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citrina-posts · 4 years ago

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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

#this deleted idk why #so here is me reposting it #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #cultural appropriation #meta #atla meta #racism

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kuramirocket · 3 years ago

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MEXICALI, Mexico — Lucía Laguna carries her fate tattooed on her face — from the corner of her mouth to her chin, black lines surf across her coppery skin — the tribal art honoring her people will also serve an important function later on.

“After my death, it will be guide me to my ancestors. With the tattoo, they will recognize me and can take me where they are," she said, as she talks on the banks of the Colorado River.

But under the merciless sun, Laguna, 51, worries about the fate of the river and its impact on the Cucapá, her Indigenous people. A searing drought is exacerbating the deadly heat in a region that long ago saw its river flow diminished, after almost a century of U.S. engineering projects.

"Cucapá means people from the river, that's why we are fighting for it," she said, pointing to a decrease in the river's flow she is seeing every year. “We cling to the river and fight because it gives us water so that the fish can arrive and we can earn our livelihood. But it is a fight that seems that we will never win," she said, disheartened.

Mexico is experiencing the worst drought in three decades. NASA images from the recently released Landsat 8 satellite showed the extremely low levels of the Villa Victoria dam, one of the capital's main water reservoirs.

According to meteorologists, three quarters of the country suffers from drought; in 16 of the 32 states, it affects their entire territory. Thus, 60 large reservoirs, especially in the north and the center, are below 25 percent of capacity.

"Over the past 70 years, the temperature in Mexico has a clear and conclusive increasing trend. In the last decade, it increased very rapidly and that rise is even higher than the average for the planet," Jorge Zavala Hidalgo, general coordinator of the National Meteorological Service, said.

Rainfall has always fluctuated, he explained, but now the rain is concentrated in fewer days. "And that is bad because we all want it to rain — but nobody wants it to flood, especially the farmers, because that destroys the crops. That is why we are studying everything that is happening."

The increase in temperature especially affects the forests, which go from being a paradise of greenery to time bombs for fire risks. As of May 5, 562 forest fires had been registered, 27 percent more than in 2020. And the burned area grew 69 percent, reaching almost 900,000 acres.

"There is more drought and therefore the vegetation is waiting for someone to arrive, light a leaf and from there, the fire begins," said César Robles, deputy manager of the Fire Management Center of Mexico's National Forestry Commission. "The area affected by fires is directly correlated with the increase in temperature and the decrease in rainfall."

An area resident, Imelda Guerra Hurtado, 43, pointed to the barren lands of El Zanjón, an arid, semi-desert enclave that reaches the banks of the Colorado River delta.

She remembers her grandparents taking her fishing — and points to areas that used to have water.

"Sometimes we feel that we are dying of thirst. Although many deny it, the climate has changed," she said. "We have always lived off the fish in the river, since I can remember. Now we can only fish once a year and it is our main livelihood."

U.S. engineering and their consequences

The Cucapá are one of the five native tribes of Baja California, and they descend from the Yuman people. According to official data, there are now only between 350 and 400 members of the Cucapá people but, in the 19th century, Western colonizers documented between 5,000 and 6,000 nomads who organized into clans.

"You have to understand that these Indigenous people see the entire region, both the part of Mexico and the United States, as their territory. In their traditions, it is remembered that they received a lot of water and, little by little, they were running out of that flow," said Osvel Hinojosa-Huerta, director of the Coastal Solutions Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The history of the Colorado River, and the problems it suffers today, is an ode to progress and engineering that tried to tame nature. It is the most important water system in northwestern Mexico. It is essential for farming in a semi-desert region.

In the 19th century, the river reached Mexico with a wild power of about 42,000 cubic feet per second. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, the United States began struggling to convert the arid regions of the Southwest to arable land, thus undertaking engineering works to divert water to the Imperial Valley of California.

"From 1922, everything started badly," Hinojosa-Huerta said. The United States did a study to divide the water from the Colorado River and, coincidentally, it was the 10 wettest years in the basin." Thus, a distribution was made on paper that included more water (16 percent) than there actually is. And then the reservoirs began to be built.

Treaties, dams — and then climate change

In 1936, the Hoover Dam was inaugurated, between Nevada and Arizona, which lowered the flow to 164 cubic meters per second for Mexico. In 1944, a bilateral treaty was signed that guaranteed Mexico about 1.8 million cubic meters of water per year, but most of it goes to agriculture.

The agreement did not consider the rights of the Cucapá people and their ancestral relationship with the river. But it affected their traditional ceremonies, causing a shortage of fruits and grains, and the trees and shrubs used to make houses, boats and clothing. "Nobody asked us anything," Guerra said.

In 1966, the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona was erected, and the river's flow decreased to 8 cubic meters per second. But what no one seemed to count on, between treaties and dams, was climate change.

"In Mexicali, it has never rained," Hinojosa-Huerta said, "the flow that reaches the region and that supports agriculture comes from snowfall 2,600 kilometers [1,600 miles] in the Rockies."

It all depends on precipitation in Wyoming and Colorado, but since 2002 snowfall has been below average, depleting the river and resulting in a "desolating panorama," he said.

Years of warmer temperatures, a failed rainy season last summer and low snow cover have combined to cause Mexico's Baja California rivers to decline.

Hell on Earth

But heat also kills. In 2019 there were at least eight deaths in Mexicali associated with high temperatures; in 2020, they were 83.

"People cannot live with those temperatures, that is, people die", Zavala said, "although they are used to the heat, even small increases break the threshold for the human body to survive."

On Aug. 14, 2020, Mexicali registered 122 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the record of 121 that dated from August 1981.

Froilán Meza Rivera, a veteran journalist and writer from northern Mexico, consulted the archives of the Secretariat of Hydraulic Resources. It appears that in July 1966, in Riíto, a Mexicali community, a thermometer reached an unprecedented figure of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And that was its limit: the mercury rose to the top and could not measure any more.

It would be the highest figure in the world: according to the World Meteorological Organization, the highest recorded temperature is 134 degrees Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913, in California's Death Valley.

The region is exposed to the worst possible scenarios in terms of a climate emergency, according to Roberto Sánchez Rodríguez, an academic from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte. "Governments have mismanaged resources, and that is why there is less water available," he said.

Fishing

Since 1993, the fishing territory of the Cucapá has been included in the Upper Gulf of California and the Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve, which has a surface area of 2.3 million acres. This protected area was created to preserve the flora and fauna, such as the vaquita porpoises and the totoaba, which are at the brink of extinction.

"We abide by the rules, we know that species have to be protected because we are an Indigenous people, we use the nets and equipment that the government asks of us and we do not go out when it's not our turn," said Rubén Flores, captain of a panga, a boat used for traditional fishing.

An earthquake in 2010 also affected fishing. "It left us huge cracks that got bigger, and that doesn't allow us to fish like before," said Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, 68, president of the Sociedad Cooperativa Pueblo Indígena Cucapá, one of the associations that groups together the people who are still fishing.

Sitting on a plastic chair near the patio of her home in El Indiviso, a semi-desert piece of land, she said she likes to get away from the sun. For a long time, she has not seen the sun as a source of life but as a tough enemy who takes out her tribe, destroys the river and forces them to forces them to do their chores and work at night during the harshest moments of summer.

"Unbearable"

"The heat here is unbearable, we have never experienced this. There are even people living on the streets who die because they cannot stand the temperatures," Valenzuela said. "And it also affects the animals because less water arrives from the river and the fish breed with the mixture of fresh water and salt, so there are fewer and fewer fish."

The townspeople insist that they do not fish the totoaba, whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in the Asian market for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac properties (when it reaches China it costs $55,000 or $60,000).

But the intense demand leads to fishing with professional nets, thus also trapping the vaquitas and leaving them on the brink of extinction.

Various environmental and journalistic investigations have pointed to the Dragon Cartel, a criminal network with Mexican, American, Chinese and other intermediaries who conspire to exploit and fish the totoaba in that region.

Flores said that just by looking at the sky, he knows what the weather will be like. That's why he shakes his head disapprovingly every time he sees the relentless sun.

"Something strange is happening here. It is as if the sun lasts longer, so the fish do not like that heat. They are born less and weigh less." It used to take them two days to fish for curvina, now it takes them a whole week, he said, looking at the river.

The intense drought also has affected the fish's reproduction, so they must go further and further out, with poorly prepared boats, with small engines and without much fuel.

"We comply with everything, but the people of the surrounding towns also fish and don't (comply) —and many times we're punished for that, said Paco, a veteran fisherman with more than 25 years of experience.

"And we must also be careful because the narco is there, they follow our routes through the area and they fish in order to hide tons of drugs underneath. We tell the police, but nobody does anything," said Paco, whose last name is being withheld for fear of retaliation.

"I want the river to stay"

Lucia Laguna considers herself a guardian of the Cucapá, keeping alive their language, customs and traditional clothing to preserve them. Her memory is one of the most important reservoirs of the Cucapá past.

Kneeling on the banks of the Colorado River, she touches the dark water with special devotion while reciting an ancient song. Two little girls are with her.

"My tata [grandfather] fishes because without that we cannot eat. I too would like to be a fisherman, because I really like the river and being here," Marleny Sáenz, 10, said.

"I want the river to stay, to have our traditions," she said. "I like to sing because it is part of me, I feel very proud to be part of this town."

It is a ritual that they used to celebrate on the banks of the river. From time immemorial they burned the cachanilla, a wild plant with a fresh aroma, while chanting their songs so that the fishermen would be lucky in their long expeditions at sea.

"It is about opening paths, so that everything goes well," Laguna said.

"We are paying the consequences of the pollution of other people. The people of the cities have to understand that we are affected by what they do. They do not live alone in the world," she said sadly, touching the water and singing to the river.

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friendofhayley · 5 years ago

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In the midst of chaos, it’s healthy to sometimes soothe ourselves with fiction so thank you, fic writers, for providing us with a safe space. Anyway here’s a list of the best fics I read this month. This rec includes 18 fics from Game of Thrones, One Direction, Teen Wolf, and The Witcher fandoms. The starred ones are *special*

Sanrion (Game of Thrones)

1. A Change of Fate by TheTruffalo | time travel fix-it fic - slow burn - BAMF!Sansa - all the unexpected friendships - 119k+

What would happen if Sansa Stark travelled back in time to the beginning of Game of Thrones? How would she change the future? With her knowledge of the future, marriage to Tyrion Lannister, allegiances to the Targarian Dynasty and lets not forget her tutelage under the notorious Lord Baelish, what will she change? She is not a Little Bird this time, no, now she is a wolf. This time she will come out on top. The question is, who will she bring with her and who will be the collateral? It is all in the days work when playing the Game of Thrones; and she has learned from the best.

2. *The North Remembers* (series) by K_R_Closson, tasalmalin | BAMF!Sansa - the revenge tastes so sweet - time travel fix-it fic - more action than romance - 3 parts

When Sansa and Theon flee Winterfell, they encounter someone who can give Sansa a chance to start over. Sansa has to determine what she can change and what she has to accept to get a future she wants.

Larry (One Direction)

3. haunted by the ghost of you by @missandrogyny | real estate agent Louis - angst and fluff - memory loss - enemies to friends to lovers - 49k

“Hi,” the boy—the ghost—says to Louis. His face shifts; somehow his dimples dig deeper into his cheeks. His eyes flit from Louis, to Niall, to Liam, and finally to Zayn, and his face goes from shocked to elated. “I’m Harry.”

At in that exact moment, standing between three of his best friends and staring at a (quite handsome) ghost, Louis can only think one thing.

Nick Grimshaw was right.

4. I’ve Been Hoping You’d Be Somewhere Better Than This by @runaway-train-works | enemies to lovers - rough sex - unrequited love - Louis is such a bottom brat - 39k

The one where Louis is up for a promotion, he just has one tiny, little problem standing in his way.

5. thinking about the t-shirt you sleep in by @absoloutenonsense | friends to lovers - heavy mutual pining - misunderstandings - fluff and angst - 52k

Harry’s alpha fraternity donates to a local thrift shop (because of Liam’s latent crush on a cute beta in his lecture). Louis’ financial situation (and confusing omega instincts) lead him to make some interesting fashion purchases. Lots of pizza, feelings, and not-really-lying.

6. *What’s It Gonna Be?* by @shesarealphony | GOD TIER FIC - based on this music video - there are lesbians!! - gay found family !! - 35k

Louis and Bebe, best friends since childhood, have crushes on two of the most popular kids in school, and in an attempt to increase their respective chances, Louis befriends Harry Styles, quarterback of the football team, while Bebe befriends Clare Uchima, head cheerleader. Only… the plan… doesn’t go exactly as planned.

Zouis (One Direction)

7. Gravity Always Wins by @writeivywrite | canon - friends to lovers - ot5 - misunderstandings - 17k

The truth is: if they weren’t in a band together, Zayn wouldn’t be friends with someone like Louis.

8. keep you like an oath by @ohnokonecny | strangers to lovers - Louis is a force of nature - American AU - fake relationship - 18k

Zayn doesn’t recognize the man through the peephole, but he looks harmless enough, so Zayn swings the door open, barely able to get out a greeting before,

“Hello, would you be interested in being my boyfriend?” The stranger asks.

“Uh,” Zayn mumbles, looking between the man and the space behind him, waiting for someone to jump out at him and tell him what’s going on. No one does. And the stranger is still grinning at him, blue eyes shining and teeth on full display as he waits. “Who are you?” Zayn finally asks, when the stranger makes no move to give him more information about what’s happening.

Sterek (Teen Wolf)

9. hope is the thing with feathers by @shanastoryteller | author wrote Survival is a Talent and you can tell because it’s amazing - first of a series - BAMF!Stiles - alive Hale family - 28k

Then he’s facing a burning home, and he wraps the hood of his sweatshirt around his mouth before he pushes the door open and steps inside. There’s Mr. Hale asleep - he hopes asleep - on the couch, next to - Stiles thinks that’s his brother but there are so many Hales, who can keep track. He rushes over and starts shaking him, can see the rise and fall of the man’s chest so he knows he’s alive, but he’s not waking up.

He shoves away his hood so he can shout, “Mr. Hale! You have to get up, there’s a fire! Mr. Hale, get up!” Nothing, he’s not even twitching, both of them taking in deep even breaths like they’re having the most peaceful of rests, and Stiles is going to cry. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

There’s a moment, where all Stiles can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and not the roar of the flames or the creak of wood, then with a violent, silent pop it’s all back and both of the men are gasping awake, eyes open and jumping to their feet.

10. Every stumble and each misfire by @everchanginginks | future fic - deputy Siles - BAMF!Stiles - soft Derek - 14k

Stiles hasn’t seen or heard from Derek in ten years. It’s a bit of a surprise to find out about Derek’s return to Beacon Hills through Tinder.

11. Hide Of A Life War by @etharei | BAMF!Stiles - Sheriff finds out - suspense - found family - 26k

The one in which Stiles has lived to (legal) adulthood and, along the way, become a bit of a badass himself.

12. Pale Skin and Fragile Bone by fakinbrilliance | BAMF!Stiles - mates - don’t underestimate the Hale pack - found family - 62k

Stiles asks Derek to teach him self-defense.

13. *Sweet Buns* by @pantstomatch | omega Stiles - misunderstandings - pining - Derek is bad at feelings - 17k

Stiles hasn’t seen Derek Hale this close up for over a decade. He looks almost exactly the same, except somehow he seems even bigger and broodier—criminally handsome, with soft-looking dark scruff, heavy brows, light hazel eyes. His gaze zeros in on Stiles almost immediately, and his scowl lightens minutely in what looks like surprise.

Stiles is acutely aware that he has melted butter and cinnamon all over his face, and tries to surreptitiously wipe it with the ends of his sweater-sleeve.

14. The Seven Lives of Stiles Stilinski by @glorious-spoon | angst with a happy ending - pining - time travel - hurt/comfort - 25k

Stiles disturbs an abandoned temple and catches the attention of a goddess of time and fate. When he starts time-traveling involuntarily through the past, he’s not sure if she means it as a curse or a lesson–but no matter when he travels to, he always seems to end up at Derek’s side.

7. *I know that you love me, even when I lose my head* by LunaCapisLupus_22 | amnesia - internalized homophobia - omega Stiles - BAMF!Stiles - 135k

“We’re not mates, Cora,” he insists. “I mean look at him-“

“Ouch,” the kid says, no longer pushing that shit eating grin.

“He’s- he’s,” Derek tries, at a loss of how to explain why this can’t be possible. Why it shouldn’t be possible.

15. Daybreak by TheObsidianQuill | SO much angst with a happy ending - slow burn - BAMF!Stiles - PTSD - 70k

The pack was gone. He had nothing left. He had no one. With nothing to lose, Stiles puts everything on the line to go back in time to try to prevent the future from becoming his past. Broken, guarded, and haunted by his past, only one overgrown-pup of a wolf seems able to get past his defenses. Changing the future? Easy. Finding a place for himself in the Hale Pack? Impossible.

16. *Not Your Disney Romance* by Rawren (Deshonanana) | THIS IS SO GOOD - the perfect mix of crack and angst - disabled Stiles - mind control - 42k

After a long-forgotten agreement of an arranged marriage between Derek and the daughter of another pack’s alpha resurfaces, Stiles takes it upon himself to become the most amazing fake fiancé that a clueless, desperate alpha werewolf could wish for.

Geraskier (The Witcher)

17. Landfall by round_robin | merman Jaskier - soft Geralt - future fic - trust porn - 10k

Geralt spotted Jaskier’s blue breeches neatly folded in the sand by the rock, his boots next to them, doublet unbuttoned and blowing in the wind. Those too blue eyes looked even brighter next to the sea and his heart skipped a beat. “Jaskier,” he sighed. He didn’t know what else to say.

While relief flooded Geralt—Jaskier was alive and well, no evil befell him after Geralt stupidly pushed him away—Jaskier didn’t seem to share his feelings. His lips turned down, shoulders slumped. Finally, he said, “Are you here to kill me?”

18. ‘My Own’ by @valleyofwitcher | creature Jaskier - found family - Kaer Morhen - they’re soft for each other - 43k

Jaskier has been hiding his draconic ‘heritage’ for as long as he could remember. And travelling with Geralt and Ciri, it didn’t seem to be an issue. That is until a notice comes up about hunting dragons.

All of a sudden, everything is thrown into disarray as he has to face feelings and impulses he had been suppressing for years, nothing seems safe anymore. Geralt tries to fix it.

#fic rec #monthly reads #multifandom #sterek #larry #larrie hijinks #the witcher #sanrion #game of thrones #zouis

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tealin · 4 years ago

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Basler to the Beardmore 1: You See a Plane, You Take It

As always, the original post is up at the official blog – the formatting definitely works there, if you are having issues with it here.

When planning my research trip with the Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, I had to make a wishlist of places to visit. One of the more important ones was the Beardmore Glacier, the route by which Scott and his men climbed from the Ross Ice Shelf (or, as they called it, the Barrier) to the Polar Plateau. It's one of the largest glaciers in the world, but is hardly visited anymore so is rarely photographed, and despite the blessing of Google Image Search, I had too poor a sense of it to draw a journey up or down it with any confidence.

Setting foot on the Beardmore turned out be prohibitively demanding, logistically, but there are regular LC-130 flights between McMurdo Station and the Pole which traverse the Beardmore en route. The plan we made was for me to get on one of those, and snap as much as I could from one of the small windows as we flew.

November 2019 turned out to be a terrible time for Pole flights – if the weather was OK at Pole, there was a problem with the planes, or vice versa. However, the weather delays worked in my favour, because they affected not only Pole flights, but one particular season-opening flight, which had been bumped so many times that it still hadn't gone when I turned up. That meant I could get a seat.

The big flights ffor the USAP’s operations in East Antarctica – cargo and passenger flights on/off continent, and to major stations like Pole and WAIS Divide – are handled by the New York Air National Guard, and their fleet of enormous military airplanes, namely a C-17 and small handful of LC-130 Hercules. There are lots of smaller trips from McMurdo to satellite stations, and these are serviced by Kenn Borek Air, a Canadian company which operates out of Calgary, Alberta. At the start of every season, they fly their fleet of Twin Otters and Baslers down the length of North and South America, then leapfrog depots down the Peninsula and thence to various hubs including McMurdo. From there they move people and stuff where they need to go, and also restock those fuel depots. There was one depot flight that remained to be done, and it happened to be to a cache near the base of the Beardmore, so they agreed to take me along.

I was not the only extra job tacked on to the flight. After depoting the fuel, we were to scout out a camp in the Transantarctic Mountains which had been in regular use until a some fierce winds a few years ago had scoured great furrows in the landing strip. Was it landable again? What state was the camp in? We would find out. They also wanted to scope out a historic site that left no physical trace, to get updated intel on its condition. Then we would fly north again via the Beardmore and the coordinates for One Ton Depot.

As soon as the Basler had finished her more pressing engagements, we were put on alert for the depot run. Everything in Antarctica is weather-dependent, and that can change on a dime, so one is always on standby. Because they needed to make the most of the Basler's time, they would put two missions on for any given day, then the one with the best prospects would be activated. For five days I was ready to go – breakfasted, fully suited up, lunch packed, ECW bag to hand – at 7 a.m., in case my flight was the one that was going. Flight status would be announced on the screens at the entrance to the Galley.

For four mornings I joined the poor Thwaites Glacier team anxiously hanging on the screens – they were trying to get out to WAIS Divide (the high point of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, from which they would catch a flight to the Thwaites camp) where the weather had been abominable for a month. One of those mornings my flight was activated and I got all the way out to the airfield only for it to be called off at the last minute because of a change in forecast for the depot site. But finally, the fifth morning, it was all systems go!

There are two airfields that serve McMurdo: Phoenix, which is designed to take the massive C-17s on a packed snow runway where they can land with wheels, and Williams Field, of groomed snow, for ski'd aircraft. The extra special thing about Williams Field is that it's more or less where Scott's 'Safety Camp' was located – so named because it was far enough onto the ice shelf not to break up and float out to sea – so the view to Ross Island from there would have been very familiar to our explorers. On the day of my false start, while waiting to find out that the plane wasn't going after all, I got to take some good pictures of the view from there. It was also a good day to get a sense of the 'bad light' that obliterated contrast on the snow and made navigation difficult:

The Sea Ice Incident took place between us and the conical hill to the left! Wild!

Anyway, Try no. 5 was on a much nicer day. Here is the magnificent bird with her spanking new paint job:

It was a funny experience – I mean, besides sharing the fuselage with many hundreds of gallons of flammable liquid – in that it was an island of Canada amidst all the Americans. The crew all lived in BC when they weren't in Antarctica, and next to my seat were the usual set of flight safety brochures, in English and French, just as if we were flying out of Calgary.

