#lets just say the sixth graders had it worse in this version

[tstain-is-an-idiot]

CU, except I swapped the genders and changed some minor story details

So basically it's a more magical girl-ish version of the story instead of a normal superhero one (she still is, but just more... magical, I guess?)

[yukithesnowman314]

Throughout her short seventeen years of life, Sakura Minamoto dealt with everlasting failures and setbacks that mentally wrecked her. In the third grade, she landed the intense star role of Snow White after months of relentless practice to master the role; only to become sick and bedridden on the day of the performance.

Gifted with superior athletic skills, Sakura was selected as captain of her school’s relay team.  She trained day after day in hopes of leading her school to victory against other schools in the Saga district.  Alas, on the morning of competition, she tore up her hamstring; forcing her to retire.

This is why you stretch before any physical activities, children.  

But, those past failures wouldn’t hold her back. Determine to eradicate her bad luck, Sakura (now a sixth grader), had her sights set on academic mastery; vowing to shut everything out of her life in order to enter the best high school in her school district. Friends. Family. Entertainment.   If it wasn’t a tool that’ll help her gain scholarly success, Sakura ignored it. Nothing mattered to her sans entering the ranks of the educated elites.

Two years later, Sakura’s near psychopathic drive towards success would pay off for her. She aced the mock entrance exams days before the real deal.  Finally! Victory was near.

Or so she thought.

On her way to take the real exams, Sakura ran across a few sick elderly women who needed her help.  Instead of ignoring the women and letting them die on the streets (which she should: they had their chance at life), Sakura decided to help these poor women out. However, this drove Sakura into an intense panic; as  she feared that she’ll be late for and miss the exams.

Thankfully, she was able to make it in time. But, the stress from the fear of missing the exams gave Sakura extreme test anxiety – causing her to fail the exam – and missing out on her chance of success once more.

Should have let the old ladies lay there and die, Sakura.

***

Now in high school, the defeated , depressed, and hopeless Sakura rejected offers to hang out with friends, join any after-school clubs, and work on her scholarly and athletic gifts. Nothing mattered to her anymore. She knew that anything she attempted to try would only make her feel worse about herself.

Every day after school, she headed straight home; numbed to the world. She lay up on the couch, mindlessly watching TV and rotting away as life passed her by.  One day in peculiar, Sakura caught a TV special featuring the rise of singer Ai Mizuno: the center performer of the idol group “Iron Frill”.  During the special, Ai was asked about her work ethics, as well as why and how she works so hard.

Ai replied:

“I guess it’s because I don’t think mistakes or failures are a bad thing.  Because they always end up helping with whatever happens next.  And I really believe I’ll only be the best version of me once I overcome it all.”

Mistakes aren’t bad.  Failure isn’t bad. If you study your failures and mistakes, learning from them in the process, you’ll always better yourself.

(Now, let’s not forget the fact that worse girl Ai is a stupid fucking idiot who got herself killed by sticking her arm out during a thunder/lighting storm while holding a mic at an open air concert on live TV/internet broadcast; therefore traumatizing her friends, family members, band mates, and fans for life. Plus, she made her parents cremate and bury her, so there’s that)

You fucked up on a test.  Cool.  See what you were struggling with, study, and do better.  You got rejected by the girl or boy you liked.  That’s okay.  Be happy and reflect on the fact that you finally control your nerves, got over your fear of rejection, and you went for it. It’ll all be helpful the next time you ask different girl or boy who captured your heart out. You might get turned down from the company you’ve dream of working for since your youth.

Look, you will fail at something – it’s unavoidable.  Your return on invest for your efforts might wield negative results at the end.  Whatever you’re working on, sometimes, it won’t turn out the way you hope for.

And that’s okay.

You should embrace failure.  Appreciate it.  Respect it.  Failure means that it wasn’t the right time to execute your plan.  You selected the wrong moment for your course of action.  Something didn’t line up right. Your approach wasn’t correct. Even so, you should inspect what went wrong so that next time, you will do better and better; until the day you are successful.

 “There’s no better than adversity.  Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”-Malcolm X

Inspired by the TV special, Sakura attended their Saga concert. There, Sakura was captivated by Ai’s high spirited performance to the point she was moved to tears.   It was there where Sakura found the willpower to pull herself out of her depression; yearning to  attack success one more time.

One more shot. One more try. One more chance.

Sakura set her sights to become the girl that she always dreamed of.   She applied to join Iron Frill as an idol.  She wanted to perform next to the singer that – as cheesy and white girlish as it (always) sound – saved her life.  This was it.  She’ll no longer let the set-backs and disappointments of the past drag her down.  With the finished application in hand, the high-spirited Sakura ran out of the house to mail it…

…And then she got hit by a speeding truck and died on impact. The End. Thanks for reading!

(Just kidding.  Sakura lived for a few more seconds in the air from the force of being hit before dying.)

