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toffee-rambles · 8 months ago

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SDV Green Rain Dialogue Compilation

I haven't seen anything like this yet, despite how intriguing this event is, so I pulled all the related dialogue lines from the game files! There's three types of dialogue: one for the first year, one for the day after, and one for the following years.

This is quite long and major spoilers, so it's under the cut. All villagers, listed alphabetically, as well as a vague note on where they spend the day (which is lacking in some parts because I didn't get to see everyone on my run, feel free to confirm/correct any locations)

Abigail [Home?] "GreenRain": "I want to go exploring, but I can tell my Mom is kind of worried. I don't want to add to her stress.", "GreenRainFinished": "And just like that, everything's back to normal. It's like magic!$h", "GreenRain_2": "Have you seen all the crazy trees around town? Everything looks so different… I feel like we're in a fairy world.",

Alex [Home] "GreenRain": "What's going on out there? Any action?#$e#I gotta stay here with my grandparents…$s", "GreenRain_2": "I tried to go for a run this morning, but the plants have gone crazy! I couldn't get very far…",

Caroline [Home?] "GreenRain": "I've never seen green rain before… It must not be too dangerous if you made it here!", "GreenRain_2": "Ah, the special rain is back! This year, I'm going to make the most of it!#$e#This calls for a cup of green tea!$h",

Clint [Saloon] "GreenRain": "It's situations like this where a person's true character is put to the test.#$e#I'll keep Em… I mean, I'll keep everyone safe from the toxic rain!", "GreenRainFinished": "Well that was a dud. And here I thought it was finally my chance to be a hero. Oh well… Back to the grindstone.", "GreenRain_2": "I feel bad admitting it, but sometimes I wish there was a real disaster, not just some dumb green rain.#$b#Something to shake everything up, you know?#$b#Not that I want people to get hurt…#$b#I just want to feel alive… To feel like I have a purpose…",

Demetrius [Outside, in a hazmat suit] "GreenRain": "Don't mind me, @. I'm just collecting some samples. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!$7#$e#Erm… If you see my wife, can you tell her I'm okay?$7", "GreenRain_2": "The rain appears to be harmless, so I'm taking less precaution this year.",

Dwarf "GreenRain": "I can't see the color green very well.#$b#I guess it's part of living underground for so long.",

Elliot [Saloon] "GreenRain": "Let's not get in a tizzy, now… Gus! I propose a round of drinks to settle the nerves!%noturn", "GreenRain_2": "Ah, yet another unique day in the valley. Stimulating, to say the least!",

Emily [Saloon] "GreenRain": "There must be a meaning behind this… Nature is trying to tell us something.$3#$e#What, though? I can't tell… It's hard to read. I feel a strong presence, though…$3", "GreenRain_2": "Can you feel it? The forest is singing! The trees are dancing with joy!",

Evelyn [Home] "GreenRain": "George, dear… Is this the end? It's been a good life, but I'd like to see Alex find his way before departing…$s%noturn", "GreenRainFinished": "Oh, my dear… I'm so glad everything ended up okay. And my flowers look healthier than ever!", "GreenRain_2": "The flowers seem to love this rain…",

George [Home] "GreenRain": "There, there, honey… Don't you worry.%noturn#$b#Even if it is poisonous, I breathed in more noxious gas in one minute back in the ol' coal mines… And I'm still kickin'!", "GreenRain_2": "Looks like the young folks will have to do some extra weeding after this one…Heheh…$h",

Gus [Saloon] "GreenRain": "I saw the weather report last night. It really gave me a scare!$s#$e#Are there monsters out there? What's happening?", "GreenRainFinished": "I'm glad that's over. Running the saloon is enough to worry about, I don't need exotic weather in my life!", "GreenRain_2": "sniff… These rains have a particular smell. Have you noticed? Almost like freshly minced herbs…",

Haley [Saloon] "GreenRain": "I don't think I've ever set foot in this place. It's actually kind of cozy!$h#$e#Oh, I'm not worried about the rain. I'm sure it'll pass.", "GreenRain_2": "Wake me up when there's a pink rain… Or better yet, a pink cake rain!",

Harvey [Saloon] "GreenRain": "I brought some medical supplies, just in case. Be careful out there!", "GreenRain_2": "The first time this happened, we were all worried that the rain might be dangerous.#$b#But what if it's actually healthy for the body? Who knows… The plants seem to respond well to it, at least.",

Jas [Marnie's Ranch] "GreenRain": "I'm scared…$s", "GreenRain_2": "I hope the rain doesn't turn my dress green…$s",

Jodi [Home] "GreenRain": "Are you alright? We've never seen anything like this before…$s#$e#I wish my husband was here. He'd know exactly what to do.$s", "GreenRain_2": "Vincent got up early to go play in the rain. I just hope they're right about it being completely harmless!",

Kent "GreenRain_2": "Heh… The rain is a blessing. A reminder that there will always be forces greater than anything conceived of by man.#$e#That's actually a comfort, @.",

Krobus "GreenRain": "The flow of water has been unusually strong today… what's going on up there?",

Leah [Home] "GreenRain": "Where did all these plants come from? It's a surprise, but I'm not complaining…", "GreenRainFinished": "I guess everyone in town was scared of that strange rain? I had no idea… I just thought it was incredible!$h", "GreenRain_2": "Imagine if this rain lasted all summer… The plants would take over the entire valley!",

Leo, only after moving to the town "GreenRain": "I like this weather… it's so humid. It reminds me of the forest back home.",

Lewis [Saloon] "GreenRain": "I just got off the phone with the Governor… Apparently this rain is supposed to be completely harmless. Just an unusual phenomenon of nature.#$b#Still, some of the townsfolk are panicking, which is never good…", "GreenRainFinished": "Well, that was quite the excitement for our little town! I'm just relieved that everyone is okay.$h#$e#If this ever happens again, I think we'll all be a little more relaxed. It's not the end of the world!", "GreenRain_2": "I guess we can expect these unusual rains every year. I think everyone is a little calmer knowing that it's just part of nature.",

Linus [Mountains] "GreenRain": "All these strange trees will be gone tomorrow… it's one of the mysteries of nature.", "GreenRainFinished": "How did the moss harvest go? Hehe… My bed is a lot softer now.", "GreenRain_2": "I've already gathered enough moss for the entire year. How about you?",

Marnie [Ranch] "GreenRain": "You're not worried about this rain? That does put me at ease a little…#$e#I just hope the cows tucked themselves in…$s", "GreenRainFinished": "Well, looks like we all got scared for nothing… The rain was totally harmless!", "GreenRain_2": "The animals seems to enjoy this rain… I think it's putting extra nutrients into the grass.",

Maru [Home, basement] "GreenRain": "I want to go collect samples with my dad, but my Mom is insisting we stay here…", "GreenRain_2": "This is a rare opportunity to study a unique phenomenon… every moment counts!",

Pam [Saloon] "GreenRain": "It's a sign from the Almighty… We're doomed…%noturn$s", "GreenRainFinished": "Well, I guess the end-times haven't come just yet, kid…#$e#Ah well, back to the ol' nine to five…", "GreenRain_2": "I think these rains are a show of force… a warning.#$b#You could say it's from nature, from Yoba, whatever you like… but that's what I think.#$e#What I mean is, we can't get too cocky. Or else, instead of a green rain, maybe we'll have a blood-red rain… See what I mean?",

Penny [Saloon] "GreenRain": "Are you alright? We're all wondering what's going on…$3", "GreenRain_2": "This strange weather is a good opportunity to get the kids interested in nature!$h",

Pierre [Store] "GreenRain": "Gahh, no customers! Any more of this 'green' rain, and my ledger will be in the 'red'!$s", "GreenRainFinished": "Well, I'm glad things are back to normal. Seems like it was all overblown… just like everything.", "GreenRain_2": "Glad to see you, @. What's a little toxic rain when you have seeds to buy?$h#$e#I'm just kidding. The rain seems to be completely harmless.",

Robin [Home, basement] "GreenRainFinished": "I hope Demetrius is happy with the 'samples' he collected. Seems like his little science project is more important to him than his own wife. Hmmph.$6", "GreenRain_2": "There's all kinds of good wood out there today. Better get chopping, huh?",

Sam [Home] "GreenRain": "Whaa! Is it acid? Will it burn through the roof and sizzle us alive?$8#$b#I gotta keep my little brother safe!$7", "GreenRainFinished": "Seems like there's no damage to anything… That was a strange one. How are you holding up?", "GreenRain_2": "You notice how warm this rain is? It feels alive…",

Sandy [Store] "GreenRain": "I heard there's a rare weather event in the valley.#$e#I wish it rained here sometimes…$s",

Sebastian [Home, basement] "GreenRain": "My mom's freaking out, but I'm actually kind of enjoying this. I bet the frogs are going wild out there!$h#$e#I'm gonna stay here to try and keep her calm, though.", "GreenRain_2": "I was hoping this weather would come back. It makes me appreciate the summer a little more.",

Shane [Marnie's Ranch] "GreenRain": "I don't have to go into work today, so I'm not complaining…", "GreenRain_2": "Oh, there's some kind of weird weather today? I didn't notice.",

Vincent [Home] "GreenRain": "Mom! I wanna go outside and play!%noturn", "GreenRain_2": "%Vincent is covered in moss.",

Willy [Saloon] "GreenRain": "Aye… I hope these weird rains don't bother the fish… It could ruin me life!", "GreenRainFinished": "Well, the fish seem as healthy as ever. In fact, I swear they've been biting with extra vigor!", "GreenRain_2": "If the fish like these rains, then I like 'em, too.",

Wizard [Home] "GreenRain": "Though the unusual rains may be alarming, there is nothing to fear on this day.#$e#In fact, it is a day of great joy for many living things.", "GreenRain_2": "Nature is a powerful force, not to be trifled with.#$e#Excuse me, but there are special matters I can only attend to on this day.",

#stardew valley #sdv #stardew valley 1.6 #sdv 1.6 #i got distracted w this. its now Late so im posting this and immediately going to bed #might try to post this on the reddit tomorrow idk

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kirnet · 2 years ago

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Don’t Wake the Ancients - Chapter 2

read on ao3 | previous chapter | next chapter

Two hours.

Dorotea and Verda were in that lab for two hours, frantically pouring over whatever evidence they had, checking and checking and triple checking the blood to see if exhaustion was just taking its toll. Verda had taken the news well at first, his jaw set, but over time he paled, his hands beginning to shake. He excused himself to the corner and pulled out his phone, quietly shushing the person on the other end as Dorotea politely pretended that she couldn’t hear.

“I love you, Eric,” he whispered, “and I love the girls.”

“No, no, don't come over. Yes, the captain knows. Yes, the detective-” he glanced up. “Dorotea is working hard. I’ll speak to you soon. Yes, I will.”

Captain Sung had been the first to know, and he assured Dorotea when he called back that a hazmat unit was on the way from the city. Protocol was being followed. Keep your head down and do your job.

God, Tina had been down here, too. And where had she gone? Haley’s? The bar? What was the incubation period? Was it even contagious? She ground her teeth as she meticulously reviewed every centimeter of every slide they had collected, bracing for the moment where she found the missing element and everything would click into place. Some sort of equipment error, obviously, or a possible chemical reaction with the film developer. Perhaps extreme shock had damaged the cells? But she had never seen anything to this extent.

In two hours, nothing.

Verda leaned back against the wall, his head in his hands.

Who would she even call in her final moments? Tina and the captain were already informed, and Lord knew that they had their hands full with their own worries at the moment. Calling anyone in the town would be unwise, their collective psyche on edge and ready to stampede after the discovery of the murder this morning. Maybe Rosa, her old nanny, who used to wash her hair and sing her to sleep?

Had she always felt this feverish, or was she just panicking?

“When I first started here,” Verda mumbled after a long silence, “I was convinced that you hated me. You just glared at everything.” He let out a strained laugh. “Now I know that it’s just your face.”

Dorotea’s brows pulled up. “Verda…”

“Even after knowing you for years, knowing your tells, you still seem so calm to me. Frankly, I’m jealous.” He sighed, removing his glasses and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Out of everyone to be stuck in this situation with, I’m glad it’s you.”

“This ain’t over yet,” Dorotea announced, a new fire in her veins. “The hospital has all of the information that we have. If anyone can figure out what’s happening, the team from the city can. We just have to hang tight and wait for them to get here.”

Verda’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “So we’re not curing this? No Langford-Verda vaccine?”

Dorotea shook her head, her dirty blond hair finally dry. “You’re a coroner, I only have my bachelor’s degree. If we do, then I’m expecting a six figure salary.”

Whatever reply Verda had died on his tongue as Dorotea’s phone rang. She snatched it up. “Langford.”

“Detective.” Captain Sung’s voice was clipped. “We are on the way to the station now. I wanted to give you as much warning as I could. The health concerns have been cleared.”

“Cleared?” Dorotea and Verda shared a glance, aghast. “Cleared by who?”

