#like there’s first hand sources by civilians on social media and there are *gestures*

[grecoromanyaoi]

“well I don’t read/watch the news bc they arent objective and have a clear agenda” as opposed to where. where can you get pure, unbiased news from. unsourced posts on tumblr? infographics on instagram? highschoolers on twitter? facebook? tiktok? be serious.

[sassycassie-s-series]

All My Fault 7

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam - Damian Wayne/Batman

Rating: PG

Notes: (Masterlist) Ooh now the internet’s getting involved. Everything isn’t quite going to Jason’s original plan, but the modifications make it better XD It was kinda fun coming up with everyone’s handles. Fun fact, this is the first time Cloudy’s first name is used/revealed!

Tag List (Open): @batboys-and-other-messes​ @welovegroot @nanna-the-batmum @probsjosh

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

^^^^^

Knock-knock!

I glanced up from where I was bandaging my bleeding knuckles after the first patrol I’d been on since I arrived in the future. “Who is it?” I called.

“Damian,” Damian’s voice replied.

“Come in,” I said.

The door to my bedroom creaked open. “You’re trending,” he said, stepping in.

“Huh?”

“The Instagram photo you shared to your Cloudburst account at the beginning of the night has gone absolutely viral.” Damian approached me. “Here. Let me wrap your right hand.” He took the bandages from me with one hand, and my right hand in his other one. Gently, he began to wrap the bandage around my bleeding knuckles that had split open again when I showered.

I grinned. I’d taken a photo of my boots standing on the edge of a skyscraper and captioned it, “It’s good to be home. #CloudburstsBack” and put it on my old verified @CloudburstofGotham Instagram account, also sharing it to my vigilante Twitter. “Thanks,” I said to Damian while I picked up my phone and opened Instagram—then Twitter. The hashtag #CloudburstsBack was trending on both platforms.

Every single vigilante and hero who knew me and had social media accounts for their hero personas had liked and commented on it. One was Clark Kent, though, on his personal account that he used for journalism. Asking if he could get an exclusive interview for the Daily Planet. Vicki Vale was asking the same, but for the Gotham Gazette. Part of me wanted to keep my city pride and accept Vale’s invitation over Clark’s, but the other that really didn’t like Vicki—she just rubbed me the wrong way—wanted to accept Clark’s. Also because he was a friend.

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” I said, setting my phone down. Damian tied off the bandages. “Thank you. If I’d done that on my own they’d be a mess. My left hand is so useless at refined motor control.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. “Did you… enjoy patrol?”

“Heck yeah. Two days in a future I don’t know but patrol is a constant. Felt almost like old times. You’re a lot taller to fight next to now, though,” I said. “I used to be able to throw stuff over your head. But I guess now it’s my turn to get stuff thrown over my head.”

Damian gave a little, “Hmm,” that sounded more like a laugh than a grunt. “I suppose it is,” he said. He set his hands on my shoulders. “It is unfamiliar to have you be so much smaller than I am.”

“We should spar tomorrow. Get used to the difference,” I suggested, sitting down on my bed with my hairbrush and combing through my wet hair. “Do a partner-up where we go against Jay, Dick, and Tim. I missed a lot and you and Tim growing taller is one of those things.”

“Drake only grew three extra inches,” Damian remarked, sitting in my desk chair on a gesture from me.

“Well yeah but five-eight to five-eleven is still significant,” I remarked. “Especially when you being six-three means Dick is now shorter than all of his younger brothers.”

Damian grunted and crossed one leg over the other. “Have you made a decision on the charity ball? Regarding your escort?”

“Not yet. Figure I can wait till at least after I as a civilian am discovered,” I said.

“If it would help your decision, I would like to accompany you. I remember you always insisted I dance with you at least once per event, despite how small I was compared to you and how reluctant I was to dance.”

“I said it was good for you,” I recalled with a smile. “Told you that dancing would help you loosen up.”

“‘I am as loose as I am required to be,’ I believe is what I said in response.”

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Okay. I’ll go. But you have to promise to dance with me.”

“I have improved since the last gala you attended,” he said.

“I'm sure you have,” I agreed.

He contemplated me for a moment. “I am not usually in the business of making promises, but this one I can fulfill. I promise to dance with you.”

I grinned widely. “Great! I look forward to it.”

“As do I.” Damian got up and moved to leave.

“Damian!” I said, reaching out and then letting my hand drop, not sure why I was reaching. Damian turned, eyebrows raised expectantly. I glanced down at the gentle-but-firmly wrapped bandages on my right hand. “Thanks for this.” I showed him the bandages as an indication of what I meant.

He ducked his head in a nod. “Of course, McCloud. Get some rest,” he said before leaving my room.