Our pilot was named Steve, and I learned from him that, if you're training to be a pilot in Canada, you have to do your qualifying hours in the North. Most people put in their time and then get a comfortable job flying passengers between major southern cities, but Steve liked the North so much he stayed and stayed, until he got the job with Kenn Borek and ended up South. As much as I feel obliged to make a facetious quip about my flammable fellow passengers, I can honestly say I have never felt safer in an airplane than this one. This was just as well, as one of the first things we did once we were in the air was rather exciting.

The Basler is a workhorse, and one of the Antarctic planes (though I never found out if it was this one) had actually flown in WWII – they just keep going and going. However, the hydraulics that lift the landing gear were designed to lift just the landing gear, not the landing gear plus 650-pound skis, so in order to get them up we had to lose some weight. And we did this by climbing steeply up and then nose-diving, bringing us temporarily closer to zero G. We had to do this every time we took off, and it took 2-3 goes to get the skis up successfully. You'd expect someone with a history of nervous flying and a sensitivity to motion sickness to find this unpleasant, but it was just plain awesome.

This post is getting long already, so I will describe our errands in detail over the next two posts. I really must take the time here, though, to give my regards to Kenn Borek Air. I don't think anyone in Canada knows how absolutely vital they are to everything that gets done in Antarctica; their vermillion planes keep camps supplied and people moving around, and are the everyday lifeblood of the continent, in the most literal circulatory sense. Steve and the Basler may possibly have saved the Thwaites Glacier project this season – after a month of delays getting people and freight out to the field camps, it was reaching a point where they might have called off the massive international project for this year. But they allocated the Basler to the WAIS flights and Steve landed it in conditions that the NYANG wouldn't – the Basler couldn't fly nearly as much cargo as a Herc, but they got enough out there that some work could begin. I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the Thwaites coverage and I'm sure it hasn't been covered in Canada, but for a country that doesn't even have a national Antarctic program, they should be mighty proud of the central role their people play in making other countries' programs happen.

#antarctica #travel #airplanes #aeroplanes #beardmore glacier #mcmurdo station #usap #kenn borek air #basler #dc-3 #aviation #williams field #photos

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estamos-destinadas · 4 years ago

Text

So, I recently--and by that I mean this past week--started working on a new story idea for Juliantina.

I’ve had a bad case of writer’s block these past couple of months--the ideas are there, I just couldn’t seem to put them into words. It was such a relief to me when, after I thought of this idea, the words just started flowing.

Since this story has me really excited, I thought I’d share the first half of the first chapter of the story. As always, I won’t post it on Ao3 until it’s done. And please, if you can, refrain from reblogging 😅-- I kinda feel guilty when I see my story ideas going around and they’re unfinished.

Anyway, story under the cut (please work because this is long.)

On Earth Year 3010, the year Juliana turned ten, she and her mother, Lupé, left the slums of Santonio for the Palacio del Progreso.

The Progreso was in fact a sprawling estate, the “Palacio” in its name taken from the grand mansion at the heart of it. It was the residence of the Carvajals, whose patriarch, León Carvajal, was one of the Administrators of the Nor-Am Oligarchy. The thirteen Administrator families were descended from the billionaires of hundreds of years ago, their riches accumulating with each new generation, wealth unchecked becoming power unopposed until North America stopped pretending to be a democracy and became a nation ruled by its thirteen richest families.

Juliana did not know that particular history. In the slums, education was a fever dream, and there was no time to dream. She did know—she could observe—that the Progreso was as different from Santonio as it was possible to be.

Where Santonio had murky canals, the Progreso had crystal clear pools; where Santonio was blanketed with smog, the air within the Progreso’s perimeter was cleaned by powerful purifiers; where Santonio was all filthy and derelict buildings, the Progreso was true to its palatial name; where the ground of Santonio could barely grow weeds, the Progreso’s greenhouses and gardens boasted plants and flowers and trees that no longer occurred naturally in Earth’s poisoned soil.

Lupé had taken a job as one of the caretakers of the Progreso’s gardens. Lucía, an old friend, and now León Carvajal’s new wife, had gotten it for her. She and Lucía had used to work at one of the factories owned by the Carvajals, where they’d worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, all through the year for little pay. But then León had seen Lucía and had fallen in love, taking her to the Progreso. Lucía, who would not forget the life she’d led until then, had found jobs for her old friends within the estate’s walls.

In the Nor-Am Oligarchy, connection mattered.

That connection gave Lupé a job with gentler hours and better pay. The connection meant that she and her daughter could live in the staff’s compound within the Progreso, in an apartment that was much bigger than their old matchbox of a room in Santonio. It meant that Juliana could stop taking odd jobs to supplement their income, could stop worrying about her next meal. It meant that, finally, she could start getting her education.

⁂

Education was a completely new experience for Juliana and, at first, it felt like butting her head against a wall, or maybe trying to breathe underwater in one of Santonio’s canals.

It did help, however, that León Carvajal provided air-conditioned vehicles for his residential staff’s children, which daily took them outside of the Progreso, through affluent but smog-filled streets, and to a nearby school with air-conditioned buildings. It also helped that the Progreso’s main library was open to its residents, from the Carvajal family, to their guests, and even to the estate’s numerous staff and servants.

Every day, after school, when the other kids went to play in the rec area of the staff’s compound, Juliana went to the library, trying to catch up to classmates who had been going to school their whole lives.

That was where she met Valentina, almost a month after she and her mother arrived at the Palacio del Progreso.

Juliana, having taken a break from reviewing her lessons, was flipping through a book about 21st-century art—an actual paper book, that was how rich the Carvajals were—when she heard the sound of poorly-suppressed sobs. It was coming from a nearby row of kiosks, where one could download books and magazines and all sorts of digital media to their own personal devices.

Juliana decided to investigate. She passed by the kiosks, looking through the gaps between them, until she saw a girl sitting at a table near the windows. The girl, who was gazing downwards with her shoulders hunched, seemed to be her age. Juliana hesitated for a moment before approaching the girl.

“Estás bien?” Juliana asked.

The girl’s shoulders stiffened, her soft sobs cutting off, but she made no reply.

“Necesitas algo?”

“Estar sola, necesito… estar sola.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I heard you crying and I thought—” Juliana cut herself off. What was she thinking, bothering someone who clearly wanted to be alone. “You’re right,” she awkwardly scuffed the sole of her shoe against the marble floor. “I’ll let you be.”

With that, Juliana turned on her heel, but she had only taken one step away before the girl called out to her with a, “Hey, sorry, wait.” When Juliana turned back to her, the girl added, “I think—I think I’m fine, thank you.”

If the tears in her eyes did not tell Juliana that the girl was lying, the way her voice shook did. Her heart went out to the sad girl, who had the prettiest face Juliana had ever seen, though her brain filed that information away for later.

Juliana sat on the chair across from the girl. “So, what is it?” she asked, frank as any ten-year old. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to help solve the girl’s problem, even though she’d just met her, even if she didn’t know who she was.

The girl wiped her tears before launching into it. “My dad wants me to go to school! I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay here and read what I want to read, not what schools think I should read. And I want to go with him or my sister when they take trips to other nations, or to the moon, or to the other planets. If I go to school, I can only go with them during the holidays.”

Juliana had never met another kid who talked about travelling to other nations or other planets so casually, but she focused on what they did have in common. It seemed that the girl had also never been to school before.

“Oh, well, school’s not so bad, you know,” Juliana told the girl. “I started it for the first time last month too. Reading’s really hard—” Lupé had taught Juliana how to read when she was younger, but the slums of Santonio was not conducive to such an activity, “—but I’m learning a lot of really cool things. Like, did you know that North and South America used to be connected by land? I didn’t even know there was a South America!”

The girl gaped wordlessly at Juliana, her blue eyes wide and curious. When she found her voice, she began delicately, “I… I know. I’m learning with my tutors, but I don’t want to go to school. I want to do things at my own pace.”

“You can do that? Learn with tutors, I mean?” Juliana asked, borrowing the girl’s phrasing. It would be nice to learn at her own pace. It just seemed to Juliana that all her classmates were far ahead of her.

“Yes?” The girl cleared her throat. “I mean, yes.”

“Oh,” Juliana said, feeling like she was missing something. It began to dawn on her that the clothes the girl was wearing looked very expensive. On a hunch, she asked, “Do you live at the compound?”

“Huh?” the girl started, though she quickly added, “Oh, the staff’s compound! Uhm, no. I live here.”

“Like the guest houses?” Juliana almost begged. The guest houses were near the library after all.

The girl’s lips turned at the corners. “No, at the mansion.”

Which meant, Juliana realised, that the girl was a member of the Carvajal family, and that the dad she’d been talking about was León Carvajal himself. Juliana blushed, but before she could really process how embarrassing it was to tell the daughter of an Administrator of the North American Oligarchy that she had not known there was a South America, the girl’s smile broke out.

It was a kind smile. The girl’s gentle gaze told Juliana that she wasn’t being judged for her ignorance.

“You know,” the girl began, “I’m a really good reader. I got almost a hundred percent in my speed reading and reading comprehension tests.”

It was Juliana’s turn to gape at the girl. “Okay?”

“I could teach you!” the girl said excitedly, her previous complaints about school seemingly forgotten. “You said you found reading hard, I could help you get better at it. Only if you want to, of course,” she added quickly.

“I—really?” Juliana asked, not quite believing that the daughter of León Carvajal would want to help her get better at reading.

“Yes, really,” the girl said fervently. “Oh, but I don’t even know your name.” Before Juliana could reply, the girl extended her hand across the table. “I’m Valentina.”

As Juliana took the offered hand, she began to mirror the girl’s wide grin. “Juliana.”

⁂

A friendship was quickly formed.

True to her word, Valentina helped Juliana get better at reading, and even helped her with her lessons. School became easier for Juliana, and Valentina became more amenable to school, as long as she went to the same one as Juliana. Valentina was a year older than Juliana so they would not be in the same class, but at least they would be in the same place.

It spun another argument between Valentina and her father; the school Juliana and the other children of the residential staff went to did not have the prestige befitting a daughter of the Administrator. But Valentina was stubborn and used to getting her way, so Administrator León Carvajal had to compromise. Valentina was allowed to go to the same school as Juliana, as long as she continued to study with her tutors. Valentina was perfectly content with the arrangement.

Outside of school, where Valentina wanted to go, Juliana happily followed. Not that Valentina went where Juliana did not want to go, or could not follow. They spent all their time together, whether it was at the library, the gardens to visit Juliana’s mom, the sports and rec areas around the Progreso, particularly the poolhouse to go swimming, even the mansion itself. The last one took some getting used to for Juliana, but she eventually became comfortable enough to not feel like an intruder in the Carvajal family mansion.

They were inseparable.

One could say that Juliana and Valentina took to each other as a fish takes to the sea, or as a bird takes to the sky, but most birds had gone extinct, and what fish there was left lived in the depths of the ocean, or were cultivated in tanks or artificial bodies of water.

The older people had a different metaphor for it: linked by the guts.

One time, Lupé burst out in fond exasperation, “Why do you always have to go with the Administrator’s daughter everywhere? Are your guts linked together?”

Another time, León asked, “Are you really not going with me and Lucía to Venus because Juliana can’t come?” When Valentina answered in the affirmative, he observed in amusement, “You two are linked by the guts.” A few days after that, Juliana was preparing for her first interplanetary trip.

Guille, Valentina’s older brother, remarked that they were like the entangled particles of paired Qubes.

Qubes—or Quantumly-Entangled Communication Boxes—always came in pairs. The subatomic particles inside one Qube were quantumly-entangled with the particles of one other Qube. Whatever configuration the particles of one Qube were in, that was always reflected in its paired Qube.

Nothing can travel faster than light. The speed of light itself was a constant, limited, and as a communication medium light was prone to interference.

It meant that, in the past, off-world communication was slow and unreliable. When physicists and engineers unlocked the secrets of quantum entanglement almost a millennium ago, the exchange of messages became instantaneous with paired Qubes.

Nothing can travel faster than light, but there was a way to work around it.

Of course, Qubes were of the most use in interplanetary or interstellar communications. Within a planet’s atmosphere, radio waves and cables were still the more efficient form of communication, if only because they were much cheaper and faster to make.

So Valentina balked at her brother’s analogy. “That makes no sense, Guille,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “Entangled particles—paired Qubes—are useful when they are very far apart from each other, like light years apart. I don’t want to be light years apart from Juliana.”

They were at the mansion’s kitchen, watching Chivis, one the family’s personal servants, prepare an afternoon snack for Valentina and Juliana when Guille joined them and made his observation.

Glancing at her best friend, Valentina caught Juliana’s shy smile at her declaration. Valentina couldn’t help but mirror her smile. They’d known each other for a little over a year by then; Valentina understood the irrefutable truth of her statement. She did not want to be apart from Juliana. In fact, she wanted to be as close to her as possible, often longing to brush Juliana’s hair, to rub her cheeks against Juliana’s cheeks. With the kitchen counter between them, Valentina settled for grabbing Juliana’s hand. Juliana met her gaze; Valentina’s smile widened.

Guille waved a hand at the two of them, as if to demonstrate his point, but Valentina and Juliana were still gazing at each other and Chivis ignored him. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat to get their attention, “if you two lived light years apart, you two would still be—” he linked his hands through interlaced fingers, “—entangled.”

Juliana felt her face heat up, pleased and flattered. She thought it was nice, to hear Valentina’s brother make such remarks about their closeness.

Valentina thought differently. “Don’t even joke about that,” she said, slapping her brother’s arm, not appreciating the idea of living far away from Juliana.

Guille laughed as he moved away from Valentina, pretending to be hurt. Valentina laughed at his reaction. Juliana laughed at Valentina’s laughter, the way her eyes crinkled and her cheeks dimpled.

Chivis, much older and with much more experience of life, did not laugh at their banter.

⁂

Nothing can travel faster than light. The speed of light itself was a constant, a hard physical limit of the universe: 299,792.5 kilometres per second. In one Earth Year, light traveled a distance of 9.46 trillion kilometres: 1 light year.

The fastest interstellar ships were powered by warp drives, first built by physicists and engineers from over half a millennium ago. The warp ships were named after a fictional technology from millennia-old stories, but whereas the warp ships from the stories could overtake the speed of light by ever-increasing magnitudes, the real warp ships could not. Warp ships could travel nearly as fast as light, but not as fast as, and never faster.

Apart from an obscure reference to old fictional stories, warp ships were so called because of how it warped time for the ship’s passengers. At or near the speed of light, time dilated. To anyone and anything within a warp ship, trips take only a few hours, even a few minutes. To everyone and everything outside it, a ship that traveled a distance of a hundred light years would have taken a hundred Earth Years to get from its origin to its destination.

At the advent of warp ships, a group of astronauts travelled to Proxima Centauri—4 light years from Earth—then after a week at the system returned to Earth for a total distance travelled of 8 light years. To the astronauts, the round trip had taken a few minutes each way; to everyone outside the ship, the trip had taken over 8 years. One of the astronauts had been a mother. When she’d come back, her daughter—left on Earth—had aged 8 years in the absence that to the mother felt much less than that.

Because of the time dilation—the warp—it was impossible to interact with anyone and anything within a ship while it was traveling nearly as fast as light. Not even through Qubes, which were invented a couple of centuries before the warp ships. Even entangled particles could not sync when a second for one meant a lifetime for the other.

To travel in a warp ship at a distance of light years—5, 10, 100—meant to jump in time 5, 10, or 100 years to the future, putting not just space but also time between yourself and your loved ones.

Chivis, older and wiser, knew this. Interstellar travel was a special kind of heartbreak, it was no laughing matter.

Almost a year after that joking banter between the siblings, Valentina and Guille began to understand that heartbreak.

After warp ships were perfected, humanity began the Hundred Year Exodus. For a hundred years—and more—warp ships carrying thousands of people set off for far flung planets, hoping for a cleaner world, for better societies. Now, centuries later, the human diaspora was spread out over 500 light years from Earth in different directions, linked only by the paired Qubes the emigrants brought with them. But to travel to those colonies, hundreds of light years away, meant leaving the Earth as one knew it for good.

Chivis, who was retiring, had announced just that: she was going away to a colonised planet more than 200 light years’ distance from Earth.

“By the time she gets there, I’d be dead,” Valentina said lowly to Juliana.

They were lying side by side on Valentina’s bed, on the evening after Chivis’ departure. Valentina and Juliana often had sleepovers at the Carvajal family mansion. Usually they would be giggling over some vid or book or something that happened during the day, but when Juliana joined Valentina that evening, the latter had been crying into her pillows for most of the afternoon.

Valentina continued talking. “I know that she chose that planet because her children decided to move there, but she is—was—is,” Valentina huffed, even the tenses got confusing, “she’s like family to me too.” Valentina knew that she could not have hoped to compare against Chivis’ children and grandchildren when the woman had still been weighing her decision, but it had still hurt when Chivis had told her that she was leaving. “I’m going to miss her. I already miss her.”

“Val,” Juliana said gently, taking her best friend’s hand in hers and interlocking their fingers, “she’s going to miss you too. And it wasn’t an easy decision for her to make. She said so, right?”

“Yeah,” Valentina agreed in a whisper.

“She loved—she loves you Val, that doesn’t change.”

“It still sucks.”

“I know,” Juliana said gently, squeezing Valentina’s hand.

Valentina squeezed back before moving sideways and closing the distance between them so that her head was against Juliana’s shoulder, her hand wrapped around Juliana’s arms, her leg draped over Juliana’s legs.

“It helps that you’re here,” Valentina said. Suddenly overtaken with a certain fear, she gripped Juliana’s arm tightly, but it went away just as quickly and she loosened her hold. “I’m glad you’re here.”

⁂

That was not Valentina’s first experience with loss.

She had only been eight years old when her mother had passed away, and Valentina’s longing for her never quite went out.

“I still look around for her sometimes,” she’d once confessed to Juliana in a whisper, a few months after they’d met.

Even then, Valentina had found it easy to talk to Juliana about anything. She’d been the only person Valentina could really talk to about how it had felt to lose her mother at such a young age. It was the way Juliana had listened to her every word, and had seemed to understand exactly what Valentina had meant.

Valentina had tried to return the favour, tried to ask Juliana about her father, but Juliana had always clammed up when the subject was brought up.

It wasn’t until the day Juliana turned thirteen that she opened up about her father. He had not come to celebrate with her and Lupé, but he’d sent her some presents.

“I’m not really cut up that he didn’t come,” Juliana told Valentina matter-of-factly after her party, where she’d invited a few of her classmates. “I’m used to it,” she added with a shrug.

Macario Valdés had rarely ever been around back in Santonio; he had never come to visit once Lupé and Juliana moved to the Progreso.

“It was probably for the best anyway. He would have scared everyone off.”

He was a harsh man, not given to gentleness or affection.

“I’m surprised he even gave me anything.”

He was cold and distant.

“But maybe these actually came from Lupé, and she only pretended that it was from him.”

There was no doubt in Juliana’s mind that Lupé loved him dearly, that Lupé thought he was the most amazing man in the entire world. She could see it from the way Lupé talked about him, from the way Lupé preened on the rare occasion that he called.

To Juliana, he was just her mother’s absent husband. At least that was what she told herself.

Valentina did not understand how anyone could ever choose to be absent from Juliana’s life, but she did not say that out loud. Instead, she asked, “What did he get you?”

“Some books?” Juliana said doubtfully. Lupé had said that she’d downloaded them onto Juliana’s personal tablet, but Juliana hadn’t looked at it yet. “Which, I don’t know why, because there’s a library here.” She did not know what her father could have sent her that was not available in the Progreso’s huge library. “But I guess that means they really were from him.” Lupé would not have gotten her books.

Juliana huffed, waving away thoughts of absent fathers and thoughtless gifts. She looked at Valentina. “Thank you for your presents, by the way. Me encantan mucho.”

She’d already thanked her, but she felt like she could not express her gratitude enough. Valentina had gotten her a painting set, an actual physical painting set, with paper sketchbooks, a few canvases, and pencils and brushes and water colours. Juliana had done normal art—digital art—from the time she’d gotten her first tablet, but she’d always wanted to do art on paper and canvases.

“Of course,” Valentina said, “anything for you, Juls.”

Juliana smiled shyly, meeting Valentina’s eyes until, feeling overwhelmed by the depths of emotion in them, she gazed down at their joined hands and burrowed closer to Valentina, who tightened her hold around Juliana.

They were in Juliana’s bed, about to turn in for the night. Juliana’s other guests had left after the birthday party but Valentina had stayed for the rare sleepover at the Valdéses’ apartment. Juliana’s single bed was much smaller than Valentina’s so it was a tight squeeze, but Juliana didn’t mind. In fact, she liked it a lot.

Juliana liked being pressed close to Valentina. She liked holding Valentina’s hand. She liked it when Valentina hugged her tightly; she would always hug back and never want to let go. She liked it when Valentina kissed her cheeks; that was a new thing that Valentina did, and Juliana could not get enough of it. She liked it when Valentina would watch her for long moments, those pretty blue eyes seemingly glued on Juliana, even though it made her a little shy. And she liked gazing at Valentina in turn, never wanting to take her eyes off of her, because Valentina was the most beautiful person Juliana had ever seen, and she had the prettiest smile that made Juliana’s insides seem to fly.

This premise/idea is actually not a new one. I’ve been mulling it over in my head for years, but I’ve never been interested in putting one of my ships in this setting until Juliantina--not in writing or even in stories that are just in my head.

I’ve also wanted to write a certain kind of fic, a certain mood of fic, for Juliantina, but nothing seemed to fit their personalities--well, Val’s personality. I think this premise would achieve that mood without making them OOC. (I don’t know if I’m making any sense lol.)

Oh, and if you’ve reached this far, I wonder if you could guess where this story would be headed? 😊

#fic #au #mine #teaser #stories #if you are wondering about the harry potter au #like I said above #I've had a bad case of writer's block #I have the next installment outlined #but the words are stubbornly refusing to be formed #I had to take a step back #and increase my reading (not fics but published works) to sort of get those words #but somehow this was what came of that #oh well #I will still continue with the hp au though #the next installment just won't come soon

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muchymozzarella · 4 years ago

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I’m not trying to start drama or an argument, merely trying to get into the conversation... couldn’t you argue that it doesn’t matter how many Asian people are working behind the scenes on a project, if you don’t see them on screen? The majority of people who watch the film will not do the research into who worked on it, so it could be said that it doesn’t matter whether they are Asian or not? Whereas if a show has visible Asian characters, it’s plainly clear that there is representation.