There was a pause. “By Rebecca.”

Verda’s eyes widened. “That Rebecca?”

But Dorotea didn’t hear him. All air had left her lungs, left the room, filling them with disinfectant and dust.

“Detective?”

Her teeth were bound together, muzzled. She could not separate them, could not even move a finger.

“Dorotea?”

A knock at the door.

Everything adrift in Dorotea snapped back into place, giving her vertigo. Still, she stood, straightened her back and adjusted her lab coat. “Captain, I need to note that I strongly disagree with this course of action and still recommend quarantine of the station.”

“Your opinion is noted. Open the door.”

Verda just shrugged at her look.

Dorotea shuffled over and unlocked the deadbolt.

Multiple figures crowded the narrow stairwell before her, all uncomfortably shuffling for space, but Dorotea looked past them, her gaze finding Captain Sung in the back. “Apologies, Captain,” she started before the woman in front could move forward. “I was the one who broke lab protocol and therefore am at fault. Verda is blameless.”

“Oh, Dorotea.”

Rebecca’s voice was oh so soft, cutting Dorotea like a fine blade. She finally shifted her gaze to her, Rebecca’s heels clacking with every step. She placed a well-manicured hand on Dorotea’s shoulder. “It’s been so long.”

Rebecca was tall, about Dorotea’s height, though she towered over her with the added inches from her shoes. Her pantsuit was perfectly tailored, emphasizing the lean tone of her body. Straight nose, stern brow, full lips and cheeks, all on full display, her long summer blond hair braided neatly over her shoulder.

Almost the spitting image of Dorotea.

Dorotea stiffened. “Yes, it has.” She stepped back, Rebecca’s hand falling away. “You cleared this? What is it, then? I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“We- my team and I-” Rebecca gestured to the four strangers behind her, “-have encountered this a few times before. To our best knowledge, it's the aftermath of a rare mutation that increases the amount of enzymes in the bloodstream, leading to a faster rate of cell death than normal. While incredibly confusing to come across, it is completely harmless and completely localized to the individual.” The corner of her lip quirked up. “Your instincts were good, though. Had it been something dangerous, you would have maximized everyone’s safety.”

Verda and Dorotea locked eyes. She glanced back at Rebecca, mouth open, before snapping it shut. “I thought you worked in security?” she finally asked, lips pursed.

Rebecca nodded. “I do.”

“And that involves encountering rare blood mutations?”

“Yes,” the man behind Rebecca snapped in a distinctly British accent. “It does.”

Dorotea finally spared him a glare. He was broad as a barn, tall, the strength of his limbs clear even under a pea coat and a pair of cargo pants. The harsh lighting did him no favors, bleaching his already pallid skin and short-cropped blond hair. Whatever look he was giving her was obscured by the rusty tint of aviator glasses perched atop a proud aquiline nose.

“Well, then we’ll need a full write-up of whatever you can offer about this mutation,” Dorotea eventually grunted, fingers balled in her lab coat. “If it affects other parts of the body, we don’t want our results-”

“Langford.”

Two pairs of brown eyes snapped to the captain.

“I think Doctor Verda would like to go home.”

“I-” Verda had removed his glasses, his red-rimmed eyes fully visible now. Dorotea’s heart fell somewhere into her abdomen. She placed a firm hand on his back. “Yes, of course. Can you get home by yourself?”

Verda nodded, the relief instant on his face. “Yes, yes I can. We can discuss this later, I just need- I-”

“It’s alright.” Captain Sung pointed his square chin up the stairs. “And take tomorrow off, too.”

Wasting no time, Verda threw his belongings together and scurried up the stairs, the glasses askew on his face.

Heavy air settled on Dorotea’s shoulders. She was then acutely aware of Janet’s corpse to the side of her, still waiting forever patiently on the table. “I should clean this up,” she murmured. “We can continue this later?”

“Yes, of course,” Rebecca sighed, taking another step forward. “Though, if you need anything…”

Whatever she had planned to say was halted by Dorotea’s withering glare.

Dorotea was sure her staircase didn’t used to be this long.

She trudged up the steps to her apartment, her boots knocking against the edges as the light flickered above her. Built a little unevenly on top of Mr. Brian’s hardware store, the one bedroom was a steal, Brian offering her the place for dirt cheap. The pipes groaned in the colder weather, but they never leaked, and she had to light the back burner of her stove with a match, but Mr. Brian was always quick with any repairs that she couldn’t manage by herself.

The whole unit might have been smaller than her bedroom as a child, but it was hers, all hers.

It took a few tries to get her lock unstuck (push in, then up, then turn the key). She shambled in, hung her dripping hat on the hook by the door, and kicked it closed. Idly, her eyes roamed over her collection of photos and frames that covered almost every available inch of wall. A fine layer of dust covered all of the knick-knacks gathered up on her scratched wooden furniture, all bought second-hand from rummage sales or gifted by a kindly neighbor. She brushed her finger over the five remaining strings on her father’s guitar propped up against the couch, the sixth long since snapped.

Her boots were the next to go, kicked off into some corner, then her jacket and shirt, until she was wriggling out of her damp jeans in the bathroom, the shower head coughing as it tried to bring up warm water. She carded a hand through her hair- short and choppy, cut by her own hands in this very bathroom- a deep sigh growing in her rib cage.

No, that was impossible.

She had barely been able to hide her shaking hand when the man spoke, his deep voice immediately putting her on edge.

There was no way that the man she maced in the forest was currently walking around with working eyesight, and there was certainly no way that he was a part of her mother’s team.

Steam rolled out of the shower, fogging up the mirror. Dorotea stepped in, scalding water rolling down her bony body. There was a logical explanation for this. She was exhausted, her emotions were running high. That, mixed with the memories from the witch’s cabin, were a recipe for jumping to conclusions. She needed sleep, a square breakfast when she awoke, and maybe a new habit of mindful breathing.

Feeling slowly returned to her numb toes. No, she was just accusatory because Rebecca had shown up unannounced. Everything would be sorted out in the morning.

Water burned her back.

She stepped out, skin now pink, and blindly fumbled for a towel before realizing that she had never grabbed one. She picked her shirt off from the floor, dried herself, and shambled over to her bed, not even bothering to turn off the light before climbing under the quilts.

The pattering rain pulled her into sleep instantly.

A square meal turned into a packet of instant oatmeal and a reheated cup of yesterday’s coffee, but Dorotea had made sure to take a few deep breaths as she lumbered down the stairs, Mr. Brian’s ruddy face greeting her from behind the store counter as he unlocked the register. Her windshield wipers worked overtime as her truck inched towards the station, water sloshing against her tires. Usually the other side of the road would be packed with cars, their headlights blinding her as they headed out of town. But the rains made it too dangerous to handle coal, so the majority of Wayhaven’s men remained in bed, at least for the time being.

Len was still at the front desk when she entered the station, some thick book about World War I open in front of him. He greeted her with a tired smile.

“Any trouble last night?” Dorotea asked, shaking her hat off as she went to unlock her office.

“A few calls of people thinking that they saw some stranger outside their window, but they all seemed to realize that it was just the wind or a neighbor taking their dog out.” Len shook his head. “And Miss Benedict called. She wants to know when’s a good time to come in and present her, uh, theories.”

Dorotea deflated. “Christ, doesn’t that woman ever sleep? Thanks, Len. I can hold down the fort until Douglas gets here.”

They said their goodbyes. Dorotea combed through the inbox on her desk. She hadn’t been able to go through the statements Tina took yesterday. No one heard anything, no one saw anything. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy both confirmed that they were asleep in bed for the whole night. Lance Huttle, the Abernathy’s farm hand, said he had spent his whole night at his house. Though he lived alone, one of the neighbor’s kids claimed that his truck had remained in the driveway when she went to bed around 2 a.m.

Dorotea walked to the corner of her office with the statements in hand. Her whiteboard was usually reserved for help with Garret’s homework or Tina’s doodles (one of Dorotea permanently lived in the upper corner, absurdly big cattleman hat and under eye bags the source of much teasing), but today it would have an actual use. Careful to preserve her portrait, she wiped it clean and started fresh. The farmhouse door was found ajar, and according to Abernathy it was always chained and padlocked at night. She’d have to track down the chain to see if it was cut or if the lock were somehow picked. She’d get Tina to- no, Tina was heading into the city now. Dorotea would do it after visiting Janet’s apartment-

“Dorotea?”

The whiteboard marker squeaked as her hand suddenly stilled. She squared her shoulders. “Good morning, Rebecca.”

Rebecca frowned at the formal tone, but it was quickly schooled back into a neutral expression as four familiar shapes entered behind her. “How are you after last night?”

“Able to work.” Dorotea crossed her arms. “Did Mayor Friedman ever contact the city, or were you contacted instead?”

“We were already in Wayhaven. The city contacted us, actually. We have experience with savage killings such as this.” Rebecca stepped to the side, fully revealing the people behind her. “Dorotea, I would like you to meet my team, Unit Bravo. They will be assisting you on this case. Bravo, meet my daughter.”

Dorotea bit her cheek at the pride dripping from her mother’s voice. “I assume you already went above my head and got the mayor and captain to sign off on this?”

Straightening the braid over her shoulder, Rebecca sighed. “Both of them encouraged this union. This killer is top priority for us, and Wayhaven is out of practice dealing with something like this. Working together is the safest option for the town.”

Before Dorotea could answer, she gestured a man forward, one that had been subtly shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was absurdly tall, handsome, a charming smile lifting his graceful cheeks as he stepped towards her. His dark hair was swept into a bun, loose waves falling around his face in a way that Dorotea would usually think was done painstakingly in front of a mirror, though she believed that they really were effortless. His leather jacket rustled as he reached a tan hand out. “Nathaniel Sewell. But please, call me Nate.”

Nate’s grip was firm but gentle as Dorotea took his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

A woman bounded forward as Nate receded. She flashed an easy smile as she grabbed Dorotea’s hand, her pearl teeth almost glowing against her warm dark skin. Easily the shortest of the bunch, she wore a bright outfit of a purple scarf, patterned raincoat, and a lemon yellow beanie that hid most of her coiled hair. “Farah Hauville. Charmed,” she purred as she brought her lips down to Dorotea’s skin, her thick New Orleans accent dripping from every word.

“Less pleased.” Dorotea snatched her hand away, though it was hard to tear her gaze from Farah’s glimmering amber eyes.

To her credit, the rejection rolled right off Farah’s back. She shrugged, smile still gracing her full lips.

The next two refused to stop glowering, so Rebecca stepped in. “This is Agent Morgan,” she announced, gesturing to a woman with tan skin and a smattering of freckles. She had a wolfish look to her, angular, the steel-glint of her gray eyes and the sharpness of her cheeks at odds with the curvaceous build of the rest of her body. Her hair fell in thick layers around her face, some of them ending at the chord of leather that loosely hung from her neck, a heavy crystal pulling it down. Morgan tucked it into her shirt before Dorotea could examine it.

“Just Morgan?” Dorotea asked when she made no move to greet her. “Or is Agent your name?”

Cold hard silence.

Dorotea sucked in a breath, counting down in her head. “No disrespect meant, ma’am.” When Morgan just scoffed, she turned to the last man.

She didn’t need to consider him for long. Mostly, she was just wondering if he always wore those aviators during the darkest parts of the day. “Commanding Agent du Mortain,” the man from the lab boomed, arms crossed.

Nate shook his head, obviously embarrassed. “Adam…”

“Have we met before, Commanding Agent?” Dorotea asked, enunciating his title clearly through her drawl.

The agent- Adam, according to Nate- peered at her over his aviators. “Obviously not. This is my first time in Wayhaven.”

Dorotea frowned. “Guess you got one of them voices, then. Could have sworn I heard you before.”

“Your kind tends to have trouble with any type of nuance. It is not surprising that my accent would confuse you.”

“I have other matters to attend to,” Rebecca announced before Dorotea could snap back. She glided over to the door, resting her hand on the knob as she turned back. “I expect you to perform your duties to the best of your abilities.”

She left as Douglas shuffled into the station, barely looking up from his phone to avoid colliding with her.

The five stood in silence, wearily eyeing each other. Eventually, Dorotea cleared her throat. “Well, let’s get right to it, then. Our victim is Janet-“

Adam raised a hand. “We already have all of the most recent details of the case. Going over them again would be a waste of time.”

The stack of papers under Dorotea’s arm grew heavier. “I don’t even have all of the most recent info.”

“Hence why we were brought in.” Adam fully removed his glasses now, his glaring green eyes as pale as everything else about him. “Our specialty is succeeding where others fail.”

Dorotea’s nostrils flared. “Excuse me?”

“What Adam means,” Nate quickly added, waving his hands apologetically, “is that we have more experience on these cases-“

“No, I understand perfectly well what he meant.” Dorotea, only a few inches shorter than Adam, stepped into his personal space, her hat making up the difference. He raised a brow at her. “It has barely been 24 hours and you want to question my competence? I don’t know what- what on God’s green Earth do you think you’re doing?” She whipped around to Morgan, who didn’t even spare her a glance as she lit a cigarette with a silvery lighter.