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  ***

“Failure is deceiving; it’s a good thing! You want to and should fail –it’s the learning process!” -Grant Cardone, CEO and real estate investor

Sakura’s journey to success wouldn’t end at her death. In fact, her death (and zombification) was the start of her finally capturing victory. As the center of the all zombie girl music group Franchouchou, Sakura had to lead her team and new friends through failure after failure on the path of success.

You could say that their first concert at the death metal show was a near flop.  First, Sakura was the only member of Franchouchou (or Death Musume as they were first called) who regained her human conscious upon awakening.  The rest of the girls were still in their mindless state.  This resulted in everyone (sans Sakura) not being able sing or play instruments – let alone perform in unison.

Second, they were dress in bright, colorful idol outfits; ill-fitting for a venue hall catering to savage and cutthroat fans of death metal.  Finally, the crowd wasn’t feeling them. They believed that Death Musume was mocking death metal with their idol get-up.

Death Musume proved their doubters wrong.

Thanks to their enhanced zombie  bodies and minds, Death Musume surprised the metal heads with their brutal, (literally) broken-neck style head banging, ghastly growls, hard hitting stage dives that would had injured or killed a normal human, and caused mayhem in the pits after the show.

Even if the show was a (so-called) “flop”, Death Musume gained the respect of the metal heads (whom normally dismissed idols).  They even earned two metal heads as loyal fans after the event. Fans who once were discrediting them admired their savage spirit so much that they followed Death Musume’s journey to success everywhere they performed.

  Their second concert was almost a complete disaster (compared to the last).  Despite regaining their senses, Death Musume (now Green Face), weren’t in tune with one another.  Their movements were awkward and stiff (due to not building up chemistry with one another yet; not because they were zombies).  The audience seemed uninterested in their performance.   Tae had yet to regain her senses; so she was still roaming around mindlessly.

Worse, she tried to steal somebody’s dried squid snack. Sakura attempted to restrain her friend; only to cause Tae’s head to fly off her body into the crowd – therefore causing panic and confusion.

In panic, Sakura played everything off as a magic trick. While Sakura struggled to regain order, Saki started to dick around. The two girls started fighting over Tae’s head (Saki took Tae’s head off her body while Sakua tried to put it back on, annoying the latter). Pissed, Sakura snapped on Saki and snitched on the fact that they were all zombies. Saki snapped back: leading to the girls auguring on stage. Understandably, the audience was shocked.

Total disaster indeed. But, most damages caused by disasters can always be fixed.

Tatsumi saw this as a chance to switch the show’s direction. Seeing Sakura and Saki argue as if they were rival rappers, he began to beat box.  Best zombie girl Yuugiri provided a melodic instrumental on her shimisen. Lily channeled her inner Flavor Flav and played hype girl.  Worse zombie girl Ai stood around looking stupid, awkward, and useless. Second best zombie girl Junko was also standing around looking stupid and awkward.  Sakura and Saki turned their argument into a rap battle.

Together, Green Face was able to take a losing situation, turn it around into something positive, and became victorious. Franchouchou improved each passing day. They didn’t avoid failure – they embraced it and turn it around – into success.

They failed to get a business sponsorship from a drug company (due to Sakura being an idiot). That’s okay; they cut a deal with a local restaurant a few days later; netting a promotion deal with them.  Tae accidently wore said restaurant’s mascot t-shirt after winning a sporting event instead of the shirts featuring their band’s name and logo (for promotional reasons). It didn’t matter: Franchouchou gained more fans from the sporting event.

Lighting struck the stage and the girls during their first major stage performance.  What would have killed any normal human the lighting gave Franchouchou (thanks to being zombies) not only gave the girls the appearance of angels, but enhanced their voices; giving their fans a musical experience they never forget.

“Last night took an L, but tonight I bounce back.” “If you’re a real winner you know how to bounce back!” -Big Sean, Bounce Back

Like Franchouchou, you must use failures as a tool to net you a positive outcome. The path you were on turned into something else. But, you need to take advantage of that.  History is littered with people whom “failed” at one thing but was able to turn it around into greatness.

Japanese Horror and visual novel author Ryukishi07  Ryukishi07 first draft of the ever beloved Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (lit. When They Cicadas Cry) murder-mystery visual novel series was a short play titled  Hinamizawa Bus Stop.  Inspired by a friend, he submitted the play to his college’s theater group for a contest.  He lost.  After college, Ryukishi07 tried to enter the video game industry with no luck.

Yet, despite the setbacks, he was determined to let the world know about the mysteries and horror of the small village of Hinamizawa. His passionate drive would pay off in August of 2006 when Ryukishi07 dropped Higurashi upon the otaku world at the massive Japanese anime convention Summer Comiket 2002. The game became a global sleeper hit; with the series branching off to light novels, mangas, two live-action movies, a TV series, remakes of the games, and of course, an incredibly successful anime adaption by Studio Deen.