I totally get what you’re saying, but what I think a lot of people don’t understand is that representation is an issue that has more than one answer, and a whole lot of problems that people don’t take into account.

But to simplify, we have to look at it in two ways:

Asians behind the scenes

Asians in front / represented

Each of these have their benefits and flaws. I would argue that one is better than the other, but neither is necessarily BAD because they are both forms of Asian representation. It’s just that they both come with their own baggage.

Having both is ideal, but it’s often not the case.

Asians behind the scenes

Pros

-Asians have creative power

-Asians can bring their own cultural ideas to the fore even if the subject matter isn’t necessarily focused on Asian characters - thereby having Asian people feel like they are being spoken to by someone who shared their experiences and their culture

-Asians getting paid and getting their names on shows, which ensures these same Asians positions and jobs in other shows moving forward

-Asians, who have established themselves on a show ostensibly watched by everyone, will have their overtly Asian titles be taken on later down the line

-Asians could be in a position to hire other Asians

-Non Asians, especially white people, being exposed to Asian worldviews and having a better understanding of at least some part of a culture they otherwise would not have had much exposure to, depending on their background

Cons

-Asians aren’t represented onscreen / the show itself isn’t Asian rep, so Asians do not feel represented visually and non Asians will not be exposed to Asian characters and have that normalised, or learn about Asian culture from said media

-Asians are relegated to writing stories that they themselves don’t necessarily know about or experience [not always a con if, for example, it’s a fantasy or sci-fi or non real world setting, but can be if an Asian is expected to write an everyday White Experience]

Asians in front / represented

Pros:

-Asian kids get to see themselves represented in media, and non-Asians get to learn about and connect to Asian heroes onscreen

-Asian media is seen as lucrative and more Asian shows are made

-Hiring more Asian actors [?] [see: Avatar The Last Airbender for exceptions to this]

Cons:

-Strong possibility of literary Yellowface - look up CB Cebulski

-Asians are getting passed over for jobs because someone decided white people could do a better job portraying / writing about Asian characters - ASIANS AREN’T GETTING JOBS OR GETTING PAID AND WHITE PEOPLE PROFIT OFF ASIAN REP

-Stereotypes without cultural background / Fetishism / Asian Aesthetique

-Misrepresentation of Asians as a if white writer is not respectful

-People behind the scenes do not get to actually talk to Asians if the only ones in a creative field are non Asians

-If other POC are present in the writing room, they are asked to make decisions on Asian characters they are not always fit to answer

-Mulan 2020 [lol]

I clearly personally prefer Asians behind the scenes, but it’s not because seeing Asians onscreen isn’t important. It is. It really is.

But when you have a foot in the door of a North American industry like I do, especially in a group that looks after the interests of BIPOC film and tv workers in a white dominated field, you start to see the issues with white people taking over writers rooms, taking over showrunning, taking over directing.

SOMETHING WHITE PEOPLE ARE OFTEN NOT WILLING TO HEAR IS THAT THEY HAVE AN INHERENT BIAS IN FAVOUR OF OTHER WHITE PEOPLE, AND THIS IS COMPOUNDED BY THE EXCUSE THAT “WE ONLY HIRE QUALIFIED PEOPLE” BUT BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE NOT TO HIRE BIPOC, BIPOC CANNOT EARN SAID QUALIFICATION.

So the idea of hiring a white guy to write about Asians is not inherently bad, but when you put it up against a system already heavily skewed against Asians, it’s just another job a struggling Asian creative got passed over, another writer or artist who has every qualification going for them ignored because someone decided this white guy they like is the better pick.

And sure, maybe he is. Maybe he’s just better at storytelling, better at writing, more passionate about the project.

But maybe that excuse has been used so much that we see more white people than Asian people credited on the MULAN MOVIE and you start to think that maybe 80% of the time, it’s just a convenient excuse to lock out Asian creatives and not the truth.

It may not always be racism, but it’s more often racism than people are led to believe.

And idk, maybe it’s just me, but I like having a job and seeing other Asians and other BIPOC have jobs. And if I’ve done enough years on this nice white show then these nice white producers will eventually decide to take on my Very Filipino Show Idea. Or maybe I’ll find funding from other BIPOC and do it anyway, but in the very least people will see that I worked years on this Cool White Show and decide they liked it enough to give my Very Asian Show a try.

But also - even if the entire behind the scenes crew is white, I can’t be mad at a show, whether live action or animated, if the cast is fully or mostly Asian. That’s still getting Asians jobs.

tl;dr It’s not inherently bad for white people to write Asian media [see: Avatar] but as an Asian creative in the North American TV and Film industry I prefer to see Asians Get Paid

And if you wanna see what happens when Asians get represented but not paid, just look at Bon Appetit

#asian representation #anon #lovely anon #replies #representation #racism

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headspace-hotel · 11 months ago

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Marks is an expert in Chinese history, which tracks, since his broad summary of world events focuses a lot on China. Pre-Columbian and colonial North America isn't where is his expertise lies.

Since the discussion of North American ecology is a short aside supporting a broader point about the whole globe, it makes sense that Marks would not do extensive research on North American ecology specifically.

Furthermore, some published academic writing making claims roughly in the range of what Marks is suggesting does exist—there is a paper suggesting that the gigantic bison herds seen in the 1800's were considerably elevated above the animals' usual population due to Native American population declines. (I can't remember anything about this paper except that it exists, sorry.)

But that's not the claim Marks is making, and that's not the paper he is citing. Marks has an over-arching point (that human population increase results in dramatic decline of wildlife) supported by referencing the overkill hypothesis (the idea that the end-Pleistocene extinctions were caused by humans hunting the animals to extinction).

Cronon is among the most prominent environmental historians dealing with North America, so Marks just...cites Cronon's book for his claim that animal populations were flourishing in North America because of the mass death of Native Americans, without bothering to read what Cronon's book says.

Maybe he assumes Cronon must agree with him because the idea feels right and makes sense. Maybe he just assumes no one will check.

What if we consider the means and ends of these ideas more closely? I am starting to see that there is a bit of a tradition for white writers to blame Native Americans for environmental destruction. The way Cronon references Native American participation in the fur trade implies that there has been a trend in academic writing to blame Native Americans for the decline of the beaver. I read excerpts in a book about bison from white writers blaming Native Americans for the near extinction of the bison.

And I truly cannot count how many times the idea of using traditional ecological knowledge, or that Native cultural attitudes and viewpoints might be important, has been summarily shut down using Paul S. Martin's "overkill" hypothesis. "Well the Native Americans had no problem genociding all the animals when they first came either so they're not perfect angels either, eh?"

Everyone writing in this field is so eager to throw a punch at the straw man of a "Native American noble savage that lives in total harmony with nature and never never never could have negative impacts on an ecosystem because there is something inherently special about native americans that makes them enlightened to primitive forest wisdom" when this is not actually the alternative being proposed to "humans are an inherently destructive scourge."

This straw man is an attractive target, I think, because the suggestion or possibility that humans aren't inherently exploitative and bad for the rest of the biosphere implies a responsibility: to learn from 'other' cultures, to change ourselves and our dominating culture, to develop a bond with the ecosystem and love it without the armor of disconnection, without the bedrock of certainty, without inoculating ourselves against the fear and hurt of loss by preemptively grieving what is not yet lost and what is lost but can be found again.

Developing a grand theory of humans as tragic villains of Earth's biosphere, doomed by the narrative, is comforting because it doesn't require us to change. The possibility that human societies have followed a wide variety of patterns in terms of their relationship with the biosphere, instead of unilaterally succumbing to exploitative and destructive behaviors, is anathema to the self-pity of doomers. The possibility that humans belong to Earth's family and have their own niche, implies a possibility that by putting in the work we can heal our relationships with the rest of the biosphere. It implies that the other life forms of Earth would miss us if we disappeared.

Most sinister of all, it lightens the weight of the tragedy of genocide, war, and disease, providing evil comfort where the only just and right response is to scream: At least the decline in population means a lowered impact on the environment...Marks even references a researcher who theorized that the Little Ice Age occurred because of the mass death of Native Americans, cooling the Earth before global warming became a concern. Why make this connection? Amidst events like Covid, the notion that humans need a "cull" of their population, that there will be some kind of monstrous silver lining, creeps about.

Is "We are beyond the Earth's carrying capacity, we can't support our whole population" a warning, or an excuse? How long before it becomes a reason not to act—a reason not to value every life?

okay. so.

i'm reading this book The Origins of the Modern World by Robert Marks

and even from the beginning i was getting this weird feeling from it. I'm always really wary of books that are broad overviews of history that claim to explore big theory-of-everything explanations for very broad phenomena, because history is unbelievably complex and there is so much disagreement between historians about everything.

But anyway I come to this section (in the first chapter)

This writer's opinion is that the Americas seemed so abundant when English settlers first arrived because the Native Americans had been mostly killed, and as a result, the wildlife increased greatly in numbers and forests overtook the farms, creating what appeared to be a natural paradise.

I'm immediately suspicious of this paragraph because arguing that the mass death of Native Americans was good for nature seems really contradictory to the research I've explored, on top of being just...disgusting.

But it doesn't sound right in regards to how ecosystems work either. If populations of animals had recently exploded after millennia of being limited by a major predator, it would cause the plants to be overwhelmed by the herbivore populations. The land would be stripped barren and eroded, and soon the animals would be weak and starving.

So I thought to myself, huh, a citation. I will look at the citation and see what it says.

It's a book called Changes in the Land by William Cronon, who seems to be one of the most important and respected guys in his field. I thought, I have to find this book. So I did, I found the book, and spent like an hour reading through it.

And what I discovered, is that Cronon's book directly contradicts what Marks says in the paragraph that cites Cronon?!

So basically this entire book, Changes in the Land, is a detailed exploration of how the arrival of English settlers, the decline of Native American populations, and the slow transition to European farming and land use practices caused increasing degradation to the ecosystem, beginning very early on in colonization.

Changes in the Land quotes a great array of documents from the colonial period where settlers observed the soil becoming depleted, animals disappearing, and the climate itself becoming more hostile even in the 1600's. It's actually a really fascinating book.

Cronon tells us that Native Americans created lush and abundant conditions for wild animals by causing a "mosaic" of habitats, with different areas representing various stages of ecological succession. With this great diversity in habitats, and lots of transitional "edges" between them, the prosperity of the animal life was maximized. This was intentional, and really a type of farming.

The book essentially explains how European settlers couldn't recognize Native American life ways as "agriculture," they thought the land was just supernaturally abundant all by itself because of its inherent nature, and yet almost immediately after settlers came, the abundance of the land degraded and vanished. The settlers cut down vast amounts of trees, which caused erosion, which destroyed the river and stream ecosystems and starved the soil of nutrients. Destruction of forest caused less rain, and more extreme temperatures. It became a vicious cycle where the settlers had to abuse the land more and more just to survive.

The spiral pulled in Native American communities too, forcing them to turn to more exploitative means of survival like the fur trade, (which depleted the beaver population, which caused the decline of beaver ponds, which harmed the whole forest). It describes how the changing ecosystems left Native Americans with no choice but to turn to European practices for survival, which in turn depleted the land even further.

Even I was surprised to learn just how early on environmental disaster set in, and the incredible extent of it. English farming practices literally reshaped the map of New Haven between the 17th and 18th centuries:

To return to Marks, though...Marks' statement in the excerpt, where he says the "abundance" of animals continued throughout the 19th century, is blatantly false according to the source HE CITES.

Deer were becoming scarce in New England by the 1690's. It was so bad by 1718 that deer hunting was forbidden for 3 years at that time, and by 1800, deer were almost extirpated from New England. The book explains on another page that wild turkeys became so rare that a farmer's manual from the time said their domesticated turkeys were from Turkey—settlers had no opportunity to see a wild turkey and no idea they existed.

Marks is supporting his statement using a source entirely dedicated to contradicting the exact thing he's saying! It's unbelievable.

How does this happen? Did Marks just have his own opinion and insert a famous book that seemed to be on the subject as support, without reading it?

I'm thinking now of all the times I've read a book and seen a citation on a statement and unconsciously thought "oh, well it seems there is evidence, so it must be reliable" when actually, something like this was happening. The array of ways misinformation can be propagated and never be found out is terrifying.

#environment #ecology #despair is poison #plantarchy #learning to imagine the future

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back-and-totheleft · 4 years ago

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“Make it for the soldiers”

The three-time Oscar winner is back with a new book—Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game—and turning its pages is like entering a Stone movie. The one-time infantryman had a single condition in granting HUSTLER this Q&A: “Make it for the soldiers. You’ve got to make it interesting to them.” Movie stars are often household names, but Oliver Stone is one of the few screenwriters and directors to have a high public profile. Now he’s released a new book, and it’s a rip-roaring, rollicking read, full of tense drama and trauma. The 342-page memoir focuses on Stone’s life through the age of 40 and sheds light on what forged Hollywood’s movie maverick and makes him tick.

After the Allies liberated Paris, his father—Colonel Louis Stone, who served on General Eisenhower’s staff—met the Parisian Jacqueline Pauline Cezarine Goddet. In December 1945 they married, which Stone wryly writes was “possibly the greatest mistakes of their lives,” and sailed from France to live in New York, where Louis, a Yale graduate, resumed his Wall Street career as a stockbroker. Stone reveals how their divorce affected him and, for the first time ever, describes in detail his combat experiences in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Coming under fire in Indochina’s jungles ignited an intense mistrust of government and hatred of war that actually compelled Stone to become a filmmaker. As the Chasing the Light subtitle indicates, the book zooms in on four movies and provides a behind-the-scenes peek at Stone’s maneuvering through Tinseltown’s machinations. Stone scored his first Hollywood triumphs as the screenwriter of 1978’s Midnight Express, winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Like his script for 1983’s Scarface, Midnight Express lampooned the so-called War on Drugs. This set the stage for Stone to tackle President Reagan’s secret war in Central America with 1986’s hard-hitting Salvador, followed later that same year by his grunt’s-eye view on the Vietnam War, the no-holds-barred Platoon. At the 1987 Academy Awards ceremony, Stone was in the rare enviable position of competing against himself in the Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen category for both Salvador and Platoon. Although he won neither, his boyhood idol Elizabeth Taylor did give Stone the Best Director Oscar for Platoon, which also won for Best Picture. The book’s curtain closes as Stone earns his sublime moment in the limelight, emerging as one of the movie industry’s most celebrated writer-directors of all time. His future body of work—1987’s Wall Street, 1991’s The Doors and JFK through 2016’s Snowden—are only mentioned in passing, if at all. An exception is 1989’s Best Picture-nominated Born on the Fourth of July, for which Stone was awarded his second Best Director Oscar, for helming this searing cinematic biopic about maimed Vietnam War vet Ron Kovic, whose relationship with Stone began during the period his memoir covers. HUSTLER interviewed Stone when he returned to Los Angeles in between trips to Europe to promote his book. In this candid conversation Stone opens up about the Vietnam War, drugs, censorship, Edward Snowden, Larry Flynt, Jackie Kennedy, his new Kennedy assassination film and so much more. HUSTLER: How did Chasing the Light come about? Did you write any of it while sheltering in place? OLIVER STONE: No. I was finishing up in that phase. I wrote it over two years. It was final draft, checking things, draft edits, around February, March… I was working on other things, documentaries and so forth. In your memoir you write about your time in Vietnam. Have you recounted those personal experiences extensively before? No. No, I haven’t. In interviews I’ve shared some of it. But no, this is all fresh material. The movies were dramatic presentations. I talk about Born on the Fourth of July and my relationship with Ron Kovic [the paralyzed Vietnam War vet portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 1989 feature]. And a lot about Platoon. Because both were written in 1976 [the year Kovic’s book was published], which falls in the period I’m covering in Chasing the Light, up to 1986. They play a significant role—the failures of those two films to get made haunted me. You were wounded twice in Vietnam—where you served with distinction as an infantryman, winning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. So what do you think about President Trump allegedly calling dead soldiers “losers” and “suckers” and stating that military parades should exclude wounded vets? It’s a strange statement. I don’t know if he made it, but it sounds very bizarre. Obviously, I don’t agree with it. On the other hand, I don’t believe we should be over-glorifying our veterans either, because that leads to other sets of problems, which we’ve seen in the spate of recent wars. To prepare for this interview, I watched Scarface again. In your book you mention that you were probably conceived in Europe, your mom was an immigrant from France, and it struck me that Scarface is very much an immigrant’s saga. How do you view the Trump/Stephen Miller immigration and refugee policies? I abhor them. I do believe in immigration—it’s what the American way is about. This country has been built on immigration. Even in this lifetime of mine we’ve had such a new spate of immigration from different countries, Third World, Asia. It’s remarkable. In Scarface we talk about Latin Americans who are coming into Miami, some good, some bad. It’s a rich mix, and that’s what had given America its experimental nature. There’s no fixed America in my mind. It’s 250 years—it’s a constantly changing soup. Scarface, like Midnight Express, is drug-themed. Your memoir is quite candid about your own use of substances. What do you think of the War on Drugs? Who won? [Laughs.] It’s a ludicrous objective. It should not be called a “war.” Listen, I partook of drugs. I’ve been very honest about it. It started for me in Vietnam. I smoked it in the base camps, in the rear, when we came back. I smoked it to relax. I go into the reasons for it. It helped me get through that war as a human being. Very important to me. I respect it. I also talk about drug use later on in my life, like cocaine—which I don’t think worked for me at all, and I said why. So I’m on both sides of it. But I do think it’s an individual issue, of individual responsibility and education. The treatment for it is not punishment but hospitalization or medical help or psychiatric help. The War on Drugs is a waste of money, and again, it’s political. I saw that in Scarface, the birth of the Drug Enforcement [Administration]—very political, huge budgets; it’s growing every year. The Reagan war and all that—they call it a war. Everything in America is a war. But we don’t win any one of them. Have you encountered political censorship in Hollywood for your movies’ dissident politics over the years? You posit that Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig being on MGM’s board may have affected an early effort to make Platoon. Yes. It’s been a long haul. And I emphasize the word may, because you never know when they turn it down. They never tell you, “It’s because of political reasons that we don’t want to make your film.” They never say that. They couch it in economic terms or, “This is too depressing.” “It’s blah-blah A, B or C.” You never know. In this case, it was a very easy deal for them to make. Dino De Laurentiis was behind it—as my producer he was financing the film. MGM had a distribution deal with Mr. De Laurentiis, and they didn’t live up to it. He was making very risky movies at that time, like Blue Velvet. MGM had to make a minimal investment in distribution costs, and they did not do it. Why? Well, I would assume that the president of MGM at the time, Frank Yablans, said that he had gone to the board and they had turned [Platoon] down, but I’m not sure he’s telling the truth. Because they sometimes don’t even bother to go to the board because they don’t want to take any heat. On the board, of course, were two very conservative men on Vietnam who I’d classify as war hawks. So, I mean, it became a political issue. I do believe that; I have no proof. Also, the Pentagon passed on the film, calling it completely unrealistic. This is an important issue because the movie is realistic. I was there, and I saw it on the ground. I was in four different platoons, in four different units, in three combat platoons. I served in the south and in the north and saw quite a bit of action. And I’m telling you, three things I wrote in the book, about the three lies in Vietnam, I believe apply even today to all fought wars. One is friendly fire. American soldiers get killed by their own side, by small arms fire, artillery and bombs. It’s not precision bombing. About 20 percent of the casualties, wounded and dead, comes from friendly fire. This is a very important point, because it is buried over and over again by the Pentagon in their after-action reports. Recently, the Arizona Cardinals’ Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, and there was a whole mess in trying to get to the reasons for his death. Of course, that was a celebrity-type killing, but this goes on all the time in every war. In Vietnam, in the jungle, you can imagine the asymmetric aspect of it. When fire happens, you don’t even know where the fire is coming from. People are firing—you don’t know if it’s coming in or out. And various things like that are happening all the time. I believe my first wound came about through friendly fire. The second lie I talked about was killing civilians, trashing villages. Racism was really a huge factor in that. We treated the civilians mostly as enemies, as people who were supporting the enemy. [Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara estimated three to four million Vietnamese killed. The third lie, the biggest one of all: “We’re winning the war.” We heard that lie again and again and again. It was fed to the American people. Even from the beginning, we never had a chance. In Neil Sheehan’s book A Bright Shining Lie, [Lieutenant Colonel] John Paul Vann made it really clear, in 1962 this was a hopeless situation, a hopeless war, because true patriotism was to fight for your country. This was a war, as he said, of independence that was fought against us as colonizers in the wake of the French. Inflating body counts, lying about enemy movements, CIA involvement in the war, no question about it. Misguiding the war. Often bad information, among other things, about the My Lai massacre in March 1968, when 500-plus villagers were killed in cold blood by [U.S.] units who were told that the enemy would be in the village. Not a single enemy bullet was fired in that whole day. And this was investigated by the Army itself, by an honest [lieutenant] general named [William Ray] Peers. He didn’t believe it at first. He thought it was bullshit, that the Seymour Hersh revelations were bullshit. He went in there and investigated thoroughly and came up with the conclusion. That’s what my movie I wanted to make on the My Lai massacre is about. He indicted 20-plus officers all the way up to the top of that division. He indicted the general of that division for his negligence. It’s a disgusting story. But it happens all the time in war and is covered up. Covered up for the dignity of the family, for the dignity of the death and so forth and so on. “How can you criticize the military?” You know, that horrible kind of righteousness, which prevents us from seeing what war is. Although you’re a decorated Vietnam veteran, the Pentagon denied you any support for Platoon—and, I assume, for your other Vietnam War-related movies. Yes, that’s correct. But other directors such as, say, Michael Bay, who never served in the military but who make pro-war, pro-military films, are given permission to shoot at U.S. bases, use of armed services personnel, access to high-tech equipment, etc. What do you make of this double standard? Does it violate the First Amendment? I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly a violation of morality. It’s much bigger than Michael Bay—there’s a book that came out in 2017, National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood by Matthew Alford and Tom Secker. James DiEugenio, who works with me, has covered this issue separately in another book, Reclaiming Parkland. These two books cover the involvement of the Pentagon in Hollywood. Alford and his coauthor talk about 800-plus films that were made with Pentagon cooperation. You’d be stunned at some of the films made. Among case studies are Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down—which is basically a whitewashing of the affair in Somalia—Charlie Wilson’s War, Hotel Rwanda, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Rules of Engagement, The Terminator, 13 Days, United 93, Wag the Dog. Talks about people like Tom Clancy, of course a big military supporter, and the CIA too. TV series such as Alias, Homeland and 24—which had a tremendous effect on the American public in glorifying the CIA, making it seem like it was a backstop for our security, which is a lie too. It undermined our security. All this is much bigger than Michael Bay. In Chasing the Light you mention “surveillance” a number of times, and of course you made 2016’s Snowden. On September 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the NSA’s warrantless mass surveillance—which Edward Snowden exposed—was illegal and possibly unconstitutional. What do you think of that, and what should happen to Snowden now? [Laughs.] It’s obviously correct. Snowden should be brought back to the country. I don’t know if he should be pardoned for his wrongs—because he never did anything wrong. He should be pardoned immediately, as should [WikiLeaks’] Julian Assange. The fact is, the NSA has been breaking the law for so many years. We owe it to George Bush and that administration. That was reported on as early as around 2004, but buried by The New York Times until after the election. The Pentagon Papers was released by The Times because they hated Nixon, but I guess with Bush, they gave him a pass. Terrible. It [NSA’s bulk surveillance] has resulted in this sense of unease—you’re always monitored, we have to check our behavior, we’re under control. This is a disaster for the world. Also, other countries have responded accordingly. The World Wide Web is very dangerous. It goes back to the worst days of J. Edgar Hoover. Free speech is a recurring theme in a number of your films. How were you involved in the making of 1996’s The People vs. Larry Flynt? I was a producer. It was written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander. It was their script. Milos Forman developed it with them. I did feel that Larry Flynt had a case—he won the case [against Reverend Jerry Falwell Sr.]. I’m glad. I’m proud of the movie. After Platoon was released, you quote Jacqueline Kennedy, who wrote you and said, “Your film has changed the direction of a country’s thinking.” Your movies presented a counter-narrative to the Reagan regime’s reactionary agenda. Modesty aside, do you think that Salvador, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July may have helped stop Reagan and Bush from turning their Contra Wars in Central America into full-fledged Vietnam-like invasions? I don’t believe that they did. What happened was the fortuitous fuckup by the CIA when Eugene Hasenfus was captured after his plane was shot down. He was a contractor—he was in Nicaragua supplying [weapons to the U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista Contras]. It leads to the larger story of Oliver North, Reagan, George Herbert [Walker] Bush and the Iran-Contra affair. That’s what stalled them. Not that it was revealed in its entirety—that’s another story, of course, that’s been buried by The Washington Post’s Katharine Graham, who has been lionized in another kind of movie. But basically that scandal at least was enough to stop the momentum of an invasion, and Reagan did not have the power, the ability, the credibility anymore after October ’86. Which of course helped Platoon too, because it came out right in that juncture, and that revived Salvador, which was rereleased. Both films had an impact, but whether that would have changed the course of Reagan without the accident with the CIA—I don’t think so. Tell us about your new film, JFK: Destiny Betrayed. It’s a four-hour documentary, and it has the facts. More facts than ever. We deal with everything that happened after—in terms of documentation—since [JFK] came out in 1991. Very interesting. Because the assassination records review board, which was created from the JFK film with the JFK [Records] Act—although it was stymied by many restrictions, it did manage to release a fair amount of documents. Not all. And in those documents there’s quite a bit of information, including, of course, Operation Northwoods, that the Pentagon was operating to undercut Cuba. What are some of the highlights you learned since 1991 about the liquidation of President Kennedy? Well, I think you have to wait for the movie. [Laughs.] But certainly the ties of [Lee Harvey] Oswald to the CIA. That’s more explicit. Certainly, the evidence. We revisit the original evidence presented by Mark Lane but with new witnesses; new characters have come forward. Many people [didn’t] talk, but they start talking after the movie in the 1990s…People talk. All these informational signals come from all directions. You explain that your book title, Chasing the Light, refers to a moviemaking term. But does it also allude to your personal quest for enlightenment? And if so, have you attained it yet? Well, I’m much older [now] than when the book ends. But certainly that is an important moment, in 1986. After wanting to achieve a dream of writing and directing since I was 22 and being rejected and defeated many times, having some success along the way, and after having almost given up at 30—finally, at the age of 40, I really had a breakthrough of major proportions, with two solid movies back to back that really convinced the world, as well as myself, that I was a writer-director. It was a core victory for me and an important fact. That sets the tone for the foundation of my character. There’s going to be changes, more detours, pushes and turns in the story, but certainly, it’s established in 1986. So your memoir ends in 1987. That means a lot of your other classics are yet to come. So, in that grand Hollywood tradition, will there be a sequel to Chasing the Light? Well, I hope so. I do hope so. I hope the book does well enough to justify it. What’s next for you? I have two documentaries. One is the JFK documentary, four hours long, that won’t be out for a year. Another one is unedited, about the future, the need for clean energy, which includes nuclear energy. It’s based on a book I bought called A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, by Joshua Goldstein and a Swedish scientist, Staffan A. Qvist. I understand you’re traveling these days. I’m about to promote the book in Paris. I just came back from Italy, France and Germany… It was big in Italy—they loved me. [Laughs.] Much better than in the United States.

