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maywoodrpg · 5 years ago

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ALL ABOUT ZAHRA

— Gender/Pronouns: CIS Female, She/Her — Date of Birth: May 23rd, 1992 — Place of Birth: Maywood, Maine — Current Residence: Downtown — Occupation: Mechanic — Faceclaim: Emeraude Toubia

BIOGRAPHY

Trigger Warnings: Cancer, Death

Born on a warm spring day, Jahaal Ammun and Guadalupe Espinoza welcomed into the world their first born child. The couple had been together for only about a year when Lupita had fallen pregnant at the ripe age of seventeen - something that had sent both families into a frenzy considering they believed that the couple was far too young to be bringing a new life into the world. Let alone the fact that the families didn’t deem the couple worthy of each other to begin with. Jahaal came from a family of wealth and prosperity and he’d only met Guadalupe because his friends had dragged him out to see a movie which the girl and her friends had also gone to see. It was an instant connection despite the fact that Lupita lived on the side of town that Jahaal had always been told to avoid. That didn’t deter the teenager in the slightest in his pursuit of the one woman who’d caught his genuine attention. So, you could say that the day their daughter came into the world was a pivotal move in the entire expanse of their relationship. Choosing to move out of their homes, Jahaal and Guadalupe settled into a small apartment with their newborn baby girl and chose to start their new lives. And it was worth it. By the time that Zahra was four, the couple was twenty one and they were married in a small ceremony where their little one was the flower girl and guest of honor.

Growing up, Zahra got everything that she ever wanted and then some as her parents worked themselves away to make sure that she felt like a princess. However, Zahra had always felt like a princess simply because of the love her parents would provide her. A love that she cherished day in and day out as she grew older and experienced different things. They would never force her to act a certain way, the would encourage all of her interests, they would even partake in the things she loved so that she didn’t feel like she was being excluded from what she loved. Which was exactly why they had nothing against the fact that their princess developed into a tomboy by the time that she was thirteen years old. She would still enjoy girly things now and again but she had quickly grown into the girl that loved her ripped skinny jeans, vans sneakers and crop tops that were almost always covered by some kind of flannel. Due to this nature, a lot of people throughout her schooling didn’t really take Zahra seriously. All they saw was a girl who would spend her time around boys instead of girls so they would instantly classify her as a slut; often times, these girls would target Zahra for simply looking at boys that they were interested in when Zahra was only friends with them. This often caused Zahra a lot of emotional turmoil which led her to therapy that helped her see that what the girls said were nothing but empty words built to tear her down. Choosing to empower herself, the girl ignored the comments to the point that she was declared Prom Queen her senior year of high school. To this day, she holds that close to her heart.

After high school, Zahra had the option to go to college or go to trade school and naturally, her first choice was to go to college despite not knowing what it was that she wanted to do with her life. She was in her second semester of general studies when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer which forced the girl to leave school in order to help her father take care of her ailing mother. Tragically, her mother passed away only four months after being diagnosed after telling Zahra the final words that almost changed her life forever; ‘be who you want to be, mija, the world needs more outspoken women like you.’ After that moment, Zahra chose to leave college and go to trade school in order to study to be a mechanic. She’d always helped her father fix his cars when she was a little girl and she found a passion in it shortly after her mother had passed away by bonding with her dad through vintage car shows and new auto expos. But everyone throughout her training figured that the job was a ‘perfect fit’ for Zahra because she already dressed like a boy. She might as well have a job meant for a boy. This was a turning point for the woman as she shifted back to her feminine aesthetic after ditching it for years and choosing to pursue her mechanic career while being the exact example that people thought could never work in that environment. She faced plenty of criticism for her chosen path and how she chose to handle herself but her father was her number one supporter during that time so it made every little bit count.

By the time Zahra had graduated from trade school and had been working as a ‘on the call’ mechanic to her fathers friends for a few years, she’d been encouraging Jahaal to get back out into the world and see if he could find happiness again with someone new. At the end of the day, she didn’t want her father living alone so she couldn’t hinder his process. All she could do was remind him that she was always going to be there should a woman break his heart. While the fair share did, eventually he met a single mother when Zahra was twenty five who Zahra herself had set up after helping the woman change a tire on the side of the road. Quickly, the pair hit it off and recently got married after many back and forths on whether it was a good choice for them. Having been an only child all her life, Zahra was soon graced with a step-sister of the same age as well as a younger step-brother - both of which she developed a lovely relationship with to the point that her step-sister actually became the best friend she’d ever wanted. Choosing to finally get a job at an actually auto body shop instead of going wherever the road took her, Zahra has found her home at Mr. Fix-It-Alls and things have been going smoothly.

ZAHRA AMMUN is currently played by Leonie.

#emeraude toubia #zahra ammun #downtown #takenf #all

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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Surveillance Startup Used Own Cameras to Harass Coworkers

Verkada, a fast-growing Silicon Valley surveillance startup, equips its offices in downtown San Mateo, California, with its own state-of-the-art security cameras.

Last year, a sales director on the company's sales team abused their access to these cameras to take and post photos of colleagues in a Slack channel called #RawVerkadawgz where they made sexually explicit jokes about women who worked at the company, according to a report in IPVM, which Motherboard independently verified and obtained more information about.

"Face match… find me a squirt," the sales director wrote in the company Slack channel in August 2019, according to one screenshot obtained by Motherboard.

The comment was posted along with a series of photos of employees’ faces captured with the office's surveillance system which were patched together using a Verkada facial recognition feature. "Face search,” as it’s called, can pinpoint an individual in a sea of faces. The pinpointed face, in this instance, belonged to a Verkada employee, her mouth wide open. In addition to verifying the incident with three sources who worked at Verkada at the time, Motherboard compared the format of the images posted to those included in Verkada's publicly available demo videos to verify that they were indeed captured by the company's surveillance cameras.

Two members of the Slack channel reacted with laughing emojis. Another commented "lol."

