#corporate news jan 2023

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Brinklump Linkdump

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a linkdump, the 14th in the series:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

It's the Year of Our Gourd twenty and twenty-four and holy shit, is rampant corporate power rampant. On January 1, the inbred droolers of Big Pharma shat out their annual price increases, as cataloged in 46Brooklyn's latest Brand Drug List Price Change Box Score:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/branddrug-boxscore

Here's the deal: drugs that have already been developed, brought to market, and paid off are now getting more expensive. Why? Because the pharma companies have "pricing power," the most reliable indicator of monopoly. Ed Cara rounds up the highlights for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/ozempic-wegovy-wellbutrin-oxycontin-drug-price-increase-1851179427

What's going up? Well, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists. These drugs have made untold billions for their manufacturers, so naturally, they're raising the price. That's how markets work, right? When firms increase the volume of a product, the price goes up? Right? Other drugs that are going up include Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that's also widely used in smoking cessation) and the blood thinner Plavix. I mean, why the hell not? These companies get billions in research subsidies, invaluable government patent privileges, and near-total freedom to abuse the patent system with evergreening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It's like these guys can't even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that's how you get guillotines.

Take Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.

Right? Wrong. Apple's pulled a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran. Apple has announced that app companies that process transactions using their own payment processors on the web must still pay Apple a 27% fee for every dollar their process:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-app-store-rule-changes-draw-sharp-rebuke-from-critics-150047160.html

In addition, Apple will throw a terrifying FUD-screen up every time a user clicks a payment link that goes to the web:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/second-verse-same-as-the-first/

This is obviously not what the court had in mind, and there's no way this will survive the next court challenge. It's just Apple making sure that everyone knows it hates us all and wants us to die. Thanks, Tim Apple, and right back atcha.

Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

This is some real Darth Vader MBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Ubisoft sure are innovators. They've managed the seemingly impossible feat of hybridizing Darth Vader and Immortan Joe. Ubisoft's head of subscriptions, the guillotine-ready Philippe Tremblay, told GamesIndustry.biz that gamers need to get "comfortable" with "not owning their games":

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

Or, as Immortan Joe put it: "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"

Capitalism without constraint is enshittification's handmaiden, and the latest victim is Ello, the "indie" social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users. When Ello took VC and Andy Baio questioned how this could be squared with this promise, the founders mocked him and others for raising the question. Their response boiled down to "we are super-chill dudes and you can totally trust us."

They raised more capital, and used that to create a nice place for independent artists, who piled into the platform and provided millions of unpaid hours of creative labor to help the founders increase its value. The founders and their investors turned the company into a Public Benefit Corporation, which meant they had an obligation to serve the public benefit.

But then they took more investment money and simply (and silently) sold their assets to a for-profit. Struggling to raise capital, the founders opted to secretly sell the business to a sleazy branding company called Talenthouse. Its users didn't know about the change, though the site sure had a lot of Talenthouse design competitions all of a sudden.

Finally, the company announced the change as the last founders left. Rather than announcing that the new owners were untrustworthy scum, warning their users to get their data and get out, the founders posted oblique, ominous statements to Instagram. The company started stiffing the winners of those design competitions. Then, one day, poof, Ello disappeared, taking all its users' data with it. Poof:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

I'm sure the founders' decisions each seemed reasonable at the moment. That's every terrible situation arises: you rationalize that a single compromise isn't that big of a deal, and then you do the same for the next compromise, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, you're betraying everyone who believed in you.

One answer to this is "Ulysses pacts": making binding commitments to do right before you are tempted. Throw away all your Oreos when you go on a diet and you can't be tempted to eat a whole sleeve of them at 2AM. License your software under the GPL and your investors can't force you to make it proprietary. Set up a warrant canary and the feds can't force you to keep their spying secret:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

If the founders were determined to build a trustworthy, open, independent company, they could have published their quarterly books, livestreamed their staff meetings, built data-export tools that emailed users every week with a link to download everything they'd posted since the last week. Merely halting any of these practices would have been a signal that things were wrong. Anyone who says they won't be tempted in the moment to make a "reasonable" compromise in the hopes of recovering whatever they're trading away by living to fight another day is bullshitting you, and possibly themself.

The inability to project the consequences of your bad decisions in the future is the source of endless mischief and heartbreak. Take movie projectors. A couple decades ago, the studio cartel established a standard for digital movie distribution to cinematic exhibitors called the Digital Cinema Initiative. Because studio executives are more worried about stopping piracy than they are about making sure that people who pay for movies get to see them, they build digital rights management into this standard.

Movie theaters had to spend fortunes to upgrade to "secure" projectors. A single vendor, Deluxe Technicolor, monopolized the packaging of movies into "Digital Cinema Prints" for distribution to these projectors, and they used all kinds of dirty tricks to force distributors to use their services, like arbitrarily flunking third-party DCPs over picky shit like not starting and ending on a black frame.

Over time, the ability to use unencrypted files was stripped away, meaning every DCP needed to be encrypted, and every projector needed to have up-to-date decryption keys. This system broke down on Jan 1, 2024, and cinemas all over the world found they couldn't play Wonka. Many just shut down for the day and refunded their customers:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/1/24021915/alamo-drafthouse-outage-sony-projector

The problem? Something that every PKI system has to wrangle: an expired certificate from Deluxe Technicolor. The failure has been dubbed the Y2K24 debacle by projectionists and film-techs, who are furious:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/34652-the-y2k24-bug-major-digital-outage-today

Making everything worse is that Sony mothballed the division that maintains its projectors, so there's no one who can update them to accommodate Technicolor's workaround. Struggling mom-and-pop theaters are having to junk their systems and replace them. There's plenty of blame to go around, but Sony is definitely the most negligent link in the chain. Shame on them.

Big corporations LARP this performance of competence and seriousness, but they are deeply unserious. This week, I wrote, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Score one for team deeply unserious. The multinational delivery company DPD fired its support staff and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot can't tell you where your parcels are, but it can be prompt-injected into coming up with profane poems about how badly DPD sucks:

https://twitter.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874

There once was a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help. It could not track parcels, Or give information on delivery dates, And it could not even tell you when your driver would arrive.

DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare. It was so bad, That people would rather call the depot directly, Than deal with the useless chatbot.

One day, DPD was finally shut down, And everyone rejoiced. Finally, they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.

This is…the opposite of an AI hallucination? It's AI clarity.

As with all botshit, this kind of AI self-negging is funny and fresh the first time you see it, but just wait until 3,000 people have published their own versions to your social feed. AI novelty regresses to the mean damn quickly.

The old, good web, by contrast, was full of enduring surprises, as the world's weirdest and most delightful mutants filled the early web with every possible variation on every possible interest, expression, argument, and gag. Now, you can search the old, good web with Old'aVista, an Altavista lookalike that searches old pages from "personal websites that used to be hosted on services like Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, Xoom and so on," all ganked from the Internet Archive:

http://oldavista.com/

I miss the old, good internet and the way it let weirdos find each other and get seriously weird with one another. Think of steampunk, a subculture that wove together artists, makers, costumers, fiction writers, and tinkerers in endlessly creative ways. My old pal Roger Wood was the world's most improbable steampunk: he was a gay ex-navy gunner who grew up in a small town in the maritimes but moved to Toronto where he became the world's most accomplished steampunk clockmaker.

I was Roger's neighbour for a decade. He died last year, and I miss him all the time. I was in Toronto in December and saw a few of his last pieces being sold in galleries and I was just skewered on the knowledge that I'd never see him again, never visit his workshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/16/klockwerks/#craphound

A reader just sent this five-year-old mini documentary about Roger, shot in his wonderful workshop. Watching it made me happy and sad and then happy again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMGomM8yF8

The old, good internet was so great. It was a place where every kind of passion could live. It was a real testament to the power of geeking out together, no matter how often the suits demand that we "stop talking to each other and start buying things":

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The world is full of people with weird passions and I love them all, mostly. Learning about Don Bolles's collection of decades' worth of lost pet posters was a moment of pure joy (I just wish more of it was online):

https://ameliatait.substack.com/p/the-man-who-collects-lost-pet-posters

That's the future I was promised: one where every kind of freak can find every other kind of freak. Despite the nipple-deep botshit we wade through online, and the relentless cheapening of words like "innovation" and "future," there are still occasional gleams of the future I want to live in.

Like the researchers who spliced a photosynthesis gene into brewer's yeast (a fungus) and got it to photosynthesize, and to display enhanced fitness:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01744-X

As Doug Muir writes on Crooked Timber, this is pretty kooky! Fungi – the coolest of the kingdoms! – can't photosynthesize. The idea that you can just add the photosynthesis gene to a thing that can't photosynthesize and have it just kind of work is wild!

