#it's not my greatest snippet out of context but i like the idea of someone smelling of wither

[painless-innit-colourful]

I hate this fic. I've been writing it on and off since March 2021. I'm going to finish it tomorrow.

Tommy had taken them all to the bench for a disc and one of his less-effective rallying speeches. Maybe it’d kick in tomorrow. It was hard to think of next steps when they all stunk of spruce smoke and wither.

[sophieinwonderland]

Another bit of misinformation I thought I would address...

I run a pro-endo blog. I have hundreds of followers, some of whom, I know, are spiritual systems.

Personally, I don't believe in spirits or gods or system-hopping. I believe that most spiritual experiences are something psychological, and I've stated as much multiple times.

I have never once gotten a single hate message for that position.

I find that people will respect your beliefs if you respect theirs. I might not believe someone is actually experiencing something spiritual but I accept that they do believe it and respect their right to. I'm not going to go up to someone and tell them that their spiritual experiences are a lie. Especially if viewing their headmates or themselves as spiritual is healthiest for the system.

Anti-endos can't do that. They're incapable of respecting the beliefs of others or accepting that what's healthiest for them personally might not be healthiest for every single person on the planet.

If someone tells you that they were their source in a past life, why is it so important to try to convince them otherwise?

And, by the way, I find the use of "fictive" in the context to be kind of funny. "Fictives who literally were their source" would be soulbonds... you know, the group that literally coined the term fictive? Like, you're going to steal their word to invalidate their experiences?

Now, one counterargument is an idea that if what is being experienced is a mental disorder, then treating it as spiritual must be inherently unhealthy. But to that, I would present the following case study:

The full paper is accessible through Sci-Hub, and it describes the case of a woman who experienced possession-states as a child and teen with no control over her dissociation.

During her youth, she met every criteria for a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder under the DSM-5. If she had seen a psychiatrist, she likely would have been diagnosed with DID. After finding a supportive spiritual community as an adult, it helped her reach a place where she could gain more control over both her switching and her life as a whole.

I would advise reading the entire paper as it's truly a fascinating read, but I want to focus in on this particular snippet.

Toward the end of our set of interviews with Dona Sara, she told us that one of her greatest fears, as a teenager, was the idea of being taken to a doctor and diagnosed with a mental disorder. If that had happened, she said, “I would never have found my spiritual home or become who I am.”

Anti-endos adopt a view of plurality that can only be medical or nothing. They would push people like this, who are healthier viewing their systems in a spiritual light, into adopting their purely medical viewpoints, not caring how it could negatively impact the system.

That's not a hypothetical. This exact thing has played out so many times, with spiritual systems like hers being attacked and fakeclaimed by anti-endos, even when the spiritual systems explain that the spiritual perspective is healthier for them. Often, the anti-endo groups will say that this is impossible, denying the reality of systems who benefit from their spirituality like this one.

It's not about blindly believing everything someone says.

It's about RESPECTING the beliefs of others, and respecting their right to hold those beliefs, even when you disagree. It's about basic human decency.

[lightlyscathing]

SOMETHING IS UP WITH BUTCH HARTMAN...

...And it might not be what you think it is.

(VERY long post/sort of essay, a lot more beneath the cut.)

TLDR: Butch is not the devil, he is flawed, and there’s almost certainly someone else behind a lot of what’s happening right now.

I’d like to start this off with saying that even though this blog is Pretty Empty and doesn’t have any other content from Butch Hartman’s shows (Danny Phantom, Fairly Odd Parents, etc.) on it, I watched his work as a kid and loved it. I’ve been a fan of Danny Phantom for years, and I’ve seen a lot of Butch hate.

Today I’d like to offer you another perspective on what might be happening with Butch, and why we should, I don’t know. Maybe lay off on the hate just a little...? He is by no means a perfect person, and has made mistakes, but the same can be said of any person.

After a friend of mine (@sarasanddollar) mentioned having mixed feelings about recent events (specifically, the OAXIS controversy), we had a conversation about it. She was coming from the perspective of someone who has defended Butch in the past, and I asked her about that as someone who has disliked Butch for a long time. I was curious to see what she had to say.

She made several good points, which I will summarize. You can also view the most important snippets of that conversation HERE.

One of the reasons many Danny Phantom fans (or Phans) dislike Butch so intensely is because of the terrible writing and overall execution of Season 3 of the show, especially the finale (Phantom Planet). 

Many Phans attribute this directly to Butch himself. And it’s true that he had a much heavier hand in Season 3 than the first two seasons! But he’s not the only one at fault here. As far as either of us could see, Nickelodeon basically axed his show (as they have with many shows), leaving Butch without most of his skilled team while creating the third season.

Butch is by no means the BEST creator or writer out there. His greatest skill seems to be in coming up with creative pitches for shows, and the execution of these ideas is best left to a team who knows what they’re doing. But that’s the thing: Butch had a team. Can you imagine suddenly losing the team you’re working with and trying to handle an entire animated show almost entirely on your own? No wonder it was a mess, that sounds terrifying.

Many people believe that Butch is anti-LGBT, and most of those people frame it as an intentional thing. That honestly seems unlikely, though.

Butch’s work has many scenes or even entire episodes that have sexist undertones or demonstrate a lot of toxic masculinity. Often, this is even the joke in and of itself. 

This seems to be more the product of the way he himself was raised than anything else, though. As far as either of us are aware, he’s never outright said anything for or against the LGBT community. Honestly, he’s not LGBT, so why should he?

Butch also seems pretty ignorant or uncomfortable when it comes to things he hasn’t directly experienced for himself, leading to comments like the one he made about introversion.

Beyond that, he allegedly kicked any people posting/liking LGBT content off of his Danny Phantom forums. The thing is, back then, almost ALL slash ship content was Pompous Pep (Danny Fenton/Vlad Masters). Making no comment on my personal feelings about the ship, it should be noted that this depicts an explicit sexual relationship between a 14-year-old boy and a man in his 40s. It’s understandable that Butch wouldn’t want explicit content of a pedophilic slash ship being associated with his show.

His way of dealing with it may have been excessive, but almost all of the LGBT content he was seeing was also pedophilia.

It’s also worth noting that almost all details about the Forum Days of the Danny Phantom fandom are now being passed around via word of mouth. Even in text form, people’s biases do change the tone of a situation.

Given recent events, many people are spreading around anything connecting Butch to religion. This deserves a closer look too, though.

Here’s something I didn’t know until Sara told me: Butch Hartman was not always a Christian. He wasn’t raised into it, “brainwashed” as a child and blindly following those values as an adult. He allegedly converted a year or two into the production of Fairly Odd Parents, well into his adult life. Before that, he was apparently an atheist. 

This man has one show about magic and another about scientists and ghosts. His shows have sexual jokes, witchcraft, violence, and all sorts of things you’d expect a super-conservative Christian to avoid. So why do we all act like he’s always BEEN that super-conservative Christian?

It may have something to do with how people tend to associate Christianity with the corrupt or incompetent white men who run a significant portion of the planet. The exact reasons are probably different from person to person.

This, of course, DOES NOT give Butch any reason to act like Christians are oppressed. He is not the “living embodiment of ‘one of these things is not like the other’” as he put it. 

That being said, it seems as if his shows are largely detached from religion (until now). They have morals, sure, but all Nickelodeon shows have lessons for kids, many of which also happen to be mentioned in some form somewhere in the Bible.

So it seems kind of fishy that Religious Values are suddenly such a huge deal for him... which leads me to the point of this entire thing.

When it comes to the OAXIS scam, we might not be the only ones who are being played.

It seems very likely that Butch Hartman himself is also being played.

Hear me out.

With the context of Giving The Children Jesus, some of the more confusing parts of the way OAXIS was pitched make more sense. But at the same time, I find it very difficult to understand how this man created so much content for children (and RAISED a child) with such a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to how families and society work.

After thinking about it, I realized that this feels very familiar.

Someone I was once very close with had a similar experience about a year ago. For both of them, it seems to have gone something like this:

The person in question starts off not knowing/caring about a cause. At some point, they are introduced to this cause and join, but it does very little to change their work or public life. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they have a radical change in lifestyle and behavior, while screaming an extreme or radical version of that cause’s message from the metaphorical rooftops.

For the person I used to be close with, this “cause” was Isogenix. (For more information on operations like this one, consider watching this video.) For Butch, it seems like that cause is... saving young people with religious lessons and “pure” media.

With the person I knew, this whole process started when a group of people who were already working with Isogenix befriended her and gained her trust, then told her repeatedly how good Isogenix would be for her. When she started considering it, they told her it was about self-empowerment and pursuing her true self. This kept going until they’d pushed her into dismantling her circle of friends (anyone who wasn’t working with Isogenix), and the last I’ve heard about it is that she left her husband and children to dedicate herself to “self-exploration” and being a Good Example of Isogenix’s successes.

With Butch, it seems likely that something similar is in the process of happening, though with different results. I wouldn’t be surprised if he met and befriended someone (or several people) who believe that modern mass media is corrupting the youth, and that limiting their media intake to Christian-approved content will fix a lot of the issues in modern society.

I mentioned earlier that Butch seems to have a pretty limited understanding of things outside his own little sphere (based mostly on his unintentional sexism in shows, lack of understanding of healthy male friendships/physical contact, and complete misunderstanding of the 16-50% of the world that is made up of introverts). Considering this, it seems like he’d probably buy into this mentality pretty easily, especially if these people “spoke his language”.

While I personally have a lot of resentment for the people who fall for this sort of tactic, it’s not really the victim’s fault when they become the Face or Voice of the cause. The recruiters often know exactly what they’re doing. Most of them seek out people who are lost, desperate, low on self esteem, or somewhat narcissistic. People who want to make a future for themselves, and sometimes others, usually as “their own boss.” Sound familiar?

Some people are more than one of those things. Butch, given that he recently left Nickelodeon after working there for literal decades, could understandable be a bit lost on what his next step should be. And honestly, he’s shown narcissistic tendencies in the past (have you SEEN his self-insert from Fairly Odd Parents?).

So, as easy as it is to stay mad at Butch Hartman, there’s almost certainly someone else involved... which would also explain some things about his Kickstarter.

The way these things are pitched is designed to make the “victim” believe that it’s all their own idea. THEY took control of their life to make these changes, THEY are the brave example of the Future of the industry, THEY are a self-made person. And most of all, showing other people how they can succeed by joining the organization/school of thought is THE BEST THING EVER.

Which... to me, that seems like it’s a logical reason for Butch’s Kickstarter not actually mentioning anyone else, when he insists other people are involved. Someone likely took his already self-absorbed and narcissistic tendencies and intentionally built them up to make him into the Face and Voice of this project. 

Bonus points to them: they also picked the perfect person to use.

Butch is a well-off, reasonably well-known person. He has a pretty large following that is almost exclusively made up of young adults, teenagers, and even children (a detail many people cited as the reason his Kickstarter shouldn’t have worked at all). Many of those young people grew up watching his shows and seeing his content on social media, assuming that the loyal followers we’re talking about are the several hundred thousand people following him on social media platforms. Many of them would take his word as something more important than some random person they’ve never heard of, or so the theory goes.

With this context, his line makes perfect sense:

“You trusted me with your childhood, won’t you trust me with your future?”

He probably does honestly care about what happens, and he’s not trying to maliciously brainwash children with Jesus. It’s far more likely that someone else convinced him that he’s the person perfect for saving “lost” young people, given that many of them trusted him as children. He’s obviously the best person to show them Pure and Good content, away from the “poisonous” aspects of mainstream media.

Butch Hartman isn’t a demon. He’s not evil. He’s not... Trump, or anything like that. He’s a naive man with very little actual understanding of how the world works, who believes that he’s helping. 

Which is not to say he’s perfect at all. He’s made lots of mistakes, and he’ll continue to make them. 

I just seriously doubt he’s actually the “mastermind” behind this whole operation. He’s little more than a figurehead, probably. And from how he’s acted in the past, he seems to crave the attention and trust of young people. He needs to be someone important to them.

