#i am sort of rooting for the US now since mexico is out so i don’t WANT this to happen per se HOWEVER it would be reallllly fucking funny

[carcinized]

ngl itd be really funny if Christian pulisic is still hurt on saturday and the US scores 0 goals because their best striker is out with a balls injury

[whetstonefires]

Since you like the Hellboy...*perks up* Can I ask what you like about it? Does this need to be part of the ask game, if so, smash it in there. But opinions! I would love!

Ooh! Hm. This is actually surprisingly hard to articulate.

I’ve been ‘into’ Hellboy for like. Half my damn life now, and while I could have gone on at length about all the things about it I found fun as a teenager it was at its core very much a ‘this makes me Feel Happy’ thing. And now that glow is less intense but it’s bolstered by that habitual sort of attachment you feel to like. Family members.

Let’s see how far I can break this down lol.

I have never been able to much like most of the BPRD tie-in type materials and I was not at all pleased with the films, so to an extent I think I can say confidently part of what I like is the way Hellboy is situated in a superhero-comic-adjacent space while being very much coordinated by one overarching creative sensibility--like, other people were brought in to work on Hellboy a lot over the course of the run, but Mignola always had a unifying voice and even when I don’t actually agree with his taste or values that level of artistic...intentionality? Judgment? Presence? Something like that. Gives the work a sense of...integrity? Maybe just unity.

Anyway makes it feel less plastic than comics often do. This is a corporate product of course but it’s also just Mike Mignola hanging out doing whatever he thinks would be cool. Drawing rocks and monsters because that’s what he wants to draw. I like that.

Some of the higher-quality webcomics you get nowadays, when they don’t take themselves too terribly seriously but aren’t outright comedic, can land similarly in terms of voice, but even just fifteen years ago webcomics weren’t really at that point yet as a medium, and even now most are still amateurish as well as amateur. Which is fine, but different.

To get slightly less meta, I love the collection of genres that are smeared together for Hellboy--we’ve got a lot of detective noir stuff cut together with cosmic horror and like...the genre where people research folklore and then mostly punch it. Does that have a name? And then there are a bunch of other influences stirred in, sometimes for only a single issue, sometimes more.

Mignola managed to be significantly less offensive than average about the way he adapted world folklore into his weird groddy kitchen-sink fantasy system, which is pretty funny because he doesn’t come across as being careful about it at all. Not that I think there was no effort made, but also he just used research as a basis for narrative much more often than he started with a story premise and stretched the creature to fit, which by default gave him less scope for dickery.

Also I think the only god he ever fights is Hecate and she’s handled from a 19th-century-occultist angle rather than a Classical angle.

Also Hellboy fights Nazis and cyborg gorillas as well as like. Baba Yaga and vampires. The balance of schlock and gonzo nonsense to pathos and sensitive emotional bits is usually about where I like it.

The episodic format is really well used. It lets the storytelling style lean heavily on the late-19th-through-mid-20th-century short story genres that it borrows a lot from, and which honestly has always worked better for comics than end-to-end long-arc serialization. I like how the anachronic order of many sections of the series allowed for a lot of ‘building outward from the middle.’

Also it means the story can stay true to its roots and kill off a lot of characters in gothic excess without constantly sloughing main cast or having to do fakeouts.

...I can’t believe that since Hellboy isn’t really emotionally involved with the issue of his birth parents except inasmuch as it explains the world-ending stone hand, the single angstiest part of his backstory is technically when he went on a drinking binge road trip around Mexico in his teens and made friends with vampire-fighting luchador triplets but then the youngest one whom he was closest to was kidnapped by the vampires and Hellboy had to kill his best friend, and this is all established in a random side story that pushes the intentional genre absurdism to its breaking point and is equal parts comedic and grotesque.

(The second angstiest is probably the bit in volume 1 when he finds his dad murdered by frogs.)

I also just love characters who wear trench coats and are actually really clever and knowledgeable and kind but tend to resort, in extremity, to just hitting problems really hard. Okay? I like that. That’s a fave.

Hellboy’s whole character design is very strong, a bunch of dramatic broad-strokes decisions that contrast interestingly against one another, and then a lot of subtler elements layered in crosswise.

The way his relationship to the narrative ‘occult-fighting antichrist figure’ could be really straightforward, but keeps stepping a little sideways off the usual shape of the tropes in a way that creates depth.

He’s a giant red demon guy who stopped aging in the 50s; he’s never going to be able to be ‘normal’ or pretend he isn’t what he is--but also he’s a dude with a government job and probably a Social Security Number who goes and interviews people about the situation and says ‘I’m Agent Hellboy’ and gets called ‘Mr. Boy’ and is just this guy who knows his shit and can take a beating.

(This was one of the major things I hated in the first movie, that they decided to make him this weird secret cryptid whose dad keeps him locked in a vault when he’s not fighting.)

The way the identity thing is never reduced to comfortable binaries with him except by enemies trying to psych him out is just really satisfying. He fights monsters not because he hates them or himself but because he was recruited into this career young and he’s really good at it, and he feels good about helping people who are being victimized.

When something occult isn’t hurting anybody he’s down to chill, and if it turns out they secretly are after all he’s always so tired and disappointed, and if they really aren’t then he has a new friend. Whom he may never see again or may hit up for a game of cards next time he’s in town.

(I also like how he combines ‘being pretty private’ ‘being very casually friendly’ and ‘being an asshole who makes a lot of enemies’; it’s not that unusual a combo for his type of main character but it’s one I enjoy.)

When he breaks off his own horns as part of his rejection of being Anung Un Rama it’s not ‘choosing humanity’ or w/e it’s choosing not to be used for this. His name is Hellboy, which is an objectively awful name but it was given to him by people he loved and who chose him, not the people who made him or brought him to this world to be used, and he chooses it.

And that has weight. That has force enough behind it to carry a world.

Just in general in spite of all the identity stuff he gets swamped with he’s really good at self-knowledge and letting other people’s ideas of who and what he’s supposed to be just wash over him. As the story goes on and shit gets weirder his sense of identity gets shaken, but he never quite loses that anchor in the knowledge that he is the ultimate arbiter of his own identity.

His exasperation on being told via stabbing that he doesn’t get to be King of England even if he is the first male descendant of King Arthur since Mordred is so funny. Why is this a thing, says Hellboy. Why am I finding out like this. Why do I always find out this shit like this. Why would anyone think I wanted to be King of England. I already punched so many skeletons about not wanting to be King of Witches.

He’s got so much righteous anger that comes out when people are treated as disposable, or as less for being not human or less human or superpowered, and of course it’s founded in his own experiences and his own fight for respect but it’s not about him. It’s about the person who’s suffering now.

One time his combat one-liner before shooting something started with ‘The Torch of Liberty said I was the worst shot he ever tried to train’ that’s so funny! I love that!

He’s my boy okay.

[roswellnmsource]

Jeanine Mason and Roswell, New Mexico showrunner preview season 3 of the extraterrestrial drama

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Was the year time jump because of the pandemic? To sidestep making that too central to the plot, or was that always the plan?

JEANINE MASON: That was always our intention and it was just sort of a saving grace in that way. We also don't acknowledge the pandemic in real-time on our show. There are no masks and that was just so wonderful just to get work in that way and have that time where it was a little more normal. Also, that's just our show — we want you to come to us the way you always do, which is for nineties nostalgia, sexy Cowboys, brilliant scientists, you know?

CHRIS HOLLIER: So we wanted to drop our characters in a year later, let them stew in their individual decisions that were made last season. We want everyone to root for our poster couple but we want to honor what happens in real life, which is sometimes you step away from that person, even if you are entwined with them in a very particular way. So we wanted it to be a real enough time and distance so that they could live a little life on their own.

With showrunner Carina Adly MacKenzie departing at the end of season 2, has much changed? Or are you still working with ideas she had in place?'

HOLLIER: It's a little bit of both. There are things that Carina and I built that live all the way through and then once the story got up on its feet, discoveries were made with our new crop of people that we were like, "Oh, we're going to bend it this other way."

Jeanine, how is Liz doing in her new life in L.A. when we pick up this season?

MASON: Well, it's been a year and at this point, her life is actually pretty great. She just hasn't taken a second to acknowledge that. She's doing what she does best, which is just full head in her work and trying to figure out what she could use of her discoveries and her brilliance to save Maria. She has a great job, a really nice place, and an awesome partner at work who is a good time and a real match for her in terms of intellect and ambition. He begins to ask her to recognize that and to maybe give something a chance that she's been reluctant to because of how drawn she is to Roswell and to Max. It's a fun first episode. It's sexy. It's fun to find opportunities for her. She's our hero so she's got a lot on her shoulders and anytime where we can find levity for her is always a real treat for the writers and for me.

And no Crashdown waitress uniform must be nice?

MASON: Honestly, I miss it quite a lot right now. I have a note in my notes with Chris, I'm like, "I gotta tell him we gotta find him more opportunities for it."

Should Liz and Max shippers be worried about them finding their way back to one another after he destroyed her work and didn't follow her to L.A.? Should we resign ourselves to a season apart?

MASON: This season really is about these characters having themselves mirrored to each other. Max and Liz need some growing and ultimately they can't do anything but be orbiting each other. We found so many opportunities to have such a beautiful language around the cosmic element of their connection. They're asking, "Is this our decision, or are we just acting off of a decision that the cosmos made for us?" It was so fun to navigate that. I always have such a good time with Chris Hollier and with Nathan Dean, just finding the little tiny notches, a tiny bit of movement towards where they're going next. I really loved following them. It's my favorite Max and Liz season to date.

HOLLIER: It's not a season apart. I'll tease that they, in an unexpected way, end up in front of each other relatively soon. But it's really about when am I ready? And what does it mean to talk to my ex? When someone makes such a big influence in your life, when do you know it's over and when do you know you should fight again? We tried to give them real grown-up lives.

Steven Krueger (The Originals) also joined the cast as Heath this season. What can you tease about his character?

HOLLIER: He's just an awesome human being. I know him from The Originals and we were like, "If we're going to have to be stuck with people in the desert, who do we want?" You want to be stuck with a handsome and lovely and charming Steven Krueger. So really this was looking at, "Well, what did Liz want and what does it look like when you start to give Liz versions of what she wants?" Heath is somebody that is beyond being just a lovely person, he is smart and wants to advance science and that's appealing to Liz. It becomes, "What does it look like when the man that I hang around with all day is also into the same things that I am?"

MASON: I love him. Heath is just such a fun, whip-smart, fantastic character. His humor was so fun. We've been having a good time with kicking the humor up really through season two and in season three, we just took it up another notch. There are some moments that are like, "Is this a drama or is it a sitcom?" Looking back on it, he was such a fun partner to spar with. They're both such intellectual characters and I love that there's a real meeting of the minds. It makes it competitive and sexy. I know a lot of fans are so excited because they know him from The Originals and he's going to be a great addition.

Technically, Mr. Jones is a new character too. Can you tell us anything at all about him?

HOLLIER: I'd say he's a new character — and a fully-fleshed interesting new character. Mr. Jones has an awesome beard. At some point, he might lose that beard. A lot of people are asking me, "Is Jones good or bad?" And what I would argue is that's a perspective based upon who you are in the conversation that you're having with him. He knows a lot about our heroes' story and he knows a lot about home. He'll be able to answer questions for them. This season our heroes will get to learn why they ended up here on earth. One of the things I think that people will love is that they're going to get to see that home planet this year. We asked ourselves a lot about this whole season, "What have we set up for the past two?" We look at these first three seasons almost like a trilogy so a lot of things are going to be paid off.

Has Nathan enjoyed pulling double duty this season? Or is he just exhausted?

MASON: He's exhausted, but he's such a champ. That really is the beginning of this mirroring thing that starts with Max and Jones with him actually getting to look at himself to a degree and those questions that come up. The self-analysis that it provokes in him is really the beginning of what is happening to all of our characters this year; everybody's being confronted with themselves. I loved that the Max/Jones of it was also a real sci-fi element.

Did he really grow that beard or was that not possible if he had to go between the two characters?

MASON: That was a prosthetic beard and our makeup team killed it. He was not accustomed to early mornings, which, of course, all of us babes are. It was a lot of extra time in the chair for him.

Can Jones dupe Liz into thinking he's actually Max since she doesn't know he exists?

MASON: You're totally on to something. It's a real and pressing threat. I mean, she's totally in the dark and he looks like her cosmic lover!

HOLLIER: What I will say is that, Liz — beyond her being number one on the call sheet — is integral to this story in a way that she and none of our characters are going to perceive when they start episode one. We're bringing [the characters] to a new crossroads moment in their lives and they're getting, through Jones, a mirror into their own lives to decide what they're going to become next.

How's Rosa (Amber Midthunder) doing this season?

MASON: By the end of season two, Rosa really makes the decision to start taking care of herself. She really becomes an incredible asset to the Scooby-Doo gang. It's something that Liz is in constant adjustment to. As much as she's the younger sister, she feels very protective of her sister and Liz has had to make adjustments in her trust and faith in Rosa. I loved it because it just felt like a real personal, authentic thing that sisters would go through, but also that Hispanic sisters would go through. I think we sometimes, culturally, have a tendency to baby our women — maybe that's the wrong word — but just to underestimate their physical ability and what they might take on, and sort of 'queen' our women in a way where we treat them tenderly. I hate that. I'm a tough bitch and so is Rosa. So Liz has to confront that and go, "I'm an idiot to underestimate you. You've done nothing but prove me wrong."

What about Maria and her visions?

HOLLIER: This year I think Maria has the most complete arc of any season, as she recognizes things about herself that cause more questions about who she is, who her family is, how she's linked to this story. We dive into it in the present-day and we dive deliciously back in time too.

In the exclusive clip above we see her have a vision of a funeral, can you tease anything about who potentially might be about to die?

HOLLIER: Maria is front and center in driving the first half of the mystery for us. She's burdened with trying to figure out whose death she is seeing. It takes a few episodes to unravel and we use it to ask, is this linked to our supernatural stories or real-world stories that are going on politically? Is it bad luck? Is it herself? There's a whole gambit at play. We joke that we solved a past murder, now we're going to try to stop one.

