#of course it’s also an idealized one primarily lead by nostalgia

[confier-boyfriend]

Filled with the urge to bring a cute boyfriend to Freddy’s for a date.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of Marvel: Week of July 17th, 2019

Best of this Week: Uncanny X-Men #22 (Legacy #644) - Matthew Rosenberg, Salvador Larroca, David Messina, GURU-eFX and Joe Caramagna

It’s the end of an era and for once, I’m terrified.

I’ve been a fan of the X-Men for a long time. I’d even go so far as to say that they’re my favorite team in all of comics ever because of the range that their stories can go, from tales of marginalization to various stories of abuse and moral relativism, the X-Men have been amazing so why has it taken them so long to feel relevant again? At some point even the best books run out of good stories to tell or end up retreading old waters for a drink of nostalgia and that’s been the X-Men for the last five to six years. 

Cyclops had become what Magneto was, young versions of the original five were brought to the future, villains like Mojo and Exodus were brought back, Sentinel threats reemerged, X-Men died and were brought back. In the grand scheme of things, it was all a mess with no cohesive direction and Marvel noticed. In comes Matthew Rosenberg who, I admittedly, was very wary of because I hated both his time on Astonishing X-Men and the Multiple Man mini-series. I don’t know if it was all his idea, but he decided to wipe the slate clean with a new Uncanny X-Men series and… it was stupendous from start to finish.

In the aftermath of Emma Frost’s actions from the last issue, the X-Men that are still on our Earth have found a peace that Mutants have never known. With humanities knowledge of mutants erased, Scott Summers is at a loss and questioning what his role in life is now that no one needs protecting. He and Dani Moonstar, aka Mirage, wax poetic on the nature of mutations and what their next course of action is. Scott is morose, seeing as his mutation made him function primarily as a weapon to fight back against humanity as it tried to destroy him, but now that they don’t know he exists, what is he good for?

The dynamic between them is interesting. Scott has been fighting since he was a teenager and he’s only ever seen this life as one big war. Dani is still young, but has the experience of several lifetimes and all that she can think of is helping people. Both of them have experienced loss but process it differently. Scott sees all of his friends as soldiers in the fight where Dani sees them as family. Of course this is because Scott has been leading everyone for so long and Dani has gone through thick and thin with the New Mutants, the Fearless Defenders and the X-Men themselves. 

This causes a disagreement between the two and she simply walks away from him as Alex Summers, aka Havok, speaks with his brother about the freedom of being ignored over being targeted. On their way back to the Hellfire Mansion, Alex explains that every bit of leadership he’s ever had to exhibit was learned from Scott. Even with all of his brooding, Scott has been a great leader and it definitely helped when Alex was an Avenger, and he lets his brother know that he’s thankful for it before they’re attacked by some kind of golden Sentinel.

Scott’s unable to damage it and Alex surmises that they’ll never make it back to the mansion before the Sentinel kills them both, so in an act of self sacrifice, knowing that his powers won’t affect Scott, he self destructs and destroys the evil machine. Soon after, more arrive under the control of the General that originally help Emma Frost captive and target the remaining mutants. The battle is hard fought with heavy casualties before the rest of the X-Men return from Nate Grey’s utopian world, winning the battle for mutantkind.

This is the final issue of Uncanny X-Men and it ends on a bittersweet note.

*Slight SPOILERS BELOW*

Havok, a man who was on top of the world, brought low and tried to climb his way back up made the ultimate sacrifice just so that his brother could continue being the leader he is. Madrox, who was just brought back to life has met yet another grisly end, but the status quo has reset though very similarly to the Astonishing X-Men or Mutopia eras in a way. Jean Grey has returned to Scott, Emma and Magneto appear to be on the side of angels again and the X-Men are choosing not to hide anymore.

Shifting focus from this amazingly written and fantastically drawn book, I want to look towards the future and the threads left untied. House of X begins next week and I don’t know how to make heads or tails of things. Who is the man with the giant globe on his head? Is it professor X who had recently taken over the body of Fantomex and is now known as X? Will Magneto ever make use of the Brotherhood he established late last year? What will happen to Illyana now that she’s a demon again? I don’t know, but I am very excited.

This run was great. Rosenberg wrote everything in the most dire way possible given the situation and it fit each and every month. Scott remained hopeful in the face of ever present adversity, flanked by Logan who back up almost all of his actions. Characterizations were great from Dani acting as a voice of reason and Hope being a militaristic badass and the surprisingly black humored Jamie. Larroca’s art never faltered in being action packed but also still and dark.

Whatever comes next from this team, I have high hopes for.

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

The “Superior” Spider-Man is actually starting to live up to the ideal.

Runner Up: The Superior Spider-Man #9 (Legacy #42) - Christos Gage, Mike Hawthorne, Wade von Grawbadger, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles

After the events of the War of the Realms, the Spider-Man of San Francisco is awarded the key to the city for his efforts in making sure that there were zero casualties as Frost Giants stomped their way across SanFran. He accepts the gesture, but “crime” calls him away, only it’s not a crime, he simply thinks he has better things to do with his time than deal with the trivialities of ceremonies. He heads back to his lab and converses with Anna Maria about her making him go to the ceremony and summarily dismisses his colleague Emma after she apologizes for freaking out on him on their first date. 

Otto seems to be in a bigger huff than usual and takes his frustrations out on a minor villain by the name of Turner D. Century. Century’s quickly defeated after a savage beating by Otto and the surprise appearance by Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Peter shows up at the request of Anna Maria and being one of the men who knows Otto best, he simply asks what’s wrong. Otto has been irritable, moody and angry since he saved the city and he obviously has no one to talk to.

He immediately spills to Peter that while he was able to keep San Francisco safe, thousands of people still died in the US, more abroad. He removes his mask and Hawthorne paints the face of a man that’s tortured by guilt and doubt. Otto feels that he’s the greatest mind in the world and that he should have thought of something. He doesn’t want to hear Pete say that he can’t save everyone, but it’s eating him up inside that he can’t. 