-Ed Rampell, Hustler, Jan 16 2021

#oliver stone #hustler #ed rampell #army #the vietnam war #chasing the light

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citrina-posts · 4 years ago

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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

1. Growing Up Asian-American

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

3. What It Does Right

#reposting this without the cut so that it survives with my new url!#avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #cultural appropriation #culture #atla crit #meta #criticism #racism tw #self rb #citrina writes

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Sugar Ray Leonard

Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956), best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed from 1977 to 1997, winning world titles in five weight divisions; the lineal championship in three weight divisions; as well as the undisputed welterweight title. Leonard was part of "The Fabulous Four", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of Leonard, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler.

"The Fabulous Four" created a wave of popularity in the lower weight classes that kept boxing relevant in the post-Muhammad Ali era, during which Leonard defeated future fellow International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Hearns, Durán, Hagler, and Wilfred Benítez. Leonard was also the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses, and was named "Boxer of the Decade" in the 1980s. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1979 and 1981, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1976, 1979, and 1981. In 2002, Leonard was voted by The Ring as the ninth greatest fighter of the last 80 years; BoxRec ranks him as the 14th greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound.

Early life

Leonard, the fifth of seven children of Cicero and Getha Leonard, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was named after Ray Charles, his mother's favorite singer. The family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was three, and they settled permanently in Palmer Park, Maryland when he was ten. His father worked as a supermarket night manager and his mother was a nurse. He attended Parkdale High School, Leonard was a shy child, and aside from the time he nearly drowned in a creek during a flood in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, his childhood was uneventful. He stayed home a lot, reading comic books and playing with his dog. His mother said: "He never did talk too much. We never could tell what he was thinking. But I never had any problems with him. I never had to go to school once because of him."

Amateur career

Leonard started boxing at the Palmer Park Recreation Center in 1969. His older brother, Roger, started boxing first. Roger helped start the boxing program, urging the center's director, Ollie Dunlap, to form a team. Dave Jacobs, a former boxer, and Janks Morton volunteered as boxing coaches. Roger won some trophies and showed them off in front of Ray, goading him to start boxing.

In 1972, Leonard boxed in the featherweight quarterfinals of the National AAU Tournament, losing by decision to Jerome Artis. It was his first defeat. Later that year, he boxed in the Eastern Olympic Trials. The rules stated that a boxer had to be seventeen to box in international competition, so Leonard, only sixteen, lied about his age. He made it to the lightweight semifinals, losing a disputed decision to Greg Whaley, who took such a beating that he wasn't allowed to continue in the trials and never boxed again.

Sarge Johnson, assistant coach of the US Olympic Boxing Team, said to Dave Jacobs, "That kid you got is sweet as sugar". The nickname stuck. However, given his style and first name, it was probably only a matter of time before people started calling him Sugar Ray, after the man many consider to be the best boxer of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson.

In 1973, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship, but lost to Randy Shields in the lightweight final of the National AAU Tournament. The following year, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Lightweight Championships. Leonard suffered his last two losses as an amateur in 1974. He lost a disputed decision to Anatoli Kamnev in Moscow, after which, Kamnev gave the winner's trophy to Leonard. In Poland, Kazimierz Szczerba was given a decision victory over Leonard, even though he was dominated in the first two rounds and dropped three times in the third.

Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Light Welterweight Championships in 1974. The following year, he again won the National AAU Light Welterweight Championship, as well as the Light Welterweight Championship at the Pan American Games.

In 1976, Leonard made the U.S. Olympic Team as the light welterweight representative. The team also included Leon and Michael Spinks, Howard Davis Jr., Leo Randolph, Charles Mooney, and John Tate. Many consider the 1976 U.S. team to be the greatest boxing team in the history of the Olympics. Leonard won his first four Olympic bouts by 5–0 decisions. He faced Kazimierz Szczerba in the semifinals and won by a 5–0 decision, avenging his last amateur loss.

In the final, Leonard boxed the great Cuban knockout artist Andrés Aldama, who scored five straight knockouts to reach the final. Leonard landed several good left hooks in the first round. In the second, he dropped Aldama with a left to the chin. Late in the final round, he again hurt Aldama, which brought a standing eight count from the referee.

With only a few seconds left in the fight, a Leonard combination forced another standing eight count. Leonard was awarded a 5–0 decision and the Olympic Gold Medal. Afterward, Leonard announced, "I'm finished...I've fought my last fight. My journey has ended, my dream is fulfilled. Now I want to go to school." He was given a scholarship to the University of Maryland, a gift from the citizens of Glenarden, Maryland. He planned to study business administration and communications. He finished his amateur career with a record of 165–5 and 75 KOs.

Achievements

1973 National Golden Gloves Lightweight Champion, defeating Hilmer Kenty

1973 National AAU Light Welterweight Championship runner-up, losing to Randy Shields

1974 National Golden Gloves Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Jeff Lemeir

1974 National AAU Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Paul Sherry

1974 North American Championships Gold Medalist, defeating Robert Proulx

1975 National AAU Light Welterweight Champion, defeating Milton Seward

1975 North American Championships Gold Medalist, defeating Michel Briere

1975 Pan American Games Light Welterweight Gold Medalist, defeating Victor Corona

1976 Olympic Light Welterweight Gold Medalist, defeating Andrés Aldama

Olympic Results

1/32: Defeated Ulf Carlsson (Sweden) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/16: Defeated Valery Limasov (Soviet Union) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/8: Defeated Clinton McKenzie (Great Britain) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/4: Defeated Ulrich Beyer (East Germany) by unanimous decision, 5–0

1/2: Defeated Kazimierz Szczerba (Poland) by unanimous decision, 5–0

Finals: Defeated Andrés Aldama (Cuba) by unanimous decision, 5–0

Change in plans

Juanita Wilkinson, Leonard's high school girlfriend, told him she was pregnant in the summer of 1973. They decided to have the baby but marriage would be put off until after the Olympics in 1976. Leonard would continue to pursue his Olympic dream while she and the baby, Ray Charles Leonard Jr., lived with her parents. When Leonard boxed in the Olympics, he had a picture of Wilkinson taped to his sock.

Shortly before the Olympics, Wilkinson had filed an application to receive $156 a month in child support payments from Prince George's County, Maryland. She named Leonard as the father and the county's state attorney's office filed a civil suit against Leonard to establish paternity and get support payments for the child. Leonard learned of the suit several days after returning home from the Olympics. The headline in the Washington Star read, "Sugar Ray Leonard Named in Welfare Dept. Paternity Suit".

Wilkinson went to the Olympics to watch Leonard box, but she did not tell him about the suit and never asked him for any money. "I didn't feel like being bothered by all those complications by asking him for any money for support", she said. Leonard pledged he would support his son, even if he had to scrap plans to attend college.

Leonard had hoped to get lucrative endorsements following his gold medal win, but the negative publicity from the paternity suit chased off any big commercial possibilities. To make matters worse, his father was hospitalized with meningitis and his mother suffered a heart attack. With neither parent able to work, with his child and the mother of his child to support, and without any endorsement opportunities, Leonard decided to become a professional boxer.

Professional career

Early professional career

When Leonard decided to turn professional, Janks Morton introduced him to Mike Trainer, a friend of his who was an attorney. Trainer talked 24 of his friends and clients into underwriting Leonard's career with an investment of $21,000 to be repaid within four years at 8% interest. Trainer then made Leonard the sole stockholder in Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc. Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer, was brought in to be Leonard's trainer and manager. Many of the people being considered wanted absolute control and a cut somewhere near the manager's traditional 33%. Dundee had a different proposition. Although he would prescribe the training procedures, he would leave the day-to-day work to Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton. He would also choose Leonard's opponents. For his services, Dundee would get 15% of Leonard's purse.

Leonard made his professional debut on February 5, 1977 before a crowd of 10,270 at the Civic Center in Baltimore. He was paid $40,044 for the fight. His opponent was Luis "The Bull" Vega, whom he defeated by a six-round unanimous decision. After the fight, Leonard paid back his $21,000 loan to the investors.

In his fourteenth professional fight, Leonard fought his first world-ranked opponent, Floyd Mayweather, who was ranked seventeenth. The fight took place on September 9, 1978. Leonard won by a tenth-round knockout. A month later, Leonard defeated his old amateur nemesis Randy Shields by a ten-round unanimous decision.

On August 12, 1979, Leonard knocked out Pete Ranzany in four rounds to win the NABF Welterweight Championship. The following month, he made his first title defense against Andy Price. Price, an up-and-coming contender who was sponsored by Marvin Gaye, had a reputation for prolonged bouts in earlier fights and was believed by sports reporters to defeat or give a long fight to Leonard. Although Price landed multiple good blows, Leonard knocked him out in the first round, advancing his record to 25–0 with 16 knockouts.

First world titleLeonard vs. Benitez

Leonard fought Wilfred Benítez for the WBC Welterweight Championship on November 30, 1979, at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. There was a capacity crowd of about 4,600. Leonard received $1 million and Benitez, a two-division champion with a record of 38–0–1, received $1.2 million.

It was a highly competitive and tactical battle. In the first round, Leonard rocked Benitez with a left hook that came off a jab and right cross. Late in the third, Leonard dropped Benitez on the seat of his pants with a stiff left jab. More embarrassed than hurt, Benitez got up quickly. Benitez started improving in the fourth, slipping numerous punches and finding the range with his right hand. "I wasn't aware I was in a championship early because I hit him so easy", Leonard said. "But then he adjusted to my style. It was like looking in a mirror".

In the sixth, there was an accidental clash of heads, which opened a cut on the forehead of Benitez. Blood flowed down his forehead and the bridge of his nose but stayed out of his eyes.

Leonard landed the harder punches and had Benitez hurt several times late in the fight, but Leonard couldn't put him away. Benitez was very slick. "No one, I mean no one, can make me miss punches like that", Leonard said.

Going into the final round, Leonard led by scores of 137–130, 137–133, and 136–134. The two went toe-to-toe in the fifteenth. Late in the round, Leonard dropped Benitez with a left. He got up, but after a few more punches, the referee stopped the fight. The time was 2:54 of round fifteen.

The Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring named Leonard "Fighter of the Year" for 1979.

Leonard vs. Green

Leonard made his first title defense in Landover, Maryland, on March 31, 1980. His opponent was Dave "Boy" Green. The British challenger had a record of 33–2. In the fourth round, Leonard knocked Green out with a devastating left hook. Leonard called it "the hardest single punch I ever threw."

The Brawl in Montreal

On June 20, 1980, Leonard returned to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal to defend his title against Roberto Durán before a crowd of 46,317. Durán, the former Undisputed World Lightweight Champion for 6 1/2 years, had a record of 71–1 and was the #1 welterweight contender and considered the best "Pound for Pound" fighter in the world. Durán received $1.5 million and Leonard, working for a percentage of the closed-circuit gate as well as a guarantee, received over $9 million.

Angelo Dundee counseled Leonard to box, to move side to side and not to get caught on the ropes. However, Leonard decided to fight Durán's way. "Flat-footed", he said. "I will not run."

Durán forced the issue and took the fight to Leonard, cutting off the ring and denying Leonard space to fight his fight. Durán attacked at almost every turn. Leonard battled back again and again, but he had to work just to find room to breathe and swing, at times simply to survive. In the second, Durán rocked Leonard with a left hook, sending him into the ropes. Leonard started to do better by the fifth round, finding some punching room and throwing numerous multi-punch combinations. The two fought with great intensity throughout the fight. According to Bill Nack:

It was, from almost the opening salvo, a fight that belonged to Durán. The Panamanian seized the evening and gave it what shape and momentum it had. He took control, attacking and driving Leonard against the ropes, bulling him back, hitting him with lefts and rights to the body as he maneuvered the champion against the ropes from corner to corner. Always moving forward, he mauled and wrestled Leonard, scoring inside with hooks and rights. For three rounds Durán drove at Sugar Ray with a fury, and there were moments when it seemed the fight could not last five. Unable to get away, unable to counter and unable to slide away to open up the ring, Leonard seemed almost helpless under the assault. Now and then he got loose and countered—left-right-left to Durán's bobbing head—but he missed punches and could not work inside, could not jab, could not mount an offense to keep Durán at bay.

Durán was awarded a unanimous decision, although it was mistakenly read as a majority decision in the ring. The scorecard of judge Angelo Poletti was incorrectly added and announced as 147–147. He actually scored it 148–147. In rounds, he had it three for Durán, two for Leonard, and ten even. Sports Illustrated called his scorecard "a monument to indecision." Judges Raymond Baldeyrou and Harry Gibbs scored the fight 146–144 and 145–144, respectively. Associated Press had it 144–141 for Durán, while The New York Times had Leonard ahead 144–142.

"I did the best I could", Leonard said. "I think I pretty much fought from the heart." Asked if Leonard was the best he ever fought, Durán thought for a moment and then answered, "Si, si." Durán said. "He does have a heart. That's why he's living."

"No Más"

in New Orleans

The rematch, billed as "Stone vs. Sugar.. Once Again", took place November 25, 1980 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in front of 25,038 fans. Leonard received $7 million and Durán received $8 million.

Dave Jacobs disagreed with the decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán and terminated his relationship with Leonard when the rematch was made. "My idea is that he should have a tuneup fight before he fights with Roberto again", Jacobs said. "I think he won the fight with Durán, but I don't think it is healthy for him to be fighting Durán right away".

After the Montreal fight Durán went on a partying binge and ballooned in weight. Leonard was aware of this, and in an interview for Beyond the Glory he said: "My intention was to fight Durán ASAP because I knew Durán's habits. I knew he would indulge himself, he'd gain 40–50 lbs and then sweat it off to make 147." Unlike the fight in Montreal, Leonard used his superior speed and movement to outbox and befuddle Durán. "The whole fight, I was moving, I was moving", Leonard said. "And Voom! I snapped his head back with a jab. Voom! I snapped it back again. He tried to get me against the ropes, I'd pivot, spin off and Pow! Come under with a punch."

In round seven, Leonard started to taunt Durán. Leonard's most memorable punch came late in the round. Winding up his right hand, as if to throw a bolo punch, Leonard snapped out a left jab and caught Durán flush in the face. "It made his eyes water", Leonard said. He continued to taunt Durán mercilessly. He stuck out his chin, inviting Durán to hit it. Durán hesitated. Leonard kept it up, continuing to move, stop, and mug.

In the closing seconds of the eighth round, Durán turned his back to Leonard and quit, saying to referee Octavio Meyran, "No Más" (English: "No more"). Leonard was the winner by a technical knockout at 2:44 of round eight, regaining the WBC Welterweight Championship. Leonard led by scores of 68–66, 68–66 and 67–66.

Durán said he quit because of stomach cramps, caused by overeating after the weigh-in. "At the end of the fifth round, I got cramps in my stomach and it kept getting worse and worse", Duran later said. "I felt weaker and weaker in my body and arms." He then announced, "I am retiring from boxing right now." During the night Durán was admitted to a hospital with stomach pains, and discharged the following day.

Everyone was surprised by Durán's actions, none more so than his veteran trainers, Freddie Brown and Ray Arcel. "I was shocked", Brown said. "There was no indication that he was in pain or getting weak." Arcel was angry. "That's it", he said. "I've had it. This is terrible. I've handled thousands of fighters and never had anyone quit on me. I think he needs a psychiatrist more than he needs anything else." Durán's manager, Carlos Eleta, said, "Durán didn't quit because of stomach cramps. He quit because he was embarrassed. I know this." According to Randy Gordon, who witnessed Durán's antics beforehand and was in his dressing room immediately afterwards, Durán quit because of his huge eating binge prior to the fight.

"I made him quit", Leonard said. "To make a man quit, to make Roberto Durán quit, was better than knocking him out."

Second world titleLeonard vs. Bonds

On March 28, 1981, Leonard defended his title against Larry Bonds, the WBC sixth-ranked contender, at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. Bonds was a southpaw, which made him a good opponent for Leonard, given that his next opponent was scheduled to be the WBA Light Middleweight Champion Ayub Kalule, a southpaw.

Leonard was the aggressor throughout, with Bonds circling the ring. He staggered Bonds with a right in the fourth round and dropped him with a follow-up combination. Bonds got up and continued to move, with Leonard in pursuit. Leonard dropped him again in the tenth. Bonds rose but Leonard didn't let him off the hook. The referee stopped the fight with Bonds taking punishment in a corner.

Leonard vs. Kalule

Leonard moved up to the junior middleweight division and faced Kalule on June 25, 1981 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Kalule, who was 36–0, had been the WBA Light Middleweight Champion for two years.

Kalule and his handlers had expected Leonard to use lateral movement against him, but Leonard chose to fight inside instead. After eight tough rounds, Leonard was ahead although Kalule appeared to be coming on strong in the eight and ninth. Leonard finally hurt him with a right to the head. Shortly afterward, Leonard dropped him with a flurry of punches. Kalule got up but the referee waved it off. Leonard celebrated his victory with a full 360-degree, no-hands flip. Despite an official stoppage time of 2.59, the fight was actually stopped at 3.06 into the round, meaning Kalule should have been saved by the bell.

The Showdown

Promoted as "The Showdown", Leonard fought Thomas Hearns on September 16, 1981 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to unify the World Welterweight Championship in a scheduled fifteen-rounder. They fought before a live crowd of 23,618. Hearns was paid $5.1 million, and Leonard made over $11 million. The fight grossed over $35 million. The live gate was $5.9 million, and the revenue from pay-per-view was $7.5 million.

Hearns, 32–0 with 30 knockouts, won the WBA Welterweight Championship in 1980, scoring a second-round knockout of José "Pipino" Cuevas in Detroit, Michigan. He made three successful title defenses, stopping Luis Primera, Randy Shields, and Pablo Baez.