According to three sources who worked at Verkada at the time, the group of men posted sexually graphic content about multiple female employees in similar Slack messages.

After the Slack channel was reported to the company's Human Resource team in February, Verkada's CEO Filip Kaliszan announced in a company all-hands meeting that an undisclosed number of employees active in the Slack channel were given the choice between leaving the company or having their share of stock reduced. All of them chose the latter option, and the Slack channel was removed, according to four employees who worked at Verkada during the time.The person who posted the screenshot still works at Verkada.

Verkada, which was founded in 2016 in Kaliszan’s living room, sells machine vision security cameras with cloud-software, including dome cameras, fisheye lenses, and footage viewing stations that can be monitored from anywhere in the world. The company sells to a roster of high profile clients, including Equinox, Juul Labs, Red Lobster, Siemens, Pasadena City College, the city of Memphis, and dozens of other corporations and government entities. Its YouTube page advertises systems for law enforcement, governments, and corporations. Its ambition is to "be the operating system that runs every building in the world," the company says. Verkada software allows users to immediately detect all footage of a particular person of interest, rather than forcing people reviewing the tape to search through hours of video. Kaliszan describes Verkada's mission as "building the world's best video security system." In early 2020, the company was valued at $1.6 billion, and its workforce had grown to just over 400 employees.

The company has a series of demo videos on its YouTube which show the use of Verkada cameras at its own offices. Besides being used in demonstrations of its technology, these cameras have been used to sexually harass employees. They've also been used to surveil Verkada itself: For example, sources at the company explained that the company had an indoor, maskless party in September. Evidence of the party was provided to Motherboard using captured surveillance footage from its cameras.

Verkada Party September 2020. Censored by Motherboard.

When asked for comment about the sales team's use of the company's video surveillance system to target women colleagues, a spokesperson for Verkada said, "Verkada does not tolerate sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. This isolated incident was investigated and all individuals involved were disciplined accordingly. This process included our HR department working with the women impacted by this incident–offering professional and personal resources to ensure they supported our course of action and felt safe and comfortable in their jobs.

The spokesperson added that in the eight months since management became aware of the situation, Verkada has held a mandatory sexual harassment training via Zoom, and estabilished three employee resource groups, for women, people of color, and LBGTQ employees at the company.

Four current and former employees who spoke to Motherboard on the condition of anonymity were furious by the company's decision not to terminate the men who’d posted sexually graphic content about their coworkers in the Slack channel—but said that the incident is just one example of sexism at Verkada that its co-founders Kaliszan and board chairman Hans Robertson have chosen to downplay.

"Any other tech company," a former Verkada employee told Motherboard, "would have immediately fired those people. They should never ever be able to get another job at a tech company ever again, but the higher ups on the sales team have a lot of power and are encouraged and can do whatever they want as long as they bring in a lot of revenue. Verkada's singular value is making money."

"I think it's 100 percent fair to say I left Verkada because of the culture," another former employee told Motherboard. "I didn't feel comfortable working under my director after learning about the incident. The worst part of it was that it seemed like the men in this crew continued to be celebrated and remained in leadership positions. That's how [management] has made the toxic culture they've created okay."

Since its founding, Verkada has tried to distinguish itself from Ring, Amazon's home surveillance system, which has partnered with at least 400 police departments in the United States, and actively cooperates to share footage belonging to private individuals with the police. Unlike Ring which sells home surveillance systems, Verkada proudly advertises that its corporate clients don't work with law enforcement, and that data collected by corporations and other institutions it does business with belongs to them alone. But on its YouTube channel, Verkada advertises its work with law enforcement agencies such as the police department of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

In January, Kaliszan told TechCrunch “we don’t have any arrangements with law enforcement like Ring. We view ourselves as providing great physical security tools to the people that run schools, hospitals and businesses. The data that those organizations gather is their own.”

Many of the technologies it has developed such as facial recognition and environmental sensors that can detect vaping in schools or a human presence in a room, have been criticized for expanding a system that serves to protect property owners and is often weaponized against people of color and other vulnerable populations.

In March, in the lead-up to a company wide all-hands meeting, employees voted on questions that they wanted addressed by management. One question about Verkada's response to the Slack episode, received 127 upvotes, according to screenshots reviewed by Motherboard, the most of all of those submitted. “Why are the men who sexually harassed their female colleagues able to keep their jobs? Is this setting the right example and sustaining a safe work environment?”

Three employees present at the meeting told Motherboard that management did not address the question.

Prior to late-October, when Motherboard reached out to Verkada for comment on the Slack incident, the company had yet to formally inform employees that the company's surveillance system had been abused by sales team members. This past Friday, after Motherboard asked for comment and more than 9 months after the company learned about the Slack incident, Kaliszan sent a company-wide email finally addressing the incident.

"Last year on August 8, 2019," Kaliszan wrote, "a member of our sales team misused access to our office camera footage–access that everyone on our team is afforded and that the sales team uses frequently to demo the product for potential clients–and shared a screenshot of a coworker on a private Slack channel with vulgar commentary."

"As soon as leadership became aware of the incident,” he wrote, “we launched a comprehensive investigation to understand what happened and who was responsible. This investigation found that one person was responsible for instigating the incident and nine other members of the team were part of the Slack channel…. I imposed the largest financial penalty in our company’s history on the instigator and had individual disciplinary discussions with each of the other participants."

Four employees who worked in different teams throughout Verkada said that the culture of sexism at the company largely emanated from a cliquey group of high-ranking white men on the sales team, many of them who grew up and played high school football in same wealthy enclave, Danville, California, some of whom went on to play for the NFL.

"If you’re not invited into that core group of guys, you have a hard time moving your career forward or getting promoted," a former sales employee told Motherboard. "The word frat is thrown around at Verkata a lot because there are guys that protect each other at the company. That’s this crew from Danville. They’re like a frat."

