#i mean they wanted to debate about the pros and cons of diversity | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kemifatoba · 3 years ago

Photo

C/O Berlin Magazine | It’s a space for everyone, and everyone can come in — Thoughts for the future

“I cringe when I hear words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion.” To quote the civil rights activist, philosopher, and writer Angela Davis, “diversity” and “inclusion” are terms that you, dear reader, might have also stumbled across in recent months, whether you wanted to or not. Inspired by global Black Lives Matter protests, mainstream media, corporations, and other institutions finally realized – in some cases as it seems overnight – that racism is also an intractable problem in Germany. Unfortunately, we need more than just hollow words and empty promises to solve this problem. You might be thinking to yourself: “But didn’t people take to the streets or write opinion pieces in newspapers to protest structural racism? And didn’t major institutions promise to offer diversity and inclusion workshops in discussion after discussion on television?” Perhaps, but don’t be fooled. Instead of critically questioning the role that white decision-makers play in perpetuating systemic racism, “society” was blamed. Over and over again, Black* people were asked to answer if they had really experienced racism through scrutiny of their real-life stories, while predominantly white “experts” were invited onto talk shows to discuss the so-called “racism debate”. Profound, structural changes are still lacking, at least as of the time this text goes to print.

Presence equals power. This brings us to the current moment where you are reading these words about British photographer Nadine Ijewere’s solo show at C/O Berlin. Nadine Ijewere is the first Black woman to be given a space that has previously been occupied almost exclusively by white men. As such, this exhibition is significant not only for Black photographers, but for everyone more used to being treated as the object than the artist or curator in spaces like this where many people don’t feel welcome or simply don’t exist. As trivial as it may sound, visibility comes from being able to hang pictures on a wall—or write these lines.

Joy as an act of resistance. Nadine Ijewere belongs to a generation of artists and creatives who have realized that there are more options than simply following the traditional path. Knowing that society has long since changed—even if many gatekeepers in fashion, art, and the media still cling to the status quo—this DIY generation is creating its own platforms to elevate their own role models with an army of loyal followers. In their work, representatives of this generation create worlds that rarely center Eurocentric beauty norms. The same goes for this young British artist, whose work shows people in all their beauty and uniqueness. Her photographs regularly appear on the pages of British, American and Italian Vogue, i-D, or Garage, and she has collaborated with brands such as Nina Ricci and Stella McCartney. Ijewere proves that beauty is multifaceted and that fashion is fun and for everyone.

More than a seat at the table. When artists like Ijewere make it to the top, it’s not because of nepotism, tokenism, or diversity as a trend, but despite all the obstacles that have been put in their way. And instead of assimilating after being accepted by the old guard, they continue to write their own rules. In Ijewere’s case, this means not only working with diverse models and teams, but also passing her knowledge on as a mentor to keep the proverbial door open. She’s less driven by the desire to stand out from the mainstream than she is to give back by inspiring younger generations, who are able to see themselves in magazines. “Within the time I have, I’ll use every opportunity I get and every space I can get into to expand the horizon of others.”

Representation matters. Celebrating Black people and people of color in a traditionally white space was also the goal of “Visibility is key – #RepresentationMatters,” a watershed moment for the German lifestyle magazine industry when it launched on vogue.de in spring 2019. The goal was to take first steps toward a forward-thinking future where inclusion and diversity would no longer be mere buzzwords, but lived practices. Part of that effort meant ensuring representation in front of as well as behind the camera. The results weren’t perfect and they might not have led to social change, but we proved that there isn’t a lack of creative talent among Black and Brown people in Germany. If anything, we proved that these talents are often denied the space to develop their full potential.

Ideas for the future. As you see, dear reader, it takes teamwork to bring about long-term change, and for the first time the doors are open a bit. Nadine Ijewere's exhibition shows this, as does being able to write these very words in the C/O Berlin Newspaper. In the statements below, we asked German and international artists and creatives to envision a future where representation and inclusion are lived practices instead of rare exceptions. The results are ideas for a future that is reachable—as long as we all keep working towards it every day. Together.

Nadine Ijewere, artist Art is about art. It’s not about you personally. That’s why artists need to be seen as artists. We all get stereotyped and put into the same box—but we have our own identity. We are put into the same space just because we are Black, but we are all very different people.

Edward Enninful, OBE, Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue Nadine is one of the leading fashion photographers of her generation. She’s not only inherently British in her work, she’s also Black British. She really understands the complex mix of culture, fashion, beauty, and the inner working of a woman, so when you see her images, it’s never just a photograph. There’s also a story and a narrative behind it.

Benjamin Alexander Huseby & Serhat Işık, designers for the label GmbH Our work has always been about wanting to show our community and culture to tell our stories as authentically as we can. It was never about “diversity”, but about being seen. We want to create a world where not only exceptional Black and Brown talents no longer have to be truly exceptional to get recognition for their work, a world where we no longer are the only non-white person in the room because we built the motherfucking house ourselves.

Mohamed Amjahid, freelance journalist and author, whose book Der weiße Fleck will be published by Piper Verlag on March 1, 2021. It's time that Black women become bosses. Gay Arabs should get to call the shots. Refugees belong on the executive boards of big corporations. Children of so-called “guest workers” should move into management positions too. People with disabilities should not just have a say, they should make the decisions. Vulnerable groups deserve to put their talents and ideas to work in the service of the whole society. Not every person of color is automatically a good leader by virtue of their background, but all-white, cis-male executive boards are certainly incapable of making decisions that are right for everyone. That’s why we need more representation at the very top, where the decisions are made.

Melisa Karakuş, founder of renk., the first German-Turkish magazine For a better future, I demand that we educate our children to be anti-racist and to resist when others or when they themselves are subjected to racism. I demand that discrimination is understood through the lens of intersectionality and solidarity! I demand that even those who are not affected by racism stand up against it! This fight is not one that we as Black people and people of color fight alone—for a better future, we all have to work together.

Tarik Tesfu, host of shows including the NDR talk show deep und deutlich When I look in the mirror, I see someone who grew up in the Ruhr region and loves currywurst with French fries as much as Whitney Houston. I see a person who has his pros and cons and who is so much more than his skin color. I see a subject. But the German media and cultural system seem to see it differently because far too often, Black people are degraded and made into objects for the reproduction of racist bullshit. I'm tired of explaining racism to Annette and Thomas because I really have better things to do (for example, my job). So get out of my light and let me shine.

Ronan Mckenzie, photographer The future of our industry needs to be one with more consideration for those that are within it. One that isn’t shrouded in burnout and the stresses of late payments, and one that doesn’t make anyone question whether they have been booked for the quality of their work or to be tokenized for the color of their skin. The future of our industry needs to go beyond the performative Instagram posts and mean-nothing awards, to truly sharing resources and lifting up one another. Our industry needs to put its money where its mouth is when words like “support”, “community” or “diversity” slip out, instead of using buzzwords that create an illusion of championing us. How there can be so much money in this industry yet so many struggle to keep up with their rent, feed themselves, or just rest without worrying about money is truly a travesty. If this industry is to survive then we who make it what it is need to be able to thrive.

Ferda Ataman, journalist and chair of Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen A recent survey of the country's most important editors-in-chief revealed that many of them think diversity is good, but they don't want to do anything about it. This is based on the assumption that everyone good will succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not just a person’s qualifications that are decisive, but other criteria as well, such as similarity and habit (“XY fits in with us”). It's high time that all of us—everywhere—demand a serious commitment to openness and diversity. Something is seriously wrong in pure white spaces that can’t be explained by people’s professional qualifications alone. Or to put it differently: a good diversity strategy always has an anti-racist effect.

Nana Addison, founder of CURL CON and CURL Agency Being sustainable and inclusive means thinking about all skin tones, all hair textures, and all body shapes—in the beauty industry, in marketing communications, as well as in the media landscape. These three industries work hand in hand in shaping people’s perceptions of themselves and others. It’s important to take responsibility and be proactive and progressive to ensure inclusivity.

Dogukan Nesanir, stylist The current system is not designed to help minorities. By giving advantages to certain people and groups, it automatically deprives others of the chance to attain certain positions in the first place. That's why I don't even ask myself the question "What if?" anymore. My work is not about advancing a fake worldview, but about highlighting all the real in the good and the bad. I strongly believe that if some powerful gatekeepers gave in, if representation and diversity happened behind the scenes and we had the chance to show what the world REALLY looks like, we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. I don't just want an invitation to the table, I want to own the table and change things.

Arpana Aischa Berndt & Raquel Dukpa, editors of the catalog I See You – Thoughts on the Film “Futur drei” In the German film and television industry, production teams and casting directors are increasingly looking for a “diverse” cast. Casting calls are almost exclusively formulated by white people who profit from telling stories of people of color and Black people by using them, but without changing their own structures in the process. Application requirements and selection processes in film schools even shut out marginalized people by denying them the opportunities that come with being in these institutions. People of color and migrants as well as Black, indigenous, Jewish, queer, and disabled people can all tell stories, too. Production companies need to understand that expertise doesn’t necessarily come with a film degree.

Vanessa Vu & Minh Thu Tran, hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine It may be convenient to ignore entire groups, but we are and have been so much more for a very long time. We contribute to culture by making films or plays and bring new perspectives to science, politics, and journalism. We’re Olympic athletes, curators, artists, singers, dancers, and inventors. We dazzle and shine despite not always being seen. Because we have each other and we’ve created opportunities to do the things we love. We’ve created platforms for each other and built communities. Slowly but surely we are finally getting applause and recognition for the fact that we exist. That's nice. But what we really need is not just the opportunity to exist, but the opportunity to continue to grow and to stop basing our work primarily on self-exploitation. We need security, reliability, and money. That's the hard currency of recognition. That would mean being truly seen.

*Black is a political self-designation and is capitalized to indicate that being Black is about connectedness due to shared experiences of racism.

Written by: Alexandra Bondi de Antoni & Kemi Fatoba C/O Berlin Magazine April 2021

#editorial #coberlin

36 notes · View notes

enigma-im · 5 years ago

Text

Sucker Punched

Rating: Mature Relationship: Alien X Female!Human Warning: Dirty talk, strong language, Alien/human relationship, mention of blood

Word Count:6163

I punched an alien and now he wont stop following me around

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bustle around the office was gratuitous and migraine-inducing. Crowds were never my thing, to begin with, now the opinion is evermore justified. The undistinguished murmur wasn't as calming as the ocean sounds its similar to. It just made me tense and strive to leave as soon as possible. Sadly my wants didn’t matter to my responsibilities. I had papers to collect and people to see.

The ESA has been visited by the Tatze, a race of peaceful bipedal beetles. They come to talk about working with ESA to help some refugees have a place to be kept. According to the few reports I had a second to review, a planet on the verge of being near a soon to be supernova star needed to uproot. The planet wasn’t too large, but it held a good diversity of beings. It was a hospitable planet that hasn’t evolved into intelligent life, so it was taken as free real estate. I knew nothing else about the situation, I just knew I had a lot of work to do.

I'm in charge of running around like a chicken with its head cut off. In other words, I run paperwork around to get signed. Mainly to accept relocations and housing. There is ample room for a good portion of these refugees but that still meant a lot of paperwork. Most of the issues being assigning people for specific jobs. I had to get approval for supervisors to run the dorms. Get people to stock the dorm, needed translators available, and empaths to help evade future problems.

As much running around I have to do, I feel worse for the people processing each individual. That’s who took up most of the room in the office. The printer has to be going nonstop since we got info on the newcomers.

I shoved around the group, holding the folder of papers close to my chest. I quickly push to Becker's office, making it through the door. I slam it behind myself, caught my breath, then got straight to it.

I caught Becker's eyes as I walked to his desk. He was standing behind his chair and on the phone. His pose was tense, which was understandable.

"I need you to read over this and assign workers for the first three decks," I spoke quickly. I toss the first folder onto his desk.

He looks down at the papers with a glare," I don’t have time for that. Give it to Regina."

"Regina already assigned her workers, now it’s your turn," I slide the folder closer. He huffs and slams his hand onto the papers.

"Fine," He snaps, "No not you, do you have Kurtis down there?" He went from snappy to pleasant in a second. Knowing the conversation was over I turn and walk out the door.

I storm through the crowd, catching a few elbows to the ribs on the way out. I cut out the offices and into the not so quiet walkway. I speed down the hallway towards the elevator, just catching it as the door closes. I stop a few feet away, debating my options. These elevators take a year and a half to respond. Which balances out the pros and cons with the capacity of the cabin. I cut my losses and turn to the stairs, the floor I need wasn’t that far.

I rush down the stairs, feeling like a missed a few on the way down. As I cut the corner for the next bout of steps. My foot slides on a mysterious wet patch. My leg slid and I didn’t have time to correct. I reach for the railing, managing to catch myself but drop the papers in the process.

"Fuck," I snarl. I right myself and make quick work of lifting the papers. Some managed to soak up some of the floor fluids. "Fuck," I groan. I drop my head to my shoulder and allow myself a second of frustration. After the second I get back to work.

I round out the door, shoulder checking some alien on the way. Not bothering to look I continue onwards. I make it to the storage office. Heading directly to the front desk I set down the folders with unorganized and slightly damp papers. I look up at the human working the information desk.

"I need everything on this sheet sent to E17 and dealt with by Sabrina," I sort through the folders before handing the worker one.

"Well absolutely, it will be my pleasure," the worker smiles brightly. The smile was anything but infectious. If I had to choose some words they would be 'damn disgusting'. They look up at me and pout, "Aw, where's that smile?"

"At home," I sneer. I turn and bolt from the room. Damn people who work in storages have it so easy. Everything is sorted and mostly automated by bots. They don’t deal with this traffic. Their smile was like a slap, making me envious of their simple work.

The next hour goes in a rush, my folder pile dwindling. I'm damn near ready to break down with a childish tantrum. I'm tired and in need of some food. I want nothing more than to roll up in my little nook of blankets. Turn on some cheesy monster flicks and pass out near some microwaved dinner.

I had one more folder, it just needed to be given to processing so they know what room is meant for the newcomers. I walk from the surprisingly quiet hallway into a less surprisingly loud waiting room. Any other time the area is covered in chairs and generally, those chairs are empty. Now you can’t even see the chairs, the room was a sea of people. Lots of Aliens, mostly staying consistent with only a few types. Varying only slightly.

I slide around the room, hugging the walls. With humans, catching some elbows it fine. With aliens, that could mean a concussion. I reach the door I need, open it with some strife. I walk into a conjoined office. The room separated by a partition wall. Some human-looking aliens were sitting behind both desks. One had a visitor and the other, the one I need, is alone. Easy in and out.

I sneak around as to not disturb the large alien sitting with the desk worker. I get behind the partition and catch Ja'Leah's eye.

"Oh hey, Phoebe," She greets as she hangs up the phone," What do I owe the pleasure?"

I walk over and set the folder down," Last one of the days. Housing, enjoy." I let go with a flourish.

"last one of the day? You must be ecstatic," She half-smiles. Ja'Leah grabs the folder and thumbs through it.

"Yes, I’m going to pass the fuck out," I sigh at the thought.

She looks up for a second," Day that bad?"

I give her a warning look," It been awful. I'm five seconds away from a breakdown."

"Sounds bad, great to look forward to. My day just started," She laughs.

"Girl, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. Good luck," I chuckle. I hear a thump from behind the wall.

"I’m going to need all the luck I need. What's that saying you have about luck," she asks. I cock my head behind the wall but ignore the noise as she asks.

"Tons of saying. Kiss for luck, luck of the Irish, um beginner's luck," I ramble.

"No, not those," she ponders," oh well, I won’t keep you." with a wave I turn to walk out.

As I pass into the other office I’m blocked by the large alien. He is snarling something out at the poor worker. As rude as it was, I didn’t care. I need to get home before I snap.

"Excuse me," I push lightly against their arm. He has a threatening protrusion from his elbow. It is attached to the padding on his forearm. I give it a wide breadth.

He turns and snarls at me, then back to snarling at the poor man. I try to sneak around again but their arm swings out, blocking the way.

"Hey, move," I snap. Reaching my final nerve. The man growls. When I press softly against his arm to move, he turns towards me fully. He crouches down so we are facing level and lets out a ground-shaking roar. His hands are posed claws out near his bent knees. I tense up and scrunch away from the air escaping his mouth. Once he is done, I turn and glare at him. Then before he could say a word, I deck him the nose.

I knew as I lifted my arm it was a bad idea. It was impulsive and without my command. His head barely moves but his jaw did shut. His hands drop as did his shoulders. Dark fluid began to drip from his nose, dripping onto the hard floor. He looks bewildered, which was impressive given his permanent scowl caused by his lowered brow. I could feel the silence in the room along with the pulsing of my knuckles. Man has a sturdy face, or I have weak bones.

Nobody said anything as he straightens. He presses his fingers to his nose, collecting the blood. He glances down at it, raising an eyebrow before looking back at me.

I lean back; afraid he is going to lash out. I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes to mind. I quickly close it and point to the door. Then as fast as I could, I walk out. Leaving everyone to the tense silence.

Oh god, I'm going to be fired.

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

The day ended in constant fits of anxiety. Every task was done in a mundane fashion, almost like I was in autopilot. My mind went a mile a minute. Thinking about every outcome of my boneheaded impulsion. If anyone in that room said something to my boss, I was surely doomed. This job is all I have, and I love it. Not everyone can get this kind of job, it took months of screening just to be considered. Government jobs are hard enough to get planetside but to be carted off into space to do it is almost impossible.

I walk into my office the next day, tense for the soon to be lecture and inevitable departure. Trying to be a goody-two-shoes I went straight to work. Perhaps if I seem valuable that I’d just get a warning. I found some work that needed to be handed to my supervisor. I looked it over then promptly avoid it as long as I could. Feeling the minute I let them acknowledge me I was in for trouble.

After I procrastinate as much as I could I drop my shoulders. Looking at the stapled pieces of paper.

"Guess there is no avoiding that," I huff. With a quick breath of bravery, I grab the stack and march to their office. Perhaps if I treat it like a band-aid it will somehow be less devastating.

I knock on their door, then enter when I hear their invitation.

"Phoebe, watcha need," Tyler asks. He is surrounded by stacks of folders and binders. I do not envy his job. Mine may be an over-glorified delivery person but he was the one who had to approve everything. No thank you.

"I, uh, this is for you," I lost some of my courage. He reaches out his hand ready to take my offering. I quickly hand it to him. Standing there patiently for the tongue lashing.

Yet nothing happens. He thumbs through the sheets then looks up at me with a curt smile and nod.

