#just imagine being the person who so meticulously built the model for this with such prominent.....features

[84reedsy]

You guys........ look

My birthday came early!!!!!!!

@theweaselandthekilt knocked out of of the park omg 😍😍😍😍😍😍

My very own Curt Hennig AND my very own Curt Hennig🔥🔥🔥 Front Bump!!!🔥🔥🔥

I love him so much, he's right by my work desk so I get to admire him everyday - this is such a nice figure, ya'll and it's bigger than most ones I've seen!

Part of me wants to do a destructive unboxing on YouTube just to make the fanboys cry

I won't.... but it was a thought😂

[daimonclub]

Rolex best watch investment

Rolex best watch investment Rolex best watch investment, an article that explains the history, quality, and market performance of this brand with a full list of the different models value. Discover why Rolex stands out as the premier choice for savvy investors. From its unparalleled craftsmanship to its enduring value, delve into the timeless appeal and financial benefits of owning a Rolex timepiece. Explore the factors that make Rolex watches a sought-after investment, including their history, quality, and market performance, and a full list of the different models value. Whether you're a seasoned collector or a novice investor, uncover the reasons why Rolex remains the epitome of horological investment excellence. Rolex watches were supplied to the first successful Everest expedition; have been to the bottom of the deepest ocean chasm known to man, up in the stratosphere at speeds much greater than sound, in the Arctic, the jungle and the desert. No other watch has such a record. Wherever men explore and experiment, their success, even their lives, will depend on their equipment. It is hardly surprising that they so often choose Rolex watches. The Story Of Rolex (1964) The thing I like about Rolex is that they don't compromise. If you're going to do something, you might as well be the best at it. That's why I've worn a Rolex for over two decades. Roger Penske Humanity's days are numbered, Chinese replica Rolex time. Carl William Brown Rolex accuracy is all one could desire and it has run continuously without winding ever since I put it on some nine months ago. I count my Rolex watch amongst my most treasured possessions. Sir Edmund Hillary My wife Joanne gave me my Rolex Daytona when I started racing back in 1972. Paul Newman Every person who wears a Rolex has the right to be robbed. Anonymous My Rolex is a continual pleasure, and works admirably. Sir Winston Churchill

Rolex Daytona Cosmograph The egalitarian luxury policy for the Chinese consists in trying to give all citizens of the world the opportunity to buy a nice fake Rolex. Carl William Brown Rolex watches behaved flawlessly under any and all the worst conditions imaginable, not only this time but also on previous expeditions to Mount Everest, of which I happened to have also been a member. Tenzing Norgay He could not just wear a watch. It had to be a Rolex. Ian Fleming It is certainly true that Rolex watches are highly desired for several reasons. As a matter of fact Rolex has a reputation for exceptional craftsmanship and high-quality materials. Each watch is meticulously assembled with precision and undergoes rigorous testing to ensure accuracy and durability. The brand's commitment to excellence has established it as a symbol of luxury and prestige. Rolex also has a long and storied history dating back to 1905. Over the years, the brand has become synonymous with success, innovation, and adventure. From being the first watch to reach the summit of Mount Everest to its association with iconic figures and events, Rolex has built a legacy that captivates enthusiasts and collectors alike. Then Rolex watches are known for their timeless and iconic design. Many of their models, such as the Submariner, Daytona, and Datejust, have achieved iconic status and remain highly sought after by collectors. The brand's designs are characterized by their simplicity, elegance, and functionality, making them suitable for both casual and formal occasions. What's more Rolex watches often retain their value or even appreciate over time. This is due to their reputation, craftsmanship, and limited availability. As a result, owning a Rolex is not only a symbol of status and luxury but also a wise investment. This is due to the fact that Rolex maintains strict control over its production and distribution, resulting in limited availability of its watches. This exclusivity adds to their desirability, as owning a Rolex is seen as a mark of distinction and exclusivity. Overall, Rolex watches represent a blend of craftsmanship, heritage, design, and exclusivity that appeals to a wide range of people, from watch enthusiasts and collectors to those who simply appreciate fine craftsmanship and luxury. In fact Rolex invests heavily in marketing and branding efforts that reinforce its image as a luxury brand. The brand's endorsements, sponsorships, and advertising campaigns help to maintain its allure and desirability among consumers.

Rolex GMT Master Rolex's success can indeed be attributed to a combination of factors, and its promotional strategies have played a significant role. Rolex has carefully crafted its image as a luxury brand through various means, including original and expensive advertising campaigns. These campaigns often emphasize the exclusivity, precision, and timeless elegance associated with Rolex watches. By investing in high-quality advertising, Rolex has effectively positioned itself as a status symbol and a mark of prestige. Its campaigns often feature celebrities, athletes, and adventurers, further enhancing its appeal to consumers who aspire to the lifestyle and values associated with these figures. Moreover, Rolex has been strategic in its sponsorship and partnerships, aligning itself with prestigious events such as sports competitions, cultural events, and philanthropic initiatives. These sponsorships not only increase brand visibility but also reinforce Rolex's image as a symbol of achievement and excellence. Overall, while Rolex's success cannot be attributed solely to its promotional efforts, these campaigns have undoubtedly contributed to the brand's iconic status and enduring appeal among luxury consumers. As far as investments are concerned we can say for sure that Yes, it's true that buying a Rolex can be considered a form of investment, although it's important to approach it with some nuance. Rolex watches often retain their value well over time, and in some cases, they can even appreciate in value. This is particularly true for certain models that are in high demand or have historical significance. Therefore, purchasing a Rolex can potentially yield a return on investment if you decide to sell it in the future. As we said before Rolex maintains a strict control over its production and distribution, and this policy results in a limited availability of certain models. This scarcity contributes to their desirability and can drive up prices in the secondary market, making them attractive investments for collectors. That's why many Rolex models have demonstrated a track record of holding or increasing in value over time. However, it's important to note that past performance is not indicative of future results, and the value of a Rolex watch can fluctuate based on various factors such as market trends, condition, and demand. The condition of the watch, its rarity, and any accompanying documentation (such as box and papers) can significantly impact its value as an investment. Well-maintained, limited edition, or vintage Rolex watches tend to command higher prices in the resale market. While Rolex watches can be a sound investment for some individuals, it's essential to approach the purchase with a long-term perspective. Investing in a Rolex solely for the purpose of financial gain may not always yield the desired results, as market conditions can be unpredictable. In summary, while buying a Rolex can potentially be a form of investment due to factors like resale value and rarity, it's crucial to consider other factors such as personal enjoyment, appreciation for craftsmanship, and the inherent risks associated with investing in luxury goods. So, what's the real value of your Rolex? We can suggest you this website Edelmetaalrichard where you can find a complete list of the different models and the indicative price you can sell them. If you'd like to sell, or buy a second hand Rolex watch, a number of factors determine the final price. It's possibly already obvious, but you have to consider the watch condition carries a lot of weight during its taxation. Malfunctions or damage decreases its worth. For instance, there might be mechanical failures, parts of the case missing, a broken glass, water damage, scratches, a worn-out metal watchband, the original clasp of a leather band missing and so on.

Rolex Datejust When it comes to metal watchbands, if they were ever shortened, you should have the removed links. Accessories like the brand's original box and/or pouch are also assets. Of the utmost importance are certificates with the serial number and date of purchase. If you bring also a purchase invoice, it is still the better. Here are some examples: Ref. 1002 (M) Type: Oyster Perpetual Description: Steel or steel and gold, smooth bezel, Oyster bracelet - all gold up to Value: € 1.800 Ref. 1016 (M) Type: Vintage - Explorer Description: Stainless steel, black dial, 36 mm Value: € 4.500 Ref. 1019 (M) Type: Vintage - Milgauss Description: Stainless steel, 38mm, anti-magnetic (specifically produced for scientists at CERN) Value: € 18.000 Ref. 116244 (M+F) Type: Datejust Description: Stainless steel, natural diamond bezel, natural diamond dial, sapphire crystal, 36 mm, Oyster or Jubilee bracelet - deduct Value: € 6.300 Ref. 6671 (F) Type: Cellini Cellisimma Description: 18k white gold, natural diamond bezel, quartz, leather strap Value: € 1.800 Ref. 116518 (M) Type: Daytona Description: 18k yellow gold with leather strap, cosmograph, tachymeter, engraving on bezel, sapphire crystal, 40 mm, yellow gold deployant clasp Value: € 16.200 Ref. 116610 (M) Type: Submariner Description: Stainless steel, ceramic bezel, pressure proof to 1000 ft, time lapse bezel, quickset, sapphire crystal, 40 mm, Oyster bracelet Value: € 7.650 Ref. 116618 (M) Type: Submariner Description: 18k yellow gold, ceramic bezel, pressure proof to 1000 ft, 40 mm, Oyster bracelet Value: € 27.000 Ref. 116688 (M) Type: YachtMaster II Description: 18k yellow gold, ceramic bezel, 44 mm, sapphire crystal, Oyster bracelet Value: € 28.800 Ref. 126715 (M) Type: GMT Master II Description: 18K rose gold, ceramic bezel, Oyster bracelet, 40 mm, new model Value: € 29.700 Ref. 1665 (M) Type: Vintage - Sea Dweller Description: Stainless steel, pressure proof to 2000 ft, automatic movement with date, domed crystal, silver date disk , double red Value: € 27.000 Ref. 5517 (M) Type: Submariner - Vintage Description: Stainless steel, sub for British military, solid case, sword hands, military marks Value: € 90.000 Ref. 6200 (M) Type: Submariner - Vintage Description: Stainless steel, third series circa 1954, no crown guard, 8 mm crown, James Bond, pressure proof to 330 ft Value: € 180.000 Ref. 6241 (M) Type: Cosmograph - Vintage Description: 14k yellow gold, 37.5mm, "John Player Special Paul Newman" Value: € 90.000 ref: 80299 (F) Type: PearlMaster Description: 18K white gold, 32 natural diamond bezel, natural diamond dial, 29 mm, Pearlmaster bracelet Value: € 10.800 For more information and the full list visit: Whats the value of your rolex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWULkzGY6TA If you like shopping you can also visit: Shopping coolest stores Finance and Trading Best shopping quotes Hot flash sales Black Friday Day Cyber Monday Read the full article

[wordsnstuff]

Guide To Plot Development

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Where To Start

Start with the zero draft. Honestly, the only thing you need to know about your story in order to complete a solid zero draft is the basic timeline of events and 2-3 main characters. Zero drafts don’t need to include any minor characters, backstory, world building, subplots, anything. They’re just a rough estimate of what your story is going to be and where it’s going to go. 

This way, you have something to work with when you do approach the task of maturing your story, which is a lot easier to do when you have already gotten the garbage ideas onto paper, seen them, realized they’re bad, clipped out the good parts, and developed a better understanding of your story’s trajectory. 

Placing The Climax

The climax is two things; the apex of built tension and the turning point of the conflict. Recognizing that as a definition makes pin-pointing the climax of your story much easier, especially if you’re the kind of person who likes to start with a solid premise and work forward from there, rather than build a sturdy skeleton and fill in the blanks as you write the first draft. If you’re still having trouble, the climax is usually one of, if not the most exciting parts of the plot, and that comes from anticipating a massive shift in the story. 

Outlining For Discovery Writers

I know a lot of people out there will read this article and question whether they can put it to use because they’re not an intense plotter who relies on outlines, character sheets, etc. A lot of writers prefer to let characters grow on their own and the conflict present itself naturally, which is less predictable but very exciting, especially when brand new ideas hit you out of nowhere. If you’re one of these people, fear not. An easy way to settle the slight nervousness that comes with diving straight into a blank page is to write down all of the basic or specific ideas you have in one spot where you can see it all and as you go along, refer to it for inspiration or answers when you hit a snag in your story’s flow. It’s not exactly an outline, but it’s a lead, and it’s worth doing. 

Balancing Planning With Pantsing

A lot of writers who decide to take their stories seriously and commit to finishing a large project make the mistake of thinking that means they have to plan like a professional (which, spoiler, most professionals don’t do). What happens in these cases is that writers plan so meticulously for so long that the story becomes... boring. We all get kind of tired of stories when they take up too much of our imagination, but getting tired of a story before even a word of it is written should be avoided. 

I have a personal rule that I never give myself more than 6 weeks to plan a story. That seems like a lot to most people, but I also zero draft all of my stories before I plan them, so I never start a first draft with a blank page. I suggest that if you frequently run into this issue, you try this method and between each serious draft, you give yourself at least a month of space from it in order to refresh your mind. 

What Comes After Drafting

Foreshadowing, symbolism, subplot integration, and micro-development. These are all examples of things that writers try to plan before their first crack at a draft and end up betraying their ability follow through with writing the story at all. When it comes to complicating the story, these elements all come into the picture much later, when the main plot, character profiles, and structure is solid and ready to be finalized in the interest of moving forward in the writing process. When you’re plotting, shove these things out of your mind. You can’t input symbolism into a story that doesn’t exist, and you can’t develop characters that haven’t been born. 

Common Struggles

– The common struggles section of my “guide to__” posts are general questions sent in by readers on the topic at hand. If you have a question that has not been addressed thus far, you’ll probably find the answer in this section. As always, you’re welcome to send other questions to my inbox if you don’t find the answer in this post. –

~ How do I correctly pace a story?... The pace should depend on the genre and point of view, as these things are the framework of every plot. Generally, anticipation should be a slow burn and the big moments should be snappy and explosive, rather than drawn out. The exposition, climax, and resolution should take up the least amount of time in your story, and the rising action should be the majority of the rest of it.

~ What needs to be in your beginning, middle and end?... The answer to this question is answered when you choose a definitive structure model to either follow or build off of. I have a whole post about it here: Plot Structures

~ How can I know if I’ve resolved my major conflict enough?... The resolution of your story should leave the reader feeling satisfied with the protagonist’s overcoming their obstacle, but still leave enough room to anticipate more to come. 

~ How should the plot close?... This is entirely up to you, but I would take into account the possibility of a sequel. If it’s 100% a standalone story, give it a clean ending and tie up the loose ends, pat yourself on the back for all of the clever foreshadowing everyone missed, and leave the protagonists and beloved secondary characters’ futures looking bright. 

~ How do you write a plot around a theme?... Most stories that have a central theme are born from answering a tough question. George Orwell’s 1984 asked “What would the world look like if totalitarianism ruled society?”. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 dealt with censorship and questioned whether bliss only belongs to the ignorant. Bottom line is, pick the theme you want to explore, and then ask yourself the tough questions. The story should be the process by which you find the answer. 

~ What is the best way to handle a large cast within a plot?... You have your main conflict and the plotline that surrounds it, and then you have various subplots, around 2-3 where you explore the world/characters further and immerse the reader in the stories. You can convince the reader to become invested in a large number of characters by making them heavily involved in the subplots. They should all touch the main plot considerably, but the bulk of their development should be in the subplot, and if you were to have 15 characters, you’d want around 3 subplots where 3-5 of them were important players. However, large casts that reader’s have trouble keeping up with is a problem that usually results from a writer’s inability to make cuts or combinations. Remember: the reader’s experience is the most important thing. It’s better to downsize your ideas than lose your readers altogether. 

Other Resources From My Blog That Help With This:

What Do You Do When You Over-Plan?

Resources For Plot Development

How To Write A Good Plot Twist

How To Foreshadow

Writing Long Stories Without Filler

Writing Stories About Your Own Experiences

Novel Planning 101

Tackling Subplots

Things A Reader Needs From A Story

How To Turn A Good Idea Into A Good Story

Planning A Scene

When To Stop Planning

How To Outline Outside Chapter Structure

Tips on Mapping Out A Series

Outlining By Chapter

How To Outline Effectively

Tips On Starting A Scene

How To Start A Novel

Character Driven vs. Plot Driven Stories

Plot Structures

Planning A Scene In A Story

Effective Ways Of Planning Chapters

Writing Meaningful Stories

Finding Your Own Writing Style

How To Write A Story Timeline

Making A Story Come Together

Tips on Planning A Series

Coming Up With Scene Ideas

General Resources For Plot Development

How To Engage The Reader

Coming Up With “Original” Ideas

Building Upon A Good Premise

Pacing Appropriately

–

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[hihowareyawrites]

Did You Know I’m Utterly Insane?

