#fear street grifter

[cosplaying-memester]

I watched Fear Street the other day and thought that I should do some cosplays of the killers. I'll be doing Isaac Milton, Harry Rooker, Tommy Slater, and (maybe) Ryan Torres.

[restinslices]

Real quick, I got a Fear Street theory.

So we all know the killers are possessed, but I have a theory that they still know what they’re doing. Hear me out, when the Goodes posses someone, you can’t just take over their body easily. So what happens is, they’re possessed but the actual them is still there. They fight against an evil force and no matter how hard they try to fight back, no matter how hard they try to stop themselves from hurting the people they love, no matter how much they scream internally, they can never win.

They only ever “win” when they can die. Like, Ryan was shot by Nick Goode, Tommy was stabbed then had his head chopped off, Ruby ended herself, Pastor Cyrus Miller was killed by Solomon Goode. It’s apart of the process. If a part of them is still there, it makes controlling them harder. When their body is killed, it kills their actual spirits which leaves them an empty shell and therefore, leaves nothing there to fight back.

I just think the idea of them seeing what they’re doing, but having some invisible evil force hold them down and not let them control their own body is depressing.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

i keep hearing rumours about fear street 4 and people going “oh they should do this book” and no they shouldn’t do any book they should give me backgrounds on all the different killers. we got little details but it was barely anything i want biographies here i wanna be able to fill out entire character wikis and have in depth lore

[vitoriafoxfofaoff]

One of the reasons the milkman was thrown away

[anotherpapercut]

ok sorry I do have one last thing to say on the topic which is that it is sick and evil that when you try to google drug safety and dosage information almost all of the top results are sponsored links to various sketchy rehab centers run by grifters, money/power hungry freaks, and sometimes literal cults with the same 3 copy and pasted paragraphs chock full of the exact fear mongering abstinence only misinformation you would find in a pamphlet handed to you by a preacher on a street corner in the 80s

[socialjusticeinamerica]

*Spoilers in the linked article.*

I caught an early screening last night. It wasn’t well attended. The film is more like a Blumhouse horror movie on steroids than anything you may have conceived ahead of time. It is very dark, gritty, and oppressive. It reminds me of of seeing Platoon and leaving the theater tired as if I had been in the battle.

The film doesn’t really play off of current politics but rather fictional plot lines so as not to offend the current right and left wings in America. Despite this it is an intensely realistic war film and edge of your seat thriller. The main characters are war correspondents and their personal detachment from the frightening scenes of violence, near indifference in some scenes, becomes a subplot.

Civil War depicts the chaos, fear, violence, deprivation, depravity, and sheer terror one can only experience by having been in a war zone. Nick Offerman, as the President, is only in a few brief scenes and though the film stays away from real life connections his character is in his “third term” and has disbanded the FBI. Clearly this is Trumpian but subtle enough to fly over the heads of MAGAts. Rogue militia men, not much different than we see in Red States, armed with AR-15’s are present throughout the film and generate tension and sheer terror at some points. The acts of graphically realistic barbarity are hard to process.

The film is a cautionary tale of an America plunged into an utterly chaotic and brutal Civil War where no prisoners are taken, literally on the screen. There are no good guys or bad guys and very little context or background is given. The closing photo on screen during the end credits speaks volumes. This is not just what is highly likely to happen if the right-wing doesn’t get their way but what the cost will be to society. Chaos, disruption, breakdown in the supply chain, the resulting lack of food and fuel, breakdown of the power grid, collapse of law and order, domestic terrorism, anarchy, devaluation of currency, humanitarian crises, destruction of infrastructure, and a constant state of fear.

Ok, begin rant here:

Sadly about a third of the country wants this to happen and has not only been preparing for it but actually trying to provoke it. In the eighties and nineties we saw hopeless young marginalized people in rural join gangs and be willing to toss their lives away because their situation was near hopeless. They expected to die young and didn’t care if they did or what harm they caused along the way. They lacked educational opportunities or any meaningful employment. Now in the two thousands we see rural southern and western white youth with the same mindset. Red state Republican governance and corporate plundering has left them poorly educated with no chance at socio-economic advancement. The difference between the two groups being that the poor rural whites have been brainwashed into supporting their oppressors. Further they are armed with military assault rifles and own a plethora of combat tactical gear.

