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terrence-silver · 9 months ago

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Give us some basic headcanons about Jack Blaylock, please? Anything that comes to mind? Why he's the way he is? What turns the gears inside his head? He's such a fascinating, mysterious character but there's so little content about him to enjoy.

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Okay, random thoughts on Jack Blaylock and how he ticks:

Believes in reincarnation, fated soulmates and karma.

Is an US-expatriate born on Japanese soil who’s never actually been in America, yet maintains this weirdly idealized, fiercely patriotic image of it, all while for all intents and purposes, man’s technically infinitely more Japanese than American.

Traveled all across Asia for, erhm, jobs, but he’s never actually been ‘home’.

As a result of this, he also romanticizes tradition and ‘the way things are meant to be / the way people are originally meant to live’ precisely because he was born and raised between two worlds and two very distinctive cultures, neither here, nor there, wanting to find his own place under the sun and go back to a simpler time when ‘everything made sense’.

He’s a hitman because he’s immensely talented at it and if he causes carnage and breaks laws with a general disregard for human life (winding up in jail and the newspaper at least once from what we’ve seen, going as far as changing his name...at least once too) he probably feels he at least isn’t doing all of this at ‘home’ and that half of the time whenever he assassinates some whistleblower, gangster, nosey investigative journalist or corrupt politician, he’s actually doing America a favor by ‘offing her enemies’ from afar and blaming it on someone else is need be, pshhh.

As such, man’s convinced he’s in a weird way…doing a necessary deed.

Jack might feel it’s infinitely better to arrange the termination of some politician promoting unfavorable international policies than have entire countries duke out disputes that came about from one rotten apple at a later date through actual warfare, sanctions, serious repercussions and millions of people dying, losing their jobs, ending up displaced and suffering the casualties when it’s just easier to simply off one dude and lop his head off, for example. He feels his profession is dirty, uncomfortable, taboo, not something everyone can stomach doing, but very much needed. People like him are not liked. People like him are on the margins of society. In the shadows, always hiding behind other professions and made-up identities, precisely the way he himself does. They don't get happy endings. They’re very much a requirement, though. Have been all throughout history. Where there’s civilization, there’s people who kill professionally. There's always been some Jack Blaylock out there one way or another. Or some Timothy Calloway.

And he will kill anyone and everyone in the most gruesome ways possible if the job demands it (exacerbated by his bigotry for certain groups, which, ironically, include the Japanese) --- and he can really make it into a scene if he wants to --- but in his own words, the one possible hard no he has is other Americans and mainly the women precisely because he has this ingrained patriotism and longing for a home he’s never actually experienced. Man has his own (hypocritical) preferences and biases he conflates with honor. A code of sorts.

Ultimately, Jack's oddly romantic and idealistic, yet somehow simultaneously fiercely realistic and even cynical. There's something bizarrely spiritual about him, I'd even dare say. He believes a better world is possible --- if not now, then in another life, cycles and cycles from now, and in the meantime, someone, namely people like him have to get their hands seriously dirty to make all of that possible for themselves and everyone else. So happens that sometimes a better world starts by unloading a round of bullets into someone standing in the way of it all.

It's preferable if you enjoy doing it along the way. If you're good at it.

He's both.

#jack blaylock #ulterior motives #ulterior motives 1992 #character analysis #headcanons #jack blaylock headcanons #tw; bigotry #tw; murder #tw; professional assassination #tw; crime

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blowflyfag · 4 months ago

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WRESTLING EYE: APRIL 1993

AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF THE WWF-USWA MERGE

BY STEVE MUELLER

On August 9, 1992, the wrestling world changed. It changed not with a bang, but with a challenge. It changed in a manner that may, one day, restructure the entire way professional wrestling is promoted in America. In some ways, the change was as significant as the national Football League agreeing to face the American Football League in a Super Bowl.

On that date, the World Wrestling Federation officially recognized the existence of a wrestling promotion other than itself. Oh, during the past couple of years, there head been some cracks in the WWF rigid policy of not recognizing the existence of other pro wrestling organizations. For example, Ric Flair came into the promotion with the NWA world title belt in tow and calling himself the “real World Champion.” But the official beginning of the new WWF philosophy did indeed begin on August 9.

That date saw Jeff Jarret, son of USWA promoter Jerry Jarret and one of that promotion’s top attractions, leap a barricade at a WWF event to challenge then WWF Intercontinental Champion Bret Hart to a title match. Hart accepted the challenge and a new era dawned.

Allegedly because Hart would lose the Intercontinental strap to the British Bulldog at SummerSlam in ‘92, the match never took place. But that fact is inconsequential because the WWF and USWA entered into an historic “working agreement.” For the first time since the Vince McMahon, Jr., era began in 1984, the WWF promoted cards on which non-WWF wrestlers appeared. Additionally, some WWF wrestlers and personalities began appearing on USWA cards.

What does this all mean? How will it effect the future of wrestling in America? Is this a trend, the start of things to come, or just an aberration. Good questions that need answers. WRESTLING EYE will try to supply them.

What follows is an attempt by the crack WRESTLING EYE editorial staff to analyze these dramatic events. The entire development will be broken down into its component parts. Opinions of experts will be reviewed. Logical conclusions and suppositions will be formulated.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan was one of the WWF wrestlers chosen to compete in the USWA.]

THE PLAYERS

VINCE McMAHON

World Wrestling Federation head honcho, alleged marketing genius, and supreme commander of the universe, at least the WWF slice of it, Vince McMahon is the prime mover in this story. Vince was the first promoter to successfully take a wrestling promotion national, and, love him or hate him, he remains the world champion of wrestling promoters with no serious challengers for his crown in sight.

McMahon has been called by some a serpentine, cut-throat businessman with an ego the size of Montana, by others a genius with his own code of honor and a great love for the wrestling business. Whatever the reality may be, he is one of the most influential and complex men ever to be involved with the mat sport.

JERRY JARRET

Owner/operator of the United States Wrestling Association, based in Tennessee. His longtime top attraction is Jerry “the King” Lawler, perhaps the greatest all-around star in the history of southern wrestling. (Lawler has a significant role in this growing saga. That role will be discussed later.)

[Many feel that the Rock ‘n Roll Express would be an excellent addition to the WWF –Photo by Cohen.]

According to Jim Cornette, wrestling greatest living manager, in an interview in the “Pro Wrestling Torch” newsletter, “Jerry Jarret is one the shrewdest businessman in wrestling. I have never known him to come up on the short end of a business deal.”

[Jeff Gaylord could be a competent replacement for the Ultimate Warrior. –Photo by Wilson]

Earlier this year, Jarret was trying to set-up a working relationship with World Championship Wrestling. That deal fell through. It appears this one will not.

OVERVIEW

The exact nature of this “working relationship” has yet to be revealed or determined. It seems to be a work in progress. Rumors have claimed everything from the USWA becoming a kind of minor league for the WWF to the whole deal being an elaborate scheme by Vince McMahon to take over Memphis wrestling. However, why Vince McMahon would want to do that is not clear at this time. Especially in view of the wrestling depression that is currently gripping America. One thing Vince does not need is more empty arenas.

This “working agreement” has advantages for both promotions. The USWA gets WWF stars to appear on its shows. The WWF saves travel money by using USWA wrestlers to fill up spots on cards run in the South. And then, on December 7, the WWF got a lot more. It got Jerry Lawler.

[Jeff Jarrett has challenged Bret Hart.]

WRESTLERS AND PERSONALITIES

Jerry Lawler’s move to the WWF is significant on many levels. Lawler, called the Hulk Hogan of the South, debuted on the December 7 edition of “Prime Time” on the USA network. Lawler is a great ring worker, but even more importantly, he is one of the best communicators in the history of the sport. His great all-around ability is reflected in his amazing accomplishments. Without working for a major promotion for any length of time, Lawler has over the last 15 years been one of the most influential men in the sport. He even parlayed a feud with late comic Andy Kaufman into appearances on the David Letterman Show and sold out houses in the Mid-South Coliseum.

[Can you imagine the havoc the Moondogs would wreak in the WWF?]

Jeff Jarret has also been wrestling successfully in opening matches on WWF cards not only in the south, but across America. Additionally, many WWF stars have appeared at USWA events including Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart, southern wrestling managerial legend, Sergeant Slaughter, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and the Bushwackers.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

Experts say the huge egos of McMahon and Jarret can’t co-exist very long. Others say that the McMahon/Jarret alliance is the first stage of a new way to promote wrestling in America. These experts say that it is alliance born out of necessity. The WWF needs a developing ground for new talent and USWA needs nationally known personalities on its cards to foster credibility in the minds of casual fans. And more importantly, it needs these recognizable stars to get those casual fans to buy tickets for USWA events.

[The WWF-USWA merge could produce some interesting match ups.]

The editorial staff at WRESTLING EYE,, after careful evaluation and extensive study, believe that this alliance is indeed the start of a new era in professional wrestling. As proof, we point to the recently announced alliance between World Championship Wrestling and Smokey Mountain Wrestling. We further believe that these alliances will help pro wrestling overcome its current popularity slump. New faces and developing talent are exactly what the majors need to rekindle interest in the sport.

#magazine scan #magazine transcript #WRESTLING EYE #WRESTLING EYE 1990s #1990s #1993

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saint-starflicker · 10 months ago

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My Top 10 dark academia stageplays:

#10 Cleansed by Sarah Kane

This playwright is known for deconstructions of stageplays themselves. Kane's later works replaced characters with voices, or did away with settings, and became so avant-garde that they weren't shows anymore but experiences. While Cleansed still had something like a plot or characters, it's a surrealist story set at a university—according to the script—that nobody treats as a university because they're only trapped there by a serial-killer torturer man. It is gory, depending on the stage effects budget many audience members are prone to walk out, but if you can withstand the shows of violence then you might find that there is meaningfulness at every instance of it.

#9 Rope's End by Patrick Hamilton

The morality of murder as discussed by elitist post-grads. I think The Secret History fans would like this for the similar themes. There was a movie adaptation in 1948 directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

#8 The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman

There is a movie version from 1961 that I consider "malicious compliance" to the Hays Code policy of bury-your-lesbians. The doomed-to-death character was not a bad person, and an intolerant society is worse off for having lost her.

#7 The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel

Tilly Hunsdorfer has a science fair project to put together, but her home life continues a legacy of child abuse. I have not watched the 1972 film adaptation, but the internet has informed me of its existence.

#6 The Awakening of Spring by Frank Wedekind

Written in 1891, translated into English by Edward Bond in 1974, again by Ted Hughes in 1995, and translated/adapted by Anya Reiss in 2014. When young people aren't guided and educated about facts of life that are traditionally ignored or repressed, then their actions become destructive. There was a very popular Broadway musical adaptation and American Sign Language revival, but I'm trying to keep to listing stageplays that are not musicals.

#5 Proof by David Auburn

A father and daughter duo are mathematicians who figuratively walk a tightrope between genius and madness. There was a movie adaptation in 2005.

#4 Master Class by Terrence McNally

This might not technically be a musical, because the featured songs are selected from other operas that Callas starred in, so I'm including this on the list. A retired opera singer, the legendary Maria Callas, teaches a room full of opera singers. Each song they select to perform sets off a series of monologues from the impassioned Callas about her life, portraying wartime poverty through to the betrayal of torrid love affairs, and how her voice was a gift and a curse.

#3 Educating Rita by Willy Russell

This is much more on the academia side than the dark side, but I think people that liked Dead Poets Society 1989 for the themes will like this stageplay or it's 1983 movie adaptation.