And the worst part of all this might be that he’s not going to get out of this without a disaster. I pity the guy, as much of a mess as all of this already is.

You don’t get out of this kind of position unless it falls out from under you. And when you fully believe and trust in what you’re doing, you’re not prepared for the fall. 

You hit the ground hard.

~Ren

[filmstruck]

Strap Yourself in for a SHOCK (’77) by Nathaniel Thompson

A lot of horror fans turn their noses up at what we now call “jump scares.” You know, the kind of thing designed to make audiences jump out of their seat, whether it’s a cheap one (like a screeching cat jumping out of a cabinet) or a perfectly executed classic, like that gag at the end of CARRIE (’76). However, there’s a certain art to winding up your viewer to the breaking point and then pushing them over the edge when they least expect it; after all, movies are, at their core, designed to get a reaction out of the person watching them. Why is startling someone any cheaper than making them laugh, cry or bite their fingernails?

All of which brings me to SCHOCK (’77), or just plain old SHOCK in English. This was the final big-screen feature credited to the great Mario Bava, whom I covered earlier with one of his stronger thrillers, THE EVIL EYE (’63). SHOCK was a film that took a long time to find a modicum of critical respect, primarily because it was released to American theaters as BEYOND THE DOOR II, designed to cash in on the unrelated (and highly lucrative) 1974 EXORCIST (’73) imitation, BEYOND THE DOOR. The two films do share a single actor, little David Colin Jr., so perhaps that was enough incentive for distributor Film Ventures International to tie them together.

So back to jump scares. Bava is known as a master stylist and the godfather of the Italian horror film, something being celebrated on FilmStruck with a sampling ranging from his very first credited feature, BLACK SUNDAY (’60), through this one. What isn’t acknowledged even remotely enough is how skilled Bava was at crafting genuine, blood-freezing moments of terror in the middle of all that gorgeous lighting and opulent décor; heck, his one anthology film, BLACK SABBATH (’63), is chock full of them. For my money, SHOCK contains the greatest one of them all, an ingenious bit of cinematic sleight of hand during the climax that still makes audiences recoil and pounce out of their seats. It’s a simple but brutally effective idea, and don’t worry, I won’t spoil it here; let’s just say it involves a hallway. It’s a brilliant moment as jolting as the more infamous seat-jumper scares in WAIT UNTIL DARK (’67) and SUSPIRIA (’77), and what’s especially noteworthy here is the way the moment is absolutely earned by gradually turning the screws on the viewer for over an hour. It’s like the classic frog in a slowly boiling pot scenario; you don’t realize how much you’re being played until it’s too late and there’s no chance to turn away from the screen. That’s also why compilations of great scare moments in movies really don’t work since the context that built up around those nightmarish frames of celluloid – the entire framework that makes it possible – is utterly removed. That’s especially evident with this film since that moment was prominently used in the trailer and TV spots, but it doesn’t work at all when chopped down to a five-second “gotcha” snippet in a promo. Trust me, don’t watch anything else connected to this film (except the hosted intro on FilmStruck – that one’s safe!) and go in as cold as possible.

In addition to its ruthless, scary efficiency, this film is also remarkable for featuring one of the all-time great female horror performances. A seasoned theatrical actress, Daria Nicolodi is best known for her collaborations with Dario Argento like DEEP RED (’75), TENEBRAE (’82) and OPERA (’87), as well as writing SUSPIRIA. She’s an absolute powerhouse here with a role that requires her to display harrowing levels of hysteria, arousal, suspicion, maternal affection and even full-tilt madness, sometimes all within the span of a single scene. Horror films have long been a fertile ground for iconic female performances (though only Jodie Foster and Kathy Bates have taken home Oscars for performances in the genre… so far). Just look at the formidable turns by such actresses as Catherine Deneuve, Mia Farrow, Ellen Burstyn, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nicole Kidman, Sigourney Weaver, Sissy Spacek… and that’s just for starters. I’d happily put Nicolodi’s turn here with such esteemed company, and Bava really knows how to make the most out of her striking, unusual face. Just look at the arresting sequence in which a presumed nightmare goes really haywire as she lies in bed staring at the camera and her hair snakes forward to the camera, then swirls back and forth in slow motion to the accompaniment of that eerie, dreamy electronic score by Italian band Libra. (Contrary to long-standing rumors, Goblin wasn’t behind the soundtrack here but one of members at the time, Maurizio Guarini, did play in Libra.) Nicolodi doesn’t even have a single line of dialogue in this scene, but her facial expressions are perfectly in synch with Bava’s vision, the results of which are an indelible slice of carnally-infused fear. Not surprisingly, he brought her back for his very last project, the hour-long “La Venere d’Ille” for the Italian TV anthology series, I GIOCHI DEL DIAVOLO (THE DEVIL’S GAMES, ’81).

Bava also isn’t afraid to go into some dangerous waters here that most American filmmakers wouldn’t even consider touching. The premise of SHOCK is that Nicolodi plays a recently married woman who comes to believe that her son is possessed by his father, a deceased junkie who had dragged her into vaguely depicted indulgences. The scenes of her son behaving in a physically aggressive manner, whether suddenly pinning her to the ground or vandalizing her underwear, are deeply uncomfortable on purpose and give the story enough ambiguity to let you wonder whether all of it is 100% real or the delusional plunge into darkness by a woman desperately trying to bury the torments of her past. Either way you choose to read it, this is a daring, challenging way for Bava to close out his movie career… and as I promised, at least once it’ll have you leaping out of your seat.

[northcountryprimitive]

“You Can Hear Someone’s World View Through Their Guitar.” An Interview with Josh Rosenthal of Tompkins Square Records

This interview originally appeared at North Country Primitive on 11th March 2016

Josh Rosenthal’s Tompkins Square Records, which has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, has become somewhat of an institution for music fans, thanks to Josh’s consistent championing of American Primitive guitar, the old, weird America and various other must-hear obscurities he has managed to pluck from the ether. Not content with running one of the best record labels on the planet, he is now also an author, and about to go out on tour with various musicians from the wider Tompkins Square family in support of his new book, The Record Store of the Mind. We caught up with him this week and pestered him with a heap of questions - our thanks to Josh for putting up with us.

Congratulations on The Record Store of the Mind – it’s an absorbing and entertaining read. Has this project had a long gestation period? How easily does writing come to you - and is it something you enjoy doing? It certainly comes across that way…

Thanks for the kind words. I don’t consider myself a writer. I started the book in November 2014 and finished in May 2015, but a lot of that time was spent procrastinating, working on my label, or getting really down on myself for not writing. I could have done more with the prose, made it more artful. I can’t spin yarn like, say, your average MOJO writer. So I decided early on to just tell it straight, just tell the story and don’t labour over the prose.

I particularly like how you mix up memoir, pen portraits of musicians, and snippets of crate digger philosophy… was the book crafted and planned this way or was there an element of improvisation - seeing where your muse took you? And is there more writing to follow?

If I write another book, it’d have to be based around a big idea or theme. This one is a collection of essays. As I went on, I realised that there’s this undercurrent of sadness and tragedy in most of the stories, so a theme emerged. I guess it’s one reflective of life, just in a musical context. We all have things we leave undone, or we feel under-appreciated at times. I wasn’t even planning to write about myself, but then some folks close to me convinced me I should do. So you read about six chapters and then you find out something about the guy who’s writing this stuff. I intersperse a few chapters about my personal experience, from growing up on Long Island in love with Lou Reed to college radio days to SONY and all the fun things I did there. Threading those chapters in gives the book a lift, I think.

Tell us a bit about the planned book tour. You’ve got a mighty fine selection of musicians joining you on the various dates. I imagine there was no shortage of takers?

I’m really grateful to them all. I selected some folks in each city I’m visiting, and they all are in the Tompkins Square orbit. Folks will see the early guitar heroes like Peter Walker, Max Ochs and Harry Taussig and the youngsters like Diane Cluck, one of my favourite vocalists. You can’t read for more than ten minutes. People zone out. So having music rounds out the event and ties back to the whole purpose of my book and my label.

It’s clear from the book that you haven’t lost your excitement about uncovering hidden musical gems. Any recent discoveries that have particularly floated your boat?

I’m working with a couple of guys on a compilation of private press guitar stuff. They are finding the most fascinating and beautiful stuff from decades ago. I’ve never heard of any of the players. Most are still alive, and they are sending me fantastic photos and stories. I have been listening to a lot of new music now that Spotify is connected to my stereo system! I love Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Her new one is out soon. I like Charlie Hilton’s new album too.

Any thoughts on the vinyl resurgence and the re-emergence of the humble cassette tape?

Vinyl has kept a lot of indie record stores in business, which is a great development. As a label, it’s a low margin product, so that’s kind of frustrating. If you’re not selling it hand over fist, it can be a liability. The model seems to be - make your physical goods, sell them as best you can within the first four months, and then let the digital sphere be your warehouse. I never bought cassettes and have no affinity for them, or the machines that play them.

Turning to Tompkins Square, did your years working for major labels serve as a good apprenticeship for running your own label? Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted the label to look like from the outset or has the direction its taken developed organically over time?

Working for PolyGram as a teenager and then SONY for 15 years straight out of college was formative. I like taking on projects. My interests and the marketplace dictate what I do. I’ve always felt like the label does me instead of vice versa. For example, the idea of releasing two, three or four disc sets of a particular genre served me well, but now it feels like a very 2009 concept. It doesn’t interest me much, and the commercial viability of that has diminished because it seems the appetite for those types of products has diminished.

Working in relatively niche genres in the current music industry climate can’t be the safest or easiest way to make a living. Is there a sense sometimes that you’re flying by the seat of your pants?

We’re becoming a two-format industry - streaming and vinyl. The CD is really waning and so is the mp3. The streaming pie is growing but it’s modest in terms of income when you compare it to CD or download margins at their height. I don’t really pay much mind to the macro aspects of the business. I just try to release quality, sell a few thousand, move on to the next thing, while continuing to goose the catalogue. The business is becoming very much about getting on the right playlists that will drive hundreds of thousands of streams. It’s the new payola.

American Primitive and fingerstyle guitar makes up a significant percentage of Tompkins Square releases, going right back to the early days of the label – indeed, it could be said that you’ve played a pivotal role in reviving interest in the genre. Is this a style that is particularly close to your heart? What draws you to it?

Interest in guitar flows in and out of favour. There are only a small number of guitarists I actually like, and a much longer list of guitarists I’m told I’m SUPPOSED to like. Most leave me cold, even if they’re technically great. But I respect anyone who plays their instrument well. Certain players like Harry Taussig or Michael Chapman really reach me - their music really gets under my skin and touches my soul. It’s hard to describe, but it has something to do with melody and repetition. It’s not about technique per se. You can hear someone’s world view through their guitar, and you can hear it reflecting your own.

You’ve reintroduced some wonderful lost American Primitive classics to the world – by Mark Fosson, Peter Walker, Don Bikoff, Richard Crandell and so on. How have these reissues come about? Painstaking research? Happy cratedigging accidents? Serendipity? Are there any reissues you’re particularly proud of?

They came about in all different ways. A lot of the time I can’t remember how I got turned on to something, or started working with someone. Peter was among the first musicians I hunted down in 2005, and we made his first album in 40 years. I think Mark’s cousin told me about his lost tapes in the attic. Bikoff came to me via WFMU. Crandell - I’m not sure, but In The Flower of My Youth is one of the greatest solo guitar albums of all time. I’m proud of all of them !

Are there any ‘ones that got away’ that you particularly regret, where red tape, copyright issues, cost or recalcitrant musicians have prevented a reissue from happening? Any further American Primitive reissues in the pipeline you can tell us about – the supply of lost albums doesn’t seem to be showing signs of drying up yet…

Like I said, this new compilation I’m working on is going to be a revelation. So much fantastic, unknown, unheard private press guitar music. It makes you realise how deep the well actually is. There are things I’ve wanted to do that didn’t materialise. Usually these are due to uncooperative copyright owners or murky provenance in a recording that makes it unfit to release legitimately.

