#miss globe united states

[heyftinally]

April 30th is the Day of the Homeschooled Child

I was one of the 1.7 million children homeschooled in the USA.

I am also one of Homeschool's Invisible Children.

I was heavily restricted at home - I was barred from nearly everything that my peers were connecting with. I had incredibly limited access to movies and TV, even more restricted internet access, and was even barred from many of the same toys my peers played with. This on top of my academic isolation made socializing very hard.

I didn't relate to my peers socially.

Children younger than me were more academically advanced than me.

I was socially unaware, and frequently missed jokes or made faux pas comments because I didn't understand how to interact with peers.

My ADHD went untreated my entire childhood.

And the issues were not only social. Despite living in a state that boasted some of the most rigorous checks for homeschooled students, I was missed. My portfolios every year were falsified - much of what they claimed I had learned I had little to no understanding of.

By the time I graduated high school "with honors" (that I did not earn and were entirely false), this is a brief list of some of my academic failings:

I had never written an essay, and did not know how

I did not know how to do a critical analysis of a piece of text or media

I was incapable of math above a 4th/5th grade level

I could not tell time on an analog clock

I could not identify more than ~5 states on a map of the United States

I could not identify more than ~5 countries on a map of the world/globe

I could not spell above a ~6th grade level

I did not know that there was proof of life on earth prior to dinosaurs

I did not know that the lymphatic system was real

And so much more.

I entered college woefully unequipped for both the academic and socal demands that were placed on me. At 18, I was closer to as 14 year old, social/emotionally. Academically I was much worse.

I had to work three times as hard as my peers to achieve the same results, battled my still-undiagnosed ADHD as well as my academic and social neglect.

I didn't fully know who I even was as a person, due to spending so many years being expected to fit a specific ideal that was enforced upon me 24/7 through the isolation of homeschooling.

This April 30th, I'm wearing green for Homeschool's Invisible Children - for children like me.

If you are a child experiencing homeschool neglect, please know that you are not alone. There are resources available to you, and your future is not doomed just because your guardians failed to educate you. I'm listing some resources below that may be of help to you.

Homeschool alumni/survivors who resonate with this story: we deserved better. We deserved education. We deserved freedom. It's okay if you're angry at your past. It's okay if you're grieving the life you might have had without homeschooling. It's okay if you're conflicted. I hope you're able to find closure and healing in whatever form that means for you.

And, because I know it unfortunately needs to be said, if you're an ex-homeschooler or a homeschool parent who feels the need to jump on this post and defend yourself, I need you to step back, sit down, delete your comment, and sit with why you feel so attacked by our truth.

This is not a personal attack on you - this is abuse survivors speaking up to prevent further abuse. It is not your place to tell us we should be silent.

"But homeschoolers test better and are more successful!" I'm sure you're dying to say. To wave your statistics at me.

And you would be wrong. Because here's the problem with those statistics.

Let's pretend we have ten homeschooled children and ten public schooled children.

All ten of the public schooled children take a school assessment. Because some excel at different things than others, the public school students average out to an 85.

Only four of the homeschooled children take the assessment. Of the other six, one is traveling with their family during the assessment, two are not permitted because their parents know they aren't up to grade level and fear backlash or judgement, two are mentally or physically disabled and so their parents don't feel the test will adequately display their knowledge, and the last hasn't received any kind of education in years because their parents keep them at home either doing chores, working a job, caring for siblings, or they are simply neglected and spend all day hungry and scared.

Of the four homeschooled children that do take the assessment, they do quite well, as their parents knew/suspected they would. Their average score is a 98.

A 98 is better than an 85, yes. But just because 4 out of 6 homeschooled children were above the public school average does not mean homeschooling is automatically better. If you tested the top four public school students, they might very well score a 98 as well.

However, if you included those other six homeschooled students, the average homeschool score would very likely be something closer to a 45.

So when we talk about Homeschool's Invisible Children, we're talking about those six that never got the chance to take an assessment. Those six who never had a chance to tell a teacher "I'm ten and I don't know how to read". Those six who may not even realize how far behind their peers they are. Those six who deserved to have access to supports so that they could learn in ways that actually met their needs.

So while your statistics look good on paper, they are not honest. They do not present the full picture of homeschooling. Listen to the homeschool survivors who were one of those six kids who never got to make their voices heard. We have a voice now - don't try and take it from us.

Resources for current homeschool students and alumni:

Khan Academy - basically free online self paced K-12 classes. They have fantastic explanation videos for the lessons, you can review them whenever you want, and you don't have to stay in the same grade level for every subject - great if you're trying to catch up and you're in 6th grad for English but 2nd for math. They have courses besides just core classes (math/english/science/etc), too! They run on donations, but it's completely free to use. Also, this site is used in my local public school system to supplement the existing curriculum, so it's not just for homeschoolers!

Coalition for Responsible Home Education - actively fighting for more oversight and restrictions on homeschooling in the USA. They mostly do awareness and advocacy, but they also have resources on their site for things like what to do if you don't have a high school transcript. They run on donations, but the information is freely available.

Probably the most famous resource on this list. Videos that give you a "crash course" (aka a condensed overview) of a wide variety of topics. These are best used as supplement to more structured lessons like Khan Academy, but they have a lot of merit on their own if they're all you can manage. Knowing a bit about something is better than knowing nothing about it!

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Zeke Yeager x f!reader [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] Another remastered oldie. No cute banner this time because I'm lazy. [ SYNOPSIS ] Your slutty boyfriend convinces you to fuck in a nasty bar bathroom. [ WORD COUNT ] 2.9k [ CONTENT ] Modern AU, established relationship, dom/sub undertones, sadomasochism, exhibitionism, public sex, rough oral sex, degradation (Zeke calls you a slut, says you're dumb), cum eating, drugs (marijuana), alcohol, Zeke's pullout game is mid tbh, and there's Neopets nostalgia.

Any establishment that opted to have red lighting as an aesthetic choice never failed to put you on guard. There was nothing quite like a wannabe speakeasy to set the mood. You had sad men hiding in corners. Sad men waiting for cute girls to talk to them. Sad men who hoped their presence in a trendy, gaudy bar with old guns hung on the walls made them interesting.

You and Zeke passed by it one cold morning and you mentioned how tacky you thought those kinds of places were. You said you wanted to go ironically. And of course called your bluff and decided your next date night would occur there. You reluctantly agreed. Denying him was a near impossible task.

You were the first at the bar, a disappointment because you wanted to have some form of comfort greet you. But no, Zeke was late as always.

He was probably at home, sitting on his ugly couch, smoking his ugly weed. His perfect body laid out next to an ugly ashtray overflowing with ugly cigarette butts, watching old Jerry Springer episodes on Youtube.

There was no other place you’d rather be. You wanted to be sprawled out on top of him, your head on his chest as he dithered about class disparity in the United States.

We can laugh at Beau and Cletus all we want, but look at us. I pay for high-speed internet so I can watch this shit unfettered and make fun of their shoes. You just complained about two-day shipping not being fast enough. And you ordered, what, loose leaf chamomile tea? We’re just as embarrassing as them, maybe even more so. The difference is that we have disposable income.

On second thought maybe you were better off languishing in a faux speakeasy. The ground may have been sticky underneath your shoes, but at least you didn’t have Zeke blabbering in your ear.

“Miss me?” Zeke purred in your ear before.

“Nope, I’ve been too busy.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah. I got caught up feeding my Neopet… Or if that’s not an acceptable answer, I can say I was sleeping with your dad. You choose.”

“Neopet. I like knowing you care about things.”

“Did you know they never die?”

You order a round of Cuba Libres.

“I don’t like rum,” Zeke whined.

You shoved the drink in his hand and stole a handful of cut limes from the little container behind the bar.

“Really?” he asked bluntly.

“They never put enough. Trust me. Anyway, that little green Mynci you made in 2001 is sitting there. Literally starving! Zeke.” You grabbed his wrist. “That is verbatim what it says on the website. Starving.” You plopped two slices of lime in his drink.

He stared at you, his grey eyes full of concern. He was high off his ass. “She was yellow.”

“What was her name?”

“I can’t remember, but I know it had like six numbers and probably three underscores.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every fucking day.”

Laughter overtook both of you. You grabbed a table closest to the exit and he slid his backpack under it. You figured he didn’t want to linger long as well. The chairs were freezing. You shifted in your seat. The cold didn’t help your sore ass. Zeke took notice of this.

“I told you I was paddling you too hard.” He took a tiny sip of his drink.

“I still stand by that you weren’t hard enough.”

“You were crying, pet.”

“They were tears of happiness. You know, like when people win a Golden Globe or whatever.”

“No one gets that excited over a Golden Globe.”

You slumped down into your chair. You had no witty retort. This happened more often than not when he was around. In just about every other social situation you were the paragon of humor, a true queen of comedy.

“Aww, did I hit a nerve?” He kicked your shin from under the table. The pain perked you up. You proceeded to stomp on his foot eliciting an audible wince from him.

“How long are you trying to stay here?” you asked, hoping he’d say something like zero seconds or if I stay here any longer I’ll turn into sand.

“Long enough to have sex in what I am assuming is a gross bathroom.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re high, right? You can’t—This place is gross.”

“I had this planned from the beginning.” He leaned back in his chair. “It shouldn’t be too gross. This hellhole hasn’t been open that long.”

“My feet stick to the—”

“That’s character.” He leaned forward over the table, yanking you by the collar of your shirt so you were inches away from his face. “It makes for an interesting experience.”

You let out a nervous laugh, desperately fighting off the beginnings of arousal. The gross old men leered.

“Ugh. Fine. But I wanna be high too,” you complained.

He glanced at the growing pod of old men. “Let’s hit the bathroom.”

He got up, leaving his unfinished drink behind. It prompted you to do the same. They weren’t that impressive. You walked down the hall turning corners until you saw a sign for a bathroom. Zeke kicked in the door and shoved his head inside.

“I’m pretty sure no one is in here. And look, there are even stalls.”

He made his way over to one and tried to lock its door.

“Well that’s broken.”

He repeated this process on the remaining two stalls. None of them had working locks.

You looked around. “This is—”

“An even better opportunity than I could have imagined.”

You were speechless. You knew he was a borderline insatiable tramp, but this was a lot. You were conflicted. On one hand, getting railed by him always sounded like a good time. But on the other, getting potentially caught by one of those decaying dinosaurs sounded like torture. And you hadn’t committed any crimes bearing that level of punishment.

“But those guys are so weird looking,” you whined like a child.

“Who cares?”

“I care. It’d be one thing if they were like your hot friends…”

“You can’t say that and not specify which ones. It’s illegal. You and I both know that.”

“Fuck… Pieck, duh. Or Colt.”

“Oh god. Really?... Colt?” he sounded vaguely disgusted.

“Fuck you! Yeah, really Colt. It’d be a learning experience for him.”

“I wouldn’t let him join in.”

You smirked. “You say that now, but in the moment the tides may change.” You punctuated the sentence with a wink.

“Alright, you might have a point with the Colt thing. But I’m disappointed Reiner didn’t come up.”

“You know you can just say who you would want to catch us? Like my answers aren’t the end-all-be-all.”

You went to join him in the decrepit stall. You hugged his toned body and buried your face into the crook of his neck. His hands went straight to your ass, typical.

“Reiner, because I know it’d fuck with him,” he yammered on. “Or what’s that one guy’s name? The one that hangs out with my brother?”

“So many people hang out with your brother. You really want a 19-year-old catching us?”

“Hush. I’m thinking. Blonde. Blue eyes.” He paused. “Also Colt’s 19, dumb ass.”

“Colt doesn’t count!! Are you thinking of Historia?”

“What?! No.”

Zeke broke the hug and rubbed his temples. “It’s a boy. He is a boy.”

“Well, more like a man.”

“You’re not helping. Blonde. Blue eyes. He’s a,” Zeke paused for emphasis, “man.”

“I think that’s Armi—”

He barreled through your sentence. “Armin! Yes, him. It’d fuck him up too. He’s like an angel; we’d be stripping him of all innocence.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure a cute, 19-year-old college boy is getting at least some form of action. We all know who the right option is.”

“Alright, fuck it. Fine. Colt. Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Pervert,” he mumbled.

“Like you have room to talk.”

You grazed his cock with your hand. He smirked and pulled a joint from his pack of cigarettes. He held it between his lips and sparked it.

“I see you’re not concerned about getting caught.” He took a hit and then passed it to you.

You took a heavy drag off the joint. “I’m already going to get loudly fucked in a bathroom. I might as be high.”

You passed the joint back to him and he took a lengthy hit. He let the smoke drift from his mouth slowly. You plucked the joint from his fingers.

“I recommend taking another. A long one.”

“Why?” you said, smoke drifting from your mouth.

“Because you’re getting on your knees the second you exhale.”

You held the rest of the smoke in for as long as you could to spite him. But Zeke quickly tired of your bullshit and took the joint from you. He grabbed a chunk of your hair from the back of your scalp and pulled.

“Knees,” he muttered.

You scoffed. “Rude.”

However you did as you were told and he loosened his grip. He took a hit from the joint and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. The ground wasn’t sticky, but that did little to quell your disgust. You were always ashamed at the depths of depravity you allowed yourself to descend into for your boyfriend.

You looked up at him and asked, “Are you really gonna be able to keep the door shut?”

“No. Undo my belt.”

You gritted your teeth and started to fiddle with his belt. His rough hand rested on your head, softly caressing it. You knew such tenderness wouldn’t last long.

“I know you can work faster than that.”

You sighed dramatically. You quickly pulled his belt off and unbuttoned his jeans. You pulled them down and noted that his black briefs were sullied with precum. You yanked his underwear down and was greeted by his thick cock, a beautiful sight to behold. Drool pooled in your mouth, a small drop of it trickled from the corner of your mouth. Zeke lifted your chin and wiped it away with his calloused thumb.

