#it's not 100% obviously but it's kind of agreed upon than children who die before bar/bat mitzvah are reincarnated neshamot

[naamoosh]

Can't really say anything about the first question (but most likely loose)

About the second - Both! There is a saying that moshiach will come כשיכלו נשמות שבגוף - meaning there is a place where all new neshamot-in-waiting are, but a lot of people do reincarnate for various reasons.

Would be kinda cool if we could tell somehow who's here for the first time and who's not

When my neshema was at Sinai, was it in a person or was it loose? Are we reincarnated, or is there a backstock of neshema-in-waiting that have never been on Earth?

[punkmuseology-blog]

It’s been another hard month. How are you doing? Are you OK?

If you haven’t already seen it, the masterful performance by Tony Walsh (aka Longfella) of his poem “This is the place” comes recommended. Read more about him in this Guardian profile, including how punk inspired his work. For one punk museologist from the North West but currently far from home, this was emotion and strength when it was needed, a pride in place without lazy nationalism or tribalism. 

Next year is the 100 year anniversary of (limited) women’s suffrage in the UK and several other milestones in the UK’s democratic history. Let’s hope we see museums exhibitions that can encourage and revive enthusiasm for the democratic process.

The UK will go to the ballot again this week. As the polls show the gap between Labour and Conservative narrowing, a major factor will be voter turnout. We are holding our breath and crossing everything that will cross that at least one election will bring an end to the seemingly never ending day-after-the-results-night-before hangover of despair. Just once.

Released to celebrate the recent Volunteer’s Week in the UK, a report based on the Inspiring Futures: Volunteering for Wellbeing project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund has detailed the significant benefits of heritage volunteering in boosting wellbeing. An innovative project followed a cohort of 231 volunteers who were long-term unemployed, socially isolated or experiencing mental wellbeing challenges. Participants were offered specially tailored training and placements at some of the most famous heritage and cultural institutions in Manchester.

Key Outcomes were:

Over 75% reported a significant increase in wellbeing after a year

Almost 60% reported long term sustained wellbeing improvements over two to three years

More than 30% of people gained employment or other new opportunities for getting into work

Read more about the study and the programme here: https://www.hlf.org.uk/about-us/news-features/heritage-volunteering-boosts-wellbeing

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985, an exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum is trying to make the experiences of black women visible and in doing so inspire and empower activists for social justice and change today. The exhibition focuses on the activism of over 40 women artists who were engaged in the battle for social change at a time when various civil rights and liberation movements were peaking. The linked newrepublic.com article details how such an exhibition might provide a blueprint for activists, but also addresses critically the failures of other movements - in this case Second Wave Feminism - to fully include those who aren’t white, middle-class, cis-gendered women.  

 You can see some videos from the related symposium on youtube.

Museum Week 2017 19th-25th June, each day will have it’s own hashtag: Insert picture of the hastags (see Punk Love 4 file on google drive) Most of the action will play out over twitter, but lats year saw more engagement on other social media, so keep an eye open.

Cameroon’s First Modern Art Gallery Opens 

As part of a French-Cameroonian Debt Reduction-Development Contract, this new space in the capital, Yaoundé, is currently showcasing the work of 23 artists from the country. It is an interesting example of the value placed upon museums and galleries, and the mobilization of them to achieve particular targets. It would be really interesting to hear a debate about the ethics of this kind of activity.  

Wellcome Collection seeks the opinions of disabled and neurodiverse visitors

The Wellcome Collection has been asking for the help of disabled and neurodiverse visitors to test some designs that would like to use in an upcoming exhibition. The results will be used to develop a guide that will be made available to other institutions. 

It’s awesome to see big institutions making efforts at recognition and response in this area. But it’s also great to see smaller and more local museums making an effort, such as the Open Doors for Morning Explorers event at Soho House in Birmingham, which offers a quiet time for children with autism to explore the museum. 

Trump pulls out of Paris Accord. We’re all going to die. Museums Respond:

As part of the more general global trend for countries to show their support for other countries following national tragedies, the Auckland Museum went green to show their support for the aims of the Paris Accord after Donald Trump announced that he would be withdrawing the US from the agreement: https://twitter.com/aucklandmuseum/status/870874818882621440. The Field Museum - a key organiser of the March for Science - also released a statement, one that didn’t mention the president directly, but reaffirmed their commitment to educating on topics around climate change.

Tonight, the Museum goes green for the #ParisAccord, joining landmarks around the world in this global civic action. 💚✊ #ParisAgreement pic.twitter.com/k3KSCCzIis

— Auckland Museum (@aucklandmuseum) June 3, 2017

Neverending Brexit Speculation

This coming Friday, 9th June: Cultural Heritage After Brexit a free online discussion facilitated by the British Council about the impact of Brexit and what (positive) role heritage organisations can play. Participation is free, but there’s only 500 places, so be sure to sign up in time. 

Gallows Sculpture meet protests, sets relationship between Museum and Native American Community back Years

As museums move away from models of inclusion and diversity that only address audiences figures, let’s hope that we hear less stories like this one in Minnesota. As part of the redevelopment sculpture park at the Walker Art Center, the artwork “Scaffold” by Sam Durant depicts a gallows, inspired by the dark history in the US of hangings, particularly the “Dakota 38” in 1862. The local Dakota community was not consulted and protested the display. Whilst  both the museum and artist reacted quickly to the protests, agreeing to remove the piece and apologising, they also acknowledged that rebuilding trust will be a long process of healing. The museum intends to begin this process by working together with tribal elders to find the most appropriate way of dismantling the sculpture.    

