#handling koreas population issues all by himself

[wifeyoozi]

Just a reminder that this pookie wookie cutie pie wants 13 children

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

Flake interview 2020-01

Not a new interview, but relatively recent, Flake with "Der Standard" 2020-01 before an appearance of Flake in Vienna (author Stefan Weiss), don't think there's a translation on the website, so here's a shot..:

Rammstein keyboardist Flake: "The reunification was a mess"

Christian "Flake" Lorenz hits the keys not only as a keyboardist, but also as an author. A conversation about controversial views on the GDR, fireworks and climate protection

At Rammstein he is the "keyfucker" - GDR jargon for keyboard players. His real name is Christian Lorenz, but he has been calling himself "Flake", pronounced in German, of course, since his youth. For a quarter of a century, the native of East Berlin has been the alien in the German rock band, the thin freak among the strong musclemen. In the meantime, Flake also hits the keys as an author: In "An was ich mich so erinnern kann" (2015) he wrote down his GDR experiences, followed in 2017 with "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag", a literary autobiography about Rammstein. On March 26, Flake will come to Vienna's Globe Theater for a reading.

STANDARD: We are currently celebrating 30 years of 'Die Wende' *1). Your joy is limited, as one knows. How do you perceive the anniversary?

Flake: 'Die Wende' and reunification of Germany have to be separated. I experienced the change as a punk at the time. The ossified old concrete headframe of the GDR Politburo was also our enemy. We didn't want this idiotic regime anymore and we fought to loosen it up. When the wall came down, we didn't know what to do with the freedom we suddenly had. But then began an incredibly exciting time in which we tried to develop professionally, politically and musically in every direction.

STANDARD: And then came the reunification.

Flake: A lot went wrong from then on. We were annexed as a useless country, entire biographies were declared worthless, companies were closed so that the western companies could expand. We have been reset to such an extent that resentment and disappointment have built that have persisted until now. By and large, the reunification in this form was a mess.

STANDARD: If you look at Germany's east today, right-wing populism has recently had great political success there. A legacy of reunification?

Flake: Many people are disappointed because certain promises have not been fulfilled. But they already had the political left in their lives, now they are trying it with the right. Personally, I cannot understand how one can vote for the AfD *2). But those who do are doing it in large part in protest against the mainstream parties. It is clear that the AfD cannot meet expectations either. If the AfD were to rule, many people would notice very quickly that it is not getting better, but worse.

STANDARD: You grew up in the East Berlin punk scene. What are the differences between the East and West punks?

Flake: There was a fundamental difference: the Ostpunks didn't need any money because life was absurdly cheap, rent around 25 marks. The koney you made from one concert lasted over a month. So you could make the music you wanted to make and not just the music that sells well. Absurdly enough, it made us very free.

STANDARD: There were also IM Stasi informers among your band colleagues at the time (IM: unofficial employee, note). Aren't you angry with the repressive surveillance state of the GDR?

Flake: I'm not angry with IM informers in the bands. Because their IM status often made it possible for the bands to exist at all. The Stasi didn't lock up its own people. The best example of this is the GDR band 'Die Firma'. It was founded by IM informers. The gag was that 'Die Firma' ('The Company') was actually a synonym for "Stasi". Covered by the Stasi, they then sang anti-subversive texts. Almost brilliant really.

STANDARD: Do you understand when it is said that the GDR was an injustice state and that Stasi repression was a kind of terror?

Flake: I can understand it when people say that who have experienced it and suffered from it. But personally, I can't say that the whole state was bad. I don't want to know how many innocent people have been or are being imprisoned and monitored in the West. I do not find the generalization of the "unjust state" okay.

STANDARD: Would Rammstein have been conceivable in the GDR?

Flake: We wouldn't have founded a band like Rammstein within the GDR because it would have been the wrong answer to this system. We founded Rammstein because we noticed that our punk music wasn't getting anywhere in the West. It took harder stuff.

STANDARD: You have retained a kind of socialism within the band. Nevertheless, Rammstein is a millionaire company. Were there moments when you thought: The money could not only destroy our character but also the band?

Flake: Rammstein is a company where money fluctuates a lot. We have a lot of employees, we buy tons of pyrotechnics, we have a huge stage, costumes, our own electricity network, we shoot extremely complex videos. The money that remains private can actually hardly harm us, because it is so limited. We really have to make sure that the plus-minus calculation works out.

STANDARD: In your book "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag" you describe the 25 years of Rammstein as a long partnership: It has become calmer in bed, but you understand each other blindly. Is divorce even an option?

Flake: Divorce is definitely not an issue. It's like a very long marriage: You don't even think about divorce anymore.

STANDARD: In the midst of tough muscle men, you were always the figure that breaks everything, especially in the interaction with singer Til Lindemann, who sometimes roasts you on stage like a cockroach. It looks like the traditional comedian constellation white clown and stupid August, Laurel and Hardy with SM components. How important is that to the show?

Flake: We developed that more by accident. We never made it up: you are the strong one, I am the weak one. At our first concerts we always stood around very haphazardly, then we started pushing and provoking each other. When I watch a normal heavy metal band I get bored easily. We always have something going on.

STANDARD: Do you sometimes long for a role change at Rammstein? To be the strong one for once?

Flake: Nah, I have other worries. With those couple of concerts, I can handle my role well enough.

STANDARD: Can you even enjoy appearances or does that only come afterwards? After all, a Rammstein show is precision work.

Falke: What do you mean enjoy? I enjoy when everything runs smooth and everything works like a machine. There are good and bad concerts, at the good ones we take off like an airplane.

STANDARD: Rammstein mixes black romanticism with black humor. You yourself love the blues, which often sails in similar waters. Can you draw joy out of melancholy?

Flake: The blues is the best example of this. Sadness and comfort go hand in hand. All of popular music arose from a problem of the respective author. This is exactly what you want to hear when you are not feeling well yourself. During puberty you normally don't want to hear "Walking on Sunshine" either.

STANDARD: Traditionally, there is also joy in melancholy and morbidity in Vienna. Is that the Eastern European impact?

Flake: Slavic music is very melancholic, on the other hand the Goth culture comes from the west. So I wouldn't really pinpoint that to anything local.

STANDARD: It is said that Rammstein did more to preserve the German language than all the Goethe Institutes put together. Are you proud of that?

Flake: Yeah. But the interesting thing is that we are regarded more highly abroad than in our own country. In Germany there is a lot of ranting: We are dull and foolish about Germany - complete nonsense.

STANDARD: Rammstein has always been compared to the totalitarian parody band Laibach. They recently played in North Korea with the aim of appearing subversive. Is something like that conceivable for Rammstein?

Flake: We'd have to think very carefully about what we want and why we want it. If that were to help someone, okay - but only to be able to say, "We're subversive now," that's not an argument.

STANDARD: For reasons of climate protection, there is an increasing number of missile bans. A topic for Rammstein?

Flake: We played a concert in Chicago once. The local fire protection was so rigorous that we shouldn't even have lit a match. Complete ban on pyro. We went on stage and said: either we are leaving because we are not allowed to make a fire here, or we are playing without. The audience wanted the latter, of course. And it became one of our best shows. You have to weigh it up a bit: should you stop all things like a Rammstein show for climate reasons? But I totally understand that there shouldn't be any more bangs on New Year's Eve. I was in Vienna once at the turn of the year, and there was relatively little banging. I thought that was good. Berlin is one of the most terrifying cities on New Year's Eve. There it's pure aggression.

Notes:

*1) i kept 'Die Wende' as the term for the political transformation in east germany, not sure what the official english phrase is

*2) AfD, short for 'Alternative für Deutschland' or 'Alternative for Germany' is a right-wing populist political party, often characterized as far-right, known for its opposition to the European Union and immigration

[jennymanrique]

Three California Republicans share views on future of GOP

Members of the Republican Party in California share their views on why they believe they offer the best representation for ethnic Americans.

In an overwhelmingly blue state where according to the California Public Policy Institute, the majority of African American, Latino, and AAPI voters are Democrats, Republicans flipped four districts in the last congressional election with minority candidates.

According to the new faces, their agendas seek to “raise the conservative voices” of minorities, and find “bipartisan consensus” to legislate.

“The Republican Party for me, is not the great old party, but the great opportunity party,” said Young Kim, US representative to the CA 39th District, which includes Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange County, one of the most diverse districts in the country where Joe Biden won by 10 points.

“Asian Americans should not automatically be considered as members of the Democratic Party. We have our voices, we have our shared values, we have our conservative views.”

Kim is an immigrant from South Korea, mother of four children, and one of four Korean-Americans who were sworn into the 117th Congress. She is also one of 11 Republican women who flipped a Democratic seat in the last election, and who was recently ranked as the most bipartisan freshmen in Congress.

One of her bills approved with Democratic support was the Paycheck Protection Program Extension Act that gives small business owners two more months to access unspent funds from that program in order to keep their doors open and their employees on payroll. “That small extension allows 2.7 million small businesses to receive $54 billion,” she said.

She also supports legislation that provides a permanent solution to DACA recipients and to foreign students who get their education at US universities, but cannot adjust their status to stay in the country. “As we talk about immigration reform, I would like to see separate legislation to fix DACA,” she said.

While she supports Biden’s $ 1.2 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill, she disagrees that the $1.9 trillion budget to deal with COVID-19 is redirected to other purposes, “such as caring for migrants who are in the community”.

“As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the work of Congress will play a large role in dictating our future,” Kim said. “And by getting the government out of the way and making life more affordable for workers and families, we can get our economy and our lives back on track.”

Daughter of farmworkers

Suzette Martínez Valladares, who represents District 38 in the California State Assembly, which encompasses the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles, Ventura County, the Santa Clarita Valley and Simi Valley, is also faithful to her party’s fiscal conservatism.

Martinez is the only Latina Republican in the assembly. She says that Governor Gavin Newsom’s policies “are crushing the middle class” and that the handling “of the lockdown and closures had little to no guidance” so that “our businesses are going at an alarmingly negligent pace”.

The Assemblywoman is co-sponsoring bill 420 which seeks to adjust state guidelines to allow amusement parks, regardless of size, to be opened safely. Her interest comes from her first work experience at Six Flags Magic Mountain where she started as a summer intern, to end up working 8 years later as an asset protection and loss prevention investigator.

“There has been clear mismanagement for so many industries that have been shuttered and closed for over a year… 1.2 million Californians have not accessed EDD (unemployment benefits), and the distribution of vaccines has been a debacle,” Martinez said, although official data showed that California has the highest percentage of vaccinations in the country.

Born in the San Fernando Valley, her grandparents came from Mexico to work in the fields of Kern County. Every summer her father, who was born in Puerto Rico, would pick crops with them.

“Throughout my life, my parents taught me the value of hard work. My dad said that I didn’t have to be the smartest person in the room, but the hardest working person in the room.”

Martínez said that she experienced extreme poverty while in high school and that she witnessed a lot of crime and drugs in her neighborhood. “I looked around me and all of my representatives were Democrats who were supposed to be the party that supported minorities and the poor. Why was I not seeing change in my own community? That forced me to look at the Republican Party,” she said.

Public safety

Walter Allen III, a Covina city council member for more than 20 years, said that although he did not consider himself a political person and was basically a “non-partisan person,” having worked with different law enforcement agencies inclined him to join the GOP “for its platform on public safety.”

“One of the major concerns I have as a local elected official is exactly public safety … and it doesn’t make any difference whether you are Republican or Democrat, I am concerned about the notion of defunding the police,” said the African-American councilmember who is also the director of the Rio Hondo Police Academy.

Born in East Oakland, where he witnessed “high crime rates,” Allen believes that perceptions about the police stem from many people not paying attention to data. “It is victims, crime reports and issues that deal with crime that disproportionately send police into communities of color,” he said. “And for some reason, people think that police officers run around, making their point to target Blacks or Latinos, and that’s simply not the case.”

Allen condemned the murder of African American George Floyd at the hands of Officer Derek Chauvin as a “horrible thing”.

“I don’t know of any police officer that wasn’t sickened by that,” he said. But he quoted various figures according to which out of 1,000 people who were shot last year, about 235 were black, and “most of those people were armed and dangerous.”

The council member said that in his academy, 80% of the officers he trains belong to minorities and that the training is focused on de-escalation techniques, how to deal with the mental health of the homeless population, and cultural diversity.

“As a mandatory requirement they have to go to the Museum of Tolerance for a day of cultural diversity training,” he assured. “We train officers how to be guardians, not warriors,” he added.

Allen believes that his party must constantly reach out to communities of color and not just during election season. “Unfortunately, a lot of Republicans are leaving the state. But I’m optimistic if we continue with the grassroots effort, we can gain some folks of color into the party,” he concluded.

Originally published here

Want to read this piece in Spanish? Click here

[milkygcf]

All the King’s horses, all the King’s men

Pairing | myg x reader

Genre | Mystery, thriller, angst, slowburn, e2l, Gang Leader!reader, Detective!yoongi

Warnings | Graphic scenes, use of alcohol, use of drugs, gang violence, explicit language, slightly sexual scenes, social issues, major character death.

Summary | ❝ Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall- Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Even with all the King’s horses and all the King’s men, Humpty could not be put back together again. ❞

or

❝ An ambitious man caught in thorns, drowning in the delicacy of what the world truly is - a whirlpool of chaos and terror. There, he finds his bitter downfall. ❞

Word Count | 3.1k

Author’s Note | Hello! I wanted to make a quick note about this oneshot before it actually starts. Firstly, I’d like to advise whoever’s reading this that this is just a summary of the actual fic which I will be releasing - however, I have not finalised a date. Secondly, it’s a tad bit rushed and messy and I apologise if it does not reach standards. Due to my personal life, I found that it was quite difficult to find the time to write as much <3 

To end everything, I would like to thank @ficswithluv​ for welcoming me into this wonderful project! I hope you enjoy reading <3

The delicate stomping of your feet upon the gravel startles the ravens sitting by. You stop in front of a familiar tombstone, your infamous surname nicely engraved in a fancy font. Before it lay a multitude of flowers, all speedwells as to symbolise loyalty towards the man buried six feet under. It's Valentine's day, and unlike the ravishing hues of blues and purples, you had bought roses to celebrate the event. If anything, you were always the odd one out when on with your business.

You set a few speedwells down, politely placing them into one of the empty jars left out beside the other swarm. It's overwhelming, the very site of your father's name placed in such a lowly place, finally resting beside your mother. It's overwhelming how in only a small amount of time, events took a wicked turn and brought along unnecessary chaos.

You face the neighbouring slate of stone set on the right side of your family's. This one's much duller and greatly lacking in vibrancy, attention. It brings a frown to your features. It's lonely, devoid of any proper affection that one needs in order to stay remembered.

Yet, even though it's desolate, it makes you reminisce. The sight of it doesn't bring you grief - neither does it bring you melancholy. Instead, it fills your train of thought with old memories that you either want to cherish or banish completely. Where forever was once a long time, it’s now a memory. Where pinky promises were depicted as something precious, you now notice that they were nothing but white lies to conceal the truth.

You’d learned this the hard way.

It’s truly surprising how so much can happen in the span of a year, how so many things are able to change and leave dead skin behind. The world is a delicacy of chaos and terror. Time offers only to take. It’s an ancient form of evil and you’ve grown to despise it for it works.

Now you’re left empty, shattered and dull. No longer do you symbolise the purity of a child whose eyes shimmered with innocence, with colour. When you thought you had already grown, you put yourself through trauma. And with a series of unfortunate events, you’ve finally, truly come to understand the world for what it truly is.

Beside you, a wounded soul whom you haven’t seen in such a long time laces his fingers with yours. He draws soothing circles into your skin and you finally breathe. Through thick and thin, you find yourselves here, together, breathing.

