#i will fight robert antis in the STREET

[bones-clouds]

books i read in 2024:

"sirens & muses"

antonia angress

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

genre: academia, art, literary, contemporary, wlw

synopsis:

Four artists are drawn into a web of rivalry and desire at an elite art school and on the streets of New York in this “gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining” (BuzzFeed) debut

“Captures the ache-inducing quality of art and desire . . . a deeply relatable and profoundly enjoyable read, one drenched in prismatic color and light.”—Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of With Teeth

It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.

When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.

With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own their future.

[jazzandother-blog]

Johnny Winter

The first time I saw Johnny Winter perform, I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to him. It was in London, in 1969, at the Royal Albert Hall. There I realised what the blues meant to the towering, cross-eyed guitarist: it was his only reason for living. And, curiously, his way of thinking was a strange mixture of southern sensibilities, with all the backwardness that such militancy contains, and of vindication for black people. Winter might as well have been a battle-hardened gentleman in 'Gone with the Wind', or a member of an anti-abortionist sect in Dallas; but he was fighting for the recognition of his idols in the blues, the only music he dreamed of and drank. He would have given his life to be Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters, or another similar hero, but fate had him born into a fairly white family. Nevertheless, his throat makes us forget the cataract of albino hair that crosses his face when he performs. That heartbroken cry seems to come from the bowels of an Alabama cotton worker, if not from a street in Granada's Sacromonte neighbourhood. Johnny Winter has been and is a musician in constant search, loyal like few others to the root of all rock, playing feverishly with the guitar, walking along the edge of the heroin cliff, falling under its spell, detoxified, and victorious at the end of the battle. The blues has saved him once again.

La primera vez que vi actuar a Johnny Winter tuve, además, la fortuna de poder hablar con él. Fue en Londres, en 1969, en el Royal Albert Hall. Allí me di cuenta de lo que el blues significaba para el altísimo y bizco guitarrista: era su única razón de vivir. Y, curiosamente, su forma de pensar era una extraña mezcla de sensibilidades sureñas, con todo lo que de retrógrado contiene tal militancia, y de reivindicaciones por el pueblo negro. Winter bien pudiera haber sido un aguerrido caballero en 'Lo que el viento se llevó', o miembro de una secta antiabortista de Dallas; pero eso sí, luchando por el reconocimiento de sus ídolos dentro del blues, la única música que soñaba y bebía. Hubiera dado la vida por ser Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters, u otro héroe similar, pero el destino le hizo nacer en el seno de una familia bastante blanca. No obstante, su garganta hace que olvidemos la catarata de pelo albino que le cruza el rostro cuando actúa. Ese grito desgarrado parece brotar de las entrañas de un trabajador del algodón de Alabama, cuando no de una calle en el barrio granadino del Sacromonte. Johnny Winter ha sido y es un músico en constante búsqueda, leal como pocos a la raíz de todo el rock, jugando febrilmente con la guitarra, caminando por el borde del precipicio de la heroína, caído en su encanto, desintoxicado, y vencedor al fin de la batalla. El blues le ha salvado una vez más.

(Fuente: Carlos Tena, Sentir el Blues, Ediciones Altaya, 1995).

[beardedmrbean]

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he's "ashamed and outraged" at recent antisemitic attacks in Germany.

He was speaking at an event to mark the anniversary of the November pogroms of 1938, sometimes known as "Kristallnacht."

Berlin's staunch diplomatic support for Israel is often described as a matter of historic responsibility.

But, as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas, social discord is emerging in Germany.

I meet a woman called Noa at a Berlin synagogue where she tells me how she has family who survived the Holocaust by hiding in Poland.

Some Jewish people in today's Germany, she says, are now hiding their identity.

"It's scary. Why should I live and be afraid of who I am?"

Aaron doesn't feel comfortable showing items traditionally worn by Jewish men in public, either his kippah or his tzitzit, the tassels of his prayer shawl.

Having fled the war in Ukraine, he believes Berlin is unsafe because "a lot of people support terrorist organisations".

Fears about a rise in antisemitism, since the outbreak of hostilities between Hamas and Israel, are widespread across Europe.

For Germany, incidents such as two petrol bombs being thrown towards a Berlin synagogue in October spark acute anxiety due to the nation's Nazi past.

Cases of antisemitism were, according to preliminary police figures, already on the rise this year before the Hamas attacks - the majority committed by the far right.

Since 7 October, senior politicians have urged people, particularly from parts of the political left and Muslim backgrounds, to distance themselves from the actions of Hamas.

Israel's security is a fundamental cornerstone of German foreign policy with the former chancellor, Angela Merkel, declaring it to be a Staatsräson - reason of state - in 2008.

On a recent visit to Israel, Olaf Scholz said: "In such difficult times there is only one place we can be: at Israel's side."

But Germany's state doctrine is being visibly challenged on the streets of cities like Berlin.

"Your staatsräson sucks!" read one placard at a recent pro-Palestinian demonstration.

This march was permitted to take place whereas many have been banned.

Nadim Jarrar, who attended the 9,000-strong demo, tells me he's frustrated by the "one-sided" narrative.

Half-German, half-Palestinian - he thinks Germany must be more prepared to talk about the actions of Israel.

"It's a healthy process for every nation to get criticised and to have a discussion about what's going on."

Any German discomfort with that debate, he believes, cannot lead to shutting it down.

Sami, who has family in the West Bank and lives in Stuttgart, says people must be able "to show we are in pain about what's happening in Gaza".

"What's been done to the Palestinians since 1948... We've all seen the videos of what they're doing to our children."

In a widely viewed video message, Germany's vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, said that criticism of Israel is "of course allowed" but its right to exist must not be "relativised".

"Israel's security is our obligation," he said.

Some demonstrations have led to violent clashes between police and protesters.

The authorities are investigating reports that black and white banners, which are used by jihadist groups and feature the Islamic statement of faith, were flown at a march in the city of Essen.

There was outrage when one group, subsequently disbanded by government, appeared to be celebrating the Hamas atrocities of 7 October on the streets of Berlin.

Felix Klein, the government's Commissioner for Jewish life in Germany, says it has become apparent that there is a big problem in Germany's integration policy.

"It is problematic when it turns into antisemitic and anti-Israel hate where people shout 'From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free' - which would deny Israel's right to exist."

However, there has been criticism that the messages coming from the government have veered towards stoking anti-Muslim sentiment.

Debate about the German government's foreign and domestic positioning is likely to persist for as long as the conflict between Israel and Hamas lasts.

"Every time there's a war in Israel," says Noa, "it just hits us again and again that we are not a full part of the society".

"We will always be different. We will always be the ones that are not fully German."

There is real anguish in Germany, rooted in its past, that Jewish people don't feel safe. But there is also an anger, bubbling in some communities, about a perceived reluctance by the political classes to break a German taboo and criticise Israel.

[mariacallous]

The assassination attempt on Robert Fico left the country, as well as the rest of Europe, in shock. While the PM is now back at home recuperating, the country ponders difficult questions about its future.

In the heat of a late May afternoon, Bratislava is awash with blooming perennial flowers as well as tourists and locals enjoying the start of summer. At first glance, you’d never guess anything with Slovakia was amiss. Business is booming, the streets are littered with billboards and slogans promoting the upcoming EU elections, and the city has just hosted the famous Starmus science festival starring Brian May and more than a dozen Nobel prize winners. And yet Slovakia has been the scene of not one, but now three traumatic, tragic attacks in recent years, highlighting the depth of the polarisation and conflict that is rending society.

In 2018, young investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova were ruthlessly gunned down in their own home in the village of Velka Maca. Four years later, a radicalised young man carried out the first terrorist attack in Slovak history in front of a queer bar in Bratislava, killing two and wounding a third. And three weeks ago, the widespread hate and polarisation culminated in the first serious attack on a politician.