“You’re foul. What will I ever do with you?”

You gazed up at him. “I don’t know… Let me milk every drop of cum from your cock?”

He smirked. “You’re so fucking stupid. Are you done talking?”

“I guess. I can’t think of anything else to—”

He grabbed the back of your head and forced his cock into your mouth. You lurched forward, using the bathroom stall door to keep some semblance of balance. His thrusts were methodical. Never too deep as he didn’t want you to gag on him, it was too early for that.

“You’re filthy, you know that? An utter degenerate.”

He continued to plunge his cock deeper and deeper into your mouth. You carefully breathed through your nose and tried to not cough on his length.

“You deserve to get caught. Everyone deserves to know what a disgusting slut you are.”

You attempted a nod, but Zeke put his rugged palm on your forehead and shoved you off of his cock.

“Say it.”

“I deserve to get caught.”

His grey stared down at you hazy with lust. “And?” He took one last hit off the joint.

“And everyone deserves to know how gross I am.”

He frowned and blew the smoke directly in your face. “Not quite, but close enough.” He shoved his cock back down your throat.

The bathroom stall proved to be a poor source of balance so you rested your hands on his tense thighs. His muscles contracted with pleasure. You relaxed your throat, finally getting the entirety of his cock in your mouth. You held it there for a few seconds before you felt the beginning of a gag. You pushed his hips away from you. He pulled out and continued to jerk off as you coughed and caught your breath.

“I’m getting really close,” he teased.

You smacked his hand away. You spit in yours and jerked him off while running your tongue along his slit.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. He held your head in place and rammed his cock in your mouth. You grabbed onto his taut ass for leverage. His thrusts were becoming sloppy. He came hard, filling your throat with cum.

“I’m getting fucked, right?” you asked, wiping your lips.

“No, I thought I’d just stand here in this bathroom with my dick out.”

You rolled your eyes and got undressed. He led you out of the stall and shoved you against the sink. He groped your breasts, rough fingers pinching your nipples.

“Ouch!” you yelped.

Zeke laughed and pinched harder. He slipped three of his dexterous fingers into your slick pussy. They slid in and out with ease. He pushed you harder against the sink, the basin digging into your spine. You winced. He took notice and put his hands under your ass and lifted you up.

“Lock your legs around me,” he commanded.

He slammed his cock balls deep inside you. There was no tenderness in his thrusts. He wanted you to moan his name louder than you’d moan anyone else’s. But you resisted. The last thing you wanted to do was to bring any attention to yourself.

“Come on, pet,” he practically begged. “Say my name.”

You shook your head. You pictured those leering old men sipping their martinis, cocks stiff as they heard you moan. Zeke rubbed your clit with his thumb and started kissing your neck. His soft flaxen beard tickled your skin.

“Say my name or else I’ll go find some cheap whore that will.” 

His breath was hot on your neck. He pressed his thumb down hard on your clit.

“Fuck! Zeke!” Your legs tightened around his waist.

He placed his hand under your chin and forced you to make eye contact. His eyes were feral, darkened with desire.

“Weak. You can do better than that.”

You hugged him closer, fingernails digging into his chiseled back.

“Zeke!”

You felt your body growing warmer. Every cell in your body writhed with pleasure. You clung to his body as your orgasm intensified.

“I don’t remember giving you permission,” he whispered in your ear.

You attempted to hold back but it was too late. You moaned his name louder than even he anticipated. He held his hand over your mouth, his cock still inside you, thrusting away.

“I don’t remember saying you should start screaming either.” His tone was anxious. “I never thought I’d say this, but please shut the fuck up.”

You glared at him, but remained silent and allowed him to continue fucking you with his engorged cock.

“Good girl.”

The words barely left his lips before he let out a hearty moan. He pulled out of you.

“Hurry, get on your knees.”

You dropped down to them and opened your mouth. For the first time in years he missed, getting his cum all over your chin and down your neck. You were not impressed.

“You look so cute.”

He pinched your cheek and ordered you to stand up. He held your face in his hands. Just as he went to lick your neck the bathroom door swung open. It was one of the old men. Zeke didn’t stop licking you.

“Oh my word! I am so sorry. You, uh… You two… have fun.”

The guy ran out as quickly as he came in.

“I wonder if I could pay that guy to walk in on us whenever I want.”

You went to search for your underwear and found them inside a toilet. You flushed them away.

 “No. We talked about this already.”

“Colt would be traumatized if he walked in on this.”

Zeke finally put his dick away. You both stood at the sink washing your hands.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?! Whatever, let’s leave before we get kicked out for being absolutely disgusting. Not that I ever plan on coming back here.”

You walked out of the bathroom and faced the geezers. You kept your head down. Zeke on the other hand seemed to relish in the shame and even tried to high five the man who caught you.

Zeke grabbed his backpack from under the table you two had been previously sitting at. You headed to the spiral staircase that led to the exit. It was one of those rickety metal ones that would be considered decorative in a world that made sense. Zeke offered you his elbow and you held on while you cautiously made your way down the stairs. You pushed through the heavy doors and were greeted by a rush of cold air.

You shivered. “Fuck! I was inside before the sun went down.”

You were woefully unprepared for the weather.

“Good thing I’m a genius then, huh?” He pulled out a sweatshirt from his backpack. “Arms up.”

You raised your arms and he tugged the sweatshirt down onto your body.

“Thank you. I didn’t think it would be so chilly.”

Zeke pointed up at the perfectly clear night sky. “Yeah, we’re in for a cold one. Look.”

You both let out a collective whoa. It was a gorgeous sight; it almost made up for the ugliness that had previously occurred moments ago.

Zeke lightly slapped your ass. “Let’s get moving. We need to shower.”

“Come on, you don’t wanna stare at something dumb ass beautiful?”

If you had craned your neck back any further to see the stars you would have toppled over.“I already have a beautiful dumb ass I can stare at whenever I want. Now come on. I was balls deep in a paternity dispute before I got here. You’re going to love it, the baby daddy threw his gold tooth at his ex-wife. Jerry is pissed.”

[aliveandfullofjoy]

95th Academy Awards: Oscars Trivia!

Another torturously long awards season is over! A24's highest-grossing film ever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, defied almost every piece of popular wisdom about the Academy Awards and easily cleared every hurdle in its path to a blowout, historic Best Picture win.

As you probably know, I'm a sucker for Oscar trivia, and this year has plenty of juicy nuggets to dig into. Let's get to it, starting with our newest Best Picture winner.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third film in Oscar history to win three of the four acting categories, after A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976). All three films won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the only film of the three that managed to win Best Picture.

Michelle Yeoh is the first Malaysian actress, first Asian actress, and second woman of color to win Best Actress. This is only the thirteenth time that Best Actress and Best Picture have overlapped in the 95-year history of the Oscars. Yeoh's nomination made her the first Asian actress nominated for the award since 1935. The only other is Merle Oberon, who hid her Asian identity in life and passed as white.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first science-fiction film to win Best Picture.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first Best Picture winner with a woman of color (Michelle Yeoh) in the lead role.

Having opened in theaters in late March 2022 (the same weekend of the 94th Academy Awards), Everything Everywhere All at Once is the Best Picture winner with the earliest calendar release since The Silence of the Lambs, which opened Valentine's Day 1991.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third Best Picture winner with a majority non-white cast (after 2016's Moonlight and 2019's Parasite) and the first American film with a majority Asian cast.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) are the third directing team to win Best Director, joining Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise (West Side Story, 1961) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, 2007). Kwan is also the fourth Asian director (and first Asian-American) to win Best Director.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first movie in 95 years of Oscars history to win six(!) so-called "above the line" awards -- referring to Best Picture, Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first film to sweep the four primary guild awards (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, and Screen Actors Guild) since Argo (2012), and only the fifth overall.

Some crazy coincidences between Michelle Yeoh and her Best Actress presenter Halle Berry: in addition to currently being the only two women of color to win Best Actress, they are also both former Bond girls (Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies [1997], Berry in Die Another Day [2002], both with Pierce Brosnan). Additionally, both women are former contestants of the Miss World pageant: Berry represented the United States in 1986, while Yeoh represented Malaysia in 1983. Also, in a weird case of history rhyming, both Berry and Yeoh won over a previous Oscar-winner in a film directed by Todd Field (Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom in 2001, Cate Blanchett in TÁR in 2022).

With four wins, All Quiet on the Western Front tied with Parasite (2019), Roma (2018), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Fanny and Alexander (1982) as the most-rewarded non-English language films in Oscars history.

This is also the second time that Cate Blanchett has won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Critics Choice Award for a performance, only to lose the Oscar to the lead of the Best Picture winner. The other time this happened was the year another comedy won seven Oscars: Shakespeare in Love. Blanchett, who was nominated for Elizabeth that year, lost to Gwyneth Paltrow.

TÁR brought Blanchett her eighth Oscar nomination, tying her as the fourth most-nominated actress in Oscar history. Only Bette Davis (10), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Meryl Streep (21) are ahead of her.

TÁR is only director Todd Field's third feature (after 2001's In the Bedroom and 2006's Little Children), but all three of his films have gotten Best Actress nominations for their leads.

Blanchett has also extended her record as the Oscar-nominated actress with the most appearances in films nominated for Best Picture. With TÁR, she has now appeared in 10 Best Picture nominees.

Tom Hanks (who turned in one of the weirdest performances ever caught on film in Elvis) also crossed the 10 Best Picture appearance threshold with this year's nominations. The only nominated actor with more Best Picture appearances is Jack Nicholson, who's been in 11.

This year's nominations saw a record-breaking number of Asian actors nominated: Yeoh in Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actor, and Hong Chau (The Whale) and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actress. Yeoh and Quan won, marking the first time multiple Asian actors have won in a single ceremony.

Hong Chau (The Whale) is the first Oscar-nominated actor to be born in a refugee camp.

This year also saw a record number of Irish actors nominated in a single year, with five: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) in Best Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan (both from The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon (again, The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actress.

It was a banner year for Ireland in other categories, too, with nominations in Best Live Action Short (An Irish Goodbye, which won the award) and in Best International Feature (The Quiet Girl, the first Irish-language film ever nominated for an Oscar).

With his win in the Supporting Actor category, Quan became only the second Asian actor to win that award, joining the late Haing S. Ngor, who won for his debut performance in The Killing Fields (1984).

All five of the nominees for Best Actor -- Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Bill Nighy (Living) -- were first-time nominees. This is the first time this has happened in this category since 1934(!!!).

It was a huge year for first-time nominees across all four acting categories: 16(!) of the 20 actors nominated were first-timers. This is the most ever in a single year. The only actors with previous nominations were Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Judd Hirsch, and Michelle Williams.

Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is the third person to be nominated for an Oscar after both of her parents were nominated as well: her father Tony Curtis was nominated for The Defiant Ones (1958), while her mother Janet Leigh was nominated for Psycho (1960). The other sets of nominated parents and children are Liza Minnelli (with parents Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli) and Laura Dern (with parents Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern). Minnelli, Dern, and Curtis all won acting Oscars.

With his performance in The Whale, Brendan Fraser became the first person to win Best Actor for a film not nominated for Best Picture since Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (2009).

This is also the first time since 2005 that all four acting winners were first-time nominees. Additionally, none of the four acting winners won in their category at the BAFTAs, which has never happened before.

With his Best Supporting Actor nomination, Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) broke the record for the longest gap between acting nominations: he was last nominated 42 years ago for Ordinary People (1980). The record previously belonged to Henry Fonda, who had a 41-year gap between nods.

In addition to being the first actor ever nominated for a performance in a Marvel movie, Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) also became the fourth Black actress to be nominated more than once. She joined Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, and Octavia Spencer.

The Fabelmans is the first movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama to go home emptyhanded at the Oscars since The Turning Point (1977[!]). In fact, this is the first time ever that both Golden Globe Best Picture winners (The Fabelmans in Drama, The Banshees of Inisherin in Comedy) went home with zero Oscars.

2022 had some other similarities with 1977, too: this was the first year since 1977 that two films (Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, Julia and The Turning Point in 1977) got four individual acting nominations. Both years saw comedies win Best Picture and Best Actress (Annie Hall in 1977), and both years had a sci-fi blockbuster nominated in Best Picture (Star Wars and Avatar: The Way of Water).

Ana de Armas (Blonde) became the second actor nominated for playing Marilyn Monroe, which is more Oscars than Monroe herself was ever nominated for. She was nominated in Best Actress alongside Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), the other actress nominated for playing the star (in 2011's My Week with Marilyn).

De Armas also became the fifth Latina nominated for Best Actress, joining Fernanda Montenegro, Salma Hayek, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Yalitza Aparicio. She is also the second Cuban actor ever nominated, after Andy Garcia.

With her win for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, legendary costume designer Ruth Carter became the first Black woman to win two Oscars — ever.

Only Austin Butler and Ana de Armas were nominated for playing historical figures this year. Weirdly, both Elvis and Blonde feature actor Xavier Samuel in small roles. What does it mean?

At 34 minutes long, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is the longest Best Animated Short winner ever.

In addition to being the first song from an Indian film to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Song, "Naatu Naatu" (RRR) is the fourth non-English language winner of that award, after "Never on Sunday" (1960, originally performed in Greek), "Al otro lado del río" (2004, in Spanish), and "Jai Ho" (2008, in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi). "Naatu Naatu" is in Telugu.

It was the year of the sequel: between Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, this marked the first time multiple sequels were nominated in Best Picture in the same year. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also received major nominations.