Intelligent System was failing to keep the Fire Emblem series afloat.  After back-to-back failures with titles such as New Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, the series was at risk of being killed off by Nintendo.  Finding themselves on death grounds with the series, nearly everyone at Intelligent System that has ever worked on a Fire Emblem game pour their heart, soul, guts, creativity, love, and focus into  Fire Emblem Awakening. They truly believe that Awakening was going to be the final Fire Emblem game in Nintendo’s (and gaming) history.

If Fire Emblem: Awakening was going to ultimately fail, at least  Intelligent System had the balls to try to revive the series everyone counted out with everything they had.  And as we all known (despite what the old-school autistic elitist assholes in the fandom may say), Fire Emblem: Awakening brought the series back to life: saving it from total death.

See how you can turn failure into victory?

We live in a world where failure is viewed as a bad thing. If you failed, you’re nothing (according to lowly people with their inflated egos who will never fix their own failures).  In Japan, failure is viewed in such a negative light that young school students have killed themselves from the shame of failure (may they failed a test, failed to get into an elite high school, etc.).

They would rather end their life than to face society (after failure).

The American school system have mentality wrecked children for decades; because teachers, parents, and the education system paint failing as the ultimate sin. Who knows how many children in America are suffering from mental health issues such as depression and anxiety because of how aggressive we are against failure?

Social media is now on a level where people will share your failures and humiliate you for it within seconds.  We would rather mock those on Facebook or Twitter for their mistake(s) than to encourage them to recover and give them advice on how to do better.  A screw up can easily be shared and display on the world’s stage without a second thought. It’s a shield to hide our own failures.

Why display your shame to the world where you can cover it with another man’s shame?

Society is not only fearful of failure – it uses it as a weapon.

But, you can’t be scared of failure.  I’m not saying you should go out in purposely fail; that’s foolish.   I am also not saying that some failures aren’t your fault; because your own stupidity and unchecked ego/pride can cause you to screw up. If you’re doing something that is outside the realm of logic, and your friends/family are telling you so, and you can’t prove them wrong, then don’t do it. Because that’s truly is failure.

You need to go into something knowing that there’s a high possibility that you will fail and that you need to bounce back from the failure.  Beating yourself up over failure won’t  get you to success. Having a defeatist attitude because you screw up won’t fix the screw ups.  People will use your past failures to mock you; in order for you to give up.  But, you can’t allow that. Try again until success.

As Sakura said to Junko and Ai in episode 2, and this is the closing statement:

“Quit coming up with excuses on why you can’t win. If you got even a little chance, try to do that then!”

      SELECTED RESOURCES:

[Alux.com] (Dec. 15th, 2018) How to overcome FAILURE and start from scratch? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs6PU5jQQBc

[Nino Brown] (Oct. 16th, 2019) Fail Your Way To  Success [Video File], Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO99GJwtsOk

[Alpha Male Strategies – AMS] (Oct 3rd, 2018) Why I Love Being A Failure [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wu8k4CjnI

Grover, Tim. “#1. When You’re A Cleaner… …You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one way to get what you want.” Relentless: From Good To Great To Unstoppable

          “There’s no better than adversity.  Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” -Malcolm X Throughout her short seventeen years of life, Sakura Minamoto dealt with everlasting failures and setbacks that mentally wrecked her. 2,667 more words

[liliannorman]

Student scientists want to help all of us survive a warmer world

This has been a year full of the unexpected. COVID-19 has forced people indoors, closed schools and killed more than 220,000 Americans. Besides the pandemic, there have been hurricanes, wildfires, protests and more. Behind some of these upheavals, though, is an unfolding event that shows no sign of stopping: climate change.

Climate change is contributing to many of the disasters that have been changing lives around the world. Here we meet students who have been using science to help people better understand and deal with the effects of our changing climate.

Their research helped place them among 30 finalists at the 10th Broadcom MASTERS. MASTERS stands for Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars. It’s a research program open to middle-school investigators. Society for Science & the Public (which publishes Science News for Students) created the event. Broadcom Foundation, headquartered in Irvine, Calif., sponsors it.

Some of the kids developed systems to help keep people safe as climate change makes life more unpredictable. Others developed ways to save precious resources, such as water and oil. And one student applied lessons from a study done in a cereal bowl to model melting glaciers.

Fighting fire and flood with science

Like many Californians, Ryan Honary, 12, has personal experience with wildfires. A student at Pegasus School in Huntington, he was with his father at an Arizona tennis tournament when he saw wildfires raging across his home state on TV. “The hills that were burning looked just like the hills behind my house,” Ryan recalls. “I called my mom and asked if she was okay.” Once he knew that she was, he asked his dad why wildfires got out of control so often. “We’re planning to send people to Mars but we can’t detect wildfires,” Ryan says.