This time a gunman chose the highest target, Prime Minister Robert Fico, who had returned to power only last October. He was shot multiple times at close range. Rushed to hospital in Banska Bystrica, he underwent six hours of surgery. Last week he was released to home care to start his rehabilitation, but is yet to address the public.

In the hours and days after the shooting, politicians, experts and media from across the spectrum called for a calming of emotions, for peace, and for people to take a moment to reflect.

In a rare sign of unity, outgoing President Zuzana Caputova and President-elect Peter Pellegrini stood side by side, inviting all the leaders of parliamentary parties for a round table to figure out how to move forward. These efforts, unfortunately, never materialised after two coalition parties, Fico’s Smer and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), refused to attend. Instead, the government proposed a joint resolution denouncing the attack in the parliament, which all of the parties unanimously adopted.

Breaking point

While the government proclaims its attempts at “reconciliation” and the fight against hate at every opportunity, many observers see anything but.

Instead of open discussion with their political rivals, government officials opt for blaming the critical media or opposition for creating the fevered atmosphere that led to the shooting, basing their claims on the motives of the shooter, who was reportedly reacting to some of the steps taken by Fico’s government since it came to power in October – the changes at the public service broadcaster and the Judicial Council or the dissolution of the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

The shooter reportedly had also attended some of the anti-government protests organised by the opposition. On the other hand, he also published anti-Roma pamphlets and was close to the pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenski branci in the past, too.

“Of course, it’s not reconciliation [the government] is after. They don’t need to reconcile with anyone, they need to seize control of the country. And they really need the other side to be silent. They need civil society to start being silent,” says Michal Vasecka, a sociologist at the Bratislava Policy Institute.

And in that they could be succeeding. “One part of society has been completely paralysed [after the shooting], and I think it will stay paralysed for a long time. And the other part will be even more aggressive and uncompromising. It is definitely at a breaking point,” adds Vasecka.

Despite different reactions to the tragic shooting on the square in Handlova, Slovak political leaders as well as analysts agreed that Fico was the target of an “attack on democracy” at its core. And according to political analysts, it is indeed the country’s democracy that will be hurt most by this attack, along with the premier.

Aftermath of the shooting

In the short term, the assassination attempt on the prime minister is very likely to influence the results of the June 8 EU election in Slovakia. The situation will probably work in the favour of Fico’s Smer party, whose candidates are already using the tragic event heavily in their campaign.

“The elaborations of the liberal camp may have led to the liquidation of Robert Fico, because Smer has no future without him,” said Smer’s most radical MP, Lubos Blaha, at a pre-election meeting in Orava region, according to Postoj.sk.

Blaha said government officials are, in fact, only defending their rights. “Who started this hate? Who said that we were killers, mafiosos, thieves? Remember that! They banned the alternative websites, took our freedom of speech. We must tidy them up in a sense that there needs to be normal discussions,” he continued, according to Postoj.

The EU election in Slovakia is set to be mainly a battle between two leading parties: the leftist Smer and liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS), which dominated the last EU elections in 2019.

Meanwhile, the government’s idea of a “normal discussion” has become reality on many TV channels. By the end of May, almost all free political debate shows in the Slovak television landscape have lost their hosts, or have been cancelled completely, the latest victim being the most watched political TV show in Slovakia, Na telo on TV Markiza.

TV Markiza, owned by the PPF investment group run by the Kellner family of the Czech Republic, cancelled the program after Michal Kovacic, an award-winning host ended the latest episode with a speech describing the “Orbanisation” of Slovakia’s media, referring to the state of the independent media in next-door Hungary after 15 years of Viktor Orban in power – under extreme pressure from the government as well as from their own managements.

Over a hundred reporters at TV Markiza have since signed a public letter to the management, standing behind Kovacic and Na telo. Similar to employees at public service broadcaster RTVS a few weeks ago, all Markiza reporters appeared in a live broadcast wearing black and announced a strike.

More of the same, but stronger

Pavol Hardos, political scientist at Comenius University in Bratislava, says that the assassination attempt will only strengthen a trend of weakening democratic norms that was already in motion. “The scenario had already been set and the only thing this assassination will do is accelerate this development and make the opposition’s work even harder,” he says.

While information on Fico’s medical condition remains sparse and mostly reduced to a “gradual improvement of his health condition”, the cabinet powers on to prove to the world that it’s business as usual and the bullets will not slow down their efforts to remake the country’s institutions.

In the two weeks since the shooting, the Slovak government has managed to push for a drastic change in the management of the Slovak Arts Council, effectively stripping it of its independence; sent the highly controversial and widely criticised bill that will drastically alter the Slovak public broadcaster to its second reading; proposed a change in the Freedom of Information Act that would turn public information into a paid service; and proposed a series of stricter media laws, potentially limiting freedom of speech and the media.

“I think we can expect more of the same, but at a much stronger pace. The line that the government might have planned or signalled before, but could have been met with resistance, will now be pushed all the more vehemently and openly,” reckons Hardos.

“The assassination attempt will become a tool that will allow them to blame their future victims for bringing this upon themselves,” he adds, explaining that a free media, the civil sector and the opposition will invariably be the first victims of this development.

Michal Vasecka thinks the government’s highest priority has been to take full control of the security forces. “The powers that be are trying to deal with anyone that might become a problem,” he says, citing the example of the prosecution of the so-called “Curillovci”, a group of police investigators that had successfully uncovered high-level corruption in recent years but who are now facing criminal charges themselves.

Earlier this year, the government dismantled the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which was responsible for prosecuting the most serious crimes and corruption. At the same time, it drastically changed the criminal code to bring in lower penalties for corruption (currently under review by the Constitutional Court) and proposed stripping the National Criminal Agency of its powers to go after corruption at all.

Paving the road to autocracy

Vasecka goes further, believing that Slovakia as a state has descended into unchartered territory over the past decade or more. “Right now, we are not talking about political polarisation here, it is far worse. Slovakia is finding itself in a kind of cognitive chaos, a fall into a very deep anomie [a social condition defined by a breakdown of moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow], a destruction of a normative system of society,” he says.

“The rules of the game don’t apply anymore. There is huge distrust in society: people don’t trust each other, don’t trust the institutions, the future. There is a huge degree of cynicism,” he adds.

In this atmosphere, radical or irrational actions might not come as such a shock anymore. “In anomie times, when the normal rules don’t apply anymore, anything is possible,” says Vasecka.

According to research by the MEDIAN agency from the end of 2023, only 26 per cent of people in Slovakia trusted the government, even less (23 per cent) trusted the courts, and only 16 per cent professed trust in the parliament.

This lack of trust was a feature in the 2024 GLOBSEC Trends report, which found that only 38 per cent in Slovakia were satisfied with the state of democracy in their country. While trust in government had grown from 18 per cent in last year’s survey to 39 per cent in 2024, 36 per cent of respondents said they would welcome a totalitarian system without regular elections.

Experts describe a series of steps taking Slovak democracy further and further away from the Western or liberal standard: silencing the critical media, paralysing the opposition, dissolving standard principles of lawmaking, threatening NGOs, controlling once-independent institutions, attempting to change the election system. “After all that, politics might still be free, but it won’t be fair anymore. The competition will be set to only benefit the ruling power,” says Hardos.

“All of the conditions for setting a soft autocracy have been met: the public opinion that basically asks for autocracy, determined people who are ready to do it, the civil society unable to defend itself, some parameters of international affairs,” says Vasecka.

[byneddiedingo]

John Garfield in Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947)

Cast: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, Art Smith. Screenplay: Abraham Polonsky. Cinematography: James Wong Howe. Art direction: Nathan Juran. Film editing: Robert Parrish. Music: Hugo Friedhofer. 