#2 Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

In the year 1809, the honorable Septimus Hodge tutors a teenaged gentlewoman with a keen interest in mathematics and physics. In 1993, two historians and a mathematician stay at the estate and try to find out what happened there between 1809 and 1813: sword duels, extramarital affairs, secret letters, famous poets, and how the brilliant Thomasina died tragically young and unsung. They clash with regards to academic "office politics" and the importance of the humanities versus the sciences.

Honorable Mentions:

The History Boys by Alan Bennett

In terms of how this stageplay and the 2006 movie adaptation tackles social issues, it's technically better than Dead Poets Society on every count: directly confronting misogyny and racism in academia, and having canonically queer boys and men in a convoluted relationship triangle as they try to prepare for university entrance examinations. There is a death. The History Boys absolutely qualifies as the genre Dark Academia. At the same time, I cannot recommend it because the way one main thread of subplot was handled really bothered me.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin

While this list got much less dark from Proof on downwards, this might also be less academic. Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso meet at a café, the eponymous "Lapin Agile", and banter with the entire cast of characters about their life and philosophies. I found the entire play both funny and fun, and I really think it gets the neurons firing in sparkly ways.

Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley

At a Catholic school, a nun tries to prevent a priest from further interfering sexually with one of their students. The stageplay keeps the audience in doubt(!) about whether or not he did what he was accused of, as the story spirals into explorations of faith, race, sexual orientation, pragmatism versus principle, and whether what we're shown in our limited ways to witness can really be what it is. There was a movie adaptation in 2008 starring Meryl Streep.

I don't actually know what to put here. Recommend a stageplay that you think belongs in this spot.

#dark academia

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planet-apathy · 1 year ago

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Loyalty.

So much can be said about the importance of loyalty. How empires have been erected with it. How wars have been decided by it. How our species survival has at times depended on it. 楚 or Chǔ is one of the seven virtues of bushido, the ethical code these warriors lived and died by. Yes, Human beings throughout history have used this quality as a tool to carve out their place in this plane of existence. But rarely is the other side of this double edged sword brought up. What about when loyalty, and more specifically, the loyalty you show to others is to your own detriment?

“The central theme of Hagakure is the righteous death of the samurai. The proper death is the point around which commentary of other matters revolves; the willingness of the warrior to commit unwaveringly to death when it is demanded of him is the ultimate expression of his devotion to his lord.”

-from In search of a glorious death - by Johann Kurtz

Perspective is important.

Ï was conjured in the slums of a city where such Ä perspective is laughable. Morals and idealism is nice but it’s the Wild West out here. “Honor?!😂😂 you burnt the fuck out dickhead!” Is not too far off from the reply you’d receive trying to live righteously in this environment. Here, your child’s mother might fuck your mortal enemy because you looked to happy dropping them off to her. Here, your right hand man, whom you’ve know since childhood, might blow your brains out of your skull and onto the pavement like a banksy street art piece, and Äll because of a girl he wanted that didn’t give him play because she had her eyes on you. The real tragedy to me is that neither of these situations were about any money🤦🏽‍♂️ Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed both happen to some really good men that didn’t deserve it. 🕊️. What is one trying to live better to do under these circumstances of reality?

Pragmatic thought processes may lead you to think “well, maybe you have to be more discerning of who you give your loyalty too.” But Ï feel this notion is quixotic at best and contrarian at worst. Life is messy and you can never know a human beyond the mask they choose to show you. To be loyal is to allow yourself to be vulnerable to the capricious nature of the land mammals you happen to exist around🤷🏽‍♂️. Well, that leads us back to the mentality of the samurai. They laid there life down for their daimyo(Feudal Lord) regardless of how they felt about their lord’s decisions.

We praise them for upholding this virtue but looking at it realistically. Without this grandiose lens. What did you give your only (as far as you know and not just have faith in) finite life for? From all walks of life I ask, on a long enough timeline, because let’s be honest it’s been long enough. Did the empire you KILLED for conquer this planet and bring worldwide peace? Did that gang you DIED for fix the poverty stricken streets you, your mother , and siblings barely escaped from? Did the political party you LIED and GASLIGHTED for install the policies and laws to bring your country and it’s citizens to the upper echelons of life without stepping on a particular group or at least install the ones that would keep those particular groups from being stepped on? Did the religion you BLEW UP-... 😂😂😂 you get the point. Or do you? What is the point of it all? I suppose it’s up to each and every individual to decide their own head canon to justify this quality. And well... at least you have that.

*hits blunt*

✌🏽 young bul.

🚶🏽

#Spotify

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thetajinindia01 · 5 months ago

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3 days golden triangle tour By The Taj In India Company

The Taj In India Company's 3-Day Golden Triangle Tour

The 3 day Golden Triangle Tour, which visits Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, offers the greatest opportunity to explore India's rich history and culture. The Taj In India Company's three-day tour offers the ideal fusion of architectural, cultural, and historical wonders. Let's explore this amazing journey's specifics.

The Golden Triangle Tour: Why Select It? For those looking to quickly experience the essence of India, the Golden Triangle Tour is a great option. This tour provides an overview of India's varied culture, history, and architecture while seeing three major cities. Every city in the Golden Triangle has a certain allure and importance.

The Taj In India Enterprise The Taj In India Company is well known for its proficiency in planning trips throughout the Golden Triangle. They prioritize client happiness and provide a selection of services meant to make your trip more enjoyable. Their dedication to professionalism and quality guarantees a fun and uneventful tour.

Tour Schedule: Day 1: Getting to Know Delhi The capital city of India, Delhi, is where your journey starts. The city offers a multitude of attractions and is the ideal fusion of the antique and the modern.

Arrival & Sightseeing in Delhi: Your guide will meet you at the airport and drive you to your hotel so you can settle in. The first stop on the sightseeing tour is the Red Fort, which is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You will also see India Gate, a war memorial honoring Indian soldiers, and Jama Masjid, one of the biggest mosques in India. Day 2: Getting to Know Agra Spend the second day touring Agra, the city that is home to the famous Taj Mahal.

Travel to Agra: Following breakfast, you will have a picturesque journey to reach Agra. Once you arrive, you will see the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a symbol of love. You will learn about its history and architecture via the guided tour. Other Websites: A visit to Agra Fort, a huge red sandstone fort that provides a window into Mughal history, is also included in the itinerary. It is possible to schedule a visit to Itmad-ud-Daulah's Tomb, popularly known as the Baby Taj. Day 3: Getting to Know Jaipur The itinerary concludes with a visit to Jaipur, also known as the Pink City.

Travel to Jaipur: You'll take a car to Jaipur following breakfast. You will first tour the Amber Fort, which is renowned for its breathtaking architecture and expansive views, after arriving. Principal Draws: The journey continues with stops at the City Palace, the astronomical observatory Jantar Mantar, and Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds). A different perspective on Jaipur's rich cultural past can be gained from each of these locations. Why Make a Reservation at The Taj In India Company? The Taj In India Company is renowned for its tour-planning professionalism and skill. Your tour will be customized to your tastes in every way thanks to their individualized service. Great client feedback attests to their dedication to provide outstanding experiences.

Information on Reservations and Costs It's easy to book your tour. For assistance, go to the website of The Taj In India Company or get in touch with their customer service. All inclusions, including meals, transportation, and guided excursions, are clearly listed, and pricing information is transparent. For your peace of mind, the business also has a flexible cancellation policy.

Travel Advice Take into account these suggestions to guarantee a hassle-free and joyful trip:

Things to Bring: Make sure you have a water bottle, sunscreen, and a camera. Dress code: Put on appropriate footwear and comfy clothes. Best Practices: Be on time, pay attention to what your guide says, and observe laws and customs in the area. In summary An exceptional and memorable experience can be had with The Taj In India Company's 3-day Golden Triangle Tour. For those looking for a thorough and educational tour of some of India's most famous locations, this tour is ideal. It takes in the colorful streets of Delhi, the timeless beauty of the Taj Mahal, and the regal grandeur of Jaipur.

FAQs What does the Golden Triangle tour package include? Transportation, guided tours, lodging, and itinerary-based meals are all included in the package.

Are there any meals included in the tour? Yes, breakfast is included in the tour. On request, additional meals can be scheduled.

Is it possible to modify the tour? Yes, you can tailor a tour with The Taj In India Company to your tastes.

Which season is ideal for taking the Golden Triangle tour? When the weather is nice, from October to March is the ideal time to visit.

Is this a family-friendly tour? Absolutely, the tour is appropriate for all age groups, making it ideal for singles, couples, and families.

#taj mahal tour

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nerdygaymormon · 3 years ago

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Why do they bother calling it an "honor code"? The name implies that it's run on the honor system, but they accept tip-offs, even anonymous ones, and investigate based on that. Calling it an "honor code" is an Orwellian use of language.

I like the way you framed the question, you make a good point. "Honor" should be removed from the name, not just because it's not an 'honor system,' but the treatment of LGBTQ students under the Code is not honorable

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Here's a brief timeline of the Honor Code & BYU policies, especially regarding LGBTQ people and topics:

Most universities have a Code of Conduct. BYU's Honor Code originated in 1948. It was written by students and originally outlined policies related to academic honesty. In addition to the code, students formed the BYU Honor Committee, which acted as the enforcer of the honesty policies.

Over the years, student support for the Honor Committee and Code waned, with students citing its standards to be a “strict legalistic approach” to honor. This is exactly what anon was saying, it's not 'on your honor' if you're strictly enforcing it.

In 1957, BYU President Ernest Wilkinson suggested the addition of LDS moral standards to the Honor Code.

A "live and let live" attitude had been the leaders’ attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual BYU students. That ended in 1962, school administrators and two apostles decided that "as a general policy...no one will be admitted to the B.Y.U. whom we have convincing evidence is a homosexual." The general authorities would turn over to BYU any information on homosexuality which they might obtain through ecclesiastical channels, and BYU would give the general authorities information on individuals at BYU who were suspected of being Gay.

The Honor Code expanded in the 1960s to become what we know it as today, it includes rules about chastity, dress, grooming, drugs and alcohol.

In 1965, President Wilkinson publicly announced to the student body, "We [at BYU] do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals."

The 1967 version of the Honor Code stated that "homosexuality will not be tolerated."

Also in 1967, President Wilkinson implemented a new plan. A questionnaire was sent to all Mormon bishops affiliated with BYU. The questionnaires required the bishops report to the school lists of students who were "inactive in the church or...not living the standards of the church," effectively breaking the secrecy of the confessional. Because of this new policy, the numbers of students visiting the Standards Office (which later would be renamed the Honor Code Office) soared dramatically. That first year, the Standards Office counseled 72 students who were "suspected of homosexual activity." The questionnaires eventually turned into the ecclesiastical endorsement students would be required to obtain annually (and can be withdrawn at any time) in order to attend BYU.

This dramatic increase in identified Gays and Lesbians led the BYU administration to begin what is often referred to by Gay Mormons as the "Witch Hunts of '68". The administration was convinced a large "homosexual ring" was located on campus. Extensive security files were kept on students suspected of homosexuality, and all new prospective teachers had to be interviewed by a general authority before being offered a position at BYU.

In 1968, the administration took over the Honor Code, making it no longer student-run. The Honor Code Committee and Student Senate were disbanded. This was the height of Vietnam War protests so the Honor Code was rewritten to include requirements to respect national and state appointed authority, to register all student organizations, to not enter or occupy university facilities without authorization, and to not use psychedelic drugs.