That’s when Ryan decided to create a way to detect wildfires early — before they get out of control. He linked together a series of Raspberry Pi computers. Some of these tiny units were fitted to detect smoke, fire and humidity (how much water is in the air). Their sensors relayed data wirelessly to another Raspberry Pi. This slightly bigger computer served as a mini meteorological station. He estimates that each sensor would cost around $20, and the mini stations would cost $60 each.

Ryan Honary shows off his wildfire detectorH. Honary

Ryan brought his entire system to a park and tested it by holding the flame from a lighter in front of each sensor. When these sensed a fire, they informed the detector. It then alerted an app that Ryan built for his phone. While creating that app, Ryan talked with Mohammed Kachuee. He’s a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Kachuee helped Ryan use machine learning to train his app with data from the large 2018 Camp Fire. The app took lessons from how this fire had traveled over time. Using those data, the app “learned” to predict how flames at future events might spread.

Someday, Ryan hopes his sensors might be deployed throughout his state. “Five of the worst fires in California just happened in the last three months,” he notes. “So it’s pretty obvious that global warming and climate change is just making the fire problems worse.”

Stronger hurricanes are another symptom of a warming climate. Heavy rain and storms can produce sudden floods that appear and disappear locally within minutes. One such flash flood provided a memorable experience for Ishan Ahluwalia, 14.

Ishan Ashluwalia had a tire roll on a wet treadmill to create a warning system for when a car might slip. A. Ahluwalia

It was a rainy day in Portland, Ore. “My family was driving on a highway,” recalls the now ninth grader at Jesuit High School in the city. “We were driving at the speed limit.” But a sudden sheet of water on the road made the car swerve. It was hydroplaning. This occurs when water builds up beneath a tire, he explains. With no friction, the tire slips “and the car slips as well.” This can lead to accidents.

Ishan was surprised that there was no system in a car to sense when tires were about to slide. So he went to his garage and put a small tire on a treadmill. He hooked the wheel up to a computer with an accelerometer inside. As the treadmill moved and the wheel rolled, he ran water down the belt to make synthetic rain. The computer then measured the friction between the wheel and the belt as differing amounts of rain fell.

Then, like Ryan, Ishan used machine learning. “In middle school, my science teachers really helped me get the project off the ground,” he says. But the next step was to talk to an engineer who works at nearby Oregon Health and Science University. With that engineer’s guidance, Ishan trained the system he built to associate different types of weather with how much water was on the road. It could then link those water levels with a car’s ability to maneuver.

If installed in a car, Ishan says, this system might offer a notice in green, yellow or red to warn people when they faced a risk of losing control of steering or braking. It also could help people drive more safely as heavy rains and flooding become more common.

Saving water and stopping snails

Just as it’s possible to have way too much rain, it’s also possible to have far too little. Pauline Estrada’s home, in Fresno, Calif., is in one such drought-prone region. The eighth grader at Granite Ridge Intermediate School saw nearby farmers watering their fields. In dry regions like hers, no drop would be wasted. So she sought a way to help growers predict when their plants truly needed water. Right now, Pauline says, farmers measure soil moisture to see if their plants are thirsty. But, she notes, that doesn’t show if the plant itself is suffering.

Pauline Estrada made this rover seen in a farm field. Her so-called Infra-Rover scans plants to determine if they need water. P. Estrada

Luckily, this 13-year-old had a rover lying around. She had built the robot vehicle from a kit. The teen also built an infrared camera. It makes images at light wavelengths the human eye can’t see. Infrared light often is used to map heat. A hotter plant is a drier plant, Pauline explains. When a plant has enough water, she says, “it lets water go through its leaves.” This cools the air on the surface of the leaf. But if the plant is dry, it will hold in water, and the leaf surface will be hotter.

Pauline attached the camera to her rover and drove it around pepper plants that she grew in pots. Sure enough, her roving camera could spot when these plants needed water. Then, with the help of Dave Goorahoo, a plant scientist at Fresno State University, she ran her rover around pepper plants in a farm field.

Her Infra-Rover currently scans only one plant at a time. Pauline hopes to scale up her system to observe many at once. She also plans to work on a system to predict when hot plants will need water — before they get parched. “It’s important to not waste water during climate change,” she says. Water them when they need it, she says, not before.

Explainer: CO2 and other greenhouse gases

Once those crops are grown, they’ll need to be shipped to hungry people the world over. Many will travel on huge cargo ships powered by large amounts of fossil fuels. In fact, cargo ships account for three percent of all carbon dioxide emitted into the air each year.

Those ships would burn less fuel if they encountered less friction at sea, known as drag, reasoned Charlotte Michaluk. The 14-year-old is now a ninth grader at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, N.J. A scuba diver since sixth grade, Charlotte knew that one source of drag was stuff growing on the hulls of ships. Barnacles, snails and other organisms contribute to this biofouling. Their lumpy bodies increase drag, making ships work harder and burn more fuel.

