#i refuse to use miles americans deal with it

[lysreadsbookssometimes]

So I was thinking about the batmobile earlier and how they use it on patrol.

Wayne Manor and therefore the Batcave are pretty much on the edge of town and the bats use the batmobile/their other vehicles like bikes to get into the city.

Now when they are there, they move mostly by grapple or parcour. Which makes sense, you wouldn't really beat up a goon, get in the batmobile, drive three blocks and park it again. I assume they park it somewhere and then go on patrol.

A standard patrol is most likely circular, so they end up back at the batmobile. But what if they have to chase someone? Or something happens that draws them to the other side of the city? What if one of them gets injured and they need to be transported? The batmobile is parked somewhere, so what happens now?

I imagine the following possibilities:

1. The batmobile has self-driving capabilities. I can't really tell how good that would work in Gotham, and i don't know how that would work for the bikes.

2. There is a bat on batmobile-duty. They spend the patrol night chilling, watching tiktoks, reading a book etc. and just wait for a pickup.

3. There is a remote driving system, probably accessed by Oracle as well as the batcave. In the necessary moments Oracle grabs a controller and GTAs the Batmobile to the location.

4. There are Batmobiles hidden throughout Gotham and after such an incident happened, a few batkids need to go for a drive and pick up/drop off the various batmobiles at their spots.

I don't know which one is the most likely, and all of them have so much Batfam Chaos potential. Maybe all of them are true. Allow me to present some of these chaotic scenarios.

Red Robin, severly sleep deprived: *nearly hits a lamp post*

Batmobile: *avoids the post, speeds up* *steering wheel moves under his fingers*

RR: What?

Oracle, via comms: for the love of god just take a nap I'm taking you home

Nightwing, after a chase: great, now i need to walk like 5 kilometers to the car.

Red Hood: There is a batmobile in a garage like two streets down

NW: what?

RH: don't you have a map?

NW: a map of what?

RH: of the batmobiles

NW: what- no. No i do not. I will be having words with someone.

Batman, after patrol: There are still two bikes and a batmobile on the streets. Go pick them up.

Red Hood: alright, which one of you idiots is allowed to drive?

Nightwing: Damian put your hand down.

Gothamite: *crosses the street* *nearly gets run over by batmobile* *stares to see it driving off without a driver*

Phone: *beeps*

Text message: very sorry, still working on the self-driving. Have a coffee on me, heres a coupon code for batburger. -O

Red Hood: *peacefully reading a book, legs on the batmobile dashboard, a thermos of tea in the cupholder*

Oracle, via comms: Hood, Spoiler has been injured, i am sending you the adress for pickup.

Hood: How bad is it?

Oracle: Not life-threatening. She wanted to go on but Batman refused.

Hood: so she can wait a bit more.

Oracle: what?

Hood: They are about to have the big love confession and i am not waiting on that because B is overprotective.

Oracle: I just googled your book. Pick up Spoiler now or I will make you listen to Spoilers for the entire series.

Hood, starting the car: Jesus O no need for warcrimes

(I am fairly new in this fandom, if there is something in canon that i missed/got wrong please correct me)

[lostintransist]

Liaison - Chapter 2 - Da’ Fuck is a Roadman

The worst part about your job had to be the commute. The trip to the office each day took nearly an hour. Between the two trains, one bus, and a half-mile walk any energy you might have had been used up. You did not mention to anyone on the team where you lived and that you refused to buy a car. Mostly you were sure that your years of driving on the right side of the road and turning on red lights would lead to you killing someone in a vehicular collision and would rather avoid that.

The old building you shared with three other tenets creaked every time the wind blew and your small studio in the basement required two dehumidifiers to keep mold from overtaking the space. The jaw-cracking yawn overtook you as you stepped off the bus. You make it as far as the front door before the exhaustion becomes too much. You manage to brush your teeth, rip off your bra, and toss on an overlarge shirt you stole from an ex before sleep steals you away.

The weekend slips by too quickly for your liking. You can see the emails piling up in the inbox of your work email, anything truly urgent would CC Kate who worked nonstop. You stop into a cafe on your way home from the weekend market, happy to start to recognize the barista behind the counter. Sunday afternoons you did your shopping for the week and rewarded yourself with a scone and a warm latte. The day is capped off with a video call with a friend in Maryland and by eight you are asleep.

You wake early, 4 AM the alarm goes off to make it to the office for your 6:15 call. You dress simply in jeans, rain boots, and a long-sleeved green shirt. Starting on the walk for the bus you clock the young man posted up at the edge of an alley. You keep an eye on him but don’t change course as you continue closer to where he stands.

When you get within ten feet of him he jumps out and mumbles some words at you.

Tilting your head at him you try and process the sounds you heard.

“Wanna run that by me again kid?”

He mumbles the same words, louder and makes a vaguely threatening gesture.

“Yeah, I got nothing. Good luck with whatever you need,” you step into the road to continue past him.

Mumbler jumps in front of you, shouting now.

“I’m trying to rob ya you stupid American!”

“Why didn’t you say that back there?” Hooking a thumb over your shoulder to point to where this interaction started. “Also you don’t have a gun, do you even have a knife?”

As he starts to sputter the youth in his face is evident.

“Okay, so how does this shtick work?” gesturing to all of him, you continued. “Do you just walk up to people and demand their wallets or what?”

“Yeah, give me all your money!”

Mentioning wallets seemed to re-energize him.

“No thank you,” you start walking again. If you don’t make up the lost time you will delay yourself at least fifteen minutes and might need to call a cab to make it to work for your phone call.

❈❈❈

The hardest part of your job, second only to dealing with people who didn’t understand your role, would be the lack of consistency of who might be in the office from day to day. Harold hadn’t been at his desk when you finally rolled in, already accepting the call you had scheduled for this morning in the lobby. You waved to the one person at a computer as you dumped your things and asked for a moment of patience from everyone on the call as your headphones connected.

The call dragged on for nearly an hour as you stayed on mute replying to emails. When a question could not be answered by anyone else you jumped into the conversation, explaining you had three options for a team that would fit their needs. At this point, you would need a timeline and payment. Confirming the email address took another five minutes, back and forth. When the call wrapped up the clock ticked closer to 9 AM.

Letting your head slam against the desk you took a series of deep breaths. A message tone dinged from your computer. Looking up you found a message from someone named Roach.

>Calls that bad?

Turning you catch sight of the person who had been in the office when you arrived.

“You Roach?”

>That’s me.

Masked and covered from head to toe, the man looked as innocent as a bloodied tiger. You saw a lot of men like that lately. Something about this job had them covering up more than a nun in a convent.

“Okay, I’m still meeting everyone. And no? The call wasn’t that bad but I ended up being late because some fucker I think tried to rob me?” After explaining the whole situation this morning to Roach he sends you a message through the chatting platform.

>You met a roadman.

“Da’ fuck is a roadman?” Incredulity had become a familiar state since moving to England.

Staring at Roach you wait for his typed response. He looks at you, makes a face beneath his mask, bobs his head from shoulder to shoulder, sighs, and puts his fingers on the keys.

>A roadman is what you might call a mugger in the US.

“No, a mugger has a gun or a knife and can back up his threats. That child told me to give him all my money and couldn’t even find a decent threat to make me comply. All the bastard did was make me late.”

Roach’s only reply to this is a hearty shrug.

A voice from behind has both you and Roach spinning in place.

“Liaison I need a contract confirmed,” someone barked at you.

The demand hits wrong after the roadman incident and the achingly long call. You turn to see a large man, again in a mask, staring at you from near the door. This mask looked hard, the upper face half of a skull. This must be Ghost; Kate had warned you about him.

“I must have missed the question in that statement, care to try again?”

Roach’s brows nearly touch his hairline as he quickly averts his gaze.

The tall, broad Lieutenant moved faster than his shape would indicate he could. He looms over you, hard skull and eye black leaving no color beyond the whites of his eyes.

“Did I stutter Liaison?”

“No, but you might need to if you try to tell me what to do without asking again.” You flick a nail against his mask. “Now if you’ll excuse me I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Slipping from beneath Ghost’s shoulders you make it two steps before his hand wraps around your bicep. Snapping back to look at him you contemplate the wisdom of punching him.

“Ghost! Let her go,” Price’s command splits the air.

He lets you go with exaggerated care. You flip him the bird, hiding the move from Price using your body. You stalk up to Price who is staring Ghost down over your shoulder.

“Did he hurt you?” Price asks as you draw near. He wasn’t Ghost’s captain but had recently been promoted to work directly below the elusive Sheppard. You tried to keep up on who worked under who but with so many moving parts you had to check your spreadsheets every time you had a question.