In April, after the Slack incident, in a "fireside chat," Verkada's board chairman Hans Robertson told a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that he had intentionally hired a team of "sales athletes," that he had modelled after the sales team at Dell EMC, a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, "which was famous for hiring half the Northeastern football team." Robertson explained Verkada's sales strategy was "to get rid of underperformers very quickly" and "make the culture really fun."

At least two of the men involved in the Slack post obtained by Motherboard, played high school football at San Ramon Valley High School in Danville, California. According to an article in the industry trade journal IPVM, at least five senior sales team members played sports at San Ramon Valley High School.

"It's the most horrible company I've ever worked for," another former employee who recently quit working at Verkada told Motherboard. "Even beyond the Slack incident, you know people don’t want to stay for long. Everyone wants to stay there for the potential money they could make, but especially for women it’s hard to stay there. I was oversold in the interview process. There’s no support. They don’t care about you."

Motherboard spoke to one member of the sales team who said she enjoyed Verkada's work culture and thought the company’s response to the Slack incident was adequate. "As soon as management found out [about the Slack incident], they disciplined not just the person who made the comment, but anyone who was in the Slack channel," she said. "I felt like they took it very seriously. I have always felt comfortable here."

Another Verkada employee wasn’t optimistic about Verkada's mission after learning about the Slack incident, "the big picture for me having worked at the company is that it has opened my eyes to how surveillance can be abused by the people in power."

Surveillance Startup Used Own Cameras to Harass Coworkers syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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magzoso-tech · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/supermodel-karlie-klosss-lesson-to-young-women-never-be-afraid-to-ask-questions/

Supermodel Karlie Kloss's Lesson to Young Women: Never Be Afraid to Ask Questions!

The Project Runway host built a coding school, Kode With Klossy, to inspire a generation of tech-savvy women. But her real mission, she says, is much broader.

December 24, 2019 13 min read

This story appears in the October 2019 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

The view is stunning up here, from the 34th floor of this downtown Manhattan office building. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the day is bright and clear. But the 24 teenage girls occupying the space are over it. Their noses are buried in MacBooks, while a soundtrack of Disney hits plays in the background. There’s work to be done, after all: They’re students at a nonprofit coding camp called Kode With Klossy, and today’s assignment is to design and code an online photo gallery.

They’re so focused on the task, in fact, that they don’t notice when the camp’s creator and very famous namesake walks in.

“Hey, guys,” says supermodel, Project Runway host, and coding enthusiast Karlie Kloss, as she gives the students a friendly wave. The girls seem a bit too stunned to react. Eyes widen as they glance around at each other, quietly nodding with shared enthusiasm. But before they can do much of anything else, the 27-year-old Kloss is checking out their work, bringing her six-foot-two-inch frame to a squat so she can be eye level with her students and their screens. For the next 90 minutes, she asks questions about their code and their plans for the future — though conversation occasionally veers off to Harry Potter and chocolate chip cookies.

If it’s all a little surreal inside this room, it can look even more so from the outside. Kode With Klossy operates in 16 cities and this year alone gave almost 1,000 young women the (free) opportunity to learn a critical skill. It has attracted a wide range of support, though also the inevitable skepticism. Supermodels, after all, aren’t supposed to code.

Related: Karlie Kloss Looks to These Female Founders for Inspiration

Kloss has heard it before. And she has a straightforward response. “There are a lot of misconceptions about being a model, and how that directly correlates to your intellect,” she says. “Yes, I’m a model, yes, I’m a woman, and, yes, I’m interested in these areas. And I think a lot of other young women are interested in these areas, too, and they deserve the opportunity to learn about them and decide for themselves if they belong or not.”

Kloss is careful to never claim expertise in the world of computer science. She’s an enthusiast. She can code, but she considers herself a perpetual student of the craft — and a person not defined by others’ expectations. That, she hopes, is the sensibility her students will come away with. More than attaining any level of coding experience, she wants Kode With Klossy’s attendees to appreciate the power of curiosity and the willingness to ask questions. She owes her career to this instinct, she says. And she’ll continue to use it as her professional life evolves.

As Kloss makes her rounds at the camp, one young coder sings the praises of the instructors but sheepishly apologizes for asking them too many questions. “No!” Kloss says emphatically. “Do not apologize. That’s what they’re here for. You should always ask your questions.”

Image Credit: Jake Chessum

Kloss grew up in St. Louis with her mom, dad, and three sisters. At 13, she participated in a local charity fashion show and was, as they say, discovered. By 15, she was walking the runway for Calvin Klein. In the years that followed, Kloss became one of fashion’s favorite faces, gracing countless runways and magazine covers. (To date, she’s covered various editions of Vogue 40 times.)

But by 2014, she wanted more. “I was 21, a bit of a veteran in fashion — it’s like dog years — and I just wasn’t feeling challenged,” Kloss says. “I was so in awe of what was happening in tech but a bit frustrated that I didn’t understand it. Why do certain people know how to scale businesses and ideas and problem-solving? What is it that certain people — primarily men, and primarily highly intellectual men, or at least men who are perceived to be super smart — are privy to that the rest of the world isn’t?”

To answer those questions, she signed up for a two-week coding boot camp at the Flatiron School in New York. Kloss was captivated by the experience. “The way I learned code was very real-world applicable,” she says. “Being able to understand the building blocks of [technology]? It turns the lights on. It turned the lights on for me.”

In the months that followed, she kept studying. She struck up a friendship with Flatiron School cofounder Avi Flombaum, who helped her along. And as her fluency in code continued to grow, she started to think about how many other women could benefit from the same perspective-changing experience.

“I had an audience of young women paying attention to me on social media and in my career, and I wanted to connect them to opportunities that could really open their minds and open doors in their lives,” she says. “It’s not only a responsibility but a real privilege to be able to point someone in a direction that could be valuable to them.”