Cross Posted from AO3

No pairing; Solf J. Kimblee character study

Summary: Solf J. Kimblee was not a man who was uncertain of anything, generally. He felt completely aware of everything he said and did. His refusal to continue his father's business, his eagerness to leave home, and his fondness for destructive alchemy- yes, it was never anything he was unsure of. But now and again, he did question his well being.

Solf J. Kimblee was not a man who was uncertain of anything, generally. He felt completely aware of everything he said and did. His refusal to continue his father's business, his eagerness to leave home, and his fondness for destructive alchemy- yes, it was never anything he was unsure of. But now and again, he did question his well being.

If nothing else he was defined by his savior faire- his uncanny ability to enter a situation and claim it, appearing dominating and submissive all at once. He would not hold the conversation captive, but rather steer it with small comments and gestures. It was something that made those around him captivated by his presence, and also, wary of his aura.

But of course, he knew what he was doing.

He would observe others, their empathy and their compassion. The way they felt for others. He wondered what that must be like, to see the pain of another person and truly understand what it is they were feeling. It was something he found trying. He'd given the effort as much as he could, he must feel some care for his mother (or so he thought), since he did intend to give her some of his income provided by the state.

But was it compassion? Or was he just repaying a debt he felt he owed her, out of respect? Respect was an easy emotion for him. He could acknowledge another person's ability or conviction, and he could respect them. But that didn't necessarily mean he cared about what happened to them beyond that.

No, perhaps he cared more for vanity and social status than he'd thought. The delicate thought and meticulous eye he would give to his appearance was unlike the passing glance offered to those suffering around him. But he couldn't understand what he was supposed to feel, then.

He did feel however, anger. He had a reservoir of bitterness welled up in the black of his heart, something he felt could devour him from the inside. He had no desire to truly help people. Some might credit it to late teenage angst, or perhaps a typical anger issue distinctive of young men. But he didn't find either apropos.

The creation of his alchemic specialty was with that distinction; that he had no internal drive to aid the masses. It would get him nowhere, he felt. Of course he was capable of preforming standard alchemy, he could do it if he needed. If he wanted. But he didn't want to.

He channeled the frustration, the apathy, the anger, the distaste for things around him, for people, into his work. Maybe it was because his father pushed such a rigid lifestyle on him. Maybe it was because no matter how hard he saw his mother work, she could never get ahead. Maybe he was just born with a natural affliction. The reasons didn't matter, the results did.

When he'd first arrived in central for his exam, he found it was a much different place from his small hometown. It was large, it was loud, it was a city. It had the capacity to house so many, but were those on the streets then, the remainder? He'd passed a number of homeless people, starving and cold and sad- and he found he felt nothing. No concern to help them, no desire to do more. He only thought it was the way of nature, survival of the fittest, and moved on. He felt nothing.

It occurred to him that perhaps, his view was unnatural. Perhaps his lack of concern for others wasn't standard, and he felt for the first time ever, a sense of inferiority. What genetic trait was he denied that allowed others access to an emotion he couldn't attain? What sort of defective make up did he have that rendered him unable to feel and act as everyone else does? He'd never an issue with memorizing algorithms or music or languages, and yet the simplest task of all was something that would not come easy to him.

But he could pretend it did. He studied them, the people around him. The ones in the large central office, the ones he passed on the street, the ones who sat near him in wait. He studied them all, and carefully built a persona.

When it came time for his interview, he imagined what each of his emotional models would say- how they would react. His skills were enough to award him a rank of major, a coveted watch, and a unique title. But he applauded himself on his ability to fit in with the masses. He allowed himself a sliver of haughtiness, that they did not truly know the man they had employed. He considered they had seen through him and simply did not care, but his ego preferred the former.

He did however tell them of his indifference to committing murder on behalf of the state, how it was a duty he would gladly uphold for his military. They praised him for his candor, and his loyalty. This seeming confession of psychopathy was overlooked. This confession meant nothing.

He found these brief moments to be the most rewarding; the only time where he truly felt like he might be happy. Deceiving others, earning praise, things that others may find unbecoming traits.

In training, he found his objective difficult. Many of the tasks were laden with bouts of heroics. Saving this civilian, protecting this city, et cetera. He found it banal if nothing else, but moreso uninvigorating. Why should he care if one more person were to die? Or perhaps one hundred more? What could they possibly offer, if they hadn't the will power to keep themselves alive of their own accord anyway? He hadn't become a state alchemist to be a charity worker, he had become a state alchemist for... now what was the reason again? It didn't matter, he found comfort in being apart of something.

While reading one night, he came upon studies of sociopathy and psychosis. He tried to separate himself from them, but found it harder as he skimmed the psychology book further. Yes, perhaps he did relate to this- perhaps his feelings were symptomatic of personality disorders he'd only known in passing until now. But should that make him a bad person, if he was suffering from an illness of the mind? Some may applaud him for seeking a normal life anyway. He applauded himself. He was twenty three, and doing well enough.

Still, there was a dull ache in his chest, for something more.

Only a few years later, they were being sent to war. He found purpose in his orders. They were giving him a command, a standard to perfect. It didn't matter what the order was, he was determined to be the best at it, regardless.

His new favorite hobby was walking down the streets, post-destruction, and admiring his own work. There was the exhilaration of the act of course, but there was nothing quite like enjoying the afterglow of the efforts either. He'd liken the entire experience to sex, but without the obligation of human connection after. This experience was all he needed to feel alive. He wished the war would go on forever, that he could live this way for the rest of his life. Every day would be a new opportunity to best himself, and he would seek enlightenment with every attempt. Yes, that would be ideal.

He tried to make acquaintances, to associate with living people, but none could understand him. It wasn't that he wanted nor needed to be understood, but he desired some sense of comradery with anyone here. Even though the uniforms on their backs were the same, he felt as though he simply had many enemies he could not and should not target.

When he was handed the stone, a tangible shard of human souls, there was an immediate connection. This small crystallized object, formed from human suffering, had more in common with him than any of the people around him. It existed only to cause chaos. It too was burdened with a tempest of agony, and he used it to inflict the same on those around him. This stone was truly the only thing that he understood, that understood him. It too existed merely to cause suffering.

He'd not be separated from it. He took their lives solely to preserve his possession- it's possession of him. He held out his hands promptly, to be cuffed. At the movements of his arms those around him recoiled, knowing full well what his hands were capable of. Surrender however was not a known attribute. He stood on trial and accepted any guilt. He did not flaunt it, he simply agreed. His assigned lawyer threw down his papers in frustration; why must this man cooperate with the jury and not his own attorney? He admired his new home, a stuffy, dark and damp cell, and shrugged off the gnawing feeling of claustrophobia. Surely, this is where he would spend the last of his days. He would be handed the death sentence eventually, right? It was only a matter of time.

And then 6 years went by. And there was nothing. Truly, he would be left to rot here. He announced full guilt in the crimes he committed, and they allowed him to live. This confession, too, meant nothing.

There was an emptiness growing in the pit of his stomach, so deep he thought the stone would become lost in it. What is all of this for? What was any of this for? He couldn't remember now.

And soon he was released. With bravado and a false sense of self entitlement he announced his deserving of freedom; truly, if they would release him after all this time, he had earned it. But there was still a confusion, a lack of certainty. What his goals were, what his plans were. He followed orders diligently, set himself to one goal and chased that goal. Chased it until it impaled him through the side. Chased it until it dared make him feel humiliated in front of dozens. Chased it until he was told to give up, and focus on something else. Failure was a new feeling.

Or, it was until it started to occur again and again. And then he began to realize that he was never succeeding at anything. The praise and acclaim he had earned in Ishval meant nothing. Now, he was unable to accomplish any given task. He stood in apoplexy until the order was given to rescue Pride, and he decided he would not fail again.

And though hard he did try, he found himself truly recounting his life's purpose as he lay on the ground hemorrhaging. His life force escaping out his throat and onto his tailored suit. In this moment, he confessed his crimes and his failures, to himself. He recounted them and, for the true first time in his life, felt regret. Regret he had not accomplished more. He realized then, while he had confessed his crimes to others, he never truly had to himself. And upon doing so found he was remorseless. And found that aside from orders given from others, his actions were without goal or purpose. He realized, only now in death, that he had never truly had free will. His conviction was a ruse, he acted only on the conviction of others.

"There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. "

Solf J. Kimblee was not a man who was uncertain of anything, generally. Except for his own identity and reason for living, he questioned only when it was too late.

[starstruckteacup]

Cottagecore Films (pt. 4)

Funny Face (1957)

starring Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson

Book-loving empathicalist Jo Stockton’s simple academic life is brutally interrupted by a chance encounter with Dick Avery, a fashion photographer, who convinces her to become Quality magazine’s new face for a unique collection. The duo travel with the Quality team to Paris, where Jo discovers that her rising feelings for Avery, her dedication to philosophy, and her contract as a model may not come together as easily as she thought.

I should preface this review by saying I’m not much for musicals, so it may just be me but I found the music numbers to be, at times, somewhat meaningless and drawn out. Song and dance in film strike me as very emotional scenes, and there was a pretty heavy mix of emotion-laden songs and arbitrary songs. When the characters were genuinely conveying their feelings in a way only singing and dancing can fully portray, I was drawn in and really appreciated the songs, but very often it seemed like they were dancing just to show their abilities as dancers. The first half of the movie felt like it moved far too quickly, and there wasn’t any build-up to the conclusions each character reached; for example, Jo went from being absolutely livid at Dick Avery for ruining her bookstore to singing about how in love she was with him in under a minute, just because he kissed her. I know it’s a product of the time but even for that it felt rushed. The second half was a much more natural progression that I was readily drawn into, and it was easier to see and feel the character development occur. It was certainly romantic throughout the film, but the ending truly felt like real love. 5/10

An Inspector Calls (2015)

TW: suicide by poison (on screen), rape

starring David Thewlis, Sophie Rundle, Ken Stott, Miranda Richardson, Chloe Pirrie, Finn Cole, Kyle Soller

Based on J.B. Priestley’s play of the same title, this film investigates an upper class Edwardian family through the lens of Inspector Goole, a mysterious police inspector seeking to uncover the events that led to the death of Eva Smith. The Birlings all have personal ties to Eva in the years leading up to her death, which are uncovered one by one by the meticulous and straightforward inspector in an effort to teach the family about their carelessness and selfishness.

This film was quite riveting. Although not exactly cottagecore (I apologize), this period drama built incredible tension without ever leaving the Birlings’ dining room (aside from flashbacks). I found myself gripping a pillow waiting to find out the ending as it all came together. It seems like it would have a straightforward resolution, but just the right amount is left to the audience’s imagination to leave you more satisfied with the ending than if it had all been explained. The film was an excellently portrayed criticism of the brutalities created by the carelessness and ignorance of the upper class, and really placed its finery under harsh examination. The acting was excellent, and seemed to me that each character was played with impeccable emotion and chemistry. 9/10

Full Count (2019)

TW: suicide (on screen), vehicular manslaughter, police brutality, assault

starring John Paul Kakos, Natalia Livingston, Adam Boyer, E. Roger Mitchell, Rick Hearst, Jason London

High school athlete Milton Young struggles to pursue his passion for baseball while his time is consumed helping his father take care of the family farm. His talent and dedication pay off when a college scout watches him carry his school to victory at the state championship, and Milton is offered a full scholarship to a competitive school. He’s only there for a short time before tragedy strikes and he’s brought back home to help his family. There, things only get worse for Milton when he’s charged with driving under the influence and striking a woman walking alongside the road; however, he can’t seem to remember any of the events leading up to it. When his family’s farm falls into crisis, and Milton himself can’t take much more, a drifter named David comes into their life and offers to help bring the farm back to life. Amid the struggles with the farm and the criminal charges, David has to come to terms with who he is and who he wants to become, and reexamine his faith along the way.

This was a decent movie. I appreciated how it focused on kindness and believing in others, and yourself, above all else. It takes place in a small Georgia town and is strongly centered on Christian faith, but it does so without being overly tacky and unrealistic, which I greatly appreciate. It really emphasized the impact of loving other people, regardless of their circumstances, which I think we need more of in this world. However, I definitely felt like more effort could have been put into the characters; they were rather bland and unrelatable, and while I liked the message of the movie, I didn’t think the characters carried it very well. There’s also a twist at the end that I saw coming from the very beginning, and it’s my most disliked twist that always seems to come into Christian movies: the drifting stranger turns out to be an angel. I always feel like this invalidates the message of love and kindness, since it places this expectation that we’ll always receive blatantly divine payoffs for being kind to others, when we really should just do it for the sake of humanity. Also it’s incredibly cheesy and really just detracts from the seriousness of the rest of the film. 4/10

Part One // Part Two // Part Three

[ohmytheon]

Killer Queen (Rebelcaptain, 7)

So this is technically the last chapter, but I'm toying with the idea of writing a short epilogue. I honestly might do that. I have a small idea for it at the least. Originally this was supposed to be entirely from Cassian's perspective to stick with the "every other chapter" POV theme, but it didn't work and ultimately this is Jyn's journey at the end of the day. I'm much happier with how this turned out. Thank you everyone for reading!

Summary: The Rebelcaptain Miss Congeniality AU that I wasn’t planning on writing.

killer queen chapter seven

Perhaps the strangest thing about what had happened between him and Jyn was that it had done very little to change their dynamic. Cassian had been concerned at first that there would be a lingering awkwardness or that they wouldn’t work as neatly together, but if anything, they were even closer to being on the same page. They were no longer fighting with themselves or each other. The tense wall that they had unknowingly built between each other had fallen down.

When she had come to him this morning, he had known right away that she didn’t believe they had found their bomber. He’d been able to read it on her face and the way she held herself. At one point, he might’ve questioned her more, but the same gut feeling had overcome him as well. Something about this whole thing just didn’t sit right with him and he’d almost felt relieved that she felt the same way.

And he swore that it had nothing to do with the fact that he absolutely loathed Krennic and wanted to deck the man right in the face.

The finale of the competition was in just a little over an hour. He wanted to spend this time with Jyn, but she had been forced back into her role as a competitor. From there, she could keep an eye on Krennic, who was prepping himself, while he worked behind the scenes. Agent Kay, who had also stayed back to help them, was on analyst duty, keeping tabs on the flow of information between Cassian and Jyn while sifting through Krennic’s electronic trail to see if he’d left any footprints or evidence behind. Even Imwe and Malbus had taken to helping out. Having helped Jyn with her outfits, Malbus was with Cassian, keeping a watch out for him, while Imwe stuck close to Jyn’s side and forced Krennic to keep his distance.

All in all, five people was not enough to make a mission like this go smoothly, but it was all they had. Most of the other agents had either left this afternoon or decided to join the crowd in order to see the women. A lot of them had a few bets riding on what place Jyn would take in the competition. It irritated Cassian to no end that while the men were having fun at Jyn’s expense, she was working exceptionally hard to stop a bombing. Now that he saw point blank how the men were treating her, he couldn’t unsee it and it grated on his nerves.

Now was not the time to get up in arms about his colleague’s sexism in the workplace, especially while he was breaking into Krennic’s room.

Cassian fished out a keycard, opening the door with ease, and slipped inside with Malbus right behind him. Jyn used to joke that her skill with lifting things off of people had to do with her sticky fingers as a teenager. He didn’t think she was completely joking, so she must have always been this good to not have a record.

Right off the bat, both of them got busy with looking around the room. Malbus was a very reticent man compared to his partner, but that was just fine with Cassian. At least he knew that there would be no time wasted chatting or asking questions. The way Malbus searched the room was efficient, if not a little brusque, but it did the trick and was not as jarring as Cassian might’ve thought of a pageant coach. Malbus did have the appearance of someone that might’ve been rough around the edges when he was younger. Cassian glanced at Malbus. Well, maybe still.

