#old national events center

[formerly-serious]

Horror Con THIS WEEKEND

Horror Con is this weekend Saturday March 2 and Sunday March 3! I'll be selling scary prints, brooches, jellyfish, original drawings, stickers, comics, and more!

[wttcsms]

anatomy of desire, satoru gojo

part i. terminal velocity

with mysterious circumstances centering around a first year med student's "suicide", you do something stupidly noble: reporting to a detective that you saw satoru gojo slipping out the backdoor of the very same building yu haibara supposedly jumped from. in doing so, you start a twisted, sick game of cat-and-mouse with the most powerful and insane student on campus. the only thing keeping you alive? the fact that satoru gojo is apathetic towards everything and everyone, besides you. ( fem!reader )

chapter contains description of dead body word count 3.7k [ next ] [ masterlist ]

There’s an ongoing joke that only those who attend Tokyo Metropolitan College are privy to. It’s posed as a question, serves to make people laugh, but like all things spoken by these students, the intention of the words said are different from what they’re truly asking. It goes like this:

How much was your application fee? 

The joke is the idea that any of them would ever actually have to pay something as plebeian as an application fee to attend a college their parents or family have attended for generations. The “joke” has layers to it, though: how much did your parents have to cough up to get you in here? Did they only “donate” a new building? Did they agree to sponsor the next charity event hosted by the university? Or did Mother and Father only have to invite the head of admissions to a dinner party? For children who come from money, social currency holds a significant amount of value in their eyes. 

With an acceptance rate lower than most of the Ivies, alumni that consist of the world’s most powerful political leaders, actual royalty, and the most influential celebrities in the public eye, and the prestige that comes from graduating from such a decorated institution, attending Tokyo Metropolitan College should have been impossible for someone like you.

Full ride scholarships to TMC are nearly unheard of and are only extended to the best high school athletes or the brightest minds of the current generation. You’re smart, of course, but not at the caliber Tokyo Metropolitan demands. 

With your worn-out bookbag, drugstore makeup routine, and outlet clearance shoes, it’s obvious that you’re a scholarship student. Your classmates might have been willing to ignore your crime of being poor, but not even being able to at least wear last season’s runway designs? Some sins are just unforgivable. 

It’s fine by you, of course. You’re nothing but honest, and so if you were to ever be asked the cost of your application fee, you’re not sure how they would react when you confess that it cost a life. 

You fall in love with journalism when you’re ten years old. At the clearance grocery stores, the type of shops whose air conditioning never seems to work and there’s a perpetual leak at one area of the ceiling, there’s a rack of magazines (your mother tells you these are called “tabloids”) by the checkout line. Of course, there’s usually only one cashier working out of the entire store, and you spend most of your time waiting in line than you do actually picking out your groceries. 

While your mother shuffled her coupons clipped from last week’s newspaper, you would grab the latest issue of National Enquirer, your eyes eagerly soaking up every last word of the publication. Outlandish headlines, anonymous sources, poorly Photoshopped paparazzi photos — this tabloid is your first taste of journalism. It might not be Pulitzer Prize worthy articles, but it is the spark that ignites your insatiable, burning hunger for a story. A true story. 

As you grow older, you swap National Enquirer for National Geographic and Time, going so far as to even grabbing your father’s discarded newspapers from the recycling bin whenever you catch a glimpse of an enticing headline. Everyday, there are hundreds, thousands, millions of stories, all happening at once. Depending on who’s telling the story, the immortalized version of events could very well differ from the truth. And at your young age, when you declare to your entire middle school class that you’re going to be the world’s best investigative journalist who uncovers and reports only the truth, you are met with polite, bored applause. 

Looking back, you realize just how silly you were. You used to walk around with a Hello Kitty notepad, one of those jumbo sized book fair pens (the one where it comes with like, five different colors you can pick from), and an annoying habit of never minding your own business. It pays off eventually, though. Your inquisitive (all the adults call it nosy) nature and hunger to get to the bottom of things leads you to find out that your seventh grade homeroom teacher was stealing money from the classroom’s activity funds. You got your picture in the local paper (it still hangs on the kitchen fridge, even after all these years), and the school principal even encourages you to start a school newspaper club. 

You fear you’ve peaked in the seventh grade, though. It’s been nearly eight years since that incident, and you haven’t quite uncovered anything else that’s newsworthy. You suppose the hot topic on campus right now could be worth getting to the bottom of: did Mei Mei get a boob job or not? If you figure out the truth behind that, maybe then people will actually start to care about what you have to say. 

Good stories don’t just fall into your lap; most journalists don’t spend their time sitting at their desk, typing up their finds. Instead, they’re actually on the ground, actively hunting. 

You tell yourself — justifying your eavesdropping, really — that this is just you hunting for a good story. Besides, if the conversation was meant to be so private, why wouldn’t he at least have it in his dorm room? 

“Listen, Ken — after tonight, I’ll be set for life.” The hushed whisper immediately catches your attention. You pause, glancing behind you to see if anyone’s coming. They’re not. The Liberal Arts Education building houses the least amount of students here at Tokyo Metropolitan, and everyone’s either already in class or getting lunch off campus. No one even bothers with this outdoor walkway; it’s too cold to justify walking in the shade the overhead supplies, and the vending machines located here never have any of the good snacks — just stale packs of peanuts and the brand of soymilk no one likes. 

You don’t make a habit of listening in on people’s phone calls. You have some concept of boundaries. It’s just… The Liberal Arts class is such a small group of fish in an already small pond. You’ve run into everyone who has a reason to be in this building. You were forced to take Public Speaking with at least half of them, and this voice you don’t recognize. 

That, and everyone who can afford to spend years at college, stress-free and getting a degree in the arts, don’t need to make hushed phone calls behind unwanted vending machines to discuss how they’re going to be “set for life.” Ninety-nine percent of the student body here already are.

“Just trust me,” the voice mumbles. “I’ve got it all under control.” 

You’re really trying your hardest to fight the urge to listen, but you can feel it — that sense in your gut that tells you that this is a story worth pursuing. Who cares about whether or not Mei Mei got a boob job? Whatever this student is up to is certainly of more interest than breast implants. 

When he stops talking, you recognize that he must’ve hung up the phone. Trying to remain casual, you continue to walk towards the vending machines, and when he comes into view, walking in the opposite direction of you, you briefly glance at him. 

Brushed brown hair, slightly taller than you — kind of cute, actually.

“Excuse me,” you call out to him. He stops to turn at you, a polite smile stretching across his face. 

“Yes?” 

“Do you happen to know where room L203 is? I just switched to that Japanese Literature class, but I’m still trying to navigate this building.” 

“Hmm.” He takes a second to appear in deep thought. “I’ve never had to take the course, but L203 should be on the second floor, left side.” 

“Thanks!” You chirp out, letting him go on his way. A majority of the buildings here are built similarly; the first number always dictates which floor the room is on, and odd numbers go to the left, with even numbers on the right side of the hall. You know damn well where L203 is; you just needed a second to commit this student’s face to memory. That, and you wanted a good look at the embroidery on his black jacket. 

It says Tokyo Metropolitan College Zenin School of Medicine. 

One thing about medical students is that they (and the college) can never seem to let anyone forget, for even a split second, that they are a medical student. 

You immediately head to your dorm, cracking open your 2006 MacBook that begs dearly for you to put it out of its misery every time you power it on, and wait impatiently as the website for the Zenin School of Medicine page to officially load. Every year, the administrative team at the med school makes a big deal out of welcoming the newest incoming class, and you’re hoping that he, whoever he is, has been enrolled within the last three years. You’re not sure your laptop can handle clicking through more than three links in the timespan of five minutes without excessively overheating and then exploding on your dorm room’s desk. 

You luck out when you realize he’s from this year’s incoming class. The picture is taken outside, in the familiar quad in front of the med school’s buildings. There’s only about a dozen students entering, and you spot his bright, smiling face. To the untrained eye, he fits in well with the rest of his peers. Nothing about him appears to be different, but three years learning to navigate this world has taught you well: he doesn’t have the same social standing as these students. In a sea of On Clouds (for the active students, you presume) and Dior sneakers, he’s wearing a pair of Skechers. 

You squint at the small font of the caption, listing the students from left to right. 

Yu Haibara. 

When you search his name on the school’s site, another article appears, confirming your suspicions. 

Yu Haibara, Latest Recipient of the Zenin Merit Medical Scholarship. Every other year, the Zenin Family provides a scholarship to a promising individual who will “change the medical field for the better.” With his easygoing smile and genuine attempt at being helpful, you can believe it. Yu Haibara seems like a very nice guy.

Which is why, in the glow of the setting sun, you feel a bit guilty for tailing him. No matter what he does, it’s not even like it’s going to be something publishable for the school paper. Putting a first year medical student’s side hustle on blast isn’t anything newsworthy; you know this. The rational part of your mind tells you to go back to your dorm and actually start working on your history paper due next week. You know, something actually productive and beneficial for your future. 

But the gut feeling you’ve never been good at ignoring… It tells you that the hunt is on. There’s something here for you to uncover, and even if you have to keep it a secret to yourself, the satisfaction of satiating your curiosity will be enough. 

Following Yu isn’t really a hard thing to do. This side of campus is unsurprisingly busier than the side you normally stay on. There are more bodies for you to blend in with, more noises to disguise your footsteps, and Haibara doesn’t even seem to be paying much attention to his surroundings. He walks with his arms swaying by his sides, and he makes casual, fleeting conversation with a few faces you recognize from the class photo on the school’s website. You’re hoping that wherever he’s heading to isn’t his dorm; if it’s secrecy he wants, it would make sense for him to do everything in the privacy of his own residence, but—

“Hey, girl, what’re you doing over here?” Distracted by the greeting, you take your eyes off of Haibara’s back to look at who’s speaking to you. Sakura; you share a good portion of classes with her. You remember her mentioning a boyfriend who’s in medical school. Something about her making an offhand joke about being a future surgeon’s stay-at-home wife. It’s not like working was something she was actively going to do in the future, anyway. Her mother is a hotel heiress, and her dad owns a hefty share of Vogue. 

“Sakura, hey!” You smile at her, trying to peek over her shoulder. Haibara makes a left turn, you note. “I wanted to meet with a professor here, actually. To see if he wanted to give an interview on his research. Running out of article ideas for the school paper, honestly.” 

She crinkles her nose. She works for the school paper with you, too, but she’s never paid much attention to anything beyond her submissions to the Beauty & Fashion column. “Have fun with that.” 

“Definitely will.” You chirp, glad that Sakura’s not the type to care about what some old doctor has to say about cancer. The sidewalk is crowded with students grouping together, discussing where they want to eat out tonight, but as you make a left turn, trying to follow Haibara’s steps, you notice that the lampposts lining the walkway are fewer and farther between. It’s still not dark enough to really need their warm, yellow glow, but you’re certain you’ll need them on the walk back. 

There are less students frequenting this area, too. The buildings here are older, less maintained. You doubt any of the major classes are held here, and the only building you can really justify Haibara disappearing into would be the one at the end of this walkway. A three story brick building, whose large sign can be read even at your distance.

OLD KASHIMO LABORATORY.

Old certainly seems fitting. You wonder if the building is even still in use. 

Leaves crunch under your sneakers (that are unfortunately not straight from Rick Owens’ latest drop) as you continue to move forward, heading to the lab. It’s a big building, and it seems a shame that it isn’t as well-maintained as the front-facing buildings that make up the medical school. Your legs are practically burning by the time you make it to the steps leading to the front door. If you realized just how far of a walk it is from your dormitory to the complete other side of campus, you would have at least stretched first. 

Anything to get down to the truth, though. 

Selfishly, you hope whatever Haibara’s up, it’s something scandalous. If it’s boring, and your gut feeling is entirely wrong, you’re going to be so annoyed that you got your daily steps in for no reason. 

Pushing through the large oak double-doors of the building takes some effort, but when you do, you realize the lights here, unlike the other buildings you’ve been in, aren’t triggered automatically by movement. At least the windows all over the walls allow the fading light of the setting sun to filter through the massive entrance. 

Way down on the other end, you see it. A silhouette of someone else; you see them, but you’re shocked you don’t hear them. 

Haibara?

No. Even from this distance, this figure seems taller than the brunet boy you’ve been stalk— following — for the past hour. The figure pays you no attention, but when it opens the backdoor, for a split second, they’re — he’s — bathed in the glow from the nearby lampposts and sunset. 

White hair, sharp jawline, broad shoulders, and even at this angle, his sharp, blue eyes that are recognizable anywhere.

Satoru Gojo. 

The difference between college and high school is that in high school, it’s pretty common to have a few people designated as “popular.” College is different. Everyone is a grown adult now, whether they like it or not, and concepts as juvenile and irrelevant as “popularity” no longer matter.

At a school like Tokyo Metropolitan, though, social hierarchy is everything. A school this small, this exclusive, this prestigious, thrives because parents send their little heirs and heiresses here in order to network. These kids grew up trading Pokemon cards by utilizing tips from The Art of the Deal.

In a small group where only the wealthy and influential are allowed in, Satoru Gojo comes from the wealthiest and most influential family there is. His father has global politicians trying to cozy up to him, and his mother comes from a family who supposedly made their fortune off of blood diamonds (naturally, the Gojos deny this claim, squashing any speculation about how the wife’s family made their money by spamming the news with nothing but reports of their charitable acts). Instead of pursuing business, Gojo makes headlines by his father announcing how proud he is that his son is choosing the noble path of medicine. 

“He’s all about helping people,” the reporter quotes Mr. Gojo. 

That must be true; it’s why Gojo’s so known all over campus. It’s not enough that socially, he’s better than all of them, which makes being his friend all the more appealing. It’s the fact that he’s just a good guy. You remember how last year, the school paper did an article on how Gojo funded the entire extravagant retirement party for a beloved professor at the school. You heard a rumor that the one and only time he was late to class (by three minutes) was because he was helping a student get her kitten out of a tree. During his undergrad, he was captain of the basketball team and took them to the championships every year. He does all of this while remaining absolutely humble, kind, and top of his class. 