Related: In Pitching Your Business, Take Every ‘No’ As a ‘Not Now,’ Says This Founder

But how? Kloss decided to start with what she knew. The summer after she learned to code, she partnered with the Flatiron School to underwrite 21 boot camp spots for young women. She publicized the opportunity on her social media channels and was surprised by the response. Thousands of applications came in.

This got her thinking about what it would take to reach more women. The first step, it seemed, was to build something herself — something she could eventually scale nationwide. “I had no idea how, or even the intention, to build a nonprofit or anything in this realm,” she says. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

But then again, she didn’t know anything about code until she threw herself into the boot camp. “It’s just been about figuring it out as you go,” she says.

Image Credit: Jake Chessum

Kloss calls her camp “my nights, my weekends, my day job, my baby.” But at the very beginning, it was just her puzzle. She had no experience building something like this, but she did have an enviable professional network. She counts Diane Von Furstenberg and Anna Wintour as mentors, and has longstanding business relationships with brands including Adidas and Carolina Herrera. So she made some calls and got some direction.

“Like with any business, you focus on an area you understand,” she says. “And as you grow, identify who else out there is doing good work, and figure out how you can align to better accomplish your goals.”

That became her approach. She had a vision; now she needed to piece together the right operational elements. She assembled a team of what would become five full-time staffers, and at first, they simply expanded their partnership with the Flatiron School. In 2016, Kode With Klossy launched as a stand-alone nonprofit, hosting two-week camps for girls ages 13 to 18 in New York, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. In 2017, the program expanded to 11 cities. By 2019, it was in 16 locales.

As Kloss and her tiny team have taken on more and more of the logistics and back-end operations, they’ve required additional partners. The Turing School of Software and Design now helps craft a technical curriculum. Teach for America has also signed on, tapping into its network of teachers, and, with an assist from Kode With Klossy, is teaching them to code, and then training them to teach code.

Related: Model and Entrepreneur Karlie Kloss Shares the Importance of Always Learning

Students — which the program calls “scholars” — apply for a coveted, completely free spot at one of the camps, which aims to select students who otherwise wouldn’t have easy access to these kinds of opportunities. Those accepted spend two weeks learning code, attending workshops on topics like career paths and financial literacy, and building various projects until “Demo Day,” when they pitch their completed websites or apps to their teachers, fellow students, and parents. Past projects have included an app that connects students with peer tutors and another that helps users locate public gender-neutral bathrooms.

As the guts of the program have become increasingly well-oiled, Kloss has relied on her existing network to make Kode With Klossy’s offerings as robust as possible.

As a brand ambassador and face of Estée Lauder makeup, for example, this summer Kloss arranged for the cosmetic giant’s female engineers to speak to scholars, and created an exercise that allowed them to explore the back-end design of a new digital campaign for the corporation. The partnership provided summer internships at Estée Lauder for two Kode With Klossy alumnae.

Kloss also aligned with Away, the travel startup, which she’s invested in. (Her growing portfolio includes the female-founded brands Lola, which makes feminine products, and SkinTe, a collagen-infused tea.) In 2018, Away launched an exclusive collection of luggage in new colors, designed in collaboration with Kode With Klossy. Sales benefited the coding organization.

Kloss herself isn’t able to visit every camp — she tried at first, but the endeavor has simply grown too big. So she appears where she can and makes sure to FaceTime in with the rest. As she does, and as she’s talked to the girls who attend, she’s come to realize that her program is providing something that she herself lacked as a child.

“I wanted to become a teacher or a doctor, because that’s what I saw: My dad’s an ER doctor, and I had amazing teachers at my public school who really helped me love learning,” she says. “But those were the only avenues forward I saw. So now, for example, we have one scholar who’s a really gifted artist, and when she tells me she wants to go into game design, I’m like: ‘Yes! That is a great application of both of your passions.’ ”

For Kloss as well as her young scholars, coding boot camps become a portal to a bigger world. For the supermodel, it was an awakening that led her to create one of her own. And now, for the students at that camp, it’s a beginning that can lead anywhere.

Image Credit: Kode with Klossy

In spring 2017, Valeria Torres-Olivares was wrapping up her junior year of high school in Princeton, N.J. She’d taken a couple of computer science classes and loved what she learned but found the experience to be isolating.

“I was one of the only girls in my classroom, and I was the only Latina in any of the computer science classes at my school,” she says. “I felt almost unqualified to ask questions, like I should be able to figure them out for myself. That can spiral into a lot of self-doubt.”

Related: 5 Things I’ve Learned Teaching Hundreds of People How to Code

So she decided to apply to be a Kode With Klossy scholar and encouraged her little sister Kyara, who was 13 at the time, to do the same. (“I wanted her to be exposed to code, but in a different environment,” she says.) They recorded a joint video application and were accepted. The experience changed everything.

“I had never been in an all-female STEM environment before, and I expected some sort of weird competitive vibe to be happening,” she admits. “But it was one of the best learning environments I’d ever been in. My sister and I both fell in love with how collaborative it was. No one was afraid to ask what might be labeled as ‘dumb’ questions.”

Torres-Olivares went all in after that. She spent the next two summers with Kode With Klossy — once more as an attendee, and then as a paid instructor’s assistant. And like Kloss, she immediately knew she wanted to share her knowledge.

With her little sister, Torres-Olivares approached her local library and offered to host and teach free coding classes for kids. That kicked off a new organization, Code Equal, which she launched in Princeton in 2017. It has since served more than 200 students and held workshops at Fordham and Rutgers universities. This year, Code Equal will launch classes in Detroit and Omaha.

“Kode With Klossy has an amazing network of students and instructors, and we have massive group chats where people are always supporting each other,” says Torres-Olivares, who is now a sophomore at Princeton University, where she’s studying computer science with plans to create a custom major that blends the craft of code with public policy. “Because of that, we’ve been able to expand our mission.”

