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bestworstcase · 5 months

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Any Summer Maiden ideas?

Not their identity per se, but rather their role or thematic undertones you think they might have in future volume/s? And how they might contrast to the other Maidens?

Or even the Maidens as a whole, especially as we slowly inch closer and closer to having a 'full set'?

i stand by the gillian theory and my general thoughts on what the maidens are for, thematically. if she isn’t gill, i think she’s definitely starr (& as outlined in the gillian theory post, between gill’s semblance and the ATMs i think the summer maiden might get hot potatoed without character deaths—in the form of gill temporarily stealing the magic by draining the real maiden’s aura with her semblance, or if gill is the maiden, the ATMs being used to permanently transfer half her aura to jax and that causing the maiden power to part from her and go to someone else, probably starr).

there’s also the ‘lessons’ and the divine quality associated with each maiden:

winter + creation + “learn to center yourself and think reflectively to gain awareness of who you are and what you can contribute to the world”

the medical neglect fria is subjected to as an woman with dementia deprives her of this ability, until penny treats her with compassion and dignity, which affords her a moment of clarity and agency in whom she chooses to be her heir;

likewise, penny is subjected to extreme dehumanization even by the standards of the atlesian military and the central conceit of her character arc is her struggle to assert her personhood; becoming the maiden intensifies this struggle and, like fria, she’s unable to escape it in the end;

so the winter maiden passes to winter, who embodied the lesson all along: “emotions can grant you strength, but you must never let them overpower you” + “we must still acknowledge our feelings, wrestle with them. it insures us that we’re on the right path. it’s what makes us human.”

the winter maiden arc is about the act of self-creation—how do we make ourselves human? how do we define ourselves? what does it mean to be a person? to become real?

spring + knowledge + “hard work can be its own reward” and “try to nurture the life around you and remember to ‘stop and smell the roses.’”

the last spring maiden, we’re told, found the burden to great and ran away. raven says that she “never learned,” no matter how much training raven put her through.

vernal, the false maiden, is presented as someone with incredible dedication to her tribe who has trained hard with the magic she was given. (and this is not entirely false: vernal is devoted to the tribe, and she has clearly worked hard to hone her skill.)

raven, the real maiden, “needed to know more” and went looking for the truth on her own; she tells weiss and yang “so far you’ve done nothing but accept what others tell you, but you need to question everything” and that “the truth is hard to come by.”

the spring maiden arc is about the effort it takes to uncover the truth, but also the effort it takes to conceal it, and the connecting thread between all three ‘maidens’ (real or not) is this idea of training-as-duty; something both of the real maidens are said to have ‘abandoned’ whereas the false maiden did not.

crucially, this arc is not over and won’t be over until we know what really happened to the last spring maiden, but the set up is toward an interrogation and rejection of this ‘training-as-duty’ conceit: hard work is its own reward, but it’s important to stop and smell the roses; ie, training and dedication to a cause is its own reward, but only if the cause itself is worthy. the last spring maiden was a child given too great a burden, raven left because she found that she had been deceived.

fall + choice + “be thankful for what you have and show your gratitude.”

amber is traveling alone when she’s attacked, with qrow tailing her at too great a distance to intervene; it’s unclear whether she was part of the inner circle herself. after the power is divided, they keep her on life support inside the ATM in anticipation of finding a new vessel for the magic still attached to her soul. no apparent attempt to get her actual medical care.

pyrrha is asked to become their sacrificial vessel for amber’s soul, for the sake of keeping the remaining part of the magic from recombining with its other half in cinder. she’s torn between feeling like this is an obstacle preventing her from fulfilling her destiny and fear that this is how she must fulfill her destiny, at the cost of who she is.

cinder—who had nothing—sees the maidens like this: “you think that hoarding power means you’ll have it forever, but that just makes the rest of us hungrier! …and i refuse to starve.” she’s the only maiden in the story who actively wanted to become a maiden and her chief role in the spring and winter arcs has been forcing the other maidens out of the vault-keys paradigm, through opening the vault (spring) or interfering with a machine transfer (winter).

the fall maiden arc is about freeing the maidens so that they can choose themselves; ozpin and his inner circle objectify the maidens and seek to possess and control them. the maidens are disposable, replaceable as long as the other side doesn’t get them. cinder represents the inversion of the fairytale moral, as someone who was deprived and subjugated for her whole life; “be grateful for what you have” becomes the wrathful “it just makes the rest of us hungrier.”

this arc is not over either; what remains is for cinder to let go of her desire for the other maidens and find a way to fulfill what she actually wants, which is freedom and safety. but because the fall maiden arc is so intertwined with the others—cinder as the violent liberator wrenching the other maidens out of this system—her presence in vale with salem has implications for how the summer maiden arc might unfold.

so.

summer + destruction + “don’t view the world at a distance, take an active part in it.”