Body and Soul is a well-made boxing picture, but it also has a historical significance as the nexus of some major careers damaged by the anti-communist hysteria that gripped the United States in the years that followed its release. After its director, Robert Rossen, pleaded the fifth amendment at his hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, he was blacklisted in Hollywood. The same fate befell screenwriter Abraham Polonsky after his refusal to testify before HUAC. The star, John Garfield, testified that he knew nothing about communist activity in Hollywood, but studios refused to hire him; he made his last film in 1951 and died of a heart attack the following year, only 39. Cast members Anne Revere, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, and Art Smith were also victims of the blacklist. The film stands as an example of the folly of HUAC witch-hunting: With all the reds and pinkos involved in its production, you might expect it to be pure propaganda, but the only leftist message it communicates is about the danger of greed. Today the only viewers who may find Body and Soul subversively anti-capitalist are those who subscribe to the "greed is good" credo enunciated by Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987). Garfield plays an ambitious young boxer named Charley* Davis who falls prey to racketeers who manipulate his career, despite the warnings of his mother (Revere), his best friend, Shorty (Joseph Pevney), and his girlfriend, Peg (Lilli Palmer). The fight sequences, shot by James Wong Howe and edited by Francis Lyon and Robert Parrish, were groundbreaking in their realistic violence, winning Oscars for Lyon and Parrish. Howe, who is said to have worn rollerskates and used a hand-held camera to film the fights, was curiously unnominated, but nominations also went to Garfield and Polonsky. Palmer, unable to conceal her German accent or to eliminate traces of the sophisticated roles she usually played, is miscast as Charley's artist girlfriend. The script makes a half-hearted attempt to explain away the accent but mostly ignores it. One thing of note: The Black boxer played by Lee calls Garfield's character by his first name, Charley, in their scenes together. The usual racial protocol was for African-American characters to call white ones "Mr." -- "Mr. Charley" or "Mr. Davis" -- the way Dooley Wilson's Sam always refers to Bogart's character as "Mr. Rick" in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943). It's the earliest example of an assumed equality that I can recall in a Hollywood movie. *A nitpicky note: The filmmakers never decided whether it was spelled "Charley" or "Charlie." It appears both ways on the posters advertising his fights, but it's "Charlie" in the inscription on a gift he gives Peg and in her letter addressed to him. I'm going with the way IMDb lists it.

[project1939]

100+ Films of 1952

Film number 110: Kid Monk Baroni 

Release date: May 1st, 1952 

Studio: Realart Pictures 

Genre: sports drama 

Director: Harold D. Shuster 

Producer: Jack Broder, Herman Cohen 

Actors: Leonard Nimoy, Richard Rober, Bruce Cabot, Allene Roberts 

Plot Summary: Paul “Monk” Baroni is a disfigured street ruffian who is taken under the wing of a kindly priest. Father Callahan teaches him how to box, and soon he is making good money as a pro. Still unable to let go of the bitterness and self-hatred he feels, his girlfriend Emily encourages him to get plastic surgery. This gives him new confidence, but has he really changed for the better? 

My Rating (out of five stars): **¼  

This was a quintessential low budget film. Need I say more? It was pretty bland and silly, and the only reason anyone would care to watch it today is the fact that it was Leonard Nimoy’s first film. I’ve certainly seen worse movies, even worse movies from 1952, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.  

The Good: 

This had a pretty good cast for a cheap film. No one was egregiously bad, and several of the supporting characters were quite effective. Ricard Rober as Father Callahan stood out the most for me, and Mona Knox was entertaining as a bad girl. Jack Larson played Monk’s best friend- I was already familiar with him as Jimmy on The Adventures of Superman! 

A mini Singin’ in the Rain cast party! Kathleen Freeman played Monk’s mother here- she was the hilarious speech coach in Singin’. Paul Maxy played a gambler here, and in Singin’ in the Rain he was memorable as a rotund dance partner for a movie star in the opening Hollywood party scene. 

Leonard Nimoy did pretty well. He wasn’t outstanding, but the script didn’t give him much to do except be sulky and angry. He was definitely a nice looking young man- he was only 20 years old at the time. He didn’t quite have a body that was convincing as a boxer, though! He was lean, but not exactly muscular. 

There was one cool transition edit where the screen went from a close up of Monk to a fade out, and it faded back in on the derriere of a cigarette girl walking through a nightclub.  

The Bad: 

This was shot in 9 days and you can tell! Nimoy said he was only paid $350 plus the suits he wore. (That’s about $4,000 today.) 

The whole thing had a rather hackneyed vibe. 

The ending. It felt a bit anti-climactic? And why wasn’t Nimoy in the last scene? 

Allene Roberts. I’m sorry to say, her performance stood out as particularly bad. In her defense, her character, although unmarried, was afflicted with what I call “The Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome.” She was wholesome, boring, and had no real purpose other than to worry about/be with Monk. She did fight back in one scene, however, which was pretty cool. 

The absurdity of the portrayal of plastic surgery! Like the film Stolen Face from later in the year, in the world of Classical Hollywood plastic surgery can work outrageous miracles. Even 72 years later, nothing like it is remotely possible.  

There were some cringy moments with a priest where he was trying to get teenage boys to go to the church basement where he had a gym and warm showers... In 2024 it’s hard not to be a little creeped out by that. 

The script had so much terrible/terribly fun dialogue! Here are some favorites: “It’s no crime to enjoy fine music, Paul. It’s the key to a number of good pleasures.” “No fighter quits. Once you lace those gloves on, you’re in a lifelong marriage.” “This was not defeat. You’re a bigger man for trying, for the sacrifice. The way you fought carries its own victories. Look at the wounds on your face. Don’t say you lost.” 

A hilariously over-explained fighting scene where Monk’s manager thinks he’s not fighting his usual dirty way. In the space of a couple of minutes he says- “Looks like he’s been reading Emily Post! He better drop his pinky in the next round!” “I’ll whisper in his ear that this is a fight and not a cotillion!” “You want a little soft music this round? You start out a tiger and end up a pussy cat!” “I don’t need you to play Paddy Cake! If I want this kind of a bout, I can get a better one out of an old maid’s home!” OK OK WE GET IT ALREADY! XD 

[kudosmyhero]

Crisis on Infinite Earths (vol. 1) #1: The Summoning

Read Date: May 16, 2023 Cover Date: April 1985 ● Writer: Marv Wolfman ◦ Robert Greenberger ◦ Len Wein ● Penciler: George Pérez ● Inker: Dick Giordano ● Colorist: Anthony Tollin ● Letterer: John Costanza ● Editor: Marv Wolfman ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● ok, let’s see what this “Crisis on Infinite Earths” thing is that I’ve heard about for so long ● my very first time coming across Green Lantern in comics. or “Power Ring,” I should say. and “Ultraman” as Superman. so I still haven’t come across Green Lantern ● I dig Pariah’s lavender hair, btw ● that was a long cold open, but it did a good job of setting up the situation without reeeeally letting me know wtf is going on ● Gorilla tea time

● Harbinger reminds me a bit of Circuit Breaker in her stance and clothing ● so much happening ● I’m not really a fan of the big, sweeping storylines that involve multiverses, space aliens, etc. I’m much more into street-level stories. I’ll try not to let my bias color my view too much on this tale, but no promises! ● it doesn’t help that this issue is so long though! 31 pages and counting ● ah, good. stopped at 32 ● 👏👏👏

Synopsis: At the beginning of time, the Big Bang occurred, forming the universe. However, where there should have been one universe, there were many, each one a replication of the first, with their own separate histories. For in that instant a multiverse of worlds was born.

At the present time, a great white wall of pure anti-matter energy stretches out across the cosmos. It pervades the Multiverse, consuming entire galaxies. On an unknown parallel world, a being named Pariah arrives. He is forced to witness the death of multiple worlds in multiple dimensions. He disappears as he is transported to the parallel world known as Earth-Three. On that world, the Crime Syndicate, in a rare demonstration of heroism, strives to save their beleaguered planet. However, even their combined might cannot prevent their deaths at the anti-matter wall.