“No, I’m fine. But next time the meathead needs something from me tell him to send an email and to use all his manners.” You sweep past Price and head for the kitchen. Might as well start some bread so you can beat something up.

That second interaction with Ghost solidified the tone of your relationship. The same day he threatened you with his size and laid hands on you he found you in the kitchen. You pulled the tray of rolls out of the oven when he spoke.

“I’ll take one of those.”

Without pausing to consider you shut the oven softly and tip the hot pan over, spilling the steaming buns onto the floor. You don’t even try to make it look like an accident.

“Whoops. Guess you forgot to ask for something you wanted.”

You ignored the fuming soldier behind you as you set the hot pan on the stove to cool and cover the dough and place it in the fridge for later. You gave it an hour before checking back to find the kitchen clear and cleaned up the rolls from the floor.

Three weeks later you are pulled from an important email by a fist in your hair. Ghost growls in your face.

“What the hell did you agree to with Sarcosis?”

A wince you can’t stop slips. “Hair pulling is a kinky thing for me Ghost, you ready to follow up on this offer?”

Disgusted, he lets you go. Then Soap is there, pushing between you two. Rubbing the back of your head you decide to answer. He did ask a question after all.

“Sarcosis needs to borrow one man, someone who can play spotter for one of their snipers. Job is less than three days. I wrangled a favor to borrowing one of their men if we ever need ‘em.”

“Why take the job?” Soap peers over his shoulder, hand still firmly placed on Ghost.

“All Keith is asking for is an impartial set of eyes to confirm a kill. They aren’t on the no-fly list. Do they need to be?”

“No-fly list?” This question comes from Ghost.

“Yeah, the no-fly list.” You pop open a sticky note from your screen, enlarging both the note and the words you let the men read the list you got from Kate. “Taking jobs with these guys won’t fly, hence the no-fly list.”

Ghost takes a deep breath, tucking the demon’s demeanor back behind his vest. Soap lets his hand drop back to his sides.

“Now if all this excitement is over I am going back to my emails,” turning your back to the men you return your screen to normal and type away at your ongoing email.

Roach sends you a message that you see but don’t reply to.

>Sarcosis nearly got Ghost killed on their last job, might want to flag them for your no-fly list.

Ghost and Soap stand behind you for an uncomfortably long time. When they eventually move you pull your headphones on and settle into the chaos of never-ending emails.

❈❈❈

It took you six months to figure out the rules for jobs. You had asked Kate, repeatedly. Each time she gave an answer about whether to accept or reject, you would question her. Why accept this job and not this one? Over and over you asked and the answer always amounted to a feeling. Vibes. You took notes on every call and Kate’s decision since she couldn’t articulate why to accept one job over another. She had worked with the 141 for so long that she had a sense for these things.

Those six months were grueling, but you found a pattern. The price of a job could be relied upon to weed out anything the team wouldn’t take. The numbers broke down to roughly £20,000 per man per job. The more complicated the explanation the more guys you figured would be needed. That rule of thumb would be right more often than not.

The guys would take rescue missions but were better equipped to handle situations where there would be no witnesses. They worked well with teams from most companies and governments but there were a few that several men refused to work with again. It was a small list but the fact you recognized each name on sight often gave you a queasy sensation in your stomach.

Enough of the team would submit requests to take one job or another you had to start a running list of preferences and skills. Pinning down hard skills turned into a bit of an issue so you had a self-reported list and a list of skills reported by others. The sheer number of interconnected spreadsheets and the random formulas learned to create boggled your mind. Once one of the members of the accounting team, Doreen, saw your massive spreadsheet she collected the general information known about the office to add to your knowledge pool. She also helped you break out the information about each member into a separate file that fed into your master sheet. Doreen, for as old as she was, had a vast understanding of spreadsheets. The search function would become a new god in your role.

Chapter 1 |

Masterlist

@nicroyal02 Chapter 26 is up on A03

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

the arguments about palestine that changed a zionist's mind in real life:

THIS IS RHETORIC. IT WAS DESIGNED TO CHANGE SOMEONE ELSE'S MIND, NOT TO PORTRAY MY FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS AND UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE CONFLICT.

stressing equal rights as the solution to political violence. i usually start w "the single most influential factor to joining a terrorist group or a gang is hopelessness, the idea that there is no other way for them to create a livable future in which their family can eat." in this, the progression from the peaceful and unarmed 2018 Day of Return (emphasize injuries and casualties; opening fire at protestors attempting to just walk out of an "open air prison," half of whom were under 18. if they had been allowed to leave and seek political rights, october 7 never would have happened. every escalation is a result of lack of human rights. "everyone deserves human rights without qualifier, and everyone deserves equal legal rights under the law. most problems are actually side effects of this initial problem. who lacks legal rights in Israel?"

sidestep Hamas completely. refuse to engage. "there is a geographic region in the middle east whose border touches the mediterranean. Jewish people and Palestinian people live here. the government of this geographic region must then care equally for Jewish lives and Palestinian lives because that's who lives there, and just democracies give equal rights to everyone, right?" americans will be HARD PRESSED to say no. "you're pro-palestinian"

"Ethnostates are bad. We know that ethnostates are oppressive goverments that choose permanently harming a portion of second-class citizens. The whole world already has people in it, and there is nowhere to establish an ethnostate that does not require the violent removal of people who already live there. You Also Don't Need An Ethnostate to Be Safe. You need equal rights." Excerpts from Ch. 3 A Theory of Genocide from Scott Straus' Making and Unmaking Nations explaining the inherent genocidal risk of founding narratives that serve one group to the exclusion of others was very effective coupled with current death tolls.

Israel puts Jews in more danger by associating them with real human rights abuses and telling the world they're doing it in the name of Jewishness. "My neighbors have nothing to do with the violent actions of a nation-state. Additionally, you are my community member and this is already your home. The base requirement of your community members here is to make your home safe for you, not chase you halfway around the globe where we won't have to "deal with you" anymore. Your fight is here by my side making our real current community safe for everyone, not millions of miles away using bombs on civilians."

The story of the Golem, in which something created to protect Jewish communities from antisemitism grew too powerful and too violent and had to be destroyed before it destroyed the community itself in its uncontrollable rage. this actually should have been number 1 because this is used to structure the entire thing. the Golem is the last argument I brought up, but I knew I was going to bring it up the whole time and every single argument was structured to reinforce it. Continuously through the conversation, I stressed trauma responses, fear, and conservatism. they've done studies where they asked people for their political opinions, waited weeks, brought them back, shared recent headlines (divided between positive/hopeful and negative/fearmongering), and found that after being shown fearmongering headlines, the second round of responses were more conservative no matter where the subject started. there's a reason zionism was invented well before the holocaust but didn't gain widespread support in Jewish communities until after. I approached from a fundamental position of empathy. I used rising antisemitism as my lead-in to the topic, I talked extensively about how Jewish people always have Israel in the back of their head as a refuge and escape-- "if it ever gets too bad here, i have somewhere safe to run to"-- and as a result feel an intense sense of existential fear when asked to criticize or challenge it. I talked about how there are no moral dimensions to feeling (you just get to have them) but by the same metric, it means your feelings are not indicative of political truth. Being scared doesn't mean you're really in danger. All of it specifically chosen to reinforce this idea of Israel as a Golem whose violent rage must be addressed by Jewish people for the sake of preserving their own community.

that's what worked. coming at it from a fundamental position of empathy for my Jewish community members and asking them to give Palestinians the same unbending demand for human rights and safety that I am giving to everyone in this moment. showing them that their safety is not mutually exclusive to each other. part of it is capacity creation. massaging their perspective of the conflict and balming some of their most immediate and disruptive fears for themselves so that the space created by relief can turn to empathy. which is easier to do when someone is modeling it right in front of you.

[worldsandemanations]

Thomas Edward Lawrence was a handsome, diminutive, Oxford educated British gentleman with a keen interest in Archaeology. As a youth, he rode his bicycle from England to the Middle East to study the castles of the Crusades. He walked 1100 miles, learning all that he could about the cultures and languages. He was robbed and beaten on his first day in Syria (even then, a top vacation spot), a fact that he kept hidden from his mother.

Studying at Oxford, Lawrence was curiously close to an older male companion, Vyvyan Richards. Their parents and their pals worried about the closeness. His parents were concerned about Richards' motives. They thwarted his plan to go into a printing press business with Richards. So, Lawrence accepted an offer to join an archaeological dig sponsored by the British Museum in what is now called Iraq.