Maybe, there is hope for blemished souls like yours.

You met the unusual man at a bar. Although back then, you had no idea what really lied underneath the thick layer of skin that he dawned. The bartender had offered the both of you drinks, pointing out how utterly exhausted the two of you looked. That sparked up small talk – simple, small talk.

Until you were both sharing breaths in a bathroom stall, holding onto each other almost as if your lives depended on it. Every touch of his that settled on your skin burned, the pieces of fabric that your body dawned felt way too heavy. Your fingers were tangled in his hair, teeth biting down on his lip. His hands were on your hips, pulling you closer and closer onto his body until the warmth that was radiating off him made both of you break out.

Both your minds were hazy, your mouths tasted like a mixture of vodka and whiskey. It left a bitter feeling on your tongues. You were so lost in the feeling, the warmth that spread through you and shut out all your concerns.

His hands were playing with the zipper of your dress, fumbling hastily as to waste no time. It was almost funny how men could get so impatient. You were both speaking in tongues, merely pulling back to catch your breaths. His left leg was pushed right against your core making you more sensitive than your own good. You were grinding down on him, moans tumbling out of your mouth as they were muffled into the kiss.

Maybe it was just a moment’s talk, but even though you were barely doing anything, the feeling was euphoric.

He was trailing wet kisses down your neck, giving you the chance to finally catch your breath. Your skin was bruising, your core was pooling, and you were losing sense of reality. His hands were running all over you, making you feel something much greater than pleasure from a simple touch.

It all came to a stop at the sound of his phone ringing aggressively in his pockets, leaving you huffing out in annoyance. He didn’t just leave it and continue with his business; he fished the phone out of his pocket and stormed out of the stall while fixing himself up. There was no “excuse me,” or “I really have to take this.” He just stormed out of the room as if nothing was going on. It left you livid.

Park Jimin, your right-hand man, had to pick you up that night – helped you with your frustrations and worries, held you until you slept and didn’t wake up until dawn.

You were glad to think that you wouldn’t ever see him again, just a one-time failed fling in a population full of many. But your career begged to differ, as about a month or so after, he turned up to a meeting you held, custom-made for new recruits. Never will you forget the surprise on his face, when he found out that you were, indeed, the leader of the cartel. You, a normal woman at the bar, drinking her sorrows away in hopes they’d simmer and give her peace.

Although, you’d like to think there was something else beneath that surprise.

“A woman, as the leader of the sickest cartels in all South Korea?” One of the recruits spoke, a bitter tone hanging on his tongue. “How the fuck is it supposed to stay put?”

It was true that you had no idea how things were supposed to go in the industry – your father never really let you merge yourself with his world. But now, your father lay in a casket six feet under after being found dead in a ditch. You couldn’t really put it in a simpler way, but the only thing you could really say is you refuse to recreate an old nursery rhyme your mother used to tell you when you were just a toddler.

Nothing will stop you from reigning and getting back at whoever slaughtered your plans. You weren’t ready to tolerate anything in your way.

Hence why you didn’t hesitate to make Jimin shoot a bullet through his head, even if it terrified you just the slightest bit. But that was a different story.

Of course, it was no surprise. Women were still thought to be such fragile beings, not being able to handle anything. Once you stepped on top for the throne, you refused to let that put you down. “If any of you dimwits even so much as think about saying stupid shit like that again, I won’t hesitate to decapitate you.”

Jimin always kept his word. Because for the next year or so, whoever even uttered a single word about your command in the cartel faced death. You were never there to see it – Seokjin and Jimin made sure you knew everything that occurred, though.

On the other hand, there was that man you met at the bar. If it was possible, he would’ve disintegrated under your gaze. The dislike you had towards him was surely something grand, and to glitter it up a bit, he seemed to share the same feelings towards you too. Of course, in your defense, he had no reason to.

You weren’t the one who ditched in the middle of a make-out session.

Min Yoongi – he was something. A no one, but something, nonetheless. Ever since you saw him lined up with the other recruits, you’ve had your eye on him. As dumb as he acted, the man was cunning. Just what the cartel needed. Despite acting scared, like everything is all new, you felt as if it was nothing to him – almost as if it was all just a mask to conceal his true intentions. Although, you had no proof to this, so you let these accusations simmer.

His tale was cliché. He needed money but he didn’t have the qualifications to get a job. So, he joined the mafia, a very dirty place to get what you want. You ran background checks on him, just in case, and you found nothing of danger to all of you.

With a few weeks of training, Yoongi was fully accepted into the group and was one of Seokjin’s right-hand men.  

Passing by him in corridors, sitting in the same room with him, even hearing his name made your blood boil. It was unexplainable, but the feeling was mutual. Back then, if he disliked you, then it would only be fair if you disliked him as well. 

The tension was incredibly thick between you two, much that it left others uncomfortable whenever you were in each other’s presence. It was unbearable.

There was this incident once – you remember it like the back of your hand.

Seokjin had sent him to your office to deliver the newest packages that would determine how briskly your newest job was going to go. Despite begging the elder to send someone else as to avoid the awkward tension, the man refused.

The next morning, the raven-haired man was waiting by your door, box in hand. It took you a minute or so of plainly staring at him, observing the way his fingers twitch on the item, the way his eyes squint at you almost as if you were going to swallow him whole. It was quiet. No one said a word until you both entered your office.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again, as a fucking mafia leader.” he said.

“Ta mère ne t'a jamais dit de ne pas faire confiance aux étrangers?” you responded fluently, the accent rolling down your tongue briskly. Yoongi had no clue what you said, hence why you huffed and translated for him.

“I’m pretty sure your mother has warned you about strangers at least once in her life, no?” Your tone was calm, soft and delicate.

“She has. I didn’t think it’d happen with you though.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and rested against your desk. “Oh? I apologise then, even though I don’t recall being the one who’s acting arrogant.” As someone below you, he had to show decency, or he’d be thrown out with the dogs. “Arrogant?” he snarled lowly, plummeting down on one of the cushioned chairs placed in front of your mahogany desk. “You’re the one who’s been acting like a bitch all this time.”

“Best watch your tongue before I throw you out,”

“Do it then.”

He was faced with a gun to his head. You glared; finger firmly set on the trigger as you stared directly at him. No way were you going to let him get away with such a disrespectful attitude. He didn’t flinch, neither did he blink. He just stared back at you, slowly shoving his hands in the pockets of his tattered jacket.

“Don’t test me, Min.”

“You wouldn’t do it.”

Once those words tumbled out of his lips, you stiffened. Of course, you’d do it, why wouldn’t you?

“You put on a strong, independent persona but you can barely manage yourself.”

His words are what water is to fire. How dare he talk to you like that? Had he no fucking decency? Did he really want a bullet to pierce his skin in order to start seeing some sense?

“I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Oh, I think you do. That’s you, isn’t it?” His head bobbed towards the painting behind you – the Ses Peines Pleurant Es, a painting your mother had created back in her days. It depicted the both of you against the world, against the pure wickedness you were forced to grow up in. There’s darkness, but in contrast to it, there’s you as a new-born dawned in white.

“What makes you think that?”

The metal felt cold against his skin and Yoongi couldn’t help but shiver. “That painting’s been missing for years, and now that it’s here, it has to be yours.” he spoke calmly, “And frankly, I don’t think I’ve seen someone wear that much white before.”

You looked down at your clothes, all white with no signs of any other hue. It was crazy, truly, but you don’t remember wearing any other colour growing up. Your mother always dressed you up in just white, telling you that you look best in it. You just never really took mind to the resemblance your fashion sense had with the painting.

“Must be a coincidence,” you hummed, lowering the gun down to his chest. “For which I think is none of your business.”

Yoongi only hummed in response. There was a strict silence between the two of you then, before you sent him back to whatever duties Seokjin set on his shoulders. That was one of the encounters you had before things started taking a slight twist.

An infiltration in the Children’s Medical Clinic of Seoul, where one of the doctors was the main leads to what exactly brought your father’s downfall. You remember how ruthless Yoongi was that day, mercilessly shooting at the man without hesitation, without sparing a single breath. It was crazy, hell, it was mad, but you enjoyed it. That only meant strength to the cartel, and that’s exactly what you wanted.

Although, you won’t ever forget the pained screams of children roaring in panic, the sudden stiffness in Min when the man dropped dead and painted the bleached tiles red.

From then on, the hate you harboured towards each other started to simmer. Seokjin and Jimin had noticed this when Yoongi started becoming more obedient, less cocky with the way he formed his words.

To you, this was relief.

But then things started to advance, the two of you started getting closer and before you knew it, you were having affairs late at night. When everyone else was at their respective homes, you were under silken sheets, legs entangled with Yoongi’s. You’d play with his soft locks as he told you his deepest, darkest secrets. He’d tell you his fears, what he’s always wanted to become ever since he was a toddler.

And you’d listen. You’d listen intently until both of you fell asleep, and you’d rake your brain until you unraveled what all the information you ate up meant.

Jimin started getting suspicions – he found pills in Yoongi’s house. There was no labelling on them, and you didn’t think asking him would somehow enlighten the situation. To make it far more interesting, later you found a multitude of phone numbers scribbled on a piece of paper in his pockets.

Yoongi started becoming strange.

He’d tell you things you were skeptical of, he’d do things you deemed abnormal. And then, he started telling you how someone was out to get you, and how one day he would be famous, people would talk about him wherever he passed by.

You’ve known Yoongi for a year – enough to tell that he was not the man he was before. He wasn’t so mental, he wasn’t a paranoid freak, neither was he so ambitious. Yoongi was just a normal man who needed something to do.

But then, he started talking in his sleep. Words tumbling out of his mouth one by one, telling you who he truly was, the man behind the façade he’d been showing you every day.  Jimin was never one to lie.

There was someone out to get you and it was him. He’d been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, getting closer to you in order to gain information to bring your very downfall. He revealed every little plan, every hidden camera scattered across the base, all managed by none other than the police department.

Humpty Dumpty had the King’s men to aid him, piece him back up and help him up the wall. But you, you had no one.

The man who had shown you what white truly meant, what innocence and happiness felt like, what being normal truly tasted of. Your first and your last love. Min Yoongi, the man who wrapped his hands around your heart and took advantage of what was bare.

Perhaps that was why your mother always teased you about being careful when dealing with boys.

You reminisce how it all went down on Valentine’s Day. How the waves hugged the shore lovingly, being complimented nicely by the dim light of the moon dawning on your silhouettes hand in hand. He felt cold. Yoongi felt distant.

A sweet, passionate kiss was shared that night. It filled you with false hope, chills. It painted a faulty picture in your head of what could have been but hadn’t been. That night, you held him close and held him dearly.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Your toes curled in the damp particles of the sand. Your fingers fell limp. “I love you most,” You muttered back, your lips trailing faint kisses across his neck. When you pulled back, you observed him. Yoongi had never looked so vulnerable in all the times you’ve faced him. Although, even if he was torn, in that very moment to you he was beautiful.

You remember the screeching of birds once you pulled the trigger, your skin and dress then painted in crimson. You remember the sheer surprise scattered across his face until he offered you a gentle smile and collapsed.

“Jour de la Saint-Valentin heureux, mon amour.”

You no longer wore white.

 ---

His name is engraved quite nicely on his tombstone. It still saddens you how barren it looks, devoid of any attention. Hence why you gently set the bouquet of flowers down, bowing your head in respect towards the man who brought you to a new world.

You’ll cherish his presence in your memories instead of forgetting them.

Even if Yoongi left without truly accomplishing his mission, without truly becoming what his desires were, he was deemed dead in vain.

Macbeth let his ambition eat him whole and it led him to his very downfall – the terror of seeing himself crumble and lose power.

Yoongi also was too over-ambitious for his own good. He let himself succumb to the control you were merely lending him, only to suffer the consequences and face his own undoing.

After all, Humpty Dumpty could never really be put back together again.

 “Happy Valentine’s day, my love.”

[f-nodragonart]

ok wait I have one more rant abt American Dragon and I swear I’m done, but the whole concept of a ‘leader’ dragon for every country is very.... strange to me

like ok, suspension of disbelief for vague hand-wavey magic, or the existence of magical creatures, etc. fine fine. but the whole PREMISE of the show is built around the concept of an American Dragon-- yet that concept is so incredibly, frustratingly vague. like I said in my original review, I’m willing to excuse a lot for a simple kid’s show that isn’t looking to worldbuild super deeply, but the main premise at the VERY least should have SOME planning behind it

for one, the physical size and population distribution of each country varies WILDLY across the globe, it’s honestly stupid to assign the same number of ‘leader’ dragons (one) to each, and expect each dragon to serve their respective country to the same degree of competence. the US is a fuckin MASSIVE country w/ two states disconnected from the mainland, and SEVERAL different biomes that have contributed to diverse sets of populations (which would likely be reflected among magical creatures as well, culturally and biologically-speaking). it’s ridiculous to expect ONE dragon to serve, represent, and protect ALL those populations

and the thing is, Jake DOESN’T do that! he’s a New York Dragon at best. the only times I remember him helping out w/ magical emergencies out-of-state are when he’s traveling for personal reasons (like visiting family) or when he’s tending to dragon council business, in which case most dragons across the world are gathering there too (not to mention these instances are generally out-of-country)

having a ‘leader’ dragon assigned to a bio/cultural region without even bothering with human borders would make FAR more sense (esp since the dragons don’t even wanna bother w/ the human world anyways, so why are they assigning things based on human constructs??). hell, there could even still be dragons representing larger areas too, so long as it was established that they’re the more broad-scope representatives that must regularly convene with the dragon representatives of the smaller regions under their jurisdiction. this would assure that each dragon is truly an intimate member of the communities they’re assigned to, rather than some outsider intruding on important matters that they simply can’t understand w/o cultural context. this especially makes sense if we assume that dragon forms are magical/psychological projections of the cultural society that a given dragon is raised in, rather than a *strictly* biological body whose traits are genetically inherited (tho like I said in my main review, I’m rly doubtful of that actually being canon to the show...)

now, it would admittedly be p cool if the show took the time to pull Jake across the nation to explore different cultural/ecological regions and the magical creatures within. but that’s expecting a lot from a show that only establishes that Jake is part-Chinese on the most shallow of levels, and fails to explore Chinese culture in any intimate manner beyond ONE(1) episode about the Chinese new year. like, the bar is on the ground, here

and even if some attention had been paid to America’s diverse cultural settings, I’d still be skeptical of Jake being able to handle the whole nation on his own. hell, I’m skeptical of an ADULT dragon being able to handle a nation as huge as the US, much less a tween handling the whole thing. I already take huge issue w/ kid’s shows framing dangerous, mature situations as “normal” responsibilities for children to encounter and just “get over”, as if they’re as commonplace and simple as like, studying for class. so every time Jake is reprimanded for not managing his time properly when he’s running on 10 min of sleep after facing off against angry trolls, or trying to take some free time for himself when he’s missed out on every other chance at a normal middle school milestone, I genuinely seethe w/ rage

at least w/ most other kid’s shows there’s some explanation I can accept for the main character having to go through that kinda stress. like w/ Danny Phantom, Danny unfortunately goes thru a freak accident, and he can’t tell his ghost-hunting parents abt it for fear that they might tear him apart for science or misguided protection, and he decides on his own that he has some responsibility to use his powers for active good (tho DP still pulls the “ghost-fighting is just like balancing school and a social life!” bullshit that I HATE..). or w/ Steven Universe, all this responsibility was thrust on Steven by adults who didn’t understand the consequences of their actions or had no other choice, and Steven’s currently dealing w/ the massive emotional fallout of having his childhood stolen from him

but with American Dragon, like... this shit is PLANNED. the council carefully CHOOSES the dragon for each nation-- these adults have a RESPONSIBILITY to both a whole WORLD of magical creatures AND their dragon subordinates to choose capable, mature dragons to lead the magical world. and for some reason they decide that this responsibility should fall on the shoulders of LITERAL CHILDREN?? who was the previous American Dragon? where the hell are they now? (Neopuff pointed out to me that Jake is in fact the first AD, which is even even more suspect than before! what!!) even if Jake is chosen to be a potential future AD, why does he have to take on that full responsibility now?? why isn’t a seasoned adult taking care of the bulk of responsibilities until Jake grows up??? like I get that children’s power fantasies hit different when ur an adult b/c u can recognize what responsibilities a child shouldn’t have to deal with-- I GET that it’s good to let children explore mature responsibilities in fiction, I’m not arguing that. but these responsibilities should at LEAST make sense in-context, and NO adult should have knowingly thrust these duties on literal children w/o some DAMN good explanation for why they literally CAN’T assign dragon duties to adults. not to mention that the whole, “you’re selfish and need to learn better time management skills,” thing is such an insidious message to direct at kids who should literally only be expected to... be kids? I’m SO fucking mad abt this!!!