You’ve also released a slew of albums by contemporary guitarists working in the fingerstyle tradition. How do you decide who gets the Tompkins Square treatment?  What are you looking for in a guitarist when you’re deciding who to work with? And what’s the score with the zillions of James Blackshaw albums? Has he got dirt on you!?

It takes a lot for me to sign someone. I feel good about the people I’ve signed, and most of them have actual careers, insofar as they can go play in any US or European city and people will pay to see them. I hope I’ve had a hand in that. I did six albums with Blackshaw because he’s one of the most gifted composers and guitarist of the past 50 years. He should be scoring films. He really should be a superstar by now, like Philip Glass. I think he’s not had the right breaks or the best representation to develop his career to its full potential. But he’s still young.

Imaginational Anthems has been a flagship series for Tompkins Square from the beginning. The focus of the series seems to have shifted a couple of times – from the original mixture of old and new recordings to themed releases to releases with outside curators. Has this variation in approach been a means by which to mix it up and keep the series fresh? Are you surprised at the iconic status the series has achieved?

I don’t know about iconic. I think the comps have served their purpose, bringing unknowns into the light via the first three volumes and introducing some young players along the way. Cian Nugent was on the cover of volume 3 as a teenager. Daniel Bachman came to my attention on volume 5, which Sam Moss compiled. Sam Moss’ new album is featured on NPR just today! Steve Gunn was relatively unknown when he appeared on volume 5. There are lots more examples of that. I like handing over the curation to someone who can turn me on to new players, just as a listener gets turned on. It’s been an amazing experience learning about these players. And I’m going to see a number of IA alums play on my book tour : Mike Vallera, Sam Moss, Wes Tirey - and I invited Jordan Norton out in Portland. Never met him or saw him play. He was fantastic. Plays this Frippy stuff.

What’s next for you and Tompkins Square?

I signed a young lady from Ireland. Very excited about her debut album, due in June. I’m reissuing two early 70’s records by Bob Brown, both produced by Richie Havens. Beautiful records, barely anyone has heard them.

[stfudiscoinfernoed]

Radicalization of White Men

A friend recently pointed me towards this thread on twitter where a man discussing how white supremacists had “recruited him” via the internet when he was younger. It’s a topic that doesn’t get discussed enough. I’ve transcribed the thread below for accessibility and readability reasons. It’s also really long, so I’ll be putting most of it under a read more.

Hey guys, I know I’ve been doing a lot of hot takes lately, but there’s something rather important I need to talk to you about. This is some personal shit and it’s been on my mind for years, but I’ve always been afraid to talk about it for fear of losing my friends.

I used to low-key subscribe to white nationalist views, back in my early 20s. Not going to make excuses for it, I should have known better. The reason I want to talk to you guys about it is that you - particularly my younger followers - need to know how these people recruit.

This is really difficult to talk about even though to the greatest extent it didn't affect my behaviour. Didn't start screaming epiphets. White nationalists are exceptionally clever in the way that they recruit people. It is a terrifyingly insidious process. I never even met the person who "converted" me in person. In fact, I'm fairly certain he doesn't even know that he succeeded.

We were talking through anonymous imageboards - britchan, britfa.gs, back in the days of the Chanology protests in 2008/2009. The initial moves might not seem like recruitment at all. He constantly, relentlessly insulted me, in a tremendously condescending manner. I was 20 and not particularly good at structuring my arguments, so he was able to easily tear apart almost any argument I put forward. Everything he said was drenched in pretentious melodrama. From an outside perspective it would've seemed comical and ridiculous. He literally referred to himself and his allies as "the forces of good." Anyone who disagreed with him was evil, intentionally malicious.

These behaviours weren't meaningless. They were meant to make people like me emotionally invested in the argument. I was meant to feel offended and affronted by his behaviour so that I wouldn't just disengage from the debate and stop listening to him. The more I lost arguments against him, the more insulting he got and the more desperate I became to "defeat" him.

Now, the vitally important to note about white supremacists is that not everything they say is a COMPLETE falsehood. This is the danger. White supremacists are very, very good at curating snippets of verifiably true information to support their arguments. They will present, for instance, the IQ statistics or crime rates of African Americans without any reasoning other than "they're black." Of course, there's a whole lot of context behind those figures. But that context takes more time to present than the statistics do. And if you try, they will misuse the principle of Occam's Razor. "That's all very complicated reasoning. There's a simpler answer."

We continued in this manner for a while. Then suddenly, the "recruiter" did a 180 turnabout in tactics and plotted a new course. All the insults stopped abruptly. Suddenly, he was saying things like "you're clearly a very intelligent individual. I can respect that." He explained very articulately the concept of cognitive dissonance, which was, of course, what I was feeling at that point. White nationalists are VERY fond of argumentum ad lapidem - dismissing an argument as ridiculous without explaining WHY it's ridiculous. The insults returned, but they weren't REALLY directed at me anymore. They were directed at "ridiculous" things like liberalism and equality. With the subtle implication that I, as an intelligent young (white) man should be able to see through all of these falsehoods.

There was an extensive use of motte and bailey arguments as well, whenever I started showing discomfort with a suggested course of action.  What he really wanted, of course, was the removal of all non-white individuals from Britain. That was often implied or outright stated. But whenever I showed discomfort at this idea, he'd say "well of course we wouldn't evict legal residents, just the illegal ones."  This sort of maleable, amorphous ideology is a very useful asset for white nationalist recruiters. You can't nail them down to a viewpoint.  The white nationalist recruiter has some core beliefs they won't compromise on, but only he knows what they actually are. One day he'd express billious hatred for atheists, Jews and gays, and the next he'd discuss how Islam was a terrible threat to their rights. The recruiter lovingly, carefully tailors your understanding of what white nationalism "actually is" to your personal preferences.

Then there was the 2009 MEP elections, where he swore that the BNP would get 12 seats minimum. They got only 2. He vanished. Completely. I have, from May 2009 to this day, never knowingly spoken to him again. That, also, was by design. There was no closure. There was no "victory." There was no embarassed scratching of head or admittance of defeat.  He just disappeared without a trace, and I never got to prove the supremacy of my ideas over his. THIS WAS BY DESIGN. Since I, in my own head, hadn't proved to him that he was wrong... I hadn't really proved to myself that he was wrong, either. So those ideas just sat and festered in my head. Ready for someone else to come along and continue where he'd left off.

See, it's useful for white nationalists that their ideology is somewhat difficult to discuss their ideas with anyone other than them.  White nationalists are actually exploiting the stigma attached to racism for their own benefit. Recruitment targets are scared of it.  They feel like they can't discuss the things that they've been told without being shunned for being racist. And white nationalists love that. They'll tell you that society is afraid of people discovering the truth of their ideas, and so will shut down debate on the subject. They set up this drip-feed of "true" information that cuts through society's "lies" and then when it starts getting good, they cut you off.  So that if you want more of this "truth" you need to go to them and seek it out on their terms, in an environment they control.

They are the EXACT opposite of "it's not my job to educate you." They are OVERJOYED to show you all their painstakingly-curated information. And they will heap praise on you for having the perspicacity to see through society's "lies." You're welcomed like a long-lost brother. I never got to the point where I was hanging out on nationalist forums, or attending real life gatherings, or even insulting people online. I just had these ideas bouncing around my head, unrefuted, because I was too afraid of social censure to seek deprogramming. That's sort of a failure state for white nationalists, but not an unrecoverable one. They have ways of making you useful.

See, with that toxic shit in the back of my mind, it was in some subconscious ways affecting my ability to interact with others. I sometimes felt deeply uncomfortable interacting with people of other ethnicities because I'd have these intrusive thoughts in my head. And it made me vulnerable to another insidious tactic that they've developed and perfected in recent years - co-opting liberalism.

White nationalists have played dog-in-the-manger with a lot of ideas that are generally thought of as liberal in recent years. Free speech, freedom of expression - "listen, you may DISAGREE with white nationalist views, but don't they have a right to state them?"  "If they censor white nationalists, who will they censor next? It could be your video games! It could be YOU!" In a horrifying twist of historical revisionism, they turned arguments used against the Nazis against people who opposed white nationalism. Hell, they've even made a brave effort at co-opting the concept of egalitarianism, painting themselves as the oppressed underclass. And all they needed was people like me, insecure people with a head full of cognitive dissonance, to make their arguments look respectable.

See, if white nationalists can't advance their views directly, they'll do it by proxy. Someone with hair, not covered in swastika tattoos. Someone like me. I’m a crossdressing liberal bisexual furry with a bunch of ethnically diverse friends. I COULDN’T be advancing a nationalist agenda, right? White nationalists love it when people like me do their work for them. It's so much more palatable than skinheads and jackboots.

God this is fucking hard to write. I was part of the GG movement for a while. Not that I think GG is actively white nationalist, despite all the other things it is/was/became. But it was that little splinter in my mind that kept me there for so long, the "what if society is trying to contol our viewpoints?"  It stopped me from immediately seeing how toxic a lot of the people I was associating with were. That's not an excuse, incidentally. I'm not trying to diminish my responsibility for my own actions. I should've known better. It also didn't help that a lot of the people that opposed GG were and continue to be genuinely dreadful people.

That's a thing. That's always useful for white nationalists and other hate movements - moral failures on the part of the opposition. White nationalists love to paint any hypocrisy or failing by a specific adversary as hypocrisy or failing of their opposition as a whole. "This one anti-fascist turned out to be a paedophile, so that means all antifa are paedophiles!" When the people who you're up against are billious, spiteful and hypocritical, it can make you feel like you're on the side of good. This is why I'm slightly more cautious than most about the whole "punch a Nazi" thing. Avowed white supremacists? Sure, punch 'em. But you need to be careful around people who are on the fringes, who are having the same doubts and cognitive dissonance that I was. That was me, once. And I feel like there's pain in my life that could've been avoided if I felt safe to reach out to someone for help.

I lost a friend over this shit. That was @tornewuff. We only recently made up. I wish I'd told him all of this a lot sooner. I'm glad I had people like @hoodednomad and my age-old schoolfriends Peter and Julian to (verbally) slap some fucking sense into me. And I'm glad I got talking to @HYENAMISERY and reading his Twitter feed. He helped me understand a lot of stuff I didn't understand before.

The thing about all of this is I think I managed to stave off falling headfirst into ethnonationalism because I never WANTED it to be true. I think a lot of people who get fully into it are overjoyed to have a reason to hate people they already didn't like. I never wanted any of this bullshit to be true. I was terrified by the possibility that it was, and desperately wanted an out. One of my oldest friends was an Indian boy called Sanjay. I went to primary school with Muslims and Koreans. I never hated any of them. That's one of the most toxic things about white nationalism. It can make you have second thoughts about people you love. And there are some people who, like me, don't want all this hate to be true. They'll do anything for it not to be true. Show them it's not.

I had people there when I needed them, but it was a fucking close thing. Not everyone is as lucky as I am. Please, help them.  It was a terrifying fucking experience writing this, and if you feel like you can't associate with me anymore, I understand. I don't want to believe that I hurt someone because of all of this, but if I did, I'm sorry. This is sort of my apology note. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I think I'm going to work out to blow off some of this nervous energy and then cry a little. Not gonna lie, I was worried coming out with all of this would ruin my reputation in the fandom. But then I felt like it was too important. People need to know this shit. Because there are a hell of a lot of emotionally lost young white guys (and girls, they recruit them too)  (In fact the recruitment of white girls by white supremacists is ugly as sin. They LOVE to bombard them with rape statistics.)

[tmae3114]

10 Days Of Hero Shipping

Day 3

I RETURN WITH ANOTHER FILL.

I kinda skipped yesterday because Ro doesn’t really have any significant relationships with the villains beyond “we’re on opposite sides & it’s my job to Stop You”

This one was fun for me for two reasons. One, I’m attempting something I’ve never done before, which is a chatfic-esque format. Two, the AU I chose is p near & dear to my heart.