For Kloss, these are the stories that prove the organization’s success — not because former scholars are choosing to commit to code, but because they’re choosing to create their own path. Next, she wants to dedicate more resources to empowering that budding alumnae network and has her eye on programming for girls younger than 13 and for women older than 18.

“In the grand scheme of things, a Kode With Klossy camp is a short two weeks,” Kloss says. “But our scholars take it and run with it. We’re at a point in this organization where we’ve only just scratched the surface, and it’s time to look at what’s working, and innovate and scale. But being able to see impact in even one person? It’s so much bigger than what I ever imagined.”

Check out more stories from our October/November issue’s list of 100 Powerful Women.

#Miscellaneous

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crawleyheiress · 5 years ago

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A Crawley Heiress

What can I say about my family home? Downton Abbey sits on a sprawling estate just outside of London. It's been in the Crawley family for several hundred years. My father recently became the 9th Earl of Grantham after my grandfather George passed away at the ripe age of 97. George inherited the title of Earl of Grantham from his grandfather Robert Crawley or “Donk” as he was called.

Growing up my grandfather shared stories of Donk, his mother, his stepfather Henry and being raised in the estate. It always amazes me how things had changed. In those days the downstairs had a full staff of cooks, footmen, butlers, underbutlers. He often reminisced about how Thomas, one of the footmen would play with him when he was a young boy, that he felt like Thomas just another member of the family. My great-grandmother Mary had a lady's maid named Anna. Even though I too was raised in the estate as well having a lady's maid seemed so old fashioned. We had staff that worked for us too but my family had considerably downsized since those days. We had two full time cooks, maids who came to clean and my parents insisted on having a butler.

Christmas time was always a big deal. It was always celebrated with extended family. Aunt Sybil’s family (she was my grandfather George’s cousin but we were just as close to her that she was just like an aunt), and his cousin Marigold’s family. Sybbie and grandfather lived full time in the estate, Marigold was raised elsewhere after her mother, my grandfather's Aunt Edith married Bertie Pelham.

Between me, my siblings, my aunts, uncles, cousins and extended family the Abbey came to life during the holidays. After the formalities of dinner, we'd all gather in the study and open gifts from the extended family. Even though we were a large family every gift was thoughtful and had each of us in mind. Christmas Day and Boxing Day was reserved for immediate family.

My immediate family consists of my parents, my oldest sister Amanda, my brother Grant (who will inherit the title of Earl of Grantham one day) and my younger brother Benjamin. We grew up in the estate and my dad and mum still live there. It's expected that once Grant inherits the land and title he’ll move back into the estate. We all live nearby even if we don't live in the main house.

Today things aren’t exactly the same at Downton as they were when my grandfather, his sister Caroline, my great-grandmother Mary and her second husband Henry Talbot lived there. We have far less staff and my siblings and I all pursued higher education, moved out and come back to visit often. I loved living in Downtown as a child. There was so much to explore, so much history in just our family alone. Spread all over the estate are pictures of my ancestors, the help and my family members. One of the things my family had decided on when it came time to trim down the staff back when my grandfather was a young man was to remain in touch with the staff and any family members they had. There was a cook named Daisy who had married one of the footmen, then there was my great-grandmother’s lady’s maid Anna who had a son and Daisy had a child with her husband Andy and their now great-grandchildren gather at Downton once a year. We host a small dinner party, serve drinks and just have a good time. We were always told that even though there was a distinct difference in those days between the downstairs and upstairs that the Crawley’s treated their help like they were part of the family as much as they could. So it only felt right that a tradition started to always get together to check in on one another.

I realize I’m incredibly privileged to have grown up in such a grand estate. I could’ve chosen to live off my inheritance, instead like all my siblings, I opted to pursue a career. I also acknowledge how much times have changed since my great-grandmother’s time. Mary and Edith; moreso Mary, were expected to marry well and move up socially. They lived in a time when women didn’t have the right to vote just yet and you had to be a landowner to have that right. Sometimes, I wonder what they would think if they could see how me, my cousins and siblings live.

Would they be proud of us new generation of Crawley’s, Talbot’s, Pelhams?

#Downton Abbey RP #modern downton abbey #downton rp

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kris10inger · 7 years ago

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Indebted: Til Death Do Us Part Teaser

“Blackwater Sheriff Henry Olgove reveals to NDC27 affiliate of CGFA-TV, the body found Sunday night in East Blackwater, approximately five miles from the notorious motorcycle club hangout, is believed to be that of missing teen, Amber Tonwlyn-Havers, daughter of Congressman Alexander Tonwlyn-Havers. Amber was last seen Saturday by witnesses, around 2:00 AM, leaving a house party in downtown City Central, alone. She was thought to have gone to a party in the neighboring city of Treville.

“Congressman Havers has not been available for comment, though his publicist asks that the family’s privacy be respected in their time of mourning. In other news, tensions rise in Blackwater as one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter organization plans a protest of the death of African American teen, Anthony Smiddle. The standoff between the KKK and Black Lives Matter protesters has police stretched thin.”

Teal turned off the television, then placed the remote control down. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and took in a few deep, calming breaths. There were things friends and family admitted to you about becoming a mother. There were the things you wanted to hear, the things you enjoyed hearing and then there was the truth. It was a rare thing for a parent to speak of the debilitating fear and uncertainty that came with becoming a parent. The indecision and then the apprehension in every decision made, small or large.

While Trent’s upbringing made Teal cringe, she also knew that her own past hadn’t been much better. Yes, Teal had grown up in a seemingly good home, and her family’s money had afforded her a great education and kept her fed and somewhat content, there was more to growing up in a good home than money and a full stomach. Irrational as it may seem, Teal wanted to shelter Emma, but would she truly need it? Would she need an overbearing mother? Hell, would Teal become her mother?

What the fuck was going on in the world today? Things were recently changed in Teal’s life, with a husband and a child to care for, and her ever-growing fear of raising Emma in a world full of dangers she couldn’t possibly protect her from was starting to weigh on her. Was this what motherhood would continually be like? Undying love and fierce protection, followed by the crippling fear of threats of the unknown?