You wonder if there’s a story there. If maybe Satoru Gojo, who is too perfect to be real, isn’t real. Maybe his parents figured out where to get their hands on an ultra-realistic robot, something that poses as the perfect son. That would explain his eyes, you think.

You’ve always tried to see the appeal in Gojo. He’s handsome, yes. He’s nice, no doubt about it. You don’t think you could find anyone with a single bad thing to say about him. But during your freshman year at this school, you think about the moment where you had to fill in for the school’s photographer. You had to photograph Gojo accepting an award for being MVP on the basketball team (once again), and while Gojo was charming everyone, from the coach to the dean of the school to the girls in the crowd cheering him on, there was your gut feeling telling you that something was just off. 

“You’re not the usual photographer, are ya?” He peers down at you, hands in his pockets, a big grin on his face. He’s not teasing you, at least, not in a rude way. He just has a light-hearted inflection on all his words that makes everything he says seem… warmer? Like, he’s trying to put you at ease. 

You’re fiddling with the settings on the camera, unused to the tech. “Um, yeah. I’m a freshman, but I’m just subbing in for my senior who got sick.” 

“Really? That’s neat!” He says it, and it sounds so sincere, that you nod along. Yeah, maybe it is neat. 

(Gojo’s good at that. Putting people at ease, getting them to see things from his point of view.)

“Try your best to make me look good, and I’ll do my best to make sure whatever shot you get is fine! Deal?” He’s still smiling at you, and all you can do is nod. Even at this point in time, a fresh-faced baby to this school, you’re aware of Gojo’s power. When you’re looking at him through the lens of the camera, you think it’d be impossible to get a bad photo of Gojo. 

The uneasy feeling you get around him gets chalked up to nothing more than nerves. You’re a writer, not a photographer. Gojo is a legend amongst men, and being in such close proximity to him would make anyone nervous. 

But when you look back at the photo once the article gets published, you know why you felt so weird around him. 

When Satoru Gojo smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes.

You’re not sure why Gojo is — or, more accurately, was — in this building, but it’s none of your business. You’re here for Haibara, and whatever weird ass, secretive but lucrative side hustle he’s got going on. Probably dropshipping. Or, maybe he’s selling old test banks?  

Chances are, it’s nothing special or noteworthy. The reason why you haven’t gotten a good story lately might simply be because your senses, your so-called reliable gut instinct, has just gone dull. Maybe you’ve never even had a good instinct to begin with. Or, maybe losing it is just the karma you deserve for everything you’ve done to get to where you are now. It would serve you right, wouldn’t it? The universe must have a taste for poetic justice sometimes.

You’re hungry. Your legs are sore. It’s getting late. Whatever Haibara has going on, you don’t care anymore. You’ve got a paper due, and a protein bar somewhere in the bottom of your book bag that will serve as dinner for tonight because you don’t have enough funds to get anything halfway decent at the dining hall, and what a waste of time today was. 

You’re opening the doors of the building, letting the cool evening breeze hit you in the face as you exit. You still need something to write for the school paper; the lie you told to Sakura might actually be the only valid idea you have, and— 

“Holy fucking shit! Is he dead?!”

You look to your right. There’s a trio of students gathered around a lump on the ground. Someone’s screaming, then they’re all screaming. More students are flooding out of nearby buildings, and despite the protest of your limbs, you turn and head right where the screams are coming from. 

Bringing your hand to your mouth, you barely manage to hold back your own scream. 

Lying on the concrete walkway is Yu Haibara, with his neck and body at two different odd angles, his head cracked open and spilling blood that leaks onto the manicured grass of the campus.

[intheupside]

Crosby to be Canada's 'security blanket' as captain at 4 Nations Face-Off

Indeed, is anyone more deserving of the title of Captain Canada?

“He’s up there,” Tocchet said. “And look, I don’t want to embarrass Sid. But from sitting in the locker room across from Wayne Gretzky, the way Wayne’s demeanor is, the way he acted around his teammates, the way he acted in front of the public, Sid’s got that.

“And then you’ve got the Mark Messier type, not afraid to say things to your teammates if needed at the right time. And I’ve seen Sid do that too, using his voice to let them know something is unacceptable. He’s willing to do that. That to me is a great leader. In all facets. One hundred percent.

“The bottom line: When he puts that jersey on, you can sense the calmness come over the entire country of Canada. It’s almost like he’s our security blanket.���

“From the time I first met him, it’s just the way he always looks to raise the bar,” Bergeron said. “We’ve been teammates and linemates in a lot of these tournaments, and he’s never satisfied. He’s always looking to the next thing. He’s able to enjoy the success but at the same time wanting more. It’s his drive, his determination, there’s a lot of reasons why he’s been so clutch and so important in, what you could say, [is] history.

“He commands respect. I think the country is proud of who he is as a person and how he represents us on the international stage. There’s no missteps. It’s been going on since he’s been 14 years old when they started aiming cameras on him. He’s never had a misstep.”

Bergeron is considered one of the top leaders of his era and won the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award in 2021, an honor Crosby received in 2010.

“I accomplished a lot in my career,” Bergeron said. “But I have to say, I’m so proud that in my time playing, that Sidney was the face of our league and for Canadian hockey. Well deserved.”

Crosby already had his eyes on the 4 Nations prize five months ago, long before he would officially be given the “C” for Team Canada.

Back in early September, Crosby helped organize an unofficial training camp of sorts under the watchful eye of Andy O’Brien, his longtime trainer, in Vail, Colorado. Among those invited to the event were some of Canada’s top players, including Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, who like Crosby is from Cole Harbour; Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid; and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner.

Crosby insists it wasn’t an official Canada team-bonding exercise, pointing out that there were players from other countries there as well. At the same time, he admits it was productive for some of the Canadians on hand to get the opportunity to develop chemistry and play together, something that could come in handy at the 4 Nations and the 2026 Olympics.

Marner, for one, was appreciative of the invite extended him by Crosby and O’Brien.

“It was great,” he said. “Getting to know Sid and some of those guys both on and off the ice, well, I was grateful that they asked me to join them.

“You get to know them on and off the ice a bit. Such great guys. And so much talent out there with guys like Sid, MacKinnon and McDavid.”

And, according to Team Canada and Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper, it was just another example of Crosby’s leadership ability to bring players together for a common goal.

“It’s what he does,” Cooper said. “It’s who he is.

“Look at what he did [last] month when we were in Pittsburgh.”

Cooper was referring to a postgame scene after his team had defeated Crosby and the Penguins 5-2 on Jan. 12, a game in which Tampa Bay scored three goals in the final 3:03 to break a 2-2 tie. The uber-competitive Crosby was upset that victory had eluded the Penguins, but still took time to see Cooper afterward to chat about the 4 Nations.

At one point, Crosby asked Cooper to bring out Lightning forwards Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli, his future 4 Nations teammates, to talk about the upcoming tournament.

“He here is, angry that his team had just lost a game, and he put that aside to talk Team Canada with them,” Cooper said. “They sat there for 20 minutes. They were like kids in a candy store.

“That right there is what true leadership is.”

And, according to Tocchet, what Crosby is all about.

“It’s unbelievable,” Tocchet said. “He’s a guy that carries the torch, and is willing to pass the torch on when he’s done.

“That’s what he’s doing with Cirelli, Hagel, those guys. He basically comes in and says, ‘Hey, you guys are my teammates in a month, I just want to get to know you real quick and let you know what’s at stake.’ He’s done it with other players. I just think it goes so far with his teammates. They legitimately badly want to play with him, to be his teammate.”

[girlactionfigure]

Nicholas Winton was a young British stockbroker who rescued 669 Czech Jewish children from being sent to Nazi death camps. He never told anybody of his heroism, and the story only came out 50 years later after his wife found an old briefcase in the attic containing lists of children he’d saved.

Nicholas was a 29 year old clerk at the London stock exchange getting ready for a ski trip to Switzerland when he received an urgent call from his friend Martin Blake. Known to be passionately opposed to Nazism, Martin urged Nicholas to cancel his vacation and come to Prague immediately. He told Nicolas, “I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help. Don’t bother bringing your skis.”

It is a testament to Nicolas’ sterling character and strong moral compass that he didn’t waver for a moment. It was an easy decision to sacrifice his fun and relaxing ski trip and instead travel to a dangerous place on a mysterious mission.

Two months earlier, in October 1938, Nazi Germany had annexed the Sudetenland It was clear that the Nazis would soon occupy all of Czechoslovakia. When he reached Prague, Nicholas was shocked by the huge influx of refugees fleeing from the Nazis. In early November, the Kristallnacht pogrom occurred in Germany and Austria. Jews were killed in the street and hundreds of synagogues burned down, as well as Jewish-owned businesses. This horrifying event shocked the Jewish community in eastern Europe, and thousands were now desperate to flee.

Born to Jewish parents, Nicholas was actually Jewish himself. However, his parents changed their name from Wertheim and converted to Christianity before he was born. Nicholas was baptized and raised as a Christian, and he didn’t consider himself Jewish (although was doubtless aware that Hitler would.)

In Prague, organizations were springing up to help sick and elderly refugees, but Nicholas noticed that nobody was trying to help the children. In his words, “I found out that the children of refugees and other groups of people who were enemies of Hitler weren’t being looked after. I decided to try to get permits to Britain for them. I found out that the conditions which were laid down for bringing in a child were chiefly that you had a family that was willing and able to look after the child, and fifty pounds, which was quite a large sum of money in those days, that was to be deposited at the Home Office. The situation was heartbreaking. Many of the refugees hadn’t the price of a meal. Some of the mothers tried desperately to get money to buy food for themselves and their children. The parents desperately wanted at least to get their children to safety when they couldn’t manage to get visas for the whole family. I began to realize what suffering there is when armies start to march.”

Nicholas knew something had to be done, and he decided to be the one to do it. He later remembered, “Everybody in Prague said, ‘Look, there is no organization in Prague to deal with refugee children, nobody will let the children go on their own, but if you want to have a go, have a go.’ And I think there is nothing that can’t be done if it is fundamentally reasonable.”

Nicholas decided to find homes for the children in the UK, where they would be safe. He set up a command center in his hotel room in Wenceslas Square and his first step was to contact the refugee offices of different national governments and see how many children they could accept. Only two countries agreed to take any Jewish children: Sweden and Great Britain, which pledged to accept all children under age 18 as long as they had homes and fifty pounds to pay for their trip home.

With this green light from Great Britain, Nicholas did everything possible to find homes for the children. He returned to London and did much of the planning from there, which enabled him to continue working at the Stock Exchange and soliciting funds from other bankers to pay for his work with the refugees. Winton needed a large amount of money to pay for transportation costs, foster homes, and many other necessities such as food and medicine.

Nicholas placed ads in newspapers large and small all over Great Britain, as well as in hundreds of church and synagogue newsletters. Knowing he had to play on people’s emotions to convince them to open their home to young strangers who didn’t even speak English, Nicholas printed flyers with pictures of children seeking refuge. He was tireless in his efforts and persuaded an incredible number of heroic Brits to welcome the traumatized young refugees into their homes and hearts.

The office in Wenceslas Square was manned by fellow Brit Trevor Chadwick. Every day terrified parents came in and begged him to find temporary homes for their children. Despite Nicholas’ success in finding places for the kids to stay, British and German government bureaucrats made things difficult, demanding multiple forms and documents. Nicholas said, “Officials at the Home Office worked very slowly with the entry visas. We went to them urgently asking for permits, only to be told languidly, ‘Why rush, old boy? Nothing will happen in Europe.’ This was a few months before the war broke out. So we forged the Home Office entry permits.”

The first transport of children boarded airplanes in Prague which took them to Britain. Nicholas organized an amazing seven more transports, all of them by train, and then boat across the English Channel. The children met their foster families at the train station and Winton took great care in making the matches between children and foster parents.

The children’s transport organized by Nicholas Winton was similar to the later, larger Kindertransport operation, but specifically for Czech Jewish children. Nicholas saved an astounding 669 children on eight transports. Tragically, the largest transport of all was scheduled for September 1, 1939 – but on that day, Hitler invaded Poland and all borders were closed by Germany. Winton was haunted for decades by the remembrance of the 250 children he last saw boarding the train. “Within hours of the announcement, the train disappeared. None of the 250 children aboard was seen again. We had 250 families waiting at Liverpool Street that day in vain. If the train had been a day earlier, it would have come through. Not a single one of those children was heard of again, which is an awful feeling.”

Nicholas joined the British military and spent the rest of the war serving as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, attaining the rank of Flight Lieutenant. After the war, Nicholas worked for the International Refugee Organization in Paris, where he met and married Grete Gjelstrup, a Danish secretary. They moved to Maidenhead, in Great Britain, and had three children. Their youngest child, Robin, had Down Syndrome, and at that time children with the condition were usually sent to institutions. However Nicholas and Grete wouldn’t consider it and instead kept their son at home with the family. Tragically, Robin died of meningitis the day before his sixth birthday. Nicholas was devastated by the loss, and became an active volunteer with Mencap, a charity to help people with Down Syndrome and other developmental delays. He remained involved in Mencap for over fifty years.

Humble – and perhaps traumatized by the children on the train he wasn’t able to save – Nicholas rarely talked about his wartime heroism and his own family didn’t know the details. It was only in 1988 that Nicholas Winton became widely known. His wife found an old notebook of his containing lists of the children he saved. Working with a Holocaust researcher, she tracked down some of the children and located eighty of them still living in Britain. These grown children, some with grandchildren, found out for the first time who had saved them.

The BBC television show called That’s Life! invited Nicholas to the filming an episode that became one of the most emotional clips in TV history. With Nicholas in the audience, the host told his story, including photos and details about some of the children he’d saved. Then the told Nicholas that one of those children was the woman in the seat next to him! They embraced, teary eyed, and the host announced there were more grown children in the audience as well. She asked everybody who owed their life to Nicholas Winton to stand up. The entire audience stood up, as Nicholas sat stunned, wiping away the tears.

