time, will soften and break down bone. This was actually a trick used by a famous mobster to dispose of bodies. So on that note, let’s talk about how to safely handle lye.

Handling Lye

You need to exercise extreme caution when using lye because if it comes into contact with your skin, it will almost instantly start interacting with the fatty tissue to turn you into a bar of soap!

Seriously, that’s kinda what happens. Wear goggles because it can – and will – put you blind. It’s a good idea to use gloves and wear long sleeves, too. If you happen to get lye on your skin, pour vinegar on it to neutralize it.

Lye will also erode some metals – specifically aluminum – so be careful what you make it in.

Ingredients Needed to Make Lye

We’ve already discussed that you only need two ingredients to make lye: water and ash. Sounds easy, right? Yes it is, but you can’t use any water and ash or else the lye won’t leech properly out of the ash and it will be too weak to be effective.

Rainwater is the best and cheapest water to use. You don’t want to use tap water regardless of whether it’s city or well because of the minerals and chemicals in it. You can use water distilled using a steam process, but that can get expensive quickly. So, get a nice rainwater catcher and you’re in business.

It’s always a good idea to have rainwater collection vessels anyway, because it can be used as a backup water source or as a source of gray water to wash clothes and water plants. Well now you have yet another use for it.

You can’t use just any ash, either. Well, technically you can, but the soap that’s made from this type of lye made from softwoods and coniferous trees will be soft soap instead of hard soap. Good woods include ash, apple, hickory, beech, cherry, birch, elm, oak, walnut and maple.

You want to use hardwoods for your fires anyway because it burns longer, and we all know that you can’t use pine in your woodburners or fireplaces unless you want the resin to accumulate and burn you out at some point, likely in the middle of the night.

Lye Making Methods

So now that we know what woods and water to use to make the best lye, let’s talk about a couple of methods.

There are three basic ways to make lye at home:

the ash bucket method

the barrel method

the cooking method.

They all three work; it’s just a matter of personal preference and how much effort you’re willing to invest.

We’ll discuss them in the order that I just listed but again, a reminder not to use aluminum containers. Use glass, wood, enamel, stainless steel, or heavy-duty plastic.

One final tip: some of the old timers would add 2 percent or so lime to the ash mixture to make sure it produces a good hard soap. Salt works too, but you add it to the fat during the soap-making process instead of at the lye phase. Use about 2 ½ pints salt to 5 gallons of fat.

The Ash Bucket Method

This is pretty much exactly what the name implies. It’s kind of the lazy prepper’s way of making lye. Add a few cups of hot water directly to your full ash bucket and stir. Make sure you have a second ash bucket to hold your dry ashes! Let it sit for a few hours, stirring every thirty minutes or so.

Use a ratio of about 2 parts water to one part ash. Equal amounts work, too, but don’t exceed a ratio of around 3:1 water to ash if you want your lye to make quickly.

Once you’ve stirred it several times throughout the afternoon, do the egg test. This is a great way to test the alkalinity of your lye water. If you drop the egg in and it sinks, the lye is too weak and you need to let it sit for a while longer. Stirring more frequently may be helpful, too.

The lye has the perfect pH when the egg floats with about a quarter-sized part of it sticking out of the water. If your lye accidentally gets too strong, just add a bit more water. Throw the egg away when you’re done because it’s not edible after coming into contact with the lye.

Once your lye is perfect, pour it slowly and carefully from the ash bucket into another bucket making sure that you don’t pour any of the ashes into the mix.

Video first seen on Eddie Borges.

The Barrel Method

To make lye using the barrel method, you’ll need a water-tight wooden (or stainless steel) barrel and three catch receptacles. Drill several small holes in the bottom of the barrel, then set it up on bricks or blocks that you can get your catch basin underneath of it to collect the lye. Make sure it’s stable – the last thing you want to do is spill lye everywhere.

Line the bottom with a layer of clean stones so that the straw that you’re using in the next step doesn’t clog the holes. Put a thick layer of straw over in the bottom of the barrel, then fill it almost all the way with ash. Pour hot water over it, then remove the container underneath that’s now full of weak lye water.

You’ll have to repeat this process several times, just pouring the used, filtered water over the ash and straw until the lye becomes strong enough. Just so you know, the lye is perfectly fine, but the straw may discolor it a bit by turning it yellow.

After you’ve repeated this process five or six times, do the egg test and continue accordingly.

Alternatively, you can use a barrel with a spigot instead of the holes and just let the water sit in it for several hours and test. When it’s done, just drain the lye out the spigot, leaving the ash residue behind.

The Cooking Method

This method is perfectly acceptable but you need to make sure that the room is well-ventilated just to be on the safe side. We’re going to start the process by adding the ashes and the water to your pot. Bring it to a slow boil or simmer and cook it for a half hour or so, then allow it to cool and do the egg test.

If it’s not strong enough, pour the water over a fresh batch of ashes and repeat until your lye is as alkaline as it needs to be. And be careful that none of it splashes on you as you boil it.

See, now that you know that lye isn’t so hard to make, you can do it yourself whenever you need it as long as you have ashes and rain water, just like our ancestors used to make it.

Click the banner below to learn the old survival skills of our grandparents!

This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia. 

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