I sighed as he shut the door and flopped backward, my head hitting the pile of pillows.

Staring at the ceiling in the dark, I scrunched my eyebrows. Why was I feeling so…conflicted? Like, I wanted to go to the charity ball and I wouldn’t mind going with Damian, but I felt a certain reservation about the whole idea that I couldn’t pinpoint.

Was it the media attention I knew we’d get? I could already see the trashy tabloid headline in all caps and yellow letters: BRUCE WAYNE’S SON DATING BRUCE WAYNE’S WARD?! And sixteen clickbait Buzzfeed articles coming across my social media feeds. Was that it? Was I worried about dealing with that or putting Damian in that position? Much as I hated to admit it, Jason was right: the paparazzi and media had always loved me.

But that didn’t feel like the source of my internal struggle. If Damian didn’t want the media attention he wouldn’t have said he wanted to go with me. He would have told me to let Jason escort me—under an alias since he was technically still dead.

I crawled under the covers. I’d figure it out in the morning. Maybe I was just confused and conflicted because I was tired after a long and difficult patrol.

Burrowing into my bed on my side, I rubbed my right-hand knuckles with my left palm, still feeling Damian’s warm, callused hand holding mine as he gently bandaged my bleeding knuckles. His touch was kinder, softer, and gentler than I’d ever felt it. Damian had never really had the word “soft” in his behavioral vocabulary when I knew him as a thirteen-year-old.

I liked it. Damian as an adult had loosened up a little and unwound. It was nice. Especially when I was eight years ahead of where I should have been and a heck-of-a-lot more scared than I was willing to admit out loud. Almost a decade was plenty enough time for things to change—for the better, for the worst, for the crazier—and I was thrown in the deep end. I didn’t even know who the president was anymore. Having Damian show me a little bit more heart when I was doing my best to hide how freaked out I felt was comforting.

I drifted off to sleep.

^^^^^

@RealSuperman: “Welcome back, @CloudburstofGotham! Good to see you’re back! You were sorely missed! #CloudburstsBack”

@WonderWomanOfficial: “The world welcomes the return of the great hero of Gotham, Cloudburst. #CloudburstsBack @CloudburstofGotham”

@RealArsenal: “Yo! Cloudburst! You’re back! Stop by Star City sometime and catch up, yeah? @CloudburstofGotham #CloudburstsBack”

@OfficialOutlawHood: “Huge welcome home to my favorite member of the Bat-family! @CloudburstofGotham has returned! #CloudburstsBack !”

@NightwingOFCL: “#CloudburstsBack! We missed you so much, @CloudburstofGotham! So happy you’re home! Love you, sister!”

@OfficialNewBatman: “@CloudburstofGotham, Warm salutations.”

@OfficialOutlawHood, replying to @OfficialNewBatman: “Dude, seriously? That’s the best you can do?”

@OfficialNewBatman, replying to @OfficialOutlawHood: “I have welcomed Cloudburst in person. I am acknowledging her return online for the sake of expectations.”

@OriginalBatman, replying to @OfficialNewBatman, @OfficialOutlawHood: “Boys, behave.”

@RedRobinVigilante: “ICYMI: #CloudburstsBack! My ‘sister’ has recently returned after having been missing for 8 years! Super excited! I missed you so much, @CloudburstofGotham!”

@ClarkKentDP: “@CloudburstofGotham would you like to do an exclusive interview for the Daily Planet? Tell everyone where you were and why you’re back? DM me if you’re interested! #CloudburstsBack”

@GGVickiVale: “@CloudburstofGotham How about an interview with the Gotham Gazette now that #CloudburstsBack?”

Damian scrolled through the top hits in the #CloudburstsBack trend over breakfast, sipping his breakfast tea and munching on an apple for starters. He was grateful for the attention being on Cloudburst because, in five days, Nora McCloud would return from being lost in the time stream. She’d be bruised and exhausted in torn clothing. McCloud had already agreed to get no sleep for a night or two beforehand and let her bruises from patrol show without bothering to hide them before turning up at the Gotham PD station.

And as long as Cloudburst had been established as being back first, no one would have to know that she and McCloud were the same person. Damian took another sip of his tea thoughtfully, scrolling down. He came across another Tweet that he hadn’t seen before.

It was Cloudburst’s own. A photo of she and Damian jumping off the edge of the building, Damian’s coat flaring out around him and her hair doing the same, and another one of the moment before, when they were both standing on the edge of the building, showing off how much taller than Cloudburst Damian had grown. In both pictures, their backs were to the camera.

The caption read, “Last time I saw Batman he was still Robin and more than half a foot shorter than me! What else did I miss? XD #CloudburstsBack @OfficialNewBatman” and a second Tweet that said, “Photo creds to @RedRobinVigilante! I missed you too, brother!”