“Smoking.” Farah cackled, gleefully watching the exchange.

“You can’t- Hold it!” Whatever lasting thread of composure Dorotea had managed to keep snapped as Adam reached for the door knob. “Where are you going?”

“To perform a duty you obviously can’t,” Adam grunted. “I grow weary of this. Each of us will go out and canvas the town. You may stay here and continue to make excuses.”

Nicotine stung Dorotea’s nose as she inhaled sharply. “Look,” she started, removing her hat to run a hand through her choppy hair. “I apologize. I am acting unprofessionally, and you’re right, I am making excuses.” Her voice softened. “I’m out of my depth. I have no experience with solving murders, as a cop or a medical examiner. Your expertise will be invaluable, and I am grateful to have you as a resource. But you admitted yourself that you don’t know Wayhaven.” She gestured to the row of buildings across the street, windows aglow in the dark morning. “You don’t know her people, her history, her rhythm. If you try to go out there as you are now, no one will give you the time of day.

“But I know her,” she continued. “And I want to keep her safe. You are welcome to your opinions on me and this station, but the fact remains that we both want this killer put away. You need me as much as I need you. Command your team, but you will treat me as an equal.”

To her surprise, Adam removed his hand from the door. Nate straightened, his relief obvious. “You’re right, Detective. Where would you recommend we start?”

“Janet’s apartment,” she answered in a breath. “So far, we’re flying blind. We need any insights we can glean from her life. Barring that, we need to wait for Verda to come back tomorrow to finish some lab work.”

“Take Farah and Morgan,” Adam grumbled as he put his shades back on. “If the ‘rhythm’ of this place is so important, then Nate can spend the morning finding it.”

Farah cheered, kicking her legs as she perched on the edge of Dorotea’s desk. Morgan’s scowl deepened. “Wonderful,” she growled, smoke curling around her lips.

With a hop, Farah took Morgan’s and Dorotea’s arms in hers. “Looks like we have a girl’s trip.”

“Is it always so fucking freezing here?” Morgan chattered around her cigarette, arms wrapped tightly around her body as the trio followed Mrs. Giles down the hall. Farah mumbled an agreement, her scarf covering her nose.

Dorotea chuckled as Mrs. Giles unlocked the door labeled 203. “Then let’s solve this case before the snow comes. That would outright kill you.”

Wayhaven may be small, but she was sprawling. Plenty of people had land to farm, orchards of apples and cherries and space for livestock and horses that Dorotea sometimes took along the forest paths. Some families had been here as settlers, their old log cabins replaced piece by piece into what they lived in now. If you had money, like Rebecca or Mayor Friedman, you lived at the north end of town, far away from the meager bustle of the town square. Those folk had lawns, manicured rose bushes, sprawling driveways that came to an end at a well-insulated house, though the rain didn’t discriminate.

And if you didn’t have money, you lived here. Most of the miners, the handful of school teachers, farm hands, and those relying on government assistance stuck to the apartment complexes just outside the center of town. Rent was affordable, usually, though lately Mrs. Giles had made a habit of raising it annually. Her only income since her poor husband died, she had cried at a town hall when her tenants complained. How else was she supposed to afford to live with the mortgage of three complexes?

“She was curious,” Mrs. Giles started as Dorotea entered the bare apartment. No couch, no table, no furniture save for a sleeping bag against the far wall and a pile of paper dishes in the kitchen trash. The bathroom door was open, and from where she stood Dorotea could see toiletries on the sink and clothes draped atop the shower curtain. The door to the bedroom was closed. “She only came here to sleep, according to the neighbors. Didn’t make an effort to get to know anyone.”

Ah, the good old rumor mill. “Anything else they might have told you?”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, but she was a bit of a-“ she glanced over at a shivering Morgan. “Well, let’s say that she didn’t dress for the weather, bless her heart.”

Dorotea rolled her eyes as she snapped on her gloves. “Thank you, ma’am. We can take it from here.”

Mrs. Giles huffed at the obvious dismissal, though she hovered around the front door for a bit before finally closing it. “This place stinks,” Morgan growled, nose pressed into her black leather jacket.

“I can open the window if you want.”

Morgan scoffed. “Hilarious. What are we doing here?”

“This place has a definite serial killer vibe,” Farah attempted to whisper as she poked at the sleeping bag with her foot.

“I don’t see any signs of struggle.” Morgan glanced at the door knob- intact- and around the bare walls. “I doubt she was taken from here.”

“Please try to avoid touching anything if you’re not wearing gloves.” Dorotea walked straight over to the closed door and pulled it open. She narrowed her eyes as light fumes wafted past her into the rest of the apartment.

Before she could look into the room, Morgan gasped. Dorotea swung around, quickly closing the distance and putting a hand on her back as she gagged. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s just sensitive to smells,” Farah tried to explain as she frantically looked around the room. Eventually she settled on the window. She raced over and lifted it up, allowing fine mist to blow into the room.

Morgan’s coughing died down, enough that she could stand and slam the window shut, almost cutting off Farah’s fingers in the process. “I think I have a mask in my glovebox if you need it,” Dorotea said, sliding her jacket off and holding it out.

“I’m fine.” Morgan slapped it away. “What the hell is in that room?”

“Janet had traces of film developer on her fingers,” Dorotea explained as she walked back to the room. Morgan and Farah stayed where they were.

She stepped fully into the room, careful to keep the door half-open behind her. Red light bathed her, turning everything into a bloody monochrome. The sole window in the room was covered with cardboard and tape, and the only sign that it was even there was the faint sound of rain hitting the glass. Two folding tables were set up on either wall, each covered in a variety of equipment and containers. “It’s a dark room. Where you develop camera film,” she called out after inspecting the set up.

“So our victim is a photographer,” she continued as she came into the living room. Her eyes snapped to Farah. “So, what’s missing?”

Farah tilted her head, almost cat-like. “What?”

“I thought you agents had all the facts. Quickly, now.” Dorotea snapped her fingers.

Morgan fished for a cigarette as Farah thought for a moment. Her eyes exploded into saucers. “There’s no camera!”

Dorotea nodded. “Good. No camera, no backpack, no laptop. There’s no film in the dark room, so I don’t think she’s developed any of it yet. My guess? We find the camera, then we find where Janet was killed.”

Smoke drifted towards the stained ceiling. “And how do we go about finding a single camera in hundreds of miles of woods?”

When the rain stopped, dogs could be called in. There might even be a lingering scent to follow. Maybe they would be lucky and find it in a clearing before the first snowfall. Dust it for prints, prints that were already in the system, and bring a bastard to justice. Janet Greenland could rest peacefully.

Sometimes miracles like that happened in Wayhaven.

But Dorotea, optimistic as she could be, was a woman of logic. Hope had its uses. Hope was necessary. Someone could stumble across the camera and possibly solve the case within a day. But the only newcomers she had heard of in Wayhaven were Janet and Unit Bravo. Statistically, the murderer was from the community, her community, the very people she would do anything to pay back the kindness they had shown her her whole life.

“I don’t know,” she answered instead, staring blankly at her reflection in the window.

Morgan and Farah were already back at the station when Dorotea arrived, just like they had been at Dorotea’s apartment. “Our agency has better cars,” Morgan had grumbled after Dorotea offered them a ride in her truck. “They don’t smell like wet dog.”

Their jackets drip-dried on the coat pegs in Dorotea’s office as they milled about, waiting for their other half to return. Nate eventually trailed in, shaking the rain from his arms. “How did it go?” he asked.

“The detective’s only lead is maybe hidden somewhere in the woods, if it’s not in someone else’s possession or washed halfway out to sea.” Morgan leaned against the wall, a healthy distance from where Farah curled up in a spare chair Dorotea had stolen from Tina’s desk.

When Nate made a confused face, Dorotea explained. “How did you find the town?”

“It’s nice. Quiet.” Nate pulled up a chair and sat across from Dorotea, his hands steepled in his lap. “I stopped by, what was it, Haley’s? She only had good things to say about you,” he added with a smile.

“Haley’s only got good things to say about everyone,” Dorotea said, cheek resting on her fist. Her notepad sat in front of her, scribbled with anything her ever-tiring brain could cough up. She could try to talk the mayor into offering up a reward for finding any other evidence, but sending everyone out into weather like this seemed like it would cause her more headache than anything else. Verda and Tina would be back tomorrow, hopefully with new leads of their own. Until then…

Dorotea sighed. Tina always had her nose in one of those god-awful detective books. They had even formed a bit of a book club over the years, cackling with wine glasses in hand as they read the smut scenes aloud. They were terrible, yes, but they had a way of compressing time into an exciting spectacle, not a slog of awkward waiting.

“You’re doing well, Detective.” She looked up at the sound of Nate’s honeyed voice. “And you have all of us right behind you.”

She attempted a weak smile. “Thanks. But I’ll believe you when I have this jackass in my holding cell.”

Morgan opened her mouth for a quip but suddenly stopped, her nose wrinkling. A few seconds later, Nate and Farah followed, their heads snapping to look through the window in Dorotea’s office to the welcome desk.

Lance Huttle trudged in, the hood of his raincoat drawn low over his face, but there was no mistaking him. A man accustomed to years of hard labor, Lance was massive, giving the Commanding Agent a run for his money. His lopsided shoulders moved under his coat as he removed the hood, his other arm busy protecting a plastic container from the elements. Blue eyes brighter than the lake on a summer day twinkled as Dorotea stood from her desk.

“Hey, missy,” he greeted in his gruff voice, giving Dorotea a side hug. Douglas spared the interaction a glance before turning back to his computer.

“What brings you out here?” Dorotea asked.

Lance scratched his scruffy neck. “Mrs. Abernathy made these just for you. She wants you to know how much we appreciate all of your hard work.”

Wayhaven had a hard time forgetting and an even harder time forgiving. The sins, or the boons, of your father were yours to carry, something both Lance and Dorotea had in common. It was long before Dorotea’s time- and hell, even Lance’s- when Wayhaven went on strike, refusing to work in the Friedman’s mines until their demands for higher wages were met. They weren’t, and the scabs started rolling in, most of them too desperate for a paycheck to even pay attention from the animosity from the town. Lance’s father had been among them, and while he might have once been a union man himself, he had a new wife with a new child growing inside her and what wouldn’t a father do for his young family? So he tolerated the abuse, and Lance grew up and became a miner just like his daddy, the strike long since over.

But when the layoffs started, the coal company claiming that the new safety equipment was simply too expensive to keep everyone on board, the town still remembered. Only Abernathy had offered him a job, and that was grudgingly, not that he would never admit that now. Dorotea’s generation mostly rolled their eyes when hearing the series of events, but they all still knew the tale well.

Dorotea took the container with a smile. “You know I can’t talk about the case.”

“I know,” Lance chuckled. “But Mrs. Abernathy thought it was worth a try.”

She popped it open. An ocean of thumbprint cookies filled it, each with a center of apple preserves. Douglas’s head snapped up as the aroma of shortbread filled the office. Dorotea held the container out to him, and Douglas wasted no time grabbing a handful, chipmunk-cheeks straining against the sheer volume he stuffed into his mouth. The memory of last night slammed into her as she stared at the sweets, and she set them on Douglas’s desk without taking one. “Thanks. You wouldn’t have anything more to offer as a statement, would you?”

Lance’s smile fell a tad. “Sorry, Tea, but no. I know the Abernathys are real shaken up about the whole thing, but if you ask me-” his voice lowered, and he leaned down to Dorotea’s ear- “Mrs. Abernathy is enjoying all of the attention. You should’ve seen how many casseroles came in through her door this morning.”

The door opened in Garret slid in, his red hair dark against his forehead. After getting a nod from Dorotea, he settled into Tina’s desk, though he grabbed a handful of cookies on the way.

“Well, give her my best.” She patted Lance’s solid back. “And keep an eye out for me, would ya?”

“Anything for you, missy.”

“Uh, Detective?” Douglas called as Lance excused himself. “You’ve got a call.”

She frowned at his prominent wince. “Who?”

“Miss Benedict.”

#dont wake the ancients #twc #dorotea langford #my writing #heeheehee im putting her in situations

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oldhauntsforgottenghosts · 5 years ago

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Eli

So this is a ‘review’ of sorts for the movie Eli, available on Netflix. There will be spoilers under the cut. The premise of the film is a boy who has a terrible illness (effectively ‘allergic’ to everything a la the ‘Bubbly Boy’) is brought to a ‘hospital’ for an experimental treatment. This hospital is actually a renovated old house which may or may be haunted. One thing that I do appreciate about this is that this movie takes a departure from the typical, overdone horror movie tropes, but alas, maintains some of the standard character archetypes at points. It starts out as a fairly slow burn, but once the action starts, it doesn’t really stop. Personally, I appreciate how much of this story is built off tension, rather than just gore and blood and jumpscares. While there IS some gore/gross shit near the ending of the movie and a few jumpscares, they are not the ONLY force driving the movie forward.