Placing a hand over her stomach, Teal sighed. Trent mentioned wanting another child, while her inner voice told her now was not the time. Hell, she’d just be honest and admit she wasn’t sure she wanted another child—ever. She tilted her head to the side and watched as Emma shifted on Trent’s chest. Teal often found herself counting ten little pink fingers and toes, kissing cherub soft baby cheeks and caressing her daughter’s blonde curls.

Her daughter was the exact opposite of her physically, but Teal never once worried about their differences. She sensed Emma’s trust and love in her and Teal was dead set on never letting her down. As Teal slightly moved and stretched her stiff legs on Trent’s lap she shifted her husband and daughter just a bit.

Trent’s eyes popped open, his hand tightening over Emma’s back. “What’s going on?” His groggy voice woke Emma from her sleep. She released a sleepy coo that melted Teal’s heart.

Teal moved her legs from Trent’s lap, leaned forward and gently pulled Emma from Trent’s arms. “I thought you were just resting your eyes?” she admonished softly, giving him a sweet smile. Teal softly patted Emma’s butt, helping to calm her back to sleep. The sweet baby lay her head on Teal’s chest and began to snore once again.

Trent stretched his arm over his head and yawned. “I was, baby.” He sat up and glanced over to her. Teal noticed how he still favored his right arm for most things. While his physical therapy had ended, Trent still had trouble controlling his arm and certain movements.

“Oh, okay. I guess your snoring was just to trick Emma to sleep?”

Trent sat up and placed a hand on sleeping Emma’s back. His large hand made the little girl seem even tinier by comparison. Born a preemie, Emma had constantly fought to maintain a normal weight, and now at nine months and fourteen pounds, she was just barely fitting into the six to nine-month clothes gifted to her from Teal and Trent’s friends.

Teal placed a kiss over Emma’s curling blonde tresses, and caressed Trent’s hand. Her life in Kentucky had proven easy-going at first, but recently, she’d felt restless and anxious. The South proved to be just as tense as she’d expected, with the Black Lives Matter and KKK acting out for various reasons. Teal wasn’t sure she felt safe, and this was after she’d just stopped waking up from nightmares where Jake had made good on his threat to rape her.

Trent leaned in and kissed Teal’s cheek. “And my plan worked.” He pulled his hand away and stood. “Want me to take her to bed?”

Teal squeezed Emma once again, as she didn’t want to let the warm bundle of baby go. “Sure, make sure all those stuffed animals are out of the crib before you place her in there.” She handed Emma to Trent and went into the kitchen to pull a bottle of water from the fridge.

It was a Friday night, and once again, Trent had fallen asleep on the couch while Emma napped in his lap, and Teal had flipped through the channels, hoping to find something to keep her mind off their issues with Harper and Markus.

Teal had learned that it was best to talk to Trent about stressful things at certain times, like directly after she’d sucked every bit of come out of his quivering body; however, after a long stressful day, now was not that time. Teal treaded to her office and retrieved her laptop from the dresser.

Back in the living room, she sat down and opened her emails to see a few from Jan Erik, past co-workers, and Summer. The header in the email from Summer caught her attention. Teal’s brow furrowed in confusion as she read aloud, “Help wanted.” Clicking the email, Teal read its contents. As she did, her heart flittered in her chest and her excitement grew. In her eagerness, Teal let out a light squeal. “A job opening?”

“Hey, where are Emma’s fluffy blue socks?” Trent broke Teal’s concentration.

She glanced up to see Trent with a handful of tiny socks in his palm, and a flustered expression on his face. Pointing to the bedroom, she said, “They are in the—”

“What were you just saying? Something about a job opening?” he interrupted her as he motioned to her laptop. “What job opening and where? More importantly, for who?”

Teal gauged his reaction carefully. While she had hoped the night would end without any heavy discussions, the second Trent dropped the socks on the couch and sat beside her, she knew there would be no putting it off.

Teal turned the laptop to face Trent. “I’m not sure yet. I just received the email from Summer.”

Trent pulled the laptop from her hands and placed it on his lap. “The chick that tried to help Shayla?” he asked, skimming over the email. “Why is she offering you a job at something called Safe Haven?” He gripped the laptop, his flustered expression changing into one Teal had become very familiar with. His veiled anger didn’t intimidate her though, it irritated her.

Teal rolled her eyes at the question. “How the hell am I supposed to know? You are the one reading the email.”

She and Trent had agreed she would spend the first year at home with Emma. And at the time, when everything was new, and Trent was home with her, recovering, she’d meant it. However, now, it was a completely different story. Teal felt cut off from the world, and it seemed her job had gone from an administrative assistant with a degree, to Emma’s mom. Not that Teal minded being a mother—in her mind, she thought she’d done well. It was that Teal never expected to have her identity stolen from her.

Perhaps, if Teal had had three toddlers running around the house, she wouldn’t feel the same, but one infant who barely made a peep? She found herself sitting on the back porch with more time on her hands than she’d expected. And to top it off, Teal’s friends were all in Vermont, and were career-oriented women who despite being married, and settled, hadn't had children yet. Then there was Katie, who was on her third book tour and in talks with her agent about film rights to her novel.

Teal had never felt so alone, yet surrounded by a loving family. To make matters worse, even though they’d won the civil suit against Jake, lawyers had stated it would take time to actually get the money he owed—if they ever got a cent. So, Trent still worked massive amounts of overtime to add back some of the money to his savings that the medical and lawyer bills had created.

Teal hoped once the money from Jake came in, Trent would stop working himself to death. But that wasn’t all. Katie and Logan were miles away, with a growing business and baby girls, and Violet, her new local friend, was now the CEO of a company, so gone were the days in which she came over for hours on end. Like a fool, Teal had fancied herself a true Southern Belle, sipping mint juleps, and gossiping while watching Emma play.