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/19/occasional-paper-purple-sun-yeast/

As Muir writes: "Animals have no evolutionary history of photosynthesis and aren’t designed for it, but the same is true for yeast. So… no reason this shouldn’t be possible. A photosynthesizing cat? Sure, why not."

Why not indeed?!

OK, that's this week's linkdump done and dusted. It only remains for me to share the news with you that the trolley problem has been finally and comprehensively solved, by Sidereal@kolektiva.social, of the IWW IU 520 (railroad workers):

Slip the switch by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/111779015415697244

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/20/melange/#i-have-heard-the-mermaids-singing

[posttexasstressdisorder]

The Alito Scandal Is Worse Than It Seems

Over the last two weeks, The New York Times revealed that two political flags were flown at Justice Samuel Alito’s homes — an upside-down American flag in the days after Jan. 6, 2021, and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag in the summer of 2023. | Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

By Ankush Khardori

05/30/2024 10:00 AM EDT

Ankush Khardori is a senior writer for POLITICO Magazine and a former federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, where he specialized in financial fraud and white-collar crime. He has also worked in the private sector on complex commercial litigation and white-collar corporate defense. His column, Rules of Law, offers an unvarnished look at national legal affairs and the political dimensions of the law at a moment when the two are inextricably linked.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been infuriating his critics for years. He has gone on undisclosed luxury vacations with conservative donors who have business before the court. He appears to have leaked the result of a major case to conservative activists before the decision was announced. And that doesn’t even get into his jurisprudence, including the opinion that threw out Roe v. Wade.

But the revelations over the last two weeks from The New York Times concerning the political flags flown at Alito’s homes — an upside-down American flag in the days after Jan. 6, 2021, and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag in the summer of 2023 — have pushed Alito’s behavior into an entirely different realm, one that raises serious questions about Alito’s partisanship, his ethics and the integrity of the court.

The upside-down American flag has historically been used as a sign of distress by the U.S. military but became a symbol of support for Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement following the 2020 election, and the Appeal to Heaven flag has been used by Christian nationalists. Both were flown by Jan. 6 rioters.

The Alito household’s display of those flags — no matter what prompted it or whose decision it was to fly them — means that Alito should recuse himself from the cases pending before the court concerning Trump’s alleged efforts to steal the election. His stated refusal to do so in a letter to senior Democrats Wednesday runs afoul of the most basic judicial ethical norms: Judges are not supposed to signal their views on matters that are likely to come before the court.

But this whole episode also shows the fecklessness of Democrats, who seem to be reluctant to try to hold the court to account — which may have only encouraged the conservative justices to feel like they have free rein to flout judicial norms. President Joe Biden, in particular, has been far too reluctant to challenge the court, both with his early, toothless effort to float court reforms and now amid a series of clear ethical breaches by the justices.

There are a few problems with Alito’s behavior.

For one, Alito may have intentionally tried to mislead the public about what happened and to position himself and his wife as the victims. Alito told Fox News that his wife hoisted the first flag after a neighbor had put up a sign blaming her for the Jan. 6 riot and had used derogatory language toward her, “including the C-word.” But the Times’ latest story reports that verbal altercation took place weeks after the flag had flown and come down.

Even if Alito’s account is completely true, though, there would still be no excuse for a Supreme Court justice to allow such a partisan symbol to fly outside of their home, especially one whose message overlaps with a pending case.

In the letter that Alito sent to lawmakers explaining his decision not to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election, Alito claimed that he “had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of [the upside-down] flag.” He also said that his wife “has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit”; that she also flew the Appeal to Heaven flag but that neither of them was “aware of any connection” to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement; and that no one could reasonably question his impartiality unless they were motivated by “political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases.”

His wife might have been the one who raised it, but given that it flew outside a house he lives in, it is entirely reasonable to assume that Alito explicitly or tacitly endorsed the message of the flag. As one sitting federal judge put it, “Any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb.”

Alito himself has acknowledged the danger of overtly signaling political views. Here is what he said in his confirmation hearing when he was dodging questions about what he thought about Roe v. Wade or whether it was considered settled law: “It would be wrong for me to say to anybody who might be bringing any case before my court, ‘If you bring your case before my court, I’m not even going to listen to you. I’ve made up my mind on this issue.

The proposition that justices should not express opinions on issues that may come before them provides a basis for his recusal, but so does another basic and closely related principle that you can also find in the ethics code issued by the Supreme Court late last year, after a flurry of controversies involving Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas. The code provides that a justice “should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.

That standard is met here too.

Many conservatives have rushed to Alito’s defense. After the first Times story, one Republican lawyer quickly derided the reporting and mounted a classic “they did it too” defense, pointing to liberal judges whose spouses engaged in activism related to cases before them. But none of them did anything remotely like what Alito’s wife did. Alito’s defenders have pointed to remarks that former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made about Trump — that he was a “faker” and would be bad for the country. They may be right that those comments were unwise and perhaps even improper, but she has long since passed away, so it is a debater’s point at best.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Democratic Party are struggling to figure out how to react.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin has refused calls to bring Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts in for a formal hearing on the issue. Instead, he and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, another senior Democrat on the panel, merely asked Roberts to push Alito to recuse himself on cases related to the 2020 election and to come in for a meeting. According to White House aides, President Joe Biden is reluctant to engage on the controversy because he fears that criticizing the conservative justices will undermine the court’s legitimacy as well as the president’s claim to be a supporter of the country’s democratic institutions and norms.

The latest Alito scandal has crystallized some of the most disturbing dynamics surrounding the court.

First, Alito’s conduct, including his potentially dishonest public defense, demonstrates the contempt that he has for his critics and for people outside of his political tribe — which appears to be far-right religious conservatives and Trump supporters. Supreme Court justices have long been reluctant to engage in full transparency, but at a time of growing public skepticism toward the court, he owes the country far more detailed — and far more substantive — answers to the serious questions that have been raised about his conduct and the backstory to the raising of both flags at his homes, including the evolution of his accounts in the media.

Second, the concept of recusal at the court appears to be dead, at least for the conservative justices; some liberal justices still do. Clarence Thomas should already have recused himself from the 2020 election cases but hasn’t. Alito should do the same but won’t. Such a decision could ultimately tip the balance in Trump’s immunity case.

Third, the court’s relatively new ethics rules — which were self-imposed and are unenforceable — are basically a sham. Alito and Thomas in particular appear to think that they can do whatever they want, and they appear to be right that Roberts will do nothing unless he is somehow forced to change course by virtue of political circumstances and public pressure. In the meantime, Roberts has tried to convince the public into thinking that the court is attending to its ethical problems, when it clearly is not.

Finally, and just as importantly, the Democratic Party — and Biden in particular — has fallen down on the job.

The court is in desperate need of structural reform. But instead of seriously pursuing that effort after his election (be it expanding the court, instituting term limits or anything else), Biden convened a largely pointless commission to study potential reforms. Their work — a ponderous, 300-page report issued in late 2021 — was barely read and promptly forgotten, perhaps by design.

There are reasonable debates to be had about the political viability of such a reform effort, but the Biden White House has shown through its own actions that they will invest considerable time and political capital into legislative efforts that they believe are worthy of their attention. Just as importantly, even if a court reform initiative had failed, Biden and the White House could have raised the salience of the issue among the general public and begun building the necessary political momentum over time. (That, after all, is precisely what conservatives did in order to secure their supermajority on the court.)

That might have positioned Biden to make court reform a real campaign issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, which would have paired well with his drive to reenshrine abortion rights. Instead, he voluntarily ceded the ground, and an about-face on the issue in the run-up to November will likely look politically motivated to many people.

Ironically, Biden’s solicitousness of the Supreme Court could ultimately prove to be the downfall of his own presidency.

He has essentially stood idly by while the court has upended key aspects of American life — from abortion to affirmative action — and angered huge swaths of the country, likely contributing to the widespread national discontent that threatens his reelection. The conservatives also gutted one of Biden’s most significant domestic policy initiatives by striking down his student-loan relief program. And they may be on the cusp of letting Trump escape without a trial on the Justice Department’s 2020 election prosecution before November.

That case is the most politically and legally significant of Trump’s pending criminal cases, including the hush-money prosecution in Manhattan. If Trump were convicted in the federal election subversion case, the result could plausibly swing the election against him — and with good reason: The American public should probably know whether a candidate engaged in an egregious and unprecedented criminal conspiracy to steal the last presidential election.

Instead, Biden finds his political fortunes beholden to a court that he has failed to control and that, in the end, could doom his own presidency.

[pochqmqri]

It is now May and we still haven't heard anything about the adult Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! sequel that is supposed to air sometime this year. Nothing official or direct has been said about it since the initial announcement over a year ago, but despite that, there have been some bits of information we can piece together about it.

To start off, let's look at the initial announcement back in March 2023. To celebrate the Pretty Cure franchise's 20th anniversary, Toei Animation announced that they would be producing two sequel PreCure anime for adult audiences.