Probably should mention that this movie may trigger those sensitive to gore/medical procedures, jumpscares, and gaslighting/abuse. Spoilers follow under the cut.

So one of my favorite parts about this movie is the fact that the ghosts are not the ‘standard’ ghosts of any other horror movie. They go after Eli on a regular basis when he’s alone, terrifying the hell out of him, and quite frankly, me as well! They’re pretty fucked up looking, and when they pop out, they ARE a jumpscare,

That being said, they’re not actually evil - if anything, they do not actively attempt to HARM Eli, despite them attempting to drag him out of the house and terrifying him. In reality, they are trying to prevent him from suffering the same fate as he has. (My one gripe - if they were trying to get him out of the house, they should’ve ‘haunted’ his parents, as they were the ones with all the power, obviously).

Eli himself... Is interesting. For a young boy, he’s resourceful and intelligent, not to mention braver and more level headed than most adults. If anything, this borders into stupidity, as he continues to attempt to explore the rest of the house/hospital even after being told to not to multiple times. Despite all of this, his parents do not take him seriously, with his father being the worst offender.

His mother seems to be caring and loving for him, if subservient to her husband. Her husband, meanwhile, is a fucking piece of work. At no point is he a sympathetic or even likable character - if anything, he reads as abusive in the way that he talks to both his wife and son, not to mention his actions - as the movie wears on, not only is he short and terse with both members of his family, but he physically attacks his son at one point and drugs him at another to fulfill the final ‘treatment’. Perhaps thankfully, he does die near the end, along with the nuns pretending to be medical professionals.

Yep, nuns. So it turns out that Eli is actually one of the offspring of the Devil, along with the girl that he meets outside the greenhouse of the treatment facility. Eli’s mother desperately wanted a child, and it wasn’t Jesus/God that answered her prayers. With that revelation, it’s no surprise that Eli’s ‘father’ apparently hated him, and while it was his mother who continued to give him ‘medication’ that made him ill, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was at the behest of her husband.

As a note, this entire movie will make you feel icky af if you’re sensitive to gaslighting. At no point is Eli ACTUALLY ill, as we see near the end of the movie - rather, the ‘medication’ is what makes him ill, as it’s things that apparently have connections to God/protection against evil, such as Holy Water. Eli lives his entire life believing that he actually has a severe, life threatening illness that will kill him if he steps outside of his hazmat suit or bubble environment, when in reality it is his parents making and keeping him ill to ‘suppress’ his supernatural bloodline. Meanwhile, any time he attempts to bring up what he is experiencing and the ghosts that he is seeing, the doctor keeps insisting that it’s all in his head.

Finally, the ending is rather neatly done. Eli’s supernatural power comes through fully, and he ends up killing his father and the three nuns that were masquerading as a doctor and her nurses.His mother is spared, perhaps because she has a change of heart. I’m not sure how to feel about that, as on the one hand she DID purposely make her son ill, but at the same time, I don’t feel like it was entirely HER choice - I feel that most of her actions were heavily influenced by her husband.

The movie ends with Eli and his mother escaping from the house that is now burning down and encountering Haley (the girl he met in the greenhouse/sunroom), who along with the other ghosts in the house, is the offspring of Satan, making them half-siblings. Haley mentions that Eli was stronger than the other 3 who died (the ghosts), and offers to take him to their father. The movie ends with Eli being noticeably darker personality/energywise than at the start of the movie (and as an aside, I find it absolutely fascinating that Eli was an otherwise normal child at the start - no powers, no evil aura, nothing. Makes me wonder, if his parents weren’t trying to hard to ‘fix’ him, would the events in this movie ever happen? E.g. would his powers actually appear, would he start acting a bit darker, etc.?) and the trio driving off to parts unknown. Personally, I think that it neatly finished off the movie, leaving minimal questions unanswered.

#Eli (2019)#Eli Movie #Shrimp Reviews

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packconfig · 8 years ago

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Reader Essentials with Kevin Nieves

Kevin Nieves, a Hazmat Responder, joins our conversation and shares his top 3 essential carry items.

Visit http://packconfig.com/packessentials/reader-essentials-with-kevin-nieves/ for the full post

#Camping Pack #EDC #Flat Pack #Haley Strategic #Hazmat #Leatherman #Leatherman Signal #Minimus #Reader Essentials #Responder #Surefire #Pack Essentials

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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Trump’s Red Line

Seymour M. Hersh, Die Welt, June 25, 2017

President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack.

On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.

The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.

Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. “None of this makes any sense,” one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack ... the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth ... I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition.

The provenance of the photos was not clear and no international observers have yet inspected the site, but the immediate popular assumption worldwide was that this was a deliberate use of the nerve agent sarin, authorized by President Bashar Assad of Syria. Trump endorsed that assumption by issuing a statement within hours of the attack, describing Assad’s “heinous actions” as being a consequence of the Obama administration’s “weakness and irresolution” in addressing what he said was Syria’s past use of chemical weapons.

To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers.

Russian and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the carefully planned flight path to and from Khan Shiekhoun on April 4 directly, in English, to the deconfliction monitors aboard the AWACS plane, which was on patrol near the Turkish border, 60 miles or more to the north.

The Syrian target at Khan Sheikhoun, as shared with the Americans at Doha, was depicted as a two-story cinder-block building in the northern part of town. Russian intelligence, which is shared when necessary with Syria and the U.S. as part of their joint fight against jihadist groups, had established that a high-level meeting of jihadist leaders was to take place in the building, including representatives of Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida-affiliated group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. The two groups had recently joined forces, and controlled the town and surrounding area. Russian intelligence depicted the cinder-block building as a command and control center that housed a grocery and other commercial premises on its ground floor with other essential shops nearby, including a fabric shop and an electronics store.

“The rebels control the population by controlling the distribution of goods that people need to live--food, water, cooking oil, propane gas, fertilizers for growing their crops, and insecticides to protect the crops,” a senior adviser to the American intelligence community, who has served in senior positions in the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, told me. The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons and ammunition, as well as products that could be distributed for free to the community, among them medicines and chlorine-based decontaminants for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial. The meeting place--a regional headquarters--was on the floor above. “It was an established meeting place,” the senior adviser said. “A long-time facility that would have had security, weapons, communications, files and a map center.” The Russians were intent on confirming their intelligence and deployed a drone for days above the site to monitor communications and develop what is known in the intelligence community as a POL--a pattern of life. The goal was to take note of those going in and out of the building, and to track weapons being moved back and forth, including rockets and ammunition.

One reason for the Russian message to Washington about the intended target was to ensure that any CIA asset or informant who had managed to work his way into the jihadist leadership was forewarned not to attend the meeting. I was told that the Russians passed the warning directly to the CIA. “They were playing the game right,” the senior adviser said. The Russian guidance noted that the jihadist meeting was coming at a time of acute pressure for the insurgents: Presumably Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham were desperately seeking a path forward in the new political climate. In the last few days of March, Trump and two of his key national security aides--Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley--had made statements acknowledging that, as the New York Times put it, the White House “has abandoned the goal” of pressuring Assad “to leave power, marking a sharp departure from the Middle East policy that guided the Obama administration for more than five years.” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a press briefing on March 31 that “there is a political reality that we have to accept,” implying that Assad was there to stay.

Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. “It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary--scrub the sked,” the senior adviser told me. “Every operations officer in the region”--in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA--“had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.” The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community.

The Execute Order governing U.S. military operations in theater, which was issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provide instructions that demarcate the relationship between the American and Russian forces operating in Syria. “It’s like an ops order--‘Here’s what you are authorized to do,’” the adviser said. “We do not share operational control with the Russians. We don’t do combined operations with them, or activities directly in support of one of their operations. But coordination is permitted. We keep each other apprised of what’s happening and within this package is the mutual exchange of intelligence. If we get a hot tip that could help the Russians do their mission, that’s coordination; and the Russians do the same for us. When we get a hot tip about a command and control facility,” the adviser added, referring to the target in Khan Sheikhoun, “we do what we can to help them act on it.” “This was not a chemical weapons strike,” the adviser said. “That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon--you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500-pound conventional bomb--would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?”

The target was struck at 6:55 a.m. on April 4, just before midnight in Washington. A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the senior adviser said, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders, and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that “eight patients showed symptoms--including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation--which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.” MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there “smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.” In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force--as opposition activists insisted--had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.

The internet swung into action within hours, and gruesome photographs of the victims flooded television networks and YouTube. U.S. intelligence was tasked with establishing what had happened. Among the pieces of information received was an intercept of Syrian communications collected before the attack by an allied nation. The intercept, which had a particularly strong effect on some of Trump’s aides, did not mention nerve gas or sarin, but it did quote a Syrian general discussing a “special” weapon and the need for a highly skilled pilot to man the attack plane. The reference, as those in the American intelligence community understood, and many of the inexperienced aides and family members close to Trump may not have, was to a Russian-supplied bomb with its built-in guidance system. “If you’ve already decided it was a gas attack, you will then inevitably read the talk about a special weapon as involving a sarin bomb,” the adviser said. “Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

At the UN the next day, Ambassador Haley created a media sensation when she displayed photographs of the dead and accused Russia of being complicit. “How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” she asked. NBC News, in a typical report that day, quoted American officials as confirming that nerve gas had been used and Haley tied the attack directly to Syrian President Assad. “We know that yesterday’s attack was a new low even for the barbaric Assad regime,” she said. There was irony in America’s rush to blame Syria and criticize Russia for its support of Syria’s denial of any use of gas in Khan Sheikhoun, as Ambassador Haley and others in Washington did. “What doesn’t occur to most Americans” the adviser said, “is if there had been a Syrian nerve gas attack authorized by Bashar, the Russians would be 10 times as upset as anyone in the West. Russia’s strategy against ISIS, which involves getting American cooperation, would have been destroyed and Bashar would be responsible for pissing off Russia, with unknown consequences for him. Bashar would do that? When he’s on the verge of winning the war? Are you kidding me?”

Trump, a constant watcher of television news, said, while King Abdullah of Jordan was sitting next to him in the Oval Office, that what had happened was “horrible, horrible” and a “terrible affront to humanity.” Asked if his administration would change its policy toward the Assad government, he said: “You will see.” He gave a hint of the response to come at the subsequent news conference with King Abdullah: “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies--babies, little babies--with a chemical gas that is so lethal ... that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line . ... That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact ... It’s very, very possible ... that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”

Within hours of viewing the photos, the adviser said, Trump instructed the national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against Syria. “He did this before he talked to anybody about it. The planners then asked the CIA and DIA if there was any evidence that Syria had sarin stored at a nearby airport or somewhere in the area. Their military had to have it somewhere in the area in order to bomb with it.” “The answer was, ‘We have no evidence that Syria had sarin or used it,’” the adviser said. “The CIA also told them that there was no residual delivery for sarin at Sheyrat [the airfield from which the Syrian SU-24 bombers had taken off on April 4] and Assad had no motive to commit political suicide.” Everyone involved, except perhaps the president, also understood that a highly skilled United Nations team had spent more than a year in the aftermath of an alleged sarin attack in 2013 by Syria, removing what was said to be all chemical weapons from a dozen Syrian chemical weapons depots.

At this point, the adviser said, the president’s national security planners were more than a little rattled: “No one knew the provenance of the photographs. We didn’t know who the children were or how they got hurt. Sarin actually is very easy to detect because it penetrates paint, and all one would have to do is get a paint sample. We knew there was a cloud and we knew it hurt people. But you cannot jump from there to certainty that Assad had hidden sarin from the UN because he wanted to use it in Khan Sheikhoun.” The intelligence made clear that a Syrian Air Force SU-24 fighter bomber had used a conventional weapon to hit its target: There had been no chemical warhead. And yet it was impossible for the experts to persuade the president of this once he had made up his mind. “The president saw the photographs of poisoned little girls and said it was an Assad atrocity,” the senior adviser said. “It’s typical of human nature. You jump to the conclusion you want. Intelligence analysts do not argue with a president. They’re not going to tell the president, ‘if you interpret the data this way, I quit.’”

The national security advisers understood their dilemma: Trump wanted to respond to the affront to humanity committed by Syria and he did not want to be dissuaded. They were dealing with a man they considered to be not unkind and not stupid, but his limitations when it came to national security decisions were severe. “Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts,” the adviser said. “He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: ‘Do it.”‘

On April 6, Trump convened a meeting of national security officials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The meeting was not to decide what to do, but how best to do it--or, as some wanted, how to do the least and keep Trump happy. “The boss knew before the meeting that they didn’t have the intelligence, but that was not the issue,” the adviser said. “The meeting was about, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do,’ and then he gets the options.”

