#brooke davis supremacy

[nevvaraven]

Hey, I'm the person who asked you about OTH, your response was so good and honestly I also appreciate OTH for the very dramatic story lines like the nanny thing was so typical them 💀 and Brooke is my favourite one too - clothes over bros iconic <3

OMG HIIII (I’m trying not to be a loser about this but I’m so excited rn) I was literally wishing you would come out of the shadows after I answered your anon I NEED someone to talk to one tree hill about you don’t know how happy I am rn 😭😭

Clothes over bros was a cultural reset, do you remember the whole break in storyline and that guy who beat her up he was in my nightmares fr

I’m trying not to be too eager rn but BE MY FRIEND 🔪 😤 There is 9 seasons of this golden shit and no one else seems to know about it I am literally never letting you go now

[mugiwara-lucy]

HAPPY MONDAY EVERYONE!! Have a smiling Luffy to get you through the day 😄😊🤗

Although....I wonder if I should change my Avatar to sunshine boy OR if I should keep it with the usual Brooke Davis supremacy I've had for the last couple of months 🤔

[frontproofmedia]

Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford - A Showdown for the Ages

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By Sina Latif

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Published: May 31, 2023

Deal is signed, fight is official ✍️ #SpenceCrawford pic.twitter.com/GpJ0B0Fhd1

— ESPN Ringside (@ESPNRingside) May 25, 2023

Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford will take place on July 29th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Showtime PPV for the undisputed welterweight championship.

For a long time, Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford was a fight that fans felt they had lost. It won’t happen, or if it does, it’ll be too late. It was a much-clamored fight since 2018, when Crawford made a move up to 147 lbs, to no end. With every fight both men had that was not named Spence or Crawford in the opposite corner, it just would not suffice. These two are destined to determine one another’s legacy. They are natural generational rivals. Now it’s actually happening.

Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia was huge because of the fight’s transcendence beyond the boxing fanbase. Heavyweight showdowns between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed championship and Anthony Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder, a fight between two of the leading heavyweight contenders and former big-punching champions, are colossal.

However, purely from a quality vs. quality standpoint, pound-for-pound vs. pound-for-pound, it does not get better than Spence vs. Crawford for all four belts in an undisputed welterweight showdown.

They’re a combined 67-0 with 52 KOs. They have both been pound-for-pound top five mainstays for the past few years. They may not be young studs anymore, with Crawford aged 35 and Spence 33, but neither man has shown any signs of decline yet, and both still appear in their prime. These two are simply the two best fighters of their generation in the same weight class, which happens to be the historically revered welterweight division; both still at their peak, with all the physical gifts, talents, and intangibles in the world, contesting for undisputed supremacy. It does not get any better.

Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns in 1981. Felix Trinidad vs Oscar De La Hoya in 1999. Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao in 2015. Now, this generation is getting its welterweight super-fight.

This is the biggest welterweight match-up since Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, bar none. The only difference is, unlike Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, this fight is arguably not past its expiration date. Mayweather was 38 when they fought, and Pacquiao was 36. Both men were top pound-for-pound fighters at the time, but both were also clearly past their best. Mayweather only fought twice more, if you want to count that glorified Conor McGregor exhibition bout, a clear indicator that his days were nearing an end. Pacquiao was no longer the dynamic merchant he was a few years earlier. The ideal time for that match-up would have been 2010 or 2011.

Spence and Crawford are not much younger than Mayweather, and Pacquiao were when they fought, but these two appear fresher. Crawford has stopped his last 10 opponents, with his two most recent wins being a statement knock-out of Shawn Porter in November 2021 and a devastating KO of David Avanesyan in December 2022. Crawford turns 36 in September. Father Time could creep up on him at any moment, but that has yet to happen. Spence survived a terrible car crash in late 2019, lucky to prevail alive, and has since defeated Danny Garcia via unanimous decision in December 2020 and stopped Yordenis Ugas in April 2022 to unify three 147 lbs titles.

Spence and Crawford have simultaneously been champions at welterweight for five years. Spence has been a welterweight champion since stopping Kell Brook in May 2017, and Crawford became a champion at 147 lbs when he stopped Jeff Horn in June 2018. They have a combined 12 title defenses, with six defenses apiece. Crawford is the WBO king, and Spence is the unified WBC, WBA, and IBF champion.

Spence is not a pressure fighter in the same mold as Julio Cesar Chavez Sr or an aggressive brawler like Ray Mancini, but he does employ an educated, subtle, and relentless attack behind his strong southpaw jab. That consistent jab frequently sets up left-hand blows to head and body, with Spence arguably the most effective and accurate body puncher in boxing today. Spence has great footwork and is a master at controlling distance, but also really knows how to work his way on the inside. A combination of aggression, volume, body punching, and power from a man who is so physically strong at the weight but has also mastered the fundamentals of the Sweet Science makes Spence an extremely difficult opponent to prepare for.

Crawford is a complete fighter. He can box. He can punch. He can fight equally as effectively on the front foot and back foot and from either stance. He has power in both hands. Crawford has the ability to make adjustments mid-fight, unlike any other active fighter, with great instincts, and is a great counter-puncher. He is also arguably the best finisher in the sport today. Once an opponent is hurt, Crawford is ice-cold in the manner he does not let his opponents off the hook.

With the vast skill set at both fighters’ disposal, both men also have the heart, will, and toughness to grit it out and win a war of attrition when needed.

Spence and Crawford have it all. That’s what makes this fight so special.

The past greats had talent, but they became all-time greats because of a worthy rival that made them display what they were made of. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had one another. The Four Kings had one another. Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta’s rivalry cemented each other’s legacy and defined an era. Every true great needs a dance partner.

After everything Spence and Crawford have achieved, this is their chance to finally cement their greatness.

[jakeperalta]

Brooke Davis supremacy! You’ll know

haha I look forward to when I can be like "oh I'm with that anon now"

[citylightsbooks]

City Lights Bookstore’s Antiracist Reading List | UPDATED

Human creativity is integral to revolutionary resistance—the urgent plea, the silenced cry, the righteous rage. It is imperative that we educate and illuminate ourselves to deepen our commitment to justice and equity for Black people and all people of color, and to pave the way for radical systemic change.