One thing could be said for Krennic and that was he was a very neat man. Unfortunately, that made things more difficult for them. A messy person was more apt to leave evidence behind. Cassian could tell right off the bat that Krennic was not that type. The room was absolutely meticulous. Krennic must’ve had the maids come in every day to clean up on top of whatever he did himself. Even the bathroom seemed to sparkle. Cassian was careful as he searched the place; he had a feeling that Krennic would know if a single thing was out of place should he come back here once more before the ceremony.

Huffing in irritation when his looks behind even the paintings yielded nothing, Cassian straightened up and turned his attention to the other agent looking into Krennic. “Have you found anything on your end, Kay?”

“Besides the fact that Krennic seems even more organized than me, I’m afraid not,” Kay replied over the earpiece, sounding equally frustrated. It was unlike him to allow any emotion to bleed through, but then he’d been combing through Krennic’s records and digital background for hours. Even an agent like Kay who enjoyed technology did not seem like he was having fun. “Who schedules so many brunches? You don’t need that on your calendar. One would think he’d be attempting to be fiscal when he’s losing his job.”

“If he plans on bombing the end ceremony, I don’t think he’s all that concerned about saving money,” Cassian pointed out. He turned to face Malbus when he finished his search of the closet, but the other man just shook his head. Nothing, of course. “What about his phone records?”

“Besides an alarming amount of calls to a tanning salon, he looks clean,” Kay answered. “The amount of calls to his lawyer makes sense considering what was being leveled against him. Nothing unusual sticks out.”

Everything suggested that they were wrong about Krennic. He was a total creep and Cassian had no doubt in his mind that the allegations against the man were true, but he didn’t look like their bomber. Despite knowing that it was worthless, Cassian jerked open the bedside table drawer, finding the standard hotel paper, along with two phone chargers. Useless. He shut the drawer.

And then he paused and glanced down at it again.

“What kind of phone does Krennic have?” Cassian asked.

“The latest iPhone, of course,” Kay said. “Nothing but the best.”

Cassian opened the drawer again and took out the phone chargers, setting them on the table. When he looked at the ends of them, his suspicions were confirmed. “Then why does he also have an android charger?”

“Perhaps he owns another device that uses that charger,” Malbus suggested.

“Highly unlikely,” Kay put in. “Krennic has done commercials for Apple. He’s very brand-oriented.”

“Besides, it looks like an older model charger,” Cassian added, turning it over in his hands. It was very little to go on, but it was something suspicious at least. He could not imagine why Krennic would have this except for a phone that he didn’t want other people to know about. Burner phones were typically used for crimes. Harder to trace, especially when no one knew about them.

Kay sighed. “It’s going to be impossible to find the number without the phone itself. There’s far too many to sift through here.”

It was a terrible position to be put in, but Cassian knew that they had no other option. They either needed to get their hands on that phone or else hope to catch him right in the act. He didn’t doubt Jyn’s ability to lift things off of people, but it would be twice as difficult to get the phone back on his person without Krennic knowing. It was a two person gamble and it couldn’t be Cassian.

Weighing his options, Cassian switched over to Jyn’s frequency. “Jyn, do you still have a visual on Krennic?”

“He’s pulling double duty between fixing his tie and leering at the women in the mirror,” Jyn replied. So she was still backstage then. Cassian didn’t really know what to do. Jyn couldn’t do this on her own - it would be far too risky - but he had to at least tell her. Maybe she could see Krennic using the burner.

“Krennic has another phone, an android,” Cassian told her. “Probably the one he’s been using to coordinate with the actual bomb maker.” Neither one of them believed Krennic was capable of building one on his own, but it was easier to trace a bomb maker after the bomb went off than before and they wanted to avoid that. “But Kay can’t get into it without the number.”

“I can get it,” Jyn said immediately.

“No, it’s too risky,” Cassian jumped in. “You’d have to get the phone, retrieve the number, and put it back on him without him knowing. It would look too suspicious to bump into him twice so quickly.”

Jyn made an irritated grunt loud enough for him to hear over the earpiece. There was a lull in their conversation as both of them were lost in thought over what to do. Maybe they should just take the phone off of him and forget about trying to do it without his knowing. Except that the operation was technically over and they were doing this on their own. It could cost them their jobs, even if he was the bomber. But it would be worth it if it meant saving lives, right? There was the chance that Krennic wasn’t guilty and that would land them in serious trouble.

There was some murmuring on the other end that Cassian couldn’t make out, someone speaking low to Jyn, but before he could question what was going on, Jyn abruptly said, “I’ve got an idea. Give me a minute.” While she didn’t cut off the line or take out her earpiece, he knew that she wouldn’t respond to his questions. She was acting out the plan immediately before either one of them could question it. He rubbed the bottom of his face as he waited for her voice again, but strangely nothing happened for a brief while.

Suddenly, there was a loud commotion, but it sounded more like two men arguing. He couldn’t tell what was being said; all he could do was be patient and listen as best as he could.

A minute later, Jyn’s voice came out of nowhere over the earpiece. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Krennic!” She truly did sound apologetic and panicky. “Mr. Imwe has been helping me, but he misplaced his walking stick. I’m sure he didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“Misplaced?” Krennic’s voice drifted in, dripping with disdain. “I know of Imwe’s fallen reputation. Kestral, I hope for your sake that you haven’t been relying on him too much. You should’ve come to me.”

“I know, I know,” Jyn replied. “Here’s your cane, Mr. Imwe. Thank you. Yes, that will be all.” Cassian could almost hear the smile in her voice. “I hope he didn’t disturb you or anything. You look very handsome, by the way.”

Krennic’s mood changed quickly. “I always wear a new suit for the finale.” He sounded so proud of himself, like it was a huge accomplishment to have a suit made for him. He probably felt the same way about having a bomb made for him. Whatever Imwe had done was completely out of his mind now that Jyn was in his sight. “And you look marvelous, my dear, like you’re walking on a cloud. I knew that dress would look perfect on you.”

Malbus had not been happy that he and Krennic had agreed on something and had almost changed Jyn’s dress out of spite. Only Imwe’s intervention had kept the dress unaltered.

“Thank you, but I must be off! We’re going on stage soon.” And then, because it was very much in Jyn’s fashion to push things, she added, “The finale should be positively explosive.”

Cassian was too busy groaning to hear Krennic’s response, but he could tell just how pleased Jyn was with herself. There was a reason she usually stuck to recon and surveillance on ops and that was because there were times when she let whatever slip out of her mouth. Some of them were awful. “What did you do, Jyn?”

“I got you the phone” Jyn said cheekily. “Well, Imwe did. I just looked up the number and put it back in Krennic’s pocket. Ugh, if I never have to touch that man again, it’ll be too soon.”

The second she rattled off the number for the burner phone, Cassian clicked back over to Kay so that he could be informed. For once, Kay actually sounded pleased and even impressed with Jyn. Her wearing a dress, heels, and makeup had done nothing to change Kay’s opinion of her. The two of them just butted heads too much. Nodding his head to Malbus, they left the room, making sure no one saw their exit, and then headed back to their positions.

There wasn’t much time left.

Cassian all but sprinted to the backstage. By now the finale had started and everyone was in their places on stage. He caught a glimpse of Jyn on the monitors, looking absolutely stunning in a strapless white dress, but while her smile was perfect, her eyes were too sharp and he spotted the tension in her bare shoulders. Krennic was on stage as well, doing his spiel, so he probably wouldn’t be the one to set off the actual bomb. There had to be someone else, someone that Krennic had paid to take care of the job and give him an alibi.

The only problem was that everyone back here looked the same to him. They all looked as if they belonged. So many people were running around with headsets, phones, and walkie talkies. In this moment, both everyone and no one looked suspicious.

“...and the winner of the Miss America Pageant is…” Everyone stopped and watched the screens with baited breath, even Cassian. The camera focused on the five young women on the stage. Jyn and Leia were holding hands and standing close to one another, their nervous grins mirroring one another’s. “Leia Organa!”

The crowd burst into applause as confetti exploded over the stage and crowd. Cassian almost started then, but it was harmless. Leia and Jyn hugged before Leia pulled away to have the winner’s crown placed on her head and was handed a large bouquet of flowers. There was a strange look on Jyn’s face, not one of disappointment but wariness and confusion.

Why had nothing happened? Had the bomb threat been a hoax all along? Had they gone undercover for nothing?

Cassian’s eyes roved over the backstage quickly, desperation seeping into his bones. Something still didn’t feel right, like he was missing something. Just when he was beginning to lose hope, he spotted a man on one of the walkways high above the stage. He was standing near the lights, where a stagehand might’ve been to direct the position of the lights onstage, except that he wasn’t wearing a headset like the rest. And in his hand was a phone.

Kay’s voice piped up right in that exact moment. “Cassian, I got a fix on a number that Krennic called just this morning. The person is only twenty feet from you.”

*

Jyn had never felt so nervous in her life. All the other women, while clearly disappointed, looked relieved that the whole thing was over, but Jyn still felt like a livewire of nerves. Her eyes shot around the stage and in the crowd, but nothing seemed out of place. Krennic was in his position off to the side, actually singing, and while he looked like a smarmy bastard, he didn’t look like he was about to set off a bomb. Had they gotten it wrong?

Ahead of her, Leia was at the front of the stage, absolutely radiant with the crown adorning the top of her head. It truly did look like it belonged there, like she was an actual princess and not just a beauty queen. She was clinging tightly to the bouquet with one hand as she waved to the crowd with the other. A wonderful and genuine, if not a little stunned, smile was shining brightly on her face. It was the happiest Jyn had ever seen her by far during this entire competition.

Behind the lifting music and Krennic’s voice, Jyn thought she heard something, but couldn’t place it. She did another scan of the room, but saw nothing. Then, one more time, distant but unmistakable in her mind, was Cassian’s voice, shouting at her: “The crown!”

She whipped around in the direction of his voice and glanced up, her eyes widening when she finally spotted him. On top of the walkway above them was Cassian, but he wasn’t alone. He was struggling with another man who looked like one of the stagehands. Blood was running down Cassian’s face. On instinct, she took a step towards him, the need to help him springing up in her mind, but he pointed at his head with a free hand and then at something in front of her.

Leia. The crown.

The bomb was the crown and it was resting right on top of Leia’s head.

Jyn tore off a split second later, trusting Cassian to be able to take care of the unknown assailant, and ran as fast as her heels would allow her towards Leia. She all but tackled the younger woman, reaching up to pull the crown off of her head, but Leia was not going down without a fight. She jerked back, dropping the flowers, and kept a tight grip on the crown.

“Kestral!” Leia shrieked. “What in the hell are you doing!”

There was no time to answer and she didn’t think that Leia was going to believe her if she said that the crown was a bomb, so she just fought more viciously. Honestly, Jyn had fought men that weren’t as strong as Leia. “Just - give - it - to - me!” Jyn grunted as she struggled.

They staggered around the stage. Leia was furious and flabbergasted as Jyn gritted her teeth and jerked on the crown. Finally, she managed to pull the crown away from Leia and used one hand to push Leia to the side. She hadn’t meant to do it so hard, but the other woman slipped and toppled off the stage into the crowd. Oh well, the further away she was from the bomb, the better.

Except now Jyn had the bomb in her hands and a small light on it was blinking a very dangerous red.

She glanced up at the same time as Krennic was pulling a phone out of his pocket. They connected eyes on stage and instantly knew that the jig was up. Krennic was the bomber and Jyn was no mere beauty queen.

“No!” she heard Cassian scream distantly from behind.

Just as Krennic pressed the button to detonate the bomb, Jyn made a split second decision and threw the crown as hard as she could into the curtains on the left side of the stage. Hopefully there would be no one there as everyone stuck to the right side. There was no way she could throw it in the air. If it fell to the ground before exploding, it would kill everyone in the crowd. Seconds later, the bomb exploded and terrified screams pierced the air as confusion and terror set in. No one knew what was going on.

The bomb rattled the stage and everyone on it, causing the curtain to fall to the ground. The remaining women were all knocked off their feet. Even Jyn was sent sprawling to the ground, sliding on the stage from the shock of the bomb. When she pulled her head up to look around, smoke was billowing around them, along with spots of fire, as metal behind and above them began to creak. She gasped when she saw what had happened to the backstage structure. It was hanging precariously in pieces, ready to fall any second.

With Cassian still on it.

She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and stumbled across the stage. It started to collapse before she could get to it though and she just barely managed to pull Miss Texas out of the way of a fallen support beam. Everyone was screaming so loudly. It was absolute chaos. Her heart was pounding wildly and she felt sick to her stomach as her mind raced. She didn’t know what to do. She could barely focus. So much was happening at once. A part of her yelled at her to detain Krennic, but a larger part was screaming to find Cassian.

Once she saw that the other women were okay, Jyn rushed to the rubble and began to dig through it. “Cassian!” A few of her nails broke as she tore through the debris. It felt like it took ages, but in fact, she found him fairly quick, still lying on top of the fallen walkway with metal bars collapsed over him. He was conscious at least, cringing and groaning in pain, but with her help, he managed to pull himself out. When he got to his feet, he stumbled against her and the two of them nearly fell down together, but she grit her teeth and held him up.

“Remind me again that metal is not pleasant to land on,” Cassian groaned. He was pretty banged up, but besides a lot of bruises and scratches, he looked relatively fine on the outside. He glanced down at where he was holding onto her and his face somehow twisted into an even more pained look. “I got blood all over your dress.”

“That’s the least of my concerns right now,” Jyn told him as she guided him backstage where people were rushing around haphazardly. No one knew what to do. Security was at a loss and all the emergency response teams were on their way. The sprinklers had turned on in the back, causing even more mayhem. She kicked her shoes off so that she could walk easier on the wet floor. “We need to get you to a paramedic.”

“I’m fine.” Cassian would say that after a bomb blew up and caused what he was standing on to collapse. “Where’s Krennic?”

Jyn looked around, but Krennic was nowhere to be seen. He must’ve slipped away in the confusion. She swore under her breath. She knew that she should’ve been focused on capturing Krennic first, but in her panic, all she had been able to think about was the look on Cassian’s face right before the collapse. She’d nearly gotten him killed despite doing her best to protect as many people as possible.

“I believe you’re looking for someone,” Imwe said cheerfully as he walked towards them. Next to him was Malbus, who had a hold of Krennic by the back of his shirt. A furious look hung on his face along with a blossoming black eye as Malbus shoved him forward. “We caught him trying to sneak out, but he tripped over my walking stick.”

“Unhand me, you monster!” Krennic exclaimed, trying and failing to fight against Malbus, who looked rather amused for once.

After setting Cassian in a chair, Jyn stepped forward so that she could stand in front of Krennic. His eyes shifted to her and he froze, a seething expression on his face. She smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that she wore on stage. It was her smile, all vicious and cutting. He flinched away from her. “Orson Krennic, you’re under arrest.”

“You’re no beauty pageant queen,” Krennic snarled, his eyes roving over the mess of her outfit and hair. “You’re barely a woman.”

“Well you’re both right and wrong,” Jyn told him, tilting her chin up proudly. “I’m not a beauty queen. I’m an FBI agent -- but I’m very much a woman. Don’t worry; you’ll get an outfit tailor made just for you in prison too.”

A handful of the agents that had stayed behind to watch the finale appeared and took Krennic away, reading him his rights as they walked. A burst of pride and relief filled Jyn, competing with one another. It was done. She was finally finished. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For once, she felt like she could actually breathe in the dress she was wearing. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she opened her eyes and found Imwe standing before her. Though he couldn’t see her physically, she knew that he could see her in his own way. There was a proud look on his face, like that of a father, and she smiled shyly in return.

“Thank you,” Jyn said quietly, “for believing in me and transforming me into this.”

“I didn’t transform anyone,” Imwe proclaimed. “It was you all along.”

When he pulled her into a hug, she didn’t resist. It truly felt nice to genuinely hug someone and feel their care for her. Not so long ago, she would’ve fought back, either returned the hug stiffly or pushing him away, but now she hugged him fiercely in return. Imwe had done more than help her. He had put his heart and soul into this and had believed in her and trusted her even when she hadn’t herself. That confidence felt good.