Can Malex (Michael and Alex) shippers have hope that this might finally be their time?

HOLLIER: What I would say is that I think that Malex fans are really going to dig this journey. We, as writers, put them at the same level of importance as Max and Liz. So we wanted to really honor the next step in what they may or may not be. How did they grow up and how did they have those hard conversations just like Liz and Max are going to have?

Is Isobel going to continue to date women this season?

HOLLIER: Isobel is going to go on a more personal journey. You got to love yourself before you can love someone else. We lean into those possibilities by the end of who she might love. It's not something that is dropped all season — it is something that you'll see. We play some romantic comedy stuff with her character this year and with Maria that I think fans are gonna dig. There's a lot going on in the world and wanted to pump some humor and hope into it.

Will see more of Liz fighting to challenge the perception of the Latinx community?

MASON: I think that just by nature of it being one of such few shows that are led by a Latin woman, it's always going to be, to an extent, a protest or an assertion of the space that I get to fill and that Liz Ortecho gets to fill on network TV. I was really excited to just have Chris as a collaborator. Over our hiatus, before the season started, I was doing a lot of reading. I chronicled the books that play into Liz every season on my Instagram. I was reading some Sonia Sotomayor. Her book is just incredible. I was texting him screenshots of pages of the book with things underlined. Ten episodes deep into season 3, he's like, "Remember that page you sent me?" He's a real dream collaborator. I loved him for that. A pressing struggle for people of color is going through the ranks in these big corporations and then sometimes coming to find out that those corporations are purporting to support marginalized groups but actually aren't following through. So how do you, as someone who's having your success, your dreams become reality, navigate supporting the company and giving so much of your intelligence and your work — that they often legally own, especially with science — to a company that isn't going to be for your people?

[thekillerssluts]

DIY Magazine, October 2020.

Interview TALKING ‘BOUT MY GENERATION: WILL BUTLER

Talking to Will Butler is a bit like trying to have a conversation with a human magpie. Hugely enthusiastic and with a constant giggle on the go (“I have a nervous laugh, so I laugh at more things than I should…”), the 37-year-old has a tendency to veer off down strange tangents, taking your original point but then getting distracted or excited by some other new, shiny train of thought in a different direction.

You can tell he’s smart - not just booksmart, but the kind of smart where you can practically see the cogs turning at 100mph. “I love knowledge for its own sake,” he professes at one point. “I believe in it to a fault. I think it’s worth knowing all this shit, for no other reason than just knowing that it’s true.” And it’s this attitude that’s filled the three years since ‘Everything Now’ - he and his Arcade Fire bandmates’ society-skewering fifth LP.

In that time, amid world tours and festival headlines, Will has had two more children - twins - and went to Harvard to study a masters in public policy. He also found time to record ‘Generations’ - a second solo effort that takes the brilliantly all-over-the-place nature of 2015’s ‘Policy’ and hones it into something that’s more pointed, though still clearly fuelled by the same curious mind. Or as he puts it: “The first [album] it’s like, ‘I’m at the market! There’s some eggplants! Oh there’s a nice sausage guy! And OK cool I’ll get some of those and these!’ But then ‘Generations’ was much more like, ‘I’ve been storing these bones in my freezer for two years and now we’re gonna boil this down to make the pure essence of the beast’.”

Like most debuts from artists splintering off from their main projects, ‘Policy’ had been born from accumulating a collection of material that didn’t fit with his band. Unlike most, Will had just been nominated for an Oscar (for his soundtrack to Joaquin Phoenix film Her) before its release, “so that was a confidence boost,” he notes amiably. Conversely, the essence of ‘Generations’’ particular beast seems a far more targeted one - one intrinsically linked with the intense political conversations the musician had found himself wrangling with during his recent studies.

“I always want whatever I’m making to emerge out of what I’m living and for it to help me understand how I’m living better, so going to policy school was certainly part of that artistic project as well as the ‘what do we fucking do?’ project,” he explains. “I jokingly say that I was radicalised at Harvard, which is basically true. I was in a mid-career programme, so there were 25-year-old geniuses but also people in their middle age who’d worked in the UN in Pakistan or the government in Mexico. They had this whole perspective of how fucked everything is across the whole globe so it was… educational.

As such, his second brims with a sense of palpable unease for a society that’s not only crumbling before our eyes right now, but has been doing so intermittently for decades and centuries. The twinkling, finger-clicking patter of ‘Close My Eyes’ belies the all-too-timely despair beneath it (“The photograph is new / But I seen that same headline, and I got to dance to keep from crying”), Randy Newman-esque closer ‘Fine’ digs right back to “George Washington and all his slaves,” while ‘Not Gonna Die’, he explains, was written in direct response to the November 2015 Bataclan shootings.“All these things hit different people in different ways, but that was so close to home,” he says. “It was Christmas after that and I was shopping in Manhattan; I walked into Sephora and it was super crowded and I thought, there’s a lot of people in here, where would I go [if something like that happened]? And I got so mad. It fucking worked. You made me scared. I’m not gonna die in Sephora on 5th Avenue but you made me think about it, you fucking pieces of shit.“Mike Pence was writing about it before he was running for Vice President, like, ‘We need to make sure we don’t have any immigrants come in because the immigrants can do this to us here’. And it’s like, I’m not gonna be killed by a woman fleeing violence in Guatemala!! The terrorists and the people saying ‘Be afraid!’: what you’re doing is working, and I AM afraid, and fuck you.”

Perhaps most interestingly, however, ‘Generations’ doesn’t just point the finger outwards, it also poses questions of the singer’s own inherent part in it all. “A big chunk of this record is asking: What’s my place in American history? What’s my place in America’s present?” he explained in a previous statement about the album. “Both in general, but also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician. What do I do? What can I do?”

“It’s basically like, ‘My God, how did we get here?’ - that Talking Heads line,” he continues now. “The record is at times literally a conversation with people arguing back and forth, and there’s a lot of questions raised and the answers aren’t answers - you just end the conversation in a different spot. There’s something to that process of discussing and coming to some sort of revelation only to find out what’s lacking there, and then you move onto the next conversation and find out what’s lacking there. I was pleased that the material felt cyclical and of a piece, and you feel like you’re in a different spot than you were at the beginning.”

Because yes, his latest might not provide all the answers - “This is a musical work and I don’t know what the end notes are,” he admits - but ‘Generations’ does emphasise the importance of asking the questions and having the conversations, both with the world and with yourself. And if you can have them over an album of musically explorative, rich and often perversely funny new offerings? All the better.

Next, he’ll return to the fold to begin work on Arcade Fire’s sixth opus. Writing for that had originally started in New Orleans before the pandemic hit, but the band “don’t have the file management down to really do it at a distance,” he chuckles. “Win and Régine are always demoing and working, and I’ve done a little. We always work on a record for about a year and a half and we’re not off that pace yet, we’re still weirdly on track…”

You can bet by the time that record lands, he’ll have chalked up a handful of other accomplishments to his name, too; lord only knows the political battleground of the coming weeks will give him enough food for thought. And in the inquisitive mind of Will Butler, thought and curiosity are clearly the most nourishing tools of all. “You can write a love song that’s super true, but can you write a history song that also is? And if it comes out right and there’s some value in it, then what does that mean?” he muses. “It’s about just trying different angles to express something true.”

‘Generations’ is out now via Merge.

Butler’s Bits

‘Generations’ is undoubtedly an album rooted in politics and society - this much we know. But it’s also a record that digs into the musician’s relationship with other parts of the human experience…

HUMOUR “It’s a coping mechanism and it’s also a worldview. There’s not exactly a cabaret scene in New York but the comedy here is quite musical and there’s a lot of comedians that interact with people in interesting ways. They’re a bit younger than me - I’m the oldest millennial - but there’s something in that spirit that feels relevant.”

RELIGION “I grew up Mormon and I’m still ethnically Mormon. It’s like The Smiths song, ‘Meet Me At The Cemetery Gates’ - ‘Keats and Yeats are on your side, and Wilde is on mine’, you lose, haha. I’m sure Yeats is such a fucking asshole but that’s my heritage. The classic lineage of the Western canon is how I grew up.”

ADULTHOOD “I have three kids now, and it doesn’t make me worry about the future so much as it’s made me learn so much about humanity watching them - watching how it all goes into the ‘this is what humans are’ mill. On ‘Policy’, the protagonists are a motley crew of rag-tag whatevers, whereas this is much more a coming of age novel - not like a teenager becoming an adult, but an adult becoming a worse adult…”

As featured in the October 2020 issue of DIY, out now.

[lizacstuff]

Started watching Sen Cal Kapimi after seeing all your cute Gifs and I love it!!! Serkan & Eda are my whole heart at this point and the full cast is just amazing together. I just finished episode 19 and Eda is finally going to learn the truth about her parents death. And I am finally going to dive into the latest episodes that have been causing a lot of drama in the fandom. I love Serkan and I love Eda but right now I am team Eda while at the same time rooting for them to figure things out. After seeing comments about the last few episodes, I think fans really under estimate how much Serkan breaking up with her really hurt her. And now this secret will be added on top of that. I get that he has been hurting as well but she has been in the dark about everything. Eda should be able to take whatever time she needs to figure out how she wants to move forward. We all know that Serkan loves her more than anything and so does she deep down but she has really got to be questioning things she thought she knew about their mutual feelings & relationship since he broke up with her. And honestly not really digging the idea that another woman going after Serkan needed to be brought in to get Eda to sort through her feelings. Not very fair to Eda’s character at all but I know she will handle it like the queen she is. Looking forward to the next few episodes. Thanks again for talking about this show. I trust you since we have a mutual love for Max & Liz from Roswell New Mexico as well. Thank goodness the writing on Sen Cal Kapimi is a million times better and the episodes are longer so none of the good stuff gets cut out.

Hello fellow Echo fan!!!!  Welcome! As a side note, I am so hungry for RNM spoilers and we are getting almost nothing! With the pandemic, and a change in showrunner, the cast and crew are really buttoned up this season and not sharing much of anything. However, I really need them to feed me! LOL.

I’m so happy you’re enjoying Sen Cal Kapimi, Serkan and Eda have just taken over my fandom life, I love them, they’ve been such a nice oasis in the wasteland of 2020. 

100% agree that lots of people who are impatient with Eda are not really looking at it from her perspective. It’s only been 5 days since she returned to the office after finding out why he broke up with her and she’s still trying to protect her heart. I know he was trying to do the right thing, but he ended up ripping out her heart. If she needs, I don’t know, a full week to come to terms with things before abandoning the guard rails she put in place (contract), I don’t think that’s egregious. And honestly I don’t think she needed the woman to be brought on to sort out her feelings, it’s may just excelerate it a little while providing some drama and comedy for the show. 

Once you finish the episodes, treat yourself and go catch up on some of the BTS stuff from this show. I’d start with the lives, go to youtube, search for ‘Hande and Kerem instagram live english’ or ‘Hanker instagram live english’ and make sure you have some time, because there are a lot of them. Super fun to watch, they tell some good stories, joke a lot, and random other cast/crew members pop up here and there in them. 

So glad you’ve joined us!

[segenassefa]

9: Why Gatekeeping is Ok (#FufuChallenge Discourse)

African restaurants in the U.S., while not as popular as their foreign counterparts, are not far and few between in states such as a D.C., New York, and Georgia having large African communities. In recent weeks, videos of people trying variations of fufu and stew have popped up seemingly out of nowhere, unknowingly creating a “trend” called the #FufuChallenge. While some of the reactions were positive, many of these videos were quite the opposite, in which individuals with little to no home training had the absolute gall to record themselves treating the food as if it were 50 Shades of Grey – including but not limited to spitting, slapping, tossing, and other things that are considered incredibly disrespectful.

Now, fufu is native to West Africa and made from boiled and pounded cassava. Different countries have their versions of the same food, give or take a few ingredients - banku, eba, ga’at, ugali, mofongo, and cornmeal coucou (fungi, for my VI people). As disclaimer – I am an adventurous eater, and the first time I tried fufu, I was a fan. I don’t think it’s a food that’s hard to enjoy flavour-wise, but I can see how the texture may not be agreeable for everyone. Additionally, being from a culture that eats with their hands, there’s a lot of etiquette that’s instilled in at a young age– the most important being that food is not a toy. However, the recent videos have sparked a debate about Black acceptance between different members of the diaspora.

It is interesting how, during a time of inclusivity and unification within the Black community, it is taking no more than pounded root vegetable for most of you to show your ass. I don’t feel like now is the time to remind Black Americans that some of “common” foods would be considered abhorrent to others – chitlins and pickled pig feet, we’re looking at you. Everyone is losing their mind over pounded cassava, but the idea of eating soggy cornmeal – also known as grits – is a normal phenomenon. We can also bring snack foods into this - hot pickles in a bag, Vienna sausages - but the point of this conversation is not to sit here and bash culinary history, but to make the argument clear that every culture has foods that others would find less than palatable.

In the same breath that we want to come together, fight systemic oppression, and be on some fake Marcus Garvey shit, people are referring to African food as disgusting, garbage, and even “dog food”. But you want to go back to Africa, right? Find your roots?

Have you all lost your damn minds?

Black people exist everywhere, and that inherently means that the techniques and methods of cooking we use are prevalent in a lot of other cultures. If you don’t believe me, take the time to Google Korean fried chicken and the fact that the idea of frying chicken in batter was introduced by Black soldiers stationed abroad in the 1940s and 1950s, or how gumbo and jambalaya are variants of traditional African foods, created using recipes that date back to slavery. So, there’s a chance that there are other foods across various cultures – including Black American meals - that resemble traditional African cuisine. Why don’t you drag those on social media as well?

More likely than not, before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, this is probably the food that peoples’ ancestors were eating, and by reasonable conclusion, it’d be the food that OUR ancestors were eating. Additionally, there are so many other cultures with foods that can be turned into trend, so why was the Internet’s thought process to bully African people for no reason other than for laughs on social media? No, just traditional African food? Ok, noted.