"Need something else," he asks.

"Uh, no I guess," I smile confused. Then I turn and walk out of the room. Closing the door behind me.

Does he not know? Did no one say anything? Why wouldn’t the large alien I sucker-punched not report me? I made the man bleed for crying out loud!

I sigh as I lean against the wall. If they didn’t say anything I won’t. I'm not going to throw myself under the bus if not necessary.

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

I continue with work like normal, not letting myself think about possible outcomes or reasons they didn’t say anything. It would be a dark hole to fall into. I'll worry about it later.

Today is less crazy. The offices aren't cramped, and the copy room is empty. A nice calm after the storm but I’m sure housing is losing their minds.

I hear the shuffling of people outside my door. I look up and see small groups of people leaving, looking at the clock I notice its lunchtime. Glancing at my work I figure it be a good time for a break.

Saving my work on the computer then organizing my paper, I leave. I check my pocket as I stroll to the hallways, making sure I have my money on me. The lunch here isn't expensive or good but you can’t expect the money to go to fancier things. Some alien vendors here serve some savory smelling food, making me wish I dared to eat it. The human food general stayed bland, except on Fridays. They have special meals on those days, but it was as flavorful as boxed dinners.

I enter the cafeteria and order a simple ham sandwich. I just need nutrients, so I don’t get woozy while working. Figure I don’t need to enjoy my meal. Not that I would anyway.

I grab a random table towards the back of the room. Wanting mostly to be alone today. I have friends, some being in the room, but I'm just emotionally exhausted. I’ll just think for a while. Reflect on the event of today and future work I should finish before days end.

As I stare down at my phone, I hear a chair screech in front of me. I glance up and find someone sitting across from me. Realization strikes me when I look at their face.

"Uh," I drop my hand to the table, setting my phone down. I lean back in the chair and stare at the alien who is now lacking blood from their nose.

He sits relaxed against the chair that seems comically small to his herculean stature. His torso was bare save for a dark green sash. It seems to hold some tools, serving an actual function besides cosmetics. He looks like he is wearing pants, but I can’t tell from the table. Either way, he was large and in charge. Horns that blend away from platting on the side of his head strikes me immediately when I look at his face. His dark hair was shaved into a faux hawk. Despite it being fluffy and soft looking, it did not take away from his intimidating physique. He was scary, but he sat like he wasn’t about to kill me. Which I guess is a start.

"Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday. It was uncalled for me to hit you like that," I began to apologize. He stares at me with a blank face. Seeming like he isn’t getting my words. He opens his mouth and lets out some grumbles and growls. "I did not get any of that," I stare back. Is he trying to talk?

He growls some more but when he notices I’m staring just as blankly as he was, he stops. Leaning forward onto his forearms he points to his mouth and ear. I shake my head, so he repeats. Still not getting it he sneers then holds out his hand. Motioning for me to come closer. I shake my head, not wanting him to be near my head with his clawed fingers.

He drops his hand to the table with a loud thud, giving a frustrated look. Thinking for a second before he turns his head and points at the small box behind his ear. It is a translation battery. The little computer is generally implanted behind the ear, leaving the battery exposed for easy access. We may be in the future, but no one has figured out how to keep the damned thing charged.

"Is it broke," I ask forgetting he can’t understand me. So I point at his ear then mime breaking a twig. He shakes his head. Alright, not broke. I ponder for a moment. What else could stop him from understanding? Mine isn’t broke so I should understand him. Unless his language isn’t common therefore not input into the system. I look up at him to explain my guess but remember he can’t comprehend me. How do I mime that?

I simply nod. Hoping he figures I know what he is trying to say. He nods back, leaning back into the chair. Ok, now what? He crosses his arm and looks me over, growling out some words.

"You have a weird language," I mumble to myself. He speaks some more, probably getting a little liberty as saying whatever he wants. Probably cursing me, I can’t imagine I'm his favorite person right now. I shrug and lift my phone back up.

As I swipe through my social feed, I hear him growl some more. Then growl a little louder, gaining my attention. I shift my phone aside and look at him. He points to my phone. I twist it to ask if this is what he means. He shakes his head then gestures to his hand then points at mine.

"Oh, my hand," I say mostly for my benefit. I set my phone down and look at my very bruised knuckles. For as hard as I hit him, I’m surprised I don’t have any cuts from the skin splitting. The last two knuckles were still swollen as the first two are just bruised. Guess I have a crooked punch. Not that I’ve ever really punched someone before, don’t exactly have a technique.

He reaches out and snatches my hand. I wince as his thumb presses on the several bruises. His hold loosens as he peeks up at me. He grimaces for a second, like an apology. I nod. He looks back down at my knuckles, softly tracing the bone with his thumb. He smiles and huffs before bringing his head down. He pecks at each knuckle, shocking me completely. I jerk my hand away, cradling it against my chest

"Hey, what the fuck are you doing," I snap. He leans back in his chair with a smirk. Showing off his canines that sit on either end of that smile. He crosses his arms and laughs when I glare at him. Is he making fun of me? I can’t even begin to comprehend what is happening. I also cannot deny the blush streaking across my cheeks. Being too caught up in my unease I don’t notice him reaching across the table. Using his forefinger and thumb he grabs my chin. Turning my head to face him, he smirks. Growling out something I couldn’t comprehend. Seeing how flustered I am he laughs again. Dropping his hold he leans back again.

"If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you are flirting with me," I mumble. It was meant as a joke, but it came out worried. I’m not someone who has to learn about different alien cultures, just some 'learn this to not offend' kind of stuff. Flirting, or courting as some people call it, isn’t something I learned. Perhaps this was a challenge, fight me for hitting him. It didn’t seem right. id imagine a threat comes out more, well, threateningly. Don’t see warriors kissing people's hands.

He sat with me in silence for the rest of the meal. Which I won’t lie, I kinda rushed my lunch. I pack up my trash and with a nod, I leave. His eyes follow me the entire time, all the way to the door.

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

The next week he continues showing up at lunch, flirting more. At least I assume its flirting. He is very touchy and loves growling at me knowing I can’t understand. I see him a few times in the hallways, following me to my office before he leaves me alone. It’s a rinse and repeat week for him. If I’m late I catch him outside the offices in the hallway.

I try to push him from my mind for the rest of my workday. Throwing the memory from my head as I indulge my workload. I actually got a lot of work done, perhaps I will have an early day as well. Completely invested I don’t hear the door open. But I do hear a chair scrape across the floor.

Looking up I see the buff alien. I push against my desk, flattening myself to the chair. He grabbed a chair and slid it beside my desk. Where he then plants himself down. I watch completely caught off guard and confused. Once he makes himself comfortable, he looks over at me. Looking me over he cocks an eyebrow. He has never entered my office before.

"Hi," I quirk an eyebrow as well. He waves before crossing his arms. Sitting there casually, leaving me the only one freaking out. Why the fuck is he in here?

I look around the room then back to him. He abandoned looking at me and is investigating my desk. Touching a few paperweights and desk toys. Regarding the few pictures, I have framed. I watch him as I sit in shock, if not confused.

Realizing I’m staring he looks over. He waves again a little confused. I glare at him then point at the door.

"Get out," I snap. He looks at the door then back at me. He shakes his head. I stand and point again. He also repeats his actions. He points at himself then the chair. I stretch my arms out," Why are you here!"

He stares blankly but amused. God, he is infuriating. I might just punch him again.

"We are getting your fucking translator fixed," I growl as I storm out the office. I can hear the chair screech and can only figure he is following me. As I march through the room, I see some people giving curious glances. I ignore them as I make my way to tech support.

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

I parade into the room, slamming the door against the wall in the process. The few techies in the room snap their heads up at my outburst. Their faces go a little more fearful when they see my unwanted companion.

"I have a favor," I snarl. My venomous streak should be a little worrying. It has just been a stressful week, I need the weekend.

One of the techies jump up and walk over," Y-yes, how may I help you?". He was an extremely thin and mousy looking man.

I grab the big buff boy behind me and drag him forward," His language isn't translating." to emphasize my point the alien growls out a few words. The slim man looks up at him and nods.

"Alright, um, sit over here," he fidgets his hands as he walks back to his desk. We follow and I point to the chair for Hercules to sit. He does as he is commanded but does so with an annoying smirk. Damn annoying cute smirk.

The mousy man spits out some growls to my surprise. It seems it’s also to the large man's surprise too. He tilts his head and growls back. They talk back and forth.

"You can understand him," I ask. They both turn to me, the slim man nods.

"Yes, his language is old, but I learned it during my learning years," he answers, "it's uncommon and needs time to be added to the system so it can be understood."

I grab on to the back of the large man's chair, "Then can you do me another favor and ask him why he has been following me around?"

He nods and grumbles out some words to the man. As the slim one turns to tell me the large one grabs his arm stopping him. They talk some more before the slender one finally speaks to me.

"He doesn’t want me to tell you," he answers. I glare down at him then at the large one.

"Ask him for his name then," I sneer. It takes a second for the techie to realize I’m talking to him. The large one turns to me with that damned smirk. He answers the techie.

"His name is Ker'chak, or Kurt for short," he answers. I glare down at Kurt. Keeping my gaze he reaches for my hand and brings it up to his lips. Once his lip meets my knuckles, I drag my hand away. Letting go of his chair and stepping back. He snickers then turn back to the slim man. They converse and I see the techie blush. Once again, I assume so. I’m not educated in alien emotions.

"What did he say," I ask folding my arms. The slender man looks up at me then back at Kurt.

"Uh, I rather not repeat it," he hesitates. I raise my eyebrow then look over at Kurt who is still smiling. He even winks at me. How universal is that?

"So he is flirting with me," I ask. The techie nods as he hides his face in his palm. "Ask him what do I have to do to get him to leave me alone," I cock my hip. He does as he is asked. Kurt growls, sneering at the mousy man. Then he shoots up and stalks towards me. I snap back in shock and step backward. Feeling distressed at his demeanor change.

I back up till I hit a wall, wincing as my head bangs off it. Kurt doesn’t stop till he reaches his hand over my head to the wall. His chest presses against mine. I raise my hand and push against him. My other hands staying flush against the cold wall. He grabs my fist on his chest and holds it still. Even thumbing the skin of my wrist. He growls, sounding more like a purr. His head dips so his nose brushes against my temple. He rumbles out some words.

Across the room the techies chirps up to translate," uh, he says he won’t be leaving you. Not till he can explain himself. No moment sooner." Kurt growls some more, "I'm not repeating that," the slim man calls out. Kurt chuckles as he noses my hairline. My heart beating a mile a minute and my stomach fluttering. My eyes couldn’t stop flickering as I fought against closing them. They finally won out as he kisses my temple, I sigh. I couldn’t stop myself from nuzzling back against him. Kurt chuckles as he brings my hand up to kiss.

Getting perhaps a little too caught up in the situation I barely hear the awkward coughing of the other people in the room. My eyes snap open, horridly embarrass at being seen in such an intimate situation. I rip my hand from his hold and push both hands against his chest. Raising his own hands in surrender he backs up. Laughing as he does so.

Kurt growls some more, "He is such a raunchy man," the translator said behind him. Kurt gives me a once over with a satisfied smile. He then drops his hands when he is a reasonable distance away. Turning around and sitting back in the chair. He speaks to the slim man some then look at me expectantly.

"He hopes that made it clear what his intention may be," the slender man sighs. I feel a little bad for the man, I came here for pure intention. Well mostly pure, I just wanted the lug gone. Now I'm not a hundred percent as before. God, I'm so deprived.

"I’d have to say it does," I huff. Looking down at his pants there was a slight tent. I guess that does explain his intentions.

<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

The techie explained that getting his language into the system would take some time. Also that his translator needed to be updated. Which is good that is has been worked on since he first got here apparently. So it’s any day now when it will be done. I knew his translator was returned and just needed to wait for the update to be sent to it so he can understand everyone around him.

I did everything in my power to avoid him. His constant nearness has begun to break down my defenses. The day in the tech support was like he took a sledgehammer to my walls. I didn’t like the fluttering in my stomach at seeing him at lunch the next day. One day when I stood to get ready to go to lunch, I thought better of it. I just need some space.

It was no surprise that he didn’t care about my avoidance. When I didn’t show up for lunch, he would just come to the office and sit. After the first two times, he started bringing food with him for both of us. Just stuff to snack on, a lot of fruits or wrapped bars. It was kind of him, but it just made me more constricted. I don’t want him around, that lie tasted bitter after the second week.

As we both sat at my desk, him trying everything in his power to be distracting, I try to work. He has taken to touching me as much as possible. Like now, he is tracing the seams on my jeans. It was distracting around my shins but easily discarded. But when he got around my knees and thighs I jumped. That was like jump-starting a car because he did everything he could to make me jump after that. Right now he was tracing behind my knee, smirking up at me as I stare daggers into the computer. I’ve gotten better at acting like I don’t care. He has also stepped up his game.

Not getting the reaction he wants he grabs behind my knee and twists me to face him. I lift my hands, so I don’t sweep my keyboard off the table. Then I glare down at him.

"May I help you," I ask. He still can’t understand me, but he has gotten better at discerning the tone. Kurt smiles before he grabs my other leg and jerks me forward. I was airborne for a terrifying second before I land on his lap. Straddling him and clenching his shoulders. He growls out something then purrs as he noses at my hairline. Running his hands up the back of my thighs. Before he could grope my ass, I grab one of his hands.

"No," I slide his hands down. He pouts out the corner of my eye but goes back to smiling. He kisses behind my ear and massages my thighs. I bite into my cheek to stop the sigh that wants to escape. Having picked up on the nuances of my tone he also figured out that my little sighs were a good sign. Despite my best attempts when he nibbled on my ear, I let out a sigh. Even a small moan. This man is both infuriating and arousing.

"God, I can smell your cunt," he growls. I tense.

"What," I ask as I push back. He too tenses staring at me wide-eyed.

"Uh," he starts.

"You are vulgar," I huff with a start of a smile.

"Then don’t smell so damn good," he laughs. I squirm out of his hold to get on my feet, but he holds strong, "Where you going?"

I manage to get out of his hold and sit back in my seat, "We are going to have a nice long talk."

He huffs, "I’d rather be doing something else." I give him a once over.

"Yea, I didn’t notice," I quirk a brow. He laughs as he sits back and crosses his arms.

"Well, beautiful, it seems the translator now works. Ask away," he flourishes hand. I straighten my shirt as I get comfortable. I lean against the arm of the chair as I give him another once over.

"Why are you following me around," I start.

He tilts his head, "I feel I've answered that one."

"Not really," I respond, "I punch you in the face and suddenly you are around constantly."

He chuckles as he absentmindedly rubs his nose, "Quite the punch it was too. It was a little crooked so goddess only knows how much harder you could have hit if it was proper." He groans at the memory, running his hand over his thigh.

I look him over, "Did that turn you on?"

He snaps his head straight," Of course. Love me a woman who can put me in my place," he groans again.

"Perv," I hiss as I look away. Staring at the wall, calming my nerves a bit.

"I just know what I like, and you are it," he smiles. He reaches over and pulls my chair closer, so my knee is between his.

I glance at him from the corner of my eye, "So you just want to get into my pants?"

His hands grab my knees, "Your pants, your bed, your heart. I want to be in all of them."

I turn fully towards him, "you want to date?"

"To the divines, yes," He moans. His hands go further up my thighs, thumbing the seam. I stop him when he gets too close to my crotch.

"We are talking, stop distracting me," I reprimand. He looks from his hands to me.

"So it is distracting," he cocks an eyebrow. I glare down at him, not wanting to give up my interest yet.

"Why follow me around, I showed my disinterest very early on," I change the subject back.

"I don’t believe that was fair, I didn’t get a chance to woo you with my words," he answers," even though I believe I'm doing a great job with my body in its stead."

"Cocky aren't you," I ask as I slide his hands away.

"Damn straight, I'm a very worthy male and you are a very, deliciously strong, worthy female," he lays it on thick. He stands and presses his hands to the top of the chair. Framing my head between his powerful arms. He leans down, leaving a small space between us. "I want you, that has been very clear. Which makes me the only one being very clear. So to be completely transparent I offer this. If you want me, even a little, kiss me. If you don’t then I will walk out that door and leave you alone," he proposes.

I stare up at him, quick glances at his lips. My mind is completely blank, not offering me any words of wisdom right now. He lays it all out, it’s my choice now. If I want him to leave, he will go, be out of my hair. That thought was bitter like all the lies I told myself all week.

Fuck it.

I jump up, wrapping my arms around his neck. I press my lips to his, forceful and telling. He sucks in a breath in shock before wrapping his arms around my back. Lifting me out of the chair and holding me against his chest. Tilting his head, our nose brushing against each other, he sucks on my lip. Giving it his all; his joy, his wants, his desires.

He wraps my legs around his waist, resting his hands on my rear. He parts and gives me a warm smile. Gropes my ass and cocks his eyebrow. I chuckle at his questioning look.

"No, you are taking me out on a date and wooing me properly," I scold as I pet his hair. It is as soft and fluffy as it looks.

He pouts, " not even some hand stuff?"

"No, not in my office," I pull his horn. Tilting his head to the side and kissing him. He groans into my mouth, his hands massaging my cheeks.

He pulls back, " Then let’s go to your room, problem fixed. I've been tortured by your arousal all week. The most divine of torture but it must be remedied soon." I jerk his head back, exposing his neck.

"And you have been driving me crazy all month, live with it big boy," I kiss his neck. He hisses, baring his teeth to the ceiling.

"Goddess, you are pure torment, my sexy female," he growls. He tries to drop his head, but I jerk it back. I bite down hard onto his taunt neck tendon.

"Good, you deserve it," I laugh. I sit up straight and catch his eye, "Dinner at my place tonight."

He nods, "then sex?"

"Woo me with those words you promise and maybe," I smirk.

"I look forward to it," He grins.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Might make another part, might not. either way check out my archive. Follow for more stories, i have way too much free time with my new job.

#Alien boyfriend #exophilia #alien x human #large buff alien #fluff #strong language #Kurt #Phoebe #Enigma-IM

560 notes · View notes

mthought-s · 3 years ago

Text

The Truth Behind Unpopular K-pop Opinions (video essay transcript)

youtube

[Voices voicing unpopular K-pop opinions]

[Unpopular k-pop opinions in robot voices] x3

An unpopular K-pop opinion is made up of three things:

An opinion

K-pop

And asking: Is it unpopular?

If a statement checks these three boxes, congratulations you have an unpopular K-pop opinion.

