#budget 2020 key points

[nanowrimo]

Writing Tips for Every Age and Mental State

Not every piece of writing advice will apply to you —  and that’s okay! Sometimes, your writing strategies will change as you go through life or learn more about yourself. NaNo Participant Clara Ward shares writing advice that they've learned over time.

There’s no right way to write. Writing—like life—is about finding your best fit. What follows are tricks that worked for me. Please borrow what works best for you right now. (Then save a few ideas for future you!)

I wrote my first novel four decades ago, when I was thirteen. I’ve written while juggling three jobs or zero. I’ve written as a kid, a parent, and an empty-nester. I’ve learned from my own neurodiversity and mental health challenges along the way.

Each struggle taught me how to customize my writing practice. Here’s a list of what worked for me at different stages. Adapt as you see fit.

Stage 1: Meet Yourself Where You’re At

Outline - For my first novel, I sketched furtive notes on the back pages of a school notebook. I created headings for each page that became section or chapter titles later. Numbers helped me order the scenes and letters delineated details.

Note: Leave extra space for fun facts or snippets of overheard dialog. Years later, I heard a NaNoWriMo buddy joke, “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel.” My apologies to my high school geometry teacher, who received no such warning.

Avoid Distractions - I needed a closed door to write at first. I couldn’t read other fiction during the week or two when I frantically converted my outline into a rough draft. Luckily, I wasn’t in charge of meals back then!

Stage 2: Find Your People

Give Yourself Permission - I first heard about NaNoWriMo in 2004, when I was parenting, working, and volunteering as if there were two extra days in each week. I hadn’t written a story, an outline, or notes in over a year, but I knew exactly what I wanted to write. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and opened a family meeting by showing the webpage to my spouse and kids. I explained how I’d budget four hours a week for writing in November.

Note: I didn’t complete 50,000 words that first November. But the next year, my kids enthusiastically joined the Young Writers Program!

Enlist Support - Eventually, my kids and I designated one hour each day for writing. There were many distractions, but it felt great! We attended NaNoWriMo write-ins at a donut shop to build community, and my kids each persuaded a friend to join. (Yes, donuts are a sometimes food, but at least they weren’t asking for coffee!). With support and determination—and for me, a bit of sleep debt—we all met our writing goals most years!

Stage 3: Embrace Your True Strengths

Emotion Mapping - In the last couple decades, as attitudes and terminology evolved, I’ve learned a lot about my own neurodivergence and mental health. Oddly enough, the self-knowledge I gained by masking and compensating before I knew those words, informed both my writing and the tips given above. As I became more honest with myself, I brought more emotion to my writing.

Note: Sometimes it helps to skip scenes I’m not in a good headspace to write. I jot down key plot and character points inside curly brackets and skip to a scene that suits my current feelings. Since I don’t used curly brackets anywhere else in my writing, they’re easy to search for when I’m ready to go back.

Fascinations - After years of being warned about “info dumps,” I realized that my own fascinations (neurodivergent or otherwise) were assets that could serve my writing. At the beginning of 2020 I did a deep dive into researching sea creatures and ways to protect our oceans. At the back of my research notebook, I gradually outlined my 2020 NaNoWriMo Novel, Be the Sea. Parts of that outline cross-referenced pages of ocean research or articles I’d saved online.

Note: The system above worked well enough for me that I now have a book deal for Be the Sea, which will be published by Atthis Arts in early 2024!

Seriously though, this isn’t a post about how to get published on a 40-year plan. By matching your writing practices to your ever-changing self, you give all your stories the chance to be told. I wish you and your stories that success!

Clara Ward lives in Silicon Valley on the border between reality and speculative fiction. When not using words to teach or tell stories, Clara uses wood, fiber, and glass to make practical or completely impractical objects. Their short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Decoded Pride, The Arcanist, and as a postcard from Thinking Ink Press. Clara’s 2020 NaNoWriMo novel, Be the Sea, will be available from Atthis Arts in early 2024. For updates on this and other projects, follow Clara on their website. Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels

[covid-safer-hotties]

As new school year opens, COVID-19 surge forces abrupt classroom closures in the US

In the opening days of the 2024-25 school year, at least two schools were forced to shut down due to SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as 1.3 million Americans are currently being infected daily, and most US schools have yet to reopen. For instance, in New York, Michigan and many other northern states, districts typically start after Labor Day.

On Monday, August 12, Jefferson-Abernathy-Graetz (JAG) High School in Montgomery, Alabama closed, moving to remote learning. Fifteen educators reported COVID-19 infection after last week’s two-day orientation. Officials said they would reassess the situation and possibly reopen the building by Friday, at which point they said masks and disinfectant wipes would be made available to students.

The same day as the Alabama closure, Humboldt schools in western Tennessee called off classes at Stigall Primary. Officials informed parents by letter that the school would be closed for “sanitizing” due to an “uptick in COVID.” A later report said an undisclosed number of students and staff tested positive for COVID-19, while others were symptomatic.

“Everyone’s like, ‘COVID is back, COVID is back’,” said Jessica Williamson, a parent of a first grader at Stigall. “I just feel like it didn’t really go anywhere,” she told local media. “Those are little kids. They’re the most prone to put things in their mouths, to touch each other, to just share germs,” Willamson said.

Why, indeed, is “COVID back”? The response of the Tennessee school to the outbreak provides a partial answer.

The district said it was carrying out a “deep clean, disinfecting every surface,” according to Ginger Carver, the communications director for the school district. She added that teachers and staff would follow protocols to keep the classrooms and common areas disinfected. “When students move from class to class, teachers will be wiping down the desks, the desktop surfaces. They’ll be using disinfectants. Basically, the protocols that we were doing back when COVID was full blown,” she said. Humboldt schools reopened on Wednesday.

In other words, COVID is returning with the new school year because no action is being taken to combat the main cause of COVID transmission, the aerosolization of the virus. Furthermore, schools are being reopened almost immediately despite high community spread.

As scientists have demonstrated and nearly five years of COVID deaths have underscored, the key to fighting COVID is disinfection of the air. Without the use of HEPA filtration in all indoor spaces and other mechanisms, including Far-UV light, schools will dramatically exacerbate the spread of the disease. Despite the use of these methodologies by the ruling elites to protect themselves—at the Davos Economic Summit or at the White House, for instance—no such measures are in place for millions of schoolchildren.

The Biden administration, with the full support of the Republican Party, has deprived schools of the funds necessary to make schools safe and prioritized spending for war. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds allocated to schools beginning in 2020 were purportedly aimed at counteracting COVID. However, they fell far short of addressing the urgently required but costly upgrading of air quality in schools. ESSER amounted to a financial band-aid to districts reeling from decades of budget cuts and inflation.

A House of Representatives study prior to COVID showed that US school buildings were so antiquated and dangerously unsafe that outlays of $145 billion per year were required to modernize and maintain them. The costs of air disinfection would no doubt significantly increase that figure. For its part, the Biden/Harris administration allowed ESSER to end while funneling more than $1 trillion into its rapidly expanding wars against Russia in Ukraine and its military build-up against Iran and China.

Death and disease have been normalized, while mitigation measures as important and effective as masking have been demonized by the right wing among both Republicans and Democrats. This is another reason COVID is back to greet returning students.

An important new study in The Lancet has shown the critical importance of face coverings to prevent transmission in indoor spaces. As Bill Shaw reported on the WSWS:

Face coverings dramatically reduce the load of SARS-CoV-2 in exhaled breath from infected persons. The reductions reached as high as 98 percent, with variations according to the type of face covering worn.

Despite this clear research, neither these schools nor others will require masking when they reopen, spurring new outbreaks of COVID.