This stems in part from the unholy alliance of the NRA and the GOP (Republicans). However more to the point it stems from the desensitization that two decades of forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused. This was courtesy of grifter war criminals Bush/Cheney. Our streets are now flooded with hundreds of thousands of traumatized, disillusioned, and disgruntled veterans and their tales fascinate MAGAs to the point where they form militias. The Republicans, who vote against veterans aid consistently, have claimed the military and falsely profess admiration for it with empty lip service. Poor and poorly educated Republicans now worship the military like they are warriors on the Klingon home world. Nothing against active or retired military just the Republican pretenders. While Joe MAGA himself doesn’t serve, he feels the need to play pretend soldier and would in a heartbeat turn his life inside out and our nation inside out for a sense of belonging, ie the MAGA cult mentality. They want that post apocalyptic gun slinger world where they believe life is simple as long as you are carrying a gun. They have been conditioned not to think things through and see no other escape from a society that has become too complicated for them to navigate.

That’s the crux of my story, rural Republicans feel hopeless and have been radicalized by demagogues to the point they will wage war on the rest of the country. Republican politicians and their corporate/oligarch masters want to gorge themselves off of a civil war they believe they will win. See the movie Civil War and see what the ordinary MAGAt is hoping to do to the rest of us.

The movie, although brutal and not for the faint of heart, is a cautionary tale that we need to be aware of.

[aheathen-conceivably]

🎶 All God's people find their place, and I love you like a mountain 🎶

Sometime before noon Antoine finally rose from bed. He had donned a plain vest and then rolled up his sleeves, both for the heat and knowing that his arsenal of robes and patterned ties wouldn’t get him far on the streets of New Mexico. His fingers exaggerated each movement, heavy with the weight of his need to succeed for his family’s sake as well as his own.

As he put his hat atop his head, he knew that he couldn’t drag out the inevitable any longer. He had never felt comfortable asking for help, much less begging for a job. A skilled pianist, a business owner, a decorated war veteran; what was any of it here? He was an unskilled laborer in a foreign land, saddled with debt and nerves.

He took a shaky breath and crossed his arms, a French prayer coming to the front of his mind. Rather than fight it he kept his eyes closed and silently went through the words before signing the cross and walking out the door.

When he walked onto the porch both Giorgio and Zelda were already standing in the middle of the yard, deep in conversation as Zelda pointed to the shed and the crops. He waved at them and asked where Josephine was; with a weary shrug Giorgio called back that she was still asleep. 

Zelda gave him a knowing smile and whispered good luck, her words almost silent but clear to Antoine even across the farmyard.

He set off on foot toward town, following the directions that Giorgio had given him to the places that he heard were looking for workers. He had offered him a ride the day before, but Antoine knew that in their situation gas was a luxury not to be wasted. Besides, there was something about all of these cars and roads that he didn’t trust. 

Zelda joked that it was the city boy in him, afraid of the open road. It was her new favorite nickname and one that he was growing increasingly delighted with as her Henford roots continued to show. Even her clipped English accent, softened by her years in New Orleans and his own Creole voice, had seemingly strengthened in the days since they’d arrived. 

But perhaps she was right, the city boy wasn’t prepared for the speed at which the cars flew by his shoulder. Yet as the loud engine passed him and disappeared down the road beyond, he was left in the peaceful desert air. It felt older and stiller than anything he'd ever known, so much so that it erased the worries from his mind until he forgot the task at hand and actually began to enjoy his walk.

Yet as the days went by the comfort he drew from the surrounding desert began to dwindle. One after another, shop owners and farmers turned him away. The kinder ones gave him a new address, another place to look. They passed the buck along, scared for their own security and unwilling to take on another mouth to feed as the newspaper headlines grew more grim and the line of unemployed longer by the day.

But many simply muttered under their breath and turned away. For others, he was lucky if their insults were so subtle. Hunger and fear had left the worst of them volatile and inhospitable, desperate for a scapegoat for their frustrations in whatever form it arrived.

Get off my land, grifter. Find another place to beg, Okie. We’ve got nothing for you, you damn migrant. He was no stranger to slurs, but these were new, and they held a whole different capacity for insult, new weight and freshly perceived inadequacies for him to digest each time they were hurdled in his direction.

So day after day, week after week, he went home to Zelda as his failures mounted and hopes dwindled down to nothing. Still, their creaky iron bed grew more comfortable and the peeling wallpaper an ever soothing sight. He laid there in her welcome embrace until the word went still and the panic quieted.

Each night it became easier to recount every moment of his day, coupled as it was with his growing fear and worry. When he couldn't, he listened to Zelda speak of the new things Violette had learned, or the progress that she and Gio had made on the soil. In the quiet of the desert air one of their voices filled the void that the world had created for them, until their eyes began to grow heavy and there was nothing left to worry about until the sun rose again on a new day.

[mariacallous]

In the summer of 2022, when Liz Truss was about to become prime minister, I noticed that she was an admirer of Rick Perlstein, one of the great historians of modern America. 