After he arrived, Lawrence met a boy, Selim Ahmed, commonly called "Dahoum", meaning "little dark one". Their relationship started with Lawrence attempting to learn Arabic and Dahoum learning English. They became more than just friends, living and traveling together, which caused a scandal among the British archaeologists, not just because they became lovers, but because of the mixing of races.

When World War I broke out, British Intelligence sought out Arab experts (Turkey and Germany were allies at the time). Lawrence left Dahoum in charge of workers at their dig and he returned to England.

Lawrence's knowledge of the Middle East brought him to a post in Cairo making maps and gathering intelligence. He devised a plan to assist the Arabs in their uprising against the Turks, allowing the British forces to attack the highly prized Suez Canal. His kinship with the Arabs was noted and he quickly became key to the operation, acting as a go-between for both armies. A deal over who would get what land after the rebellion was struck and soon the rebel forces prepared for battle.

At around this time, American journalist Lowell Thomas arrived in Cairo searching for a story to boost the USA's involvement in a war that was none of our business. He was captivated by the story of a British officer in traditional Arab dress.

In June 1916, there was a successful attack on the Turkish railway. Other attacks were planned and carried out. But poor Lawrence was discovered and taken prisoner by the Turks. He was tortured and raped. A guard sympathetic to the Arab cause gave Lawrence a shot at escape. Lawrence took it and he walked hundreds of miles across the desert to safety.

Lawrence was deeply damaged by his capture. He attempted to resign his service, but the British refused. He somehow found the energy to take his trademark Arabic robes, pick up a gun and head for the front against the charging rebels. Lawrence survived a year of fighting before the rebels took Damascus in 1918 and began to set up an all-Arab Government. We all know how that worked out. This is when Lawrence found out that Dahoum had died.

Of course, the British Government did not fulfill the promises of land for the Arabs, the beginnings of the mess that we are now in, but that Jared Kushner supposed to have fixed in 2020.

Lawrence led a campaign for the Arab cause against the British government. He also began writing a book about his experience in the Middle East, THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM, part memoir and part travelogue. After many months of work, Lawrence lost the manuscript when his briefcase was stolen at a London train station.

Lowell Thomas returned from the war with the idea to make Lawrence a war hero. He traveled with a slide presentation about a misfit officer who became a leader of an Arab army. Lawrence became a media star, yet he didn't love being celebrated, saying that his role had been blown out of proportion. He used the opportunity to announce that he would refuse to accept any official honors.

To escape the attention, the furious Thomas convinced the RAF to take him under a fake name. Lawrence settled down to a military life and began rewriting of his famous book. The first edition was finally published in 1927.

After his retirement from the RAF in 1935, Lawrence moved to a cottage in the English countryside to live quietly and anonymously. He enjoyed riding his motorcycle around the back roads. Once, he swerved to avoid a pair of boys on their bicycles and crashed his motorcycle and died. He was just 46 years old.

He called himself an "ordinary man", but Lawrence lived an extraordinary life. Among the mourners at his funeral were gay writer E.M. Forster and Winston Churchill.

The tale of Lawrence's life as presented in David Lean's 1962 film, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA cements his place in history, but Lean left out the gay part, of course.

1928 photo by RAF Lieutenant Smetham

[scotianostra]

On July 16th 1882 thirty-one Shetland "sixerns", with a total of 105 crewmen were lost in a storm. The event is still remembered as "The Bad Day".

This post covers three Shetland fishing tragedies over a 68 year period, it ended the centuries old tradition of Haff fishing in small six manned bots in the open waters of the North Atlantic around Shetland. Two of these tragedies happened in July, the third in December, however I have decided to post about the three in the one post.

There were between 300 and 500 sixareens or sixerns in Shetland. The Haaf fishing proved to be a hard life for these boats and they only tended to last 5 or 6 years. When they finished their lives as a fishing vessel some ended up being used as a flit boat for moving livestock, peats and other goods between islands or from ship to shore. The sixareens may eventually have ended up as the roof of shed or outbuilding. Nothing was ever wasted in Shetland, especially if it was wooden!

The men would travel up between 20 and 40 miles offshore. As the men were dealing with a prevailing wind, they could usually only sail in one direction. They were always happier if they could row out with a relatively light boat and sail back with a heavy load of fish!

When they reached the fishing grounds, the fishermen would barely be in sight of the highest hills in Shetland. They would have sea all around them.

Haaf fishing was very dangerous due to the unpredictable nature of the weather far out at sea. However, when you look at the numbers of men that fished and the length of time that they fished for, the actual disasters are relatively few.

On 16th July 1832 31 Shetland “sixareens” and a total of 105 crewmen were lost in a storm. The event is still remembered as “The Bad Day”. A London Distress Fund was set up and raised the sum of £3000. The money was raised for the dependants of the crofter-fishermen lost. The crew of one boat in 1832, did manage a lucky escape from the storm as they were picked up by a passing American sloop. However, the Captain of the American vessel refused to alter his course to Philadelphia and so, despite passing close to Orkney, the survivors had to cross the Atlantic and endure a further six months away from home before returning.

During another storm on 20th July 1881, hurricane force winds caught the fishermen by surprise. The boats that tried to come home were mostly capsized or swamped, but those that stayed at their lines for the most part survived. In all ten boats foundered and 58 Haaf fishermen lost their lives. They left behind 34 widows and 85 orphans. Six of these boats and 36 of the men were from the fishing station at Gloup in North Yell. It was a tragic loss for a small community.

On the morning of 21st December 1900, boats from Firth, Mossbank and Toft set off for the winter haddock fishing. They were some 32 kilometres (20 miles) away, between the Horse of Burravpoe and  Snap, when they were caught in a sudden and severe gale from the north-west. Many were lost during the storm which came on in the space of five minutes. The fleet were scattered. One made it to Whalsay, Skerries and Lunning but the rest were lost.

22 men were drowned, leaving 15 widows (5 of whom were pregnant), and 51 children. Firth was hit the hardest. Many of the men were great fishermen and the disaster devastated the Delting fishing industry, which never recovered. The women continued to work the crofts. Children grew up and moved away, leading to a rapid decline in population.

The plight of the families left destitute led to a lot of publicity in local and national press. The Delting Disaster Fund was set up to help those affected and it was one of Queen Victoria’s last public acts to appeal for support.

These major fishing disasters signalled the beginning of the end for Haaf fishing. The herring fishery in the 1880s and the Crofter’s Act of 1886, which put an end to the truck system, were two more nails in its coffin.

Larger safer boats were introduced and undecked sixareens were replaced by fully decked smacks. Fishermen could finally install a few home comforts. However, when the steam trawler was introduced, longlining in large sailing boats couldn’t compete economically. Haaf fishing stopped quite quickly at this point.

There are few sixareens left in Shetland. There are a couple of replicas and bits and pieces lying around here and there. At the Shetland Museum and Archives there’s a replica sixareen called the Vaila Mae. She sails regularly in Lerwick Harbour and you can even get a trip on her during Shetland Boat Week!

One of the only surviving sixareens from the past can be seen in the Shetland Museum, see pic teo, . She was built as the Foula mail boat, which fished for a little while and then ended up as a flit boat for shifting peats. She didn’t spend much of her life as a fishing sixareen.

You can find memorials all over Shetland to those lost at sea.

[rose-n-gunses]

Okay, so. I've got a LOT of thoughts about the Catholic Munsons post that's going around and I really wanna talk about it because I think it's SO interesting so I'm going to post about it here so I'm not clogging up the tags on that post (and I'm probably going to end up turning it into a little bit of a hellcheer thing because it plays a bit of a role in one of my upcoming wips).

Fair warning, this post is really fucking long and really fucking rambly. I had Thoughts and they. Refused to stop, so just,, bear with me!!

My Catholic father grew up around this same time near Cleveland, Ohio in a little town that's maybe half the size of what Hawkins is projected to be according to the fandom wiki page. He attended a parochial school for elementary and I think middle school, and the majority of his friends growing up were either Jewish or Catholic. When I asked him today about the distribution/ratio of Jewish to Catholic to Presbyterian in that area (since my research wasn't quite answering my questions), he told me that he was probably in middle school before he actually realized that there were other religions besides Jewish, Catholic, and whatever denominations the African American churches in the area were.

Because of this and the general notion that Catholicism is/has been somewhat more prominent in the northern/northeastern and, like, some of the more northern midwestern United States (if that makes sense), I've always imagined that Hawkins, being a decently sized (10-15K according to the wiki page) town pretty close to Indianapolis (around 80 miles, again according to the wiki page), would have a pretty solid Catholic community, so it's always kind of surprised me to see so many people write the Cunningham family, for example, as attending a Presbyterian church (although it is entirely possible, but more on that later).