Like ENNY said, please free my people from clout. PLEASE. I’m begging at this point.

And non-Black people have not escaped scrutiny either – so if you found yourself at a protest this year or have a cheeky little “BLM” in your bio, but you still found the time to degrade African culture on your timeline, I’m going to need you to go ahead and click backspace on your bio for me really quick, because the math is not math-ing. When it comes to other ethnic groups asking for parts of their culture to be respected and kept sacred, everyone wants to be quiet and listen, but when Black – specifically African people - ask for the same respect, people struggle to do so and are left with two options, or what they think are their only options – to, A, dismantle parts of Black culture to be co-opted and renamed to be acceptable to the white gaze or, B, label these things as disgusting and left at the mercy of Twitter think piece writers and Clubhouse podcasters who have nothing better to do than talk about things that they absolutely have no knowledge on.

Lastly, a LOT of foods from other cultures that are popular in the United States are not even authentic to that culture. To stand in front of a Taco Bell, or Panda Express, or Olive Garden and tell anyone that is your idea of eating “ethnic” food is not only a lie, but the curse of nationalism and Western closed-mindedness.

If you think our friends in Mexico are sitting down at their tables each night with a Crunch Wrap Supreme and Nacho Fries, you are highly mistaken, beloved.

But, with no empathy, authentic African culture has been co-opted as a sort of internet trend in which it’s acceptable to bash damn near an entire continent for food that takes immense labour and cultural knowledge to create successfully. And then, the people who posted their negative reviews actually had to sit, order the food, set it up, film themselves eating it, decide they didn’t like it, go back and edit the video – with their disrespect front and centre – and thought they could post it on the internet free of scrutiny. Like, we (as Americans) aren’t even eating traditional foods from other cultures to BEGIN with, so why was now the time to start, and why did you all start with African food?

Answer, and quickly.

There has always been tension within the Black community between Black Americans and the African diaspora, over feelings of perceived superiority and inferiority on both sides, and in all honesty, this is an argument I don’t subscribe to - at the end of the day, systemic racism does not care what flag you have in your bio, or how long you’ve lived in America – you’re Black, plain and simple.

But West Africans were not the first people who hopped on the internet and begged people to try their food, so the unwarranted opinions are more proof that maybe sometimes, it’s ok to gatekeep. And no one is begging for these reactions either or saying that you have to like it – if you’re not a fan, just nize it and maybe just…delete the video? Outside of the topic of respect also, the Internet is forever. So those of who you unabashedly are posting disrespect on the internet, think where this video will be circulating in a year or so.

Lastly, if you think Africans are blowing the response to the “fufu challenge” out of proportion, keep that same energy next time you see white women in box braids, rocking evil eye pendants, doing intricate henna on your timeline, or trying to lecture you about aligning your chakras, since it has now been established that disrespecting peoples’ culture is no more than acceptable social media discourse.

Be blessed!

[gra-sonas]

RosweII, New Mexico star LiIy CowIes on lsobeI's self-empowerment and fangirling over Jason Behr

The actress takes us inside her character's heartbreaking grief and trauma on the CW extraterrestrial drama.

For a town inhabited by aliens, a whole bunch of very human, very real — and heartbreaking! — drama sure does go down in Roswell, New Mexico.

On Monday's episode of the CW series, we journeyed back in time to the scene of the 1947 saucer crash that brought Max (Nathan Dean Parsons), Isobel (Lily Cowles), and Michael (Michael Vlamis) to the New Mexico small town, and we got our first glimpse of Jason Behr (who played Max on the original Roswell series) as a zealous army officer intent on capturing the recently landed extraterrestrials. While we learned more about Michael's mother's arrival on Earth and the turbulent hours that followed, back in the present Isobel was having a rough time of it herself, having chosen to attempt to end her pregnancy alone and confront her grief over the loss of her brother and basically the whole life she'd known with Noah for so many years.

We caught up with Cowles about the emotional scenes with Parsons, the bold decision to bring an abortion story line to the forefront of the episode, and bumping into her teenage crush at craft services.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Isobel is obviously carrying a lot of grief and pain this season from the loss and violations she suffered last season. How did you approach the character coming into this second season?

LILY COWLES: Halfway through the hiatus, Carina [Adly MacKenzie, series creator] and I started talking about what Isobel had been through, where she was coming from, and what we could expect to see moving forward. I was really hoping when it started, we'd be six months down the line, but no — of course that doesn't make for good television, nor does it do justice to character. So we very quickly realized we were going to be heading right back into the moment straight after. I was like, "Ooh, boy." I got a lot to take on: losing her brother, her other half, the twin that she'd had since birth, and of course having to digest the fact that her entire life had been a sham. Her marriage was a lie, to a man who had been physically and emotionally using and abusing her without her knowing about it. She'd been married to this sort of psychopath, serial killer who used her body to commit murders. How do you even begin to digest it? We talked about how Isobel was a character who had built a tremendous facade, and she was living this perfect life that looked really good on paper. It was a very carefully constructed house of cards, but it was a prison because it was all based in lies. Carina and I were looking at it and thought, "Well, the one thing that can be said is that that house of cards now has been destroyed. It's been razed to the ground." So she actually, strangely, has been given an opportunity to start again. In many ways, we were both excited to see: Who is Isobel outside of the confines of how she's defined herself? It's so painful and scary, and yet it gives her a fresh start to say, "Who am I, deep down inside?" I think that's something that everyone can relate to on some level, finding your authentic self.

It seem like a big part of Isobel's journey this season is going to be finding her own autonomy, making her own decisions, and not relying on anyone else to look after her. Can you talk about her decision to abort the baby in this episode and how that plays into her overall story arc?

Isobel is, of course, a special case because she's an alien. Her story line is largely metaphorical for a lot of people, but it's nonetheless a story that so many women can relate to: We have these bodies that other people want to control, and we have a lot of restrictions placed on our own reproductive health. It's crazy that it's still such a huge issue that women have to battle so much to be able to have autonomy over their own systems. Isobel finds herself in a position where she learns that she's pregnant and there are a lot of things at play here. One of the biggest ones is, of course, that the man who fathered this child was not who she thought he was. So there's a question of consent. It's tricky because all of these things are so shades of gray. She learns after the fact that this man had been lying about who he was. He had been manipulating her, using her body, and infiltrating her mind. It's hard to draw comparisons to a human on human, but she definitely suffered emotional, psychological, physical abuse and manipulation. Now she's dealing with a pregnancy that's come out of an abusive and traumatic relationship, and she's looking at this pregnancy as representing the legacy of that abuse and trauma. Isobel's looking at a woman's right to have it on her own terms, and these are not the terms that she agreed to, and she's very much alone.

That's a very relatable story line if you remove the alien element and just focus on how many women are alone and dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and don't have access to help.

Yes. That's a really terrifying thing. I think that's a place that many women find themselves. While Isobel's in extreme extenuating circumstances, I think this is something that many women face, and whether it's because they're under age and their families won't understand, or because they're illegal citizens and they feel that going to a hospital will compromise them and they'll be deported, or maybe they live in a state where medical assistance just isn't offered for that. This is something many women have had to really face. I think in that sense, Carina wanted to do justice to that story so women who have gone through it can see that they're not alone. Often on TV, you get to this moment and then it's like, "Oh, there was a miscarriage," or they find some way to do it without compromising the character's likability. It's so sad to me that the character's likability would be in question for having to make this kind of decision, but it's the reality that we live in. There's such a stigma. Carina wanted to say, "This character is alone, and she's making a choice to save herself." It was very bold, and I'm really honored to be a part of it.

It's an emotionally draining episode for Isobel, for sure. The scene with Max on the couch where she talks about how much she misses him but seems to come to the realization that she is the only person she can truly rely is pretty heartbreaking. How was that to shoot?

It was very challenging. Carina called me and we started talking about it and she said, "Okay, I have an idea, but I don't want you to freak out." She proposed this whole thing. My initial reaction was like, "Oh God, please don't make me," because you go through it as an actor. You put your human body through it, and you don't want to hold back. Especially with this, I felt an enormous responsibility to do justice to this story because I know it's so important to so many people. But it was rough. Every morning going to work was like walking into a war zone. You know what's coming and you're like, "Please don't make me go!" But it's such a beautiful monologue. It's heartbreaking. I lost a parent a few years ago and when I read that monologue I was just like, "Oh God." It just hits. It just rings so true. To be dealing with grief is its own miracle and monster, and that was something that was really important for me to show up for as an artist. I know that part of the human condition, that inability to move forward beyond the loss of someone.

Wow, yeah, pretty heavy stuff. I guess one bright spark in all of this was that Liz [Jeanine Mason] and Isobel are back on better terms. Will we see them team up going forward?

Yeah, something that's really beautiful about what happens to Isobel is that in the dearth of all other supportive relationships, she's going to have to learn how to be friends with the girls. Men, God bless them, can't relate as well to what she is going through as other women can. I think Maria sees it. She's got her psychic abilities and she's like, "What's going on with you?" Liz, of course, when she finds out, is like, "Why didn't you tell me?! I would have been there for you." I'm really excited that this season Isobel is going to learn how to play nice with the girls. Female relationships can be complicated, and they can be so powerful.

I'm assuming you won't have any scenes with Jason Behr since he exists in flashbacks, but how was just having the O.G. Max on set?

Such a dream. First of all, I was a huge Roswell original fanatic. I was obsessed with it. The first time I saw him was at craft services. It was lunchtime and I'm like stuffing my pockets full of all my snacks and I like look up, and it was like an angel had fallen to the earth and there he was. I don't get star-struck, but I was so awkward. I was like, "It's you!" You could tell the poor man has had to deal with this like a lot. He's like, "Yes, it's me. I know that I'm the hero of your dreams." It was embarrassing, but having him around was amazing. He's been such a huge champion of the show. We have a tradition of going out for karaoke on Saturday nights, and he came out one time. I had just recently bought this totally absurd floor-length fur vest, and he put it on and looked like Jon Snow, but sleeker. I was just like, "Is this real life?" I just wanted to tell my 12-year-old self, "Girl, wait until I tell you what is going to happen!"

Amazing. I love that so much. We should talk about the ending too with Michael's mom and the other woman who may be Isobel and Max's mom. Can you tease anything to come there? Is Isobel going to throw herself into investigating her past?

Yeah, I think you can definitely get ready for some exciting investigation into the past. Isobel is trying to figure out who she is in a sense of where's she from too and what her roots are. That's definitely a question that she's got intensely on her mind. Part of the trajectory of the season is exploring the past and trying to get some information on what happened and what went down in 1947. So we'll definitely get to know some of those characters and get to fill in a little bit of the family gaps. It's beautifully written and beautifully acted, and I'm really excited for fans to see it. I think they're going to love it.

~ EW

[ashleysheatz]

My FULL Testimony:

trigger warning: I mention some very hard things to read for some. proceed with caution! and don’t read this if you are not an adult.