Damian “liked” and “retweeted” it saying, “We will catch you up.” On his official Batman account.

Tim stumbled into the kitchen, tablet in his hand playing the local news’ livestream.

“—top story this morning is the return of the Gotham vigilante known as Cloudburst. The vigilante was last seen eight years ago when the android fleet known as the Time Bombs attacked for the first time. Since then there has been no trace of her until last night when she posted this image to Instagram and Twitter with the caption, ‘It’s good to be home. Hashtag-Cloudburst’s Back.’ The post quickly went viral and several citizens of Gotham Tweeted about sightings of her with the other members of the team of Gotham protectors commonly nicknamed the Bat-Family. She was seen with the younger Batman for most of the night, according to most sightings. She has yet to release an official statement about where she’s been, but we’re grateful to have a familiar pair of eyes watching our streets,” the lady was saying.

Tim sat at the breakfast bar and started to munch distractedly on a bagel, not even realizing it. Damian could have put a rotten tomato in its place and Tim probably wouldn’t even notice. He was too focused on his tablet. “They’re wrong,” he muttered. “The Time Bombs didn’t attack for the first time back then. It just seemed like that since they jumped back in time. Their first attack was now because they were made now…”

Damian didn’t say anything, just continued to eat his apple and look through the social media feed.

Next

[sorashiro001]

Ace's (Over)Investigation: Are They Dating? ("He haven't asked their last name, huh?" -Mute)

Alternate title: Ace forgot to asked the siblings' last name and now living his full week as a bet by Smoke's shenanigans.

Also added few lore as well.

Also a oneshot.

"Goddamnit, why both of you aren't showed up in the common room? The new ops already arrived!"

Reta's wide yawn cut off Eliza's rant as she rubbed off her eyes, while James still wrapped inside his thin blanket and snuggled up beside her. Upon meeting the FBI attacker's sharp gaze, the US Special Force's head immediately slammed back onto the desk and went back to take her nap again, added with the OMON's arms wrapped around her and snooze along. Eliza could only groan in irritation. "Why you-"

"No, let them be." Harry's voice echoed through the R&D Workshop, making the redhead turned around at the source of the voice. Harry stood at the front door, with the new ops behind him. "They were fixing their gadgets while discussing our future mission with me throughout the whole night. At least they've read Håvard and Thandiwe's profiles for better understanding." He pushed the newer ops into the lab, giving them another pat on the back. "Now, Eliza will take over the tour for this area. I need to finish up some paperwork in the office." And with that, he turned around and left. Eliza huffed out and gesturing at both Håvard and Thandiwe to follow her.

So far, the tour went well. They visited the test rooms and met other younger ops, either bantering with each other or testing their gadgets capabilities. They also met Elena and the assigned ops for Håvard's SELMA breach charges and Thandiwe's Banshee Sonic Defense Units abilities evaluations. Ela mostly complained about how Masaru kept getting in her way of testing and laughed out loud as she told them that she had "dealt" with the problem. Monika managed to ask some questions about the water-based breach charges to the Norwegian attacker, which he answered casually while constantly throwing some lighthearted flirts to her. In the end, they exchanged their social media addresses and went on their works, while the new ops still need to continue their tour.

The rest of the tour was mostly silent. They met the older ops playing poker while gossiping about rumors inside the base, except for Thatcher; he mostly corrected things about most rumors and caught Andriano red-handed as the Italian tried to cheat. They stumbled upon Porter and Liu Tze, trying their best to not break Geneva's Convention while carefully carrying some biohazard stuff to their personal chemical labs.

Three of them finally reached back into their first location. Reta and James are no longer sleeping on the attacker's desk at the time they arrived. On the contrary, they're currently tinkering with their gadgets while bickering with each other. On the desk, a cup of Korean-labelled cup noodles and a plastic bowl of instant congee sat calmly on the side with James' foldable attachable shield and Reta's MDTK. As they got closer to them, the duo took a glance at them before putting down their tools and waved.

"Miss Cohen, you're back!" Reta enthusiastically waving as she sat up and ran closer to them, while James followed behind her calmly. She went straight past her and grabbed both Thandiwe's hands, shook them several times, and released them while showing her infamous puppy eyes. "I saw your profile and I should say that I'm now your biggest fan for your works!"

Eliza could see how the African woman tried to reply to the enthusiastic American. "Uhhh, thank... you?"

"Question, can I call you Melusi instead? I can't pronounce your name properly until now and I don't want to offend you."

"Many pronounced my name differently, but you can call me that too."