The first one was Kibou no Chikara ~Otona PreCure '23~/Power of Hope ~PreCure Full Bloom~, which was a sequel to the first five PreCure seasons, but primarily Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! It aired on NHK-E in Fall 2023 for 12 episodes, and was streamed internationally on Crunchyroll.

The second one was tentatively titled "Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! 2," obviously a sequel to the 13th season of the same name. It was said to air sometime in 2024 on the late night ANiMAZiNG!!!! block. And that's all we ever heard about it since.

ANiMAZiNG!!!!

Let's look at what ANiMAZiNG!!!! actually is. It's an anime programming block from 2:00-2:30AM on Sundays created by the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation with TV Asahi; these networks are the ones responsible for airing PreCure in Japan every Sunday at 8:30AM, so it's familiar territory. ANiMAZiNG!!!! started in October 2020.

Notable anime that aired on this block include: Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious, The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, SK8 the Infinity, Iwa-Kakeru! Sport Climbing Girls, I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement.

A 2:00AM slot for PreCure is quite interesting, as even OtonaPre aired on NHK-E as late as Saturday 6:30PM. Despite this, the anime that airs on this block usually isn't too "adult," i.e violent or sexual, so I don't expect MahoPre2 to be anything of the sort. Similarly, the recent Tokyo Mew Mew New aired around midnight, and it wasn't out of the ordinary in terms of content.

With the exception of the Jahy anime, the anime that airs on this block usually does for just one cour, i.e. it has about 11-12 episodes and takes up one seasonal anime slot. We can assume that MahoPre will also have 12 episodes, not just because of this, but also because that was the same amount OtonaPre had. Relatedly, since MahoPre2 is airing on a different network than OtonaPre did, I also think that MahoPre2, when it gets an official title, is probably not going to be under the "Otona" label. OtonaPre aired on NHK-E, the "E" standing for education, and thus was heavily tied in to topics such as climate change and SDGs, of which I don't see MahoPre2 focusing on as much given it will air on a different network that doesn't have such an educational slant (see the other anime that usually airs on ANiMAZiNG!!!!).

At this point in time, the Winter 2024 anime season has long since concluded, and the Spring 2024 season is currently ongoing. So, we know what anime has aired/is airing on ANiMAZiNG!!!! this year so far, but we also have information on a few anime that will air later in the year too, so let's paint a schedule:

The Strongest Tank's Labyrinth Raids — Jan 7 - Mar 24 (Winter 2024)

Tonari no Yokai-san — Apr 7 - TBA (Spring 2024)

??? (Summer 2024)

The Healer Who was Banished From His Party is Actually the Strongest — Starts Oct (Fall 2024)

All of the seasonal slots for ANiMAZiNG!!! this year, except for Summer, have been filled up, and none of them include MahoPre2. On the official site, the poster for the upcoming Summer season is just a blank "Coming Soon." I find it surprising in the case of the Fall slot, because I was expecting MahoPre2 to air there, as OtonaPre also aired in the Fall last year. Based on this information and lack thereof so far, one can assume that MahoPre2 will be airing in the Summer, but doesn't that seem a little strange?

The Summer anime season usually starts in July, and that's two months away now, so why have we gotten basically no official information on the anime yet, not even a proper title or a few visuals? Despite the fact that OtonaPre aired in October last year, we got a peek at the first visual about a week after the initial announcement in March, followed by a moderately paced reel of information throughout the year. Looking at the other non-PreCure anime on ANiMAZiNG!!!!, Strongest Tank was officially announced back in October 2023 (three months prior to airing), Yokai-san was officially announced back in November 2023 (five months prior to airing), [insert overtly long isekai title] was announced earlier this year in January (9 months prior to airing), so MahoPre2 definitely stands out in its lack of information at this late of a stage. Even so, I can't think of any other anime that would be taking the Summer slot at this point in time. There's also the possibility that Yokai-san runs for a second cour, but usually anime that airs on ANiMAZiNG!!! only run for one season, and Yokai-san's original manga concluded with 4 volumes and one side story, which is generally enough content to fit one cour.

So, what can we expect in the coming weeks/months? The first thing is, like most PreCure anime, a logo/title drop in the Japanese trademark office. Just a day before the initial announcement of OtonaPre, the logo was recorded in the office, so it's likely that whenever the MahoPre2 title drops, an official reveal will follow shortly.

What Rie Takahashi said

Another bit of information comes from Rie Takahashi, the voice actress for MahoPre's Mirai /Cure Miracle, on her radio show with fellow voice actress and friend, Reina Ueda (who coincidentally voices Mayu/Cure Lillian in the current Wonderful Pretty Cure!). For the episode uploaded on February 19 earlier this year, she talks a bit about MahoPre2, how it's airing sometime in 2024, and that they're excited for it, that this year is going to be a great one, no new information really, but it's probably the most recent information we've gotten from an official source, albeit a reconfirmation of what we already know.

Somewhat relatedly, the Kamikita twins, who draw the seasonal PreCure manga adaptations every year, posted a tweet earlier this year in January asking if there was anymore news on MahoPre2, which seems to indicate that, even to them at that point, they weren't briefed on anything behind the scenes.

Speculation: The "Wonderful PreCure!" movie

For the sections labeled speculation, I ask that you please do not take anything I write here as pure fact.

While browsing the Japanese side of Twitter, I came across a few opinions of PreCure fans on why Toei is being hush on MahoPre2. One idea is linked to the WonPre movie coming out later in September. In the film's initial trailer, there's a line said towards the end:

さらに素敵なお友達の出番です!っていいました？！ "Sara ni sutekina otomodachi no deban desu! tte iimashita?!" "Did you just say, 'It's time for even more wonderful friends'?!"

What's the significance of the Japanese characters I highlighted in bold? In the context of PreCure, they are the catchphrases of Sora from last year's HiroPre, and Mirai from MahoPre. The 出番, deban, comes from Sora's catchphrase, ヒーローの出番です!, Hero no deban desu!, or officially translated as "It's hero time!" The っていいました？！, tte iimashita?!, or "Did you just say [x]?!" is a quoting particle frequently used by Mirai. Tumblr only allows one video upload per post, so I'll have to link to a separate post I made with the video comparison.

With this in mind, a fair amount of fans believe that the WonPre film will be another crossover one, like the HealPre and TroPre ones were, only this time, that team will be crossing over with the HiroPre and MahoPre teams. It's likely that MahoPre is added in to promote the upcoming sequel, which could be airing around the time the film hits theaters. For that reason, it's probable that Toei wants to combine the marketing for both MahoPre2 and the WonPre film, neither of which has started yet.

Speculation: MahoPre2 Delayed?

The idea of MahoPre2 being delayed isn't really based on any evidence, but pure speculation. Some fans believe that internal politics at Toei have made them shelve the sequel for the time being. Sailor Moon fans are familiar with how Sailor Moon Eternal and Sailor Moon Cosmos were mishandled and delayed multiple times.

Ojamajo Doremi, PreCure's older sister franchise, is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary with a potential animation plan adapting the sequel light novels with the girls grown up. Funnily enough, that's similar to the concept of MahoPre2, so maybe Toei somewhere down the line turned MahoPre2 into Doremi1620? Hahaha...

Another common theory is that MahoPre2 will actually air in early 2025. That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? They explicitly said 2024, even Rie Takahashi said so, right? Technically, that wouldn't be a lie, if Toei was looking at Fiscal Year 2024, which in Japan, lasts from April 2024 to March 2025 for governments and corporations. That would give MahoPre2 time to air in the Winter 2025 season, and thus the promotion hasn't started yet because it's still too early.

So, with that all said, there are at least two time periods I believe MahoPre2 could air in, the Summer 2024 season, or the Winter 2025 season. As of now, we can only wait for more information, but I do not have reason to believe that Toei cancelled this project.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

IRS to go after executives who use business jets for personal travel in new round of audits

Private jets sit parked at Scottsdale Airport Jan. 27, 2015, in Scottsdale, Ariz. IRS leadership said

FATIMA HUSSEIN Feb 21, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — First, there were trackers on Taylor Swift and other celebrities’ private jet usage. Now, there will be more scrutiny on executives’ personal use of business aircraft who write it off as a tax expense.

IRS leadership said Wednesday that the agency will start conducting dozens of audits on businesses’ private jets and how they are used personally by executives and written off as a tax deduction — as part of the agency’s ongoing mission of going after high-wealth tax cheats who game the tax system at the expense of American taxpayers.

The audits will focus on aircraft used by large corporations and high-income taxpayers and whether the tax purpose of the jet use is being properly allocated, the IRS says.

“At this time of year, when millions of hardworking taxpayers are working on their taxes, we want them to feel confident that everyone is playing by the same rules,” IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said on a call with reporters to preview the announcement. Tax season began Jan. 29.

“These aircraft audits will help ensure high-income groups aren’t flying under the radar with their tax responsibilities,” he said.