Okay so now my actual thoughts on the Catholic!Munsons:

Since the pictures from the Munson trailer (and I love that it's been a year and we're still finding new stuff in there) show that calendar, we know that if Wayne did purchase it intentionally, then he's most likely gotta be actively Christian. However, I don’t see Wayne as the attending-mass-every-week type of Catholic -- he strikes me as Too Tired For That Shit. My personal headcanon is that he’s Christian, and was probably raised Catholic, but he only really attends mass for Christmas and Easter (not even for other Holy Days of Obligation). I guess to put it in shorter words, I see it as Wayne is definitely Christian, but he’s Catholic for convenience, meaning he believes in god but would prefer to do it privately and on his own terms (like, idk, praying on his own and displaying his faith through his actions) rather than having to deal with the church and its members, and he just continues to go to mass occasionally because it’s what he grew up with so he’s used to it and there’s no point in fixing something if it ain’t broke.

But Eddie. Oh, Eddie. If Wayne grew up Catholic, then so did Eddie’s dad. Since Eddie's dad is, like, y’know, an asshole, I think he’d be the sort of Catholic that’s a total hypocrite and gives the entire Catholic Church a bad name. Eddie’s mom could be Catholic, she could be Presbyterian, she could be Jewish, it really doesn’t matter (though I do see a lot of people headcanoning her as Jewish and I do kinda really like that headcanon).

If Eddie’s dad is Catholic, then it’s possible that Eddie could have attended a parochial school, but it could go either way. One: maybe he didn’t because his mom is Jewish/non-Catholic or just because his parents didn’t feel the need to send him to one, or two: he did attend a parochial school, at least for a little bit. However, since we know that Eddie and Chrissy attended the same school for middle school, there are also two ways that this can go. One is that Chrissy also attended the same parochial school and the talent show they talk about in the forest scene in 4.01 occurred at said parochial middle school. The other is that Eddie did attend a parochial school for a while but got kicked out and sent to Hawkins Middle School, where he then participates in the talent show. (I also think the concept of Eddie getting kicked out of a Catholic school and sent to a public school -- whatever the reason may be -- would add to his reputation and image as A Freak or Mean And Scary because did you hear that the weird new kid got kicked out of his other school? will always spawn rumors.)

In regards to Eddie’s personal beliefs, I think he’s kind of similar to Wayne, but also not. Whereas I see Wayne as “Catholic for convenience”, I see Eddie as more of just “Christian for convenience”, which to me just means that he’s not really sure what he believes, but when it comes down to it, he’ll say sure, I guess I believe that there is A God because it’s a little easier and a little less terrifying to believe in Something than it is to believe in Nothing. I don’t personally see Eddie as an atheist, because to me, he seems like he would be the kind of person that wants to believe in something, but he doesn’t like to spend too long thinking about what exactly it is that he believes in (in regard to there being a higher power) because it’ll send him spiraling into some sort of existential crisis. Which, same.

I do think that Eddie would become disenchanted with and disconnected from the Catholic church as an entity/community, because I definitely think he disagrees with a LOT of the stuff that the church preaches/believes. Also, since Eddie’s a big fat nerd and I headcanon him as a major literature buff, I think he’s definitely read the Bible (and probably the Catholic Catechism as well) so that he can 1) call out aforementioned hypocritical Catholics/Christians and 2) get inspiration for writing campaigns and/or songs.

Somewhat unrelated, but in the one (upcoming) fic I have right now that bothers to explore the religious sides of the characters, I have Eddie attending mass with Wayne for Christmas, but it's an anomaly for him and he grumbles about it the whole time. (It's for plot purposes and he doesn't like it.)

And then of course, Eddie's probably really interested in the stories of some of the saints and martyrs because some of them are pretty fuckin' metal. I also think he's super interested in religious iconography and metaphors for some reason, and loves finding those references and metaphors in songs and books.

Side note: I don't necessarily think that being Catholic is something that would have Othered Eddie (and Wayne) in Hawkins, especially if there is a strong Catholic population, but I do think that because of Eddie's non-conformist attitude and apparent general disdain for authority, he would have been Othered by the church (or rather its parishioners) and probably therefore deemed Freak, Satanist, etc.

I also think there’s something to be said about Eddie being put in an almost Christ-like shepherd position with his freshman sheepies. Also, the sentiment expressed in Mark 2:17 feels vaguely Eddie-like. (For those not familiar, this occurs when Jesus is asked by the pharisees and officials why he associates and eats with tax collectors and sinners, to which he replies “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”) However, I think that Eddie’s thing is less redeeming the sinners and more giving the excluded and ostracized a place to be included and treated well. But I digress.

Now, Chrissy. Dearest, loveliest Chrissy. While it is totally plausible that the Cunninghams are Presbyterian or Evangelical Christian or something else, miss girl has mega Repressed Catholic Girl Energy, so I’ve been headcanoning her family as Catholic. I definitely think Laura would use Catholicism (or Christianity in general) as a large tool in her attempts to control Chrissy and dictate her life. So like, because Catholicism is more strict/regimented/structured compared to other denominations like Baptist or Presbyterian, I think Laura would try to use it to make Chrissy’s life more strict/regimented/structured. (And also there’s the Guilt™️. Chrissy seems like the type of gal to be crippled by Catholic guilt.)

I’ve got this image in my head that I hope to be able to express in that upcoming wip I mentioned where Chrissy, once her mother (and Jason) starts trying to control her and obsess over her body, somehow equates the general “be Christ-like” thing with “Take this and eat of it; for this is my body, which has been given up for you” (which, again, for those unfamiliar with the proceedings of a Catholic mass, this is something that the priest says in regards to the Eucharist/communion wafers; it’s a reference to the last supper when Jesus broke bread and shared it with his disciples.) so she ends up letting her mother control her because that’s what she thinks is the right thing to do in order to “be Christ-like” and gain approval.

And then I know a lot of people headcanon Jason as the pastor’s son. In a story where they aren’t written as explicitly Catholic, I do like this headcanon because I think it would explain a lot about his character. However, in a setting where they are written as Catholic, I think Jason would be of the hypocritical sort. (He’ll preach the Bible at anyone he disagrees with, but then will turn around and completely disregard anything said about premarital sex, love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, etc. Essentially the sort of Christian that twists what’s said in the Bible to suit their needs and ignores the parts that they disagree with -- which is exactly the kind of person I think Eddie would read the entire Bible to be able to argue with.)

[amorhedera6]

no scratch my battle of the bands au lemonade mouth nerdy prudes au!!!!!!!!!!!!!

steph is charlie, our drummer. she’s under a lot of pressure from her dad to do the right thing, be the right person. he’s had her on the soccer team her whole life, even though she fucking hates it. she’s played drums since she was a kid, when a music teacher caught her adhd ten miles away and suggested using the sticks to stim. it’s her passion, but her dad doesn’t give a shit.

ruth is stella, lead guitar. her family just moved for her dad’s job, and her mom is pressuring her to be more behaved at a new school. she’s never fit in with her family’s traditional values, the young housewife, concerningly older husband, five kids, stay at home mom, purity, misogynistic shit. her parents refused to buy her a guitar so she slowly stole from her brothers allowance for years until she had enough to buy her own.

richie is wen, keyboardist. he learned to play classical piano as a kid with his mom, but he hasn’t played ever since his dad died a few years ago. he’s still dealing with his grief but his mother as figured out how to manage hers and found a new boyfriend, and he’s not dealing with it well.

grace is mo, the bassist. she comes from a very strict christian family, who would never let her play music like that. she plays the chello in the school orchestra, aces all her classes, everything. she’s scared to deviate from her family’s plan for her. not because she doesn’t believe in god, but because she wants to be a regular american teenager.

which leaves peter as olivia, our lead singer. he was in dance classes a kid and had an absolute breakdown freak out of stage at a school dance recital, which left him relentlessly bullied his whole life. he writes music as an escape but would never consider singing for anyone else. he’s got severe performance anxiety. he lives with his older brother, and has since he transitioned at 11 and his parents threw him out. recently, his mom has been trying to get back in touch with him.

the rival band of mudslide crush becomes jäeger and the man, with max in the lead. kyle and jason are back up, and the three are all also football stars, making for rulers of the school. jason has been flirting with grace semi-innocently (for the standards of anyone but her) for a little while, and she’s going along with it bc she’s having a crisis of self.