By far, this is some of the best character work and advancement that we’ve seen from Otto in a while. He tried to become a hero, tried to be a good guy while he was inhabiting Peter’s body, but now that he’s doing it on his own and seeing the fruits and consequences of his labors, he sees how hard it is. He’s becoming a good guy and I’m here for it.

After Peter tells him that he’s doing the hero thing right, Emma shows up on the roof that they’ve swung up to and Otto breaks down in tears in front of her. He tries to posture that he’s a loner and asks if he looks like someone that needs anything from anyone before being held by her. He cries in her arms and they finally go on a second date with a surprising enemy spying on them.

I love it when heroes become good guys, no matter how brief it might be, watching Otto rise before his inevitable fall is interesting. I love the fact that he’s sort of mended fences with Anna Maria, I love that he’s found a near intellectual equal in Emma. He has a life and is using his smarts as a teacher and a hero in San Francisco. His ego is still huge, but he’s finally starting to see his faults, becoming Superior than Doctor Octopus.

Mike Hawthorne’s art is stellar. He has a talent for faces and body language. Otto expresses frustration, annoyance and grief; not only in his face, but with the slumping of his shoulders, the shaking in his hands and the tension in his fists. He even somehow finds a way to differentiate between Peter and Otto's bodies given that Otto's is cloned.

This Superior Spider-Man has far more emotion in this one issue than Otto's had in the many years since the original run. It's a joy to see the once horrible villain embrace his own good emotions for the benefit of others. This is a definite high recommend!

[antoine-roquentin]

From the first, Keynesianism was defined in opposition to an ‘old’ or ‘paleo’ liberalism anchored in individual rights organised primarily around property. From that followed a dogmatic insistence on the freedom to transact on markets, which in turn were to be protected against politics and regulation. The liberty of trade was established as something akin to a religion, with Adam Smith and the classical economists as its prophets. In Keynes’s view, such dogmatism, and the rigidity it fostered, were the opposite of what was needed to secure a progressive liberal order.

From today’s standpoint, Keynesianism must also be contrasted with the politics and economics of the market revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, what’s known as neoliberalism. Terminologically speaking, it doesn’t help that Keynes himself would have been quite happy to be described as a ‘new liberal’. In the 1930s and 1940s he engaged in contentious but often friendly exchanges with future luminaries of neoliberalism including Walter Lippmann and Friedrich Hayek. Even on the kindest interpretation, as Keynes saw it, their effort to give new foundations to the market order was a kind of nostalgia, bound to fail in practice. In reality, neoliberalism was more often dishonest, proclaiming its absolute adherence to the rule of the market, only to fall back on massive state intervention. The bank bailouts of 2008 were a case in point. Under modern conditions neoliberalism is, de facto, an anti-democratic politics, which resolves the tension between capitalism and democracy either by limiting the range of democratic discretion or by interfering directly in the democratic process.

Keynes’s purpose, by contrast, was to develop a liberalism that wasn’t retrograde, or held in bad faith or anti-democratic, but squarely faced the problem of making capitalism and democracy work together. One way forward was to widen the scope of politics. Keynes, a key figure in the Bloomsbury Group, was a broad-minded cultural modernist. Among the things he thought a 20th-century liberalism should embrace were drugs, birth control and sexual liberation. But in the aftermath of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, with class conflict as intense as it had ever been, it was clear that cultural liberalism had to be accompanied by new thinking about the economy. It had to be reconceived: no longer a sacrosanct sphere of private rights, but an object of national government.

Keynes and Keynesianism are so routinely identified with the idea of the big state that it is worth emphasising that Keynesianism is not in general an anti-market politics. To the chagrin of the left, it is not a politics of nationalisation or central planning. Clearly, under the right circumstances markets can accomplish remarkable things. But they do not always function well. And when markets affect the entire economy, like the market for capital or the market for labour, then the consequences when things go wrong are not limited to them, but take the form of systemic, macroeconomic effects. Mass involuntary unemployment was an undeniable reality of interwar Britain. What frustrated Keynes was that the economics of his teachers at Cambridge at the turn of the century had so little to say about it. ‘Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task,’ he said, ‘if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.’ Economics must address the storm as well as the calm: it must account both for full employment and for chronic and persistent unemployment, the norm and the exception. That was what made The General Theory a general theory. It did not take as read the conditions that made for full employment. It insisted on the need to explain them.

In economic terms this involved shifting the focus of analysis away from individual markets towards the circular flow of aggregate demand, production and national income. In political terms it involved undoing assumptions that had become entrenched in the 19th century concerning the proper boundaries between political and civil society, government and the economy. For Keynes, these distinctions were not inevitable. Indeed there was good reason to think that the market economy had an inbuilt tendency to generate mass unemployment, and that under democratic conditions this called the separation of politics and economics into question. Worse, the effort to uphold the old boundaries in the face of economic pressures distorted public discourse and, since it was doomed to failure, risked creating the conditions for revolution. Keynes, as Mann insists, had some sympathy for the advocates of radical change – on occasion he would refer to himself as a Bolshevik – but he was also steeped in the Burkean critique of the French Revolution, which insisted that, however compelling the case for it, revolution must ultimately lead to disaster. The challenge was to steer a course between conservative regression and doomed efforts at revolutionary overthrow.

What terrifies both paleoliberals and neoliberals about Keynesianism is the slippery slope. Once the need for intervention was granted, where did one stop? Keynes, as a true liberal, understood that fear. One tempting solution was to transfer decision-making to a technocratic elite; economics would have achieved its true calling, he joked, if it achieved the status of dentistry. But it would be wrong to see Keynesianism as technocracy pure and simple. As Mann says, the point wasn’t, as is ‘commonly said of bureaucratisation or so-called managerial capitalism … to neutralise politics, in the interests of an apolitical society stripped of debate and public life’. Keynesians in fact take a sunnier view. Their ideal is that capitalism and democracy should function together without endangering each other. One way of putting the Keynesian question is to ask how much political intervention in the economy is necessary to build a platform of prosperity stable enough to support democratic politics. The answer lies in what Mann calls ‘Machiavellian’ tactics, in which the boundaries of the political are treated as malleable. The art of modern government does not consist in drawing up everlasting constitutions that permanently demarcate the line between the political and the unpolitical, but in continuously defining and redefining what does and does not need to be governed. A classic instance is Keynes’s argument that if wages are no longer perfectly flexible because of the power of trade unions, and if breaking the trade unions amounts to open class war, then the most convenient means of adjusting real wages to achieve higher employment, and the means least likely to endanger democracy, may be to act indirectly by way of a modest increase in inflation, which reduces the real cost to employers of hiring more labour. Conversely, fixing an exchange rate at an uncompetitive level is dangerous not only because it hampers exports, but because it puts huge pressure on the political system to force through wage cuts.

