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remember-before · 2 years ago

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A Very Brief and Very Sectional Look At Fandom History With Reguards to Central Archiving With TK

Fact 1: We're starting with a time in fandom when I was 8 or 9

Fact 2: There are some amazing, extrmely well fact checked fandom histories already out there

Fact 3: The internet is forever and so are all your fandom sins.

Pre FF.N days were weird and rough. Star Trek had been the predominate fandom through the 70s, though fandom goes back hundreds of years (see: Sherlock Holmes). Pre 90s was the time of zines and cons and letters. Mid 90s, thanks to the now-much more common place home internet fandoms like DragonRiders of Pern flourished.

In the beginning, creators tried to be very involved in their fandom. Some, like Tamora Pierce were on the peripheral due to their fears of copyright issues (ie they'd accidentally borrow an idea from fans and then somehow need to credi them) and others, like Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice were significantly more involved.

Redwall was my first fandom. While now I would never say there was a safe space for kids in the single digits to hang around online in, this was actually true statement then. Jaques had safe sites listed on his website and the fandom was a strong one. ITW (rip :(((() was still the primary message board system and most sites were hosted on netscape or angelfire. The death knoll for this fandom was the fall of ITW, there was just too much lore lost when it went down.

As Redwall waned, Anne Rice was cooking up her bullshit. There's some really well done Anne Rice Bullshit fanlore histories, but basically she used actual lawyers to send fans writing fanfic C&D letters and went after websites and fan content. It was horrifc. Some amazing people fled fandom forever, starting in about 1995. This picked up steam in 2000 when she absolutely wrecked her way through her own fandom.

Anne McCaffrey was, at the same time, on some other bullshit. She approved of and liked her fandom, but she was horrifically homophobic and if there was even a hint of gay anything, she'd throw a fit. She also didn't want anyone writing or RPing women in leadership roles (Bronze and Brown riders for those who read the books) and at some point in… 1999? She put a ban on it and would attempt to get your website taken down if they were rolled.

FFN started in 1998, which feels like it was late to the party. It started as an 18+ archive but by 2002 when the greatbreak happened (your sister is your aunt, hey fam) some ⅓ of their accounts self IDd as under 18. At some point they lowered their age to 13+ which is inline with industry standards.

Before FFN central archiving was done fandom by fandom. FFN didn't take this away. Some of these (SG1, LOTR, HP) were hosted on their own domains, but many were hosted on sites like Geocities (rip). Every time a service like ITW or geocities went down, a ton of fandom was lost forever. This was a high flux time, when fandom archives for even huge fandoms like HP were coming and going faster than you could upload your fics and each archive had it's own politics. What ships did they allow, what genres, what ratings… It varied based on who paid the bills.

FFN was a novel concept, and many fans flocked to it. Having a central archive? For all our fandoms? Glorious.

But what one must remember is that this was also a very weird time for media and the portrayal of gay people (mostly men). Anything involving a m/m relationship was basically two ratings higher than it would have been listed if the couple was het. Entire archives banned it (there was an epic two year long fandom battle in the HP fandom about including m/m relationships in archives not explicitly for m/m relationships).

Which of course led to most m/m fics having explicit or at least an R rating.

Several things happened in a quick timeline in the fandom world in the early 2000s.

1) LOTR came out and took over the known universe. And because there weren't a lot of women in LOTR, there were a lot more m/m fics suddenly. And movie studios were seeing that fandom was Big and Exciting and that Geeks Can Make Us Money. They attempted to put up a monetized website run by the studio to host fanfiction but once added to it, you lost all rights to your work and they could republish it, edit it, or utilize the idea however they wished without crediting you.

Needless to say, this went over like a lead balloon and their submissions were…. Choice.

2) FFN got sued or something and all of the sudden Xi cared A LOT about the content of their site. In september of 2202 they pulled all NC17 fics from their site, all RPS, and most m/m content. The NC17 and RPS stuff was sudden, just entire sections gone, but the m/m stuff was slower and more insidious. They had mods of a sort reading through fandoms looking for "violations" and pulling down fics, and the general public could flag your fic and have it yanked without review.

You can imagine how fandom used this exactly as intended and never used it against people they didn't agree with or pairings they didn't like. Somewhere in there FictionPress also started and all original stuff got yeeted to a new home. Adultff.n came into existence around the same time, but was not run by Xi, had the world's shittiest layout, and required archival permission at one point, meaning you submitted stuff for approval. It wasn't great.

Also let us not forget the MPAA sued them because their ratings are proprietary. Yeeeep.

(also note that search functions within categories didn't exist on FFN at the time, not even based on completion status, word count, or pairing)

This was the birth of AO3. I don't remember where the OG idea came about, but there was a whole lot talk about this idea on LJ. At some point, Brad sold us out to the Russians to Six Apart and LJ was lost, and while many platforms tried to capture the soul of LJ, it just never managed to do so. DreamWidth, Tumblr, JournalFen, etc.

Another thing to remember, is that fandom had been predominately male, even on IIRC days, but FFN and LJ fandom had become a predominately female fandom space. There was an absolute ton of back and forth about this, written by a lot of people who were way more eloquent than I was in 2005, but there is a lot to be said about the regulation and pushback against spaces where men have to ask for a seat at the table, instead of being offered one. Remember that, for good or for bad, slash fanfic is predominately written by and consumed by female fans.

Which is where we come to today and the central archive we know and love that is AO3. And why when asked by AO3 allows ANYTHING GOES on their website, up to and including things you personally find immoral and DEAD DOVE, we have to recall that AO3 was built as we were being censored and fandom was being ripped from our hands. We have to remember that, at one point, just your basic slash pairing was being pulled down from sites because whoever hosted it didn't like The Gays.

We have a decently detailed history of all fandom kerfluffles from 2002-2015, many of which these incidents were involved in, on FandomWank. Many FandomWank details have been archived in wikis and other timelines. Some have not. Wild Award Mentions go to: LimeyBean, MrsScribe, HP Shipper Wars, WIKTT's Pawn2Queen wars, and anytime SPN ever got mentioned ever. But none are as great and incredible as the saga of Limeybean.

#old fandoms #fandom life #ao3 #ffn #fandom history

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lastoneout · 4 years ago

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Comfort Food

Fandom: Persona 5

Rating: PG

Summary:

Akechi has a food blog, Futaba thinks that's hilarious, Akira is a good friend, and Sojiro needs a drink.

Notes:

This was supposed to just be me projecting my issues on to Akechi because he's my emotional support bastard boi but somehow it turned into nearly 2500 words of tooth-rotting slice of life fluff. Whoops.

A03

Goro learned the hard way that hiding things from Futaba was impossible.

To be fair it wasn’t like he was trying to hide his food blog, he mentioned it in passing a few times and he knew that most of his followers were his fans, but he never really expected any of the Thieves to actually read it, let alone read it out loud, in front of him...while laughing at it.

“What are you, a high school girl?” Futaba said with a snicker after she finished reading his latest post aloud, “I’ve seen little girl’s diaries with more class.”

“Oh my god.” Akira choked out from beside Futaba behind Leblanc’s bar, desperately trying to muffle his laughs as Goro floundered.

He knew he shouldn’t care. The Thieves always poked fun at each other. ‘It’s what friends do,’ Akira had said. If anything he figured he should be grateful that Futaba considered him enough of a friend to playfully mock his hobby. But Goro was never good at regulating his inner emotions, and so as much as he tried to not let it get to him, it did.

Truthfully, he never meant to get into food. For the longest time, he considered it a pointless expense. In the various foster homes that he was tossed between food was almost a luxury. And to someone who often wondered where his next meal would come from it was hard to justify the cost of a fancy dinner when the same money could get him a month's worth of instant ramen and convenience store bento lunches.

But when he got into high school and wormed his way into the police force he suddenly was financially stable enough to justify luxury spending. Nijima-san was kind enough to pull some strings to get the agency to act as a guarantor so he could move out of the foster home and into a small apartment, and after he paid his bills and rent he was left staring at the remaining sum in his bank app, trying to wrap his head around how that money was his, and he could do whatever he wanted with it.

He tried to keep a level head and decided to go to a nearby department store to pick up things to furnish his new home, but on the way there he passed a diner and was stopped dead by the incredible smells drifting out the door. His stomach growled, and he found himself trying to remember the last time he had eaten something that hadn’t come wrapped in plastic and styrofoam.

His stomach growled again, and before he had time to think about it, knowing that if he did he would decide against it, he hurried into the restaurant. He was seated quickly, and despite feeling weirdly giddy and anxious he smiled at the kind waitress who took his order. The simple latte and plate of pancakes were probably the most delicious things he had ever tasted, and he couldn’t help how his eyes watered after the first bite, the food filling some empty part of himself he hadn’t even known existed.

Looking back on that day he’s grateful that he wasn’t famous yet, as no one cared to pay attention to the skinny teenager in the booth by the wall trying not to get tears in his dinner.

After that, he ate out at least once a week. He spent little on necessities, picking up most of the things he needed at the ¥100 store and buying used clothes, saving every extra bit that didn’t go into bills for food. Eventually, he started looking up new places to eat, and after finding a few food blogs he decided on a whim to start his own. It didn’t take off until after his big break, but he didn’t mind. The simple pictures and reviews he posted weren’t really for anyone else, and on days when he felt empty and angry, he would scroll back through them and feel a little bit better. Almost happy at the little niche he had carved out for himself.

Shortly after that Akechi’s entire life quickly became a delicate web of lies. He was a double, even triple agent, under so many layers of falsehoods even he struggled to keep it straight sometimes. If anyone ever bothered to break him down to his bare parts there really wasn’t much he actually did for himself. Every single facet of his life and personality had been carefully crafted to ensure he would be able to get the revenge he so desperately craved. He hardly ever did anything just for himself. Every interest he shared in interviews or mentioned around his ‘friends’ was for show, not something he honestly cared all that much about. It was annoying sometimes, having to pretend to care for things he felt apathetic towards, but it was necessary.

But food? Food stayed safe. It helped his Detective Prince facade once he got popular, after all the only thing teenage girls seemed to like more than cute boys was trendy food. And cute boys who love trendy food? That’s a check that writes itself. It made him look soft, approachable, and normal. So he indulged. Actually enjoying sharing the one part of himself that wasn’t fake.

Maybe that’s why Futaba’s mockery stung so much. He wouldn’t care if people made fun of his fake interests, but when it was the real him? It hurt.

He tried to laugh it off, blushing and begging her to stop. He insisted it’s just for his fans, he’s not really that immature or girly, it’s just for show! But each plea seemed to only make the situation worse, so he gave up and silently begged for her to get bored soon, his face an unnatural shade of red.

Akira, ever perceptive, seemed to notice something change in his demeanor, and without a second thought, the teen reached forward and plucked Futaba's phone right out of her hands.

"Hey!" She shouted, grabbing for it.

"Alright, alright, that's enough." He chided, holding the phone just out of Futaba's reach, "We all have our hobbies. But since we're in a sharing mood how about I tell Akechi-kun all about your Featherman shipping blog?"

A chill came over the room. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I would." He turned to Goro with a devilish smirk, "See she loves the red and blue rangers together-"

"Akira I'll end you!" Futaba yelled, diving forward and attempting to tackle him. Akira, however, was taller, and easily deflected her blows.

"She was telling me about this doujinshi she read the other day-"

"I'll spread rumors about you on websites you've never even heard of!"

"It was so romantic-"

"I'll leak your bank info on the dark web!”

"It's by her favorite author too, she buys everything they release-"

"I'll destroy you with malware, you won't be able to BREATHE near a circuit board without getting a virus!"

"Tell me, Akechi-kun, do you know what smut is?"

"AKIRA!!!" Futaba shrieked, and it was quickly followed by the sound of clanging pots and Sojiro swearing loudly from the kitchen.

“Would you two cut it out?” He shouted, poking his head around the corner.

“Sorry Boss, just giving Futaba a lesson on being a good friend,” Akira replied with an apologetic smile.

“Well next time can you do it outside? You’re lucky I don’t have any customers in here right now.”

“You never have any customers...” Futaba mumbled.

“I heard that. And Futaba, I thought I asked you to tie up your hair when you’re behind the counter.”

“On it...” She grumbled, pulling her hair back into a lazy bun with the scrunchie on her wrist.

“We’ll keep the noise and health code violations to a minimum, Boss,” Akira said, shooting a lazy salute Sojiro’s way. The older man eyed them for another second before sighing and mumbling something about herding cats as he turned back to the curry.

With the situation defused, Akira and Futaba stared at each other, having a silent yet very animated conversation, but eventually, Akira seemed to win and Futaba sighed heavily, "Okay, okay,” She turned to Goro and gave him a bow, “I'm sorry for making fun of your blog Akechi-kun."

Goro hardly knew what to make of the display, let alone her apology, but it made him feel a bit better, so he relaxed and gave her a genuine smile, “It’s alright, Futaba-chan, I forgive you.”

“Can I have my phone back now, please?”

“You may,” Akira replied amicably, handing the hostage technology back to Futaba.

She smiled triumphantly before another dark look crossed her face. She eyed Goro, suspiciously, before blushing and tapping her fingers together “A-and Akechi-kun...you won’t tell anyone else about the...shipping thing, right?”

“To be honest...I’m not sure I fully understand what you were talking about,” He replied, “But your secret is safe with me.”

“I’m so proud of both of you,” Akira said with a fake teary-eyed sniff, “My two little introverts, making friends.”

Goro and Futaba broke out in protests, but a quick glare from Sojiro shut them both up.

“Wow, you’ve really got that ‘disappointed dad’ look down, Sojiro.” Akira quipped.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than raise hell in my cafe?”

“As much as it breaks my heart, yes.” Akira said, untying his apron and heading around the counter, “I’ve got a date with a pile of dirty dishes in Shinjuku.”

“You’re not taking Morgana?” Futaba asked as he grabbed his bag and jacket.

“Nah, he hates The Crossroads, says the alcohol smell makes his nose itch. When he wakes up from his nap just let him know where I went.”

“Roger that.”

“Thanks,” He said, “See you guys later! Oh, and try not to get into too much trouble while I’m away.”

Futaba rolled her eyes dramatically, and Goro, still feeling a bit lost, simply shrugged.