Reacting to the new school-related outbreaks, healthcare expert and data analyst Greg Travis posted on X/Twitter Wednesday, “FYI since 2020 more children have died of their SARS-CoV-2 infections … than from all other infectious pathogens COMBINED Stop pretending that SARS-CoV-2 spreading in schools is only a problem for parents, teachers, bus drivers, etc. It is killing kids.”

It is killing and disabling parents, staff and family members as well. JAG High School in Montgomery was the workplace of beloved school custodian Morris Pitts, who died of COVID on November 29, 2020. Pitts was one of eight educators from Montgomery whose lives were taken over a matter of weeks. State, local and federal government officials turned a blind eye to the rampaging virus to keep students in school and parents at work.

The criminal “let it rip” policy of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Biden’s ending of the Public Health Emergency in May 2023 has left the working class abandoned to the ravages of the disease and the growth of Long COVID.

In that vein, Montgomery parents were also instructed—in the most milquetoast language—that when their children develop symptoms, “it’s best to keep them at home.”

Education unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), have said nothing about the inevitable superspread resulting from the beginning of a new school year in the midst of a record summer surge. As their websites testify, the AFT and NEA are instead hyperfocused on getting out the vote for Harris/Walz in November in order to maintain their lucrative role as labor contractors and government partners.

Clare, a member of the Alabama Educators Rank and File Committee who protested the unsafe conditions in schools on the Montgomery County Court House steps in October 2020, denounced the failure of schools and health authorities to protect children. She noted that she is herself currently recovering from the virus and had been told by a Veterans Administration nurse, “Just treat the symptoms.” She angrily related that the nurse “had the nerve to say the common cold is just a variation of coronavirus, an extract of COVID. She refused to test me, telling me people are not dying as before and that I’d be alright. They denied me a test. I think they just don’t want to pay for tests anymore.”

Referring to the Montgomery educators who formed “No Plan, No Personnel” and then the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Committee, Clare said, “This was the problem from the beginning, they have no plan. They should know we might have to go remote at any time because nothing has been done to make the schools safe.”

Clare said a recent family funeral resulted in at least eight members of her family contracting COVID in the summer surge. Bitterly refuting the claims that the virus has mutated to a mild, non-threatening disease, she said, “I felt like I was dying, I never felt like this before. On my third day, it was not a headache—it felt like a migraine. I had body aches from my head through my spine to my feet. I couldn’t breathe and was nauseous. It’s been two and a half weeks now, and I’m fatigued from just doing simple things. It’s debilitating. I get so tired I can’t even pick up the phone.”

While these two schools have been forced to close, right-wing administrators around the country are vowing to keep schools running no matter the cost. On July 31, Arizona State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne told ABC News that despite the surge across his state, “If anybody talks about closing school, I will fight it as hard as I can.” He added, “Closing of the schools that occurred last time was an unbelievable disaster.” His contemptuous disdain for the health of students and their communities was buttressed by his referencing of the CDC’s prescription to treat COVID “like a common respiratory virus.”

While the fascist right is pushing for prohibitions on school closures and outright anti-vaccination policies, the dismantling of the public health system has been bipartisan. It began with Trump but was then spearheaded by the Biden administration. Both ruling class parties insist that workers should report to work, whether or not they are sick. Under the Biden/Harris administration over 800,000 Americans died from COVID, while millions more suffered debilitating Long COVID, for which the long-term generational impacts of annual reinfections will not be fully grasped for years or decades to come.

The two schools in Tennessee and Alabama are the only sites currently reporting outbreaks, but this has more to do with lack of media coverage than lack of COVID. For instance, in a San Diego high school, the administration sent a cart around with free COVID tests (although well past their 2022 expiration dates).

Another reason for the return of COVID arises from the years of right-wing disinformation campaigns to spread confusion and conspiracy theories within the population, cultivating the most backward and fascistic conceptions. This has resulted in a terrible decline of vaccination rates for all preventable diseases, not just COVID, which will continue to worsen the impact. The share of kindergarten children with a vaccine exemption has increased in 36 states since the pandemic began. Twenty-one states have banned student COVID-19 vaccine mandates, both Republican- and Democratic-dominated states, including Michigan, Ohio, and New Hampshire.

WSWS writer Benjamin Mateus reported on the declining rates of vaccination:

As of May 11, 2024, only 22.5 percent of adults have received an updated COVID vaccine since September 14, 2023. However, for children six months of age through 17, that figure is a deplorable 14.4 percent.

He noted the social impact of these abysmal numbers:

Including the complete abandonment of all mitigation measures, the ongoing surge of infections is being driven by the waning immunity in the population.

The pandemic has revealed the contempt of the ruling elites and both of their political parties, Democrats and Republicans, for the working class. It has exposed the role of the pro-capitalist AFT and NEA, which continue to insist educators work in an unsafe environment and children breathe unsafe air.

Every day, countless people continue to die or be sickened needlessly while mankind has the capacity to end this and future pandemics. The working class must end “Forever COVID” by ending “Forever Capitalism,” taking health and safety into its own hands, and ending the subordination of social life to private profit. Join or build an independent rank-and-file committee at your school or workplace today.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Knefel at MMFA:

Russ Vought, a frequent guest on right-wing media shows and key figure in Project 2025, a broad effort to staff a future Republican administration, will have a top role in drafting the platform for the GOP's convention this July, virtually ensuring the document will be a wishlist of MAGA priorities. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign made the joint announcement on May 15, highlighting Vought’s new role “as the committee's policy director” for the RNC’s 2024 Committee on the Platform and noting his previous tenure as director of the Office of Management and Budget under former President Donald Trump. In that position, Vought oversaw the administration’s attempts to remove supposed “critical race theory trainings” from federal programs and sought to coordinate the White House’s directives across the executive branch more broadly. 

[...]

After Trump’s loss in 2020, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, where he has consistently pushed a Christian nationalist agenda. He has called for an “army” of right-wing activists with “biblical worldview” to serve in the next Republican administration, and wrote an op-ed for Newsweek in 2021 with the headline: “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With 'Christian Nationalism?' As Politico reported, “One ​​document drafted by CRA staff and fellows includes a list of top priorities for CRA in a second Trump term. ‘Christian nationalism’ is one of the bullet points.” 

The Center for Renewing America has emerged as a key player in the MAGA-aligned think tank world. It’s one of the more than 100 conservative groups that make up Project 2025, an effort organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide staffing and policy proposals to a future GOP presidency. Vought plays a central role in the effort, including as the author of a chapter in Project 2025’s guiding document, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, in which he argued that the “enormous power” of the executive branch should be exclusively the purview of the president rather than dispersed within agencies and departments.

Though that argument may sound anodyne, Vought’s vision has radical implications. First and foremost, Vought advocates for implementing a policy known as “Schedule F,” which would reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees as political appointees — thus stripping them of union protections. If Trump is reelected in November and chooses to go forward with Schedule F, he could fire career civil servants from agencies and departments en masse and replace them hardcore MAGA foot soldiers, potentially decimating the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and other frequent right-wing targets. “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Vought has said, according to The New York Times.

Center For Renewing America founder and key Project 2025 influencer Russ Vought was appointed to the RNC's Platform Committee for the upcoming convention in Milwaukee this July. #RNC2024

[mariacallous]

Both parties have spoken about the need to focus on children and families during this year’s election cycle. In fact, it has been a talking point for decades in both Democratic and Republican party platforms. Support for children and families is key to the future health of a nation.

Despite this professed commitment, however, approximately 23.6 million young children (0-5 years) in America are at risk of not meeting their developmental potential, draining the country of much-needed human capital. Analyses of the U.S. federal budget indicate very limited investment in children. Overall, data from 2018 to 2024 shows that the share of federal spending on children ranged from 9.71% in fiscal year (FY) 2018 to 12.16% in 2024, with a dip to 7.48% in 2020. Focusing on children under age three, however, indicates a 1.52% federal budget spending in FY 2024. This represented a sliver of the total budget and a decline from an allotment of 1.66% in FY 2023. While the increase in overall spending on children in fiscal year 2024 is welcome news, it falls woefully short of meeting the needs of America’s children and families and is concerning when compared with funding in peer nations around the world.