Frighteningly enough, this is not the only noose related museum story to come out of the US this month. Several Smithsonian institutions have been targeted by as-yet unknown individuals leaving nooses on their grounds, and in the particularly disturbing case of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in one of their galleries. The museums responded with a reaffirmation of their mission and acts of solidarity and support. A strong reminder that the very existence of some museums is an act of resistance and strength on behalf of the communities they represent.

In response to noose incident, Smithsonian employees gathered outside of the African American history museum today. https://t.co/Z3KYZZYIov pic.twitter.com/ovuNMKhjVF

— DCist (@DCist) June 1, 2017

Podcast: Museo Punks

Don’t call it a comeback! The Museo Punks podcast is back after a three-year hiatus, looking at progressivism in museums and ringing the changes of just what the heckers has happened in the interceding three years. Obviously not to be confused with punk museology, but we’re not about to start a turf war. Invited back into the trenches by the AAM, the podcast offers interviews and overviews of current museum thinking aimed at a museum audience.

 In Brief

Valuable seminar where @TinctureofMuseum will be speaking about Autism in Museums 

Some Light relief: Royal Ontario Museum puts their T-Rex on Tinder 

Shoutouts to:

@womensart1 

@BeeStrongMCR 

@Margaret Middleton 

Book of the Month: 

The wonderful Richard Sandell’s book “Museums, Moralities and Human Rights”. 

Track of the Month:  Graveyard Train, ‘Ballad for Beelzebub’

‘Welcome to hell, ladies and gent's/You sinned and fell, no time to repent/And you can't hear nothing/Nothing at all’

[recentanimenews]

To Your Eternity – 09 – Gugunrise Kingdom

Fushi has rescued, reunited and made up with Gugu, and for the first time he uses his powers…strictly for fun. For the sheer thrill of scaring the shit out of random townsfolk or thrill-seeking teenagers. Gugu has no intention of going back to the house of a man who put a still in his body without his consent, and Fushi doesn’t care either way s long as he’s with Gugu.

As time passes, the penniless Gugu grows hungrier and weaker. Fushi, obviously, needs no sustenance other than stimulation. But his stimulation thus far has prepared him for this eventuality, as he is able to create the pear-like fruit March fed him, along with dango and fish, thus saving Gugu from starvation.

When Meer, who obviously knows Gugu’s scent at this point, shows up at his tent, Fushi calls the sickeningly cute and good boy Joaan, the name the boy gave to his wolf-dog. Fushi describes to Gugu how “his first person” stopped moving and “became empty”, so he “became” him. Gugu hypothesizes that both physical and emotional pain affect his bizarre friend.

He posits that if he were to die and Fushi became upset, he would become him. Gugu thinks this is seriously cool…because, well, it is. But for him specifically, it would mean even if he died, Fushi would still think of him. Gugu describes a life where he had three square meals a day, a soft bed, twin older siblings to play with, a mother and father to care for him, and an older brother to look up to.

Gugu is describing his early childhood, when, for at least a few beautiful, fleeting years, he thought he was part of just such a family and living that kind of life, where a lot of people were thinking of him. As he grew older, he began to realize he and his brother were merely the children of servants to that family. When those servants moved on to a new job, they didn’t take Gugu or his brother with them.

Gugu asks Fushi, the only one who came for him and the only one he can call family, to become him if he dies, then passes out and stops moving. For a second there, I thought that was well and truly the end of Gugu—perhaps succumbing to the nasty side effects of having a still in your gut. Fushi even seems to contemplate absorbing Gugu’s form for a hot second.

For a certainty, To Your Eternity wanted you to think Gugu had died. Then Rean pokes her head into the tent, having finally found the two runaways, and Gugu springs back to life, blushing. Turns out Fushi wasn’t the only one thinking about him or the only one who came for him. Rean tries to drag Gugu out of his ragged tent and back to the Booze Man’s house, but Gugu doesn’t wanna.

Of course, Rean’s motivations aren’t 100%honorable. She says she, Pioran and Booze Man love Gugu, but really they need to bring someone back who knows what they’re doing in the kitchen. But you know what? As someone who likes to cook for my friends and family, I’m fine with part of the reason people love me is that I cook them good food. It makes me happy when they like my food!

Rean is also unconcerned with Gugu’s appearance, and insists that he show her what he really looks like. Gugu doesn’t acquiesce to this, which means Rean doesn’t get a real look at him. It may be because of this she can reveal her own horrible disfigurement and declare with a straight face that if he casts his gaze upon it he’ll see that his own wound isn’t that bad.

The thing is, Rean’s horrible wound is nothing more but a tiny, fading scratch on her arm no more than three inches long.

It is a rare show indeed that makes me laugh and cry with such intensity, but this might just have been the funniest episode of To Your Eternity yet. Of course, tragedy and comedy have gone hand-in-hand since the dawn of storytelling itself, it’s just gratifying to see it so effortlessly pulled off here. Just like Fushi, the stronger and more diverse the viewer’s stimulation, the more is learned.