Charlotte runs water down a ramp to determine how much drag it creates. She hopes that better materials will help ships use fewer climate-warming fuels to sail the seas. C. Michaluk

Charlotte opted to design a new, more slippery coating for a ship’s hull so that fewer creatures would be able to hitch a ride. She tested different materials in the aquatic version of a wind tunnel. Charlotte loves woodworking and crafting. “My family knows where I’ve been in the house based on my trail of crafting materials,” she says. She designed a ramp that she could coat with different materials. Then she measured the force of the water flowing off different metal and plastic coatings to calculate their drag.

One material proved really good at reducing drag. Called PDMS, it’s a type of silicone — a material made of chains of silicon and oxygen atoms. Charlotte also tested some surfaces that had been based on mako shark skins. The sharklike drag-limiting scales, known as denticles, worked well at cutting the ramp’s drag.

But would they also prevent other creatures from latching on? To find out, Charlotte went hunting for small bladder snails in local streams. She put the snails in her water tunnel and observed how well they were able to cling to different surfaces. PDMS and the fake mako skin prevented snails from sticking.

“Biofouling is a really big problem,” she says. Affected ships will consume more fossil fuels. And that, she explains, “contributes to global warming.” She hopes her discoveries might someday help ships slip more easily through the water — and save fuel.

Eyes on ice

It might seem like a kid from Hawaii wouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about glaciers. But Rylan Colbert, 13, sure does. It started when this eighth grader at Waiakea Intermediate School in Hilo first saw news of an experiment on how dams might collapse. Those tests had studied how piles of rice cereal collapsed in milk.

The cereal was puffed rice. But Rylan was soon thinking about ice. “I think I had shaved ice [a popular treat in Hawaii] the day before and I was thinking about it,” he says. “And that led me to thinking about glaciers” and how their collapse might affect polar regions.

Rylan decided to study if shaved ice would collapse into water as the rice cereal had in the study he had read about. For a little guidance, he emailed Itai Einav. He’s a coauthor of the rice cereal study at the University of Sydney in Australia. Einav emailed back and became “kind of my mentor,” Rylan says.

Rylan Colbert next to his tiny shaved ice “glacier.” To model a cold environment, he kept his science project in the refrigerator. S. Colbert

Using a refrigerator in his father’s lab at the University of Hawaii, Ryan filled beakers with a layer of gravel. Then he added a layer of shaved ice to serve as his model glacier. “The density of the shaved ice was about the density of freshly fallen show,” he says. That’s really important, he says; it simulates how glaciers develop. “That’s the start of the process.”

He set a microscope on its side in the fridge to monitor exactly what happened. “To simulate global warming, I pumped water under the shaved ice and it compacted,” Rylan notes. He tested water pumped in at -1° Celsius (30° Fahrenheit) and then again at 8 °C (46 °F). That warmer water simulated a warming ocean.

Ice with warmer water below it compacted seven percent faster than ice atop very cold water, Rylan showed. He hopes his research might help people understand how glaciers form (or don’t), as the world warms.

Doing more scientific research around climate change is key, he believes. Eventually, he says, “it’ll hit home with somebody and they’ll say, ‘Hey, let’s stop this.’”

Pauline hopes that more research also will prompt more action. “We should take all measures to prevent [climate change] as much as possible,” she says. “At the rate it’s going, it’s going to destroy the planet.”

Student scientists want to help all of us survive a warmer world published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[battybat-boss]

Do Bullies Always Win?

Trump's bullying worked with Canada, has half-worked with Iran and North Korea, but has had nothing but malign impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The news that Canada has caved on trade has me depressed. The glee with which Donald Trump has announced his latest “victory” is galling. Sure, he didn't force Mexico and Canada to do everything he wanted in the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But he certainly can claim a public-relations coup. And his supporters in Congress are milking the moment for all it's worth.

“While many in Washington claimed it could not be done, President Trump worked tirelessly to bring Canada to the table and negotiate a new trade deal that is better for American workers and consumers,” said Republican Representative Steve Scalise.

Yes, yes, I know: The arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice. The problem is, how long is the arc and how big is the universe? In the shorter term, such as the span of a human lifetime, injustice seems more likely the norm.

I would like to believe that Trump's game of chicken on foreign trade is simply not going to work. But what if it does? What if China blinks? What if the European Union buckles? The game of trade is not simply won by those who can negotiate the longest or write the most detailed treaties. It's often won by those who use crude displays of power.

Geopolitics is not a game for the faint of heart. It's the perfect playground for bullies.

Bullies were on the ascendant even before America's top tyrant won the presidency in 2016. Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Daniel Ortega: These leaders all believe that their might makes right.

But Trump brings it to another level. Russia, Turkey, Nicaragua and the Philippines all have rich histories of strong men imposing their wills on resistant populations. The United States lacks that tradition. The rule of law is supposed to keep the bullies in check.