“Akira, text me when you get there! You know I don’t like you going to that part of town so late.” Sojiro called, and Goro had to suppress a smirk. Akira had faced down far worse threats than the red light district at night. But it must be nice, he figured, to have someone worry about you.

“Got it!” Akira replied, the bell jingling as the door closed behind him.

Futaba seemed to deflate in his absence, looking anxious. She had explained once that Akira was something called a ‘key item’ that gave her ‘a plus ten confidence boost’, and he assumed that just meant she was shy when he wasn’t around. Goro turned back to his discarded coffee, grimacing a bit when a sip revealed it to be lukewarm.

“Uh, I can make you another cup...it’s my fault that one went cold anyway.” She said, clearly trying to make things up to him, “Sojiro’s been teaching me. It probably won’t be as good as his though. I’m still totally stuck on tutorial mode.”

“Oh, um, that would be lovely.” He replied, “Thank you.”

She started the process, carefully measuring grounds as the kettle heated, “You know, you should write about Leblanc on your blog. You like the food here, right?”

“I-”

“Absolutely not.” Sojiro interrupted, joining Futaba behind the bar to supervise the brewing.

“But Sojirooo! Akechi-kun is popular, you might actually get some business for once!”

“I don’t want that kind of business. Sorry Akechi-kun, but hundreds of fangirls in here every day ordering fancy drinks and asking when their beloved Detective Prince is coming back? I can feel my blood pressure skyrocketing just thinking about it.” He replied with a chuckle, “A man my age can only handle so many loud teenagers at once, and Akira’s band of hooligans already pushes the limit.”

“Don’t worry, Saku...uh, sorry, Boss. I understand.” Goro clarified, “There have actually been several cases of popular food writers unwittingly causing small restaurants to close due to their articles increasing interest to an unmanageable level. I wouldn’t dream of doing that to Leblanc.”

“Glad we’re on the same page then.”

Futaba finished making the coffee, grinning when Sojiro complimented her technique. She eagerly pushed a fresh cup to him, practically vibrating while she watched him take a sip. It was true that it wasn’t as amazing as her father’s, but it was still good and had its own charm.

“You did well.” He said, and he couldn’t help chuckle when she broke out in a wide smile, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest at the sight.

“Yes! I leveled up! Plus five coffee making exp!”

“We’ll make a barista of you yet.” Sojiro said fondly, “Now, it’s getting late. Akechi-kun, do you have dinner plans? I’ve got enough curry back here to feed an army, you’re welcome to stay.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose...”

“Just say yes.” Futaba whispered to him with a smirk, “Sojiro put all of his stat points into feeding wayward teens.”

“Then...yes, I’d be honored.” Akechi said, too confused to be offended by being called ‘wayward’.

“The honor is ours,” Futaba replied solemnly, giving an overly formal bow before breaking out laughing.

Sojiro wasted no time serving up three plates of curry, chatting idly with Futaba as she went to flip the open sign to closed. The two of them managed to herd Goro into a booth just as Morgana trotted downstairs, asking about Akira and demanding food. Futaba poked the poor not-cat a few times while Sojiro retrieved Morgana’s food bowl and popped open a fresh can of cat food.

“Sorry,” Sojiro said, pulling up a chair and making room on the table for Morgana’s dish, “He throws a tantrum if he doesn’t get to eat with us.”

“I do not!” Morgana shouted indignantly, “I’m just too civilized to eat on the floor.”

“Chatty cat,” Sojiro replied, giving Morgana a few chin scritches.

“Morgana is family,” Futaba said sagely, “And a family that eats together, stays together.”

‘...Family, huh...’ Goro thought to himself.

“What’s up Akechi-kun?” Futaba asked, and he blushed lightly as he realized he was staring off into space.

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s nothing,” He deflected, “The food looks delicious, Boss. Thank you.”

“Thank you for the food!” Futaba yelled before digging into her plate, and the rest of them quickly followed suit.

As the four of them shared the meal, Goro felt the warm feeling from before grow and spread through his chest. Futaba was using her fork to flick small bits of meat at Morgana despite Sojiro’s half-hearted complaints, cheering as Morgana somehow managed to catch every single one. The smell of curry and coffee and cat food mingled in the air with laughter and shouts, giving the whole room a feeling not unlike a comforting hug.

Goro allowed himself a small smile, sure that the only reason he felt so happy was the food.

#persona #persona 5 #akechi goro #futaba sakura #akira kusuru #no persona 5R spoilers #loo writes #please read my trash #long post #just in case the readmore doesn't work #Me And Mine #Text

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 4 years ago

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September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

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muhammadqt-blog · 4 years ago

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Hey doll hey!!! How’s your day/night going? Great I hope. I had a pretty good day … but it’s night now here in Florida and I am starting to hurt pretty badly…. I think I over did it today.

I noticed that I haven’t done any Monthly Beauty Favorites so I thought I’d start a new series for this blog… hope you like it.

Before we start I just wanted to shade with you what I made for dinner tonight! I am so proud of myself. I’ve never made Salmon on my own… I always just order it from a restaurant… but with the national quarantine and all the sit down restaurants being closed I’ve had to step out of my comfort zone and teach myself to cook things I normally would order out! so …. here it is …

Honey lemon Salmon and garlic butter and corn white rice. This dish was so sublime that I don’t think I’ll ever order Salmon when we go out to eat again!

Not all categories will have a high end and drugstore entry. Please Note that I am not sponsored by or affiliated with any of the products or companies that I mention in this blog post. * Warning this will be a long post … just grab a snack, something to drink and settle in … I promise you wont be sorry for reading this post….. Well … Without further ado …let’s get into my April 2020 Beauty Favorites.

Favorite Beauty Store:

Beautylish has got to be my all time favorite place to shop for all things beauty!!

I’ve been shopping at Beautylish for well over 5 years. Their customer service is of the highest quality. Their shipping rate is a flat rate of $5 on all orders (in the US it’s $5 on all orders under $35 anything above $35 is free shipping). The only downside is that they are unable to ship to P.O. boxes. They offer flex payments on orders of $100 or more where you pay a down payment and then they spread the rest of the bill over 3 to 4 payments depending how much the bill comes to. The down payment amount also depends on the amount spent… For example: I just placed an order for $102. I paid $37 as the down payment and the rest was split into 3 equal payments to be due on the 1st of each month. The due date depends on the date of purchase. I tend to pay my flex payments off faster than the allotted time, but it’s great to know I have the 3 months just in case I need them. Beautylish also ships international the the following countries: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium,Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, U.K., and U.S. Beautylish carries the following brands:

Aethera Beauty

Allies of Skin

Alphabet Bags

Anastasia Beverly Hills

Anna Sui

Ardell

Artis

ARTISAN&ARTIST

beautyblender

Beautylish Presents

BeautySoClean

BECCA Cosmetics

belif

Benefit Cosmetics

Benjabelle

Billy B

Bioderma

bkr

boscia

Briogeo

Brush Works

Bumble and bumble.

BY TERRY

Caudalie

Charlotte Tilbury

Chemist Confessions

CHIKUHODO

Clean Apothecary

COOLA

COVER | FX

Danessa Myricks Beauty

Dominique Cosmetics

Dr. Barbara Sturm

DUO

Eau Thermale Avène

Embryolisse

EVE LOM

Evian

Farmacy

Glamcor

Good Molecules

Hampton Sun

Herbalore

HoliFrog

Hourglass

ILIA

Indie Lee

Inglot Cosmetics

IT Cosmetics

Jeffree Star Cosmetics

JILL STUART Beauty

Jo Malone London

Jouer Cosmetics

JUNO & Co.

Kevyn Aucoin

Kjaer Weis

Klorane

Koh Gen Do

KOYUDO

La Mer

LASHES IN A BOX

Lilly Lashes

LINA CHOO

Lit Cosmetics

Lixirskin

Lord Jones

Lucas’ Papaw Remedies

MAHALO Skin Care

Make-Up Atelier

Max & Me

May Lindstrom

Mila Moursi

Miss Fame Beauty

Moon Juice

MYKITCO.

Natasha Denona

Naturally Serious

Nomad Noé

Nudestix

Omorovicza

Oribe

Pai Skincare

Parian Spirit

Paw Palette

Peter Thomas Roth

Quintessence Paris

R+Co

Rae Morris

Raincry

RCMA Makeup

ReFa

Rene Furterer

rms beauty

SACHAJUAN

Saint Jane Beauty

Seche

Sisley-Paris

Skin Inc Supplement Bar

Skindinavia

Slip

Smith & Cult

Smith Cosmetics

Sol de Janeiro

Sonia G.

St. Tropez

Stila

Sugarpill Cosmetics

Sulwhasoo

Sunday Riley

Surratt Beauty

Susanne Kaufmann

Suwada

Takahashi Hiroko

Taos AER

TEMPTU

The Beauty Chef

The Brush Guard

The Ordinary.

The Sacred Ritual

TOM FORD

Too Faced

TRIA Beauty

Tweezerman

U Beauty

Uma

UNITS

VDL

Velour Lashes

Vintner’s Daughter

Viseart

Vital Proteins

Vueset

Wayne Goss

ZIIP

Z•Palette

I truly love to shop with them because the take time to package my purchases with care, it never takes more than a week to get my packages (except for now, it’s taking about 2-3 weeks because of the Corona Virus), and they have a great return policy: Their website states that their return policy is: If you are less than completely satisfied with your purchase, you may return your order within 60 days (from the delivery date) for a refund. We regret that we are unable to cover return shipping costs or refund the original shipping and duties charges unless the return was due to our error. Products must be returned in new or gently used condition. If your product arrived either damaged or defective, please contact us right away. Sets/bundles are sold as-is and products cannot be substituted, customized, and/or returned individually.

I’ve never had any issues with their services, in fact there was 1 time around 3 years ago that I ordered something from the brand It Cosmetics and the wrong item was delivered to me, I contact them straight away and they sent me out the product I had originally ordered that same day and as a way to apologize for the mistake they even allowed me to keep the product that I had received in error.

Favorite Amazon Beauty Finds:

Pixnor 5″3″ Stainless Steel Makeup Palette with Spatula Tool $6.99 on Amazon: I am so happy I purchased this!! I use to apply foundation to the back of my hand and then bonce my sponge off my hand … what I found is that this would cause waste of product because some of the foundation would sink into my skin and I would have to use more foundation… now I just apply a few pumps onto the palette and there is zero waste. I also love the spatula because I can use it to scrape moisturizers out of the jar without having to use my fingers. I also use the spatula to mix dew drops into my foundation and now I don’t have a big mess on my hands.

Segbeauty 5.4oz/160ml Continuous Spray Plastic Squirt Bottle With A Fine Mist $14.99 on Amazon: This bottle is a curly hair girls dream!! It provides just the right amount of moisture without over-wetting your hair. It has a 360 degree sprayer and it’s perfect for re-wetting hair in the morning to restyle and freshen up curls. This bottle has changed my hair game for the better.

Every Drop Beauty Spatula $5.89 on Amazon. I’ve always hated the thought that there was still product in the bottom and sides of my products after I’ve run out. I started cutting plastic tubes open to get every last drop on product out but with bottles you just can’t do that. I came across this little baby when I was just browsing the beauty tools section of Amazon one day and thought OH! PERFECT!!! This spatula gets all the way to the bottom, the sides, and even the shoulders of bottles! I now have zero waste with my beauty products. I love this item so much that I have ordered it’s baby sister product the Every Drop Lip Spatula for $5.49 I ordered 2 one for lipsticks and lip glosses and one for concealers and other small wand items. This has truly helped me not waste my money by allowing me to get every last drop of product out of their containers.

Favorite Makeup Tool:

Face Halo Makeup Remover Pads: $17.60 for a 3 pack on Amazon. This little puppy is the perfect accompaniment to my vastly growing Eco-friendly arsenal. I find that I do not use as much of my Bioderma now because I am not using it to take off my makeup before I use it as my first cleanse…. 1 round is enough to completely remove all of my makeup from my face, neck, and ear lobes! You just soak it with warm water and remove your makeup… and it does remove 100% of my makeup, including lash glue! I just simply wash it after every use and it dries quickly too. I highly recommend this if you are looking for a way to reduce your carbon foot print on the planet!

Favorite Makeover Product:

Schwarzkopf Keratin Permanent Hair Color Cream in the shade 4.6 Intense Cocoa $9.97 on Amazon (but Amazon only allows you to purchase 1 so I ordered 3 more from Walgreens.com buy 2 get 1 free for the same price). This was the first time I used this product and I’ve gotta tell ya … This has got to be the BEST boxed hair color on the market. It has Anti-Breakage Technology called K·BOND-PLEX technology (that repairs inner hair structure) and a Pre-Color Serum (that leaves your hair looking healthy and strong, with less hair breakage). It also doesn’t have that harsh hair dye smell to it. In fact my hair smelled so good that it was like I had just simply washed my hair. The conditioner it comes with left my hair so smooth and soft and fluffy. I believe they use the same technology as Olaplex does because my hair felt as if I had just done an Olaplex treatment to it. This will definitely be a product I repurchase again and again.

Favorite Candle:

Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel 3 Wick Candle: This sadly is my last Vanilla Bean Noel candle… I purchase this scent every year at Christmas time … I stock up when they have their holiday sale and typically purchase 20 of them… it’s just the best scent ever

Favorite Body Care Item:

Nivea Essentially Enriched Body Lotion with Almond Oil $5 at Walmart for 16.9 Fluid Ounces: I use to use Bath and Body Works body creams but with my Fibromyalgia I tend to get very sensitive itchy skin and have noticed that the Bath and Body Works creams would aggravate my already sensitive skin … So on a whim I picked this up a few months ago. Firstly a little of this goes a long way. It’s very creamy and very hydrating and has a soft Almond scent to it. It sinks in quickly and doesn’t leave me body feeling greasy. I’m pleasantly surprised at how wonderful this product is.

Favorite Hair Care Item:

Olaplex No 6 Bond Smoother $28 for 3.3 fluid ounces at Sephora and No 7 Bonding Oil $28 for 1 fluid ounces at Sephora: These two products work together you add a few drops of the oil into the smoother and mix it together. I use this once about ever few days to revive my curls… since I don’t wash my hair everyday I need something to help my curls revive. I typically only wash my hair 1 time a week since I don’t put any hair products into my hair. This not only smells amazing, it leaves my hair soft and replenished and defines my curls when they start to go a bit frizzy. A little bit goes along way I only use a quarter sized amount of the smoother and about 5 drops of the oil. This is another item that has seriously upped my curly girl hair game.