The planet's sole hero, Lex Luthor, retreats to his home where his wife, Lois, holds their infant son, Alexander, in her hands. Luthor places Alexander into an experimental rocket capsule and launches him from the planet Earth. As Earth-Three dies, Alexander's capsule pierces the vibrational wall separating dimensions. It lands on the abandoned Justice League Satellite orbiting Earth-One.

On board another satellite, a being called the Monitor summons his assistant Harbinger. He instructs her to travel to various alternate Earths and bring together a select group of super-powered beings. Harbinger uses her power to create replicant versions of herself and sends them to the various Earths. The Monitor meanwhile, prepares to gather Alexander Luthor's space capsule.

The first of Harbinger's replicants travels to Earth-One and gathers King Solivar from Gorilla City. Another travels to Earth of the 30th century and summons Dawnstar of the Legion of Super-Heroes to her cause. A third replicant journeys to Earth-Two of the year 1942 to enlist the aid of Firebrand. One version gathers the Blue Beetle from Chicago. Another version of Harbinger collects the Psycho-Pirate from Earth-Two's present timeline. She brings him to Earth-One where they encounter Firestorm and Killer Frost. The Psycho-Pirate uses his Medusa Mask to make Killer Frost fall in love with Firestorm. Another replicant travels to Pre-Cataclysmic Atlantis to find Arion the Sorcerer. However, a Demon-Shadow attacks her and takes possession of Harbinger. The possessed replicant finds Arion and brings him back to the Monitor's satellite.

When they arrive, they find a room full of heroes and villains from alternate realities. Before the assemblage has a chance to acclimate itself to their foreign environment, a horde of Demon-Shadows attacks them. They fight them off until the Monitor arrives. He casts a brilliant burst of light, which dispels the shadows. Introducing himself, he tells the impatient gathering that he had summoned them because their universes may soon be destroyed.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Crisis_on_Infinite_Earths_Vol_1_1)

Fan Art: Harbinger (Earth-27) commission by phil-cho

Accompanying Podcast: ● Superman in Crisis - episode 01

[nonbinaryphilochs]

Transcript if you don't want to deal with the paywall:

On its face, the 1968 Democratic National Convention bore a striking resemblance to the one kicking off Monday: Party members gathered in Chicago after the sitting president announced he wouldn’t seek reelection and endorsed his vice president.

But this time, don’t count on a prominent singer getting arrested for escorting a live pig through downtown Chicago to serve as a presidential candidate.

Folk singer Phil Ochs was one of the first protesters arrested during the tumultuous 1968 convention when he hauled in a pig named “Pigasus” as the presidential nominee of the “Yippies.” As activist Jerry Rubin began a nominating speech, police swooped through the crowd of several hundred people.

“The pig and seven supporters were quickly placed in a police van and driven off,” the New York Times reported. Ochs (pronounced “Oaks”), Rubin and the five others were sent to jail for disorderly conduct. The 145-pound pig was held at an animal shelter, the Times said, where he “had been washed and was resting quietly.”

The theatrics set the tone for anti-Vietnam War protests in Chicago, where the Democratic convention will return this week to officially nominate Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden’s decision last month to step aside. The 1968 convention opened amid similar drama after Lyndon B. Johnson announced he wouldn’t seek reelection and backed his vice president, Hubert Humphrey.

That year, a barbed-wire fence was erected around the convention hall as more than 10,000 demonstrators flowed into the Windy City to voice their opposition to the deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam under Johnson and to Humphrey’s support for the war effort. Bloody violence broke out as helmeted police officers swinging clubs bashed protesters in what a federal report later called a “police riot.” Television footage showed the fighting as bystanders chanted, “The whole world is watching.”

Ochs’s protest music provided a soundtrack for the unfolding events. He called himself a “topical singer.” His first album in 1964 was titled “All the News that’s Fit to Sing,” a twist on the New York Times slogan and his journalism studies at Ohio State University, where he was managing editor of the humor magazine, the Sundial. (A colleague was “Jovial Bob” Stine, better known later as R.L. Stine, the author of the best-selling “Goosebumps” series.) Ochs was a star performer at antiwar protests, singing his “Draft Dodger Rag.” (“I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen.”)

The singer/songwriter was friends with Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, whose Youth International Party, or Yippies, mounted a “Festival of Life” at the Democratic convention. Larger groups also mobilized demonstrations. Democratic Mayor Richard J. Daley vowed to maintain “law and order,” backed by Chicago’s 12,000 police officers and 11,000 Illinois National Guardsmen and U.S. Army soldiers.

On the convention’s second day on Aug. 27, Ochs joined comedian Dick Gregory at the Chicago Coliseum to rouse antiwar protesters at an “Unbirthday” party for Johnson. “The war is over,” Ochs sang. “It’s over, it’s over.” The crowd chanted, “No, no, we won’t go” and set draft cards on fire.

The troubadour dedicated his music to the memory of recently murdered Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He sang “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” in support of nominating antiwar Sen. Eugene “Clean Gene” McCarthy of Minnesota.

The next day, Ochs and beat poet Allen Ginsberg led a march from Grant Park toward the International Amphitheater, the convention site. “Marching eight abreast, arms linked and carrying pink and white daisies, the demonstrators sang, ‘We Shall Overcome,’” the Tampa Times reported.

Police stopped the marchers with tear gas. That day and into the night, clashes with police spread in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel and into Grant Park across the street. During a nominating speech on the convention floor, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.) blasted “Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago.” Daley shouted obscenities in response.

Around midnight, Ochs sang to protesters outside the Hilton with Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. “Surrounding them were seven National Guard units, gas masks on, rifles loaded and held upright,” the Tampa Times reported.

The next day, after Democrats had nominated Humphrey, Ochs made a peace offering. “When Phil Ochs got onto the speaker’s stand, he almost transformed the rally in Grant Park into the same sort of prayer ses­sion he had inspired in the Coliseum,” the Village Voice reported. “Facing the soldiers, not the protesters, he begged ‘one man among you to lay down your arms and come over to our side.’ … Not a single soldier crossed over.”

Ochs returned to Chicago in 1969 to testify at the trial of eight antiwar activists facing riot charges brought by the new Nixon administration. Defense lawyer William Kunstler presented Ochs’s guitar and asked that he be allowed to sing “I Ain’t Marching Anymore.”

“I’m not prepared to listen to any songs,” responded Judge Julius Hoffman. But he let Ochs recite the lyrics, which conclude:

It’s always the old who lead us to the wars

Always the young to fall.

The convention’s outcome devastated Ochs. The cover of his next album, “Rehearsals for Retirement,” featured his photo and a tombstone reading:

PHIL OCHS

(AMERICAN)

BORN: EL PASO, TEXAS 1940

DIED: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1968

“After Chicago I was so depressed, so full of despair that I just went crazy and didn’t care anymore. I decided to do just what I wanted to do,” he told the New York Times in 1970, when he sang rock songs in Carnegie Hall dressed in a glittering golden suit, symbolizing his hero Elvis Presley. “His audience’s reaction to this was a rising barrage of boos and hisses,” the Times reported.

In 1975, Ochs revived his old songs to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War before 50,000 people in New York’s Central Park with Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon and Odetta. By then, he was spiraling into decline. He had bipolar disorder and was drinking heavily. During a 1973 visit to Africa, a robber in Tanzania had choked him, damaging his vocal cords. Ochs took his life on April 9, 1976, by hanging himself at his sister’s home in Queens. He was 35.

Ochs never gained the fame of his friend Bob Dylan. But nearly 50 years after his death, his work maintains a strong following. His life was portrayed in the 2011 film “There But for Fortune,” and Lady Gaga sang his song “The War Is Over” at the 2016 Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote that the theme of his current Substack newsletter is “I’ve got something to say, sir, I’m gonna say it now,” a lyric by Ochs, “whose protest songs of the sixties still resonate today.” The third biography of Ochs — “That Man in the Gold Lamé Suit: Phil Ochs’s Search for Self,” by Jim Bowers — was published last year.