When Imwe was done, even Malbus hugged her, which was surprising since he was more gruff than she was, but she couldn’t stop herself from beaming a little when he told her, “Good job, little sister.”

Imwe placed his hand on Malbus’ shoulder and Malbus nodded his head, as if the touch alone was enough to pass whatever was in Imwe’s mind to his. Smiling to Jyn once more, they both bowed out and walked away, leaving Jyn standing by herself in the middle of the chaos. The sprinklers had been shut off now that any small fires had been put out, but there were still so many emergency responders and employees running around.

It wouldn’t be long before she and Cassian were whisked away as well to be debriefed. So many questions had to be answered and there was still Krennic’s interrogation to contend with. She wasn’t so sure the higher ups would let either of them in on that since they’d technically gone rogue and stayed on the mission after it had been shut down. Honestly, she didn’t give a damn about any of that. No one had gotten seriously hurt; Leia was alive; and all the bad guys here, including the one Cassian had been struggling with, had been rounded up.

Speaking of Cassian… Jyn turned around and found him arguing with a paramedic that was trying to get him to leave. She rolled her eyes. If he thought she was stubborn, then she had no idea what he was. “I’m fine!” Cassian was saying as she walked over towards them. “I don’t need to go to the hospital. Just finish patching me up.”

The paramedic looked up at Jyn hopelessly and Jyn winked at the woman, mouthing, “I’ll take care of him.” A relieved look crossed the medic’s face and she pulled her hands away in surrender before picking up her bag and finding someone else to help. When Jyn turned to Cassian, he was wearing a grumpy look on his face. He didn’t like being fawned over, but she also knew that he really hated hospitals and did whatever he could to avoid them.

Most of the blood had been cleaned off his face, but there were a few spots on his shirt. There was also a butterfly bandage over his right eyebrow where he’d been hit by something hard enough to break the skin. She took the cold compress out of his hands and put it to his head where she thought she saw a slight knot. Judging by the tiny wince that escaped him, she saw correctly.

“I can do this myself,” Cassian pointed out.

“I know,” Jyn replied as she sat down in the seat next to him. It was wet from the sprinklers earlier, but she didn’t care. She was drenched anyways. The white dress was ruined, covered with blood and dust from the bomb and the metal debris she’d dug through to find him. Her hair was a complete disaster, probably resembling a bird’s nest more than the half updo she’d been wearing for the finale. Only her makeup survived, remaining somehow intact due to being waterproof and resilient for someone like her.

She waited for him to say something else or push her hand away, but he didn’t. All he did was stare back at her, his patent unreadable expression on his face. She didn’t mind really. Now that the work part of the op was over, the adrenaline that had been filling her earlier was gone and she felt utterly drained. Probably looked like it too. His posture was one of exhaustion as well. Both of them had put everything they’d had in this and more. She didn’t think they’d be on undercover ops for a bit after this.

Just as she started to open her mouth to say something, Cassian rushed forward, taking her face in his hands, and pressed his lips against hers. She didn’t panic this time, even though the action was sudden, and kissed him back, her hand falling away from his head so that she could place her hands on his knees and lean in closer. A part of her was keenly aware that they were very much in public and anyone could see them, but another part of her didn’t care. If he wasn’t worried about it, why should she? To be honest, she kind of enjoyed it, like it was Cassian’s way of proclaiming that she was his and he wasn’t embarrassed of her. She couldn’t remember a guy making her feel like that before.

“You did it,” Cassian told her breathlessly, his lips still covering over hers, “and you were incredible.”

“We did it,” Jyn corrected.

Cassian shook his head. “I couldn’t have done this without you, but you could’ve done it without me.”

“I don’t do ops without you,” Jyn insisted, frowning stubbornly. “We’re in this together.” He smiled, but she could tell that he still didn’t agree with her entirely, so she kissed him again and then pulled on his tie to get his attention. “There’s one more thing I can’t do without you.”

“Hm?”

Jyn smiled prettily and growled, “Get me out of this dress.”

A laugh tumbled out of his mouth, but there was a very intent look in his dark eyes. “Of course I can be of assistance.”

The time would come where they would need to wrap things up. It would be annoying and take a lot of time and paperwork, all things that neither one of them liked. Witnesses to interview, debriefings to sit through, getting raked over the coals while also being commended, mounds and mounds of paperwork to file. Right now though, she didn’t care about of that. They could have some time all to themselves before any of that mattered. They deserved it after all the hard work they’d put into this mission, especially her.

Slipping away before anyone could find them, both of them took out their earpieces and went dark. With all the mayhem going on, they wouldn’t be missed right away. This was a well-deserved rest before the storm. Except she didn’t think either one of them planned on actually resting at the moment. Honestly, it was a job well done. She might not have won the pageant, but for the first time in a while, Jyn felt absolutely on top of the world. The boost in her confidence, getting the job done, saving everyone, and the way Cassian was pressed against her felt like a win to her.

[emma-what-son]

Emma Watson: I've always said, 'forget the engagement ring, build me a library!'

From Independent.ie March 2017: She's playing "a Disney princess gone rogue", but after the backlash to that photo shoot, actress Emma Watson is walking a carefully plotted line between art and politics. Here, our reporter meets the guarded Beauty and the Beast star.

"Dan brought such a tenderness and dry humour to Beast, which made him all the more relatable," she gushes. He responds with an equally fawning: "Emma's chief motivation was being able to tell the kind of messages that are pertinent across generations. Not just about wearing Belle's yellow dress."

The largely sycophantic back and forth continues with words on Emma's immeasurable kindness and Dan's boundless generosity. There are tales of Steven's "hair-raising" adventures on stilts to achieve Beast's height, and Emma comparing her singing to legendary off-key chanteuse Florence Foster Jenkins, played by Meryl Streep in last year's eponymous biopic. How watching Katharine Hepburn screwball comedies provided huge inspiration for their characters.

Altogether, it's a perfect puff exercise in promotional Hollywood chit-chat orchestrated by Watson's team of rigid representatives.

Before today's audience with the former Harry Potter graduate, journalists had to sign a clause-filled contract. The immovable interview terms demanded no personal questions of any kind; no questions about her background; no mention of La La Land (Watson reportedly turned down Emma Stone's Oscar-winning role). Basically nothing beyond the fairy tale.

There were no such conditions for talking to former Downton Abbey star Stevens.

Now, "no personal questions" is a frequent request delivered by the movie PR folk but usually comes as a verbal, quiet warning not to venture down the path of messy divorce or criminal activity. 

A binding contract this inflexible, however, is something else entirely - something I have never encountered before.

'Brand Watson' is a carefully master- minded machine: one which boasts nearly 50million social media followers. Unfortunately for the 26-year-old star, a grey area exists between her unrelenting, admirable crusade for gender equality and her acting career.

In playing Belle in the €150million live-action revamp of the childhood classic, Watson has intentionally blended her politics with her art. The feminist campaigner has become a Disney princess. Which, in promotional discussion, invariably forces her to reveal herself, just a little.

"Innately at the centre of Beauty and the Beast was this heroine who went against the crowd, marched to the beat of her own drum," Watson tells me. "Fearlessly independent-minded, defiant. Nothing around her is affirming her choices. She's incredibly curious and learned and does things her own way. And I connected with her sense of defiance. She's a Disney princess gone rogue.

"I watched a lot of films as a young woman that I felt gave me less choices and constricted me, as opposed to making me feel that the world was limitless and possibilities were endless. And I also knew how important Belle is as a symbol because of how important she was to me as a young girl. She was my idol - my own personal heroine - so I know how important it was to get it right."

Getting Belle right in 2017 is indeed important, lest it jeopardise the work that Watson has done - and the reputation she has built as an intellectual and feminist crusader - previously.

Her public campaign for equality began with an impassioned address in front of the UN in the summer of 2014, heralding the HeForShe campaign, which calls for men to advocate for gender equality. In speaking out, the actor became both a symbol and a target. And her words and actions are now microscopically scrutinised as a result. For example, that same year, her criticism of fellow feminist Beyoncé's music videos for the Lemonade album - which Watson said in an interview exhibited a "very male voyeuristic experience" - was met with overwhelming backlash. Those quotes were resurrected this month when Watson's own shoot for Vanity Fair featured a photo (below) of her with her breasts partly exposed.

In the furore that followed, Watson was forced to defend the photograph. "It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is," she said in an interview with news agency Reuters.

"Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women. It's about freedom; it's about liberation; it's about equality. I really don't know what my t**s have to do with it. It's very confusing." It's left Watson wedged firmly between a rock and a hard place. And today, when I push her on that difficult position (and much to the horror of her stern publicist), she delivers an uncharacteristically human response.

"To be that public about my opinions and feelings, you can't say something like that and not walk the walk. If you're going to do that, well, I have to live by this. And taking a stance on things doesn't make life easier - it definitely makes things more complicated."

She pauses for thought, perhaps sensing a vulnerability to her words that she then attempts to counter. "You know, the battles I fought and I fight make what I do feel much more worthwhile and it gives me much more of a sense of purpose. And I'm glad that I get actively involved. But it's not easy. Ultimately, I follow my heart because that's all I can do."

There's no doubting that Beauty and the Beast is a passion project for Watson. Directed by Bill Condon - the man behind Dreamgirls and Chicago - the lavish epic is a beautiful spectacle, largely modelled on the 1992 classic, the first animation to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Alongside Stevens and a starry cast including Ewan McGregor as Lumière, Emma Thompson as Mrs Potts and Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Watson shimmers as Belle, the wayward outsider, stifled by her insular village surrounds.

When she stumbles on the Beast's castle where her father, played by Kevin Kline, is imprisoned, she sacrifices herself and takes his place. She soon learns that Beast and his servants are cursed by a spell which can only be broken by true love.

"It's literally your childhood fantasy," Watson explains, in her signature clipped tones. "I watched that film with a sense of wonderment probably a thousand times, much to the annoyance of my parents. And to actually be in that dress, riding Philippe [the horse], to be wandering around that beautiful castle set, it was amazing. I also felt an immense responsibility. While it was me playing the role, there's a huge pressure because Belle - she's an archetype, she's a symbol, she's every girl. If I do my job well, she belongs to everyone, not just to me."

Watson claims that much modernisation was needed to bring the new version up to date. "The original was released in 1992; now it's 2017: things have moved on a lot from then. I think the film would fall flat if they didn't speak to the times we're in now."

Director Bill Condon says Watson (who today is clad in a monochrome bustier and trousers by Carmen March, one of the many ethically sourced outfits worn for the Beauty promotional tour and documented on her new Instagram page, @the_press_tour) was at the heart of Belle's feminist reinvention.

"She was involved in everything having to do with Belle's environment and costumes. She was so meticulous in the meaning of every costume change, about wearing the appropriate boots and about the dress she wears in the village having pockets.

"Also, Belle was as much an inventor as her father, which was hinted at in the animation. Here we have her doing her own calculations. Emma suggested we could do more with her alone in her own specific world, which led to a washing machine in a well. That was all Emma."

Belle's love of literature is something Watson was also keen to play up. And small wonder, since she founded an online feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf, which boasts nearly 175,000 members. "When Belle enters Beast's library, that's not just her dream - that's mine," Watson says. "I love how she swings along on those wheelie ladders, climbing these elevated storeys of books. And, you know, I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library."

For both Stevens and Watson, Beauty and the Beast marks an opportunity to finally eclipse their signature roles in Downton and Harry Potter, respectively. Do they relish that thought?

Her publicist's nostrils flare slightly, while Watson shyly squirms in her seat. Stevens, however, gratefully responds.

"It's certainly not a burden," he says. "Downton changed my life and I know [Harry Potter] changed Emma's. The privilege of that and to carry forward with roles like this adds to the canon."

"And Emma?" I ask. She hesitates slightly. It's a perplexing display for a question so tame. "I think that I just feel really lucky. For me, Belle was my childhood heroine; [the film] came out two days after I was born. And then, in my early teens, it was about idolising Hermione. So to be given the chance to play my two childhood idols is probably a very unique and rare experience for an actress.

"And I think," she continues, "I think I came out of this with more confidence, with more skills. And more belief in myself. Because when I came off Potter and decided to go to university, that wasn't a career decision the people I worked with were pleased about. But I kind of… I try to stay true to whatever whisper I'm getting from myself and I hope that will see me through. That's all I can do really. Otherwise, if I don't listen to myself, I'd feel a bit lost in it all."

Difficult to imagine Emma Watson, the twentysomething movie mogul and ambassador for human rights, feeling lost. And given the rigorous conditions attached to today's interview, one could easily question whether these humble claims are just part of the act.

Meeting the star today, however, it seems that, under the shiny veneer and terse brand control, lies a grounded spirit and decent human being trying to do some good. Hopefully, she'll stay the course as a campaigner and not become a total princess.

[thisdaynews]

Who Should Be on the Next Mount Rushmore?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/who-should-be-on-the-next-mount-rushmore/

Who Should Be on the Next Mount Rushmore?

Are there any American “heroes” we can agree on in 2019? This might sound like an abstract question, but for the Fourth of July weekend,Politico Magazinehas decided to make it more concrete, asking experts: Who would you put on a new Mount Rushmore?

Every year, more than 2 million people drive to Keystone, South Dakota, to stare at the 60-foot-tall granite heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The sheer size of those heads evokes our sense of the heroic—people who didn’t just achieve something but embodied larger American values. “What makes the hero a hero is the romantic notion that he stands above the tawdry give and take of everyday politics,” H.W. Brands wrote in his biography of Roosevelt.

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For all their contributions to American history, it is hard, in 2019, not to think about the fact that two of the four figures on Mount Rushmore—all white men—owned slaves, and none even served at a time when women could vote. Americans today are deeply divided about which historical figures we should continue to revere; over the past several years, many of the old “heroes” of U.S. history have been revisited and, in some cases, lopped off their pedestals, both metaphorically and literally.

If a new Mount Rushmore were designed today, it’s reasonable to argue it should look very different. But who would make the cut?

To imagine a new mountain, one that reflects the nation we live in now, we asked a collection of writers and historians for suggestions. Who are the figures Americans should stand below and gaze up at? Who speaks to 21st-century America, or exemplifies some essential American value, or has been overlooked for too long? In whose stories can we find the makings of a new, shared national myth? Here’s what they said.

***

Ida B. Wells Keisha N. Blain is an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, editor-in-chief ofThe North Starand author ofSet the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom. For many people, Mount Rushmore represents the ultimate symbol of the United States. The four presidents whose faces are on display left a lasting impact on American society. Yet in 2019, as our nation becomes increasingly diverse, one cannot help but observe the glaring exclusion of women and people of color. While there are many Americans who deserve a spot on Mount Rushmore, I would like to see a carving of Ida. B. Wells, a black woman whose life and ideas embodied the American ideals of liberty and justice forall.

Wells, a fiery civil rights activist, political journalist and co-founder of the NAACP worked tirelessly to bring an end to lynching in the United States. From the late 19th century, when she became co-owner of theMemphis Free Speech and Headlightnewspaper, until her death in 1931, Wells publicly challenged racial violence and Southern Jim Crow laws—even at the risk of her own life.

Holding fast to her mantra, “truth is mighty,” Wells’ editorials and speeches directly confronted the problems of racism, inequality and violence in American society, and brought attention to the systemic problem of lynching in the United States. By presenting statistical data based on meticulous research, Wells debunked widespread beliefs that victims of lynching were guilty of committing crimes. In so doing, she demonstrated how lynching functioned as a tool of white supremacy—designed to prevent the social advancement of black people in the aftermath of slavery. Her anti-lynching campaign, which extended throughout the United States and Britain, helped to catapult the issue of racial violence into the center of national and international political discourse.

At a moment in our nation’s history when truth seems to be a luxury, Wells’ passionate truth-telling in the face of injustice serves as a model for all. Her ideas and activism provide a blueprint for how we might address contemporary—and persistent—challenges in American society, including racism, discrimination and state-sanctioned violence.