The available intelligence was not relevant. The most experienced man at the table was Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who had the president’s respect and understood, perhaps, how quickly that could evaporate. Mike Pompeo, the CIA director whose agency had consistently reported that it had no evidence of a Syrian chemical bomb, was not present. Secretary of State Tillerson was admired on the inside for his willingness to work long hours and his avid reading of diplomatic cables and reports, but he knew little about waging war and the management of a bombing raid. Those present were in a bind, the adviser said. “The president was emotionally energized by the disaster and he wanted options.” He got four of them, in order of extremity. Option one was to do nothing. All involved, the adviser said, understood that was a non-starter. Option two was a slap on the wrist: to bomb an airfield in Syria, but only after alerting the Russians and, through them, the Syrians, to avoid too many casualties. A few of the planners called this the “gorilla option”: America would glower and beat its chest to provoke fear and demonstrate resolve, but cause little significant damage. The third option was to adopt the strike package that had been presented to Obama in 2013, and which he ultimately chose not to pursue. The plan called for the massive bombing of the main Syrian airfields and command and control centers using B1 and B52 aircraft launched from their bases in the U.S. Option four was “decapitation”: to remove Assad by bombing his palace in Damascus, as well as his command and control network and all of the underground bunkers he could possibly retreat to in a crisis.

“Trump ruled out option one off the bat,” the senior adviser said, and the assassination of Assad was never considered. “But he said, in essence: ‘You’re the military and I want military action.’” The president was also initially opposed to the idea of giving the Russians advance warning before the strike, but reluctantly accepted it. “We gave him the Goldilocks option--not too hot, not too cold, but just right.” The discussion had its bizarre moments. Tillerson wondered at the Mar-a-Lago meeting why the president could not simply call in the B52 bombers and pulverize the air base. He was told that B52s were very vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the area and using such planes would require suppression fire that could kill some Russian defenders. “What is that?” Tillerson asked. Well, sir, he was told, that means we would have to destroy the upgraded SAM sites along the B52 flight path, and those are manned by Russians, and we possibly would be confronted with a much more difficult situation. “The lesson here was: Thank God for the military men at the meeting,” the adviser said. “They did the best they could when confronted with a decision that had already been made.”

Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were fired from two U.S. Navy destroyers on duty in the Mediterranean, the Ross and the Porter, at Shayrat Air Base near the government-controlled city of Homs. The strike was as successful as hoped, in terms of doing minimal damage. The missiles have a light payload--roughly 220 pounds of HBX, the military’s modern version of TNT. The airfield’s gasoline storage tanks, a primary target, were pulverized, the senior adviser said, triggering a huge fire and clouds of smoke that interfered with the guidance system of following missiles. As many as 24 missiles missed their targets and only a few of the Tomahawks actually penetrated into hangars, destroying nine Syrian aircraft, many fewer than claimed by the Trump administration. I was told that none of the nine was operational: such damaged aircraft are what the Air Force calls hangar queens. “They were sacrificial lambs,” the senior adviser said. Most of the important personnel and operational fighter planes had been flown to nearby bases hours before the raid began. The two runways and parking places for aircraft, which had also been targeted, were repaired and back in operation within eight hours or so. All in all, it was little more than an expensive fireworks display.

“It was a totally Trump show from beginning to end,” the senior adviser said. “A few of the president’s senior national security advisers viewed the mission as a minimized bad presidential decision, and one that they had an obligation to carry out. But I don’t think our national security people are going to allow themselves to be hustled into a bad decision again. If Trump had gone for option three, there might have been some immediate resignations.”

After the meeting, with the Tomahawks on their way, Trump spoke to the nation from Mar-a-Lago, and accused Assad of using nerve gas to choke out “the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many ... No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” The next few days were his most successful as president. America rallied around its commander in chief, as it always does in times of war. Trump, who had campaigned as someone who advocated making peace with Assad, was bombing Syria 11 weeks after taking office, and was hailed for doing so by Republicans, Democrats and the media alike. One prominent TV anchorman, Brian Williams of MSNBC, used the word “beautiful” to describe the images of the Tomahawks being launched at sea. Speaking on CNN, Fareed Zakaria said: “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States.” A review of the top 100 American newspapers showed that 39 of them published editorials supporting the bombing in its aftermath, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Five days later, the Trump administration gathered the national media for a background briefing on the Syrian operation that was conducted by a senior White House official who was not to be identified. The gist of the briefing was that Russia’s heated and persistent denial of any sarin use in the Khan Sheikhoun bombing was a lie because President Trump had said sarin had been used. That assertion, which was not challenged or disputed by any of the reporters present, became the basis for a series of further criticisms:

* The continued lying by the Trump administration about Syria’s use of sarin led to widespread belief in the American media and public that Russia had chosen to be involved in a corrupt disinformation and cover-up campaign on the part of Syria.

* Russia’s military forces had been co-located with Syria’s at the Shayrat airfield (as they are throughout Syria), raising the possibility that Russia had advance notice of Syria’s determination to use sarin at Khan Sheikhoun and did nothing to stop it.

* Syria’s use of sarin and Russia’s defense of that use strongly suggested that Syria withheld stocks of the nerve agent from the UN disarmament team that spent much of 2014 inspecting and removing all declared chemical warfare agents from 12 Syrian chemical weapons depots, pursuant to the agreement worked out by the Obama administration and Russia after Syria’s alleged, but still unproven, use of sarin the year before against a rebel redoubt in a suburb of Damascus.

The briefer, to his credit, was careful to use the words “think,” “suggest” and “believe” at least 10 times during the 30-minute event. But he also said that his briefing was based on data that had been declassified by “our colleagues in the intelligence community.” What the briefer did not say, and may not have known, was that much of the classified information in the community made the point that Syria had not used sarin in the April 4 bombing attack.

The mainstream press responded the way the White House had hoped it would: Stories attacking Russia’s alleged cover-up of Syria’s sarin use dominated the news and many media outlets ignored the briefer’s myriad caveats. There was a sense of renewed Cold War. The New York Times, for example--America’s leading newspaper--put the following headline on its account: “White House Accuses Russia of Cover-Up in Syria Chemical Attack.” The Times’ account did note a Russian denial, but what was described by the briefer as “declassified information” suddenly became a “declassified intelligence report.” Yet there was no formal intelligence report stating that Syria had used sarin, merely a “summary based on declassified information about the attacks,” as the briefer referred to it.

The crisis slid into the background by the end of April, as Russia, Syria and the United States remained focused on annihilating ISIS and the militias of al-Qaida. Some of those who had worked through the crisis, however, were left with lingering concerns. “The Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy,” the senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community told me, referring to the flare up of tensions between Syria, Russia and America. “The issue is, what if there’s another false flag sarin attack credited to hated Syria? Trump has upped the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no choice but to bomb again, and harder. He’s incapable of saying he made a mistake.”

The White House did not answer specific questions about the bombing of Khan Sheikhoun and the airport of Shayrat. These questions were send via e-mail to the White House on June 15 and never answered.

#Syria #Syrian conflict #Seymour Hersh #syrian chemical weapons #US attacks Syria

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artsoccupychi · 6 years ago

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No Energy? Fatigue Causes You Haven’t Considered But Must Address NOW

Do you spring from your bed in the morning, ready and eager to begin your day? Unfortunately, many people can hardly remember a time when they awoke with energy and vitality, at least not before they’d downed their first cup of coffee, or two…or three.

No energy is synonymous with the American lifestyle and is considered so “normal” that most people drink some kind of stimulant beverage every day.

Google “fatigue causes” and you’ll be faced with habits, routines, lifestyle, mental disorders, and dozens of physical diseases.

A compelling possible source of the problem, however, is that you may very well be tired because of your teeth.

Fatigue Causes in the 21st Century

An estimated 6 million people a year visit their primary health care provider because of fatigue.

Almost half of people who get 7-8 hours of sleep per night say they have no energy up to 3 days a week.

In a recent survey asking, “How many days a week do you wake up feeling tired and poorly rested?”, only one in seven Americans said they woke up feeling refreshed every day.

Almost half of those who got an average of 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night said they felt tired up to 3 days a week, while 54 percent of those who only got 6 hours of sleep reported waking up tired 4 or more days every week.1

A growing number of North Americans experience more than just fatigue; they experience extreme fatigue—a debilitating tiredness that leaves them unable to function on a daily basis. When it has been with them for six months or more, it is defined as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and can be accompanied by muscle weakness, impaired memory, joint pain, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, and insomnia.

Modern medicine has found no answers for people who suffer from extreme fatigue, and I don’t think a drug will ever solve the problem anyway.

Fatigue and Your Teeth

So, how can your teeth be a cause of your fatigue and lack of energy? Let’s start with an example—a woman who had experienced CFS for 12 years. This case study was reported in the International Center for Nutritional Research.

This woman presented to Dr. Gerald H. Smith with a tooth that had an old root canal that was infected. This same tooth had two small mercury fillings. In addition, galvanic currents, due to various metals in the mouth including aluminum and platinum, were creating electrical currents strong enough to interfere with the brain’s electrical impulses. She also had bite and cranial bone problems.

The doctor removed the tooth, restored her bite, and put her on a program to address the heavy metals in her body and boost her immune system. Three weeks later she reported “having more energy than she knew what to do with.”

Dental toxicity was the source of her fatigue.2

Fatigue and Your Amalgam Fillings

Mercury poisoning can cause many health problems, including severe fatigue.

Did you know that the silver fillings in your mouth are made up of 50 percent mercury? And that this heavy metal is one of the most toxic naturally-occurring elements known to man?

An amalgam filling, removed from your mouth, cannot be placed in a landfill. In fact, it must be picked up by hazardous waste collectors. When schools used mercury thermometers, if one broke, the school would be evacuated and the hazmat team called in!

And yet, in the fight to eliminate tooth decay, mercury amalgam is placed just three inches from your brain.

The American Dental Association (ADA) claims that when liquid mercury is combined with the other metals in a silver filling, the amalgam that is formed bonds the metals together so that mercury does not escape.

Mercury vapor, however, does escape, on a daily basis and with each breath. Micro cracks in the filling are virtually inevitable. Eat or brush your teeth, and the amount of vapor increases dramatically.3

This heavy metal does more than just poison your body–it suffocates it. Oxygen is transported via your bloodstream, specifically by hemoglobin (a protein in red blood cells), which carries life-sustaining oxygen to all the cells of your body.

Think of hemoglobin like a bus. This bus has four binding sites that allow oxygen to “jump on board” so that it can deliver it to your tissues that need oxygen, where the oxygen then “jumps off.”

Mercury, unfortunately, likes those same seats on the bus. And when the hemoglobin bus is full of mercury, there is no room for oxygen. In addition, mercury doesn’t like to jump off, but rather becomes a permanent passenger until the red blood cell, with a lifespan of about 120 days, dies.

Fatigue and Root Canals

Root canals are performed when a tooth is infected or injured. In essence, its blood supply and the nerve in the center of the tooth are removed. Your dentist or endodontists now sterilizes and packs the now hollow tube with material to prevent bacteria from entering what is now a dead tooth.

Root canals are performed when a tooth is infected or injured.

But a tooth is actually made up of millions of tiny tubules that transport nutrients from the center of the tooth to the enamel. These tubules harbor bacteria. These tiny dentin tubules are estimated to be at least 100,000 yards in length!

Without the cleansing flow of blood, this bacteria mutates into an anaerobic form that does not require oxygen and later morphs into powerful toxins.

Over 460 different bacteria have been identified in teeth treated with root canals, with a high percentage being anaerobic species. These toxins drain from the lymphatic system and blood vessels to the rest of the body.4

Dr. Boyd Haley, a professor of chemistry at the University of Kentucky, tested 900 teeth with root canals to determine their bacteria levels. Half of them had enough bacteria to challenge a healthy immune system. But even more disturbing was the 25 percent that contained toxins more powerful than botulinum, one of the most toxic organisms known to man.5

A passage from The Toxic Tooth, a book by Robert Kulacz, DDS and Tom Levy, MD illustrates this fact:

“My dental assistant once described an extracted root canal-treated tooth as smelling like a dead mouse that had been decomposing for a while.” On the other hand, healthy teeth that are extracted have no smell to them.6

In essence, your body’s immune system is fighting a serious bacterial infection 24/7. It’s producing white blood cells to combat these invaders, leaving less room in your blood vessels for red blood cells, the transporters of oxygen.

The result? No energy and increasing fatigue that grows worse with each passing year.

Fatigue No Longer

At this point, you may be thinking that your teeth could be contributing to your fatigue causes and increasing exhaustion. It’s important to know that you don’t have to live with it!

If you’re plagued by feeling like you have no energy, know that you don’t have to live with it!

There are biological dentists (also known as holistic dentists or natural dentists) who understand how dental work can actually cause an illness and contribute to fatigue causes. These dentists have been trained in assessing dental work in order to determine if it may be causing health problems.

From there, your biological dentist will determine the best protocol and suggest recommended steps that can restore your general well-being. Steps they may take include the following:

Remove teeth treated with root canals that are harboring bacteria.