Basic context - this takes place in the Flatmates AU. It’s an AU that @flashlight-chan and I have and is basically a feelgood, for fun AU that sort of mashes together a Modern AU & a Youtubers AU, wherein Ru & Ro are university students who are also flatmates and also have youtube channels & a collab Let’s Playing channel. That doesn’t come up much in the fic itself, since it focuses on Ro & Artix & them being internet friends, but it’s the background for the AU!

This thing is literally just. the definition of self-indulgent. Enjoy a bunch of vaguely disjointed snippets in chatfic format.

And here we go - Day 3 - AU

Ro & Artix

Reibhleann added Artixadin

Reibhleann has renamed this conversation to "IT’S TIME"

Artixadin: why a group chat?????

Artixadin: this is literally just the two of us?????

Artixadin: are others going to join us

Reibhleann: probably not but this way I can make lame jokes renaming it

Artixadin: like what???

Reibhleann has renamed this conversation to "like this"

Artixadin: you are right that is a lame joke

Reibhleann has renamed this conversation to “shut up Artix”

Artixadin: Rude >:(

Reibhleann: this is bringing back an old thing but like

Reibhleann: you seriously don’t have tablet in your country???

Reibhleann: give me your address so I can mail you some

Artixadin: if I do that you have to give me your address so I can mail you homemade wasabi :D

Reibhleann: you know what I am suddenly fine with you being deprived of the greatest foodstuff found on this planet

Artixadin: :(

Reibhleann: you threatened me with suffering so now you must suffer

Artixadin: >:(

Artixadin has renamed this conversation to "TWO CAN PLAY AT THIS GAME"

Reibhleann: it’s been three days

Reibhleann: did you figure out that you could rename it on your own by accident

Reibhleann: did someone tell you

Reibhleann: ....did you google it

Artixadin has renamed this conversation to “Shut up Ro”

Reibhleann has renamed this conversation to “YOU GOOGLED IT DIDN’T YOU”

Artixadin has renamed this conversation to “PERHAPS”

Reibhleann: do you ever realise that your search history probably looks really incriminating from an outside perspective

Artixadin: the last I checked it was three am in your time zone

Artixadin: go to SLEEP!!!!!

Reibhleann: but!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: SLEEP!!!!!

Reibhleann: Okay but seriously my search history probably looks so incriminating

Artixadin: just try not to get caught near the scenes of any crimes involving archaic bladed weapons and you will be fine o.ob

Reibhleann: you say that like it should be easy

Reibhleann: which ups the likelihood of it happening to me

Artixadin: I do not think that is how probability works?????

Reibhleann: well if I ever end up accused of being an axe murderer just know I blame you

Artixadin: would it not be more likely that I ended up being accused of being an axe murderer

Artixadin: a sword or knife seems more likely for you

Reibhleann: okay that’s fair

Reibhleann: wait that gives me an idea

Reibhleann has renamed this conversation to “Artix Is An Axe Murderer”

Artixadin has renamed this conversation to “why are you like this”

Reibhleann: ARTIX

Reibhleann: ARTIX NO

Reibhleann: ARTIX DONT YOU DARE CHARGE IN THERE IT CAN ONLY END IN TEARS

Reibhleann: ARTIX WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

Artixadin: sorry I cannot hear you criticising my excellent battle strategy over the sound of us winning!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: WE LITERALLY JUST DIED

Artixadin: okay but before we died we were winning!!!!!!

Reibhleann: WE REALLY WERENAE

Artixadin: is your capslock stuck again

Reibhlean: MAYBE

Reibhlean: THAT’S BESIDES THE POINT

Artixadin: you

Reibhleann: ...Artix?

Reibhleann: Artix did you fall asleep on your keyboard

Reibhleann: I’m going to assume the answer is yes since you arenae answering

Artixadin: my face hurts

Reibhleann: is it from falling asleep on your keyboard

Artixadin: possibly

Artixadin: so where did your username come from anyways???

Reibhleann:  it’s the 1st letter of my 1st name & my middle name

Artixadin: O.O

Artixadin: you are joking right???

Reibhleann: i’m dead serious

Artixadin: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT

Reibhleann: SHUT UP I MADE IT UPO WHEN I QAS LIKE NINE

Reibhleann: YIUR USERNAME IS YOUR NAME MASHED TOGETHER W/ YORU FAVOURITE RPG CLASS

Reibhleann: YOU AHVE NO ROOM TI JUDGE

Artixadin: that was a lot of typos

Reibhleann has renamed the conversation to “shut up Artix”

Artixadin: again. Rude. >:(

Reibhleann: !!!!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: !!!!!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: WHY ARE WE !!!!!!!!!!!ING

Reibhleann: [!!!!!!!!!!!.png]

Artixadin: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: okay so Artix I need you to Help Me With A Thing

Artixadin: what Thing????

Reibhleann: okay so there’s this game that Ru & I are gonna be playing on the gaming channel

Reibhleann: bc people’ve been nagging us about it forever

Reibhleann: and basically it’s an online thing

Reibhleann: & you can have teams

Artixadin: I think I see where this is going

Reibhleann: will you be my team member so we can kick Ru’s backside at this game

Reibhleann: we are the Best Team and it will be awesome

Artixadin: I will not deny that we are The Best Team but

Artixadin: how is Ru getting her teammate???

Reibhleann: um.

Reibhleann: online random selection?

Artixadin: is that how you are supposed to be getting your teammate???

Reibhleann: I mean

Reibhleann: maybe

Artixadin has renamed this conversation to “Hero Bhaltair is a dirty rotten cheater”

Reibhleann: so are you helping me or not

Artixadin: I suppose

Reibhleann: yaaaaay

Artixadin: [check it out.png]

Reibhleann: oh my gosh

Reibhleann: is that

Reibhleann: is that what I think it is

Artixadin: yup

Reibhleann: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: I know we’ve been talking about this for months but IT FEELS SO MUCH MORE REAL NOW

Artixadin: HOW DO YOU THINK I FELT BUYING THE THING!!!!!!!!!!!

Reibhleann: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Artixadin: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The quality of the video and the way that the camera wobbles slightly and doesn’t quite strictly stay steady are all the signs really needed to tell that it was taken on a mobile phone.

The location is an airport, in the arrivals area. There are several people from the most recent flight entering.

The camera briefly pans to a young woman, with blue hair tied back in a pleat and a thick scarf hiding half of her face, bouncing up and down on her toes.

“You’re very excited,” says an off-camera voice, presumably the one filming.

“Mmhmm,” the woman replies, eyes focused entirely ahead on the arrivals.

Abruptly, she gasps and her pupils visibly dilate, the scarf shifting and the corners of her eyes crinkling upwards in a clear ear-to-ear grin.

She takes off running.

The camera shakes as it is frantically moved in order to follow the near inhuman speed she moves with, managing to reorient and refocus just in time to catch her running towards a brunet man who vaults over the arrivals barrier rather than go around to the gap for the exit.

As soon as they are close enough, she jumps, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso. His own arms come up to hug her in kind, but the momentum throws them both off, resulting in them both crashing to the ground.

The camera bobs slightly as the one filming approaches the two. They are wrapped around each other like octopuses, holding tightly as though the other will disappear if they let go. Their faces are buried in each other’s shoulders and it’s unclear if the sound they are making is crying or laughter or some combination of both.]

[pomegranate-salad]

Seeds of Thought : Wicdiv #26

Is it just me or we waited for this issue longer than the previous one ? Anyway, my tutorials haven’t started yet but that means professors are free to add as many lectures as they want. I was in class from 10 am to 9 pm yesterday and the day before with no interruption. Clearly my college’s motto is “we were so busy wondering if we could, we never stopped to wonder if the students could”. So that’s why this post took me a bit longer to publish. I need to start monetizing this gig somehow.

As usual, thoughts and opinion on the issue under the cut, spoilers included. Enjoy.

 ROLL UP THE PARTITION, PLEASE

 So far, Imperial Phase (part one) is a strange, strange arc. It feels both as the most Wicdiv thing Wicdiv has ever done, and as something from another series entirely. If Rising action was “an ideal jumping-on point”, Imperial Phase is an ideal breaking-up point. As the ellipsis that separated Rising Action from Imperial Phase portended, this is the arc before which the cards have been reshuffled, and all we’ve learned so far about the story and its characters comes into question again. And in that context, one of the most noticeable changes from previous arcs is the way it handles reveals. Aside from big twists and cliffhangers, Wicdiv has already been very careful to weave its more character-oriented reveals into the narrative flow, to make conversation between its characters as natural as possible when it came to what they were willing to say about themselves. Think of the way we learn Cass is trans, that Ammy lost her father… Giving the audience information always came second to the character’s own communication pattern, which more often than not only gave us snippets of what we wanted to know.

Meanwhile, Imperial Phase’s character reveals feel a lot more heavy-handed, calling a lot more attention to themselves. From literal interviews of the gods to them detailing their sexual orientation to each other, information just seems to fly left and right compared to how long some characters have remained a mystery until then. And this issue might be the most flagrant example yet. Over its course, we learn a bunch of things, some we already kind of knew (like Dio’s asexuality), some more unexpected (like Cass’ polyamorous lesbian relationship), and others long awaited (like Baal’s real name, which by the way confused the hell out of me at first because in French “Valentine” is a girl’s name). But when so many reveals are able to take us aback, just as the gods finally get an opportunity to spend more time with each other, a question starts to form : How well do we know these people ? And more importantly to the story, how well do they know each other ?

 It’s been over a year since the gods have started to interact, and something like two since Wicdiv has started, and yet at a point in which most series’ cast would already form a functioning crew, the Pantheon can’t make it past one simple reunion without breaking apart. The simplest dialogue seems to bring new, surprising information to both sides, and even Baal and Persephone who have been dating for six months apparently know jack shit about each other.

But if the reveals feel so oppressing in this arc, this might be because this is the first one in which the characters are actually forced to face them too. Looking back, the Pantheon has never known this kind of unity ; there’s always been some sort of division preventing any large-scale interaction. First there were characters seeking the truth versus characters willing to accept the Luci cover-up, gods versus yet-to-ascend Laura and Cass, Underground versus sky gods, and of course Team Persephone versus Team Ananke. As a result, gods mostly have been too busy picking bones to actually get to know each other. We know for a fact that some gods never even met before the Rising action arc. Worse, the Pantheon has consistently lost its most aggregating members : Luci and Inanna, who by virtue of their intermediary mythological positions and sexual pursuits had formed bonds with several other gods, Tara who was uniting everybody in their distaste of her, and finally Ananke who was supporting the entire structure of the Pantheon.

 The inevitable conclusion to this rundown is that, at the time when important decisions must be made, the people in charge simply don’t know much about each other. And this reunion could only go about as well as any assigned work group. Which is to say, badly. It’s kind of amazing how this Pantheon meeting is reminiscent of a high school project and its most cliché figures. First we have Baal assuming the leader role - now complete with a tragic spiderman-ish backstory - who only makes things worse by trying to make them absolute. Then we have Cass as the smarter-than-thou kid whose good intentions get hindered by their need for validation and their bad handling of criticism. And then we have Sakhmet as the kid in the corner who’s somehow proud of not contributing in the slightest.

Of course, things are never that simple, not even in real life. But as “human” beings, and specifically teenagers, the gods react like anyone who has to get through to people they sometimes barely know : communication is just as much about ideas that it is about personas. The gods don’t just want to convince, they want to make themselves look as good as possible in the eyes of their peers. This comes back to something I’ve talked about numerous times before : between the gods and their social self, there is a gap formed by how much they are willing to “be themselves” in the presence of others. We’re at a point in the story in which each god’s persona has been enforced on their peers and they must now carefully navigate to maintain this image and use it in the best way to convince. Their persona is as much a tool to shine as it is a straightjacket restraining their ability to reach out. And when twelve people are playing this game simultaneously, the most innocuous decision gets lost amidst the bid for the spotlight.