After that, Nicholas was showered with honors, including a knighthood for services to humanity. Known as the British Schindler, he met the Queen multiple times and received the Pride of Britain Award for Lifetime Achievement, both for saving refugee children and working with Mencap to improve the lives of people with cognitive differences. There are multiple statues of him in Prague and the UK, and his story was the subject of three films.

Nicholas Winton died in Britain in July 2015, at age 106. Today there are tens of thousands of people who owe their lives to Nicholas Winton.

Accidental Talmudist

[marybatson]

BILLY BATSON WEEK 2025

It’s that time of the year again! 2025 marks the 85th Anniversary of Billy Batson as Captain Marvel debuting in Whiz Comics #2, the first official cover-dated issue released February 1940.*

A brief history In December of 1939, children at newsstands were picking up a particular issue with the cover of a flying man dressed in red, effortlessly lifting a car overhead. Bill Parker, senior editor at Fawcett Comics during this time, had developed a new kind of superhero: Billy Batson is a young orphan boy who transforms into a powerful champion named Captain Marvel at the drop of the word “SHAZAM!” He fights crime against notable villains together with a memorable cast of heroes he calls “family.”

A few years past their heyday, Fawcett Publications endured troubling legal problems that put their sales in jeopardy, eventually settling their dragging copyright case with National Comics Publications (predecessor of modern-day DC Comics) and putting Captain Marvel to rest indefinitely. The Captain’s return to comics happened in late 1972 under DC Comics, a run which the original artist C.C. Beck had worked on for only a year. Ever since, Billy Batson and his counterpart have appeared in many different iterations in many different comics, one of the only memories still enduring from a time already passed.

NOSTALGIA

The role of an archive is to make nostalgia obsolete. [...] Every comic book page is, like a work of scholarship, an act of recovery, or at times a dream in which nothing is ever lost, as past, present, and future make room for each other and exist in harmony. Studied carefully, a fanzine or a comic book, like Billy’s Historama, might reveal several lifetimes to us, one generation after another of names, faces, and stories. The art of nostalgia is figuring out which one to tell next.

— Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia, Brian Cremins

This year’s overall theme is NOSTALGIA. Take this as you might, for however you interpret nostalgia—perhaps a reflection on your own personal narrative with Billy Batson, or an exploration between him and his own massive history, be it in-universe or with real life pop culture. You might even disregard the day-to-day prompts below and dedicate yourself to nostalgia thematically for the entire week! How you’d like to work with it is up to you.

Day 1 ☆ February 23, 2025 HOLY HISTORAMA

The Historama, similar to a crystal ball, is described as Shazam the Wizard’s “super-television screen,” of which he may use to see the past, present, and future. In later iterations, it presents itself as a book or object that displays any scene through time and, possibly, space. On this day, you might center the Historama itself, or explore any scenes of Billy’s history from any time or place.

Day 2 ☆ February 24, 2025 THE BOY OF ARTHURIAN LEGEND

Bill Parker, when asked to describe his inspiration for Captain Marvel, once said, “Specifically I got it from the Stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, stories with which I had been familiar and read as a child.”

At its core, the story of Billy Batson as Captain Marvel was a story about old wizards, spells, myths, and secrets—elements which children center their greatest fantasies and perhaps still carry with them throughout adulthood. Use this day to commemorate Billy Batson as a fulfilled fantasy, maybe as a knight facing dragons in some faraway world or a space-wandering sailor, the wildest childhood dream come true.

Day 3 ☆ February 25, 2025 SWEET HOME FAWCETT

This prompt is simply Fawcett: Fawcett Comics and their previous publications, possibly outside of Captain Marvel and friends, or Fawcett the city as depicted in the DC Comics iterations, home base of Billy and Captain Marvel.

Day 4 ☆ February 26, 2025 RETURN OF THE CHAMPION

Across his storied history, Captain Marvel has faced many setbacks in his journey back to comic book stands: previous lawsuits and settlements, harried DC Comics events, logistical decisions made behind closed doors. However many times he’s put on the back burner, Captain Marvel still manages to return in a triumph. We will see him again in fleeting appearances, celebrated homecomings, maybe a long-awaited reunion...

Day 5 ☆ February 27, 2025 THE WORLD HE LIVES IN

It is of note that, while Fawcett Comics held onto its hero as long as they could for the first few years, the DC Comics universe is where Billy and the Captain have held their home—for over fifty consecutive years. Use this as a day to reflect on Billy’s past DC universe adventures, from teams he’s been on to events he’s partaken in.

Day 6 ☆ February 28, 2025 A MARVELOUS FAMILY

Billy Batson’s not the only one with a candle to blow. Mary Marvel debuted in 1942, while Captain Marvel Junior had appeared much earlier, in 1941. Their contributions to the stories of Captain Marvel have been monumental in immortalizing his place as a beloved hero with weight and history. They are also deeply adored by Billy himself. Have this day to celebrate family, for each Marvel Family member who has added to the menagerie over the years, or to simply center Mary and Freddy and their own achievements.

Day 7 ☆ March 1, 2025 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BILLY

Happy Birthday Billy Batson! Give him a cake. Give him a balloon. Give him a present. Tell him how much you appreciate him. He is eighty-five years old. He looks timeless! Is the secret the amber from the Sivana suspendium?

This is a free day, open for anything.

How to participate On Tumblr (and elsewhere, if desired), use the hashtags #billybatsonweek and #bb85week simultaneously so that others might see and engage with your work. Late entries are always, always welcome. I’ll be sure to reblog all entries inside the tags for archival reasons, so please don’t hesitate to tag my blog!

The Archive of Our Own story collection is linked here.

On previous weeks Feel free to browse entries from previous years for inspiration, or reuse the old prompts altogether!

2022 Prompts Post / 2022 Entries

2023 Prompts Post / 2023 Entries

2024 Prompts Post / 2024 Entries / AO3 Collection

*FOOTNOTE: Captain Marvel/Billy Batson celebrated his genuine 85th Anniversary December 2024, a date which acknowledges his original on-the-shelves debut in December of 1939. The cover date used in this character celebration week corresponds with what DC Comics used in their 75th Anniversary year count.

[fatehbaz]

patience being tested. being forced by a bizarre unfortunate situation to adhere to university requirement technicality by taking this simple basic elementary "introduction to environmental history" class.

this class is from facilitators/program which do, like, "history of the American frontier" or "history of fishing and hunting" and still basically subscribe to that old-school twentieth-century idealization and celebration of characters like Teddy Roosevelt and reverence for a mythical arc-of-history-bent-towards-justice narrative of the often-clumsy but ultimately-benevolent US federal government and its mission to "save nature" through the miracle of "sustained yield," while heroic federal land management agencies and "heritage" institutions lead to way, staffed by exceptional individuals (appeals to nostalgia for the frontier and an imagined landscape of the American West; ego-stroking appeals to flattering self-image that center the environmentalist or academic). where they invoke, y'know, ideas like "ecology is important because don't you enjoy cross-country skiing in The Woods with your niece and nephew? don't you like hunting and fishing?" which makes it feel like a time capsule of appeals and discourses from the 1970s. and it invokes concept of "untouched wilderness" (while eliding scale of historical Indigenous environmental relationships and current ongoing colonial violence/extractivism). but just ever-so-slightly updated with a little bit of chic twenty-first-century flair like a superficial land acknowledgement or a reference to "labor histories" or "history from below," which is extra aggravating when the old ideologies/institutions are still in power but they're muddying the water and diluting the language/frameworks (it's been strange, watching words like "multispecies" and "Anthropocene" over the years slowly but surely show-up on the posters, fliers, course descriptions, by now even appearing adjacent to the agri-business and resource extraction feeder programs, like a recuperation or appropriation.) even from a humanities angle, it's still, they're talking at me like "You probably didn't know this, but environmental history is actually pretty entangled with political and social events. In fact, we can synthesize sources and glean environmental info from wacky places like workers' rolls in factories, ship's logs, and poetry from the era." and i'm nodding like YEP.

the first homework assignment is respond to this: "Define and describe 'the Anthropocene'. Do you think 'the Anthropocene' is a useful concept? Why or why not?" Respond in 300 words.

so for fun, right now in class, going to see how fast i can pull up discussion of Anthropocene-as-concept solely from my old posts on this microblogging site.

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ok, found some

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I think that the danger in any universal narrative or epoch or principle is exactly that it can itself become a colonizing force. [...] I’m suspicious of the Anthropocene as concept for the very reason that it subsumes so many peoples, nations, histories, geographies, political orders. For that reason, I think ideas like the Anthropocene can be a useful short-hand for a cluster of tangible things going on with the Earth at the moment, but we have to be very careful about how fluid and dynamic ideas become concretized into hegemonic principles in the hands of researchers, policymakers, and politicians. There’s so much diversity in histories and experiences and environmental realities even between relatively linked geographies here in Canada [...]. Imagine what happens when we try to do that on a global scale - and a lot of euro-western Anthropocene, climate change and resilience research risks doing that - eliding local specificities and appropriating knowledge to serve a broader euro-western narrative without attending to the inherent colonial and imperial realities of science and policy processes, or even attending to the ways that colonial capitalist expansion has created these environmental crises to begin with. While we, as a collective humanity, are struggling with the realities of the Anthropocene, it is dangerous to erase the specific histories, power-relations, political orders that created the crisis to begin with. So, I’m glad that a robust critique of the Anthropocene as a concept is emerging.

Text by: Words of Zoe Todd, as interviewed and transcribed by Caroline Picard. “The Future is Elastic (But it Depends): An Interview with Zoe Todd.” 23 August 2016.

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The Great Acceleration is the latest in a series of human-driven planetary changes that constitute what a rising chorus of scientists, social scientists, and humanists have labeled the Anthropocene - a new Age of Humans. [...] But what the Anthropocene label masks, and what the litany of graphs documenting the Great Acceleration hide, is a history of racial oppression and violence, along with wealth inequality, that has built and sustained engines of economic growth and consumption over the last four centuries. [...] The plantation, Sidney Mintz long ago observed, was a “synthesis of field and factory,” an agro-industrial system of enterprise [...]. Plantation legacies, along with accompanying strategies of survival and resistance, dwell in the racialized geographies of the United States’ and Brazil’s prison systems. They surface in the inequitable toxic burdens experienced by impoverished communities of color in places like Cancer Alley, an industrial corridor of petrochemical plants running along the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where cotton was once king. And they appear in patterns of foreign direct investment and debt servitude that structure many land deals in the Caribbean, Brazil, and sub-Saharan Africa [...]. [C]limatologists and global change scientists from the University of London, propose instead 1610 as a date for the golden spike of the Anthropocene. The date marked a detectable global dip in carbon dioxide concentrations, precipitated, they argue, by the death of nearly 50 million indigenous human inhabitants [...]. The degradation of soils in the tobacco and cotton-growing regions in the American South, or in the sugarcane growing fields of many Caribbean islands, for example, was a consequence of an economic and social system that inflicted violence upon the land and the people enslaved to work it. Such violent histories are not so readily evident in genealogies that date the Anthropocene’s emergence to the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago, the onset of Europe’s industrial revolution circa 1800, or the Trinity nuclear test of 1945. Sugarcane plantations were already prevalent throughout the Mediterranean basin during the late middle ages. But it was during the early modern era, and specifically in the Caribbean, where the intersection of emerging proto-capitalist economic models based on migratory forced labor (first indentured servitude, and later slavery), intensive land usage, globalized commerce, and colonial regimes sustained on the basis of relentless racialized violence, gave rise to the transformative models of plantations that reshaped the lives and livelihoods of human and non-human beings on a planetary scale. [...] We might, following the lead of science studies scholar Donna Haraway and anthropologist Anna Tsing, more aptly designate this era the Plantationocene. [...] It is also an invitation to see, in the words of geographer Laura Pulido, “the Anthropocene as a racial process,” one that has and will continue to produce “racially uneven vulnerability and death." [...] And how have such material transformations sustained global flows of knowledge and capital that continue to reproduce the plantation in enduring ways?

Text by: Sophie Sapp Moore, Monique Allewaert, Pablo F. Gomez, and Gregg Mitman. "Plantation Legacies." Edge Effects. 22 January 2019. Updated 15 May 2021. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

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Geologists and other scientists will fight over [the definition of the beginning start-date of the Anthropocene] in scientific language, seeking traces of carbon dioxide that index the worst offenses of European empire which rent and violated the flesh, bodies, and governance structures of Indigenous and other sovereign peoples in the name of gold, lumber, trade, land, and power. [...] The stories we tell about the origins of the Anthropocene implicate how we understand the relations we have with our surrounds. In other words, the naming of the Anthropocene epoch and its start date have implications not just for how we understand the world, but this understanding will have material consequences, consequences that affect body and land.

Text by: Heather Davis and Zoe Todd. On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene. ACME An International Journal for Critical Geographies. December 2017. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

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From Aime and Suzanne Cesaire, C. L. R. James, Claudia Jones, Eduoard Glissant, through Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, and so many others, critical anticolonial and race theory has been written from the specific histories that marked the Black Atlantic. [...] Glissant also reminds us, secondly, of how cunning the absorptive powers of [...] liberal capitalism are - how quickly specific relations are remade as relations-erasing universal abstractions. [...] This absorptive, relations-erasing universalism is especially apparent in some contemporary discourses of […] liberalism and climate collapse - what some call the Anthropocene - especially those that anchor the crisis in a general Human calamity which, as Sylvia Wynter has noted, is merely the name of an overdetermined and specific [White] European man. […] [T]he condition of creating this new common European world was the destruction of a multitude of existing black and brown worlds. The tsunami of colonialism was not seen as affecting humanity, but [...] these specific people. They were specific - what happened to them may have been necessary, regrettable, intentional, accidental - but it is always them. It is only when these ancestral histories became present for some, for those who had long benefitted from the dispossession [...], that suddenly the problem is all of us, as human catastrophe.

Text by: Elizabeth Povinelli. “The Ancestral Present of Oceanic Illusions: Connected and Differentiated in Late Toxic Liberalism.” e-flux Journal Issue #112. October 2020.