Aspiring politicians like to tell the media about their favourite writers, even if they barely look at a book from one year to the next. It gives them a touch of class.

But there was no doubt in this case that Truss was sincere, and knew Perlstein’s work intimately.

She told journalists from the Times that she read “anything” Perlstein wrote. An interviewer from the Atlantic magazine saw a copy of Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf, the third of his four-volume series on the rise of the radical right in the United States between 1960 and 1980, and said it was just the kind of book you’d expect her to read.

Then there was a weird moment in an interview with the Spectator when  an anonymous spokeswoman for the Truss campaign, who sounded very like Truss herself, explained that her rival Rishi Sunak was failing to win over Tory members because he refused to pander to their prejudices. 

“If people think there is an imaginary river,” the source said, “you don’t tell them there isn’t, you build them an imaginary bridge.”

You can find that quote at the beginning of the Perlstein history of the US right in the mid-1970s that was on Liz Truss’s bookcase.  And it is highly revealing. Perlstein picked it from a meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon in the late 1950s. The Soviet leader told the then US vice-president that politicians must create their own reality by pandering to the fear in their supporters’ minds. 

“If the people believe there is an imaginary river out there,” Khrushchev said, “you don’t tell them there’s no river out there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river.”

Truss, or someone close to her was saying that Tories did not want to face facts. They wanted their fantasies confirmed, which is exactly what she did — at enormous cost to the country.

I contacted Perlstein and asked what he thought of having the UK’s next prime minister as a fan.

Let me put it like this: he may have been her favourite historian, but she was not his favourite politician. Not even close. Not even in the top 1,000. He found her astonishingly stupid.

”Liz. Can’t. Read,” he replied, and began a long – and for British readers frightening – account of how and why our new government of wannabe Reaganites would crash the economy.

As they went on to do.

Truss’s notion that tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves had been developed in the 1970s. The new wealth of the already wealthy was meant to boost the economy and tax base and trickle down to the rest of society.

In the fourth volume of his series, Perlstein covered the grifters who sold the idea of self-funding tax cuts and explained how dubious they were.

And yet here, 50-years on, was his devoted reader Liz Truss reading his history as a guidebook rather than a warning.

Why do terrible ideas refuse to die?

You could say in this case that Truss was so stupid she did not understand the past. This was Perlstein’s point.

Then there’s greed. If you want to proselytise for tax cuts for the rich, you will never be short of a paying audience, as the Tufton Street think tanks well know.

Finally, there’s deceit. Conservatives don’t necessarily believe that they will raise money for public services. The enterprise of pretending tax cuts are self-financing is a con designed to weaken state provision.

All three played their part in the voodoo economics of US conservatism and the disastrous reign of Liz Truss.

Here’s how…

Neo-liberalism was forged in the 1970s as the post-war Keynesian or New Deal consensus fell apart.

One of the new ideas that emerged was trickle-down economics.  Until then, the traditional conservative argument was that you needed to reduce spending or increase growth if you wanted to reduce taxes.

This was the case that Rishi Sunak put in his failed attempt to defeat Truss in the 2022 leadership contest.

But in the mid-1970s hucksters and ideologues maintained that there was no need to cut spending. The growth tax cuts inspired would more than cover the cost.

The Laffer curve suggested that there was a point where tax rises were counterproductive. People would turn down work if the state took too much of their income, although where that point was is always disputed.

Getting into these practical arguments misses the point, however. There was an exuberant eruption of voodoo economics in the mid-1970s, which had no concern for technical accuracy.

Perlstein put it to me like this

“[With] conventional Keynesian – ‘liberal’ – solutions failing, all sorts of intellectual entrepreneurs on the right came forth with their solutions to the problem, as I narrate in Reaganland, a volume Liz claims to have read. [Of the] many solutions on the table, the one that prevailed was the one that all the actually half-way qualified experts on the right knew was nothing but a fairy tale on a par with Jack in the Beanstalk. [It was] devised by a dude whose only economic training, in his own description, came from learning to count cards at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I wish I were making this up, but I am not.”

Perlstein was referring to Jude Wanniski, a journalist who did indeed coin the term “supply-side economics” in the 1970s after a spell working in Las Vegas. He attracted the attention of Reagan, Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes with his promise that the Laffer curve guaranteed that, if conservative politicians cut taxes, the economy would boom.

As Perlstein notes, Wanniski’s first piece promoting the idea in a 1975 issue of the Conservative journal Public Interest “lacked almost everything that made economic arguments convincing to other economists”. There were only four footnotes. No data. No formal models. Economists thought supply-side economics was a joke. It would take decades to recoup the money lost in tax cuts to wealthy people, they argued.