on ruth’s first day, she gets in trouble for calling the principal a sexist motherfucker. the same day, steph loses her cool and chucks a soccer ball at the head of a girl who was bullying hannah foster, the only freshman who made it on the varsity team. jason keeps grace in the hallway after the bell rings to try and ask her out, but she freaks out and gets caught in the hall running away from him. richie called a teacher stupid. peter gets caught having lunch in a custodial closet.

which leads all of them to detention. the music room they are sentences to has an ancient rickety lemonade machine just outside. a can for a quarter: ziggy’s lemonade.

the music teacher, miss holiday, is running their detention and leaves them with cleaning suppies and a room full of instruments. steph starts drumming on the desk, and richie tosses around some keys he’s putting away. ruth recognizes a rhythm between the two, domino effect, and they start playing some of the instruments. steph sits at the drums, and ruth picks up a guitar. richie and grace are both hesitant, richie for having not played in a while and grace for not wanting to get in any more trouble than she needs to, but they both join. they make a nice beat and peter finds himself singing in front of someone other than ted since he was a kid.

miss holiday returns and tells them they are a fantastic band, which leads them to all scatter and i is it they aren’t even really musicians. she pushes them to consider trying out for the rising star competition at the honey festival. they all deny, but ruth pushes them to give it a try.

they do so, but it doesn’t work out immediately. it takes them a little time to find their sound, but boy do they find it. ruth signs up to perform at homecoming, splitting the show time of jäeger and the man in half. they’re pissed, and max starts terrorizing them. they all band together to stand up for each other, and steph ends up spitting some of her lemonade at max when he’s attacking pete, and he calls her “lemonade mouth”

not great as far as insults, but band names? it’s one of the best.

they’re scheduled to perform at homecoming, but peter has a panic attack and locks himself in a bathroom stall. they coax him out and they do perform, to so much cheering. they sing a song that peter wrote (determinate) and get halfway through a song with ruth’s lyrics about rebellion and shit when the principal shuts them down.

everyone fucking loved them though. there was a kid who recorded the set and made it into a cd, which sells like crazy. at one point richie peter and ruth are hanging out at peters apartment and hear their song on the radio. they call steph and grace and all get so excited, and then get offered a standing once a week set at pizza pete’s.

everything’s going well, and they even think they might win rising star, when it all falls apart for them separately. richie finds out his mom is engaged and loses his mind, tries to run out of the house, and runs directly into max. he provoked him and comes out with a black eye. steph breaks some of her fingers in a fit of frustration (slammed them in drawers she was slamming on accident). grace gets super sick just before the competitions and ruth is more concerned with the fact that the lemonade machine is being removed than the competition.

pete suggests to steph maybe just giving up, and she gets mad at him for not caring. he says he never even wanted to do this, and when she asks why, he yells at her that’s it’s because he’s been into her for years. he loses his voice in the process and goes home. ruth calls them all to come protest the removal the ziggy’s machine, which gets them all arrested.

steph’s dad is pissed, ted thinks it’s hilarious, richie’s mom and him have a heart to heart about emotions and being a teenager, ruth gets saved when her older brother picks her up instead of her parents. grace is in real trouble, but confronts her parents about how being reckless and having fun with friends doesn’t mean she hates god. she can be a christian and still have a life, and they agree.

the rising star competition is a joke, max’s band kills it, and they can’t even really perform. but they try, and when they fail, hannah foster in the crowd stands up and starts singing determinate. everyone joins her, even doing the dance that they preform with it. they’re a real band, even if they didn’t win rising star.

they keep playing at pizza petes for a while, all the while writing songs. steph and pete get together, and grace realizes she’s aromantic. ruth gets a gf who’s a fan of the band, richie finally gets the courage to ask out long time crush, trevor, who works at the cineplex. richie’s mom marries her boyfriend, where steph finds herself, on total coincidence, sat next to ziggs.

ziggs is the friend of the girlfriend of richie’s uncle, which somehow led to an invite to the wedding. they talk to steph about a lot, including the band. the group talks them into donating a shit ton of money to the school to save the arts department.

while continuing on and preforming, they get found and offered a record deal. they make an album and release it just as they finish high school. it goes absolutely viral. they shoot ip the charts and make so much money. in less than a year of the band being formed, they’re selling a sold out show to madison square garden.

peter writes a letter to his mom explaining how it all happened, and explaining that he appreciates the attempt but has no desire to stay in contact with her. they he goes to msg and performs his music with his people.

[abujenna]

a different kind of martyr

Some 17 years ago, I had to find my patron saint. Most Orthodox don't pick their own; it's generally assigned at birth or close enough it amounts to the same thing. But when I converted as an adult, I got to choose saints for myself, my kids, and (as it turned out) my wife.

You have to feel the sarcasm dripping off that "got to"--I don't do intuition or spiritual experiences, so it was not a welcome opportunity. Maybe if I'd realized that it didn't have to be forever, it would have felt a little less daunting. There's no particular reason you can't have a special connection with more than one saint; and in my case, I had the perfect opportunity to switch if I'd wanted to. Due to a clerical oversight, our baptismal certificates weren't processed until I thought to ask more than a decade later; and in the event, they accidentally assigned my son's patron to both of us on paper. But I'm nothing if not committed, so I have no interest in changing--even if there's no formal documentation, even if he might not be real, even if his story is grossly problematic for Christian unity.

Looking back over my list of reasons, it's nice to see that most of them need no revision, except this one:

Sort of related to the previous connection, he was martyred by Catholic missionaries. I'll say to start out that this doesn't inspire in me a hatred for Catholics. But it does speak to both the "Western" chauvinism that infused colonial efforts and the tendency in "Western" Christianity to discount the authenticity of the "Eastern" faith. (I'm using quotes here, because in this case the Orthodox are coming from the West and Catholics are coming from the East.) I would say this tendency applies just as much to Protestantism, whatever one might say about whether Protestants would have martyred Peter for refusing to convert. I suspect I'm always going to have to deal with my fellow Euro-Americans questioning the legitimacy of my Orthodox faith, and it will be good to have a saint who understands so intimately that struggle.

I think I've come around to a more balanced view of Eastern and Western problems, as I noted six years ago when I had a chance to visit Mission San Gabriel. Russian colonialism wasn't necessarily any better than Spanish; it sent native Alaskans 3000 miles from home to California and provoked a clash of empires that ground them to dust. Likewise, Eastern Christianity has made more than its fair contribution to religious strife. And as an Orthodox Christian born and bred in the West, I get to own both sides.

I still love St. Peter, because he's not to blame for any of this; he was a victim of circumstance, but his simple faith still speaks for itself. He wasn't trying to convert anyone or win points in a war; he just wanted to be heard and seen for who he was. The problem comes when we use his legacy to further our own prejudice.

Perhaps an analogy would help. There's been a long-standing problem with Christians using the "Christ killer" label against Jewish people throughout history. Now, it is true that Jewish people killed Christ, or at least wanted him dead. Not all of them, or even most of them. And Jesus himself and his disciples were also Jewish. But the point is certainly made in Scripture that Jewish people killed him. And if we leave it there, we might feel it's a justifiable claim. But we have to ask why it's framed this way at a time when Christianity was still very much a Jewish movement. He came as the Jewish Messiah, and his own people--those who should have received him--called for his death. That's relevant not because they're Jewish (as one race among others), but because they were his own people. The Christian response should not be to assign blame but to ask, if we are his people, how do we put him to death by our actions? If it comes to assigning labels, then we are the Christ killers.

Now, here's the analogy: if Peter the Aleut was tortured and killed by some Catholics in California, what does that mean? Why is it important that they were Catholics? Any Christian martyr can be killed for their faith by pagans or Muslims or atheists, and die with a great confession of Christ on their lips. But St. Peter died for his faith at the hands of Christians, who didn't need an equal-to-apostle to introduce them to Jesus. And while they may have missed some important points, they already had their own martyrs to show them the way of the cross. St. Peter's great witness was that he died at the hands of Christians--that after the law and the prophets and the gospel and 1500 years of Christian civilization, we could still so easily commit the original sin of fratricide. That in the name of Jesus, who showed us how to lay down life for our brothers, we could take their life instead. That we could travel half-way around the world to carry the gospel, meet Christians coming the other way around, and plant our flag through their heart to claim we got here first.

The meaning of St. Peter's death is not that, as we always knew, those Catholics are evil. It is a mirror to show us how miserably we all fail in our witness to Christ. To show how our cause blinds us to the person before us. To question whether we're really fighting for God's truth or for our own scrap of territory. If his death has meaning, it can only be that we killed him.