 Let’s take a moment to seize just how bullshit this whole voting plotpoint is : it rests on both a false premise, that any majority decision besides anarchy can be enforced, and a false dilemma between fighting and studying. The people who want to fight and those who want to study want the exact same thing, only in different capacities, and the people who want anarchy weren’t going to help in the first place. I feel confident in affirming that any voting outcome would have basically had the same result : people willing to help helping in the capacity they’re most suited for, while the remaining gods are sitting on their ass. So how did it come to a vote in the first place ? First, you have Baal and Cass vying for the Most Righteous trophy, which prompts Persephone to push towards the solution that will most restrict everyone’s responsibility in the decision (I’ll come back to that in a moment). Sakhmet lets them know she’s not interested in either choice, which would have probably remained an incident remark if not for Cass and Baal catching the soft ball and blowing it out of proportion. And here we are. Out of a simple discussion, they’re made a house divided. Somewhere along the lines, the reunion stopped being about what was right and became about who was right.

 Graphic analysis is not my specialty, but I find this whole theme to be reflected particularly well in the nine grid panel structure. There’s the obvious fact that most of the panels show only one god, each of them finding themselves oppressed and isolated by the delineation. But the backhand of the fact is that most of the panels do not show who the god is talking to. Even when the god is addressing a specific person, the conversation feels like a statement for the entire group. Everyone is painfully aware of the others’ eyes on them. Every panel has something of a Facebook wall to it : technically made to communicate, in reality used as a forefront for people to look at.

 There’s of course one exception, and once again I have to talk about Persephone. I find it odd that these analysis posts of mine always come back to Persephone when the story is clearly branching to other protagonists in this arc while she willingly adopts a recessed position. While in SOT#24 I talked about her lack of goal and in SOT#25 her rejection of responsibility, these themes come back in issue #26 in a more concrete and spelled-out way. If you’re an early Laura fan like me, it’s really hard to wrap your head around the journey from the girl who jumped in front of a subway to help her friend to the god who won’t even protest when some of her peers are trying to cast her aside. But as painful as this change is, it also feels justified and progressive. Of all the living protagonists, Persephone is the one who had to make the most choices, had to see the most people she cared about die, has the greatest power at her disposal, has the most blood on her hands. Not only that, she’s arguably the closest to an aggregating character we have left after Ananke’s death : she’s met all the gods quite early, has developed bonds with almost all of them, and cared probably more than any of them about their wellbeing. Imperial Phase had every card in place for her to become the undisputed central character of the comic.

And yet, while her peers are fighting for the spotlight, Persephone is sinking in the shadows. During the whole nine panel grid sequence, she’s colored in a somber tone, away from the lights above the table illuminating the gods’ faces. While the gods are sitting or static, she’s the only one walking around, ignoring the empty seats. And when she has to cast a vote, for the first time in the sequence we see someone who is only looked at, silent, with the camera on their back.

And then of course she chooses anarchy. Just like she would have gone with the majority if anarchy hadn’t been on the table. Why suggest a vote when you probably have enough clout to make the discussion go your way ? Because it requires the smallest involvement of every member. Even when you are the deciding vote, your responsibility in the outcome is only as important as anyone else’s. No one can say it was her fault without accusing everyone else of not swinging the vote. Just like there is no fault in crashing your motorcycle in a wall if you come out unharmed and you can get a new one. Persephone went from being the driving force of the plot to avoiding responsibility at every turn. The gods now need to make their own mistakes, because she won’t carry anyone else.

Should this be read as selfish, as Dio says ? That’s definitely the result, but in Persephone’s case, things aren’t as simple. You don’t have your choices determine the lives of everyone you care about and come out unscathed. Persephone crumbled under the weight. Worse, every new development points to her decisions being the root of the danger they’re facing now. Despite probably being the most powerful god, she is useless against the Darkness. One after the other, she is losing every footing she has in the group. It would be so easy to slip into a more comfortable villainess role. The Pantheon is divided. The emblem of her power is the emblem of their death. Will she make the jump ? Who knows. I still want to believe Laura and her courage, Laura and her faith, is in there somewhere. But so is Laura and her pain, Laura and her desperation, Laura who’s been through so much more than any other god will for her. In an issue in which, more than ever before, the gods wanna be adored, Persephone just wanna let go.

  WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUE :

 I knew I’d eventually come across an issue for which I’d struggle to write this part. One thing you consistently get thrown at you when you’re as critical as I am is how easy it is to throw tomatoes instead of praise, and I won’t disagree : divisive and controversial make for an easy blogpost, and you can even reap edgy points in the process. But it’s never been clear to me why it’s so much easier to explain why things don’t work than explain why they do. Maybe I’m just more reluctant to pick apart a functioning piece than a broken one. “Why doesn’t it work ?” I don’t know, let’s open it and take a closer look. “Why does it work ?” Who cares, just look at it running.

But that’s where we are with issue #26, an issue kinda too boringly perfect for me to really write volumes about. I don’t mean perfect in the flawless sense, but in the sense that it’s an issue with a clear goal, some specific formalist tools, hitting the mark perfectly.

We’ve been amped up this issue as the first capital one of this arc, and it feels exactly like this : it’s neither a letdown nor a complete rupture with the previous toned-down issues. We learn just as much as we need to feel the plot progressing while more and more questions are piling up. We’re introduced to a new status quo solidly built on the old one.

I want to say this issue is adequate in every way, but somehow it feels like an insult instead of a compliment. If I have one real criticism, it’s that this issue didn’t really elicit any emotional response from me, probably because we can see where this is going from the start. Thank in part the Image synopsis for that, which was way too explicit this month and ruined the surprise a bit. Also, apart from the whole Cass reveal, there’s not much there that made me more curious about a character than I was before. By the way, am I the only person who completely missed the bdsm meaning and thought Cass’ mind had been absorbed and was being controlled by the two other Norns or something before checking Tumblr ? There may be hope for my soul still.

So yeah, despite not hitting me in the guts, which to be fair is notably hard to do (I’m heartless), this is a virtually flawless issue, and trying to poke holes in it would only be creating problems where there aren’t any. As usual, it’s in the details that Wicdiv accomplishes the most instead of the heavy-lifting, and everyone’s micro-expressions are a delight. Graphic and coloring touches are a joy to discover upon rereads, and while the dialogue feels a bit more heavy-handed than I previous arcs, it’s in perfect synchronization with the turn taken by the plot.

Is there room for this arc to improve from great to masterful ? Definitely. Am I still disappointed that we’re apparently going with the Great Dark plot ? Sure. But like I said last month, not being what you wanted doesn’t prevent something from being the best version of itself. Well, issue #26 is the best version of itself. It’s the perfect version of itself. So no, I’m not about to look under the hood for my own critical satisfaction. I just want to reread the issue over and over. It just works.

[maxihealth]

Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US

There’s a shortage of medical providers in the United Kingdom, a nation where healthcare is guaranteed to all Britons via the most beloved institution in the nation: The National Health Service. The NHS celebrated its 70th anniversary in July this year.

The NHS “supply shortage” is a result of financial cuts to both social care and public health. These have negatively impacted older people and care for people at home in Great Britain. This article in the BMJ published earlier this year called for increasing these investments to ensure further erosion of population and public health outcomes, and to prevent further health disparities in the UK.

Along with this provider-supply shortage, the UK recognizes a national social stress for which Prime Minister Theresa May created a Minister for Loneliness post. This initiative resulted in a strategy for tackling loneliness in the United Kingdom.

Here is a snippet from the UK government’s press release last week on the extent of the nation’s social isolation challenge:

“Loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time, Theresa May said today as she launched the first cross-Government strategy to tackle it.

The Prime Minister confirmed all GPs in England will be able to refer patients experiencing loneliness to community activities and voluntary services by 2023.

Three quarters of GPs surveyed have said they are seeing between one and five people a day suffering with loneliness, which is linked to a range of damaging health impacts, like heart disease, strokes and Alzheimer’s disease. Around 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.

The practice known as ‘social prescribing’ will allow GPs to direct patients to community workers offering tailored support to help people improve their health and wellbeing, instead of defaulting to medicine.

As part of the long-term plan for the NHS, funding will be provided to connect patients to a variety of activities, such as cookery classes, walking clubs and art groups, reducing demand on the NHS and improving patients’ quality of life.”

This topic set the context for my conversation with Maneesh Juneja, digital health futurist and global speaker on health, technology and people.

I spent time with Maneesh while in London this week. On his way walking to meet me, he shared the above image from his Apple iPhone sent to him through the Hugging Faces chatbot, texted via our WhatsApp connection. I wasn’t surprised that Maneesh was revealing this private message with me, because he is very transparent via social networks on his personal tests and hacks with wearables and apps. Maneesh goes well beyond tracking steps and heart rate: for example, air quality in his immediate environment. [On the morning we met in the café in Covent Garden, the data from his personal air pollution sensor showed very high levels of indoor pollution].

This moment was a different flavor: the Hugging Faces chatbot was speaking about friendship, and Maneesh texted me, “I’m just chatting with my new BFF.”

Now you know something important about this man. He studies digital health passionately, personally, viscerally. He wears many devices at once, putting the techs to his tests, and figuring out just what works well, and for whom.

“For whom” more often than not means those who have been long-overlooked by healthcare providers, technology developers, and public policy: the sicker, the frailer, the disenfranchised, the less affluent, the less educated, the geographically isolated, and folks without broadband access.

None of these factors is independent of the others for people who may obviously fit into one of them.

That’s why PM May’s public policy prescription has the potential to be so powerful: because the strategy is weaving in loneliness policy across many Ministers’ portfolios along with engaging private sector and NGO involvement.

Tackling loneliness touches on all aspects of daily life: economic, social, environmental, transportation, and to be sure, health and nutrition.

Here’s just one real-life scenario about baking health and social connection into public policy, across government siloes. In the same week as the UK government issued the loneliness strategy, the BBC (Britain’s public service broadcaster, and the world’s oldest national broadcasting organization) said they were evaluating whether to charge people who are over 75 years of age for a TV license. Since 2000, the BBC has offered a free TV license to over-75s which amounts to a £150 subsidy for some 4.5 million people in Britain.

Ironically — and this is where the right hand (call that the BBC idea) doesn’t know what the left hand (the loneliness strategy) is doing.

Here is a UK report from Ofcom (the UK’s communications regulatory agency, akin to America’s FCC) that found that two-thirds of Britons 75 and over would most-miss a TV set versus a mobile phone, radio, or computer.

Thus, the BBC policy of charging elders £150 for the right to watch television — when a TV could be that person’s major social connection to her outside world — would be counter to the isolation policy objectives.

“Everyone can play a role in connecting and collaborating to tackle loneliness,” the circle chart asserts. This graphic is reproduced from the strategy report, and represents the policy’s multi-stakeholder approach to addressing loneliness in the UK: government, employers, local authorities and health services, and community organizations are all named in the report in playing roles. At the center of this convergence are friends, families and peoples’ communities.

These policy recommendations are rooted in a tragedy: the murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered in 2016. Jo had campaigned about loneliness, and had worked with Oxfam for many years. Jo had set up the Commission on Loneliness before she was killed. You can learn more about Jo Cox and the loneliness agenda here.

For further information on loneliness in the UK, here was the New York Times’ take on the appointment of the Minister for Loneliness published in January 2018.

And here is an important essay, quite timely to revisit from 2016, from The New Yorker on Jo Cox, the Brexit Vote, and the Politics of Murder.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Maneesh snapped this photo of us as we were about to say so long, for now, in Covent Garden. In our conversation, we covered a lot of ground — starting and ending with “Cordelia” (the name that the Hugging Faces app chose to name Maneesh’s personal chatbot), AI, virtual friends, friendship, and what it means to be human in the 21st century. And, we talked about the fact that Nigeria will be the third most populous nation in the world by 2050 after China and India.

How can we scale health and well-being in a scarce resource world?