The result of this checkered pattern of investment is that America ranks last among OECD countries in providing family care and leave, has one of the lowest pre-K enrollment rates with no current universal system in place, last in family-friendly policies, and ranks near the bottom of 41 advanced countries on a series of child wellness markers.

To be fair, the U.S. has taken small steps forward for young children through the Child Tax Credit (CTC), a minor increase in access to licensed childcare centers, an increase in some states for pre-K and family leave. However, these policies offer a piecemeal approach to supporting young children from birth to five years and families and do not offer countrywide, comprehensive coverage. Implementation of many of these initiatives is left to states with uneven consequences. The ultimate result? Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the industrialized nations, and many children in families with fewer resources—who are disproportionately Black and Brown —trail behind their peers from more affluent environments in mental and physical health, education outcomes, and more.

Our wavering commitment to children and families in terms of actionable, comprehensive policies that support children from birth to five years and their families leaves some wondering whether America really cares about its children despite the rhetoric.

This policy brief points to six key areas of investment in which bipartisan action can bring America in line with other nations and make a marked difference in the lives of millions of young children 0-5 years and their families.

We propose bipartisan investment to 1) increase high quality childcare options; 2) increase the availability of quality pre-K; 3) increase programs to mitigate poverty; 4) establish a federal paid family leave policy; 5) increase support for infant and child mental health; and 6) establish a permanent national level body to coordinate multi-sectoral supports for children.

[cleanwaterchronicles]

Lake Erie phosphorus reduction

Protecting and preserving the state’s water quality continues to be a top priority for both the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) and the administration of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist.One focal point of this mission is the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB), where sometimes-harmful algal blooms have affected aquatic life and drinking water in recent years. Factors contributing to algal blooms include nutrient-rich water from wastewater treatment plants and farm fields.While reductions of phosphorus at four of the key wastewater facilities in Michigan’s portion of the WLEB helped Michigan hit its 20% phosphorus loading reduction goal by 2020, they won’t be sufficient to achieve the 40% reduction target Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario agreed to reach by 2025 under the 2015 Western Basin of Lake Erie Collaborative Agreement.Moving forward, it will require new approaches to realize progress from agricultural contributions. MDARD is laser-focused on accelerating conservation in the right places across the WLEB watershed with programs and projects defining success through realistic and achievable water quality outcomes to restore the health of the Lake Erie ecosystem.While significant progress has been made with point sources (pollution from a single identifiable source or area), it’s time to put our foot on the gas pedal with agricultural nonpoint sources (pollution from many sources at once).In support of the governor’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, the Fiscal Year 2024 budget includes a total $15 million investment to support soil health, climatesmart agriculture practices, and regenerative agriculture. These priority areas aren’t solely about building stronger agricultural systems and resilient rural economies; they also place a specific focus on improved environmental outcomes.These investments in soil health to improve water quality are a notable shift in MDARD’s efforts to tackle nutrient losses. Managing agricultural systems to improve waterholding capacity and rainfall infiltration, while enhancing biological cycling to reduce the need for fertilizer inputs, is a paradigm shift in nutrient management for MDARD. Regenerative agriculture principles have been shown to not only reduce nutrient losses but mitigate the impacts of extreme weather – all while prioritizing the agricultural diversity that powers our rural communities.To better prioritize conservation practice implementation and quantify results, the Domestic Action Plan (DAP) Team, composed of staff from MDARD and the Michigan DNR and EGLE, is working with MSU to enhance the Great Lakes Watershed Management System to annually quantify phosphorus load reductions from conservation practice implementation relative to the 40% reduction goal. This public-facing online platform will include a dashboard that tracks water quality outcomes associated with social and ecological metrics, providing greater accountability for program implementation in Michigan’s portion of the WLEB.MDARD is dedicated to achieving demonstrable water quality improvements in Lake Erie. The state’s investments in soil health and regenerative agriculture principles hold the promise to not only improve water quality but enhance the climate resiliency of our agriculture systems, while placing value on how and where our food is grown.These new budget investments by Gov. Whitmer position Michigan to achieve long-term, tangible outcomes that take us beyond water quality.Take a deeper diveLearn more about phosphorus reduction efforts in Michigan’s portion of the Lake Erie watershed at Michigan.gov/LakeErieDAP.

[jasonsutekh]

Psycho Goreman (2020)

An alien is awoken on Earth by a couple of children, one promptly gains the power to control it but an intergalactic mercenary is sent to kills it in the name of order.

It was good to see some of the old style practical effects used with such variety and creativity and several of the creatures were really pretty cool. Even the digital effects, though very low budget, passed ok since the aesthetic was included as part of the humour. A lot of the overall effect was similar to the Power Rangers franchise.

What emotion there was in the narrative was negated by the prominent comedy, which was amusing at times but doing it so consistently left little balance in the tone. One of the key problems was that the main girl was too difficult to identify with since whenever the chance to develop was offered she defaulted to being distant and unusual.

There were a fair few funny lines, the dialogue being the better source of comedy throughout. Most of the rest of the entertainment was created through the fight scenes which were a little slow due to the practical movements but still decent enough. One of the most amusing parts was the homoerotic suggestions made by the Goreman himself.

While it’s an effective kind of humour to parody the classic tropes of most monster movies, there’s a level that this film passes which causes it to undermine its own story without committing entirely to going full Scary Movie franchise. Several of the plot points needed more closure by the end, in particular the young boy who gets no reconciliation aside from a half-apology.

5/10 -Can’t find a better example of average-

-The human disguise PG wears is based on the main protagonist from Jurassic Park (1993).

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 11, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

OCT 12, 2023

In a secret vote by the House Republican Conference today, Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) won the race to become the Republican candidate for speaker of the House of Representatives, beating out Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) by 113 to 99. 

In the past, the conference as a whole would have stood behind the majority’s choice, but traditional rules no longer apply to today’s Republican Party. Three of Jordan’s supporters have already said they will not support Scalise, and Representative George Santos (R-NY) is complaining that Scalise hasn’t called him, convincing him to throw his vote to “ANYONE but Scalise and come hell or high water I won’t change my mind.”

To become speaker, Scalise needs 217 votes. Unless he can attract Democratic votes, he cannot lose more than 4 Republican votes. All 212 House Democrats remain united behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), meaning that he is closer to a majority than any of the Republican candidates.

Rather than hold a floor vote to elect a speaker today, the House recessed in order to let Scalise try to get his ducks in a row.

Both Scalise and Jordan are Trump supporters; both went along with the lie that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. Early in his career, Scalise compared himself to Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke “without the baggage,” while Jordan is accused of overlooking sexual assault when he was an assistant wrestling coach and was a key player in the January 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It is astonishing that a major U.S. political party is considering either man to become the second in line for the presidency. 

As the Republicans try to line up behind one of the two candidates—so far—the chaos is hobbling the government. Until the House is organized again under a new speaker, it cannot provide aid to Ukraine or Israel, or work toward reaching an agreement on next year’s budget before the continuing resolution funding the government at 2023 levels runs out in mid-November. Or do pretty much anything other than try to elect a speaker.

Senate Republicans are creating their own chaos. Joe Gould and Connor O’Brien of Politico reported today that in the Senate, Democrats are trying to push through the hold Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has placed on more than 300 military promotions as well as other senators’ holds on a number of diplomatic officers. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has called for a reform of the current nominations process, which permits a single senator to stop confirmations. 