There are more than 10,000 corporate jets in the US., according to the IRS, valued at tens of millions of dollars and many can be fully deducted.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed during the Trump administration, allowed for 100% bonus depreciation and expensing of private jets — which allowed taxpayers to write off the cost of aircraft purchased and put into service between September 2017 and January 2023.

Werfel said the federal tax collector will use resources from Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act to more closely examine private jet usage — which has not been closely scrutinized during the past decade as funding fell sharply in the last decade.

“Our audit rates have been anemic,” he said on the call. An April 2023 IRS report on tax audit data states that “continued resource constraints have limited the agency’s ability to address high-end noncompliance” stating that in tax year 2018, audit rates for people making more than $10 million were 9.2%, down from 13.6% in 2012. And in the same time period, overall corporate audit rates fell from 1.3% to .6%.

Mike Kaercher, senior attorney advisor at the Tax Law Center at NYU said in a statement that the IRS should also revisit how it values personal use of corporate aircraft, beyond just how flights are reported.

“The current rules allow these flights to be significantly undervalued, enabling wealthy filers to pay much less in taxes than fair market value would dictate, and it’s within the IRS’ authority to revise these rules,” Kaercher said.

Werfel said audits related to aircraft usage could increase in the future depending on the results of the initial audits and as the IRS continues hiring more examiners.

“To be clear, that doesn’t mean everyone in a high-income category partnership or corporation is evading or avoiding their tax responsibility,” Werfel said. “But it does mean that there’s more work to do for the IRS to make sure people are paying what they owe.”"

[planetarybound]

How The Supreme Court Could Soon Destroy The Right To Strike

More Perfect Union 140K subscribers 3,626 views Jan 9, 2023

This Supreme Court case could devastate workers’ right to strike. If wealthy corporations get their way, companies would be able to sue workers for the cost of a strike — like spoiled food, lost revenue, and more. It would be a massive setback for the working class. The Supreme Court is hearing Glacier Northwest Inc. vs. International Brotherhood of Teamsters in early January and will release a decision in June. ----- More Perfect Union is a new nonprofit media org with a mission to empower working people.

Learn more here: http://perfectunion.us/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectunion/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorePerfUnion

[toshootforthestars]

I predicted, in June of [2020], mere weeks after the murder, that all of the alleged “solidarity” from corporate or political “allies” was white bullshit. I explained that white folks understand (either consciously or not) that the police are there to protect them, their privilege, and their power. I said that white folks are fundamentally willing to sacrifice innocent Black people to the murderous clutches of the police if it ensures their continued supremacy. I wrote: The system of white supremacy enforced and protected by the American police was not built in a day, and it will not be dismantled in a day. What will people be prepared to do two weeks from now to make the world safer for black people than it was two weeks ago? What will they be prepared to do in two months? In two years?… Already, the infrastructure is in place for this country to ignore police brutality the moment everybody stops shouting about it. It was an easy prediction to make if you understand the way the white world works. The white public support for the protests dissipated before the summer was even over. The inclusion and diversity programs erected in response to the protests are being torn down with glee by the defenders of white supremacy. Meaningful police reform died in statehouses around the country, in Congress, and on Senator Joe Manchin’s desk. And the news media and Hollywood resumed its regularly scheduled programing of copaganda. And so, three-and-a-half years after the summer of “no justice, no peace,” we are back to the quiet acceptance of systemic injustice. A new report from the nonprofit organization Mapping Police Violence shows that 2023 was the police’s most homicidal year on record. The police killed at least 1,232 people last year, the most since the organization began tracking police murders in 2013. In 98 percent of those cases, the officers faced no charges. It should come as little surprise that Black people faced the greatest danger from these murderous officers. Black people accounted for 26 percent of the deaths, despite the fact that we are only 14 percent of the population. Indeed, the statistics showed that Black people were 2.6 times more likely to be killed by the police than white people. But, hey, former Harvard University president Claudine Gay improperly cited some of her sources, so really her appointment was the biggest racial injustice story of the year. Not Tyre Nichols, who was lynched by a group of Memphis cops. Not Niani Finlayson, who was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer mere seconds after he arrived on the scene to respond to a domestic violence call she made. Not Leonard Allan Cure, who spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, was exonerated, and was shot to death by police during a traffic stop.

* * * * *

This is the police force white America wants: violent and unaccountable. We cannot even muster enough sustained attention to the problem of police brutality, much less the sustained political pressure to try to fix it. Whatever else happens in 2024, one thing is certain: The police will kill more people, those people will be disproportionately Black, and nobody will stop them.

Elie Mystal, "The Cops Killed More People in 2023 Than They Had in Years"

The Nation | 11 Jan 2024

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 22, 2024

Last night, Florida governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and promptly endorsed former president Trump. DeSantis had tried to present himself as the alternative to Trump, but he put so little daylight between himself and the former president that he could never get traction.

DeSantis appeared to use his power as the governor of Florida to push measures he thought would boost his candidacy, many of which followed the pattern of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who has used his government to destroy democracy and assume autocratic powers. DeSantis pushed anti-LGBTQ+ laws, book bans, and the idea that businesses like Disney must answer to the moral positions of the government rather than market forces, and he flew migrants who were in the U.S. legally to Martha’s Vineyard in an apparent attempt to stand out as an anti-immigrant crusader. 

But DeSantis never broke free of Trump’s orbit.

The Miami Herald editorial board noted that while DeSantis’s presidential bid had ended, “the damage of the laws he has pushed through in Florida, as he landed more appearances on Fox News, will live on. Without his political ambitions, there likely wouldn’t be ‘Don’t say gay,’ woke wars and the waste of state resources to fight meaningless battles against drag queen bars. These were efforts to appeal to Trump’s base but his supporters refused to leave the former president, especially after he was indicted.” 

The New Hampshire primary is tomorrow, with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley squaring off against Trump. It is not at all clear what daylight exists between the two of them, either, although Haley is perceived as the representative of the pre-Trump corporate Republican Party. Still, the contest is revealing the future in at least one way: today, New Hampshire voters are reporting that they have received robocalls with a deepfake of President Joe Biden’s voice telling them not to vote.  

Republican party officials worry that while Trump is taking up tons of oxygen, the party itself has nothing to run on. Since taking control of the House in 2023, Republicans have very little to show for it except a lot of infighting. The last congressional session was “historically unproductive,” as Sahil Kapur of NBC News put it today. House Republicans’ investigations of President Joe Biden, hyped before the media, have fizzled, and now, after insisting that they would not pass funding for Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan until the “crisis” at the border was addressed, they have backed off and now say they will not pass border legislation. 

Meanwhile, radicals appear to be manufacturing a crisis on the border. On January 11, Michael Scherer and Dylan Wells of the Washington Post reported that political ads had used the word “border” 1,319 times since the start of the year, more than any other word including “approve” and “message,” standard disclaimer terms for political ads.

On Wednesday, January 17, state authorities began to arrest migrants at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, as part of Governor Greg Abbott’s attempt to take control of immigration away from the federal government. When the government told Texas to stop blocking federal officials from the stretch of the Rio Grande where three migrants died last week, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s office responded: “Texas will not surrender.” 

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal government is authorized to remove the razor wire Texas has installed across the U.S.-Mexico border, although considering the federal government’s authority over border security is very well established, the fact that the vote was 5–4 is surprising. Far-right lawmakers were outraged nonetheless. Representative Chip Roy of Texas urged his House colleagues to defund the Department of Homeland Security, and Louisiana representative Clay Higgins said on social media that the federal government was “staging a civil war” and that “Texas should stand their ground.” 

Meanwhile, on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena to follow up on migration discussions the two countries had in meetings on December 27, 2023, in Mexico. In September 2023, Mexico eclipsed China as the largest trading partner of the U.S., and in the December meeting, Blinken, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, and National Security Council Coordinator for the Los Angeles Declaration Katie Tobin discussed cooperation to manage the border safely and humanely while also combating the drug smuggling and conditions that have been driving migration. 

On January 8, Julia Ainsley of NBC News explained that the Biden administration has been pressuring Mexico to increase enforcement on its own southern border with Guatemala, deport more migrants from within Mexico, and take in more non-Mexican migrants back across the U.S. southern border. In exchange, Ainsley says, Mexico’s president—who is on the defensive at home because of corruption charges—has proposed that the U.S. invest more money in Latin America and Caribbean countries, suspend its blockade of Cuba, ease sanctions against Venezuela, and make it easier for migrants to work legally in the U.S.

On Friday, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. said that the coordinated efforts were having a positive effect on migration as officials have cracked down on smuggling networks, trains, and bus routes. “Migration is a hemispheric challenge,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “The United States is committed to work hand in hand with Mexico and countries across the region to address the root causes of migration and advance economic opportunities in the spirit of Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection,” a landmark 2022 agreement in which the heads of twenty of the countries in the Americas agreed to embrace a regional approach to managing migration. 