Now Trump is bringing into government a whole club of likeminded pugilists. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are running foreign policy. The god-awful Jeff Sessions is rewriting the rules of law. And now Trump wants to stuff the Supreme Court with frat boys like Brett Kavanaugh, someone who has never known the difference between right and wrong and, in his most recent testimony, tried to bully Congress into confirming his nomination simply because he's, well, entitled to it. Ruthlessness got him this far in his career - why shouldn't he stick with this tactic?

It reminds me of my first day in middle school, when an older boy picked me out of the crowd of incoming sixth graders to punch my arm, a display of power that he enjoyed so much that he turned it into a daily ritual. But the current situation is much worse than that. It's like going to school and discovering that not only is that gang of jerks that hates you still controlling the hallways during breaks. Not only are they still extorting lunch money from the weak at lunch. Not only that, but they've taken over the classrooms and the administration, they decide who gets into what courses and what colleges, and they want to make your entire day a living hell.

Bullying Tactics

Bullies are often, though not always, scared of a real fight. They pick on the weak and the easily intimidated. They talk big. Donald Trump has always talked big. And he seems never to shy away from a fight. But those are verbal battles - in the press or in the courtroom. As for actual fighting, he notoriously avoided the Vietnam War, not for moral reasons but because of supposed bone spurs in his heels.

Like most chickenhawks, Trump talks big about blowing up other countries and taking out their leaders. So far, however, he has only attacked some usual suspects - a few targets in Syria, a widespread bombing campaign in one of the poorest countries on earth (Afghanistan), and a continuation of the US drone program.

True, Trump might be gearing up for a war with Iran. He's being pushed in that direction by people inside his administration (like Bolton and Pompeo) as well as neocon hawks like Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (who recently called Trump a “Twitter tiger”).

But I suspect that Trump wants simply to bully Iran into submission. He has hit the country with the sanctions that the previous administration had removed as a result of the nuclear deal. Already, Iran's oil exports have dropped steeply by 870,000 barrels a day since April. The Trump administration has threatened to penalize any country that imports Iranian oil with secondary sanctions. As a result, South Korea and Japan have already stopped their orders. Meanwhile, US oil exports have gone up, in part to fill the gap.

Of course, not everyone has gone along with Trump. China in particular will continue to purchase Iranian products. And Europeans are openly defying Trump by crafting a deal with Tehran to preserve the nuclear deal and keep open trade and investment links. And oil prices are on the rise, which means more discontent at the pump in the US, particularly among Trump's carbon-guzzling supporters.

Trump says he wants a new nuclear deal. But really the end game is regime change in Tehran. For all but the craziest of neocons, the Iraq War has created a new kind of syndrome: maximum pressure, minimum military involvement. It's what some observers have cannily described as “regime change on the cheap.” So far, thanks to some powerful allies, Iran is hanging tough.

Big Stick, Then Talk

Perhaps if Kim Jong-un were Muslim or didn't have nuclear weapons or had made the supreme mistake of being nice to Barack Obama, Trump wouldn't be interested in sitting down to talk with him. As it was, Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric against North Korea in the first year of his term. Then he pivoted, against the advice of many in his administration, toward negotiations. The result was the Singapore summit in June, the first time a sitting American president met with a North Korean leader.

There have been a few interesting changes in the US-North Korea dynamic. The Pentagon agreed to suspend war games with South Korea last summer. Pyongyang has continued a moratorium on nuclear and missile testing as well as dismantled some non-essential parts of the nuclear complex. But the key problem remains the same. Who will make the first bold move?

Meanwhile, North and South Korea aren't waiting for Trump to get off the dime. They've already begun removing landmines from the Demilitarized Zone. At the last inter-Korean summit, North and South agreed to significant de-escalation, from a no-fly zone over the border to a transformation of the DMZ into a peace park. That's bold, and it's happening now.

As for Trump and Kim? They are apparently enjoying those early days in a romance when men's thoughts turn constantly to love. As Trump said at a recent rally in West Virginia: “I was really being tough and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love, ok? No really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they're great letters. And then we fell in love.”

So, the two bullies have hit it off. No surprise there. But as in Romeo and Juliet, today's Montagues and Capulets haven't yet ended their generational conflict despite the love of the two principals. Such love affairs usually don't end well.

But let's say that it does, and the mutual bullying works. In reality, the détente between Washington and Pyongyang will have more to do with the patient negotiations of the quintessential anti-bully, South Korea President Moon Jae-in.

Stomping on the Palestinians

Trump has promised a brand new deal for Middle East peace. That's the fraudulent businessman at work. He's slapped a “new and improved” sticker on a product that is demonstrably inferior to its previous versions, and somehow he thinks the world will buy it.

The Trump administration has put maximum pressure on Palestinians to negotiate from a progressively weaker position and minimum pressure on Israel to make any concessions at all. Trump has moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem (a major Israeli demand), zeroed out $200 million in bilateral assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, cut US financial support for a UN agency that has long helped Palestinian refugees, and closed down the Palestinians' de facto embassy in Washington, DC.