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The narrative arc [of White "liberal humanism"] [...] is often told as a kind of European coming-of-age story. […] The Anthropocene discourse follows the same coming-of-age [...] script, searching for a material origin story that would explain the newly identified trajectory of the Anthropos […]. Sylvia Wynter, W.E.B. DuBois, and Achille Mbembe all showed how that genealogy of [White subjecthood] was [...] articulated through sixteenth- through nineteenth-century [historiographies and discourses] in the context of colonialism, [...] as well as forming the material praxis of their rearrangement (through mining, ecological rearrangements and extractions, and forms of geologic displacements such as plantations, dams, fertilizers, crops, and introduction of “alien” animals). […] As Wynter (2000) commented, “The degradation of concrete humans, that was/is the price of empire, of the kind of [Eurocentric epistemology] that underlies it” (154).

Text by: Kathryn Yusoff. “The Inhumanities.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Volume 11, Issue 3. November 2020.

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As Yarimar Bonilla suggests in regard to post-Irma-and-Maria Puerto Rico, “vulnerability is not simply a product of natural conditions; it is a political state and a colonial condition.” Many in the Caribbean therefore speak about the coloniality of disaster, and the unnaturalness of these “natural” disasters [...]. Others describe this temporality by shifting [...] toward an idea of the Plantationocene [...]. As Moore and her colleagues write, “Plantation worlds, both past and present, offer a powerful reminder that environmental problems cannot be decoupled from histories of colonialism, capitalism, and racism that have made some human beings more vulnerable [...].” [W]e see that contemporary uneven socioecologies associated with the rise of the industrial world ["the Anthropocene"] are based [...] also on the racialized denial and foreshortening of life for the sacrificial majority of black, brown, and Indigenous people and their relegation to the “sacrifice zones” of extractive industry. [...] [A]ny appropriate response to the contemporary climate emergency must first appreciate its foundations in the past history of the violent, coercive, transatlantic system of plantation slavery; in the present global uneven development, antiblackness, and border regimes that shape human vulnerability [...] that continues to influence who has access to resources, safety, and preferable ecologies [...] and who will be relegated to the “plantation archipelagoes” (as Sylvia Wynter called them) [...].

Text by: Mimi Sheller. “Thinking Beyond Coloniality: Toward Radical Caribbean Futures.” Small Axe (2021), 25 (2 (65)), pages 169-170. Published 1 July 2021. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

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Indigenous genocide and removal from land and enslavement are prerequisites for power becoming operationalized in premodernity [...]; it was/is a means to operationalize extraction (therefore race should be considered as foundational rather than as periphery to the production of those structures and of global space). [...] Wynter suggests that we […] consider 1452 as the beginning of the New World, as African slaves are put to work on the first plantations on the Portuguese island of Madeira, initiating the “sugar-slave��� complex - a massive replantation of ecologies and forced relocation of people […]. Wynter argues that the invention of the figure of Man in 1492 as the Portuguese [and Spanish] travel to the Americas instigates at the same time “a refiguring of humanness” in the idea of race. [...] The natal moment of the 1800 Industrial Revolution, […] [apparently] locates Anthropocene origination in […] the "new" metabolisms of technology and matter enabled by the combination of fossil fuels, new engines, and the world as market. […] The racialization of epistemologies of life and nonlife is important to note here […]. While [this industrialization in the nineteenth century] […] undoubtedly transformed the atmosphere with […] coal, the creation of another kind of weather had already established its salient forms in the mine and on the plantation. Paying attention to the prehistory of capital and its bodily labor, both within coal cultures and on plantations that literally put “sugar in the bowl” (as Nina Simone sings) […]. The new modes of material accumulation and production in the Industrial Revolution are relational to and dependent on their preproductive forms in slavery […]. In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners for their lost "property"] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain and its colonial enterprises and empire. [...] A significant proportion of funds were invested in the railway system connecting London and Birmingham (home of cotton production and […] manufacturing for plantations), Cambridge and Oxford, and Wales and the Midlands (for coal). Insurance companies flourished [...]. The slave-sugar-coal nexus both substantially enriched Britain and made it possible for it to transition into a colonial industrialized power […]. The slave trade […] fashioned the economic conditions (and institutions, such as the insurance and finance industries) for industrialization.

Text by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

[copper-16]

Scary

Several things go amiss during an El Clásico, but it is nothing that cannot be fixed with a little love and bravery.

(a/n: This might be a stretch to the imagination, but let’s just pretend that all the RM/Barcelona games are played at bigger stadiums in this universe. Also Marta Cardona still plays at RM in this as well, because I said so <3)

Ingrid and Mapi had made a small list of rules regarding their daughter when she was born. Some of them included things like: 

4. She would not attend any games at stadiums bigger than Johan Cryuff until she was three years old. 

7. She would never go to a Spain camp or a Spanish national team game unless situations change drastically. 

12. She would take turns being their mascot, unless it was a big event for one of their teammates, and they wanted Elena as their mascot. 

All of them had been good additions to the list, and they had stuck to their guns on it. They were made for her safety, to make sure that she wasn’t overwhelmed or overstimulated as a young child, or put in situations that could negatively affect her as such a young child. They did not regret their choices, but it did lend itself to an interesting situation just a few weeks after Elena’s third birthday. 

Ever since she had been born, all of the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid games had been played at large arenas, beyond the capacity that they wanted Elena to experience at such a young age. And just as they said, the toddler had never been to a Spain national team camp or game. She readily came to the Norwegian camps and games, but Mapi strictly forbade her from coming to Spains. 

When the Spanish defender had made the decision to go back to the Spanish national team, it wasn’t something she had taken lightly. But Pina and Patri wished to go back, and the brunette both wanted to protect her friends, and play for her country again. 

But hell would freeze over before she let her baby anywhere near that environment, near the coaches and structures that had played a hand in so much abuse, both physically and mentally. 

It was better for Elena this way, and Mapi preferred it that way. But it also meant that several of the Real Madrid girls who Mapi wasn’t necessarily as close with, had never met Elena. 

So when El Clásico is scheduled for early January at Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium, the mothers realize that it will be their first time getting to bring Elena to such an event. She had just turned three a few weeks ago, and they figured it was as good of a time as any to introduce her to the environment of a larger game, still safe with the two of them. 

And as it turned out, Mapi was the one who got Elena as her mascot that day. Which meant that early in January, the center back stood in the starting eleven lineup with her daughter on her hip, bouncing her lightly as they waited to walk out onto the pitch. 

Elena was slightly overstimulated, the roar of the crowd outside of the tunnel and the sheer size of the place around her slightly overwhelming for the young girl, so she was happy to cling to her mother’s side. She looked around at everything for a while, before settling on waving back at her Mama, who was standing in line behind her, holding the hand of another little boy. 

Mapi waved forward at Misa Rodríguez and Marta Cardona, who were both pointing at Elena with excitement. The Barcelona defender smiled, rubbing her daughter’s back up and down softly as she nodded - confirming that the two players would get to meet the little girl today. 

But it’s an exchange Elena misses entirely, only focusing fully back on her Mami when the players begin to walk out to the stadium properly. 

It’s an early evening game, the sun just beginning to set as Mapi tickles Elena’s stomach as they walk out, pointing at all the fans and explaining everything to her daughter. The little girl tucks herself into the smaller defenders side, happily pressed up against Mapi as she takes everything in, curious if not a little anxious. 

It’s the biggest environment she’s ever been in, but Mapi finds that their daughter settles quite quickly, waving at all the people as they stand in a line. 

“Hola!” Elena calls out happily, and the brunette smiles as many of the fans wave back, well aware of who was in the defender's arms. 

“I love you mi sol,” Mapi murmurs, pressing a kiss to her daughter's temple before she passes the little one to Irene, who would not be playing in the match, but rather resting. Ingrid comes over to kiss Elena’s forehead once before she runs toward the backline, leaving Mapi to jog after her, still looking at their daughter. 

“Adios Mami, good luck!” Elena called out as Irene carted her away, remaining happily placed in the older defender's arms for the remainder of the game. 

The game doesn’t end up being too hard of a match for Barcelona, with a scoreline of 5-0 in their favor. Ingrid had even scored one of their goals, a header off of a corner set piece they had played. 

When the final whistle blew, Irene released Elena and watched carefully as she ran straight to Ingrid, who was closer to the little girl than her wife. The Norwegian turned easily, opening her arms as she crouched down, scooping the toddler up into her arms and pressing kisses all over her head. 

“You won!” Elena cheered as she giggled, and Ingrid nodded, sweaty and tired but excited nonetheless. It had been a good match, and the crowd was rowdy and roaring around them, clearly equally as elated with the win. 

“We did!” Ingrid responded happily as she bounced her daughter on her hip, clapping her hands together as best as she could as she held her daughter, looking around at her teammates with a big smile on her face. 

The Norwegian headed toward the bench, intent on getting some water, when she was intercepted by one of the staff members. 

“They need you for media,” she explained with a grimace, her voice urgent, and the dark haired woman nodded her head in understanding as she looked quickly toward her wife. The Spaniard was standing off toward their bench, talking to some teammates. 

“Of course, let me just do a hand off real quick,” Ingrid explained, rushing over to place Elena down a few paces from where Mapi’s back was turned to them, as she hears her name being called more urgently. “You go over to Mami, okay Elena?” Ingrid explained as she brushed the little girl's sandy blonde curls back, and she received a small nod in response from her daughter. 

“María!” Ingrid called out as she turned around, running over to where they needed her for media. But just as she called out and turned away, Mapi started walking forward, away from her daughter as she was called to meet with one of the staff members. Ingrid’s call for her wife is lost in the crowd, and suddenly Elena is left standing on the sidelines of the pitch, with neither of her parents really in sight. 

The little girl looks around, hoping that someone in her Mami and Mama’s team will notice her standing all alone, but everyone is distracted. And the loud, rambunctious crowd that she didn’t mind so much when her Mami was by her side, suddenly seemed much scarier than it had a minute ago to the toddler. 

Elena doesn’t know this stadium like she does Johan Cryuff, but there are similarities. She turns around, eyeing the tunnel that she finds similar to the one in Johan, and she makes a run for it, weaving through legs in her quest to get to somewhere a little more quiet and contained. 

Once she gets there, she realizes that she’s maybe made a bit of a mistake. Because suddenly nothing really looks familiar, and the young girl struggles with what to do. At Johan, you turned right to get to the Barcelona changing room, so that’s exactly what she does. 

The little girl is near close to tears, and desperately hoping that she’ll stumble across the locker room, or one of the Barcelona players that she knows. She’s simply kept walking, going down hallway after hallway, trying to find something or someone familiar. By the time she decides that she should turn back around, she’s so lost she doesn’t know how to get back out to the field, and there are tears beginning to brim in her eyes. 

Elena comes to a halt in one of the intersections of a hallway as she realizes that she just wants her Mami and Mama, and she doesn’t know what to do. She isn’t the type to wander off, and she’s never been lost like this before. Armed with exactly no experience or skills in coping with such overwhelming feelings, the little girl can do nothing but burst into tears, which stream down her cheeks at a rapid pace as she stands there helplessly. 

Misa had been pacing up and down an abandoned hallway in Lluís Companys, staving off tears of her own, her face red as tears brimmed in her eyes. She was frustrated with her performance, with her team's performance, and she needed a second to calm herself down before talking to her teammates or the press, she had decided. 

What she didn’t expect, however, was to hear someone else burst into tears, in what sounded like the hallway down from her. Misa pauses, confused by how high pitched and small the noise sounded. It didn’t sound like one of her teammates, and when she rounds the corner, she is entirely unprepared for what she finds. 

There is a toddler, a little girl standing alone in the completely empty hallway, her shoulders heaving with the force of her cries, her hands covering her face. She has a little Barcelona kit top on, with the number 23 on it but the last name León across it. The Madridista immediately knows who it is, but what she doesn’t quite understand is why Mapi León and Ingrid Engen’s daughter is sitting in the middle of a hallway on the away side of the stadium. 

“Niña? Elena?” Misa calls out softly, walking toward the little girl, who looks up at her when she hears her name called. 

Elena looks up, finding a woman she doesn’t know walking toward her, and the first emotion that pours through her is fear. The woman is tall, like Mama, but her face is flushed and she’s wearing an alarmingly bright red jersey and shorts that the young girl doesn’t recognize. Her hands are large, considering that they are encased in goalkeeper gloves, but Elena doesn’t quite realize they are just gloves in her stressed state. 

All she registers is that there is a large, unknown woman walking toward her with big, scary hands, and if she was panicked before, it was nothing compared to now. She lets out a fearful squeak as she cowers from Misa, taking several unsteady steps back. 

“Hey, it’s okay, I am not going to hurt you niña,” Misa promises, even though she herself is cringing at her words. She’s never felt more like a child predator than in this moment, despite her intentions being more than pure. The goalkeeper had been excited to meet Elena, even more so after the loss, honestly. All of the girls often spoke about how much they adored the little girl, how smiley and kind she was. Misa felt like she could use just a little bit of that energy after the frustrating loss. 

And here the smiley little girl was, trying to get away from Misa because she was scared of her. It cracked the Spaniard’s heart right in half, and if she wasn’t upset before, she most definitely was now. 

Elena looked behind herself, finally and thankfully spotting a familiar face that had just turned toward the hallway toward the two of them. The Spaniard and Norwegian’s daughter ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, beelining for the Barcelona player who had just turned the corner with Marta and Olga next to her. 

Salma had just been coming back to talk to Misa with Marta when all the sudden she felt something slam into her legs, nearly sending her toppling over. 

“What the hell—o Elena!” Salma quickly corrected, trying to take in the scene in front of her with complete confusion. The little girl was cowering behind Salma’s legs, holding onto the forward for dear life, practically shaking. Salma instinctively placed her hand over the little girl’s hair, smoothing her curls as she looked up to see Misa walking slowly toward them. 

“Elena? What’s going on?” Salma asked helplessly, lost on what to do as she looked between the three Real Madrid players for some semblance of guidance. 