The situational and tactical awareness in Keynesianism expresses itself in a pragmatic approach to time, which gives Mann’s book its title. Keynesianism doesn’t abandon the progressive worldview of Whiggish liberalism; it doesn’t deny that many of the predictions of classical economics may come good in the long run, under ideal conditions, once the various forces have had time to work themselves out. But it does deny that these verities translate into simple rules for action in the present. In the long run the basic tendencies of market equilibrium may well show themselves, but ‘in the long run we are all dead.’ As Mann puts it, it is not in the ‘long run’ or even the ‘medium term’, but in the ‘short run’, ‘the infinite moments of deferral in between, that the problem of maintaining “civilisation” must be undertaken’. It is here that the pressures of necessity make themselves felt. And it isn’t by accident that ‘when liberal government comes face to face with necessity, it “goes Keynesian”’; in other words it ‘acknowledges uncertainty and disarticulation, recognises imperfection and indeterminacy, and turns away from the long run to the immediacy of the moment’. The crisis of 2008 was a classic demonstration of this. What central bankers like Bernanke were asking politicians to do in September and October 2008 had been unthinkable only weeks before.

In the end, of course, short runs add up to the long run. To embrace Keynesianism fully would mean abandoning oneself to the flux, without any long-term goal. It would make policy highly unpredictable. The search for ‘credibility’ in economic policy, which has been of paramount concern in the neoliberal era, has been an unceasing battle against governmental discretion. That battle is worth fighting, the argument goes, because trying to govern the economy without having established the general conviction that one is following some fixed principle tends to encourage opportunistic behaviour in the economy itself. The economic deterioration in the 1970s could be understood in these terms, as trade unions and employers contended to protect themselves against inflation, pressuring the government to raise spending, which further increased inflation.

So the ad hocracy of Keynesianism is in constant oscillation with more conservative and constrained models of government. One of Keynes’s contemporaries, the Polish Marxist Michał Kalecki, perceived the origin of this cycle in the contradictory interests of capitalism itself. In a crisis, business interests will not resist even massive interventions, provided they serve to maintain economic activity. But fundamentally they have no interest in seeing wages and costs rise, so when the crisis is over they rediscover their commitment to discipline and rigour. Keynesianism is thus condemned to exist for ever in the mode of stop-and-go. This bears on its intellectual history too. There is no unbroken continuity of Keynesian thought, even if as Mann shows in a brilliant series of cameos, despite their intellectual distance from Keynes himself, modern day economists of a reformist disposition, such as Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz, nonetheless reprise the sensibility typical of Keynesianism.

Keynes was the paradigm, but was he the first Keynesian? Mann’s answer is bold. If Keynesianism is a constructive liberal response to revolution, a response that seeks to reorganise the social, political and economic order so as to address the tensions revealed but not resolved by violent upheaval, then the first thinkers of this type emerged in the wake of the French Revolution, and their godfather is Hegel.

Both Hegel and Keynes lived in the wake of revolution. Both of them, caught up enthusiastically in the drama of world history, rejected the assumption that political and economic order could be derived from natural foundations. Hegel didn’t believe that order would emerge spontaneously from society. His remark to his students in the 1820s that one should beware of assuming that ‘things will adjust, they will take care of themselves’ could come straight from Keynes. As devotees of Hobbes, both Hegel and Keynes agreed that providing order was the ‘political function of the state as the sole … legitimate universal institution’. And it was up to civil servants to do the job. What tools could they draw on? The law, certainly, but also the new social sciences, above all political economy. Economics, as Hegel recognised, was ‘one of the sciences which have arisen out of the conditions of the modern world’. It had ‘the task of explaining mass relationships and mass movements in their complexity and their qualitative and quantitative character’. For Hegel, as Mann puts it, ‘political economy is how the modern state thinks.’

The alignment of Keynes and Hegel isn’t merely a historical claim highlighting particular parallels. The line Mann draws from Hegel to Keynes, and from there to the Keynesians of the present day, marks a boundary within liberal modernity. Keynesian political thought, like Hegel’s, is impelled by an apprehension of the deep tensions within modernity, a highly dynamic socio-economic system that perpetually produces poverty and crises that it cannot overcome, but which it contains by means of political ordering and reordering. Mann argues that we should read Keynes today as Marx read Hegel, as someone who was bent on maintaining the socio-political order, but whose thinking carved at the joints of that order. He then goes a step further. Hegel was ‘the first to fully elaborate a Keynesian reason, the reluctantly radical but immanent critique of liberalism that ultimately found its fullest and … most powerful historical realisation in The General Theory’. Hegel, in other words, was a Keynesian. ‘The effort to put Keynes (or Hegel) in his proper historical ��place” – which would obviously rule out the idea that Hegel was a Keynesian – is a holdover from an age commanded by progress.’ In fact the essential similarity of the political problem addressed by the two suggests that talk of progress is illusory. Neither of them could find a way out of the impasse of a radical reformism that refuses the possibility of genuine revolution. It is an impasse in which we have been caught, according to Mann, since the conservative backlash against the French Revolution in the Thermidor of 1794.

[danyelle756games]

How many gigs of ram for a gaming pc

On the net Gaming Weblog

Twitter is where game publishers, the gaming media, common game streamers and entertainers, esports leagues, teams, players and commentators interact with their most engaged fans and with one particular a different. So what is with the lack of inclusion in the gaming world? In addition to the usually hostile globe of desktop and console games (see the GamerGate controversy as just a single instance), there is nevertheless somewhat of an sector perception that women merely never play video games. But, that is far from correct - ladies are essentially gaming far more than ever before, especially on mobile.