My name is Ashley Huizar and this is how Jesus Christ changed my life. I never grew up in a religious-based household, or with anyone who was seeking for truth. I lived with my mother my entire life since she and my dad never married, and they split up when I was 3 yrs old. At a very young age, I was exposed to lots of sexual immorality such as pornography and crude, sexual talk. This soon led me to get enslaved in the sin of indulging in pornography as young as 11 or 12 yrs old and this continued for many years. At 15 years old I became VERY rebellious. I was promiscuous, jumping from relationship to relationship, smoking, sneaking out at night, lying to my mother where I was going, drinking, and partying. Not too long after, I soon began to dabble into New Age, Hinduism, Buddhism, The Occult, Yoga, Shamanism, and other DARK and DECEPTIVE false religions. I began collecting many books on these topics and my library was overflowing. I got super drawn into the yoga/hippie way of living…I ended up getting dreadlocks around 16 yrs old, then began a life of a toxic pattern, and at 16-17 years old I really began to go downhill. At 16 - I began going to desert/rave gatherings with many drugged out people, and no police or authority to watch over anyone. I was going to these, camping away from home full weekends at a time without my mother or father ever really knowing. I got into doing party drugs while thinking I HAD to do these things in order to be ‘spiritual.’   At 17, I had a boyfriend who was 23 years old and he introduced me into psychedelic drugs such as LSD, Mushrooms, DMT, etc. I began doing these drugs thinking I had to engage in them in order to reach some higher, esoteric level of enlightenment, or reach a sort of ‘’god consciousness.’’ I began to really lose my mind and have numerous bad trips, memory loss, psychosis and saw lots of demonic activity in and around me. I even ran away to Vegas for an entire two weeks without talking to any family and continued to be brainwashed by this man and taken advantage of immensely. After that relationship, I had another one who was into the same thing. Older, and had access to psychedelics. The cycle began to REPEAT. I was used, and abused more than a few times at this age. I was naive and indulged in any drug I was given and began to really lose myself, my family, and my identity. A similar thing happened at 17 with a 50-year-old man who went by the name Broly in the festival world. He claimed to be God, and that he was here to save my soul. He manipulated me, gave me drugs, and did horrible things to me and kept telling me this was the truth and that he was the way to spiritual awakening. I was SO brainwashed. He even had his own published religion that seemed very real to me. Granted, I was already brainwashed by many other false religions. (I had NO clue what the gospel really was, or who Jesus was at the time) After escaping that very toxic ‘relationship’ I began to get heavily addicted to a drug called ketamine. I began changing my name on Facebook and barely talked to my family. I was very, very lost. This continued on the whole year. When I was 18, I moved out to New Mexico with my boyfriend at the time, and continued to smoke, drink, practice yoga and even got into prostitution online. I sold myself virtually online by videos, pictures, etc. I lived here for maybe about 4 months, until I packed up my bags, got on a train and left. I was talking to my family a bit more, but not much. I came back to my dads’ house, left my bags, stayed home for maybe a day then left to the desert with friends for another rave. The same routine continued, and I ended up meeting someone from this rave, and he wanted me to come to Santa Barbara with him, so, I did. I stayed in a hotel with this person I did not know, camped out in parks, and was HEAVILY using the drug ketamine again. This time, it was for 3 days straight, almost nonstop. I was barely eating, or drinking water at this time. Then, we stayed at his friend’s house and I began mixing drugs. I began to fall out of consciousness and was very disoriented. I passed out for a while, then when I awoke again, something was VERY wrong. My vision became very narrow, and the colors were dark around me. I started crying and instinctively screaming at the top of my lungs, telling them to let me out of the room, and they refused. They were holding the door closed and my body switched instantly into fight or flight, I began trying to fight them in order to get out, and get help because I was close to death. I tried breaking out of their window, breaking their blinds…Finally, I got out and ran screaming for help. The only closest thing to help was a dentist's office. I ran inside screaming that I was drugged, raped, and in need of help. I told them to look up my dad and to please call him. The last thing I remembered was falling to the ground and having 3-4 painful seizures. My parents told me after that I had to be strapped down because of how intense my seizure was from overdosing. I was in complete darkness, yet still fully conscious. I was not aware of what was going on in reality because all I was aware of was darkness, pain, and my body's out of control shaking. I did not even know that I went in an ambulance to get to the emergency room. After the overdose, I went through recovery and had to get treatment there at the hospital because I was in bad shape. My dad drove all the way from San Diego to rescue me and after being able to come home, my dad sat me down and said, ‘’Ashley. Something HAS to change or you are going to die. This path you have chosen ONLY leads to death. I could have lost you.’’ So, I cut my dreadlocks off and went sober for a while, but by my own strength & self-effort which was soon to fail. After months of being sober, I for the last time fell into the same toxic pattern and I left to Oregon for a month. My dad had bought me a plane ticket and a pass to go to Guatemala for the whole month of October alone for a Yoga Certification course to become a teacher. I had told him about this a year before, and this was the plan. So, after a month of living in Oregon, I came back home to prepare for Guatemala. Little did I know, the Lord was beginning to draw me. As I look back, I see His providential hand always at work. The fact that he kept me alive all of those years astonishes me. A few days before my trip - I came across a youtube video. I cannot remember what it was called, but all I remembered is that it said ‘’All of the yoga, chakras, Hinduism, and meditation are HIDING Jesus from you. It is blinding you to the truth.’’ I began to weep and pace back and forth saying to myself, ‘’No way. There is NO way this 'spiritual' life I have been living is a lie.’’ After pushing this video away, I began to really question everything I had been doing. Fast forward - I go to Guatemala the whole month to study Yoga deeper. I had studied yoga since I was about 15 years old and was drawn to the false spirituality it promised. The chief end goal of Yoga is something called "moksha." It is to basically merge with this divine consciousness and come into union with Brahman (the false impersonal force). It is completely rooted in Hinduism and cannot be mixed with Christianity for dark and light do not mix. During the trip, I was with yogis, witches, spiritists, and surrounded by lost people who thought they knew the truth, myself being one of them. I was realizing how empty I felt, and how much I was internally hurting. There were many days I just wanted to go home. After a month, I ended up getting certified, passed all my yoga classes and assignments, then I got to go home. After being home again, my search continued. The devil REALLY began trying to keep me blinded and deceived. I started to become very attracted to Jesus’ name. I first began to see His Hebrew name, Yeshua. I kept saying, ‘’Who IS this Yeshua?’’ After days of studying Gnosticism, I was on my knees by my bed and was weeping. All of these false religions had NO foundation. They were SO confusing and all I could think was, ‘’I have been searching to find something spiritual for 4 years now, I am SO SICK of seeking.’’ and I began crying out to the God I did not know at the time, but He knew me. I was crying on my knees just yelling, ‘’PLEASE GOD, I don’t know if you are real, but WHO are you…Please, I need you. I am SO broken.’’ Perhaps a day or so later, in God’s Sovereignty I come across another youtube video like before. This time it was ALL about how God is Sovereign, how He is in control of ALL things, and how Jesus alone is the truth, the way, and the life. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiBgiOSsC-k&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3sF7B27ZLx6tvJNXiFiDU4TedTRmimaPI9v8oqnFe6MJVEyY7VET7VGbA I began to cry so much. I am talking about INTENSE tears, but this time tears of JOY. Tears of astonishment. My blinders were lifted this day by the Holy Spirit. He opened my eyes to the truth of Jesus, and I felt a huge weight lift off of me. I kept my eyes above towards heaven and kept saying, ‘’Thank you.’’ With tears in my eyes just thanking God. The attacks from satan began to come upon me right after trying to keep me again, blinded. That day I called the only brother Christian I knew all my life in tears asking him to please help me, because I need to know what is next and what is real. He said he would meet with me on December 9th. On December 8th, I got in contact with a friend who was deep into New Age and I hung out with him to tell him about this video and how I really feel this is the truth. Nothing has ever felt MORE REAL to me than the truth of Christ, I would tell him. He would not listen. So, I stopped talking about it. That day, he said he wanted me to do this psychedelic drug with him, and fear rose in me. But I said yes because of pride. I remember the fear I felt going back to his house to do this drug. I truly believe the Lord was trying to direct me out of this situation. The fear and the resistance I felt was something I had never felt before. The feeling finally that this was WRONG. But I still did it. I remember thinking of my dad, and family and was grieved. All I thought to myself was, ‘’This could be it. This may be the final straw, and I might actually die this time.’’ People would do this drug called ‘’DMT’’ to try and ‘’reach God’’ or ‘’source.’’ I remember my friend asked me, ‘’How much do you want?’’ I shrugged. He said, ‘’I’ll send give you enough to send you to source.’’ I remember thinking, ‘’I might actually die…’’ My heart was beating so fast. But, by God’s grace, He kept me safe under His protection, and this drug had no affect on me. It made me shut my eyes, but I snapped out of it quickly. My friend talked about seeing faces, hearing voices, and getting spiritual insight. I was truly grateful that I was okay and did not go through past experiences such as seizures, fainting, etc. After this, I told my friend I had to go because I was going to be meeting with my friend who is a Christian tomorrow. He was shocked. December 9th, it was the day of my salvation. My surrender. Before meeting with my Brother in Christ I remember thoughts of the enemy instilling in my mind to cancel the meeting, but God was stronger and of course, I still met with him. We talked, prayed and cried. The day lasted about 9 hours. My friend walked me through the gospel and I surrendered to Christ that night. He gave me his Bible and instructed me to read through the gospels immediately and pray constantly. After praying and surrendering to the Lord that night, I got a trash bag and ripped all the tapestries off my wall, all my new age pictures, dream catchers, crystals, tarot cards, BOOKS, IDOLS, and more - I threw it all away. Trashed it. I did not care what my family was going to say. My grandma that night said to me, ‘’You can’t just change like that.’’ I looked up toward the sky and said, ‘’This is the truth. Yes I can.’’ Because it was all THE LORD. HE OPENED MY EYES. He gifted me the gift of faith, repentance and supernaturally caused me to be born-again. This was the beginning of my upward journey because of Jesus Christ. All desires for any drug left me. I have not craved any drug since the date I was saved. In 2018 the Lord freed me from sexual immorality, and addiction to pornography after about 7 years. He freed me from drug addiction and healed MANY wounds in my heart that year. I had MANY restless, and sleepless nights because of spiritual attacks, & flashbacks in dreams, but I continued to daily fight in prayer on my knees, and continued to renew my mind through the reading of His Word, meditating on His Word, continual worship, praise, and abiding in joy, sorrows, or anguish... He continues to show Himself faithful to me, and cause my heart to OVERFLOW with love, and adoration of Him. Daily. It is a DAILY fight to stay in His presence and abide in Him, but it is the ONLY fight that is worth it. Jesus has truly transformed my heart in ways I never imagined possible. I now desire above all to be a godly wife and mother at home and I run all my social media accounts to proclaim the gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ! He died for me, now I live for Him!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ( 1 Peter 1:3 )  

For those who have never heard the gospel, this is it: 

We have ALL broken God’s commandments and are deserving of eternal hell. God is a JUST and HOLY God who MUST punish guilty sinners for their iniquity. But God, being RICH IN MERCY, compassion, and love was made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago. He was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit and He lived a perfect, sinless, and righteous life that we COULD NEVER live. We have all sinned. He did not sin once. As fully man, and fully God, Jesus Christ emptied Himself and took on the role of a servant to obey God perfectly and fulfill His will here on earth. Jesus was tempted in ALL areas, yet remained sinless. Our sinless and perfect Lord CHOSE to die on that cross, 

 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:18)  

Jesus CHOSE to be crucified. He was nailed to that tree and BORE ALL OF OUR SINS, and He drank the cup of God’s wrath. He DRANK your hell. And on the third day, Jesus Christ rose from the grave by the power of the Spirit, defeating death & hell forever. Death could not hold Him, and now He is ALIVE. He died for you, so that you may live eternally with HIM. To be reconciled to HIM. Now, what must you do in order to be saved? You must REPENT, (turn from your sins; 180 degree turn from sin and run to Christ) confess your sins, humble yourself and TRUST ALONE in Christ. No good works wills save you. 

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Romans 5:8: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:32: He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

2 Corinthians 5:21: For our sake, he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 8:9: You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor so that you by His poverty might become rich.

1 Timothy 1:15: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

1 John 4:10: In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Revelation 5:9: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood, you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

I have now graduated high school after dropping out at a young age, I start college in the fall, I am now in the process of writing a book and working two jobs unto the glory of God! His saving grace is MIGHTY. 

God bless you all!

I’m alive, because He lives!

[rafaelnadalfans]

Our collective memory is full of milestones, situations and characters that connect us and help maintain social cohesion. We tend to cling to these day-to-day references to reassure us that we’re still alive, that we haven’t steered off course. That we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Rafa Nadal is one of these icons, an anchor that has a lot more to tell us about besides his athletic success. He goes beyond that. Nadal has become a cultural icon thanks to his humility, despite his grandeur, and thanks to his sportsmanship, despite competing in an individual discipline, which is, by definition, selfish. Also thanks to his modesty and accesibility, despite the fact that he has long been an established star. Nadal will be remembered as one of the best players in the History of tennis, of course, but also as a role model who serves as an example of how to handle failure, and and, especially, success.

By now, you may well have lost count of how many years you’ve been at the top. What drives you to pick up the tennis racket each day?

The main thing that drives me to train each day is my passion for the sport and for competition. It’s something I like, so I enjoy doing it. It’s true I’ve been at it for years, and I can’t say I am the same as day 1 of my career, because it’s different now. But I still have this desire to better myself and keep improving my game.

Your mental fortitude seems intact. And your mindset has no doubt benefited from experience. Is the battle you’re now fighting against your own body? This year, you cancelled your tour of Asia because of your knee…

No, no, the whole issue of injuries is a hindrance, it doesn’t benefit me. In my case, I wish I hadn’t had injuries, or at least not so many of them. Injuries limit your capacity to compete.

How do you adapt your tennis playing to face the future after so many years of competing at the top and with so many younger players threatening to kick the door down.

We all need to adapt to the times. No just in sports, but in any other area of life. As far as tennis is concerned, it’s normal for players improve in their game and become more well-rounded player, so we have to keep getting better ourselves to stay at the top.

What professional challenges have you set for yourself for the next two or three years?

It’s hard to say. The main thing is to have physical endurance and be in shape to compete at the highest level.

How has tennis changed since you first began, when you were a child player going from tournament to tournament within the Balearic Islands?

Tennis in general has changed a lot over these years. That’s normal, it’s a law of nature in this sport. Evidently, my tennis playing has also evolved in every sense. It has changed in just about every respect, including technical aspects. But especially as far as speed.

Do you see any young players in the circuit who might be ready to take over the baton from the historic Nadal-Federer Djokovic triad?

There are a lot of players with great potential, but then you have to be there in every tournament and be constant. Maybe this constancy is still missing, but there’s definitely a lot of quality. It would be hard to point out one or two players in particular. LikeI said, there are many.

Do you remember the first tournament you won?

Yes, of course. My first ATP professional tournament was in Sopot, Poland. My first Grand Slam was Roland Garros.

What has been your most special tournament since that 2004 Davis Cup?

Fortunately, there have been many very special tournaments. I couldn’t possibly forget any of them. But no doubt Roland Garros is very special for me. Also Wimbledon 2008 with Federer, and Monte Carlo and Barcelona, two tournaments with a deep-rooted tradition behind them. Or my first tournament in Madrid, which was in an indoor court… I mean, I’ve had the chance to celebrate wins in many different places.

You’ve created the Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar in order to not only initiate young players in the racket sport, but also teach them everything you’ve learned throughout your career. What are the fundamental rules that should be engraved in every student’s soul?

There are many, because, when it comes to athletic education, the work cannot be limited to simply teaching them to hit a ball or physical training. We try to transmit values that are also important for a person’s life. These are values that must also be present in sport.

Your professional career has very close ties to the Balearic Islands. You own several businesses with Abel Matutes Prats, including the restaurant Tatel, where Cristiano Ronaldo is also a partner. How would you define the restaurant’s concept?

I see it as a modern and contemporary concept. Travelling around the world playing tennis has given me the chance to visit many places with good restaurants, and I’ve tried concepts that I really liked a lot. Whenever I’m in Madrid, I usually have dinner at Tatel.

And, in November, you’re also opening your academy at Mexico’s new showpiece hotel, Palladium’s Grand Palladium Costa Mujeres Resort & Spa. What makes this new collaboration so noteworthy?

I think it’s a very interesting project in a beautiful place that will captivate anyone who visits it. I think that our center at this hotel will be very interesting for all tennis fans.

You are directly involved in your tennis academy, which is based in Manacor, in Mallorca. What advice would you give children, youngsters or adults who decide to sign up?

Yes, of course I’m involved. That’s crucial. To date, I’ve gotten very involved as far as the concept, and right now I’m training there. And when I’m not participating in a tournament, it’s also my training base. But I also like to be with the kids, train with them and participate in activities.

With this collaboration with Palladium, you’re inaugurating a new concept of sports tourism that focuses on top-level tennis.

Yes, that’s right. And we’re opening the first center at CostaMujeres. I think it’s going to be quite a hit, a real revolution.