Some time in the 1960's, the Honor Code added that students must report any infractions of the Honor Code to the Standards Office, and even allowed them to do so anonymously.

In January 1969, the Board of Trustees adjusted the “no gays allowed” policy by making an exception, they decided that "homosexual students would not be admitted or retained at BYU without approval from the General Authorities".

Dallin Oaks replaced Wilkinson as President of BYU in 1971.

In 1972, the Honor Code and its accompanying dress code received approval of the Board of Trustees. It would be almost 20 years before the Honor Code would again be changed.

In 1973 President Oaks partially undoes the policy banning gay students. BYU would permit students who were not “overtly” gay. BYU would allow students who had "repented of" homosexual acts and "forsaken" them for a "lengthy period of time". However, BYU security stepped up actions to find and entrap gay students.

In the mid-1970's, long hair and beards were made completely against the dress code for men, and women were allowed to wear slacks and pantsuits, but not jeans.

In 1980, President Oaks is replaced by Jeffrey Holland as BYU president.

in 1981, BYU female students allowed to wear jeans.

In 1984, albums by popular singer Boy George were banned on BYU campus because he portrayed "transvestitism and homosexuality"

In 1989, Rex Lee became the next president of BYU

In 1991 a revised version of the Honor Code and Dress Code was approved by the Board of Trustees. Students could wear shorts and sandals to class for the first time and socks became optional. It included the phrase "I will follow all other rules and regulations of the university." Also, BYU's unwritten rule about no "overtly" gay students was incorporated into the Code with language making it against the Code to tell others you're gay.

Merrill Bateman became president in 1996.

In 1997, a poll of over 400 BYU students found that 42% of students believed that even if a same-sex attracted person keeps the honor code they should not be allowed to attend BYU and nearly 80% said they would not live with a roommate attracted to people of the same sex.

In 2000, 13 students were kicked out for watching the television show Queer as Folk

By the early 2000s, university policy had progressed to where students were no longer punished for identifying as gay, lesbian, trans, or "SSA." No "homosexual conduct" or "cross dressing" was allowed, and nor was "advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle" (which included indicating support of gay marriage or going to Pride parades). Also forbidden were "behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature" (holding hands, lingering hugs, and so on).

Cecil Samuelson became BYU president in 2003.

In 2007, BYU reworded its Honor Code policy on homosexual behavior. "Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings."

A policy change implemented in 2010 removed the ban on LGBT BYU students gathering together in a group. LGBT and straight students began weekly meetings on BYU campus as USGA (Understanding Same Gender Attraction but later renamed Understanding Sexuality, Gender, and Allyship) to discuss issues relating to homosexuality and the LDS Church. Attendance was regularly 70~100 students.

In 2011, a revision was made to the Honor Code to remove the ban on "homosexual advocacy." This permitted students to openly support and affirm queer relationships and legislation, and attend Pride activities.

In late 2012, the BYU Board of Trustees demanded USGA be removed from campus. Ever since, Church leaders have continued to deny all requests of BYU LGBT students to form a club on campus.

In 2015 Kevin Worthen becomes BYU president.

In 2020, the Church removes the entire section about homosexual behavior from the Honor Code. Then 2 weeks later issues a letter clarifying that the same rules apply even though the language no longer exists in the Honor Code.

The reversal of the Honor Code changes led to protests on BYU campus and at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

In 2021, Color the Campus lights up the Y on the mountain in rainbow colors in March to mark the anniversary of the Honor Code reversal

In September 2021, Elder Holland gives his infamous "musket fire" talk, which called out the growing acceptance & support of LGBTQ people & issues by BYU faculty and staff. He spoke of his love for the Y on the mountain lit up in white.

October 2021, Color the Campus again lights up the Y in rainbow colors

January 2022, BYU comes out with new policies banning protests on campus or at the Y on the mountain, this is seen as supporting of Elder Holland's talk and a reaction to the protests after the Honor Code reversal.

#BYU #history of the Honor Code and other policies #history of oppression #I was a student from 1993 to 1995 #it was rough

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foreverlogical · 4 years ago

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Donald Trump’s descent into madness continues.

The latest manifestation of this is a report in The New York Times that the president is weighing appointing the conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, who for a time worked on his legal team, to be special counsel to investigate imaginary claims of voter fraud.

As if that were not enough, we also learned that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was pardoned by the president after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, attended the Friday meeting. Earlier in the week, Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, floated the idea (which he had promoted before) that the president impose martial law and deploy the military to “rerun” the election in several closely contested states that voted against Trump. It appears that Flynn wants to turn them into literal battleground states.\

None of this should come as a surprise. Some of us said, even before he became president, that Donald Trump’s Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering him, was his psychology—his disordered personality, his emotional and mental instability, and his sociopathic tendencies. It was the main reason, though hardly the only reason, I refused to vote for him in 2016 or in 2020, despite having worked in the three previous Republican administrations. Nothing that Trump has done over the past four years has caused me to rethink my assessment, and a great deal has happened to confirm it.

Given Trump’s psychological profile, it was inevitable that when he felt the walls of reality close in on him—in 2020, it was the pandemic, the cratering economy, and his election defeat—he would detach himself even further from reality. It was predictable that the president would assert even more bizarre conspiracy theories. That he would become more enraged and embittered, more desperate and despondent, more consumed by his grievances. That he would go against past supplicants, like Attorney General Bill Barr and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and become more aggressive toward his perceived enemies. That his wits would begin to turn, in the words of King Lear. That he would begin to lose his mind.

So he has. And, as a result, President Trump has become even more destabilizing and dangerous.

“I’ve been covering Donald Trump for a while,” Jonathan Swan of Axios tweeted. “I can’t recall hearing more intense concern from senior officials who are actually Trump people. The Sidney Powell/Michael Flynn ideas are finding an enthusiastic audience at the top.”

Even amid the chaos, it’s worth taking a step back to think about where we are: An American president, unwilling to concede his defeat by 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes, is still trying to steal the election. It has become his obsession.

In the process, Trump has in too many cases turned his party into an instrument of illiberalism and nihilism. Here are just a couple of data points to underscore that claim: 18 attorneys generals and more than half the Republicans in the House supported a seditious abuse of the judicial process.

And it’s not only, or even mainly, elected officials. The Republican Party’s base has often followed Trump into the twilight zone, with a sizable majority of them affirming that Joe Biden won the election based on fraud and many of them turning against medical science in the face of a surging pandemic.

COVID-19 is now killing Americans at the rate of about one per minute, but the president is “just done with COVID,” a source identified as one of Trump’s closest advisers told The Washington Post. “I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with COVID ... It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it.”

This is where Trump’s crippling psychological condition—his complete inability to face unpleasant facts, his toxic narcissism, and his utter lack of empathy—became lethal. Trump’s negligence turned what would have been a difficult winter into a dark one. If any of his predecessors—Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, to go back just 40 years—had been president during this pandemic, tens of thousands of American lives would almost surely have been saved.

“My concern was, in the worst part of the battle, the general was missing in action,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, one of the very few Republicans to speak truth in the Trump era.

In 30 days, Donald Trump will leave the presidency, with his efforts to mount a coup having failed. The encouraging news is that it never really had a chance of succeeding. Our institutions, especially the courts, will have passed a stress test, not the most difficult ever but difficult enough, and unlike any in our history. Some local officials exhibited profiles in courage, doing the right thing in the face of threats and pressure from their party. And a preponderance of the American public, having lived through the past four years, deserve credit for canceling this presidential freak show rather than renewing it. The “exhausted majority” wasn’t too exhausted to get out and vote, even in a pandemic.

But the Trump presidency will leave gaping wounds nearly everywhere, and ruination in some places. Truth as a concept has been battered from the highest office in the land on an almost hourly basis. The Republican Party has been radicalized, with countless Republican lawmakers and other prominent figures within the party having revealed themselves to be moral cowards, even, and in some ways especially, after Trump was defeated. During the Trump presidency, they were so afraid of getting crosswise with him and his supporters that they failed the Solzhenitsyn test: “The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me.

”During the past four years, the right-wing ecosystem became more and more rabid. Many prominent evangelical supporters of the president are either obsequious, like Franklin Graham, or delusional, like Eric Metaxas, and they now peddle their delusions as being written by God. QAnon and the Proud Boys, Newsmax and One America News, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson—all have been emboldened.

These worrisome trends began before Trump ran for office, and they won’t disappear after he leaves the presidency. Those who hope for a quick snapback will be disappointed. Still, having Trump out of office has to help. He’s going to find out that there’s no comparable bully pulpit. And the media, if they are wise, will cut off his oxygen, which is attention. They had no choice but to cover Trump’s provocations when he was president; when he’s an ex-president, that will change.

For the foreseeable future, journalists will rightly focus on the pandemic. But once that is contained and defeated, it will be time to go back to focusing more attention on things like the Paris Accords and the carbon tax; the earned-income tax credit and infrastructure; entitlement reform and monetary policy; charter schools and campus speech codes; legal immigration, asylum, assimilation, and social mobility. There is also an opportunity, with Trump a former president, for the Republican Party to once again become the home of sane conservatism. Whether that happens or not is an open question. But it’s something many of us are willing to work for, and that even progressives should hope for.Beyond that, and more fundamental than that, we have to remind ourselves that we are not powerless to shape the future; that much of what has been broken can be repaired; that though we are many, we can be one; and that fatalism and cynicism are unwarranted and corrosive.

There’s a lovely line in William Wordsworth’s poem “The Prelude”: “What we have loved, Others will love, and we will teach them how.

”There are still things worthy of our love. Honor, decency, courage, beauty, and truth. Tenderness, human empathy, and a sense of duty. A good society. And a commitment to human dignity. We need to teach others—in our individual relationships, in our classrooms and communities, in our book clubs and Bible studies, and in innumerable other settings—why those things are worthy of their attention, their loyalty, their love. One person doing it won’t make much of a difference; a lot of people doing it will create a culture.

Maybe we understand better than we did five years ago why these things are essential to our lives, and why when we neglect them or elect leaders who ridicule and subvert them, life becomes nasty, brutish, and generally unpleasant.

Just after noon on January 20, a new and necessary chapter will begin in the American story. Joe Biden will certainly play a role in shaping how that story turns out—but so will you and I. Ours is a good and estimable republic, if we can keep it.

PETER WEHNER is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues, and he is the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

#ideas

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more-than-a-princess · 3 years ago

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As Sonia is spending some much-needed, much-wanted time with her father (and I’m working on some asks and replies), here’s a few headcanons I have about her father, King Alexandre of Novoselic, in honor of Father’s Day:

- Alexandre was a very bright, dedicated, and studious boy: he was at the top of his graduating class at In Utero and attended Oxford (though both Oxford and Cambridge offered him places in their various universities). His best subjects in high school were maths and social sciences, and much like his daughter decades later, he excelled in history, law, economics, and public policy later on. Surprisingly enough, foreign languages was a weak spot for him, and he had to work extra hard to master the 30+ languages as required by members of the Novoselic Royal Family. He often travels with interpreters on various royal functions, just to be completely sure he does not make mistakes.

- Like Sonia, Alexandre never had to officially serve in any one of Novoselic’s military factions as the heir to the throne. However, he was one of the highest ranked of his military service classes and the best shot of his year.