Favorite Movie : (I know this isn’t beauty related, but I take my movie time to do my spa treatments … so I included it as a favorite.)

Synopsis: When Cecilia’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see. This was a very well thought out movie with lots of twists and turns. Highly Recomend.

Favorite Spa Day Item:

Revolution Skincare x Jake-Jamie Avocado Face Mask $11 for 1.6 ounces at Ulta: This mask is amazingly moisturizing. I use it once a week and my skin feels heavenly afterwards.

Favorite Skincare Item:

I tried a ton of skincare in the month of April and there were several things that I loved but I would have to say that my all time favorite item(s) are as follows:

My 2 whole face (including eyes) serum routine: #1. Good Molecules Super Peptide Serum $12 for 1 fluid ounce through Beautylish (it’s also sold on the Good Molecules website) and it’s function is to target fine lines, wrinkles, and dullness. #2. Good Molecules Hyaluronic Acid Serum $6 for 1 fluid ounce through Beautylish (it’s also sold on the Good Molecules website) and it’s function is to replenish your skin’s moisture by drawing moisture into the skin for deep hydration. My skin has never looks this good since I was in my teens. Both these serums are light weight and sink into the skin quickly and you only need 1/2 a dropper for your full face and neck … I also use whatever is left on my hands to rub into my hands as sort of a treat for my hands.

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra Light Face Sunscreen Fluid Broad Spectrum SPF 60: $29.99 for 1.7 fluid ounces and I purchase mine through Amazon. Ever since I starting using this sunscreen I have decluttered all other facial sunscreens. This is the perfect consistency for me. It’s light weight and hydrating. It sinks into the skin amazingly fast. It doesn’t interfere with my makeup application and it doesn’t have that sunscreen scent. BONUS: It’s a 60+ sunscreen which is the ideal level of protection for the face.

Favorite Face Primer:

Tarte Timeless Smoothing Primer $39 for .5 ounces at Ulta and Sephora: I typically switch up my face primers every day or two but the one that I use everyday is this one. It just fills in my pores so well that I reach for it time and time again over all of my pore primers.

Favorite High End Foundation:

Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Foundation $44 for 1 fluid ounce through Beautylish (but can also be purchased through Sephora and the Charlotte Tilbury website). As I said in my haul of this item this is such a beautiful foundation. I just can’t stop looking at my face anytime I’m wearing it. This full coverage foundation leaves my skin looking youthful and flawless. It plays well with dew drops mixed in and plays well with any primer. I will always have this foundation in my collections.

Favorite Drug Store Foundation:

Believe Beauty Skin Finish Foundation: $5 for .85 fluid ounces only at Dollar General Stores. This foundation surprised me I truly didn’t believe that this was going to be a good foundation, however it is a FANTASTIC foundation and is is a medium to full coverage. This is a semi-dewy foundation. What I mean is it’s just dewy enough to give you that youthful look without being to extreme. It lasts all day and doesn’t break down. I hope they never stop making this foundation!

Favorite High End BB/CC/Tinted Moisturizer:

Tarte Maracuja Tinted Moisturizer $29 for 1 fluid ounce of product at Ulta. This is a super dewy product but not in a greasy sort of way. It’s light coverage and sets with powder nicely. This is such a beautiful product.. so much so that I purchased a back up just in case they pull it off the shelves. I find that it’s best to apply this one with your fingers since it’s such light coverage that using a sponge with soak it all up and using a brush will leave it looking streaky.

Favorite Concealer:

NYX Born to Glow Radiant Concealer $9 for .14 fluid ounces at Ulta. This is such a beautiful concealer! It doesn’t settle into my fine lines as long as I set it straight away upon application. It doesn’t crack throughout the day. A little tiny bit is all you need. It’s full coverage without being super thick. It gives an amazing glow to the under eye that can still be seen even after you set it with powder. I’d probably go out on a limb and say this may be my favorite concealer all year.

Favorite Cream Bronzer/Contour: I wont be having 2 categories for this one… mainly because I don’t have a drug store option for this category as of yet, I have since purchased a drug store option today.

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Contour Wand in the shade 2 Medium/Dark $38 for .41 fluid ounces purchased through Beautylish (but can be purchased at Sephora and the Charlotte Tilbury website). I can’t believe I am saying that this is my favorite!! I have loved the Chanel Soleil De Chanel cream bronzer for so long that I didn’t think anything would ever replace it! Sad to say the Chanel bronzer was discontinued and a new cream bronzer replaced it … it looks more hydrating than the one I have so I’m keen to try it however … let’s talk Hollywood Contour Wand shall we!? This is the first cream contour product I’ve ever tried (bronze to me didn’t seem as scary as cream contour did). It is easy to use, easy to blend in, and gives the skin a natural looking contour. This is a light weight very pigmented product. You don’t get much product for the price tag, however a very little goes a very long way. I use 1 squeeze ever 2 days (it’s a sponge tipped applicator so the product stays in the sponge… I just squeeze 1 time and have enough product left over on the sponge that the next day I just have to dot what remains over the perimeter of my face. Unlike the Chanel bronzer this product doesn’t disrupt my foundation underneath. I love this product so much that I place an order today for a back up.

Favorite Matte Bronzer/Contour:

Mac Bronzing Powder in the shade matte bronze: $30 for .35 ounces of product. I’ve had this compact for probably way too long because it’s starting to get hard pan, so I scraped the hard pan off … the powder works fine. The picture of the hand on the left is without flash and the one on the right is with flash. It’s just the perfect everyday natural looking bronzer. You can’t over do it with this bronzer since it’s so light of coverage. I always love my look when I’m wearing this one.

Favorite Glowy Bronzer :

Tarte Limited Edition Park Ave Princess Waterproof Face & Body Bronzer $34 for .55 ounces of product at Ulta. I do love a good glowy bronzer and this one does not disappoint! It’s the perfect shade, has just the right amount of glow without having shimmer to it … it’s just this glow from within! I just love how my skin looks with this bronzer on.

Favorite Dewy Primer:

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter in the shade #3 Light/Medium $44 for 1.01 fluid ounces on the Beautylish website (can also be purchased from Sephora or the Charlotte Tilbury website). Ever since getting this product in I have not been able to put it down! It’s freaking amazing!!! AMAZING! It has just enough of a tint that this could be worn alone for “No Makeup” makeup days and has the perfect amount of glow without having any shimmer to it. 1 swipe per zone is all you need of this primer. It’s not sticky or greasy and it does hold foundation nicely.

Favorite Cream Highlighter:

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Beauty Light Wand $39 for .41 fluid ounces on the Beautylish website (can also be purchased from Sephora or the Charlotte Tilbury website). I have tried many cream highlighters and hate every single one, until this one came into my life! This highlighter is just magical! It doesn’t disrupt the foundation under neither, it melts into the skin seamlessly, and it has no glitter to it… just a natrual looking glow. The glow can still be seen even after setting it with powder! I haven’t been able to stop using it because I’m so in love with it.

Favorite High End Face Powder:

Too Faced Born This Way Ethereal Setting Powder in the shade Translucent $33 for .53 ounces of product at Ulta and Sephora. This powder has the most beautiful finish ever! It give a slight glow to the skin without looking like glitter or shimmer. This one has taken the place of my beloved Laura Mercier Loose Setting Powder in my heart. I just never want to be without it!!! It doesn’t take much of this powder to set the full face either. I tap 3 shakes into the cap and that sets my full face! It even looks amazing under the eyes.

Favorite Drug Store Face Powder:

Believe Beauty Matte Blur Loose Powder in the shade Translucent $5 for .14 ounces of product sold only at Dollar General. This is such a light weight powder that sets the face flawlessly. It is matte but doesn’t leave the face looking cakey or dry. It even looks good under the eyes. I have repurchased this 2 time since discovering it and I have 2 back ups.

Favorite High End Finishing and Touch Up Setting Powder:

Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder $45 for .28 ounces of product on the Beautylish website (can also be purchased at Sephora and on the Charlotte Tilbury website). This gives the prettiest soft focus to the face and doesn’t change the look of your makeup when you touch up with it. I find on days that I wear this one as a finishing powder I don’t have to touch up at all. I don’t quiet like this one as a setting powder, just as a finishing powder and touch up powder and sad to say I have hit pan … this is the most expensive pressed powder I own but it’s so worth it and I will definitely be repurchasing it when I’ve finished it.

Favorite Drug Store Finishing and Touch Up Setting Powder:

JCat Beauty AquaSurance Compact Foundation $13.99 for .31 ounces of product at Ulta. This is a spot on dupe for the Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder. It’s basically a fuller coverage version and I can use it to set my set as well and I never have to touch up at all when I use this powder.

Favorite Powder Highlighter:

Benefit Boxed Highlighter in the shade Cookie $30 for .28 ounces of product at Ulta and Sephora. OH BABY! This highlighter is so pretty and little is all you need. This is a beaming highlighter so definitely not for low maintenance makeup day but add this to your full glam look and watch out…. it’s the perfect highlighter to be noticed in.

Favorite Blush:

Tarte 12-HR Amazonian Clay Blush in the shade Captivating $29 for .2 ounce of product at Ulta and Sephora. This is the best just pinched shade I’ve ever owned. I wore it a ton in April and for good reason. It goes with everything from “No Makeup” makeup looks to full on glam looks. It lasts all day and is probably my all time favorite blush shade.

Favorite Lip Combo:

L’Oreal Rouge Signature Lightweight Matte Lip Stain ($5.99 at Ulta) in the shade 448 I-Tease (a soft taupey pink matte) a few dots of Makeup Geek Creme Stain ($11.99 on their website) in the shade Jitterbug (an intense coral matte) a touch of NARS Lip Gloss ($24 on the NARS website) in the shade Stripe Tease (Sheer champagne nude). This makes the perfect shade for every look. I’ve worn this only for the past few days of April but I can already tell it will be worn a ton in the month of May.

Favorite Powder to Set My Under Eyes:

Laura Mercier Secret Brightening Powder $28 for .14 ounces of product at Ulta and Sephora. This just leaves the under eyes looking flawless and it sets every concealer I own except the Dermablend concealer (that concealer is just too heavy and took emollient that nothing really sets it and I would return it but I lost the uni-carton it came in so Ulta wont take it back). I wish this came in a larger jar because I just know I will be repurchasing this over and over. It gives this soft focus glow to the under eye area that isn’t shimmery or glittery … just a sort of glow from within look.

Favorite Brow Pencil:

Benefit Precisely My Brow Pencil $24 at Ulta and Sephora for .27 ounces of product. I have purchased this pencil 2 time since discovering it and I have 1 back up. This is just the most effortless brow product ever. I almost never have a bad brow day when I use this pencil. It’s a definite recommend in my book.

Favorite Brow Gel:

Believe Beauty Eyebrow Styling Gel $4 for .2 ounces of product sold only at Dollar General. Even though it’s only got .2 ounces of product this brow gel lasts a long time. You only need 1 pass of the wand to fully set your brow. It is never crunchy and never goes flaky. The picture is of my back ups … this sucker goes fast at the store so I pick up 2 or 3 every time I go to Dollar General so I never run out. I adore this one so much that I never reach for my other brow gels.

Favorite High End Eye Shadow Palette:

Too Faced Born This Way The Natural Nudes Eyeshadow Palette $45. It has 8 matte shades and 8 shimmer shades and you get .48 total ounces of product and is sold at Ulta and Sephora. Some of my all time favorite looks this past month have come from this palette! I just adore it so much. Too Faced really hit it out of the park with this one.

Favorite Drug Store Eye Shadow Palette: (I have 3, 1 is a bit more pricier, 1 is mid-ranged and the other is super inexpensive)

ColourPop Bare Necessities 30 Pan Eyeshadow Palette $34 on the ColourPop website. I have created so many beautiful neutral eye looks with this palette! With 30 shades I never get bored of this one.

Believe Beauty Eyeshadow Palette in the color story: Nearly Nude $5 only sold at Dollar General. It’s just simple an amazing palette. I was highly impressed with this one. I got a few looks out of it and it’s the perfect size for travel.

Catrice Basic Bae Eyeshadow Palette $14.99 at Ulta. This was the first thing I ever tried from Catrice and I was super impressed! The shadows are super pigmented and blend like a dream.

Favorite Eye Liner:

Charlotte Tilbury The Classic Powder Eye Pencil in the shade Audrey $22 on the Beautylish website (but can also be purchased at Sephora and on the Charlotte Tilbury website). Now this one was a surprise to me. I hated this pencil when I first tried it…. I could never get it to work… Well I finally figured it out and I am in love. It gives such a effortless look to the eyes when I use it. This will be a repurchase when I run out.

Favorite Mascara:

Milani Dangerous Lengths 3D Mascara regularly $9.99 nut currently on sale for $7.49 at Ulta. This is another item that surprised me but ever since I’ve been conditioning my lashes with the Jamaican Black Castor Oil my lashes have been looking so nice and combined with the mascara I just fell in love…. I can’t believe I have a favorite mascara and it’s, for the first time in years, not the L’Oreal voluminous Carbon Black!!! This just gives a nice fluffy airy look to the lashes.

Favorite Inner Corner Highlight:

Hikari Creme Pigment in the shade Honey Dew $15 on their website. I have been using this for a few years now but I just can’t seem to stay away. It just give the prettiest lilt to the inner corners.

Favorite Setting Spray: (I have 2 this month)

ColourPop Hyaluronic Acid Setting Mist $12 for 3.72 fluid ounces of product at Ulta and on the ColourPop website. This setting spray smells like the beach and leaves the skin looking dewy and healthy. It holds your makeup fairly well … I don’t really need a setting spray that will hold my makeup on until the wee hours of the morning, I just need a spray that will take down the powderiness of freshly applied makeup. I’ve been using this bottle for 2 months and I’m almost out of it. This makes me sad because it’s sold out everywhere. I think this may just be my favorite setting spray of the year.