Rean goes on to tell a story that, for her, is a tragic tale of a girl who was never given agency or independence; a girl assigned a role and personality for which no expense was spared to maintain, despite the fact she had zero say in it. It is an obvious mirror image of Gugu’s sob story, told from the POV of the child of the employer, not the employee.

Even so, I do not doubt that from Rean’s perspective, she has suffered, because just like Gugu but through very different (and cushier) circumstances, she was denied the chance to be the best her she could be, which is the one she wanted to be. The grass is always greener, etc.

When Rean tells Gugu how she got her wound—saying that someone pushed her from behind out of malice—Gugu is crestfallen, as this girl misinterpreted him rescuing her from a runaway log as having assaulted her to get back at her family—simply because she never saw the log.

But just as Rean doesn’t care how it looks that someone as rtich and privileged as her is complaining that her life is too comfortable, she also doesn’t gcare whether Gugu is a monster or a human. To her, he’s just Gugu, a weird little boy she’s taken a liking to, so he should come out of the tent and enjoy the wind with her. And if he wants to cover his face, she brought him a pot with eye-holes to wear.

With Fushi having run off to find Gugu’s original mask, he and Rean agree to go looking for him. Their search takes them into town, where Rean is promptly snatched up by a goon hired by her family to retrieve her. Gugu, who later states he doesn’t care about his “circumstances” anymore, commits to simply being himself.

That happens to be someone who will barrel into someone twice his size, catch the falling Rean, and lead her by the hand to safety. As he does, Rean smiles, not just because Gugu is being Gugu, but because she’s living precisely the dream she hoped to live after running away from home. I am seriously loving this tender story of young love, which reminds me of Moonrise Kingdom, itself likely inspired by rom-com anime.

Fushi ends up finding them after retrieving Gugu’s old mask (it’s nice when you can transform into a wolf-dog, complete with a wolf-dog’s sense of smell) and locates Gugu and Rean, who is now wearing the pot to hide her identity from those sent to find her. It isn’t long before they come across a maid who is most definitely not fooled by Rean’s disguise.

It’s here where Gugu and Rean rely on Fushi to cover their retreat, which he does non-lethally by assuming the form of March and writhing on the ground before the maid, who sees the little girl’s arrow wound and has no choice but to tend to her before going after Rean.

While searching for Gugu’s mask, Fushi’s creator paid him a brief visit, warning him to keep his guard up. As the maid carries March!Fushi, he’s suddenly snatched up by a tentacle of the “unspeakable” enemy he was warned about. His creator even narrates that this was bound to happen, as Fushi has failed to gain any sophisticated tactical skills since his last scrape with the enemy, and thus the enemy was always going to strike first.

Even so, something happens that neither the enemy nor indeed the creator might have foreseen: Gugu coming to his rescue. I’m not sure what he can possibly do when he’s just a small human boy and even Fushi seems helpless before the enemy’s power. Indeed, as we’re reaching the halfway point of the 20-episode series, Gugu’s days are surely numbered. But even if resistance is futile, I’m glad he’s there for his friend and brother.

By: magicalchurlsukui

[greenhorn-teacher]

White People and Our History

My mother was born on July 4th.

Because of this, the 4th has always been a day of celebration for our family. We wake up absurdly early and go to watch a parade, pick up fried chicken for lunch (Dad tries to make it himself every few years and he never really gets it right, so it’s usually drive-through), watch 1776 over the afternoon, and then go to a fireworks show. This is how Mom likes to celebrate her birthday, and so that’s how we’ve celebrated for my entire life. Even during years where political and social issues make it very difficult to be proud of the U.S. and our society, we still had good times every 4th of July.

My dad is also a huge history buff, and every year, while watching 1776 (which if you don’t know is a 1972 movie of a 1969 musical about the writing of the Declaration of Independence), the subject of our ancestry usually comes up. On my mother’s mother’s side, my brothers and I are descended from one of George Washington’s generals in the Revolutionary War. We’re also descended from at least one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence itself (maybe two - my granddad was never the kind of guy to make stuff up, but we haven’t found a solid link to one of the two signers that he says we’re descended from). Three big figures in American history and mythology are among our ancestors.

Thing is, two out of three owned slaves.

Both of the signers of the Declaration, both the one that we know is our ancestor and the one we’re not 100% sure on, owned slaves. PolitiFact put out an article in late 2019 about that, if you want me to back it up. Jury’s out on the general, but there’s a non-zero chance that we’re three for three on slaveowners. Further complicating my feelings about my ancestry is my dad’s side. On dad’s side, we’re descended from plantation owners. They owned a pretty sizable plantation up until the early 1900s, when there were too many inheritors to keep the property in one piece and my great-a-few-times grandfather sold his plot. My family, both sides, is tainted by slavery and racism.

Now I’ve known about this since late middle school/early high school, and I’ve more or less made my peace with this knowledge. This is NOT to say that I in any way approve of what they did. Slavery is, was, and always will be one of the most horrific institutions to exist on this earth. But I was able to recognize that having bad ancestors doesn’t make me bad by default, something that many other Southerners seem to have trouble with (in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons the South has so much trouble with admitting the Confederacy was a super bad thing is because that means their ancestors were bad and therefore the present generation must be bad as a result, which is obviously untrue. The present generation is awful all on its own merits, but THAT’S ANOTHER POST). For my high school career, this was something that I knew in the back of my mind but it was never really relevant to my life.