Milton Friedman, who was hardly a socialist, said the inflation that unfunded tax cuts would produce meant that supply-side economics was merely a “proposal to change the form of taxes” rather than lower them.  They would generate price and interest rates rises as indeed happened during the Truss debacle.

Alan Greenspan, who once again was a man of the right, who hung out with Ayn Rand no less, nevertheless said he knew of no one who believed that Arthur Laffer’s curve would magically turn tax cuts into increased government revenues.

And so it has proved again and again. Ronald Reagan’s administration provided the classic example. It cut taxes but the promised surge in tax revenues did not happen. All that happened was the national debt increased.

David Stockman, Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget admitted that "none of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," as the experiment played out. He rapidly came to the conclusion that the administration needed to cut spending to balance the books. But as he said in his The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed Conservative politicians preferred large deficits and an increasing national debt to cutting programmes their constituents liked.

Under Reagan, Bush and Trump they were happy to keep cutting. One of the features of US politics is that the national debt is as likely to rise under right-wing as left-wing governments,

Obviously, arguing that cutting the wealthy’s taxes was virtuous in itself pleased the wealthy.  It pleased Republican party donors in the 1970s, and it pleased the Tory donors who poured money into Liz Truss’s campaign in 2022.

But there is more to it than that.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal in 1976, Wanniski said the problem with the old right with its insistence on saving money was that it wanted to be Scrooge when it should be Santa Claus. 

It should deliver tax cuts, forget about the national debt, and sit back as a grateful citizenry showed their gratitude at polling stations. Left-wingers wanted to give taxpayer-funded goodies to their supporters. Very well, right-wingers should want to give tax cuts to theirs.

In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget.

“The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums,’ he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “He wants to shape the future and will leave it to his opponents to tidy up afterwards.”

We are now in a moment like the 1970s. Taxes keep rising and Conservatives and indeed the rest of us have yet to come to terms with the cost of an ageing society. As anger grows, I doubt that Truss will be the last Tory to try to magic away reality and build an invisible bridge to a fantastical future.

[kassandrasdisciple]

I think I've seen posts floating around about a potential back up to Jon if he died during his markings, but I'd like to make a comprehensive post for why I firmly believe it was Oliver Banks.

Firstly, why would there be a back up? The Web isn't omniscient, their plans can be messed with and they can make mistakes, as we see with Annabelle admitting, her calling Martin in the eyepocalypse was "sloppy". The reason their plans usually don't fail however is that they make contingencies and plan things far in advance, decades if necessary, you can cut many threads of a web before it collapses.

Moving on to why I think Oliver is a prime candidate, firstly his immediate loyalty, the End, means he's not dying any time soon, it wasn't the first power to mark him (more on that later) but neither was the Eye the first to mark Jon. By being an End avatar the Web could keep him on ice for centuries, slowly adding marks, whilst using more suitable but unfortunately more perishable avatars like Jon in the mean time. Secondly the Eye and the End are both very passive, the Eye sees all but doesn't comprehend and the End knows it claims all in time, the Eye was exploited by the Web as it wouldn't act against the mother of puppets in time to stop its grand ritual as it cannot act on the knowledge it aquires, in the same vein if an End avatar was to be used I don't think the End would fight the Web, atleast not like the Desolation or the Stranger would.

The hitch here is that the Eye was comfortable to let the apocalypse slowly fizzle into a heat death scenario, whilst if the End assumed total power it might of been more aggressive, however from how it acts in the show I think it wouldn't create an apocalypse so different from the Eye, it is patient, I don't think it would gorge itself by killing everyone in the new world immediately. Most likely instead of the domains being reset it would just allow victims to die after each act, so not disastrous for the Webs plan, just scaling up the time frame.

On to the marks, going through the supporting characters, Oliver has a suspiciously high amount of marks only being beaten out by the archives crew, namely Martin. I'll make a list and explain my reasonings as I go and I'll list them in how confident in the event being a mark I am. I will note that both Jon's Slaughter mark and Vast mark were very brief and if they count I'm sure some of my less tenuous ones do too. I'll also include references when I can.

The End - the most obvious and unquestionable mark, being the one that propels him to avatarhood.