Today, on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has made protecting reproductive rights key to her portfolio, and President Joe Biden noted that thanks to the “extreme decision” of today’s Supreme Court to overturn that decision has left tens of millions of American women “in states with extreme and dangerous abortion bans.” 

“Because of Republican elected officials,” Biden said in a statement, “women’s health and lives are at risk….  Even as Americans…have resoundingly rejected attempts to limit reproductive freedom, Republican elected officials continue to push for a national ban and devastating new restrictions across the country.” He and Vice President Harris “are fighting to protect women’s reproductive freedom against Republicans officials’ dangerous, extreme, and out-of-touch agenda,” he said. “We stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose, and continue to call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe in federal law once and for all.”

This is a position embraced by 69% of Americans, and the Biden campaign has run videos with Trump bragging that he overturned Roe v. Wade and suggesting that women who obtain abortions should be punished. 

Recently, the campaign released an ad in which a Texas woman who is herself an OBGYN talks about being unable to obtain an abortion for a planned pregnancy after a routine ultrasound revealed that the fetus could not survive. “Because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade,” she says, Texas “completely” took her choice away and put her life in danger. “It’s every woman’s worst nightmare and it was absolutely unbearable. We need leaders that will protect our rights and not take them away,” she says.

Finally, today, a historical moment: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an average of the value of 30 leading companies, passed 38,000 for the first time.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[publiccollectors]

Providence! I'm having an exhibit and I'm coming to your city for a quick visit this week. It would be great to meet you at Paper Nautilus on Thursday night. Jan 19, 2023, 6-8 PM!

Protest Grim Reapers Archival Press Photos from Public Collectors

On view Jan 19 – Feb 28, 2023 Reception Jan 19, 6-8pm Paper Nautilus Books, Wayland Square 19 South Angell Street, Providence, RI, 02906

The Public Collectors project Protest Grim Reapers is a dive into the world of discarded and resold press photo archives. This exhibit reproduces details from 27 press photos of the famed Pale Horse rider, spanning from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Across six of New England’s coldest weeks, we’ll get cozy with the documented personification of death in a neighborhood bookshop. From the back cover of the book that accompanies this collection: The grim reaper is an enduring figure at demonstrations. The reaper—or sometimes simply an angel of death—appears at protests for any cause where the gravity of a death figure feels appropriate. The reaper traditionally carries a scythe and wears a black hood and a skull mask or skull face paint, but sometimes the scythe is replaced with a different symbolic object.  For the past four years I have been collecting press photos of grim reapers at protests against hunger, radioactive waste, animal abuse, the death penalty, the Vietnam war, the closing of a Chrysler plant, demands for clean air and water, restrictions on abortion and more. These older press photos are routinely sold on the secondary market by dealers that acquire the archives of newspapers, or others that have purged their file copies. The dates of these photos reflect the availability of darkroom prints and wirephotos, taken before digital photography became dominant at most news outlets.  In recent years, the grim reaper has been in the news when people wearing this costume attended protests against keeping beaches and schools open during the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, the reaper tells spectators: ‘I am here because this is a matter or life or death for someone or something. I don’t want to be here, but because of you, your corporation, your politicians, or your crimes against humanity, my presence is justified. If this wasn’t deadly serious, I would have stayed at home or worn something else.’  — Marc Fischer / Public Collectors

Marc Fischer is the administrator of Public Collectors, an initiative he formed in 2007. Public Collectors aims to encourage greater access and scholarship for marginal cultural materials, particularly those that museums ignore. Public Collectors’ work includes the Library Excavations publication series and web project, Quaranzine—which produced 100 single page publications with over 75 collaborators at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Malachi Ritscher—a project about the late Chicago music documentarian and activist, produced for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. In addition to Public Collectors, Fischer is also a member of the group Temporary Services (founded in 1998) and a partner in its publishing imprint Half Letter Press (ongoing since 2008). He is based in Chicago. www.publiccollectors.org

[pinkaislepodcast]

Behind the Barbie -The Ruth Handler Story Part 2

This week, we continue to explore the life of Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, as we specifically discuss the process she went through in the creation of the doll. A process that included Japanese war criminals, unscrupulous business deals, and a shockingly horny psychologist. How was Barbie able to succeed in these strange and challenging circumstances? Listen and find out!

Listen to Part 1 Here

Listen on Itunes | Listen on Google Play | Listen on Spotify

Like what you heard? Be sure to rate us on your podcast platform of choice, and follow us at @pinkaislepodcast on Tumblr or  @PinkAislePod on Twitter. You can also reach out to us personally at pinkaislepod@gmail.com or support the show at patreon.com/henrykathman

Works Cited

“Barbie Doll Vintage Clothes Identified 1959.” Doll Reference, 2004, www.dollreference.com/barbie_clothes1959.html. Accessed 23 June 2023. Gerber, Robin. Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her. United States, HarperCollins, 2009. Kershaw, Sarah. “Ruth Handler, Whose Barbie Gave Dolls Curves, Dies at 85.” The New York Times, 29 Apr. 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/arts/ruth-handler-whose-barbie-gave-dolls-curves-dies-at-85.html. Lepore, Jill. “When Barbie Went to War with Bratz.” The New Yorker, Condé Nast, Advance Publications, 15 Jan. 2018, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/when-barbie-went-to-war-with-bratz. Lindsey, Robert. “A Million‐Dollar Business from a Mastectomy.” The New York Times, 19 June 1977, www.nytimes.com/1977/06/19/archives/a-milliondollar-business-from-a-mastectomy.html. Accessed 23 June 2023. “MISS SAIGON" 1996 GERMANY CONVENTION BARBIE by ROBERT WEININGER | #497781847.” Worthpoint, WorthPoint Corporation , www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/miss-saigon-1996-germany-convention-497781847. Accessed 23 June 2023. Moore, Andrew. “Hedonism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 17 Oct. 2013, plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/. Rainey, Clint. “A Horrific Environmental Disaster Is Happening in Ohio, and You May Not Even Have Heard about It.” Fast Company, Mansueto Ventures, LLC, 10 Feb. 2023, www.fastcompany.com/90848025/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals-pvc-spill-fire-disaster. Slater, Lee. Barbie Developer: Ruth Handler. United States, Abdo Publishing, 2016. Touvila, Alicia. “Bill-And-Hold Basis.” Investopedia, Dotdash Meredith , 18 Mar. 2023, www.investopedia.com/terms/b/buy_and_hold_basis.asp. Turner, Christopher. “The Hidden Persuader.” Cabinet, vol. 1, no. 44, 2011. Reading Design, www.readingdesign.org/hidden-persuader. Accessed 23 June 2023. “Vinyl Chloride - Cancer-Causing Substances - National Cancer Institute.” Www.cancer.gov, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 20 Mar. 2015, www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/vinyl-chloride#:~:text=Which%20cancers%20are%20associated%20with. Wong, Mia, and Robert Evans. Part One: The Slavery Loving Fascist Who Built Modern Japan. Coolzone Media, 21 Sept. 2021, www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-slavery-loving-fascist-87145628/, disc 1/3. Podcast.

[tigerstrikesasteroidnetwork]

NY / &&&2

&&&2 January 6, 2024 – February 18, 2024  Opening Reception: Jan 6, Saturday 6-8PM  A talk with the artists will be scheduled in February

Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York is pleased to present &&&2, a bi-coastal exhibition that serves as both a survey and sequel to the collaborations of Ethan Greenbaum, David Kennedy Cutler and Sara Greenberger Rafferty.

Ten years ago, the artists initiated a series of meetings to talk about materials and techniques, based on their mutual interest in using photographic imagery to destabilize traditional art categories like painting, printmaking and sculpture.

The meetings resulted in an artist’s book titled &&&, in which the three artists imagined themselves as a fictional industrial supply firm. For Greenberger & Greenbaum & Cutler &, the fictional company had a veneer of prestige. For these capitalist outsiders, a corporate symbol of joint commercial enterprise was almost tantamount to success.

The book was released at Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair in 2013 in both a mass market paperback and a boxed, limited special edition print series based on swatch sample catalogs. The intention of the project was lost on nearly everyone, but a few key people became aware of the artists’ positioning themselves as a small movement.  This included the photography curator Dan Leers, who organized a show and catalog of their work, Beyond The Surface: Image as Object, at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center in 2014. 