The gaming WordPress themes involve some exceptional qualities like design and style and functions. And most of the themes that are featured right here provides you with a complete option for your gaming site. The Search engine optimization solutions, social network tools, various selections, and multiple colors will make you much easier to begin your new web site. All these themes are customizable exactly where you can alter every and every single aspect of the themes with no touching any of the codes.

Oh dear lord, to answer this query I had to quit myself from cheating and counting one of the stories I wrote in the past. My greatest hobby, in addition to gaming and acting, is writing. Ahead of I started writing this blog, I made use of to write a lot of fantasy stories on paper. I have a couple of binders full with story suggestions and pitches for rather fascinating stories.

I got into action games late but when I did it fully changed how I viewed gaming forever. The game which brought me round was Viewtiful Joe. Right here was a game with a deep and open-ended combat program which seemed to be built as a means for the player to express creativity. This technique is then pitted against opponents and obstacles which were created from the ground up to interact meaningfully with the core program. The course was fixed, but the method for dealing with that course was absolutely down to the ingenuity, skill and inspiration of the player. You play like you have a large audience watching and the game consistently entices you to increase the focus is not just on having the player from A to B, the focus is on getting the player to play Viewtifully”.

Persons are gaming on tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, consoles and lots of other devices. This is the ideal time to take a plunge into the gaming market. If you are not a game developer it does not imply you cannot make some profit from it. Overall, developers are searching into far more methods on how to market their games and this is exactly where you can turn into the subsequent large player.

Never you wish you had been seriously sitting on a racecar seat each and every time you play Forza, Gran Turismo, or any other racing game? With the racing seat design of the Ficmax Swivel Gaming Chair , acquiring this knowledge is now a reality. The fully ergonomic Ficmax is designed with a completely retractable footrest to enable sooth tired decrease limbs and help facilitate the additional efficient circulation of blood. It also comes with a lumbar massage help to help avert or even manage low back discomfort which is extremely common among folks who sit in an workplace chair for unusually extended period. Our handy guide to the very best ergonomic office chairs attributes far more wonderful merchandise like this.

Get Rid of GAMING For Good

The Atlantic Gaming Desk is a piece of steel furnishings that's particularly built for today's modern How to start a gaming blog rouron gamer or even a dwelling workplace owner. Its sturdy legs come completely integrated with cup holders and other attachments that are simply fantastic for organizing a selection of your laptop accessories and peripherals. The Atlantic Gaming Desk also attributes a special cable management technique that organizes the diverse wires and cables that your devices possess. There is a charging station, a monitor stand, game storage rack, game controller hooks, gaming speaker trays, and a entire lot more. Its padded feet will not also scratch your floor.

Today's games are larger, improved, and additional immersive than ever. You can find amazing games across a wide range of genres. Most key game franchises are readily available on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One particular, although the Nintendo Switch presents a substantial choice of games suited for children and families. For the most realistic visual experiences, upgrade to the PlayStation four Pro or Xbox One S to take pleasure in breathtaking 4K and HDR gaming. Exclusive titles are readily available for every console, which additional underscores the have to have to program ahead and choose up the proper system for your need to-own games. Discover the massive collections of previously played games at wonderful offers and give your older consoles like the PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , and Nintendo Wii U continued life.

A further of our leading gaming influencers for 2018 is The Rad Brad We had to include things like this channel mainly because The Rad Brad is a especially nicely identified YouTube gamer. He produces an amazing quantity of very-top quality, enjoyable content. It's no wonder he's recognized for generating the ideal video game walkthroughs on social media. The Rad Brad has helped to make a number of influencer advertising campaigns a genuine success.

Bear in mind these annoying eight-bit tones the old web pages utilised to have? If your web site is aimed towards the retro gaming neighborhood or if you feel like implementing a nostalgia-inducing site design, this theme is great for you. You can also use this remarkable theme to create a retro-themed arcade, a weblog web-site for reviewing older games or newer indie games and appeal to the nostalgia issue of the 80s to the late 90s gaming sector.

So, to aid you monitor and fix these concerns, we've chosen some wonderful WordPress Gaming themes we can personally propose. They are hugely accommodating to a wide range of purposes for your internet websites. For your convenience, we've highlighted all their core options, places of usages and necessary elements for these amazing gaming themes. Moreover, the list also contains exceptional free of charge WordPress gaming themes so you can start off your gaming web page with minimal fees. So devoid of additional ado, let's take a appear at our list of each premium WordPress Gaming Themes and free Gaming WordPress themes.

These numbers can surely differ per study, but it does look like the quantity of female serious gamers are on a downward trend. The final time we checked in females have been closer to 45%-48% of gamers. We can speculate as to why this is. Possibly females are less fond of the emergence of the eSports trend. Probably females are feeling much less integrated in gaming forums and on-line communities soon after the harassment accusations of the last handful of years. Possibly they are just far more drawn to other entertainment industries, but this is absolutely a trend to continue watching.

The gaming business saw a quantity of thrilling developments in 2016 touching on distinctive elements of the sector. Gaming technologies is developing in pretty fascinating ways. The lengthy promised revolution of virtual and augmented reality moved closer to realization. The mania around Pokémon GO with its mass market place appeal and utilization of mobile phones introduced untold millions to the potential of augmented reality. With its launch in India and South Asia it has become the poster child for the possible of mobile games provided its sophisticated technology and the huge international smartphone penetration.

However, there is no have to have to do an net search or study the most current in anonymous game reviews. Beneath, we have collected the top 30 mobile gamer blogs to assistance place you in touch with the most up-to-date and greatest in gaming, along with strategies for what to get subsequent, how to beat it, and what to remain away from. Whether or not for the most recent iPhone or classic Gameboy, there are loads of mobile gaming blog entries for everybody.

We use our GeForce Practical experience servers to figure out the best good quality settings primarily based on the user's CPU and GPU, and target higher frame prices than 'normal' optimal settings to make sure the lowest latency gaming expertise. These settings are automatically applied when the game is launched so gamers do not have to be concerned about configuring these settings themselves.

[softsovnd]

Louis Vuitton Fine Pens: Really?

How and why Louis Vuitton are trying their hand at fine pens.