and don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that Jake is being trained by the Chinese Dragon, and Haley by the Korean Dragon. like, again, the show establishes that there’s only one ‘leader’ dragon for every nation, and that Lao Shi and Sun are the current dragons of their respective countries-- they haven’t resigned, as far as we know. so like, what happened to China and Korea (and now that I think abt it, which Korea??)? they just don’t have dragon protectors? fuck them, I guess, they’re on their own now? b/c training American dragons is so much more important than protecting their own countries? b/c a Chinese and Korean dragon somehow have better knowledge of American magical communities than the dragons that have actually been living there and presumably been serving those communities for decades (and b/c every Asian country is apparently interchangeable, so a Korean dragon is obviously perfectly fit to understand the cultural background of part-Chinese dragons)? hello???

now I AM at least willing to consider that perhaps the dragon council runs on enough shallow bureaucracy that their predecessors just arbitrarily decided to assign a single, young dragon to each country, and the current council is too stubborn to change that tradition even in the face of its clear problems. like, actual real-life political systems are absolutely fucked, so it tracks that a fantasy political system could be similarly broken. this doesn’t explain all the fuckshit, but it might at least explain some of the fuckshit. BUT none of these problems are ever brought up in the show, so we have to assume that they are somehow, canonically......... not actually problems..... ugh.............

and none of this even BEGINS to tackle the weird dragon monarchy over all magical-kind. like this obviously isn’t exclusive to AD, u see this sorta bloodline-bound authority thing in a LOT of western fantasy media. but the fact that the dragon council seems so utterly incompetent when u pick apart all the above issues, I’m just sitting here like... how have the trolls/elves/merfolk/etc. not guillotined y’all yet? lmfao

-Mod Spiral

[theforbeshub-blog]

Top 10 Best Military Generals in The World 2020theforbeshub

New Post has been published on https://theforbeshub.com/best-military-generals-in-the-world/

Top 10 Best Military Generals in The World 2020

Our world has turned into a terrible place recently. The new innovations in infrastructure and changes in the armament have led to disastrous consequences.

With the new technology pouring over almost every day, countries now stand at the brink of war due to such improvisations.

All of these changes have taken place due to the terrific events like the WW2 and 9/11 massacre that made this world a fearful place to live in.

Army or land power is the most important and pivotal component of any military in the world.

It is the type of service that is also indulged in dealing with various affairs of the country like foreign decisions and political employments.

The army is among the topmost and reputed organizations of any country that plays a major part in the development and security of a country.

A military general is the foremost commander of the army. He is solely responsible for all of the decisions that have taken place or are going to take place.

A military general is a vital peace-keeper of the country and immediately retaliates in any emergency situation.

 10: Jörg Vollmer (Germany)

Germany is already pretty notorious for its dark history of secrets that lurk around the ghosts of Adolf Hitler!

Germany was a country that played an important role in the most furious of the wars that have ever happened in the history of mankind.

Germany is famous for the employment of various commanders that have taken control of the Nazi army.

Jörg Vollmer is an important figure to be included in the list due to the dedication of a lion in the field.

9: Katsutoshi Kawano (Japan)

Japan is a developed country with a spamming population.

The large census of this country makes it necessary to devise certain protective measures that would eventually help the country to prevail in such dire circumstances.

Many countries have this region at target due to the gigantic sources that are buried beneath its grounds.

Katsutoshi most certainly has proven himself competent enough to handle this duty and all of the other ranks he has worked on in order to become Chief of Defense in Japan.

8: Dalbir Singh (India)

India is a country where rapes and crimes are considered nothing.

This country is the main rape capital of the world and certain problems are lurking on the shoulders of this country all the time.

Street crimes and border crossing are considered an easy game for the persons who are adept at doing such unlawful acts.

Additionally, the competence and superiority of the traditional rival i.e. Pakistan make it necessary for India to protect their fragile country at all costs.

Dalbir Singh is the person selected for it.

7: Choi – Yoon – Hee (North Korea)

Korea, due to the impractical strategies and commanding, is subject to various problems from all over the world.

North Korea is considered a war endorsed country where everyone talks about war or is indulged in the planning of the war.

A patriotic country requires superior skills and commands for which the Military commander Choi is perfect.

Yoon Hee has actually come from the roots and still strong reputation of being a Navy Chief before appointed as Korean Military Commander.

This gives him superlative respect over all the competitors.

6: Nick Houghton (United Kingdom)

The UK is a country where the royals need to be served with the foremost security and perfection.

For this task, there must be a strong commander who is extravagant in solving all of the problems and providing reckless security to the Royals, irrespective of any protective measures.

Sir Nick is the name to be remembered. He has successfully led 39 infantry brigade.

Another great medal of honor added to this Military General’s success is that he has attained to shine an illuminated golden light on his reputation.

5: Fang Fenghui (China)

China is among the World’s largest countries due to its massive size and shape.

The country has the world’s largest army that needs to be operated in a diligent and professional manner.

To do such things and to fulfill the tasks perfectly, China has employed her topmost military leader known for his superior attack tactics and performance on the battlefield.

Fang, has been in the Military field, both literally and figuratively since the late 1960s while the rest began their careers during the ’70s.

4: Hulusi Akar (Turkey)

Turkey is a country known for its art and culture and not for horrific war or crime scenes.

The country is magically situated both in Europe and Asia and is among the most sophisticated countries in the world.

Muslim culture can be seen in almost every street. Turkey is a peaceful country and relies mostly on its military commander Hulusi.

General Hulusi Akar Graduated from Turkish Military Academy as an infantry officer back in 72′ like most of the other Military Generals of the world.

However, his experience is what makes him stand tall.

3: Valery Gerasimov (Russia)

The communist state of Russia which once housed all of the independent sovereign states of the world like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan is famous for causing great havoc in the world since its birth.

Valery is a Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Defense forces of Russia and appointed as one for Country and the choice of awesomeness it was.

The Soviet Union has seen Gerasimov too for his efforts of integrity, courage, bravery, and the possession of robust leadership qualities as well.

This makes him among the greatest military commanders.

2: Mark A Milley(United States Of America)

America has seen the greatest bits of War history in the historical events of world destruction such as The Revolutionary War, Second war of independence, Civil war, World War I, World war II, Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm (Iraq Evasion),

Iraq war and not forgetting having to endure the terrorist attack of the Century when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon of America has been attacked by Al – Qaeda (9 /11) as we the world knows it.

To deal with such issues, a great military general like Mark is needed for such acts and their preservation.

1: Qamar Javed Bajwa (Pakistan)

No doubt this guy tops the list of the best military generals of Pakistan.

General Bajwa is the best commander ever to be given to the fearless and patriotic state of Pakistan.

The country is already famous for its traditional rivalries with India and crashing the plane of the IAF in February.

Pakistan Army has surpassed the barriers that refrained it, for being the best army in the world.

General Bajwa is renowned for being the best General in the Pakistan Army and giving tough competition to all others in the world.

[sinrau]

(Jamiel Law for The Washington Post)

By Editorial Board August 21, 2020

AFTER HE is nominated by a pared-down convention next week, President Trump will make this argument to the American people: Things were great until China loosed the novel coronavirus on the world. If you reelect me, I will make things great again.

Our democracy in peril

Part one of a series of editorials on the damage President Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term.

Seeking reelection in the midst of the worst public health crisis and sharpest economic downturn of our lifetimes, this may, realistically, be the only argument left to him. But, fittingly for a president who has spoken more than 20,000 lies during his presidency, it rests on two huge falsehoods.

One is that the nation, his presidency and, above all, Mr. Trump himself are innocent victims of covid-19. In fact, his own negligence, ignorance and malpractice turned what would have been a daunting challenge for any president into a national disaster.

The other is that there was anything to admire in his record before the virus struck. It is true that the economic growth initiated under President Barack Obama had continued, at about the same modest rate. Mr. Trump achieved this growth by ratcheting up America’s deficit and long-term debt to record levels, with a tax cut that showered benefits on the wealthy.

But beyond the low unemployment rate he gained and lost, history will record Mr. Trump’s presidency as a march of wanton, uninterrupted, tragic destruction. America’s standing in the world, loyalty to allies, commitment to democratic values, constitutional checks and balances, faith in reason and science, concern for Earth’s health, respect for public service, belief in civility and honest debate, beacon to refugees in need, aspirations to equality and diversity and basic decency — Mr. Trump torched them all.

Four years ago, after Mr. Trump was nominated in Cleveland, we did something in this space we had never done before: Even before the Democrats had nominated their candidate, we told you that we could never, under any circumstances, endorse Donald Trump for president. He was, we said, “ uniquely unqualified ” to be president.

“Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together,” we warned. “His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.”

The nation has indeed spent much of the past three years fretting over whether that experiment could survive Mr. Trump’s depredations. The resistance from some institutions, at some times, has been heartening. The depth of the president’s incompetence, which even we could not have imagined, may have saved the democracy from a more rapid descent.

But the trajectory has been alarming. The capitulation of the Republican Party has been nauseating. Misbehavior that many people vowed never to accept as normal has become routine.

A second term might injure the experiment beyond recovery.

And so, over the coming weeks, we will do something else we have never done before: We will publish a series of editorials on the damage this president has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term. And we will unabashedly urge you to do your civic duty and vote: Vote early, vote safely, but vote.

“I alone can fix it,” Mr. Trump proclaimed at his convention four years ago.

How has that turned out?

His campaign, as our columnist Michael Gerson has noted, was based on the premises that Mr. Obama and all his predecessors had made such a botch of things that nothing could get worse — and that expertise and moral leadership were not only irrelevant, they were handicaps.

Mr. Trump has decisively refuted these premises.

By most objective measures (the stock market indices being the exception), things today are worse.

But, you say, is it fair to blame him for the coronavirus?

No. Mr. Trump did not cause the pandemic; and China, as he says, mishandled it at the start.

But every other nation in the world has had to deal with the same virus, and most of them have done so far more competently, and with more evidence of learning and improvement as they go, than the United States.

More people have died of covid-19 in the United States than in any other country. Even adjusted for population, the death rate here is almost five times worse than in Germany, and almost 100 times worse than in South Korea.

These are facts. This is reality. And the excess deaths and illness are directly attributable to Mr. Trump’s failures of leadership.

He failed to prepare the nation for a pandemic, though experts for years had warned of the possibility.

When the virus emerged, he first praised China’s handling of it, then imposed travel restrictions too slapdash to offer any protection.

For months, when he could have been preparing the nation, he insisted the virus would just go away.

When reality washed that nonsense away, he allowed government experts to guide the nation for a few weeks. But as the nation began to make some headway, Mr. Trump — more concerned with the impact on his reelection prospects than with the risk to human life — urged Americans to ignore expert advice and “liberate” their states, never mind masks or social distancing.

The result is the worst of all worlds: unneeded deaths, no possibility of real opening and intensification of the markers of “ carnage ” that Mr. Trump railed against four years ago: unemployment, inequality, opioid addiction.

Perhaps most frightening: Even now there is no plan, no learning, no strategy for testing and reopening. Under his leadership, it is all too easy to imagine that our children will still be out of school a year from now, or two, or three.

A president���s first duty is to keep the nation safe. If he has failed at home, maybe Mr. Trump has a better record overseas?

He continued a successful campaign to demolish the Islamic State, the self-styled caliphate that established itself on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border after Mr. Obama’s premature disengagement. The recently announced peace deal between Israel and the tiny United Arab Emirates is a step forward. Mr. Trump has kept the nation out of major conflict.

But neither the country nor the world are safer four years on. The nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, which Mr. Trump said he could easily take care of, are less constrained than ever. Russia continues to illegally occupy parts of three sovereign nations, including Ukraine. The malign dictatorship in Venezuela, which Mr. Trump vowed to dislodge, remains firmly entrenched.

To the greatest challenge of our time, Mr. Trump has failed most destructively. That challenge is the rise of authoritarian powers, most notably China. Like dictatorships before them, they threaten the values upon which this nation was founded: individual dignity and liberty, the freedom to worship and speak and think. But unlike past dictatorships, they are bolstered by technologies that enable unprecedented surveillance and intrusion into what was once the private sphere.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said 80 years ago, when democracy was similarly under threat, “There can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government.” If they should gain the upper hand around the world, “We should enter upon a new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would be run by threats of brute force.”

Mr. Trump, in his fourth year, has branded China an enemy, mostly because he needs a pandemic scapegoat, but also because he hopes it will give him a campaign issue.

But for three years, he embraced and admired Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, and made clear his indifference to China’s genocide of its Muslim population, its stifling of Hong Kong, the repression of its own people. Mr. Trump’s one concern was mercantile, and even there he failed: China’s economy is no more open to U.S business than it was four years ago.

A president truly attuned to the Chinese threat would be investing in American universities and science; welcoming the smartest young people from around the world to study and work in the United States; building alliances with like-minded democracies such as South Korea, Japan, Canada and Germany. In each case, the president has done the opposite.

Most of all, he would be modeling the virtues of democracy, but again he has done the reverse, admiring and embracing the methods of strongmen such as Mr. Xi. Mr. Trump denigrates a free press, makes a mockery of free markets, elevates insult over civil exchange, shows contempt for the rule of law in civilian and military courts, devalues truth, and dismisses legitimate oversight from Congress, the courts and executive branch inspectors general.

Last fall, Mr. Trump became the third president in history to be impeached. The House of Representatives charged him with what amounts to extortion for personal political gain: Mr. Trump held up an arms sale and a White House meeting in an effort to pressure the president of Ukraine to slander former vice president Joe Biden. The House also charged him with illegally refusing to cooperate with its investigation.

In February, the Senate voted to acquit the president, with Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah the lone Republican honest enough to acknowledge that the evidence was irrefutable. A few other Republicans, perhaps embarrassed by their own moral collapse, suggested that Mr. Trump would be chastened by impeachment and mend his ways.

Instead, he has been emboldened, and his behavior in the half-year since provides an indication of the lawlessness we can expect if Mr. Trump is reelected. He has swept aside U.S. attorneys who would not bend the law to his whim; fired officials throughout the government whose only offense was to do their jobs honestly or seek to hold his administration accountable; sicced unbadged troops on peaceful protesters in D.C. and Portland, Ore., for the benefit of his reelection campaign; ignored and lied about credible reports of Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers.

He has sought to undermine confidence in democracy itself, lying about the prevalence of fraud, floating the possibility of delaying the election and even suggesting he may not accept its results.

These are high crimes and misdemeanors, as the framers of the Constitution understood the term. But this time it is up to us, the American people, to remove Mr. Trump from office.