And Ochs immortalized his outrage about the 1968 Democratic convention in a song:

Oh, where were you in Chicago?

You know I didn’t see you there.

I didn’t see them crack your head

Or breathe the tear gas air.

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention featuring my uncle Phil Ochs & the story of how he and 7 Yippies were arrested while nominating Pigasus -- an actual pig -- for President.

https://wapo.st/46SPlOK

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"CHIEF DOESN'T WANT WARDS PUT IN POLICEMEN'S HOMES," Toronto Star. April 9, 1943. Page 2. ---- Chief Draper Strongly Opposes Request of Children's Aid Society ---- INSPECTORS ALSO ==== "I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't report against this proposal," Chief Draper stated to the board of police commissioners Thursday in a report on the request of the Children's Aid society that policemen's homes be again opened to foster children.

At the last meeting, a deputation of the Welfare council urged the ban put on in 1936 against police officers taking in children, be lifted for duration of the war. Appended to Chief Draper's report were statements of 15 police inspectors, all against allowing policemen the chance of caring for homeless children.

Colonel A. E. Kirkpatrick said he needed time to read the reports and the matter was held over to another meeting.

"The public has been wasteful for years," declared Col. A. E. Kirkpatrick while urging legislation to change the name of junk yards to salvage yards. "We want to create the impression on the public that salvage is valuable in wartime," he added.

Judge Frank Denton opposed the suggested change on the grounds the places "are properly named at present."

Mayor Conboy voted with Col. Kirkpatrick and a motion was passed asking legislation committee of city council to. seek permissive legislation.

"The professional gambler never sleeps," said Chief Draper during discussion on the legality of electric "anti-aircraft guns" use in Toronto stores. J. Palmer Kent, commission secretary, said no returns were paid and that it was a game of skill. "It is the thin edge of the wedge," argued Chief Draper, "to bring back slot machines into general use in Toronto."

Sergt. Albert Marshall of the license office said there were only at few such machines in Toronto. The board asked a further report on the machines.

"Jarvis street is now like Goldsmith's deserted village." argued E. J. Murphy when the Victory Taxi issue was reopened. At the last meeting, the license was cancelled. Mr. Murphy said early closing of the beverage rooms had improved conditions on Jarvis St.

Inspector Robert Davie declared conduct was better in vicinity of the Victory office.

"They have a lease on the present office until Sept. 15," asserted Mr. Murphy. He asked the cancellation order be lifted until then.

"I'm not content to lift the cancellation order at present," declared the mayor. The matter was held over but the company was given permission to operate pending a final decision.

"We intend to clean up Jarvis St.," the mayor added.

Major R. C. Witthun of No. 31. company. Provost Corps. M.D. 2. Toronto, told the commissioners the "riot act had to be read to some soldiers found in the Select Lunch, Queen St. W. It was put out of bounds because number of a "doubtful looking women" frequented the restaurant, Major Witthun said.

Inspector Robert Davie, recommending cancellation of the license, told of fights, and "other disturbances" and said they were almost nightly occurrences.

John Grudeff, counsel for the licensee, said new management was taking over. The license was continued on probation and instructions given that men in uniform be barred.

A special advisory committee "to straighten out the taxi-cab mess" will be appointed, it was decided. Proposed by Jack Gadd, president of the taxi-cab drivers' union, the committee will comprise employees, representatives of the union and police.

The matter of women cab drivers was left over pending views of the advisory committee of the transit controller. K. R. Wallace, representing the Federal Association of Taxi Cab Owners, asked for permission to hire women.

Mr. Gadd said the union still could find sufficient men.

[chaossmagic]

ohmygod i LITERALLY had a full two hour long breakdown about robert's relationship with sarah and jack yesterday. and how he never got closure with his father and never got to properly talk about it and heal. and how sarah's death is literally like the key to all of his issues. and THEN emmerdale has the AUDACITY to release a preview where they acknowledge that yes robert has still not been able to address his issues hah hah die mad about it sara.... god i feel feral just thinking about it

LISTEN ROBERT JACOB SUGDEN DESERVES BETTER OKAY

and yes okay so jack is dead, so what? he’s supposed to just magically forget that all of the emotional and psychological abuse he got from him ever happened? that it’s okay that he basically treated him like dirt for YEARS because you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead? that it doesn’t matter anymore???

EXCEPT IT DOES AND WE HAVE CANON PROOF. like those scenes where robert talks about how his dad didn’t let him live with sarah after they split even though she was, in all sense of the word, his mum, just because he was ‘only’ her step-son and not her ‘real’ son

or that time that everything to do with his fear and worry about the surrogacy and why he was so determined to go for a longer-term plan which would cost more but yet be more legally sound so he wouldn’t lose another child WAS ALSO RELATED TO HIS ISSUES WITH HIS PARENTS

like how he physically recoils any time someone makes reference to how proud jack would be of him…because he knows he wouldn’t be, personal experience made jack’s opinion of him very clear and he knows it’s a load of bull but he still can’t talk about it

because jack sugden is a saint to most people and not the kind of man who would beat his child for something they had no control over (and i believe there are other instances where he was physically violent towards robert on-screen, not just the incident we know about from ssw16)

he’s definitely not the kind of man who would degrade, openly resent, belittle, and actively go out of his way to treat one of his own children like they were lesser or not worth anything

except we know he actually did all of those things and that those things have left robert with some very deep and very painful scars that pretty much defined his entire life from his early teens to now

his crippling internalized homo/biphobia is because of his dad 

his feelings of worthlessness and not being worthy of love are because of his dad, and also because of the fact that the one person who did love him unconditionally was ripped from him and he wasn’t even allowed to grieve or properly mourn her, again because of his dad

in fact the only person who’s ever loved him completely and wholly unconditionally except sarah is aaron

imagine what that does to a person

imagine how that can fuck you up for life, knowing that everyone worships the ground your abuser walked on, and even in their death you can’t find any peace, so you’re forced to keep quiet for the rest of your life

(tl;dr: robert is a textbook case of chronic low-level high-functioning depression with infrequent episodes of mania and THAT IS THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. SOMEONE GET HIM SOME HELP PLEASE.)

[trans-axolotl]

hey do you have an antipsych reading list or anything like that? i’m trying to learn more about the topic. thank you!

yes!! This is more a list of mad studies books than like, sociological theory from the 60s because disability justice + mad pride is more what I vibe with, but if you want some more in-depth theory recommendations I can do that as well. blanket trigger warning that all of these books discuss psychiatric abuse, institutionalization, and many of them candidly address topics of suicide, mental distress, and sexual assault. If anyone wants more specific trigger warnings please feel free to ask!

Books:

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang: This book is a fabulous collection of essays based on the author's own experience of schizophrenia, and explores the complexities of diagnosis and institutionalization.

Brilliant Imperfection by Eli Clare: This book is incredibly important to me and explores the concept of cure, what it means to have anti-cure politics, and all the nuances of cure. Truly a beautifully written book and I really recommend it.

Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada edited by Liat Ben Moshe: This book is an amazing exploration of institutionalization and incarceration from so many different perspectives, including the special ed to prison pipeline, segregation, psychiatric medicine within prisons, and how institutionalization functions as incarceration. This book can be challenging to read as a psych survivor, but I highly recommend it.

How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity by La Marr Jurelle Bruce: I highly recommend this book. It really delves into complex meanings of madness, how that's tied to radical tradition, aesthetics, art, liberation, so much more, and also really engages mad studies and Black cultural studies.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill by Robert Whitaker: I think this book can be a good foundation for learning the history of psychiatry in America in particular, and although I don't necessarily vibe with everything in this book, I think it is still absolutely worth reading and engaging with critically!