- Unlike many other princes and heirs to various international thrones at the time, Prince Alexandre of Novoselic was a more introspective and quiet person: not the one to be boisterous, loud, or particularly charming, his hobbies outside of the usual royal pursuits included mecha anime (especially model kits), kaiju films, and music. He can play a variety of instruments (and can sing, something his daughter didn’t inherit), but electric and acoustic guitar are his favorites: in his private office, he has guitars mounted on the walls, a variety of completed model kits, and more vinyl and CDs than the staff can count. And like Sonia, he too is an avid reader: he likes adventure epics and political thrillers. He has been snuck into a concert more than once by his security, and plenty of times on his own.

- He learned how to make precisely one dish: omurice. He likes the combination of Japanese fried rice and western-style omelets, but he likes to add melted Novoselic cheese on top.

- Some of his favorite activities to do with his daughter include shooting, horseback riding, and chess, when he has the time. He is also her instructor for the highest-clearance military strategy lessons and supposedly, she is the only one he’s told the precise codes for the nation’s most dangerous and lethal weapons, to be used only when there is no other option.

#more-than-a-princess headcanons #(I didn't feel like doing asks for the day but I wanted to share some info)#(Happy Father's Day for those who celebrate!)#(Sonia's dad is her favorite parent obvs.)

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96thdayofrage · 3 years ago

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Surprised by census results, many in Puerto Rico reconsider views on race

“Puerto Ricans themselves are understanding their whiteness comes with an asterisk,” an expert said. “They know they’re not white by U.S. standards, but they’re not Black by Puerto Rico standards.”

The number of people in Puerto Rico who identified as “white” in the most recent census plummeted almost 80 percent, sparking a conversation about identity on an island breaking away from a past where race was not tracked and seldom debated in public.

The drastic drop surprised many, and theories abound as the U.S. territory’s 3.3 million people begin to reckon with racial identity.

“Puerto Ricans themselves are understanding their whiteness comes with an asterisk,” said Yarimar Bonilla, a political anthropologist and director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York. “They know they’re not white by U.S. standards, but they’re not Black by Puerto Rico standards.”

Nearly 50 percent of those represented in the 2020 census — 1.6 million of 3.29 million — identified with “two races or more,” a jump from 3 percent — or some 122,200 of 3.72 million — who chose that option in the 2010 census. Most of them selected “white and some other race.”

Meanwhile, more than 838,000 people identified as “some other race alone,” a nearly 190 percent jump compared with some 289,900 people a decade ago, although Bonilla said Census Bureau officials have yet to release what races they chose. Experts believe people likely wrote “Puerto Rican,” “Hispanic” or “Latino,” even though federal policy defines those categories as ethnicity, not race.

Among those who changed their response to race was 45-year-old Tamara Texidor, who selected “other” in 2010 and this time opted to identify herself as “Afrodescendent.” She said she made the decision after talking to her brother, who was a census worker and told her how people he encountered when he went house to house often had trouble with the question about race.

Texidor began reflecting about her ancestry and wanted to honor it since she descended from slaves on her father’s side.

“I’m not going to select ‘other,’” she recalled thinking when filling out the census. “I feel I am something.”

Experts are still debating what sparked the significant changes in the 2020 census. Some believe several factors are at play, including tweaks in wording and a change in how the Census Bureau processes and codes responses.

Bonilla also thinks a growing awareness of racial identity in Puerto Rico played a part, saying that “extra intense racialization” in the past decade might have contributed. She and other anthropologists argue that change stemmed from anger over what many consider a botched federal response to a U.S. territory struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria and a crippling economic crisis.

“They’ve finally understood that they’re treated like second-class citizens,” Bárbara Abadía-Rexach, a sociocultural anthropologist, said of Puerto Ricans.

Another critical change in the 2020 census was that only a little over 228,700 identified solely as Black or African American, a nearly 50 percent drop compared with more than 461,000 who did so a decade ago. The decline occurred even as grass-roots organizations in Puerto Rico launched campaigns to urge people to embrace their African heritage and raised awareness about racial disparities, although they said they were encouraged by the increase in the “two or more races” category.

Bonilla noted Puerto Rico currently has no reliable data to determine whether such disparities have occurred during the pandemic, noting that there is no racial data on coronavirus testing, hospitalizations or fatalities.

The island’s government also does not collect racial data on populations, including those who are homeless or incarcerated, Abadía-Rexach added.

“The denial of the existence of racism renders invisible, criminalizes and dehumanizes many Black people in Puerto Rico,” she said.

The lack of such data could be rooted in Puerto Rico’s history. From 1960 to 2000, the island conducted its own census and never asked about race.

“We were supposed to be all mixed and all equal, and race was supposed to be an American thing,” Bonilla said.

Some argued at the time that Puerto Rico should be tracking racial data while others viewed it as a divisive move that would impose or harden racial differences, a view largely embraced in France, which does not collect official data on race or ethnicity.

For Isar Godreau, an anthropologist and professor at the University of Puerto Rico, that type of data is crucial.

“Skin color is an important marker that makes people vulnerable to more or less racial discrimination,” she said.

The data helps people fight for racial justice and determines the allocation of resources, Godreau said.

The major shift in the 2020 census — especially how only 560,592 people identified as white versus more than 2.8 million in 2010 — comes amid a growing interest in racial identity in Puerto Rico, where even recent surveys about race prompted responses ranging from “members of the human race” to “normal” to “I get along with everyone.” Informally, people on the island use a wide range of words to describe someone’s skin color, including “coffee with milk.”

That interest is fueled largely by a younger generation: They have signed up for classes of bomba and plena — centuries-old, percussion-powered musical traditions — as well as workshops on how to make or wear headwraps.

More hair salons are specializing in curly hair, eschewing the blow-dried results that long dominated professional settings in the island. Some legislators have submitted a bill that cites the results of the 2020 census and that if approved would make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their hair style. Several U.S. states already have similar laws.

As debate continues on what sparked so many changes in the 2020 census, Bonilla said an important question is what the 2030 census results will look like. “Will we see an intensification of this pattern, or will 2020 have been kind of a blip moment?”

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lastsonlost · 5 years ago

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Call me crazy but I think this girl is the one who needs to be suspended and have a restraining order against her..

Williams College suspended a male student based on his failure to pursue a relationship with a female student after “kissing and touching” her, according to a lawsuit against the private school.

Both the unnamed Hispanic student “John Doe” and his accuser “Sally Smith” are foreign students. She accused him of sexual misconduct not because he acted without her consent, John claims, but because he was “culturally insensitive” after their amorous encounters.

<It’s “culturally insensitive” to not date a woman. Yeah, fuck your culture! No means no bitch!

Adjudicators misrepresented the evidence in the record, ignored Sally’s messages to John expressing positive feelings about their first amorous encounter, and didn’t even correctly apply the “preponderance of evidence” standard, the suit alleges.

John claims that he was subject to several disadvantages during the investigation and hearing, including that Williams refused to judge the credibility of Sally and witnesses “face to face.” Sally also physically threatened him but the college did nothing, he alleges.

Williams even refused to let John offer evidence that Sally had a history of making “repeated accusations of cultural insensitivity,” casting doubt on her accusations against him.

The college wrongly found John responsible based on “a flawed disciplinary process” where gender bias was a “motivating factor,” the suit claims, citing biased and stereotypical training materials for the Title IX panel.

The accused student claims breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violation of Title IX. The court docket shows that U.S. District Judge Mark Mastroianni granted John permission to continue his litigation under a pseudonym.

Mastroianni previously approved a similar lawsuit against another Massachusetts private college, Amherst. It settled the lawsuit rather than allow its disciplinary procedures to be examined in a trial.

Williams College spokesperson Greg Shook did not respond to several requests for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Feb. 18.

College allegedly ignores physical threat by accuser.

While Sally claimed that John did not obtain her “affirmative consent” in the amorous encounters – which apparently stopped at breast-touching – it was really her “conservative religious values” that motivated the accusation, the suit claims.

The college Code of Conduct expressly states that “consent once given may be withdrawn at any time,” but Sally tried to withdraw her consent after the encounters, as judged by her messages to John, he says.

Sally initiated the relationship with John in November 2016, telling “a number of her friends” before their first dinner that she was interested in him. She told him on a walk after dinner that she had “never kissed a boy” owing to the “restrictive cultural norms in her home country.”

John asked for Sally’s permission to kiss her in his dorm room, and she agreed. The kissing escalated to “consensual touching” while fully clothed.

Two days later she sent him a message saying “I’ve liked you quite a lot” and calling their amorous encounter “amazing.” She apologized for “being so weird and awkward the entire time.”

Though she values “the emotional aspects” of the encounter “over the physical ones, I’ve been feeling so different and liberated after it,” Sally wrote. “I’ve not been this happy ever since I started college.”

When he responded four days later, John showed less enthusiasm, saying that they should “hang out at some point next week” but warning that “I’m just going to be super busy until the end of the semester.”

They didn’t talk again until January, when Sally interviewed for a position in a campus organization where John served in leadership. She asked to speak with him before learning she got the position, which he communicated to her at their meeting in his dorm room.

Sally “expressed anger about what she saw as Doe’s cultural insensitivity around their prior interaction” – failing to seek a romantic relationship with her after showing physical affection.

While John told Sally he was “emotionally unavailable,” he again asked to kiss her, and she agreed again. The suit claims that he “asked Smith before initiating any new touching and did nothing without her consent.”

She rejected his first request to touch her breasts but approved his second request a few minutes later.

Several days later, John asked Sally why her friends were “treating him strangely.” She told him he had “emotionally manipulat[ed]” her, “tak[en] advantage of [her] lack of knowledge of American cultural norms” and “disrespect[ed]” her own cultural norms.

But what panicked John was when Sally allegedly said she “had lots of people ready to hurt him.”

Though Ninah Pretto, associate dean of international student services, told him that this could be construed as harassment, the director of sexual assault prevention and response, Meg Bossong (below), told him she couldn’t help. He got the same response from “[e]veryone” else he asked for help.

Advisor encouraged her to see incident as sexual assault.

Three months later – after Bossong talked to her “junior advisor” – Sally filed a formal Title IX complaint against John alleging both November and January encounters were nonconsensual.

The notification letter he received from Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom was short on detail, including “the nature of the sexual interactions,” specific dates and locations, and even whether Sally claimed she was “incapable of consenting.” It also did not specify which code provision John allegedly violated.

As a result, he could not intelligently prepare for his meeting with the outside investigator hired by Williams, Allyson Kurker. (Her name shows up in at least two other Title IX lawsuits against Williams by accused males.)

Because Sandstrom barred John from reaching out to potential witnesses whom he may have spoken to about Sally, one of the witnesses he recommended to Kurker turned down the interview, apparently unaware what it was about.

Kurker also violated Williams policy by not giving John the opportunity to suggest questions to ask witnesses, the suit claims. She withheld details about testimony by Sally’s witnesses:

Accordingly, the College completely deprived Doe, for the entirety of Ms. Kurker’s investigation, of all information regarding the identities of five of the eight witnesses interviewed, the substance of their statements, and the topics about which they were interviewed.

The draft report issued by Kurker (left) disclosed for the first time that Sally had accused John of using force and leaving her with “bruises,” while excluding “many significant facts” John had provided. This made John wonder about “similarly important facts” that Kurker might have left out from her other interviews.

The deans prevented John from providing his own relevant evidence in response to the report, he claims. One was a series of texts that suggested Sally was initially hesitant to accuse him.