[kpop-magick]

BIG BANG:  you famous errywhere

A/N: anon: exo or bigbang reaction to you being a really famous rapper? not just in korea but worldwide 

I did this kinda like first meeting for some and not for others and like getting into a relationship and i also kinda added in hints that (Y/N) isn’t necessarily korean oop 

shit this doesnt really fit the request does it? ooopsie

my titles are really dumb  omo

i also kept writing rappers as wrappers so if you find a mistake ^-^’ sorry

i also kinda like.. went to fuckin TOWN on this. 

G-Dragon: Power couple AF. You two met when you were doing a photo shoot for a international magazine, it’s main story was about rappers who were world famous and a bit about their stories, there was you, GD, Lady Leshurr(a rapper from the UK) and Valete (from Portugal). The whole issue was about you all, the rappers. The director of the shoot and the editor of the magazine said that you two would do photos together, out of the four you two were a pair and the other two would do pair photos. After asking why it was you two together (not that you minded), they went on to explain their reason for putting it girl-boy would because it would be a better dynamic, it’s ‘appealing’ to the populous. Plus your aesthetics matched up fairly nicely. You two got to talking, trying to get comfortable for the shoot and before you knew it, the shoot was done and Kwon Jiyong was leaving with (Y/N)’s number in this phone.  You two texted for awhile before you actually brought up the idea of collaborating on a piece together; there was no hesitation on his part when he agreed. Spending hours and hours on end together, you get pretty close to a person, and that’s exactly what happened with you and GD. You bonded.  And not too long after the song was finished, you went on to shoot a video which was even more time spent together. Neither of you minded, of course. You shared a lot of interests and your conversations never got boring; not even once. It was truly amazing how close you two became. Once you had the final cut of the video, you both sat in his studio and released the videos on your respective social platforms (twitter, facebook, youtube, etc etc) at the exact same time.  Let me tell you.. The reaction from your fans and his..Woooo.

b o i

The most common thing said about the track was ‘this is lit’ or ‘fucking awesome’ stuff along those lines. Not much negatives, like of course there are always negatives but those you could always handle.  o m o The ships tho. All the fans were asking, “Oppa, are you dating (Y/N)?” ‘Are they dating?” “Is GD seeing fellow world famous rapper (Y/N)?” At first, you two laughed it off. It wasn’t like you two minded. But one article in particular got Jiyong thinking. It made so many good points, and a lot of the comments on the video on his Youtube channel started to grasp his attention. By this point, Jiyong didn’t want you to ever leave. It’s like you inserted yourself into his life and he can’t.. No, he won’t let you go. Anywhooo~ The article was putting out all these points, trying to prove that the two of you were seeing each other. ‘(Y/N) seen coming out of G-Dragons studio at 3 am” “Seen together getting coffee.” Little things you two had done during the making of the song and video but he couldn’t help but start to see you two as.. well... kinda a couple. You had so much in common.  What pushed him over the edge to make the move was the comments. He was astounded by them.  “Is GD-oppa and (Y/N)-unnie dating? I hope so they are, they look so good together!! >.< !!”  “They have to be dating! In the video, they look so comfortable around each other! It DEFINITELY was not acting!” “They’re so perfect together!! Ahh! Oppa, I’m so happy for you!!”

Wow. It was amazing the response to sheer rumours. But then he got an idea, he grabbed his phone and sent you off a text.

It was so casual, like nothing changed. You took it slow, not like molasses slow but like.. A nice kind of slow that’s not boring af. It wasn’t confirmed for a very long time, dates were late and a lot of them consisted of in the studio because you were both finishing up albums. But eventually, the public found out. Your close friends and family all knew but you kept it out of the media for a long while. But once the world found out you two were together..

You two became THE rapper Power Couple. 

T.O.P: When you two initially met, it was pretty chill. You were judges for a new rap show, rappers from all over the world came to perform and well.. You and some other well known rappers judged. Not too difficult. You met on the first day of briefing(like when the director and writers explain stuff), neither of you really could finish introductions because it kinda just went like.. 

“Hi, I’m-” “(Y/N), I know who you are. I’m--” “Big Bangs T.O.P; yeah I know who you are too. “ ;P

From there, it was all light conversations in between takes. It took you two awhile to really become good friends and exchange numbers; doing so after the finale of the show, which was a fair while after you two initially met. Casual texts were shared until you were finishing up your most recent; calling him up for him to do a feature, saying it was an eye catcher. You talked him into it, letting him know the part was pretty much written; all he had to do was come in and record. But almost surprisingly, he went further than that. On the outside, Choi Seunghyun looks like a rather cold person but get under that and he’s actually... Well.. Pretty weird, in the best way possible. He decided to come into your private studio and discuss everything with you, recording, adding a few things here and there. And he even took a big leap with saying they should do press for it, release teaser photos; maybe even shoot a teaser trailer. 

Well dang, that was a fun time. When the teasers were released, the media had a field day. Both negative and positive comments, as per usual but it was great. There was so much buzz. So you decided for the first ever performance of anything from this album it should be the song you made with T.O.P and you wanted him to be there. So you asked him to, ready to almost plead but he agreed wholeheartedly. 

The performance went off without a hitch. It was great, you both had fun and you discovered your hidden adoration for the Korean rapper. You didn’t have long to think on it, because apparently he had thought about it too.  And made the first move.

And it just took off from there.

Taeyang: He hadn’t planned on meeting you at a fashion show, well.. He hadn’t really ever planned about meeting you. Yes, you were both pretty fucking famous but you two never had any form of interaction. And now here you two are, sitting side by side at a fashion show. To be fair, you didn’t plan on this either. 

You two definitely didn’t plan on wearing outfits that worked well together. He sat on the right in pretty much all white while you were on the left decked out in black. Definitely an unintentional aesthetic. 

During the show, you two would nonchalantly converse; talking about the styles to the designers then it went on and on; going from favourite fashion designers to favourite artists then it went onto favourite foods.  After the shows were wrapping up, you two ended up chuckling about your respective outfit choices. It went from there, you went to the after party together. It was just so relaxed, talking to Youngbae was easy; for both you and him. He thought you were pretty great, he mentioned a few times about how he liked your rapping style. Time passed, drinks were had and numbers given to the other and then you both went to separate sides of the party, figuring you two should socialize with others; lest you have a scandal on your hands. 

But you two were still texting each other from the other side of the room; you discovered a lot about him before you left the party. For one, he was actually rather stubborn. When he decided on something, well.. He didn’t want to let it go, so when he suggested he should teach you some dancing and you refused; you never heard the end of it until you gave in. 

It took him only 3 days.

3 days.

You became weak when it involved Youngbae, he had become a true friend to you in all the time you two talked. Boy was he happy you agreed.  Triumphant one isnt he?  You had to admit it though, you had a lot of fun with him. You two laughed and joked; having a great time. You even did learn some of his dances, Good Boy was a favourite. 

He suggested you two do this more often. You agreed.  But then he added a little something at the end. “But like a date..”

Oh. 

Daesung: He honestly wasn’t one hundred percent sure if you really were (Y/F/N), the (Y/N) when he saw you at this party, a benefit of some sort. What if he asked and he was wrong? Well, too late, he asked. After you nodded, he smiled and introduced himself, you exclaimed that you were a fan and boy... Was he happy to hear that. You two got chatting about everything, from your hard work and dedication to where you’ve traveled and where you still want to travel to. You became fast friends, Daesung was almost pinching himself. (Y/N) was world famous! So was he, but still. He was a big fan and they just exchanged numbers. Like holy shit.

w o w

You two started texting on and off, occasionally sending photos of where you were. And slowly but surely, you two were such close friends. He was so.. Great, funny, caring and like it was amazing. Good thing he thought the same as you. So texting soon became video calls, a lot of the time you two were in hotel rooms or backstage, rarely in the same time zone. There were times where you talked for hours. Once you were backstage, getting your hair fixed before a concert, snacking away on something and face-timing Daesung. That’s when the stylist asked how long you two had been dating.

Girl, that blush could put a lobster to shame.

You both were bumbling messes as you managed to get out that you two weren’t in fact dating. The stylist apologized politely, but anyone could’ve seen she was shocked that they weren’t a thing. But that little incident sparked everything into motion. BIG BANG members and their stylists, as well as your team started a betting pool (respectively) about when you two would start dating, or at least admit your feelings for one another. Everybody could see it. Apparently not you two. A bunch of fucking clichés you two were. 

It took 2 weeks and 4 days. You two were in the same time zone, the same country in fact! You were trying to get him to tell you where but he, for some odd reason *wink wink* he wouldn’t tell you. I wonder why. hmmm so mysterious. It was all part of his plan. It took a bunch of organizing but he was able to get into your dressing room (not like that you pervs) You were sitting in a chair, waiting for the hair stylist, playing a game on your phone when you felt hands playing with your hair; you assumed, of course, that it was your stylist. But then it got weird, they were just messing around, playing with your hair. So you tore your attention away from the game, about to ask what the hell she was doing, when you see Daesung. Boy, were you happy. You couldn’t help but hug him, skinship may have been something a bit too personal in Korea but you were casual about it.  Automatically, you were like “what the fuck? why the hell didn’t you tell me where you were, you meanie!” He chuckled, rubbing his neck, getting rather nervous. And that is when he just word vomited everything he had planned to say. But you had heard enough of what he said.

 “You’re lucky you’e cute and I like you too.. Sheesh I was worried when you wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

“Sooo, you worry about me?~~;)”

“Dae, I swear...”

Seungri: He was a secret fanboy, no denying it. You were the (Y/N), the amount of times he’s listened to your songs is hilarious, okay maybe not hilarious, more sweet. Before he even met you he had a crush on you. Like, the (Y/N). He had actually been to a few of your concerts, of course secretly but still. It showed how much he truly enjoys your music. He may or may not have a playlist of your songs and interviews on his phone. 

So when it was reported that you were sighted in Korea, in Seoul of all places when he was actually in Seoul? He couldn’t help but try and cross paths with you. Somehow. You two were both world famous, but Big Bang and (Y/N) had never crossed paths, never been to a party or benefit together, never had a concert in the same city let alone country at the same time.  But now, you were in his turf; his home. He wanted to meet you.  And you two did meet. At a club of all places. (what did y’all expect? a park?) 

Your first meeting you two kinda performed together, kind of. How this happened? Well, you were found out. Somebody recognized you and of course, a fuss was made. You were brought up on stage, everyone cheering you to rap, to perform for them. 

You weren’t really expecting for this to happen, you hadn’t really anything prepared. But hey, you weren’t world famous for nothing.  The lovely little maknae of Big Bang swooped in for the rescue. Not literally but he got into the DJ booth and started a beat, one you could follow well. It was similar to your style, so it wasn’t that hard to freestyle and perform for everyone. 

After a little awhile, you said your thanks before making your way into the VIP area of the club, now that management knew you were here (and you performed for them for free might I add not a lot of famous artists would do that lets be honest) management placed you in the VIP section automatically. And that’s where you met, he got there just before you.  You recognized him because A) you saw him going to the DJ booth B) he’s a member of Big Bang. Duh.

You gave him your thanks and he complimented you on your skills. It all was downhill from there. By the end of the night, you two had exchanged numbers with promises of keeping in contact.

You two messaged for a while, both going on tour soon so texting quickly turned to phone calls before concerts and face timing after them. Falling into this routine was simple and fun, easily becoming something that you definitely looked forward too.  Was it weird that Seungri was the last person you wanted to talk to before going to bed? Maybe it’s a sign. Like a pretty damn large one. That, sweet (Y/N) is when you realize that.. Shit, you like him, Lee Seunghyun. Seungri, maknae of Big Bang. 

fuck

You didn’t want to ruin a pretty much perfectly amazing friendship. But you couldn’t keep talking to him knowing you were hiding the secret so.. You sent him a text.

Well damn. That worked out well. 

[sableaire]

Why do people complain about a white Light but not a black L? Seriously, they could have been both asian or white or black and the Netflix show would still fucking suck. Are even Death Note fans complaining about the fact that Light is now "a white kid" because tumblr logic. People give too much credit to live action adaptations these days.

Sorry for taking so long to get to this, Anon - had a busy Friday, aha. 

I think ultimately the backlash against Light is that he’s, well… the face of the show. He’s the one we see in the trailer, and he’s the one we immediately see and go “Well, that doesn’t look right.” And seeing as a lot of people are already talking about this from a sociopolitical representation-in-media point of view, let me explain things from a storytelling point of view under the cut:

For me, the reason that a white Light isn’t working for me is because Light’s character at its core is so fundamentally Japanese. The idea of a ‘model student’ is so different between Japan and America, and Light Turner doesn’t fit the role Light Yagami is supposed to fill, in my head.

Further, the entire nature of Light Yagami’s motivation and drive depends upon the structure of the Japanese legal system, and how his ‘ascension to godhood’ should be interpreted changes if it’s shifted to America. His character was designed in and for a Japanese setting, so when it seems like Netflix just took “Light Yagami” as he is and threw him into an American setting with nothing but a name change to bolster it, it grates on me as a storyteller. To adapt a foreign work, you need to understand what environment the author was reflecting on when writing the work, and then you need to adapt it from that fundamental concept upwards, or the story will only ever pale in comparison to the original.

The reason The Handmaiden works so well as an adaptation of The Fingersmith is because it rewrote the setting, the characters, and the concepts from the ground up. If they just plopped the The Fingersmith into Korea, I don’t think I could have tolerated that.

Also, personal preference, but seeing Light out of uniform is really bothering me. Is Light Turner going to be in an academy or prep school or something, because if not, I take issue with that too. Speaking of which, the director of this live-action said that there’s going to be a ton of swearing and nudity?? Because let me tell you, Light Yagami prided himself on being Japan’s best and brightest, a true model student, so I really don’t know where they plan on slipping that in for Light Turner.

I recognize that in this review I am kind of torn between “they should have stuck closer to the original” and “they should have reinvented the original” but that’s basically the problem - Netflix doesn’t seem to have made the choice either. They wanted to be similar enough to use the name and just different enough to Americanize it a little. Like that, it’ll end up satisfying no one.

Anyway, L’s character, on the other hand, has not been featured as prominently in images or trailers. Heck, I didn’t know L was going to be black until I received this ask, but it doesn’t bother me, personally, as much because L’s character does not depend upon the Japanese culture or justice system. L’s character is a foil and antagonist to Light, and his motivations are pretty universal in it just being that he’s a world-renowned detective with one heck of a case, and he’s going to solve it. His character can exist in any form because, at heart, his character is a shared concept/drive between America and Japan.

Light’s entire sense of justice is the driving narrative of the plot, and that sense of justice is born out of Japan being a) a small nation with a number of densely populated cities, b) a highly collectivist society, and c) having an entirely different legal system and culture compared to the United States. 

a) America is huge? I’m not quite sure how well Light Turner’s going to work as Kira because he won’t be able to strike fear into an entire nation. If he’s operating on one state in the east coast, to start out with, California isn’t going to be trembling in fear. Frankly, I don’t have a lot of faith that Netflix put thought into the adaptation in this regard, and if they did, I wish they released a little more information acknowledging that element of adaptation.

b) Japanese culture, similarly to Korean culture, has a lot of unspoken social rules, and the feeling of society as a whole differs greatly from the United States, which is a country built upon the idea that you’re “free to be who you want to be” and upholds the individual. The idea of Kira, and Light Yagami’s power-trip, take on a different role in a setting like Japan, not to mention how Light’s proclamation that he intends to become ‘God’ almost depends on the Japanese setting. 

