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houroftheantichristwolf · 4 years ago

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Lesbian Politicization

This was published 1990 in a book called Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Dyke Separatist Politics for Lesbians Only and illustrates exactly the long-standing issue with women appropriating lesbianism, using their political beliefs to try to define female homosexual existence in relation to opposing men. The agenda, of course, is to say fuck males and to fight the ever elusive and ever changing culture of patriarchy.

That’s 100% relevant and helpful for actual homosexual females....not.

I’ll make this short though, this is just to show how feminists been appropriating lesbians and applying their values to lesbian existence.

In the 1980’s, a decade of reactionary politics, femininity became an accepted value among many Lesbians. Even many politically radical Lesbians, who I would most expect to support Lesbian self-love and self-respect, who usually call male bullshit for what it is, began to openly admire feminine ways of dressing and acting. Femininity! A patriarchal hype if there ever was one.

Lesbians who didn’t look the way you personally think is more useful for your cause probably didn’t care to make a political statement out of their existence. The point of lesbians seeking lesbian communities is to find other lesbians - with the exception of those who WANTED to seek out political radical lesbian communities. That is not an inherent aspect of our existence, and to be honest, it’s not even a large part of it as women appropriating lesbians usually populated those communities. Here is a recap of the origins of radical “lesbian” separatism: *** [ In the late 70s a group of lesbians in Leeds, known as revolutionary feminists (RFs), made a controversial move that resonated loudly for me and many other women. They began calling for all feminists to embrace lesbianism. Appealing to their heterosexual sisters to get rid of men “from your beds and your heads”, they started a debate, which reached its height in 1981 with the publication of an infamous booklet, Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism (LYE). In this, the RFs wrote that, “all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women. It’s no surprise that the booklet was so controversial. “We think serious feminists have no choice but to abandon heterosexuality,” it reads. “Only in the system of oppression that is male supremacy does the oppressor actually invade and colonise the interior of the body of the oppressed.” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/30/women-gayrights “Political lesbianism originated in the late 1960s among second wave radical feminists as a way to fight sexism and compulsory heterosexuality. Sheila Jeffreys helped to develop the concept when she co-wrote “Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism”[3] with the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group. They argued that women should abandon support of heterosexuality and stop sleeping with men, while encouraging women to rid men “from your beds and your heads.”[4] Heterosexual behavior is seen as the basic unit of the patriarchy’s political structure, lesbians who reject heterosexual behavior therefore disrupt the established political system.[5]Ti-Grace Atkinson, a radical feminist who helped to found the group The Feminists, is attributed with the phrase that embodies the movement: ‘Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice.’[6]” ] ***

Lesbians’ acceptance of anything “feminine” is part of the weakening of Lesbian politics—a Lesbian parallel to the right-wing trend of het politics.

LOL good. Being a lesbian does not mean representing anything political. Also what the fuck? This is where queer activists got their penchant for calling lesbians Nazis lol. Where’s that meme that’s like, anyone I don’t like is a Nazi? lol great homophobia, Queen/dumbass.

Those Lesbians who act out the feminine model and claim it’s a contribution to Lesbian culture, a flowering forth of their “real selves,” are of course Fems

So feminine lesbians’ real selves aren’t acceptable within your framework because they trigger your contempt of gender presentation that you yourself do not have to take part of? But your “real self” - a non-lesbian pretending to be a lesbian - is commendable because you want other lesbians to act and look exactly how you do which supposedly is off-putting to patriarchy AKA you use our sexual orientation to say fuck you to men? I think not.

The het media is full of stories about the het feminist who “realizes that she doesn’t have to give up being a woman to be a success in life,” who “regrets having tried to be like a man,” and is now “rediscovering the excitement of feminine seductiveness, the fun of dressing up in high heels, make-up and skirts, and her deep need for the joys of motherhood.”

“Realizes she doesn’t have to give up being a woman to be a success in life”; “and her deep need for the joys of motherhood.” So you understand femininity = heterosexuality. This is the 80s/90s, I wonder what her opinion is now that ‘femininity’ has changed: heterosexual women wear gym clothes, lift weights, have short hair, wear no make up or minimal make up etc., and men love it. And yet I see feminists also say that heterosexual women who are like this are still trying to please men and so are still feminine even though what they’re doing and how they’re looking is not “feminine” according to the original perception. So what’s the truth about ‘femininity?’ It’s equating it to anything that heterosexual men find appealing, which changes constantly. You really want lesbians to spend time to think about how to be as unappealing to males as possible when they’re not even relevant and so don’t dominate our every thought and action (unlike you maybe because you’re not homosexual and so have to try harder?)? Please, get real.

She’s a threat to the Big Lie of “feminine woman,” and so men and their women collaborators make up all kinds of ridiculous, hateful fictions to explain away her existence. The pressure is meant to humiliate and bully her into accepting femininity, and it must put her through soul-shaking self-doubt, even if she knows other Butches.

While I do know this happens, the reason behind that is homophobia 100%, being “masculine” appearing is a red marker of homosexuality. The threat is the big lie of heterosexuality. “Feminine” lesbians were assaulted when with their partners or if found out that they are indeed homosexual, they were just less of an obvious target than “masculine” women. It’s not Oppression Olympics, this should be used to understand hate crimes against homosexual women.

Meanwhile, girls who accept femininity—the vast majority, unfortunately—are accepted as “real girls” and encouraged to take pride in their feminine ways. There are degrees of femininity, of course. Some Fem girls accept the complete emaciated drag queen sex-object ideal while others take on just enough feminine identity to still be accepted as real girls.

“Real girls.” I was definitely acknowledged as a “real girl” when I was still more “unfeminine” in my appearance and not out than I am right now being out. What degree of ‘femininity’ am I considered to exhibit now according to feminist praxis, who knows. Either way, my relatives disagree that any amount of femininity would make me a ‘normal’ female. My mother was sad toward the end of her life because she felt conflicted that I wasn’t a ‘real’ female. You know what would’ve changed her perception? Being with a man and having kids.

It means spending time, energy and money on nail polish, perfume, hair-do’s, dresses, diets, body-shaping exercises, poses and games; fantasizing yourself as the center of sexual attention, making everything into a sexual game, getting yourself further and further away from female reality, from real female Lesbian power. It means identifying more and more with het values and choosing to see yourself through men’s eyes.

I thought femininity was clothes, makeup and seeking to attract men. Then it’s wanting a family and diet and exercise, which aren’t exclusive to heterosexual men and women. But because heterosexual males find that appealing in their lives it’s considered feminine? So, again, “femininity” is anything heterosexual males find appealing in females. Got it. And that answers my question about what her thoughts probably are on contemporary “femininity.”

Most importantly, choosing to be an obvious Lesbian is about living with integrity. A Butch’s choice to resist femininity is the choice of a female who’s being true to herself, choosing to be as alive to her female self as possible, regardless of the punishments inflicted on her as a result. I find in that resistance a key to Dyke power, Dyke beauty and Dyke love.

A lesbian being an actual lesbian - not pretending to be one or basing her existence on her capability to spite heterosexual males and females - and living her damn life is living in integrity period. Associating a lesbian’s life with political intent and political values has no integrity, is manipulative and is suspect as hell.

#Catch me NOT getting pigeonholed into any fakebian separatist activism #I'll keep doing me...you do you...but when you try that political B.S. I will say something #Do not project onto us and use political ethics to do it stop using lesbians as your coping mechanisms

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sickhumor · 4 years ago

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Redneck taglines

Back in the late 1980s - early 1990s, telecommunications took place over telephone lines and communal computing existed mostly on Bulletin Board Systems (before the WWW). It wasn’t uncommon to sign off a message or an email with what was called a “tagline” - usually a one-line expression of good wishes - or a joke. Here’s a compilation of redneck taglines I saved from a BBS listing posted in 1994.

...URA Redneck if your dad walks you to school because he's in the same grade.

...URA Redneck if directions to your house include, "Turn off paved road.”

...URA Redneck if after making love you ask to roll down the car window.

...URA Redneck if Jack Daniels makes your list of admired people.

...URA Redneck if less than half the cars you own run.

...URA Redneck if Redman Chewing Tobacco sends you a Christmas card.

...URA Redneck if the primary color of your car is bondo.

...tRA Redneck if the taillight covers on your car are made of tape.

...URA Redneck if there's a wasp nest in your living room.

...URA Redneck if truckers tell your wife to watch her language.

...URA Redneck if you answer the door with a baseball bat in your hand.

...URA Redneck if you can have sex without spilling your beer.

...URA Redneck if you can't visit relatives without your car getting muddy.

...URA Redneck if you come back from the dump with more than you took.

...URA Redneck if you consider "Outdoor Life" deep reading.

...URA Redneck if you consider a family reunion a chance to meet women.

...URA Redneck if you drove to elementary school.

...URA Redneck if you entertain with tapes of championship bowling.

...URA Redneck if you entertain yourself for an hour with a fly swatter.

...URA Redneck if you entertain yourself for an hour with a bug zapper.

...URA Redneck if you've ever lost a tooth opening a beer bottle.

...URA Redneck if you get an estimate from the barber to cut your hair.

...URA Redneck if you get Odor-Eaters as a Christmas present.

...URA Redneck if you get your oil changed by your barber.

...URA Redneck if you had to remove the Marlboro to kiss the bride.

...URA Redneck if you have "dress" boots.

...URA Redneck if you have a civil war chess set.

...URA Redneck if you have a Hefty Bag instead of a passenger window.

...URA Redneck if you have a picture of Elvis on velvet in plain sight.

...URA Redneck if you have a velvet bedspread.

...URA Redneck if you have any relatives named Elmer or Jed.

...URA Redneck if you have more appliances in the yard than in the house.

...URA Redneck if you have more than twelve dogs on your porch.

...URA Redneck if you have more than two brothers named Bubba or Junior.

...URA Redneck if you have to move the transmission to take a bath.

..,URA Redneck if you hold a frog and *it* worries about getting warts.

...URA Redneck if you keep your thermostat on 85 in the winter.

...URA Redneck if you own a homemade fur coat.

...URA Redneck if you own more TVs than books.

...URA Redneck if you prefer car keys to Q-tips.

...URA Redneck if you quit your job to avoid paying child support.

...URA Redneck if you record WWF Wrestling while you're at work.

...URA Redneck if you skipped school in the 8th grade to vote.

.,,URA Redneck if you think BMW is the call letters for a radio station.

...URA Redneck if you think cow tipping should be an Olympic sport.

...URA Redneck if you think Ernest is funny.

...URA Redneck if you think Volvo is part of a woman's anatomy.

...URA Redneck if you use more than one can of hairspray per week.

...URA Redneck if you voted Tammy Bakker as "Year's Best Dressed Woman".

...URA Redneck if you want to be a disc jockey when you grow up.

...URA Redneck if you've been arrested for getting relief in an ice machine.

...URA Redneck if you're entertained by a 6 pack and a bug zapper.

...URA Redneck if you're holding a beer in your wedding picture.

...URA Redneck if you're turned on by a woman who can field dress a deer.

...URA Redneck if you've ever BBQ'd Spam on the grill.

...URA Redneck if you've ever bought a used cap.

...URA Redneck if you've ever cut your grass and found a car.

...URA Redneck if you've ever given rat traps as a gift.

...URA Redneck if you've ever raked leaves in your kitchen.

...URA Redneck if you've ever rolled your riding lawn mower.

...URA Redneck if you've ever shot a deer from inside your house.

...URA Redneck if you've ever used lard in bed.

...URA Redneck if you've ever vacationed in a rest area.

...URA Redneck if you've ever worn a cowboy hat to church.

...URA Redneck if you've ever worn a tube top to a wedding.

...URA Redneck if you've never paid for a haircut.

...URA Redneck if you've spray painted your girl's name on an overpass.

...URA Redneck if you've worn something to church having sequins on it.

...URA Redneck if your all-time favorite movie is "Cannonball Run".

...URA Redneck if your appearance got you fired from a construction job.

...URA Redneck if your baby's favorite teething ring is a garden hose.

...URA Redneck if your baby's first words are "Attention K-Mart shoppers".

...URA Redneck if your belt buckle is heavier than 4 lbs.

...URA Redneck if your best suit is a Budweiser cap and an orange vest.

...URA Redneck if your brother-in-law is also your uncle.

...URA Redneck if your bumper sticker says "My other car is a combine".

...URA Redneck if your car has never had a full tank of gas.

...URA Redneck if your car's rear tires are twice as wide as the front.

...URA Redneck if your chain to your wallet is as big as your dog chain.

...URA Redneck if your coffee table used to be a telephone cable spool.

,..URA Redneck if your dog can smoke a cigarette.

...URA Redneck if your dog sleeps closer to you than your wife does.

...URA Redneck if your father is in the same grade as you.

...URA Redneck if your father made your personalized license plate.

...URA Redneck if your favorite Chinese meal comes from "LaChoy".

...URA Redneck if your first grandchild is born on your 26th birthday.

...URA Redneck if your funeral has more pickup trucks than cars.

...URA Redneck if your Home library is a Bible and the Farmers' Almanac.

...URA Redneck if your home needs a hitch.

...URA Redneck if your house warming involves removing the tires.

...URA Redneck if your idea of health food is pork rinds.

...URA Redneck if your kid takes a siphon hose to "Show & Tell".

...URA Redneck if your kids are described as "dumb as a brick".

...URA Redneck if your Levi's have Skoal can prints on the pockets.