***

Elliot Richardson Geoffrey Kabaservice is director of political studies at the Niskanen Center and author ofRule and Ruin. Elliot Richardson looked remarkably like Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent. If the likeness of the former attorney general were to be carved at a grand scale on some new Mount Rushmore, you might imagine him the embodiment of virtues beyond those of normal mortals. Indeed, one of his political opponents even printed a bumper sticker saying, “Vote for Elliot Richardson: He’s better than you.” But the lesson he taught us is that the responsibility for preserving American values belongs to every citizen. In memorializing him, we remind ourselves of our own obligation to stand up for democracy when it’s threatened.

Richardson didn’t want to be remembered only (or even primarily) for his role in the 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre,” when he resigned as attorney general, rather than accept President Richard Nixon’s order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. His long career in public service began with his World War II heroics as a platoon leader in the D-Day assault on Utah Beach, included several political offices in his native Massachusetts and extended through four different Cabinet positions, as well as two ambassadorial appointments.

Born into what was, in effect, the American aristocracy—Richardson was descended from Boston’s earliest settlers and grew up in President John Adams’ boyhood home—he combined ancient WASP ideals of honor and courage with modern principles of inclusive, accountable leadership. A moderate Republican, he believed deeply in civil liberties and civil rights; he had the educative experience of being turned away from segregated Washington, D.C., restaurants in the late 1940s, while out dining with his fellow Supreme Court law clerk William Coleman, the first African-American to occupy that position. As Nixon’s secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Richardson championed the Family Assistance Plan (the precursor to the Earned Income Tax Credit), as well as a visionary proposal for universal catastrophic health insurance that many analysts still regard as superior, in some respects, to the health care plans advanced decades later by Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Nonetheless, Richardson’s legacy is defined by his conscientious defiance of Nixon’s order that he fire Cox. His decision to resign was difficult because Richardson had great personal loyalty to Nixon and understood that he was sacrificing his own hopes of political advancement in order to save the republic. But integrity dictated no other course.

Watergate, along with the Vietnam War, gave rise to our present corrosive public cynicism about government and politics. But Richardson still stands as a shining reminder of the capacity of public servants to live up to our enduring traditions of republican virtue and a government of what our founders called “laws not men.” We honor our highest values by remembering his example.

***

Bayard Rustin Michael Benjamin Washington is an actor and playwright. In 2008, the very thing I was told would never occur happened: A black man was elected president of the United States. In 2012, it happened again.

Shortly after Obama’s election,as I strolled through Central Park on a rainy, unemployed afternoon, contemplating newfound possibilities and forgetting old assurances, I was startled by the number of bronzed white men populating the park. No statues of women. No people of color (save Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar). But there is a dog.

I immediately went home to review a draft of my play,Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin. I questioned: Shouldn’t this great man—a black Quaker who traveled to India in 1948 to collect the nonviolent civil disobedience teachings of a recently assassinated Mohandas Gandhi from his disciples, thus sparking the American Peace Movement—be standing alongside these historical figures? Why isn’t this brilliant political organizer and strategist who taught, tutored and mentored—three very different verbs—the same value system to an inexperienced young minister from Atlanta named Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955, thus shaping the bedrock of the civil rights movement, be embossed near these white political leaders?

Rustin’s life and legacy have been buried under an avalanche of reductive labels and adjectives: socialist, openly homosexual, agitator, ex-con (for conscientiously objecting to the draft). Statues and monuments weren’t built for men who challenged the system, but for those who maintained it. But as a new generation of what Rustin called “angelic troublemakers” takes to the streets to march and fight for their demands, wouldn’t it be lovely if, somewhere in our great cities, an immortalized reminder of great outsiders were erected to showcase the power of pride and persistence?

***

Patsy Takemoto Mink Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is a professor of Asian American studies and director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine. To memorialize Patsy Mink on a new Mount Rushmore is to honor the promise of the United States.

She was born in the middle of the Pacific, in Hawaii, three decades before it was a state, when it was a hierarchical plantation society, one that displaced Native Hawaiians, with a population dominated by laborers who, like her grandparents, had emigrated there to harvest sugar cane. She was an outsider who advocated for others relegated to the margins of U.S. society, amplifying their voices and fighting for human rights.

A few years after statehood, Mink was elected to Congress, becoming the first woman of color to serve in the House of Representatives. From 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 to 2002, the year she passed away—and when her loving constituents reelected her posthumously—Mink spearheaded antiwar, environmental and feminist legislation. Her legacy is defined by Title IX, the 1972 landmark civil rights law (now renamed after Mink) that mandates gender equity in schools and has opened up opportunities for tens of millions of girls and women in academic programs, scholarships, campus housing, educational employment and athletics.

Title IX brought a seismic shift in American life. Beforehand, it was legal for schools to discriminate against female students or expel them for being pregnant; colleges could block women from admission; schools were under no obligation to prevent or address sexual harassment of young women; and sports teams for female students were virtually nonexistent. After the law sent into effect, women and girls could no longer be relegated to second-class citizenship in America’s schools—as monumental an achievement as one can attain. To honor Mink is to recognize the persistent inequalities that exist in the United States and beyond, while celebrating the political imagination and will to create a more just society.

***

Dwight D. Eisenhower Garry Wills is the author of, among other books,Why I Am a Catholic,Papal SinandLincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize. When Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, putting an end to Democratic control of the White House through the 1930s and 1940s, many Republicans thought they could at last reverse or rescind the New Deal, which they had run against under Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The realistic Eisenhower knew better, as he wrote in a letter to his brother in 1954: “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again.”

Eisenhower’s service to this nation did not end with his calm direction of the vast European campaigns of World War II. People like Winston Churchill thought that with World War II over, we could restore the old colonial system in the world. Not Eisenhower. Asked to rescue the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, he said no. When France and England tried to “retake” the Suez Canal in 1956, Eisenhower joined with the United Nations in stopping that. Eisenhower had ended the Korean War with a compromising armistice, where others had said we could not “lose face” that way. Other presidents were cowed by generals; Eisenhower defied them and their lobbying contractors, being the only president to cut defense spending while warning us against “the military industrial complex.”

At home, he did not praise theBrown v. Board of Educationdecision; he just enforced it, sending troops into the South for the first time since Reconstruction. Admittedly, he gave us Richard Nixon. But he tried repeatedly to take back that poisoned gift, demanding that Nixon first prove he was “clean as a hound’s tooth.” When Nixon was running on his own in 1960, asked what contribution he had made as a vice president, Eisenhower said, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”

He gave us so much peace and prosperity that he was mocked as sleeping through his years in office. Would that other presidents slept so well.

***

Thurgood Marshall Susan Bordois the author, most recently, ofThe Destruction of Hillary Clinton: Untangling the Political Forces, Media Culture, and Assault on Fact that Decided the 2016 Election. I hate the self-congratulatory term “woke.” No person or politics can claim that achievement. But therearegenuine moments of startled recognition, when we suddenly see our familiar world with new eyes. We’re living through one of them: Practically every day, we wake up to the reality of just how fragile—not just radically imperfect, but radically fragile—the rule of law actually is.

This cultural moment gives new meaning to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s description of Thurgood Marshall as “the greatest lawyer of the 20th century.” Taught by his mentor Charles Hamilton Houston that the Constitution was a “weapon” in the battle for equality, Marshall was a tireless legal warrior against the conventions that normalized the unjust and the morally unacceptable. The 14th Amendment was his inherited artillery, but he understood that the words themselves were not capable of conferring equal protection under law; that equality must be fought for.

Marshall is best known for tearing down the legal architecture of segregation and, later, for becoming the first black Supreme Court justice. In the official histories, he is most prominently recognized as a fighter for racial justice. In fact, he deepened and broadened our understanding of the 14th Amendment in ways that would serve reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, workers’ rights and the very concept of “equality” itself.

Marshall was, of course, the attorney behind theBrown v. Board of Educationlawsuit that led the Supreme Court to rule in 1954 that racially segregated, “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. The brutal backlash that followed, televised over the next decade for the entire nation to see, turned a struggle seen by many Northerners as a “Southern thing” into a nationwide social movement.

Marshall was not surprised by the tenacity of resistance to integration. He understood that the legal battle for equality was also a cultural war, and that the enemy had tentacles that reached far beyond the domain of the law.As a young traveling attorney for the NAACP, he combated poll taxes and other forms of voter suppression. But he also believed that the vote would not be truly democratically deployed until other forms of discrimination—in education and employment, for example—were abolished. As a Supreme Court justice, his arguments against the death penalty emphasized that it not only was “cruel and unusual punishment,” but also that it was disproportionately meted out to black men. Likewise, in arguing forRoe v. Wade,he stressed that the burdens and risks of illegal abortions fell disproportionately on the backs of poor women. His vision of justice was inclusive and took into account the world as it is actually lived.

Looking back at his arguments from the vantage point of 2019, it’s clear that Marshall was not just a revolutionary thinker, but, in many ways, ahead of his time. Yet, when I teach the 1950s and 1960s to college students, they rarely have heard of him. Like other innovators from the era, he left a huge historical footprint, but the man himself has been eclipsed by more visible, dramatic forms of activism.

“We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King,” read an editorial in theWashington Afro-Americanafter Marshall’s death in 1993, “but every day, we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall.”

***

Dorothy Day Andrew J. Bacevich is a co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new book,The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory, will be published in January. Ours is a time when authenticity is in notably short supply. The American scene today is awash with frauds, phonies and poseurs. An appalling number of them prosper. For proof, one need look no further than the various personages who presently claim 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as their residence or place of employment.

Dorothy Day exuded authenticity. Through words and work, she testified to her convictions with unwavering consistency. To the marrow of her bones, she was a Catholic Christian. Jesus Christ had commanded: “Love God and love your neighbor.” After her own youthful journey of discovery, Day responded with a resounding “Yes.”

The implications of that affirmative answer were profound. Day devoted her life to doing the Lord’s work—a phrase used here without the slightest trace of irony. She co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement—which, in a network of 174 communities across the nation (and another 29 abroad), still today provides food, shelter and comfort to the most vulnerable among us. At a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality, no one is ever turned away.

Day denounced racism and campaigned for social justice, causes that featured prominently in her columns in theCatholic Workernewspaper that she founded in 1933 and edited until her death in 1980. An uncompromising pacifist, she steadfastly opposed all war and figured prominently in the anti-nuclear weapons movement of the early Cold War. Activism, resistance and love were the overarching themes of her long and consequential life.

Day was the real deal. Few of us today have the strength of character to follow in her footsteps. Yet all of us can benefit from her example.

***

Fannie Lou Hamer Kelly Dittmar is an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers-Camden and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics. The Americans remembered in our monuments and museums should include those who were marginalized from institutional power, instead of just those who wielded it. If MountRushmore featured Fannie Lou Hamer, everyone who saw it would learn both about a life that revealed harsh truths about America and an American whose patriotism was exercised in spite of the country as it was and in support of the country she fought for it to be.

In the United States, progress has often resulted from the willingness of the most exploited and marginalized people to reveal—and risk—their personal pain in order to curb the same injustices against others. When Hamer told crowds in 1964 that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” she had good reason to give up on an America that had failed her from the start.

Within six years of her birth in 1917, in the Mississippi Delta, Hamer joined her family in the cotton fields. A racist system ensured that her education was cut short by the age of 12, but it was individual white racists—including the doctor who sterilized her without her consent in 1961, the officials who denied her the right to register to vote and the white plantation owner who fired her for attempting to do so in 1962—who used their power to maintain a system denying black women like Hamer the basic dignity of personhood. When Hamer was jailed in 1963 for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter while working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, white male officers stripped and beat her so badly that she sustained lifelong injuries. At each point of brutalization, Hamer could have focused on her own survival, but she channeled her pain into protest, joining the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s challenge to the 1964 Democratic National Convention, and running for Congress that same year.

In televised testimony before the DNC’s credentials committee that August, she described, in graphic detail, the state-sanctioned violence to which she and other black citizens were subjected. With poise, passion and power, she demanded that not only the Democratic Party, but also the nation, do better. For the remainder of her life, she continued her civil rights advocacy, helping to found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971.

Hamer spoke an incredibly painful and personal truth to power at great risk to herself and with little reason to believe the system that had long failed her would listen. She lent her selflessness, resilience and power to upend that system. Yes, Hamer was sick and tired of the America in which she was never fully free, but she was tireless in her fight for an America in which she—and those who shared her race and gender—would be.

***

Franklin D. Roosevelt Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College. A new monument that represents America would have to include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who transformed our government from one that privileged a few wealthy white men into one that answered to ordinary Americans.

When FDR took office in 1933, the Great Depression had left factories idle, fields rotting, and people unemployed and starving. Across Europe, people frustrated by the apparent inability of democratic leaders to end their economic misery turned to authoritarians. Fascism was rising; democracy was under siege.

Where fascists argued that some people were inherently better than others, FDR’s concept of democracy depended on human equality. He recognized that defending democracy meant creating a government that worked for everyone—one that expanded opportunity, provided a basic social safety net and developed the infrastructure essential for growth and modernity. And, critically, it also meant using government to check powerful interests, regulate business and banking, and protect workers’ rights. With the nation’s entry into World War II in 1941, FDR fought to defeat fascism and save democracy, while proving that the latter was superior, both ideologically and pragmatically.

It’s true that Congress’ New Deal policies privileged white men, not least because enacting those policies required the votes of Southern Democratic senators. But the ideological shift from a government that protected property to a government that protected civil rights mattered. FDR made it clear that the government worked for ordinary Americans. In 1933, he appointed the first female Cabinet secretary, Frances Perkins, who as head of the Labor Department developed Social Security legislation. In 1941, FDR banned racially discriminatory hiring in the federal government and at defense contractors, no small thing during the wartime mobilization of WWII.

By the time FDR died in 1945, just weeks before the Allies won their war to defeat fascism and tyranny, Americans of all parties—a “liberal consensus”—had rededicated themselves to his conception of democracy. Roosevelt’s vision produced the nation’s greatest years, a time when, briefly, it seemed that all Americans could achieve equality. It deserves to be remembered.

***

George H.W. Bush Tom Nichols is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and author ofThe Death of Expertise. The views expressed are his own. George H.W. Bush is an unlikely choice for a new Mount Rushmore because we know him too well. We know his odd mannerisms, his garbled phrases, his reedy voice that sounded thin even when he was delivering pronouncements of the greatest importance.

What makes Bush worthy of a monument is the way he applied courage and prudence to a world in chaos. We are all here—and not rebuilding a world shattered by a final nuclear paroxysm as the Soviet Union imploded—because of him.

Republicans too often give credit for the end of the Cold War almost solely to Ronald Reagan. But bringing the final Soviet collapse to a peaceful conclusion was almost entirely the work of Bush. He had to guide the wounded Soviet state to a soft landing, reassuring the Kremlin while protecting the world he hoped would emerge from the wreckage of the Cold War. When it was over, he sat at his desk and eliminated entire inventories of nuclear weapons with the stroke of a pen, and he disestablished one of the most powerful commands in the U.S. military. He did this without fanfare or much public notice, and when he was turned out of office in the midst of an inevitable economic setback, he accepted the result with his usual stoicism and grace. His successor inherited a country at the pinnacle of global power and a planet far safer than it had been in generations.

In the years since Bush was defeated in 1992, we have squandered his legacy. But his remarkable achievement is not diminished by our subsequent inability to be better stewards of what he bequeathed to us.

***

Dorothy Parker Jennifer Boylan is a contributing op-ed columnist for theNew York Times, the author of 15 books and the Anna Quindlen writer in residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. Dorothy Parker was a woman who shone brilliantly in a man’s world, back when the boyos thought being a “woman writer” was an aberrant stunt, like a circus bear riding a unicycle.

She’s best known now for her poems (“Love is a thing that can never go wrong / And I am Marie of Romania)”, her clever bon mots (“If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised”) and her membership in the Algonquin Round Table. But she was also a dedicated activist for civil rights and civil liberties. Five years before the United States entered World War II, she co-founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League—a group that counted many communists in its ranks and that contributed to Parker being blacklisted during the Red Scare. Even so, she continued to advocate for social change, supporting the civil rights movement.