When Louis Vuitton determined to complement their presenting with writing instruments again in 2013 many pen aficionados frowned. It turned into seen almost like an invasion of a natural dominion by means of the commercialization of huge style brands.

Why would Louis Vuitton move on to manufacture writing contraptions? And became this true or awful information for the writing instruments network?

When Marc Jacobs assumed the innovative director position of the famed Louis Vuitton a brand new technology become starting for the French Maison. An American with a keen sense of style however additionally a wonderful businessman with a global vision, Jacobs refreshed the photograph of the business enterprise. Over the path of his time at Vuitton, he hooked up many successful partnerships with leading artists, like Takashi Murakami or Stephan Sprouse that translated into splendid success for the brand, and its discern business enterprise LVMH. This fecund route pushed the brand into the twenty first century.

One of the brand new pillars within the international domination approach changed into branching out into all classes you can imagine: small leather-based items, accessories, equipped to wear, shoes, jewelry and timepieces, eyeglasses, books and writing even Custom Made Jewellery. So Louis Vuitton increasing into writing units wouldn't come as a marvel genuinely. However it's miles more to it.

After years of wealthy expansion into the Eldorado of East Asia, Louis Vuitton's photograph back domestic in its European hinterland had all started to go through. Whilst in Asia the logo has turn out to be one of the freshest possessions to have in Europe and other Western markets Vuitton came to be related to conspicuous intake and extra. The western society while has spawned most of the huge bucks - massive name brands is relatively confined. Understatement is an intrinsic a part of fashion and beauty. Big flash monograms are instead terrible flavor.

Any robust logo has to refresh its photo now and again. "You have to surprise and amuse, otherwise you come to be boring," declared Marc Jacobs the Paris Fashion Week in 2012. So an amazing way to refresh that picture is to move again to roots and pop out with a brand new narrative. And right here is in which luxurious pens come into scene.

The purpose is not to take on Montblanc as some advised. Writing contraptions present a completely unique possibility to build an image of patron of arts and subculture. Making a income might be secondary (having stated that I'm certain it is pretty profitable). What is critical is to consolidate the image of the emblem. The timing is ideal as the nostalgia of tour, exploration and of course writing is making a return. Nostalgia is a effective tool in marketing.

In 2012 Louis Vuitton inaugurated in Paris, a temporary literary exhibition entitled L'Ecriture est un Voyage ('Writing is a Journey') showing paintings and a ramification of books on the subject of literature and travel.

Off the again of that exhibition in 2013, the brand has opened an experimental twelve months most effective boutique committed to writing units and desk bound. Called Cabinet d'Écriture it became primarily based in the trendy Saint Germain des Prés. The area made sense at it turned into the conventional place in which intellectuals might meet to exchange thoughts and create history within the method. The well-known Café de Flore, wherein Ernest Hemingway or Truman Capote scribbled of their notebooks is just round the corner. Moreover Hemingway himself had a custom made trunk by LV in which he kept this treasured writing accoutrements and books. So literature, writers and writing instruments were related to the logo when you consider that long in the past.

To celebrate the opening of the new shop, the House commissioned a dozen French novelists to jot down short tales for a collection based totally at the ancient Gaston-Louis Vuitton's trunks.

When Breguet decided they need a high-quality pen they went to Montegrappa. When Smythson of Bond Street desired a high-quality pen they went to Yard-O-Led. Louis Vuitton went to S.T. Dupont. The deal is alternatively big for Dupont but both agencies refused to reveal any info concerning the deal.

The new variety of writing units promised innovation, fine and comfort. The fountain pens have a patented gadget (it's doubtful if it belongs to S.T. Dupont or LV) which prevents them from leaking whilst visiting in style at high altitude. It is thought that fountains have a messy habit of leaking due to changes in air stress. The end, pattern and design is Dupont stage however Vuitton experience. In my opinion a lucky marriage of first-class and style.

The resolutely present day and modern devices incorporate aluminium, gold, palladium finish, iridium tipped nibs, guilloche, tooth, distinct skins and extra. Some are made in France even as different in Germany.

There are three collections Spirit of Vuitton, Cargo and Grand Tour; plus a model for agendas. Each collection consists of a extraordinary connection with touring. Cargo and Grand Tour are apparent even as the Spirit of Vuitton references the Louis Lindbergh plane.

To keep the exclusivity there are not any half measures. The inkwells on offer are made in Baccarat crystal. The desire is rich and creative. Brun Ténébreux the emblematic colour of Vuitton is to be had alongside different poetically sounding inks like Gris romantique, Blue sibylin, Violet malicieux, Blue rêveur, Rose espiègle, Rouge gourmet and Or audacieux. We are informed that the reason why the ink flows thoroughly is due to the fact it's far especially formulated with colorants that do not clog the nib and feeder of the pen.

If the proper spots are observed the agency plans to open writing instruments and stationary shops in Tokyo and New York. This shows the emblem's commitment however also has business rationales. The luxurious desk bound brand Smythson of Bond Street is a great instance of rich luxurious stationary commercial enterprise.

Whilst antique school pen fanatics would possibly stay suspicious in the direction of big style brands we trust that this is the way forward for writing units. Reinvent themselves, much like the luxurious watch industry within the '90s, from utilitarian gadgets into cool fashion accessories or risk turning into previous, beside the point and die like such a lot of historical pen organizations.

Iunal Giumali is editor of Penficionado ([http://www.Penficionado.Com]), the most suitable online source of writing devices and one of the most unique companies of pen associated content.

Iunal has extra than ten years enjoy in luxury goods, five of which he spent working in Harrod's writing contraptions and watches departments.

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[yogaadvise]

Sonima Hero: Beth Navon, Lineage Project

Shawn shifts in his seat, takes a deep breath, as well as increases his hand. 'I never thought that individuals judged themselves, as well,' he states. 'I believed I was the only one.' The various other students nod their heads in agreement.