Thandiwe's answer managed to receive a small squeaky cheer from the younger operator, which then proceeded to drag the new defender ops out from the workshop like an excited puppy dragging its owner with its leash. Meanwhile, the Norwegian attacker and the Russian defender looked at each other awkwardly.

James cleared his throat. "Sorry about her, she saw about Thandiwe being a nature conservationist in the profile last night and got antsy to meet her." He gestured over their workshop table, lips pulled into a thin smile. "She'll be your co-worker in the future, so it might be a good idea to introduce you to her specialty gadget."

Håvard raised one of his eyebrows. "So she's not a mere recruit?"

Eliza immediately felt alarms blaring inside her head. She pulled the Norwegian's shoulder back to her, shielding him from the Russian. "Håvard, don't you-"

James' thin smile disappeared and replaced with a small frown. "And here I thought you could finally change my perspective over that shady private security company of yours." He sighed, any traces of friendliness was gone and replaced with his simmering hostility. "I could tolerate you because of my sister's involvement with Shah, but your existence in this team won't ever erase the fact that you Nighthaven fuckers once endangering the civilians by giving them weapons for supposedly peaceful protesting." Eliza could feel the tension thickened as he walked away to his workshop table, grabbing his massive shield and extended it. "Fuck off, I don't want to see another face of Nighthaven's goons here."

------------------------------------

Yep, both of them got kicked out of the room.

"Geez, what's that guy's problem?" Håvard's soured reaction is understandable from her point of view. Operator James "Stena" Harmonics had a running feud with The Nighthaven in the past, resulting in KIA of his best friend and dozens of injured from both sides during his mission in maintaining the crowds. She still remembered the day he discovered the company's sole existence inside Team Rainbow and he went into a rage fit with Harry before finally gave up and decided to keep the interaction with any kind of Nighthaven's association as little as possible.

Operator Reta "Espion" Harmonics, however, almost the opposite as her brother. The Nighthaven was one of the reasons she managed to run away from her adoptive family with his twins safely and became one of the first and frequent buyers of her gadget blueprints. Their relationship went well until Nighthaven stole some of the commissioned blueprints to sabotage the requesting company, resulting in Reta's reputation to dive down. Since then, she tried her best not to get involved in Nighthaven's business anymore, even if it benefits her. She has some bits of respect with Operator Jaimini Kalimohan "Kali" Shah, although it's mostly gone due to the event.

Wait, where was she again? Oh yeah, Håvard complaining about the reason he got kicked out.

As much as the siblings' problem with the private company, the reason this time is much shorter.

"You're disrespecting his partner, of course. He's angry when somebody insults his sole reason to keep working here." If everyone witnessed it, they'll probably come to the same conclusion as she is. The whole team knows how both siblings treated each other. Sure, they might have differences in skills and opinions, but nobody could convince them against each other. Both of them risking their lives to save each other during both their big mission is the living proof of their relationship.

"Huh, didn't know they're dating each other." The Norwegian nodded in understanding. "I should've known, they're hugging each other from the moment we met!"

Wait what the fuck.

"Håvard, they're-"

"Now it makes sense!" His expression is now brightened, his clear blue eyes sparkled behind his whitish-blonde hair. Before she could stop him, he dashed away from her while casually waving his hand. "See ya later, 'Liza. Kali's waiting for me!"

Oh God, this merc asshole...

"So, we got a misunderstanding case now?" Porter's hoarse and muffled voice somehow felt like adding salt into the wound. Eliza couldn't help but nod slightly to his question. "Well I'd say - one blamed the Harmonics' David and Goliath appearances. Shorty Reth and massive James, Asian-American and Russian, beige-blonde and brunette, the difference between their physical appearance is vast enough for people to take a quick glance at 'em and immediately conclude 'em as friends instead of blood-related siblings."

She looked at him in the eye. "What now?"

His small muffled snickers behind his mask confirmed her fear. "Don't tell the lad, I wanted to have fun with 'im first." With that, the masked Brit ran away while shouting out loud.

"GUYS, I'LL BETTING FIFTY QUID FOR THIS! ANYBODY WANNA JOIN?"

This is gonna be a long week of introduction.

[radthursdays]

#RadThursdays Roundup 02/22/2018

Washington, DC, area students and supporters protest against gun violence with a lie-in outside of the White House on Monday, February 19. Around 40 students lie on the ground, holding signs such as "Protect Us NOT Guns", while reporters and a cop car surround them. Source.

Technology

Invisible Algorithms, Invisible Politics: "There is no such thing as 'just code,' writes Finn. There are no immaterial 1s and 0s mediating reality without also being implemented in the material world. Rather, algorithms are always the product of social, technical, and political decisions, negotiations and tradeoffs that occur throughout their development and implementation. And, this is where biases, values, and discrimination disappear into the black box behind the computational curtain."