Avatar and Top Gun also marked the first time since 1982 that the two highest-grossing films of the year were both nominated for Best Picture.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Gods & Clergy: Bane #2

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Religion | Gods | Shar | Selûne | Bhaal | Mystra | Jergal | Bane #1 | Bane #2 | Bane #3 | Myrkul | Lathander | Kelemvor | Tyr | Helm | Ilmater | Mielikki | Oghma | Gond | Tempus | Silvanus | Talos | Umberlee | Corellon | Moradin | Yondalla | Garl Glittergold | Eilistraee | Lolth | Laduguer | Gruumsh | Bahamut | Tiamat | Amodeus | The rest of the Faerûnian Pantheon --WIP

-

Apparently, they are a beautiful combination of every dictatorship ever with some flavouring from the fucking mafia. They also sort-of have a Pope, and sometimes papal schisms.

Social Darwinism for everybody! And remember, Bane is always watching you - do not make him get involved, kiddies.

Can these people get any more delightful??

---

"The world is made stronger by mighty and ordered rule, with the ruled made to fear their rulers and to hate common foes. Weakness and frivolity should be publicly destroyed for all to see and heed. Good is but a shelter for weakness and the whims of those who profess noble goals. Evil is the true state of nature, for winning is everything, and oppression is natural. Fight against good, and exalt evil. Tyrannize and destroy the weak, so that all in time become better and stronger, everyone knowing their place and not daring to question or foment disorder. "Be a tyrant. Make others fear and hate you, but awaken in them hatred of others. Aid tyrants and oppressors, but if they disagree with you or fellow Dark Hands (clergy of Bane) over policy, or turn back from tyranny or oppressing others, shatter them. We are the forge that tempers rulers, to make them ever harder, stronger, and more evil. Laws and rules, not wanton chaos, should reign. Eliminate lawbreakers. Kill or thwart a good creature every day (kill is better). Bring down arbitrary law keepers, and aid the brutally law-abiding. Make others fear Bane—and fear you—whenever possible." - Yet more Banite dogma

Good is evil, and Evil is good. Good is a lie, and Evil is the truth. The one thing all Banites agree on is that implementing Bane's rule is the only good option for the world.

Banite teaching is clear that a world of firm laws and an orderly society is the only acceptable world to live in. Chaos exists only as a tool to achieve this, and is otherwise sinful. This ideal lawful and regimented society will, naturally, be a surveillance state. The overabundance of divination spells and artefacts used for monitoring thought crimes, and the rank "inquisitor," don't exist in the church for nothing.

Society will be made better when the weakness is purged. By punishing the weak, one of two things will happen; they will break, and either clear the way for the strong, or they will take on the hatred and use it to make themselves stronger.

Dissenting opinion is bad, it breeds chaos and undermines order - and Banites are quite firm in their opinion that nobody else is governing their lands properly.

Under Banite rule, people suddenly "going missing" is just a fact of life. Sometimes they turn up a little worse for wear and/or with a mysterious new personality. Often they're just not coming back.

The good news is that since the death of the last High Imperceptor in recent years, the church hierarchy has apparently fallen apart again!

Banites are no longer quite so united by one long, globe-spanning chain of command and are all splintered into factions, backstabbing each other and fighting over which leader's vision and right to lead is greater than the others'. The lower ranks scheme to take the place of their hated superiors, even as they bow and scrape and dance perfectly to the tune of every command.

Bane is willing to tolerate this to a limited degree, because it keeps his higher ranked followers from abusing their authority for personal gain if the lower ranks have space to undermine them when they're unworthy. A "healthy" amount of infighting will cull the weak and ensure he only has the strongest followers.

There are limits though; start rocking the boat too much and Bane will personally smite you dead in front of everyone to make a point.

The Dark One watches his clergy, keeping an eye on those with potential rising through the ranks, and those whose behaviours are a little erratic for his liking. He's known for speaking directly into their minds, or the minds of the followers around them. Although sometimes he turns away to focus on something beyond mortal ken, which can last years, which is when the infighting tends to get really bad. Elminster likens it to unsupervised rats in a cage, gnawing on each other in frustration.

A Banite who shows signs of weakness and "wavering faith" will be demoted... if they're lucky. Other possible fates include the standard Banite fare of maiming and potential death.

Banites in favour with their deity and superiors will enjoy luxury and promotions: Having fun is allowed as a reward for being a good servant, but is not something you're allowed to take for granted. That's "frivolity" and will breed weakness.

The church mostly gets things done nowadays simply because the lowest ranks of the clergy usually attach themselves to some charismatic mid-higher rank, becoming their obedient and fawning slaves in the hopes that by helping them rise in the ranks their superior will elevate them too. Through this, teamwork is achieved and shit gets done. In the higher ranks, where everybody's too afraid of losing their hard won power, this cooperation tends to die.

The head of a region's Banites is the Inquisitor, all of whom answer to the High Inquisior, who is regarded much like the Pope is by Catholics on Earth. Sometimes the High Inquisitor isn't providing their role as arbiter of Bane's divine will on Toril right, and one or more other Banites make the case for themselves as Bane's real High Inquisitor and schisms result with all the usual drama.

When Banites of equal rank clash on something, technically the deciding factor in who gets the final say is supposed to be who has the highest levels in the cleric class (and thus their higher personal status with Bane). If it's equal, then it comes down to who has the highest influence/reputation amongst the other Banites. Ultimately though, the biggest factor is actually which of them their regional leader likes best (you're either in favour, or out).

Particularly within urban areas, Banites are usually hidden kingpins and crime bosses, working from the shadows. Those who seek power and influence may always turn to the followers of the Black Hand for aid; they are always happy to make friends and lend favours. You want to win the next guild election? You want to be governor? They can do that for you. They will employ bribery, kidnappings, blackmails, arrange assassinations, whatever it takes to get you in power. And then you will have that position you wanted, and you will owe it all to the Church of Bane, and to Bane himself, as their loyal puppet. You will obey every edict of Bane as yet another link in his chains. You will know that they did this for you, that they can do all this to you, and that everybody will know this should you go back on your end of the bargain.

The people who serve those people will also serve Bane, unknowingly. Eventually the entire city will serve, never realising who rules them, until one day the Banites' hold over the region is so ironclad that when they step forward to rule openly, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Banite infiltrations are highly organised, and are likened covert military operations, with the leaders given their tasks directly from Bane.

Through these methods, the Church takes over businesses, governments and even entire noble families.

Businesses are of particular interest, as Banites will seek to establish at least some degree of control over regional trade - especially contraband and other illegal businesses, and especially the trade of weapons and slaves. The money they make from this will go towards both the church and their own personal funds.

Few Banites are comfortable openly taking positions of power for themselves until they are certain that it is safe to do so. There's also that little drawback where your siblings in the faith will watch you carefully while holding their breath for a while, to see if you're as secure in your power as you seem to be - and then there's a target on your back because they all want your power for themselves.

Despite losing control, it seems some Banite presence lingers amongst the Zhentarim, where the divide between the cleric-based Orthodoxy and the reformist wizards lives on. The simmering tensions and would-be civil war are held in check only by the presence of beholderkin who will make an example of any idiots that try anything. Bane has no particular interest in seeing his clerics and mages fighting each other, and in most Banite circles the schism has died down. Some of them are even friends and "companions."

(Yes, even Banites have friends. Mr "frivolity should be publicly destroyed - make others fear and hate you" doesn't necessarily approve, but his followers are still only human[oid].)

-

"…Bane is rash, impetuous, and arrogant. He’s no patient, long-term schemer, but lives in the present moment (he wants results NOW). And his pride often makes him over-estimate his own prowess, and ignore his own faults." - Ed Greenwood

Going by some lore; Bane is also an unwitting puppet of Jergal (who is The long-term schemer), intended for one of the older deity's infinite supply of schemes - although his strings are not currently being pulled. He is the dead soul of a mortal man, imbued with divine essence and Jergal's portfolio of Tyranny. "Jergal [on his end] has no intention of treating Bane like a puppet until he has to."

Bane died long before the Three reached Jergal, and the god "stored" his soul away, recognising a similar "quenchless hunger to rule all, and be feared by all through the maliciousness and malevolent [attentiveness] of his rule."

Bane's memory of this has been removed by the Forgotten One, and he wouldn't believe you if you told him so. Whether the other two have had their memories so edited is unknown, but possible.

His original, pre-Time of Troubles holy symbol was intended to be a severed hand in a spiked black gauntlet, dripping blood from the stump (the middle droplet being the longest). The presumed reason for it not appearing in official Realms products is wariness of the Satanic Panic leading to its censorship.

[love-note-musings]

helen otis x reader | creepypasta oneshot

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* "up from the ocean floor," bloody painter x pyromaniac reader

tw themes of gender stereotypes and body dysmorphia

if you feel like you've read this somewhere, you may have! i'm just transferring my old oneshots from quotev onto my tumblr

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀

     The two of you sat together, hands lightly entangled, not too tight, just dangling there in that space. You fidgeted. Strings hanging down from your jacket twirling around your free fingers, your leg bounced. Even with the tranquility of it all, your mind wandered while your body was settled into someone else, relaxed yet on edge, waiting to crash. Mostly just waiting. Anticipation gripped onto you with white knuckles, it sent you bounding, it filled the crevices in your brain where the missing memories evaporated into blank cavities, it gushed.

     In the black of night, your art would erupt into one blazing star that spread to all four corners, licking up the walls and floorboards and uniting them under one flame that blanketed the abandoned building. You stood there as your shoulders drooped and you felt the anxiety that toyed with you dissipate, even slightly, watching as the flames mesmerized you, swaying to one another. The stress, anxiety, it all exploded out of you with waves of red, it was illicit and choleric and it lapped at the edges of the walls as the air around it warped into new shapes and patterns. It was all a vivid, prismatic globe that exploded and spread. 

      To Helen, you were polychromatic. 

      You were like a vivid, prismatic globe that would shatter across the night sky, spreading your polychromatic visage against wooden planks nailed together, splattering down until you reached the ground again. The world burned for you, and fire was dangerous, he knew that. Helen couldn’t help but stare, taking in the hues and letting himself bask in the view, making sure the image would imprint all the way down into his bones so he’d be sure to remember it forever somewhere on his body. Visible marks.

     Tensions ebbed and fell from your body little by little as the flames covered more ground, spreading from the floorboards to the ceilings as you sat in the grass by Helen’s side. You were no artist, merely just trying to find a foothold amongst tumbling rocks. Small clicks were nothing in comparison to the crackling embers and his film camera wasn’t enough to do the scene justice.

     Oh, and the way your eyes shined, the colors bounding off your scleras and reflecting back the danger, the heat. You shifted in awe. In your distracted state, Helen leaned away from your hold and positioned his camera towards your face in wonderment. With a snap, the memory would last. 

     What would an artist be without a muse? To repeatedly create but with no admiration, and therefore, with no motivation, allowing themselves to be pulled in any direction of stereotypical beauty without any personal influencers. Helen used to be quite stumped with himself, wondering why his eye was captured by floral lace and monochromatic clothing all the same. Why at times he wanted to feel dainty, and sometimes neutral, sometimes strong and bold. This created categories in his mind, never quite finding the foothold he desired in the narrow categories crafted for him by other people. It left him rattled and defenseless, allowing his interests to sway with a bout of rather disinterest, never staying long with one style or another, trying everything and therefore finding nothing. What did Helen want to be? 

     He had delicate features, that’s what everyone had always said, at least. ‘Dainty, delicate’. At times he found the sight of himself calming. Other times he wanted to smash any and all mirrors, fearing that when he looked he wouldn’t like what he found. When it came time to attempt a self portrait, Helen found he had no idea where to start, how to portray his features, wondering what he looked like to begin with. What did he look like? How did others perceive him? In the end, he settled on feeling, how he felt, what he thought he had looked like. The canvas came out splotched and blurred. Yet when it came to anyone else, he would be able to paint them with near perfection, seemingly being able to pinpoint what about their faces made them unique, their own person. 

     Helen looked through his “self portraits” with a dissatisfied look, flipping through the canvases, never liking how they looked, even with the ambiguity, never liking the shades or angles or anything. He disliked it all. So they sat in the corner of his study covered with a tarp, next to it on the shelf, a box of film photos that he’d shuffle through, looking for something to occupy his time. Photos of wildlife, people, fabrics fluttering in the wind, and even cafes made their way from that box into different art pieces. Sketches, watercolor, charcoal, acrylic and oil paintings, colored pencils stenciled in to make photos with strokes. At least he could make other things to his liking. In the end, he chose the one photo that lit him up the most. 

     And so he sat there, hour upon hour, sitting on a stool splattered with paint as his hands traveled with ease, moving from one corner to another until the patterns corrected itself and the colors meshed, melding into one picture. Dots marking the sides of their cheeks, lips upturned at the corners, eyes fitted with wrinkles that looked appropriate, creating crescents. A blush sank into those same cheeks, dusting the sides, adding depth to the face which had started out as a collection of shapes and ended up being yours. What was an artist without a muse, without beauty to capture? So there you were. Poised in the photograph, sitting patiently, oblivious to the idle fascination found on your features that were once etched into your muscle memory and were now preserved by sheets of canvas fitted to four beams of wood. Acrylic paint, a medium used by the artist to mold you back into life. 

     When the day came down to yet another close, he felt okay with the fact that he could capture every single, tiny, miniature, inconsequential detail that made up the being of you. If he could not find himself in bins of paint and brushes, nor amongst pencils or water, he could find you, the blueprint that led to his heart and warmed it from the bottom up. Helen could have sworn you held the key in some way, some form, that reached deep inside of him to find the urge that spurred him forward, to create, to do, to perceive. Perhaps it was egotistical, but every piece he had every done of you had been perfect. He liked perfect, he was only ever satisfied with perfect. Your beauty and essence gave way to him finding the drive to perfect each line on your face. 

     Time melted away, and soon, it was complete. A near replica of the photograph he managed to capture the first time he saw your eyes light up. 