In light of the crisis in the Middle East, the holds reveal how easy it is for a senator or two to weaken the United States. Gould and O’Brien point out that Tuberville’s hold means that two of the senior military positions in the region are unconfirmed, as are State Department appointments including ambassadorships to Middle Eastern countries—among them both Egypt and Israel—and the department’s top counterterrorism position. 

These are not controversial appointments in their own right. Republicans are using them as leverage for their own policy goals. Pentagon officials have warned senators that the holds are disrupting our national security and that of our allies and partners. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today heard arguments in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, a gerrymandering case notable in part because the attorneys and justices all agree that the Republican-dominated South Carolina legislature constructed a district map rigged in favor of Republicans so dramatically that it is virtually impossible for Republicans to lose. 

In the 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause decision, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering was a state question rather than a federal one, making it impossible to challenge partisan gerrymanders in federal courts. But partisan gerrymanders quite often overlap with racial gerrymanders, and the question before the court in Alexander is whether the South Carolina map violated the law by being racially discriminatory. A federal three-judge panel agreed that it did, but if the Supreme Court disagrees, the process of carving up districts so politicians can pick their own voters will have gotten even easier.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[notebooknebula]

From Veteran To Real Estate Millionaire: Gervon Simon with Jay Conner

https://www.jayconner.com/podcast/episode-73-from-veteran-to-real-estate-millionaire-gervon-simon-with-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority/

Key Takeaways:

Funding your deals without using your own money

How to Become a Millionaire in three years

Perfecting the BRRR method: Buy, Rehab, Renovate, Refinance

How to find real estate deals before your competition does: be a realtor

Veterans can get multiple VA loans,

Lessons learned: Have a margin and learn to say no—nothing ever goes according to your budget plan.

Don’t let your emotions decide—the math should make the decision.

Advice for new investors: partner in some way or form, especially with someone who knows what they’re doing.

Don’t wait to buy real estate. The number way to be on the winning side is by owning properties.

Gervon Simon is the founder of GQ Home Team, a real estate company that buys/sells homes.

Within just 12 months in business, in 2021, they sold 61 homes worth over $30M.

On the side, he has also stepped into real estate development, and since 2020, he has flipped 10 properties.

Gervon is a military veteran who attended The United States Military Academy at West Point, from 2013 to 2017, where he played football and graduated with a degree in business management.

During Gervon's time serving as an officer in the Army, he had to gain the trust of many different kinds of individuals to be effective at his job.

Today, he draws upon this experience when he works with his real estate clients, and he is dedicated to being transparent, honest, and encouraging each step of the way.

Gervon has had the opportunity to work with several clients in a variety of circumstances, whether the clients were purchasing their first home, selling their home due to hard times, or relocating from across the country for a military move.

He faced many different situations and challenges, and each time he’s been able to empower his clients to accomplish their goals. In addition to helping his clients with their real estate endeavors,

Gervon also invests in real estate on his own, and in 2018 he purchased his first 2 rental properties.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

0:17 – Today’s guests: Gervon Simon

2:13 – How Gervon Simon Gets Started In The Real Estate Business

5:51 – How Do You Fund Your Deals Without Using Your Own Money

7:10 – Jay’s Free Private Money Guide: https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide

8:31 – How To Become A Millionaire In A Span Of 3 Years

11:37 – Perfecting the BRRRR Method

14:06 – How To Find the Best Real Estate Deals Before Your Competition Does

16:25 – Veterans Can Get Multiple VA Loans

19:03 – Gervon Simon’s Early Struggles And Lessons Learned On His Real Estate Business

21:53 – Best Advice For Brand New Real Estate Investors

25:47 – Connect with Gervon Simon: https://www.TheGQHomeTeam.com

26:01 – Team Website – https://www.GQHomeTeamWA.com

26:29 – Parting Comments from Gervon Simon: Don’t Wait To Buy Real Estate. The Number One Way Of Being A Part Of The Winning Side Is Own Real Estate And Collect Assets.

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://www.JaysLiveEvent.com

Free Report:

Join the Private Money Academy: 

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now?

It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at

What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his own money or credit.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

YouTube Channel

Apple Podcasts:

Facebook:

Listen to our Podcast:

[leam1983]

Oh (no) Canada...

We've made ourselves some pasta salad and some deviled eggs, and Walt thought he'd break ground by introducing us to Maria Chapdelaine, the 2020 adaptation of Louis Hémon's 1910s novel on the long-suffering nature of your average French Canadian Catholic settler.

To be fair, he knew what to expect and pointed a finger at me. "Don't spoil it for me or Sarah, Mister French Literature degree!" he'd said, while bringing his slice of Key Lime pie to slowly peck at it over the movie's runtime.

I'm not about to give anyone who could read this an expert class, but let's just say that the early twentieth century was one that saw Eastern Canada be oppressively stifled by our Catholic priesthood, to the point of instilling gonzo virtues in the local literary output - such as the notion that a self-respecting colonist moved way up north into Pine Country, hacked foundations out of soil that never completely thaws using primitive tools and then spent a precious few months out of the entire year cultivating a few veggies out of the hardscrabble, with the end-goal of either covering his loan for his lot and tools or dying a good, long, agonizing and Christian death while the sawbones is trying to push a frustrated gelding through fifteen inches of snow. The priest got to you first if you were lucky, you were given your Last Rites and, well, that was it.

So. In this context, we find young and demure Maria Chapdelaine, settled in a verdant hellhole I'd call the Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean region generations prior to modern-day logging camps and factories. As the exact same spot today is heavily industrialized outside of the pine preserves, but back then, it basically was a clean slate. For people from Montreal or Quebec City, the North was their second Klondike of choice: either you moved down to the States to adapt to the Big City or you abandoned civilization out of the honestly unproven notion that you could just Harvest Moon your way to prosperity.

Maria is sixteen, marriageable, demure, soft-spoken - and absolutely gonzo for a Métis trapper called François Paradis. He represents the 1910s Judeo-Christian ideal in the region, the "Civilized Wild Man" with all the virtues needed to thrive in Society and all the backbone and gumption you'd need to stake out your own fortune in an inhospitable environment. He loves her in the same way - desperately. She hasn't obtained her father's consent, however, so nothing happens. Nothing happens for long enough, in fact, that François up and dies in those pine-strewn wastes after betraying his status as a supposedly-flawless tracker. Maria is beyond distraught, but her social conditioning holds fast. She's the second woman of the household, so her grief only shows at night.

The problem is, Paradis hadn't proposed to her. He hadn't so much as engaged her, either, so it's effectively a love being pined for out of wedlock. You can imagine what the local priests, hypocrites that they are, would've thought about that.

Then comes the second john; a man going by Lorenzo Surprenant. He's the Self-Made Man, the Guy Who's Made it - or to borrow from French songwriter Bernard Lavilliers, the archetypal Tonton d'America, pulling several tall tales about Buffalo, Indiana's trolley system, its electric lights, its well-heated and lit brownstones and, well, the whole glitz and glam of the City, when all you've known is pines that are snowy about eight months out of twelve. Maria hasn't gone over the loss of her pelt-wearing Ken doll, so she responds to Lorenzo's advances noncommittally.

Finally follows Eutrope Gagnon, her neighbour by a few country miles who more or less promises a straight-line continuation of her current life. If anything, he's barely more of an optimized version of her father, as he's budgeted every purchase decades in advance and clearly has contingency plans set in place that could allow for failing crops or subpar yields to generate some profit. He has none of the first's passion, none of the second's pragmatic outlook on holding down a city-based job - and also none of the elder Chapdelaine's hangups about working on a milder lot further down south, where yields are better even if the social and moral credit of giving it a shot up north is abandoned.

If you thought she'd throw her conventions aside during a Disney musical number and confront Buffalo as a new challenge for her to undertake, you haven't really studied up on how the upper States and Provinces in the East coast were still stupefyingly Conservative as of World War One. The Roaring Twenties would improve things in cities, but only the sixties would see Progressivism fully kick the French Canadian clergy in the teeth.