Fast forward to college. In freshman orientation, I met my current partner, though we didn’t start dating until just after Spring Break freshman year. My partner is Latinx, and we share a number of interests, including literary analysis, superheroes, and historical discussion. One day, sophomore year, we were talking about ancestry, specifically about how, as a result of European colonization, my partner has zero clue what the family tree looks like more than a couple generations back. This is in stark contrast to my own experience, because I can track my family tree back almost 250 years, and could go even further if I wanted to put some more effort into it. Precious few people of color in the U.S. can trace their ancestry back even a few generations as a result of European colonization, while many white families can go back generations. Ever since my partner and I had this conversation, it’s been a running joke in our relationship that if my ancestors could see me dating my Latinx partner they would die from scandalized shock. Since my partner particularly enjoys scandalizing racist old white men, this is a definite win.

This ultimately came to a head on the 4th of July, 2020. The Summer of Covid, when a global pandemic swept across the world and the U.S. fell apart at the seams. My family knew that we weren’t going to be able to safely attend any parades or fireworks, so instead we had an at-home party. My partner was invited, provided both our families self-quarantined for two weeks ahead of time and none of us at home tested positive. Both criteria were met, and so my partner came over for the day. It was all great fun, we still managed to get fried chicken because our favorite restaurant was able to open for a couple weeks in the middle of the summer, and we had steaks (my partner’s favorite food of all time) for dinner. That afternoon, while we were watching 1776, the family started to talk about our ancestry. We got on the subject while listening to the songs in the movie, and how some of the songs, like “But, Mr. Adams,” have lyrics that lean towards the raunchy, which we never noticed as kids. That then shifted the conversation to the song “Molasses to Rum,” which is one of the most uncomfortable songs for any white person to hear because it’s the Founding Fathers singing about why slavery is really a good thing (spoiler alert: IT’S NOT). No matter how uncomfortable it made us, though, we all agreed it was still something we should watch and be aware of, because as my late granddad pointed out, “It’s still history.” It happened, and pretending it didn’t is supremely damaging to our understanding of history and our society as a whole today.

The whole thing stuck in my head, though, because by that point I had been with my partner for 4 years and was getting ready to propose. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to marry my amazing Latinx partner, and while we joke often about what the look on my ancestors’ faces would be the solemn truth is that a century ago, we would be lucky to only be disowned by our families over our relationship. Before June 12th, 1967 when the Supreme Court struck down the anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia, our relationship would have gotten us arrested. Living in the South, maybe we’d have been killed by a mob. Any children we have would be a mix of white and Latinx, and would never be accepted by my family. Unless they were pale enough to pass as white, neither would they be accepted by society at large. My family of 250 years ago was racist. My family of a hundred years ago was made up of racists. And as much as I love my grandparents, a small, guilty part of me feels relieved that they passed away before I met my partner because I’d be willing to bet money they were racist, too, and this way I don’t have to find out if they were.

The point of my telling you this story is this. If you are white in the United States of America, and your family goes back more than three or four generations, then you come from racist roots. At the time of the Revolutionary War, both the North and South had significant slave populations. There were still some slaves in the North as of the Civil War, and while Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared the slaves of the Confederacy to be free, slaves in the North stayed slaves until the 13th Amendment. Even after slavery was officially ended, society deliberately built systems that kept former slaves and other people of color below white people. The Jim Crow laws in the South are the most strident examples, but the North wasn’t innocent in this. Segregation was a national phenomenon, but even after it ended in the 1960s people were still racist. Even through the 70s and 80s, up to the turn of the millennium and into the present day, racism exists. Some of it is easy to spot, people loudly shouting racist slurs at anyone they see as lesser. Some of it is less so, such as a family being 100% for equality until they have a black neighbor, or their kids start dating a person of color, and then suddenly they’re awkward about it. 

To any white people reading this, you have to understand, our ancestors were racist. Maybe they were the loud, easy to spot kind. Maybe they were the quieter kind, and only displayed this in smaller ways. That doesn’t change that they were. And this is something that we have to come to terms with. We cannot pretend otherwise, or tell ourselves that our ancestors couldn’t have been bad because some of them didn’t own slaves. Owning slaves is not a prerequisite for racism, and even people who never owned a single person could engage in racist behaviors. But bad ancestors do not make for bad descendants. We are not automatically bad because our roots are bad. We can be good people, and should be good people. If something you’re doing would upset your racist ancestors, you’re probably doing something right.

Because my family today is accepting in ways that my family of a century ago would never be, any child of my partner and I will grow up with a large, loving family, supported by four grandparents who will accept them regardless of the color of their skin. It might not seem like it, but I do believe our current generation is in a better place than previous ones were. That said, we are far from perfect, and there is work to be done still. Racism, obvious and otherwise, is still prevalent in the world, and since our ancestors are the ones that messed up the world, then we should do what we can to undo their work. Hopefully, someday soon the ghosts of the racist slaveowning Founding Fathers will look upon a country where we all live together in a truly equal and fair society, and they’ll be so scandalized by what they see they’ll die all over again.