Outside the walls of the classroom, life for these secondary school pupils is not very easy. Much of them originate from solitary moms and dad houses, living close to or below the poverty line, as well as have themselves been, or have actually had household participants, in and out of the criminal justice system. As soon as a week, an instructor from the Lineage Job, a New York City based charitable devoted to bringing mindfulness techniques to at-risk and incarcerated young people, comes to show at Shawn's senior high school, which is occupied by youngsters that have exhibited behavioral difficulties in their home senior high schools as well as are transferred to a setup where they could be enlightened as well as discover the best ways to reply to anxiety in a much more effective way.

Most of these childrenses have deep behavioral problems rooted in the instability of their residence life as well as intensified by an education and learning system that can not constantly fulfill their particular social and emotional requirements. Family tree attempts to avoid these youngsters from proceeding to fall in between the splits by providing the tools they have to take control of their lives.

Class begins with a mounting question associated to that week's motif: compassion, judgment, physical violence, justice, or love, for instance. After the trainees share their responses, there is a motion part of class, which primarily is composed of yoga exercise. The course ends with a reflection, either seated or resting, in which the students find out to cultivate a feeling of calm as well as vanity.

It's gorgeous. It's not constantly easy, and also it does not always 'function' ideal away.

It's gorgeous. It's not constantly very easy, and it does not constantly 'work' right away. Offering companies while young people are jailed is particularly difficult because of the justice system's required for 'treatment and also wardship,' not always corrective services. Over the last variety of years this required has changed significantly. NYC juvenile apprehensions and also prisons have actually welcomed programs that seek to attend to the high rate of reincarceration. Family tree has actually been in the leading edge of this activity for 16 years. Convincing individuals that mindfulness could cause objective adjustment is a struggle. But in the previous six years, considering that Beth Navon joined the company as executive supervisor, she has actually made this her mission.

Navon was born in Coney Island, Brooklyn in 1949, and matured with her moms and dads and Russian Jewish immigrant grandma. She keeps in mind wandering the tenement housing as a little girl with her granny, bringing food to their next-door neighbors, feeding the roaming felines, and absorbing the noises and smells of the gypsy bungalows. She took it all in, prior to she discovered how to link her footwears, she found out compassion. Therefore it is today: Navon leads with love, she leads with an understanding of the specific as well as collective suffering of those around her, as well as she aims to give a sense of calm and also a feeling of possibility to everybody she can reach.

For the past 40 years, Navon has dealt with programs that sustain at-risk young people. 'I started out as a social worker,' she says, eyes glowing with nostalgia. 'For several years I would certainly go on residence gos to and also listen to tales of discomfort and suffering that you can't also picture! It was horrible.' She felt the telephone call to act. Exactly how might she help ease some suffering, but likewise make modification in the cycle of hardship and fascism that so affected the urban poor?

She turned her attention in the direction of at-risk youth-kids who didn't assume they 'd live past 19, childrenses whose parents had remained in as well as out of jail, youngsters whose siblings had passed away, children that remained in and also from foster care, childrenses that weren't expected to finish from high institution or go on to college, kids that were anticipated to fall short. 'I wanted them to find out ways to love themselves, so that they could break the cycle of oppression that their moms and dads were born into.'

' I wanted them to learn how you can like themselves, to make sure that they could damage the cycle of oppression that their moms and dads were birthed right into.'

Navon drew inspiration from lots of locations. In 1996, she started as the executive director at Pals of Island Academy, a juvenile justice post release company that offered help to youngsters being released from the different high school on Rikers Island. She incorporated dancing, photography, as well as composing right into the curriculum-everything she could assume of to assist children touch into a sense of peaceful, a sense of creativity, and also permit childrenses to temporarily run away from their rough truths. At the same time in her individual life, she began meditating and also exercising yoga much more seriously.

Soon she saw a clear link in between those quieting practices and her capacity to tap into her deepest possibility. She wished to assist the children she was dealing with do the very same. And along came Family tree. 6 years ago, they offered her half the wage she had actually been making formerly to function part-time as executive supervisor. It was one of those moments in life when the sensible solutions about financial stability or a career path appeared totally inconsequential, she claimed yes.

At the time, the program had a $125,000 annual budget plan and also 5 volunteer teachers who led a total amount of 10 classes each week. Lineage targeted 10- to 22-year-olds, though a few of the detention centers housed kids as young as 7. They were the little kids and little ladies who were lured by the prospect of earning money, and came to be liaisons in regional medicine bargains. One wave of the hand directing a customer in the ideal instructions might land a 3rd grader in juvie.

Today, Family tree holds 40 courses each week, serving even more than 2,000 pupils every year. Beth, together with her senior teachers, have developed a robust as well as substantial training program for volunteer instructors, held several times each year. In early October, Lineage became its very own independent 501( c) 3 non-profit in New york city City, a huge landmark in the company's short and also remarkable history. This unlocks for Family tree to use for even more structures, city, state as well as federal gives. Beth's personal appeal and dedication has allowed her to gather supporters, educators, as well as board participants who have turned Family tree into a fully functioning and also independent life-altering program.

It's difficult to reveal that mindfulness makes change. Grant offering companies wish to see stats, which reveal workable difference. Mindfulness is a trip, as well as it's additionally not magic. Mindfulness teaches these youngsters to take an additional moment for time out before their temper or their self-destructiveness takes over. Relapse in America is rampant. And also it's the most awful for young people. Research studies reveal that those that are arrested between the age of 11 as well as 21 are greater than 50% most likely to be arrested once more within one year.

Politicians, spiritual leaders, and also charitable organizations are not callous these issues, there are large campaigns across fields to address this problem, much of which have proven inadequate. As Beth has actually seen, we require the instructional programs, we need the community structure and non-violent communication programs, and much more as well as a lot more, we're seeing that we need mindfulness. 'The truth is,' she claims, 'the socio-economic challenges of daily life do not go away, but the capability to manage them could be greatly enhanced. We require as much assistance as we could obtain: in the system, and out.'

In Christina's last Family tree class, she drew her teacher aside at the end. 'I simply desire you to understand,' she started, 'this is my last course, and I promise you that whenever I feel the unpleasant ideas concerning myself show up I'm going to try to see the ideas as ideas and also see if they could lead me to more peace.' The tough subtlety of the journey was not lost on Christina, for she continued thoughtfully, 'I'm not exactly sure if it's always gon na function, yet I know I'm gon na attempt.' Mindfulness is an invitation to step into the course of self-contemplation, development, and also learning. Family tree promotes inquiry, promotes area, and also makes it possible for students like Christina as well as Shawn to really feel sustained by their peers, additionally looking for comfort, as well as a sense of home.