...URA Redneck if your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand.

...URA Redneck if your living room sofa is covered by a foam backed throw.

.,.URA Redneck if your local ambulance has a trailer hitch.

..,URA Redneck if your mother has "ammo" on her Christmas list.

...URA Redneck if your neighbors have ever asked to borrow the lightbulb,

...URA Redneck if your pocket knife's been referred to as "Exhibit A",

...URA Redneck if your porch collapses and kills more than seven dogs.

,.,URA Redneck if your primary source of income is the pawn shop.

...URA Redneck if your sister subscribes to "Soldier of Fortune" magazine.

...URA Redneck if your truck cost more than your house.

...URA Redneck if your wedding looks more like a family reunion.

...URA Redneck if your wife ever burned out an electric razor.

..,URA Redneck if your wife has a beer belly and you find it attractive.

..,URA Redneck if your wife keeps a can of Vienna sausage in her purse.

...URA Redneck if your wife's best shoes have steel toes.

...URA Redneck if your wife's job requires her to wear an orange vest.

...URA Redneck if your will states all your possessions be sold at auction.

...URA Redneck if your 9x9 living room has a Spanish décor.

...Redneck foreplay: (Nudge) "Are you awake?"

...Redneck foreplay: "Get in the truck, bitch."

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redantsunderneath · 4 years ago

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On Analysis - Introduction (the “why” part)

“He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him.” ― Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

Maybe some broader personal context would help understating why in god’s name I write shit about how Age of Ultron is a remake of Eraserhead and Marvel crossovers are inherently about self hating creatives going to war with editorial. Like everyone else, I love a well told story but want to be surprised - seeing Star Wars is still the single biggest event in my life in supercharging my interest in narrative art. But from early on, I had this left brain/right brain conflict going on. I was super interested in details and loved anything that required getting all the pieces to understand (that one episode of Speed Racer where they explain all the buttons I only saw once but I must have excitedly told everyone in the schoolyard about it 2 or 3 times) and I’ve always been down for the even the shittiest world-building that makes you dig for details (maybe this why Star Wars’ gesturing at a larger canvas lit my fuse so hard and how my introduction to Marvel comics became the second stage rocket booster 3 years later - see my retropseudonostalgia post). This also is probably common, especially here.

But it’s the right brain impulse became an overriding unconscious attractor. I saw The Man with the X-Ray eyes very young and had some serious nightmares, but mostly remember actually wanting to recapture that dread. This became a pattern. Anything that unsettled me or made me feel weird, my brain interpreted as a good experience. 1977 was a real flashpoint for me: Star Wars, sure, and 8 is the right age for Thanatos to start haunting you, but I also got super fucking sucked in to the Prisoner and imprinted on BBC’s Dracula (especially the baby eating scene where I remembered the brides actually eating the baby on camera until the clip showed up on YouTube and, turns out, it was just a cut to a flame effect and the baby eating was all in my and Q anon’s head). The thing that unites these later two is a the feeling of Unheimliche, or something - a sort of out of body experience due to transgressive touching of something in the reptile brain, recognizable but hard to formulate in language.

Again, not saying this is an unusual experience, but I sought after this diencephalonic impact aggressively and spent years chasing this particular dragon before I figured out what I was doing. Rank and file horror didn’t cut it because I wanted not only to feel it but to understand what it was telling me and doing to me, to wrestle with it, so needed to something resonant to be there. Kubrick’s one neat trick was having an entirely rational approach to relentlessly assembling this kind of ineffable experience… depth of meaning by design. I think Christopher Nolan is only popular because we have so few architect directors today so we’ll take a B- stab at it (though the thematic waters he sails on are a bit shallow). This is what I was doing receptively, wanting to cognitively reverse engineer the texts that moved me and autopsy my reaction . There were elements the things that got to me had in common - there was an existential abjection that felt like a kind of rapture, a transgressive daring in showing me something I shouldn’t see, a experience of Mark Fisher’s version of the weird and/or the eerie, but most of all a feeling that there was a story underneath there being told in an abstract language that I innately understood but my conscious mind couldn’t quite get to.

On the other side of my brain, I was sparring with narrative structure and was captivated by the way periodical narrative produced this fuzziness and that trashy or disreputable forms were better at doing some really complex things. After a late 70s of consuming everything I could, like sitcoms no-one remembers, 1930s and 40s franchise B movies, Godzilla, ABC hourlongs (it was the time that Fantasy Island and the Bionic Woman strode the airwaves), etc - just absolute garbage - Comics hit me in 1980 and hijacked my brain for half a decade. This mostly satisfied that architectural impulse, though, and the need for the uncanny reasserted itself as a shifting obsession to pop/rock music, “hard” books, and catholic moviegoing (and I guess some of that right brain stuff is intrinsically libidinous and the pubertal timing seems right).

My childhood book consumption till 77 was all atlases, history, and encyclopedias. 77 to 83 it was SF/Fantasy. The one work of fiction I strongly remember as a small child was There’s a Monster at the End of this Book which is a work of absolute intersubjective terror that implicates the crap out you - I never bought the ending and saw it as a necessary contrivance to make it OK for kids but I repeatedly endangered Grover anyway, enjoying the transporting dread, and learned meta in Kindergarten as a bonus! But in 1984 (during the Sarajevo Olympics, that’s etched in my brain) I read Moby Dick, which was my first formative struggle with understanding subliminal story. I was already in love with symbolism and conversant with nuts and bolts MFA program bullshit, as any ironically pretentious HS student would be, but reading that and writing about it and other “tough” books (especially the next year in Junior English where I learned to write, full stop) taught me I could think about this stuff and hold these abstractions in my head long enough to see what was happening under the waterline.

Movies really dominated the late 80s, though, and I became obsessed with everything from the Godfather to Die Hard, but I was only just peaking under the hood, until the left brain brought me back to TV and and thinking about narrative structure. Twin peaks (and Wild at Heart) made me a real Lynch fan and I sensed what I sought was in that direction, but it wasn’t until I watched the whole show and movie in one weekend in 1997 that I had my conversion experience. Moby Dick opened the door a bit, but that weekend kicked it in. My first real resource for understanding (other than HS English, a couple of hits of acid, and dorm room bull sessions with sort of smart people) was alt.tv.twin-peaks where there were many amateur scholars trying to understand the red room and above the convenience store scenes, complete with ascii maps.

The final inciting event was Inland Empire. The thing about David Lynch that is so perfect for my hobbyhorses is that he works within a scene entirely intuitively, connecting to really primordial stuff, and puts everything together by “painting” with feelings instead of paint, never thinking about it, just knowing when it’s right. But he usually works with a writer and editor who helps shape everything into something at least fitfully comprehensible for someone wanting to follow the surface story. You get the general idea and can meditate on the areas that are clearly not “real” in some sense and require either aesthetic surrender or a lot of thought and one hell of an interpretive toolkit - you can see the frame even if you don’t understand every bit of the picture. Inland Empire, which he made with no other behind the camera people, is pretty much all the mind-blowing bits with very little skeleton, an abstract painting with no frame. This forces you, if you want to understand in any way beyond just enjoying the moments viscerally, to effort like hell. The project of this for me, the reason I started this Tumblr, was using the internet for procuring and learning to use interpretive tools and, in so doing, writing my way to constructing an understanding of this one movie. As a result, my approach to all narrative art was changed. I figure it is time to unpack this into a framework and try to recall the specific things that helped me get here.

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crazycoke-addict · 4 years ago

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Nightstalker: A Hunt for a serial killer review

I wasn’t going to make a review on the Nightstalker documentary. Because there’s nothing to say, I didn’t had any opinions on it. I’m not someone who makes review straight after I watch a movie or show or even a documentary unless I read something that’s related to the subject and this is when my essay mode goes in. So if you aren’t aware about what I’m talking about. On January 13, Netflix released a new documentary series called Nightstalker: The Hunter for a serial killer. The series talks about how a notorious serial killer name Richard Ramirez was responsible for the murders and terrorisation during the 1980s in California and San Fransisco. He killed 13 people and they were all mixed I mean he didn’t exactly had a main target so anyone could be next which made it more terrifying especially when he’s breaking into your home. I’m gonna start with what happened in the documentary and also the point of it than there are other stuff I want to discuss because of an article I read.

The first episode starts with the 80s was a good era especially in California. They mentioned how the pope and the queen visited, the Olympics happened and the crime was at its low. This is contrast to the Ted Bundy Tapes documentary when they said that the 70s was a dangerous era. However they also mentioned that it wasn’t safe because on the other side spectrum that’s when the danger comes in. Throughout the series, they kept his name hidden until the last episode when the detectives found out about his name. One of the things I’ve noticed whenever people have their opinion is how they don’t go into much detail about Ramirez himself like his childhood or what made him do all those things. I personally understand why people would feel that way but the whole documentary is hearing it from the detective perspective and even the survivors and the victims of families who participated in the series.

The victims are always brushed off while the serial killers have books written about them, movies created about them and even documentaries about them. The series gives you more new information that you probably didn’t know and the fear that he spread throughout California and San Fransisco. It’s also nice to hear stories about some of the victims like Joyce Lucille Nelson who was a single mother and grandmother. She was described as being an active person who would do cart wheels in her backyard like her age was going to hold her down. The fact that she fought off Ramirez as much as she could shows that she was also a tough person. I read about the case and just thinking about him being chased down by neighbors who were living where he was sound poetic when you think about it. Because here’s someone whose breaking into your house which is where you’re in the most vulnerable state than later on, you hear about it on the news. You buy a gun to protect yourself despite may not know how to use one, you do defense class and you basically do everything you can in order to protect yourself but also protect your love ones. You’re living in constant and you don’t know when it will end so when you hear that person who has hurt and kill people is somewhere in your neighbourhood that fear becomes rage and you don’t want to cower but bring him down so he doesn’t hurt another living being ever again.

Screen rant published an article called ‘What Netflix’s Documentary Leaves Out About Richard Ramirez’ and the whole point of the article was how the series left out like Ramirez’ motive and not going into detail about his abused childhood but like mentioned there wasn’t about him but rather about the victims, the civilians and the detectives he caused a lot of harm to both physically, emotionally and even mentally. I understand going into the mind of the serial killer and the only to do that is to look into their childhood because Evil is made not born. Despite being a notorious serial killer, he wasn’t well known like Ted Bundy. There’s a chance you would known from American horror story whether it be the episode from Hotel or even him being in 1984. However I had a problem when they go into detail about why him killing people could be leaked to his childhood by saying he killed man because his father was abusive and he went after women because his mother didn’t protect him from abuse despite being abused himself and him attacking little kids is because everything that happened to him when he was a child. Given the background, a lot of kids around the world come from abusive homes but not all of them didn’t turn out to be horrible people. In my opinion I think his cousin is more to blamed than anything because when he started hanging out with his cousin, he was 12 years old and the age where boys start going through puberty is between 9 and 14. So here’s a kid whose going through hormones and his cousin is showing him graphic pictures of women having their heads cut off and the graphic details went into saying he and his troop raped them and killed them.

It also gives you an understanding on why sometimes Ramirez would go after Asian people. Although he killed 13 people and they were mixed, about six them were of Asian descent. He was also obsessed with Asian women to point where it was fetishisation. During an interview, he asked the reporter if he could sent him a soft core picture book of Asian girls on bikinis and/or clothing items. They also mentioned how because the series doesn’t go deeper into his childhood, Ramirez was simply born evil and wether or not he even had remorse. It’s still unsure if he ever had remorse, however anyone who got in close in contact with him like detectives, reporters believed that he didn’t had any remorse to what he did.

Richard Ramirez was sentenced to death row and would spent 2 decades in prison until June 6th 2013 where he died of natural causes. It’s been reported that his skin looked like a highlighter green which is very interesting. Anyways that’s what I wanted to say.

#serial killer #nightstalker #richard ramirez #true crime

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lavenderlemonrose · 4 years ago

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Book Recs #2

Week 2, list 2! Still not sure how many books I’ll talk about each week - for now, I’m going to stick with seven.

the girl from everywhere + the ship beyond time - heidi heilig: YA time travel duology, following a girl on a ship that can travel anywhere in space and time as long as she has the right map. Combines historical fiction, contemporary, and fantasy settings, and discusses quantum physics, the effects/ethics of time travel, and colonialism (particularly with regard to 1800s Hawaii). Excellent friends-to-lovers romance.

technically, you started it - lana wood johnson: Loose YA contemporary retelling of Daddy-Long-Legs, told entirely through texts - a girl who goes to school with two boys with the same extremely long name starts communicating with one of them, but they never meet up in person. Demi and bi rep.

the hero and the crown - robin mckinley: Older (published in the 1980s) YA fantasy about a princess who has never fit in at court and who trains herself to become a knight and fight dragons. Featuring a sassy retired warhorse and a hot, mysterious sorcerer. (Does have v. tame on-page romance between cousins).

immoral code - lillian clark: YA contemporary about a group of friends that decide to commit a cyberheist after one of them is denied admission to MIT because of her estranged billionaire father. Fantastic friend dynamics, two different romance subplots, aro/ace rep, excellent banter, hacker girls, an Olympic-hopeful swimmer, a flamboyantly punk visual artist, and a sweet and supportive boyfriend - what more do you need from a heist book? TW: bullying, aphobia.

prince charming - rachel hawkins: YA contemporary romance about a Florida girl whose sister gets engaged to the crown prince of Scotland and who is thrown into a world of etiquette, hot noble boys, tabloids, and high expectations. A lighter alternative to American Royals.

the charlotte holmes series (a study in charlotte, the last of august, the case for jamie, a question of holmes) - brittany cavallaro: YA contemporary series following the modern day descendants of Sherlock and Watson (Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson) as they get involved in a series of connected mysteries, most revolving around their elite Connecticut prep school. Featuring a complex relationship that evolves constantly across all four books, equally complex mysteries, poetic writing, and superb characters. TW: Off-page rape, discussion of sexual assault, discussion of suicide, murder, discussion of drug use, drug addiction, and mild self-harm.

i, claudia - mary mccoy: YA contemporary retelling of I, Claudius following a disaffected teenage historian who becomes involved in her school’s Senate and Honor Council, a notoriously corrupt system. She vows to use her power wisely and help the school, but is faced with scandals, tyrants, and secrets, all while trying not to let her power corrupt her as well. This is one of my favorite YA books I’ve ever read, and I cannot recommend it enough. TW: Sexual assault (not to the MC), violence, and animal cruelty (that’s all I remember, but I do recommend looking up full trigger warnings if necessary).