Consider this: God in America is typically the Christian God. When Light Turner proclaims that he intends to become ‘God’, he is saying this after being brought up in a highly Christian environment. He is saying this after attending a school system in which he pledges allegiance every day going “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” and that colors the god-complex in a completely different way. The sheer egoism of a teenager ‘becoming God’ in a Christian-dominated society that proclaims the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God since childhood is enough for me to lose interest in the character. 

Light Yagami’s concept of godhood is, on the other hand, born from an environment dominated by Shintoism and Buddhism. I haven’t read or watched Death Note in years, mind you, so I can’t remember if Light seems to be Christian or not, but even if he is, that would make him a minority in Japan. Barely 2% of Japan’s population is Christian, and even with all the Roman-Christian symbolism in the manga, I can’t be sure without further research that it was all intentional, seeing as Neon Genesis Evangelion made use of Christian symbolism because they thought it looked cool. 

In the end, the character of Light Yagami is constructed and placed in a culture where ‘godhood’ is equated with ‘divinity’ found in nature, and the ‘purity’ of the natural order of things (edit: the inherent purity of natural things; I realized belatedly that my initial wording could be read several different ways). Even if the character itself is based upon Christianity and Christian concepts, how the Japanese readership would have accepted this character and the in-story Japanese society would have accepted Kira differs greatly from it would in an American context. It makes me wonder if, in the original manga, there was a sense that Light Yagami was trying to become ‘the natural order of things’ by becoming ‘god’.

IfI have to wonder, did Netflix realize this? Is this a purposeful change in nuance? Because there is a way to do this right, and if they did it right it could be amazing! But I know that at heart, this is likely a cash grab, and they took the story and the name and spilled it into an American setting and expected fans to follow along. (And if not, if this is actually a reinvention, I am disappointed in their marketing team for failing to generate positive interest.)

See, as a storyteller, I feel as though if the staff of this adaptation didn’t consider at least as much as I am doing in this post, they’re not doing the original work enough respect, and bottom-line, the character of “Light Yagami” was fascinating. The character of “Light Turner” is far from novel.

Speaking of which, the name “Kira” came from the Japanese pronunciation for ‘killer’ so what the heck are they going to do with that? 

c) Death Note was written at an interesting time, the original run going from 2003 to 2006. In the middle of that time period in 2004, Japan changed its legal system to include layman judges. That means that Death Note was conceptualized and written at a time where something akin to a jury system did not exist in Japan (and the current system still differs from a jury system anyway), and according to Wikipedia, the first notable lay-judge trial didn’t even happen until 2009. Even now, this system isn’t well-received because over 70% of Japanese people are uncomfortable with the idea of acting as a judge.

And it is in this kind of society, Light Yagami rises up. Light Yagami’s distorted pursuit of justice depends upon the closed-off legal system where solely the judges determine the guilt of the defendant, if the case even gets to court at all. I believe that at the time of Death Note’s writing, most cases in Japan were handled by a single judge unless it made it to at least the High Courts (which used three judges). Thus, when a criminal escapes conviction in this setting, it means that the existing evidence couldn’t legally convince, often, one individual. 

In America, Light Turner is a teenage guy who hasn’t even sat on a jury yet, and I’m not sure why, but that changes things for me. Escaping a court conviction in America usually means that a jury, a panel of civilians, wasn’t convinced. The circumstances in which a guilty individual goes free is either a result of money (either bribes or a really good defense lawyer) or implicit biases in the jury (if the jury and the defendant are part of the same ‘in-group’ such as race, religion, etc.), so Light Turner’s dissatisfaction with existing legal avenues for crime needs a different angle, or it just feels… childish.

If the only reason Light Turner turns into an egomaniac is because he’s a decently smart teenage guy who gets a new, deadly toy, I won’t be able to find him interesting. Also, on that note, Light Yagami is pretty much one of the smartest guys in his nation - that’s part of his appeal. America as a setting has a disadvantage in that, both geographically and culturally, because it’s pretty damn hard to be ‘smartest teenager in the United States’, especially when there isn’t really a way to judge that in the American education system, and also because ‘super-smart’ in America still suffers from lingering connotations of ‘weak nerd’ rather than bringing you great social status amongst teens.

Basically what I’m getting at is that if Netflix was going to do this adaptation of Death Note, they had to have rewritten the character of Light from the ground up as well as completely reshaped the commentary within it, or we lose a lot of nuance to both Light’s character and the story. Sure, the show isn’t out yet, so maybe Netflix did rewrite the adaptation like that, but in that case I would disapprove of how they went with the marketing, and I would still question why they didn’t consider casting an Asian-American guy.

A lot of people are saying, “Well, it’s in America. Why can’t Light be white?” but to them, I ask, “Well, it’s in America, multicultural and diverse. Why can’t Light be Asian-American?” It would also be insight to an interesting cultural perspective which could potentially feed into the protagonist’s egoistic philosophy.

Anyway, if there are any glaring errors I made above, I apologize. I have not read or watched Death Note in many years, and I didn’t feel like doing so just to write this post, ahaha.

[brajeshupadhyay]

Reformist who breaks territorial barriers of bureaucracy: Yoshihide Suga set to be new Japan Prime Minister

Japan’s longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is set to be named the country’s prime minister on 16 September, succeeding Shinzo Abe who resigned from the position citing health reasons. Suga will serve for Abe’s remaining tenure until September 2021.

Described as Abe’s right hand man, Suga was born in 1948 to a strawberry farmer and school teacher and worked in the fields as a child. According to a biography by Isao Mori, Suga’s father told him to work on the family strawberry farm, but he decided to move to Tokyo at a young age. He later studied a bachelors degree in law at the Hosei University in 1969. He also worked odd jobs in Tokyo – first with a cardboard company and then driving turret trucks at a fish market.

According to reports, when Suga decided to pursue politics, lacking family connections, he asked the career services center for an introduction to a member of Parliament. In 1975, Suga took a job as secretary to Hikosaburo Okonogi, a member of the House of Representatives from Yokohama, Japan’s second-largest city. His duties included buying cigarettes and parking cars.

He also quickly learned how to cater to a constituency. At Suga’s wedding to his wife, Mariko, in 1980, according to Mori’s biography, a supporter of Okonogi said he had bought shoes for Suga because he “quickly wore them down” going door to door to visit voters in the district.

The Sugas have three sons, but in a debate last week, Suga admitted that he had rarely been home as they were growing up.

In 1987, he ran for a seat on the City Council in Yokohama, where he became known as a “shadow” Yokohama mayor. He helped develop transportation links to the port and pushed to reduce waiting lists at city day care centers.

In 1996, Suga leapt to national politics, winning a seat in the lower house of Parliament. Under Abe's first administration in 2006, Suga headed the internal affairs ministry, where he introduced a hometown tax programme, offering tax deductions for those who donate money to local municipalities. Even after Abe left office following a series of scandals, Suga remained loyal.

Suga has also trumpeted his brainchild, a system that allows citizens to donate money to local governments in exchange for locally sourced gifts, according a report by The New York Times. Many small-town governments, however, have lost money by spending more on gifts like marbled wagyu beef or shipments of fresh lobsters than they raised in donations.

On foreign policy, Suga has worked to fill holes in his portfolio. He visited Washington last year, the first chief Cabinet secretary to make such a trip in three decades.

Eventually, when Abe rose to power in 2012, he selected Suga as the chief cabinet secretary, acting as Abe's spokesperson, coordinating policies and keeping bureaucrats in line. Suga's closeness to Abe meant he was seen as someone able to speak frankly to the prime minister. He notably advised him against a controversial 2013 visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which is viewed by neighbouring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, AFP reported.

Suga repeatedly has praised Abe’s diplomacy and economic policies when asked about what he would like to accomplish as prime minister. He also has defended scores of favoritism and cronyism scandals, saying that investigations into the cases were properly handled.

Suga, whose portfolio also included a ministerial role as head of Okinawa issues in the Abe-led government, has offended local leaders with his high-handed approach to a disputed relocation of a US Marine air station on the southern island, according to The Associated Press. He also sparked criticism last year over his hostile responses to a female reporter asking tough questions about Abe’s policies and scandals.

Hailing from the Akita prefecture and known as a leader not belonging to a dynasty or a political family, he was named Uncle Reiwa after unveiling the name of the new Japanese era during the transformation from Emperor Akihito to his son Naruhito in 2019. "He was very quiet," said Hiroshi Kawai, a former high school classmate who still lives in Suga's hometown of Yuzawa and works as a local tour guide, told Al Jazeera. "He was someone you wouldn't notice if he was there or not."

“I will devote all of myself to work for the nation and the people," he said in his victory speech after the Liberal Democratic Party vote, which virtually guarantees his election in a parliamentary vote because of the majority held by the LDP's ruling coalition.

Suga will take office in the middle of a pandemic that has devastated Japan’s economy, effectively erasing years of growth under Abe. Japan also is facing deepening pressure from China and North Korea. He is expected to further push for a revision of Japan’s pacifist Constitution and the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea. He has also said he would roughly stick to Abe’s signature economic formula, known as Abenomics, combining easy monetary policy, government spending and structural changes of industries like agriculture.

He has also said he will confront longer-term issues such as Japan’s ageing population and low birth rate.

Suga, a known strong opponent to a bill passed two years ago to sharply increase the number of foreign workers permitted in Japan, has been credited with helping Abe push through contentious security laws that allow Japan’s military to join overseas combat missions alongside allies.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Suga said that he is a reformist and that he has worked to achieve policies by breaking territorial barriers of bureaucracy. He has credited himself for those efforts in achieving a booming foreign tourism industry in Japan, lowering cellphone bills and bolstering agricultural exports. On Monday, he pledged to crack into vested interests and rules hampering reforms.

Suga has said he wants to maintain communication and develop strategic ties with China and South Korea despite rocky relations with them.

News reports also revealed that Suga, a teetotaler with a sweet tooth, starts and ends each day with 100 situps. On his website he says he likes river fishing and karate.

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[adaralondon]

How Dystopian literature may have predicted a grim future: A Covid-19 survival guide made just for U.S?

           3000BCE, the 1300s, the 1700s, and the 1900s all have something in common. They are all years that a deadly pandemic devastated a nation. As time goes on it is starting to slowly look as though we can add 2020 to that list due our newest friend: Covid-19. It has begun wreaking havoc on our medical system. It has caused students to lose the ability to attend schools normally instead forcing learning through online or paper modules. High schoolers have lost prom while college students have lost the ability to have a proper commencement ceremony to commend graduating. Worse of all, about 2million Americans have lost their jobs causing negative consequences for our economy which forced our government to issue stimulus checks to keep money circulating. With no end or cure in sight, the government unwillingly has done they only thing they can to protect its citizens: issued a stay at home order. Perhaps there was something we could have done or a guide we could have used to protect ourselves from heading towards this future that looks more and more dystopian each day?  Dystopian literature is a genre that has been predicting infectious new diseases and their many consequences, most notoriously zombie apocalypses, for almost as long as they have been around.  It may be time that we regarded them as more than works of good fun and entertainment and look at them as survival guides if we want to make it through this coronavirus outbreak.

The concept of zombies originated from the Haitian voodoo religion. They were thought to be the creation of “a bokor or witch doctor [who could] render their victim apparently dead and then revive them as their personal slaves, since their soul or will has been captured. The zombie, in effect, is the logical outcome of being a slave: without will, without name, and trapped in a living death of unending labor.” (Luckhurst) After the Haitian slaves won their freedom from the French it was not long before other countries took interest in Haiti and its traditions. According to Luckhurst, after the revolution America briefly occupied Haiti which led to the concept of zombies being introduced to the western world. What was once a sacred religious folklore became tainted by American ‘modernization’. In 1929 The Magic Island written by W.B. Seabrook, a self-proclaimed negrophile who was initiated into Voodoo giving him a ‘firsthand’ account of the tradition, gave the western world the earliest appearance of zombies in literature. It was so successful that in 1932 Edward Halperin produced the movie White Zombie, the story of a young woman’s transformation into a zombie by a voodoo master. It was based on the popular novel The Magic Island. These new literary masterpieces soon spawned a movement which produced some of our favorite zombie movies such as Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, and Pet Sematary. At first zombie movies were produced so that someone could get a good scare with their friends, but they soon took a more comedic turn. Although these movies seemed to all be created with lighthearted intentions for some the concept of a zombie was nothing to joke about.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) takes the threat of a zombie apocalypse incredibly serious. Around 2011 they warned Americans of the possible threat of a zombie apocalypse even going as far as releasing a graphic novel on how to handle yourself in a world ending event. The release of this plan caused a lot of criticism from American citizens due to the government's inability to properly and effectively handle the Ebola outbreak that had occurred around the same time. Although the administration defended the creation of their guide by reassuring us it could be used as a proxy for other worrying events. By using this guide citizens could learn things such as how to handle other infectious diseases, how to defend themselves from ‘zombies’ or looters, and even how to properly construct an emergency kit but until recently it has always been thought of as a guide that was just for giggles and a waste of government funding & resources. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 the CDC’s zombie preparedness plan has once again resurfaced. “Based on the projected infection rate of Covid-19 the CDC has predicted four possible outcomes for our future: a zombie apocalypse, the needed pause, a Global Heath Awakening, or finally A great despair.” (Inayatullah). This is alarming because this strand of the coronavirus while new was not expected to be something that would cause a black swan event or an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. (Chappelow). In fact, a coronavirus was one of the diseases on the list that would end up causing an emerging infectious disease. There are several reasons for this. The first is that a single strand RNA virus is more likely to mutate quickly leaving scientist unprepared to cure or deal with it effectively. The second being that viruses that stem from animals have been the main cause of debilitating world plagues: the black death caused by rats, Malaria by Mosquitoes, and Influenza by a multitude of animals. The familiarity with these sorts of diseases has caused numerous people to disregard the dangers of Covid-19.

The stay at home order enacted by the United States government has caused protest from numerous citizens who wish to resume their normal everyday life. “SARS-CoV causes a serious form of pneumonia that can also be life-threatening. Globally, it killed 774 people between 2002 and 2004. No other cases have been reported worldwide since.” (Sandee) Many feel that since coronavirus is such a familiar batch of viruses, as it has caused MERS, SARS, the common cold, and the flu which have all been contained quickly by the government, that this virus will be dealt with equally. Although given the current response it does not seem as though this will be the case. As familiar as these diseases may seem there is a reason that the CDC has named this one more probable of causing a zombie outbreak as opposed to the others that we are seemingly so familiar with. While some symptoms do resemble the flu, covid-19 is far more deadly. The physical symptoms such as shortness of breath and inability to breathe do a lot of damage on the infected but also the virus has potentially done more social and economic damage then the flu. Covid-19 has the potential to overwhelm our hospitals and their workers, infect 60% of the world’s population, and force our economy into an economic downturn.  It spreads quickly and silently with symptoms not appearing for at least two weeks after initial infection. It is also biased against those who are elderly or immunocompromised making them more likely to die than any other infected group. Yet the thing that makes this virus the most dangerous is that it is novel or new, therefore there is no herd immunity nor vaccinations that can prevent it nor protect against it. All these factors coupled together make this virus a recipe for a zombie outbreak.

In 2016 the film Train to Busan was awarded as the first Korean film to break the audience record of over 10 million theatergoers. (Byun) This also made it one of the highest grossing zombie films at the time. The film is about a father who must take his daughter to Busan because she wishes to spend her birthday with her mother. When the father-daughter pair board the train to Busan the apocalypse begins, and an infected zombie slips aboard infecting and killing most of the passengers. The father protects his daughter but due to the selfish actions of On-Suk, a passenger who wants to save himself at the expense of many others, he must sacrifice himself to ensure that his daughter and the only other survivor, a pregnant woman, are able to make it to Busan safely. Although the movie is heart breaking what we should take from it is how the virus that causes its outbreak is explored.