A witness told John’s then-girlfriend, “who was not interviewed in the investigation,” that Sally had told her she “still loved” John and did not want to “get the deans on this.” The witness also said that Sally’s junior advisor – a sort of live-in mentor for freshmen – was encouraging Sally to accuse John of sexual assault.

Though Sandstrom justified the ban on the basis that the texts did not “describe direct knowledge of the incident in question,” she allowed the inclusion of texts against John by the junior advisor that also provided no direct knowledge.

Sandstrom also ordered Kurker to remove credibility-related testimony from the report: that Sally’s friends said she was “motivated” to accuse John because he had received “a particular honor” at Williams. The dean refused to tell John how Sally explained the “discrepancy” between her denial and her friends’ testimony. (John speculates that Sandstrom, who is “close” to one of his relatives, mistreated him “in order to shield herself from accusations of favoritism.”)

Pretto, the international dean who initially told John that Sally may have harassed him, banned John from providing evidence that Sally had a pattern of making accusations of “cultural insensitivity.”

Sally allegedly told him during their November encounter that a professor was culturally insensitive, and during their January encounter that a freshman sexually harassed her. Pretto excluded this second recollection.

Trauma-informed training encourages panel to ignore inconsistencies.

The main evidence used by the hearing panel – Kurker’s final report, stripped of relevant evidence submitted by John – provided no information that would help adjudicators make credibility determinations, the suit claims.

Though Kurker was “the only representative of Williams who spoke directly” to the parties and witnesses, the report lacked information about “the parties’ demeanor during their interviews … motives to make false statements” and their consistency across various statements.

The panel was also likely operating under a set of stereotypical assumptions based on the training they had received, John claims. He submitted a 90-page training manual on adjudicating sexual assault, dating violence, stalking and retaliation cases at Williams. (Though undated, it cites research from as recently as 2015.)

“These training materials contain anti-male bias and encourage panelists to stereotype men as sexually aggressive and more likely to commit sexual assault,” while also suggesting that panelists can ignore the “intent” of the accused student.

“The training materials include claims about ‘traumatic memory’ suggesting that panel members should ignore inconsistencies in complainants’ accounts,” the suit says. (Such “trauma-informed” techniques have been criticized as unscientific by memory and neuroscience experts.)

The three-member panel – all appointed by Sandstrom (right) – eventually concluded that John violated Sally’s consent in January but not November.

It cited her “discomfort” after the November encounter, as evidenced by her message to John about valuing “emotional” over “physical” aspects of the relationship. The panel ignored the other parts that described Sally as “liberated” by the “amazing” encounter.

Rather than cite contemporaneous evidence that Sally told John she viewed their encounters as nonconsensual, the panel cited witness statements that came to that conclusion.

It also misread an email John had sent Bossong, the director of sexual assault prevention and response, as admitting that Sally “felt that he had mistreated her” in November. In fact, the email conveyed that Sally was upset John hadn’t pursued a relationship with her after kissing her, the suit claims.

‘He should have guessed that she would not want to engage in kissing or touching’.

The panel also seems to have invented a provision that isn’t written in the Code of Conduct: that students can’t ask for consent for a particular sexual activity more than once.

Adjudicators found that Sally had “expressed a clear ‘no’” more than once in the January encounter, even though John had claimed he respected her “no” answers while asking for consent again, which Sally granted.

“The panel clearly did not credit Smith’s assertion that Doe engaged in forcible sexual contact over her verbal objections,” John argues: “Instead, it essentially held that he should have guessed that she would not want to engage in kissing or touching under the circumstances.”

Though the deans had excluded much relevant evidence from the report, and John feared what Kurker might have left out, the report did document that Sally had “repeatedly lied” to her friends and tried to mislead Kurker, the suit claims.

She falsely claimed that John was “in a leadership role over her” at the time of their November date, and therefore “she didn’t know how to tell Doe that she was uncomfortable.” Since she didn’t turn over her messages to Kurker, Sally also got away with mischaracterizing her November message to John as a warning to him.

She told several friends that “nothing physical had happened” with John in November and also mischaracterized her November message to John in conversations with them. John alleges she made other false claims to friends about actions he took.

The only way the panel could have found a preponderance of evidence against John was through a “biased and dishonest reading” of the evidence, the suit claims: It was an “arbitrary, capricious, and irrational” finding.

The appeals process was similarly deficient, John argues. After he submitted a detailed list of material omissions of relevant evidence and procedural errors – including Sandstrom’s refusal to recuse herself as a “close” friend of his relative – the appeal was denied by Leticia Haynes, vice president for institutional diversity and equity.

Meanwhile, Williams has done nothing to stop Sally and her junior advisor from spreading false information about him across campus, John says. Title IX Coordinator Toya Camacho allegedly told him it would violate the spirit of the #MeToo movement to stop women from “speaking out about their experiences.”

John’s life and career path – law school followed by politics – is functionally foreclosed by the finding of nonconsensual sexual contact on his record, he argues.

He has already been forced to resign from a “competitive” campus leadership position after others in the organization threatened to remove him. One of his witnesses “was also stigmatized on campus and forced to leave a student organization.”

John wasn’t even able to finish his college career at the three schools that “routinely accept Williams students for temporary study.” In light of his academic credentials, “these rejections were clearly the result of his disciplinary history,” the suit claims.

Guys do yourselves a big favor and just focus on your fucking studies. leave girls the fuck alone. They’re not important to your grades or future career prospects so stop wasting your time.

#title nine

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xtruss · 3 years ago

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Who Are the Taliban and What Is Their Goal?

— By Soo Kim | 8/19/21 | Newsweek

Fears over the future of Afghanistan following renewed Taliban rule has seen swarms of Afghans make desperate attempts to flee the country.

The militant group, who ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s under a narrow interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, regained control of the country two weeks before the U.S. was scheduled to fully withdraw its troops, who have been there since 2001.

During a press conference on August 17, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's longtime spokesperson, vowed the country would forgive those who fought against them previously and would respect women's rights under the new era of Taliban rule.

A statement published on the official website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) on August 15, said: "The Islamic Emirate once again assures all its citizens that it will, as always, protect their life, property and honor and create a peaceful and secure environment for its beloved nation. In this regard, no one should worry about their life."

Here, we take a closer look at the history of the Taliban and its latest developments.

Who Are the Taliban?

In Pashto, the national language of Afghanistan, the word "Taliban" means "students."

The militant group was formed of Islamic guerilla fighters known as the mujahideen, who resisted the Soviet occupation between the years 1979-89. Founded by Mullah Mohammad Omar, an imam from Kandahar, in 1994, the group had the covert backing of the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).

The Afghan mujahideen were joined by younger Pashtun tribesmen who studied in Pakistani madrassas (or seminaries). Pashtuns are the predominant ethnic group in much of the south and east of Afghanistan. They are also a major ethnic group in Pakistan's north and west.

The Taliban found a foothold in southern Afghanistan and consolidated their strength in the region.

The Council on Foreign Relations explains the group gained support at the start of the post-Soviet era with the promise of establishing stability following the years of conflict from 1992 to 1996 among rival mujahideen groups.

The Taliban provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the U.S. The group provided a base in which al-Qaeda "could freely recruit, train, and deploy terrorists to other countries," the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) explains.

The Taliban maintained control of Afghanistan until October 2001 when a U.S.-led campaign against al-Qaeda ousted them from power.

Taliban fighters standing guard at an entrance gate outside the Interior Ministry in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 17. Javed Tanveer / AFP Via Getty Images

What Is the Goal of the Taliban?

Speaking to Newsweek, Dr. Thomas Barfield, the author of Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, said: "They [the Taliban] want to rule an Islamic State in Afghanistan using conservative rules, I do not believe that [they] have an ultimate goal beyond that."

The author, who is also a professor of anthropology and the director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations at Boston University, told Newsweek "everyone's watching to see" if the new regime's promises will prove to be true, but "they are different and are taking public stances very different from the 1990s."

"In practical terms they cannot govern without the cooperation of the government employees and groups that provide services (medical, humanitarian, etc,). The Kabul they ruled in the 1990s was a ruined city with no functioning government or infrastructure with a few hundred thousand people.

"Now it is a city of five million that expects a government not only to provide security but delivers services. The Taliban have no means of doing this without reaching out to their former enemies," Barfield explained.

The Taliban Regime in Late 1990s

By 1994, the Taliban had moved through the south and captured several provinces after the Soviet-backed Afghan government fell in 1992. By September 1996, the group seized the Afghan capital of Kabul, killed the country's president and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Taliban's first move after taking control in the late 1990s was to implement "a strict interpretation of Qur'anic instruction and jurisprudence," which in practice entailed "often merciless policies on the treatment of women, political opponents of any type, and religious minorities," the NCTC says.

According to a November 2001 report released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the U.S. Department of State, the country under strict Taliban rule in the late 1990s had "one of the worst human rights records in the world."

The regime at the time "systematically repressed all sectors of the population and denied even the most basic individual rights" and its "war against women was particularly appalling," the state report says.

Another report carried out report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) in June 2020 said the oppression at the time also entailed "cruel corporal punishments, including executions; and extreme suppression of freedom of religion, expression, and education."

Severe restrictions were placed on Afghan women's access to work, education and health care, as well as on their physical movements and dress code, which required them to be covered under a burqa, a garment that covers the body and face.

Women were only allowed to be out in public when accompanied by male relatives or risk beatings by the Taliban.

"Women were stripped of their dignity under the Taliban. They were made unable to support their families. Girls were deprived of basic health care and of any semblance of schooling. They were even deprived of their childhood under a regime that took away their songs, their dolls, and their stuffed animals—all banned by the Taliban.

"The Taliban perpetrated egregious acts of violence against women, including rape, abduction, and forced marriage. Some families resorted to sending their daughters to Pakistan or Iran to protect them," the 2001 report said.

Promises of Peace and Protection Under the New Taliban

The August 15 statement published at the website of the IEA claimed: "All those who have previously worked and helped the invaders, or are now standing in the ranks of the corrupt Administration of Kabul, the Islamic Emirate has opened its door for them and have announced for them amnesty. We once again invite them all to come and to serve the nation and the country.

"In areas which are under the control of the Islamic Emirate, people should lead a normal life, especially in the official arena, whether it is educational, healthy, social or cultural," the statement said.

The IEA stated on August 15: "No one should leave their area and country. They shall live a normal life; our nation and country need services, and Afghanistan is our joint home that we will build and serve together."

The Associated Press reported that under the latest Taliban rule women have been encouraged to return to work. A female news anchor interviewed a Taliban official in a television studio on August 16. Elsewhere, girls were allowed to return to school and handed Islamic headscarves at the door.

According to AP, at the August 17 press conference, Taliban spokesperson Mujahid promised the Taliban would honor women's rights within the norms of Islamic law, though he failed to rule out cutting off hands as feet as punishment, as was the method used during the group's first rule.

Mujahid stated on August 17 that the Taliban were granting amnesty for former soldiers as well as for contractors and translators who worked for international forces. He said the Taliban will not seek retribution against ex-soldiers and government officials, Reuters reported,

"Nobody will go to their doors to ask why they helped," Mujahid said at the August 17 news briefing.

According to Reuters, he also claimed that day that "nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors," noting there was a "huge difference" between the Taliban now and that which ruled 20 years ago.

The AP reported the Taliban spokesperson also said that private media should "remain independent" but that journalists "should not work against national values," at the August 17 news briefing.