That’s it! I’ll be back next week with more (so much more. Someone literally asked me the other day if I had book recommendations, and I sent them a list of 15 just to start.)

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acrostical · 4 years ago

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Safe Haven

On December 8, 1941—the day after “a date which will live in infamy”—then-president Aurelia Henry Reinhardt wrote a letter to all Mills families. With the hindsight of nearly 80 years, it’s a surreal read; the main point of the letter was not to offer solace or organize war efforts, but to reassure parents that the Mills campus was unlikely to face any danger from a Japanese attack. “The English Channel is 26 miles wide; New York is 3,500 miles from Europe; California is 5,500 miles from Japan and 2,500 miles from our nearest possession in the Hawaiian group,” she wrote. “May I assure you that there exists no reason to change in any way the schedule and curriculum of this college in the spring term which begins Monday, January 5.”

At that point, no one knew that many students of Japanese descent would soon opt to leave Mills, hoping to avoid separation from their families as they were forced into internment camps across the United States. In the years leading up to World War II, President Reinhardt had approached a number of European artists and intellectuals to offer them a place at Mills as the Third Reich marched across the continent and sent to concentration camps anyone it deemed a threat, including Darius Milhaud and other notable figures in the College’s history, but that welcoming spirit couldn’t protect some of her own students.

When it comes to political and cultural forces outside the campus gates, the College has historically been limited in what it can do to protect its students. But as an institution, Mills has long welcomed members of marginalized communities, and outside restrictions have not altered the campus culture of acceptance.

In recent years, the term “sanctuary” has become a buzzword in our charged political environment. But in a historical sense, the concept originated with the sacred. In ancient Greece, spaces that honored the gods provided some measure of immunity to individuals escaping laws of the state (with limited success), and in Rome, Romulus established a zone on Capitoline Hill where asylum seekers from other places could find refuge. For centuries, places of worship have operated as spaces where people could take shelter, and it’s still happening today—churches around the world house migrants seeking to avoid deportation back to war-torn homelands.

The idea of sanctuary gained popularity in the United States in the 1980s when Central Americans began to flee their home countries in the wake of civil unrest, but Mills took on the responsibility of offering it 60 years earlier in the early days of World War II. In the 1961 book Aurelia Henry Reinhardt: Portrait of a Whole Woman, Chaplain George Hedley wrote that President Reinhardt contacted the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars (later Foreign Scholars) to invite intellectuals to Mills as soon as Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. Hedley noted that legends were told of Reinhardt physically transporting those scholars to campus herself.

A number of professors soon made their way to Oakland, including Alfred Neumeyer, who taught art history and directed what was then the Art Gallery, and the married couple Bernhard Blume and Carlotta Rosenberg. A German playwright, Bernhard headed up the German Department at Mills until 1945, and Rosenberg was a proponent of educating workers and women.

Of course, the most well-known Mills expats were the musician Darius Milhaud and his wife, Madeleine. In speaking with the author Roger Nichols in 1991, Madeleine detailed her family’s reaction when the Nazis entered Paris in June 1940: “We knew… that Milhaud was among the first on a list of intellectuals to be arrested because he was well known in Germany as a Jewish composer, and also because he did not share their right-wing ideals.”

The Milhauds made their way to Lisbon with plans to fly to New York, using an invitation from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to obtain visas. But upon arrival in Portugal, their plane tickets were declared invalid because they had been bought with French francs. The three—Darius, Madeleine, and their son—were just about to board an American freighter to cross the Atlantic when a telegram arrived with an offer to teach at Mills. The San Francisco-based French conductor Pierre Monteux had contacted President Reinhardt after learning that Milhaud was fleeing to America and connected the two.

Milhaud cabled his acceptance of the position and, a few months after arriving on campus, Dean of Faculty Dean Rusk (later US Secretary of State during the Vietnam War) wrote to the State Department to plead his case for Milhaud’s continued residency in the United States, which hinged on his history of contribution to the arts. Milhaud taught on and off at Mills from 1940 until 1971.

Milhaud’s influence on the Music Department (and the rest of the College) is well known, though he was not the only academic who molded Mills in indelible ways during this time. Helene Mayer, a champion German fencer at the 1928 Olympics, was studying at Scripps College when Hitler rose to power in her home country. She then enrolled at Mills for a master’s in French. While on campus studying for her MA and, later, teaching German literature, she founded the Mills College Fencing Club, jump-starting an organization that lasted for decades. And it’s to the credit of these scholars that the German Department at Mills built a strong enough foundation to eventually send many of its students abroad as Fulbright scholars.

The situation with students of Japanese descent was not nearly as easy to solve, however, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishing internment camps less than three months after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Alumnae who were at Mills during the attack remember that day as a sunny one, with word of the incident filtering in as they arrived back in their residence halls after Sunday chapel service. Japanese American students soon found their freedoms curtailed bit by bit, starting with an Army-ordered curfew that restricted their movement even on the Mills campus.

May Ohmura Watanabe ’44, who was born in California to American citizens, wrote about her experiences in multiple issues of the Quarterly. “I remember Dr. Hedley, the chaplain, was very upset and angry. I can still feel his hand tightly holding mine, his body slightly bent forward as he hurried to look at the curfew proclamation posted on the telephone pole just outside the campus,” she wrote in 1985. “He even took me to the Army’s headquarters in San Francisco to protest and to state his disbelief. All in vain.”

Watanabe soon left Mills and returned home to Chico so that she wouldn’t be sent to a different internment camp than her parents and brother. She spent a year at the Tule Lake Relocation Center near the Oregon border, then was released as part of a program allowing some detainees to work or attend school in special approved zones. Watanabe was allowed to transfer her credits to Syracuse University, where she studied nursing. “I remember the special arrangements Mills made for me before evacuation to take my exams in Chico supervised by my high school dean,” she wrote.

The late Grace Fujii Kikuchi ’42 made a similar choice to leave Mills to avoid separation from her family. As a senior, she was more easily able to bring her time at Mills to a close, though it wasn’t a happy time. “My professors at Mills had arranged for me to take my [exam] at a nearby high school,” she wrote in the same Quarterly issue. “All I know is that I was graduated in absentia with my class. Not to be able to attend my commencement after four hard years of work was a bitter disappointment to me.”

The frustrations of the Mills administration during this era were captured in a play by Catherine Ladnier ’70, which she based on actual letters President Reinhardt received from students who left the College due to World War II, including Japanese American students in internment camps. Titled A Future Day of Radiant Peace, the play details the personal turmoil these students experienced as they abandoned their bustling lives at Mills for the uncertainty of the camps. It also demonstrates what little power anyone on campus had to prevent the exodus.

In the aftermath of the war, however, Mills was able to provide sanctuary to several students whose home countries were suffering. Catherine Cambessedes Colburn ’47 and Noramah Sumakno Peksopoetranto ’56 traveled to the College from France and Indonesia, respectively. In the spring 1997 issue of the Quarterly, Colburn wrote about the strangeness of going from a country recovering from war to a land of plenty.

“Mills had sent a list of what I would need, and I owned next to none of the items, nor could I get them. Coupons, given out rarely, were required to buy anything. Besides, the stores were next to empty,” she wrote. “I exchanged my wine ration with a friend for her fabric coupon and my cigarette ration with another for hers, and got enough material for two clothing items.”

Peksopoetranto earned her opportunity to attend Mills through a one-year scholarship from the Edward H. Hazen Foundation. At the end of the year, Dean Anna Hawkes offered her room and board for a bachelor’s degree in education; she spent that summer staying in the home of Librarian Elizabeth Reynolds.

On October 29, 2018—two days after 11 were killed in a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—President Elizabeth L. Hillman sent an email to the Mills community. In it, she harkened back to the College’s history of providing sanctuary to Jewish scholars during World War II and the inspiration they provided to generations of students. “Higher education institutions like Mills have a special role to play in creating and sharing knowledge across boundaries of faith, race, gender, and background,” she wrote. “We can only fulfill our mission when everyone in our community is safe, respected, and able to grow and learn.”

In the last few years, President Hillman has sent a number of similar emails to the campus community after attacks, in the United States and abroad, that have targeted historically marginalized groups. According to Dean of Students Chicora Martin, the typical campus response finds its roots in Mills history. “Whenever an incident happens, we’re among a community where people may not always know what to do, but they are prepared to do something,” they said. “It’s part of our culture.”

“In times of immense crisis and identity-based violence, there is this depth of emotion and despair, but also a desire to be in community,” says Dara Olandt, campus chaplain and director of spiritual and religious life. “It has been very moving for me to see the ways in which students have offered leadership and shown up for each other.”

Olandt attributes the campus-wide attitude of acceptance and protection to the College’s past religiosity—in particular, President Reinhardt was the first woman moderator of the American Unitarian Association. (Olandt herself was ordained by the Unitarian Universalist church.) The chapel “is a refuge, and a place of deep hospitality. That’s what the forebears [who created] this chapel were really about,” Olandt says. “There’s power in this symbolic place where people are welcome in the fullness of their lives, no matter their identities.”

She also counsels those who travel to Mills from outside the country and hail from distinctly different societal and religious backgrounds than their US-born peers. That demographic has naturally been part of the student body for decades, but provides a different set of challenges due to the requirements of F-1 and J-1 student entry visas. Dean Martin serves as the principal designated school official on the Mills campus, so they are the first point of contact for the US government. “Every year, we have someone who can’t make it here because they can’t get a visa,” they say. “There are lots of restrictions with international students, and there’s a lot of documentation that you have to provide just for them to do normal-ish things, like getting a Social Security card or a driver’s license.”

Over the last four years, the legal status of undocumented students has been called into question across the country, and as a Hispanic Serving Institution, Mills has been prompted to respond. Under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which began in 2012, undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US before they turned 18 could be granted renewable two-year periods where they would not be deported. When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, he pledged to end the program—and set off a chain reaction at colleges and universities across the country, which became known as the “sanctuary campus” movement.

On November 16, 2016, President Hillman was one of hundreds of signatories to the Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, which underscored the contributions that its recipients have made to college communities across the country. “America needs talent—and these students, who have been raised and educated in the United States, are already part of our national community,” the statement reads. “They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future.”

Hillman also joined with more than two dozen college leaders in December 2017 as founding members of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which advocates for fair treatment of DACA and international students, and she continues to contribute to amicus briefs compiled by the alliance on behalf of DACA students.

In practical terms, Martin says that Mills provides grants to affected DACA students to cover the legal paperwork required to renew their statuses, and the College will provide financial assistance to any undocumented student in the same amount the student would have received from a Pell Grant, which is a federal program and therefore off-limits to non-citizens.

But in terms of sanctuary? If immigration officials asked Mills to turn over student records, the College is theoretically protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits the disclosure of student information, including immigration status, to parties beyond those that need to know for the purposes of that student’s education. Nothing like that has happened yet, but administrators say that it’s really not the point. The last few years have, in the end, cemented the kind of institution Mills wants to be.

“We were asking questions about our own values. The government’s now actively not supporting [these] students, so we have to come out very strongly with concrete statements and actions that clarify for our community where our values lie,” Martin says.

“Aurelia Reinhardt was deeply motivated by her values, which had roots in her religious and spiritual background,” Olandt adds. “She was very much anchored in a spirit of service and what we call today solidarity with marginalized folks. How can we uphold the best of humanity and live a moral and ethical life in the face of challenge?”

#writings

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Sugar Ray Leonard

Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956), best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed from 1977 to 1997, winning world titles in five weight divisions; the lineal championship in three weight divisions; as well as the undisputed welterweight title. Leonard was part of "The Fabulous Four", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of Leonard, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler.

"The Fabulous Four" created a wave of popularity in the lower weight classes that kept boxing relevant in the post-Muhammad Ali era, during which Leonard defeated future fellow International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Hearns, Durán, Hagler, and Wilfred Benítez. Leonard was also the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses, and was named "Boxer of the Decade" in the 1980s. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1979 and 1981, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1976, 1979, and 1981. In 2002, Leonard was voted by The Ring as the ninth greatest fighter of the last 80 years; BoxRec ranks him as the 14th greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound.