What does this sort of highly demanding professional training contribute to a vacation in a paradise such as Costa Mujeres?

I think this formula offers the perfect combination between lounging at the beach on vacation and just the right amount of tennis for various levels.

What do you value the most about a partner when it comes to opening a business?

There are many things to take into account. Evidently, loyalty is an important factor. As is friendship. And, above all, know-how and being a good fit.

You are very familiar with Ibiza and Formentera, both their beaches and their leisure offerings. You have often been seen at Usuhaïa. What do you like about this venue that has revolutionized the market in Ibiza?

Since I’m from the Balearic Islands, I’m familiar with the islands and I like each and every one of them. Ibiza is world-famous, and Usuhaïa has managed to become a world leader. I think it offers one of the best atmospheres you can possibly find.

What do you think about the impact Usuhaïa has had in the hotel and music worlds? The brand is known all over the world.

It has managed to position itself worldwide and become known everywhere, and it’s also helped promote Spain and Illes Balears.

Do you like electronic music?

Not as much as I like Latin and Spanish music, to be honest…

After so many years of travelling almost every week, have you developed an aversion to airplanes or hotels? What is, for you, the worst part about living out of a suitcase?

No, no, I have no aversion at all. I think those of us who are at the top of the tennis world are tremendously fortunate, because we stay at good hotels and travel in comfortable airplanes. We are very fortunate, because we make a living doing the thing we love most. That’s the case with me.

Do you have as many obsessions in your day-to-day life as you do on the tennis court?

Not as many… but I do have some, which I’m not about to share (laughter).

What advice would you give parents of players with potential to reach the top?

Above all, that it should be something the boy or girl wants to do, and that they should enjoy it. You shouldn’t force them in that sense. It should be enjoyable for the child.

I understand you could have been a good soccer player and that you’re a loyal fan of Real Madrid.

I don’t know about that… Although, it I do really like soccer and I wasn’t all that bad. But I’m glad I chose tennis…

You know Cristiano Ronaldo. Are you sorry he left Real Madrid? Don’t you think Real Madrid will benefit from not having to play for a single player?

Yes, I know him and I think he’s done great things for Real Madrid. He’ll always be part of the history of the club.

One of your passions is the sea. And your friends. How do you imagine life after retirement?

I really like the sea, and I go sailing whenever I have the chance. That’s nothing new, I’ve liked it since I was a child.

Source: Palladium magazine

Interview with Rafael Nadal: I do have some obsessions, which I’m not about to share Our collective memory is full of milestones, situations and characters that connect us and help maintain social cohesion.

[donnnoir]

I am back, well for the most part.  This process being contingent upon my time management and allotment of same.  Believe me it is not from lack of desire, rather it is dealing with the typical Luciferian practice of distraction and delay; added to that is their ubiquitous practice of poisoning those they target, along with the microwave and other energy / frequency weapons used on targeted individuals.  An if ever there was a target on their BINGO List I am in the top three.  I live only by the grace of God.  Presently it appears individuals are putting some petroleum based distillate into my drinks and food.  I suspect that there are several other types of unhealthy food additives being put into that which I consume.  The other items I suspect are some sort of heavy metal salts like Thallium, Arsenic, or similar.  The only good thing that can be said about what is presently occurring is that thus far they have not resorted to using metal salts which have been irradiated, like they did when I was being Fox-ed in Southern California around the Long Beach and Wilmington areas primarily.  Even so the amounts have been sufficient that if I was anybody else, I would be very concerned and more than highly upset at several persons around me, all the more so given the great lengths they go in saying we are fast friends, family even.  An although I know I will survive I am needless to say highly upset. Yet my circumstance is not such that I can easily or directly deal with the matter.  Instead as it is part of the larger issues I have dealt with all my Life I prefer to just add it to an ongoing tab. Soon enough the paradigms and social conventions we Live by shall come undone, and my hands will be free.  When the Kid gloves come off, and I am given leave from my G-d I will commence to balancing the scales.  Until then I must suffer the indignation and deprivations to my soul.  This exposition project will continue as time and situation permits.

Thus in consideration to this process I have undertaken it is abundantly clear that I should present myself and a general perspective of the terms I have strove to have all my Life.  All the more so since in pursuit of the purpose of this blog and my venturing out into the media of sorts will invariably bring the entirety of my life under the scrutiny of those that will for one reason or another seek to discredit what I intend to present.  An I being the disreputable soul that I am will be an easy target.  Wherefore it is incumbent upon me to get out ahead of the ball on this, so to speak.  I know that no matter how I attempt to be forthcoming on matters of my personal life and the manner in which I have Lived.  I will invariably miss many details that in due course will bite me in the arse.  I am fond of reminding persons that Life is in the Living; and that last I checked Living was and is a very messy process.  Or, rather it can be.  An all things considered I have done a bang up job of leaving a mound of detritus in my wake.  A side effect that has only increased as of late, albeit with a helping hand from those that would rule over the world.  At the time of my composing this my Life has become defined as a series of ongoing train-wrecks.  What chance I had to have any kind of Life resembling normality is no longer serviced by the train station.  Regrettable as it may be I am at least comfortable with that reality.  Wherefore how best to succinctly present a proper representation of the Life I have lead which represents a degree of my thought processes and a degree of my character and nature.  A usually straight forward idea, yet for myself I find it immensely difficult.  Yes I am a son of Light, I have always professed the Truth.  Nonetheless I was raised to be a Man, a hard Man of character meant for vastly more difficult and dynamic social and cultural circumstances than has thus far been required of me or us in general as the human race.  Yes we have Lived through challenging times even survived an insane period of global ego paranoia we commonly referred to as MAD.  The legacy of which will yet play out in the not too distant future.  What we as in the entire World must struggle and fight Our way through beginning shortly within the coming months, to frame it in proper temporal perspective. These events will exceed all that has happened in the past.  The Seers of Old were shown many of these things, they however lacked the conceptual context or even words whereby to begin to explain what had been revealed to them.  My mother worked hard to raise four Men, as she understood that to mean. We all were each individual anachronisms for the present.  We belong to times five hundred to five thousand years ago.   Understanding this, perhaps the rest will find context and help those that wish to maintain perspective.  Elsewise my existence and life’s work will seem almost contradictory to my stated purpose and desires.  Hell I will be the first to admit I am a living ball of contradictions; nonetheless I have maintained a course that has been exemplified as of late.  A portion of the story we shall attend to a bit later; sooner than it would in chronological order.  

Thus Be it Known I was born August 31, 1960, in the year of Our Lord.  In the humble back water town of Socorro, New Mexico.  And yes, New Mexico is a State in the Union of the United States of America.  My Christian given name is as my fathers, thus making me a junior.  My father is your typical WASP American.  Gifted with a Highly keen intellect and analytical mind.  My Mother’s people are a unique blend of Native American and Spanish.  Our Spanish roots go back five hundred years.  Two brothers were shipped to further point in the Spanish Empire to protect their bloodline till the end of time.  They came in chains as Crypto Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.  My father later was one of the engineers working on the Mercury and Saturn / Apollo Rockets which eventually landed men on the moon.  My parents being the strongwilled  dynamic individuals that they were eventually divorced, with my Mother taking us from California back to New Mexico.  I was blessed to have lived in New Mexico when it was an open confluence of differing forces and ideologies.  It is sadly no longer such a place.  I grew up in the company of different beliefs and fellow students who came from backgrounds that valued intelligence and knowledge.  At the same time others taught me that a person needed to see beyond the bonds of knowledge and see the foundations of the world and universe as they were originally cast that being spiritual and some would say ethereal.   Thus to me understanding Our World from more than one perspective or level of sight is normal.  As a matter of fact this perception of reality goes all the way back to my earliest memories back to being in my crib. An when it comes to sighted, I in previous conversations with others have described how my vision worked when I was younger.  As many of us may recall from our halcion days of being in elementary school. There were those overhead projectors which our teachers would then apply various overlays.  Well that is a very good analogy of how I actually would see my world.  There was/ is the reality that everyone sees, then there were generally two additional overlays, usually one in front of and one behind the norm.  But this could also be two behind or two in front of the norm.  On rare occasions there would be more than two in a variety of configurations.  At times the overlays would have no obvious association to the normal view.  Matter of fact I have had here recently cause to remember images I saw almost fifty years ago.  Some things that go back to before I was two.  Now I have always thought I was a bit different, and naively I to this day can’t fathom that everyone doesn’t in some way or another see the world similar to how I have.  Being a precocious young man to say the least, I do recall the statement that if you would be great that you should select a great adversary.  An as Lucifer is Humanities great adversary it was natural that I would select him.  Now it was also an extension of my visions from when I was nine.  So as I listened to the conflicts of the day, did I become aware that there among the idyllic images of society that I heard Lucifer’s voice spreading his lies and vile beliefs.  Since no one else was pointing a finger or raising an alarm in that sector I figured I might as well go poking around.  That when I was approximately sixteen, needless to say it has been one hell of ride.  Now, bit by bit I have slipped into the abyss which is present in all part of our society and culture.  Because, well that is where I was needed the most.  However it takes a toll and like some foul ichor adheres to those who travel extensively in it, such that for fear it may infect anyone not disposed to it I avoid deceit folk.  I have made my way doing business and working often in the byways of this abyss.  As a female friend of mine once cried to me that I couldn’t let myself be killed because in all the world I was the only person who did what I did.  That I would actually willingly go into to the places that these Luciferians inhabit to take the women and child out.  Others might help, but none of them would go into the place alone and face them down.  To this I must admit is the Truth.  An for anyone else to do it would be a fool errand.  Because as they stare at me with fake smiles wanting only to kill me; I would stare back and challenge them to bring it.  They wouldn’t because what they see when they look at me is a blackness darker than any they have seen before.  Now along the way I have become a felon more than on one occasion.  My record shows several convictions, some I am not guilty of what I am convicted of having done.  As is often the case the Truth is the first victim of a good fight.  And believe me I have been fighting the good fight for a long time, up until recently I have generally gotten a big return on my investment.  Recently I have been handed my ass to me in spades, with nothing to thus far show for what it has cost.  Believe me it has come at an immense cost, with no end in sight.  Yet it is the ticket I bought on my way to Creation; so Hell be Damned if I am going to start whining now.  I do at time bitch a little, but I am only human after all.  Hahahaha……..

So, having accepted responsibility for having lived the woolly life that I have.  To say I have a checker board past is to be kind but nonetheless True.  Consequently what I share with you is the Truth. I wish I could say it was assembled in a coherent manner so as to be easily understood.  Sorry such is not the case.  More Over I will no doubt go off into various tangent issues and share what at times is my unique history and understanding of a given issue.  Somethings may offend some of the more “sensible” readers.  I can accept that. Know that I once thought as almost everyone else in the world.  It is only because of my life’s experiences and knowledge acquired by other means that I now believe as I do.  What is particularly ironic is that no matter how large my “craziness coefficient” may get; I am withholding the more extreme things I have come to know.   Hang on as best you can an hopefully my writings will permit some of you to prepare for that which shall shortly come to pass.  Granted my current biggest obstacles are getting past the AI’s that are acting as guardians at the gates.  We shall do our best.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Getting To Know...

Sarah and the Safe Word.

Atlanta gothic pop/rock and roll band Sarah And The Safe Word have released their new EP, Red Hot & Holy. The lead single (and title track) was released on Sept 21, and offers up an ambitious combination of gothicism, dark pop, and hints of gospel. View the video below.

Sarah And The Safe Word introduce a wide variety of instruments in their twist on modern rock, including those such as violins and double keyboards, morphing together to create a dynamic listening experience. Red Hot & Holy is crucial to the band's continuous growth, offering up a tracklist of songs that are a full-fledged representation of exactly what they can offer as a 7-piece. Sarah And The Safe Word is cinematic, sensual, and simply put, talented.

She Makes Music was lucky enough to do a Q&A with the band discussing the new EP, their influences, advice they have for other queer/non-binary artist’s and more. Read the interview below.

This is the first time SMM has been introduced to Sarah and the Safe World so please tell us a little bit about your background. What brought the seven of you together and make you want to start this project?

Susy: “I got a random message on Fb from Kienan asking me if I wanted to play strings on the first album, Strange Doings In the Night. He got my info from a mutual friend and at first, I was unavailable since I was going to Mexico to see family. When I came back from my trip, I received another message from Kienan asking me if I was still interested and I said ‘yes.’ To me, it is absolutely wild that from the first time I met Kienan, I instantly knew we would be friends. The feeling was mutual when I first met Sarah too. I felt like they were old friends and we grew really close during the recording process. I was then asked to perform with them at the Masquerade, opening for Metro Station. I’ve never had so much fun on stage. I come from a classical background and it was a whole new animal to me, being on a stage that doesn’t force me to sit in a chair facing a music stand. Initially, I declined their offer twice to to join, because I am in school pursuing my music degree and my Mariachi band was constantly gigging. Luckily, I came to my senses and joined. The absolute best decision of my life.”

Sarah: “This band started as a solo project of mine - if you had told me three years ago that we would be a huge seven piece cabaret band, I would have never believed you. In retrospect, it was inevitable. The more we played shows and recorded, we all collectively realized what kind of band we wanted to be and where we wanted to take it. Some of the folks in this band began as just studio musicians on our record, and now they're my best friends. Kismet.”

Maddox: “I had been friends with at least Sarah and Kienan through the music scene in Atlanta for a little while. One day I saw a Facebook post looking for a last minute bass player for the Strange Doings release show. In a little over a week I learned the setlist and joined them at rehearsal and played the show, and I suppose I did well enough to be asked to join the band permanently. And though I didn’t play on it, I joined them in the studio to do gang vocals on several tracks of Strange Doings while they were recording it.”  

Beth: “Kienan had auditioned me for a couple of other projects he was working on, and to be honest I didn’t do so well with those auditions. He and I had done some songwriting together, and he’s such a brilliant writer that I was determined to work with him. When SaTSW needed some piano for Strange Doings in the Night, Kienan reached out to me to see if I could come in to record ‘You’re the Sort of Man I Like’ and it wasn’t long after that Sarah and Kienan asked me to join the band officially. This group has made me a better musician and a better friend, and I am so lucky to be able to play music with some of the best musicians and best friends I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

Who or what has the biggest influence on your gothic/vaudeville rock sound and aesthetic?