as i discussed here, i’m skeptical that the mystery girl in B1 is the summer maiden. but if she is, or if she’s a presumptive heir, the secrecy surrounding her and the fact that she isn’t publicly known or acting in the open like winter and raven are would suggest that the inner circle hasn’t shifted its thinking whatsoever on the maidens: winter and raven are free because their vaults are open and salem has their relics, but the summer maiden must be kept hidden to safeguard her vault.

on the other hand, if mystery girl is a spy (emerald), then the summer maiden’s absence could suggest either that she is in hiding or that she is someone outside of the inner circle’s control.

because cinder isn’t in vacuo, i think the latter option is more likely—which is one reason i think it’s probably gillian first and starr becoming the maiden during the vacuo arc. if the summer maiden is already someone outside of, and antagonistic to, the inner circle, then there is no narrative need for cinder to be involved in the summer maiden arc; the summer maiden is already free.

(this would also allow for an interesting inversion of the last two arcs and mirroring with the second beacon arc, in that if gillian is the summer maiden, the crown will be gunning for the sword of destruction, and the conflict is not “how do we keep the key out of salem’s hands” but “how can we prevent an enemy maiden from taking the relic.”)

similarly, if the maiden is starr, then the crown is likely to be gunning for her and between the twins’ semblances and tyrian they certainly have the means to do it if they find her.

the other thing to consider with regard to the summer maiden is the history vacuo has with the sword, and how that intersects with the summer maiden’s theme of taking an active part in the world: eighty years ago, ozma used that sword to end a war and enact dramatic world-wide changes, and then he sealed it away with the presumable intent that it would never be used again. this is antithetical to the thematic purpose of the summer maiden and of destruction conceptually; the summer maiden must act, and destruction is a force which drives constant change.

if the summer maiden is part of the inner circle and on board with keeping the sword locked away at the top of the vacuo arc, i think it’s very likely that she will die, and the power will go to a character who wants to open the vault and use it to protect vacuo. whether that is gillian or starr or both at different points in the narrative, it makes sense to me for the summer maiden to be someone who decides that the sword must be used, for better or worse.

if gillian is the summer maiden, i think her determination to use the sword for vacuo’s sake in combination with her love for her brother might end up being the common ground between the crown and the coalition: they agree to help her heal her brother via partial aura transfer, she agrees to relinquish the maiden power, and everyone comes together to mount a counteroffensive using the sword of destruction. or the summer maiden power might end up divided between multiple people, with gillian keeping half and the half attached to the aura transferred to jax seeking a new host.

generally, i think it’s more likely than not that the summer maiden will break the existing pattern of [vulnerable dead/dying maiden] -> [“false” or “illegitimate” maiden] -> [freed maiden] and in that case the expectation that the initial summer maiden will die might be subverted completely. there is also something compelling about the summer maiden choosing to ‘destroy’ her power by dividing it, in a mirror image of the fall maiden arc.

although that being said i don’t think the maiden cycle itself will be ended, just freed from the artificial system of control imposed by the vaults and the oz conspiracy.

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darkmaga-retard · 1 month

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It is now one of the unspoken but immutable dictates on Wall Street: with each new banking crisis

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

It is now one of the unspoken but immutable dictates on Wall Street: with each new banking crisis, the Federal Reserve will quickly create an emergency bailout program and give it a three to four letter abbreviation so that it vanishes into an alphabet soup blur of Fed bailout programs that preceded it.

The latest iteration came in the spring of 2023 in response to a run on federally-insured banks that federal regulators had allowed to get in bed with crypto and/or had allowed to binge on uninsured deposits. The Fed quickly launched the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) on March 12, 2023.

BTFP joined the copious iterations from the Fed’s COVID-19 related bailouts and the Fed’s 2007-2010 bailouts with names like the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF), Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) and so on.

The one giant Fed bailout program that didn’t get an alphabet soup nickname was the Fed’s repo loan bailouts that occurred in the last quarter of 2019. By not naming the emergency lending program, perhaps the Fed was hoping its unsavory details would be forgotten. That program provided $19.87 trillion in term-adjusted revolving loans to the same Wall Street megabanks that the Fed had bailed out in the 2007-2010 crisis. (See Internal Charts Show Treasury Agency Assigned to Measure Risk in U.S. Markets Slept through the Repo Crisis of 2019 and the Fed’s $19.87 Trillion Bailout.)

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humornaut · 1 year

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My Journey with Omori

Hey everyone. Rather than my usual analysis-type posts, this is going to go into my own personal experience with Omori. I've kind of wanted to do this for awhile, because I feel like I have a lot that I want to say about this game. This post is going to have major Omori spoilers. I will also be going into some criticisms of the game (though not particularly heavily). This one will be a long one.

My Background

This might not be something that people care about, but I feel it is important to start with my life situation at the time I discovered the game.