Early life

Leonard, the fifth of seven children of Cicero and Getha Leonard, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was named after Ray Charles, his mother's favorite singer. The family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was three, and they settled permanently in Palmer Park, Maryland when he was ten. His father worked as a supermarket night manager and his mother was a nurse. He attended Parkdale High School, Leonard was a shy child, and aside from the time he nearly drowned in a creek during a flood in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, his childhood was uneventful. He stayed home a lot, reading comic books and playing with his dog. His mother said: "He never did talk too much. We never could tell what he was thinking. But I never had any problems with him. I never had to go to school once because of him."

Amateur career

Leonard started boxing at the Palmer Park Recreation Center in 1969. His older brother, Roger, started boxing first. Roger helped start the boxing program, urging the center's director, Ollie Dunlap, to form a team. Dave Jacobs, a former boxer, and Janks Morton volunteered as boxing coaches. Roger won some trophies and showed them off in front of Ray, goading him to start boxing.

In 1972, Leonard boxed in the featherweight quarterfinals of the National AAU Tournament, losing by decision to Jerome Artis. It was his first defeat. Later that year, he boxed in the Eastern Olympic Trials. The rules stated that a boxer had to be seventeen to box in international competition, so Leonard, only sixteen, lied about his age. He made it to the lightweight semifinals, losing a disputed decision to Greg Whaley, who took such a beating that he wasn't allowed to continue in the trials and never boxed again.

Sarge Johnson, assistant coach of the US Olympic Boxing Team, said to Dave Jacobs, "That kid you got is sweet as sugar". The nickname stuck. However, given his style and first name, it was probably only a matter of time before people started calling him Sugar Ray, after the man many consider to be the best boxer of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson.

In 1973, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship, but lost to Randy Shields in the lightweight final of the National AAU Tournament. The following year, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Lightweight Championships. Leonard suffered his last two losses as an amateur in 1974. He lost a disputed decision to Anatoli Kamnev in Moscow, after which, Kamnev gave the winner's trophy to Leonard. In Poland, Kazimierz Szczerba was given a decision victory over Leonard, even though he was dominated in the first two rounds and dropped three times in the third.

Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Light Welterweight Championships in 1974. The following year, he again won the National AAU Light Welterweight Championship, as well as the Light Welterweight Championship at the Pan American Games.

In 1976, Leonard made the U.S. Olympic Team as the light welterweight representative. The team also included Leon and Michael Spinks, Howard Davis Jr., Leo Randolph, Charles Mooney, and John Tate. Many consider the 1976 U.S. team to be the greatest boxing team in the history of the Olympics. Leonard won his first four Olympic bouts by 5–0 decisions. He faced Kazimierz Szczerba in the semifinals and won by a 5–0 decision, avenging his last amateur loss.

In the final, Leonard boxed the great Cuban knockout artist Andrés Aldama, who scored five straight knockouts to reach the final. Leonard landed several good left hooks in the first round. In the second, he dropped Aldama with a left to the chin. Late in the final round, he again hurt Aldama, which brought a standing eight count from the referee.

With only a few seconds left in the fight, a Leonard combination forced another standing eight count. Leonard was awarded a 5–0 decision and the Olympic Gold Medal. Afterward, Leonard announced, "I'm finished...I've fought my last fight. My journey has ended, my dream is fulfilled. Now I want to go to school." He was given a scholarship to the University of Maryland, a gift from the citizens of Glenarden, Maryland. He planned to study business administration and communications. He finished his amateur career with a record of 165–5 and 75 KOs.

Achievements

1973 National Golden Gloves Lightweight Champion, defeating Hilmer Kenty

1973 National AAU Light Welterweight Championship runner-up, losing to Randy Shields

1974 National Golden Gloves Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Jeff Lemeir

1974 National AAU Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Paul Sherry

1974 North American Championships Gold Medalist, defeating Robert Proulx

1975 National AAU Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Milton Seward

1975 North American Championships Gold Medalist, defeating Michel Briere

1975 Pan American Games Light Welterweight Gold Medalist, defeating Victor Corona

1976 Olympic Light Welterweight Gold Medalist, defeating Andrés Aldama

Olympic Results

1/32: Defeated Ulf Carlsson (Sweden) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/16: Defeated Valery Limasov (Soviet Union) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/8: Defeated Clinton McKenzie (Great Britain) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/4: Defeated Ulrich Beyer (East Germany) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/2: Defeated Kazimierz Szczerba (Poland) by unanimous decision, 5–0

Finals: Defeated Andrés Aldama (Cuba) by unanimous decision, 5–0

Change in plans

Juanita Wilkinson, Leonard's high school girlfriend, told him she was pregnant in the summer of 1973. They decided to have the baby but marriage would be put off until after the Olympics in 1976. Leonard would continue to pursue his Olympic dream while she and the baby, Ray Charles Leonard Jr., lived with her parents. When Leonard boxed in the Olympics, he had a picture of Wilkinson taped to his sock.

Shortly before the Olympics, Wilkinson had filed an application to receive $156 a month in child support payments from Prince George's County, Maryland. She named Leonard as the father and the county's state attorney's office filed a civil suit against Leonard to establish paternity and get support payments for the child. Leonard learned of the suit several days after returning home from the Olympics. The headline in the Washington Star read, "Sugar Ray Leonard Named in Welfare Dept. Paternity Suit".

Wilkinson went to the Olympics to watch Leonard box, but she did not tell him about the suit and never asked him for any money. "I didn't feel like being bothered by all those complications by asking him for any money for support", she said. Leonard pledged he would support his son, even if he had to scrap plans to attend college.

Leonard had hoped to get lucrative endorsements following his gold medal win, but the negative publicity from the paternity suit chased off any big commercial possibilities. To make matters worse, his father was hospitalized with meningitis and his mother suffered a heart attack. With neither parent able to work, with his child and the mother of his child to support, and without any endorsement opportunities, Leonard decided to become a professional boxer.

Professional career

Early professional career

When Leonard decided to turn professional, Janks Morton introduced him to Mike Trainer, a friend of his who was an attorney. Trainer talked 24 of his friends and clients into underwriting Leonard's career with an investment of $21,000 to be repaid within four years at 8% interest. Trainer then made Leonard the sole stockholder in Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc. Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer, was brought in to be Leonard's trainer and manager. Many of the people being considered wanted absolute control and a cut somewhere near the manager's traditional 33%. Dundee had a different proposition. Although he would prescribe the training procedures, he would leave the day-to-day work to Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton. He would also choose Leonard's opponents. For his services, Dundee would get 15% of Leonard's purse.

Leonard made his professional debut on February 5, 1977 before a crowd of 10,270 at the Civic Center in Baltimore. He was paid $40,044 for the fight. His opponent was Luis "The Bull" Vega, whom he defeated by a six-round unanimous decision. After the fight, Leonard paid back his $21,000 loan to the investors.

In his fourteenth professional fight, Leonard fought his first world-ranked opponent, Floyd Mayweather, who was ranked seventeenth. The fight took place on September 9, 1978. Leonard won by a tenth-round knockout. A month later, Leonard defeated his old amateur nemesis Randy Shields by a ten-round unanimous decision.

On August 12, 1979, Leonard knocked out Pete Ranzany in four rounds to win the NABF Welterweight Championship. The following month, he made his first title defense against Andy Price. Price, an up-and-coming contender who was sponsored by Marvin Gaye, had a reputation for prolonged bouts in earlier fights and was believed by sports reporters to defeat or give a long fight to Leonard. Although Price landed multiple good blows, Leonard knocked him out in the first round, advancing his record to 25–0 with 16 knockouts.

First world titleLeonard vs. Benitez

Leonard fought Wilfred Benítez for the WBC Welterweight Championship on November 30, 1979, at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. There was a capacity crowd of about 4,600. Leonard received $1 million and Benitez, a two-division champion with a record of 38–0–1, received $1.2 million.

It was a highly competitive and tactical battle. In the first round, Leonard rocked Benitez with a left hook that came off a jab and right cross. Late in the third, Leonard dropped Benitez on the seat of his pants with a stiff left jab. More embarrassed than hurt, Benitez got up quickly. Benitez started improving in the fourth, slipping numerous punches and finding the range with his right hand. "I wasn't aware I was in a championship early because I hit him so easy", Leonard said. "But then he adjusted to my style. It was like looking in a mirror".

In the sixth, there was an accidental clash of heads, which opened a cut on the forehead of Benitez. Blood flowed down his forehead and the bridge of his nose but stayed out of his eyes.

Leonard landed the harder punches and had Benitez hurt several times late in the fight, but Leonard couldn't put him away. Benitez was very slick. "No one, I mean no one, can make me miss punches like that", Leonard said.

Going into the final round, Leonard led by scores of 137–130, 137–133, and 136–134. The two went toe-to-toe in the fifteenth. Late in the round, Leonard dropped Benitez with a left. He got up, but after a few more punches, the referee stopped the fight. The time was 2:54 of round fifteen.

The Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring named Leonard "Fighter of the Year" for 1979.

Leonard vs. Green

Leonard made his first title defense in Landover, Maryland, on March 31, 1980. His opponent was Dave "Boy" Green. The British challenger had a record of 33–2. In the fourth round, Leonard knocked Green out with a devastating left hook. Leonard called it "the hardest single punch I ever threw."

The Brawl in Montreal

On June 20, 1980, Leonard returned to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal to defend his title against Roberto Durán before a crowd of 46,317. Durán, the former Undisputed World Lightweight Champion for 6 1/2 years, had a record of 71–1 and was the #1 welterweight contender and considered the best "Pound for Pound" fighter in the world. Durán received $1.5 million and Leonard, working for a percentage of the closed-circuit gate as well as a guarantee, received over $9 million.

Angelo Dundee counseled Leonard to box, to move side to side and not to get caught on the ropes. However, Leonard decided to fight Durán's way. "Flat-footed", he said. "I will not run."

Durán forced the issue and took the fight to Leonard, cutting off the ring and denying Leonard space to fight his fight. Durán attacked at almost every turn. Leonard battled back again and again, but he had to work just to find room to breathe and swing, at times simply to survive. In the second, Durán rocked Leonard with a left hook, sending him into the ropes. Leonard started to do better by the fifth round, finding some punching room and throwing numerous multi-punch combinations. The two fought with great intensity throughout the fight. According to Bill Nack:

It was, from almost the opening salvo, a fight that belonged to Durán. The Panamanian seized the evening and gave it what shape and momentum it had. He took control, attacking and driving Leonard against the ropes, bulling him back, hitting him with lefts and rights to the body as he maneuvered the champion against the ropes from corner to corner. Always moving forward, he mauled and wrestled Leonard, scoring inside with hooks and rights. For three rounds Durán drove at Sugar Ray with a fury, and there were moments when it seemed the fight could not last five. Unable to get away, unable to counter and unable to slide away to open up the ring, Leonard seemed almost helpless under the assault. Now and then he got loose and countered—left-right-left to Durán's bobbing head—but he missed punches and could not work inside, could not jab, could not mount an offense to keep Durán at bay.

Durán was awarded a unanimous decision, although it was mistakenly read as a majority decision in the ring. The scorecard of judge Angelo Poletti was incorrectly added and announced as 147–147. He actually scored it 148–147. In rounds, he had it three for Durán, two for Leonard, and ten even. Sports Illustrated called his scorecard "a monument to indecision." Judges Raymond Baldeyrou and Harry Gibbs scored the fight 146–144 and 145–144, respectively. Associated Press had it 144–141 for Durán, while The New York Times had Leonard ahead 144–142.

"I did the best I could", Leonard said. "I think I pretty much fought from the heart." Asked if Leonard was the best he ever fought, Durán thought for a moment and then answered, "Si, si." Durán said. "He does have a heart. That's why he's living."

"No Más"

in New Orleans

The rematch, billed as "Stone vs. Sugar.. Once Again", took place November 25, 1980 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in front of 25,038 fans. Leonard received $7 million and Durán received $8 million.

Dave Jacobs disagreed with the decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán and terminated his relationship with Leonard when the rematch was made. "My idea is that he should have a tuneup fight before he fights with Roberto again", Jacobs said. "I think he won the fight with Durán, but I don't think it is healthy for him to be fighting Durán right away".

After the Montreal fight Durán went on a partying binge and ballooned in weight. Leonard was aware of this, and in an interview for Beyond the Glory he said: "My intention was to fight Durán ASAP because I knew Durán's habits. I knew he would indulge himself, he'd gain 40–50 lbs and then sweat it off to make 147." Unlike the fight in Montreal, Leonard used his superior speed and movement to outbox and befuddle Durán. "The whole fight, I was moving, I was moving", Leonard said. "And Voom! I snapped his head back with a jab. Voom! I snapped it back again. He tried to get me against the ropes, I'd pivot, spin off and Pow! Come under with a punch."

In round seven, Leonard started to taunt Durán. Leonard's most memorable punch came late in the round. Winding up his right hand, as if to throw a bolo punch, Leonard snapped out a left jab and caught Durán flush in the face. "It made his eyes water", Leonard said. He continued to taunt Durán mercilessly. He stuck out his chin, inviting Durán to hit it. Durán hesitated. Leonard kept it up, continuing to move, stop, and mug.

In the closing seconds of the eighth round, Durán turned his back to Leonard and quit, saying to referee Octavio Meyran, "No Más" (English: "No more"). Leonard was the winner by a technical knockout at 2:44 of round eight, regaining the WBC Welterweight Championship. Leonard led by scores of 68–66, 68–66 and 67–66.

Durán said he quit because of stomach cramps, caused by overeating after the weigh-in. "At the end of the fifth round, I got cramps in my stomach and it kept getting worse and worse", Duran later said. "I felt weaker and weaker in my body and arms." He then announced, "I am retiring from boxing right now." During the night Durán was admitted to a hospital with stomach pains, and discharged the following day.