Sarah: “I've always had a fascination with the cabaret and burlesque movement of the 1920s/30s. To me, cabaret was the original punk rock. It was about liberation, sexuality, and expression and tried to subvert the cultural ideals of the time. It's exciting for us as a band to reframe those concepts against a modern rock and roll backdrop, especially with a darker aesthetic. Back when I was a weird goth teenager, I always wanted to see a band dive into a sound like this completely. We got impatient and did it ourselves.”

Beth: “Growing up on piano, I’ve always had an affinity for jazz of the 1920’s-1940’s. I still listen to a lot of Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, B.B. King, Nina Simone, etc. They were the rock and roll artists of their time and laid the foundation for a lot of what we hear from the music industry today. I love dipping into that history to create a modern version of that big band/burlesque sound that pays respect to the artists that came before us.”

Maddox: “If you take my Apple Music account half of it is 20’s - 40’s music. Big band, cabaret, and jazz especially. Django Reinhardt, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Ink Spots are my favourites. Being able to add those influences to rock and roll is a huge thing for me. I love history and especially the roots of music we listen to today. Calling back to it in this band is incredibly special.” 

You've just released your latest EP Red Hot and Holy. What's the story behind this record, and what do you hope fans will take away from it?

Sarah: “I want people to have as much fun listening to it as we did creating it. The world is a scary place right now, especially for marginalized people, and I hope that listening to this EP can take them on a little journey away from all of that - even if it's just for a little while.”  

Maddox: “We set out to make a collection of songs that each stood out on their own and ended up making a record out of them. Each one is sort of designed to take listeners out of the real world for a moment. It’s all written to be fun and we had so much fun recording them. We hope listeners feel the same way and enjoy being taken out of the real world for just a few minutes with us.”  

Beth: “Something we have always been vocal about is encouraging people to be themselves and to love themselves, and I think this record is a really great example of us embracing ourselves. It’s weird, it’s silly, and it really shows who we are as a group. I hope our music encourages people to embrace who they really are and to embrace the weird!”

How does Red Hot and Holy differ from your previous releases? How has your sound evolved?

Maddox: “It’s the first Safe Word record fully collaborated and written by all seven of us. So you can definitely pick each individual one of us out on it. Not to mention we found Aaron Pace who took our sound even further by just understanding us and also allowing our ridiculousness to not only have been included but he somehow made that better too.”  

Sarah: “I've been telling people that RHH is the culmination of the seven of us finally realizing our potential as a creative unit. Everyone in the band is featured in some way on each song, and to me this is the strongest we've ever sounded. Working with our producer Aaron Pace was like finding our musical soulmate. He totally understood our band and captured our sound.”

Beth: “The biggest difference between Red Hot and Holy and past releases is that we all collaborated on every song. We took different writing tactics with each song, but each member had an influence on each song in some way. We really pushed ourselves to draw out the best in each of us, and we’re all really proud of how the EP turned out.”

Sarah and the Safe Word are advocates for promoting safety and inclusivity in all listeners, which is something we're also passionate about here at SMM. Please tell us more about why this is so important to you.

Maddox: “As a transgender man in this scary political and social climate, I cling to my friends and bandmates for support. We’re all over the spectrum in this band. We’ve experienced so much individually and as a band. It’s so important to share these stories and experiences and bring them to an audience definitely made up of people like us and perhaps not. We want everyone to feel safe and represented at our shows. As a transgender person afforded the gift of having some sort of platform it would be ridiculous to me to not reach out and give back and let everyone know they’re valued and loved.” 

Sarah: “As a band with several transgender, nonbinary and POC members, we've lived through feeling alienated within the music scene. To me, if you're lucky enough to play music in front of a receptive audience, you have an obligation to make sure they feel safe and accepted in return.”  

Beth: “There are a lot of scary things happening in our country and across the world right now. It’s easy to get caught up in all of it, but the best thing we can do for each other right now is love each other. We’ve all been through our own personal trauma and unfortunately our stories are not unique. We are all stronger and safer when we stand together in love and support.”

What advice do you have for other queer and non-binary artists wanting to get into the music industry?

Maddox: “Play music. Just get out there and play.”  

Sarah: “Live unapologetically. Don't let the music scene relegate you to a basement just because you're a queer musician. If there isn't a lane for you, make one. If the scene doesn't acknowledge your talent, make it so it's undeniable. Be kind to people who support you and lift up the kids coming up behind you. Don’t let anyone tell you what to write about - just speak your truth. There isn't a band in history who hasn’t gone through a rough patch or faced adversity. Stick with and believe in your craft through those times and don't give up - that's what makes you stand out. If you wish there was a band out there who did this or that, don't wait for it. Make it.”

Finally, what's next for Sarah and the Safe Word?

Sarah: “ I plan to rule the former United States of America as their Dark Empress and undying God Queen. I accept tributes of blood and gold. Pledge your allegiance to me and you will be spared. Also, it’d be fun to tour the west coast.”

Maddox: “Keep writing songs. Keep touring. Support our Dark Empress. Hopefully get to go overseas or to the west coast soon. The usual.”  

Beth: “We have plans to write, tour, and bring the Dark Empress her asparagus water. I would love to get to Europe and tour, too.”

Red Hot and Holy is available now.

[gold-from-straw]

Reassembled - AT LAST!

Hey there! Remember when it was A Thing to write all the Avengers living happily together in Stark Tower? Well, I love to live in the past! In fact, anything beyond Avengers is completely ignored in this fic that’s been neglected for 9 whole months, and has finally resolved itself in my mind! I’m hoping to finish the final chapters in the next couple of weeks - and from then on, no more uploading fics unless I’ve got at least a first draft! I hope you’ll enjoy - a lot of people probably haven’t come across it before, so here’s the link to the first part, and I hope it allows you to pretend (as I regularly do) that Ultron, Civil War, and Infinity War never happen ;) For those who do know this fic, here’s the chapter below, or on AO3!

Natasha poured her second cup of coffee and added a shot of hazelnut to it before leaning back against the counter, wrapping her fingers around the porcelain. It had been a quiet week. They’d even managed to catch up on their paperwork, and Steve was talking about taking some time to travel around the country on his vintage bike.

The door hushed open and Tony walked in wearing plaid pyjama bottoms and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Natasha smirked at his bed head. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Hey,” he yawned, and poked the coffee machine.

Natasha watched him smile at the black liquid, then smile at the sugar bowl, and at the pot of blueberry yoghurt he pulled out of the fridge. “Ha!” she said, and poked gleefully at the hickey on his collarbone. “You guys had sex.”

Tony blushed. Tony freaking Stark’s Italian complexion went tomato red to the roots of his hair and Natasha almost squealed, it was the cutest damn thing. “What?” he stuttered. “Shut up.”

“You’re blushing though!”

“I am not.”

“Oh my god, Tony, you absolutely are.” She nudged him. “I’m happy for you, that’s all. So you got your shit together and talked, huh?”

He snorted. “Oh, we already did that ages ago. But... we’ve been taking it slow, you know. It’s not like... there’s no rush. I would have been fine with...” He trailed off, and she hadn’t thought it was possible for him to get redder but he did, ducking his head to drink his coffee.

“You’re so gone for him, aren’t you?”

He bit his lip. Natasha couldn’t bear it, she pulled him into a tight, one-armed hug. “That’s so fucking adorable, Tony.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled.

“I’m not kidding. You guys deserve to be happy.” She let him go and sipped her coffee again. “So... do you love him?”

His breath rushed out of him, and she could read the truth from the little smile he was trying to hide under his beard. He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Uh...”

“You do,” she said, her voice much softer. “You’re allowed to, you know.”

He looked up at her, all that vulnerability he usually hid under sarcasm and a smart mouth suddenly bare for her, and she felt a weight of responsibility settle warm in her chest. It was her job to winkle this sort of stuff out of the most powerful men in the world, and Tony had been no exception. For him now to offer it up to her... she knew what a huge gesture of trust this was. She squeezed his arm. “I’m so happy for you. Have you told him?”

The red flared across his cheekbones again and he nodded down into his coffee. “A few days ago. She... she said it back too.” His shoulders were rounded, and when he looked up at her she saw the fear that mixed with the happiness. She wasn’t sure what it was, exactly.  Fear he didn’t deserve it, fear he wasn’t good enough, fear that it would end. When Tony let himself love someone, it was a forever thing. She could tell he still adored Pepper, and he’d worshiped Rhodes consistently since his teenage years. Natasha got the impression that Loki was exactly the same.

The door slipped open again, and Loki himself joined them. Natasha watched Tony’s expression soften just to look at his boyfriend, how he leaned slightly towards him like a plant when he brushed his fingers up Tony’s arm and kissed his cheek. “Good morning, Natasha.”

She didn’t have a chance to reply. The sky suddenly darkened, and the tower trembled under the force of something, a great rumbling sound vibrating through their feet. “Woah, what the hell’s going on, JARV?” Tony yelled.

“We seem to have an anomalous atmospheric disturbance directly above the tower, sir,” JARVIS replied, voice raised but unflappable. “The data I’m collecting doesn’t match... ah, excuse me, no. There have been incidences before, in New Mexico.”

“The Bifrost.” Loki’s voice was soft, almost trembling. Natasha’s gaze snapped to him, narrowed. He would usually have shifted into his armour at the first sign of trouble, but now he stood, his eyes unfocused, still in his soft sleep clothes. As she watched, he took a deep breath and looked up at her, hiding his haunted expression under a cold mask, and shifted into an elaborate green and black armour, one she hadn’t seen before.

Feet thundered up the stairs, and Thor and Steve burst into the room, closely followed by the others. “Loki!” Thor shouted. His eyes were terrified, and he stopped short to see his brother dressed like that. “No, Loki, you cannot - we must flee. Steve has offered to stall them, we must go, now.”

“I will not—“

“No, Lokes, if they’re coming for you, go. We’ll be able to stop them here long enough for you guys to get to safety.”

“I will not leave you,” he said, turning a furious gaze on Tony. “I will never leave you, Tony, you cannot believe I would.”

“I need you to!” Tony said, gripping him above the elbows. “I need you to be safe, you hear?”

“And do I not need the same thing? I will not have you fight without me there to protect you.”

“Shit, let’s all run,” Clint said, running his hands through his hair. “I mean, if Norse Gods are planning on running, I’m up for the good old strategic retreat.”

“No,” said Loki, straightening his back and looking around at all of them. “To run is to be pursued, and that brings even more danger to your door. It would also leave your world less protected, and none of us will allow that. No.” He looked to Thor. “Brother, we stand.”

Thor clasped Loki’s neck and pressed their foreheads together, squeezing his eyes shut. “Aye, Brother. Then we stand together. To the roof.”

***

The team marched to the roof as the storm reached its peak, striking the tower and testing its foundations. Tony grumbled into his faceplate as the suit formed around him.

When the doors opened onto the helipad, Natasha kept her face perfectly controlled, only allowing the micro expressions she wanted to project to cross her lips and the skin around her eyes. A great circle of runes was burned into the concrete, matching the ones she’d seen from the files on the New Mexico event. In the centre of the runes stood a group of guards - some of whom she also recognised from the files - and a silver-haired man with an eyepatch and a great golden spear.

“Thor,” he said, and his voice, while not raised, carried clearly across the helipad. The authority in it almost physically bent her knees. She softened them to absorb the pressure, and stopped beside Clint in an at-ease stance.

Steve walked forward to meet him. “King Odin, I presume?”

Odin glanced at him with the most genteel of sneers, and looked straight past him. “Thor, my son, what is the meaning of this? You had orders to return with your brother and the Tesseract to Asgard as soon as the skirmish had ended, and yet we find you dallying with the mortals?”

“Father, we could not use the tesseract,” said Thor, and Natasha could almost see the sweat dripping off his temples. He was the world’s worst liar, but right now it looked like he was the only one with any chance. “The mortals, and the organisation SHIELD have need of it.”

Odin scoffed. “A goat has no need of a grimoire. Your time here has clearly softened you. Perhaps banishment to Muspelheim would have been a better choice in the first place.”

“Your dad’s charming,” said Tony, loudly enough for the Asgardians to hear. “I’ll cancel the tea party, don’t suppose he’d want to be entertained by goats.”

Thor looked embarrassed, glancing around at the other Avengers. “Father, the mortals have come so far since we commonly travelled to Midgard. Will you not meet with their leaders?”

“I have no interest in discussions, Thor,” he snapped. “I have come to bring the war criminal Loki to justice now that the Bifrost has been returned to its full function. Or do you wish to see him pardoned of all his crimes just because he was your playmate as a child?”

Thor’s jaw dropped. “He was no mere playmate,” he said, incredulous. “He is my brother, and always has been.”

“He is the child of a monster!” Odin roared. “Had I not taken him, he would have died, frozen on a rock. And he chooses to repay me by embarrassing Asgard in every way?” He shook his head. “It is enough. Time to end this foolish charade. It was an experiment that has failed, and must be put to rest.”

Natasha spared a quick glance for Loki, whose fingers were trembling, almost imperceptibly. He still stood as a statue, staring at his father impassively. He’d be fine, she thought, glancing at the others. It was the others who might be a problem, leaping to his defence when he could easily compartmentalise if left alone.

“Hey, if you don’t want the experiment, we’ll keep him,” Tony said, mock casually. “One man’s trash is another’s treasure and all.” Natasha suppressed a twitch of a smile. At least Tony was dealing with it better than could be expected.

Odin actually turned to look at him. “You would like to ‘keep him’, mortal? Like a pet?” He snorted and glanced at Loki. “An intractable, oversensitive cat. Perhaps that would be appropriate, but he has crimes for which to answer.”