They started off being posted on anonymous confession blogs and forums. Some of the oldest Tumblr blogs and posts for these opinions are from 2011 to 2012, documenting over a decade of K-pop opinions. Unpopular opinions and confession blogs aren’t anything new. It's been a practice in online spaces for a long time for people to anonymously share opinions that could potentially be problematic or offensive towards others. Sometimes the opinions are completely neutral. Websites like Tumblr even have these anonymous options built into their websites with anon asks. It’s an opinion with no consequences, a statement for people to debate and discuss.

Today, they have spread to Twitter threads and YouTube videos. And they’re super popular. Actually, popular isn’t the right word. They’re super controversial. They’re provoking—not necessarily thought provoking—just provoking. They garner hundreds of thousands of views, if not millions, on YouTube. Then for Twitter threads, these opinions are capable of starting fanwars and conversation with possibly thousands of quote retweets.

Many fan accounts use them to stir up views and engagement, having thumbnails and threads that feature controversial topics. At times, these unpopular opinions aren’t actually unpopular. Unpopular becomes synonymous with negative where these pieces of fan content and engagement contain negative opinions to discuss, not necessarily ones that are unpopular and go against the majority opinion. For these opinions, it is also difficult to actually determine if an opinion is unpopular because K-pop fandoms are so large and diverse. In a way, these opinions are incorrectly labeled as unpopular. Instead, they are controversial. These are controversial K-pop opinions. For the sake of simplicity though, I will continue to refer to them as unpopular for the remainder of this video. Unpopular K-pop opinions are our gateway into conversation in K-pop spaces.

There’s many pros to these opinions.

They provide a place for people to express an opinion opposing the majority opinion. The majority opinion is very powerful because it leads to agreement and consensus. Unpopular opinions shake things up. They go against the majority. They cause people to question their biases and further research for reasons to defend their own personal opinion. That opposition against the majority can create conversation, leading to fleshing out people’s thoughts on their stances and deepening the understanding behind the topic that those opinions are based on.

Unpopular opinions can also bring light to issues. It provides a platform to be honest. At times, people don’t want to challenge the majority opinion in fear of being witch hunted and dogpiled on for pointing out an issue. For example, people in the fandom space might be using a potentially offensive term. The anonymity of unpopular opinions can provide a spark to a conversation where alternatives to a term can be found and the community can educate themselves further.

One more reason is that unpopular opinion Twitter threads, YouTube videos, blogs, and forums all provide avenues for people with similar opinions to find each other. People can build relationships with each other and create long, lasting friendships. It enhances the community experience of a fandom, providing a sense of commaderite between fans.

There’s also many cons to these opinions and platforms though.

These opinions are essentially gossip. Gossip has a thrill to it. It feels good, but it can be harmful to others. At times, unpopular opinions can begin to cross personal boundaries where they discuss the mental health, sexuality, political opinions, and other invasive topics of K-pop idols and the K-pop industry. Many people in K-pop communities find unpopular opinions invasive of the privacy of idols and disrespectful of their personal lives. Unpopular opinion accounts and blogs encourage people to speculate and possibly spread mis- or dis-information around the online space. This can harm the perception of a celebrity, causing discourse within the fandom.

Unpopular K-pop opinions can make people feel like they’re right for having the opinion they have too. These opinions are no longer viewed as opinions, but as facts for many people. They confirm biases and can create echo chambers where people say the same thing again and again. There’s no deeper thinking, only confirmation bias and ostracization of people who disagree.

While these anonymous platforms can be used to shed light on issues, they can also be abused to say things that are genuinely problematic and offensive without consequences. In some instances, unpopular opinion blogs have been automated where opinions are not reviewed by an actual person or a moderator before being posted. This can lead to opinions being posted that have slurs in them and viewpoints promoting harm to others.

Unpopular K-pop opinions exist in a limbo where there is both good and bad to them. They will always exist for a hot take rant or a structured essay. Although, there’s something shifting and changing in fandom spaces that has changed the view on them in recent years. There’s a new truth to what these opinions represent and why there’s so much push back against them now in particular. Let’s break down the truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions.

The current state of fandom is not ideal for these opinions to exist in. In the past, fandoms have been largely disconnected from each other. Instead of a fandom being one, cohesive group of people that coexists in one space, fandoms look more like this:

Online fandoms are separated by websites. There is overlap of users, but fans are usually mostly active on one website or platform for fannish activities. This would be called their main platform. Then, fans are further divided on websites by their interests. For instance, if someone is a fanartist, they’re usually around other fanartists because it’s the same interest. Overlap is more common with interests where someone can be a fanartist, but also a fanfic author. Someone can be into critical analysis of a TV show, but also be a merch collector. No one is ever in fandom for only one thing.

This is how fandom is usually organized. It differs from fandom to fandom, but this is the bare system of organization. Now, take this organization we’ve discussed already and increase its scale and intensity significantly. That’s what fandoms look like now. Instead of a disconnect between groups though, everything melts together. Cross-platform discourse, especially between Tumblr and Twitter, has become increasingly more common along with cross-interest discourse. Many spaces such as fanart spaces that would have their own discourse and are disconnected from the main fandom space, now meld into the main fandom space anyway. Discourse and discussion is not divided depending on what your interests are anymore, everyone is partaking in it whether they actually care about the interest or not.

In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in people joining online fandom spaces. Many old, already established fandoms and franchises such as Harry Potter and Star Wars had reboots. This allowed a wave of new fandoms to learn from them then build themselves. Add on an increase in internet usage over the years with the appearance of new media to support these fandoms and you have a much larger fandom subculture. Where a majority of fandoms used to be smaller, more tight knit, fandoms are increasingly becoming humongous, interconnected online communities.

And these communities don’t only exist online. In real life, we can see this fandom growth with the expansion of fan events. We see fandoms represented in concerts, passionately singing along to their favorite artist’s song. We see them in conventions, cosplaying and going from panel to panel to meet other fans. We see them in meet and greets, competitions, tours, and so much more. Fandom is bigger than ever, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to millions of people having more free time and spending that time getting into fandom and learning fan culture.

More people means more problems though. Fandoms have never had a good track record of trusting each other in the first place, but more people leads to more mistrust. Stances and opinions in fandoms become more complex. There’s a necessity to clarify and thoroughly explain oneself in order to not get “cancelled” for failing to acknowledge something. You can’t just say anything because people that don’t know you will assume you said something else from what you did say.

In online fandom spaces, people assume intent and decipher posts in order to ensure the original poster’s morals are aligned with their own. Many look to not take the post at face value and look further to ensure the post they’re sharing has an author they agree with. This desire to know the original poster or op’s original intentions pushes people to fill in the blanks with assumptions.

Fandoms begin to generalize and hard-line opinions to compensate because taking the time to learn hundreds of thousands of people’s full, thorough opinions on increasingly complex and multifaceted topics has become more difficult. It’s easier and takes less mental strain and energy to assume intention than actually learn it.

This trend of an increasing interest and population in fandom culture has also led to other trends and changes in how fandoms protect themselves as opposition and complexity in opinion grows.

The fandom police or fanpol are a group of people within a fandom who engage in policing. Policing is to regulate, control, or keep people in order. In fandom history’s past, fanpol have existed with smaller groups trying to bring their version of order to a fandom. Usually these fanpol groups censor other people in the fandom by dogpiling, using disinformation in expose threads, and mass reporting. They’re not favorable groups of people, being unpleasant and downright vile in some cases where they dox and cyber stalk people who disagree with them. Fanpol has become synonymous with fandom bullies.

In today’s current fandom era, these smaller fanpol groups have expanded to where they’re not small, specialized groups anymore. These censoring and policing ideologies have become ingrained in the majority of a fandom or large, overwhelming groups of the fandom. It’s no longer just policing, it’s an entire change in how fans interact with each other. It’s an ideological change. Fandoms essentially police themselves now, no small group of people needed.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions is that they are subject to a changing fandom environment.

Opposition is seen as hatred with hidden agendas to defame and slander. Fandoms want to protect themselves. They’ve begun to police each other on a large scale to do so instead of community building and actually knowing each other. Fandoms have become hypersensitive to opposition because more often than not, that opposition turns into hatred, harassment, and eventually a person who has awful, malicious intentions gains a platform and can’t be taken down. That hostility is a safety measure, a precaution that compensates for a fandom’s failure to bond with each other. It’s not necessarily their fault that they have failed though.

Unpopular opinions have always existed, but even though they’re unpopular they’ve become popular to do. In the face of growing hostility to opposition, the anonymous platform of unpopular K-pop opinions allows for expression. It allows for opposition to exist that isn’t malicious. Sometimes people just don’t like things that are popular or want to criticize something properly without fear of being sent death threats or being constantly harassed for that criticism. Mild unpopular opinions and criticism cannot exist in this current environment.

We are in a state of fandom where mild disagreement is treated the same as downright hatred. It’s faced with hostility and aggression for the reasons I specified earlier. Eventually, we’ll reach a state where mild agreement is treated the same as downright hatred. Where anything that isn’t enthusiastic, gleamingly positive support and showers of love are seen as malicious and attacks against a celebrity or interest.

And it’s so complicated. On one hand, we want to let these milder opinions exist and allow people to express how they truly feel. However, there’s more often than not, hidden agendas behind these milder opinions. There’s agendas to hurt and harm fans and idols.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions is that they exist and have become increasingly more common to express because of this conflict. Fandoms do not know each other anymore and aren’t focused on community building, leading to a spike in hostility to opposition to protect themselves. K-pop fandoms don’t actually care about K-pop anymore in the way they’re supposed to care about it. They should care about their groups and want to build a fandom that loves that group. They’re not doing that though, so when they’re faced with harm from outsiders they don’t know how to combat it as a fandom. K-pop fandoms don’t care about each other. They care about clout. Unpopular K-pop opinions are used to gain their clout through rage clicks and clickbait. That’s why unpopular K-pop opinions have become popular. That’s the truth.

I was originally going to end this video right here. However, I don’t think I can end on such a depressing and hopeless note. If you look at my channel, I haven’t uploaded anything for weeks (months) because I’ve been consumed trying to figure out how to end this without sounding defeatist. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.

So, here goes:

K-pop fandoms can break away from this fandom state where truth seems almost impossible to obtain and clout is seen as king by just choosing to be true to themselves. Be true to their goal as K-pop fans. Their goal is to love their idols, love the thing that brought them into the fandom in the first place. That’s the goal of every fandom. You’re in a fandom because you want to talk about things and enjoy something with other people.

It’s about appreciating the music, content, and interaction groups give fans. That’s why streaming and voting is so amplified to K-pop stans. They stream and vote to show love to their groups because their individual words and actions might never reach them. It’s how the fandom is capable of expressing themselves en masse to their favorite group so that way their favorite group can feel the love they feel for them.

And you can express that love in different ways too. You don’t need to vote and stream, that’s just one of the unique and direct options K-pop stans have. Fanartists express their love by creating art. Fanfiction writers write fanfiction. Editors make edits. If you’re not a creative, simply listening to the music, reading the lyrics, and engaging with others about the music and content is a way to express your love.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions doesn’t need to be the truth anymore. We can change the fandom state by choosing to be ourselves. We can build a community and bond. We can protect our fandom spaces from malicious people and trust each other. You and I are K-pop stans, fans, whatever you want to call it, because we love our groups.

And if you’re just a random person watching this video, you can be in on this too. I hope you’re feeling what I’m feeling right now. I hope you’re feeling it, okay? We love them for who they are, okay? That is our truth and we should live it.

[Social Media]

Twitter

Medium

1 note · View note

sothischickshe · 4 years ago

Text

Make Yourselves Forget That The Plague Is A Bitch: Book Edition

Tagged by: @rocknghorss (thank you this looks so fun!)

What’s the most recent book that you’ve read and absolutely fell in love with?

Oh I don't know if it was absolutely the most recent but a recent one is a book of short stories by nadine gordimer 💙

Do you keep track of how many books you’re reading every month?

Hmm not in any meaningful way but I do always photograph them

What’s your stance on the debate as to whether or not we should dissociate the artist from their art (artist = writer in this case)?

Well I don't know that we SHOULD but I think it's OK if someone wishes to. And I think that goes for all art.

Understanding who the artist is, helps in understanding (and indeed criticising) the art.

I do think it's OK to enjoy art even if you have issues with the artist however. For some people that means they want to divorce the art and artist.

But I find that sometimes you enjoy or appreciate things for the perspective they shed, without necessarily liking or condoning that perspective.

What do you do when you can’t focus on a book?

I almost always push through, and that's almost always worth it.

Do you pay attention to the gender/ethnicity/race/sexuality of the authors you’re reading, aka do you actively try to read books written by diverse writers?

Yea I think I'm generally aware of that. However, I don't really seek out books. Books flow to me.

Paperback or hardcover?

Either. My bag is a place of terrors but also I must carry its weight. Pros and cons to either.

Which language would you like to learn just to be able to read its untranslated literature?

Well I think the only hope I'd have would be french! I'm sure there's far more untranslated into English literature of other languages, but I personally would find it satisfying to read French literature untranslated, you get me. (my French is very bad, and that's my own fault, is what I'm saying)

Pick up the book that is closest to you. convince me to read it in less than 10 sentences.

Well I'm not sure I would tbh. It's the same book I've been reading for ages (the new silk roads). It's not bad! But it was a gift. And I started reading it just before all this Plague shit kicked off, and I'm not sure kinda intense serious non fiction about global economics and politics is quite the right escapist mood for the current moment. But what can I say, I'm a completist!

It's certainly interesting, and it's well foot noted, and it's sassy af (but it's also kinda... Terrifying. Like if you forget who's the American president for even half a second yknow)

Tagging @jazillia007 @bourbon-ontherocks @sdktrs12 @foxmagpie @nickmillerscaulk @kenrune @storiestoldbyjazz @inyoursheets

#Books #Love the title of this!#Only like 90 pages left of this book...#It's a lot of footnotes though #Lotta flipping #They're rarely anything but a citation #But sometimes there's such sassssss!!!

5 notes · View notes

boldlygowriting · 5 years ago

Text

Book Review #1: Aurora Rising

Aurora Rising published in April of 2019 is the first book in the Aurora Cycle series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff is a sci-fi adventure. The second book of the series is set to be published in 2020. Kristoff describes the book as a “Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy YA sci-fi, action, adventure thing.”

Synopsis: The story starts with Aurora Academy Goldenboy, Tyler Jones, the day before the Draft. Since our best boy is well...best boy at this space-bound military academy, he gets first pick of his future space crew. Or he would’ve if he hadn’t gone out in space to calm his nerves and ended up rescuing a girl named Aurora who’s been cryogenically frozen for over 200 years.

Bestboy Jones misses the Draft and ends up with whoever is left over ie. the people no one wants. A space elf with anger management issues, a socially inept, trigger happy genius, and an alien techwiz with a physical disability who doesn’t know how to shut up--known as Kal, Zila and Finian respectively.

Bestboy Jones also has his twin sister, Scarlet, and his best friend, Cat, who definitely doesn’t have a crush on him. (Books words, not mine, okay). Who are also especially good at their respective jobs as diplomat and pilot.

Aurora sneaks aboard their ship during their first mission, murders and a cryptic message from the higher-ups set them up for a journey across the galaxy. The fate of Aurora and the rest of the worlds now in their quirky, all-to-capable hands.

A lot is going on with this book and this is my first book review in this format so bear with me.

The Pros

It’s fun. This book is really fun. Like watching Guardians of the Galaxy, you can have a good, pretty stress-free read of this book with little trouble. While reading this I found myself enjoying the adventure aspect of it, and I think they do it really well.

Easy to follow. The book is action-packed that’s more interested in what’s happening than explaining all of the confusing lore that some sci-fi and fantasy novels can fall into. It’s not bogged down by a lot of space jargon and takes the time to explain the parts that a reader wouldn’t immediately understand. I appreciated that it kept things simple.

Diversity*. Kristoff assured there would be diversity race-wise and in sexual orientation. Which is true. Aurora is half-Irish and half-Asian, Zila is black, and Finian has a physical disability and is either bisexual or pansexual (I’m not exactly sure. I mean, he is an alien so like I don’t know...look, all I know is I’m bi and black, I’ll take the representation where I can get it.).

The humor*. Think about it, 7 eighteen-year-olds stuck on a spaceship together. It’d be impossible for there not to be humor and banter between them. Not all the jokes land and there’s more than enough of nudging and winking in the prose, but there are definitely some chuckle-worthy moments. They also use humor really well when it comes to breaking up tense and heavy moments even if they don’t entirely land.

The romantic subplot. I can’t say who obviously, but they’re pretty cute together. It was cliche, but, I think that by the end it was genuinely sweet and I appreciated the way they went about it by the end. It’ll definitely be expanded on in the following books and that’s what I like the most because it really is a subplot and they’re taking their time with it like a realistic crush turn relationship.

There are some things genuinely done well in this book that made me almost enjoy it, but for every action, there’s an opposite action. Starting off the Cons is my biggest issue with this book.

The Cons

The characters. I’m sure you could tell by my cheeky synopsis, I’m not exactly a huge fan of all the characters. In fact, I downright hated one. (Despite calling Tyler Bestboy all the time, no, it was not him. I just wanted to clarify that).

I could honestly break down every character and talk about why I did or didn’t like them, but I think that’s getting too far into biased opinion. However, even for the ones I did like, they were still flawed...and not in the fun way.

The characters are a huge weak point, part of that reason is that they’re all pretty flat. Flat, in this case, doesn’t exactly mean boring. A flat character is one that stays relatively the same from the beginning of the book to the end, and all seven of the protagonists are pretty flat. Even if it’s the first book of the series, knowing there’s time to develop characters, all seven protagonists shouldn’t be relatively the same by the end.

There’s a lot of potential in most of them, but the time for their development is often rushed by and cut off by action. There are some real, genuine moments, but they mean very little in the overall scheme of things, especially when the team that’s supposed to be a group of misfits never feels like a group of misfits.

The team is played up as a group of outcasts (or half outcasts), but they never feel like it. Both those movies the author compared the book to have a moment where they genuinely bond. There’s no point where the squad bond as a group beyond a few shared chuckles in between intense moments.

The skirmishes and arguments between them don’t really go anywhere and no one’s feelings are genuinely hurt for longer than a few pages, so when they already work pretty well together, I barely noticed any changes in their dynamic. I hope in the future books the authors expand on the group dynamic and the characters themselves because they could be really interesting, if I’m honest.

Most of them had a glimmer of something, but a glimmer wasn’t enough to keep me from realizing they’re just semi-archetypal shells.