Everyone was surprised by Durán's actions, none more so than his veteran trainers, Freddie Brown and Ray Arcel. "I was shocked", Brown said. "There was no indication that he was in pain or getting weak." Arcel was angry. "That's it", he said. "I've had it. This is terrible. I've handled thousands of fighters and never had anyone quit on me. I think he needs a psychiatrist more than he needs anything else." Durán's manager, Carlos Eleta, said, "Durán didn't quit because of stomach cramps. He quit because he was embarrassed. I know this." According to Randy Gordon, who witnessed Durán's antics beforehand and was in his dressing room immediately afterwards, Durán quit because of his huge eating binge prior to the fight.

"I made him quit", Leonard said. "To make a man quit, to make Roberto Durán quit, was better than knocking him out."

Second world titleLeonard vs. Bonds

On March 28, 1981, Leonard defended his title against Larry Bonds, the WBC sixth-ranked contender, at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. Bonds was a southpaw, which made him a good opponent for Leonard, given that his next opponent was scheduled to be the WBA Light Middleweight Champion Ayub Kalule, a southpaw.

Leonard was the aggressor throughout, with Bonds circling the ring. He staggered Bonds with a right in the fourth round and dropped him with a follow-up combination. Bonds got up and continued to move, with Leonard in pursuit. Leonard dropped him again in the tenth. Bonds rose but Leonard didn't let him off the hook. The referee stopped the fight with Bonds taking punishment in a corner.

Leonard vs. Kalule

Leonard moved up to the junior middleweight division and faced Kalule on June 25, 1981 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Kalule, who was 36–0, had been the WBA Light Middleweight Champion for two years.

Kalule and his handlers had expected Leonard to use lateral movement against him, but Leonard chose to fight inside instead. After eight tough rounds, Leonard was ahead although Kalule appeared to be coming on strong in the eight and ninth. Leonard finally hurt him with a right to the head. Shortly afterward, Leonard dropped him with a flurry of punches. Kalule got up but the referee waved it off. Leonard celebrated his victory with a full 360-degree, no-hands flip. Despite an official stoppage time of 2.59, the fight was actually stopped at 3.06 into the round, meaning Kalule should have been saved by the bell.

The Showdown

Promoted as "The Showdown", Leonard fought Thomas Hearns on September 16, 1981 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to unify the World Welterweight Championship in a scheduled fifteen-rounder. They fought before a live crowd of 23,618. Hearns was paid $5.1 million, and Leonard made over $11 million. The fight grossed over $35 million. The live gate was $5.9 million, and the revenue from pay-per-view was $7.5 million.

Hearns, 32–0 with 30 knockouts, won the WBA Welterweight Championship in 1980, scoring a second-round knockout of José "Pipino" Cuevas in Detroit, Michigan. He made three successful title defenses, stopping Luis Primera, Randy Shields, and Pablo Baez.

The fight began as expected, Leonard boxing from a distance and Hearns stalking. Leonard had difficulty with Hearns' long reach and sharp jab. By the end of round five, Leonard had a growing swelling under his left eye, and Hearns had built a considerable lead on the scorecards. Leonard, becoming more aggressive, hurt Hearns in the sixth with a left hook to the chin. Leonard battered Hearns in rounds six and seven, but Hearns regrouped. Hearns started to stick and move, and he started to pile up points again. The roles reversed: Leonard became the stalker and Hearns became the boxer. The fight billed as a classic showdown between a powerful knockout artist and the best boxer/puncher the welterweight division had seen in decades devolved into a tactical and boring fight.

Hearns won rounds nine through twelve on all three scorecards. Between rounds twelve and thirteen, Angelo Dundee told Leonard, "You're blowing it, son! You're blowing it!".

Leonard, with a badly swollen left eye, came out roaring for the thirteenth round. After hurting Hearns with a right, Leonard exploded with a combination of punches. Hearns' legs were clearly gone and after more pressure from Leonard he was bundled through the ropes, no knockdown was given as it wasn't a punch that sent him there. Hearns managed to rise, but was dropped by a flurry of hard punches near the end of the round.

In round fourteen, after staggering Hearns with an overhand right, Leonard pinned Hearns against the ropes, where he unleashed another furious combination, prompting referee Davey Pearl to stop the contest and award Sugar Ray Leonard the Unified World Welterweight Championship. Hearns was leading by scores of 124–122, 125–122, and 125–121.

After the fight, there was controversy due to the scoring of rounds six and seven. Even though Leonard dominated, hurting Hearns and battering him, all three judges gave both rounds to Leonard by a 10–9 margin. Many felt that the ten-point must scoring system was not properly used and those rounds should have been scored 10–8. Some also considered the stoppage premature. Veteran ringside commentator Don Dunphy said "They're stopping the fight. I don't believe it. Hearns was ahead on points." However, Emanuel Steward, Hearns' manager and trainer, said, "I felt that the referee was justified in stopping the fight ... Tommy did not have enough energy to make it through the fight."

The fight was named "Fight of the Year" by The Ring. Leonard was named "Fighter of the Year" by The Ring and The Boxing Writers Association of America. He was also named "Athlete of the Year" by ABC's Wide World of Sports and "Sportsman of the Year" by Sports Illustrated.

Retirement and return

On February 15, 1982, Leonard defended the unified title against Bruce Finch, the WBC fourth-ranked contender, in a bout at Reno, NV. Leonard knocked him out in the third round. Leonard's next fight was scheduled to be against Roger Stafford on May 14, 1982, in Buffalo, New York. While training, Leonard started to see floaters. He went to a doctor and discovered that he had a detached retina. The fight was cancelled, and Leonard had surgery to repair the retina on May 9, 1982.

On November 9, 1982, Leonard invited Marvin Hagler and other boxing dignitaries to a charity event in Baltimore, Maryland to hear him announce whether he would continue his career. Standing in a boxing ring with Howard Cosell, the master of ceremonies, Leonard announced his retirement, saying a bout with Hagler would unfortunately never happen. Leonard maintained his eye was fully healed, but that he just didn't want to box anymore.

Missing the limelight and the competition, Leonard announced in December 1983 that he was returning to the ring. Leonard boasted that he would have a couple of ten-round bouts and then take on Milton McCrory, Donald Curry, Durán, Hearns and finally Hagler. This decision was met with a torrent of criticism from fans and the media, who felt Leonard was taking unnecessary risks with his surgically repaired eye.

A bout with Philadelphia's Kevin Howard, who was 20–4–1, was scheduled for February 25, 1984. The fight was postponed when Leonard had minor surgery on his right eye to fix a loose retina. This latest eye problem further fueled the flames of those who opposed Leonard's comeback.

Before the fight with Howard, Dave Jacobs rejoined Leonard's team in a limited role. Jacobs had quit in 1980, disagreeing with Leonard's decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán.

Leonard and Howard fought on May 11, 1984, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Howard knocked Leonard flat on his back in the fourth round. It was the first knockdown of Leonard's professional career. Leonard came back to stop Howard in the ninth round, but the stoppage was disputed, with some feeling that the referee stopped the fight prematurely. Leonard was ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage. At the post-fight press conference, Leonard surprised everyone by announcing his retirement again, saying he just didn't have it anymore.

Leonard vs. Hagler

On March 10, 1986, Marvin Hagler knocked out John Mugabi in eleven rounds to retain the Undisputed World Middleweight Championship for the twelfth time and advance his record to 62–2–2. "I was ringside", Leonard said. "I'm watching John 'The Beast' Mugabi outbox Hagler. Of all people, John 'The Beast' Mugabi." It was then that Leonard decided to come back and fight Hagler. He called Mike Trainer and said, "I can beat Hagler".

On May 1, 1986, Leonard announced on a Washington, D.C. talk show that he would return to the ring to fight Hagler. The announcement generated a lot of controversy because of Leonard's inactivity and eye injuries, yet it also excited many sports fans who had hoped to see them fight years earlier. Hagler took a few months to decide, then agreed to the match.

The fight, promoted as "The Super Fight" and "The King of the Ring", was scheduled for April 6, 1987, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Leonard was guaranteed $11 million, and Hagler was guaranteed $12 million. Hagler was a heavy favorite. The odds started at 4–1, then settled at 3–1. A paying crowd 12,379 generated a live gate of $6.2 million. According to Bob Arum, the fight grossed $78 million (which equates to $170 million in 2016).

The original fight plan for Leonard was to go toe-to-toe with Hagler and try to cut him, but the plan changed about five days before the fight. Leonard got hit by sparring partner Quincy Taylor and was badly buckled. "He almost knocked me out", Leonard said. After that, Leonard decided to box Hagler.

Many were surprised that Hagler, a natural southpaw, opened the fight boxing out of an orthodox stance. After the quick and slick Leonard won the first two rounds on all three scorecards, Hagler started the third round as a southpaw. Hagler did better, but Leonard's superior speed and boxing skill still allowed him to control the fight. Hagler looked stiff and mechanical and missed the speedy Leonard time and again prompting CBS ringside commentator Gil Clancy to remark "...and is he ever missing...Leonard isn't doing anything to make him miss, he's just missing!"

By the fifth, Leonard, who was moving a lot, began to tire and Hagler started to get closer. Hagler buckled Leonard's knees with a right uppercut near the end of the round, which finished with Leonard on the ropes. Hagler continued to score somewhat effectively in round six. Leonard, having slowed down, was obliged to fight more and move less. However, he was able to outpunch Hagler along the ropes and got the better of several bristling exchanges. Hagler never seized total control of the fight as he had against Thomas Hearns two years earlier, when he brutalized Hearns and scored a third-round knockout. Hagler's punches lacked snap and, although he was scoring solidly to the body, he looked nothing like the powerful fighter who had dominated the middleweight division for the previous five years. Leonard's observation that the Hagler who beat John Mugabi was older and slower proved to be spot on. In rounds seven and eight, Hagler's southpaw jab was landing solidly and Leonard's counter flurries were less frequent.

Round nine was the most exciting round of the fight. Hagler hurt Leonard with a left cross and pinned him in a corner. Leonard looked to be in trouble, but he furiously fought his way out of the corner. The action see-sawed back and forth for the rest of the round, with each man having his moments. However, Hagler's moments were more spectacular and one of Hagler's cornermen: Roger Perron (in an interview that took place on an episode of HBO's Legendary Nights episode segments in 2003) later stated that: "the ninth round was probably Marvin (Hagler)'s, best round".

Round ten was tame by comparison, as the pace slowed after the furious action of the previous round but with Hagler having more spectacular moments. Despite Leonard's obvious fatigue, he boxed well in the eleventh. Every time Hagler scored, Leonard came back with something flashier and more eye-catching, if not as effective. But at that point in the fight, Hagler appeared to be slightly more ring-general and clearly more aggressive. Between rounds eleven and twelve, Leonard's trainer: Angelo Dundee, implored Sugar Ray to get up off his stool yelling "We got three minutes...new champ...new champ!" Leonard yelled "Yeah!" and played to the screaming crowd. Hagler's corner was much more reserved prompting Clancy to comment: "They're talking to him like it's an IBM meeting or something...no emotion." In the final round, Hagler continued to chase Leonard. He hit Leonard with a big left hand and backed him into a corner. Leonard responded with a furious flurry, landing few punches but whipping the upset-hoping crowd into a frenzy. Hagler backed off, and Leonard danced away with Hagler in pursuit. The fight ended with Hagler and Leonard exchanging along the ropes. At the final bell, even uniformed ringside security rushed into the ring applauding and lauding Leonard's effort.

Leonard threw 629 punches and landed 306, while Hagler threw 792 and landed 291.

Leonard was awarded a controversial split-decision. Judge Dave Moretti scored it 115–113 for Leonard, while judge Lou Filippo had it 115–113 for Hagler. Judge José Guerra scored the fight 118–110 for Leonard. Many felt that Hagler deserved the decision because he was the aggressor and landed the harder punches. Scottish boxing journalist Hugh McIlvanney wrote that Leonard's plan was to "steal rounds with a few flashy and carefully timed flurries...he was happy to exaggerate hand speed at the expense of power, and neither he nor two of the scorers seemed bothered by the fact that many of the punches landed on the champion's gloves and arms."

Many others felt that Leonard deservedly got the decision, arguing that Leonard landed more punches and showed better defense and ring generalship. Jim Murray, long-time sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, "It wasn't even close...He didn't just outpoint Hagler, he exposed him. He made him look like a guy chasing a bus. In snowshoes...Leonard repeatedly beat Hagler to the punch. When he did, he hit harder. He hit more often...He made Hagler into what he perceived him to be throughout his career—a brawler, a swarmer, a man who could club you to death only if you stood there and let him. If you moved, he was lost."

The scorecards from the ringside press and broadcast media attest to the polarizing views and opinions of the fight:

The fight was named "Fight of the Year" and "Upset of the Year" by The Ring.

Despite requests from the Hagler camp, Leonard was uninterested in a rematch and retired on May 27, 1987. "I'll try, I'll give it a shot", Leonard said of his latest retirement. "But you guys know me." A month after Hagler's formal retirement in June 1988, Leonard would announce another comeback.