     You, the actual you, stood patiently behind him, hands folded behind your back as you looked between Helen and the painting. Eyeing him up and down, pretending to circle his newest art piece and ogle at it, lips formed in a line that couldn’t help but result in a smirk with your fingers to your lips. The only thing you were looking at was him. Bangs covering his eyes ever so slightly that you wondered how he could see, eyebrows furrowed deep in concentration, one you knew better but to break. It’s true, you wouldn’t bother him with your own musings. Instead you roamed around his room as if you haven’t been there times and times before. Curious hands found draped tarps and draped tarps housed hidden paintings. Fingers flipping through the collection, your own brow became furrowed.

     “Helen,” you called out, an outgoing dare to break the silence, “what are these?” Turning back to him, you followed his line of sight as it drifted down to the canvases nestled amongst the crook of the floor. 

     “Nothing,” he said cooly, deflecting back into the makeshift world he was creating, being able to live there as long as the process lasted. “Don’t worry about it,”

      A hum left your lips, rocking back and forth on your heels. You knew exactly what you were looking at. “What will you do with them?”

      Helen shrugged, “Burn them? You can tear the staples out from the fabric if you want, I’ll reuse the frames.”

     ‘How environmentally friendly of you,’ you thought to yourself with amusement, heaving up one of the canvases and holding it out for a better look. 

     Well, it had the shape of Helen. Nothing much more to it. Blurred features were what drew your eye in, wondering what exactly the idea was behind the work. Nonetheless you grabbed a pair of pliers and began tearing the staples out, careful with each piece of canvas you ripped from the base, laying them neatly to the side as the pile of stapes layered up. If you could have done him justice, you would have offered to try to capture him in some way, whether by paint stroke or sketch. But you were no artist, and felt it insulting to even try. 

     “Are you sure you want to get rid of them. . ?” You asked, never not anticipating an answer in the negative.

     “Yes,” he replied, matching your assumption. And with that you left the topic at hand until the night.

     When the sun lost itself under the horizon, Helen rolled up those loose canvas pieces and held them under his arm like a newspaper, bundled up as he made his way through the woods. There he’d find you amongst the trees in an alcove of your own design, a burning pit in the middle. Once the scraps were placed in your hands, Helen didn’t bother needing to see it through with conviction. They’d simply erupt into flames and he would be freed from that feeling, right? It would all go away and he wouldn’t have to see it anymore, he could start over again, and he’d be free. 

     Except nothing is ever as simple, and you knew that as you felt the gravity of it in your palms. “Are you sure you want to get rid of them?” You asked one last time, just to be sure, prompted to do so by the slightest of twinges in his expression, just one opening of a sliver into his emotions. 

     Helen huffed, “Yes, of course I”m sure. Why is it any different than the other work I’ve burned here?” 

     “Because,” you reasoned, “its you and you made it.”

     “That is not me.”

     His diction briefly startled you, his voice raised into a raging simmer and dangling off into an eruption, bouncing and cracking. Helen, usually so posh and poised, you knew he had to have his weak spots too, just like any other person. But again, knowing Helen, you knew he wouldn’t be the kind to shed those slivers and open up, tearing himself away from his comforts and instead preferring to become entangled with your own. That kind of vulnerability was different from sharing a bed, from sharing any kind of space; it was the kind that would eat up at your insides, the kind that you wouldn’t let go of until you couldn’t keep it contained anymore. You were patient, it was the long run from here on out, and he was completely correct that it wasn’t him.

     With that, you let fire do what fire does best.

     Helen didn’t much look at the scene, instead slumping into himself, looking a little bit more at peace as the flames picked at the frays. You watched him as his arms wrapped around his sides, his neutral expression nearly settled into a grimace, his eyes concentrated yet unfocused. 

     “I’ll try it again someday,” he said out of the blue, watching the flames dance, his tone calm and steady once more, as if nothing were amiss.

     You made the risk of getting closer to him and placing your hand on divot in his back, you pulled yourself closer to him, “I know.”

     To your surprise, Helen didn’t move away. His feet found themselves shuffling even just an inch closer to your embrace to share your warmth and feel your presence. Your body pressed against his helped those feelings ebb and flow, slowing to a trickle in his mind, grounding himself in the sensation rather than the aesthetic, letting him exist. Even if it was with the help of your feelings, it was still something to grasp onto throughout the onslaught of thoughts that plagued him. It was still different. 

     For that moment and that moment only, Helen compromised on relying on you with the faith that you wouldn’t view him lesser than worthy for exhibiting such intimacy with. He leaned into your side, closer yet now, and settled his head into the crook of your neck. From now on he’d wear blush proudly if you were the one to fluster him, he’d yank flowers from people’s porch side gardens, preferably annuals, he’d press them between pages in the dictionary, he’d grind the petals together to form a paste, coat it with oil to bind, splattering onto new canvases. Helen would wrap flowers and their vines all over your body to squeeze every spot he wasn’t bold enough to touch in reality. The paintings would be just as good, right? gloriosa superba would be his poison of choice, he’d use it smear across his body until he became apart of the petals. Fire was dangerous and he gave into the heat.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

originally posted on quotev/citrusyfruits, reposted with permission

[mightdeletelater]

I spent 15 hours, across three days, watching and taking notes on the legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice, where South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel. 

South Africa's case was a temporal snapshot that lay the weight of decades of historical context. Although the specifics of the case pertained to Israel's actions in Gaza, its overarching objective reached beyond these particulars. At its core, the case sought to address the substantial disparity between the lived reality of Palestinians and the narrative propagated by dominant political forces.

Across the globe, public anger regarding the events in Gaza has manifested on the streets. However, political leaders consistently chose to overlook, dismiss, ban, or vilify this collective sentiment. Maybe it is recency bias, but in my lifetime, there has never been such a disconnect between politicians and their people than when it comes to Gaza. 

The significance of South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice is that it publically challenges the portrayal of the Palestinian cause as a fringe issue.

Beyond merely outlining the severity of events – 23,000+ killed in Gaza, the 1.9 million displaced, the 7,000+ missing under the rubble, and the thousands of bombs dropped, making this the deadliest rate of conflict of the 21st century – the case links these claims to the Geneva Conventions and human rights law. 

But where are we as a society, as a human race even, that we are at a point where the case was brought forth in the first place? Such an initiative questions the legitimacy of the international response and underscores the diminishing persuasive power of Western logic in an increasingly multipolar world. 

The case represents a broader confrontation within international institutions, raising doubts about the actual existence of the human rights infrastructure. The conflict has placed Western allies in the precarious position of undermining or neglecting their own established systems, eroding their credibility on the global stage. When you're against the United Nations and hundreds of human rights organisations and objecting to a submission in a global court (in the case of the US and UK, a court that they themselves established), you are simply pulling apart your house with the very tools that built it.

Western powers, having previously failed to support a Gaza ceasefire, will from now on be viewed in the global south as fighting on Israel's side. More so than they were already. And why wouldn't they be? These politicians have made it clear that they want to supply arms and military support to a regime, and their intervention, it seems, is contingent upon the safeguarding of goods shipment. These politicians assert that financial resources are lacking for reconstructing their nations, yet readily allocate funds for military endeavours. Why? How is any of this normal? 

After the legal proceedings, Netanyahu said, "We will continue the war in the Gaza Strip until we achieve all our objectives. The Hague and the axis of evil will not stop us." Without compelling a policy change from Israel, what hope is there that South Africa's case will avail? It was obvious that Israel would use support from the US and the UK to prosecute the real agenda that Netanyahu and hundreds of Israeli politicians have hidden in plain sight (i.e. admitted on camera constantly): the destruction of Palestine and its people.

The recurring pattern is evident. Gaza transforms from an open-air prison to an open-air slaughterhouse under Israeli actions. Iraq faces invasion and fragmentation fueled by falsehoods and lies. Libya, once somewhat stable, descends into a state of civil war. Afghanistan witnesses invasion followed by prolonged failure and abandonment. Yemen endures relentless bombing, culminating in one of the most severe humanitarian crises in recorded human history. Syria? Also bombed, resulting in the displacement of thousands of refugees.

All of this, and more, is the legacy of Western "intervention", war, and policy in the Middle East.

Strangely, I find myself distanced from all this turmoil, yet the impact remains surprisingly profound. So many people I love have been impacted, yet I still experience a sense of detachment.

I go about my life. I have family and friends. I have hobbies and a job. But multiple times a day, it will hit me. I'll remember the videos I've seen of a mother crying over her son's body. Or the father carrying the remains of his children in plastic bags. Or the doctors performing amputations in overcrowded hospitals with nothing more than a dull butter knife. A wave of deep sorrow washes over me, settling in my chest like a persistent ache, lingering until I find a sufficiently absorbing distraction. And then, the cycle restarts.

But I don't want to be distracted. And I don't want to forget. I feel like I don't deserve to forget. It feels like the least I can do. Because I, unfortunately, do not have a megaphone loud enough to shout to those in positions of authority and tell them they are cowardly individuals sitting on chairs fashioned from the bones of Gaza's children.

In 2024, you would think that we would only be quoting Martin Luther King to learn about history and not to still use his message for current happenings, but he honestly said it best: "No one is free when we are all free." 

[livesunique]

Ms Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida OMRI (4 July 1927 – 16 January 2023)

Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Ms Lollobrigida was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. She studied sculpture at Rome’s Academy of Fine Arts, and started her career with minor Italian film roles before coming third in 1947’s Miss Italia pageant. 

After refusing a contract with Howard Hughes to make three pictures in the United States in 1950, Ms Lollobrigida gained for starring turns in 1952’s “Fanfan la Tulipe” and 1953’s “Bread, Love and Dreams,” the latter of which netted her a BAFTA nomination for Best Foreign Actress.

Ms Lollobrigida’s first American film was “Beat the Devil,” a 1953 adventure comedy directed by John Huston that cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart. Over the course of the ’50s and ’60s, she starred in numerous French, Italian and European-shot American productions, with highlights including “Trapeze” with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” as Esmerelda, “Solomon and Sheba” with Yul Brynner, “Never So Flew” with Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen, “Come September” with Rock Hudson, and “Woman of Straw” with Sean Connery, and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” with Shelley Winters.

Her roles made her a major sex symbol of Italian cinema; in 1953, she won Italy’s David di Donatello award for Best Actress for her performance in the opera star Lina Cavalieri’s biopic “Beautiful But Dangerous,” known in Italian as “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman.” 

She later won two more David di Donatello Award for “Imperial Venus” and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” a Golden Medal of the City of Rome in 1986, a 40th Anniversary David in 1996 and a 50th Anniversary David in 2006. In 1961, she won the Golden Globes’ Henrietta Award for “World Fan Favorite,” and received nominations for “Falcon Crest” and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell.”

After the ’60s, Lollobrigida’s career began to slow down, but she continued to act intermittently, including in the 1995 Agnes Varda film “Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma,” and in ’80s TV shows such as CBS’ “Falcon Crest” and ABC’s “The Love Boat.” 

Ms Lollobrigida also developed a successful second career in photojournalism during the ’80s. She obtained an exclusive interview with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and also photographed many famous film stars, as well as publishing a number of books of her photographs.

In 2011 she made her final film appearance, playing herself in a cameo for the Italian parody film “Box Office 3D: The Filmest of Films.”

The screen legend sale of some of her 23 jewels from her Bulgari  collection at Sotheby’s in 2013 to help fund an international hospital for stem-cell research. 

On 16 October 1999, Lollobrigida was nominated as a Goodwill Ambassador of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Ms  Lollobrigida won the Berlinale Camera at the Berlin Film Festival in 1986, Karlovy Vary Film Festival special prize in 1995, and the Rome Festival’s career prize in 2008. In 2018, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ciao, Gina, Riposa in Pace

(Armando Pietrangeli, “Light and Shadow,” Gina Lollobrigida,1960, Trapeze 1956, Woman Of Rome,1954, Salomon & Sheba,1959, Come September, 1961,Un Bellissimo Novembre,1968, The Hunchback of Notre Dame,1956, In London to publicise her book of photographs titled Italia Mia,1974, Fidel Castro shot by Ms Lollobrigida,1974, Gina Lollobrigida pictured on July 11, 2022 in Rome).

[hallison-bre]

Apes of the State performing I Shot A Gun Today at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale, Pennsylvania. 7/15/2024

[Context for April's speech: this show was two days after the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump] -> "Nobody deserves to die as a result of political violence, so rest in peace to the person that fucking died because that kid missed, but the only people that do deserve to die as a result of political violence are the 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘴 themselves that perpetuate violence across the globe. That promote genocide, that build cop cities, and that refuse to take action on climate change. So that being said, fuck the United States government."

Video recorded by me :3

[technicallyonappleduty]

Aziraphale and Crowley Timeline

I made a timeline of the Aziraphale and Crowley relationship based on the TV show, book, stage directions, and Neil Gaiman’s blog. It was designed to track negative space and off-screen interactions for the purposes of fic writing, so maybe other fic writers would enjoy it. Please add anything I missed. I’ll edit as necessary.

Before the Beginning — Nebula rollout

Aziraphale shares his name with a heavy implication that they have not met before.

Crowley tells Nina and Maggie, “We’ve been talking for millions of years,” implying some sort of relationship before Crowley’s fall.

Sunday, October 21, 4004 B.C. at 9:13 a.m. — The creation of the universe

4004 B.C., "just after the beginning" — The Garden of Eden

Crowley (Crawly) tells Aziraphale his new name, which implies minimal interaction since Crowley’s fall. They were aware of each other’s presence in the garden as evidenced by Crowley having noticed the flaming sword.

3004 B.C., Mesopotamia — Noah’s Ark

Crowley follows up on the flaming sword, which implies but does not confirm that they haven’t interacted since Eden.