We talked about the potential for AI and data (the right data, not just all “Big Data,” to include linked and longitudinal data) to augment healthcare providers in terms of both sheer supply and geographic access. The NHS is always resource-constrained as it operates on a budget; for Americans, think about how difficult and/or painful the migration from volume-based payment to value has been. The NHS has never known about volume-based payment, which I learned on a steep learning curve when I worked in London and through the UK NHS regions over two decades ago. That’s when, here in the UK, I cut my own professional teeth on the role of health IT to help measure and manage health care resources, quality and patient outcomes under severe resource constraints.

With technology enablers like the cloud, wearable tech, and broadband, we have the potential to scale health and care to people who haven’t benefited from access to mental health and social services, tertiary and specialist care, and social connectivity via online patient groups.

I leave you with a sentence from May’s introduction to the loneliness strategy report: “For one of the best ways of tackling loneliness is through simple acts of kindness, from taking a moment to talk to a friend to helping someone in need.”

Building mental models and sharing perspectives with Maneesh was a moment of both learning and of kindness. It will take a village to help us make healthcare better, and to address loneliness. I’m so grateful and comforted to know Maneesh is on the march with me.

The post Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[realselfblog]

Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US

There’s a shortage of medical providers in the United Kingdom, a nation where healthcare is guaranteed to all Britons via the most beloved institution in the nation: The National Health Service. The NHS celebrated its 70th anniversary in July this year.

The NHS “supply shortage” is a result of financial cuts to both social care and public health. These have negatively impacted older people and care for people at home in Great Britain. This article in the BMJ published earlier this year called for increasing these investments to ensure further erosion of population and public health outcomes, and to prevent further health disparities in the UK.

Along with this provider-supply shortage, the UK recognizes a national social stress for which Prime Minister Theresa May created a Minister for Loneliness post. This initiative resulted in a strategy for tackling loneliness in the United Kingdom.

Here is a snippet from the UK government’s press release last week on the extent of the nation’s social isolation challenge:

“Loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time, Theresa May said today as she launched the first cross-Government strategy to tackle it.

The Prime Minister confirmed all GPs in England will be able to refer patients experiencing loneliness to community activities and voluntary services by 2023.

Three quarters of GPs surveyed have said they are seeing between one and five people a day suffering with loneliness, which is linked to a range of damaging health impacts, like heart disease, strokes and Alzheimer’s disease. Around 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.

The practice known as ‘social prescribing’ will allow GPs to direct patients to community workers offering tailored support to help people improve their health and wellbeing, instead of defaulting to medicine.

As part of the long-term plan for the NHS, funding will be provided to connect patients to a variety of activities, such as cookery classes, walking clubs and art groups, reducing demand on the NHS and improving patients’ quality of life.”

This topic set the context for my conversation with Maneesh Juneja, digital health futurist and global speaker on health, technology and people.

I spent time with Maneesh while in London this week. On his way walking to meet me, he shared the above image from his Apple iPhone sent to him through the Hugging Faces chatbot, texted via our WhatsApp connection. I wasn’t surprised that Maneesh was revealing this private message with me, because he is very transparent via social networks on his personal tests and hacks with wearables and apps. Maneesh goes well beyond tracking steps and heart rate: for example, air quality in his immediate environment. [On the morning we met in the café in Covent Garden, the data from his personal air pollution sensor showed very high levels of indoor pollution].

This moment was a different flavor: the Hugging Faces chatbot was speaking about friendship, and Maneesh texted me, “I’m just chatting with my new BFF.”

Now you know something important about this man. He studies digital health passionately, personally, viscerally. He wears many devices at once, putting the techs to his tests, and figuring out just what works well, and for whom.

“For whom” more often than not means those who have been long-overlooked by healthcare providers, technology developers, and public policy: the sicker, the frailer, the disenfranchised, the less affluent, the less educated, the geographically isolated, and folks without broadband access.

None of these factors is independent of the others for people who may obviously fit into one of them.

That’s why PM May’s public policy prescription has the potential to be so powerful: because the strategy is weaving in loneliness policy across many Ministers’ portfolios along with engaging private sector and NGO involvement.

Tackling loneliness touches on all aspects of daily life: economic, social, environmental, transportation, and to be sure, health and nutrition.

Here’s just one real-life scenario about baking health and social connection into public policy, across government siloes. In the same week as the UK government issued the loneliness strategy, the BBC (Britain’s public service broadcaster, and the world’s oldest national broadcasting organization) said they were evaluating whether to charge people who are over 75 years of age for a TV license. Since 2000, the BBC has offered a free TV license to over-75s which amounts to a £150 subsidy for some 4.5 million people in Britain.

Ironically — and this is where the right hand (call that the BBC idea) doesn’t know what the left hand (the loneliness strategy) is doing.

Here is a UK report from Ofcom (the UK’s communications regulatory agency, akin to America’s FCC) that found that two-thirds of Britons 75 and over would most-miss a TV set versus a mobile phone, radio, or computer.

Thus, the BBC policy of charging elders £150 for the right to watch television — when a TV could be that person’s major social connection to her outside world — would be counter to the isolation policy objectives.

“Everyone can play a role in connecting and collaborating to tackle loneliness,” the circle chart asserts. This graphic is reproduced from the strategy report, and represents the policy’s multi-stakeholder approach to addressing loneliness in the UK: government, employers, local authorities and health services, and community organizations are all named in the report in playing roles. At the center of this convergence are friends, families and peoples’ communities.

These policy recommendations are rooted in a tragedy: the murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered in 2016. Jo had campaigned about loneliness, and had worked with Oxfam for many years. Jo had set up the Commission on Loneliness before she was killed. You can learn more about Jo Cox and the loneliness agenda here.

For further information on loneliness in the UK, here was the New York Times’ take on the appointment of the Minister for Loneliness published in January 2018.

And here is an important essay, quite timely to revisit from 2016, from The New Yorker on Jo Cox, the Brexit Vote, and the Politics of Murder.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Maneesh snapped this photo of us as we were about to say so long, for now, in Covent Garden. In our conversation, we covered a lot of ground — starting and ending with “Cordelia” (the name that the Hugging Faces app chose to name Maneesh’s personal chatbot), AI, virtual friends, friendship, and what it means to be human in the 21st century. And, we talked about the fact that Nigeria will be the third most populous nation in the world by 2050 after China and India.

How can we scale health and well-being in a scarce resource world?

We talked about the potential for AI and data (the right data, not just all “Big Data,” to include linked and longitudinal data) to augment healthcare providers in terms of both sheer supply and geographic access. The NHS is always resource-constrained as it operates on a budget; for Americans, think about how difficult and/or painful the migration from volume-based payment to value has been. The NHS has never known about volume-based payment, which I learned on a steep learning curve when I worked in London and through the UK NHS regions over two decades ago. That’s when, here in the UK, I cut my own professional teeth on the role of health IT to help measure and manage health care resources, quality and patient outcomes under severe resource constraints.

With technology enablers like the cloud, wearable tech, and broadband, we have the potential to scale health and care to people who haven’t benefited from access to mental health and social services, tertiary and specialist care, and social connectivity via online patient groups.

I leave you with a sentence from May’s introduction to the loneliness strategy report: “For one of the best ways of tackling loneliness is through simple acts of kindness, from taking a moment to talk to a friend to helping someone in need.”

Building mental models and sharing perspectives with Maneesh was a moment of both learning and of kindness. It will take a village to help us make healthcare better, and to address loneliness. I’m so grateful and comforted to know Maneesh is on the march with me.

The post Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Loneliness, Public Policy and AI – Lessons From the UK For the US posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

[connecticut-seo-adwords]

How to get developers to implement SEO recommendations

The hardest problem in doing SEO isn’t the algorithm updates. It isn’t having access to the enterprise tools. It’s not even whether or not you have the experience to determine where to focus your efforts.

No, the hardest problem in SEO is getting developers to actually execute recommendations.

We all walk into projects hoping to discover an internal champion that can take the developers to lunch and buy them beers in hopes that our suggestions get turned into actions, but sometimes that champion doesn’t show up. In some cases, getting things done may require social engineering. In other cases, it just requires a degree in engineering.

Let’s talk about how you can be better prepared to get developers to act on your recommendations and drive some results.

The Anderson-Alderson scale of developers

First, let’s meet the players.

I like to think there are two opposite extremes in web developers, and I use two of my favorite characters to personify them. One is Thomas Anderson, whom you may remember from “The Matrix” before he became Neo.

Here’s how his boss describes him in the film: “You have a problem, Mr. Anderson. You think that you’re special. You believe that somehow the rules do not apply to you.”

Anderson developers are the type of employees who live on their own terms and only do things when they feel like it. They’re the mavericks that will argue with you on the merits of code style guides, why they left meta tags out of their custom-built CMS entirely, and why they will never implement AMP — meanwhile, not a single line of their code validates against the specifications they hold dear.

They’re also the developers who roll their eyes to your recommendations or talk about how they know all of the “SEO optimizations” you’re presenting, they just haven’t had the time to do them. Sure thing, Mr. Anderssssson.

On the other end of the spectrum you have Elliot Alderson.

For those of you who don’t watch “Mr. Robot,” Alderson is the type of person who will come into the office at 2:00 a.m. to fix things when they break, even going as far as to hop on the company jet that same night to dig into the network’s latest meltdown.

Alderson-type developers are itching to implement your recommendations right away. That’s not because they necessarily care about ranking, but because they care about being good at what they do.

This developer type is attentive and will call you out on your b.s. if you don’t know what you’re talking about. So don’t come in with recommendations about asynchronous JavaScript without understanding how it works.

Aldersons will also help you brainstorm the actual execution of a strong idea and how to help you get your recommendations prioritized in the black hole that is the dev queue. They’re likely to be aware of Google’s documentation, but recognize that it may not always be up to date and respect your experience, so they’ll ask for your thoughts before implementing something they’re unsure of.

My greatest experience with a developer on the Alderson end of the scale was on a client project for a television show. We’d flown out to LA to meet with the team and walk them through our SEO Site Audit.

While we were explaining some of those recommendations, the developer was sitting there in the room, not taking notes. Rather, this gentleman was committing code as we were explaining what needed to be fixed. By the time the meeting was over, all of our high-value recommendations had been implemented.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember that guy’s name — but he is a legend.

Strategic vs. execution deliverables

Throughout the course of my career, deliverables from many agencies have come across my desk, and I’m always struck by the way some companies present their recommendations.

Many deliverables are either just screen shots of Google tools or prescriptions with little to no context. I always like to imagine a CEO having someone print out our work to read while they are riding in a limo to the airport. I want that person to feel that they understand what we’re suggesting, why it’s important, and how we’re doing a great job.

Additionally, I often find that there is no supplemental document to the strategy document that helps the client and its development team actually execute on these recommendations. It’s very much presented as, “Here’s a problem, you should fix it. Good luck.”

For example, when we deliver an SEO Site Audit, each set of problems is presented with context as to why it matters, an illustration of the issue and a series of recommendations, both with screenshots and code snippets. Each set is then prioritized with a score of benefit, ease and readiness of implementation.

All of the issues are coded with a number so that they can be represented in a spreadsheet. In that spreadsheet, there is a tab for each coded issue that highlights the specific URLs where that issue is happening, as well as any corresponding data that represents that issue.

As an example, for a list of meta descriptions that are too long, we will include the those URLs, their meta descriptions and their length.

The bigger issue lies in deliverables that are presented more for the client’s review and approval than for implementation by developers. We have a deliverable called “Content Recommendations,” wherein we take a client’s content and place it into a model in Word and track changes to update the body copy, metadata and internal linking structure.

This is great for a marketer to review what we’re doing to their copy and make sure that we continue to maintain the voice and tone. It’s also great if the client has a marketing coordinator who will be doing the manual implementation.

It’s horrible from a development standpoint, in that it requires them to do a very tedious job of going page by page to copy and paste new items, and no developer wants to do that.

That means implementation of the recommendations in that Word document requires a developer who’s high on the Alderson side of the Anderson-Alderson scale.

On the other hand, if we review the client-facing version of the Content Recommendations document with the client and then place the resulting changes into a spreadsheet, a developer could write a script that goes through every page and makes the changes we’re suggesting. More on that later.