Another comebackLeonard vs. Lalonde

On November 7, 1988, Leonard made another comeback, facing Donny Lalonde at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. They fought for Lalonde's WBC Light Heavyweight Championship and the newly created WBC Super Middleweight Championship, which meant that Lalonde had to make 168 lbs. Many were critical of the fact that Lalonde's light heavyweight title was on the line when the weight limit of the fight with Leonard was at 168 pounds, and critical of Leonard for stipulating that his opponent—a natural 175 pounder—should weigh less than his usual fighting weight, which could possibly weaken him. However, Lalonde later told HBO's Larry Merchant that he didn't have any trouble making weight.

Lalonde, 31–2 with 26 knockouts, was guaranteed at least $6 million and Leonard was guaranteed over $10 million.

This would be Leonard's first professional fight without Angelo Dundee. For Leonard's fight with Hagler, Dundee worked without a contract and received $175,000, which was less than 2% of Leonard's purse. Dundee was unhappy with that amount. He requested a contract for the Lalonde fight and Leonard refused. "I don't have contracts. My word is my bond", Leonard said. Janks Morton and Dave Jacobs trained Leonard for the Lalonde fight.

Lalonde's size and awkwardness troubled Leonard. In the fourth round, a right hand to the top of Leonard's head dropped him for just the second time in his career. Early in the ninth, Lalonde hurt Leonard with a right to the chin. Leonard fired back and hurt Lalonde with a right. He drove him to the ropes and unleashed a furious assault. Lalonde tried to tie up Leonard, but got dropped with a powerful left hook. He rose but was soon down again, and the fight was stopped. Judges Chuck Giampa and Franz Marti had Leonard ahead by scores of 77–74 and 77–75, respectively. Judge Stuart Kirshenbaum had Lalonde ahead 76–75.

After the fight, Leonard vacated the light heavyweight title, but kept the super middleweight title. Also, Leonard and Janks Morton split because of personal differences. Morton was replaced as co-trainer by Pepe Correa, who had worked with Leonard for most of the previous fifteen years.

Leonard vs. Hearns

On June 12, 1989, Leonard defended the WBC Super Middleweight Championship in a rematch with Thomas Hearns at Caesar's Palace. It was promoted as "The War." Hearns was guaranteed $11 million and Leonard was guaranteed $14 million.

Hearns dropped Leonard with a right cross in the third round, but Leonard came back and battered Hearns around the ring in the fifth. Early in the seventh round, Hearns hurt Leonard but punched himself out going for the knockout. With Hearns fatigued, Leonard came back and had a strong finish to the round. Rounds nine and ten were good rounds for Leonard, but he ran into trouble in the eleventh round. Three booming rights from Hearns sent Leonard down for the second time in the fight. Knowing he needed a big finish, Leonard fought furiously and had a big final round.

The judges scored the fight a draw and Leonard retained the title. Judge Jerry Roth scored the fight 113–112 for Hearns, Judge Tom Kazmarek scored it 113–112 for Leonard, and Judge Dalby Shirley scored it 112–112. Shirley was the only judge to give Leonard a 10–8 margin in the twelfth. If he had scored it 10–9, as his two colleagues did, Hearns would have won by a split decision. Eventually, Leonard admitted that Hearns deserved the decision.

Leonard vs. Durán III – Uno Más

On December 7, 1989, Leonard defended the title against Roberto Durán, who was the reigning WBC Middleweight Champion. Durán was guaranteed $7.6 million and Leonard's arrangement guaranteed him over $13 million.

For the Durán fight, Leonard cut his entourage from twenty-one to six. Dave Jacobs was one of the people let go, leaving Correa as the sole trainer. Correa was instructed not to spare the whip. "For the first time in a long time, I allowed someone to push me", Leonard said.

The fight took place at the new Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Leonard used constant lateral movement and won by a lopsided twelve-round unanimous decision over a listless Durán. The scores were 120–110, 119–109, and 116–111. In a fight that many considered to be very boring, both fighters were booed often by the fans and many left the arena before the decision was announced. Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated wrote, "Leonard gave them artistic perfection when they wanted heated battle, and they booed lustily. Most fight fans would not spend a dime to watch Van Gogh paint Sunflowers, but they would fill Yankee Stadium to see him cut off his ear." Although Leonard dominated the fight, he suffered several cuts. His lower lip was cut from a headbutt in the fourth round, his left eye was cut in the eleventh round, and his right eye was cut in the twelfth round. The cuts required a total of 60 stitches.

In January 1990, Leonard relinquished the WBC Super Middleweight Championship, saying that he was unsure whether he would fight again. When Leonard decided to continue his career, he offered Hagler a rematch, but Hagler decided to stay retired. He then offered Hearns a third fight, but Hearns said he could no longer make the weight and moved up to the light heavyweight division.

Leonard vs. Norris

On February 9, 1991, Leonard went down to 154 lbs and fought WBC Light Middleweight Champion Terry Norris at Madison Square Garden. Leonard entered the bout as a 3-1 favorite but Norris dominated the fight, giving Leonard a heavy beating. He knocked Leonard down with a left hook in the second round, and in the seventh, he dropped Leonard again with a short right. Leonard had no answer for the skillful, younger, faster man. Leonard went the distance but lost by a lopsided decision. The scores were 120–104, 119–103, and 116–110. After the verdict was announced, Leonard announced his retirement. "It took this fight to show me it is no longer my time", Leonard said. "Tonight was my last fight. I know how Hagler felt now."

Final comeback

In October 1996, the 40-year-old Leonard announced that he was coming out of retirement to fight 34-year-old Héctor Camacho for the lightly regarded International Boxing Council (IBC) Middleweight Championship. Camacho, a light-hitting southpaw, was a three-time world champion with a record of 62–3–1. However, Camacho was also considered to be past his prime. Leonard decided to fight Camacho after commentating on Camacho's fight with the 45-year-old Roberto Durán the previous year, describing the disputed unanimous decision as "an early Christmas gift".

Leonard blamed his poor performance against Norris on lack of motivation, a rib injury, moving down in weight, and divorce, which was being litigated while he was in training. "It was stupid for me to fight Norris at 154 lbs", Leonard said. "This is different. I'm in the best shape possible."

For the Camacho fight, Leonard had a new trainer, Adrian Davis. "He's a great trainer, a throwback", Leonard said. "He has really helped me get ready."

In January 1997, it was announced that Leonard had been voted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in Canastota, New York. The rules state that a boxer must be retired for five years before being eligible for induction. When the vote took place, Leonard had been retired for more than five years, therefore, he was eligible, even though he had a fight scheduled. The induction ceremony was on June 15, 1997.

The fight with Camacho took place on March 1, 1997, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Camacho applied pressure from the opening bell and started to score well in the third. He continued to score well in the fourth and opened a cut above Leonard's right eye. In the fifth, Camacho dropped Leonard with a right followed by two left uppercuts. Leonard got up, but was unable to ward off Camacho. The referee stopped the fight with Camacho teeing off on a defenseless Leonard on the ropes. It was the only time in Leonard's career that he was knocked out.

Afterward, Leonard retired again, saying, "For sure, my career is definitely over for me in the ring." However, less than a week after the fight, Leonard said he planned to fight again. He blamed his loss on a torn right calf muscle. His doctor suggested that he cancel the fight, but Leonard wanted to go through with it. Before the fight, he was given a shot of novocaine.

Leonard said he planned to have a series of tuneup fights before fighting a champion. He was scheduled to fight Tony Menefee on February 15, 1998, in Australia, but he pulled out of the fight, saying that he didn't have the motivation. The Camacho fight was Leonard's last. He finished his career with a record of 36–3–1 with 25 knockouts.

Media appearances

Leonard has worked as a boxing analyst for ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, HBO and EPIX. His relationship with HBO lasted for more than a decade. It ended in 1990, after HBO was not offered an opportunity to bid on the telecast rights to Leonard's fight with Terry Norris. HBO believed it would be inappropriate for Leonard to continue with them if they couldn't bid on his fights. Leonard's attorney, Mike Trainer, said, "There never has been a linkage between his broadcasting and his fighting."

Leonard has provided commercial endorsements for companies including Coca-Cola, EA Sports, Ford, Nabisco, Revlon and 7 Up. His most famous commercial was a 7 Up ad he did with his son, Ray Jr., Roberto Durán and Durán's son Roberto Jr. in the early 1980s. Leonard is among the most sought-after motivational/inspirational speakers in the world today. His speech, entitled "Power" (Prepare, Overcome and Win Every Round), is consistently booked with major Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States and abroad.

Leonard has also worked as an actor. He has appeared in numerous television shows, including Half & Half, L.A. Heat, Married... with Children, Renegade and Tales From The Crypt. He has also appeared in several movies, including I Spy and most recently The Fighter (2010), starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. This movie brought back memories of his fight with Dicky Eklund. He also worked as an adviser in the 2011 robot boxing film Real Steel. Leonard served as host and mentor to the aspiring fighters on The Contender. Sylvester Stallone, who co-hosted during the first season, was one of the executive producers, along with Mark Burnett. When Leonard left the show, he was replaced as host by Tony Danza for the final season.

In 2001, Leonard launched Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing Inc., a boxing promotional company, and announced the company's strategic partnership with ESPN. Together, Leonard and ESPN would produce and promote "Sugar Ray Leonard and ESPN II Presents Friday Night Fights", which would air the first Friday of every month for twelve months. Leonard's boxing promotional company was dissolved in 2004. He had a falling out with partner Bjorn Rebney, whom he called "a cancer in my company." Speaking of his promotional company, Leonard said, "We did some great shows with evenly matched fights. I took great pride in it. But the TV show came about and made my decision a lot easier. I already had it in the back of my mind to dissolve the company. The working environment was not healthy."

Leonard competed on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars, which premiered on Monday, March 21, 2011, on ABC. His partner was Anna Trebunskaya. He was voted off in Week 4 of the show. During his appearance on The Colbert Report in 2011, Leonard was defeated by host Stephen Colbert in a thumb wrestling contest. He appeared as a guest at the chef's table, along with Tito Ortiz, during the tenth season of Hell's Kitchen. He is the celebrity spokesperson for the Atlanta law firm John Foy and Associates, PC.

Leonard was also the subject of a Seinfeld episode (season 6, episode 21) where George tries to flatter his boss by saying he looks like Sugar Ray Leonard. The real Leonard (a Seinfeld fan) mentioned that he was told about the episode by friends and family, but had never seen it for himself until a friend gave him the DVD set for a gift.

Personal life

Family

Leonard married his high school sweetheart, Juanita Wilkinson, in January 1980. Their six-year-old son, Ray Jr., served as the ring bearer. In 1984, they had another son, Jarrell. They were divorced in 1990. During divorce proceedings, Juanita Leonard testified that her husband physically abused her while under the influence of alcohol. She also said he was an occasional cocaine user. In his testimony, Leonard confirmed his wife's claims and went on to reveal that the problems of their marriage were not due to drug and alcohol use.

After the Los Angeles Times broke the story, Leonard held a press conference and publicly acknowledged that the accusations were true. He said he started using after he retired in 1982, following surgery to repair a detached retina. "I wanted more", Leonard said. "I wanted that arena. I didn't want anyone to tell me my career had to end." "I decided to search for a substitute...I resorted to cocaine. I used when I felt bad, I used when I missed competing at that level", he said. "It was a crutch, something that enabled me to forget." He said he quit using drugs in early 1986, when he woke up one morning and "what I saw in the mirror was scary." "I can never erase the pain or the scars I have made through my stupidity, my selfishness", Leonard said. "All I can do is say I'm sorry, but that is not enough." In 2011, Leonard revealed in an NPR interview that he had been free of alcohol since July 2006.

In 1989, Leonard was introduced to Bernadette Robi by Kenny G at a Luther Vandross concert. Robi is the daughter of Paul Robi, one of the original Platters, and she is the ex-wife of Lynn Swann. Leonard and Robi were married at Leonard's $8.7 million estate in Pacific Palisades, California in August 1993. At the wedding ceremony, the grounds were converted into a garden with 10,000 roses and blossoms of other flowers flown in from the Netherlands.

Leonard is also the godfather of Khloé Kardashian and has appeared on many episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Charity work

For many years, Leonard has been the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk for a Cure and is actively involved in raising both awareness and funds.

Leonard testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in 2009. The Senate hearing was titled "Type 1 Diabetes Research: Real Progress and Real Hope for a Cure". He testified about the burden of diabetes and the need for continued research funding to find a cure.

Leonard and his wife, Bernadette, founded the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and its annual Walk for a Cure. In 2009, the foundation expanded to support programs that help people rebuild their communities in ten cities across the United States. It supports accessible housing, healthcare services, and educational services and job training.

In 2007 he was awarded The Ambassador Award of Excellence by the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission at the Riviera Country Club for his continued community involvement.

Advocacy against child molestation

In his autobiography The Big Fight: My Life in and out of the Ring, published in June 2011, Leonard reveals that as a young boxer he was the victim of sexual abuse from an Olympic trainer as well as another man, a benefactor. He has since made public appearances to bring attention to the issue of child sex abuse, declaring himself a "poster child" for the cause and encouraging victims to report their abuse.

#05/17

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hiromisuzukimicrojournal · 5 years ago

Text

A Longer Trip Back Home

...

✽

Hey, have a cigarette?

She always asks me if I have a cigarette when she has emptied the last box. Of course I do not have it, she knows. My mother spends all her wages on cigarettes. My mother, a waitress at a café in the center of a suburban residential area at the edge of the world. In the afternoon, the café is filled with ladies. They are housewives coming from elegant houses at the edge of the world, killing time. Mother and the ladies play mah-jongg every Wednesday at the café, in the center of the town, where the smoke of cigarettes wafts stronger than the scent of coffee.