The Eye - giving a statement to Jon to awaken him from his coma, we know giving a statement makes you relive the trauma in your dreams and he says as such before his statement. (Mag 121)

The Web - in the same episode as his statement Oliver says the Web sent him, most likely compulsion as he says it's best not to fight the mother of puppets, Jon's mark was similarly him being compelled by a Web aligned Leitner. (Mag 121)

The Corruption - whilst giving her statement to Gertrude, Jane Prentiss says she worked in the same magic shop as Oliver, saying he looked at her with sadness and then once with fear, most likely the corpse roots showing him her grizzly fate, I think it's safe to say that the corpse roots, as an extension of the End, serve only to show and provoke fear in their observer, in this case Oliver, not dissimilar to Jon and taking statements. (Mag 32)

The Slaughter - similar to Jane, Oliver pops up in another subjects statement as an observer, seeing premonitions of their fate, this time it's Jennifer Ling, the victim of Grifter's bone where he asked what she was listening too, and likely saw corpse roots coming out of her ears, predicting the affects of the Slaughter. (Mag 42)

The Stranger - we're still dealing with a manifestation of the fears but this time less direct, Graham was the victim of the NotThem in Across The Street and was also Oliver's boyfriend, although they broke up just before Graham got Got. However it's unlikely Oliver never learned of Grahams demise and, once he became more immersed in the supernatural, what really happened to him, I think it's unlikely the NotThem wouldn't of orchestrated atleast a few run-ins as it loves toying with the loved ones of it's victims. (Mag 3)

The Buried - no longer dealing with confirmed supernatural manifestations however it is talked about, in both his statements I believe, that Oliver worked at the Barclay's building before cracking under the pressure and having a mental breakdown, talked about most in Dreamer. We know from Mag 129 that financial debt can invoke the Buried, and when Gerry summerizes the Buried he says it feels like the whole world is coming down on you. I think given the fact it kick-started his descent into the fears, and it's where he starts all his dreams in dreamer, the breakdown was atleast supernatural adjacent if not fully, regardless he still felt the inherent fear of the Buried even if it was mundane in nature. (Mag 11)

The Desolation - the previous entry was actually me prepping you for this leap, all of Jon's marks had a supernatural component so it's unclear if the fear being supernatural is necessary or not, I.e. interviewing a desolation avatar vs losing your home and family to a mudane house fire, the fear is the same but the supernatural is unique. I personally believe it's the fear itself that's needed, creating a specific trauma/phobia of the fear, Jon's were all supernatural just because it was a reliable way to get a specific trauma. If this holds true then Oliver's Desolation mark is easy, the Satalite impact killing not only himself but over a dozen crew and scientists, spreading the Desolation to their friends and loved ones, no bodies ever recovered or laid to rest.

That leaves us with 6 unaccounted for, when I first made this theory I thought the satalite was the Daedelus reentering earth's atmosphere, which I used to neatly cross of the Dark, the Lonely and the Vast, but not only is there no evidence to them being the same, I don't think that would mark Oliver simply because evil money sponsored the space station. The other 3, the Spiral, the Hunt and the Flesh I also have no evidence for, although if the weight of his 9 to 5 didn't class as a Buried mark, the following breakdown might be claimed as a Spiral one.

However having 8 marks still makes Oliver one of the most marked characters, only behind Martin and Jon, the antichrist and his plus one. Also Jon was going to get himself killed or expire within a century possibility, depending on if he would have to body-hop like Elias/Jonah, and so the Web had to speedrun their plan. Oliver most likely would be around for far longer so the Web could afford to take her time and mark him at a leisurely pace, as a back up to Jon if that plan failed.

I hope you have all enjoyed this meandering mess, the word Mark has truly lost all meaning to me at this point, I do think I'm on the right track however as the Web wouldn't put all her eggs in one sac as it were, the only other candidate being Martin, though thinking about it he also had heavy Web ties as well.... a theory for another day. Thank you for reading and stay scared.

[cosplaying-memester]

Happy Halloween, guys! This isn't my costume for today, just a lil something I thought I'd upload, along with another Fear Street cosplay lol

And yes, I redid the mask some lol

[beardedmrbean]

https://www.foxnews com/media/ibram-kendi-assailed-left-huckster-charlatan-backlash-antiracism-center-grows-real-damage

looks like people are starting to get tired of having words be watered down to the point of meaninglessness.

even some of the progressives

I saw a bunch of layoff's were happening in his "department" and people mad because he's just blowing millions in grants without any real results, including some of the people that worked in the "department" so let's see what else we got.

The backlash against Ibram X. Kendi and Boston University doesn't appear to be fading, as two academics wrote scathing commentaries attacking the liberal figure and the university for peddling his "antiracist" ideology.

Last week, following many layoffs at the center, workers came forward with bombshell allegations that the center "exploited" staff and "blew through" millions of dollars in grant money while failing to deliver on its promises.

Progressive professor Tyler Austin Harper said the center's "implosion" proved how "White American elites on both sides of the political spectrum," were "always waiting in the wings to turn a shiny new Black intellectual into a mouthpiece for their political agenda," in his Washington Post op-ed, Thursday.

Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates University, described Kendi as a "huckster" who was "happy to cash in on America's racial trauma" by transforming into an "antiracism guru" during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Kendi's philosophy, covered in his book, "How to be an Antiracist," did "real damage" because it diminished the evil of racism and made it common, Harper argued.

"Racism, Kendi argued, was not a grand metaphysical evil that afflicts a smattering of bucktoothed bigots. Rather, racism is everywhere, in everyone, all the time. Kendi’s second big idea was that racism is mundane," he wrote. 

"[I]n my view the real damage that Kendi’s philosophy has wrought on American culture is in the way he turned words like ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ into banal, everyday terms like any others," Harper added. "Once reserved for the gravest of racial trespasses, thanks to the influence of Kendi and other charlatans like Robin DiAngelo, 'racism' is now routinely employed to describe anything from workplace microaggressions to terrorist attacks. The march on Charlottesville was white supremacy, but so too is asking Black people to show up to Zoom meetings on time."

He argued the blame didn't strictly target Kendi, but on the universities and rich liberal donors who were "eager to purchase their own absolution by bulk-buying anti-racist indulgences."

While the fellow Black academic said he didn't "condone Kendi's race grift," he did understand how "easy it would be to become a grifter" when universities and corporations pay high dollar for Black academics to become spokespersons for race issues. "His rise in 2020, and his ignominious decline today, are a mirror held up to liberal America. His failure, intellectual and moral, is as much ours as it is his," Harper concluded.

Harper wasn't the only academic condemning the Antiracist Center's founder and Boston University following the staff complaints. 

BU professor of theology David Decosimo also commented on the center's downfall in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. He blamed university leaders for contributing to the "cultural hysteria" on racism following the death of George Floyd.

Calling the research center's downfall, "entirely predictable," he explained how the university went to great lengths in June 2020 after hiring Kendi, to "make antiracism central to every discipline and a requirement for all faculty hiring."

Even progressive faculty became "disturbed" by the changes, Decosimo said, but feared speaking up and being labeled a "racist."

He explained how he had warned university officials at the time about making any ideology, Kendi's included, "institutional orthodoxy," during a Zoom meeting and a subsequent letter, but nothing changed.

The "real culprit" in this saga, is the "countless universities" who behaved similarly to Boston University, he argued.

"And to this day at universities everywhere, activist faculty and administrators are still quietly working to institutionalize Mr. Kendi’s vision. They have made embracing 'diversity, equity and inclusion' a criterion for hiring and tenure, have rewritten disciplinary standards to privilege antiracist ideology, and are discerning ways to circumvent the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action ruling," he warned.

This "moral hysteria" of the antiracist movement has threatened intellectual freedom at the university level, he feared.

"Whether driven by moral hysteria, cynical careerism or fear of being labeled racist, this violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles betrays the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing. It courts disaster, at this moment especially, that universities can’t afford," Decosimo concluded.

Boston University and the Center for Antiracist Research did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The college previously told FOX News Digital it was expanding a probe into the antiracist center's "management culture" following the staff complaints.

"We received complaints after the Center for Antiracist Research recently laid off a number of employees. Those complaints focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices. We previously initiated an examination of those grant management practices and that will continue. Based on additional information provided to us, we are expanding our inquiry to include the Center’s management culture and the faculty and staff’s experience with it," a spokesperson said.

"We recognize the importance of Dr. Kendi’s work and the significant impact it has had on antiracist thinking and policy. Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the Center’s mission, and while he takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports, we look forward to working with him as we conduct our assessment," the statement concluded.

Here's the link,

I need to see that 'antiracist hiking trail' wondering how one makes one of those, bet there's lots of racism involved.

not getting much info and the video almost looks scripted

[gcldfanged]

ㅤusually they've got a pretty good knack for identifying a good target to steal from — someone who's not likely to notice quick fingers dipping into their pockets, who'll remain oblivious until the thief is a block or two away — but every now and then they fuck up. this happens to be one of those instances. poor judgement has resulted in their wrist grabbed before they can scarper off with what they've managed to get their hands on, and byan freezes as a wave of panic washes over them. wide eyes dart to the man's face, but they otherwise maintain composure in spite of the fear that begins to build in their chest.