[infjtarot]

Judgement. Weiser Waite Smith Tarot

Jesus returns to Earth to judge the living and the dead. The dead rise from their graves, their bodily integrity restored. An angel of the Lord sounds a trumpet in the sky.

While certainly there are religious overtones to the name of the card and its imagery, religious feeling is not necessary to interpret the card. Most religions, from Egyptian to Christian, have had some sort of mechanism for judgment after life, and this merely mimics the idea. It is an accounting of your mistakes and the damage you have done, and a call for you to make amends. Judgment is at number twenty. How many of the world’s artists were terrible people? Oh, so many. The American writer Gertrude Stein was a Vichy France collaborator. French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline was a full-on Nazi. Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian-born writer, was a rapist. Legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis beat his wives, Michelangelo da Caravaggio, an Italian painter in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was a murderer. And on and on. How many of them were able to fully understand and atone for their mistakes? Hardly any. I can think of one, though. Romania’s Emil Cioran, one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, fell under the sway of the Nazis when they first rose to power. He got a little too swept up by their rhetoric of strength and power; a little too starry-eyed in regard to the control and order they brought to their country. Many intellectuals and thinkers, from Knut Hamsun to Martin Heidegger, fell under the same spell—the exact people who should have known better. Eventually Cioran was able to see the error in his thinking, and he used that mistake to think through a new round of philosophical thought. He atoned through philosophy. He was one of the few. That is the feeling of Judgment. The need for absolution. The subject on the card here is the return of Jesus Christ to earth to judge the living and the dead. But to believe in that, we’d need to believe in the concept of sin, and we’re beyond that, you and me. Still, the sensation is useful to us: this idea of judging your past wrongs, dealing with the ramifications, and making amends. Probably you don’t have Nazi worship in your past, but there are all sorts of other ways we hurt others and go wrong in our thinking.

Judgment is a difficult task, but it offers a karmic restart. In order to progress as people, or through a project, first we must find the moment that progress has stalled. There we will usually find an error. Instead of dealing with our misjudgments and the moments we were at our worst, we often just pile other things on top of them in the hopes they’ll go away. That time we betrayed a friend and caused her serious harm? We don’t talk about it or think about it; in fact, we don’t really even see that friend anymore.

It is a bit like the Alcoholics Anonymous idea of making amends by going through your past, and expressing ruthless honesty and sincere remorse. This card doesn’t necessarily have to do with your personal life; it could be a problem with your project that you are refusing to acknowledge and for which you are now just trying to compensate. Maybe you stole a part of someone else’s work? Maybe you took credit for something you did not do? Maybe you willfully hurt someone with your portrayal of him or her? Come clean. Make amends. It might not be a comfortable card, but Judgment does offer a new beginning. A life after death. But it’s a card that knows that in order to be reborn, you must die first. RECOMMENDED MATERIALS The New Gods, book by Emil Cioran The Cantos, epic poem by Ezra Pound Don Giovanni, opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Jessa Crispin

[bllsbailey]

Unbelievable! Biden Announces $8 Billion in Military Aid for Ukraine

The American People cannot afford to put food on the table for their families and these sorry democrat bastards are giving money to the con man from Ukraine, unbelievable!

U.S. President Joe Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday to help Kyiv "win this war" against Russian invaders, using a visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make a major commitment.

The aid includes the first shipment of a precision-guided glide bomb called the Joint Standoff Weapon, with a range of up to 81 miles (130 km). The medium-range missile gives Ukraine a major upgrade to the weapons it is using to strike Russian forces, allowing the Ukrainians to do it at safer distances. The bomb, capable of striking targets with high accuracy, is to be dropped from fighter jets. Biden will not announce that Washington would let Ukraine use U.S. missiles to hit targets deeper in Russia, a U.S. official said.

Supporting Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022, has been a U.S. top priority, Biden said in a statement.

"That is why, today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war," said Biden, who leaves office in January.

The bulk of the new aid, $5.5 billion, is to be allocated before Monday's end of the U.S. fiscal year, when the funding authority is set to expire. Another $2.4 billion is under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies rather than pull them from U.S. stocks.

This will provide Ukraine with additional air defense, unmanned aerial systems and air-to-ground munitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements, Biden said.

Under his plan, the president said, the Defense Department will refurbish and provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery and more Patriot missiles.

Biden ordered the Pentagon to expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, including by supporting the training of an additional 18 pilots next year.

To combat Russian sanctions evasion and money laundering, the U.S. will act to disrupt what Biden called "a global cryptocurrency network, in coordination with international partners."

Biden said he will convene a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month to coordinate efforts of more than 50 countries supporting Ukraine.

Before meeting Biden at midday (1600 GMT), Zelenskyy is due to meet Democratic and Republican leaders at the Capitol.

Ukraine's defense has largely received bipartisan support in the U.S., but it was not clear how many Republicans would make time to sit down with Zelenskyy amid rising criticism of his government from party leaders, including Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.

Trump has been criticizing the Ukrainian president as he campaigns for the Nov. 5 election and, at least for now, turned down a request from Zelenskyy for a meeting.

The former president was sharply critical of Zelenskyy on Wednesday, telling a campaign rally in North Carolina, "We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelenskiy."

Trump also blamed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic presidential opponent, for allowing Russia's invasion.

Many congressional Republicans have been furious about Zelenskyy's visit on Sunday to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden grew up. The Republican-led House of Representatives Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Zelenskiy's trip.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who is not expected to meet Zelenskyy on Thursday, demanded that he fire his ambassador to Washington for planning the Scranton trip, although he told reporters this demand was not a threat to oppose military aid. 

[ledenews]

Santorine: 'We Should All Demand Better'

'Politicians are not born; they are excreted.' -- Marcus Tullius Cicero Politics is no kinder or gentler than it’s been in the past couple of hundred years. What’s changed, though, is a lack of civility which is completely out of control. My granddaughter and I were having a discussion about President Reagan, the great communicator. During one of his first speeches after nearly dying from an assassin’s bullet, a balloon that was in the hall popped, and he quickly quipped “Missed me.” The crowd roared. The next clip on the YouTube reel was his first State of the Union Address, and standing next to the Vice President was Thomas Phillip “Tip” O’Neill, a Democrat Speaker of the House,  who had a deserved reputation of taking care of the people of the United States by getting things done. He was a dealmaker.  Known and friendly with both sides of the aisle, he was respected by both parties, although either extreme was often not happy with him. He stood his ground when necessary, and made deals from the floor of the people’s house when it was in the best interest of the American People. Like making sausage, the process itself can be messy, but the results can be very tasty. I’m going to say it again, the process was no kindler or gentler. What is hugely different is that these men and women were hard on the problem, not on the people. I don’t believe Tip O’Neill would have stooped to the level of depravity demonstrated by Nancy Pelosi tearing up the copy of Trump’s State of the Union Address.  He was much too classy for that kind of move, and he knew it would start to ferment the violent rhetoric that we see today. There wasn’t name calling. There were not bold-faced lies. There were differing opinions, and the process needed to get things done is the lost art of compromise. Remember compromise? It’s how Union contracts were built without interrupting people’s lives;’ how legislation was crafted; and it was done by men and women with a job to do who wanted a mutually beneficial outcome. What we have right now are 435 big-mouthed bullies in the House, and another hundred in Congress, none of which will hesitate to call those not of his tribe “the son of a whore” or worse. It’s not civil at all. They all refuse to compromise, mostly because it’s what they sold to their constituents. That’s the first lie, powered by their overwhelming “need” to get elected. And, it sends a message. The message is to hate your opponent.  It’s not “we can play the game hard” and enjoy our neighbors when the game is over. It’s fight to the death, and your principles be damned. Don’t forget to hate the guy or gal who’s elected (same as you) to a seat (same as yours) to do the peoples’ business, and make it work across three time zones. I played sports in high school. I was a captain of the football team, and of the wrestling team. We proudly played to win. The captain of our arch rival lived less than a quarter-mile from where I did. We played together as children. We played hard. As we grew up, we were even more competitive, and even more friendly. Same job, with the same challenges, but for different teams.  There was a camaraderie that is born where you’re each one of two doing a specific job in the area. It was as it should be. We were not about to throw the game. We played hard. Very hard. But when we stepped off the gridiron, we were just a couple of guys from the neighborhood where there was an invisible geopolitical line in the middle of the street that sent us to different high schools. Five decades later, I’m still in touch with him. Different teams. Same challenges. Both still leaders. Of course, what we are, the House is not. We are seeing generally well-educated and accomplished people take the easy way out. They are creating hate for the other side – exactly what is going on in Gaza – with the mindset of, “If you don’t get your way, kill your neighbor.” It’s not a smart way to lead, and it’s lazy. I’ve watched my country turn into a third-world nation with a politicized legal system, and now I’m watching the hate that is oozing out of our capital embolden those among us with mental challenges to pick up a weapon and kill politicians.  This is no different than Chuck Schumer telling poor, addled Thomas Crooks to go buy an AR-15 and take a shot at Donald Trump. It’s not different that I believe he’s culpable. We don’t have fact-based political discussions anymore. We have name-calling sessions. We can’t discuss facts, because they are so twisted to support an agenda that we can’t agree. On anything. The other assassin we saw on Saturday is the media. They murdered the truth. One outlet ran a picture of Trump bleeding and the headline said, “He fell.” Don’t they wish. Everything foretold by the framers is coming true.  The problem is with political parties. The extreme positions, and they crazies that are willing to pick up a weapon and shoot a President in the theater. Or during a speech. Or from the top of a book repository, or thrusting a weapon into the side of a President and pulling the trigger. Our politicians and their lap dog media are teaching our children, and their allegedly adult parents, to hate. The shootings will continue until they grow up and start acting like adults. I’m done with the hate. We should all demand better ... but would it make a difference? Read the full article