Positivity: Technology is not neutral, but that doesn’t mean it has to be terrible: "The main benefit of positivity, expressed as a beautiful gesture, may be the alertness it brings to others. 'Through its beauty,' Scarry writes, 'the world continually recommits us to a  rigorous standard of perceptual care.'"

What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?: "Most cities are utterly unfriendly to people with disabilities – but with almost one billion estimated to be urban-dwellers by 2050, a few cities are undergoing a remarkable shift."

Two tweets by @rgay: "It is interesting to note the difference in support for the kids in FL versus the kids in Black Lives Matter. I say that with full admiration for the kids in FL, to survive such a trauma and fight for everyone to be safer. But that's also what was happening in Ferguson and beyond. I started to think about this after George Clooney's announcement. And it isn't divisive to observe the difference in support from the media, from celebrities, etc. I think the FL kids are fucking awesome but so are the kids in Ferguson and Baltimore and Chicago and more." Source.

Feminism

Why Would Anyone Ever Want To Be A Wife?: "The wife is dead; long live the wife."

Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo: "The authors in the book 'describe the longer histories of organizing against sexual violence that the #MeToo moment obscures—among working women, women of color, undocumented women, imprisoned women, poor women, among those who don’t conform to traditional gender roles—and discern from these practices a freedom that is more than notional, but embodied and uncompromising.'"

Inside the Fight for Menstrual Equity in America's Prisons: "How many pads does a menstruating person deserve? It’s impossible to answer such a personal question. But for the women incarcerated in American prisons, prison administrators decide for them."

A tweet by @NativeApprops responding to a tweet by @NPR. The NPR tweet reports, "SNAP recipients would get shelf-stable milk, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned – but no fresh – fruit and vegetables." Dr. Adrienne Keene replies, "For everyone who is appalled by this (you should be)—just also know that this is the model used on Native reservations. Still. Today. If you’re wondering what the health impacts would be, we have hundreds of yrs of data." Source.

Smarm

On Smarm: “What defines smarm, as it functions in our culture? 'Smarm' and 'smarmy' go back to the older 'smalm,' meaning to smooth something down with grease—and by extension to be unctuous or flattering, or smug. Smarm aspires to smother opposition or criticism, to cover everything over with an artificial, oily gloss.”

The Smarm of the Contrarian: "There’s this whole series of bad faith performative gestures ('But your tone!' 'Who are you to criticize a PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING COLUMNIST?' 'You can’t criticize a movie unless you’ve made one!') whose purpose is to 1) shield powerful institutions and/or privileged individuals from accountability and 2) preempt privileged individuals from being criticized on the merits. And the punchline […] is how often these arguments-from-status are used to protect people with no discernible expertise about anything they write about, sometimes from criticism from actual experts. It’s a nice racket.”

On Bullshit: “[…] by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, is an essay that presents a theory of bullshit that defines the concept and analyzes the applications of bullshit in the contexts of communication. Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade (a.k.a. rhetoric), without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false, but rather only cares whether or not their listener is persuaded.” (From Wikipedia)

A drawing of Colten Boushie wearing a baseball cap and holding his hand up to his chin. A banner below says, "Justice for Colten". Colten was a young Cree man who was killed by Gerald Stanley on August 9, 2016. On February 9, 2018, Gerald was found not guilty for the murder by an all-white jury. Source.

Issues

Discussion Guide: Justice for Colten Boushie: Facts, articles, and how to support in getting justice for Colten.

New Journal Reimagines Approach to Eradicating Poverty: "What if, instead of proposing sweeping cuts to the safety net programs that help keep millions of Americans afloat, the nation’s leaders reimagined what it means to lift people out of poverty completely? That is the question at the heart of the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences’ February double-issue, which was released today (February 20)."

“Fuck you, I like guns.”: "Every weapon that a US Army soldier uses has the express purpose of killing human beings. That is what they are made for. The choice rifle for years has been some variant of what civilians are sold as an AR-15. Whether it was an M-4 or an M-16 matters little. The function is the same, and so is the purpose. These are not deer rifles. They are not target rifles. They are people killing rifles. Let’s stop pretending they’re not."

People surround and block an ICE van in front of LA’s Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on February 15. One person holds a sign that reads, "I.C.E. out of L.A." while another person with a skateboard sits on the ICE van's back bumper. The action was called for by the Koreatown Popular Assembly 24 hours prior as an emergency response to reports of ICE detaining over a 100 individuals across the city. Source.