[3004 BC - 2500 BC: NO INTERACTION as evidenced by Aziraphale’s comment, “I haven’t seen you since the flood.”

2500 B.C., Land of Uz — Job

2000 B.C., Sodom and Gomorrah

It’s confirmed from the TV show that Aziraphale was present (as evidenced by their comment about Sandalphon’s participation)

It’s confirmed from the book that Crowley was not present and did not visit afterwards.

[800 BC - 200 BC: Deleted scene from TV show, Arabian Nights-inspired]

33 A.D., Golgotha — The crucifixion

41 A.D., Rome — Aziraphale runs into Crowley

537 A.D., Kingdom of West Essex — Crowley suggests they stop working just to cancel each other out

[1020 A.D. (BOOK CANON) — Arrangement (non-interference) is established. Then, they extend the arrangement to “hold the fort” for one another.]

[1023 A.D. (BOOK CANON) — Crowley comes back to argue that you need to start people off equal in order to let them choose between good and evil, equivalent of The Resurrectionists in the TV series.]

[1400s: “Papal” scene, cut from TV show]

[1567 A.D. — Mary Queen of Scots dies, this scene was cut and converted to The Resurrectionists]

[1556 AD - 1598 AD (BOOK CANON): Crowley is in Spain when he receives a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. He checks it out then comes back and gets drunk for a week. Time range is evidenced by the line, “That Hieronymus Bosch,” who is a painter who inspired King Phillip II.]

1601, Globe Theatre, London — Hamlet

CONFIRMED: Multiple interactions between Wessex (537 AD) and now as evidenced by Crowley’s statement that they’ve covered for each other “dozens of times now.”

1650, Unknown — First “I Was Wrong” dance (performed by Aziraphale)

[1600 - 1800, United States: A scene set during the Wild West, cut from TV show]

1793, Paris — The French Revolution

A recent interaction is implied by Crowley saying, “I thought you were opening a bookshop.”

1800, London — The bookshop opens (confirmed that it opened “a couple years” after Mr. Hatchard in Piccadilly, founded 1797)

[Book — Crowley is asleep through most of the 19th century, gets up in 1832 for bathroom]

1820s, U.K. — Aziraphale’s diary excerpt, in which he mentions that he told Crowley the story “afterwards” (although “afterwards” can be a very long time for two immortal beings so it doesn’t confirm much)

1827, Edinburgh  — The Resurrectionists

[Confirmed: “It was the last I was to see of Crowley for quite some time.”]

1862, St. James Park, London — Crowley requests holy water

Their understanding of the agreement is, “Stay out of each other’s way. Lend a hand when needed.”

[1862 - 1941: NO INTERACTION as evidenced by the stage directions that Aziraphale has not seen Crowley in a hundred years.]

1941, London

[1960s: cut scene set in America, note: both female-presenting]

1967, Soho — Aziraphale gets holy water for Crowley

2008, U.K. — Antichrist is born

2013, U.S. — Crowley and Aziraphale both begin work for the Dowlings

[“The story starts, as it will end, in a garden” — although technically garden is no longer where it started]

[mareislandfoundation]

A Ghost Story

Drive onto the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard located in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, head south and you will drive by many handsome brick buildings located in the heart of the first US naval base on the Pacific. Some sit vacant, some are occupied by businesses, and one is home to a ghost. Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Samuel Wilson was serving as the executive officer on board USS Ashuelot on the United States Navy’s Asiatic Station.  On August 1, 1879, he suffered an epileptic fit and died.  Three days later he was buried with full military honors in Japan.  For unknown reasons his body was exhumed 3 years later and brought back for burial in the Mare Island cemetery.  This process went awry, and it appears that the spirit of Samual Wilson was not happy.

Wilson entered the Naval Academy as a midshipman in 1861 as the United States was embroiled in the Civil War, our Nation’s bloodiest war.  His eighteen years of service would take him to Mare Island Naval Shipyard and then to the other side of the world where his path would briefly cross with former President Ulysses Grant.  Grant had led the Union Army to victory during the Civil War and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877.  In 1879 LCDR Wilson reported to the gunboat USS Ashuelot as the Executive Officer as she lay at anchor in Yokohama Bay Japan.  By then, President Grant was completing a two-year long world tour where he was celebrated in an astounding array of nations.  That tour had progressed across the globe to Asia and President Grant was being transported from port to port in Vietnam, China and Japan on board the USS Ashuelot, LCDR Wilson’s new command.  It was a plum assignment where he would be able to rub shoulders with the most famous man in the world; however, it was to be short lived.  LCDR Wilson reported aboard on July 20th and he was then recorded in the ships log to be absent without leave (AWOL) for the next four days. Then, six days later he was dead of what was recorded as apoplexy.  LCDR Wilson was buried with full military honors in Yokohama three days later and President Grant left the Ashuelot to continue world tour aboard the warship USS Richmond two weeks after LCDR Wilson’s death, and there the story should have ended, but it didn’t.

For unknown reasons, three years after the burial LCDR Wilson’s remains were exhumed to be re-buried in the Mare Island cemetery. The Navy reported that LCDR Wilson’s ex-wife requested his body be brought to Mare Island; however, she denied ever requesting such a thing.  According to a 1930 story in the old “Vallejo Chronicle,” Lt. Cmdr. Wilson’s body hadn’t been buried long when it was exhumed and was shipped aboard the USS Iroquois “well packed in three boxes.” The Iroquois was to be decommissioned and laid up at mid-channel off Mare Island, so her armament was shipped off to the ordnance storehouse, a two-story brick structure built in 1870 that exists to this day.  Seven years went by, and his ex-wife decided to send a headstone to the shipyard to mark her former husband’s grave in the cemetery. Things began to unravel when yard officials were unable to locate the grave of LCDR Wilson. Then, his former wife traveled to Mare Island to find the missing body of her former husband. The search eventually located those three boxes in the ordnance storehouse where they had apparently been stored and forgotten. LCDR Wilson’s earthly remains were finally interred in the Mare Island cemetery, but even that wasn’t the end of the story.

It seems Lt. Cmdr. Wilson either liked the ordnance storehouse or resented having been left there for seven years. Whatever the reasons, strange sounds were heard from the building, the fire alarm rang for no reason, and ghostly figures were reported moving around. In addition, an unusual pattern of unexplained accidents happened within the building. The strange occurrences so frightened the workers in the building that they successfully petitioned the Shipyard Commander to have the building illuminated inside and outside both day and night. The practice of illuminating the building when empty only lasted for several years, but workers were still reporting the building as haunted well into the 1980’s.

Dennis Kelly

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich ::

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 10, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 11, 2024

A key story that got missed yesterday was that the Senate voted 64–19 to allow a bill that includes $95.34 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to advance a step forward. In terms of domestic politics, this appears to be an attempt by those who controlled the Republican Party before Trump to push back against Trump and the MAGA Republicans. 

MAGA lawmakers had demanded border security measures be added to a national security supplemental bill that provided this international aid, as well as humanitarian aid to Gaza, but to their apparent surprise, a bipartisan group of lawmakers actually hammered out that border piece. Trump immediately demanded an end to the bill and MAGA obliged on Wednesday, forcing the rest of the party to join them in killing the national security supplemental bill. House Republicans then promptly tried to pass a measure that provided funding for Israel alone.

At stake behind this fight is not only control of the Republican Party, but also the role of the U.S. in the world—and, for that matter, its standing. And much of that fight comes down to Ukraine’s attempt to resist Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin is intent on dismantling the rules-based international order of norms and values developed after World War II. Under this system, international organizations such as the United Nations provide places to resolve international disputes, prevent territorial wars, and end no-holds-barred slaughter through a series of agreements, including the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war. 

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, deliberate targeting of civilian populations, and war crimes are his way of thumbing his nose at the established order and demanding a different one, in which men like him dominate the globe. 

Trump’s ties to Russia are deep and well documented, including by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was dominated by Republicans when it concluded that Trump’s 2016 campaign team had worked with Russian operatives. In November 2022, in the New York Times Magazine, Jim Rutenberg pulled together testimony given both to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee, transcripts from the impeachment hearings, and recent memoirs. 

Rutenberg showed that in 2016, Russian operatives had presented to Trump advisor and later campaign manager Paul Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded, and -directed ‘separatists’ were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead.” 

But they were concerned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) might stand in their way. Formed in 1947 to stand against Soviet expansion and now standing against Russian aggression, NATO is a collective security alliance of 31 states that have agreed to consider an attack on any member to be an attack on all.

In exchange for weakening NATO, undermining the U.S. stance in favor of Ukraine in its attempt to throw off the Russians who had invaded in 2014, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to put their finger on the scales to help Trump win the White House. 

When he was in office, Trump did, in fact, try to weaken NATO—as well as other international organizations like the World Health Organization—and promised he would pull the U.S. out of NATO in a second term, effectively killing it. Rutenberg noted that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks a lot like an attempt to achieve the plan it suggested in 2016. But because there was a different president in the U.S., that invasion did not yield the results Putin expected. 

President Joe Biden stepped into office more knowledgeable on foreign affairs than any president since Dwight Eisenhower, who took office in 1953. Biden recognized that democracy was on the ropes around the globe as authoritarian leaders set out to dismantle the rules-based international order. He also knew that the greatest strength of the U.S. is its alliances. In the months after he took office, Biden focused on shoring up NATO, with the result that when Russia invaded Ukraine again in February 2022, a NATO coalition held together to support Ukraine.

By 2024, far from falling apart, NATO was stronger than ever with the addition of Finland. Sweden, too, is expected to join shortly. 

But far more than simply shore up the old system, the Biden administration has built on the stability of the rules-based order to make it more democratic, encouraging more peoples, nations, and groups to participate more fully in it. In September 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that the end of the Cold War made people think that the world would inevitably become more peaceful and stable as countries cooperated and emphasized democracy and human rights. 

But now, Blinken said, that era is over. After decades of relative stability, authoritarian powers have risen to challenge the rules-based international order, throwing away the ideas of national sovereignty and human rights. As wealth becomes more and more concentrated, people are losing faith in that international order as well as in democracy itself. In a world increasingly under pressure from authoritarians who are trying to enrich themselves and stay in power, he said, the administration is trying to defend fair competition, international law, and human rights. 

Historically, though, the U.S. drive to spread democracy has often failed to rise above the old system of colonialism, with the U.S. and other western countries dictating to less prosperous countries. The administration has tried to avoid this trap by advancing a new form of international cooperation that creates partnerships and alignments of interested countries to solve discrete issues. These interest-based alignments, which administration officials refer to as “diplomatic variable geometry,” promise to preserve U.S. global influence and perhaps an international rules-based order but will also mean alliances with nations whose own interests align with those of the U.S. only on certain issues.  

In the past three years, the U.S. has created a new security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, and held a historic, first-ever trilateral leaders’ summit at Camp David with Japan and the Republic of Korea. It has built new partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as with Latin American and Caribbean countries, to address issues of immigration; two days ago the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee met for the fourth time in Mexico. This new system includes a wider range of voices at the table—backing the membership of the African Union in the Group of 20 (G20) economic forum, for example—advancing a form of cooperation in which every international problem is addressed by a group of partner nations that have a stake in the outcome. 

At the same time, the U.S. recognizes that wealthier countries need to step up to help poorer countries develop their own economies rather than mine them for resources. Together with G7 partners, the U.S. has committed to deliver $600 billion in new investments to develop infrastructure across the globe—for example, creating a band of development across Africa.

Biden’s is a bold new approach to global affairs, based on national rights to self-determination and working finally to bring an end to colonialism. 

The fight over U.S. aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the other countries with which we have made partnerships is not about saving money—most of the funds for Ukraine are actually spent in the U.S.—or about protecting the U.S. border, as MAGA Republicans demonstrated when they killed the border security bill. It is about whether the globe will move into the 21st century, with all its threats of climate change, disease, and migration, with ways for nations to cooperate, or whether we will be at the mercy of global authoritarians. 

Trump’s 2024 campaign website calls for “fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission,” and in a campaign speech in South Carolina today, he made it clear what that means. Trump has long misrepresented the financial obligations of NATO countries, and today he suggested that the U.S. would not protect other NATO countries that were “delinquent” if they were attacked by Russia. “In fact,” he said, “I would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Last week, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling in South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel, it sent an authoritative message to the world: Allegations of genocide against Israel are not meritless. Notwithstanding Hamas’s unlawful conduct that started the war last October, the court clearly indicated an overwhelming disapproval of the way that Israel has been fighting the war—stating, notably, that Palestinians face a “real and imminent risk” to their right to be protected from acts of genocide.

Even though the court did not rule on the merits of the genocide allegations, which may take years, it evoked strong reactions from around the globe. While human rights experts and groups welcomed the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the court’s decision, protesting the court’s willingness to hear the case at all.

In any case, the ICJ decision offers an opportunity for lasting peace that should not be missed. For that, credit must go to South Africa for bringing the case.

Pretoria’s “moral leadership,” as some have called it, has garnered support from many countries throughout the global south. However, other countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States have opposed the lawsuit. Not only has Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, declared South Africa’s case “meritless,” he’s also argued that the case “distracts the world” from efforts to find a lasting solution to the conflict.

While both sides are entitled to their own views, it is wrong to suggest that a case that seeks to stem the bloodbath is an attempt to distract the world from more durable paths to peace at a time when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is threatening to provoke a wider regional war. Since lasting solutions cannot be found within the chambers of the political organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council, which has become hopelessly dysfunctional, solutions must be sought elsewhere.

Rather than criticize South Africa for daring to launch the lawsuit that asks whether the Genocide Convention has been violated, a more constructive criticism would be to argue that Pretoria limited its case too narrowly with regard to the parties involved and the scope of its litigation—namely, by not initiating proceedings against Hamas and failing to examine crimes other than genocide, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, which are often committed under the cover of war.