***

Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Til to Trayvon Martin Edited by Philip Cushway and Michael Warr 9780393352733        Norton    Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? Mumia Abu-Jamal  9780872867383       City Lights  Invisible Man Ralph Ellison  9780679732761       Vintage A Black Women's History of the United States Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross   9780807033555  Beacon         W.E.B. Dubois' Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America   The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts     Edited by Britt Rusert and Whitney Battle-Baptiste  9781616897062        Princeton Architectural Press Race Man: Selected Works 1960-2015 Julian Bond Edited by Michael G. Long  9780872867949 City Lights       Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot  Mikki Kendall   9780525560548       Viking The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration  Isabel Wilkerson  9780679763888       Random House

The Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas Henry Dumas 9781566891493   Coffee House Everywhere You Don't Belong: A Novel Gabrielle Bump   9781616208790 Algonquin  The Meaning of Freedom and Other Difficult Dialogues Angela Y. Davis Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley 9780872865808   City Lights   

No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements Hillary Moore and James Tracy Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley 9780872867963   City Lights The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander   9781620971932 The New Press Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds adrienne maree brown 9781849352604   AK  Black Skin, White Masks Frantz Fanon   Translated from the French by Richard Philcox 9780802143006  Grove The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon Translated from the French by Richard Philcox Commentary by Jean-Paul Sartre and Homi K. Bhabha 9780802141323  Grove Citizen: An American Lyric Claudia Rankine 9781555976903   Graywolf  How to Be An Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi 9780525509288   One World The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 9780679744726 Random House No Name in the Street James Baldwin 9780307275929   Vintage How To Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide Crystal Marie Fleming   9780807039847 Beacon The History of White People Nell Irvin Painter 9780393339741   Norton       Heaven Is All Goodbyes: City Lights Pocket Poet Series No. 61 Tongo Eisen-Martin 9780872867451 City Lights Afropessimism Frank WIlderson III 9781631496141     Liveright If They Come in the Morning . . . : Voices of Resistance Edited by Angela Y. Davis  9781784787691       Verso So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Olua  9781580058827       Seal  Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Ruskin, the Man Behind the March on Washington Jacqueline Houtman, Walter Naegle, and Michael G. Long  9780872867659       City Lights  We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide  Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden  Foreword by Nic Stone 9781547602520       Bloomsbury Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You - A Remix of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning  Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi 9780316453691       Little, Brown Woke: A Young Poet's Call to Justice  Mahogany L. Browne with Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood Illustrated by Theodore Taylor III Foreword by Jason Reynolds 9781250311207        Roaring Brook  Betty Before X Ilyasah Shabazz with Renée Watson  9780374306106       FSG Clifford's Blues John A. Williams  9781566890809       Coffee House  Native Son RIchard Wright  9780061148507  Harper Perennial Training School for Negro Girls Camille Acker  9781936932375       Feminist Press They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays Hanif Abdurraqib  9781937512651       Two Dollar Radio Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption  Bryan Stevenson  9780812984965       One World    The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations  Toni Morrison  9780525562795       Vintage Oreo Fran Ross  9780811223225       New Directions Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches  Audre Lorde  Foreword by Cheryl Clarke 9781580911863        Crossing Press Ghost Boys Jewell Parker Rhodes  9780316262262       Little, Brown Monument: Poems New and Selected  Natasha Trethewey  9780358118237  Mariner  The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Peniel E. Joseph 9781541617865 Basic Dear White People Justin Simien Illustrated by Ian O’Phelan 97814769809 37 Ink Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas Edited by Sam Durant Preface by Bobby Seale Foreword by Danny Glover 9780847841899 Rizzoli Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers Stephan Shames and Bobby Seale 9781419722400 Harry N. Abrams Press In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition Fred Moten 9780816641000 University of Minnesota Press The Known World: A Novel Edward P. Jones 9780061159176 Amistad Counternarratives: Stories and Novellas John Keene 9780811225526 New Directions Beloved: A Novel Toni Morrison 9781400033416 Vintage The Bluest Eye: A Novel Toni Morrison 9780307278449 Vintage Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination Toni Morrison Vintage 9780679745426 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 9780684824772 Scribner Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black Harriet E. Wilson Edited with an introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Richard J. Ellis 9780307477453 Vintage Burn This Book: Notes on Literature and Engagement Edited by Toni Morrison 9780061774010 Harper I’m Not Dying with You Tonight Gilly Segal and Kimberly Jones Sourcebooks Fire 9781492678892 The End of Policing Alex S. Vitale 9781784782924 Verso The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership Harold Cruse 9781590171356 NYRB Classics How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society Manning Marable 9781608465118 Haymarket From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 9781608465620 Haymarket Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the War Against Black Revolutionaries Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Assata Shakur, and Mumia Abu-Jamal 9780936756745 Semiotext(e) Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom David W. Blight 9781416590323 Simon & Schuster Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 Taylor Branch 9780671687427 Simon & Schuster Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65 Taylor Branch 9780684848099 Simon & Schuster At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 Taylor Branch 9780684857138  Simon & Schuster A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story Elaine Brown 9780385471077 Anchor Angela Davis: An Autobiography Angela Y. Davis 9780717806676 International Publishers Co.   My Bondage and My Freedom Frederick Douglass 9780140439182 Penguin  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself: A New Critical Edition  Frederick Douglass and Angela Y. Davis 9780872865273 City Lights Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 W.E.B. Du Bois 9780684856575 Free Press

[teddywestside]

Watching OTH and having Brooke be your favorite character is CORRECT!! We love to see it!!

brooke davis supremacy

[epochryphal]

abolition work

hm i haven’t been posting here much because 1. Work Busy and 2. local movement spaces being largely on facebook, plus 3. disclosing local geographic location on here is still a bit Hhhh

but yeah i’m fairly open about being california bay area, and am working on plugging into local orgs and have been doing some rad captioning gigs for various places on both coasts, and getting to witness really rad conversations around defunding, dismantling, abolition, alternative structures, and communal healing

big plug for Kindred Collective and healing justice, their work on the medical industrial complex, and the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network doing the deprogramming state collusion and relearning community care for social workers & healing practitioners

on surveillance, Hacking//Hustling is doing awesome work and talking about histories of police collaboration to criminalize public health surveillance, as is Red Canary Song,

highly recommend the Just Practice Collaborative’s mixtape on transformative justice coming out at the beginning of august

some great discussion by Mia Mingus and Mimi Kim along with Cat Brooks of Anti Police-Terror Project/APTP about the conflation of transformative justice, which seeks to transform systems that allowed/enabled harm to occur, with restorative justice, which seeks to restore the status quo that existed before the harm, and which the state is picking up on as a veneer of reparative work

and always always love for Critical Resistance and their amazing resources, and to the Abolition Journal Study Guide

for concrete steps to police abolition and things to call for from leaders, i recommend:

APTP’s & Justice Teams Network’s Black New Deal (here, there, and also here)

8toAbolition

MPD150 (who have a huge resource page!)