Belif Aqua Bomb Mist $34 for 2 2.02 fluid ounces of product on the Beautylish website (but can also be purchased at Ulta and Sephora). This one adds tons of hydration to the skin and I love it as a touch up spray too. Lately I have been using it in combination with the other setting spray just to add a bit more hydration to my under eye area.

Favorite Find of the Year So Far:

HonHey Portable Hand Held Rechargeable Fan. $13 on Amazon. I purchased this back in the beginning of March but it has quickly become my favorite beauty extra! It helps me dry my setting spray and lash glue. It also helps keep me cooler when the hot lights of my makeup table start to make me over heat. It has a great charge life as well.

Well … We have reached the end dolls. Thank you ever so much for hanging in there with this post …. I know it was a long one … but this is the flagship post of this series and I thought I should be as thorough as possible with at least the first in the series… Now that’s not to say I wont have heaps of favorites in any given month, but I may just have a few favorites in other months too.

Well that’s all for now dolls. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day/night and that your spirits are high and your health is good! Remember dolls, Save a spoon for a bit of lipstick.

XOXO

April 2020 Beauty Favorites Hey doll hey!!! How's your day/night going? Great I hope. I had a pretty good day ...

#Beauty #beauty haul #favorites #Makeup #makeup haul #makeup review #makeup swatches #Product Review #Skin Care #Swatches

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cindylouwho-2 · 4 years ago

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, August 19, 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles, podcasts, videos and infographics I came across since the late July report, although some may be older than that.

Please note I am taking the next week off, starting tomorrow (Aug. 19), so I might be a little slow in replying to any comments.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

USPS has become the focus of investigations due to reported mail slowdowns. Some small businesses who rely on USPS to deliver are suffering. “The longer the policy has been in effect, the worse the backlog gets.” As of today (August 18), the postmaster says they will rollback the changes until after the election in November. This is a rapidly-moving story in part due to the push for voting by mail, and should concern anyone who ships to US customers using regular mail (as opposed to couriers). Meanwhile, they plan to temporarily raise commercial rates during the holiday shopping season, but retail rates will not change.

Ecommerce sales are still up year over year. "Before Covid-19 hit the US in March, e-commerce made up roughly 12% of retail sales in the country. That figure grew as states issued shelter-in-place orders that shut stores and kept shoppers at home, creating tailwinds for a company like Amazon. But even as states have begun to reopen, e-commerce has remained elevated, according to Bank of America data."..."The Economist used Google search traffic for hints of how lifestyles are changing and found users are still searching terms related to cooking, crafts, and exercise above pre-pandemic rates. There has been a noticeable spike in interest around such products as gardening supplies, baking flour, and Crocs." The UK is still seeing a good increase despite the ease in reduction in lockdown restrictions. The growth is slowing a bit in the US, though.

Half of US small businesses fail in the first year (and other stats on small business).

It’s been second quarter report season, covering company performance from April to June 2020. Here are results for major companies involved in ecommerce in some way (comparisons are year-over-year):

Amazon US: sales up 40%

eBay: sales up 26%

Etsy: sales up $146% [click the link to read my summary]

Facebook: revenue up 11%

Google: revenue down 2%

PayPal: revenue up 22%

Pinterest: revenue up 4%; active users up 39%

Shopify: revenue up 97%

Walmart [2nd quarter ran May to July]: ecommerce sales up 97%, same-store sales up 9.3%

ETSY NEWS

Admin are now posting a monthly update thread, in case you fear you have missed anything. This is how they chose to announce that non-seller accounts can no longer post in the forum. Since those account owners can still read the forum, that doesn’t mean you can call out your customers now.

Sadly, there wasn’t much media coverage of Etsy’s nearly-annual billing screw up, but this one did get some attention.

Etsy continues to get good media coverage for masks, including masks for your dolls. They also apparently got a decent slice of Google ranking for various pandemic-related searches in May [scroll down to the “Protection and Prevention” section].

However, Etsy is getting some bad press (along with Amazon), for allowing QAnon merchandise, because “the FBI has warned of the movement's potential to incite domestic terrorism.” Etsy replied to a request for comment saying that “that product listings associated with certain movements are allowed as long as they don't violate the company's seller or prohibited items policies, which ban items that promote hate or that could incite violence. The company said it is continually reviewing items on the site and could remove items in the future if they're found to violate Etsy's policies.”

More search trends on Etsy, this time kids’ items. I love how they think tie-dye was a ‘90s thing and not a ‘60-70s thing LOL. “a 318% increase in searches for kids tie-dye items...71% increase in searches for dinosaur wall art or decor*, and a 37% increase in searches for school of fish items….we’ve seen kid-friendly crafts spike in popularity, with searches for DIY kits for kids up 336%.”

Also, the holiday trends guide is out. “With the holidays approaching, and most shopping happening online, more shoppers will be looking for your help to make the season feel special.” The report is lengthy, covering Halloween to New Year’s, and most listing categories, while pointing out the possible pandemic changes to the usual trends. There is also an accompanying podcast with transcript.

Speaking of the holiday season, here are Etsy’s tips for shops. Note that it is a bit late, as businesses need to have their holiday items posted no later than July if they want to be eligible for most fall media coverage. Almost every point refers to an Etsy tool or feature, some of them costing you money, so use this as a very broad guideline & be careful to read between the lines.

They are still rolling out Etsy Payments to more countries: Morocco & Israel are the most recent. Note that Etsy Payments is not yet compulsory in these new countries.

Etsy Ads once again has graphs. Do you find them useful? (I haven’t run ads at all this year, so I can’t check.)

Sendle is the latest shipping company to have a label integration with Etsy shops.

Etsy asked US sellers to lobby their reps for more support for small business and other initiatives in the pandemic aid package.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google has stated that content on tabs is indexed and contributes to ranking as if it were on the page instead, but yet another test demonstrates that tabs may limit you.

Due to the pandemic, Google has delayed finalizing mobile-first indexing until March 2021. (They originally announced it would be finished this September.) That means you have more time to update your website’s mobile version, ideally with responsive design.

Site speed does matter to SEO, and Google is now asking some searchers how fast certain sites loaded for them.

User comments on your products, blog posts and website can help you improve your SEO. The article suggests ways of getting that feedback, and ways to use it. [I’ve even had buyers give me new keywords to describe my items, in their messages and reviews.]

Getting links back to your site is important to SEO, but don’t annoy people while doing it. [sort of humour & sort of a rant, but does give some useful background on why backlinks matter.] Internal links also matter.

There are some special tricks for food/recipe SEO, including structured data and even a WordPress plugin.

Another WordPress plugin: submit any new or updated pages to Bing to be automatically re/indexed.

Do your keyword research before setting up your website’s sections and sub-sections, as they should serve the buyer experience, not your perception of it. Same with choosing which pages link to each other.

SEOs are still trying to work out what happened with recent Google algorithm changes. Search Engine Journal claims that the May update was at least in part about demoting sites that had out-of-date or inaccurate information, so they suggest getting rid of the bad content on your site, or at least updating it. “Content pruning” has some advocates, but I wouldn’t worry about investing tons of time in this unless you have tons of time to spend. Just get rid of the blog posts that were wildly wrong, and the out-of-date filler. If you have a lot of sold out products, redirect those to relevant active pages.

Meanwhile, a “glitch” on August 10 led people to think there was a massive Google algorithm update happening, but it all got fixed in less than a day.

If you are behind on Google search news, here is a 7 minute video [with time stamped subtopics & resources links listed below], direct from Google.

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

It’s tough to get started in social media if you don’t know the terminology, so here’s a list of the basic definitions you can consult if you get lost when reading.

Don’t know how to blog? There are formulas you can use; here are eight options, nicely laid out, with downloadable templates. Don’t forget to figure out what your audience wants to read. And make sure you avoid these common blogging mistakes.

If you have an email list but do not know how to take advantage of all the bells & whistles the companies (MailChimp, Constant Contact etc.) offer you, here are 4 ways to segment your lists. You can then send different offers or newsletters to different segments.

You can optimize your social posts for people with visual impairments; excellent tips here.

By the time you read this, the TikTok mess will likely have changed again, but here is an article on Trump’s order to prohibit US companies from doing business with TikTok owner ByteDance if the platform is not sold by September 15.

Instagram has released its TikTok challenger, Reels, in more countries.

Instagram is now offering a fundraising option, although it is a slow launch with some beta testing in the US, UK & Ireland to start.

Here are step-by-step instructions on setting up your “Shop on Instagram.”

Pinterest says that searches around self-care & wellness have spiked during the pandemic lockdowns. “Pinterest has recently seen the highest searches ever around mental wellness ideas including meditation (+44%), gratitude (+60%) and positivity (+42%) that jumped from February to May….Pinterest says that searches for ‘starting a new business’ are up 35% on average, as are searches for ‘future life goals’ (2x), ‘life bucket list’ (+65%), ‘family goals future’ (+30%) and ‘future house goals’ (+78%).” There were also some searches clearly about spending more time at home: “Productive morning routine (up 6x), Exercise routine at home (up 12x), Self care night routine (up 7x)”

LinkedIn has a new algorithm; here’s how to make it work for you. [Many of these tips also apply to social media in general.]

Spotify is now doing “video podcasts”. Apparently a lot of their podcasters already did a video version of the Spotify podcasts, but had to publish it elsewhere up until now.

Twitter now admits it is considering offering subscriptions to shore up its revenue numbers. “Shares of Twitter rose 4% in early trading Thursday following the earnings results....Twitter's growth plans are under close scrutiny as many advertisers pull back due to the pandemic. On Thursday, Twitter reported second-quarter ad revenues of $562 million, a 23% decrease compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has also been hit by advertisers participating in an ad boycott of social media, linked to the nationwide racial justice protests.” Also, the recent hack is not helping them.

That said, it is still possible to market using Twitter, and here are some of the basics.

YouTube is no longer sending email updates when a channel you follow posts new content.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Ad spend has increased again as lockdowns end, in some cases beating last year by a decent margin.

The Buy on Google program is ending its commission fees. Participants will also be able to integrate their PayPal and/or Shopify payment options. As often is the case, they are starting with the US first, but plan on rolling it out to more countries in the future. There are more details here, and a review here (with some of the drawbacks).

Google Product Ads are now showing the item’s “material” on the listing card (before you click). If you are doing your own feed for your website, you may have the ability to add the attributes needed for the details to show up.

If you find Google Ads too expensive, consider buying search ads on Bing.

eBay is experimenting with showing ads mixed in with unpaid listings; placement would depend on the same algorithm.

Here’s a new guide to Facebook Ads [videos & text]

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Bing has launched a new version of Webmaster Tools.

There are ways to reduce the amount of traffic that Google Analytics designates as “direct traffic”; here are 15 of them.

Currently in closed beta testing, the Google Search Console now has an “Insights” function, just like Google Analytics. I’ve found the GA one useful for telling me things I don’t always look at, so crossing my fingers that they release this to everyone soon.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Shopify helped many businesses stay open during pandemic lockdowns, giving it the boost to start competing with the likes of Amazon in ecommerce. “Shopify merchants that had previously or entirely relied on brick-and-mortar sales would later report they were able revive nearly 95% of that revenue online.”

eBay started rolling out its Managed Payments system to more sellers worldwide on July 20th. Things seem to be going slowly, with some confusion.

But eBay is also having a 25th anniversary party for sellers on September 25th; don’t forget to register.

Walmart is still delaying its new subscription model to challenge Amazon Prime, Walmart+.

Amazon in the UK has launched a “Face mask store” part of the website. I haven’t seen this on other versions of Amazon. They’ve also increased some fees for some UK sellers, based on the new UK digital tax. And they are launching a site & presence in Sweden.

The Competition Bureau of Canada has launched an investigation of Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers. “The bureau is asking any person or business that has conducted sales via Amazon.ca to contact them if they have any insights into the issues it is investigating.“

Amazon Prime Day has been postponed to later dates this year, starting with India on August 6-7. The remaining countries will apparently be announced soon.

If you use WooCommerce, here are a bunch of free plugins, with brief descriptions.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Buyers do not all make purchase decisions the same way; Google uses its massive collection of data and some new studies to provide some examples. “Worldwide, search interest for “best” has far outpaced search interest for “cheap.”

It’s cheaper to keep repeat buyers than it is to find new ones; here are 16 ways to do that. One of my favourites is ““proactively providing information on how to avoid problems or get more out of your product” creates a 32% average lift to repurchase or recommend.”

It seems that researchers can never produce enough marketing guides on Gen Z and millennials.

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)

I see a lot of new sellers, and some older sellers, confused about the idea of a business plan. HubSpot not only explains them, but also provides a downloadable template.

If you are thinking of changing careers, or just want to add skills to better run your current business, Google has many different courses, some of which they offer for free.

There are ways you can increase your productivity without (usually) working more hours. “A study published by John Pencavel of Standford University found that how much employees get done takes a sharp drop after 50 hours of work in a week, and even more drastically after 55 hours. The study found that employees working 70 hours per week actually produce nothing more in those extra 15 hours...taking a power nap in the middle of the day can help you process new information and even learn new skills.”

#SEO #seo tips #etsy #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #ecommercetips #social media

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stopplayshuffle · 5 years ago

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MINI MANSIONS CONCERT: WHY CONFIDENCE MATTERS IN WHAT YOU LOVE

On Monday, June 24th 2019, I attended a Mini Mansions concert at The Independent in SF CA. I’ve seen Mini Mansions perform live before when they opened for Arctic Monkeys at the Bill Graham Civic Center in SF on October 20th 2018. However, this is my first time seeing them at their own show for their own tour. That night was incredible, not just because of their performance, but because I got to actually meet two members from the band.

If you are not familiar with who Mini Mansions are, I’ll give a bit of background. Mini Mansions is a music trio made up of keyboardist/vocalist Tyler Parkford (touring keyboardist for Arctic Monkeys), bassist Zachary Dawes (the Last Shadow Puppets), and guitarist/vocalist/ (former drummer?) Michael Shuman (bassist for Queens of the Stone Age). Mini Mansions is a side project for the three members since, as you can see, each of them are involved in other projects.