We learn around the midway mark of the movie that the outbreak is a result of a leak that occurs at a biological factory in the South Korean countryside. Although the movie never shows whether the leak traveled through the air or the water or other ways of contact, we do know that the virus from the leak traveled far enough to infect almost the entirety of Seoul in one day.  There are many parallels between the virus that caused the outbreak in the movie and the real-life virus that is currently causing a worldwide pandemic.  It only took a short time for Covid-19 to spread from China to the entire world almost mirroring the movie. Another important aspect of the movie that mirrors real life is how the character On-Suk selfishly caused dozens of deaths while trying to save his own life. This mirrors not only events in Korea but also around the world. Upon the announcement of the virus many people flocked to the stores hoarding essential supplies such as masks, toilet paper, and milk among other things. Many infected people carried on in their daily lives knowingly infecting those around them. Not only is the movie mirroring many real-life events, the promotional posters of the sequel movie also reflect many of the real-life effects the coronavirus had on Korea. For the first time ever, Seoul, a city that depends heavily on public transportation & walking and social gatherings to survive left the streets barren as many locked themselves inside as a means of protection from the virus. As seen in these posters, the streets are abandoned because people want to avoid being zombified. This also not only copies the self-interest of people who want to protect themselves  in real life but also the way the Korean government enforced a stay in place order and mandatory curfews. As the movie shares many similarities in the way the virus has spread and affected everyday life had we investigated it closer we might have been able to prevent a potential disaster.

Train to Busan is not the only movie that we should pay attention to though. World War Z also shares many similarities with the current coronavirus outbreak (as unfortunately this is not the first one). In the popular movie, that is based off the novel of the same name, the government fails to properly assess an out of country outbreak leaving the United States unprepared when it finally hits. Our reality seems to match what happened in the fictional version of the United States closely. Our government ignored the threat of covid-19 because it was far away in China and ‘unlikely’ to spread from there. This ignorance had devastating effects on both the citizens and the government when it finally touched our country. This is not the only instance of similarities this movie shares with us though. The virus in the movie that turns people into zees, the novel's unique name for zombies, is called Solanum and like the coronavirus it originates in China before it spreads enough to infect the entire world. The movie and the book also touch on how China’s government attempted to cover up the spread of the virus. There also was a lot of false information about how to cure or stop the spreading of the virus being passed around in both the movie and reality. These instances are so close to what is happening in the States that it is frightening. Something the US could have learned from both this movie and Train to Busan is that paying attention to things that are happening in other countries is important. Had the government acted as soon as they noticed things were awry in China and increased the production of essentials, started studying cures for the virus, and started testing quicker then maybe our country would not be leading the world in deaths and lack of testing. Not only are the effects of being unprepared important lessons this book teaches us it also has another hidden message. During the movie we see the main character display attributes of “intellectual curiosity and suppleness.” Which led him to discovering a cure for becoming a ‘Zee’. (Rosenberg) The same way our first responders and medical researchers are studying for a cure to be found now. Since these movies share many similarities with real world virus outbreaks, we should not only use them to study possible zombie apocalypses but also as a guide to cure this deadly virus.

Zombie movies are not only matching the cause and effect of Covid-19 they may also be a clue on how to solve the outbreak so that we can resume our normal lives. Contagion which was released in 2011-- as confirmed by its writers-- tried to warn us about this grim future. As such this film has resurged in popularity due to the panic surrounding Covid-19. The film follows a virus that can spread from human to human. The health officials and a regular family man must try to find patient zero so that they can contain the disease and they find a cure for it. Like the other movies mentioned, it resembles the crisis we are dealing with very closely but unfortunately our real-life pandemic is not as easily solvable as it was in the movie. This movie like World War Z has its deadly virus originate from China, an oddly recurring location in film and real life for a virus outbreak. “In ‘Contagion’, a bat drops a piece of a fruit, which is eaten by a pig. That pig is then slaughtered for consumption, passing on a virus to humans.” (Tucker) this mirrors how officials think the coronavirus initially spread: by consumption of a Pangolin which may have eaten a bat in a Chinese wet market which explaines how the animal was originally infected. The movie spends a lot of time trying to locate patient zero because they are the key to tracing the source of the outbreak. Watching this movie gave even regular people the knowledge that patient zero is crucial to curing and researching a novel outbreak. Contagion has also been an omen in the same way World War Z was, both movies warned us about the dangers of being under prepared and having bad leadership.  The movie does a great job at teaching us many lessons that are more than “In order to find and cure a virus, you must locate patient zero.”, it’s teaching us “audacity and self-sacrifice” something that our President, Trump, did not do.( Rosenberg)Another tale that teaches about audacity and self-sacrifice is The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale seems to be the last book what would mirror a worldwide pandemic, but it does. While a zombie apocalypse is not a driving factor of this novel it still contains foreshadowing that could have stopped this pandemic from getting as out of control as it currently has.  In the novel the city is ravaged by disease and environmental disasters leading to it becoming remade as a totalitarian state. Around the world this slowly seems to have started happening in real life. According to Bogost several countries have implemented authoritarian tactics to keep their citizens inside during mandatory stay at home orders, curfewing, and lockdown. In China facial recognition, phone data, and helmet-mounted thermal cameras have helped authorities control the outbreak. Israel has started tracking the cellphones of infected people. Italy has locked down its entire country and when the police catch someone outside, they arrest them. Meanwhile in France in order to free roam the streets a signed travel pass designating that someone is doing something essential is needed.  The United States is not far behind while they are not arresting citizens for leaving their house there is a mandatory stay in place order and many businesses that have been deemed non-essential have been ordered to close. Citizens of many eastern and western countries are being ‘advised’ to not leave the house without facial coverings. This has led to citizens protesting these tough restrictions, especially in the United States. Ironically, many protestors have taken to wearing the Handmaid’s clothing while chanting “my body my choice” to protest the ‘authoritarian’ restrictions the government has placed on its citizens. It all seems straight out of a dystopian novel, mirroring the way the Handmaid’s are the one that are deemed essential and forced to work despite the cruel effects of the environment that have ravished the land they once called home. The citizens of this state are not allowed to speak to each other or meet up to hang out just like our social distancing protocols. We are unable to meet up with our friends due to socializing not meeting the social distancing guidelines of staying 6 feet apart from each other. Health care works and first responders much watch over the country heroically as if they are the guardians of The Handmaid's Tale. The longer we stay in this quarantine the more we seem to be heading toward a familiar dystopian future whether it be a zombie apocalypse or totalitarian government regime  

“They tried to warn us. In their television dramas, they sought to depict the most chillingly dystopian scenarios they could imagine — terrifying alternate realities in which life as we knew it had been devastated by revolutions, plagues, technology run amok or hordes of bloodthirsty zombies.” (Itzkoff) In 2019 a deadly virus wreaked havoc on Wuhan, China. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen before as it caused many to rapidly fall ill with shortness of breath and difficulties breathing. Soon the virus spread from China and quickly into neighboring countries before reaching the western part of the world. Many accused the Chinese government of covering the virus up and that because of these cover ups a cure for this virus could be delayed into next year. Now due the spread of the virus schools has been shut down, many people have lost their jobs, and many cities across the world have issued a stay in place order. This may sound like a new situation for most of us however if we look closely, we have dealt with this time after time before in both our favorite literary works and movies. They have tried to teach us vital lessons for surviving pandemics, but both the government and its citizens ignored them in favor of viewing them as simple good-natured entertainment. However now as this pandemic rages on many of these dystopian novels have forced their way back into the spotlight reminding us of the lessons, we have failed to learn from them. Maybe we should have paid deeper attention to these novels as now it is a possibility that our society is in danger of becoming a dystopia itself.

  Works cited:

Bogost, Ian. “When the Checkpoints Come.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Mar. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-police-state-america/608365/.

 Byun, Hee-won. "Korean Movies Prove Box-Office Gold". The Chosun Ilbo. Chosun Media.

Chappelow, Jim. “Black Swan.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 11 Mar. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp.

Inayatullah, Sohail, and Peter Black. “Neither A Black Swan Nor A Zombie Apocalypse: The Futures Of A World With The Covid-19 Coronavirus * Journal of Futures Studies.” Journal of Futures Studies, 18 Mar. 2020, jfsdigital.org/2020/03/18/neither-a-black-swan-nor-a-zombie-apocalypse-the-futures-of-a-world-with-the-covid-19-coronavirus/

 Itzkoff, Dave. “They Create Nightmare Worlds for TV. Now They're Living in One.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/arts/television/westworld-handmaids-tale-virus.html.

 Luckhurst, Roger. “Culture - Where Do Zombies Come from?” BBC, BBC, 31 Aug. 2015, www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150828-where-do-zombies-come-from.

 Rogers, Kristen. “'Contagion' vs. Coronavirus: The Film's Connections to a Real Life Pandemic.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2 Apr. 2020,

 Rosenberg, Alyssa. “Opinion | Coronavirus Is a Nightmare. These Stories Tell Us How to Survive - and Rise above It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 Mar. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/12/coronavirus-is-nightmare-these-stories-tell-us-how-survive-rise-above-it/

 Sandee LaMotte, CNN. “What Is Coronavirus and Covid-19? An Explainer.” CNN Wire, 31 Mar. 2020. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=n5h&AN=BAQ4h_17e79fdd3094e04fa4f071a712d735b7&site=eds-live&scope=site.

 Tucker, Reed. “How the Movie 'Contagion' Perfectly Predicted the 2020 Coronavirus Crisis.” New York Post, New York Post, 21 Mar. 2020, nypost.com/2020/03/21/how-the-movie-contagion-perfectly-predicted-the-2020-coronavirus-crisis/.

[bountyofbeads]

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/americas-allies-pushing-us-trump-policies-top-intel/story?id=60697780&__twitter_impression=true

America's allies are pushing away from the US over President Trump's policies, top intelligence officials warn

Intel chiefs challenge Trump's national security claims

By Mike Levine and Lee Ferran |Published Jan 29, 2019, 4:40 PM ET | ABC News | Posted January 30, 2019 |

America's top intelligence officials on Tuesday appeared to challenge some of President Donald Trump's most prominent claims about global national security issues, warning lawmakers that ISIS is still a serious threat to U.S. interests around the world, acknowledging that Iran has -- at least temporarily -- abandoned its efforts to build nuclear weapons, and insisting that North Korea is "unlikely to give up" its own nuclear arsenal.

The testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee coincided with the release of the U.S. intelligence community's latest "worldwide threat assessment," which noted that even "some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade."

"In many respects, it is a rebuke to the political rhetoric from the administration," John Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official focusing on threat-related intelligence under the Obama administration, and an ABC News contributor, said. "[It's] striking in some respects."

Last year, Trump removed the United States from the international deal reached with Iran during the Obama administration, claiming the deal would only provide a cloak for Iran to continue its nuclear development. More recently, the Trump administration has touted its operations against ISIS, with Trump himself tweets last month that ISIS had been "defeated" in Syria.

But on Tuesday, the nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, told lawmakers that while ISIS is "nearing territorial defeat" in the region, it "is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria." And Coats said that U.S. intelligence agencies "do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device."

"Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of [the international deal's] restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal," Coats added.

Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, said that "what is striking about this detailed assessment is what it doesn't say."

"Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of [the international deal's] restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal," Coats added.

Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, said that "what is striking about this detailed assessment is what it doesn't say."

"The report does not reinforce or support recent claims by the administration of a national security crisis at the southern border," Cohen said.

In his opening remarks, Coats framed "migration flows" as a "challenge" to U.S. interests, saying Mexican authorities are not able to "fully address" drug cartels. He also said "[h]igh crime rates and weak job markets will continue to spur U.S.-bound migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."

Coats told lawmakers his opening remarks were intended "to provide you an overview of the national security threats facing our nation." He was the only one to give opening remarks, as he was speaking on behalf of those seated beside him: CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Robert Ashley and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo.

"Threats to U.S. national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners," the newly-published 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment warns. "At the same time, some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade and are becoming more open to new bilateral and multilateral partnerships."

China dominated much of the discussion, as Coats said China was leveraging economic, military and political muscle to "tout a distinctly Chinese fusion of strong-man autocracy and a form of western style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values and institutions," in pursuit of "global superiority."

The chairman of the Senate panel, GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, echoed those sentiments, warning, "The objective of our enemies has not changed -- they want to see the United States weakened, if not destroyed. They want to see us abandon our friends and allies. They want to see us lessen our global presence. They want to see us weak and divided."

The U.S. officials specifically warned about the economic espionage threat they said emanates from China and targets not only the U.S. government but business and academic institutions.

FBI Director Wray said the nation's use of economic espionage was so widespread that most of the FBI field offices had an open investigation linked to China.

"I would say China writ large is the most significant counter-intelligence threat we face," Wray told lawmakers.

Coats said that China's "pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and U.S. Person data, remains a significant threat to the US government and private sector."

Wray said, however, that he was "encouraged" that the American people, from those in business to academia, are "now sort of waking up" to the understanding of the blurred lines between Chinese firms and the government and threat that that relationship poses. American allies are starting to rethink their economic and business relationships with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, he said.

Meanwhile, the officials said an economically weakened Russia is working to sow discord in Western institutions and to "undermine the post-WII international order," as Coats put it.

The officials said Russia has continued the social media influence campaign that was so prevalent ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The NSA's Nakasone indicated that some actions of his agency, which handles much of the intelligence community's cyber work, diminished Russian capabilities ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. But the threat has hardly gone away, the officials said.

"We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests," Coats said. "We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts in previous elections."

When questioned by Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, about whether the intelligence community had a single strategy document for combating foreign influence online ahead of the 2020 election, Coats said that one document wouldn't make sense in such a "fluid" environment, but attempted to assure Harris that it was a top priority for the intelligence community.

Rounding out what Coats called the "Big 4" threats, in addition to Russia and China, the officials fielded questions about Iran and North Korea, mostly about their nuclear aspirations.

Despite President Trump's optimism that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would denuclearize his nation, the threat assessment said North Korea is unlikely to do so, as it views nuclear weapons as vital to the survival of the regime.

Still, the CIA's Haspel said that North Korea had frozen nuclear testing and that ongoing dialogue between North Korean and U.S. official was "positive," something of value to North Korea. Coats told lawmakers that when it comes to North Korea, the U.S. intelligence community was going into the topic with "eyes wide open."

Haspel also testified that Iran was "technically" in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, even if the regime appeared to have taken some steps that might better position the nation should it decide to withdraw from the deal. There were ongoing discussions in Tehran about whether it was worth adhering to the accord's requirements, she said.

Echoing the recently released National Intelligence Strategy, the threat assessment also touched on the dangers of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G networks and deep fakes, and how they could be utilized by adversary nations.

"All four of these states – China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran – are advancing their cyber capabilities, which are relatively low-cost and growing in potency and severity," Coats said. "This includes threatening both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways, such as stealing information, attempting to influence populations, or developing ways to disrupt critical infrastructures."

The threat assessment warned that both China and Russia currently have the ability to hit "localized" sections of American critical infrastructure -- perhaps interrupting a local electrical grid for a few hours or interfering with a natural gas pipeline for days.

In discussing the terrorist organization ISIS, Haspel said that while the group had lost virtually all of its physical territory in Iraq and Syria, the group still commanded thousands of fighters and said it was "still dangerous."

DNI Coats said it was a threat that wasn't going away anytime soon. "While we have defeated the caliphate except for a couple little villages," he said, the U.S. should not "underestimate" the ability of terror groups like ISIS to live on in different places or through their ideology.

"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States," he said.