ㅤㅤ" just a joke, man. "ㅤit's a weak lie and they know it, but they don't have to talk their way out of this — just need to distract long enough until they can tear themself free one way or another. keeping eye contact, they flash a devious grin while their free hand discreetly moves toward their pants pocket, where one of their numerous knives lay hidden.ㅤ" chill. let me go an' you can keep your shit. "ㅤㅤ(feel free to lmk if you'd like something else sent! i just love the concept of byan being caught mid-theft & jae feels like the perfect candidate for that lmao)

[I LOVE IT, WHAT A LITTLE SCAMP-]

Maybe it's because there's a big crowd, maybe it's because there've been slim pickings for this street kid, or maybe it's the dumb reusable bag covered in anime kitty cats slung over Jae's elbow with green onions poking out of the top- whatever it is, his new acquaintance has made a terrible choice trying to sneak up on a man who kills people for a living.

The younger man is not without skill, he'd managed to keep hidden so it wasn't quite so obvious he'd been staking Yoon out in particular. But the follow through was enough to make him almost cry- Seriously, who had taught this kid to be a grifter?

"Sheesh, kids these days..." Jae-hyo sighs heavily, twisting Byan's arm just so- then he can't make a clean getaway without straining something or doing some impressive gymnastics.

"You gotta do something to lead the eye, fool! Bump into them, make a big scene apologizing and straightening them out afterwards, flirt with them, just make sure they're focused on your snot-nosed little face and not their wallet..." he trails off, making sure his own money is taken back and quite secure.

"And then shit like this won't happen."

'This' being Jae armed with a wicked looking balisong he'd plucked off of his unwilling student for the evening.

"Damn, this is actually a pretty nice piece... I'm keepin' it so maybe this lesson will stick up there in that dumb little baby brain of yours," he explains, flipping the knife closed and tap-tap-tapping his index finger against Byan's forehead.

[chaos-and-kromer]

my tma notes from ep 41-75 :]

Season 2 

41 too deep- the buried, the spiral, the dark, & the eye 

42 grifters bone- the slaughter 

43 section 31- the eye (lightless flame) 

44 tightrope- the stranger (Gurtrude speaking) (circus of the other?) (Gregor O) 

45 blood bag- the corruption (mr salesa) 

46 literary heights- the vast (Jurgen Leitner) [mike crew] 

47 a new door- the spiral (Helen Richardson) *1 

48 lost in the crowd- the lonely & the stranger  supplemental- [Jon needs to chill; bro is absolutely manic] 

49 the butcher’s window- the flesh (jarred Hepworth) see 17   supplemental- Elias Bouchard pothead??? The eye 

50 fortified- the buried   supplemental- police lady keeps coming back. Tim is suspicious 

51 high pressure- the end, the vast, the dark, & the buried (Simon Fairchild)  supplemental- Not Sasha, weird table, the web? See “across the street” 

52 exceptional risk- the slaughter & the dark (Robert Montauk) ep 9 (Maxwell Rainer)  Supplemental- cut in from Basira. Not Sasha, wax museum, boyfriend? 

53 crusader- the dark & the eye  supplemental- magnus is not the first archive, Alexandria 

-Jon has scars from the worms & 5 stiches from Micheal 

54 still life- the stranger  supplemental- “I broke into Gurtrude's flat!” eyes cut out of book covers and removed 

55 pest control- the corruption (Jhon Amherst)  supplemental- good night sleep!!! 

56 children of the night- the hunt & the corruption (see vampire killer)   supplemental- martin said Trevor died but he didn’t, Jon confronts him “you keep lying to me martin! About what? I don’t know!” martin lied on his resume not about anything serious 

57 personal space- the vast & the lonely (E109GHT8) (Fairchild)  supplemental- Jon's looking in Sasha's desk? (the stranger) 

58 trail rations- the hunt  supplemental- Tim and Martin heard faintly talking about Jon 

59 recluse- the web & the corruption (hilltop road) (agnus) (the table?) “I have no interest in thinking about spiders more than is professionally required”  supplemental- the others are avoiding Jon 

60 observer effect- the eye  supplemental- Jon Sims intervention. ccttv files, everyone has an alibi. [hopefully Jon calms down a bit] 

61 hard shoulder- the buried (daisy) (breaken and hope)  supplemental- vampires are real 

62 first edition- the eye & the end (Mary Keay) (Jurgen Leitner) (Mary's mother worked for the institute) (the end is directly mentioned) (the Keay’s don’t serve a specific fear)  supplemental- Getrude's secret compartment, laptop and key 

63 the end of the tunnel- the dark (Sir Robert Smirk) (peoples church of the divine host has relations to the dark)  supplemental- Jon can't unlock the computer, Melonie King needs help getting into the library 

64 burial rites- the buried  supplemental- Basira, Jon is not sneaky at all 

65 binary- the spiral & the end [he is jonbinary] “god it’s like talking to my grandpa”  supplemental- access to Gertude's computer, Tim: “I’ll catch you when you're not scheming”, Tim and Jon fight 