I became familiar with them through Arctic Monkeys, since Alex Turner was featured in their 2015 album, The Great Pretenders (track 6: “Vertigo”, if anyone was interested in what song). Then I saw them perform live when they opened for Arctic Monkeys. This isn’t their first time opening for them either, since they opened for them before in their previous tour. Needless to say, they have a strong relationship with those Sheffield lads. While standing there and feeling curious to what their other music was like apart from “Vertigo”, I came to find that their setlist was pretty good. Their music is unique, which is too simple a word to describe the kind of music they make. It’s like vintage ‘60’s rock n’ roll distorted with psychedelic elements, accompanied with groovy bass lines (compliments of Zach Dawes), poppy piano hits (thanks to Tyler Parkford), and bluesy guitar riffs (from multi-instrumentalist Michael Shuman). I am a huge fan of vintage rock/pop, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, you get the picture. So hearing something that is similar to that kind of music will most likely capture my interest. And I was definitely interested in Mini Mansions.

The concert itself was pretty cheap, about $15 a ticket. After spending about $105 for Muse, $120 for Mike Shinoda, and about $70 for Arctic Monkeys, I was pretty stoked how affordable this show was. I didn’t want to stress myself out by trying to arrive 4 hours early to get a decent spot. My mentality was, whatever spot I get is what I get. My sister, Jenni, and I arrived at the venue about 45 minutes before they opened the doors, and to my surprise, there wasn’t a lot of people waiting in line. There were maybe about 6 or 7 people waiting before us. I’m guessing everyone else had the same mentality as I did going into this concert. I was relieved that my feet wouldn’t be worn out from waiting so long, and I now had the energy to withstand the entire show. When we were finally let into the venue, I walked straight to the front of the stage, not using my peripheral vision to catch anything weird or exciting. While standing in front of the carpeted stage with a tape that ran across the edge reading “NO DRINKS” my sister tapped me on my shoulder and asked, “isn’t that Mikey working the merch booth”? as she pointed towards the corner that was diagonally across from where we were. I was like, “No, I don’t think so”, because why would a band member work their own merch booth, right? At least that’s what my dumbass thought. But then I squinted my eyes towards the direction she was pointing at, and as my eyes were adjusting in that dark room, with only a dim light hovering around the merch booth, I could tell from the gelled back hair that it was indeed Michael Shuman. He was wearing an all-black outfit: black moto jacket, black t-shirt, black skinny jeans, and black shoes. Pretty casual. This is the exact opposite to the outfit he will later change into when he will perform, which was a white satin suit with some watercolor accents on it.

It was like having two personas, one being the regular guy selling band stuff and the other is the performer. I thought it was cool that he was working the merch booth because he wasn’t acting like he was too good to sell his stuff.

Jen asked me if I wanted to buy something, and despite the fact that I needed to save as much money as possible to have enough for my rent and other bills for the summer before school starts I said, “Hell yeah I wanna buy something!” But at the same time, I kept staring at the front of the stage, and I was apprehensive because I got a decent spot for the concert. The woman next to me told me, “You totally should, they’re really nice, I mean I’ll try to extend my arm out as much as possible to save your spot”. God, what a nice woman. I thanked my fellow concert friend and walked up to the line. There was only two people in front of me and they seemed to be a couple waiting next to each other, so I wouldn’t have to wait too long. But the girl took a while figuring out if she wanted a black Mini Mansions shirt or a white one. At this point, Zach Dawes was also at the booth helping his buddy, Mikey, out with making sure he had enough merchandise at the table. She asked Zach for his opinion, “which color do you like best?” And Zach, with his calm voice says, he liked both of them. I don’t even remember which color this chick went with, but they finally left the line, and I was finally next. I was standing face to face with Mikey Shuman, with only a plastic banquet table in between us. My eyes kept darting from his face to the posters to the left of him.

He actually spoke first and said, “Hi. How are you?”

And like a square I responded with, “I’m good, how are you?

“I’m good!” He said back, “What can I get you?”

“Uhh, may I have that poster please?” I pointed to the poster, which was signed by all 3 members.

“You may” with a dip at the end of “may” (what a polite gentleman).

(I put the poster on the stage so I can take a picture of it. No one was playing yet, btw. But that’s how close I was to the stage).

I didn’t want just a poster, (which I didn’t plan on where I was putting while watching the concert) I wanted something with it, so I asked Mikey if I could buy the CD that had Mini Mansions written in yellow on the top left corner, with a stuffed toy bunny on an illuminated plate. It was their first full length album they ever released, and I didn’t have that album yet. Which by the way, is hard to come by. It was sold out on Amazon for a while, and sold-out on their website too. I tried going to Rasputin Music a few months ago at the mall where I live to see if they had it. The cashier said there was something by Mini Mansions there, but I couldn’t find anything. I tried looking at a record shop in Santa Cruz, but no Mini Mansions CDs there either. I think it may have been available again on their website, but I waited on buying it, but I don’t remember exactly why. I think I wanted to avoid shipping fees and wait for it to be prime available on Amazon. Or maybe I was hoping I will find it in a record shop around where I live.

Anyway, I asked Mikey for the CD and he asked, “This CD right here?” He pointed to the CD.

“Yeah”

He then looked in another box, and when he put the box down empty handed he said, “Wow that was the last one”.

“Cool!” I responded with, like the fucking shy idiot I am.

It took me a while to get this album, I’m glad I waited so I can actually buy the album from the band themselves, but I wish I could’ve responded better.

(Photo of CD taken after the concert on my desk)

What happens next is so surreal that it took me a couple of days to comprehend that it happened. It’s nothing even that spectacular it’s just something that had never happened to me before. He tapped on the tablet the items I was purchasing and told me my stuff was going to be 35 bucks. I handed him my card and he actually swiped my card into the card reader sticking out from the tablet and asked, “Can you sign right here, please?”

This was mind-blowing to me, because I’m thinking shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t I be the one asking you to sign me stuff. But I signed the tablet, in a way like I’ve never been excited to sign my name to a purchase before. I couldn’t believe I was buying band merch from the actual band member himself, it was awesome. After he gave me my stuff, I handed them to my sister and asked him if I could shake his hand. The guy puts the tablet down and sticks out his hand and I’m fucking touching Mikey Shuman’s hand. I thanked him, and if I wasn’t enough of a square, my sister noticed an awkward silence and finally said, “I think you guys are great and I’m really excited for the show!” Both Zach and Mikey said thank you and both shook Jen’s hand. I thanked Mikey again and leaned over to shake Zach’s hand and went back to the front of the stage.

Obviously, I was excited that I met two of the members from the band. I couldn’t believe I actually talked to them. But I still felt unsatisfied, not with them of course, but with myself. I want to be a music journalist and interview bands and study music as a career. Because I have anxiety issues, including a bit of social anxiety, I am always awkward and shy when I meet people, which does not help me in the long run at all. There were so many things I could’ve asked Mikey: What do you like to play more, bass, drums, or guitar? I love how bluesy you get in The Great Pretenders, what was the inspiration for that? I couldn’t even ask him something as basic as, hey how are you liking SF this time around? Anything weird happen to you yet? Ever been to Oakland? My God I suck. I could’ve even said, Wow, this is the last CD? No way? How lucky am I? Such a missed opportunity to connect with the band, and actually work on my people skills when I meet musicians for the job I want. Despite the fact that I wish I could go back in time to alter how I met Mikey and Zach, I was still grateful for the encounter I had. It’s not a common thing for me to meet the people who make the music I like.

Their performance was also great. After watching two openers, Tyler Parkford finally came out, but to set up his keyboard directly above me. He bent down and plugged some wires in. I’m sure it’s creepy having people stare at you while you’re doing something, so I looked away so he can do his job. But at one point I looked back up at his direction and while he was standing behind his keyboard, he looked at me and I smiled at him. I was happy that he smiled back. Unfortunately I never got to talk to Tyler that night, but I’m hoping I will in the future.

After Mikey sound checked all of the equipment, they began to play. They started off with “Freakout!” which is what they started with when they opened for Arctic Monkeys. The song isn’t super intense but has an upbeat tempo that is perfect for getting the crowd going. They mostly played songs from The Great Pretenders, but incorporated a few from their upcoming album, Guy Walks into a Bar… So we were getting that mix of relaxed familiarity from being able to sing along with the songs we already knew, and the excitement from the new songs from the album that has yet to come. A variety of uplifting emotions that was getting the crowd pumped. The song I connected to live the most was “Works Every Time”. “Works Every Time” is from their upcoming album, but they released it on their EP with the same title first. Since the song had been out for some time now, I was already familiar with it, and enjoyed the calm soulful singing of Parkford and swaggering bass lines of Dawes. The kind of sound that someone can listen to while driving late at night. But hearing it live was a different experience for me. The dreamy tone from the piano was more upfront, maybe because I noticed it more? I don’t know, but it was lovely.

Zach was a little shy when I met him, since he didn’t really say much; however, on stage he wasn’t shy rocking out those bass lines with his buddies. The guy has mad rhythm with his bass, and he didn’t look nervous on stage. If he was nervous, then I couldn’t tell because he played each song so naturally. I know if that was me up there, I’d probably mess up a lot from nerves, since I can barely sing right while singing karaoke with two friends.

When it came to the more fast tempo songs, especially “Mirror Mountain” all the guys got really into it, but Mikey was not shy of wailing around and screaming loud into the mic. I enjoy watching him get this intense honestly, [even though a couple of the audience members who I talked to at the Bart station after the show told me, at another Mini Mansions concert they went to in Sacramento, were afraid of Mikey potentially kicking them sometimes while he was rocking out, but luckily he didn’t]. His punk rock energy bounced across the entire stage, and as a direct result I got pumped watching him go. There was a point during “Mirror Mountain” when he bent down real close to the edge of the stage. He puts the mic close to his lips, and his palm held the back of an audience member’s nape. He sang close to this young man’s ear, and the young man smiled, probably from the attention he was receiving from Mikey, but he was also leaning back, possibly because he was trying not to get too close to him. Looking back at it now, I didn’t know what was going through that kid’s head, but he seemed unsure of how to react when the singer/guitarist for Mini Mansions was singing physically close to his face. I wouldn’t know either, to be honest, if that was me.

Needless to say, there’s a level of boldness that is needed to get that close to someone, without having that internal conversation wondering if you’re doing too much or just enough. He just did it. While performing, he used his entire body (from his voice to his legs) to express himself, and while some people would think that’s too much or bold, either way, people are looking.

But that’s the thing when you express yourself in something you care about, may that be writing, food, books, or music, it will show. With Mikey, Zach, and Tyler they used their talents to create this interesting concoction of vintage inspired contemporary indie rock. They went with what they had, released it, and was able to perform it in about every part of the world.

In the end, they are going places with it, this thing that they love, or at least what it seems to me they love. In other words, they just went for it. I wish I could possess at least half the confidence of what they have. Maybe if I did, I would’ve been less awkward when I met Mikey and Zach. Now, I’m not saying confidence is the only thing a person needs to pursue what they want, but confidence helps push someone toward what they want. With confidence, you can stand on a stage and exercise your skills in front of people, you can be yourself without the fear of judgement, you can talk to someone you’ve never met before and have a great conversation. With confidence, you just go for it.

#minimansions #mikeyshoes #tyler parkford #zach dawes #concert #indie #music

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islandwanderlust-blog · 5 years ago

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I moved to Texas for a job almost 3 years ago. I was excited to get out of Idaho after my last real relationship didn’t work out. I was a Detroit chick stuck in a hick town where everyone new that I met made a joke about “potatoes”.

Unexpectedly, I ended up in the gun related field and thats how I ended up in the gun-friendly state of Texas (go figure). Its not my perfect cup of tea, but it got me out of I-Duh-hoe and I happily packed my shit and drove 3 days to (yet again) start a new life in a new state.

Its been almost 3 years and I’m antsy again, and to be honest, I’ve been like this for over a year now.

In April, while abroad on a vacation to Ireland, my employer decided to do the asshole thing and fire me while I was on my trip. ... in an email. I always knew that the workplace was toxic, but I didn’t expect them to stoop so low and be that shitty to an employee. But then again, I didn’t really expect much else from a company where the owner would be completely lost if all the employees up and left - he knew nothing about our positions. We had to fight for vacation time and when I finally got to take a REAL vacation, it ended up with me on unemployment.

Awesome.

But maybe its for the best. I’m now applying to jobs in the US Virgin Islands and this blog will be my struggles with, well, all of it. The searching, the bitching, the research, the learning, the dreams and wishes, and hopefully the move.

So I’ve been unemployed since the end of April and its now the end of July. Since July rolled around, I’ve started to search for jobs on Craigslist, Facebook, and then I was lucky enough to find the Virgin Islands Dept of Labor, where a ton of jobs are listed. Take note! Jobs do legally have to be advertised there, so its a great spot to upload your resume and also apply.

Facebook also has quite a few groups for those looking for jobs and apartments.

Speaking of....

Apartments are hell to find. Won’t lie.

Everything is super expensive and the lack of selection is alarming, but Facebook is a great spot for looking... and SeaGlass, which is especially great if you have the option to buy. But buying isn’t on the top of my list, and it really never is. I move so much that purchasing a home has never been something that I WANT to do in life. Everyone grows up wanting to get married, have kids, and buy a home. I just want to find someone to settle down with and travel.

In Texas, I finally had to purchase actual furniture. Now, I’m hoping to move and will basically start all over again, fresh, and sell all that I’ve accumulated - because I’m sick of talking about living a stress free life. Sick of dreaming of living in the islands, away from the bullshit, and crap jobs.

I’ll be 39 next weekend and I’m back to looking for a roomate, how funny is that?

St Thomas is first on my list. St John being second due to the close proximity to Thomas. St Croix being third as its the furthest away from anything else and less touristy. I rather love the idea of always meeting new people, them asking “So where do you live?” as they assume I’m also on vacation. I want to wake up to a gorgeous view (preferrably in the hills as I have a paranoia of some Tsunami blasting thru and flooding the lower beaches) and have a job where it pays the bills but lets me just wear flip flops and see the beach on a daily basis.

So.... the job hunt has started. I received 1 reply asking about my (now expired) knowledge of CPR and water activities, and then received 1 reply today, inquiring on my living situation and if moving, when. I tried to sound upbeat, as me and a friend are currently planning on taking a short 4/5 day trip down in the next couple weeks, but things are obviously dependent on if I can find employment. Employment while stateside, not the easiest. Some employers are expecting you to -come- fill out applications while there, so even if I fill out one during my trip, the finding out IF I got a job offer seems almost impossible unless they can fit me into an interview within those few days.

