#massive implications and trauma came from that time and still exist today

[cld-n]

i know some ppl say "oh but the police in _______ surely isn't as bad as it is in america???" but like, it says something though if the protests in america that happened after george floyd was killed led to other places around the world having protests against police brutality & racism in their own countries.

[stillness-in-green]

The Weight of a Name

Some meta on Shigaraki, Kotaro, All For One, and the Japanese adoption system.  

So, I was thinking the other day about Shigaraki, family names, and the illustration of power that is All For One wresting Shigaraki from the Shimura family into his own.  To wit: I had occasionally wondered about Kotaro's resentment of his mother; about whether his adoptive parents, whoever they were, were cruel or distant with him, or whether he was so deeply wounded by his perceived abandonment that no arrangement would have been happy or supportive enough to lessen his trauma.  Also, why in heaven's name wasn't his name changed?  If Nana was concerned that All For One might hurt him to get at her, why wasn't the simplest and most basic aspect of his identity, his family name, altered?  Upon further reflection, though, I remembered some of what I've read about family law in Japan and came to a realization: I don't think Kotaro was adopted.  This has significant implications for both his own upbringing and the statement All For One makes in “adopting” Tenko.  

While adoption numbers look high in Japan--the second-highest in the world--in reality, over 90% of adoptions in the country are adult adoptions of men in their 20s-30s, usually for the purposes of inheriting businesses.  Foster care is rare now and was once even rarer; the majority of children in the care of Japanese child services grow up in overcrowded, understaffed institutions, and scant few of these children are even eligible to be adopted due to family law stating that putting a child in an orphanage does not equate to surrendering one's parental rights.  Often, children are placed in orphanages due to the parents' financial difficulty or history with abuse, with the possibility that they might come back for those children when they get their lives back on track--though in reality, this is quite rare.  

Why are these ties kept so strong?  Well, it goes back to family ties and bloodlines, and the ways in which modern Japanese society is built around those things on some very, very bedrock levels.  In the West, we have individual documents for our major life events, but in Japan, since the 1870s, there has been the koseki.  

The koseki is a family registry--one is entered into one's parents' registry at birth, with all information about the family's births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptions being kept in the same place.  The registry for a given family is maintained for two generations, with children typically only beginning their own family registries when and if they marry--sometimes not even bothering until they have a child!  The koseki--theirs and each of their parents'--will also have references to one another, allowing a diligent person to track a family line and its major events back for generations by simply following the paperwork.  Being recorded in a koseki is the primary indicator of Japanese citizenship.  "Family" as recorded in the koseki governs inheritance rights, and in turn carries expectations about children looking after their parents in the latter's old age.  While in recent years, limits have been placed on who can access koseki, as recently as 2008, anyone who was even curious about someone else's koseki could walk into the relevant government office and ask to see it for only a basic fee.  This contributes to enormous privacy concerns and societal pressure to not do anything that would "sully" the family koseki, as doing so could not impact just peoples' views of you, but of everyone else in your family.  (cite)

The whole schema for the koseki assumes a heterosexual, nuclear family dynamic, with a predictable difficulty in forcing that framework fit outlying cases--single parents, international or same-gender marriages, divorce, surrogacy arrangements, gender changes, and--most relevant to this discussion--adoption.  Because of the perceived sanctity of the koseki, adoption of children for purposes other than inheritance remains vanishingly rare--combine that with the rarity of parents who give up their children ever returning for them, and what you have are too many children in too few facilities, a recipe for misery.  Children in Japanese orphanages are often considered--by both people in society at large and even the children themselves--as "unwanted."  Studies about children who grew up in such institutions suggest they lag behind the rest of their age group in development and in school, that they have little experience in forming long-term bonds with others; "many struggle with basic interpersonal skills like empathy and regulating their emotional state."  Adults who come out of such institutions often fail to finish school or seek higher education and wind up working low-paying jobs or relying on government assistance. (cite, but also see: Bubaigawara Jin)  

While Kotaro--if he was raised in an orphanage--clearly overcame the odds very admirably regarding his schooling and employment, he equally clearly came out of the experience still nursing emotional scars and ill-equipped to deal with children of his own.  This glacial societal resistance to mucking with family records probably also explains why his name was never changed--if he was never adopted by another family, there would be no other koseki to register him to, and Japan doesn't have a witness protection program.  

What all of this illustrates to me--along with shedding some light on what Kotaro's childhood post-Nana was probably like--is what exactly is being communicated by All For One's adoption and subsequent renaming of Shimura Tenko.  Kotaro was leashed to the Shimura name all his life, even after his mother gave him up, even after she died.  He could never escape his status as "an unwanted child"; anyone who wanted to look him up could do so (including, very possibly, All For One himself, depending on how much of Shigaraki's backstory you think was orchestrated from the beginning).  

By contrast, Tenko is severed cleanly from the Shimura family name, given another name not listed on any koseki (at least not one updated within the last two hundred years).  He's cut out of the Shimura family entirely, adopted at a young age by a man who wants him, a man with such utter disregard for societal systems and values that he's able to just take the child he wants, difficulties with adoptions and names and family registers be damned.  In a stroke, at his whim, the unyielding weight of Shimura is nullified, and instead, Tenko becomes Shigaraki Tomura, a child who doesn't exist anywhere.  Not recorded on a koseki, he is thus without family or nationality, his Quirk unrecorded, his date of birth unknown.  There is nowhere any proof of his existence.  All told, it's a pretty profound statement about the lengths All For One is willing (and happy) to go to in stamping out all traces of the One For All bearers' legacies.

(...And yet, perversely, Shigaraki also kind of fits the model for Japanese adoption--All For One explicitly intends him to be a successor, after all.  In that light, you could say that he was adopted into the Shigaraki family to inherit the family business.  I have to imagine that All For One thought this was pretty funny, though probably no one else agrees with him.)  

A note: The stats and info I reference above are relevant to modern-day Japan and, of course, My Hero Academia isn't set in modern-day Japan, not quite.  It's set in Japan 200-300-odd years in the future, with the caveat that the development of super-powers and the resulting massive social upheaval stunted societal and technological growth  such that the setting still looks mostly like modern-day Japan, only with super-powers.  That being the case, do we assume that the ongoing updates to the koseki system had already been made as of the emergence of Quirks, enduring through the plot as we know it, or do we assume that changes to the system were made on a roughly even time-scale as in modern times--e.g. did employers stop being able to ask for a copy of one's koseki in 1974 or merely "forty-five years ago"?  

Given the chaos that was wrought by the appearance of Quirks, the alleged lawless periods, as well as the existence of a mandatory Quirk registry and the phenomenon of "Quirk marriages," I am disinclined to believe that the problems represented by the koseki have been addressed much at all since early-2000s Japan.  If anything, the conservative influences in the Japanese government that are so resistant to legislating changes to how the koseki functions today would probably have even more reason to push back against those changes if faced with Sudden Super-Powers.  My Hero Academia is intended to speak to a modern Japanese audience--the issues facing its villains, in particular, are reflective of real problems people face in Japan--and thus, to me at least, it's counterintuitive not to interpret the series' characters with that modern Japanese context in mind.  Who is Horikoshi writing for, and what in his society is he trying to comment on?  With that lens in place, I think the koseki is exactly as much a problem in MHA's world as it is our own--possibly even moreso.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Title: The Haunting Blessing of Wayne Manor Summary: Tim is convinced a demon has moved into the Wayne Manor; Jason decides it's past time Wayne Manor is blessed. (Set in Catie's Fr. Todd AU) (ao3)

It’s @catie-does-things ‘s birthday today!! Happy birthday Catie!!!!! The Manor seems like an excessively Massive place to bless but Fr. Todd’s gonna Do It Anyway!!! Hope you enjoy and have a great birthday :D (as a sn: this is based entirely on house blessings that my college chaplain did for us...but the last one of those was 3 years ago; also semi-based on a story from one of my chaplains that it’s also been about 3 years since I’ve heard...I think most of it is pretty Accurate to how Life Works tho) 

“I think there’s a demon in the Mansion,” Tim says, and Jason doesn’t look up from the Halloween lesson notes he’s preparing for the elementary and middle-schoolers at the school Dominic’s been assigned to.