As all this - the suffering of people like Maria's character, her settling for an unambitious life focused on servitude - was seeded in place by our clergy. We were born humble, made for humble lives and destined for hardship. To the Anglophones and Americans went tall tale of pre- and postwar success, we were being held down and more or less morally and intellectually abused by a ruling class of stole-wearing fuckwads who were the defacto lords-o-the-manor for most lots across Quebec that weren't, in fact, in Anglophone hands.

Considering this, should you really be surprised that Quebec and Ontario are as Liberal and Progressive as they are? We didn't just cast our chains off in the Quiet Revolution - we broke them to smithereens. It makes most of us default allies to POC, to the LGBTQA+, all of it because we know precisely well what it feels like to be marginalized. We know precisely how it feels to have natural instincts, personal goals or greater hopes be considered anathema by morons with a collar who hid behind their status as divinely-anointed representatives to control local politics, stifle minds and hoard their admittedly surprising scientific knowledge base (see Jesuits and their interest in Natural Sciences, for instance) for themselves alone.

They got money, they got resources, and French Canadians were told to shut up and take it, to the point where one of our leading character archetypes in adventure serials was Maria Chapdelaine's clone!

Shut up and like it. Carry your burden nobly. Suffer for sins you know nothing of. Endure in silence, for your reward is in Heaven.

Walt's background is consequently different. He grew up reading of Ontario's own Catholic and Anglican priesthoods, but Ontario and the ROC never really had this masochistic complex on being less than nothing and remaining as such. Ontarians are Diet Americans, in a sense - same gusto, same gumption, with just a dash of extra manners inherited from their long-removed English roots. If Louis Hémon had couched his story anywhere close to Sarnia, for instance, the poor kid would've hightailed it to Buffalo without question.

So, as the movie ended, and did so with the slight alteration of Maria not giving any of the three men a definitive answer - Walt gave me a puzzled look.

"Why didn't she leave with Lorenzo? I don't get it."

"Because the story isn't concerned with making sense, Walt," I told him. "This is catechism for shiftless Frenchie kids in their mid-teens as of 1910, hawked to them by well-meaning child molesters who only really think of putting more money in the diocese's coffers by acting as money-lenders to reckless kids with a sense of adventure and some misplaced Judeo-Christian sense of duty."

Sarah, who didn't study Lit, is equally confused. "Why send anyone up north like that? The ground's no good without modern tech or hydroponics!"

I scoffed. "You think fucking priests knew this? These guys seriously thought you could pray horniness away and pray fertility into a bunch of rocks and roots. Oh, and let's not forget that this didn't concern anyone's identity as a Québécois - anyone who did this was a Canadian French; un Canadien errant."

Walt falls silent as he processes this for a few seconds. "I mean, I sort of already knew why, but after this? After seeing this, your Atheism makes a Hell of a lot more sense. Damn, I'd have kicked one of those sanctimonious pricks in the balls, too!"

So... Québécois Lit 101, or Why Catholicism is a fucking grift that's only just recently realized that people are growing increasingly harder to indoctrinate into unquestioning belief.

Which is sort of funny, seeing as you see a lot of local hardcore Atheists sort of take to a hodgepodge of various spiritual, occult or "magical" practices - but hey, they reason, as long as you're not putting more money in the pockets of some shriveled old goat in a white stole in the Vatican, it's all good, right?

I mean, I guess. It's not like Brighid or Odin the Allfather or fucking Baron Samedi have tax collectors indoctrinating people left and right, hm?

Anyway - Happy Canada Day, if you're the type to go shop at Roots.

[rdtechindore]

Best books for finance

Here are some best books on finance

 that might interest you to buy:

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" is a personal finance book written by Robert Kiyosaki. It was published in 1997 and has since become a bestseller, selling over 32 million copies worldwide. The book advocates for financial education and encourages the reader to think differently about money. It suggests that traditional financial advice, such as getting a good education and working hard, may not necessarily lead to financial success. Instead, the book promotes the idea of building wealth through investing in assets and starting businesses. The book is based on Kiyosaki's own experiences growing up with two fathers, one of whom was financially successful and the other financially struggling. It has been highly influential and is considered a classic in the personal finance genre.

"Think and Grow Rich" is a personal development and self-help book by Napoleon Hill. It was published in 1937 and has since sold millions of copies worldwide. The book teaches the reader how to think positively and overcome mental barriers to achieve success. It suggests that one's mindset is a key factor in determining whether or not they will achieve financial success, and provides a set of principles for developing a success-oriented mindset. The book is based on Hill's research and interviews with successful individuals, including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. It has been highly influential and is considered a classic in the personal development genre.

"The Psychology of Money" is a personal finance book written by Morgan Housel. It was published in 2020 and has received widespread praise for its insights into the psychological factors that shape our relationship with money. The book covers a wide range of topics related to personal finance, including decision-making, risk, prosperity, and financial behavior. It argues that understanding the psychological biases and motivations that influence our financial decisions is key to making better ones. The book is based on extensive research and draws on examples from history, literature, and pop culture to illustrate its points. It has been widely praised for its engaging writing style and its ability to make complex financial concepts accessible to a broad audience.

"I Will Teach You To Be Rich" is a personal finance book written by Ramit Sethi. It was published in 2009 and has since become a bestseller, with over a million copies sold worldwide. The book is aimed at young people and aims to teach them how to manage their money effectively and build wealth over time. It covers a wide range of topics, including budgeting, saving, investing, and negotiating salaries and raises. The book promotes a practical and actionable approach to personal finance, and includes a number of tools and resources for implementing the strategies it suggests. It has received positive reviews and is considered a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their financial literacy and achieve financial success.

"The Richest Man in Babylon" is a personal finance book written by George S. Clason. It was published in 1926 and has since become a classic in the field of financial literacy. The book is a series of parables set in ancient Babylon, and each parable teaches a lesson about money and financial success. The book covers a wide range of topics, including saving, investing, budgeting, and debt management. It suggests that financial success is achievable for anyone who is willing to work hard and follow certain principles of financial management. The book is known for its simple and easy-to-understand approach to personal finance, and has been highly influential in helping people improve their financial literacy.

These books cover a wide range of topics in finance, including investment strategy, financial analysis, financial institutions, derivatives, corporate finance, and sustainable investing.

Visit our website to get buy link:

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Molly Redden and Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey at Documented:

A key ally to former President Donald Trump detailed plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest, defund the Environmental Protection Agency and put career civil servants “in trauma” in a series of previously unreported speeches that provide a sweeping vision for a second Trump term. In private speeches delivered in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, described his work crafting legal justifications so that military leaders or government lawyers would not stop Trump’s executive actions. He said the plans are a response to a “Marxist takeover” of the country; likened the moment to 1776 and 1860, when the country was at war or on the brink of it; and said the timing of Trump’s candidacy was a “gift of God.”

ProPublica and Documented obtained videos of the two speeches Vought delivered during events for the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank led by Vought. The think tank’s employees or fellows include Jeffrey Clark, the former senior Justice Department lawyer who aided Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result; Ken Cuccinelli, a former acting deputy secretary in the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; and Mark Paoletta, a former senior budget official in the Trump administration. Other Trump allies such as former White House adviser Steve Bannon and U.S. Reps. Chip Roy and Scott Perry either spoke at the conferences or appeared on promotional materials for the events. Vought does not hide his agenda or shy away from using extreme rhetoric in public. But the apocalyptic tone and hard-line policy prescriptions in the two private speeches go further than his earlier pronouncements. As OMB director, Vought sought to use Trump’s 2020 “Schedule F” executive order to strip away job protections for nonpartisan government workers. But he has never spoken in such pointed terms about demoralizing federal workers to the point that they don’t want to do their jobs. He has spoken in broad terms about undercutting independent agencies but never spelled out sweeping plans to defund the EPA and other federal agencies.