Elena had always loved Salma, from when she was a baby. The forward never knew what to do with the little girl, especially when she was younger. She had no experience with children, and she found herself often stunted and awkward in her interactions with Mapi and Ingrid’s daughter, but Elena’s love for her transcended any superfluous worries or awkwardness Salma expressed. 

“Scary,” Elena whispered as she pointed toward Misa timidly, her grip on Salma tightening as she tucked her head behind the young Barcelona player's legs. Salma looked up with a heartbroken expression, watching as Misa bit her lip to keep from crying, keeping her distance. 

The goalkeeper knew that some people thought she was scary. She got it, she really did. She had an RBF that could probably win an award, and a very intense personality. But it was one thing for a conscious adult to call her scary, and another for a little girl who she had been so excited to meet to call her that. The goalkeeper's heart sank at the realization that this was how Elena was always going to remember her, as the scary woman who tried to kidnap her when she was three years old. 

Salma looked between Olga and Marta, silently begging for help. She still had no clue what to do, and appeared to be rather paralyzed by indecision. 

It’s Olga who crouches down so that she’s level with the little girl, her voice soft and kind. 

“Are you lost niña?” The defender asked gently, and Elena poked her head out from its spot against Salma’s calf, nodding slightly. Her lower lip wobbled heavily, but she wasn’t actively crying, so they all took it as a win. 

Elena regarded Olga kindly, if not a bit shyly. The two women with Salma were wearing white, nowhere near the angry red that the other, larger woman was, and the little girl didn’t find them nearly as frightening, all things considered. 

“Come on, why don’t we take you back to your Mamis,” Olga decided, holding her hand out for the young girl. Elena took it carefully, but not before reaching for Salma’s hand, making sure that the forward was still holding onto her. 

Salma sent the little girl what she hoped was an encouraging smile as they began to walk out toward the pitch. The Barcelona forward wound them down the confusing hallways, with Olga holding Elena’s other hand while Marta carefully wrapped her arm around the goalkeeper. Misa was fighting to keep it together as they all ventured back out to the stadium pitch together. 

After a few minutes of walking, Elena let out a small whine, looking up at Salma with big, wet eyes. 

“Carry?” She asked, letting go of Olga’s hand in favor of staring up at the tall forward hopefully, tugging lightly on her kit top. Salma looked around at the other girls, terrified and scared of disappointing the little girl. They all looked back at her expectantly in that moment, and she was struck with the fact that she was the one with the most experience with Elena, of the group. It both calms her and terrifies her at the same time, somehow. 

“Uh…sure!” She laughed nervously, reaching down to pick Elena up, gripping her under her arms. The forward was used to dealing with the toddler when she was planted firmly on the ground, and she hadn’t carried the sandy blonde girl since she was a baby. She had been so scared to drop the baby that she had shook anxiously the whole time, until Mapi took pity on her and took her daughter back. 

But she tries to remember how Mapi and Ingrid do it, settling Elena on her hip as she clings to the little girl for dear life. She would never forgive herself if she dropped her, and she knew she would never hear the end of it from the rest of the team if she did. They were all highly protective of her, a fact that they all prided themselves on. 

As the five of them walked out toward the pitch, they had no idea the chaos that was awaiting them out on the field. 

—

After her interview had ended, Ingrid had walked back over to her wife with a pep in her step, still overjoyed at the win and the goal she had scored. 

Mapi wasn’t hard to find, standing with the assistant coach, discussing a few tactics from the game after he had called her over to talk about some of their defensive lapses. Their daughter was nowhere in sight, so the Norwegian assumed that Mapi had passed her off to one of their teammates, but when she looked around, she couldn’t see Elena anywhere. 

“Who did you give Elena to?” Ingrid asked, a crease appeared in her forehead as her eyebrows furrowed together. Mapi looked back at her with equal confusion, shaking her head. 

“You have Elena, not me. She went to you after the game,” the Spaniard insists, now beginning to grow confused. Ingrid’s eyebrows flew into her hairline at that statement, shaking her head. 

“I gave her to you ten minutes ago, I sent her your way and called out to you,” Ingrid explains, and Mapi pales at the realization that she had never received her daughter. 

“I did not hear you, and she never came over to me!” Mapi cried, looking around wildly for her daughter. When she cannot see her anywhere on the pitch, her worry only balloons. “Oh my god, she is lost. She is not here!” The brunette cried out, panic washing over her in waves as she realized what this meant. 

The ironic thing was that generally, Ingrid was the anxious one between them. She was the one who worried for Elena, the one who baby proofed the house and took first aid classes and sat in the back of the car with her when she was the baby. 

But Ingrid was also exceptional in a crisis, and this was no different. 

Mapi, however? Not so good in a crisis, at least a non-football related crisis, that was. 

“Oh my god, Ingrid, she could be anywhere!” Mapi pitched as she clawed at her chest, her throat tightening with anxiety as she whipped her head around, looking for any sign of the little girl. 

“Do not panic Mapi, she has to be here somewhere. Come on, let’s go find her,” Ingrid insisted, forcing herself to remain calm as she pulled her panicking wife with her as she began to inform people, everyone scrambling to begin looking for the young girl. 

They alerted security, sent people all over the stadium to look for her as the Norwegian drug her wife back toward the Barcelona bench. 

“This was the last place I left her, so we should stay here. She’s around here somewhere, we just have to find her!” Ingrid insisted as she turned to Irene, who had come over as she got wind of the situation. Hot on the tails of the older defender is the Barcelona captain, looking close to tears herself. 

“Is Elena really lost? Where could she have gone? We must find her!” Alexia cried, baby hairs escaping her ponytail as she looked around, clearly frazzled and stressed at the news of the curly haired little girl being lost. 

“Yes she is gone–” Ingrid began, only to be cut off before she could even really start her sentence. 

“Well we must search for her then!” Alexia interrupted, looking around wildly, her own panic growing. 

“Alexia, this is not even your child! If anyone should be allowed to panic, it should be us!” Mapi interjected, her stress seeping into her tone as she gestured wildly with her hands. Alexia let out a huff of disapproval at that, clearly in disagreement. 

“She is my goddaughter, I love her too!” Alexia insisted, the two squabbling uselessly as Ingrid watched on with an unimpressed expression. 

“If I were not more aware I would assume that these two were the mothers, and not me,” Ingrid mumbled under her breath to Irene, who couldn’t resist letting out a small peal of laughter that she quickly masked as a cough when Mapi and Alexia looked toward her pointedly. 

“Who knew that all it took to reduce La Reina and the fearless Mapi León into a puddle of stress was losing a toddler one singular time,” Irene joked back, where she was promptly met with more unimpressed looks from her teammates, and a chuckle from Ingrid. 

But even the Norwegian, who was generally cool in a crisis, was beginning to grow worried as time stretched on. Her eyebrows remained furrowed together, her foot beginning to tap nervously as she looked around, letting out a nervous sigh. 

“She’s going to be fine, Ingrid. She’s just wandered off somewhere, kids do it sometimes. We lost Mateo in the store once, and found him in the freezer aisle cuddling with some old lady's little dog,” Irene soothed, and Ingrid sent her a grateful smile, even if she didn’t look convinced. She knew the stories, she knew it was normal, but it didn’t make it any easier when it was her own child. 

She just wanted Elena back in her arms, proof that she was safe and sound, and to not let her daughter out of her sight until she was twenty seven years old. 

“How about we go check the locker room again?” Irene suggests, and the dark haired woman jumps at the opportunity to do something, nodding insistently. 

“That’s a good idea,” Ingrid confirmed, and she was just about to head back with her fellow defender when she heard it. 

“Mami! Mama!” Elena called out from her spot in Salma’s arms, and both Ingrid and Mapi were booking it toward their daughter as soon as they heard it. The forward was entirely unprepared for both the Spaniard and Norwegian to plow into her, raining kisses down onto her head as they plucked her from Salma’s arms. Mapi hugged Elena tightly to her, as Ingrid pressed into her space, both of them crowding their daughter with an abundance of love and relief, the panic washing off of them at the sight of their precious little girl back safely in their arms. 

The forward flipped her braids over her shoulder in relief at the hand off, nearly stumbling over when Ingrid stepped away from her wife and daughter, pulling her younger teammate into a tight hug as Mapi cradled Elena to her chest. 

“Thank you so much Salma,” Ingrid murmured in the space above the forward’s shoulders, and despite accepting the hug, the younger woman shook her head. 

“It was Misa who found her,” Salma promised, and the dark haired woman wasted no time in moving toward the Real Madrid player, stepping into her space and immediately hugging the goalkeeper, regardless of the fact that they hardly knew one another. Elena looked up from her spot against Mapi to see her Mama moving toward the scary woman, and she let out a whimper as she turned, burrowing her face into Mapi’s sternum with fear. 

As the panic subsides from her chest slowly, Mapi takes stock of the whole situation. Elena seemed scared of the Real Madrid players, cowering into her arms as Ingrid hugged Misa tightly. Everyone else seemed focused on Misa, with Salma, Olga, and Marta watching her wife and the Real Madrid goalkeeper. The goalkeeper seemed on the brink of tears, something that the center back assumed was because of the game. 

She was informed otherwise when Marta approached her carefully, her voice soft as came close to the Barcelona defender. 

“Misa found her in the hallway, but I think she caught the little one in a bad spot, and now I think she’s a little scared of her,” Marta explained, looking toward the Spanish goalkeeper with worry before looking back at the Barcelona center back. Misa was getting a pep talk from both Ingrid and Irene, to what appeared to be little avail, if the tears in her eyes were any indication. 

Mapi nods slowly, rubbing her hand soothingly over Elena’s back, up and down softly. Her daughter is already a hundred times calmer, having regulated herself well in her Mami’s arms. That being said, Mapi knew they needed a few moments to regather themselves before they reintroduced her to Misa, if they could. 

“Okay, thank you for letting me know. Give us a few minutes?” Mapi asked gently, and Marta nodded before leaving, heading back to her teammate's side. 

It was just a few moments later that Ingrid appeared at her wife’s side, the Spaniard wordlessly passing her daughter to the Norwegian, who held her close and rained kisses down on her. 

“It’s okay, we’re right here Elena,” Ingrid promised, her own worry and stress evaporating at the content little sigh their daughter let out as she was held tightly to the Norwegians side. It was after a few minutes of holding her that Elena leaned back, looking calmer, if not a little more worried. 

“‘M sorry, got lost,” Elena explained gently, her lower lip wobbling as tears brimmed in her eyes again. Ingrid shook her head slightly, her words soft and soothing. 

“You do not have to be sorry, Elena. Just try to stay close to me or Mami next time, or someone you know, si? We do not want you to get lost where we cannot find you, because that would make us very scared, okay?” Ingrid explained carefully, and when she finished Elena nodded, a small smile finally appearing on her face as she settled in her mothers arms, back to the happy little girl she normally was. That was something wonderful Ingrid and Mapi both loved about their daughter being so small, how resilient she always was in situations like this. 

Mapi looked back over toward Misa, her heart breaking when she saw that the tears had broken through finally, her head buried in her hands. 

Elena looked from her mother to the Real Madrid goalkeeper, her little eyebrows worried together at the sight. 

“Mami, is she okay?” The sandy blonde girl asked as she looked toward Misa, recognizing the signs of someone crying. Mapi looked toward her wife for a moment, and after receiving a nod of approval from the Norwegian, the Spaniard took her daughter into her arms from her fellow center back. 

“That is my friend Misa,” Mapi explained to her daughter, her words slow and gentle. She stays where she is, but tries to convey her warmth to the woman regardless. “She has had a bad day, and I think she is just expressing that by crying, like you do sometimes too when you are upset,” Mapi continued, watching as her daughter stared at the goalkeeper with concern painted in her small face. 

“Friend? Tía?” Elena asked curiously, clearly trying to work everything out as Mapi nodded. 

“Yes Tía Misa, she is one of my very good friends. She is very kind and funny, just like you!” The Spaniard tried, and Elena looked over at her skeptically, but she chose to believe her Mami. 

“Maybe we cheer up?” The little girl asked, and Mapi raised her hand to run it over Elena’s cheek gently, in a soothing manner. 

“Are you sure, El? You do not have to, I know you thought she was scary earlier. I promise she is not though, she is one of Mami’s friends,” Mapi promised, not wanting to pressure her daughter to do anything she didn’t want to. 

“Cheer her up,” Elena decided, wriggling her body slightly to signal her mother to move. She stiffened suddenly as she looked from Misa to Mapi, with some fear clearly still present in her tone. “You come too,” she checked quickly, relaxing back into the Spaniard when Mapi nodded her agreement to the statement. 

Salma, Olga, and Marta had led Misa over to the Real Madrid bench, which was where Mapi brought Elena over to. The goalkeeper was sitting on the bench, her head in her hands as silent sobs wracked her shoulders. 

Marta looked over at Mapi with a hopeful expression as the Spaniard placed her daughter on the ground, taking Elena’s hand as she led her over to Misa. 

The young girl held her mothers hand carefully as she made her way up to the woman who had been wearing the angry red jersey. She was now wearing a white jacket over her kit top, and something about seeing her when Elena was in a calm state, and the lack of such an aggressive kit top helped to soothe the little girl’s initial concerns. 

“Hola,” Elena said softly, her voice small but fierce in its kindness as she stopped a few steps from the goalkeeper. Misa paused, looking up carefully, unable to keep the surprise off her expression when she realized who was in front of her, looking at her carefully. 

The goalkeeper looks up at Mapi in shock before she is wiping the tears from her eyes, offering a watery smile to the toddler. 

“Hola,” she responded, unsure of what else to say. Elena took another step toward her, offering a small smile. 

“My name is Elena,” she expressed quietly, watching as Misa rubbed the tears from her eyes. 

“Hi Elena, I’m Misa,” the goalkeeper repeated, trying not to burst into more tears. There was no fear in the little girl's eyes, only curiosity and kindness. Misa feels hope flying into her chest at the little girl's face, at the thought that maybe this whole situation was salvageable. Elena looks at the spot next to Misa, her eyebrows furrowing together in curiosity. 

“What are those?” Elena asked gently, pointing to the abandoned goalkeeper gloves that were sitting next to the Madridista. The Spaniard reached for them, holding them out to the little girl softly. 