Putting Parker on a new Mount Rushmore would even the score with Lilian Hellman, her so-called friend, who insisted on giving Parker the funeral she did not want and then refused to foot the bill to have her ashes buried. (To be fair, Hellman had been caught off guard by the fact that Parker’s will had made Hellman her literary executrix, even though the proceeds from any copyrighted work would go to Parker’s legal heir: Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hellman did not particularly like.) Parker’s remains wound up in storage at the cemetery for five years and, after that, spent 15 ignominious years in the file cabinet of a lawyer on Wall Street. In 2012, her remains were finally interred at NAACP headquarters, along with her chosen epitaph: “Excuse my dust.”

Finally, putting Parker on Mount Rushmore would make it clear that she deserves to be honored not just for her wit but for her wisdom. She had miraculous measures of both:

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

***

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Gil Troy is an American presidential historian, professor at McGill University, and author ofThe Age of Clinton: America in the 1990sandMoynihan’s Moment. America has an Oval Office obsession. We recognize Great Men when they occupy the White House. We hear them when they speak; we see them when they appear before cameras. But the people devoted to the serious business of governance—and who embody the qualities that requires—all too often seem unremarkable, even as theirs is the work that shapes the world.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was one of the post-World War II era’s most influential nonpresidents. As an adviser and policy expert, he served in the presidential administrations of Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford—a remarkable display of nonpartisanship that we need today. From 1977 to 2001, this loyal Democratic senator from New York cooperated with Cold War Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush while often tutoring colleagues from both parties on an astonishing range of issues. An updated American narrative must incorporate such patriotic virtuosity and old-fashioned civility.

While insisting that “words matter” and that we’re more than our origins, Moynihan represents a key stage in America’s maturation from all-white leadership to pluralistic governance. This proud Irish-Catholic climbed from Hell’s Kitchen to Harvard, an urban ethnic charting new paths to success. And as a poor kid who made good in the Ivory Tower and Washington’s corridors of power, he understood how constraining class could be—yet how liberating the American Dream is.

Moynihan was a Jeffersonian scholar-statesman: thinker, teacher, bridge-builder, policy wonk and quipster, both smart and funny. He generated a treasure trove of insights, warning against the “tangle of pathology” and “defining deviancy down”; snapping that “everyone is entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts”; defending Israel and the West from terrorists and totalitarian dictators by focusing on the “accusers” not “the accused”; teaching, “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

During the bleak, breast-beating 1970s, Moynihan proclaimed that “ours is a society worth defending.” So much of what he did, said and taught prove that he was an all-American life worth celebrating.

***

Grace Lee Boggs Jeff Chang is vice president of Race Forward and author ofWe Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation. When she passed away in 2015, at the age of 100, Detroit-based activist Grace Lee Boggs had become an oracle to a new generation in the streets. She spoke about what she called the “next American revolution.” “It’s that time on the clock of the universe,” she said, “where we face an evolution to a higher humanity, or the devastation and extinction of all life on earth.”

In Detroit, where many saw an urban wasteland, Boggs saw creativity and change. The seeds for community-based renewal were being planted in urban farms, accountability campaigns and educational programs that, she said, “put the neighbor back in the ’hood.” She described the work as a cultural revolution, where residents were transforming themselves and producing practical solutions that capitalism and government never could.

She once said, “Because I was born to Chinese immigrant parents and because I was born female—I learned very quickly that the world needed changing.”She entered Barnard College at the age of 16 and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy by the age of 26. The Depression introduced her to radical politics. She chose a life of radical thought whose touch points included Hegel, Marx, C.L.R. James’ postcolonial writings, Malcolm X’s “Message to the Grassroots” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech. Drawn to Detroit—where the workers were—she met the love of her life, the labor organizer James Boggs. The two were so influential in activist circles that, in the aftermath of the city’s 1967 rebellion, they were targeted for surveillance by the police.

But the uprising left the couple disillusioned, wanting to rethink the notion of revolution. The rise to power of Coleman Young, the charismatic, controversial former labor lawyer who, in 1973, was elected Detroit’s first black mayor, was no balm. “I began to see that Black Power could not solve the crisis we were facing,” she recalled. Detroit was evidence that capitalism did not work. “People always striving for size, to be a giant,” Bogs scoffs in the PBS documentary of her life, “American Revolutionary,” as she pushes her walker past gutted car factories. Instead, her post-materialist vision melded “the personal is political” and “small is beautiful” with “the beloved community.”

“Radicals don’t usually talk about souls,” she said. “What I mean by ‘souls’ is the capacity to create the world anew, which each of us has.”

***

Harriet Jacobs Allyson Hobbs is an associate professor of U.S. history and director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University. Almost 150 years before civil rights activist Tarana Burke founded the MeToo Movement, Harriet Jacobs had the courage to speak the unspeakable, sharing with the world her narrative as an enslaved woman and a survivor of sexual violence. Adding Jacobs to Mt. Rushmore in 2019 would expand our country’s understanding of enslavement and force a reckoning with the rampant rape and sexual violence that lay at the core of slavery.

Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. When she was only 12 years old, her master began to subject her to his sexual advances. Today, psychologists would call the effects of these advances “inappropriate sexualization,” a phenomenon that leads children to understand their value and worth primarily in sexual terms. Jacobs’ owner whispered foul words in her ear, and she endured his wife’s angry and jealous outbursts. As Jacobs later wrote in the narrative of her enslavement,Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861, she was “prematurely knowing in evil things.”

To escape her master’s depravity, Jacobsran. She hid in people’s homes and she took cover in a swamp. She would spend nearly seven years hiding in her grandmother’s attic, as her master continued to pursue her and published advertisements in newspapers in dogged but failed attempts to find her. She became physically disabled from living in such intolerable conditions, a dark and cramped space that was sweltering in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. She only could glimpse her children through small openings in the crawl space. She knew her children never could be her own; she had no power to protect them from the whims and the violent acts of their master.

Jacobs waited for her chance to escape, which finally came in 1842, when she took a boat to New York and eventually was joined by her children. After finding freedom, Jacobs decided to give voice to the experiences of a legion of enslaved women like her. She became the only woman to author a book-length autobiography in the antebellum period. She used creative narrative strategies to bridge the chasm between enslaved women and middle-class white readers, explaining that she wanted to “arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions ofwomen in the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse.”

Her narrative shattered the pattern of enslaved male narrators like Frederick Douglass and Solomon Northup by emphasizing collective action over individualistic ideas about masculinity and freedom. “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women,” Jacobs wrote. “Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

Jacobs faced hostile and doubtful audiences, but she forced them to take her seriously and to see the authenticity of her harrowing tale. She would not allow her readers to reduce her to her trauma: She presented herself as a whole human being—a granddaughter, a daughter, a mother, a seamstress and a writer. In boldly recounting her personal history, she revealed slavery’s enormous costs and the courage and resilience of those who endured those costs. We must remember Jacobs. With extraordinary courage, she began a movement—which continues today—to tell the truth and to fight for black women’s humanity.

***

Abraham Lincoln Aaron David Miller is a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center and author ofThe End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President. We live in an age where true greatness in our politics seems to have gone the way of the dodo. We have no problem appreciating it on the athletic field, on the stage or screen—but it’s notably absent in our political class. And so, we reach back to the past looking for heroes to somehow redeem our faith in our politics, our institutions and ourselves. And even our past heroes seem to disappoint—deemed either irrelevant to our current circumstances or debunked for hewing to the prejudiced standards of their time.

Still, if I had to choose a figure for a new Mount Rushmore, I’d choose a repeat from the original—Abraham Lincoln. Few others from across the broad expanse of America’s history have risen above time, space and partisan politics to remain so relevant to the challenges we face today. The qualities Lincoln embodied resonate powerfully, and we need them again in our political class.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Those simple words from his Second Inaugural made Lincoln a symbol of moral clarity and elevated the presidency to a platform for moral leadership at a time when the nation needed to heal and regain its balance from years of bloody civil war. Our divided polity requires nothing less today. Lincoln got us through blue versus gray and laid the foundation for a new framework to deal with race in America. Surely, we can absorb what he taught us and aspire to find our way through blue versus red, too.

Yes, Lincoln was an historic transformer. But he was not a naïve, idealistic politician untethered from the realities of his times. Perhaps one of his greatest strengths was his capacity to read his political time accurately, to wait—even at the expense of bitter and justified criticism from abolitionists—to find the right timing for the Emancipation Proclamation, and then to shepherd the 13th Amendment into ratification, abolishing slavery through fraught politics using distasteful pressure, horse-trading and questionable quid pro quos to secure its passage.

Lincoln, too, has gone the way of the dodo. And America has changed fundamentally from his time. But the qualities he embodied—his compassion, realism, faith in vision of a better America—resonate powerfully still. And their return to our politics is more urgently needed now than ever.

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons (Wells, Mink, Marshall, Day, Roosevelt, Jacobs, Lincoln), Associated Press (Richardson, Rusin, Eisenhower, Hamer, Bush), Library of Congress (Parker, Moynihan), Kyle McDonald/Flickr (Boggs).

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[lisbeny]

Final Instructional Design Course - Reflection

After over a year’s worth of full time study in this Masters degree program, I can proudly say that I’ve reached the end! This program has taught me a lot, not only by way of the actual course content, but because of the accelerated pace, and the overall format of online schooling. I was able to learn a lot about myself and what makes me thrive in an educational environment, I had to learn time management skills as I worked and studied full time, and quickly recognized the power of proper communication and deadline management, which is imperative when doing online schooling. 

As far as the actual course content, this Masters degree taught me practical skills that I’ve already put to use in my current role as a Training Coordinator. Below is an assessment of each course. 

Mastery - Personal Development and Leadership 

This was the first course in the program and it set the tone for all following classes. They eased us in, as there was not an actual project, but rather, a paper that we wrote, which helped us discover what we wanted to “Master,” as graduate students in this program.

Greatest Triumph: I got a 100 in this course, which was a very pleasant shock. I hadn’t been in school for just about four years and was unsure how I would do. This helped me gain a lot of confidence in myself and started me on the right foot. 

Strategies for Learner Engagement

This class was very entertaining for me. It was foundational in nature. The first assignment was to write a paper on various Instructional Design theories, including ADDIE, SAM, Gradual Release, Rapid Prototyping, and Schema Theory, among others. I found myself going back to this paper and the research materials quite often over the next few months, and even used some of them as resources in future assignments. 

Greatest Triumph: I earned a Course Director’s Award for this class. He really liked my designs for my Models of ID posters, and again, that was a great confidence booster. I can write well, but design has never been anything I dabbled with. This course really helped me see that I have an eye for aesthetic design and taught me cursory knowledge of design software, using the free service Piktochart. 

Visual and Verbal Communication in Instructional Design

This class took some of the elements of design in the previous course one step deeper. Here, we learned about typography and visual literacy, and used Adobe Illustrator. This software was brand new to me, and I made heavy use of Lynda.com, Google, and Youtube for how to customize my design. We also created an interactive infographic, which used Adobe Illustrator. I’ve been intrigued with the way many creatives can utilize simple vector shapes to create works of art, and I would love to be at that level some day. By practicing the infographic, I’ve gotten more familiar with using the graph tools, and it was slightly simpler than I imagined it to be. This will be helpful during training or curriculum-building, where I may want to depict information or statistics in an easily-digestible fashion. 

Greatest Triumph: My travel posters were quite a hit! It also helped me get even more hands on experience with very relevant software that I’ve since used. 

Corporate Training and Motivational Development 

This class taught us about the Conscious Competency Theory, which include Unconscious Incompetence, Conscious Incompetence, Conscious Competence, and Unconscious Competence. This was useful even in my role as a trainer. Knowing that each stage of that theory can come with widely varying levels of self-confidence (for instance, Conscious Incompetence is when you’re very aware that you don't know something, and that is not a fun experience to have at a new job,) meant that I could more easily guide my new hires through this phase and into Conscious Competence, which is a major morale booster. 

Greatest Triumph: I was actually traveling to Montreal, Canada during this class and still managed to get a high A. I was considering taking an interruption of training, as this trip had been planned for several months, but decided against it. I was able to have a great time in Montreal and submit my assignments on time as well! 

Instructional Design and Evaluation

This course was about learning how to create a Training Needs Analysis with a given project. We were given a previous student’s analysis which was about 4 pages, and our final version, after adding all required elements such as surveys and SME’s, ended up being about 15-20 pages long. I didn’t pass this course the first time around, due to some personal issues. However, when I retook the course, I came to the class mentally prepared for the amount of work that was required, and with a clearer understanding of the timeline and various goals of the analysis. This course taught me that there is so much research, planning, and iteration and reiteration that is required when developing a curriculum, more so than I expected! 

Greatest Triumph: I did very well the 2nd time around, so much so that my instructor used my final analysis as an “exemplary example of a final document.” I was honored and again encouraged to continue to push harder through the rest of the program.  

Digital Media and Learning Applications

This course taught us about the power of video as a medium for teaching. I was warned about this course by other peers who had taken it before, as it was the first course to implement coding, which I had no experience with whatsoever! First, we learned about the virtues of video as a learning tool. Then, we picked a topic and created an interactive quiz on a NASA video of our choosing. We used Illustrator to edit pictures, and Brackets for the coding. This assignment was very meticulous, as coding is extremely particular about any stray character you may add accidentally. However, this was one of my favorite projects as it was so hands-on and the final result was amazing, to think that I was able to do that! The quiz was fully customizable, which is always fun, and I learned a lot about my topic of choice, the 2017 Solar Eclipse, which was a huge event just a few months prior to the assignment. Finally, we created a video walkthrough of the quiz, and I added narration (not required but was fun to do) to explain my design choices. 

Greatest Triumph: I didn't start this class too great. My paper was lacking, in my instructor’s opinion, and I didn't score nearly as high as I usually do on papers. I don’t know if I got over-confident, or didn't understand the assignment, but it took some work to bring my grade up. However, at the end of the course, my instructor really liked my final project. I scored a 100 on it. He said it was fun to go through my quiz, and that I went “above and beyond what was required.” I learned, through this program, that I have a good speaking and narration voice and really enjoy doing it. 

Music and Audio for Instructional Design

This course was one of my absolute favorites! Here, we delved into GarageBand as a tool to record and edit narration, foley, and audio for videos. We started with a narration project, where we summarized and recorded us reading a Gimm’s Fairy Tale. We also had to add sound effects and background noises on GarageBand, which I had never used before. The final project had us record narration over a provided silent video of the Pioneer Village in Osceola County, Florida. This was a unique experience as I live in the area and took a field trip there as a chid in middle school. We recorded a dramatic narration and again added foley such as music, animal sounds, and the like, and used tools in GarageBand like ducking and audio editing. As mentioned above, I really enjoy narrating, so though this class was quite tedious, it was very fun to do. 

Greatest Triumph: I think my greatest triumph had to be simply learning how to use GarageBand properly. It came into play several more times throughout the program and this foundational class was super helpful for that. I’ve had GrarageBand for years on my Macs and never put it to use, and now I have good cursory knowledge for future personal projects, such as my podcast which is in development. 

Filmmaking Principles for Instructional Design

This course built upon the previous audio course and added a video element. Here, we learned a lot about storyboarding, which is a very effective way of planning an instructional video. Though I've heard of them before, I never really saw the value of a storyboard until I had to submit one. I realized, after submitting it, that most of the work was done, Now, I just had to do the actual recording. I underestimated how much time it takes to plan something, and by the time it was time to record, I already could see the final product in my mind’s eye and was able to cut my recording time in half as a plan was already laid out. 

Greatest Triumph: I learned a lot about the concept of good lighting, and have used it in other assignments since. Understanding how to light your subject against the background made my final video very crisp and clean, and this was perhaps the first class where I could see most element of what I learned in the past, come into play. From typography, to the power of video as a learning tool, to audio essentials, it was a great amalgamation of my knowledge up to that point, and one of the more fun projects I did. 