India's NDTV reported Mujahid said: "We have three suggestions: No broadcast should contradict Islamic values, they should be impartial, no one should broadcast anything that goes against our national interests," at the August 17 press conference.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid (left) speaking during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 17. Hoshang Hashimi/AFP Via Getty Images

Despite Mujahid's reassurances, fears remain in Kabul after prisons and armories emptied out during the insurgents' sweep across the country.

AP reported on August 18 that residents in the capital have claimed armed men have been going door-to-door in search of those who worked with the ousted government and security forces, but it was unknown whether the gunmen were Taliban or criminals posing as militants.

Mujahid claimed the Taliban only entered the capital in order to restore law and order after the police presence was diminished, and blamed the breakdown of security in the city on the former government.

An unnamed Taliban official told Reuters that the group's leaders will also show themselves publicly rather than live in secret, as they had done previously.

They said: "Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders, there will be no shadow of secrecy."

In the wake of the Taliban's latest advance, one of the group's leaders and co-founders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, returned to the country after a 20-year exile.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said both the U.S. and other countries are not expected to take the Taliban at their word when it comes to their vows to respect women's rights.

Sullivan explained at the White House briefing: "Like I've said all along, this is not about trust. This is about verify. And we'll see what the Taliban end up doing in the days and weeks ahead, and when I say we, I mean the entire international community."

Will the Taliban Invade Other Countries?

The IEA stated on August 15: "Once again, we assure all our neighbors that we will not create any problems for them, they should thereby have confidence."

This was reiterated by Taliban spokesperson Mujahid, who told reporters: "We don't want any internal or external enemies."

India's NDTV reported Mujahid said: "The Islamic emirate is pledging to all world countries that no threat will be posed to any country from Afghanistan."

"We want to establish a government that includes all sides," the Taliban spokesperson said on August 17, adding that they want an end to the war.

Boston University professor Barfield doesn't believe the Taliban will invade other countries.

He told Newsweek: "Even in the 1990s the Taliban were focused only on Afghanistan."

"Some of their foreign allies like al Qaeda or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Pakistani Taliban do however seek to move beyond Afghanistan," Barfield explained.

Newsweek has contacted Taliban spokespersons Mujahid, Suhail Shaheen, Dr. Mohammad Naeem and Qari Yousaf Ahmadi for comment.

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tanadrin · 5 years ago

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Legal Systems Very Different From Ours (Because They Do Not Exist)

(I forgot Scott had already done this, lol)

AZAREN

There is the land of Azaren, far to the north; a rugged, windswept country, it was settled by hardy explorers in an ancient age of migration, who have always been disdainful of central authority, and permit themselves to be governed only to the most minimal extent. As a consequence of this skepticism of government, there is also a general skepticism of public law. All law in Azaren--except the few scraps of administrative and procedural law necessary to operate the government--is private, and there is no criminal law. All disputes between parties are resolved by what we would consider in other countries civil suits, governed by strict rules involving standing. Theft, arson, even murder may all go unpunished, unless there is an interested party willing to file suit to obtain redress. The Azarenes by and large consider this system exemplary of freedom and justice, and we cannot help but admit an attraction to the cleanness of its philosophy.

A key component of Azaren justice is the principle that no entity is above the law; no entity, however powerful, is so majestic that it is immune from suit. This meant that gods, natural forces, even celestial bodies have been sued (though principally in more superstitious days long past), and where by the weight of evidence, or the simple failure to appear, have been duly issued fines, which remain on the public register of debts waiting to be paid. And naturally, Azaren countenances no doctrine of state or sovereign immunity. This principle, especially due to the absence of public law, extends also to relations between Azaren and other states. Naturally this principle extends to sublunary bodies like Azaren's own government: Azaren recognizes to doctrine of state or sovereign immunity, and not a few political revolutions have been wrought through cunning arguments in the courtroom. And note also that Azaren conducts no foreign policy as a unified whole--for that would require an intolerable tyranny imposed on her people, that is to say some form of tax to pay the salaries of a diplomatic corps--but what individuals and groups of individuals see fit to conduct. So from time to time, an individual or group of individuals together will decide some foreign state has wronged them, and, as is Azarene custom, will petition their courts for redress; and despite the diplomatic protestations of the representatives of that government, that any such proceeding is a clear violation of precedent in the community of nations, that by dint of its sovereignty no state may be sued in the courts of another, the Azarene court will hear the suit. And should the plaintiffs prevail, an order will be issued for the recovery of damages.

And it is for this reason and this reason alone that Azaren has any armed force: in case of a judgement entered against a foreign government, the militia of Azaren is authorized to confiscate property--in Azaren or abroad--belonging to that government (and if need be, its citizens) until enough has been seized to cover the amount owed. Whereupon, whatever the state of the field of battle, however close the foe is to total capitulation, they return to their ships instantly and retire to their home country.

GKNAI

The land of Gknai is ancient, possibly one of the longest-inhabited regions in the world; and as it is nestled deep in often-overlooked mountain valleys, it has enjoyed a history of uncommon peace and tranquility, well-fortified against the ambitions of neighboring princes; it has indeed earned its epithet of Many-Fortressed-Gknai; and in later millennia, this reputation for indomitability has served by itself to safeguard its borders.

As a consequence of its long, long history, it is said, Gknai is uncommonly bound by the pageantry of Tradition. Just as other countries have monarchies that have withered away into irrelevance, performing a few desultory functions of government under the strict control of their ministers, Gknai has its own titular kings and princes. Indeed, it has them by the wagonload. The difficulty of warfare in the region and the bombasticity of ancient aristocrats means that every valley is thick with Kings and Over-Kings, and Lords President, and Grand Dukes, and even Emperors. Most Sublime Hierophants tend their vegetable patches across the road from Thrice-Exalted Tyrants, and the multiplication of titles is not helped by the fact that under Gknaian traditions, every child inherits some share of the honors of their parents.

The Gknaians have never had a single political revolution to sweep the old order away, only centuries of incremential change. Therefore, each of these titles, in the abstract legal sense, still has some privilege attached to it, however slight it may be. Nor, if they wished to abolish their cumbersome system, is it clear how they might legally do so: there is no legislative authority in Gknai but custom, and for every amendment to the law some precedent, even if very weak, must be found that may be expanded and elaborated upon and carefully argued for until it is generally agreed upon in the whole land. Gnkaian legal codes incorporate much of this commentary, and a Gknaian law library is thus a fearsome thing indeed.

The most curious relic of Gknaian tradition is a form of trial, still in general use, called gopi-gai ogmo, or Trial By Endurance. It was argued by an ancient Gknaian scholar that wealth, strength, and even legal persuasiveness were poor proxies for the righteousness of a cause, and so poor criteria for deciding a lawsuit. For with wealth often comes prestige, and undue influence over the public; with strength, assured victory in the trials by combat; and a well-spoken orator might convince even the best of judges to decide a case in contravention of the law, if his eloquence and flattery are sufficient. Better, said this scholar, to align public interest with individual preference, and a hint of utilitarianism: clearly, the side that *wishes* to win more, should prevail. And how to decide that more efficiently, than with a test of endurance?

This is the form of the test: a hillside of a valley is chosen, one warm in the morning and cool in the evening, but not too hot or too cold; and the plaintiff and the defendant are seated upon it, gazing down at the valley below; and the judge and officers of the court withdraw to observe. That is all. Whomever remains seated and motionless the longest is judged to desire victory more. To stand, speak, cry out, laugh, smirk, or fall down is to forfeit the case. Neither of the parties may be spoken to; neither may be disturbed in any way. The only modification ever made is this: in matters deemed especially urgent, sometimes the parties are made to stand instead.

Judgement, naturally, usually takes days. One especially notable figure, Hrakal the Vexatious Litigant, widely feared for his tolerance of boredom and inclement weather, successfully lodged no less than three dozen lawsuits against his neighbors, until he met his match in Tatavru the Stubborn. That particular proceeding lasted more than two weeks, until an out-of-season snowfall gave Hrakal frostbite, and caused him to relent. I have also heard of a legendary conflict over a spite-fence in the valley of Upper Dabbar, where, it is said, the parties sat immobile for *three years*, sustained by surreptitious nighttime meals and the kind of intense mutual hatred known only by neighbors who share a property line. Another interlocutor I spoke with, an older woman, said that this was a corrupted version of an older tale, altered for believability's sake. In fact, she said, the dispute was *never* resolved. The parties sat immobile until the vegetation grew thick on their laps and shoulders; and if you visit a certain hilltop in Upper Dabbar, you can still see them, two seated figures covered in grass that have now become part of the hill.

BOSSUL

In the city of Bossul, all important questions must be settled by a consensus agreeable to all parties. Although apparently cumbersome, this system has many virtues. The government of Bossul enjoys approval ratings usually seen only in the most tyrannical of dictatorships, and though the city's martial fury has been inflamed many times, it has never actually gone to war, for there have always been one or two heads cool enough to refuse to support it. Alas, every occasion of government is nearly interminable as a result: even the most trivial meeting of the least prestigious committee can drag well into the night; and nothing about the culture or institutions of Bossul does anything to restrain the impulses of busybodies or know-it-alls who have, in every other culture on the planet, driven such consensus-driven systems into the dirt. Yet Bossul's persists, for uncertain reasons.

One, perhaps, might be the custom of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani, which might very roughly be translated into English as "Agreeing To Disagree." When a consensus *cannot* be reached--for instance, in an intractible legal case--a temporary truce may be enacted in the form of Utabani-mo-Kalutabani. In short, each side continues to live their life, pretending that they have won. Thus, from time to time, you may explore the city of Bossul and find such oddities as two different families, each on the opposite side of an inheritance dispute, living in the same apartment and pretending the other does not exist. You may find an employee, who has sued for wrongful termination, coming to work every day at a company that insists she does not work there. You may even, on occasion, find someone walking the street as a free man, whom the police insist that they currently have in their custody.

It is a strange custom, and one cannot help but wonder if it is of any practical use at all.

MOZICK

Mozick is a small island in the Hraspedain Sea, rainy in winter but temperate in summer, which like Gnkai has a deep respect for the usages of its past. In Mozick, this is something of a religious conviction, for their society is organized around the pronouncements of the Great Oracle of the Smoky Mirror, who lived and died more than a thousand years ago.

Such was the inerrancy of the Oracle's predictions (it was said), that the Oracle was trusted utterly in settling disputes and prosecuting criminals. Usually, the Oracle heard arguments before pronouncing judgements, but this was considered a formality; many times, a judgement could be given as soon as the parties entered the courtroom. And such was the faith the people had in their Oracle, that they feared what would become of their society when she died; so she set down in an enormous volume a list of judgements--thousands of them--in cases yet to come. They named no parties, nor any details of the case: only Guilty, Not Guilty, Liable for a sum of 400 Mozickian drachmas, etc.

The procedure in Mozick is thus: when cases are brought before the court, the time and order of each filing is carefully noted. Once a year, amid solemn ritual, the Book of Judgements is opened, and a judgement for each case is read off, in order. It is an article of faith in Mozickian law that the judgement is never wrong, though at times the wisdom of the Oracle has, the Mozickians admit, seemed... startling. There was, for instance, the legendary case of Uckmar the Arsonist, caught in the act of burning the Temple of Ytrabel-Sheh; the sentence read aloud before the prosecutors was "Defendant to go free, be compensated 10 drachmas." But, the legal scholars carefully explain, Ytrabel-Sheh was the god of rain, and an unusually wet summer that year had caused the slugs to flourish in Uckmar's garden, devouring his tomatoes. The arson was, perhaps, justified, or considered just compensation; the 10 drachmas were for emotional damages. So the careers of legal scholars in Mozick are made, harmonizing the decisions of the great Oracle with the principles of justice.