This is a side note: this book switches the POV between the seven characters, and honestly, you can’t really tell much of a difference between who’s speaking. If switching POVs is not your bag, I wouldn’t recommend this book for you.

The humor. You know, it’s not so much the humor itself that’s a problem. The humor itself s pretty juvenile, but they’re 18 years old and I have a filthy, sarcastic mind so if you can stand a million sex jokes you’ll be fine. If not then you’re probably not gonna laugh much. The problem with the humor comes in the writing. There’s a lot of ‘winking and nudging’ involved. Finian (alien/techwiz/ can’t shut up), delivers a good portion of the jokes and after he says something, either he, the narrator or another character will comment on it.

I once read when it comes to comedy, a joke isn’t funny if you have to draw attention to it. And if this is your kind of humor it is funny, but a lot of jokes aren’t allowed to stand on their own...making them, well, not funny.

The plot and pacing. I’m not going to write a whole lot about the plot, partially to avoid spoilers. Tthe more I think about this book, the more I realize it’s a straighforward space adventure. The plot is simple because the adventure is what matters, but the fast pace of the book, while engaging, doesn’t spend a lot of time on it. One thing happens, then the next thing happens, and so on.

At one point, I almost got the sense that quiet moments couldn’t last too long without another plot piece falling into place or something terrible would happen. The squad never flounders long despite how often they talk about how in over their head they are and how dangerous everything is.

That might be a whole other gripe, but oh well.

I said it was fun and it was easy to follow, but that’s probably because everything happens so quickly you aren’t allowed to think for very long.

The pacing and plot go hand-in-hand because one bowls over the other and you get what I call the ‘you can infere events.’

These are events that you can infere obviously. In this case, they acquire a lot of items without actually showing how. I’m all for getting to the good stuff, but slowing down to show some things could’ve been a chance to expand on things like worldbuilding and the characters.

The worldbuilding. We’re getting into the minor stuff now if I’m being honest, but it’s a sci-fi story so I felt I couldn’t not write about the worldbuilding, which is a little lackluster. I’m pretty sure one of the planets is a Valerian rip-off. (I know that was harsh).

Diversity. I debated talking about this too. I don’t know anything about the authors but I know readers say they’ve been inclusive in the past. I think they were here too, and maybe I’m spoiled or asking for too much, but I have to get some things off my chest.

First, Zila.

I went back and forth on this a lot, but she kind of suffers from Princess and the Frog syndrome. Essentially, she’s a POC or LGBTQ+ character who is put into the story, but they either a.) don’t matter too much to the story or b.) are basically invisible.

I went back and forth on this because Zila is quiet. She doesn’t speak a lot, she’s an observer. Sometimes I forgot she was in the book. I think having her be quiet and observant works in other character’s POV because no one really understands her. In her own POV it should be a different story.

They opened that door so I have to comment on it. The chapters in her POV are significantly shorter than every other character. If her thoughts aren’t necessary to the story, why have them in there? It felt like she was there because they needed another warm body to advance the plot. I hope in book 2 she gets more than what she got.

Second, the representation. Period.

Tyler, Scarlet and Cat are the three members of the squad that stick together because they have a close bond. They’re not the misfits in this group. They’re also all white and presumably heterosexual as of this book. Zila, Finian and Kal are the outcasts of the group. Having the black girl, non-heterosexual alien with a physical disability, and the space elf with anger managment issues be the weirdos that the golden trio are saddled with doesn’t exactly read well on paper (pun intended).

Third, queerbaiting?

Don’t get your hopes up, I didn’t add the question mark because I think this might change. I added it as a Disclaimer: I’m not the authority on all things rainbow and beyond. Very few things raise my hackles when it comes to media and represenation even though there’s a lot that probably should.

That being said, this might jimmy some people’s johns so I thought I might as well mention it.

We’ve all heard the “why don’t you two just kiss and get it over with line,” (yes, the book uses this line) and I’m kind of over it unless it actually ends in a relationship. Just a warning there kiss between two people of the same gender, and that line was directed at them but I can assure you it’s not going anywhere, it was a one off, and it wasn’t serious. After so much BS from other books, movies and TV shows, I know that’s enough to piss some people off, and if I mentioned Zila and the representation, I had to mention this.

That was weird. So much time is spent making sure you know how attractive every single main character is. Like...a lot. I was genuinely wondering if this would end with some kind of orgy thing. No matter what POV it’s in everyone was drop dead gorgeous with killer dimples and voices like melted chocolate and luxurious push-up bras.

Consensus:

I found this book on the 7th floor of my university library. Why they have a random YA space romp from 2019 up there, who knows? The important question is: Do I regret picking it up?

Well…No and yes.

Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t shell out the $18.99 plus tax for it. (I’m a broke college student, okay? I get anxious spending $15)

Like I said, I had fun reading this. I laughed. It had me turning pages faster than Aurora can say “Holy cake!”However, this book isn’t clever and it doesn’t have a whole lot of heart, not all books do, but to be a space adventure with misfit characters...if you want to keep people engaged, maybe it should?

Everything is sacrificed for the execution of this quick-paced, adventurous romp. The worldbuilding and lore, the characters, the plot, everything. All of it was obliterated for something quick and momentarily entertaining.

If a quick, substanceless adventure is what you’re looking for (and there’s nothing wrong with that, not every book has to be a nail-biting, bloodbath), you’ll definitely find it in this book.

If you’re looking for a book that’s going to affect you and make you feel like you’re part of “the squad,” you should probably look elsewhere.

TLDR:

Pros:

It’s fun

Easy to follow

The humor*

The diversity*

The romantic subplot

Cons:

The characters

The plot and pacing

The worldbuilding

The humor*

The diversity*

Overall rating: 5.5/10.

#aurora rising #book review #bookblr #goodreads #ya novel review #diversity #character with a disability #woc in science #amie kaufman #jay kristoff

1 note · View note

sickenoughsteve · 5 years ago

Text

An Official Takedown of the ‘I Don’t Like LA, Traffic Sucks and Everyone is Fake’ Myth and An Unbiased Breakdown of LA Bullsh*t Being the Best Brand of Bullsh*t

OK, I’m back and ready to address something that’s been bugging me throughout my life. LA slander.

Not to sound like Trump, but my goal here is to try to convince the haters and losers - of which there are many - that while LA (hometown of Blueface) may have an unshakeable stigma attached to it, it nevertheless remains a world-class city with something for everyone. And I mean everyone. Look at this dude who I’ve literally let cut my hair not once but twice.

(The cuts were FIRE)

The fact that I have to clarify that those are tattoos and not face paint already tells you all you need to know about the fact that he’s fully bought into the LA Bullshit (which I’ll dive into later).

At the risk of sounding like I work for Zagat, let me go ahead and list several pros without addressing a single con about the city. It has, among many other things, a diverse population, way more thriving industries than just entertainment, the best weed, the most seamless integration of skater bros into the mainstream, the cutest dogs, fucking space, smarter people than you’d think, and proximity to other dope places, making it a generally fine place to live.

I guess that’s the tl;dr here: I’m not here to say LA is the best city. I’m here to defend LA from the unjust slander it so often receives.

As a native Angeleno from Brentwood who went to high school in North Hollywood, it was in Northern California for college where for the first time I was often told I wasn’t *actually* from LA by people who’d never stepped foot in the sprawling city. They were coming at me vicious with little to no context besides maybe a map that said Downtown Los Angeles is Los Angeles.

Also, without diving into it as it probably needs a separate article, I finally got a glimpse into the big brother, little brother “holier than thou” LA/SF relationship.

Since then, I’ve been (in my opinion) justifiably defensive about the city and its many surrounding neighborhoods. I mean, sure, my experience was one that took place in a sheltered bubble and I’m a bit of a bougie narcissist. But isn’t that as LA as it gets?

Haters not only don’t understand the city, but they come with preconceived judgy notions of how they’ll like it before even giving it a chance. That or their hopes, ambitions, and impatience are so substantial that they’re inevitably let down by a place that still.. in the end... is just a place. Living in LA won’t make you cooler. If you just want to spend money and seem cool, go to Vegas.

I mean, let’s get one thing straight. Everybody here is awful. Literally everyone. Are you reading this, live in LA and don’t think you’re awful? Then you’re the worst.

We’re bad people. But that’s what makes this place tick. We all know it.

We all understand the struggle and share a commonality that no matter how much money we make, how good our bodies start to look, and how fucking cool we are, there will always be someone richer, sexier, better dressed and more effortlessly dope than you. You’ll be reminded of that every day walking down the dang street. And that can make you feel pretty insecure and judgy for sure.

It can even make you feel truly alone and borderline psychotic.

But the people who start to lean into LA, lean into the LA Bullshit. So go ahead and do it with me. Indulge me and let me explain the best I can why this city is popping.

Stephen, what the hell is LA Bullshit?

Glad you asked, reader.

LA Bullshit is eating only items from the above photo but also smoking opium.

LA Bullshit is an expensive birthday party for someone’s dog.

LA Bullshit is running into Lil Nas X on Abbot Kinney.

LA Bullshit is dressing like a bum and still having money.

LA Bullshit is being 2 degrees of separation from almost any famous person.

LA Bullshit is having 500k Instagram followers but consistent overdraft charges on your debit card.

LA Bullshit is the fact that every single person of importance is forced to begrudgingly show face here for some reason or another at some point in their life. Usually on several occasions.

LA Bullshit is the admissions scandal.

LA Bullshit is our crushingly real homelessness problem.

LA Bullshit is not always something to be proud of, but it’s rare that there isn’t at least a tiny element of love somewhere beneath it all.

But yeah, traffic or whatever.

Traffic is bad, I know, but that’s lowkey YOUR fault

Thanks for moving to LA asshole. You and your 8 improv partners just put 9 more cars on the road.

People come here in droves every year trying to make it. This city chews people up and spits them out, but there is beauty in trusting the process and maybe that’s why the traffic in some ways can be enlightening.

We’re all in this together. We’re gridlocked on the 405, debating whether our decision to try our luck here was even worth it. Or if it ever will be. But more people come than go, every single day. And while that might mean our commute is a tad bit more stressful, I choose to believe that’s a good thing.

Much like traffic, like clockwork, if we stick with it, we’ll end up getting where we need to go.

Speaking of people, yes we are fake.

Newsflash: There are fake people in LA

Duh.

I already made this point earlier, but we are bad, bad people. Obsessed with image and maybe we’re not as deep as you and your family. Own that, feel better about yourself because of it. You are better than us. You won.

And for the record, wherever you are from has bullshit too. We just have better less-concealed bullshit than you.

Now pass the Kale chips.

And don’t look me in the eye.

Everyone is welcome here

Whether your view of LA is La La Land or Straight Outta Compton or Pulp Fiction or Training Day or The Big Lebowski or Beverly Hills Cop or Pretty Woman or almost any other kind of film you could imagine that was set here... you can experience this city and grow with it any way you see fit.

LA is not easy to put into a box. It’s everything and nothing all at once. It’s likely that if you stay here long enough, you’ll figure out and be able to appreciate this unexplainable attraction you might learn to have for the City of Angels. And I hope you do.

I really do.

I’ll leave you with this

"Look, from fucking hood rats to fucking stars/Spending all cash, to sliding cards/It's the definition of living large/Smoking top flight in the biggest cars/Told you '08 this shit was ours/Getting this cake, yeah nigga then getting more/Look at this world young nigga, this really yours/Nigga this really mine, my niggas is really for it, them buildings is really high/them cars is really foreign" —Nipsey Hussle ‘Ocean Views’

I would be remiss to write an LA-focused post without at least mentioning Nipsey who was truly the epitome of LA, especially black LA. At 33 years old, he was taken away from us way too soon.

One of my biggest regrets was believing since he had focused so much attention on his neighborhood and LA, owning the rights to his music, not kowtowing to a record label, and supporting black-owned businesses he maybe had “missed his window” as an artist. I thought he could’ve been as big as another one of his great contemporary west coast artists, YG. More pop. But the outpouring of love and support after his passing proved to me I was dead wrong.

He was a walking talking advocate for the city and did it his way. He was truly good in every hood and he’s a legend that will be remembered from Crenshaw/Slauson and beyond.

#los angeles #nipsey hussle #nipsey #city

12 notes · View notes

arcticdementor · 5 years ago

Link

When I saw him, he was outside Payne Whitney. Nothing about the tall, gray façade suggests it is the university gym, unless there is a new trend of contractors housing athletics departments in Gothic cathedrals. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the frosted glass panes and arches that the third floor hosts the world’s largest suspended indoor swimming pool. It is a work of art, like the rest of Yale’s buildings.

Marcus was smoking by a bench, his face jaundiced from three packs that day. This is atypical for Yale students—most abstain from smoking. There was no reason for him to smoke so much, just as there was no reason for me to ride around campus on a blue Razor scooter. But Yale students tend to have such quirks. His suit-jacket was dusty and smelled of sweat—he didn’t mind lifting weights in a dress shirt and trousers if that meant more time to read Nietzsche alone at the bar.

When I hugged him, he felt skeletal. I asked if he had eaten today. He assured me that his earthly requirements were limited—no need for anything other than alcohol and cigarettes. “I can buy you a sandwich.” He refused. I insisted. A nice one. Bacon and egg. Or steak and cheese. I was testy now. “GHeav is right there. I’ll be back in six minutes.”

He turned his face towards me, warm with friendliness—and with one sentence, he changed our relationship forever.

“You know I’m rich, right?”

“What?”

“You know I have a trust fund, right? I can buy my own sandwich if I wanted it.”

This is the moment when after three years of friendship, Marcus sat down and told me his life story. His cottages in Norway. Sneaking into the family study. Learning about the cost of hardwoods and hearing his boorish, critical father sulk in 5-star hotel rooms.

Marcus did not act this way out of anxiety, grief, stress, or because he had nobody to tell him his habits will kill him. He lived as a starving writer not out of necessity, but for the aesthetic. Out of some desire to imitate the Bohemian 19th century writers. Out of artistry. Style. Intentional choice.

…

This is a story about an institution and an elite that have lost themselves.

…

Over the past decade, elite colleges have been staging grounds for what Matthew Yglesias has termed the Great Awokening. Dozens of scandals have illustrated a stifling new ideological orthodoxy that is trickling down into the rest of society through HR departments, corporations, churches, foundations, and activist organizations. The nation is becoming polarized and its parts disconnected. The right is evil, and the left is stupid. Or is it the other way around?

The campus “free speech” debate is just a side-effect. So are debates about “diversity” and “inclusion.” The real problems run much deeper. The real problems start with Marcus and me, and the masks we wear for each other.

…

Based on statistics from the class of 2013, approximately 2% of students hailed from the lowest income quintile, while 69% came from the top 20%. How did those poor students fare after graduation? Around 2% of students at Yale move from the bottom to the top quintile. In other words, nearly all of them. You show up poor, and you leave rich. Going to an Ivy League school may be the fastest way to join the upper class.

But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody kept talking about how broke they were.

…

Poor people—actually poor people—don’t talk this way. They tend to stay under the radar because they don’t know the rules of the game. But I bought it—at least when I was a freshman. If they were constantly announcing how broke they were, my assumption was that they must have even less money than I do.

This turned out to be wrong. The reality was that they were invariably from the upper-middle and upper classes. I know this because they eventually told me, like Marcus did. But there were tells. These students didn’t act the way my friends and I did growing up. They didn’t know how much pens or flights or cars were supposed to cost. They couldn’t tell when a restaurant was a good deal.

Pretending to be poor is a lot easier than pretending to be rich—just because there are so many different ways to be poor. But there are still small quirks you have to get right. Social class doesn’t just influence how you walk and talk; it influences how you interact with others. The stereotype is that poor people are improper—but sometimes it is the opposite. They try to do things as they think they are meant to be done. Spending a hundred hours building bat wings for a Halloween costume. Renting a limo for their child’s prom.

But lying about anything is tricky—you risk being found out—so what were these people trying to accomplish by acting broke? And this raises the broader question: why pretend to be of a social class you are not?

…

What about the regular rich? Not the children of billionaires, but the children of millionaires. The common impulse is to emulate the people one or two levels above you—so they might also act poorer than they are. But whereas the super-rich learned purposeful discretion from their parents at weekly dinner table meetings, the regular rich did not. They learned it through mimicry—and with varying degrees of success. The less sophisticated copycats end up brazenly proclaiming that they are “broke” and “upper-middle class.”

For some people, this isn’t an act; they actually believe this. After all, they do seem poor when compared to the hyper-rich. They can’t afford spontaneous Spring Break trips to private Bali islands. They see their prep-school classmates’ Facebook photos and realize that they are one, or maybe two, pegs down from that, and so they use the term “upper-middle class” without really knowing what this term refers to. They have no idea how the actual upper-middle class, the middle class, or the poor really live. Those students never went to their prep school, so for all intents and purposes, they do not exist. Like Krasnoyarsk, Siberia—we know it exists. We can find it on a map. But we don’t need to concern ourselves with it. Often, this is what the real poor are to rich people—they are a theoretical construct that exist somewhere else.

…

In another instance, I was privately discussing with a professor the pros and cons of a Food Stamp reform proposal. After some analysis, I commented on my own experience with the program. His response was complete shock. “You don’t really mean you were on welfare. You just mean you were supported by your parents, right?”

In a world of masks and façades, it is hard to convey the truth.

And this is how I ended up offering a sandwich to a man with hundreds of millions in a foreign bank account.

…

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with haphazard and sometimes warped class signaling. But if you put on a façade for long enough, you end up forgetting that it is a façade. The rich and powerful actually start believing that they are neither of those things. They actually start believing that there is not much difference in status and resources between themselves and the upper-middle class, the middle class—and eventually, between themselves and the actual poor. They forget that they have certain privileges and duties that others do not. They forget that the inside joke was just a joke all along.

…

When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

…

There is another reason why people might pretend to be poor. This reason is much more serious than fitting in or avoiding hitmen. The rich and powerful are expected to take responsibility for things, and blamed when they go wrong.

“Check your privilege.” Just about every college student has heard this phrase since 2013. What it means is evasive. But like most memes that strike a chord with people—there is some point to it. The rich have privileges. They therefore also have responsibilities. The responsibilities are not always so fun.

…

Would you want to be the strongest man in the village right at the moment when you failed to use that strength properly and the village is dying and rivals are out for blood? Or would you rather be the average person, eating the normal amount of food, without being hated?

But that was just a thought experiment. Those are people in crises—in a hunter-gatherer village at war. We live in America. Certainly things are different during a stable, prosperous period, in a technologically advanced society. Would you want to be exceptional then?