Game Strategies and Motivation 

In this class, we learned about the power of gamification in learning. A lot of the concepts were difficult for me to grasp. I couldn’t initially differentiate between gamification and game based learning, as the terms initially seemed interchangeable to me. I did deeper research and was able to finally understand the difference between the two. We were also required to develop a plan for a game asset for a class of our choice, using Google maps. I designed a fun geography based game called Tripler, where my middle school students would team up and take a “trip” around the world, filling out a “Passport” for six separate continents and information on each, such as a famous landmark on each, and information about countries on each continent (Antarctica excluded.) 

Greatest Triumph: I presented this game to my sister and when I was done explaining it to her and showing her the pitch I created, she actually wanted to play it! I don’t have the actual components created, but it was so much fun to plan and imagine an actual classroom of students playing this game, that I would love to develop it, even if it’s just for my friends and family to play one day. I never imagined myself to be a game master or anything, so developing this game really had me walk through all possible scenarios and work through loopholes or confusing bits in the rules, which was difficult but very fun. 

Learning Management Systems and Organization 

In this class, we learned about various LMS’s that we can make use of when developing a course. This class’s content wasn’t particularly challenging, as we had to use a previously developed project as the basis of the course we were creating. However, I was going through a very rough time in my life, and I had to repeat this course several times. My instructor was very understanding but this was a huge disappointment to me. I knew I had it in me, and I had picked the silent video narration from the Audio class so I couldn’t pinpoint why it was such a hard class to get motivated for, other than the external factors of my dad’s illness getting in the way at the time. When I finally took the class (for a third time) I did very well. My instructor first recommended that I completely overhaul the project and change the topic, and that was a huge help for me. I couldn't imagine having to redo it a third time so taking on another topic really made it feel new to me. 

Greatest Triumph: My greatest triumph in this class, and perhaps in this whole program, was finally passing this class. I passed with a high A after having failed it twice, and it helped remind me that I was so close to the finish line, and that I had it in me to finish on a strong note. 

Media Asset Creation 

This course was another one of those that took a little from many previous courses and made use of what we’ve learned thus far. Here, we took the previous course’s project and created the media assets that we had proposed for the topic. In my case, I created an instructional video that introduced the students to the course, which was intended for new hires in a financial aid office. When I had switched the topic of the previous course’s project, my instructor said that it’d be helpful to create something I can actually use later, which this project very much was. It’s exactly related to what I do in my role currently as a financial aid advisor and trainer for the department. I was able to take specific time to create a very detailed course that I’m implementing in my training, rather than an arbitrary topic that would “sit on a shelf” and not really serve my career goals. 

Greatest Triumph: I love being able to use something that I did in class, in my current role. It affirms that I am in the career and degree that best suits me, and it didn't feel like wasted work. Being able to present this to my manager was a great experience, and I had much more passion behind this project, as it’s something that will take root and actually be fleshed out very soon. 

For this final project, I was able to consider various instructional design theories. I really connected with the idea of Gradual Release, which is my favorite theory, because it slowly releases the responsibility of knowledge to the learner. I planned my curriculum around this idea, of teaching a concept, having the learners practice it together, and assessing them on their own. I was also able to use software like Illustrator, GarageBand, and iMovie, which really brought my entire education in this program full circle, and helped me see how all pieces interlock to creating an effective training curriculum. 

Since I am already in this field, I have been able to use many of the concepts learned in this program already, and am excited to be able to implement more of them as I progress in my career. From developing more entertaining presentations using iMovie and Powerpoint, to adding and editing narration, audio, foley, and most importantly, creating a detailed, research-based, cohesive training needs analysis, this program has taught me more intricacies of corporate training than I could have hoped for. 

[deniscollins]

A Doctor with a Phone and a Mission

In Florida, it is a felony crime to profit by referring patients to healthcare providers to eliminate medical recommendations shaped by financial incentives. If you were the CEO of TreatmentCalls.com, which routes phone callers to rehab systems, what would you do: (1) reword your mission and delete any references to referrals, or (2) no longer do business in Florida? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

More than 200,000 people seek addiction treatment on the phone or online every month. Few of them realize that their pleas for help are a valuable commodity — one that is quietly fought over by those angling to turn a distress signal into cash.

Addicts represent big money to treatment centers, which are happy to pay a middleman $50 for a “lead” on a patient who might generate $40,000 or more in insurance claims in a matter of months. That is why television ads offering help to addicts air constantly nationwide.

But lead generators, or lead gens, aren’t necessarily the ideal path to rehab clinics — as Dr. Alan Goodwin, an inquisitive psychologist in Palm Beach, Fla., accidentally discovered earlier this year. That discovery led him on a monthslong personal mission to try to understand the ethically murky business of customer acquisition in the treatment world.

It started when Dr. Goodwin, who works as an education and health care consultant, phoned a local substance abuse awareness coalition with a question about the format of a presentation he was to make. Instead of the organization, he got a recording saying the number had been disconnected — but before he could hang up, the message continued.

“We can help you find an alternative addiction specialist,” the recording said, according to Dr. Goodwin. “Please stay on the line while we look.”

The medical group’s phone number, he quickly realized, had been hijacked by a drug-treatment referral service.

A man who identified himself as Jacob came on the line, and started asking Dr. Goodwin the kind of questions you ask an addict in crisis. Dr. Goodwin instantly invented a new persona: a 67-year-old with early onset Alzheimer’s, an unhinged wife named Betty and a drug-addled son who had just introduced him to heroin.

“I can get into it,” Dr. Goodwin said later, recalling his imagined identity. “My father was a retailer, but he somehow was involved with Second City, the improv comedy troupe in Chicago. So it might be genetic.”

With his call, Dr. Goodwin had chanced across the underbelly of the treatment industry, where new customers are corralled, often with a hard sell. By the time his conversation with Jacob was over, he had developed a new vocation — dialing up and lecturing the sketchy rehab referral services that have become telemarketers to the addicted.

He spent months struggling to map this realm, inventing a small cast of characters to help him find answers and meticulously documenting his encounters. All the while, he tried to determine who was behind the most ubiquitous TV ad on the air, one featuring a figure he called “the man in blue.”

Speedy Service, One Call Away

This was a project he assigned to himself. Now 76, Dr. Goodwin had spent decades in the addiction treatment field and had become the kind of trusted voice now occasionally called by clinics for advice. Because of that, he already knew that some clinics used underhanded tactics, which outraged him.

“I went into activist mode,” he said. “What I saw was pure opportunism.”

Lead generators, those who connect the people seeking a service to the people selling it, operate in a variety of businesses — carpet cleaners, locksmiths, personal injury lawyers and, as America confronts a persistent opioid crisis, drug treatment centers. Dr. Goodwin became a student of the business, starting with Jacob, the man he found himself speaking to during that first call.

Jacob connected him to Palm Partners in Delray Beach, Fla., which describes itself on its website as “one of the country’s most trusted alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers.” A representative at Palm Partners asked a few questions before urging him to spend the weekend detoxing in a sober home, followed by weeks of therapy.

When the rep offered to send a car — that very afternoon — to pick him up at home, it was time to end the ruse. “I’m not an addict,” Dr. Goodwin said he told the representative. “I’m Dr. Alan Goodwin, and I have some concerns about what just happened.”

Dr. Goodwin thought his critique would at least get an audience, and perhaps even prompt some changes. It was the first of many disappointments.

‘A Huge Opportunity’

Lead gens in addiction treatment can run afoul of so-called patient brokering laws, which prohibit commissions and kickbacks for referring patients to a provider. Florida, for example, this year made it a felony to profit from patient referrals. But the gamesmanship continues.

“We have to constantly monitor the web for fake versions of our clients’ websites,” said Daniel Gemp of Dreamscape Marketing, a Maryland firm that works with addiction clinics. “Fake social media reviews. Fake Facebook profiles. We have worked with 28 different industries and we have never had to play more defense than we do in addiction treatment.”

Some lead-gen operators in this field are hard to find, let alone get on the phone. But the chief executive of a major player, TreatmentCalls.com of West Palm Beach, Fla., contended that he performs a valuable service. Jason Brian, who founded TreatmentCalls.com in 2014, said that he will not work with clinics that lie about themselves, including where they are located and what services they offer. So, he said, people who reach clinics through his call system are more likely to enroll with quality providers.

And after Florida criminalized paid health care referrals, Mr. Brian said he took the word “referral” out of his ads to stay on the right side of the law. Further, he now says that his company isn’t, strictly speaking, in the referral business, because every caller in his system is automatically routed to a rehab clinic without any input from TreatmentCalls.com. His company, in his judgment, is merely connecting — not referring.

Critics counter that deception is built in to this and other business models. Callers are unlikely to be told that they are getting medical recommendations that have been shaped by financial incentives.

Ben Cort, a consultant to rehab clinics, has conducted his own first-person experiments with addiction treatment lead gens. He said he has been placed on hold for a few minutes and then put up for a kind of instant auction after his personal information — age, insurance, drug of choice — were collected.

“People are making decisions in real-time because their loved ones are in immediate peril,” Mr. Cort said. “One more overdose and that’s the end. So nobody is researching rehab the way people research college, and that creates a huge opportunity for lead gens and clinics to take advantage.”

An ‘Aging Activist’ Finds a Cause

Dr. Goodwin has treated hundreds of addicts in a career that has spanned three decades. He grew up in a suburb of Chicago and earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Alabama. He was a freshman there when he volunteered at a state psychiatric hospital — and found his life’s work.

Starting in 1977, he served as the executive director of the Indian Rivers Mental Health Center, in Tuscaloosa, which eventually named a building in his honor. In the 1990s, he helped a private hospital, The Manors, in Tarpon Springs, Fla., create an addiction treatment program.

He later became an entrepreneur and now runs a company that designs what he calls group e-learning for colleges and other entities. He also cocreated a board game, “Drugs/Alcohol: Play it Straight,” the most public example of his knack for mixing the fun with the serious.

Today, looking professorial and perpetually tousled, he calls himself an “aging activist.” Inspired by Robert F. Kennedy, he has championed various causes over the years, large and small. Recently he organized a successful donation drive to ship flashlight batteries to Puerto Rico, after hurricanes Irma and Maria, an effort that was covered in his local newspaper.

Though no longer employed in the treatment field, Dr. Goodwin is still regarded by physicians and clinic owners as a resource. In April of last year, an investor in a clinic in West Palm Beach got in touch with him, he said, asking for patient referrals. Dr. Goodwin said he wanted to check out the place first. After a few days, he concluded that clients there were being grossly overcharged.

“They wanted to own fancy cars,” he said of the owners, “not to help anyone.”

Mr. Goodwin took his findings to the state’s attorney general. He said he was amazed that prosecutions for insurance fraud didn’t follow.

“My dad loves a challenge,” said his son, Joey Goodwin. “And when he found out what was happening in rehab, this was a challenge right in his neighborhood. Literally, because so many clinics are near his home in Florida.”

The acting part of his phone calls came naturally, Dr. Goodwin said, because of the years he had spent role-playing in group therapy settings. “Plus, I’ve worked for years with all the people I was pretending to be,” he said. “I’ve worked with the elderly heroin addict. I’ve worked with the kid smoking pot. I know them all.”

LONG ARTICLE CONTINUES

[touristguidebuzz]

Oasis CEO: Expect More Consolidation, Disruption From Alternative Accommodations

Oasis CEO Parker Stanberry said his company is pursuing a growth strategy fueled by strategic investments and carefully curated services for both guests and homeowners. Oasis

Skift Take: Will Oasis and other alternative accommodations players' arguably steadier, slower, and more curated approaches to scale pay off in the long term? Or will the speed and scale of bigger players like Airbnb win out in the end?

— Deanna Ting

Have alternative accommodations reached a saturation point at which they’re no longer considered “alternative”?

While that’s certainly up for debate, it’s also clear that this particular part of the lodging business, while still relatively young, is beginning to mature and to evolve.

Giants like Airbnb are branching out into other tangential businesses like tours and activities and, perhaps, even flights. Major companies like AccorHotels are investing in home sharing and vacation rental businesses themselves, buying onefinestay and soon, Travel Keys, a luxury vacation rental platform.

And if you speak to Parker Stanberry, CEO of Oasis (formerly known as Oasis Collections), we should expect to see much more consolidation going forward.

“There will be some consolidation,” Stanberry told Skift. “We bought a couple of smaller local players. We bought a company in Buenos Aires three years ago. We bought a company in Sao Paulo six months ago. These were strong, I’d say, local versions of Oasis. [It gives us the] ability to sort of drive value by adding those local players to our marketplace. Just leveraging our platform and our expertise and our distribution channels to apply them to that inventory that these people have meticulously built over time, that’s something I think we can go do or a bigger player could also come in and buy companies like Oasis itself and a few other people and sort of put it all together.”

Last year, AccorHotels took a 30-percent stake in Oasis, which markets itself as “home meets hotel.” Last month, Oasis raised $2.5 million from an undisclosed investor, and it now has more than 2,000 properties in 22 cities worldwide.

For now, the company is content pursuing a strategy of targeted growth, even as the marketplace is increasingly more crowded and more competitive.

“The core is more about slower growth based upon quality of experience, curation, really kind of nailing the model and nailing the experience.” Stanberry said. “I want us to be a global brand and a global leader and that requires some sense of scale. But to me, scale is, you know, 70 to 80 key destinations, or 300 to 500 properties per city. So you’re talking about a you know, 15,000- or 20,000-properties kind of platform. That’s real scale but it’s still not as big as a 3-million listings platform where you’re just never going to be able to create a uniform experience, right? So I think it’s experience first for us, experience and curation and then scale sort of logically from there.”

He added, “We’re looking at ways to drive scale in a thoughtful way by buying or combining with more local leaders where, if we can go from 100 homes in a city to 250 homes, that’s an attractive route for us.”

Skift recently spoke to Stanberry about the current state of the alternative accommodations space, why the lines between vacation rental, short-term rental, and extended stay are blurring, and what’s next for Oasis.

The following is an edited version of our conversation with Stanberry.

Skift: What’s new for Oasis right now?

Stanberry: We did a rebrand to Oasis instead of Oasis Collections. A bit of a sort of fresher, younger look I’d say. We brought in a great VP of marketing who came over from Bonobos that has just a great vision for the brand. So we did that.

And then we also released an iOS app that facilitates booking but also has all of your stay details and curated city guides. It has a perks section where it shows you a deal with Barry’s Bootcamp or Soul Cycle so you have a free class as an Oasis guest. Or something complimentary, you know, like a behind the scenes art tour at a gallery. Soon, we’re going to put a chat functionality in there as well, with the local concierges. We’re trying to move more toward mobile and it’s definitely a big push.

The other thing we’re doing is called “upgrades,” that leverages the fact that we do have teams on the ground everywhere. So after you book you can add a stocked fridge, or professional cleaning multiple times a week, or an airport transfer or pre-book something like an art tour during your stay. We’re trying to take the experience to the next level via these upgrades. Again, we’re really distinguishing that from what an individual host on a peer-to-peer platform would really be able to execute.

We launched Rome and Chicago last October. And then San Francisco earlier this year — it’s sort of still in beta mode. It’s a tough market from a real estate perspective. It’s just a very, very tight real estate market. This kind of completes a 13-city geographic push that we did over the past five quarters.

Onefinestay, I’d say, is probably our closest competitor but they’re in six cities now. Then you’ve got some domestic players that are scaling a little bit, like Sonder and a few other guys that have done, you know, some more second-tier U.S. cities. But from a global perspective, we’ve got a pretty big lead now footprint-wise.

  An Oasis listing from Austin. Source: Oasis

Skift: Are you also going after the extended stay market and if so, how do you position Oasis?

Stanberry: Yeah, definitely we do. Our business is kind of a barbell in terms of the use cases and the metrics. So we’ve got this sort of leisure, B2C piece that is a seven- to 10-day average stay, which is still quite long because we’re attracting an international traveler use case more so, than a New York to Boston, right? It’s a New Yorker going to Buenos Aires or a Brazilian family going to Paris for a two-week winter break or something. So we’ve got that dynamic of seven- to 10-day stays, but then we’ve got the corporate extended stay dynamic of 40-day average stays, which is very, very long. And we do stuff up to 6 to 12, even 12 months.