The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Johnathan Metzl This book does a really good job looking at the history of psychosis in the context of the United States, the civil rights movement, and how pyschosis diagnoses connects to eugenics and slavery.

Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates by Erving Goffman I have not actually read this yet, but it is a classic and it's been on my reading list since @bioethicists recommended it to me!

Open in Emergency: DSM II: Asian American Edition edited by Mimi Khúc This collection of essays has so many different fabulous perspectives on mental health, disability justice, community, and resistance.

Miscellaneous:

Girls do what they have to do to Survive: Illuminating Methods used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight back and Heal by the Young Women's Empowerment Project I'm including this on the list even though it might not connect as clearly to antipsychiatry as some of the other titles, because reading this was transformative to me for understanding my own experiences and the ways in which social services like the medical system are not our friends. I also view liberatory harm reduction as essential to building alternatives to psychiatry and YWEP is so completely foundational and groundbreaking in many ways.

Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off Psychiatric Drugs

Cutting the Risk: Harm Reduction and Self Harm I want to add an extra trigger warning for in-depth discussion of self harm and anatomy, including anatomy diagrams.

Asylum Magazine

Mad In America Website--this can be a good place to keep up with psychiatric news in America.

This is very much not a complete list, so followers PLEASE add on!

[causeiwanttoandican]

Robert Lacey excerpt

I fully expect them to say William was the one commenting about the baby’s skin color after this. Battle stations! Book excerpt

The Times

Prince William ‘split his household from Prince Harry after Meghan bullying claims’

June 07 2021, 7.00am BST

‘So, are you saying,” asked Oprah Winfrey, talking to Meghan and Harry in their famous interview of March 2021, “that there were hints of jealousy?”

She was inquiring about the Sussexes’s wildly successful tour of Australia and the South Pacific of late October 2018, and the couple shifted uncomfortably in their plush wicker chairs.

“Look,” replied Harry, “I just wish that we would all learn from the past.”

By bringing up “the past”, the prince was venturing into an area that was almost taboo. He was making a sensational comparison between his mother and his wife. Harry was suggesting that Meghan had demonstrated in Australia the same massive star quality as Diana and was now having to face the family envy that went along with that.

“It really changed,” he said, “after the Australia tour, after our South Pacific tour . . . it was . . . the first time that the family got to see how incredible she is at the job. And that brought back memories.”

Memories of what? Again Harry shied away from putting words to the almost unmentionable. But Oprah had prepared and polished this moment, like so many others in the interview, and she had a reference ready to prompt her prince’s revelation. The latest, fourth season of TV’s The Crown had depicted Charles and Diana’s 1983 tour of Australia, showing how Diana had been “bedazzling” in her ability “to connect with people”. Episode six had depicted how the crowds would groan when they realised that Charles, not Diana, was walking down their side of the street — hence the beginnings of the “jealousy” on the family’s part.

“So is that what you’re talking about?” asked Oprah. “It brought back memories of that?”

“Yeah,” Harry finally replied in a fashion that was both dismal and unmistakably aggressive.

What on earth had happened, viewers had to wonder, to the old and once-familiar happy side of Prince Harry?

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother William — the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 — Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018. But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

Both brothers agreed how bitterly they had clashed back in the early days over William’s attempt to slow Harry’s courtship of Meghan — “Don’t feel like you need to rush this . . . ” But both of them had subsequently moved on. Harry’s transparent contentment with Meghan had relaxed the tensions, give or take the odd row over bridesmaids’ dresses. The “no speaks” had eased just a little by the time “best man” William escorted his brother down the aisle in May 2018.

Then five months later came the conclusive and determining rupture — the division that has lasted to the present day — though here the brothers’ retelling of history diverged. As Harry explained it to Oprah, Meghan’s Australian tour success sowed the jealousies that caused feelings to “change”. According to this scenario, William and Kate resented the Diana-like popularity that was generated by Harry’s wife. William had a different recollection.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia. Feelings had already “changed”, as Harry put it, and drastically so. The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Most Kensington Palace courtiers were noted for the comparatively long tenures of their comfortable and prestigious jobs. But it came to look as if employees could not wait to escape service with Harry and Meghan. Those who left formed themselves into an informal fraternity that they titled the “Sussex Survivors’ Club”. They had finally hit back, and their organising agent had been PR man Jason Knauf.

The joint communications secretary for Kensington Palace — who was still, at that date, working on behalf of both of the brothers and their wives — had become concerned by the numerous stories of mistreatment being brought to him by colleagues whom he knew well and trusted.

Texas-born and New Zealand-educated, Knauf, 34, was a popular character in Kensington Palace, widely noted for his friendliness and loyalty towards his colleagues. He had been considered a real “catch” when the brothers snared him from the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2015, and one of his concerns was that professional management practices should be more effectively enforced inside the traditional British palace. Knauf’s American sensibilities caused him to see the Meghan situation as raising principles of human resources management in the palace system that needed to be formally addressed.

Knauf’s first priority was to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record: “I’m very concerned,” he emailed to William’s private secretary Simon Case, in a document he drafted in October 2018, “that the duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.”

Knauf described Meghan’s treatment of one aide as “totally unacceptable . . . the duchess seems intent”, he wrote, “on always having someone in her sights”. Specifying another staff member, Knauf alleged Meghan had been bullying her as well, “seeking to undermine her confidence”. His office had received “report after report”, he wrote, from people who had witnessed “unacceptable behaviour” by Meghan towards this member of staff.

“Meghan governed by fear,” claimed one courtier. “So many people said it. Nothing was ever good enough for her. [She] humiliated staff in meetings, [would] shout at them, [would] cut them off email chains — and then demand to know why they hadn’t done anything.”

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple’s engagement, according to a subsequent report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. “It’s not my job to coddle people,” Meghan was said to have replied.

“Americans can be much more direct,” wrote the authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand in defence of the duchess, “and that often doesn’t sit well in the much more refined institution of the monarchy.”

A Brit might have raised an eyebrow at Meghan’s alleged behaviour, then looked the other way. The Yank decided to act. Knauf was actually one of Meghan’s most senior advisers — her chief adviser, in fact, when it came to public relations. Earlier that year she had gone to Knauf for help when drafting the disputed letter of severance that she sent to her father. She valued his PR expertise.

Before that, Knauf had helped Harry to word the fierce anti-media statements that he had framed to try to protect Meghan from press harassment, both as his girlfriend and then as his fiancée. The PR man had taken considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts who criticised him as being overprotective in fighting the newcomer’s corner. Like so many people in all the palaces, Knauf had started off on Meghan’s side.

But as the months went by the American’s feelings became more ambiguous, as numerous colleagues — women whom he greatly respected — continued to bring him stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan’s hands.

“I can’t stop shaking,” one aide had told a colleague in anticipation of an encounter with Meghan. Another reported that the prospect of confrontation with the duchess had made her “feel sick”. “Emotional cruelty and manipulation”, were the words of a third, “which I guess could also be called bullying.”

The b-word featured prominently in the accounts of several, along with an even more sinister set of initials: PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a deeply serious condition to allege — flashbacks, nightmares and feelings of deep anxiety — but that was how one complainant said that they had felt.

Several people maintained they had been “humiliated” by the duchess, and that criticism extended to Harry as well.

“I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,” recalled one Kensington Palace courtier. “Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other’s faces.”

Shouting and screaming? PTSD? Making people feel sick? Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that Knauf had gathered. We do not know whether the communications secretary brought his allegations directly to his boss or submitted them via Simon Case. What we do know is that the prince was astonished and horrified. He was instantly furious at what he heard.