The fight began as expected, Leonard boxing from a distance and Hearns stalking. Leonard had difficulty with Hearns' long reach and sharp jab. By the end of round five, Leonard had a growing swelling under his left eye, and Hearns had built a considerable lead on the scorecards. Leonard, becoming more aggressive, hurt Hearns in the sixth with a left hook to the chin. Leonard battered Hearns in rounds six and seven, but Hearns regrouped. Hearns started to stick and move, and he started to pile up points again. The roles reversed: Leonard became the stalker and Hearns became the boxer. The fight billed as a classic showdown between a powerful knockout artist and the best boxer/puncher the welterweight division had seen in decades devolved into a tactical and boring fight.

Hearns won rounds nine through twelve on all three scorecards. Between rounds twelve and thirteen, Angelo Dundee told Leonard, "You're blowing it, son! You're blowing it!".

Leonard, with a badly swollen left eye, came out roaring for the thirteenth round. After hurting Hearns with a right, Leonard exploded with a combination of punches. Hearns' legs were clearly gone and after more pressure from Leonard he was bundled through the ropes, no knockdown was given as it wasn't a punch that sent him there. Hearns managed to rise, but was dropped by a flurry of hard punches near the end of the round.

In round fourteen, after staggering Hearns with an overhand right, Leonard pinned Hearns against the ropes, where he unleashed another furious combination, prompting referee Davey Pearl to stop the contest and award Sugar Ray Leonard the Unified World Welterweight Championship. Hearns was leading by scores of 124–122, 125–122, and 125–121.

After the fight, there was controversy due to the scoring of rounds six and seven. Even though Leonard dominated, hurting Hearns and battering him, all three judges gave both rounds to Leonard by a 10–9 margin. Many felt that the ten-point must scoring system was not properly used and those rounds should have been scored 10–8. Some also considered the stoppage premature. Veteran ringside commentator Don Dunphy said "They're stopping the fight. I don't believe it. Hearns was ahead on points." However, Emanuel Steward, Hearns' manager and trainer, said, "I felt that the referee was justified in stopping the fight ... Tommy did not have enough energy to make it through the fight."

The fight was named "Fight of the Year" by The Ring. Leonard was named "Fighter of the Year" by The Ring and The Boxing Writers Association of America. He was also named "Athlete of the Year" by ABC's Wide World of Sports and "Sportsman of the Year" by Sports Illustrated.

Retirement and return

On February 15, 1982, Leonard defended the unified title against Bruce Finch, the WBC fourth-ranked contender, in a bout at Reno, NV. Leonard knocked him out in the third round. Leonard's next fight was scheduled to be against Roger Stafford on May 14, 1982, in Buffalo, New York. While training, Leonard started to see floaters. He went to a doctor and discovered that he had a detached retina. The fight was cancelled, and Leonard had surgery to repair the retina on May 9, 1982.

On November 9, 1982, Leonard invited Marvin Hagler and other boxing dignitaries to a charity event in Baltimore, Maryland to hear him announce whether he would continue his career. Standing in a boxing ring with Howard Cosell, the master of ceremonies, Leonard announced his retirement, saying a bout with Hagler would unfortunately never happen. Leonard maintained his eye was fully healed, but that he just didn't want to box anymore.

Missing the limelight and the competition, Leonard announced in December 1983 that he was returning to the ring. Leonard boasted that he would have a couple of ten-round bouts and then take on Milton McCrory, Donald Curry, Durán, Hearns and finally Hagler. This decision was met with a torrent of criticism from fans and the media, who felt Leonard was taking unnecessary risks with his surgically repaired eye.

A bout with Philadelphia's Kevin Howard, who was 20–4–1, was scheduled for February 25, 1984. The fight was postponed when Leonard had minor surgery on his right eye to fix a loose retina. This latest eye problem further fueled the flames of those who opposed Leonard's comeback.

Before the fight with Howard, Dave Jacobs rejoined Leonard's team in a limited role. Jacobs had quit in 1980, disagreeing with Leonard's decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán.

Leonard and Howard fought on May 11, 1984, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Howard knocked Leonard flat on his back in the fourth round. It was the first knockdown of Leonard's professional career. Leonard came back to stop Howard in the ninth round, but the stoppage was disputed, with some feeling that the referee stopped the fight prematurely. Leonard was ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage. At the post-fight press conference, Leonard surprised everyone by announcing his retirement again, saying he just didn't have it anymore.

Leonard vs. Hagler

On March 10, 1986, Marvin Hagler knocked out John Mugabi in eleven rounds to retain the Undisputed World Middleweight Championship for the twelfth time and advance his record to 62–2–2. "I was ringside", Leonard said. "I'm watching John 'The Beast' Mugabi outbox Hagler. Of all people, John 'The Beast' Mugabi." It was then that Leonard decided to come back and fight Hagler. He called Mike Trainer and said, "I can beat Hagler".

On May 1, 1986, Leonard announced on a Washington, D.C. talk show that he would return to the ring to fight Hagler. The announcement generated a lot of controversy because of Leonard's inactivity and eye injuries, yet it also excited many sports fans who had hoped to see them fight years earlier. Hagler took a few months to decide, then agreed to the match.

The fight, promoted as "The Super Fight" and "The King of the Ring", was scheduled for April 6, 1987, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Leonard was guaranteed $11 million, and Hagler was guaranteed $12 million. Hagler was a heavy favorite. The odds started at 4–1, then settled at 3–1. A paying crowd 12,379 generated a live gate of $6.2 million. According to Bob Arum, the fight grossed $78 million (which equates to $170 million in 2016).

The original fight plan for Leonard was to go toe-to-toe with Hagler and try to cut him, but the plan changed about five days before the fight. Leonard got hit by sparring partner Quincy Taylor and was badly buckled. "He almost knocked me out", Leonard said. After that, Leonard decided to box Hagler.

Many were surprised that Hagler, a natural southpaw, opened the fight boxing out of an orthodox stance. After the quick and slick Leonard won the first two rounds on all three scorecards, Hagler started the third round as a southpaw. Hagler did better, but Leonard's superior speed and boxing skill still allowed him to control the fight. Hagler looked stiff and mechanical and missed the speedy Leonard time and again prompting CBS ringside commentator Gil Clancy to remark "...and is he ever missing...Leonard isn't doing anything to make him miss, he's just missing!"

By the fifth, Leonard, who was moving a lot, began to tire and Hagler started to get closer. Hagler buckled Leonard's knees with a right uppercut near the end of the round, which finished with Leonard on the ropes. Hagler continued to score somewhat effectively in round six. Leonard, having slowed down, was obliged to fight more and move less. However, he was able to outpunch Hagler along the ropes and got the better of several bristling exchanges. Hagler never seized total control of the fight as he had against Thomas Hearns two years earlier, when he brutalized Hearns and scored a third-round knockout. Hagler's punches lacked snap and, although he was scoring solidly to the body, he looked nothing like the powerful fighter who had dominated the middleweight division for the previous five years. Leonard's observation that the Hagler who beat John Mugabi was older and slower proved to be spot on. In rounds seven and eight, Hagler's southpaw jab was landing solidly and Leonard's counter flurries were less frequent.

Round nine was the most exciting round of the fight. Hagler hurt Leonard with a left cross and pinned him in a corner. Leonard looked to be in trouble, but he furiously fought his way out of the corner. The action see-sawed back and forth for the rest of the round, with each man having his moments. However, Hagler's moments were more spectacular and one of Hagler's cornermen: Roger Perron (in an interview that took place on an episode of HBO's Legendary Nights episode segments in 2003) later stated that: "the ninth round was probably Marvin (Hagler)'s, best round".

Round ten was tame by comparison, as the pace slowed after the furious action of the previous round but with Hagler having more spectacular moments. Despite Leonard's obvious fatigue, he boxed well in the eleventh. Every time Hagler scored, Leonard came back with something flashier and more eye-catching, if not as effective. But at that point in the fight, Hagler appeared to be slightly more ring-general and clearly more aggressive. Between rounds eleven and twelve, Leonard's trainer: Angelo Dundee, implored Sugar Ray to get up off his stool yelling "We got three minutes...new champ...new champ!" Leonard yelled "Yeah!" and played to the screaming crowd. Hagler's corner was much more reserved prompting Clancy to comment: "They're talking to him like it's an IBM meeting or something...no emotion." In the final round, Hagler continued to chase Leonard. He hit Leonard with a big left hand and backed him into a corner. Leonard responded with a furious flurry, landing few punches but whipping the upset-hoping crowd into a frenzy. Hagler backed off, and Leonard danced away with Hagler in pursuit. The fight ended with Hagler and Leonard exchanging along the ropes. At the final bell, even uniformed ringside security rushed into the ring applauding and lauding Leonard's effort.

Leonard threw 629 punches and landed 306, while Hagler threw 792 and landed 291.

Leonard was awarded a controversial split-decision. Judge Dave Moretti scored it 115–113 for Leonard, while judge Lou Filippo had it 115–113 for Hagler. Judge José Guerra scored the fight 118–110 for Leonard. Many felt that Hagler deserved the decision because he was the aggressor and landed the harder punches. Scottish boxing journalist Hugh McIlvanney wrote that Leonard's plan was to "steal rounds with a few flashy and carefully timed flurries...he was happy to exaggerate hand speed at the expense of power, and neither he nor two of the scorers seemed bothered by the fact that many of the punches landed on the champion's gloves and arms."

Many others felt that Leonard deservedly got the decision, arguing that Leonard landed more punches and showed better defense and ring generalship. Jim Murray, long-time sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, "It wasn't even close...He didn't just outpoint Hagler, he exposed him. He made him look like a guy chasing a bus. In snowshoes...Leonard repeatedly beat Hagler to the punch. When he did, he hit harder. He hit more often...He made Hagler into what he perceived him to be throughout his career—a brawler, a swarmer, a man who could club you to death only if you stood there and let him. If you moved, he was lost."

The scorecards from the ringside press and broadcast media attest to the polarizing views and opinions of the fight:

The fight was named "Fight of the Year" and "Upset of the Year" by The Ring.

Despite requests from the Hagler camp, Leonard was uninterested in a rematch and retired on May 27, 1987. "I'll try, I'll give it a shot", Leonard said of his latest retirement. "But you guys know me." A month after Hagler's formal retirement in June 1988, Leonard would announce another comeback.

Another comebackLeonard vs. Lalonde

On November 7, 1988, Leonard made another comeback, facing Donny Lalonde at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. They fought for Lalonde's WBC Light Heavyweight Championship and the newly created WBC Super Middleweight Championship, which meant that Lalonde had to make 168 lbs. Many were critical of the fact that Lalonde's light heavyweight title was on the line when the weight limit of the fight with Leonard was at 168 pounds, and critical of Leonard for stipulating that his opponent—a natural 175 pounder—should weigh less than his usual fighting weight, which could possibly weaken him. However, Lalonde later told HBO's Larry Merchant that he didn't have any trouble making weight.

Lalonde, 31–2 with 26 knockouts, was guaranteed at least $6 million and Leonard was guaranteed over $10 million.

This would be Leonard's first professional fight without Angelo Dundee. For Leonard's fight with Hagler, Dundee worked without a contract and received $175,000, which was less than 2% of Leonard's purse. Dundee was unhappy with that amount. He requested a contract for the Lalonde fight and Leonard refused. "I don't have contracts. My word is my bond", Leonard said. Janks Morton and Dave Jacobs trained Leonard for the Lalonde fight.

Lalonde's size and awkwardness troubled Leonard. In the fourth round, a right hand to the top of Leonard's head dropped him for just the second time in his career. Early in the ninth, Lalonde hurt Leonard with a right to the chin. Leonard fired back and hurt Lalonde with a right. He drove him to the ropes and unleashed a furious assault. Lalonde tried to tie up Leonard, but got dropped with a powerful left hook. He rose but was soon down again, and the fight was stopped. Judges Chuck Giampa and Franz Marti had Leonard ahead by scores of 77–74 and 77–75, respectively. Judge Stuart Kirshenbaum had Lalonde ahead 76–75.

After the fight, Leonard vacated the light heavyweight title, but kept the super middleweight title. Also, Leonard and Janks Morton split because of personal differences. Morton was replaced as co-trainer by Pepe Correa, who had worked with Leonard for most of the previous fifteen years.

Leonard vs. Hearns

On June 12, 1989, Leonard defended the WBC Super Middleweight Championship in a rematch with Thomas Hearns at Caesar's Palace. It was promoted as "The War." Hearns was guaranteed $11 million and Leonard was guaranteed $14 million.

Hearns dropped Leonard with a right cross in the third round, but Leonard came back and battered Hearns around the ring in the fifth. Early in the seventh round, Hearns hurt Leonard but punched himself out going for the knockout. With Hearns fatigued, Leonard came back and had a strong finish to the round. Rounds nine and ten were good rounds for Leonard, but he ran into trouble in the eleventh round. Three booming rights from Hearns sent Leonard down for the second time in the fight. Knowing he needed a big finish, Leonard fought furiously and had a big final round.

The judges scored the fight a draw and Leonard retained the title. Judge Jerry Roth scored the fight 113–112 for Hearns, Judge Tom Kazmarek scored it 113–112 for Leonard, and Judge Dalby Shirley scored it 112–112. Shirley was the only judge to give Leonard a 10–8 margin in the twelfth. If he had scored it 10–9, as his two colleagues did, Hearns would have won by a split decision. Eventually, Leonard admitted that Hearns deserved the decision.

Leonard vs. Durán III – Uno Más

On December 7, 1989, Leonard defended the title against Roberto Durán, who was the reigning WBC Middleweight Champion. Durán was guaranteed $7.6 million and Leonard's arrangement guaranteed him over $13 million.

For the Durán fight, Leonard cut his entourage from twenty-one to six. Dave Jacobs was one of the people let go, leaving Correa as the sole trainer. Correa was instructed not to spare the whip. "For the first time in a long time, I allowed someone to push me", Leonard said.

The fight took place at the new Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Leonard used constant lateral movement and won by a lopsided twelve-round unanimous decision over a listless Durán. The scores were 120–110, 119–109, and 116–111. In a fight that many considered to be very boring, both fighters were booed often by the fans and many left the arena before the decision was announced. Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated wrote, "Leonard gave them artistic perfection when they wanted heated battle, and they booed lustily. Most fight fans would not spend a dime to watch Van Gogh paint Sunflowers, but they would fill Yankee Stadium to see him cut off his ear." Although Leonard dominated the fight, he suffered several cuts. His lower lip was cut from a headbutt in the fourth round, his left eye was cut in the eleventh round, and his right eye was cut in the twelfth round. The cuts required a total of 60 stitches.

In January 1990, Leonard relinquished the WBC Super Middleweight Championship, saying that he was unsure whether he would fight again. When Leonard decided to continue his career, he offered Hagler a rematch, but Hagler decided to stay retired. He then offered Hearns a third fight, but Hearns said he could no longer make the weight and moved up to the light heavyweight division.

Leonard vs. Norris

On February 9, 1991, Leonard went down to 154 lbs and fought WBC Light Middleweight Champion Terry Norris at Madison Square Garden. Leonard entered the bout as a 3-1 favorite but Norris dominated the fight, giving Leonard a heavy beating. He knocked Leonard down with a left hook in the second round, and in the seventh, he dropped Leonard again with a short right. Leonard had no answer for the skillful, younger, faster man. Leonard went the distance but lost by a lopsided decision. The scores were 120–104, 119–103, and 116–110. After the verdict was announced, Leonard announced his retirement. "It took this fight to show me it is no longer my time", Leonard said. "Tonight was my last fight. I know how Hagler felt now."

Final comeback

In October 1996, the 40-year-old Leonard announced that he was coming out of retirement to fight 34-year-old Héctor Camacho for the lightly regarded International Boxing Council (IBC) Middleweight Championship. Camacho, a light-hitting southpaw, was a three-time world champion with a record of 62–3–1. However, Camacho was also considered to be past his prime. Leonard decided to fight Camacho after commentating on Camacho's fight with the 45-year-old Roberto Durán the previous year, describing the disputed unanimous decision as "an early Christmas gift".

Leonard blamed his poor performance against Norris on lack of motivation, a rib injury, moving down in weight, and divorce, which was being litigated while he was in training. "It was stupid for me to fight Norris at 154 lbs", Leonard said. "This is different. I'm in the best shape possible."

For the Camacho fight, Leonard had a new trainer, Adrian Davis. "He's a great trainer, a throwback", Leonard said. "He has really helped me get ready."

In January 1997, it was announced that Leonard had been voted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in Canastota, New York. The rules state that a boxer must be retired for five years before being eligible for induction. When the vote took place, Leonard had been retired for more than five years, therefore, he was eligible, even though he had a fight scheduled. The induction ceremony was on June 15, 1997.

The fight with Camacho took place on March 1, 1997, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Camacho applied pressure from the opening bell and started to score well in the third. He continued to score well in the fourth and opened a cut above Leonard's right eye. In the fifth, Camacho dropped Leonard with a right followed by two left uppercuts. Leonard got up, but was unable to ward off Camacho. The referee stopped the fight with Camacho teeing off on a defenseless Leonard on the ropes. It was the only time in Leonard's career that he was knocked out.

Afterward, Leonard retired again, saying, "For sure, my career is definitely over for me in the ring." However, less than a week after the fight, Leonard said he planned to fight again. He blamed his loss on a torn right calf muscle. His doctor suggested that he cancel the fight, but Leonard wanted to go through with it. Before the fight, he was given a shot of novocaine.

Leonard said he planned to have a series of tuneup fights before fighting a champion. He was scheduled to fight Tony Menefee on February 15, 1998, in Australia, but he pulled out of the fight, saying that he didn't have the motivation. The Camacho fight was Leonard's last. He finished his career with a record of 36–3–1 with 25 knockouts.

Media appearances

Leonard has worked as a boxing analyst for ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, HBO and EPIX. His relationship with HBO lasted for more than a decade. It ended in 1990, after HBO was not offered an opportunity to bid on the telecast rights to Leonard's fight with Terry Norris. HBO believed it would be inappropriate for Leonard to continue with them if they couldn't bid on his fights. Leonard's attorney, Mike Trainer, said, "There never has been a linkage between his broadcasting and his fighting."

Leonard has provided commercial endorsements for companies including Coca-Cola, EA Sports, Ford, Nabisco, Revlon and 7 Up. His most famous commercial was a 7 Up ad he did with his son, Ray Jr., Roberto Durán and Durán's son Roberto Jr. in the early 1980s. Leonard is among the most sought-after motivational/inspirational speakers in the world today. His speech, entitled "Power" (Prepare, Overcome and Win Every Round), is consistently booked with major Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States and abroad.

Leonard has also worked as an actor. He has appeared in numerous television shows, including Half & Half, L.A. Heat, Married... with Children, Renegade and Tales From The Crypt. He has also appeared in several movies, including I Spy and most recently The Fighter (2010), starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. This movie brought back memories of his fight with Dicky Eklund. He also worked as an adviser in the 2011 robot boxing film Real Steel. Leonard served as host and mentor to the aspiring fighters on The Contender. Sylvester Stallone, who co-hosted during the first season, was one of the executive producers, along with Mark Burnett. When Leonard left the show, he was replaced as host by Tony Danza for the final season.

In 2001, Leonard launched Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing Inc., a boxing promotional company, and announced the company's strategic partnership with ESPN. Together, Leonard and ESPN would produce and promote "Sugar Ray Leonard and ESPN II Presents Friday Night Fights", which would air the first Friday of every month for twelve months. Leonard's boxing promotional company was dissolved in 2004. He had a falling out with partner Bjorn Rebney, whom he called "a cancer in my company." Speaking of his promotional company, Leonard said, "We did some great shows with evenly matched fights. I took great pride in it. But the TV show came about and made my decision a lot easier. I already had it in the back of my mind to dissolve the company. The working environment was not healthy."

Leonard competed on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars, which premiered on Monday, March 21, 2011, on ABC. His partner was Anna Trebunskaya. He was voted off in Week 4 of the show. During his appearance on The Colbert Report in 2011, Leonard was defeated by host Stephen Colbert in a thumb wrestling contest. He appeared as a guest at the chef's table, along with Tito Ortiz, during the tenth season of Hell's Kitchen. He is the celebrity spokesperson for the Atlanta law firm John Foy and Associates, PC.

Leonard was also the subject of a Seinfeld episode (season 6, episode 21) where George tries to flatter his boss by saying he looks like Sugar Ray Leonard. The real Leonard (a Seinfeld fan) mentioned that he was told about the episode by friends and family, but had never seen it for himself until a friend gave him the DVD set for a gift.

Personal life

Family

Leonard married his high school sweetheart, Juanita Wilkinson, in January 1980. Their six-year-old son, Ray Jr., served as the ring bearer. In 1984, they had another son, Jarrell. They were divorced in 1990. During divorce proceedings, Juanita Leonard testified that her husband physically abused her while under the influence of alcohol. She also said he was an occasional cocaine user. In his testimony, Leonard confirmed his wife's claims and went on to reveal that the problems of their marriage were not due to drug and alcohol use.

After the Los Angeles Times broke the story, Leonard held a press conference and publicly acknowledged that the accusations were true. He said he started using after he retired in 1982, following surgery to repair a detached retina. "I wanted more", Leonard said. "I wanted that arena. I didn't want anyone to tell me my career had to end." "I decided to search for a substitute...I resorted to cocaine. I used when I felt bad, I used when I missed competing at that level", he said. "It was a crutch, something that enabled me to forget." He said he quit using drugs in early 1986, when he woke up one morning and "what I saw in the mirror was scary." "I can never erase the pain or the scars I have made through my stupidity, my selfishness", Leonard said. "All I can do is say I'm sorry, but that is not enough." In 2011, Leonard revealed in an NPR interview that he had been free of alcohol since July 2006.

In 1989, Leonard was introduced to Bernadette Robi by Kenny G at a Luther Vandross concert. Robi is the daughter of Paul Robi, one of the original Platters, and she is the ex-wife of Lynn Swann. Leonard and Robi were married at Leonard's $8.7 million estate in Pacific Palisades, California in August 1993. At the wedding ceremony, the grounds were converted into a garden with 10,000 roses and blossoms of other flowers flown in from the Netherlands.

Leonard is also the godfather of Khloé Kardashian and has appeared on many episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Charity work

For many years, Leonard has been the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk for a Cure and is actively involved in raising both awareness and funds.

Leonard testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in 2009. The Senate hearing was titled "Type 1 Diabetes Research: Real Progress and Real Hope for a Cure". He testified about the burden of diabetes and the need for continued research funding to find a cure.

Leonard and his wife, Bernadette, founded the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and its annual Walk for a Cure. In 2009, the foundation expanded to support programs that help people rebuild their communities in ten cities across the United States. It supports accessible housing, healthcare services, and educational services and job training.

In 2007 he was awarded The Ambassador Award of Excellence by the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission at the Riviera Country Club for his continued community involvement.