Vought’s plans track closely with Trump’s campaign rhetoric about using the military against domestic protesters or what Trump has called the “enemy within.” Trump’s desire to use the military on U.S. soil recently prompted his longest-serving chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, to speak out, saying Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Other policies mentioned by Vought dovetail with Trump’s plans, such as embracing a wartime footing on the southern border and rolling back transgender rights. Agenda 47, the campaign’s policy blueprint, calls for revoking President Joe Biden’s order expanding gender-affirming care for transgender people; Vought uses even more extreme language, decrying the “transgender sewage that’s being pumped into our schools and institutions” and referring to gender-affirming care as “chemical castration.”

[...] As ProPublica and Documented reported, Project 2025 has launched a massive program to recruit, vet and train thousands of people to “be ready on day one” to serve in a future conservative administration. (Trump has repeatedly criticized Project 2025, and his top aides have said the effort has no connection to the official campaign despite the dozens of former Trump aides and advisers who contributed to Project 2025.) Vought is widely expected to take a high-level government role if Trump wins a second term. His name has even been mentioned as a potential White House chief of staff. The videos obtained by ProPublica and Documented offer an unfiltered look at Vought’s worldview, his plans for a Trump administration and his fusing of MAGA ideology and Christian nationalism.

[...]

A Shadow Government in Waiting

In his 2024 speech, Vought said he was spending the majority of his time helping lead Project 2025 and drafting an agenda for a future Trump presidency. “We have detailed agency plans,” he said. “We are writing the actual executive orders. We are writing the actual regulations now, and we are sorting out the legal authorities for all of what President Trump is running on.” Vought laid out how his think tank is crafting the legal rationale for invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that gives the president broad power to use the military for domestic law enforcement. The Washington Post previously reported the issue was at the top of the Center for Renewing America’s priorities. “We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say, ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do,’” he said. Vought held up the summer 2020 unrest following George Floyd’s murder as an example of when Trump ought to have had the ability to deploy the armed forces but was stymied. Vought’s preparations for a future Trump administration involve building a “shadow” Office of Legal Counsel, he told the gathered supporters in May 2023. That office, part of the Justice Department, advises the president on the scope of their powers. Vought made clear he wants the office to help Trump steamroll the kind of internal opposition he faced in his first term.

[...]

“We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected”

Vought also revealed the extent of the Center for Renewing America’s role in whipping up right-wing panic ahead of the 2022 midterms over an increase in asylum-seekers crossing at the U.S.-Mexico border. In February 2022, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich released a legal opinion claiming the state was under “invasion” by violent cartels and could invoke war powers to deploy National Guard troops to its southern border. The legally dubious “invasion” theory became a potent Republican talking point. Vought said in the 2023 speech that he and Cuccinelli, the former top Homeland Security official for Trump, personally lobbied Brnovich on the effort. “We said, ‘Look, you can write your own opinion, but here’s a draft opinion of what this should look like,’” Vought said. The nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight later obtained an email in which Vought pitched the “invasion” framework to Brnovich.

Brnovich wrote in an email to ProPublica that he recalled multiple discussions with Cuccinelli about border security. But he added that “the invasion opinion was the result of a formal request from a member of the Arizona legislature. And I can assure you it was drafted and written by hard working attorneys (including myself) in our office.” In the event Trump loses, Vought called for Republican leaders of states such as Florida and Texas to “create red-state sanctuaries” by “kicking out all the feds as much as they possibly can.”

[...] Vought referred to the people detained for alleged crimes committed on Jan. 6, 2021, as “political prisoners” and defended the lawyers Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman, who have both faced criminal charges for their role in Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Federal law enforcement agencies, he added, “are keeping political opponents in jail, and I think we need to be honest about that.” The left, Vought continued, has the ultimate goal of ending representative democracy altogether. “The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country,” he said, “in which our adversaries already hold the weapons of the government apparatus, and they have aimed it at us. And they are going to continue to aim it until they no longer have to win elections.” When Democrats called Trump an “existential threat to democracy,” they were not merely calling for his defeat at the ballot box, he said, but were using “coded language the national security state uses overseas when they are overthrowing other governments” to discourage the military from putting down anti-Trump protests should he win. “They’re making Trump out to be a would-be dictator or an authoritarian,” he said. “So they’re actively working now to ensure, on a number of levels, that the military will perceive this as dictatorial and therefore not respond to any orders to quell any violence.”

ProPublica reports that Project 2025 co-author and MAGA apparatchik Russ Vought has plans to put civil servants “in trauma” as part of his fascistic agenda if it is implemented.

[vgaman]

What Is the Facebook 20% Rule & Why Your Ads Should Follow It?

Facebook is a popular platform for advertising, allowing businesses to reach a wide audience. One important guideline for advertisers is Facebook's 20% text rule. While this rule has been relaxed in recent years, it’s still key to improving your ad’s performance. Let’s break down what the 20% rule is, why it matters, and how you can follow it to create better Facebook ads.

What Is the Facebook 20% Text Rule?

The 20% text rule was a guideline that limited the amount of text allowed on ad images to 20% of the total image area. If your ad image had too much text, Facebook would either limit its reach or reject it. This rule applied to all placements like News Feed and Stories.

Although facebook stopped strictly enforcing this rule in 2020, ads with too much text still tend to perform worse. Ads that follow the spirit of the 20% rule are generally more effective at reaching a larger audience.

Why Was the Rule Introduced?

Facebook introduced this rule to improve the user experience. Ads with less text are visually more appealing and less intrusive. Facebook found that users engage more with ads that are clear and easy to digest, so they encouraged advertisers to focus on images rather than text-heavy ads.

Is the 20% Rule Still Important?

Even though the 20% rule is no longer strictly enforced, it’s still important. Facebook’s algorithm continues to favor ads with minimal text. Ads with too much text can lead to fewer impressions, lower engagement, and higher costs. By keeping text to a minimum, your ads are more likely to perform better and reach a larger audience at a lower cost.

How to Follow the 20% Rule

To create effective ads that respect the 20% guideline, here are some tips:

Use Facebook’s Text Overlay ToolYou can use Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool to check if your ad has too much text. This tool will help you ensure your ad won't be penalized for having too much text.

Focus on VisualsChoose strong, attention-grabbing images that tell your story without needing a lot of text. A good image can speak louder than words.

Keep Text Simple and ClearIf you need to include text, keep it short and to the point. Avoid cramming too much information into the image.

Use Captions Instead of Text on ImagesTake advantage of Facebook’s headline and caption areas to communicate your message. This way, your image stays clean, and your ad remains visually appealing.

Test Different VersionsRun A/B tests to see how ads with less text perform compared to those with more text. Often, simpler ads will win out.

Benefits of Following the 20% Rule

Higher Engagement:Ads with less text usually get more likes, comments, and shares. They are more visually attractive and less overwhelming for users.

Better Reach:Facebook shows ads with less text to more people. This increases the chances of your ad being seen by your target audience.

Cost-Efficient:Ads that follow the 20% rule tend to cost less in terms of CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions), allowing you to reach more people without increasing your budget.

Examples of Good Facebook Ads

Minimal Text Image Ads:A fashion brand might show an image of a model wearing their latest collection, with only a small discount label on the image, while the call to action (CTA) is in the caption.

Video Ads:Videos often rely on motion and graphics instead of text. For instance, a food brand could show a cooking demo, with only a few words highlighting the key ingredients.