Critical Resistance’s demands

Movement for Black Lives/M4BL’s Interrupting Criminalization Toolkit

Repeal 50 (New York police misconduct protection laws)

other rad groups with resources include Survived & Punished, Community Justice Exchange, DecrimNow, FreeThemAll4PublicHealth, local Decarcerate ___ groups, Black Youth Project 100, INCITE!

other important names include Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Mariame Kaba, Kristina Agbebiyi, Kelly Hayes, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Kimberle Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, Anoop Naya, Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur, Cornel West, Angela Davis, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Charlene Carruthers, Rachel Cargle

my favorite demands right now are:

freeze police hiring, at minimum

decriminalize public existence (loitering, disorderly conduct, being in a park after dark, eating or drinking in public/on transit, riding a bike on the sidewalk, sleeping in public, littering, urinating in public, etc)

- these shouldn’t be misdemeanors!  there can be general public conduct agreements without criminalization, and with competent handling of homelessness

refuse to criminalize COVID-19 and decriminalize HIV/AIDS and end all health care information sharing with police

refuse to use facial recognition tech and end usage of “predictive” tech, license plate readers, etc (saves money too!)

fund public bathrooms and showers, including making existent facilities (eg YMCA, pools) available, and fund COVID sanitation staff

move duties out of the police:

- youth engagement

- community engagement

- re-entry from incarceration assistance

- parking enforcement

- traffic law enforcement

- health crisis response

- mental health crisis response

- homelessness response and services

- neighbor disputes

- trespassing enforcement

- domestic violence response

- transit fares and rules enforcement

 --> create new divisions that are unarmed, are not trained&licensed to use force or institutionalize/incarcerate, and are non-coercive

 --> start by creating a transition team to start doing this with a five-year plan, for example

*** in the meantime, disarm police responses to these!! ***

--> see CareNotCops.org

articles i’ve found valuable:

Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop on Medium

Who Should Pay for Police Misconduct on a legal blog

Domestic Violence & Defunding Police on Huffington Post

Tired Bad Cops First Look to Their Labor Unions on Washington Post

Who’s Afraid of Defunding the Police? on Salon

Defunding the Police: What Would It Mean for the U.S.? on NPR

Abolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation by Dorothy Roberts

The Color of Surveillance by Alvaro Bedeta (see also the conference’s materials)

article i need to take a moment to find a way around a paywall for lmao:  On Trans Dissemblance: Or, Why Trans Studies Needs Black Feminism

documentaries/videos i recommend:

Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise on PBS

books i’ve learned about and super want to read include:

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation from Colonial Times to the Present

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (by Charlene Carruthers with BYP100)

The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (by Simone Brown)

Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the Afronet to Black Lives Matter

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Decarcerating Disability

No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex

Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (by Dean Spade)

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

additional books i’m considering and have seen recommended:

Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond 

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in 20th Century America

Me and White Supremacy

So You Want to Talk About Race

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

A People’s History of the United States

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (by Patricia Hill Collins)

Eloquent Rage (by Brittney Cooper)

Bad Feminist (by Roxane Gay)

Thick: And Other Essays

Real Life: A Novel

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

Since I Laid My Burden Down

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir

The Summer We Got Free

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (by Trevor Noah)

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

yeah!!

what/who are y’all reading/watching/listening to and finding helpful, or meaning to get around to?

[erinparkers]

talk to the hand [ DIANA SILVERS ], [ ERIN PARKER ] is the new kid on the block around here. at [ 19 ], the [ CIS GIRL ] works at [ NORDSTROM ] in the mall and, like, [ SHE ] totally reminds us of [ AUDREY HORNE ]. oh snap! what? their favorite movie is [ SILENCE OF THE LAMBS ]???? so is mine!

okay everyone here is a messy run through of my baby erin parker who serves me audrey horne meets brooke davis supremacy !! here’s her pinterest if yall wanna get a certain vibe about her

THIS IS GONNA BE A MESS AND RAMBLES IM SORRY BUT LOVE ME AND HER ANYWAY THANKS

erin comes from a pretty rich but neglectful family in town. her dad owns the nordstrom and she doesn’t need to work at all but she does just because she hoped working there would make her dad pay some attention to her and like her more but alas it did not but now she doesn’t mind so much because it’s better than just lurking around her home and feeling like shit - also she works at the perfume counter in nordstrom 

she’s that person who on the surface puts up a really good front that everything’s okay. she seems like a typical party girl who flirts a little too much and has a reputation of being promiscuous (but she’s not nearly as much as she lets on). she’s all about having fun, trying to distract herself from everything that’s wrong in her life and looking way too much for male validation

she can kinda come off aloof and distant and even a bit intimidating because tbh she has a major resting bitch face and she really tries to put up this act that she’s so mature and mysterious but really deep down she’s still that little girl looking for herself and what she wants to do and looking for the love and validation she never got

because of that she’s a hopeless romantic on the low but wouldn’t seem like it like she tries to come off like oh yeah love is whatever fuck that but deep down she dreams about falling in love and running away and living some whirlwind romance and having all the big love confessions and shit

she’s someone who when she puts her mind to something she gets it and she’ll do anything to make sure that happens and she does the same for her friends and those she’s loyal to because while she is aloof and distant and hard to get close to she really does want bonds and once she has them shes a ride or die hoe like even if you’re not super close she’s the type of person where if something happened and you need help you want to go to her

her fav movie is silence of the lambs because its lowkey always been a dream of hers to be a fbi agent like she thinks that’s so cool but at the same time knows she won’t do anything to achieve that dream so she just lives it out in her fav movie

she’s a bad bitch but also a sad bitch

she’s also someone who will act out for attention like pls she’s a really good and nice person usually but sometimes she’s so attention starved that she’ll just do something kinda fucked up or bitchy just for the attention or drama of it all so like i feel that could be fun little plots in the future

THIS IS ALL I CAN THINK TO DO RN BUT IM USUALLY DOWN FOR PRETTY MUCH ANY PLOTS OR CONNECTIONS LIKE I LOVE DOING WILDIN SHIT SO I CANT WAIT TO PLOT W UR CHARAS AND INTERACT THANKS SM 

[fallynephemeron]

excerpt-

Activists have argued that monuments and buildings honoring the Confederacy, slavery and white supremacy should be removed or renamed. Statues, like ones of Christopher Columbus and Jefferson Davis, have been toppled. The Clemson University Board of Trustees voted to remove the name of slave owner and secessionist John C. Calhoun from its honors college.

Meanwhile, cities continue to be gripped by demonstrations against police brutality. Fresh outrage was sparked in Atlanta after the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks, a black man, on Friday night — leading to an officer being fired, the police chief stepping down and instant condemnation.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who appeared on ABC shortly after Carson, said it was “a fairly infantile response” to say words and dates don’t have meanings.

“This isn't about growing up," Abrams said. "It's about taking responsibility and having accountability for the actions that have been taken by this country and by people acting on behalf of this country. And we do have a day of reckoning and that day of reckoning is going to continue until we actually make change."