Remove amalgam fillings and replace them with material that is compatible with your immune system.

Evaluate the body’s electrical system using an EAV (“electro-acupuncture according to Voll”) diagnostic device.

Determine if a mixture of metals in your mouth is causing galvanic currents—electrical currents that interfere with your body’s own electrical impulses.

Recommend a detoxification program that may include herbs and homeopathic remedies, and an excellent, oxygenating diet rich in greens, vegetables, fruits, etc. Protocols to detoxify may include baths, saunas, red light therapy, or other modalities.

The next step is finding a dentist trained in these techniques and procedures. Unfortunately, some dentists use the term “holistic” because they no longer use silver amalgams and that is the extent of their “natural” approach. It’s crucial that you make a consultation with a dentist that is well-versed in the many facets of whole-body dentistry.

Don’t have a holistic dentist? Get the Insider’s Guide to Holistic Dentists, and find one! We reached out to all the Holistic dentists in the U.S.A. we could find, and learned what services they provide. It’s all in ONE amazing, FREE resource, to make it easier for you to have access to get better, less invasive, holistic dental care for the rest of your life!

Sources

1. McCarthy, Niall. Americans Are Tired Most of the Week. Statista. 06/2015. https://www.statista.com/chart/3534/americans-are-tired-most-of-the-week/

2. Smith, Gerald H. Dr. 12 Years of Chronic Fatigue. International Center for Nutritional Research, Inc. http://www.icnr.com/cs/cs_11.html.

3. McGuire, Tom, DDS. Mercury: The Poison in Your Teeth. YouTube. 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp8Rg8hNGwA

4. Siqueira, J.F. et al. Diversity of Endodontic Microbiota Revisited. Journal of Dental Research. 2009. http://www.endoexperience.com/documents/diversityofendodonticmicrobiotasiqueira2009.pdf

5. Kulacz, Robert, DDS, et al. The Toxic Tooth. MedFox Publishing. 2014.

6. Chronic Fatigue In-Depth Report. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/print.html

Disclosure: This post may contain Affiliate links that help support the GSG mission without costing you extra. I recommend only companies and products that I use myself.

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#infrared saunas #healthy

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esprit-de-corps-magazine · 7 years ago

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ON TARGET: How Dumb Is Assad?

By Scott Taylor

On Saturday, April 7, I awoke to catch a breaking story on CTV’s news channel. It was being reported that a chemical weapons attack had been perpetrated in a rebel held town in Syria.

Veteran news anchorman Brad Griffin deadpanned a warning to viewers that the video images they were about to see were “graphic and disturbing.”

The shaky footage depicted a number of individuals animatedly washing the alleged victims with water hoses. None of them were wearing any form of gas mask or protective clothing.

One young girl, about three years old was crying loudly – as would any three year old being doused vigorously with cold water. One helper is shown holding another toddler face down while he forcefully gave him thumps on his back as though to dislodge a food particle stuck in the young lad’s throat.

While not graphic, it was certainly disturbing to see such a clumsy attempt to portray the aftermath of a chemical weapon attack. Further footage showed a rebel – this time wearing an old gas mask, but still without a hazmat suit, pointing at a 225-kilogram unexploded barrel bomb that was lying on a single bed amidst some plaster and debris.

While I cannot disprove the allegation that this was a chemical bomb dropped by the Syrian Air force, I can state with some authority that it must be one hell of a sturdy bed frame.

A 225-kilogram projectile dropped from an altitude which would have at least allowed it to reach terminal velocity, penetrates a ceiling without detonating and then gently comes to rest on a small cot? That seems like one hell of an unlucky break for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. We know that he uses barrel bombs, so he must be the one to blame. Case closed.

Which brings us to the next question, which is, why would Assad resort to the use of chemical weapons? And why now? The targeted area was the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma, which at the time of the alleged gas attack was under the control of radical Islamist rebels, and heavily besieged by Assad loyalists. Backed by the Russian military, the Syrians had the upper hand in Douma and were in the process of negotiating a ceasefire with the extremist rebels.

That truce subsequently did take place last Thursday with the Islamist fighters relinquishing control of the town to Syrian – Russian forces in exchange for re-location to another rebel-held region of Syria.

So, on the verge of a battlefield victory, why would Assad be so stupid as to employ the one weapon which almost guarantees the condemnation of the world? It also seems rather short-sighted to hurl barrel bombs full of chlorine gas and nerve agents into an area that you know your own soldiers are about to occupy.

Although no independent investigation has been conducted, Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, has claimed: “We definitely have enough proof.” French President Emmanuel Macron echoed the claim, saying he too has “proof”, and U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May concluded it was “highly likely” that Assad is to blame for employing chemical weapons at Douma.

U.S. President Donald Trump took to the Twittersphere to warn Russia that American missiles will be “coming” against the Syrian military in retaliation for the alleged gas attack, but he did not give a timeline.

Just to recap what we need to swallow in order to accept the presumption of Assad’s guilt and Russia’s complicity: 1) A group of Syrian Islamist extremists is on their last legs and about to capitulate. 2) Unable to restrain his urge to kill his own people, Assad unwisely drops barrel bombs of toxic chemicals on the rebel enclave. 3) The victims include children, which naturally incenses the civilized world. Remember nobody gave a rat’s when the U.S. dropped the Mother-of-All-Bombs (MOAB) on Islamist extremists in Afghanistan because the U.S. assured us that no innocent children or family pets were greased in the blast.

So, essentially, the U.S. will be assisting Syrian Islamic extremists in their efforts to punish Assad, who is allied with nuclear super-power Russia. And at the epicenter of this potential apocalypse is one unbelievably strong bed frame.