Activism

Koreatown Popular Assembly: Shutting Down ICE, Building Popular Power: "When the nation-wide ICE raids on 7-Eleven happened the week before, members of Rapid Response Network canvassed all the stores in the neighborhood and encountered the Bengali workers who reported the prior raid and requested support. The network canvasses in the neighborhood with flyers in Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Bengali and English in the neighborhood and operates a 24 hour hotline to monitor reports of ICE raids. With over a year of preparation and training the hotline is staffed with around 30 dispatchers who volunteer to do two to three 4-hour shifts a week."

The Forgotten Zine of 1960s Asian-American Radicals: Establishing the Asian-American identity in America took more than meetings—it took a magazine. "The first issue of Gidra was released in April 1969. On the cover, a sketch of five Asian children peering through a barbed-wire fence ran alongside an essay introducing the Third World Liberation Front, an organization focused on 'the eradication of institutional racism' […] Over the decades, Gidra largely faded into obscurity, as did the sense of belonging it gave to Murase and his peers. Inevitably, new generations of Asian-Americans grew up and new waves of Asian immigrants arrived. Today Asian-Americans make up the fastest-growing group of the country’s population, more diverse than ever in the countries they descend from and the languages they speak."

A photo of a poem by Leona Chen from Book of Cord: "from the ocean we were taken / to the ocean we will return / for generations to come / they will remember us / in waves / -- immigrant"

Direct Action Item

Changing the world for the better means we need to find creative ways to challenge the status quo. Come up with your own direct action item this week ;) And send it to us to use!

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.

[cashcounts]

Social Media and the Fight to Save Iraq’s Past—and Future

On July 10, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed victory in the bloody struggle to free Mosul from the brutal grip of Islamic State. The nearly nine-month battle for Iraq’s second-largest city cost 7,000 civilian lives and wounded 20,000. Almost 1 million more fled from their homes to outlying refugee camps. The climactic final month of the struggle reduced much of the old western quarter of Mosul to rubble. Its narrow ancient streets were devastated by wave after wave of Islamic State bombs, Iraqi artillery shells, and hundreds of coalition airstrikes. Besides leveling nearly 500 buildings in the old quarter, the fighting inflicted damage on dozens of historic mosques, churches, shrines, and cemeteries.

Dozens of buildings burn in the Old City of Mosul on July 3, 2017.

The Battle of Mosul was the final bitter endgame of three years’ occupation of the city by Islamic State militants. “During their first 16 months here,” says Ali al-Jaboori, an archaeologist at the University of Mosul, “Islamic State destroyed a total of over 245 archaeological sites, Islamic mosques, Christian churches, and other religious shrines. These were places where the people of the city had visited and worshipped for centuries—an essential part of their daily lives and culture.”

The most notorious attacks, recorded in videos that triggered worldwide shock and outrage in 2015, showed I.S. operatives sledgehammering 2,000-year-old statues and reliefs in the Mosul Museum and blowing up and bulldozing the ancient Mesopotamian palace of Nimrud south of the city. With its YouTube videos, I.S. turned their attacks into spectacles that won them global publicity and acted as powerful tools to recruit would-be jihadists from around the world.

Today, social and online media are vital for tracking the continuing loss of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria—whether through deliberate demolition or looting, battle damage, or hasty rebuilding of devastated neighborhoods. Reliable information is hard to come by. The government in Baghdad imposes frequent media blackouts, while access to many areas is still impossible or risky for outside journalists and heritage workers. In this humanitarian emergency, beset by political chaos and uncertainty, information posted online by local, on-the-ground observers has become a crucial source for tracking the ongoing toll of destruction.

Members of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service gather outside the destroyed gate of the Al-Nuri Mosque while others inspect the interiors, in the Old City of Mosul on July 2, 2017.

Social media is also playing a positive role as the people of Mosul return to piece together their lives amidst the rubble. In the devastated villages surrounding the city, refugee families are already banding together to rebuild historic shrines and ancient places of worship, in some cases even before basic services such as running water and electricity are restored. Proudly recorded in Facebook and Twitter posts, these volunteer rebuilding projects are reasserting the presence and identity of ethnic minorities persecuted and enslaved by I.S.

Eyes in Space, Bloggers on the Ground

The fate of the region’s rich legacy from the past is not simply a matter of academic concern for outside archaeologists and historians. While western media has focused on the destruction of high-profile sites like Palmyra and Nimrud, I.S. has mainly targeted more recent religious structures, from medieval to modern. In Mosul, the vast majority of the sites they destroyed were places of active worship by today’s faith communities—the Sunni, Shiite, and Sufi Muslims, Orthodox, Catholic, and Assyrian Christians, Jews, and Yazidis, who have shared this multi-ethnic city for more than eight centuries. I.S. singled out Mosul landmarks widely beloved by many communities and creeds, such as the tomb of the prophet Jonah whose story appears in both the Koran and the Bible, and the famous “leaning” al-Hadba Minaret, blown up as a spiteful gesture in the final days of the battle. “What I.S. carried out in Mosul was systematic cultural cleansing,” says archaeologist Michael Danti. “In their relentless targeting of heritage sites and places of worship, they set out to manipulate and destroy the cultural identity and diversity of the city’s population.”