“You can’t keep calling Damian that,” he says absently, starring a place he thinks can reword.

“You’re the one who started it,” Tim says sullenly. Jason looks up when he shifts in his chair, and frowns. Tim’s face is twisted and serious, and though he clutches the mug of coffee Jason’s made for him, he hasn’t taken a sip of it at all. He looks tired, not strictly unusual, but pale also.

Jason snaps his notebook shut and gives Tim his full attention. “I was just there last week for dinner,” he prompts. “Nobody mentioned anything abnormal.”

“Bruce thinks I’m being suspicious,” Tim admits, and Jason can tell that stings. “I think Dick is starting to come around, but he didn’t believe me at first either--” just a hint of bitterness, bygones of Dick’s Batman days--”and who the hell knows what Damian thinks. Cass agrees though,” he adds as if that’s all that matters. The two of them, through thick and thin.

“Have you been spending the night at the Mansion?” Jason asks, surprised. Since moving back in with Cass, he’d figured Tim, who had a bad habit of withdrawal, had been keeping mostly to himself. He made sure to keep his appointments, like his weekly coffee or brunch get together with Jason, but, when not patrolling, stayed holed up in his apartment.

It’s part of why Bruce approves the living arrangements--someone’s keeping an eye on him.

Tim shrugs. “Late patrols, working a case, Cass is in Hong Kong. Anyway,” he adds pointedly, like that’s not the point, “the point is, there’s something. It started in my old room and I think it’s moved to the sitting room.”

“Unhelpful,” Jason says. “There’s a million sitting rooms.”

Tim eyes him. “The only sitting room that matters. You know.”

Jason laughs. He does know, it’s essentially Tim’s sitting room at this point, though Jason favors it too when he comes to visit--it has the best natural light in the Manor, great for naps for someone like Tim, who, cat-like, seeks out sunny spots of solitude.

Tim still looks troubled though, and Jason sighs. “I’ll talk with the pastor,” he says. “And I’ll come by and bless the Manor.” He pauses, thoughtful, and adds, “That’d be a good thing to do anyway.”

“You think sprinkling some water will work?” Tim asks skeptically.

“Hey, you came to me,” Jason reminds him.

Tim chews on his lip. “How long?”

“Probably tomorrow,” Jason says. He’s torn--ordinarily he’d suggest confession for the sacramental graces, but only Bruce and Dick had ever been baptized Catholic (and Jason’s not even sure about Dick). Tim, neglected in more ways than one, has never been exposed much to religion outside of an academic context at all. And Damian...well he’s a special case.

Instead, Jason impulsively he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a Rosary. He drops it gently into Tim’s cupped hand, saying, “Here, take this.”

Tim stares down at it. “I don’t know what to do with it,” he admits.

Jason bites down on the suggestion that he ask Bruce--Tim would take it as a dismissal, even if Jason definitely doesn’t mean it that way. Instead, he starts, “The big bead is the Our Father, and then the next ones are the Hail Marys, see it’s a decade, and after ten Hail Marys comes the Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.” He goes over each prayer with Tim, who is absorbing it all, and then sends him off with a reminder that Bruce, though rusty, knows all the prayers if Tim forgets.

Tim gives him a glare, knowing what Jason is half-suggesting, but he says, “Thanks,” softly and is on his way.

Jason comes by the Manor the next day, armed with a prayer book and holy water. The pastor has been called away for a hospital visit, and Dominic is on retreat with his middle schoolers, so Jason is left by himself.

Damian sniffs haughtily when he sees Jason. “I expected more tools for Drake’s exorcism,” he says.

“I’m not an exorcist,” Jason reminds him. It’s a conversation he’s had frequently with his brothers, who, after discovering the diocese exorcist is kept secret, have decided, firmly, that it must be Jason. “And no one would perform an exorcism here,” he adds for good measure.

Damian grumbles something and leaves just as Bruce comes into the foyer to greet Jason. Jason returns his hug, but eyes him disapprovingly. “You should know better than to dismiss Tim like that,” he says softly. “Especially over a spiritual matter. You’re not a skeptic.”

Bruce’s brow furrows, but he accepts the scolding.

“Okay,” Jason amends. “You’re a detective, so you question, but you’ve seen too much to doubt the reality of a demon.”

“That’s fair,” Bruce agrees.

Jason waits a beat, and then adds, “And he’s the one who always believed you were alive. He found you.”

Bruce nods in acknowledgement.  “Tim and I have already talked,” he says. There’s an implication Bruce apologized, and Jason is glad. He’s getting better at that. Jason’s always a little surprised when Bruce just listens to him these days.

Bruce’s mouth slants down, not quite a frown. “I’ve been worried about him, but I think seeing you yesterday helped. He seems...almost excited about the blessing. Intrigued.”

Jason’s lips quirk up. “He’ll be disappointed. This isn’t an exorcism, as I keep telling Damian.”

Bruce laughs a little. “Cassie will be back from Hong Kong soon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from them to come bless the apartment.”

Jason shrugs. “I should’ve done it ages ago.”

“Well come in,” Bruce says, gesturing, but Jason says, “I think it’d be best to be thorough and start here.”

Bruce nods. “I’ll get Tim,” he says. “And round up the others.”

“Other than Damian?” Jason asks, and Bruce shrugs. “Dick has been in and out.”

He returns with Tim, no Dick or Damian, but he’s also brought along Alfred, who offers Jason a pat on the shoulder and water bottle; Jason accepts both gratefully.

Tim still looks pale, but he grins at Jason, who says, “We’ll lets get started. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”

They work their way methodically through the Manor, Jason finding prayer passages for rooms he didn’t even know still existed. (He realizes it’s a mansion but why does there have to be a ballroom? He mentally says an extra prayer there, thinking of children subjected to boredom at galas while adults hunt for iniquity in the name of charity; he says an extra prayer in the library as well because the smart asses of this house, himself included, could use some actual Wisdom sometimes). Damian joins them somewhere along the way, lurking behind them and acting disinterested, even though he’s definitely listening.

They pick up Dick along the way, too. Jason focuses on the prayers and the blessings, but it doesn’t escape his notice that Dick slips an arm around Tim and whispers something in his ear that makes Tim smile, even as he shushes him. He even crosses himself a few times, right to left, and Jason files that away because did he know Dick was raised Orthodox? (Eastern Rite, maybe? He definitely didn’t know.)

When they reach the sitting room, Tim flinches. There is a drastic drop in temperature, and even Jason shivers.  It’s not like Tim to be afraid, though, and he takes a few steps into the room after Jason, whispers, “It’s in here.”

Jason nods, and flips his book to pray the sitting room prayers, and, when done, sprinkles the holy water, three times, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Then he’s done with that, and they continue. It’s a while before the whole Mansion is blessed, and Bruce even lets him bless the Cave, where he finally concludes, blessing his entire family, In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

When he’s done, he takes a long drink of water from the bottle Alfred’s provided. He’s taken sips throughout the blessing, but the blessing has still left him thirst. He wants to catch Dick, gently suggest to him that Tim might still be harboring some hurt from Dick’s time as Batman, but before he can, Dick drags Tim off to the computer, and Bruce, brow furrowing suspiciously, follows him. Perhaps Dick realizes that, or maybe he just feels guilty about being dismissive of Tim initially. Jason doesn’t give his older brother enough credit, sometimes, but he does resolve to bring it up, along with Dick’s religious background, next time Dick stops by the rectory.