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clubofinfo · 7 years ago

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Expert: Retaliation: Tomahawk missiles from the “USS Porter” on the way to the Shayrat Air Base on April 6, 2017 (Quelle: picture alliance/Robert S. Pri/dpa Picture-Alliance / Robert S.) President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack. ***** On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon. The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region. Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. “None of this makes any sense,” one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.“ Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition. Seymour M. Hersh exposed the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam 1968. He uncovered the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and many other stories about war and politics (Quelle: Getty Images/Getty Images North America) The provenance of the photos was not clear and no international observers have yet inspected the site, but the immediate popular assumption worldwide was that this was a deliberate use of the nerve agent sarin, authorized by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Trump endorsed that assumption by issuing a statement within hours of the attack, describing Assad’s “heinous actions” as being a consequence of the Obama administration’s “weakness and irresolution” in addressing what he said was Syria’s past use of chemical weapons. To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers. Russian and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the carefully planned flight path to and from Khan Shiekhoun on April 4 directly, in English, to the deconfliction monitors aboard the AWACS plane, which was on patrol near the Turkish border, 60 miles or more to the north. The Syrian target at Khan Sheikhoun, as shared with the Americans at Doha, was depicted as a two-story cinder-block building in the northern part of town. Russian intelligence, which is shared when necessary with Syria and the U.S. as part of their joint fight against jihadist groups, had established that a high-level meeting of jihadist leaders was to take place in the building, including representatives of Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida-affiliated group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. The two groups had recently joined forces, and controlled the town and surrounding area. Russian intelligence depicted the cinder-block building as a command and control center that housed a grocery and other commercial premises on its ground floor with other essential shops nearby, including a fabric shop and an electronics store. “The rebels control the population by controlling the distribution of goods that people need to live – food, water, cooking oil, propane gas, fertilizers for growing their crops, and insecticides to protect the crops,” a senior adviser to the American intelligence community, who has served in senior positions in the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, told me. The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons and ammunition, as well as products that could be distributed for free to the community, among them medicines and chlorine-based decontaminants for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial. The meeting place – a regional headquarters – was on the floor above. “It was an established meeting place,” the senior adviser said. “A long-time facility that would have had security, weapons, communications, files and a map center.” The Russians were intent on confirming their intelligence and deployed a drone for days above the site to monitor communications and develop what is known in the intelligence community as a POL – a pattern of life. The goal was to take note of those going in and out of the building, and to track weapons being moved back and forth, including rockets and ammunition. One reason for the Russian message to Washington about the intended target was to ensure that any CIA asset or informant who had managed to work his way into the jihadist leadership was forewarned not to attend the meeting. I was told that the Russians passed the warning directly to the CIA. “They were playing the game right,” the senior adviser said. The Russian guidance noted that the jihadist meeting was coming at a time of acute pressure for the insurgents: Presumably Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham were desperately seeking a path forward in the new political climate. In the last few days of March, Trump and two of his key national security aides – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley – had made statements acknowledging that, as the New York Times put it, the White House “has abandoned the goal” of pressuring Assad “to leave power, marking a sharp departure from the Middle East policy that guided the Obama administration for more than five years.” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a press briefing on March 31 that “there is a political reality that we have to accept,” implying that Assad was there to stay. Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. “It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,” the senior adviser told me. “Every operations officer in the region” – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – “had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.” The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community. The Execute Order governing U.S. military operations in theater, which was issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provide instructions that demarcate the relationship between the American and Russian forces operating in Syria. “It’s like an ops order – ‘Here’s what you are authorized to do,’” the adviser said. “We do not share operational control with the Russians. We don’t do combined operations with them, or activities directly in support of one of their operations. But coordination is permitted. We keep each other apprised of what’s happening and within this package is the mutual exchange of intelligence. If we get a hot tip that could help the Russians do their mission, that’s coordination; and the Russians do the same for us. When we get a hot tip about a command and control facility,” the adviser added, referring to the target in Khan Sheikhoun, “we do what we can to help them act on it.” “This was not a chemical weapons strike,” the adviser said. “That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon – you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500-pound conventional bomb – would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?” This photograph by the Syrian opposition (Edlib Media Center) shows the aftermath of a strike against the town of Khan Sheikhoun. A large building was hit, but it’s unclear were the strike took place exactly Quelle: picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS.com/Shalan Stewart The target was struck at 6:55 a.m. on April 4, just before midnight in Washington. A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the senior adviser said, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders, and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that “eight patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.” MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there “smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.” In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin. The internet swung into action within hours, and gruesome photographs of the victims flooded television networks and YouTube. U.S. intelligence was tasked with establishing what had happened. Among the pieces of information received was an intercept of Syrian communications collected before the attack by an allied nation. The intercept, which had a particularly strong effect on some of Trump’s aides, did not mention nerve gas or sarin, but it did quote a Syrian general discussing a “special” weapon and the need for a highly skilled pilot to man the attack plane. The reference, as those in the American intelligence community understood, and many of the inexperienced aides and family members close to Trump may not have, was to a Russian-supplied bomb with its built-in guidance system. “If you’ve already decided it was a gas attack, you will then inevitably read the talk about a special weapon as involving a sarin bomb,” the adviser said. “Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.” At the UN the next day, Ambassador Haley created a media sensation when she displayed photographs of the dead and accused Russia of being complicit. “How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” she asked. NBC News, in a typical report that day, quoted American officials as confirming that nerve gas had been used and Haley tied the attack directly to Syrian President Assad. “We know that yesterday’s attack was a new low even for the barbaric Assad regime,” she said. There was irony in America’s rush to blame Syria and criticize Russia for its support of Syria’s denial of any use of gas in Khan Sheikhoun, as Ambassador Haley and others in Washington did. “What doesn’t occur to most Americans” the adviser said, “is if there had been a Syrian nerve gas attack authorized by Bashar, the Russians would be 10 times as upset as anyone in the West. Russia’s strategy against ISIS, which involves getting American cooperation, would have been destroyed and Bashar would be responsible for pissing off Russia, with unknown consequences for him. Bashar would do that? When he’s on the verge of winning the war? Are you kidding me?” Trump, a constant watcher of television news, said, while King Abdullah of Jordan was sitting next to him in the Oval Office, that what had happened was “horrible, horrible” and a “terrible affront to humanity.” Asked if his administration would change its policy toward the Assad government, he said: “You will see.” He gave a hint of the response to come at the subsequent news conference with King Abdullah: “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies – babies, little babies – with a chemical gas that is so lethal … that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line . … That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact … It’s very, very possible … that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.” Within hours of viewing the photos, the adviser said, Trump instructed the national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against Syria. “He did this before he talked to anybody about it. The planners then asked the CIA and DIA if there was any evidence that Syria had sarin stored at a nearby airport or somewhere in the area. Their military had to have it somewhere in the area in order to bomb with it.” “The answer was, ‘We have no evidence that Syria had sarin or used it,’” the adviser said. “The CIA also told them that there was no residual delivery for sarin at Sheyrat [the airfield from which the Syrian SU-24 bombers had taken off on April 4] and Assad had no motive to commit political suicide.” Everyone involved, except perhaps the president, also understood that a highly skilled United Nations team had spent more than a year in the aftermath of an alleged sarin attack in 2013 by Syria, removing what was said to be all chemical weapons from a dozen Syrian chemical weapons depots. At this point, the adviser said, the president’s national security planners were more than a little rattled: “No one knew the provenance of the photographs. We didn’t know who the children were or how they got hurt. Sarin actually is very easy to detect because it penetrates paint, and all one would have to do is get a paint sample. We knew there was a cloud and we knew it hurt people. But you cannot jump from there to certainty that Assad had hidden sarin from the UN because he wanted to use it in Khan Sheikhoun.” The intelligence made clear that a Syrian Air Force SU-24 fighter bomber had used a conventional weapon to hit its target: There had been no chemical warhead. And yet it was impossible for the experts to persuade the president of this once he had made up his mind. “The president saw the photographs of poisoned little girls and said it was an Assad atrocity,” the senior adviser said. “It’s typical of human nature. You jump to the conclusion you want. Intelligence analysts do not argue with a president. They’re not going to tell the president, ‘if you interpret the data this way, I quit.’” President Donald J. Trump with some of his closest advisors at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, 2017 at a top secret briefing on the results of the missile strike on Shayat Air Base (Quelle: picture alliance/ASSOCIATED PRESS/AP Content) The national security advisers understood their dilemma: Trump wanted to respond to the affront to humanity committed by Syria and he did not want to be dissuaded. They were dealing with a man they considered to be not unkind and not stupid, but his limitations when it came to national security decisions were severe. “Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts,” the adviser said. “He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: ‘Do it.”’ On April 6, Trump convened a meeting of national security officials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The meeting was not to decide what to do, but how best to do it – or, as some wanted, how to do the least and keep Trump happy. “The boss knew before the meeting that they didn’t have the intelligence, but that was not the issue,” the adviser said. “The meeting was about, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do,’ and then he gets the options.” The available intelligence was not relevant. The most experienced man at the table was Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who had the president’s respect and understood, perhaps, how quickly that could evaporate. Mike Pompeo, the CIA director whose agency had consistently reported that it had no evidence of a Syrian chemical bomb, was not present. Secretary of State Tillerson was admired on the inside for his willingness to work long hours and his avid reading of diplomatic cables and reports, but he knew little about waging war and the management of a bombing raid. Those present were in a bind, the adviser said. “The president was emotionally energized by the disaster and he wanted options.” He got four of them, in order of extremity. Option one was to do nothing. All involved, the adviser said, understood that was a non-starter. Option two was a slap on the wrist: to bomb an airfield in Syria, but only after alerting the Russians and, through them, the Syrians, to avoid too many casualties. A few of the planners called this the “gorilla option”: America would glower and beat its chest to provoke fear and demonstrate resolve, but cause little significant damage. The third option was to adopt the strike package that had been presented to Obama in 2013, and which he ultimately chose not to pursue. The plan called for the massive bombing of the main Syrian airfields and command and control centers using B1 and B52 aircraft launched from their bases in the U.S. Option four was “decapitation”: to remove Assad by bombing his palace in Damascus, as well as his command and control network and all of the underground bunkers he could possibly retreat to in a crisis. “Trump ruled out option one off the bat,” the senior adviser said, and the assassination of Assad was never considered. “But he said, in essence: ‘You’re the military and I want military action.’” The president was also initially opposed to the idea of giving the Russians advance warning before the strike, but reluctantly accepted it. “We gave him the Goldilocks option – not too hot, not too cold, but just right.” The discussion had its bizarre moments. Tillerson wondered at the Mar-a-Lago meeting why the president could not simply call in the B52 bombers and pulverize the air base. He was told that B52s were very vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the area and using such planes would require suppression fire that could kill some Russian defenders. “What is that?” Tillerson asked. Well, sir, he was told, that means we would have to destroy the upgraded SAM sites along the B52 flight path, and those are manned by Russians, and we possibly would be confronted with a much more difficult situation. “The lesson here was: Thank God for the military men at the meeting,” the adviser said. “They did the best they could when confronted with a decision that had already been made.” Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were fired from two U.S. Navy destroyers on duty in the Mediterranean, the Ross and the Porter, at Shayrat Air Base near the government-controlled city of Homs. The strike was as successful as hoped, in terms of doing minimal damage. The missiles have a light payload – roughly 220 pounds of HBX, the military’s modern version of TNT. The airfield’s gasoline storage tanks, a primary target, were pulverized, the senior adviser said, triggering a huge fire and clouds of smoke that interfered with the guidance system of following missiles. As many as 24 missiles missed their targets and only a few of the Tomahawks actually penetrated into hangars, destroying nine Syrian aircraft, many fewer than claimed by the Trump administration. I was told that none of the nine was operational: such damaged aircraft are what the Air Force calls hangar queens. “They were sacrificial lambs,” the senior adviser said. Most of the important personnel and operational fighter planes had been flown to nearby bases hours before the raid began. The two runways and parking places for aircraft, which had also been targeted, were repaired and back in operation within eight hours or so. All in all, it was little more than an expensive fireworks display. “It was a totally Trump show from beginning to end,” the senior adviser said. “A few of the president’s senior national security advisers viewed the mission as a minimized bad presidential decision, and one that they had an obligation to carry out. But I don’t think our national security people are going to allow themselves to be hustled into a bad decision again. If Trump had gone for option three, there might have been some immediate resignations.” After the meeting, with the Tomahawks on their way, Trump spoke to the nation from Mar-a-Lago, and accused Assad of using nerve gas to choke out “the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many … No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” The next few days were his most successful as president. America rallied around its commander in chief, as it always does in times of war. Trump, who had campaigned as someone who advocated making peace with Assad, was bombing Syria 11 weeks after taking office, and was hailed for doing so by Republicans, Democrats and the media alike. One prominent TV anchorman, Brian Williams of MSNBC, used the word “beautiful” to describe the images of the Tomahawks being launched at sea. Speaking on CNN, Fareed Zakaria said: “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States.” A review of the top 100 American newspapers showed that 39 of them published editorials supporting the bombing in its aftermath, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The Tomahawk missiles only did little damage to the Syrian air base (Quelle: AP Photo/HM BH) Five days later, the Trump administration gathered the national media for a background briefing on the Syrian operation that was conducted by a senior White House official who was not to be identified. The gist of the briefing was that Russia’s heated and persistent denial of any sarin use in the Khan Sheikhoun bombing was a lie because President Trump had said sarin had been used. That assertion, which was not challenged or disputed by any of the reporters present, became the basis for a series of further criticisms: – The continued lying by the Trump administration about Syria’s use of sarin led to widespread belief in the American media and public that Russia had chosen to be involved in a corrupt disinformation and cover-up campaign on the part of Syria. – Russia’s military forces had been co-located with Syria’s at the Shayrat airfield (as they are throughout Syria), raising the possibility that Russia had advance notice of Syria’s determination to use sarin at Khan Sheikhoun and did nothing to stop it. – Syria’s use of sarin and Russia’s defense of that use strongly suggested that Syria withheld stocks of the nerve agent from the UN disarmament team that spent much of 2014 inspecting and removing all declared chemical warfare agents from 12 Syrian chemical weapons depots, pursuant to the agreement worked out by the Obama administration and Russia after Syria’s alleged, but still unproven, use of sarin the year before against a rebel redoubt in a suburb of Damascus. The briefer, to his credit, was careful to use the words “think,” “suggest” and “believe” at least 10 times during the 30-minute event. But he also said that his briefing was based on data that had been declassified by “our colleagues in the intelligence community.” What the briefer did not say, and may not have known, was that much of the classified information in the community made the point that Syria had not used sarin in the April 4 bombing attack. The mainstream press responded the way the White House had hoped it would: Stories attacking Russia’s alleged cover-up of Syria’s sarin use dominated the news and many media outlets ignored the briefer’s myriad caveats. There was a sense of renewed Cold War. The New York Times, for example – America’s leading newspaper – put the following headline on its account: “White House Accuses Russia of Cover-Up in Syria Chemical Attack.” The Times’ account did note a Russian denial, but what was described by the briefer as “declassified information” suddenly became a “declassified intelligence report.” Yet there was no formal intelligence report stating that Syria had used sarin, merely a “summary based on declassified information about the attacks,” as the briefer referred to it. The crisis slid into the background by the end of April, as Russia, Syria and the United States remained focused on annihilating ISIS and the militias of al-Qaida. Some of those who had worked through the crisis, however, were left with lingering concerns. “The Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy,” the senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community told me, referring to the flare up of tensions between Syria, Russia and America. “The issue is, what if there’s another false flag sarin attack credited to hated Syria? Trump has upped the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no choice but to bomb again, and harder. He’s incapable of saying he made a mistake.” The White House did not answer specific questions about the bombing of Khan Sheikhoun and the airport of Shayrat. These questions were send via e-mail to the White House on June 15 and never answered. • First published in Welt http://clubof.info/

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davidisen · 8 years ago

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NYC Music I Like Mar 1-7

...trad jazz, Gypsy, swing, bluegrass, choro etc. w/ folk roots & virtuoso ensemble playing... Explanation/disclaimer.

[Caution! Please verify with musician, venue, etc. before going. Send updata here.]

Allied music listings with overlapping tastes: Jim's Roots and Blues Calendar. Eileen's Lindy Blog - This Week in Swing.

This Week

<<<SPECIAL>>>: Tuesday, Feb 28 through Sunday, March 5, Django a GoGo, an amazing week of workshops and concerts presented by Stephane Wrembel. More info here. Concerts that are open to the public listed below.

Wednesday, March 1, 5:30 PM: David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, Birdland (Most Wednesdays.) 7 PM: Jeanne Gies (vocals) w/ Bruce Edwards (guitar). Andanada. 7:30 PM: The Robert Edwards Quintet w/ Rob (trombone), Joe Magnarelli (cornet), Dave Barron (bass), Aaron Kimmel (drums), Adam Birnbaum (piano). Smalls. 8 PM: Django a Gogo presents Django Flamenco w/Alfonso Ponticelli and Juanito Pascual (guitars). The Woodland, Maplewood NJ. Info/tix. 10 PM: Tatiana and the Mood Swings w/ Tatiana Eva Marie (vocals), Amos Rose (guitar), Joanna Sternberg (bass). Jalopy. 11 PM: Avalon Jazz Band hosts Hot Jazz & Gypsy Jam. The Keep. (Most Wednesdays.)

Thursday, March 2, 7 PM: Bill Scorzari, Live in the Lobby. The Patchogue Theatre, Patchogue, NY 8 PM: Django a Gogo presents Rhythm Future Quartet w/ Olli Soikkeli (guitar), Max O'Rourke (guitar), Jason Anick (violin), Greg Loughman (bass). The Woodland, Maplewood NJ. Info/tix. 8 PM: The Blacktail Songbirds w/ Molly Ryan (vocals), Dan Levinson (reeds), Mike Davis (cornet), Terry Waldo (piano). Blacktail. (Most Thursdays.) 8 PM: Andy Statman Trio w/ guest Pete Rushefsky. Charles Street Synagogue. 8:30 PM: Gene Bertoncini (guitar) and Josh Marcum (bass). Ryan's Daughter, upstairs, 350 E. 85th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. (Most Thursdays.) 9 PM: Abbie Gardner. Rockwood One. 9 PM: Gypsy jazz jam, Fada. (Most Thursdays.) 10:30 PM: Linus Wyrsch Birthday Celebration Jam Session w/ Gene Bertoncini (guitar), Josh Marcum (bass) and special guests. Ryan's Daughter, upstairs, 350 E. 85th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

Friday, March 3, 5 PM: The Glenn Crytzer Quartette. Broadway Lounge in the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. 7 PM: Peter & Will Anderson (reeds). Shanghai Jazz, Madison NJ. 8 PM: Django a GoGo w/ Al DiMeola, Stochelo Rosenberg, Ryan Montbleu, Stephane Wrembel (guitars), others. Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. Info . . . tix. 10:30 PM: Fridays at Mona's, This Friday Reggae w/ The Brooklyners featuring David Langlois (washboard), others. Mona’s, 14th & Avenue B.