The proper response to this bullying is, of course, to tell the Trump administration to shove its “deal of the century” right up its Foggy Bottom.

And it's not just Palestinians and liberal American Jews who feel this way. Here's what former Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner has to say: “While it is Trump's prerogative to pick and choose whom to support, and how to support them, the ramifications of these abrupt steps will only empower the radicals. The deal of the century can't be made with Israel alone, and hardballing the Palestinians into submission is likely to blow up on Israel's doorstep.”

It's one thing bullying Iran and North Korea. These countries might be backed up against a wall, but they have choices. The Palestinians, after losing so much and then losing even more under Trump, basically have nothing left to lose - except their dignity. Why should they come to the negotiating table to trade this last resource for a manifestly unfair deal?

So, in the four examples cited, bullying worked with Canada, has half-worked with Iran and North Korea, and has had nothing but malign impact on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Unfortunately, for Trump and his minions, bullying isn't just a tactic, it's a way of life.

The Comeuppance?

If life imitated Hollywood, the bullies would either experience a life-affirming conversion or get their just desserts.

Let's forget about the first option. Donald Trump, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo: These guys are not going to pull a David Brock and suddenly realize the many errors of their ways. Then what about option two? I'd love to see Trump and his crew escorted from the federal government to the federal penitentiary. But how many members of the George W. Bush administration faced prison time for the mishandling of the Iraq War, the torture policy and the other disasters of US foreign policy? Only one: Lewis Libby, for his role in the Valerie Plame affair. And how many members of the financial community went to prison for their role in the banking crisis of 2008? Again, only one.

It may turn out that a couple more Trumpsters have to face jail time as a result of the Mueller probe. Maybe even the president himself will be Caponed over his myriad tax scams. But I have my doubts that the aftermath of the 2020 elections will provide us with the grand spectacle of a mass perp walk from the White House.

Unfortunately, the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election disproved the adage that “cheaters never prosper.” Indeed, his whole life stands testament to the grim truth that cheaters, if they cheat on a truly grand scale, can get away with it. The same, alas, applies to bullies.

But not always. The #MeToo movement is only the latest reminder that organized resistance can bring down very powerful bullies. It's not exactly a Hollywood ending - not until they make a movie about Harvey Weinstein's rise and fall - but it's a whole lot better than suffering in silence. As for the Trump administration, well, I don't know about you but I'd like to shorten the arc of the moral universe and bend it a lot more acutely toward justice.

*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.

The post Do Bullies Always Win? appeared first on Fair Observer.

[joshuazev]

On Hamilton: Part Three

If there was one year out of the three that I felt was particularly tough at school it was probably seventh grade.  My experience that year is what I hear from most people when they talk about their entire middle school experience…not good.  I’m not sure I can pinpoint what made it stand out.  Maybe it was the overwhelming amounts of uncontainable energy I had.  Maybe it was a general feeling of irritability that I had in several classes.  Maybe there were other factors.  In seventh grade I had the following teachers:  Mr. Fisher, Ms. Lower, Ms. Hoot, Mr. Levin, Mr. Budnick, Ms. Lambert and Ms. Leonas.  There are probably more, but at the moment I can’t remember.  Mr. Fisher’s class was awesome.  Ms. Lower’s class sucked.  Ms. Hoot’s class wasn’t any better.  Mr. Levin’s class was awesome.  Mr. Budnick’s class was scary.  And Ms. Lambert’s class was problematic.  That’s what it was.  In all of the classes I took in seventh grade there was an overriding feeling of “the problematic.”  

Let’s take Mr. Fisher’s class.  As far as the class went and how he taught it?  Nothing but good things to say.  However, there was a chronic problem of theft going on that year and I unfortunately was a victim of it several times.  You see the lockers at Hamilton weren’t made very well and if you spent enough time jostling it, you could kick the bottom and pop the locker open.  One day I’m walking on the second floor and this guy I knew from middle school comes up to me in passing and says, “I hear you got your stuff stolen out of your locker.”  I hadn’t been there for a long time, so I didn’t really think anything of it.  When I got to my locker room I found that several of my things were missing, among them my Chicago White Sox fitted cap and my cell phone.  I’m not sure what came of it punishment wise, probably nothing I’d imagine.  What it did do was make me deliriously paranoid.  I always carried around a lot of stuff in my backpack and there were several things I used to keep in my locker because I couldn’t hold on to them all day.  After my stuff was stolen I was in a bit of disarray.  As a result. I tried to have all of my valuables on me all the time.  If I thought it could be worth anything I’d carry it on me.  I’m sure the same people who stole my shit the first time attempted to again.  You could always tell when certain stuff wasn’t in the right spot.  How does this relate to Mr. Fisher’s class you might ask.  Well one day during Mr. Fisher’s language arts lesson I was in the corner trying to listen when I saw a few people outside near my locker room.  I could make out there heads just enough that I knew who they were, but I had no clue what to do.  The longer I paid attention the more freaked out I got until finally I saw them start to try to open my locker.  With a kick and a thrust they opened it.  At that point I figured I had to tell Mr. Fisher what they were doing, so in the middle of his lesson I got out of my seat in a panic and stuttered my way through an explanation.  