Not necessarily. The elite are faced with certain hard burdens.

The elite are expected—by everyone else, and by each other—to use their power to make sure society works properly. That is, they are expected to rule benevolently. The reason they are expected to do this is that if they don’t, nobody else can or will. The middle class and the poor do not have the powers and privileges that the rich and elite do, and cannot afford the necessary personal risks. But without active correction towards health and order, society fails.

…

In times of political uncertainty, when things are not going well, elites face more scrutiny, and more internal pressure to find people to blame—whether rightly, or as scapegoats. It becomes a bigger liability to be openly elite.

Further, such times are themselves caused by political dysfunction among the elite, when elite institutions forget how to listen to reason (or have decided not to) and forget how to coordinate towards benevolent rule.

At elite conferences, they wonder how to regain trust, or otherwise deal with the rising atmosphere of populist discontent. They acknowledge that something is deeply wrong. But they dare not lay the blame at their own feet, caused by their own overreaches and dysfunction. Anyone who did would immediately be under suspicion. No longer one of us, but one of them. So, those who might otherwise lead the difficult but necessary elite self-critique instead keep their mouths shut, or they say the wrong thing without ideological, psychological, and social preparation for the consequences and get cast out. Only the true believers incapable of self-critique, the incompetent, and the cynics, remain as voices in the public forum. They talk in circles, never quite able to correct course and come to any new conclusions, except the need to double down on current ideological practices.

…

They say that the recent scandals at Yale had to do with racial and social justice. I don’t think that’s what it was really about. When looking at one or two scandals, it’s easy to buy the story that it is just students organizing and using their rights of free speech and assembly to protest what they see as injustices perpetrated by the university. But when looking at all of the scandals together, another narrative starts to emerge.

And that narrative is much closer to this: members of the ruling class are not sure what to do with themselves—and they are not even sure they want to rule.

…

When people think of universities, they think of their local state school, or else Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And when they think about Yale, it is often when they are reading about a president, a Supreme Court justice, or the editor of The New Yorker. That’s because Yale graduates play no small part in running the world. It is the school the elite want to send their kids to. It is the school the lower classes assume their kids will never go to.

…

What happens when a school with this position is embarrassed about its role as an international trendsetter? What if instead of doing the hard work to set the tone for responsible rule, it abdicates that responsibility?

…

But the appearance of bottom-up protest politics is always a bit of a false narrative. It would be one thing if the students were polled and a majority said they wanted the name changed, or some other process was used. At least the university could say that it was making decisions based on some objective democratic process, and wasn’t just being pushed around. But this is not what happened. No polls were taken. There was no authoritative process. The school said no for a few months, then caved. If the school were actually confident in its position to resist, it could have easily pushed back on the protests. Instead, it folded on demands from a small number of students willing to make noise. Either the university administrators are spectacularly spineless, or the protests just provided a convenient impetus and excuse to do something they already wanted. We can look at several more incidents and notice a similar trend.

…

What do all of these events have in common? Some had student support. Some did not. Some started as public outrage taken to the street. Some were completely internal. What they had in common was an administration and student body coordinated around an ideology that continually mutated to ensure moral entrepreneurship and a continued supply of purges, as new forms of human behavior or commonplace descriptors became off-limits. Some of this energy was genuine, some cynical.

These were not kids protesting the Vietnam war, or graduate students mobilizing for better pay and medical care. Nobody would have had a gun shoved into their arms and sent across the world if Yale had not fired the professors. Nobody would have lost money if they did not change “Master.” In fact—Yale lost money on these changes in the form of alumni donations and administrative time. Meetings, committees, redone paperwork, and brand new “head of college” plaques. These changes were neither meant to save lives, nor to save money.

But what was the point of it all?

…

Thousands of hours of human effort and labor. And for what? What was it for?

If you ask supporters, they will tell you the cost does not matter so much, because this is about creating an ideal world. Of course the professor should be fired—how dare she stand against the minority student organizations? Of course it’s okay that the Yelp reviews were published—she should never have written them. Of course names should be changed if they hint at or honor the wrong ideology. What does preserving history matter if history is racist? The university is handling things according to its proper ideals of empathy and inclusion.

In short, their point was that this was all to help poor people. Immigrants. People whose parents are from distant, impoverished lands. People of color. Changing “Master,” firing the dean, and firing professors was all for this.

Except this did so little to actually help any of these people that this could not possibly have been the main motivation.

None of this was actually to their benefit, except for the few activists willing to invest time and energy into the game. It is not easy to stay up-to-date with the new, ever-more complex rules about what you are allowed to say to qualify as the bare minimum of sociable and sane. It is cognitively and socially demanding. I had to not just study psychology and computer science, but I had to stay up-to-date with the latest PhD-level critical theory just to have conversations.

…

If words like “Master” are deemed offensive based on questionable linguistic or historical standards, then this means other words and phrases can become offensive at a moment’s notice. Under these rules, only people in the upper ranks who receive constant updates can learn what is acceptable. Everybody else will be left behind.

The people best positioned for this are professors at elite universities. They are ingrained in the culture that makes up these social rules. They get weekly or even daily updates, but even they cannot keep up.

…

A cynical observer might conclude that this is all just revolution as usual; a small clique of agitators seizing more and more power, and purging their enemies by virtue of their superior internal solidarity, a bold and demanding ideology, lukewarm popular moral support, and no real organized opposition. In some ways, that is what’s going on. They have the bold ideology, the ambient support, and no real opposition.

But importantly, they don’t have internal coordination by any means other than adherence to the ideology itself. Even members of the clique are never really safe. Anyone who contradicts the latest consensus version of the constantly mutating ideology, even if they have worked to its benefit or are otherwise obviously on side, gets purged. If you don’t keep up, you get purged.

It doesn’t matter that the ideology is abusive to its own constituents and allies, or that it doesn’t really even serve its formal beneficiaries. All that matters is this: for everyone who gets purged for a slight infraction, there are dozens who learn from this example never to stand up to the ideology, dozens who learn that they can attack with impunity if they use the ideology to do it, and dozens who are vaguely convinced by its rhetoric to be supportive of the next purge. So, on it goes.

This is the nature of coordination via ideology. If you’re organizing out of some common interest, you can have lively debates about what to do, how things work, who’s right and wrong, and even core aspects of your intellectual paradigm. But if your only standard for membership in your power coalition is detailed adherence to your ideology, as is increasingly true for membership in elite circles, then it becomes very hard to correct mistakes, or switch to a different paradigm.

And this helps explain much of the quagmire American elites are stuck in: being unable to speak outside of the current ideology, the only choice is to double down on a failing paradigm. These failures lead to lower elite morale, resulting in the class identity crisis which afflicts so many at Yale. Ironically, the result is an expression of that ideology which is increasingly rigid on ever more minute points of belief and conduct.

…

What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.

There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored when they volunteered information that countered the main narrative, because the surface-level debate wasn’t the point. The point was to signal that you were with the program. Only a select and secret group of student “leaders”—who were already savvy enough to engage comfortably with hierarchy—were invited in to chat with administrators.

Shouting from the rooftops that “They aren’t doing enough!” is much easier than following any traditional system of elite social norms and duties, let alone carefully re-engineering that system to reestablish order in a time of growing crisis.

…

But there is more to selling out that nobody talks about. These jobs are the dream jobs of the middle class. They’re not supposed to be jobs for the sons and daughters of millionaires and billionaires—these kids don’t actually need the money. They want independence from their parents and proof that they can make it on their own—and prestigious work experience—but they have wealth acquired through generations that they can always fall back on. These people are generally as harmless as the middle class—which is to say completely harmless. They keep to themselves. They quietly grow their bank accounts and their 401ks. And just like the real middle class, they don’t want to risk their next promotion through being too outspoken. They have virtually no political power. This mindset is best encapsulated by: “I’ll go with the program. Please leave me alone to be comfortable and quietly make money.”

They effectively become middle class, because there is no longer any socially esteemed notion of upper class. They have a base of power, of f-you money, that they could use to become something greater than just another office worker or businessperson. But there is no script for that, no institutional or ideological support. What would it even mean to be an esteemed, blue-blooded aristocrat in 2019? So they take the easy and safe way.

How else do Yale students give up their responsibility?

They go in the other direction. These are the people who call themselves idealists and say they want to save the world. They feel the weight of responsibility from their social status—but they don’t know how to process and integrate this responsibility into their lives properly. Traditionally, structurally well-organized elite institutions would absorb and direct this benevolent impulse to useful purpose. But our traditional institutions have decayed and lost their credibility, so these idealists start looking for alternatives, and start signalling dissociation from those now-disreputable class markers.

…

Who is winning? This question is an important one. Yale administrators had lofty goals. In an attempt to placate their own biases, the administrators and faculty forgot that they are the ones who are supposed to be teaching. Instead of expelling or suspending the small number of people actively undermining the student body and university as a whole, the university does nothing, or actively accelerates the process. The professors are the ones who leave. The radical clique feels emboldened.

Now we can begin to understand the real problem at Yale. It is not free speech—and it is not non-inclusivity. The standards of reality, and the standards of morality not based solely on being woke, are ousted. That’s because the conventional standards of elite morality, based on responsible use of power—actually responsible, not just a convenient feeling of doing good—are much harder, and based on the very self-consciousness that everyone is trying to avoid.

…

The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions?

Is the point of Yale to promote the humanities and knowledge of the West that is hard to learn anywhere else? This is not the full mission. Donald Kagan and Lee Bass’s year-long history of the West program was cut, due to faculty protesting that it was not multicultural enough, despite having large interest and $20 million in funding.

Is Yale’s vision a futuristic, technocratic university? Is the university divesting from the liberal arts for the purpose of committing to the technology of the future? This isn’t the case, either. Computer science enrollment has increased significantly in the past decade. But Yale’s computer science department is lagging behind other schools. The university has taken steps towards improving the department, but in general shows no signs of a visionary commitment to expanding tech or significantly expanding professorships.

…

Maybe the university has lost every purpose other than giving students a social environment in which to party. If the students aren’t educated or visionary, at least they’re networking and hedonically satisfied.

Except they’re not. It would be one thing if they were happy—but even this is not true. They don’t know what is expected of them, or what they should aspire to be. The lack of expectations creates nihilistic tendencies and existential crises. In 2018, around one quarter of Yale undergraduates said they sought mental health counseling. One quarter of Yale students took the “Happiness and the Good Life” course in 2018 in an attempt to find answers. Students are demanding more mental health resources. A new wellness space was created with bean-bag chairs and colored walls. But the real sources of unhappiness are more systemic. They are rooted in uncertainty about the future.

If Yale students are uncertain about the future and their role in it, what does that say about the rest of society?

…

So what if Yale, and Yale students, are abdicating responsibility? We can all just send our kids to Harvard, or MIT, or move to California and go to a state school. I heard UC Berkeley is pretty good.

But the problems present at Yale are present at every other university, and schools outside of the United States look to elite American universities as role models. If things are broken at elite universities, things are broken, period.

…

Yale is supposed to be using its power and reputation to set standards for excellence, but instead it is abandoning its responsibilities and getting embroiled in controversy after controversy. Yale is not special in this regard—other colleges are also often embroiled in controversies. But the controversies of top colleges matter most because they determine what is acceptable for everybody else.

And what’s happening at Yale reflects a crisis in America’s broader governing class. Unable to effectively respond to the challenges facing them, they instead try to bail out of their own class. The result is an ideology which acts as an escape raft, allowing some of the most privileged young people in the country to present themselves as devoid of power. Institutions like Yale, once meant to direct people in how to use their position for the greater good, are systematically undermined—a vicious cycle which ultimately erodes the country as a whole.

Segments of this class engage in risk-averse managerialism, while others take advantage of the glut to disrupt things and expand personal power. The broader population becomes caught up in these conflicts as these actors attempt to build power bases and mobilize against each other. And like Yale, it seems a safe bet that things will continue and even accelerate until some new vision and stable, non-ideological set of coordination mechanisms are able to establish hegemony and become a new ground for real cooperation.

#natalia dashan #palladium mag #yale #read the whole thing #class #noblesse oblige #doesn't exist without actual nobles

4 notes · View notes

k-young-audio · 4 years ago

Text

How much has digital borrowed from analogue?

In audio equipment, there is the much debated argument of analogue vs digital. This debate spans across the diverse field audio equipment, from recording, to live sound, to instruments and synthesis. Each area analogue and digital have different pros and cons that make them arguable more suited to the job. In this blog post, I want to specifically focus on synthesis and instrument design as digital design is where my background and practice lies in. As a practitioner in audio, specifically designing DSP for digital audio, I want to delve into exactly why analogue remains such a strong character in audio, and why so many digital designs are based off analogue designs.

The primary different between analogue and digital synthesis is that they each process the potential acoustic energy through different means. Analogue through voltages in a circuit, and digital through sampling the original wave and turning it into data. Within analogue synthesizers, potential acoustic energy travels through the signal chain of components to generate the timbre of the synth. “All synths have a few basic components that work together to create a sound. With analog synthesis there is the oscillator that generates the waveform and changes its pitch. Then there is the filter that carves out certain frequencies in the wave to change the timbre. There is also an amplifier that controls the signal volume as well as modulation to create effects.“ (Roland, n.d.)

Analogue synthesis designs

Modular Synth

Analogue synthesis has taken on various designs through the years. Modular synthesis allowed the user to create their own signal path, routing a signal through various components to get the desired sound “Most early analoge synths, Moogs in particular, were modular in nature. That is, you got a set of synth modules that you had to patch or link together yourself in order to make a sound. It’s a very flexible system but it means you need to know a bit about synthesis before you can even get the thing to squeak.” (Making-Music, 2020)

(Sound on Sound)

A modular synthesizer is identifiable by the various patch chords being used to connect signals, this means the user has control of where the signal is being routed, what it is bypassing, as well as what parameters are controlling the signal on each device it goes into.

“Modular synthesizers communicate with voltage, carried from module to module by patch cables. (Yes, this is safe!) This means that control signals and audio signals are the same thing. This adds a lot of flexibility! You can, for instance, use an oscillator to modulate a parameter much faster than a normal control signal would. This can create entirely new sounds, and is a great example of how modular synths can be used in creative ways to make sounds that are difficult to produce with a normal synthesizer.” (Cancilla, 2020)

We can make the connection that the graphic design of Max MSP is loosely based off modular synth. In max, signals are manipulated depending on what they are plugged in to. Even as a programming language, Max utilizes “patch chords” in order to show where the signal or data is being directed.

Desktop synth

This is an analogue design with features of a setup of a modular synth, except every component is hardwired into a device. While this is a convenient setup for a synth, especially if the setup is designed well, it can also be limiting without the means to expand routing the signal into other components. “Desktop synths come with a readymade signal chain. Oscillators, filters, effects, all arranged in such a way that they make wonderful noises without any tweaking required. You’re good to go out of the box – a great way of becoming accustomed to synth sound and functionality with minimal hassle. If you’re a beginner who’s new to synths, desktop units are arguably worth considering for this reason alone.“ (Beattie, 2019)

(Sound on Sound)

Digital instruments

Digital instruments are often based around these older designs, not just due to their components and signal processing stages. In logic, you can load up a digital virtual instrument, programmed with a wooden background to be reminiscent of a Moog instrument.

(Logic. Apple)

Digital designs, being created to sample audio in order to playback audio, brought sampling to the world of synthesis. This, of course, isn’t counting the Mellotron, which although was sampling, lacked a design that was as sophisticated enough to achieve what it’s digital contemporary, the Fairlight CMI could do. Below is a video of Peter Gabriel demonstrating sampling in the Fairlight CMI.

youtube

What we see Peter Gabriel do here is playback and modulate samples using the Fairlight CMI. Sampling in this way opens the gate to granular synthesis, a new means of creating synth sounds besides additive synthesis and subtractive synthesis. “Granular synthesis is an extremely powerful audio manipulation system that makes it possible to adjust the speed, pitch, and formant characteristics of audio samples independently of one another, and all in real time if your computer is fast enough.” Granular synthesis works on building a synth sound from an audio sample, essentially adding sample snippets together to make an oscillator. Because granular synth is rooted in sampling, it is an example of a digital design in synthesis that has not a direct emulation of an analogue design.

Considering what new things digital synthesis brought to the table, it is interesting to see that much of the design stayed the same.

“I would like to point out that the backlash against Digital Parameter Access has been the fuel behind the current 'retro' craze for all things knobby and controllable. Perversely, many of the over-priced fashion statements that cash in on this craze ("my Jupiter 6 and Prophet 600 are analogue man, real music, not like that digital rubbish...") have digital memories and quantised parameters, and are therefore analogue/digital hybrids. This means that their parameters are limited by the resolution of their processing systems. Furthermore, many of the most sought-after analogue synths use their micro processors to generate their LFOs and envelopes digitally and, in many ways, are barely analogue at all! If you're interested in synthesis, the best way to deal with the digital vs. retro debate is to ignore it, and keep in mind that the reason these instruments exist is to craft different sounds and make music with them.” (Reid, 2020)

Personally, I feel that taking into account that the way we program audio is so heavily influenced by analogue synthesizers, and the idea that most analogue synthesizers have some element of digital in them anyway, the argument of analogue vs digital is redundant. The true emphasis should be the quality of build of each individual instrument.

References

Beattie, S. (2019, 2). Desktop synths vs modular synths. Retrieved from blog.andertons: https://blog.andertons.co.uk/labs/desktop-synths-vs-modular-synths

Cancilla, M. (2020, 05). What is a modular synthesizer? Retrieved 12 2020, from Noiseengineering.us: https://www.noiseengineering.us/blog/what-is-a-modular-synth

Making-Music. (2020, 12). Analog Synthesis – a Quick Guide. Retrieved from Making-music.com: https://making-music.com/quick-guides/analog-synthesis/

Reid, G. (2020). More about envelopes. Retrieved from Sound on Sound: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/more-about-envelopes

0 notes

kathydsalters31 · 4 years ago

Text

Just how to Train Your Small Dog to Hike Off-Leash

Off-leash pets are a debatable topic.

Some animal proprietors abhor the concept of pets running around off-leash, while others choose the freedom that being off-leash gives their pet.