In 2020, I graduated from college with a degree in game design. If you remember 2020, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. Everyone left for spring break, and the day before we were supposed to come back, they extended break by a week. Then, at the end of that additional week, classes had gone fully remote. My three roommates at the time never really came back to campus, and I finished out the lease alone. I never got to do any kind of internship, and I didn't get a graduation ceremony. I really didn't know what I was doing with my life, and finding a job in the games industry seemed impossible. So, I made a decision to move in with my aunt and work at an insurance agency. I was states away from anyone I ever knew, working in an industry wholly unrelated to what I had just dedicated years of my life to studying, but it was a job.

I wonder a lot if this was the right call. At the time, it seemed like an obvious decision, but now, I'm even more unsure of my skills when it comes to breaking into the games industry, and working 40+ hours a week can really sap your motivation when it comes to personal projects.

As the world opened back up, I started hearing from all my friends less and less, and life really started getting monotonous. Living alone is expensive, and I'm not good at opening up to new people.

Last November, by chance, a comic by twitter user Shrimperini appeared on my feed (it's still the pinned tweet on her account if you want to see!). One thing led to another, I saw some more positive reviews of the game, and I ended up picking the game up on Switch when I saw at on sale at a Best Buy.

Now, anyone that knows me could tell you, this isn't the type of game I usually play. I've always gravitated towards things like strategy games or rogue-likes. I only really stray from that in a few cases, whether it's to play a game with my friends, or just a game that I've had a long-standing connection with, like Pokémon. I did play Undertale and Deltarune (and loved them!), but overall, this type of game was not one that I typically went out of my way to play.

Also important: I've never interacted with any fandom in the way that I do with Omori. You can trawl through my Twitter, you won't find much of me talking about ships or obsessing over details until I started talking about Omori. All this is to say: Omori was a bit of a first for me on a few different levels. So, let's get into my actual journey with the game.

The First Playthrough: The Sunny Route

I unfortunately already knew a few details about the game going into things, but nothing that was too big of a spoiler. Something that I think gets overlooked is how great Omori's prologue is. In my opinion, the first night in Headspace is the best night in Headspace, bar none. It perfectly sets you up for what the game's going to be about, and I want to talk more about that later, because I feel that it really shines on later playthroughs.

Based on what I said about my background, you can probably guess what I'm going to say. Sunny's story and personality resonated heavily with me. At school, I was always the quiet one, just kind of following what my friends wanted to do until I started coming out of my shell a bit later on. Faraway is very similar to the town and suburb that I grew up in, and I know that many people feel the same way. Walking around Faraway felt like walking around my own home town today, years after almost everyone I knew back then has moved out and started their own lives. I mean this literally, as well, since I started playing this game right around American Thanksgiving, so I actually was back in my home town. It's nostalgic in a way, and I think that that is a major strength of the game.

I also do want to say, that while a Kel/Sunny comic is what introduced me to the game, I mostly assumed that it wasn't actually a canon ship. What I didn't expect was for the game to actually depict a close male relationship that does border on romantic in its presentation, which made those opening transition scenes of Sunny and Basil so interesting (as well as Basil indirectly calling Omori cute during the flower meaning segment), though I do want to talk a little bit more about that later.

From there, I feel that my experience was a lot like most people's first time with the game. I got to experience Faraway, then tried to rush through Night 2 of Headspace without paying much attention, so that I could get back to the real world plot. I didn't pay much attention during Sweetheart's Castle, and it's already-commented-on gameplay drag issues felt exacerbated by the fact that I just wanted to get on with it.

Real world day 2 happens, I got to meet Hero in the real world, Basil gets pushed into the lake, etc, etc. The shroud has started to lift on what's actually going on here. The North Lake segment got me ready to figure out what was actually going on, but first: Last Resort and Humphrey.

It was around this time that I began wondering if there actually was any kind of gay subtext actually going on. Of course, I had seen the Lost Library entry for the ride home from the beach, but as I descended into Sunny's subconscious, the way that the game started talking about Basil took on a much different tone. I got to the Branch Coral, and listened to it talk about how Sunny and Basil are connected by a "string of fate". This immediately set off some alarm bells in my head. A lot of debate has been had about this line, but for me personally, even if a string of fate isn't always romantic imagery, it certainly is most of the time. Seeing it written in the game (as something that Sunny's subconscious is saying, no less) completely had me reconsidering if there was a connection, which I hadn't really thought about since Basil's disappearance. I thought about the photo album, and how well Basil is treated in Headspace, and it just had me thinking.

I got through Humphrey, finished up the side quests that I still had, and it was time to start Black Space. Prior to that, however, Stranger lead me through Basil's garden once again, going over the flower meanings. I took note about how the meaning of sunflowers, as it was the first time I made the connection about Sunny's name and Basil's meaning for them (plus him literally always facing Sunny in several scenes lol). And then there was what Basil said about white tulips.

Being honest, it was difficult for me to interpret Basil as not being in love with Sunny after that, and Stranger's dialogue in some of the Black Space rooms really cemented that for me.