Alfred retreats too, to finish dinner, a pointed look at Jason that tells him he’s staying and will be returning with food for Dominic and his pastor. Jason smiles back, but before he realizes it, he’s alone with Damian, who, with arms crossed tightly against his chest, dog firmly at his side, clearly wants to talk. Jason waits.

“Could my grandfather--,” Damian starts, not looking at Jason.

“Maybe a curse or something,” Jason answers, shrugging. “It’s not unheard of. But,” he adds, gently, “the Manor is very old. There’s a lot of trauma here, too. I couldn’t say for sure where it may have come from.”  

He pauses, frowning at the boy, and then ventures, “You know your grandfather isn’t actually a demon, don’t you? He’s a man who’s prolonged his life artificially.”

“No,” Damian corrects. “The Lazarus Pit--,”

“I don’t mean through modern medication or anything like that,” Jason interrupts gently. “I just mean we’re not supposed to live that long. Death is natural. Immortality is not; he’s cheating death. It doesn’t matter what he calls himself, it doesn’t change the nature of what he is, and that’s a man and a mortal.”

“And a coward?” Damian asks, and Jason’s mouth twists. Whatever Damian might say, Ra’s Al Ghul is still his family.

“That’s not for me to decide,” he says quietly, finally. “But I would caution anyone about fearing death of the flesh more than death of the soul.”

Damian hums, then says, clipped, “Thank you, Todd,” and Jason breathes a sigh of relief that this conversation has gone better than the one they’d had last month regarding animals’ souls and whether or not they go to heaven.

Jason stays for dinner, and, as predicted, is plied with numerous tupperwares of food for him for the week and for Fr. Dominic and Fr. Paul, his pastor.

“The parishioners will think you don’t appreciate them,” he teases Alfred, as he accepts. Alfred sniffs a little and says that that is hardly his intent, but he returns Jason’s kiss on the cheek with a fond hand pat, and several more slices of bread.

Jason says his goodbyes, and Tim hops up, ostensibly to help him carry the tupperware to his car. When they’re outside, though, Tim says, earnestly, “Thanks for believing me, Jay.”

Jason catches his hand and squeezes it. “If it doesn’t go away, you know where to find me. We have a process.”

Tim’s eyes glint mischievously as he shakes his head and mutters “Catholics.”

“Hey,” Jason says, lightly, “if you’re jealous, it’s not too late to join us.”

Tim snorts, but when Jason tells him to bow his head, he does. Jason gives him another blessing. After he’s finished the Sign of the Cross, Jason snags Tim around the neck and rubs his knuckles against his hair.

“Hey!” Tim protests, batting at Jason’s hands and trying to wriggle away from the unexpected nougie attack. “I was trying to be reverent!”

“Aren’t we all, kid,” Jason laughs, releasing him. He gives him a little push towards the Manor. “Go get some sleep, Tim, you look like death.”

“Memento Mori,” Tim quips solemnly, rubbing at his head. He flashes Jason a grin, though, and heads back inside.

Jason stands for a minute beside his car, looking up at the Manor and the grounds sprawling behind it. It’s dark and imposing at night, but Jason knows the depth of warmth and love inside. It wells up inside him now, too, and says a little prayer of Thanksgiving, before returning home to the rectory.

[ohioprelawland]

Sunshine State Shines On Student-Athletes, Will Become First To Allow NIL Profits

By Vincent Lucarelli, The Ohio State University, Class of 2021

June 27, 2020

On Friday June 12, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 646 which allows student -athletes in the state to profit off the use of their name,image and likeness.

The measure, that also allows student-athletes to hire agents, goes into effect July 1, 2021 and would make Florida the first state in the country to have such a law (ahead of California who passed a similar law in late 2019, that will not go into effect until 2023.)At the ceremonial signing on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, DeSantis called the current NCAA model that still stands against such payments “fundamentally unfair.”[i]

This legislation acts as a visible thaw in a long history of legal questions regarding the status of “student-athletes” and what they are due.

The first query occurred way back in 1955 when Ray Dennison, a “student-athlete” at Colorado’s Fort Lewis A&M,died after suffering head trauma making a tackle during a football game.[ii]In the wake of this tragic accident, Dennison’s wife filed a grievance against the school in hopes of receiving workman’s compensation death benefits but the Colorado Supreme Court voted the measure down, affirming that college football players are not employees of the college they play for but are instead identified by the vague termof “student-athlete.”For the sake their integrity as amateurs, these students are not entitled to any compensation.  

The NCAA dug in on this issue for years enduring countless lawsuits similar to the one they dealt with from Dennison all while the sports they oversaw got more and more profitable. The 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Oklahoma Board of Regents was a major milestone in the creation of the moneymaking “industry” that is college sports, but particularly college football, today.

Previous to this case, the NCAA controlled college football television rights and the University of Oklahoma along with the University of Georgia brought suit in hopes that it would allow them to negotiate their own television deals.[iii] The court ruled, unsurprisingly, that this arrangement was a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and gave the schools the independence that they wished for. This new negotiating power served to divide the college landscape into previously superfluous, usually regional conferences and they haven’t looked back since.

Today, many conferences have their own television network, in addition to lucrative contracts with big networks like CBS, ABC or Fox that make them hundreds of millions which are distributed to their member schools. For example, the Southeastern Conference or SEC distributed $41 million to each of its 14 member schools in 2017 and the Big Ten distributed nearly $50 million to its own 14 members in that same year. i

In the presence of this burgeoning cash flow, the clamors began to get louder for something to be doled out to the players. The key strike to get the conversation going again came in 2009, with O’Bannon v. NCAA. Here former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon, who helped the Bruins win the championship in 1995, put himself at the forefront of a class action anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA stemming from the use of his own likeness without his consent in the NCAA Basketball 09 video game. O’Bannon’s grief was used as a jumping off point for all NCAA football and basketball players in a united stance against the NCAA for the use of their name image and likeness (NIL) particularly after graduation when a player, in their eyes, should be entitled to a portion of the revenue they generate.[iv]

This case was not decided until 2014 when Judge Claudia Wilken of the District Court for Northern California decided in favor of the players, saying that the NCAA’s policy of not paying players,again, violated anti-trust law. Wilken proposed as a solution that schools could pay players up to $5000 per year with the payment to come to the students after they graduate.

When the NCAA appealed this decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015,Wilken’s words were,in part, reversed. The NCAA pointed to a nuance in the NCAA v. Oklahoma Board of Regents decision of thirty years before where it was stated, "To preserve the character and quality of the ‘product,’ athletes must not be paid."[v]The appellate judges concurred stating that it would not be right to just give student-athletes money with no strings attached, as Wilken was proposing, rather than money for say educational purposes only. This, in a way, put the situation back to square one.

The five years since then have seen news littered with stories of college basketball players, in particular, getting paid off to come to attend a certain school. An FBI investigation that ended in 2017, uncovered what could be described as a massive network of black market dealings that underpin modern college basketball and how high level recruits are treated. Ten men were implicated including four assistant coaches, an Adidas executive and a financial advisor for various levels of bribery.[vi]In addition, Will Wade, the head coach of the LSU Tigers, Sean Miller, the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats, and Bill Self, the head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, were all caught on wiretap discussing payments to players or engaging in conversations that pointed to the fact that they were aware this type of activity was going on at their schools. Interestingly, none of them were charged by the FBI and though they were seemingly breaking the NCAA’s dogmatic pay-to-play rule, all of them still hold their jobs and received minimal penalties.

This is perhaps an acknowledgement by the NCAA of certain realities and an openness for change. College basketball is unique because marquee players only have to be on campus for a single season before they can jump to the pros (and even that is dying as some top prospects are now electing to play overseas or in the G-League).As such, schools need to throw a lot of eggs into the basket for that one chance at glory.