So the reason we’re positioned to do that is because our inventory is more sort of full-time rental ready inventory, where we’re not working with primary residences. So I can go to a JP Morgan and say, “If you’re moving 10 people to Buenos Aires for a year we can service that,” like true extended stay.

How we’re positioning it? We have offline sales people so we’re definitely doing in-person, good old-fashioned B2B sales and then we also find that a lot of leisure travelers who use us on their own are also the types of sort of young professionals who work for the kind of companies that could use us.

Skift: Lately it seems like all these categories we have in hospitality seem to be blurring. It’s hard to know what’s extended stay, a vacation rental, a short-term rental, etc. What are your thoughts on that?

Stanberry: I think trying to keep things in separate silos is not really necessary anymore and I think hospitality companies need to think about how products can be a little bit more versatile or sort of multi-use. With Oasis, people want me to say “This is exactly what it is.” Or they ask me: “Is it you know, for hip leisure travelers? Is it corporate? Is it extended stay? Is it short stay? Is it vacation rental?”

We’re trying to create a product that is versatile, that has a variety of use cases and that serves the same customer for different needs. During the course of the year or a lifetime. I think that’s why hotel brands are thinking about both. It’s so kind of far from their core businesses, it’s hard to imagine them actually building or having that skill set in house, right? But then if you come a little closer to what a traditional hotel is, what if half of your rooms had living rooms and kitchens?

There’s this really cool property in Amsterdam called Zoku that’s won some awards and has mini studio apartments, or mini loft apartments. It feels like a hotel but they’re like mini loft apartments.

Or what if a hotel made a deal with an adjacent condo building to administer short-term rentals?

The companies that are being innovative are trying to service areas, slivers of that spectrum and not just be so constricted, I guess. Does that make sense?

Skift: For people who aren’t familiar with Oasis, how would you best describe the model that you operate on, then?

Stanberry: The easy tagline is, “The home meets hotel.” It really is right in the middle and it’s trying to take the best parts of the hotel and the best parts of a home rental and ram them together to create a third sort of category that’s in the middle. By virtue of it being in a home, it could be a long-term rental. Someone might want to rent this thing for two years. Maybe they don’t care about our concierge services or whatever but they just really love the property.

And it’s suitable for a true extended stay. It’s also suitable for a 30-day corporate stay. It’s also suitable for a leisure stay. So you’re servicing an end of the spectrum that’s almost getting into real estate. It’s almost people that are actually looking for a place to live versus a combination.

I don’t compete for one and two night stays. I think the hotel experience is just fine for a 36-hour stay. I don’t think we add that much to a 36-hour stay, quite frankly. And there is so much on the convenience. You know, the in-and-the-out and the utter convenience. But when you start to get to sort of four nights, five nights, I think, our product caters to people that are hotel people and aren’t really interested in the sharing economy, per se. But our offering sort of tips them over the edge, you know? On those four-night plus use cases.

Skift: Right. And you’re managing these properties on behalf of the owners?

Stanberry: Yes. It’s a fully intermediated marketplace where the traveler and the owner never speak to one another. The traveler deals with Oasis as a hospitality provider. The owner deals with us a property manager, basically. So that’s another way to think of it from kind of a business model perspective.

Skift: Earlier this year there was so much talk about the luxury vacation rental space, with Accor saying it wants to buy Travel Keys and then Airbnb buying Luxury Retreats. Why do you think there was so much interest in that particular part of the business? And what does this mean for your business at Oasis?

Stanberry: People are acknowledging that there is a fundamental difference between a peer-to-peer classifieds or web-driven classifieds business and a high-service hospitality business. They’re two different things, right?

Airbnb realized that and said, “We’re sort of trying, we’ve been trying to fake it ’til we make it to some extent.” If they’re really going to step into it, it’s a different expertise. It’s a different approach, it’s a different model, and I think the easier niche within that sort of broader niche to focus on is the sort of villa rental business. Because it’s been around a bit longer and there’s people that have more scale.

Luxury Retreats has been around 18 years. It’s got, it’s just got more scale than anyone that’s doing it at an urban level. It’s an easier target. Wyndham has also bought a few more traditional villa rental or high-end vacation rental businesses over the years.

I think there’s a lot of disruption in the extended stay. It’s ripe for disruption, this sort of relocated extended stay business, because traditional corporate housing is pretty drab and pretty depressing a lot of times. And there are a lot of intermediaries in the whole value chain: a company who goes through a relocation company who goes through a corporate housing company aggregator who goes to someone like me. So there’s a lot of room for this intermediation there. That’s something I’m pretty excited about, in that sort of corporate extended stay niche.

An Oasis listing from Rio de Janeiro. The Miami-based company got its start in South America. Source: Oasis

  Skift: How is Accor’s investment in Oasis playing out? What kind of a relationship do you have with the company’s other alternative accommodations players like onefinestay, which is a competitor?

Stanberry: I don’t want to speak for them too much but I think the way they approach it is, kind of a multi-brand strategy. They’ve got 19 brands and so, you know, if they’re going to go into alternative accommodations, having several brands that attack slightly different niches, is kind of the way they’ve chosen to play it.

We all are quite independent, whether they own 100 percent or they own 30 percent or they own 49 percent, there’s not a sort of unified operating platform or anything. We are each operating totally separately and we talk to each other and brainstorm things. We work with Accor on some specific synergies and projects.

I think there is definitely opportunity for some collaboration and synergies as time moves along. I expect that there would be some of that. But on the other hand, you’re right: I do consider onefinestay a competitor in the cities in which we coexist. We’re in a lot of cities where they’re not. But in the cities where we are in the same place, of course we are competing for the same travelers. But if you think of Accor’s universe or if you look at a Marriott-Starwood, you know, are Mercure and Novotel that different? You’ve got Mercure and Novotels in the same city.

So that’s kind of how hotel groups are set up. It’s definitely not the way that Silicon Valley brands are set up. The whole multi-brand thing is very hospitality. It’s not very start up-y. I can’t imagine Airbnb going out there and investing in or buying people and keeping those brands. They’re going to want everything under the Airbnb platform, I would think. But I think that’s just kind of a fundamental difference in how those two industries operate.

Skift: Are you concerned about brand awareness for Oasis given how competitive this market is becoming?

Stanberry: The travel and hospitality industry is the biggest industry in the world so if you’re small, it’s very, very hard to make a name. And I think we’ve done it in certain circles, based on just great guest experience and within the corporate travel universe, becoming a little bit better known and among the early adopters who knew us based on using us in South America in our early years.

Now they’re talking about us and they’ll come back and use this in Paris. We’ve done it in the kind of slower build, kind of word-of-mouth driven way. Now I think we are at the scale in terms of the offering and in terms of the coverage where that will naturally drive more awareness. Because we’re just going to be more relevant.

We’re still small scale but we’re going to be much more relevant being in 13 countries than when we were in, you know, 18 months ago we were in five countries, you know, in one region, and now we’re in 13 in three regions. So I think that pure kind of footprint is part of our push for awareness. And then beginning to scale up other channels.

But sure, is it a concern? Yeah. It’s hard and expensive to build a brand and build awareness in this space.

Skift: Are you planning to tackle the Chinese market?

Stanberry: No, I would do more probably more like the Western expat friendly destinations like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney; they would probably be the first three cities that we would do. Tokyo has the Olympics in 2020 and the events business is kind of one of our angles as well, helping companies and consumers with accommodations around major events. So I would think after we establish a base there, we’d be looking at a Tokyo, Bangkok.

Skift: Is there any reason you want to avoid China for now?

Stanberry: It’s just not a region that I have any expertise in. I think you have to be pretty smart about how you enter mainland China. And I think it’s just such a big fish to fry, that there’s so much other opportunity in Asia outside of there.

Skift: How has Oasis dealt with regulatory challenges as you try to expand?

Stanberry: It is a challenge. I think because we are on the ground, we’re nimble. We’re able to sort of navigate it a bit better cause we don’t have to be all things to all people, right? If there are particular neighborhoods where you can’t do it, we can just not do that neighborhood, you know? We’re not out there saying we got thousands of listings in every single neighborhood; we don’t need to.

So if Santa Monica is tough, then we can just avoid Santa Monica, you know? I think we’re also able to kind of have more of a collaborative partnership with the owners because we are face to face and on the ground and make sure they understand the regulations. If they’re going to violate them, at least they know it’s ultimately their choice.

On the company side, we are going to be collecting the taxes and paying the taxes; the hotel occupancy tax is necessary. In Miami, LA, and a few of our other jurisdictions, we do that. We collect that and remit that on behalf of the owners if there are minimum stay requirements, then we sort of work with those city regulations. Madrid, for example, has a five-night minimum stay.

I’d say Barcelona and New York are the two toughest regulatory environments in which we operate. Ones that I’ve looked at that are hard, thus we haven’t done them, are Berlin and Amsterdam. I really wanted to do Amsterdam. We actually took a hard look at it, put someone on the ground and it just seemed like it was going to be too hard and Berlin is rough as well.

Again we have the advantage of vetting things on the ground so we can sort of steer people in the right direction and we don’t have to be everywhere, right? So we can be a little bit more selective about where we go.

The other thing that helps us is just our long average stay. A lot of the regulations involve minimum lengths of stay. Or they tell their tenants you can only do three or four leases per year or some rule like that. And because we’ve got the sort of extended stay, relocation, digital nomad clientele, we can say, “Sure. If that’s the rule of this building, we can, we’re happy to market this for 30-day or 90-day stays.”

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The Most Expensive Mercedes Benz Production Car

The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196: A Symbol of a Culture

  An unparalleled reputation, outstanding performance in producing high- quality vehicles, and a very popular and reliable brand name are some of the reasons why Mercedes-Benz remains first and on top in the car manufacturing industry.   The total package of owning a beautiful looking vehicle, inside and out, compensates the millions of money worth of Mercedes-Benz. Though some brands are built to last for a span of time, however, Mercedes-Benz vehicles are built to last forever.   There may be many German car brands that are famous around the world since Germany was known to as the birthplace of automobiles. Moreover, car companies in Germany have some remarkable skilled vehicle engineers and designers. Some of the best car brands in Germany are BMW, Porsche, Mercedes and Audi. Nevertheless, the best German car brand is Mercedes as its reputation is still unparalleled all over the world.  

Not Just A Brand

  The Mercedes-Benz brand is not just a familiar name, but there is more to such name for a reason. Even the three-pointed star badge placed in the front part of the vehicle doesn’t just identify a Mercedes-Benz. There is more to it than that because it represents everything that Mercedes-Benz stands for, done before and will be doing in the future. It also symbolizes their promise to deliver the best or nothing.   Mercedes-Benz has made a breakthrough in history by producing the first car ever. Since then, it has never stopped innovating, developing and reinventing it. Despite its meticulous engineering, Mercedes-Benz has been defined by its continuous innovation.  

The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 The Most Expensive Production Benz

So far the most expensive Mercedes-Benz is the 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196. This well-known Mercedes-Benz is a combination of beauty and elegance and is one of a kind. The reason why this Mercedes-Benz cost far more expensive than other Mercedes-Benz is that it is a total package. There is no doubt how beautiful this car is from every angle. More importantly, the Mercedes-Benz W196 was one of the fastest cars available during that time.   Also included in the total package is the precious piece of history it carries. The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 made history when it was used by great formula one race car driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, to set a new formula one world record. Moreover, it competed and won nine of twelve races and two World Championships.   There were fourteen Mercedes-Benz W196 vehicles existed. During this time, ten Mercedes-Benz W196 cars still exist; six of which are inside Mercedes-Benz company while three are in museums. The Mercedes-Benz W196 was the first car in the world to use direct fuel injection and desmodromic valves.   Rudolf Uhlenhaut designed the W125 racing car of 1937, along with W154 and W165. He was then the one who designed the W196 after the war, so the four vehicles used similar design principles. The tubular, stiff, but lightweight space frame used for this car weighed only 36 kg. It was intended to have an escalated polar moment of inertia.   The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 was made to win a world title, and indeed it effectively won. Its features met all the demands of the Grand Prix formula required by the sport’s governing body.   The vehicle has a capacity of 2,500 CC without a supercharger or 750 CC with a supercharger. It can run for a distance of 300 km or a minimum of three hours. It has a 2.5-liter inline-eight engine. The basis of the engine featured technology was the Messerschmitt 109 plane of World War Two.   The 2.5-liter inline-eight engine was installed at an angle of 53 degrees to the right in the space frame to reduce frontal area and lower the center of gravity. It also used a crankshaft with one piece con-rods having a 68.8mm stroke, and 76mm bore. Such engine configuration was inspired by the 18/100 hp Grand Prix car of 1914. The cylinders used for the engine, divided into two groups of four with a central power take-off, were connected to a base plate.   The fuel used for the vehicle was an Esso mixture that is highly reactive, also included in the mixture was code RD 1, a combination of 2 percent nitrobenzene, 3 percent acetone, 25 percent 110/130 octane petrol, 25 percent methanol and 45 percent benzene.   Instead of using the conventional De Dion layout, the Mercedes-Benz W196 has a rear suspension swing axles with low pivot point. The design was made this way for its better behavior under acceleration. Moreover, its springing and front suspension used torsion bars, however, the front suspension includes a double wishbone. Moreover, telescopic dampers fitted back, and front and its water and oil coolers were situated right at the front.   The valves were closed by the action of the cams and rocker arms, instead of by springs when using desmodromic valve actuation. Around 50mm inlet diameter was used for the valves; each cylinder contains two valves.   Mercedes-Benz was the first to successfully prevail the limitations of using a spring in closing valves. It was the first that worked out, and Mercedes-Benz is one of the two makers to produce winning performance in world championship using desmodromic valve actuation.  

What Makes A Mercedes-Benz

  Since then, the name Mercedes-Benz has become a symbol for absolute quality and luxury. Consumers pay an excessive amount of money for Mercedes-Benz vehicles because they see that the experience and satisfaction of owning it outweigh the price. Such customers are aware that they are never less satisfied with the luxury and performance they witness in the vehicles.   Many have dreamt of owning one of these cars because of its outstanding features. Some of the most amazing models that exist in the world contain features that are unique and particular to Mercedes-Benz models.  

A Combination of Innovation, Performance and Design

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Safety First Is The Number One Rule

  One of the reasons why Mercedes-Benz remain as one of the top quality driven companies of all time is because of the excellent safety you can get from it. Over half a century now, Mercedes-Benz engineers have been continuously operated to preparing for any emergency situations or accidents that may occur.   Many innovations have taken place to strengthen and develop the vehicle for this. Most likely, the safety firsts of Mercedes-Benz set a standard to all automobiles. Any model of Mercedes-Benz has been set to protect you in ways you might never have imagined. At present, Mercedes-Benz provides new and different breakthroughs to make an accident less likely and less severe.  

Takeaway

  Mercedes-Benz continues to outshine and excel in the field of car manufacturing industry. Until now, the company still embodies and integrates its core values to its works. The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 truly captures the total package filled with beauty, luxury, and elegance brought by one of the most renowned and established car manufacturing company in the world. Such Mercedes-Benz is the only remaining example of a milestone race car because this car dominated every Grand Prix Contest it entered.   Since Mercedes-Benz continues its effort to attain constant innovation to serve and deliver better products, no doubt there will be more expensive cars sold shortly. More global wealth will mean a huge demand for expensive items. Though there may be more expensive cars sold quickly, there are still few cars in history that can boast a provenance as extensive as this 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196.   Due to the impact made by Mercedes-Benz not just in the car manufacturing industry, but also in the history of humanity, it paved the way for the development and innovation of new and improved technology for vehicles. This global recognition experienced by Mercedes-Benz moved and inspired others to strive and build a brand based on the core values imposed and followed by Mercedes-Benz.  

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