[innerdreamercollective]

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Blurb

Clean cut, all-American, hot as sin, and sweet enough to lick all over.

That’s how my friend Skye describes Miles Blake. It’s how I’d describe him, too, if I didn’t just find out the one-night stand that rocked my world is my best friend’s fiancé’s best friend…God, what a mouthful.

Now, the cat’s out of the bag, and despite the lingering attraction between us, I’ve locked him firmly in the friend zone.

What else am I supposed to do? If I allow myself to enjoy Miles the way I want to, what will happen when things inevitably go bad? We’d be putting our prospective best friends in the middle, that’s what. And I refuse to be the cause of tension between my bestie and the love of her life.

No way. No how.

But it doesn’t take long for the desire simmering inside me to come to a head. Miles is charming, funny, gorgeous, and kind…everything I could want in a man wrapped in a sexy package that makes my body revolt against my mind and its ridiculous decision to keep things friendly.

So we make a deal––we’ll remain friends, but with…ahem…benefits. Nothing changes outside of the bedroom, and when we end the physical stuff, we’ll remain friends. No harm. No foul.

It’s the perfect plan, right?

#NewRelease #NowLive #WhispersyncBlitz #PinkFlamingoProductions #TheFlockonTour #BumpandRunAudioTour #PiperJames #CecilyFoster #JoshInnerst #RomanticComedy #SportsRomance

[percontaion-points]

The Chemist chapter 8

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 8

The pictures that were Daniel but at the same time weren’t. 

The holes in the file on Daniel’s history, the missing photos. 

Time, dates, birth dates —the easiest small changes to make if you wanted to hide something. 

Daniel’s strange reluctance to believe what he was seeing when he looked at the spy images. 

His struggles with loyalty. 

Those long, long fingers. 

“Other Daniel,” she whispered. 

Is this book seriously trotting out the “evil identical twin” trope? JFC stop. 

She nodded to the photographs scattered on the floor. He seemed to notice them for the first time. He leaned over to examine one, then bent down to grab it. Then the one underneath, and the next. He crumpled t

hem in his fist. 

“Where did you get these?” “Compliments of a small department working for the American government—entirely off the books. I used to be in their employ. They asked me to freelance.” 

His face contorted in outrage. “This is highly classified!” 

“You wouldn’t believe my clearance level.”

And what? He thought that somebody grabbed Daniel, took him to a farmhouse dozens of miles outside of the city, and started torturing him… FOR FUNSIES?!

“Well, since you already know the details, I guess it’s not a huge breach of policy for me to tell you that I shut down the de la Fuentes situation six months ago. De la Fuentes’s death is not common knowledge. What’s left of the cartel is keeping this quiet so they don’t appear vulnerable to the competition.”

Naturally, the mysterious government agency that couldn’t be bothered to find out that Kevin Beach is still alive, also can’t be bothered to find out that the terrorist HASN’T BEEN ALIVE FOR HALF A YEAR. 

First things first. She reset the screen saver on her computer to come on after fifteen minutes of inactivity.

I love how she knocks Kevin out, and the first thing she does is the most inane activity imaginable. 

Explaining things? Pfft! Not in this book!

Back to Other Daniel. The Batsuit was a chore to remove.

The stupidest thing about this is that as soon as Julie saw him, she identified him as Kevin Beach, Daniel’s supposed-to-be-dead identical twin brother. 

SO WHY THE FUCKITY FUCK IS SHE STILL CALLING HIM “OTHER DANIEL” AND “BATMAN”?!

There would be repercussions to deal with. She needed time to rest and heal —time no one was going to give her.

Chapter 8 summary: Julie tells the mystery man (she will not stop calling him “Batman” because he’s dressed in all black; I refuse to stoop to her level of stupidity) that she’s sedated Daniel. The mystery man then ties Julie to a chair, and takes the gas mask off. Julie is surprised that it’s Daniel’s identical twin brother… the one who’s supposed to be dead.

He then finds the photos of him talking to the Mexican drug lord who’s supposed to be in charge of this terrorist attack. Julie spills everything, about the attempts on her life, about being asked to step in to deal with “Daniel”. She guesses from the gun Kevin has that he’s CIA, but that if not even her agency knew Kevin was still alive, that he’s working off the books with this one. Kevin is more angry that somebody tortured his brother than the fact that somebody’s clearly setting both Julie and Kevin up (and using Daniel as bait). 

Julie then… somehow or another, gases both Kevin and his giant dog. Julie holds her breath, and despite the fact that her hands are zip-tied behind her back, she manages to put the gas mask on. She frees herself before she locks the dog into a room, and parks the car in front of the door to prevent it from getting out. After that, she checks Daniel’s body all over more closely for a tracking device, and finds one “nestled against his femoral artery”. She figures that it sent out an alert when she started torturing Daniel, which is why Kevin swooped in to save the day. 

She then resets her broken nose. And will not shut up about the mysterious chemical concoction she made that she nicknamed “survive”. It’s kept intentionally vague, but the only thing I can think about is that it’s mainly to hide how dumb the entire thing is. She then passes out on the cot. 

[whumpster-fire]

So I’ve been sucked into the Railway Series fandom and had the stupid idea of making a fan railroad loosely based off the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad but run with the same “refuses to merge with other railways, refuses to give up its steam fleet, and keeps ending up with a hodgepodge of engine classes from other railways and weird experimental designs” attitude as the NWR, and I’ve been doing research on railroads now as a result, and thoughts so far are as follows:

Jesus the scale of US geography compared to British/Sudrian geography is fucking ridiculous in general and I chose to base this off Colorado railroads which are on their own level of ridiculous. Like, the real life basis for this is “Line literally gains a fucking mile of elevation” ridiculous. “The standard gauge lines have to deal with 3% grades, the narrow-gauge ones get up to like 4%” ridiculous. “The new tunnel means trains ‘only’ have to deal with sustained 2% grades and 4,000 ft of elevation gain” ridiculous. And the engines are probably insufferable about it. Imagining them hearing about the infamous Gordon’s Hill and then finding out that it’s a 1 in 75 gradient for 5 miles and being like “You... named that? That’s literally just a random part of the main line over here.” Their pastime is probably making fun of ‘flatlander’ diesels who show up and complain about the hills.

On a very related note the scale of the engines is fucking ridiculous. I was thinking “Oh well this is based off a relatively small railway they probably wouldn’t have the really big engines” but then I did research and it turned out that due to the need to move heavy freight trains up said absurd elevation gains while the D&RGW didn’t have Big Boys or Alleghanies they had just about everything short of that including at one point leasing some of Union Pacific 3985′s siblings and the Duluth and Iron Range ‘Yellowstones’ as well as owning some similarly gigantic engines. Also some of the fucking narrow-gauge engines are almost the size of Gordon and Henry and might win a tug-of-war with them.

Also imagining the engines being horrified by some of the NWR’s stories about the stunts trucks pull, because apparently those are based on air brakes not being required for freight rolling stock in the UK at the time but the US mandated air brakes in 1900 so many of the steam engines would only have heard stories about a time before them from the older ones.