I see even more big dogs hiking off chain yet it can be finished with lap dogs also as lengthy as you train them and also take safety measures. In this short article I’ve assembled useful info on exactly how to educate your small dog to trek off-leash. I discuss the cons and pros, along with how to deal with the training process. Off-Leash Hiking Basics Basically, off-leash walking means that you’re enabling your pet dog to hike with you while being off a taken care of lead. In other words, they are not attached to you in any way as well as

you do not have physical control of them. During this time, your pet has complimentary power to do as they please– listen to you when you call them back or chase after that squirrel. Allowing your pet walk or trek off leash isn’t lawful almost everywhere. Numerous places need that your pet dog is on

a leash that is no even more than 6 feet in length. There are often signs posted at trailheads that will commonly educate you if off-leash pet dogs are allowed, yet it’s

finest to understand prior to you go so there are not a surprises. Nonetheless, some areas allow canines to trek off chain if they are under strict voice control. Voice control indicates that they remain within your sight whatsoever times

as well as they come back to you immediately the first time you call their name. Other rooms, like off leash pet parks that are huge and have trails, may allow your pet dog to run farther from you as long as

they come back when you call. When hiking with your lap dog, it’s essential to adhere to all legislations and also

guidelines. You need to always follow private rules for each trail or park you go to.

You need to likewise take into consideration whether hiking off leash with your lap dog is proper based on each circumstance and also particular pet dog.

It’s risky for also the best trained pet dog to run around off chain in a forested location, where they can’t quickly be seen, with cliffs.

Off-Leash Hiking Etiquette

If you are deciding whether to allow your lap dog trek off-leash or otherwise, and also you wish to make certain your canine is an excellent path guardian if you do, follow these general guidelines:

Make sure you have a

solid recall. This means that when you call your canine, they concern your side immediately.If your pet dog is reactive or has problems with other pets, it’s possibly best to maintain them on a chain whatsoever times. Be aware of all threats when treking off-leash, such as huge animals, other people with aggressive canines,

harmful cliffs, etc and also use your best judgement.If your lap dog has a solid prey drive, their all-natural reactions might inform them to

go after wild animals they see lurking around, despite how solid your recall is. If your pet runs after something, they take the chance of being lost or killed accidentally.Don’ t enable your pet dog to dig holes in the planet or disturb wild animals habitats.Your canine may poop somewhere less than perfect if they are adventuring off-leash

. It’s always important to grab your poop, so this is something to keep in mind.

Wishing to hike off-leash with your small dog is reasonable. Leashes can be a problem if you’re treking, especially since you want your canine to enjoy their time in nature as much as feasible.

However, as a responsible dog proprietor it’s essential to weigh the security risks for you, your pup, and also those around you.

If your goal is to hike with your small dog off leash, the section below will explain just how to teach them correctly.

Educate Your Small Dog to Hike Off-Leash

If you’ve decided that the pros outweigh the disadvantages as well as you intend to train your lap dog how to trek off-leash.

< img src ="https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Small-Off-Leash-Dog-Standing-on-a-Tree.jpg"alt=" Small Off Leash Dog Standing on a Tree"course= "lazyload wp-image-19740" data-sizes ="( max-width: 1000px)

100vw, 1000px” srcset=”https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Small-Off-Leash-Dog-Standing-on-a-Tree.jpg 1000w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Small-Off-Leash-Dog-Standing-on-a-Tree-600×400.jpg 600w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Small-Off-Leash-Dog-Standing-on-a-Tree-768×512.jpg 768w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Small-Off-Leash-Dog-Standing-on-a-Tree-800×534.jpg 800w”> The important trick to off chain liberty is a remarkable recall command. A recall is when your pet dog is a range

away from you and you ask them to “come.” Your pet dog returns to you instantly.

Tips for teaching your Dachshund to remember

Begin inside Beginning your recall training in the comfort of your very own

home where there are few disturbances. When your pet is recalling dependably inside, take the training outside right into your yard, or one more fenced location, where there are various other exterior distractions. Enhance the disturbance level as your dog improves and better at it. Utilize a chain initially Begin recall training with a leash on. That way you can gently pull on your pet dog to help connect that you want them ahead to you. Try a making use of a long line

— a chain that is 15-30 feet long– to provide more distance prior to practicing leash-free.

Be irresistible

Use positive support to make concerning you an extra favorable experience than remaining to do whatever they are doing.

If your Dachshund thinks coming to you will end their fun, they won’t wish to do it.

One way to do this, because Dachshunds like to go after (victim), is to relocate away from your pet while utilizing the recall command, have a little “event” when they get here, and strengthen with a delicious treat reward.

Keep sessions regular but brief

Maintain training sessions to 5-10 minutes long.

Any type of longer than that and your pet dog could obtain tired and also lose interest. You primarily wish to finish each training session with them desiring more.

Short sessions numerous times a day are a lot more effective then one big long one.

Technique recall a minimum of 3-5 times a week during the preliminary training phase.

It’s necessary to excellent this skill prior to doing anything off-leash. A reputable recall is an absolute must.

Differ the surroundings

Take notice of what sidetracks your canine the most, then work on training recall in the middle of these diversions.

It’s recommended to experiment 30 different kinds of distractions (1 diversion at a time) in order to truly cover all your bases.

Good places to exercise with disturbances are dog parks and coastlines where dogs are permitted to be off-leash.

The incentive: as your pet dog becomes extra dependable, even with moderate diversions around them, you will discover that they will certainly begin replying to you much better in other circumstances too.

When you expose your lap dog to various stimulations while training, it constructs their self-confidence and dependability.

Constantly upright an excellent note

Preferably, you will certainly start to see when your canine has had adequate training for the minute.

Indicators that your pet is done consist of sniffing the ground a lot, not following the command although they were previously, and laying down.

Ending your training sessions on a favorable note will help guarantee your pet eagerly anticipates the next one. Always end training sessions with among their favored points– a treat, play session with their favored plaything and also added belly rubs– prior to your dog “checks out” on you.

When your pet will certainly return to you 100% of the time in any situation, they are ready to trek off-leash.

When You Should Not Hike with Your Small Dog Off Leash

Regardless of exactly how trustworthy your canine is off chain, there will certainly be scenarios where they should be on leash anyway.

Keeping your pet dog safe

There are times that you must keep your dog on leash in order to safeguard them from themselves.

If you understand your pet is startled conveniently by gunfires or loud bangs, as well as you are treking where individuals are target shooting or triggering fireworks, keep your canine on a chain so they do not run and scare off.

If you are treking during hunting season, keeping your dog on chain will certainly ensure a hunter doesn’t perplex them with a wild pet when they are bounding via the woods.

If you are hiking in a location recognized for aggressive wild animals, like bears or hill goats, keeping your pet dog on leash will help stop dangerous wild animals encounters.

When deciding to hike with your dog off leash, consider their security and also regard other route users.

If you are treking in a steep area with unsafe scree slopes or high cliff drop offs, keeping your pet dog on leash will see to it they can not accidentally fall as well as get wounded or stranded.

Respecting others

please think about other trail users when you’re making a decision to hike with your canine off leash or otherwise.

I’m a company believer in adhering to leash legislations if one is required.

Various other customers of the exterior area where chains are required are usually anticipating that they can recreate without the worry of a pet simply running up to them.

Believe it or not, some individuals don’t such as pet dogs and do not want to be approached by a weird one.

Some people are extremely allergic as well as only walk in places where they anticipate to see no canines, or those restrained by a leash, so they can stay clear of any type of call.

Please remember that some individuals are servicing training when they take their dogs outdoors, and/or have a reactive canine that obtains afraid as well as protective conveniently.

An experience with an off-leash dog, no matter exactly how friendly they are, can establish their training back weeks or months.

Alternatives to Hiking Off-Leash

If you wish to offer your pet dog a lot more freedom to relocate but enabling them to romp off-leash just will not work for them, tha’s ok.

Some canines do not ever get to 100% reliability with recall, they constantly seem worried and scared when off chain, or it might just not a good area for it.

< img src =" https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Well-Behaved-Dog-Off-Leash-on-a-Trail.jpg" alt= "Well Behaved Dog Off Leash on a Trail"class= "wp-image-19741"srcset="https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Well-Behaved-Dog-Off-Leash-on-a-Trail.jpg 1000w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Well-Behaved-Dog-Off-Leash-on-a-Trail-600×400.jpg 600w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Well-Behaved-Dog-Off-Leash-on-a-Trail-768×512.jpg 768w, https://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Well-Behaved-Dog-Off-Leash-on-a-Trail-800×534.jpg 800w"sizes="

( max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px”> There are

a couple ways that you can give them some more flexibility to roam without entirely endangering safety. Initially, you can purchase a lengthy line– an extra-long leash that can be anywhere from 15ft to 50ft long. A lengthy line serves as a leash, but

your canine can quickly go in advance of you or walk off route to smell an interesting bush. With a long line, your canine has the capacity to explore a bit much more.

The fantastic feature of a lengthy line though is that, although your dog may be a distance away, you can conveniently grab completion of the line to bring them back to you. The various other alternative to

treking off-leash is keeping the leash connected to your lap dog yet allowing it to drag out the ground. In this manner you can tip on the leash to

quit your pet dog if you quickly require to regain control. Final Thoughts Personally, I am unsure I’ll ever before trek with my dogs off chain for extended periods of time or constantly. Dachshunds are hounds and reproduced to search so regardless of just how reputable my canines appear, I could not deal with myself if their instinct started, they ran off, and also got hurt or killed therefore.

Also, we typically trek in places with cliffs, unsafe hillsides, and thick brush. The problems can lead to them getting as well as falling a lengthy way hurt or getting embeded an area that I can not access to rescue them. There are some areas I would certainly allow it though as soon as I knew their recall was good (or I would just use a long line up until after that). Places I take into consideration doing it are:

Where the location is vast open and also I can see them from away

Where I’m not bothered with wildlife experiences

Where there aren’t numerous various other (or, preferably no) pet dogs or individuals around

Treking with your lap dog off-leash can be a ton of enjoyable.

Although the training needs a lot of time and effort, it can certainly deserve it.

As a pet moms and dad it’s up to you to decide what’s ideal for your canine, however you also need to constantly be mindful of their safety which of those around you.

source http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/how-to-train-your-small-dog-to-hike-off-leash/

from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.blogspot.com/2020/09/just-how-to-train-your-small-dog-to.html

0 notes

fetwmhbgmwbr · 4 years ago

Text

September 21, 2020

I didn’t get to the second half of the post I wanted to write yesterday, so I’ll try to tackle it now. I’m happy with what distract me, though; my roommate and I got into a pretty interesting discussion of Polish phonology, as nerdy as that sounds. He’s Polish and we’re both half-Linguistics majors, so it’s at least explicable, but it still sounds funny even to me as I wrote that sentence!

To get right to it, I’m going to meet with my professor of Early African American Literature on Wednesday morning over Zoom. She wants to get to know us as well as answer any questions we might have about the course, things we’ve done so far, and things we’re going to do. Here’s what I’ve thought about mentioning to her so far:

We listened to Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize speech in my Intro to Literary Studies class, and it had a similar, sermon-like quality that reminded me of MLK’s “The Drum Major Instinct” that we had listened to in Early African American Literature a few days prior.

Individually, I’ve been reading more Black authors because of the current social climate regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. I brought with me to college James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Notes of a Native Son, as well as Angela Davis’ Women, Race & Class, all three of which I’ve finished. I don’t think I read them critically, though. It was more of a “these are the important texts I’ve heard people recommend, I should read them for the sake of reading them” situation. So, I want to revisit them, and I’d love her perspectives or some guiding questions as I revisit them.

The Angela Davis book in particular I wanted to mention because it gives a pretty thorough overview of the confluence of the gender, racial, and class equality/justice movements, and she talks about lots of figures whose work is on the syllabus for this class. Again, I think I should re-read it to get a better idea of what they stood for, but that actually leads me into my next question.

I’m interested in my professor’s style of reading. I’ve had an internal debate for a while about how I should read these books that I know have had a profound impact on the world, but I can’t see which pros outweigh the cons of any one method.

The first would be to just read it straight through, no notes, not necessarily breaking it into chunks so you have time to reflect on it. The bonus is you can get through books quickly, but the downside is you might miss out on a lot of the significance and meaning of it. I feel like it’s the most appropriate way to read novels, but it’s not suitable for non-fiction and essays like I’ve been reading.

The second is to read less at a time, breaking it into manageable pieces so you have time to reflect on what you’ve understood as well as what you haven’t. But, still no notes. This one is a nice middle ground because it doesn’t necessarily disrupt the reading experience with jotting down notes, but you still build in time to engage with it. The downside, which is even more severe in the last method, is that it takes longer. I generally like what I’m reading, so forcing myself to take it slow and let it sit overnight can be anathema.

The last method is to read in smaller chunks again, and either annotate or take notes as you go. I personally hate annotation, I like my books to look clean so I can re-read them easily, loan them to friends, that kind of thing. But, I could use a notebook or post it notes to jot down my thoughts as I go. This one, I theorize, would be best to actually understand what you’re reading; it’s almost a metacognitive strategy to probe your mind as you’re taking in information to see what connections you make. The downside is, it’s very labor-intensive, so reading for fun would turn more into reading for interest, which is still good but is, necessarily, different. Now that I consider it, though, I don’t think that the smaller sections would bother me then, because I’ve put in the effort to understand it as I go along. I would probably stop when I get tired, and at that point I wouldn’t want to keep going, anyways.

An alternative approach would be to read everything through once, at the pace I want, with no notes, just to get an impression and feel the cadence of the author that I’d miss going analytically. That being said, once I’ve finished it once, I would go through again with a fine-tooth comb and then do the analysis, so I get the best of both worlds. The very clear downside with this one is, I have to read everything twice, and the second time will take a significant amount of time. With longer books, the idea of reading it twice alone makes me irritable. I suppose I could do this method by chapter or section, so that I can still feel the energy of the book but I don’t have to read it start to finish twice.

The last debate I want to settle about reading is the age-old question, should I read two books at once? I did that a lot as a kid, I think with the Percy Jackson series and whatever else I could get my hands on, but now my personality has changed so that I can’t imagine reading two books at once, unless it’s for school. I know some people like to read a serious book and a fun book at the same time, which makes sense to me, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how I would keep everything straight!

The James Baldwin essays I’ve read, as well as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, introduced me to the concept that race is totally arbitrary. Yes, people have different skin tones, physical features, cultures, and customs, but the broad classifications of “white” and “black” are totally made up. Baldwin and Coates call white people some variant of “people who believe they are white,” and I thought that was a very interesting point. I did an exercise in a high school diversity club once where we were asked to write five things that described us on a balloon. When we went around, all of the Black Americans in the room, as well as some Black Caribbean and African boarding students, had written “Black” as one of their descriptors, most Jewish kids had written “Jewish” for themselves, but not a single white kid identified themself by the color of their skin. The point my teacher wanted to make was that race doesn’t actually matter unless it’s been used against you. To relate it to this Early African American Literature course, I’ve been surprised by how little Marrant, Lee, Terry, and Hammon openly discussed race. It could have been a business decision, they might not have been published if they had written openly and aggressively about race. But I also wonder, and it’s the Christian perspective of the sermon pieces and the anti-Native American perspective of the other two that make me think this, if the black and white distinction wasn’t as strong yet. I know that American slavery was already in effect, and had been for more than a century, so I can’t imagine that this was the case, but I’m curious about that. I imagine Angela Davis might say that the distinction hadn’t been made yet because there was no economic (read, capitalist) reason for it: there was no threat to the existing power structure from free Black Americans as long as the Native Americans and non-Christians were bigger outcasts. But, I have no clue if that’s an accurate analysis, or even if Davis would agree with the words I just put in her mouth.

The last possible point of conversation is that I have signed up for the book club my professor is leading, where we’ll read Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. I joined because I’ve always wanted to try out a book club, and the book sounds like it will fit with my current goal of reading stories that, essentially, my parents would never touch. I don’t know how the club works, so I could ask that, and I'm also interested in hearing why they chose this novel out of the whole, wide world of literature.

Now that I’ve written way too much, I don’t think I’ll try to pare down into a plan of what to talk about. I’ve developed my ideas by writing this, so hopefully when I join the Zoom call and say hi, the conversation will flow naturally and I’ll never be at a loss for words.

0 notes

inktae · 7 years ago

Note

You made me super curious about that veganism essay, if you ever feel like sharing, I'd really appreciate it (no pressure though!). I gave up dairy recently because it gave me almost daily headaches and I'm considering going fully vegan (I never really ate a lot of meat to begin with), but I find it really hard to make up my mind. I feel like a lot of the information out there is very us-centric too and doesn't really apply to me, so I'd love to hear a more European/international approach ^^

I did end up translating it, so here you go! :)

a few things I need to point out: I wrote this for a middle school student, so I didn’t delve too much into scientific facts — so please take everything I say with a grain of salt and do your own research if you’re curious, because these are things I learned after reading a lot of studies from certified nutritionists and medical researches.

I also most likely got a little preachy at times (sorry) but please remember that I’m not judging anyone because that is never my intention. I wrote this while keeping in mind that this girl needed it for a school debate where she needed to try and convince people of veganism, which is exactly what I tried to do. ^^” if you are still curious after reading and want to know what kind of documentaries to watch, let me know and I’ll be happy to lead you in that direction.

There are plenty of reasons to approach veganism, or to at least adopt some of the vegan principles into your everyday life; but the most important ones are health, the industry and the planet, and ethics.

Although a healthy diet does not necessarily need to be vegan, a plant based diet can be very beneficial for your body, especially for people with certain chronic diseases, deficiencies or to simply improve your overall health. It has been long since proved that nutrition is tightly linked to the reduction of particular symptoms and the improvement of the quality of life, and a plant based diet definitely carries these benefits. Personally speaking, veganism got rid of my migraines and stabilized my (otherwise disastrous) hormonal situation. It is also proved by nutritionists that a balanced vegan diet, based in real and varied foods, can cover almost every deficiency (except B12, which I will talk about in a second).

One of the myths that worry non vegans the most is the supposed lack of proteins in a plant based diet. This does not suppose any issue at all, as plant based foods are abundant in proteins and it is quite easy to reach the necessary daily intake as long as the diet is varied. A great example are grains — chickpeas, beans, lentils (these in particular are not considered complete proteins as they don’t carry all the amino-acids, but they can easily be completed by including another food that has said amino-acid into your diet, like rice, for example), tofu, tempeh, soy, etc. Plant based proteins are even of higher quality than animal based.

When it comes to supplementation, the only one that is absolutely necessary is B12. This vitamin comes from a bacteria which animals obtain from the ground and the food they’re fed (animals do not have the ability to manufacture vitamin B12), and we would obtain it if we did not wash our vegetables (which we obviously have to do), so it is not necessarily a bacteria that comes from the animals themselves. In some cases they’re even supplemented with said vitamin.