“These are my goalkeeper gloves. Would you like to see them?” Misa asked gently, her voice hopeful. The little girl looked back at her mother for a second before releasing Mapi’s hand, nodding as she walked over to Misa, right up to where she was sitting, placing her hand on the goalkeeper's knee. 

“Here, you can put them on,” Misa said softly, everyone watching with relief as the goalkeeper slid her giant gloves onto Elena’s little hands, holding them on to help to keep them from falling off. 

The Real Madrid player was absolutely positive that Elena healed something within her when she giggled, leaning into Misa as she moved her hands with the gloves still over them, laughing happily at the sight. It was the goalkeeper's first real smile of the day, and her heart leapt into her throat when Elena climbed into her lap, beginning to talk her toddler nonsense to Misa, who held onto every single word she said. 

The Madridista carefully held Elena to her, making sure she was secure with no chance of falling. She looked up when the toddler gasped, seeing Pina and Jana still out on the field, passing the ball listlessly back and forth as they spoke about something. 

Elena turned back to Misa with excitement, the goalkeeper gloves falling off her hands in excitement. 

“Come play Tía Misa?” The toddler asked hopefully, her eyes big and filled with joy at the prospect of getting to play with all of her friends. Misa looked toward Mapi, who nodded her head in agreement before she smiled brightly, agreeing with Elena. 

“Come on!” Elena cheered as she took Misa’s hand after being set on the ground by the goalkeeper, and dragging the taller woman toward the younger girls. 

Ingrid had come over to join Mapi, Salma, and Marta, as the right winger shook her head in disbelief. Misa was sitting criss-cross applesauce on the ground, rolling the ball toward Elena, cheering when the toddler tried to kick it. 

When Elena finally managed to hit the ball back with some semblance of accuracy, Jana and Pina immediately cheered loudly. Elena giggled at both of them, smiling before she ran over to Misa, collapsing into a hug as she wrapped her arms around the goalkeeper, who hugged her back just as fiercely, a huge smile pulling at both of her cheeks. 

“What is it about children that just…heals any wrongdoing?” Marta asked wistfully, and Ingrid chuckled as Mapi shook her head. 

“You can’t not love them,” she acquiesced, letting out a final sigh of relief as they all moved to join the girls in playing with the toddler, who happily giggled away at all the attention raining down on her. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jason Wilson at The Guardian:

In a December 2023 speech, JD Vance defended a notorious white nationalist convicted over 2016 election disinformation, canvassed the possibility of breaking up tech companies, attacked diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and talked about a social media “censorship regime” that “came from the deep state on some level”.

The senator’s speech was given at the launch of a “counterrevolutionary” book – praised by the now Republican vice-presidential candidate as “great” – which was edited and mostly written by employees of the far-right Claremont Institute. In the book, Up from Conservatism, the authors advocate for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act, for politicians to conduct “deep investigations into what the gay lifestyle actually does to people”, that college and childcare be defunded and that rightwing governments “promote male-dominated industries” in order to discourage female participation in the workplace. Vance’s endorsement of the book may raise further questions about his extremism, and that of his networks. The Guardian emailed Vance’s Senate staff and the Trump and Vance campaign with detailed questions about his appearance at the launch, but received no response.

‘Congratulations on such a great book’

Vance’s speech was given in the Capitol visitor center in Washington DC last 11 December, according to a version of C-Span’s subsequent broadcast of the event that is preserved at the Internet Archive. The occasion was the launch of Up from Conservatism, an essay collection edited by Arthur Milikh, the executive director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. In his introductory remarks on the day, Milikh said the book “maps out the right’s errors over the last generation … on immigration, on universities, on the administrative state”.

The book, however, appears more directed towards supplanting an old right – seen as too accommodating – with a “new right” focused on destroying its perceived enemies on the left.

In the book’s introduction, Milikh writes: “The New Right recognizes the Left as an enemy, not merely an opposing movement, because the Left today promotes a tyrannical conception of justice that is irreconcilable with the American idea of justice … the New Right is a counterrevolutionary and restorative force.” Also in that piece, Milikh offers a vision of the new right’s triumph, which has an authoritarian ring: “We like to say that one must learn to govern, but a truer expression is that one must learn to rule.” In his speech, Vance first offered “congratulations on such a great book, and thanks for getting such a good crew together”, and then warmed to themes similar to Milikh’s. “Republicans, conservatives, we’re still terrified of wielding power, of actually doing the job that the people sent us here to do,” Vance said, later adding: “Isn’t it just common sense that when we’re given power, we should actually do something with it?”

Brad Onishi, author of Preparing for War, a critical account of Christian nationalism and the host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, said: “Vance, many Claremont people, including some folks in this volume, and especially the ‘post-liberal’ conservative Catholics that he hangs out with, have advocated for a form of big government that will wield its power in order to set the country right.” He added: “And you may think, well, OK, that doesn’t sound so bad. But here the common good is rooting out queer people, making sure non-Christians don’t immigrate to the country and outlawing things like pornography that are currently a matter of personal choice. “You end up with this conservatism that promotes an invasive government conservatism rather than a small government.”

[...]

‘Free our minds … from the fear of being called racists’

In the book, commended by Vance, a series of authors take reactionary – or “counterrevolutionary” – positions on a number of social and economic issues. In one chapter, John Fonte writes of disrupting narratives of civil rights progress: “The great meaning of America, we are told, comes from liberating so-called oppressed groups and taming the power of privileged groups. Thus, our history is one of liberation: first of Blacks, then of women, then of gays, and now of the transgendered.” Fonte retorts: “Not only is this narrative false; it will take us further down the path of national self-destruction … On the questions of slavery, American Indians, and racial discrimination, the progressive narrative is not a historically accurate project designed to address past wrongs, but a weaponized movement to deconstruct and replace American civilization.”

Like other authors in the collection, Fonte offers policy recommendations. He proposes heavy-handed federal intervention into education: “[T]he US Congress should prohibit any federal funds in education to support projects … that promote DEI (“diversity, equity and inclusion”) and divisive concepts such as the idea that America is ‘systemically racist.’” In his chapter, David Azerrad tells readers: “We need to free our minds once and for all from the fear of being called racists.” The assistant professor and research fellow at rightwing Hillsdale College, and former Heritage Foundation director and Claremont Institute fellow, also claims that conservatives have been too conciliatory on race: “For too many conservatives, the goal is to outdo progressives in displays of compassion for blacks … yet blacks continue to vote monolithically for the Democratic Party and progressives have only ramped up their hysterical accusations of racism.”

Azerrad continues with white nationalist talking points on race, crime and IQ, writing: “It is not racist to notice that blacks commit the majority of violent crimes in America, no more than it is to incarcerate convicted black criminals … There is no reason to expect equal outcomes between the races … In some elite and highly technical sectors in which there are almost no qualified blacks, color-blindness will mean no blacks.” Elsewhere, Azerrad writes: “[C]onservatives will need to root out from their souls the pathological pity for blacks, masquerading as compassion, that is the norm in contemporary America … This is most obvious in the widespread embrace of affirmative action (the lowering of standards to advance blacks) and the general reluctance to speak certain blunt but necessary truths about the pathologies plaguing black America – in particular, violent crime, fatherlessness, low academic achievement, nihilistic alienation, and the cult of victimhood.”

[...]

‘Do not subsidize childcare’

Helen Andrews, meanwhile, offers “three things we could do right now that would put a big dent in the multiplying lies that have come from feminists for the last forty years about women and careers”. Her first proposal is to “stop subsidizing college so much”, since, according to Andrews, in the 22-29 age group, “there are four women with college degrees … for every three men. That is going to lead to a lot of women with college degrees who do not end up getting married.” “Second,” Andrews continues, “the Right can do more to promote male-dominated industries. Reviving American manufacturing and cracking down on China’s unfair trade practices isn’t just an economic and national security issue; it’s a gender issue.” Her third proposal is “do not subsidize childcare” – since the fact that “many working moms are struggling” with childcare costs “might actually be good information the economy is trying to tell you”. Andrews is the print editor of the paleoconservative magazine the American Conservative and has previously written sympathetically about white supremacist minority regimes in Rhodesia – renamed Zimbabwe after white rule ended – and South Africa.

Scott Yenor claims in his chapter that before the 1960s, America lived under a “Straight Constitution, which honored enduring, monogamous, man-woman, and hence procreative marriage. It also stigmatized alternatives”. Yenor is a political science professor at Boise State University and a fellow at the Claremont Institute. He then claims: “We currently live under the Queer Constitution”, which “honors all manner of sex”, and under which “laws restricting contraception, sodomy, and fornication are, by its lights, unconstitutional”. Yenor claims: “These changes in law are but the first part of an effort to normalize and then celebrate premarital sex, recreational sex, men who have sex with men, childhood immodesty, masturbation, lesbianism, and all conceptions of transgenderism.”

Yenor says the state should intervene in citizens’ sex lives: “In the states, new obscenity laws for a more obscene world should be adopted. Pornography companies and websites should be investigated for their myriad public ills like sex trafficking, addictions, and ruined lives. The justice of anti-discrimination must be revisited.” In a separate essay co-written with Milikh, the editor, Yenor advocates in effect destroying the current education system and starting again. The essay includes a recommendation for school curriculums: “Students could start building obstacle courses at an early age, learning how to construct a wall and how to adapt the wall for climbing … Students could learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals.”

The Guardian reports that Trump VP pick and Ohio Senator JD Vance promoted far-right extremist views from Arthur Milkh’s Up From Conservatism essay book.

[vintagerpg]

After New Beginnings, the DLS-series swerves into a three-part series of adventure modules centered on three of Dragonlance’s races of elves. Not on Taladas, even — back on good old Ansalon. Are they connected, a three-part epic? Nope. Just three elf adventures that vaguely tie in to some Dragonlance novels about the histories of the elven nations. When I say that folks had no idea what to do with Dragonlance after the original DL-series wrapped up, this is the kind of stuff I am thinking about.

This is DSL2: Tree Lords (1991). That is a mighty fine cover by Brom and I think primarily because of that cover, the vibe does not feel particularly Dragonlance-ish. This module takes a look at the Silvanesti, whose forest kingdom was corrupted by the dreams of King Lorac and the green dragon Cyan Bloodbane, as nicely presented back in Dragons of Dreams. The first half of the module is actually a sourcebook detailing the Silvanesti Scout kit for the Warrior class; they’re the ones tasked with reclaiming the corrupted wilderness. And they get some cool equipment to help them do it, including greenmasks, which don’t make them look like elvish Green Goblins in the least, no sir.

The second half of the module puts our new scouts to the test in a series of five brief, interconnected scenarios. They’re fine! Pretty standard fare for the early ’90s, with players crawling from event to event rather than through dungeon corridors, for the most part. I generally like the construction here, the idea of a series of elf-centric adventures with one primary goal. You could easily spin a campaign out of this and, even though I reflexively dislike elves, these elves seem more interesting than most. Perhaps because of their dream-corrupted landscape, they feel more akin to Celtic faerie traditions than most fantasy elves (Terry Dykstra’s illustrations may have something to do with this). I had this module back in the day and liked it then. I still do. Even with the elves!

[thechanelmuse]

Juneteenth is a Black American holiday. 

We call Juneteenth many things: Black Independence Day, Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day. We celebrate and honor our ancestors. 

December 31 is recognized as Watch Night or Freedom’s Eve in Black American churches because it marks the day our enslaved ancestors were awaiting news of their freedom going into 1863. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But all of the ancestors wouldn’t be freed until June 19, 1865 for those in Galveston, Texas and even January 23, 1866 for those in New Jersey (the last slave state). (It’s also worth noting that our people under the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations wouldn’t be freed until April 28, 1866 and June 14, 1866 for those under the Cherokee Nation by way of the Treaties.)

Since 1866, Black Americans in Texas have been commemorating the emancipation of our people by way of reading the Emancipation Proclamation and coming together to have parades, free festivities, and later on pageants. Thereafter, it spread to select states as an annual day of commemoration of our people in our homeland. 

Here’s a short silent video filmed during the 1925 Juneteenth celebration in Beaumont, Texas:

(It’s also worth noting that the Mascogos tribe in Coahuila, Mexico celebrate Juneteenth over there as well. Quick history lesson: A total of 305,326 Africans were shipped to the US to be enslaved alongside of American Indians who were already or would become enslaved as prisoners of war, as well as those who stayed behind refusing to leave and walk the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. In the United States, you were either enslaved under the English territories, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, or under the Nations of what would called the Five “Civilized” Native American Tribes: Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminoles. Mascogos descend from the Seminoles who escaped slavery during the Seminole Wars, or the Gullah Wars that lasted for more than 100 years if you will, and then settled at El Nacimiento in 1852.)

We largely wave our red, white and blue flags on Juneteenth. These are the only colors that represent Juneteenth. But sometimes you may see others wave our Black American Heritage flag (red, black, and gold).

Juneteenth is a day of respect. It has nothing to do with Africa, diversity, inclusion, immigration, your Pan-African flag, your cashapps, nor your commerce businesses. It is not a day of “what about” isms. It is not a day to tap into your inner colonizer and attempt to wipe out our existence. That is ethnocide and anti-Black American. If you can’t attend a Black American (centered) event that’s filled with education on the day, our music, our food and other centered activities because it’s not centered around yours…that is a you problem. Respect our day for what and whom it stands for in our homeland. 

Juneteenth flag creator: “Boston Ben” Haith 

It was created in 1997. The red, white and blue colors represent the American flag. The five-point star represents the Lone State (Texas). The white burst around the star represents a nova, the beginning of a new star. The new beginning for Black Americans. 

Black American Heritage Flag creators: Melvin Charles & Gleason T. Jackson

It was created in 1967, our Civil Rights era. The color black represents the ethnic pride for who we are. Red represents the blood shed for freedom, equality, justice and human dignity. Gold fig wreath represents intellect, prosperity, and peace. The sword represents the strength and authority exhibited by a Black culture that made many contributions to the world in mathematics, art, medicine, and physical science, heralding the contributions that Black Americans would make in these and other fields. 