Scams, I’m finding, area also popular with sites like FB And Craigslist. I received the same reply from two different job postings, asking for my information. Both were from different names, but they stated the same stuff. I looked up the companies they listed but were no where to be found on Google so if you think theres a red flag - 99% of the time, listen to your instinct. It probably IS a scam. This goes with apartments and places to rent also. I placed a Craigslist ad for a room/apt but did NOT state I was a single female and DID state that I would like to see a website, if not that, I’ll need references to speak to in order to make sure its legitimate.

People post in forums that its expensive to live down there, so I’ve got my Google spreadsheet started with what I’ll need to make in order to pay what bills I’ll still have, a list of items to take and what I’ll need to buy, a list of what I’ve read I’ll need (from other expats and reading about their learning curves) and possibly what vehicle payment I can afford after I’m over the whole taxi/bus situation.

Honestly, my biggest obstacle is everything thats here in Texas. I still have an apartment, lease is not up until March. I still have my car, lease is not up until April. The apartment complex will not let me out of my lease early for any reason, so subletting will be my only choice. The car, well, I can give the lease up to someone most likely, if a friend would like to take over payments. Otherwise, I have no issue selling everything I own and taking whats just needed with me, shipping the larger important things. I figure selling things would also give me a bit of money to pay bills or get to USVI in the meantime.

.... thats it for my first blog post and rambling. I’ll try and keep everyone posted and up to date on this insane move if I can keep the momentum going and get out there asap :)

#usvi #expat #moving #virgin islands #st thomas #st john #wanderlust

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will6170470150-blog · 5 years ago

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25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music Is Going

Pop music of the 90s was enjoyable. grandson, the stage moniker of 23-yr-outdated Toronto artist Jordan Benjamin, started sharing his concept of rock music with the world in 2016 with the only, " Issues Change" He hit his stride on the follow-up single, " Bills ," and hasn't slowed down since. A yr later, on the verge of releasing one other single, grandson is leading the cost towards the future of a style that wants to reclaim its edge, its relevance and its perspective. Records and concerts to profit charity are supported by many rock music artists. These include Band Help, We Are The World, plus the Reside Aid and Farm Help live shows. So alongside comes Mr. Katanić who now throws his hat within the ring. He is led in part by the most eclectic and prolific Gene Pritsker who I believe directed him to ship me this disc. This young musician has a passion for much music which finds a frequent house in one of my audio gamers. And, as I suspected, the composers whose title have been unfamiliar (Tauan Gonzalez Sposito, Antonio Correa, Wolfgang W. Mayer, Anthony Fiumara, Wellington E. Alves, and Ivan Bozicevic) are additionally of great curiosity. The only downside here is the lack of liner notes and therefore there's little on these other composers.

And I am going to say it, the mainstream country music viewers and important press is partially to blame for this. If they aren't prepared to call mainstream country on its bullshit (which this web site does and I try to do as the one nation critic on YouTube), then this shit is going to keep occurring and it is going to keep promoting till the trend dies with my demographic and all of us get sick of it. The present bubble is not sustainable, and it's solely a matter of time and better numbers of people clicking in before it implodes. "J-pop", as Japanese pop music is affectionately called both in and outside of Japan, is the mainstream type of music in Japan and has a big cult following everywhere in the world. While J-pop gained its title and status as recently as the Nineteen Nineties, it gained its first footholds in the Nineteen Sixties and may even be traced again to the pre-war era in Japanese history. Reuters reviews that researchers in Spain discovered that pop songs have become louder prior to now 50 years, and the melodies, sound types, and chords have grow to be much less various and extra homogenous. • Over 1,500 missions & workout routines, with tons of of videos, overlaying all the talents you want: sight studying sheet music, classical and https://nydiabelanger3.hatenadiary.com/ pop songs for Piano, and for Guitar and ukulele you'll learn chords, strumming, melodies, lead, fingerpicking and extra. I really hope this e book helps people acknowledge how important LGBTQ individuals have been in every single style of well-liked music. We were there at the beginning of jazz. Blues wouldn't exist without the number of lesbian and bisexual girls involved in it, like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Billie Holiday. If it wasn't for Wendy Carlos, a queer woman, we might not have had in style publicity to the Moog synthesizer. People do overlook these items if they don't seem to be reminded. Many classical composers borrowed extensively from different musical traditions, including folks, pop, and (later) jazz and rock. However in the 2nd half of the twentieth century, many composers blurred the traces between these musical worlds so thoroughly that it was unattainable to tell whether a selected composition ought to be categorized as MCM or jazz or rock. Throwing up their palms, music magazines and columns often labeled such works not based mostly on the content material of the music, however based mostly on which label launched them or www.magicaudiotools.com what sorts of venue they were performed in. Scale back all songs to the identical main key…and the most well-liked chords discovered are the I IV V, carefully adopted by the relative minor. Beautiful finding. This query is about Pop music, not standard music. Völkel E. (1979). Die spekulative Musiktherapie zur Zeit der Romantik Speculative Music Therapy of the Romantic Period. Düsseldorf: Triltsch. Because the beat-maker, who's worked with the likes of 360, Illy, and Kelis, tells News Limited , many pop songs, significantly these launched on main labels, are rewritten with the explicit intention of recreating the sounds and vibes of earlier confirmed hits.

After Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon struggled to type his own id outdoors of the acclaimed duo. On Graceland, he lastly stepped out as an inventive drive of his personal. By collaborating with noted South African musicians, Simon created a novel sound blending his folk sensibilities with a formidable rhythm section. Sorry if I come off as rude or salty, not your fault for stating an opinion and backing it with information. But you have got plenty of time in your life to care concerning the reputation within the first place. You like it, cool. You do not? OKAY.Reputation - the state or condition of being appreciated, admired, or supported by many individuals. Next, the songs had been sorted into subgenres by way of tags created by the 50 million users of , a UK-based mostly music discovery website. (Mauch was working at in 2010 when he began to check the evolution of pop music with biologist Armand Leroi). Moombahton is a cool style that plays off of a fusion between house music and reggaton. It's one of the latest types of music that even those that assume they don't like EDM can get pleasure from. It's going to have you ever salsa dancing your method downtown, and DJs like Dillon Francis adore it because it was created totally on accident at a house celebration one night time just a few years back.Regardless of how the sound in an instrument is produced, many musical devices have a keyboard as the consumer-interface. Keyboard instruments are any instruments which might be played with a musical keyboard Every key generates a number of sounds; most keyboard devices have additional means ( pedals for a piano, stops and a pedal keyboard for an organ) to govern these sounds. They could produce sound by wind being fanned ( organ ) or pumped ( accordion ), 126 127 vibrating strings both hammered ( piano ) or plucked ( harpsichord ), 128 129 by electronic means ( synthesizer ), one hundred thirty or in another means. Generally, devices that don't normally have a keyboard, such as the glockenspiel , are fitted with one. 131 Though they don't have any transferring parts and are struck by mallets held in the participant's palms, they've the same physical arrangement of keys and produce soundwaves in a similar method. The theremin , an electrophone , is performed with out physical contact by the player.

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janiedean · 6 years ago

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“I like age gaps in ships” please fuck off

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Bruce Springsteen’s Youngstown is a song originally written for his 1995 record The Ghost of Tom Joad, which won a grammy award for best new folk album and, going back to 1982′s Nebraska, picks up again on the subject of discussing social matters in the modern era United States.

Originally written as an acoustic piece, Youngstown was inspired by reading Dale Maharidge’s frankly great book (that all of tumblr should read) Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, whose first four chapters are indeed focused on the saga of the town of Youngstown, Ohio, once famous for having been the most important steel producer in the United States before the mills got shut down in the late seventies/early eighties therefore bringing the city’s economy to a collapse and the unemployment rate/poverty rate to skyrocket, and therefore creating a whole new bunch of newly poor people who, in lack of skills other than manual work (in the book one of the workers says that 20% of his colleagues in the mills couldn’t even read or write, and tbqh I’d like to know if most of tumblr dot com wouldn’t help the world by getting angry that there’s such a high illiteracy degree in the US rather than at most stuff ppl on tumblr get angry about), hopped on a car with their family (or on a train on their own) and left for either Texas (where they’d be discriminated based on the Ohio license plates) or California to pick fruit (in pure Steinbeck fashion).

In this essay, I will explain you why Youngstown has some of the best lyrics ever written at least by Springsteen and how it’s a gem of a song that would eat for breakfast 99% of what people like on this godforsaken website like, while at the same time managing to join great storytelling with actual activism as it was about an issue that people feel so strongly about that they ignored it for years before then getting surprised when blue-collar workers went for Trump because he promised change.

Now, on to the lyrics!

The song opens with:

Here in northeast Ohio, back in eighteen-o-threeJames and Danny Heaton found the ore that was lining Yellow CreekThey built a blast furnace here along the shoreAnd they made the cannon balls that helped the Union win the war

This opening already shows why Springsteen is an extremely good lyricist, as in four simple lines we already learn all the backstory we need to know to have an idea of what’s up with Youngstown even if we aren’t from the US or know nothing about it anyway: we know where it is, we know when the steel producing started (1803) and who started it (James and Danny Heaton) and why (because there was ore in the area). Then we establish that everyone works with blast furnaces, the key to the entire song, and then we immediately link the steel factoring with their role in the wars the US fought, starting from Civil War cannonballs which helped the Union win the war therefore uniting the country.

Here in Youngstown, here in YoungstownMy sweet Jenny I’m sinking downHere darling in Youngstown

Except that from the refrain we know that things aren’t going well, since the narrator is sinking, and if we know (from the book but also from other sources) that Jenny was the nickname for one of the largest furnaces in the city, we immediately know what to expect from the rest of the song.

Going ahead:

Well my daddy worked the furnaces, kept ‘em hotter than hellI come home from ‘Nam worked my way to scarfer, a job that’d suit the devil as wellWell taconite coke and limestone fed my children and made my payThem smokestacks reaching like the arms of God into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

In the second stanza, we move on to the personal part of the song: the narrator talks about his daddy, suggesting that working in the furnaces was an hereditary job, and kept them hotter than hell, which introduces the second main theme in the song as in, the Heaven/Hell contrast which comes to fruition at the end. The narrator is a Vietnam veteran, so he’s supposedly a young man or young-ish, so the entire tradition of working in furnaces dates back a long time, and then he informs us that his job would suit the devil as well, connecting again with the fire/hell/hot imagery, which of course is not original but it’s immediately effective in this context, especially linked to blast furnaces.

The narrator then goes on to the economical discussion, as in, he fed his children and made his pay with the materials that go into making steel, taconite, coke and limestone, which is a rather poetic way of putting it, which keeps on in the hauntingly beautiful next line which is honestly a work of art: them smokestacks reaching like the arms of God (biblical image where God is again brought up in contrast to the previous Hell-ish immagery) into a beautiful sky of soot and clay (where we have a in-built contrast because soot and clay are not words associated with beautiful and actually soot = dirt = ugliness) suggests in a simple but haunting line how such a less than gratifying job is seen by these people as something to be proud of which creates beauty as he feeds their family and allows them to pay the bills.

Again, we have the refrain which suggests us that in Youngstown things aren’t going well, until the bridge goes into:

Well my daddy come on the Ohio works when he come home from World War TwoNow the yard’s just scrap and rubble, he said “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do.”Yeah these mills they built the tanks and bombs that won this country’s warsWe sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam, now we’re wondering what they were dying for

This stanza is another proof of how Springsteen can manage to pack a lot of information into a rather short stanza without renouncing lines that drop on you like bombs ready to explode.

First, we learn that the narrator’s daddy was a WWII veteran, so there’s a direct connection in between how these people who build weapons for the US wars also fight in them (and if you read the book and know that a quarter of them couldn’t even read it’s… honestly unsettling), and then that the yard’s just scrap and rubble. “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do” is lifted from a line in the book from an ex steel mill worker whose son was laid off from that exact same job and who also had fought in WWII, and proceeds to point out the severity of the situation in its haunting simplicity.

Then, we go back to the cannon balls that helped the Union win the war: since then Youngstown has built tanks and bombs that won this country’s wars along with its inhabitants but now they all closed, people are without job, the sons of the men who went to Korea and Vietnam died in there and came back to their only source of income gone, and now we’re wondering what they were dying for. Which, without saying, is implicitly but not-so-much a heavy critique of how the US government has no scruples sending men to war and then leave them to die and how the ones who survive feel betrayed when finding out they don’t even have a job anymore, or they can’t have the one job they trained for.

But it’s not over here: before the last refrain, we have:

From the Monongahela valley to the Mesabi iron rangeTo the coal mines of Appalachia, the story’s always the sameSeven hundred tons of metal a day, now sir you tell me the world’s changedOnce I made you rich enough, rich enough to forget my name

Here we went back at the beginning: the same way the first stanza told us everything we needed to know about Youngstown historically, this one tells us that Youngstown is not alone and the same economical waste and depression is to be found in all the places in the US above mentioned (Monongahela, Mesabi, Appalachia) where entire towns/counties are facing poverty because they lost their only source of income as the world changes but they’re not given the chance to change with them, because they only were trained for seven hundred tons of metal a day and now they know nothing else and so they’re told the world has moved on when they can’t move on with him.

And now we have what’s thematically the most important line of the song imo even if the next stanza is its symbolical perfect conclusion: you tell me the world’s changed once I made you rich enough, rich enough to forget my name. Here we have some vitriolic, angry criticism at the rich people who only care about their workers as long as they provide profit for them and then are ready to drop them like wasted junk the moment they’re not needed anymore and they’re rich enough to forget their name why they can’t feed their children and make their pay anymore, because of course a steel mill worker will make less than the CEO of the company selling the metal he makes or the bank taking away his house if he cannot pay for it anywhere.

Anyhow, for anyone else this would have been the climax, but since Springsteen is not the first idiot that walks by and can write a song, where anyone else would have left it there and concluded with a last refrain (same as above), he has a post-script after the refrain that ends the song without giving it the bridge-last stanza-refrain usual rock song closure:

When I die I don’t want no part of heaven, I would not do heaven’s work wellI pray the devil comes and takes me to stand in the fiery furnaces of hell

These two lines are a pure work of art in how they manage to wrap up the song by re-using thematically all the heaven/hell imagery previously established and leave the listener with an acute sense of dread.