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of &&&, Sun You has invited Greenberger & Greenbaum & Cutler to mount an exhibition at TSA in Brooklyn, NY. There will also be a simultaneous version of the show at Ditch Projects in Springfield, OR.  The exhibitions at both artist-run spaces feature a backdrop that wraps the gallery with deconstructed pages from the original &&& book, over which the artists have installed works from 2013 and 2023.  The original book is also exhibited, as well as a new portfolio of prints (&&&2) to celebrate ten fruitful years of collaboration, hand wringing and friendship 

Ethan Greenbaum is a New York based artist. Selected exhibition venues include KANSAS, New York; Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Hauser and Wirth, New York; Marlborough Chelsea, New York, Higher Pictures, New York; New York; Marianne Boesky, New York, Circus Gallery, Los Angeles; Steve Turner, Los Angeles; The Suburban, Chicago; Michael Jon & Alan, Miami, The Aldrich Museum, Connecticut; Socrates Sculpture Park; Long Island City and Stems Gallery, Brussels. Recent projects include a solo presentation with Lyles & King and solo exhibitions at Galerie Pact, Paris and Super Dakota, Brussels.

His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Modern Painters, Artforum, BOMB Magazine, ArtReview and Interview Magazine, among others. Ethan is a co-founder and editor of thehighlights.org and his writings have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Wax Magazine, BOMB, Paper Monument and others. He has also curated and co-curated multiple exhibitions at venues including The Suburban, Chicago; Lyles & King, New York and Super Dakota, Brussels. Greenbaum is the recipient of the Queens Art Fund New Work Grant, the Silver Art Residency, The Keyholder Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, Dieu Donne’s Workspace Residency, LMCC’s Workspace Program, The Robert Blackburn SIP Fellowship, The Socrates EAF Fellowship, The Edward Albee Foundation Residency and The Barry Schactman Painting Prize. He received an MFA in Painting from Yale School of Art.

David Kennedy Cutler is an artist, writer and performer who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Cutler received his BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. He has had solo exhibitions at Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton; Essex Flowers, New York; The Centre for Contemporary Art, Tallinn, Estonia and Nice & Fit, Berlin, Germany. Cutler has performed in various spaces in New York including Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, Essex Flowers, Printed Matter, Halsey McKay, Derek Eller Gallery, and Flag Art Foundation, and internationally at the Center for Contemporary Arts Estonia, among others. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Wellin Museum at Hamilton College and The RISD Museum, and his artist’s books are included in the libraries of the Whitney Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. He has been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, The New Yorker and Modern Painter, among others. Cutler is represented by Derek Eller Gallery, NY and Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton. 

Sara Greenberger Rafferty produces image-based works in paper, plastic, glass, metal, fabric, and video. Her work is driven by an ongoing examination of contemporary and mid-20th century visual culture and considers the ever-changing implications for photographic images in the digital era. She’s also into comedy. 

Ditch Projects is a nonprofit artist-founded, artist-run studio, exhibition, and performance space providing contemporary art experiences in Springfield, Oregon. As a collective of artists and professionals committed to exhibiting experimental artists from diverse backgrounds, Ditch Projects provides opportunities for cultural exchange between experimental contemporary art and our local community, acting as an integral voice within contemporary art discourse in the Pacific Northwest. Since its founding in 2008, Ditch Projects has featured over 145 exhibitions and 275 artists. Growing organically out of the concerns of its artist members, Ditch provides contemporary visual arts practitioners with an opportunity to test out new ideas, processes, and approaches they might not otherwise attempt in a comparable urban center. Over the past decade, the primary focus of the artist collective has been on the production and presentation of new works by regional, national and international artists, with a consistent 10-12 solo, two-person or group exhibitions per season. Past exhibiting artists have included internationally renowned practitioners such as Amy Yao, Diana Thater, Scott Reeder, Laura Owens, Jessica Jackson Hutchinsons, and Vito Acconci, along with regionally acclaimed artists such as Ralph Pugay, Amy Bernstein, Lisa Radon, Tannaz Farsi, James Lavadour, and Kristen Kennedy. Exhibitions at Ditch Projects have been reviewed in Art Forum, Frieze, Art in America, and the New York Times. Ditch Projects has received grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation, The Miller Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commision, the Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Community Foundation, and the WLS Spencer Foundation.

[vikjaycecodex]

< SKINLINE_MANUAL >

*This is a copy of a desktop page! We recommend you read this version directly on your browser for better readability, and to always have the most up to date version.

⚙ TL;DR WHAT *ARE* SKINLINES? ⚙

Champion Skins are an in-game cosmetic option present in multiple League related properties! Aside from giving champions a refreshed design, skins can also offer new voicelines, animations, and wholly new backstories set in Alternate Universes – or ‘What If’-style iterations on their canon selves.

A growing narrative element (and “cast” of characters) is a major feature of League’s most popular Skin Universes. While League itself is not a story-progression game, these universes are explored through tie-in material such as champion bios, short stories, music, animations, comics, merch, spinoff games, TV shows, promotional illustrations and more.

This page will focus on champion skins for Jayce and Viktor across all League-related games, with the addition of Blitzcrank whenever an universe is shared.

[ ALL HD SPLASH ART ]

JAYCE GALLERY

VIKTOR GALLERY

BLITZCRANK GALLERY

I do this because I love you. But then again mostly because I hate looking for ref images and finding blurry webps.

⚙ If you’re looking for a full Art References page, click here ⚙

The remainder of this page details Skin Universes, Summaries, and Skin Spotlights. Skin and Universe summaries are extracted directly from the League Client or the League Wiki, denoted by quotation marks.

This page will be updated whenever relevant. (last: JAN/2023)

[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]

1. Shared Universes

2. Individual Skins

3. Spinoff Content

⚙ SHARED UNIVERSES ⚙

CODEX TAG — AU: Full Metal | League Wiki Universe Page

➢ CONTEXT HAZARD:  Current bios attached to these skins were retroactively written, and thus make for an incomplete representation of what they were supposed to convey.

Full Machine Viktor is one of Viktor’s original duo launch skins —the second being Prototype Viktor— and at time of release, the set was a representation of Viktor at different stages of his Evolution in the 2011 canon universe. (You had Default Viktor as his cyborg self, Prototype being the mostly-human self and Full Machine being, well, Full Machine.) Full Metal Jayce was also Jayce’s original launch skin; and at the time taken as a what-if style representation of a Jayce that accepted Viktor’s proposal to work together in the 2011 canon universe. This speculation was further bolstered by internal game files referring to this skin as ‘Sentinel Jayce’, and released concept art featuring a fully mechanized version of Jayce’s default outfit under the title ‘Sentinel Armor Apollo’ —"Apollo" was Jayce’s internal development name.

These skins were mixed in with the ‘Heavy Metal’ Universe as part of the 2016 Narrative Overhaul; though the execution of that move left some fans displeased. Jayce is now an international entertainment robot gladiator, while Viktor’s full evolution has been downgraded to a ‘janitorbot’. Fanwork of these skins may still refer to their original context.

UNIVERSE BIO:

“Audiences gather from all over the world for a chance to witness the greatest robot fighters throw down in RiotCorp’s gladiatorial arenas, eager for the chance to be crowned the Full Metal Robot Fighting League Champion or break down trying.”

FULL METAL JAYCE BIO:

“Backed by RiotCorp as the Full Metal Fighting League’s first corporately sanctioned champion, Jayce has dethroned Pantheon and won the hearts of audiences worldwide—especially those who realize they gain 15 Riot Points every time they cheer his cyclonic blasts.”

(Skin Spotlight)

FULL MACHINE VIKTOR BIO:

“Created from the same circuitry as the Full Metal champion, Jayce, Viktor was cast into the tunnels beneath the robot fighting arenas to serve as a janitoribot—while his twin was groomed for glory, simulcast en español. Upgrading himself with the cast-offs of the destroyed, he has sworn la venganza.”

(Skin Spotlight)

CODEX TAG — AU: Battlecast | League Wiki Universe Page

“Set in a dystopian future where an army of robots with living brains seek to extinguish or convert all life, champions are transformed into cyborg terrors as a part of Viktor’s glorious evolution, while some rebel against it.”

UNIVERSE BIO:

“The glorious revolution is here! Assembling an army of machines with living brains, Viktor marches against the combined forces of his enemies—with only a scrappy human-led resistance keeping him from total world domination.”

CREATOR VIKTOR BIO:

“The creator of the Battlecast machine army, Viktor has perfected the art of transplanting living brains into low-tech, mass-produced weapons. But his work is far from complete, and even now he tinkers on newer, deadlier creations to crush all who oppose him.”

(Skin Spotlight)

RESISTANCE JAYCE BIO:

“While many presumed him dead, Jayce’s sudden return to the Resistance has been heralded by some as a miracle and others as a curse. Burdened by guilt, he still blames himself for his failure to halt Viktor’s rise. Only time will tell if Jayce can turn the tide.”

(Skin Spotlight)

CODEX TAG — AU: Zenith Games | League Wiki Universe Page

UNIVERSE BIO:

“It’s 2122, a year of firsts for the Zenith Games. Robot referees are taking to the field, the sport of Hammerjack is making its competitive debut, and after years of talks, augmented humans are finally allowed to compete. All that’s left is seeing who will win.”