TL;DR: We as white people need to come to terms with the fact that our ancestors were racist and work to undo what they did, because pretending that they weren’t racist is detrimental to our understanding of history and the state of society today.

[vescoisland]

Daybe's Thoughts on The New Jason Isbell Record, Without Research

H/T to Mr. Thoughts on The Dead

I wanted to like this album. Well, at first I was wary, but by the time they FINALLY released it, after holding it for 8 weeks during national quarantine, the whole time which the record had been finished, mastered and pressed, I had talked myself into wanting to like it. 

  I don’t hate it so much as….

  I WANTED TO LIKE IT. 

  I have a friend who hates slow music. This isn’t the thing where I’m “asking for a friend.” She really says “even fast songs that are actually slow music are terrible.”

  About 86% of the time I 100% agree with her. This is where we get to the heart of my problem with Jason Isbell solo records. 

  This is boring music. 

  I get it, it’s Poignant. Keep mining the purity of the south with a gothic twist. Tell me again how sobriety is hard. 

  Either that or have the courage to be a drunken buffoon – which makes you poetic. 

  Overall this is a boring samey-sounding album, and I would argue his second misstep in terms of music that I’ll return to, after The Nashville Sound, which is a fucking snoozer.

  After his dig in the press about Ryan Adams, I learned that there is a song on The Nashville Sound called “Chaos and Clothes” which is about Ryan Adams. I had to look up the song and listen to it upon hearing the title, because I didn’t have any recollection of having heard it. 

  It’s not a good song.

  Or a remarkable song.

  Despite being about a guy he’s obviously obsessed with, amirite?

  I do like the line about “Death Metal T Shirts” though. 

  Be better if it was The Eagles of Death Metal. 

  Or All Night Drug Prowling Wolves. 

  You were doing a good job of keeping this on track

  Oh yeah, Reunions. New album by Mr. and Mrs. Jason Isbell and The 400 Units

  That’s not fair. You barely mention Yoko Tammy in your song by song review bit you stole from Thoughts on The Dead after Chrid and Chaz made fun of you. 

  AHEM

  Released to much fanfare and press ogling. 

  So much press ogling that I got caught up and started to ogle. 

  In politics there’s The Full Russert. 

  So what do we call Koppleman Pod, Hyden Fawning, New York Times Article and a full length story on The CBS Sunday Morning Liberal Good Time Power Hour?

  “Pay attention to this one Southern guy who let’s you in on the jokes we tell about our neighbors?”

  You’re such a dick 

  I didn’t love any of the songs I heard that were released as a teaser. I thought they were all pretty meh, for pretty much the same reasons.

  They weren’t terrible but they also led me to not pre-order the album. 

  I pre-ordered it but you heard it before me!

  Howzat?

  I ordered direct from the label and it finally just got here yesterday

  Shoulda ordered it from an Indie™ Record Store, from the approved list of Stores Tammy Likes

  Shouldn’t the label be treated the same way? It’s direct from them. No Middleman. More change to jingle in the coin purse between her tits!

  Now you’re starting to sound like me.

  Quiet you. I still haven’t listened. Sorry they changed the rules on my halfway through not releasing their album. They sure weren’t in a hurry.

  It’s a slower pace of life down here, Gar. 

  I hate you – I’m just saying they could have included people like me who ordered direct from the label and gave them more money for her Tammy Tops and his terrible sneaker habit

It’s not about MONEY, MAAAAANNN! They’re supporting indie shops. The Plandemic is wreaking havoc on the economy, and we gotta save the dudes who made enough in banking during the last crisis to open over priced record stores to sell hipster douchebags like us vinyl copies of stuff we used to own on CD. 

  I’m losing patience. You told me you had “some thoughts” on the new record. I accused you of having a weird obsession, to show me you don’t you stole an idea we gave you about a dumb blog…

  Yeah

  I only listened to three of the four songs released before the full record was put out.

  I didn’t listen to Only Children. Keep reading – I guess I still haven’t.

  THE POINT! 

  Oh yeah. 

  The other day, in the run up to the release, I flashed to a long forgotten review of Wilco’s “Summerteeth” from the time it was released that said something to the effect of “Jeff Tweedy still thinks repeating the name of the same over and over is a good stand in for a real chorus” 

  The same might be said for Jason Isbell on Reunions

  What Have I Done to Help? 

            Jesus Christ Trump has broken everyone’s brains. 

This song was written after reading the Mr. Rogers anecdote “Look to the helpers too many times”

            This is better than I thought

            The lyrics are better than I thought 

            It’s too repetitive

            It’s too long 

  Dreamsicle

            Did they make the vinyl orange because of this song?

            Or is it called dreamsicle because they wanted Orange vinyl?

            This is very dangerously close to being a Cracker Barrel country song. 

            Did granddaddy take you fishin? 

            Lightning Bugs?? 

            Where’s Dave Daniels?

  Only Children

            I’m listening to this as I write my thoughts in real time

            I forgot to write anything down here

            Unremarkable

  Overseas 

            The sound is interesting at first 

This is where I can hear what he was talking about in interviews about chasing an 80s sound 

            Whooo boy 

            Lyrics bad

            Chorus worse

  Eyes Closed

            80s Soundz!