Conclusion

Even though Facebook no longer strictly enforces the 20% text rule, keeping text to a minimum in your ads is still a smart strategy. Ads with fewer text elements tend to get better engagement, wider reach, and are more cost-efficient. By focusing on clear, simple visuals and minimizing text, you’ll create Facebook ads that perform better and help grow your business.If you want to learn more or need help setting up your next Meta Ads campaign,  feel free to reach out to one of the Best Ecommerce marketing agencies in india for expert advice. https://viralgroww.com/

[mariacallous]

Both parties have spoken about the need to focus on children and families during this year’s election cycle. In fact, it has been a talking point for decades in both Democratic and Republican party platforms. Support for children and families is key to the future health of a nation.

Despite this professed commitment, however, approximately 23.6 million young children (0-5 years) in America are at risk of not meeting their developmental potential, draining the country of much-needed human capital. Analyses of the U.S. federal budget indicate very limited investment in children. Overall, data from 2018 to 2024 shows that the share of federal spending on children ranged from 9.71% in fiscal year (FY) 2018 to 12.16% in 2024, with a dip to 7.48% in 2020. Focusing on children under age three, however, indicates a 1.52% federal budget spending in FY 2024. This represented a sliver of the total budget and a decline from an allotment of 1.66% in FY 2023. While the increase in overall spending on children in fiscal year 2024 is welcome news, it falls woefully short of meeting the needs of America’s children and families and is concerning when compared with funding in peer nations around the world.

The result of this checkered pattern of investment is that America ranks last among OECD countries in providing family care and leave, has one of the lowest pre-K enrollment rates with no current universal system in place, last in family-friendly policies, and ranks near the bottom of 41 advanced countries on a series of child wellness markers.

To be fair, the U.S. has taken small steps forward for young children through the Child Tax Credit (CTC), a minor increase in access to licensed childcare centers, an increase in some states for pre-K and family leave. However, these policies offer a piecemeal approach to supporting young children from birth to five years and families and do not offer countrywide, comprehensive coverage. Implementation of many of these initiatives is left to states with uneven consequences. The ultimate result? Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the industrialized nations, and many children in families with fewer resources—who are disproportionately Black and Brown —trail behind their peers from more affluent environments in mental and physical health, education outcomes, and more.

Our wavering commitment to children and families in terms of actionable, comprehensive policies that support children from birth to five years and their families leaves some wondering whether America really cares about its children despite the rhetoric.

This policy brief points to six key areas of investment in which bipartisan action can bring America in line with other nations and make a marked difference in the lives of millions of young children 0-5 years and their families.

We propose bipartisan investment to 1) increase high quality childcare options; 2) increase the availability of quality pre-K; 3) increase programs to mitigate poverty; 4) establish a federal paid family leave policy; 5) increase support for infant and child mental health; and 6) establish a permanent national level body to coordinate multi-sectoral supports for children.

[mskportfolio]

Future of Mobile Banking Framework & Features, 2018

Role: Design Lead

Company: Temenos, a leading banking software provider

Collaborators: Product Managers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Banks (customers and partners), and End Users (during research)

 Overview

As Senior Design Lead at Temenos from 2018 to 2020, I spearheaded the Future of Mobile Banking Framework project, designed to create a comprehensive framework for mobile retail banking that would meet future user needs while minimising development risk and costs. This initiative focused on delivering contextual, proactive, and reliable banking features, helping users achieve financial goals and reduce financial anxiety.

Objectives & Vision

• Strategic Goal: To build a future-proof, white-label mobile banking solution that Temenos clients could adapt to their needs while remaining scalable and cost-effective.

• User-Centred Design: To develop features that provide real, actionable insights and support end users’ financial well-being.

• Proactive Services: To introduce proactive tools, including AI-driven assistance and voice interfaces, making banking more accessible and stress-free.

Key Challenges

• Balancing a need for scalable, adaptable banking software with the unique requirements of individual bank clients.

• Reducing development time and costs without compromising on the ability to iterate and add innovative features.

My Contributions

1. Framework & Feature Development

• Led the creation of a flexible framework that banks could white-label, ensuring a complete end-to-end mobile banking experience with core, future-ready features.

• Defined the foundational elements of a mobile banking experience, from account management to enhanced features supporting financial literacy and goal-setting.

2. User Research & Design Sprints

• Conducted industry and user research to identify key motivators and pain points, which informed the design direction.

• Utilised design sprints with cross-functional teams to kick off feature development, ensuring alignment with user and business goals.

3. Behaviour-Driven Development & User Journey Mapping

• Developed user stories and journeys via behaviour-driven development (BDD), defining how users would interact with core and extended banking features.

• Mapped out user journeys to refine each interaction, ensuring intuitive and supportive financial flows.

4. Prototyping & Voice Interface

• Built an engineering prototype for early feedback and testing of the mobile banking framework.

• Developed a voice user interface prototype using Google Assistant, aiming to provide a hands-free, accessible banking option for users.

Key Features

• Core Banking Experience: Account management, transaction history, and secure fund transfers.

• Proactive Financial Guidance: AI-driven insights that support budgeting and financial planning.

• Voice Interface Prototype: A voice-enabled assistant prototype allowing users to interact with banking services via Google Assistant.

Outcome & Impact

• Scalable Solution: Created a flexible framework that supported diverse customer needs, allowing Temenos to offer a white-label mobile banking solution for global clients.

• Enhanced Engagement: Increased user engagement and satisfaction by providing proactive and accessible financial tools.

• Prototype Success: Positive feedback on the voice interface prototype opened pathways for future integrations with AI-driven customer support.

Tools & Technologies

• Design & Prototyping Tools: Utilised Figma and Adobe XD for design and rapid prototyping.

• Behaviour-Driven Development: Collaborated with engineers to implement BDD for user stories, aligning development with user experience goals.

• Voice Integration: Developed the voice prototype using Google Assistant’s API.

[latita-africa]

Understanding the Impact of Inflation on South African Salaries and Living Standards

Inflation in South Africa has significantly affected household budgets, with essentials like food, transport, and utilities consuming a larger share of income. Between 2020 and 2023, inflation rose sharply, peaking above 7% in mid-2022 and averaging around 5.5% over recent years. These rising costs have made it increasingly difficult for individuals to maintain their lifestyles, as average salaries have struggled to keep pace with the soaring cost of living.

How Salary Increases Compare to Inflation

In 2024/25, South Africans are projected to receive an average 6% salary increase, providing a modest 1.6% real increase against the current 4.4% inflation rate. While this adjustment offers some relief, the past few years of high inflation have eroded disposable income. “Consistent annual inflation reduces purchasing power, leaving many employees with less each year unless pay adjustments reflect these changes,” notes Dr. Mark Bussin, Executive Committee Member of the South African Reward Association (SARA).

Traditionally, the consumer price index (CPI) has been the starting point for setting salary increases in South Africa. However, companies also weigh other factors, including affordability, prior increases, individual performance, and the retention of key skills. SARA estimates that as inflation moderates, staying ahead of or matching inflation rates with wage growth will be essential for economic stability and employee retention.

Inflation’s Impact Across Job Levels

SARA’s projections for 2024 highlight different wage increases by job level:

Unionised Staff: 6.25%

General Staff: 6.01%

Specialists and Management: 6.00% and 5.97%

Executives: 5.79%

CEOs: 5.7%

While these increases aim to counter inflation, they cannot completely alleviate the financial pressures of in-work poverty or indebtedness that many South Africans face.

Financial Strain from Inflation and Debt

Rising debt costs have also added to the financial strain. Although the Reserve Bank recently reduced the repo rate from 8.25% to 8%, providing temporary relief, many South Africans remain overextended, highlighting the need for proactive tax and financial planning. 

At Latita Africa, we understand these challenges and are equipped to support our clients in navigating them. Our services including tax consulting, debt relief strategies, and comprehensive financial advisory, provide insights and actionable steps to mitigate the impact of inflation and strengthen long-term financial health.