ZENITH GAMES JAYCE BIO:

“Jayce invented Hammerjack as a showcase sport for humanity’s new augmented abilities. Nothing else tested athletes across so many directions and terrain, and with this being its first year in the Zenith Games, he intends to show everyone what THE sport of the 22nd century looks like.”

(Skin Spotlight)

ZENITH GAMES BLITZCRANK BIO:

“Originally a bomb defusal robot, Blitzcrank was made a referee because of their ability to make split-second adjustments to stay ahead of the prodigious athletes. Only later did everyone realize that the bot’s background made them unusually effective in defusing the intense… disagreements that often arise.”

(Skin Spotlight)

CODEX TAG — AU: Death Sworn | League Wiki Universe Page

➢ CONTEXT HAZARD: While technically not part of the same ‘skinline’ both of these skins have been released during League’s seasonal Harrowing events (which feature a different skinline every other year) making them both Halloween specials.

AKA the Spirit Halloween champion variants.

DEATH SWORN VIKTOR BIO:

“On a cold, dreary night, a pioneering inventor was tried and hanged for preaching his glorious vision of the future—a world in which the living knelt before the dead. Death had to admire Viktor’s conviction, and sent him back into the mortal world, blessed with powers beyond imagination.”

Death Sworn Universe Page

(Skin Spotlight)

WITCH’S BREW BLITZCRANK BIO:

“Once nothing but a simple cauldron, Blitzcrank was enchanted, brought to life in order to assist Miss Fortune in her beguiling bewitchments.”

Trick-or-Treat Universe Page

(Skin Spotlight)

⚙ INDIVIDUAL SKINS ⚙

PROTOTYPE VIKTOR | CODEX TAG — Academy Years

SKIN BIO:

Woops! This was one of Viktor’s original duo release skins showing off potential stages of his evolution, so it has no bio. You can read his champion bio instead! Fanwork usually slots this appearance on the timeline between Viktor being expelled from school & forging his current armor, so it goes on ‘Academy Years.’

(Skin Spotlight)

DEBONAIR JAYCE | CODEX TAG — AU: Debonair

Valentines 2015 Skin. Comes with seasonal cards!

DEBONAIR UNIVERSE BIO:

“Power, wealth, and glamour collide in the penthouses and exclusive clubs of Nox Vegas, where truly beautiful people hold the world in their palms. Yet as night falls on the city of lights, the knives come out—influence is the name of the game, and nobody likes to lose.”

SKIN BIO:

“You’re a scholar. You’re an inventor. You’re the man of the hour and the hour is now, yesterday, and tomorrow. Don’t just be the father of invention—be the ivory god of substance, class, and style. It’s you, Jayce. It’s always been you.”

(Skin Spotlight)

FORSAKEN JAYCE | CODEX TAG — AU: Forsaken

May 4th celebration skin. This skin originally had no bio, but it launched with a Star Wars reference based marketing blogpost. It has been since ported to Wild Rift, where it got a visual cleanup and its own biography blurb.

SKIN BIO (WILD RIFT 2022):

“Opposed to balance in all measures,Jayce has gone down a path he cannot return from. He has sworn vengeance upon Chosen Master Yi and all he stands for.”

(Skin Spotlight)

PSYOPS VIKTOR | CODEX TAG — AU: PsyOps

This skin was featured in the Official Psyops Theme, and Viktor himself is an easter egg in the Songbird Cinematic. PsyOps is canonically set 40 years after the ‘Artic Ops’ skinline.

PSYOPS UNIVERSE BIO:

“The crown jewel of military black ops, the PsyOps unit are an elite team of psychic soldiers deployed against rogue militaries and supernatural threats. Officially, they don’t exist. But when conventional warfare won’t cut it and the stakes are no less than the fate of the world, PsyOps answers the call.

A psychic paramilitary unit of fearsome power, the Black Rose Group hopes to create a new global order with their ferocious human bioweapons.”

SKIN BIO:

“Leader of the rogue military known as the Black Rose Group, Viktor is a psychic technomancer whose vision for a utopian world was abandoned when he suddenly departed High Command decades prior. Obsessed with an alien ‘gate’ uncovered during the Arctic Ops event, his experiments into human bioweapons would allow him to breach it and upend the global order.”

(Skin Spotlight)

JAYCE BRIGHTHAMMER | CODEX TAG — AU: Riftquest

TTRPG universe with a meta layer; champions are players who built fantasy characters going on a quest. Dungeon Master Viktor was originally going to be a part of this Skinline, but never made it to release due to the position of dungeon master being considered ‘too niche’. Though not all was lost: Jayce’s skin bio still highlights a playful rivalry relationship with his offscreen dungeon master.

This skin was featured in two comics (off canon) and a rp style short story. (LoR has introduced new exclusive Riftquest skins in 2022, but they focus on a separate DnD group.)

RIFTQUEST UNIVERSE BIO:

“Danger lurks in the land of Runeterra! Powerful monsters, dastardly sorcerers, and mythical creatures roam unchecked! Gather your friends and create your own adventure for 3-5 players, vanquishing evil with each roll of the die. Do you have what it takes to save the world, and become a legend of RIFTQUEST?”

SKIN BIO:

“A noble paladin who has inexplicably mastered science and engineering, Jayce Brighthammer is a stout ally no foul creature can best! Unless that foul creature is a loophole in the rulebook, since Jayce likes to get any advantage over the Rift Master he can.”

(Skin Spotlight)

BATTLE ACADEMIA JAYCE | CODEX TAG — AU: Battle Academia

Shonen superpower school universe. I’m sure you can guess the reference from the title. This skin launched with multiple promos and an animated short for latinoamerica.

GOD WEAPON UNIVERSE BIO:

“Scattered across the globe, the God Weapons morphed society into one driven by power. These sentient monuments call to those who are worthy and bestow their gifts upon their subjects, aiming to expand their conquest in this war-torn world. To be chosen is a badge of honor, instilling fear into any who may oppose them.”

SKIN BIO:

“A prestigious 2nd year whose face is known throughout the wider city of Durandal, Jayce is the class president, head of the world-renowned Luminary Club, and prodigious inventor of miraculous Jayce-branded technologies. He hopes his inventions will prevent the kind of tragedy that struck him in his youth, though he refuses to speak about what that was.”

(Skin Spotlight)

HIGH NOON VIKTOR  | CODEX TAG — AU: High Noon

“At the height of the industrial revolution, travelers begin pouring into the untamed west, searching for fortune and prosperity among the unknown horrors of a cruel and ancient world. It is a time of brave gunslingers and rotten scoundrels, inscrutable gods, and savage demons.”

Weird West AU. This universe has been fleshed out with extensive short stories.

HIGH NOON GOTHIC UNIVERSE BIO:

“Gunslingers and lawmen ride beneath the merciless sun of the high frontier, chasing survival and salvation in equal measure. Heaven is rubble, hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

SKIN BIO:

“Many a road to Hell was paved with good intent. Dr. Viktor may be the Mechanical Devil’s kept engineer now, but his work began as charity: trying to “rehome” the souls of the dead in clockwork bodies, in order to circumvent mortality itself. Shame that Mordekaiser saw the good doctor’s kindness and struck him a deal he could not deny.”

Alt Splash Concepts

(Skin Spotlight)

ARCANE JAYCE  | CODEX TAG — Woops, we dont cover Arcane.

(Skin Spotlight)

SUPERHERO JAYCE  | CODEX TAG — AU: Superhero

This skin is a Wild Rift battlepass exclusive, and launched with a showcase animation. It is unconfirmed if this skin is part of the Silver Age Universe, though it is listed as such for having a superhero theme.

An official speedpaint of this splash was uploaded to youtube! One of the splash concepts may feature Amaranthine.

SKIN BIO:

“By day, Jayce is a genius inventor and pillar of the community; by night, Jayce dons a costume and patrols the streets of Topside as his alter ego Hextech Man! Wielding his trusty hextech hammer, Jayce will stop at nothing to protect his people.”

(Skin Spotlight)

GILDED JAYCE  | CODEX TAG — AU: Gilded

Legends of Runeterra exclusive. Gilded skins have no conventional universe or character bios; they are broadly set at a lavish Progress Day party in Piltover, though apparently not the ‘main canon’ one. Aesthetic > Lore skinline.

⚙ Spinoff Content ⚙

➢ In the comic Punches and Plants: Series 2, Alternate versions of Jayce & Viktor in a modern/fantasy universe have 'retired’ from their hero and villain positions to take up toymaking and other nerdy hobbies.

➢ In a Space Groove short story released exclusively in Chinese channels, Disco Pirate Jayce appears as part of Disco Pirate Miss Fortune’s crew. Both skins remain unreleased.