Plenty of people might argue that taking B12 supplements means that it is not a “natural” way of living or that we are not “designed” to be vegan, but in a world where we’re surrounded by technology, where we use phones and cars on a daily basis, what is natural is very relative and what is unnatural does not necessarily mean it’s harmful. The 21th century allows us to be vegan quite easily and that’s what truly matters, not that we were carnivores in the past. It may have been true that millions of years ago it helped us evolve, but we live in a time when we can lead a completely normal life without eating animals, especially if we take into account how harmful and dangerous the industry (industrial farming) has become.

Which leads me to my next point: the industry and the planet. The industry has definitely worsened over the years, as the more it expands and the more its production grows, the quality of the food gets worse and a piece of meat of one hundred years ago is completely different to the one they might sell you today, which is filled with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones… just so the animals grow faster and bigger and taste better. All of this is harmful for the human health (which is a longterm process you might not notice until you’re of adult age. After all, deficiencies take a long time to show up) and it also affects the quality of life of the animals. Unfortunately, there are very few regulations in the industry (both in America and in Europe), which continues to destroy natural landmarks and plays a huge part in the deforestation of the planet. This occurs because the industries need insane amounts of land to be able to grow the crops that serve as food for the animals. If you think about it, it’s quite illogical to destroy so much land to feed the animals that people will then feast on as processed meat full of hormones, instead of directly giving those crops to all the poor people around the world who have no food to get by.

At the same time, it is proved by diverse studies that animal farming produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transport clumped together, which has a huge effect on the planet and global warming. It is also a completely unsustainable system, as the demand continues to rise towards insane levels that the industry can’t even keep up with, which only worsens the deforestation issue. We have reached a point where every second more than three thousand animals are killed in inhuman ways, which only gets worse overtime. All of this is proved and studied through statistics (I really encourage everyone to do their own research on this), but most environmental organizations do not raise awareness as they are sponsored by the same powerful industries (Greenpeace, for example, is sponsored).

(now I get a little graphic on the following paragraphs, please avoid if you’re too uncomfortable about animal torture. Carry on after the *)

When it comes to ethics, I believe that everyone (or most people) would recoil if they saw the living conditions of these animals. As I mentioned before, there are not enough regulations in the industry that look out for the way they live, and the abuse and mistreatment of the animals is quite normal all over the world (even though I did my research through american studies, I was surprised to see that here in Spain it is actually way worse).

These industries only care about selling meat, not the animals. They’re beaten up, tortured, locked in enclosed spaces where they can barely move, they get so fat that their legs break under their weight, the hens get their beaks cut off (they are crammed so close together, they try to peck each other due to stress), and the chicks are gotten rid off by crushing them alive or getting thrown in the trash, where they asphyxiate due to lack of oxygen. It is quite cruel, and there are plenty of videos and documentaries where you can see that this is in fact very real. Earthlings is the most famous one.

Another discussion is related to organic meat, and if it is a good option when faced against veganism. Though it might be true that some companies treat their animals better, it is hard to be 100% certain as the regulations (and advertising tactics) can be quite confusing and ambiguous. In some places of the world it can be legal to say a product is organic just because the cages of the animals are just slightly bigger. From an ethical point of view, veganism is still the better choice. When it comes to health, I have to recognize that experts accept that there are lesser risks by eating high quality meats (except red meat, which is still unadvised by nutritionists) but if you compare how much you would spend a month eating organic meats against a whole foods plant based diet (without any processed junk or vegan substitute meats - they tend to be quite expensive, and that’s where the myth of veganism being expensive comes from) then the latter option is way cheaper and more comfortable.

One last argument I have to acknowledge is that veganism is said to be too “extreme”. In my opinion, it should not be considered something extreme or negative to do something good for your own body and for the planet, where the pros definitely outshine the cons. Meat should not be considered an essential staple into your diet, or something you need to be happy — if anything, it should be something additional, and it is crazy to think how so many people view vegetables that way when it should be the other way around. It should not be extremist to base your way of living around plant based sources, not when our society has forced people to believe that meat is essential for a healthy, happy living when it is far from the truth.

It is true that each case has to be treated differently, because each body is different and certain foods will suit some people better than others, but it is something relatively easy to delve into as long as you do your extensive research and are aware of what you’re doing. Veganism is not extremist at all as long as you have the knowledge and the support of a professional, as any changes in your diet (not necessarily related to veganism) needs to be monitored by a doctor.

Veganism should not be perceived that way — because in my opinion, it is mainly focused on reducing animal suffering in the best way we can. It is not absolute. It is not giving up everything in your life. We cannot solve all the problems of the world, but we can make an effort into supporting one cause and having a positive influence in it within our possibilities. We are only human, and just because we are defending one cause in particular (in this case, animals), it does not makes us hypocrites nor insensitive to human issues. There will always be unjust situations we will not be able to solve, and it is in our hands to choose our own battles.

Being vegan does not mean torturing yourself for it, it does not mean to stop enjoying life or getting obsessed with food just to “live a few years longer”. One argument I always see is that we will die sooner or later, so we have to live the way we want to and in the best way possible without worrying too much about those causes or the way we nourish our bodies. But if you truly want to lead an optimal, happy life, and leave a good print before you leave this world, should it not mean giving your body good, delicious and healthy foods that affect positively both your health and the animals, so you can lead an even better life? it is quite disappointing to see that veganism and a healthy plant based lifestyle are so related with “unhappiness” or “obsessing yourself” when it is the complete opposite. When it is done for the right reasons, when it is done right, it does not suppose any major struggle and it can turn around your life for the better. A well balanced plant based diet can even give you a better emotional wellbeing (scientifically proved), which inevitably comes with more happiness.

It is not extreme, it is simply making an effort (which can obviously be hard at first, but easily becomes natural as long as you do it right). Even just going to a restaurant and ordering the vegetarian menu instead of the one with meat does so much good, because you’re creating demand for those kind of products and are showing the world that there is growing interest in this kind of lifestyle.

And I have to add that even though I do defend veganism, I also defend small steps, and that being conscious of these situations and trying to approach some of the ideals of veganism (like meatless mondays, for example), is already beyond incredible in itself, and it is something anyone could easily do. I am sure that a lot of people would genuinely consider the entire transition if they at least tried some of these small steps and saw how easy and fulfilling it is. The sensation you get when you know you’re doing something good (for yourself and for the planet) when there is no meat on your plate is quite indescribable, even more pleasing than the act of eating meat. There are just too many advantages to this kind of lifestyle, and I promise it is truly worth it in the long run.

#no hate pls #just peace and love #messages #Anonymous

5 notes · View notes

silvokrent · 7 years ago

Text

This isn’t nearly as in-depth as I’d like it to be, but here’s my reaction to firearms legislation, mass shootings, who or what’s “to blame,” and what we should be doing about it.

At this point, honestly, I don’t care what your political stance is, whether or not you think gun legislation will or won’t stop “criminals” (whatever the fuck that actually means) from still getting access to firearms illegally. At this point, all that I care about is that we do something instead of debating every single hypothetical pro and con to any degree of restrictive firearms access. Yes, gun violence is a multifaceted issue, and the motives behind each individual instance of a shooting are going to vary. So if we’re not going to talk about making it more difficult for anyone to buy firearms, let’s talk about the sociopolitical motivations behind mass shootings, and what sort of solutions we as a society are willing to commit to.

The shooter was [insert minority here] that was motivated by [vague generalization of an aspect of their culture]. Okay. So if the attack was done by a perpetrator who had biased, bigoted beliefs that they inherited from their family/immediate cultural influence at home, then maybe we should implement more effective and comprehensive policies in schools that enforce ideological acceptance. Say, for example, that the shooter held misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-black, and anti-LGBT+ beliefs. Here’s a potential solution: legally mandate that schools — colleges, universities, and K-12 private, public, and charter schools — teach their students that women, Jews, non-white Americans, and LGBT+ people have the same human rights as anyone else, and that verbally/mentally/emotionally/physically abusing them in any social environment/setting (work, school, the gym, the bus stop, etc.) is unequivocally wrong. Start teaching children as young as pre-K that these toxic beliefs are not acceptable, no matter what that child’s parents are teaching them at home. Undermine hatred that the child is inheriting from their family. Teach children earlier about privilege and the centuries’ worth of oppression that marginalized groups have experienced and continue to experience, and teach them how to be allies to marginalized groups, like non-neurotypical individuals, or people that are physically disabled. Teach students comprehensive, scientifically-accurate sex ed, that illustrates the differences between biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and that these differences do not get to be treated as “abnormal” or “subhuman” just because they’re not as prevalent or as widely-represented as heteronormativity or cisgendered folks. We should also take the time to educate people that just because you meet a person of a certain demographic with a hateful belief, doesn’t mean they represent their entire group. If rampant Islamophobia has taught us anything, it’s that society likes to create “the great other” to have as a relevant foil for our own values, and as a readily-identifiable enemy, while ignoring the hypocrisies and flaws we deny are a part of our own cultures.

But teaching children/students to accept people of other walks of life goes against my personal beliefs! If the government meddles too much in education, they could easily co-opt learning in the future to push certain agendas. Besides, you don’t have the right to indoctrinate my children with your radical liberal ideas! I wasn’t aware that teaching children to not be dickheads to other people was a radical liberal notion, but fine. Have it your way. And yes, I agree, too much government intervention can have its own problems, in a sense of who’s watching the watchman and making sure they don’t overstep certain boundaries. But having no standardized code that teaches students to accept people from other cultural/religious/ethnic/genetic backgrounds isn’t a solution, either. And frankly, there should be no reason why anyone would argue against teaching our kids that diversity is worthy of acceptance and celebration, not shunning and discrimination. If you’re not willing to enact a solution to fix the motivation behind mass shootings, then we need to make it harder for people with radicalized hateful beliefs to acquire firearms. Either present another plausible solution to reduce mass shootings, or pick one of the aforementioned solutions.

The shooter was a [insert person with a mental illness]. Sane people don’t commit terrorist acts! Ah, yes. The old “let’s scapegoat people with mental illnesses as the perpetrators as these attacks, rather than as the overwhelming victims, in order to avoid talking about gun control.” Very well. If we’re going to continue assigning sole culpability to individuals with anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and other psychopathologies, then that means we need to make medical treatment easier to acquire and less stigmatized. If you have a diagnosed mental illness, then you should be able to access free — or at the very least, cheap and affordable — healthcare to treat your condition long-term, through medication, one-on-one patient-psychologist/psychiatrist therapy, and accommodations in the workplace, school, and so on. People with mental illness should have greater access to resources that protect them from housing and workplace discrimination. We must, as a collective society, learn to not ridicule or make disparaging jokes at their expense, often to the effect of exacerbating their mental illness. We need to learn to not sneer at coping mechanisms, or ridicule someone that has a service animal for emotional and otherwise support. Because if mentally ill people are responsible for these attacks, then that means we should be treating their psychopathologies in order to prevent mass shootings, right?

But I don’t want my tax dollars to go toward the mentally ill! I shouldn’t have to pay to fix their problems. Skirting around the fact that people with mental illnesses didn’t ask to have those “problems” in the first place, what you’re saying is that “here’s a potential solution that could save human lives, but I’m not willing to spend money on it.” If allocating our government tax dollars means that people suffering from mental illnesses get help, and people aren’t as likely to die in mass shootings, then isn’t that worth the expenditure? Either present another plausible solution to reduce mass shootings, or pick one of the aforementioned solutions.

Look. Lax gun laws are not the sole culprit behind mass shootings. The United States is a petri dish of centuries’ worth of culture clash, and the subsequent internalized hatred that comes with over-representation of privileged demographics, and erasure of marginalized people that’ve been stigmatized by the media. The problem is a combination of factors: compassion fatigue, apathy, complacency, a status quo that solely benefits certain groups at others’ expense, and an unwillingness to examine or relinquish our own biases because we don’t want to change. Radicalized violence and terrorism are multifaceted issues, influenced by factors I haven’t even touched on, because it’s late, I’m tired, and frankly I’m not the best person qualified to educate others on a complex topic I’ve only just begun to unravel myself. But I do know that we need to find a solution. We needed a solution yesterday. We needed a solution months ago. We needed a solution decades ago. Every time we are bombarded by senseless bloodshed and death, we go through the ritual of “sending our thoughts and prayers,” and then patting ourselves on the back and congratulating ourselves for doing what we think counts as the bare minimum.

It’s not enough. It’s never been enough.

Whenever someone tries to foster a discussion on gun violence and the underlying issues, the loudest voices in the room (typically our elected politicians) default to the cliché red herrings of “mental illness” and “[person of a certain minority group] committed the act, therefore [their demographic] as a whole is to blame.” And while there have been instances in the past of shootings being linked to specific groups, these generalizations are correlation, not causation. Clearly, pinning blame to any one group — a tactic we’ve been using for years — hasn’t fixed the issue, so we need to come up with a different answer. Revising our education and healthcare systems have the potential to fix so many issues in our country, but arguments are always made for why “it can’t be done.”

“Can’t” means “won’t.” Meaning that people have the capacity to try, but aren’t willing to.

Which brings us back to firearms. Because until we, as a country, are willing to sit down and find a solution for hate crimes and mental illness (the alleged culprits), then we need to make it harder for people to buy military-grade firearms and go on killing sprees at schools, nightclubs, and concerts. Our “right” to buy and stockpile thirty fucking assault rifles without a comprehensive system to account for the whereabouts of those weapons, and the identity of the wielder does not supersede a person’s right to not be shot and killed.

People are dying nearly every other day in our country at a rate not seen in other nations. At the very least, we should at least be willing to ask other countries for help, and try implementing their tactics just to find out whether or not they’d be a viable option for our country. Not wanting people dead as a result of gun violence isn’t a fucking political opinion. It’s not even a contentious ethical debate. It’s doing the right fucking thing. And if you don’t like any of the proposed solutions, then instead of telling me why mine are inherently wrong, offer up one of your own.

#second amendment #firearms legislation #mass shootings #nra #gun control #politics #mental health #mental illness #my posts #i speak

2 notes · View notes

chicleeblair · 7 years ago

Text

Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Author,

EDIT: I am not able to participate in Yuletide this year--I had to forfeit in 2016 due to being unexpectedly hospitalized in Nov/Dec after poorly managing my time, and misreading the rules--I thought the ban could be cleared by submitting a treat OR waiting a year, turns out I have to complete a finished story to be cleared, which I will this year.

All that said, I spent quite a bit of time on this and since I could manage to pinch hint and get to make my requests I’m going to leave my DYW letter here. If anyone feels like writing to these prompts, feel free. I’ll probably reuse them last year, depending on what is written for other people, but I already have plans to nominate a few newer fandoms next year.

Fandoms included: Newsflesh (incl Feedback),

Hi! I’m incredibly excited about Yuletide this year, and I’ve been considering my requests and offers with more thought than I should be willing to admit to this week. There are so many fandoms that I love nominated, and though I’ve learned to be careful about what I offer to write for, I’ve still found myself making detailed mentao pro-con lists, especially since I try not to request fic from the same fandoms I offer to write in. Still, I’ve been surprised by some of the nominations—I only finished The Lonliest Girl in the Universe a week ago, and Lauren James isn’t well-known in the States, despite being one of my favorite authors. Anyway, I think I’ve got my lists figured out now, so the time has come to tell you what it is I love about my favorite pieces of underappreciated media. What an easy project /sarcasm.

DISLIKES Before I get into the fandoms individually, I suppose I should let you know what my squicks are (you know you’ve been in fandom too long when you’re shocked Word doesn’t recognize the word ‘squicks.) None of these are triggers in particular, I’ve got depression, but it’s managed, and I don’t have any major traumas to worry about in particular. I don’t mine NSFW/explicit fic, but it’s also not often my reason for reading. That said, the following tags make me likely to hit the back button: watersports, alpha/omega, knotting, feces, mpreg. I’m not particularly fond of girl!penis as a kink, though it’s different if the character is actually dealing with being trans or intersex.

LIKES One thing I do like that a lot of people don’t is bloodplay, though as there aren’t any vampire stories in my requests it probably won’t be a Thing this year, and I’m good with consensual BDSM.

I’m sure it’s obvious from my reqs that I’m into zombie fiction, though it’s the human side of it I like, whether that’s humans dealing with zombies, or zombies attempting to deal with their humanity. One thing I will say is that I’ve chosen fandoms that all rest on detailed world-building, and if you want to write a fic that explores the edges of these universes without necessarily including the listed characters, I’m happy with that. Anything that explores how the world has changed/how a certain person has been affected by the big change is fine with me!

I’m bi, with a deeply abiding love for f/f fic. I definitely have het ships that I’ll fill you in on, but I still love stories where those ladies interact with their female friends. I’m very pro kid!fic, I adore time stamps, alternate POVs, epistolary fic, social media fic, anything that explores the world that an author has already built. I wasn’t ever the kid simply rubbing their Barbies together, I acted out Barbie and Ken meeting while they babysat Kelly and Tommy. (True story: these stories were also written down in a notebook I carried around at school. Basically, I started writing Barbie fanfic at the age of eight.)

I’ve received some great Yuletide gifts via letters where I’ve spelled out specific desires, but this year I don’t have specific stories I want written so much as worlds I’d like to see explored further. What are they? Glad you asked, friend!