“What crimes he committed on Earth have been officially pardoned, your highness,” said Phil, consulting his StarkPad. Natasha knew he would have Fury on speakerphone, silent but preparing for everything in real time. “We appreciate you sending Thor to assist us, we couldn’t have broken the mind control without him, and we wouldn’t have been able to stop the invasion without Loki and Thor’s help.”

“And reparations have been made to Jotunheim - Loki has been pardoned by the new king himself,” Thor added quickly.

“Crimes against Midgard and Jotunheim are nothing but crimes against a herd of beasts. I refer to those committed when he occupied the throne of Asgard. Attempted fratricide, murder, destruction of the Bifrost and treason.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” yelled Darcy from the back of the group, and Natasha almost groaned. She had less subtlety than even Tony, and wasn’t surrounded by a gold titanium alloy when baiting space gods. “Isn’t Asgard, like, an absolute monarchy? And when Loki did all those things, he was the rightful king, wasn’t he - so everything he did was within the law? Not that that’s a great system, man, I mean talk about being open to abuse.”

Odin smiled at Loki, and that was more terrifying than all his sneering and insults. “Ah, but you knew differently, did you not, boy? A Frost Giant can never sit on the throne of Asgard.” Loki’s face paled, his fingers spasming into fists, and Natasha tensed her muscles, ready to leap into action. “You are not the son of Odin. Therefore your ascension to the throne was unlawful.”

“And what of matrilineal inheritance?”

The Avengers and Asgardians all turned as one to the new voice. Even the Asgardian guards startled to see the woman in a golden dress who’d materialised among them, brushing an elegant cowl back from her hair.  “Mother!” cried Thor. She smiled at him, but turned her sharp gaze to Odin.

“What are you doing here, Frigga?” he asked, and Natasha made a mental note of how he reined his authority in to speak to her. This woman had a lot of power.

“I have come to ensure my son receives justice,” she said, and walked straight to Loki, stopping and turning in front of him as if she was planning on shielding him with her own body.

“He is no more your son than mine,” Odin scoffed. “I took him from the battlefield and—“

“And I took him into my heart,” she said coldly. “As an adoptive parent is wont to do.”

“That means nothing to the ascension of the throne. Loki took Gungnir unlawfully and used the power to commit unforgivable crimes upon our family and reputation.”

"There was nothing unlawful about it, husband,” she said with a pleasant smile. “An adoption by blood and magic is as tight a bond as that of birth.”

Odin froze almost imperceptibly for a second. He narrowed his eyes at her. “The adoption was never formalised.”

“Perhaps not by you.”

There was silence, broken only by the distant sounds of New York, and the whistling of the wind around them. Natasha didn’t even dare to move to shift a strand of hair out of her face.

“What have you done, Frigga?”

“What needed to be done,” she said just as softly. “For many years I tried to deny the evidence of my own eyes, hoping that you would love Loki just as dearly as I did. But when it became clear that not only did you have no true feeling for him, but that you never intended on finalising his lineage, I knew I would have to do so myself. Loki was indeed third in line to the throne, but only on his mother’s side. All that he did as king of Asgard was lawful, for he was, at the time, the law.”

The silence fell once more, and Natasha shifted this time, concerned at the pure fury pouring off Odin in waves. Frigga held her hand out to Tony. “Anthony Stark, would you grant us the use of a room so that my husband and I may discuss the politics of this situation? Your hospitality has been much appreciated thus far, and the continuation will be considered a great favour to me.”

“Uh… sure… your majesty? If you’d all come this way?” Natasha had never heard Tony sound so flustered, but then, meeting the parents this way wasn’t exactly ideal. Frigga inclined her head to him and turned her back on Odin, walking into the tower with her head held high. Odin, with just a flicker of tension around his good eye and a slight tightening of his fist on the spear, followed.

“You,” he said to four of the guards. “Remain with the mortals, the prince, and the accused. The rest of you, with me.”

Natasha caught Steve’s eye, returning his slight eyebrow raise. This was going to be interesting.

[orbemnews]

Analysis: What the immigration 'crisis' debate is missing Cillizza: How did we get here so quickly? Biden has only been president for 51 days! Is this the result of one specific policy change? Or a series of them? Shoichet: People who follow immigration closely will tell you the latest situation at the border has been building for a while. We were seeing numbers climbing in late 2020, too. It’s really important to remember that people migrate for many reasons, and who is president of the United States is often not a huge part of the equation. Sure, it might be a factor that nudges someone who’s undecided one way or the other. And some migrants near the Mexico-Guatemala border who recently spoke to CNN did mention that they were hopeful that the new administration would be more sympathetic to immigration. But we have seen a number of major events recently impacting the region of the world where many of these migrants are coming from — two devastating hurricanes and endemic poverty issues that were exacerbated by a pandemic being chief among them. Experts call these “push factors” (compared to “pull factors,” which would be things in the US that incentivize people to come). And they really should be a big part of the conversation about what’s happening right now and why. In terms of what has changed during the Biden administration, a significant policy change that’s led to some of what we’re seeing is that the US is no longer using the pandemic to immediately turn away children at the border — many of whom are seeking asylum. That’s something the Trump administration did pretty early on, along with a lot of other changes that used the pandemic to crack down on immigration. The Biden administration has been very clear that they want to take a more humanitarian approach at the border. And that means they are no longer turning away the unaccompanied minors that are showing up. Cillizza: Is it fair to describe what is happening on the southern border right now as a crisis? Why or why not? Shoichet: I am very careful about using that word because when we call things a “crisis” the conversation goes into a pretty hyperbolic place very quickly, where the facts sort of fade into the background and political debate takes over. I’ve been covering immigration for years and we’ve seen periodic frenzy around the border over and over again. At a certain point, you have to ask, is this a crisis, or is this a regular migration pattern that ebbs and flows because of a number of factors? Having said that, there are very serious issues going on at the border that we should all be paying attention to. Among them: * There’s a record high number of kids in [Customs and Border Protection] facilities, and they’re being held there longer than [the limit] the law requires. * There are still thousands of people waiting in Mexico — many of them in dire and dangerous conditions — while their immigration cases make their way through US courts. * There appears to be an uptick in the number of migrants arriving (though we need to be careful about these numbers, because they may be counting individuals multiple times). And climate change and natural disasters are likely one reason why. Cillizza: What is the Biden administration doing — in terms of concrete actions — to deal with what is happening? Shoichet: This is a fast-moving situation and we’re still waiting to learn more about what the Biden administration is doing. One effort that was discussed at a White House press briefing this week is an effort to address the “root causes” of immigration (these are the push factors I mentioned earlier). Ambassador Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southern border, said the administration wants to spend $4 billion over four years to do this (one big question to keep in mind about this: We’ve heard other administrations say they’re going to do this before, too — and they’ve tried. What could the Biden administration do differently this time?) Jacobson also said the administration is trying to open up more avenues for people to immigrate legally, such as the Central American Minors program, which provides a pathway for children in the region to reunite with parents in the United States. Cillizza: Republicans have seized on the border situation and Biden’s immigration plan as “left-wing amnesty.” How fair is that? Or not? Shoichet: I don’t want to get into putting a value judgment on political rhetoric on either side of the aisle. But one thing I can say is the Biden administration would feel that’s an unfair characterization for a number of reasons. It’s certainly true that from the beginning of this administration they have said they’re prioritizing immigration and pushing to create a more just and humane and functional system. Legislation President Biden has proposed would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people. That would be a huge change, the likes of which we haven’t seen since President Reagan’s amnesty measure in the 1980s. There was a brief honeymoon period at the very beginning of the Biden administration. But advocates on the left have started to become increasingly critical of this administration and I think would argue that there’s nothing radical about various things that are being proposed — and also that there’s a big gap still between words and actions. They’re waiting for this administration to start really walking the walk. But one key point is that painting immigration as a partisan issue is problematic. I have traveled all over the country talking to people on many sides of this topic, and when you are actually talking with people about their communities it ends up being a lot less political than you might think. Back in 2011, for example, I profiled the Republican mayor of a small town in Georgia — a farming community — who counted a family of undocumented immigrants among his closest friends. And if you look at polling data, there are a lot of people who agree that the existing immigration system isn’t working. Cillizza: Finish this sentence: “The single best metric to watch as it relates to when we will know the border situation is improving is ________.” Now, explain. Shoichet: I’ll take a stab at answering this question, but one thing I would like to point out first is that we get really caught up in numbers and data about the border because it’s information that’s more readily available and of course it gives us some sort of big-picture indicator of the situation. But these are people’s lives we’re talking about — many of whom have fled danger, or who are desperately seeking economic opportunities, or who are doing what they can to survive. And I fear sometimes the focus on numbers is so abstract that it’s dehumanizing and also gets us away from talking about what is really going on and what that means for a person’s life or for a community. OK, now I’ll fill in that blank. I’d say at this moment the best metric to watch is a number our colleague Priscilla Alvarez has been following very closely — the total number of kids in CBP custody and the average length of time they’re being held. The reason why this is so important is because right now, there’s sort of a perfect storm of circumstances that could really put people’s safety at risk. In part because of the pandemic, and in part because of the sheer number of people arriving, there isn’t enough bed space in the shelters for unaccompanied minors run by the Department of Health and Human Services. So children are being held on average in CBP facilities longer than the 72-hour limit the law requires. The reason there are those limits is because there have been a lot of concerns about making sure children who are in US custody are adequately cared for. And we’ve seen and heard alarming things about conditions in CBP custody before when there have been increases in the number of immigrants held in facilities that don’t have enough capacity or aren’t designed, for example, to take care of children. And I think no matter where someone stands on immigration as an issue, everyone should be able to agree that it’s extremely important for children not to be put at risk by any government policy. Source link Orbem News #Analysis #crisis #debate #Immigration #Missing #Politics #Whattheimmigration'crisis'debateismissing-CNNPolitics

[dipulb3]

Analysis: What the immigration 'crisis' debate is missing

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/analysis-what-the-immigration-crisis-debate-is-missing/

Analysis: What the immigration 'crisis' debate is missing

Cillizza: How did we get here so quickly? Biden has only been president for 51 days! Is this the result of one specific policy change? Or a series of them?

Shoichet: People who follow immigration closely will tell you the latest situation at the border has been building for a while. We were seeing numbers climbing in late 2020, too.

It’s really important to remember that people migrate for many reasons, and who is president of the United States is often not a huge part of the equation. Sure, it might be a factor that nudges someone who’s undecided one way or the other. And some migrants near the Mexico-Guatemala border who recently spoke to Appradab did mention that they were hopeful that the new administration would be more sympathetic to immigration.

But we have seen a number of major events recently impacting the region of the world where many of these migrants are coming from — two devastating hurricanes and endemic poverty issues that were exacerbated by a pandemic being chief among them. Experts call these “push factors” (compared to “pull factors,” which would be things in the US that incentivize people to come). And they really should be a big part of the conversation about what’s happening right now and why.

In terms of what has changed during the Biden administration, a significant policy change that’s led to some of what we’re seeing is that the US is no longer using the pandemic to immediately turn away children at the border — many of whom are seeking asylum. That’s something the Trump administration did pretty early on, along with a lot of other changes that used the pandemic to crack down on immigration. The Biden administration has been very clear that they want to take a more humanitarian approach at the border. And that means they are no longer turning away the unaccompanied minors that are showing up.

Cillizza: Is it fair to describe what is happening on the southern border right now as a crisis? Why or why not?

Shoichet: I am very careful about using that word because when we call things a “crisis” the conversation goes into a pretty hyperbolic place very quickly, where the facts sort of fade into the background and political debate takes over. I’ve been covering immigration for years and we’ve seen periodic frenzy around the border over and over again. At a certain point, you have to ask, is this a crisis, or is this a regular migration pattern that ebbs and flows because of a number of factors?

Having said that, there are very serious issues going on at the border that we should all be paying attention to. Among them:

* There’s a record high number of kids in [Customs and Border Protection] facilities, and they’re being held there longer than [the limit] the law requires.

* There are still thousands of people waiting in Mexico — many of them in dire and dangerous conditions — while their immigration cases make their way through US courts.

* There appears to be an uptick in the number of migrants arriving (though we need to be careful about these numbers, because they may be counting individuals multiple times). And climate change and natural disasters are likely one reason why.

Cillizza: What is the Biden administration doing — in terms of concrete actions — to deal with what is happening?

Shoichet: This is a fast-moving situation and we’re still waiting to learn more about what the Biden administration is doing.

One effort that was discussed at a White House press briefing this week is an effort to address the “root causes” of immigration (these are the push factors I mentioned earlier). Ambassador Roberta Jacobson, special assistant to the president and coordinator for the southern border, said the administration wants to spend $4 billion over four years to do this (one big question to keep in mind about this: We’ve heard other administrations say they’re going to do this before, too — and they’ve tried. What could the Biden administration do differently this time?)

Jacobson also said the administration is trying to open up more avenues for people to immigrate legally, such as the Central American Minors program, which provides a pathway for children in the region to reunite with parents in the United States.

Cillizza: Republicans have seized on the border situation and Biden’s immigration plan as “left-wing amnesty.” How fair is that? Or not?

Shoichet: I don’t want to get into putting a value judgment on political rhetoric on either side of the aisle. But one thing I can say is the Biden administration would feel that’s an unfair characterization for a number of reasons.

It’s certainly true that from the beginning of this administration they have said they’re prioritizing immigration and pushing to create a more just and humane and functional system. Legislation President Biden has proposed would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people. That would be a huge change, the likes of which we haven’t seen since President Reagan’s amnesty measure in the 1980s.

There was a brief honeymoon period at the very beginning of the Biden administration. But advocates on the left have started to become increasingly critical of this administration and I think would argue that there’s nothing radical about various things that are being proposed — and also that there’s a big gap still between words and actions. They’re waiting for this administration to start really walking the walk.

But one key point is that painting immigration as a partisan issue is problematic. I have traveled all over the country talking to people on many sides of this topic, and when you are actually talking with people about their communities it ends up being a lot less political than you might think. Back in 2011, for example, I profiled the Republican mayor of a small town in Georgia — a farming community — who counted a family of undocumented immigrants among his closest friends. And if you look at polling data, there are a lot of people who agree that the existing immigration system isn’t working.