➢J&V Animated Stickers from LoR

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Excerpts from Jan Moir Daily Mail Article today. by u/HydeParkUK

Excerpts from Jan Moir Daily Mail Article today. There isn't a situation in the world that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex can't make worse by eagerly inserting themselves into the narrative.In a statement released on Wednesday, the breathless couple condemned 'all acts of terrorism and brutality' following the Hamas attack on Israel. So caring yet also so terribly, terribly neutral — just in case they antagonise someone who might be useful in the future.Or perhaps there is a more noble reason behind their careful impartiality? That would be marvellous, if true. Yet in a word salad splashed with their usual oily dressing of corporate banal-speak, the Sussexes added that they were 'supporting our partners and organisations on the frontlines in Israel to provide the urgent aid needed'.What does that mean? Archewell is building a new pipeline to pump in fresh water for the besieged Palestinians? Or free copies of Meghan's children's book The Bench are available for anyone sending a stamped addressed envelope to Cloud Cuckoo Land, California.Apologies for going on about Meghan, but what on earth was she wearing at that mental health summit in NYC? In her shoulderless jacket she looked like she was emerging from a roll of cream carpet. Are bare shoulders even appropriate for a daytime serious seminar on Oh-How-I've-Suffered-and-So-Has-He? Hate to be a prude, but I think not. post link: https://ift.tt/bRCvhQL author: HydeParkUK submitted: October 13, 2023 at 03:01AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[icyfiretraveler]

Title: "Pokèmon Scale x Fang "

Last Updated: Jan 1, 2023

Genre: "Pokemon Emerald" romhack

I liked it, the story is okay, dude vibes. You maybe stop being a corporate cop right after the end of the current story. No gyms was nice and the new pokemon sprites look great. It'll be really interesting when it is done. You'll go to the underworld to fight big mons, probably.

[archivyrep]

Archivists on the Issues: Sophisticated Bureaucracies, Archives, and Fictional Depictions [part 1]

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post is by Burkely Hermann (me), Metadata Librarian for National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There are spoilers for each of the books, animated series, films, and other media he will be discussing. It was originally published on the Issues and Advocacy blog on Jan. 3, 2023. It was also published on my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks blog on Feb. 13, 2023.

This organizational chart of the National Archives and Records Administration is an example of an archival bureaucracy

Large government, corporate, and private archives are bureaucratic. Even though the so-called Information Revolution threatened to upend existing practices within archival bureaucracies, and structures of these institutions, new records management strategies developed, in Europe and U.S., which are as hierarchical as previous methods. [1] Bureaucracy remains firmly entrenched, in language, practices, and strategies of collecting institutions, whether the National Archives or Library of Congress. In this post, I'll discuss the role of bureaucracies in archival institutions and connect my findings to fictional depictions.

Recordkeeping often lends itself to bureaucracy, whether in non-profit organizations, corporations, or governments. Sometimes practices change and reinforce the bureaucracy of these institutions. This can include discouraging creation of "rich narrative reports", while supporting archival classification and arrangement as an "infrastructural tool". Furthermore, some bureaucracies are repressive, affecting restitution of captured wartime records. [2]

Unsurprisingly, culture of documentation has changed from being transactional to bureaucratic as organizationally sophisticated bureaucracies first developed in the 19th century. Scholar Francis Blouin called for new principles about diplomatics, referring to study of form, creation, and transmission of records, and their relation to facts within them, and their creators, to order to "identify, evaluate, and communicate their nature and authenticity." [3] Blouin argued that bureaucratic culture produces transactional and literary records, systematic recordkeeping, analytic records, and records created in respect to "sovereignty of people in democratic societies". In Blouin's view, in such societies, public accountability necessitates "particular forms and genres of recordkeeping." [4]

Other scholars have noted growing complexity, changing nature, and interrelatedness of government bureaucracies. Recently there has been a tendency to "free up" bureaucracy while encouraging entrepreneurship and risk-taking. The latter undermines archival missions. [5] Modern bureaucracies have defined existing file systems, even as archivists and historians are presented with many challenges. This includes influence on archival theory, especially by Weberian bureaucratic thinking, and controlling access to records. This was even the case in Eastern Europe, with political shifts in latter years of the Cold War caused archival access procedures to change. [6]

Modern bureaucracies have produced a "sheer mass of records". In the past, this caused archivists to use sampling in order to determine "research potential" of records and appraise them. Even so, archivists continued to experience frustrations when "dealing with" bureaucracy, while being a part of complex bureaucratic structures, which can include competing groups. [7] More recently, there has been discussion of how various technologies can change bureaucratic processes, including in the United Nations and Vatican. Other scholars have asked whether the role of archives in the life-cycle of government records is a way of "holding democratic governments accountable". The latter is the case in Germany, which has a strict division between records management and archival functions, with records remaining in custody of government bureaucracies. [8]

Fictional depictions of bureaucracies reflect some of these realities. One of the best known examples are the Vogans in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, who destroy Earth because the planet is in the way of a hyperspace freeway. They are the embodiment of bureaucrats. The Vogans are inefficient, with absurdly lengthy official processes, and their continued efforts to thwart "any real progress in the galaxy." Adams' makes clear a metaphor: the house of protagonist Arthur Dent will be destroyed by an uncaring (and extremist) bureaucracy, just as the Vogans are doing to the planet. [9] Archives are not directly shown, but characters in the 2005 film view a restricted archival record from the Magrathean Public Archive. The record cuts off before revealing the name of a supercomputer, with a message stating that information has been deleted, as I noted in my post on the Issues & Advocacy blog back in December.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Continued in part 2

Notes

[1] Bearman, David. “Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and America.” The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 169–70, 173–76, 180.

[2] Wosh, Peter. "Bibles, Benevolence, and Bureaucracy: The Changing Nature of Nineteenth Century Religious Records." The American Archivist 52, no. 2 (1989): 166-167, 169, 172, 175, 178; Montgomery, Bruce. "Saddam Hussein's Records of Atrocity: Seizure, Removal, and Restitution." The American Archivist, 75, no. 2 (2012): 326, 331, 333, 357.

[3] Blouin, Francis. "A Framework for a Consideration of Diplomatics in the Electronic Environment." The American Archivist 59, no. 4 (1996): 466-467, 471, 477-478.

[4] Ibid, 476.

[5] Wilson, Ian. "Reflections On Archival Strategies." The American Archivist 58, no. 4 (1995): 414, 416-417, 421, 423-424.

[6] Elliott, Clark. "Science at Harvard University, 1846--47: A Case Study of the Character and Functions of Written Documents." The American Archivist 57, no. 3 (1994): 448-450, 460; Menne-Haritz. "Appraisal or Documentation: Can We Appraise Archives by Selecting Content?" The American Archivist 57, no. 3 (1994): 528, 532-533; Ress, Imre. "The Effects of Democratization on Archival Administration and Use in Eastern Middle Europe." The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 86, 90-91.

[7] Kepley, David. "Sampling in Archives: A Review." The American Archivist 47, no. 3 (1984): 237-238; Lutzker, Michael. "Max Weber and the Analysis of Modern Bureaucratic Organization: Notes Toward a Theory of Appraisal." The American Archivist 45, no. 2 (1982): 120-122, 124, 126, 130.

[8]Taylor, Hugh. "'My Very Act and Deed': Some Reflections on the Role of Textual Records in the Conduct of Affairs." The American Archivist 51, no. 4 (1988): 456, 459-460, 464, 466; Zandt, Lauren. "A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace." The American Archivist 84, no. 1 (2021): 214-217; Blouin, Jr., Frank. "A Case for Bridging the Gap: The Significance of the Vatican Archives Project for International Archival Information Exchange." The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 184, 186-188; Hering, Katharina. "Zwölf Wege ins Archiv. Umrisse einer offenen und praktischen Archivwissenschaft." The American Archivist 84, no. 1 (2021): 212-213.

[9] Fatima, Zahra. "Humor, Satire and Verbal Parody in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Relevance Theoretic Approach." NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry 14, no. 11 (2016): 45, 51; Thompson, Thomas David. “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: A Metaphorical Look at Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Bachelors, California Polytechnic State University, 2015, see pages 15-16.

[theyoungturks]

Florida has blocked a new advanced placement course on African American studies that was to be offered to high schoolers. Adrienne Lawrence and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/19/florida-african-american-studies-education-00078587 "Florida is barring high school students from taking a new advanced placement course on African American studies over concerns the lessons run “contrary” to state law and that it “significantly lacks educational value.” In the state’s latest crackdown on how race is taught in schools, Florida education officials rejected the course from being implemented in classrooms as the College Board this year launches a pilot program for its development. The Florida Department of Education left the door open for possibly accepting the course eventually, but only if the content is tweaked to meet state guidelines. “In the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion,” state education officials wrote in a Jan. 12 letter to the organization, first reported by National Review. The College Board conducts the SAT exams and advance placement programs." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Nina Turner https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 230123__TA03_Florida_Blocks_AP by The Young Turks