Economic Growth and the Need for Policy Reforms

Economic growth and job creation depend on sound policy, and SARA suggests that reforms could help the GDP grow by up to 3% next year—a notable increase from the 1% expected in 2024. Higher GDP growth would support wage increases, economic stability, and lower inflationary pressures. As South Africa moves toward this goal, a skilled workforce is essential. 

At Latita Africa, we support both individuals and businesses with tax and financial guidance tailored to local regulations and economic conditions. Our expert consultants help clients navigate tax obligations and create sustainable financial plans that manage resources efficiently, helping reduce financial stress. For clients facing tax-related debt, our practical debt relief solutions ease the impact of past financial obligations, giving them a clearer path forward.

How Latita Africa Helps Clients Navigate Inflation and Financial Pressure

In high-inflation environments, sound financial advice can mean the difference between stability and struggle. At Latita Africa, we develop tailored solutions for our clients, factoring in their unique financial situations, goals, and industry challenges. Here’s how our services can support you: 

Tax Relief and Debt Management: Inflation can exacerbate tax debt, and we understand the challenges that come with owing back taxes. Through proactive tax consulting and debt relief, we help clients manage their obligations, avoid penalties, and find a path to financial freedom. 

Optimised Financial Planning: With rising costs, effective budgeting and financial planning are more critical than ever. We guide clients in creating strategies to preserve purchasing power, allowing them to safeguard assets and prioritise essential expenses without sacrificing long-term goals. 

Enhanced Business Sustainability: For businesses, inflation drives up costs and can impact employee retention and growth. Our consulting services help optimise financial operations, manage payroll effectively, and ensure that businesses remain financially sustainable even in uncertain economic times.

Looking Ahead with Latita Africa

At Latita Africa, we are dedicated to providing the support and expertise our clients need to thrive in today’s challenging economic landscape. Our holistic approach to financial consulting means we address the full financial picture, ensuring resilience against inflation and other economic pressures. 

To learn more about how Latita Africa can support your financial stability and help tackle the challenges of inflation, visit our website. Our team of experienced professionals is ready to assist, ensuring you have the tools and strategies to navigate inflation’s effects confidently.

[tr0v3]

The Rise Of Lethal Company

What makes an Indie game successful?

Is it a simply an emotional appeal, something that generates feelings of tension and excitement in players? The Among Us 'mania' of the early 2020s certainly achieved that, creating a socially appealing game that recieved almost half a billion players in 2020 as well as cementing its place in meme culture ever since, if nothing else. Or is it just having a memorable 'style', a unique combination of retro art and music with endearing characters to build up the story? Undertale is surely a prime example of how to do virtually everything right in a game, and that's without even mentioning how widely revered one of its tracks is (even though it technically didn't originate from the game!) Perhaps it comes down to conceptual curiosities, an inspired idea or a mystery that makes players think - in which case Five Nights at Freddy's takes the cake, retaining an engaged fanbase with thousands of fangames to this day! Maybe success really just depends on a unique selling point, like Minecraft's promise of boundless creativity back in 2011...

The list could go on and on - the point is, success is not achieved on a set path, especially for indie games. Indie games lack the budget and recognition of AAA titles, and therefore rely more on creativity and innovation to grow an audience. Exceptional indie games such as the aforementioned have not only managed to profit immensly and garner millions of players on release, but retain lasting cultural icons, stories, scenes and memes both within and beyond their respective fanbases for years (if not decades!) - they have competed with AAA games, and even outdone them (or become them, in Minecraft's case)

AAA games all have opportunities for success that Indie games usually don't, via massive financial and logistical backing - mainstream ad placements, simulataneous releases across platforms, popular design choices and yearly releases...So how, in a remarkable instance of virality, did Lethal Company outsell Call Of Duty one year ago?

This video by Lufa highlights a number of key points that won't fit into this article, so for more information I reccommend watching it!

It also explains succinctly just how different these two games are, and how they can represent Indie and AAA games as a whole.

Given how Lethal Company was outselling multiple discounted AAA games during Autumn sales, and the inherent differences in genre/target audience of these two games, it might not seem fair or helpful to compare the two - however, since Lethal Company released at just the right time to rise to virality as Call Of Duty (COD) Modern Warefare 3 (MW3) released a few weeks later, awareness for both was high and enough people were interested in both to make comparisons based on their own experiences.

Player experiences are crucial to Lufa's video, and why Lethal Company did so much better than COD MW3 - essentially, while the latest COD represented the worst aspects of AAA gaming (numerous bugs that made the gameplay a broken mess + a forgettable and uninspired story) Lethal Company engaged players in a strikingly unique way. Looking at the steam reviews, its clear that the gameplay and atmosphere of Lethal Company were more appealing and unique than COD's.

In fact, Lethal Company is (arguably) a good game for many reasons. There is a lot that could be said about Lethal Company's gameplay loop and functionality, from the genuine freedoms of playstyle and tactics avaliable to players who explore the different maps and utilize the various items avaliable from the store, the challenging variety of threats that roam the moons which require different approaches to mitigate, the use of sound effects to guide but also mislead the player - but for this essay, I'd like to explore some of the more unique facets of the game which elevate it to the same level of popularity as Among Us or SCP Secret Laboratory (a game with similiar horror and proximity chat features which I would highly reccommend for Lethal Company players interested in similiar games!)

Lethal Company's success can at least partially be attributed to emotional social appeal.

One of the things that stands out the most about Lethal Company is how it is scary and funny at the same time - Lufa mentions it, Miithzan's second video playing Lethal Company has it in the title, almost everyone who has made a YouTube video on this game understands the dichotomy of emotion at play. So how does it do it?

Lethal Company sets up a scary scenario, entering dark, labyrinthine buildings with eerie sounds and ambience to collect literal garbage - with the right adjustments, this is a pretty reliable way to make a decent singleplayer horror experience, something the creator is no stranger to. Naturally it follows this up with sudden and unexpected things happening - but rather than plain ol' jumpscares, the game plays on phobias with giant bugs and spiders, or traps in the form of explosive landmines and turrets. This does create tension and fear, but it can also be humourous because almost all of the threats in the game are totally overkill, and can be as absurdly cartoonish as they are deadly.

The real humour of Lethal Company comes from its players though. Watch any YouTube clips on this game, and the average player will 'turn into an A-list voice actor' - proximity voice chat already makes for comedic moments, placing real people and genuine reactions into the fictional environment of the game - but the excitement is enhanced even further by the combination of this feature with unpredictable enemy AI, exaggerated character designs and simple but cleverly used tropes.

There are endless examples of this, from watching your loud-mouthed teammate boldly grab a two handed item from a group of recently-angered Hoarding Bugs, or making some optimistic remark right before having your neck snapped by a Bracken, as if in movie. Its almost as fun to watch as it is to play, and includes the player's agency of speech, via the proximity chat feature not only as a fun addition but a central aspect of the game.

To put it simply, a person getting suffocated to death by a giant insect is scary, but your friend's voice being muffled by the weird creature wrapped around their head is funny - and Lethal Company manages to do both, often at the same time.

Crucially, it also does all of this without breaking any immersion within the game's scenario - the game's setting is well established and the horrors fit well enough into that setting for everything to seamlessly flow together, as a complete experience.

I must draw attention to this brilliant example I discovered in a steam review - in the clip of the experience they were describing, every part of Lethal Company's emotional appeal is perfectly demonstrated. It begins with the competitive comraderie of the teamwork scenario, leads to spike in fear as a result of an unexpected scare, then the comical hilarity of such an obviously foreshadowed and avoidable death, before additionally returning to the gnawing fear of being alone with a now-near danger:

There is even foreshadowing and irony in the scares themselves, with the thumbnail choosing the silliest-looking frame from the entire video - if I didn't know better, I would say that it was scripted slapstick humour...

So that's why Lethal Company rose to success - but how well has it held onto its success since?

Click here to read Part 2!

Thank you for reading =D