ISIS destroyed this cemetery in the town of Qayyarah, about 35 miles south of Mosul. This photograph was taken on November 10, 2016.

Danti is principal director of American Schools of Oriental Research Cultural Heritage Initiatives—or ASOR CHI, a small team of archaeologists and image specialists based at Boston University supported by the U.S. State Department. Since August 2014, ASOR has carried out intensive monitoring and reporting on the status of ancient sites in Syria and Iraq, as well as providing training and logistical support for heritage workers in these embattled countries. For its monthly reports, the team draws mainly on high-resolution satellite photography of the Middle East provided by the commercial operator DigitalGlobe. In addition, ASOR’s efforts have been aided by an online crowd-sourced platform known as TerraWatchers, developed at UC San Diego under a special grant from the university. Based on Google Earth, the initiative trains student volunteers in analyzing satellite imagery and has so far recorded nearly 7,000 incidents of damage to Iraq’s ancient sites. Overall, ASOR CHI has reported a minimum of 1,300 such incidents since its work began in August 2014.

Satellite eyes in space offer a crucial advantage, according to ASOR satellite image specialist Susan Penacho. “On aerial photos, the pattern of blast damage is revealing,” she says. “It’s usually evident whether the damage has been inflicted by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes or by explosives set off by I.S. inside a building.”

Take the case of Mosul’s iconic leaning minaret. Built in 1172, the al-Hadba Minaret’s historical connections made it highly significant to jihadists. It was from the adjoining mosque that I.S. first proclaimed the creation of a new “caliphate,” the Islamic State, in July 2014, a few weeks after seizing Mosul. Facing defeat in June 2017, with Iraqi commandos closing in to within 50 yards of the mosque, I.S. set off explosives that obliterated the site. Then I.S. released a video blaming its destruction on a coalition airstrike. “It was out of character for them not to take credit and boast about the destruction of a major ancient site,” Danti says. “But their real motive in this case was surely to prevent this highly symbolic place from being used to announce the liberation of the city and the defeat of I.S.”  Within 24 hours, satellite imagery was released showing a pattern of blast damage that could only have been caused by bombs planted inside the ancient structure.

The leaning al-Hadba Minaret of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, seen here in 2013 before ISIS destroyed it.

Yet the view from space has limitations. Satellite photography fails to capture damage to the walls or interiors of buildings, while cloud cover and smoke from fires, sometimes deliberately set by I.S. to obscure imagery, pose additional problems. All these factors make local social media postings and blogs, often compiled by journalists and activists in Iraq and Syria at considerable risk, increasingly vital to ASOR’s efforts.

“It’s become a huge task. When we first started,” Danti says, “it was fairly easy. One person could get through all this online material in about three or four hours each day. Today, besides a full-time research assistant, we have two or three part-time researchers as well as a handful volunteers, all of them going through Twitter and Facebook feeds, online news sites, and particularly bloggers in the conflict zone. The challenge is to drill down to find reliable primary sources among all the copying of posts, false reports, and deliberate fabrications.”

One of the toughest “fake news” stories to refute, Danti says, concerned the objects destroyed by I.S. during its 2015 rampage in the Mosul Museum. These were said to have been copies and not the original objects, which had been safely removed to storage. Who first started the story is hard to pin down but, perhaps to save face, officials in Baghdad confirmed that the objects had indeed been safely evacuated. ASOR CHI soon heard from its contacts in Mosul that nearly all the objects were, in fact, the original exhibits; while a few of the smashed sculptures visible in the video show modern plaster and iron reinforcements, these were repairs made to genuine antiquities. But, by then, it was too late to debunk the story before it spread.

“Reports like this often start as tweets or blog posts, get picked up by online news sites in Baghdad or Damascus that are typically in a hurry and don’t verify content, until, before you know it, they’re appearing on CNN and BBC. This story spread like wildfire through the online universe because it was what people wanted to hear. It made them feel better to think that I.S. had been duped. But in reality, this was a war crime that destroyed the patrimony of the people of Mosul.”