Nowhere is this truer than in the case of Zion Williamson.Now of the New Orleans Pelicans, Williamson has been accused in recent weeks by the woman that formerly represented him of receiving improper benefits during his whirlwind time at Duke last year. These benefits allegedly included cash from Nike--who he later signed an official deal with--cars and housing. Williamson has since pushed back against these claims and the suit is now being heard in district court but, regardless, the whole situation is emblematic of the time we are living in and the situation premier athletes like Williamson are presented with.[vii] They are far too valuable cogs in the multi-million dollar machine of college athletics for schools to not find a way to grease them somehow.

In the end, as was touched on, the appellate court’s decision in O’Bannon v. NCAAwas important because it left the issue without a plan of action for the future. This is where California and Florida stepped in with their pay-to-play bills. The NCAA has stated off and on a desire to relook at existing laws but the question now remains whether other states will continue to roll out their own bills in this fashion or whether there will be a national referendum on the issue with the cooperation of the NCAA.

________________________________________________________________

[i]Kaufman, M. (2020, June 12). Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill allowing Florida college athletes to be paid for name, image. Retrieved from Miami Herald website: https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/article243484571.html

[ii]Solomon, J. (2018, April 23). The History Behind the Debate Over Paying NCAA Athletes. Retrieved from Aspen Institute website: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/history-behind-debate-paying-ncaa-athletes/

[iii]NCAA v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIV. OF OKLA. (1984, June). Retrieved from https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/468/85.html

[iv]Jessop, A. (2015, March 13). Pay for play: NCAA schools keep eye on legal cases. Retrieved from CNBC website: https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/13/paying-college-athletes-pending-lawsuits-create-new-complications-for-ncaa-budgets

[v]Strauss, B. (2015, March 18). N.C.A.A. Appeal of Ruling in O'Bannon Case Is Heard. Retrieved from New York Times website: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/sports/ncaa-appeal-of-ruling-in-obannon-case-is-heard.html

[vi]Staples, A. (2019, May 9). What Has the NCAA—or Anyone—Learned From the College Basketball Black Market's Time on Trial? Retrieved from Sports Illustrated website: https://www.si.com/college/2019/05/09/ncaa-trial-fbi-bribery-corruption-mark-emmert

[vii]Zucker, J. (2020, June 21). Zion Williamson Calls Gina Ford's Duke Ineligibility Claims 'Baseless' in Filing. Retrieved from Bleacher Report website: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2897221-zion-williamson-calls-gina-fords-duke-ineligibility-claims-baseless-in-filing

[lit--bitch]

On ‘A Girl’s Story’ by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer (2020)

(Disclosure: There are themes in this review which some may find triggering, so please don’t read on if you feel particularly vulnerable to the subject matter I’ll be unpacking in this review. A Girl’s Story was first published by Gallimard in 2016 as Memoire de Fille and subsequently it’s been translated into English and published by Seven Stories Press (US) and Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), it came out in April just gone. So I’m working with the Fitzcarraldo Editions edition. As for Annie Ernaux, I don’t know her. I don’t know Alison L. Strayer either. I am familiar with Fitzcarraldo Editions, insofar that I applied for an internship there once which I didn’t get (and that hasn’t changed my feelings at all about the press nor the work they publish). Fitzcarraldo Editions was founded by Jacques Testard, who is joined by Tamara Sampey-Jawad and Joely Day. They’ve got two categories, fiction and essay. As for their name, they’re named after the typeface their designer came up with by Ray O’Meara. I feel like a lot of the writing they publish lies at the intersection of the writing world and the art world, they blur the two together and make them sort of indistinguishable. Not sure if they’d agree, that’s just my opinion. But I do trust Fitzcarraldo Editions, because you can tell that their selection process is careful and considered. They’re not just interested in your book, they’re interested in your whole cause, everything you’re going to write about in future. They maintain connections with their authors, explicitly so. Tbh, it’s rare to find publishers who do that without falling prey to nepotism. Their livery is beautiful: white font on blue for fiction, blue font on white background for essays. They’re lovely books to hold and to shelve.)  

So onto the book: Alison L. Strayer does an amazing job. I’ve read Annie’s work both in original French and English, (I’m bilingual in French from my Algerian upbringing) and I can tell you she absolutely, hands down, conserves the entirety of Annie Ernaux’s voice. Hardly anything is compromised within her translation of A Girl’s Story and that deserves applause, because translations are an art form in and of themselves. She seamlessly keeps all the descriptions, tonality and pace of the work intact. For that reason, this text has to be commended for its precision and accuracy, because Alison hit the nail on the head.  

It is absolutely clear to me why Annie Ernaux is so revered and loved in France. Her work is deeply rooted in her French experience, and of course that means her work is an artefact of French culture and history. Her work is peppered with French references, places and figures, e.g. Juliette Gréco, Mylène Demongeot, Orne, Caen, si t’en veux plus, je la remets dans ma culotte, cha-cha-cha des thons... etc. Annie Ernaux is 78 years old, so she possesses experiences quite divided from today. This makes her work a contribution to discourses on feminism, self-identity, womanhood, abortion, women’s rights, etc. within the 20th century. And she has set out to write the differences of her time in essays which divulge her trauma most acutely. A Girl’s Story is a rumination and a recalling of the events that took place in France, in 1958, at a holiday camp in ‘S’, to Annie Ernaux, née Duchesne. It recalls of her work as a camp instructor over the summer, and her first sexual experience with a man named H, her rejection and the “verbal hegemony” of her peers, prejudices and judgements made of her which she internalises as truth. Later, after the summer, she sets out to become H’s “ideal”, she dyes her hair blonde and develops an eating disorder. A Girl’s Story speaks of a time where provocation is conflated with “whoredom”, where the worth of a woman is vested in her virginity. She hammers down the volatility of the slave/master dynamic between men and women, in a time ‘pre-dating by ten years the slogan ‘my body, my rules’.’ (p.95.)

A Girl’s Story is a tough read. It’s a memoir that distrusts itself and analyses the legitimacy of memory compounded by years of separation from the event. It ruminates on the female condition, the teenage girl’s self-perception which seems to be a collection of external voices and embarrassments. This is all happening in 1958, during the Algerian War on Independence, which is when this narrative begins to slip up on oversights, misinformation and very subtle political bias. I have so much to say about A Girl’s Story but I can’t possibly say it all without boring many people to death and without it turning into a 200-page essay, and frankly I’m not interested in turning this review into a thesis, but I think I already have, because this “review” is L O N G. So I am thankful to you if you do decide to read it all, including my criticisms of the work.  

I have read lots of reviews talking about A Girl’s Story from a feminist slant. I have no desire to repeat a review totally akin to them. I’m interested in the political bias and implications of that bias, and the ignorance of Annie Duchesne and Annie Ernaux, respectively. That will be the main focus of this review. If you want pure praise, and to read a review on this book that focuses on the girl and the girl’s suffering in A Girl’s Story, you can go here, here, and finally, here.

I want to say, firstly, that I respect the acute self-awareness of Annie Ernaux’s writing, and her courage for writing these painful chapters of her life. I am expressly grateful to her book, Happening. She has, at times, helped me. So I don’t want anyone to think that I’m being heartless or insensitive about the predicaments and sadnesses Annie unpacks in her writing. Because I do understand these traumas. 

What I don’t share, is age. There is a massive age gap between myself and Annie Ernaux, which means that the way she’s had to deal with shit has probably been harder because when she was 18, men had the upper hand way more than they do right now, women weren’t invited to exploring their sexuality without being rendered a whore, and abortion was illegal.  

There are times where I find Annie’s reference to herself at the age of 18 as, ‘the girl of S’, or ‘the girl of 1985′, a bit melodramatic and corny, but at the same time I’m empathetic of the pain these memories must stir inside her psyche. The fact that this torment has caused Annie to mentally create divisions of herself in such a way, that she requires an entirely different name for herself at a specific point of her life, that’s upsetting. That is an incredibly vulnerable thing to expose about yourself, in your writing, and for this text, it’s an integral part to digesting Annie Ernaux’s multi-faceted perceptions of memory. 