“Mr. Fisher, Mr. Fisher!  Can you please help me?  There are people in my locker room!”

Mr. Fisher in classic Mr. Fisher mode replied slowly,

“What?  There are people in your locker room?  I wonder what they’re doing there.”

He continued joking until he could see the genuine fear in my eyes and he proceeded to step out of class and see with his own eyes that they were right next to my locker.  He questioned them, they denied, but for the most part it had worked.  I didn’t get anything stolen from my locker the rest of the year, but to be honest I kept it damn near empty.  I still remember the dudes to this day.  One of them I really had known since kindergarten.  He was the same guy that told me in passing about the first time.  The second guy was just a part of that little group.  I did an event a year or two ago and saw that he was helping out with the event, too.  He probably didn’t remember me, but for better or worse I remembered him like it happened yesterday.  He tried to clean up and get his act right, dressed like a little hipster and acting all polite.  There was a moment where I thought I might get kicked out of the event for confronting him and trying to beat his ass, but the more I played the situation in my head, the

“I remember what you did in seventh grade, fuckboy”

scenario didn’t seem like it was worth it.  It’s all good though.  I won’t forget it and I’ll remind him one of these days.  

So.

Ms. Hoot’s class was pretty bad.  She didn’t like me very much and it was very very mutual.  I couldn’t focus or do anything right in her class, not to mention the fact that I felt my math skills (which used to be so good) diminishing every period.  With all those factors in effect, I slipped and sludged through that muck until with great relief I was done at the end of the year.  

Ms. Lower’s class was even worse.  Like terrible.  Awful.  Horrible.  Suffocating.  She sent an email to my mom one time because I wasn’t behaving very well in class.  I’ll never forget it, in the message she called me a “Chatty Carlos”.  My mom even had to laugh at that.  And the worst part about it?  I don’t remember getting any better at Spanish, so beyond being a completely disagreeable person she wasn’t a very good teacher either.  

Mr. Levin was the man, though!  It always helped to have certain teachers that cancelled out the bad ones.  His class was memorable for many reasons.  For one, it was one of the only classes in all my years of schooling that I actually enjoyed.  He legit made science interesting.  It was in his class that we watched many movies, including Supersize Me in its duration.  Like everyone else, I was completely captivated by that documentary.  Can I remember anything else off the top of my head?  Not really.  I remember him eating matzo and keeping passover.  That definitely made him cooler than most.  He was also married to my eight grade spanish teacher, Ms. Sandler.  They always felt like a power couple of sorts to me.      

Mr. Budnick.  You know the movie Full Metal Jacket?  Mr. Budnick was like the Hamilton version of that scary sergeant in the first twenty minutes of the movie, but the extremely quiet version.  He was actually a pretty nice guy, but everyone knew you couldn’t cross him or fuck with him.  If you did, he’d chew you out.  He was one of those older guys that has kind of a weird laugh that only happens every once in a while, so when it does it makes you really uncomfortable because you get the feeling he might have a sword for an arm or like thirty pound boots that he’d use to kick your shins if you acted up.  That so rarely happened, though.  His class was kind of eerie.  

Ms. Lambert taught “I don’t know what.”  I remember two things about Ms. Lambert.  As a class we watched “Whale Rider” and I got kicked out for singing “Play that funky music white boy” because she thought I didn’t say “funky”, but something else instead.  I made it through the semester/year so it had to have been alright.

Ms. Leonas was plain and simple one of the best drama/improv/theatre teachers I’ve ever had.  She used to always start classes imitating the Mike Meyers character Linda Richmanfrom SNL.  

“A monkey is neither a monk nor a key.  Talk amongst yeselves!  Discuss!”

“I’m verklempt”

“It’s ta die for”

It was brilliant and it provided a wonderful atmosphere for everyone in class to get in a good, relaxed, acting mode.  We’d mess around with improv games, exercises, and what have you, but it all culminated in a improv show that we used to present in the auditiorium at the end of the semester.  Damn, I miss that class.

Those were the classes I remember taking and enjoying so much and suffering through.  

The basketball team that year was awesome as well and watching them play at the boys and girls club was even better.  Jordan, Monte, Cedric, Lee, Michael, Jackson, Cameron, Niko, Anthony, Victor.  Most of them went on to be very very good in high school, too.  They ended up losing in a crazy game against Denny when Glenn Brooks, a sixth grader, went off and dropped a bunch of points but still, that team was special.

And there it is.