Minorities Under Threat

A current special focus for ASOR CHI’s team is a vast region surrounding Mosul known as the Nineveh Plains. Here, Iraq’s two main Christian groups, the Assyrians and Yazidis, have worshipped for centuries in dozens of small village churches and temples. Elements of Yazidi faith incorporate pre-Christian rites and beliefs. A major Yazidi shrine at Lalish incorporates a 4,000-year-old Sumerian temple, and here, in 1162 AD, a tomb was built for the “Peacock Angel,” a venerated holy being to whom God is said to have entrusted the world after creation. Their unorthodox beliefs have long made the Yazidis a target for persecution. I.S. brands them as “devil worshippers,” and after capturing Mosul in 2014, I.S. forces advanced across the Nineveh Plains and launched ferocious attacks against Yazidi and Assyrian villages.  According to the U.N., at least 5,000 Yazidis were murdered, some beheaded or burned alive, and 5,000-7,000 women and children were abducted and sold as slaves. Many thousands more fled to refugee camps in northern Iraq.

A girl, displaced by fighting in Mosul, steps out of a refugee tent in Iraq’s Zelikan camp.

“Few of the historic village churches and temples in the Nineveh Plains have ever been properly photographed or catalogued,” says Marina Gabriel, program coordinator of ASOR CHI, “but the identity of Christian communities is deeply tied to these structures.” Scanning online news and Twitter posts, Gabriel and her colleagues are tracking the return of handfuls of families to their devastated villages, where they are starting to rebuild their shattered cultural heritage. “They have help from Christian aid organizations, but there’s no government money,” Gabriel says, “so families pool their own funds and labor to patch up churches or rebuild shrines. It’s a crucial way for them to reassert their presence in this region that’s seen so much division and conflict.” By this summer, for instance, about 200 families had returned from refugee camps to the neighboring villages of Ba’shiqa and Bahzani, 19 miles east of Mosul. Most of the streets are still unpaved, electricity is sporadic, and there’s no running water. Dozens of I.S. booby traps and unexploded U.S. ordnance have yet to be cleared from wrecked streets and buildings. But by late June, local volunteers had already rebuilt five Yazidi shrines in Bahzani and were constructing or restoring 16 more in the two villages.

Restoring the Past, Reclaiming the Shrines

Despite Mosul’s liberation, the future of northern Iraq’s religious minorities and their historic shrines and monuments looks shaky. I.S. was expelled from Mosul by a temporary coalition of Shia and Sunni Iraqi security forces, Kurdish troops, and both Shia and Christian militias, which now control different neighborhoods in and around the city. With I.S. gone, fears run high of continuing sectarian killings and attacks on shrines and churches. These tensions are inflamed by social media in Iraq, where a dramatic recent surge in divisive rumors and fake news has been noted. But responsible bloggers and reporters are fighting back: in May, a diverse group of 30 Mosul journalists met to discuss the setting up of a local media network dedicated to independent reporting. Personal blogs such as Mosul Eye and 2020 Mosul, together with online news sites such as Niqash, Al Shahid, and Iraqi News, also aim to investigate false claims and report even-handedly.

Meanwhile, with nearly 1 million of Mosul’s population still displaced and around 200,000 homeless, the cost of cleaning up and rebuilding Mosul has been estimated at upward of $100 billion. “In devastated cities like Mosul and Aleppo,” ASOR’s Danti says, “where the toll of destruction is so staggering, the biggest threat posed to heritage now is development: the drive to rebuild hastily and simply bulldoze historic sites that should be restored.”

Today, The sixth #Yazidian dome, demolished by #ISIS, is completed in #Bahzani to be the banner of the sun shining without support http://pic.twitter.com/GAC3mDGZ7y

— ممتاز ابراهيم (@mumtazibrahm) June 16, 2017

As NOVA Next reported last year, 3D digital imaging offers a promising new tool for restoring major monuments and World Heritage sites that were well-photographed and documented before their destruction. Allison Cuneo, ASOR CHI’s Program Manager for Iraq, predicts that “there will be a big focus on rebuilding ‘celebrity’ sites like Palmyra or the Al-Hadba Minaret, where the act of restoration will carry important symbolism for Iraqi authorities as they try to reestablish normality.” University of Mosul archaeologist Al-Jaboori agrees that digital technology and the completeness of excavation records will enable sites like the palace of Nimrud to be restored. But he believes that the resulting copy will never carry the same meaning for the people of Mosul. “The special materials, the special construction methods can never be fully replicated,” he says. “It will be fake. You will feel it’s not the original.” Beyond the handful of ‘celebrity’ sites, the fate of the hundreds of destroyed mosques, churches, and shrines in Iraq and Syria and the intact monuments that survive remains an open question.

Yet, against the odds, some communities are already finding ways to reclaim the past. On June 16, the #bahzani Twitter feed posted striking photos of Yazidis climbing to the top of the sixth temple they have restored in the village among the many demolished by I.S. They proudly hoist a gilded star to the top of the dome, standing for the “banner of the sun shining without support,” a gleaming symbol of hope and renewal for a people who have suffered so much.