“I remember Christian Jones [William’s press secretary and later private secretary] explaining to me how the Cams [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] are paternalistic with their staff,” recalls one royal correspondent. “They copy the Queen in that respect with all her Christmas parties and Christmas presents to her people. They’re proud to treat their staff like family. They recognise that they don’t get paid loads of money, so they are just really nice to them. So this was a very deep clash of philosophies, with Meghan being used to a Hollywood service culture — getting exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted in that famous way that Harry said.”

William personally knew and liked all the individuals whom Knauf had named in his dossier. The prince regarded them as assets to his household — colleagues to be cherished and for whom he was responsible. Human beings. Like Knauf, the prince was appalled that his respected staff may have been put in this position.

For William, Knauf’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed — that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start — even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives said this was quite the wrong interpretation of their client’s thinking and behaviour in a statement that they issued to The Times early in March 2021. They denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”. The duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

I have never met Jason Knauf. What you have just read is based upon the published accusations that Knauf set down on paper — refuted as “defamatory”, it must be stressed again, and “based on misleading and harmful information” in the view of the Duchess of Sussex’s lawyers. It also relies upon William’s personal account of these events to one of his friends who then spoke to this author.

The moment the prince heard the bullying allegations, he related to this friend, he got straight on the phone to talk to Harry — and when Harry flared up in furious defence of his wife, the elder brother persisted. Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say.

The showdown between the two siblings was fierce and bitter. William’s pre-engagement questioning of Meghan’s suitability had been quite reasonable, in William’s opinion. His fraternal doubts had been provisional, based upon how the new recruit appeared to be. The elder brother did not really know Meghan in those early days.

But now William had seen enough of his sister-in-law to feel sure that, sadly, he did know her and that many of his reservations linked unhappily with what Knauf’s colleagues had alleged. William believed Meghan was following a plan — “agenda” was the word he used to his friend — and the accusations he had just heard were alarming. Kate, he said, had been wary of her from the start.

Meghan was undermining some precious principles of the monarchy, if she really was treating her staff in this way, and William was upset that she seemed to be stealing his beloved brother away from him. Later courtiers would coin a hashtag — #freeHarry. It was only half a joke.

“Meghan portrayed herself as the victim,” recalled one Kensington Palace staffer, “but she was the bully. People felt run over by her. They didn’t know how to handle this woman. They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath — basically unhinged. Which was why the pair of them were drawn to each other in the first place — both damaged goods.”

William felt deeply wounded. “Hurt” and “betrayed” were the two feelings that he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry but this was the moment the protection had to stop. At the end of the day the British crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values — the mission of the monarchy — had to matter more to William than his brother did.

Harry, for his part, was equally furious that William should give credence to the accusations against Meghan, and he was fiercely combative in his wife’s defence. Some sources maintain that in the heat of the argument Harry actually accused someone in the family of concepts that were “racist”. But it must be stressed that neither brother has ever confirmed that the hateful r-word was used face to face.

Only William and Harry can know what they said to each other and they have respectfully maintained their silence on that. But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah that he considered his family’s response to Meghan to have been essentially racist — using the heavily freighted code words “unconscious bias” to provide an intellectual framework for his analysis.

Where could the two brothers go after such painful and damning notions had been thrown into their debate?

We have reached the crux of the drama. What painfully unforgettable and surely unforgivable things have been said? These are not passing differences. They are two core sets of values in conflict — love versus duty — going to the very heart and deriving from the deepest beliefs and loyalties of each man. Two opposing identities butting heads. In the months following the tragic and not-obviously bridgeable rift of October 2018 between William and Harry, the younger brother solidified his belief that his family were suffering from “unconscious bias”.

William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive “agenda” to be removed from the operations of the British monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect. He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.

When accounts of the rift started seeping out through the winter months that followed, it was generally assumed that the volatile Harry must have set the pace in the splitting up of the joint Kensington Palace household. He was the brother who visibly departed, stalking off to set up a new home in Windsor, with offices for himself and Meghan in Buckingham Palace.

But the reverse was the case. It was William who made the decisive move. Following his furious confrontation with his younger brother in the autumn of 2018, the prince instructed Simon Case to start the process of dividing their two households immediately. William wished to be separated from Meghan on a day-to-day basis — and that meant being separated from his brother as well.

“William,” says a friend, “threw Harry out.”

©Robert Lacey 2021 Extracted from Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult by Robert Lacey, to be published by William Collins on June 24 at £9.99

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Politics are Polarized, But Not for the Reason You Think | Robert Reich

Text of the closed captions below the cut:

How did we get so politically divided? Well, it's NOT because both sides have gotten more extreme. Look, I got my start in American politics 50 years ago. My political views then — to grossly simplify them — were that I was against the Vietnam War and the military-industrial complex, strongly supportive of civil and voting rights, and against the power of big corporations. That put me here: just left of the center. Back then, the political spectrum from left to right was short. The biggest political issue was the Vietnam War. The left was demonstrating against it, sometimes violently.

Since I was committed to ending the war through peaceful political means, I volunteered for George McGovern, the anti-war presidential candidate. Even Richard Nixon on the right was starting to look for ways out of Vietnam.

25 years later, I was in Bill Clinton’s cabinet, and the left-to-right political spectrum stretched much longer. The biggest change was how much further right the right had moved. Ronald Reagan had opened the political floodgates to corporate and Wall Street money — bankrolling right-wing candidates and messages that decried “big government.”

Bill Clinton sought to lead from the “center,” but by then the “center” had moved so far right that Clinton gutted public assistance, enacted “tough on crime” policies that unjustly burdened the poor and people of color, and deregulated Wall Street.

All of which put me further to the left of the center — although my political views had barely changed.

Today, the spectrum from left to right is the longest it’s been in my 50 years in and around politics. The left hasn’t moved much at all.

We’re still against the war machine, still pushing for civil and voting rights, still fighting the power of big corporations.

But the right has moved far, far rightward. Donald Trump brought America about as close as we’ve ever come to fascism. He incited an attempted coup against the United States. He and most of the Republican Party continue to deny that he lost the 2020 election. And they’re getting ready to suppress votes and disregard election outcomes they disagree with.

So don’t believe the fear-mongering that today’s left is “radical.” What’s really radical is the right’s move toward fascism.

[allypacino]

hi! no obligation, but if you have any reading/resources on asian/black solidarity during the civil rights movement i would love to know! and thank you for that post; i'm asian and i've been seeing some people trying to pin the blame on other (mostly black) poc :/ we need to address colorist sentiment and stand together, not start a race war

Thank you for this very much appreciated ask - it’s one of my favourite topics. The Asian community and the Black community historically were very interconnected. This is a very limited, non-exhaustive list of the ways we’ve worked together in the past.

In Bandung, Indonesia, the first large-scale Asian-African conference took place in 1955, uniting delegates of 29 countries to discuss ways to oppose colonialism.

There was the Third World Liberation Front Strikes of 1968 which lasted for 5 months and was held by the Black Student Union, the Latino student organisation (LASO), a Mexican American student organisation (MASC), the Filipino organization called PACE and the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA) at UC Berkeley, that ended up creating the first college of Ethnic Studies.

There was the Rainbow Coalition, an activist group founded by Fred Hampton of Black Panther fame and included the Young Lords (a Puerto Rican group) and the Young Patriots (for poor white people), which had its second iteration be founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson a decade later to include Asian and Native Americans. He famously protested and spoke up for Vincent Chin, an Asian victim of police brutality in 1984.

There were Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama, who joined African American and Latino groups in protests demanding equality, with Grace being a notable figure in Detroit’s Black Power movement and Yuri becoming a good friend of Malcolm X.

There was Ram Manohar Lohia, who encouraged African Americans to embrace civil disobedience like India, and went to jail for fighting Jim Crow. The Black press was one of the first to take note of India’s independence movement in support, and heavily covered the subject matter when mainstream press was reluctant.