Newsflesh (Feed, Deadline, Blackout, Rise, & Feedback)

This isn’t the most obscure fandom in the world, by any means, since it’s written by Seanann McGuiare under her Mira Grant penname, and because Mark Oshiro of Mark Does Stuff chronicled his journey through the original trilogy. That said, I’m pretty obsessed with the world of these books, and have read and reread all the books and novellas, and I’m not as into the main ship as most readers seem to be. I’m adopted, so the relationship between Georgia and Shaun I don’t love incest in general, though a high school obsession with Life with Derek means I can’t cast stones. However, I nominated this fandom in the first place, and I picked the character pool especially so that even if I didn’t end up requesting it, other participants might take the chance to explore other characters, specifically the characters introduced in Feedback. Their story takes place parallel to Feed; while the Masons are covering the Ryman campaign, Aislinn North, the Irwin who adores chasing zombies, and her companions are on the election trail with Senator Shannon Kilbourne. I like Feedback due to the diversity of its cast—Mat, the teams’ techie and makeup blogger, is nonbinary, and Ash is married to Ben, the Newsie, on paper, but really in a relationship with the final member of their team, fiction-writer Audrey). But another feature I love about this book? Unlike the original trilogy, it was written after the date when Grant sets the Rising—July 2014. Because of this, the book contains some amazing pop cultural nuggets that just make the whole thing seem more real, for instance Ash mentions that Frozen merchandise is a rarity, since the Rising happened mid-PR campaign, and Taylor Swift’s pre-2013 music is “before she turned political.” (If only. Tay and JLaw disappointed me last year.) Like I said, I’m not married to you using these characters. Heck, if you want to explore Taylor Swift’s life, post-Rising, that’d be cool with me. That said, I chose Ash, Emily Ryman, Maggie, and Georgia because they are awesome female characters, and I’d love to see them interact. I can see Ash and Maggie having known each other/dated at some point—though post-canon I am pro-Maggie/Alaric, though less crazy about Ash’s girlfriend—and any situation where they could meet would make a great fic, especially if both Georgia and Ash have to deal with their prejudices towards each other. Also, in regards to Maggie, I wouldn’t mind knowing more about Alisa, Alaric’s sister, especially because the Masons take her in from a shelter in Ferry Pass, which is part of my hometown of Pensacola. Emily is painfully underused, being born pre-Rising and developing retinal KA, and all of them are just badasses. Basically, this world is awesome and I think more people need to be exposed to Feedback, and it’s Irish spitfire of a POV-Irwin. Another feature of this universe I’m interested in is the kids who grow up post-Rising. Grant looks into this with blog posts and flashbacks, but even the description of the post-Rising orphanages in the “All the Pretty Little Horses” short story from Rise makes me want more.

Parasitology Parasite, Symbiont, Chimera

Another Mira Grant, another apocalypse. People have accused her of revamping the same story again, but in spite of having some similar characters and circumstances Sal’s story is nothing like Georgia or Ash’s. Of course, I adore the similarities in story-telling—ephemera is my kryptonite—but Sal’s development is unique to Mira Grant books, if not to books in general, and her relationship to her own humanity/lack thereof is fascinating. I especially love that she spends the whole series in a committed relationship, one that she is confident of, and that in spite of only technically having existed for six years she is incredibly sure of herself. I nominated this one as well, and chose Sal, Juniper, Doctor Cale, and Tansy because they are strong ladies with complex stories that have lots of room to be explored. Dr. Cale, Tansy, and Sal to a degree, deal with disability—and this is particular interesting for Tansy & Sal, since they are aware of the fact that they are making a choice to keep this malfunctioning human body. Juniper is a little girl, yet she and Tansy are learning to be people together, Sal is learning to be a mother, and in a way so is Dr. Cale. Also, eventually Juniper will have to decide whether or not to engage with the humans of her generation, and that could be fascinating. That said, Grant hasn’t told nearly as many stories in this universe, since the trilogy relies far more on Sal herself than Newsflesh relies on the Masons, so I’d love to see an exploration of how the parasites and chimeras affected other parts of the world. I think the fact that the symbiotes have brought humanity so close to eradicating illness is something that could be explored further, too, especially when you consider that the parasites disabled their inventor, and that if the Mitchells hadn’t been attempting to hide Sally’s epilepsy, Sal might not have been born. There’s also the fact that the other doctor who is close to Sal—Cale’s son, Nathan—does not use the implants at all, suggesting that at their core physicians with their hearts in the right place know that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, that maybe humans need illness and disability to thrive.

In the Flesh

I really debated requesting this, since it’s a fandom I think I could write in, but I liked the idea of letting my requests adhere to a theme, and this series was the first piece of zombie media I ever consumed (pun intended). There have been many great fics in this fandom, they are often AU and revolve around Kieren’s relationships—I’m all for people celebrating canonically queer characters, but to me neither of those ships were what drew me into the series. I didn’t nominate ItF myself, and I wish I had because I would have included Amy Dyer. As it is, I don’t mind if you mention either of Kieren’s relationships, but I only asked for Kieren and Jem because they’re the characters I care most about, truly. Honestly, I actually care the most about Jem, because I think she’s an incredible character who went through so much to protect her family and is forced to face her fears every day in order to have a relationship with the brother who made her who she is—in so many ways. I am also fascinated by the idea of a world that has faced the apocalypse and is having to move forward. The little details that serve to remind us that society had to hit the pause button, such as the lack of cell phones, are really intriguing to me, as well as the issues students like Jem face having to return to school after war. This world also opens the door for an exploration of what life might be like for children&teens who came back—Henry was a missed opportunity IMO—and while I don’t mind if you don’t bother incorporating the storylines Dominic Mitchell has said he would include in a season three, the idea of Jem making a friend with PDS (as opposed to PTSD, that acronym similarity needs mentioning) would be so great. Again, though, feel free to take this world and run with it, no need to stay in Roarton—I wonder what adulthood for Jem would be like, with Kieren never having aged, for instance?

World War Z

Another of my nominations. I don’t know why, but I am obsessed with this book, specifically the audiobook. Max Brooks has talked about how he based this book on an oral history of WWII, and I think the parallels between the two wars are deep if you look closely—the idea of total war, the amount of work on the home-front, the inefficiency of assuming what won against one enemy will suffice against another, children escaping unimaginable violence, the nuclear bomb survivor, so much more—but what I really loved is how Brooks really fills in the details from each POV he uses. Without naming celebrities, Brooks clearly sets it in the Bush-era, which is interesting to me but probably not affect fic, but shows how well the world is crafted. The imagery that comes from the Australian astronaut who spent the war on the ISS is particularly poignant to me, especially the way he describes them discovering the burrowing zombies. I also get chills from Jessica’s story, the girl whose parents dragged her up to Canada, and when she discovers the Spongebob sleepover, because it’s a mark of how bizarre our culture and entertainment would seem, and how our comforts could disappear in the blink of an eye. I do think that this book is lacking in female POVs, particular ladies who might not be soldiers but were fighting the war in their own way. I loved Joe Mohammad’s POV, too, but not everyone would need to be part of a patrol group or militia to survive. I’d love to see what the situation was like for city-dwellers, or people who were in the areas not getting supplies due to the Reddecker plan. What about the Israelis, what was it like in the country during this isolated period? There have been some great fics exploring issues like euthanasia and abortion in that period, and I’d love to see an issue like that expanded. On the other hand, there is a lot that could come from looking into the world post-war, describing what the Narrator goes through to get these stories, or what kinds of stories he might hear after the initial book is published—a history of the rebuilding would be interesting since in this world the threat isn’t completely gone. Brooks has written two short stories that are explicitly in this world (a couple that are borderline) and one of them, Closure LtD, and I don’t want to spoil it, but it really makes me wonder what other kinds of industries would emerge in a post-zombie war world.

Inhuman Condition

Also my nomination, this is a webseries that did not get NEARLY the amount of viewers or fans it deserved. The author has created this incredibly interesting alternative history, and I don’t think everyone who watched even knows how much detail was put into it. For instance, I discovered a blog (https://angrydeadgirl.wordpress.com) written from the POV of Clara—my favorite character—wherein she analyzes TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, except it’s Grey’s Anatomy reimagined through the lens of this world, and there is NOTHING I love more than inter-textual references like that. There are other in-universe shows that I have honestly begged to see for real, and via the show we only get a taste of these details. I’d also love to know more about how the existence of zombies and lycans affected history aside from the terror attacks we know of from the series. I’d also love to see more about Kessler, what got her into working with other-humans, whether there is a personal connection that we’re not told, more about her daughter, Mira, who has grown up in a world where the truth is known, there’s so much in there to mine. I didn’t nominate Tamar, the character who seems more superhero than supernatural, because to me her story seems to fit into this world less than Clara and Linc. Not that I don’t like her, I did, but while I totally believe they could all exist in one universe—I read Marvel, after all—her condition doesn’t seem to be in the same category, so the backstory would be different. Lycanthropy and Clara’s form of zombiism both seem to be medical conditions, to a degree, and while Tamar’s issues definitely parallel mental illness, it’s a different issue. I wouldn’t mind seeing her or others like her, just that I think the dynamics of lycan/walker-type conditions. I really appreciate how, like In the Flesh, this series allows the conditions to be a metaphor for real life issues, without erasing those issues. One of Clara’s blog entries, for instance, mentions that there are cases of people being killed for not informing sexual partners of their condition, and this is explicitly related to people with HIV who have faced similar violence. Also, Linc and Kessler are both explicitly bisexual, and in my mind Clara is non-straight, too, and that’s a reason I included Mira because WHY NOT? I nominated Frank because after seeing a fic that shipped him and Clara I got interested in what it would be like to have to spend all your time with this vibrant girl who is so afraid of becoming a monster, I don’t ship them necessarily, but I am interested in knowing more about him. This is the one fandom where I am kind of tied to having the canon characters front and center, but if you want to explore this world through a different lens, I’m open to it.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

I really, really thought about using this slot for iZombie, because it’s one of my favorite things and fits the theme, but I read The Loneliest Girl in the Universe a few weeks ago, and am THRILLED with the idea of finding other people who love it. I also considered offering to write for it, but I do not have confidence in my ability to calculate transmission delays or describe space physics. I mean, it’s basically a YA version of The Martian featuring an MC with anxiety who writes fanfic. WHAT MORE DO ANY OF US WANT? Throughout this book I was terrified that J would turn out to be an AI, but his actual backstory basically broke my heart, as did the reveal of Romy’s history. I really wish her mother had survived, and I would like to see more of her in Romy’s memories or maybe in the logs/archives now that Romy might be open to looking into them. I would love to see her asking Molly about them, or reading/watching her parents’ reports or journals as she builds a new world with Issac. I also want to know about Issac Evans. Who is he? What happened with him and J? Will he and Romy be MFEO, or simply besties who raise babies? What are the other adults on the ship like? Does Romy find a different person to love? Is it a girl? I’d also LOVE LOVE LOVE to see Romy’s life from the POV of an Earth dweller. You see, DYW, I am a huge fan of several family vlogs; there are babies I have watched grow up via the internet, and I am DEEPLY invested in their lives. NASA would be crazy not to have gotten the world to rally around baby Romy, and some of them probably still read her fics. That’s the thing, though, this book includes her fic, and imaging fic from 2067 makes me want to see more of their social media, and to know how it affected this next group of astronauts. Also, since it turns out that J lied about the war and the collapse of the world’s governments, I’d love to see what the world is actually like. What else is NASA doing? Does the entire world freak out when they find out what happened with Romy and J, or only Molly? Who is Molly? Did she suspect J based on how well she knows Romy? I have a need to know.

That is it, oh Yuletide Author, way too many of my thoughts about Alternate Worlds, most of them infested by the undead. As I’ve said, I would be happy with stories that feature the characters I requested, or that don’t at all, but unless mentioned I’m not crazy about canon-alternatives.

#dear yuletide writer #yuletide letter #parasitology #newsflesh #in the flesh #world war z #inhuman condition #the loneliest girl in the universe #yuletide 2017 #disqualified :(

2 notes · View notes

vmcc20-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Let’s Talk $$$

The 2017-2018 Student Government Budget. A cause for celebration, for boos and hisses, for headaches, for innovation and forward-thinking plans. Last night at Assembly the proposal passed with 24 in favor, 4 opposed, and 2 abstentions. However, following the meeting, there has been a plethora of outcry, misconceptions, and just general confusion about what happened and why. I am here to provide my OWN INSIGHT into what all happened coming into the meeting, what kind of discussions sparked up during the debate, and why I ultimately voted in favor of this budget.

But first, a little context, firstly about what we were facing coming into this budget, and secondly regarding the Student Life fee that we all pay once a year.

Last year when developing a budget, the Slate at the time recognized a huge amount of accumulated rollover money from past Student Life Fees that went unspent in their respective allocated budgets for whatever years (aka SGFC or SAAP or the Uncommon Fund or whatever else didn’t use all of their funding that was allocated for them). The result was almost a quarter of a million dollars of sitting money that the Slate decided to redistribute the entirety of in one academic year (whether or not this was the most ideal plan of action is up to individual interpretation). The result was a 2016-2017 budget that had around $250,000 more to spend, and thus items received additional funding, with the Uncommon Fund specifically getting double the amount than it did the previous year. However, given that this year we did not have a quarter of a million in roll-over just lying around, we were now faced instead with an almost $250,000 deficit from which we had to cut funding in order to zero out.

In terms of the Student Life Fee, for the 2015-2016 school year, 72% of the undergraduate student life fee went to Health & Wellness, while 24% went to Student Activities and 4% went to Campus Activities. 100% of the Student Activities Fee in the 2015-2016 year went to the Central Fund for Student Activities, in which 74% goes to Student Organization Funding, 7% goes to Student Organization Training and Support, 5% goes to Campus Community Building Programs, 4% goes to Leadership Development Programs, 1% goes to Diversity and Inclusion Programs (an unfortunately low number and one I hope to address in the future), 3% goes to New Funds for 2015-2016, and 6% goes to Student Government. (all of this information is from a Student Life Fee 2015-2016 presentation by Michelle Rasmussem which can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzoWIPgVk7oWblBtZmExVTlxRVU/view)

Another point of context before I continue, a number of constituents have raised concerns about the exorbitant increases in Graduate School funding. However, what is important to note is that the grad student population is substantially larger than the undergrad student population, and the GC Travel Fund and GC Social Fund are the only two funding committees that GC has, whereas in the undergraduate division we have a multitude of funding entities such as the Community Service Fund, the Sports Club Fund, the SGFC, and the newly instated Community Excursion Fund, just to name a few, which is why the two funding entities for GC seem substantially larger in contrast to CC. Additionally, going into this meeting, we had been instructed by Michelle Rasmussen that $20,000 was to be added to the Student Government Budget and that it was to go to Graduate Council in order to proportionally match the increase in the student body size for the grad student population.

Aside from GC, the only other entities that got an increase in funding were the Coalition of Academic Teams (which oversees funding for things such as College Bowl, Debate Society, Mock Trial, MUN, the Chess Team, etc.) , the Program Coordinating Council (which oversees funding for the Council on University Programming, Doc Films, Fire Escape Films, the Major Activities Board, University Theater, and WHPK Radio), and SGFC (which distributes the largest segment of the Student Activities Fee for RSO use in which any RSO can request funding for any event). All three of these entities collectively finance a HUGE proportion of student life and student activities on this campus, and by increasing the budgets on these we are able to ensure that the majority of individuals have more accessibility to funding for events, programming, etc.

Now onto budget cuts. First, the Student Organization Support (CLI) and the CSRSO Administrative Support (UCSC) cuts were due to the fact that the University decided to fund the two things themselves and thus take that funding off of our hands. This allowed for $168,400 to contribute towards zeroing out our deficit, however cuts still had to be made in order to reach the almost quarter of a million that was spent, which leads us to the next (and most controversial) cuts: the NYT Readership Program and the Uncommon Fund.

To begin, the NYT Readership Program is a $33,000 program that allows for 150 newspapers to be printed and circulated around campus, and can be accessed by anyone whether or not they are University affiliated. Considering that newspapers (including the NYT) can be accessed through the school library, and that UChicago emails allow for a hefty student discount for both online and printed versions of the NYT, we collectively felt that this was the least cost effective item in the budget, and given that 150 papers (assuming that none are taken by non-university individuals) only grants access to a very small portion of the student population, we decided to cut it. In the future, it is entirely possible to reinstate this funding and revamp the Readership Program, however we did not have the financial means to continue to fund it without making substantial cuts to other entities that we found were more necessary than a printed newspaper (SAAP, SGFC, CAT, etc).

Onto the Uncommon Fund. First and foremost I want to establish that the Uncommon Fund is a finance committee that is written into the very bylaws of Student Government and therefore cannot be dissolved as an entity without revising the bylaws themselves, which was not done at this meeting and will not be done any time soon. This means that although the Uncommon Fund did not get funding for the 2017-2018 school year, the Uncommon Fund as an entity still exists and can and will therefore still have a standing committee. Rather than funding projects however, the committee will take this year to reflect on the mission and marketing of the Uncommon Fund, and figure out strategies to make it more accessible, more universally applicable (given that GC funded about 1/3 of the Uncommon Fund but rarely was able to benefit from the projects that were selected), and more appealing to students, considering that applications were at a record low this past year, and feasibly fundable projects an even lower number. The only possible way that we would have been able to maintain funding for the Uncommon Fund would again have been by making cuts to other groups (SGFC, PCC, CSF, etc), which I and many felt were at the end of the day more of a necessity to fund than the Uncommon Fund. In addition, given the number of funding entities that I listed above (CSF, SGFC, SCF, the Deans Fund, etc.) there still exists the ability for students to apply for funding for certain initiatives or activities that they may like to see implemented (although I can’t guarantee a Reg Bounce-house would be approved through SGFC). Our hope and anticipation is that by Spring of the 2017-2018 school year, we will have enough money to be able to re-allocate funding to the Uncommon Fund so that it can resume business as usual by the 2018-2019 academic year.

The decision to fund this was a difficult one for me, and one I spent a long time grappling with, alongside my other representatives. We spent almost an hour going back and forth about the pros and cons, what could be cut instead, how we could re-re-distribute funding, etc., but at the end of the day enough of us saw this as the best plan of action to take. I want to note though that this was not a unanimous vote and that a number of representatives either voted against or abstained from voting for this budget, and that is just as valid of a response to have, given that they were present in the discussion and provided all of the facts and were able to draw a conclusion from them.

You do not have to agree with me on my decision to support this budget, in fact I encourage you to ask me questions, challenge my decision, and demand explanations from myself and your representatives. However, the majority of the uproar that I have witnessed (primarily on social media) has been due to a misunderstanding, miscommunication, or just sheer lack of knowledge about the reasoning behind this decision. Therefore I wanted to supplement all of you with a deeper context as well as my insight, from which you can draw a more informed conclusion (either in support or in objection to this decision).

As a final note, I request that you please be kind to your representatives. This decision wasn’t easy for any of us, and at the end of the day we’re all still students; students with lives outside of CC (crazy right?), with midterms and p-sets and papers, with feelings and sensitivity and hopes and fears, students who at the end of the day are just trying their best to do what we sincerely believe is the best option for all of you and for us as well as students who are just as directly affected by this as you are. You may disagree with our decision, but I strongly believe that that does not necessitate or warrant attacking and undermining SG as an entity or the individuals that make it up, whether satirically or genuinely. However, I understand that I cannot stop criticism from happening entire, and that publicity is a part of the expectations as a rep.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to all that we can continue to do to work to improve SG and the College as a whole. If you are interested in collaborating with me in the following year with developing and implementing a plan to re-finance the NYT Readership Program or the Uncommon Fund, do not hesitate to reach out and let me know!

Yours,

Veronica Myers, 2020 College Council Representative

1 note · View note