Saturday, March 4, 11 AM: Songs inspired by “Cool Hand Luke” by Glass Carnival w/ Sasha Papernik (vocals), Justin Poindexter (vocals, guitar), Dave Speranza (bass), Mark Dobbyn (guitar), Peri DiLorenzo (fiddle). Nighthawk Cinema136 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn. Followed by the movie. Info. 11:30 AM: Tara O'Grady Quartet w/ Tara (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), David Shaich (bass), Michael Hashim (sax). Tanner Smiths Tipsy Tea Jazz Brunch. (Most Saturdays.) 12:30 PM: Amos Rose jazz duo w/ vocals. Jules Bistro. (Most Saturdays.) 1 PM: Garden Party Quartet frequently with Emily Asher (trombone). (Most Saturdays.) Fraunces Tavern. 4 PM: Roy Williams & Friends. The Shanty. (Most Saturdays, personnel varies). 7 PM: New York Mandolin Ensemble w/ Steven Antonelli, Wayne Fugate, Richard Robinson, Roy Goldberg, Bob Green, Barry Kornhauser and Barry Mitterhoff, (mandolins). Church of St. John Nepomucene, 411 East 66th Street in Manhattan. Info. Tickets at the door ($10). 7 PM: Hazmat Modine, w/ musicians such as Joe Daley (tuba), Pam Flemming (cornet), Kevin Garcia (drums), Reut Regev (trombone), Michaela Gomez (guitar, steel guitar), Erik Della Penna (guitar, banjo & vocals), Steve Elson (wind instruments), Wade Schuman (diatonic harmonica, lute guitar, vocals). Terra Blues. 7:00pm Tara O'Grady Quartet w/ Tara (vocals), Darren Wallis (guitar), David Shaich (bass), John Campagna (sax). Chappaqua Station, Chappaqua NY. 8 PM: Django a GoGo w/ Paulus Schafer. The Woodland, Maplewood NJ. Info/tix. 8 PM: Mama Juke Duo w/ Amos Rose (guitar) and Elijah Bridges (guitar). Santos Anne, Williamsburg. 8 PM: Eddie Barbash & His Orchestra. The Roxy. 9:30 PM: Svetlana & The Delancey Five: Born To Swing! w/ Svetlana (vocals) Billy Test (piano), Rob Garcia (drums), Endea Owens (bass), Corey Wallace (trombone), Charlie Caranicas (cornet), Michael Hashim (sax & other reeds), Dewit Flemming Jr (tap dancing). Joe's Pub. Info/tix. 9:30 PM: Jovino Santos Neto (piano) w/ Itaiguara Brandão (bass), Mauricio Zottarelli (drums). Club Bonafide.

Sunday, March 5, 11 AM: Songs inspired by “Cool Hand Luke” by Glass Carnival w/ Sasha Papernik (vocals), Justin Poindexter (vocals, guitar), Dave Speranza (bass), Mark Dobbyn (guitar), Peri DiLorenzo (fiddle). Nighthawk Cinema136 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn. Followed by the movie. Info. 11:30 AM: Tara O'Grady Quartet w/ Tara (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), David Shaich (bass), Michael Hashim (sax). Tanner Smiths Tipsy Tea Jazz Brunch. (Most Sundays.) Noon: Megg Ryan Jass Band w/ Sweet Megg (vocals, guitar), Ryan Weisheit (reeds). House of Yes. (Most Sundays.) 1:30 PM: Koran Agan (guitar), others. Radegast. (Most Sundays.) 5 PM: Roda de Choro with Regional de NY. Genuine Brazilian choro with a slight NYC accent. Beco. 5 PM to midnight. Django a GoGo party & jam session hosted by Stephane Wrembel, including many great players. Barbes. 5:45 PM Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band. Fat Cat. 6:30 PM: Glenn Crytzer All Stars. The Row Hotel. 8 PM: The EarRegulars w/ Jon-Erik Kellso (cornet), and this week Scott Robinson (miscellaneous wind instruments), Matt Munisteri (guitar), Patrick O’Leary (bass). The Ear. (Most Sundays.) 8:30 PM: Dan Levinson (reeds) plays the music of Django Reinhardt, hosted by Koran Agan (guitar). Cornelia Street Cafe. 10 PM: Baby Soda Jazz Band w/ Jared Engel (banjo), others. St. Mazie. (Most Sundays.)

Monday, March 6, 7 PM: The Abbie Hollander Band. Rockwood Three. 7 PM: “Divine Ella” w/ Brandee Younger (harp), Jean Baylor (vocals), Camille Thurman (alto sax and vocals), Courtney Bryan (piano), Dezron Douglas (bass) and Kassa Overall (drums). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Info/tix. 7 PM: The Brain Cloud, the full band w/ Tamar Korn (vocals), Dennis Lichtman (clarinet, mandolin), Andrew Hall (bass), Raphael McGregor (lap steel guitar), Kevin Dorn (drums) and Skip Krevins (guitar). Barbes. (Most Mondays.) 7 PM: Peter & Will Anderson (reeds) w/ Julliard alumni & students. Paul Recital Hall, Julliard. 8 PM: Eddie Barbash Bluegrass Band. Rockwood One. 9:30 PM: First Monday Bluegrass Jam hosted by Michael Daves. Rockwood Three. 8 PM: Vince Giordano & his Nighthawks, with an array of the best traditional jazz musicians in New York, Iguana. (Most Mondays). 8 PM: Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers. The Belfry. (Most Mondays.) 9 PM: Svetlana & The Delancey 5 - Svetlana (vocals), Jon Weber (piano), Mike Hashim (reeds), Charlie Caranicas (trmpt), Rob Garcia (drums), George Delancey (bass). Back Room Speakeasy - 102 Norfolk Street. (Most Mondays.) 10 PM: Mona’s Bluegrass Jam, Mona’s, 14th & Avenue B (Most Mondays.) 10 PM: Terry Waldo & The Rum House Jass Band w/ Terry (piano), Jon-Erik Kellso (cornet), Jim Fryer (trombone), Eddy Davis (tenor banjo) and frequently Dan Levinson (clarinet) & Molly Ryan (vocals). The Rum House. (Most Mondays.) 10 PM: Jim Campilongo, Roy Williams, Luca Benedetti (guitars). Rockwood Two.

Tuesday, March 7, Noon: Gotham Jazzmen. New York Library for the Performing Arts. 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill. 8 PM: Vince Giordano & his Nighthawks, with an array of the very best traditional jazz musicians in New York, Iguana. (Most Tuesdays). 8 PM: Tara O'Grady & the Black Velvet Band w/ Tara (vocals), Vinny Raniolo (guitar), David Shaich (bass). Winnie’s Jazz Bar. (Most Tuesdays). 9:30 PM: Mama Juke w/ Amos Rose, others. (Most Tuesdays.) East Village Social, St Marks @ Ave A. 10 PM: Svetlana & The Delancy Band. Brooklyn Speakeasy at Bedford Hall, 1177 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn. (Most Tuesdays.) 10:15 PM: Michael Daves' Wax Lion. Rockwood Three. (Most Tuesdays.) 11 PM: Trad Jazz Jam hosted by Mona’s Hot Four. The Original Hot Four house band is Dennis Lichtman (clarinet, etc.), Gordon Webster (piano), Nick Russo (guitar, banjo) & Jared Engel (bass). Mona’s, 14th & Avenue B.

Future

March 8, 7 PM: Dan Levinson (reeds), Mark Shane (piano), Kevin Dorn (drums) play the music of Benny Goodman. Shanghai Jazz, Madison NJ. 8 PM: Bill Scorzari. At Finley's of Huntington, Huntington, NY.

March 9, 7:15 PM: Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge (guitars). Rockwood Two. 9 PM: Sam Raderman Quartet w/ Sam (guitar), others. Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

March 10, 7:15 PM: Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge (guitars). Rockwood Two. 8 PM: Tony Trischka (banjo) & Territory. The Emelin Theatre, Mamaroneck NY.

March 11, 8 PM: Celtic Appalachian Celebration w/ Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and The Green Fields of America, w/ Billy McComiskey (button accordion), Liz Hanley (fiddle and vocals), Jerry O'Sullivan (uilleann pipes and whistle), Brendan Dolan (piano), Niall O'Leary (dancer) and special guests Erynn Marshall (fiddle), Carl Jones (guitar, mandolin, banjo), Sheila Adams (singer), Megan Downes and City Stompers (dancers), Haley Richardson (fiddle), Jake James (fiddler and dancer). Symphony Space. Info/tix. 10 PM: Alash (Tuvan throat singers). Barbes.

March 13, 7 PM: “Ella is Present” w/ Terri Lyne Carrington (percussion), Casey Benjamin Charenée Wade (vocals). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Info/tix. 8 PM: Mike Davis (cornet) and friends celebrate Bix Beiderbecke. The Bickford, Morristown NJ. Info/Tix.

March 14, Noon: Gotham Jazzmen. New York Library for the Performing Arts. 9 PM: Brother Roy w/ Roy Williams (piano, vocals). Rockwood Two. 10 PM: Michael Daves (guitar). Rockwood One. 11 PM: Jordan Tice & Horse Country. Rockwood One.

March 15, 9:30 PM: Gordon Webster Band CD Release w/ Gordon (piano), Charles Turner (vocals), Danny Jonokuchi (cornet), Danny Lipsitz (reeds), Rob Edwards (trombone), Ricky Alexander (reeds), Danny Zieman (bass), Kevin Congelton (drums). Joes Pub. Info/tix.

March 17, 8 PM: Leann Rimes. Patchogue Theatre, Patchogue NY. Info/tix.

March 18, Rhonda Vincent. Ramapo College, Mahwah NJ. Info/tix. Margi Gianquinto and the world famous TBD band featuring TBA (wtf) and TBA (ftw). J House, Riverside CT.

March 19, 12:30 PM: Brunch with w/ Hilary Gardner (vocals) plus Greg Ruggerio (guitar) & Joel Forbes (bass). North Square. 4 PM: The Stride Piano Jam w/ Terry Waldo (piano) & Ehud Asherie (piano). Fat Cat.

March 21, Noon: Gotham Jazzmen. New York Library for the Performing Arts.

March 22, 7:30 PM: Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” (a story of the 1930s & prohibition) w/ Cyrille Aimée & many others. City Center, 130 W. 56th Street. Info/tix. 7:45 PM: Chris Eldridge & Julian Lage plus Aoife O'Donovan. Fairfield Theatre Company, Fairfield CT. Info/tix.

March 23, 7:30 PM: Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” (a story of the 1930s & prohibition) w/ Cyrille Aimée & many others. City Center, 130 W. 56th Street. Info/tix. 9 PM (unconfirmed time): Jon-Erik Kellso Quartet. Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

March 24, 8 PM: Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” (a story of the 1930s & prohibition) w/ Cyrille Aimée & many others. City Center, 130 W. 56th Street. Info/tix. 8 & 10 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Larry Fuller (piano), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Kitano.

March 25, 2 & 8 PM: Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” (a story of the 1930s & prohibition) w/ Cyrille Aimée & many others. City Center, 130 W. 56th Street. Info/tix. 8 & 10 PM: Stephanie Nakasian (vocals) & Veronica Swift (vocals) with the Tardo Hammer Trio. Kitano.

March 26, Noon: Women of the Guitar w/ Sheryl Bailey, Jiji Kimm, Kaki King & Ann Klein. 92nd Street Y. Free but limited seating. Info 2 & 7 PM: Cole Porter’s “The New Yorkers” (a story of the 1930s & prohibition) w/ Cyrille Aimée & many others. City Center, 130 W. 56th Street. Info/tix. Time?: The Peewee Russell Memorial Stomp w/ Midiri Brothers Quintet, Peter and Will Anderson Quintet, Dan Levinson's Russell of Spring Band & Professor Cunningham and his Old School. Birchwood Manor, Whippany NJ. Info/tix.

March 27, 7 PM: “J’adore Ella,” w/ Les Nubians (sisters Hélène and Célia Faussart). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Info/tix.

March 28, Noon: Gotham Jazzmen. New York Library for the Performing Arts.

March 29, 12:30 PM: Jayme Stone's Lomax Project. UBS Atrium, Weehawken, NJ.

March 31, 7:30 & 9:30 PM: John Pizzarelli. The Emelin Theatre, Mamaroneck NY.

April 1, 8 PM: John Prine. NJPAC. Tix. 8 PM: Acadia Swing w/ Svetlana & The Delancy Five, Sweet Megg & The Wayfarers, others. Connollys on W. 45th. Tix.

April 3, 7:30 PM: Richard Dowling (piano) & Jeff Barnhart (piano) play the music of Scott Joplin. Bickford Theatre, Morristown NJ. Info/tix. 7:30 & 9:30 PM: Danilo Brito Quinteto. Dizzy’s. Info/tix.

April 11, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

April 17, 8:30 PM: Frank Vignola's Guitar Night w/ Frank (guitar), Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Gene Bertoncini (7-string guitar), Olli Soikkeli (guitar), Vinny Raniolo (guitar) and Nicki Parrott (bass). The Iridium.

April 20, 9 PM: Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo (guitars). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

April 28-30, Brooklyn Folk Festival. St Ann's Church. Full Line-up here.

May 9, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

May 13, 7:30 PM: Rhiannon Giddens (violin, banjo, vocals). Alice Tully Hall. Info/tix.

<<<SPECIAL>>> May 15-21. New York Hot Jazz Camp directed by Molly Ryan & Bria Skonberg . Info & registration info here.

May 18, 8 PM: David Crosby. Westbury Theatre. Info/Tix. Tix on sale February 3.

May 27, 7:30 PM: Battle of the Big Bands. Info/tix.

June 6, 6 PM: Bucky Pizzarelli (7-string guitar), Ed Laub (guitar, vocals), Martin Pizzarelli (bass). Luca's Jazz Corner @Cavatappo Grill.

October 13-15, Jeff & Joel's House Party, Branford CT. Info.

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