There’s a sort of clairvoyancy-esque tonality to Ernaux’s voice at times, points where she makes predictions based off her past self, because she distrusts her memory so much. For example, ‘I perceive, in the persistence of these memories, the girl’s fascination for a rigorously organized world...’, ‘I perceive a desire to acclimatize to the new environment [the camp] but also a pervasive fear of being unable to do so’(p. 38). This voice brings about new dimensions to Annie Ernaux’s voice which characterise her as historian, archaeologist and psychologist to the remains of this “long-lost” identity:

But what is the point of writing if not to unearth things [...] something that emerges from the creases when a story is unfolded and can help us understand — endure — events that occur and the things that we do?

What I’m most upbeat about in A Girl’s Story, is the universal truths Annie unpacks about the philosophy of writing the truth, and writing about writing. It’s so good that it sometimes makes me jealous. And that’s how I know I’m reading good writing, when I actually wish I’d written some of these things myself. When Annie (Ernaux) in the present, confesses to wanting to call some of the people who tormented her from the camp, she elaborates: 

I wanted physical, tangible proof of their existence, as if to continue writing I needed them to be alive, as if I needed to be writing about what is alive, to be endangered in the way one is when writing about the living and not in the state of tranquility that prevails when people die and are consigned to the immateriality of fictional characters. 

And then the Big Truth: 

There is a need to make writing an untenable enterprise, to atone for its power (not its ease, no one feels less ease in writing than me) out of an imaginary terror of consequences.  Unless, now that I think of it, there is some perverse desire in me to make sure they’re still alive in order to compromise them, as I attend to my business of disclosure: to be their final Judgement.

There is a desire in writing, sometimes, to condemn and call out the people who’ve hurt you or fucked you over by name, especially if that betrayal is acutely felt, even more so if it stands the test of time. There is an urge to feel the quality of consequence, and to dissolve our sealed lips. I resonate with this: I have, sometimes impulsively, taken it upon myself to write writing that condemns hurt other people have caused, and no matter what anyone says, it does feel good. Especially if the work gets published. There are good and bad reasons for why it feels good, they are mostly all futile, and jejune. 

It’s the ‘pushing the big red button’ of writing, I feel. It says don’t do it. But you do it anyway, because you can. As Annie says:

I do not envy him [H]: I’m the one who is writing. 

Certainly in A Girl’s Story, this whole memory contains the pain behind Annie Ernaux’s whole impetus for writing, it marks the origins of where her work is seated. On shame and abuse and the convolutions of self-image as female. I don’t think Annie so much condemns the people in this essay. Rather, she is reconstructing scenes, and deconstructing her feelings and the projections she creates for herself as a result of being manoeuvred by the expectations and sensitivities of other people. Confessing all this is admirable, and makes for a book which is acutely self-aware.  

A Girl’s Story is a narrative I and many women share. After the narration of Annie Duchesne, Annie Ernaux moves away from the shame of her memories and gradually begins to walk towards herself. She sees the symmetry of her experiences in the histories of Billie Holliday and Violette Laduc, sadnesses of love and intoxication of other in the same year of 1958. She begins to experience resonance:

the eighteen-year-old girl [...] were less alone, less forlorn — saved, in a sense — because these forsaken women, unknown to her then, even by name, had lived in desperate solitude at the same time as her. [...] to shatter the singularity and solitude of an experience that is more less shared by others at about the same time.

This realisation is part of the second half of the book which contains all the reasoning and steps Annie Ernaux makes towards articulating her selves in language. That these memories, though she is dubious about the reliability of them, and of her feelings, she can write this as part of the purpose to write A Girl’s Story. She can realise her intentions for her writing, recognise a purpose in sharing the experiences so that they might perhaps “save” other women from the solitude of their own experiences. And as she does, the memory of ‘the girl of 1958′ begins to “fade”, and what is left is the now, the now, being the most reliable source to yourself at any given point in life. A part of this book’s nature, for me at least, is one of reciprocity, in the sense that we as an audience might reflect on the banks of our memories, and unite ourselves with our pasts and futures in the collective whole of our present selves. 

It’s for these reasons I enjoyed the text, but there are more difficult things going on in the background which pertain to Annie Ernaux’s, and of course Annie Duchesne’s, politics and ignorance. For me there are three very different narratives going on. I’ve unpacked the first two as briefly as I could, above. There is Annie Duchesne and her perspective of the world, her feelings, her torment, and the events unfolding at the camp in S. Then there’s present-day Annie, as Annie Ernaux, recalling these events and writing in the first-person to administer her present-day reflections and hindsights. 

The third narrative is the narrative which is rarely acknowledged and mostly alluded to: it’s what’s happening in the rest of the world, and how both Annies remain still pretty oblivious to it. It’s this third narrative I’ve felt most engrossed by. 

It is really hard for me to not make this book about Algeria in many ways, but the fact that both Annies gloss over the subject of the Algerian War, gives me impetus to address this “glossing” as being a problem in and of itself, and highlights other issues within the work. You’d think this dismissive inclusion of French political affairs is intentional, because by her own admission, she states  her attention towards these world affairs was displaced by the agonies of men and love: ‘Perhaps as a result of that blindness to everything that was not the camp, I come to an abrupt halt when my eye is caught by the date of 1958′. It would make sense that Annie skirts around these issues when she speaks of herself at the age of 18, and that’s implied from the very start. 

Annie tries to recreate the version of herself in youth by aligning you to her ideology and her principles at that age. Just three pages into the essay, she says:

That summer [1958], too, thousands of servicemen left France to restore order in Algeria. Many had never been away from home before. In dozens of letters, they wrote about the heat, the djebel, the douars — tent villages — and the illiterate Arabs, who after one hundred years of occupation still did not speak French. 

You immediately get an impression for the mentality she once harboured. And it’s also a really misinformed one, because she implies that Algeria is made up of Arabs and that’s not true, the dominant demographic in Algeria and most of North Africa is the Amazigh, also known by the derogatory term “Berbers”. This is true of back then and it remains true of now. The thing is, what’s so enraging about this particular statement, and at several other points of this book, is that she oscillates between her present self and her 18-year-old self at random junctions, and she doesn’t really come back to Algeria in great detail, because as I say, her mind is elsewhere occupied by her affections for H at this camp and the reduction of herself as slave to his desires. That how she legitimises her ignorance as Annie Duchesne, y’know, which is understandable of a young girl looking to fall in love. I mean, of course the book isn’t about Algeria, it’s about her mind and desire for affection and to be seen, in a tiny, damaging bubble at a camp, at a time when Frenchmen were being sent away to fight for a mythical land called “French Algeria”. In which case, what’s the point in being so deliberately inflammatory about something you’re not going to later unpack in detail, as your present-day self? (I’ll come back to that in a couple paragraphs).  

Secondly, it’s important that we know Annie Ernaux no longer “agrees” with the French Occupation of Algeria. She doesn’t identify with her 18-year-old self. On page 19, she says:

The longer I gaze at the girl in the photo, the more it seeems that she is looking at me. Is this girl me? Am I her? For me to be her, I would have to      be able to solve a physics problem and a quadratic equation in maths      read the whole novel given out with Bonnes soirées magazine each week       [...]      support the continuation of French Algeria 

There’s the confirmation. But I’m not convinced that Annie Ernaux feels for the collective destruction that annihilated both sides, I’m not convinced that she really cares beyond the confines of French life and French borders. When she speaks in her present-day voice, she is still clearly biased, and I have no care for the logistics of this, that it’s more convenient for her to not turn this into a political essay. This is because about halfway through the book, she remarks:

My memory retains no trace of world events, reduced to a distant rumble that reached the camp by way of the television set in the dining hall. [...] I don’t believe the boys ever mentioned the constant threat they faced, from which none was exempt, of being sent to fight in the djebel, in Algeria. 