A careful accounting of judgements is important to the system--once it was discovered that one judgement had accidentally been used twice, necessitating a redistribution of three years' worth of punishments and fines; fortunately, no death penalties had been handed out. But the Book of Judgements is finite. And one day--a day that soon will be in the expected lifetime of Mozickian lawyers now practicing--those judgements will run out. What does this portend? Will Mozick be conquered? Sink beneath the sea? Will--as some quietly hope--the Oracle return? No one knows. But each year sees more of the judgements used up than the last, and soon the book will be empty.

#tanadrin's fiction #gratuitous worldbuilding #nonsense

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bensk · 4 years ago

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Be curious. Be humble. Be useful.

I was invited to give the annual Taub Lecture for graduating Public Policy students at the University of Chicago, my alma mater and the department from which I graduated. This is what I came up with.

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I am incredibly grateful and honored to be here tonight. The Public Policy program literally changed my life.

My name is Ben Samuels-Kalow, my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m a 2012 Public Policy graduate, and I will permit myself one “back in my day” comment: When I was a student here, the “Taub Lecture” were actual lectures given by Professor Taub in our Implementation class. I’ve spent the last nine years teaching in the South Bronx. For the past two years, I have served as Head of School at Creo College Prep, a public charter school that opened in 2019.

I was asked tonight to tell you a bit about my journey, and the work that I do. My objection to doing this is that there is basically nothing less interesting than listening to a white man tell you how he got somewhere, so I'll keep it brief. I grew up in New York City and went to a public high school that turned out Justice Elena Kagan, Chris Hayes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, among many others…none of whom were available tonight.

We, on this Zoom, all have one thing in common �� we have been very, very close to graduating from the University of Chicago. I have never sat quite where you sit. I didn’t graduate into a pandemic. But the truth is that everyone graduates into a crisis. The periods of relative ease, the so-called “ends of history”, even the end of this pandemic, are really matters of forced perspective. This crisis isn’t over. Periods of relative peace and stability paper over chasms of structural inequality.

You went to college with the people who will write the books and go on the talk shows and coin the phrases to describe our times. You could write that book. You could go into consulting and spend six weeks at a time helping a company figure out how to maximize profits from their Trademark Chasm Expanding Products.

You could also run into the chasm.

What is the chasm?

It is the distance between potential and opportunity. It is a University on the South Side of Chicago with a student body that is 10% Black and 15% Latinx, with a faculty that is 65% white.

It is eight Black students being admitted to a top high school in New York City...in a class of 749.

What is the chasm?

The chasm is that in our neighborhood in The Bronx, where I’m standing right now, 1 in 4 students can read a book on their grade level, and only 1 in 10 will ever sit in a college class.

It is maternal mortality and COVID survival rates. The chasm is generational wealth and payday loans.

It is systemic racism and misogyny.

It is the case for activism and reparations.

In my job, the chasm is the distance between the creativity, brilliance, and wit that my students possess, and the opportunities the schools in our neighborhood provide.

In the zip code in which I grew up in New York City, the median income is $122,169. In the zip code where I have spent every day working since I graduated from UChicago, the median income is $30,349. The school where I went to 7th grade and this school where next year we will have our first 7th grade are only a 15 minute drive apart.

In my first quarter at UChicago, I joined the Neighborhood Schools Program, and immediately fell in love with working in schools. I joined NSP because a friend told me how interesting she found the work. I’d done some tutoring in high school, and had taught karate since I was 15. I applied, was accepted, and worked at Hyde Park Academy on 62nd and Stony Island in a variety of capacities from 2008 to 2012.

At the time, Hyde Park Academy had one of very few International Baccalaureate programs on the South Side, and every spring, parents would line up out the door of the school to try to get their rising 9th grader in. I worked with an incredible mentor teacher and successive classes of high school seniors whose wit, creativity, and skill would've been at home in the seminars and dorm discussions we all have participated in three blocks north of their high school.

In my work at Hyde Park Academy, I learned the first lesson of three lessons that have shaped my career as a teacher. Be curious. I had been told in Orientation that there were “borders” to the UChicago experience, lines we should not cross. I am forever grateful to the people who told me to ignore that BS. Our entire department is a testimony to ignoring that BS. We ask questions like, why did parents line up for hours to get into what was considered a “failing” high school? Why had no one asked my kids to write poetry before? Why are they more creative and better at writing than most of the kids I went to high school with, but there is only one IB class and families have to literally compete to get in? I learned as much from my job three blocks south of the University as I did in my classes at the University...which is to say, I was learning a LOT, but I had a lot more to learn.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher from my first quarter here. I did my research. The Boston Teacher Residency was the top program in the country, so I applied there. I was a 21 year old white man interested in education, so...I applied to Teach for America. In the early 2010’s, I looked like the default avatar on a Teach for America profile. It was my backup option. I was all in on Boston, and was sure, with four years working in urban schools, a stint at the Urban Education Institute, and, at the time, seven years of karate teaching under my belt, I was a shoe in.

I was rejected from both programs. Which brings me to my second lesson. Be humble. We are destined for and entitled to nothing. There is an aphorism I learned from one of my favorite podcasts, Another Round: "carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." If you are a mediocre white man, like me, do as much as you can not to be. If you look like me, you live life on the "lowest difficulty setting." This means I need to question my gifts, contextualize my successes, and actively work against systems of oppression that perpetuate inequity.

Over the last two years, I have interviewed over 300 people to work at this school. There are a series of questions that I ask folks with backgrounds like myself:

Have you ever lived in a neighborhood that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked on a team that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked for a boss/supervisor/leader who was a person of color?

The vast majority of white folks, myself at 21 included, could not answer “yes” to these three questions. This is disappointing, but I've also lived and worked in two of the most segregated cities on this continent, so it is not surprising. By the time I sat where you’re sitting now, I had learned a lot about education policy and sociology. I'd taken every class that Chad offered at the time. I'd worked at UEI, I'd worked in a South Side high school for four years, and I still thought I was entitled to something. Unlearning doesn't usually happen in a moment, and I certainly didn't realize it at the time, but these rejections were the best thing that has happened to me in my growth as a human.

I moved back home to New York, was accepted to my last-choice teaching program, and started teaching at MS 223: The Laboratory School of Finance & Technology. I ended up teaching there for 5 years. I had incredible mentors, met some of my best friends, started a Computer Science program that’s used as a model at hundreds of schools across New York City…and most importantly, while making copies for Summer School in July of 2015, I met my wife.

All this to say — if you aren’t 100% convinced that what you’re doing next year is Your Thing, keep an open mind…and make frequent stops in the copy room.

I learned that teaching was My Thing. I didn't want to do ed policy research. I got to set education policy, conduct case studies, key informant interviews, run statistical analysis…with 12 year olds. This was the thing I couldn’t stop talking about, reading about, learning about. I really and truly did not care about the “UChicago voices” of my parents and my friends who kept asking what I was going to do next. My answer: teach.

If you look like me, and you teach Computer Science, there are opportunities that come flying your way. I was offered jobs with more prestige, jobs with more pay, jobs far away from the South Bronx. I was offered jobs I would have loved. But I’d learned a third lesson: be useful. If you have a degree from this place, people will always ask you what the next promotion or job is. They will ask "what's next for you" and they will mean it with respect and admiration.

Here’s the thing: teaching was what’s next. “But don’t you want to work in policy?” Teaching is a political act. It is hands-on activism, it is community organizing, it is high-tech optimistic problem-solving and low-tech relationship building. It is the reason we have the privilege of choosing a career, and it is a career worth choosing.

I had internalized what I like to call the Dumbledore Principle: “I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power.” This meant unlearning the very UChicago idea that if you were smart and if you think and talk like we are trained to think and talk at this place, you should be in charge. The best things in my life have come from unlearning that. Learning from mentors to never speak the way I was praised for in a seminar. Learning from veteran teachers how to be a warm demander who was my authentic best self...and more importantly brought out the authentic best self in my students. Being useful isn't the same thing as being in charge…and that is ok.

I believe this deeply. Which is why, when I was offered the opportunity to design and open a school, my first thought was absolutely the hell no. I said to my wife: “I’m a teacher. Dumbledore Principle — we’re supposed to teach, make our classrooms safe and wonderful for our kids.”

I also knew that teaching kids to code wasn’t worth a damn if they couldn’t read and write with conviction, so I started looking for schools that did both — treated kids like brilliant creatives who should learn to create the future AND met them where they were with rigorous coursework that closed opportunity gaps. In our neighborhood, there were schools that did the latter, that got incredible results for kids. Then there was my school, where kids learned eight programming languages before they graduated, but at which only 40% of our kids could read.

We were lauded for this, by the way. 40% was twice the average in our district. We were praised for the Computer Science — the mayor of New York and the CEO of Microsoft visited and met with my students. It felt great. I wasn’t convinced it was useful.

Kids in the neighborhood where I grew up didn’t have to choose between a school that was interesting and a school that equipped them with the knowledge and skills to pursue their own interests in college and beyond. Why did our students have to choose? I delivered this stressed-out existential monologue to my wife that boiled down to this: every kid deserves a school where they were always safe, and never bored. We weren’t working at a school like that. I was being offered a chance to design one. But…Dumbledore principle.

My wife took it all in, looked at me, and said: “You idiot. Dumbledore RAN a school.”

Friends, you deserve a partner like this.

The road to opening Creo College Prep, and the last two years of leading our school as we opened, closed, opened online, finished our first year, moved buildings, opened online again, opened in-person (kind of) and now head into our third year, has reinforced my lessons from teaching — be curious, be humble, be useful. These lessons are about both learning and unlearning. A white guy doing Teach for America at 21 is a stereotype. A white guy starting a charter school is a stereotype with significant capital, wading into complicated political and pedagogical waters. The lessons I learn opening a school and the unlearning I must do to be worthy of the work are not destinations, they are journeys.

Be curious

I didn’t just open a school. Schools are communities, they are institutions, and they are bureaucracies. If you work very, very hard, and with the right people, they become engines that turn coffee and human potential into joy and intellectual thriving capable of altering the trajectory of a child’s life.

First you have to find the right people. I joined a school design fellowship, spent a year visiting 50 high-performing schools across the country, recruited a founding board of smart, committed people who hold me accountable, and spent time in my community learning from families what they wanted in a school. There is studying public policy, and then there is attending Community Board meetings and Community Education Council Meetings, and standing outside of the Parkchester Macy's handing out flyers and getting petition signatures at Christmastime next to the mall Santa.

I observed in schools while writing my BA, and as a teacher, but it was in this fellowship that I learned to “thin slice,” a term we borrowed from psychology that refers to observing a small interaction and finding patterns about the emotions and values of people. In a school, it means observing small but crucial moments — how does arrival work, how are students called on, how do they ask for help in a classroom, how do they enter and leave spaces, how do they move through the hallways, where and how do teachers get their work done — and gleaning what a school values, and how that translates into impact for kids. Here’s how I look at schools:

Does every adult have an unwavering belief that students can, must, and will learn at the highest level?

Do they have realistic and urgent plans for getting every kid there? Are these beliefs and plans clear and held by kids?

Are all teachers strategic, valorizing planning and intellectual nerdery over control or power?

Is the curriculum worthy of the kids?

Can kids explain why the school does things they way they do? Can staff? Can the leader?