Cover Photo by Hailey Wist

[kuuderekun]

My taste in Anime isn't what you would expect of someone my age.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-taste-in-anime-isnt-what-you-expect.html

I'm 4 years older then Bennet The Sage the host of the Anime Abandon.   He's basically the poster child on YouTube for the generation of Anime fans who view the 90s and very early 2000s as the Golden Age of Anime based on their personal nostalgia.  He started Anime Abandon in 2011 with a brief rant about how he can't enjoy current Anime at all, yet I've defined that same year as when my personal golden age of Anime began and I'm 4 years his Senpai. About half the Anime I've watched came out in that year or since, and likewise half the shows I've given a 10 out of 10 to.  And only about 60 of the over 300 Anime I've completed came out before the year 2000.   Only one of the rotating group of Anime that I have marked as a Favorite on MAL is pre-2000 (Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind) though one other is part of a franchise that started before then (The 3rd Pokemon Movie). My taste in Pokemon reflects my age, I have a small part of myself that can relate to the original 151 purests, and my top two movies are ones that still had Misty in-spite my not liking Misty herself very much.   However I've found value in every era of Pokemon. It also shows my age that I can remember seeing the DiC Dub of Sailor Moon on American TV before it was ever on Toonami.  And that I rather casually watched the Namek-Cell sagas of DBZ when they originally aired on Toonami.  And during the 2000s I occasionally got into things like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin and Code Geass and Gundam 00 and Death Note.  And then took an interest in Lupin III when I first got into BlackCoatPress in 2012. But besides a few other random things that was about the extent of my interest in Anime prior to 2014.  But in that year I took an interest in the Sailor Moon revival, and that lead to me watching Madoka and Utena on Hulu, which lead to me watching Rose of Versailles and Gankutsuou and more.  But it wasn't till 2016 I started actually paying attention to anything currently airing. Every other Nerdy interest of mine somewhat reflects my age, I've never been someone hating what's current for not being exactly like what I grew up on.  But when it comes to Pro-Wrestling I'm primarily Nostalgic for the Attitude era, when it comes to Video Games I like 8 and 16 Bit the best, and when it comes to DC Comics I idealize the Crisis-Crisis era for the most part.  If you asked me what Saturday Morning kids Cartoon shows I fondly remember, I'd say Garfield and Friends, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Rugrats, and of course Pokemon.  Buffy The Vampire Slayer was once my favorite TV show, and I have some Power Rangers Nostalgia. So why is it that my taste in Anime seems like that of someone 10-15 years younger then me? There are some non Anime recent stuff I've liked.  Pretty Little Liars is now my favorite western TV show.  Phineas and Ferb is a more recent kid's cartoon I enjoyed a lot.  But even those were on the way out when the Anime fixation kicked into high gear. Is there maybe a reason why having that particular taste in western media of the 90s would lead to preferring the last decade when it comes to Anime?  After all the people who were full Otaku then probably felt a disconnect with American media similar to what I feel now.  Is there some weird way in which Japan and America's sensibilities have swapped?

[apeurolol-blog]

Chapter 13 - Renaissance Notes

The fourteenth century witnessed the beginning of remarkable changes in the Italian society and in the fifteenth century, this “Renaissance” spread to northern Europe. Italy , particularly in Florence, produced a new attitude towards the world. The Renaissance (rebirth) was the product of men who saw the Middle Ages as a dark times and believed they were resuming a civilization like that of the Greco-Romans. * We must realize that the languages and nationalities, the institutions of laws government and the economy all originated in the Middle Ages. * However, the Renaissance did mark a new era in thought and feeling, particularly in the areas of literature and the arts. 

   -  The first artistic and literary manifestations of the Italian Renaissance appeared in Florence but toward the end of the thirteenth century, Florentine merchants and bankers acquired control of papal banking (acted as tax collectors for the papacy).  For Florence, profits from loans, investments, and money exchanges contributed to the city’s economy but the wool industry was the major factor in the city’s financial expansion and population increase as they purchased the best quality of wool.  The economic foundations of Florence were so strong that even severe crises could not destroy the city such as huge debts of King Edward III or the Black Death.

   - Everything sucked before the Renaissance, for instance…   

Black Plague and All Its Complications   Abruptly, almost half of the population was wiped out, a combination of sporadic local famines and the bubonic plague, which first struck in 1348.  There were massive insurrections of peasants, as Wat Tyler’s rebellion in England in 1381; begun over local grievances, these insurrections also led to spokesman questioning the class structure. -  Taxpayer resistance made this period a golden age of medieval parliaments. -  the Hundred Years War (1327-1453) between England and France. Battles were fought sporadically in France, with England winning all major pitched battles (longbow) and the French ultimately winning the war due to the rise of French national patriotism. - 

The Church    This Great Schism lasts from 1378 to 1414. -  John Wyclif, a teacher at Oxford, began to question the elaborate possessions of the church; he even began to doubt the necessity of an organized Church in achieving salvation. -  The result of this struggle was that real church problems could not be dealt with: Bribery and simony, the buying and selling of church offices were rampant; many churchmen had mistresses, and frequently gave lucrative church positions to children or other relatives (nepotism). Perhaps worst, indulgences, or the sparing of certain of the temporal punishments of purgatory, could be obtained for money–though of course the sinner must be properly confessed, absolved, and truly repentant. - [ Martin Luther’s explosion was set off in 1517 by the sale of indulgences by a friar named Tetzel, who was helping to finance the building of St. Peter’s in Rome. Luther, who thought the people were being deluded, posted 95 theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg and offered to debate these propositions concerning penance. His main point was the a sinner is freed not by the priest’s absolution but by the sinner’s inner grace and faith alone. Theses were soon printed and spread through Europe. When Pope Leo X refused to act against indulgences or even call a church council, Luther announced that the right to define belief was a matter for the individual, reading the Bible and freely making his own interpretation after his own conscience. – John Calvin, Calvinists, trained as a priest and lawyer, became a Protestant quickly and produced the Institutes of the Christian Religion.. He agreed with most of the main religious ideas of Luther, though he viewed communion as only a symbolic act. The main difference was his view that God, all knowing, had predetermined each soul’s salvation or damnation. ]