Cillizza: Finish this sentence: “The single best metric to watch as it relates to when we will know the border situation is improving is ________.” Now, explain.

Shoichet: I’ll take a stab at answering this question, but one thing I would like to point out first is that we get really caught up in numbers and data about the border because it’s information that’s more readily available and of course it gives us some sort of big-picture indicator of the situation.

But these are people’s lives we’re talking about — many of whom have fled danger, or who are desperately seeking economic opportunities, or who are doing what they can to survive. And I fear sometimes the focus on numbers is so abstract that it’s dehumanizing and also gets us away from talking about what is really going on and what that means for a person’s life or for a community.

OK, now I’ll fill in that blank. I’d say at this moment the best metric to watch is a number our colleague Priscilla Alvarez has been following very closely — the total number of kids in CBP custody and the average length of time they’re being held.

The reason why this is so important is because right now, there’s sort of a perfect storm of circumstances that could really put people’s safety at risk. In part because of the pandemic, and in part because of the sheer number of people arriving, there isn’t enough bed space in the shelters for unaccompanied minors run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

So children are being held on average in CBP facilities longer than the 72-hour limit the law requires. The reason there are those limits is because there have been a lot of concerns about making sure children who are in US custody are adequately cared for. And we’ve seen and heard alarming things about conditions in CBP custody before when there have been increases in the number of immigrants held in facilities that don’t have enough capacity or aren’t designed, for example, to take care of children.

And I think no matter where someone stands on immigration as an issue, everyone should be able to agree that it’s extremely important for children not to be put at risk by any government policy.

[someinstant]

What Spotify playlists do you recommend?

OH MY GOODNESS, WHERE TO START.

Well, Nonnie, since I don’t know what type of music you personally like, I will pretend that you have the same bizarre music tastes I do. And I’m... not very pop-y, and like roots Americana stuff, and lots of blues, and the Clash, and angry girls with guitars, and alt-country, and also old classic country, and enough indie rock from the early 2000s to open my own gastropub and brewery, and acoustic Cuban hip-hop, and 1980s New Wave, and basically everything that came out of David Bowie’s brain and mouth, and every note Etta James ever sang.

So! Spotify playlists you should maybe listen to, if you share my brain:

1. Southern Gothic

Okay, look, I grew up in Georgia, and-- even though neither of my parents were born here, and even though I don’t have a southern accent unless it’s useful (and let me tell y’all, it is sometimes so damn useful, because bein’ super sweet and southern in one’s delivery makes being a stone bitch EVEN MORE FUN), and even though I cannot stand grits OR sweet tea-- there is something about this place that just gets down into your marrow.  Can’t explain it.  There’s so much I hate about where I live, so many original sins and continuing transgressions, and so much ugliness.  But.  I dunno.  I’ve read so much Flannery O’Connor and Faulkner and Rick Bragg and Cormac McCarthy and Melissa Fay Greene that it’s just part of the fabric?  Like, you’ve got to be able to take the bitter with the sweet.  And there’s a hell of a lot of both down here.

Anyways.

 This playlist sounds like how the late, gasping summer feels: so thick and humid you can feel it slipping down your throat when you breathe, the persistent drone of cicadas singing in the rasp of guitar strings.  And everyone loves a good ghost story, right?  Just think about live oaks hung with Spanish moss, blood-soaked soil, good bourbon, and a Tennessee Williams play, and that’s what this playlist is.  I love it so.

2. Roadtripping Across Americana

So the summer after I graduated high school, I went on a summer program with my university in which I spent two months camping out across the United States-- mostly out west-- studying anthropology, ecology, and geology.  And we spent that summer hiking with rock hammers attached to our backpacks, trying not to get on each other’s nerves on fifteen hour drive days, listening to Bob Marley at the campsite while on KP duty, learning to take kickass long-exposure photographs, avoiding coyotes at four in the morning in New Mexico, and forming an impromptu bluegrass band (we had a fiddle player, a guitarist, and a banjo, and a number of us were willing to give Gillian Welch’s oeuvre a go on vocals).  This playlist sounds like every day of that summer to me.

Although it perhaps needs more “No Woman, No Cry” to be truly accurate.

3. ‘90s Pop Rock Essentials

Shut up, it makes me happy.  Basically, this is the entirety of my high school career in playlist form, and I can sing pretty much every damn song on this list from start to finish.  It might be slightly embarrassing, but I think I own at least one CD by (counts) at least twenty of the artists on this list?  Damn.  I still own them, too, even though I no longer have a CD player anywhere other than my car.

Oh, man, I forgot Marcy’s Playground was on this.  Welp.  Guess I’m listening to “Sex and Candy” now, huh.

The other bonus to this playlist is that I can play it in the classroom, and (a) mostly my students don’t complain, and (b) I know the music well enough to know if I’m going to need to skip something for language or whatever.

4. The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975

Um, this fucking blows my socks off every time I listen to it.  It’s full of this deep, groovy, soulful funk-- Al Green and Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Otis Redding, Gladys Knight-- I mean, it’s just KILLER.  I like to put it on when I’m cooking, or doing work that doesn’t require me to think too deeply, because I’m inevitably going to be singing along with this.  Honestly, it makes me think about growing up and listening to the soundtrack to “The Big Chill” with my mom while cleaning.  Motown and soul music and R&B make me think of the good kind of work, where you’re exhausted at the end of it, but everything’s better for it.

5. Feel Good Indie Rock

Look, my undergrad was in a little college town known for having a kickass music scene.  This, therefore, meant that we were all kinda expected to have the sort of Musical Opinions that are appropriate to devotees of “High Fidelity,” and to have a vinyl collection before it was super hipster to be into vinyl.  Like, I legit used to go to my favorite record store (I HAD A FAVORITE RECORD STORE, WHAT THE HELL, ALSO PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS INDICATES THAT THERE WERE MULTIPLE RECORD STORES IN A TINY COLLEGE TOWN AND THEY DID GOOD BUSINESS) between classes and flip through the new EPs and judge the cover art.  One wall of the living room in my first ever apartment was covered in LPs and album covers my roommate and I bought at a flea market, because it looked super cool and was a cheap way to cover the shitty paint job.  I read endless music blogs.  I had a dedicated tag on my personal blog wherein I reviewed new music.  I read alt-weeklies and had go-to music reviewers who I trusted enough to buy concert tickets to a band without having ever heard them, on the strength of a review.  I was THAT PERSON.

I still AM that person, a little.  And sometimes it’s good for me to remember that, beyond the drawer full of concert ticket stubs and the tattoo on my back.  So, yeah: indie rock.  I have opinions about the Elephant 6 Collective and of Montreal; hit me up about it.

And... there are a bunch of other ones?  I’ll be honest, I mostly listen to playlists I make myself, and I’ve got a shit ton of those.  I’d link to them here, but they’re attached to my personal account which has my real name on it, so.  Maybe if I transfer the playlists over to the account I made for the Scott Moir vs. Himself playlist, I’ll link them over here.

The ones I made myself that I listen to a lot are called things like, “This Playlist Kills Fascists,” (which is obvs deeply political and is what I play when I’m having another What The Hell Did My Fucking Idiot of a President Do NOW day), “Don’t Panic,” (which is basically full of music I personally find makes me smile 100% of the time), and “This is Water” (which is a graduation playlist I made for my seniors last year, and is still pretty kickass).  

Anyway, I hope that’s enough music to get you started, Nonnie!

[elizasepistolarytravels]

Mexico, racism, and storing extraction in our bodies. A year on.

Today I want to talk about racism in Mexico. 

The point for me in these letters is to talk about stuff that I find sometimes has not been named enough, not as a final statement, but more a need to digest and process in the way that I have found useful- through setting literal pen to handmade paper, to think about topics important to me as I am going through the process of making my paper: shredding, mulching, and at last hanging up a new blank sheet to dry for me to pour my thoughts onto. 

This thought has been churning in me in its complexity for a whole year, and at last it has a semblance of structure. So here goes the story:

Since I arrived in Mexico, I have not been able to shake off an uneasy feeling, and a growing concern for a reality I am finding harder and harder to accept, now that its fibers are made evident. My experience of Mexico has been similar to living in a cast system, and I want to talk about that and possible places to start to open this up. 

My journey started when I arrived last January to the cool slopes of Valle de Bravo my head full of dreams, to start my course in alternative education in a town that I was conscious was full of interesting people and projects that promised practice in the ways of transitioning to a possibly better future. While the dreams have not left, this more extreme aspect of my experience I think can shed a light on much of what I think is lacking in these spaces even in countries like the UK where there is much more social acceptance of these discussions. 

Mexico is a place of myths: one dear to its heart is that around the concept of mestizaje. The mestizo has a heart of fire from Spain, flamenco and the corridas while lashes sprouting from agave spines and desert dreaming eyes twirl as if they were all one. The reality of the mestizo is a little less exciting, and much more of what you would expect: the mixing of peoples and ethnicities that happened in the Spanish colonisation is much more the stratification of peoples into a cast system according to their lineage and their ‘whiteness’ and much less a tale of a beautiful melting pot and a story of when ‘colonisation was ok’. Today, there is still this cast system, and much unnamed pain still stores itself in these spaces between people, in even in the most ‘woke’ environments. There may not be here as much ‘overt’ wealth separation, but I argue that if we do not address how the extraction and violence of colonisation has stored itself in our white (and whiter) bodies and continues to create separation in us, and thus, systemically racist structures, we will not achieve any of the community based projects we have set out to create, treating the effects and sources of racism being one of the most important points in creating transition towards a future that can regenerate the world.

While it is true that many of us have dark eyes and dark hair, in amongst these spaces where people look like me, there is an unspoken knowledge that in reality much of our ancestors really have lighter skin because they never spoke Masahua, toltec, or tsetsal to each other; they spoke Spanish, French, maybe English or German. Our kinship was never of this land, and the mestizaje that did happen was always absorbed as much as possible back into the homogenising force of colonisation, back into the racist idea of whiteness. And that is why we are the wealthier and the whiter, that all appear together, that is why there are still ‘clubs’ (leisure centres) in Mexico city where you can pay a good sum to be cut off from the rest of its squalor, the ‘club France’ or the ‘club Spain’, where you can live out the extent of colonisation today, mixing only with people of your ‘line’. I have simultaneously seen spades of temazcales, plant medicine offerings, drumming and ancient healing practices (a genuine interest for things that I understand), and people going back to the same race relations where the darker skinned and those who speak a language of this land are the ones who uphold these lifestyles of relative ease of the whiter and wealthier. I am not saying that the search for meaning, for the return of ritual is wrong, but that this dynamic is evident of the deep embeddedness of the cast system in the Mexican psyche so much that much of of what I described here I think is completely obscure to most people and not seen as a problem. 

Again, the search for growth is not wrong, but the point of all this was to remember that you are deeply interconnected and interdependent with the people and beings around you, and that you and your little ego is not that important really. Ritual reaffirmed what actions and practices and interconnections were going on in your community already, they do not substitute them. My problem with these spaces is that I do not see any real attempt to create interdependence with people outside of your socio-economic (and racialised) class, thus maintaining the same racist structures of our predecessors. After a plant medicine ceremony, people go back to their houses where their help is darker skinned, has less formal education than them, and this will be the only point of contact with someone outside of their cast. Wage labor can never be fertile land to create interdependence, to create actual friendship and care. I feel that racism in Mexico expresses itself in those subtle ways only those on the receiving end know how insidious it can be: in the lack of care for breaking down the structures that keep us separate, unseen, and really interdependent. Lets face it, people do not really want to knit society with those who cannot participate in the cultural game of appearing woke like they do, they can only be seen with them in the form of ‘helping them’, ‘giving them a job’. To be actual friends is very very rare, and you can only participate in the game of appearing woke if your body has inherited a certain history of privilege. 

I see that despite all the good, sustainable initiatives and the ‘healing’ done in these circles, we are not open to see how our white bodies have stored racist, capitalist and extractivistic structures of wealth, that make it that even as a middle class student making it by, if unchecked, the same structures of oppression and pain will perpetuate themselves, and there will be no real planetary healing, no real chance of changing anything for the better in any really substantial way. The hoarding of value expresses itself in the overconfidence of whiter bodies, in the looks of comparison and the implication that something about you is not enough, spurring the original wound of capitalism and the need of endless consumption, hoarding, and taking from those you deem expendable. Colonialism in white bodies is the search for charisma, is the search for medicine for your own self agrandizaition, for it being commodified and consumed, folded back into capitalism, with no context and connection to creating interdependence with the people who imparted such knowledge. You will remain a cristal tower to the world around you, and you will find yourself saying that you have tried to connect with people outside of your cast, but, it’s like they don’t want to. And it’s not on them.

To counter this, I find that to start, try and create other spaces to exist outside of waged labor together, even if it is just in the form of conversations where you genuinely care about the others wellbeing. Trade from a point of equality, of truth. Breaking from racist woke structures demands that we paradoxically break some of the uber-confidence that I have argued, is the residual storage of wealth extractivism and colonialist violence that gets stored in how we use our bodies. It demands a de-sensitisation to reactions to how we can be culturally different, just let the differences be, see them without needing to sort and categorise or see how this could benefit you. Be humble in ways where you feel no one needs to take up more space then they need to. In the same way, no one needs to dress differently, put on an accent, play being the other, pretend something is different then it is. It is a genuine curiosity to know your neighbour, the complexity of their life, their highs and their woes just like you, and see how we can help each other out, fumbling towards being friends who do not shy away from the realities of being born into a world of separation and what that implies. I am in no way dismissing my paradoxes and how I struggle, even in my own family, where this relationship sometimes still plays on, and leave me forever uncomfortable. 

We will still exist in a world in Mexico where wage relationships as a standard are the reality, and if like many, you benefit from the help of people in your house, the issue is not the exchange of value, but wage relations in this way is an extension of colonialist history, and mostly the only history, and that the numbing to the reality of the roots of this separation is what keeps this going. Lets look into what lenses we were given, how we hold our bodies, where our priorities lie. 

Much love. 

E xxx