SN: While we’re talking about flags, I should note that Grace Wisher, a 13-year-old free Black girl from Baltimore helped stitched the Star Spangled flag, which would inspire the national anthem during her six years of service to Mary Pickersgill. I ain’t even gon hold you. I never looked too far into it, but she prob sewed that whole American flag her damn self. They love lying about history here until you start unearthing them old documents. 

In conclusion, Juneteenth is a Black American holiday. Respect us and our ancestors.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 10, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 11, 2024

Former president Trump has always approached debates as professional wrestling events in which the key is not to explain policies or answer questions, but rather to demonstrate dominance over your opponent. In 2016 the Democratic nominee, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, had a hard time countering this strategy effectively because of the many expectations of what was appropriate behavior for a female presidential candidate. In 2020 and then again in the June 2024 “debate,” Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s stutter made it difficult to counter Trump’s scattershot attacks.

The question for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in tonight’s presidential debate was not how to answer policy questions, but how to counter Trump’s dominance displays while also appealing to the American people.  

She and her team figured it out, and today they played the former president brilliantly. He took the bait, and tonight he self-destructed. In a live debate, on national television. 

The Harris campaign began the day trolling Trump with a new campaign ad featuring the pieces of former president Barack Obama’s speech at the August Democratic National Convention that concerned Trump. “Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire”—the ad cuts to a photo of Trump in a golf cart—“who has not stopped whining about his problems.” Then a clip of Trump shows him complaining about Harris’s crowds, before Obama notes Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes,” complete with Obama’s hand motion suggesting Trump’s sizes were small. “It just goes on, and on, and on,” Obama says, before the ad shows empty seats and people yawning at Trump’s rallies.

“America’s ready for a new chapter,” Obama says to the overflow crowd cheering at Chicago’s United Center during the Democratic National Convention. “We are ready for a President Kamala Harris!” At the end, even Harris’s standard statement, “I’m Kamala Harris and I approved this message,” sounds like a challenge.

This morning, the Harris campaign began running the ad on the Fox News Channel. 

At the same time, they began running Philadelphia-themed ads across the city on billboards, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and on food trucks and taxi cabs, sidewalk art, and digital projections making fun of Trump’s fascination with crowd sizes. They showed, for example, a full-sized Philadelphia pretzel labeled “Harris” alongside a piece of one that looked like an upside down U labeled “Trump.”

The taunting might have been behind Trump’s demand for loyalty from Republican lawmakers this afternoon, telling them to shut down the government if he doesn’t get his way on the inclusion of a voter suppression measure in the bill to fund the government. The right has often relied on threats of government shutdowns to try to get their way, but such shutdowns are never popular, and even moderate Republicans are leery of launching one just before an election.

Nonetheless, Trump tried to lock them into such a shutdown, reiterating in a post this afternoon the lie that undocumented immigrants are voting in presidential elections. “If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO ‘STUFF’ VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN—CLOSE IT DOWN.” 

Throughout the day, the Harris campaign placed posts on social media showing Harris looking crisp and presidential and Trump looking old and unkempt. And then, for ten minutes in the hour before the debate, the Harris campaign held a drone show over the Philadelphia Museum of Art showing campaign slogans and then turning the words “MADAM VICE PRESIDENT” into “MADAM PRESIDENT.” 

Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported today that Trump’s advisors were concerned ahead of the debate about whether they would get “happy Trump” or “angry Trump,” worrying that a frustrated Trump would engage in the vicious personal attacks that turn voters off. They expressed relief that having the microphones muted when it was not a candidate’s turn to speak would prevent Harris from irritating him with fact checks and snark of her own. Conservative lawyer George Conway noted that it was “[i]nteresting how one campaign is extremely concerned about the emotional stability of its candidate, and how the other is not.”

Harris’s attacks on Trump, including her campaign’s subtle digs at his masculinity, appeared to have accomplished what they set out to. When the two came out on stage, he went straight to his podium, while she strode across the stage, moved into his space, held out her hand, introduced herself and wished him well: “Kamala Harris. Have a good debate.” He muttered in response, “Nice to see you.” Then she took her own spot at the podium. When the debate opened, it was clear that Harris was the dominant figure and that her opponent was “angry Trump.” He would not look at her during the debate.

In her first answer, Harris tried to set out both her own story as a child of the middle class and how she intended to build an opportunity economy for others, lowering food and housing costs and opening the way for more small businesses. It was a lot, quickly, and she looked a little nervous.

Then Trump spoke and it was clear he was going off the rails. His first comment was to suggest Harris was lying, and then to insist that his proposed tariffs will solve everything, although he has the way tariffs work entirely backward: they are paid by the consumer, not by foreign countries. As he followed with a long list of his rally lies, Harris started to smile.  

From then on, he continued to produce rally stories full of wild exaggerations and attack Harris with lies in what CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale called “a staggeringly dishonest debate performance from former president Trump.” "No major presidential candidate before Donald Trump has ever lied with this kind of frequency,” Dale said. “A remarkably large chunk of what he said tonight was just not true. This wasn't little exaggerations, political spin. A lot of his false claims were untethered to reality." As Harris spoke directly to the American people, growing stronger and stronger, Trump got wilder and angrier and told more and more crazy stories. 

And then, about ten minutes into the debate, Harris baited him. She invited the American people to go to one of his rallies, where “he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter, he will talk about ‘windmills cause cancer.’ And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.” 

Trump lost it. He defended his rallies, said Harris couldn’t get anyone to attend hers and has to bus in attendees (in reality, her rallies are packed and he is the one who reportedly hires attendees), and then, in his fury, repeated the lie about immigrants eating pets. When a moderator fact-checked that story, he fought back, saying he heard it on television.

And from then on, Harris kept baiting him while explaining her own policies directly to the camera, and he took the bait every single time. He ran down every rabbit hole and appeared unable to finish a thought. Notably, he refused to say he would not sign a national abortion ban and admitted that after nine years of promising one, he had no health care plan (he has, he said, “concepts of a plan,” and if they pan out, he’ll let us know in the “not too distant future”). 

He threatened World War III and repeated that the U.S. is “a failing nation.” He told a long story about threatening “Abdul,” the leader of the Taliban; in fact, the leader of the Taliban since 2016 is Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada. In response to Harris’s statement that foreign leaders thought he was a disgrace, Trump answered that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who destroyed his country’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship, says he’s a good leader. New York Times columnist David French wrote: “It's like she's debating MAGA Twitter come to life.”

The debate moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis of ABC, asked solid questions and corrected the most egregious of Trump’s lies. But as he continued to interrupt and yell at Harris, they increasingly gave him leeway to do so. This meant he spoke more often and for more time than Harris; MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle reported that he spoke 39 times for a total of 41.9 minutes, to her 23 times for a total of 37.1 minutes. But the extra time did him no favors.

By the end of the evening, Harris had delivered a clear message about her hopes to move the country forward beyond years of using race to divide people who have far more in common than they have differences. She promised to develop an economy that will build small businesses and support a growing middle class, while protecting rights, including the right to make reproductive decisions without the intrusion of the state. And she showed the nation that Trump can be baited, that he lies freely and incoherently, and—perhaps crucially—that he is no longer the dominant politician in America.  

Immediately after the debate, the Harris campaign continued their demonstration of dominance. Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a statement recapping Harris’s strength and Trump’s angry incoherence. She concluded: “Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?”

Then things got even worse for Trump. 

Music phenomenon Taylor Swift endorsed Harris, telling her 283 million Instagram followers that she felt she had to because of Trump’s earlier reposting of an AI image of her seeming to endorse him. That, she said, “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

After explaining why she was supporting Harris and Walz and urging her fans to do their own research, Swift signed off: “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[respectthepetty]

petty i have a question regarding the four-pointed star cutout shirt tm

i thought joong said he was straight several years ago—but. but. i was wondering if you knew whether or not he said it in turkish? iirc he was telling his friends in turkey that he was a bl actor (2moons2 era) but reassuring them he was still a man which is also a way of saying you’re straight but also more specifically just not a bottom if that makes sense? god this is a rambling mess sorry

As a JoongDunk fan (first, and a human second), I remember this controversy in 2019 very well during 2 Moons 2. I remember him saying, in Turkish, that he was a "real man" and people understood it as him not being gay, then other people claiming he was simply saying he wasn't a bottom, but I don't speak Turkish and . . .

I really don't care what he actually said.

On a personal note, I claimed for YEARS that I was straight. I helped found the LGBTQ Resource Center when I was an undergrad on my college campus. I was part of the Queer Straight Alliance in high school, college, and the faculty advisor for my current college's affinity group. I was planning National Coming Out Day events, managing drag shows, protesting against prop 8 and for marriage equality, and helping with the state's queer film festival. Also, I was sleeping with EVERYONE! Yet I was sternly claiming allyship.

Because even smart bitches do dumb shit we all have our own journeys.

But also, Joong is an actor, and with every fiber in my being, I hope all these BL boys and GL girls lie like Robert Pattinson on a random weekday in April. Just lying for no good ass reason. Lying simply because they can. Lying because they want to. Lying because it's the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. Lie like that dumb trad wife slogan — Lie. Laugh. Love. or whatever they say. Be like Nike — Just Do It! Or be like Kay Jewelers since 'Every Kiss Begins with a Lie" or something like that. Lie because we don't deserve to know one damn thing about their personal lives.

The point is I don't care what Joong said when he was 18-years old and thrust into the spotlight by a company who was trying to turn a profit (because ALL companies are trying to turn a profit), and I really don't care what he says now that he is a branded pair under the largest company to gain profits off its branded pairs.

But do not mistake this for defending Joong.

I'm defending the right for us to evolve in the way we personally understand ourselves and for the gays to lie whenever the hell they want.

It's about to be 2025.

LIE!

Because if someone wants to know if we are queer, let them piece that shit together on their own like a jigsaw puzzle and they are a kindergartner developing fine motor skills.

Lie. Laugh. Love (whoever the fuck you want)!

[alternate-triforce]

I promised you all a map, so here is a map of Castle Town (for now)

Some descriptions of areas and an overview under the cut.

CASTLE TOWN

The largest city in all of Hyrule, and the only one not significantly damaged by the Mage War. It is separated into five color-coded "corners," each with their own function. Hyrule Castle is, of course, at the center. It has a rivalry with the second-largest city, Loomington, located in southwestern Hyrule.

Adventurer's Emporium: A one-stop shop for potions, shields, weapons, and anything one might need on a long trek through the Hyrulean wilds. Though most of its goods are of fine quality, they tend to be on the expensive side…maybe try one of those other stores first.

Mystic Violet Market: More of an event than an actual place of interest, but by most tourists it’s treated like one anyway. Merchants from all over Hyrule come here to buy and sell exotic wares, from enchanted stones to strange meats to rushroom oil and anything in between. Entertainers will squeeze in between stalls looking for a generous person to give them some rupees for their time. There are even some special games to play, like bombchu bowling and digging for treasure. After you get past all that glamour, wagons of fresh food from local farms, prepared food and snacks from bakeries and candy shops all across town are usually towards the back. Make sure to watch your purse, though: pickpockets love to sneak into crowds here.

Rogue Soldier Plaque: A large, decorated plaque commemorating the capture of Castle Town's first enemy after Rebirth, a renegade soldier that sacked buildings and burned them with his group of vagabonds.

Flowering Square: Some like to call this the prettiest part of Castle Town. Several years ago a well-respected member of town made it her mission to beautify the Red Corner with flowers cultivated from the nearby mountains, and this is the result of her efforts.

National Library: A large, ornate building with most of the records and knowledge to be had before Rebirth. It has large swaths of resources concerning magic, history, biology, architecture, engineering, and everything in between. Some of the greatest minds in Hyrule linger for long hours here studying, as well as printers transcribing some of the more popular tomes to be printed and sold. The library doesn't allow books to be taken out of its walls, and damaging or destroying an original copy is considered a great crime.

Old Prison: A dingy-looking collection of cells and a connected guardhouse with a small armory, one floor above-ground and the other below. Despite its humble appearance it's contained some of Hyrule's most dangerous criminals. Contrary to the name, this is actually a jail: ALT!Hyrule does not have prisons or a proper prison system.

Old Barracks: If soldiers from the nearby training camp don't have a place to stay, they can cheaply reside here, if they choose. After Rebirth, this was the place where the last remaining soldiers from the Mage War were found.

Magic College: A place of great learning for those interested in becoming mages! Students from all across Hyrule come here to study both magic and how to use it responsibly. The professors here are on the cutting edge of magic, always developing novel ways to apply it to everyday life.

Hyrule Castle: The epicenter of Castle Town, this mysterious building was attacked by Ganon twelve years ago, and it's where he was sealed away yet again by Zelda and the True Mages (or so they say.) Some of its many towers and nooks still remain hidden from the public eye.

Reformatory: To keep people off the streets and give them work to do, the True Mages have developed a system of rounding up the poor and sending them here until they have another place to stay. Despite the apparent good intentions of the project, it's rumored that the Reformatory doesn't treat its residents well.

[dailyanarchistposts]

In mid-August, a three year-old lawsuit charging that environmentalist groups were religious extremists comparable to some of the more violent, intolerant, ultra-orthodox Islamic sects collapsed when the attorney failed to meet a re-filing deadline with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The suit had been brought against the Forest Guardians, the Superior Wilderness Action Network, and the U.S. Forest Service by the 125 companies that make up the Associated Contract Loggers (A.C.L.) of northern Minnesota. The loggers were asking for $600,000 in damages and permission to plunder timber from the Superior National Forest.

Lawyers for the A.C.L. argued that deep ecology was actually a religion, and so by extension, environmental groups that espoused its philosophies were cults, and by outlawing timber cutting on so-called “federal land,” the Forest Service was favoring a particular set of religious doctrines and was therefore violating the guarantee of neutrality in matters of religion purportedly vouchsafed in the U.S. Constitution.