Advocacy against child molestation

In his autobiography The Big Fight: My Life in and out of the Ring, published in June 2011, Leonard reveals that as a young boxer he was the victim of sexual abuse from an Olympic trainer as well as another man, a benefactor. He has since made public appearances to bring attention to the issue of child sex abuse, declaring himself a "poster child" for the cause and encouraging victims to report their abuse.

#05/17

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fuckyeahjamieandclaire · 5 years ago

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There are great reasons to watch Starz’s period romance drama “Outlander,” starting with the sex and sometimes ending with the sex. But for now, I’d like to praise what happens between the show’s main characters when they are clothed.

Okay, that’s only a small lie. Even the most serious-minded “Outlander” fan is at least partly tuned in/turned on every Sunday night in hopes of seeing more of the enthusiastic lovemaking (glowingly demonstrated by stars Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan) that propels this epic. It’s difficult to think of another cable series that wields its adult content — and the chemistry between its co-stars — so maturely.

Anyway, this is meant to be a piece about how “Outlander,” now in the middle of a satisfyingly strong fourth season, is the only show around in which a man and a woman — an 18th-century Scottish Highlander named Jamie Fraser (Heughan) and his time-traveling wife, a 20th-century English doctor named Claire Randall Fraser (Balfe, who just got a Golden Globe nomination for her work on the show) — have found a way to truly communicate. What more could we need from a TV series in 2018 than to see two adults persist against all odds by listening to one another?

For the record, other discerning viewers find plenty to dislike about “Outlander,” particularly around its handling of sexual violence — or the constant, close-call threats of it. For such a dumb-looking show, “Outlander” manages to start a lot of conversations and arguments.

Yet the show’s heart, I’ve found, is almost always in the right place. Despite a rocky and even abusive start to their relationship, Jamie and Claire found the kind of love that benefits from talking, from sharing information as well as their deepest feelings. It’s the one show where two people will actually stop in the middle of the action to check in, emotionally, and bring one another up to speed.

Not that they get a lot of time for that. Each week Claire and Jamie endure every possible calamity that can befall a white, heterosexual, married couple in the 1770s — at least one life-threatening crisis per episode. Together and separately they have so far survived the culture-shock of time travel along with war, torture, imprisonment, attempted sexual assaults, a rape (in a provocative twist, Jamie was the rape victim, not Claire), parenthood, separation, ocean crossings, palace intrigue, disease, grave injury, pirates, bandits, robbers, smugglers, witches, a hurricane and a shipwreck.

In Season 4, Jamie and Claire establish a small settlement in the mountains of North Carolina, just before the American Revolution. In addition to dealing once more with sneering redcoats and the stirrings of anti-British rebellion, there are other, uniquely American problems to face: angry mobs of aggrieved slave-owners out for a lynching; tentative relations with the Cherokee tribe across the creek; and a neighboring houseful of Lutherans with a deadly case of the measles. The list goes on — sometimes laughably so.

“Outlander’s” best moments are found in those smaller, more insular moments in which Jamie and Claire see the world through one another’s perspectives. TV is full of couples who misconstrue, raise volumes, ignore key issues, assign blame, gossip to outside confidants about spousal shortcomings, disappoint in the bedroom and storm out of the house a lot. The technical term for that is conflict and most writers of relationship stories would be lost without it.

Which is why, the more you watch “Outlander,” the more you see just how intentionally it veers from prestige TV’s frustrating parade of toxic, temperamental couplings — everything from “You’re the Worst” to “The Affair” to “Camping.” Jamie and Claire deal with all sorts of external melodramatic dangers, but together they might as well be gorgeous unicorns. They don’t bicker. They don’t interrupt one another. He doesn’t ramble on about battlefield heroics; she doesn’t start in with monologues about electricity and indoor plumbing.

Their presence within a shared present asks the viewer: When was the last time anyone really heard what you were saying?

"Outlander" is faithfully based on Diana Gabaldon's best-selling novels, an appealingly cerebral commingling of the romance, fantasy and historical fiction genres, with just a touch of sci-fi thrown in and a refreshingly modern take on relationships that rejects the usual Mars/Venus dynamic. r

It’s not surprising that women make up most of the show’s fan base (even though the occasional “Outmander” finds his way in, and the series was developed by a male showrunner, Ronald D. Moore). I’ve seen groups of “Outlander” fans waiting outside news conferences for the show in Los Angeles, sitting quietly but excitedly in the lobby, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cast members or Gabaldon herself. It’s almost as if they are on security detail, making sure nobody mucks up their treasured characters and stories, which is perfectly understandable. Such devotion helped “Outlander” sustain relatively high ratings among cable dramas, with about 1.5 million viewers watching new episodes within the week.

Even with all its twists and turns and screen-steaming love scenes, “Outlander” continues to feel like a worthwhile progression. Jamie’s rebellious streak may tempt him to commit occasional (necessary) crimes, but his devotion to Claire has helped him evolve into a thoughtful gentleman of the Enlightenment.

And Claire is wise about what she tells Jamie about the future. As they take in a jaw-dropping western vista from a Carolina mountaintop, she speaks generally of just how far this new country will push forward — and the immigrant dreamers who will populate it. She helps him see the injustice of the slave trade that thrives all around them. She conveys the long (and correct) view of Native American rights. She asserts her own rights as a spouse and a professional; Jamie is quick to introduce his wife to strangers as an accomplished “healer.”

It’s easy to locate a feminist theme here, as many viewers already have: Jamie is a changed man because he met a smart, open-minded woman from the future who has challenged everything he once knew.

How could he not be improved by the experience — this giant, scarred slab of man-candy in a kilt, who once believed he owned Claire simply because he married her? And how can we not see the show as a lesson in brute reform?

Aye, but here’s the real beauty of “Outlander”: The exchange is mutual. She’s as much changed by him as he is by her. His masculinity is as instructive as her femininity. His wisdom complements hers. Even when their candlelit sex scenes are the main draw, the body parts that are most impressive are their ears.

Ask anyone who has traveled enough time with a significant other: Being heard as an equal partner is just as great — and sometimes better — than another roll in the hay.

#outlander #outlander starz #jamie x claire #the frasers #review #tv: s1 #tv series #otp: jamie x claire #tv news #queue

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stormtrprinstilettos · 5 years ago

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Fun’s For Free - Chapter 5 (Roger x Reader) (smut)

Summary: It’s 1978 and you’re assigned to follow Queen on their North American tour to promote their new album. Only problem is the magazine you write for has not been kind to the band in the past, and someone has a hard time letting go of that fact.

Series Masterlist here!

In this “episode”: More? What does that mean?

Word Count: ~3.7K

Warnings: Language, smut (oral) and even some fluff. 18+

[A/N: I’m seriously blown away every time someone asks to be tagged in any of my stuff. Thanks to all of you who have ever sent me a kind word on anything I’ve ever posted here. It really means a lot. Hope you all keep enjoying this story. I know I say it all the time, but this one is really fun to write!]

November 12, 1978 – somewhere around Cleveland More. He wants more. What is more? You haven’t found out. The two of you hadn’t had the chance to talk since he told you that two days ago. It was driving you crazy, but you couldn’t focus on that. There was finally peace and quiet on the bus – everyone was sleeping except for you, so you were taking the chance to write. After Boston tomorrow night and Providence the night after, there would be four days in New York – your home base – and Mike, your editor, was expecting the first part of your article to be turned in.

You were so focused on writing that you didn’t notice your company until he started to quietly chuckle as he sat next to you. “Such concentration,” you hear Roger say before looking up at him. “And those glasses? You look like a sexy school teacher.” You roll your eyes and throw your pen at him. “I hope you’re only writing nice things about me in there.”

“So I shouldn’t put this part in about how you’re incredibly annoying and a major pain in my ass?” you ask with a cheeky smile.

“At least put in there that I’m good in bed.”

“Now why would I want to ruin my reputation like that?” you joke. “I’m still hoping to snag Roger Daltrey. It’ll never happen if he knew I let you have me.”

He smirks at your joke and chuffs when he accepts the fact that he can’t come out with a retort to it. “Tell me something about you. Your dreams, your fears. Your likes and dislikes.” He starts to chuckle. “I need to know you more than just intimately.”

“Well, I’m living my dream. I always wanted to be a writer,” you start. “I’m scared of heights and failure. I like sunny days and chocolate cake and I don’t like pineapples and boredom.”

For the next hour, you and Roger sit together on the bus, talking – not arguing. The conversation flowed smoothly, the laughter was immense and often, and you don’t think the smile ever left your face, or his. You don’t know how it went from complete loathing between the two of you to this, but it did; neither of you wanted to question it. It felt… right. It felt like this was how it was all supposed to be. You finally realize may be the “more” that Roger wanted.

“You’re sleepy,” he murmurs with a soft smile, noticing your heavy eyes. “I’ll let you sleep.”

He starts to stand up but you pull him back down. “No!” you whisper loudly. “Stay.” He sits back down and you put your head on his shoulder. He, in turn, wraps his arm around you and holds you close, and you both drift off to sleep.

November 13, 1978 – Boston, Massachusetts You and Roger woke up before everyone else, so it was easy to keep your little secret. Confusion was abound, however, when the two of you managed to walk off the bus and into the hotel lobby without arguing about something. “Are you feeling okay?” John asked, somewhat joking. “You haven’t had an argument in two days.” You roll your eyes and giggle before walking into the elevator to go to your room.

For the show tonight, you’re sitting with the rest of the press in front of the stage instead of on the side like you normally do. That’s where you meet Charlie, a reporter for one of the local newspapers. He’s tall, he’s got a nice body, he’s funny, he’s got great hair, and a great voice… basically everything you’ve ever looked for in a one night stand, but you weren’t looking for one.

Keyword: Weren’t.

After the show, Charlie followed you backstage. You introduced him to Freddie, John and Brian and left him to chat when you went look for Roger. You found him. With a girl, of course. It wasn’t any different than any other day, but tonight it stings.

So you invited Charlie back to the hotel for some drinks. And then to your room. But he was so drunk nothing happened. You were relieved, actually, but his snoring is making it impossible for you to sleep. Frustrated, and looking for any reason to leave the room, you throw on a sweatshirt over your tank top, slip on some shoes, grab the room key, and go for a walk. You have no idea where you’re going, but you had to get out of that room.

When you make it to the hotel lobby, you see Roger sitting at the bar alone. “Well this is something I’ve never seen before,” you joke as you sit next to him.

He doesn’t even look at you, instead looking at his drink. “What? He wasn’t good enough so you need me to finish you off?”

“Excuse me?” you say, actually offended.

He turns and glares at you, clearly pissed off. “Then what do you want?”

You stand up from the stool and start to walk away, but quickly turn back around and go back to him. “You have absolutely no right to be angry with me,” you tell him, your voice quite forceful. “No right at all.”

“I’m supposed to be happy I’m your second option?” he asks, his voice equally as forceful as yours.

“You think I’m here for sex?” Now you’re seething. “I saw you here and I came to say hi.” You turn to walk away again but you can’t let this go. “You know, fuck you. You want to talk about a second option? What about me?”

“What about you, Y/N? What?” He stands up and pulls you off to the side, away from the bartender’s ear shot. “You think I…”

“Every night, Roger,” you fuss. “Every night except for three I’ve seen you chatting up some girl. The three nights you didn’t were the nights you were with me.”

“And how many of them do you think I spent the night with?” he dithers. “None. Not a single one. Do you know why?” He grabs the top of your arms and pulls you close as he bends down to get close to your face. “Because I don’t want any of them. I only want you.” Your mouth drops open and you’re rendered speechless. He quickly lets go of your arms and walks out of the bar, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

November 15, 1978 – New York, New York The relief you felt as soon as you stepped off the bus was indescribable. Home. You’re home. They have three shows in New York in four days and you get to sleep in your own bed, see your friends, relax and rejuvenate. As soon as you were able, you grabbed your suitcase from the bus and scurried to grab a taxi. “You really are in a rush, aren’t you?” you heard Brian ask from behind you. You turned around and he was standing there chuckling. “I was going find something to eat. Would you like to join me?”

You were hungry, and you’ve taken a huge liking to Brian – as a friend, of course – so, while you were really looking forward to being alone, you caved and nodded your head. “Why don’t you come with me? I just have to drop this off at my place and there’s a great pizza joint right next to my building.” Neither one of you noticed Roger watching and seething as you both climbed into the cab to leave.

No, nothing happened with you and Brian. He didn’t even come up to your apartment when you dropped off your suitcase. You introduced him to the best pizza in Brooklyn, and an hour later he went back to the hotel. You took the rest of the day for yourself. It had been a mentally exhausting 24 hours and you wanted to get away from any and all drama for as long as possible. Roger wasn’t speaking to you, and the tension felt like it was at an all-time high. He was barely even looking at you, and for some reason it was eating you up inside. It was eating him up inside, too.

November 16, 1978 – Madison Square Garden “Mike says you’re having the time of your life,” Daisy, a co-worker, says as she tries to stifle a laugh.

You roll your eyes and start to giggle. “I could seriously strangle you and Barry and any of the other critics who ever said anything negative about them,” you tell her. “They’re great, but fuck. Roger has been…” Your voice trails off and you sigh. “Let’s just say it’s been interesting.”

The two of you are sitting on the side of the stage as the guys are preparing to do their soundcheck. Freddie, being nosy as he tends to be, is curious about who your friend is, so you introduce them. John and Brian soon come over to meet Daisy, too, but Roger doesn’t. Not that you thought he would, but he did walk by and immediately sat at the drum kit. “He’s not speaking to me either now,” Brian tells you in your ear. “I don’t know why.” He shrugs his shoulders and walks away.

Roger keeps glancing and you, and you at him, and Daisy immediately picks up on it. “So what’s the story here?” she asks. “With you and pretty boy.”

You give her the rundown, about how he completely hated you before you even met because of negative things printed about them in the magazine. “It’s beyond frustrating,” you sigh. “Just when we start to get along, something happens and we start despising each other again.”

“Well,” she starts. “Maybe you shouldn’t have fucked him.” You look at her, mouth completely dropped open, and start to deny, deny, deny – but she stops you. “Don’t even try to tell me that you haven’t.”

You give her a side eyed glare but can’t stop yourself from giggling. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

“They let you bring friends along now?” you hear Roger snip as he takes a drag of his cigarette, not even realizing he had walked over.

“I’m Daisy,” she says as she stands up and holds out her hand. “I write for…”

He doesn’t look at her, only you. “Now there’s two of you?” he asks. “One of you is hard enough to handle.” Daisy stops talking, instead paying attention to the interaction between you and Roger.

“She’s here for the show tonight,” you tell him. “Don’t worry.”

“That’s all I need. It’s bad enough I have you to deal with every night. Now you’ve multiplied and I’m going to stress doubly.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, Roger.” You turn to Daisy and give her a tired look. “See what I mean?”

He bends over and grabs your arm. “We need to talk.”

“No,” you say as you tug your arm away. “We don’t.”

“Will you just fucking…” He’s being loud, but quickly tones it down. “Stop being so difficult.” He gently holds your arm again. In order not to cause yet another scene, you excuse yourself and follow him down the backstage hall and to their dressing room. You walk in, but he stays standing in the doorway.

You stand there in silence, waiting for him to talk for what seems like forever. He walks closer to you and takes your face gently in the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispers as he leans in for a kiss. Not a kiss tinged by alcohol. He’s completely sober, as are you, so that’s why your mind is completely blown right now. You grab the waist of his pants, pull him into the room and he kicks the door closed behind him. His breathing is uneven as he looks into your eyes, and they’re burning with a lust that matches yours. Your mouths meld together and his tongue effortlessly glides over yours with satisfying strokes.

“Roger,” you whisper as you stop the kiss. “We can’t… You have to do the soundcheck…” Your voice is somewhat hoarse and he responds by kissing you more. You pull back again, unable to open your eyes for a few seconds and start to talk again.

“Shh,” he whispers, still holding his palm to your cheek. Neither of you even know what to say. That kiss completely melted the both of you. “Why are we like this?” he asks, genuinely wondering why.

His eyes. His fucking eyes are amazing and you wonder how, after all of the glaring and staring you’ve done at them, how you never realized just how perfect they are. “I don’t know,” you whisper back. The door starts to open and you both quickly move away from the door and from each other.

“Come on, Rog!” John yells as he walks in before walking right back out. “You can finish the argument after we’re done.” Roger flashes you a soft, gentle smile before he follows John out, and every inch of your insides flutter.

You walk back out after taking a few minutes to regain your composure and take your seat next to Daisy again. “These guys are hilarious,” she says with a giggle. “They’re so… bitchy.” You just smile and turn your gaze to Roger. He gives you a wink and forces his focus to what he’s supposed to be doing.

After the show, you and Daisy are standing outside, away from prying ears, discussing the show. She hated it. The music was good enough, but she found the performance drab. “I am begging you, please, be gentle in the review. I still have another month…”

“I’m sorry, Y/N, but I’m always honest,” she says. “But never mind that, tell me about Roger.” She nudges your arm and gives you a sly smirk. “How many times? Is he good? I bet he’s good.”

You roll your eyes and light a cigarette. “I am here to write a story. My judgment won’t be clouded by a pair of blue eyes.” You take a deep sigh and look out into the parking lot, seeing the crowd has thinned significantly. “I’m heading home. I miss my bed.” You give Daisy a hug, promise to hang out before you leave again, and head back inside to grab your purse.

And, of course, the first thing you see when you walk in is Roger, smiling his toothy smile, surrounded by giggling girls. Only this time, you don’t feel jealous or angered in any way. Not after that kiss. There was something different about it. He doesn’t notice you walk by. Freddie does, though, and he calls your name, blowing your cover. “Where are you sneaking off to?” he asks. “We’re just getting started, darling.”

“I’m going home,” you tell him. “I know. I’m boring. But I have to go to the office in the morning.” You give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “But I’ll be here tomorrow in time for the show.”

As soon as you walk outside, you hear a voice from behind you. “‘A colossal sonic volcano whose eruption maketh the earth tremble,’” he says. “I read it last night.”

“Yeah,” you smirk as you turn around. “Are you surprised, Mr. Taylor?”

“Yeah, I am,” he smiles. You raise a brow and continue to smirk. “Especially considering you wrote that in Dallas. I guess I misjudged you.”

“You did,” you giggle. “But I didn’t misjudge you. I still think you’re a dick.”

He inches closer to you. “Where you off to then?”

“Home,” you tell him before taking a deep breath. “What about you?”

“Well, that depends,” he says, inching even closer and bringing his same hand up to you cheek like he did earlier. “Depends on if I get invited anywhere.” He smiles and you can’t resist it.

November 17, 1978 – 11am, Brooklyn, New York “Yes, Mike, I’ll be there,” you groan. “I don’t know why you can’t wait until tomorrow.” Roger’s under the sheet and keeps nibbling on your thigh and you’re trying not to giggle. “No, Mike, there’s nothing going on.” Roger’s now positioned himself in between your legs and is trying to open them, but you’re trying to stop him and start tapping on his head. “I don’t care what Daisy said, nothing’s going on.” Roger’s won the battle, and he’s now starting to tease you with his tongue. You try your hardest to stifle your gasp. “Mike, stop. I’ll be there at 1.” You slam the phone down and start laughing, and you can feel Roger’s chuckle against your core. “You could have just gotten me fired,” you laugh, but enjoying the feeling he’s creating way too much to fuss too much.

“Shhh,” he says, moving away for a moment, throwing the sheet off. “I’m trying to work here.” He laps and sucks on your swollen lips, his tongue moving unhurried over your clit as he hums over your sensitive flesh, making you quiver. You prop yourself up so you can watch him, and you see his eyes looking up at you, leaving you unable to take a breath deep enough to clear the euphoria he is creating right now. An excitement cry escapes your mouth as he starts to suck harder, flicking his tongue over and over until the last drop is sucked out of you. Each muscle in your body tenses as he takes you over the edge and fucks you with his tongue until you cum. He takes one last lick up before looking up at you, quite pleased with himself. “Did I ever tell you how absolutely delicious you are?” he smirks. “I just couldn’t resist.”

You start to giggle and pull him up to you. He gives you a deep kiss when he reaches your mouth, cupping your neck as he kisses you. “If we get caught I can get in a lot of trouble, you know.”

“Hmm,” he mumbles as he kisses your neck. “Then I guess we better keep this our little secret.”

“I’m serious,” you giggle. His kisses are tickling you so you nudge him off, making him lay next to you on his back. “That’s what Mike was calling for.” He looks confused. “His exact words were ‘if I find out you’re fucking around with one of them I’m pulling you out.’”

Roger starts to grin and you can’t hold in your giggle. “Well it’s his own fault for sending someone pretty to us then, isn’t it?” You roll your eyes, but can’t stop giggling. “Hey, our secret. Promise.”

“Wow,” you say after you stop giggling and stare up at the ceiling. “So I’m actually getting paid to be a groupie.” You turn and look at him, keeping a serious face. “I’ve always wanted to be a groupie.”

He starts to laugh. “Yeah, but unfortunately, you’re a groupie for the wrong Roger.”

“That’s okay. I’ll consider this practice for when I get the right one.” You flash him a cheeky smirk before sitting up. “I have to get ready to get to the office before Mark comes and finds me.”

1:00pm – Midtown Manhattan You sneak in Mike’s office before anyone can catch you. Candice, the assistant editor, sees you and rushes in, excited to see you. “Soooo, how’s it going? Mike said you were having a little issue with Roger Taylor.” She sits in Mike’s chair, a big smile on her face, eager to hear everything.

“We’ve worked it out, actually,” you inform her. “At least I think we have. He doesn’t hate me anymore, so that’s progress.” As you fill Candice in on everything, Mike walks in and slams the door, startling you.

“Did you get to the part when you started banging the guy or no?” Mike is angry. Seething. You’ve never seen him like this before. He’s always happy around you, jovial, sarcastic… everything but downright angry. “Don’t even open your mouth to tell me that you didn’t. Daisy told me…”

“Daisy?” you yell. “Daisy who is pissed off that I got this gig and she didn’t Daisy? That one? How would she even know?”

Mark calms down, takes a deep breath and sits on his desk, directly in front of you. “Look, Y/N, I just want this to be a fair article. It’s not just your journalistic integrity at stake, it’s the entire magazine.”

You reach down into your bag and hand him your notebook that is stuffed with other papers. “My typewriter broke so most of it is jotted down until I can type it up, but that’s it. That’s what it is so far.” Candice rushes over to sit next to Mike and they start reading what you’ve written. “If you read this and can honestly tell me that it’s written from the point of view of someone who’s fucking the drummer, or all of them plus the road crew, I’ll walk away.” You stand up from your chair and start pacing. “But I’m quite proud of what I’ve got there so far, and I really want to finish this, Mike.” He looks up at you. “You’re the one who sent me.”