[shotfromguns]

Good, long thread by @TheMittani on Twitter on “neoconfederacy” in the South:

if you ever wonder why i got politically 'radicalized' it's because i grew up in alabama as an atheist child of two biochemistry professors; at 17 i graduated and moved away forever. reminder: Alabama came within 1.7% of sending a known pedo to the senate~

any '13th dimensional chess' tweets about how the AL leg composed this abortion ban to provoke a court fight has never met an actual neoconfederate this is what they want 100%, it's a white supremacist aristo fertility cult and all the moves make sense when understood that way

source: i have been to an unironic country club debutante ball in dear old mountain brook and folks have no idea how much intergenerational wealth transfer has carried over from the days of slavery in that society's upper class

for context, when i was in high school there were three country clubs, maybe 20k citizens, and zero black students; every street is named after a civil war battle, and 'houses' there would be called mansions anywhere else

best public schools in the state though~

folks have no clue how rich and well-educated the ruling class in alabama is, going to mountain brook means if you don't get into one of the better ivys you're probably a bitter slacker like me legislation like this isn't from stupid hicks, it's the goal

southern aristos can be incredibly intelligent and well-traveled and are all the more dangerous politically because they are happy to play dumb in public with the aw-shucks jesus loving hick routine in order to quietly run an antebellum society and pit poor whites against blacks

it's almost comically effective, I do this stuff all the time in Eve - say laughably wrong things, act like a fool, and then it's much easier to outmaneuver people. The most dangerous enemy is one who is comfortable with being publicly underestimated.

I mean to say, 'ha ha eat my ass look at me I'm so great at spaceship games', please interpret my above tweet as evidence of hubris and ignorance rather than giving up an actual tactic I've employed so often it's been nicknamed the 'tee hee, flounce flounce' by my chief of staff

'I'm the fucking Mittani, I know everything in this game,' another good one wearing red shirts? stupid gimmick, keep doing it because it's a stupid gimmick, it's far better for our competitors/enemies to see me as a joke luv2club? tee hee, flounce flounce, same shit

anyhoo yeah it's the same dance, play god-fearing jesus lover to keep the poor whites on your side, maintain that patriarchy with the complicity of ruling class women who enjoy the economic benefits of neoconfederacy, and live over the mountain so no one spots all the lexuses

it's interesting to see the term neoconfederate finally get some use but it implies that there isn't already an actual working confederate states of america right in front of everyone's eyes that's been there since reconstruction, none of that shit is an accident

if you put 'hail hydra' on statues in every town in the region you don't have to bother saying 'hail hydra' or announce in print that you're down with hydra, everyone who lives there gets it

the issue is not being part of a traitorous conspiracy against the united states government (i mean hydra, not the neoconfederacy, ha ha!) the problem comes when you state it where those not in on it can hear you. Viz: ”Alabama newspaper editor calls for Klan return to ‘clean out D.C.’”

i kind of like the hydra analogy for the neoconfederacy, because all this shit - 'states rights', 'pro-life', 'voter fraud', these disparate causes are actually all the same cause: the ~lost~ cause

southern politics makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of pro/anti-confederacy politics; confederate society is based upon a ruling gentry descended from the cavaliers see generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed actual /aristos/ not merely rich people

so basically you have an entrenched aristocracy that traces their lineage back 10+ generations running a plantation society and fighting like fucking hell to maintain that privilege, privilege most people in the usa cannot even begin to imagine

generic usa high ~net worth individuals~ have nothing on the cunning and unity maintained by ancient proud cavalier aristocratic families in the south with shitloads of money who will do anything to protect the universe they and their forefathers have created (via slavery)

the whole 'the south will rise again' thing is a huge joke because the structure of the society immediately returned to functional slavery as soon as it could get away with it, the south already 'rose' after reconstruction, it's right in fucking the open

if they get away with the abortion thing, they'll gun for brown v board next; these people remember life before MLK and they have not forgotten or forgiven the civil rights movement those behind this aren't hicks, they very smart confederates acting like hicks to fool you.

many old privileged families come with a legacy and a purpose imposed on you from birth it's not a stretch of the imagination that the quest of a lot of these old aristo families is to restore the society to antebellum life and get their privileges (slavery) back

the civil war was only a few generations ago, these families have not forgotten and they have not let their children forget the monuments, the street named for war battles, that's why it matters still to them

southern aristos are pro-life because the whole point of the society is the poor whites fight the poor blacks, and restricting abortion = more labor and poverty to exploit by the gentry the goal of their flavor of white supremacy is about getting rich off slaves, not death camps

not that they have a problem with a death camp or three, it's difficult to communicate how utterly disposable the lives of people outside of their class are, this is a society whose rulers believe that god has anointed them to rule over their lessers

its not rocket science, you take a slaveholding landed gentry and take away their slaves and land (good!) that gentry is going to spend its time fanatically scheming to get its land and slaves back (bad, what we see in southern politics)

anyhoo what i'm saying is that this isn't about random kooks trying to put women 'in their place' (there's a bunch of them too, useful idiots) but part of a broad campaign across generations by a dispossessed cavalier nobility to get all their lost privileges (slavery) back

conveniently the rest of america doesn't have much of an entrenched aristo/gentry culture anymore so the maneuvers of the 'neo' confederates just look like random right wing lashing out rather than a deliberate series of moves to benefit the southern aristocracy

the reality of the modern confederacy reminds me a lot of 'The City and the City' in that it's clearly visible to those raised within it, yet its contour is completely alien to outsiders who don't know how to 'see' it the 'right' way.

shit like Roy Moore being a pedo but coming within 1.7% of winning a senate seat makes a buttload more sense than 'alabama voters will send anything not a democrat', Moore is a proud and loud confederate and Doug Jones is anti-confederate it's the confederacy - always.

Pro-life? Confederacy. State's Rights? Confederacy. Gun rights? Confederacy. Religious Freedom/Gay Cake Stuff? Confederacy. Anti-union? Confederacy. If you're a Cavalier or one of their foremen, it all fits~ 

Robert Caro basically spelled out in intricate detail how the confederacy works in his LBJ bios but particularly Master of the Senate, read these if you want a primer on actual power and its uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Lyndon_Johnson

when LBJ shifted to supporting voting rights, the confederacy simply switched its support from the democrats to the republicans. it's a real thing and its moves make perfect sense once you grok the core motivations of the southern gentry and their henchmen~

you see this repeatedly through history where one side stops fighting after a victory and the other side loses but keeps trying to find ways to win, the Union torched the south and moved on, but the confederacy has /never stopped fighting/ using whatever means they have available

tl;dr "it's the confederacy, stupid" also explains those crazy 'obama is the antichrist' memes; if you're a confederate, a black president existing is against everything your flavor of pro-slavery jesus stands for

None of this thread really applies to Texas. I was born in Houston, moved to AL at 10; completely different culture in Texas. Going to rodeos, oil/cattle, science, ranching. When I say the 'South' I'm talking about the plantation society of the Cavaliers.