Black Space as a whole left me extremely intrigued as to what the plan was. The way it ended really left me in suspense for what was really going on. How did it all relate to what happened to Mari? I had already assumed at this point that she had taken her own life, due to some of the imagery. But what else was going on here? I didn't exactly think the game was going to veer back from being a horror title to turn into some kind of dating sim, but it was clear to me that Basil was involved with some other secret.

In a reversal of what I had expected of the game up until this point, I found it difficult to care about the real world plot of the game during day 3. It didn't help that it felt like a rushed resolution of the Aubrey plot, and I felt like I was simply going through the motions. I still have no idea how I'm supposed to interpret the key in the treehouse and how it got there, and it felt a little aggravating that plans were being made between Aubrey and Hero to include the hooligans next time, while Basil himself was still locked in his room.

So then, the truth sequence. It completely blew away my expectations for what the game was saying, and recontextualized so much of what came before it. Sunny had done something awful by accident, and Basil had done something awful to protect him. That last "Do you want to save Basil?" really hit me hard. I hadn't felt so part of the game until this moment. It was like I was Sunny, and I was mulling over whether or not I forgive Basil for the horrible situation his actions put us both in. The stakes are high, because it's clear that something bad will happen to Basil if I don't. I didn't actually know it at the time, but this is the first time you can actually choose not to save Basil. It's emotional.

And the fight. The way the game creates confusion as to what is actually going on between Sunny and Basil during it by using vague wording and hallucinations. Basil's desperation and the way his desire to protect Sunny as his "perfect" best friend come together, leading to the fight.

Memory Lane happens, and I honestly didn't think much of it at the time. It was cool to see some of the memories in better detail, but it wasn't as emotional to me as what came before or what will come after.

I would be remiss to not include that we learn that it was actually Sunny that had a crush on Aubrey, and not the other way around. I had already suspected this, based on Aubrey not being close to him in the photo album, along with the Lost Library memory, but I remember thinking it was an interesting choice to have Basil be the one to call it out.

I finished up the game, and it impacted me a whole lot. I wasn't planning on playing the other route at first, as I heard that it was just Headspace and mostly unchanged, and I felt satisfied with the story that I got. I walked away with the understanding that pre-canon, Basil had feelings for Sunny that he likely didn't understand, while Sunny had a crush on Aubrey that he was never bold enough to pursue. How they felt at the time the game actually took place is irrelevant to the story being told, outside of us understanding that these are relatable individuals, and I walked away alright with that.

Of course, after that initial wave of emotions from the ending subsided, I did have some criticisms. Sunny's actual friendship with Aubrey felt underdeveloped, as her behavior both in Headspace and the real world differ so heavily from how she behaves in the glimpses we see of the past. Unlike Sunny's relationships with the others, there's no real unique identifiers other than Sunny's crush. While I would not have wanted the only living female character in the main cast to have been treated as a love interest in both the real world and dream world, it would have been nice if the game gave us a little more than just the swing set conversations, like how we get Kel talking about their late night trips to Hobbeez. In addition, while I understood on a base level that whether or not Basil and Sunny are forgiven didn't really matter to the story being told, not seeing it happen left me feeling a tad empty.

Finally, I felt extremely dissatisfied with Headspace. On a superficial level, I could see that many of the things in Headspace were based on things from the real world, it didn't really feel like it had all that much significance, and the knowledge that it would be more of the same in the other route kept me from playing it. I occasionally visited the subreddit, read a few post-canon fics (Bask in the Sun by Lemari and They say Flowers are Meant to be Sunkissed by Witherdahlia being highlights with very similar concepts), and slowly immersed myself in the Twitter community.

Of course, as time went by, I started making my own interpretations about the game. I got very attached to Sunflower, as I felt the fics were the most interesting to read, and I already held the interpretation that Basil had those feelings for Sunny, even if I didn't think it even mattered if Sunny reciprocated (though I did like talking about their dynamic a lot). In February, Sunflower week happened, and I randomly happened across a tweet that pointed out how Sunny knows the recipe for a strawberry cake in Headspace, with that being relevant due to Basil's birthday being one in which a strawberry cake appears. This blew my mind a little bit, and I made the decision to go back and play the Hikikomori route.

The Second Playthrough: The Hikikomori Route

What I had previously assumed would be a slog through things that I had already done before turned out to be far more interesting. Without the desire to get back to the real world plot hanging over me, I found myself paying a lot more attention to the things that were happening in Headspace. Playing the prologue again was amazing, because I was taken aback by how it practically parallels the entirety of the Sunny route, right down to having to retrieve a stolen item and receiving an eyepatch after the boss fight. Some day, I might break that down further, because it's so interesting. But not today.