He stands up as he hands everything to Candice, who is still reading. “I sent you because of your attitude. I knew if anyone could handle these guys for two months it would be you.” You stare at him, wondering why he seems to be feeling like he’s made a mistake. “We’re the only magazine they’re letting in, and …”

“Mike,” you say as you place a hand on his shoulder. “This is a huge chance you’ve given me. Do you really think I’m going to fuck it up?”

“This is really good, Mike,” Candice pipes up. “You should read it all.” She stands and holds your notebook in her hand, pointing down at it as she walks over to him. “I mean, do you really think she would have written this part about how childish he is if she…”

As you listen to her point out all of the negative things you’ve written about him – not that there was many – you realize exactly what Mike was worried about. If you leave all of that in, Roger will be pissed. If you take it out, you’re not exactly going to be telling the whole story.

“Stay on it,” Mike tells you. “And get a new typewriter because you can’t turn this mess in.” You smile and take the notebook from Candice. “Y/N, I’m serious. If I find out…”

“You won’t find anything out,” you smile.

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Series tags: @toomuchlove-willkillyou @sunshine112 @ohtheseboysilove @luvborhap @painkiller80 @hannafuckingsucks @itsametaphorbriansblog @biscuit-barrel @capsparrowtara @asquiresofftime @aridrowse @geek-and-proud @a19103 @nicholeh7 @caborhapch @catch-a-deak @thebelgiancompanion @ultrablackwidower @maggieroseevans @protectrowanwhitethorn @mercurycrowley @amy-brooklyn99 @bellas2silly @rogxrtaylxr @gylfsz @amagicmess @thessxoxo @mariekuuuuuh @drowseoftaylor @luvborhap @bohemiansweede

#fun’s for free #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor x fem reader #roger taylor x you #roger taylor fanfiction #roger taylor fanfic #roger taylor fic #roger taylor smut #roger taylor series #my stuff

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kunsthalextracity · 4 years ago

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The History of Queer Nightlife in Antwerp: Self-Interview in a Convex Mirror

In the framework of the group exhibition ‘Daily Nightshift’, Kunsthal Extra City collaborated with the Urban Studies Institute of the University of Antwerp on a lecture series. Due to COVID-19 we unfortunately couldn’t allow these lectures to take place at our premises.

To replace his lecture, professor Bart Eeckhout wrote an interview with himself.

In his text Eeckhout, board member of the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Antwerp, researches the history of queer nightlife in Antwerp and the spatial shifts that have occurred along the way. Where in the city were sexual minorities able to make contact? In what kind of places of entertainment? How did these change in shape and location? Which material traces of this nightlife remain?

Text & images: Bart Eeckhout

The History of Queer Nightlife in Antwerp: Self-Interview in a Convex Mirror

Q. So, professor, before Covid-19 changed everyone’s plans, you were going to give a lecture about the history of queer nightlife in Antwerp as part of the public program for the exhibition?

A. Well, not quite a lecture.

Q. But you were going to entertain our audience with lots of slides and flashy pictures?

A. Not really. As a matter of fact, I was wondering how to turn the presentation into something more than the delivery of an academic text, something that could satisfy an audience that is drowning in audiovisual information. The thing is that I saw myself forced to talk about a topic that is hard to illustrate, and to do so moreover as an amateur historian.

Q. How do you mean?

A. I actually teach English and American literature. But I happen to be the only board member of the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Antwerp who is simultaneously on the board of A*, the network of colleagues who specialize in gender and sexuality studies. There I have a reputation for being into queer studies and for stimulating the collaboration between queer academics and activists, since I consider myself to be both.

Q. And so the organizers came knocking on your door to ask if you could speak to the topic of queer nightlife in Antwerp?

A. Yes. And I accepted to do so because I have coincidentally been acquiring some expertise on the topic. Last year a colleague with whom I love to collaborate at the university, the media scholar Alexander Dhoest, got an invitation to contribute a chapter on Antwerp for an international book on gay neighborhoods in cities around the world – what used to be called “gay ghettoes.” We remembered that a PhD student of ours, the musicologist Rob Herreman, had spent a lot of time in archives to find out more about the recent history of LGBTQs in Antwerp in relation to music. Though we were hesitant to venture into terrain that should ideally be explored by skilled historians, we’re not aware of any Flemish colleagues doing academic research into recent LGBTQ history, certainly not with a specific focus on Antwerp. In addition, the book for which we were invited was being put together by architects and would thus probably cut us some slack. So we realized that the case of Antwerp would get attention in the collection only if we were willing to undertake the job ourselves.

Accepting to write the chapter has meant that we were forced to immerse ourselves quickly in the materials and sources we had at our disposal so as to develop a critical narrative that would meet the minimum requirements of academic scholarship. We were primarily interested in all the things we might learn from the exercise.

Q. And did you learn a few things?

A. I certainly hope so! One thing we hypothesized from the start is that the Anglo-American way of understanding gay neighborhoods would be only partially applicable to Antwerp, at best. And that is also what we argued at the more theoretical level. If you want to look for queer forms of geographic clustering in a Flemish city such as Antwerp, you should omit a lot of the social functions you find historically in the gay neighborhoods of New York or San Francisco. The “reverse diaspora” of sexual minorities from the countryside to the city that underpinned these metropolitan neighborhoods in the US never took place to the same extent, or in the same manner, in Flanders or Belgium.

In addition, a historic city such as Antwerp is relatively small by international standards. Getting around, even on foot or by bicycle, is easy, so that there’s no urgent need to choose particular residential areas if you happen to be queer. For these and several other reasons, the first thing to note about gay neighborhoods in Antwerp is that there was never anything more than some spatially clustered nightlife.

Q. Let’s talk for a moment about that nightlife then. How easy was it to go back in time to undertake your investigation?

A. That was one of the difficulties. It’s not as if you can simply fall back on standard published histories of queer life in Belgium or Flanders, let alone histories that deal specifically with Antwerp. The larger context isn’t so hard to sketch, but the specifics are a bit of a problem. When you research the history of public sex in Antwerp – by which in this case I mean the institutional environment for nondomestic sexual interactions among citizens – it isn’t hard to figure out how the first red-light district emerged during the city’s historic heyday in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As this red-light district catered primarily to sailors, it was understandably located close to the river, in the narrow streets just north of the City Hall that came to be known as the Schipperskwartier or Skippers Quarter.

This much is standard knowledge. But how did same-sex interactions ever figure into that lusting, lawless, lowlife milieu? What might possibly be the historic sources in which you might find reliable evidence for same-sex intercourse taking place in this environment? There isn’t much you can go by. You must hope that somewhere a slight flicker will flare up to evoke a fleeting image of what might have been going on. Let me illustrate this by showing the invisibility of our topic at its most palpable. Here’s the picture of a street in the former Skippers Quarter. Do you recognize it?

Q. Not immediately.

A. Don’t blame yourself. Though I personally love to roam through all the little streets of Antwerp’s historic center, I must confess I had never bothered to walk through this one before my research took me there. It’s called the Gorter Street and it’s a very short, narrow, one-way street that is about as bland and uninteresting as you can imagine. Do you see the red-brick house in the middle of the image? That wasn’t always there, of course. If we can trust the history of house numbers, it stands where previously the Crystal Palace was to be found, a gay bar whose building collapsed, literally, sometime in the 1960s. But before the Crystal Palace was a gay bar, it was a luxury brothel, as far back as the turn of the twentieth century and even earlier. And that’s where we were able to locate our first piece of not entirely reliable evidence for same-sex goings-on – not entirely reliable because it requires a detour via the fictive world of novels and a willingness to fill in the blanks. What do you remember about the Flemish writer Georges Eekhoud?

Q. Not much.

A. He was our own Oscar Wilde, if you like – the first famous gay writer in Flanders who, like Wilde, had to defend himself in court. Unfortunately, he wrote in French, which means we’ve forgotten him even more efficiently than if he’d written in Dutch. Anyway, he published a novel in 1888, La nouvelle Carthage, in which he appears to evoke this particular brothel in great detail as a cave full of mirrors in which “all stages of debauchery” took place. Given his own sexual orientation, it’s very easy to imagine that these must have included same-sex interactions, but in his description Eekhoud preferred to remain coy about the sexual acts, so that it’s really for our own 21st-century imaginations to flesh out the specifics.

Q. So for what period did you find the first evidence of same-sex activities in the Skippers Quarter that didn’t take the form of literary fiction but of nonfictional testimony?

A. We had to jump to the first half of the twentieth century for that. Mainly, what we then find is people testifying to drag performances taking place in the Skippers Quarter. Our favorite example is that of Danny’s Bar, a notorious bar for sailors where both the owner and his male staff were dressed as women and the sailors were being tempted into maximum binging.

On an online forum for retired sailors, we found some very juicy recollections of the kind of ritual that typically went on in this bar – how young sailors were being lured in as a sort of prank by older sailors, how these youngsters tended to be awestruck by the Hollywood-star prettiness of the women, and how they would be made to drink so much (and sometimes be drugged as well) until they woke up in bed upstairs only to find they had been sleeping with a man. It’s fair to speculate that some of the visiting sailors must have known they were going to be able to sleep with a man at Danny’s Bar and must have returned to the place to experiment with sexual desires and gender identities that fell outside the mainstream norms of their day and age.

Q. Are there any signs left of Danny’s Bar?

A. Not unless you have x-ray vision. The street is now almost entirely residential, though there is a modern-day “brasserie” in the house where the bar used to be. If walls could talk!

Q. These recollections of Danny’s Bar take us automatically into the second half of the twentieth century, I guess?

A. Yes they do. On the eve of the Second World War, we know that the Skippers Quarter had acquired a gay connotation to those in the know. Yet it didn’t stick to that area. After the war, its gay nightlife started to spread beyond the city’s traditional red-light district. A few of these new bars were still nearby, in the area around the Cathedral and the City Hall, but the majority sprang up close to the Central Station. This is also when we’re beginning to see some diversification. The Shakespeare, for instance, was a bar in the historic center. On the one hand, it was still occasionally visited by sailors and sex workers. On the other, and more importantly, it had a female bartender and gradually came to attract a female crowd – a niche for which there hadn’t been a market yet in the Skippers Quarter.

Meanwhile, in the working-class streets leading toward the Central Station, a number of bars were opening that were all operated by men and served a male clientele – places like Fortunia, Week-End (later known as La Vie en Rose), and La Ronde. These were generally small operations. One of the streets, the Van Schoonhovenstraat, would go on to sport more than twenty such gay bars. In this picture I recently took, you get a sense of what this may have been like when you look at the structure of the street front, for instance the houses in the middle painted in blue and mauve (one of them surviving as a sex shop):

But the Van Schoonhovenstraat wasn’t the only street. Even if nearly all of the area’s gay bars have in turn disappeared, you might still recognize this iconic place, the one with the greatest staying power and cult status:

Q. Ah yes, Café Strange! It’s in the Dambruggestraat, right?

A. Yes, and it still allows you to step into a time machine and take a trip down memory lane. We used it as our prime architectural case study, because its history shows you a lot about such gay bars in the second half of the twentieth century. A few facts and details hopefully help bring this history to life.

Café Strange was started by a gay couple as a gay-friendly “brasserie” back in 1955. The name, “Strange,” was meant to be suggestive without being explicit. In those years, the curtains behind the windows were still systematically drawn so that no passerby could look inside. You couldn’t just step inside either, but had to knock or ring a bell and wait for someone to let you in. To expedite this process, a small porch was constructed so that you could first step into the anonymous porch, close the door behind you and then open the door to the actual café – all with an eye to being as discrete as possible.

Over the years, the bar became so successful that its interior had to be reorganized and expanded so that it could accommodate not only a buffet at the back but also make some space for a dance floor. The café had a good reputation for many years until one of the owners died in the mid-seventies and his remaining partner got into various kinds of trouble that ended dramatically with his getting killed. It was then that a new gay couple, Armand and Roger, took over – you probably know Armand as the remaining owner. This was in 1980, in the era of early emancipation, and so they decided to be less discrete by painting the building’s façade in a sort of pink and adding a drawing of a sexy sailor on the outside. Inside, pictures of semi-naked and naked men were hung on the walls. The buffet was moved to the front of the room and a professional DJ was hired to turn the place into a small part-time disco. For a while, the owners even produced their own little magazine to inform gay patrons about leisure opportunities – remember that this was before the internet made looking up such information a piece of cake.

The first decades under the new owners went well: the place had the reputation of being at the same time modern, unpretentious, and laid back. There were a lot of flamboyant theme parties in which patrons could win grand prizes such as a flight to Athens or a weekend in Amsterdam or Paris. What’s interesting to observe also about the history of Café Strange is the shift in demographic over the years: while in the 1980s you could find a mix of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from a wide range of ages and social classes in the bar, this narrowed down in the 1990s to mostly gay men, and then by the new millennium morphed again into a mix of gay and gay-friendly visitors. Indeed, by the nineties, these smaller gay bars in especially the area close to the station were increasingly being pushed out of business by a new type of venue, such as The Hessenhuis.

A building with a totally different allure, of course. It’s originally from 1564 and part of the city’s historical patrimony. After undergoing renovation in 1975, it reopened as a temporary exhibition space, and then in 1993 a gay-friendly bar opened that doubled at night as a club for mainly gay youngsters. Soon, the Hessenhuis became one of their two favorite commercial nightlife venues, together with the Red & Blue. This new generation of larger, trendier, more spectacular, and essentially self-contained clubs gradually drove the small gay bars out of the market, and thus also put an end to the sense of a particular neighborhood or area in which many such bars were clustered.

Today, much of the city’s history of gay and lesbian nighttime entertainment has evaporated and become materially invisible in the streetscape. There was a time, during the second half of the twentieth century, that Antwerp contained literally dozens of gay and lesbian bars, but almost none of these survive now. Unfortunately, I’m not aware that anyone is actively trying to honor this material history by installing commemorative plaques or making exhibitions about it. It survives mostly in the memory of an aging cohort of participants, hence my insistence at the outset about the relative difficulty of bringing my topic to life to a younger generation raised on a constant stream of immersive images. But perhaps now that Alexander, Rob, and I have made our first archeological efforts and undertaken a basic form of mental mapping, a curious young historian will come along to flesh out our very schematic findings and dig up all the beautiful, funny, and naughty traces of queer nightlife that may still be hiding in public and private archives. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

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alittlebitsupergirl · 5 years ago

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A review of the literature on environmental innovation management in SMEs: implications for public policies

Jesu ́s A ́ ngel del Brıo, Beatriz Junquera ∗

Facultad de Ciencias Econo ́micas y Empresariales, Avda. del Cristo, s/n 33071 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Abstract

The aim of this article is to collect and make up the most important contributions in the economic literature in relation to the special characteristics of the management of the environmental innovation in the SMEs. Specifically, we want to show their strengths and weaknesses in order to make up the main conclusions of these analyses with the literature in relation to the way Public Administrations face this situation. The scarce development in the SMEs in respect to their environmental strategy may be a consequence of the links among some of the following factors: limited financial resources, the type of organizational structure, a little influence of the strategic adaptation competence against the changes in the SMEs, the managers’ scarce environmental training and short term orientation, the staff’s scarce environmental awareness and training, the status of the environmental issues in the company, the SMEs’ lower ability to obtain highly radical innovations, the scarce influence of manufacturing process flexibility in the most advanced states of the environmental strategy in the SMEs and their lack of relation ability with external stakeholders— very important in the success of the most advanced environmental approaches. Besides, the lack of regulation neutrality must be added as a key difference among companies of different sizes. So specific actions seem be necessary, such as technological advice and awareness, and training programs in order to cooperate with external stakeholders.  2002 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: SMEs; Environmental management; Public administrations

1. Introduction

In the last few years a lot of prominence has been attached to the analyses related to the companies’ environmental management, considering its multiple dimensions. However, studies of this sort, specifically in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are very scarce, practically non-existent. On the other hand, with respect to the demands made by their environment, it seems as if these types of companies enjoyed a privilege or ‘bull’.

Nevertheless, some events are fostering a change in this situation precisely in the most demanding area of the planet in environmental matters: the European Union. It all started in the Informal Environment Council, which

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 98510 4972; fax: +34 98510 3708.E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Junquera).

was held in April 1997 under Danish chairmanship, and which addressed the problem of environmental manage- ment in SMEs.

This report concluded that SMEs are an important driving force for economic growth and employment throughout the European Union. But, on the other hand, it is observed that they generate a great deal of the environmental contamination. As a consequence, the requisites demanded of them should be related to the nature and magnitude of the environmental contami- nation, and not to the company’s size (Berends et al., 2000). This is not a novelty, since previous positions of the Council had shown its concern about this issue, expressing, in any case, the need to simplify the environ- mental legislation regarding these companies.

However, these observations of the Council are not supported by objective information, since not even in the European Union are data available of the pollution produced by SMEs. In any case, the recent regulations about Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control

Technovation 23 (2003) 939–948

940 J.A ́. del Brıo, B. Junquera / Technovation 23 (2003) 939–948

(IPPC) (European Union, 1996) have among their objec- tives, the carrying out of a pollution record.

Thus, and taking into account the predictability of a stronger environmental requirement, it is necessary to determine the SMEs’ peculiarities in their determination to face the environmental management problems, as well as to suggest useful mechanisms for it. However, the literature on business management has not cared much about this question (Noci and Verganti, 1999), due to the limited demand perceived from the SMEs with respect to their environmental duties. In fact, it has been observed that the strategic management literature is concerned about the analysis of large companies and rejects analy- sis of the SMEs’ peculiarities (Noci and Verganti, 1999). Even so, some writers already mention this area specifi- cally and brand it as a research priority (Alberti et al., 2000).

Therefore, this work intends, in the first place, to col- lect and integrate the most relevant contributions of the economic literature with respect to the peculiarities of the SMEs’ management (specifically, to analyse its strengths and weaknesses faced with the need to put into practice new environmental approaches). Subsequently, we will analyse the literature concerning the way the Public Administrations may respond to such a situation. Finally, the integration of both types of research will lead to drawing practical implications for managers and Public Administrations, as well as to the discovery of new methods of research.

2. SMEs’ environmental strategy alternatives

The strategic consideration of the environmental issues can be carried out on the basis of the concept of corporate environmentalism, defined as the process by which companies manage environmental issues and develop environmental management strategies (Banerjee, 2001). However, such processes differ sub- stantially among companies.

There exist numerous classifications of environmental strategies. They run from the more reactive, whose only aim is to comply with the legislation, through, to the more proactive, which perceive environmental conser- vation as a source of opportunities rather than a problem to be faced at minimum cost. Some companies do not even respond in any way from an environmental point of view, sometimes because they do not feel external pressures.

Nevertheless, in this work we are interested in delimiting the environmental strategies characteristic of SMEs, since some analyses suggest that the company’s size is a factor that may influence its environmental option (Azzone et al., 1997b). There are various studies concerning this aspect. Thus, Florida (1996) and Bianchi and Noci (1998) find out, by means of a classification

of the companies, that the SMEs are the less environ- mentally advanced. In the same way, Remmen (2001) verifies that most Danish companies are SMEs and that, even though the external pressures increase progress- ively, their environmental strategy continues to be merely a compliance strategy. In general, most empirical studies agree with Remmen (2001) and suggest that the SMEs’ environmental approaches are characterised by their limited development. In fact, the strategic environ- mental management literature is based on models that predict that the environmental factor does not represent an important guide for strategic changes in SMEs, and neither will it in the future. Only environmental regu- lation, and the ecological market, together with other external forces, exercise pressure, so that the companies adopt adequate environmental approaches (Azzone and Noci, 1998a; Noci and Verganti, 1999).

Nevertheless, we can distinguish degrees within this situation. For example, Brockhoff et al. (1999) carried out a typology in relation to their environmental strategy among 106 German and North American companies. When they established the different groups’ profiles, they found that SMEs usually adopt strategies they call escapist, in the sense that when environmental press- ures—regulatory or provoked by stakeholders or environmentally aware groups inside, but mainly, out- side the company—become stronger, these SMEs are forced to enter new markets. Other studies, although inside this same trend, characterise the SMEs by slightly more advanced strategies. Azzone et al. (1997a,b), for a small group of companies, as well as Azzone and Noci (1998a)—in an intensive analysis of 15 companies— found out that SMEs still adopt reactive strategies. They include, above all, reactions to external stimuli from ‘green’ movements, governments, regulators or other companies, especially other SMEs that operate in sectors where they only receive weak signals of the environmen- tal requirements expected of the market. Sroufe et al. (2000) also showed, by means of a case analysis, that SMEs were far behind, reactive and had as their aim compliance with regulations more frequently than the larger companies. Another case analysis (Noci and Ver- ganti, 1999) show that the SMEs’ environmental action determinants are external factors (all types of regu- lation—and not only direct regulation—the social con- sciousness, the clients, the suppliers, the competitors, as well as other diverse groups). As their determinants are not explicit, and are generally intermingled with the cli- ents’ demands, the environment is not a strategic issue for them, although on some occasions it has an impact on the economy and the company’s forces and, in other cases, constitutes its long-term means of survival.

In fact, North (1992) suggests different environmental strategy solutions according to the company’s size, also considered valuable by other writers (Russo and Fouts, 1997; Arago ́n, 1998). In this respect, it is argued that

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the large company has more resources and higher econ- omy of scale, which favours the search for innovations in the environmental field (Greening and Gray, 1994; Russo and Fouts, 1997), apart from the fact that it is possible that society may observe them with greater attention (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978; Scott, 1992; Greening and Gray, 1994). The result is that they have more favourable effects on the achievement of competi- tive advantages. In accordance with this, Marcus (1984) defends that action differences according to size are due to the fact that large companies usually have the neces- sary resources to adapt to pressures, while SMEs ignore or conceal the environmental effects of their activity.

The basic question on this point is what will happen when SMEs also have to face the environmental chal- lenge at the same level as large companies, as seems to be the immediate intention of some Public Adminis- trations (Berends et al., 2000). Then, two answers will be basically possible. The first of them is that of non- compliance due to incapacity, assuming the conse- quences such a position may bring with it, bearing in mind that it could even mean the momentary or defini- tive closing down of the company’s installations. The second position would be to face the challenges, but for this the SME must have a series of resources. Therefore, it is essential to recognise the SMEs’ environmental weaknesses, as well as possible action paths internal and external to the companies. In order to know those spe- cific circumstances, first, we will define them.