As a quick example of using the Lost Cause to understand Cavalier political behavior, Lindsey Graham's 'hypocrisy' makes perfect sense. He doesn't give a shit about spewing nonsense or lying to Yankees, all he cares about is Dixie. He's not dumb at all; the Union is his enemy.

Expanded May 17, 2019:

oh yeah and Mitch McConnell was born and raised in Alabama and then Georgia from 8yrs on, so heyoooo

look up how long jeff sessions family has been naming their kids after jefferson davis on his bio dixie is real; it's the confederacy, the political moves the cavaliers and their overseers are making on behalf of the lost cause as plain as day if you know what to look for

just gonna spend Friday night reading Albion’s seed to learn more fun ~cavalierfacts~ like how their royalist gentry is literally all one big interrelated family and coordinates retribution and uses debt to control the poor

“It is difficult to think of any ruling elite that has been more closely interrelated since the Ptolemies” holy lawl (it is a history insult as he’s basically calling the cavaliers a nest of outright incest, the Ptolemaic dynasty was Targaryen-style sibling marriage)

Hey guess what turns out the control of women is deeply ingrained in cavalier society because uh... kidnapping / human trafficking / sexual slavery and a massively skewed male to female ratio lovely people, these confederates

“These patterns did not develop by chance. Virginia’s great migration was the product of policy and social planning. Its royalist elite succeeded in shaping the social history of an American region partly by regulating the process of migration” (p 232) fucking hell it’s all here

May 22, 2019:

by req: another ‘understanding the confederacy’ thing, all the protest tweets saying “the cruelty is the point” are wrong, the point is opportunities for race-based policing (a la weed), disenfranchisement, reinforcing patriarchy, and more labor/babies to exploit + compliance

sure there’s a bunch of cruelty in there too but the whole thing is a means to the ends of rolling back the civil rights movement and restoring the structure of Dixie as the gentry/cavaliers prefer; the confederates may be slavers at heart but they’re not cartoon villains

(they're way worse)

In case I get hit by a bus, I currently think the concept of hegemonic liberty is the most misunderstood aspect of the cavalier mindset, so here’s three key pages from Albion’s Seed~

And the cavalier conception of condescension and deference as two sides of God’s hierarchy and order is a fracture point, that’s why incivility towards one’s ‘betters’ is so provocative - milkshakes would probably work over here, too

Also by hiding and lying about the existence of Dixie, they fragment their opposition into issue-based groups - pro-choice, gun control, voters rights, anti-racism - instead of each opposition group recognizing that they are fighting the same confederate foe

Not like they really hid that much, they had confederate flags flying over their capitols ever since the Civil War until recently, but the Union won the war and moved on, so folks think they’re fighting random bigots and not the CSA

May 23, 2019:

the lack of a concerted effort by the democratic party to win and develop victories in the south has allowed the bulwark of the RNC power to be unchallenged, if you erode the Dixie Wall in the Senate the republicans pretty much lose all their functional power

as the DNC is incompetent one doesn't need to rely upon them, state by state in Dixie voting rights and organization must be pushed to undermine the structure of confederate power, that's the fracture point, that and forcing their true nature as confederates into the open

I'll develop all this crap into more useful tactics on the upcoming blog thing but this is all just-in-case 'yo guys, if I get hit by a bus, take Albion's Seed, drive through Mountain Brook for proof of everything I'm saying (crestline doesn't count lawl) go fight hydra'

as someone will inevitably discover not EVERY street in Mountain Brook is named for civil war battles (there's a lot), the really old money lives on streets named for old british estates/towns + they're episcopalians (anglican 2.0) not baptists, of course

[mugiwara-lucy]

You should make your PFP Goku

No thanks I am fine with Brooke Davis Supremacy 😝

[jakeperalta]

brooke davis supremacy!

so true bestie

[peoniarose]

Brooke Davis supremacy!!

Saying Nathan and Haley got married too young isn't a hot take. It's the point — that's why Lucas finding out they're married is a cliffhanger. It's supposed to be surprising!

Also, the belief that Nathan went from being a jerk to being totally in love with Haley in one episode ignores the ups and downs Nathan experiences in Seasons 2 and 3.

He evolved a lot in those years, and it's a shame that people can't see that because Nathan Scott has some of the best growth on One Tree Hill — next to Brooke Davis, of course.

[perfectirishgifts]

Boxing Pound For Pound: Teofimo Lopez Zooms Onto The List After Lomachenko Win

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Boxing Pound For Pound: Teofimo Lopez Zooms Onto The List After Lomachenko Win

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – OCTOBER 17: In this handout image provided by Top Rank, Vasiliy Lomachenko … [] fights Teofimo Lopez Jr in their Lightweight World Title bout at MGM Grand Las Vegas Conference Center on October 17, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)

After scoring the biggest win of his career against Vasiliy Lomachenko in October, Teofimo Lopez has made his debut on the Boxing Writers Association of America Pound For Pound list that was unveiled on Wednesday.

On the last installment of the BWAA P4P list, Lomachenko was in the No. 2 spot behind Canelo Alvarez, while Lopez didn’t receive a single vote. Now, Lopez is behind only Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Naoya Inoue and Errol Spence on the list, which is voted on by BWAA members (including me). Lomachenko, meanwhile, has dropped to No. 7.

Coming off his knockout win vs. Kell Brook last month, Crawford moved up a spot to No. 2, and with Spence’s dominant victory against Danny Garcia last Saturday, he moved from No. 5 to No. 4.

Here’s the entire list, along with others who received votes.

1. Canelo Alvarez (172 points)

Middleweight

53-1-2 (36 KOs)

2. Terence Crawford (153)

Welterweight

37-0-0 (28 KOs)

3. Naoya Inoue (143)

Bantamweight

20-0-0 (17 KOs)

4. Errol Spence Jr. (122)

Welterweight

27-0-0 (21 KOs)

5. Teofimo Lopez (81)

Lightweight

16-0-0 (12 KOs)

6. Oleksandr Usyk (79)

Heavyweight

18-0-0 (13 KOs)

7. Vasiliy Lomachenko (52)

Lightweight

14-2-0 (10 KOs)

8. Tyson Fury (49)

Heavyweight

30-0-1 (21 KOs)

9. Juan Francisco Estrada (36)

Jr. Bantamweight

41-3-0 (28 KOs)

10. Gennadiy Golovkin (26)

Middleweight

40-1-1 (35 KOs)

Also receiving votes: Jermell Charlo (13), Josh Taylor (12), Gervonta Davis (8), Kosei Tanaka (8), Mikey Garcia (7), Manny Pacquiao (7), Artur Beterbiev (6), Roman Gonzalez (3), Anthony Joshua (3)

And here’s the list I turned in to the BWAA.