   -  Northern Italian cities were communes, worn associations of free men seeking complete political and economic independence from local nobles and fought for and won independence. A new force, popolo, disenfranchised and heavily taxed, bitterly resenting their exclusion from power, wanted places in the communal government.  Marriage vows often sealed business contracts between the rural nobility and the mercantile aristocracy forming the new social class, an urban nobility. New class made citizenship in the communes dependent on a property qualification, years of residence within the city, and social connections.  The popolo could not establish civil order within their cities and the movements for republican government failed and by 1300, signori (despots) or oligarchies (rule of merchant aristocracies) had triumphed everywhere Nostalgia for the Roman form of government, combined with calculating shrewdness, prompted the leaders of Venice, Milan, and Florence to use the old form.  In the fifteenth century, five powers dominated the Italian peninsula: Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States, and the kingdom of Naples.

   -  A humanism characterized by a deep interest in the Latin classics and a deliberate attempt to revive antique lifestyles emerged.  The literary movement was called humanism because of the rising interest in humane letters–writing about mankind. These humanists wrote in classic Latin, largely because they admired the classical forms and style, and partly because the ancients were interested in this world. Most wrote in the Italian of Florence, of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which thus become a standard (vernacular).  He stressed classical scholarship and produced a moral philosophy no longer exclusively tied to religion but raising questions like what the good life ought to be and what the ultimate rewards of life were.  Where medieval writers accepted pagan and classical authors uncritically, Renaissance humanists were skeptical of their authority. Renaissance humanists studied human nature, and while they fully grasped the moral thought of pagan antiquity, Renaissance humanists viewed humanity from a strongly Christian perspective: men and women were made in the image and likeness of God. [ Secularism involves a basic concern with the material world instead of with the eternal world of spirit and thinking finds the explanation of everything and the final end of human beings. ]  Christian humanists believe that the best elements of classical and Christian cultures should be combined for example, classical ideals of calmness, stoical patience, and broad-mindedness with Christian virtues of love, faith, and hope. Northern humanists were impatient with Scholastic philosophy and believed it was capable of improvement through education, which would lead to peaty and an ethical way of life. 

lets talk politics   Italy did not unify, and most states passed from republicanism to despotism. Wars were common, and involved professional mercenaries known as condotierri; private leaders of armed bands. Politics became a tangled web involving subterfuge and conspiracy; states worked within an intricate, shifting, local balance of power. Machiavelli’s The Prince was written to convince Italians of the need for unity and provide a handbook of statecraft. Machiavelli concluded that human beings are selfish and out to advance their own interest and this pessimistic view of humanity held him to maintain that the prince may have to manipulate the people in any way he finds necessary (fox and lion). – Dictators and oligarchs of the Italian city-states preferred to be secure, rather than loved. These monarchs were new in that they invested kingship with a strong sense of royal authority and national purpose; they stressed that monarchy was the one institution that linked all classes and peoples within definite territorial boundaries. These monarchs ruthlessly suppressed opposition and rebellion, especially from the noble. –  Europe seemed on the verge of a “universal monarchy.” That it did not happen is due to a complex series of events involving the decline of the Church and the rise of humanism; the rise of “new” monarchs who wished to control all elements within their kingdoms, including the church; the resistance of feudal lords to these same monarchs; division of Germany, the zeal of Spain, the power of Charles V, and the fears felt in the rest of Europe, (esp France), of absorption by the empire of the Habsburgs. –  Henry VII used these assemblies primarily to confirm laws and Parliament remained the highest court in the land and a statute approved there by the lords, bishops, and Commons gave the appearance of broad national support plus thorough judicial authority. The center of royal authority was the royal council which handled any business the king put before it - executive, legislative or judicial.

   - In the Renaissance the social status of the artist improved as the Renaissance artist was considered a free intellectual worker and usually worked on commission from a powerful prince; thus the artist’s reputation depended on the support of the powerful patrons. Renaissance society respected and rewarded the distinguished artist Renaissance artists were not only aware of their creative power, they also boasted about it; some medieval painters and sculptors had signed their works but now, Renaissance artists almost universally did so, and many of them incorporated self-portraits. Religious themes appeared in all media—wood, carvings, painted frescoes, stone sculptures, paintings; art served as educational purpose—a religious picture or statue was intended to spread a particular doctrine, act as a profession of faith. 

   -  Printing transformed both the private and the public lives of Europeans making propaganda possible, emphasizing differences between opposing groups, such church and state. Printing also stimulated the literacy of lay people and eventually came to have a deep effect on their private lives; printers printed moralizing, medical, practical, and travel manuals Since books and other printed materials were read aloud to illiterate listeners, print bridged the gap between written and oral cultures.

let’s give it up for the LAAADDDIEEESSS   During the Renaissance the status of upper-class women declined – in terms of the kind of work they performed, their access to property and political power, and their role in shaping the outlook of their society, women had generally less power than women in the feudal age.  In cities of Renaissance Italy, young ladies learned their letters and studied the classics and many read Greek as well as Latin, knew poetry, and could speak Spanish or French. Women’s inferiority was derived not from the divine order of things but from themselves. Men frequently believed that in becoming learned, a woman ceased to be a woman. ya know, the stereotypical men are better BS.  In Castiglione’s The Courtier, the woman was to make herself pleasing to the man; with respect to love and sex, the Renaissance witnessed a downward shift in the women’s status. 

   -  But beginning in the fifteenth century, sizable numbers of black slaves entered Europe.  Most Europeans’ knowledge of the black as a racial type were based entirely on theological speculation; theologians taught that God was light and so blackness, therefore represented the hostile forces of the underworld: evil, sin, and the devil.  Blackness symbolized the emptiness of worldly goods, the humility of the monastic way of life; black clothes permitted a conservative and discreet display of wealth (Christ had said that those who mourn are those who are blessed).