According to theological scholars at the logging company syndicate like former executive director, Larry Jones, Deep Ecology is an “earth-centered religion,” a “belief system” that holds that “trees and Man [sic] are equal.” Anti-logging activists who extol the virtues of forested spaces over industry profit and environmental degradation are spiritual zealots, and the government functionaries who are swayed by their proselytizing may turn out to be fanatical closet druids themselves.

Stephen Young, the A.C.L. lawyer and a former Republican Party senatorial candidate, explained his legal action on such esteemed venues as Rush Limbaugh’s radio show by saying that clear-cutting in national forests had been restricted by the Forest Service for no reason other than reverebce for some fringe New Age religion.

A U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota dismissed the case as “frivolous” in February 2000, but the A.C.L. petitioned the Supreme Court last year after reports that Wahabi Islamic extremists were responsible for the blitzkrieg attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“The doctrine of Deep Ecology is the very worldview that gave rise to eco-terrorism. We feel that after the events of September 11, it’s an obligation of the Supreme Court to keep religious fanaticism in check,” Young said. “Just as devout faith in the literal words of various Hadith of Mohammad gave the Taliban license to impose through state power harsh conditions on the women of Afghanistan, so Deep Ecology gives license to its adherents to take extreme actions against those who would live by different beliefs.”

Perhaps the less said about this sleazy episode the better, which is just as well, since it is so hard to get a firm analytic grasp on it because it is sad and sick on so many different levels. For instance, likening the plight of women in Afghanistan to that of lumber barons in northern Minnesota is staggering in its shamelessness, as it has been my experience that women living near industrial logging camps are subjected to at least the same sort of abuse, derision, and masculinist domination as women who had been living in Taliban-controlled Kandahar.

And we all know that if the U.S. government was serious about keeping homicidal religious terrorism in check, then John Ashcroft and the Army of God anti-abortionists would be in the Guantanamo Bay gulag. It was all obviously just a miserable attempt to slander and jam up anti-logging activists with legal action, and it failed.

But I can’t help thinking about the broader philosophical implications of who supported it. I have no idea as to whether or not there are Deep Ecologists involved in Forest Guardians or the Superior Wilderness Action Network (and I suspect that none are to be found among the Forest Service feds), but in demonizing Deep Ecology as an alien fanatical religious practice in this lawsuit, we can see once again how tighly Christianity is bound to capitalist exploitation and ecological destruction.

Deep ecology is not a single doctrine, but rather an ethical sensibility informed by a variety of perspectives on the relationship of hummankind to the whole of nature’s systems. We can oversimplifydeep ecology by saying that its fundamentals include a belief in the intrinsic value of all forms of life as well as the holistic diversity of those life forms. The economic, technological, and ideological beliefs that prop up Western civilization antagonistically threaten the existence and diversity of natural life systems.

Individuals who adhere to the ideas of Deep Ecology are obligated to work towards radically changing those deadly attitudes and social structures. Deep ecology challenges the long-held anthropocentrist notion which entitles humans to take advantage of and destroy wilderness at will and for private profit, a view obviously held sacred by the A.C.L. timber industrialists.

Anthropocentrism derives from core Judeo-Christian values that have been part of the settler-capitalist catechism on this continent since the early seventeenth-century. Consider, for example, the preaching of Puritan minister, John Cotton. In his popular pamphlet of the 1630’s, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” Cotton claimed that God desired colonists to “take possesion” of land in New England, saying that whosoever “bestoweth culture and husbandry upon it” has an inviolable divine right to it.

The Native Americans, dying in large numbers from exposure to European diseases was proff that God wanted to wipe the slate clean for the Puritans and thereby better facilitate His decree in the Book of Genesis that humans aggresively “subdue” the earth. Christians were the center of the universe, exclusively licensed by Almighty God to dominate the land, eradicate wild nature, and replace it with the purity of civilization. “All the world out of the Church is as wilderness, or at best, a wild field where all manner of unclean and wild beasts live and feed,” Cotton proclaimed in 1642.

There were many others during the period who were at least as enthusiastic about Christ, colonization, and commercial cultivation as Cotton was, and these ideas, linked to distinctly Judeo-Christian models of linear (rather than seasonally cyclical) time, became ingrained in the settler psyche, especially during the era of westward expansion some two centuries later. Justified by the Calvinist capitalism of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations — complete with its fallacious notions about the ennobling “civilizing” powers of wealth, marlets, and economic growth — the implications of Puritan repugnance for the wilderness and wildness on the North American continent becomes depressingly clear.

As inheritors of Puritan fanaticism that have erected the violent, intolerant faith of capitalism, it is individuals and organizations like the A.C.L. who hold a worldview that advances a five hundred year-old campaign of terrorism against entire bioregions and “empowers its adherents to take extreme action against those who would live by different beliefs.”

[girlactionfigure]

🧵 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐦.

Thread: Before we dive in, let’s address a critical issue: There are some people around the world who perceive Jerusalem as an Arab area, including the ICJ, with some even advocating for it to be handed over to the Palestinians as the capital of their prospective terror state. This view overlooks the profound and unbroken Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Let’s review how Jerusalem is intrinsically Jewish and how its history has been hijacked and rewritten.

1/ 🌟 Jerusalem: The Eternal Capital of the Jewish People 🌟

Jerusalem has been the heart and soul of the Jewish people for over 3,500 years. Despite countless challenges and adversities, the Jewish presence in Jerusalem has remained unbroken, underscoring a deep-rooted and unwavering connection to this sacred city. From the days of Joshua and King David to the modern era, Jerusalem has been a constant in Jewish life, culture, and religion, symbolizing the enduring spirit and resilience of the Jewish people.

2/ 🕰️ Ancient Beginnings 🕰️

The history of Jews in Jerusalem dates back to ancient times, even before King David. Joshua, the biblical leader who succeeded Moses, conquered the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, around the 13th century BCE. This marked the beginning of a significant Jewish presence in the city. Later, King David established Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish nation around 1000 BCE. This monumental decision solidified Jerusalem’s status as not just a political center but also a spiritual and cultural heart for Jews. His son, King Solomon, built the First Temple, making Jerusalem the focal point of Jewish worship and pilgrimage. The Temple served as the epicenter of Jewish religious life, drawing Jews from all corners of the land to partake in rituals and festivals, thus embedding Jerusalem deeply in Jewish identity.

3/ 📜 Exile and Return 📜

Even after the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jewish connection to Jerusalem did not wane. Jews returned to rebuild and renew their bond with the city, demonstrating their resilience and unyielding faith. The completion of the Second Temple in 516 BCE was a significant event, symbolizing a new era of Jewish religious and communal life. Despite subsequent invasions and occupations, the Jewish people continuously sought to restore and maintain their presence in Jerusalem, highlighting their enduring attachment to the city.

4/ 🏛️ Roman Destruction and Diaspora 🏛️

The Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE marked a profound moment of loss for the Jewish people, yet their connection to Jerusalem endured. Even as Jews were scattered across the globe in the ensuing diaspora, Jerusalem remained at the core of Jewish religious life and longing. Daily prayers, rituals, and cultural practices consistently oriented towards Jerusalem, preserving its significance in Jewish consciousness. Throughout centuries of dispersion, Jews always yearned for their return to Jerusalem, keeping the city’s memory alive in their hearts and minds.

5/ 🌍 Medieval and Ottoman Eras🌍

Throughout the Middle Ages and the Ottoman rule, Jewish communities in Jerusalem faced periods of hardship and revival. Despite various conquerors and shifting political landscapes, Jews never abandoned their spiritual and historical ties to the city. During the Ottoman era, from 1517 to 1917, Jewish life in Jerusalem experienced significant changes. The Ottomans, recognizing the historical Jewish connection to the land, allowed Jewish refugees from Spain and other regions to settle in the city. This period saw a revival of Jewish communal life, with the establishment of new synagogues, schools, and community institutions, further cementing the continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem.

6/ ✡️ The Jewish Quarter ✡️

The Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem has been a vibrant center of Jewish life for centuries, a microcosm of the broader Jewish experience in the city. Its synagogues, schools, and homes are living monuments to the continuous Jewish presence and the community’s resilience in the face of adversity. Over the centuries, despite periods of destruction and renewal, the Jewish Quarter has remained a focal point of Jewish cultural and religious life, embodying the steadfast connection of Jews to their ancient capital.

7/ 🚫 Temple Mount Restrictions 🚫

Today, Jews face restrictions on visiting the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Control by Muslim authorities has prevented Jews from freely accessing the area, highlighting ongoing tensions and challenges. The Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples once stood, remains a profoundly significant site for Jews. However, the complex political and religious dynamics have resulted in limitations on Jewish worship and presence, reflecting broader issues of religious freedom and historical rights.

8/ 🕌 Historical Hijacking 🕌

The Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples once stood, has been at the center of a significant historical hijacking. Today, many around the world view it primarily as a Muslim site, overshadowing its profound Jewish significance. Despite its deep roots in Jewish history, the site has been rebranded, with many now referring to it exclusively by its Islamic name, Al-Haram Al-Sharif. The reality is that Jerusalem holds a marginal place in Islamic tradition compared to its central role in Judaism. The Quran does not mention Jerusalem, and its association with Islam primarily stems from later historical developments. This rebranding diminishes the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, a place where Jews have prayed and yearned for thousands of years. The ongoing restrictions on Jewish access and worship at this sacred site underscore the broader struggle for recognition of Jerusalem’s true historical and religious narrative.

9/ 📜 Jewish Presence Through the Ages 📜

Over the last 1,800 years, Jews have consistently lived in Jerusalem and throughout Israel, even under various foreign rulers. For example, in the 9th century, Jewish scholar Saadia Gaon wrote extensively about Jewish life in Jerusalem. In the 11th century, Spanish-Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela documented thriving Jewish communities in the city. By the 16th century, under Ottoman rule, Jerusalem saw a revival of Jewish life with the arrival of Jewish refugees from Spain. The 19th century witnessed the establishment of new Jewish neighborhoods outside the Old City walls, symbolizing the growth and resilience of the Jewish population. These examples illustrate that, despite hardships and displacements, Jews have maintained a continuous presence in Jerusalem, contributing to its cultural and religious landscape.

10/ 🕊️ Jerusalem Today 🕊️

Today, Jerusalem stands as a thriving city, embodying the spirit and resilience of the Jewish people. Despite ongoing challenges and political complexities, the eternal bond between Jews and Jerusalem remains unbreakable, reflecting millennia of history, faith, and determination. Jerusalem continues to be a center of Jewish religious, cultural, and political life, symbolizing the unyielding connection of the Jewish people to their ancient capital. The city’s vibrant life and continuous development are testaments to the enduring spirit of the Jewish community and their unwavering commitment to Jerusalem.

📖 Conclusion 📖

Jerusalem is not just a city; it is the heart of Jewish identity and heritage. For 3,500 years, Jews have lived, prayed, and thrived in Jerusalem. Despite numerous challenges and adversities, their connection remains steadfast, a testament to the enduring spirit of the Jewish people. The history of Jerusalem is a story of resilience, faith, and an unbreakable bond that has withstood the test of time. Today, as we honor this profound connection, we also look towards a future where Jerusalem continues to be a symbol of hope, unity, and peace for all who hold it dear.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐦.

[dcdreamblog]

Didn't The Ray has a sidekick for a while in the fifties? Spitfire or something like that? Whatever happened to him?

Yes that's a rather tragic tale that one and a story that highlights the dangers that come with superhuman abilities no matter who your parents are.

(A photograph from the Philadelphia Inquirer showing Spitfire's temporary rampage through the city.) Joshua Terrill was born to the first Ray, Langford "Happy" Terrill and his first wife Rachael in the late 1940s with genetic abilities inherited from his father. The ability to direct, absorb and control photons of visible light. His abilities were even stronger than his father's, able to take on a fully intangible form. He was unveiled to the world as the Ray's sidekick Spitfire for a few months around the passing of the Keane Act. The Keane Act making their actions rife with hostile encounters with police and the public revealed Joshua's burgeoning mental instability, a violent instinct in the boy that was only more damaging because of the destructive potential of his abilities. During an argument with his mother, the young Joshua lost control, turning his abilities on her to fatal results. Naturally horrified by his son's actions, the elder Ray restrained his son and placed him in cryogenic status until a time where the interaction between his mental illness and his powers could be better treated, especially with government hostility against publically active superhumans being at an all time high. This personal tragedy is what lead the Ray to abandon our reality and join the expedition of the Freedom Fighters that set off to liberate the Nazi dominated Earth-X. It wasn't until the second and current Ray uncovered the still slumbering Joshua that much of this information came to light, as the awakened Spitfire went on a nearly fatal rampage across Philadelphia. Eventually both Rays were able to bring the young man under control (leading to a rather heartbreaking scene of young Joshua breaking down sobbing and begging his father for help while wrapped around his ankles. It really is watching a snarling supervillain turn into a scared 10 year old in the blink of an eye) The boy has, very rightly, been kept away from the public eye since then under the care of the Ray and his second wife Nadine. He is enrolled in STAR Labs' superhuman psychology unit through their Philadelphia branch where one can assume he is undergoing intensive therapy not only for his native mental disquiet but also the trauma of the events he has been through. He has been at the center of the so called "Killer Kids" 'movement' when a national forum of 'concerned' parents and other authorities figures attacked programs like STAR Labs for offering these kinds of rehabilitation programs to "metahuman delinquents" rather than placing them in a juvenile detention facility or, as many in the movement prefer, stating that the possession of metahuman abilities automatically should force one to be tried as an adult. My thoughts on such a "movement" are simplistic and can usually be communicated in a series of very impolite four letter words at very high volume. Especially when the apex of this movement's popularity escalated to protests and threats being made toward or around the Terrills' Philadelphia home. Which I'm sure only further exacerbated Joshua's mental distress. The movement has died down into the realm of vague conspiracy theories (though the movement endorsed Lex Luthor for president *cough cough*) and as far as is publically known Joshua continues his recovery in private, surrounded by trusted professionals and family. I will reiterate my personal and professional stance that the Terrills are owed their privacy and that any public speculation of Joshua's current condition is just that, speculation and I condemn any attempt to invade or interrupt the boy's life for our public knowledge, curiosity or "judgement"