1. Canelo Alvarez

2. Terence Crawford

3. Errol Spence

4. Naoya Inoue 

5. Teofimo Lopez

6. Vasiliy Lomachenko

7. Gennadiy Golovkin

8. Oleksandr Usyk

9. Juan Francisco Estrada

10. Artur Beterbiev

There could be more movement on the boxing pound for pound list in the last month of the year, as well. Alvarez will take on a tough challenge in Callum Smith for 168-pound supremacy on Dec. 19, while Golovkin meet Kamil Szeremeta the day before.

READ MORE:

Floyd Mayweather Vs. Logan Paul Odds Are Not Nearly As Wide As They Should Be

Errol Spence Vs. Danny Garcia: Here’s How Spence Is Moving Past His Scary Car Accident

From SportsMoney in Perfectirishgifts

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home Edition 8/14/20 – SPUTNIK, THE SILENCING, FREELAND, SPREE, THE BAY OF SILENCE

Another week, another batch of movies to get through in hopes there’s one or two worth writing about… and then writing about all of them anyway. (Sigh). I hope there are people reading this, at least. If so, go to the bottom of this column and drop me a line!

Before I get to this week’s movies, I want to give a special congratulatory shout-out to the wonderful Melanie Addington, because this is the final week of the 17th annual Oxford Film Festival. I have to say as someone who regularly covers a couple other bigger festivals, she’s done such an amazing job pivoting to the virtual world, to the point where what usually is a five-day very localized festival turned into a nationwide digital festival that’s been stretched out for 16 weeks! Those bigger festivals like SXSW and Tribeca could take a lesson from Oxford, because what usually are two highly-anticipated festivals every year became a whole lot of nothing thanks to COVID. It’s like they gave up, rolled over and just died. Oxford, meanwhile, has done Zoom QnAs with a lot of the filmmakers and casts from its films to help maintain the community feeling that makes the festival such a great destination for those in-the-know. (I haven’t even gotten into the amazing drive-in screenings or the year-round On Demand program they’ve been having over the past couple months.)

Anyway, OFF ends this week with the world-premiere of a movie that was supposed to open at SXSW, Mario Furlani and Kate McLean’s debut feature FREELAND, starring Krisha Fairchild from Trey Shults’ movie, Krisha. Freeland is a similarly strong indie r drama, this one starring Ms. Fairchild as Davi, a black market marijuana farmer in Humboldt County, Norther California, who sees her way of life changing when she’s forced to go legal after California legalizes marijuana. Instead, these changes might run her out of business. It’s a beautifully-shot (Furlani is also the cinematographer) character drama that spotlights Fairchild giving another memorable performance, surrounded by an equally excellent cast that includes Lily Gladstone from Certain Women. I hope a good distributor like IFC or Magnolia will scoop this up for release, as I think it’s an interesting look into the pot business from a unique perspective. I also think it could do VERY well at the Indie Spirits. You can watch Freeland for a couple more days (at least) with a QnA with cast and crew on Thursday night right here.

Also, check out the Eventive site for the final week line-up which includes a TON of shorts. (Be mindful, that some of the content, specifically The Offline Playlist, will only be watchable if you’re in Mississippi.)

Also starting this week on Thursday is the 5th Annual Dallas-based Women Texas Film Festival (aka WTxFF), also going virtual this year, which I don’t really know that much about, but it’s run by my friend, Justina Walford, and she generally knows her shit when it comes to movies. Its mission pledge is right there in the title, but all the movies in the festival have a woman in at least one creative role. You can check out the full list of movies playing here, although they are geoblocked to Texas unfortunately. The festival’s series of panels and QnAs, though, can be watched anywhere in the United States, and those should be good.  

Let’s get to the regular releases….

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Russian filmmaker Egor Abramenko’s SPUTNIK (IFC Midnight), a sci-fi thriller taking place in 1983 after an incident the Russian spaceship Orbit-4 that leaves one of the cosmonauts in detention after the death of his commander. Oksana Akinshina (who was in The Bourne Supremacy) plays Tatyana Klimova, a psychologist sent to study the surviving cosmonaut, Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov), and she learns that he brought back something with him from space.

I was a little worried about this movie, only because the opening reminded me so much of my experience watching the original Russian film Solaris so many years ago. Its quizzical opening in space leads to Akinshina’s character being introduced in a way that’s so slow and talkie that I worried about what I should expect from the movie as a whole. Thankfully, about 20 minutes in, we meet the creature that’s seemingly come down from space inside the cosmonaut, and it immediately changes the very nature of the film.

I don’t want to spoil too much about why the movie gets so interesting, because it’s not non-stop creature kills, although the movie does get quite exciting every time this creature emerges, particularly when it’s being fed various Russian convicts. Even so, the film always remains fairly cerebral about the creature’s origins and its relationship to the cosmonaut, who abandoned a child before his fateful space accident.  Adding to the grey area about whether Tatyana should ally herself with Konstantin is her supervising officer, played by Fedor Bondarchuk, who clearly wants to use the creature as a weapon, knowing that both Konstantin and his “other” only trusts Tatyana, so they all need her.

Needless to say, the creature design is absolutely fantastic, and the comparisons this movie is going to get to Alien are quite apt, because the creature is on par with the xenomorph. I only wish I could see it better since it only comes out in the dark, and watching a movie that plays with light like this one does is just not conducive to watching on a laptop. (In fact, if you’re in a position to see Sputnik in a theater, even a drive-in, and you’re not averse to subtitles, I’d recommend going that route.)

Sputnik might fool you at first into expecting something in the vein of the original Solaris. In fact, it’s more in line with The Invisible Man, a creature feature that explores one man’s inner demons through the lens of science fiction. This probably would have been a better Venom movie than the one we actually got.

Jamie Lannister himself, Nicolaj Costar-Waldau stars in THE SILENCING (Saban Films) the English language debut of Belgian filmmaker Robin Pront (The Ardennes), a dark action-thriller set in the rural area of Echo Falls where a serial killer is hunting and killing young women and girls.

Robin Pront’s The Silencing is usually the type of movie I’d enjoy, if only I haven’t seen the exact same movie so many times before. I wasn’t sure whether it’s Costar-Waldau’s alcoholic hunter Rayburn Swanson, whose daughter disappeared years earlier, or it was cause of Annabelle Wallis, the town’s sheriff, Alice Gustafson, whose troubled brother Brooks (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is caught up enough in the towns drug issues to act as the movie’s second-act red herring. Throw in the Native American aspect of the movie, and you’re right back at Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River, which was just a much better version of this movie all around.