On the Internet, I read the list of terrorist actions that occur almost daily between late August (fifteen attacks on the 25th) and the end of September 1958: an attack against Jacques Soustelle that killed one passerby and wounded three, the sabotage of railways, machinegun attacks on cafés and police stations, fires at factories (Simca in Poissy, Pechiney in Grenoble) and refineries (Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon-Marseilles) [...] All were perpetrated by the FLN, [Front Libération Nationale (the Algerian rebels fighting for independence basically)] which brought the conflict to metropolitan France.

I don’t think Annie Ernaux has ever left France, at least not mentally. And for me it’s this essay’s downfall, which is still clearly blinded by French propaganda. This is the extent Annie Ernaux goes into detail about the Algerian War for Independence. And there’s nothing in that entire passage, nor in any part of the essay, about the genocide native Algerians were abjected to. You’d think that age and knowledge would bring this clarity to Annie Ernaux, at least, but it doesn’t, and I’m perplexed by her choice of words, “the constant threat they [French soldiers] faced”, “terrorist actions”, “perpetrate”, as if France was a victim here, and still coming back calling North Africans ‘crouillat’ (it’s a racist term, look it up). I’m not saying that these events weren’t offences, or by any means, acceptable, but this is a country that took Algeria by force, and left it in a mess from which it has never recovered... And Jacques Soustelle, by the way, rendered native Algerians as “backward savages” due to their “primitive technology” and gave them second-class status. He was a fascist. He joined a terrorist group called l’Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) to fight against Algerian independence. He worked alongside Charles de Gaulle and was responsible for his renewal as France’s President and the Fifth Republic. Like, she’s coming up with all these shitty counter-attacks committed by people whose families literally had their entrails pulled out and their houses burned down. Like my own grandmother’s house. These people had shitty pistols to fight with, the French had technology you can’t even imagine. The only reason France didn’t stick with the occupation was because the fight was becoming expensive and people were just tired of rebellion, so they gave Algeria a self-determined referendum. It was a pragmatical decision. 

So there’s a really big division in me created by this incredible, sad narrative of a girl’s struggle, navigating sexuality and femininity within the confines of a patriarchal, limiting society which punishes her. That’s the woman in me, reaching out, saying “Yes!”. We need memoirs like this, we need stories like this. 

And then there’s this other kind of background narrative of politics and world affairs, which is one-sided, and isn’t really relevant or important to Annie’s 18-year-old self but “it should be” but it isn’t, and like, it’s so absent-mindedly written for a woman who is now 78 years old. Her focalisation is that of French suffering, not global suffering. And I think this isn’t just a style of Annie’s writing, I think it’s an outlook, you can see it in other books like The Years. This is the Algerian woman in me, that is beginning a career in narrating the reality of Algeria and what it means to have Algerian family, and possess inherited traumas beyond your understanding and control, and still read books like this written by French people. And Algeria’s not just background noise for Annie to peddle in her narratives of life without fully considering the impact and shape they’ve taken in history. Ergo, don’t loosely include it in your essay if all you’re attempting to do is legitimise your ignorance. And don’t later on, pretend to care, and then cherry pick the events which minimises France’s accountability for genocide. Cos why the fuck would you still want to? 

Here’s the thing, and I’m being as brief as I can here. In 1958, when Annie Duchesne was being taunted, harrassed and in my view, sexually abused, by some holiday camp leaders in S, for having not slept with a boy (I refuse to call him a man), but for somehow being “a whore”, all of which is terrible, this is what was happening in Algeria at the same time:

My grandmother and grandfather’s house had been burned down by the French in the Province of Kabylia, which is Amazigh territory, aka Algerian countryside. She fled to Algiers with her three babies.

Then, shortly afterwards, my grandmother’s 5-year-old daughter was killed by the French Army in a street in Algiers.

Algerian-Muslim votes in political elections were still considered to be unequal to that of French Algerian votes.

My grandfather was about to be shot in the leg and have to travel to France to save it (since all the hospitals in Algeria had been destroyed, and the French at the time were dismissive of indigenous Algerians and their ailments). 

French soldiers were raping Algerian women left, right and centre to punish FLN members.

FLN members were bombing French army barracks. French soldiers were doing the same thing back. Mutual torture and rape from both parties was committed.

The death toll of Algerians was reaching (by my own approximations which I’ve studied hard cos this is a specialism of mine, there isn’t a confirmed statistic, because that’s how much people care) its peak. It was heading towards 20 million dead since the year of 1830, when the French Occupation started.

My grandmother went her whole life without holding her daughter’s killers accountable. She never had a voice and she never had the opportunity to write a book, or several, about it. And I hold my hands up: it doesn’t do well to quantify pain or the severity of experience. Your life is your life, there is only you living it, and whatever happens to you in your life is going to be important to you, even if the saddest thing that ever happens to you is that the flavour of ice cream you like has run out at the shop. 

But it’s hard for me to really let myself just go ahead and resonate with Annie Ernaux. I don’t get caught up in the symmetry of my experiences, because a lot of the time, I’m just relating it back to the atrocities of genocide that Kabyle women like my grandmother were caught up in during 1958. I’m not saying that Annie’s miseries, past and present, are lesser than the miseries of that time for French soliders and Algerian soldiers and civilians enduring the devastation of war. I’m saying that her perspective is narrower. And that’s something I can’t change about Annie, nor this work.

I think what this text tries to do is explore a lack of accountability in many different facets. There is lack of accountability in the people that saw to Annie Duchesne’s humiliation and suffering, there’s a lack of accountability to her parents and their enforcement of religion, there’s no accountability for the people that suffer at the hands of other people, whether it’s a genocide or a sexual assault, and there’s the lack of accountability in having endured the patriarchal constructs which force you down on a bed to find out why your periods have stopped, i.e. an intact hymen (page 86).  

The only resolution, ultimately, is to write about these horrors, and by writing about it you might achieve a narrative which produces a brand new discourse, or a brand new insight previously not seen or understood. By writing about it, we achieve awareness, clarity, even if we mistrust our memories of it all, as Annie does. And I do think Annie achieves clarity, at least, for me as a reader, with A Girl’s Story and this essay should be seen as a contribution to a feminine history, a lesson in where women still feel unvalidated by their own trauma, and the work it takes . I feel that Annie Ernaux has a desire to tell her stories, to admit her truths and confess her sensitive past, her vulnerability and expose the vulnerability of others. By doing so, and allowing a wider audience to access work like A Girl’s Story she carries out her justice. Her truth is evidenced and validated by her readership, by her audience, by it being a book.  

But equally, for me again, A Girl’s Story is held back by some of the more subtle and problematic word choices and convoluted prose that I think is quite disillusioning and deceptively narrow-minded, this is something you’ll have to see for yourself by buying the book.

I think of this essay as an admonition to the follies of youth and of boys, not men, boys. I think of it as a documentation of female struggle and identity. I think of it as a text that intimates privilege even when it is not felt.  And I’m torn by A Girl’s Story, which made this review terribly difficult to write, and I don’t think I’m blowing it out of proportion, I do think there’s an indication of a non-condemnation of France’s historical role in genocide. And maybe this subtle admission is just as brave of Annie, as is writing her autobiographies.

If you’re interested and want to make assertions for yourself, please do buy A Girl’s Story from Fitzcarraldo Editions here. 

And if you want to share some of your own thoughts, please do feel free to comment and discuss. I’m interested to see whether people agree or not. 

[lopezdorothy70-blog]

Ex US Dept. Of State Official Says Existence Of Elite Pedophile Rings Are “NOT Shocking!”

Steve Pieczenik is a former United States Department of State official and a Harvard trained psychiatrist with a doctorate in international relations from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He held many roles within the US political system, including as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan and George H.W. Bush.

Now, if you've done research into US politics, being associated with names like Kissinger and Bush automatically raise a red flag. What's even more concerning is that he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a group many consider to be 'wicked' while hiding behind good deeds. However, he was removed from the membership as early as October 2012, which was around the same time he started to “blow the whistle.”