66 held in customs- the buried (Makale Salisa) (Peter Lucas)  supplemental- Gertude traveled a lot and had weird purchase history, including Leitner’s (key of Solomon) 

67 burning desire- the desolation (Agnus Montague/Feilding) (Alice? Short hair, hell tattoo, strong) [oh dear, this one's sad]  supplemental- Jon asks Elis for the key to the tunnels “I need to know” “good lord, don’t be so dramatic Jon” 

68 the tale of a field hospital- the end & the corruption (Amherst) (Jurgen Leitner) [Jon's figuring out the connection between insects and disease; the corruption]  supplemental- the spiral & the stranger, not Sasha and the tunnels 

69 thought for the day- {pre-statement: Martin and Jon speaking. Martin brings Jon tea, (Not)Sasha is with her bf Tom, Martin tries to get Jon to speak with Tim}  (Anabel Cane) The web & the corruption  supplemental- No visits to the tunnels “I can't not know” 

70 book of the dead- the end (Jurgen Leitner)  supplemental- looking for Leitner’s 

71 underground- the lonely & the buried  supplemental- nothing 

72 takeaway- {pre-statement: The dark. Basira calls, there arresting Rainer. Jon says to get flashlights (peoples church of the divine host) (Maxwell Rainer)}  (oopsie daisy cannibalism) the flesh (Tom Han-the flesh)  supplemental-  

73 police lights- the dark (statement by Basira) (divine host vs lightless flame?) (Basira quit the force)  supplemental- n/a 

74 fatigue- the spiral (Micheal) tooth coffee?  supplemental- Sasha and an unknown figure are in the tunnels 

75 a long way down- the vast (Mike Crew)  supplemental- Basira brought tapes 

[rebelliens]

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗣𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗬. ╱ 1899.

valentine, new hanover. a little-known and well-to-do livestock town up until recently. the trouble with livestock towns, is that the sale and retail of bodies aren’t just restricted to cattle, sheep, and pigs. many a good man lives and dies on the stinking sod that surrounds valentine, working himself into the ground to support his own. that was all but fine and natural by common concurrence, up until leviticus cornwall moved in. there’s a certain curse that follows the industry of a man like him, and where cornwall settles, like a stone chucked into a still pond, prices rise and lower around him in a far-reaching ripple, much to the disdain and suffering of the local workforce who teeter on this delicate balance. however, also much to the benefit and enrichment of the local bankers, who fix prices and reap land out from under the heels of those poor unfortunates. they hover like hungry vultures all the while and are quick to seize an "opportunity", a convenient misnomer for idle cruelty. frank fontaine, a certain proprietor (grifter, more like) of valentine is a name that comes to mind, although he's little-seen, and even less so liked by the people of valentine; a parasite, capitalizing off all their, at times naive, values, and hard work he's much too high and mighty to do himself. after a while of this, something has to give. the wheel has to spin back around in the favor of the common man, in every story and every tale, and so it does. but, perhaps not in the way you would expect. enter atlas. he appeared to come out of nowhere but walked and acted as if he'd been in valentine all his life, besides the points when he was playing the simple and good-intentioned Irish charm up to a tee. blending in with the farmers and the stablehands like a goat among sheep, it very quickly became apparent however to the hands that money washed, that atlas was not a man to be looked over, and his horns were to be feared. it started small; an argument over fixed prices set in grocery stores by the bank, much too low for any profit to be made from the fruit of the local farmer's toil and labour. then it escalated, whispered words in speakeasies turning heated and frustrated, a simple vent of frustration turning into a searing melting pot of annoyance, and irritation, and then suddenly brutal agreement. soon enough, the lid that had been held over valentine's boiling community cracked. a strike was organized, atlas's face at the forefront, and it was agreed that any man caught selling produce or product to the local storefronts that walled in valentine's streets, would face a hearty consequence. and it's been held. valentine has not seen whiskey, beef, pork, milk, wool, or flour for the better part of going on two years now. the pulling and pushing forces of valentine, supply and demand, are at a standstill, a cold war of a different kind. there have been rumours, of strikebreakers being sent. lawless men deputized who capitalize on brutality and violence. Pinkertons coming to wet their parched and bloodied mouths. the restless, the hungry, the poor, and the cruel all crowd valentine, and all on eyes are on her. and on atlas, as well, who's numbers swell and grow with each frustrated farmer that rallies to a cause that frightens the men who have turned them out of loan offices, decent jobs, and their very homesteads.

[goryhorroor]

fear street → killers

[itsaaudraw]

nothing good ever happens in shadyside