Pyrefly Forest and Sweetheart's Castle were much more bearable this time around, because I was paying attention to the little references to Basil and Sunny's friendship in Pyrefly, and the ways Sweetheart's Castle represented a candied-up version of the way that Sunny interprets the concept of "home". This time through Headspace, I saw the very subtle ways that Basil's thoughts "follow Sunny into his dreams". And then, rather than Mari leading you through North Lake, it's Kel. Stranger no longer tells us what Basil thought about white tulips and Sunny, but this time in Black Space, I noticed the implications that Sunny would open up to Basil about his trauma coming from the Lake Incident. It ends with Omori catching Basil in a bridal carry before returning his flower crown.

Whereas the Sunny route was this heart wrenching tale about forgiveness and guilt, and overcoming your fears for others, and how ignorance hurts those you care about the most, the Hikikomori route functioned almost as this deep dive into Sunny's subconscious. The fact that I was playing through pretty much the exact same stuff again but with a completely different perspective kind of blew my mind, and I wonder if this was intentional.

This is all to say that it was around this time that I was once again asking myself the question of if Sunny's feelings for Basil (at least pre-canon) were entirely platonic. Especially as I played the Basil Rush, with its new Tag Photos and Release Energy, I wondered if the game was actually trying to imply a romantic connection. And if it was, why? What purpose would it serve in the narrative for these feelings to exist? How does it relate to Sunny's crush on Aubrey, which surely must've existed in the story for a reason? And how does it all relate to the litany of things Sunny things about in regards to romance?

From a narrative perspective, I could reason that Sunny and Basil having feelings for each other that they could never healthily explore injects further tragedy into the day of the incident and Sunny locking himself away. It provides a context for Sunny's focus on "saving" Basil, both in Headspace and the real world. Basil is undeniably linked to photos and flowers, which are two huge symbols that appear throughout Sunny's mind.

Everything else is stuff I've already spoken about before. The way Sunny treated Aubrey parallels how he treated Basil, and via both things like his fear of spiders, and the way all the foods Sunny appears to know information on how to prepare being associated with Basil, his dynamic with Basil mirrors the way Sunny thinks of Hero and Mari's relationship during Memory Lane.

Playing through the Hikikomori route completely changed the way that I thought about Omori. It was no longer just the story of Sunny accepting his role in his sister's death, I was also now considering the possibility that the game did have a romantic subtext between its two deuteragonists, and thinking about the repercussions of such an idea.

As I completed everything that there was to do in the Hikikomori route, I was immediately taken in with the idea of replaying the Sunny route, with all the knowledge I now had from my previous experiences. First, let me say: Everything that I assumed about playing through Headspace a second time and was luckily wrong about, actually applied on my third run. I did not enjoy playing through Headspace on my third run through, and it will likely be awhile before I do so again.

However, I did start to get an appreciation for details that I missed in my first run in Faraway. Basil's little mannerisms during cutscenes, such as looking to Sunny before responding to Kel's insistence that they were all still friends, as well as the repetition of Sunny backing away from his friends' pain due to his subconscious guilt and fear of facing it, before the final payoff of Sunny choosing to walk back into the center of the room on his own accord during the confrontation with Basil. During Memory Lane, I took note that in the Treehouse Memory, Sunny asked to see one of Basil's pictures that had nothing to do with Aubrey, when previously he only asked to look at pictures of her. There are three different instances in which the player is reminded that Hero and Mari's relationship specifically is one in which they cook for each other specifically, and this information was now recontextualized with the knowledge that Sunny knows the recipe for a strawberry cake, owns a book about tofu (which he hates), and that's not even getting into all the stuff about smoothies in Headspace. Where Aubrey saying that Sunny "would listen to her talk to hours" was once a confirmation that Aubrey and Sunny did have any kind of dynamic at all, I now saw it as a recontextualization of how we were told Sunny interacted with Basil. (also, the "truth" being hidden in the toy chest, which is itself hidden in the closet was certainly a choice /j)

What was the point of all this?

Frankly, it's starting to feel like I'm running out of things to say about Omori. With every post I've made on here and Twitter, there's less things for me to extrapolate from Omori's storytelling, and it's unlikely that we will ever get any more added on to canon. I've grown to love this community, and I think it's so interesting when I look back at how I interpreted the game back in November when I first discovered it, and today. I hope that that will become evident with the mod that I am working on, Senesce.

Obviously, everyone has their own ideas when it comes to what Omori is trying to imply with its characters. Accepting Sunflower as "canon" (in the sense that those feelings do exist in some form) has deepened my love of the game and characters, and I love that other people can have entirely different interpretations and still be just as satisfied with the game! Even if it was all unintentional, I cannot deny that it has lit a fire under me when it comes to game writing.

I desperately want to create a game that has someone at home obsessing over the smallest details to extract meaning in the way I have for Omori. Flawed as it may be, it's special to me, and I'm glad I played it. Thanks for listening to me ramble about it!