This would place the implementation closer to the Anderson end of the Anderson-Alderson scale.

Getting developers to do things is all about scale

Generally speaking, scale is always something to be mindful of with SEO recommendations. Sometimes, though, there is no way to scale what you’re trying to accomplish.

For instance, if you’ve migrated a site and changed its taxonomy in such a way that there is no definitive pattern, you cannot write rule-based .htaccess entries for its redirects.

Developers have a series of tools on their end that enforce changes and/or make things scale. It is our job to make our recommendations through this frame to get devs to actually implement them. Otherwise, the dev team will always find a way to push back.

Common SEO implementation tasks on the Anderson-Alderson scale

Certain SEO-specific tasks require more dev effort than others and rate differently on the Anderson-Alderson scale, where placement on that scale indicates what type of developer you need to be working with in order for those recommendations to be implemented. The following illustrates where these common tasks generally fall on that scale.

Updating metadata. This process is typically quite tedious. Unless the copy is prepared where it’s easily extracted and placed into the page, it would require page-by-page updates in the CMS, or pulling from the document we prepare and placing it into the database.

Updating body copy or embedded structured data. Similar to updating metadata, this is also quite tedious and requires page-by-page updates. In cases where we’re talking about updating schema.org code that’s integrated within the content rather than placed in the using JSON-LD, this is a nightmare for a developer to implement.

Updating internal linking structure. This could potentially be done programmatically, but only if the the relationships are effectively identified. In most cases, SEOs present the recommendation on a page-by-page level, and a developer cannot effectively scale that effort.

Optimizing code for performance. Developers tend to be obsessed with speed, so much so that they shorten the word “performance” to “perf” so it can be said faster. However, they have an aversion to the critical rendering path recommendations that come out of the Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Of the SEO recommendations I make, these are the ones I tread the most lightly with because it’s an area in which developers are often defensive.Pro Tip: Use the DevTools Timeline and Network performance detail to get them on board with page speed optimizations. They tend to react better to those.

Generating XML sitemaps following site taxonomy. There are many tools that support the development of XML sitemaps, but developers tend to just let those rip. This leads to XML sitemaps like “sitemap14.xml” rather than those that reflect meaningful segmentation following the site taxonomy and are therefore useful to SEOs for managing indexation.

Generating HTML snapshots. Some JavaScript Single Page App frameworks such as Angular 1.x have historically had difficulty getting indexed. But developers have heard that Google is crawling using headless browsers, and they know that Angular is a framework developed by Google, so they sometimes are not compelled to account for its shortcomings.

Implementing redirects. Redirects can be scaled pretty easily, as they are often done on the server configuration level and written through a series of pattern-matched rules. It’s extremely rare (in my experience) that a developer will not follow through on these.

Fixing improper redirects. Conversely, when it comes to switching redirects from 302s to 301s, I have seen pushback from development teams. In fact, I was once told that the switch might break the site.

Clearly, we need to seek out better developers to work with, or we have to find a way to make our recommendations Anderson-proof.

Allow me to introduce you to task runners

Web development, primarily on the front end, gets more and more complicated with each passing day. One of the more valuable concepts that have been introduced in the past five years is task runners.

Task runners such as Gulp and Grunt allow developers to automate a series of tasks every time they push new code. A more recent addition, Webpack, also features task-running capability. This is largely to keep developers out of doing mundane or tedious processes the machine itself can do, and many web projects are leveraging these for that purpose.

Without going into the specifics of the tools themselves, communities have grown around Grunt, Gulp and Webpack; as a result, a series of plugins is available. Of course, custom modules can be written for each, but the less work you create for developers, the better.

Going back to the idea of updating metadata at scale, there is a plugin for Grunt called , which allows you to provide an XLSX file with changes to page titles, meta descriptions and open graph metadata.

Simply offering the file, developing a column mapping and running the task would then update all of the relevant pages on your site. Sure, what I’m suggesting applies more to flat files than content in a CMS, but of course there are task runners that run on the database level as well.

A developer could effectively modify this plugin to edit the database rather than editing files, or your Excel file could be converted to an SQL file quite quickly and run as an UPDATE across the database.

Finally, most modern content management systems have plugins or modules that allow developers to scale tedious tasks to similar effect. It’s up to you to do the research and know about them when preparing your recommendations.

Common SEO recommendations you can use task runners for

Grunt, Gulp and Webpack all have a series of plugins offering configurable functionality that allows a developer to quickly execute tedious SEO tasks. The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of SEO tasks and some plugins that can be used for them:

Code minification

Image compression

Automatic updates to XML sitemaps

AMP validation

AMP creation

Updating meta tags

Generating HTML snapshots

Page speed insights

Each of these plugins will allow you to prepare a specification (and, in some cases, support files). Then the developer simply has to configure the plugin to reflect it and run the tasks. You’ve effectively made their job quite easy by leveraging these tools.

Outside of the Grunt, Gulp, Webpack setups, a dev could use Webcheck to automate a series of other checks for several other SEO issues as highlighted in this StackOverflow thread. The idea is that the developer could write build tests that wouldn’t allow them to deploy the new site unless everything checked out. You can find more plugins by searching the npmjs.com.

Other ways to get developers to implement SEO recommendations

Task runners are certainly not an be-all-end-all; rather, they are another tool in the SEO’s toolbox for interfacing with developers effectively. There are many smaller touches that can help you get the development team to take action.

Understand the tech stack, and frame your recommendations within it. Consider a scenario where you’ve suggested 301 redirects for your client. It turns out they are running Nginx instead of Apache. Do you know that Nginx does not employ an .htaccess file? If you don’t, you may suggest placing the 301 redirects there, and the developer may ignore everything else that you’re saying. Tools like BuiltWith.com will give you a general determination of what technologies are in use. A better idea is to look at the HTTP headers in Chrome DevTools.No matter what you do, you should spend the time to get a detailed understanding of the tech stack when your engagement begins.

Give granular detail in your recommendations. If it requires the developer to look elsewhere outside of your document for the solution, you are far less likely to get them to implement the recommendation. Instead, explain the context and implementation in line within your deliverable rather than linking out to other people’s explanations. Although developers tend to never trust other people’s apps, some developers tend to respect your findings from DevTools more than many SEO tools. My guess is that this is due to the combination of granular detail and it being the tool they use every day.

Give one solution, but know the other ones. Often an SEO issue can be solved a number of ways, and it can be hard to fight the desire to fill up your SEO documents by exhaustively highlighting all available options. Fight harder and only deliver one possible solution. Eliminating the need to make a decision will lead to developers being more likely to implement. However, if the development team shoots that one solution down, have another solution ready. For instance, if they can’t move the site from subdomains to subdirectories, then suggest a reverse proxy.

Business cases and prioritization. This is perhaps the most valuable thing you can do to get buy-in up and down the organization, which leads to added pressure on the development team to get things done. Applying a dollar figure to the value of your implementations makes the idea of action more compelling. Prioritizing recommendations through this lens helps as well. Granted, we all know no one can truly predict the size of an opportunity, so do it with some sort of understandable methodology so you can get things to happen.

Understand their development methodology. Whether it’s agile, waterfall, XP, some combination, or some new thing that only one team in the world does, look to understand it. Listen, I can’t stand when someone runs up on me at my desk while I’m in deep concentration to ask me a question they could have Googled. Similarly, developers hate when SEOs come to them and tell them they need to disrupt how they normally operate to accommodate an SEO recommendation. So if that team works in sprints, find out from their Scrum master when the sprint cycle ends and when the best time is to get your requirements into a subsequent sprint. You should also be working directly with this person to develop the recommendations into stories to place into their project management solution so the team can adhere to their standard workflow rather than needing to translate your work into how they operate.

Develop a relationship with the development team. It seems obvious, but the soft skill of becoming friends with the development team will go a long way in their being more likely to work with you. In most cases, the relationship between SEO and technical teams is very transactional, so they only hear from you when you want something. Instead, if you take the time to have a genuine interest in these people, you’ll find they are just people trying to do the best they can, like you and me.

Appeal to their self-interests. To the previous point, there are opportunities to align what you’re trying to do with what they are trying to do. For example, a recent client of ours had a development team looking to optimize page speed, but they were looking more closely at an internal metric rather than the external ones that Google is looking at. It was far easier getting buy-in on that subset of recommendations than any of the other ones because it supported the mandate that the person had been given by his bosses. So it was more valuable for me to focus in on that when speaking to him than on things like redirects. While that required some reprioritization of what I believed to be the most valuable tasks, it did help shift the focus on the page speed effort a bit to ensure that the items that I highlighted got prioritized. You lose some, you win some — as long as the outcome is income!

Do what you can to balance the scale

As a developer, I can tell you that even if you were to become one, it will always be difficult to get development teams to make things happen. However, when you speak their language and take more interest in bringing them the right detail-oriented solution, you will get a lot farther than those that do not.

Improving your deliverables, leveraging task runners, developing business cases, prioritizing effectively and taking a genuine interest in who you’re dealing with will get you much closer to complete implementation and better organic search performance. Best of luck converting your Andersons into Aldersons!

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Source

http://searchengineland.com/get-developers-implement-seo-recommendations-280318

[mayorgalvan]