Muhammad Ali refused to serve in the Vietnam war to kill for American imperialism, and the Black Panthers famously held anti-vietnams marches. The first American to introduce China’s current national anthem, “March of the Volunteers” (aka “Qi Lai”) to the United States was Black American singer and songwriter, Paul Robeson, who sympathised with China’s resistance movement against imperialism. W.E.B. Du Bois and Robert F. Williams (former leader of NAACP) were friends with Mao, and in the early days of the Black Panthers, people sold Mao’s quotations “Little Red Books” on the streets to pay for arms.

Ho Chi Minh, famous Vietnamese communist leader, wrote the essay “The Black Race” after being influenced by the teachings of Marcus Garvey: “It is well-known that the Black race is the most oppressed and the most exploited of the human family. It is well-known that the spread of capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate result the rebirth of slavery[…]”

There are many more instances: I recommend this site for a decent timeline (x). 

There has always been solidarity among ethnic minorities, and even working class white people in some cases - the FBI was terrified of the Rainbow Coalition founded by Fred Hampton because of the racial unity. In my opinion, the lack of education of Asian-Black solidarity (and Latino, and Native people) has been intentional in breaking this bond, because it is in the favour of white supremacy for us to point at each other as enemies. You’ll also notice how, unsurprisingly, many of this solidarity is tied to socialism or communism. I believe that this is also why you rarely hear about this history: to recognise our revolutionary traditions would mean to confront the necessity for a revolution, which mainstream media will never promote. Africa, Asia, and Latin America were fighting a common struggle. We, as people, are still fighting this common struggle. Our solution and priority must always be to look out for our Black, Asian, Latino, and Native brothers and sisters, and be united against white supremacy and imperialism.

I wish you the best in this difficult time <3

[bansheeoftheforest]

I Am Once Again Giving You London Gang!Jekyll Content

Okay but AU where Jekyll accidentally starts a gang though. He just helped people on the street way too often and then one day someone who opposes the Society just.. gets absolutely destroyed by a carriage out of nowhere. Jekyll gets a box with money and a note that refers to him as 'boss'. There are three routes this could then go.

Route 1: Jekyll is HORRIFIED, he did not want to start a GANG, he does not want to be a gang BOSS, but he can't tell them off because firstly, he doesn't know how he'd even do that, and secondly, they just KILLED SOMEONE, who's to say they won't kill him, too?? Jekyll must now try and figure out a way to solve this problem while Hyde has way too much fun (until he realizes the gang wants him dead for lighting their boss's building on fire).

Route 2: Jekyll is the most oblivious man on earth. He thinks one of the Lodgers gave him money as an apology. People who oppose the Society keep dropping dead and Jekyll keeps patching up the same people over and over who really like him for some reason, it is business as usual with how weird everything in his life already is. Someone (maybe your Crawford guy??) keeps trying to point out all the murders and link them to Jekyll but life hates this man specifically and nothing ever gets looked into because of the most ungodly amount of coincidences ever.

Route 3: Fuck it, he needs the money. He'll just wear a mask whenever he's duking it out in gang fights. He is surprisingly good at fighting, or maybe this could tie into the idea of Jekyll having been in a Scottish gang as a kid, but either way he mops the cobblestone streets with his opponents. He becomes one of the most feared and notorious gang leaders in London, and has a habit of targeting aristocracy that he knows are corrupt and abusive from meeting them as Dr. Jekyll at fancy events. Everything is all fine and well until Brokenshire approaches him saying they need to protect the doctor because clearly those in his social circles are being targeted. Sitcom level hijinks ensue.

(Bonus because I know you love your crackships: Jekyll gets challenged to a gang fight and meets a man in a tophat. He struggles a bit more than usual, but ultimately beats him. He is then held at gunpoint by this guy's sister demanding to know how he bested a trained assassin and whoa wait despite this guy having a bruised face now courtesy of himself he is actually very handsome haha ummm wait a minute did he just say that out loud and maybe invited him to get drinks as an apology for nearly kicking his teeth in uMMM- (bi disaster Dr. Jekyll strikes again!!))

Jeks. Jeks, my guy, thank you for making me laugh so hard, this is just... glorious. I love it all. Oh my god.

I don't know that route is best-- I honestly love the oblivious route bc of all the hijinx and Crawford wanting to rip his hair out in frustration and especially if it is a Syndicate au and it's the Crawford Starrick I based him off (which would make a lil less sense since he is gang leader tycoon and probably could have Jekyll killed but sssuuusshhhh) but I also love Henry just... Getting a goddamn Phantom Of The Opera-esque mask, deciding to go absolutely bonkers, painting entire alleyways red with the blood of his enemies, etc etc, and I absolutely love the idea of Brokenshire directly or indirectly approaching him asking him to protect himself, like they know that Jekyll's persona is well feared and a gang leader but they don't know that it is his gang that is targeting people so now Jekyll is the one sending assassins after abusive and corrupt aristocrats but also has a mission to protect himself from himself. Nice. I absolutely love it. I love it all. And I just... Hyde being do giddy until he realises that the gang wants him dead??? Fuck yes. Give me it all. I just love it so fucking much jfc i cant put it inTO WORDS.

Ok. Ok can we please combine the oblivious route with the masked gangleader phantom being the terror of london route??? Henry at first being completely oblivious, not realising why everyone that has ever insulted him and his work are suddenly disappearing one by one, Crawford wanting to rip his hair out in frustration bc "GUYS IT'S FUCKING JEKYLL HOW IS NO ONE SEEING IT" And jekyll just goes "ahah don't be silly Ricky, I'm not a gangleader lol". Henry being completely oblivious as the Lodgers suddenly get stalked by the gang members, only to be protected by them from other gangs or anti-sciences dudes, the Lodgers retelling the story to Jekyll who just goes like "oh wow man. Huh aren't those the people I have been patching up a lot lately. Strange. What a strange coincidence :)" but then a gang member gets really injured and Henry saves them from death and the gangmember is just... going like "wow, you are the best gang leader I have ever had, you are so much better than everyone else." and henry is just like "ahaha i'm a WHAT NOW"

Cue Henry deciding that, fuck it, if they already think of him as a gangleader why not take advantage of it. He has already been in gangs as a kid so he knows how they work. Quickly becomes a gangleader Tycoon, the lodgers/Rachel/Robert are all confused as to why people suddenly have stopped targeting them for robberies and shit and as to why Henry suddenly has a lot of money he spends on the Society and the bills. Henry telling them not to worry about it. He hears about a dude who suddenly has been swiping through all the ot her London gangs like a hot knife through butter, suddenly his gang is targeted so they are challenged to a gangfight. Henry beats the absolute shit out of him, he has him pinned to the ground when he hears a gun loading and he feels the hilt against his back. He is too busy staring into the beaten up guy's eyes to really care, wow he is so hot, the gangleaders demand that he takes off his mask or he gets shot. He instead lets go of the guy and just... Stands up, brushes himself off, tells them "ahaahh thanks but no thanks. also please stop destorying my gang we literally have not done anything provoking to you."

Anyways they agree to have their gangs work together (oh my god what would Henry's gang be called??? I imagine them wearing the colour blue bc the Rooks are green and the Blighters are red (since it's a specifically a syndicate au lol) but they probably would wear red if it's just tgs anyways off topic hehe). Henry invites them to a drink, his tab, they agree, they find out about all the accidental bullshit that Henry accidentally started and just... Yes pls. Also Jacob and Henry getting drunk and flirting like nobody's business, maybe Henry asking if Jacob likes guys and if he doesn't, is his sister single? Evie almost kicking his teeth in, Jacob laughing his ass off. Yes please.

ALso almost completely forgot the absolute scooby doo mystery of the twins trying to figure out who Henry is since he wears a mask and disguises his identity. Imagine them just being like... Who’s that pokemon? It’s dr. henry jekyll-- WAIT IT’S DR. HENRY JEKYLL????