#omori #omori spoilers #omori sunflower #sunflower omori #sunnflower #omori basil #omori sunny #why omori matters to me #this has actually been sitting in my drafts for awhile #also ive never really gotten the chance to say #but i actually think it's irrelevant if sunny and basil's relationship would be healthy or not #or if they actually get together at some point #what happens after the credits is pure speculation and not worth arguing about #what's important is how those feelings impact interpretation of the game and its themes/symbolism #(even if I do find it most satisfying to think that they do get together at some point years down the line)#(and find the post credits scene of them smiling at each other to be extremely satisfying due to the idea that regardless of being forgiven #(they at least have each other)#ramble over

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antidrumpfs · 1 year

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Opinion-Joe Biden: We must keep marching toward Dr. King’s dream

From the Joe Biden Washington Post opinion piece August 27, 2023

Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir” derived from the very idea of America — we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never fully lived up to that promise as a nation, we have never fully walked away from it, either. Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward.

That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades. Trickle-down economics holds that taxes should be cut for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations, that public investments in priorities such as education, infrastructure and health care should be shrunk, and good jobs shipped overseas. It has exacerbated inequality and systemic barriers that make it harder for Black Americans to start a business, own a home, send their children to school and retire with dignity.

Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan — Bidenomics — is working. Because of the major laws and executive orders I’ve signed — from the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, my executive orders on racial equity and more — we’re advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.

Black unemployment fell to a historic low this spring and remains near that level.More Black small businesses are starting up than we’ve seen in over 25 years. More Black families have health insurance. We cut Black child poverty in half in my first year in office. We aredelivering clean water and high-speed internet to homes across America. We’re taking on Big Pharma to reduce prescription drug costs, such as making the cost of insulin for seniors $35 a month. We’re taking the most significant action on climate ever, which is reducing pollution and creating jobs for Black Americans in the clean energy future.

This administration will continue to prioritize increasing access to government contracting and lending. We awarded a record $69.9 billion in federal contracts to small, disadvantaged businesses in fiscal 2022. We’re taking on housing discrimination and increasing Black homeownership. To date, we’ve invested more than $7 billion in historically Black colleges and universities to prepare students for high-growth industries. We’ve approved more than $116 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.4 million Americans so that borrowers receive the relief they deserve. And a new student debt repayment plan is helping Black students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed. We’re doing all of this by making sure the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share, keeping my commitment that Americans earning less than $400,000 a year not pay a single penny more in federal taxes.

And to help guide these policies, I made it a priority to appoint Black leaders to my Cabinet, my staff, in the judiciary and to key positions in agencies such as the Federal Reserve to ensure policymakers represent the experiences of all Americans in the economy.

But we know government can’t do it alone. Private-sector leaders have rightly acted to ensure their companies are more reflective of America, often in response to their employees, their customers and their own consciences. Right now, the same guardians of trickle-down economics who attack our administration’s economic policies are also attacking the private sector and the views of the American people. A recent poll from the nonpartisan Black Economic Alliance Foundation shows overwhelming bipartisan support for promoting diversity as central to a company being more innovative and more profitable, and central to fulfilling the promise of our country for all Americans. Despite the attacks, we all must keep pushing to create a workforce that reflects America.

For generations, Black Americans haven’t always been fully included in our democracy or our economy, but by pure courage and heart, they have never given up pursuing the American Dream. We saw in Jacksonville, Fla., yet another community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus. We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin. On this day of remembrance, let us keep showing that racial equity isn’t just an aspiration. Let us reject the cramped view that America is a zero-sum game that holds that for one to succeed, another must fail. Let us remember America is big enough for everyone to do well and reach their God-given potential.

That’s how we redeem the promissory note of our nation.

#vote democratic #vote blue #votebluetosaveamerica #biden harris 2024

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foster-the-world · 11 months

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Bad news: Adoption date from caseworker was a false alarm. No date. Then got in a fight with the agency about them not paying for medical care. The women asked for a phone call then proceeded to have no idea what to talk about. She's like "hold on I need to read my notes." Um, lady you asked me for this call. All classic foster care stuff that just made me 100x's more glad its almost over. Anyway, they are not going to reimburse us for OT costs. Not surprising but still annoying. Once he is adopted we will add him to my husbands insurance and keep medicaid as a secondary insurance.

Booked Harry Potter studios for next years spring break London trip. I also have an airbnb booked. Its fully refundable. Hoping to have enough miles so my Mom and Aunt can fly first class. My kids will be jealous but they are crazy if they think I'd ever use miles for a child to fly first class. If the redepmtions don't change we have enough for three economy class tickets and two first class but will see how it all pans out. Going to spend two nights in a hotel in Bath.

Moving forward with the nursing home job. 25 days PTO. Asking for clarification on if that includes sick time but still impressed. Asked for more money. Not sure they will give it but thought it didn't hurt to try.

Mammogram finished today. Husband had off work so he took the car in to fix a dent we found after it was parked on the street. Tmrw I'm going to hang with the kids while he does two years of back taxes. We need to amend them because we didn't have a social security number for baby boy so we could not claim him. They were covid years so I think the child tax credit could be a good amount.