Adding to the lack of originality is the fact that there are now so many television shows about serial killers, which is a shame since Pront’s previous film showed so much promise but also suffered from similar issues. Costar-Waldau gives a credible performance, maybe slightly better than Wallis, but we’ve seen this movie so many times before that even trying to throw in a twist or two goes awry since no one ever commits. The major plot twist about halfway in has an opportunity to change everything but instead, it’s negated mere minutes later.

Slow and grim, The Silencing suffers from being an overused genre that’s been done so much better before. It’s already been playing on DirecTV but will be in select theaters, On Demand and Digital this Friday.

Next up is the thriller THE BAY OF SILENCE (Vertical Entertainment), starring Claes Bang from The Square as Will, whose girlfriend and baby momma Rosalind (Olga Kurylenko) vanishes with their twin daughters and baby son, and her father Milton (Brian Cox) seems to know more than he’s telling.  The film is written and produced by British actor Caroline Goodall (who has a small role in this one), adapted from Lisa St. Aubin de Teran's 1986 novel and directed by Dutch filmmaker Paula van der Oest, who has made some decent films like Black Butterflies and the Oscar-nominated Zus & Zo.

We meet Will and Ros as they’re having a romantic moment in the titular bay in Luguria, Italy, and after a few odd occurrences, Ros vanishes with her twin girls and the baby boy they had together. It doesn’t take long for Will to find her, but she seems to have gone insane, and Will needs to find out what happened.

Honestly, it’s not worth getting too deep into this movie’s plot, not so much due to spoilers, but more because there are just so many WTF moments that happen out of the blue, and then the next moment they’re forgotten. For whatever reason, the movie just doesn’t allow any of the tension or mystery to build, and even the most horrificly grim plot turn is handled so matter-of-factly.

There’s no question that van der Oest is a fine filmmaker, something you can tell from the general look of the movie, but the pacing and tons is generally all over the place as nothing happens and then a LOT happens. Bang’s decent performance is countered by a lot of overacting from Kulryenko, and while Cox plays a much bigger role in the story than you might expect, his scenes do very little to elevate the film’s plodding tone.

The Bay of Silence is a highly uneven and bland thriller that tries to offer a twist a minute with very of them ever really connecting, instead feeling grim and tedious and like a lot of wasted potential. Oddly, it feels more original than The Silencing above but just doesn’t come together even as well.

Where do I even begin with Eugene Kotlyarenko’s SPREE (RLJE Films) except that it stars Stranger Thing’s Joe Keery as Kurt Kunkle “of Kunkle’s World,” a social media vlog where he tries to get viewer’s attention and likes. He finally decides to go on a killing spree (get it?) while picking up passengers in his car ride service Spree (see?), until he encounters a stand-up comic (Sasheer Zamata) who fights back.

Listen, I understand fine why a movie like Spree might get made, since it’s meant to be relevant to the youngsters, who are much like Kurt, totally obsessed with their own social media and getting attention. The idea of some kid becoming a serial killer just to draw more attention to himself is not exactly incredible. I found Kurt so annoying that I didn’t think I would ever be able to have any empathy for him, and I was right.

We basically watch Kurt driving around and killing various people, most of them pretty horrible, granted, but Keery comes off more like a bargain-basement Christian Bale in American Psycho. Zamata is generally the best part of the movie, which is why the last third starts to get past some of the movie’s earlier problems to become more about an actual influencer showing Kurt how it’s done. (Zamata’s “SNL” castmate Kyle Mooney can’t really do much to make their scenes together funnier, since it’s just another sleazeball hitting on her.)

David Arquette also has a few funny scenes as Kurt’s father, but what’s probably gonna throw a lot of people off and make or break the movie is that so much of it is made to look like it was filmed on a smartphone, complete with running commentary from the viewers that you’re supposed to read, and presumably enjoy? Me, I just found it annoying.

Spree is gonna be one of those love-it-or-hate-it movies depending on which side of the age gap you’re on. To me, it just seemed way too obvious and not something I could possibly recommend to anyone over 19.

Okay… Documentary time!

I really wanted to like Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ BOYS STATE (A24/Apple TV+), which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and received Special Jury Prize at SXSW Film Festival, but it’s a pollical doc that deals with a subject that just didn’t interest me very much. It follows a thousand teen boys from Texas who come together to form a government from the ground up, and that’s the problem right there. The fact this is all about guys. I just couldn’t get interested enough to watch the whole thing since it seemed obvious how it would turn out. Boys State was supposed to open in select cities last month but instead, it will be on Apple TV+ Friday after getting a few drive-in preview screenings, cause that’s just the way things are going these days.

Willa Kammerer’s Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America (Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation/Abramorama), which will open in Virtual Cinema Friday after a Virtual Premiere tonight. It seems very timely, as it deals with investing in high-quality early child education. Just as timely is Muta’Ali Muhammad’s Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn (HBO Documentary Films), which premieres on HBO tonight, looking at the events around the 1989 murder of teenager Yusuf Hawkins by a group of white men in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.  Erik Nelson’s doc Apocalypse ’45 (Discovery/Abramorama), which will be in theaters this Friday and on Discovery over Labor Day weekend, is about the end of World War II, using never-before-seen footage with narration by 24 men who were there for it.

Quiver Distribution has two movies out this Friday, both which could probably be seen as young adult movies – not really a genre I like very much, so your mileage may vary?

ENDLESS from director Scott Speer (Midnight Sun) is a romantic drama starring Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse) as graphic novelist Riley, whose boyfriend, Nick Hamilton’s Chris gets stranded in limbo after he’s killed in a car crash. Taking the blame for his death on herself, Riley struggles to find ways to reconnect with Chris in the afterlife.

I wasn’t sure if this movie would be for me, since I’m not a very big fan of young adult movies generally. So many of them have hard-to-believe high-concept premises involving two lovelorn teens – Midnight Sun being a good example. Unlike so many of these movies, Endless isn’t based on a popular book, and I was a little worried about Speer’s skills as a director and whether he could avoid turning this into a very obvious teen version of Ghost. There’s a little bit of that but on a whole, the movie isn’t a complete waste of time. For instance, Shipp is decent in this sort of dramatic role, probably better than Hamilton, and it avoids getting too weepy thanks to DeRon Horton’s animated Jordan, who befriends Chris in limbo and quickly becomes the movie’s frequent saving grace.

Otherwise, the movie feels like any other soppy teen romantic drama, being very predicable with way too much overacting, particularly from Fammke Janssen as Chris’ Mom. Even though the relationship between Shipp and Hamilton works fine, unless you’re on board with the whole concept of the latter spending the entire film as a spirit, you’re going to have a hard time fully enjoying the movie.