The narrator, which before compared the smoke to the arms of God, doesn’t want to go Heaven because he wouldn’t do Heaven’s work well (let’s remember he built weapons and has fought a war, so we can assume he also is working through war-related trauma in that sense). He also prays that the devil comes and takes him which is technically an oxymoron as people don’t pray the devil (they pray to God or the angels or good entities, not to bad entities - the devil is summoned or evoked or you sell your soul to him, you don’t pray for him to come and take you), to stand in the fiery furnaces of Hell, which is the final connecting link to the before-laid-down Hell imagery and goes back to the initial furnace/hot/hell/devil imagery by giving it almost a positive spin. Indeed:

is a word that has positive connotation - strong, bright, blazing, brilliant, vivid, rich, strong, bold, passionate: same way as the workers felt about their steel mill jobs that were taken away from them and left them with a handful of nothing and struggling to make ends meet. So the ideal end is not to ascend to Heaven but to go to Hell where furnaces would be going for all eternity (furnaces only can work until they’re on and they have to be lighted up all day otherwise it takes an inane amount of money to start them again), fiery and proud, and patience if it’s Hell that’d take the narrator, because Heaven had nothing for him. And that’s why us listeners, even if not familiar with either Youngstown or its plight nor know shit about steel mills or how a blast furnaces work, at the end of the song feel upset and creeped out, because we’re put in front of a situation that’s gone to shit and where people have died and bled and worked all their life for nothing and gave themselves to wars that ultimately made the US what it is and gave it economic prosperity hoping to have their piece of the American dream and then get royally fucked and would rather go to Hell where their trade would be appreciated than ascend to Heaven like technically anyone Christian should want.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you write a damned great song that a) teaches the listeners something, b) discusses social issues within it, c) does its job of activism work as an extremely famous singer brings awareness to an issue that no politician gives a fuck about at least from what my poor Italians self can understand, d) is also not at all boring in either of its version. Actually, the original packs a punch in its quiet deliver while the electrical is just devastatingly angry and raging with that same fiery fervor described in the ending stanza, and both make an excellent job of delivering their message. Here is the original acoustic take played in Youngstown itself during the Ghost of Tom Joad tour:

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Too bad that not many people on tumblr who like to pretend they’re doing activism listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Sad.

#bruce springsteen for ts #anon hate saga #lmfao #here anon have an essay #from now on that's how I reply to this kind of idiotic nonsense #*shrug*#I hope you learned something!!!!! :)#Anonymous #ask post #bruce meta

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jas-fairclough · 6 years ago

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Evaluation

I have decided to evaluate the module by discussing step-by-step through the presentation, as I feel this is a good representation of the brand as a whole. For the first slide I decided to keep it simplistic yet elegant to go with our brands aesthetic. I’ve started the presentation with our brands identity as I feel it’s a good introduction into our brand and who we are. I included my brand breakdown to show people the thought process I had in order to create our brand identity.

For our vision and purpose I wrote up our brand profile that our group wrote together in the early stages of our brand, we create fashion correct garments that are true to women sizes. Our gowns welcome every body type and shape, we stick to a true size chart and offer a tailor made service for women of unique body shapes. The image of mannequins supports our work ethic of fitting everyones body types and shapes.

I delegated our 2021 trend slide to the member of our group that sourced the trend as I felt they would have the best knowledge on the subject. I co-wrote the slide with that member of the group as it had been left too vague, I expanded the points that had been already made and sourced imagery to support our our point of where the inspiration for the trend came from which, we will expand on when presenting.

When the rest of my group caught up with their workload they were able to pick which slide they wanted to do that hadn't been started by me to ensure we didn't fall too behind schedule. A different member of the group chose to do this slide, I edited the slide slightly with the correct terminology and updated ideas as this person had been absent for the majority of our brand meeting and was hard to communicate with making their work non representative of our work and ideas.

I joint conducted a survey with one other group member as we started to become confused with who our customer is, getting ideas crossed and mixed up. It then became clear that we would stick with our original ideas after we assessed the survey results, I thought it would be essential to include some of the relevant results to help back up our points.

I delegated this slide to one of the fashion design members of our group as they would have a better knowledge and understanding of the processes and ideas that went into designing and making the dress.

I also delegated our product pricing slide as a member of the group expressed many of her ideas for this slide, I thought this slide would be best suited for her as she had a number of well thought out and explained ideas. She also conducted a fake outgoings chart and a manufacturing bill and calculated what our costs would be based on a realistic number of units sold.

I conducted our place slide as I had lots of ideas from the early stages of our brand. I chose the idea of a charity ball because it has a luxury conception associated with many celebrity philanthropists, such as Oprah Winfrey, have a high profile who would often advertise their particular ballgown. I feel this is the territory our brand should be immersed with. However, the issue with this is that for a small upcoming brand such as ours it would be difficult to gain the opportunity to be involved in such balls, so this could perhaps be an aspiration however, we feel our brand and product meets the criteria to be involved in such things.

I also conducted our promotion slide, I felt this slide would be better suited to me as I took it upon myself to set up a social media page for our brand as this is a way most brands promote and market theirselves currently. I decided to keep to the aesthetic of the the brand, and model the page off of mainstay brands who innovate such as Sisters and Seekers (mentioned in a previous post). I feel that this page has been an essential part of our marketing and promotion as today this is the platform many upcoming brands use to get themselves on the map. Although, I didn't create our brand’s website as I had a large workload and wouldn't have been able to find the time to make a website. I chose not to include an image of it on this slide as it didn't function smoothly as it didn't have any functionality, for example the images for each product won't load, the sign up page was half off screen and a lot of the links are default to Wix website maker (shown by the shipping being addressed to San Fransisco) making it incomplete.

I conducted the packaging slide as I made and researched everything to do with our brands packaging. I’ve included our packaging mood-board to support my points of what our packaging will be like. I enjoyed researching about packaging and started off with a lot of ideas for our packaging. However, if I had been given more time by someone helping me with my workload then I would’ve been able to find a company that would make stickers and tissue paper with our brand logo on like I had envisioned, for example Wix and other business oriented companies offer such services. This would’ve supported my ideas and made our brand seem well thought out and put together, I would’ve liked to have seen some aspects of my vision come to life. This is something I would like to do in the future.

I then quickly put together the last slide as I feel it’s crucial to include our vision for the future which, I had ideas for early on in the production stage that didn't quite fit with our current aims. A concept I would love to explore is the idea of pop-up shops, its a method brands, such as Gymshark (distinct from our brand but still a relevant upcoming brand) have used to translate their online popularity into a tangible presence people can interact with in person.

Overall, I enjoyed the process of branding and promoting a brand that we created. However, I feel that my group let me down by giving me a bigger workload and expecting everything to be done by me instead of helping me. Even when I made attempts at delegating work it either wasn't completed or was done to a low quality e.g slides in the presentation or a website. My group didn't keep to the time schedule we had set ourselves by only completing tasks on days that we were in instead of finishing off tasks in their own time causing me to work overtime.

In my own work I feel that I illustrated the aesthetic, the vision and the purpose of the brand and tried to promote that to the best of my abilities given the circumstances. I feel that Sheer Elegance is a brand with potential that could do well in the future.

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beinglibertarian · 6 years ago

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The Wall Won’t Work – Red Dirt Liberty Report

In the midst of a non-shutdown government shutdown, the majority of those on the right side of the US political spectrum are demanding that President Donald Trump be allowed to build his wall on the southern border.

By all accounts, it’s a fancy, nice-looking wall with good aesthetics. Why that seems to be a point being made… I’m not sure. The stated price-tag, according to Republicans and supporters of the wall, is $5 billion that has been forcefully-seized from American citizens. Never mind the fact that the promise was that Americans were not going to foot a cent of the bill for this wall. Now, “non-essential” parts of the government have been shut down in order to try and force us to pay for it.

The wall and illegal immigration

The main purpose of the wall, according to its advocates, is to reduce illegal immigration.

What’s interesting about this goal is that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants (“undocumented”; whatever you want to call them) have attained illegal status because of an expired visa. They came in by legal means, but simply overstayed. A wall does absolutely nothing to prevent this.

It also does absolutely nothing to prevent going around, over, or under the wall, which is something that is common for people who want to evade such a structure. It can and will be done by a large number of people.

Will it deter some? Of course. But certainly will not stop the majority.

The anti-illegal immigrant narrative

What is it about illegal immigrants that seems to bother so many on the right?

Their chief concern about illegal immigrants is that they are receiving benefits paid for by American citizens without any financial contribution. As an example of this argument is on the website of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This particular article adds up a bunch of taxpayer costs that it claims are being paid by taxpayers due to the presence of illegal immigrants.

There are a number of criticisms I have of the suppositions of the article. The first being that many of the costs it produces are present whether illegal immigrants are in the country or not. Things like law enforcement, and to a degree, education, are constants.

Also, the largest portion of the costs the article lists comes from state and local governments. So, we are mixing a federal issue with a local one. Since state and local governments have no control over immigration policy (that’s a federal issue), it seems odd to include those costs. If your state is foolish enough to pay out on social programs to non-citizens, then the problem needs to be addressed at that level. It has nothing to do with a wall, which is an extension of federal policy. And at the federal level, illegal immigrants qualify for very few social services.

It’s as if the article seeks to inflate costs to make them sound more ominous than they actually are.

The article, as with most of the opinions about illegal immigration coming from the right, fails to mention the economic benefit of 12 million additional consumers to the markets. Why do cities and states constantly try to persuade people to immigrate to them? Because of the economic benefits that come from more consumers. More people means more spending and more jobs.

The wall and criminals

But what about the wall curtailing a flood of violent criminals passing through the border in the dark of night?

If you are under constant threat of being deported, it follows that you are going to want to keep a very low profile so as not to draw attention to yourself. In fact, the violent crime rate amongst illegal immigrants is far lower than that of the general population. Here’s an article with a couple of charts to demonstrate.

What about terrorists sneaking through the border?

To date, there has never been a terror attack committed against the United States that came from someone who had snuck across the border. Might there be some that get through? Probably, but it’s difficult to justify the high expense of the wall when law enforcement has already been successful by using other means of detecting and preventing terrorism. As was previously stated, a wall would do little to prevent people from entering into the country illegally.

What about preventing the flood of illegal substances, contraband, drugs, and weapons moving across the border?

The vast majority of those come through the front gate, not the back door. Most contraband moves past the border through legal gates and ports with people using legal documents. The amount of contraband crossing weak spots in the border on the backs of traffickers pales in comparison to the amount that simply cannot be stopped in the flood of vehicles, ships, and shipping containers moving through the border with contraband hidden. It is impossible to check every nook and cranny of every vehicle, shipping container, and ship.

Once again, a wall will do very little to deter this activity, as well as the more advanced techniques now being deployed by traffickers, such as submarines.

Since the wall is being discussed here, too much writing would be required to explain the advantages of legalizing such substances anyway.

A largely ineffective wall, paid for by money that has essentially been confiscated from American citizens, that will do very little of what it has been marketed to do, is not a good idea. While I support shutting down any part of the government that could be considered non-essential, trying to blackmail the country into building a monstrosity of mostly-useless infrastructure is be bad policy.

If you are going to confiscate my money against my will, could I ask that it at least be spent in a slightly more fiscally-responsible manner?

This article represents the views of the author, and not those of Being Libertarian LLC.

The post The Wall Won’t Work – Red Dirt Liberty Report appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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hillaryisaboss · 7 years ago

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Roseanne proves Russian propaganda worked: 7 reasons we can't allow Roseanne to normalize Trump

I hope Roseanne’s reboot is all one big satire. One big “bait-and-switch.”

What do I mean by that, exactly? What I mean is… I hope what Roseanne is secretly doing is showing us how the working-class lost its way and ended up voting for Donald Trump. And that through Darlene moving home, and presenting Roseanne with a gender-fluid grandson, she slowly starts to realize her vote for the #1 bully of all-time was a mistake.

I hope the entire 10th season of Roseanne shows this evolution in Roseanne’s character – Trump supporter realizing the errors of their thinking when presented with modern America. And who knows… maybe Roseanne herself is the only person able to reach these misguided working-class voters.

But if that’s not the case, and this isn’t one big ploy by Roseanne to change the hearts of Trump supporters, this is required reading for all Americans.

For better or worse, we all know Roseanne Barr is a bit of a bully like Trump.

Roseanne constantly fired people from her show (sound familiar?), viciously attacked critics (I can’t wait for her to read this), threatened to sue people, and thrived on constant controversy, celebrity feuds, and tabloid sensationalism. Roseanne and Donny are more similar than one might think.

Is Roseanne the female version of Trump?

Many on her show thought she was a tyrant, something Donald Trump wishes he could be in real life. Which is why all of these similarities between Roseanne and Trump make it all the more ironic and hypocritical when Roseanne attacks the bullies her grandson faces at school for wearing girls clothing.

Roseanne… you literally voted for a man that enabled the bullies that attacked your grandson. To ignore this glaring hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is mind-boggling. Bullies across our nation were given the “green-light” to attack minorities when Trump won the Presidency. Roseanne should do some serious self-reflection and soul-searching on how her vote for Trump (the #1 bully of all-time) emboldened the very kids who bullied her grandson.

So all of this hypocrisy begs the question:

How did feminist hero Roseanne Barr go from supporting Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary (even writing a pro-Hillary article for the HuffingtonPost), to supporting Donald J. Trump (con-man and pussy-grabber) for President in 2016?

The answer is simple: Russian bots on Twitter.

After using Twitter to run for President in 2012, Roseanne submerged herself in political propaganda on Twitter (which she has since deleted).

There is no better proof than Roseanne herself that the Russians were successful with their online propaganda campaign. How else do you explain a feminist hero voting for a pussy-grabber over the most qualified woman to ever seek the Presidency?

Putin feared Hillary, and turning former supporters like Roseanne against Hillary was part of the mastermind. The ultimate con in American history to destabilize our nation in Putin’s favor.

Sadly, Roseanne is using her shows reboot to justify the unjustifiable: voting for a proud bigot who conned working-class people by scapegoating minorities and promising to return us to an America we will never be again.