In-laws coming for dinner. I'm making delicious buttermlik chicken. Then they are going to take the girls for a sleepover. Fingers crossed the girls aren't grumpy. Friday nights after a long week can cause moodiness. I normally just let them veg out on TV as a antidote. Will see how it goes. I guess not my problem once they are out the door.

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springlifeinsurance · 2 years

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barroncollierrealestate · 1 year

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ukrainenews · 2 years

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Daily Wrap Up March 10-13, 2023

Under the cut:

Russia and the United Nations have agreed to a 60-day extension of the Ukraine grain deal after negotiations in Geneva, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday.

Fierce fighting rages over central Bakhmut as Russia’s Wagner mercenaries try to break through Ukrainian defenses in the ruined city, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on March 13. Syrskyi, who commands Ukraine’s Ground Forces and made two known visits to Bakhmut in recent weeks, acknowledged that the situation in the embattled city remained difficult as Russia continued to press forward.

Ukrainian intelligence officials have officially confirmed the identity of the prisoner of war who shouted, "Glory to Ukraine!" before he was executed in a video that was widely circulated on social media. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) determined he was a sniper with the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Separate Tank Brigade of the Chernihiv Region, Oleksandr Ihorovych Matsiyevsky. CNN earlier reported that Matsiyevsky's loved ones and his commander had recognized him as the man in the clip.

Three civilians were killed in Russian shelling of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Saturday, and another died in Donetsk, regional officials said. Reuters reported the governor of Kherson oblast, Oleksandr Prokudin, as saying three people, including an elderly woman, had also been wounded.

Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Monday wrapped up a four-week training in Spain on how to operate the Leopard 2A4 battle tank, of which Madrid is set to deliver six mothballed units to Kyiv this spring. A total of 40 tank crew members and 15 mechanical specialists underwent training on their use at a military base in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, Spain’s armed forces said in a statement.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to travel to Russia to meet his counterpart Vladimir Putin as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said, which would be sooner than previously expected. Plans for a visit come as China has been offering to broker peace in Ukraine, an effort that has been met with scepticism in the West given Beijing's diplomatic support for Russia.

“Russia and the United Nations have agreed to a 60-day extension of the Ukraine grain deal after negotiations in Geneva, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday.

"Our Russian interdepartmental delegation has just completed another round of talks with UN representatives led by UNCTAD Secretary General R. Greenspan and OCHA head M. Griffiths,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said at a briefing on Monday, according to RIA.

The diplomat added Moscow had agreed to extend the current grain deal, which lasts until March 18, for an additional 60 days.

"But just for 60 days,” Vershinin said. “Any further grain policy will depend on actual —based on not what's said but what's done — progress on the normalization of our agricultural exports, including bank payments, transport logistics, insurance, unfreezing of financial activities and the continuation of ammonia supply through the Tolyatti-Odessa pipeline.”

Why are grain exports so important? Ukraine and Russia are both significant suppliers of food to the world. Before the war, Ukraine – known as one of the globe’s breadbaskets – would export around three-quarters of the grain it produces. According to data from the European Commission, about 90% of these exports were shipped by sea, from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The war and its impact on grain exports therefore has major implications, particularly in the global South which relies heavily on them.”-via CNN

“Fierce fighting rages over central Bakhmut as Russia’s Wagner mercenaries try to break through Ukrainian defenses in the ruined city, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on March 13.

Syrskyi, who commands Ukraine’s Ground Forces and made two known visits to Bakhmut in recent weeks, acknowledged that the situation in the embattled city remained difficult as Russia continued to press forward.

The commander said that the Wagner members were storming into central Bakhmut from multiple fronts, but Ukraine still held on to the “fortress” while inflicting “significant losses” on the invading forces.

“All enemy attempts to capture the city are repelled by artillery, tanks, and other firepower," Syrskyi said, as quoted by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's media center.

Syrskyi’s statement comes amid an eight-month-long battle over Bakhmut, a largely destroyed city nearly emptied of its 70,000 residents. Russia has intensified its offensive on Bakhmut in recent weeks as it captured neighboring settlements, inching its way into encircling the city.

Late on March 12, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a Telegram post that his mercenaries began storming into the underground compound of the Artemivskyi non-ferrous metal processing plant, also known as AZOM, in northern Bakhmut.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia officially commented on the situation at the plant on March 13.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a D.C.-based think-tank analyzing the war in Ukraine, said on March 12 that the Russian military leadership could be trying to expend the Wagner forces and Prigozhin’s influence in Bakhmut.

The ISW has earlier reported that Wagner’s committed elite forces in Bakhmut may be running out as the paramilitary group uses up its manpower to maintain offensive momentum.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Military Command, said on March 11 that Ukraine seeks to degrade Wagner forces during its defense of Bakhmut.