"The composition of the current threats we face is a toxic mix of strategic competitors, regional powers, weak or failed states, and non-state actors using a variety of tools in overt and subtle ways to achieve their goals," Coats said. "The scale and scope of the various threats facing the United States and our immediate interests worldwide is likely to further intensify this year. It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance. "

[newstfionline]

NATO Isn’t What You Think It Is

By Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, July 26, 2018

Of all the goofy things that Donald Trump has done as president, nothing ignites the outrage of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment more than his disregard for NATO. They think his trade policy makes no sense, believe he’s getting played by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, are horrified by his fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders, and fear he is stumbling toward a stupid war with Iran. But going after NATO is like criticizing baseball, kicking a friendly puppy, or lobbying for rapid and unilateral disarmament. To do so isn’t just a matter of intelligent policy disagreement for these folks; it’s almost an act of heresy.

Unfortunately, both sides in this rancorous debate base their views on some profound misunderstandings of NATO’s past, present, and likely future. As a public service, therefore, I offer here my top five things you need to know about NATO.

1. Article 5 is not a tripwire for war. In an interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News last week, Trump offered an ill-informed interpretation of the mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty. When Carlson asked him to explain why his son should be prepared to help defend Montenegro (NATO’s newest member), Trump said he had asked the same question himself, called the Montenegrins “very aggressive people,” and then warned that “they may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III. Now I understand that--but that’s the way it was set up.”

Wrong, Donald. If one actually reads Article 5, it says: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence … will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Translation: While an attack on a NATO member is to be viewed as an attack on all of them, this would not apply if a NATO member starts the conflict. More importantly, Article 5 does not commit any of the parties to use military force, although the use of force is clearly an option. Rather, it calls upon all the parties to “assist” the members that were attacked, but it does not specify the precise form such assistance would take.

To be sure, in many scenarios the use of force would be appropriate. But NATO has declined to use force to help member states in the past, and whether it does so in the future would depend on the specific scenario involved, the options available, and the interests of the members at that time. That is why Article 5 was written as it was.

2. NATO is not a club, and there are no dues. Trump has repeatedly complained about NATO burden sharing and claimed that European states “owe us a tremendous amount of money” for protecting them. Such complaints about so-called European free-riding go back decades, of course, but Trump’s charges misstate the issue and miss the point. There are no membership dues in NATO, and none of the members has ever committed to pay the others for protecting it. Rather, each state decides how much it is willing and able to spend on defense, and the alliance as a whole tries (with varying degrees of success) to coordinate these defense preparations in order to produce a more capable force.

There is no question that NATO’s European members spend a smaller percentage of GDP on defense than the United States does. They don’t spend it very efficiently either, so their actual combat power is much less than America’s. For this reason, U.S. leaders from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama have been critical of Europe’s level of effort--and sometimes in very pointed terms. But the real issue isn’t the amount that European nations spend; after all, they spend far, far more than Russia does every single year. Europe could double its defense spending tomorrow, and it wouldn’t be a whole lot safer, both because it would need to change how it organizes its defense and because it is not clear what it should spend the money on anyway. Improving Europe’s capacity to police borders against migrants would probably yield greater benefits than buying more tanks, supersonic aircraft, or artillery pieces.

Moreover, simply comparing U.S. and European percentages of GDP doesn’t tell you what level of effort is the right one. Europe may be spending too little, or maybe the United States is spending too much. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that both statements are true. In either case, it’s surely odd for Trump to try to jawbone Europe into paying more while simultaneously shoveling more of the American taxpayer’s money into the U.S. Defense Department’s gullet. Pro tip: If you want your allies to spend a bit more on their own defense, try spending a bit less to subsidize them.

3. NATO expansion was a mistake. Really. If Trump is mostly confused about NATO, its most ardent defenders remain committed to a set of truisms and dogmas that were questionable when first advanced and have become less and less defensible with time. Chief among these myths is the idea that NATO expansion would create a vast zone of peace in Europe and give the alliance a new and lofty purpose in the wake of the Cold War.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. For starters, NATO expansion poisoned relations with Russia and played a central role in creating conflicts between Russia and Georgia and Russia and Ukraine. It’s not the only reason, of course, and I’m not saying Moscow’s responses were legal, proper, justified, or based on an accurate perception of NATO’s intent. I’m only suggesting that Russia’s response was not surprising, especially in light of Russia’s own history and the George H.W. Bush administration’s earlier pledges not to move NATO “one inch eastward” following German reunification. The architects of expansion may have genuinely believed that moving NATO eastward posed no threat to Russia; unfortunately, Russia’s leaders never got the memo (and wouldn’t have believed it if they had).

Furthermore, expanding NATO increased the number of places the alliance was formally obligated to defend (most notably the Baltic states) but without significantly increasing the resources available to perform that task. Once again, proponents of expansion assumed these commitments would never have to be honored, only to wake up and discover they had written a blank check that might be difficult to cover. And we now know that expansion brought in some new members whose commitment to liberal democracy has proved to be fairly shallow. This situation may not be a fatal flaw, insofar as NATO has tolerated nondemocratic members (e.g., Turkey) in the past, but it undermines the proponents’ claim that NATO is a security community based on shared democratic values and an essential element of a liberal world order.

4. NATO is an anachronism. Everyone knows Lord Ismay’s famous quip about NATO’s core mission: “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Irony aside, that pithy summary made a good bit of sense during the Cold War, and especially during NATO’s earliest years, when the U.S. commitment was less certain, the Soviet threat loomed larger, and Germany’s post-World War II evolution was just beginning and its endpoint uncertain. None of these rationales applies today.

For all the hype about a resurgent Russia and its obnoxious efforts to interfere in other states’ democratic processes, Russia is in fact a declining power that poses no threat to dominate Europe. Its population will decline over time, its median age is rising rapidly, and its economy remains mired in corruption and overly dependent on energy exports whose long-term value will probably go down as well. Remember, we are talking about a country whose entire economy--the ultimate foundation of national power--is smaller than Canada, South Korea, and Italy. Europe does not need the United States to protect it, especially considering that France and the United Kingdom also have nuclear deterrents of their own.

Nobody needs to worry about keeping the Germans down either. Germany’s population is shrinking and aging, too, and there is no danger of Germany reverting to its Wilhelmine or Nazi past, and even worrisome right-wing nationalist groups such as the Alternative for Germany party sound more like German isolationists than future empire builders. If anything, the danger is that Europe’s largest economy won’t do enough to help fix the continent’s continued economic woes. As former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski put it back in 2011, he was less fearful of German power than of German inaction.

NATO’s dirty little secret, I believe, is the fear that if the United States leaves, its European members will fall back into the sort of interstate rivalry that repeatedly convulsed the continent in the past.

5. The United States cannot fix NATO. There’s no question that Trump’s handling of NATO has been deeply disruptive, to no good purpose. After all, if you want to get tough with China on trade and do more to constrain Iran’s activities in the Middle East, a smart strategist would get Europe on your side and work constructively with them toward these ends. Trump has done precisely the opposite: tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran, starting trade wars with everyone he can think of, insulting European leaders, and driving his own image (and that of the United States) down to levels unseen in years. That might suit some of America’s adversaries, but it is hard to see how it advances any of the country’s core interests or even Trump’s own stated goals.

Even so, NATO’s present problems predate Trump and are largely the result of long-term structural forces. In the absence of a common, clear, and present danger, sustaining an elaborate multinational alliance was always going to be difficult, and it is in some ways a testimony to past diplomatic artistry that NATO has kept going as long as it has and despite the failures in Afghanistan and Libya and the divisions that erupted over the war in Iraq. Even if Trump had stuck with the status quo, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment, and played nicely with Europe’s leaders, it would not have reversed the gradual erosion of the trans-Atlantic partnership.

A better course would have been to start a gradual, constructive, and if possible amiable decrease of the U.S. security role in Europe, making it clear to U.S. allies that Washington no longer believed it needed to maintain a security presence there and that it planned to be either completely or nearly out in five to 10 years. The United States might conceivably remain a formal member of NATO, but it would no longer station forces there, no longer insist that the supreme allied commander in Europe be a U.S. officer, and no longer expect the Europeans to fall obediently into line whenever Washington barked orders. Trade, investment, and tourism would continue, and U.S. arms manufacturers would be free to sell to European buyers if these states decided to bolster their defenses. Meanwhile, the United States would be free to focus on other problems.

Contrary to what you might think, I’m not anti-European, let alone anti-NATO. The alliance was a bold achievement for its time and one that served both the United States and Europe well in the past. But as I wrote back in 1998: “[N]othing is permanent in international affairs, and NATO’s past achievements should not blind us to its growing fragility. Instead of mindlessly extending guarantees to every potential trouble spot, and instead of basing our foreign policy on a presumption of permanent partnership, it is time for Europe and the United States to begin a slow and gradual process of disengagement. This is going to happen anyway, and wise statecraft anticipates and exploits the tides of history rather than engaging in a fruitless struggle to hold them back.” It was true back then and is even truer today.

[nonmillenniallive]

Politically Correct - Is it Correct?

Politically Correct - Is it Correct? The way I spend my days is making sure everyone in and around my life are doing well, trying to be productive and taking care of daily commitments.  So I need to ask... who has the time to dive into elements of society so deeply.  I keep looking more and more at the news and wonder who it's produced for.  Everyone is making an effort to be politically correct -- Is it correct. I don't care what your background and preferences are.  I like everyone who is a good person.  In fact, one of my little quirks is wondering why people choose the work they do and to learn about all the things I never knew goes into the job.  Whether service or product, I want to know more. Two Nights Ago I was flipping through channels and ended up on Tucker Carlson.  Why? Because there was a banner on the bottom of the screen regarding taking the word man out of the English language.  Why?  Because it is offensive.  Every word that has the derivative man in it needs to be changed. Yup,  a professor in Indiana (I think that's where it was) determined this need for language change.  So we should no longer be humans.  We are now hupersons.  There are no congressman or woman.  Only congresspersons. Apparently every word or thought that is not gender neutral is offensive.  First really?  This is the most important thing to accomplish in the world. So if I'm having a child and someone asks .. are you having a boy or a girl?  I'm supposed to say. "I'm having a person." Once I have this person, he/she will have different needs.  So how do we handle this?  The book that's supposed to teach children about the potty.   How do you teach a person with different anatomy to be gender neutral? Someone please enlighten me? Race inequalities Aren't we passed this?  The statistics have changed.  People of every shape, size and color accept everyone.  Differences are appreciated and  judgement is gone for all.  The majority isn't defined by difference; it's defined by sameness. However, there are a small groups of people that try to keep this idea active. In my opinion, by doing that, you actually create a problem.  Most people really think ... if you're not judging me, I won't judge you.  If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Does it really have to be this big a deal? Small Groups With Big Voices There are people in this world that have  situations or tendencies that are less common that others .  Most are a fraction of a % of the US, let alone, world population. Should they be respected?  Absolutely!  Should we change our whole culture and government allotments to accommodate the few over the many? What About the Many? A month ago, I was watching the news and saw that the State of New York is going to give free college tuition to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). So, if I am a US citizen and live in NY State,  I have to pay or take loans to finance my education, but a non-citizen gets a free ride? I can't believe the people in the State aren't having a fit. No loan forgiveness for most citizens?  No special financing for citizens? How did this happen?  I absolutely feel the DACA people are in a quandary. It's not unsolvable.  It's actually simple.  If you want to be a citizen, you enter the legal process to become a citizen.  Maybe there is a temporary green card to give time to get through the naturalization process and you're good. Someone has to be able to do the math to figure out how to set levels to mix them into the existing naturalization plan.  That doesn't seem too hard. Could it be as simple as get rid of the lottery system and replace these spots  with the DACA people? The question then arises about their family, who are also here illegally here.  Well, then there is a choice to make.  Can they try to naturalize?   If not, they made a choice. Why do I have to make choices about how I spend my resources and manage my family, but others do not? The Silent Majority and Our Elected Officials I cannot imagine the pressures and people trying to sway their interests everyday. However, the novel idea  (that shouldn't be novel at all) that is emerging is having these public servants making things easier for the majority's needs proportionately to the minority.  Again majority is by mindset and needs, not any other definition. Things need to be prioritized.  The two party system no longer working. It's just too partisan. The reason the silent majority are silent is because the minute  they something, they are labeled all kinds of things.  Because of that they keep quiet. They know their voices will be drowned out. Every so often I watch a topic closely.  And you can literally see officials flip flop for political gain. Let's go back to DACA as an example.  Everyone agreed on tenets of what can solve the problem.  However, it is more important to not solve it as some believe it will create an advantage for the mid-term elections. So DACA stays in the news and diverts attention from North Korea, celebrating the Olympics or just telling a positive new story. Do you know where I get most of my warm fuzzies?  From posts on Facebook.   If you want a heart warming story there are tons posted there. People Without a Clue - Politically Correct? I still don't know the definition of misconduct.  The few men I have spoken to about this have said they don't know where the line is. Some are saying they don't want to hire or work with women because they are afraid of what they could be accused of. Others are considering making date ground rules to avoid accusations later. Can you imagine? Hi Jen. I'm looking forward to our date tonight.  If it is going well and you'd like a kiss good night.  Please let me know.  Now, if we kiss and it is a pleasant experience, please raise your right hand.  I will ask if you would like me to walk you to your door or we can just meet separately and avoid any awkwardness later. There's a chance our society is going to die out. People can come forward years later.  Even after things have been investigated to the hills and say they were violated.  And in their perspective they probably think they have been treated badly. But what is abuse?  What is misconduct and what is permissible at one point in time and then not so years later?  Now no one knows. And what is abuse?  Has that definition changed too? When I was in college, I thought one possible profession for me was to be a psychologist or psychiatrist.  My summer internships were at different departments in the county's social services.  One summer was adoption and undercare.  Another summer was child protection and a third summer was mental health. With this and other experiences in my life, I have had the humbling opportunity to see what real abuse is. Sit in a family court room for a week and see what real abuse is.  Spend a day with a social worker and you'll see what real abuse is. As an intern, they only expose you to the most mild of cases.  Here are four quick stories that made me throw up after.   I wish I knew how their lives all turned out. The Sugarcoated Versions of These Stories 1.. Give the Child A Chance: A child had a a traumatic head injury from his dad harming him as an infant.  From 6 months to 3, he lived in a loving foster home.  The foster family wanted to adopt him. His biological family would not relinquish him. Every week I had to take this well groomed, happy child to his parents, where four adults and 3 dogs lived in one filthy room.  The child would cling to me the whole time.   They had no idea how to connect with him.  When the child saw me, he would cry and hold onto his foster mom, because he knew where he was going. 2. Emotional Care vs Convenience: An 11 year old had, he, and his 12 brothers and sisters put into foster care, because the parents couldn't afford to take care of them.  Once they got on their feet, they took all the kids back but the 11 year old.  He kept running away from foster homes and return to his family.  To stop this, they put him in a mental institution.  There he had whole new challenge.  It changed him into a cynical and paranoid individual  I won't  write the things I saw there.  Let me tell you; it is beyond anything you can imagine. 3. What's the Return Policy: A 7 year old adopted child was returned to social services after 3 years with his family.  Prior to the adoption he had a drug addicted mom and was left alone to take care of himself from 18 months on.  He was completely neglected and abused.  Again, beyond your imagination. His return to foster care was not because he had issues.  He was a sweetheart.  Not because the family couldn't afford to take care of him.  He was returned because too many people said he didn't look like the rest of the family.  Social services tried to help the family come to terms with their decision.  It seemed they were successful. Then the family went to a church event where it was mentioned a few times.  (The irony isn't missed that this happened at a church event) That's when they moved forward to returning him. They didn't tell the child that he was going back to foster care.  The social worker, who I accompanied, had to.  The child's suitcase was packed and they called him downstairs and he was told.  He cried harder than anyone I've ever seen.  Screaming mommy, daddy as I carried him out.  I sat in the back of the car with him and he held on to me so hard.  He was brought to a temporary home for the weekend and then the next week he'd go to a more permanent foster family. We brought him into the foster care house and he wouldn't let go.  He was devastated.  After a half hour, the social worker felt he had acclimated enough and we could leave.  He was told we were going and he grabbed my leg and didn't want me to leave. The social worker separated him from me and had me leave first.  As we pulled out of the driveway, he was in the window watching and crying. I still remember his face as if it just happened. 4. Murder: The 20 year old who shot his baby in the head: This case was in criminal court.  They wanted me to see how that part of the system worked.  It's nothing like you see on TV. Simply, this young man was making a drug deal and his child began to cry in the back seat as they were negotiating money.  The child wouldn't stop.  So, he shot him.  The baby didn't die immediately.  He died on the way to the hospital.  Thank goodness someone saw what was happening and called it in. After the first crime scene picture, I couldn't look anymore. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with parole option after 5 years. These are the sugarcoated versions of these stories.  Noe you can see why I vomited upon returning home those night. Uncomfortable vs Abuse As I hear people say I was uncomfortable after submitting to an activity to make them rich and famous.  Or, to become rich and famous after the fact. Or, to create a stir to harm someone who is in the public eye. Now, one person, that I'm aware of, refused the uncomfortable incident and didn't become rich and famous.  She made a choice. If someone is uncomfortable they should feel empowered to say so.  And it should be respected.  It also has to be reasonable.  Or it can become a can of worms. I don't know how these lines are going to be drawn or how they will be defined in a policy way. These moments of discomfort only makes it harder for people really abused. Their voices are the ones really unheard.   Humble and Kind I use this every time any controversial subject comes up.  I say this to my kids all the time. If you are humble and kind, many big things can become solvable and small.  It's all about listening and learning. https://youtu.be/awzNHuGqoMc This post has a ton of subjects covered.  Tell me which ones need a deeper look.  Or tell me your reactions.     Read the full article