            Are we sure this isn’t produced by Ryan Adams?

            Sounds like Isbell cum Kcor and Llor Era DRA 

            Still just repeating the name of the song as the chorus 

  River

            He’s a slave owner?

            CANCELLED!

            OK he’s some kind of rich guy who did bad things to get money?

            But tries to take care of his people?  

            Guilty Conscience Melodrama

            Not the worst song on here 

            Is there a Spanish guitar undertone?

“Wake up staring at my wife”à Fiddle Lick is either self-awareness or a complete lack of awareness about Yoko Tammy. 

I’m gonna go with B, because say what you will about them, he is very dedicated to her and that’s nice to see. Especially after she offered to by McAllan for his not quite relapse so he didn’t have to drink Listerine. 

  Be Afraid

            What Have I Done to Help Redux?

            Two sides of the same extremely repetitive recitation of the song title as chorus coin

            It actually sounds a little like a Truckers song at the beginning

            Morphs into that 80s/Springsteen/DRA sound 

  St. Peter’s Autograph 

            Is this in a higher key than it should be? Is that what they call it? I’m not a musician

WAY TOO SLOW. I heard him talk about this on Koppelman, so I was prepared for it  to be slow. But it’s like not slow enough to be a dirge. Maybe they shoulda made it a dirge?

Nails that folk singer thing where it’s like mumbly and then clear tho.

  It Gets Easier

            I haven’t had a drink in almost a year. 10 ½ months. I’ve had 2 drinking dreams.

            I’ve never really been tempted to drink 

            So this doesn’t ring true to my experience

            DON’T MAKE IT ABOUT YOU 

            Who dreams about anything twice a week? 

            What adult remembers their dreams?

            It’s for effect, you dummy! 

OH, well, the effect it had on me is “I guess I was never an actual alcoholic. Maybe I’m just a real partier?”

This gets to the heart of my question about mining sobriety for too much? 

MEH. AS FUCK 

It’s been remarkably easier to not drink than to make it through this record

That’s a cheap shot! 

I know. 

  Sometimes in reviews and in our terrible internet meme-based culture you have to stake out one side and die on that hill. 

  That’s a mixed metaphor 

  Tammy wouldn’t allow it

  She was gonna be an English teacher before the rack job.

  That’s made up, isn’t it?

  Maybe

  Where were we?

  Oh yeah, I don’t hate this song, or any song on this album 

  I just expect more 

  That’s your problem 

  What is?

  Expectations! 

  It’s True

  I tried very hard to set the bar low, figuring it might surprise me

  Then I read reviews and interviews.

  The one where he talks about over producing his first album really got to you didn’t it? Celebrities – they’re try hards just like us! 

  I like Jason 

He’s witty and funny

And a Great Musician

He’s a good ambassador 

For the region 

For getting cleaned up

For the Bitter Southerner Meets Stoner Dad Who Watches Southern Charm and Likes Expensive Sneakers set

  You mean you?

  OF COURSE!

  I want to like this more

It’s very slow

And doesn’t do much for me

  It’s…….. a Jason Isbell Record. 

  I cued it up again, trying to focus on the sound on my second run through.

  Ya know The Vibe? The thing that you can’t put your finger on that makes a thing a thing. 

  Sure.

  Anyway, my mind drifted to seeing him in concert again.

  The setting was definitely more Lyric Theater than MPAC. 

  The crowd was a lot of selvage denim, beards and elaborate barbershop hair cuts. Work boots, but like, $250 work boots. Belt buckles. 

  Like you’d dress if you were 4 inches shorter and had muscle tone?

  You’re not my real dad!

  A lot of dudes with their eyes closed, singing along to these songs like they’re hymns. Drinking in the “depth” of Saint Isbell. 

  House lights are down. Stage lighting is just a spot on him 

  Don’t forget the soft lighting on Tammy!

  Did you notice I barely mentioned her in the review? She really takes a step back here, IMO. 

  Strangely that might not be a good thing?

  Jesus now you’re a Tammy apologist?

  She don’t gotta apologize for them titties!

  GET BACK TO THE FAKE SHOW YOU CONJURED UP, YOU DUNCE

  Right after he sings “It gets easier”

  He says “But it never gets easy!” and the house lights come up, and his voice goes up 3 notches in volume, and the stoned dads (some of whom are sipping 1-3 canned IPAs) cheer. 

  Rinse Repeat

  JESUS, YOU HATE FUN

  Kind of 

  There’s another song on here

  What?

  Yeah – Letting You Go

  Oh yeah, the bro country sounding joint about his daughter?

  I actually like this and give it a pass for being a cheesy dad song.

If I still drank, I’d cue this up and get weepy!

You just said you don’t think about drinking!

I said I don’t DREAM about drinking!

  You are so fucking awful

  The. Worst. 

  Also, this sounds like something I know. 

  The cadence. The flow of the song. 

  Jesus you do this all the time

  I DO NOT 

  Remember the time you got blotto at Springsteen and insisted that American Land was the same as The Georgia Tech fight song?

  It is!

  It is not! 

Well, it sounded like it that night

  We know, you sang it the whole way home

  I was dreaming about drinking! 