American engines have such different lamps from the Brit ones. Some US engines have their lamps above the smokebox but some have them on the front of the smokebox, which is a problem in the RWS-verse because that’s where the engine’s face is. So I’ve decided that in the RWS setting any engines that IRL have lamps on their smokeboxes instead have their lamps in their eyes. Some crews really like working with these engines because they can just look at whatever, but some crews hate it because when their engine looks away from the track the crew can’t see it either and they really have to rely on the engine’s situational awareness. And also the moment of darkness when the engine blinks is kind of disconcerting.

Also the bells and whistles and couplings are quite different. Are... American locomotives able to push a train or bunch of rolling stock without being coupled to it?

I saw one website say that “funnel” is not actually real terminology for a locomotive’s smokestack IRL and was popularized by Awdry. If that’s true than my new headcanon is that it’s a quirk of the Sudrian language and dialect in-universe.

[vaveyard]

I always found it weird how white Americans say "I'm Italian", "I'm Irish", "I'm Polish" and yet don't speak the language, read the literature, know the history, or the different cultures (Italians aren't a monolith) besides a few skin deep details. It's almost like a fetish. Unless your relatives or ancestors are from specific native ethnic groups, or unless you grow up with that culture (language, stories, traditions, history, etc.), Italian, Irish, Polish are just nationalities. Tell an Italian "I'm Italian American!" and they'll start speaking to you in Italian, because if you don't speak the language why would you say you're Italian at all, right?

The obsession is even weirder considering how people of color struggle to trace their ancestry and find their culture because their ancestors were mostly brought to the US against their will, or in the case of Natives, their communities and cultures were wiped out 🤦🏾‍♀️

Now that you're an "influencer", you should be more careful and less ignorant. Ignorance spreads like a disease. There's enough white Americans already using ancestry as something that makes them "special". With the boom of 23andMe I've seen so many white Americans excited to find out they are 0.8% Native, completely ignoring the implications of that.

Considering that the vast majority of your following seems to be white and privileged (I wonder why), and how you can influence them, it'd be nice to see some effort to fight ignorance. This liberal approach of exclusively talking about issues that personally affect you and people like you, the refusal to talk about the racism in publishing, for example, (or to call out publishing at all, really), or how a few authors getting 6 figure deals means others (mostly poc and queer) get almost nothing, or how you're always ready to scold readers of color or queer who rightfully complain about the representation in your books, how you say they dehumanize you (when people of color and queer are literally dehumanized to the point they get beaten and killed in the streets), speaks volumes. Add this fetish to all of it, and of course liberal racist women are going to flock to you. You can say you're anti-racism all you want, but until you you put action behind your words, it's empty virtue signalling. Retconning a character's ethnicity because your work is otherwise all white is racist (like JKR making one character gay when the series is over, and saying there's one Jewish character at Hogwarts). Just like creating queer characters just to serve the straight ones/get them together, or to portray how evil the society is, is homophobic (unless you're writing from experience, which you're not; you're just associating queerness with suffering and abuse, which are big stereotypes).

Everywhere I turn there's people wearing their alleged ancestry like a trendy bag. "I'm Italian :) wait that's not cool anymore? I'm also 5% Irish! No? I'm 4% French! 15% Scottish Gaelic!"

I know white Americans who say "My family is Italian from Sicily" but the few Italian dialect words and songs they know are in Neapolitan (Sicily and Campania are two completely different regions, with over 700km/400 miles between them). Or white Americans who say "I gesticulate a lot because I'm Italian!" but don't know anything about the country's history and cultures.

It's like you are constantly looking for something to make you special and "not like other Americans" when the truth is that most white Americans have ancestors from other countries, and they arrived to the US by choice.

Italian-American is a very specific ethnic subgroup, with its own literature and working class culture, of immigrants who've faced poverty, starvation, racism (in the beginning, Italians in the US were considered poc) and who've had to climb their way up to a decent life.

You're a privileged white woman, who got published through connections made at an expensive college, who brags about how rich she is to her audience of kids and who airs her dirty laundry against air companies online, all the while managing to brag about how she travelled first class to another continent, so she's entitled to better treatment than other people (I mention this because that's how I discovered you, people in reading circles where shocked at how you were trying to use your audience to call out and shame a company for an inconvenient, but common and not world ending mistake. First world problems).

Your Italian ancestors are rolling in their graves.

Lots of people like to say I'm this, I'm that, and yet can't even find the country on a map, or know the names of its regions.

You said your mother (?) is Scottish and you regularly visit family in Scotland, yes? You're much closer to Scottish than Italian. Or is that not quirky and exotic enough?

ma’am this is a Wendy’s

please focus on yourself, this fixation you have with me seems really taxing on you

(p.s. when my grandmother came to the US she wasn’t allowed to go to school unless she could speak English, so she sat in silence for years before she felt it was safe to speak in her classroom, it caused her a huge amount of trauma so she never taught her children and grandchildren Italian, I don’t think policing people’s backgrounds and how they identify, especially based on language, is terribly useful)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ring helped LAPD spy on BLM protests

Ring - Amazon's surveillance doorbell division - has 4,000 "partnerships" with US police ("public safety") orgs. The company has lied about how these work for years, but the basic deal is that they give cops free stuff to buzz-market their products.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5wyjy/amazon-told-police-it-has-partnered-with-200-law-enforcement-agencies

Ring tells its customers that they get to choose whether to share the footage from their street-facing cameras with cops, but that's a lie, too. If you say no, the cops still get to look through your camera.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/43kga3/amazon-is-coaching-cops-on-how-to-obtain-surveillance-footage-without-a-warrant

That's why cops debase themselves to serve as buzz-marketers for Ring - in exchange, they get an off-the-books, free-to-use, warrantless, city-scale, video surveillance grid.

It's an investment that pays off. Back in July, EFF documented how the San Francisco Police Department was able to commandeer 200 Avigilon cameras to produce surveillance data on BLM protesters:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/san-francisco-police-accessed-business-district-camera-network-spy-protestors

And in a new blockbuster report, EFF's Dave Maass and Matthew Guariglia document how the LAPD did the same thing, fraudulently using "unusual occurance" protocols to gain access to last summer's BLM protests.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/lapd-requested-ring-footage-black-lives-matter-protests

Ring has a terrible track record, kicking off its marketing by sending out deceptive news-bulletins to convince people that they lived in high-crime areas and needed its products:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/amazon-owned-ring-wants-report-crime-news/588394/

They lied about their facial recognition program:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazon-ring-facial-recognition-ukraine

A program that included a plan to make "watch lists" of people who'd be tracked from camera to camera:

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/26/amazon-ring-home-security-facial-recognition/

Far from keeping its customers safe, Ring exposed them to real harm, leaking their home addresses:

https://gizmodo.com/ring-s-hidden-data-let-us-map-amazons-sprawling-home-su-1840312279

Allowing third parties to hack their cameras, spy on them, and scream abuse at them:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3bbq4/podcast-livestreams-hacked-ring-cameras-nulledcast

Not just hackers, either! Multiple Ring employees got caught spying on Ring owners and their families, including their children:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3mdvk/ring-fired-employees-abusing-video-data

As Maass and Guariglia point out, Ring made some improvements to user privacy over the past year, adding end-to-end encryption. But at the same time, Ring has cemented its relationship with American police forces, leading to far more police requests for Ring owners' footage.

These "requests" start to feel a lot more like coercion, and, as with other coercive law-enforcement requests, "like police 'asking' to search your phone during a traffic stop," they should be bound by strict limits.

EFF proposes four rules for coercive electronic searches:

Requests must be specific, targeting a particular time and place where there is reasonable suspicion that crime has happened (rather than general requests)

Police must collect and publish statistics about their consent searches of electronic devices, to deter and detect racial profiling

Police and reviewing courts must narrowly construe the scope of a person’s consent to search their device.

Before an officer attempts to acquire footage from a person’s Ring camera, the officer must notify the person of their legal right to refuse.

The public-private surveillance partnership between Ring and the cops epitomizes the paradox of the American privacy debate.

When I talk to military, intelligence and government audiences about surveillance, they say, "Look, Uncle Sam already knows everything about me, but those scumbags in Silicon Valley would sell their mothers for a nickel."

And when I talk to tech audiences, they say, "Google just wants to show me better ads, big deal. But cops and spooks? They're the thickwitted sociopaths who were too stupid to get a job at a tech company. No WAY I want them spying on me."

But the reason companies like Ring are allowed to conduct such indiscriminate surveillance (a one mile walk in DC puts you under the gaze of 13 Ring cameras!) is that governments are wholly dependent on requisitioning their footage.

Rather than warning people about the dangers of Ring cameras - or agitating for ordinances banning them - cops served as street-teams marketing Ring's products. Private surveillance depends on government complicity, and spying governments depend on private surveillance.