Months after opening up his heart – and his past – Trent is looking forward to a future with his new bride and daughter. He’s recovered from the near-fatal shooting, hopes to purchase a farm for his beloved Teal, and is building a life free from the horrors of his past.

But the past has a bad habit of never staying buried, and now it’s coming after his entire family. Because Trent didn’t reveal all his secrets to Teal, and the deepest, darkest secret he’d always kept just out of reach is about to break the surface.

An old debt is being called in, one that will pull Trent back into the world of sex, lies, and murder he’s fought so hard to escape. And in the wake of devastating betrayals, he’ll discover who is truly loyal to him, as he agrees to pay that debt with an unforgivable crime.

SEPTEMBER 28th, 2017

Trent will stop at nothing to keep Teal and his daughter safe. Even if that means losing them forever.

Meet Ace, Gator, and Mutt from the First Sons of the Revolution MC, and enjoy the first chapter and first look at the spin-off featuring the badass, no-shit-taking men from Blackwater Rising!

#romance #interracial romance #indebted #excerpt

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thejohnroanschoool · 4 years ago

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The 12 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs 1. They take what they do seriously.

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5. They harness technology.

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8. They’re not afraid of risks.

More items•

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Mary Smith

from The John Roan School https://thejohnroanschoool.wordpress.com/2020/09/01/speedy-systems-for-investing-clarified/

#The John Roan School

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chill-that-ur-inmyhead · 5 years ago

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You’re 25. You’re pregnant. You work in retail. You have a pet husky. You have a pet Yorkie. You have 3 cats. You live in a home. You live with a significant other. You’re not at all religious. You have a morbid sense of humour. Your parents are deceased. You still play Neopets. Zelda is your favourite video game franchise. You love thrifting for clothes. You drive a Prius. You have brown hair and brown eyes. You’re very fair skinned. You love leisurewear clothing. You love true crime videos and podcasts. You’re addicted to La Croix or another sparkling water. You love Lana Del Rey. You live in a college town. You’re a journalism major. You have a few tattoos. You could sleep for 10 hours a day. Your best friend lives a state away. You don’t associate with any of your family members. You have a lisp. You’re confrontational. You like to spend time downtown in your city. You love Apple products. You walk about 8 miles a day at work. You spend too much money on Starbucks. You’d rather eat at a local restaurant than a chain. You love visiting new breweries and trying new beers. You go indoor rock-climbing frequently. You’re attracted to older men (or women). You spent most of your early 20s getting lit. You collect rocks and things from hikes you go on. Things usually go pretty well for you. You were very promiscuous when you were younger. It makes you laugh when people get angry over something silly. You have a blood circulation disorder. You live in what ifs and worry about everything. You take two showers a day. You have a chipped front tooth. You can be super happy and then turn around and get super down. You like to watercolour. It annoys you when someone victimises themselves. You have a necklace you wear that you never take off. You like the smell of chemicals. You don’t like the way you react to marijuana. You skip a lot when you walk. You talk to yourself when you’re alone. You love your nose. You want a septum piercing. Your hair is shoulder-length. You love swimming and being near bodies of water in the summer. Your best friend has told you they’re in love with you before. You hate the snow and the cold. You love Pokemon. You shop at ROMWE and SHEIN a lot. You have unique, funky glasses. You like oysters. IPAs are your favorite kind of beer. You love college basketball. You’ve been to Electric Forest. You want to go to more music festivals. The Room is one of the best movies, ever. You love going to the theatre. Kombucha is gross. You wish your ex-friends were better friends and still around. You don’t care what people are into as long as they’re not hurting anyone. You can play a ukulele. You’ve grown up a lot in the past year.

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supertrendingnewsarticles · 5 years ago