So how will Roseanne go about justifying the unjustifiable?

By trying to say Hillary was an equally bad candidate – the “lesser of two evils” argument. Which was, after-all, Russia’s ultimate goal: muddy the waters so the American public thinks both candidates are equally bad.

“Neither Trump or Hillary will change anything, so why not give the finger to the establishment by voting for Trump? At least he gives the illusion of being on our side. He looks and sounds like us, right? Burn down the system!!”

This is a very petty and immature rationale from a group of people that have felt forgotten by the “establishment.” But it’s a rationale I fear far too many working-class people used to convince themselves that Trump (a 4-times bankrupt silver-spoon Daddy’s boy fraud) was somehow their guy.

Or maybe the working-class simply supported Trump in order to seek revenge against America for feeling ignored? But why is it always liberal America’s job to understand conservative America’s bigotry and ignorance? Didn’t 3 million more people vote for Hillary?

Given that blue America is the majority, don’t allow Roseanne to use her reboot to justify the unjustifiable. Never allow the minority support of bigot Trump be normalized or rationalized.

So in preparation of Roseanne’s reboot, I present to you 7 reasons why Roseanne is wrong about Hillary, Trump, and America:

1. Roseanne’s reboot tackles the skyrocketing cost of prescription medication.

Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for universal healthcare in the early 1990s, and eventually helped pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program – a program that covers 8 million children.

Hillary also secured healthcare for 9/11 first-responders as New York Senator, and President Bill Clinton passed the Family and Medical Leave Act.

I guess in addition to believing Russian propaganda, Roseanne doesn’t remember history, either.

The Clintons have been tackling the issue of healthcare for decades, and deserve credit for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Two achievements we take for granted now days but are actually a result of the pragmatic Clintons.

Heck, while Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, the Clintons helped expand access to healthcare in poor, poverty stricken communities. Around the same time, Donald Trump was being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination (doesn’t Roseanne have an African-American grandaughter in the reboot?).

The Clintons have a long record of achievements on healthcare. Why is this well-known history ignored by Roseanne? Did she forget?

2. Roseanne says Trump talked about “jobs.”

Hillary talked about jobs, too. But the media never covered it. Studies show that for the most part, the media only covered Hillary’s fake “e-mail scandal.”

Hillary had detailed policy plans to create jobs in 2016 America, such as clean-energy jobs. She even gave numerous speeches on her plans – speeches that weren’t covered by the media.

Meanwhile, con-man Trump promised to bring back coal jobs that will never come back to America. The original Roseanne Conner would have easily seen through Trump’s deception. Unfortunately, Roseanne Barr spent too much time on Twitter being subjected to Russian propaganda. I guess technology has unfortunate, unintended consequences?

Roseanne should have spent more time doing independent research regarding Hillary’s jobs plan rather than re-tweeting Russian bots on Twitter. Hillary promised green energy jobs of the future. Con-man Trump promised coal jobs that will never come back to America.

Oh and does Roseanne remember that President Bill Clinton created 22 million new jobs during the 1990s?

If you want to talk about jobs, let’s remember the prosperous and pragmatic Clinton Era. Meanwhile, con-man Trump shipped jobs overseas to China, stiffed American workers out of contracts, and hired immigrants rather than American workers to build his buildings.

Hillary’s jobs plan was crafted for the future. Trump’s jobs plan was crafted to con Americans into thinking we could transport back in time.

3. Roseanne says Hillary is a “liar, liar, pantsuit on fire.”

That’s only if you believe Russian propaganda and 40 years of manufactured “Clinton scandals.” Hillary was rated by fact-checking websites as the most honest politician running for President in 2016.

Furthermore – Hillary has never been found guilty of anything in over 40 years of “investigations.” I guess that would make Hillary the best liar of all-time, right? 40 years and not a single guilty verdict. Personally, I hope one day there is a book written debunking every single Clinton conspiracy theory.

Meanwhile, Trump has the all-time record for false and misleading statements. No President has ever lied at the rate Trump has lied. There is no distant second. Trump is in a league and category all on his own.

So making a joke about Hillary (who has never been found guilty of anything in 40 years) as being a liar rings hollow when you voted for a man who lies multiple times per-day (maybe even per-hour). I guess there was a true lack of self-awareness when this joke was written? Not only is it hypocritical, it proves Russian bots corrupted Roseanne’s mind.

Again – Hillary was rated by fact-checkers as the most honest 2016 candidate for President. Trump is the biggest liar of all-time. Hillary, unlike Trump, has never been found guilty of anything. Every single Hillary investigation has turned up nothing. No trial. No guilty verdict. The same can’t be said of Trump who has been found guilty or settled out of court hundreds of times.

This is yet another example of the Russians trying to muddy the waters and make Hillary seem like just as big of a liar as Trump is. Nothing could be further from the truth.

4. Roseanne says the Clintons are equally as corrupt as Trump.

Roseanne, just like Trump, consistently re-tweeted conspiracy theories about the Clinton Foundation, even though fact-checking websites debunked all of them.

Let us remember: the Clinton Foundation was given a higher charity rating than the Red Cross and provides 11.5 million people with HIV/AIDS medication – that’s more than half of all those affected by the virus worldwide.

Many of the Clinton Foundation conspiracy theories pushed on Twitter made it seem as though Hillary was just as bad as Trump. However, the Trump Foundation illegally paid off Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to hide Trump University fraud. Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation helps treat millions of people affected by HIV/AIDS – treating more than half of all those affected by the virus worldwide.

Furthermore, the Clintons pay 35% in taxes (what do you pay, Roseanne?). We have yet to see all of Trump’s tax returns. Who truly is the corrupt one based on tax-rates?

5. On Jimmy Kimmel, Roseanne said no American should want their President to fail.

So why did Roseanne support Trump, a man who led the racist birther movement against Barack Obama, the first African American President? And no, Hillary was not the “original” birther as Russian propaganda would have you believe.

Point is – why did Roseanne enable and spread the propaganda of those who made it their mission to make Obama a one-term President?

This is yet another example of Roseanne’s hypocrisy.

If Roseanne actually believes what she is saying, why did she enable and embolden those who wished for Obama to fail as President? The double standard is both maddening and terrifying all at once.

6. Roseanne hates Hillary’s foreign policy.

As Secretary of State, Hillary passed the first-ever U.N Resolution on gay rights (proclaiming: “human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights” on the world stage), and made it so trans Americans can legally change their gender on their passport. Hillary also rebuilt relations with every nation after the disastrous Bush Administration, traveling to 112 countries — more than any other Secretary of State. Our worldwide favorability rose 20% during Hillary’s tenure. Her primary focus was on women’s rights and health, bringing up issues such as forced abortion and maternal mortality rates. Hillary re-opened relations with Burma, enacted a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and killed Osama Bin Laden. She also was instrumental in putting together the Paris Climate Agreement, something Trump has since removed us from.

Roseanne supports Trump’s foreign policy because he enables Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians. Remember: Trump appealed to all prejudices – including prejudices against the Palestinian people. As a Jewish woman, Roseanne is a hardcore supporter of Israel.

Trump’s foreign policy consists of Twitter wars with dangerous dictators. How is that better than what Hillary accomplished as Secretary of State?

7. Roseanne hates the Clintons because of NAFTA.

George Bush Senior originally put NAFTA together. Bill Clinton oversaw the implementation of NAFTA due to denying Bush Senior a second term. NAFTA was originally Bush’s baby (not Clinton’s).

Instead of only remember the negatives of the Clinton Era, let us also remember the numerous positives:

—4-balanced budgets due to the superb compromising ability of Bill Clinton—Surplus —22 million new jobs —7 million fewer Americans living in poverty —Minimum wage up 20% —Assault Weapons Ban —Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act —Northern Ireland peace process —Campaign Against Teen Pregnancy: all-time low abortion rates —Office on Violence Against Women —Violence Against Women Act —Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP): 9 million children insured —Tax-credit for low-income Americans —Family and Medical Leave Act —Incomes rising at all income levels

Didn’t Roseanne also do well during the 1990s? And yes – Roseanne’s show may have helped Clinton win in 1992. But Clinton resoundingly won re-election in 1996 due to producing results for the American people.

Incomes were rising at all income levels, 22 million new jobs were created, minimum wage was up 20%, more children had healthcare (9 million covered under CHIP), and our country had a blanched-budget and a surplus. We also passed the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Plus, in-case you were wondering, Glass Steagall had nothing to do with the 2008 financial collapse according to fact-checking websites (try blaming Republican George Bush for a change). And sure… welfare reform sucked. But that’s because we had a GOP-dominated Congress and Bill Clinton was a true pragmatist (exactly what we need in a leader).

On balance, the Clinton Era was a great era for most Americans (including Roseanne). Just look at the long list of accomplishments! Hillary’s platform would have ushered in another pragmatic Clinton era, which would be going far better than the current Administration.

The worst thing that ever happened to Roseanne Barr was her Twitter account. She was constantly subjected to pro-Trump and anti-Hillary propaganda, causing her to support the pussy-grabber over the first-female nominee for President. In her Russian corrupted brain, Hillary was just as bad, if not worse, than Trump.

It’s truly sad that a former feminist icon didn’t support the first-female candidate for President due to Russian propaganda. This former feminist icon opted instead for a well-known misogynist. (And please don’t bring up Bill Clinton as your defense because he had consensual affairs and was then held accountable for his transgressions). Trump has yet to be held accountable for his abuse of women, and a true feminist would never support a man like Trump for President.

Unfortunately, Roseanne is going to attempt to use her shows reboot to legitimize Trump and justify her vote for the pussy-grabber. However, as much as Roseanne may try, Trump is not a legitimate President. Donald lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and was elected with Russian help (treason).

I don’t care how “forgotten” you feel by the establishment – it is never acceptable to support bigotry, discrimination, scapegoating, sexism, bullying, or hatred. I will never root for this “President” to succeed so long as he is a bigot filled with hate. Because if Trump succeeds, bigotry will be validated. That is something I will never support and something the original Roseanne Conner never would have supported, either. But the original Roseanne, unlike the Roseanne of the present, wasn’t corrupted by the Russians.

Trump’s victory –aided by Roseanne/Russians on Twitter– legitimized bigotry and discrimination everywhere. Roseanne helped the very bullies she defends her grandson against. The embodiment of hypocrisy and irony.

Roseanne fell for the con-man fraud who promised to bring back obsolete coal jobs instead of researching Hillary’s jobs plan the media never covered – a plan that would have led to huge job growth, powered primarily by clean energy jobs of the future.

Roseanne is the ultimate example of the effectiveness that the Russian propaganda campaign had on Twitter. Roseanne was duped by Russian bots into thinking Hillary was as big of a liar as Trump (fact-checking websites confirm Hillary was the most honest 2016 Presidential candidate while Trump was rated the least honest). Luckily, even without Roseanne’s support, Hillary still won by 3 million votes. Roseanne will never be a member of the true American majority.

Roseanne is forever a member of the manipulated minority – manipulated by both Russian bots and a con-artist that was born with a silver-spoon in his mouth. A man who prides himself on bullying and sexism. A man who cheated working-class people out of contracts his entire life, shipped jobs to China, and hired immigrants over American workers to build his buildings. A man whose tax-plan only benefits people like himself.

The woman who always spoke truth to power and never fell for anyone’s manipulation finally did at the hands of Russian bots on Twitter. A true American tragedy.

Over 165 million Americans were subjected to Russian propaganda online saying both candidates were equally as bad. So for those that say Russia’s propaganda campaign had no impact on the election, look no further than Roseanne as “exhibit A” proof.

Roseanne preferred a “relatable” con-man over an overqualified “elitist” woman. Hillary was too “smug” for Roseanne’s taste. She preferred the pussy-grabber propaganda artist who looked and sounded like Dan Conner. A con-man who puts billionaires like himself above people like the Conners. A con-man who cheated drywallers like Dan Conner out of money his entire career.

I’m still holding out hope this is all satire and in the season finale of the 10th season, Roseanne will admit she was wrong about Trump and that she should have voted for Hillary (you know, the woman who worked for decades on healthcare and whose husband left us a booming economy and surplus). Because after 1 year of a Trump Presidency, can anyone really still say their vote was the right decision? I’d give anything to transport back to the Clinton years based on what we currently have now.

Roseanne Barr truly could do our country a great service by helping convince those who voted for Trump that they were wrong. Sadly, she’s still on Twitter submerging herself in Russian propaganda – believing that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. I guess that’s how Roseanne went from supporting Hillary in 2008 to now supporting Trump.

Thankfully, Hillary still won by 3 million votes despite Roseanne betraying women and supporting a sexist bigot. I’m proud to stand with the 66 million majority who voted for the slogan “Stronger Together.” Trump’s Electoral College victory will never represent me or the majority of Americans.

Sadly, I guess false promises and scapegoating can even manipulate those you once viewed as idols. Maybe birds of the bullying feather truly do flock together?

So please defend Hillary and tweet @therealroseanne when she bashes Hillary with lies on her shows reboot.

Because we need to declare once and for all: Hillary is not nor has she ever been “just as bad as Trump.” Just ask the millions of people who receive HIV/AIDS medication from the Clinton Foundation – over half of all those affected by the virus worldwide. Or look at the hundreds of guilty Trump convictions vs. the zero guilty convictions for Hillary. Or the fact that the Clintons gave us 4-balanced-budgets while Trump had 4-bankruptcies. Or Hillary’s work at the Children’s Defense Fund investigating African American juveniles being placed in adult prisons. Or the Clintons working tirelessly on the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Face it Roseanne: you were duped by two abusive, sexist men (Putin and Trump) into hating Hillary, the first woman to run on a major party’s ticket for President, and who will become a bigger feminist icon than you could ever dream of becoming. Critics always said Roseanne hated other women who were more powerful than her. Did Hillary take your crown, Roseanne?

The old Roseanne Conner is a true feminist icon.

The new Roseanne Conner voted for the sexist pussy-grabber, which enabled bullies everywhere (ie: the kids who bullied her grandson).

PS: Or maybe Roseanne simply wanted Trump to win so there would be a reason for her show to be given a reboot?

Never normalize the con-man bigot silver-spoon fraud.

@roseanneonabc

#roseanne #roseanne barr #sara gilbert #hillary clinton #donald trump

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