If I'm in the middle of teaching and I need a pen or a marker, what do I do? Is that clear?

What’s the attendance rate? How do we follow up on kids who aren’t here?

How organized and thoughtful are the physical and digital spaces?

Are kids seen by their teachers? Are their names pronounced correctly? Do their teachers look like them? Do they make them laugh, think, and revise their answers?

Would I want to work here? Would I send my own kids here?

Be humble

I learned that there are really two distinct organizations that we call “school.” One is an accumulation of talent (student and staff) that happens to be in the same place at the same time, operating on largely the same schedule.

These were the schools I attended. These are schools you got to go to if you got lucky and you were born in a zip code with high income and high opportunity. These are schools where you had teachers who were intellectually curious, and classmates whose learning deficits could be papered over by social capital…and sometimes, straight up capital.

“Accumulation of talent” also describes the schools I worked at. These were schools where if you got lucky and you were extraordinary in your intelligence, determination, support network, and teachers who’d decided to believe in you, you became one of the stories we told. “She got into Cornell.” “That whole English class got into four year colleges.”

Most schools in this country, it turns out, are run like this. I knew all about local control and the limits of federal standards on education and the battles over teacher evaluations and so much other helpful and important context I learned in my PBPL classes. But when thin-slicing a kindergarten classroom in Nashville on my first school visit of the Fellowship, I saw a whole other possibility of what “school” can be.

School can be a special place organized towards a single purpose. One team, one mission. Where the work kids do in one class directly connects to the next, and builds on the prior year. Where kids are treated like the important people they are and the important people they will be, where students and staff hold each other to a high bar, where there is rigor and joy. A place where staff train together so that instead of separate classrooms telling separate stories about how to achieve, there is one coherent language that gives kids the thing they crave and deserve above all else: consistency.

We get up every morning to build a school like that. It’s why my team starts staff training a month before the first day of school. It’s why we practice teaching our lessons so that we don’t waste a moment of our kids’ time. It’s why everyone at our school has a coach, including me, so we can be a better teacher tomorrow than we were today. It’s why we plan engaging, culturally responsive, relevant lessons. It’s how we keep a simple, crucial promise to every family: at this school, you will always be safe, and you will never be bored.

Be useful

Statistically speaking, it is not out of the realm of possibility that several of you will one day be in a position to make big sweeping policy changes. You will have the power to not only write position papers, but to Make Big Plans. I will be rooting for you, but I hope that you won’t pursue Big Plans for the sake of Big Plans.

The architect who designed the Midway reportedly said "make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." I had that quoted to me in several lectures at this school, and you know what?

It’s bullshit.

I am asking you not to care about scale. Good policy isn’t about scale, it’s about implementation, and implementation requires the right people on the ground. Implementation can scale. The right people cannot. We can Make Big Plans, but every 6th grade math class still needs an excellent math teacher. That's a job worth doing. I could dream about starting 20 schools, but every school needs a leader. That’s a job worth doing. Places like UChicago teach us to ask "what's next" for our own advancement, to do this now so we can get to that later. I learned to ask "what's next" to be as useful as possible to as many kids as I have in front of me.

I hold these two thoughts in my mind:

The educational realities of the South Bronx have a lot more to do with where highways were built in our neighborhood than with No Child Left Behind or charter schools, and require comprehensive policy change that address not only educational inequity, but environmental justice, and systemic racism.

The most useful policy changes I can make right now are to finalize the schedule for our staff work days that start on June 21, get feedback on next year’s calendar from families, and finish hiring the teachers our kids deserve.

I will follow the policy debates of #1 with great interest, but I know where I can be useful, and I’ll wake up tomorrow excited to make another draft of the calendar. I hope you get to work on making your Small Plans, and I will leave you with the secret — or at least the way that worked for me:

Find yourself people who are smarter than you and who disagree with you. Find problems you cannot shut up or stop thinking about. Do what you can’t shut up about with intellect and kindness. Use the privilege and opportunity that we have because we went to this school to make sure that opportunity for others does not require privilege. Run into the chasm.

Be curious, be humble, be useful.

Thank you.

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pumpkinpaix · 5 years ago

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Hello! and PSA

*waves* hi everyone! so uh, I’ve kind of had a bit of a surge in followers recently, and I thought I would make a bit of a PSA/intro post with a bit more targeted info than my about page.

anyways, I’m cyan! statistically speaking, you are probably here for one of the following reasons:

my fic

my meta

my gifs

my translation

all of the above

this is pretty much an mdzs blog on main these days, but I also rb a lot of other misc things because I have never been good at keeping my interests separate. it’s also my personal blog, so expect some of that? i am very all or nothing ahaha. my opinions change very quickly as I process new information, so like, something I said last week or yesterday might be different now! I’ve seen several people going through some of my older posts, and I’m just like oh dear, I said a lot of things six months ago that I no longer vibe with. /o\ please keep that in mind as you go diving in my blog!

i don’t have a BYF or DNI policy, but I reserve the right to block anyone for any reason because this is a personal blog first and foremost, and I do need to be better about setting my boundaries and curating my own online space! on that same token, you are free to follow, unfollow, block, whatever, even if we’re mutuals. <3

you’re free to come talk to me in my inbox or dms, but please be aware that there’s a very high chance I will never get back to you /o\ it isn’t personal!! I am just very mentally ill and have many difficulties with keeping up social interactions or talking to people.

in the interest of trying to be more open about myself, my brain, and what that means for me in an online/fandom space, I’m gonna do a boatload of mental health talk under the cut (or, if you’re looking at this on my blog proper or somewhere where the cut doesn’t display, it starts right after this paragraph), including mentions of self-harm/thoughts of specific self-harm etc, just so you are warned! I’ve been thinking recently that it’s good to try and take steps towards being more open about my issues, both for my own sake and others’. It’s long, because one of the fun things about my mental illness is that I am hyperverbal ahahaha (if that... wasn’t already obvious orz)

so if you’ve read pfmmpd, you can kind of get a sense of what I’m working with. a lot of how i wrote lwj was drawn directly from shit happening in my own brain, but like? dial that up from the specific issues that lwj had in that fic and apply it unilaterally across the board to almost anything you can think of.

I hesitate to describe my OCD as debilitating, but only because my specific cocktail of compulsions and anxieties and triggers push me to be hyperachieving and hyperfunctional. I consider myself pretty fortunate (?) in that regard. on paper, you could never tell how absolutely batshit my internal landscape is! which is very good for me practically in that I can hold down a job, keep scholarships, graduate with honors, have good prospects for my future, hold onto relationships (usually yikes) etc. but the fact of the matter is, I’m like. oh boy.

to give you a peek, here’s a non-exhaustive list of things that have triggered me to varying degrees of severity within the last like, week or so:

my dog

a chinese folk song

my mother reading a chinese haiku to me written by a young gay man

a chinese reader of my fic lovingly and gently giving me a history lesson on china and on mdzs while praising me

stepping on a piece of snow that didn’t collapse in the precise way i expected it to

writing meta

reading meta

ruminating on my triggers (honestly, I played myself)

seeing a twitter thread going around tumblr with decent information but the OP is someone who was exceedingly cruel to a good friend of mine

visiting my grandmother’s grave

deciding to visit my grandmother’s grave

discussing the concept of cuddling my partner whom i love and have been with for four years

self-harming (truly the height of irony, being triggered into self-harm and then getting triggered by the result of the self-harm hahahahahaha)

dropping off a package

trying to explain queer-coding to my parents

talking about stressors in my life related to covid19

having a very pleasant conversation with a person i admire

editing my translation

the fact that the “close” button on my accessibility sidebar on the translation website is the wrong color

choosing between eating all the shiitake mushrooms in my soup and purposefully giving myself a bad reaction or throwing one out and wasting food

thinking about playing a fun game with my partner and a mutual friend

my mom asking me to take a photo of some tea for her

my mom asking my opinion on a photo she was photoshopping

animal crossing

writing this fucking post HAHAHAHA

like!! it goes on!! endlessly! obviously, these triggers are not simply “bad” things. the chinese folk song and the haiku were both really beautiful and i love them! but I did spend a good amount of time curled up on my floor in the dark sobbing as i played the song on repeat. the haiku was one of the last straws that ended up with me screaming and crying and hurting myself. the snow??? like wtf the snow thing. I stepped on the snow and it felt wrong and my brain just started screaming SMASH YOUR KNEECAP. ???? (I didn’t, for the record, and I would never.) I love my partner very much! I love my friends very much, and my mother, and my grandmother etc. my triggers are infinite, unpredictable, and bizarre.

I’m saying all of this because I want to be clear that MDZS/CQL fandom specifically triggers me on a daily basis, sometimes very very badly. this is just a fact! it is no one’s fault! I have decided it is worth it for me to stay anyways. it is impossible for me to request people tag for certain things because I myself have no idea what my triggers are until I encounter them. It’s like a fun mystery boss encounter! sometimes it’s low level and i’m well-equipped to handle it. other times it’s a one-hit KO. We just don’t know! there are lots of very cool content creators in this fandom that I can’t follow because it would make my dash that much more high stakes. the original source canon material triggers me! all the events leading up to Lotus Cove massacre? I was shaking at work for three hours after consuming it for the first time.

Meta specifically is something I know a lot of people like me for, but it’s 100% the most triggering activity I participate in for this fandom. like, that suibian meta post I wrote that’s currently going around? Probably took me four or five hours of concentrated effort to write because I was compulsively panicking and rewriting and editing and panicking more and qualifying and editing and qualifying some more and then debating whether I should post it or not and then fighting with myself about my wording and then immediately regretting it and then every time someone commented on it (regardless of positive or negative!) my anxiety spiked. I started a reply to a response on that post and had to stop after a few minutes because I was already starting to trigger myself over it.

this is actually a pretty good outcome when it comes to meta! I recognized that I was hurting myself before I got any further, and I only spent like, five hours on it! it was good exposure therapy for me! the bad outcome is. well. bad, as you might imagine lmao.

I like writing meta. I like talking to people about it too! I like participating in fandom, I like writing, I like translating, I like all of these things. they’re just also really hard for me! there’s a couple meta requests sitting in my inbox right now that I want to get to, but it might take me like. a long time because of. you know! *gestures* Everything takes me a long time. that first chapter of the translation took me literally five months from beginning the project to posting a final edited version. It’s just over 1k words. D8

I try really hard to be chill and kind in public and I largely think I succeed on the kind part (I hope!). If you thought I had even an ounce of chill before this, perhaps I have disabused of that notion entirely now lmao. I’m not saying this for pity, but like? just so we all know what we’re dealing with here. I don’t want anyone to get hurt when I don’t engage with them or feel snubbed if I never reply to them. and also like, hey, if someone relates it’s like hooray, high fave, solidarity! we’re not alone in this world! or maybe this will help someone understand OCD a little better! I don’t know. I hope this post is a positive thing. BUT! I’ve spent three hours on it already, and i’m definitely starting to compulsively spiral, so instead of going back and editing it over and over, I’m just going to post it. thank you everyone for your understanding! I hope you enjoy your time on my blog! (*´▽`*)

#/#//#///#////#/////#personal #psa #cyan gets too deep in the weeds #HA HA HA.#can't believe i'm using that tag on a personal post except like. of course i am #hello everyone are you ready for some cyan dlc?#well you're getting it #im anxious about this thing because i'm anxious about everything but!#we are doing exposure therapy this year!!#even if the world is burning down around us i can still try to confront my problems!!!#about

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