You must go straight home and study, Mother says, as a mother would.

I always stop by a used record store on my way home from high school. Music is the heart of my mind. Today, my favorite tune, “Running Away,” is playing in the store. The Raincoats’ version, not Sly & The Family Stone’s, which is actually called “Runnin’ Away.” I sing to the music.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

The vinyl collector is smiling wryly.

Delightful tune, but ironical lyrics, he says. I have a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. I wonder how many more years I have to work. I want to sell this store and get away to San Francisco, the heart of the world. Why? You can see the ocean from the top of the hill. That is all.

His 11-year-old son, strangely mature, enters the conversation while listening near the cash register.

How about your boyfriend? No lover? If you are not in love yet, it is too late. But dad is too young for an affair.

The boy’s eyes twinkle with curiosity. There is a big Himalayan cedar in the back of the record store, and sometimes an owl appears on a branch. When I am staying in the store, forgetting time, I hear the owl tu–whit tu–whoo. A small river flows at the root of the cedar, and there is a small old church on the marsh.

When I was a child, a wedding was held by the side of this river. I was a bridesmaid, and the cedar was decorated like a Christmas tree. The guests carried an enormous red sea bream into the kitchen in preparation for the ceremony. My mother and the vinyl collector’s wife poached the eggs to a beautiful golden colour and boiled four dozen white asparagus as a side dish. On a Swedish glass dish in bas‐relief with dandelions, the butter slowly melted beside the radishes.

Yes. It was spring.

Someone knocked on the door of the kitchen. Ladies in aprons looked around. They thought the knock was the prank of a spring storm. But it was the bridegroom. He rushed to the kitchen sink and turned the tap to gulp down some water. An old woman named Eliza shouted to him from her house across the way.

Too late! The bride has gone somewhere! She is a wayward girl!

Too far! It took a million hours on a bus from Shibuya station! he joked, spouting water from his inflated mouth and soaking his bow tie. He was a chipmunk that came to this marsh on a gondola of chicory leaves.

The bride was beautiful. She was clinging to the cedar, and as she reached out to the star ornaments shining on the branches of the tree, a warm wind teased the hem of her champagne dress. Guests grew excited, little by little. The sky was getting dark. I was crouching alone on the bank of the river at dusk. The chipmunk ran away from the banquet and gave me a leftover chicory leaf like a tiny boat. The boat left my hand. The boat drifted on the river, far away.

Where does this river come from?　I questioned the bridegroom.

A mountain? I do not know. Ha! he answered.

Where does this river go to?

The river reflected the sunset. The chicory boat was floating freely on the water.

The sea? Ah, Tokyo Bay, the Pacific? Ha! Ha!

Tokyo Bay? Little did I know a small river in my small town flows into the infinite ocean. I had never seen the sea.

A girl in a swimsuit with a yellow floral pattern is swimming in a murky pool. Someone beckons her, seduces her. She becomes a little fish and approaches him trembling with fear. No. The girl dives in the ocean for the first time. Not the pool. A blowfish hides at the bottom of the sea. White round blowfish like clouds shine in the sunlight breaking through the faint waves. The blowfish has poison. She keeps swimming in pursuit of poison. A blowfish with white belly inflated does not move. Is he dead? As he opens his eyes slowly, he laughs, showing his teeth.

All of us have a place in history. Mine is in the clouds, he says *[1].

Dad! she cries with joy. Her father died a drunk at fifty years of age. Everyone says it was a slow-motion suicide. No. Certainly, he lives his life at the bottom of the sea, or as the shadow of a cloud floating on the surface of the ocean. There is a Japanese proverb: control poison with poison. Her father was fighting the evil in his mind with his own poison. She remembers his rounded back. Late at night, or on a Sunday afternoon, he headed to his desk with a bottle of Johnnie Walker and read the collection of poems. She cannot remember the titles of foreign books. The poems were written in English or French. The girl begins to swim toward the sun. Petals scattering from her swimsuit shine in the water. Like cherry blossoms dancing in a cloudy sky.

The memory of the wedding at the root of the Himalayan cedar raised for me the riddle of a small river in my small town. I decided to explore the headsprings and the destination of this flow. I bought a 1950s map of Tokyo at Jimbōchō. At the ward office, I found historical documents about Shibuya Ward. The map showed that the source of river was a marsh under the church. One more place. I found a pond on the site of an old mansion, the place I always see on my way to school. No one seemed to live there, and unmanaged trees grew thick behind the high wall. The map said Davies House. Once a British trading merchant lived here. Mr. Davies sold his mansion and returned home in the 1980s. During the Edo period, in the 1600s, it was a pleasure garden called Oyama-en. The garden was not a place for children to play. There were no merry-go-rounds, roller coasters or kiosks selling gelato. It was the place where poets gathered, in the gazebo at the pond. Intellectuals enjoyed tea and spent time meditating.

The gate of the abandoned mansion had been closed for about 40 years. One fine Sunday, I found out that the site of the mansion was open to Shibuya residents, but only for the day. The garden was already full of people strolling with flowers in their hands. The petals shine with droplets, because the night before was rainy. The faces of people are shining with curiosity. Not only the vines of feral trees but also the ferns are crawling at my feet. I have difficulty walking. In the deep green woods, a lacquered bridge is painted a particularly bright shade of red. I stand on the bridge. Under it, spring water bubbles in a dry pond.

A chipmunk of about 12 centimeters fills his cheeks with buds and jumps off the zelkova tree. The chipmunk is eating mock strawberries growing around the pond.

This is cute Fraisier de Duchesne. Mock Strawberry is also called poison strawberry, but it is not poisonous. Try it. Ha! the chipmunk says to me proudly and plays in the pond using the red fruit as a beach ball. The bright red strawberry slips through his fingers and is swallowed by invisible swirls on the water. It disappears into the drain of the pond. There is a river, a culvert, beyond the drain. It was buried in concrete beneath the Metropolitan Area when the Olympics were held in Tokyo in 1964.

Fraisier de Duchesne left itself to the water. Sunlight melted into the Kōhone-River. The water was warm. Kōhone Flowers–East Asian yellow water-lilies–surrounding the river were swaying gently in the wind. Leaves were floating on the surface. Fraisier de Duchesne came out of the darkness in the groundwater and bathed in the sunlight on a leaf. A little boy and his father held hands and passed by Fraisier de Duchesne. They were singing a song.

A small river in spring is flowing smoothly *[2]

To violets and milk-vetch flowers on the shore

While flowering gently in beautiful colour

Bloom please, bloom, While whispering

Fraisier de Duchesne, pretty in red, has no poison and knows nothing about poison. It will leave itself to the stream of water and time as ever.

I am standing on Inari-Bridge near the Shibuya Station. All rivers leading to this bridge are culverts. Buildings are towering on both sides of the bridge, a forest of department stores, restaurants, brothels. Shibuya River flows under the bridge. I can see the water with my eyes. The river passes through the downtown. Various people come and go. Various voices are confused with various languages. The clear stream has revived on the Shibuya River before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. I am moved by the truth that there is a sea called Tokyo Bay, if I will swim about 6.8 kilometers from here. The orange colour of the sun floating on the Shibuya River is the same as it on the nameless small river in my small town. The murmur of a stream whispers.

Shall we run away to the ocean?

I have forever heard it. The music was played repeatedly on a late-night program on the radio. Maybe it is a melody signaling that a passenger ship is leaving port but is not suitable for departure. Colourful flags on the mast are fluttering in the blue sky. On the surface of the sea, reversed flags shimmer like stained glass. Their shadows are waving to the pulse of engines. I recall that this was my favorite song while looking at the port far away. On my way home, on the bus, I am listening to “Runnin’ Away” on my mobile phone. Sly & The Family Stone’s version, not The Raincoats’, which is anyway called “Running Away.”

San Francisco is too far. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Murmuring aloud, I can see from the window that the huge rain cloud chases the bus. The cloud seems to be as high as Montmartre. The front window of the bus is sprayed with heavy rain and becomes completely white. Lightning and the sudden shower cut off my music. The bus has no choice but to stop at the station square. The smell of rain invades. I hear footsteps of seasonal changes. I know that I was pretending not to notice the change of seasons. A mother and child in the seat across the aisle are talking.

We left our umbrella in grandma’s home, but it will clear up soon.

They are looking at brand new shoes they just bought at the department store. Desert boots which are made of suede. I wonder if they are trying to transport themselves by supernatural force to a desert planet 900 light years from the earth. There is no sea on the other side of the moon. I am thinking of the sea.

Yes. Summer will come soon.

✽

image: hiromi suzuki

…

*Quotations:

[1] The Tokyo-Montana Express, 1980 A collection of short stories by Richard Brautigan

[2] Small River in Spring, 1912 A song for schoolchildren Lyrics: Tatsuyuki Takano Music: Teiichi Okano (Translation: hiromi suzuki) Takano had his residence near the Kōhone-River (Yoyogi 3-chōme Shibuya-Ward, Tokyo) when he wrote the lyrics of Small River in Spring. At that time, Kōhone-River was running as a stream that supplied water to the fields, and joined the Shibuya River.

…

✽ ✽ ✽

A Longer Trip Back Home

published in 3:AM Magazine (February 11, 2020)

…

via 3:AM Magazine

✽

I am grateful to have been given this opportunity by Mark de Silva, the Fiction Editor for 3:AM Magazine.

…

#hiromi suzuki #short fiction #short story #water #poetry #poem #prose #art #collage #mixed meda #poetry magazine #poetry journal #literary journal #3:AM Magazine #Mark de Silva

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confrontingbabble-on · 6 years ago

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“On a Sunday afternoon, humanist chaplain Greg Epstein stands in front of about 90 people in an MIT auditorium. It’s an eclectic group, with young kids and college students, thirty-something parents and gray-hairs all attending because of a shared disbelief—no one here has faith in God.

“People who don’t happen to believe in a god, or affiliate with a traditional religion, still want to support one another in living out our positive values.”

”Religion isn’t just fading from campus, though—all throughout the city, faith is dying out. It’s a notion that once seemed unthinkable. Not so long ago, religious institutions permeated city life, forming communal centers for the pious and the profane alike; they simply were the community. Increasingly, though, religion’s power is giving way to the church of scientific inquiry. Religion’s importance in people’s lives is on the decline across the country, but the Bay State is on the trend’s leading edge, tied with New Hampshire for the official title of least religious state, according to the Pew Research Center. Massachusetts is tied for third in what statisticians call “religious nones,” people who say they’re not affiliated with any religion, at 32 percent of residents. Compare that to the 33 percent who said religion is “very important” in their lives. Or the 40 percent who told Pew in 2014 that they’re “absolutely certain” they believe in God—the lowest among the 50 states. Or the scant 23 percent who attend a religious service every week.The result of all of this is that Boston—the cradle of Puritanism in Colonial America, known as the most Catholic city in the nation during the 20th century—has become a secular town in the 21st. Many people, young and old, are concluding that religion doesn’t fit their ethics or their lives. They judge religion for the times it’s created conflict rather than bridging divisions. They believe in equality for women and LGBTQ people, and they won’t join patriarchal or anti-gay religions. New belief systems now dominate the city: higher education’s critical thinking, science’s demand for evidence, technology’s drive for results, liberal politics’ notions of progress and social justice. Some of this is a reaction to national politics—an expression of Boston’s sense of itself as a besieged liberal bastion—but it’s also a rejection of the Old Boston, the Irish-Catholic city on a hill.

“Prior to 2002,” ...“the archbishop of Boston had a direct line to any Massachusetts politician he wanted to talk to.” That time is long gone, says Margaret Roylance, vice president of Voice of the Faithful, a group of lay Catholics formed in 2002 to press for church reforms. “I don’t think the church is the 800-pound gorilla that it was. Politicians are not afraid to support something the church opposes...”

There was a time, of course, when religion and the church taught Bostonians morals and how to treat one another. Scripture, from the Bible to the Koran, provided foundational guidelines for humanity and social justice, not to mention the basis for the Golden Rule. Church leaders also taught us the value of hard work and kept us in line. Not so much anymore. “Catholic church leaders used to have a kind of moral force in Massachusetts,” says Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University. Big civic debates in Boston, such as whether to host the Olympics, would have included the Catholic leadership’s opinions. Now they don’t.

“In the olden days, you’d always go to Catholic leadership,” Prothero says. “Nowadays, I just don’t see why you would. They used to matter. I just don’t think they matter anymore. I think the moral capital has been spent.”

Even many Catholics who’ve stayed in the church don’t much care what the leadership thinks anymore. “Catholics, whether on the progressive or conservative end of the scale, none of them really trust the bishops to do the right thing,” Roylance says. The sex-abuse cover-up “made us look at them differently...”

The sex-abuse scandal may have hurt all churches in Boston, not just Catholic ones, says Stephen Kendrick, senior minister at First Church Boston, a Unitarian Universalist congregation. He recalls talking about Catholic clergy sex abuse in one of his first services after taking over First Church in 2001. “I said it’s going to affect us, because it makes a whole generation of people feel distrustful of authority and particularly religious authority,” he says. “I think that’s a particular challenge in Boston. That is a wound that is not healed. And it affects every religious institution in this city.”

As shattering as the sex-abuse scandal has been, it’s hardly the only reason people are leaving Catholicism—in one national survey, only 32 percent of former Catholics named the scandal as one of the reasons they left. In fact, among the religiously unaffiliated in general, 60 percent said they left their childhood faith because they simply stopped believing in the religion’s teachings.