In Bobby Roth’s PEARL, Larsen Thompson plays the title character, a 15-year-old piano prodigy whose mother Helen (Sarah Carter from The Flash) is murdered by her stepfather (Nestor Carbonell). She’s sent to live with Jack Wolf (Anthony LaPaglia), an unemployed film director, who used to be one of her mother’s ex-lovers, who also might be Pearl’s father. I know! Let’s spend an entire movie going back and forth trying to figure it out, okay?

I don’t have a ton to say about this movie, but if for some reason, you want to watch it just cause you’re a fan of Carter from The Flash, you should know that she appears in the movie via a series of black and white flashbacks to show her relationship with Jack, but those might be the best part of a very bad movie.

Thompson just isn’t a very solid actor to carry this, and Roth must have pulled a lot of favors to get this movie made ‘cause it wasn’t financed based on the script. Her relationship with LaPaglia just seems kinda creepy. Things just gets worse and worse, especially when Pearl goes to school and the other girls act like they’re in prison. There’s also Barbara Williams as Pearl’s alcoholic grandmother – the fun just never begins, does it?

At its worst, Pearl comes across like a Lifetime movie – not the first time I’ve used this statement this year and probably not the last. It’s just very dull and not a very good movie; LaPaglia is way too good an actor who deserves better than this.

Also on VOD this week is Kevin Tran’s Dark End of the Street (Gravitas Ventures), an indie horror movie involving a community in the suburbs plagued by someone who is killing the residents’ pets. This wasn’t a terrible movie but I had a hard time getting past the general premise about killing pets, so it was hard to get into what Tran tried to do in terms of putting a twist on a tried-and-true horror genre. Maybe I’ll give this another try after finishing this column.

Also, Ben Galland’s action-comedy Gripped: Climbing the Killer Pillar (1091) follows Rose (Megan Kesley), a L.A. gym climber who falls for rugged outdoorsman Bret (Kaiwi Lyman) as they embark on a trip to climb the “Killer Pillar” in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, only to get caught on a cliff edge.

The Metrograph’s Live Screening Series is continuing with a great line-up over the rest of August with the Satoshi Kon Retrospective continuing with Millennium Actress playing until midnight tonight, plus Masaaki Yuasa & Koji Morimoto’s popular 2004 film Mind Game starting Wednesday night at 8pm. Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day (2001) will screen on Friday at 8pm, and then Monday, Jenna Bliss’ animated The People’s Detox (2018) will join the screening library. To become a digital member, it’s only $5 a month or $50 for a year, which is a great deal for the amount of movies you see.

Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema will stream Paulo Rocha’s 1963 film Change of Life starting Friday while Film Forum will stream Weiner Holzemer’s doc Martin Margiella: In His Own Words about the fashion designer, as well as Bert Stern’s Jazz on a Summer’s Day which is a 1959 documentary about the fashion photographer filming the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Hoagy Carmichael, Mahalia Jackson, Thelonious Monk and many more.

Apparently, Netflix has a new movie out on Friday called Project Power, starring Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but I received ABSOLUTELY NADA about it from Netflix, so this is all you get. Watch out, Netflix, there are a lot of streaming options out there now!

Speaking of drive-ins (which I was WAY up there), on Wednesday, you can catch the latest in Amazon Studios “A Night at the Drive In” series. “Movies to Make You Open Your Eyes,” which will screen Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Jordan Peele’s Get Out.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[thekolsocial]

Calls To Purge Symbols Of Slavery On Streets, Schools & More

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Calls To Purge Symbols Of Slavery On Streets, Schools & More

[vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px” content_text_aligment=”” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Calls To Purge Symbols Of Slavery On Streets, Schools & More

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”26px”][vc_column_text]What’s in a name? U.S. towns see racism through symbols of slavery in streets, schools and more.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”26px”][vc_empty_space height=”26px”][vc_column_text]Protests over racial inequality have spurred a new reckoning over Confederate monuments and symbols, with calls for U.S. schools, streets and counties to be renamed and statues felled. The debate over Confederate monuments was thrust into the spotlight three years ago, when white nationalists and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to defend two statues of Confederate generals that the city had decided to take down.

Hundreds of U.S. towns have monuments to figures such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who led the pro-slavery Confederate army in the 1861-1865 Civil War. Advocates for removal say they represent institutionalised racism and white supremacy, while defenders say they are a part of Southern heritage and caution against erasing all history. But even more common than the statues are buildings and boulevards named after the former Southern heroes, many of which exist in places where the population is now majority black.

“Forcing children to go to a school named after someone who fought to dehumanise them… is wrong,” said Lecia Brooks, a spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organisation in Montgomery, Alabama. “Now that people are beginning to understand what is meant by systemic racism and white supremacy, they’re beginning to make the connection,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The head of a statue of Christopher Columbus was pulled off overnight amid protests against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 10, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

SPLC documented nearly 1,800 public symbols of the Confederacy in a 2019 report, including 103 schools, 80 counties and cities, and nine state holidays. Some have already been taken down and the protests – sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man at the hands of a white police officer  – will likely speed the process, said Brooks. Although some states have laws against removing monuments, changing street or school names is easier, she said.

In Virginia, a student-led petition to change the name and mascot of Lee-Davis High School, named after Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, garnered over 15,000 signatures in less than a week. Its sports teams are called “the Confederates”. “I’ve been watching the Black Lives Matter movement grow… and I kept on being reminded of my school and the name and how embarrassing and racist it is,” said Sophie Lynn, the 16-year-old who started the petition. “This is not the first time this has been brought up, but I thought we might as well try it again,” she said. The Hanover County school board voted against a name change when it was raised in 2018, and has not yet responded to the new petition.

Protests over racial inequality have gone global since the death on May 25 of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Outrage over monuments followed, with protesters pulling down a statue of a slave trader in the English city of Bristol and setting alight a statue of Belgian colonialist King Leopold II in Antwerp.

A monument of Confederate president Jefferson Davis was marked during widespread civil unrest following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. June 5, 2020. REUTERS/Julia Rendleman

In the United States, the calls extended beyond Confederate symbols. One online petition called for changing all the names of streets and places named after slave owners in New York City, such as Madison Avenue and Washington Square. “Names have a profound psychological impact on us, and their continued existence is a part of the infrastructure that upholds white supremacy,” wrote journalist Joe Penney, who started the petition.

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously criticised the removal of Confederate statues by saying that it could lead to the removal of monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s founding fathers who also owned slaves. “You really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” Trump said in 2017.

Historian James Grossman said Confederate names should be changed and statues of Confederate generals moved to museums, but that this should not extend to anyone who owned slaves. “A statue of Jefferson is a monument to the principles of the declaration of independence, although Jefferson was a flawed hero. A monument to Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee is a monument to the cause of the confederacy,” said Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association. “What matters is what are you commemorating. When you put up a statue, you’re saying these are the values of our community,” he said.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”26px”][vc_empty_space height=”26px”][/vc_column][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/2″]

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