  God you’re a dick, but I’m going to let that one pass before this ends up being 5000 words

  Why does a Dawg know the words to Rambling Wreck?

              We are both going to have to let some things pass if you ever want me to end this

                           ……

    (this sounds weirdly like Seven Years in Michigan in parts)

(the fiddle really ads something)

(Super 8 is still his best song)

      KILL. YOUR. SELF. 

             Check out this episode!

[rolandfontana]

The Superpredator Myth: It’s Still Alive Behind Bars

There is a strange parallel between the history of the so-called “superpredator” and the conception of “dope fiends.”

Not too long ago, “superpredator” became the favored word of some criminologists to describe the emergence of what was considered a dangerous threat to public safety in the U.S. A ruthless criminal concealed within the body of an adolescent male, he was often black, and his habitat was the inner city.

Violent criminal conduct was a unique, and terrifying, behavioral characteristic of these young beasts. When captured, the mantra “Adult Time for Adult Crime” supported sentencing them as if they were just as culpable as their fully matured counterparts.

Similarly, a much older phrase, “dope fiend” came back into use to describe those superpredators immersed in the world of illicit drugs. The stereotype was just as brutal: He (usually a he) was conceived to be a hedonistic, nihilistic hybrid, usually having dark skin, who sometimes spoke with a Hispanic accent.

Committing crimes to support his narcotic addition was a favorite pastime. And just as in the case of violent superpredators, he was the target of the “tough on crime” policies that sent so many young black men to prison in the 1980s and 1990s for long stretches of confinement.

Fast forward to 2019.

Now, there’s a broad consensus among criminologists that the so-called superpredator is better understood as a youth whose crimes more often than not reflect transient immaturity rather than irreparable corruption, and whose skin complexions encompass the color spectrum. The U.S. Supreme Court and last year, the Washington State Supreme Court, relied upon the attendant neurodevelopmental research findings to invalidate some of the harshest penalties for the kinds of juvenile offenders once written off as unreformable superpredators.

Even heinous crimes committed by young people are now viewed through a prism that mitigates their culpability.

I was once in the superpredator category myself. I received a life-without-parole sentence for my involvement in a murder at age 14—a crime that I have regretted ever since.

But the courts’ new approach gave me—and many others in similar situations—a path for hope. My sentence was amended retroactively, and I was given an opportunity to be freed. I received mercy.

But the stereotyped “dope fiend” version of the superpredator still stunts the lives of thousands of inmates in U.S. prisons today who were sentenced for crimes committed when they were young—despite a growing body of research that has made that version anachronistic.

For one thing, opioid addiction is no longer, sadly confined, to the poor young person of color.

We all realize that the opioid epidemic in America has destroyed the lives of soccer moms and rural white teenagers just as much as it has youths in the inner city.

The broad consensus that dealing with this crisis requires a public health approach rather than criminal justice machinery has spread to policymakers at federal, state and local levels.

But not to prisons.

All too often, these ameliorative approaches are only being implemented at the front end of the criminal justice system. Unlike former superpredators such as myself, mercy has yet to be applied retroactively to the sentences of opioid addicts imprisoned while they were young. Their lives are untouched by the contemporary recognition that their crimes were not simply a product of free will, opportunity and a rational calculus.

The case of Corey Irish provides one illustration of why such former drug “superpredators” should receive relief—notwithstanding the fact that their crimes occurred long before overdosed bodies began to pile up in refrigerator trucks from West Virginia to Ohio.

Drugstore Robbery

Late in the evening of April 23, 2007, in Tacoma, Wash., Daniel Garibay was just about to turn away from the customer he finished serving through the drive‑through window at Walgreen’s pharmacy when he heard a loud thump on the floor behind him.

He would never forget the sound.

“I mean, I’d never heard something like that,” he testified, according to trial transcripts.

The sound was Corey Irish landing on the floor after he leapt over the counter. The young man immediately began demanding drugs by their generic and non-generic names.

“When he first jumped in, at first he asked for Percocet, Oxycodone, and Vicodin…then it seemed like he just wanted anything,” Garibay told the jury during Irish’s trial in Pierce County Superior Court.

He was stunned when Irish pulled out two trash bags and told Garibay to fill them up. According to Garibay, “They looked like forceflex bags. He told me which drugs he wanted, and then he asked me to put them in the bags after I opened the cabinet.”

Meanwhile, Irish’s accomplice, who stood guard over the other two employees after flashing a gun in his waist line and corralling them into the stockroom, kept apologizing.

“I’m sorry I have to do this, you know…Just be quiet,” Jeanelle O’Dell recounted the accomplice saying as he made her kneel on the floor.

‘He kept apologizing for what he was doing’

Mike Staten also recalled, “He kept apologizing for what he was doing, saying he wanted to be in and out.”

Back in the pharmacy, Garibay had moved on to filling up a third garbage bag that Irish made him get after the two that Irish brought with him were filled to capacity. Ten minutes elapsed from the loud thump Irish made when he landed behind the counter to when he finally lifted the bags filled with childproof bottles, summoned his accomplice from the stockroom, and began to leave with his haul of prescription narcotics.

The police arrived before the men escaped from the scene. Irish was arrested with the bags of OxyContin, Percocet, Valium and Vicodin, and everything in between. His accomplice fled empty-handed and was never apprehended by the police.