He added that Ukraine has already “thinned out” the second formation of Wagner’s recruited prisoners over the winter, and Ukraine has “a real chance” of degrading Wagner if it keeps up the pace.

As fierce battles raged in the east and south of Ukraine, civilian casualties continued to be reported.

The President’s Office said on March 13 that Russian troops launched two missiles at a school in Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, killing a woman.

To the northeast, the Russians launched a missile strike on the village of Znob-Novhorodske in Sumy Oblast, killing at least one and wounding four, according to the President’s Office.

On the southern front, the Russians fired upon energy workers in a liberated area of Kherson Oblast, wounding one person, the regional military administration said.”-via Kyiv Independent

“Ukrainian intelligence officials have officially confirmed the identity of the prisoner of war who shouted, "Glory to Ukraine!" before he was executed in a video that was widely circulated on social media.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) determined he was a sniper with the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Separate Tank Brigade of the Chernihiv Region, Oleksandr Ihorovych Matsiyevsky. CNN earlier reported that Matsiyevsky's loved ones and his commander had recognized him as the man in the clip.

The SBU came to the conclusion after communicating with the sniper's family and comrades-in-arms, as well as processing photo and video materials, officials said.

"This is a true Hero who, even looking into the face of death, demonstrated to the whole world what Ukrainian character and invincibility are," said SBU Head Vasyl Malyuk in a statement on their website. "It is these defenders who are defending our land today, which means that the enemy will definitely be defeated. Because Ukraine's Great Victory is made up of the heroic deeds of people like Oleksandr Matsiyevsky. Glory to the hero! Glory to the heroes! Glory to Ukraine!" Matsiyevsky was called for military service in March 2022. Since the end of December, he was reported missing near the village of Krasna Hora in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the SBU. The sniper was shot dead on December 30. His body was returned home in February.

The SBU said it is working to identify the Russian military personnel involved in the execution, and investigating the killing under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Officials in Kyiv, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have roundly condemned the sniper's on-camera slaying as a war crime.”-via CNN

“Three civilians were killed in Russian shelling of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Saturday, and another died in Donetsk, regional officials said.

Reuters reported the governor of Kherson oblast, Oleksandr Prokudin, as saying three people, including an elderly woman, had also been wounded .

“Today the Russian occupiers have hit Kherson again, on Mykolayivsky road near a shop, debris from a shell killed three people,” he told Ukrainian TV.

Ukraine recaptured Kherson in November after nearly eight months of occupation by Russian forces who seized it soon after the start of their invasion. The area is now under almost constant bombardment from Russian forces on the opposite side of the Dnieper river.

The Donetsk regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said one person had been killed and at least three injured in the city of Kostyantynivka after several rounds of Russian shelling during the day.”-via The Guardian

“Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Monday wrapped up a four-week training in Spain on how to operate the Leopard 2A4 battle tank, of which Madrid is set to deliver six mothballed units to Kyiv this spring.

A total of 40 tank crew members and 15 mechanical specialists underwent training on their use at a military base in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, Spain’s armed forces said in a statement.

“It has been intense,” Spanish trainer Captain Contreras - who identified himself only by his rank and surname - told reporters, who were allowed access to the drills for the first time.

Contreras said the Ukrainians would be returning home “with a very acceptable knowledge” of the Leopards.

“Although the tanks were different, there were many systems that coincide and that has made things much easier. With that, together with the motivation that the personnel brought and their desire to learn, we see them very well prepared to resume combat.”

One of the Ukrainian soldiers being trained had a patch on a sleeve sporting the slogan “Freedom or Death” underneath the Ukrainian flag.”-via The Guardian

“Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to travel to Russia to meet his counterpart Vladimir Putin as soon as next week, people familiar with the matter said, which would be sooner than previously expected.

Plans for a visit come as China has been offering to broker peace in Ukraine, an effort that has been met with scepticism in the West given Beijing's diplomatic support for Russia.

Putin said last month that a Xi visit had been agreed, though the Kremlin chief gave no date for a possible visit. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that a visit to Moscow could take place in April or early May.

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the possibility of Xi going to Moscow.

When asked about the Reuters report, the Kremlin said it had nothing to say on the matter.

"As a rule, announcements of official foreign visits are coordinated synchronously by mutual agreement of the parties," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

"When there is such readiness, we will let you know."

No other details were immediately available.

The sources briefed on the matter declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.

Last month, Putin hosted China's top diplomat Wang Yi on a visit to Moscow. One source said that Wang's trip to Moscow was to help prepare for Xi's visit.

China and Russia struck a "no limits" partnership in February of 2022, when Putin was visiting Beijing for the opening of the Winter Olympics, weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. The two sides have continued to reaffirm the strength of their ties.

Xi has met Putin in person 39 times since becoming president, most recently in September during a summit in central Asia.

On Monday, Xi wrapped up the annual session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress, during which he was unanimously confirmed in a precedent-breaking third term as president.”-via Reuters

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #China #Spain #Kherson #Bakhmut

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