Not everyone from 'within' is part of this strange clique that many people are becoming aware of today. The clique that Donald Trump doesn't seem to be part of, which is a huge step, and is something we haven't seen for a long time. That's not to say we support his presidency whatsoever, we're just stating that he doesn't seem to be part of the Deep State. Nevertheless, many from within are starting to have a shift in consciousness, and feel a deep need to let the public know what's really going on.

Despite his credentials, Pieczenik's statements have gone completely ignored by mainstream media. In 1982, Pieczenik was mentioned in a New York Times article as “a psychiatrist who has treated C.I.A. employees.” In 2001, he operated as chief executive officer of Strategic Intelligence Associates, a consulting firm.

He's been an insider for years and is one of many from within who have a much clearer idea of what is going on behind the scenes, despite the narrative that's controlled and televised by the establishment's media mouthpieces.

Pieczenik is a legend for speaking his truth, and he deserves to at least be listened to.

It's interesting to review how 'elite level pedophilia' hit the mainstream over the past couple years, bringing up Pizzagate at first, which was quickly labelled a 'conspiracy theory,' and then again when the 'Q anon' phenomenon began to surface, which mainstream media brushed off as a 'conspiracy' yet again.

You don't have to look far to see that this kind of thing isn't a conspiracy theory. The victims are starting to come forward, and people like Pieczenik are speaking up about it. Not long ago, an MSNBC news report even implicated Hillary Clinton in covering up a pedophile ring within the state department.

A lot of this is simply labelled as 'fake news' by the establishment because it implicates many of its members. It's also easy to label it as such because some of it is so unbelievable that it's hard for the mind to accept.

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The truth is that we have more than enough information to at least warrant a proper investigation.

The more we continue to refer to this type of thing as a conspiracy theory, the more we allow those who are involved to continue hurting and abusing innocent women and children who have no way out.

We are talking about ritual abuse, and it seems to start at the Vatican, bleeding down into the government and other power structures. It's a big club, and we're obviously not in it. Let's not forget Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile of the Royal Family, similar to the relationship Jimmy Savile had with the Royals as well.

Even foreign politicians have suggested that western politics is associated with pedophilia and Satanism, Vladimir Putin being one of the latest examples.

This is why I wasn't shocked when I came across the tweet below, discussing the news that came out at the end of last year stating that celebrity Sacha Baron Cohen found a potential pedophile ring while taping the show “Who is America.”  Cohan was quoted as saying, “We immediately turned over the footage to the FBI because we thought, perhaps there's a pedophile ring in Las Vegas that's operating for these very wealthy men.”

You may be asking: Why hasn't the FBI done anything? (Ted Gunderson, former FBI special agent and head of their L.A office did a lot of work in this area).  If you want the answer to that question, retired police detective Jon Wedger, with over 25 years of service in the investigation of child abuse, explains who is involved in this ring and how it operates continually without ever being taken down. It's because, for the most part, when you take this information to your superior, they are already aware of these activities and fail to act on any information. The ones we go to solve this problem may actually be condoning it.

Pieczenik has also implicated the Clintons, stating that“We know that both of them have been a major part and participant of what's called The Lolita Express, which is a plane owned by Mr. Jeff Epstein, a wealthy multi-millionaire who flies down to the Bahamas and allows Bill Clinton and Hillary to engage in sex with minors, that is called Pedophilia.”

It's important to note that Trump's name was found once on the flight ledger to Lolita Island but not repeatedly as with many other people, like Bill Clinton who appeared 26 times for example. It is often believed that Trump appears to be working so hard to stop sex trafficking because of what he saw when visiting Lolita Island.

Again, given his background, and all of the evidence that's already been put out to the public, why should anybody deem this a conspiracy theory? Why have there been no investigations? Why were Australian media outlets forced into silence when Cardinal George Pell was recently convicted on five counts of child sexual abuse? He is now the most senior official ever to be found guilty, serving as an advisor to Pope Benedict as well as Pope Francis. He's one of the Vatican's most powerful officials.

Children are being subjected to torture, murder, and a life full of trauma. We must understand that pedophilia within the realm of politics goes far beyond just that, it goes into ritual abuse and Satanism as well. And it's not just politics, it's Hollywood too. You can find it in many institutions that have amassed massive amounts of power.

Weird connections have always been observed from within, take the Obama administration for example. He appointed Kevin Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the US Department of Education. He's a member of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) and supports Harry Hay, who is also in support of NAMBLA. This was more than a decade ago, but these strange connections exist all over the political system.

Another example of institutional pedophilia support can be found within the UK government and the Catholic Church, which have come under public scrutiny for claiming that victims of child sexual abuse can “consent” to their rapes. They did this in order to avoid compensating victims. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) establishes which victims get compensated, and they do so by determining whether or not the victim gave consent, even if that victim is a child. You can read more about that here.

A lot has happened since Former U.S. representative Cynthia McKinney blew the whistle about pedophilia within the government in 2005. She grilled Donald Rumsfeld on DynCorp's child trafficking business of selling women and children. (source)

Not long after that, retired Army General James Grazioplene, who worked in the Pentagon and as the Vice President of DynCorp, faced six rape charges against minors.

There are so many connections, whistleblowers and investigations that have uncovered examples of institutional pedophilia - we just aren't aware of them because the mainstream media often fails to report on them.

The Takeaway

What does this tell us about who we are electing as our leaders? Are they that two-faced? Many of these people are powerful members of the elite, and some of them have been made for us to idolize and almost worship. They hide behind philanthropy and good deeds, masking some very disturbing things taking place behind the scenes.

We've been turning a blind eye to this topic for too long and it's time to pay attention. A big issue here is the fact that many of the people involved have also experienced the same type of trauma as a child. It's considered normal to them, and it's normal to many of the children who are involved today. If we as a society are going to bring this out into the open, a discussion has to happen from a place of compassion, not judgement. This is still something the human race needs to work on, because if we continue to punish and ostracize people for their wrongdoings, we will never address the root causes of the issues we wish to rid the planet of.

Register for our free exclusive 4 part interview series on Overcoming Elite Child Sex Trafficking w/ Anneke Lucas.

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Are STDs Stigmatized on TV?

“You are what you eat.” You know the phrase. If you consume massive amounts of donuts, you will become a literal donut. Just kidding, you know what we mean though. If you eat well, you will live well. The same can be said for what you’re feeding your brain, i.e. your media consumption. Propaganda is a real thing Y’all, and we’re here to talk about it.

We’re here to talk about the way media intake affects our brains. Captain Planet taught us to care for the environment, Full House taught us to always do the right thing, and modern television has taught us that STDs do not exist outside of a punchline.

We first must ask the question:

Do STDs Even Exist in the Television World?

In some shows, yes. STDs are an actual topic of conversation, but it is oh so rare. We see TV characters get it on pretty regularly. A lot of times, this can be the climax (pun intended) of the show. Some may say that television has gotten a bit too steamy. We, on the other hand, are all for normalizing and destigmatizing sexual health. So… we don’t really care what you’re doing per se, we just want you to be doing it safely and in an open/informed way.

In 2017, fans pointed out that the popular HBO show Insecure did not do the best job at showing its characters’ decisions when it came to safe sex. There was no pause for any kind of discussion about sexual status or protection before engaging in casual sex.

Prentice Penny, showrunner of Insecure, responded to the criticism on Twitter saying, “I really hope people can watch #InsecureHBO without asking if they use condoms. In the writer’s room, we always assume they do.” He goes on to say, “I guess because we are a TV show and it’s fictional. And there’s a lot of things we don’t show but people assume it anyway. We are not a PSA, documentary, non-profit organization. I’m done discussing this.”

It doesn’t necessarily fall on one show’s shoulders to spread public awareness on any issue that their fans seem to be interested in. Equally, even though no show portrays every single time that someone burps or flushes the toilet, it’s not like we assume that they literally never do these things. However, it is concerning how few storylines, in general, include anything to do with safe sex at all.