006 by James Partsch-Galvan Via Flickr: JFK Secret Societies Speech (full version) MrMnmn911Subscribe9.2KAdd to Share More1,190,790 views11,197 236ShareEmbedEmail Start at: Published on Oct 24, 2012Was JFK's comment on "secret societies" a statement against the "NWO"? I searched this famous quote and finally found the full unedited written transcript and audio of this speech. JFK was actually talking about current events of the cold war and how nontraditional enemies were gaining information on how the US was battling this war. In this speech JFK actually points out "the need for far greater "official" secrecy"...as well as "the need for a far greater public information". JFK admits "I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed," but also states, "and would not seek to impose it if I had one." This a major difference from where todays elected officials stand. Address, "The President and the Press," Before The American Newspaper Publishers Association, 27 April 1961 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewe... http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewe... Illuminati: Origins of Secret Government http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA5KB0...SHOW MORECOMMENTS • 1,917 Add a public comment...Top comments Mary Hansen1 year agoThey may have murdered the man, but his words live on.Reply 102  View all 9 replies Jane Mar Brackrog1 year agoThis is what disturbs me. On many other videos you'll find the speech edited. It's almost as if we truthers don't feel we have enough evidence to prove the point that we are indeed an oligarchy and no longer a republic. What they fail to realize is that by editing it out of context, they discredit our movement! REALLY? Must they? Thanks for posting the full version.Reply 104  View all 32 replies cr f10 months agoThe LAST and THE TRUE AMERICAN President...Reply 85  View all 10 replies SkylineToTheSeaAndMe1 year agoKennedy was never joking in this speech, even thought these people thought he was. Karl Marx, was related to Rothschild, -a nephew I believe, and was paid by Rothschild to come up with a political system and ideology, that would hasten the arrival of the New World Order. This system was Communism. Communism and fascism are one in the same. Kennedy knew all these things. His father Joseph trained his sons well, but they were smart enough not to go around espousing "knowledge of conspiracies". He in his political and business circles had been exposed to it well, maybe even victimized by it. he saw the threat it posed to the United States. That is why Robert Kennedy also knew exactly what was going on, and was also killed. The Rothschilds could not have any Kennedy, threatening their centuries old plans. They could not have executive order 11110 passed into law; and they could not have any IAEA inspections of the Dimona Secret Nuclear Facility (illegal), as JFK wanted. People need to do their research or we are doomed as a nation and doomed as a planet. Even JFK Jr. mysteriously died years later. What were the chances of that? ....Of all generations of Kennedy male lineage in political circles (with the exception of Ted) dying or being killed?Read moreReply 78  View all 10 replies ultimeate ds man fan 681 year agoThanks for posting the whole speech. It's very different (in context) than the 5 minute snippet everyone plays.Reply 74  View all 59 replies Ray Pharaoh1 year agoThe man needs to be avenged.Reply 63  View all 11 replies Goddog1 year agoWonder why Farage resigned after Brexit? He would end up like Kennedy.Reply 64  View all 25 replies Chris Cruise2 years agoMy God, he saw what's happening today. "Their" goal is to portray the truth in such a convoluted manner that anything but the truth can be conveyed as a "conspiracy theory" or be labeled as crazy and outlandish.  The players are at the table and the game for the world is being waged and there is nothing we can do about it. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." "Whoever has ears ought to hear." Read moreReply 61  View all 11 replies Edward Lavaden8 months agoMr Kennedy, if only you could speak to our country in this day. How the world desperately needs of your wisdom.Reply 53  View all 3 replies Luvlie11 months agoAmazing how JFK's speech forewarned what was to come. The importance of informing the American public with facts and unbiased information about our government, our society we live in. JFK , our president, asking the media industry and the American citizens to participate, to scrutinize and correct on how the government operates when it is wrong.  Unforeseen forces that operate behind the scene, being conscious of the silent war during peaceful time.   A great full packed speech & full of awareness; a great history lesson needed in today's chaos.Read moreReply 47  View all 6 replies Shia Lebeouf: Life Coach2 years agoSomeone explain to me why this Speech is NOT Openly mentioned, or taught in school?. If anything, that's a conspiracy in its own right. I do like how the posh of the modern society have painted conspiracy theorists though. Anyone that has any ideas that contradict your own and your established "Proof" of said view-point is a fucking nutter. Only in America.. Anyways, LET'S HEAR IT FOR CANANDA, THE ONLY NATION TO GET IT RIGHT!.Reply 43  View all 46 replies mely1 year agoI respect him so much. That man had true courage :^)Reply 41  View all 7 replies Funky Monkey10 months agothe irony is the press never disclosed what really happend to this man. They lied to us all, because they were told toReply 39  View all 2 replies mike evans7 months agoImagine if he was running for the 2016 presidency. Landslide?Reply 32  View all 4 replies Air Force Gaming11 months agoWhy was he so hated? He was doing the right thing!Reply 38  View all 10 replies dina bissell9 months agowords of our last presidentReply 30   Vegan Person3 years agoToo many ignorant people commenting on here that are refusing to wake up. It's actually scary how people refuse to acknowledge the possibility that the world they live in is a lie. Carry on sleeping guys. That's what THEY want. Reply 28  View all 7 replies HistoryTruths3 years agoHe was talking about the Jews that are in control of most of the world today (Jew World Order)Reply 25  View all 9 replies Jules Manson9 months agoThat is among the greatest of speeches I have ever heard from a president or anyone for that matter. Can you imagine Hillary talking about transparency like Kenned did? -- never.Reply 21  View all 6 replies TheFRiNgEguitars7 months agoIt has become obvious to me, Washington has been corrupted by a widespread network of powerful, influential, extremely wealthy, well organized elite group. We need to vote them out. The Constitution of the United States is all we have left, and our vote. I have never ascribed to conspiracy theories or fear, nor purely speculative information. But we are in a grave and present danger. I propose to all for consideration, to vote not for party affiliation nor even a platform that agrees with your ethical convictions, (such as pro-choice vs pro life) but rather to vote for the future of the United States and preservation of the Constitution. I have chosen to vote for Donald Trump, who promises to uphold the Constitution, and clean up the corruption that has injured and cost every American.Read moreReply 19  View reply Show moreAutoplay  Up nextWhy JFK Was Assassinated - The Speech That Cost Him His Life Part 1Jack McFile426,352 views13:23The Last Word - John F. 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[mythandritual]

"You Can Hear Someone's World View Through Their Guitar." An Interview with Josh Rosenthal of Tompkins Square Records

This interview originally appeared at North Country Primitive on 11th March 2016

Josh Rosenthal's Tompkins Square Records, which has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, has become somewhat of an institution for music fans, thanks to Josh's consistent championing of American Primitive guitar, the old, weird America and various other must-hear obscurities he has managed to pluck from the ether. Not content with running one of the best record labels on the planet, he is now also an author, and about to go out on tour with various musicians from the wider Tompkins Square family in support of his new book, The Record Store of the Mind. We caught up with him this week and pestered him with a heap of questions - our thanks to Josh for putting up with us.

Congratulations on The Record Store of the Mind – it’s an absorbing and entertaining read. Has this project had a long gestation period? How easily does writing come to you - and is it something you enjoy doing? It certainly comes across that way...

Thanks for the kind words. I don't consider myself a writer. I started the book in November 2014 and finished in May 2015, but a lot of that time was spent procrastinating, working on my label, or getting really down on myself for not writing. I could have done more with the prose, made it more artful. I can't spin yarn like, say, your average MOJO writer. So I decided early on to just tell it straight, just tell the story and don't labour over the prose.

I particularly like how you mix up memoir, pen portraits of musicians, and snippets of crate digger philosophy... was the book crafted and planned this way or was there an element of improvisation - seeing where your muse took you? And is there more writing to follow?

If I write another book, it'd have to be based around a big idea or theme. This one is a collection of essays. As I went on, I realised that there's this undercurrent of sadness and tragedy in most of the stories, so a theme emerged. I guess it's one reflective of life, just in a musical context. We all have things we leave undone, or we feel under-appreciated at times. I wasn't even planning to write about myself, but then some folks close to me convinced me I should do. So you read about six chapters and then you find out something about the guy who's writing this stuff. I intersperse a few chapters about my personal experience, from growing up on Long Island in love with Lou Reed to college radio days to SONY and all the fun things I did there. Threading those chapters in gives the book a lift, I think.

Tell us a bit about the planned book tour. You’ve got a mighty fine selection of musicians joining you on the various dates. I imagine there was no shortage of takers?

I'm really grateful to them all. I selected some folks in each city I'm visiting, and they all are in the Tompkins Square orbit. Folks will see the early guitar heroes like Peter Walker, Max Ochs and Harry Taussig and the youngsters like Diane Cluck, one of my favourite vocalists. You can't read for more than ten minutes. People zone out. So having music rounds out the event and ties back to the whole purpose of my book and my label.

It’s clear from the book that you haven’t lost your excitement about uncovering hidden musical gems. Any recent discoveries that have particularly floated your boat?

I'm working with a couple of guys on a compilation of private press guitar stuff. They are finding the most fascinating and beautiful stuff from decades ago. I've never heard of any of the players. Most are still alive, and they are sending me fantastic photos and stories. I have been listening to a lot of new music now that Spotify is connected to my stereo system! I love Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Her new one is out soon. I like Charlie Hilton's new album too.

Any thoughts on the vinyl resurgence and the re-emergence of the humble cassette tape?

Vinyl has kept a lot of indie record stores in business, which is a great development. As a label, it's a low margin product, so that's kind of frustrating. If you're not selling it hand over fist, it can be a liability. The model seems to be - make your physical goods, sell them as best you can within the first four months, and then let the digital sphere be your warehouse. I never bought cassettes and have no affinity for them, or the machines that play them.

Turning to Tompkins Square, did your years working for major labels serve as a good apprenticeship for running your own label? Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted the label to look like from the outset or has the direction its taken developed organically over time?

Working for PolyGram as a teenager and then SONY for 15 years straight out of college was formative. I like taking on projects. My interests and the marketplace dictate what I do. I've always felt like the label does me instead of vice versa. For example, the idea of releasing two, three or four disc sets of a particular genre served me well, but now it feels like a very 2009 concept. It doesn't interest me much, and the commercial viability of that has diminished because it seems the appetite for those types of products has diminished.

Working in relatively niche genres in the current music industry climate can’t be the safest or easiest way to make a living. Is there a sense sometimes that you’re flying by the seat of your pants?

We're becoming a two-format industry - streaming and vinyl. The CD is really waning and so is the mp3. The streaming pie is growing but it's modest in terms of income when you compare it to CD or download margins at their height. I don't really pay much mind to the macro aspects of the business. I just try to release quality, sell a few thousand, move on to the next thing, while continuing to goose the catalogue. The business is becoming very much about getting on the right playlists that will drive hundreds of thousands of streams. It's the new payola.

American Primitive and fingerstyle guitar makes up a significant percentage of Tompkins Square releases, going right back to the early days of the label – indeed, it could be said that you’ve played a pivotal role in reviving interest in the genre. Is this a style that is particularly close to your heart? What draws you to it?

Interest in guitar flows in and out of favour. There are only a small number of guitarists I actually like, and a much longer list of guitarists I'm told I'm SUPPOSED to like. Most leave me cold, even if they're technically great. But I respect anyone who plays their instrument well. Certain players like Harry Taussig or Michael Chapman really reach me - their music really gets under my skin and touches my soul. It's hard to describe, but it has something to do with melody and repetition. It's not about technique per se. You can hear someone's world view through their guitar, and you can hear it reflecting your own.

You’ve reintroduced some wonderful lost American Primitive classics to the world – by Mark Fosson, Peter Walker, Don Bikoff, Richard Crandell and so on. How have these reissues come about? Painstaking research? Happy cratedigging accidents? Serendipity? Are there any reissues you’re particularly proud of?

They came about in all different ways. A lot of the time I can't remember how I got turned on to something, or started working with someone. Peter was among the first musicians I hunted down in 2005, and we made his first album in 40 years. I think Mark's cousin told me about his lost tapes in the attic. Bikoff came to me via WFMU. Crandell - I'm not sure, but In The Flower of My Youth is one of the greatest solo guitar albums of all time. I'm proud of all of them !

Are there any ‘ones that got away’ that you particularly regret, where red tape, copyright issues, cost or recalcitrant musicians have prevented a reissue from happening? Any further American Primitive reissues in the pipeline you can tell us about – the supply of lost albums doesn’t seem to be showing signs of drying up yet…

Like I said, this new compilation I'm working on is going to be a revelation. So much fantastic, unknown, unheard private press guitar music. It makes you realise how deep the well actually is. There are things I've wanted to do that didn't materialise. Usually these are due to uncooperative copyright owners or murky provenance in a recording that makes it unfit to release legitimately.

You’ve also released a slew of albums by contemporary guitarists working in the fingerstyle tradition. How do you decide who gets the Tompkins Square treatment?  What are you looking for in a guitarist when you’re deciding who to work with? And what’s the score with the zillions of James Blackshaw albums? Has he got dirt on you!?

It takes a lot for me to sign someone. I feel good about the people I've signed, and most of them have actual careers, insofar as they can go play in any US or European city and people will pay to see them. I hope I've had a hand in that. I did six albums with Blackshaw because he's one of the most gifted composers and guitarist of the past 50 years. He should be scoring films. He really should be a superstar by now, like Philip Glass. I think he's not had the right breaks or the best representation to develop his career to its full potential. But he's still young.

Imaginational Anthems has been a flagship series for Tompkins Square from the beginning. The focus of the series seems to have shifted a couple of times – from the original mixture of old and new recordings to themed releases to releases with outside curators. Has this variation in approach been a means by which to mix it up and keep the series fresh? Are you surprised at the iconic status the series has achieved?

I don't know about iconic. I think the comps have served their purpose, bringing unknowns into the light via the first three volumes and introducing some young players along the way. Cian Nugent was on the cover of volume 3 as a teenager. Daniel Bachman came to my attention on volume 5, which Sam Moss compiled. Sam Moss' new album is featured on NPR just today! Steve Gunn was relatively unknown when he appeared on volume 5. There are lots more examples of that. I like handing over the curation to someone who can turn me on to new players, just as a listener gets turned on. It's been an amazing experience learning about these players. And I'm going to see a number of IA alums play on my book tour : Mike Vallera, Sam Moss, Wes Tirey - and I invited Jordan Norton out in Portland. Never met him or saw him play. He was fantastic. Plays this Frippy stuff.

What’s next for you and Tompkins Square?

I signed a young lady from Ireland. Very excited about her debut album, due in June. I'm reissuing two early 70's records by Bob Brown, both produced by Richie Havens. Beautiful records, barely anyone has heard them.