South Africa’s case mainly rests on the principle that international lawyers call obligation erga omnes. According to that doctrine, the obligation to protect human rights and humanity from acts of violence is an obligation owed to the whole world—even if they are not direct victims of said violations. Therefore, any country is entitled to bring legal action to ensure continued protection of the concerned rights , as  Gambia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Ukraine have done in the past.

However, South Africa oddly limited the parties to the proceedings by omitting to initiate proceedings against Hamas, which it could have done by including Palestine as a nominal party in the case. This limitation likely results from the argument that Hamas is not a state actor, and therefore its actions cannot be adjudicated at the ICJ. That argument is flawed.

Considering that Hamas is the organization that performs the functions of government in Gaza, a geographic entity forming part of Palestine—which is recognized as a U.N. observer state—it is mistaken to argue that it is not a state actor which could trigger the international responsibility of Palestine. According to the U.N.’s Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, the conduct of Hamas, as the acting governmental authority in Gaza, is justiciable at the ICJ (just as the conduct of Arizona, a U.S. state, was justiciable at the ICJ in a 2001 case between Germany and the United States).

Another reason for the limitation likely results from the political debate about Palestine as a state. Given that 139 countries have recognized Palestine as a state and the U.N. General Assembly has voted to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state, the obstacle to initiating proceedings against Palestine at the ICJ depends on the practices of the ICJ. Indeed, Palestine is listed among the states that may be parties to proceedings before the ICJ. Notably, in 2018, the same year it was admitted as a state party to the ICJ statute, Palestine challenged the U.S. relocation of its embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

All this is to say that it might have been preferable for South Africa to initiate proceedings against Hamas, too. Israel had compellingly argued before the ICJ that any provisional order by the court to halt the fighting would tie Israel’s hands and not Hamas’s. That argument offers a better explanation for why the  ICJ’s ruling did not go as far as to order an immediate cease-fire, though it indicated several provisional measures requiring Israel to prevent acts of genocide.

By omitting to include Hamas as a party to ICJ proceedings, South Africa lost the opportunity to actually try to halt the ongoing armed conflict by compelling both sides to stop fighting—given that the Security Council has proved unable to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

South Africa also unduly limited the scope of its litigation by confining it to the question of genocide. World leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who argued that Israel was entitled to defend itself and go after Hamas, have criticized Israel for indiscriminate bombings that have killed innocent civilians in Gaza, including women and children, in unprecedented numbers in recent history.

In its defense, Israel argued that it also found the scale of civilian casualties and destruction in Gaza truly heartbreaking, and that it was doing its best to minimize harm to civilians. This defense was made in spite of the many disturbing utterances of multiple Israeli officials suggesting otherwise, and the critical observations of some Israeli citizens, including soldiers, suggesting a lack of restraint. Still, Israel refused to slow down—insisting at once that it must continue bombing and attacking Gaza until it had eliminated Hamas.

The Convention against Genocide is not the only document that Pretoria could have turned to; it could have also cited the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their First Additional Protocol of 1977, a set of treaties which in one form or another bind all nations when fighting wars. The 1949 conventions criminalize the willful killing and willful infliction of great suffering on civilian populations as well as the destruction of civilian property beyond military necessity. The 1977 protocol details the principle of proportionality and forbids indiscriminate attacks.

In any war in which there are conflicting accusations and denials about violations of these norms, the legally proper recourse is to pose those questions to the ICJ—just as countries such as the Netherlands and Canada did in their case against Syria about violation of the Convention against Torture.

It is unreasonable and fundamentally counterproductive to criticize judicial proceedings before international courts, especially when parties are seeking to intervene in life-and-death situations that the global political institutions have otherwise been unable to resolve. Indeed, no nation should object to using judicial proceedings as a last resort in seeking to stop a war.

The irony is inescapable. Since 1928, states have agreed to renounce war as an instrument of state policy and to use peaceful means—including adjudication—to resolve differences instead, an idea subsequently enshrined in the U.N. Charter. Today, there is widespread concern that the ongoing war in Gaza could broaden the conflict across the region or beyond. Given that risk, it is startling that any responsible state would support continuing an armed conflict that has killed so many and destroyed so much, when no effort had been made to use peaceful means of settlement—apart from the brief cease-fire and prisoner exchange last November.

Putting the legal merits of these cases aside, there is much value in countries such as Gambia, Canada, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and South Africa bringing these kinds of proceedings to the ICJ. If nothing else, the recent case has forced the international community to confront the problem of armed conflict, even if the only way left to do that is through the international courts. The cases allow judges to cut through all the political noise to answer legal questions.

Additionally, such litigation can help to quell the cacophony of recriminations—allegations, denials, and counter-allegations of genocide, war crimes, apartheid, crimes against humanity, and wars of aggression—that these events invariably generate. These lawsuits thus invite trained experts—specifically, highly-qualified judges from across the world, assisted by the briefs and arguments of able counsel—to deliberate these questions and then declare to the world whether there is merit in the allegations, so that they are not left at the level of defamatory political insults or disingenuous denials.

International courts now seem to be the last hope for humanity in a world where the possibilities of science have been harnessed by states to maximize destruction, while the U.N.’s ability to curb the scourge of war has largely failed.

[cyarskaren52]

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africanarchives

Cicely Tyson was an actress and fashion model. In a career which spanned more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine and became a popular fashion model in the early 50s. Her first acting role was on the NBC series Frontiers of Faith in 1951. Tyson got her first play role in 1950 and her first film role in Carib Gold in 1956. Tyson appeared on the popular television series East Side/West Side and the soap opera The Guiding Light.

She was nominated for the Academy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress for her performance as Rebecca Morgan in Sounder (1972), also winning the NSFC Best Actress and NBR Best Actress Awards. She starred in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), for which she won two Emmy Awards and was nominated for a BAFTA Award. Tyson has been nominated for thirteen Primetime Emmy Awards, winning three.

In 2011, she appeared in the film The Help, for which she received awards for her ensemble work as Constantine from the BFCA and SAG Awards and she has an additional four SAG Award nominations. She starred on Broadway in The Trip to Bountiful as Carrie Watts, for which she won the Tony Award, Outer Critics Award, and Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play. She previously received a Drama Desk Award in 1962 for her Off-Broadway performance in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl.

Tyson was named a Kennedy Center honoree in 2015. In November 2016, Tyson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor in the United States. In 2020, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

Tyson's memoir, Just As I Am, was published on January 26, 2021, and she was promoting the book during the last weeks of her life. When she was asked how she wanted to be remembered in an interview with Gayle King, Tyson said, "I’ve done my best. That’s all."

Tyson died on January 28, 2021, at the age of 96. Her funeral was held February 16 in Harlem, and was attended by Tyler Perry, Lenny Kravitz, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

🖋️You can tip on www.africanarchives.support to support the page 🖤 thanks!—link in bio—

[blowflyfag]

WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION MAGAZINE: December 1995

LIVING RAW 

AN OVERVIEW OF CABLE’S MOST EXPLOSIVE PROGRAM

BY KEITH ELLIOR GREENBERG

World Wrestling Federation ring announcer Howard Finkel remembers the pangs of anticipation he felt as he watched the television crew rig up the lights in New York’s Manhattan Center before the first broadcast of Monday Night Raw on January 11, 1993. “It was something we were going to embark on,” he recalls, his deep voice rising in a theatrical pitch. “No one knew what was going to happen. We were going live over the air, and I had this sense that Monday Night Raw was going to be really different from anything that the fans had ever seen before.” 

Finkel’s instincts proved to be correct. For nearly three years, devotees of the World Wrestling Federation have stopped whatever they were doing and flicked on USA Network on Monday nights to keep track of the twists and turns in the neverending saga that is the mat wars. With its animated crowds, blaring lights, stirring music and frenzied wrestling action, Monday Night Raw has evolved into the highest-rated weekly series on cable television today. 

“All the elements came together,” explains the show’s producer Jennifer Good, “the quality of the matches, the motivation of the wrestlers, the graphics, the music, the lighting, the enthusiasm of the crowd.”

As the 1995-1996 season kicked off in September, some big plans were underway for Monday Night Raw. Bowing to popular demand, the World Wrestling Federation and USA Network agreed to rerun broadcasts on Thursday nights for fans who may have missed the mayhem earlier in the week. And, as this issue was going to press, serious discussions were underway to debut a bi-monthly Raw magazine. 

To be sure, the pandemonium broadcast on Monday Night Raw has been significant enough to fill a library. Among the memorable episodes: Razor Ramon’s famous loss to the then-unheralded 1-2-3 Kid; Jerry “The King” Lawler’s verbal onslaught on Bret Hart’s parents in the audience in the middle of a show; Finkel’s managing the Bushwhackers against Well Dunn; Bret joining forces with actor William Shatner; Bam Bam Bigelow’s challenge of football great Lawrence Taylor; Bertha Faye’s nose breaking sneak-attack on Alundra Blayze just seconds after she won the World Wrestling Federation Women’s Championship; Bob Backlund’s placing the chicken wing on former World Wrestling Federation Magazine writer Lou Gianfrido; Sid’s assault on the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels the day after WrestleMania XI; and the British Bulldog’s shocking ambush of Diesel before the pair was scheduled to battle Men on a Mission.

The end result of these incidents is a viewership of nearly five million people just in the United States, where the program is broadcast in both English and Spanish. Throughout Central and South America, the show is seen on USA’s sister station USA-Latin America. Additionally, Monday Night Raw is now watched on various outlets around the globe. 

“I think what makes Monday Night Raw so unique is its energy,” says Good. “It’s out of control. We like to say that anything can happen, and it usually does, but that’s not a cliche–it’s really true. Monday Night Raw is like a steam train rolling down the tracks.” 

Everybody  associated with the program seems to have a favorite Raw moment. 

Announcer Todd Penttengill still gets excited reminiscing about “an unknown 1-2-3 Kid defeating Razor Ramon. You have to understand: The 1-2-3 Kid had a losing record up to that point. With that one victory, he became a star. Now, that was a moment–a moment in time.”

Lawler giggles at his excursion into the stands during a Bret Hart-Bam Bam Bigelow contest. As Bret’s parents, Stu and Helen, watched their son in the ring, the self-proclaimed King began peppering them with insults. “I told Helen she was so old she remembers when the Dead Sea was just sick,” Lawler howls. “I said when she gave birth to Bret, she got a ticket for littering.”

Hearing the offensive fusillade, Hart bailed out of his match–and his feud with Lawler commenced.

World Wrestling Federation Magazine editor Vince Russo long regretted his sending Gianfriddo to the arena to interview Bob Backlund. Backlund called Gianfriddo into the ring, clamped on the chicken wing and nearly put an end to the reporter’s pastime as a competitive bodybuilder. 

Now that Gianfriddo has fully recovered, Russo is able to laugh about the exchange. “When Louie got chickenwinged, he became a part of Raw history,” the editor says. “With his arm in a sling, he wrote a story that was infinitely more up-close and personal than anything that I had ever read anywhere.”

Color commentator Dox Hendrix got excited recently when Henry Godwinn–also known as H.O.G.--turned his slop bucket against his onetime allies in Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase’s Corporation. “I thought that it was pretty cool when H.O.G. slopped DiBiase. Then it was even cooler when he slopped King Kong Bundy. And it was even cooler yet when he slopped Sid.”

For the 1995-1996 season, dozens of wrestlers–including Diesel, Michaels, H.O.G., 1-2-3 Kid, Owen Hart, Waylon Mercy, Razor Ramon, the Undertaker, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Bret Hart, Dean Douglas, Kama, Yokozuna, Fatu and Goldust–recently gathered on the roof of Titan Tower, the World Wrestling Federation headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, to film a new opening for the show Thousands of fans also turned up. And as they banged at the gates outside the building, Backlund appeared, set up a podium and delivered a long, rambling speech–all about America’s moral decay.

Shawn Michaels danced on an elevated portion of the roof, watching the other wrestlers advancing on the ring, while helicopters swept spotlights over the scene and special Monday Night Raw cheerleaders held an impromptu pep rally. Meanwhile, drivers in cars on I-95, which runs parallel to the building, craned their necks in wonder at the 50-foot blowup of the Undertaker swaying in the evening breeze.

“Everybody in the ring,” David Sahadi, the Federation’s director of on-air promotion, suggested. He quickly regretted his words.

Instead of mugging for the cameras, the wrestlers forgot about them, and soon, long–simmering rivalries boiled over into warfare–to the delight of the fans on hand.

The 1-2-3 Kid delivered a spinning kick to Dean Douglas, who then found himself choked and slammed by the Undertaker. Mercy and Diesel rumbled against the ropes. Still pumped up from, his ladder match with Ramon at SummerSlam, Michaels propped up a ladder outside the ring, ascended it and flattened Kama with a high crossbody block. All the while, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley stayed on the ring steps, observing all the turbulence with his usual highbrow detachment. 

“Everybody out of the ring,” Sahadi said. Remarkably, a number of the athletes obeyed his order, continuing their tussles at ringside. Only Diesel remained in the center of the squared circle. However, when the crowd gave him a rousing cheer, a jealous Owen Hart stormed through the ropes and attacked. Within seconds, the other wrestlers also returned, as fans were treated to a second battle royal.

Nine-year-old Johnathan Bonilla and Edgar Giribaldo, 10, both of Stamford, couldn’t have been happier. “We watch Monday Night Raw together sometimes,” Edgar said. “It’s all action and surprises. Once it starts, you never know just what you’ll get.” Said 8-year-old Nicholas Kort of Armonk, New York, When I hear the music at the beginning of Monday Night Raw, I get excited. I know that the wrestling’s coming soon, and I know that the wrestling’s going to be wild.”