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Manga-Anime Guardians Project : Takanori Nishikawa Councillor Inauguration Ceremony at Anime Japan 2017

As previously reported, 46-year-old Japanese rock singer Takanori Nishikawa (T.M. Revolution) joined the Anime Japan 2017 event to attend his inauguration ceremony as councillor for the Manga-Anime Guardians Project on March 26. The project, which was launched in 2014 as the first cross-industry anti-piracy measures for manga and anime, provided the Crunchyroll News an official report and photos from the event.

      The Manga-Anime Guardians Project ~Takanori Nishikawa Councillor Inauguration Ceremony~ was held

at AnimeJapan 2017, one of the largest anime events in Japan that took place from March 23 to 26.

  In addition to exhibition booths for regular visitors to enjoy, AnimeJapan 2017 also featured exhibitions

and events related to the anime industry. The inauguration ceremony was hosted by the Manga-Anime-

Piracy Committee on the final day of the event (March 26) as a part of the scheduled business seminar.

  Artist Takanori Nishikawa, “Your Name.” Executive Producer Yoshihiro Furusawa (TOHO CO., LTD. General

Manager/Producer, Acquisition & Production, Theatrical & Video), and Manga-Anime-Piracy Committee

Executive Director Daisuke Okeda spoke at the ceremony and during the discussion afterward. Here is a

summary report of the exceptional event.

    The Manga-Anime-Piracy Committee in which Takanori Nishikawa was inaugurated as councillor is commonly

referred to as the Manga-Anime Guardians Project (MAGP). It was established in 2012 and consists of numerous

comic publishers and anime companies. As its alias suggests, the committee serves as a “guardian” that aims

to stop the circulation of pirated digital anime and manga in Japan and other countries. It also aims to assist

in developing a system that provides fans outside of Japan with authorized access to content. Under the support

of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the committee operates with renowned supporting organizations

including Aniplex, Kadokawa, Shueisha, Studio Ghibli, and Toei Animation.

  Through a range of activities such as the opening of Manga-Anime here (http://ift.tt/1oEO0Bo),

a website that directs fans to authorized content, MAGP has continued to make steady progress in its operations.

With the inauguration of Takanori Nishikawa as its councillor, more positive progress is sure to come. The Manga-

Anime Guardians Project ~Takanori Nishikawa Councillor Inauguration Ceremony~ can be considered as a

commemorable first step towards further success.

  The ceremony began when Danny Choo - Smart Doll creator and CEO of Mirai Inc. - stepped onstage as the host.

After introducing himself and offering a brief overview of his Smart Doll, Choo welcomed Okeda to the podium.

  Okeda offered an explanation of MAGP operations as well as its two main duties: to counter piracy and to encourage

authorized distribution of content. Details of the actions taken to fulfill each duty are listed below.

  ■ Countering Piracy

 1. Issue warnings to websites providing digitally pirated content and requesting their closure

 2. Take legal action against operators of particularly malicious websites providing digitally pirated content

 3. Study public awareness of the effects pirated content has on authorized distribution of content

 4. Take measures against counterfeit merchandise

  ■ Encourage authorized distribution of content

 1. Host and operate a workgroup for digital strategies

 2. Develop education programs

 3. Negotiate with advertisers and search engine operators

  As described in the details above, MAGP is not only focused on countering pirated content circulating on the Internet

but is also making efforts in raising copyright awareness, negotiating with search engine operators to encourage

authorized distribution of content, and other enriching activities. Because MAGP operates while paying close attention

to the voices of anime fans, it decided to appoint Nishikawa as its councillor to bring the project closer to the fans.

    With Choo’s invitation, Nishikawa and Furusawa stepped onstage and were welcomed with a thundering applause.

As part of the inauguration ceremony, Okeda read the councillor’s oath aloud. Nishikawa then accepted the documents

with a brilliant smile and proudly presented them to the audience.

      Following the ceremony, a discussion was held where all members talked about the future of MAGP and its

operations.

  When requested to comment on his inauguration, Nishikawa began by sharing his experience in “animemirai”,

an experimental project launched by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to elevate the status of anime production

staff and improve their working environment. “Products of animemirai such as “Death Billiards” and “Little

Witch Academia” are being broadcasted on television. When we share the content that we love so much with

other viewers in Japan and other countries as well, I believe that it’s important for us to focus on protecting

authorized content,” Nishikawa stated.

  “Of course, the focus isn’t only placed on limiting distribution. It’s also about opening the gates to other countries

and regions so that more viewers will have access to authorized content. I truly appreciate this opportunity to

exchange opinions with everyone here, and I will be sharing my experiences with the rest of the committee,”

Nishikawa added while showing enthusiasm for his new role as a councillor.

      Furusawa followed by expanding on the proliferation of digitally pirated content centered in other countries.

  “To popularize animation outside of Japan, we will continue creating environments that allow for simple, instantaneous,

and authorized distribution of large volumes of content. Furthermore, we need to develop revenue models - in which

product sites themselves should be included - that make it possible for profits to be earned from other countries.”

  “Fans who live outside of Japan do not consume pirated content because they prefer to do so. When they search for

a title, the results that come back are often pirated. There are even times when fans outside of Japan will innocently

go on and tell directors that they watched pirated versions of their work,” Furusawa said before letting out a strained

laugh.

  “In the case of ‘Your Name.’, fans residing in China who watched the previous works from Director Makoto Shinkai

through inauthentic routes still visited theaters for his new film. Exposure to a title could make someone to gain

interest and become a fan. It would be ideal if all access to content could be made through official and authorized

routes, though. Since this task is too much for a single organization to handle, we need support from the government

and also from the industry as a whole. In my opinion, if we do not popularize Japanese animation in other countries

in the near future, the industry will not be able to grow,” warned Furusawa.

  Furusawa’s statement was enough to make one wonder whether or not the exportation of Japanese anime through

“Cool Japan” that was highly praised some time ago could truly be considered a complete success. Nishikawa was

also well aware of the situation, and added to the discussion with the following powerful comment: “Many of Cool

Japan’s policies were unclear or difficult to understand. Parts of their operations only involved requests for funding

from the government and didn’t lead to any actions. Rather than settling for a budget that isn’t made for specific

actions, I think we should work together to increase the awareness and understanding of the issue that the Ministry

of Economy, Trade and Industry and other politicians have by asking them to watch more anime. As consumers of

content, I feel there may also be a need for all of us to examine whether or not quality content is actually being

offered.”

      Okeda responded to Nishikawa’s comment by directing the discussion back to the MAGP’s role in encouraging

authorized distribution of content and its activities in hosting a workgroup for digital strategies. The workgroup

summarizes issues that individual organizations cannot resolve on their own, and also makes concrete requests

for assistance to the government. Through such practices, MAGP is able to unite the government and privately

held companies to counter piracy and encourage authorized distribution of content.

  Along with the discussions listed above, a wide range of topics including national differences in demands for

subtitled or dubbed content, as well as the rise of the Chinese film market to the second-largest in the world

behind North America, were also examined. At the end of the event, the speakers offered the following closing

comments:

  “Over the next twelve months, Mr. Nishikawa will be sharing our message with others at various events and

occasions. Although MAGP is a supporter behind the scenes [in the anime industry], we aim to serve as a committee

that can bring the industry together to discuss common issues and themes that we are working on.” (Daisuke Okeda)

  “Five years ago, TOHO established a department that is dedicated to anime. Since the establishment, we have

become closer to the foreign markets that have now become significant sources of revenue. In my opinion, the

growing population of China and the people of Korea - who are becoming more willing to accept and consume

Japanese anime - are opportunities that have yet to be explored. In the future, I believe that Asian anime fans

will move past anime and also come into contact with other parts of Japanese culture. Opening up these new

markets will require plenty of energy, but if we go ahead and do so, we should be able to look back 10 or 20 years

from now and be glad that we did. This event reminded me of the need for us to offer all the energy we have to

reach our goal.” (Yoshihiro Furusawa)

  “The formalness of the name MAGP and the fact that it’s a project belonging to the Ministry of Economy, Trade

and Industry gives it a rather harsh image. However, we want to share what creators have put their hearts and

souls into through an authentic and improved format. Our project is all about being there to offer help and support.

Through this project, I hope we can share the awareness of Japanese creators - or something similar to that - to

the rest of the world in a straightforward fashion.” (Takanori Nishikawa)

    The comments marked the end of the 40-minute long Manga-Anime Guardians Project ~Takanori Nishikawa Councillor

Inauguration Ceremony~. With Nishikawa as its councillor, the Manga-Anime Guardians Project is expected to increase

activities directed towards the general public. There should be much to look forward to from the Manga-Anime Guardians

Project in the near future.

    (Interview & Text: Michi Sugawara)

(Photography: Misaki Ichimura)

  By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[brajeshupadhyay]

Japan’s longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is set to be named the country’s prime minister on 16 September, succeeding Shinzo Abe who resigned from the position citing health reasons. Suga will serve for Abe’s remaining tenure until September 2021. Described as Abe’s right hand man, Suga was born in 1948 to a strawberry farmer and school teacher and worked in the fields as a child. According to a biography by Isao Mori, Suga’s father told him to work on the family strawberry farm, but he decided to move to Tokyo at a young age. He later studied a bachelors degree in law at the Hosei University in 1969. He also worked odd jobs in Tokyo – first with a cardboard company and then driving turret trucks at a fish market. According to reports, when Suga decided to pursue politics, lacking family connections, he asked the career services center for an introduction to a member of Parliament. In 1975, Suga took a job as secretary to Hikosaburo Okonogi, a member of the House of Representatives from Yokohama, Japan’s second-largest city. His duties included buying cigarettes and parking cars. He also quickly learned how to cater to a constituency. At Suga’s wedding to his wife, Mariko, in 1980, according to Mori’s biography, a supporter of Okonogi said he had bought shoes for Suga because he “quickly wore them down” going door to door to visit voters in the district. The Sugas have three sons, but in a debate last week, Suga admitted that he had rarely been home as they were growing up. In 1987, he ran for a seat on the City Council in Yokohama, where he became known as a “shadow” Yokohama mayor. He helped develop transportation links to the port and pushed to reduce waiting lists at city day care centers. In 1996, Suga leapt to national politics, winning a seat in the lower house of Parliament. Under Abe's first administration in 2006, Suga headed the internal affairs ministry, where he introduced a hometown tax programme, offering tax deductions for those who donate money to local municipalities. Even after Abe left office following a series of scandals, Suga remained loyal. Suga has also trumpeted his brainchild, a system that allows citizens to donate money to local governments in exchange for locally sourced gifts, according a report by The New York Times. Many small-town governments, however, have lost money by spending more on gifts like marbled wagyu beef or shipments of fresh lobsters than they raised in donations. On foreign policy, Suga has worked to fill holes in his portfolio. He visited Washington last year, the first chief Cabinet secretary to make such a trip in three decades. Eventually, when Abe rose to power in 2012, he selected Suga as the chief cabinet secretary, acting as Abe's spokesperson, coordinating policies and keeping bureaucrats in line. Suga's closeness to Abe meant he was seen as someone able to speak frankly to the prime minister. He notably advised him against a controversial 2013 visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which is viewed by neighbouring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, AFP reported. Suga repeatedly has praised Abe’s diplomacy and economic policies when asked about what he would like to accomplish as prime minister. He also has defended scores of favoritism and cronyism scandals, saying that investigations into the cases were properly handled. Suga, whose portfolio also included a ministerial role as head of Okinawa issues in the Abe-led government, has offended local leaders with his high-handed approach to a disputed relocation of a US Marine air station on the southern island, according to The Associated Press. He also sparked criticism last year over his hostile responses to a female reporter asking tough questions about Abe’s policies and scandals. Hailing from the Akita prefecture and known as a leader not belonging to a dynasty or a political family, he was named Uncle Reiwa after unveiling the name of the new Japanese era during the transformation from Emperor Akihito to his son Naruhito in 2019. "He was very quiet," said Hiroshi Kawai, a former high school classmate who still lives in Suga's hometown of Yuzawa and works as a local tour guide, told Al Jazeera. "He was someone you wouldn't notice if he was there or not." “I will devote all of myself to work for the nation and the people," he said in his victory speech after the Liberal Democratic Party vote, which virtually guarantees his election in a parliamentary vote because of the majority held by the LDP's ruling coalition. Suga will take office in the middle of a pandemic that has devastated Japan’s economy, effectively erasing years of growth under Abe. Japan also is facing deepening pressure from China and North Korea. He is expected to further push for a revision of Japan’s pacifist Constitution and the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea. He has also said he would roughly stick to Abe’s signature economic formula, known as Abenomics, combining easy monetary policy, government spending and structural changes of industries like agriculture. He has also said he will confront longer-term issues such as Japan’s ageing population and low birth rate. Suga, a known strong opponent to a bill passed two years ago to sharply increase the number of foreign workers permitted in Japan, has been credited with helping Abe push through contentious security laws that allow Japan’s military to join overseas combat missions alongside allies. Speaking to the Associated Press, Suga said that he is a reformist and that he has worked to achieve policies by breaking territorial barriers of bureaucracy. He has credited himself for those efforts in achieving a booming foreign tourism industry in Japan, lowering cellphone bills and bolstering agricultural exports. On Monday, he pledged to crack into vested interests and rules hampering reforms. Suga has said he wants to maintain communication and develop strategic ties with China and South Korea despite rocky relations with them. News reports also revealed that Suga, a teetotaler with a sweet tooth, starts and ends each day with 100 situps. On his website he says he likes river fishing and karate.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/reformist-who-breaks-territorial.html