Friday night comes as a time to relax instead of attend Shabbat services, and Sunday brunch beckons the family instead of a 9 a.m. service. In other words, Kendrick says, “What happened to the Catholic Church in the last 20 years didn’t just happen to the Catholic Church.”

They’ve seen the surveys that show the number of religious nones exploding and the number of professed Catholics declining. “The power of the Catholic Church to move a civic agenda or political agenda is much reduced...”

From...https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/12/11/boston-given-up-on-god/

#nonreligious #atheist #agnostic #secular humanist #skeptic #Religion #Christianity #religious insanity

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chpinthestacks · 6 years ago

Text

In the Stacks with Lara Mimosa Montes: Sophie Calle

Saturday, October 13, 2018, I visited the New York Public Library’s Prints and Photographs Study Room to view edition 76/250 of Sophie Calle’s The Bronx, which is part of the library’s Spencer Collection. In 2002, Item Editions published a bilingual facsimile edition of the work in 250 copies.

In 1980,The Bronx was first exhibited at the South Bronx based alternative arts space, Fashion MODA, located at 2803 Third Avenue by “the Hub.” The work, which was initially titled Waiting for People to Come to Fashion MODA and Asking them to Take me Wherever They Want in the South Bronx, was part of a city-wide group exhibition, “Une Idée en L’Air.” Other participating galleries besides Fashion MODA included Artists Space, Franklin Furnace, and Creative Time, among others. While The Bronx was not Calle’s first major work, it was her first public exhibition. Since then, it has reappeared most recently at the Bronx Museum of the Arts; luckily, anyone with a New York Public Library library card and an appointment is welcome to view the Spencer Collection’s edition.

Fashion MODA with mural by Crash (1980)

According to Calle, the work was inspired by “a simple idea: playing with the fear created by that neighbourhood [the South Bronx] and the ghetto aspect.” [1] Calle’s conceptual parameters were fairly simple; the artist invited random passers-by who she met at Fashion MODA to take her anywhere they wanted—typically a place of private, personal significance, or beauty, like the Botanical Garden—“a place that they’d never forget about.” [2[ Calle then documented the experience through a combination of text, photograph, and interview. In some ways, I am reminded of the early works of Adrian Piper, particularly Context #7, a work I’d seen once at the Walker Art Center a few years ago. Both Calle and Piper use minimalist language and ideas to spell out for the viewer the terms of engagement that result in the work.

Sophie Calle, The Bronx, 1980.

Beyond playing with fear, it is unclear what Calle’s initial ambitions might have been. Upon reading and viewing Calle’s later works, like The Address Book and Exquisite Pain, for example, one discerns a similar method and set of interests inform The Bronx. As in Calle’s other projects, The Bronx is a record documenting the artist’s chance encounters; in electing to make a work in the Bronx about the Bronx, Calle deferred to the desires, narratives, experiences, and intuitions of Bronx denizens as the raw materials for the work. [3] I wouldn’t go so far, however, as to describe these subjects who double as participants, collaborators. Nevertheless, in order to carry out the desire to involve others in the production of a work, I imagine Calle had to relinquish some degree of control over some not inconsequential variables, like: What if no one shows up? And you are met with hostility? And who the fuck are you, the artist, to start asking questions, anyway? Or, what if, in trusting someone unknown to lead you astray, you are led to to a dangerous place? Calle’s optimism, maybe attributable to a belief in “the process,” yields final works, particularly prose, which are sharp, distilled, and, what I suspect particular to Calle’s brand of conceptualism, always suggestive of something else, often intangible—the lived experience of making the work, that secret known only by the artist and her subjects.

Sophie Calle, The Bronx, 1980.

And yet all the general details are there. As Calle relates in the text: On Thursday, November 6, everyday, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., for an undetermined number of days, Calle went to Fashion MODA. Throughout her stay, until November 14, eight people participated.

Sophie Calle, The Bronx, 1980.

But the work was not yet complete: “The day before the opening I hung the photos and the texts on the wall. That night, an unexpected and providential collaborator broke into the gallery and covered every possible surface with graffiti.” Looking back on the work, Calle concludes the final result was “much better.” [4] But in the February 1981 issue of Artforum, the reviewer of the exhibition was less impressed, glibly observing: “Sophie Calle’s obsessive and idiosyncratic recording of the behavior of strangers looked as though it might develop into something if she can transcend the whimsical narratives which currently hobble the work.” Grumpy and condescending.

Sophie Calle, The Bronx, 1980. Installation view at Fashion MODA

In revisiting The Bronx, I was able to better appreciate Calle’s influence on contemporary art and writing cultures, which can be seen in more works by writers and artists like Claudia Rankine, most notably in Citizen, or Chloë Bass in A Glossary of Proximity Verbs.

Chloë Bass. A Glossary of Proximity Verbs. 2018. Installation view, A Recollection, Predicated, The Kitchen, January 19–February 10, 2018. Photo: Naima Green.

Chloë Bass. A Glossary of Proximity Verbs (detail). 2018.

I hope readers and writers of contemporary poetry and the lyric essay consider revisiting Calle’s work as one which takes place at an interesting and novel juncture between lyric, experimental, and conceptual writing traditions. [5] I wonder by what accident the Bronx has become an undertheorized epicenter for similar traditions.

[1] Christine Macel, “Biographical interview with Sophie Calle” in Sophie Calle: M’as-tuvue? (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2003), p.80.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Also see Calle’s lesser known, site-specific work, Los Angeles: “On July 14, 1984 I was invited to do a show in Los Angeles. I had fifteen days during the Olympic Games, to create a piece related to the city. I decided to ask people a single question: ‘Since Los Angeles is literally the city of angels, where are the angels?,’” Sophie Calle, Los Angeles (Paris: Item éditions, 2002). Unlike The Bronx, the participants in Los Angeles included established figures such as Frank Gehry, Richard O’Neill, and Larry Gross.

[4] Macel, “Biographical interview with Sophie Calle,” p.80.

[5] See, for example, http://jacketmagazine.com/28/berkson-q.html

#lara mimosa montes #chpinthestacks #bronx #Residency

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cyberjulie · 2 years ago

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Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon

Executive Summary

Operation Olympic Games is the US military code name that refers to the first ever act of real cyber warfare. Many journalists have told bits and pieces of the story since the attacks became public back in 2010, but none have come close to telling the complete story. In Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon, Kim Zetter changes that situation. She takes an extremely complicated subject in terms of technical detail, political fallout and philosophical conundrums and makes it easy for the security practitioner to understand. It is a masterful bit of juggling and storytelling. It is Cybersecurity Canon-worthy and you should have read it by now.

Introduction

Kim Zetter has been at Wired Magazine since 2003 and has become one of the cybersecurity community’s go-to journalists to explain what is really happening within the space. When I heard that she was writing a book about the Stuxnet attacks, I was thrilled. I knew if anybody could take on this complicated subject, Zetter could.

One of the annoying truisms of keeping up with cybersecurity events in the news is that journalists rarely go back and attempt to tell a complete story. When cybersecurity events occur – like the Target breach, the Sony breach, and the Home Depot breach to name three -- news organization print the big headlines initially and then trickle out new information over the next days and weeks as it becomes available. For cybersecurity professionals trying to remain current, we rarely get the opportunity to see the big picture in one lump sum. We are not going to get that kind of story in a news article. You need a book to cover the detail and there have been some good ones in the past. Mark Bowden’s Worm -- about the Conficker Worm and the cabal that tried to stop it -- is one good example. Cuckoo’s Egg – about the first publically documented cyber espionage attack back in the late 1980s – is another one. Zetter’s book, Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon, is the latest in this line and it is really good.

The Story

In June 2012, David Sanger published an article in The New York Times proclaiming for the first time that the United States, in conjunction with Israel, was indeed behind the infamous Stuxnet malware attacks that targeted the Iranian nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz. Sanger followed that article, along with others, with his book, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and the Surprising Use of American Power.

In both the articles and the book, he gave details about the cyber operation called Operation Olympic Gamesthat I consider to be the first act of cyber warfare in the world. But because the story was so new and so complicated, many of the technical details surrounding the attacks did not fully emerge until well after Sanger published his book. I have tried to keep up with the story myself over the years and even presented versions of it at DEFCON and RSA, based on the information available. But I do not have the journalistic chops to tell the complete story and this is where Zetter’s book shines.

Where Sanger’s book focused on the US foreign policy implications of offensive cyber warfare using government insiders as the main source, Zetter’s book fills in the technical story behind the attacks by interviewing everybody in the public space that was involved in unraveling the Stuxnet mystery. Zetter writes clearly and succinctly about the timing of key researchers discovering new facts, describes how the researchers determined when the attackers first used key pieces of the attack code and then feathered those technical events with what was happening in the political arena at the same time. It is a masterful bit of juggling and storytelling.

The Code

Because of Countdown to Zero, we now have a complete picture of how the attack code worked. Zetter goes into great detail about how the malware proliferated within the Iranian power plant at Natanz and after it escaped into the wild. She puts to bed the question of how may zero day exploits the attackers used in the complete code set, what they were and how effective they all were. She covers all of the versions of the malware from Stuxnet, to DuQu, to Flame and to Wiper. She even covers some of the researcher’s Tools-of-the-Trade that they used to decipher the code base.

SCADA

In Countdown to Zero, Zetter explains the significance of the critical and mostly unsecured SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) environments deployed in the US today. These systems automatically control the flow of all power, water, and gas systems used within the US and throughout most of the world. According to Zetter,

“There are 2,800 power plants in the United States and 300,000 sites producing oil and natural gas. Another 170,000 Bottom of Form facilities form the public water system in the United States, which includes reservoirs, dams, wells, treatment facilities, pumping stations, and pipelines. But 85 percent of these and other critical infrastructure facilities are in the hands of the private sector, which means that aside from a few government-regulated industries—such as the nuclear power industry—the government can do little to force companies to secure their systems.”

In my experience, the SCADA industry has always been at least 10 to 15 years behind the rest of the commercial sector in adopting modern defensive techniques. From Zetter,

“Why spend money on security, they argued, when none of their competitors were doing it and no one was attacking them?”

The significance of that statement becomes obvious when you realize that the same kinds of Programmable Logic Controllers or PLCs that the US exploited to attack Iran are deployed in droves to support the world’s own SCADA environments. The point is that if the US can leverage the security weaknesses of these systems, then it is only a matter of time before other organizations do the same thing and the rest of the world is no better defended against them than the Iranians were.

(And by the way, Palo Alto Networks expert Del Rodillas has done plenty of strong analysis into securing ICS and SCADA networks and what it’s going to take to protect these specialized networks going forward. Go here to read some of Del’s thoughts.)

The Philosophical Conundrum

In a broader context, Countdown to Zero highlights some philosophical conundrums that our community is just now starting to wrestle with. We have known about these issues for years but Zetter’s telling of the story makes us reconsider them. Operation Olympic Games proved to the world that cyber warfare is no longer just a theoretical construct. It is a living and breathing option in the utility belt for nation states to use to exercise political power. With Operation Olympic Games, the US proved to the world that it is possible to cause physical destruction of another nation state’s critical infrastructure using nothing but a cyber weapon alone. With that comes a lot of baggage.

The first conundrum is the intelligence dilemma. At what point do network defenders stop watching adversaries misbehave within their networks before they act to stop them? By acting, we tip our hand that we know what they are about. This will most likely cause the adversary team to change their tactics. Intelligence organizations want to watch adversaries as long as possible. Network defenders only want to stop the pain. This is an example of classic Information Theory. I first learned about Information Theory when I read about the code breakers at Bletchley Park during WWII. Because the allies had broken the Enigma cipher, the Bletchley Park code breakers collected German war plans before the German commanders in the field received them. But the Allies couldn’t act on all of the information because the Germans would become suspicious about the broken cipher. The Allies had to pick and choose what to act on. This is similar to what the Stuxnet researchers were wrestling with too. Many of them had discovered this amazing and dangerous new piece of malware. When do they tell the world about it?

The next conundrum involves the national government and vulnerability discovery. Zetter discusses the six zero-day exploits used by Operation Olympic Games in the attacks against Iran. That means that the US government knew about at least six high-impact vulnerabilities within common software that the entire nation depends upon and did nothing to warn the nation about them. If another attacker decided to leverage those vulnerabilities against the US critical infrastructure in the same way that the US leveraged them against Iran, the results could have been devastating. The nation’s ethical position here is murky at best, and added to that is the well-known practice of the private sector selling zero-day exploits to the government. Should the government even be in the business of buying weapons grade software from private parties? Zetter offers no solutions here but she definitely gives us something to think about.

Conclusion

Zetter fills in a lot of holes in the Stuxnet story. In a way, it is a shame that it has taken five years to get to a point where the security community can feel like we understand what actually happened. On the other hand, without Zetter putting the pieces together for us, we might never have gotten there. I have said for years that the Stuxnet story marked the beginning of a new era for the cybersecurity community. In the coming years, when it is common practice for nation-states to lob cyber-attacks across borders with the intent to destroy other nation’s critical infrastructure, we will remember fondly how simple defending the Internet was before Stuxnet. Zetter’s book helps us understand why that is possible. She takes a complicated subject and makes it easy to understand. It is Cybersecurity Canon-worthy and you should have read it by now.

Book written by Kim Zetter

Book review by Rick Howard

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