[imperialboomerang]

The Election Happened...Now What?

So it happened again: we, the people who voted, “decided” on who is best suited to control our bodies. Who do we want to dictate our futures, our livelihoods, our capacity for happiness and to be our truest selves? Who do we want dictating the laws that make up the culture we live in? I’m speaking about more than just the president, though the president’s power is often what is felt most readily and seen most apparently. It is not hidden within a body of people; the president’s decisions are reposted about on social media and dissected in every media publication, from SNL to the New York Times. With the other branches and levels of government: state vs. federal, Senate vs. House, you will find this is more difficult. For many of us, American politics is a nebulous thing, and voting every two to four years is our only intersection with it. However, at any level of government, the final analysis remains the same: your rights, your capacity to exist in this country at your current class position, etc. are all determined by this small collection of politicians that are elected via a process that makes very little sense. Nor does this process accurately represent the wants of all people, including those who didn’t or cannot vote, muchless the people who did. It is even less guaranteed that this process and this small group of people represent the needs of the people. 

These are the conditions, no matter what phase of the election cycle we are in and no matter how I might wish they were different. There are other conditions unique to this election cycle: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, their campaigns, and what is currently happening in the country and across the globe. I could analyze how these unique conditions arose and how they inform our future work, but that is better suited to a later essay, one which more than likely builds off the following. Instead, this essay is about dealing with the conditions as they are.

Understand the necessity for community

First, admit to yourself that this need is not a new one. People have been organizing and supporting one another for the entirety of United States history, though they may have had an easier time or a clearer path towards community due to their unique conditions. We live in our own unique conditions: we have been isolated from each other via commuter cities, the Internet revolution, our crumbling economy, polarizing culture wars, etc. Our times feel so uncertain, and sometimes, it is all we can do to shuffle off to work, come home, eat some food, scratch our cat’s ears, and zone out in front of the many screens at our disposal. Going out isn’t a normal occurrence; when we leave our houses, it is for some purpose, and we often do not have many opportunities to interact with each other. Sometimes, we deliberately avoid these interactions, for whatever reasons we may have. In many ways and for many of us, our neighbors have become foreign to us. Perhaps this feeling extends to your family, your friends, and even your own body. 

Donald Trump winning the presidency may be your wakeup call to these facts. I doubt his winning isn’t the first time you’ve realize that community is something you are missing. You have no one to rely on except yourself, maybe a significant other, and maybe your family. You may have put off ingraining yourself in your community for fear of rejection, of not finding you fit in, out of laziness, etc.

I hope for many of you, you recognize that you were always headed here. The need to know your neighbor and to help each other in times of distress and joy is a natural inclination, and to deny yourself this is to deny your own humanity. Donald Trump winning has not changed this deeply human need.

Second, when saying we need to build community, understand that this task is difficult. It will require you to utilize activation energy in order to do things that make you uncomfortable, or that you may not want to do. Do not delude yourself into thinking this is an easy task, but nothing rewarding ever comes with ease, besides perhaps love. You will have to find local organizations that are already helping each other, you will have to go through many awkward interactions and admit to yourself (and probably others) that you have no idea what you’re doing, and you will have to keep doing this over and over again until it becomes second nature to work in community with others. You may find the experience lonely, at least at first. This was the case for me, and I still return to the feelings of loneliness and isolation when I put myself into a new context where I am uncomfortable. However, everytime you push yourself, you are planting the seeds of your own power. You will find, in community, that the autonomy and sense of self you thought you lost has existed within you. I often tag posts on this blog “your humanity is your own,” and that is because I made this an affirmation. Community is one of the biggest ways to truly learn this fact. 

Lastly, understand that community does not inherently mean you will make friends, and to help one another is not always a pleasant or fun task. It shouldn’t be. It is work to show up for one another, but this work allows you to accomplish much more than you would otherwise. In order to fully realize the people’s power, we must work to show each other what that power looks like. To serve each other is to provide for one another, and of the ways to show a people that revolution is possible, to accomplish this task is perhaps the most important. The other way you build up confidence in yourself and others, in your power, is by winning. You will find it is easier to win concessions and to have your demands met by the state when the people fighting are all provided for. If you would like an example of what this looks like, look at the Section 504 sit-in, which would not have been possible without the solidarity shown between the Black Panthers and Disabled in Action. There are other examples throughout history as well. You can look at the successes of the solidarity encampments put up across the country. Those were only sustainable because people — students, community members, faculty, etc. — rallied around each other and supported one another. Having gone to the encampments before and befriended students who led them, it is obvious how much work, collaboration, arguing, kindness, etc. went into keeping each other safe and provided for.  

Accept the election happened and move on.

I’m not saying bury your feelings or that you are not entitled to feel upset, betrayed, or otherwise disgruntled with this country and its heads of state. Do not pretend as though everything is fine. However, ground yourself. Stop blaming each other. Stop pointing fingers. Do not dwell in the doomerisms nor do you need to go out and buy that Handmaid’s Tale costume. Understand that the Democrats failed to keep Donald Trump out of office — they failed, not you. The Democrats are not your friends. They are politicians. They will be fine when Trump takes office. They will be likely better off when he leaves. They survived the first four years (look at Kamala’s own political career if you do not believe me), and they will survive the next. Instead, ask yourself: how are you surviving the next four years? The four after that? Are you always going to rely on the Democratic Party to tend to your needs, to be the people you can trust with your bodily autonomy, or are you tired? 

I’m exhausted. There are organizers and activists older than me that are even more exhausted. There are people living their lives, completely disenfranchised from any idea of activism or community, just trying to live, and they’re more tired than the rest of us. I’m sure if you’re reading this, you’re tired too. 

What I’m saying is this — move past voting and party politics. Accept that the election happened, we are faced more acutely with the threats against our bodies that were always there. For the entirety of United States history, it has been a story of a small group of people controlling the autonomy of the masses, either through our labor, through apartheid, through colonialism, etc. Read the first paragraph again if you need to know why voting is not the only option, why it should not be the only option. 

We have to take our autonomy back. They will not give it to us freely. We cannot play their games and expect them to win, and as we’ve seen with Joe Biden, even when they do win, they do not fight for us. Dream bigger than someone else’s control over your existence. You deserve better. The people around you deserve better. Even the people who voted for Trump. 

Invest yourself in the people around you because they are the ones you have the most in common with. If you want to get through the next four years and not feel like every moment is certain death in this country, then we will need each other. There is no way around it. Nothing has ever changed in this country because of the ballot box. Things have changed because the people demanded it, and the political elites were forced to listen. It takes a collective in order to build enough power to leverage it. It will take a people’s movement. 

Mourn your losses. Feel the anxiety, the panic, the despair. But ground yourself in the people and the community around you. It is through the work, through becoming part of a community, that you will find hope. 

Hope is a discipline. It’s less about ‘how you feel,’ and more about the practice of making a decision every day, that you’re still gonna put one foot in front of the other… It’s work to be hopeful. It’s not a fuzzy feeling. You have to actually put in energy, time, and you have to be clear-eyed, and you have to hold fast to having a vision. It’s a hard thing to maintain. But it matters to have it, to believe that it’s possible to change the world.”

— Mariame Kaba

Share space!

You know the importance of community. You may be starting to grasp why holding onto this election is distractionary and will not be fruitful. To connect the two pieces, though, you should understand that the same people you may be misdirecting your anger at are the ones you will eventually want to build community with. You need to acquire and realize your own power, but you will eventually realize that you need more than the power of a select few. 

Don’t twist my words, however — there are some people that will never be welcomed into community spaces. In the same breath, there are countless people who have been brainwashed by the same political hum-drum that everyone else has, myself included! These people are facing similar material conditions as you, sometimes worse in some cases, and their reliance on electoral politics to save them stems from the same lack of autonomy and feelings of powerlessness that you experienced this election. You may not be able to convince them that your path is the most fruitful. You may break up with your boyfriend or lose friends in the process of becoming politically engaged in a way that decenters the Democrats and Republicans. You are not responsible for convincing them to join you now, but you should understand that eventually, the movement you are trying to build may need their power and they may be inclined to give it. If you dedicate yourself fully to building a community that 1) provides for each other and 2) can win its demands, then a lot of the people who are apolitical, who may have even voted for Trump, those who sat at home this election, who didn’t vote for Kamala, or even those who did may be inclined to join us. They may not. However, your cruelty towards them should not be the reason why they are not invited into community spaces (unless, of course, they’re a fucking Proud Boy, then they are never welcome). When building community, you will need to embrace nuance, and in embracing nuance, you should recognize that this election was hellish and presented most people with an impossible choice. Do not waste any more breath making enemies out of people who could one day be your allies. Accept the conditions for what they are, and find out what your next steps should be. 

What are my next steps?

Finding community initiatives to join is simultaneously so difficult, but also quite easy if you know where to look. For me, I took to Instagram, and usually you can maneuver your way about by looking at organization’s Following, other accounts they co-Post with, tag, etc. Googling “mutual aid [City Name]” isn’t always a bad idea, either. If you’re absolutely stuck, you could try looking into if your city has any of these groups active (or if you could start your own chapter): 

Palestinian Youth Movement

USPCN

Food Not Bombs 

(if student) Students for a Democratic Society 

(if student) Students for Justice in Palestine 

Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

Antiwar Action Network

Nodutdol 

Anakbayan

Additionally, Elliot Sang made a video that provides other next steps that I fully agree with, many of which I’ve taken in my own journey to joining the organizing community around me. He provides additional resources and readings that are super helpful, and in general, his content is refreshing and can be a light in the dark sometimes.

[weirdestbooks]

Hawaiian Propaganda (Wattpad | Ao3)

Table of Contents | Prev | Next

Hawaii's interview was written with the help of @aloha-from-angel

Propaganda Poster created in March 1942

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Error Showing Image

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[Image Description: At the top of the image are the words “Remember Pearl Harbor…Work~Fight~Sacrifice!!” and at the bottom of the image are the words “We’ll remember—and by God, you won’t forget!!” The image shows the top part of a globe, without any type of geography, with an image of Hawaiʻi lying down on top of the globe. She is noticeably drawn as white, and there is a large knife in her back. Clutching the glove is a racist caricature of a Japanese soldier. The soldier is very monkey-like in appearance. The right hand of the Japanese soldier is dripping blood and being pulled away from Hawaiʻi by Uncle Sam’s hand. The arm of Uncle Sam is labeled as “130,000,000 United Americans.”]

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Recording of an interview of Hawaiʻi, 9 September 2022. Interviewed by Mahinanuioalii “Mahina” Wakabayashi of the Countryhumans Research Archival Project. Transcribed by Angel Canesta.

[Start Recording]

[Shuffling of Papers]

Interviewer: September 9th, 2022. Interview with the State of Hawaiʻi about the role of Propaganda in the Second World War. Hello Miss Hawaiʻi, my name is Mahina Wakabayashi. It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to meet you face to face.

State of Hawaiʻi: It��s very nice to meet you, too. Wakabayashi. That’s a nice last name. You related to Charlie Boy?

Interviewer: No, Ma’am.

Hawaiʻi: Shame, he’s a good boy. [Long pause.] So what, I don’t get Miss Corbelha to question me about this? I thought Sera would be the questioner, she’d like this kind of information for her editing of that biography she’s making. Anyways, what was the topic again?

Interviewer: She wished to, but unfortunately, Sera’s schedule didn’t allow it. And we are speaking about propaganda during the Second World War, Miss Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi: Right. Oh, f*ck, I was in quite a few of those films and posters, wasn’t I? Don’t remember all of them. Those years were very blurry for me, with the martial law and all fogging up my brain. 

Interviewer: How exactly did martial law affect you? We know very little from first-hand sources what something on that level of almost mind control to be. What was that like?

Hawaiʻi: Sort of like a dream. You vaguely know something’s wrong, but you don’t question it. You watch, and you don’t speak back, and you say, “Yes, Sir, yes, I will let you take photos of me in clothing no man nor woman in the war effort would ever wear.” Those stupid little skirts were the bane of my existence.

Interviewer: I completely understand. And what was it like being “woken up”?

Hawaiʻi: Am I allowed to be blunt on this thing? It was a nightmare to finally have your mind cleared enough to think about just how fu—I mean, messed up it all was, and then you see all these posters, all these propaganda pieces are putting back years of work to be respected. Though I suppose it was never a matter of respect at all. 

[Insert Bullshit Here]

Interviewer: Were you aware of what sort of propaganda was being made, and did you have any say into what was created using your image?

Hawaiʻi: Kuʻuipo, most of it I wasn't aware of at all. They took my likeness and ran with it because they were allowed to do so during a time when I couldn’t say no to anything. It was patriotic to want to protect the poor little territory woman, and it was patriotic for me to be the face of that. Though, I think the one recurring piece that surprised me the most was all the Avenge Pearl Harbor posters that used the same illustration of me sobbing into my hands. Never knew who drew that.

Interviewer: I have seen some of those pamphlets and posters. 

Hawaiʻi: It was to pull on the heartstrings. Make you sympathetic. And by God, it worked. Of course, there were a few that depicted me as strong and capable, mostly used in the islands themselves. 

Interviewer: It sounds like something you really would have hated.

Hawaiʻi: It was. Being completely honest, I would have much rather been on the battlefront in the Philippines. I’d rather have been one of the ones taking them back. Though, Lika was right in benching me, because he knew I’d be reckless. I would have done something stupid. 

Interviewer: But it would have been more respectful to you as the territory than what you did do during the War, wouldn’t it?

Hawaiʻi: In some ways, it would have been. But the homefront needed people. Where would those recaptured territories have gone if not to me? Where would the Polynesian Outliers have gone? Most of the other states or territories available wouldn’t have known what to make of them. Of course, I can whine about being a propaganda piece or someone to pose and take pictures with or someone in the dance halls, but in the end, I was a part of the war effort. No matter how humiliating it is.