Does Television Talk About Safe Sex?

The best example of a show that loves sex but hates talking about safe sex, may be Game of Thrones.

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Westeros obviously isn’t a real place, but there certainly seems to be lots of sexy time, and there don’t seem to be any repercussions outside of the occasional pregnancy and penis removal. This is especially weird because aren’t the GoT writers trying to kill off characters at every chance possible anyways? Apparently there have been subtle implications of condoms being used, however, condoms don’t protect from all STDs, and there weren’t exactly convenience stores on every corner of those long journeys, so our bet is they either had to pack them and lug them around across the countryside, or simply do without.

So anyway, yeah, in 2017, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill did a study which analyzed a sample of popular television programs and found that 0.02 percent of sex scenes feature any kind of conversation around contraception. That’s kind of crazy right?

But don’t All Sexually Active Adults Use Condoms?

A national health report released by the CDC in 2017 revealed that only about one-third of those who are sexually active in the U.S. use condoms. While that may seem like a dismal statistic, it’s actually pretty high compared to the .02 percent of times that condoms were featured on screen surrounding sexual activity. But just imagine how many more people would be encouraged to wear condoms if they witnessed their favorite characters doing the same! Now, this is not to say that television should be a moral compass for your personal life, but we do subconsciously pick up what we digitally consume. We want to be like our TV idols. I think we’ve all gone to our hair salon at one point or the other, stating that we want to look like Rachel from Friends. In the words of my ever-so-wise hairdresser, “We can cut your hair like that, but your face will still look the same.”

What’s the Big Deal?

So I know what you’re probably thinking at this point, “Well STDcheck.com, STDs aren’t really that common, so what is even the point of showing them on tv?” We’re glad you asked.

The CDC estimates at least 20 million new cases of STIs occur per year, and ASHA (American Sexual Health Association) measures that one in two sexually active individuals will contract an STI by the age of 25. The estimated total direct cost of STIs to the U.S. is about $16 billion. That’s right: It costs us money to have STIs!

And how much does it cost to show our favorite TV characters talking about safe sex? Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Taking this route could easily reduce the growing rates of STDs and could save the U.S. literally billions of dollars.

Are TV characters immune to STDs?

All TV characters must be immune to sexually transmitted diseases, as we’ve established that they don’t use protection (unless you’re really sticking to your guns that we should all just assume they use protection).

But yes, back to the question, everyone in the TV world is immune. Let’s go through three examples.

Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother was said to have dated a total of 200 women by the fourth season of the show, with five seasons after that, it’s reasonable to believe that number went up drastically. While it should be noted that he actually does use a lot of condoms, these do not always protect against STDs. Being as experienced as he is, you’d really think he’d have some sort of conversation with his numerous lovers about his status.

Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld was said to have dated 73 women throughout the course of the show. There is an episode with a condom mishap for George, but their main concern is pregnancy! You would think that Jerry would be a little more knowledgeable, and warn his friends of the other dangers of not having safe sex.

Don Freaking Draper from Mad Men. Obviously, he had lots of sex, right? He (officially) slept with a total of 17 women throughout the course of the show, but we feel that there may have been more. A lot of this sex was super spontaneous, like, he had just met them. In the 50’s/60’s there definitely wasn’t as much awareness surrounding safe sex, so the show could technically have just been being historically accurate. Side note, Betty Draper does get lung cancer from smoking all the time, so there are some health consequences in the Mad Men world. Just nothing in the nether regions.

Notice anything missing in this list? Oh yeah, women! We had a hard time finding a super sexually active female TV character to add to this list. Maybe because women aren’t usually written as players? Or sexually active? Never to fear, we have a few femme fatales to discuss, but we’re saving them for last.

TV Shows That Do Talk About STDs, Get it Wrong

Yes, now we’re getting to the brass tacks of the matter. When TV does discuss STDs, it is incredibly misinformed! Again we’ve got three stellar examples of misinformation being spread when it comes to STDs.

Girls is a TV show that’s all about destigmatizing all kinds of things when it comes to women’s reproductive health. They even talk about peeing after sex to avoid UTIs! The “protagonist” of the show, Hannah, is tested for HPV. This is strange, as most women under 30 are encouraged to screen for cervical cancer using a Pap test instead of testing for HPV.  She tests positive for HPV and is extremely distraught. She exclaims that she will now need her cervix “scraped out,” though this is not a medical treatment for HPV at all, in fact, there is no treatment for HPV. Hannah accuses her boyfriend of giving it to her, and he informs her that he was tested the week before and that he’s clean. Funny enough, there is no form of HPV testing for men.

Michael Scott of The Office is well known for blowing things wildly out of proportion. Upon the development of a cold sore in The Office episode, “Sex Ed,” Michael calls all of his former lovers to inform them that he has herpes and to find who gave it to him. Dwight Schrute encourages Michael to seek revenge from whoever transferred the disease. The entire episode is written with the viewpoint that Michael is acting ridiculously. One of his ex-girlfriends even states, “you don’t have herpes, it’s just a cold sore.” Obviously, Michael should have been tested to be sure that he even had herpes or HSV. Herpes can lie dormant for years, and it can be contracted by even receiving a kiss from a relative as a child. To assume that one of Michael’s ex-girlfriends must have given it to him was just silly, and let’s not even talk about seeking revenge (We’ll save that for another blog post). “Just a cold sore” is herpes. Herpes is very common and really not that big of a deal. Doctors often discourage getting tested unless you show symptoms because the emotional trauma is said to often be of higher impact than physical.

Dr. Gregory House of the TV show, House, is a pretty quirky dude. He deals with an assortment of abnormal medical conditions throughout the show. In one particular episode called “Clueless,” he diagnoses a man with herpes and informs the man that his wife is cheating on him with their son’s karate teacher. House has never met the wife or the karate teacher. So, the couple comes back to House and demands to know which one cheated, the wife stating that she has never slept with the karate teacher. House explains that herpes can also be transferred through the use of infected toilet seats. The husband accepts this as a resolution, but the wife says that it’s not possible, and is still in disbelief. House proclaims the husband the cheater, as only a cheater would believe such a thing, and view it as an easy out.

So we’re clear herpes can not be spread by a toilet seat, but it’s also most certainly NOT only spread by cheaters! This is one of the biggest lies that television has spread regarding STDs. When a TV character contracts an STD, it is often because they did something wrong. Anyone can contract an STD, and it does not necessarily make you a cheater if you are in a long-term monogamous relationship. Many STDs can be transmitted outside of sex.

Does TV Ever Get it Right?

We all know the age-old phrase, “when in doubt, look to the Golden Girls.” Just kidding, we just made that up, but it’s actually pretty true.

Betty White’s character, Rose, receives a letter in the episode “72-hours” where she is informed that she may have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion six years prior during gallbladder surgery. It takes 72 hours for her to receive results, and during those 72 hours, she gets a glimpse at what life with HIV may be like. Sophia, the oldest of the Golden Girls begins to avoid using Rose’s bathroom, or even any of the dishes that she’s ever used. Blanche consoles Rose, stating, “ AIDS is not a bad person’s disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.” Sophia conceded, “I know intellectually there’s no way I can catch it, but now that it’s so close to home, it’s scary.”

In the end, all four of the golden girls visit the hospital together for support. Rose is given the clear and ultimately does not have HIV, but the episode reinforces the idea that HIV is not just a “gay disease” and that it can truly happen to anyone.

This episode aired in 1990, when there was still a great deal of stigma surrounding people with HIV and Aids. So, who’s really more woke, a show made in 1990 or modern television? Either way, just remember that TV is not real life. Just because your favorite character doesn’t get tested, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t! It’s important to be aware of your status. If you aren’t, get tested today!

The post Are STDs Stigmatized on TV? appeared first on STD Exposed - Sexual Health Blog.

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