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(Bloomberg) -- Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison Wednesday for sexual assault. His next stop is likely to be a maximum-security prison an hour north of the lower Manhattan courtroom in which his punishment will be pronounced.Weinstein, who became an emblem of the MeToo movement as waves of women accused him of harassing or attacking them over the years, was convicted last month of forcing oral sex on production assistant Miriam Haley and raping Jessica Mann, who wanted to be an actor.The maximum total penalty was 29 years. Weinstein, 67, has asked New York State Supreme Court Justice James Burke for five, citing his age and failing health. Weinstein, who has been jailed since his conviction, arrived in court shortly after 9:30 a.m. in New York, handcuffed to his wheelchair. Court officers removed the cuffs as sentencing got underway.Weinstein Compares MeToo to McCarthy Era (10:58 a.m.)Harvey Weinstein addressed the court in the final moments before sentencing, warning of a “crisis” in America that he compared with the McCarthy era.“I’m worried about this country,” he began. “We are going through this crisis right now in our country, it started basically with me. I was the first example and now there are many men who have been accused of abuse, something I think that none of us understood.”“It is not the right atmosphere for the United States of America,” he said. “Everybody is on some kind of blacklist. I had no power. Miramax was a small company. I couldn’t blackball anybody.”“I think possibly men like myself, like Dalton Trumbo -- they said they were Communists, and now there’s a scare, just like that now.”Weinstein’s Lawyer Says He Didn’t Get a Fair Trial (10:52 a.m.)Defense attorney Damon Cheronis called a letter prosecutors filed with the court Friday arguing for a harsh sentence “a laundry list of unsubstantiated allegations that have not been vetted” and said the judge shouldn’t consider those uncharged crimes in fashioning Weinstein’s sentence.“I read the letter through the very same prism that you saw it through,” Burke told Cheronis.Lead defense lawyer Donna Rotunno then argued that a report by probation officials includes errors and misstates testimony and asked Burke to disregard it.Rotunno asked for the minimum sentence and said her client couldn’t get a fair trial because of various prejudices against him.“Having every single thing you do and every move you make be scrutinized and dominated by the media, as you can hear by the clicking of the typewriters today in court,” was insurmountable, she said.“Mr. Weinstein is a sick man,” she said, referring to a history of heart disease and other unspecified medical issues that were recently diagnosed.“His parents taught him that you should give back,” she said. “If you look at the allegations in this courtroom, it’s a very small side of who he is. What you don’t see is the other side of what he’s done. He built careers, and because he built careers, everybody wanted a piece of him.”Rotunno cited Weinstein’s five children, including two grown daughters and three young children.She said allies of Weinstein wanted to come forward in support but were afraid to do so.“They don’t feel they can do so because they can lose their jobs,” she said.Weinstein Showed Contrition, Denial in 2017 (10:40 a.m.)Yesterday the court released a trove of documents relate to the case, including two letters Weinstein sent to industry colleagues in late 2017, as the allegations against him were becoming public.In an October 2017 letter, Weinstein expressed some contrition, calling himself “a flawed human being” and admitting he had been “inappropriate in many ways.” He expressed admiration for the then-nascent MeToo movement, saying it was “teaching old dinosaurs like me the way” in terms of his interactions with women in the industry.But he also sought to cast blame back, saying he had seen “actors and actresses take an almost predatory stance toward casting.” He also said “things have been wildly exaggerated” and decried the “vitriol” being expressed against him.On Dec. 21, 2017, Weinstein struck a more despairing tone. “I have lost my family,” he wrote. “I have daughters that will not talk to me. I have lost my wife. I have lost the respect of my ex-wife and generally all of my friends. I have no company. I’m alone.”He again tried to defend himself though, calling himself a “sex addict” and saying his conduct reflected changing social mores.“There’s a difference between assault and womanizing,” Weinstein said. “There’s a difference between assault and cheating. Men my own age grew up in a different era. Now in a movement that has swept our country, things that were consensual 22 years ago have become non-consensual.”Defense Lays Out Case for Leniency (10:31 a.m.)Defense attorney Arthur Aidala told Burke the average sentence for the most serious crime Weinstein was convicted of, which carries a prison term of five to 25 years, is 8 1/2 years.“We did our research and we did our homework, and what we came up with, that the top count that Mr. Weinstein is facing today, the New York state mean number is 8 1/2 years,” he said.Aidala said other cases involved weapons.“There’s no evidence of that here,” he said, adding that “it’s lower for people who are first-time offenders.” Aidala said last fall Burke sentenced another man, who had raped an underling, and pleaded guilty, to 7 1/2 years.“Here there are less serious charges,” he said.‘Harvey was the power over the powerless’ (10:12 a.m.)Victims broke into tears as they addressed the judge.“The day my uncontrollable screams were heard form the witness room was the day I got back my voice, the day I got back my power,” Mann told Burke. “That, your honor, is what the victim of a rapist looks like.”Mann said “there is so much still left unsaid about his abuse” and pointed to “the wreckage Harvey Weinstein made of my life.” She asked the judge to recognize the trauma she has experienced, calling it “rape-induced paralysis.”“Harvey had every advantage over me,” she said, citing his weight and strength. “Flight was not possible.”Weinstein, in a blue suit, sat silently with his hands clasped in front of him.“Harvey was the power over the powerless,” Mann said, adding that he went so far as to threaten her father “with an old-school Mafia beatdown.”“My rape was preventable,” she said, noting the long history of abuse that prosecutors have detailed and saying Weinstein frequently paid off accusers and made them sign nondisclosure agreements.Mann asked Burke to give Weinstein the maximum prison term, noting that a drunk driver can get five years.“Harvey should be given a chance to be rehabilitated while he serves time for his crimes,” she said.Prosecutor Asks Judge for the Maximum Sentence (10 a.m.)Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi called for the maximum sentence and praised Weinstein’s accusers.“Simply put, without these women and others willing to come forward, being 100% transparent and sacrificing their privacy and well-being, this matter would have never been undertaken and the defendant would never have been stopped,” she told the judge. “He led a life of crime, unchecked for decades.”Haley, addressing the court, said Weinstein raped her.“What he did not only stripped me of my dignity as a woman ... it diminished my confidence and faith in people,” she said. “It was embarrassing and very hurtful that this person that I knew would do this to me. I am relieved to know he is no longer out there. I am relieved he will now know he is no longer above the law.”But mostly, Haley said through tears, “the past couple of years have been excruciatingly difficult. I lived in fear and paranoia on a daily basis, fearing retaliation. I would have panic attacks and nightmares and I feared for my life.”Will Weinstein Speak? (9:43 a.m.)Before Burke hands down his sentence, Weinstein will have an opportunity to address the court. Will he? That remains to be seen. Weinstein may use the opportunity to apologize for his crimes, to plead for mercy or at least to thank the judge for his handling of the case. Or he may stay silent and let his lawyers do the talking for him.The Calm Before the Storm (9:15 a.m.)The scene outside the courthouse isn’t quite as chaotic as it was during the trial. There are about six satellite trucks and a dozen cameras right now, significantly fewer than in January and February. Concern over the coronavirus may be a factor. Some trains into Manhattan seemed less crowded than usual, and the streets downtown are noticeably less bustling.Weinstein’s Accusers Stride Into the Courtroom (8:55 a.m.)Weinstein’s six accusers from the trial strode into the courtroom just before 9 a.m. in a show of force, with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. following behind. The actor Annabella Sciorra, in a pair of wire-rimmed aviator glasses and a leather jacket, is seated directly next to Vance and is chatting with him. Beside them are Haley and then Tarale Wulff, Dawn Dunning and Lauren Young, the three witnesses prosecutors called to show a pattern of nonconsensual sex. Mann is at the end of the row. Weinstein’s accusers are all seated directly behind the prosecution table, where Assistant District Attorneys Joan Illuzzi and Meghan Hast are seated.To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at [email protected];Olivia Raimonde in New York at [email protected];Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at [email protected], Peter JeffreyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.