Interviewer: That sounds like it. 

Hawaiʻi: It was. Let’s talk about something different. Something relating to the topic. Oh, I had mentioned about the dance halls, didn’t I?

Interviewer: Yes, you did. I don’t understand how that is rela—[Cut off by Hawaiʻi]

Hawaiʻi: Don’t underestimate live people as propaganda. I loved dancing, even the more American dances, especially after the 20s and leading up to the Second World War. I’m rusty on the foxtrot and jitterbug and such. One of the few good things during the war were the dance halls. Oh, lots of haole men there, but there were quite a few cute wāhine as well. I remember learning the men’s side of the dances in hopes there would be less men than women one day and I’d get to play the other side for a moment.

Interviewer: I…

Hawaiʻi: Oh, there was a girl there, around ‘35. She looked a bit like you. Didn’t end up as anything. And then there was Rachel, Rachel was there a lot during the war times. All young girls, a lot of them ended up as Navy wives. Or Navy mistresses. Oh, I could tell you a story from the War about how my friend became the breaking point for a Naval Officer’s messy divorce with his wife in New York.  

Interviewer: While I would love to hear about this, I do think we need to stay on topic. 

Hawaiʻi: Your loss. I’ll tell Sera about it at our next Zoom meeting.

Interviewer: Right. Was the fact that you are—and were—noticeably a Person of Colour during this time affect the propaganda in any way?

Hawaiʻi: Somewhat, depending on what was being portrayed. In more patriotic illustrations to spur the public into the home effort, because “Hawaiʻi is putting her all and so should you!” my eyes were widened, and my lips thinned. My hair was straightened at times, but some liked my wild curls better.

Interviewer: So you were whitewashed for a mainland audience.

Hawaiʻi: Yes, though mostly to get rid of more “Asiatic” characteristics. The Japanese were our enemies during the war, so I couldn’t look Japanese. A third of my population was Japanese. How could I not look like the enemy while still looking like me? And so they needed me to look the part. I still remember the blonde phase.

Interviewer: The what?

Hawaiʻi: I thank God that most of those films are considered lost media in this day and age. There’s around, oh, I don’t know, maybe twenty old films of me with my bleached hair.

Interviewer: Well, out of those twenty or so, there are few propaganda videos available to the public in archives and sites such as YouTube. What was it like to be involved in the making of those films?

Hawaiʻi: I wasn’t exactly a willing actor. At the beginning of the war, a few months after martial law started, I was “suggested” by the military government to work with a propaganda film crew. I was “suggested” to get my hair bleached and “suggested” to allow myself to be used as a face for the home to return to.

Interviewer: I don’t think I can imagine you with blonde hair, Miss Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi: Well, it’s a piece of trivia I don’t tell many people. My face never did look quite right to me after the war, more so than usual. It scared me to see what I’d be like if I was white-passing or even just not as dominantly Asian as I am. My hair was damaged for a long while after. It took me years to get it to look somewhat normal.

Interviewer: That is horrible.

Hawaiʻi: It was. Oh well, what can you do when you’re unable to say no?

Interviewer: The immediate aftermath of the Second World War was an ongoing struggle to become a state. Do you think that any of this propaganda from the war furthered or hindered your efforts?

Hawaiʻi: I don't really know. I think the “Hulahula Girl” craze of the 50s and 60s wasn’t helped by how I was portrayed to the soldiers who were stationed here, and worst off, the Navy. If you know me at all, you know that my history with the United States Navy was less than pleasant for most of my time as an American.

Interviewer: So I have heard. Was the Navy involved at all in the propaganda you were in?

Hawaiʻi: Not that I remember. They could have. They wouldn’t have told me, anyway. I remember there was this one man who was in nearly all the films I was in, sometimes as a lead, sometimes not. He was in the Navy at one point or another, I think. Charles something. He was… He was kind to me during it all. 

Interviewer: That must have been a patch of light for you.

Hawaiʻi: He was kind to me because he thought I was weak because I am a woman. But kindness is kindness, all the same, I suppose. I wonder what became of him. I wonder if he was real.

Interviewer: If he was real? But you remember him; he should have existed, right?

Hawaiʻi: Remember how I said the martial law era was foggy to me? Nothing is exactly concrete, and I have been assured some of the things I remembered didn’t happen. I do hope he was real.

Interviewer: If you would like, after the interview, I can request some of the films we collected for the archive, and we’ll see if we can find and identify him. It would be good to know the identities of the people within the films.

Hawaiʻi: [Her voice softens] That would be lovely. Thank you, Kuuipo.

Interviewer: It’s nothing, Miss Hawaiʻi, don’t worry. What sorts of films were you in?

Hawaiʻi: I’m not someone who’s very knowledgeable about types of films, but I know there was at least one full-length movie, several shorts, and a few… Aue, you know, da kine?

Interviewer: PSAs? Public Service Announcements?

Hawaiʻi: Exactly what I was thinking about. Propaganda was easy to make. I was restricted to background roles for many, and I am happy for that. I am not an actress and never have been one. 

Interviewer: Do you think any of the propaganda was effective?

Hawaiʻi: Of course it was. But we would have made it anyway. [Her voice fills with contempt.] Anything to rally the troops to beat Japan. Anything to bring her to her knees and regret touching the perfect little territory woman. Anything to make soldiers care about a territory that was partially the exact race they hated so much.

Interviewer: Your relationship with the Empire of Japan, it was— [question cut off by Hawaiʻi]

Hawaiʻi: My relationship with that is for another time. When I’m not sober enough to shut you down. Propaganda, right? Any more questions on that?

Interviewer: Sorry for my intrusion, Miss Hawaiʻi. 

Hawaiʻi: It’s nothing. Just… What else do you want to know?

Interviewer: That’s about it, about propaganda. Thank you so much for your participation, Miss Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi: It was my pleasure, Kuuipo. Aloha nui loa. I hope this interview gave you the information you seek. So, do I hit this button?

Interviewer: Oh, I can do it. Don’t worry about it.

[Shuffling]

[Click]

[End Recording]

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Propaganda video starring Hawaiʻi believed to have been made in late 1942. Transcribed by Carmen Nielson.

[Video opens up to a blonde Hawaiʻi sitting at a desk, smiling. It is not a smile that looks fake, but still one that looks wrong.]

Hawaiʻi [Accent is more typical of a Standard American Accent]: Hello, my fellow Americans. While the young boys of the front are undertaking the war, there are many things that you at home can do to help the war effort. One of the most important things you can do to help our boys is buy war bonds and help ensure that they are well-fed and well-supplied. I hope that all of you will do your part in helping with the war and avenging myself for the cowardly attack on myself by the Empire of Japan.

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Propaganda video starring Hawaiʻi believed to have been made in early 1942. Transcribed by Carmen Nielson.

[Video opens up to Hawaiʻi lying in a hospital bed, with bandages wrapped around her arms and head. Her hair is not blonde. Hawaiʻi looks to be in pain, but the expression seems forced]

Hawaiʻi [smiling]: The cowardly attack against me by Japan has left me injured and broken. I am unable to defend myself in my time of need. I ask of you, able-bodied men of America, to join our forces in defending the coward and defending me from any future attack. I plead for your help and your assistance. I know that you, brave men of America, can defeat this threat and bring peace back to my islands.

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Recording of an Interview with America and Caleb, alters of the “US System,” 18 September 2022, Interviewed and Transcribed by Carmen Nielson of the Countryhumans Research Archival Project.

[recording begins]

Interviewer: Hello. It’s nice to meet you. All of you…sorry, I have never met anyone with DID before, and I hope I do not offend anyone.

America: It’s alright, we don’t mind, so long as you aren’t trying to be rude. My name is America, and I am the one currently fronting right now. Caleb is close right now, and we might switch. We’ll be sure to let you know if that does happen. I also might start dissociating during the interview, so if I start doing that, just give us time.

Interviewer: Okay, thank you. Now, onto the subject of today’s interview, World War Two propaganda involving the State of Hawaiʻi.

America: Not my proudest moment. Of course, I was never involved in the making of the propaganda, being busy with war, but…I was the reason why Hawaiʻi even went along with it in the first place, with martial law and my orders for her to stay on her islands and not fight.

Interviewer: Why did you order her to do that?

America [with a sigh]: Because she’s a hothead, because she was friends with Japanese Empire because I didn’t want her to be hurt. It was a whole mix of reasons. I admit I was motivated some by my initial feelings after the attack. Guåhan, my daughter, had been captured by the Japanese Empire, and my son was in the Philippines, a place that all my prewar military plans planned to abandon. I…[America lets out a deep breath] I was losing too many people, and I thought that if I let her fight, she would become lost to me as well. And I can’t stand that.

Interviewer: So you made her stay against her will?

America: Yes, I did. Not everyone agreed with me, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the universe can somehow tell when I’m fronting, I’m pretty sure James would have stopped it.

Interviewer: What? What does that mean?

America: Martial law commands can only be given by two entities. One is obvious: the military government. As long as someone is a part of that government, they can command the personification. The second, if applicable, is the…country in charge? Not sure how to word that. But basically, if the personification is a statehuman like Hawaiʻi, then I, as the country she is a part of, can also command her. It doesn’t just work for states but also any form of subdivision under martial law. That being said, even though we all share the same body, if one of the others is fronting, they can’t command Hawaiʻi. James tried so she could fight, but it didn’t work. It only works when I am fronting. I guess…I guess since I’m the only one here who’s actually the country. It makes sense, but it’s odd that whatever martial law control is, it can tell who’s fronting.

Interviewer: That’s…really interesting.

[America gives a little laugh]

America: It is, yeah. But after I gave Hawaiʻi that order, I just…I ignored her and her land. I got so focused on the war and doing what was needed for that, which was a lot of diplomacy with the other Allies. I never commanded her to do anything else, and the military government wasn’t going to change the commands.

Interviewer: Could they have done that?

America: Of course, they could. They are the true ones that were in control of Hawaiʻi. While I could do a little as the country, martial law, and its control originated with them. They always have more power relating to it.

Interviewer: That’s…worrying for you guys, I bet. 

America: It was, yes. Now, we have gotten a bit off-topic, and while I don’t have much to say about the effect of martial law and propaganda on Hawaiʻi, not stuff that I feel comfortable sharing, Caleb has some things he would like to talk about involving that.

Interviewer: Caleb being on of your alters, correct?

America: Yes. He’s here right now, so I’m going to let him come up front.

[There is a pause of about ten seconds]

Caleb [The accent now being used differs from the Standard American one being used by America and is instead a Georgian accent]: Hello, Ms. Nielsen. My name is Caleb, he/they. I’m a human alter and one of the alters that is closer to Hawaiʻi.

Interviewer: Nice to meet you, Caleb.

Caleb: I know these are meant to be interviews with countryfolk, so I apologize for intrudin’, but I just had to say my part.

Interviewer: You are a part of the same…system as America, so I think you are close enough to count for these interviews. After all, you have spent your entire life sharing a body, and a more human perspective on country things is never a bad thing.

Caleb: Good. Well, I hated the martial law. It changed Wai. It made her less her. It’s hard to explain, I think, but it was like watching her get drained of who she was and replaced by a shitty-ass copy of herself, pardon my French.

Interviewer: What do you mean by that?

Caleb: I mean, her culture got turned into a product, and her the advertisement. She…she was a hothead, and now she wasn’t. She fought for herself, and now she would lie down and let others walk all over her. It was wrong. It wasn’t her. She…she would say she was fine, but then do something so horrifically out of character. She was blonde, for fuck’s sake! I didn’t see it much, as America was ordered away, but what I did see was…disturbing to me.

Interviewer: Why did it affect you so much? What about it made it disturbing?

Caleb: I…spent so much of my life pretending to be America. We had to so we could be normal. So…it…it reminded me of that, except instead of being done out of necessity like it was with America and me, it was done out of a desire to warp Hawaiʻi into a docile little white American. It wasn’t done to protect her or anyone else. It was just done to control her. It’s…it’s horrific that humans can be granted that kind of control over a person.

Interviewer: Do you think this propaganda and martial law changed Hawaiʻi?

Caleb: How could it not? Martial law will always warp the person it’s on. [Caleb sighs] Especially if, after martial law, the social environment wants to enforce wherever change was made. That’s what—

[Caleb cuts himself off suddenly, and there are a few moments of silence]

Interviewer: Caleb?

Caleb: Mmm…sorry. James didn’t want me to talk about that. Sorry. But…uh…it’s hard to get over that. I’m not going to speak for Hawaiʻi…but that changed her and hurt her—a lot. She burned a lot of it, the paper stuff. She destroys it when she can. She doesn’t want to remember. But I can’t seem to forget.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

Caleb: Nothing that wouldn’t get us off topic. I…there’s lots to say about Hawaiʻi and how we as a system and as a country have treated her and changed her. I think that it is better to leave it for another time. Or, you know, for that biography that that one woman is doing. 

Interviewer: Well then, thank you for coming, Caleb and America.

Caleb: It was our pleasure.

[recording ends]

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 Propaganda Poster created in March 1942

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[Image Description: A World War Two Era propaganda poster that says “Remember Pearl Harbor” at the top and “Buy War Bonds” at the bottom. The image itself consists of a racist caricature of a Japanese man holding out an olive branch that says “Peace” on it. The Japanese man has an image of the Nazi swastika on his right shoulder. In front of the Japanese man is Hawaiʻi, with her hair cut short and colored blonde. She looks white in the image. Behind Hawaiʻi is a large knife labeled “Dec. 7th,” being welded by an arm with sharp fingernails labeled “Jap Treachery.” On the hilt of the knife is the Nazi swastika.]