During the closing arguments of Irish’s trial, Sunni Ko, the deputy prosecuting attorney, rhetorically asked the jury, “Ladies and gentlemen, again, what do you think he was going to do with three bags of drugs? Do you think that he was going to keep them in his room and have it for personal use for the rest of his life?”

The notion that an addiction to prescription medication was powerful enough to make anyone do such a thing stretched belief. His intent was obviously to distribute the pills for profit, Ko argued to the jury.

The jury agreed.

At sentencing, Irish, who met the DSM-IV-TR criteria for opioid dependency, explained to the judge, “We wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. We just wanted some pills. And besides…I do pop pills, constantly. That’s why—not making excuses on any of that—but I mean, I do have a problem.

“Whether it was one bottle or 100 bottles I took, it was going to be a robbery anyway, so I mean, a thousand apologies, especially to the victims.”

His mother, a high school teacher, told the judge how she had tried to convince her son to get treatment before the crime occurred. His aunt, an assistant mayor, also implored the court, writing, “Corey needs the opportunity to enter a program where he can receive help for the drug problem and counseling to get to the root of his problems.”

The judge empathized with Irish’s family, but she had no sympathy for Irish.

He was sentenced to spend the next quarter century in the care of the Washington Department of Corrections—a prison term that exceeds the minimum sentence a defendant would serve for committing premeditated murder.

The Paradigm Shift

Criminal justice officials in Ohio probably would not be surprised upon hearing that someone tried to steal garbage bags filled with prescription pills from a pharmacy in a robbery. There, the opioid epidemic is so devastating that the foster care system has been overwhelmed by children who have become the detritus of addicted parents.

Tom Synan, Newtown Ohio’s Police Chief, has come to believe that addiction should no longer be considered a crime.

“It took 70,000 people to die before society shifted its opinion on opioid addiction,” he observed during a symposium sponsored by The Washington Post, headlined Addiction in America, The New War on Drugs.

Experts on substance use disorders who have tracked the etiology of opioid addiction would also see a familiar theme with respect to how Irish went from being a supervisor at a fabrication company to the perpetrator of a drug store robbery.

After suffering a back injury in 2006, he was prescribed OxyContin during a period when pharmaceutical companies where downplaying its addictive properties, financial incentives led doctors to over-prescribe opioid pain medications, and the naive failed to perceive the signs of misuse and abuse going on around them because addicts did not fit the stereotypical image of a dope fiend.

They resided in the heartland.

They worked and went to church on Sundays.

They weren’t dark-skinned and had no accent.

During the 12 years that have elapsed since Irish was confined, legions of young men and women went from pilfering their parents’ pills when they were teenagers and snorting them with friends to shooting heroin. Nurses have lost their jobs for stealing narcotics from their elderly patients. Countless men and women have lost custody of their children.

Let us pause for a moment to reflect on the crack epidemic, the policies it generated, and the character attacks on the addicts. Whether America learned from these mistakes or the socio-demographic and white complexion of many contemporary opioid addicts brought enlightenment with respect to this latest drug epidemic, I can only guess.

In any case, the criminal justice system is already bursting at the seams due to mass incarceration. It therefore comes as no surprise to me that officials have lost the appetite to use demonization and imprisonment as expedients for dealing with the opioid epidemic—especially since the problem exists within their own communities.

I can imagine policymakers deliberating about establishing drug courts, implementing diversion programs, and funding more treatment centers now that a drug epidemic is not confined to the inner city.

“These people need help. They have a disease. We can’t just lock them up and throw away the key,” I can hear them saying.

Left Out

But those still confined before these sentiments affected the criminal justice system are seemingly left out of such discussions.

Recall that retribution was warranted because it was believed that these people were driven solely by their criminogenic needs. Their addictions, in and of itself, manifested they had little interest in being a part of law-abiding society.

But that was the past. The scientific consensus that opioid addiction is a disease undermines the deterrent and retributive purposes of punishment in these cases, leaving only incapacitation for rehabilitation.

Regardless, those confined before this paradigm shift have got nothing coming. Far too many of them present unsympathetic images due to their current convictions and dark skin complexions.

But make no mistake about it: If 10,000 soccer moms were languishing in prison for pulling capers to obtain prescription pain medication, lawyers would be battling to get them executive clemency or, alternatively, judicial relief based on arguments that these new socio-medical findings satisfy the legal standard for newly discovered evidence and warrant resentencing hearings to present mitigating factors in support of reducing their prison sentences.

Jeremiah Bourgeois

That said, it remains a mystery how many years will pass before policymakers provide relief to those locked away in penitentiaries because their disease drove them to commit crimes to secure more—and more—prescription pain medication.

Until then, Corey Irish will continue serving out a sentence that exceeds the minimum term that is imposed on those who commit premeditated murder.

Jeremiah Bourgeois is a regular contributor to The Crime Report, and a recent graduate of Adams State University, where he earned an interdisciplinary degree in criminology and legal studies. Since 1992, he has been confined in Washington State for crimes that he committed at age fourteen. He is currently petitioning for release. Readers who wish to support him are invited to sign up here. He welcomes comments.

The Superpredator Myth: It’s Still Alive Behind Bars syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/