3. Determining factors of the environmental strategy in SMEs

Some writers have shown in their work how the attempts to incorporate the biophysical environment in the theory of the organisation come basically from two areas of research (Banerjee, 2001; Sarkis, 2001). The first of them is based on a cross-disciplinary approach and analyses the paradigmatic implications of including the dynamics of the biophysical environment in the tra- ditional economic and management paradigms. Refer- ences to works of this sort appear in Jacobs (1994), Gladwin et al. (1995), Purser et al. (1995), Starik and Rands (1995) and Egri and Pinfield (1996). However, Newton and Harte (1997) brand this type of approach ‘evangelic rhetoric’, since they consider that such man- agement attitudes do not mean in practice real transform- ation of the companies’ environmental strategies. Thus, they support the approach of a second course of research, which examines the strategic implications of the environmental issues for the organisations, addressing the study to the competitive advantage which can be derived from integrating the environmental issues into the business strategy. In this line are included works like those by Hart (1995), Porter and van der Linde (1995);

Russo and Fouts (1997) or Sharma and Vredenburg (1998).

Thus, the latter is the predominant position among researchers. Russo and Fouts (1997), following the resource-based view, start from the assumption that the same environmental strategy that internalises the nega- tive environmental effects, may simultaneously benefit the company, generating positive effects that are intern- ally and privately accumulated within it. They follow Hart’s argument (1995) that social demands, as part of the environment, drive the companies to try to develop unique resources when expectations exist that they will be valuable and inimitable. In relation to this, and although previous works differ in their results1, Russo and Fouts (1997) prove empirically the existence of a positive relationship between environmental perform- ance and business profitability. Nevertheless, they add that such an influence is greater in large companies than in SMEs.

Nevertheless, the differences in size also affect the environmental performance. Thus, King and Lenox (2000), by means of a probit analysis, show a positive relationship between the company’s size and the environmental development. In accordance with this, SMEs will perceive less environmental management advantages, which constitutes a second explanation of the lower level of development of their strategies in this field.

The essential question is to know why, that is: Which are the factors that condition that such a positive relationship between environmental behaviour and environmental performance, on the one hand, as well as business profitability, on the other hand, differs between companies of different sizes. The analysis of the contri- butions of the economic literature on the matter is the essential objective of the present paragraph.

The economic literature has recognised the influence of various aspects on the development limits of the SMEs’ environmental strategy. Next, we show the con- clusions of different studies about the influence of each one of them.

3.1. Financial resources

Azzone et al. (1997a and 1997b) and Azzone and Noci (1998b) show that SMEs are companies with limited financial resources. Therefore, they cannot develop long processes of competence accumulation, not even allocate funds to ecological initiatives or the secondary aspects of the company’s main activity. This lack of resources is

1 In any case, these works were undertaken with small samples of companies, did not have reliable indicators of profitability and those relative to social responsibility were very questionable (Russo and Fouts, 1997).

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an element hindering the development of environmental improvements (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

3.2. Organisational structure

Some studies have shown that, among the difficulties SMEs encounter to implement environmental actions, are the peculiar characteristics of their organisational structure. Several elements of this confer an advantage on larger companies over SMEs with regard to environ- mental protection.

In general, it is easier to implement these practices in companies with a standardised and well structured organisation, like the larger ones (Alberti et al., 2000).

However, SMEs usually have more capacity than larger companies when it comes to adapting to changes in the environment (Sroufe et al., 2000). This is important, since some empirical studies point out its stra- tegic relevance. This is shown by Azzone et al. (1997b), with a small sample of companies. For his part, Arago ́n (1998) finds out, by means of a regression model, that this capacity influences the development of the compa- nies’ environmental strategy. However, the research studies carried out on the matter show that the SMEs’ managers are afraid that, with the adoption of environ- mental actions, companies may lose part of their flexi- bility. Nevertheless, Alberti et al. (2000) point out that it should not necessarily be like this, since an advanced environmental management would make the organis- ation more efficient, even when it comes to reacting to unexpected events. Nevertheless, despite the positive effects of such capacity to develop programs and manage environmental issues quickly, the reality shows that SMEs are less developed from an environmental per- spective than larger companies (Alberti et al., 2000).

An explanation is provided by Noci and Verganti (1999), to the effect that the reaction capacity to the need for change derived from small size, makes the SMEs’ managers think that it is easier to face the environmental challenge by means of reactive and implicit actions. Nevertheless, such reactive capacity only facilitates incremental changes, providing marginal advantages when facing the multidimensional nature and the broad scope of environmental innovation. This would serve as an explanation of the apparent contradiction found by Alberti et al. (2000).

3.3. Management style

Although it has been a field very much neglected by the economic literature, some studies have recently started to consider the influence of leadership styles on the environmental management (Bansal and Roth, 2000; Cordano and Frieze, 2000; Egri and Herman, 2000; Flannery and May, 2000; Sharma, 2000; Banerjee, 2001, among the most relevant ones). However, these studies

have not been specifically applied to SMEs. The scant studies that refer to these aspects in smaller companies show contradictions regarding whether there exist characteristics typical of the SMEs’ managers which may affect the environmental result or whether, on the contrary, this is not so.

Nevertheless, most works defend the existence of characteristics specific to the management style in SMEs that influence the companies’ environmental develop- ment, sometimes indirectly. Azzone et al. (1997a) note that the SMEs’ environmental managers adopt a com- pliance with the legislation attitude. This is either because of lack of information—poor level of manage- ment capacities, even of perceived control2 (Azzone and Noci, 1998b; Noci and Verganti, 1999)—or due to their limited strategic capacity in this field—a short-term orientation (Bianchi and Noci, 1998; Noci and Verganti, 1999), which does not provide incentives for improving the environmental performance (Azzone and Noci, 1998b).

Besides, the managers’ environmental training is to a certain extent a determining factor of the level of devel- opment of the companies’ environmental strategy (Azzone and Noci, 1998b). In fact, Noci and Verganti (1999) point out that a reactive strategy is a feasible option in companies with merely a high availability of technical and management competences. Other studies support this relation. Brıo (1999) finds significant differ- ences depending on the managers’ level of environmen- tal training with respect to the level of development of the companies’ environmental actions. In consequence, the higher the percentage of managers trained in this area, the greater the development of the companies’ environmental approaches. These empirical works show that the possession of certain skills on the part of the managers is a necessary condition for environmental development, even enough up to certain levels. Never- theless, it needs additional resources in the more advanced environmental development stages.

Moreover, other characteristics of the management attitude explain the companies’ environmental develop- ment performance. Sa ́nchez (1997) demonstrates empiri- cally that the SMEs’ managers perception of the environ- mental pressures as a threat makes the innovations less radical, which is considered to be able to influence their competitive capacity. This is like saying that SMEs’ managers avoid exploiting the competitive advantages associated with the ecological activity. It would explain their reactive strategic attitude, and causes a reduction in competitiveness, both with respect to their clients and also other stakeholders (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

2 The manager’ s perception that he can reach the objectives set in accordance with his aptitudes and the overall resources provided by the company.

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Anyhow, the research in this area does not allow the acceptance of these results as definitive. As opposed to them, Theyel (2000) shows in an empirical analysis car- ried out for chemical companies, that the level of devel- opment of the environmental approaches is not determ- ined by the differences in size, but by the sophistication of the plant managers’ knowledge. Thus, these results show contradictions, since from Theyel (2000) we can ascertain that the management style is not influenced by size. It is independent of it, and therefore there would not exist a fixed profile of the SMEs’ managers.

3.4. Human resources

Environmental management is intensive in human resources and depends on the development of tacit skills through the employees’ involvement (Cramer and Roes, 1993; Klassen and McLaughlin, 1993; Hart, 1995; Berkel et al., 1997; Hanna et al., 2000).

Azzone et al. (1997a) and Azzone and Noci (1998b) observe that the SMEs’ employees usually have a very low level of environmental awareness. This comes on top of a limited training in this area. This has been proved in some empirical studies for several countries, like the one carried out by Brıo (1999) for Spanish industrial companies. Moreover, this study analyses the existence of significant differences, depending on the employees’ level of environmental training with respect to the companies’ level of environmental action develop- ment. So, the higher the percentage of employees trained in this area, the higher the development of the compa- nies’ environmental approaches. Combining all the approaches, we can conclude that the lower level of environmental awareness and training of the SMEs’ employees and their influence on the achievements in this area are relevant causes of the lower level of environmental development of this type of company.

3.5. Environmental management status

The way of organising a company’s environmental protection is controversial. The creation of a post/department with environmental responsibilities (shared or not with others) is an idea increasingly put into practice by companies. However, their role, some- times, is questioned (King, 1995). In fact, it is argued that a clear delimitation of the organisational structure and the environmental competences is vital to achieve a correct environmental management in the company (Weldford and Gouldson, 1993).

When judging the different approaches, most of the literature shows a preference for the creation of a post/department with environmental responsibilities. However, the company has to implement the adequate mechanisms in order to be successful. In consequence, all the personnel can have some type of environmental

responsibility (Sadgrove, 1991; Beaumont, 1992; Ledg- erwood et al., 1992). So, the company that dedicates a specific post/department to these questions attaches more importance to the environment, even more if this depends directly on the senior management (Elkington et al., 1991; Sadgrove, 1991; Weldford and Gouldson, 1993). On the other hand, there exists an empirical con- trast in some works (Arago ́n et al., 1998; Sharma, 2000). In addition, it is believed that independently of technical capacitation criteria, the legitimation the appointment may suppose in the company’s culture is not an irrel- evant issue (Arago ́n et al., 1998).

However, despite its advantages, Azzone et al. (1997b) point out that the lack of an organisational unit with the specific objective of managing environmental issues, which most SMEs lack, could make the develop- ment of the most advanced environmental strategies impossible.

3.6. Manufacturing activity

Azzone et al. (1997b), by means of the analysis of a small group of companies, have shown that relatively simple manufacturing processes, which characterise SMEs, allow the company to observe the context evol- ution before adjusting its course of action.

In fact, this flexibility of the manufacturing process has been shown in other analyses as a way of supporting a company’s strategic answer faced with the environ- mental pressures (Klassen and Angell, 1998). Neverthe- less, in this analysis certain reservations are expressed. In the first stages of the environmental development, the specific capacities and the experience necessary to put into practice flexibility effectively support the efforts to reach a fuller integration of the environmental issues into the manufacturing strategy and, therefore, into the design of the natural environment protection approach (Newman and Hanna, 1996). However, in the later stages of environmental development, the influence of the manufacturing flexibility decreases. As a peculiarity of the SMEs, Klassen and Angell (1998) show that the influence of flexibility faced with external pressures is stronger in SMEs than in larger companies. Neverthe- less, this may be the consequence, not of their size, but of the environmental strategies that characterise them.

3.7. Technological approach

The companies with more environmentally advanced approaches require a large amount of resources of a diverse nature. SMEs have difficulties in obtaining fin- ancial and human resources, among others, with the pur- pose of tackling their business activity. They find it dif- ficult both to introduce and obtain benefits from

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technologies with preventive approaches3 or from ‘green’ products, with the result that their technologies are usually basically out of control4 (Azzone et al., 1997a).

3.8. Innovative capacity

Sa ́nchez (1997) analyses the conditions under which environmental pressures affect the degree to which the companies’ innovations are radical, including size among such analysis factors. Such a positive relationship induces the influence of size on the companies’ competi- tive capacity as a consequence of their innovative activity, in favour of the large ones.

In the first place, Wood (1986) had already noted that larger companies make a bigger research effort and, therefore, their environmental innovation levels are higher. In addition, Marcus (1984) suggests that compa- nies of different sizes differ according to how their environmental innovations are. Such an influence depends on the range of the problems, on the Public Administrations’ behaviour and the company’s incli- nation to cooperate, mainly.

Various reasons support this argument. In the first place, it is more likely that large companies will have an R&D department formalised, given the structural dif- ferentiation associated with a larger organisation (Blau, 1970). This department will be in an adequate position to transform competences and, as a result, will bring about more radical process and product innovations (Leonard, 1984). On the other hand, the innovation options created by the environmental pressures favour large companies when they force SMEs to leave the mar- ket (Birnbaum, 1984; Bartel and Thomas, 1987).

Intensity in R&D is a factor suggested by Sa ́nchez (1997) as a mediator in the relationship between environmental pressure and radical innovation, since it has been empirically proved that companies with a higher level of intensity in R&D innovate more fre- quently in a radical way (Clark and Fujimoto, 1989). The companies that, apart from a considerable research effort, have an adequately integrated department will recognise its express purpose to solve problems, such as environmental problems. Thereby, the most advanced and most competence-modifying technologies will emerge as a result of R&D activities (Rogers, 1983).

Sa ́nchez’s (1997) study demonstrates empirically that the SMEs’ low intensity in R&D and the lack of central- isation of the information concerning the research effort in a unique department are factors that have an influence

3 Technologies that do not produce waste or consume fewer resources and less energy.

4 Technologies that prevent the waste from going outside the com- pany after being produced.

on the fact that the environmental pressures produce less radical innovations in these companies.

Nevertheless, Noci and Verganti (1999) have sug- gested that an SME with high innovation capacity could successfully develop a very advanced environmental strategy. In this way, they reject the idea that companies of a similar size will have the same type of approach regarding environmental innovation.

3.9. External cooperation

The relation with external pressure groups is con- sidered a priority in the development of the companies’ environmental approaches and, especially, of the new products with a ‘green’ dimension. Many researches have emphasised this (Starik, 1995; Dutton, 1996; Fine- man and Clarke, 1996; Hartman and Stafford, 1997; Azzone and Noci, 1998a; Geffen and Rothenberg, 2000; Kitazawa and Sarkis, 2000; Theyel, 2000). However, the environmental innovation management literature fails for the SMEs because most of these techniques, method- ologies and design rules to develop environmental inno- vations imply that the company has an important negoti- ation power over other value chain partners. The aim of this issue is to involve them in the improvement of their environmental result. However, this is not a usual strength of SMEs (Noci and Verganti, 1999).

Noci and Verganti (1999) have shown that the SMEs’ limited capacity to activate new relations with the Public Administrations, companies that provide logistic ser- vices, research laboratories and other organisations external to them, can be considered an obstacle for their environmental action development.

Despite the limited capacity for external relations that characterises SMEs, King and Lenox (2000) prove that voluntary agreements among companies lead to environ- mental improvements in the companies where they are made. Thus, the difficulty with external relations would be another disadvantage for SMEs with respect to the environmental challenge.

4. SMEs’ specific environmental regulation needs

Arago ́n (1998) states that larger companies usually enjoy more advantages when they accede to the Public Administrations’ programmes to support the employees’ environmental training. This is so perhaps because they have a greater capacity to impose their criteria on the regulators (Arora and Cason, 1995). This is proved by the fact that they take part more often in such pro- grammes than SMEs (Arora and Cason, 1995).

Dean and Brown (1995) show that environmental regulation is not neutral with respect to the companies, at least as regards the difference in size. On the one hand, it is suggested that environmental regulation affects more

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considerably the SMEs, which lack the necessary resources to face a much stricter regulation than the large ones (Birnbaum, 1985; Ungson et al., 1985). These stud- ies start from the assumption that the cost of finding and interpreting the regulations and dealing with the regulat- ory agencies is very high because it implies increasing the level of efficient manufacturing, and generates other additional costs.

This situation would prevent SMEs from choosing the environmental equipment most adequate to their oper- ations (Pashigian, 1984) and leads them to be subject to their own economies of scale, not being able to face the environmental requirements.

On the other hand, as environmental regulation becomes stricter, larger companies need to make invest- ments in new equipment to comply with the legal requirements. This change in the use of technologies is usually favourable to the large companies which can adopt their technologies to the current legal require- ments. For the SMEs, the prevention technology adop- tion process may be more difficult, due to its own com- plexity and the lack of economic resources (Barney, 1982).

Similarly, Porter (1980) and Scherer and Ross (1990) identify two new disadvantageous elements for SMEs: the technological complexity and the experience effect. The companies exposed to environmental regulations must cope with new political, technological, administrat- ive and legal challenges that, inserted in the development of their activities, give rise to more complex processes because of the presence of multiple norms, present at all the organisation’s levels and with the same level of demand (Dean and Brown, 1995). This complexity has added to the difficulties in managing the interrelations between regulators, environmental technologies, manu- facturing processes and administrative procedures. The effect of the regulatory complexity can be understood by means of the concept of the learning curve. Applying it to complexity, this idea suggests that the more frequent the companies’ dealings with the regulatory environmen- tal agencies are and the larger the number of activities to develop, the quicker the company will learn which regulations to apply to its activities and how to control them effectively. In consequence, it will know which types of environmental technologies to apply to its pro- cesses and how to use them effectively and will modify its administrative and organisational processes to fulfil the tasks. In other words, the learning complexity goes at a higher cost per unit to the SMEs (Monty, 1991).

From a different perspective, it is considered that environmental regulation may have a favourable effect for SMEs. This effect is produced, firstly, by means of preferential treatment to SMEs from Public Adminis- trations, bearing in mind that their own characteristics may be an obstacle to compliance with environmental regulation (Greener, 1997). Secondly, this effect is pro-

duced by means of the simultaneous choice of manufac- turing and environmental technologies (Dean and Brown, 1995). In some cases, the legislators have con- sidered it appropriate to shield SMEs from regulations and minimise the disproportionate effects of some environmental measures (Pashigian, 1984). So, they can benefit from the SMEs’ regulatory exclusions or from actions that require less legal compliance (Brock and Evans, 1985). Likewise, the regulators may consider it appropriate to defend the SMEs in order that they man- age to maximise the benefits of their efforts in the execution of these measures. So, it is likely that they will be directed to large companies, which will probably have more resources to undertake important environ- mental reduction. By the same token, SMEs’ manufac- turing flexibility allows them to achieve a greater relative efficiency when it comes to adapting to the new environ- mental regulations.

Nevertheless, there seems to exist some net advantage on the part of large companies over SMEs with respect to the environmental management support public pro- grammes. Therefore, Remmen (2001), as Dean and Brown (1995) had already suggested, states that the chal- lenge consists of starting a dynamic and differentiated regulation designed according to the companies’ environmental strategies to create new incentives that encourage them to go beyond mere compliance with the direct regulation. This is more evident considering that in a lot of countries most companies are SMEs.

We must highlight the SMEs’ need for environmental consulting, with respect to several aspects (Greener et al., 1997). Anastas and Breen (1997) point out the importance of lending support to SMEs in environmental matters in order to know their information needs in clean process technologies, with the aim of preventing pol- lution. Once detected, the Public Administrations could support the companies showing them comparisons in relation to the application of different technologies of this sort.

In the United States, as early as 1997, there already existed a specific program for SMEs of the chemical sec- tor, which was aimed at applying the existing experience and leadership to inform and facilitate efforts in pol- lution prevention. This is a type of regulation which can be described as of voluntary approach defined by alliances between industry and society (Anastas and Breen, 1997).

For his part, Remmen (2001) defends that an especially important task is to create the conditions for SMEs to learn to include resource consumption and emissions among their requirements towards the equip- ment suppliers. In some Spanish regions—Catalun ̃a and Paıs Vasco—there also exist support programmes to advise SMEs in this matter (Brıo and Junquera, 2001). On the other hand, and taking into account the relevance of the stakeholders or external pressure groups in the

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environmental action development (Azzone and Noci, 1998a and 1998b; Dyckhoff (2000), it would seem reasonable to extend the collaboration to these groups too.

5. Conclusions

The Public Administrations, especially the European Community institutions, are starting to show interest in the SMEs’ environmental activity, considering its impact. However, these types of companies are used to practically ignoring the environmental issues, and, at most, just comply with the direct regulation that con- cerns them. Comparably, the effects of the SMEs’ environmental regulation had been a matter rarely dealt with by business administration research. However, if the forecast comes true, this tendency should reverse in the future.

The scant research carried out so far on business man- agement in SMEs has revealed a great uniformity of environmental strategies among them, whose common denominator is the poor level of development. Several studies have analysed the factors which are more likely to condition this type of behaviour. Thus, they prevent environmental actions from turning into a competitive advantage for the company and, on the other hand, ham- per environmental performance levels similar to those of larger companies.

Among them are mentioned: the limitation of financial resources, the type of organisational structure, the slight influence of the SMEs’ adaptation to change capacity, the managers’ poor environmental training and short- term orientation, the employees’ limited involvement and training in this area, the status of the environmental function in the company as a whole, the SMEs’ lower capacity to give rise to highly radical innovations, the slight influence of the SMEs’ manufacturing process flexibility in the most advanced levels of environmental strategy and their lack of relation capacity with external pressures, essential for success of the environmental approach.

Apart from these disadvantages for the SMEs’ environmental progress with respect to larger companies, empirical studies show that regulation is not neutral either, but in general benefits larger companies. Never- theless, the literature shows how the environmental regu- lation could benefit, either larger companies or small and medium-sized enterprises, depending on their character- istics.

Given the lack of neutrality of environmental regu- lation, some writers even suggest the existence of a spe- cific environmental regulation for SMEs. This con- clusion is fundamental for the Public Administrations, because if their objective is to improve the SMEs’ environmental achievement. They should also consider

these aspects to design their companies’ environmental management support programmes. Among such meas- ures we can emphasise technological consulting, the awareness of more preventive approaches, and infor- mation about the relation alternatives with suppliers. In this respect, it is interesting to note the development of similar progress in relation to the stakeholders.

On the other hand, the conclusions drawn from this work raise ideas about the key aspects for the success of the SMEs’ environmental approaches, suggesting some plans of action.

However, there are very few empirical works that have thoroughly analysed these aspects, and we have not found any that analyses the effects of all of them as a whole. In addition, most of them are aimed at studying specifically the type of most habitual environmental strategy in SMEs in relation to large companies. But there is no empirical study specifically related to SMEs that analyses which factors prevent them from achieving the same levels of competitive advantage with their environmental actions as larger companies. However, taking into account the fact that most of the economic literature rests on the assumption that it is such advan- tages that encourage companies to advance along the environmental path, we are of the opinion that this is an irreplaceable course of future research.

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Jesu ́s A ́ ngel del Brio is Doctor of Economics and Management at Univer- sidad de Oviedo, where he has been teaching Firm Organization since 1995. His research work has been directed towards the study of environ- mental innovation and management. Besides, he has done some studies in environmental industry in Asturias (Spain) and analysed the implemen- tation of ISO 14001 standard in Spain.

Beatriz Junquera is Doctor of Economics and Management at Universi- dad de Oviedo, where she has been teaching Firm Organization since 1991. Her research work has been directed towards the study of tech- nology management and environmental innovation and management. Besides, she has collaborated in some studies about the environmental industry in Asturias (Spain). She has also done some work regarding the implementation of ISO 14001 standard in Spain.

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